This might surprise you. It sort of surprised me, because it must be months now since I woke up later than eight. Seven thirty is considered luxurious around here. No, I don’t know how this happened. I used to be a late night person. Then the kids went to school and I found I couldn’t function in the morning unless I’d had an hour to myself first to read my newspapers (we used to take three.) So I started getting up at six thirty to have tea and read papers. Then I found I couldn’t get much done after the kids got home (there was all the de-programming to do, and real teaching to do) so I started getting up at four thirty to five thirty and going to be at nine.
Since the kids have started to go by themselves, without winding up — i.e. getting up on time, bathing themselves and grabbing breakfast (the last is always doubtful, so I do get up early if I can and slip an omelet in front of them on their way through the kitchen, because they often have classes till mid afternoon and food at campus is crazy expensive or from vending machines and bad for them.) my schedule has slipped back some. I usually get up between six and seven.
I normally don’t go past six thirty unless I’m ill or truly exhausted, neither of which apply — to my knowledge at least. Yesterday to celebrate a minor family landmark we took three hours off and went to the zoo, but only walked about two miles there, and at a very leisurely pace. I did my normal laundry carrying, up two flights of stairs, but nothing massive (I brought two baskets up and down, not twenty) and the same for the other housework. It is something you learn, again, when you have small kids, to carry stuff and fetch stuff, and clean as you go, because you might not have time to clean. The kids are grown now, but I still do it — a trip for a cup of coffee to the kitchen translates into unloading the dishwasher or wiping down the stove, or running the mop on the floor while the coffee brews. (BTW this was one of the mysteries of life to me when I was very young “how does mom remember everything that needs to be done? How come we always have food, meals are on time and the house always mostly clean?” It was more of a mystery after she left me in charge of the house when I was 12. It was just my brother and I, but the week about killed me. Laundry accumulated, food was late or overdone through waiting, I forgot to put out the bread bag in the morning, so the baker left no rolls — just on and on. And I was on vacation, while mom had a job. So I was astonished at her efficiency. Now I know the reason: training and practice, like for almost everything else.)
Anyway, yesterday was nothing special. I spent the day in utterly boring but necessary work, formatting and prettifying my reverted works, among other things to replace the Shakespeare books that are up, now I have Atlantis to make them work right and I’ve redone the covers (there is a typo on one of the covers. The program I was working with made it hard to read small type, and I was copying reviews, and there it went. Also, I know how to do covers better now — yes, it was only three months (I think) Shut up.) Also trying to put stuff in other services, and reading a lot of rules and things. I need to and wanted to write, but yesterday continued the “catching up with cr*p” meme until three thirty when we went off to the zoo. Then I came back to more work and had a mini conference with some friends on pm FB on stuff we want and need to do to “take back the culture.” (There’s a lot of us doing uncoordinated stuff — it has occurred to us maybe we should coordinate. NOT Jornolist style. For one, none of us will trade in his conscience for a mess of influence — for another… you know, herding cats and all that. But it occurs to us making others aware of what each is doing, letting the others know what themes we’ll be hitting, and, yes, warning each other of free-lance opportunities might be a good thing. So, we had a micro discussion on this, and will continue it sporadically for months, probably, and maybe something will even result. Cats. Herding. Remember?)
Anyway, normal day, right. I’m still late on my columns for PJM, I’ve still not put the books up. Oh, and the eternal laundry needs to be done.
So why did I wake up just short of nine am?
I don’t know and you don’t either. But it’s already weird — a balloon went by so close to our house we could see people in the basket.
Oh, on going to the zoo… It’s like this. If I had one perfect day I could re-live for eternity as “heaven” it would be the labor day when Marsh was three. We found the money to go to Denver for two nights with the boys, with the general idea of “mom doesn’t have to cook or clean and gets to read” but we found the natural history museum (we KNEW it was there, we just hadn’t gone there, yet) and the amusement park at Lakeside, and the boys had a blast, and we ended up having dinner at midnight at the only restaurant we found open (this was so far back we hadn’t found Pete’s kitchen.) And the kids enjoyed themselves SO much. Then Marshall fell asleep against me on the way to the hotel, all sticky and heavy like kids get when they’re tired.
And the other thing is — maybe I’m wrong. I hope to All I’m wrong — but I feel like we’re living through the last few days of the perfect summer. Like England enjoyed before WWI.
I hope I’m wrong, or maybe it’s just personal. If I’m wrong, it won’t hurt you to take a couple of days out now and then, and enjoy what and whom you love. And if I’m not wrong, then store up memories to strengthen you through the dark ahead.
Also, as my sleeping late seems to indicate, perhaps it’s possible to labor too hard. (Never thought of it. I subscribe to the Heinlein theory of work: I do it because I like it. So…) That is if I’m not getting sick again, and I hope I’m not.
So cease from your labors today and go out and have some fun.
According To Hoyt 
You really must be sleepy to have misspelled “aten’t” in your title like that. :-D
LikeLike
Twenty Internet points to the bird on the first post!
LikeLike
Robin is a BAD man.
LikeLike
But as you well know BAD men are the best kind to have around in these troubled times. And having a feisty attack lawyer at your beck and call is never a bad thing, now is it.
LikeLike
I think you may be confusing me with Robin Roberts. Robin Roberts is the lawyer; I’m a computer programmer.
LikeLike
My bad, sorry for the confusion.
LikeLike
Just keep in mind that a computer programmer has to make the code work, at least somewhat, to get paid. Lawyers merely work the legal code.
