Rob Ford is out of office. And there was much rejoicing.
The only question I have...well, I have two, but let's focus on the first. The first question I have is how, exactly, did he get into office? I know much of the city was pissed at David Miller, and not for unreasonable reasons. Transit City, among other things, was a hodge-podge of lines, some of which even made sense (I'm not sold on a Jane Street LRT and I do wish that I had included a sorely needed Downtown Relief Line subway); he mishandled the civil servants (aka, the garbage strike) of 2009; and
Rob Ford, by contrast, was full of hot air, bluster and poorly concieved ideas.
His subways "plan" might as well have been sketched on the back of a napkin, and how exactly extending the underused Sheppard Line further east would have helped benefit the city is a mystery to me. Thank God he didn't get the chance to be rid of the city's streetcars (an opinion that will evapourate when our snazzy new streetcars hit the streets in two year's time). It never had any serious funding behind it, and any attempt to suppose that the private sector would magic a subway into existence was just delusion.
When Karen Stintz succeeded in getting council to return to the Transit City-esque light rail plans, Ford should have learned something. He didn't. Fortunately, he has not succeeded in disrupting Toronto transit plans any further. Chanting "subways subways subways" will not magic them into existence, and the Federal and Provincial governments have bigger problems on their hands than funding subways (and I do not think they have any idea of how urban transport works---looking at you Tim Hudak!).
This does not take into considerationt he many smaller offences, some of which were really trivial but compounded themselves to the point where they were anything but invisible. The point is not that he could be acquitted of them or that they are relatively minor; the point is he keeps accruing them. The point is that he is simply too obtuse to understand why, say, yelling at a reporter for trespassing on land that was not his, or calling 911 on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, or reading documents while driving, is problem both as a mayor or a citizen.
Ford can run in the byelection to be held to choose a successor and the 2014 election. I pray that he does not win either: in his ruling the judge described Ford as having a sense of entitlement, among other unflattering things. The Toronto right wing is hopping mad at this, and would likely make hay of Ford being sidelined by a politically motivated aggressor. If they truly think that this is an appropriate narrative to run under, they are very, very stupid.
Rob Ford lost because he did not understand the law. If he wins again, it will be because we do not want to understand it either.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Straw Feminism and Daria
Daria is one of my all time favourite shows. It is an exemplary show involving a female protaginist and strong women characters. However, for such a woman-centred show it does have an interesting example of a stereotypical feminist in the form of Ms. Barch. A bitter misandrist woman who never fails to espouse her hatred towards men (more specifically a former husband). This is a paradox: how can a show that sets a new high for woman have a straw feminist (and to a lesser extent, Mr. O'Neil, whose sensitivity is played for laughs)? How can a show that challenged gender perceptions be, at the same time, critical of challenging gender perceptions?
I'd argue that the reason for this is the perception of feminism and its usefulness in the mid-90s. Furthermore, I'd argue Daria's feminism is undercut additionnally by the show's focus on Daria as an outsider rebelling against an indifferent world.
The nineties were a more liberal decade than the one that preceeded it. AIDS awareness was challenging both the stigma of AIDS as a gay disease and the stereotype of the liscentious homosexual; women were more prominent in popular culture (eg, Alanis Moresette, Courtney Love, the Spice Gils) and politics (eg, Hilary Clinton) than before. After all, this was the decade of 'Girl Power' and 'Lillith Fest.' The Soviet Union was gone, ending, at least theoretically, the tough macho pose of the decade before. In theory, the 90s should have been a more liberating decade for women, and a time for gender and sexual norms to be challenged. Which, I won't deny, they were.
However, the conservativism of the eighties cast a long shadow. The liberalism of the 90s was still shaped by that, even deferential to it. Bill Clinton was involved in many battles with a Republican Congress, specifically over health care and his eventual impeachment. In the last decade the extremeley popular Reagan and Bush administrations had reinvigorated American standing and the world and prosecuted the successful Gulf War. In effect, the Republicans succeeded where the Democrats had failed and smugly define the course of American politics for the next decade. Politically or culturally there were limits to what liberalism could accomplish. Bill Clinton, for all his popularity and political gifts, could only accomplish so much.
Similarly, alot of what could be seen as "liberating" for women does not hold up to closer scrutiny. The Spice Girls, who were extremley popular in 1997 when Daria premiered, yes, boasted about "Girl Power." However, "Girl Power" is a slogan, not a philosophy. A very useful way to market pop music to young girls, not ideas about equality or freedom. "Girl Power" proved to be as empowering to women as sugary treats are nutritious. While there were examples to the contrary they struggled to be as mainstream as, frankly, women artisits are today. While Lady Gaga and her ilk may not have been as high quality as artisits of the nineties, there are pushing buttons and boundaries alot more influentially than similar artists of the time.
