Fauxtrage

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So, in this post, I said this:

I don’t mean I wish a different set of books/stories had won.  That is only to the extent that the DELIBERATE and PARTISAN slighting of such unexceptionable luminaries as Kevin J. Anderson and Jim Butcher (Yes, yes Three Body Problem.  Well, I didn’t find it worth it, but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.But quite beyond that the block voting for the clumsy Ancillary “but pronouns” would have won first place if it weren’t Australian Rules) is a blot on the face of our genre and makes me sigh and roll my eyes.

Fully expecting the MASSIVE and AMAZING brains on the other side would come back and tell me Ancillary Pronoun is a great novel, a work of genius, a… blah, blah, blah, to which I would answer with the respect I reserve for leftist lectures, which are the same things they ALWAYS say:

I’ll spring awake at the first original thought, I swear.

For the record, I was wrong.  They DID surprise me.  They went past boring lecture and way past stupid and to full potato.

Mary Three Names, whom I don’t mean to impugn, because it’s becoming clear to me that she has an impairment that prevents her from understanding written language but has nonetheless managed to win three Hugos,

Well done, Mary. That must have taken effort.

leapt to a conclusion probably caused by her impairment and decided “Chicom” was a racial insult.

11933473_10153681687662994_3838355761728418713_nNow, I understand some of the younger people and those who didn’t grow up in Europe during the cold war might NOT know that Chicom is a contraction of Chinese and Communist.  Not a racial slur under any way or form, but a way of specifying these were CHINESE communists, you know, not Russian Communists or Feminist Communists (you know, Mary, Femcoms, you might know some) or any other form of the repulsive ideology.

Now, faced with this cogent accusation, this was my reaction:

And this was my fans’ reaction:

And being the restrained and sweet people they are, a lot of my fans hit twitter and did this at Mary.

Look at the funny woman who thinks Chicom is racist!

At which point — I swear I’m not making this up, Mary said she’d looked Chicom up in “Dictionary.com.”

Are you kidding me?

This is the point at which I started to suspect some intellectual/developmental impairment might be present, even though one would never suspect it from her status in the field.

And then I went to dictionary.com and looked up Chicom.

Chicom
[chahy-kom]

noun
1.
Slang: Disparaging. a contemptuous term used to refer to a Communist Chinese.
2.
a grenade or other weapon manufactured in Communist China.
adjective
3.
of or relating to the People’s Republic of China.
Usage note
Though the term was originally an official military abbreviation, the derogatory slang use originated during the Vietnam War.

“derogatory” apparently to Mary means “racist.”

Wow. You don’t have a very large vocabulary, do you?

I will assume this is lack of comprehension of the reading word is due to some sort of language-processing issue, and NOT to the fact that she assumed that NO one could use a derogatory term for this nice, jolly chap:

But you know, one can’t help thinking — just a little — that before launching a crazy accusation based on her possible misreading of “Chicom” as a slur, she would have wanted to — oh, I don’t know — look it up in other locations.

You know,the free dictionary or  wikipedia, or Merriam Webster or Abbreviations.com or the cross-word dictionary or even, GASP Democratic Underground. WHO FAIL TO LIST CHICOM AS “DEROGATORY” (NO I DON’T KNOW WHERE DICTIONARY.COM GOT THAT EITHER.)

No, Mary was so absolutely SURE I couldn’t possibly have referred to these nice, jolly fellows in what dictionary.com (and only them) defines as a derogatory way,

Now that I know of her impairment, I’ll spell it out again.  Chicom does NOT refer to these people:

Chinese people!

It refers to people who approve of this:

A lot of the people who approve of the regime who did THIS are Western intellectuals, most of them white and exquisitely “educated.”

Now that we have that clear, let’s move on.  You’d think faced with the fact she jumped to conclusions, Mary would have said “Oh, sorry, my bad, I assumed.”  I didn’t even require an apology from her because on her side an apology is viewed as a sign of weakness and a reason to pounce, so of course, she’d never do it.  And also, of course, since I disagree with her and don’t like communists I’m Satan.  So, no, I didn’t expect an apology.  What I didn’t expect was that she would go past potato to full turnip.

A recent photo of Mary Three Names.

But yeah, she decided to double down on stupid.  AND to call in her FOLLOWERS.  Starting with Arthur Chu who started AT full potato.

A recent picture of Arthur Chu, best known for winning some game show which apparently gives him recognition enough to write for Salon and the Daily Beast. Apparently they thought that a good memory equals intelligence.

He jumped into the fray with the mental acumen we’ve come to expect from him:

You’re right, Arthur Chu. We can’t make you up. If you didn’t exist we’d have to invent you. No, wait, no one would believe that load of dumbassery if you didn’t exist.

Let’s take it from the beginning — no I didn’t make it up — go look in any dictionary.  And second, no, it’s not a slur according to most places, you know:

You know,the free dictionary or  wikipedia, or Merriam Webster or Abbreviations.com or the cross-word dictionary or even, GASP Democratic Underground.

I guess dictionary.com thinks it’s “derogatory” to speak disapprovingly of people who DO this:

And I guess Arthur Chu thinks it’s mean to call murderers… Chicoms?
That’s all I’m going to say. That’s cold people. You mean you don’t disapprove of the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Tienanmen massacre and everything else the Chicoms have done? You want me to be RESPECTFUL and not DEROGATORY of them? Whoa.

BUT beyond that, let’s look at what the revered and intellectual Chu had to say:

To smear WHO? Did I say Cixin Liu was a Chicom? Please read my paragraph again. Feel free to move your lips and follow along with your finger.

What I said was:

but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.

That is I said — let me repeat it SLOWLY — that you idiots in voting for the three body problem thought you were voting for Chicoms.  The use of “illusion” should tell you I don’t think so.  Tell me what part of this smears Cixin Liu?  Was he perhaps your primary education teacher and responsible for your reading comprehension?

No.  As the Author of the Three Body Problem, he knows damn well that he had to battle official disapproval in a country that’s far from free, just to be allowed to dream.

Since the book is set during the Cultural Revolution and portrays the problems of doing science under a dictatorial and murderous regime, it’s not exactly kind to Chicoms.  You know, these guys:

YOU THINK THE BOOK APPROVES OF CHICOMS? DID YOU READ THE BOOK?

In fact, at this point I must confess part of what turned me off from the book is that I’ve read a lot about that time period — and the French Terror, and the Stalinist Terror, and — and there is a certain dread of reading more about it.  It HURTS to read about that much death and destruction and pure evil. (Beyond the fact that I am not crazy for hard sci fi unless I’m in the mood.) Lots of my friends loved The Three Body Problem. ( As did Vox, but I guess we won’t hold that against the book.)

But you?  If you think Chicom is a derogatory term or applies IN ANY WAY to Cixin Liu (beyond the necessary to survive in his homeland?), DID YOU READ HIS BOOK?  Or, you know, were you just being asshats?  Or didn’t you vote for it?  Or, given the mull you made of what I said, are you in fact illiterate?

If you have reading difficulties, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions. And you shouldn’t make fools of yourselves all over twitter.

Because,you know, then you lead your followers who are, if possible even dumber (or perhaps more trusting) than the fabled brain consortium of Arthur Chu and Mary Three Names to say crazy sh*t like this:

“Alyssa Wong @crashwong · 2h2 hours ago
Dear Sarah Hoyt,
Don’t call anyone a Chicom. It’s not clever, funny, or cute.
Any admiration I had for you has burnt.”

Dear Alyssa Wong, FUNNY?  CUTE? what in HELL do you think I’d find funny or cute about this?

The Cultural Revolution in full glory.

I wasn’t making FUN of Chicom.  I was pointing out that people like Chu and Kowal and their camp followers just might be stupid enough to think Chicoms are cool and quite capable of voting for a book VOX DAY RECOMMENDED because they thought it was a paean to Chicoms.

And yes, I know, now they’re going to say I shouldn’t make fun of Alyssa Wong.  That’s nice.  You shouldn’t lie to ignorant babies like her who are STUPID ENOUGH TO BELIEVE YOU.  I bet she never read my original post, either.

But since writing is hard too, I have a really hard time convincing myself that someone literate enough to write books, like Mary Three Names CAN be so dumb as to misinterpret THIS:

but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.

(BTW, Miss Wong, for the reading impaired, the only people that paragraph calls Chicoms?  Are the Chicoms.  You know, Mao and company.  Seriously.  Parse it.  I didn’t even call the idiots who thought it was Chicom and voted for it because of that Chicoms.  I wouldn’t call even idiots something that bad.)

I also don’t believe a MERELY stupid person would go all over twitter proclaiming that someone is racist without checking more than one source. Or accidentally pick, first time out, the only source that calls this word “derogatory.”  That’s a hell of a draw, Mary Three Names.  Hell of a draw.  You should buy the lottery.

I believe in fact that you were attempting to do battle space preparation for the coming Hugo award contest.

11889448_1145875835429433_3787911293098758337_nDear Mary Three Names — Arthur Chu MIGHT be dumb enough to not have understood what I wrote, but you’re not — this meant you’re willing to slander someone’s reputation over this:

And power.

You’re willing to connive, lie to the ignorant and pretend to be a total idiot, FOR THE CHANCE AT A PLASTIC ROCKET. And for a chance to continue controlling who gets the plastic rocket. Because striving for it in the normal, meritocratic way is beneath you, Mary.
Congratulations, Mary. This man would have been proud of you. He too thought he was more equal than others:

Granted your evil is tiny compared to his, but the general attitudes are the same.

As for me, and the other people you have slandered, attacked and smeared in your quest for power, over the last few years, I have one thing to tell you.

Every time you think of a clever slander, every time you’re ready to twist someone’s words, every time you’re ready to attack, because your shriveled little soul needs power to make you think you’re relevant? JUST SHUT UP.

Write your books, enjoy the admiration of your followers and leave me and mine alone.

Because if you don’t, you might make me pay enough attention to you to find a way to retaliate and trust me when I say this: if I have to give up my writing time to deal with your idiocy, I’ll get really creative about it, Mary.

Metaphorically, of course. But trust me, you really, really, really will not enjoy it.

And now, having dealt with the sort of mind that slanders all Chinese with the title of Chicom  by claiming it’s their race I’m insulting? The type of mind who would try to destroy someone because the someone talks back to her?

Because, Mary, using a reference to a regime that massacred millions of humans to slander someone with “racism” — that’s not funny or cute, and you’ve totally lost any admiration I might have had for you.

Also, any claim to the benefit of the doubt. You might think you’re cute and endearing, but at your age it won’t wash.  It’s time to grow up now.

Right now my annoyance at you is outweighed by my wish to write. I’ve only half-engaged you.  Notice I’m not on twitter, because I have books to write and the cat fights of the sorority BORE me. I only hear of your shenanigans through my fans.

But you could get my full attention if you continue with the Fauxtrage.  You could get my FULL attention to your pathologically manipulative utterances.  You could get me to become your biggest un-fan.  Sure, it will burn my career because I won’t have time to write, but when I’m done, you’ll be the laughing stock of the world.

Because, Mary, darling, in your social media presence? you’re not clever nor cute.  Most of the time you’re at best pedestrian.

And before you scream “stalk” or “dox” — Mary, Mary, you’re not that stupid, are you? — No, I just mean take your tweets and SHOW them to people.  People outside your circle.  You know, like what you do to me and others.  Only in your case I won’t have to twist their meaning.  Because, Mary, you’re amazing.  And not in a good way.

Like, remember when you called legends of Science Fiction and wished they would die?  Yeah, Mary.  The internet never forgets.

Be told!

UPDATE: Mary Three Names (Good Lord woman, don’t you know that’s a cartoon villain?) is protesting in an unapproved comment that I didn’t let her “apology” yesterday out of moderation.  I didn’t because it starts with a lie “I didn’t call you racist.”  This means either in Three Name Land “ethnic slur” has a different meaning from in everyone else’s or she’s a disingenuous serpent.  (Any bets, guys?)  OR she thinks she can get away with semantic games here.  “I didn’t call you ‘racist-racist'”  I don’t approve posts that START with this kind of sh*t anymore than I approve the ones that start with obscenities.  However since she INSISTS I’m tempted.  What say you guys?

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I’ve approved it.  Lord what tripe.  She absolves me for not knowing it was racist.  I challenge her to show a post not by her followers implying it was in any way racist.  Dictionary.com says it’s derogatory because they’d like us to be respectful of commies, of course.

And Mary Curds and Whey, way to whitesplain to this tan immigrant.  Well done.  Patronizing returned to sender.

1,132 thoughts on “Fauxtrage”

    1. As usual, I’m late to the party, and everyone has probably moved on, but I have some thoughts on using, or banning the word Chicom.

      My screen name is derived from my last name, which happens to be Chu. I personally do not find the term Chicom offensive. Chicoms did some very bad things to my family in China. When I see or hear the term Chicom, I associate it with actual Chinese Communists. Chicom is just easier to say. I might feel offended if anyone actually called me a Chicom to my face, but that has never happened in almost 60 years.

      I believe that Chicom might be considered a slur if used to refer to all Chinese people, but Sarah plainly did not intend this. She clearly did not call MRK or Arthur Chu Chicoms. So who was harmed by Sarah using the word Chicom?

      There are conflicts going on here at multiple levels. One which I think we need to keep in mind is the struggle to control the terms of debate. The Left is very, very good at this. The Left determines which terms are acceptable or unacceptable, and the actual debate becomes a mere formality.

      For example, in a few short years we have gone from “illegal aliens” to “DREAMers”. Now the pressure is ratcheting up to ban the term “anchor babies”.

      If anyone has read to this point, you may not approve of some or all of the terms I have used. The point is that free people do not need your approval to say things. If too many words and terms are disallowed, some ideas can no longer be expressed – and that is the goal.

      1. Well said. Yes, I said it because it’s easier. Like you know SovUnion which I’m told Heinlein invented. But it’s easier.
        Might I mention I love your handle.

        1. I was a technogrunt (engineer) at the end of the Cold War. I used the word Soviet, but it was common even for people who understood the distinction to just say Russian. And of course the Beatles did a silly but catchy tune about the USSR.

          I would like to graciously accept your compliment, and thank you for your efforts that make this blog an interesting place.

      2. “The point is that free people do not need your approval to say things.”

        Well put, and demonstrates a clear conceptualization of what the term “fauxtrage” was conceived to convey.

        If only you hadn’t implanted an image of a viking dragon ship landing, with the captain commanding, “Drop the anchor babies!” in my head … (Not your fault — it’s this head; I’ve had it for years and its always been a trifle warped.)

  2. I USED to be a fan of MRK. Mostly because of Howard Tayler and Brandon Sanderson, through the Writing Excuses podcast. Then one day I was on one of my extremely rare Twitter reading sprees, and saw her posting absurd things about Ferguson. Calling teargas “chemical warfare” for instance, and I put on my best moderate hat and tried to talk her down from using the word in that way because it devalued the term for when it came to real chemical warfare. She accused me of supporting teargasing the crowd, which is something I argued against and said was terrible.

    She just jumps to conclusions and reads things that simply aren’t there whenever she’s arguing with someone who she thinks is her enemy. I mostly agreed with her on many issues related to police brutality, but not on this one issue, and thus I was the enemy to be destroyed. After several back and forth discussions about related issues she blocked me. I don’t mind people muting someone on twitter that is taking too much of their time to respond to, but blocking is essentially saying that you’re not allowed to be their fan. Thus, I no longer consume any content she’s involved in. I’m sure it’s no big loss to either of us.

    1. I’m surprised she doesn’t live in Seattle. She’d fit in beautifully with my sister’s crowd. Disagree on even one issue and be blocked and denigrated to the world. And the disagreement is often caused by an inability or refusal to read what was actually said, or if it was read, an inability or refusal to interpret the words the way normal people would.

        1. Probably. 😀

          My sister’s “nice” friends read “I don’t personally believe in abortion except for the life of the mother” and interpreted it to mean that I wanted women with ectopic pregnancies to DIE!!1!!1 and called my sister up in crying hysterics asking how she could let this insane person comment on her FB wall.

          I think it was one of the Rotties who asked “What is their emotional age, 10?” I’d say that was a pretty good description of the average SJW.

          1. ” I’d say that was a pretty good description of the average SJW.”

            I wouldn’t say that. It gives them too much credit and insults actual ten year olds. 😛

            1. You have a point.

              Perhaps it is simply that their emotional age stopped when they got to 10, and since they were most likely raised as SJWs by SJWs they were already behind the maturity curve even then.

          2. It is commonplace for such types to leap from “you don’t like my solution” to “you must like the problem.”

            The possibility their solution won’t work and carries a high risk of exacerbating the problem seems beyond their comprehension. This is indeed an iteration of the “you don’t love me because you won’t let me have my way” creed found in many ill-raised brats.

            1. “THE reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.” G.K. Chesterton

      2. Her wiki states she’s from Raleigh, known to Tarheels as “Berkeley South” (along with Chapel Hill & Durham. In some ways such people are worse than Seattlites because here they have to live with the gross embarrassment of being associated with the rest of this state.

        There were more than a few ’round here who voted for Jesse Helms as much to piss off such as MiRK as for agreement with his politics.

        1. I lived in Durham for five years, and still have nightmares about it. It wasn’t even the politics so much as the general Durhamosity of the place. To quote my husband: “You tell ’em you live in Cary, they say ‘oh!’. Tell ’em Morrisville, they say ‘mm-hmm’. Durham, they just say ‘…ah.'”

          1. Cary is no longer so much the corral area for relocated Yankees as it once was. We now, attracted by the research triangle, have a burgeoning population of expatriates from the Indian sub-continent. We have gained some great restaurants and groceries. Sadly, attempts to keep an Indian cinema open have been less than successful.

    2. In all fairness to MRK we did get tear gases as boots for CBR training.

      Then again, maybe we should let her know that so she can spread the news that the US used chemical warfare against their own troops.

      1. And then again in work up to deployment and periodically through out service. These people don’t seem to get the difference between ‘this sucks’ and ‘this will materially harm me.’

        1. Back when I worked for a living, I performed an extended aging of CBR masks used by the Marine Corps. I have no doubt that tear gas is a good training exercise, as the soldier’s duty is to maintain an air-proof barrier between himself and the gas. That said, CBW agents are much more *aggressive* in their ability to penetrate the materials. This is one difference between chemical warfare and tear gas; however, it is a concept way too detailed for a typical SJW to understand.

              1. Sarah – remember you can (sometimes)fix ignorant or stupid, but when the adjective “deliberately” is put in front of either, you are in a no-win situation. And I ‘spect that Mary K suffers from that word an awfully lot.

                1. Nah. She’s a mean girl. I dealt with them since elementary school. You know, the prim and proper rich girl in bows and ribbons who kicks you under the table and then screams you attacked her for no reason. She should remember I have EXPERIENCE with her kind. See my update at the end of the post.

                  1. I’m of two minds on this:

                    There is no personal issue that can’t be solved with the judicious application of high explosives.

                    but

                    When committing violence if you can choose sword over a gun and your fist over a sword. The greatest pleasure comes from it being closest to hand.

                    That said, a spanking with the paddle made out of stainless non-skid would probably be very educational for some people or the pointed waffle cut one.

          1. Did you do the firefighter school at Goodfellow AFB? That is near my old stomping grounds in West Texas. Mom lives in San Angelo now.

            1. No, the one at Submarine Base, Groton. It has fire rooms designed to mimic the interior of a submarine. Other Navy fire fighting school mimic other vessels.

              There is not thrill quite like walking into an metal enclosed space that is on fire. I completely understand how some combat vets from WW2 got addicted to the adrenaline rush and formed the first biker gangs after the war.

              1. My dad had a good friend who was a crop duster. He had flown close ground support missions in a B-25 in the Europe in WW2, flying the model that had 16 .50 cal MG’s and a 75mm cannon. He told Dad that crop dusting was the only civilian aviation form that came close to the thrills he got flying 200 ft off the deck.

                1. Wow, that sent me to Wiki to read up on the gunship version of the B-25.

                  That does sound like fun. Then again, across nations the most dangerous branch was air so there you go.

                  Nation specific most dangerous branch was U-Boat crew between the inherent danger of submarines, Enigma being broken, and Dönitz being so damned chatty while coordinating the wolfpacks.

                  1. For American large units, highest casualties by proportion were 8th Air Force and Pacific Submarines. For smaller units but still a reasonable number of people the 442nd ranks high being effectively replaced two and a half times.

                    Rumor says submarine damage control in Connecticut and Hawaii share with the fun house at Gunsite and other such the experience of working exercises in open topped chambers with folks in the rafters (so to speak) making it fun combined with fireworks and loud noises. Would such places fit better in Disneyland or Dismal Land?

                2. Had a ROTC instructor tell us he flew one of those; they found a cow in a field and rolled it up and over a hill with those .50s. He also started telling us about Japanese burial sites, started to draw one, and stopped. We got the impression it might look like women parts. Which we hadn’t seen, being too young.

        3. Friend of mine had to attend a reenlistment ceremony in the CS chamber, with a full riot’s worth of CS clouding throughout the shack.

          Good times, he told me.

          1. I had a couple of Sergeants who could stand in the stuff at that strength and not even want their masks. NOT my thing (I was an MI geek), but sort of proves the not-going-to-kill-them thing. 😉

            1. When I went through it in basic there was one guy who was immune to it. The drill was: get gassed, everyone take off masks, everyone inhale, everyone put masks back on and clear. The guy who wouldn’t take his off was asking to die. Then there was the one guy who wouldn’t put his back on because it didn’t bother him in the least. The rest of us just wanted to get out of there so we could blow the snot out of our faces, but we couldn’t until he put his mask back on. Then there was the tree five feet in front of the exit from the gas chamber. The drills sat there and watched us walk into it as we came out.

              IIRC, the reason the US doesn’t use CS in combat is that it may be mistaken for NBC, not that it is NBC. Why do I remember this being some kind of hoo-haw about a decade ago?

            2. Yeah, I watched on Old Salt step into the gas chamber in his service uniform (not BDUs), calmly remove the mask, put a Pall Mall unfiltered to his lips and light up.

              There was a look of contempt on his face for those who lost their military bearing. The snot and tears wasn’t the problem–he knew we had no control over htat, but the coughing and utter loss of control, that he could not abide.

              Years later during an Air Force exercise in same I pulled my mask off and stared the instructor right in the eye as I counted one to ten, then walked out of the chamber (The instructions were to keep your eyes closed. Wimps).

              1. When I was in the USMC, I got to the point where I enjoyed the trips to the gas chamber as my sinuses were always clearest after those trips. Breath-right strips and menthol have got nothing on a good trip to NBC training.

              2. In the first book of his I ever read, HOLIDAYS IN HELL, P.J. O’Rourke wrote of the student riots in South Korea, where he was wearing a gas maks, and COMPLETELY panicked and weeping, and the Koran kids were wearing gauze “Doctor Dan” masks and smearings of toothpaste. And fighting like motherf*ckers.

                It’s quite an account.

            3. Y’all’re lucky CS is all you had to go through. When Dad went through NBC school during his first trip to Germany (late ’50’s), they dipped a straight pin in mustard gas and touched it to an unprotected spot on his forearm. Raised a blister the size of a quarter and left a scar that is still there today. And they’re still finding stockpiles of that crap in Europe – not to mention all stuff we’ve found in Iraq.

      2. Sounds a lot to me like a middle-schooler whingeing that a richly-deserved spanking is child abuse.

        M

      3. Yep, I remember that. Ft. McClellan, Alabama. Basic Training – one of the last all-women classes in 1976. Had to walk into that building full of tear gas and remove my gas mask and give the Drill Sergeant my name, rank and serial number.

        Good times.

        1. Did it myself, at Lackland AFB, but I managed to get through it without tears and vomiting. Our TI s didn’t know that I spent a lot of time swimming, and could hold my breath for quite some time. (Used to have breath-holding contests with my brothers.) Hyperventilated while standing in line, took one last deep breath at the door, and went through the whole rigamarole without breathing in until I put on my mask.

          OTO, the best gas-training story came from my best friend at my first assignment; she was Army, from New York … and Jewish. She had, in fact, a huge repertoire of Jewish-American Princess jokes. She said that as she went into the chamber, she turned around at the door and yelled, “Six million and one!” She claimed that her DI about split a gut laughing.

          5. Ah, you’ve discovered our secret: Jews train for this kind of thing. Every Sedar we demonstrate our lung capacity singing (in one breath) working our way up to the last verse of Echad Mi Yodea:

            Who knows thirteen?
            I know thirteen.
            Thirteen are God’s principles;
            Twelve are the tribes of Israel;
            Eleven are the stars of Joseph’s dream;
            Ten are the Commandments;
            Nine are the months of childbirth;
            Eight are the days before circumcision;
            Seven are the days of the week;
            Six are the sections of the Mishnah;
            Five are the books of the Torah;
            Four are the Matriarchs;
            Three are the Patriarchs;
            Two are the tablets of the covenant;
            One is our God, in heaven and on earth.

            This is often followed by a song expressing the wished for desire of every Jewish child’s heart, “An Only Kid.”

        2. I made the mistake of joking that it reminded me of home (Los Angeles) once I got out and finished heaving.

          The Drill Sergeant outside decided to send me through again so I wouldn’t be homesick. What a nice guy.

