Tag Archives: news

Weekend Update (8/21/2015): Bad Statistics and Hugos Tonight!

August 22, 2015science fictionfantasy, hugo awards, news, sci fi, science fictionfontfolly

First, congratulations to the Helsinki Worldcon Bid Committee! They’re hosting WorldCon 2017 in Helsinki! So at least one of the votes being counted at WorldCon this weekend went the way I voted. Woo hoo! Onneksi olkoon! Congratulations!

In other updates to things that I’ve included in recent Friday Links posts, a lot of people I follow have been posting a link to a Vocativ post about how very, very white the winners of the Hugo Awards have been over the years: Science Fiction Is Really, Really White. The article has graphs and some statistics and seems legit, right?

Screenshot of the graphic, caption, and a bit of the article.

The first thing that made me wary about simply retweeting the link is something really minor: the caption on the picture that they illustrate the story with. “Amazing Stories was a comic that helped launch the sci-fi genre.” No. Amazing Stories was a magazine that printed literary stories founded in 1926 by Hugo Gernsbeck. It was not a comic book. While it is often credited with launching the pulp version of the genre science fiction, so that part is true, but it wasn’t a comic.

Now, ordinarily that would be a quibble, but this article is about statistics, so seeing in the caption that they have already gotten a fact wrong made me a teeny bit apprehensive. Then we get to the most dramatic graph, and I think, “That can’t be right.” What about Saladin Ahmed, author of Throne of the Crescent Moon, Best Novel nominee in 2013? Shouldn’t there be a bar labeled “Arab” with at least 1 person it it?

This only just barely qualifies as data... — This only just barely qualifies as data…

Amusingly, I started this post early this morning, then had to go to a nearby clinic for some scheduled medical tests, and while I was sitting in the waiting room, Mr. Ahmed’s tweet commenting on being erased from the data came through my feed. Since then, one of Vocativ’s editors sent out a tweet that they’re correcting the article. The bar graph now does list one Arab-American. That’s a bit better, but that’s the thing. Now how do we trust them about the other 295 authors they claim are white? You might think that clicking on the “Get data” link under the graph would give you a spreadsheet of all the nominees, right? Nope. You get a spreadsheet, all right, but it just says “White 295, Black 3, Chinese 1, Arab American 1.”

This may seem really petty and nitpicky, but here’s the thing: if you are trying to make a statistical argument to back up a claim, you have to get every fact right. And you have to give us confidence that you are likely to get every fact right. There is a big argument to be had about what we mean by race. Race is a social construct with no basis in biological science, so there will be lots of people who will want to nitpick the data if we did have a big spreadsheet that listed all 300 nominees. I suspect that the graph now is close enough to correct to still illustrate the point that the Hugo Awards have hardly been a paragon of diversity. Even more importantly, the ludicrous charge that the Hugos have been being somehow secretly controlled by a liberal cabal that has imposed political correctness onto the ballot for many years is demolished by facts such as this.

But to the next person who wants to compile something like this: quadruple check your results before publishing!

Hugo Awards Announced Tonight!

The award are tonight! From the official Hugos website:

The 2015 Hugo Awards Ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, August 22, 2015 at 8 PM Pacific Daylight Time in the INB Performing Arts Center in Spokane, Washington. The Hugo Awards web site will once again offer text-based coverage of the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony via CoverItLive, suitable for people with bandwidth restrictions. For those with the bandwidth for it, Sasquan will also offer live video streaming of the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony via UStream. In addition, Sasquan will present “The Road to the Hugos”, a livestreamed Internet pre-and-post Hugo broadcast featuring hosts Stephen Schapansky and Warren Frey of Radio Free Skaro, as part of the coverage, starting one hour before and ending one hour after the ceremony.

Here’s the link for the text coverage of the ceremony.

And the link for the live video stream of same.

And the link for the Radio Free Skero livestream pre- and post-shows.

I predict:

No Award will take maybe two categories, causing cheering from some and more threats from the Überpuppy,
At least two nominees from one of the Puppy slates will walk home with a Hugo,
Some people on both sides will claim victory,
Some people on both sides will claim it is a defeat for all that is right and just in the world,
Regardless, science fiction will survive!

I plan to have a mini Hugo Watching Party here tonight.

Now matter what happens, please offer congratulations to the winners and please console any nominee (and I mean anyone) who does not get a trophy. Similarly, offer condolences to anyone you know who is disappointed that their favorite in any category didn’t win.

