Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 126

RaceFail Redux

A few days later I posted the following:

I continue to be interested in RaceFail, checking Rydra Wong's links every day. I've written three long posts for my blog and then deleted them. I'm not going to delete my previous post here, though I am not happy with it, since my response to other people's unhappiness was to give helpful advice and put things in perspective. When a person is hurting, they do not want either.

I'm doing a lot of thinking about "writing the other." This is what my deleted p

Spring

I heard a new bird song this morning -- not entirely new, but something I hadn't heard all winter. I looked around and finally saw a house finch in a tree.

The temp was in the 40s today. When I got home, sunlight was pouring into my apartment, and it felt as if the heat was on, which it wasn't.

The snow is gone, except for a few grey lumps.

I finished the first draft of my Brer Rabbit story.[image error]

RaceFail Again

I posted the following at Timmi Duchamp's blog:

I was hoping Timmi would pick up this discussion. Here are a couple of posts I added to Oyceter's Live Journal. I figured once I found out about RaceFail, I should prove that at least one silver-haired, old-time SF writer was paying attention.

(The anti-racist bloggers felt the old-time. established SF readers and writers were being too quiet. Most of us had not yet heard of the controversy.)

I found out about RaceFail this evening, which is one reas

RaceFail and "Writing the Other" # 2A

Mary Anne Mohanraj was done two awesome essays on race, fandom and fiction. They are posted on John Scalzi's blog.

Go there at once and read them![image error]

And This I Wrote This Morning

Thanks to daylight savings, I am once again rising in the dark. There's fresh snow outside and a full moon in the sky.

This is a Post I Wrote Last Night

I bought a Herman Miller scooter, which is a small computer table, and set it up in the living room next to Patrick's Adirondack chair. I've always kind of wondered why we had an Adirondack chair in the living room. Turns out it's very comfortable, if you are having back trouble. I spent most of February with pneumonia and a nasty backache, and I sat in the chair a lot. While I was sick, I played computer solitaire. I wasn't up to anything else.

Tonight, I have been sitting in the chair and worki

RaceFail and "Writing the Other"

There is a heated discussion about racism in science fiction on Life Journal at the moment. It's too complex to describe here. The best overview I have found is by Oyseter on Ambling Along the Aqueduct.

rydra wong is keeping a list of links to RaceFail posts at her Live Journal.

I don't want to jump into the RaceFail discussion, except to say that I am against racism and believe the SF community should be open, welcoming and diverse. I believe that the SF community has to be diverse if SF is goin

Antidote du Jour

This is from Naked Capitalism, an economics blog. Every day the blogger Yves Smith posts an "Antidote du Jour" among the dire economic news and grim analysis. It is always an animal photo, usually adorable. I find this particular photo especially wonderful.

My brother and I had a babysitter who worked at the University of Minnesota medical labs; and she used to take us to the labs to play with the animals. As a result, I have positive childhood memories of rats. The mice were too small to play wi

A Sign of the Times

This was on the java jacket I got with my coffee this morning:

Like losing your job isn't enough. I just checked out the price of COBRA and thought I'd swallow my tongue, but heard that there's SomethingBetter.com.

It's an ad for medical insurance. I think it fits well into our new economy. Though I would check into the government's new COBRA co-pay first.

More About Bill

The photo and the following quote are from the Star Tribune article on Bill Holm:

Holm was a graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and went to grad school at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

"I noticed him before I met him," said Rezmerski, a writer who lives in Mankato. "I had just arrived in town and was walking down the main street, and along the sidewalk comes this huge red-haired guy. He didn't have the beard in those days; he actually looked quite boyish, so tall, and weari