Which brings us back to Ms. Barch's ramblings. If you were an intelligent teenage girl, you could see that Ms. Barch's arguments against men holding women back (and Mr. O'Neil's attempts to talk about feelings) as leftovers from the sixties and seventies---an argument that lost. The feminism of the time that preceeded the nineties would have been seen as quaint and out of touch. If Daria was good at anything, it would be pointing out the difference between what was said and what was lived.
Does Daria consider herself to be a feminist? At no point do "feminist" themes creep into the show: they are not, for example, fighting to get into male dominated spaces such as sports. Daria's anger is focused more on parochial and superfical mind than on gender inequality as a whole---if pressed, I believe she would argue that gender inequlity is part and parcel of living in a world of the self interested and shallow. Daria and Jane defend their freedom of expression; Jane joins the track team with no resistance. Daria and Jane push boundaries and challenge assumptions as intellectuals---not as women.
Does that mean Daria is a success or failure to women or feminism? Its a difficult question to answer and depends heavily on whether it is important that Daria challenge assumptions for the benefit of women as a whole. Daria is focused on intellectual revolt as opposed to feminist revolt: fighting the tide of mediocrity and closed mindedness, frustrated that she was alone in the fight. On the one hand, fighting on behalf of women would have meant forming closer relationships to women not on Daria's level---something Daria could do, but not easily. She was not the sort of person to get close to anyone that did not assure her of being sufficently open minded. Even at its most generous, this elitist attitude would comprimise any efforts towards equality.
If Daria was made today would the show be more feminist? Likely, since the Republican war of women's health and gay marriage struggles have made feminism more relevant to the present generation than probably in the nineties. However, something that defines Daria is the nineties spirit of the jaded, misunderstood loner lost in an empty sea, which, by its nature, is not a feminist position. It is a human position, and it could be argued a superior one.
I'd argue that the reason for this is the perception of feminism and its usefulness in the mid-90s. Furthermore, I'd argue Daria's feminism is undercut additionnally by the show's focus on Daria as an outsider rebelling against an indifferent world.
The nineties were a more liberal decade than the one that preceeded it. AIDS awareness was challenging both the stigma of AIDS as a gay disease and the stereotype of the liscentious homosexual; women were more prominent in popular culture (eg, Alanis Moresette, Courtney Love, the Spice Gils) and politics (eg, Hilary Clinton) than before. After all, this was the decade of 'Girl Power' and 'Lillith Fest.' The Soviet Union was gone, ending, at least theoretically, the tough macho pose of the decade before. In theory, the 90s should have been a more liberating decade for women, and a time for gender and sexual norms to be challenged. Which, I won't deny, they were.
However, the conservativism of the eighties cast a long shadow. The liberalism of the 90s was still shaped by that, even deferential to it. Bill Clinton was involved in many battles with a Republican Congress, specifically over health care and his eventual impeachment. In the last decade the extremeley popular Reagan and Bush administrations had reinvigorated American standing and the world and prosecuted the successful Gulf War. In effect, the Republicans succeeded where the Democrats had failed and smugly define the course of American politics for the next decade. Politically or culturally there were limits to what liberalism could accomplish. Bill Clinton, for all his popularity and political gifts, could only accomplish so much.
Similarly, alot of what could be seen as "liberating" for women does not hold up to closer scrutiny. The Spice Girls, who were extremley popular in 1997 when Daria premiered, yes, boasted about "Girl Power." However, "Girl Power" is a slogan, not a philosophy. A very useful way to market pop music to young girls, not ideas about equality or freedom. "Girl Power" proved to be as empowering to women as sugary treats are nutritious. While there were examples to the contrary they struggled to be as mainstream as, frankly, women artisits are today. While Lady Gaga and her ilk may not have been as high quality as artisits of the nineties, there are pushing buttons and boundaries alot more influentially than similar artists of the time.
Which brings us back to Ms. Barch's ramblings. If you were an intelligent teenage girl, you could see that Ms. Barch's arguments against men holding women back (and Mr. O'Neil's attempts to talk about feelings) as leftovers from the sixties and seventies---an argument that lost. The feminism of the time that preceeded the nineties would have been seen as quaint and out of touch. If Daria was good at anything, it would be pointing out the difference between what was said and what was lived.
Does Daria consider herself to be a feminist? At no point do "feminist" themes creep into the show: they are not, for example, fighting to get into male dominated spaces such as sports. Daria's anger is focused more on parochial and superfical mind than on gender inequality as a whole---if pressed, I believe she would argue that gender inequlity is part and parcel of living in a world of the self interested and shallow. Daria and Jane defend their freedom of expression; Jane joins the track team with no resistance. Daria and Jane push boundaries and challenge assumptions as intellectuals---not as women.