          1. Yikes. I actually had a pretty nice Drill Sergeant. Probably because my bunkmate tried to kill me on the rifle range. He caught her aiming at me and saved my life.

          1. If it is anything like the Mexican election riots in Juarez when I was in HS it won’t be that bad (I didn’t get gassed we just watched).

      5. But then it CAN’T be chemical warfare, just as waterboarding can’t be torture because “we do it to our own men”. (Uh, to train them to RESIST TORTURE.)

    3. I quit listening to writing excuses once they brought MRK on board. Nothing to do with her politics – I had no idea what they were until SP3 – but the podcast just… didn’t seem as fun anymore after she joined. Everybody got all serious, no more kidding around. Now I know why, since SJWs and CHORFs seem compelled to suck the fun and joy out of everything.

      1. This is where someone claims they were a long time fan of Writing Excuses, but were too disgusted by the way Howard Taylor recruited a developmentally disabled person in to be an object of mockery.

          1. Kowal is either dishonest, or mentally impaired and never grew up. The latter might be considered a developmental disability.

            Next look at reports of how Writing Excuses changed when she joined. The kindest explanations we will consider are that she is a humorless joykiller, or that she is too stupid to get the jokes. The meaner one is that she was brought on board to be the joke.

            If the dishonest model is correct, then she may be acting that way to make fun of the mentally ill, like a blackface minstrel show.

            In either case, Howard Taylor has the background to be aware of mental health issues, so his behavior comes off as appallingly insensitive.

            Take these assumptions, and plug them into the form on page 78 of your Fundamentals of Social Justice Warfare workbook.

            That form produces the standard denouncement I described. It would be dishonest of me to say it, because I wasn’t that much of a fan, and because I have more apathy than disgust towards Writing Excuses.

    4. Curiously synchronistic, I just read an explanation for this behaviour, calling it the “stray voltage” theory, deliberately saying something over-the-top provocative to shift the conversation:

      Major Garrett, the CBS White House correspondent, has talked with White House aides who confirm that the administration is working from the theory of “stray voltage,” as developed by former White House senior adviser David Plouffe.

      “The theory goes like this,” Garrett wrote. “Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness,” Deliberately misstating information about key issues in order to keep certain issues before the public is often a premeditated strategy.

      “The tactic represents one more step in the embrace of cynicism that has characterized President Obama’s journey in office,” John Dickerson wrote at Slate. “Facts, schmacts. As long as people are talking about an issue where my party has an advantage with voters, it’s good.”

          1. Unfortunately, if they keep pushing it, it will. And while I’m not currently a fan of the idea of ACW2, I can be persuaded to start lining up ideologues against walls and letting physics play out when chemical reactions start involving tubes and soft metals.

    1. dictionary.com is owned by ask.com (the people you are always removing their malware toolbars from your kids and parents pcs); they are owned by IAC a Berkely CA company. Surprisingly, one owner seems normal, the other one ran against Arnold in the 2003 recall as a democrat.
      SJWs always despise dictionaries because they twist so many words, and question the authority of the SJW. Good to know they have their own socially sensitive one. Since SJWs don’t understand logic or sentence structure, Sarah’s best response so far is calling her Mary-3-names.
      The complete response should be:
      Mary-Three-Names, WRONG #FAIL.
      After that, ignore her.

      1. Correction: SJWs despise dictionaries that don’t support them. Ask one about what feminism is, and at some point in the discussion they’ll likely point to the dictionary definition of the term instead of admitting that in current practice it’s pretty much Professional Misandry.

  4. I keep hearing the Hugo referred to as a “Plastic Rocket”. Is it really plastic? I was hoping for pot metal and chrome, like regular trophies. If it’s really plastic then I’m less interested in getting one (once it’s been rehabilitated, naturally.)

    1. Depends on the plastic; I wouldn’t mind the polymers Glock uses, because it would be tough enough to insert forcibly, fins first. Even Arthur Chu couldn’t enjoy that.

      See, this is where I part company with Sarah. She’s still engaging, still giving them the benefit of the doubt, still excusing them because they’re ignorant or stupid.

      I’m not. I’m calling it for what it is: straight up intentional lying and malevolence. From all of them. I know an enemy when I see one.

      2. If it is impairment, it seems to be at a level where letting them interact with the public is cruel and exploitative.

      3. Glock calls it “polymer”, but it’s plain old plastic – Nylon 6,6 with colorant.

        Glock claims their Nylon they use has magic doody dust to make it special, but apparently it’s so magic it doesn’t show up under chemical analysis.

    3. For last Christmas a friend gave me a model rocket. The body is two 20mm shell casings joined at the butt ends and the boosters are 7.62×39 cases treated in a similar fashion. All soldered together and painted gold. It’s actually quite attractive. I expect it would make SJW heads explode once they realized what it was made of.

    4. But the ones awarded the SJWs are specially designed to hold two “D” cell batteries, guaranteed to provide them hours of amusement.

    5. Baen’s writing awards are lovely crystal trophies that look beautiful in a cabinet (my goal is to win their SF contest so as to have a matched set). Some of the Hugos I’ve seen are nice, some are… tacky. There was a cool display of historical Hugos at Worldcon when I went a couple years back, that was nice.

  5. If you visit China, you will not be shown the site where that lone man faced down a tank . . .because officially it did not happen. But I have stood there. Chicom. And you haven’t lived till you stood near a mass grave in Cambodia. Khmer Rouge. Holidays can be educational that way.

    1. There was an interesting incident in China a few years ago. An unknown woman walked into her local newspaper and purchased an ad that said, “For the heroes of .” I don’t remember the exact date off the top of my head, except that it was in 1989. The newspaper assumed that it was commemorating some local disaster, and went ahead and ran it.

      Eventually, someone a little more knowledgeable realized that the date was a reference to Tiananmen Square. The local censor at the newspaper hadn’t realized that because the Chinese government has done such a good job of suppressing knowledge of the uprising that even the government watchdogs don’t know about it.

      2. This phenomena where something is so suppressed that the censors don’t know about to censor is called “Totalitarian Alzheimer’s”.

    2. Let us keep in mind that for at least two decades now the Chicoms have been executing prisoners and harvesting their organs for reuse. Mostly they harvest Falun Gong, but if there is a demand for a specific organ match they have been willing to find and convict an suitable donor.

      Not that MiRK, Chu or any of their ilk would condemn that. Likely they’d praise the Chinese Communists for recycling.

  6. C4C – query are the time stamps local time to the posters or to perhaps local to a hosting server or?

    I’ve got to stay up all night waiting for posting to taper off then being to too tired to think straight but too energized to sleep and doubly useless even for waxing cats and taking out the garbage.

            1. I had to double-check to ensure that wasnt a video I helped make for a 48-hour film festival, even though ours had a puppet, not a marionette.

                  1. And the corn is always stalking around listening for that kernel of truth.

                    6. Hay, it’s really getting corny in here! Lettuce tone it down some. I butter quit typing….

                    7. I just hope that the people making these jokes don’t end up looking back on this as one of their salad days.

                    1. “Don’t Bend Over In the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes!” — Lewis Grizzard.

                2. I’m unable to disagree.

                  Even if the intellect were the same, the potato at least serves a use. Who would want to eat a french fry made out of Arthur Chu?

                3. Eh. My family nickname in the village is “the Potato Sellers” or lit. “The potatoers.” Great great (great?) grandma owned a potato resale business. AND the only thing I miss now I’m low carb? Potatoes.

                  1. *chuckle* Great grandson of one of the biggest moonshiners in the tri-state area, and things like the topic of this post make me *really* miss alcohol… Usually made with corn and honey, not potatoes, though.

                  2. You know about the killer cauliflower gratin, yes? Mix one head boiled, mashed cauliflower, one block of cream cheese, sharp cheddar and bacon to taste, and shove it all in the oven for 30 minutes at 350. Saved my sanity when I was low-carbing.

                    (I Cannot Be Trusted when the topic turns to food. “I have a recipe for that!!” is my weakness.*)

                    *but my weakness’ weakness is that most of my recipes start with “some” of whatever the ingredient is.

              3. (Spoilers for Portal 2.)

                (…and the dialogue sounds like they’re talking about Chu.)

                    2. That’s what you’re supposed to do to thicken your soup, stew, or gumbo, but it shouldn’t generally be enough to notice.

                    3. Younger son likes deep fried okra. I can eat it, but it’s not one of my favorites.

                    5. Put “indian cooking okra” into your search engine for loads of delicious recipes. Bhindi Masala is terrific, and they have numerous other uses for this vegetable:

                      Check the sidebar for more delicious recipes!

                    6. I can’t get any of my family to try fried okra. All of it left for me…

                      You should try bhuna bhindi; indian curried okra. Yum.

                    7. We’ve got a new Indian restaurant here in town, so I might have to see if they have it.

                      I can cook, and cook pretty well. But I don’t like trying to fix something I have never had. I hate not knowing if the problem was me, or just that it’s not something I enjoy, ya know?

                  2. I agree, but I’m *considering* trying a truce with it after roasting some with olive oil and paprika. Smelled good, but I’d only bought enough for my father, for whom I was cooking it on Father’s Day.

                  3. Okra are the worst vegetable

                    I’m going to second/third/whatever the recommendation for fried okra.

                    Worst vegetable? Brussels sprouts.

                    1. I have found success with Brussels Sprouts by selecting them small and cutting them in half, which allows them to cook more evenly. With an appropriate glaze, such as balsamic vinaigrette, they are tasty roasted. Or you can stir-fry them, taking advantage of the exposed interior to absorb tasty sauce such as a garlic & ginger sesame brown sauce.

                    7. I love Brussels sprouts and this interests me. Do you cut them in half or leave them whole? Use a rack or just scattered in a shallow baking pan?

                    8. cut them in half. And put them face down on a shallow baking pan. I used to hate brussel sprouts. Now the whole family loves them. BTW, I realize I’m giving you time/temperature for high altitude. They should be crispy on top and mushy on the inside.

                    9. Thank You! This will be tried. Maybe I can even get the dear wife to like sprouts.

                    10. Cut the Brussels sprouts in half, toss them with some sliced red onion, and a bit of sliced-up kielbasa sausage in a little olive oil, spread them out in a single layer in a shallow baking pan, and oven-roast them. They’re wonderful cooked that way.

                    12. I don’t know. My father developed a taste for brussel sprouts during his time in Scotland, where his landlady cooked dinner every night. The sprouts were the only part of the meals that weren’t dripping in fat. (He maintains that there is some mutton still stuck to the top of his mouth somewhere.)
                      As for me, I’ve gotten to using them in corned beef as a replacement for cabbage. I just tried it one day and liked it.

              1. I think it may be a local neologism, building on this meme:

                We’re dealing with folks so far beyond “full retard” they’ve landed at turnip. Or potato.

            4. It goes

              Stupid –> Full Retard –> Potato –> Full Potato –> Turnip –> Full turnip etc

      3. Interessting: I decided to click on the box at the end to play the whole list, 3-4 songs in, I got a message: This video contains content from Artisan News Service, who has blocked it from display on this website.” Followed by a link to watch it on YouTube.

  9. Ouch.

    Reminder set to never aggravate, irritate or annoy the esteemed hostess.

            1. Then the Lesser Magellanic Cloud is probably ideally situated for out of the danger zone but affording a good view.

        2. I’m not sure there *is* a reasonable safe distance. Her rage can take out a good chunk of the galaxy.

  10. When I was growing up in the U.S., “Chicom” was used to designate mainland China (or more particularly the Communist government of mainland China). “China” was sometimes used to designate Taiwan. If something was stamped “Made in China” in the 1970s, it was probably manufactured in Taiwan. The ethnic slur was “chink”.

    It was confusing to elementary school students during the Cold War. I would have thought educated adults would know the difference.

    Hi, I usually lurk but I heard about SJWs at the Hugos and I dislike SJWs having had a few squabbles with them. I took a leave of absence after “MammothFail” when the SJWs jumped on Patricia Wrede’s “Thirteenth Child”.

    1. Aw, sheesh, I missed that one. If even Patricia Wrede’s not safe from the humorless… well, no wonder she’s staying over in the children’s section, making money hand over fist.

      1. But, comrade, she depicted a universe in which there were no human inhabitants of the Americas before the whites arrived, merely because it was inhabited by ferocious magical beasts. If you can’t see the racism in that. . . you must be some kind of kulak or wrecker.

          2. Me too. I hoard something awful. You should see my tightly-packed pantry cupboard. And the equally tightly packed deep-freeze out in the garage. Enemy of the people and a counter-revolutionary – that’s me.

            1. You should probably stop hoarding Something Awful. I mean, what if Something Awful spilled out of the closet when company was visiting? Something Awful might scare them away forever, and then there would be talk about it all around town. 🙂

              (Running away now)

              1. I had to reread that to make sure you weren’t talking about the website. If so, it’s still an appropriate comment.

              2. Oh, I don’t know. If Celia is hoarding Something Awful, doesn’t that mean there is less to go around? Personally, I have more of an affinity for Something Beautiful, but usually find out it was really Something Awful wearing a disguise…

            2. Tightly packed pantrys? I was going to chastise your exhibitionism, but then I reread…

          3. I’m a rambler, I’m a gambler, I’m a long way from home,
            And if ya don’t like me, then leave me alone…

      2. I hope she’s making money hand over fist. If someone deserves to, she does. I’ve actually hesitated mentioning her because, you know what happens next, right?

      3. Ultimately, no one is safe from SJWism, using “safe” in the sense that they’ll never encounter it.

        Not even other SJWs. They’ll turn on one another at the drop of a digital hat the second someone voices even the slightest concern that maybe, just maybe, someone might have possibly gone perhaps a little too far.

        1. If you know your history of Chicoms, you will recall that turning on your comrade revolutionaries and denouncing them for not being revolutionary enough is standard operating procedure. And the best way to protect yourself from being denounced.

          1. Yep, and not only them but just about every totalitarian society since just about the history of forever. The Marxists and their spiritual descendants just took it up to 11… which the social Marxists in SJW circles then took up to 12. 😛

    2. It may have been confusing, but it was the world I grew up in.

      The Chicoms were the ones who ruled the mainland and required everyone to dress alike (male and female), to live by a little red book, work hard (at assigned task) for little and be subject to people to disappearance to be reeducated (by harder labor) if they objected.

      Taiwan was a place that allowed you some choices. If you worked hard, even at making ‘cheep’ products, you could make a good life for yourself and prepare your children to be able take advantage of even better opportunities.

      And that last was a word my Momma did not approve of…

  11. Self evidently true when I can’t even type I’ve got to stop

    I am gratified to see that it’s blessed by the dictionary to use chicom to refer to a manufactured article. Though I’m tired of saying it’s not an AK-47 it’s a Type 56.

    In coming days I expect chicom and Chiraq to be confounded in folk etymology. Maybe not while the origin is remembered – some criticism of Chicago and its residents, past present and future, is racist and some isn’t depending I gather on external factors not in evidence.

  12. Only a comsymp would be offended by ChiCom.

    But then again, what do you expect from a pack of cultural Marxists?

    1. . . . And isn’t it sort of funny that Christopher Nuttall’s post on “Pointless Discrimination?” had to be followed up with a post about somebody else’s pointless anti-discrimination?

  13. You do realize she and Chu are just going to double down again. That’s what they do. Their entire self-image is built on their version of “us” vs. “them” with folk like you and me as the “them.” They cannot admit to error. They cannot back down. It’s psychologically impossible.

    They might know a moment of fear, to which they will, however never admit, but they will soon talk themselves instead into outrage, or rather more fauxtrage and be off again.

    It’s what they do.

    1. “Arthur Chu ‏@arthur_affect · 7h7 hours ago
      FWIW I’ve been aware of Sarah Hoyt since her epic rage abt Obama’s reelection in 2012. The only one in her clique worse than her is Vox Day”

        1. The only one in her clique worse than her is Vox Day”

          And already with the equivalencies. Of the long list of applicable adjectives, this one takes lazy.

          The demonization of VD having garnered such success, we’ll just spuriously link our enemies to him!

          I can’t wait for when they find out how you founded GamerGate!

          😐

                  1. Hum. Mine, too.

                    Tried it a few times, myself. Afraid I get all “Hulk SMASH!” after a half-dozen failed games… Then I just HAVE to go kill some Strogg to feel better.

        2. Dear Lady, I stand in awe and respect of your post, and would like to make two points: 1) I totally agree with what you say, and 2); anyone who puts themselves down range from your truth cannon deserves what they get…

      2. As that quote comes from a man willing to monologue about raping small children on stage for “humor,” his disapproval should be a badge of honor to Sarah and the rest of us.

      3. There was an author
        by the name of Arthur.
        His last name was Chu,
        and was dumb as a shoe.

        Thought Chicom an ethnic slur,
        because he was an ignorant cur.
        For his vicious lies,
        He should be raped til he cries.

        1. Other Sean – That last line goes beyond entertaining discourse, and it is extremely lazy both as poetry and insult. We don’t have to sink to their level or be boring.

          1. At this point, I no longer care about maintaining the moral high ground. If it wasn’t illegal (immoral I’m not sure about) I’d say the correct solution to the SJW problem is “kill them all and let God sort them out.” They’ve oozed into all aspects of our cultural institutions. Just about every type of event I go to I find a bunch of their ilk in positions of power, and upon a soapbox ranting about “privilege” and such. I just want them gone gone gone.

            1. Well, I can certainly understand that, and sympathize. But there’s also no point feeding the trolls by actually saying egregious stuff, rather than making them make stuff up for us. 🙂

              1. Does it really matter what we say? Whatever we say, they’ll deliberately misinterpret it, take it out of context, or just make up shit. But you’re right, the only thing trolls should be fed is poison.

                1. This fight isn’t for them, they are beyond reason. It’s for those fence-sitters who really don’t understand the issues. If both sides are screaming “racist” and “rape” at one another, third parties are more likely to ignore everyone.

                2. One thing to try is to comment on the Administrative bloat in colleges and Human Resources departments. That is their preferred hangout. Fuss whenever possible of being a ‘resource’, kind of like a lump of coal. Hopefully, their might be one or two thinkers in upper management that will consider the point valid.

                3. It does matter. Let them grasp at straws. This is exactly what they want to hear from us. Normally they have to lie and distort to make us look bad. This time they won’t have to.

          2. I share the objection. That last line doesn’t scan properly. Try this instead:

            For his vicious lies,
            Bugger his eyes.

          1. It’s not going to be WWIII. We are just going to have a nuclear war in the Middle East which will stay regional. China and Russia will stay out of it.

            Seriously, I only have as much confidence in that forecast as I do in ‘Amazon, Baen, and Castalia will be the only current publishers stil around in seven years’.

              1. If Obama did it, it must be good. Forward to the realization that the dangers of nuclear war were massively overhyped.

              2. It isn’t as if the region produces anything of value to the rest of the world.

                Maybe if we get Tom Friedman to open a McDonalds’ franchise in Tehran, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Baghdad and each of the other countries in the region we will see complete peace.

                1. Hey! For the sucker one-two punch, get Paullie “The Beard” Krugman to give them economic advice!

                2. Ahem. There IS a McDonald’s franchise in Bahrain. It delivers.

                  There’s also a Chili’s, a BK, a DQ, and a Johnny Rockett’s along American Alley, which, despite its name, seems to always be full of locals and TCNs. Especially Saudis, Kuwaiti and Emirati on weekends.

            2. Iran will activate the cells they have world-wide. Sympathizers around the world will riot. Dearborn Michigan and Berkeley will burn.

                  1. There are normal people in CA. San Diego isn’t a bad little town. What about the people on all of the military bases in CA? Pendleton, Edwards, Twentynine Palms, The Presidio, All the Navy in Diego. North Island.

              2. Thinking…thinking…thinking…

                Is there a downside here?

                Could we get them to create a PK cell and save Vox Day the energy on next year’s Hugos?

            3. Bob, I disagree, Iran would love to ‘strike a blow against the Great Satan’ and pop a nuke in one of the targets conveniently suggested by the declassified RAND Corporation study from a few years back.

                2. Maybe if Cruz, Walker or Perry are elected Pres., we’ll bypass the need for a Buckman.Things are epically fubared but it shouldn’t take more than 50 years to get our allies to trust us again.

                  1. Things were bad under Carter and Reagan turned them around. With God’s help and the right people in office and winning the culture war we will be able to turn things around. Dec 1940 looked pretty bad for the Brits.

            4. Bob, if you ever read the Horseclans books, that was Adams’ prediction of how his WWIII would start, except he fingered Qaddafi for the trigger-man..

              1. I think those were before my time.

                As places for first-nuke-use-that-triggers-a-WW go, it is more plausible than an Australian civil war, or a sub-Saharan African tribal conflict.

                I’ve been trying to write a comic treatment of “there’s bound to be a nuclear war sometime”.

            5. As noted by Power Line:
              SATLOFF’S 10 QUESTIONS
              Jeffrey Goldberg is a trusted interlocutor of President Obama and a hand-wringing supporter of the Iran deal. Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a scholarly critic of the deal. Goldberg has posted Satloff’s 10 questions for President Obama on the deal. Satloff has also posted the questions here at WINE’s site. These are his questions:

              1. You have argued that the Iran deal enhances Israel’s security and those of our Arab Gulf allies. At the same time, your administration has offered the Gulf states a huge security package by way of compensation and you have expressed frustration that the government of Israel has not yet entered into discussions with you to discuss ways to bolster its security. But isn’t this a paradox? If the Iran deal bolsters their security, shouldn’t their security needs be going down, not up?

              2. It is surely legitimate for you to argue that the Iran deal enhances U.S. security but it certainly seems odd for you to claim to understand Israel’s security needs more than its democratically elected leaders. Are there other democracies whose leaders you believe don’t recognize their own best security interests or is Israel unique in this regard?

              [SNIP]

              7. You have argued that the global sanctions regime falls apart if Congress rejects the Iran deal. But the key variable here is not Europe, China or some other foreign country—it’s the United States. Specifically, the sanctions regime only collapses if the U.S. stops enforcing the sanctions with the same vigor it has enforced them [with] in recent years, and instead goes back to the policy of the Clinton and Bush administrations, which refused to enforce ILSA [Iran and Libya Sanctions Act] despite overwhelming votes for that law in Congress. In the event of a “no” vote, can you promise that your administration will expend the same effort and resources to enforce U.S. sanctions laws against Iran as has been the case the last few years? And if that’s the case, what’s your explanation for how or why sanctions will collapse?

              [SNIP]

              9. In your American University speech, you said the Iran agreement produced a “permanent” solution to the threat of the Iranian nuclear bomb. But just a few months ago, you told an NPR interviewer that Iran’s breakout time toward a bomb “would have shrunk almost down to zero” when restrictions on centrifuges and enrichment expire in after 10-15 years. Can both statements really be true?

              Words are malleable in Obama’s hands, evanescent things which mutate and evaporate.

              It will be interesting to watch the MSM spin his “legacy.”

              Just as it will be interesting to observe the reportage accompanying Jimmuh Carter’s passing, and the encomiums that will be emit from Obama, Biden and the Clintons.

      5. Oh, now that’s surely an insult to the Most Evil Person in the World (TM), isn’t it?

            1. Nyah — it’s the fish. Haven’t the slightest idea where they come from, it’s like they just fall outta the sky some days.

      1. It’s all those crazy Republicans who oppose his mighty peacemaking skills, you know.

          1. Doesn’t that depend on whose grave it is?

            I imagine the graves of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jackson and others are rather unsettled.

  14. To MRK, Chu, et al. ad nauseam:

    ✨🌟Achievements Unlocked:🌟✨
    ☑ 1. Skim until Offended
    ☑ 4. Disregard Inconvenient facts
    ☑ 5. Make S——t Up (Mostly Chu)
    ☑ 7. Concern Trolling
    ☑ 8. When all else fails, Racism!
    ❇️Efficiency bonus!❇️
    (Just 3 more for a complete checklist! You can do it!)

    1. Let’s not forget:

      “Attack, attack, attack!”
      “Defend!”
      “How rude!”

              2. Yep. I think she’s using what is left over from being ill on some art commissions, too. (Oh, if I could only afford anything extra these days.)

                Hasn’t even put anything new up on cutelildrow (her DeviantArt page).

                Spring is on its way down there, though. Hope she perks up with more sunlight. And finally writes the rest of her dad’s biography – that is one on my “MUST BUY” list if it ever shows up.

        3. Okay, I’ve read most of Larry’s checklist, but I don’t think I’ve come across the moon ferrets before. What’s the deal with them?

          1. The Moon Ferrets thing is when somebody says “Well, what about (something irrelevant to the topic at hand)” as an attempt to divert from their losing argument.

            1. Of course, there’s also the problem that people accuse you of diverting the topic when you bring up a counterexample.

            1. Forrest was posting his charts and statistics, and demanding answers; and when Larry got involved he said this:

              You’re like that crazy hobo on the subway demanding everyone justify the moon ferrets. But moon ferrets aren’t real, so why waste a bunch of time explaining that to a stinky hobo. But I’ll try, because I’m a retired accountant, and when people like you try to use stats it is like watching a monkey humping a football. So amusing, but kind of sad.

              1. Moon ferrets? Someone’s been reading too much crossover fanfic between Sailor Moon and either Negima or Nanoha. 🙂

                Moon rabbits would need some sort of predator.

