The Mallet of Loving Correction Part 3

As an agnostic, I'm not afraid of my child learning about faith and how it's practiced. I think it's necessary, and I think it's valuable. I'm also not afraid that my child might adopt a faith as her own; she may indeed. If I have done my job as a parent, she will have done so from a position of knowledge, and of understanding everything that comes with adhering to a practice of faith-and with the ability to ignore or act against those who would try to use that faith as a lever to get her to do things counter to its teachings.

Likewise, I don't think any agnostic or atheist has much to fear in teaching their children about religion, if they answer their kids' questions truthfully, openly and in the spirit of giving their kids as much information as they can so their children can make their own decisions-which they will anyway, unless you've raised a drone, which is something I think most of us would rather not do. Raising your children to know they can ask things, they will get answers and that they can question any belief, religious or otherwise, raises the chance that whatever path they choose regarding faith-including the path that espouses no faith at all-they are on the correct path for them. As a parent, I think that's what you want.

A Couple of Quick and Final Post-Election Notes to Liberals and/or Obama Supporters Nov

13.

2012.

As I did offer some notes yesterday to those unhappy with Obama's victory, I figure it might be worth it to give a couple of notes to those who are thrilled about his re-election. Seems fair, etc. So: 1. It's been a week. You can crank back the schadenfreude. Yes, it's time. There's only so much poking of wounded conservatives you can do before you cross the line into just being an a.s.shole about it.

2. Don't get c.o.c.ky. Obama won by almost exactly the same popular vote margin as George Bush won in 2004. While the point is taken that in presidential elections it's the electoral votes that count, and that getting 271 of those is just as good as getting 400 in terms of job placement, it's worth recognizing that among the citizenry, there's a close-to-even split on how to run this particular railroad. Which dovetails nicely with the next point: 3. The mid-terms elections are out there. And the mid-term elections a) historically tend to favor the non-inc.u.mbent presidential party, b) tend to be decided by a smaller, more-committed group of voters. Which is to say: Hey, remember the 2010 elections? Don't think it can't happen again. It can, and it very well may.

4. 2012's electoral coalition isn't automatically permanent. In the short-term? Sure, it'll likely cohere for a couple election cycles at least. But, for example, if the GOP genuinely reaches out to Hispanics-more than the now grossly-obvious rush to embrace immigration reform-I don't think it's impossible that many Hispanics will find elements of the GOP platform attractive. As another example, if same-s.e.x marriage becomes a settled issue in the US, I know enough gays whose economic point of view would make conservatism a congenial intellectual home for them (aside from, you know, the ones who are already there).

5. Don't think the GOP is stupid. Yes, it got its a.s.s handed to it by Obama's high-tech/low-tech combo of exhaustive quant a.n.a.lysis and field operatives knocking on doors. That's going to work once. When 2016 comes around, the GOP will have baked that into their operation, and they'll have some new strategies to try out too. And if whoever is the 2016 Democratic candidate tries to run a 2012 campaign, he or she will get their a.s.s handed to them, too. And in the meantime the GOP is going to do what it does, namely, finding ways to block and frustrate Obama's and the Democrats legislative agenda. They're good at it, too. They own the House of Representatives, remember?

6. Don't think the most reactionary conservatives are actually going to "go Galt." That's just the reactionary conservative version of "moving to Canada." Just as liberals didn't rush the border in 2004, neither are these folks going to crawl into a bunker, or creva.s.se, or seastead or whatever. They're going to stay where they are, they're eventually going to calm down, and then they're going to get back to what it is they do. This is real world, and it's really hard to flounce out of it.

7. Don't think you know what the future will bring. Hey, around this time 2004, did you think the dude just elected as the junior senator from Illinois would be president? Had you even heard of him? I knew of him very vaguely, mostly because he won his seat against Alan Keyes, who had been recruited when the former Republican candidate fell out because of a s.e.x scandal. Illinois, man. When he announced his presidential candidacy in February 2007, did anyone think he was going to be anything other than a speedb.u.mp for Hillary Clinton? If you think you know how 2016 is going to play out, you may be deluding yourself.

