Orson Scott Card redux

This story about Orson Scott Card (see my previous article on the death of Star Trek) sets my mind at ease, as he's apparently an idiot of some kind, or some kind or rightwinger. (Same thing, n'est-ce pas?)

Phil Spector on Trial

Wow.

"Right wing bloggers howl. . ."

Salon.com Politics

I'm not keen on the filibuster deal, but if the right is as upset as this article indicates (along with many others I've not linked to), I could learn to like it.

Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame

Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame

I must go there.

The Press

This comic says more about the state of the modern DC press corps than any blogger has, or at least says it better.

I am a Scientific American

It's also a magazine, as we all know, and it has an article addressing "creationist nonsense." Good for them.

Letter to the Editor

I write the occasional letter to the editor of our local paper here, the Greenville News, but it usually takes them so long to publish them when I write that I'm now going to put them on the blog first, so here you go:

Jonah Goldberg, following George Bush, argues that the U.S. betrayed Eastern Europe at the end of World War II at the Yalta Conference. He fails to acknowledge the historical reality that Eastern Europe was already under the control of the Soviet Union, which had thousands of troops there, fresh from defeating the Nazis. It would have required another war to remove them by force. Thousands would have died, perhaps millions if the U.S. had chosen to use atomic bombs in Eastern Europe or Russia. The bomb was still a well-kept secret; Roosevelt would have been foolish to use it as a bargaining chip to get the Russians out of Eastern Europe.

By overlooking history and painting Franklin D. Roosevelt as a traitor to Eastern Europe, Goldberg seeks to tarnish the image of the 20^th century’s greatest president. By doing so, he can undermine faith in Roosevelt’s other accomplishments, particularly Social Security. Roosevelt’s greatest achievement, saving capitalism itself in the United States, is never mentioned by his many detractors on the right, Goldberg included.

If Goldberg wants the U.S. to apologize for something, he should go to Central America, where Cold War policies of Republican presidents caused the CIA-led overthrow of an elected government in Guatemala (1954) or to the support of death squads and the attempted overthrow of an elected government in El Salvador and Nicaragua, respectively (1980s). Why select only the politically and militarily necessary consequences of Yalta for criticism instead of more outrageous breaches of human rights and international law? It’s obvious that the politics of 2005 are more at issue here than the history of 1945.

It was longer at first, but I had to cut it for publication. In the future, I'll post the longer versions.

Disturbing toys

These toys are designed to look like the ones you see in grocery stores. They are real toys re-packaged in disturbing combinations.

Moyers

Bill Moyers, whom I've long admired, rips the Corporation for Public Broadcasting a well-deserved new one. Under its new chair, a Bush appointee and partisan flack with a history of trying to undermine any alternative voice for this nation, the CPB has become a tool of the right wing. Moyers gave a speech to the National Conference for Media Reform the other day, and it's simply brilliant. Thanks to my ACLU colleague Roger Rollin, for the link.

The Future: Doom and Gloom edition

This interview with author James Howard Kunstler discusses his new book, The Long Emergency, which argues that the U.S. (and the world) are slowly heading toward a future in which the economic boom fueled (pun intended) by oil will ultimately end. The biggest casualty in the U.S. will be the suburbs, where one is able to live an urban life in a rural setting only because of one’s use of and dependence on oil. It’s a scary scenario not because I may live to see it (though I may) but because my children will live to see it. Kunstler sees little to no possibility of a new, cheap, energy source anytime in the near future, and it’s entirely possible that being able to shoe horses may be a more valuable skill than being able to set up a wireless network.

Also of interest in the interview is the discussion of the real estate boom and coming bust. Kunstler says that the real estate bubble is “a consequence of capital desperately seeking a way to increase in an industrial economy that has ceased to grow. America is no longer producing wealth in the conventional sense. And so the housing bubble is a way for residual capital to produce wealth. But like all bubbles, it's a delusional thing that will probably end in tears.”

It’s a disturbing view of the future: it rejects unfounded optimism, technology, and globalism. I won’t miss suburbia; in fact, I hate it with a passion. The identi-houses, ever-increasing traffic problems, new subdivisions being built on top of farms and fields with histories going back thousands of years, all fill me with dread and a desire to wipe the map clean. However, I’ve also always been a fan of technology and have been optimistic about the prospects for the future, no matter how bad the present gets.

I'm a liberal

Well, I knew it already, but the Pew Center is doing an online political typology survey in which you respond to some questions and it will tell you where you stand politically. Worth a few minutes of your time.

Arrrmy Training, Sir

Kos has a story on a federal job posting for what amounts to an MP -- for $60,000/yr. This is the current Army pay scale:

Private: $13,711
Private E-2: $14,822
Private First Class: $17,475
Specialist/Corporal: $19,352
Sergeant: $21,108
Staff Sergeant: $23,040
Sergeant First Class: $26,640

Outrageous!

Rats! (also, idiots du jour)

HBO has cancelled Carnivale, complete with unresolved cliff-hanger. It looks like Evil wins, in more ways than one. HBO execs win the idiot du jour award.

How a Typical Workday Can Seem More Important When Modeled As a Great Era in Western Civilization

From McSweeney's.

No More Star Trek (?)

Orson Scott Card has an op-ed in the LA Times about the demise of Star Trek, which he thinks is not that bad a thing. Trek has matured, and the Trek universe has grown quite a bit since 1966-69. Card might be on to something as far as the sophisication of the audience, and certainly as to the sophistication of what's available on the small (and large) screens. He uses ABC's Lost as an example. I would point to HBO's Carnivale as another. However, Star Trek's woes have been in execution, not in the lack of a coherent mythos, especially since (I would argue) the introduction of the Borg in TNG. The Gul Dukat/Sisko story line that permeated all of DS-9's run was a really good example of threading, and the show also was able to tell some pretty good stories. Card may have been disappointed in Voyager and Enterprise, as I was as well, for many reasons. But even those shows had their moments, particularly when they merged with the universe that the original Star Trek created and that The Next Generation and DS-9 elaborated.

Chapelle's Show Delayed

I'm really bummed. No reason given. Link.

Neat Confiscations

Click here to bid on a bunch of stuff the NTSA has confiscated from hapless travelers. Interesting assortments of knives, scissors, implements, utensils, etc.