                1. In Chinese Myth (yeah, I hate them so much it’s one of my fun ‘go to’ places — THIS IS SARCASM FOR ANY SJW TWAT READING THIS) Moon Rabits are LEWD. So without a natural predator they’d overtake us!

                  1. Maybe they’re food limited, and their restrictive gives a hard cap on their population? Do we know if they’re k or r type?

                2. Nanoha… hmmm… Lord knows SFF could use some “befriending…” (Death Star supelaser, orbital bombardment, Nanoha’s befriending of her foes; it all looks the same in the end)

                    1. If that is the scene with Four, I don’t think she ever makes friends with her in canon. On the other hand, Vivid seems to indicate Nanoha is on good terms with Vivio.

                    2. No, Four pretty much ends up in prison until the heat death of the Universe. Vivio she adopted, IIRC.

                      I was remembering a fansub of the Strikers series. Had an amusing caption at the beginning of each episode after the opening credits. Episode 24’s caption:
                      Let the Befriending Begin!

                      (Great, I’ve revealed a dark secret: There’s one magical girl series I like. *goes to watch some Gundam/Macross clips to compensate*)

                3. I wonder if they are related to the moon mink, on the moon around Norstrilia. If they are it would explain why I’ve never seen a moon rabbit.

              2. So if I understand this correctly, in order to get the “Moon Ferrets” bonus in this particular argument, I would need to demand that Sarah retract her support for the My Lai massacre or something like that?

                2. No. You’d need to demand she withdraw her support for George Bush’s decision to nuke Sri Lanka. Not just claim she supports something, but claim she supports something you made up. Otherwise it only reaches “make shit up” level, not “moon ferret” level.

  15. Good Post Sarah.

    Unfortunately, due to my blood pressure, I think I need to take a vacation from hearing about those “people”. [Very Very Very Annoyed]

      1. “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

        ― J.R.R. Tolkien

    3. I’m thinking that as well, plus a team change on the job has meant a headache before I get to work the past few days.

    4. If you must, you must. Note that I only stopped arguing with those “people” over at Baen. Reading just keeps it at a healthy level for me.

      (Besides taking too much of my time. Knocked out “The Muse” yesterday, since it wouldn’t get out of my head otherwise – now I might just make something out of it. Assuming alpha reader doesn’t shoot me down…)

  16. BTW folks, I think Clamps is trolling over at Chicago Boys. idiocy on full display…….

  17. Sarah,

    I appreciate your attempt to engage these dishonest mental midgets, but it’s like playing chess with a pigeon. All they’ll do is strut around the board, knocking over pieces while crapping on it and then declaring themselves the victor.

      1. Apparently that alleged statement was a paraphrase of a Russian quip. Russian humor of the more “earthy” type is very preoccupied with both anthropomorphisms and people’s mother’s 😉

    2. It is an argument before the jury. No point trying to change your opponent’s mind, they have a vested interest in their stated opinions.

      Argue to sway the jury.

      1. Some folks are laughing and clapping for the cute pigeon. They ignore that pigeons befoul whatever they light upon. The mess is immaterial to them. Such folks may be loud, and that may draw your attention, but these are not the target audience.

        That would be the young woman with her two daughters, pausing, curious as to why someone would play chess with a pigeon. The old man with his nose in a book, blinking as he looks up to see what the fuss is all about. The cabbie who just reads the local sensationalist rag (or lowbrow, pure enjoyment sci-fi), waiting for his fare. Figuratively speaking, that is.

        The *real* audience isn’t your supporters, or your opponents: it’s the *vastly* larger group that barely know either of you, if at all. This is where you make your first impression to them. That’s why it’s important to know when to be blunt, when to be civil, when to stand firm, when to admit fault, when to have *passion,* and when to swallow your fears.

        The performance is real, even virtual as the internet is. Listen to Eamon. And Larry Correia. Chu and MRK won’t be swayed. Others will be.

  18. Posting to Twitter w/TLDR version for the progs. (“Sarah was insulting you, not the author of 3BP. Happy now? No? Good. HAND.”)

  19. I’d say the trolling has already started to disrupt SP4. Its almost like they’re afraid of something.

    2. How would they disrupt SP4? That would require us to be in any way orderly to begin with.

        1. Yeah. That’s why I think its so funny. The trolls are running loose on Mad Genius right now too.

          I suppose they could be “sore winners”.

            1. Someone needs to make a new Hitler video when the time is right. “Why didn’t we stop when all we had to worry about was Strawman Larry?”

            2. From that new book by the SJWs’ absolutely favoritest blogger:

              “#3: SJWs Always Project.”

              😉

  21. OK, so I missed the earlier tempest in a tea cup from 2013… Who are the people she’s calling 12 rabid weasels? Oh and let me say WOW, if that’s 1/4 speed I don’t want to see all all ahead flank

    2. They were well-regarding SFF authors who objected to the SFWA magazine fiasco (see also: lady editors) and/or the aftermath. Harlan Ellison and Mercedes Lackey were, I think, two of them.

      1. Ok, when Ellison, Lackey, *and* Pournelle agree that you’ve stepped in something, it’s time to check your shoe.

      1. OK, just seeing the names Ellison, Lackey, and Pournelle says enough… My wife’s dealings with Ellison all indicate he’s (was?) a dick, but he’s a giant in the field, not just in his ego. Lackey I’ve never met, nor know anyone accept Mike W who’s ever met her but all reports say she’s a sweetheart, even if left of center also a giant in the field. Pournelle inherited the crown for king of the right of center when RAH died, and while there are several princes in the wings who will end up splitting the kingdom when Pournelle dies, he’s the Old king of the Right in my opinion… when all of them are against you and united, check yourself, because you’re fucked up.

        1. The “left of center” comment is kinda important in this case. If it’s the incident I’m thinking of, then it ended with the SFWA accusing all of the old guard authors involved of being “right wing”.

          1. In a universe where Mercedes Lackey was right wing Lenin would be an Ayn Rand fan.

            Also, M3N and other recent Hugo winners might learn something from an author who writes pretty much 3 stories but writes them very, very entertainingly and thus gets people to buy them every time. I’m buying them about 1 out of 3 although she abandoned the series I liked the most for the most valid of reasons: it wasn’t paying the bills. That said I kind of thought with urban fantasy being the thing Diane Trigard would be back by now.

            1. Well, I understand she did join the Oklahoma Democratic Party back in the 1980s, but in fairness she was from somewhere else and probably did not understand the implications of that.

              My understanding is that the Guardians were also dropped, and will stay dropped, because she had some disturbed fans who were a bit too into those books.

              1. Yup. Which is too bad, but apparently when the Guardians resonated with certain people, they really, really resonated, all the way onto a frequency far outside the normal spectrum.

                1. I read that as well which bugged me.

                  I mean, I really, really liked the books (I had a PC in Tales from the Floating Vagabond that was Diane crossed with movie Buffy) but people, get. a. life.

                  They were recently republished. I had hoped that meant she relented and was going to write more. No such luck I guess.

            2. I wish – those were good stories. Apparently they attracted too many crazies who didn’t get the “fantasy” part of urban fantasy.

        1. Maybe we could try a cheerful: ‘Hey people!’

          Of course that would still create trouble with those who identify as animals, birds, plants or whatever…

            1. … for the memory,
              of crap games on the floor, nights in Singapore,
              you might have been a headache, but you never were a bore.

                  1. Please stand back while I attempt to juggle five live carp and a model rocket. I must ask you to keep your hands and noodly appendages off the launch remote for the remainder of the performance, and please keep a firm grip on your cats and shoulder dragons.

                1. In all fairness there are social circles I move in where is it is a commit in very specific situations even if prefaced with word “evil”.

              3. Y’know, just the other week, after Mass, I stood up in the apse and called out, asking “Any c**ts need a ride?” and got the rudest looks! Just proof that bible-thumpers aren’t as enlightened as university presidents, I guess. From now on I will only extend such generous offers in college bars at closing time, where I can be sure folks will appreciate my efforts to reduce drunks driving.

            1. Greetings armor and crunchies, swabbies and snipes, airdales and bubbleheads, jarheads and grunts, wingwipers and coasties, redlegs and 117s, fobbits and REMFs, …

              OK, I ran out.

        4. “Hey, ya’ll.”

          Just another example of Southern English being superior to any other form of English. We have multiple forms of “you” that clarify the subject.

          E.g. “You suck.” Could mean one person, could mean millions of people.

          Southern English:
          “You suck.” Means you – individually – suck.
          “Y’all suck.” You and those around you suck.
          “All y’all suck.” Everyone present sucks.
          “All y’all and them just suck.” Includes everyone present and those not present.

          When everyone’s armed, specificity in who you’re insulting is of paramount importance.

        5. I can think of one term for them, but I doubt it appropriate to use here; rhymes with “slewsch rags.”

          1. I believe the host only said don’t begin with obscenities…

            Yes, I would have made a fantastic guardhouse lawyer. So?

          1. Never!

            (I do wish I could find a clip of William Daniels’ delivery of that word from when he played John Adams, it would be handy. One of his reading of the word ‘disgusting’ would come in useful as well.)

    4. She’s never identified them (to my knowledge) nor acknowledged, even with a wink, anyone else’s attempt at identification.

      The way she tells it these 12 SFWA members were heckling her for no reason, though the reading comprehension she’s just displayed makes me wonder whether she had any idea what they were actually saying.

    5. I’m a little bit confused…I went to the page Sarah linked, but I don’t see any wishes that anyone would *die* (as opposed to quit).

      And was it really all over some authors using the term “ladies”?

      Thank you!

      1. Really? — then it might have been sanitized. Or I might be confusing it with one of her posts on twitter at the time telling them to “hurry up and die.”
        Sort of. As usual it’s half truth, half lies. They called women “lady-editors and lady-writers” in an historical retrospective. This set off the craziest feminists, who then went hunting for something to disapprove. Then there was “they were drooling over women in bikinis.” This actually referred to their describing a past female editor as so incredibly beautiful (particularly in a bikini at pool parties) that male writers’ wives were highly suspicious of her till they got to know her better. That’s it. In an historical retrospective. (And I’ve seen pictures of the editor and I believe it.)

        1. I looked up pictures of her at the time. My response was something along the lines of, “Damn. I can see why.”

          And, really, IIRC, didn’t they point out how her looks made it harder for her to be taken seriously?

        2. Thanks for explaining things. If you can show that tweet or wherever else MRK did ask people to die that would be nice.

          FWIW, I read MRK’s page some time back — before this SP/RP flap — and I don’t recall having seen any death wishes (first-, second- or third-person) then either.

  22. In my own never ending search for reassurance that if not the lurkers support me then at least the facts do I find The Chicom Series by Granville Rideout, 1971, 245 Pages Hard Cover to be a book about firearms.

    To my eye ignorance of the past, politics and firearms is a point of pride with the SJW crowd. If not the first to say don’t confuse me with the facts such people do say it long enough and loud enough to justify Duranty’s Pulitzer as having at least some if negative correlation to the facts.

  25. As for the “Reading Is Hard” brigade: whenever I see the puerile response “tl;dr” my response is typically “TS;DD” (Too Stupid; Don’t Debate). And yes, it’s all caps to denote my extreme irritation.

    Sometimes the foundation for a cogent argument just won’t fit into a bumper-sticker aphorism. I understand that this might be annoying for the members of the International ADD Set. but that’s life for you.

    1. Reading is hard; Thinking is harder. Most people would rather not do either, I’m very much afraid, but there is a certain segment of the population who wish to project the image that they are very good at both, without actually putting in the effort at either.

      1. There is a whole bunch of signaling whereas having correct thoughts and statements are intelligence and quality. Especially when the unperson label can be wrapped around opponents

      3. As Don Marquis said, “If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”

              2. Beyond quotes mine tends to include notes about musical forms, reading lists, and speculation on possible software projects

                1. Quotes, books I want to read, things I don’t want to forget, music, and sketches, mostly. I have a separate one for story bits so they get out of my head for a while.

                  Thanks, I really had no idea this was a thing. It was originally something my mom suggested I do, because I have the world’s worst memory as it is.

                  1. I had one for quotes and names of books and whatever other scribbles I did: shopping lists etc.

    3. This blog needs a thumbs up. Absent that, I’ll just have to give you a “+1” in the comment.

    4. “Sometimes the foundation for a cogent argument just won’t fit into a bumper-sticker aphorism.”

      Or an image macro.

      To use it to illustrate other text (like say how our hostess some times does things) is, depending on the specifics, alright, but when some [censored]wit uses it as the entirety of their argument you (generic “you”) are 99% likely to be okay by just ignoring anything further from them.

    5. “There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker. ”

      ― Charles M. Schulz

    6. Hear, hear!

      In fact, quite recently I posted a fair to longish comment on an SJW blog. They were talking about people who had misunderstood others’ words, so I thought I’d set the example and explain my position in detail.

      I was accused of “mansplaining,” and specifically told that the very fact I’d discussed my arguments at length discredited them.

      Some people don’t want to communicate so much as they want to (1) have their minds read and (2) show how superior they are to the telepathically-challenged.

    1. One of my favorite opening quotes from Andromeda was this one:

      “Those who fail to learn history
      are doomed to repeat it;
      those who fail to learn history correctly–
      why they are simply doomed.”

      1. I preferred:

        “Requested:
        One Mark V ECM unit, 1000 km of
        Fullerene cable, one low-yield nuclear warhead. Purpose:
        Surprise party for foreign dignitary.”
        Argosy Special Operations
        requisition form,
        CY 9512

        1. I’ll have to remember that one. But the first one is applicable so danged much of the time. We don’t always have foreign dignitaries we want to surprise.

  27. During much of the Cold War the US considered Taiwan to be the “real” Chinese government, Beijing an illegitimate one. “Chicom” was a political distinction. It may have been a slur, but an ideological one, not racial one.
    Educated people should know this stuff, but your critics are not educated.

    1. It’s still a good way to differentiate between the mainland Chinese government, Taiwan, and the couple hundred million “overseas Chinese” spread around the Pacific Basin. So that way I can say, “F’ ing Chicoms!” without slandering millions of decent, hardworking, capitalist ethnic Chinese. Now, mind you, the Chicoms don’t care for the differentiation, as they’d prefer everyone to believe that they speak for every ethnic Chinese on the planet.

      1. You know…

        It occurs to me that if you were to attempt to pronoune PRC, instead of spelling it out as is typically done, it would be rendered as “prick”. Think the SJWs would let us use that one instead?

        2. This is a country that calls it’s own fleet the “People’s Liberation Army Navy”. Coming up with stupid names to hang on them is going to take some work.

          2. I was under the impression that the PRC just considers them the naval branch of the PLA, in a joint command structure not unlike what Canada (f’rex) uses, and “PLAN” is just what western sources use to specify the branch in question.

            2. That they consider their navy just a part of the army goes a long way to explaining why the Europeans chopped them up into little pieces rather than the other way around. One experiment with Zheng He’s fleets and back into their hole they went, never to explore the world again. Meanwhile, relatively tiny European nations were sending ships all over the world. China’s always been very introspective, more concerned with their own internal stability than anything else. Navies just aren’t any good at controlling the peasants.

              1. Which is why the Founders put fewer restrictions on the Navy than the Army, like limiting Army appropriations to two years out in the Constitution.

    2. Nope, but they are highly credentialed which carries much more social value in most of the US these days (and the West in general).

      1. Let’s keep in mind that credentials are generally awarded for mastery of the conventional wisdom, recognized by those heavily invested in that conventional wisdom.

        1. I was observing not lauding.

          Having worked with PhDs at Pfizer who thought up stuff before breakfast I won’t understand before doomsday while being unable to install browser plugins I know the value of credentials. Outside of your area of expertise they generally are inverse to useful knowledge.

          When your area of expertise is feminist Marxist theory and you have an advanced degree I hope you can afford to pay someone to tie your shoes otherwise you’re going to trip on the laces.

    3. Yeah, that’s how I knew it too. Political distinction usage. Also, these days as “Chinese Company” – Company in mainland China, but that might be more of a jargon. Also, to distinguish between the millions of Chinese who weren’t from PRC versus the billions who WERE from the PRC. (And to this day, Hong Kong still doesn’t seem to count.)

      I’m not sure that the SJBullies/CHORFs aren’t using it the way they WANT it to be. Ideology seems to trump reality in their mind, but disagreeing with someone ideologically doesn’t have the same impact as well, racism or ‘bigotry.’ And you can’t accuse someone of bigotry if you simply disagree on ideological basis.

      Thus they scream ‘racist, bigot, misogynist homophobe’ at their ideological opponents, because those terms HAVE a reaction, even if the accusation isn’t true.

      And their method of scream and leap at “Vox Day” makes so much sense now.

    1. Yep. I read some of the things that these delightful people say in various venues, and I feel the urgent desire to slam my head repeatedly against my desk until the stupid stops. And I just got a new desk.

  29. Sarah – re: the picture of the burning armored personnel carrier, it was set on fire by the Tiananmen Square protestors. The people climbing around were identified by the caption as “residents” who were basically rubbernecking and checking it out. I don’t think they’re supposed to be Party members.

            1. When the Chicoms have tanks that are independently smart, worry.

              Actually, worry when they have tanks that are independently dumb, too.

                1. Luckily, communism isn’t big on that “independent” thing anyways

                  Oh, I don’t know about that: One of the few governments I can see thinking “autonomous armored fighting vehicle” is good idea is the PRC – no soldier reliability issues to worry about*, just drop it into an area with an on switch when it lands, and a finite load of ammo and fuel.

                  * Open source word is that back when the PRC politburo panicked and wanted to send in tanks to break up the Tiananmen protests, they actually sent orders to several armored units to head in to Beijing (none being based close in as a coup preventative measure), but the first such units did not comply – they had mechanical problems, or were unable to copy the order properly, or were worried about regional unrest, or were waylaid by troublesome insects. The result was that those initially contacted units basically sat in place, didn’t move out and drive on up to kill those kids.

                  As you can imagine this freaked out the leadership even more, but eventually their frantic dialing found a unit that would answer the phone, and that was the one that rolled in and did the bloody work on unarmed college kids.

                  Obviously afterward the didn’t-answer-the-phone generals and their staffs all had mysterious rapid disassembly events for basically passively siding with the kids in the square, but also not none of them moved to block any other units from making it to Beijing.

                  1. Not 100% sure where I read it – probably Ledeen writing about Iran – but the observation was that protest revolutions succeed when the general’s kids are in the crowd.

      3. Decker is getting very upset with you right now. Faith, on the other hand, understands.

  30. M3N: If “Chicom is a slur, and Chicom means “Chinese Communist”, then clearly Either:

    1. “Chinese” is a slur, or,

    2. “Communist” is a slur, or,

    3. You are an idiot.

    Choose, please.

  31. I’d like to fight, but honestly this much derp is making me reconsider why I should put in the effort over a dildo on a plaque.

    1. put in the effort over a dildo on a plaque.

      At a certain point it stops being about the trophy and starts being more about simply beating the socialist would-be tyrant “SJW’s”.

      1. And there is Breitbart’s ‘politics is downstream of culture’. Change the culture of entertainment and it will have an effect on politics on the long run when it starts to change the way the voters think of issues. This is the long game, a very small side fight perhaps but still a part of it.

        2. Or as Mark Steyn puts it:

          “If you lose all this stuff, if you lose the TV shows, you lose the pop songs, you lose the movies, you lose the churches, you lose the universities, and even lose the locker room, then electing a guy with “R” after his name isn’t going to be much use.”

      2. I’m all for that. Hey, have you heard this one?

        What do you call a million dead socialists?
        A good start.

          2. What do you call forty million dead Communists? A slow day for your average Communist leader.

      3. The points to remember are first GamerGate. It was a major unexpected loss for the SJWs. It puts fear into them, they might loose their job like Reddit CEO Ellen Pao. Sad Puppies had a victory on the voting slate. Lamentations of the Women Scalzi didn’t get a Hugo for crap like Redshirts this time. No Award shows moderates and undecideds that the SJW clique gladly adopt scorched earth as a policy.
        They fear SP4 badly. SP3 proved that the nominations could be wrested from them, and only their scorched earth ‘saved’ the awards (if you want to call it that). Their fear is SP4 can control the nominations and the awards. Recognition of how small they are, and the ease in which Chick-Fil-A and the pizza place in Illinois had a ground swell of financial support, indicates that they may not be able to ‘buy’ the No Award support against a growing and dedicated SP4 campaign next year.

        1. Anent:

          No Award: The Hugo Awards and the Nihilism of the Cultural Left
          By Robert Tracinski
          A few months ago, I wrote about a notable victory in the culture wars: a group of science fiction writers had pushed back against the politicization of the Hugo awards, the most prominent literary awards in the sci-fi genre. The “Sad Puppies” campaign and its more radical offshoot, the “Rabid Puppies,” promoted their own slates of candidates for this year’s award nominations and achieved a spectacular success. So it was assumed that, having swept the nominations, the Sad Puppies would stack up a large number of wins in the voting for the final awards.

          The response from the cultural left, such as Marxist Philip Sandifer, was to propose a slate of negation: to vote en bloc for the “no award” option rather than let any of the Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies nominees win. This has been called the “Puppy Kickers” campaign. And it succeeded. In the final awards ceremony held on Saturday, there were five categories in which the final result was “no award.” For context, there have been a total of five “no award” results in the entire 60-year history of the awards.

          In other words, the left would rather have no awards than let them go to the wrong people. This approach has been summed up as “Burn the Hugo to Save It.”

          Yet there is something appropriate, almost poetic, in this result. It represents the modus operandi and end goal of the cultural left. Their “counterculture” is not about creating a new culture. It’s about destroying the culture of their opponents.

          [SNIP]

          I recently argued that if we’re going to have a “culture war,” it should be more of a culture competition: you put out your best, most appealing visions of your ideal, we’ll put out ours, and we’ll see who wins more converts. That, in essence, is the challenge the Sad Puppies posed to the cultural left, and now we see how they responded. The only way they can win a cultural competition is by suppressing the alternatives.

          Or to be more accurate, the only way they can win is to make everyone else lose. It’s the culture of “no award.”

            3. Don’t the proglodytes have to HAVE some culture

              Does a culture positive for neisseria gonorrhoeae count?

        2. And they should be fearful. All that it would take is an Instalaunch of the nominations and votes.

            1. Isn’t there an old saying to the effect that you shouldn’t get into an argument with someone who buys bits by the Large-Hadron-Collider-full?

              1. See, they’re not taking this in account. In the future, should you guys tell me of a particularly pungent post/tweet of Mary’s, she can be famous beyond her wildest dreams 😉

                    3. Oh. I was on Twitter. Also before that, asleep.Also, in Star Trek Online, before that. NEED TO FINISH MY DELTA QUADRANT MISSIONS BEFORE UPDATE TT_TT

                      Also, a proper ritual summoning of moi requires Hershey’s chocolate, mint chocolate and arabica coffee as part of the sacrificial items. ^.~

                      (To the idiots who are unable to comprehend humor: the above is teasing between friends.)

                    4. I am unable to comprehend some people’s liking for mint and chocolate together. They are both great flavors, but to me, putting them together is just a recipe for “ew”.

                    7. Dark chocolate and mint are some of my favorite combos. My love for the flavors started with my parents introducing me to a box of After Eights as a child in Berlin… and now my kids love the stuff too, based on the logic of ‘Mummy likes that. Mummy likes to eat only yummy things. Therefore, that is yummy. I want to try it, Mummy.’

                    9. “Also, a proper ritual summoning of moi requires Hershey’s chocolate, mint chocolate and arabica coffee as part of the sacrificial items. ^.~”
                      Oh that’s eeeezzyyyyyy for me to manage…if you were here in my neck fo the woods. lol [3 groceries and a walmart with in 2 miles in any direction]

              1. Well, it means if she makes me destroy her, it should be easy enough. Just a late night comedy feature “Deep Thoughts of a Modern Feminist” 😉
                I’ll still have time to write, and all. Happy?

                    1. I think this should be a weekly (or whatever) feature for the next year … and not just for this individual under discussion …

            3. You have to do it early, so InstaReaders can get signed up to participate in time to do some (a LOT of) good.

  32. What staggers me is how utterly unconcerned the WorldCon apologists are about the opinions of people outside of “Fandom”. I tried to explain that they are coming across as being willing to repell outsiders at all costs and that image leaves something to be desired as a recruitment tool. They don’t care. In October I will be attending my first sci fi con as an adult and right now I am dreading it–I’d cancel my membership except that people are counting on me to man a table in the dealer’s room.

    WorldCon is going to be held a few hours drive from my house next year. You couldn’t pay me enough to attend.

    1. Can’t we pay you to go and vote against whatever proposals the SJW’s propose at the business meeting?

            1. I am not against hugs. I have many close friends who hug. I believe that people have the right to hug or to be hugged, as they choose. I simply prefer not be hugged myself.

    3. May be the point. If only their people attend they have control. Who knows, may also be why Helsinki won the bid for 2017, they have been trying long and hard and will presumably feel obliged to please the people who helped to bring it there, and the mere fans (as just readers, not involved in Fandom politics) here mostly know nothing about this whole debate except the puppy kickers’ side if they know anything. And most of the puppies have a life which means they are unlikely to travel there. So, more control.

      I think Vox Day has fans here though. Castalia House is here, for starters.

