The Sky Is Falling – Amanda S. Green

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

The Sky is Falling – Amanda S. Green

At least that is the way it might seem if you were paying much attention to those very vocal few who have made it their life’s mission to denigrate anyone who might even remotely be associated with Sad Puppies 3. Oh how they have rallied these last few days to not only vilify Lou Antonelli but, even in the face of the one man who could reasonably be seen as having an issue with him accepting his apology, they continue to attack and demonize him. This has resulted in at least one contract being cancelled for Mr. Antonelli and even that is not enough to satisfy those who have taken to social media to attack him.

And, like with so much of what the Anti-Puppy crowd has done these last few months, they have taken Antonelli’s actions and blown them out of proportion. Specifically, Antonelli sent a letter to the Spokane Police Department expressing concerns not so much about what David Gerrold might personally do but what some of those who follow him on social media might do. Was it a wise move on Antonelli’s part? No. But, to be honest, with some of the vitriol I have seen from both sides of the fence the last few months, I can understand why he might have felt concerned.

As is the way of so many things in the day of the internet and public records requests, the letter and its contents became known. Having had time to calm down and think about what he had done, Antonelli issued an apology to David Gerrold and Gerrold accepted the apology. But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh no, not by a long shot.

Some of the more vocal of the Anti-Puppy crowd have fanned the fires. They keep referring to what Antonelli did as “swatting” Gerrold and Sasquan. It is another example of how they have found the best hot button word, one we all associate with bad behavior and danger to those involved. But, are they right? Did Antonelli “swat” Gerrold and Sasquan?

Not only no but hell no.

From Wikipedia, “Swatting is the act of tricking an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into dispatching an emergency response based on the false report of an ongoing critical incident.” It has happened when police have been called to someone’s home saying a robbery or kidnapping is in progress. It is often associated with gamers doing it to other gamers or fans, very disturbed and misguided fans, doing it to Hollywood stars.

But note one thing, it is the “false report of an ongoing critical incident.”

Ongoing.

Critical.

Incident.

Hmm. I don’t quite see how a letter qualifies, especially one expressing concern over potential actions for an event that is not taking place for weeks from the date of delivery.

The Business Insider gives this example of what SWATTING is:

Imagine you’re at home playing a video game, broadcasting your gameplay online for your followers to watch on the video-streaming site Twitch. Without warning, the door to your room is busted open and SWAT officers are screaming at you to put your hands up and get on the ground — all while thousands of people online get a front-row seat to the action thanks to your computer’s webcam.

And yet there are those who continue to claim that Antonelli’s letter and his subsequent comments on a podcast constituted SWATTING and Antonelli is the lowest of low.

From the podcast, here are the few sentences the group takes issue with:

“I personally wrote a letter addressed to the police chief in Spokane and said I thought the man was insane and a public danger and needs to be watched when the convention’s going on, and I mean it. I attached my business card. I said this guy’s inciting to violence. Somebody—a weak-minded might attack somebody because of his relentless strength of abuse. I think, honestly, I think he belongs in a secure psychiatric facility.”

Personal opinion? Yes.

Prudent and wise? Probably not.

Ongoing critical incident? Not a chance.

But let’s look at this from the other side of the coin. Irene Gallo called Puppies of the Sad and Rabid forms “extreme right wing and neo-nazi”. She also said they were “racist, misogynist and homophobic.” Others have suggested that Brad Torgersen be muzzled by his editor or have his contract dropped. But where is the outrage from those who are so worried about everyone being treated equally when the livelihoods of writers and artists are being threatened by such accusations?

Oh, wait, we don’t matter. They don’t care that such accusations could cause someone with a security clearance to lose that clearance and, thereby, their job. They don’t give a rat’s ass about calling on editors to muzzle their writers for expressing a personal opinion that the other side doesn’t approve of. But let us call out Irene Gallo or anyone else for what they say and we become the big bad enemy.

And this is all over an award that most of the reading public doesn’t even know exists.

There really are times when I feel like I am standing along the edge of the playground watching a bunch of three year olds – my son was much better behaved at that age – pitching a fit because they can’t have their way. Worse, it makes all of us look bad to those who wander past our social media posts and see this sort of BS.

I refuse to apologize for supporting Sad Puppies 3. I was honored to be included on the recommended list of authors, bloggers, artists and more Brad put together. I will never apologize for believing story and character development are more important than message in fiction. The vast majority of readers want to be entertained when they pick up a book, not preached at. That doesn’t mean a book can’t have a message. It just means there has to be more than just a message to it.

Then again, unlike the other side, I had no problem reading everything that was on the Hugo ballot – and yes, I lost a lot of sleep making sure I did just that – and then voting for what I thought was the best. I did not stomp my foot and grit my teeth and put “No Award” above any nominee just because it was by an author I might not agree with politically or because they were off of the Rabid Puppy or someone else’s recommended list. I didn’t even vote “No Award” above something with a message just because it had a message.

But then, I also recognize that Antonelli’s comments and his letter weren’t the most prudent thing he’s ever done but they also do not deserve the vilification he has received as a result.

So here’s the deal, folks. I don’t care what side of the issue you’re on. Grow the f*ck up. Antonelli apologized. Gerrold accepted it. They were the parties involved. No one else has a dog in this show.

I’m not holding my breath. I’ve seen too much of the other side to think they will act like the responsible adults they claim to be. They smell blood in the water right now because Antonelli apologized. They view that as weakness and they will do everything they can to exploit it. After all, now it is SWATTING to send what used to be viewed as a crank letter. At least in their eyes and as long as the letter concerns them. But how many “concerned” communications have their side sent to Sasquan’s concom, how many “concerned” conversations have been had that say basically the same thing as Antonelli’s letter? Even if they haven’t sent such “concerns” to Sasquan, you can find similar on their Facebook or Twitter feeds, in their FB comments and on their blogs.

Yes, my friends, the double standard is alive and well and living in the science fiction and fantasy world.

372 thoughts on “The Sky Is Falling – Amanda S. Green”

  1. As long as they are ‘rewarded’ for the behavior it will continue. Some crave attention, others want to know that they are better than other people, the worst believe the ends justifies the means. Unfortunately, in this case the ends means everyone thinking just like they do.

    I’m pretty sure one of the worst places in Hell is the library where damned souls are required to constantly be reading a book. Only novels by Ursula K. Le Guin are in the library.

    1. Ursula K. Le Guin actually has some good ideas. The problem is that she sucks at showing characterization. Her characters do not seem “alive,” their actions are logical according to their cultures and personalities as told, but they come off as flat the way they are shown.

    2. Government ag regulations and books of story problems. And crossword puzzles that don’t match the number of squares. THAT’s what’s in Old Scratch’s library.

      1. Ah yes. This makes me think of great late Terry Pratchett’s Demon who took over hell and instituted a novel torture he observed among humans — a bureaucracy — including such things as the necessity of reading all 300+ pages of work safety regulations on rock rolling each day to Sisyphus before he would be allowed to start.

        1. There was a bit in the Supernatural series where, after the demon Crowley took over Hell, he instituted some changes. He reasoned that most people who end up in Hell were masochists so the constant torture wasn’t working all that well so he…

          …had them all wait in line.

          1. James Branch Cabell had his eponymous hero Jurgen journey to the “Hell of our Fathers” where the devils were be tormented by being forced to torture vain human souls who demanded torture commensurate with their sins. That those sins were actually rather trivial and petty was not as obvious to the humans as to the devils, so they constantly called for greater punishment, driving the poor devils to exhaustion.

            Their true sin, of course, was vanity.

            Gaiman based his presentation of Lucifer in the Sandman series on Cabell’s invention.

              2. Eh, those stories in my experience invariably turn on making the demons jokes. Compare L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Prospero’s Daughter where the last book does indeed go to Hell.

          2. Ah yes, waiting in line. All depends on attitude, whether that’s hell or not. Last World’s Fair we went to, we chose to decide that the purpose of the Fair was to converse with interesting people while waiting in line, with short breaks to view national exhibits when it was necessary to change to a different line. Made quite a difference…

    3. Case in point. I’ve never seen her depict love believably in any of her stories. Characters will be stated as falling in love, having sex, getting married, etc. but they will never actually express love to one another, whether in high-flown romantic dialogue or little acts of kindness and caring. It’s to the point that I wonder whether the problem is that she’s such a private person herself that she can’t bring herself to let her characters display the emotion, or whether she really is that cold.

      1. Read Lathe of Heaven. George’s love for Heather is entirely persuasive.

        Of course, when the discussion turns to Le Guin, Lathe of Heaven is almost never a title that is mentioned. Her other works are more famous, it seems.

        1. Her recent essay on her reaction to Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman is very interesting and human too, re: her emotions and her relationship with loved ones.

          I have to say that I hadn’t even known she ever married, much less married into a family of Southerners. Maybe I had read about that somewhere before, but I sure as heck hadn’t internalized it.