And for the future: if you are a fan, read and watch good science fiction and fantasy (however you define it) and support the writers and artists who make it. If you are one of those writers or artists: in the immortal words of Neil Gaiman, I urge you to make good art.

Ad Astra!

Weekend update (8/15/2015): of greedy bigots and a rescued whale

August 15, 2015newsfriday links, newsfontfolly

© Michael Riggio/Instagram. Courtesy dailymail.co.uk (Click to embiggen)

As usual, there were a few big news stories of the week I didn’t include in Friday links, and a few that have had more developments that I didn’t see until after I set up the posts to publish:

First, the bigots

A Kentucky newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader has published a rather stern editorial about the thrice-divorced county clerk who is still defying the federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples and the hate-group paying for her lawyers: Time for Davis to do her job or resign. I’m just going to quote the main point:

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has chosen to prolong her moment in the limelight by defying a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to legally qualifed people who apply for them.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning kindly but firmly told Davis Wednesday that in our system her religious beliefs don’t trump the rights of the taxpayers who pay her almost $80,000 annual salary. Sharing Davis’ glow is Liberty Counsel, which describes itself as a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal representation related to “religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family,” funded by tax-deductible donations and grants. In 2012 those gifts reached just over $3.5 million and in 2013 topped $4.1 million, according to IRS filings.

The husband and wife team who founded and run Liberty Counsel, Anita and Matthew Staver, were paid $137,758 and $153,591, respectively, in 2013. The staff of five ran up $184,479 in travel expenses that year and spent $429,584 on conferences, conventions and meetings. Liberty Counsel paid one independent contractor over $600,000 for “email alert services,” and another almost $500,000 for printing and mail services. “Case costs,” were reported at $105,487. Liberty’s attorneys know they can’t win the case in Rowan County.

Same-sex marriage is legal since the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision and it’s Davis’ job to issue marriage licenses. So, why is Liberty Counsel marching alongside Davis in this losing cause? It takes a lot to keep that marketing machine humming and those executives paid, and the only way to keep those donations coming is to stay in the news. For that purpose a losing cause is just as good as, perhaps better than, a winning one.

When I describe the Liberty Counsel as a hate group, that’s not just one queer’s opinion. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has decades of experience fighting hate groups of many kinds, officially designated the Liberty Counsel a hate group some years ago, and lists them as a still active hate group.

GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has more details about the on-going activities of the Liberty Counsel and it’s co-founder/leader, Mat Staver.

The editorial’s conclusion puts the whole affair quite succinctly: “Davis can resign if she’s morally unable to issue the marriage licenses while the appeal is pending. Law-abiding, taxpaying Rowan County citizens have been denied their constitutional rights for almost two months while Davis has kept her job and Liberty has ginned up its marketing machine.”

Some not-bigots and the value of protest:

I included a couple of different stories in yesterday’s links post about a group of local Black Lives Matters activists who disrupted an event where people had come expected to hear Bernie Sanders speak. There have been a couple of follow-ups locally: Another activist wrote a guest editorial for the local alternative weekly: I Support Bernie Sanders for President and I Also Support the Black Lives Matter Takeover in Seattle. But what I was most moved by is this statement that started out on the Facebook page of one of our very few POC state legislators, Pramila Jayapal: Why Saturday’s Bernie Sanders Rally Left Me Feeling Heartbroken.

One of the links I included yesterday accused one of the young women who interrupted the rally of being a rightwing Christian whack-o, based on the fact that she attends Seattle Pacific University and has admitted online that when she was younger (as in, middle school aged) she was a Sarah Palin supporter. The piece I linked is hardly the only one of that nature I’ve seen online, with lots of people not understanding how someone who claims to be progressive could attend such a conservative school.

So let me just say that I am an extremely liberal (so liberal that I neither eschew the label “liberal” nor do I consider it an insult when someone calls me a socialist) queer man… and I attended Seattle Pacific University. Even harder for some people to believe: I attended that extremely conservative christian university back in the days when their policies still required “unrepentant homosexuals” to be expelled! (They have since lightened up only a little bit, and actually have allowed a straight-gay alliance type club to officially form on campus).

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: kids raised in extremely conservative families sometimes have to go to the kinds of schools their parents and community will support, even if they have outgrown their family’s rightwing beliefs. You get the education you can, and you go out into the world and make your way. I had some extremely good professors and will put the quality of the higher mathematics, physics, and rhetoric classes I took there against any other university you care to name. Also, some of the most fiercely progressive activists I have known have not only been Christian, they were ministers.

