Yearly Archives: 2021


Do brown cows dream of chocolate milk?

Last week I saw a YouTube video purporting to show how dumb the masses are. It cited a poll which allegedly found that 7% of Americans surveyed think chocolate milk comes from brown cows. It’s unlikely, if you think about it, that any significant number of people hold this belief, but it makes viewers feel good to think they’re smarter than others.

A search revealed that lots of sites uncritically reported this result. In fact, when I searched for a stock brown-cow image to stick on this post, many of the results referenced the poll. On the bright side, I found an article that looked carefully at the poll. Just now I found a Columbia Journalism Review article demolishing the claimed result.
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Harvard Library appoints content arbiter? 2

The Harvard Library has appointed an Associate University Librarian for Antiracism. The press release announcing the position says that “we are a center for knowledge supporting our faculty and students in pursuing antiracism through their research, teaching, and learning. It also extends to our partnerships and collaborative networks, where we aim to support equitable access to a diversity of content, easy engagement with trustworthy information, and thoughtful preservation for the future.”
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Language shifts: “Social engineering”

This was going to be an article on how writers on computer security misuse the term “social engineering.” However, my research quickly showed that the tech usage has almost completely displaced the original meaning. When that happens, it’s useless to say it’s wrong.

An example of the original usage can be found on encyclopedia.com under “Large Scale Social Engineering”:
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Thoughts on Uncle Hugo’s

I’ve never been to Uncle Hugo’s bookstore. In fact, I’ve never been in Minnesota. But like many of you, I think now and then of Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore, which was destroyed by fire on May 31, 2020. An article which I read the other day reminded me of it in an infuriating way.

A fundraiser has been running since last year to try to restore the store in some form. Fans have been very generous, but half a million dollars is a huge amount to raise, and it’s still far short of its goal.

A recent article by Carz Nelson reports that there’s still hope. Owner Don Blyly remains determined. He’s still looking for a new location. Insurance helped, but much of what was in the store was irreplaceable. Old used books and signed editions can’t just be re-ordered.
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The Seuss affair 4

Dr. Seuss Enterprises has announced it will discontinue publication of six Dr. Seuss books. Its stated reason is that they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

Whatever you think of this decision, you need to remember what every writer knows and many on the right forget: Publishers have no obligation to publish, except when they’re bound by a contract. The villain of the piece isn’t Dr. Seuss Enterprises, but absurdly long copyright terms. Theodore Geisel died in 1991. And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street was published in 1937. It won’t enter the public domain until, I think, 2033.
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Book Discussion: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Antifa’s attempt to intimidate a bookstore gave a significant sales boost to Andy Ngo’s Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. I probably wouldn’t have bought the book if it weren’t for that. If I’d seen it on a bookstore shelf, I would have noticed the endorsements by Tucker Carlson on the front and back covers and skipped over it.

It’s a book that I have to treat with caution. It’s hard to find any trustworthy information about Antifa, which isn’t a formal organization at the national level. Mainstream news seems to lie more about Antifa than about any other person or organization, claiming it’s an “anti-fascist” group. Every time I hear reliable reports about it, it’s trying to suppress the speech of others by tactics ranging from shouting down speakers to assault. That’s more fascist than anti-fascist. But just a few pages into the book, I started seeing indications that I should be cautious with Ngo too.

At the same time, I can’t dismiss him just because I disagree with some of his conclusions. I need to look at whether his research is reliable, he’s presenting all the important facts, he’s not using misleading words, he isn’t overestimating the movement’s importance, etc. He’s been the target of threats and physical assaults for his work on Antifa, and it’s hard for anyone to stay objective under such pressure.
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Fanfic discussion: Banned from Argo 3

If it’s a stretch to call a fan fiction novel on the Web a book, it’s only a slight one. More than a few people reading this will be interested to learn that Leslie Fish’s Star Trek fan novel Banned from Argo is now available for reading.

Warning: When you follow that link, you may be required to agree to massive terms-of-service and privacy policy documents before you’re allowed to read the novel. There are ways to get around them, the simplest being to turn off JavaScript. I’m positive that Leslie would approve.

