Warm Worlds & Otherwise is a 1975 collection of science fiction short stories by James Tiptree, Jr. For those not in the know, Tiptree is a pen name for Alice Sheldon, from back in the days when many women authors of SF were still using initials. I guess I didn't realize the extent to which Sheldon disguised her real identity, which was only know ( Read more... )

From a Scientific American article on the 'self-domestication' of human beings to be hypersocial.

Love is a Contact Sport

Despite the evolutionary paradoxes of human nature, the perception of who belongs in our group is malleable. H. sapiens as a species has already demonstrated its capacity to expand the concept of group membership into the ( Read more... )

Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country doesn't have all that much to do with Lovecraft, but plenty to do with the mid-century experience of racism for black people in America. Certainly, Lovecraft's own ugly racism is mentioned, but not much time is spent on him or his work, and while the plot of the book is full of occult happenings, it is not particularly ( Read more... )

This got picked up by the NYT/PBS Newshour's Now Read This book club. It's been an interesting experience seeing a more general audience deal with a speculative work. I think there was more than the usual amount of "Nope. I'm skipping this one." And even among those who joined in, there was a surprising amount of "I don't understand what's going on ( Read more... )

 The Library Book, by Susan Orlean, details two interleaved stories. One, the history of the Los Angeles Public Library, with a focus on the Central Library. Two, the story of the fire that ravaged the Central Library in 1986.

Even though I was living not that far away, I don't have any memory of the event. One possible reason is that the Chernobyl ( Read more... )

 California's social politics are pretty divided between the coast and the inland areas.

My Google Alert on 'atheism' dragged up some editorial feedback from Bakersfield.

A relatively tame editorial cartoon poking at the cognitive dissonance of the Trump Evangelical produced some pretty angry feedback from a couple folks.

TBC has really crossed the ( Read more... )

Many people have recently opined about the justifiability of punching a Nazi(*) in the face. A surprising (to me) number of people are for it.

(*)To clarify, unless we're talking about these six Nazis, at best there are 'neo-Nazis' these days, or 'jerks with hateful ideas who are dangerously close to the levers of power'.I test the Nazi punch ( Read more... )

So there's been a bit of a kerfuffle.

The enigmachat email list has, over the years, died down in frequency to near moribund levels. But it perked up again with the campaign and questions about ballot initiatives. I gave my opinions. And there was a little back and forth. And then Darnell stuck his nose in with his usual flat-affected poorly- ( Read more... )

Is Hillary Clinton a Lesbian?It could be that she is a Lesbian, or at least bisexually if one believes the statements of some lovers of her husband, Bill Clinton. According to the statement of one of his lovers, Bill Clinton shall have said the following about his wife: "She has licked more twats as me in my whole life ". (original quote ( Read more... )

Okay, I'm not trying real hard to complete the bookchallenge thing, but I'm trying a little.

Anyway, I was thinking I could get a two-fer with...

Pulitzer-Prizewinning
A Play

Being a vulgarian, I'm not that into drama, but I looked at some of the recent winners, and there were a few that piqued my interest, but I was hoping for a cheap Kindle ( Read more... )