Real Life

Feminism Is Dead

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Feminism Is Dead

I’m happy to announce that, as of today, November 14, 2014 Anno Domini, feminism is dead and we can all go about our lives without having to worry about anything other than its raging specter wailing away in the attic. That means that all the anti-GamerGate folks can rest easy and game company owners no longer have to worry about firing 50% of their game designers and stuffing the teams with Uterine-Americans in order to appease the feminists.

Because feminism is dead. The corpse of sexism and misogyny hangs from yon tree like the bloated, putrid thing it is. Or was. Because it’s dead now and no threat to anyone.

I’d really like to thank the woman who had the ovaries to stick a stake in its heart: Rose Eveleth of The Atlantic. I mean, without her there to point out that the most pressing problem women interested in STEM research and careers face is that some guy might wear a shirt that has a buxom blonde in lingerie on it, we’d all still be held hostage to the crazy clutches of feminism. However, thanks to her fearless pontification upon sartorial hygiene among the aerospace engineering crowd, we can safely assume that sexism is over, feminism is no longer necessary, and we no longer need to worry about being judged on what we look like, what kind of attire we’re wearing, what kind of make-up we use, what hairstyle is “in” at the moment, or, you know, shallow things like that instead of our achievements.

Such as landing a #$!?@ probe on a #$!?@ comet going at ridiculous speeds in outer-#$!?@-space.

Which, I’m certain, is not that difficult compared to writing about science on the Internet and then claiming to be getting death threats over the Internet which will, if the same pattern holds as has held for the vast majority of other cases, be traced to a random troll unconnected with critics (like what happened with Anita Sarkeesian) or to allies looking to discredit anyone who says anything critical of the woman who was “brave” enough to say she didn’t like a shirt some guy was wearing — an event, I’m certain, that has never happened before in history and will definitely not happen during the course of any modern, heterosexual marriage.

— G.K.

P.S. — If anyone out there wants to send me death threats, fine. Whatever. I do, however, own a handgun and have access to rifles with precision scopes on them. Most of my neighbors, likewise, own firearms. Normally, we keep them holstered but, should the occasion arise… And no, Rose, I’m not talking to you or any of your vaporish wilting lily lady friends so you can put your smelling salts away now, dears, and go lay on the settee while someone fans you lest you swoon. Maybe some big, strong man will come along and protect you from the meanie heads on the Internet so that you don’t have to learn how to handle an inanimate hunk of metal and protect your damn self.

The Scottish Referendum: As Scotland Goes, So Goes the US?

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The Scottish Referendum: As Scotland Goes, So Goes the US?

Tomorrow Scotland will hold a referendum to decide if they will remain part of the United Kingdom or if they will sue for independence and become their own sovereign nation once more. I really have no comment one way or the other on this [1] — my ancestors were forced out of Scotland back in the late 1700s after the Battle of Culloden so my descent from them is fairly remote. I wish them and all the people of the island nothing but the best and I hope that, regardless of tomorrow’s decision, the US, UK, and Scotland will always be friends and allies.

 

That said, talk of Scotland possibly going independent after over three hundred years of being united with England and Wales has set some people to thinking that it might spur a secessionist movement in the United States and to speculate as to whether or not we’d fight to preserve the union as we did back in the Civil War. That’s the point I want to address here because it’s important and because I have no real desire to live through another Civil War so I’d like to do whatever I can to nip this in the bud before it blossoms to bear poisonous fruit.

 

The UK and the US have been allies since the end of the War of 1812. We’ve been friends since the beginning of the twentieth century. But we are very different countries for all that we speak the same language, have some cultural traits in common, and even have a shared history. The UK is, and has been since the fall of Rome, a kingdom. It arose and evolved from a tribal nation-state where allegiance was owed to a chieftain and then to an overlord (dux bellorum) to having nobility (a remnant of the tribe/clan system) who rule with a monarch above them (the overlord). Though the modern UK is very egalitarian, there are still structures in its societies that are reliant on the old caste system. One of those things is that the monarch has no equal. The monarch does not share sovereignty. The monarch is the monarch of England and of Wales and of North Ireland and of Scotland. All four countries are her subjects and are governed, chiefly, by her Parliament. Local affairs are governed by local authority but all authority derives from the monarch.

 

The United States, on the other hand, has no caste system. We do have socio-economic classes but you can fall or rise without the government having any say in the matter. And, being rich isn’t a prerequisite to becoming a Senator (though it does help a lot, especially since we changed the Senate from its original mission). You don’t have to be born to a certain family to hold power. You don’t have to attend certain schools to govern. No matter what the Ivy League elitists and the chattering classes who think that they should rule believe — in the United States, your birth has very little say over your destiny — legally and politically speaking.

 

The States, in turn, are not subject to the federal government. The States are fifty different laboratories of democracy and republicanism who can do whatever they want (that isn’t forbidden them by the Constitution) without having to ask Congress, the President, or anyone other than the citizens of that state for permission. Some states have no income tax. Some states have no sales tax. Some states allow people to drive at sixteen. Some states allow first cousins to marry. Some states allow gay marriage. Some states make it easy to carry a concealed weapon. Ideally, under the Constitution, each state can do whatever it wants so long as it agrees to recognize the rights of the other states to do as they please and so long as it does not assume powers for itself that belong properly to the federal government [2]. Our Constitution clearly outlines the process by which a territory can become a state. We have procedures in place to expand our governance to include new regions, peoples, and territories if they choose to become part of us. New states have the same status as every other state. They are equal to all of the other states. None is subject to another.

 

In the UK, on the other hand, Scotland, England, Wales, and North Ireland are not equals in government. Scotland can’t say if a treaty should be signed or not. Wales can’t demand that Parliament leave it alone and let it do things in a Welsh manner. North Ireland can’t set its own tax rates. Everything in the UK goes through the Parliament in London. It has the final say over all policies across the UK. The four constituent countries aren’t laboratories of democracy where each can tinker with things, do their own thing, and not be beholden to the others. No, Wales, North Ireland, and Scotland are conquered nations who have been brought into the fold of the United Kingdom.

 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, these days. After all, the English are hardly going around oppressing the Scots, the Welsh, or the Irish. The Welsh, Irish, and Scots do get to vote for representation in Parliament and, through that, they do have some say in national policy. Some might argue that the Scots are, if anything, over-represented in Parliament but, again, that’s not my concern here.

 

The US isn’t going to face another secession crisis if Scotland goes free because the US isn’t the UK. Sure, sure, plenty of people have run their mouths over the past twenty years talking about “we should secede if X happens or if Q is elected.” That’s bullshit (sorry, Mom). I’m sure that the chattering classes and the elites would love to break away from the benighted and ignorant backwoods flyover states but those people would very quickly realize that they need those redneck gun-toters to, you know, actually do shit for them that they don’t want to dirty their soft, well-manicured hands doing. And, the super conservative Bible thumpers might want to break away from the immoral and godless heathens in the big cities but they would very quickly learn that they need those people’s creativity to keep their own culture going.

