On Forgiveness and Redemption (Storify)

[Update:  since a number of people are reaching my blog via this page, please see this addendum post, which includes an apology and other things related to this post.]

You'll need to click the "read more" because the darn Storify is so long that it floods my main page.

A Conversation with Josh Vogt About the Internet and Perverted Things

(Trigger warning for anyone bother STD analogies...)

SCENE:  In the minutes before Shaun's new editing website went live, an unsuspecting Josh Vogt is gifted an exchange of adolescent absurdity on Facebook.

SHAUN:  I want to announce this thing, but I can't do it if the stupid thing doesn't propagate.  Make Internet love and spread already!

JOSH:  You make it sound like an STD.

Gender, Non-Binary, and Things (or, the Likelihood of Failure)

As you may have heard, I changed my review guidelines so I could join my podcast, The Skiffy and Fanty Show, in its 2015 "Women and Non-Binary in SFF" theme.  This post isn't really about that so much as the related subject of life and getting things right.

Or, rather, getting things wrong and hoping for forgiveness.

Already, I can tell that my efforts to provide representation for women and non-binary folks is going to an informative journey through no fault of the people involved.  Learning is, after all, partly experiential, and so it's unlikely I can go through a year with such a clear focus without picking up on my own failings or picking up new behaviors, habits, concerns, dreams, aspirations, and so on.  I'm the type of person who finds something they love or care about, and then I start dreaming about all the ways I can do that thing, often knowing deep down that I won't be able to paint the whole picture with the resources on hand.  Ambitious to a fault, if you will, about the things that matter to me, or that I find I'm most passionate about.  Podcasting and issues of representation happen to be two of the things from which I currently derive the most joy.  Partly, that's because I find podcasting to be a great deal of fun -- reading books, watching movies, and hanging out with friends; what's not to love?

On The Interview, Terrorism, and the Artistic Expression

By now, you'll have heard that Sony had opted to cancel the release of Seth Rogen and Ethan Goldberg's The Interview (2014)(starring Rogen and James Franco) in response to threats against their employees and movie theaters (many of which have refused to show the film).  They have since announced that the film will play in select theaters on Christmas Day and that they are still trying to find places to play the film so it will have a proper release.  Now, it seems, the film's future is up to theaters.

Update:  On Christmas afternoon, Sony will also release The Interview via several streaming sites, including Google.  So at least we can all see it if we want to.

Chuck Wendig has already written an interesting post on the situation, and if it's not already obvious, I have a few thoughts.  But first, a quote from Wendig:

On #GamerGate -- Final Thoughts Before I Find Something Else to Do

If you have no idea what GamerGate is, the Wiki page gives a decent enough summary of the major events.  Additional details can be found at RationalWiki.

This is the only post I will write on this subject.  At this point, I'm basically "over it."  The whole thing is a monumental mess.  There's abuse on both sides, accusations flying everywhere, and, once more, a lot of hard divisions.  If GG had a purpose beyond its 4Chan origins, I think it's now over with, either because the well-meaning people within it could not control the narrative or because GG was always a hijacked movement whose membership, in part, was about attacking women (I lean more towards the latter).  For example, here's a rough statistical analysis of what GamerGaters have been talking about in the last month; hint:  ethics in journalism is pretty low on the list.

So this is all I'm saying on GamerGate.  I will not Tweet about it again.  I will not write more blog posts.  If someone decides to create an organized body of folks who are against corruption in games journalism, I'll support it, but I cannot in good conscience support GG.

These are my final thoughts:

On Language and Reinforcing Bigotry

[Note:  statistics will vary considerably depending where you are in the world.  I'm using statistics and studies which are mostly relevant to the United States, and so this post will focus accordingly.  This is my comfort zone, but I encourage others to take a look at these same concerns as they relate to their cultural contexts.]

Language is our responsibility.  How we use it determines everything from our ability to communicate with one another to how we talk about other people to how we describe the world we all share.

