The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Vicki Rosenzweig:

A little further down the page is an article on the use of blimps by the Marines in Iraq.

Was it here or over on Making Light that someone observed that blimps are the invariable result of changing history?

It occurs to me that toxic/draining people are more likely to push themselves on you when you know that what you need is to be alone for a while and rest. Basic decent non-toxic people are more likely to accept that if you say you need to be alone, you mean it, you're probably correct about your own needs, and that it doesn't mean you don't like them.

Jodi--

Welcome.

Fear not, we know that Vox Day, or whatever his name is, does not speak for Christians or Christianity. Did I think Christianity needed a spokesperson, I'd sooner ask our host or our moderator to take on that position. Being sane people, and aware that Pride is dangerous, they would probably decline: but they are both Christian, and both articulate, and would thus be more plausible in that role than VD, who appears to be neither.

I just finished (as in, about 20 minutes ago) Ursula Le Guin's Gifts, which Harcourt is billing as a YA (it's labeled "ages 12 and up"). Good fantasy, whose characters as well as author care about magic for what it can do, and what it can do to its users, not just as a convenient device to drive a plot.

Lydy already corrected the dates for the Weather Underground, but what struck me about that part of the quoted material isn't the timing. The claim that Weather Underground was founded after the 1968 election "because the election did not provide the group?s solution for the Vietnam War" requires the writer to believe that Weather Underground was founded by supporters of Hubert Humphrey.

It doesn't say what Rapoport is Professor Emeritus of, but that title strongly suggests that he's old enough to have lived through those years.

I've signed a bunch of posts to NH blogs as just "Vicki", but that's just laziness--I seem to be the only Vicki posting here, and it's 11 fewer characters to type.

I don't remember, offhand, why my LJ is under an online nickname; it made sense when I signed up, a couple of years back. I suspect "Vicki" was already taken, and I've too much experience with people misspelling "Rosenzweig" even when it's right there in front of them to count on my friends, let alone anyone else, finding an LJ account under "vickirosenzweig".

Andy Perrin--I figure consistent means "the name the person uses in all contexts," not whether it's what they got from their parents, or even whether it's their legal name.

Trent,

If we're doing the "sf writers invented thus-and-such" bit, Arthur Clarke and the comsat is a much better example: he did, and published, enough of the work that it was unpatentable when they actually built one. For Heinlein, I'd say the waterbed, not the waldo (Stranger in a Strange Land is more often pointed to as a source of ideas about sex and religion, but there's also that bit of usable tech).

An idle question that this thread brought me to: how many self-published books other than their own do these people who argue that self-publishing is inherently better than going to a commercial publishing house read? And how do they decide which ones?

Jimcat,

You sound like the people--which is just about everyone--who, when I was growing up, said that "of course East and West Germany both say they're for German reunification. They each mean that they'd be happy to take over the other, and it doesn't matter, because the US and USSR will never let it happen."

It was a very plausible argument, geopolitically sound and fitting the way we know governments behave.

Then the people took to the streets, and the parliament of the German Democratic Republic voted itself out of existence.

Alan--What Patrick said. I don't care why Newsom and Daley are doing the right thing. I care that they are doing the right thing. Maybe Daley really and truly understands that he'd be on the side of truth, justice, and the American way, or maybe he's counting votes.

If the mayor of Chicago is supporting gay rights because he calculates that it is the politically astute thing to do, we're further along in this revolution than I'd dared to hope.

If this was handled by a low-level bureaucrat using a checklist, someone created that checklist. It did not fall out of the sky, it was not picked up off the ground like a pebble, it was written by human beings for political reasons. And someone higher up decided not to overrule the bureaucrat when it became known that Ferrer had been denied a visa to come get an award for his music.

Erik, I don't think you're evil. I think you're angry--as am I--and I think it's leading you to an erroneous position.

It's not easy to vote for the lesser of two evils: but, in retrospect, it's clear that we'd have been better off if the people who, justly I think, felt betrayed by the Democratic leadership in 1968 had gone out and gotten Humphrey elected instead of Nixon.

I'm way to the left of Al Gore, and I think well to the left of you (and maybe Patrick). But we--we the people of the United States, and of planet Earth--would be better off today if the 2000 election hadn't been stolen from him.

It also occurs to me that yes, this is a matter of principle that I'm prepared to stand on, and for. Bush stole an election. That makes him an enemy of democracy, and arguably a traitor (though, as I pointed out elsenet recently, the legal definition of treason against the US is deliberately narrow). Given the chance, I will vote for the person who has the best chance of defeating him, come November--and work to make sure that the votes are counted, and that this time the winner gets to take office the following January.

I've noticed something about those "two friends" who are being invoked as evidence for Dubya's serving in the Guard: neither claims to have served with him. Rather, what we have here are two people who say that Bush told them he was in the Guard. (Actually, it's weaker than that: one says Bush told her, the other says that unnamed people told him this.)

One was working on a campaign with him. The other was dating him. Neither is described as seeing him on duty, and neither was a fellow member of the National Guard.

This isn't evidence of anything except that Dubya was trying to keep his story straight.

I suspect that, the weekend he missed a campaign meeting, he was off partying: a man who will weasel out of a commitment he's made to defend his country, and then make claims about having served later, isn't going to be above using that alleged service to go off drinking instead of attending a campaign meeting.

And yes, I know that Bush isn't technically a deserter, only a liar who went AWOL.


Two unrelated footnotes:

(1) I keep checking "don't make me type all this again" and still have to reenter my personal information.

(2) Looking at "How we'd reach you" I have a strong impulse to type my phone number instead of my email address.

I've had dinner with Rivka, and would happily do so again, or invite her to parties if I ever got myself and my home together enough to hold parties. Peggy Noonan, on the other hand, can dine elsewhere.

David--Canadians are proud, of course, but in a quiet, unassuming, Canadian way.

Is there a deadline for certifying challengers in Kentucky, or would there still be time for the Democrats--or some other organization--to send challengers to every Republican district in the state? Is it possible to challenge the challengers--make them prove their citizenship, their residency, and every other thing one could think of?

And I just, against my better judgment, replied to a Usenet post in which someone argued, essentially, that "it could be worse--if some other country were doing this, would they let the prisoners exercise their religion?"

So I noted that, depending on which other country, and which religion, they might--and that, more to the point, being told "we may imprison you without charges or notifying anyone, for as long as we like, but we'll let you exercise your religion" does not make me feel any more comfortable than if it didn't have the bit about religion in it. Yes, I'm an unbeliever--but many of my friends and loved ones are religious, and I don't think the presence, at camp X-ray, of kosher food, or access to priests/ministers/rabbis/imams of the appropriate religion makes up for what else is being done there.

Stefan--Whoever did this doesn't deserve to be guarding an office building at night, with clean air to breathe and a paycheck, however small, when it's over. If the story is true, these are war crimes, and should be punished as such.

I'm not a parent, so take this with a bit of salt.

That said, in response to Melissa Singer, there are arguments both ways on whether to take children to cons--my nephew-by-choice has been enjoying them for years, for example. But somehow it always seems to be the mothers who miss cons, not the fathers (even once the child is weaned).

More to the point, there is no good argument for saying you'll provide childcare and then doing so in as slapdash, unhelpful, or nonexistent a way as some of the cons Kathryn describes.

That is the voice of hatred, as you know.

I've heard the voice of Christian compassion--here and in Making Light.

I'm not an unalloyed Clinton fan either, but I like her better than I like our senior senator. And she does indeed know a bit about how White Houses work. (Digression: that sounds like a stefnal bit about automated/AI dwellings, in which different colors correlate with different models or functionality.)

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