 

And, even if a state seceded, the rest of the United States would fight to end the rebellion. Guys, we settled this already. It cost us over half a million good men on both sides. Once you’re in, you’re in. That’s it. There is no leaving the union because you don’t like the direction things are going or because someone you hate is the President or because a court case wasn’t decided the way you think it should have been. Congress, the President, the Supreme Court — none of them have the authority to ignore a rebellion and none of them have the authority to permit a state to leave the union. Any of them who tried would probably find themselves hanging from the nearest handy tree.

 

The US won’t break up strictly because we’re used to being disunited. We’re used to having very different cultures, people, languages, and religions living close to each other. In the US, if you’re not happy with the people around you, you can pack up and move somewhere with people better suited to you. And, moving won’t mean giving up anything. You’ll have the same rights and powers over the national government in any state you move to.

 

We won’t break up because none of us were forced, kicking and screaming, into a union. No, not even the rebellious Southern states who were Reconstructed back in weren’t forced to join in the first place. Aside from the Civil War, the people of one state have never fought the people of another state and forced them into subjugation. Sure, we’ll grouse about things not being the way we want them to be — especially now that the federal government seems to think that the fifty states should be subject to it instead of the other way around — but we’re not going to break apart. We need each other too much and, besides…

 

…you’d have to be insane to want to fight our Armed Forces on your front lawn.

 

— G.K.

[1]I find it unspeakably rude to voice an opinion on the private issues of a foreign nation. It’s a bit like getting in the middle of a friend’s divorce — it just shouldn’t be done. The most I will say is that I hope that, regardless of the outcome, the Scots people, the English people, the Welsh people, and the Irish people will always be friends to the people of the United States and that our countries will always be allies. Any non-Brit who says more than that is being, in my opinion, rude and uncouth and should be ignored or called out for it even if that person is the President of the United States. The business of the Scottish referendum for independence is none of our concern and we shouldn’t attempt to influence it one way or another unless the Scots suddenly start enslaving non-Scots or launching nukes at us or an ally or something like that.

 

[2]Yes, this is the idealized bit. I realize this isn’t how it plays out in reality but that’s because we Americans have let the federal government assume too much power since the days of FDR.

GamerGate: Art’s Last Stand

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GamerGate: Art's Last Stand

There have been so many good posts about GamerGate and NotYourShield that have covered just about every aspect of the scandal from the social ranking (geeks and nerds who survive to adulthood rarely give two craps what the in-crowd thinks or says about them) to pointing out how the rabid so-called “social justice warriors” have ruined so much of the entertainment industry already and more. But there are two aspects that I feel have been overlooked: the first — journalism is not some noble, ethical profession filled with intelligent and educated people who want to report the truth to the world. The second is that gaming is the last form of art to stand up and shine a mirror in everyone’s face instead of just the current cultural boogie-man’s.

 

The first point could, frankly, take ages to cover. Suffice it to say: L. Rhodes is wrong because gaming journalists are no different than other journalists who have covered up scandals (such as Walter Duranty covering up and excusing Stalin’s massacres), sold their souls to keep access (such as Eason Jason and CNN covering up Saddam Hussein’s horrors or journalists not reporting on Hamas using hospitals to launch attacks), proven themselves to be completely, willfully, callously, and unfixably ignorant about reality (crack open any article on science and tell me it’s written by someone who has an honest-to-God clue of how to read statistics), and acted unethically, calling in favors of all kinds (such as David Gregory getting his good buddy the DC prosecutor not to haul him off to prison for breaking the same law that has caused veterans and honest travelers to spend time in the lock-up for not knowing DC’s rather insane laws on guns, magazines, clips, and bullets). If someone is a journalist, that’s not something to be proud of. It means that they weren’t skillful, honorable, or intelligent enough to get a better job — such as being the pianist in a whore house. To be a journalist is to be without honor, ethics, and intelligence.

 

As a matter of fact, the only thing lower than a journalist that isn’t a politician would be a social justice warrior.

 

Social justice warriors are modern day Thomas Bowdlers. They are the kind of people who will deface the Sistine Chapel because it offends them. They would rip apart the Pieta because it’s offensive. They have a lot in common with the Taliban and that ilk in that they will destroy something priceless and precious, something that can never be rebuilt, repaired, or replaced, with the same mindless self-righteous zealotry that saw the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. These are the same kind of people who have destroyed (in order) academia, the arts, the news media, the broadcast industry, the publishing and literary industry, the school system, the movie and television studios, and the music industry.[1] Not satisfied with that, they’re going after the last hold-outs to their Puritanical tyranny — indie writers, comic books, and video games.

 

Social justice warriors cannot stand the thought that someone out there, somewhere, might not be in sync with their groupthink. Some of us out here might honestly believe in marriage equality, a truly colorblind society, legal equality of the sexes (even when it might not work in women’s favor), and still have absolutely no problem with a world where Playboy, World of Warcraft, the Mona Lisa, Shakespeare, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, Robert Heinlein, and A Canticle for Leibowitz exist. Some of us even enjoy almost all of those things while still contentedly working alongside a gay FTM black man, having a lesbian sister, a Southern Baptist mother and a Roman Catholic father, and going to an Eastern Orthodox church every Sunday.

 

I’m not delusional enough to think that my books are high art. They aren’t. They are pretty good reads with interesting characters and a fun plot. They’re not going to be assigned as homework in two hundred years. But, they do sell fairly well considering that I am my own marketing department. I’ve heard plenty of good comments and constructive criticism. I doubt that many of our current games will be remembered in a century and I can guarantee that almost none of our movies or television shows will be remembered because there’s little that is actually memorable about them aside from a handful of shows that ignore social justice warriors and focus on telling a good yarn (Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones).

 

The long and short of it is that we can’t let these Bowlderites destroy the last vestige of art, storytelling, and original thinking in our culture. We probably won’t let that happen at any rate because we’re geeks and nerds. We’re the people who built the Internet so that it treats censorship as damage and routes around it. We’re the people who invented TOR. We’re the guys and gals who made Amazon popular. We’re the ones who have dragged civilization and culture kicking and screaming into the Digital Age. And, by and large, we’re not sexist. We’re not bigoted. We couldn’t care less what people do in their bedrooms (so long as it’s consensual), whether or not they go to church, or anything like that. Gamers, geeks, and nerds are probably the most open, inclusive, welcoming, and tolerant groups in existence. We’re not going to let the Ministry of Truth wannabes tell us what kind of books we can or cannot read anymore than we let the Roman Catholic church tell us the same. We’re not going to let these groupthink weenies tell us what kind of games we can or cannot play anymore than we let Congress tell us that. We’re not going to let a bunch of pretentious fakes tell us anything — especially when any one of us (on average) knows a hell of a lot more about history, law, tech, art, literature, grammar, and debating than any of those dopes.