Does that mean Daria is a success or failure to women or feminism? Its a difficult question to answer and depends heavily on whether it is important that Daria challenge assumptions for the benefit of women as a whole. Daria is focused on intellectual revolt as opposed to feminist revolt: fighting the tide of mediocrity and closed mindedness, frustrated that she was alone in the fight. On the one hand, fighting on behalf of women would have meant forming closer relationships to women not on Daria's level---something Daria could do, but not easily. She was not the sort of person to get close to anyone that did not assure her of being sufficently open minded. Even at its most generous, this elitist attitude would comprimise any efforts towards equality.
If Daria was made today would the show be more feminist? Likely, since the Republican war of women's health and gay marriage struggles have made feminism more relevant to the present generation than probably in the nineties. However, something that defines Daria is the nineties spirit of the jaded, misunderstood loner lost in an empty sea, which, by its nature, is not a feminist position. It is a human position, and it could be argued a superior one.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
A Mild Dissent to John Scalzi
...'cause I wasn't just stroking his ego over the SWM-thing.
Don’t get cocky.
Hey, I'm Canadian. Alot of the stuff thats being decided in the states is old hat here. Seriously---you out Canada'd Canada last week. Don't think I don't feel a little impressed.
2012′s electoral coalition isn’t automatically permanent.
No, but its durable. The Republican party, simply put, has no clue on Earth how to engage black, gay or Hispanic voters. They have not played a significant part in the American political process until very recently. Heck, the Republicans lost blacks quite a while ago: check how many black people support the Republican party today. How many did Bush win? Now how many did Clinton win?
Yeah, there are conservative-leaning factions within those groups, but how many votes can the Republicans reasonably expect from them? Romeny got seven percent of the black vote. It took the Republicans, what, fifty years until Reagan to win the white working class over? Sheer inertia is going to keep the Obama coalition together for a decade and more.
Don’t think the GOP is stupid
I'd believe you if the GOP wasn't doing everything in their power to support that. The conservative movement in America has developed an intellectual appartus that will make actual reform if not impossible, than at least exceptionaly difficult, at least for the next two to three electoral cycles. Conservatisim in the United States is going to remain pernicious and unrealistic for some time, and might actually get a heck of a lot worse long before it gets better. If the Republicans do comprimise even slightly with President Obama, the hue and cry that will result will limit their ability to enact further comprimises, or torpedo it. Republicans operate under an iron clad intellectual discipline and a myopic vision of the world. Breaking that habit is not going to be easy.
My prediction is that the president of 2016 will be a Democrat, though 2020 on the Republicans should make a comeback, at least the way Jimmy Carter was able to become president between two Republican presidencies. The resulting president will be competent, but that will depend on how willing Americans will be to ditch the culture war baggage of the past several decades. Since Nixon the Republicans have tarred the Democrats as being incredibly socially permissive and financially reckless, and a new narrative must arise to replace it. The Republicans don't, and until it sinks in won't, get that.
The Republicans are now the party of unnecessary war and bigotry---even the most moderate Republican candidate is going to be tarred with that brush, particularly from his own ostensible side. A problem because they'll be able to shout him down until he (and it will be a he, let's be real here) falls back into line.
Nothing’s been decided but who was elected president
Quite a few things were decided, in point of fact: Washington and Colorado legalized weed, gay marriage passed in three states, an anti-gay marriage amendment passed in another, the first openly gay senator, and the most women in the Senate in American history. In other words, the ball is no in liberal America's court. The wind is under the Democrat's wings. As I've stated, the whole forty-to-fifty political narrative of the United States has changed. Its going to take time for that to change, and I believe I should be optimistic.
Don’t get cocky.
Hey, I'm Canadian. Alot of the stuff thats being decided in the states is old hat here. Seriously---you out Canada'd Canada last week. Don't think I don't feel a little impressed.
2012′s electoral coalition isn’t automatically permanent.
No, but its durable. The Republican party, simply put, has no clue on Earth how to engage black, gay or Hispanic voters. They have not played a significant part in the American political process until very recently. Heck, the Republicans lost blacks quite a while ago: check how many black people support the Republican party today. How many did Bush win? Now how many did Clinton win?
Yeah, there are conservative-leaning factions within those groups, but how many votes can the Republicans reasonably expect from them? Romeny got seven percent of the black vote. It took the Republicans, what, fifty years until Reagan to win the white working class over? Sheer inertia is going to keep the Obama coalition together for a decade and more.
