Imagine a writer/playwright/intellectual whose most famous single
remark was “the black race is the cancer of human history”. Who said
“The Pinochet revolution is astonishingly free of repression
and bureaucratization.” Who praised the attack on Pearl Harber as a
brave deed. Do you suppose such a person would collect laudatory
tributes and glowing obituaries on the occasion [...]

In September 2004, well before the elections, I wrote an essay on
the collapse of
mainstream media influence. I predicted that the Rathergate
scandal and the Swift Boat Vets would lock up the election for George
W. Bush, despite the MSM’s most determined efforts to get Kerry into
the White House. I related this to a long-term decline in [...]

The Ananova site brings us this little gem:
Baseball star’s wife makes ultimate threat

The wife of a top US baseball player has vowed to have sex with all of
his team mates if he ever cheats on her.
Anna Benson, a former model and stripper who was named Baseball’s
Hottest Wife by FHM, is married to Mets pitcher Kris [...]

This is storyboard art for a movie called Nightmask, with
the interesting property that I will probably get a speaking part in it
if it’s actually produced.

“Whoa!” you may well ask. “How does a middle-aged geek with no
showbiz history beyond a few singer/songwriter coffeehouse gigs in
his college days land a part in, you know, a real [...]

Grant McCracken has argued in his book
Plenitude that one of the defining characteristics of the last
fifty years is an explosion of subcultural variety — people
creating new lifestyles and new identities around occupations, sexual
tastes, hobbies, genres of art and music, religions, and just about
any other investment of time human beings have ever dreamed up.
When McCracken [...]

The WordPress update is now complete. Unfortunately, I deleted some recent comments while clearing out comment spam. Comment spam is now blocked using
a simple and clever method which I will not disclose in public.

In Slate magazine, SF author Ursula LeGuin complains that the
producers of the new Earthsea miniseries have butchered her
work. One form of butchery that she zeroes in on is by casting
characters who she intended to be red, brown, or black as white
people.
I have mixed feelings. LeGuin has every right to be POed at how
her [...]

I’ve been reading a new blog called
Left2Right, founded in
mid-November 2004 as an attempt by a group of left-wing intellectuals to reach
out to intelligent people on the right of the American political spectrum.
It is indeed a thought-provoking read, but the thoughts they are provoking
are not necessarily of the sort they intend.
This response is intended for the [...]

My friend Howard Tayler, the cartoonist behind Schlock Mercenary, invited me to post this.