Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 32

The Occupy Movement Explained.

"What's the Occupy movement all about? They have no agenda except to beat drums and bitch and stink up our parks with dirty hippies."

You hear this a lot, especially from those who think that the banking system or Corporate Persons will save us; in other words, from peopel who forgot that those very institutions are the reason we're in the mess we're in today.

What the Occupy movement means to me:

1) Rein in the banks.
2) Restore power to the human beings of our country.
3) Re-establish representational equity.
And a bunch of other stuff, too, but those are the top three as I understand 'em, and what matter most to me.

Watch this great vid that clarifies the Occupy movement the best I've seen so far. Afterward, you can respond to those who question what we're all about without any hedging. Great stuff:

I wrote an essay decrying the rise of dangerous corporate power back in 2002, and I think it's even more relevant today.

Don't fear The Terminator, folks; non-human entities are already our masters. The Occupy movement seeks to dethrone them and restore humans to power. Think Londo Mollari's Drakh Keeper in Babylon 5 : We all serve our masters even as they drain us of life and destroy our freedom.

No more. Occupy! Change the system!

Chris

Five cool things make a post.

1) Asimov's Science Fiction magazine editor Sheila Williams writes a lovely editorial about KU and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, including happy memories of riding on the back of my scooter ;-)

2) Excellent article examining the Occupy and T-Party movements - how they're really just two halves of the same thing:


Click the image to read the piece.

3) I had hoped to show a pic of my fully repaired electric bicycle:

Unfortunately, I can't get the hub all apart to strip the torn wires. Backstory: Last year, I got a flat on the rear, where the motor resides in the hub. The lazy SOBs who assembled the bike in the first place had installed a nut on the axle in such a way that stripped the bolt, so when I removed said bolt, it rotated the axle in such a way that tore the wires loose *sigh* Last week, I got the wheel back from a local machine shop - axle's all fixed - and hoped to solder the wires this week. Not so much. Can't get the nut off the other side in order to get inside and work on the wires. Hmph. Later.

4) Pumpkin carving at my house over the weekend!


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5) The KU Science Fiction Film Club also watched (John Carpenter's) The Thing after carving pumpkins. We'd intended to see the new prequel afterward in the classic movie-marathon tradition, but the motivation just wasn't there. I think everyone was concerned that it wouldn't live up to the original. I still plan to see it, but maybe on Blu-Ray....

Chris

Five cool things make a post.

1) Generation X tells the Boomers and kids today to stop their whining. A great article that would be funnier if it weren't so uncomfortably honest.

2) KU tops the International Quidditch Association standings. No, seriously. KU has a Quidditch team, and it's #1 in the world.

3) Last weekend, six of us took a trip out to the Corn Maze of Dooooom, about half an hour from Lawrence, KS. Here's how we got there - and, happily, back! Yes, all of us fit comfortably in the hot-rod Newport! Video proof:
Video courtesy of our documentarian, Alexander Hall.

4) A group at Tel Aviv University using "Quantum Trapping" to produce not only the highest recorded levitation but also DOUBLE levitation. COOOL!


5) Giant prehistoric krakens. Sculpting self-portraits. Using icthyosaur bones. I'M JUST SAYIN'.


Click the image to see the I09 story.

Have a great weekend!

Chris

Four cool things make a post.

1) Generation X tells the Boomers and kids today to stop their whining. A great article that would be funnier if it weren't so uncomfortably honest.

2) KU tops the International Quidditch Association standings. No, seriously. KU has a Quidditch team, and it's #1 in the world.

3) Last weekend, six of us took a trip out to the Corn Maze of Dooooom, about half an hour from Lawrence, KS. Here's how we got there - and, happily, back! Yes, all of us fit comfortably in the hot-rod Newport! Video proof:
Video courtesy of our documentarian, Alexander Hall.

4) A group at Tel Aviv University using "Quantum Trapping" to produce not only the highest recorded levitation but also DOUBLE levitation. COOOL!