On Robin Williams

You have probably already heard about the death of Robin Williams by (apparent) suicide.  Given the public nature of celebrity deaths, I have a feeling a lot of people are somewhat desensitized to the whole thing.  I, however, feel inclined to say a few words about Robin Williams.

I was born in 1983.  Basically, I was a 90s kid.  I grew up on 90s cartoons.  I grew up on 90s movies.[1]  Among my fondest memories are those films which featured Robin Williams.  Hook (1991), FernGully (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Jack (1996), and Flubber (1997).  My siblings and I watched a number of these films many times over.  They brought us joy.  Robin Williams had a way of making us laugh -- his greatest gift.

In a small way, Williams helped make our lives better.  Those that know me are probably aware that my childhood was pretty crap.  I wrote about some of that here.  Movies and video games were some of the methods through which I survived that growing-up experience.  Robin Williams was a part of that.  And so, for me, his death had a personal feel to it.  The man who made us laugh.  Who brought joy and wonder.  He's gone.  Forever.

I'll never forget the laughs.  It's just sad that we won't have any new laughfests from Robin Williams.  We'll only have the memories.

On LonCon and Thanks

I'm currently in Bristol after a long, exciting weekend at LonCon, resting up, seeing some touristy stuff, and generally dropping the weight from my shoulders.  Overall, this trip abroad has been beautiful.  I'll talk about some of that here (warning:  this will be more rambly and random than usual).

LonCon!
I still have a few days to look forward to in the big magic city, but my experience at the convention was overwhelmingly positive.  First, the LonCon staff put together a fantastic convention.  Though I could not attend every item I wanted to for all sorts of reasons, there were so many incredible panels this year, including a whole sub-track on World SF.  Clearly, the con runners heard all of the complaints and concerns about San Antonio (and previous cons) and took it to heart.  The international presence was phenomenal, in part served by the location (LONDON!) and by the smart programming staff who wanted to highlight the contributions of non-US/non-UK authors and fans.

In Response to a Bad Argument About SF/F, Racism, etc.

If you haven't seen Damien Walter's piece on diversity and vocal opposition to it in SF/F, you'll probably want to read it for context.  One of the loudest voices in the comments section is a fellow who calls himself Fail Burton (I assume he's a he, but I could be wrong -- looked on his profile; he says he's a he).  He's made a remarkable number of absurd claims.  I'd like to respond to one of those here:

Criticism Does Not Equal Bullying (or, What Bullying Means to Me)

(Update regarding comments:  if you're here to leave a flippant comment about the issue in question, it is unlikely to get through.  Either engage or move on.  This is likely to become my comment policy from now on because I really don't have patience for people who want to treat my comments section as if my blog were an opinion piece on HuffPost.)

If you missed the events of the last 36 hours, you should probably catch up here.  I linked to that post earlier today; in short, Charles A. Tan takes an editor to task for their problematic anthology submission guidelines, among other related things.  Earlier today, that same editor, after declaring on Twitter that they felt persecuted by people like Tan, etc., decided to delete his Twitter account and make his FB profile inaccessible (I think the latter is true).  This came on the heels of this editor's belief that he was being bullied by the people who he had un-affectionately called "rotten meat" (you can see the Twitter exchange for part of that here).

I'm not here to talk about the editor's submission guidelines or any of the major criticisms offered by Tan or others regarding what this editor has said about Africa and other things.  Instead, I want to talk about the charge that Tan, myself, and others who have criticized the editor (Natalie Luhrs and Jim C. Hines, for example) are bullies.  In short, I will say this:  criticism is not the same as bullying.

First, bullying is not:

Ethnic Heritage, Rejection, and Me

A few months back, Julia Rios and I recorded a whole bunch of interviews at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA).  One of those interviews involved a discussion about ethnic heritage and its various diversities with Mary Anne Mohanraj and Cecilia Tan, in which I lightly (and rightly) got called out for referring to my own heritage as "uninteresting" by dint of having descended from "old dead white people."  Having just edited the episode which contains this interview, I feel I should talk about this aspect in more depth, since I didn't actually explore my heritage in the podcast in question (me being the interviewer, not the interviewee).

