G. K. Masterson

Author, editor, videographer, Whovian, geek.

Friday Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz

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Friday Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz

First of all, muchos kudos to Sarah Hoyt for blogging about this book once upon a time. Otherwise, I never would have heard of it.

If you love post-apocalyptic science fiction, then A Canticle for Leibowitz is a book you need to add to your reading list. Set in the future of a world recovering from nuclear war, it follows the path humanity might take as it tries to hold its history together through one of the few institutions likely to survive something as massive as a full-scale nuclear war: the Catholic Church. The brothers of the Order of Leibowitz first struggle to have their patron recognized and canonized by the Church and then later must deal with skeptics, heretics, and those who see the influence the Church has as a threat to their own power base.

It’s a really interesting book that shows just how short-sighted most institutions really are. Governments, social movements, even the military have nothing when it comes down to the long-term survival instincts of religion. It was also interesting to see how the brothers and the priests struggled to try to piece together their “ancient” history and how they approached similar situations that we’ve already had to deal with but they, of course, have no knowledge of due to the loss of records in the conflagration.

This book is easily one of my favorites and it’s one I find myself going back to again and again because the questions it makes me ask and the ideas it inspires are just so…intriguing. If we were to blow ourselves to Kingdom Come, what would survive? My money probably would be on the Church (Catholic and Orthodox) surviving. Governments come and go, empires fall, kingdoms crumble but those two religions, alongside Judaism, have real staying power.



    

Five rainbow farting zebricorns. A Canticle for Leibowitz is just that good.

— G.K.

Quick Update

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Quick Update

I know I’ve been quiet lately — between looking for work and writing as well as getting The Penitent ready for launch, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed. However, I just wanted to let you all know to stay tuned for a goodly update on the story front tomorrow and that regular posting should resume next week.

Thanks!

— G.K.

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse — Who To Take

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Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse -- Who To Take

…and who to avoid and why.

Early on, if you’re a decent person, your impulse will be to try to save as many people as you can. And, if the Outbreak looks like it’s going to be contained and controlled and a promising treatment developed soon, that’s not a bad idea. However, if the Outbreak overwhelms civil authorities and you find yourself in the midst of a full-fledged “The End Is Nigh” apocalypse, you’re going to want to be a bit pickier about who you save and who you leave to fend for themselves. Now, bear in mind that this is just a list of guidelines and suggestions and not a hard-and-fast Gospel so with your grain of sodium chloride ingested, we shall proceed.

Those To Save

Defenders

This is my wall and I’mma guard it, k?

It’s a simple fact that any group is going to need a good number of defenders. These are your Ricks and Dales. Almost all the able-bodied adults (male and female) will be called on to handle defense but there will be a couple of them for whom defense of the group is going to be a primary calling. Leadership might also tend to go naturally towards them or it might not but they will generally be mostly concerned with strategies that ensure that the group survives over the long term and that the people within the group have their talents and skills used in ways that benefit the group’s chances to survive.

That said, the defenders will tend to get so focused on survival that they will forget all about living and growing. They do suffer from tunnel vision and can adopt something of a bunker-mentality wherein anyone outside the group is not to be trusted. They will need the occasional break from defense to something else in order to keep this from happening.

Builders

Is Jim gonna have to smack a bitch?

Builders are good, too. These are your mechanics, your carpenters, your handy-men. If you break it, they can fix it. Most of them will have worked with their hands before the Outbreak but some of them will not. Those who weren’t handy-men (or women) before the Outbreak will generally have a way of looking at things or seeing potential in a place or in items and inventing something that makes you remember the scene from Apollo 13 when the NASA guys managed to make the “wrong” CO2 filter fit in the CLM opening so the crew wouldn’t asphyxiate on the return trip (it was awesome). You’ll want these people around because they’ll make life so much simpler and they’ll be able to repair, replenish, or just flat out invent and innovate their way through the Outbreak. Sometimes their hair-brained ideas will blow up in your face but sometimes those ideas will lead to breakthroughs that make Salk look like a slacker.

However, the two types of builders exist in a very yin-yang relationship. Sometimes they get along great and you’d think they are all speaking a language that no one else knows. Other times getting them to work together makes herding cats look simple.