Don’t think the GOP is stupid
I'd believe you if the GOP wasn't doing everything in their power to support that. The conservative movement in America has developed an intellectual appartus that will make actual reform if not impossible, than at least exceptionaly difficult, at least for the next two to three electoral cycles. Conservatisim in the United States is going to remain pernicious and unrealistic for some time, and might actually get a heck of a lot worse long before it gets better. If the Republicans do comprimise even slightly with President Obama, the hue and cry that will result will limit their ability to enact further comprimises, or torpedo it. Republicans operate under an iron clad intellectual discipline and a myopic vision of the world. Breaking that habit is not going to be easy.
My prediction is that the president of 2016 will be a Democrat, though 2020 on the Republicans should make a comeback, at least the way Jimmy Carter was able to become president between two Republican presidencies. The resulting president will be competent, but that will depend on how willing Americans will be to ditch the culture war baggage of the past several decades. Since Nixon the Republicans have tarred the Democrats as being incredibly socially permissive and financially reckless, and a new narrative must arise to replace it. The Republicans don't, and until it sinks in won't, get that.
The Republicans are now the party of unnecessary war and bigotry---even the most moderate Republican candidate is going to be tarred with that brush, particularly from his own ostensible side. A problem because they'll be able to shout him down until he (and it will be a he, let's be real here) falls back into line.
Nothing’s been decided but who was elected president
Quite a few things were decided, in point of fact: Washington and Colorado legalized weed, gay marriage passed in three states, an anti-gay marriage amendment passed in another, the first openly gay senator, and the most women in the Senate in American history. In other words, the ball is no in liberal America's court. The wind is under the Democrat's wings. As I've stated, the whole forty-to-fifty political narrative of the United States has changed. Its going to take time for that to change, and I believe I should be optimistic.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Lovers in a Dangerous Time: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall, next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all.
---Lovers in a Dangerous Time
Hazel Grace is sixteen years old and running out of time. Dying of thyroid cancer, bought precious months of time by a miraculous cancer drug, she spends her remaining days obssesed with the novel An Imperial Affliction. The book ends in mid sentence, frustrating her to no end. Her mother insists she attend a support group for kids with cancer, wherein she meets Augustus Waters (whose only on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friends), and the two spark a relationship and seek out An Imperial Affliction's reclusive author.
Okay, I might want to drop everything and spend the rest of my life fighting cancer now. This book is fucking miraculous. This is a novel written specifically to spite aspiring writers by being so damn good.
Okay, okay, I'll actually try to review this.
The characters are a little too eloquent for their age, in my eyes. That gets distracting. I think thats the only fault I can think of, since the characters are excellent, and believable. They aren't saintly angles that they mock in the subgenre of cancer books.
Part of what makes this book really good is that in large part it was inspired by a real person: Esther Earl, a sixteen year old girl who had cancer. She isn't an expy of Hazel: Hazel was sullen, Esther chirpy and happy despite the fact she was dying. She was part of the Nerdfighter's, John Green's followers, and had an active vlog that she updated until a week before she passed away. It has an intimate and personal, realistic look at cancer, especially for someone so young.
But its never sad or saccharine. Augustus and Hazel are in love, true and deep. Love that, unforunately, comes with a hefty price tag. But the upside is every second was spent in deep, honest passion. Passion often sought, rarely found.
Some infinities are longer than others, and the infinity spent reading this book was not wasted.
---Lovers in a Dangerous Time
Hazel Grace is sixteen years old and running out of time. Dying of thyroid cancer, bought precious months of time by a miraculous cancer drug, she spends her remaining days obssesed with the novel An Imperial Affliction. The book ends in mid sentence, frustrating her to no end. Her mother insists she attend a support group for kids with cancer, wherein she meets Augustus Waters (whose only on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friends), and the two spark a relationship and seek out An Imperial Affliction's reclusive author.
Okay, I might want to drop everything and spend the rest of my life fighting cancer now. This book is fucking miraculous. This is a novel written specifically to spite aspiring writers by being so damn good.
Okay, okay, I'll actually try to review this.
The characters are a little too eloquent for their age, in my eyes. That gets distracting. I think thats the only fault I can think of, since the characters are excellent, and believable. They aren't saintly angles that they mock in the subgenre of cancer books.
Part of what makes this book really good is that in large part it was inspired by a real person: Esther Earl, a sixteen year old girl who had cancer. She isn't an expy of Hazel: Hazel was sullen, Esther chirpy and happy despite the fact she was dying. She was part of the Nerdfighter's, John Green's followers, and had an active vlog that she updated until a week before she passed away. It has an intimate and personal, realistic look at cancer, especially for someone so young.