LikeLike
Also, legal code and computer code are a lot closer than you’d think. When I read laws, I get a vague sense of deja vu, like I’m reading code in an unfamiliar programming language. One that I couldn’t write anything in since I don’t know the syntax well enough, but one that I could read. Playing a lot of board games and roleplaying games (tabletop, not computer) also helps: I have a lot of experience in interpreting complex systems of interlocking rules.
I once attempted to defend myself on a red-light camera traffic ticket. (Unsuccessfully, as it turns out, but the first hearing had no court fee, so why not try?) I reviewed the statute in question, watched the video of my car making the right turn on red, and prepared my defense: “Yes, I stopped beyond the line, but if you’ll notice the large SUV in the left turn lane blocking my view — I stopped at the first possible place where I could see the oncoming traffic. So although the automated system thought I went through the red light, in actual fact I shouldn’t be given a ticket because I complied with the law as best I could given the situation.” As it turned out, the court had a much larger screen than the laptop I’d previously viewed the camera footage on, and on the larger screen it could be seen that I never came to a complete stop: my wheels were still in motion. A technicality, and one that should have been ignored had the city not been interested in milking as much cash out of their red-light cameras as possible (I still maintain that had a police officer been right behind me as I made that right turn, he wouldn’t have issued me a ticket or even bothered to pull me over) — but a technicality that placed me on the wrong side of the statute, and meant I would have to pay the $75 fine. So I told the judge, “Well, if you’re right that I never stopped at all, that destroys the basis of the rest of my defense,” and paid the fine. As I was leaving, she told me I was the best-prepared person she’d seen all week, and asked me if I was a lawyer. I told her pretty much what I said here — that I wasn’t a lawyer, but my job and hobbies had given me plenty of practice at related skills.
LikeLike
A friend of mine got a ticket within the past year or so for not stopping for a full three seconds at a stop sign, so you may be incorrect on the statement about an Officer not writing you one. But I doubt you’re in the same area.
LikeLike
That was in the Dallas area. I’m now in SE Asia, where things are very different.
LikeLike
Be glad you’re not in California. My sister claims her fine was $450 for rolling through a right turn on red.
LikeLike
$200 for having a tint just .5 darker than it should be. The judge overturned it but– seriously
LikeLike
oops .05 percent
LikeLike
I failed my california driving test the first time for that one. As the tester said “I know exactly why you did that – I would have too normally – but on the test you have to come to a complete stop and not worry about the huge truck about to rear end you. Come back this afternoon and test again”
LikeLike
Here we call rolling stops “California stops.” Go figure.
LikeLike
The kids are grown now, but I still do it — a trip for a cup of coffee to the kitchen translates into unloading the dishwasher or wiping down the stove, or running the mop on the floor while the coffee brews.
A Big Group of Scientists took on the question of how it was that women who said they tried to get to bed at a set time were more sleep deprived than men who said they tried to get to bed at the same time, and launched a huge study.
They found that when a woman decided to go to bed, she got up, turned off the TV, made lunches for tomorrow, switched a load of laundry out, checked the doors, loaded the dish washer, put any leftovers away, took off her makeup, put on skin treatments, dealt with her hair, brushed her teeth and went to bed.
When a man decided to go to bed, he got up, turned off the TV, brushed his teeth and went to bed.
LikeLike
Oh — we did a Friday-Saturday trek (about 600 miles). Both of us are travelers and wanderers. Anyway, today we are resting and thinking and watching TV ;-)
LikeLike
The world is always ending, and things are more peaceful in hind-sight.
That said, there’s a reason Himself told us to rest once a week.
LikeLike
I didn’t mean the end of the world. Just difficult times. Perhaps more difficult than what’s followed 2001 when I had the same feeling.
LikeLike
I meant “end of the world” in a bit less, um, Armageddon meaning than it sounds– I seem to have internalized my English teacher’s “known world” of Joseph Campbell type meaning.
I’ve been expecting WWIII to break into the open since I started looking at all the stuff prior to 9/11, from the Beirut bombings and on. We are fighting, just we don’t recognize it yet. Time will tell if we’re a sleeping dragon or a sickly elephant.
LikeLike
Yep, what with our size and open nature we are vulnerable to certain sorts of attack. Think Boston Marathon bombing times a dozen, or a hundred. On a related note, I’ve heard credible accounts that attribute responsibility for many of the western wild fires to intentional pyromania by radical terrorist elements. The typical wildfire can destroy vast areas of cropland or forest, often homes, and drains critical resources and risks the lives of fire fighters. All for nothing more than the price of a pack of matches or a simple remote device easily constructed from cheap electronics.
Naturally, the response from our fearless leaders will be to further disarm those of us who didn’t do the terrible things. After all, if we’re all helpless perhaps they will just leave us alone. That approach has worked so well in the past now hasn’t it?
LikeLike
Certain attacks that I’ve been certain would be just around the corner have some sort of psychological difficulty attached to them and are either not seen or not permitted by the muslim radicals that are front and center of our current threat picture. It has extended our Wile E Coyote “off the cliff but hasn’t started falling” moment to a disturbing degree. Eventually we’re going to run out of second chances to harden our society security wise but apparently not yet.
LikeLike
That sounds a bit like using record high temperatures to prove global warming. The fact is that every summer the West burns. Pretty much every day between May and October there’s something, somewhere, on fire. There are one or two fires a year that are big enough or threaten enough people to garner national attention (more now that we have multiple 24/7 news channels that need content), but the demand for wildfire fighters is never low. And it’s been that way for decades, so it isn’t terrorists, just nature.
I used to wonder why Al Queda didn’t start planting pipe bombs in random shopping malls, especially during the holiday shopping season. Then I realized: Culture. Al Queda doesn’t understand the import of malls to our culture. They do understand the benefit of the large, showy attack. That’s why they attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and why Speedbump and brother attacked the Boston marathon. Those are international symbols. We are the target, not the audience. Starting forest fires isn’t going to do anything to increase their prestige among the death-to-America crowd.