8. Nothing's been decided but who was elected president. I mentioned this last Wednesday, but it bears repeating. Obama's got four more years. Everything else? We'll see. And if you thought you were going to be able to lie back for the next four years, guess again. No one else is taking the time off. The GOP isn't. Almost certainly Obama isn't.

Crimes of Education Jan

30.

2011.

I've been getting a lot of e-mail asking for my thoughts about Kelley Williams-Bolar, a woman here in Ohio who was recently sentenced to ten days in prison (of which apparently she served nine) and now has a felony record because she and her father listed the father's residence as the primary residence of her children, in order that the kids could go to school in a better school district. As I understand it, idea here is that because she didn't live in the district and pay taxes there, she committed fraud, although from what I understand the jury wouldn't or couldn't convict on that charge and instead she was found guilty of tampering with court doc.u.ments. Ironically Ms. Williams-Bolar is not that far off from getting a teaching credential, which she now may not be able to use because she's a felon.

How do I feel about this? Well, I will tell you a true story. When I was in sixth grade, my mother and her then-husband broke up, and in the s.p.a.ce of three months I lived in four different houses in three different cities, and in three different school districts. The school district I had been in when this all started had a genuinely excellent "gifted and talented" program, and my teacher at the time, Keith Johnson, was one of those teachers that you're lucky to get once in your entire life. I'd been at the school for a couple of years and I had friends who I still have now. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the breakup of my mother and her husband wasn't exactly out of the blue, and the school and the people who were there who cared about me were an island of stability in a life which was, though no fault of my own, completely messed up.

When my mother left our house and moved, taking me and my sister with her, what she should have done, procedurally speaking, was take me out of that school and put me in a new one, in the city we then lived in. And then two months and two moves later, when we were in a new city and new school district entirely, she should have done it again, giving me three different schools, three sets of schoolmates and three entirely different social situations to adapt to on top of the fact that my family and home life had just been blown up.

She did no such thing. Through four moves, three cities and three school districts I stayed in the same cla.s.s with the same teacher and the same friends and cla.s.smates. How my mother managed to do this is something she would have to tell you, but in point of fact I know that officially-and, I suspect, legally-speaking I was not supposed to have been allowed to stay there. My mother made the decision to do what she thought was better for me rather than what was probably the letter of the law.

Did my mother break the law doing what she did? I don't know, but possibly. Did she break the rules? She certainly did. Did she do the right thing? Probably not, from the point of view of the procedures of the school district. From the point of view of what was best for her child: Absolutely. There's really no doubt about that. And if in fact my mother broke the law on my behalf way back when, I can say that doing so made a positive difference at a critical time in my life.

So: How do I feel about Ms. Williams-Bolar? Basically, I think she deserves a prison term and a felony conviction about as much as my mother did, for performing essentially the same actions, thirty years ago.

The Cool Kids Hanging Out Mar

22.

2012.

Lance in Huntington Beach asks: Wil Wheaton just Tweeted Chris Hayes about Rachel Maddow. Why is it that everyone I follow on Twitter, watch on TV or read seems to know one another? Is the world really that small? Does a bit of notoriety buy you immediate acceptance from other notables? Or is there a special club you all belong to and once again, it's me being picked last for dodgeball? Please explain.

First: Dude, it's totally you being picked last for dodgeball, man. You're too slow. You keep being taken out first! And your throwing arm? Sheesh.

Second: Just because you tweet someone about someone else on Twitter doesn't mean you know them to any significant degree. Twitter just gives one the ability to send a comment to anyone else on Twitter, and if you're following one or both of those people, you'll see the tweet. I could tweet, say, Fred Durst about the Dalai Lama, it doesn't mean I know either of them. Fred Durst could even respond to me (or for that matter, so could the Dalai Lama) and it still wouldn't qualify as "knowing" either of them in any meaningful sense. So that's an important thing to remember about Twitter.

