Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 8.27
- Same sex marriage and why you should care passionately about Maine – Come Nov. 1st Maine’s new gay marriage law will be up for a vote. And as Greta Christina says, “There are two big reasons why you care about Maine. Momentum, and precedent.”Â
- Loch Ness monster found on Google Earth? – Clearly! Surely there is NO other explanation, it HAS to be a monster because just look at all its monsterly qualities! Sent in by everyone and their moms.
- The tornado, the Lutherans, and homosexuality – From Brian who says, “Apparently the Lutheran church voted to say it’s okay
being gay, and god responded by sending a tornado to knock over the
steeple. Heavy.” - Giant list of mind-blowing scifi written by women and people of color – A response to this fiasco.Â
- “Pure” food obsession is new eating disorder – Excellent quote at the end. From Emory.
Loch Ness Monster? I don’t see a Loch Ness Monster. I see some waves on the left. And that boat on the right with the wake behind it kindof looks like Cthulhu. But that’s about it.
My Mom… She’s such the cryptozoologist!
That whole “obsession with healthy food” stuff is an invention of the Big Food lobby to keep us hooked to their harmful products! Open your eyes! Break the shackles! Get alternative food!
Nessie has an official fan club?! Damn, I actually exist and I can’t managed to wrangle a fan club.
Loch Ness monster? I guess it’s pretty much exactly what a boat and its wake look like.
Like in this picture (137 KB)
Or this one (35 KB)
Or this one (3 KB)
Only question is why it shows up white like that. Perhaps hazy weather or something.
‘Earlier this year it was reported that climate change may have killed the Loch Ness Monster. There have been “no credible sightings” of Nessie for over a year. ‘
Here are the raw numbers:
-Credible sightings prior to 2008: 0
-Credible sightings 2008-August 2009: 0
Obviously something is wrong with Nessie.
Sorry for the double post but I just noticed the sub-head:
“A security guard claims to have spotted the Loch Ness monster while browsing Google Earth.”
Does it make anyone else feel less secure to know that the security guards are looking at Google Earth instead of the security camera?
@durnett: He probably thinks it’s a live cam feed.
*sigh*
John Piper should be sent back to the Middle Ages where he belongs.
Re: the Tornado: That’s a pretty wimpy smiting, I must say.
@durnett: COTW… Just to funny…
@Thermy: I hereby announce the formation of your fan club!
We shall be called: “Thermy-dynamics”
I invite others to hurry up and join. New memberships will only be open for a short time, because “Thermy-dynamics” only works in a closed system.
@MiddleMan: Agh! “Too funny”!
Apparently, a lot of people start showing signs of orthorexia nervosa after they start experimenting with alt med products. In fact, the doctor who first identified the condition is a practitioner of alternative medicine. And everyone knows correlation equals causation. I think Jenny McCarthy should get on this right away.
Loch Ness — No it’s
A Giant Squid, a Horse, a Dog, and a
Crashed Klingon Bird of Prey.
See, my flickr site:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3440/3861394821_928e0ac318.jpg
@Steve: No shit! Promote near-hysterical levels of fear of “toxins” and proclaim that proper nutrition can cure call then diagnose people with being too enthusiastic about your own woo? That is evil.
I like the idea of a list of mindblowing fiction. It conjures images of experiments involving having subjects read the work in question and then giving them a test for altered consciousness.
Also, I am okay with security guards watching Google Earth. It should be noted, however, that I am in a special interest group whose focus is being in places where they are not, strictly, welcome.
@Amanda: I can’t wait to see what the woomeisters will come up with as a cure for wooitis.
The Sci-fi story has me wondering though.
Clearly, the sci-fi aythor who IS in the antology should’ve just kept his trap shut, because he must have known that anything he could say would only make matters worse. But I still think he makes a good point though: The anthology is “the best stories evar according to [white male publisher X]”. And in my view, it would probably have been worse to include the single token black and/or female author just to avoid having to deal with the fallout. If he doesn’t like theirs stories, or doesn’t know them, they’re not his favorites.