LikeLike
” We are the target, not the audience. ”
Love this succinctness. Remember the movie award ceremony just shortly after 9/11 and how Hollywood was scared they’d be bombed? Us flyover folks laughed our sides sore over that. What you said is why we laughed … never saw it said better. Thank you.
LikeLike
You’re welcome. I have my (very brief) moments.
LikeLike
They’re going for bragging rights– so either huge numbers, or something like military recruiting offices.
I’m still a little surprised that a foodcourt hasn’t been leveled, but… look at a Middle East bazaar. If that’s your idea of a “busy market,” ours are deserted even at the “should we call the fire department to clear this out” stage.
… I just realized, our domestic 60s blankers actually did us a favor; the places that appeal to the terrorists as targets are the ones already hardened against college radicals.
LikeLike
F’k mate, you ought to see Australia in July through October.
We drove from Alice to Darwin–three days, around 1000 miles and were *never* out of sight of at least one plume of smoke.
It smelled like fire for three months the first year we were there.
Of course the white Australians attribute these fires to “Black Lightening” as it was the traditional aboriginal way of “managing” the fuel load on the land.
LikeLike
The plains Amerinds did the same thing to keep the middle of the continent prairie, or to stampede buffalo over a cliff. Native peoples never live in harmony with nature, they just rarely have the population density to dramatically affect the environment.
LikeLike
“And if I’m not wrong, then store up memories to strengthen you through the dark ahead.”
And a happy Labor Day to you too, Cassandra! Heh.
I sure hope you are wrong. Humanity deserves a new stroke of luck. I think we got our last big break in 1776 or thereabouts. Though that Dunkirk Miracle was pretty cool too.
LikeLike
Oh, I don’t think it’s the end of the world. Just “difficult times ahead.”
LikeLike
I share the same feeling and it is growing stronger as I watch the flailing of the smartest man in the world trying to decide how many Syrians he should kill for killing Syrians. To paraphrase Glen Reynolds, when the country’s in the very best of hands, we should all be worried.
LikeLike
We’ve had so many miracles and lucky breaks, we tend to forget them.
For example, if you were making a movie about the War of 1812, and you had the British burn the Capitol, and then you had the British attacked by a tornado while the rainstorm put out the worst of the fires… you’d get laughed at. But it happened.
LikeLike
So you slept late. It could be worse. You might not have gotten any sleep at all. Have a good Labor Day. Enjoy it and get some more rest, if possible.
LikeLike
I think you’re right. It does feel a bit like the lull before the storm. I have a household of six: husband, oldest (step)daughter who is 29, her three children ages 9, 3 and 9 months, and me. This holiday weekend, the laundry was done early, the house isn’t trashed, the Gators won their season-opener, the older two grands and I camped in the back yard last night (complete roasting hot dogs and making s’mores), we went to the park mid-morning, came home to take a dip in the little aboveground pool (this is Florida, after all), had lunch and now am enjoying the screened porch. And no one is dead or injured yet. Waiting to see just why this has been such an idyllic weekend, what the Big Guy has in store.
LikeLike
Better than the storm without the lull.
LikeLike
I have that lull-before-the storm feeling, also. I spent the weekend working on stuff myself; my author newsletter, editing a bit for hire, and working away on the Lone-Ranger inspired re-write. And we had a funeral to go to on Friday; the elderly lady in bad health that my daughter had done housekeeping for, over the last five years or so. She was in hospice care in her home for two week, and my daughter took a hand in helping her daughters look after her.
Oh, and I am taking pre-orders on my next book as of yesterday. It will be launched officially late in November, but paid pre-orders will be mailed in the first week. More here: http://www.celiahayes.com/books/the-quivera-trail
My daughter and I are going to go to an art show on the Riverwalk today – before it gets too hot. So that will be our bit o’ rest from our labors, although I will have to do a post about it for the one paid blogging gig…
LikeLike
Yesterday was my birthday, and I took the day off. I’ve been feeling rotten for several weeks now — basically more of the problems with my back — and haven’t done any writing for WEEKS. Timmy’s visiting one of his other three pairs of grandparents today, and it’s time to get the house clean again — if Tucker, his dog, ever stops barking and searching for him (grandparents are allergic to dogs and cats). DW and I have to decide, some time today, whether we should send Timmy back to school, or keep him home until we can brow-beat the local school district into providing what he needs. If all they’re going to do is warehouse him, they’re going to find themselves facing a major lawsuit! I need at least one more cup of coffee before I face ANYTHING.
LikeLike
First, I have to preface this with: My “gut feeling” meter is always wrong. I never get things right when I act on gut feelings.
That said, I never had the gut feeling of impending doom until Clinton was in office, but everything was ok, before then, because (as far as I was concerned), I didn’t have a feeling one way or another. Then that feeling started, but nothing serious happened. After Al Gore didn’t get elected, I felt better. Then, of course, came 9/11. And the feeling came back after that.
Now, I don’t really have it, again, so, since you brought it up, now I’m worried.
LikeLike
Well, as I think I have said I like to play with tarot cards, and a few other systems, and the things I get actually seem to be sort of right bit more often than they should, but only about half of the time, at best, so it’s mostly for entertainment purposes. :) But, anyway, last fall, during the last days of your presidential election, I did several, with different systems, and tended to get similar results every time: win for Obama, but he will regret it down the line.
He’s going to be on the hot seat when something he’s not equipped to handle, and would rather not have to deal with, happens?