          1. I guess I should. Depends a bit on things like whether I can get that weekend off. And if there will be others. Not much I do alone except have blood pressure problems.

            And what happens next year, and if VD gets forward – and how far forward – with his aim of burning the whole thing down.

              1. Little secret. In any crowd there are likely people who agree with you. The hard part is convincing them to stand with you. Often they don’t realize how numerous they are so stay silent out of fear.

                2. I’ve seen (or so I think) a lot of new handles showing up on the blogs, people that finally hit their maximum level of disgust. (I hit mine only after the nominations, but before the vote.)

                  It may not be a good indicator – but the Puppies have certainly influenced a few out there to cease taking counsel of their fears.

            2. Unfortunately, VD’s goals are easier to accomplish. If anything, Rabid Puppies are this year’s winner, because he actually got his enemies to do his bidding. In his new book, “SJWs Always Lie”, he actually says nice things about Sad Puppies, except he considers ‘saving the Hugos’ to be an impossible goal. Unfortunately, he is a master of gaming the rules, so his opinion does count.

      2. Hmm…perhaps Castilia should have a presence.

        But I do remember campaigning for Helsinki on the no puppy side

          2. And what little I know about few things I am interested in personally. Guns, knives and where you can carry them are among the things I have done some checking on from time to time (results: “oh s**t when did that happen!” moments. Things were a bit, er, looser when I was young, if not exactly free back then either).

          3. Thank you.

            That clarifies things. Haven’t exactly found what I am after.

            I’m curious whether the Act on Extradition On The Basis of an Offence Between Finland and Other Member States of the European Union (2003) chapter 2, section 3, paragraph 2 numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 17, and 20 are crimes in Finland, how they are defined in Finnish law, standards of evidence, whether the police will make arrests, and whether the courts will convict.

            If I think someone is traveling to Finland to commit a crime, am I also a criminal if I suspect, but do not tell the Finnish police until that person is in Finland and in a position to carry out the crime? What level of proof would I need to not just be wasting police time?

            Just getting the answers might be more effort than I am willing to put in. The answers are for a plan that would likely be beyond my ability, even if I didn’t have better things to do.

            My apologies.

      5. The Elite Truefen will undoubtedly fly to Helsinki on Tor’s dime… it’s a legitimate business expense, after all.

    4. Plenty of people at conventions are perfectly nice, or neutral. A lot of vendors would give people the shirt off their backs plus good advice galore, and that’s who you’ll be spending the most time with (if you’re running the table in the huckster room). There are also plenty of people who like to help new attendees feel at home.

      Very few of the real jerks have the chutzpah to say anything or do anything to anyone’s face; they are usually whiners behind people’s backs (or on Twitter, now), or they confine their backstabbing to depriving people of party invitations and trying to take over convention committees for their own glorification. This has been an unusual season for outright jerkism, but it doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere except isolated places where the jerks feel safe. (Which unfortunately included the Hugo ceremonies, in a spectacular failure of good convention management.)

      It shames me that anyone should have reason to feel afraid or worried about attending a convention, and I wish I could be there to help you out. But what I hope and expect is that you will be happily surprised by how friendly things are.

      (Alternately, the convention may be a little empty and lonely, as many conventions have gone down in attendance a lot in recent years, what with bad economy and no new blood. In which case you may have plenty of time to chat with your fellow dealers.)

    5. I am sorry this has left such a bad taste in your mouth. I’ve been a con goer for decades and I literally wear my opinions on my sleeve. (If you’ve seen me at Boston area cons, you know what I mean). I am known as a conservative and have not received garbage from it beyond the usual debate flak*. And I am a panelist at the conventions and not just an anonymous guest.

      So, I urge you to go, and more importantly be a visible wrongfan. Show the flag. If there is a political panel and they have a Q&A, politely view your disagreement. Let them know you’re out there.

      Most importantly, have a good time. Yes, the cons are a blast. And if you like them, volunteer. Get involved. Man registration desks. Suggest ideas for panels. (I once managed to get a panel on conservatives in Sci-Fi at Arisia. And it was well received.) Because the CHORFS and the SJW fellow travelers want us to feel unwelcome and to concede the field to them. And, as appalling as these last few days have been, that is what we can not do. Even if the SPs never win a Hugo for their nominations we need to make sure they will be dealing with us permanently.

      (*A 8 year old kid once hit me in the stomach for wearing a button that said ‘Pokemon, the other white meat!’ As she did so she yelled, “Don’t eat Pikachu!”

      1. Now, that last one you may have deserved.

        It does reflect extremely poor child-raising by the parental units, though. Mine, you would have been well-advised to stay away from anything with more than two or three stair-steps… :>

      2. Actually, I am going to be on a panel–that’s the other reason I can’t back out. I don’t anticipate having fun, I’m not there to have fun, I’m there to work. For fun I sit in an unfurnished room in the gathering darkness and brood about the meaningless of existence.

        But the point that I was trying to make is that the Pro-Puppies and the Anti-Puppies (for lack of a better characterization) seem to have very different responses to the question of how the Spokane Hugos make Science Fiction fandom look in the eyes of people who are not yet part of the fan culture.

        Folks on the Pro-Puppies side respond like you all have done here–cons really are fun, you can avoid the drama, it’s not all like that, and so on.

        The Anti-Puppies don’t seem to care. I get the impression that they have no interest in sharing science fiction outside of their own little clique. I think they want to scare off the filthy casuals.

        1. “I get the impression that they have no interest in sharing science fiction outside of their own little clique. I think they want to scare off the filthy casuals.”

          Appears that way to me, too. And that is a sad thing, because more readers, more fans grows the genre, feeds the authors money (a larger pool of people who are aware of your stuff is usually a good thing), and tends to blunt the effect of the cliques.

          Hope the work is beneficial, if you don’t anticipate fun. I’m not much for crowds and people I don’t know, myself, but I enjoyed the panels at Libertycon this year. It might surprise you.

            1. Ironic, isn’t it? You can consider yourself the class of the world, if only the world ends at your door. Open that door and step out in the world, well…

              ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, stepping out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.’

              The world is not your friend. It’s not your enemy, either. It’s worse. The world, by and large, doesn’t know you, and worst of all, doesn’t care. And that last bit is most frightening to those who’ve been coddled all their lives. Far easier, it is, to keep that door shut and never face the challenges, the wonders, the risks and dangers, the unexpected joy and excitement that the wider world brings.

              Ironic, indeed, that the ones calling for Diversity! in all things require everyone to all sing with one voice, while the rest of the world jams to a trillion different tunes.

        2. My advice? Have a video recording of the proceedings. Upload to Youtube if the ASPs have a go at you, and upload to youtube the nice times too.

          I honestly wish someone had done this with John C Wright and Jagi. I think we should start doing this.

          1. Part of my saving up for Worldcon will be for concealable audio and video record capability.

        3. Well, I am a filthy casual they scared away. I paid the bucks to nominate, vote, and attend (and read the works); but when another trivial engagement came up, I changed plans, reservations, and avoided Spokane.

          From what I have heard (anyone have any youtubes?) I was right to avoid the arrogant preening of the Neros as they burned down the awards rather than give one to the wrong people.

          I, also, don’t think the Anti-Puppies care. They like the clique small so they can control it. They will, in a very under-handed and cowardly way, discourage others from becoming involved.

          I would have attended had I known anyone else attending to bolster my courage at having to perhaps argue or defend solo against for what all I know could have been hoards.

          Maybe for SP4 more of the organizers should let it be known they are attending. I know JCW never let it be known he was attending.

    6. I would have expressed disinterest in walking across the street to attend … now I fell like going just to tick them off.

    7. My fantasy if I have enough $$$ for next year to attend. Wear an insensitive pin-up girl Hawaiian shirt over a Skynyrd Confederate Flag t-shirt over my Privileged Microaggressor t-shirt over a henna’d tatoo of the cover to Spinrad’s The Iron Dream. If anyone complains I will be happy to comply…

  33. I agree with the original use of “chicom”. I agree that Mary T.N. is clueless to not be familiar with the appropriate usage of the term.

    But I also think this response is just a tad over the top.

    1. Oh, good. Guys, we have the “How rude” response.
      IS IT OVER THE TOP TO OBJECT TO PEOPLE DOUBLING DOWN ON SMEARING YOU? HOW? GIVE ME A DETAILED EXPLANATION. Show your work.

      1. Well now this is interesting. I agree about the use of “chicom”. I agree about her cluelessness.

        At no point did I suggest “how rude”.

        However, it does seem to be a bit over the top to suggest abandoning a successful career in writing in order to pursue M3N.

        Sure, it will burn my career because I won’t have time to write, but when I’m done, you’ll be the laughing stock of the world.

        1. After sitting quietly and courteously while the culture was dismantled around us — over the top is about all we have left.

          1. No. I get it. I get why you are angry. I get how awfully they behave.

            I even get how socialism is a bad thing. The only way for someone to be more anti-socialist than me is to have actually survived one of those messes.

            I just don’t get the effort into the elaborate threat. If you believe that this is worth “burning” your career, then do it. Secret societies generally stink and can’t survive the light of day. If you mean it, then just do it. There’s no need for the warm up, just throw the danged ball.

            If not, then what’s the point in tossing off a thousand menacing words (give or take)? How does that solve anything? It surely won’t change her behavior.

            My interest is in “us”. I use “us” because you and your expressed experiences are one example that I generally list when I try to engage folks that are neutral or inclined in the other direction.

            How do these thousand words…crap…it’s actually approaching 2500….no offense intended….make us look better to the folks that aren’t on a side yet?

            FWIW, her apology indicated in the “update” sounds like crap to me. Perhaps she should read Whatever a bit more and learn something about how to offer an apology.

            http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/04/15/apologies-what-when-and-how/

            And yes….I get the irony here.

          2. Guys, look at his reply to the initial response. He specified that he doesn’t want Sarah burning her career over this (as she said she might in the post).

        4. Ah! The next tactic from the Alinsky manual! The pettifoggery. The sea lawyering and obfuscation. The deliberate misunderstanding of implications.

          M

      2. Has he commented before? Could maybe be an innocent newcomer who hasn’t seen anything but this one post. One thing Mary three names and others are probably doing is to try and get outsiders to go and look at those things that will look ‘over the top’ when you see just that one thing and don’t know of anything else, like how constant this type of attacks have been.

        Or somebody planting a comment he can then link to those actual innocent newcomers and which might make him look like an innocent getting piled on.

        Okay, am I getting paranoid here? I have to admit I do have some tendency towards overanalyzing things.

        1. Not new. Don’t comment a bunch. Usually read via the copies in my email inbox.

          I actually spend more time watching their (SJB*) over the top reactions. I’ve been banned from a couple of twitter feeds already for attempting to politely engage.

          I know they play games, so I don’t mind the over-analysis. It’s just misplaced this time around.

          *SJB – because they aren’t warriors. They are bullies.

          1. Consider the Social Immune System is a bit hyper-active this week, and prone to react strongly to suspected infections.

            One cost of the actions of the SJBs is diminution of trust and patience and the increased wearing of chips on shoulders.

            1. How do you read copies in your Email inbox without issuing a c4c post? Emily would undoubtedly like to know, if just to minimize the alphabet wars that follow 🙂

              1. At some point in my experiments with WP I apparently toggled an automatic subscription option which not only avoided the requirement of any C4C type posts but sent me emails of my own posts, facilitating keeping track of where in the scrum my own contributions hit.

                Somewhere along the line WP, in one of its periodic “Do I know you?” snits dropped me out of that mode and I’ve never found it again.

                1. I can get the blog posts in my email, but I’ve never found a way to get the comments to show up in email without otherwise commenting. Of course, because of similar post to this, where you get 1K+ comments, I wouldn’t want that in my email anyway.

        1. I may regret getting into the middle of this, but nobody ever claims I’m all that smart…

          @Sarah – as I see it (and your view may not be this, and that of course counts for more), the goal of SP4 should be to get even more of that majority of “fleshfans” (newly coined) outraged enough over the invasion of our entertainment to come to the party. We’re already starting at a disadvantage – it is far harder to convince with the truth than with lies.

          @dann(something) – unfortunately, in any movement there have to be those who will sacrifice almost anything to win. “Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.” These people are almost always those who we respect the most – not some minor supporter of the cause. I, for example, don’t have a career to burn. Maybe someday – but right now, by any rational assessment, I am one of those who (hmm… rather scatological phrase concerning Marines and houses of ill repute. Skipped).

    3. ✨🌟Achievement(s) Unlocked:🌟✨
      ☑ 7. Concern Trolling
      (Just 7 more for a complete checklist!)

      Note 1: When Larry talks about “How rude” being a subspecies of #2 (Disqualify/Dismiss!) it’s in the context of a give-and-take:

      SJW: ‹attack›
      Sane person: ‹defend›
      SJW (Disqualifying the defense): “How rude.”

      Note 2: Yes, I have a template for this, sparkles and all.

    4. If you are genuinely worried, I suspect you have only dealt with the very mild flavor of Communism that we have here in the United States (Which is getting progressively less mild. Pun intended.) I also suspect you have not been around through the last 3 years of libel. I also suspect you are unfamiliar with the crowd of which Mary 3 names is a part who would deliberately ruin a career. It is not over the top. It is a very clear ‘back me into a corner and you’ll find I’m a wolverine not a 2 week old kitten.’

      There are several posts on this site about her experiences with this. Put “He Beats Me But He’s Still My Publisher” into the site search engine and read the resultant article. It’s a good starting point. Tip: It’s unwise to come in and start commenting if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    7. Since I don’t recognize the name, I’m going to assume this is an example of what could be known as “misunderstanding other people’s children”: That’s the reaction when you’re in the supermarket, and someone’s child does something and the parent’s reaction seems out of proportion.

      Perhaps the munchkin picked up a bag of chocolate chips and is looking at it. You may be watching and thinking that it’s no big deal, but then the mother snatches the bag out of the child’s hand, slaps the hand, practically throws the bag back on the shelf, and tells him that she is REALLY TIRED of him not listening to her when she tells him NOT TO PICK THINGS UP TO LOOK AT THEM.

      You might be tempted to tell the mother that that reaction was over the top, and that what the child was doing wasn’t all that bad, and she didn’t need to be so mean. What you’re not considering is the fact that that conversation has happened a hundred times, and the little brat never seems to learn, and it REALLY is getting to be annoying, especially when a couple of days ago, the mother had to pay for something that the little rat dropped and broke.

      So it’s not unlikely that the mother in this analogy would react rather rudely to the statement.

      1. Well, fark. Didn’t see your comment about getting the outrage until this comment refreshed the thread. As for being worth the word count, remember that for Sarah, reducing the word count takes time.

  34. These are the opening salvos of the 2016 Hugo War from the SJW’s. Every slur about females will be hurled at Sarah, Kate, and Amanda. M3N and her SJW brothers and sisters are deep-down, hate-filled fascists. What they call us (SP) is what they are. They are professional projectionists.

  35. For Alyssa, if Chicom is a racist slur, why isn’t your picture on Twitter of you holding up a coffee cup labelled “White Tears” a racist slur?

    2. Aren’t all tears white? Or at least clear? I mean, unless you’re a vampire from certain mythologies?

      1. Colorless, Chrismouse, colorless. Clear can be any color. My mother the chemistry teacher would complain that you tell the kids to stir the solution until it turns clear and they let the fact it’s bright blue distract them from the fact that’s completely clear — they can see straight through it.

        1. I will grant you that. Transparent does not mean without color. Perhaps she has a medical problem that has turned tears white? She should go to the doctor to find out what is Wong with herself.

  36. Use the term “Nork” and really blow her little mind.

    You may want to block off three or four hours to explaining the difference between a RoK and a Nork afterwards.

    1. “We have the force of history on our side!”
      “We have a Hoyt!”
      (I think I used that some months ago, deploying it again…)

      1. You have at least three Hoyts. Was never so proud when younger son went on a rant against a Bernie supporter on his web page. WAS magnificent rant. Brought tears to my eyes. Had no idea what his politics were up to then! And husband will have post for this blog maybe next week about the craziness of all this and the crazyness of winding up a Sarah.

      2. Or you could pull from The Avengers:

        “We have an army.”
        “We have a Hoyt”

        (I figure since Sarah compares herself to the Hulk every once in a while, I can get away with that one.)

  38. Re: Chicom — Three Names’s beloved Dictionary.com says that the word origin is from cold war American English dating to 1962. According to Arthur Chu you certainly would have been a precocious Portuguese tot with very far reaching influence.

    My, my, my, I am impressed…

  40. It HURTS to read about that much death and destruction and pure evil.

    Agreed.

    It leaves a morbid sour taste in one’s mind.

    This is a reason I balance any reading of that sort that I do with something more encouraging, like the history of the Founding period. They may not have been perfect, who is? They may not have created perfection; who has done better?

    1. Yes. This is why I’ve actively avoided researching certain periods of history . . . until my characters pushed me to it. I’m learning far too much about the origins and applications of fascism (1920-36) than I really wanted to.

      1. I met Arthur Chu at Worldcon – twice. He seems a very lonely and troubled young man. I’m actually praying for him. And any of you who believe in “love your enemy” should do the same.

        That being said, when you turn the other cheek, remember you only have two (four if you count the ones in the back.) When people say WWJD they forget about Him overturning tables and chasing people out of the temple with a whip of cords.

        What I THINK has happened is something akin to Sam Gamgee’s observations about Gollum underestimating Mr. Frodo. Frodo was nice, Frodo was kind, and Gollum assumed that kindness equaled blindness. Um, not hardly. I for one am not blind. I’ve been the victim of a deranged internet mob before. You fight lies with truth and you fight everything you can with lawyers (especially VD hijacking us next year). Not threats of force, not even in jest. This year we need to do trademark protection, and jump on things in a way they will understand. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING and be careful nothing you say can be used against you. I see Sarah and others qualifying their posts to make sure they are not taken the wrong way. I know I will be doing that.

        I always play to the “jury”–those who are not our enemies–and am kind until they prove to be enemies. Then I am the most polite and devastating enemy imaginable. And as Tolkien said, it only takes one foe to cause war. We just wanted to feel welcome, equal. Last Saturday night told me we are not welcome, and not equal in their eyes. Okay. Message received. They don’t like slates, fine here is my recommendation. We talk about books we like and for our picks to get on the radar we VOTE IN THIS YEAR’S LOCUS READERS POLL. It’s free and very few people vote in that either. It’s hugely influential.

        With their own weapons they will be worsted.

        1. Worsted? Those clowns, their words? Polyestered. Dacroned. Wet spandexed.

          Hmmm … definition:
          Firmly twisted yarn or thread spun from combed, stapled wool fibers of the same length, for weaving, knitting, etc.

          Firmly twisted, well groomed … I can get behind worsting them.

  44. I do have to disagree with you on one point. I doubt Mao would be proud of Mary Three Names for her petty and stupid tyranny. He’d laugh at her pathetic attempt to mock her opponents, rather than shooting them in the head like every good Communist should do. Then he’d call her a useless bourgeois parasite and send her to the rice paddies so she could work herself to death.

    It’s not very Christian of me, but there are times when I wish the SJWs could get the revolution they claim to want so badly.

    1. Ditto. While it would suck having to literally fight for our lives every second of every day, the looks on the SJWs faces when they realize that they weren’t actually part of the ruling class would be worth it.

    3. Side note: Auto insurance does not cover intentional acts. Yeah, I even raised that scene with my insurance agent, and he confirmed that it wouldn’t have been covered. And no, it wasn’t my actions that had brought the conversation up, it was the idiot that rammed me and told the deputies he did it intentionally.

  46. That was only half-engaged? *shudders* Note to self: never, ever, EVER p*ss Sarah off to the point where she fully engages.

  47. And the Cabaret singer in Guinan’s Lounge who sang a anti-puppy song as loud as she could and tried to get a sing-along started for it didn’t happen? I was there for the Larry Niven bearfest. And PNH blowing his top when Lamplighter tried to make peace didn’t happen at the con either.

  48. Considering the level of the people you’re speaking about here, and the fact that one of the gifs you used referenced a character’s rape (the 300 gif) I wonder how long it’ll be before one of them claims you threatened to rape Mary3N?

    I want to say I’m making a joke here, but I’m not entirely certain I am.

      1. Remember Whoopee Goldberg’s comment on the revelation in 2013 of the 13 year old Roman Polanski raped in 1977:
        “Well, there is rape, and there is rape-rape”
        Translation: The right people are never wrong.

        1. And all that Whoopi did in this case was reveal her ignorance. Because what Polanski did was “rape rape”. Not only was the victim underage, but she also said no.

    2. That particular photo actually references her revenge. She turned his words back on him — as he died.

    3. Speaking of Hugos, how is it your memoirs (or your wife’s) didn’t get noms back in the day? The first two, especially, are very re-readable even now (as in I reread them this year).

  49. You know they did not misunderstand. This was a classic instance of “sentence first, trial second.” On this occasion they ruled you a racist then searched for evidence to support their verdict.

    The fact that the evidence they found is so nonsupportive of their charge and must be flogged beyond equine pudding is confirmation that, as the phrase goes: They got nuttin.

  50. However since she INSISTS I’m tempted. What say you guys?

    Why doesn’t she respond with a post on her own blog?

    1. because it’s an “apology” designed to justify “how rude” ALSO I haven’t approved it because it would require me to read it in full. Since it already started with the lie, I imagine what comes after. And I’m having trouble enough not berserking out. I’m working in a rented office that really doesn’t need holes in the walls.

      1. Granting the justified threat to the walls — I still say let her through. This isn’t the first time she’s dropped by somebody’s blog to apologize for her deceit. I think a record would be useful.

        And I’d like to know when her apology is going out on Twitter.

        1. An apology that starts: I’m sorry you are such a moron that you fail to understand the emotional impact of your use of that word in a greater social context…
          it isn’t really an apology is it?

        2. She still believes it’s a racial slur, but is generously apologizing for thinking Sarah meant it deliberately:

          Sarah, publish her comments; we might as well have a version she can’t toss down the memory hole.

            1. The Twitter conversation has taken an interesting turn. Were there Western volunteers helping the Chicoms (similar to American communists joining the fight against Franco)? Perhaps the exported Maoists came back to slave volunteer in the Cultural Revolution?

              Maoist racism makes me think that’s unlikely, but does anyone here know for sure?

              1. I know for a fact there were PORTUGUESE Maoists. (MRPP) They tried to shoot me once. Fortunately they couldn’t shoot any better than they could think. We called them Chicoms, too.

                  2. My brain keeps trying to work out a pun for that on ‘porcos’, but it’s just not coming together. 😦

              2. That Mao bio Sarah was talking about? The Soviets were funding the Chinese communists. That is the whole reason a) the communists took over b) the Chinese communists didn’t get rid of Mao for his failure to stick to the party line.

                1. It was not the first time that a sponsored political entity chose to cut their strings and stand up on their own. The Soviets were none too happy to have China refuse their ‘proper place’ as their puppet in the hierarchy of the International Communists.

              3. Yes there were. In fact much of the controversy around Macarthy involved people in State and media aiding the ChiComs and stabbing the Nationalists in the back. Frankly I’m firmly convinced that much of the getting the US involved in WW2 was about the Soviets maneuvering to get the Japanese off their back and aid the Chicoms.

                1. Chung and Halliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story is explicit about it. The soviets had a sleeper in the KMT. They were worried the Japs might go north against Russia. So they had their sleeper attack that Japs, in violation of KMT orders, to suck the Japs into heavy fighting with the Chinese. If that hadn’t happened, no Nanking, no Pearl Harbor, and the US might’ve stayed out of WWII.

                  1. So THAT explains Marco Polo Bridge. Add to that, Sorge egging the IJA high command on and the infiltrators in the Roosevelt Admin urging FDR to take a hard line and there you go.

                2. MacArthur had seen the Nationalists were corrupt and incompetent. What he hadn’t seen was that corrupt and incompetent are not the worst things a government can be.

                  Same applies to Batista, of course.

                  2. Well, the other day I realized a bit after the fact that I had one lined up all ready to be used, but she had convinced me first that I needed to drop the subject for my own sake.

          2. And still no explanation of the “full context” or how it is in any way a “deliberate racial slur.”

            What, precisely, is it slurring? I would really like her to answer this question, in the clear, without allusion.

          3. I like #3:
            I assumed Sarah… translation: I didn’t know Sarah was an illiterate. Yep, that is an apology all right. Sarah uses the word as probably 95% of the world understands it. Of course, “opportunity” is now considered racists as well as “best qualified” so none of us should be surprised by the redefinition of ChiCom.

            1. That’s okay. I assumed anyone sheltered enough to have never heard the word ChiCom might not become an expert in the meaning of the word in less than 10 hours, too.

            2. I couldn’t help but think of the old saw about the meaning of assumed … only our esteemed hostess is not now nor ever has been a beast of burden.

          5. Agreed.

            Now, I disagree about it being a slur. And I’d like to think that she wouldn’t memory hole the apology. My personal dealings with her have been OK, but limited and several months back. However, having it in multiple places could be a good thing for all involved.

          6. It’s sad that a person who has won awards for writing doesn’t know what “context” means.

          7. The question that I have for Ms. Kowal is, Has she even READ Three Body Problem and does she have any idea what the Red Guard were? Cixin Liu does not depict the ChiComs’ Cultural Revolution in a flattering light. He shows ChiCom savagery that eclipses the worst excesses of France’s Jacobins. After I read the forward I thought, this sounds like the SJW mob backed by the deadly force of the state.

