Reading List 2014

Of the 71 books I read this year, the one I enjoyed most was John C. Wright’s The Golden Age, followed by his Awake in the Night Land and Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. The
worst book I read this year was, without question, Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory,
which was so repulsive that it made me feel that it would serve very well as Exhibit A in any argument being made for book-burning and the licensing and registration of authors. The
most disappointing book was William Gibson’s The Peripheral. It was all right, but it was disappointing to see the normally astute Gibson relying upon tired cliches and conventional tropes.

On the non-fiction side, I read three excellent books this year, starting with An Essay on Economic Theory by Richard Cantillon. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami is a very interesting read for any writer and The Transformation of War by Martin van Creveld is fully worthy of its place in the 4GW Canon. On the downside, regulars will recall that I took apart Peter Boghossian’s inept A Manual for Creating Atheists in no little detail, while the shamefully deceitful Fourth-Generation Warfare and Other Myths by Antulio Echevarria left me embarrassed for the writer’s assault on his own integrity and reputation.

Keep in mind these ratings are not necessarily statements about a book’s
significance or its literary quality, they are merely casual observations of my personal tastes and how much I
happened to enjoy reading the book at the time. A five-star book is one that I recommend without reservations.

FIVE STARS

An Essay on Economic Theory, Richard Cantillon
The Golden Age, John C. Wright
The Golden Transcendence, John C. Wright
Awake in the Night Land, John C. Wright
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
The Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe
The Transformation of War, Martin van Creveld
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright
Transhuman and Subhuman, John C. Wright

FOUR STARS

The Programmed Man, Jeff and Jean Sutton
The Phoenix Exultant, John C. Wright
The Business, Iain Banks
Monster Hunter Nemesis, Larry Correia
The Claw of the Conciliator, Gene Wolfe
His Master’s Voice, Stanislau Lem
The Elephant Vanishes and Other Stories, Haruki Murakami
Sci Phi Journal 1, Jason Rennie
Hear the Wind Sing, Haruki Murakami
The Land of Blood and Honey, Martin van Creveld
First on the Moon, Jeff Sutton
City Beyond Time, John C. Wright
A Sword Into Darkness, Thomas Mays
World Order, Henry Kissinger

THREE STARS

A Troublesome Inheritance, Nicholas Wade
Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin 
Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings
The Crusades, Thomas Asbridge
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
Confessions of Felix Krull, Thomas Mann
Strong Poison, Dorothy Sayers 
On Basilisk Station, David Weber
Count to a Trillion, John C. Wright
The Hermetic Millennia, John C. Wright
The Uplift War, David Brin
Startide Rising, David Brin
The Crow Road, Iain Banks
By Its Cover, Donna Leon
Apollo at Go, Jeff Sutton
The Peripheral, William Gibson
Sci Phi Journal 2, Jason Rennie
Sci Phi Journal 3, Jason Rennie
Skin Game, Jim Butcher
The Citadel of the Autarch, Gene Wolfe
The Sword of the Lictor, Gene Wolfe
Scotland’s Jesus, Frankie Boyle

TWO STARS

Whose Body?, Dorothy Sayers
A Short, Victorious War, David Weber
Prospero Lost, L. Jagi Lamplighter
The Starship Titanic, Douglas Adams and Terry Jones
The World at War, Richard Holmes
Walking on Glass, Iain Banks
Espedair Street, Iain Banks 
Space Viking, H. Beam Piper
Winner Take All, Simon Green
The Man with the Golden Torc, Simon Green
Demons are Forever, Simon Green
The God Killer, Simon Green
Wolf in the Fold, Simon Green
The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross
The Battle of Salamis, Barry Strauss

ONE STAR

A Manual for Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian
Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
Darwin’s Radio, Greg Bear
Fourth-Generation Warfare and Other Myths, Antulio Echevarria

I miss the bowls

When I was a kid, New Years Day meant hearing my mother, who grew up in Pasadena, watching the Rose Parade. I’d watch the four bowl games, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Rose Bowl, and finally, the Orange Bowl.

