Tacare Consensu- Jason Cordova

461 thoughts on “Tacare Consensu- Jason Cordova”

1. Tacare-

   taceo, tacare.. v

   Tacare would be ‘To be silent’

   Consensu – act together (consentio, consentire)

   so roughly- ‘to be silent, acting together’

   1. So my translation was correct. Excellent.

   2. No, Jason’s spelling was right. “Taceo, tacere, tacui, tacitus.” 2nd conjugation, not first.
      But “Silence gives consent” was a Latin aphorism before it was translated to English, so that was a back-translation. The usual form is “Qui tacet, consentit.” — “one who is silent is agreeing”, or the more cautious, “Qui tacet, consentire videtur,” one who is silent appears to agree.”

      1. *headtilt* is that where ‘tacit consent’ comes from?

      2. I always loved the way Thomas More used that phrase in A Man for All Seasons:

         CROMWELL: Because this silence [More’s refusal to swear to the Act of Supremacy] betokened — nay! this silence was! — not silence at all, but most eloquent denial.
         MORE: Not so, Master Secretary; not so. The maxim of the law is: “Qui tacet consentire”; (to the COMMON MAN) “Silence Gives Consent”. If you wish to construe what my silence “betokened,” you must therefore construe that I consented — not that I denied.
         CROMWELL: Is that in fact what the world construes from it? Do you pretend that that is what you wish the world to construe from it?
         MORE: The world must construe according to its wits; this court must construe according to the law.

         1. Ever since I (belatedly) discovered that film, I have admired the quiet brilliance of the script. This is one of the most brilliant bits.

2. “People are still defending MZB and saying that her actions in life should not be taken into consideration when people think about her, and instead, they should focus on the writings in her books and that only.”

   How do we form an opinion of someone *without* taking into account their actions? Oh, right. Stick them in a box with color, politicoreligious belief, sexual orientation labeled.

   It boggles the mind that anyone could excuse such behavior. Perhaps another consequence of the tendency to try and disconnect action and consequence is they feel outrage over safe little perturbations and shy away from, or even defend, real dangers.

   1. I don’t find it boggling.

      It fits certain impressions I’ve had of parts of humanity that date back to before my teens.

      These people seem to be judging others by the standards they wish to be held to. They appear to view any limitation on the fulfillment of sexual appetites as the vilest of tyrannies.

      1. I don’t find it boggling mostly, I think, because people don’t want to believe things that they can’t do anything about. There’s a “you must take action” element that is very uncomfortable. (I can’t do anything about Iraq. To protect myself I try very hard not to think about Iraq.)

         For the living (and the neighbors and whoever might know) there’s the element of, oh, the elephant. You see the foot or the trunk or an ear… is it really an elephant? Are you *sure*?

         I say all of that in order to say that I do agree absolutely that the basis of the denial, apart from these very normal human things, really is a preference for sexual license over all else. People use sexual license as a stand in for All Freedom. Thus is it Extremely Important to support in all possible ways and to guard against any appearance of judgement which is, yes, the “vilest of tyrannies.”

         Because sexual freedom is a conceptual substitution for all freedom.

         1. In most societies, it was the slaves who had the fewest contrasts on their sexual freedom, at least among themselves.

            1. constraints, Mary, you silly goose.

   2. Why does it boggle the mind? The Progressive Left has been doing this since at least the 1930’s. When the Hitler-Stalin pact was in effect they were ready to excuse Hitler’s disgusting anti-semitism. They have defended just about every Communist mass murderer who ever came bouncing down the pike. They still defend Ira Einhorn and Roman Polansky.

      They are offended at the very idea that they, the people who SHOULD be running things, might be held to the same standards of behavior as everybody else. They are would-be aristocrats. Worse I cannot say of them.

3. Now it’s one thing to ignore someone’s politics while reading their work (I love Eric Flint’s books, but he’s a card-carrying communist). It’s quite another to ignore what they do as a human being.

   This bothers me – because how else are we to do things, except as human beings? It is not as a robot that we beat our wives senseless, it is not as abstract concepts that we clothe the crippled beggar.

   Man is a poltical animal – all that we do is politics of some sort or other. It is as human beings that we make speeches and cast votes to bring our government to heel, and it is as human beings that we take and make bribes and commit theft.

   I am willing to draw a line between what one advocates for, before it is legal, (or against, while it still is) and what they actually do (or prevent others from doing). But it’s a spectrum, not discrete choices.

   I think it is most appropriate to present as full a view of a person as possible – Harlan Ellison is a talented writer, a procrastinating editor, an advocate for civil rights and a person who can be extremely unpleasant company. He’s not just one thing or another.

   Likewise, the choice is not between “ignore the author’s character” or “reject the work” – we can (and imo should) do both – address the quality of the work *and* of the person.

   1. There’s a writer who, based on certain aspects of the writing, and an analysis of an essay they wrote for a political end, gives me certain suspicions of values. I’m unsure if I’m comfortable enough with what I see to read their next book, even if I like the setting, and think they write pretty well.

      1. I can see that – I can certainly see not wanting to support someone I disagreed with by doing business with them. I’m not sure a personal boycott is always the most effective tactic, but I do understand the impulse. And I;d have to know more about the author/work to say more than that.

   2. Well, there are some illegal acts I would be willing to countenance as civil disobedience if you are willing to take your medicine. then, they are malum prohibitum acts, not malum in se.

      The reason why it is legal for someone to spread a lot of info about you and talk in the abstract about what someone could do to you — even if someone does act on the information — is that some civil right activists were unwilling to take their medicine for the movement. (One threatened that anyone who broke the boycott of certain stores would beaten up; when some were, the shameless Supreme Court let him get away with it.)

      1. Mary – I recently read the background to the Watts case, and found it…dubious. That certainly set the bar for “threat” far higher than I think would have been found had the circumstance of the case been otherwise.

         However, I think that’s a distraction. We’re not talking here about legal cases, or what is legal to say about another person, but what is morally right.

         It’s not morally right to accuse someone of a crime on hearsay. It’s also not right to ignore (or cover up) accusations of molestation or rape. And finally, it’s not right to accuse someone of focusing on character instead of work, and then turn right around and do the same thing.

         It’s possible to decry both MZB & Breen’s actions, and the failure of the SFF community to handle this correctly, without using those crimes – the molestation of people we don’t even know – as a soapbox from which we can hurl accusations at our opponents.

         Are we in this to prevent furture attacks, or to stick a finger in our opponent’s eyes today?

         1. Why not take the two-for when it is offered?

            1. *sigh* Because the other side picked “pre-teen” first and so we got stuck with “grownup”? I mean, it sucks and all, but someone has to do the job.

   3. Perhaps that should have been worded as “the atrocious things they do while masquerading as human beings”? Would that make you feel better?

      1. Will you call the art that they created “the glorious things they do while masquerading as human beings”?

         Call their crimes, crimes. Call their art, art. Don’t imply that the existence of one erases the other. Regardless of whether it makes me feel better, I think that would be more accurate.

         Having said all that – has anyone written Tor.com, and asked if they are going to post an explainatory post about MZB’s disapearing bio?

         I think it’s entirely possible – given how on the dq this was – that the author and editors of the article either did not know or had forgotten about MZB’s role in the assaults. I think that such an error is understandable, if regretable, and should be followed up with a note that such was the case, and that they intend to do better research in the future.

         If a concious choice had been made to whitewash the bio, though…that also deserves to be aired, and a more frank examination of motives be undertaken.

         I think the SFF community as a whole deserves an apology from those who tried to keep these assault quiet. However, I don’t think that we are owned anyone’s head on a platter for screwing up a bio.

         The childern victimized, perhaps. But that is not us, the community as a whole, and it does not serve us well to pretend that we are the ones directly assaulted.

4. You know, Jason, I am glad I am out of that organization. I left in disgust – having rejoined at my agent’s request, after I left in complete irritation with exactly the problem you cite – as an author I wanted help and support with dealing with my worst problems, publishers and agents, and the business practices of the same – who are part and parcel of the organization, privy to all it discusses. Indeed it’s been dourly described as the marketing arm of Tor. Needless to say, when I had the temerity to ask, they ignored my questions and concentrated on the important business of Nambula log-rolling, and I had better things to do with my money. Back when Mike wanted me to rejoin – I am still not sure why, I was told they were going to start doing something about the problems, back when I rejoined. That some guy I had never heard of (John Scalzi) was going to make it all work. It hadn’t changed an iota, and they still were not interested in the aspect that was the only reason I wanted to belong: – to deal with the business aspect. My regional rep said my points were all very important and relevant… and that was it. I left for the second time largely because I have always believed in ‘I may disagree completely with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’, and fact that one gives, if anything, more leeway (or at least the same) to those whose politics or opinions you dislike. You display evenhanded behavior as if it were your banner. This, asThe Resnick-Malzberg witchhunt, and Vox Day expulsion displayed was plainly of no interest to the leadership there. I was glad to be out, but, quite frankly, I would have left so anyway, simply because I’m a relatively poor author, with better things to do with my money than get no tangible return for my subs (most of the money seemed to in admin or the magazine – which was suspended).

   Now, perhaps I was a very atypical SFWA member. (No, can that ‘perhaps’) – I was a full-time working author (which the vast bulk of the membership aren’t) and totally disinterested in childish dabbling in politics of a foreign (to me) country – which was all their forums seemed to be about. So my membership of SFWA consisted of getting a magazine, and being posted some voting forms. To be blunt, I am not exactly a guy who ever kept quiet about any damn thing, even when it would be a good idea. I do not tolerate pedophiles, nor those who cover for them… but I was blissfully unaware of this septic ulcer in SFWA. Of course the same would NOT be true of the inner circle, the leadership, and the ‘friends’ and associates of Breen, Bradley, Delaney and Kramer. They sure as hell are due to get what they have coming – but I do wonder of the rank and file current and past members – how many of them had no idea just what was being given cover under the heading of SFWA.

   Of course, now is the time for them to stand up and kick the current leadership out, and clean house with many gallons of bleach, if not just close it down altogether.

   Mind you, I do have to wonder now about all those inexplicable buys by publishers… who seem to have been very much part of the inner circle, active in SFWA. I wouldn’t be that surprised to find the rot was a lot deeper than just the named ones. Like does seem to draw like.

   1. You know, Jason, I am glad I am out of that organization.

      As am I and I’m glad Sarah and Larry aren’t members. I like their books and I’ve taken their recommendation of you (although it’s in the virtual to read pile still).

      I’m just about to the point of SFWA membership initially obtained after about 1975 being a dis-qualifier because I don’t want to like another author’s work only to find myself wondering why I enjoyed the work of a rapist.

      If it was just MZB it would be one thing but in terms of fearing what SFWA membership means the Delaney thing is much scarier. Two is 2/3rds of the way to a pattern and the Delaney issues appear much more out in the open (given the NAMBLA page praises him in a section specifically about him).

5. I’m looking with new eyes at SFWA and those who were, and still are, so silent about Delany and MZB. These last few weeks have been nauseating to say the least, but also quite illuminating. One could be forgiven for expecting outrage from the community. After all, the topic we’re talking about here concerns grownups who sexually hurt children–unforgivable and worthy of condemnation. And yet, nothing really happened. The silence was thunderous compared to the few who did speak out. I’m trying the grasp the implication of this, of nobody from SFWA objecting to Delany’s support of that pedophile club or their continued silence on MZB, despite what is known about her.

   What I do know is that I’m disgusted.

6. Interesting that these are exactly the same folks that said they WOULD NOT separate the writings of Larry Correia and VD from their political and personal beliefs? Not their actions, just their opinions. And yet their own can endorse or perform actions that would make any sane person want to vomit and everyone is suppose to just look at what they wrote…

7. The thing that really bothers me about this is that the SFWA excommunicates writers because they don’t like their politics, or accuses them of sexism or sexual harassment for complimenting a pretty woman, but they don’t see anything wrong with writers who actually commit rape. And no “statutory” about it — when you start drowning a girl for not having sex with you, that is forcible rape, whether she’s 10, 20, 50 or 100 years old. It is but the topping on the sundae of evil that this was MZB’s own daughter, and that this happened when she wasn’t even yet a teenager.

   How can one claim to be concerned with the issue of women’s rights when one’s response to actually having a girl under one’s legal guardianship is to forcibly rape her? MZB was concerned about subtly anti-feminine influences in society, but she couldn’t get that raping her own daughter was a not-so-subtle influence against that particular femme? Seriously, there’s a degree of moral blindness here that is breath-taking, both on MZB’s part and on the part of the people making excuses for her.

   Incidentally, while this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, this isn’t why I haven’t read much MZB. I haven’t read much MZB because she really wasn’t that good a writer. She never wrote characters believably — it’s only now that I think I see why. Someone who could do things like she did to her own child is not someone who deeply understands the human condition.

   1. One can be so concerned if one’s notions of women’s rights are specifically for women, and not girls.

   2. That’s the part that has my mind boggled … the SFWA glittery feminist crowd clutching their pearls and dropping onto the fainting couch over mostly imaginary sexism committed by members or former members whom they don’t approve of … while turning an indulgent eye on actual sex abuse, or enabling of such abuse by those that they otherwise approved of. The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming.

      1. Ponder the player on the soccer field who tries to turn a minor contact into a foul, and you have the motive behind the typical “Shocked, SHOCKED!!” reaction from the SJWs.

      2. You have to remember, these are the same sort of people who completely excused a clear serial sexual harasser (and possible rapist) for perjury to cover up his crimes. He was in favor of keeping infanticide legal, you see.

         To the left, your actions don’t matter at all, it’s your beliefs. If you “think right”, you can get away scott free for the most horrible crimes.

   3. Invariably, the lefts’ devotion to people is en masse, not the individual.

      Plus, they love themselves the violent, the deviant, and the criminal. They don’t support Mumia because they think he’s innocent — they support him because they know he’s guilty.

      1. Invariably, the lefts’ devotion to people is en masse, not the individual.

         Bingo.

         1. They love Humans but don’t care about individuals. Which seems to be true of a large number of progressive-Left activists. Women’s Rights are vital in abstract, but what happens to one woman is almost immaterial (unless they know her personally, and even then they might not get too worked up.) Much like certain “animal rights” groups that can’t be bothered to, oh, volunteer at the local animal shelter, or use some of their war chests to help vets spay, neuter, and chip the critters at a no-kill shelter.

            1. Well, it’s been tested in the lab. Give someone a chance to buy “green” products, and he’s more likely to lie and cheat in a subsequent game, for money.

               They get their daily dose of moral egoboo by their support of the Cause. They don’t have to step down to such quotidian goodness as being polite or helping individuals.

               1. I have noticed this anecdotally — people who will go on about their superiority moral status resulting from, say, bicycling instead of driving to work; and at the same time behave in the most appallingly amoral manner when it comes to personally-meaningful matters such as honesty or sexual conduct. It’s as if humans only have so much “morality” to allocate among various concerns, and if one allocates them to nonsense-issues, one doesn’t have it to employ for the important stuff.

            2. well … they only love certain groups of correct thinking humans, and will readily sacrifice one of that group if it serves their purposes.
               They are more like the certain Animal Rights group known for nekkid models and who “rescues” animals from shelters by killing them and tossing the bodies in a dumpster.

               1. Which, when I lived in Virginina, was not-so-affectionately known as People Embarassing the Tidewater Area.

            3. They adore abstractions and don’t care about real people.

               1. Of course. Abstractions don’t make demands, In particular, abstractions don’t demand you alter your beliefs and acts to conform to their reality.

                  You get the same attitude in those who like Jesus Christ and don’t like his followers — who are not safely centuries away and can’t be expurgated to taste.

            4. If I hate Humans but care about individuals, does that make me not-Left?

      2. “Plus, they love themselves the violent, the deviant, and the criminal. ”

         Well, of course. Everyone supports the innocent, the hard-working, the admirable. How else can you distinguish yourself except by supporting those beyond the pale?

         1. How can people support evil and criminals? I understand wanting to stand out. But by supporting evil? It is utterly loathsome what they have done and what continue to do.

            1. How? …by not believing in evil (having never personally encountered it)

               1. You give them entirely too much credit.

                  The line between good and evil runs through every human heart. We are fallen creatures with a fallen nature. We all have evil within us. They’ve looked into the abyss. That they now deny the existence of the abyss speaks to what they found there.
                  Especially when they make the denial while acting in an outrageously immoral fashion.

                  1. I’ve always found the confession of sins to be at the heart of being human – of acknowledging that you are human, and will be tempted to the bad, through laziness, or whatever. To KNOW and to honestly ACKNOWLEDGE; that is a part of becoming a human being with a sense of values. To KNOW in your heart of hearts that you are not perfect, that you are fallible, and that you could intentionally or unknowingly do evil … taking that realization into your heart takes you a fair way into being an ethical human being.
                     Yeah, I was raised old-school Lutheran. Does it show?

                     1. No, not at all. No more than my tendency to lapse into bouts of double-predestinarianism suggests that I grew up Presby-Baptist (Southern flavor).

            2. No no, they do not support evil. They are giving the criminals a second (third, fourth, fifth an so on…) chance so that they can reform. They are just victims, after all (except right wing terrorists and such). If you are nice to them they will change (not nice in person, though, unless it’s some sincere words in some special occasion where some actual criminal – or former criminal – has been brought on show so that everybody can say they know somebody like that personally and can vouch he is just a poor misunderstood and mistreated victim who _totally_ changed his life the second he got some support. But otherwise that being nice part should be done by the society as a whole. That’s what social workers and police and whatnot are for.).

            3. Because it’s loving, or something. By giving criminals chance after chance, they are showing how much more heart they have then us.

               That’s why we call ’em bleeding heart liberals.

               1. It’s “forgiving.”
                  By offering this type of “forgiveness” when they were not wronged, it costs them nothing, they’re unlikely to be at risk from the forgiven one and the one being forgiven hasn’t even recognized having done wrong, let alone asked forgiveness, they’re more “forgiving” than those who were wronged and are at risk by offering forgiveness to a repentant who wronged them.

            4. Folks are missing the larger point. Evil exists and will exist so long as Man is on this Earth. We are forced to choose between lesser and greater evils and by how do we measure?

               For the Left, the greater evil is that which impedes the March of History, the achievement of Utopia. The lesson to be drawn from the disparate treatments of Day, Resnick and others as compared to Delaney and MZB is: Shut Up! Know your place. If you forget your place the Party will chastize you, deny you privileges (such as being published, such as association with like workers, such as speaking out) but if you remember your place and support the Party and its mission — say, by undermining bourgeois morality or discrediting Christian belief — then the Party will protect you and ignore your trivial indulgences.

               Much as I dislike Rand’s writing, she made this point admirably in Atlas Shrugged, many times over. The fact is, they like it when they have something over you, something enabling them to ensure your “good” behaviour. They like giving you little treats when you behave.

   4. She never wrote characters believably — it’s only now that I think I see why. Someone who could do things like she did to her own child is not someone who deeply understands the human condition.

      I read her quite a bit as a teenagers (all Darkover with one exception…never got to Mists despite being a huge Arthurian fan…won’t bother now) and several did resonate with me. I have wondered if going back 30 years later they still would. Looking at Sarah’s post yesterday now I’m wondering why they did speak to me back in the day. Could it be these people who continue to defend her do so in part to avoid asking, “why did the work of a rapist, and a child rapist at that, speak to me?”

      I won’t bother going back now. I won’t deny reading them or that at the time they interested me. I’m also doubt I’ll finish collecting her Swords & Sorceress or buying the new authorized yearly ones (clearly she’s not editing but do I want to give money to her literary heirs…maybe if it’s the daughter she raped it’s okay but it would also keep her sanitized memory alive).

      Now, I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop…who that I have loved reading will turn out to be the next rapists in the sci-fi fold. At least with the detective novel authors I’ve read the biggest fear is they’ll turn out to be drunks.

      1. It’s funny. Mists was OK, or at least, the beginning was. It lost me in the middle. And I liked the Darkover anthologies, but the novels didn’t do much for me. I appreciated the Sword and Sorceress anthologies, too. But again, MZB’s own stuff didn’t really catch me.

         1. I never could get through the first Mists book, I do have one SF novel of hers I liked (would have to go look on the shelf to see what the title is) and as some have mentioned, it was bleak. But otherwise I was not impressed by the few stories of hers that I tried.

            1. I finished the first Mists book but never read the others.

               I had two problems with it.

               First, there was the “theme” that Christianity was “intolerant”.

               Second, the “heroine” was willing to take down Arthur’s kingdom, which was defending Britain against Saxon (nasty pagans), because Arthur didn’t support making Her Religion “Top Dog” and MZB seemed to approve of the heroine’s actions/reasons.

               1. It was laden with the most obvious problem, namely, if paganism was so great, why did people convert to Christianity?

                  1. Because patriarchy.

                     This is a problem shared by some of the novels of her friend Diana Paxson,

                  2. There’s been this idea going around that Christianity has *always* been spread by the sword. Never mind that Christianity spread widely in the Roman Empire when the “sword” was controlled by the pagan Emperors and spread in spite of that “sword”.

                     1. Islam was spread by the sword

                        1. Those who hate Christianity often give Islam a “pass”. [Frown]

                           1. Maybe its because Christians don’t seem to saw your head off and post the video on the internet. Just my theory, mind you.

                           2. No, but Christians (or at least, Copts) do make videos which inflame Islamists to stage spontaneous demonstrations (often with well-targeted mortar bombardment), invade and burn our embassies and sodomize and murder our ambassadors. Or maybe not — what difference, at this point in time, what difference does it make?