 

So, let’s quit letting them push us around. They’ve cowed the popular crowds and the in-groups by threatening to call them names and spread nasty rumors about them if they don’t cave in to peer pressure and wear the right jeans and shirts, use the right words, make fun of the right people, and go to the right parties. Fuck that, mates. We’re the ones who got made fun of, who don’t get to go to those parties and we’re all past the point of caring about that kind of petty crap. We’re going to keep on keeping on and if the SJWs don’t like it…well, we’ll treat them the way we treat Jack Thompson whenever he starts running his mouth. And, if they don’t get the picture after learning that we know that they’re a big joke…we’re the ones who built the Internet, guys. We can always reprogram the damned thing to keep them locked away from us the same way we keep our toddlers from playing with our gadgets.

 

Who knows? Maybe locking them off in a kiddie corral where they can’t hurt themselves or anyone else would be for the best. Maybe once we show that these morons have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about, the rest of the culture will start to wonder just why they were so willing to throw themselves and their priceless pieces of art off a bridge just because a bunch of SJWs told them to.

 

— G.K.

 

[1]Exactly how they’ve managed to destroy all of these things will be the subject of future entries. This one is already clocking in at almost 1.5k words and if I get into this, we could be here until Christmas.

Plagarism and the Remix Culture

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Plagarism and the Remix Culture

Many, many years ago, when I was a young writer who was just beginning to grasp the importance of things like “letter shapes” and had a vague understanding that spelling might be important in other people being able to read what I’d written (especially since I lacked the skill to remember and translate my earliest works from “toddler-scribbling” into “American English,” thus depriving the world of many epic sagas involving me, my little brother, our dog, and the various and sundry monsters who inhabited our backyard), I was big on what we now call “the remix culture” and I, somewhat intuitively, knew not to claim someone else’s story as my own because I didn’t like it when my brother tried to say that a story I’d made up and told him was his idea.

 

Now, one would think that if a girl of seven can intuit that claiming someone else’s words/story for your own is wrong, then college students and adults would have a much better grasp on the concept of plagiarism (h/t Mad Genius Club). Apparently, it seems, I was a bit precocious in my ethics by figuring out that repeating (and claiming to have “made up”) something like The Last Unicorn was wrong but that making up a different story using the same characters was okay so long as I asked permission (which makes me wonder what Nintendo thought of Nine Year Old Me’s letter asking if they would mind if I wrote a play for the kids in my neighborhood based on The Legend of Zelda that would neatly tie together the first three games — The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, and A Link to the Past. Cut me some slack. I didn’t understand the difference between commercial and non-commercial use prior to puberty. I should at least get credit for having a vague understanding of copyright rules back then, shouldn’t I?)

 

To continue; as I got older, I continued to write for things other than school assignments. A few of my short stories were completely original. A lot were based on things my friends and I did but with the names and the setting changed (mostly to protect the guilty because none of us wanted to get busted for going to the Bat Cave* after having been told not to). And many were remixes or “in addition to” stories that took the characters and settings of another story and used them to tell a new story. By the time I was in high school, I was a fairly prolific fanfic author when it came to The Legend of Zelda, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dragonlance, and The Wheel of Time. I was also a burgeoning fantasy writer working on my first novel (which needs to be completely rewritten before I let anyone see it), a multitude of short stories, and several RPG adventures/campaigns for AD&D (2nd Edition).

 

Back then, I generally had an “extra” notebook I carried around with me that I worked on when I was finished with whatever we were doing in class. This notebook would have notes on adventures I was writing, fanfics, some of my original stuff, my attempts at poetry and epics, and also poems I was trying to memorize. Once, I left this notebook in my English class and my teacher thumbed through it to figure out whose it was so she could return it. She came upon a poem that I had half-written in there and tracked me down to ask me to finish it. The poem was not one I had created — it was one I was trying to memorize and came from the Dragonlance short story Hunting Destiny. I made sure that she understood that because she was talking about having that poem published once I finished it.

 

It makes me sad to realize that, these days, many students would claim the work as their own for the accolades they could receive (at least until it was revealed they were lying). It also makes me sad to realize that far too many of them don’t understand the difference between remixing and plagiarism. I can sympathize with those who read something and mistakenly paraphrase it without proper attribution (I did this myself a few times and was always embarrassed and quickly corrected it once it was pointed out to me) but I have no such sympathy for people who blatantly rip-off (sometimes word for word) another author and then try to pass that work off as their own after making only a few modifications to try to file the serial numbers off, as it were. I have actually caught a few people ripping off some of my old short stories and trying to claim them as their own for school assignments (and those are always fun emails to get from teachers) which is why I took them down from my website years ago.

 

However, I don’t mind when people remix my stuff. I’ve had a few emails with short stories set in the Lanarian universe. I’m flattered by those even though I won’t read them because I don’t want to be accused of ripping them off later.

 

Remixing is fine, guys. And yes, “real” writers do occasionally remix to one degree or another. Some of us even dabble in the occasional fanfic (I’ve done so with Doctor Who). Many of us fantasy writers actually got our start as fanfic writers (though that’s not what we knew to call it) in our early days. For me, my progression went from writing fanfics set in established universes to taking elements of those universes and tinkering with them to try to build a new universe to eventually developing my own universes. And, I’ve read some damned fine fanfics that beat the living tar out of some of the “official” novels (especially when it comes to TV shows, films, or video games). But every fanfic that takes place in someone else’s universe comes with a disclaimer giving credit to the original source. Even many remixes that pass muster as “original works” and not “derivatives” come with an acknowledgement of influences.

 

We authors love to give credit to the authors and works that inspired and influenced our own writing. Just as musicians will credit other acts for inspiring them to get into music or for inspiring a particular song, we give credit to the authors who came before us and inspired and influenced us. We know that “what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) So, we give credit. And if you want to be respected as an author, you’ll need to give credit, too. That doesn’t mean citing every sentence you write. It doesn’t mean sending out a ream of letters before you publish something. It means being willing (and even proud) to say “this story was inspired by X” or “my writing is influenced by Y.” It does not mean taking what X or Y has written, changing a few words, adding a few scenes, and then slapping your name on it and calling it a “remix” when you get busted.

 

That’s enough for now. As you can tell, this is one of my hot-button issues. 🙂

 

— G.K.

 

*The Bat Cave wasn’t anything cool like from Batman. It was a long storm drain pipe that ran under a road. There were bats living in there which is why we called it “the bat cave.”

Gay Marriage, Church and State, and the First Amendment

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Gay Marriage, Church and State, and the First Amendment

Gay Marriage and LGBT rights have been a big thing in the news over here in the States for the past few months. I mentioned some of my thoughts in L’affaire Eich a while back and most people who know me have a general idea of what my thoughts are but I do still manage to surprise them by one thing (though, really, it shouldn’t be so surprising — it’s just my adherence to it even when it’s not to my advantage that throws people).

 

In my mind, there is no sentence more important in all of history than this one:

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

That right there, folks, is the most important sentence in all of history. It’s the most amazing sentence ever written. It’s a sentence that, in one fell swoop, severely limits the power of a new-born government and places power directly in the hands of the people. It’s the sentence that makes “consent of the governed” actually work. Yes, yes, the Second Amendment is very important and I’ll always defend it. But without the First Amendment, the Second would be pointless because there’d be nothing to protect.

