As 19th century oratory, the Gettysburg Address was a failure. Lincoln himself said so as the weak and scattered applause subsided. But when printed on the front page of papers all across the North, it was a gem. Perfect. Poetic. Memorized and recited by everyone from politicians to preachers to schoolchildren to soldiers. It still […]
(March 5th, 2017) Stalin died on this day in 1953. It was a peaceful passing, in his own bed. His corpse was embalmed and treated and put on display next to Lenin’s, and the people passed by in their hundreds of thousands, never realizing till then just what a little guy–five foot four inches–Stalin had […]
Even the ridiculous and trivial world of science fiction fandom has split apart politically due to the genuinely evil power of social media. The “alt right” folks are constantly harassing what they call Social Justice Warriors, and the Left is doing exactly what the Right wants them to do, by shouting back, banning people from SF conventions, and so on. The Right stages protests against “pedophilia in science fiction fandom” at the World Science Fiction convention, and stages block voting that puts deliberately idiotic works on the Hugo Award. (They got something called “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” nominated, as an example.) The whole thing makes me ashamed to be a fan.
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Well that is thoroughly depressing. This too shall pass, evcntually.
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Appropriately, the SF fandom news site reports on an alt right rally that happened at the Worldcon just now.
http://file770.com/alt-right-rally-outside-worldcon-76-draws-about-40/
So many bizarre details. The anti-pedophilia thing, blocking the bloodmobile, the huge number of cops that had to come out, the German-looking flag with a weird symbol on it, etc.
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