Fun House Mirrors

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m sorry I’m so late with this post. This time there’s really nothing wrong, except for catching up on things that were thrown out of rhythm in the last couple of days. (You know, you have a rhythm in a house, like who does dishes, and such. It’s all off between working on the other house, and the minor illnesses/accidents of the last few days.) When one thing goes off everything gets off kilter, in this case to the point of my coming to my office (which is air-conditioning intensive) without a coat and sitting here trying to write the Mad Genius Club post and wondering why I’m freezing.

Anyway, all that is incidental and doesn’t matter, and normally I would do a blast from the past. Normally I certainly wouldn’t be wading into the Hugo mess because it’s inside baseball, it’s tiring, and who the heck cares who isn’t in this field? In fact, how many people in this field really care? I care only to a certain extent, as in the previous regime I had long ago written off the Hugo and in the present mess, I never expect to get one. Beyond which I don’t know how much importance the Hugo has for sales. The Prometheus greatly helped mine, but even there, I think the results vary.

But I’ve been on a slow simmer since the Irene Gallo comments, and that was brought to a boil yesterday.

Why yesterday, you ask?

Because the hypocritical scum (I apologize to any scum I might have offended) who runs file 770 has been gleefully linking anything of mine that even uses the letters H-u-g- and o in the same paragraph, but yesterday I wrote about his hypocrisy in taking a sentence of mine out of context and linking it with a clever-daft punchline of the “Hydrophobia that falls on you from nowhere” to imply I was homophobic.

Did he link yesterday’s post? Are you kidding? Even though he’s fairly sure his blinded followers will rarely click through, he couldn’t afford to explode his narrative. He’d on the flimsiest of “evidence” – i.e. my refusal to go into details on same sex marriage and other accommodations for more “exotic” orientations in a post to which it wasn’t even incidental – declared me homophobic, and he couldn’t risk the narrative being exploded.

I confess that when my Baen colleagues were making fun of file 770 and going on about “Mike Glyer, Fifty Hugos” (the number of nominations he’d had) I thought they were being a little mean. After all, the man was just well-intentioned and blinkered, and believed the narrative.

Guys, I was wrong, you were right. He’s not deceived, but he willfully deceives. He is not a useful idiot, but one who would seek to make idiots out of others. He’s not the sheep, but the judasgoat.

Why does that matter to me? Why do I get so upset if it’s not true? Isn’t it an axiom (at least on the left side of politics) that you only get upset if it’s secretly true?

No. It might be an axiom on the left side, but consider how their leaders lie and every other stupid thing they consider an axiom. It’s sort of a facile pseudo-Freudian thing, and I can disprove it in a moment. Say I accused you of being a pedophile. Would you get mad because you secretly want to do it? Or because it’s a repulsive lie? Say I accused you of killing puppies for fun. Do you have to actually want to do it to be mad? Or would you get madder if you actually spend all your time volunteering to rescue puppies in shelters?

Accusing me of being homophobic is not QUITE as stupid as accusing Brad of being racist. I think – that I know, I haven’t interrogated the boys, because it’s none of my business – no one in my nuclear family is gay. HOWEVER for the first 22 years of our kids’ lives, i.e. while we had a minor child, the designated guardians and executors of our wills were a lesbian couple. (They still are, but we need to change that now both boys are legal adults.) Beyond that, we’ve always had gay friends, not because we sought them out but because of where we lived or worked and because frankly we don’t care. Neither of us intends on sleeping with our friends, and our only contact with our friends’ preferences in that regard is to treat their partners as an extended part of our circle and to approve/disapprove of them according to how they treat our friends. That’s it.

Furthermore, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone, EVER to even read the descriptions of my books and think I’m homophobic.

Which is why I’m furious. Because truth matters and because Mike Glyer Fifty Hugos  intentionally lies and rapes it to make his followers blind and to make them follow him and do what he wants . He’s not the only one. People on that side have been recklessly lying and calling people heinous things, and threatening to end careers — for no better reason than their own power and self interest.

The end result of this are dumb bunnies like Irene Gallo who are absolutely sure they’re only saying what “everybody knows” when they accuse the most unlikely people of being “racist, sexist, homophobic” let alone “neo-nazi.”

These are lies told by their opinion makers, like Mr. Fifty Hugos, for the simple purpose of keeping primacy in AN AWARD FOR A FORM OF FICTION. For power.  For vainglory.  That’s it.

Let’s make that very clear: they’re willing to blacken characters and destroy careers in order to hold on to plastic rockets and the accolades of fools.

Which paradoxically is what makes the fight important and why we can’t let them win.

When I was contemplating this post, my friend Peter Grant posted and my friend Cedar echoed it.

I read Peter’s post and I realized we were both talking about the same thing. We’re talking about the truth. The truth that matters. You can’t rape the truth, no matter how holy you think your objective.

If you rape the truth you mislead sheep like Ms. Gallo and make them think they’re fighting a holy cause, instead of just keeping you in Hugo nominations. (To the extent that Ms. Gallo is innocent of slander it is because her friends and associates lied to her.  Not an excuse.  She’s an adult and she should have verified.  But she’s not as guilty as the stone-cold-liars who deceived her.)

It is the fact that the prize is so small that makes the lies and manipulations more heinous. If they lie like this in small things that bring them no monetary reward, what do you think they’re doing to the truth in things that matter?

Go read Peter’s post. He’s even angrier than I am and with better reason. His experiences in life have been harsher than mine, because it was Africa.

One thing that’s struck me very forcibly in the whole Tor situation is how utterly blind to reality are many of those on the left/liberal/progressive/SJW side of the debate.  It’s incongruous to read the comments on ‘Puppies’ posts at File 770, those left in response to Tom Doherty’s post at Tor.com, and from many of the authors and others ‘leading the charge’ on that side of the debate.  They appear to be living in an echo chamber where they feed off each other, constantly repeating the same old lies like a stuck record.  That’s the problem – what they’re repeating is, in many cases, simply not true, but they ignore that and carry right on saying it, as if repetition will somehow magically make it true.  It won’t, of course.

Truth is determined in relation to reality.  If a fact is objectively true, if it can be verified according to evidence, or tested in a laboratory, or otherwise shown to be actually (rather than merely claimed to be) the case, then it’s true.  It’s no good saying that something is ‘true for me’ if it’s not actually true at all.  That means you’re living a lie.  Period.  An excellent example is the current fuss over Rachel Dolezal’s claim that she ‘identifies as black’.  I don’t care what she identifies herself as being – I want to know what she is in reality.  The fact of the matter is, she isn’t black – so no matter how many wishful thoughts she may have, and no matter what deception she foists upon others (including the NAACP), the reality is that her life has been built upon and around a lie.

The charges leveled against the Puppies campaigns by the SJW’s are largely lies.  They take statements made (or allegedly made) by one or more individuals (often quoted out of context to make them sound either worse, or different from, what was meant), then apply them across the board to all ‘Puppies’ of whatever description.  This is simply not true.  It isn’t real.  It would be as if I took the views or statements or actions of a radical progressive/liberal/whatever (like, for example, Pol Pot) and accused all SJW’s of sharing them.  That wouldn’t be true, so I don’t do it . . . but why do so many of them do it to me?  It’s as I said last week.  They focus on the narrative, not on the facts, because the facts don’t support their views.

Go read the whole thing.

Then think about what these people are doing to the truth, in a petty, stupid little fight. And think of what they accuse us of, like voting blindly for a “slate”, while they’re the ones treating people like sheep and leading them in an unreal and bizarre fight, of which ONLY the leaders benefit.

Mr. Fifty Hugos, you’re beneath contempt. When you call people names, it’s a mirror you’re looking in.

403 thoughts on “Fun House Mirrors”

      1. They’ll link just so they can skim until they see the bit about pedophiles, then they can get all righteously offended at that Horrible Hoyt Woman.

          1. I really find it difficult at times to refrain from pointing out that the people upset that the Puppies didn’t respect the unwritten rules of the trufen (or whatever they call themselves) are defending the culture that enabled a certain author.

            1. Not to mention the open admission on the part of one writer that the effort against the Puppies is a bigger deal than the fight over that author’s husband being allowed at cons.

              I think the only thing upsetting them about MZB (and others to come) is that they have to pretend to agree with the bourgeois about how wrong their sexual use of children was.

          1. Well, it’s your own fault for not volunteering to testify at Vox’s twitter trial wearing your best denouncing hat.

      1. I agree. Which explains some of the stupidity I’ve seen spouted lately.

      2. Dancing around the truth requires movement; if you can’t cover much ground (because you have no facts or logic to stand on), then you have to move in place – which for variety’s sake, and to make it look more impressive, requires a lot of twisting. Internally self-consistent.

    3. When there is no penalty for the “professional” media making stuff up,and I don’t just mean the hugo stories, it will only get worse.

      1. It isn’t that there is no penalty, it is that the penalty is insufficient in magnitude and immediacy.

        While I am not saying all editors ought be required to wear shock collars, programmed to activate when a sufficient quantity of objections get registered …

        2. Exactly. I think the penalty has always been there, but it’s notoriously difficult to measure. It can sortof be seen in ratings, for example, but if people watch you or read you only because you’re the only game in town, and then, only because they want to mock you…how do you measure something like that?

          And because you don’t measure it (perhaps it doesn’t even occur for you to try), you will be caught by surprise when even the smallest of things pop your balloon (such as a few tweets questioning the accuracy of Brian William’s stories…a relevant example, since he’s now in the news, where we learn that he’s now working at MSNBC but not as a major anchorman). Then the punishment is swift and sure, and the ones receiving it are left wondering what happened.

          This is what’s happening to Tor right now.

  3. “they’re willing to blacken characters and destroy careers in order to hold on to plastic rockets and the accolades of fools. Which paradoxically is what makes the fight important and why we can’t let them win.”

    There was a post on the Corner last night that touches on a similar topic.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/419858/good-news-comrades-shakespeare-doctrinally-acceptable-charles-c-w-cooke

    For those who don’t feel like clicking on it, Charles Cooke discusses the recent brouhaha over a Sacramento teacher who doesn’t want to teach the works of that awful Dead White Male Shakespeare who clearly has nothing to say to her ethnically diverse students, and compares it to an essay of Orwell’s where he’s repelled by his fellow socialists only being willing to discuss Shakespeare after they are assured that Marx mentioned Shakespeare many times in Das Capital. To quote Cooke (and Orwell’s conclusion):

    ““It sounds trivial,” Orwell observes. “But it isn’t.” Why not? Because when politics is everything and everything is politics, nothing escapes the commissar’s judgment. It is one thing to analyze art for its political content — critically necessary even – but it is quite another to subjugate one’s view of that art to one’s politics. Plus ça change.”

    1. Until Disney blocked the (CPUSA-driven) unionization of his studio, the Party organs had nothing but praise for his films. Afterwards? Think of all the horrible things said about him — they’re 99% Party line propaganda.

    2. Even were the Bard “merely” one more “dead white European male” there would be much to say to contemporary diverse student bodies. Unless you think those kids are never hung up on decision, frozen into inaction by lack of clarity and wondering whether it is better to be or not to be. Unless you think those kids are never caught between family and anger at a society which has denied them due recognition, like Coriolanus. unless you believe those kids can’t identify with passion for a forbidden love, one which violates everything your family values. I guess kids today, unlike Othello, never doubt their love’s fidelity, nor are they betrayed by friends.

      Shakespeare is valuable because he addresses all human foibles, follies and fecklessness for those with the wit and intellect to see it in his work. His is a universal touchstone for those problems which make us all kin regardless of our skin, a lodestar for unifying all human experience to common reference points.