                              Shucks, it is almost as if our governing elites believe Muslims (like they view our own African-American neighbors) are barely above animals, ready to fly into rage at the least provocation. Yet these brilliant leaders say we are racist.

                           3. You may be correct.

                        2. Christianity was spread by the butter knife. Christian society was more likely to have butter and other fruits of labor.

                        3. now its spread by the AK, apparently

                     2. That’s why the supposed “facts” like that emperor converting and making everyone adopt the Christian faith (rather than making it legal, from memory) are so important… it’s hard to go from “were thrown to the lions” to “and became horrible, big mean people,” so down play the first part to imply it was a matter of weeks, ignore anything else that happened and jump into yelling about the Crusades being Christian aggression.
                        Kinda related:
                        http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/the-real-history-of-the-crusades

      2. It doesn’t go to her kids and victims.

         Last it heard, it benefited a person named Waters, who was at least an enabler.

         Check her depositions on Goldin’s website if you doubt that.

         Someone who wouldn’t blink at someone admitting to having tied a child to a chair is either too analytically impaired to be mentally competent, a coward, or immoral.

         1. At this point I’d assume any heir other than the raped daughter would probably be an enabler.

            Makes me wonder about a lot of authors she mentored as well. If I read them am I setting myself up to have another set of books by a child molester?

            This is a relatively minor but still real part of the problem. Anyone who has a long association with her is now suspect despite the fact that some probably did not know (especially if they rarely saw her in person). Associates who did not know have had their reputations harmed by the people who did and covered for her.

            1. Herb, your last paragraph is something I’ve been thinking about. I have long-time friends who had professional relationships with MZB. While I can’t imagine them knowingly covering for this type of behavior, I have to wonder.

               1. Well, I was published in several Sword & Sorceress anthologies. OTOH, I never left the New England/New York area in that time.

                  1. Mary, you’re a prime example of what I’m talking about concerning the fallout. I have about half of that series and had been working to collect the rest. I was happy it’s being licensed to continue after MZB death.

                     Now I probably won’t bother finishing up the collection. How many authors got their first big audience through it and now how many won’t because MZB’s name, which sold it, was built on lies.

               2. I think that there would be three different kinds of people who had professional relationships with MZB.

                  The first, the kind who had nothing but professional relationships; and did not interact with MZB outside of the writing field or outside the publishing field. This is not hard to imagine, as distance is still a factor, especially in those times, where snail mail and phone calls are the only way to go for communication. There may have been nearly no meeting her in person outside of conventions or writers’ symposiums, as well. This likely extends to a large number of her fans back in the day.

                  The second are the ones who knew her personally as well, but did not know her well enough to be included in the ‘inner circles’, thus likely did not know her proclivities (or knew her as a writer mentor, but no more than that) and lastly

                  the third group, who knew her professionally, personally and were included in her inner circle, and knew everything but kept quiet because of their Cause.

                  1. Yep – I’d agree that was likely pretty much the way of it.

                  2. Yeah, I don’t think she normally introduced herself: “Hi, I’m Marion Zimmer Bradley, and I like to forcibly rape little girls. What’s your name?” …

            2. The daughter had a brother who was also a victim.

            3. Oh, I think that abusers are really good at not letting people know. And those who suspect never quite trust themselves. It’s such a horrible thing, and what if they’re wrong?

               1. Not to mention that it’s such a horrible thing, surely the person who did it would be a horrible monster, not nice. And falsely accusing someone of such a thing is a horrible thing to do. . . and slowly, inch by inch, you drift into a situation where if you really looked, you would have to condemn yourself for not piecing it together, and then you have to defend yourself.

                  1. Monsters rarely show themselves, and even when they do, people hesitate to push things until the final line gets crossed and it’s too late for someone. “Yeah, he grew up in my neighborhood. He always was a little odd, our parents wouldn’t let us play at his house. And the loose pets and stray animals kept disappearing. We all knew he’d probably end up doing something wild, but not anything like that.” (In this case breaking into a convent and raping and murdering an 80+ year old nun.)

8. I have a close relative who is a survivor of sexual abuse. I won’t get into the who, because it’s their secret to share, not mine. I know others who survived such things as well.

   If we were to create a hierarchy of evil, I would have to argue that child molestation would be at the top, on par with rape. Murder is relatively quick, even in the most horrific crimes. Rape and child molestation are similar crimes, and leave the victim suffering for a lifetime.

   It’s amusing how many of these people decry sexism and racism anywhere and everywhere they see it (and Lord, do they see it everywhere), yet are now defending MZB. Folks, on that hierarchy of evil, racism and sexism are both well down from child molestation. How? How can they look at themselves in the mirror, knowing they’re defending a literal monster?

   No, they’d rather jump at every potential insult, and even manufacture new ones. They’d rather rail for hours about how Larry Correia called Scalzi a pussy while still refusing to talk about MZB. “It’s old news,” they say. No, it’s not. Most of just learned this. Is it old news because you knew and did nothing? Or, is it old news because MZB is one of “yours” and you can see no evil within your own ranks?

   It’s all I needed to see to know absolutely how morally corrupt the other side actually is. There is no excuse. None. They want to talk about teaching men not to rape? How about teaching people within their own ranks that sexual molesting young kids is wrong? The funny thing is, those they want to yell at about the “teaching men not to rape” all agree that rape is wrong and horrible. They seem to be unable to understand that child molestation is also wrong and horrible. Worse, they freaking defending this woman!

   I enjoyed Mists of Avalon. I enjoyed Firebrand. Those are the only two MZB books I’ve read, but I enjoyed them. I’m not some “hater” or anything. I’m man who has seen what the effects of child molestation are, and now truly hate the monster she clearly was.

   1. Folks, on that hierarchy of evil, racism and sexism are both well down from child molestation.

      Not on their hierarchy. You see, child molestation is only done to an individual, and individuals don’t matter to a bred-in-the-bone collectivist. Racism and sexism are crimes against the all-important Identity Group.

   2. “The funny thing is, those they want to yell at about the “teaching men not to rape” all agree that rape is wrong and horrible.”

      Do they?

      The use the word for everything from negative comments or an unwanted look, to knife-at-the-throat, beaten-and-bruised forced sex. They think violent rape is as inconsequential as an unwanted look.

      1. You might want to reread that sentence you quote. I was talking about the people like Larry who they scream at about how we need to teach men to not rape. Larry agrees that rape is a bad thing, it’s just a disagreement about whether that particular step would actually do anything.

         All I say about the other side is that they are notorious for arguing about how such and such isn’t really wrong.

         1. You’re right; I confused the subject. I doubt the SJW’s think of rape as all that horrible, considering the trivial things they equate it to.

   3. “Murder is relatively quick, even in the most horrific crimes. Rape and child molestation are similar crimes, and leave the victim suffering for a lifetime.”

      I think we have to go by the victims’ own choices to evaluate them. While children may not have the grounds to judge whether they should resist, women often submit to credible threats of death — that is, they would rather be raped than murdered. Indeed, one rape trauma nurse reports that some rape victims’ immediate reaction can be hysterical glee — because they thought the rapist would murder them as well.

      1. It’s not just rape victims. I remember a story told by a military chaplain, describing an encounter in a military hospital. A patient was sitting up in bed, arm gone from above the elbow, chatting encouragingly with a surgery-groggy roommate and full of good cheer. When the chaplain commented on the patient’s upbeat manner, the one-arm man described how his humvee had gone over an IED, and how the round had come through the floor/door seam and taken out the radio riding in the center between the seats. A straightline between the entry point and the radio would have gone through the patient’s body and head. Instead all he lost was his arm. Three days later, and he was still laughing with joy at his great fortune.

         I think we should be able to acknowledge those who rise above their burdens *and* at the same time decry the burdens they have to carry.

         1. If you’ll pardon me, I’m taking that story with a good bit of salt.
            When I was in, I had a long discussion with the Corpsman about the point at which he was to let me go. I’m not aware of anybody in my Company who failed to have that discussion.

            Now, it may be that he did have the discussion, and his injuries were on this side of the line. Especially if it was his non-dominant arm that was injured.
            But the story is just too pat. Too perfect. It makes me suspicious. (OK, that’s my natural state, but moreso than normal.)

            1. At the point where you’re reading this story that I type on the internets, it’s all hearsay – and I’m not giving the unit, the location, or any names. Feel free to not put any stock in it. (Your disbelief does not make it less true, in other words, and I do not grieve over your lack of faith in my telling.)

               I do not know of anyone who opted to die rather than live one armed or one-legged. I am sure there were some – there were some who felt they could could muddle through on two legs with kneecaps. People are variable.

               1. Hmm — there have been people who resisted doctor-recommended amputations. Usually when there were other courses of treatment, to be sure, but less reliable.

                  1. And I have heard of people who insisted on amputations when the leg would have been far less functional than a prostetic. Or would have taken longer to heal.

      2. I scond the notion. Murder closes off all possibilities. Rape is a horrible experience, but one that can be survived and transcended. My Lady was molested as a child, and I’m grateful that it was not murder.

      3. Did I argue to the contrary?

         I compared rape and child molestation, which is a form of rape, with one another due to the life long consequences of the act While with murder, those consequences end rather abruptly.

      4. I reread what you wrote here. Please ignore my previous statement. Was exhausted from real world activities and missed the point of contention.

         Neither is good, and both acts are utterly evil. It really falls into a “to each their own” as to which is more evil than the other.

   4. Not only j, umping at insults, but in the case of Vox pointing out that Edward Kramer, a convicted child molester, has/had(?) membership in the SFWA, they are accusing him of forgery and making up evidence.

   5. Not only jumping at every insult, but, in the case of Vox pointing out that a convicted child molester has/had membership in the SFWA, they accuse of forgeries and making up evidence.

      1. Please excuse the double post. I had thought work had eaten the first one.

   6. If we were to create a hierarchy of evil, I would have to argue that child molestation would be at the top, on par with rape. Murder is relatively quick, even in the most horrific crimes. Rape and child molestation are similar crimes, and leave the victim suffering for a lifetime.

      The phrases “a fate worse than death” and… I can’t remember the book, but a murderer said something like “I killed her, but I’d never hurt her.” (it made sense in context)

      1. Remember all the old stories (ERB had this theme in the majority of his books) when the woman is willing to commit suicide rather than be raped? This used to be a fairly common view, because rape was considered “a fate worse than death.”

   7. Even if you don’t like calling someone a “pussy” for being cowardly (I personally prefer “wimp”), one’s choice of insult is (at worst) merely an offense against good taste. Raping little girls is a crime of an entirely different magnitude!

   8. This may seem clueless, but who is defending Marion Zimmer Bradley? (and by “defending” I mean justifying her actions; not saying “well, she was a horrible person but I liked her books”)

   9. T.L. Knighton wrote: “ ‘It’s old news,’ they say.”

      Slavery, Jim Crow, KKK lynching, almost all crimes Christianity has been accused of — that’s all old news. Somehow, I don’t hear that excuse when the subjects of racism and religious intolerance come up.

      And those Catholic priests who molested children, somehow that isn’t old news.

      Disgusting.

      1. And somehow, the Democrat party supporting all the crimes you just mentioned, is old news to be disregarded.

9. “People are still defending MZB and saying that her actions in life should not be taken into consideration when people think about her, and instead, they should focus on the writings in her books and that only”

   Which is the polar opposite of how “They” have insisted Larry & Vox be treated over their Hugo nominations. A good piece, and the lack of condemnation from the SFWA side is sickening. I’d love to see a boycott of every SFWA member that doesn’t come out and condemn the actions of MZB and her like. After all, theres no place in polite society for such people, and wont somebody think of the children?

   1. The libs are not really for the children. The phrase is a way to garner power.

      1. yeah, i really should have used a /sarc there 🙂

         1. lol– we still need sarc font

            1. Maybe that’s what comic sans should be repurposed for.

   2. My question is which books. She was sick for a good while before she died and she sold novels that her friends wrote under her name. Plus I know that the Glenraven books she supposedly co-authored with Holly Lisle,
      1 Glenraven (1996) with Holly Lisle
      2 In the Rift (1998) with Holly Lisle
      had almost no input from her. I also know the publisher wasn’t informed of MZB’s health or her lack of input to the series. JB wasn’t at all happy. In fact I don’t believe Holly Lisle was let in on how bad MZB’s sickness for a period of time.

   3. …somebody think of the children?

      They are thinking of the children. That’s the problem.

10. When i first started writing fantasy, I looked into getting a SFWA card– and yes, at the time I was working at getting some pieces published through mags and other places. And then– I began to read what members of the organization were saying about new authors and other things. I would NOT be a part of the organization then or now. Just finding out about MZB has made me more careful about reading people who are not indie or Baen.

    1. Yeah, I wanted to be a member in ’80s. It was the ticket to fame and fortune as a writer!

       Then I had the misfortune to start dating someone who WAS a member of SFWA before the ’86 Worldcon. Her attitudes about writers who hadn’t ‘broken out’ were eye-opening.

       Now? Gag.

       1. Yep–

       2. 1986 WorldCon? What happened there? (please forgive my lack of fannish knowledge)

          1. Well, that’s more personal than anything else, and not really related to the con. It was just a bad time with the wrong woman. The Con was great. But her attitude seemed much like what I’m hearing about SFWA today.

             The fans at Confederation had a lot of fun, the facilities for the time were excellent, and there’s never been a successful bid for another Worldcon in Atlanta. By some accounts I heard after the fact, we pissed off NE fandom (Boskone, etc) because we (a) actually had money left over AFTER the con, (it apparently being traditional to overspend and lose money) and (b) wouldn’t pass that money to the NE fandom groups so they could pay off their debts. There were probably other reasons, but that’s what sticks in my mind after 30 years or so.

             Grudges in fandom can last for decades.

             Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Worldcons – there’s a number of repeats. Denver, Chicago, Boston, San Antonio – but there’s only been one Confederation.

             1. Dragoncon is right up there with Worldcon every year in attendance and programming, plus a lot of stuff Worldcon doesn’t have, like a for-real parade. But now I understand the otherwise-puzzling timing… or at least, why it works so well. 🙂

       3. Can you share the attitude you’re talking about regarding writers who hadn’t “broken out”? I’m curious is all.

          FWIW, I’ve interacted with exactly one SFWA member that I’m aware of, and that was some guy manning the SFWA booth at DragonCon a couple of years ago, and while he wasn’t the friendliest guy out there, I can’t say he was all that bad either.

          1. To her, you weren’t a ‘real writer’ until you’d managed to make enough sales to join SFWA. (2 magazine sales or one novel, if I remember the time right.) If you were selling, you’d broken out. If you hadn’t… well…

             That and other things kind of doomed the relationship, plus a bad case of ‘white knight syndrome’ on my part. Fortunately, I outgrew that…

             1. Glad to hear you grew out of the “white knight syndrome.”

                1. It took a while, and a ‘princess’ I couldn’t ‘save’ because her internal identity was dependent in part on her problems. Kept urging counseling, but… in the end I had to give up the ‘quest’.

                   Some folks you just can’t help. Some outgrow their problems, or outmaneuver them. And some cling to them like a drowning sentient to a flotation device.

             2. Much appreciated.

                I’ve heard that more than once, but have luckily had plenty of people tell me that you’re a real writer if you’re…well…writing.

                1. That’s how I’m looking at it. The fact I can occasionally sell something on KDP is a bonus.

                   1. Understood. I’m tickled to death about the sales for my first KDP piece. It’s done really, really well from what I can tell, so I’ll take that and enjoy it.

                      And I’ll call myself a real writer and dare anyone to tell me otherwise. 🙂

                      1. Not I, sir! I shall call you a WRITER!

                         1. OK, I can deal with that just as well. 😀

                      2. What’s KDP?

                         1. Kindle Direct Publishing.

                            1. Thank you kind sir.

                         2. What TL said. Essentially, it’s the name of the program by which indie authors upload their stuff to Amazon for sale on the Kindle bookstore.

                            Do we need a post on how that works?

                            Maybe at MGC?

                            > >

             3. ‘breaking out’ makes me think of The Tomorrow People….

                1. breaking out was bestseller status. If you were a midlister it was assumed you were stupid or a bad writer.

11. You’re talking about an ideology that has refined their arguments for at least a couple of decades now. They have pre-digested explanations for why they are never racists, misandrists or heterophobes while engaging in blatant racism, men-hatred and heterophobia. They have just as thoroughly worked out explanations as to why you’re a racist, misogynist, homophobe just for waking up in the morning in the wrong skin and sex.

    Common vulgar slang terms or the word “lady” are pedagogical tangential swipes that reveal hidden lady-hatred. But only on Tuesdays and Saturdays when the wind blows out of the West at 10-15 miles per hour.

    An actual institution of child rape culture like NAMBLA becomes nothing and harmless slang becomes rape culture and let’s all donate to RAINN.

    The entirety of Golden Age SF is summarized as a body of literary racial and sexist revenge/dominance fantasies while QUILTBAGs give Nebulas to actual alternate history anti-“white savior” racial revenge fantasies complete with a black Marco Polo and Americans and Spanish coming to the noble Incas with their hats in their hands. Still another yuks it up about the startling dissonance of a Tarzan film being shot in Jim Crow Florida at the expense of having no SF or F cuz straight white male. De Bodard’s Nebula-winning classic may as well have been an anti-hamburger fortune cookie you open and find writing that says “You have no Western Anglophone straight white males in your future.” And “Ancillary Justice”? That’s right: HAL 9000 is conveniently feminist retarded and don’t know menz from wimmenz and uses no gender pronouns.

    This is an ideology that lassos words and drags them in for a branding and re-branding about every 7 minutes, depending on one’s devotion to the cult of supremacist bigotry called intersectionalism. Just as Obama had to be tapped on the shoulder and told being a member of a racist religious cult might be a bad idea, expecting the SFWA to understand a thing like principle and fair play on its own is like expecting your dog to compose a limerick.

    How can one say “‘I may disagree completely with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’” if you don’t even know what the hell they’re saying at any given moment cuz words are orbiting your head like birdies in a video game and being shot down at random by strangers?

    When a group of WRITERS gerrymanders the word “racist” as if gravity is having an unpredictable tug of war with each individual letter it’s time to start calling these Orwellian bigots out for what they are. “Rape”? What the hell even is that in Bizarro world? Something like molten lava ice cubes I’m guessing.

12. What gets me is the sheer hypocrisy of many members of SFF fandom (and SFWA members) who are making excuses for these people who have committed heinous acts. Many of these same individuals denounce Orson Scott Card merely for expressing political views, and implore people not to buy his books.

    1. There’s nothing hypocritical about it. You see, no act is heinous when committed by the Left, and every act (or no act at all) is heinous when committed by the Right – or worse, by a Left deviationist, which is what Card is at bottom. (He is vaguely socialist in economic matters but socially conservative, which puts him just half a shade to the right of George Orwell.)

       ‘Deviationist’ is here defined as ‘one of those scoundrels who step on the brakes before they go over the cliff’.

13. I confess, I’ve been looking at my bookshelves lately and contemplated putting everything with Bradley’s and Delany’s names on the spine in a landfill. It won’t change anything, and I tell myself I’m being irrational, but I can’t walk past those books — particularly the anthology with my story in it — without feeling complicit.

    1. Don’t. In the first place, trashing books is not something to encourage. Ok, there are some books that SHOULD be burned; paperback adaptations of summer blockbusters, moldy copies of Peyton Place. But not most, no matter who wrote them.

       In the second place, secondhand books garner no royalties, either for scumbags’ estates OR for smug liberal twit publishers.

       1. Eh, there are a bare handful of books I have thrown away rather than donate to the library because they were just so bad I didn’t want anyone else to mistakenly read them.

          1. Yes. the “anthropology” book about how white people weren’t fully human, for instance.

             1. Don’t get me started on the post-modernist BS that too much of cultural anthropology produces. At least physical anthropology and archaeology usually try to remain grounded in science, facts, etc., but too many of the cultural anthropology literature is just crazy post-modernist, anti-Western BS, IMHO.

          2. There’ve been books so badly written that I consigned one to the flames, which and the other I regret not having had the chance to turn into a practice target. Well, yet. Maybe if we go back to Melbourne, we’ll see if it’s still there and borrow my brother in law’s bow.

       2. My home office is filled with the results of years of avid reading and collecting. When she has a weak moment and lets herself see the clutter, my wife, who was born with a powerful neatness gene, will break down in tears over the crowded state of my bookshelves.

          I have only ever burned one book: I got duped into reading an incredibly stupid chick-lit style story involving a lady detective and a werewolf that had them veering off to the bedroom for an explicit sex scene that was out of character for both and didn’t develop any element of the story… and my friends and I needed kindling for our fire at the beach that afternoon. A guy came over from a firepit nearby and offered us lighter fluid because seeing me burning a book disturbed him so badly.

          Just for reference, I actually like the Anita Blake series, but I wouldn’t leave it around where the kids can get ahold of it.

          Mists of Avalon went to the used bookstore long ago, after I tried to read it on-and-off for at least two years. It was the only book that ever made me physically nauseated when I read it. It gave me a bizarre sense of palpable evil and hate coming through the pages. No, really, it felt like that book hated me, on a deeper level than what the author wrote. I am totally unsurprised at the accusations recently leveled at MZB.

          Doing it over today, I think I’d burn that copy instead of passing it on.

