A short while back, I was in a situation where the only book on hand to read was a novel by somebody I'd never read nor heard of, of that genre that is hard to nail down, the quasi-mystery novel which is often called "suspense" or "thriller" but which would be most accurately called "serial-killer fear porn" in most cases - they were very big ( Read more... )

If you follow dKos as your first newsfeed aggregator of choice, you've already been aware of these cases, and the syncretic whole they are parts of. If not, you might have missed the story that Chico Dave RN and Robin NWLC posted about yesterday, in which it is revealed that having been raped and sought medical care afterwards is grounds for denial ( Read more... )

Bob Herbert gives the worship of the Invisible Hand a rare and righteous smackdown in the NYT, being one of the rare members of the SCLM with a memory longer than a guppy's; people all over the blogosphere are getting fed up with the SCLM's endless torrent of "Pity the poor rich, they are being made to feel BAAAAD about their new Jags and it's ( Read more... )

One of the big points against the whole "trickle-down/rising tide" doctrine of the benevolence of the Invisible Hand of the Free Market is that one of the justifications is that "charity of the community" will make up for what the ideally-non-existent social services would have done (even though it never has in all of human history) but inevitably ( Read more... )

The thing I was trying to say in the last two posts, which keeps getting lost in the thickets of detail, I'll try to spell out a little more (beyond FISCAL CONSERVATIVISM = SOCIAL CONSERVATIVISM = FISCAL CONSERVATIVISM = LIBERTARIANISM) and show how under it all, when you dig down past the ZOMG! Naked Boobies On TV! Dudes Kissing! Ebol Bishops ( Read more... )

I know I've been AFIA for a long while, but has Minsky been gunning for fandom lately? I barely know who he is in mundane matters - some computer guy, right? - and I have no idea if he's jumped on the "Denounce Skiffy As Nekulturny" bandwagon - so many have, but I don't recall hearing anything outrageous about him. Did I miss the declaration of war ( Read more... )

Fiscal Conservativism: fucks the poor.

Social Conservativism: explains why the poor deserve to be fucked. (Figuratively.)

Ad hominem is not a fancy Latin word for calling me names.

--Colin Meier

If I'd been a rich man's son,
Pay me my money down,
I'd sit on the river and watch it run,
Pay me my money down

Oh pay me, oh pay me,
Pay me my money down,
Pay me or go to jail,
Pay me my money down

--African-American poets, via Lydia Parrish, Maxfield's spouse, via Bruce ( Read more... )

So female and/or POC writers are as out of place in fandom as, quote, corn in a potato field, an oak in a pine forest, a Black Beatle, a piece of lettuce in a ream of paper.

Let us repeat that: as a piece of lettuce in a ream of - white (!) paper.Let's ignore the fact that Paul Di Filippo doesn't know squat about agriculture or forestry - it ( Read more... )

No, I 'aten't dead', at least not technically, but things remain (or rather, increase) dire and I don't have any patience any more for asinine behavior ( Read more... )