        2. The title is familiar, but I don’t remember anything about it (undoubtedly my memory protecting me from tedium). She had a series ‘wizard of earthsea’ that was tolerable, but the characters were still pretty wooden.

          1. Lathe of Heaven is a stand-alone book, twice made into a film: one surprisingly excellent one made by public television (Really? Public television makes science fiction films?) and one awful one made by A&E. The premise is that George Orr has a terrible power: his dreams retroactively rewrite history. This is terrible because dreams aren’t rational, and the rewrites can be horrific. He goes to Dr. Haber in an attempt to rid himself of dreams, but Dr. Haber instead tries to use the dreams to “improve” the world. The results are not what he intended…

            The book is excellent. The PBS adaptation is extremely faithful, given the limits of a PBS budget.

            1. Actually, it was the PBS “Lathe” that got me to read LeGuin in the first place, as I didn’t fully understand the adaption and wanted to better appreciate it.

              Alas, after “Lathe” it was kind of downhill for me.

            3. Ah yes, thank you for the synopsis. I could never suspend my disbelief that the guy would be stupid enough to trust the doctor. While she did an OK job with the unintended consequences of the dreams, she never convinced me that the conversations between the patient and doctor were real.

      1. no way in h, e, double hockey sticks, would I c4c a post like this. a mailbox would develop it’s own gravity with the number this is going to grow to.
        My tower is denting the floor just from the RSS Feed!

    5. Only novels by Ursula K. Le Guin are in the library.

      The complete annotated “If You Were a ________, My Love” series, with forward by Irene Gallo..

            2. “Do one thing for me.”

              Sredni Vashtar went forth,
              His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
              His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
              Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

              Have some toast.

        2. I believe you’ve got Schroedinger’s cat in that box. Why don’t you open it so we can see if he’s alive or dead?

              2. Ummmmmm…yeah, we’re really not in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, so…it might be wiser to just leave Faith in the glass case marked, “In case of zombie apocalypse, break glass. (and stand back)”

      3. You check the box. I’m still sorting through the chest.

        And who thought the best place for the dragon treats was in the bottom of said chest?

            1. Boy, ain’t that the truth! Did I ever tell you about the time I suggested making a pot of dragon tail soup?

              1. How odd. last time we chatted, Fluffy mentioned plans to go out that evening in search of some dragon tail.

                Maybe I misunderstood.

                  1. Diana Gallagher Wu wrote a filk on it.

                    Chorus:
                    “Why smilest thou, Lord Dragon, Sir?”
                    Asked our Hero in armor laden.
                    “Why, you’d smile too”, the Wyrm replied,
                    “If you’d just eaten a maiden!”

                    I need to go through my collection and dig out the title.

  3. Let that be a lesson. No matter what you have done, NEVER apologize to a leftist. In fact, do what Trump is doing, demand an apology from them. Never give in no matter how trivial.

    1. Good point. Creative writers ought to be able to come up with a rationale for their apology, one that hits all the right (left?) notes.

    1. You and me both. It’s as if someone turned the toddlers loose and the Middle Schoolers are egging them on. Or vice versa.

    2. Yep, We had only a short 8 year period from 2001-2009 when adults were in charge. from 1993-2001 and 2009 to now the teeners and 3 year olds have been in charge.

      1. 2006. That’s the year the Democrats got Congress. Of course, the grownups NEVER had a filibster proof majority.

        2. I am not prepared to stipulate that the Republicans are grown-ups just because they are more grown up than the Democrats. The gap between the Leftists and being a grown-up permits many levels in between.

      2. Read some American history, it might help you feel better about it. Overall grown-ups were in charge. Mind you sometimes the grown-ups in charge had some ideas we now would find abhorrent, but they were grown-ups/

    3. Did they ever? Or are we just wearing rose colored history reading glasses?

      Okay, yes, I’ve been accused of being cynical by my nearest and dearest. I keep telling them that pessimists get more pleasant surprises.

      1. Early days of the Republic; before the Democratic Party formed, when they were very few stoners.

  8. I commend Lou for alerting the police to potential domestic terrorists. To piggyback on Joe’s comment, never apologize to the SJW fascists.

  9. Much like with just about anything from that crowd, there’s a good bit of projection going on. It wasn’t anti-SJWs, f’rex, that used a bomb threat to try to shut down a social meeting in Washington, DC a few months ago after attempting to get the owner of the meeting place to deny them access.

    Really, these guys should be working in movie theaters, because they’re experts at projection.

    1. Yeah, after what happened there, I can at least understand Antonelli’s concern. I’m not entirely convinced we’ll get through the Hugos this year without somebody doing something really stupid.

      1. Someone will do something stupid, the question will be how obvious that stupid will be. The Con crew at least has a vested interest in keeping the crazy out of the sight of the public, at least if the Sasquan con crew is anything like the crew at the convention I’ve been volunteering for.

          1. For the moment that shouldn’t be a problem given that I was dragged into volunteering by three friends all of whom are director level. Those three go away and I may have issues.

              1. I don’t have time to do panels. I am Chief Servant to the Director of Schedules and All Things that Must Occur. My job is to make sure that she’s got a second set of eyes (so schedules like Sarah’s at liberty con don’t happen) and make sure there are people posted at doors to check badges and take attendance and that missing panelists are located, replaced, or explained depending on the circumstances.

                I take the warning to heart, but it’s not a liklihood in the near future unless the character of the convention changes dramatically.

                2. Are you with the volunteer comm? Because I signed up to help out (and as a youth services librarian on her 4th year as a con-runner, I’ve got mad skillz + state and county vetting viz criminal background checks but I’ve heard nadda.

                  And frankly, if you all at Sasquan are that overflowing with volunteers, I am green-eyed with jealousy.

                  1. They may just be disorganized (surprise, surprise). They only accepted my application a couple of weeks ago.

                    If you’re still interested, I could use your help, if you’re willing. I am the official Procession Leader, leading various themed walks through the park. One of the themes is kids, and I could use help making sure that one is safe and fun.

                    2. They just changed plans within the last couple of hours. They’ll now do kid costumes as part of the First Night parade, where kids will (presumably) be under the supervision of parents or guardians. So I won’t find myself responsible for a random bunch of kids, which was my big concern. But thanks!

          1. I volunteer at an entirely different convention. I was using it as a comparison. As long as I stay out the Raibu I should be good. And the Raibu is not my problem. 😉

  10. Actually, warning the police about potential unrest is almost the opposite of swatting. (The exact opposite of swatting is when one warns the police that they need to investigate any reports of crazy behavior at the residence of a certain person, but also to be skeptical about them possibly being faked by swatters.)

    Free idea for a thriller story: what if a real homicidal maniac faked a bunch of swatting incidents, and then actually went and attacked at the swatted person’s house? Sort of a cry wolf effect.

    1. Or faked the SWATting and went to the other house WHILE first responders are busy.

      Note to anyone who may say “Don’t give them ideas”: I’m sure that this is not a new idea to anyone who would contemplate such a thing in the first place.

      1. for a while, the N.O. police had only two squad cars in the uptown area running from the Lake to the River during late night hours.
        Some crooks figured this out and one person would, at a set time, set off an alarm on the lakefront, and 10 minutes later a team would hit a store down on the river, and empty it out in a short time.

    2. SWATters usually describe the crime as being committed by an inhabitant of the house. To maximize the risk.

  11. Pingback: Nocturnal Lives » Blogging elsewhere today

  12. With the ongoing misuse of “fascism” and now “swatting”, I have to conclude that words don’t really mean anything anymore to the Puppy-kickers.

    2. Clearly you are using an outdated version of the 1984 Newspeak Dictionary. The standards for outlandish conduct are much more narrow for Sad Puppies than Puppy-Kickers.

  13. I got into a tangle on this topic on a face book group recently. It wound up explaining why Ancillary Sword frustrated me and couldn’t understand why I thought Leckie’s world was entirely peopled by cardboard cut outs. He insisted it was because I hadn’t read the first book so didn’t ‘get’ the character’s back story. Author does their job right and I shouldn’t NEED the back story to not have card board cut out characters. One of the members kept it polite. They still couldn’t say why they thought it was ‘good’. But they kept claiming the MC was ‘deep’ and couldn’t say why.

    1. They think it’s deep because they’ve never read Left Hand of Darkness, Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, Vernor Vinge, David Brin, Ian Banks, or any of the other examples of sfnal pronoun use. Whereas we know it’s not only been done, but it’s been done zillions of times.

      Let’s face it. You could probably blatantly rip off Wonder Woman and Paradise Island, and most of these schmoes would think you were being original if you had the right politics and background story. (And if you didn’t make Wonder Woman an immigrant in love with America.)

      3. I had the same thoughts on the whole end binary gender essay. Had these people ever read Left Hand of Darkness (ironically a Hugo winner) or anything by Jack Chalker. Given changing or re-arranging gender as well as odd forms of hermaphrodism (totally a word) are on the checklist of “things that must happen in a Chalker novel” I didn’t get what she was on about.