          1. I’ve garbaged two. One of which had been assigned reading in a grad class, and I saw two more copies of it vanishing into the bonfire at a grad-student sausage roast and marshmallow immolation event.

    2. Give it a year and see how you feel about it then.

14. Thanks for this post Jason. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this situation. As previous commenters have pointed out, the disconnect between how they react to Correia/Resnick/Malzberg/The Banished One/Card and MZB/Breen/Delaney/etc borders on unbelievable.

    I’m going to be watching closely over the next few weeks. If an author stands up and calls out SFWA for making excuses for Bradley and Delaney, they will go on my to-read list. If they offer apologies for them, I’ll never buy another work of theirs again.

    In the meantime, I’m going to spend a long weekend with my son and try to wash some of the horror out of my brain.

    1. That disconnect tells you everything you need to know about what’s really going on here. Were our social justice warriors what they claim to be, their focus would be in erasing such disconnects. Instead they devote literally hundreds of thousands of words explaining precisely why such disconnects should remain in force with the beneficiary being their own politicized “oppressed” and “marginalized” identities at the expense of the straight white male.

       That is a hate-group speaking hate-speech – period.

    2. They’re mad at Resnick and Malzberg because they complimented a female editor for being pretty!!!!! I wonder if the editor herself even took offense, or others took offense for her?

       And it wasn’t even a grossly sexual statement about her — it was something about her looking nice in a bikini.

       1. Let me relieve your uncertainty. Bea Mahaffey, the editor mentioned in their discussion, worked fairly hard at being both fashionable and attractive, and certainly did not resent being complimented on her appearance. And she certainly was never offended at being called a lady.

          Anyone finding offense in the Malzberg/Resnick remarks about her is speaking on their own behalf.
          Jerry Pournelle

          1. Jerry,
             Having been rather pretty and fashionable, once, I dismissed the complaints as “Ugly girls trying to destroy the attractive ones in absentia/after death.”
             I hope all is well with you. Miss you.

             1. Pictures of the lovely Miss (Mrs?) Mahaffey can be found here: http://www.fiawol.org.uk/fanstuff/THEN%20Archive/1953Coroncon/Coron.htm.

                I haven’t read the text of the page, but it appears to be a description of the 1953 London SF Convention. Several pics are available. None, alas, featuring bikinis:-(.

             2. “Having been rather pretty and fashionable, once….”

                So, yesterday, and today before the shower and coffee?

                1. I wish. I’m 51. All claims I had to beauty are gone. My best hope is not to be too repulsive.

                   1. *looks for ‘like’ button*
                      Sixty here, and hoping for the same.

                   2. I suspect your husband would disagree, but I don’t wish to tread on his proper responsibility, which includes the proper care and feeding of spousal self-esteem.

                      For what it’s worth, I find it remarkable how much someone’s appeal and charisma vary by their character and emotional state, and strongly suggest that you have far more inner beauty shining through than you realize. (Which is of course the problem with this kind of inner beauty; it’s a very Zen thing, it tends to disappear the moment you think you might have it or try to take advantage of it.)

                   3. Fie on that! Repulsive comes from within, and can’t be solved by makeup or clothing.

                      You, with your kindness, shall always be beautiful.

                   4. Oh yea– a woman I know turned me on to coconut oil (creamy) for my skin. We live in a very dry area plus the chemo has damaged my skin. This stuff is a miracle worker and inexpensive. So soft skin and wrinkle removers — here I come. 😉 and 52…

                   5. I rather think this depends on your definition of “beauty.” When I was a child I employed a child’s definition; now I am an adult I find the mind is less distracted by hormones.

                      OTOH, I think of the characteristics that often present themselves in people for whom being beautiful is the most important goal and can’t imagine wanting to share a lifeboat, desert island or even a taxicab with most of them.

          2. Great jumping gobstoppers. This was one thing that most accounts of the Journal kerfuffle completely omitted. The ‘lady editor’ over whom Malzberg & Resnick were censured was Bea Mahaffey?

             I am a brute beast and an illiterate Visigoth from the far edge of the world, across the sea from Thule and a million years’ march inland; and yet even I have heard of Bea Mahaffey — the Helen of Troy of science fiction.

             1. I think the thing that pisses the SJWs and GHHs the most about how MEN dared to describe Bea Mahaffey as attractive is that in the pictures she was enjoying the attention instead of being visibly crushed by the patriarchy.

                The SJWs and GHHs might secretly dream of such attention by authors of the opposite gender – and hate those who both attract it and would give it to others who are not them.

       2. More than “pretty.” Ms. Mahaffey was so gorgeous that she transformed a group previously all male into one 50% male/50% female by a) joining it, and b) getting seen in a bikini by the wives and girlfriends of the male members. They joined en masse to keep her from stealing their husbands/boy friends, and then became friends once they got to know her. It remains 50% female to this day.

          One of those women told that story to Resnick. She’d spent most of her adult life active in sf/f fandom because of Bea Mahaffey’s sex appeal (she was never interested in sf or fantasy, but she found she very much liked fans), and was amused at the way that part of her life had worked out. Resnick repeated it in an article he was asked to co-write about female editors and fans he and Malzberg had known back in the day. Repeating the story in print was “evidence” of misogyny on Resnick’s part, because Mahaffey’s gorgeousness had nothing to do with her work as an editor (given the anecdote in question, that may not have true, btw; it may well have been an important part of her personal relations with authors and agents).

          And when Resnick mentioned in print the complaints about his article contribution, and the cover of the SFWA BULLETIN, Malzberg said ‘Whoa, Mike, just what exactly is their problem? They have just as much right to criticize that which they dislike as we have to write it.’ To which Resnick replied that he didn’t know what their problem was, since no one had bothered to complain to his face.

          But what got them kicked out of the BULLETIN gig wasn’t the anecdote, it was defending free speech, and daring to argue that the cover with the scantily-clad women wasn’t such a big deal. ‘Failure to grovel’ was their real crime.

          1. I’m really getting tired of the ‘failure to properly grovel’ garbage…

             1. Point of clarification. Tired of people claiming that responses are from a failure to grovel or tired of negative responses for failure to grovel?

                1. Tired of negative responses for failure to grovel quickly enough, long enough, or deeply enough.

                   Really, when the only acceptable response seems to be “Okay, I’ll just nip out back and kill myself”, we MIGHT have taken the ‘Thou Shalt Grovel To Appease The GHH and SJW’ thing a trifle far.

15. Pingback: Guest Blogging Elsewhere and Libertycon Schedule | Jason Cordova's Website

16. Hines is making excuses for Delany on Twitter today, saying his support for NAMBLA was some meaningless off the cuff remark made 20 years ago. As an adult survivor of a violent sexual assault during childhood who suffers physiological effects of that experience (and the financial burden of dealing with the medical treatment for it), I am sickened by the stink of corruption of this organization. I can’t possibly imagine why Hines would make such a comment about so serious an issue as condoning child rape. Or is it not rape when the victims are boys? But then again he seems to have his own gender confusion issues, so I’ll be keeping an eye on the headlines for him.

    1. I looked for more information on the Delany/NAMBLA association. I found the quote from WikiQuotes sourced to “Queer Desires Forum, New York City, 25 June 1994” that has been cited all over the place:

       Delany says: “I read the NAMBLA (Bulletin) fairly regularly and I think it is one of the most intelligent discussions of sexuality I’ve ever found. I think before you start judging what NAMBLA is about, expose yourself to it and see what it is really about. What the issues they are really talking about, and deal with what’s really there rather than this demonized notion of guys running about trying to screw little boys. I would have been so much happier as an adolescent if NAMBLA had been around when I was 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.”

       I also looked a bit further and found another quote from him on the same topic from “Unpublished Hogg interview” at
       http://osdir.com/ml/culture.sf.delany/2004-11/msg00014.html

       Delany says: “It may seem paradoxical from my statement that generally speaking I think sexual relations between children and adults are likely to go wrong and that most of them are likely to be, start off as, or quickly become, abusive, that I also support a group like NAMBLA—which I do. But that’s because I feel one of the largest factors in the abuse is fostered by the secrecy itself and lack of social policing of the relationships. A little history helps: For thousands of years, relations that today we assume are abusive by definition (child marriages, slavery, child labor, etc.) were the social and legal norm. They were institutional and ubiquitous. As well, behavior that we would find wholly unacceptable—flogging for slaves, wife beating in marriage, and child beating (in the family, in the school, and at the factory)—was regularly recommended by experts and clergymen as the most efficient and least disruptive way to maintain order and the necessary disciplined hierarchy for these institutions to function efficiently. More lenient ways were to be avoided, ran the general wisdom, because, while they might be attractive in the short run (as novels and melodramas welcomed more and more social types into the circle of compassion), in the long- run they produced only further troubles.”

       I also found a reference to a book called “Conversations with Samuel R. Delany”. Google Books has excerpts and an index. The index lists “NAMBLA” as a topic on page 143, but that page is not in the Google preview. If someone has access to a library, it might be worth looking up.
       http://books.google.com/books/about/Conversations_with_Samuel_R_Delany.html?id=rU3xGSOsCv4C

       Make of it what you will.

       I’d be uncomfortable around him—and unquestionably would not trust him around children—but I will admit that it is possible that his interest is merely theoretical/literary, or that he just enjoys freaking people out. I’m not aware of any Bradley-type smoking gun evidence he has molested anyone, but I’m certainly not up on the “high fandom” rumor mills. Right now, I just get sort of a squicky feeling about the whole thing.

       I’d never been able to get more than a few pages into either of the two books by him I tried (“Triton” and “Dahlgren”) so any question of avoiding buying his books in the future is academic to me.

    2. I wonder how Hines defends Delany allowing NAMBLA to use his endorsement of them on their website? I wonder if Hines thinks Delany ought repudiate his endorsement(s)?

       I do not expect my wonderment to be addressed.

17. Anyone else flash on the glaring truth that all this is entirely consistent with past leftie practices. Just look at that whole Roman Polanski thing back in the late ’70s.
    For those who forgot or never knew, Polanski was a critically acclaimed film director who was charged with five counts of rape and sodomy with a 13 year old female. His lawyers negotiated that down to a single guilty plea of involuntary sex and were working on a deal to get him probation. Worried that he would still serve jail time Polanski fled to France and has since avoided any country that might extradite him back to the U.S.
    What’s most notable about the whole thing was the outpouring of support from the Hollywood glitterati. Every excuse in the book about it not really being his fault, the girl was trying to sleep her way into the movies, some said the girl’s mother set it all up, on and on ad nauseum.
    To this day he is still revered by the whole artsie crowd, so SFWA are very much in keeping with the spirit of condemning the conservatives while excusing the abusers.

    1. and according to Whoopie (spit) it wasn’t “Rape Rape” and was some lesser form of it. a defense by the same folks who think if a female changes her mind on the consequentiality of sex at a time say, a day or so afterwards, it still constitutes rape … even if she was the one with the pickup lines and the “Hey, lets go back to my place and to the horizontal boogie” was her idea.

       1. He drugged the poor girl, and when she still resisted his advances he held her down and forcibly raped her in every orifice. Whoopie Goldberg thinks that is not “rape rape”.

          1. I never quite understood the mentality that attacked Todd Akin for saying something about “legitimate rape”, while having no problem with Whoopi Goldberg talking about something not being “rape rape”.

             Though once I heard that he said it, the fact that the Democratic incumbent contributed quite a bit of money to him in the primaries suddenly made a lot of sense.

             1. Claire McCaskill was the incumbent. She didn’t donate money to Akin’s campaign. Instead, she ran ads during the primary “attacking” Akin as the most conservative of the Republican candidates running for office. As a result, Akin managed to edge out the other two or three candidates in the primary (all of whom were relative unknowns). She did so because she saw him as the weakest of the Republican candidates, and thus the most likely to lose to her. And she needed all the help she could get.

                However, I don’t think she had any idea just how much of a gift Akin was going to turn out to be to the Democratic national efforts that year.

          2. well, it really isn’t true to say they hold a double standard … because they have NO standards at all.

    2. “Consistent” implies some devotion to an ideology. I don’t see that with the Polanski affair. Polanski is a member of an elite group with money. That’s an old story.

    3. It’s seems unlikely to me that Mr. P. “only did it once.” I fear there were many victims who never came forward because of the ‘victim blaming’, and the ‘you’ll-never-work-in-this-town-again’ attitudes.

       In the best of all possible worlds, such evil would not be allowed to flourish. Sadly, that’s not the world we currently inhabit.

       1. I seem to recall that when the matter last came up that there were several other victims of Raping Roman, but really, how many victims want to get raped twice, once by Polanski and once by his defenders? At least the first time happened more or less in private.

          Remember, also, which side of the political aisle coined the phrase “Nuts ‘N’ Sluts.”

    4. Not just rape, forcible rape.

    5. “this is entirely consistent with past leftie practices”

       As time goes by we are finding out that many radical leftists were rapists. Funny, that.

       1. Karl Marx had one of his maids as a mistress, and treated her pretty much like dirt.

       2. pst314 wrote:
          “As time goes by we are finding out that many radical leftists were rapists. Funny, that.”

          It’s only getting remarked on now, but back in the day, iirc, Stokely Charmichael explained how he’d raped white women as a political statement against racism. He also explained how he’s practiced on black women first, to minimize his chances of getting caught by the cops.

          Which didn’t stop Leonard Bernstein from throwing a fund-raising party for the Black Panthers, at which Tom Wolfe was present and famously reported.

18. Us vs Them. There are few organizations that don’t circle the wagons and protect their own. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, police . . . they don’t seem to realize how much they would enhance their reputations, if they did kick out the incompetent, the corrupt. Look how far a policeman has to step outside normal behavior to be fired. At least the teachers can be canned for sexual misbehavior, pity about competency . . .

    SFWA has the additional burden of a group who works with words, and seems to be giving greater influence to words than actions. He who shall not be named is pitched out the door for writing a non-PC opinion. An actual child molester is all right, so long as his or her writing is politically correct. But then, as Dave points out, they aren’t really a writers advocacy group. They cater to the publishers and progressive cultural and political malignancies.

    1. In many places (especially california) it is hard to can teachers even for sexual misbehavior. They wind up sitting in a room doing nothing and collecting union-rate pay. At least they aren’t with the kids. But for my own sanity I don’t think I want to know too much about how many strikes it takes before they get exiled to the do-nothing room.

       1. As part of No Child Left Behind, they surveyed the schools and concluded about one in ten children had been sexually molested in them. Remember the uproar over that?

          Yeah, me neither.

          1. I don’t even remember the study. Link?

             1. this has info about it:
                http://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/

                1. Thanks.

       2. The bit about California teachers might be getting changed. A recent judicial decision just threw out pretty much all of the legal protections for teachers to avoid being fired. There might have been some baby with the bathwater, but it’ll definitely cause some changes if it doesn’t get overruled by a higher court. Ironically, the rationale for the decision was due to a disparate impact on minorities.

          1. He just ruled that tenure after less than two years was ridiculous and deprived children of their right to a decent education.

             The school leadership guy who testified against the current tenure system was on several shows, and pointed out they couldn’t even finish their introductory evaluation program before the teachers had tenure.

             1. <= listens to talk radio to keep her spoken language skills from evaporating.

    2. “…they aren’t really a writers advocacy group.” – By their works shall ye know them. From what is reported, it seems they ARE a viewpoint advocacy group; and since they seem to provide no professional services to speak of, a social/mutual support group at that.

    3. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, police . . . they don’t seem to realize how much they would enhance their reputations, if they did kick out the incompetent, the corrupt.

       The Republican party is notorious for demanding the resignation– and making it stick– when folks are caught misbehaving. Including “walking the Appalachian trail.” Dems fight, deny and ignore. Including multiple rape accusations against a known forcible sexual harasser. Somehow, this means that Republicans have a bad reputation.

       It’s the right thing to do, but sure not for the payoff.

       1. People believe what they will. Everyone knows that Republicans are racist. You don’t need to find any evidence of it. And if a Democrat is caught acting racist, it’s just proof that everyone is. If a Democrat hasn’t recently been caught acting racist, then it’s proof that Democrats are more virtuous in the racial arena than Republicans are.

          Whether or not any Republicans have recently been caught acting racist is irrelevant, because everyone knows that they are. If none of them have been caught, then that’s just because Republicans are so good at hiding it.

19. “There has been no call to excommunicate Samuel Delaney, 2013 Grand Master of the SFWA (and… wait for it… proponent of NAMBLA – the North American Man-Boy Love Association), no call to kick him out.”

    :boggle:

    I mean, really …

    :boggle”

    1. Makes you wonder if the tacit ‘We don’t talk about things like that’ protection of someone like him and MZB is because they’re equally as guilty or warped (even if they’re not acting out on it) in the same way.

    2. I’m noticing there’s no mention of Delaney’s advocacy of NAMBLA in his Wikipedia article.

       If you can dredge up an absolutely airtight source on it, I’ll be happy to correct this oversight.

       And the rest of you can organize the betting pool on how many minutes it lasts there.

       1. “…I think sexual relations between children and adults are
          likely to go wrong and that most of them are likely to be, start off
          as, or quickly become, abusive, that I also support a group like
          NAMBLA?which I do. But that’s because I feel one of the largest
          factors in the abuse is fostered by the secrecy itself and lack of
          social policing of the relationships.” – http://osdir.com/ml/culture.sf.delany/2004-11/msg00014.html

          It’s a long interview, but that came from there. Also, from the same interview:

          “…for thousands of years, relations we assume are abusive by definition (child marriages, slavery, child labor, etc.) were the social and legal norm, institutional and ubiquitous [..] behavior that we [today] find wholly unacceptable—flogging slaves, wife beating, and child beating (in the family, in the school, and at the factory)—was recommended by experts and clergymen as the most efficient and least disruptive way to maintain [social] order. All of these institutions changed, nevertheless, only when they were no longer economically feasible or beneficial to the greater society.”

          It could be that I’m slow, but I see here someone who is saying that relationships between children and adults would be okay if there were less secrecy and more policing. If I’m wrong… No, I don’t think I’m wrong. He’s talking about having sex with children! There shouldn’t even be a relationship here!

          1. Understand what he’s sneaking around about. He’s saying statutory child rape is wrong because precisely because it is against the law, not because it’s wrong. He thinks if it was socially mainstreamed and out in the open there’d be no trauma.

             1. Exactly! You can see his detached mentality and attitude towards this issue clearly here. It’s sickening. How has no one condemned this guy yet?!

          2. I guess I should read the entire thread before doing an hours worth of research and googling!

             1. Probably better if you did, yeah.

       2. You mean, they’ve cleansed it again? When I looked it up before, especially regarding the book Hogg, it used to be there. The quote about his support for NAMBLA.

       3. Delany, Samuel R.; Freedman, Carl (2009). “Conversations with Samuel R. Delany”. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-60473-278-8. It’s on the NAMBLA wikipedia page still. I took a screenshot in case they try to scrub that one as well.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association#cite_ref-30

          1. And then there is this bit, but I don’t know how to confirm this:

             “I read The NAMBLA Bulletin fairly regularly and I think it is one of the most intelligent discussions of sexuality I’ve ever found. … Before you start judging what NAMBLA is about, expose yourself to it and see what it is really about, the issues they are really talking about; and deal with what’s really there rather than this demonized notion of guys running about trying to screw little boys. I would have been so much happier as an adolescent if NAMBLA had been around when I was 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.”
             — Samuel Delany, science fiction writer (Queer Desires Forum, New York City, June 25, 1994).

             I’ve tried to trace the source but ended up on a NAMBLA page featuring the above quote and a forum called IPCE. I have not heard of this place before. They describe themselves as: “…a forum for people who are engaged in scholarly discussion about the understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults.”

             “Scholarly discussion” my ass. I see a recurring theme of using “intellectual discourse” as an excuse to justify interest in pederasty.

             I feel dirty and disgusted. Suffice to say, I will not be doing any further research.

20. Hey Jason,
    Do you still get people who claim that the little boy in your beginning parable doesn’t exist?

    1. I fucking dare someone to say that.

       1. gee, somehow I expected that answer from you.
          Sell tickets, it’d be a blockbuster.

    2. Too many exist.

    3. I get that, from “feminists,” who insist that male rape is “vanishingly rare” except for prisoners in jail.

       Who of course are obviously “asking for it.”

       1. I’ve mentioned this article by Hannah Rosin over at Slate quite a bit lately. It was posted at the end of April, and is a pretty good read regarding rape of males in the US.

          http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_rape_in_america_a_new_study_reveals_that_men_are_sexually_assaulted.html

       2. followed, I’m sure by “lay back and just try to enjoy it”

21. OT: Who is the contact person for the Westercon/Fantasycon get-together?

    1. the oyster, I think. BTW, my friend Dan Blatt (from gaypatriot.com) will be attending. y’all be nice him.

       1. Thank you 🙂

       2. How’s he been? Don’t see him or GP himself much on the blog, though Bruce does Tweet a ton.

          1. Dan is writing a fantasy novel, which he’d been ruminating for 10 years. the poor man came in contact with me and I asked him “why don’t you write it already.” I don’t generally like epic fantasy, but he’s written a very compelling book and is now launched into the second. Which means he’s not writing for GP — my apologies. I didn’t know it would have that effect.

             1. I remembered him mentioning working on something, but didn’t remember exactly what it was (forgot if it was a book or a screenplay).
                So your at fault, huh? Well, good for him, getting it out of his head.