And sure, it wasn’t always possible to know who the “national champion” was, but nobody really cared all that much, what was important was that the Big Ten won the Rose Bowl, that Oklahoma didn’t win the Orange Bowl, and that the games featuring the sort of matchups you hadn’t seen before were either a) good games or b) ridiculous blowouts. I don’t even know why I hated Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Michigan, and Notre Dame, or why I liked Baylor, Texas, Ohio State, Pitt, Florida State, and USC. But I had a favorite in every major conference

For me, things started to fall apart with the Bowl Coalition in 1992. The Big 10 and Pac-10 wisely held out for three years, but everything went south, literally, with the Bowl Alliance and the creation of a national championship played at the Fiesta Bowl on January 2nd.

Now, I no longer even watch college football on New Years Day. I don’t know who is playing in the bowls, and I don’t care. Are people any happier or more interested in college football now that the “national championship” is the de facto SEC championship? It appears I’m not the only one who is less interested in the unambiguous national championship system.

  • “The average attendance for bowl games has declined each of the past six
    seasons, down to 49,116 last season, the lowest mark since 1978-79, when
    there were 15 bowls, according to the NCAA bowl record book.”
  • “The Michigan State/Stanford Rose Bowl earned the top audience of the BCS
    slate, with a 10.2 U.S. rating and 18.6 million viewers on ESPN New
    Year’s Day — up 9% in ratings and viewership from Stanford/Wisconsin
    last year (9.4, 17.0M), and flat and up 6%, respectively, from
    TCU/Wisconsin in 2011 (10.2, 17.6M). Despite the increase, the game tied
    the second-lowest rating ever for the Rose Bowl.
  • The UCF/Baylor Fiesta Bowl drew a 6.6 U.S. rating and 11.2 million
    viewers Tuesday night, down 11% in ratings and 9% in viewership from
    Oregon/Kansas State last year (7.4, 12.3M), and down 21% and 18%,
    respectively, from Oklahoma State/Stanford in 2011 (8.4, 13.6M). The
    game earned the second-lowest rating and viewership for the Fiesta Bowl
    in the BCS era, ahead of only Oklahoma/Connecticut in 2010 (6.2, 10.8M). Overall, the Orange and Fiesta Bowls rank among the ten lowest rated BCS bowls of all time. 
  • In 2014, the BCS Championship game drew in 25.5 million viewers, and that was just the ninth-watched BCS title in history.

Here is what appears to be the root of the problem: “They (ESPN) need live content, even mediocre live content,” Maestas
told USA TODAY Sports. “Even 400,000 viewers in a sad bowl with 25,000
people in the stands is getting better (viewership) than 100 channels
out there.”

But what’s good for ESPN isn’t necessarily good for the game of college football. Quite the opposite, it appears. At least the NFL, for all its lunatic lurching about in its attempt to grow its female audience, is in control of its own destiny. This may explain why I won’t be watching a single bowl game today, but will not miss a single playoff game this weekend.

Traffic report 2014

The growth in site traffic was less spectacular than in 2013, and we saw a 1.5-million pageview month instead of the two-million one that I speculated might be possible, but traffic was nevertheless solid and both VP and AG continued to enjoy increased readership, with an overall 19.7 percent increase in pageviews over the course of the year. And, if anything, it’s picking up, as December 2014 was up 38 percent in comparison with December 2013.

In 2014, Vox Popoli had 11,236,085 pageviews and Alpha Game 4,457,537 for a total of 15,693,622 Google pageviews. To the left is a
chart showing the monthly traffic for both blogs over the last four
years; even without Alpha Game, VP has grown from 11,383 to 34,809 average daily pageviews. Combined, Vox Popoli and Alpha Game are now running at a average rate of 47,343 daily pageviews. Not quite 50k, I’m afraid, not even if they are converted to the slightly more generous WordPress metric. As for the running annual totals, they 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

I doubt we’ll be able to maintain a 2-year doubling rate for a third straight year, since that would require nearly 11 million more pageviews in 2015, but one never knows. And speaking of nearly 50k daily pageviews, I would be remiss if, for no particular reason at all, I did not continue with a certain comparison
that was repeatedly brought to my attention in previous years. This is,
of course, the comparison with the hugely famous and massively popular
Whatever, formerly the biggest and best-known site in science fiction. The following chart shows the comparative
blog traffic over the last six years as measured in Google Pageviews.
 