        Until I remembered something Rush Limbaugh loves to say, “for most people history starts the day they were born.” More accurately I’d say around the time most people turn tenish. Most of Jack’s classic work is prior to 1985 and LeGuin wrote Darkness in the dark ages of 1969 so for these poor darlings it never happened as most weren’t born and many who were born were under 10.

        1. Given Chalker’s presentation of bimbodom for some of his re-gendered characters I doubt the SJWs could read any of those novels.

          1. Point but what about the genetically engineered populations controlled by the Space Commies in Midnight at the Well of Souls. Hermaphrodites functional as both sexes but only fertile when they are both the pitching and catching partner simultaneously (which had my 17 year old self very actively trying to imagine the position).

            That should be right down the SJW ally with all kinds of stuff about having to submit to be sexual instead of patriarchally taking from women and other fru-fru.

            1. Been so long since I read that I can’t recall — but the operative rule for the SJWs is strict obedience all the way. One step out of line, such as in the Flux & Anchor books and it’s over the side with you.

              1. Oh, Ring of the Lords has some of the bimboing too including the Patriarchy forcibly reprogramming (both genetically and mentally) women to be brood mares as a criminal punishment.

                Given the lead character who suffered that fate before they all escaped prison had previously mentally and partially physically reprogrammed herself to be male to get around Patriarchal restrictions in the forced 10th century Chinese culture I’m surprised she never become an SJW and feminist icon given her role in eventually overthrowing the Patriarchy in those books (which was no such thing but could be easily read that way).

                I may have to reread those now. Jack was a blast in my late teens/early 20s. Wonder how he held up.

            1. Might it be around the time of year Foxfier visits with family and is out of tech-range for a while?

              (Although she usually lets us know, but I am here so irregularly of late I could have missed it.)

          3. I don’t remember seeing Tom Knighton recently. I’m probably just not paying attention.

            4. Only I’ve commented in this very thread. 😛

              I had some email issues which made following stuff here rather difficult. Plus a new job, which isn’t THAT big of a challenge thrown up, but enough of one that it’s taking me a bit to get back in the swing of things.

              But it’s good to be missed. 😀

          4. I didn’t realize I’d become enough of a regular to be missed.

            I’m around but between vacation, work changes, and a minor crisis (car decided its time had come in Baton Rouge on my wife while she was driving home to Atlanta from Texas) I haven’t been chatty.

              1. At about 6pm Sunday night we decided to head over on monday instead of wednesday so my dad could spend a little time with the Empress.

          7. I’ve actually been playing Pokemon with the local strains of the flu for the past few months and catching them all, ONE AFTER THE OTHER. I got sick shortly before Rhys had to go out field for a month, was briefly NOT SICK for a week after he came back late July…and I have been sick since the day we went out to the doctor’s office to have a ‘script renewed. It’s pretty annoying flu too; low grade fevers, but oh, my joints and muscles aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaache. So I’ve been asleep a lot. In fact, despite a massive mug of coffee and a normal sized mug of coffee, I will go back to the bedroom and sleep again.

            It’s bad enough this season that my daughter actually has a cold (sniffly nose only, she has the constitution of a draft horse that girl), the eldest son has cold and cough, and Aff says he now has ‘ebola’ (his catchall term for being sick) and that his nose only recently stopped running like a Kenyan at the Olympics.

            I poke my head on twitter now and then to let folks know I’m alive not dead just sleeping, because I’m not very coherent lately, and twitter don’t need coherence-stuff.

            *big e-hugs to all around*

            1. Playing Pokemon with the flu? You know what is the best medicine, right?

              Yeah, that was cut just before the T.A.R.D.I.S. arrived.

              1. I currently sound like Raistlin Majere on one of his bad days. ~_~ Aff tried the Carolina Reaper Oil option – he doused spicy indian curry with some of the Carolina Reapers and Ghost Chillies we have soaking in that bottle of olive oil, ate the lot, and he’s still trying to evict his lungs. This flu’s pretty darned resilient.

                1. Not that it’s likely, but is Australia looking out for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome?

                  I know it’s confirmed in Korea, but I also know my husband has been worried about it since well before the CDC says the “first known case” came about. (It was something poetic and unhelpful like “desert cough”– kind of like how “plague” does jack to tell you anything about WHAT it was.)

          1. As did many of us. A lot of the people with these complaints don’t see very inquisitive. See, for example, their swallowing whole “women have never won Hugos” instead of looking it up and seeing the a fore mentioned Left Hand of Darkness. I think that also manifests itself in not reading things that are older.

            1. In fairness to them, Ursula is commonly used as a man’s name.

              I need to find these people’s e-addresses — I’ve a friend who is a former vice-president of a Nigerian bank who can sell them discount Canadian pharmaceuticals to enlarge some of their more entertaining body parts and encourage regrowing of hair on their pates while eliminating it from other areas of the body as they meet like-minded (sorta) singles.

    2. I just plowed through all of Harry Potter. This time, having been primed, I noticed more of Bill Weasley in the earlier books, which helped when I hit Half-Blood Prince and he’s a major bone of contention and a non-entity who not only doesn’t influence the conflict between his family and Fleur over him, but doesn’t seem vivid enough to explain how he managed to rouse such passionate conflict.

      I still thought it was a flaw that he wasn’t delineated better in the book. (Not to mention that the earlier hints were — not sufficient, even treating the series as a single work.)

      Hmmm. . . . thinking deep philosophical thoughts to what extent an author can demand we treat a series as a unit, just as he can rightfully demand that we judge a book as a whole, not chapter by chapter.

      1. I am not sure an author can demand a damned thing. Ask, beg, plea, sure. But readers (or even non-readers) can judge a work by any standard they bloody well please.

        Of course, how seriously others should take those judgments is a separate issue, as connoisseurs of Amazon reviews well grasp.

        1. Why, yes. A SJW can judge a work by the competence and dominance of the female characters and the incompetence of the men. (Unless they manage to tell us that the weak men only serve to underscore the hegemonic dominance of masculinity.)

      2. I wasn’t setting the bar even that high. With Ancillary Sword, it would be as if she’d put no sign of personality into Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Chamber of Secrets.

        In Leckie’s case, not having read Ancillary Justice, I don’t know if there’s any more characterization in that book than in Sword. Just that this guy was claiming there was and that there was DEPTH, I tell you. The Character Has Death.

        1. Depth: That thing people claim when the book or movie they just read sucks, but they are so convinced it should be great that they need a way to justify it.

    3. Some people fail to recognize that “deep” is a relative term — the kiddie pool is “deep” to a toddler. It may be not the character is deep but the readers are shallow.

        1. No, it’s just like Mandarin or Persian. No grammatical gender.

          John C. Wright observes that his daughter will use “he” and “her” as third person pronouns because having being adopted from China at the age of thirteen, she doesn’t get grammatical gender.

          He also notes that contrary to the PC claims, this has made neither China nor Iran a gender-neutral paradise.

          1. No, it’s just like Mandarin or Persian. No grammatical gender.

            That’s fine and all, but even if you don’t have grammatical gender, you still have societal and linguistic differentiation between male and female.

            Unless you’re Leckie, I suppose, whose protagonists’ empire is explicitly stated to not differentiate between differently genitalia’d persons. Because Reasons. Or maybe Barbarians, I guess.

            Quite frankly, it would have been more interesting if she’d just decided “Everybody’s female! They reproduce by gene splicing/budding/psychic replication/whathaveyou!”

            1. Perhaps they do it by really, really, Realllly wanting to. That way nobody is forced to have a baby unless they really, really, Realllly want one.

              1. And in very few generations, everyone does want that, being descnded from only those women.

        2. Yep, who’d take out the garbage with no men around? [Very Big Evil Grin While Flying Away Very Very Fast]

                1. I use Chrome Windows (I think this is 7?) to read the WP mail and often as not a video freezes my system for five minutes and then tells me no-can-doo. Sometimes it will at least give me a link describing what it cannot do.

                  So, you’ve my sympathy and condolences. Those and a buck seventy-five (plus tax, plus shipping & handling) will get you a small Starbucks.

          2. I was thinking of firemen, infantry grunts, construction workers etc. Also last but not least, siring children. As of 2015, there is no way to have kids without a sperm fertilizing an egg. Life requires both men and women. Without both society is crippled.

            1. Remember, we are dealing with folk what think this …

              … constitutes an overwhelming argument.

              Besides, if there were no men there would be no need for infantry grunts because war is a tool of the Patriarchy, used to justify the suppression and enslavement of womyn and violence is always the fault of men (either directly or because their obtuseness drive womyn to it.