22. Gray Lensmen, Trigger Argee and other “cis-normatives” are looking better all the time. Perish forbid we should focus on space opera and alien mysteries. The funny thing is how little our QUILTBAGs realize how often their own fiction resembles a variation on Norman’s Gor novels: a goofy sexual obsession in the wrong place. The rest of it’s a racial obsession, also crowbarred into the wrong place. It’s as weird as some private club of car mechanic authors always figuring out a way to put car mechanics front and center. The PC don’t get that – that’s why they call it an “obsession.” To them, it’s as natural as a sunny day.

    1. yes! You know, the last twenty years I have a pile of books that “I just couldn’t get into” and you just pinpointed why. It’s the “NO ONE LIVES THEIR LIVES OBSESSED WITH WHAT’S BETWEEN THEIR LEGS AND WHO THEY’RE ATTRACTED TO” Well, maybe the QUITBAGs are, but I doubt it. It’s just an attitude they put on.

       1. There was some SF book I suffered through for a book group–painful but fascinating like a massive multicar pileup on the freeway–that actually had a REFERENCE TABLE in the back for all of the different gender (16?) pronouns, and the term meaning “attracted to x, y, and z but not b”. I dunno, if I had been in that society I would have channeled my Inner Slobovian Rabbit and just said “YOU, I like!” and see if they ran or not. Nookie should not involve a lookup table.

          1. I suspect that a species with 16 sexes would rapidly speciate into sub-species that didn’t require quite so many partners. If all 16 sexes are required for each breeding success…I don’t see much future for that species.

             1. eh, If I recall correctly they were all of human origin, and some drug used for hyperspace travel had created true hermaphrodites, etc. You still only needed two whatever with the compatible organs to reproduce. But yeah, how would you ever meet enough of x gender to know if you liked/disliked x’s, vs. just disliking the x’s that you had met? Even a 2$ buy-me-drinky girl isn’t *that* busy.

                1. Actually, if that’s the one I’m thinking of — she never even touched on whether intersexuals were actually fertile. Could hermaphrodites both father and bear children?

                   1. ? Fertile? Would that be relevant? 🙂

                      1. Infertile is better. Children ruin your life-style. [Very Big Sarcastic Grin]

                         1. Yep, and kids interfere with the whole self-actualization and son on part, which is the really important part with sex and genders and so on, after all. 🙂

                            1. ‘son on…’ And the damn cat again. But I think I’m getting better with this ‘type over the mound lying between you and the keyboard’ thingie. Just one typo this time.

                      2. The same effect that produced so many intersexuals greatly increased infertility. If the societies are not organized in such a way as to maximize the exploitation of what fertility was left, they would have gone extinct generations before the book.

                         At the very least, dangerous jobs would be restricted to those from whom no children could be expected anyway.

             2. I may be wrong, but I’ve heard that there are biological species on Earth with as many as seven sexes.

                1. I actually almost included a line about how “now someone will provide a real-life example that debunks my hypothesis”:-).

                   1. It actually supports what you said– it’s a single cell organism that has seven “sexes,” and any of them can reproduce with any other.

                      Tetrahymena thermophila
                      http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/scientists-uncover-sex-selection-process-seven-sexed-organism

                      It’s actually really cool– while I can see why they called it “sexes,” it’s more like a proto-sex thing where they can reproduce with any of the same species as long as it’s sufficiently different.

                      Also, I’m blaming you two for the very, very strange ads that will hopefully be blocked by ad blocker……

          2. Shadow Man?

             That was a work in which it turned out that the FTL drive both massively increased the number of intersexuals, and depressed fertility. The big problem? Arranging sexual matters to maximize reproduction? No, defining sexual orientations that include all three “new sexes” as well as the original two.

             1. I could see hermaphrodites being hand-waved into existence, but what would the other two “intersexes” consist of? Multiple outies/innies?

                1. A fem has XY chromosomes, testes, and some female genitalia. A mem has XX chromosomes, ovaries, and some male genitalia.

                   Both would probably be sterile and therefore pushed to the worst jobs, because of the need to protect and sustain the fertile members for survival. Needless to say, doesn’t happen.

                2. Looking up “intersex” is an interesting rabbit hole. I found a lot about intersex conditions when I was pregnant the first time and heard that pregnant women shouldn’t even touch the bottle that the hair-regrowth formula Propecia came in. I looked up why. It’s fascinating and weird; the upshot is that the chemical can go through skin and replicate a rare genetic disorder called alpha-5 numerase reduction syndrome, which affects male fetuses and makes them present as female… until they hit puberty. Which is the gateway to a WHOLE lot of confusion…

                   Anyway. The term “intersex” describes a whole host of biological conditions that can include everything from physical androgyny to hyper-sexual presentation while having the chromosomal composition of the opposite gender. Biology has some weird stuff going on sometimes.

                   1. The thing that shocks me is how the systems can keep functioning when they’re so far from what they were designed for! Just try running a gas engine on diesel for six months, with various parts switched out….

                      ****

                      Growing up my mom explained that with beef cows, we couldn’t keep a female calf that was twins with a male one because she’d almost always be sterile, and might even grow up almost exactly like a steer– a Martin, I think she called the variation. Shame, because they were usually lovely animals that if they were fertile, could’ve carried a huge calf like nothing.

                      1. The term is “freemartin” – twin cattle share a placenta, and hence a blood supply. The male twin starts producing testosterone earlier than the female produces estrogen, and the testosterone encourages the development of tissues that would have been dormant without that influence. So the female twin’s sex organs develop improperly, sometimes to having the ovaries develop as testes.

                         (A free martin was any young female heifer that was not pregnant in the early fall, after the summer breeding period, and so in Christian European tradition would be slaughtered at the November feast of St Martin, rather than kept over the winter and fed hay that could be put to better use.)

                         Oddly enough, there are only a few species where this is an issue – goats and deer (close relatives of cattle) routinely have twins or triplets, and this condition is hardly ever present. Horses have a different placenta that won’t supply enough nutrition to allow more than one twin to make it to birth except in very very rare cases. Humans, dogs, cats, pigs – all carry multiple young without this kind of issue.

             2. That’s the one. All I recall is it hurt my head thinking about it. And yes, per Sarah’s comment, they spent ALL their time thinking about, erm, equipment and usage. And defining the orientation matrix. It’s a miracle they had enough food to eat.

                1. sounds like bad amateur porn to me.

                   1. No explicit scenes, you see.

             3. Which is where the skewed and insane priorities come in.

             4. “In ‘Umpire Man,’ the side effects of taking drugs to pilot spaceships means an exponential increase in baseball players. Best SF novel in 25 years.” – Baseball Weekly

                “Best Space Opera evah!” – ESPN

                “Man, I love me some science fiction” – Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA)

             5. This is one of my farm of peeves about SF.

                Too many times we have these far future cultures with technology far far advanced from todays, but in one glaring area (this case fertility and etc.) science has either completely stalled at current levels, or not much past.

                Fertility is not a problem (or wouldn’t be in a free market) because we can do artificial insemination and keep the zygotes frozen for a long, long time.

                I realize we don’t advance across all technologies at the same rate, but *TODAY* we’re on the cusp of being able to fix a lot of medical issues. By the time we get fast interstellar travel we’re going to be a little past fertility issues.

          3. I’d dearly love to quote this in full on my blog. May I, please?

       2. Generally speaking SFF takes it for granted that people make children. What fiction doesn’t? Genre could be about making children but it wouldn’t be the SFF genre. That doesn’t mean SFF doesn’t have its share of romances, mostly early on. Burroughs thrived on them and The Ship of Ishtar is one of fantasy’s all-time great novels and centered on a passionate romance that surpasses time and space; it has a killer ending.

          Tryst in Time by C.L. Moore is a very cool romantic short story about love that also wears out time itself and used to be thought of as a mini-classic. A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny is about a man’s passion for a Martian women. I like that type of thing. Love is a great part of life and it’s no surprise it shows up in SFF. Burroughsian SFF has sometimes been given its own sub-genre of planetary romance. None of that is anything like an obsession – it’s part of life, but healthy life.

          What I don’t like is this hyper-politicization of gender with its attendant narcissism and even hatreds being passed off as “it’s part of life.” It’s not even about love, but body parts and pronouns. That’s not the same artistic space as planetary romance or even Jirel of Joiry’s raging misunderstood emotion, and the idea men and women default to hating and fearing one another is silly. But even normal sex hyper portrayed in SFF would amount to obsessive porn and subvert the genre.

          If people like that, fine. Just stop telling me I’m a bigot against diversity and all PoC, women and gay folks if I don’t buy into weird offshoots of SFF. The Nebulas were an obsession with race and gender and hate. No thanks. That’s planetary hate. That’s a good name for it: Planetary Hate. Maybe a more acceptable term would be Planetary Diversity. I think I’ll start using that, and continue to ignore the fiction as much as their fiction ignores the genre and my humanity.

          That’s all over now anyway. These people have gone too far and been called out. QUILTBAGs sold us a bill of goods and said it was just diversity and “I wanna play too” and anti-racism, sexism and homophobia and we all know now that’s a pack of lies. People went along for awhile and QUILTBAGs took that as a mandate and started in with very public and startlingly blatant racist and sexist hate-speech.

          You can tell which ones are the fanatics by which ones aren’t fazed the least at the prospect of having their careers destroyed or marginalized over essentially nothing and ramble on worse than ever. And that’s their problem right there: that “nothing” is their bizarre and paranoid obsessions about straight white men they can’t let go of cuz they’re sick in their heads and hearts.

          1. And a bit OT, but not quite: looks like a movie has been made of ‘- All You Zombies -‘. The Heinlein short story, not the Hooters song.

          2. “Generally speaking SFF takes it for granted that people make children. What fiction doesn’t?

             Generally speaking it assumes that people, off-stage, will make and raise enough children to keep society going. Unfortunately, it does it without considering what this means. For instance, evolution is currently in overdrive. It’s currently selecting hard for people who want children or who fail to use contraception consistently. This means that the future is going to have more people who want children or fail to contracept. A LOT more in a few generations. Yet you have far future generations in which there are a lot of men and women who do not want to have children. Not likely.

             1. Yeah, that’s kind of a given. If you don’t have kids, your offspring won’t either.

                Which is why I’m seeing hard-core feminism as being both (a) self-limiting and (b) in an incessant recruitment mode on campuses for young women who might be ambivalent/resistant about the idea of marriage/having kids. Get them involved in ‘Women’s Studies’, and you’ve got a good chance of blocking them from men for life.

                The future belongs to those who show up for it, however. In fifty or a hundred years, I think we’re going to see a reproductive society more like the ’50s than today.

                1. Indeed, the modern feminist contempt for mothers is a perfect example of the Left — which claims to believe in the concepts of natural selection among heritable variation — not grasping the implications of the theory. They are creating a lure toward non-breeding, and thus selecting against susceptibility toward arguments against motherhood. The consequence, if they keep this up long enough, will be to produce a population very strongly interested in motherhood.

                   Elaine Morgan pointed this out over 40 years ago in The Descent of Woman. She was a feminist who did get the implications. Of course, she was an equality feminist, rather than a radical one. Being sane …

             2. For instance, evolution is currently in overdrive. It’s currently selecting hard for people who want children or who fail to use contraception consistently. This means that the future is going to have more people who want children or fail to contracept.

                Not at all true unless there is a distinct genetic factor distinguishing those who want children and/or fail to use contraception from the rest of the population. Evolution only selects for inheritable traits, and we have, at this point, zero evidence that the traits you mention are inheritable.

                1. I am going to suggest, without any support in argument or evidence (it is late I ought be abed or at least acot), that evolution applies to cultural adaptation as well as physical. One contributing factor for the failure of the Spartan system was surely their habit of exposing new-born infants to the elements. Victor Davis Hanson has written quite eloquently of the military superiority of Western, Democratic societies — certainly a factor in their prospering and higher birth rates.

                   The failure of conqueror cultures such as Temujin’s and Timur’s to consolidate their gains is an aspect of culture as well, their inability to peacefully transmit power across generations.

                   Is it not the ability of units within a society to organize and prosper that is determined by culture? Thomas Sowell has made this aspect of culture the subject of several books, and Mark Steyn has pointed to the declining birth rates in Western Society as an example of cultural failure.

                   To the degree that human social organization enhances the ability of people to prosper, breed and support large families and transmit their genetic stock culture has to be viewed as an evolutionary force.

                   1. I am going to suggest, without any support in argument or evidence (it is late I ought be abed or at least acot), that evolution applies to cultural adaptation as well as physical.

                      But it doesn’t, because cultural adaptations are not determined by parentage. In the case under discussion, the fact that most members of the population, several generations from now, will be descended from those who choose to be fertile in this generation, does not mean that philoprogenitiveness will be more common in that generation. The ideologies which influence many people today to choose sterility will not necessarily die out with their adherents, nor be transmitted only to their adherents’ few children.

                      Nobody is a Communist simply because his great-grandfather was a Communist. Nobody is not a Communist simply because his great-grandfather was not a Communist. Even in Communist countries, most people are Communist because they have been indoctrinated by State propaganda and State schools, not because they learnt it specifically from their parents. Karl Marx has, so far as we know, no living descendants, but his ideology has polluted the minds of countless millions. That is not evolution, and thinking of it in terms of evolutionary biology will lead you to conclusions that are reliably and predictably wrong.

                      1. Karl Marx has, so far as we know, no living descendants, but his ideology has polluted the minds of countless millions. That is not evolution, and thinking of it in terms of evolutionary biology will lead you to conclusions that are reliably and predictably wrong.

                         To which then the conclusion is who controls the minds of the young controls the future. A few of the discussions held in this blog has noted in the past the great slant of education towards the Left; a plot was uncovered in London where radical Islamists were able to control several public schools and begin implementing purely Islamic teachings and social conventions.

                         My question is: are we losing?

                   2. Tom, cultural adaptations do not need to be determined by biological parentage to undergo evolutionary processes. Cultural evolution is not identical to biological evolution, no more than biological is to the evolution of planetary orbits or of stars, but it is still an analogous process. Whereas biological evolution works on genes, cultural evolution works on the components of ideas: whether or not one chooses to call them “memes” or not, the process still operates.

                      Cultural adaptions transmit by cultural heredity, which need have nothing to do with the genes of the people transmitting or receiving the culture. Having said that, there is a tendency for the two processes to run in parallel through the same people, because the cuture of a child’s parents are normally the single largest influence on the culture the children will develop. Obvious examples of separating the two processes include mass educational indoctrinations and forcible mass adoptions of the young (such as the Ottoman Imperial janissary system).

                      1. Tom, cultural adaptations do not need to be determined by biological parentage to undergo evolutionary processes.

                         The basic evolutionary process works by random mutation and natural selection over successive generations. Cultural ‘mutations’ are not random, they are subject to artificial selection, and they can occur within one generation. These are not ‘evolutionary’ changes except by a very limited analogy — and as I said before, if you use that analogy beyond its limits, you will get results that are reliably wrong.

                         There are centuries of scientific literature exploring the processes of cultural change and adaptation. Why not base your ideas on those, instead of on evolutionary biology?

                2. Not at all true unless there is a distinct genetic factor distinguishing those who want children and/or fail to use contraception from the rest of the population.

                   There may well be such a factor (its original purpose would have been to push its possessors toward r-selection as opposed to k-selection). Additionally, children model themselves primarily on their parents, and the philo-progenerative tend to have more children. Finally, this would also tend to select for the tendency to model oneself on one’s parents as opposed to one’s unrelated mentors, or one’s peers.

                   1. Some cultures work better for those who have genetically evolved better impulse control, some work not so well, yet another way in which culture shapes genetic evolution.

                      Sure, culture is not genetically transmitted, but so what? Cultures which develop more effective transmission modes are more likely to replicate.

                      1. Some cultures work better for those who have genetically evolved better impulse control,

                         What is the gene for better impulse control? Please point it out on the human genome. Otherwise, you are assuming facts not in evidence.

                         1. Did anyone say there is a single gene for any human behaviour? Can you point to any human behaviour that correlates to a single gene? Do you thus assert no correlation between behaviour and genetic make-up?

                            Have you ever considered eschewing juvenile debate tactics in favour of actually exploring an idea?

                         2. I will point you to the gene affecting impulse control after you have pointed out the gene which results in ADHD.

                            Or do you hold ADHD is not a fact?

                            1. It might not be genetically determined; Tom was denying the idea of things being evolved when there’s no evidence of a genetic cause for the observed effect, not that things aren’t factually there without genetic cause.
                               *****
                               Now, it’s very likely that the biological traits that make a body not accept the “correction” of various “fool the body” birth control are something that passes on genetically. “Want babies” would work for those aspects of wanting babies that are genetic, but good luck identifying what those might be. I know maternal instinct can be selected for in cattle, even for calves that were raised by other cows, but even after decades or centuries of work some cows still just…wander off.

                            2. It has long been a basic thesis of Anthropology that humanity has long since substituted cultural evolution for the physical sort. Rather than adapt to our environment we adapt our environment to us.

                               Denial of this premise is not the same as refuting it. A simple “interesting thesis but I don’t buy it” is sufficient to end the discussion while no amount of argument can disprove the hypothesis.

                               Sadly, that is the nature of many scientific arguments; in the absence of facts we can neither rule in favor nor against a theory.

                            3. We were talking physical evolution, though; to switch to an anthropological theory of social evolution having taken the place of it would be equivocation, unless very clearly stated as a theory with support for it.

                               As it is, Tom’s been sticking with the original scope of evolution evolution, not anthropology theory of substitute evolution, and nobody has offered evidence that culture is carried by genes that I noticed.

                            4. I think I will have to disagree with you on this, Foxfier. A CTRL-F for evolution reveals the first mention of it by Mary

                               evolution is currently in overdrive. It’s currently selecting hard for people who want children or who fail to use contraception consistently.

                               which is easily interpreted as referring to cultural adaptation.

                               Moreover, Tim’s response to Mary

                               Evolution only selects for inheritable traits, and we have, at this point, zero evidence that the traits you mention are inheritable.

                               strongly suggests an effort to limit evolution to physical realm while asserting Mary’s use was not about physical evolution.

                               My response was the third mention of evolution, and posited it could apply to cultural adaptation. That clearly suggests the disagreement was over how “evolution” (a theory for which there exists no proof) should be applied to human society.

                               Still, it ain’t worth arguing. Roll the discussion back if you like.

                            5. And I’ve got to disagree with you; in absence of clear intent to use a nonstandard meaning, it’s reasonable to assume the standard meaning is meant, and hitting dictionary.com indicates the anthropological theory you’ve mentioned hasn’t even hit there.

                               A bit less generally, Mary’s theory isn’t exactly a new conversation, and she’s never used it to mean some sort of cultural evolution. 😀

                            6. You looked in the dictionary for a theory?

                               How peculiar. I suspect you won’t find it in your atlas, either.

                               I am sure it would not matter to you that the theory of cultural evolution replacing physical is at the root of Dickson’s Dorsai series? But heck, ol’ Gordon was probably using a non-standard definition fifty-five years ago, right?

                               But, as I said — roll it back if that’s what you have to do. Heaven forfend we discuss any “new” or “novel” concepts around here. Let’s settle all arguments by limiting definitions.

                            7. You looked in the dictionary for a theory?

                               When that theory is in common use in normal conversation, that’s how you find out what the normal use is.

                               You might want to try it. You’d be amazed how may actually common theories are explained in a dictionary, and that doesn’t even count a place like dictionary.com that has a scientific dictionary.

                               It was there; it simply wasn’t the specialized theory that you were perusing, so in absence of evidence that Mary was speaking in terms of social evolution this time, you were talking at right angles to everyone else by using a term differently.

                               The problem isn’t in discussing new or novel concepts, it’s that we cannot discuss them if “third person who comes in and wants to interpret all that came before in terms of a specialized interpretation of a word, rather than the use that’s so common it’s in the dictionary gets to define what words are being used to mean” destroys any chance to actually discuss concepts.

                            8. Who left town and appointed you schoolmarm?

                               As third post in a comment chain I clearly indicated the direction in which I was developing the concept. Thus I can scarcely be convicted of hijacking a discussion unannounced. A simple polite solution to those disinterested in it might have been to ignore my comment. Abrogating unto yourselves the authority to declare my participation intrusive seems needlessly dictatorial.

                               I admit that you provide some level of amusement as I pursue my investigation into how far some of you will pursue this.

                            9. I will point you to the gene affecting impulse control after you have pointed out the gene which results in ADHD.

                               Or do you hold ADHD is not a fact?

                               I hold that ADHD has not been shown to be genetically determined. Ball in your court.

                               You looked in the dictionary for a theory?

                               How peculiar. I suspect you won’t find it in your atlas, either.

                               Foxfier looked in the dictionary for the definition of a term. Funny, I always thought that was what dictionaries were for.

                               Look: when Mary talked about evolution, she was very clearly talking specifically about biological evolution, because she was making the case that a group having more offspring would pass a particular trait on to a greater percentage of the future population than a competing group having fewer offspring. But culture is not transmitted genetically from parent to child, and the trait in question is a cultural one; therefore the number of one’s offspring is not dispositive, and the argument fails.

                               I answered her on that basis, and you can blow as much smoke as you like about alternative (and not generally accepted) usages of the word ‘evolution’; but that doesn’t make you right, relevant, or even polite.

