Look at it. Just look. Remember. Remember . . . We are still here.
Yes, it’s a bit of slacktivism, but my concern about Net Neutrality is real enough. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has made sending a comment to the Federal Communication Commission as easy as possible. Librarians should pay attention to this issue (and they are). We rely more than ever on internet resources for our livelihoods.…
I’ve been pontificating about a project of mine here for years. I’ve called it the Blockade series because it is a planned hard Sci-fi series about a ring of thingies surrounding the solar system. The first book is titled Article 9, and I’m almost ready to hit the publish button on it.
And now, another book announcement. You may remember my plug for Theme-Thology: New Myths I shared a few weeks ago. That was a cool book. Even better, I’m actually in this one. It’s the fourth book in HDWP Books’ Theme-Thology series of anthologies, titled Real Worlds Unreal, where each story takes place in a…
Hachette insisted that Amazon sell its books with “Digital Rights Management” that only Amazon is allowed to remove, and now Hachette can’t afford to pull its books from Amazon, because its customers can only read their books with Amazon’s technology. So now, Hachette has reduced itself to a commodity supplier to Amazon, and has…
Add this to the Quote of Note file: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz: To destroy a library is to destroy the dream of civilization. To destroy the NY Public Library is to destroy our sixth and best borough; that beautiful corner of New York City where all are welcome and all are equals, and…
We had a bit of an outpouring of literary geekery the other night when I found this comment on a friend’s Facebook feed: Ok most of list I agree with however not being a fan of C.S. Lewis I can say I didn’t get beyond The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I can…
I recently bought (pre-ordered) a copy of Reinventing Collapse : The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov. Orlov is a Peak Oiler and his writing on the subject is easily distinguishable from his contemporaries because he spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union during its collapse from Socialist Superpower to Just…
I hate memorial Day. Specifically, I hate the jingoism, the militaristic bullshit and the monumental levels of hype one hears pretty much on every television, radio, and in every newspaper and magazine, and on God knows how many internet sites, for these 24 hours. Statism is bad when it’s tolerable, it’s disgusting when it’s prostituted…
It’s an interesting exercise in evaluating the current state of politics in the U.S. to take a good, long look at Bill Moyers’ new book, Moyers on Democracy (excerpted by Truthout.org, here) and compare it to Chalmers Johnson’s review of Sheldon S. Wolin’s new book, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism,…