      If he has nothing to say to today’s youth it is only because their teachers are too dim-witted, too much the dullard, too close-minded to understand. It is such teachers, not the Bard, who’ve nothing worth listening to.

      If YouTube was worth a !@$ I would have been able to find Arthur Fonzarelli’s performance of Hamlet’s Soliloquy instead of this.

        2. Thanks — I saw that link when I [searchengine]ed but it did not indicate the video would be there.

        3. Thanks. I liked Happy Days, but that isn’t one I remembered. I do somewhat remember the one where they covered the Eisenhower election.

    3. Because I will rarely have cause to approvingly quote Maya Angelou, I offer this comment from The Corner at National Review Online (follow link for embedded links):

      ‘It’s All for You’
      By Jay Nordlinger — June 17, 2015

      I’ve been writing about that teacher in inner-city Sacramento who refuses to teach Shakespeare to her students — because he’s just a “dead white male,” and they are “diverse,” and he cannot possibly “speak to” them.

      Earlier today, I wrote,

      There is a story I hope to heck is true, because I’ve been repeating it for years. Apparently, Maya Angelou once said, “When I was young, I thought that Shakespeare must have been a black girl. How else could he know exactly how I felt?”

      Readers have led me to confirmatory sources — thank heaven (and them).

      This article recounts an appearance by Angelou at Randolph College in 2013. (The college is in Lynchburg, Va.) Angelou

      recalled a time when she read all of the books shelved in the modest library of her hometown. Although she did not claim to understand everything she read at the time, Angelou said that Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 was one of her favorites.

      That is the sonnet that goes, “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, / I all alone beweep my outcast state, / And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, / And look upon myself, and curse my fate . . .”

      Reading through [Shakespeare’s] work, she was startled by how much it spoke to her own experience.

      “I didn’t care what they told me,” Angelou said. “I was convinced that he was a little black girl.”

      Poetry has the power to unite cultures, generations and diversities, according to Angelou, and is a fundamental reason behind the survival of the human race.

      “The poetry was written for you,” Angelou said. “It’s all for you.”

      When Angelou was a girl — twelve and a half — she wanted to read the Quality of Mercy speech at a church meeting. (This is Portia in The Merchant of Venice: “The quality of mercy is not strain’d, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath . . .”) But her mother prevented her from doing it, because the author, Shakespeare, was white.

      Young Maya burned.

      Later,

      “I found myself, and still find myself, whenever I like, stepping back into Shakespeare. Whenever I like, I pull him to me. He wrote it for me.”

      I’m quoting from a speech she gave, in 1985, I believe. She recites Sonnet 29 — and continues,

      “Of course he wrote it for me; that is a condition of the black woman. Of course he was a black woman. I understand that. Nobody else understands it, but I know that William Shakespeare was a black woman.”

      Now, Angelou does not mean this in some Jenner/Dolezal way. She means: He gets it. Boy, does he.

      And as I say in my column today, those students in Sacramento — the ones taught by the woman who refuses to teach Shakespeare — are some of the unluckiest students in all the world.
      http://www.nationalreview.com/node/419897/print

      1. “Do you know what happened to the American who called the Scotsman English?”

        “Nope, what happened to him?”

        “Nobody knows, the American went missing and nobody’s found him yet.” [Very Very Big Grin]

          1. Now now. When the Scotsman kills somebody, *nobody* finds the body. [Very Very Big Evil Grin]

  5. They lie because “the truth is not within them”. [Frown]

    Their “companions” piss me off because they assume that “none of them” can/will do something bad. [Annoyed Frown]

    1. Paraphrasing Mary McCarthy’s assertion about Lillian Ginsburg: “Every word they write is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”

        1. You mean we can’t even trust mayonnaise any more? I mean, sure, everyone knows that you can’t trust it if it’s been sitting out for a while (except that you can trust it to become a culture medium for Salmonella). Is the mayonnaise, like the cake, a lie?

  6. You don’t have to link to 770, but as someone who can’t keep up with all the articles, could you link to the article of yours that he excerpted?

      1. Did the same thing to me to. admittedly it was a 6000 odd word post, but still, it could have been edited better for context.

    2. He did much the same with mine. Just linked the part where I was already yelling, and ignored everything else that gave it context.

      His sheeple were like ‘oh she uses all caps, nothing there worth reading ever, from RK Modena.”

      And I knew that. I knew that Glyer would quote only the section that would bring mockery from his lemming horde, so I used all-cap-sed words to judicious effect.

      The ones who were curious actually read the thing.

      I deployed a little trap over at Brad’s. Basically, played their verbal legerdemain back at them. They dove headfirst into it.

      No WONDER they’re afraid to go to Vox’s. Or Larry’s. Or Tom Kratman’s. There wouldn’t be even bloody mist left of them.

      2. It’s also interesting to see how John C. Wright has become not just a bad person, but a bad writer now that he’s “out” as a Roman Catholic.

        Just a few short years ago the self-appointed literati (including the same Lis Carey who’s now slagging him) were in rapture over Wright’s ornate prose. Now, of course, he’s “terrible” and “creepy”.

        Left unexplained is how such a horrible writer got a multi-book contract with Tor, and why he was deemed worthy of Irene Gallo covers.

        1. It couldn’t possibly be because of him switching from atheist to zomg Roman Catholic. I’ve noticed that being Catholic brings out a worse reaction with Americans over being merely ‘Christian’.

          (I was fortunate enough to have been in St. Peter’s Square when John Paul II came out to the balcony and said prayers.)

            1. Well…us Mormons might get more, but it also tends to be funny. I kid you not, I knew people when I was growing up–in the buckle of the Bible Belt–that were honestly convinced that a.) we had horns, b.) we totally had extra wives hidden away (my mother was known to complain that if this were so, where the hell WAS she, because she could use the extra set of hands), and c.) worshiped Joseph Smith/Mormon/.

              When I was living in Romania, I had several people very solemnly inform me that Mormons were “those people who don’t use technology.” (Because they’d shown Witness on national tv, and for some bizarre reason had substituted “Mormon” for “Amish” in the subtitles. Usually they would assert this to me…while I was in a taxicab. Or on a bus.)

                1. Or ride in cars, planes, etc., they just don’t operate them. My dad used to work at a Wayne Dalton garage door factory, the Amish bought it (or maybe Wayne Dalton was Amish, and they bought out whatever the former name of the factory was). The high up muckety-mucks were all Amish, they would fly out to the West Coast, and hire a driver to drive them around to the factory and wherever else they needed to go.

                  1. It has been a long time since i accessed those storage files, but as I recollect it isn’t that the Amish are anti-technology per se, it is that they consider it bad policy to invest in technology that they cannot maintain and which renders them dependent on external agencies.

                    Thus riding in a car or talking on the telephone are perfectly acceptable but investing in such assets is an unnecessary vulnerability.

                    Keep in mind that my understanding is ancient and incomplete and may be wholly incorrect.

                    1. So, one could conceivably tear down and rebuild a gasoline powered air compressor, but if the electric utility quits working, one is left without recourse?

                    2. As I recall, the idea is that the community is self-sufficient. All you need for a horse-drawn carriage is some (OK, quite a lot of) wood and some pasture. A car, on the other hand, requires gas and parts that simply cannot be made in the community. Likewise electricity. It’s also why Amish teenagers can have portable stereos. They may require batteries and CD’s from the outside, but they’re a luxury. The community wouldn’t collapse of the kids couldn’t listen to their music.

                    3. There’s another thing some Amish sects consider: that certain things are suppressed because they encourage vanity. That’s why women can’t use buttons on their dresses, but straight pins. The men use buttons, because they’re not vain, but not women.

                      (Note: This is used only by the sects that even some Amish would consider extreme; not all of them. This gives you an idea of their thinking.)

                    4. Actually, the objection to the car is the alternation in social dynamics. Hiring a car is not the same as throwing yourself in your handy car and fleeing after you argue with your parents, for instance.

            2. I was raised Catholic and married a Baptist. Speaking to some of the relatives one day I mentioned that a bunch of the authors I’d been reading were Mormon. The reactions of a few of them were ‘why would you want to read that then?’

              Really? You’re going to look down on someone because of their faith?

              1. Only if they were writing about doctrine. Anything else, not so much. (And the doctrine might be interesting anyhow.)

                1. Their problem was simply because they were Mormon. Of course most of them watched Donnie and Marie Osmond every week growing up and had no problems with them then. I’m not sure why Card, Correia, Sanderson, et al. being Mormon would be a problem now since they aren’t exactly proselytizing in their books and aren’t insulting me for holding beliefs different than theirs.

                  1. I’m pretty sure that if Romney were an Episcopalian, he would be President right now.

                    1. I’m pretty sure that if the Democrats had any integrity there’d be an ice rink in Hades.

                    2. RES | June 18, 2015 at 1:30 am |

                      I’m pretty sure that if the Democrats had any integrity there’d be an ice rink in Hades.

                      “You’ve frozen EVERYTHING! Do you know how long it takes to get the pilot lit?!”

            3. “Yeah, there’s a lot of Catholic hatred, although in my experience Mormons and Baptists get even more. ”

              Unless of course, those claiming such faith are on their side, like JFK or Teddy, both of which claimed to be Catholic, as does Pelosi; and Reed is of course a Mormon.

              Maybe the fact that they blatantly disregard the tenets of the faith they claim to be, makes them acceptable?

              1. IMO it’s more that “everybody knows” that they aren’t Real “whatever” because they have the True Liberal Religion. [Frown]

              2. Sure, Reid is a Mormon — and a disgrace to his office and his country.
                Debbie Wasserkopf Shtuss is one of my people — and makes me cringe in embarrassment every time she opens her oxygen intake. (She and Nancy Pelosi remind me of the character “Bettina Wister” in Weber & White’s Starfire series.)

                We all have our bad apples.

                  1. Bettina Wister. She at least had the redeeming quality of only being a character in a book and not real.

        2. From a 2005 Elisabeth Carey review of Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright:

          Five stars. “Another weird and excellent story from John C. Wright…Wright continues to amaze. This book is not really anything like any of his previous ones, except that it’s wonderfully written.”

          From a 2015 Elisabeth Carey review of Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright:

          One star. “Tiresome, boring, and overwritten. …word salad, and at best is tiring and annoying. …excessively ornate prose…”

          Sure thing, Lis. I totally believe you based that review solely on literary merit.

          2. Wright and Dan Simmons both have amazon stalkers who 1 star everything they write. I think the lefties feel especially annoyed because they *liked* both authors before said authors revealed to the world that they eat babies and harbor thoughts contrary to the Revealed Principles of Liberal Progressive Thought.

          3. Heh. I really could have used a mention of this over at my blog recently. I’ve had someone over there who claims that Sad Puppies is evil because of a handful of reason, but one being that Brad mentioned making the left cry, thereby making it political.

            Would be nice to show how disingenuous his own side is in this mess.

        3. Preach it, Brother. I’ve been a JCW fan girl since 1995, when I read Last Guardians of Everness. Back when he was a fire-and -Brimstone proselytizing Libertarian atheist, he made the cover of Locus and was nominated for a Campbell. His short stories were published everywhere”

          Fast forward to his conversion and eventual baptism into the Catholic faith and he’s persona non-grata. The only new JCW shorts (and he’s the Cordwainer Smith of our generation) are freebies he put out online. Which are just as awesome as ever.
          So what gives? Instutionalized bigotry and soft McCarthyism. Except McCarthy made a fair case for why communism was evil, so communists couldn’t be trusted in positions of power and influence. The progs have never been that honest regarding Catholics.

