2015-04-16

The Hugo Mess

So, the other day, Marko Kloos and Anne Bellett declined their Hugo award nominations. This is bad enough on the surface, but I think it also demonstrates something a little bigger, and represents a need for Kate Paulk to reconsider Sad Puppies 4, and indeed, the entire Evil League of Evil should take a moment to think long and hard about what they want to accomplish with Sad Puppies and where they want to go from here.

Now you, dear reader, are probably a normal person; a sane person. I can only assume that the above made little sense to you, so I'm going to go ahead and give some background information about what's going on here. Now, I'll come right out and say that, at the very least, I'm amused by the Sad Puppies hullaballo, if not outright supportive of it. Or at least I was. Anyway, with all that in mind, I'm going to try to be objective here. There's already been more than enough hyperbole and misrepresentation as is (looking at you, EW).

2015-04-13

Presidential Campaign Season on Facebook (Oh No!)

We now have a handful of people who have announced their intention to run for president. As such, weather we're ready for it or not, it's now Presidential Campaign Season. Yes, yes, it's 19 months away, but that just means we're in for a long 19 months, not that we can hold the line against this. Hell, I'm hearing reports of campaign ads already airing (attack ads, naturally).

So, like it or not, we're stuck with it. And, furthermore, like it or not, some of us are much more involved and interested in politics than others. Now, we it comes to family dinner, it's likely to be less of a concern, because uncomfortable silences or credible threats of physical violence, tend to blunt the worst of it. And, in theory, you're less likely to make a complete ass of yourself in front of loved ones. In theory.

But then there's Facebook. Yes, there's other social media, but you're more likely to have your mother and fifth cousin twice removed on Facebook than on Tumblr or Flickr or whatever other intentionally misspelled mish-mash mess of a social media platform you use. Unfortunately, Presidential Campaign Season doesn't play well with Facebook, and it's just waiting to bubble over with invective and hostility.

So, with this in mind, I've come up with a sort of manifesto or creed for surviving Presidential Campaign Season while on Facebook. Or rather, to make things easier on those on the other side of the political divide and those who don't care (either through apathy or, you know, not living in America).