Author: VD

The year in review

Dave Barry puts it all in perspective. Some highlights:

  • Nobody seems to know how, specifically, the Russians affected the election, but everybody is pretty sure they did something, especially CNN, which has not been so excited about a story since those heady months in 2014 when it provided 24/7 video coverage of random objects floating in the Pacific while panels of experts speculated on whether those objects might or might not have anything to do with that missing Malaysian airliner. You can tune in to CNN any time, day or night, and you are virtually guaranteed to hear the word “Russians” within 10 seconds, even if it’s during a Depends commercial.
  •  NASA, in a major scientific discovery, announces that a star system less than 40 light-years away contains seven Earth-size planets, at least three of which appear to have a Starbucks.
  • On the legislative front, the big story is Obamacare, which the Republicans have been running against for seven straight years. Their message has been: “Vote for us, and we WILL get rid of Obamacare!” So now that they control the White House and both houses of Congress, there can be no stopping them. It’s time to deliver! GET READY FOR A REPUBLICAN-LEADERSHIP-STYLE BUTT-WHUPPIN’, OBAMACARE! When the smoke clears, Obamacare is sitting at the bar, unscathed, sipping a whiskey and flirting with the barmaid. Republican congressional leaders are strewn all over the barroom floor, noses bleeding, underpants pulled over their foreheads. But this setback does not deter them for long. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, tuck themselves back in and start making plans for their next bold legislative masterstroke.
  • In aviation news, United Airlines breaks new customer-service ground when it decides that a 69-year-old passenger who has already boarded his flight must be “re-accommodated” via a technique similar to the one the Mexican army used to re-accommodate the Texans at the Alamo, leaving him with a concussion, broken teeth and a broken nose. At first United’s CEO defends the airline’s actions on the grounds that, quote, “We have the collective IQ of a starfish.” But after a firestorm of public outrage he apologizes and promises that in the future United will employ a “more humane” re-accommodation policy based on “respect for our customers and, when needed, tranquilizer darts.”
  • In other political developments, Greg Gianforte, a Republican running for Montana’s vacant congressional seat, gets national headlines when he body-slams a reporter for the Guardian newspaper. He is immediately hired as director of customer relations by United Airlines. No, seriously, despite being charged with assault, Gianforte wins easily, yet another indication that in much of the nation journalists enjoy the same level of popularity as head lice.
  • Republican congressional leaders determined to avenge their humiliating defeat at the hands of Obamacare emerge after months of closed-door meetings with a new, smarter repeal strategy. The GOP, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Mojo” McConnell, is cagey about the details, but sources say the plan involves a “high cliff” and a “really heavy safe,” which the Republicans plan to purchase from the Acme Corp.
  • Meanwhile a major scandal engulfs the entertainment world when the New York Times reveals that powerful movie producer Harvey Weinstein, despite being a prominent supporter of all the correct causes, basically spent the past several decades lumbering around in an open bathrobe forcing himself on unreceptive women. This news comes as a big shock to members of the Hollywood community, especially coming on the heels of their recent discovery that the pope is Catholic.

There is considerably more in this vein. It is amusing.

Defensive telecommuting

Sarah Hoyt predicts an increase in defensive telecommuting due to the expected rise in the number of false accusations of sexual harassment:

One of the predictions I’m seeing everywhere, for instance, is how now Human Resources will need a lot more power over companies to prevent more #metoo incidents of sexual importuning of women.

The funny thing about this is that anyone with two eyes and a modicum of understanding of the world knows that this is not where the crazy is headed. As the attempt to drown out the legitimate cases of harassment – mostly by leftists, in leftist-dominated institutions – by claiming #metoo and that all men were essentially harassers became more frantic, it has become obvious that any man can be accused of harassment at any time by anyone.

So, here is a genuine prediction: I predict that instead of giving HR more power, this will give companies pause before hiring women, which will lead to a lot of decent and qualified women being left unemployed.

The second-order effect of that, for companies that can’t avoid hiring women, is two-fold: they’ll either hire women to “make-believe” positions, in which they interact only or primarily with other women, creating a drain on the bottom line, or they will allow a lot more work-at-home by both men and women.  I predict we’ll see a great move towards that in the next year.