            2. Actually it is not the SJWs I fear. For the most part they lack the courage or the stomach to be Red Guards or Brown Shirts.

              What they have is the stupidity to empower and unleash such and while I will enjoy them realizing that empowering does not leave them immune (quite the opposite) I’m not looking forward to it.

            3. There’s a reason I tweeted in a rather smart-assed way about the CHORFs:
              “They did a wonderful cosplay of that scene from Ch1 of 3 Body Problem.”

          9. ROFLMAO, does she not realise she’s being precisely a cliched high school Mean Girl? I mean, I’m a dude, and I recognise that cattiness.

          10. What really blows my mind is that by her logic Allen West and Rand Paul are racially the same. But Allen West and Barack Obama are racially disparate.

  53. Sarah, there’s no profit to be had in taking the least notice of Kowal or her fellow-travelers. All they do is froth at the mouth. Go your own way. Write interesting books; comment on others you’ve found worth your time; and enjoy life.

    Life’s too short to drink cheap booze, read bad books, or trouble yourself over the immature, the stupid, the ignorant, the vicious, or 99% of the political class.

    1. So the trashing of fellow travelers should be left to those of us without literary talent? I think the economic term is “comparative advantage.”

    2. We’ve been polite and ignored the pitiful howling of those beneath our notice for decades. While we’ve been taking the high road, they’ve been busy conquering the culture through entertainment, education, and entitlements.

      The time to fight is now, on this hill – because we have finally looked up, and noticed that there is no next hill between our backs and the sea.

  54. Unfortunately, this is all battlespace preparation for SP4. Sarah has been identified as one of the lead participants, so they are already equating her with VD for moral equivalence and outrage. I think 98% of VD is reasonable, the remaining 2% is loony and bad, but really, is what he says any worse than ‘White Tears’ on your coffee cup?

    1. Depends on where you go. The problem is that VD has actually said some nasty stuff, it’s just that you end up with what happens when wolf gets cried enough times and all that’s there is a husky.

      1. Every time I have checked on the “nasty” stuff the VD has supposedly said, it has turned out to be the opposite of what the SJB’s said it was either throught their lying or because VD was being sarcastic.

        1. No argument on most of it–see, “crying wolf”–but he’s been radicalizing over the years, and it’s worrying me.
          Contrast his initial notorious Taliban post with this–http://alphagameplan.blogspot.ch/2013/10/the-wages-of-female-education.html

          Maybe I misunderstood him, maybe he was being sarcastic.

          1. Ah, that old canard trotted out again.
            “Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.”
            What Vox is doing there is showing the process by which the Taliban decided on their action– in other words, it makes sense TO THEM in order to get the result they wanted.
            He’s not really being sarcastic here, but he is being deliberately provocative–from a PURELY EMPIRICAL sense, the Taliban’s action to reverse the decline is rational. But Vox is not agreeing with the method here (hence the word “ironic.”)

            1. That was the original Taliban post, and it was pretty obvious to anyone who wasn’t skimming until offended.
              That one…not so much. That “ironically” could be taken any one of a dozen different ways, and maybe my opinions were colored by the yard dogs in the comment section, but VD’s not just tap-dancing on the line between admiring what virtues the foul possess and admiring the foul, he’s turning cartwheels over it.

            2. I think some of it is Vox posturing to embrace the opposite side from the SJWs just to prove how stupid they are and to get them jumping and swooning to conclusions.
              For instance, the claim that men and woman are *exactly* alike and interchangable or that there is no possible differences between the various races of man. Both of these are absurd. Whites are lactose tolerant and Blacks prone to sickle cell anemia. The environment of northern Europe required foods like milk to sustain people in winter; sickle cell anemia confers resistance to Malaria when inherited from one parent. Now, neither of these two things matter squat; however, clearly Blacks and Whites have different genetic make-up. Therefore Vox has, shown that the SJW position is absurd. Only when this is twisted and warped by SJWs does it come out white>black. He did not say that, but he has proven the assertion that white=black is false.

              1. That’s some of it, and Vox’s views on race honestly strike me as being no more racist than most of the diversity trainers out there–I’m not sure which one I just condemned with that clause (both?)–and the reason a lot of those people hate him isn’t because of his views on race (not really), but his views on how to deal with the issue.

                1. I’ve never encountered the ‘how to deal with the issue’ from him, but perhaps that is for the best.
                  I always thought, recognize it, rely on each one’s strengths, help in overcoming each one’s weaknesses, rinse and repeat.
                  Unfortunately, we have far too many ‘progressive’ race baiters (who know what you are thinking better than you do) and the whole ‘special snowflake’ approach.

        1. Hey, I heard I’m almost as bad as that person according to the fauxtrage brigade, and though I don’t like him, I’m starting to see how they created him.

            1. Milo has a forward and an afterword. The afterword is the speech he was going to deliver in an Australian GamerGate meeting that was disrupted by SJWs’ bomb threats.

              1. Hang on, the afterword of Milo’s was supposed to be the speech in Gamergate in Melbourne last night? There was a bomb threat phoned in and everyone present including the bar owner laughed. Or was it a previous one?

                Yeah I read the whole book – I haven’t slept yet and it’s 7 am here where I live. I think everyone in #SadPuppies needs to read it.

                1. I’m two-thirds of so of the way through “SJWs Always Lie.”

                  So far so good, and Vox fortunately wasn’t wearing his “master baiter” hat when he wrote it. That still won’t (and isn’t) going to keep the “Skim Until Offended” crowd from finding stuff to complain about, but I think it will make the book and its lessons more attractive to the neutrals and undecideds.

                  He also gives some good background on the Puppies and GamerGate, for those who aren’t really familiar with the issues, and most importantly gives good advice for those finding themselves on the wrong side of an SJW attack.

                  If I had to come up with a criticism of the book thus far, IIRC he devotes much more time discussing his feud with Scalzi – the disupte over Scalzi’s Web traffic, in particular – than either the feud or Scalzi himself really deserve. Although I at least now know why he calls Scalzi “McRapey.”

                  1. Yeah, I agree with your criticism. The discussions about Scalzi had a lot of background though,and shows how the little web on the Torlocky side is linked. Also proves the double standards the Torlocks have regarding approved disregarding of Author Badthink. It’s VERY revealing once you compare the charges they level at Vox, or John C. Wright, and how they gloss over Chip Delaney’s openNAMBLA support, Requires Hate’s unrepentant and constant haterage, and NK Jemisin’s dehumanising tribalist othering (Which, considering the genocideal tribalist othering practices of Africans show, is not a great way to display supposed ‘ethnic diversity.’)

                    Sexual perversions are ‘okay’ because ‘progressive’ somehow, is the takeaway I get from that.

    2. And speaking of “battlespace prep,” the current knock on Kate Paulk over at Mad Genius Club – from a sudden troll infestation – is that she’s a meanie for comparing SJBs to Nazis, or something.

      Which is really rich, considering what Chu and Feder and Gallo and the rest of the Mean Girls have been shrieking about the Puppies for the past few months . . .

      1. Several keep prattling on about Irene Gallo.

        What they don’t understand is that Gallo called us neo-Nazis while promoting a Tor book, making it look like she was speaking for Tor. Kate is a writer, how speak for themselves.

  55. Interesting correlation between Mary RK and a certain recent newsmaker:

    When Alison Parker was an intern at WDBJ in 2012, [the shooter] — then a reporter for the station — heard her utter what he apparently considered to be racist words.

    Parker made reference to “swinging” by a destination and also referred to heading out into the “field,” according to [the shooter’s] 2013 complaint with the station, the New York Post reported.
    . . .
    “That’s how that guy’s mind worked,” Ryan Fuqua, a WDBJ video editor, told the New York Post of [the shooter’s] racism claims. “Just crazy, left-field assumptions like that.”

    “[Those words are] just common, everyday talk. [But] that was his MO — to start s**t,” Fuqua added. “He was unstable. One time, after one of our live shots failed, he threw all his stuff down and ran into the woods for like 20 minutes.”

    WDBJ cameraman Trevor Fair recalled others using the term “field” around [the shooter]: “We would say stuff like, ‘The reporter’s out in the field.’ And he would look at us and say, ‘What are you saying, ‘cotton fields’? That’s racist,’” he told the Post.

    “We’d be like, ‘What?’” he added. “We all know what that means, but he took it as cotton fields, and therefore we’re all racists.” “This guy was a nightmare,” Fair told the Post. “Management’s worst nightmare.”

    Then there was the time a station manager brought in watermelon for all employees. “Of course, he thought that was racist. He was like, ‘You’re doing that because of me.’ No, the general manager brought in watermelon for the entire news team. He’s like, ‘Nope, this is out for me. You guys are calling me out because I’m black.’”

    7-Eleven’s sale of watermelon-flavored Slurpees didn’t escape [the shooter’s] observations, either.

    “It’s not a coincidence, they’re racist,” Fair recalled [the shooter] saying.

    Half-joking on Twitter, the Free Beacon’s Sonny Bunch reacted to this news by observing that, “instead of going on a killing spree, this guy should’ve gotten a columnist gig at the Guardian.” As with all humor, there is some truth at the root of this barb. Certainly, the shooter was extreme in his willingness to take offense. But, really, he was no more extreme than many of the extremely silly people who write at Salon or sit on diversity boards or who stand up and make a nuisance of themselves on contemporary college campuses. If one believes that the culture causes people to pull triggers — and again, I don’t but many do — then one has to be ecumenical about it. For what reason is this guy exempt? Why do we not need to have a “national conversation” about hypersensitivity?

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/423221/hypocrisy-culture-kills-crowd-charles-c-w-cooke

    1. Now you’re tempting me to pull out the Guardians of the Galaxy lineup meme again for this…

      Shot 1, Rhomann Dey: “Did you hear about the ‘ChiCom’ kerfuffle?”
      Shot 2, Rhomann Dey: “SJWs have decided a non-racist word in common use for 5 decades is now racist. Why does that sound familiar?”
      Shot 3: (Picture of shooter with quote)
      Shot 4: “What a bunch of A-holes.” / “I know, right?”

      1. Oh, and I pointed out that her definition of a racial slur could apply to any pejorative for any racially-exclusive group: “Kluxxers”, for example, or “Daȝesh” (religious not racial; but same idea):

        2. Oh. So calling real racists demeaning names like skinheads or klukkers is bad? Mustn’t offend the poor sensitive little dears?

          Well, she does write about the early 18th century when women were reportedly afflicted with the vapors. However, I suspect the real condition is logical contortionism.

      2. My comment on her blog, currently awaiting moderation:

        “But if you did intend it to be insulting… it’s an insult that can only be applied to someone who is Chinese, as opposed to something like “Commie.” The *only* reason to use it there instead of Marxists/Commies/Pinkos is because Three Body Problem was written by a Chinese man. That’s what makes it a racial slur rather than a political one in this context.”

        That is a remarkable stretch. Truly. While it is certainly true that it can only be applied to Chinese communists, that’s rather the point. To differentiate the communism practiced in the nation of China from that practiced in other nations.

        It is a contraction of two words, nothing more. Such contractions are common in certain professional circles. It is no more a racial slur than CASEVAC.

        I’ll stipulate that it may well have negative connotations. But those derive entirely from the reprehensible acts of communists in the nation of China, not from a racial slight. The inclusion of Chinese is, once again, merely to separate those acts from other reprehensible acts carried out by communists in other nations.

        Furthermore, I have been unable to find any support for the contention that this is the current connotation, outside of the one source, dictionary.com. Forgive me if I find this uncompelling.

        I’m am left to wonder if your eagerness to jump upon this perceived iniquity of Mrs. Hoyt’s is indicative less of a desire to address racism and more of a desire to undermine Mrs. Hoyt in the public eye.

        I would be pleased to learn I am wrong regarding your eagerness.

        1. Not to mention that “Chinese” does not denote race, unless one is truly ignorant of the country mentioned. “Han Chinese” is only one of the *56* different ethnicities recognized by the PRC government within the borders of China. And 55 of them are minorities, totaling 8.4% of the population. So that’s *114,868,772* people being completely disregarded in order to make a point and find offense here. Who exactly, then, is the racist?

          2. Does Miss Triple Initials think Chinese is NOT a race perhaps. That China is populated by the same “race” as a Vietnam? Just she think a Vietnamese is the same “race” as a “Hmong” or Rhade, a Burmese as a Karen, a Thai as a Cambodian? And has she suggested that to any member of any of those groups? She would get a loud education.

  57. Funny thing, Sarah, my Chinese brother in law never heard Chicom used as a racial slur.

    Of course, his family had to FLEE the Chicoms, so he might be biased.

    And my adopted Chinese nephew never heard the term either…but then he couldn’t really hear anything since that was just one of the life-saving surgeries the state orphanage was denying him. He can hear fine now, not to mention he’s alive. Chicoms had nothing to do with that.

    2. *gigglefit*
      Oh man. I remember my utter bafflement when someone chided me on using that as ‘the term is racist.’
      I am not ESL, though people often treat me as if I were, simply because I’m Filipino. But apparently, my comprehension of English is better than most people’s these days. ~_~;;;;

      1. Clearly, and SJW who acts in such a way is guilty of a microaggression and must prostrate themselves on the altar of tolerance and abase themselves for all eternity.

      2. Yes, a word from Old Norse, used long before the ethnic slur for black people existed. For some of us, that strive for a precise meaning, it is a wonderful adjective. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to use it since the 80’s.

  59. All apologies should be honestly considered. Note that I didn’t say accepted. But will she take responsibility for her part in stoking fires or for the reactions of those who consider her a trustworthy person?

      1. Remember the old joke:
        Comedian: “Lady, you’re fat.”
        Bystander: “That’s a terrible thing to say. Apologize at once.”
        Comedian: “Lady, I’m sorry you’re fat.”

        Intent as well as words are necessary to make an actual apology.

    2. I tried that. She chose not to apologize even though she knew she was wrong.

      *shrug*

      We are what we do.

  60. From Twitter:

    “ItanyaBlade ‏@ItanyaBlade · 2h2 hours ago
    Why the hell did I even go read that blog post by Sarah Hoyt? I guess I didn’t expect a lot of.. I don’t even know what that was.”

  61. BTW… The new York times article should be read carefully. It contains a gem right in the middle.

  62. Go ahead and let M3N’s “I didn’t call you racist-racist” comment out of moderation. I am sure the replies to it will be entertaining.

  63. Wow.
    Imagine how she’d have wet herself if she’d have heard me refer to Red China.

    Not that the poor dear could find Formosa on a map.

        1. Ehhh, of course-a she duz! That’s-a whatta you need when you have-a da quartet sing-a … one mike-a, two mike-a, tree mike-a and formica.

          (In person, my Chico Marx impression is hardly any better.)

  64. So the dictionary.com definition of Chicom is “Disparaging. a contemptuous term used to refer to a Communist Chinese.” Well, hey, guess what? Once you break the 10 million mark for body count, you deserve all the contempt and disparagement the human race can pile on you.

    You’ve heard the old saying, “In order to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs.” Well, throughout the 20th century, communism broke 100 million eggs without a single omelet to show for it, and between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the CHICOMS (with caps-lock for extra contempt and disparaging) broke half of them. And they weren’t eggs: they were human beings with lives, hopes, and dreams… until the Chicoms murdered them.

    And until the day their twisted and diseased ideology finally gets tossed on the ash-heap of history like it deserves, I will continue call them Chicoms as long as I still have breath in my body. And if that offends Mary Three Names’ delicate sensibilities, well that’s just too bad because mass graves and re-education camps trump Sheltered Liberal Privilege each and every time.

    1. If this lasts long enough, we will get (or might have gotten already and Sarah sent the reply where it deserves) one of M3N’s fellow travelers tell us that ReEd camps weren’t that bad, and none of the bad things survivors who escaped claim is true, and none of the big numbers of deaths REALLY happened (Killing Fields? Totally made up … yes, I’ve gotten that)

        1. same sort of folks who tell a lady that the Holocaust never happened, and when the old lady lifts her sleeve, shows the number tattoo, and has a picture of herself as a near skeleton with the Army company who helped feed and care for her afterward (one of whom became her husband) will not sway them from this … um … line of thought.

        1. Did P.J. Farmer ever cop to Riverworld being a marxist fable? No heaven, no Hell, just wealth produced by people as part of their existence, and a power structure designed to extract that wealth from them. I don’t mean “marxist” as derogatory, here, it’s just that the allegory is obvious when you think about it.

          1. I honestly doubt he thought that deeply about it. I read it as just a really wild adventure setting…then again I got into Farmer through World of Tiers so YMMV.

            1. I hate getting old. I can remember reading about Farmer’s Riverworld in the context of a discussion of SF stories by authors with marxist beliefs (Kim Stanley Robinson and, I think Eric Flint were mentioned as well), but I cannot for the life of me remember if Farmer explicitly claimed that marxist economic philosophy was behind Riverworld. Let me let put the internet to work for me . . . No luck, though apparently Farmer had plans (at least) to make Marx one of the characters in a Riverworld novel. Flint fesses up, but he seems more of a “common man” socialist than your “academic lounge” socialist.

      3. Come on now. Just earlier this year Tanya Cohen was espousing the virtues of re-ed camps for those who use ‘hate speech’, which she pretty much defined as anything she didn’t like (libertarians were termed fascists – wrap your head around that one). Of course the dumb slut never stopped to think that if her proposed law passed, and the political climate changed, she’d be one of the first on the trains. https://westfargomusings.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/freedom-of-speech-can-be-offensive-no-matter-what-the-imbeciles-tell-you/

        1. Oh, I’ve heard Mad Mike called a Fascist too, and they either want to deflect the truth or are ignorant of the truth (some are too stupid for words, others just effing evil) so no surprise there. And the fools are incessantly short sighted (even the evil ones are too stupid for words) to see the affects of what they want, long term, other than “Keep Me In Power.”
          I allways say, a law or policy needs to pass one simple sniff test to be a good law: Would I be happy with my opponents having this power over me?
          They happily ignore all the times things like that have bitten folks in the ass.

        2. Does she not know that “imbecile” is a term mocking the mentally impaired? “Usually offensive : a person affected with moderate mental retardation” (Merriam-Webster)

          As it is most commonly associated with birth defects she is in the awkward position of directing hate speech at those with no responsibility or control for their condition.

          She needs to educate herself and stop fomenting hatred and disrespect for life’s victims.

        3. Wow. I’m hoping that’s the work of a troll, because if not, that’s one seriously crazy froot-loop. My favorites on her list were:

          “9. Speech that undermines the authority of the state and/or interferes with the state’s ability to properly function and do its job.”

          So she’s all for arresting the anti-police protesters in Ferguson, New York City, and Baltimore. Gottcha.

          “5. Speech that disparages the memory of deceased persons.”
          “11. Speech that promotes unacceptable ideas, such as un-democratic ideologies and ideologies that oppose freedom. This would also apply to promoting people who promote or promoted unacceptable ideas.”

          So you’re not allowed to promote Hitler, but you’re also not allowed to disparage his memory. Did she think about this at all before she hit post?

          “15. Speech which constitutes microaggressions against vulnerable minorities”

          The whole point of “microaggressions” is that even those who believe that they actually exist outside the diseased brains of the hypersensitive admit that they’re unintentional, so she’s proposing a multi-decade prison sentence for people who didn’t intend to offend anyone. Had she been in charge, the Virginia shooter would have been able to have his colleagues arrested for saying they need to do some work “in the field” (because HE saw it as a racist comment, and that’s all that’s needed to make it a microaggression).

          “7. Speech that opposes any human rights.”

          So what about (and I’m speaking entirely hypothetically here) someone who was advocating taking away one of the most fundamental human rights out there, namely the right to free speech? Might such an individual also need to be put away under this law? I wonder where we could find such a person…

          1. IMO the “fun and games” of banning Hate Speech is that enforcement is in the hands of the Power-That-Be and thus “Hate Speech” is whatever the Powers-That-Be want it to be.

            Thus if there’s a change in who the Powers-That-Be are, the people who supported the original laws could very easily find themselves victims of the very laws that they supported. [Very Very Big Evil Grin]

          2. “7. Speech that opposes any human rights.”

            So what about (and I’m speaking entirely hypothetically here) someone who was advocating taking away one of the most fundamental human rights out there, namely the right to free speech? Might such an individual also need to be put away under this law? I wonder where we could find such a person…

            Ah, yes.

            It is best to keep in mind that such persons suffer from the White Queen syndrome, Humpty Dumpty syndrome or some combination thereof. I expect that they would be quite surprised to be called on the violation of their own rules.

            1. “they would be quite surprised to be called on the violation of their own rules.”

              To paraphrase Leona Helmsley, only the little people follow the rules.

              Those who make the rules make them for others, never themselves.

              1. “9. Speech that undermines the authority of the state and/or interferes with the state’s ability to properly function and do its job.”

                That sounds a lot like the SEDITION ACT. http://www.constitution.org/rf/sedition_1798.htm
                SECTION I. Punishes combinations against United States government.
                SECTION II. Punishes seditious writings.
                SECTION III. Allows accused to give in evidence the truth of the matter charged as libelous.
                SECTION IV. Continues the Act to 3d March, 1801.

                1. You do realize that the idea that truth was a counter to the charge of having committed libel was a rather novel one at the time?

      1. Been wondering about that one.

        Or why you shouldn’t call people chicom because that’s mean and a slur but calling them Nazis is a okay.

        1. Nazi is being revised and is only a slur towards those they want it revised to described. It no longer means Socialist at all, and as they project like an Imax, they want it associated with their opponents at all costs. For fun, ask a leftoid tossing the “slur” around, which policies the “far right” and libertarians share with the National Socialists (like Bernie Sanders).
          Don’t expect an answer.

  65. Well I’m going to go out on a limb and notice the distinction between claiming that someone used a racist slur, and calling them racist.
    However, if MRK really wants to apologize, she ought to stop trying defend herself and frankly admit that she was in error. The basic error was her assuming malicious intent on Sarah’s part. Jumping to the conclusion that she wasn’t familiar with was used with racist intent was a consequence of that error. Negligence in recognizing that the dictionary definition did not support her conclusion is another one. I don’t really expect her to do so: It’s not good politics and her allies will eat her alive if she does, but we shouldn’t go handing them ammunition by our own behavior.
    I don’t think that she is particularly either malicious or stupid. Perhaps overly zealous in a bad cause, which produces the same effects. But so does over-the-top anger.
    MRK is not the enemy. The enemy is the idea that anything good can come from stirring up class conflict and hatred. This was one of the great errors of Marx, and Lenin, and Hitler, and Mao, and it is the same error that the SJW’s are intent on repeating.

    1. She is not stupid. She is malicious. I watched her through the fight over the SFWA bulletin. You’re assuming good will not in evidence. She will do anything to advance what she imagines to be her power.

      2. How much power can she have in a market that contracted during the time she was an officer in its authors’ association?

        1. Yeah. I do. Which is why I got out the ax to spank baby. I’ve seen what she’s done to Brad and Larry to. She doesn’t realize they’re men and can’t fight with women without being at a disadvantage. She hasn’t thought this through.

          1. Did that include her “I feel unsafe if I’m at the same con as Larry” shriek from a couple years ago?

            2. That one is a standard SJW tactic nowadays (I don’t know if M3N was a pioneer at it). It’s gotten to the point where they now sometimes claim to feel unsafe if they’re in the same virtual discussion group as someone who commits wrongthink in an entirely separate context, in an attempt to get the wrongthinker booted from the group.

              1. I once had a woman run screaming from me that she felt unsafe and hide in a corridor at the airport because I said I could wait for her to finish what she was doing on her computer so she could answer my question. I’m not sure if she was just a delicate flower, or because I’m a white guy who shaves his head and she was black.

    2. Well I’m going to go out on a limb and notice the distinction between claiming that someone used a racist slur, and calling them racist.

      That would be viable if the SJW’s were consistent about it. But, nope, a single “racist slur” can be treated as automatic proof of racism when they think it’s in their interest to do so. See Paula Deen.

      You can’t do that on one side and then try to backpedal out of it at your convenience. It doesn’t work that way. (Don’t mean you personally. “You” of a generic statement there.)

      MRK is not the enemy. The enemy is the idea that anything good can come from stirring up class conflict and hatred.

      The average German in uniform wasn’t the enemy either. But so long as they served the Kaiser in his war (Hah! Bet you thought I was going for the other war.) they were legitimate targets. More so in the “culture war” since the SJW’s are volunteers, not conscripts with no choice in the matter.

      1. I’m a believer in the notion that in a war of ideas, you should attack the idea, not the person.

        1. They, however, are under no such limitation.

          The Marquis of Queensbury rules are fine and dandy when you’re in a sanctioned match with a referee to ensure the rules are followed.

          When you’re in a knife fight in an alley, however, the MoQ rules are just a quick way to be killed quickly, so instead bring a gun. Bring all your friends with guns.

          These folk live by Alinsky. It’s only fitting that they should die (metaphorically speaking–don’t go claiming I’m making any threats) by them too.

          1. Civilized rules are for civilized men. Civilization is partly mastery of self, self-discipline, and self control. The practice lets people of different levels of power interact without power struggle.

