Steven Barnes's Blog, page 46

“It is better to subdue a country whole and intact than t...

“It is better to subdue a country whole and intact than to destroy it completely. It is better to win when your enemy surrenders without giving you a fight.”–Sun Tsu THE ART OF WAR

 

 

I said “we’re winning” a couple of days ago, in relation to racism.  And a reader asked if this was not a dangerous way to look at it.  “Winning” to this reader implied war. Am I going to war against my fellow citizens?

 

The reply is that “winning” can be applied to a game, or a debate.   What I didn’t say wer...

Apologies for the “racism” post. I was wrong.

I may have over-thought the question about racism and evil.  And I think I know where I went wrong.  The absolute nature of something in its laboratory form, or the purest expression of an idea may be neutral, the practical expression of it goes one way or the other. There IS no perfect balance in the real world. You’re always wobbling one direction or the other.

 

Then…why did I say that racism wasn’t evil?  Because in that laboratory/pure thought sense it is   just an opinion that can be ga...

Doomed to Succeed

I love to see or hear of my  students jubilant to be publishing their first story.  I don’t blame them for jumping up and down: for a writer, the sincerest complement is a check that clears the bank.

 

One lady had stopped writing for years, just stuck and couldn’t get started again.  Didn’t know where to begin and dealing with doubt and guilt.  When she signed up for the LIFEWRITING PREMIUM program, the very first thing that hit her was that all I wanted was a single small action every day:...

The “Ticking Time Bomb” rationale for torture has an easy answer.

Never seen an episode of “Blue Bloods”. Never seen it, but I like Tom Selleck quite a big (Quigley Down Under is one of my favorite movies). Anyway, the favorite rationale for torture (excuse me, I mean “enhanced interrogation”) is mentioned during discussion of a police “abuse of force” action. the “ticking time bomb”. Namely, if there was a ticking nuclear weapon and you had control of a terrorist, wouldn’t you use torture to get the kill codes, or would you read him his rights and let the...

Thoughts on “Tunnel In the Sky” and diversity

I saw a thread asking about diversity, specifically non-white characters in SF.   A response mentioned Rod in “Tunnel In The Sky” and that there was an essay saying that although his race is never mentioned specifically, “it is obvious in retrospect” that he is black.

 

I think this is horsecrap.  In fact, I cannot find a single reason to believe it at all that doesn’t make the situation worse.  Here’s my basic premise:

 

Human beings create mythologies that place them as central to existenc...

The The Machine, The Ladder, and the Chain

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/sylvester-stallone-creed-2-moving-ahead-1202545528/

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Again, thanks to Sylvester Stallone for trusting these young men with his lifetime achievement, the wonderful character of Rocky Balboa.  Were it not for that, Ryan Coogler probably wouldn’t have come to the attention of Disney, and been offered Black Panther.  In “Creed” Coogler proved his box office appeal to the bean counters, and also made history by creating the very first 100 million+ domestic box off...

Afrofuturism and Marketing

We Did It! We had hundreds of people watching AFROFUTURISM LIVE live…and almost 10k views in all for last week’s show! Help us make it even better by telling us what you want us to discuss, what we can offer!   Here’s a tidbit just to say “thank you” for reading this: Jarvis Sheffield asked about marketing. The key to marketing a product or service is to get CRYSTAL clear on the ideal customer. Your “Avatar” so to speak. ONE PERSON, NOT A GROUP. Give him a name, an age, a job, a family....

Fear and dropping the keys

A man was walking down the street at night.  He came across a second man on his hands and knees under a streetlamp.

“What are you doing?” the first man asked.

“I’m looking for my keys” the second said.

Being a considerate soul, the first man got down on his hands and knees and searched with him. After ten minutes he couldn’t find a thing, and became irritated.

“Are you sure you dropped them here?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” the second man said. “I dropped them across the street in the vacant lot.”

“...

Reasons or Results

Some years back Linda Venus, the head of the writing program at UCLA, asked Octavia Butler to teach a class for her.  Octavia, being shy, wasn’t interested, but suggested me.

I’d never taught at the college level, and wasn’t sure what to do. Give them more data?  Literary theory (yeah, right…that’s TOTALLY me) and so forth?  Plenty of people teach that stuff.  All colleges teach it.  But…if medical schools produced the same percentage of working doctors that college writing programs produce o...

Time and The Matrix

What I call “the Matrix” is the illusions we assume are reality.   There are tons of them, and the frightening thing is that I know for a fact that I don’t see them all.  Not sure it would be possible to see them all with any conscious awareness.

 

One set of such illusions was touched on this morning by a reader who noted that if she lives in a majority Christian community and speaks of non-Christian beliefs, she is considered “militant”.  Perfect example.

 

When the majority becomes used to...