Anyway, I’m glad that they stood up and made their voices heard. I love Bernie Sanders, but I have to agree that until this happened, he hadn’t been connecting the dots in either his speeches or his campaign materials between his economic justice arguments and institutional racism. And we can’t solve the problems of economic disparity without addressing institutional bigotry that contributes to it.

And I’m really, really glad that the Black Lives Matter people also trying to put the screws to politicians on the other side: In Nevada, Jeb Bush rally interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

Finally, I promised a story about a whale:

The Daily Mail reports Desperate whale approached boat full of fishermen for help after getting plastic bag caught in its mouth. There’s video!

Fishermen Take Selfie with Massive Whale After Freeing It From Garbage

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here!)

Friday Links (orphaned kangaroo edition)

August 14, 2015bloggingfriday, friday links, links, newsfontfolly

It’s Friday! The second Friday in August. Tonight is the first pre-season game for my beloved Seahawks, playing against the team I grew up rooting for because of where I lived, the Denver Broncos. Which means that mostly it will be all the rookies on both sides, because neither coach wants to risk the star players getting injured in what is merely an exhibition game. But it’s the first time seeing them play, so I’ll be watching!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Videos!

How To Fix Trolling:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Eric Alán – My Favorite Sin (Official Video):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Sex Education (HBO):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Disclosure – Omen ft. Sam Smith:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

The Young Professionals – S.O.S (ABBA Cover):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Lana Del Rey – High By The Beach (lyrics NSFW):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Bigotry isn’t a bug or a put-on in the rightwing base

August 12, 2015newsnews, politicians, politics, right wing, rightwing, wingnutsfontfolly

In pieces such as Timothy Egan’s New York Times op-ed, Trump Is the Poison His Party Concocted, pundits act as if the rightwing activists have been whipping up toxic racism, sexism, and homophobia only during the last decade or so. The truth is that all of that bigotry has been part of the fabric of the religious right going back through the 70s, 60s, 50s, and much, much earlier. Randall Balmer wrote about some of this last year on Politico: The Real Origins of the Religious Right – They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.

I’ve seen a lot people, from reporters to pundits to ordinary folks, make the specific claim that Donald Trump is in the lead among Republican voters not because they agree with his crazy racist and misogynist comments, but because they know his comments drive “liberals” nuts. These folks usually go on to say that eventually the Republican voters will get serious and vote for one of the other candidates once they’re finished yanking our chains. The unspoken proposition in that reasoning is that some of the other candidates are less racist and/or less misogynist than Trump is.

And I can’t figure out how anyone who has actually heard any of them talk could think that.

I said, half-jokingly, that I wasn’t going to watch the debates last week because I’d wind up drinking an unhealthy amount of alcohol to get through it. I have a much bigger reason not to listen to it: there is no policy differences between any of the 17 Republican candidates. None.

All of them want to de-fund Planned Parenthood.
All of them are opposed to marriage equality in particular and gay rights in general (yes, even former Governor Kasich, don’t let his sound byte about attending a “gay marriage” distract you from his decades of voting against and vetoing gay rights bills, funding for heatlh care for domestic partners of state employees, gay adoption, and so on).
All of them are opposed to a woman’s right to choose.
All of them are opposed to raising the minimum wage.
All of them are apposed to restrictions on the same banking and financial institutions that destroyed the economy.
All of them are in favor of more war.
All of them want to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
All of them want to cut taxes even further on the rich.
All of them want to take away the few remaining protections workers have in the work place.
None of them want to do anything about climate change.
All of them favor some flavor of “religious liberty” laws that allow people to discriminate.
All of them oppose anti-bullying programs in public schools that don’t have religious exemptions allowing Christian kids to bully their queer classmates.
All of them try to blame problems in the economy caused by some of their other policies on immigrants.
All of them want states to be able to enact more laws designed to keep poor and minority voters from voting…

I could keep going. But, seriously, the only thing that differentiates any of them is the tone of arguments they make on those issues, and which of those things they think is more important. But they’re all in favor of racist and misogynist policies. Each and every one of them. And they believe all of those things because the Republican base supports all of that.

To be fair, a lot of the base is sincere when they claim not to be bigots. This isn’t to say that they aren’t bigots, I’m just saying that they sincerely believe that they aren’t. It’s like one of my relatives who sends me sad messages wondering why my husband and I didn’t come to her Independence Day barbecue, the same day she was posting long tirades on Facebook about how god is going to destroy america because of marriage equality. She doesn’t see the contradiction between claiming she loves and respects us, her gay nephew and his husband, while also insisting that our love is an abomination that is going to cause an apocalypse.