          It’s one of the things that drove me to investigate, and yes support (with a few minor reservations, but I’m naturally contrary) Vox Day. Those pure-minded holier then thou Mrs. Grundies blacklisted John Wright’s stories, but VD gave me 10 years worth in just the last year and a half. It will be a cold day in Hell before I denounce that for a bunch of small-minded parochial CHORFs.

            1. Not really. Last I heard of his religious beliefs, he thinks Christianity went wrong somewhere around Nicaea–i.e., I think he’s not a Trinitarian. I could be wrong.

            2. Reader, I married him.

              Married to a Baptist. So yeah, I’m well aware. We go to a non-denominational Christian church and the folks there are absolutely lovely, and have greatly amended my tendency to make unkind judgments about evangelical theology. (their music still kind of sucks. Sorry)

              I have NO idea what VD believes except that he seems to be a “muscular Christian” ala G.K. Chesteron. Not really any of my censored. deleted business.

  7. It’s very simple: they have the true faith, and “lying in the service of the higher truth” (a.k.a. Pia Fraus, a.k.a. Taqqiya, a.k.a. “revolutionary truth rather than bourgeois objective truth”) is not merely permitted but praiseworthy.

    “Dear G-d, please bring me in the company of those who seek truth and spare me from those who have found it.” (attributed to André Gide)

    1. You know there is a religion that believes that it is acceptable and godly to lie to unbelievers. But even Muslims believe you should speak the truth to other Muslims.

      1. I did mention “taqqiya” (“dissimulation”), no? 🙂

        And of course, when one sincerely believes and spreads a conspiracy theory that no halfway rational human could take seriously, it is still “speaking the truth” 😉

  8. That sort talks a lot about the evils of “Othering” and how so-called right-wingers do so much of it. But of course it’s classic projection. This is exactly what they are doing to you. You aren’t really human to them, so not only is it acceptable to say or do anything to you in the quest for victory, it’s mandatory. They might as well be members of the KKK.

    1. I’ve been noticing the systematic “othering” for a good few years now – and it scares the heck out of me, because of the next logical step(s) after the “other” is deemed not worthy of consideration, or even courtesy.
      The likely possible conclusion involves camps and lots of barbed wire, for a start.

      1. They talk about othering, well, they would be the experts, wouldn’t they?

        1. They are definitely working on that. That’s why it’s important to increase the number of legal gun owners. I’m always cheer-leading to family members who are on the fence to join the owners of precious metals (in this case meaning lead).

          1. At this point, don’t be putting limitations on it, it is important to increase the number of gun owners. Period.

            I fully expect them to not go to the next step, until they have made it illegal for many more people to own guns. It will be even more important then for those people to own them, legal or illegal.

            1. Keep in mind that when some nosy doctor or official asks if you have guns in your home, the correct answer is “Not One!”.

              2. Heh: that’s what’s called “a Mennonite lie” (mennistenleugen) in Dutch. The classic example:

                Authorities: “Is Menno Simons in this car?”
                Menno Simons stands up and ask the other passengers, “Is Menno Simons SITTING in this car?”
                They answer in chorus “no!”.
                The authorities mosey off.

                1. I prefer ‘please tell me exactly how that will affect your treatment of my conditions.’

              4. That answer depends on if they start working on you before the novicaine sets in or not. When they start cleaning the wound before it is numb, it might be best to inform them that you lied.

      3. There is already a tendency to try to declare unapproved political opinions as a mental illness. Anything that is not leftist or “progressive.” Of course you get accused of being paranoid when suggesting that the camps or “hospitals” are an eventuality. But what else would be the point of deciding that libertarian or conservative thought is a sickness?

      4. One aspect of othering they overlook: when you other somebody you also other yourselves.

        Pulling the bubble tighter is a risky business, especially when no others want in.

    2. How to tell what leftists are doing: look at what they accuse conservatives of doing.

      1. For a prime example of that: all the recent diatribes by Torlings about outrage over Gallo and the rest of their lunatic fringe being the work of “bots”…and going into great detail describing how one goes about doing that.

        Nice to hear from the experts, isn’t it? And if you wonder how these Two-Minutes’ Hates against people like Brendan Eich or those hapless pizza-shop owners in Indiana just spring up out of nowhere, well, now you know.

    3. Your Klan reference is insulting and demeaning!!! The KKK were better dressers with much superior personal hygiene.

  9. As I suspect this thread might attract guests, I’ll offer some advice gleaned from the very, very long thread here: http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/narratives-vs-facts

    The other side are properly to be addressed as Truefen, not CHORFs, SJWs, or any other name. They get very upset if you don’t do this. ‘Truefen’ is the name George RR Martin suggested we call them in a recent post on his blog.

    Truefen believe the Hugo to be “their award.” A poster by the name of Ray finally admits this here: http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/narratives-vs-facts/#comment-15092

    If you wish to skip the details, and why wouldn’t you, I summarize the thread here: http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/narratives-vs-facts/#comment-15089, at least it is the summary up to that point. If you do go thru the thread, there are some choice quotes by names you will recognize and stunning displays of doublethink and arrogance from the other side. BTW there has only been one small objection to my assessment at this time.

    Do with this info as you will. I agree with Sarah’s description regarding the behavior of the Truefen, but would use less polite adverbs if permitted by my faith.

    1. I have no objection to calling the other side “truefen” if that’s what they want, but it seems to me that there’s a euphemism treadmill problem here. GRRM is objecting to “CHORF” (and earlier objected to “SJW”)because it’s obvious we don’t mean it as a compliment. To which I can only respond, “Duh.” As a group, we don’t like these people, we don’t believe that they’re nice or helpful, and we don’t think their influence is good for science fiction as a whole. Therefore, whatever name we give the group, it’s going to become an insult. We could call them SEPOFs (Saintly, Erudite Protectors Of Fandom), and it would still be obvious from the context that we don’t mean it in a good way.

      1. Of course, the SEPOFs apply “neo-Nazi”, etc. to us and expect us to be “nice”. [Frown]

    2. Oh, and it just occured to me that there may be another problem with “truefen”: we originally replaced SMOFs with CHORFs because there were a lot of people who identified as SMOFs who none the less wanted nothing to do with the screaming reactionaries who have gone after the Puppy campaigns. It seems like “truefen” might have much the same issue.

      1. I’m in no way trying to tone police. I’m just saying many commenters commented to bring us this information. The word path you’ve laid out I cannot say anything about, but I can nod, wink, and touch the side of my nose while listening to it 🙂

        I’m trying to make a visual social commentary describing a few of these threads to be published tomorrow, if I can blackmail convince Codex to draw it, but this is the last day of school and she did fierce battle with a bat in the house late last night, so I can make no promises. Maybe that will make it into the circus tent of the file 770ers.

  10. The funny thing about this is that, had the Cabal simply said from the outset (aka Sad Puppies I), “Welcome aboard! We don’t like your taste in books, but best of luck to you” it’s very likely all of this would have blown over. Indeed, Larry even started this to prove that the original clique would howl over how awful it is that *conservatives* are getting on the ballot!

    And the more they lie and smear Sad Puppy sympathizers, the more people are joining the fray, intending to vote who they see fit. People are doing this out of anger, even! There’s been more than one time that I’ve said to myself “I should vote this year, but I can’t read the books because of various duties…so I’ll abstain…but I’m almost certain to vote in a year or two, if things settle down nicely…” And I’ve seen several comments from people who have said “This is the last straw. I’m voting, even if I have to push myself to read all the material.”

    Sad Puppy Supporters don’t expect to win any Hugos this year, but if Hugos *are* won by Sad Puppy nominations, it will be in part because of all the howling of the puppy-kickers. (And while “Puppy-kicker” is a rather emotionally charged term, the more vitriol and deliberately lying the anti-puppy side gets, the more apt the term becomes…)

    2. Keep in mind also that their control depended on the fact that the mechanism for nominating books happened months before the con and while not secret was also not obvious. The more they scream and shout about it the more people find out how easy it is to nominate their own favorite books for the Hugo.

  11. Does Hoyt the homophobe have a goatee? The only thing is they (chorfs, sjws, etc) define a homophobe as anyone that says maybe a person is more than who they have sex with or just say there may be issues with parts of culture.

    1. We’re fast approaching the moment where anyone not actively engaged in sex with someone sharing their fiddly bits is a “homophobe”.

    2. I’m coming to the conclusion that their obsession with homophobia is an indicator that they are afraid they are homophobic. Thus their frantic accusations of everyone else as proof that they are not.

      1. I ran across an article a little while ago where someone was whining about the “rise of homophobia in SF” because of . . . Card and Wright.

        Wait, so a whole TWO people in the community openly disagree with it and this means that homophobia is on the rise? I mean, I know this is a small community, but seriously? Let me be clear, I support same-sex marriage. I disagree with Card and Wright’s stances on homosexuality. But I don’t hate them for it. I’m mature enough that I can find value in some of what they say without agreeing with all of it.

        1. It’s very simple. How DARE we criticize any designated mascot of the Anointed Class?

          It isn’t really about homosexuals/transsexuals/black rednecks/… All of them will be dropped like a stone when they have outlived their usefulness to the Anointed. The real issue is “who gets to be master: that is all”.

          1. Well that and the use of the approved unperson word this week. Which in this case is homophobe. Anyone thus accused becomes an unperson and thus can be dismissed.

        2. Maybe I’m reading the wrong Card, but I don’t see any “phobia” of any kind in his work. Yeah, I know he’s against gay marriage politically, and has a blog where he talks about politics (that I haven’t read in years), but in his actual fiction? Have I missed something?

          1. Well, you see he’s Mormon, and has come out with public statements not in support of gay marriage. Therefore all right thinking people must shun him and all his works.
            I wish I were joking, but this is exactly how they think.
            And never forget this simple truth: we disagree with them, they hate us.

            1. Ah, I see. I’m sure all those folks are vastly superior writers than he is as well. I’ll just run right out and buy all their books. Or, you know, just keep reading good stuff. I could also just do that.

            2. This always makes me laugh. I’m Mormon myself (though these days my feelings towards same sex marriage are more “whatever, just don’t force it into the religions if they don’t wanna”), and in my younger days I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, at the fairly frank instances of sex/masturbation/etc one could find in some of Card’s books (I was a teenager, don’t laugh at me). And his short fiction is awesome…and also often disturbing. The man writes psychopaths really, really well…But of course, because he’s anti-same sex marriage in his personal life, They are convinced he must, naturally, be one step away from murdering everyone who disagrees with him. (Think they’re projecting, just a little bit?)

              1. Remember – there is a disturbing number of Leftists who want gun control because they don’t believe that they themselves could be trusted with a gun.

                And they are champions of projection, so, yeah.

                1. “champions of projection” – frequently noted. And champions of several other standard low-psych and low-rhetorical tricks, as well. Since they don’t listen to argument, by and large, I’m wondering if we wouldn’t be much better served to reply to their attacks in blog comments with a succinct “Projection; noted:” or “Attempted Alinsky rule 2, noted”, and not waste time on argumentation or rational-splaining.

                  1. And save the lives of trillions of pixels! Won’t someone think of the pixels?!?

                    Of course, they will then just say, “Disqualifying? Really?” and you can just laugh, and sigh, and hope future historians will draw the proper conclusions.

          2. To the best of my knowledge, you haven’t missed anything. To the “Good People” the fact that Card doesn’t accept gay marriage “means” that his fiction “must be” anti-gay.

          3. Card is a hate filled bigoted homophobe because his isn’t pro gay marriage.

            Mind you as demonstrated with Sarah being for gay marriage doesn’t keep you from being called a hate filled bigoted homophobe neo-nazi by the SJW and File770 types.