Teachers

Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’ve gone stupid, son

Teachers are those who have knowledge and can pass it on to others. And, yes, everyone is going to be a teacher in some form or fashion during the ZA. However, the elderly and women who are pregnant or with young children will generally be the primary teachers in your group just because that’s how the resources are going to fall out. That said, if you stumble across someone who is a biologist, a chemist, an engineer, a physicist, an astronomer, or has other highly advanced knowledge of the sciences like that — save them unless they are completely irredeemable because that knowledge is fucking invaluable.

Thinkers

What? It’s true

Thinkers come in all shapes and sizes. They’re not just the verbose, lettered, bookish types who can quote all manner of esoteric arcana at the drop of a hat like me. Some of them are the surly, crossbow-wielding type who could track the wind over rocks. The commonality is that we all live in our heads, we tend not to deal well with other people, social graces escape us completely, we’re way outside our comfort zone dealing with “teh feelz” of any kind, we tend to act quickly and sort out how we feel about it much later (if ever) and some of us can rationalize damn near anything even if we know it’s immoral and unethical.

Still, we generally come in useful, we’re fairly low maintenance, we pitch in and help out, and aside from the fact that we have a tendency not to socialize, we’re not bad people.

Workers

You can count on us for anything

These are the people who don’t fit into any particular category above or who maybe kind of fit into some of them but not completely. They may not be specialists but they work hard, are honest, do their share, make life easy for others, are fun to be around, and genuinely care for the rest of the group. You need them if you’re ever going to have any hope of rebuilding the world. These are people like Glenn, Beth, T-Dog, Carol, Martinez, Michonne, Tara, Tyreese, Carl… They aren’t perfect but then, no one is.

Those To Avoid

Drama Queens

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid!

It doesn’t matter how close you are to them, how long you’ve known them, how much you care for them, or how skilled they are — drama queens are going to be more trouble than they are worth and they are going to get you killed. In the ZA, the energy they consume is going to be greater than that which they contribute. Their need to be the center of attention and the constant siren-call of their psyche for self-reinforcing immediate gratification is going to get you (and everyone else) eaten by the undead. Avoid them. Avoid them at all costs.

Syphilitic Donkeys

Heed my advice: don’t stick it in the crazy

If the population drops by 90%, there’s going to be chaos. Yes, you are going to need to concern yourself with reproducing and that means you are going to have to start thinking about things like genetic variability and possibly considering alternate marriages like line marriages (as from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) or something like that to avoid the bottleneck (or Founder’s) effect which can happen if things get really, really, REALLY bad (like if there are less than 10,000 people in the world). However, even with those “alternative” schemes in mind, adultery cannot be tolerated. Men and women who have committed to a relationship — in whatever form that takes in your group — have to be faithful. If they’re not, then that behavior can’t be tolerated.

It’s not actually the sex per se that is the problem — it’s the secrecy and betrayal. Minus those, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Egomaniacal Totalitarian Messiah Wannabes

Bet you thought I was gonna post The Governor

You will run into more of these than you would have believed. Most of them will be very charismatic, persuasive, and charming or will be able to claw their way to the top of a power structure and use their influence over the muscle to maintain their power base. If you happen to stumble across a group like this, get away from them and put as much distance between you and them as you can. They will wind up destroying their group and killing whoever is with them once their ego is threatened and, in a ZA, their ego will be threatened.

There is one last group of people — the largest group of people, actually. They are the Questionables. Some of them can be saved and some of them can’t. It will all come down to your individual experience with them.

In our next entry, we’ll go over some of the forms of groups that you’ll encounter might take and how to deal with them and their command structures.

— G.K.

Matters of Honor, Power, and Illusions

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Matters of Honor, Power, and Illusions

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about honor and rules when it comes to combat, debate, arguing, and society. I’ve half-written about a dozen entries on this so I decided to come back and do an intro since it’s going to be a pretty lengthy subject. Others have written about it before and a lot of what they’ve said is worth reading. However, recent events — the fight over the Hugos, the issue with white-washing the entire Civil War out of American history, the Balkanization of society, and so on, has made me do a lot of thinking which starts out around honor.