5) Giant prehistoric krakens. Sculpting self-portraits. Using icthyosaur bones. I'M JUST SAYIN'.


Click the image to see the I09 story.

Have a great weekend!

Chris

Kij Johnson reading and signing tomorrow at KU!

Click the image to see Jayhawk Ink Bookstore info.

Kij's work has made the final lists for several awards, including the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards. In 2001, she won the International Association for the Fantastic in the Art's Crawford Award for best new fantasy novelist of the year, when her novel The Fox Woman was published. Her novel, Fudoki,
was a finalist for the 2003 James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the 2004 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Kij was an author guest of honor for the 2005 SFRA conference in Las Vegas. In 2009, her story, "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" won the World Fantasy Award; in 2010, her story, "Spar" (note: Not for young readers) won theNebula Award; and in 2011 her story "Ponies" also won the Nebula Award.

Her novels include two volumes of the Heian trilogy Love/War/Death: The Fox Woman and Fudoki . She has also co-written with Greg Cox a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Dragon's Honor ; and an e-book anthology of her short fiction, Tales for the Long Rains , is currently available from Scorpius Digital. She is currently writing a third novel set in Heian Japan; and Kylen, two novels set in Georgian Britain.

The Jayhawk Ink Bookstore is in the Kansas Union at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. Hope to see you there!

Chris

"Surveyor of Mars" off to the printer

Just sent off my corrections to the proofs for my newest story, "Surveyor of Mars," to appear in DAW's new Westward Weird [Amazon|Powell's] anthology, edited by Kerrie Hughes and Martin Greenberg. It's due out in early February of 2012.

My story is about a land surveyor working on Mars - a.k.a. a reluctant gunfighter - who gets drawn into larger and less-pleasant events that will shape the future of Mars [a Mars that never was].

Here's the post about the unprecedentedly short amount of time between submission and acceptance (six hours!); to be fair, it was an invited story, but one still has to satisfy the editor. And here's more about the story.

Like the Old West, alternate history, the supernatural? Then you should LOVE this book - and, I hope, my story, too!

Chris

Hot Rod Newport ready for "Rev It Up!" car show tomorrow!

Aw, yeah. On the street across from my house:



It'll be at Lawrence, KS Rev It Up! car show tomorrow. It's a benefit for Big Brothers, Big Sisters in town, and it's free! Starts at 10:00am and goes until 6:00pm in South Park, downtown - across the street from the Lawrence branch of the Occupy Wall Street march, which starts at noon. More details on their website.

Chris

Argentus celebrates the Neptunian anniversary

Oh, geez! I just realized that I never shared this publication with y'all: Argentus: Neptune, 2011, Special Edition (opens the full .pdf of the issue) :


Cover by MO Starkey; click the image to open the .pdf of the issue.

Argentus: Neptune
A Celebration of the first anniversary of the discovery of the planet Neptune, this issue includes work from Mike Brotherton, Michael A. Burstein, Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, Marianne Dyson, Kurt Erichsen, Brad W. Foster, Heidi Hammel, Bill Higgins, Sue Mason, Chris McKitterick, Christian Ready, Steven H Silver, MO Starkey, Steve Stiles, and Diane Turnshek. This issue is only available online.

Contents for Argentus: Neptune:
One [Neptunian] Year Ago, Steven H Silver
Neptunian Nomenclature, Steven H Silver
A Brief Description of the Planet Neptune, Michael A. Burstein
Neptune, Marianne Dyson
Neptune, Triton, and the Sensawunda; or Why I Set My Novel (Partly) at the Edge of the Solar System, Chris McKitterick
Triton and the Satellites, Mike Brotherton
Discovery of Neptune's Thirteen Moons, Diane Turnshek
Phone Call from a Turquoise Giant, Bill Higgins
Unlocking Neptune 's Secrets with the Hubble Space Telescope, Christian Ready
Neptune's First Birthday, Br. Guy Consolmagno & Heidi Hammel

Argentus is Steven H. Silver's Hugo-nominated fanzine, with issues running back to 2001 - all still available for download or paper purchase at his website.