          4. A couple of the ‘best SF of…” lists regularly get expunged of the books written by “homophobes” by one of the GoodReads librarians.

            1. That is a crying shame. And just goes to show the pettiness of those driven by an agenda.

              1. And of course the goalposts for that criterion keep moving — to the point where some actual open homosexuals have been declared “homophobes” (Bret Easton Ellis, for example).

          1. Heck, they still cite Heinlein as “proof” of racism and sexism in SF and he has been dead for how long? I’m surprised they don’t still cite Burroughs.

            1. And one could even argue–without sounding like a lunatic–that there are, in fact, demonstrable instances of racism in Burroughs’ books. (Especially the Tarzan ones.) But anyone with an ounce of sense then remembers *when* the damn books were written, and gets over it, and enjoys them anyway.

              1. Yes, there is considerable racism in the Tarzan books, mainly directed at Arabs and Germans, depicted as slave-traders and despoilers of Africa’s natural resources.

                Anybody denouncing ERB as “anti-Black” needs to address the portrait of the “noble black warriors” of the Waziri:

                As Burroughs many times writes, the Waziri are the greatest warriors in Africa, though small in numbers. They are feared by Arabic ivory and slave traders as well as cannibal tribes, and known from western to eastern Africa.
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waziri_(fictional_tribe)

                Perhaps the racists are those readers of Tarzan incapable of noticing such distinctions?

              2. Never mind that on Barsoom, the good guys are red, while tha bad guys are white, black and green (in order of awfulness) I can’t remember where the yellow guys were (it was the one with Carthoris) but they were still worse than the whites, who were irredeemably awful.

                So, yeah. Soooooper racist.

                1. The yellow guys were on the North Pole. /snarc/ They were probably between the black and the green, if I had to list them, but real close to the black.

            2. I have seen some Blogs where they accuse Heinlein is a Nazi (Based on Starship Trooper). That is so woefully educated that I couldn’t waste the time to respond.

                1. You were right in the first place. Such stupidity is not in nature; it must be learned.

                  1. Nah, it’s great, as long as you understand that the purpose of “public school” is “state-sponsored daycare” and nothing to do with education.

                    1. While I’m waiting for my full comment to escape moderation Purgatory due to links, I’ll sum it up by stating that my “collectivists and idiots” comment elsewhere on this post, as well as Ayn Rand’s essay “The Comprachicos,” indicate my views on the actual intended function of the current public education system in the US. If only it were so benign as “state-sponsored daycare”….

              2. As everybody here knows to accuse the author of Star Ship Troopers of being a Nazi based on that work shows a failure to understand Nazism and a misunderstanding at best of the book. Working backward I suppose a weird and wonderful definition of Nazi can be derived.

                For a devil’s advocate Lost Legacy is much more ambiguous including characterization by physical appearance.

              3. If Heinlein is so bad, why did Worldcon vote him a Hugo for Starship Troopers in 1960? Or Stranger in a Strange Land in 1962? Or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in 1967? Or Farmer in the Sky in 1951?

                They loved them some Heinlein, back in the day.

                Heinlein’s words are frozen in time, exactly as they were when published. If he’s an untouchable now, it’s not because his work morphed into badthink when nobody was watching.

                  1. Once upon a time there was a guy and his gal, driving down the road in their truck. You know the kind with the bench seat that goes all the way across the front, with no breaks for gear shifts or drink holders?

                    So his lady, she says to him, “Do you remember, back when we were first courtin’, how we used to drive down this road all snuggled up together?”

                    “I ain’t moved.”

            3. Heinlein has been dead exactly the amount of time Card has been executing homosexuals who try to read SF/F. Maybe Card just took the job up because Heinlein died.

            4. Heinlein’s a racist based on _Farnham’s Freehold_, right? Because of course the title character *must* share the views of the author.

        4. If Card is the cause of rising homophobia it’s been rising since the 70s. The first book of his I read was “A Planet Called Treason” back in ’79.

          Odd, I do remember it including a family, from which the man character came, that routinely had both sets of sex organs at puberty. Here I thought we were stuck in binary gender in the field until two years ago and apparently one of the people leading the charge to burn homosexuals at the stake did it over 35 years ago.

        5. I wonder how many people on this board have heard Card’s Secular Humanist Revival?

          To the best of my knowledge and belief it has been many years since Mr. Card stopped public performance and asked his acolytes to stop circulating tapes of the performance.

          I’ve known fairly bright fen to misunderstand, on tape and out of context, the performance. I’d bet much of the kerfuffle dates to this religious issue before the rise to prominence of a public debate on Prop 8 style issues.

      2. That but I also get the feeling and impression that a lot actually want to make people that are different feel bad. Garden variety bullies

  12. “… a clever-daft punchline of the “Hydrophobia that falls on you from nowhere” to imply I was homophobic.”

    Didn’t you know, Sarah? If you tell a joke implying even the faintest criticism of a positive-message story, or even suggest that positive-message literature is a topic suitable for joking about at all, you are guilty of bigotry against the people benefiting from that message. Anything that defuses the impact of a message in any way — even a mocking critique of its aesthetic quality — is a de facto act of hostility against that message, and ipso facto against the messages’ beneficiaries.

    The hallmark catchphrase is, “It doesn’t matter what you meant by it; what it amounted to was….”

    1. It doesn’t have to imply criticism of the Correct Thing of the moment. It just has to be a joke that isn’t enthusiastically supporting the Correct Thing or insulting the Other Side.

  13. I mean, look at how outraged the Usual Suspects are about Tom Doherty saying that the Sad Puppies are not in fact Nazis and that there are in fact woman and minorities among their number. Both these things are true. But to hear the other side tell it Doherty licked jackboot, put Tor on the Puppies side, gave into terrorist tactics, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum.

    And the most hilarious part of all, is that the people slinging the Nazi rhetoric will turn around and complain about a lack of civility.

    1. > And the most hilarious part of all, is that the people slinging the Nazi rhetoric will turn around and complain about a lack of civility.

      If only you were kidding. This happens over and over and over again. Libprogs turn a discussion into an argument, then turn the argument into a fight, then start slinging hateful slurs and accusations, and then stand back and ask “y u so mad?” with an obnoxious little smirk.

      1. Funny how those getting pedantic about labels like “SJW”, “CHORF”, et al don’t seem to be too upset when their side starts throwing out “Homophobes” “Nazis” and the rest.

        1. Oh, but you fail to understand that *that* namecalling is justified because… because… because they say it is!

        2. But but… When they use terms like “racist”, “neo-Nazi”, etc, they are SPEAKING TRUTH.

          What we say is insulting because WE LIE! [End Sarcasm]

          1. Sarcasm? I thought that’s exactly how they think. At least by their actions no matter where I run across them.

        3. This really threw me off early on. I used to follow a number of bloggers who have very different belief systems than I do, because I wanted to understand people who saw the world so differently from myself. It boggled me that one could say, with complete seriousness, that name calling wasn’t allowed before launching his own PC epithets. >.<

    2. And the most hilarious part of all, is that the people slinging the Nazi rhetoric will turn around and complain about a lack of civility.

      Yeah, GRRM did that to me on his livejournal. What a load of BS.

    1. Amusingly presupposes a level of interest in Mike Glyer. ANY level of interest… 😉

      1. Well he is safe from my affections as I have seen nothing to indicate I want to jump in bed with him.

  15. At Brad’s, I was pointed in the direction of a Twitter thread from which I pulled these three quotes:

    “Chuck Wendig ‏@ChuckWendig · 46m46 minutes ago
    So ha ha the Poopy Puppies want to do a boycott of Tor books and authors? Good luck, turds.”

    “Charlie Stross ‏@cstross · 42m42 minutes ago
    @ChuckWendig @eilatan So, from complaining about censorship they’ve escalated to … censorship via boycott? Nice try, dog-brains.”

    “John Scalzi ‏@scalzi · 31m31 minutes ago
    @mforbeck I don’t mind utter shitlords not purchasing my books. @ChuckWendig @wes_chu @cstross @eilatan”

    Civility!

        1. Fascinated with bodily functions just like the high school sophomores (“wise fools”) they are.
          And of course they are flinging poo by the truckload in the hope some of it will stick.

    2. It’s a pity I bought all those Chuck Wendig books several years ago, and can no longer return them. The man is an excellent and entertaining writer…but damn, has he turned out to be an utter twit.

      Ah, well. I’ll just not buy any of his stuff in future. Ever.

    3. How on earth is openly stating that you’re not going to buy any more books put out by a publisher until their senior/upper management issues with being professional have been dealt with anything like censorship? It’s only logical that if a company’s employees have a habit of denigrating, lying about, and flinging vitriol at both their customers and their own authors publicly that some of those customers will decide they’d rather spend their money elsewhere.

      1. Yes, well, it’s only censorship if WE do it. If they were running the boycott, it would of course be Right and Proper. But then, that lot never has shown a very good grasp of basic economics–in their world, one can say anything one likes, and of course the mindless mobs will still buy stuff from them, no matter how they’re insulted. Evidence to the contrary is ignored, or declared to be the result of .

        1. I think it’s the hypocrisy, followed closely by cognitive dissonance, that drives me a little crazy. Gallo’s behavior was indefensible, which is probably why so many are defending her politics and sex instead.

          1. Who gives a flying F*** if it is hypocrisy? I refuse to be hit over the head with a fake hypocrisy hammer.

            It is only hypocrisy if both sides are held to thee same standard.

      2. By that definition, you are censoring any author you don’t read.

        1. Meh. I’m going with the definition of censoring “examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it” (Google search) which I don’t think this falls under.

          I’m not seeking to suppress any book or author Tor publishes. As a consumer, I’m simply deciding to spend my money in places that treat their business like what they are: businesses.

        2. Citizen! You must read the authors that the State wants you to read and those authors that the State doesn’t want you to read will be banned! [Sarcasm]

    4. Scalzi’s remark drove me over the edge. I just sent this email to Tom Doherty:

      “Dear Mr. Doherty,

      I am a long time reader of TOR books, having started buying The Wheel of Time back in the early 1990s. In more recent years I have purchased many of the works of Brandon Sanderson and others who publish under your banner.

      On Wed, June 17, John Scalzi, a TOR author, made the following remark on Twitter:

      “John Scalzi ‏@scalzi · 31m31 minutes ago
      @mforbeck I don’t mind utter shitlords not purchasing my books.”

      The remark was made in response to a thread about the Sad Puppies controversy and the threatened boycott of TOR over the Gallo situation here:

      Personally, I was satisfied with your statement about Gallo you made on Tor.com and was prepared to start buying books from your company again. However, when I see a statement like this, made by someone whom I am led to believe is TOR’s highest-paid author, encouraging people not to purchase his company’s product and insulting customers, I have to reconsider that stance.

      I don’t expect you to fire Scalzi nor would I demand it. Nor do I expect the company to put restrictions on the free speech of its authors. However, I would expect that the authors publishing with your house conduct themselves on social media with at least a modicum of tact and decency.

      If this situation is not resolved, and soon, I will no longer be purchasing anything from TOR. I will also discourage others from doing so. I do not like depriving authors I support of financial reward, but I will also not give my hard-earned spending money to a company who stands by while people who work for it treat customers with contempt.

      Thank you for your time

      Christopher M. Chupik

      (not a bot)”

      1. In fact, I see this as a basis for a whole new marketing strategy.
        Imagine this: you go to buy the latest Scalzi book online. But, before you can complete the purchase, an obligatory political quiz pops up. One has to prove that they are politically sensitive enough before they would be allowed to buy that book.

