Category: Uncategorized

Paul Johnson writes of the Algerian war of independence:

The FLN strategy was, in fact, to place the mass of Muslims in a sandwich of terror. On the one side, the FLN killers replaced the moderates. On the other, FLN atrocities were designed to provoke the French into savage reprisals, and so drive the Muslim population into the extremist camp….

What they [the French] did not realize was that the FLN’s object was precisely to turn French generosity into savagery. [Governor-General Jacques] Soustelle saw the FLN as fascists. He thought he could defeat them by giving the Arabs genuine democracy and social justice.
– Paul Johnson, “Modern Times” p. 498. 1983

Sounds disturbingly familiar, doesn’t it? While George W. Bush did honor Johnson recently, it seems rather obvious that neither he nor any of his aides have actually read Johnson’s books. Or at least not more than 450 pages in….

Now, it’s interesting to note that the French were able to defeat the FLN by resorting to shocking savageries themselves. The Roman method works, after all. But, before the “we are at war” crowd wet themselves with excitement at the prospect of pursuing this strategy to victory in Iraq, it’s worth noting that the negative public reaction to this massive bloodletting so disrupted the French political system that it caused the fall of the Fourth Republic and nearly sparked a French civil war.

There is a proverb, I believe, about how meeting people on the way down is likely to bite you on the ass if you’re a complete jerk to all and sundry. Or something to that effect, anyhow:

When the show was over and I was walking off the set past La Regan’s desk, my gracious host told me once again that I was grievously wrong to think that father absence was often not the fault of fathers. “Then why is it that it’s mothers who initiate divorces two-thirds of the time?” I asked. In response, Regan shrieked, “Because all those men are pigs! And I hope that some day, you marry a guy who chokes you and gives you a black eye!” (as she alleged her ex had done to her)….

My issue with her is not that she was rude to me, it’s that she’s an anti-father bigot…. Another sad thing is that women like Regan claim — and perhaps sincerely think — that they are disliked because our culture labels strong, independent, aggressive women as bitches. Unfortunately, sometimes the label fits.

There’s a lot more wrong with publishing than Judith Regan alone. But it’s pretty clear that “piece of work” doesn’t suffice to describe the woman. I have no idea if the above-mentioned allegations about were true or not, but given her post-marital behavior, I have little doubt that a black eye was more than merited. She certainly gave one to Mr. Murdoch’s empire.

We’re all equal now, baby. Women who talk and act like men shouldn’t be surprised when they occasionally get treated like one. And if you’re going to cry about a black eye, you’re not equal, you’re a child.

From the SFWA Bulletin:

Judith Berman suggests that the decline in SF&F magazine subscriptions may be due to their failure to appeal to young readers, being full of “…nostalgia, regret, fear of aging and death, fear of the future in general…” I suggest that the magazines may also fail to fully appeal to women who comprise half the population and nearly half of the SF&F fan base.
– Susan Urbanek Linville, “SF and Fantasy In the New Millenium: Female Characters in Short Fiction”

And later in that same issue of the Bulletin, the Market Report, courtesy of Cynthia Ward:

Publishing News:
“British Publisher Gollancz has announced the creation of a new SF, F and supernatural romance line, Gollancz Romance….

Bantam Dell publishes contemporary and historical romance, romantic suspense, romantic action/adventure, paranormal, and erotica and women’s fiction. They will publish their first erotica in 2007….
[Acquiring editors listed are Shauna Summers, Caitlin Alexander, Danielle Perez, Anne Groell and Juliet Ulman.]

Dorchester seeks paranormal romance for their Lovespell imprint… They do romantic comedy and humorous contemporary romance. They’ve had success with Chick Lit in both trade and MMPB….

St. Martin’s is publishing ‘more romance than ever’ and is looking for both contemporary and historical romance, comedy, suspense, light and dark paranormal, and erotica. Monique Patterson buys all of the above. She likes ‘sexy and funny paranormal, romantic comedy, erotica and paranormal.’

An Anthology of Lesbian Sleuths and the Supernatural (women writers only); Lynne Jameck, Editor….

It’s such a mystery as to why fewer people are reading science fiction these days… the evidence would seem to suggest that it’s because science fiction isn’t really science fiction anymore, it’s devolved into a pathetic sub-genre of romance. And men, I remind Ms Urbanek Linville, also comprise half the population.

Given that this mysterious devolution occurred simultaneously with a vastly increased number of women in the editorial and publishing positions where book signing decisions are made, I rather suspect that the two phenomena just might be related.

Obviously, if this is the case, attempting to increase interest in SF&F magazines by consciously adding more female-friendly content is likely to either a) kill them off entirely, or b) turn them into romance magazines. The poison is not the antidote.

Proof that there’s a little good in everyone:

Violence by militants from both Sunni and Shi’ite groups is decimating the country’s universities and schools. As Reuters reports, “casual violence” pervades classrooms in unprecedented ways.

