Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 301

Dances With Demons

I was going to write about something completely different. Or perhaps not. I was going to write about understanding people from completely different backgrounds; about putting yourself in other people’s shoes.

Particularly in the age of the internet — and yes, particularly on the left, but we do it too — it’s very easy to judge someone for something stupid and build a whole picture of what people are like that has nothing to do with reality.  (Take for instance all the assumptions made about...

What were they thinking? by Amanda S. Green

What were they thinking? by Amanda S. Green

All too often, I find myself asking just that, especially when it comes to our public school system. No, this isn’t a post condemning public schools and recommending homeschooling. Although, to be honest, I am quickly going in that direction. This is a post about consequences and the need to finally start applying them to school districts and their security forces instead of granting a free pass.

I’ll be one of the first to admit that Dallas ISD h...

Diversity and Memory

Human memory is very short.  This is one of those things that drive me bonkers when people talk of how it was “when”.  Unless you were alive “When” what you’re getting are the stories you were told.

And stories are inherently untrustworthy.  Yes, even oral transmission.  Yes, even the sagas changed.  Okay, some societies were more successful than others at transmitting long, complex stories orally.  But even then, without writing things drift over time and become weird.  And if it’s not somet...

We Are The Superior Civilization

You know, sometimes I am a wee bit daft.  (Taking two hours this morning to rip out carpet in the powder room and coat the floor in two layers of kilz is part of how I’m daft.  Yes, I’ll be putting floor in again, but not carpet.  Carpet in the bathroom is icky and when Terry Pratchett said Gaspode smelled like a privy rug, he wasn’t doing him any favors.)

Anyway, how I got daft is that when I floated that there might have been “civilizations” between the emergence of anatomically modern huma...

Here, have some books – by Free Range Oyster & Vignettes by ‘nother Mike, Mary Catelli and Luke

First of all, happy mothers day to all the mothers around here.  Where good mothering happens, THERE’S civilization.

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Here, have some books – by Free Range Oyster Alma Boykin Clawing Back from Chaos A Cat Among Dragons Book 9

Love. War. Insanity. Just another year in Rada Ni Drako’s worlds.

Rada survived the Battle of the Tunnels in the Harz Mountain campaign, but at what cost? Even love may not be enough to save her soul. And if it is, will she ever heal enough to face the danger slowly bu...

Quisling’s Heirs and Quisling’s Foes by 60 Guilders

Quisling’s Heirs and Quisling’s Foes by 60 Guilders

At our most gracious hostess’ request, I have updated Dorothy Thompson’s “Who Goes Nazi?” for the present. I confess myself inadequate to the task, but she told me she’d have to do it if I didn’t, and she’s got enough on her plate.

There are times when one wonders who would collaborate with an invading regime and who would not, or who would gleefully take up the whip hand themselves. In a world where there are reds to the left, browns to the...

The Lies

I have the best job in the world.  I can make up fantastic constructions: frothy lies, that amuse me and respond to the rule of cool.  And the best part is that I don’t have to REALLY lie.  I mean people know I’m making this up.

Believe it or not, novels used to get frowned on because of that.  They were an affront to the Almighty, since they described things that never happened.

Years ago, in my conference in the Baen bar, I found someone who had even more strict ideas of how evil my work is...

The Warning Bells

Many years ago, Dan and I were not exactly New Age — we’ve always both had a horror of what you could call whoo whoo stuff, and even if we flirt with it, we usually spring back to reality fairly quickly — but we could be mistaken for that by people who didn’t look too closely.

Part of it was that we did most things from scratch, like, you know, cooking and clothes making and stuff like that, including rebuilding the “distressed” houses we bought.  Now, this was economic sense, not “We believe...

IP Law and Internet Idiots by Amie Gibbons

IP Law and Internet Idiots by Amie Gibbons

(Usual disclaimer, nothing in here is meant to be taken as legal advice. These are all generalities and some flair because I’m feeling dramatic today. You have a specific question, go hire a lawyer.)

*Puts the lawyer hat and melodramatic, somehow coming out like a preacher’s tone on.*

Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I present to you a pickle, nae, a quandary. I ask of you to stop, and think before you ink.

For we have a demon amongst us and tha...

This Is Not An Analogy by B. Durbin

This Is Not An Analogy by B. Durbin
Just north of Bodega Bay is a series of cliffside cabins along a vertiginous stretch of Highway 1. These cabins are more cliffside as the years go along, and maintenance on this stretch of road includes occasional replacement or movement as the ocean claims its own. About a quarter-mile from one of those cabins is a little spur of land called Duncan’s Head. My friend Neva, whose extended family owned that cabin, told me that it’s also called Death Rock,...