    6. OK Mr Scalzi’s comment is just kind of sad. Denigrating his own readers is pretty darned stupid . I enjoyed his early stuff (“Old Mans War”, “The Androids Dream”), but his later stuff has been well, meh. I don’t have time nor money for Meh from folks who stoop to language for which my 4 year old niece would get a long time out.

  16. Glyer is responsible for keeping this going on as long as it has. By linking several blogs every day, it’s guaranteed to keep the pot stirred.

    The trolls are out in large numbers now, or see it seems. Brad’s site at times seems like File 770 lite. And they’re really repetitive.

  17. I wasn’t going to bore the Huns with this… but Scalzi called me a sh*tlord.
    Per Cedar’s suggestion, Monday, I snail mailed the following letter to Tom Doherty:
    June 15, 2015
    Tom Doherty
    Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
    175 Fifth Avenue
    New York, NY 10010
    Sir,
    I am writing in concern for libelous statements by your Associates on the internet concerning this year’s Hugo Awards. It does not endear me to your publishing house if these comments represent the view of upper management.
    I have read your post concerning the statements by Irene Gallo, and worse, I have seen her statement, her reply to criticism with a yawning cat, and her obviously non-apology apology. [To wit, I’m sorry if I upset you calling you a neo-Nazi, but you are still a neo-Nazi]. Only the fact that I am a very fond reader of Eric Flint keeps me from joining the ‘Boycott TOR’ movement.
    I checked my orders for books from Amazon. I have ordered 335 books from them since 1999. This year, I am already at 64 books. Last three full years: 84,30,33. The 2014 jump is due to 1)Retirement and 2)Kindle. Frankly I had been in a purchasing ‘slump’ because based on the choices from new authors, and a couple of Hugo winners in the last 5 to 6 years, I had concluded all new novels were ‘drek’ and that all the good Science Fiction writers have died.
    Sad Puppies 3 opened my eyes to the ‘cultural agenda’ that has apparently decided only literary conscious-raising fiction is allowed. It is drek. The Sad Puppy list of recommendations and the Kindle have opened my eyes to ‘indie’ publishing, where frankly all the good SF/F authors are. I was made aware of the term Social Justice Warrior from the dread GamerGate. I am only peripherally involved in games, mainly through my Nephew and friend’s children; however, I am dedicated to Science Fiction. In both cases, I tend to side with the non-SJW side, since, much like Ms Gallo, the amount of lies and hate coming from her side is offensive.
    Please remember, your readers have loyalties too. If I only read authors like Mr Flint, and already have Mr Scalzi on my boycott list for the many hateful things he has said, not to mention his very derivative style of writing (Fuzzy Planet and Redshirts come to mind), then I will never be made aware of the new talent at TOR and will establish loyalties to the less hateful indie publishers.
    Thank You for all the good SF/F works,
    Donald Campbell

  18. Hang on a second. The Hydrophobia thing was the title of a post where he linked to and quoted from literally dozens of puppy-related posts, including yours. I think it’s a little unfair to say he was calling YOU out for being homophobic based solely on that title. It wasn’t directed at you alone, and I read it as more tongue-in-cheek, myself.

    Unless I’m missing something?

    1. Yes, you’re missing something.

      That is not the sort of name-calling that can be done with one’s tongue in cheek.

      See portion at 2’40” and remember: the rules for such language have been in effect for over a century — and on line, nobody can see you smile.

      1. No, I mean am I missing something about THAT POST?

        Sarah feels the title was an accusation that she’s a homophobe, but the title wasn’t directed toward her. The post was a collection excerpts from and links to many other posts, with no commentary added by Mr. Glyer. So where exactly is the accusation of homophobia against HER?

        Not denying the many lies and libels that have been thrown around lately. Hell, that are always thrown around when one does not tow the “progressive” party line hard enough. I just don’t understand why that particular post has aroused so much ire.

        1. Yes, but it was bundled in under it, and the original story it is a play on is on homosexuality. Oversensitive? I don’t know. I’m tired of Glyer playing games and coming close and hinting. I’m tired.

            2. Unfortunately, every time I think I might have rest, some anti-Puppy evangelist barges in with histrionics about “racist, sexist, homophobic anti-woman Puppies”.

              1. There are some blogs that I have enjoyed that have been flooded with Trolls to the point that I can not visit there (due to my reaction to the Trolls).

          3. Bottom line: None of us has any reason to extend the slightest benefit of the doubt to these people any more. They have repeatedly shown by words and actions that they hate us, that they wish us harm in any way possible, and that they will lie to us and about us.

  19. I posted this at Brad’s a few days back and it was quickly buried under the avalanche of File 770ers and posts by You Know Who.

    “For it’s Puppy this, an’ Puppy that, an’ “Chuck the Nazis out!”
    But it’s “Why ain’t these Tor books movin’?” when your sales bottom out;
    An’ it’s Puppy this, an’ Puppy that, an’ slur you please;
    An’ Puppies ain’t no bloomin’ fools — you bet that Puppies see!”

    With all apologies to Rudyard Kipling, of course. I would have done the whole poem, but I’m not sure I have the energy for that right now.

    2. I wonder if they could even muster a thin red line of heroes when push comes to shove.

  20. I continue to be perplexed. It is not about truth; it is about power. And the rewards power brings. Orwell had it right. And so did Alinsky.

    In every political sense, truth is relative. It is not absolute. Those who don’t understand that will continue to mewl into the gales of mendacity. Until they are blown away.

    Actually, there are big “true” truths. Suppose a great thumping huge asteroid. of a size guaranteed to eliminate all life forever, is predicted to strike the Earth. No matter how the power establishment might deny and lie about it, when it strikes, the truth will be revealed.

    But there are “little” lies. Like, for example, screaming that the motives of the SPs are impure — political, say, and not artistic. No matter how many facts and explanations and citations and documents are produced proving that the allegations are not true, if the liars continue the mantra, undeterred and uninterested and unmoved by the truth, then the truth becomes a lie. Alinsky, again.

    Even if one wins by calling the liar, one can lose. Some months ago, in another forum, I predicted that the Hugo establishment would pick up their marbles and go home when they sensed that the SPs might carry the day — they would destroy the Hugos in order to save them. If there are enough No Award votes, the SPs lose. (And “enough” votes will be defined by the Hugo establishment.) If SP advocated nominations are not awarded Hugos, a new truth will emerge — that is has been proven that the SPs have destroyed a hallowed, inclusive, multi-cultural, woman and transgendered empowering, sensitive, and civil rights exemplary award that is open to all and discriminatory of none.

    But if there are SP advocated nominations selected for the Hugo, the same new truth will emerge — that is has been proven that the SPs have destroyed a hallowed, inclusive, multi-cultural, woman and transgendered empowering, sensitive, and civil rights exemplary award that is open to all and discriminatory of none.

    Frankly, the SPs have brought embroidered pillows to a knife fight. They appear to believe that, by demonstrating how a group can control the nomination process, the Hugos will experience a new dawn of openness and true inclusiveness. They have no clue. The SPs have to outperform the No Awards votes and demonstrate the “truth” that the SPs’ movement is a movement of the majority. If not, then they can gather round an Aristotelian campfire in the darkness and congratulate themselves that they have spoken truth. If they don’t understand that the Hugo establishment has been preparing the greatest possible No Awards vote for months now … and if they have not been preparing to counter it … then they deserve the rain of vituperation that will follow.

    It is politics and power; not truth.

    1. the Sad Puppies won the day Making Light had a rant about the nominees several days before the embargo ended. Everything after is details.

  21. Guys, I was wrong, you were right. [Glyer’s] not deceived, but he willfully deceives. He is not a useful idiot, but one who would seek to make idiots out of others. He’s not the sheep, but the judasgoat.

    One thing I’ve noticed over the years. When conservatives or libertarians encounter idiots, their first thought is to try to figure out a way to convince the idiots to stop being idiots.

    On the other hand, when collectivists encounter idiots, their thoughts revolve around making use of the idiots and making even more idiots to use.

    1. Which goes back to Highlander’s point that it’s about power (and politics). Using the idiots to make more idiots gives them more power to manipulate.

  22. As I read this post I kept hearing Paul Scofield’s voice:

    It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales, Richard?

  23. And all of this for an award that is a statistical zero in terms of sales. What the hell is *wrong* with these people?

    1. At one time it meant something and they have made it “Their” award. That they made it meaningless has no bearing. It must remain Theirs.
      Much like the Nobel Peace Prize. Ones actions mean far less than position. So you get it given to those who either done nothing to earn any acclaim (0bama) or those who are actually not in any way peaceful.

      1. Take a look at the list of people who have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

        I was a little slow on the uptake; it wasn’t until Yasser Arafat got a prize in 1994 that I realized how out of touch the Nobel committee was with reality-as-I-know-it.

        In my reality, Yasser Arafat was a terrorist, leader of the PLO, and responsible for murdering sixteen people at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

        But hey, a couple of decades, some PR work, a bit of magic doody dust, and he’s a Great Statesman instead of a terrorist. After all, he hadn’t killed anyone lately. Not within the last few weeks. Well, not on TV, anyway.

        1. The Arafat was honoring the prizes namesake, by attempting to bring peace through the application of Nobel’s invention.

    2. They literally have nothing else. They have no real accomplishments. The only way they can justify their sense of superiority over conservatives is to take over awards that others have built.

  24. I’ve come to wonder if Rachel Dolezal thought maybe it meant Not Actually A Colored Person …. (~_^)

    Civility is demanded by those who slander others to the point of outrage and then they need it to protect their lies. They then use your anger as proof they must be right in their uncivil methods It is akin to walking up to someone and kicking them in the gonads, then demand they be non-violent. Then the fact they retaliated at all is proof you were justified in kicking them to begin with.

    1. Rachel Dolezal is a perfect counter to the claim that voter fraud doesn’t exist. She is the third widely-known instance of someone claiming a racial category they didn’t belong to (Fauxcahontas and the Indian student who applied to medical schools claiming to be black). The rewards from swinging an election far surpass the rewards from claiming a different race (not to mention completely torpedoing the idea of “white privilege”). If people are willing to commit fraud to claim the benefits of the latter, why wouldn’t they do the same to win the larger benefits from the former?

      1. But…but…no true liberal would be that EVIL! (To paraphrase the East German idea of Hitler from from Shadowdancer’s post the other day).

        1. Honestly, I’m getting lots of cold, uncomfortable Red Guard vibes now, from the CHORFs and SJBs.

          And yes, I’m strongly reminded of the teacher who inadvertently stripped that wee bit of innocence away and was one of those little pebbles that caused me to grow up waaaay too fast.

        2. All progressives are evil. Most are just too dumb to realize what ends they are serving.

        1. Remember, arguing with a leftist is a spectator sport. You cannot reason a man out of a position he wasn’t reasoned into, and there’s nothing more anathema to a leftist than reason. The goal is to get the undecideds to realize how idiotic the leftist position is.

        2. Well, yeah – their arguments are often straight from the schoolyard: , , “ha ha got ya mad, proves you’re a hater, ha ha”. Because arguments are about counting coup, not about seeking better answers, for them.

      3. If race and ethnicity are merely matters of personal identification, then Diversity is made meaningless and Affirmative Action discredited.

          1. It would be … interesting if the Dolezel Affair knocks the whole affirmative action white privilege system out of whack … if you are what you claim to be, and there are benefits to be gotten from claiming fill-in-the-blank, what’s to stop anyone from claiming fill-in-the-blank. Would we all have to have our DNA tested, and the results put onto our drivers’ license or something?