Basically, one side believes in honor and the other side believes in “the end justifies the means.” We’re not even really fighting over the same thing here and it’s taken me quite a while to realize it. It didn’t strike me until I was re-reading We and got to thinking about dystopian literature (which, of course, always leads back to Orwell’s 1984). This isn’t about freedom vs slavery, capitalism vs socialism, statism vs dynamism, red vs blue, Democrats vs Republicans — that’s all just a front. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

It’s about power. Who has it? Who’s going to keep it? What is power, really? And does it even truly exist or is it just another illusion? Is it just another shadow on Plato’s cavern wall? I honestly don’t know but it’s got all my little INT lights just a-flickering so I’m hoping some of you will stick around with me while I knock these ideas around. They’re not going to be perfect and I welcome honest discussion on the matter because I get the sense that this is something the Founding Fathers “got” intuitively. That power (outside of actual physical power — as in “laws of physics” kind of power) is just an illusion. It’s a kind of mass mutually-shared hallucination we participate in by agreement and if enough of us decide to stop playing the game — like in the Matrix — we might be able to bring the entire system into a state of crash or some kind of kernel panic.

It’d be interesting, at least. That is if I’m even anywhere near correct on this (which isn’t a given).

So, anyone up for it?

— G.K.

Friday Quick Review: The Black Jewels Trilogy

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Friday Quick Review: The Black Jewels Trilogy

I’ve decided to try to do a quick review each Friday of something I’ve read recently. This Friday, the lucky winner is Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewels Trilogy (Daughter of the Blood, Heir to the Shadows, and Queen of the Darkness). I got this series as a Christmas gift from my younger brother several years back and it’s definitely worth a read. Set in a universe where there are three realms – Hell, the realm of the dead, Kaeleer, the Shadow Realm, and Teirelle, the Realm of Light, it consists of a matriarchal society ruled by Queens who are born to that caste (meaning that any girl can be born to be a Queen). The Blood — those members of each race who have the ability to use magic by wearing the “blood jewels” — are tasked with acting as guardians and caretakers of the realms.

However, over time, society has become corrupt. Where once there was an intricate balance of power between caste, jewel rank, and social status, things have been twisted so that status trumps everything. Strong men are enslaved and forced to serve tyrannical regimes and war threatens to destroy all three realms unless the prophesied Witch comes to bring back the balance and repay the debts that are owed by all of the Blood.

   

It’s really a good read. There is a bit too much sensuality in the early parts that can be off-putting for some but the story itself is pretty compelling and once you’ve read the entire thing, you can look back and see that every bit of it was necessary. There’s not a single wasted word. Four rainbow-farting zebricorns, easily. 🙂

— G.K.

And then what?

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And then what?

Right. In the wake of recent events, I’ve seen a lot of back-and-forth from both sides over What Must Be Done to Stop Bad Things From Ever Happening Again. So far everything from removing Lee’s banner from everywhere (including monuments about the Civil War) to removing the monuments themselves (because we can’t have anything that might seem to honor, commemorate, or hell, games or maps that might teach about the Civil War — a historical event) to actually getting rid of Gone With The Wind. Big chain stores like Wal-Mart and Amazon are pulling merchandise off their shelves that has the Stars and Bars on it (and that’s their right to decide what they carry) and smaller stores like Etsy are doing the same. They’re all still carrying crap with the Sickle and Hammer and Che and Mao on it but then, genocide, collectivization, and killing over 100,000,000 people isn’t such a terrible thing as slavery for $reasons.

Oh, and of course if we all turn in our guns, everything will be rainbows and puppies and unicorns forever. With sparkles.

So, I just have to ask, if we actually did all this — let’s say that tomorrow we wake up and every single Confederate flag is gone, every Mississippi State flag has been changed to the one below, every Confederate monument has been obliterated, every American history book has been altered to remove any reference to any cause for the Civil War that wasn’t slavery (and don’t get me wrong — slavery was the primary motive and it was an extremely lucrative business). Every single gun in the United States outside of the ones owned by the police and military forces and stored in their common armories has been magically changed into Play-Doh and somehow, a magical force field has been created that makes it impossible for any gun to ever be carried by anyone who isn’t a police officer or member of the military. Not only that, but every single copy of every single book written by Mark Twain, Margaret Mitchell, or any other “racist” writer or writer who glamorized the Confederacy in any way has been vaporized. None of it exists.


The new state flag combines the power of zebras, unicorns, ponies, and pure fucking awesome

So, then what? What happens the next time Some Asshole goes on a murder spree? Some guy with a knife managed to stab twenty-nine people in China. Do we ban knives next? (Some would say yes and in the UK, there are laws on just how long a bladed weapon you can carry and yes, screw-drivers and multi-tools do count). If he’s a racist asshole, do we mandate racial sensitivity re-training for everyone? How do we monitor to make certain that everyone has the “right” attitudes? If he used a bat or club instead, do we start banning baseball bats? Regulate sporting equipment? Make it illegal to pick up heavy sticks or break branches off trees? Would you have to get a license to become a carver or whittler just in case you might make a baseball bat or club? What if he used a shovel? Or what if he rigs up a homemade flamethrower using aerosol deodorant and cigarette lighters? Do we ban those?

