Commentary

Life continues

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged philosophy on by

The first quarter of the 21st century has ended. Statistically, I’m unlikely to see the end of the second quarter. This makes me think about the end of my life. As far as I know, I don’t have any conditions that will kill me in the near term, but I’ve probably got just a couple of decades left at most. How should I look at the unpleasant topic of death?

“When I die, the world ends.” That’s one way to think about it: that nothing matters after you’re dead. It’s bleak but tidy. However, people make out wills, think about how the people they love will get along, and so forth. We think about the future beyond our lifetimes. Science fiction writers and fans think about what the world will be like centuries or even eons in the future and hope it will be a good one. People risk their lives to promote a cause. What happens after we’re dead matters to us.
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It’s Trump or America

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged law liberty Trump on by

As 2025 comes to an end, we can review the wreckage of freedom under Donald Trump. At this point it’s clear: Support for Trump is enmity toward America. This isn’t a case of a president being terrible as usual; it’s an existential threat to what the United States stands for.

Let’s make a list, in the style of the Declaration of Independence, of the outrages he has committed.
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News sites yield to Trump 1

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Donald Trump claimed: “Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections. Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election.” In fact, he has no power to pardon Tina Peters, since she was convicted under state law. His claim is an illegal usurpation of power.

The news media have a long tradition of yielding to sitting presidents, and they’re doing it again.
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The Arisia code of conduct 2

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged fandom Massachusetts on by

Another in my series of posts on SFF conventions’ codes of conduct. This time I’m writing about the one for Arisia 2026. Arisia is held in Boston or Cambridge in January each year. I haven’t attended Arisia in years, but I found the code of conduct surprisingly reasonable. However, there’s another requirement which potential attendees could find burdensome.
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Fact-free mob thinking

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged psychology religion SanityProject on by

On several occasions I’ve mentioned that I don’t support the Salvation Army because it holds that I’m going to Hell, along with all other non-Christians, while trying to look like a secular charity. This doesn’t seem to bother many people, though. Far more people blast it for being allegedly anti-LGBTQ. They pay no attention to the shift in the church’s tone; to them it’s now and forever hostile to gays.

While I don’t like the Salvation Army, I also don’t like unjust accusations. On its website, the page titled The LGBTQ Community and the Salvation Army, the US organization says it serves the LGBTQ community, it will provide shelter to transgender people, and it does not consider sexual orientation or gender identity in its hiring practices.
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