[cancer] Quick update
Slept long and hard and a bit rough. Feel pretty human today.
Another week on the great carousel of life.
Posted: 4:57 am Wed April 21 2010 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen
Your Wednesday moment of zen.
Portland flower. © 2006, 2010, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 4:55 am Wed April 21 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad is glad than kanly isn’t real
J.A> Pitts is having a contest to celebrate the release of Black Blade Blues — Go check it out.
Only the Best Sciencet Fiction and Fantasy is giving away a copy of Pinion
Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ holds timely – and timeless – appeal — A brief history of Dune. My favorite bit: Another early version [of the Dune movie adaptation] would’ve enlisted Orson Welles, Salvador Dalí, Gloria Swanson, Hervé Villechaize and Alain Delon in a 10-hour epic. ZOMG. I so want this to be real.
Who’s More Likely to Fake It in the Bedroom? — Hmm….
An Archaeological Approach to SETI — Centauri Dreams with an interesting article that lies pretty close to one of the core concepts I have for Sunspin.
A Softer World nail the difference between ebooks and print book — Especially important if you’re a conservative.
Diversity Is Work — Ta-Nehisi Coates with one of the smartest commentaries on racism and diversity I’ve seen in a long time.
Having no use for religion — What he says.
GA Woman To State Judiciary Committee: DoD Implanted A Microchip Inside Me — Ah, conservatives. This story pretty much speaks for itself. If they didn’t have political power, this would be sad-but-funny.
Tea Party speaker gay-baits Lindsey Graham — The story itself is par for the course; there’s nothing surprising about the ugly undercurrents (and overcurrents) of bigtory in the Tea Party. But I’m fascinated by the term “herrenvolk democracy”, which is a surprisingly useful description of contemporary conservative politics.
The Lost State of Jefferson — Secessionism by a slightly different flavor, from Strange Maps. Confidentlal to Tea Party in America: No, secession is still not patriotic. It wasn’t in 1861, it wasn’t in 1941, and it’s not now.
Un-Christian Delusions — Daniel Larison writing about the sheer folly Christianist worldviews in foreign and military policy.
Why I’m Passing On Tea — Andrew Sullivan on the tea party. Most of the rational tea-partiers accept that the GOP has been as bad – if not worse – than the Democrats on spending, borrowing and the size and scope of government in recent years. They repressed this anger during the Bush years out of partisan loyalty. Now, they’re taking it all out on the newbie. What, all three of them? Seriously, that’s the biggest issue I have with the Tea Party’s stated goals (ignoring their cultural baggage). Where were you under Bush? Why was it okay then but not now?
?otD: Ever seen the mythical 12-hour version of Dune?
4/21/2010
Writing time yesterday: none (family disruption)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (scale is out of batteries)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10 (fatigue, GI distress)
Currently (re)reading: The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
Posted: 4:54 am Wed April 21 2010 | Comments(5) |
[personal] I lost an email
Sometime in the past week or so, a student (from Australia, I believe) emailed me for an interview on a project. Chemo brain has utterly lost the email. If you’re reading this, email sender, please resend.
Posted: 5:05 pm Tue April 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[cancer|personal] Updatery
Chemo side effects: Same as ever. Yes, that bad.
For my part, Not Writing continues, to my immense frustration. The combination of stress, fatigue, and time spent at the hospital is eating all available spoons plus some deficit.
Posted: 4:59 am Tue April 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Following up the blog survey
I must confess to being pleasantly surprised at the response to yesterday’s reader poll. Some terrific comments there. I wasn’t surprised at most of what the poll is telling me, but the “new content” section is useful and I will take note.
No, no Twitterstream will appear. I might start a second blog just as a place to archive it, but that will be for my own benefit if so. And no, no Pajamas Media. I don’t really envision syndicating myself to anyone — my daily content is too idiosyncratic to appeal to a wider audience, I’m pretty sure, though I always thought I could do some good stuff with a weekly column somewhere — but even if I did, it would not be Pajamas Media or anything of that ilk. Wrong politics for me. I’d have to wash a lot more often to get the grime off.
As a side note, several people commented on the politics of talking about politics, as it were. The risk being, of course, that one might alienate a section of one’s readership. Doubtless I have done so here, in holding strong political views that largely correspond with the American definition of Left. I have a couple of thoughts about that.
First of all, the writer is not the story. My fiction is neither didactic nor political. My worldview certainly infuses it, but that’s talking about issues of personal responsibility, for example, not the rubric of American electoral politics. Some people might decide not to investigate my writing, based on their reaction to my politics. Too bad for them. Just like it’s too bad for me I won’t read Orson Scott Card any more, for essentially same reason.
Second of all, passion is personal. Even passion one disagrees with. And personal can be more interesting. When I first starting blogging as a writer in the early 2000s (not counting my protoblog Web posts from the late 1990s) I was very careful not to be political or cultural. It was very important to me not to be controversial, for fear of offending potential readers. I held that principle for several years, then one day got fed up with something (a school shooting, I think) and cut loose.
My readership doubled in six weeks.
Oooookay, I thought.
Yea, a few of my regulars promptly dropped away. But a lot more showed up, and some of you have stuck around ever since. I looked around at blogs and bloggers I like and admire — John Scalzi with Whatever,
So I took some validation and some courage from that example, and I’ve let it hang out since. Because, as so many of you have pointed out, this is my blog, and I should say what I want. It’s not like you have to read it.
My goal on this blog is to amuse, entertain and educate myself. That so many of you choose to come along for the ride is a source of great pride and pleasure to me. Thank you.
Posted: 4:55 am Tue April 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Your Tuesday moment of zen
Your Tuesday moment of zen.
Portland flower. © 2006, 2010, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 4:41 am Tue April 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad dreams of the Serengeti
Pharoahs and care bombs — Language Log on the perils of copy editing. They’re talking in a journalistic context in this piece, but the same issues definitely apply to us fictioneers.
Why the Library of Congress cares about archiving our tweets
As Europe Reopens Skies, a New Cloud Looms — I can’t decide if this is systemic resilience or systemic fragility. Either way it’s morbidly fascinating.
Detailed View of Ash Plume at Eyjafjallajökull Volcano — As seen from orbit, courtesy of NASA’s Earth Observatory site.
The Beetlecam — Wildlife photography as you haven’t quite seen it before.
Every Voter Is A Values Voter — Damned straight. Just because you have some particular version of God on your side doesn’t mean you’re right, or have a monopoly on values.
The United States is not a ‘Christian nation’ — Unless we want to be like Saudi Arabia, with a state-enforced religion.
?otD: Ever touched a lion? (I have.)
4/20/2010
Writing time yesterday: none (family disruption)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (scale is out of batteries)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10 (fatigue, GI distress)
Currently (re)reading: Jingo by Terry Pratchett
Posted: 4:38 am Tue April 20 2010 | Comments(2) |
[personal] A bit more on my mom
Posted: 3:05 pm Mon April 19 2010 | Comments(0) |
[personal] The fun never stops
My car was broken into overnight. No damage that I can find so far (it’s still dark outside), as I leave the car unlocked to keep meth heads from cutting the convertible top to get in. Glove box rifled, presumably for CDs or something, but nothing seems to have been taken. So fairly minimal impact, unless Mother of the Child’s car was also broken into.
Confidential to the universe: Really, the crap can stop any time.
Posted: 5:08 am Mon April 19 2010 | Comments(1) |