Interesting, is it not, that Whatever’s traffic has now declined below the point that mine was when it was declared irrelevant on the basis of its paltry traffic by McRapey’s fans? So, have we seen Peak McRapey? It’s hard to say, as he’s increasingly moved to Twitter, an ideal medium for his unique combination of fabrication, snark, and self-promotion.

I found the 2014 totals to be particularly amusing in light of this clueless post by an SF Pinkshirt named Nalini Haynes who went public with her strategy to starve the Supreme Dark Lord: “My website averages well over 600 visits a day. Based on comments from
other fanzine people, I’m guessing that’s more readers than VD’s blog
would get even when he provokes a shit storm. Let’s deprive him of the
traffic.”

Apparently it didn’t work so well. Anyhow, 2015 promises to be an interesting year at VP and hopefully a much better one than 2014 was. While the Hugo debacle was entertaining and the Castalia launch went much better than anticipated, I didn’t finish Book Two, Alpenwolf didn’t finish First Sword, and there were some very difficult situations being experienced behind the scenes by friends and family. If, at any point last year, you sensed I didn’t give even the smallest damn about the various public contretemps, you were correct.

But we’ve got two new partners and an exciting new project in the works at Alpenwolf, both First Sword and Book Two will be out this year, and we’ve got a number of new writers, new bloggers, and new books to announce in the next few months at Castalia. So, thank you for your interest (even if it is no more than morbid curiosity), thank you for your support, and I hope you will come along for the ride in the new year.

The blog star

It’s no slight to Daniel, Scooter, Mascaro, or me to say that Jeffro, of the Space Gaming Blog, has been the star of the Castalia House blog this year. He makes everyone up their game by starting each week off with an intriguing, in-depth post, and gives our four new bloggers a high level of excellence to aim for. And fortunately for everyone, he appears to enjoy blogging there:

I am not shy about pointing out how happy I am with how this is shaping up. I cover the full range gaming topics: vintage stuff, current releases, role-playing games, wargames, everything! I write in such a way that you can get something out of a post even if you don’t buy or play the game in question. I put things into the wider context of gaming history and touch on the literary antecedents of the games we play. And yeah, I occasionally get esoteric, but I try to stay readable and comprehensible to people that aren’t gamers. No matter what, though, I never stray from the voice of someone that actually knows how to articulate how these things work in actual play… and that just freakin’ loves to play the heck out of these things.

I have complained about how games are covered in magazine articles and so forth in the past. I am just so rarely satisfied with how “journalists” and commentators portray games and gaming in general. Voicing that sort of concern almost invariably summons a smarty pants type that sneers back, “oh, you’re just complaining; the best answer to this sort of thing is to go out show us the right way to do it.” Well listen here, bucko… I’ve done it now.

If you’ve enjoyed Jeffro’s exploration of Chapter N this year, don’t be shy about going to his blog and letting him know. What I particularly enjoy about his posts is the way he dives deeply into the game mechanical aspects as well as the experience; he represents the perfect blend of SF/F literature and gaming that is of particular interest to a game designer who occasionally dabbles in fiction.

No heroes in New York City

The police are under no legal obligation to protect and serve you. And apparently, if they do not feel sufficiently lionized by the public, they will not even do their jobs.

Arrests plummet 66% with NYPD in virtual work stoppage. It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage. NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.

The dramatic drop comes as Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio plan to hold an emergency summit on Tuesday with the heads of the five police unions to try to close the widening rift between cops and the administration.

It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with
overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared
with the same period in 2013, stats show. Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame. Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.

Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241. Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control
Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent,
from 382 to 63.