If you’d like to support Leslie, see her Bandcamp page.
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To the “Publishing Professionals” blacklist letter: HELL, NO!

It’s hard to tell how seriously to take the “letter of intent from publishing professionals of the United States.” It seems like just a bunch of fanatical nuts. A quick glance through the signers doesn’t turn up anyone I’ve heard of. But there are a fair number of them, and it’s worthwhile for people in the writing and publishing business to give them a quick “Hell, no!” before letting them languish in obscurity.

The letter declares: “No participant in an administration that caged children, performed involuntary surgeries on captive women, and scoffed at science as millions were infected with a deadly virus should be enriched by the almost rote largesse of a big book deal.”

This doesn’t specify which administration. The Obama administration caged children, and there have been multiple epidemics infecting millions in the past few decades. Let’s be conservative and assume it’s intended only for employees of the Trump administration. It still says “no participant,” and there are a lot of federal employees under the executive branch. Anthony Fauci comes to mind quickly. So do the Capitol cops who tried to stop the storming of the building with inadequate preparation and resources. So do a ton of whistleblowers whose names aren’t known yet. So do any number of federal employees trying to break in as novelists.

Publishers can refuse any manuscript they dislike for any reason. That’s their right. The absurd claims that publication is “almost rote” and “enriches” authors makes me wonder if these people have ever submitted a book proposal. But the letter goes beyond urging publishers not to accept books from government employees. It says, “‘Son of Sam’ laws exist to prevent criminals from benefiting financially from writing about their crimes.” That hints that books by employees of the previous administration should be outlawed. That would be a massive violation of the First Amendment, constituting an attempt by supporters of the current administration to silence people who worked for the previous one. Some SoS laws have been declared unconstitutional.

The letter reportedly had the title “No book deals for traitors” at first, showing its authoritarian intent.

My influence in the publishing world is close to zero. Still, I’ll declare that I will not sign that letter and will despise anyone who does.

Update: Perhaps I should make a distinction clear. I’ve come across a site complaining that Simon and Schuster dropped a book by Senator Josh Hawley the day after he voted against accepting the results of the presidential election and calling their decision “blacklisting.” Hawley called the publisher a “woke mob.” When an author violates his oath to support the Constitution, that’s a very sufficient reason to refuse to do business with him. It isn’t comparable to working for the Trump administration. When you look up articles on “blacklisting,” pay careful attention to exactly what they’re complaining about.


Book meta-discussion: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy 1

This will be the last of my regular Monday book posts for a while. In preparation for moving, I’ve put a lot of my books in boxes, and it’s getting harder to find the books that I want to reread and discuss. Naturally, this isn’t stopping me from acquiring even more books. This post is about an upcoming book by Andy Ngo, called Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. Or rather, it’s about Antifa’s attempt to suppress the book. I have it on pre-order from Water Street Bookstore but haven’t read it yet.

There’s a lot of misinformation about Antifa. On the one hand, mainstream media articles keep claiming it’s an “anti-fascist” organization. It’s anti-fascist in the same sense that the Capitol riot was “patriotic”: not at all, but the people involved find it handy to appropriate a term which they don’t deserve. On the other hand, some people on the right have built it into a ten-foot-tall organization which is behind everything. It’s even supposed to have been the real people who invaded the Capitol. What it mostly does is disrupt speaking events it doesn’t like. It’s basically a gang of thugs who hate freedom and aren’t hugely important.
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Book discussion: Slan

Promotional note: I think I’ve finally got my social sharing buttons working, after switching to a different plugin (Kiwi Social Share). Please take advantage of them to let your book-loving friends know about these posts. Or copy and paste the URL of this article, which seems simpler to me.

Once again, my topic is eugenics in science fiction. It was popular and respectable in the early twentieth century. Numerous writers presented supermen, including Superman himself. A. E. Van Vogt’s Slan published in 1940, was a very popular instance. My copy has a 25 cent price on the cover and is about as old as I am.
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