            The SJW does not see us as human. We are boogeymen; monsters to be slain. Whatever self restraint they can muster is not applied towards us, because we are not of the tribe. Without that, there is only the animal instincts.

            Humans are predators. Someone who does not impose the rules on themself will behave as a predator.

            If you show weakness, they will hunt you. If you show your back, they will jump you. If you run, they will pull you down.

            1. “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” ― Robert E. Howard

                  2. I prefer the biker bar. At the NRA rally as the good guys are armed the good guys will go to any length to avoid getting into a fight. The bikers are probably not so constrained.

            2. So basically this without the catching tune:

              Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
              Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
              You oughta know not to stand by the window
              Somebody see you up there

              Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
              We blended in with the crowd
              We got computers, we’re tapping phone lines,
              I know that that ain’t allowed

              We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
              Or in a suit and a tie
              I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
              I don’t know what I look like!

              You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
              We make a pretty good team
              Don’t get exhausted, I’ll do some driving,
              You ought to get you some sleep

              Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?
              They won’t help me survive
              My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,
              The burning keeps me alive

              Finally, for our Khan loving friend from a few days ago:

              “Death, destruction, disease, horror. That’s what war is all about, Anan. That’s what makes it a thing to be avoided.” – James T. Kirk

              They didn’t avoid it; they embraced it. It would be rude not to give them what they want.

              1. Hahahaha I just read one of the classic DC Star Trek comics about that. The Trial of James T. Kirk has Anan 7 try to testify against Kirk under the accusation of violating the Prime Directive. Except, that by declaring the Enterprise as one of the dead, the Eminar inadvertently brought the crew into their ‘game of war’. The Prime Directive dictates that starship captains cannot interfere ‘unless invited to do so by all parties involved’ – and since both the Eminar and the Vendikar both decreed the Enterprise dead by their rules, Kirk was not bound by the Prime Directive; and was thus fighting for his life and his crew’s; which was ‘okay’ under the rules of their war game.

                For those unaware: The Eminar and the Vendikar were fighting a centuries-long war with computers, where simulated city-strikes were done, and the citizens on both cities would dutifully march to killing chambers to die. Their reasoning was: the people were killed by war, but the planet was left untouched.

                I personally thought they were all insane.

                1. I always thought JTK took the nice-guy’s way out of that one. My immediate reaction at the time (what can I say–I was a kid) was someting like:

                  “Would you like to re-run that scenario, assuming we *knew* about your stupid game? Calculate the likelihood we would have detected Vendikar’s attack and defended ourselves against it? And maybe calculated your casualties when we shot back?

                  “Better. Assume you succeeded. And started a war with the United Federation of Planets. We can give you the damage figures from an all-out attack by a squadron of starships–just as a starting point, you know.

                  “Better still. Assume we were Klingons…”

                  1. It should tell you all you need to know about the UFP and Starfleet that they actually had a defined standing order under which they would depopulate a planet.

                    1. I’ve always assumed it was something like SPACE 1999’s Directive 4, or the Riviera Order from SPACE CADET. The assumption was that this was a last-ditch attempt at peace, and the captain was giving his man on the bridge authority to do the really bad thing–usually before going down there to try and negotiate. Hostage insurance, as it were.

                      “If you don’t hear from me in X hours, start the war without me.”

                      I figure invoking GO24 over the phone was kind of an innovation. But that’s Kirk for you…

                  2. Oh yeah… That was definitely the Nice Guy response. The Klingons and the Romulans would have blown up both their worlds simply for the contempt both of them would have held for the Eminar and Vendikar. Well, maybe conquered them with judicious application of actual warfare. The mining of dilithium always requires more slaves on Remus… Well, at least in that era.

                    I play an Engineer-class Captain in Star Trek Online. One of my favorite skills is Orbital Strike. As in, call one down from my ship.

                    The Eminar and the Vendikar are lucky they did not meet with some of the MEANER races. Tholians, Borg, the Iconians, the Voth, the Vaaduar, that race that must harvest the organs of any living being they come across to ensure their own survival… oh and the Nausicaans …and they really would not have had a pleasant time with the Hirogen…

                    It’s easy to bitch about Starfleet. They have RULES.

                  3. Heh. There was a series of books published, which were the episode stories turned into written form (the books are published as being written by James Blish). In the story that had the flying egg alien that landed on Spock and injected eggs or whatever, and they killed them with high-intensity light, they followed the aliens back to their homeworld (in the written story, the planet they found them on was not the only one that had been devastated) and destroyed the planet with planet-buster missiles.

                    Imagine if those were considered had Kirk done it the way you said…

            3. I’m not so much concerned with barbarians and guerilla warfare against civilization. What I’m more concerned with is the possibility that civilized men will tempted to abandon their civilization, become counter-barbarians, and outdo them in savagery.

              1. “Every civilized man has a core of barbarism, which he can draw on when the situation requires it, and then — revert. A barbarian, like your counterparts, cannot pretend to be civilized. The difference was — rather striking.” Unbearded Spock

                Is it easy? No. Is it necessary to draw upon it when needed. Yes.

                1. Civilization is an agreement. Holding to an agreement when one party has rejected it has the sweet scent of morality but also the foul scent of mortality.

                  If enough nominally civilized people reject the agreement the rest must as well at least long enough to put the others down or cow them into re-agreeing.

                    1. Forgive me, but there is already blood:
                      The knockdown game
                      Suicides among fathers denied their children
                      Detroit
                      Zimmerman
                      Ferguson

                      It is just not flowing in rivers yet.

                      We can tolerate a few barbarians among us. What we have been doing and breeding them and their enablers to the point that they are intolerable if we are going to have a civilization.

                    2. Sadly I came to that conclusion a few years back and have to fight against it. My crazy, make the GOP the new Whigs by getting their key conservatives to form the new GOP idea really stems from not wanting blood. As much as I like to say having no children means I have no stake in the future (and it often feels that way…I get why unattached males are so dangerous to society…it isn’t the violence; it is the lack of concern) I still want to see this place last.

                  2. There is also the concept of ‘social contract’. Most English speaking countries have it, and it started in English common law and has been expanded ever since. “These are the rules”, “These are the penalties”. They are hardly perfect rules and penalties, but they certainly are the best system humans have ever devised. They include Capitalism which relies on personal greed to optimize the most efficient allocation of resources. The Judeo/Christian ethic is an underlying support, but the golden rule is an adequate substitute; however, even that has been subverted to “Do onto others, so you can lie, cheat and steal for what you want done onto you.”

                  3. There are costs to be paid. Steep costs. I’m not sure we’re ready to pay those costs and recover the agreement afterwards.

                    We may find out.

          2. I think the analogy breaks down.. I don’t think Alinskyite tactics can be effectively reversed and employed against those that use them. Being shameless and having no fixed standards make their most potent weapons ineffective against them. Something else is called for.

            1. Being shameless and having no fixed standards

              The mistake you’re making is that it’s not them that have to be shamed. The point of Alinsky tactics isn’t to make the target “feel bad” or be shamed or any of that. The point is to raise the ire of the “peanut gallery”, to motivate others against the target. The target’s shame or lack thereof isn’t terribly relevant except in how that makes the target a valid target.

              1. People who talk about “the high road” often forget that “don’t start none, won’t be none, but if you start something I will end it as quickly and decisively as possible” is the high road.

                1. Take the Scottish song; “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road”. People fail to realize that only the dead (and perhaps the shadow drow) can take the low road.

              2. Based on my personal experience as a target of ridicule and mockery, and my observations of others who have also been targets of ridicule, I had the impression that it was intended principally to demoralize, silence, or otherwise neutralize the target.

                1. it was intended principally to demoralize, silence, or otherwise neutralize the target.

                  In the political sphere, that’s a secondary effect. The primary is to undermine support for the target.

                  1. First may be undermine, thus making it easier to eliminate any immediate threat by the target. It has the added benefit of making it harder for new objectors to gain traction.

              3. The point is to raise the ire of the “peanut gallery”, to motivate others against the target. The target’s shame or lack thereof isn’t terribly relevant except in how that makes the target a valid target.

                Further — in raising the ire of the watching public so as to quash the one who has been disagreeable ‘they’ also teach people that it is very dangerous to object to ‘their’ dictates.

    3. Actually MRK, Scalzi, PNH and the rest ARE the enemy. They have declared themselves so. What they want is to hurt us, as much as possible, for the crime of disagreeing with them and having the audacity of making nominating choices for the Hugos different from theirs. Even worse, in their minds is buying books not produced by them and pointing out that there are alternatives to the big five. This is about punishment, fear and control. I suggest reading Vox’s new book to get you started.

  66. Maybe we should help. I understand that with he term “Chicom” some may feel left out.

    I humbly propose the term “Norcom” for North American Commies. That should soothe feathers….

  67. Dictionary.com is a for-profit corporation (now owned by ask.com) that was founded at the height of the dot-com boom of the lat 90s. The methodology dictionary.com uses to define words is unknown. The more controversial a word’s usage, the more important it is to establish a firm and open methodology for determining that usage. Dictionary.com has no authority to pronounce what the meaning and usage of any word is. The dictionary.com usage that describes the term “chicom” as derogatory contains no citation and is phrased oddly. It refers to “the Vietnam War” without referring to a year, or to whether the term came from the South Vietnamese, or the Americans, or the Aussies, or the French, or the media.
    I once cornered a Lefty for using the phrase “trickle-down economics” as though it described a real theory or branch of economics. Turned out she was using a definition of trickle-down economics she got from an ask.com article written by a motivational speaker.
    Epistemology is a problem on the left.

    1. Dictionaries need to define the words as they are used in the language currently; this is why dictionaries are updated constantly. It is telling that the other sources *don’t* define ‘chicom’ as necessarily disparaging or contemptuous.

      Even though with their record on human rights and, well, actually refraining from murdering their own citizens, it’s damned hard *not* to be contemptuous. History and language are problems too.

      1. Adding currently accepted use is necessary, but so is showing prior accepted use. Indicating when certain usages came about makes it even better.

        I don’t claim to be in the know of all the groovy new terms the kids are using these days, I’m not exactly in the hip crowd, ya dig? But having grown up during the cold war I understand the usage of CHICOM to be indicative of Chinese Communist. I have yet to hear anyone before yesterday _ever_ indicate CHICOM as a racial/ethnic slur as opposed to an ideological one against communism.

          1. A lot of times, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. The PRC leadership at pretty much all levels is loaded with people who live in varying degrees of comfort thanks to the companies they own (directly or not) that get government largesse.

  68. OK, I just got my LOL for the day…

    Type “oxford dictionary chicom.”

    Wow, the English dictionary apparently does not have an entry for this word. The top result is for “yuck.”

    Some interesting bits: Use as an exclamation – “Used to express strong distaste or disgust.” Use as a noun – “Something messy or disgusting.” Words that rhyme – “buck, Canuck, chuck, cluck, cruck, duck, luck, muck, pluck, puck, ruck, schmuck, shuck, struck, stuck, suck, truck, tuck, upchuck.”

    Never knew the OED people ever tangled with the likes of Mary Three-Names. (BTW, the only definition for “SJW” in the OED is “informal, derogatory.” Yep, they’re still the ultimate authority…)

  69. “Like, remember when you called legends of Science Fiction and wished they would die? ” Unfortunately, I don’t have the background on that post to understand it, though it mentioned Resnick and I do recall you writing about some folks thinking it SEXXXXXXXXIST to think a woman is attractive.

  70. I will agree that Chicom can be derogatory, but what the Chicoms DID to millions is what makes it derogatory.

  72. There is a difference from “can be” and “is”, especially when you are trying to define usage. The term “Christian” can be derogatory, or complementary, or neither. Or a third thing, altogether.
    I would stay away from dictionary.com until they get their shit together.
    Say, maybe this person who thinks that “chicom” is an ethnic slur could find a friend to help her out when she needs to work with words and language?

    2. No, no, apparently I’m the uninformed one. You know, this little tan girl needs a white liberal to help her.
      Damn it. My middle fingers are rising again. It’s like a condition.

  73. “K Tempest Bradford ‏@tinytempest · 2h2 hours ago
    I’m not sure how this slipped anyone’s mind but Sarah Hoyt is kind of the worst. If you’re unaware, please educate yourself.”

    What, *the* worst? Worse than Vox, even? 😉

    1. More and more I want to air drop some of these jackanapes into ISIS territory with an Arabic phrase books, their passports, and $30,000 American to make their way home if they can.

      When they complain at the door I’d politely explain that we are the worst imaginable therefore they should be happy to be delivered from us into the hands of ISIS.

      I’m sick of being compared to Nazis and other mass murderers and rapists. I want them to see what that’s like and the come call me that to my face.

      1. Your mention of ISIS reminds me of something somebody posted on the Bar today,from http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/24/the-hugo-awards-why-the-waronnerds-is-a-war-on-art/

        What’s the difference between ISIS and social justice warriors? Well, one recruits its members from the most pathetic, disaffected, pathological members of society, claims to stand against shadowy conspiracies and bullying by the West, and destroys revered cultural institutions in fits of fanaticism.

        The others are unhinged terrorists in the Middle East.

          2. It’s your blog, I can’t stop you. I certainly understand the impulse – I find it both depressingly accurate and funny at the same time.

      2. You’re much too nice. I’d give them a Farsi phrase book, no passport… no wait, I’d give them a passport with Israeli visas in it. And I’d give them only $20 and a pack of cigarettes.

    3. Yes, indeed, because I’m about as black Tiny Tempest — about the same color actually, on the words of a black friend. Oh, and she often thinks my guest posters are me…

      1. Maybe I ought to write a guest post about Democrat ancestors who rode with the Klan, or fought for the Confederacy. 🙂

        I’ve got other things I want to write more.

    4. In my experience, the “worst” people are those who go about labeling who’s the “worst” person.

      Well, them and the guy who delivers my brats, knocks and bluts is the wurst person.

    6. “If you’re unaware, please educate yourself”

      Please take your own advice, Tempest.

      2. “educate yourself” is one of their “virtue signaling” posts. “There’s a lot of discrimination everywhere, educate yourself.” “Wanting to end social security is wanting to throw grandmas off cliffs, educate yourself.” “Bernie Sanders is good for the nation, educate yourself.” Bye “educate” they mean the kind of education in re-education camps. After reading Tempest in a B-Cup’s bio, I think she has too many mental problems to read a sentence and interpret it rationally.

          3. Without a doubt a holy cup. Not only do the contents leak out, but the thought would drive her even more insane.

        1. worse than The International Lord of Hate himself? Than John C. ‘racist and sexist’ Wright? Than the devil incarnate that lives rent free in their heads Vox Day? Here I thought the Evil Legion of Evil was all of a level. You mean to tell me there are different levels? How can they be attained? Are there cheat codes? Easter eggs? Maybe a hidden back door?

          (On an unrelated note, my priest once told the congregation that if he ever made it to heaven he’d leave a window open and hang a bedsheet out it so the rest of us could sneak in. This wasn’t the same priest that played cards and drank with my grandfather either.)

          1. alas it takes items you, as a white man, cannot attain (I don’t care how much you pay the surgeon, it won’t count as much as birth that way)

              1. Speaking as a Viking-descended life form myself (cite: Orkneyinga saga), I have to recommend the alternative method with that particular crowd: Check out the quality of their womenfolk – control gag reflex – go straight to Burn.

                  2. What pillaging? The stock targets for pillaging, to my knowledge, are roughly as follows: fine art, which the proglodytes cannot recognize; gold and jewelry, which the proglodytes do not adorn themselves with, preferring neon hair coloring and Obama voter pins; slaves and thralls, but the proglodytes would die if one attempted to compel manual labor from them; tea, coffee, and spices, two of which the proglodytes reject in favor of Starbucks caramel mockasino lattes, which is a vile parody of the third; silk and other beautiful clothing, which the proglodytes spurn because silk is an animal byproduct and beauty is a social construct of the patriarchy anyway; and food for the journey homeward, but the proglodytes eat only ethically-sourced fair-trade organically-grown pesticide-free kale, and such rabbit-food is not fit for a Viking to eat if he wishes to one day gaze upon the spear that pierced his vitals and remark on his good fortune: “I am grown fat about the heart-roots”.

                    (First time commenting here, have I hit the right tone?)

                    1. Au contraire, my friend, you’re thinking too small: Think in terms of the markets we can sell the stuff at.
                      Their art, horrifying though it might be, we can sell to endowed galleries.
                      There is probably some sort of gold and jewelry that they possess–and besides, we can sell the Obama pins as novelty items, and the hair coloring at Goth clubs.
                      We’ve decided to skip the slaves and thralls, both for moral and practical reasons.
                      We can sell the lattes at small coffeehouses at outrageously inflated prices.
                      The clothes we can donate to the Church, thereby shriving us of the crimes of pillaging and arson.

                      And yes, yes you did.

                    2. Keep in mind that the SJWs are inclined to adorn themselves with jewelry attached to places no sane person would dream of piercing. Adjust pillaging procedures appropriately.

                2. It is consistent with your ancestral culture to sell as slaves any captives taken on the contemplated raids. While such chattel can be a nuisance to deal with during long voyages they can often be profitably sold in various slave markets.

                  Once properly broken in their natural desire to curry favor from the powerful and their inclination to view individuals as non-people make them excellent slaves.

                  Any disinclination toward doing physical labor is quickly curable with a taste of the lash or deprivation of amenities.

                  1. Unfortunately, their unpleasant personalities and utter lack of manual skills depress their value in the slave marts to the point where you never recoup the cost of feeding them on the voyage. Recall the sad, sad case of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, the ‘utility slave whom no one will buy’, a.k.a. Sulky.

              2. Let’s see. I have English, Welsh and German in my ancestry.

                English can be seen as a mixture of Anglo-Saxons, Danes and Norman. Note, there’s some speculation based on the structure of the English language that plenty of the English were Celtic by ancestry.

                The Angles & Saxons were notable raiders and conquerors as were the Danes.

                The Normans were descendants of Norsemen who conquered part of France and later conquered England (note the Normans were the last successful invaders of England).

                The Welsh are a Celtic people and the Celts were also known for being conquerors. (There’s a word for people who think the Celts were peaceful, it’s idiot).

                The German tribes were well known for their wars against Roman. IIRC they also weren’t peaceful people.

                Therefore if I make war against the SJW, I’m just following the ways of my ancestors. [Very Big Evil Grin]

          2. It really depends on who you talk to.

            At least one comment on Facebook classified Sarah as a little crazy, John C. Wright and Vox day as bigots, Mike Williamson and and Tom Kratman as violent, but Larry and I as being OK but naïve about Fandom.

            But Sarah wasn’t even close to the worst person in the world, and Larry was considered downright decent.

            How the hell I ended up in that conversation is beyond me.

              1. Yeah, but I can’t help but their there were bigger pro-puppies than yours truly worth being mentioned. I think I named everyone actually mentioned in that conversation.

        2. Small in a moral and mental sense, anyway…

          I mean, have you seen the unedited pictures of a lot of that crowd that don’t involve trick photography? Yeah, some SPs aren’t exactly tiny, but they don’t promote it as an ideal state.

    9. From the Honey Badger broadcast earlier this week, I think Sarah and Kate mentioned they were both labeled the “Worst in the World” or something.

      1. I’m having trouble with my scorecard, can somebody tell me who I’m supposed to disavow this week in order to maybe sorta have them treat me like a person again?

        Bah, it doesn’t matter, I’ll give my standard response regardless: laughter.

      3. Yes, they both together comprise “The Worst Person In The World”. I forget why, but I think it had to do with some attack which lumped comments from both of them together.

        1. Cf. the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band song, ‘Mr. Apollo’, a sendup of the old Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads:

          ‘Five years ago I was a four-stone apology. Today I am two separate gorillas.’

  74. If you really want to know what the Left thinks about Islam and their own agenda in this country, I would suggest reading this article by Michael Walzer in Dissent: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/islamism-and-the-left
    Walzer is very high in the councils of the intellectual establishment. BA from Brendeis, PhD in government from Cambridge and Harvard, currently prof of adavanced studies at Princeton. His open Leftism notwithstanding, he is a guy that a president of either party would appoint to a thinktank.
    And he comes across as utterly clueless about Islam. He is quite open about the fact that the agenda of the Left is to reform you. There is no room in Leftism for any threat but you. The Left has no interest in compromising with you, or in sharing governance with you. The purpose of the Left is to rule you.

      1. It always does. Trouble is the fallout from the ass-biting sometimes catches us and those we love no matter how far we stay away.

  75. If Chicom is racist, then isn’t Chicon also racist? The World Science Fiction Convention goes by the name “Chicon” whenever it has been held in Chicago (Seven to date with the latest in 2012). Obviously the World SF Con is racist.
    So Mary Three Names should immediately disavow all of her Hugo awards and nominations since she is so opposed to this type of “racism.”

  76. Okay…

    Apologies for the length.

    1) It’s not slang. It is an abbreviation approved and promulgated by the United States government (Department of Defense, Department of State, intelligence community et. al.) It’s no different than MILSPEC (to save you a trip to d.com, that means military specification.)

    2) I was going to mention how MRK used a single online source to accuse Sarah of using “ethnic slurs”. I had a bit about how I’d learned G. W. Bush wasn’t a legitimate president and was a member of the Illuminati, how Obama isn’t a legitimate president and is a Kenyan Muslim. I was going to wrap up with how I planned to buy some meds to make my genitalia larger and pay for it with money coming from a nice Nigerian fellow who had run into some problems.

    But…

    In her “apology” she says she’s read multiple sources and histories without ever encountering CHICOM. Didn’t mention that the other day in the original comments/twaiting.

    Possibilities:

    a) She just didn’t mention it before.

    b) Mary Mary Quite Contrary is a huge f***ing liar.
    ….
    ………

    I’m THINKING!
    …

    Okay. Let’s presume she’s truthful. What are these other sources and histories and whatnot. I’d like to examine them to verify the lack of a certain shortening of words.

    If not, I might need to reexamine that huge f***ing liar theory.

    3) Her brother wrote a Ph.D. thesis (medium to longish book, annotated and footnoted and source, I’m given to understand) about Chinese Communism without ever once mentioning that whole CHICOM bit….

    Perhaps deflection and willful ignorance is a family trait.

    4) As a citizen of the Gem State, I’d like to say this to all the blog followers:

    If you ever find yourself in a steakhouse and the sides menu includes “Idaho Baker” please understand that this will be a delicious aroma-filled one pound russet grown in incredible high-sulfer volcanic soil and not some weak, confused, changing flavor and definition Chu/Kowall type object.

    Buy Idaho.

    and finally

    5) I hereby renounce, retract and set aside all hesitations and distancing I may have indicated last week over the ribbons issues. If I am the the “them” to a CHORFish “us” (and by the way, has anybody else noticed that TOResa and Mary Mary Quite Contrary and assorted ilk are the ones making an us/them dichotomy, rather than any Puppy siding writer?) Where was I? Oh right, if I am a “them” compared to a cabal of liars, abusers and knaves of that quality, I will proudly look skyward and lift my heaving bosom (anyone who laughs is a communist!) and declare myself with vigor and pride as THEM.

    And unless anyone accuses me of hiding behind the anonymity of the webs:

    I remain most sincerely yours,

    David M. Langley
    Captain Comic
    and still faithfully
    Evil League of Evil Faceless Minion #6969

    2. She’s a big f*cking liar. IN HER ORIGINAL COMMENT SHE SAID I’D TAUGHT HER THIS “Ethnic slur” When first questioned she said she got it from dictionary.com. The narrative is twistier than a pig’s tail.

      1. Folks, I’m not sure I can overemphasize this enough: the SJW / Leftist / whatever is pathologically untrustworthy. If their lips are moving, they’re lying. It may be by commission, by omission, by selective cherry-picking, whatever, but there is a lie in there somewhere. Deal with them accordingly.

      2. The problem there is that she uses the term “THE definition” (emphasis obviously added).

        You clearly meant that you’d never heard THAT specific definition (“derogatory”) which she then manages to be “confused” about how you said she taught you the meaning of the word.

        No matter how many times you parse it, the SJW/CHORF crowd will dig and obscure and dissemble and outright fraking LIE to make you just a poor illiterate peasant.

        While still managing to say you were using an ethnic slur and then insisting that doesn’t mean she called you racist.

        It’s not a joke any more.

        Every word a lie, including “the”, “and” and “we”.

          1. I didn’t see the word “Chicom” on that page, so I think she’s still got implausible deniability.

            Did find it interesting that she thought Scalzi setting portraying himself as a communist revolutionary in his run for SFWA President was “brilliant”. Very telling, that. I mean, that kind of comparison is usually what ones opponents make as a form of ridicule, but to do it to yourself….

    3. She must not be reading primary sources. But this also might be the Doubling Down stage of SJW arguments.

      2. Sorry, down to about ten or so of each for my next year’s trips. Got a bunch back from ConOps on Sunday and sent them and “just the worst” flyers to someone in GA.

        If you hit Dragon Con, you might be able to snag one.

        Next year I’m planning different designs.

          1. Now, will a first year ribbon trump a Sad Puppy challenge coin? (Should any warped, twisted, free-marketeer come up with such a thing.)

      1. You can download his dissertation here.

        If he wrote about the experience of Protestant missionaries in Communist China in the 1950’s, he certainly should be familiar with the word Chicom. Whether his sister actually cares enough to read up on his work is the question.

