Now reading

 Chronopolis and Other Stories by J.G. Ballard, which is a restart from January 1st. The reason? I've been remiss in my reading habits (the last novel I finished was in July 2019), and real life has been so bizarre and even vicious over the intervening eitght months that I lost the urge to read anything except non-fiction, and usually online. So it was time for a change

In Memoriam: Gale Sayers, 1943-2020

 The nickname "Kansas Comet" was entirely deserved.

A warning

 For those of you who scoff at the idea of getting the hell out of the country if Trump gets re-elected, let's put it like this:

You can wait until the November election is over and done with. At the first sign of the Orange Duce not accepting a Biden win or declaring some sort of national emergency or martial law to nullify a loss, you better be prepared for the worst. I don't believe for a minute that the lunatic in the White House will ever accept any sort of voluntary departure from the oval office as legitimate. He can leave on a stretcher with a blanket over his face after Tweeting himself into a stroke at 5 in the morning, or he can leave at the business end of several guns held by Federal agents next January. He's already made ridiculous noises about "negotiating" a third term as if all of this was just some business scam he's participating in, and he probably believes it.

So be prepared. The worst hasn't happened yet, and I'm doing my best to not be alarmist, but when your house is on fire you don't just sit there and let it burn. You call the fire department, or try to put it out. And we may be at exactly the point in time where we're all starting to smell smoke. I sure as hell hope we're not, but I'm not sure of much of anything any more. And I wish I was.

In Memoriam: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933-2020

Just another reason why 2020 is practically the Abyss of recent history, especially in the United States.

About Ed Brayton

 This is going to be hard for me to write.

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars has long been a favorite skeptical blog of mine, since it featured a wonderful combination of incisive analysis, strong opinion and outright snark. It's bounced around from when I first ran into it on Scienceblogs, but Ed has always kept the same degree of quality and intelligence in all of its incarnations up until now.

Unfortunately, serious health problems dropped his output to the point where he couldn't post nearly as often as he liked.

And then I read something that just ruined my night.

Ed has decided to apply for hospice care, since his medical condition has deteriorated to the point that palliative care instead of yet more trips to the hospital and yet more stays in rehab facilities would just make more sense.

I understand his decision and respect it.

That doesn't make it any easier to accept.

As somebody who has a blog that has nowhere near the following that he does, it's like a giant sinkhole appeared and ate the place where I live. He was one of those bloggers who kept swinging for the fences even when a number of completely spurious lawsuits from some of his targets started coming in to try to shut him up. They didn't, but you know how idiots are when you point out their stupidity. They just keep plugging away even though all that proves is that they're still idiots.

Unfortunately, being shut down by your own medical problems is something entirely different.

Ed is, in my mind, irreplaceable, just as any great blogger is. I'm sure he'll keep up at it until he no longer can, but the end is the end, regardless of that. And that's what's so difficult to stomach about it.

On the subject of conventions during a crisis like this

My personal $0.02 on convention cancellations due to the pandemic:

Even if we're exceedingly lucky and this thing eventually burns itself out like the 1918 flu pandemic did, it took that particular disaster roughly two years to be over and done with. Even if it only takes a single year from now because of a variety of factors (including the fact that we have better medical and scientific knowledge and treatment techniques than in 1918-19), that still means that it might not be safe to hold conventions until May 2021. That means that cons running from Anime Central this year until Acen next year won't be able to be held - or held in the same way they used to be.

This also means that local events ranging from Acen through Gen Con, Wizard World, Windycon, Capricon next year and possibly Acen in 2021 might all be washouts. No one can entirely predict how the pandemic will play out by then, but if the Illinois rule holding public events down to 50 people or less continues to be necessary that would completely wipe out all of the aforementioned conventions that are held in Illinois. As for Indiana, their events have to follow state law as well. And large events held outside the area like San Diego Comicon, Dragon*Con and Worldcon would have to follow their respective local law - or just admit that the accompanying liability issues just aren't worth the risk. And, IMO, they're not.