It’s true that at this point, any man would have to either be insane or incredibly short-sighted to hire or voluntarily work with a woman in any role that involved direct physical contact. The Left is trying to set up its usual “heads I win, tails you lose” situation here, but as we all know, a no-win situation is just another way to spell “carte blanche”.

And giving more power to HR to cure corporate ills is akin to prescribing two packs a day to someone already suffering from lung cancer.

Traffic report 2017

2016 was an absolutely extraordinary year. 2017 was considerably less explosive in terms of traffic growth, and was even a step backwards in several regards, but was nevertheless important due to a number of structural revisions being made behind the scenes that will provide a stronger foundation for future growth in the coming year.

In 2017, Vox Popoli had 31,216,357 pageviews and Alpha Game 3,952,482 for a total of 35,168,839 Google pageviews. The two blogs are now running at a average rate of 96,366 daily pageviews, up from an average 85,341 last year. The running annual pageview totals are as follows:

2008: 3,496,757
2009: 4,414,801
2010: 4,827,183
2011: 5,969,066
2012: 7,774,074
2013: 13,111,695
2014: 15,693,622
2015: 20,776,969
2016: 31,149,628
2017: 35,168,839

In August, I stepped away from blogging at Alpha Game, due to a lack of time and a growing lack of interest in the subject. I’ve learned what I wanted to learn and said what I wanted to say about intersexual relations; if I happen to write more on the subject, it will probably be in the form of a book. Lee Jackson has picked up the slack at AG and has already turned it around, so I’m glad to see that the community there will remain active.

The biggest blog news in 2017 was the unexpected magnitude of the success of the Alt★Hero crowdfunding campaign. As a result, we’ll be introducing two comics imprints in 2018, Arkhaven and Dark Legion. Arkhaven will be the comics and graphic novels that we produce ourselves, while Dark Legion will be our vehicle for publishing comics and graphic novels produced by others.

Castalia House expanded from 65 titles to 96, with 38 titles available in print and 24 in audiobook. Book sales increased 40 percent, with print accounting for 16 percent of the total. Infogalactic had some ups and downs as far as stability was concerned, but it is still going strong as we work towards the release of the DONT PANIC engine, while Infogalactic News and Infogalactic Tech were launched and have grown steadily in popularity. On the downside, Brainstorm was essentially shut down midway through the year due to GoToWebinar shenanigans following the sale of the company, which is why we’re going to move it to a different voice-only service this month. And we didn’t quite manage to launch Voxiversity in 2017, but we will do so soon.

I’ve also begun blogging more often at DevGame, since we’ll be launching four games there this year and probably doing one game-related kickstarter this summer that should be of considerable appeal to strategy gamers. For more information about that, be sure to visit DevGame from time to time in the new year. We will also be launching a complete site redesign of Castalia House in 2018, including dedicated forums and wikis.

Thanks to everyone who continues to read VP and to those who support one or more of the various endeavors that have emanated from it. Thanks especially to the Infogalactic Burn Unit, the Alt★Hero backers, the Castalia volunteers, and the Brainstorm crew, all of whom have come together in a spirit of cooperation to make these various projects viable.

2017 was a year for building foundations that should lead to constructive consequences in 2018. Of course, it would not be an annual report without a resort to our old comparable with “the most popular blog in science fiction.” Since I’m no longer the primary blogger at Alpha Game, I have removed it entirely from the equation. Gammas are certainly free to posture as they will, but the facts are the facts, however uncomfortable they might be. As for other metrics such as movies and whatnot, well, we haven’t even begun exploring those arenas. But I expect we will, in time.

And I anticipate that what we will do there will be very similar to what we have done here. The ride never ends.

Batman, converged

DC is determined to go the way of Marvel:

The DC Rebirth made it clear that Batman is a transgender ally, and his main comic books are keeping that support alive. Even now, it’s possible that devoted fans of Batman comics missed Bruce Wayne’s stance on the issue – which was the entire point. The company-wide relaunch brought a Rebirth to Batman’s title series, while he united the rest of the Batman Family in the pages of Detective Comics. That team ended up being led by Batwoman, one of the most visible LGBTQ comic heroes. But it also introduced a new, openly transgender scientist to the DC Universe: Dr. Victoria October.