Similarly, they have no qualms getting angry at the Black Lives Matter protestors by insisting “the blacks” should be grateful to the police for all the good they do. And “those blacks” shouldn’t be out protesting because of a “thug” who got what was coming to him. And if “those blacks” had real jobs instead of “taking welfare all the time” they wouldn’t have time to be protesting. But they insist they aren’t racist and it is a terrible slander for someone like me to point it out. Oh, and how dare I be offended about the confederate flag when “that damn president covered the white house in the immoral rainbow after the gay marriage ruling!”

But they aren’t bigots, no, not at all.

One of the local news people, when he expressed the hope that all this apparent support for the candidate saying the most obviously racist and misogynist things is some sort of put-on, said he did so because he hoped that the American people weren’t that bigoted. “The majority can’t really believe that stuff, can they?” The problem he’s having is the assumption that the Republican base represents the American population as a whole.

Let’s do some very rough math. In the last presidential election, the Republican candidate got only 47% of the vote. Less than a majority. And we know from other polling that the got less than a third of the so-called swing voters (that notion is worth its own blog post). So let’s say that roughly 45% of the population aligns with the Republicans. Other statistics show us that less than one-third of voters participate in primaries and caucuses. So that means that at most, 15% of the population falls into the category of “likely Republican primary voter.” And at most, 25% of those people support Donald Trump. So, 25% of 15% leaves us with 3.75%. In other words, less than 4% of all voters support the blatantly racist, misogynist b.s. that Trump is spewing.

Unfortunately, other polling indicates that at least 60% of likely Republican voters oppose gay rights, pro-choice policies, and civil rights protections. Which is why the other 16 clowns officially in the race for the nomination all have policies statements that align with Trump’s, they’re just a bit more genteel in their language (some times). But lest you despair, that’s 60% of the 45% mentioned earlier. So while these positions will continue to dominate the Republican party, by sticking to these ideas the candidates are only appealing to 27% of the entire electorate; in the process alienating most of the remaining 73%.

So it isn’t likely to be a winning strategy in the end. And while it’s scary to realize there are folks who feel that way, I think it’s good that things like this remind us who they are.

Friday Links (comedy gold edition)

August 7, 2015bloggingfriday, friday links, links, newsfontfolly

It’s Friday! The first Friday in August. It is also, alas, the first Friday without Jon Stewart hosting the Daily Show. I don’t know how we’re going to get through the insanity of the 2016 Presidential Campaign without him to help us laugh at the worst of it…

Link of the Week

Lenny Kravitz accidentally “frees the bacon” — and has the perfect response to #penisgate. “The confirmation that a 51 year-old man and father has what looks like a functioning penis was promptly declared “shocking” and “epic.” ”

This week in Difficult to Classify

Nazi-Inmate Romance Novel Inspires Outcry, Soul-Searching in Romance World.

Florida Sheriff’s Office Wrongly Blames Gruesome Murders on “Wiccan Ritual Killing.”

Happy News!

British Library releases over a million public domain images.

Science!

Star Trek’s Uhura to fly NASA mission aged 82 – three months after having a stroke.

Mapping the United Swears of America.

Neutron Star Jets Near Speed of Light –“Rival Those of Black Holes.”

Early Earth –“Evidence Discovered of First Reproduction in Complex Organisms.”

First 3D-printed pill approved by US authorities.

Four-legged snake fossil sparks legal investigation.

Giant Mystery Ring of Galaxies Should Not Exist.

THE VIRGIN RAINBOW, THE WORLD’S FINEST OPAL, IS ABOUT TO GO ON DISPLAY.

Satellite 1 million miles away captures moon passing over Earth.

The Ghost of a Dying Star.

Earth’s Voyage Through the Interstellar Cloud –“20,000 Years Left to Go.”

Stealing Sedna.

MIT claims to have found a “language universal” that ties all languages together.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

2015 Hugo Award Voting Closed; Ceremony Plans in Place.

David Steffen: Why do I Value the Hugos?.

We LOVE Worldcon….but here’s what happened….

2015 Hugo Voting Participation Smashes Records.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy: Hear the 1973 Radio Dramatization.

This Week in Historical Studies

The Internet has been buzzing about how discrimination against the Irish was a myth. All it took was a high schooler to prove them wrong. Thanks to Mintrainbow1 for the link!

New Documents Found Pointing To Japan’s WWII Atomic Bomb Program.

