Edward Ashton's Blog, page 8

Daily Science Fiction :: Heart Stitch by Jose Pablo Iriarte

Daily Science Fiction :: Heart Stitch by Jose Pablo Iriarte:

This one sneak-attacked me.

WHY WE HEAR BETTER WHEN WE SHUT OUR EYES • by Kate Glahn

WHY WE HEAR BETTER WHEN WE SHUT OUR EYES • by Kate Glahn:

Lots said here, in just a few words. Props, Ms. Glahn.

FFP 0206 – Dust

FFP 0206 – Dust:

So one of my short-shorts is out in Podcast form today. Give it a listen if you have a few minutes to kill.

Daily Science Fiction :: Counting Down by Peter M Ball

Daily Science Fiction :: Counting Down by Peter M Ball:

This is a weird little gem.

Photo

So this is the German edition of Three Days in April. They had...

So this is the German edition of Three Days in April. They had to change the title, because apparently “Drei Tag en April” is already a thing in Germany. Gotta say, though–I like the new cover art.

An Analogy

I’m a football fan.  Specifically, I’m a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Why? Its not as if I have a well-formed football philosophy, and the Steelers are the best-possible match to it. I don’t really know or care much about zone or man defense, spread offense or smash-mouth. My family is from Pittsburgh, and we’ve all been Steelers fans basically forever. Nothing more to it than that.

Some years ago, the Cincinnati Bengals had a defensive lineman with the unlikely name of Kimo von Oelhoffen. I really, really disliked this guy–this was honestly mostly because he gave the Steelers hell, but that’s not what I told myself. I said it was because he was a thug, a dirty player–the kind of person who should be in jail, not the NFL. 

Then one day, a funny thing happened. Kimo von Oelhoffen’s contract with the Bengals expired, and he signed on with the Steelers… and wonder of wonders, he was no longer a dirty player. Those cheap shots he used to take? Now they were just hard, aggressive play. He’d changed more than the color of his jersey. Now that he was in the Steelers’ locker room, he’d learned to play the Steelers’ way.

Of course, Kimo von Oelhoffen had’t actually changed in the least. In fact, he wound up tearing the Bengal’s star quarterback’s ACL in a playoff game by hitting him low in a way that would have had me jumping up and down and screaming if Carson Palmer had been a Steeler. The only real difference between then and now was that now he was playing for my team. At the end of the day, I didn’t have any real football principles. I just loved that rush you get from seeing your team win.

If this is the approach that you take to politics, please reconsider whether you really ought to be voting.

Daily Science Fiction :: An Invasion in Seven Courses by Rene Sears

Daily Science Fiction :: An Invasion in Seven Courses by Rene Sears:

This one combines barbarian invasions and eating, which are basically my two favorite things.

Edward Ashton interview – Episode 204 Reading & Writing podcast

Edward Ashton interview – Episode 204 Reading & Writing podcast:

So I did this interview a long time ago, and it just posted. Give it a listen if you have a few minutes to kill.

Imagine you’re walking along a river bank on a summer afternoon. For the sake of argument, we’ll...

Imagine you’re walking along a river bank on a summer afternoon. For the sake of argument, we’ll stipulate that this is not a scary, raging-rapids river, nor is it an a crocodile-infested jungle river. Imagine instead the sort of river you might float down in an inner tube while drinking Iron City beer.  Got that image in your head? Good. Now imagine you hear a splash and a cry from the far bank (which, we will stipulate, is not actually all that far.) You look up to see a child—again, for the sake of argument, let’s say a ten-year-old girl, with blonde pigtails and, if you were close enough to see them, which you are not, adorable dimples. She’s fallen into the river. She clearly cannot swim, and she’s being pulled out into the current. Her parents, who for the purposes of this discussion are not negligent crack heads, but rather are momentarily distracted by their other child, who is doing something delightful some distance away, are nowhere to be seen.

We note now that you are a strong swimmer, and that you once took a lifesaving class when you were in high school—but, but, the water is probably cold. More than that, if you dove in, if you tried to save her, there might be some small risk to your person. You’ve swum in this river many times before, but who knows? Maybe the current is stronger today than it was those other times. Maybe freshwater sharks have migrated up the river from some far-away place while nobody was watching, and they’re just waiting for you to jump in. Maybe you’ll get a cramp from the ham sandwich you ate an hour ago. Maybe that adorable little girl is much stronger than she looks, and as soon as you get out there, she’s planning to pounce on you and drag you under. So, bearing all this in mind, you stand on the river bank, and you watch her drown.

Can we agree that this is a moral wrong? Can we agree that, in fact, you are in this circumstance an entirely abject and sniveling coward?

The applications of these conclusions to the current political debate are left as an exercise for the reader.