        I will also be fascinated to find out what sort of coverage he gives to the experience of missionaries who did not return to the US, because they were imprisoned or dead.

        A list of some of the known Catholic Chinese martyrs under the Communists. It’s rather short because of the difficulties in documenting people who “disappeared,” and because it doesn’t include things the Chinese did to missionaries in North Korea, etc. But it does include the martyr Bishop Ford, for whom so many US buildings are named. (There was another famous Bishop Ford in Chicago, but he was a Pentecostal leader.)

        The other reason the 1950’s list is rather short is that so many Catholic priests, brothers, nuns, and laypeople had already been killed during WWII by the Japanese, the warlords, and the Communists, and that a lot fewer missionaries could get into China to replace the dead.

        1. Oops. I see that one can only download it from Vanderbilt.

          Anyhoo, one can look up the Maryknoll Missionaries to see a classic example of a religious order being persecuted by Communists, then getting captured by leftists and Communists.

        2. One brother of mine is an accomplished lawyer, the other is an experienced air traffic controller, so by MiRK’s Theory of the Transitive Nature of Knowledge I should be able to write contracts while directing air[plane take-offs and landings.

          Since SJWs believe culture equals race, the TTNK is just a minor refinement of the concept of genetically transmitted knowledge.

    7. I had a bit about how I’d learned G. W. Bush wasn’t a legitimate president and was a member of the Illuminati, how Obama isn’t a legitimate president and is a Kenyan Muslim.

      My personal favourite is looking up Tierra del Fuego on Wikipedia. There I discovered that the name is Spanish for ‘Land of Chicken Fights’, and that Magellan feared to land there because of the ferocious fighting chickens he saw on the shore. I actually saved the page as a web archive, knowing that some damn fool would revert the edit in an hour or two.

    8. It’s no different than MILSPEC
      No different, eh? I look forward to trying to work MILSPEC into conversation as an ethnic slur.

          2. Anachronda IIRC is one of our resident trolls.
            Ouch. That hurt. I don’t recall saying anything at all about CHICOM as an ethnic slur. I did speculate on it being good DECnet node name, what with DECnet node names being limited to six characters and all.

            Additionally, as an Army brat, I am ethnically MILSPEC.

      3. Well, MILSPEC can be a profanity, but the ethnicity it demeans is government.

        ….

        Oh, s***!

        Mary Mary Quite Contrary is totally going to insist that’s a slur, isn’t she?

        1. Some Left-Wing racial agitator (sorry – I forget which one, there are so many) was arguing that, as the Military are predominantly minority (demonstrably false claim, but when has that ever slowed them?) any opposition to the Iran BOHICA that the president is currently trying to shove up America’s … (ahem) any opposition to the deal was inherently racist because that’s the card they always play when they have no rational argument.

          Thus if the Military is minority, any derogation of the military must be an anti-minority slur.

      5. You mean “trying to warp it and claim it’s an ethnic slur so you can attack people for their wrongthink” or similar?

  77. Pingback: No, Cupcake, there is no right not to be offended! | The Liberty Zone

  78. When I was a kid in the Midwest a family of chicoms moved in a few houses down. My mother wouldn’t let me play at their house. She said that they would teach me to do drugs, and teach me to dance the chicom way instead of the American way, and teach me to denounce US hegemony in SE Asia. Of course, I feel guilty about it now, but in those days, people were much more bigoted.

    1. Back when I was 3 or 4, my Brother and I wanted to play with the black kids just across the alley from us (this was mid 50’s). My Mother knew it was considered socially unacceptable at the time; however, she knew a ‘no’ would immediately elicit a ‘Why?’
      Her solution, No you can’t play with them. Colored people have germs. Now, think about such a statement to a 3 year old, from the unquestionable authority of their Mother. Of course I don’t remember it, but it was buried down in the deep brain wiring I would carry for the rest of my life.
      Fast forward to last year. My best friend’s son was over for the weekend with two black friends of his. After the visit, there was a 1/2 box of cheese nips left. My hand went in, and my stomach revolted. My thinking brain knows this is absurd. My feeling brain is still listening to Mother. SJWs don’t think, they only feel. Be very afraid.

  79. Pingback: Muzzled Redux | Cedar Writes

  80. All right, I wasn’t going to do this, and be accused of supporting her and maybe “fauxtrage” myself, but…

    What is this “Mary Three Names” business? If I used my legal name “William Lee Linden”, would you be sneering at me? Do you call Yeats “Willie Three Names?” Is this your version of Political Correctness?

    Did you think it was funny when “liberals” sneered at President Bush 41 for having four names, instead of the “normal” three?

    1. What’s wrong with “William Lee Linden” as a name?

      Nope we aren’t saying that any thing is wrong with her name. It’s a matter that her words are so stupid that we are also joking about her name.

      Paul Stephen Howard (who rarely uses the Stephen).

    2. ” Did you think it was funny when “liberals” sneered at President Bush 41 for having four names, instead of the “normal” three?”

      Can’t remember caring; better things to do.

    3. No. But you know, she calls me racist. I mock the self importance of announcing yourself at ALL TIMES with three names. Pfui, Will. Pull the other one. It plays jingle bells.

    4. Your settings may need adjustment. Try the following:
      Humor +2
      Hyperbole +3
      and reread OP. Otherwise, you may be mocked for equating “accusing somebody of being a racist” with “name calling accuser after they’ve accused you of being a racist”.

    5. A little gentle mockery, and that’s all it is, after the truly vile and damaging accusations being flung around from that sphere?

      Not really a big deal, I think.

      Or do you think Mary Three Names, M3N, Barefoot Johnny or such are likely to undermine careers and reputations?

      It’s a restrained response.

      1. Honestly, this might be cultural, so tell me if it doesn’t translate, okay?
        In the village, a bunch of us old families had names you could use instead of ipsem Loren. It’s not mandatory, but if you’re proud of your ancestors, you use the name of the mother. And the paternal grandmother. And the maternal grandmother. You can see how it gets out of control, right (and duh, my kids are de Almeida Hoyt only because Dan drew the line at allowing Marques in.) Until we got to my brother’s kids where — being of an egalitarian bend — he cut it all down to two names but that’s a different story. Anyway, our family, because there were other Almeidas, if you needed to distinguish us, were the Marques de Almeidas because that was the name shared by the whole, vast tribe for a century. In the same way mom’s family is not da Silva but de Sousa e Silva. BUT that’s if you need to distinguish yourself from others. In normal everyday life, mom gave her name say at the florists as Carmen da Silva (no, she never took my dad’s name. Grandma didn’t take grandad’s either. I was the disruptive one who took her husband’s name. Eh.) And dad was Antonio (or more often Toni) de Almeida.
        Bear with me, there’s a point.
        My best friend had more names than I and her family was of noble origins. In use she used Isabel Ferreira.
        The one parevenu family in the village, rich dairy farmers, insisted on using their last two names ALL THE TIME so they were Marques de Sa, instead of Sa. This was snobbish and “I’m better than you” behavior by definition.So one day the woman calls and tells me to tell my Mama (snort, giggle) that the Wife of Marques de Sa had called. To which I answered that the daughter of Marques de Almeida would do so. Mom arrived in time to hear the last part and couldn’t figure out how to scold me while laughing. I thought she’d have a stroke.
        ANYWAY I called them the three name family, and Mary Three Names reminds me of them to a T.

        1. That must have given the Communists extra-special heartburn.

          “Bring me the file of Sarah de Almeida.”

          “Which one?”

          “Sarah de Sousa e Almeida.”

          “Which one?”

          “Sarah de Souda e Almeida of this particular village.”

          “Which one?”

          “The teenager.”

          “Which one?”

          …etc….

            1. Can you imagine what MY file would look like, with my name?

              I have six given names, to start with. Rhys has a very long surname. Each of our children has three given names. Throw in the Latin naming conventions used the Philippines, which are similar to what you describe…

              1. I was just telling a co-worker of the time I had a customer make me ask a guy what his name was, and he replied with perfect mimicry “My name José Jiménez” then pulled his Green Card out to prove it … somewhere in there was Jose Jimenez (and De Silva, and some others) and in far less accent told me he was from a village that the Character was supposed to be from and most of the boys in his village were named that in some way in honor of the comedian (who was Jewish from Hungary actually) and he liked the looks he got when he introduced himself so those were the two names he used.

            2. Oh, oh, *bounces up and down* so if someone is upset because of your reaction to potentially pretentious nomenclature, you can just point to your heritage and raise your “native culture” card! That trumps even the sexuality/gender card, if I remember the most recent rules.

              (Typed with tongue firmly planted in cheek.)

          2. To make matters even more “fun”, Sarah’s first name in the village wasn’t “Sarah”. She became Sarah officially when she married. [Evil Grin]

          3. My favorite poem of all time – Morte e Vida Severina – begins with that trope:

            […]Como então dizer quem falo
            ora a Vossas Senhorias?
            Vejamos: é o Severino
            da Maria do Zacarias,
            lá da serra da Costela,
            limites da Paraíba.

            *sigh* I wish I could find a good English translation to share with people; all the ones I’ve seen have missed the feel of the original. I’ve never been a good enough poet to attempt it myself, even if my languages were up to speed.

            Tangential rant: I really wish I could throw that poem (18 parts, it’s heavy) at people who complain about how terrible it is to be poor in the US. Are you kidding me? I’ve visited friends in houses with no running water, in shanties made of scrap wood and sheet metal, been given fried egg and rice because they had nothing else but wouldn’t let a guest leave without eating, and many of them were there fleeing the life in the nordeste the poet describes because the favelas were better than the misery of the northern mountains and grasslands. Those places have barely changed in a hundred years and more. And these filhos da cabra maldita complain that not everyone in the US has internet access? *stomps off to find a stiff nonalcoholic drink*

      2. Keep in mind I’m okay, say, with Dean Wesley Smith using three names because Dean Smith, right? There must be a million. And Kristine Katherine Rusch is euphonious, and at any rate she’s fine if you just call her KKR.

        1. Mary is a common name, and Kowal means Smith in Polish, so I can see not wanting to be Mary Kowal. I can hardly complain about wanting a handle with too many syllables.

          1. um… it might MEAN Smith in Polish. Ferreira means Smith in Portuguese. It’s not however the “portuguese Smith” which is Silva. It’s a false equivalence. Come up with another author in our field named kowal, please!

            1. Like Knighton. There aren’t too many of us floating around, and almost none in the field.

              I only went with T.L. Knighton because I’d been “Tom Knighton” blogging about politics for years before taking up fiction. I didn’t really want to turn off readers because of my politics, and I didn’t want editors to turn me down because of all the baggage that came with “Tom Knighton”.

              And then promptly get my butt involved in Sad Puppies and make absolutely certain that T.L. Knighton wouldn’t help either. 😀

            2. Ferreira means Smith in Portuguese? I would have guessed farrier, which is close but not identical. Ain’t etymology wonderful.

                1. So ferreira is blacksmith, as opposed to smith, which can mean coppersmith, tinsmith, etc?

            3. If she didn’t persist in using the most complicated form of her middle name, it would be obvious that her public persona is just pandering to prejudices about Poles.

              People would also always be confusing her with that one guy on Star Gate.

              2. Very prejudiced, Bob. After all we called her a white Mormon Male willing to cheat in order to keep women, gays and minorities out of the field. Oh, yeah, and we wished luminaries of the field would “just die.” Oh, no. WAIT. That was her. She’s lucky I didn’t call her something MUCH worse.

    6. Yeah, you got us. The real reason to make such a point of calling her Mary Robinette Kowal is that she is a serial killer.

    2. Yes, if they asked you for it. I have four myself. I don’t even have an issue with her having it on books — it’s books — but that’s her name at all times.
      Also, it started because I’m dyslexic and once gave her an extra n and was told by her followers this invalidated my argument.

        1. Us government flunkies hate long names since most of the fields have very limited character spaces. Most of our databases don’t accept a 4th name. Before 9-11 immigration’s default date of birth for anyone who didn’t know theirs was January 1 of the approximate year. After 9-11 running anyone with an islamic name (ie. Mohamed Muhamed, 1-1-77) required turning the printer off (we learned the hard way when one of the dispatchers ran a name and the printer ran for for over 40 minutes).

            1. At the induction center in ’82 a sergeant stopped me just before the physical and told me to go fill out my paperwork the right way. So I went over and over the forms, I just couldn’t see what I’d messed up. Then I finally worked up the nerve to ask what was wrong and it was the middle name. I had written an A. But that A is my name. Just the A and had to show him my birth certificate to prove it. And then they wouldn’t let me join anyway. Hearts aren’t allowed to miss a few beats and knees should only bend one direction.

              1. I had to chuckle Joe. My grandfather Howard did not have a middle name when he joined the army (World War I) so he just put down “X” as a middle initial. [Smile]

      1. You did six (SIX) posts in a row. I call that On Fire. I see your “little hot” making your collar burn. I like it. You done good; you’ll do gooder; your goodest is yet to come.

  83. Pingback: I’ve Been To The Desert On A Horse With No Name | According To Hoyt

  84. Reblogged this on The Omega Crusade and commented:
    I’ve said elsewhere that I believe the #Gamer-Gate and Puppies (Sad and Rabid) have found a backdoor into Mordor. Theirs are the only fronts in the culture war that traditionalists enjoy any real success in.

    It is encouraging to see.

  85. Sarah Hoyt: You wrote:

    “Mary Three Names, whom I don’t mean to impugn, because it’s becoming clear to me that she has an impairment that prevents her from understanding written language but has nonetheless managed to win three Hugos, leapt to a conclusion probably caused by her impairment…”

    And that’s where I stopped reading. First, you make fun of someone’s name. That’s absolutely one of the lowest forms of humor I can imagine. It is something that one disciplines 5-year olds for doing. When adults sink to that level – and since you presume to lecture about the nature of Cold War era euphemisms I assume that you’re adult enough that you should know how to behave in adult company – I find myself wondering if you have an impairment yourself beyond your obvious social impairment. If you do have such such a disorder (perhaps caused by eating too many lead-based paint chips back in the 50’s as you hunkered in your backyard fallout shelter while waiting for the Chicoms to parachute out of the sky and bayonet your puppy) then as a health care professional I will be very glad to try to help you find whatever rehabilitative services may be available in your community. The path to recovery begins with accepting that you have a problem, you know…

    You then wrote: “…whom I don’t mean to impugn…”, only then you go on to do exactly that, and with such an obvious relish for the slurs you inflicted that I can only conclude that you have no idea what the word “impugn” actually means. Do you yourself have an impairment that makes if difficult for you to understand the written language? That would have to be a terrifying and horrible thing for someone who considers herself to be “a writer”. “Impugn” – in the context that you used it would mean “to say or imply something false”, or “to vilify”; and again, that’s exactly what you did. You said something false. I assume that you did so in abject ignorance, because the only other explanation is that you are simply a malicious troll, and since I don’t know you I can’t make that judgement on just this one observation. For your information, Mary Robinette Kowal – whom I *have* met – is a fine and wonderful writer, a terrific, witty, and lovely person; and I’m certain that she would accept the apology that you so obviously owe her.

    Oh and Sarah; you’re wrong about the term “Chicom”. Yes, it is a contraction for “Chinese Communist”, but it was indeed used as a racial slur back in the Cold War era. A particularly nasty one back then too. In the future you might want to do some research before you set yourself up as an authority on such matters. You can avoid this sort of embarrassment if you research before you write.

    I posted the above paragraphs on FILE 770 and then came here to copy them just to make sure that you had a chance to see them Sarah. My God, but what a messed up blog you have! Photos of blood and violence, incoherent rantings of hatred and ignorance… I suspect that you and I will not become friends. I see that I do owe you an apology for assuming that you were an amateur “wanna-be” writer,as I implied in the first paragraph. I see from your blog site that you have indeed published some novels. And looking at my bookshelves I see that I even own a copy of your “Darkship Renegades”. I’ve not read it, and I have to confess that since I *have* now read some of your diatribes on the “puppy” fracas, I find your comments so unpleasant that I’m very unlikely to ever want to read any of your fiction. I can’t understand why a professional writer would want to risk alienating part of her potential market with non-paying writing such as you’ve done. Is your fiction writing just a hobby for you, and you don’t actually care if your books sell or not? That seems like a screwy way to conduct one’s business, but then it’s your business to conduct. I don’t suppose that a single potential reader like me who avoids your work is of any consequence to you anyway. If what you’re doing makes you happy, then a loss of book sales probably is a very small price to pay. What a funny business writing must be.

    2. Concern troll is concerned, and also a liar in general and about ChiCom in particular.

    3. “My God, but what a messed up blog you have! Photos of blood and violence”

      It’s called history. Learn from it. Or repeat it.

    4. “Oh and Sarah; you’re wrong about the term “Chicom”. Yes, it is a contraction for “Chinese Communist”, but it was indeed used as a racial slur back in the Cold War era.”

      Nope.

      OFFICIAL US GOVERNMENT TERM.

      It was used in cables, communiques, directives, reports, instructions and official records.

      Used as a curse word by the guys in the trenches, sure.

      So was “Southerner”, “Northerner” and any state name. (The Navy was tiring, but fun.)

      Does this mean you believe Sarah Hoyt fought in Korea or Vietnam?

      Used in military fiction from the ’60s to the ’90s and probably still today.

      CHICOM

      Chinese Communist

      The people in charge of the PRC.

      Get it?

      If not, can I be the first to denounce all liberals, progressives, SJWs, CHORFs and assorted fellow travelers for using the terms “Western” and “Westerner” to denounce me and my opinions simply because of my ethnic origins?

    5. Do you feel better there, Sparky?

      “That’s absolutely one of the lowest forms of humor I can imagine. It is something that one disciplines 5-year olds for doing.”

      Nah…we can find MUCH lower forms of humor, so lighten up, Francis.

      1. Tom, a little empathy is in order for Curt’s confessed limited imagination. He probably is better off for not attempting to read Darkship Renegades as it would certainly overwhelm his tender sensibilities, what with its sympathetic portrayal of characters of confused orientation.

        I confess to amusement at how much of his commentary regards matters beyond the point at which he stopped reading. Apparently Mige Klyer is attracting and training up a particularly inferior batch of minions this month.

        2. I confess to amusement at how much of his commentary regards matters beyond the point at which he stopped reading.

          He was so aghast that he stopped reading at that point and had some else read the remaining to him? Whatever … pull the other one, I’m limping.

          Yes, it seemed peculiar to me as well.

    6. Very little of this self-important twaddle merits address, so I will simply respond to one asinine point as key to the whole:

      “You then wrote: ‘…whom I don’t mean to impugn…’, only then you go on to do exactly that …”

      While you may know the meaning of “impugn” you clearly fail to grasp the concept of “irony.”

      One question, Curt: did you similarly rebuke MiRK for impugning Sarah? ChiComs is not, and never has been an ethnic slur and, even if it were, its context in Sarah’s initial usage clearly revealed (to any competent reader) it was not intended as such.

    7. I have read our esteemed hostess’s work extensively and had the pleasure of meeting her, she is a fine and wonderful writer, a terrific, witty, and lovely (and loving) person.

    8. And that’s where I stopped reading…blah, blah, blah (I stopped caring)

      Mild mockery in the face of slander, libel, deceit and calumny. In the face of potentially career wrecking lies and campaigns. Lowest form of humor? That’s a pathetic and childish appeal to decency and courtesy on behalf of people who have thrown all such aside in their pursuit of power in the culture.

      Pardon me if I give it short shrift.

      Oh and Sarah; you’re wrong about the term “Chicom”. Yes, it is a contraction for “Chinese Communist”, but it was indeed used as a racial slur back in the Cold War era. A particularly nasty one back then too.

      Prove it. Establish some credible source. Otherwise — bullshit. It’s manufactured outrage with the intent of discrediting a woman no one over there has the fortitude to face in honest debate.

      Scamper back to Vile 770, it’s much more your speed. Those folks will engage in any sort of chicanery to bolster their cultural power.

    9. Oh, look. Concern troll is concerned.

      Funny how you “stopped reading there” but somehow managed to respond to parts that happened later.

      Therefore, concern troll is also a liar.

      Which makes sense. “Chicom” was never a racial slur. Ever. Any “derogatory” nature of it wasn’t because of “Chinese” but because of “Communist.” You know, these people:

      http://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression/dp/0674076087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440888015&sr=8-1&keywords=black+book+of+communism

      Of the evil of the particular Chinese version, which was different from the Russian and its satellites version (and thus why the term “Chicom”–which was the offical. government. abbreviation. for Chinese Communist–was coined) we have a good first hand account here:

      But even with all the justification in the world for being a derogatory term (kind of like the name of another political party known for slaughtering millions of people has become a standard insult used by the Left), it remained a standard government abbreviation.

      And now, suddenly, when it become useful as a “stick” to attempt to beat on Sarah, you decide it’s a racial slur?

      Bullshit.

    10. Hey, Curt. Tell ya what. Go back and read the original post–the one Ms. Kowal ranted about. Than come back and tell me that Mrs. Hoyt called anyone a Chicom in it.
      Leaving aside, of course, the issue of whether Chicom is this thing of evilbadness–somehow I doubt it, there were other words for Asians, “slants” being among the milder terms.
      Reading comprehension is important, and Ms. Kowal failed to display it. As have you.

      1. I keep imagining the apoplectic fits some of these people would have if they heard the mother of one of the Vietnamese women I used to work with, using the phrase “chink-eyed”. Even in reference to her own children at times.

      1. Yep – I was there, too – a kid and teen during the Cold War itself, and in the Air Force from 1976 on to 1996. The term meant Chinese mainland Communists. If we wanted to use racial epithets, there were much more … interesting ones we could have used. Curt is full of it, besides being a condescending SOB.
        (Hey Curt – now there’s a meaningful insult, one with hair on its chest.)

        1. (Hey Curt – now there’s a meaningful insult, one with hair on its chest.)

          In this case, I prefer the minimalist route. Curt is a liar, demonstrated so by his first post*. The rest is just window dressing.

          *Hint: If you’re going to claim you “stopped reading at this point” don’t respond to things that came after that point. He lied. Just like I bet he lied about not coming back. He’s reading this, right now, trying to keep himself from responding.

            1. Hmm. Looks like I screwed up an ending blockquote.

              BTW, Sarah, my first response to this joker is “awaiting moderation”–two links in it, one to “The Black Book of Communism” the other to “Wild Swans” (One of the texts we used in the China portion of World Civilizations back in college, late 90’s).

    13. Curt PhillipsL “Oh and Sarah; you’re wrong about the term “Chicom”. Yes, it is a contraction for “Chinese Communist”, but it was indeed used as a racial slur back in the Cold War era. A particularly nasty one back then too.”

      Well, let’s see. I was there during the Cold War. Did the duck & cover once a week at school. Missiles pointed at Russia, and later, China, were located about two miles away from where I lived. You?

      “ChiCom” was never a racial slur, much less a “particularly nasty” one. It was a political label. There were plenty of useful racial slurs available at the time for those who wanted to use them. And a much greater willingness to use them than the mealy mouthed denizens of present day America have. We had no fear of denigrating our enemies back then.

      It is only in the current super-sensitive atmosphere of political correctness that a definitional anachronism like you are advancing could even be thought of, much less given any consideration.

      You do understand that advancing such ignorant claims results in any legitimate claims you have being disregarded?

    14. ✨🌟Achievements Unlocked:🌟✨
      ☑ 1. Skim until Offended
      ☑ 5. Make S——t Up
      ☑ 7. Concern Trolling
      ☑ 8. When all else fails, Racism!
      ❇️Efficiency bonus!❇️
      (Just 4 more for a complete checklist!)

    15. “Oh and Sarah; you’re wrong about the term “Chicom”. Yes, it is a contraction for “Chinese Communist”, but it was indeed used as a racial slur back in the Cold War era. A particularly nasty one back then too.” – Cite please, or you’re a frakkin’ liar.

      I’m particularly interested in how it’s racial in any way, since it refers to a political ideology and the Chinese that were able to make it to Formosa share a race/ethnicity with the Chicoms on the mainland.

  86. Great riposte.

    Thing is, to denounce someone’s “racism” is simply the bestest thing a SJW can do. It both proves and spotlights the accuser’s goodness. In the mind of your average SJW, it’s just like liberating Buchenwald.

  87. My proof of how the word “Chicom” was used in the Cold War era comes from the fact that I was there, children. I heard it with my own elderly ears. Some of you may find this hard to accept, but not every scrap of information is found exclusively on the Internet.

    Let’s see, what else…

    Some of you children are terribly brave hurling accusations and and great big nasty words like “snelson134” who says: “Concern troll is concerned, and also a liar in general and about ChiCom in particular.”

    “Concern troll”? Look “snelson134”, if you’re going to call people weird names and accuse them of lying, can you at least have the courage to sign your actual name? Or do you and some of your little friends here just love insulting people while hiding in the shadows too much? Oh I know, you kids are just so terribly afraid that someone will track you to your mother’s basement and ask you to account for your sins… But you ought to realize that the practice makes you look like a fool.

    “Captain Comic” – speaking of fake names, but at least that one has a little thought put into it – tells me “Nope” about my assertion that the word “Chicon” was *also* used as an expletive, and then goes right on to invalidate that “Nope” with: “Used as a curse word by the guys in the trenches, sure.”

    You bet your ass it was, “Captain”. Thanks for proving my point for me.

