Military Glory: The Constipation of O’Brien

I’m not a fannish type, but I wrote a fan-letter once – to George MacDonald Fraser, Author, the isle of Man, UK. And I got back a charmingly gracious reply, too. I have read nearly everything Mark Twain wrote, and a measurable percentage of Voltaire but Fraser is the only one of my favorite authors I can claim to have completely read.

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Boost Shiv:

Go read this, if you haven’t already.

Shiv asks some questions that I, in my cis-privileged way, have pondered while drunk, weary, or otherwise bleary. I frame it differently but, to me, it boils down to “what is ‘hot’?” and it seems to me that a lot of people don’t put very much thought into that. I have, and all I want to say right now is that it’s instructive to think about it.

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One Thing They All Seem to Agree On

I’m naturally suspicious of governments, and the suspicion seems to be mutual. Since I’m not trying to do any harm, that annoys me more than a bit: they want to treat me like a criminal, even though I mostly want to be left alone to live out my life without being interfered with by their wars, walls, economic collapses, and oligarchs. Is that too much to ask?

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Decoding the Unpossibly Secure

Stanislaw Lem wrote some very witty and unusual science fiction. If you haven’t read Tales Of Pirx The Pilot [amazon] or Memoirs Found In A Bathtub [amazon] you might enjoy them if you like quirky and thoughtful fiction.

Tales of Pirx The Pilot has one of the most memorable scenes in science fiction: Pirx, an astronaut in a space mishap, has to spend a prolonged period in his space suit – and discovers that there is a fly in his helmet.

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