What if he’s not racist but instead hates Jews? Or women? Or Mormons? Or Catholics? Or Baptists? Or southpaws? Or Trekkies? Which groups are protected and why? Which groups aren’t and why not? Who gets to decide? How do we monitor the thoughts the Asshole was having? Why do they matter more than the crime itself?

It’s already illegal to commit murder. Part of the definition of murder is “killing unlawfully.” The punishment for murder is one of the harshest we have on the books and yet Assholes still go out and commit it — just like other assholes go out and rape and steal. I’m not sure how many more laws we can put on the books, how many more kinds of things we can make illegal, how many more kinds of thoughts we can say are bad before we’ve finally thrown out everything we once stood for.

There were mass murders before there were guns. There were mass murders before there was a United States, let alone a Confederacy or racism or sexism or anything like that. If we get rid of of all those things, we’re still going to have mass murders. The question is this: and then what? What do we get rid of next? What do we blame after that?

And why are we blaming anything other than the person who made the decision to commit the act of murder?


All credit due to Randall Munroe, yo

— G.K.

Tom Knighton, a fellow Southerner, has some very interesting thoughts on this as well
When the descendant of an unreconstructed Unionist descended (on the maternal side) from a sternly Abolitionist Pennsylvania Quaker decides that maybe he wants to get the Rebel flag and start flying it, maybe you’ve overplayed your hand…

I’m Still Here

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I'm Still Here

I’m sorry if I’ve not been posting — I’m working on a few things that will be going up over the next couple of days. Also, there will be some updates to my stories coming soon-ish. However, I’m trying to find some stable gigs to pay the bills and I’m in the middle of finishing up some edits for my publisher (just doing the last of them now, Vic!) So, until tomorrow, enjoy this very cool image that has been gathering dust on one of my drives:

I’m certain that no matter where we fall in the current brouhaha over everything (flags, guns, monuments, media, history, rockets), we can all agree with the sentiments expressed above and can all stand united as one in saying that sometimes, we need to give Mother Nature the finger right back when she gives us crap like scorpions.

Just sayin’.

— G.K.

How To End Mass Shootings

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How To End Mass Shootings

Or at least make them a lot less prevalent. Journalists and news reporters used to know how to do this without needing to be taught back in ye olde days when you also didn’t have to explain why scratching yourself in public was considered crass. However, those days seem to be gone so here it is for your consideration. I would like to present the new and improved “Some Asshole” method of tragic news coverage.

I can’t remember where I first saw this image and I can’t find who came up with it — my most recent encounter with it was over at Larry Correia’s place in the comment section. [EDIT 10/04/2015 — The comic is from The Non-Adventures of Wonderella by Justin Pierce. Thanks to Ian for the tip!] Now, of course, getting journalists and talking heads to quit bloviating and fixating on the latest breaking news du jour would be a bit like getting a mosquito to quit sucking blood — it is simply what they do. This is a class of people who, if they couldn’t listen to themselves talk and sound important, might actually die from it. However, they do seem to be able to understand things like the Rape Shield Law which prevents them from reporting the name of an alleged rape victim — even if that currently has its own set of problems. I propose something similar for all crimes but especially mass shootings.

Reporting on what happened is fine and while Some Asshole is at large, giving out a description of what he looks like (and, by and large, mass shooters are male) is fine. However, once he’s been arrested, the story needs to switch from being about him to being about the victims and the way the community is handling it. Speculations on his motives, things that might have influenced him, or attempts to point the finger at anything other than him being a certified member of the Giant Tribe of Big Giant Douchnozzle Assholes is out of bounds.

Plain and simple, Some Assholes are out for glory. The more glory they get in the form of media attention, focus, news stories, people speculation on “root causes,” arguments and debates over which particular psychoses they suffer from, politicians and talking heads weighing in on What Needs To Be Done, the happier they are. And, when the news cycle continues and the next member of the Giant Tribe of Big Giant Douchnozzle Assholes decides he wants to go out with a bang, he knows that the news media is going to help him achieve that goal.