              BTW: via Instapundit:

              MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Mean Girls: Why the Only People Women Should Fear Online Are Other Women. “Women are alarmingly quick to grab for the proverbial weave, and just like a real-world catfight, dirty tactics are the norm – as is foul, sexualised and degrading language. Research from the Demos think tank has found that women are just as likely, if not more so, to use words like ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ as terms of abuse directed at women. Yet the media continues to present these stories as male-on-female cruelty, when the situation is, to say the least, more complicated than that. Why pass up on the chance to play another round of pin the tail on the patriarchy? . . . As usual, the truth resists political correctness. Women are more likely to be internet harassers than men. And they have been calling each other all manner of horrible things for millennia. They’ve even come up with a name for it: ‘trashing.’ It’s often a way for high-status women to bully and ridicule poorer or less attractive girls; as ever, it’s all about social status and attracting the best quality husband.” pjmedia[DOT]com/instapundit/212269/

              Link to original (and slightly longer excerpt) embedded at Prof. Reynolds’ domain.

              1. So some 4,390 species go extinct every year?

                Wow! that would be far more than all the mammals and birds that have been identified in all of North America.

                1. No, it said dozens, not dozen. Which would mean that according to their number even more die off…

                  1. Mostly rainforest frogs and bugs that speciate at the drop of a hat. There are adjacent trees in Brazil that have entirely different species on them.

                    1. Shhhhhhh! Don’t tell the fuzzy brained greens of the protection-of any-living-thing-that-is-not-human persuasion that — we’ll never be able to cut down a tree again … anywhere … just to be safe.

        3. Actually, Bujold’s “Ethan of Athos” describes a fictional society with no WOMEN, part of the men homosexuals, another part celibate.
          /Bujold being Bujold, it’s actually a good read

      3. Hell, I have even read that defense of the book in FINNISH forums. Goddamn guys, OUR OWN LANGUAGE, THE ONE MOST OF YOU HAVE BEEN USING YOUR WHOLE DAMN LIVES, only has one genderless pronoun for third person singular. “Deep”. Sheesh.

        (Sorry about the yelling).

        1. BTW, does anyone remember a short story which was written way back in prehistory carefully so that you couldn’t tell the sex of the astronauts, leaving on, I think, possibly the first ship to the stars (or something else first and very long distance/long time voyage), so that the last sentence about the captain starting the engines up or something similar and finally revealing her as her, and that either everybody else or at least most of the crew were also women, could work as the big reveal?

          1. Yeah, I remember that. All the astronauts had (for writers then) gender-neutral first names, like Leslie. So reading a few decades later, I started out thinking they were women, and then they were! 🙂

            I think it was from the 1950’s or early 1960’s.

            1. Heh. That is one where I remember some of the details, but I am damn sure I have read at least a few others with similar gimmicks (gender neutrality, can’t tell the sex of a character, gender fluidity etc) besides the more famous ones like Left Hand of Darkness and so on, and several from earlier years than the 1980’s or so. Might be nice to have a list, for reference, I have a hard time remembering names for starters and answering with the “old gimmick” argument is not all that convincing when it’s just “I think I have read…” but no names of stories, and while I usually don’t bother sometimes it might be nice with these ooh shiny comments about something like that Ancillary series on forums because they really do seem to have the tendency to either assume or pretend it’s something new.

              1. Didn’t that have one character named Pat who turns out to have worked way through a post-doctorate by waiting tables at an upscale trendy men’s club? I am sure I remember a story about Pat, the Bunny, but cannot recall detail.

            2. Reading the history of WWII, I kept noting how many US and British generals were named “Evelyn.”

          2. I seem to recall a story about Mighty Maxon (sp??). Crew of 30, going to Mars, maybe. Tells story of trip, nothing special. Tellee asks “So why’s he called Mighty Maxon?” All the other crew were women, and all were pregnant on arrival. Or during the trip.

          3. “Survival Ship” by Judith Merril. I believe the phrase you were thinking of was “The 30 and Four”. The last sentence if memory serves me correctly, “Alright, bring in the four men”.

            1. Never read that one, but I did read this one by some guy named Heinlein. He had a guy going through military training to fight bugs, getting promoted, doing awesome in combat, the sort of guy every man should root for… and then somewhere in the depths of the story, he revealed the guy was Puerto Rican.

              Which, by the time I was reading it, was like “Oh, okay.” Totally didn’t get how that was a major reveal and flaunting stereotypes at the time it was written.

              2. Actually, I believe Rico was Filipino, because the last paragraph of the book has him speaking in Tagalog, “my native language”. However, it’s confusing, because earlier he and his father meet and he finds out his mother had been killed in the Bug attack on Buenos Aires.

                  1. Filipinos do, so far as I know, travel from their native islands. IIRC, Ma Rico was killed while visiting B.A.

                  1. Exactly. Rico even made an observation that when BA was destroyed, it was just an incident to him, nothing personal; and only later did he learn just how personal it was, when he learned that his mother had been visiting his aunt there.

                3. Yep, you’re right. Me and my hispanic privilege, not paying attention to other cultures in books I haven’t read in fifteen years. (Or maybe longer. But then I’d have to start admitting my experience privilege, or whatever silly idiocy they’re using to hide the word “age” behind sixteen syllables.)

        2. (Unless we assume they are thinking “deep for those shallow Americans…” . Heh. Lots of people here still get their impression of USA solely from MSM, and it’s not flattering – take news from your own main stream media and then filter them through our usually presumably even more left leaning so called journalists)

          1. There was a guy here who had some hilarious stories about what German media said about America.

            ‘Hey Germans, if you really believe that, why aren’t you suiciding in despair?

            We aren’t underachievers like you are. (A thirty hour work week sounds hellishly short.)

            If we really had those tastes, there is no way we’d be satisfied killing so few. We’d do everyone, sharing the love for an extra special experience.’

  14. Another key element of swatting is the whole “hoaxing an emergency dispatcher” thing. Because it usually involves anonymity or even spoofing the caller id / ip address to make it look like the call is coming from a neighbor or even inside the target’s home. You definitely don’t do it in writing with a business card attached.

    1. Expecting the Proglodytes to be logical or even consistent seems akin to expecting a cat to follow the behavioural patterns of a dog. It ain’t gonna happen and you will just end up frustrating yourself and the cat.

      In their book anything they do is legitimate and because there is a superficial similarity to swatting (e.g., police have been contacted) the ontological leap is permissible.

      Because it is really only about what makes them feel good about themselves and hate at their opponents. That is the place where you will find logic and consistency.

  15. I thought one was supposed to notify police of threats, even online threats in this day and age? Or is one no longer supposed to notify the police … or … ?? Is the real “crime” here the fact that the guy _talked_ about having notified the police?

    And there _are_ levels of crime – there’s rapey creepiness, there’s rape, then there’s rape rape. So it makes perfect sense that reporting threats would be swatting, even if it’s not swatting swatting … /sarc

    1. Well, that was why the Berkeley fans never notified the police about Mr. Breen, much less asked questions about Marion Zimmer Bradley’s behavior. Mustn’t bring in the mundanes, no! They are mean and don’t understand!

      (And to be fair, police investigation of a minority community can be tiresome and difficult for everyone involved, including the police. But being bound by silence to criminals who are glad to prey upon you? That is stupid.)

    2. Heck, when he did it all my friends who are politically involved were saying given the contents of my email I SHOULD call the police and warn them. And I wasn’t even a nominee.

  16. How is writing a letter of concern the same as Swatting? The word Swatting derives from the term SWAT — because it involves a false report in order to get the government to send a Special Weapons and Tacts team on someone, usually someone who is presently broadcasting on-line, apparently for the purposes of embarrassment and for entertainment.

    Illiterate witchhunters…

    2. CACS, the whole point of SWATting is to send the SWAT team / local cops to your house primed for a dangerous confrontation with a short time to assess and respond for you and the cops

      The least they are expecting is that the police will kick down your door, slap you in handcuffs, and scare you to death, while leaving your neighbors to wonder who the terrorist / drug lord / criminal is next door and your co-workers to read about it on the police blotter in the media with or without pictures..

      What they at best don’t care about and at worst are hoping for is that the police will do any or all of the following: kick in the door, shoot your dog, trash your house while searching it, confiscate your guns / ammo, administer a beatdown to you and others in the house, arrest you on charges based on what they find, charge you with the crimes the SWATter alleged took place, misinterpret your reactions for something hostile and kill you, have you mistake the cops for home invaders and shoot one or more, have the resulting gunfire kill your family and neighbors with stray rounds.

      An actual SWATting should result in the hoaxer being charged with attempted negligent homicide at best.

      No one does a SWATting by mail,

      2. Wasn’t CACS’s point that the two are different and the conflation of them is demonstration of the Puppy-Punters’ ignorance / illiteracy / indifference to fact / all of the above?

        I think “attempted negligent homicide” must be an oxymoron; homicide by definition cannot be negligent. i suspect the crime you want to allege is manslaughter (I suppose we will soon have to learn a new, non-sexist word for that crime and it will undoubtedly be less congenial to the tongue.)

        1. I was responding to this: “apparently for the purposes of embarrassment and for entertainment.”

          Not hardly.