According to another report, hundreds of professors have been assassinated – a topic on which I blogged earlier.

The present unpleasantries notwithstanding, one should harbor at least a modicum of respect for Islam. If nothing else, it has survived the weight of centuries when many other ideologies and belief systems have fallen by the wayside.

But reading of this Harrowing of the Academy, one unexpectedly finds oneself feeling a sense of open admiration for the jihad. It’s certainly good to know that Sunnis and Shi’ites alike are sound on the modern educationist.

Spacebunny’s favorite ex-Raider gives an easy lesson in destroying one’s interlocutor. From Dr. Z:

On Sunday Joe Buck, hosting Fox’s pregame show, served us a blind item referring to Johnson as “training dogs to kill.” Howie Long, who maintains journalistic integrity, promptly jumped him on this one. “Training to kill what?” he said. “Where’d that come from?” Buck, true to the instincts of all sound bite airheads, went into a stammering backstroke and bailed out.

It is amazing how many debates one can win by applying two simple measures:

1. Always ask your opponent to explain his open-ended statements.
2. Always be prepared with an answer for the questions that are most likely to be raised by your own statements.

Do those two things and you’ll not only win 90 percent of your debates within the first two minutes, but you’ll usually make the other person look like a drooling idiot besides. It took me a long time to accept how little thought goes into the vast majority of human speech, but now that I’ve finally accepted that the average individual really does suffer from a virtual chromosome disorder, I no longer find myself in a constant state of bemused astonishment.

John Scalzi explains rather more than I think he intended:

When I was eleven, I thought Carl Sagan was the coolest guy in the world. And that was because he was speaking right at me. At the age of 11, in 1980, I was a kid utterly convinced that he was going to grow up to be an astronomer — I loved the stars, I loved the science, I loved the toys — and here on my TV came Sagan, suave in his red turtleneck and buff jacket, surrounded by special effects and Vangelis music and telling everyone (but especially me) about how the cosmos is everything that ever was, everything that is, and everything that ever will be.

I fell for Carl with the sort of blissful rapture that I strongly suspect is only available to pre-pubescent geeks, a sort of nerd cursh that, to be clear, had no sexual component, but had that same sort of swoony intensity. This was the guy I wanted to be, when I was age eleven.

I have no doubt that there are those who genuinely discover a lifelong devotion to Truth via a rational process. But as Scalzi illustrates here, the ironic reality is that most self-proclaimed dedication to rationalism has a basis in irrational emotion, which is why it is usually so very easy to demonstrate that their rationality is, in fact, nonexistent.

Does anyone believe that Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins have given up on the idea that religion causes or enables war? Now, it is likely that neither of them have encountered my criticisms of their arguments, but even if they had, there is almost no chance that either of them would modify their irrational, ignorant position one iota, Dawkins’ little story about his fellows clapping “their hands red” notwithstanding.

Science is an ideal every bit as unattainable on this Earth as Jesus Christ; the theoretical arguments about scientific detachment fail (ironically again) in the face of the empirical evidence.

I’m not criticizing Scalzi here, quite to the contrary, I admire his continued attachment to his childhood ideal. Considering that mine was apparently an amalgamation of Richard Garriot, John Taylor and JRR Tolkein, he appears to have escaped lightly. But I see it as a good example of the way personal development actually works in human beings, as opposed to the way that most rationalists would like to believe it works.

DB is deeply concerned:

The content of your online magazine, World Net Daily, reflects a disturbing paranoia that manifests itself in hate. If the collective of articles I have read on your site was the concoction of one person I wouldn’t be so alarmed. The fact that those whom contribute to the content of your site number in excess of one shows without a doubt you have an agenda; and I imagine you take great pride in that agenda. As a result, I am as not overly sympathetic to your malady as I would be if this disease had it’s hold on a single person. I only wish that one day the realization that hate dictates your lives makes itself apparent before it destroys the lot of you. For some of you I sense it’s too late.

To grasp the fact that you spread hate is well within the reach of most civilized people in our world. My concern is that as you spread your hate, in a manner that aims to manipulate, psychotic groups and individuals in our society will pig out from your venomous feeder and lash out against those human beings associated with the impetuous of your collective writings. e.g. homosexuals, atheists, elitists, Muslims, liberals, illegals, Jimmy Carter, Cindy Sheehan, and activist judges. And that is just the commentary I have read today. Oh, and may I now assume that you will add my name to the list of “human scum”.

You can choose to ignore what I say, as I’m sure you will, but it is an alarming truth that will make itself apparent to you. When that judgment comes I hope that you find you have not yet destroyed all that can provide you comfort in your time of need.

The world you have created for yourselves must be tiresome.

Oh, settle down, Shirley. Western civilization is offing itself quickly enough without it mattering much what anyone on WND writes. And the pace appears to be increasing.