Anonymizing the shooters, focusing on the victims, and telling a story of how the community is working to rebuild and move on instead of doing what we do now — glamorizing the killers, anonymizing the victims, widening the divisions, and blaming everyone and everything but the killer — will make it a lot let interesting for members of the Asshole Tribe to go out like that. They won’t be able to make their statement that way so they’ll have to find some other method — hopefully something a bit more constructive.

— G.K.

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse: The Initial Outbreak

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Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse: The Initial Outbreak

(Earlier posts in this series: Surviving the ZA and Preparing for the ZA)

Okay, so, chances are that you may be stumbling across this guide during the early days of the Zombie Apocalypse. How will you know if there’s a Zombie Apocalypse (ZA) in progress? Well, first of all, it will be all over the news. Secondly, I’ll put up this helpful little graphic that I’m basing on the Department of Homeland Security’s Terrorism warning graphic thingy (totally the official name):

If it goes to OMGWTFZABBQ (aka “Red”) then there’s a ZA in progress. Grab your guns, grab your gear, and get ready to get the hell out of Dodge. Do not go to the nearest Four Seasons hotel and cry because that’s not going to do you or anyone else any good.

The first news reports may be confused because, let’s be frank, journalists are communications majors — not infectious disease specialists, doctors, or biologists. However, even they will be hard-pressed to screw up reports about people who were pronounced dead suddenly reviving and then biting those around them. The civil authorities may attempt to suppress the stories for a short time in order to prevent mass panic or to put their own forces in a position to try to contain the outbreak and keep it quarantined. If they are successful, then the ZA will be averted and the whole thing will probably be classified and we’ll never know about it.

However, the US government can’t even keep the Secret Service Agents Gone Wild under wraps and they can’t keep the Chinese out of their own “secure” networks so color me skeptical that they’d be able to actually contain a ZA itself and keep it secret.

In the early stages, the best play is to follow the advice of the wise Douglas Adams: Don’t Panic. Pack your gear. Pack your guns. Plan your escape route and at least four meet-up locations. Communicate your plans to your friends and family. Go ahead and stock up on non-perishables if the stores aren’t sold out. Continue to report to work but keep a pistol with you at all times and to hell with the laws and any “gun-free zones” because zombies don’t care (this applies only during an active ZA — if a ZA is not in progress, obey the law or work to change it and respect the rules of any private establishment or opt not to enter it unless you can convince the owners to change their policies). Keep your car filled and an extra gas can filled in case you need to split in a hurry.

If you start hearing reliable reports that the outbreak has breached quarantine or see such evidence for yourself, then vacate your home and all populated areas immediately. If social collapse begins to encroach on your region or seems likely, retreat is advisable — sooner rather than later.

How will you know when the collapse is coming or if the outbreak has breached quarantine if there are no reports? Well, a zombie-plague will probably have an extremely high fatality rate — something on the order of at least 80% and probably closer to 95%. Hell, it might even be up there with rabies which has a fatality rate of 100%.* You are going to have a high number of people either sick or dead and thus not reporting in to work. Assuming a rate of 75% (the lowest figure I’m going to go with for a ZA), that’s 75% of people who aren’t there to work in power plants, who aren’t driving delivery trucks, who aren’t running the trains to deliver fuel, who aren’t operating the control stations along the grid, who aren’t monitoring the communication relay networks…


The death toll will look something like this…

The electricity will become unreliable. Internet usage will become unstable and then cut out. The lights will go dark. Television transmissions over cable and satellite will end. Popular broadcasts over the airwaves will cease. The phones will go dead. At this point, communications will fall back to the early twentieth century (at best). Radio and line-of-sight. You may be able to get on the HAM radio network and keep in contact with people or on a CB radio. If you have a UHF device, that will work, too. However, powering those devices is very quickly going to become an issue because, as I mentioned, the electrical grid is going to shut down. It can’t run unmanned for very long. You need to get out of town before the lights go out. I’d suggest getting out as soon as you start hearing reliable reports of a massive increase in death toll or seeing the effects yourself. Chances are that the major metros will be hit first and worst early on. New York will stop broadcasting. When that happens, it’s time to get out.

Now, where should you go? The suburbs? No. You want to get out further than that. And don’t be stupid and go to Yellowstone or some other major national park. Thousands of people are going to have already thought of that and will be there ahead of you. Get out to the closest rural area you can that has a constant source of free-flowing water — a river, a stream, whatever. If you own the land, great. If you know the owners and they’ll let you stay there, awesome. If no one owns it, fine. If it’s claimed already, move on. You want to find a place where you can forage and hunt, construct a reasonable defense against the zombies, see them coming, but that isn’t so attractive that someone else will kill you for it.