But its never sad or saccharine. Augustus and Hazel are in love, true and deep. Love that, unforunately, comes with a hefty price tag. But the upside is every second was spent in deep, honest passion. Passion often sought, rarely found.
Some infinities are longer than others, and the infinity spent reading this book was not wasted.
Hypothesis: World War Z as the end of zombie mania
The World War Z trailer is out. I think it looks stupid. I have not read the book. I hear the book is pretty good. The movie's production has been...rocky, to say the least.
If the movie fails, which is a very realistic possibility given stories of reshoots and reedits, and changes to the script after the movie was done (never a good sign, that) what will that mean for the humble zombie? I submit that it will make any production of zombie related movies and TV difficult.
Example: The seventies fad of disaster movies. 'The Towering Inferno,' 'The Poseidon Adventure,' 'Airport,' and The Swarm. After the movie 'Airplane!' satirized the genre it became impossible to take it seriously, and despite the odd movie hither and yon (there was a moderate renaissance of disaster movies, in the form of Twister, Armageddon and Deep Impact, and Volcano and Dante's Peak) disaster movies haven't taken off as they have.
Genres are incredibly fragile things. Granted, the zombie apocalypse sub genre is reasonably robust with a broad body of media, such as The Walking Dead, which is reputed to be good. However, it dosen't take much, just a few bad entries, before it becomes impossible to take seriously. That, and the whole zombie craze has been going on for a decade, and while its been a fun ride, you really have to ask yourself: how much farther can this thing go?
I think within the next half decade we're going to start seeing serious parodies come out, which is always the sign that the powers that be who give us our books and movies have grown weary of putting the same thing over and over. Remember The Da Vinci Code from five years ago? Apparently, we're beginning to be on the downward slide from the YA dystopia boom of the past five years. After the Hunger Games movies are complete, and after the adaptations of related works, we'll start seeing something new---never a bad thing. A disappointing thing to be sure, but not bad.
I feel kind of the same way about superhero movies, which have no doubt hit their peak and by 2015-ish we'll have a rejuvenated Star Wars boom to provide large scale sci-fi action. Just an organic process, really, just the beat of time, and the beat always must go on.
If the movie fails, which is a very realistic possibility given stories of reshoots and reedits, and changes to the script after the movie was done (never a good sign, that) what will that mean for the humble zombie? I submit that it will make any production of zombie related movies and TV difficult.
Example: The seventies fad of disaster movies. 'The Towering Inferno,' 'The Poseidon Adventure,' 'Airport,' and The Swarm. After the movie 'Airplane!' satirized the genre it became impossible to take it seriously, and despite the odd movie hither and yon (there was a moderate renaissance of disaster movies, in the form of Twister, Armageddon and Deep Impact, and Volcano and Dante's Peak) disaster movies haven't taken off as they have.
Genres are incredibly fragile things. Granted, the zombie apocalypse sub genre is reasonably robust with a broad body of media, such as The Walking Dead, which is reputed to be good. However, it dosen't take much, just a few bad entries, before it becomes impossible to take seriously. That, and the whole zombie craze has been going on for a decade, and while its been a fun ride, you really have to ask yourself: how much farther can this thing go?
I think within the next half decade we're going to start seeing serious parodies come out, which is always the sign that the powers that be who give us our books and movies have grown weary of putting the same thing over and over. Remember The Da Vinci Code from five years ago? Apparently, we're beginning to be on the downward slide from the YA dystopia boom of the past five years. After the Hunger Games movies are complete, and after the adaptations of related works, we'll start seeing something new---never a bad thing. A disappointing thing to be sure, but not bad.
I feel kind of the same way about superhero movies, which have no doubt hit their peak and by 2015-ish we'll have a rejuvenated Star Wars boom to provide large scale sci-fi action. Just an organic process, really, just the beat of time, and the beat always must go on.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
An open letter to Orson Scott Card
Mr. Card,
It is with great interest that I read your Civilization Watch article that appeared following the reelection of President Obama. I was most interested in your opinion, because, frankly, I cannot fathom how someone who has written one of the most treasured works of science fiction can be so absolutist and projecting most ferociously your own faults onto President Obama. I would also like to speak to you about certain opinions that are, being most sincere in my honesty, destined to condemn you to self imposed obscurity. Your right to hold these opinions is not in dispute: the innate quality of them, however, most definitely are.
I
Your opinions regarding same sex marriage should not be condemned automatically. I am Canadian, where we have had same sex marriage for the better part of a decade and I would defend to the end the right of homosexuals to marry; however, I would not disrespect your religious beliefs which you hold so strongly. I do not understand them, I do not share them, but I will concede that you can hold them and not wish ill will upon a homosexual. Opposing same sex marriage legislation is in my mind a horrible mistake, but I will no doubt that you can do so and truly not possess any malice in your heart.