    Erik writes about my complaint that Sarah’s blog is kind of messed up with all the photos of people who’ve died rather violently: “It’s called history. Learn from it. Or repeat it.”

    Why thank you, Tacitus. (Look it up. You should be able to find *that* on the Internet.) I’ve seen more blood and death with my own eyes than anyone ever should (old guy, remember?) and can assure you that nothing you are ever going to see on anyone’s blog will ever remotely prepare you for the real thing. That lingering metallic smell of burned blood and burned feces crawls into your nose and lingers. I hope that no one here ever has to find that out the hard way.

    Demonstrate whatever skills you think you need to, T. L. Knighton. All any of you seem to be doing is amusing yourselves here anyway with this self-indulgent nonsense anyway.

    Eamon J. Cole also thinks I lie about “Chicom”: “Prove it. Establish some credible source. Otherwise — bullshit. It’s manufactured outrage with the intent of discrediting a woman no one over there has the fortitude to face in honest debate.”

    First: “Manufactured outrage”? What the hell are you even talking about? I’m not outraged because Sarah happens to be wrong about the use of a single word. I don’t really give a damn, to tell you the truth. I also hardly expect to “discredit a woman” – I assume you mean Sarah Hoyt – simply because she is wrong on that point. Everybody’s wrong about things now and then. That’s no reason for you to act like a bozo and circle the wagons. And “Prove it”? Told you Eamon, I was there. My proof is me. I lived through those years and heard it used that way by a whole lot of soldiers who meant it. If you need more proof than that, read what good ol’ “Captain Comic” wrote, above. Ah but you want a website or some other on-line source that you can read without stirring your butt out of your chair, don’t you? Sorry kid; can’t help you with that. The truth is found outside of your mom’s basement far more often than it is on the Internet.

    Richard McEnroe wrote: “Yes, people probably made disparaging ethnic references to other people with guns and knives jumping into their foxhole with them in the dead of a winter Korean night…” Yes, Richard. People surely did just that. You can bet the farm on that.

    Then Richard goes on to say: “Curt, you just accused Sarah of making a racist slur. You BETTER have a documented source for that, Skippy.”

    Or what, “Skippy”? Exactly what kind of threat are you advocating with that, “Skippy”? What I wrote to Sarah was: “Oh and Sarah; you’re wrong about the term “Chicom”. Yes, it is a contraction for “Chinese Communist”, but it was indeed used as a racial slur back in the Cold War era. A particularly nasty one back then too. In the future you might want to do some research before you set yourself up as an authority on such matters. You can avoid this sort of embarrassment if you research before you write.” How does any part of that accuse Sarah of, as you say, “making a racist slur”? What I accused her of is ignorance about the term in question. You gonna try to spank me for that, Richard? I’d be glad to discuss the point further with you someday, “Skippy”. I’m sure I can help you cure some of your own ignorance too.

    Well, I think that about covers it since all the rest of your replies amount to no more than name-calling. Sorry to have gone on at such length as I know that you kids don’t like for anyone to write anything longer than what will fit on a single iphone screen, but I doubt that most of you will read all of this anyway.

    I’ll not visit this blog again since it’s obvious that most of you are only concerned with telling each other how clever you all are, and I’m just not seeing a lot of clever from most of you. Except for Sarah. “Oh grow up.” Now *that’s* clever…In all seriousness, you guys are backing the wrong puppy in this dog race and I think time will show that to be true, but I guess that every race has to run out it’s course. You kids have fun…

    1. “Demonstrate whatever skills you think you need to, T. L. Knighton. All any of you seem to be doing is amusing yourselves here anyway with this self-indulgent nonsense anyway.”

      Kind of like how you’ve managed to demonstrate that you’re an ass?

      No, some details here. Your word means jack to us. Back. It. Up. This is the internet. You could be a 15 year old sneaking onto blogs while Mommy and Daddy aren’t looking, so your word is worthless, kind of like your opinions on, well, anything.

    2. I’ll not visit this blog again since it’s obvious that most of you are only concerned with telling each other how clever you all are, and I’m just not seeing a lot of clever from most of you

      Sulk quit!

    3. Oh, and one more thing?

      I have never seen a person show up on a blog and illustrate how badly coitus is needed on a regular basis before you got here. Congratulations. It’s not often I’m surprised by the Underoos Brigade, Skippy.

    4. Oh, BTW:

      My proof of how the word “Chicom” was used in the Cold War era comes from the fact that I was there, children

      You’ve already demonstrated you’re a liar. Therefore your word on the matter is utterly worthless.

      1. Even if he was there, his word means jack. Mostly because he could have been the only jackwagon there who thought that way.

        If one wants to be believed, they must support evidence. The plural of “anecdote” isn’t “data” after all.

        1. *wheeeeeeze*

          It’s really too much for me, Tom. I may be a little blue. Aching abdominal muscles. The funny, it just won’t quit…

          You were in the Navy, you and I both know, if somebody wanted to come up with a slur to use against opponents it would be a little more virulent than “ChiCom.”

          I mean, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe other units really went about thinking “Hey, I know, we’ll grab a word command is using, but we’ll say it with an extra special sneer! That’ll really show ’em!”

          There were more vivid and obscene descriptions of breakfast.

          1. Oh, if we’d put our minds to it (between talking about women and everything else) it would have been truly vile. Like “double for removing paint from the hull” vile.

            1. Exactly. Make the officers blush kinda stuff.

              But I’m supposed to believe it was this terrible-awful racial slur, in such common usage it’s infected all other instances!

              Right…

                1. Well, it intrudes, doesn’t it? Gets all rude and up in the face.

                  Better to ignore it, so it gets the hint and goes away.

        2. The thing is, any word, any word at all, in the right circumstances and said by the right person, becomes an epithet.

          The guy claimed to have “been there” implying military service? Well, I’ve heard “sir” used both as a sign of respect and I’ve heard it dripping contempt. I’ve heard “sarge” indicating a close-knit unit where respect goes up and down the line, and I’ve heard it indicating downright insubordination.

          That something is occasionally used as an epithet, particularly in a rather limited time and place, does not make it a “racial slur”.

          But, of course, the Left does use a Humpty Dumpty approach to words, they try to make them mean exactly what they want them to mean, neither more nor less, with that meaning subject to change at any time, proactively and retroactively. Their goal is never clear communication but narrative. Pravda rather than truth.

          1. Oh, yeah. In the right circumstances volumes can be said with inflection alone. The knowledge of the phonetic similarity between “sir” and “cur” is not unique to Richard Marcinko.

            And I have no doubt that ChiCom has been used as an epithet. Just not a racial one.

            As I noted on M3N’s blog, people soaked in so much blood deserve far more virulent epithet’s than that one.

          2. Oh, absolutely. I remember an ensign, for example, that got that treatment.

            Hell, right now, “Curt” is shaping up to be a hell of a slur for a dimwitted moron who tries to act like an authority on a topic when he really should focus on keeping his drool in his mouth and not much more than that without professional assistance.

          3. Wahl shucks — if Curt Effing Phillips , bless his heart, says something was a “particularly nasty” racial swear word, golly, don’t hardly nobody know more about nasty racial slurs than Curt.

          1. You know, I’ve started wondering if maybe we’ve been looking at this wrong. MAAAAAYYYYBE, they’re claiming it was used as a slur against Chinese immigrants, as an accusation that they were communists? If so, of course, maybe they could have explained that? AND maybe they could have actually gone back and tried reading comprehension again, after the context was explained in one-syllable words?

            1. Sorry, Wayne, I’ve given up any hope of reading comprehension rearing its ugly head. I believe I saw Ken Liu jumping on the pile over at Bradford’s twit page going on about how Sarah was calling him and Cixin Liu ChiComs.

              Reading the words ain’t enough. Understanding them really ought be required.

                1. Can’t confirm it was him, can’t find it again. It may have been on Wong’s feed, followed over from Bradford’s.

                  In any event, whole lotta people on one and the other going along with the deliberate misread.

                  Here’s the course, that’s the par.

                  1. Especially since, from what I understand about the book, Cixin Liu must be anything BUT a ChiCom. I mean, I don’t think the book is the least bit complementary to communism, right?

    5. Oh — my — that’s — it’s just —

      Sorry. I’ll pull myself together. The hilarity, it was tough to get through.

      So, to recap, you can’t establish any credible source indicating ChiCom was used as a racial slur. Thanks.

      I’m afraid your hope that no one here learns any hard lessons about blood and death is far too late. This isn’t that sort of sheltered blog.

      And this one: Sorry to have gone on at such length as I know that you kids don’t like for anyone to write anything longer than what will fit on a single iphone screen Really, the guffaws are draining my air bags! You trot this out on the blog of a woman who routinely (daily) posts in the 1500-2500 word range? A woman with a dedicated following who show up every day to read those posts? What, did you crowd-source some generic insults? Basements, too? Kids?

      *snort*

      Getting back. Yeah, manufactured outrage. Built to order. I’m afraid I’m not swayed.

      1. When you criticize Curt

        You trot this out on the blog of a woman who routinely (daily) posts in the 1500-2500 word range? A woman with a dedicated following who show up every day to read those posts?

        You overlook that it isn’t how many words in Curt’s replies but the lack of meaningful content which forms his problem.

        1. Ah, you’re right, esteemed wallaby.

          Perhaps he’s mistaken volume for quality. Seeing Sarah’s success he’s chosen to emulate the one without the other.

    6. Condescending a bit, aren’t you, Curt? Guess what, you aren’t the only one who lived through the Cold War who happens to come to this blog. Nor are you the only one who served during that time — assuming you served. See, that’s the problem with all your protests. You tell us you were there, you lived it, you saw it but that’s easy to do. You give nothing to back it up.

      Let’s see, you jump on snelson134 for not “signing” their real name. Funny, I don’t see a last name on your posts. Oh, wait, I know. That’s one of those misdirects that try to prove how smart you are without actually dealing with the issue.

      As for your allegation that you “know” ChiCom has been used as a derrogatory or racial slur, big frigging deal. You look hard enough and you will find someone who is insulted for being called white or she or mister or miss or ms or just about anything. Have we come to the point in our world where we are such precious and fragile little flowers that if one person, somewhere at some point in time — past, present or future — might be upset by being called something that it becomes a slur?

      Go take your righteous indignation elsewhere unless you really wish to discuss the issue instead of lecturing us “children”.

    8. Sorry, Curt, your presumption of authority constitutes inadequate support for your claim. I saw the cold war, too, and Chicom was a political epithet, not an ethnic one.

      CHICOM was a word used in official DoS documents, an improbable location for ethnic slurs:

      177. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Poland
      [SNIP]
      4. … FYI: If ChiComs reject or do not reply to invitation to attend High Energy Physics Conference in Palo Alto, you should regret such action. End FYI.
      [SNIP]
      11 … It implicitly replies to letter handed Wang at last meeting on WDC with flat rejection of ChiCom participation in WDC in any disarmament negotiations. Wang may also raise question of alleged US attack on ChiCom fishing boats in Tonkin Gulf May 28 and SEATO naval exercise Sea Imp and may revert to shoot-down of ChiCom plane May 12 which was discussed last meeting. He may also protest Syrian defector case or Dutch case involving attempted ChiCom defection.
      http://www.history-lab.org/documents/frus1964-68v30d177

      Of course, being a hit ‘n’ run poster you can’t see this. It is even possible that you don’t consider 1964 to have been during the Cold War.

    9. Look “snelson134”, if you’re going to call people weird names and accuse them of lying, can you at least have the courage to sign your actual name?

      This one — I can’t help it. I giggle.

        2. Lots of reasons for a person to use a “handle”. Mine is part of an exercise in “personal branding”. For some, they’re holdovers from earlier incarnations of internet services, things like Usenet and early web fora, many of which were character limited but required unique identifiers and people just kept using them from inertia–it’s what they’re used to and what their online friends know them by.

          One would expect someone who “was there” for the cold war to know that.

    10. My proof of how the word “Chicom” was used in the Cold War era comes from the fact that I was there, children. I heard it with my own elderly ears. Some of you may find this hard to accept, but not every scrap of information is found exclusively on the Internet.

      I’m curious, Curt Philips, has anyone ever been impressed, even once, by your “because I said so, and no, I’m not going to back it up” middle school posing?

      Because all it’s convincing me of is that you should get tested for Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a very serious affliction, and could cause you to become a danger to yourself and (though this won’t matter to you) others as well.

    12. A) Fake name? Try Fan Name. I use it for e-mail and badge names. The name my parents gave me?

      David M. Langley

      Which I put in an earlier comment on this very post.

      B) As I ALSO SAID in the comment you noted, pretty much every social, legal, economic, and geographic division of humans has at some time or another been used as a slur. Doesn’t mean that the term must be removed forever.

      It also doesn’t mean that Sarah Hoyt, growing up in a Portuguese town and dealing with her own socialist BS, EVER heard that CHICOM was a slur against all of the poor oppressed, put-upon by us racist Westerners citizens of the great and peaceful and forward and grand PRC.

      C) You were there, Geriatric Man? Huzzah!

      So was I. USN at the back half of the ’80s. While the Sovs were the primary concern at the time, the CHICOMs got a fair bit of attention as well. Like during that whole Tienanmen Square misunderstanding.

      Where the Never-to-Be-Cursed-Enough leaders of the PRC (aka the GodDamned CHICOMs) deliberately murdered human beings who only wanted to have a voice in the greater movements of their country and their lives.

      And by the bye, even the Dictionary.com definition only says “disparaging” or “derogatory”, not “ethnic slur”.

      Sorry if this is too long for you to read, Gramps, hope you made it to the end. If not, the truth is still the truth.

    13. Tell you what Douche Canoe, (there, that is an insult.) I would call you a dinq (before you get all confused again, let me help you out, I’m not talking about the slang for VC used by grunts, I’m talking about the slang Delinquent in qualifications that Submariners use for Air Breathing, shit tank filling, three sandwich eating, movie watching, rack space taking, non qualified individuals that place a load on the systems without providing any useful service, because they aren’t qualified to stand any watches yet) But that’s an insult to Dinqs, who may just some day though the grace of their sea daddy develop in to useful members of the submarine service. You want to talk about “being there” What expeditionarys do you have? You have a Budweiser eagle, a Greeny beany, wings, fish, or other quals in any of the pointed end of the spear shit? If not, you weren’t there. BOY you have the audacity to call me and some of my friends and shipmates “children”? I have more time at condition 1SQ, or at battle stations on station doing spec ops than you do out of highschool. Let me help you out. We didn’t call anyone a Chicom as a racist slur… We called ’em gooks, chinks, or dinks as a racist slur.
      Now, you’ve probably caused me to piss off the hostess of the place, which scares me just a little and as a retired cop and a retired submariner, not much scares me. If you feel insulted, come look me up, I’m in the book in Bremerton WA.

      1. Holy crap, when a measly 6YO agrees with a bubblehead (see, that’s a disparaging term), you might be on the wrong side, Curt.

        BTW fellow NorthWest citizen, I’m totally stealing that “douche canoe” thing.

    14. Big nasty words? I guess three syllables counts…. to someone who’s ignorant. And you are either lying about your knowledge of the origin of Chicom, or are too stupid to be out off leash.

      Weird names? If you’re referring to Concern Troll, you must have just gotten permission to use the nursing home internet. As for your supposed age, there’s no fool like an old fool.

      Finally, no one cares if you show back up here or not; chew toys wear out quickly here.

    15. “Concern troll”? Look “snelson134”, if you’re going to call people weird names and accuse them of lying, can you at least have the courage to sign your actual name?

      First (and no, I didn’t read all the responses to this, so someone else may have defined it for you already), “Concern Troll” means someone who comes in and pretends to be concerned that someone is committing badthink or writing badwords about someone and tells them how they are too mean and should back off, when all they are really trying to do is make that person afraid to say anything at all that may not be completely nice about someone else.

      As for snelson134 and actual names? Too many people on this side of the political fence have had their names destroyed by people on your side of it for anyone to give any part of a shit whether you want someone’s actual name or not.

    16. ✨🌟Achievements Unlocked:🌟✨
      ☑︎ 1. Skim until Offended
      ☑ 2: Dismiss! (Subcategories: “You used your usual pseudonym”)
      ☑ 3. Attack, Attack, Attack
      ☑︎ 5. Make S——t Up
      ☑︎ 7. Concern Trolling
      ☑︎ 8. When all else fails, Racism!
      (Just 2 more for a complete checklist!)

    17. Son, I know where and how CHICOM was used because I was there too. What’s more, I am fairly decent at reading Chinese and have a number of friends who are Chinese; one of whom is even a member of the Party, because you don’t *get* certain jobs without being a member of the Party.

      (She, by the way, looks forward to the “withering away of the State” and further motion to a modern more libertarian China.)

      And I call “bullshit”.

      ChiCom refers explicitly to the Chinese Communist government, which murdered tens of millions. It doesn’t refer to an ethnicity, because then it would also refer to the Republic of China in Taiwan and to the Chinese in Singapore, all of whom are about as far from Communist as you can get.

      That said, I do think ChiCom is derogatory. But then, I can’t think of a better group to deride than the biggest mass murderers of the 20th — or, probably, any — century. If you disagree, I suspect you have somehow demagnetized your moral compass.

      Now, from your argument here, I’ll grant that it seems possible that your family was sufficiently racist, ignorant, and unthinking as to imagine all Chinese are Communists, no matter how stupid it is to think so.

      In fact, based on genetics and probability, I find it entirely plausible.

      1. Oh, some of them get that I said people voted for it THINKING they were voting for Chicoms (of course they say I have a conspiracy theory — ah — that these stupid western SJWs are Chicoms.) The thing those idiots don’t GET is that it was thrown out more as a taunt and that their incredible kicked-anthill outrage has slowly been convincing me of it. I mean, if that’s NOT why you voted for it, why be so upset that “Chicoms” is “derogatory”? These people are infants. Stupid ones.

    18. You want “I was there, children”? How about, I was in the middle of it, AS a child. I was living in Brazzaville, age 7, in the fall of 1963 when a CHICOM supported revolution blew up. I used to fall asleep to the thud of artillery in the suburbs, and the squawking of the two-way radio in our living room, waiting for evac orders.

  88. Wow. I stumbled onto this article. 3 hours later, after many side excursions to translate jargon, I have finally reached the end of the comments. Keep up the good fight.

  89. You want to talk about offended? I’m a white/straight/male. Worse (from a certain PoV), I’m CHRISTIAN. Worse even than that, I’m SOUTHERN. I get hate speech from the Loony Fringe Left coming at me from all points of the cultural compass on almost a daily basis.

    You know what I’m told when I complain? “Tough! Grow a thicker skin, crybaby!”

    Dear Mary: You find the term “Chicom” offensive? TOUGH! GROW A THICKER SKIN, CRYBABY!

  90. Pingback: The Cool Kids’ Table | The Liberty Zone

  91. Okay sweetheart, others have already applied the 2×4 of knowledge to you, but allow me to chime in to your ancient all-knowing self. I, too, lived those days, and my experience and work began in high school when I first started “Thinking About The Unthinkable” and devising ways to avoid and survive. If that phrase is something you have to google, you didn’t live it. ChiCom was never a racial slur, still isn’t, and still applies.

    As for me and my bonifides: you can find me on LinkedIn easily enough and you might note that among all the things listed are military expert weapons ratings earned as a civilian. You will also find my Master’s Thesis is “The Soviet Watchers: A Directory of Western Observers of Soviet Space Efforts.” You can find a number of essays on line, as well as general posts and comments, and yes, I do call Reagan “Boss” with great respect. I note that I am not now, nor ever have been, and employee of any intelligence agency (for any country). So, what have you truly done and accomplished in life?

    You come on here seemingly determined to work your way through both a list of logical fallacies and standard troll tactics, and expect us to be impressed? Sorry kiddo, no go. You think you impress, scare, or awe anyone here? Again, cupcake, not so much.

    Yes, I do use a pen name, one that has meaning to me that you are never likely to get or figure out. I’ve also been known in fandom under another name, Sehlat, that might should also give you some food for thought.

    So, oh-ancient-font-of-wisdom-and-experience, care to try facts, reason, and discourse? That might end up earning at least a smidgen of respect, though based on current efforts you don’t seem likely to impress those who truly have lived and/or fought it.

        1. That’s my understanding. I wasn’t there, so I could well be wrong.

          Despite his assurances, I suspect Curt, or a suitable pseudonym, will be along shortly.

  93. fwiw (=zilch) I’d never heard the term before but it kind of reminds me of that thing when somebody goes, “Look at this [ethnicity] douchebag!” And everybody’s like, “Whoa!” And then the person is like, “What? I don’t mean that in a racist way, it’s a fact that they are a douchebag and that they’re [ethnicity], the two things aren’t related, geeze!” And then everybody’s like … actually I can’t go on, I’d need the right GIF to go on. WHERE DO YOU GET THEM??????

    1. Except that in this case Chinese-Communist is a rather small subset and not related at all. And there is no source for the derogatory except one that doesn’t specify “racially derogatory.”

  94. You should be able to find a nice selection here, or by typing “oh noes gif” into a functional search engine.

  95. Pingback: Sad Puppies and Vile Puppy Kickers | danielmhoyt
  96. Pingback: Offensitivity – Cedar Sanderson | According To Hoyt

  97. It is hard, after this, to go back and try to remember my own mental reaction when coming across the term ChiCom. I vaguely recall it was not “that’s racist” but at least a mental pause, that didn’t sit entirely well with me for reasons that were hard to articulate. For 16 years I have worked with people from other nations, and about 1/3 to 1/2 of my parishioners are mainland Chinese. I have in China visited friends who were part of the Tienanmen protests, so they have some awareness of what Chinese Communists can do. I visited house churches that one year later were in the news because they were being kicked out of their meeting place, and then arrested when they tried to meet outdoors. And yet… most Chinese citizens are quite patriotic, and they would have trouble understanding the distinction between ChiCom (Chinese Communist) and the average Chinese citizen. Hence my discomfort with the term. It does sound to me like a mild slur, although I understand Sarah’s explanation, and the context in which she uses it. But it’s hard to be sure, because have I been influenced by people like Three Name Mary?

    But that’s not the point of my comment. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there is something wrong with that term. The reaction from Sarah’s detractors is excessive and shows what this is really about. Because what terms do they use? and not just once but on a regular basis? And all this about a single word? This is about seizing a position of (false) moral superiority from which to exercise control over the accused. That is what so much of this language policing aka PC crap is really about. “I have the moral authority to judge that the word you used is Bad. Therefore you are Bad. I do not have to take your opinions seriously. And while we’re at it, you must apologize and make penance for using that word.” And when you do… (even if they’re right)… they have you. They have managed to set themselves up as the Superior, and us as the Morally Inferior ones who beg these priests of what is arbitrarily declared to be Badspeak or Badthink to absolve us of our sins and welcome us back into (their) circles of polite society. And yet – to me this is most important – the rules they proclaim have a breathtakingly ad hoc quality. They decry today in us what they did yesterday and probably will do tomorrow, but hey, they’re the ones doing it so that makes it okay.

    This is about power and control over other human beings.

    1. IOW evil
      Things are confused for most Chinese who just escaped/are still there. Chinese have always believed in racial superiority, and of course they have to at least pretend to be communists, so…

  98. Pingback: Sarah Hoyt Reminds us Why “ChiCom” is a Lovely Slur We Should be Using More Of… | Andrew J. Patrick

  99. You might find this interesting — I wrote the following in response to GRRM’s big “let’s all make peace and acknowledge the superiority of me and my friends” post. I’m sending you this open because I suspect GRRM may not run it.

    ====
    I remember being called an asshole by you for pointing out that the Sad Puppies’ noms were as legitimate as anyone else’s. A LOT of people associated with the SP have been personally insulted by the Haydens and his crowd. I don’t see any apologies forthcoming, and I don’t expect one from you. And that was after I defended you repeatedly to the Puppies.

    I still think you’re a great writer, but I’m not so sure that you’re all that decent a man.

    Oh, and the “war” is hardly over. What makes you think that the Sad Puppies will give up trying to get the writers they like nominated and awarded? What makes you think that the Rabid Puppies will give up trying to get theirs? Seriously, why should they? What’s the downside of continuing to fight?

    Your side imagines that they won something this round. They didn’t. Before the “wars” erupted, your side got your guys awarded. Now every major text category save Best Novel got No Awarded, and the guy who won for Three Body Problem was one who the Puppies liked (but didn’t nominate because they liked other writers more).

    Yes, the Puppies’ favorites didn’t win any awards anyway, but they weren’t winning before either. Both sides lose is better than only one’s own side loses.

    As for the Rabid Puppies — are you still sure it was such a good idea for the SFWA to violate its own rules to expel Beale in the first place? Because that’s what ticked Beale off. He’s not losing anything by playing the game — yes, he’s spending some money, but he’s getting yummy publicity for his publishing house, his novels, and his writers.

    Same thing’s happening with the Sad Puppies, save their interest’s not as concentrated as Beale’s. For instance, Sarah Hoyt is getting a lot of free publicity for her books, because the controversy draws people to her and then they learn what she writes.

    Hey look! It’s helping the career of a Latina woman! Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?

    😀

    1. I hope you wrote it with big font so Fat George can read it without his glasses.
      +1.33333333333333333333333333333333333333333

Comments are closed.