Culture war news:

Scott Lively: ‘Religious Freedom’ Only Applies To Christians, And That’s Why God’s Punishing Us With Gay Rights.

“Adios motherf*ckers!”: Jon Stewart calls out Fox News hypocrisy one last time — and it’s absolutely glorious.

Kochs Rebrand Themselves As Champions Of Poor, Fight To Slash Wages And Eliminate Their Health Care.

Maine Supreme Court Again Rules Against NOM: Yes, You Really Do Have To Reveal Your Donors.

5 despicable ways the right is trying to undermine the way we teach U.S. history.

Alabama Lawmakers Advance Bill to End Marriage Licenses Statewide.

Crazed Cop Stalks Man then Pulls a Gun on Him for Filming from his Own Front Yard.

Man Banned From Food Bank Over His Views Of Marriage Equality.

Texas Could ‘End Up Paying Through The Nose’ For Resisting SCOTUS Gay Marriage Ruling.

President Obama Says Racism And Homophobia Come From The Same Mindset.

The Mistreatment Of A Dying Gay Man In Texas Goes ‘A Step Beyond Even Westboro Baptist Church.’

This Week in the Clown Car

Donald Trump Thinks You Should Be Able To Bring Guns Anywhere, Except His Own Hotels.

30% of The Participants In Fox News’ Sham Debate Are Former Fox Employees.

What Rubio doesn’t know can hurt him.

The GOP’s mind-blowing gun-control hypocrisy: Americans have the right to bear arms — except at our debates!.

“HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE”: A SHAKESPEAREAN GUIDE TO THE 2016 REPUBLICAN PRIMARY..

(There were many, many more outrageous headlines regarding the clowns scrambling to out-bigot each over for the Republican nomination; but sometimes enough is enough.)

This week in Other Politics:

After 6 Years Of Taking Their Crap, Obama Calls Out Republicans For What They Really Are.

Court Rules Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Violates Fourth Amendment.

It’s Our Duty To Support The Troops And The Second Amendment In Case We Ever Need To Kill Them All.

Feds Bust Wingnuts Who Plotted To Lure Jade Helm Troops Into Ambush.

This Week in Diversity

Hollywood Diversity: USC Study Reveals More of the Same.

IN YOUR FACE JAM: Why Bisexual Hercules Matters To Me.

This Week in Racism

Episcopal priest on road trip with interracial family shares harrowing story of police harassment.

Alabama officer kept job after proposal to murder black man and hide evidence.

Federal Court Says Texas Voter ID Violates Voting Rights Act.

This Week in Sexism

The real reason some men still can’t handle the all-female ‘Ghostbusters’.

Women in Congress Should Never Have to Filibuster Again Over Reproductive Health.

CNN Confronts Man Behind Planned Parenthood Videos Over His Link To Anti-abortion Violence.

News for queers and our allies:

Homophobe Punches Married West Point Gay Grads, Ends Up In A World Of Pain.

Prop 8 Fighter American Foundation for Equal Rights Closing Down: ‘Together, We Made History’.

David Drake Reads Sean Strub’s Account of ACT UP Disrupting Mass In St. Patrick’s Cathedral From ‘Body Counts’ – LISTEN.

San Francisco Public High School Becomes First-Ever To Offer LGBT History Class. They picked the absolutely stupidest photograph imaginable to illustrate this story. I’m embarrassed on their behalf.

Bishop T.D. Jakes On The Black Church’s Shifting Stance On The LGBT Community.

True Detective’s Big Gay Problem.

6 Reasons You Need to Use the Word “Queer.”

Being “Feminine” Can Be a Double-Edged Sword for Bisexual Men.

How One Straight, Latina Cake Baker Is Taking A Stand For Gay Rights In Dallas: VIDEO.

Court decision ends discrimination against same-sex couples in foster system.

“The Sexual Duality In All Of Us,” And Five Other Mandatory Gay Viewing Moments From Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.

Republicans quietly drop anti-gay proposals.

The obligatory Sad Puppies update:

The Puppies are taking science fiction’s Hugo awards back in time. “The Hugos are decades behind in that regard, and the Puppies want to drag it back further.”

E Pluribus Hugo vs Slates.

10 Misguided Social And Political Movements Of Our Time. Guess where the Puppies came in on the list?

Farewells:

Lynn Anderson, singer of Rose Garden, dies aged 67.

Things I wrote:

There’s goals in them there hills!

Invisible? Refusing to see what’s already there….

Invisible no more: rooting out exclusion as a storyteller.

Dark Prophecies and Evil Half-brothers – more of why I love sf/f.