Have to remember that those things also seem to go mostly by what people may feel about what happens when it happens, more so than by giving you any kind of factual details (like ‘lots of money’ is more likely to mean you get just enough to pay the rent and other bills at a time when you had been despairing over your lack of funds, rather than winning the jackpot in a lottery, only at that time you will feel almost as if you had won that jackpot), so perhaps even if I actually got something ‘real’ with those that just means that right now, or in the near future, he’s anxious about his image and feeling stressed about that, not that any real catastrophe occurs (and yes, there seem to be time limits, not much sense trying to ‘see’ anything that may happen more than a year from the time you look at the cards. Always in motion, the future is…).
LikeLike
Heh. Tarot cards are useless to me. I always wind up with half or more being Major Arcana, which all the books tell me means that I have no control over anything.
LikeLike
But you already knew that! ;)
LikeLike
Control is an illusion that something is in charge.
The ticking of the ball on the wheel, the flutter of the card.
God doesn’t play dice with the universe–not *just* dice.
The croupier is calling last bets.
The house always wins.
LikeLike
Ah, well, there’s the rub: he isn’t actually equipped to handle anything much beyond a fixed election with full MSM armor. His only real skill seems to be blaming somebody else for his screw-ups. (Probably has had lots of practice.)
LikeLike
LikeLike
Yes. Except most times he probably thinks he’s doing just fine, now he may actually be _feeling_ himself as if he is in over his head – just a bit, maybe, and to him the reason are the people around him, either incompetent or enemies, but anyway… ( and if he has noticed that even some of the so far reliable sycophants are beginning to judge him a bit, some even making fun of him, and some of the foreign ones have come to the conclusion that he is, after all, typically American, not much better than Bush – which is something that I’ve seen happening in our discussion forums, five years ago he was seen as soo not typically American, almost like somebody the European left could call their own, but now… :D)
LikeLike
I hope he doesn’t go all “Pablo Escobar” and start going after his own people, since it is obvious that his aim isn’t very good.
LikeLike
IDK, if he starts shooting he’ll be doing it in D.C. where there are a lot of people who may not be his, but they certainly aren’t “ours”.
Collateral damage from my enemies is fine as long as it’s not my tribe that gets hit.
LikeLike
In the last week, every time I log into Guild Wars II there’s someone making Obama jokes in general chat.
Last year, it was Bush jokes.
This is… indicative of SOMETHING.
LikeLike
Labor Day–mostly off topic–After action report:
I am a coward.
I am ashamed.
I am shy, with social anxiety issues. But that’s just the excuse. When you feel strongly about something you ought to speak up.
I have been to LoneStarCon 3, the 71st WorldCon.
I failed to speak up when “Mankind is responsible for Climate Change” was spoken of as a underlying trueism.
I didn’t gag loudly the fourth time I heard a writer claiming to be the “Voice of the Overlooked.” Or spoke of “Marginalized voices.” And “Is that your Mission Statement?”
I will probably have to buy something from a writer who explores “How Faith and Icky interact.” And the one that reimages King Arthur with an all black cast. But if Merlin is worried about the Green House effect, the book is going to get tossed against the wall.
I really don’t think Steampunk is all about the evils of colonialism. I think it’s having fun, and imagining a world where one can simply go out and explore and find new things, without needing to spend trillions of dollars on a space program first. I think it’s about curiosity, adventure and wonder.
Dare I mention the panel on “Riding on Oil” and what was going to replace fossil fuels? According to the panelists: wind (no mention of bird kills), solar (no mention of satellites! At an SF Con!), biofuels . . . the word “nuclear” passed no one’s lips.
Now, mind you, I’m very glad to have gone. The talk and demo of a 3D Printer was excellent. John Picacio and Richard Hescox showed the stages of several of their brilliant covers. Awesome. I’m looking forward to reading translations of Chinese SF/F writers. And tons more that I won’t list.
I caught a few friends, missed a few others, spent too much money . . .
But I ought to have spoken up, here and there.
After all, I’ve never been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
And really, once the hot tar burns healed, I’d have gained even more valuable Life Experience to base my writing on. Right?
LikeLike
“Dare I mention the panel on “Riding on Oil” and what was going to replace fossil fuels? According to the panelists: wind (no mention of bird kills), solar (no mention of satellites! At an SF Con!), biofuels . . . the word “nuclear” passed no one’s lips.”
Who were the morons on the panel? I would have gone bonkers. Wind is an expensive failure for its unreliability, its engineering problems(the turbines still have poor MTBF) as well as NIMBY issues. And biofuels are immoral IMO – driving up food prices.
If one is serious about replacing fossil fuels there is only one serious answer indeed – large scale nuclear power construction.
LikeLike
What is going to replace oil? Nothing. Hydrocarbons are just too dang efficient at carrying energy. When it is no longer profitable to pull the stuff out of the ground we’ll start making it, probably with nuclear or satellite solar as the energy source.
LikeLike
With sufficient quantities of nuclear fuel we can replace petro-oil with bio-oil. Or with clever enough chemistry, or with solar stills. Or with all three.
Otherwise we’ll be replacing fossil fuels with dysentary, famine and the permanent boot of neo-feudalism on our necks.
LikeLike
Wasn’t there some news, a while ago, about having promising results from trying to use some sort of bacteria to create diesel oil?
LikeLike
Okay, some googling, found this firm:
http://ls9.com/markets-products/our-products
Seems interesting.
LikeLike
Oh Noes!!!! GM Bacteria!!! UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!
LikeLike
:D
LikeLike
Oh. I forgot the Biodiversity panel. Because . . . Climate Change. To my astonishment, one member of the panel said that Monsanto’s terminator gene wasn’t really a problem. Self limiting, you know?
