Smarter and cooler than me.
Guy named Matt Zwolinski. Professor at San Diego State. Mixed it up with him over police brutality video. We declared a kind of truce on Facebook, and he assured me he was not a progressive. But I stirred the pot by calling out California’s one party state and the idiotic policies that led to the current water shortage. Then his minions came in as commenters. One, a brightly boy from the Cato Institute, was particularly dismissive. I asked for his credentials. He ducked and insulted me, ducked and insulted me, and ducked and insulted me. Then Matt, the Facebook father, informed me that I was defacing his “wall” and wouldn’t tolerate it. It all ended this way. I made nice with him after the Cato contretemps:
You don’t get it that your young followers know absolutely nothing? Why are you so protective? I had a blog for ten years in which I never banned people, no matter how four letter they were with me. I contended with them and they stopped coming. Take a look at this, a long look. I redefined writing in the Internet era. I did a LIVE Intercolumn Reference in a book that began on an Underwood Standard typewriter.
theboomerbible.com
It also, as one of your followers extorted from me, sold 100,000 copies in print. I don’t usually lead with that. But your defensiveness I find annoying. The lefties call people motherfuckers, shitheads, racists, sexists, and everything else they can think of. Haven’t done that. I just contend. What I’m used to.
I think I like you. Until you retreat into this hypersensitive cocoon that, whether you’re a lefty or not, smacks of political correctness. I’m not interested in that. If you want to talk for real, we’ll talk. If you want to pose, the answer is simple. defriend me.
Then he lowered the boom.
Robert, look. You’re kind of a jerk. I’m sure it’s comforting for you to tell yourself that the reason people don’t want to talk to you is that your ideas are simply too powerful, or that they can’t handle the truth, or whatever. But the fact is that you’re just coming off as a bitter, rude, and arrogant person. And I have no wish to spend my time talking with someone like that. So, goodbye.
I responded. But I had already been defriended. Welcome to the Facebook era.
Maybe I am all those things. How old are you? I’ve watched my country being demolished for decades. You’re a professor in San Diego. While academe rots and putrefies. I’m rude and bitter because I’m watching a rape of institutions I believed in all my life. You’re a disgrace. What single thing do you do to keep freedom of speech alive in your world? Anything? As Hemingway would have said, I unprint myself of you. What is your educational mission, son? Or is it just coasting on tenure?
Anyhow. I did no name calling. No four letter words or accusations about patrimony. I quarreled, asked for attention to my own writing, and persisted in asking for the credentials that make a disrespectful (being kind here) 21 year old commenter Cato Institute material. That makes me a jerk. So be it.
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Yep. Welcome to Facebook. Ain’t it grand? I think there may be five people out of my 100-plus “friends” who haven’t filtered their news feed to block my posts. It’s just as well, though. Every FB debate I’ve ever had or read, dating back to before Obama was elected, went the same way as yours except my lefty pals would usually wait a week or two to defriend me. Then again, I am an extreme rightwing Christian radical.
But cheer up. The hockey starts tomorrow.
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YOUR hockey starts tomorrow. Mine is dead as a doornail.
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There is plenty of room for you and the missus on this bandwagon. Climb aboard.
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Well, I can certainly vouch for the efficacy of your methods on the blog. Number me among the “contended with” and “stopped coming.” Nevertheless, I’m curious as to your take on the Hugo Awards Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies brouhaha. Apologies if you’ve already covered the ground.
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Long time no hear, Ennui.
Sorry if you’re among the dented. Have you seen the new Daredevil series on Netflix? We all get beaten up.
I don’t know the brouhaha you speak of. Please tell me about it. I’m more mellow than I used to be. My intent in the old days was not to ban people but to keep the blog killing trolls away. When you get into that mode you can hurt friend as well as foe. If I did you an injustice, I apologize. But banning has become the predominant mode. I think I prefer my way. At my Facebook page, Null and a Winston saith are back, as are even older friends and combatants. Old guys get over their wars and return to friendship.
Glad to hear from you.
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Did you get to Stick yet?
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Good to hear back from you.