                            10. … you can blow as much smoke as you like about alternative (and not generally accepted) usages of the word ‘evolution’

                                I don’t suppose it occurred to you to put “cultural evolution” into a search engine to see what turned up? Dictionaries are of limited use, especially when dealing with scientific theories, The term has been in use since the 19th Century, but I guess that is still novel.

                                Obviously I disagree with your interpretation of Mary’s usage — the trait she was speaking of was the desire for children, which suggests a cultural or at least a psychological consideration to the term. It seems to me that the time to narrow your terms was when I first raised the possibility of Dorsai-like evolution, but I am not the one lecturing folks o politeness.

                                As for ADHD, you’ve clearly never looked into it and I see no reason to believe you would accept my instruction in the term, as I am not a neuro-scientist and my experience of it is only the entirety of my daughter’s thirty years life. Maybe the doctors, developmental specialists and others were just blowing smoke up my skirts, right?

                                As I have said, feel free to limit discussions here to only those concepts with which you are comfortable. I apologise for introducing unfamiliar concepts and sympathize with the strain it costs you.

                            11. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to put “cultural evolution” into a search engine to see what turned up? Dictionaries are of limited use, especially when dealing with scientific theories, The term has been in use since the 19th Century, but I guess that is still novel.

                                No reason to do so, because nobody but you was talking about it and you most assuredly weren’t trying to join the discussion. If we’d been having a discussion about anthropology, rather than the result of birth control failing and people who choose not to use it, that would be relevant.

                                Incidentally, the full quote from Dictionary.com’s science dictionary.

                                Science Dictionary
                                evolution [%PREMIUM_LINK%] (ěv’ə-l ‘shən) Pronunciation Key
                                The process by which species of organisms arise from earlier life forms and undergo change over time through natural selection . The modern understanding of the origins of species is based on the theories of Charles Darwin combined with a modern knowledge of genetics based on the work of Gregor Mendel. Darwin observed there is a certain amount of variation of traits or characteristics among the different individuals belonging to a population. Some of these traits confer fitness—they allow the individual organism that possesses them to survive in their environment better than other individuals who do not possess them and to leave more offspring. The offspring then inherit the beneficial traits, and over time the adaptive trait spreads through the population. In twentieth century, the development of the the science of genetics helped explain the origin of the variation of the traits between individual organisms and the way in which they are passed from generation to generation. This basic model of evolution has since been further refined, and the role of genetic drift and sexual selection in the evolution of populations has been recognized. See also natural selection, sexual selection. See Notes at adaptation, Darwin.

                                A process of development and change from one state to another, as of the universe in its development through time.

                                Our Living Language : Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection assumed that tiny adaptations occur in organisms constantly over millions of years. Gradually, a new species develops that is distinct from its ancestors. In the 1970s, however, biologists Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed that evolution by natural selection may not have been such a smooth and consistent process. Based on fossils from around the world that showed the abrupt appearance of new species, Eldridge and Gould suggested that evolution is better described through punctuated equilibrium. That is, for long periods of time species remain virtually unchanged, not even gradually adapting. They are in equilibrium, in balance with the environment. But when confronted with environmental challenges—sudden climate change, for example—organisms adapt quite quickly, perhaps in only a few thousand years. These active periods are punctuations, after which a new equilibrium exists and species remain stable until the next punctuation.

                                The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
                                Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
                                Cite This Source

                            12. Incidentally, if one is looking for a specific flavor of a theory, an encyclopedia is superior to a random search engine:
                                http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/146212/cultural-evolution

                                After much explaining about how it goes back to the 16th century, and includes the stone, bronze and iron ages, etc….
                                Social scientists found that the framework suggested by biological evolution offered an attractive solution to their questions regarding the origins and development of social behaviour. Indeed, the idea of a society as an evolving organism was a biological analogy that was taken up by many anthropologists and sociologists and that persisted in some quarters even into the 20th century

                                Link also from dictionary dot com: my go-to starting point because it beats getting up and walking over to physical dictionaries to page through them, with citations!

                                You really should try the dictionary for what words– even words for theories– mean. Your notion that it’s as likely to find them in an atlas will be greatly challenged.

                            13. The advantage of a search engine is that it simultaneously provides links to dictionaries, encyclopedias and authoritative texts, such as “Anthropology 101” — slightly preferable to single source analysis.

                                When I desire to know the precise meaning of a word and its usage I refer to multiple dictionary sites as well as the two different unabridged dictionaries I keep handy to my workstation. Doesn’t everybody? But doing that for something like a scientific theory foregoes the important nuances one gets from encyclopedic sources.

                                Relying on a single source interpretation of something so complex as a theory is sooo 20th Century!

                            14. The advantage of a search engine is that it simultaneously provides links to dictionaries, encyclopedias and authoritative texts, such as “Anthropology 101″ — slightly preferable to single source analysis.

                                That assumes what you’re trying to prove– that “evolution” is commonly used to mean “cultural evolution,” to the degree that people talking about “evolution” in the context of who has babies are of course speaking of cultural evolution, and it is foolish to suppose anything else.

                                A point you have singularly failed to support with anything more than assertion and really silly snideness, with a sprinkling of “where on earth did you get that?” (IE, the accusation about ADHD not being real, when at the very best you could extrapolate from his position to accuse him of saying it is not genetic….which is not nearly as effective.)

                                *****

                                Are you having some sort of major life problem? You’re usually argumentative, but you don’t usually go about throwing chips on folks’ shoulders just to knock them off. Either way, I’m not going to feed your frenzy anymore.

                            15. Tsk. Misrepresentation, false accusation, pop-psychology and projection, all in one passive-aggressive burst. Impressive, even by your standards.

                                Your assertion I was trying to assume my “proof” completely misses the crux of the matter and inverts the question. I clearly stated the thesis of my point — that cultures evolve. Therefore it seems reasonable that anybody unclear about the concept would deploy a multi-source information collection process. Using a single data source of limited applicability seems more probable if somebody is trying to exclude the concept through false limitation but suffers deep-seated psychological aversion to saying “interesting approach but not really applicable here.”

                                Your failure to read my support of my contention or recognize it is an issue I am not interested in pursuing. Similarly, your failure to recognize my primary argument — that it is foolish to seek any aspect of human behaviour as derived from a single gene — in favour of focusing on the example I offered, ADHD (of which, in point of fact, impulse control is a component) is enlightening but not interesting.

                                As for being snide, that I think, is a consequence of your own unevolved sense of humour, poor reading comprehension, innate dislike for me personally or some combination thereof. Others, I believe, interpret my commentary style as being arch and playful, premised on a shared recognition that what we “debate” here on the internet is unimportant and affects the “real” world only slightly if at all.

                                I will concede the argumentative — it is an unusual approach to web site discussions, I realize, but challenging ideas and provocative discussions are hardly unusual on the internet. Concluding that I am having personal issues seems a bit presumptive, as well as being exactly contrary to fact — Beloved Spouse has almost fully completed course of treatments for serious life-threatening illness and my professional life is taking a significant turn for the better. I had noticed you seemed even more than ordinarily authoritarian and was wondering whether you were again with child but had been too considerate to suggest such a personal matter until you presumed to infer about my non-virtual life.

                                I suggest you engage in more self-reflection and eschew the amateur psychoanalysis of people you don’t actually know a thing about. It isn’t as if you can see whether my eyes twinkle or glare, is it?

                            16. BTW, Fox, it might have escaped your attention but I had introduced the idea that evolution might be cultural almost immediately after Tom’s reply to Mary and a full day before you butted in to lecture <me as to what we were talking about. In the interim several other commenters had weighed in on the proposition that evolution can be cultural (I omit citation to avoid their being drawn in to your hissy) so I hardly see any need to take your criticism seriously.

                                I realize that the WP nesting paradigm can make following a discussion’s evolution needlessly difficult, but a little judicious CTRL-F and careful examination of date stamps can be illuminating. You arrived a day late and an argument short.

                                It might also occur to you to look at date stamps and such phrases as “you can blow as much smoke as you like” before you point accusatory fingers. A less contemplative and secure individual than I might conclude you had acquired a peculiar personal animus toward me, possibly in response to a deeply repressed desire for me, but I am too reflective and cautious about judging people I know only as phosphor dot arrangements to jump to any such absurd conclusion.

       3. Of course, what you complain about in caps is an idea that’s actually penetrated certain parts of society regarding how all men think.

          They’re wrong, of course. We only think like that 90% of the time. 95% tops.

          😛

       4. Excuse my interruption. I am glad to know I’m not alone in experiencing this phenomena. I thought that perhaps I was outgrowing the genre.

          1. No. It’s that you can’t read about crazy people with any pleasure!
             I have characters who are gay or odd — but that is not their sole reason for living. They have lives apart and aside from that and there are usually needs FAR in advance of “oppression because I’m non standard.” Sheeesh

          2. I still remember the woman who insisted that the wands in Harry Potter were symbols of, ehem, masculinity — and when I pointed out the obvious, that the girls got ’em, she declared that was because they were symbolically male because of their magical powers, and power is masculine.

23. “I love Eric Flint’s books, but he’s a card-carrying communist.”
    Wikipedia says that he was a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Is he still a member? Some people have told me that he now calls himself a Democratic Socialist.

    1. He identifies strongly with Leon Trotsky. We disagree vehemently on some points, agree entirely on others (I’m an anarcho-libertarian philosophically, accepting it’s not a workable system in the real world).

       He has nothing against profit motive.

       1. No communist does when it applies to them. Trust me. From the childhood friend, now estranged high in the councils of the European communists, who also happens to be a partner in several banks, to any other communist I’ve known. It’s always come the revolution profit will no longer be needed.

          1. It would do neither of you any great harm if you and Eric were to have a serious conversation about the subject. Eric is not under any party discipline, and indeed the origin of the Trotskyite movement, resulting in the founding of Commentary magazine which transmogrified into neo-conservatism was in large part because of rejection of party discipline. Eric has more regard for part of Marx than I do, but it is hardly the sin against the Holy Ghost to take some of Marx’s analyses of the future of capitalism, including concentration of wealth and the co-opting of government into aiding the capitalists with the result being crony capitalism, seriously. Marx wasn’t always wrong, nor was he alone in some of his analyses.

             I don’t think you will find that Eric longs for “the revolution.”

    2. Eric certainly is a communist, the most well spoken and well reasoned I have ever had the pleasure of talking to.

       He describes himself as a Trotskyite, and points out that unless you’ve been immersed in the fussy bits of 20th century socialism you don’t know what that means.

       He also is profoundly in favor of initiative, entrepreneurs, and profit.

       1. “He describes himself as a Trotskyite, and points out that unless you’ve been immersed in the fussy bits of 20th century socialism you don’t know what that means.”

          Does he mean that there are subtleties that allow for the possibility of a humane communism? Even after a century of failure and atrocities? And a century of supposedly moderate leftists making excuses for those atrocities while attacking those who opposed communism? Meh.

          1. When Trotsky broke with Stalin because he thought he was insufficient harsh. . . .

             1. It says something that the architect of the gulag archipelago and The Butcher of La Cabaña are the examples brought forth as “good” Communists by the proponents of Communism.

       2. Christopher Hitchens was a self-proclaimed Trotskyite as well.

          Doesn’t mean that I didn’t like a lot of what Hitchens wrote. I could, for instance, support the (suicidal, mind you) impulse that caused him to deface a swastika in Beirut. And much of what he wrote during the last decade or so (notable exception – his comments on religion) I could agree with. But the fact that we were fellow travelers at that point in time didn’t preclude the idea that he believed a lot of things that I did not. And if it weren’t for the mess known as the modern Middle East, I might have had nothing but contempt for the things that he wrote.

       3. “He also is profoundly in favor of initiative, entrepreneurs, and profit.”

          If he’s an admirer of Trotsky then it would be initiative and profit under the bootheel of the State. No thanks.

    3. And he’s shown a cpusa card to other people. Eh.

       1. If I wasn’t pretty sure it’s a bad idea for security clearance, I’d join the International Anarchist’s Organization JUST FOR THE CARD.

          The sheer level of “um…. That word, I do not think it– oh, never mind, I *give up.*”!!!!

          1. Isn’t there something wonderfully American in the notion of mass produced consumer goods that sport the Anarchy “A”?

             1. We do have a skill for absurdity.

                1. I thought the “A” stood for Absurd … oops

             2. The best part is noticing the little (TM) symbol next to the A.

          2. You have a computer. Make the card yourself.
             (I’d offer, but I’ve only got a couple days left to get this #$^&ing story done for the contest, and it is NOT cooperating.)

             1. Nah, it’s not the same. 😀 Gotta be the OFFICIAL organized anarchist of the world!

          3. Eugene, Oregon once had an anarchist on the city council.

             This probably explains everything you need to know about Eugene.

             1. And Seattle has a Socialist on its city council (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant)
                Eugene still wins the weirdness contest, however.

                1. We don’t just have her, she’s leading the entire pack of loons. (No offense to birds or the clinically insane.)

          4. Anyone know if Champaign, Illinois still licenses necromancers?

       2. “And he’s shown a cpusa card to other people.”
          I’m not sure why so many people are willing to respect a communist when they would not be so foolish as to respect an out-and-proud fascist. But perhaps the answer is suggested by their willingness to embrace fascists who do not publicly admit what they are. (See for instance Obama’s comments to historians that he favors corporatism.)

       3. He needs to learn to keep it in his pants. Some things you don’t whip out and display in mixed company.

24. I’ll bet this will Russel their Jimmies. SFWA is exactly like the Catholic Priesthood that ignored their pedophiles.

    1. except – it seems that mutual support of sexual sociopathies is a de facto purpose of their organization, rather than a corruption of it…?

25. I’m also seeing people who have decided to purge/burn MZB’s books that they currently own. a power trip is a power trip is a power trip. I am opposed to non-consensual sex of any kind…however, I am also opposed to censorship.

    1. Burning your own books is not censorship.

       1. It’s free speech!

          At least as much as burning a flag.

       2. What if you accidentally burn a book? I had a heater malfunction and it tipped over onto a book and started it smoldering …. Ironically it was Weber’s Ashes of Victory.

    2. Yes. This. If the books spoke powerfully to you before, what has changed about the books? If the books *have* changed…perhaps one needs to keep them around, as reminders of how one can be manipulated by conceptions of the artist.

       We should absolutely take a stand – but we don’t have to slide into two minutes of hate in order to be resolute.

       1. We should absolutely take a stand – but we don’t have to slide into two minutes of hate in order to be resolute.

          Please do not conflate objecting to the actual harmful actions of a person, and acting on that objection, with the ritual irrational hatred of a manufactured target.

          Also, burning your own book because the author disgusts you is not suppressing free speech, it is practicing it.

          1. If you have to resort to destroying things that never actually harmed anyone in order to “act on one’s objection” to a person (or their actions), then imo you’re not displaying a great deal of rationality, and manipulation by others into manufactured hatred is not so far behind.

             And if you think I was objecting to the expression of free speech, you greatly mistake me. I disagree with what was *said*, and do not object to the saying of it.

             Burning idols dispel no Gods, burning books destroy no ideas, and as writers, imo, we should be above dancing on the remainered returns of our enemies.

             1. You claimed that burning a book, which a person owns, because the author has been shown to be a horrific person was censorship– and then compared it to the “two minute hate.” I pointed out it is nothing like the “two minute hate.”

                Your claiming that it’s not sufficiently rational because the book didn’t do anything is, well, not a rational defense or support of your claim that it’s censorship.

                1. Okay, hold on. Please point to where I used the word “censorship” *at all*.

                   And it is VERY like the two minute hate – everyone get together now and gash their teeth at the latest person that has offended us! Throw their books on the fire! Deny you ever found anything worthwhile in what they had said!

                   Again, what on *earth* did the book do to you? Or to one of Breen or MZB’s victims? And what purpose, aside from trying to silence a person fifteen years dead, is destroying their work going to do?

                   If the answer is “It will make me feel better” – well, okay, but don’t come round telling me *I* am the irrational one.

                   1. Okay, hold on. Please point to where I used the word “censorship” *at all*.

                      Might want to go double-check what you endorsed, right up thread.

                      1. And you may want to check your reading comprehension. I did not calling book burning ‘censorship’. And I stand by what I said – “purging” is not awesome, particularly if done under heat of emotion, and posts in support of it should be viewed with caution and treated with pushback.

                         Let the other side cling to their notions of ideology and purity. We are made of firmer foundations.

                         1. My reading comprehension is just fine. If you can’t be bothered to pay attention to what you said in this instance, then I shall follow your lead.

                   2. Things change. People change. Their mentality toward certain things changes.

                      When I was younger, I listened to a lot of stuff by the band Oingo Boingo. The one day something quite traumatic happened to me. I won’t mention what happened because the details are ultimately irrelevant to the discussion at hand. But something happened, and for the next year I couldn’t listen to Oingo Boingo. If I turned on something by them, I had to turn it in less than a minute.

                      People are hearing something rather surprising to them. It causes changes in peoples’ attitudes. Something that was appreciated in the past might now cause people to start thinking about what the author did. That by itself might be enough to throw people out of their “happy place” when reading MZB books that they’d previously enjoyed.

                      So no, I don’t fault people for destroying any of her books that they own. Though I’d personally encourage them to wait at least a year before doing so.

                      1. With you, there – about reassessing. Look, I began to read the Darkover novels after I came off a tour in Greenland. Thirty miles above the Arctic circle, cold beyond words to describe, remote … oh, God, if it weren’t for the fact that the little airstrip was Greenland’s international airport … we’d have been almost totally isolated. I related … to the Terrans in her books, who pitched down on a cold, remote and dark-skied place because of duty and career, and came to some kind of adjustment. I came up with some (I thought) pretty good fan-fic about it — and I also identified with the Renunciates in some ways. Yes, pick up the privileges and obligations of a woman in a man’s world, setting aside the shelter of established custom and obligations. Be a strong, capable and independent woman, no whining allowed. Just pick up the slack and do your job.
                         And now I find out that the woman who created all that world – which spoke to me, and even inspired me when I began to consider writing professionally – was basically living a pretense. So much for strong, capable women, protecting children.
                         I won’t go as far as to trash the copies of her books and the various anthologies that I have – it might turn out to be that MZB as a hideously abusive mother might be a fantasy on the part of an unbalanced child. Yes, I have heard of things like that happening – recovered memory, etc … but the enabling of her husband; that’s a matter of record. And that it was an open secret among a certain circle in the fan-world… that takes some getting used to.

                   3. Okay, hold on. Please point to where I used the word “censorship” *at all*.

                      You posted your remarks in response to and agreement with kittent, who did use the word ‘censorship’. And you did not demur at kittent’s usage of the word. It would better serve you to clarify your position than to stonewall by means of debating-club legalisms.

             2. Since no one has said that everyone ought to burn their books, I’m not sure what it is that you’re going on about. If I decide to burn my books, that’s up to me. If someone else decides to burn the books that they own, that’s entirely up to them.

                Deciding that burning the book hurts the author or “dispels the gods” is silly, but who was guilty of it? Maybe someone just doesn’t want those books taking up space? I have bookshelves piled two rows deep with two rows stuffed into the top of each shelf. I could use more space. If seeing the book gives me an icky stomach because it now functions as a trigger (ha!) for my own memories or just initiates feelings of disgust, I may well want rid of it. If I would feel a bit like an accomplice by passing the book on to others, I may well decide to destroy it instead of sticking it in the thrift store box.

                It’s totally legitimate to say that you would just keep the books, yourself. It’s not so legitimate to try to make this into some overarching principle.

                1. +1

                2. It’s totally legit to say that one no longer wants the books in your library – I question the utility of disposing of them, as I said before.

                   What I object to is the over-the-top emotional reaction of “I ran through the house and tore all her books from my shelves! And BURNED THEM!”

                   As if that were showing MZB something.

                   I am not saying that people have to keep them, I’m saying that oppressive regimes of old had the option of just selling or giving away or dumping books they disapproved of. Instead, they burned them to make a statement.

                   What statement are we making, when we purge our libraries of DoubleUnGood words, by DoubleUnGood people, and then burn them?

                   1. As a vent for emotional stress, it’s considerably more sensible than many others.

                      1. There are a lot of things more sensible than “burning people for reals”. That doesn’t make burning books rational.

                         1. I have had a very small number of books in my time that I thought were so pernicious, so full of lies and propaganda in favour of such an evil cause, that I not only did not wish to have them in my own library, but could not in good conscience sell them lest they lead some unwary person into evil. These books I threw away. If it had been usual for me to dispose of my trash by burning, I would have burnt them with a good conscience along with the rest of the trash. That, I submit, is perfectly rational.

    3. If I have one on my E-Reader* and delete it, is that censorship?

       *Nindle? Noodle? Kook?

26. I’m a little confused by all the MZB hoorah… Stephen Goldin’s posts about MZB, Breen and the excerpts from her depositions on the subject have been up at sff.net since 1999 ( http://www.sff.net/people/stephen.goldin/mzb/ ) and ghu knows I’ve been through all this before. Do people somehow just FORGET this stuff?

    This isn’t the first time that Moira Greyland has made clear that he mom was abusive, and MZB’s article on the “feminine equivalents to Greek Love” certainly seemed to make her thoughts on the subject clear.

    What boggles my mind is, Delaney can be an SFWA Grand Master, MZB can be the editor who lauched a lot of careers and spoke to lots of people’s hearts with her art, and so you can overlook their personal foibles, but God Forbid that Uncle Timmy published someone else’s purportedly racist or sexist story and suddenly Uncle Timmy is anathema.

