Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 248

Through the Leftist Glass – Bill Reader

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*My friend Bill teaches a branch of liberal arts, at a State University, which precludes his talking or even writing or possibly thinking too loudly about his opinions.  This means I’m almost his sole outlet for (usually text) rants.  When I say “a friend and I were talking” Bill is one of the two friends it might be.  Something about the migrant horde has got him the wrong way and he’s done a series of articles for me.  He says it better than I could, so I hope you don’t mind the guest post...

Halloween Costumes, Not Halloween Skinsuits By: Madona Lucine

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Halloween Costumes, Not Halloween Skinsuits By: Madona Lucine

I’ve been aware of the controversial nature of certain Halloween costumes since just such a controversy erupted at Yale three years ago. You remember that, yes? The controversy that began with an email and ended with two members of the Yale faculty resigning during the ensuing media storm? I will confess to a sizeable amount of blissful oblivion regarding Halloween costumes, because until I had kids Halloween wasn’t a holiday on m...

Nobody Knows Not’ing- A Blast From The Past from March 2013

*Sorry, I was trying to get the garage cleared of my ongoing painting project to park cars in during the ongoing snow storm.  Not only did I fail, but I’m really late with this and have a ton other things to do – SAH*

Nobody Knows Not’ing- A Blast From The Past from March 2013

This is not a post about writing.  It is actually a post about epistemological uncertainty.  Put down the dictionary.  Do not throw it at my head.  It’s early, I haven’t had coffee and before I’m fully awake I talk almo...

Paying It Forward

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Paying it forward is a well known principle of all Heinlein fans, since he advocated it so strenuously.

I know why too.  Coming up in writing, even now, but particularly under trad, you needed so many people to give you a hand up that it was impossible to pay them all back.  Impossible, particularly, unless you became a mega bestseller, since a ton of the people who helped were bestsellers.

Sometimes you managed it, little by little.  The first person to give me a chance at magazine sales ev...

Sunday Book Plug and Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

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FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY:  Like a Continental Soldier.

The starship Valerie Hall failed to reach the terraformed world of its original destination. Instead, it found a habitable substitute where the settlers split into two factions. First Landing devolved into a rude replica of medieval despotism. Seccon might promise more.

Or so hope Gilead Tan and his companions.

Gilead spent three centuries in cold sleep, held there by a First Landing custom that decreed only one sleeper could be awakened ev...

Flying by Instruments

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Nobody knows anything!

Honestly, this should be the motto for our times.

And it is a shame and a rebuke in the face of journalists.

I’ll be honest, they were never very good at reporting anything.  Particularly in the first heat of the reporting. Any incident I was actually present at, let alone any incident I knew anything about was reported so wrongly all my life, that it might as well be another universe.

This was even when the things reported on were stuff like a school show, the village...

An Excess of Good

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I’m a bleeding heart libertarian.  Yes, I know how that sounds.  But it’s true.

Particularly when it comes to animals, plants and creatures who can’t defend themselves.  I will very carefully transplant aspen volunteers that grow too close to the foundation.  Chances are they won’t grow elsewhere, but at least they have a chance.

I spent my childhood dragging home baby birds that had fallen from the nest and sometimes having to defend them from mom who thought it was more merciful to put the...

How to Combat Depression

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I hate chaos, which is weird because most people perceive me as working best in the middle of chaos.  But it’s not … precisely true.  I love the “controlled chaos” of very, very, very busy. My happiest years (except romantically.  I didn’t have Dan yet, and I can’t even imagine that now) were in college, when I was going to school, tutoring AND had a busy social life.

Partly, of course, it’s that I am a depressive and also an introvert.  These two feed off each other, because if I get my wis...

The Elephants

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It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room.  By which I DO NOT mean older son who self-identifies as an elephant.

So the “migrant” caravan.

There are a bunch of disjointed thoughts, disjointed partly because I didn’t sleep well.  I have some weird symptoms, like I’m coming down with something, which makes me wonder if I forgot my thyroid yesterday afternoon (it often gives me symptoms like the flu is descending) so I slept in two hour increments, after turning into a pumpkin short of 9...

So What?

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Sorry to be late.  I had doctors appointments.  One of them was a test with the audiologist and despite the fact I can’t use the cell or the headphones on the left side (because it’s like someone is whispering) I was told I have normal hearing on both ears.  I don’t actually, having been diagnosed with mid range loss in my twenties, so I’m sure something is weird (again.)  But never mind. I’m not even going to speculate.

Which brings us to other things I don’t want to speculate about:

Why ar...