Argentus: Neptune is full of great stuff celebrating Neptune, and it's free to download!

Chris

The NYPD shows its colors. Which are blood-red.

What is happening to this country?

I've been wondering this for most of my adult life, but it's come up a lot during the past decade, and the past few days of following the Wall Street protest news coverage - more to the point, the lack of news coverage - have made this question blow up once more.

I know that not all police officers are warped by their daily exposure to criminals. I know that not all police officers take every opportunity to abuse the citizens they're sworn to protect and serve. I know that not all police officers view non-cops as potential perpetrators, that they're not all puppets to those in power, that they wouldn't all idly stand by or actively join in as crimes were committed by their fellow emotionally perverted officers, but once again we get evidence that this particular line of work attracts the worst elements in the human species:



In this essay from a few years ago, I write about the day that my respect and appreciation of the police force dissipated in a cloud of violence. I lived through the Seattle Police Riots of 1999 - sorry; the Newspeak way to say it is, "World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity." I watched peaceful protests against the WTO turn into a riot of violence against the citizens of my neighborhood. I watched neighbors - whose only crimes were trying to eat dinner in a restaurant, or leave the tear-gas-reeking streets, or looking too gay - get gassed and shot and beaten and terrorized for days. I got to experience what it's like to stumble through a two-block-long city park enshrouded in a cloud of CS gas (commonly known as "tear gas"), my asthma-afflicted partner barely able to breathe, among thousands of other peaceful protesters all suffering the burning skin and constricted lungs and disoriented brains and chaotic emotions that go with it. For two city blocks. In a park. Where the people had come out not to protest the WTO but to protest the violent police occupation of our neighborhood.

I could go on and on about this, but that was the turning-point for me. My eyes were opened to a fundamental truth:

Those in power tend to stay in power. And they'll do whatever it takes to ensure that.

This is also why I don't trust any high-level politician, and why I'm suspect of even local politicians. And when they turn the armed civil forces - our police - against us, it's worse than a crime, largely because it's not a crime for them to do so. Do your benefactors not like the protests against their corporation or industry? Arrest them at random, beat them in front of other protesters, gas them and mace them and kneel on their heads against the pavement. The others will get the idea.

Except that doesn't work in the long run. The harder they push us, the harder we push back. Just look at what's going on in the Middle East, especially Syria right now. The Syrian people are dying by the hundreds, perhaps the thousands, at the hands of their police forces. But they're not going home cowed by the Fascist oppression; they're just finding more ways to get the word out, and they're feeling empowered by the world's response against their oppressors.

When will we do the same here in the USA? When will we say, "Enough!" as our government and our police forces continue to abuse their power? When will we stop fighting among ourselves - with the full support and incitement of the mainstream media - and jackhammer out the current foundations of power? Which, by the way, aren't the police forces or the Congresspeople or whatever - those are just the instruments of those really in power: The corporate leaders and the ultra-rich, the 1% who control the rest of us by manipulating the political landscape and evaporating what the USA stands for in order to grow their own power.

The United States of America was formed on a revolutionary idea: That we, the people, should be free to protest what we perceive as wrongs without fear for our life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness.

What the hell happened to that?

Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Amazing Photo of Saturn's Moons

NASA's Cassini mission continues to deliver astounding images. Check out this one, revealing a quintet of Saturn's moons in a single field of view:


Click the image to see the Cassini mission page.

Janus (111 miles across) is on the far left. Pandora (50 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring near the middle of the image. Brightly reflective Enceladus (313 miles across) appears above the center of the image. Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea (949 miles across), is bisected by the right edge of the image. The smaller moon Mimas (246 miles across) is visible beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Rhea is closest to Cassini here. The rings are beyond Rhea and Mimas. Enceladus is beyond the rings.

Chris