 

The First Amendment protects a lot of things: freedom to assemble, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom from being religious, freedom to speak your mind, freedom to argue and debate, freedom to protest, freedom to lobby the government, freedom to advertise, freedom to advocate for the overthrow of the government.

 

Notice I said “protects” and not “promises” or “grants.” All rights in the Bill of Rights are negative rights (something I’ll touch on in detail in a later post). No one is “given” anything — the assumption is that the people already have these rights and the government is told to keep its grubby paws off them even if they think they’re meddling “for our own good” or “for the children” or whatever the catchphrase du jour is this week.

 

The First Amendment also explicitly forbids Congress from granting favor or disfavor to any particular sect or religion. There’s no official religion in the United States even though some colonies were founded as charters of a specific church or movement. When it comes to religious beliefs and practices, Congress (and via the Fourteenth Amendment, the States) cannot interfere except in a very narrow range of circumstances such as parents refusing emergency medical services for their child if a third party contacted them, human sacrifice, slavery via contract, and things of that nature (granted, I’m not a lawyer so if I’m wrong, let me know). Congress cannot pass a law that would force a religious institution to support something against its fundamental beliefs — such as forcing the Amish or Quakers to speak out in support of a war, forcing the Catholic church to fund abortions, forcing an Islamic group to speak out in favor of strip bars, or forcing a Jewish synagogue to sell its members on the health benefits of bacon.[1]

 

The flip-side of this is that no religion or sect can force its members to vote in a certain manner, to refrain from certain beliefs or behaviors by force of law, or to support certain policies or candidates in political matters. A church can beseech. It can plead. It can remark upon. But it cannot force its members to action in the political sphere. Yes, a church can refuse to perform blessings or rites upon members who violate the church’s teachings or beliefs but it can’t call up the local sheriff and have him arrest a member for being a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, Anarchist, or anything like that. It can’t take a member to court for being in favor of a tax increase, gay marriage, or voting against the Reverend’s daughter on the local school board.[2]

 

There is a legal separation of church and state that acts to protect both and this is a Good Thing. The church can, just as any other group, try to convince its members to live a certain way or to vote a certain way but it can’t force them to do so or punish them for not doing so by force of law. The state can’t tell the church that it has to perform certain rites or that it has to favor certain political policies. The church can’t baptize Caesar and Caesar can’t rule over the church. That’s a good thing because every single time we’ve mingled the two, it’s gone badly. Just look at the corruption in the Catholic Church during the era when the Pope ruled as a temporal king and claimed political dominion over all sovereigns. Look at the corruption that led to deaths in Salem, Massachusetts when all the minister had to do was point and say “witch.” Look at the way that Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, and Jews were disenfranchised in the UK and forced to pay taxes to support the Anglican church or be jailed for refusal to go against their conscience. Look at how Protestants were disenfranchised in France and Spain. Look at how Christians and Jews are treated in the Middle East (outside of Israel) today. Look at how anyone of faith is treated in China today. Letting the government enforce religious orthodoxy is a terrible idea because not a single human alive is perfect. Letting religious orthodoxy control the government is a terrible idea because religions are run by humans who aren’t perfect. Yes, yes, when Jesus returns, He’ll set up a perfect kingdom. Jesus is a special exception to the whole “terrible human” thing. As soon as you can find someone alive who is as perfect in every way as Jesus is, let me know and that person will have my vote. Until then, I’m going to function under the “power corrupts” adage and try to keep Caesar chained and unbaptized and keep religion from ascending Caesar’s seat.

 

Why? Because separation of Church and State is one of the only things that makes the whole American Experiment work. Without it, we’re just another England or France. Without it, we’re not America anymore. Which is why I favor stripping all religions and sects of the power to perform legal marriages and going with a system like the current one in France. Currently, in France, if you want to get married (and have it be legal), you go to the Mayor’s office and apply for a marriage license. You have to post banns for a certain amount of time to give anyone who knows a legitimate legal reason why the marriage shouldn’t happen a chance to raise an objection. Then, you go before the Mayor who reads off the laws concerning marriage, you sign on the dotted line, and bam. You’re married. If you’re religious, you can then go to the church/temple/synagogue of your choice and have a matrimonial ceremony in line with your faith. The minister can’t make the marriage legal to the French government and the French government can’t tell the minister who they have to marry or who they are forbidden from marrying in their faith.

 

“Oh, but then you’re trampling on our rights!” I hear some cry. “You’re forcing us to think gay marriage is okay if you make it legal. Next people will marry their brothers and sisters and dogs and cars…” Yeah, no. Every place has laws regarding consanguinity for public health reasons. People too closely related who petition for legal marriage are refused because of the likelihood of their offspring having recessive birth defects come up and tainting the entire gene pool in a region. However, these laws don’t come with fines or jail times (otherwise there are entire communities in Appalachia who would be in trouble). The government just refuses to grant a license to them. Same thing with animals or inanimate objects — if they can’t express consent in human terms that anyone who speaks the common tongue can understand, they can’t sign the certificate. And, fun fact: it’s actually not illegal to marry your pet in some places yet no one seems to do so in those areas. It’s not that it’s permissible — just not forbidden. So, refusing to ask the government to use the power of law to enforce your religious definition of marriage will not lead to the downfall of the civic order. And, there are several religions where same sex marriage is permitted as a rite and refusal to grant legal status to those couples constitutes an infringement of their First Amendment rights — so long as ministers are allowed to perform legally sanctified marriages. Remove the ministers’ power to do so and let the local government decide and you’ve removed the danger there.

 

You’ve also removed the government’s ability to come into your church and tell you what to teach if you do that. Right now, a lot of conservatives in the US are all aflutter that the government is allowing lawsuits to compel people to perform services for gay marriages when gay marriage is against their beliefs. There are rumors that the government might even force ministers to bless such unions by the threat of withdrawing their power to perform marriages at all. Many conservatives fear that soon they’ll be legally compelled to support a lifestyle they find to be sinful.[3] The first step to removing the ability for the government to have the first say in your religion is to divest ministers of the power to perform legally binding marriages. Many conservatives (my mother among them) will scoff at this and have a Wall of Text from the Bible about how this tramples her rights or some other such nonsense. It doesn’t. It actually protects her church from the government. Don’t believe me?

 

Well, it worked in France.