I daresay that your grasp of the same sex marriage isue is at the level of an obnoxious child.
I would like to state the goals of the same sex marriage movement: to bestow upon homosexual couples the equal dignity of marriage that heterosexual couples have; to allow for homosexual partners to have equal access to their partner's medical benefits and medical insurance; to recieve spousal benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy. Furthermore, to protect from harassment and violence of adolescents who are developing an understanding of their sexual identities.
It is an imperfect process, to be sure. Immoderate and unreasonable people within the movement are trying to shout down the opposing side. However, assuming that by enlarging the circle of values we have to include people whose behaviour you disagree with and rationalize that its proponents are doing it out of hatred for traditional values and those who hold them---that is inexcusable. Contemptible behaviour by a few is not an excuse to decry the aspirations of the many.
Your response to a government that would sanction homosexual couples to wed is, in your utterly disgenious words: "Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. Only when the marriage of heterosexuals has the support of the whole society can we have our best hope of raising each new generation to aspire to continue our civilization.."
Your attempt to "contextualize" this statement is appallling to the intellect. I am disappointed to be unable to find a copy online of the article in which these words appear, in high likelihood that the publishers have deleted it out of sheer embarssment.
In your recent novella "Hamlet's Father" it has been reported that you have written a very skewed work of fiction regarding same sex relationships, and I think that your attempts to reply to your critics are utterly, utterly disingenous.
To wit: "But the lie is this, that "the focus is primarily on linking homosexuality with ... pedophilia." The focus isn't primarily on this because there is no link whatsoever between homosexuality and pedophilia in this book. Hamlet's father, in the book, is a pedophile, period. I don't show him being even slightly attracted to adults of either sex. It is the reviewer, not me, who has asserted this link, which I would not and did not make."
From your essay Homosexual Marriage and Civilization:
"The dark secret of homosexual society—the one that dares not speak its name—is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally"
These are your words, sir.
II
I would like to address now your most recent Civilization Watch article. Namely, the self righteous sense of fury that you extend to homosexuals extends to the Obama government and the media. You attribute Obama's victory to the machinations of the media, who allegedly duped the American people by unfairly highlighting the good deeds of Obama while overplaying the mistakes of the Bush administration.
"If Barack Obama had a propaganda minister with the power to shut you down if you ran stories that embarrassed him or his administration, would your station, your network, your newspaper, your magazine still be in business? If America had a Joseph Goebbels who would arrest any journalist who reported anything that would make the administration look bad, did you write or say or report anything during this election campaign that would have put you inside a jail cell? Everybody at Fox News would have been jailed, and Fox News would have been shut down. But you already do everything you can to get people not to listen to Fox, so the actions of such a propaganda minister would merely make official what you already try to accomplish by other means.
Don't you dare say I'm lying or exaggerating, because the Democrats did try to shut down conservative talk radio, and you supported them in that effort, allowing them to get away with calling the proposed action "fairness."
In your preferred source for News, Fox News, Barack Obama states the Fairness Doctrine is not now, nor has it ever been, an objective of his government. I am reluctant to include any news postings from the internet about Congressional Democrats, at least, from any news sources I do not consider to be anything but hopelessly prejudiced. I do not have the luxury of selecting my sources based on my convictions.
"But far more likely is the other alternative -- that, faced with your monolithic groupthink, your insistent flacking for the Beloved Leader, your dishonesty that is equal to his dishonesty, your emulation of Pravda, the Republicans in Congress will give up, Fox News will drop the story, it will all go away, and the Beloved Leader will continue in power. Then, when his appeasement of our enemies results in a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv ... When more and more Al-Qaeda-style attacks kill more Jews and more Americans around the world ... When Obama's incompetent and anti-scientific economic policies have the consequences that such policies always have, and the American economy collapses under the weight of debts and entitlements ... When Obama's crushing policies result in American healthcare sinking to the low level of service, the endless waiting lists, the needless death and suffering in the name of "fairness" that already afflict Europeans and Canadians ... When the burden of ever-steeper taxes moves capital and industry and innovation to other countries ...
Will you step forward and take responsibility, and say, "We should have known; in fact we did know, but we did not tell you"?
I do not relish having to explain to a multiple award winning author what the Slippery Slope fallacy is. I also find it hilarious for you to lecture the allegedly liberal media about hyperbole and misinformation when you have so much on display (to wit). Everything you attribute to Obama has been done by the Republican Party, particularly debt and outsourcing everything in the American economy that isn't nailed down. But all that is covered by the liberal media, isn't it? The vengeful, biased mainstream media. You don't want to be "misled" by the liberal media, so you would rather hear from true, real Americans? Right?