At the time, we couldn’t help but appreciate that Batman supported Victoria’s transition, mentioned and alluded to in vocabulary that non-LGBTQ readers could completely miss. But those in the community would see the exact message being sent by writers James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett. In the months since that issue, Detective has kept the conversation going. But as other comic titles and publishers battle the opposing forces of readers calling for diversity and those who claim it’s more marketing spin than progress, Detective is deserving of praise.

I’m not even going to pretend I’m not very pleased to see this. But not, you understand, for the same reasons as DC’s media cheerleaders. Let’s face it, there are few things comics readers enjoy more than witty banter about preferred pronouns.

An American Nuremburg?

I wouldn’t exactly call them “fears”, myself. More like “hopes”.

A new Ministry of Defense (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that based upon signals intelligence (SIGINT/ELINT) accumulated over the past year by Signal Communications Troops (SCT) conducting training missions in the Republic of Cuba—and who’ve been “aided/augmented” by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) in their findings—General Staff Deputy Defense Minister Tatiana Shevtsova is able to confirm that a level of “high confidence” currently exists that President Donald Trump is preparing to transfer to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (located in Cuba) an unknown number of “high level” American citizen detainees in preparation for their trials before a US Military Tribunal—and whose nearest historical counterpart incident of were the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials held to prosecute German Nazi war criminals—and that likewise, as seen in 1945, is now seeing hundreds of highly trained and specialized US Army Military Police being rushed to Cuba to oversee this process. 

Why does all of this sound vaguely… familiar somehow. Also, if the chans are to be believed, more than a few of these so-called citizen detainees have already been transferred to Guantanamo.

If these reports are to be believed – and it is true that the 850th Military Police Battalion has been deployed to Guantanamo Bay to support Operation Enduring Freedom – then it appears The Storm will be upon us shortly.

Happy New Year indeed!

Credit where credit is due

It’s always embarrassing when writers who have never worked a single day in their lives at any business that actually makes anything try to opine on matters related to management:

Conservative writer Roger Simon argues that all “remaining Never Trumpers” must apologize for being wrong about the president. He chalks up Trump’s “astoundingly successful” first year to the fact the president is a “quick study.”

But what evidence is there that Trump has actually learned the art of presidential management?

Aside from the mandatory flattery required of Republican elected officials, there’s remarkably little testimony that Trump has involved himself in the process of governing. Tax reform was carried across the finish line by the GOP congressional leadership. Net neutrality was repealed by independent Republicans at the Federal Communications Commission. Foreign policy is a more mixed bag. If the president deserves credit for the defeat of Islamic State, it’s because he let “the generals” do their thing. On the other hand, credit (or blame) for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris accord on climate change certainly goes to him.

In general, it seems to me that Trump’s success (such as it is) is less attributable to sudden mastery of the issues than to staying out of the way of rank-and-file Republican policymakers, activists, and bureaucrats.

What Goldberg fails to recognize is that staying out of the way of competent subordinates is the key to the art of all successful executive management. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of Richard Nixon Lyndon Johnson, who didn’t hesitate to get on the phone with a lieutenant in the field in Vietnam in setting a ridiculous new standard for micromanagement in foreign policy.

Micromanagers like LBJ reliably fail for the obvious reason that no one can know everything, master everything, prioritize everything, and be everywhere at once. Only Reagan had similarly developed delegation skills, but he did not choose his subordinates as well as Trump has, and more importantly, Reagan did not hold his subordinates accountable the way Trump does.

None of this should be a surprise. Back in November 2016, I observed, “The God-Emperor is absolutely ruthless when it comes to taking action on underperforming team members. He doesn’t care how it looks, he just shuffles the deck and draws.”

That’s why I expected, and continue to expect, the Trump presidency to be vastly more successful than anyone anticipated. It’s why I expect him to easily win re-election in 2020. The great CEOs have always been able to master the delicate balance between staying out of their subordinates’ way and stepping in to deal with matters themselves when personal intervention becomes necessary. And lacking business experience as he does, Jonah completely fails to understand Trump’s demonstrated mastery of this balance, as he absurdly credits the Republican establishment for Trump’s success.

To listen to Trump’s cheerleaders, the biggest obstacle to conservative victories is the party establishment, when in reality it looks more like it’s running the show.