Third: It's not that the world is small, it's that who you are interested in as notables is specialized enough that there's a reasonably good chance they might know each other.

As an example: I am notable, to the extent I am notable, primarily for being a science fiction writer-many of the people who follow me online one way or another (although not all) did so at least initially because they heard of me as a science fiction writer. This means there's a pretty good chance they read science fiction and fantasy and also consider other science fiction and fantasy writers as notable to some extent or another.

As a science fiction writer, I attend a reasonable number of conventions, where I've met other science fiction and fantasy writers; I've also been a member of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for nearly a decade, and through that I have also had contact with a large number of sf/f writers. Over several years of seeing these folks over and over, some of them have become friends-some of them very good friends-because we have similar life situations, professional concerns, and recreational enthusiasms. Many of the rest of them I've come to know professionally as peers, particularly after I became president of SFWA and these writers became my const.i.tuency.

So if you're an sf/f fan for whom these writers are important, and you see me chatting online with my friends who also happen to be sf/f writers, it looks like all the cool kids are hanging out, doing cool kid stuff together online, and so on. And how cool is that? Pretty cool. Of course, if you're not an sf/f fan, and you saw me chatting online with my friends who also happen to be sf/f writers, it looks like a middle-aged dude doing a whole lot of procrastination on Twitter with a bunch of other mostly lumpy 30-, 40- and 50-somethings. That is, if you're looking at my Twitter feed at all, and if you're not an sf/f fan, why would you? And thus we learn the truly specialized nature of "notability."

I know sf/f writers because I am an sf/f writer, and this sort of professional a.s.sociation is why (of course) a lot of your favorite actors will know other of your favorite actors, why your favorite musicians will know other of your favorite musicians, why the cool scientists out there seem to know the other cool scientists, and so on. Beyond mere professions, there will be other sorts of situational overlaps. One of the great cultural questions of our time is why do very successful musicians and actors always seem to date other very successful actors or musicians (or supermodels). The answer is, well, who else are they going to date? It's not as if someone like George Clooney can put up an OK Cupid profile like a common schmoe. They're going to date other famous people because a) they're the people they know, b) they're the people who understand the life and can (possibly) tolerate all the c.r.a.p around it. An actor dating a supermodel, or an actress dating a musician, is the famous person equivalent of a corporate VP dating a manager in human resources.

The actual mundane rationales for the surface fabulousness of the famous (or at least notable) aside, there is one advantage to being a notable of any sort, which is that it makes it slightly easier to make the acquaintance of the people you nerd out over, because it's possible they already know who you are and may even be fans of your work (or you). And while mutual admiration is not a good foundation to a lifelong friendship, it does make that initial encounter a lot easier, because you each already think positively of the other.

Look, I'm not going to lie: like any other person, "notable" people geek out at getting to meet and hang out with the people they admire. I mean, s.h.i.t, man: The fact that Robert Silverberg knows me? Seems to tolerate me? Does not in fact recoil when I enter the room? There have to be multiple universes because this one universe cannot contain all of my squee. If you have the chance to meet the people you admire, chances are pretty good you're going to take it. If it turns out nothing comes of it, then no harm done. But if it turns out you like each other and become pals? Then you're living the fanboy dream. Which you never say out loud, of course. But even so.

And then there's the fact that when you're friends with someone notable, they often have other friends who are notable, who you then get to meet, and thus your network of notable acquaintances grows, simply because your friends have friends, i.e., you meet people like any person meets people, i.e., through your friends.

Now, there's the flip side, which is you meet someone you admire and then find out they're kind of an a.s.s. But I'm delighted to say that at least so far, this has not been my experience. Also, notable or not, you don't want to be That Social Climbing d.i.c.k, i.e., the guy who becomes friends with someone and then immediately starts looking to trade up in their friend circle. People aren't stupid and don't like being used. And that, too, is a constant in all human relationships, whether the people in them are "notable" or not.