          1. Oh, I think that’s their motivation. Getting someone shot is just the cherry on their sundae of hate.

      3. Off topic question: has any crime writer yet used SWATting (the actual version) in a mystery novel? The victim gets shot by police, the hero detective realizes there is some bad guy doing that wholesale, and some innocents have died as a result, or something similar (like the victim survives, but it was a definite attempt to get him killed, the hero has to find the perpetrator before he does something else to try and kill the victim).

      4. To an SJW one word is as good as another. They group them loosely into categories and fling them like monkeys fling poo.

        It’s not about the definition, it’s about the “feel.”

        1. So you suggest that SJW use a Humpty Dumpty dictionary?

          “… There’s glory for you!”

          “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said.

          Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of ccourse you don’t — till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”

          “But ‘glory” doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’ ” Alice objected.

          “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

    3. Well, apparently a letter of concern is enough to break Worldcon’s harassment policy. I can only hope that the nominees who got the death threats, that Mary Robinette Kowal blogged about, come forward and name names.

  17. It’s interesting to see the contrast: Antonelli apologized, Puppies (mostly) behaved themselves. Gallo apologized, the anti-Puppies acted as if someone had kicked their, well, puppy.

      1. Well, it was a half-assed not-quite-an-apology, but they still reacted badly.

        1. Primary difference is that we accept that Lou may have gone a bit too far by naming Gerrold specifically, and thus an apology was warranted. Even if we agree that Gerrold hasn’t help with his rhetoric.

          The puppy kickers argue that Gallo wasn’t remotely wrong by calling us homophobes and Nazis, despite no one being able to back up that assertion.

          And they wonder why we don’t like them.

      1. I didn’t see how they reacted to Gerrold accepting the apology. I’ve been cutting back on how much time I spend gawking at the Puppy-kickers.

        2. I basically quit. Work, family, and trying to get some writing done come ahead of seeing my hypotheses about Stalinist Jacobin Wannabes confirmed for the 1024th time 😉

  18. One of the biggest message fic turn offs for me has been Paolo Bacigalupi. I listened to an interview with him where he spoke about the worthless need for human kind and we are nothing but world destroyers and that he uses his fiction specifically to target kids to program them. He said they could be taught that they don’t need 5 bedroom houses or to drive to work in a Humvee….and added that a 3 bedroom house and a Subaru is just as destructive. Adults lack the intelligence to make good decisions so his goal is to get ’em while they’re young.

    I found the whole thing pretty vile.

      1. I think kids’ may already be too sophisticated for his line; maybe he should turn his hand to board books — y’know, the kind for designed for that age level likely to spend as much more time chewing on a book as looking at it.

        1. I doubt that stuff is tasty either. Which further limits the appeal. It would be a book I wouldn’t MIND my son throwing across the room. (He’s at that age. Books are for chewing on. Though he’s starting to get to ‘ooo picutres’ stage)

          1. There are these board books without words, with a little mouse that chews his way through the pages. (Drawn mouse, not literal.) If they still make them — this is when Robert got the concept of “Story” — pre verbal. He would “read” them to me by pointing at the mouse and making appreciative sounds.

    3. I have a free audiobook that I’ve never finished, and part of the reason was that Bacigalupi’s junk was in it. I can stomach weird politics and even dystopia, but his stuff was so booooooring.

      1. He seems to have gotten several nominations and wins each year to some awards, including Hugo and Nebula, starting from 2006. Such a darling of the right crowd.

    4. Yurk. I read his book jackets. Gee, why don’t we all just curl up in a corner (where we won’t pollute anything) and die (in an environmentally friendly way).

      1. Better to to do that than do drugs, but better still to round up the environmentalists and druggies, and see about building a mass grave visible from orbit. Best of all, do something productive with one’s life. (People are actually pretty valuable. Despite my distaste, there are druggies and greens who are not on net harmful to humanity, and mass murder is hardly ever surgical.)

  19. Funny — I thought the Lefties approved of swatting. Must be they only approve of doing it, not having it done to them.

    Odd how very many things that applies to.

      1. In fairness i suppose I ought recognise that has been the ruling principle of their party (Democrat or Socialist) pretty much since the Founding of the Republic. Racial slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, denial of full citizenship rights have been part and parcel of their agenda all along, limited only by how much they could get away with.

        The fact they’ve updated the packaging doesn’t mean it isn’t the same old snake oil. They are the aristocracy, we are proles, possessing only such “rights” as they permit.

        Golly, denouncing hatred, bigotry and “othering” seems to make practicing them ever so much more permissable. Like Hillary denouncing secret campaign donations with one hand while with the other hand accepting a seven figure “Super-PAC” from undisclosed sources ( Group backing Clinton gets $1M from untraceable donors ).

  20. I have friends who were actually SWAT’d by associates of a violent criminal prominent in left wing political circles. One of them was held handcuffed at gunpoint in his front lawn at 2 AM while the police searched his house, woke his children and questioned his wife.

    The idea that what Antonelli did was a swatting is so offensive to me that I’m livid with anger.

    1. One of the Puppies made a mistake, and they make it worse than it really was. They always overplay their hand. Always.

    2. Yeah, but the tactics of the SJWs and that crowd are so similar, you’d swear they’re working off the same playbooks.

    4. Hmmm… is this the same person who blogged that his son was disappointed that he didn’t see his dad put into the back of a police car, or is this a different incident?

  21. Devil’s Advocate question here:

    Irene Gallo apologized (or at least issued something she called an apology) for her comments about the Puppies. The puppies as a group decided that this wasn’t enough, that her apology wasn’t sincere, and was too little too late. A boycott of her publishing house was organized.

    Lou Antonelli has apologized, but the antis have decided that it wasn’t enough and there should still be consequences for writing to the police.

    Why is it fair to continue to be angry at Gallo, but everyone needs to let go of the Antonelli thing now that he’s apologized? I have only the most superficial understanding of the Antonelli affair, and I’m certainly open to being persuaded that there’s a difference, but right at the moment, it seems to me that if we accept that the anger continues beyond the apology in one case, we should accept it in the other.

    1. First off there was no formal or informal boycott organized against Tor just some people pissed since this was the 3rd Tor editor to bad mouth the SPs. And second her so called apology was a “I’m sorry your feelings are hurt” not I’m sorry I slandered you.

      1. As I recall, Gallo directly dismissed some of her employer’s product as hateful garbage. Books she had actively helped produce and promote.

        Maybe she meant it in a humorous way.

        1. Oh, I think it’s reasonable to assume that she didn’t even consider whether any of the Puppies’ nominee suggestions were published by her house. She very likely couldn’t believe that anything Tor published would be suggested by the Sad Puppies.

          1. Agreed — but her ignorance and stupidity are not the strongest of defenses.

            I’ve an in-Law prone to making intemperate anti-conservative remarks, but i forgive because a) not somebody I chose as family member, not my problem to live with b) not in-Law’s fault fate has placed that family in a NorthEastern bubble of liberalist thought c) I can recognize and forgive an occasional thoughtlessness from an otherwise caring person.

            Gallo merited none of those exemptions. She was speaking as a representative of her employer (promoting a TOR book) and owed a duty to be cognizant of such factors as might harm her employer. Such as the fact the the Puppies had nominated works published by TOR.

            1. I’m not Wayne, so I can’t speak to his intents, but I took it as more damning of her because she was parroting what her Tor cohorts had said without even knowing who had been nominated.

          2. Unfortunately, Wayne, since Mr. Wright had previously publicly praised her work on one of his books (on his blog), she cannot possibly plead ignorance.

            1. Sure she can.

              She just can’t plead invincible ignorance. The question is merely how grave her vincible ignorance — if she was, in fact, ignorant.

          1. I think Vox recommended a boycott. I’m not sure he did anything beyond saying that it was a good idea.

        2. Pete Grant did a boycott, he is arguably a Sad Puppy, but the other Sad Puppies are not marching in step.

          Pete started a boycott when he didn’t get any answers from Tor, as opposed to Vox, who wants Gallo et al. fired.

          1. And some people are fed up with Tor in general. When their highest-paid author (Scalzi) is flinging insults at fans, well, it was inevitable.

          2. A boycott by one person is .. just a choice not to buy. Not sure it really rises to the conventional definition.

            1. It doesn’t, but by throwing out “boycott” the PKers get to play “martyr”, and a few individuals were advocating for a broader approach to Tor, even if the “big name” Puppy Gladdeners* said that they didn’t think a broad boycott was a good idea.

              * Awkward, I know, but my initial thought was “Puppy Pleaser”. Given the other organization known by the initials “PP” that’s been in the news lately…

    2. “Why is it fair to continue to be angry at Gallo, but everyone needs to let go of the Antonelli thing now that he’s apologized?”

      Because Antonelli is 100% right, the Seattle cops -do- need to know about the potential for violence at Sasquan. There is a very strong potential for it.

      Gallo is a slanderer and a hater.

      These two things are different.