Similarly, I probably wouldn’t be very interested in a list of George W. Bush’s favorite vacationing spots, as I’m sure what he thinks is awesome looks nothing similar to what I think is awesome. I can complain that perhaps none of his vacationing spots are in Europe, but that’s because the dude is a goddamn American who’s probably only been here on work-related issues. (work being the opposite of vacation).
I wonder if perhaps some people are a little too eager to look for things to get offended about …
Then again, with a moniker like “Angry black bitch” or something like that, I suppose she scours the web looking for stuff to gripe about, so I may be seeing things a little out of perspective. Similar things could be said about skepchick WRT all things WOO …
@exarch: Maybe it’s because of the fact that, whenever such lists are ever made, women and people of color are never represented? It gets pretty fucking old.
(But I can’t really comment much more on it, because one link is getting blocked from work (not the angry black bitch one, weirdly enough. Still, her anger is NOT unfounded.)
How can people tell that the image that was either taken from a sattelite orbiting hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface, or at the very least by an airplane flying overhead at several hundred feet above the surface, features something that’s below the surface of the water?
From that angle you couldn’t even tell if a person was standing on street level or on the roof of a very tall building …
@marilove: It’s just a list of works at Tor publishing’s site. Strange that it’s blocked.
@exarch: I believe the name is partially tongue-in-cheek.
And I think this post about editing an anthology linked to from the Tor list was great.
No, clearly she has a good point in this instance. And whoever was defending the book is perhaps good at writing stories, but very bad at discussions.
But this is never going to change unless people simply say “Hey, old white dude, I’m not buying your piece of shit book!“. He’s only making it because he’s out to make a buck. If he’s not making his buck, perhaps he’ll start to wonder where he went wrong and actually LEARN something that prevents him from giving in to his bias the next time.
If you’ll go to the “monster” in Google Earth and then travel about 6 or so kilometers to the southwest, you’ll see something that’s unquestionably a boat. It, too, is white, but it has a distinctive wake, unlike that of the “monster.” My guess is that there are rocks or something submerged around the “monster” that distorts its wake. (Or, for all I know, it could be a big rock.)
@Skepotter: I have just the thing.
@SteveT: COTW?
COMING THIS NOVEMBER-THE NOR’ EASTERN RUMBLE, THE DOGFIGHT IN DAMARISCOTTA, THE FRACAS IN FALMOUTH, THE RIOT IN ROCKLAND, THE SCRAP IN SCARBOROUGH, THE BRAWL IN BANGOR, THE WAR IN WATERVILLE! FROM AUBRUN TO YORK, FROM CAMDEN TO KEENEBUNKPORT, THIS WILL BE THE MAAAAAAINE EVENT
@infinitemonkey: Dude, COTW. (even with the misspellings)
I’m skeptical of the existence of Orthorexia as a genuine disorder.
I see articles about it have been published in peer reviewed journals exactly twice, both times in a journal apparently called “eat weight disord” which seems to be an online journal, which raises a red flag for me.
So far it seems the only remotely scientific way of diagnosing the disorder is by a 10 question questionnaire (http://www.skwigg.com/id8.html) whose questions ask about things that are not unhealthy (do you think about food more than 3 hours a day?) things that point to OCD (Do you sacrifice experiences you once enjoyed to eat the food you believe is right?) and the occasional question that would point to a genuine disorder (Do you care more about the virtue of what you eat than the pleasure you receive from eating it?)
I also note that the author of the article freely diagnosis her “friends and colleagues” which is a big no-no for psychologists.
I’m not saying it’s total B.S., but I need more.
@Steve: Saw that the other day. Mine will be here any day now. I’m sooooo looking forward to no longer being a slave to my gullibiity.
One of the things that strikes me about the SF anthology story is the notion that people pay attention to who writes their books.
To me, an author is pretty much just an index for the quality of their books. With the exception of their name and possibly a back cover blurb, I don’t know anything about them.
Case in point: Up until three days ago and today, respectively, I have China Mieville and CJ Cherryh assigned to the wrong genders.