    Apparently, he isn’t a great enough artist. I’m looking forward to shaking his hand again this weekend.

    1. I’m relatively new to SFF. I only started reading it in 2003 or so.

       1. 2002. Flint’s 1632 and 1633.

       2. And I was only even in touch with fandom from 2000 on, and haven’t spent much time on the gossipy bits, being busy with writing.

       3. Since I was about 11, 1961. Fandom I didn’t know about until, roughly, college, and then only from a distance. And that sort of like watching a curious sort of Fourth of July parade, complete with floats, costumes and fireworks.

    2. Right… it’s not that hard to understand that people want to compartmentalize those unsavory things that maybe we’d rather not think about. Human nature is what it is.

       But where do they get off having fainting fits over Uncle Timmy or starting a Purge over the high crime of the term “lady editor?”

       1. Exactly.

    3. I was pretty dang involved with online fandom– with a Star Trek focus– in 99, and I’d never heard a thing about it. (16/17 year old girl, primary social outlet. That level of involved.)

       Been reading SF heavily since about… 95?

       My English teacher was pretty dang involved in the background of any authors he suggested, and if he’d know she was a rapist and child molester he definitely would have mentioned it while pushing Mists.

       I never heard a single thing about it.

       1. Your experience approaches mine, and is an indication of just how poorly the “whisper patrol” worked to protect people.

          Public accusations, with evidence, and bring the person to trial. It’s the only thing that is going to work. Trying to use lesser tools of social shunning is, IMO, going to fail, stunningly, on geeks.

          1. . Trying to use lesser tools of social shunning is, IMO, going to fail, stunningly, on geeks.

             Understatement award bait, there.

          2. And abroad, before everybody got online, what chance would we have had to hear of these things? Several of MZBs books have been translated to Finnish, but of course not a chance her Finnish publisher would mention something like that even if they knew about it.

             I think I first ran into something around or a bit after the middle of last decade, and that article (? – no idea anymore what article, or even if it was an article rather than something like a forum post) talked only about that second husband, and mentioned that they had divorced. The generic impression given I remember was that she had maybe been kind of blind, but most likely gullible blind rather than on purpose blind. Seeing what her daughter is saying gives a rather, well, different, impression of the whole thing.

             I can understand the urge to downplay this, now or before, by her fans well enough. Especially since she is dead. She was quite influential in some ways, especially when it comes to the current holy cows, sexual minorities and female empowerment.

             Not fun to find out your idol has feet of clay. Or maybe is more clay than gold as a whole, after all. I have liked several of her novels, but to me they never gave any great revelations moments, as they seem to have given to some, and I was never more than a just barely there fan of hers (they were in the ‘well, these are usually okay, and the worlds can be interesting’ category for me, not in the ‘OOH, GOTTA HAVE!’ one) so finding out about this is disappointing, but does not make me feel betrayed. Or stupid.

             Or guilty.

             But if it had been somebody I am a real fan of… I think a big part of this might be the feeling that if you have enthusiastically supported somebody who turns out to be some sort of monster you actually are an accomplice. And nobody wants to feel guilty. So maybe it’s easier to try and belittle or ignore the whole thing, because if it doesn’t actually matter, or isn’t quite that bad after all, then YOU have no reason to feel guilty either. No big deal. Why is everybody in such an uproar?

             And then they will probably go and intensify their attacks on some suitable targets to further transfer all that guilt as far away from themselves as possible. 😦

             And if that last part happens – and it probably will, if not immediately then at least after a while, when it’s easier to do it without getting immediately accused of hypocrisy – now that is the really ugly part.

             1. Maybe I should add this: understanding doesn’t mean I’m willing to excuse. Well, in this kind of situations I am fairly willing to excuse some equivalent of shamefaced silence, but loud defense or attempts to deny not so much. And that transferring the guilt thing, especially when something actually was very bad (noo, it wasn’t that bad really, no rape rape, but YOURS! looky looky looky!) not at all.

             2. I think I first ran into something around or a bit after the middle of last decade, and that article (? – no idea anymore what article, or even if it was an article rather than something like a forum post) talked only about that second husband, and mentioned that they had divorced. The generic impression given I remember was that she had maybe been kind of blind, but most likely gullible blind rather than on purpose blind. Seeing what her daughter is saying gives a rather, well, different, impression of the whole thing.

                That’s pretty much how I learned about Breen (and how much) about the same time, maybe a little later, looking up a list of Darkover novels to see which ones I hadn’t read (since I’d last read one around 1985 or maybe a little later).

             3. And then they will probably go and intensify their attacks on some suitable targets to further transfer all that guilt as far away from themselves as possible.

                Ouch. Yes, this. Which of course I only know about from hearsay, because neither I nor any of my friends or cousins or idols or roommates or fellow bus-riders would do such a thing. But I’ve heard of it.

                But we already said, humans, and so we repeat ourselves, as this sort of thing is in our nature.

          3. The proper response to a crime is never shunning.

             It’s not like she liked to fart on crowded rooms or cussed like a sailor or told off color jokes in mixed company. Shunning is the proper tool for something like that.

             She raped children. She covered up the rape of children. She aided in the rape of children.

             In what universe is shunning the proper response to that? (I know you’re not arguing it is, but apparently a large number of people think that way).

             1. “Shunning is the proper tool for something like that.”

                And again, I don’t think it works that well with geeks.

                “She raped childern”

                I think it’s very important to be clear on what there is independent evidence of, what a person has been charged with, what a person has been accused of by one witness, and what is rumor.

                To be clear – the least of the proven things done by MZB warrent intervention and charges (complicity in child abuse) were she still alive.

                What I find really frustating is the current fannish default to one of two responses – shunting around/shunning/ignoring the unacceptable behavior (old fandom style) or screaming mob attacks (new fandom/SJW style). I don’t think either works well.

                I’m not seeing a lot of support for polite, continued, dedicated engagement/intervention. Perhaps because that is more likely done face to face, and by people with better social skills than geeks.

                1. I think it’s very important to be clear on what there is independent evidence of, what a person has been charged with, what a person has been accused of by one witness, and what is rumor.

                   Is there sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction in a court of law? No.

                   Is there sufficient evidence for me, as a personal judgment, to conclude she was a child rapist? Yes.

                   Note, I say this about an author whose works I did enjoy reading. While I haven’t read what came to be her most famous books I have read a significant fraction of those that made her name.

                   I have not advocated destroying her books although I have reconsidered finishing my collection of S&S anthologies and Darkover novels just as finding out about the NAMBLA connection has lead me to reconsider seeking out all the Neveryon books. As an individual I have the right to choose with whom I spend my time and the reasons I use to make those choices. I am not arguing she should be retroactively removed from organizations or have awards revoked. In fact, in the Penn State case I thought the retroactive “you didn’t win those games” was just another way of covering up what happened and avoiding punishment (the rewards for those wins was obtained years ago). I would think the same of her positions and awards being retroactively revoked even if she was alive and convicted. We cannot undo the past even when it humiliates us.

                   However, unless other evidence is supplied I have shifted from thinking she, as it was put above, ” had maybe been kind of blind, but most likely gullible blind rather than on purpose blind,” to thinking she saw no problem because she did the same thing. I will no more reserve that judgment until it is adjudicated in court (and if I had to be the jury in such a court based on the currently available to me evidence I would not vote to convict) anymore that I will advocate white washing the collective past of scifi if such legal adjudication occurs.

                   One of the great mistakes of the modern West is its legalism which leads from “if it’s not illegal it’s okay” to “if I’m not caught it’s okay”.

                   1. Is there sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction in a court of law? No.

                      For all we know, there may be sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. We don’t know all the evidence that might be available to a prosecutor armed with the power of subpoena. And we never shall know whether there is sufficient evidence to convict, because the test can no longer be made. There is no defendant, and the law does not customarily waste its time by conducting criminal trials against dead people.

    4. I think for a number of us who only learned about this stuff, it’s news. I certainly wasn’t involved in the SFF communities (at the time I wrote fanfiction for the anime The Slayers), had very limited access to Internet. This was a time in the Philippines where the only bookstore was National Bookstore (and then most books were obtained from the second hand bookshops because there was more of a selection) and occasionally Comics Alley would have the occasional fantasy book for sale from TSR, and a little store called Nova Fontana would have maybe a shelf of AD&D stuff buried amongst the puzzles and model warships and airplanes.

       1999, I believe I was more into Eddings, Dragonlance and Diane Duane, also Star Trek novels/comics and Star Wars Expanded Universe.

       So yeah, not really much opportunity for folks like myself to ‘know’ about MZB. I didn’t even know she was married. To me at the time, she was a name on the shelf, and whose writing wasn’t interesting enough to spend money on. In fact, it used to annoy me when she’d be all that was there on the shelf.

    5. Rick, my friend, I am reading this as that you’ve got it bass ackwards. The cause of the hoorah is NOT people suddenly discovering facts (which I didn’t know about either, so certainly less widely known than all that) The cause of the hoorah is Tor.com publishing a praise paean to Zimmer Bradley. Now, firstly the writer deserves pillory, because there is no way THEY could have missed finding this cess-pit. Secondly, the ‘older’ SFWA members and fans – who had seen the ’99 stuff, were complicit in their silence about this article. That includes leading folk at Tor. It took Dierdre Moen – who is not a right winger, and e-mails from Bradley’s daughter to bring the ‘rehabilitation’ of this child-abuser to public attention. Once again, it wasn’t those who MUST have known about it who reacted to this. They could have demanded the article be pulled, they could led in condemning her and Breen. Instead they tried to brush it off, they’ve done nothing but make excuses for the pedophile. So: it’s not ‘old news.’ The news is that the cancer still thrives and the attempts to cover up show that the secondaries are all through their inner circle.

       I share your opinion about Uncle Timmy. That’s not just double standards, that’s several orders of magnitude of ridiculous.

    6. I’ve been avidly reading sci-fi for some 30+ years, but fandom is foreign to me.
       The closest I’ve ever lived to anywhere it was a “thing” was a good 4 hour drive. That I’d have to take by myself. To enter a large building full of strangers. Many of whom dressed oddly.
       Never really saw the appeal.

       And yes, the MZB revelation is new to me.

    7. I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy since I was fourteen, in ’94 (I had chicken pox and Dad gave me Anne McCaffrey after the first week–probably because when I was reading I wasn’t whining). I had no idea.
       And look, unlike a lot of the other younger, more internet-informed fans, I’m only one degree removed from MZB. If the trial information had been out there on the national news, my family would’ve discussed it and been very concerned, because when I was a little kid (say, 1-8 or so) I was friends with the daughter of someone who co-wrote with her/still writes (as far as I know) for her estate. If there’d been any hint available to my parents that anyone my friend’s family associated with was not safe around children, I wouldn’t have been allowed over to her house. (I would have to ask my friend’s mother if I would have ever met MZB–at that age, I was pretty oblivious to what my friends’ parents were doing.) My family moved cross-country in the middle of this time period, but we girls still visited back and forth a couple times after that, which would have, if my memory’s correct, put me at my friend’s house for a week during the year before Breen’s arrest.

    8. I’ve been reading SF/Fantasy for nearly forty years now, including a lot of MZB’s books. I’d never heard anything beyond “MZB’s ex-husband was a pedophile and that’s why she divorced him” until the last few weeks. I can only imagine how frustrating such widespread ignorance that must have been for Stephen Goldin who has apparently been trying to expose this for decades.

27. There are monsters, very real and ugly monsters, and yet for some reason people will defend their actions or, worse yet, try to obfuscate them.

    “Power corrupts” was about this…. effect? Phenomia? Obscene quirk of human nature?

28. Pingback: PJ Lifestyle » Sorry You Were Molested by Your Mom, But I Still Love Her Books

29. I first met Marion Zimmer Bradley at Chicon III in 1962. I had not yet published any books, and was an aviation psychologist for the Boeing Company.

    In 1968 I was a professor and space scientist, but still a fan, not a professional sf writer; there was some question about Marion’s husband Walter Breen, and stories about his behavior with children, but nothing specific. Walter was excluded from attending the Worldcon; there was some discussion of this in fan circles, but since no specific charges had ever been brought, and there appeared to be no named accuser, the Con Committee (as I understand it) justified their action on precautionary grounds. A number of prominent fans stated unequivocally that the charges against Walter (there were none against Marion) were character assassination,

    Naturally Marion did not attend that Worldcon. It happened that both Ray Bradbury and I were booked into the Leamington, an overflow hotel, and I ended up being chauffeur to Ray (who could not drive and of course had no car), which resulted in an enduring friendship.

    I also met and had dinner with John W. Campbell, Jr., whom I had been trying to sell something to for some time, and sat with him while Phil Farmer denounced Campbell in his extremely long GOH speech, and not long after that I stopped getting long rejection letters with suggestions that I do non fiction about the space program, and got a check for my first SF sale; but that’s another story.

    There was at the time no hint or intimation that Marion Zimmer Bradley was a child molester, and she insisted to friends that Walter wasn’t either. None of us knew Walter well. In those times fandom was one of the few places where some were openly homosexual, but that was still a small number. Some time after that I was part of the group involved in putting on LOSCON I, and the question of Walter came up again: this time there were more stories, but none of them proved any actual deeds. Walter was clearly fond of children, but no accusations were brought to the LA committee. I recall that contingency plans for observation of Walter when in public places were discussed, but I don’t recall anything coming of them, and I can’t remember if Walter and Marion attended LOSCON; in any event there were no incidents. And again there was no hint or intimation regarding Marion.

    I didn’t live in the Bay area, but one of my best friends, Poul Anderson, did, and I often stayed with him when I went to SCA events up there. Poul knew Marion a lot better than I did, and he never said anything detrimental to Marion. Eventually she and Walter separated, and he was later sent to prison on a plea bargain of some kind. Some of the evidence against him was cellmate testimony, and such evidence has always been a cause for suspicion. He died in prison. I met Marion at various conventions and we discussed anthologies, but I pretty well stick to hard SF and she was a fantasist, so we had little to discuss. We were friends but not close friends, and I never met her except at conventions and SFWA activities.

    This is the first I have heard of any actual charges against Marion. I was vaguely aware that she and Walter had two children, but I never met either of them. Today was the first day I ever saw the accusations by her daughter, or even knew they existed. I presume the letter I saw was authentic in that it was written by her daughter.

    I don’t spend much time playing fan games or listening to gossip, but I have associated with SF Fandom for fifty years now, and I have been President of SFWA and remain active in membership. I don’t share the views of many of the current leaders, but then that’s understandable. I am hardly in sympathy with the turn to what in almost any other era would be called decadence, but SFWA isn’t the only place where “conventional morality” is denounced as obsolete and inhibiting (what else could it be?). Fandom and the SF community were, until recently, known for tolerance of anything except violence, and that included sexual practices usually forbidden. This has applied to consenting practices of course: I know of no one who openly advocates toleration of rape.

    Marion Bradley has been dead for more than a dozen years, and Walter for nearly double that. I do not think it fair to condemn SFWA over matters that most of the membership never heard of, and most of the old timers like me knew only as rumors if that; as i said, I never heard any rumor or intimation about Marion other than speculation that she was “bi”. She was a sometimes friend, I never knew her to say or do anything to be ashamed of, none of my friends who knew her better ever told me of anything of that sort, and I doubt any great number of current SFWA members have ever heard any of these revelations.

    Jerry Pournelle

    1. Thank you for your post; it’s helpful to get the perspective of someone who “might have known” but really didn’t have the information. One thing abusers are good at is putting up a good front in public, so it’s entirely possible that a lot of people didn’t have a clue.

    2. The Goldin website purports to have had depositions up for around 15 years. If they are real, they should be independently verifiable. I found certain statements suggestive.

       I heard hearsay relating to these here, I think inside of a year ago.

    3. I believe the real issue is holding these folks feet to the fire by satirically mocking them using their own standards and past behaviors for what constitutes “racism,” “sexism,” “homophobia,” “Islamophobia,” and “misogyny.”

       Those standards are paper-thin and hold no weight whatsoever. Vulgar slang enables rape, “lady” equals women-hatred, an accidental white demographic equals KKK, men are suppressing women’s writing. The list is endless and these folks never shut up with their witchhunts and innuendoes. So, they’re getting a feel for what it’s like to get lit up for waking up in the morning and getting knocked back on their heels.

       If slang equals rape and “lady” equals women-hatred, then giving a grandmaster award to a NAMBLA supporter surely equals calling 911.

       The bottom line people are ticked off about is that Americans in the year 2014 – writers no less – don’t understand the meaning of words or law and mold them like putty to suit their almost inconceivably naive views of a world they’ve turned into some paranoid delusion of men vs. women and whites vs. non-whites.

       As long as they have one law for short burglars and another for tall burglars they deserve to get lit up the same way they do others. I have not the faintest compassion for them or the SFWA, which actively supports the mainstreaming of hate-speech.

       If Vox Day was booted for problematic racial rhetoric, then Kate Elliott, Aliette de Bodard, N.K. Jemisin, Rachel Acks, Rose Fox, Jim Hines, Nalo Hopkinson, Ann Leckie, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Seanan McGuire, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and others should’ve been booted 30 times each.

       The fact is there is no standard on what comprises racial bigotry other than defaming men and ethnic Europeans is just a-okay while 10 whites in a room and “lady” is an institutional assault.

    4. Dr Jerry Pournelle (it feels very odd to address someone I am a long term fan of and have the greatest respect for, but I must disagree with you) – no one in their right mind ever associated you or someone like Poul Anderson with this behavior or the covering up thereof. It is obvious to the most casual observer that you would not have been at the drugged-up parties that Breen/MZB daughter described or would have put up with any visible sign of abuse without taking some kind of step. The little I know of Poul Anderson (and I am a fan, and have most of his books) doesn’t suggest that he would have either. And yes, he may have met them more frequently than you did, but at a very different level to their fans, peers and confidantes – who almost certainly would have been considerably younger than Poul or yourself. So: while I am sure that you would not have encountered anything wrong, your character reference doesn’t reflect what that group saw or knew of. That has no broader implication for many SFWA members at the time – except for those people.

       However in 1999 Goldin blew the lid off it for those involved in fandom and in particular for the SFWA committee, and those involved in SFWA politics (the ordinary members would quite possibly never have known a thing, but that core, particularly those socio-political camp fostered by MZB had to have been in the know about those revelations. As Rick Boatright pointed out earlier, it was certainly known (by him as a fan) and extensively discussed in the inner circles of fandom. The current president has been a member and involved in this core for a long time. He was around in 1999. He cannot not have known about the Goldin revelations. When Tor.com came out with the praise paean to MZB – which resurrected this lot, a number of his board members sprang into the fray to defend her. Now, maybe they didn’t talk to Gould, or maybe he was in seclusion on a remote island without internet so he couldn’t see the riot and contact them. Maybe they ignored him. But in the end their attempts at covering up and excusing this behavior have certainly not made SFWA look good. And the rank and file might not have known before, but even people as distant from fandom as me (and I could hardly be more distant, I do live on the remote island) are hearing about it now. As a result I would say the rank and file have a simple choice – either get rid of this core (or at very least remove them from office or publicly censure them, or choose the complicit silence of support, and wear the reputation these folk are giving them.

       1. Your lid must not have been blown very far. And I cannot follow your link to anything about Goldin and revelations in 1999, which was the year I was GOH at the NASFIC in Anaheim, and a regular member of LASFS. If Goldin blew off a lid it did not make me or any of my friends aware of it.

          I suspect that some tempests are in smaller bodies of water than those experiencing them imagine. Have you a link to whatever it was that Mr. Goldin revealed in 1999? I was not on a desert island, and I think I was cogniscant of the Internet and internet discussion well before 1999 having been among the founders of BIX and paid to have a moderated topic on GEnie in the 980’s, and while I have known Mr. Goldin for some time — I met his then wife at BAYCON — I am unaware of any 1999 revelations. Perhaps this wasn’t as large in fandom as you suppose. It certainly was never mentioned at LASFS so far as I know.

          Thank you for the kind words.

          1. Dr Jerry Pournelle I quote from up thread – “Rick Boatright | June 25, 2014 at 3:13 pm | Reply

             “I’m a little confused by all the MZB hoorah… Stephen Goldin’s posts about MZB, Breen and the excerpts from her depositions on the subject have been up at sff.net since 1999 ( http://www.sff.net/people/stephen.goldin/mzb/ ) and ghu knows I’ve been through all this before. Do people somehow just FORGET this stuff? ”

             As I was living in Africa at the time, and barely able to get onto the internet, let alone involve with fandom, I don’t have much personal experience of what happened. But I have known Rick for many years and he’s the salt of the earth, (actually I rate him as cut from a similar cloth to yourself, a very intelligent and decent man, whom I would like at my back if there was any sort of problem) and I think his statement is almost certainly worth taking seriously.

             1. I don’t know if people forget this stuff, but a great many do not see it. Why would we? There are people who hang around places like SFF looking at everything said. Some of them are writers looking for an excuse not to write, but most are fans.

                Marion Zimmer Bradley died in 1999. Walter had by that time been dead for at least ten years. Once she was dead and could not defend herself there was, I am told, a rash of denunciations by various people. I saw none of that, which means only that it didn’t sent to me by any of the rather large number of people with whom I regularly correspond.