I consider your inability to be receptive to anything other than conservative media and arguments to be a major failing---and you can throw in my face any accusation that I am doing the same, preferring strictly liberal sources of information. Fine. So be it. I actually expect it. Let the first stone fly.
Your article is a frenzied tantrum of a man unable to conceptualize a positive way to interact with the larger world.
For that you have my pity.
III
Mr. Card, you are living in self imposed isolation. You risk destroying your aritistic reputation and legacy. I am neither the first nor the last person to be disappointed with you. Ender's Game is a landmark in science fiction. I have enjoyed it every since I was eleven---my first "grown up" science fiction novel. I would like to thank you, sir. At a time when I needed it you provided me with the first step into the larger science fiction genre. The praise for that is inexpressable. But I must be realistic about Orson Scott Card the author of Ender's Game and Orson Scott Card the author of jeremiads and polemics.
I haven't decided whether or not to see the Ender's Game movie coming out next year. I don't wish to support the National Organization for Marriage. I do not wish to interfere in the private lives of others. But I am confident in 2016, when the Republican Party (assuming it survives the brutal civil war that will follow this election) will be forced to make a choice between pragmitism and your branch of outrageous politics, you will be disappointed.
I am not asking you to change your opinions out of an attempt to enforce intellectual conformity. What you must do, I am afraid, is to adjust your manner and patterns of thinking. For the past decade you have not only been swimming against the tide of history, but justifying with with utterly disgusting arguments and alarmist rhetoric. You are increasingly unable to take seriously. You risk alienating a new generation from enjoying your classic work, and that is not fair to art. As an individual, not so much.
You can denounce me as another brainwashed left of centre useful idiot. I won't throw any gauntlets down demanding you change your opinions. I doubt I alone can accomplish that.That is your buisness. I have said my piece.
Sincerley,
Ian Cordingley
It is with great interest that I read your Civilization Watch article that appeared following the reelection of President Obama. I was most interested in your opinion, because, frankly, I cannot fathom how someone who has written one of the most treasured works of science fiction can be so absolutist and projecting most ferociously your own faults onto President Obama. I would also like to speak to you about certain opinions that are, being most sincere in my honesty, destined to condemn you to self imposed obscurity. Your right to hold these opinions is not in dispute: the innate quality of them, however, most definitely are.
I
Your opinions regarding same sex marriage should not be condemned automatically. I am Canadian, where we have had same sex marriage for the better part of a decade and I would defend to the end the right of homosexuals to marry; however, I would not disrespect your religious beliefs which you hold so strongly. I do not understand them, I do not share them, but I will concede that you can hold them and not wish ill will upon a homosexual. Opposing same sex marriage legislation is in my mind a horrible mistake, but I will no doubt that you can do so and truly not possess any malice in your heart.
I daresay that your grasp of the same sex marriage isue is at the level of an obnoxious child.
I would like to state the goals of the same sex marriage movement: to bestow upon homosexual couples the equal dignity of marriage that heterosexual couples have; to allow for homosexual partners to have equal access to their partner's medical benefits and medical insurance; to recieve spousal benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy. Furthermore, to protect from harassment and violence of adolescents who are developing an understanding of their sexual identities.
It is an imperfect process, to be sure. Immoderate and unreasonable people within the movement are trying to shout down the opposing side. However, assuming that by enlarging the circle of values we have to include people whose behaviour you disagree with and rationalize that its proponents are doing it out of hatred for traditional values and those who hold them---that is inexcusable. Contemptible behaviour by a few is not an excuse to decry the aspirations of the many.
Your response to a government that would sanction homosexual couples to wed is, in your utterly disgenious words: "Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. Only when the marriage of heterosexuals has the support of the whole society can we have our best hope of raising each new generation to aspire to continue our civilization.."
Your attempt to "contextualize" this statement is appallling to the intellect. I am disappointed to be unable to find a copy online of the article in which these words appear, in high likelihood that the publishers have deleted it out of sheer embarssment.
In your recent novella "Hamlet's Father" it has been reported that you have written a very skewed work of fiction regarding same sex relationships, and I think that your attempts to reply to your critics are utterly, utterly disingenous.
To wit: "But the lie is this, that "the focus is primarily on linking homosexuality with ... pedophilia." The focus isn't primarily on this because there is no link whatsoever between homosexuality and pedophilia in this book. Hamlet's father, in the book, is a pedophile, period. I don't show him being even slightly attracted to adults of either sex. It is the reviewer, not me, who has asserted this link, which I would not and did not make."