The sad puppies/rabid puppies brouhaha. (This account is predicated upon the assumption that you aren’t somehow behind all of this. You aren’t, are you?)
Where to begin?
Let’s begin with the sad puppies. Two years ago, best selling science fiction writer, and slightly out of the closet conservative, Larry Correia got sick of being blacklisted by the Hugo Awards. Convinced that secret block voting was going on (in favor of the most insipid LGBTXYZ writers that the secret cabal could think of), he started a modest campaign (the “sad puppies”) to get Hugo nominations for the kind of science fiction that he and his readers liked. Science fiction that featured compelling stories. And science. A secondary objective of the sad puppies campaign was to demonstrate, that if anyone not in lockstep with the ruling cabal were to become a legitimate contender, that the ruling cabal would stop at nothing to prevent them from winning. The little campaign grew in scope, and power, over the next couple of years. This year, in combination with another such effort, only partially aligned with the original campaign, the sad puppies pretty much swept the Hugo nominations.
The Rabid Puppies: Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day, is an interesting character. He is an American expatriate who used to write a column for WND. He was a game designer in the DOOM days (“Rebel Moon,” I never played it), had some success as a new wave-ish (God only knows) musician and seems to work in the finance field now (that last one is a guess). Politically, he is not “conservative” in any ordinary sense of the word. He is sometimes associated with what’s been called “The Dark Enlightenment.” He’s maybe somewhere close to John Derbyshire on the political spectrum. Except he’s a Christian.
More importantly for our story, he is also a science fiction/fantasy writer (not a great one). He used to belong to the Science Fiction Writers of America; until they kicked him out for insulting another writer. If memory serves, he is either the first or one of only two writers to be so expelled. Wikipedia has the details, biased in the obvious way. In any case, in last year’s Hugo voting one of Day’s stories, “Opera Vita Aeterna” (worth reading) was nominated on the strength of a Sad Puppies nod. It came in sixth out of five (losing to “no award” along with the other choices). Despite this result being a fairly evident case of block voting, Day himself was accused of attempting to “game” the Hugo’s – a charge that he denied.
This year, he publicly announced that he really would do his level best to “game” the system, specifically in order to show his detractors what it looked like when Vox Day attempted to “game” a system. In so doing, his “Rabid Puppies” slate (along with the sad puppies slate – there was some overlap) virtually swept the nominations. The result has been (and this is an outsiders perspective) the ruling cabal rending their garments, presenters refusing to present, some nominations being refused, the weak scurrying for the hidden corners, everybody trying to avoid getting caught in the stream of vitriol being directed at Vox Day … it’s basically an “On the Waterfront” situation. GRRM, whoever that is, has declared Day anathema. He has suggested that Correia denounce him (after which, I’m sure, Correia will be told that he will be re-admitted to the community once he has also denounced himself).
I’ve left a great deal out and probably gotten a few things wrong in this short account, but I assure you that there is much fodder for … I don’t know what.
By the way, here’s a link to the text of one of last year’s Hugo Winners. You can judge for yourself whether there’s a systemic problem with the awards (on an artistic level) or not.
http://www.apex-magazine.com/if-you-were-a-dinosaur-my-love/
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Whoopsie Daisy,
The Dinosaur story was only a nominee, not a winner. Here is the winner. http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/02/the-water-that-falls-on-you-from-nowhere
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Yes. What do you think?
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About Daredevil? Loved it. Stick? Great. Thought you’d like him. The opposite of what our culture currently teaches, which is “If you have a disability you are screwed unless the gov’t looks after you.” We’ve swung to where people now wish they had disabilities so they won’t have to work at life.
Regarding the overall show: I’m amazed that molestation by a Catholic priest is not what inspired him to become a vigilante. I’m amazed that his morality stems from *gasp* Christianity. I’m equally amazed that the villain is not a 1%, GOP-donating, corporate CEO who just wants to get richer. Fisk is actually a progressive superhero; just trying to make the world a better place. Gotta break a few eggs for the greater good. Not unlike the Operative from Serenity. In the progressive view, Daredevil’s the loser square who can’t get with the times.
But, he refuses to give up…
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