If you still weren’t convinced that the corrupt and militarized modern police of America are little more than a badge gang, I should think this obnoxious, irresponsible reaction by the police should suffice to convince you, at least concerning the feckless nature of the NYPD.

Recall that police work is not even among the ten most dangerous jobs in America; if it were, women would not pursue it. Remember that most officers never draw their gun nor fire it in the course of their career. And keep in mind that police departments intentionally screen to keep out the excessively intelligent and the insufficiently aggressive.

The petulance of the NYPD made me recall the Tom Simon essay in Sci Phi Journal #2, which concerned, among other things, Tolkien’s definition of heroism.

In his essay “Ofermod,” Tolkien writes:

For this ‘northern heroic spirit’ is never quite pure; it is of gold and an alloy. Unalloyed it would direct a man to endure even death unflinching, when necessary: that is when death may help the achievement of some object of will, or when life can only be purchased by denial of what one stands for. But since such conduct is held admirable, the alloy of personal good name was never wholly absent.

These words describe Boromir exactly. To him, as to his father, the idea of the Good is limited to “the good of Gondor”; ultimately, to the good reputation of the Stewards and their house. Because Gondor, too, has much in it that is intrinsically good – there, too, folk spend much of their time growing food and eating it, and doing various kinds of service to one another – this remains a noble pursuit; but it is fatally flawed, for it mistakes the secondary good (the reputation of the guardians) for the primary.

Tolkien’s most direct criticism of this defective idea of virtue is put in the mouth of Faramir. He does not denigrate Boromir’s character directly, but he implicitly recognizes his flaws by making the distinction that Boromir missed, preferring the primary to the secondary good:

‘I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.’

The NYPD have made it clear that they love only themselves. They do not love that which they claim to protect and serve. Their idea of virtue is defective. They want to be regarded as heroes, but it is their very hunger for heroic status that renders genuine heroism forever beyond their reach.

SJW England

Notice anything missing from this BBC Radio lineup?

Notice that they are celebrating the fact that there are no white people. None. That is the SJW vision for England and for the West, the complete elimination of the European race in addition to the complete elimination of Christianity. Even ISIS is more moderate.

There can be no compromise with the SJWs. To tolerate them is to tolerate the intentional destruction of you, your children, and your grandchildren. The fact that you don’t wish to play a zero-sum game doesn’t mean that they aren’t. The cultural war is real.

Anti-racism is intrinsically anti-white. It is intrinsically anti-European. And before you claim their objective is impossible, or that I am exaggerating, or even just engaging in rhetorical hyperbole, do recall that I am a Native American, a person of a certain color whose people have been driven to the brink of near extinction.

In 2014, more people began to wake up and choose their side. It’s not too late, not at all. Demographics are destiny, but demographic trends are far from immutable and contra the doomsayers, there are more Europeans on the planet than ever before in history. War and ethnic clashes are coming, to be sure, but the situation is considerably less desperate than it was in the days of Tvrđava Klis, Salamis, Tours, and Vienna.

In 2015, choose your side and stand up for it. Because, as this writer has discovered, whether you are Christian or atheist or agnostic, whether you are white or red or brown or yellow or black, you are not going to be permitted to sit safely on the fence, pretending to be above it all, because the totalitarian Left is not going to allow it.

For most of my career as a writer, I have been reluctant to join in the “culture wars,” mostly because I don’t fit into either of the two opposing camps. As an atheist, I’m not longing for a return to traditional religious morality, but as an individualist, I’ve never supported the weird victim-group crusades of the left.

I have mostly dedicated myself to making the case for smaller government, pointing out the failure of the welfare state, and keeping the environmentalists from shutting down industrial civilization—little things like that. Oh, and also war—not the “culture war,” but war war, the kind where people are actually trying to kill us.

So for the most part, my position on an issue like gay marriage could be summed up as: “Can we please talk about something else now?”