            1. And there are leftists Explaining that transracial is not a thing whereas transsexual is, and never quite managing to admit that it’s because only one brings them poewr.

            2. Not on our Driver’s Licenses. All will be issued armbands, colour-coded and with identification symbols.

              People without arms can substitute headbands. People without heads will be directed to File770.

            3. Well yes I can see it now the moment someone accuses racism a person is now free ala Dolezel to assert that they are the victim because they clearly are the race they are accused of being racist towards. Kind of defangs the whole thing.

              Hmm, I wonder if I can gender assert on that basis?

            4. “what’s to stop anyone from claiming fill-in-the-blank”

              I know this was tongue-in-cheek, but I’ve got to say it.

              The screaming lack of personal integrity and character worries me more than the petty politics. Those are basic, fundamental things! I can disagree intelligently and respectfully with those who exhibit such qualities. Without them, it’s as much use as arguing with a seagull. Lots of noise, lots of crap, nothing much productive, and about the same level of understanding.

              1. Well yes but when one embraces the belief that there is no absolute right or wrong then really integrity becomes an option. Unfortunately so many of those in the progressive movement demonstrate that they don’t embrace the integrity option.

                1. I’ll skip the tirade on Relativism (it’s an old song, and most everybody here knows the tune). *grin* You’re right, that is the way of it- and they lack the most basic, fundamental tools to understand the concept, as well.

                  1. Ethical Relativism. Or, Moral Relativism. These are evil things.

                    It goes pretty innocently at first: “What’s right for you may not be right for me.” It gets worse as you probe deeper. “We need to judge people and cultures by their own definitions, not *ours.* ” Not realizing that the previous is the height of arrogance, it goes on, until you reach the point that there are *no* moral principles that apply to all times and places.

                    In other words, everything is relative. Relative to your skin color, your race, your ancestors, your ticky-box-on-sub-form-42213A. Situational ethics is yet another word for it. It’s an old, old fallacy.

                    Ethical relativism usually rises from a false sense of empathy. When you try to be *too* open minded, and spend much time considering too long on the childhood difficulties of this rapist and that murder, your brain falls out. With no sense of self, no principles you are willing to make a stand on, you *cannot* call anything or anyone evil. And the only good you can own is that you never said anything bad about anyone. Except those misguided numbskulls that reject Moral Relativism.

                    The Moral Relativist in reality cannot stand for anything at all, really, because there is nothing to which he can point and say, “This is Truth. All contrary to this Truth is Falsehood.” So while being mugged might personally upset him, but he can’t call it wrong, or the covetousness that gave rise to it a sin.

                    Take a look at Furgeson. Remember how we couldn’t blame those “poor black kids” for burning down businesses? How we can’t judge a person by his actions because we haven’t walked a mile in his shoes? It’s mental contortions that would make an octopus jealous, but the Relativist declaims all those who call a spade a spade, a thug a thug, a thief a thief, or a politician a liar… And yet, they praise nothing but “tolerance” in its place.

                    Tolerance. Of tiny insults, slights, and put downs, that always raise in intensity until they demand we “tolerate” things that threaten our fortunes, our lives, the lives of those we love and it is our duty to protect. When right and wrong have no meaning, as the old song says, “anything goes.”

                    I said this was old. Very old. Plato and Herodotus and a bunch of others I forget whom, wrote about it, oh, some time ago.

                    Plato: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

                    Out of pity, out of empathy, out of all bloody things tolerance is Relativism. I will not deny its well-meaning antecedents. There were/are good intentions there; lots of smart folks and pretty faces preach Relativism whether they know it or not.

                    Can’t say I care for it. I’ve seen too much of what it leaves behind in the detritus of human souls. It is a vile, ugly thing, Relativism. It perverts the virtues that I was raised to value and respect into a thing not fit for any man or woman with a shred of integrity to behold without recoiling in disgust.

                    I’ll stop there. It’s a subject that tends to raise a feeling in me I’d rather remain asleep.

                    1. I agree – but to balance the argument a little: While the extension of tolerance to include all things that ought not to be tolerated is in itself an evil against society, its opposite – complete intolerance of anything you don’t personally agree with – is as bad or worse.
                      The answer is, as it has always been, clearly defined and accepted limits to tolerance. We call those limits “laws” (and “social norms”, “courtesy”, and other things when we don’t want to enforce them with the power of the state.)
                      I think the problem we have is when the limits to tolerance, having been agreed upon or at least generally accepted (part of the “social contract”, right?), are continually tested at the edges by those who don’t really like the terms of the contract and choose not to respect it… rather than attempt to change it by rational persuasion of the other parties to the contract.

                    2. “… continually tested at the edges by those who don’t really like the terms of the contract and choose not to respect it …”

                      I recall thinking during the Clinton Administration that the difference between him and Carter was that engineers think in terms of safety margins while lawyers think in terms of loopholes.

                      Of course, Carter never actually was an engineer; he ran as a farmer and we all know what farmers spread in abundance.

                    3. Alan, I agree- more than I can say! The tolerance thing is a hot button issue because of my history with Anthropology.

                      In practical terms, most folk have been raised to a certain standard of decency (hush y’all, I like my illusions nice and pristine). The laws, same, we learn those as we go through life.

                      The people that test the limits of tolerance are shielded by those who’ve got too bloody much tolerance. The fringers who push the envelope don’t have much patience for laws and standards of decency- they are far more selfish. The Relativist is the impassioned defender of those hooligans. He tells us they need “space to destroy” and we can’t blame him because “white privilege” and whatnot. Some seem to be truly amoral, using the tools and levers of conscience (empathy, guilt, need for approval) to achieve their own ends. Others are guileless, and don’t really have an agenda.

                      It’s all the same. As you say, the answer is clearly defined limits. This, or these things, we shall not tolerate. And we must defend those limits, not draw a red line on a map, then acquire an acute case of amnesia about it as soon as it is crossed.

                      And RES, I must take small issue with that. Horsesh*t is good fertilizer. Tasty vegetables grow in good soil, kept clean of vermin by insecticides and weeds by herbicides. Carter was more an engineer than a farmer, whatever his antecedents. *grin* And as anyone who’s worked construction knows, “engineer” can be a four-letter-word in the real world…

              2. To push your seagull analogy a little farther; the truth is like Alka-Seltzer. It might soothe our stomach, but fed it to the seagull and it causes them to blow up.

                1. *chuckle* I’d not thought that far into it, but that’s a bloody good point. They do blow up most… excitably, don’t they?

              3. Worse than a lack of personal integrity and character by a few people, in my view, is the lack of anybody (within their subculture) caring about that lack.

                1. It’s practical blindness and deafness. There’s no experiential reference there for them to understand what we mean, in the Heinleinian sense of “is your word good?” They don’t care because they don’t recognize it for what it is, only what they’ve always thought of it as, how they’ve been taught, and what their peers and mentors say about it.

                  For the Progressive, not only do the means not matter, the theoretical ends must be so brilliantly perfect that *any* means is not only possible, but laudable, to achieve them.

                  1. Dan Lane wrote:
                    “For the Progressive, not only do the means not matter, the theoretical ends must be so brilliantly perfect that *any* means is not only possible, but laudable, to achieve them.”

                    If they believe this then they are evil. I say this because there are some means that are so wrong that nothing could excuse them.

            5. My dad knew someone (a white guy) who, in the 1970s, retired from the Air Force and legally changed his last name to something Hispanic in order to take advantage of some minority preference program for which he didn’t qualify.

              I guess now he’d just have to claim to identify as Latino.

        2. Oooooh, that would be the height of hilarious. Here’s hoping it happens!

        4. Affirmative Action was discredited by 1985. Progs are just that slow on the uptake.

      4. Ahh, you are forgetting the first fake “Native American” of course I am speaking of the leftist college professor Ward Churchill.

  25. Leave us be very clear about one fundamental thing: the whole charge of “homophobia” is nonsense, twaddle, libelous, absurd and self-evidently false. It demeans the experience of living in America as a homosexual and it demeans the whole concept of phobia — defined as “an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.”

    A phobia is a recognized medical condition, one which is near incapacitating of those subject to it. Using it in this way is self-evident proof of bad faith, it represents persons who do not want to engage in debate or an exchange of ideas. Those who use the phrase are identifying themselves as thugs, bullies, kapos, goons, yobbos, hooligans, jackals, strong-armers. They have forfeited any respect accorded sane, much less decent, human beings, by their willingness to act as strike-breakers for the ideological powers-that-be.

    They are not to be debated but to be denounced as what they are.

    It is not coincidental that so many of them hail the yellow murthering dog Che as their icon. Being called names and lied about such as these is a badge of honor, to be worn proudly.

    1. Originally the term “homophobia” referred to men who had a pathological obsession with (others’) homosexuality, fueled by deeply repressed fears about their own ‘orientation’. Nowadays it has lost any stable meaning it once had.
      It’s like (l’havdil) in my adoptive country, some extreme ultra-Orthodox nowadays call anybody — be they secular, traditional like myself, modern Orthodox, or right-wing Orthodox — who opposes any element of their theocratic agenda an “antisemite”, “worse than the Nazis”, etc. These are rhetorical bullying tactics pure and simple, and one must not give in to them.

  26. I’ve done my time at File770. It did make me acutely aware that there are obsessives out there capturing and storing lists of quotes-out-of-context to be cut and pasted into every discussion to demonize their enemies. Being the mild-mannered sort who has lots of incorrect thoughts and still hopes for a movie deal (heh), I am becoming very wary of commenting anywhere that’s open to those sorts.

    This is why I’m being quiet. Plus 15 novellas from Taos Toolbox people to read through, and my own work to do.

  27. You have been reading these roundups for weeks and cannot have failed to understand the title is a trope, not a comment on the nature of the writers quoted in it. Do you know who the first writer quoted in the “Hydrophobia that falls on you from nowhere” was? David Gerrold. Therefore, how can your interpretation possibly even make sense?

    On the other hand, if it would make you happy to have me quote an “I am not a homophobe” paragraph in the roundup, that suits me fine because I never had an agenda about that either way.

    1. I agree that Sarah was reading into the post title something that wasn’t there. But when people go out of their way to trash her in the comments, I can understand why she’d get paranoid. The nastiness level is extreme. Can’t we all just get along? (followed by a commenter attacking peacemakers because they are enabling evildoers.)

    2. I’m curious – has anyone has ever requested NOT to be quoted in a File 770 roundup?

    3. Mr. Glyer, can you please include this quote in your next roundup? It will be of great interest to fans that the Hugo is not, in fact, the award for all fans.

      “The Hugos have been voted on by Worldcon members since they were founded. They have never been any more, or any less, than that. If you think that means they don’t accurately represent SF fandom, you’re free to pay less attention to them, or ignore them completely. Use the Goodreads awards as a guide to your reading. Or just look at sales figures – wait until someone publishes a list of the best-selling SF books of the year, and buy the books off the top of the list.
      The Oscars are the most prestigious awards for movies, but I don’t take them as gospel. I don’t know what music award has the most voters, and I don’t care either.”

      https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/narratives-vs-facts/#comment-15099

    4. I just checked that line again, and although it could have been made a little clearer by adding the word “post” after “Hydrophobia that falls on you from nowhere”, it’s pretty clear that she wasn’t saying the TITLE of the post was where you shaded her meaning.

    5. The problem, Mr. Glyer, is you may have meant it as a “trope” but all these headlines do is fan the flames. It is like tossing an match onto an accelarant and watching what happens next. I understand where Sarah is coming from because I’ve had folks follow the links from File 770 to my posts either on Mad Genius Club or my personal blog. That would be fine if they were coming to discuss the issue but they want to attack and condemn. I have to wonder if that might not be the case if you actually treated the Hugo issues as serious as they have become instead of making light of them with your “trope” headlines.