 

France is, compared to the US at least, a pretty liberal country. Not quite so liberal as the Netherlands but still pretty liberal. Just recently, gay marriage became legal in France and gay couples can now go before the Mayor and be married legally. That’s equality in France. However, the LGBT lobby in France wanted to compel churches (particularly the Catholic church) to bless such unions by performing the Sacrament of Matrimony and by letting gay couples partake of the Eucharist (which means that the couple would be “in communion” with the church instead of violating its teachings on sexual purity by living an unrepentant homosexual life). The case didn’t get very far at all. From what I understand (and again, I welcome correction if this is wrong), the LGBT group got into the courtroom and the judge looked at them like they’d dribbled on their shirts before informing them that the French government had no power to force a religious institution to perform any rite or support any belief beyond “you can’t murder people or take their stuff” and that if the LGBT group wanted the Roman Catholic Church to perform same-sex Matrimonial Rites, they needed to take it up with the Church because the government didn’t have the authority and didn’t want the authority to tell any religion what it had to do or teach. The case was dismissed and though I’ve heard rumblings of it going before the EU High Court, I have a feeling that even as batcrap-crazy as they can be, the EU court will rule against it on the same grounds.

 

Separation of church and state means just that: the two are separate and neither can compel, by force, the other to do a damned thing it doesn’t want to do. Even if it’s “for equality” or “for the children” or “because it’ll hurt my feelings if this doesn’t happen.” You’re not compelled to go to a specific church, believe specific things, or perform specific religious duties — you can always go find or start a religion or church that is exactly what you want it to be. Hell, L. Ron Hubbard did this and I’ve seen plenty of Protestant churches spring up over some dispute about which SEC team to support in the NFL semi-finals or because someone ate a bad piece of fish and had a revelation (I swear, it does seem to me that Protestants make things up as they go along). But, no one can force a church to do anything that church doesn’t want to do. If your feelings are hurt: go somewhere else.

 

“But I want to be Catholic/Orthodox/part of the Southern Baptist group/Muslim/Orthodox Jewish/whatever and they say I’m violating their beliefs by being gay.” Guess what? You are. Part of belonging to a religious faith means living by its teachings even when it’s not easy or convenient. I’m Eastern Orthodox. That means that if I want to keep calling myself Orthodox, I have to get up on Sundays (even when I just want to laze about in bed) and go to Liturgy. I have to refrain from having wild orgies. I can’t visit a psychic. I can’t sit around and say that God doesn’t exist. I even sometimes have to fast and spend time praying. I can’t say that the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East is stupid (well, I can, but it’s not really a good policy). I can’t demand to go up to the altar because I’m a woman and that’s a man’s place. I can’t demand to be made a priest (though I could become a monk if I wanted). I can’t have a boyfriend move in and sleep with me — I have to get married to him first.[4] Those are some of the rules of being Orthodox and I knew them when I converted. If I find them that onerous, I’m free to leave and find another faith. I’m not free to demand that an institution that’s been around for 2000+ years change its views just for me. If the place you go to worship says that you’re violating their beliefs, then you can either suck it up and try to live according to their teachings or you can leave and find some other place. If someone refuses to perform a non-vital[5] service for you because of their own religious beliefs, then you can suck it up and find someone else. You can’t force an institution or individual to change their beliefs for you any more than they can force you to change yours for them.

 

That’s separation of church and state. Don’t like it when it works out against you? Then gather an army and go conquer some territory and form your own damned nation and see how it works out for you.

 

For now, that’s enough for this entry. There will be future entries in this vein given my fanatical adherence to the First Amendment and all its ramifications but, for now, I think I’ve probably pissed everyone off enough. 🙂

 

— G.K.

[1]Yes, this also touches on the birth control debate centered around the Hobby Lobby case and Obamacare. I will go into more detail on this in a future entry because this entry is long enough and needs no more meandering.

 

[2]A religious institution can refuse to perform sacraments for people who violate its teachings but it cannot call upon the law or the courts to enforce its teachings. It can, however, call the police if it catches someone breaking the law (such as someone breaking into a church to steal money or commit vandalism) and it can sue someone who has violated a contract with it (such as suing a contractor who was supposed to fix the roof and did not do so).

 

[3]And, seeing the backlash against Eich and photographers and caterers who refuse to perform services for gay marriages, conservatives actually do have some reason to fear that their lives will be made impossible if they donate to a cause against gay marriage or if they themselves refuse non-vital services to gay couples. In America, believing that someone is doing something sinful and not wanting to support that shouldn’t ever lead to a witch hunt against that person or group. The KKK should be free to believe blacks are inferior. The Catholic church should be free to believe that abortion is murder. The Baptist church should be free to believe that homosexuality is sinful. This is one area where the LGBT groups have gone too far in trying to force everyone to wholeheartedly support them and is fodder for a future entry.

 

[4]Having a live-in boyfriend/girlfriend for a “trial before marriage” is against the Church’s teachings. However, suppose I were sick or injured and needed someone to stay with me around the clock to help take care of me. If my boyfriend were the only one who could do that (say I couldn’t afford to hire a nurse and had no family nearby who could help me in such a manner), then he could stay in my home and sleep separately from me and the church, while not being a-okay with it, wouldn’t consider it sinful as long as we resisted the temptation to engage in hanky-panky without a wedding first. Or if my boyfriend was having work done on his house that necessitated he vacate the premises for a few days (like fumigation or major construction), again, he could crash at my place but not in my bed.

 

[5]Non-vital means just that — not required to live. Having a particular photographer work your wedding isn’t a matter of life and death. Having a particular caterer work your wedding isn’t a matter of life and death. Having a particular privately-owned building or hall host your wedding or reception isn’t a matter of life or death. However, an ER doctor or an EMT/paramedic cannot refuse to perform life-saving services on someone who is gay. A surgeon who finds out mid-surgery that the patient is transsexual can’t refuse to continue treatment. A Catholic doctor who is working as an OBGYN cannot refuse to perform an abortion for an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy where the fetus implants somewhere that is not the uterus. Such pregnancies can almost never result in a live birth and can almost always kill the mother if they are allowed to proceed by rupturing the Fallopian tube and paving the way for internal bleeding) if the woman comes to him in an urgent situation (such as when the pregnancy is about to result in a rupture of the Fallopian tube which can be fatal). A Muslim nurse cannot refuse to change a Jewish patient’s bandages. A Jewish ER doctor cannot refuse to treat a skinhead who’s been in a car wreck. When it’s a matter of life and death (and not just butthurt feelings), doctors and nurses and medical personnel can be forced to save the lives of those who do things they believe are sinful. Likewise, people in official positions like judges, police, firemen, and lawyers can be forced to protect or serve people who do things or believe things they find abhorrent (but are not illegal). That is something that all people who choose to go into those professions are taught and warned about early on. Most doctors will try to find a way to practice medicine that isn’t in conflict with their faith but, if it comes down to saving someone’s life, they can be compelled to perform the service even if they believe it is sinful or if they hate the person and everything that person stands for.

Misadventures in Computing

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Misadventures in Computing

…or why I vanished for like two weeks.

 

First of all, let it be said: I am a horrible blogger. I do have plans to remedy that but I gave up making promises long ago because no sooner do I make one than I break it. So, no promises but a solid hope that I’m going to get better about keeping this place updated. That said, here’s why I completely vanished from the Intarwebz for a while.