LikeLike
My eyes be spinning. A panel on Biodiversity at World-effin-con?
Sounds as worth attention as an American Association for the Advancement of Science seminar on the hermeneutics of vampire lore in the cinema of George Romero.
LikeLike
We already know a half-dozen different ways to produce hydrocarbons. Anything from reacting steam with coal to algae to building them atom by atom in a scanning tunneling microscope. The only question is how much more energy would it take to make than you get from burning. TANSTAAFL.
LikeLike
Converting power from one form to another always involves a substantial percentage loss. The question is, is it worth it to convert electricity to a liquid transportation fuel? If it’s more expensive than electric cars with their batteries (notorious for inefficiency), we’ll have electric cars. Or revert to steam engines, run ’em on coal or wood . . . Who says Steampunk is Retro history, not looking to the future?
LikeLike
Years ago, I saw a car that had a woodburning stove it towed, which burned wood in a low-oxygen environment, and delivered Carbon Monoxide to the engine, where it burned it the rest of the way.
I looked up the reaction once, and apparently, the CO->CO2 reaction is the vast majority of the energy released from the C->CO2 process, so this wasn’t as inefficient as it sounds.
LikeLike
Woodgas! Lot’s of folks messing with that these days.
Oh, for a round tuit.
LikeLike
Just make sure you stoke the stove before you pull onto the interstate.
LikeLike
You also have to look into the transmission losses. Electricity is by far the least efficient way to transport energy long distances.
Then there’s the horrid energy density of batteries. And the abysmal recharge time (rapid chargers now take only twice as long as a gas pump, but they’re few and far between). I don’t see electric vehicles taking over. Especially for the long-haul transport of goods. You might see something like the GM hybrid power train, which would allow the vehicle to recapture some energy from braking.
LikeLike
Efficiency of delivery matters, too.
Part of the problem of batteries is that they run down rather fast.
Oil stuff is very good for packing the energy along.
LikeLike
And the problem of recharging the batteries. IIRC I drove from here (Danville, IL) to LibertyCon with only one fill-up. With a electric car, I’d have to recharge the batteries more often *and* it would take more than 15 minutes (about the time of a gas fill-up) to recharge the batteries.
LikeLike
You’re a better person than I am. I’d have ended up with my hands around someone’s throat, snarling, “Do you people have no sense of imagination? And quit torturing the data!” *shake, shake, shake*
Don’t quote global-warming platitudes at someone who does climate data analysis for part of her living. You will not win. I’m a pro-nuclear conservationist who loathes wind turbines for a number of reasons. (Birds! Bats! Radar signature! Aesthetics!) Norman Borlaug is one of my heroes.
LikeLike
Hear hear.
LikeLike
Not better, just . . . reticent. Or maybe polite. Yeah, that sounds better than either cowardly or too cynical to even try to plant the seed of doubt in a True Believer’s mind.
LikeLike
Howabout: placing too high a value on your scarcest resource — Time — to waste it trying to pound sense in heads full of sand? You can save tons of time and effort by just calling such people “racist” and walking on. They are inoculated against facts and reason (a consequence of being full of themselves) and any attempt to push them into absurdity (say, perhaps, by demanding that cars be powered by solar and wind energy) risks their enthusiastic endorsement.
Hold in your mind the adage about arguing with idiots confusing the onlookers.
LikeLike
Ooo! How about we start calling them Factists? You know, prejudiced against facts.
LikeLike
Perfect!!!!!!
LikeLike
You can lead a horse to water…
… but drowning one’s a real bitch.
LikeLike
Nah. Just a waste of good dog food.
LikeLike
Or British Hamburgers.
LikeLike
Polite.
It wouldn’t work on the true believers, anyways.
LikeLike
Yes. Exactly.
LikeLike
A free “alternative” newspaper (that just got banned from an area college for having too much content about alcohol :) — I guess the poor students couldn’t handle any knowledge of beer or mixed drinks) has a weekly eco/green columnist. A couple of weeks ago, the columnist was writing about a lady who has gone plastic-free for six years because she was upset about birds being found with plastics in their stomachs. (I’d be curious as to how she shops for anything — I don’t think I’ve ever seen shampoo in glass?)
A few paragraphs later, the green columnist endorsed wind farms (because of course, we need an alternative to evil oil). I was sorely tempted to write to the paper and ask how the columnist could be so heartless to endorse the killing of thousands and thousands of birds with the wind farms.
LikeLike
The fact that there are college administrators who think that college students get information about drinking from the local cage-liner makes part of my brain hurt (those buildings with all the Greek letters out front? Yeah, they’re high-intensity hands-on labs for alcohol consumption). The part of my brain that also hurts whenever someone talks about wind power as a good idea.
LikeLike
I’d guess wind power might be useful as something for individual use, like single households or farms, on windy areas – not as the sole source of power, but one of them – and there are vertical axis turbine models which are presumably more bird friendly, if said to be less efficient. A bit easier to hide too, there are a couple close to where I live and they stick out far less than those huge bird killer ones. Although of course possible practicality for something like having a few of them on a farm would depend on things like initial price combined with maintenance costs versus how much power they really can produce during their lifetime which I have no idea about.
But large scale use, please no.
LikeLike
Last I heard maintenance costs alone are higher than the per kilowatt cost of power in my area. (for the amount of kilowatts produced by said turbine)
LikeLike
I failed to speak up when “Mankind is responsible for Climate Change” was spoken of as a underlying trueism.