                If such discussions were a common topic among fans, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society seems to have avoided them. Ten years before Los Angeles had gone through the MacMartin case, years of the most awful accusations, prosecuting attorneys seriously accusing teachers of digging up corpses in Forest Lawn (after all the Children couldn’t be making such things up, said the experts), and when it was over — nothing, except that the lawyers owned the property on which a once well respected school had stood. Not everyone reads everything on every page of sff.net. I certainly didn’t and don’t, and unless I have some reason to pay attention I don’t look for gossip and accusations. Perhaps a failing on my part.

                You point out that it has been there since 1999. It now appears in 2014, and anyone not ready to denounce Marion Bradley, and now Ann McCaffrey, is suspect.

                In following the link you gave, I found http://www.sff.net/people/stephen.goldin/mzb/lisalies.html which presents a different view of the picture. Obviously Mr. Goldin does not agree, but he does present it. It might, perhaps, present a good reason why many in 1999 avoided the entire issue.

                1. I’m afraid I’m the one responsible for the localized explosion, unintended as it was. =( Someone commenting on my own blog pointed out the MacCaffrey quote to me and asked if she really said it. I said, honestly, I did not know, and replied I would ask here, which I did, because when I don’t know of something or am unsure, I will ask someone/someplace I think might know better than I. I didn’t think it sounded like her, and the quote itself gives no context for where or when it was made, if it was indeed made by MacCaffrey. I took some antihistamines, replied to a comment with a link, conked out for a while, woke, saw nothing new in this particular discussion, and did other stuff for a while before heading to bed.

                   Living in Queensland, Australia, unfortunately meant that most of the discussion happened while I was asleep, with the whole living on the other side of the planet and inconvenient day-night cycles, so I was unable to respond in a timely fashion – something which has gotten me into trouble before when discussing with folks living in the US. This morning was no help, with the rushing around and getting to kids to school.

                   I really am very sorry for the explosion that my looking for clarification caused. I had no intention of implying that MacCaffrey were in the wrong for her support of Kramer’s right to a trial in a timely fashion (there’s nothing wrong with that) and think she may have been given a run-around on that.

                   Again, my deepest apologies to all here, for the trouble I caused.

    5. SFWA knew about Ed Kramer for more than 10 years and he was listed as a member on SFWA.ORG until 24 June 2014. Defenses of Mr. Kramer are known to have appeared in the SFWA Forum and the SFWA Bulletin between 2004 and 2006. There may be more.

       SFWA gave its Grand Master award to Samuel Delany despite his support for NAMBLA and his book HOGG, which, as with the work of Breen and Bradley, raises serious questions about his personal proclivities. While Delany MAY be innocent of all the acts about which he writes in such detail, I am not aware that SFWA ever made an even perfunctory investigation into the man prior to giving him the award.

       It is eminently clear that SFWA has, as an organization, looked the other way with regards to the proclivities and activities of some of its more problematic members for more than 50 years. And that is the best-case scenario.

       1. Please tell me who is this SFWA that you continue to make into a cogniscent entity. I see a bunch of people trying to run a writers’ association. The wonder is that they do not do it well, it is that it can be done at all.

          The Grand Master is nominated by the President and awarded with the consent of the Officers, The Nebula Jury, and the past Presidents. Unanimity is not required. I don’t know of any entity authorized to conduct any investigations.
          Mr. Delaney’s views are hardly secret, although those who discuss them appear to be largely unaware of what he has said. I am not aware of any charge or intimation that he has committed any criminal act, sexual or otherwise — well, perhaps contravention of the drug laws.

          It may be eminently clear to you what “SFWA” has done in the past fifty years (which includes the time I was President) but I can’t even figure out who you are talking about. SFWA was formed by Damon Knight as a professional author association mostly concerned with contracts and financial matters. It has become an organization unfortunately more interested in awards and parties than in contracts and payments, and my opposition to this change is well known within it, but I think I would have known of any conspiracy to keep criminal activities secret.

          1. 1. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

             2. If you read the Publisher’s Weekly review of Mr. Delany’s novel HOGG, in which “gang-rape attacks and criminal sex orgies are detailed at excruciating length, with photographic realism”, including the repeated rapes of an 11 year-old boy and a 12 year-old girl, it should be readily apparent that Mr. Delany is a sexual deviant at best and quite possibly a criminal sexual deviant. Considering that the SFWA Board assigned Matthew Johnson to write an 80-page investigative report last year, it is obvious that the SFWA Board already considers itself authorized to investigate any member or award recipient it suspects to have potentially engaged in behavior it deems inappropriate.

             3. Read the 2004 and 2006 Forums. Numerous SFWA members defended the SFWA member who had been repeatedly arrested for child molestation throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and who was finally convicted on three counts of child molestation last year.

             1. Long ago Larry Niven received a letter from a fan berating him for the behavior of a lead character in one of his Known Space stories. Lary replied:
                “Dear sir,
                We in the writing profession have a technical term for those who hold that we authors always hold the views of our characters.

                We call them “idiots.”

                None of my best friends are idiots.

                Merry Christmas”

                I quote from memory but I am not far off. As he often does, Niven speaks truth.

                Happy Fourth of July.

                1. That may well be true. But when ALL of a writers characters are either rapists and child molesters or the victims of rapists and child molesters, and when the writer is a confirmed sexual deviant who publicly supports a pro-molestation group, one would have to be a complete idiot to assume, in the face of the available evidence, that the writer has never engaged in any of the behavior that so fascinates him.

                   There is an even better-known saying among writers: “write what you know”.

    6. Excellent post, thank you for writing this as it helps fill in the gaps.
       I am interested in what the nature of that Phil Farmer denunciation of John Campbell was. Is there a link anywhere?

30. FWIW, Jim Hines—who is definitely considered part of the liberal crowd—has an extensive post up about how the MZB abuse is NOT OKAY. (He’s been very vocal about harassment and the like, so this is completely coherent with everything he’s said on the subject before.) So chalk one up to staying true to principles.

    1. Hines stays true to principles the same way a broken clock stays true to time twice a day. Think about what you wrote:

       “Ladies and Gentleman I have a stunning announcement: MZB abuse is NOT OKAY. I stand by that, laugh at me and throw darts as you will. Also, I am against murder. Thank you and oogly googs.”

       1. Neither of those two should-be-obvious things are to be taken for granted, sadly.

          Didn’t you ever see the (parody) “campaign to end gun violence” ad with a crying woman, and the words “rape only lasts a minute, killing someone lasts a life time”?

          I first saw it being shared approvingly by gun grabbers. It was supposed to allude to the line about those who think “a woman raped and strangled with her own underthings is morally superior to a woman holding a gun and standing over the corpse of her rapist”– and it didn’t go far enough.

          1. YOU CAN CRUCIFY ME BUT I’M NOT MAKING POTATO SALAD OUT OF BABIES – NOT EVER!!!!!

             1. Fail, I’m sorry — guys, bring the cross and the nails — my favorite potato salad is made out of baby potatoes. 😛

                1. I have this fried spiced potato dish… best made with the smallest baby spuds.

                   1. Hmmmm, I wonder if Travelocity has any good air fares to Down Under …

                      1. I’m happy to share the recipe. (Flights to here are at least two grand, last I checked. This costs only pixels ^_^ )

                         Baby potatoes, the smallest you can find, at least 500g to a kg worth, steamed till almost cooked through, and sliced in half after cooling.

                         To taste / as health allows:

                         Seasoned salt (I’ve used Lawry’s)
                         Sweet Hungarian Paprika powder
                         Cumin powder
                         Cayenne Pepper powder
                         garlic powder
                         onion powder
                         (only a dash or two) cardamom powder, if desired
                         Mixed herbs (herbs de Provence / italian mix herbs work well)

                         Melt enough butter in pan to coat a single layer of the potatoes. Season with spices, toss to coat with the spices and butter and fry till lightly browned. Repeat with the rest of potatoes.

                         The cheat version of this is using premixed Morrocan seasoning and seasoned salt, for the ‘want to eat now’ version.

                         Sometimes I’ll chop up leftover lamb roast into itty bits, caramelize sliced up onion and add to the potatoes, to mimic a North African potato dish my brothers’ classmates introduced us to when we lived in Paris. For the life of me however, I can’t remember what it was called, because they just called it ‘Pommes de terre avec viande.‘ – Potatoes with meat. it could be obtained from the Leaderprice grocery’s frozen food section though.

                         1. Hmmmm, only two grand? Hmmmm.

                   2. Yeah. Back when I could eat potatoes I bought whole bags of fingerlings at the farmer’s market, because I love them seasoned with garlic and deep fried. THE proper accompaniment to fried chicken.

                2. Peas and baby potatoes in cream sauce!

                3. Where are all the potatoes jokes coming from? Did I miss something?

                   1. There’s a post upstream about not making potato salad out of babies. Someone replied that they use baby potatoes. And away we went!

                      1. Ah. Thanks for explaining.

                4. Now, I know I’ve posted this song ere now …

                   Mayo or diaper cream — season to taste.

             2. 

                Moral superiority– and I mean real, true, honest to God stuff– is a pretty cold comfort.

                If all of your friends were at least saying “making potato salad out of babies is not that bad”– it would be hard to stand up to them, all the more because it’s so horrible.

             3. In other news, in reaction to a Twitter quote today, famed fantasy author Neil Gaiman made the bald-faced claim it is wrong to threaten death if someone doesn’t pass the mashed potatoes immediately.

                “Pass the mash potatoes or I’ll kill you with a blow torch.” – SFWA member Beth Wormawich

                1. Oh, I can but hear the British understatement dripping off of that one…

             4. How do you make it last an hour make a POTATO salad out of MEAT?

                1. So, no html. “Make it last an hour” was supposed to be in strikethrough.

    2. Glad to hear that.

    3. (laughs) The same Jim Hines who, in 2007, wrote: “Great to see MZB’s Legacy Continue!” The same Jim Hines who has attempted to minimize the significance of Ed Kramer being listed as a member by SFWA.ORG as of two days ago. The same Jim Hines who claims I forged the very screen capture that proves Kramer was on the membership list at SFWA.ORG.

       He’s not showing any principle, he’s just belatedly covering his ass. Just as he, Scalzi, Gould, and others will be trying to do the same thing when more facts come out about others they have celebrated.

31. As someone on my blog is asking, a link in the commentstream in Vox’s site cited this:

    http://www.serversystems.net/free-ed
    Anne McCaffrey

    My response is violent, as I have often been a guest and GoH at Dragon*Con. I have written such people as I know who might spread the word and try to get Ed his trial. Four effing years? And this is before the current Bush administration. Something must be done for him.

    I naively thought that such epithets as “Jewish Christ- killer” (especially as it was the Romans who passed the sentence) had gone the way of “nigger” but, obviously I’m wrong. I never had much use for the State of Georgia anyhow but there are limits past which any right-thinking person must take action. As a euro-citizen, I would be happy to take it to the Hague. (I’ll find out how.)

    But thank you for laying out the sordid facts and reminding us all that some basic human rights can be at risk. Like a proper trial and appropriate religious services
    — Anne McCaffrey, Pern series author

    …Did she really say that?

    1. It is certainly possible for someone to both be a) guilty of a crime they are accused of and b) to suffer abuse at the hands of the criminal justice system.

       1. Caveat: had to take benadryl, so I’m at the ‘bed. thataway. face plant nao.’ stage.

          It seems that he gamed the system inorder to delay trial.

          http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-sicko-side-of-the-sci-fi-circuit/?singlepage=true

          also, Nancy Collins herself comments in the comments.

          ‘scuse me. must get horizontal in bed because floor looks nice and comfy now. @.@

          1. Worth considering is how much she really knew about the situation when that was written. Googling it says it was written in response to an article by Bill Fawcett in defense of Kramer.

             Haven’t seen the Fawcett article, but it is certainly possible that it was slanted (either deliberately or by relying solely on Kramer’s version of events).

             1. Oh I agree. My question, as I’d noted… uh… just a little bit ago… as that I wanted to know if it was really her. Someone asked me and I honestly had no idea. I’d had my doubts because the reputation I knew of her was of a pleasant, gracious sort.

                Timezones, too, got in the way of a timely reply. I’m very sorry about all this.

       2. There is a strong suspicion here in Atlanta (maybe not in Atlanta fandom but general Atlanta people who know of the case) that Ed used the proceeds he got as a co-owner of DragonCon to delay the trial and thus it was less abuse by local authority and good lawyers on his part.

          Also, while the SFWA accepted him as a member without action the DragonCon committee was working for a decade to get his out of minority shareholder status (and finally succeeded a few years ago). I’m much more likely to give DragonCon a pass, even though he made money off it for many years, than I am the SFWA because they can show they both knew of the issue and were trying to act on that knowledge.

       3. Precisely. And it is often the case that the abuse of authority is what gets the publicity, often to the point of obscuring the original crime. This is often the case with death penalty cases.

          And one wonders if this is not the proper order for indignation? Abuse of authority undermines the entire system.

          We have attacks on the entire notion of morality, and oddly enough, not in the name of freedom. It is one thing to wonder at what age children ought to be free to consent to sexual activities — Roman boys and girls could and did marry and consummate marriage at 14 — and quite another to assert that there is no answer to that question and all ought to be free to do anything they like at any age they like, And quite another yet to say that ‘consent’ isn’t important either, since it inhibits the freedom of the really free. (In case anyone is wondering, I don’t think morality comes from a vote of the masses to begin with, but that’s another discussion for another time.)

          I knew Annie pretty well. She was indignant about abuse of authority.

    2. Yes, she did. In Issue 199 (October 2004) of the
       Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Forum.

       1. So he was using delaying tactics and simultaneously claiming oppression because he couldn’t get a speedy trial?

          1. He apparently also sued a game publishing house because of non-payment, when they were sending him checks and he wasn’t cashing them. Plus, went hard-core Judaic when he got into trouble.

             Guy was a real piece of work…

       2. Thank you for that.

    3. I don’t know if she said it, but she’s apparently been identified as a supporter of freeing Ed Kramer.

       That said, she’s full of shit if that quote is recent. (No clue when it’s really from)

       Kramer does have the most delayed trial in Georgia history, but many of those delays were supported by Kramer. According to his attorney, it’s because Kramer was in poor health and didn’t feel he could sit through a trial. It’s not the state of Georgia, and it’s not because of Kramer being Jewish. Is it a travesty? Absolutely, but when the accused isn’t interested in a particularly speedy trial, it’s hardly a crime against humanity.

       Frankly, I wonder if Anne was familiar with the timeline. “Four effing years?” His arrest actually came about in 2000, so more like Fourteen “effing years”, though that’s not exactly right either (see below). However, Kramer wasn’t locked up during that time, much of it being on house arrest. He pleaded guilty in December of 2013…which is something I find hard to believe an innocent man would do for such a horrific crime.

       However, the comment about Kramer being Jewish is completely out of line. I’m born and raised in Georgia, and in a bit more backward neck of the woods that Gwinnett County (Which is a nice sized chunk of Atlanta). At no point have I heard anyone use language like that about Jewish people, and that’s with 40 years as a Georgian. The implication that such a delay is because Kramer is Jewish is asinine.

       1. I think this will be my departure from here.

          I took no part in the Kramer business because I knew almost nothing about it, nor do I know what sparked Annie into becoming vocal about it. I didn’t agree with her on very much outside the writing business, but then I’ve been friends with Harlan Ellison for fifty years, and we don’t agree on much either.

          She may well have been misinformed by partisans of Mr. Kramer; writers often find themselves in such situations, and many of them then use their talents to espouse causes they should have looked into before speaking. I don’t know if that’s the case with Annie. She may have been wrong.

          But one thing she was not was “full of shit” and I am not sure how that phrase contributes to rational discussion. But if that is the practice here, then it is not for me. Thanks for the lesson.

          1. *shrugs*

             I’m sorry, but since none of what she says matches up with the facts easily available with a basic internet search, I’ll stand by my comment. However, I will also note that I qualified it by saying “if that quote is recent.” I allowed the possibility that it dated from before more information was available and easily accessed.

             However, the “practice” here is to call them as we see them. Rational discussion is good, but I have no issue calling anyone on making such a ridiculous statement, especially when they feel the need to bash my home state, a state that while far from perfect is a place that I love.

             1. It can’t be recent, Tom. She died more than a year ago.

                1. CRAP!

                   For some reason, my mind always gets her and Mercedes Lackey confused (no clue why it does that either, really), so everything went through that filter, which it shouldn’t have. You’d think I’d get that straight at some point in my life, but nope. Never has gotten fixed.

                   I offer up my apologies, though I still stand by taking issue with insults to my home. Sorry, can’t back down on that one.

                   For the record, if we had an edit function, I’d tack this on at the end of that post, but I’d leave it. Mostly because I don’t hide from my screw ups by deleting them as a general rule. Instead, I just own up to them.

                   1. Having known Anne McCaffrey in a group email, she was a gracious lady, but no Britisher REALLY knows the Us. Worse than that, they think they know because their press and such is terrible.
                      Trust me, even through the internet, if you’re over a certain age, you’ll see everything through the prism of what your press told you before the internet. And Brits tend to think we’re all racist, sexist, etc, just like the press tells them. They can’t help it, unless like Francis T. or other people they have been here and live around us A LOT.

                      1. N.B.:
                         Jews have lived in Atlanta since its founding. Their businesses met important economic needs, and they contributed substantially to the cultural, educational, and political well-being of the society. Their history also reflects a rich cultural diversity not typically recorded in southern history.

                         [SNIP]

                         From the mid-1800s Atlanta proved to be one of the best locations in the South for Jews. In 1850 twenty-six Jews lived in Atlanta. Though they constituted just 1 percent of the city’s total population of 2,572, they owned more than 10 percent of its retail businesses. Almost all of the people were immigrants from central Europe, mostly the Germanic states. Although by the eve of the Civil War (1861-65) the Jewish population in Atlanta had doubled, their small numbers still precluded the establishment of formal religious institutions. Religious services were held intermittently, and women offered religious classes for children. The Hebrew Benevolent Society, which was started in 1860 and provided insurance, aid, and burial benefits, served as the first formal Jewish religious organization and the forerunner of things to come.

                         The Jews of Atlanta had been welcomed with little prejudice and had fit into society. …

                         [SNIP]

                         As befit their socioeconomic status and their cultural norms, Atlanta’s Jews participated in public life. Active in the conservative faction of the Democratic Party, Jews routinely held seats on the aldermanic board, the school board, and in the state legislature. David Mayer, for example, was a founding and longtime member of Atlanta’s school board. In 1875 Aaron Haas became the city’s first mayor pro tempore. Joseph Hirsch and other Jews led in the establishment of Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital.
                         http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/jewish-community-atlanta

                         Many non-Americans have a simplistic vision of the American South as a hotbed of bigotry. The reasons for this are manifold and say as much about European prejudices and ignorance as it does about American culture.

                         1. op. cit. supra since we’re citing history after all

                            formed part of the backdrop for the Leo Frank incident, possibly the most dramatic case of anti-Semitism in American history….. Atlanta’s Jews, who were routinely excluded from the city’s elite social clubs. During the succeeding decades Jews were attacked by the Klan, the Columbians, and other right-wing groups. They were tolerated but also singled out as different.

                            would you believe this too is from: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/jewish-community-atlanta
                            The bombing of The Temple in Atlanta 1958 – soundly condemned by community leaders – must have been done by outside agitators? The Standard Club is not merely separate- see above “routinely excluded from the city’s elite social clubs” – but equal it has been superior but still separate.

                            1. Yawn — cherry-picking distorts the facts. Jews were not welcome in the “elite social clubs” of New York, Philadelphia or Chicago, either — proving that such clubs were largely church-based and discrimination was wide-spread.

                               From the source linked:

                               Jews routinely held seats on the aldermanic board, the school board, and in the state legislature. David Mayer, for example, was a founding and longtime member of Atlanta’s school board. In 1875 Aaron Haas became the city’s first mayor pro tempore.

                               That seems to indicate a broad political acceptance, suggesting such animus as existed was minor.

                               As for the antisemitic attacks you cite … the term “right-wing groups” is amusing applied to the Triple-K, a group formed, directed and protected by Democrats — including President Wilson. A closer reading of the portion on the Leo Frank case

                               Frank was convicted in a sensational trial largely on the testimony of a black janitor, Jim Conley, something virtually unprecedented in the Jim Crow South. Through his trial and appeals Frank was caricatured as the northern businessman and Jew out to exploit young women from the rural South. After the commutation of his death sentence to life in prison by Governor John M. Slaton, who believed him innocent, Frank was abducted from prison and lynched by citizens of Marietta, Phagan’s hometown.

                               [emphasis added] reveals the prejudice was against a believed Yankee rapist and murderer, and his Jewishness being largely irrelevant. Note also the lynch mob was from Marietta, not Atlanta.

                               As for the Temple bombing, that was clearly due to the Temple’s open support of “Negro Civil Rights” and not antisemitism:

                               When [Rabbi] Marx’s successor at the Temple, Jacob Rothschild, provided leadership against [racial] discrimination, in 1958 the synagogue joined the ranks of those bombed.

                               [emphasis added] The ranks of the bombed clearly references Black churches bombed, putting the Temple bombing into context.

                   2. I don’t know what the big deal is. If I lived in Georgia and someone who lived in Europe wrote “I never had much use for the State of Georgia anyhow,’ I’d tell them to go eff themselves and wouldn’t think twice about it. I sure as hell wouldn’t apologize – not to anyone.

