Hey! Wow!

Two bits of news from Crossed Genres today.

(1) One of our stories, "Drag Queen Astronaut," by Sandra McDonald, made the Tiptree Honors List, which, wow, this is a big deal.  I'm very pleased.  

(2) The conclusion to Broken Slate is up.  Now you can see how it comes out!  

Print copies available starting in July.

Too Good to Leave in the Comments

From the comments, of my previous post, Athena Andreadis points me to her essay on this topic: The Double Helix: Why Science Needs Science Fiction.

Go read!

What is it Good For?

(X-Posted at FanSci)

Nah, this isn't another political post.  (Athough...)

I was at a conference a couple years ago, I can't even remember which one this time.  Might have been the PCA, might have been the CEA.  

But as always, I went to all the panels that had anything to do with science fiction, because that's pretty much all I even mildly care about these days.

This one featured a professor who promised to explain to us what science fiction was for.

Which -- cool! -- because up to that point, I have to admit to you, it hadn't occurred to me that science fiction had to be for anything.  So I got my coffee (the best thing about this conference, as I remember it, was that between sessions there was free coffee and sometimes also tiny packets of shortbread cookies) and cookies and settled into the back row with my notepad.

Sadly, my notes from the session do not survive.  So I can't tell you the professor's name. I do remember it was a good session, and that she did not actually come to conclusions -- so I can't, in fact, tell you what science fiction is good for.

I do remember that she had some general ideas, based on her years of reading and teaching science fiction.

Science fiction, she said, often seems to be for some of the following:

• introducing new technology (the way-cool effect)
  
• increasing hunger for new technology and new ideas 
• challenging common perceptions of our culture (you thought this was true, but no, look, this is actually the truth)
• opening the door to new ideas -- either cultural or technological

These last two might look like the same, but (as I recall) they are not: the third is reactionary and the fourth is progressive.  That is, the third takes new aspects of our culture that the writer finds disturbing and shows why these changes in our culture, which many in our culture might find favorable -- gay marriage, for instance, or the use of birth control, or polyamorous relationships -- and writes fiction in which those changes are shown to be destructive or foolish.

The last is progressive.  It takes changes in our culture, or changes that haven't happened, even, yet, to our culture, and shows how those changes might benefit our culture.  I'm thinking now of works like Eleanor Arnason, or Joanna Russ, or the early novels of John Varley.  (His latest stuff, not so much.)

Of course, my students, when I start all of this, like to explain to me that science fiction is just for fun.

Ha! I tell them.  Ha!  We're working for heaven and the future's sakes here, lamb chops, I tell them.

Mortal stakes!

Aw, rly?

Alas, poor Walker.

The judge says no.

Where Are My Cookies?

Each month lately -- and by "lately" I mean the last 18 months or so -- Herr Doctor Delagar and I run out of money just a little bit sooner.

The last few months we've started running out of money on about the 8th or 9th of month.

By "running out of money" I mean the money is nearly gone. I have paid the bills, I have paid the rent, I have paid off the credit cards, and now I am looking at what is left in the bank and counting down the days to the end of the month. So it's 21 days until the end of the month and we have two hundred and sixty dollars left and we have to buy food and gas and pay for all the emergencies that might arise over those 21 days as well and I'm thinking, well, if we eat a lot of split pea soup and nothing horrible happens, maybe....

Then gasoline rises to $3.45/gallon, and WTF.

Oh, yes, and I still haven't filled my prescriptions, which I couldn't fill last month, because we didn't have the $211 dollars last month either, and now I'm down to about eleven doses of each, despite the fact that I've been skipping doses every sixth or seventh night. So I really have to refill fill the presciptions. Or, well, I could just die I guess.

And when I drop by the store for milk and eggs, food prices are skyrocketing again. Which goes with the skyrocketing gas prices, I know, but you know what is not skyrocketing? My salary. My salary, if we factor everything into account, despite a couple of tiny, tiny COL raises, has actually gone down over the past four years (because I've lost summer teaching gigs, because this administration has stopped paying us for extra work, because we're paying more now for health insurance).

So less money to take home. And everything I need to buy with that money costs, I'd guess, about three times as much. And the solution from our state and federal government is to give the top one percent more tax breaks.

And why am I angry again?

Yeah, Now!

It's been a long time since I link to Twisty, but that's not b/c I've quit reading her.

And here she is again, with another brilliant post: how performing feminity impedes the revolution.

I loves me some Twisty.

Who Has What Now?

So despite all the trumpeting about percentages of wealth, and all the pie charts everyone's been passing around the blogosphere, this is still how Americans think our wealth is divided up.