      I also understand why Sarah and others have questions not only about your objectivity on the issue but your reasons for continuing to post all the blog blurbs with the “trope” headlines when it doesn’t appear you maintain any sort of control over the comments there. It has been a long time since I have been able to go to a blog and see entry after entry where the comments go far beyond discussion to contention to personal attacks. You may privately ask folks to tone it done. But, if you ask them to in the threads, I don’t hang around long enough to see it. Why should I when it is clear that if I were to post my take on the discussion, no matter how well reasoned or researched my comment might be, I would be personally attacked within minutes of posting it?

      1. “I also understand why Sarah and others have questions not only about your objectivity on the issue ”

        I for one, have no such questions.

        1. Given the juxtaposition of titles and events, such as “Lord Foul’s Bay” with the Tor writing campaign, I have no questions about objectivity. I also have no questions that whatever wit made the first few parodies amusing has long been depleted.

  28. . Mr. Glyer’s response does not apply to the statement made. Quoting someone out of context and lying about her is not refuted by saying that someone else did it first.

  29. What I find interesting and perhaps laudable is you and Peter still have the ability to get upset over this.

    I long ago reached the point where I agree that I’m racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and support making children eat broccoli.

    Then again at this point:

    Racist: Somewhere a progressive black person disagrees with you (or maybe a Hispanic one).
    Sexist: Somewhere a progressive female person disagrees with you.
    Homophobic: Somewhere a progressive gay person disagrees with you.
    Transphobic: Bruce Jenner disagrees with you (now if it was Wendy Carlos I would be worried).
    Support making children eat broccoli: You want children to eat broccoli.

    2. At this point I think you can earn one of those labels by a hypothetical progressive person disagreeing with you.

    3. I disagree. If you had added the following to each of your descriptors of who is a racist, sexist, and homophobe, we might reach concurrence.

      “Somewhere …. or a progressive white fellow-traveling, man shaped person who aspires to be more offended than anyone else disagrees with you.”

    4. I donno, Herb. Most of the time I’m all… eff it. The accusations are so content-free. Certainly the last however many years I’ve gone from caring greatly, to profoundly *not* caring what ever I got accused of since it was just some sort of political tourettes. Maybe it’s because those making the accusations can’t possibly believe it anyway… it’s just a tactic. So much noise.

      Maybe it’s because Gallo wasn’t saying “you’re all blah blah blah” as part of a fight, but was apparently *sharing factual information*, and the person she was talking to reacted in a stunned and *believing* manner. And suddenly it’s like, OMG, she believes it’s true.

      Scalzi is an ass and has been forever. Does anyone think he actually *believes* the crap he spews?

      See the difference?

      And no… in general *objecting* to the name calling “OMG a Libertarian never ever disagreed with government spending before in the History Of The World until Black President! Racists!” is worse than pointless. Not only does no one believe it, but someone like that game show guy, Chu, will explain it only proves you’re *really* racist after all. The “process my privilege in public” people will see any denial as a huge blazing confession… so why would a sane person bother? Eff ’em.

      This hit a lot of people as fundamentally different so people are defending themselves.

      1. Maybe it is but I’ve been called it to my face by a “friend” at a social gathering. I was also expected once to apologize for being offended about being called a Nazi at Christmas because it disrupted Christmas.

        For a lot of them I’m just tired of the accusations and ready to get onto the fighting which is what they really appear to want. I don’t want the fighting because it will only make things worse (I agree with Sarah, open revolution in the US is the path to a Franco like result despite what the progressives think) but they seemed determined to have it.

      2. Also, I still wrote the Tor three. I also wrote my apologize email to Carrie Vaughn that because of Tor I’ll miss the conclusion to the Kitty series for a while. Given she was the first author I ever wrote and one of only two to reply that’s a pretty big deal.

        I’m more offended by them using people I like as human shields to defend themselves from the consequences of their behavior than the behavior itself anymore.

    5. “Transphobic: Bruce Jenner disagrees with you.”

      Er, didn’t Jenner suggest a few weeks ago that s/he was a Republican? Wouldn’t that mean every single member of the Democratic party is transphobic?

      (I know, I know, the rules don’t apply to the Left.)

    1. Mr. Glyer, I read the same words my wife did, and she’s much more tactful about them than I’d ever be.

    2. Mike

      Why don’t you let the roundups go for a while and let things settle down?

      1. Because of the page hits, man, the page hits! Think of it as an offering to Eris and Ares.

  32. Hugs and Prayers Sarah.
    Now get back on that keyboard and finish that book you promised me.
    More Hugs and Prayers

  33. RL has yanked me away and kept me tied down, such that I can only occasionally skim the waters.

    And still I’m pissed.

    Shallow minds and vitriol, seems to be all they have.

    1. Yup. The quality of the opposition has gotten rather stale of late. With occasional forays into libel, lies, and looney-bin craziness.

      What’s interesting to me is the contrast in attitudes:

      We get mad when integrity and character are impugned.

      They get mad over things that don’t really exist, like imaginary villains and vast battalions of straw men bearing cardboard spears.

      Take care, and keep your chin up. Keep a sharp knife handy, too. Helps when RL gets fussy with the knots. *grin*

      1. Oh, yeah, that attitude contrast is — boggling, really. Reflective of a frightening divide in philosophy, it seems.

        My dad is a big believer in the handy sharp knife (or three). Never found reason to think my dad wrong on the point.

        1. My father is of the same school. “Never can have too many knives.” I’ve not had too many times in life I wish I *hadn’t* brought one- courthouses, for instance, once they installed the metal detectors post 9-11. Then it was just an extra trip back to the car to put it away.

          Heck, I feel more undressed without a knife than I do without pants, most days.

          1. Pretty sure my dad’s trying to find out if there is an outer limit to “too many.”

            “Maybe one more…”

            I have, alas, been in and out of non-permissive environments enough to have stunted the habit. Something I need to remedy. I really hate reaching for a tool and hitting an empty pocket.

            1. Depends on said environs. Some certain areas don’t twig to “multitools.” I prefer the Spiderco Skeletool for those stuations. *grin*

              Others, staves (or “walking sticks”) are a *humongous* blind spot- I’m looking at you, Renaissance Fairs.

              Still others don’t blink at stainless steel breakaway knives (think skinny looking box cutter blades, break to expose new 1/4″ blade).

              Some just escort you out, if it turns out your concealable, isn’t. I’m not one to advocate rule breaking… But forewarned is forearmed.

            2. I stopped carrying a pocket knife when I got a desk job. Due to being both larger than average, and a somewhat non-standard shape, my pants legs pull tight against my legs when sitting, and a pocket knife always wore a hole in my pocket long before any other part of the pants got worn.

                1. I was incredibly surprised one time when I was asked, in an incredulous manner, “Do you carry a knife all the time?” (I was shocked because I had never known anyone who didn’t). I explained that I would feel naked without one, and her eyes looked like she was worried I would use it on her.

                    1. Somebody might attack me in the shower. [Grin]

                      I believe there was a Western where one of the Bad Guys caught one of the Good Guys taking a bath.

                      The Bad Guy started mocking the Good Guy and the Good Guy shot him.

                      The Good Guy had a gun in the bath water (not sure if it would have worked in Real Life). [Grin]

                    3. I thought I knew the movie you refer to — but YouTube wouldn’t provide it for me. I was looking for it in My Name Is Nobody … sigh, I will be watching excellent Westerns for days to track this down. I don’t think it was in Maverick or The Sacketts although each had a memorable bath tub sequence. For some reason I am persuaded it is Terence Hill in the tub …

                      Of course, there is the opening, pre-credit sequence from Red Heat to make your point.

                3. This is why the utility of letter openers, made of high strength polymers or other suitable materials, such as bone or stone.

                  Maybe there is a marketing opportunity here: deluxe leather-bound editions of Larry Niven’s What Good Is A Glass Dagger? with the interior carved for transporting one. Use proper materials in the cover and the hollow interior might well not show up on a TSA scanner.

                  1. Choate still sells their executive letter opener, or the ice scraper if that’s more your style.

              2. Wayne, a little swatch of leather folded over the pocket can save your pants the holes in them. If you have the tiny little belt clip that some clasp knives have on them, it looks pretty much like a fancy pen from a distance.

                I got in the habit of doing that with my good pants when I had to wear them out doing whatever it was.

  34. One thing to keep in mind at all times; the LIRPs and SJWs carefully categorize things as “True A” and “Opposing A”. If you are put off by the Politically Gay, by Gay Pride Marches in extreme bondage gear, by public embracing of NAMBLA, then you are a Homophobe. Never mind that a lot of Gay men think the Politically Gay are shrill fools, that the extreme marchers are exhibitionist twits, and that NAMBLA is vile. If you don’t embrace Thug Life and Black Panthereism, you are a racist, and never mind that Martin Luther Kind Jr. would have been horrified by both (the only reason the Left hasn’t jettisoned MLK Jr. is that they can’t get away with it, and know it. Same reason they don’t ashcan JFK).

    So when a LIP of SJW calls you evil names, what they mean is that you don’t embrace the very narrow, very extreme version of what they claim you are against. And this can often be used to beat them rhetorically bloody.

    Lots of fun, too.

    1. You are correct if the insane fringe is not accepted as the core values of gayness then you are obviously not truegay and thus homophobic. It doesn’t matter that you might be gay as the day is long with a long time same sex partner you are homophobic for wanting to keep the fringe as the fringe.

  35. Um, what? Sarah, I’m not getting what you did from the File770 title. Hydrophobia is an old name for rabies; the title is a pun on the RPs. (What the idiots in the comments may make of things isn’t Mike’s doing.)

    1. I agree Mr. Glyer has no duty to police his commenters. But I would point out that many other blogs/commenters (especially at 770) have decried Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies for comments made on their blogs. Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

      1. Yeah, there’s plenty of hypocrisy there… but I’d rather know who the idiots are from their own mouths, than have them silenced and perhaps mistake them for friends.

        I know Mike a bit in Real Life, and he’s a fair guy — it’s in character for him to let everyone have their say. And he hasn’t cherrypicked what he links and quotes to make us look bad, either (which he could, easily enough).

        But I still think Sarah mistook his intent.

        1. I understand. I got into a shouting match at Brad’s site with someone by misreading his comment. Still feel like an idiot for it.

          I agree that it’s better to know who is saying what, I simply tire of the hypocrisy coming from the other side. If they didn’t continue to double-down on the hyperbole and rancor, this situation would have died down by now.

        2. ” it’s in character for him to let everyone have their say. And he hasn’t cherrypicked what he links and quotes to make us look bad, either (which he could, easily enough).”

          I don’t have a problem with him letting everyone have their say, but claiming he doesn’t cherrypick his quotes is an outright lie. Makes one wonder if you work for EW or something.

          He does give links, at least usually, to the articles, posts, etc., that he quotes from, I have given him credit for that before. But it is obvious by the way he cherrypicks and edits the quotes he uses, that he doesn’t expect most readers to click through those links and actually read the context he has pulled those quotes out of.

          1. Sort of how like more than a few MSM outlets edit headlines and maybe the first paragraph or two of an article to show a certain slant, yet reading several paragraphs down reveals a somewhat different situation?

            Almost as if someone knows many people just skim headlines and/or the first paragraph or two of an article or similar…

    2. The use of “hydrophobia” in regards to the Rabid Puppies is clever, but if they’re doing that and then also using that to refer to the Sad Puppies it’s just more dishonest conflation of the two groups.