But basically, Lance, when you see all the folks you consider the "cool kids" talking to each other online, it's that fact that you consider them the cool kids that makes it seem like something special. Believe me, they probably thank you for it. But someone else who does not see these people as notable might see it as what it is: a bunch of folks who know each other to varying degrees, doing what people do online-letting each other know they're part of each others' lives. And possibly planning a dodgeball tournament.

The Cubbies Win the Existential Pennant! The Cubbies Win the Existential Pennant!

Oct

5.

2008.

A few days ago someone sent me an e-mail asking me if I was at all concerned that the Chicago Cubs, who finished at the top of the National League, would go all the way to the World Series and win, thus rendering obsolete a comment that one of my characters made in Old Man's War, defending the Cubbies despite their then at least two centuries of championship futility. I wrote back and said this was one of those things I really didn't worry about. One reason I didn't worry about it is that there are no explicit dates noted in OMW, so I could just say that those two centuries of futility begin whenever it is the Cubbies win their last one.

But the other reason is even simpler, and that is because I firmly believe that the Cubs, when pressed, will always find a way to lose in the clutch. It is their destiny and heavy responsibility to be the sport's designated losers-a destiny they previously shared with the Red Sox, but which they now carry alone, which of course makes it an even heavier responsibility. As I've noted before, if the Cubs were to win, what would they gain? A sports championship, to be sure, but how special can a World Series win actually be if even the Florida Marlins have won it? Twice?

But the Cubbies' reign of futility-well, see. What other team could replace them? Among teams who have ever won a World Series, the next longest drought is held by the Cleveland Indians, at an insignificant 60 years. Among those who have never won the World Series, the Texas Rangers are mere pups at 47 years of age. No offense to Indians and Rangers fans, but the futility of these teams is pedestrian and ba.n.a.l compared to the futility of the Cubs. They are the H0-scale version of existential dread. The Cubbies are the full-sized runaway train, hurtling headlong toward the burned-out bridge over a yawning, bottomless chasm. And the train is filled with adorable kittens.

You don't just throw that sort of distinction away on something so obvious and common as a World Series championship. They give one of those out every year. The Cubs' streak, on the other hand, is a century in the making. There is nothing else like it in the history of North American professional sports, and it's made even more poignant by the fact that the Cubbies are so often good, as they were this year. They could have gone all the way. You could even argue that they should have gone all they way. But they didn't. And now they won't. And this is as it should be.

And so when the Cubs were swept in three games by the Los Angeles Dodgers (whose own streak of World Series futility is a mere 20 years long-a pup, as these things go), I was not surprised, and for the sake of Cubs fans, I was somewhat relieved. 'Twere best it was done quickly, and all that; no point dragging those poor men and women through one or two more series just to compound the heartbreak. I understand that Cubs fans may feel differently, of course, but I think they may be too close to the subject.

The fact that I was born and raised in Southern California and am a nominal Dodgers fan has nothing to do with this, either. It could have been any team that stood in the Cubbies' way. And if the Dodgers go all the way, what of it? What's another World Series win to a team that already has six? They have their moment in the sun, and then it's back to the relentless, cyclical grind. Meanwhile, the Cubs, and their streak, continue-a testament to persistence, to futility as Sisyphusian high art: Yea, a statement about the very condition of man. Perhaps a statement best read at a distance, as Cubs' fans might agree. But even so.

I for one admire the Cubs' position in sports and in history, which is why in Old Man's War I see their streak continuing well into a third century. World Series wins come and go, but the Cubbies' streak-well. That endures, my friends. That endures.

Dateiversary Jun

16.

2010.

As constant-nay, fanatical-readers of this site, you'll recall how yesterday was the 16th anniversary of me proposing marriage to Krissy. Well, today is the 17th anniversary of the two of us having our first date, which for the record, happened at El Presidente restaurant in Visalia, California, followed by dancing at the Marco Polo bar, which is where we had met three weeks previously (that doesn't count as an official date because she was kind of there with a different date entirely, who she largely abandoned to dance with me, BWA HA HA HAH loser date of Krissy's).