Also, this is the point where you need to start berating yourself for not planning better and promising that, once you’ve survived this thing, you’re going to fix that.

In the next post, we’ll look at who you should consider having in your group and who you should definitely not take along for the ride.

— G.K.

*By the time the disease is identified, the government will have announced how the symptoms can be identified so that people who have it can be placed in quarantine because — believe it or not — the government does actually have a vested interest in keeping things like a ZA from wiping out its citizens. So, taking even a low-ball figure of 75% fatality (and assuming a 75% transmission rate via indirect contact or 100% via direct contact like biting), if the disease breaks out of its quarantine and the dead start rising, there is going to be a very swift exponential increase in body count where the bodies don’t stay dead.

The exact formula to show this is (bN)(S/N)Z = bSZ and was published by Robert J. Smith? in “Mathematical Modeling of Zombies” (University of Ottawa Press, 2014). The key problem is that zombies never reach a stable-state with humans like other diseases do so there is never a drop-off or plateau on their side unless humans kill enough of them or contain them successfully for long enough.

Also, logically, there are only a few forms a zombie-plague can take. It will need to have the infection rate of something like the flu — perhaps a mutant strain of the Spanish Influenza of 1911 — or the measles. It will need to have the fatality rate of rabies. It will need to affect the brain and nervous system like rabies and meningitis. So, it will most likely be a virus or bacteria with a long incubation period (up to 14 days before onset of symptoms) during which it’s contagious and spread through airborne spray (sneezing, coughing) or touch (door knobs, handshakes) the way the cold and flu are now. Then the symptoms set in and the person dies from them. Post mortem, the person reanimates and then continues to spread the disease by biting others (the way rabies is spread).

Oh Good Grief…

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Oh Good Grief...

I found this particular piece of stupidity over at Peter Grant’s site.

I don’t know if Moshe Feder lives in an echo chamber, has difficulty reading English, or what, so, here goes.

Here is why I am no longer going to buy any books published by Tor:

  1. Contrary to Irene Gallo’s statements, I am not a neo-nazi. My paternal grandfather fought the Nazis in WWII and was at the D-Day landings in Normandy, on Omaha Beach. He came over with the third wave in the afternoon, I believe. His force was part of the Big Red One. They were part of the Saint-Lô breakout, the liberation of France, the Battle of the Bulge, the push to Aachen, the liberation of the concentration camps Zwodau and Falkenau an der Eger. He was probably in Germany or Czechoslovakia when the war in Europe ended in May 1945.

    He would have been twenty-one years old on VE Day.

  2. Calling someone a neo-nazi and saying that the works they like are “bad-to-reprehensible” when your own employer publishes those works and then expecting them to keep buying said works is a bit stupid.

  3. Calling someone a neo-nazi and then saying “I’m sorry if you were offended” is not an apology. For example, were I to say that Tor’s senior staff consists of a high number of pederast- and/or pedophile-sympathizers in light of their lack of condemnation for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s admitted sexual abuse of her son and daughter and then turn around and say “I’m sorry if that offends you,” would that be considered a sincere apology or an insincere one? Please explain and defend your choice of answer logically and show. your. work.

    For the record, I honestly, hand-to-Albert-Einstein believe that Tor’s senior staff feels nothing other than complete disgust at MZB’s actions and that their lack of statement has to do with the length of time since the events took place and possibly could have something to do with contracts they signed or non-disclosure agreements along with the general tendency people have not to speak ill of the deceased — even when the deceased did despicable things.

  4. I’m also not sexist (I’m an equal-opportunity mistrust-er), racist (my black and Latino friends can attest to it), or homophobic (my gay and lesbian friends would get a real kick out of that one). I’m not transphobic (one of my business partners can vouch for me there) and I’m certainly not parochial (scads of witnesses on that one). I’m probably better-traveled, better-educated, more well-read, speak more languages, and just all-around more knowledgeable in general than most of the senior staff at Tor.

So, about the only thing they can hang on me is that I’m from Mississippi and Mississippi has the something-that-kind-of-looks-like-the-Stars-and-Bars in its state flag. Sort of. If you squint. And look at it through special goggles. Of course, this ignores the whole history of the State Flag* and the history of the “Rebel Flag” as it’s called (btw, the actual Confederate Flag is the Bonnie Blue Flag — a single white star on a field of blue).