 

1) Moving is hard, yo — A while back, I pretty much decided it was time to move back to Mississippi. There were various reasons for this but the main one had to do with wanting to see my family and spend time with them more than once a year (if I was lucky). So, since around the beginning of May, I’ve been making plans to move. This took up an extraordinary amount of my time and energy. So, the little time and energy I had left over went into my writing instead of my hanging out on Twitter or blogging. Then, near the middle of June, the actual move itself took up all of my time and energy (and money). Now that I’m settled in, though, things should be smoother from here on out.

 

2) Writing is energy and time consuming — I have discovered that I can either write, watch TV, play games, or hang out on the Intarwebz but not all of them. So, I no longer play games outside of some strictly controlled scheduled game time. I do watch TV but only after I’ve hit a certain writing goal for the day. I don’t hang out on the Intarwebz as much because I spend most of my non-writing time working on the Internet and because the Internet is like one big field full of distractions for me. I can go and intend to hang out on Twitter for an hour and then find myself digging through various arcana on Wikipedia six hours later.

 

3) Sometimes, I think my computer wants to kill me — This is the main reason I vanished recently. Now, I’m the kind of person who generally knows how to avoid getting viruses and whatnot on my computer. I have up-to-date virus scanners and spyware searchers continually on the lookout for things that I don’t want on my computer. I have set up my cookie folders so that it’s hard for me to be tracked by websites who don’t explicitly ask my permission or who I don’t want tracking me. GeoIP places hate my guts because I do randomly send them information that screws up their carefully gathered intel on me.

 

However, like every person on this Earth, I have fits of weakness where I’m so certain I know what I’m doing that I do something incredibly stupid. Such as disable my anti-virus because it keeps bugging me whenever my Curse client updates itself and then proceed to hit a Trojan-laden email from a USPS-cloned phishing site that installs a rootkit and a virus to my Master Boot Record. I nuke and rewrite the MBR thinking that would solve the problem but instead got a computer that blue-screened on Winload. So, I did what anyone would do. Bought a recovery image, tossed it on a USB drive (that subsequently died), and tried to recover without a reinstall. Two days with about three hours’ sleep into that, I got a recovery tool that would let me do a full disc back-up, copied everything I could to a 1 TB external drive, nuked my hard drives, struggled over which to load the new OS on (one had over 10k bad journaling warnings which means it’s dead, Jim), found a site that would let me get a digital download purchase for Win7 (because my eyes bleed at the thought of Win 8 on a desktop), reinstalled the OS, redownloaded and reinstalled every application I could, rebuilt my iTunes library, redownloaded all my games, updated all of my major applications, and then nuked my external hard drive and did a full image back-up with files of my new computer so that once I install my brand new hard drive, I can copy everything onto it, nuke the Windows on my old (but still working) hard drive, and install ubuntu for dual-booting to see if a switch to Linux is in the cards.

 

On top of that (as if having to buy a new USB thumb drive and a new USB 1 TB external drive to replace the ones that are bricked, plus a new copy of Win7 and the recovery software + the paid upgrades to Photoshop Elements), my Lifeproof case proved to no longer be waterproof (this after I tested it thoroughly in my sink) and my new iPhone 5s I purchased in November is now a very expensive piece of garbage. Apple decided that AppleCare didn’t cover it since the water damage wasn’t “accidental” and Lifeproof told me that it must have been user error and that the extra warranty I’d gotten only covered the case, not the phone. So, I had to get a new iPhone 5s at midnight which meant shelling out more money and getting saddled with a two-year contract. However, I grilled the people at AT&T, recorded them, and had it written (I almost demanded it be written in blood but then I decided to be reasonable) down that they would replace the phone immediately for free if ANYTHING happened to it that wasn’t a deliberate attempt on my part to destroy the phone. So, score one for AT&T and nil for Apple and Lifeproof when it comes to honoring their warranties, I suppose.

 

I managed to get my computer back up and running on July 4th, declaring my independence from sitting here nursing the thing back to health. Of course, that meant I spent most of July 4th going around and resetting my passwords EVERYWHERE but, hey. Them’s the breaks. It also meant that I didn’t get much writing done last week and I’m now playing catch-up there and on a couple of other things. But, at least the worst of it is behind me (knock on wood) and I made valuable friends at the local liquor store since the guys there totally understood what I was talking about when I launched into a spiel about my computer. They even recommended some cocktails that were strong (but not too strong) so I could unwind a bit while not getting so smashed I couldn’t operate the computer.

 

Now I just pray to the Lords of the Bytes that I suffer no more BSoDs and that I be delivered from Trojans and led not into rootkits for like…forever. Or at least a couple of years. I’m not as young as I used to be and pulling multiple all-nighters takes much longer to recover from than it did when I was in college.

 

So, there you have it. My explanation for my vanishing. Here’s to hoping that it all works out in the future and that I’m not as absent from the Intarwebz as I have been.

 

— G.K.

I Love My New Place

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I Love My New Place

As many of you have heard, I moved back to my hometown of Vicksburg, Mississippi. And, honestly — aside from the hassle of getting a new hard drive when one of my other ones crapped out on me (more on that particular misadventure tomorrow) — I’m loving it. It is taking me some time to get used to again — I’ve got to relearn the folkways a bit. I still get surprised by men hurrying to open a door for me or offering to help me with my bags when I’m out shopping. I’m surprised by how sweet everyone can be and how they look at me a bit funny when I seem apologetic for bothering them to ask them where I might find something in a store because my accent says I’m from here but my manner says I’ve been away for a long, long time. I’m also still getting used to the fact that they don’t mind it if I say hello to a toddler in the cart who is cooing and squawking a bit (people in New Jersey tended not to like strangers interacting with their kids much). And, I no longer have to ask “do you have sweet tea?” because the answer is “yes, honey, of course we have sweet tea.”

 

I’m re-adapting to the heat and humidity very quickly. The first few days were tough — I would get headaches and feel nauseated easily. But now, I can sit out on my balcony during the heat of the day (I have a *balcony* and it overlooks a *lake* where there are fish and pelicans and turtles and frogs and at night I can hear the crickets singing and the bullfrogs roaring!) and not be bothered overmuch aside from normal sweating. Air conditioner is standard *everywhere* (for those of you who haven’t visited the South, the temperatures here get to the upper 90s (F)/ mid 30s (C) regularly from April – October and the humidity increases the feel of it so that we have to factor it into the Heat Index which often surges into the 100s (F)/ upper 30s (C)) which means I no longer have to worry about my computer overheating during the day.

 

And my apartment is huge. It’s massive. I have a guest bedroom *and* an office as well as a dining room (just need a table and chairs), a decently sized (for my needs) kitchen, a master bath AND a second full bath (with loo AND shower and sink), and a living room. And also a balcony.