Partly, this comes from my small-government outlook, which holds that some things—indeed, most things, and virtually all of the really important things—should be outside the realm of politics. That definitely includes other people’s sex lives, about which I would like to know a good deal less than is fashionable at the moment.

But this year, I discovered that while I might not be interested in the culture war, the culture war is interested in me. It’s interested in all of us. This is the year when we were served noticed that we won’t be allowed to stand on the sidelines, because we will not be allowed to think differently from the left.

Being moderate and tolerant and neutral and uninterested didn’t save the Jews in Germany. It didn’t save the peasants in China or the farmers in the Soviet Union. And it won’t save you in the 21st century West. When the SJWs say there is “no place” for various forms of thought, belief, and expression, they mean there is no place for you.

Pink SFFer defends a rabbit-pelleting

This should be amusing, although you may wish to avert your eyes if you are of tender sensibilities. McCreepy attempts to take on John C. Wright over the desirability of SJW propaganda in children’s cartoons:

The delusionality is strong with this one. Watch as he attempts to speak for an entire audience, many of whom were screaming with happiness at the Korra/Asami revelation.

Go watch this video of fan reactions. Look at the joy on those people’s faces.

These are some of the people he’s trying to speak for. Do they look like people whose way of life, whose values and religion and virtues, are so incredibly fragile that they can be hurt so badly by a several-second clip of two women holding hands, or the idea of two women falling in love?

Mister Wright, you do not speak for the audience of this show. You speak for yourself, and perhaps for a small group of intolerant bigots who can’t accept the slightest acknowledgement or recognition of relationships you personally disapprove of, for whatever twisted reason.

I always enjoy the way the more incompetent rabbits go right to DISQUALIFY without any pretense of a justification. Mr. Wright is more than capable of addressing McCreepy, so I see no need to go into any detail except to note that a) SJWs always lie and b) they always attempt to avoid dealing with the actual topic at hand. Would you stake your life on those most of those “fan reactions” coming from genuine fans of the show? I surely wouldn’t.

McCreepy is ignoring the obvious point that if the show’s fans genuinely wanted to see animated lesbians, they wouldn’t have been watching it on Nickelodeon, they would have ignored it in favor of Japanese anime and the writers wouldn’t have had to spell everything out after the show ended. The problem is not that two women were holding hands, the problem is the SJW symbolism it represented; the symbolism is precisely why the rabbits were cheering it.

“Hurray, we managed to defecate on something again! We totally own it!”

McCreepy knows perfectly well what Wright is criticizing. He knows perfectly well that he would not have defended the symbolism as trivial if, instead of a several-second shout-out to sexual aberration, the two women had rolled back their sleeves to flash swastikas newly tattooed on their wrists, then thrown a Nazi salute to each other. Totally harmless. Look at the joy on the faces of the fans in Germany. What bigot could possibly oppose that?

The good news is that the strong reaction of the rabbits to Wright’s criticism shows they understand the danger that our increasing rejection of their symbolic pelleting represents to them. They have to claim they have the numbers even when they quite obviously don’t, they have to stop the criticism quickly, because the illusion of strength is all they have.

The open divide in science fiction between Pink SF and Blue SF is growing. This is but one of many, many incidents to come. Foxification is upon the genre… and we are the Fox.

And as for sexual retrofitting, I may have been one of the few who wasn’t surprised by the announcement that Dumbledore was gay. Frankly, I thought the movie version of the character was more than a bit of a pedophile obsessed with Harry. Was there a sentence that came out of his mouth that didn’t begin with “Harry….”?

RED HORSE reviewed

The Pulp Writer reviews RIDING THE RED HORSE:

RIDING THE RED HORSE is an anthology of military science fiction, speculating on what the wars of both the immediate and the distant future will look like. It alternates between nonfiction essays on the nature of war and short stories. None of the essays or stories were bad, but my favorites were:

-Jerry Pournelle’s HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON takes place on a distant colony planet. Later some refugees are assigned to the planet, to which the original inhabitants take offense, and the situation unfolds with predictable violence from there.  Basically, it’s the Spanish Civil War IN SPACE! The story follows an idealistic yet nonetheless capable young officer who gradually loses both his illusions and his innocence during the fighting.