If being from Mississippi automatically makes someone a horrible, terrible, no-good person, then, well, the world is in a whole lotta trouble. See, William Faulkner is from here. Eudora Welty is, too. Same with Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, Jim Henson, Medger Evers, Brandy, Jimmie Rodgers, Tennessee Williams, Tammy Wynette, James Meredith, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddly, Richard Wright, Carl Westcott, Sela Ward…

Just to name a few.

You’re welcome, by the way, for the music and the stories. What can we say? It’s in our blood, black or white, it “don’t make no difference” because we’re all the same under the skin where it matters.

At any rate, I’m sick and tired of being called a horrible person. I’ve made the rational choice not to award my money to someone who calls me a horrible person. I’m quite proud of my grandfather — who fought the Nazis in World War II and would probably take umbrage at my being called a neo-nazi — and I’m also proud of all the women I’m related to who bucked the trends in their lives and lived on their own terms. Some of them got divorces back when a divorce made you a virtual pariah — but better that than living with an abusive drunk. Some of them worked outside of the home and owned businesses when that was Simply. Not. Done. My mom and her older sister are two of the smartest women I know and their older brother is probably the smartest person in that part of our family (I might have a high IQ but I can be a complete idiot in a lot of ways). They’ve all worked hard to fight for equality for all people and to make a world where you’re judged solely on how hard you’re willing to work and on your merits alone and I’m proud of that. To continue to give money to a company that calls me a racist, a neo-nazi, a sexist, or a homophobe would be to spit on my own gay, trans, black, and Latino friends as well as three generations of my family who have fought oppression.

Not to mention to turn my back on all of the people from my state who have worked so hard to make an equal playing field and share our rich heritage with the world.

So no. I’m not going to buy any more books from a company based out of New fucking York that calls me a neo-nazi based on zero evidence and refuses to issue an actual apology. New York has more money than Midas. Tell you what, though. I will up the ante. If all of these so-called “social justice warriors” really want to prove their credibility, how about they quit giving their money to people who can afford to live in New York and start donating it to groups working to provide computers, Internet access, and better educational facilities and economic opportunities to students and recent graduates in Mississippi?**

Time to fish or cut bait, y’all.

— G.K.

*Mississippi adopted the current flag in 1894 — way before the Rebel Flag became racist. Also, the canton has thirteen stars in the MS flag, not eleven (the nitwits never seem to notice this) because they stand for the original 13 states of the Union, not the 11 states that seceded. Back in 2000, the NAACP sued the state to try to force us to change the flag. Their first argument was that the canton was the Rebel Flag and that since it’s against the law to fly the Rebel flag as an official flag, it violated their right to freedom of speech and due process. However, the MS Supreme Court threw that out because 13 != 11 in base10. Still, back in 1906, the MS legislature did a general repeal of all laws and kind of forgot to re-add the flag back when they re-did the new legal code. So, on that technicality, it was found that the flag in use since 1894 was not the “official” flag and we had to have an election to decide if we were going to make it official or change it.

So, in 2001, we voted to keep it the way it was. Not because we’re all a bunch of racists but because we’re the poorest goddamned state in the Union and we’ve got better things to spend the thirty million dollars it would cost to change the state flag on. Hell, it cost over two million dollars just to have the election on the issue and it was a nearly 70% support to keep the current flag.

Biggest reason? Because it’s a piece of cloth. It’s not even the stupid Rebel Flag in the canton. Because no one freaking cares. Because changing it isn’t going to change anyone’s attitudes. Because we’ve got better things to spend that money on — schools, teachers, hospitals, roads — than what a bunch of rich lawyers in California who may or may not ever set foot in our state get a bug up their butts about.

…but I digress.

**I’mma love to hear the excuses on this one. We already have taxes in-state about as high as we can set them without causing businesses and individuals to flee and we’re already redistributing as best we can but since school funding primarily comes from local property taxes, it’s hard to make that stretch very far without causing taxpayer revolt and our state sales tax is already among the highest and the most widespread in the nation (it even is levied on food) so, yeah, we are already taxing the shit out of ourselves and the rich and still coming up short. However, “rich” in Mississippi would be “can afford to eat cat food every other day and live in a fleabag extended stay roach motel” in NYC so we are talking different orders of magnitude here, folks.