A Cereal Metaphor for the SFF Community

Imagine you have a bowl of cereal, and there are a bunch of other people with bowls of cereal, too.  Person A really likes Lucky Charms, which you think are OK, but you're much more into Cocoa Puffs.  Person B likes neither, but prefers Mini Wheats, while Person C enjoys Lucky Charms, but discovered Trix and hasn't turned back.  Along comes Person D.  They like Grape Nuts.  There's nothing necessarily wrong with Grape Nuts.  Sometime's it's OK.  Heck, sometimes it's even good if you're in the mood for it.  Other times, it's the thing you avoid in the morning because it's like chewing on rodent food.  But Person D likes Grape Nuts, not because it's good for them or tasty, per se, but because Grape Nuts is what their friends eat, and they like their friends a lot.

How to Destroy the SFWA...err, no, I'm not going to talk about that after all

This post began as a parody or a satire.  Whatever it began as, it was a scathing critique of someone else whose post I'm not going to link to because I just don't see a point in directly addressing anything said there or using my website as a link vehicle for what amounts to "people screaming about things they don't understand."  Phew.  Big sentence.

So, I've come to this point where I either shrug, shake my head, and walk away to other things, or I write parodies/satires because I don't want to repeat myself.  I'm going with the first route (except the walking away part).

Censorship is what people say when they don't want to address the actual issue...for reasons

The other day, I posted about the SFWA Bulletin Petition thing.  I'm not going to rehash that debate here, though you're welcome to read it (there are links at the bottom of that post to other discussions).  However, I do think it a good idea to take a moment to talk about the rhetoric surrounding this ordeal, because much of the anger and confusion is, if not deliberate, then certainly the product of a particular discourse which naturally stifles debate or discussion.  The centerpiece of this rhetorical game is "censorship," which many have already discussed at some length elsewhere.  Here, I'm interested in how "censorship" is used in the service of the agenda at the heart of the petition and the debates that followed:

On the SFWA Bulletin Petition Thing Nonsense

(Note:  I've listed links to other posts on this topic at the end.)

I won't have anything extensive to say on this "anti-political-correctness" petition thing.  That's mostly because Radish Reviews has pretty well covered it...

That said, there are a few things I'll address:

Moderating the Community and the Cost of Respect

In a recent blog post, Alastair Reynolds took on what he perceives to be the instantaneous vitriol that peppers (or, perhaps, consumes) the SF/F community on a regular basis.  Hence the title:  "Does it have to be this way?"  It's essentially an argument for moderation by way of a questioning of the current state of discussion in this community, and it's an interesting question to ask.

Does it have to be this way?  No.  That's kind of the point.  Most of these discussions don't have to begin and end with vitriol, though I think some of them require a certain firmness and uncompromising language (some).  In fact, it's entirely reasonable to expect two people from different camps to have a reasonable discussion about a hot topic and come out having actually learned something (I do this on G+ all the time).  I've certainly been guilty of jumping without much care to where I land, and it's something that I've tried to rectify to avoid the trap of attack over substance (it's an ongoing process).  I'm certainly not successful on all counts, and it has taken some degree of effort to hone my pouncing instincts so I'm not pouncing when I should be doing something else.  Even then, I try to pick my battles with some degree of care.

Non-Binary SF/F and Message Fiction (or, "I don't know what that is or why non-binary SF/F fits")

(Note:  comments will be monitored on this post due to the nature of the debate surrounding this topic.  I hope I won't have to remove anything, but I have a low tolerance for rude behavior right now.  If you can't make your point without being a jackass, even if that point agrees with my own, then take it elsewhere.)