From your essay Homosexual Marriage and Civilization:
"The dark secret of homosexual society—the one that dares not speak its name—is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally"
These are your words, sir.
II
I would like to address now your most recent Civilization Watch article. Namely, the self righteous sense of fury that you extend to homosexuals extends to the Obama government and the media. You attribute Obama's victory to the machinations of the media, who allegedly duped the American people by unfairly highlighting the good deeds of Obama while overplaying the mistakes of the Bush administration.
"If Barack Obama had a propaganda minister with the power to shut you down if you ran stories that embarrassed him or his administration, would your station, your network, your newspaper, your magazine still be in business? If America had a Joseph Goebbels who would arrest any journalist who reported anything that would make the administration look bad, did you write or say or report anything during this election campaign that would have put you inside a jail cell? Everybody at Fox News would have been jailed, and Fox News would have been shut down. But you already do everything you can to get people not to listen to Fox, so the actions of such a propaganda minister would merely make official what you already try to accomplish by other means.
Don't you dare say I'm lying or exaggerating, because the Democrats did try to shut down conservative talk radio, and you supported them in that effort, allowing them to get away with calling the proposed action "fairness."
In your preferred source for News, Fox News, Barack Obama states the Fairness Doctrine is not now, nor has it ever been, an objective of his government. I am reluctant to include any news postings from the internet about Congressional Democrats, at least, from any news sources I do not consider to be anything but hopelessly prejudiced. I do not have the luxury of selecting my sources based on my convictions.
"But far more likely is the other alternative -- that, faced with your monolithic groupthink, your insistent flacking for the Beloved Leader, your dishonesty that is equal to his dishonesty, your emulation of Pravda, the Republicans in Congress will give up, Fox News will drop the story, it will all go away, and the Beloved Leader will continue in power. Then, when his appeasement of our enemies results in a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv ... When more and more Al-Qaeda-style attacks kill more Jews and more Americans around the world ... When Obama's incompetent and anti-scientific economic policies have the consequences that such policies always have, and the American economy collapses under the weight of debts and entitlements ... When Obama's crushing policies result in American healthcare sinking to the low level of service, the endless waiting lists, the needless death and suffering in the name of "fairness" that already afflict Europeans and Canadians ... When the burden of ever-steeper taxes moves capital and industry and innovation to other countries ...
Will you step forward and take responsibility, and say, "We should have known; in fact we did know, but we did not tell you"?
I do not relish having to explain to a multiple award winning author what the Slippery Slope fallacy is. I also find it hilarious for you to lecture the allegedly liberal media about hyperbole and misinformation when you have so much on display (to wit). Everything you attribute to Obama has been done by the Republican Party, particularly debt and outsourcing everything in the American economy that isn't nailed down. But all that is covered by the liberal media, isn't it? The vengeful, biased mainstream media. You don't want to be "misled" by the liberal media, so you would rather hear from true, real Americans? Right?
I consider your inability to be receptive to anything other than conservative media and arguments to be a major failing---and you can throw in my face any accusation that I am doing the same, preferring strictly liberal sources of information. Fine. So be it. I actually expect it. Let the first stone fly.
Your article is a frenzied tantrum of a man unable to conceptualize a positive way to interact with the larger world.
For that you have my pity.
III
Mr. Card, you are living in self imposed isolation. You risk destroying your aritistic reputation and legacy. I am neither the first nor the last person to be disappointed with you. Ender's Game is a landmark in science fiction. I have enjoyed it every since I was eleven---my first "grown up" science fiction novel. I would like to thank you, sir. At a time when I needed it you provided me with the first step into the larger science fiction genre. The praise for that is inexpressable. But I must be realistic about Orson Scott Card the author of Ender's Game and Orson Scott Card the author of jeremiads and polemics.
I haven't decided whether or not to see the Ender's Game movie coming out next year. I don't wish to support the National Organization for Marriage. I do not wish to interfere in the private lives of others. But I am confident in 2016, when the Republican Party (assuming it survives the brutal civil war that will follow this election) will be forced to make a choice between pragmitism and your branch of outrageous politics, you will be disappointed.
I am not asking you to change your opinions out of an attempt to enforce intellectual conformity. What you must do, I am afraid, is to adjust your manner and patterns of thinking. For the past decade you have not only been swimming against the tide of history, but justifying with with utterly disgusting arguments and alarmist rhetoric. You are increasingly unable to take seriously. You risk alienating a new generation from enjoying your classic work, and that is not fair to art. As an individual, not so much.
You can denounce me as another brainwashed left of centre useful idiot. I won't throw any gauntlets down demanding you change your opinions. I doubt I alone can accomplish that.That is your buisness. I have said my piece.
Sincerley,
Ian Cordingley
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