This means, as those of you with exceptional math skills have already deduced, that I proposed marriage one day short of a year from our first official date. I chose that date because it was a Wednesday, which meant my newspaper was running my weekly column, and my proposal was the subject of the column. However, I had known for some time that I wanted to marry her. In fact, I had known roughly nine months earlier, because after three months of dating Krissy it was clear that a) there was no way in which she was not awesome, b) there was no way I would ever do any better, mate-wise, than I was doing right that very second, so my task for the next 60 or so years would be not to screw up this relationship.

As any guy who has even the slightest semblance of impulse control will tell you, three months is a pretty quick time for a man to determine that he wants to spend the rest of his life with someone, so about seven years into our marriage, I noted to Krissy with some pride how soon it was that I was convinced that she was the person I wanted to marry.

"Uh-huh," she said, less impressed than I had imagined she would be.

"Well, when did you decide that you wanted to marry me?" I asked.

"Our first date," she said.

"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEGH," I said, running terrified from the house-or would have had, in fact, I had not been already married to her for seven years at this point and had been almost appallingly happy the whole time. Because you know who knows they want to marry someone after the first date? Crazy, crazy people, that's who. And also, apparently, in a data set completely unattached to "crazy, crazy people," my wife.

What I actually did say was, "I'm really glad you didn't tell me that at the time."

To which Krissy said, "Of course I didn't tell you. Do you think I'm crazy?"

That statement, or more accurately the strategic intelligence behind it, is part of why we're still married today.

Lest anyone think that Krissy was overstating her position on the matter, my mother-in-law confirmed that when her daughter came through the door after our first date, more or less the first words out of her mouth were "I've met the man I'm going to marry." Which surprised my future mother-in-law, as previous to this her daughter's general opinion of men was, shall we say, not nearly high enough to have marriage be part of it. So I have no reason to doubt that, in fact, Krissy had made the decision that night.

In retrospect, it's a little weird to think that my entire future was falling into place as I obliviously tucked into the El Presidente chimichanga platter, but of course, that's life for you-the most important days of your existence don't always announce themselves in obvious ways. At the time, all I knew was that somehow I had managed to get a date with the single most gorgeous woman I had ever met in my entire life, and I focused on not talking with my mouth full, because I wanted to get to date number two. Well, and I did. And got happily ever after in the bargain.

Which means it was a good first date, seventeen years ago today.

Dear Writer: I'm Sorry, I Don't Have Time to CRUSH YOU Mar

4.

2011.

Holly Black-who is awesome-has a post on her LiveJournal concerning a recent shibboleth floating about regarding a cabal of young adult authors ("the YA Mafia") who some writers in the field apparently believe will go out of their way to crush under their Doc Martens those writers who would do anything untoward to a member of the YA Mafia, like, say, write something negative about one of their books.

Holly for her part denies the existence of a YA Mafia-but then she would, wouldn't she-and also points out that even if such a cabal of writers did exist, sn.i.g.g.e.ring nefariously in the shadows, the chance of them actually being able to crush someone else's career is nil, because, honestly, that's not how it works in the real world-not in the least because, as Holly notes: "writers are basically lazy and impractical people. We live in our heads a lot and we can barely get it together to do anything. Seriously, it took me until after 3pm yesterday to get myself a sandwich."

First, I want to agree with her wholeheartedly on the lazy thing, because for the last week I've been subsisting on Nature Valley Fruit and Nut Bars, not because I'm in love with their sticky, graintastic goodness but because at this point, the thought of having to shove something into the microwave to cook it fills me with such a sense of ennui even just typing those words makes me tired.

Second, this wave of anxiety is part of a recurring theme in the writeosphere, in which it is posited that those people with some measure of success actively and jealously guard their perks and privileges against the smudgy others mewling on the other side of the gate, and collude to maintain the status quo, and so on and so forth, back, back you mangy animals! Right now this fear is erupting in YA circles, but it's been everywhere else, too. It's not new, and it's not news.