@durnett: You will note that there has been no decline at all in the number or frequency of credible Nessie sightings.
Nessie is just fine.
@durnett:
Why, you could say credible Nessie sightings have multiplied!
L. Ron Hubard was also missing from that book where’s the outrage?
What does that say about his writing?
Just ignore me I’ve been making fun of Scientology a little too much lately and I’ve noticed a up swing in the amount of blue shirted SeaOrgs following me. I’M NOT PARANOID!!!!
Global Warming has killed Nessie?! What a convient excuse for no sightings.
This scifi written by women and persons of color is perfectly acceptable… as long as it is ABOUT white males and their thrilling exploits.
@teambanzai: They wear capes now so they’re easer to spot!
http://www.pinkisthenewblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/080509_scientologyuniforms.jpg
@Amanda: Work blocks the weirdest crap. Now it’s not blocked. I may have clicked the wrong link at first. :)
@exarch: He created this list, right? Probably from his own reading. It makes me wonder if he reads any women writers. Something tells me no. It’s not always intentional, though by his reactions it probably is with him (an actual, thought out, “Women SciFi writers just aren’t as good as male SciFi writers!” rather than just a tendency to read male writers).
Even I have a tendency to read books and stories written buy men more often than woman, which concerns me sometimes, so I try to make an effort to branch out.
Unfortunately, I’m not so much into SciFi, so the response with the list of books doesn’t do much for me. ïŠ
@marilove:
Just to clarify, it’s not just a list, it’s a compilation of stories, and Paul Di Filippo is not the editor of the book in question, but he is one of the authors in it.
@jtradke:
Also I may be a pedant, but I agree with you.
@anonentity: “This scifi written by women and persons of color is perfectly acceptable… as long as it is ABOUT white males and their thrilling exploits.”
I call bullshit. In most novels I read the race of the protagonist is never mentioned or is mentioned, but not in a way that is relevant to earth. Is Jinxian black or white? I’ve read a fair number of stories where the protagonist didn’t have a body. There does seem to be gender/race/boob bias in a lot of the cover art, but the authors almost never get a vote about the cover.
@davew: Me thinks the nonentity was being nonserious.
@jtradke: Gotcha! I was unable to read it fully due to being on the phone. Work gets in the way of Skepchick. Very sad.
Ohhhhh-kay. So if Nessie’s “dead,” where’s the body? A body like that should float up as it decomposes, just like a dead whale.
I would think you’d be able to smell it for miles…
@James Fox: “Me thinks the nonentity was being nonserious.”
Oopsie. I do have a tendency to be a bit too literal. Touch of the Asperger’s perhaps. Apologies.
@QuestionAuthority: I don’t know, there’s a lot of eels in the lake. I bet they’d devour a giant monster carcass.
@Amanda: “My hovercraft is full of eels!”
How do you measure orthorexia nervosa in people who are doing it for “ethical reasons”?
Oh, and is this the last stop on the orthorexia train?:
http://www.breatharian.com/
So what are the figures for white men versus men and women of any and all races, creeds, and/or colours writing (not just published) Science Fiction?
Anyone know?
(oops..quotes should have started at “doing”..anyway.)
@SicPreFix: Would you be all that surprised to find it’s a white man dominated profession? ‘Cuz I really wouldn’t.
@marilove: I think reading SciFi is a white guy dominated activity also, but that’s just my perception.
“Earlier this year it was reported that climate change may have killed the Loch Ness Monster. There have been “no “credible sightings” of Nessie for over a year. ”
Oh wow… None? Really? Are they SURE?????
I’ve heard it said that “Frankenstein” (written by a woman, Mary Shelley) was the first science fiction novel. Maybe you literary types can confirm/deny?
I’m in the camp where I just read stuff that a) looks cool or b) someone has recommended to me, regardless of who the author is. Although stories with strong female main characters allow me to identify a bit better than ones with weak and silly females on every page.
@marilove:
No marilove I would not be surprised. But that does not answer my question does it?
