They say things never really disappear on the internet and I suppose that’s true if you have the patience to search. For instance, here’s a link to my old website’s book page.…
Month: October 2008
The Age of Euphemism
I’d like to do a bit here on language. Primarily on how we have seen it distorted over the last few decades. According to George Lakoff and Geoff Nunberg, the Right has seized the rhetorical high-ground and driven Liberals into defensive postures by altering or subverting the meanings of certain words and phrases. I tend to think that, yes, they’ve done that, but that also the people who are swayed by such verbal gymnastics are by and large pre-sold on the message. Many of us out here never did buy into it.
But the effect of making those the Democratic Party has fielded to oppose them look weak did happen, even for those of us who could see through the bull shit. …
Some Thoughts On Our Next President
Maybe there’s something wrong with me. I am not enthused about the coming election. I hope Obama wins, but only because I have had enough of the Republicans and their wistful, “wish it were 1952 again” attitudes, and the ideological leech they’ve been carrying around since 1980 that wants to turn the United States into a theocracy. The fact that the Constitution actually does permit us to successfully fight that possibility doesn’t mean we can’t grow very, very tired of the effort.
But I’m not a huge Obama supporter. I like a lot of what I see and hear, but I’ve learned to discount that. …
MCB in D.C.
Below is a shot from the recently-completed National Book Festival, featuring Yours Truly at the Missouri table in the Pavilion of States. The chaos behind us is typical of the day. Seated is fellow board member Barri Bumgarner and the third person is from the Junior League (forgive me, I forget her name) without whom we would have been certifiably goofy by the end of the day. The one with the facial hair, of course, is me.
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Appearances Etc
I have been remiss. I ought to be posting the things I’m doing publicly here (among other places) and it’s been just crazy enough that I keep forgetting to do this. One of the reasons I need a publicist. But that will have to wait till I have something new to publicize, like a book coming out or something writerly like that.
Meanwhile, I am doing things folks might be interested in. So.
October 25th I will be at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, for the Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers Guild annual conference. I will be the keynote speaker, plus I will be conducting a session on making the change from science fiction to historical writing.…
Palin
She is rather insulting to the feminist ideal, isn’t she? That said, look what she’s done so far. She has served as a huge distraction from John McCain. She’s been able to say things McCain now knows would be risky for him to say—all that stuff about Ayers and questioning Biden’s sincerity about running with someone he voted in opposition to in the Senate and so forth—and for a few weeks, everyone was talking about Sarah Palin and wondering just what was McCain thinking?
We have, of course, seen this before. Spiro Agnew was the first I remember of second bananas who could fling turds at the opposition while the pres himself floated above the fray. …