Remember one comeback line: “A bit narcissistic, are we?” The idea that MANKIND manipulates the climate with less than five percent of the greenhouse gas CO2 (which contributes four percent to “climate”, and less than five percent of H2O (the REAL greenhouse driver at 95%), is just that — narcissistic. If the sun goes into another Maunder minimum (which is a real possibility) at the same time that our axial rotation changes the amount of sunlight that strikes certain parts of the planet, those idiots will be PRAYING for “global warming”.
LikeLike
Isn’t MANKIND sexist? Doesn’t denying the Female contribution to AGW serve to otherize the woman, denying her agency? Let us not forget that it was a woman, Marie Curie, who pioneered nuclear energy.
LikeLike
Sorry RES, but I am NOT “politically correct”. I don’t put up with that BS, and I don’t tolerate those that try to hide behind it because they don’t really have a legitimate argument, or facts to back them. I’m “old school” — I’m 67 years old, and I was taught different. I’m too &%^%$&^$ stubborn to change.
LikeLike
Mike, I would hope you never become tempted by Political Correctness to travel to the Dark Side, but I was referring to the usage in Pam’s quote,
Sigh. The section —
The purpose of leveling accusations of sexism, racism and ethnocentrism against the Progs is to hang them with their own petard. Force them to live by the strictures of their faith and condemn them according to their own regimen of sin.
Was supposed to after an END blockquote command, not as a sub-blockquote. At times I despair.
LikeLike
The despair is fine, it’s when you de-slash that everyone gets annoyed.
LikeLike
Grammar nit: The “Hoist” in “Hoist by ones own petard” is one of those words that these days seems to only exist for the phrase it’s used in. (There are others, but none come to mind at the moment). It’s a form of the word Hoise, and basically means hurt. It has nothing to do with being hoisted. Thus “Hoist with one’s own Petard” is incorrect, as well as “Hung by” which to be honest, is the first time I’ve ever seen that formulation.
Oh yeah, “Flinders” a very specific word meaning the bits of body left after an explosion, pretty much only used in the expression “Blown to Flinders”
(Why do I know this? I got pedantic after writing a story entitled “Petard”)
LikeLike
Are you sure about that. I’m getting the original hissen as low German referring to raising a sail. hissen hoise hoist and Shakespeare’s meaning as to blow them into the air.
Thanks for flinders btw. That’ll come in handy.
you da petardo!!!
LikeLike
If the petard were employed as counter balance for the gallows, would that not constitute being their hung with their own petard (assuming, for the moment, that their ownership of the bomblet used was established?)
(Scrambling desperately to kick sand over whatever it were my fingers typed yestiday.)
It seems likely that the verb “hoist” refers to the lifting of the people in question, in the case of by petard the lifting would be from below, explosively, an experience likely to be injurious, rather than by the mechanical device more commonly employed today.
LikeLike
There’s also Polly Flinders, familiar to those who shop in the girls’ department. (I wonder if the company still exists? Searching…. Well, there’s lots of people selling the dresses vintage….)
The brand name’s from an obscure nursery rhyme:
Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders,
Warming her pretty little toes.
Mother came and caught her,
And whipped her little daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes.
LikeLike
Webster’s online dictionary defines ‘humankind’ as
It defines ‘mankind’ as
The ‘humankind’ page, including the synonyms, makes no mention of ‘mankind’,
Idiots. Born to be dhimmis. Wearing their chains—putting on their chains—with a sneer at the unshackled.
LikeLike
To avoid the spam filter, I didn’t link the definition of ‘mankind’ above. Here it is.
LikeLike
Flaunting their chains, I should have written.
LikeLike
Yes, I also fear that Steampunk will become the next victim of the PC Pod People. Look how they destroyed the Western. Look how they’re destroying SF and Fantasy. Aren’t we allowed to have one small oasis from the Hordes of Conformity? But I already know the answer.
LikeLike
It has been. In our area the steampunk con is lesbian-feminist and when my agent was trying to promote the MBE she kept throwing me at anti-colonialism blogs. Apparently these people can’t enjoy the Victorian age without pointing fingers and shrieking. So, I say we keep doing it, on the side, our way, and they can go suck.
LikeLike
Are hair shirts with hooks in them Victorian-appropriate? ;-)
LikeLike
I’m really confused now. I have to say, I’ve never been a fan of colonialism. Creek citizenship. Has anti-colonialism become some new, ‘fall on your sword’, liberal agenda? Far as I know, Jackson is long dead.
LikeLike
It’s why Western civilization is guilty as H*** and will always less worthy than the rest of the world. It’s why we need a carbon tax to save low lying areas that are at risk. We owe them.
‘Scuse me, gotta go wash my mouth out with soap . . .
LikeLike
Imperialism is terrible slavery and imposition on the rest of the world. Because, you know, the indians, the chinese, the africans and the polynesians never were inviolved with the slavery until they west infected them, or at least they did it the right way, in a sustainable, eco-friendly and totally non-coercive manner that supported the goals of feminism.
LikeLike
I understand that it was fun to give captured warriors to the women. As I begin to get to know this bunch, I see that nothing has changed. :)
LikeLike
Fuel for the liberal guilt fire, then. Perhaps they should voluntarily confine themselves to the FEMA camps and leave us alone. :)
LikeLike
No, no, no! We support enough of them with our taxes already!
LikeLike
You think FEMA would feed them? I hadn’t noticed FEMA managing to feed anyone yet.
LikeLike
No, but they have a tremendous per capita cost for starving them.
LikeLike
Good point. Same as it ever was.
LikeLike
If I ever manage to move back I’m going to that con. In full costume. Carrying a sack labeled “White Man’s Burden.”