So in the interest of explaining why it's unlikely that any group of successful writers is colluding to keep you down, let me offer up an example of just the sort obnoxious b.a.s.t.a.r.d writer who would want to keep the rabble at bay, namely me.

So, hi, I'm your basic reasonably successful author type, and despite being lazy enough to grumble how how awful it is that I have to unwrap my granola bar before I can eat it, my daily schedule is not unpacked. On a daily basis I write a couple thousand words on whatever novel I'm writing, crank out two or three blog posts, check in with SFWA in my capacity as the organization's president and take care of what needs to be addressed that day, do other paid copy not related to novels, take the dog out on at least two walks, answer e-mail and other correspondence, make business-related phone calls to agents, editors and such, spend time with wife, child and pets, occasionally leave the house for errands, read the entire Internet, maybe also some portion of a book, update LiveJournal and Twitter, kill me some zombies, eat, ablute and sleep. That's not on days when I'm traveling, mind you, during which I often do many of these things and also hurl myself across the country at several hundred miles an hour.

That being my schedule, let me ask you: Where do you propose I slide in f.u.c.king with your career?

Because, I gotta tell you, after everything else I do on a daily basis, I don't have a lot of time left over to take your dreams, lovingly cradle them in my arms and then just when they feel safe fling them into a pit filled with gasoline and napalm and laugh boisterously while they shrivel and burn. I mean, sure, I suppose I could cut back on reading the Internet or headshooting the undead and pencil you in there, but you know, I really do love reading Gizmodo, and those pesky zombies won't kill themselves (again). If I have to choose, I'm going with tech blog reading and Left 4 Dead.

It's nothing personal. It's not like I'm saying that thwarting your career isn't important. Indeed, that's just the thing: If I have decided that what I really need to do is to block your every entryway into the world of publishing, you better believe I'm gonna focus. It's going to be my new hobby to make every single day of your life a miserable cesspool of unremitting woe. And that's not something you can just do in five minutes a day, or whatever. No, that s.h.i.t's hand-crafted and detailed-oriented, and that takes time. Lots and lots and lots of time. Nor am I going to farm it out to a posse of lackeys; no, when I come for you and your career, you're going to see me coming from a long way off, and you're going to have lots of time to think about just what I'm going to do to you before I stand in front of you. Giving you lots of time to think about what I'm going to do to you is what makes it fun.

But I have to say: unless I've decided to give you that level of personal, absolutely terrifyingly psychotic attention, eh, I'm just not going to bother messing with your career. Because, again: who has the time? I don't. No one does, except for people who are, in fact, absolutely and terrifyingly psychotic, and very few of them are successful enough at publishing that they are the people these other folks are paranoid about. Even if they were, they wouldn't start a cabal. Terrifying psychotics get along with each other about as well as cats in a bag. It's well-nigh part of the definition of "terrifying psychotics."

Yes: There is the occasional writer who gets their undies all bunched up about a review and then goes on a pa.s.sive-aggressive public rampage about it. Authors are often neurotic. This should not be news. But what can they really do to you or your career? Short of doing something will get them rightfully thrown into jail, pretty much not a d.a.m.n thing. Because you know what? It's not the way it works in the real world.

Let's go back a couple of paragraphs to where I got all steroid-y about the level of woe I would rain down upon you if I decided to make you my personal project. Sure, I talk a good game up there-I've got a way with words, you know-but in the real world, how would that play out? Let's whip up scenarios, here: STEROID SCALZI MEETS WITH HIS EDITOR:.

Me: There's this writer who I hate with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. Never ever publish her. I am Scalzi. You must heed my words.

Editor: Well, I will take that under consideration (makes mental note that I have finally crossed the line from "reasonable human" to "text-extruding a.s.shole who must be managed").

STEROID SCALZI MEETS WITH OTHER WRITERS:.