All I got to say about this is WTF?

Also, no wonder Scott Walker and the TeaBaggers can pull their con off.  What are my fellow citizens doing with their time?  Not fucking well paying attention, apparently.

Watching Dancing With The Stars, I guess.

Democracy.  You get what you deserve.

Oh, Big Shock

James O'Keefe edited the NPR video into lies, lies, lies, making Schiller say exactly the opposite of what he actually did say, over and over again.

This is the same game the Right keeps playing.

Why does anyone keep buying?

And here's my second question: will anyone pay half as much attention to this revelation as they did to the O'Keefe's big reveal? Oh, I think we know that answer.

WHAT time is it?

Somehow I missed the approach of daylight savings time this year.

I've been staying up until two and three in the morning lately anyway, working on the current novel -- see, I go through shifts in writing schedules.  For awhile, I'll work best waking up at six and writing like crazy for three or four hours before I go to work.  And then I'll work best coming straight home after classes and writing five or six hours.  And then (like now) I'll work best during the five or six hours from ten p.m. until I'm literally so tired my eyes are crossing.

This last shift is not the best shift for someone who has to function in the modern world, especially on those days (only three of them this semester, but still) when I have to wake up in time to make 9.30 office hours.

Anyway.  Today I woke up, rolled over, and said, ah.  Ten o'clock.  Plenty of time to clean house before the writing group arrives.  (My writing group is coming today.)

But ha!  But no!  It was actually eleven o'clock!  The Gods of Time are mocking me!

WTF.  Why do we even still have these time shifts?  So far as I know, the notion that this saves fuel has been disproved, and it clearly fucks up everyone's schedules, and is it just that once we've DONE something, we can't STOP doing that thing?  Because that's not true.  Scott Walker just said so.

I'm grumpy.

This Is Why I'm Depressed

So...I'm chatting with one of my students today, about this and that and nothing much, and I happen to drop into the conversation that I'm feeling a little gloomy just now.  Oh, why, he says.

"Oh," I say, "all this with Scott Walker, up there in Wisconsin, I'm angry about it, and that's got my mood a bit dark."

"Who's Scott Walker?" he asks.

Which, see, this, I just -- how in shit, how are, how do we even start to win against the Koch Brothers and all the rest of them?  How?  When 80 or 90 percent of the country isn't even fucking awake?

Seriously?

Hey, Look!

It's Martin Tuesday --

Chapter 15 is up.  We're on the second to last chapter now.  Closing fast!

Obscure Book Review

...over on FanSci.

Otherwise I got nothing for you.  It's midterm, I'm still (obviously) obsessed with Wisconsin, I'm trying to get my submission packet in shape to submit to Angry Robot Books, I'm getting a migraine every six minutes it seems like lately, we're really really broke (yes, like everyone else in America, I know, but that doesn't help) and I have about six projects due and only one even started.

Sad me.  Is that violins I hear?

Update on the Revolution

Even the Rasmussan Polls admit the truth now.  Walker's losing it.  60% hate his lying ass.

Here's what First Draft has to say.

Oh -- also?  That big fat lie the RW Noise Machine has been pushing about the 7.5 million dollars worth of damage the protesters did to the capitol building?  Yeah, more like 0 dollars worth.  Think any of them will change their story now?  (Color me doubtful.  I'm still hearing the story about how Clinton's staff took all the W's off the keyboards in the White House before they left, when George W. took office.)

Here's Mother Jones on the whole issue.

Indiana and Ohio are planning to pass similar laws, with very little fuss as far as I can tell.  Here's hoping the unions in those states gin up and take a clue from Wisconsin.

Update on the Revolution

Walker, as you probably know, locked the Capitol building yesterday.  Only people with "official" business were being let in, and, oddly, that didn't include protesters.  Unless a protester left, no other protester was being let in.

Now a judge has ordered that the Capitol (being a public space) has to be unlocked and opened to the public.  Ha!  And yay!

(Not that Walker has complied yet, apparently.  Apparently he's claiming the building is open to the public, since people can get in if they have business there. Here's the twitter from the MadisonACLU Twitter: "Govt perspective says Capitol is open, one-in-one-out is sufficient. Order is invalid. Law enforcement is complying.")

Meanwhile, hear the people sing!

The Revolution will be Blogged About

For those of you, like me, condemned to following this via the blogosphere, here's one of the best blogs I've found for keeping me up to date on what's what -- First Draft.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money and Crooked Timber are also good for talking about the issues.

See also The Democratic Daily.