LikeLike
The big problem with White European culture and slavery is They’re the only ones in the world who have given it up. They even went to war with themselves to give it up (Not just the American Civil War, there was a British anti-slavery fleet). It can still be found everywhere else.
But our Leftist Betters, claiming to see the world actually can only see through western eyes and thus in their unconscious ethnocentrism, only see the Western European history. They think themselves above it, but they’re soaking in it.
LikeLike
Their biggest problem is projection. I think it’s based in a need to justify their inner conflict with guilt.
LikeLike
“It has been. In our area the steampunk con is lesbian-feminist and when my agent was trying to promote the MBE she kept throwing me at anti-colonialism blogs. Apparently these people can’t enjoy the Victorian age without pointing fingers and shrieking. So, I say we keep doing it, on the side, our way, and they can go suck.”
Uh, got the wrong verb there, lesbians don’t suck.
LikeLike
That just means it’s properly insulting, then. :-)
LikeLike
Boy, I’m way behind the curve here, barely aware of what steampunk is even about. Not necessarily a bad thing, as it’s something new to explore in all my free time. ha
LikeLike
Okay! I looked it up. Given it’s antecedents, I’m on board. Not sure why it rates it’s own genre, but…..(shrug). You guys worry too much. Let the free market decide, now that we have one.
Oh yeah, Titus? I don’t remember anything steam punkish about that. Been a long time though.
LikeLike
” Let the free market decide”? That there’s crazy talk, mister. What if the free market decides wrong, like choosing VHS over Betamax, novels with plot and character over those exploring the author’s sensitivity to the evils of Western Civilization, or politicians who treat the public as rational adults competent to make some decisions for ourselves.
LikeLike
OH, I didna thunk a that. Consider me suitably chastised. I’ll just go back in the woods now. ;)
LikeLike
“I really don’t think Steampunk is all about the evils of colonialism.”
They haven’t utterly gotten their way yet. I have heard them dreaming their malign dreams, but they are merely aspiring to make it the puppet of a leftist agenda, and even they know it.
LikeLike
OK, now I’ve got to finish that libertarian Steampunk story I started back when. And then write a pro-colonial version just for giggles.
LikeLike
Pam Uphoff | September 2, 2013 at 1:53 pm
> I really don’t think Steampunk is all about the evils of colonialism. I think it’s having fun, and imagining a world where one can simply go out and explore and find new things, without needing to spend trillions of dollars on a space program first. I think it’s about curiosity, adventure and wonder.
Well, how original of them — considering *I* was the moderator for the *exact same panel* at the previous year’s Worldcon.
And we did cover the racism of the Victorian period — hell, I even used words like “nigger”, “chink”, and “kike” out loud, and no one complained (of course, it helped I warned the audience twice “We *will* be discussing some Unpleasant Aspects of the era, and we *will* be using the language inherent to that unpleasantness; so if you are the sort who is easily offended by such language and subject-matter, GET THE FUCK OUT” — and yes, those were my exact words; strangely, the panel was *very* restrained and very polite… >:) ).
Somehow, someone needs to put together a “Worldcon” bid for Atlanta, as part of Dragon*Con; then, at the WSFS Business Meeting, bulldoze-through an amendment making D*C the permanent Worldcon site — imagine what *that* will do to the Hugo voting…. >:)
LikeLike
God knows, the Hugos could use some new life, judging by the 2013 winners.
LikeLike
The Hugo awards were dismal.
LikeLike
Not to say anything against Ms. Bujold, but how many of the nominees had won before? I know Scalzi had. Except for Stan Schmidt’s well deserved win, after how long at Analog, it seemed to me that almost all the nominees had been on the podium before.
LikeLike
What worried me is that so few of the nominees’ stories struck me as great or even somewhat worthwhile reading, much less Hugo-quality. Heck, They’d Rather Be Right* was a more serious piece of science fiction than Scalzi’s Redshirts. I usually believe that the buyer is right, but how was it that Scalzi would even want to be nominated for a little funsie piece of fanfic like that?
There was a time when I’d read almost every Hugo-winning novel and short story, and a good chunk of the nominees, because they were all instructive and entertaining and full of skiffyness. This can no longer be said.
*And you don’t have any idea how baaaaad They’d Rather Be Right is, unless you actually put yourself through reading that thing.
LikeLike
Redshirts … best novel of the year. Unbelievable.
Its almost as if the Hugo voters wanted to discredit the award …
LikeLike
Pam,
Nothing you could have said would open their closed minds. They won’t change and for them, they will keep mouthing “solar and wind” like the religious mantra it is and we who have keep the lights lit will just keep not taking them seriously.
LikeLike
vegetative state today. Three inches of rain and I’m watching bad netflix and reading Spengler.
LikeLike
Egon? as in _Ghosts, a Field Guide_?
LikeLike
Nah…I aint afraid a no ghosts! Politicians on the other hand…………..
LikeLike
It’s Labor Day, so I’m going to work. Well, not really “work” per se. I’m going down to the yard and waiting for something to go horribly wrong. I expect to get quite a bit of reading done. And possibly a haircut. One musn’t go into the End Times looking shabby.
LikeLike
Exactly. That’s why I had my hair done.
LikeLike
Ya know, I should not, I repeat NOT, have written that I was done with Colplat XI. Oh, foolish, foolish Red, to so court an attack of idea. I happened to glance over at a biography of Don Jon of Austria that I picked up in Regensburg and thought, “He’d be a perfect character to fictionalize OH NO!” I swear the picture on the cover winked. The bastard. ;) He’ll have to get in line.
LikeLike
4600 words, no miles, another plumber visit. I’m going to go immolate beef brats (that’s bratwurst, not rude calves) and start looking at recipes for honey cake.