 

Have I mentioned that I have an honest-to-God balcony? One that I can sit on and smoke on even when it’s pouring down rain and I still don’t get wet? One where I can hang some plants? And that it overlooks a freaking *lake* that has fish and frogs and turtles and trees and birds? Because the balcony is my favorite thing here. It’s shady, it doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight. It’s cool(er) during the day and I have a good breeze. I can get a gas grill and have little cook-outs out there. I have room to invite people to come over and they’ll actually be comfortable. I can get my niece Mini-me to spend the night up here. I get to see my parents whenever I want. I can see my grandmother whenever I want. I can go down and see my niece Mini-me and my nephews whenever. I can swing by and visit with my sister-in-law and her wife.

 

And, good Lord, the people down here are so nice and chatty. Last week, I went to take care of my rent so I wouldn’t have to deal with any late fees. The woman who runs the main office and I just sat there talking about all kinds of different things for about a half hour. I wound up telling her that if she ever needs help with computers or game advice for her son, to just come by my place. A few days ago, I ran into a guy who was friends with my little brother up at the firehouse he used to be part of. We were just standing in line together at the local convenience store/gas station and I thought I recognized him. I run into people who know my family or who I went to school with all the time now. They’re always asking me what I’m up to, where I’ve been, what brought me back home, and if I’ve got any more books out. When I went to Liturgy on Sunday, everyone in the church who had known me years back kept staring at me trying to figure out who I was. When I told them, every last one of them wanted to hear everything I’ve been up to since I left Mississippi back in 2002.

 

It’s weird. I’ve lived in more urban areas ever since I got out of college in 2002. But moving back “home” doesn’t bug me. Yeah, I’ll probably wind up missing running into people who speak accented English. But…this place is home. And my apartment is fucking awesome. My mother picked it out and, even though she and I don’t always understand each other, she picked the right place for me. It’s close enough to town that I don’t burn too much gas when I need to go get groceries but far enough out that it’s quiet and I don’t have to deal with drunks hollering, kids being rowdy, or the police running past at 50 MPH on a residential street. The quiet and the closeness (but not too much closeness) to nature is a real boon to me as a writer. I’ve gotten more work cleared away in the past few weeks than I had in the three months before it!

 

I’ve always been the adventurous kid. Always a bit of the black sheep in the family. I’ve been the geeky nerdy one in a family filled with working-class people, businessmen, and traditionalists. I left Mississippi years ago convinced the only way I’d move back here for very long was to take care of my parents when they got Really Old (they’re not Really Old yet). I hated this place when I was younger because this is where I got teased and tormented for preferring to read and hang out in bookstores (I was on a first-name basis with the ladies at Waldenbooks) or play Dungeons and Dragons or watch Star Trek or Star Wars instead of shopping for clothes and slathering make-up on and gossiping non-stop about boys. This was where I felt like being different meant being damned. But now, now that I’m back here, I’ve found out that my neighbor beneath me is a girl I went to school and church with growing up and she thinks it’s awesome that I write books and have three published. I mention things like having lived in New Jersey or France to explain where I’ve been and people look at me like I just announced I climbed Mount Everest. So many people tell me that they could never imagine going off and living somewhere where they didn’t know anyone or didn’t speak the language but to me, that was easy. I could pack up next year and go and live in Scotland or California or the Moon and not knowing anyone wouldn’t bug me a bit. I’ve never needed a lot of friends or to have people close by — for years I’ve been fairly content to just spend my free time writing and have resented the occasions where I was obligated to go out somewhere and be sociable. I am an introvert by nature and while I don’t dislike people, I prefer them in small doses (for the most part. A few really close friends and relatives who understand that I don’t need to fill every second with small talk and that sometimes I need to just go off and be alone for a few minutes or to sit with them quietly are fine).

 

Still, moving to Mississippi and to the awesome flat my mother found for me has made me feel something that I didn’t think I would really ever feel again. I feel like I’ve come home. Even if, in the long run, I wind up moving off again, this place is and always will be home to me, no matter how rootless an existence I lead.

 

And that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as I once thought it would.

 

— G.K.

*brushes off the dust*

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*brushes off the dust*

Okay. It’s been ages since I updated this place. First things first, I am still alive. The last few months have been hectic because I’ve moved back to Mississippi. I’m working remote for my employer and will be picking up a few local contracts on the side. I’m working to pay off the moving bills and just trying to get settled in to my new digs which, by the way, are awesome. It’s quiet and calm out here where I am and I have plenty of time and energy to write — which is what I’ve been doing. I’m most of the way through The Penitent (should be sending it out for beta reading by the end of summer max). I’ve completed the rough drafts on three short stories (I’m going to do a collection soon). I’ve gotten most of my research and notes done for Realpolitick. I’ve even started working on a series of one-offs for a new quasi-fantasy serial that would work great as a comic (if I could draw more than stick people). I’m also working on rough chapter drafts for Lanar’ya Three and for another novel.

 

Still, I should be updating more. And, now that I’ve kind of got the worst of it all behind me, I am planning to do just that. There’s been a lot going on in the publishing industry and the fantasy/sci-fi community that I want to comment on. But, for now, you’ll just have to put up with this super-short update and bookmark this place to come back and check later for my “pearls of wisdom.”

 

— G.K.

Star Trek vs Doctor Who — America and Britain at Their Best

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Star Trek vs Doctor Who -- America and Britain at Their Best

In order to understand this entry, head over to the Stratosphere Lounge and watch episode 67 starting at the 23:48 mark. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

 

Done? Good.

 

Bill mentions that Star Trek is all about the frontier and exploring. Everyone has guns because you can’t just trust that the natives will be friendly. The crew of the Enterprise (a ship named after the American strength of commerce and trade) is genial and magnanimous, open to working with anyone peacefully but ready to defend themselves or their ideals against any enemies. Also, anyone can eventually become part of the Enterprise crew. Kirk is a farm boy from Ohio. McCoy is a doctor from Mississippi. Scotty is an engineer from Scotland. They’re normal people in extraordinary circumstances.

 

He also mentions that the Doctor is an aristocrat. He’s a Time Lord from Gallifrey. He’s got the power of a god and is pretty much immortal. His TARDIS is a hidden, magical world tucked away in a perfectly ordinary police call box. It’s done that way because it’s very British. London (and most of the rest of the United Kingdom) had been settled and explored since the classical era — there is no frontier in the American sense. The Doctor takes on companions who could be anyone but no one can become the Doctor. That divide is much like the British divide between commoner and royalty — nothing can breach it.

 

Or so Bill says. I think he’s wrong. Let me explain why before you lynch me.

 

Great Britain and the Northern Enlightenment are what gave birth to the foundational ideas of the United States. The Founding Fathers were all loyal British subjects before they rebelled against a tyrannical Parliament and Crown. They were almost all educated in the traditional British aristocratic manner. George Washington was part of the aristocracy through his family and his service to the King. He was called “His Excellency.” And, only in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland could a commoner, through uncommon courage and wisdom, be raised up to the aristocracy. Hell, my own distant paternal ancestor Baird was raised up by King William of Scotland1. You didn’t see that happening much in the Mediterranean or Iberian areas of Europe (and yes, I include France and Germany in that). Embracing a commoner and disdaining pure blood and breeding in favor of action is a very Anglo-Saxon-Celtic-Gaelic thing. But the Norsemen and the Gaels recognized that uncommon valor could be found in the most common of men2. So they raised them up an example to the rest of their followers.