My point is that we have no meaningful figures on how many men and women of any and all races, creeds, and/or colours are writing Science Fiction, and trying but failing to get published, to give some weight to the thread.
Also, I think @James Fox‘s comment does carry some weight. Most of the women I’ve known in my life think Science Fiction is silly boy’s stuff that only juvenile geeks would even think worth looking at, and to which no self-respecting intelligent woman would think of writing.
Now, we all know that’s a false point of view; that many highly intelligent women do in fact write excellent Science Fiction — Kress and Le Guin being prime examples. However, if a majority of women do hold that false view, then women will be under-represented in the field because they simply are not there; not because they are being intentionally excluded by the mean and evilly nasty white boys club.
As for men of any and all races, creeds, and/or colours writing Science Fiction, I have no argument except to say maybe a majority of them also feel Sci_Fi is foolish. Do you know otherwise?
@whitebird:
With regard to that link: http://www.breatharian.com/
Can we officially start calling this the ‘cheeseburger and diet coke fallacy?
@Nicole: It’s pretty much impossible to fix a start date to something so ambiguously defined as a genre.
You could make an argument for the greeks, or the arabian nights (and people have.) A cursory search found an alternate world story from a frenchwoman about 150 years pre-frankenstein.
@Nicole: I’ve heard that, too. I think it depends on how the term “science-fiction” is defined. There’s been some argument in academic circles about it. For now, I tend to agree, having read it. Some say it’s a pure “horror” novel.
@SicPreFix: Based on pure personal observation, I would say it is still white male majority.
As for the trends, it is become less male-dominated over time, but is still as white as ever.
I have no stats to back any of this up.
Years ago I remember having a discussion about Octavia Butler. Our exercise was to come up with another famous black female science fiction author. We couldn’t. That doesn’t mean that we weren’t missing someone, but the fact that we were stumped was telling.
@Nicole:
In some ways it can be argued that it is, if not the first, one of the first Sci-Fi stories. But it is really more of a horror story and social commentary, which were not uncommon at the time (1816). She was not yet nineteen years old when she started writing the novel.
But, there is so little science of any kind in it, that it may be a bit of a stretch to call it Sc-Fi.
Mary Shelley’s main intent (other than to answer the whim and gaming challenge of Husband Perce Bysshe Shelley), was to present a story that served as “a cautionary tale against overweening presumption …. a forceful social, political and psychological commentary.”
Quote from Candace Ward, Dover Classic Editions; Dover Publications, 1994
The polls seem to indicated that the Maine vote will be close. It’s anybody’s game. The good news is that the supporter of marriage equality are putting together an actual campaign instead of rolling over and playing dead like they did in CA.
@infinitemonkey: Hey, you put that on my face book page yesterday. Now I know who infinitemonkey is!
Is the eating disorder article for real? It seems like it could be a joke.
That list of SciFi authors does not mention Doris Lessing. She wrote science fiction, science fiction that was very much in the style of 70s feminist literature. And she won the Nobel prize for Literature in 2007. Duh? Thought she’d be at the top of the list, really.
@John Ellis: Nice to see A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle on the list; one of my childhood favorites.
I got that Nessie pic sent to me on twitter asking if one of my creatures has escaped. I’m very sorry everyone, I need to train them better.
@Nicole: for what its worth the wikipedia says the first “modern” sci-fi novels emerged in the 1500s and cites Thomas More’s 1516 novel Utopia as an example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_fiction
Funny, the longer I look at that alleged picture of “Nessie,” the more I see a large pile of bullshit. Or would that be “Nessieshit?”
I care about Maine ’cause I live in Maine. Argh … I wasn’t aware of the proposition to overturn rights though. Thanks for the head’s up Amy.
@Gabrielbrawley: I got the same impression, but it has a Wikipedia article, and that makes it real.
Cool, thanks for the answers. I knew it would be fuzzy anyhow..
@Jake Lsewhere: Wow, Utopia? Really? I never thought of that. I took a class on Utopian Lit in college, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” as on our reading list, which is on the women’s sci-fi list. So in the end I’m not that surprised… We also read 1984 and “Brave New World.”