      2. The scale of the violence could be breathtaking. All of Washington could go up in flames as a result.

    3. OK, let’s talk fair.
      Ms Gallo I am certain believed all of the vile insulting things she posted about the Sad Puppies folk. On orders from her employer she said she was sorry if she hurt anyone’s feelings.
      Lou sent a letter to the police because he was concerned that some nutjob follower of David Gerrold might be a legitimate threat. When challenged Lou apologized for the language he used.
      Both incidents should be over and done. Since the SJ crowd cannot seem to let loose of Lou’s actions, in fact inflating them with bogus claims of swatting, why should anyone think we should be more generous with Tor and Ms Gallo?
      I’m sure Lou still thinks there may be a potential for trouble at Worldcon, and I’d bet a buck that Ms Gallo still thinks we are all conservative misogynistic neo-nazis. Lou’s learned his lesson, and Gallo’s learned to keep her beliefs private. Everyone else isn’t apparently ready to forgive and forget just yet.
      And that’s a pity, but such is the nature of this sort of dispute.
      I do sincerely hope there is no trouble at the con. It will be interesting to see whether the Hugos fade back into a rather obscure niche award, or if extremists on either side manage to destroy them.

        1. I think he’s kind of a long shot. Burnside, Wright, Roberts, and Williamson are a formidable set of contenders. It’s possible that he edged ahead of all of those, but I wouldn’t bet that way. (Mind you, this is a category I didn’t vote in, since I had no time to read them all. His book may be that much better, and I wouldn’t know.)

          2. You couldn’t manage the short stories?

            Oh, wait – I forgot “Related Works.” That was just an excerpt, though (the only one I did read just the committee supplied work, as the local library couldn’t get a copy in).

            He did edge out everyone but Burnside there, IMHO (and my vote).

        2. Here is how I voted. (100 is I dig into my *limited* funds and buy right away.)
          Transhuman and Subhuman 99
          Wisdom from My Internet 95
          Letters From Gardner (Excerpt) 94
          The Hot equations 90
          Riding the Red Horse 89
          I voted based on *quality,* not “known to me,” or Mad Mike would have been 100. 🙂 L2G was good, but not _that_ much better. I thought it was an _excellent_ look into an editor/writer relationship. BTW, last report I saw said over *5 _thousand_* Hugo votes. =8-0

      2. “Ms Gallo I am certain believed all of the vile insulting things she posted about the Sad Puppies folk.”

        Drinking your own Kool-Aid is not exoneration. Indeed, affected ignorance may make you more guilty.

    4. Antonelli didn’t insult his readers in a way that could make them lose their jobs. Also, his apology was if anything over-sincere. ALSO the boycott was NOT organized by the puppies, (we always said not boycott) but by the people she insulted.
      These things are as alike as apples and watermelons.

    5. As I understand it, Antonelli wrote a letter about one person. That person has accepted the apology.

      Gallo commented about a group of people. Some of those people have accepted her apology, some have not.

      At least, that’s my take on the difference.

      1. This is one factor for me. Another is the overal difference of tone and tenor of responses. Now, I have my salt shaker here. I do not know all there is to know about either case so I am basing this off my current impressions. As more data comes to my attention my analysis may change.

        Irene Gallo made sweeping statements about a group of people, which included customers to whom she was supposed to be advertising, that are broad, difficult to refute (because they are non-specific), entirely false, and vile. She also denigrated the quality of workmanship of those whose livelihoods rely on that workmanship. This included works by her own publishing company which then cast aspersions on her own employer. She did all this while acting in her official persona and promoting a work for her publishing house. (As I read the post sequence: Promotion post with a claim to make sad puppies sadder > Question about sad puppies > explanation using exclusively inflammatory and defamatory remarks.) When called on her behavior she responded with cat pictures and mockery and more insults, which further reflected negatively on her employer. until her employer forced her to apologize. The apology was of a sort that generally indicates a regret of getting caught not a regret of action.

        Lou Antonelli sent a private mail as a private person (rather than a person operating on behalf of a company) to a police department expressing concern over a specific person’s influence and potential rabble rousing (a specific rather than broad action). I have not seen the contents of the letter, but the public statement made was on a podcast, which from the category for which he was nominated, is not an official representative of anything but Lou Antonelli (See above mentioned grain of salt.) He did not insult customers or cast aspersions upon an employer or those he expected to give him money for a product. The only person he owed an apology was the individual he insulted. The apology was rendered and accepted. (I cannot speak to the content I haven’t seen it.) Peripheral information seems to indicate that he was apologizing for his actions, not his concerns nor the reactions of others. (A significant difference.)

        I have less information on Antonelli’s case than on Gallos, mostly because I only heard of Antonelli’s case today and am still doing some looking for facts. But that is my current understanding and why I think the reaction to Gallo is far closer to in proportion to the reaction to Antonelli.

    6. My issue with Gallo is that she claimed that a product of her employer was of poor quality. I do not think that that product can be fairly considered lower than mediocre quality.

      The comment about Puppies ranging to neo-Nazi is not offensive. Neo-Nazis are necessarily left, and we have Sad Puppies which fit the description.

  22. I was on the Livestream with Lou. Did he go to far? That’s between him and Gerrold. It’s pretty clear that the folks who are making a federal case out of this are taking cheap shots to score points for their tribe.

    It’s worth noting, though, that one guy lost a paying gig for talking out of turn once, while the other will still be presenting awards after publicly trashing most of the nominees for months.

    1. Apparently the Puppy-Punters find great acclaim in counting coup, especially once they’re confident the foe is fallen.

      I am curious: did Gerrold say anything to discourage such acts of disruption over which Lou expressed concern?

  23. I can honestly say I’ve never seen this level of out and out hatred and attacks over such a ‘trivial’ thing. Yes, I’m saying the Hugo is a trivial thing. I saw less hatred in Vietnam when we were actively trying to kill people, and them kill us than this last couple of months. The SJBs have totally gone off their rockers, and I think it’s in part because they ‘know’ nothing will happen to them. I can’t help but wonder what they would do if they were actually confronted face to face in public… THAT would be interesting… 🙂

    1. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen this level of out and out hatred and attacks over such a ‘trivial’ thing. Yes, I’m saying the Hugo is a trivial thing”

      You’re looking at it too narrowly. The Hugo is just another front in the cold civil war going on in this country. The SJWs here are the same people who are pushing other aspects of the Leftist agenda. For example, at least one gun control group has advocated SWATting anyone they can detect carrying concealed.

      You’ll note that CSGV doesn’t say to call the police on people brandishing firearms, or armed people exhibiting signs of aggression. They are not asking their followers to call 911 over armed people behaving erratically. They are instead asking their followers to call 911 and demand that they send police to interdict and harass gun owners who are not suspected of breaking the law.

      Further, you’ll note that when one of their followers carried out their suggestion, and the police don’t treat a lawful gun owner as a threat, CSGV encourages their followers to continue abusing the 911 system.

        1. okay that’s well over the line. That’s inciting violence and they should be punished.

        2. That was in my town… and it was kind of a perfect storm. The police officer who responded was somebody with bad history and thus maybe a little quick to respond instead of investigating.

          But yes, the main problem was the guy who lied to 911 about what was going on, as well as lying about his military service and other matters.

          He also caused a single mother with heart problems to die of panic, just a few days before her wedding, with her kids watching her die. I don’t know why he hasn’t been sent to jail for causing a panic and false accusations.

          1. That was definitely yelling fire in a crowded theater.

            Hopefully one of those types at some point does that when he sees some lefty celebrity’s or politician’s bodyguards without recognizing the member of protected species with them. >:)

    2. They will go on the attack, in large numbers. They are a herd, and behave as a herd. If any of them had any guts they’d be ISIS.

    3. I don’t think they’d do anything face to face unless they were anonymous members of a mob.

  24. The thing is, with all of the over the top hate, threats, and other vitriol that David put out (and which he has since purged from his FB page by going back and editing all of them) I can’t blame Mr. Antonelli for doing what he did.
    I was thinking of going to the con, it’s about a ten hour drive from where I live, but when I saw all the hate pouring out of David’s mouth, I decided not to go. I really just don’t want to deal with it. I don’t react well to people going off in my face, I have a tendency to try and put them in hospitals, and well, these days I don’t need that kind of trouble.

    What’s funny about this, are these people falling back to the term swatting. Swatting is totally a tool of the left, the anti-GG and their friends, against people on the right. It’s never once been used the other way around.

      1. Exactly, and as a small-time and still fairly new author, I also didn’t need all of those people gunning for me and trying to destroy my career.
        Yes, maybe the publicity might help with the sales, but then again, maybe not. And as my sales do rather well each time I put out a new novel, I think I’d rather just pass on dealing with those people.
        (BTW, will here be a book plug Friday this week? And did I make it in? -Thanks)

    1. I’ll take the ice cream and drinks concession. Somebody else can have the coffee stand

  26. Some news from Sasquan:

    Seems like a reasonable decision to me, given the circumstances.

    1. ??? “Nothing” seems like a reasonable decision to you?

      Sometimes the HTML fail is ironically amusing.