      (disclaimer… I don’t know if they’re actually covering both SP and RP under a title referring to RP or not… I went over to that site a couple of times, and decided it’s not worth my time to read)

      1. I assumed it was referencing last year’s lackluster Hugo win:
        “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”

    3. I know what Hydrophobia is. I got the context from the original story of that title. Yes, it’s entirely possible I thought too much about it, but fact remains he didn’t link yesterday — the first time I mentioned Hugos and he didn’t. And btw, he is very good at hints and half truths to send his commenters where he wants them.

      1. Sarah, perhaps you weren’t featured that day because that particular post lacked any new or novel Hugo-related stuff in it? You reiterated a couple of old points, and then quoted other people. You can’t make the roundup every day.

        You should seriously consider whether the dots you’ve joined are even in the same book, let alone on the same page.

        1. Perhaps. Which is why he featured my last post on the Golden Age about to come from indie, which had cold, clear nothing to do with the Hugos and didn’t mention them? Thank you much. I should have remembered the injunction about wrestling pigs.

        2. “You can’t make the roundup every day”?

          Implying that Sarah wants to be the “center of attention”?

          When the “center of attention” means that Trolls come to Sarah’s places because of nonsense posted in File 770, I assure you that Sarah doesn’t want to be the “center of attention”.

          Sorry little Mark, Sarah’s a “Big Girl”.

          She doesn’t break down and cry when somebody says bad things about her.

          She gets pissed off when Trolls distort her words.

          From what I’m hearing, anything of hers that the owner of File 770 can “twist” into “Bad Think” gets posted there and the Trolls come here.

          Of course, from what I’m hearing there are plenty of potential Trolls who are regulars at File 770.

            2. In other words, I’m closer to the truth than you’re willing to admit.

              1. Paul, that’s the second post to me in which you’ve put things “in other words”, i.e. things I haven’t actually said. I won’t be replying to the third.

      2. Hi Sarah, I read/comment at File770. I don’t think Mike was implying you were homophobic. At least I didn’t read it that way.. I’m not sure why he missed your post yesterday. It might be because you didn’t actually use the word Hugo, but that is just guess.

        I thought he was doing a good job of grabbing most pieces from all perspectives, if there are some thoughtful essays from the SPs that he has neglected I’d be interested to read them.

        1. I am sure. They linked my post on Human Wave which didn’t mention the Hugo, but not my pointing out that it had nothing to do with it. They didn’t mention my post yesterday. He cherry picks.

    4. Speaking as the “contributing editor of the day” who came up with that title, yeah, I was referring to the Rabid Puppies, not accusing anyone at all of homophobia. If Mike was pairing my headline with your article in a subtle attempt to accuse you of homophobia, then that reference was so subtle even I missed it.

      Other puns in his series of Puppy-news roundups include “If You Were a Puppy, My Love”, “The Three-Puppy Problem”, “Puppy Hunter Nemesis”, “The Ballad of Lost C’Nine”, “To Sail Beyond the Doghouse”, “The Collar Out of Space”, and “The Cold Nose Equations”. A complete list can be found here.

      1. It might occur to you though that the cherrypicking gets on our nerves. You might or might not be aware of what you’re doing but you’re cherrypicking.
        When I called for a new golden age in sf — which referred to my belief indie is the best thing to happen to writing and my concept of hte human wave — it got linked as part of the Hugo fight, because it supports the idea that “they want to go back to pulp” (Which I damn well don’t, nor does anyone else. I came in way after pulp and others are younger than I.) I got commenters from file 770 calling me names, and saying I was stupid for wanting “pulp” (Not approved. I don’t approve ad hom.) HOWEVER when I clarified that, crickets, even though I mentioned the Hugos.
        In this way you’ve built an image of me so that when Passive Voice linked me on a writing post, all the commenters came on to accuse me of being fascist (!) and other nonsense.
        If you don’t think that’s pernicious, you need to look again. As for associate editor, I note when we mention “People at file 770” you assure us it’s JUST Mike Glyer.
        That’s it, I’m done. There’s no profit in engaging con artists.

        1. Look, if it’s so that Glyer has cherrypicked to make SPs look bad — consider that the File770 excerpts from the ASPs have thereby built pictures of complete raving loons (cuz those ASP excerpts sure as hell do a lot more ranting and namecalling, which looks even less good in an excerpt where there’s nothing else to cushion it). If the object was to make the SPs look terrible and the ASPs look good, don’t you think he’d avoid showing ASPs in such a bad light?

          1. Actually the other side seems not to mind crazy rants. Look at Irene Gallo, exhibit A.
            I know the commenters he attracts, and I know what makes for blog following. I also do him the courtesy to think he KNOWS he’s not neutral and is being sly. It is possible of course he’s Gallo-dumb, but I don’t think so.

          2. I don’t read File770 – does he have a bunch of ASPs coming in and complaining about how he’s making them look? If so, then maybe you have a point. If not, maybe they don’t consider it as making them look bad.

        1. They lack the intelligence to think of anything else to talk about.

      3. It’s not tripping over the foot in the aisle (as you’re walking past with your nose buried in a book ala Belle in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”) once, or even twice, it’s developing a second sense to dodge the feet just poking out.

        It’s not hearing whispers and giggles when you answer the teacher in class, once, it’s hearing it all year long.

        It’s not the shoulder hit as they walk through the girl’s locker room, that one time, it’s every time you’re alone and no teachers are watching.

        Yes. Any one of those offenses, is an “honest mistake.” I wasn’t watching where I put my feet.; We were just talking about something funny and completely unrelated, really; I didn’t see you there, SORRY, After dozens, or more. Pfui.

        I’ve been down the passive-aggressive bully road with bells on.

        Nice try.

        I’m not having any, and it appears Ms. Holt isn’t either.

    1. Still impaired, and they don’t have a verdict, yet. OTOH I stopped taking the steroid because finished the prescription, and the auto-immune stuff is returning. ARGH.

        1. I second this, and will also point out that you don’t actually get superpowers from exposing yourself to toxins, no matter what the internet says!

  37. “Paul Weimer Republic ‏@PrinceJvstin Jun 16 I pray that Theodore Beale is not in Rome, and not in my presence, in November. I’d hate to wind up in an Italian Jail.”

    You know, I don’t like Vox much either, but threatening in a public forum to assault him? Not cool.

    I’ll leave it to your imaginations how the other side would react if one of us issued a threat like that.

    1. I think that’s funny. If he attacked Beale, he might wind up in jail after he gets out of the hospital.

      SJB’s almost always lie. I’m willing to bet that if he and Beale wound up in the same place, Weimer would try and sneak out without being noticed.

      1. Issuing threats, or statements that could be read as threats, on the internet is a cheap shot. You aren’t face to face and there are no consequences.

        1. When I observe someone in the throes of ITGS (internet tough guy syndrome) I feel pity and scorn in equal measure.

  38. Has anyone started a list or a group somewhere for indie writers who support the Sad Puppies? That would be pretty cool, maybe as a listopia list or a Goodreads group—basically, a place where readers on this side of the fandom can find SF&F indie writers who aren’t and don’t aspire to be a part of the truefen establishment.

      1. No, I mean something that we put together, as in “if you support the Sad Puppies, here are some indy writers you ought to try.” Or something along those lines. Readers could suggest books, or indies could add their own books to it, both as a way to show solidarity and to bring more attention to their books.

    1. [the Voices wave a flash card of a woman wearing a gas mask]

      I guess if the military surplus stores are out of stock, one could be found in a fetish gear catalog…

        1. Sportsmans Guide has a special on them right now. No, I have no idea why I got that email, or how many people are going to take advantage of a discount on surplus gas masks.

        1. Sarah – I’m not familiar with where you’d get the various types of filters for mil-type gas masks, or whether the military even made filters for the specific stuff you need to block out.

          My wife’s fairly sensitive – to the point of allergic – to a lot of volatiles (fragrances, outgassing from building materials & tires, etc.); when she needs to work in an environment with such, she wears a dual-cartridge half-face respirator with cartridges (they screw on) selected for organic vapors, etc. The cartridges are color-coded with purple stripes, so we laugh about her “purple bug-face” – but it helps.

          They also make full-face respirators if you think you’re being attacked through your eyes, but they’re a lot more expensive.

          Examples at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=respirator, or check with your local industrial safety equipment supplier.

  41. Hi,
    Wandering over from 770. Hello. I’ve read your post several times now and I still don’t ubderstand it. Obviously you seem to feel insulted by Mike Glyer using an excerpt of your post in a round up of puppy related news. However, there really really doesn’t seem to be any claim there that you are homophobic.
    I get that tempers are a bit frayed at the moment but people can still have polite disagreements. I’ve had some pleasant discussions with Dave Freer for example – we agreed to differ but we kept it all civil.

      1. Well, I can sort of see how you might prefer that he linked one thing rather than another but in your message above you seem a lot more upset than that and appeared to be saying that Mike Glyer was saying some very strong accusations against you.
        Additionally he quoted quite a large section of what you wrote and provided a link. Essentially he promoted your blog. Of the various things said and done by various parties in this whole kerfuffle, this seems to be one of the most minor. Blogger picks some posts to highlight and not others? Really?

        1. “…I can sort of see how … upset … that … very strong accusations … you wrote … Essentially… [caused] …this whole kerfuffle…”

          Does that help?

          1. Well not really 🙂 I don’t think Sarah’s recent comments somehow caused the original Puppy Kerfuffle – or if you are saying selective editing has, well Mike Glyer posted substantial intact chunks of Sarah’s message (amongst many people’s). It is about as unselective and edit as it can get without quoting the whole post verbatim. Even then at no point did he make the accusation Sarah seems to be claiming he made.
            I don’t know – I just find it odd rather than offensive.

  42. I haven’t had enough time to engage but thought of some pretty funny ways to mess with the File 770 commenters. Several keep claiming that Brad really is a racist, Neo-Nazi and his wife is a “token”. Someone needs to roll in and start calling them racist for even noticing that Brad’s wife is black. Then apply the same standards back to them.
    “Prove you aren’t racist”!

    “That is exactly what a racist would do to not look racist”!

    “You hang out with minorities? Sounds like a bunch of tokens!”

    ” You fight against racists? Kind of like Requires Hate did? What are you trying to hide?”.

    It could go on and on forever and maybe a few of the people over there might start to see that the BS invective people are throwing around is exactly that. They have setup a system where there is no defense for their accusations and call it fair and equal.

  43. It is easy for a heterosexual white guy to annoy the rabid seagulls. Simply add a tagline to all your posts like this:
    I am a racist (because I am Caucasian) sexist (because I am male) homophobe (because I am hetero). Please feel free to screech, rant, and take whatever I say out of context. Have a nice day!

  44. Hi Sarah. I am looking forward to reading ‘Ill Met By Moonlight.’ I haven’t bought it yet.

    So, yeah, I’m here from File770, and I guess there’s two things:

    1) Do you get that Mike was not, in the post that set you off, implying anything about you at all? “The Hydrophobia That Falls on You Out of Nowhere” was a reference to “The Water That Falls on You Out of Nowhere” that won the Hugo and also a nod to Rabid Puppies. It might be appropriate and/or polite to do some strikethrough through the text on this post where you said he was calling you homophobic, or called him a liar, since he clearly wasn’t doing the first, and if ‘liar’ was just in reference to the first claim, then.

    2) Do you wish to not be included in the roundups anymore? I suspect he’d be willing to leave you out, if that’s what you want. I honestly can’t tell whether you want to be featured more, or featured less.

    Wishing you the best.

Comments are closed.