Does anyone, beyond the obvious, actually believe that the world wouldn’t be better off with fewer homosexuals, atheists, elitists, Muslims, liberals, illegals, activist judges and Jimmy Carters? Or do we really need MORE individuals dedicated to the destruction of human civilization?

If so, how many more is enough? How many more is too many? And is the belief that there is too much of something really equivalent to hating it?

Normal Individual: “Boy, it would sure be nice if this rain would stop.”

Anti-Hate Activist: “Why do you hate water? Why?”

Zach has a request:

I’m 15 year old christian in his sophomore year at school. My dad suggested that I email you when I mentioned martial arts to him. He said you seemed pretty knowledgeable. Anyway I was wondering what you might know about the different variations. I know I don’t want to take karate or tae-kwondo. I feel much of the movement in these are wasted.

I’ve known black-belts in both, and well…nothing impressive…it seemed mainly based on competitions. I was wondering if you could tell what you know about other types…

Bujinkan, Aikido, Jujitsu and others if possible.

While there are certainly karate and tae kwan do black belts who really know what they’re doing, many are glorified kickers and players of the game of tag. Their best move is the “butterfly”, a leaping backfist to the head which is designed to graze the opponent at the cost of leaving their entire body open.

This works fine in point-fighting, but in contact fighting it is usually followed by the “armadillo”, wherein the inevitable fist or foot to the abdomen/side causes the point fighter to curl up and do his best roadkill impression.

The main difference between karate and tae kwan do is that they are both hard styles, meeting force with force, rather than soft styles such as jujitsu and kung fu, which attempts to use the opponent’s force against him. The problem with the hard styles is that they tend to gravitate toward point competition; the problem with the soft styles is that they aren’t particularly proactive.

I don’t know anything about Bujinkan, it sounds a bit fake to me. Any time I hear the word “ninja”, I tend to translate that as “BS”. Many martial arts instructors like to “invent” their own “style”; most of the time this is three-quarters marketing nonsense even when the self-styled innovator is accomplished in a genuine art or two. My own sensei “created” his own style called Wu Lung Dao, however, he always explained exactly what parts came from shorin ryu karate, what came from wing chun kung fu, and what came from kali. (Mostly the nasty stuff, that last one.) He also mixed in some basic boxing and wrestling techniques, which proved to be a fairly effective combination. But it’s hardly its own art, let alone tradition.

Jujitsu, as I’ve already mentioned, is a bit passive for my liking. It’s effective, but arguably dangerous since it almost requires permitting the opponent into wrestling range. (It’s a lot harder to flip someone than they make it look on TV, where a 5’4″ woman who only weighs 110 pounds thanks to 700cc of saline has no trouble throwing around an NFL linebacker. That show Bones is probably the most ridiculous example.)

I tend to favor aikido for a first martial art, as it’s probably the most generally useful for self-defense. It operates at hands range, which is the range at which most fights take place, has a lot of techniques which don’t require three years of stretching to perform and provides a nice base on which the martial artist can build in a variety of directions.

The main thing, however, is to make sure that you find a fighting school. Ask about what level of contact is permitted and if they give you the usual song-and-dance about control, go somewhere else. The fact that a controlled strike could have been delivered but wasn’t is completely irrelevant to the combat experience.

(Now, if we weren’t pretending to hit each other, you wouldn’t have responded to that punch in the stomach by throwing a kick at my jaw, you would have been doubled over and been receiving a left cross to the head instead.)

Bad signs: Talk about control, lots of women, focus on self-defense, overweight instructors, regular belt advancement schedule, kiddy program, instructors talking mumbo jumbo, tournament trophies.

Good signs: One or two guys on crutches hanging around, guys with serious muscles and tattoos, easygoing instructors, pictures of full-contact fights, really good fighters with only green and purple belts.

Posting was nonexistent today, since I was overcome with grief at the Meerkats exiting the VPFL playoffs. Once again, I managed to get lit up in the first round, while scoring more than teams in the other half of the draw. But even the mild underperformance by the piranha of the Serengeti shouldn’t take anything away from Shrub’s unexpectedly strong performance, putting up 80 points when he needed it most and riding Michael Vick, of all people, to victory.

It’s a little tougher on the Grizzlies, who lost in a squeaker to the Tomlinsons… I mean, the White Trash. Of course, at least we made the playoffs, unlike the Mouth of the South, Mr. Nathan Tennessee.

In other, unrelated news, I’m rather pleased at having secured some interesting development rights to a classic RPG, which includes permission to write novels in that RPG setting. I don’t have any concrete plans as yet, but I do have a few ideas….

DOCUMENT NAME PAGE SIZE PAGES STATUS
The Wrath of Angels 5.5 x 8.5 359 Shipped

Well, perhaps not. But you can definitely get your hands on one in time to ring in the Year of the Pig!