      1. I’ve attended a con where the PD was called in for no good reason, and Antonelli’s message alerting the Spokane PD was a serious matter as far as I’m concerned. I hope that Antonelli doesn’t have a penchant for false fire alarms too, if you get my drift.

        1. It doesn’t seem to me that Antonelli’s letter was anything more than an effort to avoid an over-reaction from the PD by notifying them of a possible problem.

          Or is it that you are confident that Con Security can assure the protection of all guests and that Gerrold’s intemperate language has not incited somebody to make a “statement” such as happened at the recent Sanders rally?

          For that matter, do you know what (if any) safeguards Sasquan Security has in place to prevent a repeat of such an incident as happened at the Calgary Stampede consequent to libelous complaints against the Honey Badgers attendees?

        2. Yeah, it was a serious matter.

          Considering the crap that’s been said about a number of us, it was very serious. Not that he wrote the letter, but that he felt the need to write such a letter.

          1. Actually, there was a link in starfleet dude’s post. It doesn’t show on the screen, but did in the e-mail sent out. WordPuke strikes again, apparently.

            However, if you look at the comments to the post, the SJWs have already arrived and are castigating the Worldcon committee for not expelling Mr. Antonelli, which was apparently under serious consideration.

              1. That worked. Apparently word puke doesn’t like just pasting the link unenclosed bye a tag, like this:

                “https://www.facebook.com/sasquan/posts/880154438687988”

              2. Heh. The link showed up in your email reply to your first post, but not in the email of your first post (nor in StarfleetDude’s email or post [at least, not in my browser’s presentation]) so once again we can confidently assert: WP delenda est.

          2. Given that a fair number of women have said that they have been threatened, over the years, with sexual harassment and sexual violence at conventions, it is irresponsible to tell attendees that reporting their concerns to police is grounds for expulsion from a convention.

            Oh, but that was the kerfuffle before last, and people have conveniently forgotten about convention rape and sexual violence. Also, guys don’t count as victims, which is why Breen got away with raping so many young boys.

        3. Considering that this is the fandom that provoked Harlan Ellison to write Xenogenesis, an eye-opening look at the vile acts committed by the unhinged in the con crowd, Antonelli’s decision to go to the police because some fan might do something silly is perfectly justified. Assigning fault to Gerrold, however, was the mistake, if only because there are more ardent puppy kickers out there.

          That said, I wonder if anyone that Ms. Kowall scolded for sending death threats will be in attendance during WorldCon.

  27. There is an interesting related article in The Atlantic, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff of FIRE. It is titled The Coddling of the American Mind and offers the useful term “vindictive protectiveness”. The thesis is that “In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health.”

    Summarized at Power Line: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/08/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind.php

  28. Okay, let’s talk valid and invalid reasons why police might show up at a convention.

    1. Noise. Yup, this really does get cops called, and fairly often. Cons generally deal with it by preventing it – making sure all convention function areas are totally covered and surrounded by convention-reserved hotel room blocks. If other guests are being disturbed to the point of calling cops, concoms generally try to appear calm and friendly, while notifying convention members to turn it down. If the hotel is complaining, concom generally brings out the contract to show the cops and hotel staff the relevant clauses about all-night use of function space. Once, I remember disturbed guests were moved to a nicer room.

    2. Breaking fire code – again, any decent concom will take steps to prevent it. You shouldn’t have to go to the extent of anime cons that count people per function room, but you do what you have to do. Room parties run by idiots are probably your real danger.

    3. Public use or sales of illegal drugs, or swanking around showing off possession of illegal drugs.

    Most concoms and members believe in benign neglect of this stuff, coupled with informally advising the guilty to get discreet or get out. But I understand that con security folks have been known to call the police on people.

    4. Dramatic public drunk and disorderly stuff, fighting, etc. I’ve never been or heard of a convention where this happens, but I don’t think most concoms or con security would hesitate to call this sort of thing in.

    5. Theft from vendors or hotel rooms, or embezzlement from convention. This happens, but usually people don’t find out in time to call the police. Con security usually keeps huckster rooms safe at night and hotel room locks are good, so it’s usually shoplifting or “friends” stealing from rooms. Occasionally it seems to be members of Housekeeping helping themselves, if they think it will go unnoticed, but it could also be small things being lost, or falling into trashcans and getting accidentally thrown out. General chaos makes most people let this stuff go, unless it’s something worth thousands of dollars.

    I think some convention embezzlement cases have been prosecuted, but it usually is a matter of warning other people instead, because most concoms don’t have good enough records to prove anything. I’d say it’s fairly rare, but more common in conventions that are newly established and run by newbies.

    6. Rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, et al. Unfortunately it does happen (anecdotally but I believe it), but usually it’s not reported. There was one notorious case of a costumer who got treated very badly by people from an athletic team also staying in the hotel, and I believe that was prosecuted. It seems to be a vanishingly rare happening at well-run conventions that are designed for families, or at party cons with extremely good security and a leavening of people with good sense. But who can tell?

    Members and concoms should call police on this, in a hot second. And yes, statutory rape is still rape, albeit giving people the talk on how “16 will get you 20” is a good preventative tool.

    7. Pulling alarms or playing with fire. No, it’s not funny to pull alarms. it’s even less funny to break the sprinkler system by doing something stupid with it. (Although those folks were not members of an sf convention, but of some kind of BDSM convention running concurrently.) Setting things on fire accidentally or on purpose is definitely not funny, but I don’t think I’ve heard of that happening in any serious way that set off the sprinklers. If somebody was doing it on purpose or accidentally with sufficient recklessness, or if they cause any hotel damage whatsoever, I think they should definitely call the police on such people. The hotel is your friend, and a destructive convention member is your enemy.

    I can’t think of any other convention crimes at the moment. Mostly people stay out of trouble if they have two braincells.

    1. Arisia was once worked over by an professional thief (who, I was given to understand, stole from unattended baggage). Never caught him, though the problem was identified by Saturday.

      1. Hadn’t heard that one. Scary.

        Albeit a cat burglar convention film would be hilarious, especially if you could resurrect Cary Grant and cast some cosplayer as Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn. Or maybe that’s the Bernie Rhodenbarr book that hasn’t been written yet.

        1. Anyway, I mean 1930’s literary/cinematic cat burglars who go after fabulous diamonds from crooked criminal bosses, that sort of thing. Real cat burglars are creepy.

            1. Actually, they are rescuing those poor cats from the evil Cat Ladies. [Wink]

        2. Kate’s next Con book? The cat-burglar is a were, or someone who can control cats mind-to-mine? Stuff starts to vanish, but no one makes any connection to the cute little cats that sometimes appear around the pool?

          1. I think I have read at least two or three stories of real life cats with the habit of dragging stuff they have taken from the neighboring houses into their home. T-shirts, underwear, sunglasses… jewelry and such would not sound too far-fetched. 😀

        3. There was a movie called “3000 Miles to Graceland.” It was about a group of thieves who dressed up as Elvis and knocked over a casino that was hosting an Elvis convention.

          It could have ROCKED, but something horrible happened between concept and execution. The soundtrack was probably the worst – instant-on 200dB RAP was horribly inappropriate, as well as nearly making my ears bleed before I could slam the mute button.

          1. It actually wasn’t a bad movie. It just should have rocked, but didn’t quite. And it isn’t readily obvious why.

            My nomination was that the central conceit of the villain and antihero both being illegitimate children of Elvis needed to be stated, rather than implied.

    2. My experiences would lead me agree with everyone of those and to add:

      7. Chaining oneself to the rail in the elevator. The Daughter came across this one, I had already gone up to the room for the night. Why anyone did this we never learned.

      8. Someone pointing a plastic gun (peace bonded and with the required bright orange tip) at another person at the dance. The other person fainted, which lead to reports that someone had been shot. The hotel had already called the police and an ambulance before it was determined that there had been on shooting. The person who fainted was taken to hospital, but I was already in my room and never found out why.

      (Same night as above. That same con also had to evacuated twice because someone pulled the fire alarms — once during the night and once during the day. Fortunately it was not our first con, because it could have been our last.)

      9) Borrowing the convention center go cart and going for a joy ride in the back halls. (The people crashed the cart through a set of locked doors right into the con chair.)

      10. Stabbing someone over a con hoodie. Yup, over a hoodie. This was done in the suite next to one occupied by one of the owners of the con, and one down from the staff suite…

      1. Vampire: the Masquerade LARP where at least one of the Vampires was literally duct taped to the plate glass of the lobby to “greet the sun”.

        1. At least that one’s creative. Shouldn’t have done it, and shouldn’t have damaged the window with duct tape, but it would be a great role-playing opportunity if you were play-acting it.

          (I’m pretty sure a strong vampire would just break the glass or the duct tape by pulling away.)