You might have seen the response to Alex MacFarlane's Tor.com post, "Post-Binary Gender in SF:  Introduction."  If not, you can read the words of Jim C. Hines and Justin Landon, who both have things to say of their own.  I'm not going to address content of the primary response to MacFarlane (well, not the whole of it, anyway) or offer a line-by-line critique a la Hines.  Rather, I want to talk about a specific issue within this debate:  message fiction.  I would also be remiss to neglect to mention my post entitled "Gender Essentialism, Genre, and Me," which is amusingly relevant to the larger discussion being had in the community right now.

Gender Essentialism, Genre, and Me

I'm late to the party.  The first major SF/F controversy party.  And while this post won't be about Kemp's argument specifically, it does come out of the discussions about his post -- most particularly the criticisms.[1]

Part of the problem I have with traditional gender roles is the way they assume what manhood (or womanhood) is based on behaviors which are definitively not gendered.  There's nothing explicitly masculine about aggression or nobility.  There's nothing explicitly feminine about child rearing, except insofar as it is currently required for women to be the carriers of unborn children.  Gender essentalism, however, assumes there are definitely gendered behaviors, such that chivalry is read as "male/masculine" and cowardice is read as "female/feminine."  If this association sounds negative, that's because the construction of male/female or masculine/feminine is frequently a negative.  These associations are also oriented around agency, where masculine behaviors are active and feminine behaviors are passive.  There are all manner of gendered constructions, and each is based on arbitrary, culturally-determined factors.

The impact of gender essentialism in this particular context is often unintended, but, by the nature of a culture's ability to transmit its behavioral modes, it is also pervasive.  We are all coded by our

A Plea for Universal Free Wireless (in airports, at least)

I am currently sitting in Houston's magnificent airport after leg two of my four-leg flight to Sacramento.  The things I do for family...

Anyway.  A few hours before, I was in Tampa, FL, whose airport not only has a pretty impressive view of the skyscrapers in a gorgeous dawning sun (I have a picture that I can't share right now for reasons that will become apparently shortly), but they also had wireless.  Gorgeous wireless.  It was relatively swift, allowed all of my normal functions (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, general searches, etc.), and was all around just good.  Before that, I was in Gainesville, FL, whose airport barely deserves the title, but also includes at least usable wireless -- it's not all that quick, but compared to the public wireless at the community college where I am employed, it is like night and day.

Houston, however, has none of these things.  Right now, I'm snatching wireless off one of the airline desks nearby; they apparently have never heard of passwords.  This service only allows me to access Blogger and general search, but Twitter and all of my apps (even the ones that have nothing to do with social media, but require Internet to function) are blocked.  I can't even search for ebooks on this thing...

The only other public option around here is one run by one of the hotspot companies.  It costs $4.95 for an hour, which is the only time I can use anyway (your only other option is $7.95 a month, but since I don't fly all that much, let alone to or from or around Houston, it's really not worth it).  I think this price is basically extortion.  In other words, there is no viable Internet option here.

This is not the first time I've been trapped in an airport without free wireless.  You'll forgive me for demonstrating my privilege, but I think all airports should have free wireless by default.  There are a lot of good reasons for this, from simple convenience and customer satisfaction to the fact that social networks allow information to move quickly within airport terminals (just in case something has happened inside and you don't know what's going on -- Tweeting, after all, is quiet; then again, maybe this is a stretch).  Ultimately, I think customer satisfaction is the one that will matter most, as giving us access helps us pass the time doing something we apparently enjoy, whether it's chatting with friends online, reading online newspaper articles, searching for an ebook to read, or something else.

So this is my plea for universal wireless in airports.  I'd love it if Internet access were universal in general, but I think this is a good place to start.

Go wireless, go wireless, go, go, go wireless!

Reviewers vs. Authors vs. Twitter vs. Strange Horizons: One Thought

WTF is wrong with you, SF/F community?

I'll have another post in the near future.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

P.S.:  This post is not an opinion on the subject at hand (i.e. the content of the original Strange Horizons post).  Rather, it's all I have to say at the moment about threats of sexual violence in response to female bloggers talking about something as mundane as "authors commenting on reviewer/reader blogs."  I'm just flabbergasted about it all, to be honest...