With all of those factors laid out on the table, this much can be said - conventions may have to sit on their budgets until a time they can be held safely. Vendors may have to rely on online or mail-order sales instead. And fans may have to find new ways to network or hold online "conventions" until we get out of this mess. Yes, the situation is bad. Quite bad, as someone who both staffs and attends conventions. But it's still far better than the alternative.

Predictable result, predictable revulsion

There are many moments in the history of the United States where our political leadership actually showed political courage and wisdom. This wasn't even close to being one of them.

As for the 52 Senators who couldn't be bothered to show any scruples or nerve in trying to rein in an out of control President, let me say this clearly: if Donald J. Trump keeps going down the path he's been heading ever since his inauguration, fuck every last one of you for your inaction. You deserve nothing more in terms of sentiment than that.

Online "journalism" at work

The fact that Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani and Devin Nunes were in fairly constant contact with each other is galling but hardly shocking (nothing surprises me about the Ukraine situation any more, really), but this following tidbit about former The Hill staffer John Solomon is especially interesting:

The call records also show Giuliani, Nunes and Parnas also were in frequent contact with John Solomon, a former columnist for the Washington news outlet The Hill. Solomon published a series of opinion pieces criticizing former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch as part of “a coordinated effort by associates of President Trump to push … false narratives publicly” in a bid to force Yovanovitch’s ouster, the Democratic report said, citing public statements, phone records, and contractual agreements.

After Solomon published an article critical of Yovanovitch on April 7, phone records show numerous calls between Giuliani, Parnas, Nunes and Solomon. For instance, on April 10, Giuliani and Nunes talked on three short calls in rapid succession, followed by a text message, and ending with a nearly 3-minute call. Later that day, Parnas and Solomon had a 4-minute, 39-second call.

The Hill had previously attempted some cleanup on Twitter and elsewhere after the mess Solomon caused, but if all of this comes off as "too little, too late", that's because it probably was.

Nothing good can come from this

It's not as if Qasem Soleimani wasn't a son of a bitch - he was, but a very high-ranking son of a bitch, to say the least - but his death on the business end of a US airstrike (and on neighboring Iraqi territory, on top of it) will do nothing to stabilize a region already fraught with sectarian violence and wall-to-wall atrocities against civilians.

But it couldn't possibly be a wag the dog hedge against certain domestic political issues, especially when embarrassing new evidence was about to come to light, could it?

Nah. Of course not.

Now reading

Chronopolis: the Science Fiction of J.G. Ballard (UK title Chronopolis and Other Stories) by J.G. Ballard

The limits of selective outrage

"Contrary to what President Trump says, Article Two does not give him the power to do anything he wants - and I’ll just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king, which is the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so while the president can name his son Barron, he cannot make him a baron.”

- Professor Pamela Karlan, at the Judiciary Committee

Is that pun clunky? Yes. Most puns are. Was it maybe a bit uncomfortable? Sure. But the degree to which Republican apologists for the Trump administration decided to turn it into a cause celebre (the singularly idiotic Matt Gaetz being an especially glaring example) is an indication of their desperation to latch on to any issue they can to deflect from what was laid out in the committee meetings concerning the Trump administration's actions in Ukraine.

Conversely, it's unlikely that Barron Trump knows anything about a kid named Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez. The 16-year-old Guatemalan came down with the flu in a Customs and Border Patrol detention facility and died, apparently after lying on the floor for several hours without medical treatment.

Barron Trump can count himself lucky that he actually has a family to take care of him. Carlos didn't. Regardless of the accuracy of the ProPublica report - and I have no reason to doubt it as this point - there was no widespread national outrage when he died after laying on a cell room floor unattended for over four hours.

Barron Trump, in comparison, will grow up a child of privilege, probably reach adulthood unhindered and end up avoiding the scandals his father and older siblings are currently awash in if he's lucky. All of the selective outrage over a clumsy but inoffensive pun on his name that was uttered during his teens will be something he'll easily get over. And he'll still be alive.

The other, far less famous kid wasn't so lucky.

And if you're still in a fit of pique over what Barron Trump was or wasn't called, your continued selective outrage doesn't mean a fucking thing to me.