      2. Holy cow, I hadn’t heard of any of these. I guess being out of the loop has its advantages and disadvantages….

        11. Public exposure, flashing people, etc. Some costumers/cosplayers are not totally in touch with the idea of not showing everything they own. Some fans take the assumption that we’re all friends and get overly touchy-feely. Often these are stoned people. (See the incredibly dumb hallway “everybody grope each other to prove we’re totally liberated” incident at Penguicon. Also see the white cosplayer who flashed a Black Baptist Sunday prayer breakfast full of old ladies, and singlehandedly lost the convention hotel for next year.)

    3. One that cons have had to crack down on and is of special interest to the Baen Bar Fly contingent is underage drinking. Was doing hospitality for a non SF convention once upon a time where several teens thought that their membership entitled them to unlimited access to beer and the Friday night champaign fountain. When their parents were notified it was found that they had also over indulged and the ultimate result was the mom punching out one of our security folks. Their memberships were refunded and they were escorted off the premises under the watchful eye of police. Now that I think of it the dad must have been sober as the cops let him drive them away.
      At that time I was also keeping the attendee database year to year and the entire family was flagged as do not accept any registration in their name.

    4. Ref: #5 (assaults, sexual and otherwise) I *know*of at least one, and a con goer that was warned about “harassment.” If you don’t believe me, ask around about why Louisville, Ky. will *never* host a WorldCon. (Hint: it’s because a certain hotel, would be used.) I _personally_ knew a victim of that incident and lawsuit. Sadly, most 99+%, take no actions to prevent/deal with such events. The Attitude being. “It never happens.”

  29. At this point, I’ve got to say the best thing to come out of Sad Puppies 3 for me personally is that I started reading Jim Butcher.
    I could hang out here for a while or I could read Dresden Files 5. Not even a tough choice there, is it?

      1. Well, 5 is done. I had better make dinner before I start 6 or I’ll be in trouble with the kids.

        1. Whatever you do don’t start on P.F. Chisholm’s Robin Carey Mysteries next. I jumped from one to the other, which given fixing other house, etc, is a bit… well…

          1. I’ll keep that in mind. I think I’m reading Plutarch’s Lives next, or, well,
            whenever library gets it in, whether or not I’m done with Butcher. It’s on the home school list this fall for Eldest.

          2. Robin Carey Mysteries? I only found “Sir Robert Carey Mysteries” by P. F. Chisholm. [Wink]

              1. Right song, right singers and speakers, but…

                Makes one appreciate the work of The Muppets all the more.

        1. Next Dresden is called Peace Talks, and I can only speculate based on prior books. Aeronaut’s Windlass looks like it is finally coming out in a month or two. I haven’t checked lately to see what the next Shannon Butcher is going to be.

  30. Apropos of absolutely nothing on topic, today was an absolutely beautiful day to be out and about on the short grass. Not too hot, enough humidity to soften the sun, fluffy sheep clouds overhead, birds singing, and four different colors and sizes of dragonflies dancing around the edge of the rainwater lake. Truly, this is a beautiful world.

  31. I am confused. I am unable to sort out the post, starting with “From the podcast, here are the few sentences the group takes issue with:” I don’t know about the podcast, and am not finding it; howsomever, this is worse:
    “But let’s look at this from the other side of the coin. Irene Gallo called Puppies of the Sad and Rabid forms “extreme right wing and neo-nazi”. She also said they were “racist, misogynist and homophobic.” Others have suggested that Brad Torgersen be muzzled by his editor or have his contract dropped. But where is the outrage from those who are so worried about everyone being treated equally when the livelihoods of writers and artists are being threatened by such accusations?” 1–I don’t know where this came from, and am not sure that after what I take to be Irene Gallo’s quote, is whether that’s Irene being paraphrased or someone else who isn’t identified, because it’s all in italics.

  32. Re: David Gerrold. P289 of Vol. II of Heinlein bio says Star Trek Gene Coons called RAH that they’d bought a script for the show and it seemed rather like an episode from one of his juveniles. Gerrold wrote “The Trouble With Tribbles” and those are essentially the Martian Flat Cats in “The Rolling Stone”.

    1. Yeah, I first heard that one decades ago. And I’d read the book and seen the episode, and I think it’s BS.

    2. Gerrold claims he never knew of the RAH use until Coons brought it up.

      I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one – Gerrold never was the type to appreciate RAH enough to get that far in “The Rolling Stones.” (IIRC, it’s about two-thirds of the way through the book – which, coincidentally, is my current reading in an effort to remove the last traces of Leckie’s Dreckie…)

      RAH himself thought he might have dredged the idea up from “Pigs is Pigs” by Butler. Thinking of it, I believe that it more likely came independently to both of them from the Australian rabbit pestilence, which was much in the news in the early 1950s (“The Rolling Stones”), and still in the mid-1960s (“The Trouble With Tribbles”).

      They both went very different directions with the idea, too. And I think the strong resemblance to the image I have of “flat cats” was more the props department having to make several hundred of the darn things with virtually no budget…

    1. In tiny words, since you people apparently had your brain ablated at birth: He DID NOT file a report. That’s a different animal. This is the sort of thing you do when you expect trouble. The police want you to do it, if you expect trouble. You know, like saying “I’m going to be out of town for a week, can you keep an eye on my house?”
      IF you don’t get the difference between that and saying “I’m being robbed right now” you shouldn’t be on the internet. Your brain isn’t tall enough for this ride.

    2. What Lou Antonelli did is say I am concerned that there may be trouble at this location at this future time.

      False police report would be Lou Antonelli saying I have been attacked at this location at this past time.

      English! Do you speak it?

  37. The thing that gets me is that calling this SWATting is an insult to people who have actually been SWATted. Ain’t no spec op teams gonna drop from the ceiling in the middle of a panel and start tear gassing filkers.

    Now, if Antonelli had told the police that WorldCon was actually a front for Branch Dravidians…

  38. Natalie Luhrs on the Antonelli apology:

    “Imperator Nataliosa ‏@eilatan · Aug 10
    In other words: the acceptance of the apology then becomes a weapon to use against others.”

    So if Ms. Luhrs ever apologises for anything, we shouldn’t accept it? Okay. Fine.

          1. If “acceptance of the apology” isn’t a weapon, then she and her cohorts are not victims. Denial of their victim status and stifling of their outrage constitutes grievous personal harm. They’re now at risk of unvented rage exploding and causing them to spew blather all over the internet.

            Of course, it is all David Gerrold’s fault; had he had the human decency to reject any apology as insufficient (and really, aren’t all apologies insufficient?) then that weapon wouldn’t exist.

    3. Here is an interesting analysis of what is driving the Left, offered today by Stanley Kurtz in NRO’s gangblog, The Corner. Key graphs:

      [SNIP] Meanwhile, under pressure from conservatives—and the very real threat of competition—the College Board has adopted largely superficial revisions to an AP U.S. history curriculum created by professors whose seek to replace American identity with a sense of global citizenship. Although the College Board’s addition of the words “American exceptionalism” to the new curriculum was an entirely hollow gesture, the mere mention of the phrase has sent the left into a panic. To top it off, the College Board’s new AP European history framework is an anti-capitalist tract that largely buries the disasters of socialism.

      Although a serious alternative to the College Board’s biased history could make a real difference, decades of high school Howard Zinn and other leftist textbooks have already done their damage. America is constantly compared to an imaginary perfect future instead of to the world as it was when men like Thomas Jefferson lived. Those men were imperfect because they were the first, because they were changing the fundamental conditions of their own existence, and because what they did was a deadly personal risk, rather than a facile pose.

      There is desperation in the Democrats’ race to out-radical the rest of us—and each other—a desperation born of the knowledge that we can no longer so easily be Thomas Jefferson, or even Martin Luther King Jr. Their greatness has made ours more difficult to achieve, so we take revenge through a pretend superiority. To vote for the first African-American, the first woman, the first (openly) socialist president is to “make history,” or so it seems. Make history? The history of what? America? But what is that? I don’t think the Democrats any longer know. Their energy now comes from dismembering the carcass of the past, rather than understanding or advancing it.
      http://www.nationalreview.com/node/422437/print

      Emphasis added.

      1. Indeed. For them, the Past is something to be destroyed and remade, not understood.

  39. Breaking news …

    There are no incriminating documents. All those emails were of yoga routines and cat videos.

    Anything anybody says to the contrary is just a lie.

    Besides, what difference, at this point in time, does it make?

  40. If Mr. Antonelli told the Spokane police that he knows Mr. Gerrold was insane, and belonged in an asylum: he did indeed go too far. However, if he wrote to tell them that Mr. Gerrold regularly made insane-sounding statements and incited violence on the internet by his fans toward the so-called Puppies, and they might want to keep a closer eye on Sasquan he has nothing to apologise for.

    When SJWs claim that those they identify as conservative have created a climate of fear, and they’re sooooooo terrified; it isn’t fair! One can usually tell that they’re merely mugging for the interwebs by what they don’t do: take real world action. When non-progs are convinced by the SJWs that a venue is unsafe, they either come armed or do what Mr. Antonelli did.

    No wonder they’re so upset: we keep messing up their kabuki dramas.

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