-William S. Lind’s essay on “The Four Generations of Modern War” rather presciently pointed out some of the serious problems with the Iraq War. His thesis postulates that we are entering a period of history where technology enables non-state organizations or even individuals to wage wars effectively, much like the Middle Ages when the state did not have a monopoly on war. (A good example of that is the Hanseatic League,  an organization of merchants which actually defeated Denmark in a war during the 14th century, or the various civil wars of medieval France and England where powerful noble families fought each other with no central authority able to restrain them.) While I lack the expertise to determine whether the essay is actually correct or not, I nonetheless think it helpful in trying to understand the various conflicts in the world today. Admittedly the hack around THE INTERVIEW film, which took place after I started writing this review, caused millions of dollars in economic disruption and is likely a good example of fourth-generation warfare, regardless of whether a government, a non-state group, or simply a group of disgruntled employees did the hack.

-WITHIN THIS HORIZON, by Thomas A. Mays follows a Space Navy officer in a distant future where the major powers have developed space fleets, and therefore armed conflict has moved the the asteroid belts and the comets. Ground-based forces are left to wither. The Space Navy officer in question, after sustaining serious wounds, is reassigned to the terrestrial water navy, and figures his career is over. The enemy, however, has other ideas, and the story is an excellent tale of integrity in the face of cynicism.

I think one of the chief arguments for the strength of the anthology is the way in which readers and reviewers keep citing different stories as their favorite. Steve Rzasa’s “Turncoat” was my favorite, and there are more than a few who agree with me, but it’s remarkable how many other of the 14 different fiction stories have been cited by others as the anthology’s best. No doubt Mr. Roberts will appreciate Mr. Moeller’s opinion on the matter.

Grognard, an Amazon reviewer, adds:

The essays are better than the stories, which is amazing given the stories. The book also includes a bibliography for each contributor and that is even better. This is a must-buy for anyone interested in science-fiction or military history, let alone military science-fiction.

It’s a joke, right?

The Republican elite is desperate to figure out a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory despite the electorate being weary after eight years of Obama’s misrule:

Jeb Bush is the clear Republican presidential frontrunner, surging to the front of the potential GOP pack following his announcement that he’s “actively exploring” a bid, a new CNN/ORC poll found.

He takes nearly one-quarter — 23% — of Republicans surveyed in the new nationwide poll, putting him 10 points ahead of his closest competitor, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who tallied 13%.

Physician Ben Carson comes in third, with 7% support, and Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are both tied for fourth with 6%.

So, the Republicans have Bush III, Fatboy, and another token Negro on offer. 2016 looks like yet another election that I won’t be voting Republican even if the Democrats run a ticket featuring Asmoedeus and Belial.

I find the nominal Carson support to be particularly amusing. “Look, we got one too” has never been a winning strategy. And that’s especially true when everyone hates the previous one. It also makes it clear that no one got the “White Party” memo from the 2012 election.

It’s nothing of the sort, of course. Expressing support for an absurd black “candidate” is merely the Republican way of begging “see, I’m not a racist… please don’t hit me!”

Mr. Hobbes has the answer

When a suspension simply isn’t enough:

Heather Cook, the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church in Maryland, has been suspended following a hit-and-run accident on Saturday in which she reportedly hit a bicyclist on Roland Avenue.  The bicyclist, Thomas Palermo, later died at the hospital.

According to a report from Baltimore television station WBAL, the motorist left the scene of the accident, but then returned a short time later.  Her car was heavily damaged, with a hole in the windshield on the passenger side.  The bicycle was destroyed.

Cook, 58, was elected in May 2014 as Bishop Suffragan, second in command in the Maryland Episcopal Diocese, under Bishop Eugene Sutton.

It’s just like the Good Samaritan. Only the complete opposite. It’s an interesting twist on Hultgreen-Curie Syndrome, however. Usually female firsts kill themselves, not others.