LikeLike
No miles, yet, will be taking older son for walk soon. No words, but revised reformated, etc. three manuscripts and putting thme up. Words tonight?
LikeLike
Couldn’t get back to sleep after four hours last night, until a barely voluntary afternoon nap. So much for yesterday’s ambition of increasing my walking distance.
Refused to write the day off and got in the forest. The mile that had me all but cartwheeling yesterday was a shuffle today. The humidity made pneumonia redundant, so to speak.
Continue to be torn about what, if anything, to do next about my quixotic calculation. Continue to feel that it’s what I’d most regret not bringing to closure if I died tonight, but am starting to wonder if Sirens disguise themselves as Muses.
Should give at least token daily attention to the business proposal so it doesn’t look alien when I resume focusing on it.
LikeLike
Plenty of rain. At least an inch of rain so far.
Eldest son, in the rain, took first place in Junior Showmanship for 4-H poultry at State Fair. I am absurdly proud. His first time showing at State Fair. (Cyn and Zachery, and any others from the region, this is at Blackfoot.)
We ate ice cream. In the rain.
And the fire department radio has been blessedly silent all day: there’s no lightening associated with this storm system.
LikeLike
*applauds Holly’s eldest son*
LikeLike
Seconds!
LikeLike
Congrats to oldest son. Up at this end of the state we got about twenty drops of rain, but we are supposed to get it tomorrow, and we could use it.
LikeLike
Congratulations to your son–
LikeLike
Congratulations to your eldest! What flavor ice cream?
LikeLike
O frabjous day!
LikeLike
And just to change the subject. What? Me? … SQUIRREL! … Two tangents…
First: Atlantis? Do tell. Is it easier to whip into shape than OOWriter?
Second: Anybody know how to get OOWriter to output apostrophes that don’t come out heiroglyphics when uploaded to KDP?
M
LikeLike
I’ve never used Open Office. It causes more issues than I care to mention with Smashwords. I find Atlantis very easy. Intuitive, even — not to write in, but to format stuff.
LikeLike
I’m seeing the issues today. Sheesh! Since Atlantis is free, I’ma try it. Fangs.
M
LikeLike
Not free. $35. Still cheap.
M
LikeLike
It has a month free. Look up how to download the thing to save in Mobi.
LikeLike
Yes, to turn off smart quotes in Open Office:
Tools Menu>Autocorrect Options> Localized Options tab, Uncheck the boxes above the single and double quotes. That will stop substituting curly quotes.
Fixing your old ones, I’m afraid you’re stuck with search and replace.
LikeLike
Thing is/was, it’s not the quotes. I’ts ONLY apostrophes. And ONLY the ones at the beginning of a word, as in ’em for them or ’70s for a decade. Otherwise, my previewe is gorgeous. I’ve decided to take a different tack: exporting HTML out of Scrivener and to heck with doc. We’ll see how THAT works.
M
LikeLike
I ran into that in Atlantis yesterday (but the book was originally written in Word Perfect.) I just did a S>R on all apostrophes. Fixed it.
LikeLike
Interestingly, you have two different apostrophes there, the one on ’em is different from the one on ’70s. But I’d turn off the auto-substitutions for single quotes and see what it does.
LikeLike
Ah, it appears to be that WordPress is being helpful.
Experiment: ’70s and ’em to see if they are reversed. I bet they’re being parsed on the fly as open and close.
LikeLike
Nope. hmm.
LikeLike
I thought they might be, or in conversion. There ARE tools (I’m looking at YOU, Sigil) who mess with your code and WILL NOT accept instructions to LEAVE IT THE F*** ALONE (!11!). But it’s not the case in this case. My problem is in not understanding a little thing in Amazon’s spec for Kindle. IT DOESN’T SUPPORT CURLY QUOTES! Period. End of story. Curly quotes are ASCII characters 0145,0146,0147,and 0148, which are not part of the Latin-1 alphabet. They’re legal ASCII characters, but Kindle don’t do them. Never noticed. Two days wasted because some stupid engineer at Amazon is stuck in the ’70s.
LikeLike
OT in every way possible.
But Frederik Pohl has passed away. Now I’m going to get depressed and mourn.
LikeLike
I know. :(
LikeLike
Ronald Coase died too.
LikeLike
Greg Mankiw pointed out this strip from Dilbert as a reference to Coase:
LikeLike
We drove up to Golden Gate Canyon Park and took a little walk.
4.65 miles (according to the GPS). Climbed (and dropped) almost 900 feet in that short walk. Most of it in one steady climb.
And the 6 year old stompped right through, talking the whole time and hardly (for her) whining at all.
It’s about time to get her a bb-gun.
Stop drop and roll will be replaced with stop, drop and reload.
LikeLike
Sometimes your body will make you rest even if you don’t think you need it. Or it could be your brain was thinking “holiday” and told your body to sleep in. Or maybe, uh, well, er, you are getting, well, uh, not younger. Didn’t Heinlein say to sleep when you can? :-) Be well, Sarah.
LikeLike
I am feeling particularly nasty today as well. I was in Germany standing in the Ramstein AFB post office when I got a call from my hubby to go home. The postal workers turned on the TV and we saw the first plane in the building. By the time I made it home, I was minutes from seeing the next plane go into the building.
My brother was a flight attendant on a plane on the Chicago air strip. I first thought he was on one of those planes. I found out two days later that he was okay. A friend of mine was in the Pentagon (Navy officer) when the plane struck that building. She had gone for coffee and when she ran back, all of her friends and co-workers were dead or dying. Her story was particularly terrifying when I heard it a couple years later.
Every year is a reminder– which is why I find the deniers violently stupid.
LikeLike