Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 166
July 24, 2014
Russian separatists received Moscow guns…
There’s a lot of hype from multiple sources, each source putting its own spin on the problem. From Moscow and Ukrainian separatists “Who? Me?” to Ukraine’s “It’s them,” plus the Russian sympathizers limiting access to the crash site and carting off bodies to freeze them in railway cars (why? what are they hiding?), media outlets around the world echo the hype. What do we know? What are the facts?
Fact one: A passenger jet packed with 298 people was targeted by a missile; 298 innocents died. Th...
July 23, 2014
The Eightfold Way (#1 in a series of “classic posts” about writing)…
[I wrote this quite a while ago and have repeated it once in this blog. It made the rounds on other blogs somewhere in the dark past. Why does this zombie rise again out of its grave to persecute you, dear reader? Because I’m taking a brief hiatus from writing. I’ve released Aristocrats and Assassins; finished Muddlin’ Through—it’s off to my formatter and cover artist; I’m in final editing mode for the new Chen and Castilblanco novel, The Collector; and I’ve finished Part I of a new sci-fi no...
July 22, 2014
Unintended consequences from an immigration law…
The mess on our southern borders with the unaccompanied illegal immigrant children illustrates the Keystone Cops attitude of many bills coming out of Congress and/or proposed by the Executive Branch. You’d think that most of these people who, after all, are usually lawyers (albeit failed ones, for the most part), could word the legalese and implement it in such a way that these things don’t happen.
The problem of child pornography and child prostitution in this country led to a “feel good” bip...
July 17, 2014
Statistics, reader categories, and book genres…
This post is for writers…and readers! Let me start by saying that men suck at reading. Statistically, women beat us hands down. This is a modern phenomenon. You’ve all seen those movies and TV shows that are period pieces about the 1700s and 1800s, even early 20th century. The rich old boys had their impressive libraries filled with leather-bound classics and even recent “popular works,” all in good order in exquisitely carved cases and shielded with sliding glass doors to keep them from the...
July 16, 2014
Review of the short story anthology Quantum Zoo…
(Quantum Zoo, D. J. Gelner and J. M. Ney-Grimm, eds., Orion Comet, 2014, ASIN B00L0MZFVQ)
This is an anthology of similar-themed stories. The theme can be summarized by one word—zoo. Add to that the genre speculative fiction and you have the logic of the title, although quantum mechanics doesn’t play any role here except for making a catchy title. Note that I said “zoo” is the theme. Theme lurks behind plot and other writing elements in these stories as varied as the people who wrote them. I a...
July 15, 2014
The referee’s conundrum…
I’ve watched it unfold in the World Cup. I’ve seen it in most pro sports—football, basketball, and hockey. I’ve seen it in most collegiate sports. The referee’s conundrum in an intense game or match is deciding how close to call the fouls and how much to let the players play. While I don’t usually do sports op-eds in this blog because players, coaches, fans, and even referees can become very emotional in the “fog of war,” a recent incident in the Brazil-Colombia World Cup match merits a comme...
July 10, 2014
The terrible twos…
No, this isn’t an essay on parenting. This post is mostly about competing technological standards that seem often to reduce to X v. Y. Remember eight-tracks v. cassettes? Betamax v. VHS? Blue Ray v. regular DVDs? UNIX v. DOS? MacOS v. Windows? Android v. iPhone? All clashes between terrible twos, some still going on. Consider Betamax v. VHS. The first system was clearly better, but the U.S. basically forced the rest of the world to adopt the inferior VHS. In the UNIX v. DOS battle, morphed no...
July 9, 2014
Movie Reviews #5…
Jersey Boys. I always have mixed feelings about making a movie out of a Broadway play, or vice versa. It’s strange I no longer develop that same inquietude about making a movie from a book. Maybe the former is because I’m not capable of separating the two media well, whereas the latter is a case where the media is so different that I’m willing to put on a different hat (and maybe realize that Hollywood is going to ruin the original story anyway). In any case, I can say that something is alway...
July 8, 2014
Religious and gender bias…
Throughout recorded history and probably before, these two biases have been coupled. Consider the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Cabinets decision. The ubiquitous 5-4 split had five old men using religion once again to trample on women’s rights. I’ll bet the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga families are also controlled by old male religious fanatics too. It’s all about the good old boys keeping their women in line. If they had their way, women would still be property and certainly woul...
July 4, 2014
To all Americans…
Happy Fourth of July! Please celebrate well but take care with drinking, driving, and fireworks….
To the rest of the world, especially those in the British Commonwealth: pardon us while we take a few days to celebrate. I know you’ll understand….