                      1. Except that this is a real person. I never metMcCaffrey,the but read her, and Jerry Knew her. Real persons have weird opinions. This doesn’t’ t invalidate all of their opinions, and certainly not them, n o r call for profanity except in response to profanity.
                         Also though few, this blog is read by kids, so, even though I myself, sometimesslip we TRY to keep it clean

                         1. I understand that, but Ann McCaffrey actually said that about GA. Portugal has about the same population. If someone wrote “I’ve never had any use for Portugal” as in they’re a bunch of schmucks, you wouldn’t tell them to jump in the lake? As for their opinions on other things, they might be able to build an engine but in human terms they’d be pretty worthless. I can’t even imagine how dumb you have to be to write off an entire state like that.

             2. Exactly how does commenting on the contents of her bowels have relevance to the truth or falsity of what she said? She may have been wrong, persuaded by an advocate who didn’t tell her the whole story. She may been wrong and knew it but perversely insisted on telling what she knew to be lies. Those are not equivalent statements.

                Rational discussion requires that you be clear as to what you are objecting to. But if calling them as you see them requires comment on bowel contents, then it is hardly good practice of rational discussion.

                1. Just to make sure I’m understanding you correctly, are you saying you are unfamiliar with what that term means?

                   1. The term implies that whoever is speaking has nothing worth saying, and no defense of what has been said. That appears to be the common meaning. I understand that strong language and expletives are now used without any attention to their meaning. I tend to avoid conversations in which people have so little control of what they say.
                      You have said in essence that Annie McCaffrey had nothing worth saying, that she was merely babbling excrement. Isn’t that what you meant?

                      1. No, it wasn’t.

                         The Urban Dictionary uses this definition:

                         1) Totally unfounded, not credible, or ridiculous…usually refers to something somebody just said.

                         http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=full+of+shit

                         That is the way that I, personally, was using the term. Her information was not accurate. Now, I will grant that the term also seems to imply that she said such knowingly, which was not my intention. Instead, all I was saying is that she was saying things that are untrue. Now, whether that inaccuracy was willful or born of ignorance, that’s a whole other matter and one not germane to this discussion.

                      2. Jerry Pournelle is worth paying serious attention to: If he says you are mistaken it’s worthwhile stopping and carefully considering what he has to say. I’ve been reading him for a very long time (albeit not as completely as a very busy schedule allows) and he has a well-deserved reputation for intelligence, broad and deep knowledge, rationality, seriousness, and a strong commitment to facts.
                         I would count myself fortunate to have him as a neighbor.
                         And regarding excrement: There is a lot to be said for couching one’s arguments in language free of foul language. And I say that as someone who is more of a potty mouth that he would like to admit.

                   2. If we are just talking about bowel contents, then all of us are full of it.

                      1. Unless you’re prepped for a colonoscopy.

                         1. True.

                            1. Going through the night before, I looked up to my wife, a sorrowful look upon my face and said, “I really am full of shit.”

                               At the time, she worked for my gastroenterologist. Her response? “Not for much longer,” and an evil glint in her eye.

                               For the record, some parts of the above story may or may not be accurate, but all stem from my memory of that horrible event. 😀

          2. It is not the normal practice around here. And I don’t think McCaffrey could have said that recently because, of course, she died sometime ago.
             It is quite normal to get misinformed about issues of fandom, and most people who think they know what is happening in the US are wrong — if they’re not from or in the US — so thinking that the US is rife with ante-semitism would be par for the course for a British writer. I don’t hold that against her.
             Part of what sparked today’s post is the fear that this will expand into a full witchhunt and to the whole of writing and fandom. I have nothing to say about the MZB thing except that the charges of abetting seems plausible and the others are possible, given the source, etc. BUT if we’re now going to hunt people at two and three degrees of separation from someone who might have done something heinous, none of us is safe.

             1. Who is this British writer?

                Ann McCaffrey was a tax exile to Ireland (no longer if ever and according to some never Britain) – neither British nor lacking experience being born, growing up going to college and living several places in the United States.

                My closest direct exposure was knowing a couple who hosted her and entertained her with their horses as part of deal for guesting at Moscon.

                She served with honor as an officer of SFWA providing real services when it was I think still a service organization about the same time Kris and Dean were editing a 2nd? edition of the SWFA handbook.

                1. Sorry. I assumed she was British from biographies I read.

                   1. Annie, like a number of professional authors who had no income other than from writing (and illustrators who lived off their art) lived in Ireland where there is no Self-Employment Tax and no Income Tax on money received from artistic endeavors; or so I am told. Do not rely on me for the law. Consult a tax attorney.

                      Whether it is dishonorable to live overseas to avoid self-employment taxes is perhaps debatable, but certainly it is not universally agreed. I know some veterans of US military service, at least one decorated, who chose the same course of action, because the income of a professional SF writer, even one as well known as Annie, is not so very large that the Self Employment Tax is trivial. Incidentally, by not paying that tax, no Social Security benefits are accumulated. In may case I paid it for a great number of years, but since I continue to earn income from writing, all my cash social security benefits are confiscated in partial payment of the continuing Self-Employment tax I must pay even at my age. I have myself contemplated tax emigration, as California continues to raise taxes and the Federal Government. I did not choose to do so, but I certainly don’t harbor automatic contempt for those who do.

                      I know it costs me money to live in California. But I look outside at the oriole at my humming bird feeder, and I think it may be worth it.

                      1. Ahem. I’m sure I could find an oriole out here near Sarah and I … 😉

                         I’d toss in a meadowlark for free.

             2. Congratulation on your scatological correspondents.

          3. She may well have been misinformed by partisans of Mr. Kramer; writers often find themselves in such situations, and many of them then use their talents to espouse causes they should have looked into before speaking. I don’t know if that’s the case with Annie. She may have been wrong.

             I’d noted elsewhere recently that there are likely three types of people who associated with MZB; in a nutshell; the ones who associated with her on a purely professional basis, the second in professional circles with enough interaction to consider friendship but weren’t in the inner circles thus did not know of the woman’s actions; and the last, being in proximity enough, socially and/or intimately that they knew and said nothing. This is very likely the case with Kramer as well.

             I do not see it unlikely that MacCaffrey couldn’t be in the second category, being that she lived in England and all, so it is very possible that the information she relied on the most came from the Kramer partisans and thus skewed. The statements she made were, according to another comment here, in late 2004. Kramer finally plead guilty only last year.

       2. Agreed that any comment about Kramer being Jewish is immaterial. Agreed that [t]he implication that such a delay is because Kramer is Jewish is asinine. I doubt the epithet referenced was ever used by anybody in connection with Mr. Kramer or Dragon Con.

          I suppose therefore it was cited but not exactly quoted or given any context as part of an emotional not factual argument. It seems likely Anne McCaffrey was misinformed or misguided or both. It’s not obvious the effort was in support of freeing Mr. Kramer; certainly the effort was in support of giving Mr. Kramer his day in court.

          As to hearing anyone use language like that about Jewish people in Georgia that I have indeed Georgia is after all where The names of Frank’s murderers were well-known locally but were not made public until January 2000.

          As to fandom recreating itself from the ashes in Atlanta after Worldcon there’s a reason for the then named Phoenix Society and the upstart separate Middle Earth Rocket Society.

          Agreed with Jerome of McKenna that most of the membership of either SCA or SFWA or others would reasonably honor an influential member – especially from before their own time. Agreed with others that what is reasonable for the membership is not so reasonable on the part of the leadership (formal or informal – the SMOFs are leading fen astray)

          1. As to hearing anyone use language like that about Jewish people in Georgia that I have indeed Georgia is after all where The names of Frank’s murderers were well-known locally but were not made public until January 2000.

             So, a murder from 1915 discounts 40 years of being around Georgians and never having heard such a phrase uttered? Because, well, I haven’t. I’m a white guy, and I’ve heard plenty of racial comments made through the years (oddly enough, the couple I know who make most of them are progressives…go figure), but nothing along the lines of that.

             Note that I never said there wasn’t any antisemitism in the state. Frankly, I wouldn’t say that about any state. Hell, I wouldn’t say that about Israel for that matter. What I did say was that there was an implication of such a thing being common down here, and it’s really not.

             1. My point with the Leo Frank mention was not to imply that language such as Kill the Jew or we’ll kill you remained in common use but to suggest that it’s credible a cover up that endured until the year 2000 shows a pattern of conduct and a continuing state of mind. Further that such a continuing state of mind might well have expressed itself in speech. And I have heard such speech.

                After all

                The Washington Post noted that the list includes several prominent citizens — a former governor, the son of a senator, a Methodist minister, a state legislator, and a former state Superior Court judge — their names matching those on Marietta’s street signs, office buildings, shopping centers, and law offices today

                Just recently moving the statue of Tom Watson from the front entrance of the state Capitol raised the Leo Frank issue once again at least in some mouths.

                Emory recently 2012 apologized for incidents of anti-Semitism said to be more than 40 years in the past but again the apology is more or less current.

                Likely enough a small town in SW GA doesn’t have much occasion to talk about Jews. I wouldn’t expect a farmer in Valdosta say to have much to say.

                I stayed within an Eruv in Toco Hills, Decatur, DeKalb County and I heard such in the neighborhood. Mostly among the older and usually wealthier residents of metro Atlanta – many of whom were equally or more disparaging of other races well. Should suffice for an existence proof and I assure you it’s common in certain circles – though I wouldn’t disagree with an argument that times have changed and most of the people who use anti-Semitic language routinely are in nursing homes or nearly so.

                1. A city of 77,000 people is hardly a “small town in SW GA”.

                   And again, since you apparently chose to ignore it, I never said antisemitism didn’t exist. I said that I never heard such comments. Out of 77,000 people (and we’ve shrunk in size since my childhood), it’s not necessarily difficult to imagine that I might have if the attitude was particularly prevalent.

                   But hey, what does a small town guy like me know about it anyways.

                   (Yes, I do get resentful about people who don’t live here talking my home when they don’t know what they’re talking about. No, I won’t apologize for it.)

                   1. OK Albany is a major city and anecdotes are evidence. Happy now?

                      1. Nice straw man you’ve got there.

                         1. No doubt Albany Georgia is an island of bliss. Full of temperate language save of course for the Navy veterans. Then again I once knew an Army veteran who forever after moderated his language after leading a run through family quarters so I suspect it can be done.

                            It still seems likely to me that only the slightest proportion of the conversations among the 70,000 plus people there would concern Jews in any way at all and so the proportion showing anti-Semitism would be truly slight. I won’t argue with a native who says he heard many nice things and no bad things about Jews but I do wonder how much was there to be heard at all..

                            Over the last few decades, Albany’s Jewish population has dropped precipitously. By 1997, only 200 Jews still lived in Albany. B’nai Israel sold their building in 1995 to a bank and built a new synagogue dedicated in 1999.
                            While the number of Jews in Albany has continued to decline, B’nai Israel has remained active.

                            B’nai Israel I repeat that my own experience, none of which was in Albany, was different.

                            1. Still with the straw men? Really? That’s how you want to go with this? Fine.

                               You’re absolutely right, Clark. Down here in Jaw-ga, all we really care about is keepin’ dem black folks and Jews from doin’ nuthin’ unlessen dey gets our permission first.

                               Dat’s ‘specially true up in Hotlanta area where dey really hates dem sum Jews.

                               There, you happy now? Make you feel all tingly inside? Make you feel like a big man?

                               Now that I’m done being ridiculous, I never pretended my experiences were anything but my experiences. Why do you seem to feel the need to refute my own personal experiences? Find the one place where I said there was no antisemitism in Georgia. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Take your time.

                               Better yet, I’ll save you some time. I didn’t.

                               I expressed my experiences. You expressed yours. Fantastic. Now, move on. Frankly, you’re annoying me now.

                      2. But hey, believe whatever you want. I mean, that one whole case really proves that Georgia is a hotbed of antisemitism and all that.

                         Whatever.

                         1. It can’t be the most antisemitic pack of inbred redneck white trash if none of my relatives came from there.

                2. None of that matters though. I’m out of here, since apparently I’m wrong for taking issue with feeling like my home is being used as everyone else’s pinata.

                   1. Please don’t go Tom, I’d miss you. I like GA.

                      1. Don’t worry, not permanently.

                         Frankly, I’m pretty pissed at the moment and the direction this conversation is taking isn’t likely to help me calm down in the least. So, I’m bailing from it before it goes any further.

                         1. Understood, and I too don’t want you to go. I think Jerry’s issue was with the language itself.

                            1. (Yeah, I’m back after saying I was leaving…don’t you just HATE people like me. 😉 )

                               Honestly, I take no issue with Jerry’s post. I’m not crazy that my introduction to the man (virtually) was to piss him off, but I’m me no matter who I’m dealing with, so at least I know me and Jerry Pournelle will never be best buds. Trust me, the language gets much worse in person. I blame the Navy.

                               However, that was nothing. Having my town continually referred to as a “small town”, despite 77,000+ people within the city itself is a long held sore point with me. People continually casting Georgia as some backwoods, racist state is as well. There are warts, both in my home town and my home state, and I’m willing to discuss them until the cows come home. Hell, I cut my teeth as a journalist writing about state politics, and dealing with those warts. However, the meme of Georgia being loaded with all these racists – antisemitic or others – gets on my last nerve.

                               Frankly, it’s either back off for a bit, or start laying waste to all that I see in my way to such an extent as to make Larry Correia look like a kind and nurturing sort. Frankly, I like he here too much to do that, so I’m not going to continue discussing all the ways that Georgia is deserving of scorn from a woman who apparently left the US to skip having to pay taxes and will just bypass that.

                               Frankly, I’d rather not pick at the scab of that meme. You know, the same kind that caused a black guy in my boot camp company from the north just announce that he knew I was racist because I was from Georgia…and have some of my so-called shipmates agree with them when I hadn’t done or said anything along those lines. So maybe I’m overly sensitive. Maybe I’m just an asshole. Right now, I don’t really care if it’s either of those, or neither. I’m just not in the mood to put up with it.

                               Jerry Pournelle is well within his right to take issue with me saying someone he knows was “full of shit”, especially when I didn’t know her. However, if that was sufficient to make him leave, no wonder I’ve never seen him over at Larry’s.

                            2. Please see my comment above about the history of the Atlanta Jewish community. Antisemitism was no more prevalent in the South than in most other parts of America, and a sight less than in some other parts of the country.

                               If any place in the non-Asian world has always been free of antisemitism I would be most interested to hear of it.

                            3. No arguments from me.

                               As I said before, *I* didn’t hear stuff like that. Never said it didn’t exist. That would be completely ridiculous to say since…well…it unfortunately exists just about everywhere.

                            4. ;_; I’m really very sorry for how this all turned out!

32. When I worked in corrections, more than one inmate stated that he wanted to plead guilty and go to prison. Prison is a lot nicer than jail and it means a release date. However, their defense attorney would get a continuance and say. “Witnesses forget things, get dates and time confused, the anger dissipates and people move. The DA’s case will get weaker and then we can fight your case.” Seems to have worked in Kramer’s case, moved from probable prison to a fine and probation, I understand.

    1. I once heard a lawyer explain how he worked with people resisting the draft back in the 60s.

       First, claim conscientious objector status. When refused, they ask you if you wish to appeal. Tell them “No.” There’s thirty days to change your mind. Wait twenty-eight days, then file an appeal.

       They ask you if you want a draft counselor, an alternative service for those who are COs, when you file your appeal. Tell them “No”. Wait twenty-eight days, change your mind, get the appeal rescheduled. Etc., etc.

       In the midst of all this, move, there’s a good chance the system will just lose your file.

       Eventually, you’ve gone through all possible legal processes, and been turned down. You are ordered to report for induction on a certain date. Two days before, go to the draft board, and file for exemption on the grounds that you’re a minister of a religion …

       He said he had clients from the mid-60s still appealing when the draft finally ended in the 1970s, iirc.

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34. I’m of two minds on the topic. First of all, I object to the rhetorical tactic that plays the game that if person X does not denounce person Y, then they support XYZ conduct. I found myself in the middle of a situation analogous some years ago involving an acquaintance convicted of a sex crime involving a minor.

    So I don’t see the condemnation of Anne McCaffrey for commenting upon the right of Kramer to due process to be anything to be criticized.

    That said, persons who decide that they have to become actively and vocally involved in the defenestration of ‘double ungood think’ persons from orgs like SFWA can rightfully be accused of hypocrisy were they not so exercised in the past about so campaigning against members with far more concrete involvement in crimes of moral turpitude.

    1. So I don’t see the condemnation of Anne McCaffrey for commenting upon the right of Kramer to due process to be anything to be criticized.

       That did not post correctly. I do not see believe that Anne McCaffrey ought to be criticized for her comments upon the right of Kramer to due process. The idea that even the most heinous of criminals is entitled to a fair trial with due process seems a pretty fundamental belief for me and mine.

       1. yes.

          1. Anne McCaffrey was misinformed or misguided or both. It’s not obvious the effort was in support of freeing Mr. Kramer; certainly the effort was in support of giving Mr. Kramer his day in court.

             Certainly, it seems that Kramer was manipulating things to appear in his favor, which is no surprise. The Jewish angle was to try buy him support from the ADF and sympathy from local Jewish communities who likely have not heard of him outside of being ‘a recent convert’, which is again, unsurprising.

             I should explain, the question I had was whether or not Anne MacCaffrey DID say the quoted text, because the linked site which was in support of Ed Kramer, and gave no context on where or when the quote originated from, so cast doubt about whether the quote itself was really from her. I asked her because someone asked me the question, and I figured I’d ask here, y’all being more informed to who and what than myself.

             It’s been cited that yes she did say it (In late 2004), but her angry commentary aside, it looks like she wanted only support for ‘a day in court,’ and ‘religious services’ and looks like she did not know that all the delays in due process were entirely from Kramer’s own manipulations, which were exactly what he wanted.

             Whether or not she found out later on of Kramer abusing the terms of his house arrest is not part of what I asked, but the PJM article notes that this time around there was little support for him; and with VD kindly putting some context in the comment of where and when, this is four years after MacCaffrey’s comment.

             I’m sorry about the arguments this question caused because this was not my intent in the least, and I’m afraid that timezones kept me from addressing the issue in a timely matter. (It is 8:30 AM QLD time as of this moment.)

       2. FWIW, I take issue with the comments she made, since it seems that she didn’t check her facts and instead accused officials of antisemitism and blasted an entire state that I dearly love over it.

          However, who hasn’t gone off half cocked on something?

35. Sarah and Jason—though we differ in perspectives on many things, I want to thank you for covering the Marion Zimmer Bradley issue. Moira’s been amazed at the support.

    1. Just as a head’s up, given the subject matter, you might want to scrub that “missing staircase” link. It leads to some pretty unbelievable BDSM depravity. I’d also scrub “missing staircase” from my vocabulary, because it always goes to that Pervocracy page and community. I’m taking it on faith you didn’t actually read that page and what it leads to because it’s some pretty sick stuff.

       1. Thank you, but I’m not opposed to consensual kink between adults, even though BDSM isn’t one of my things. (Again, I came here to thank Sarah and Jason. My values differ significantly from many of Sarah’s readers, but we are on the same page re: pedophilia is bad.)

          1. Eh. Don’t stereotype us. I know some of my regulars ARE in a BDSM community. Others oppose it.we’re a very diverse group.

             1. Well, I didn’t actually mean about BDSM. (I meant more that I tend to be a pinko liberal.) Having been a section lead on Compuserve’s Human Sexuality forum back in the day, I’m aware that sexuality and political preferences don’t line up according to anyone’s expectations, and often in opposition to easy life choices. People are complicated.

                1. Given the stuff I read in those links about some truly creepy and crazy people who don’t understand what boundaries are (burning, cutting and raping each other), the idea you find some concrete wall of morality between them and Breen’s antics is disturbing. In fact they share the same symptoms of cruelty and sexual depravity. The idea such a culture wouldn’t turn on a child as if “OH, no – we draw the line there” is absurd.

                   I’ve had to listen to QUILTBAG intersectionalists tell me all about how “lady” and vulgar slang terms are “misogyny” and “rape culture,” but under the Orwellian double standards of intersectionalism, an actual rape culture isn’t and will never lead to pedophilia because standards and principles? WT blazing F?

                   Given that Grand Canyon between cause and effect, you shouldn’t just wipe that link, but everything you wrote about this MZB thing as well, because frankly you don’t have the moral compass to be discussing it. What good does it do to fill in one tiger trap while constructing another? It is completely inappropriate to be linking to such garbage in the context of what happened to that little girl. Really, I am just stunned, cuz the Breen/MZB depravities reads exactly like the stuff you link to.

                   1. Rape fantasies aren’t as uncommon as you might think. Same with burning and cutting. I’m not into any of these, but I know people into two of the three things, so let me just say this: if this is something one wants to have done (or do), then I’d far rather one find a willing partner into the other side for something consensual than put themselves in risky situations where they may not be consensual.

                      You probably know/have known people into all of these things. They just don’t trust you enough to tell you.

                      (Then again, statistically, you probably know more than one rapist.)

                      People are surprisingly diverse.

                      1. Make sure the kiddies barricade themselves.

                      2. I don’t know anyone who has committed actual, violent rape. Though I know of plenty of such individuals.

                         If you mean “rape” as in purely statutory rape (especially of someone within a year of so of AOC) or (even more absurdly) someone who has had sex with someone else who later regretted it — sure. But that’s expanding the definition of “rape” to the point where the majority of the population would be “rapists.” Male and female, too, unless we arbitrarily define “rape” to be somethinig only men can do.

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