 

Britain’s ideals prior to the Great War are very much a part of the American DNA, if you will. Yes, we have diverged from our Islander cousins in the past few generations but we still have more in common with them (and the Canadians, the Aussies, and the Kiwis) than we have with any other country on this planet. And, the Doctor — he’s a bit of a rebel. He has the power of a god but he rarely uses it to force his will on anyone. He does have more in common with Scotty, McCoy, and Spock than he has with Kirk. After all, he has a police call box so that he can be called to help out. He carries a screwdriver to fix things instead of a gun to blast enemies. He has two hearts so he can love all the more deeply. But, at the end of the day, he is willing to fight for what is right — even using a gun or sword (NuWho: Dalek, Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways, The Christmas Invasion, The Family of Blood, Journey’s End, The End of Time Part II). He’s willing to lay down his life to save the life of a friend. He could have become the ruler of Gallifrey and all the Time Lords but he turned his back on that to explore time and space. No matter his incarnation, he’s filled with wonder at the cosmos and curiosity to see it all. Yes, sometimes, he’s a bit of a controlling git and manipulates those around him. But he’s a god who wants very desperately to be human. He would give up everything just to live a common life, to marry, have children, grow old, and die. As a matter of fact, he does this in Journey’s End when he convinces the meta-crisis to go off with the one woman the Doctor will always love and live out a human life with her.

 

The Doctor is not just a British superhero — he’s a very American figure. He holds himself to a standard far higher than that which everyone else uses. He refuses to use his power (with the exception of him going a bit mad during The Waters of Mars) to force anyone to do his bidding. Instead, he continually risks his life to save mortals from peril. He continually risks his hearts in taking on companions he knows will leave him for the very kind of life he envies — a life with a house, doors, carpets and things.

 

The Doctor, like the crew of the Enterprise, is the best that both Britain and America have to give to the world. Just look around today. There are only two countries continually turning out movies and TV series with heroes — the US and the UK. Are our heroes the same? No. Are our stories the same? Again, no. But we are much closer to our British cousins than we ever will be to the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese, or any other nation or race on this planet. We have so much in common, so many shared dreams. It is truly a shame whenever an American discounts one of the greatest British television series as being “too British” instead of embracing it as part of his own cultural heritage.

 

Only two peoples on the face of this planet have had the power to subjugate it and dominate it, enslaving the rest of the nations to their will. Those two nations are Britain — who had an empire until they discovered that imperialism took too much energy and gracefully allowed their colonies to go free (as opposed to the French who fought it tooth and nail and dragged an ally into a losing war in Vietnam) — and America, who, right now, could demand that every nation worship her as an Old Testament style god or face wrath, fire, and destruction3.

 

And yet, neither of us has done that.

 

Yes, we might bicker over our trifling differences. Yes, the British are much more socialist and collectivist than Americans — that comes from being crammed together on a tiny island for centuries. But, we are both nations that understand the frontier. We are both nations that dream the big, impossible dreams. And we are both nations that believe that there are true heroes out there. Sometimes it’s an alien Time Lord and sometimes it’s a farm boy from Ohio. But, at the end of the day, they’re both good men which circumstances have forced to become great men. The Doctor belongs to America just as much as Captain Kirk belongs to Britain. They’re both part of our cultural DNA.

 

And I hope to Cthulhu4 we always remember that. The day we turn our back completely on our cousins, our shared history, and our common heritage is the day we will lose a very precious and very vital part of who, and what, we are as Americans.

 

— G.K.

 

1 If I recall correctly, according to my elderly cousin James Beard, our family hails from Lanarkshire in Scotland. Our ancestor, Baird, was raised up by King William of Scotland for killing a boar threatening his royal party.

 

2 The Anglos and Saxons were a bit unique in that, since primacy in war was paramount to their societies (due to the Norse worship), commoners who showed uncommon valor were prized above nobles who failed to show that same valor. American culture has been shaped quite heavily by this meritocratic view.

 

3 Seriously — this is why I get pissy with people who are like “but America is Imperialistic.” No, we’re not. We saw how much trouble this was right after the Spanish-American war. We let the Philippines go without a fight. We continually ask our commonwealths (who are not states) if they want to stay, go, or become states. We have enough firepower and enough nukes that we could go to the UN tomorrow and say “Hey, ya know what? We’re sick of all the bullshit. China, you’re gonna become an open democracy or else you’ll all die. And Russia, seriously, stop with the bullshit or you’re all dead. Europe? You wanna quit that shit or die? By the way, you have three minutes to decide before the missiles are on the way.” *insert Jeopardy theme music here.* “Oh, and all you fuckers in the Middle East hating on Israel? Tell Allah we said ‘hey, shitface’ when you and your people see him in *checks watch* oh, about fifteen seconds.” We could force the rest of the world to bow to us and do whatever we want but we have absolutely no desire to do so. We just want to be left alone. Name me three other nations that have had this power and refused to use it and maybe I’ll hear you out about how imperialistic the United States is.

 

4 I said I wasn’t going to swear to real deities anymore which is why I’m always swearing to ones that don’t exist.

The Best Part of Being an Aunt…

by
The Best Part of Being an Aunt...

…is hearing my niece or my nephews say “I love you.”

 

Granted, I live in New Jersey and don’t get down to Mississippi to see them near as much as I’d like to but they love me anyway. I talk to my youngest nephew Jacob whenever I happen to pop on to Battle.net. He’s a gamer like me and we have a lot in common. I’m hoping that he’ll take up programming and go to college for it and eventually work for a gaming company doing something he loves. My nephew Seth and I don’t have as much in common but I do try to figure out what interests we might share so that I can be close to him, too. Thus far, it’s just football (and he’s way more into it than I am) and Southern history that we both like but I’m hoping that, deep down, there’s a history buff underneath the football player who I can connect with.

 

And my niece. My little Mini-me. Nothing can brighten my day like talking to her on the phone and hearing her tell me how much she likes Doctor Who. When her mothers mention that she’s got a smart mouth, I grin ear-to-ear knowing that she got that from me. She looks just like me and she seems to love her ol’ Aunt G.K. When I last visited for Christmas and had a migraine, she just had to follow me into my room when I went to lay down with a cold cloth on my forehead to try to get rid of it. She snuggled up next to me and fell asleep with me. She even said she had a headache, too (though she didn’t. She just wants to be like me, I guess, which is weird but awesome).

 

I don’t have any kids of my own (yet). But I still love hanging out with my nephews and my niece. I love my parents and my sisters but nothing can make me smile as brightly as hearing one of the kids say they love me and that they’re looking forward to seeing me again. Nothing.

 

That’s the most awesome part of being the weird aunt. Because, at the end of the day, no matter how strange I am, those kids think I’m awesome enough to call me “Aunt Kelly.”

 

— G.K.