Not only is the GOPe not running the show anymore, it has been largely broken to heel by Trump, as evidenced by the Republican Congress’s sudden ability to pass tax reform after repeatedly failing to do anything. The large number of pre-2018 retirements and resignations will further demonstrate that the GOPe is no longer in control, as will the success of Trump-endorsed candidates in the Congressional and Senatorial elections.

Jumanji beating Star Wars

AnecdThe men in our house went to see Jumanji. We got the the theater plenty early but it was sold out. This is a small town but we have a five screen theatre. Both jumanji showings were sold out with only two tickets left to a late night showing five hours later. The two star wars screens had nobody waiting in line or buying tickets. While we stood trying to decide if we’d bite the bullet and see the star wars movie several other groups came to buy tickets to Jumanji no one bought tickets to star wars nobody even considered it.

One group of women and girls briefly considered pitch perfect 3 but they decided not. No one bought star wars tickets or went in to those screenings while we talked over our plans. How bad is the drop off for star wars if it’s getting spanked by Jumanji?

Why THE LAST CLOSET matters

More young women than you would probably believe were heavily influenced by the twisted psyche of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I still cannot imagine anything more perfectly aligned with my thirteen-year-old sensibilities than Marion Zimmer Bradley’s masterpiece. Bradley opened my eyes to the idea that, when we look at the past, we are only ever seeing a small part of it — and usually, what we are seeing excludes the experiences of women. Encountering the vain, self-serving, diabolical Morgan le Fay transformed into the priestess Morgaine compelled me to question other received narratives in which women are to blame for the failures of men. The Mists of Avalon also gave me a glimpse of spiritual possibilities beyond male-dominated, male-defined religions. In retrospect, I can see that it gave me ways of seeing that helped me find the feminine even within patriarchal systems while studying religion as an undergrad. The impact of this book lingers in my feminism, certainly, but it also influenced my scholarly interest in folklore, and it still informs my personal spirituality.

But my primary reaction to The Mists of Avalon, when I first read it, wasn’t intellectual; it was emotional. Like The Once and Future King, Bradley’s novel follows its protagonist from childhood into old age. I sympathized with the girl Morgaine, and her adolescent experiences hinted at frustrations I was just beginning to feel. The moment when Morgaine and Lancelet are, finally, about to become lovers — and then Gwenhwyfar, blonde and fair and lithe and helpless, stumbles into Avalon… No matter how many times I revisit this scene, it still crushes me. This isn’t a story about the pretty girl, the princess. It’s the story of the smart girl who becomes a powerful woman. Even so, Bradley brings nuance to these characters. She shows us Morgaine doing foolish, selfish things, and she shows us that Gwenhwyfar’s position is an impossible one. Doom hangs over Arthur’s glorious reign, just as fate rules many a legend and fable. There is no happy ending for anyone at Camelot — there never has been — but Bradley shows us real people struggling against their destiny, and she shows us that it’s not just impersonal fortune to blame for their inevitable downfall. Instead, it’s systems of oppression. By the time I left home for a women’s college in 1989, I’d reread The Mists of Avalon several times. I arrived ready to smash the patriarchy.

It’s easy to claim that the book is not the author, because that is true. But in cases such as this, it is impossible to separate the theme, and more importantly, the message, of the book from the beliefs of the author. There are those authors who are intellectually ruthless enough to accurately represent beliefs they do not hold, but there are not very many such others and Marion Zimmer Bradley was certainly not one of them.

Her personal ideosyncracies not only informed, they dictated the nature of her works, which amounted to pure feminist propaganda. This is readily apparent in even her earliest writings. You cannot read The Mists of Avalon without realizing that it stems from the bitterness of a plain little dark-haired woman who cannot attract the handsome warriors and hates the tall pretty blonde girls who do. It’s essentially a medieval female Revenge of the Nerds. No wonder it was popular in feminist and proto-feminist circles.

And it was popular despite its twisted sexuality and its infamous scene of ritualized child abuse, a scene that its fans still defend as “a description of people who have passed beyond the normal world and into the sacred time of a fertility ritual.”

But the abuse of children is no more justifiable in that context than it was at Greyhaven, especially when there is absolutely no anthropological basis for it. And that is why The Last Closet is important, because it exposes the lie behind which so much evil hides itself.