Empire of Illusion

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• Edumaction – I never got past high-school, but maybe if there were more educators like this guy, i would've been more interested in learning instead of cutting class to watch a shitty beta copy of Kreator's "Toxic Trace" video for the 100 zillionth time. (07/27/10 by Jesus H. Chris #)
• Are the Days of the Full-Time Novelist Numbered? – Robert Sawyer is one of the most successful speculative fiction writers on the planet, and certainly one of the most successful fiction writers in Canadian history. He has a talent for broaching very big ideas within a very accessible, fast-paced format (once in a while at the expense of the aesthetics of a more seasoned SF audience). I've read most of his books and outside of Kim Stanley Robinson, i'd have to credit Sawyer with fueling my intitial interest in what i think is the most exciting and important genre of writing we have. He keeps a blog that i visit once in a while and i thought this post about the end of the full-time novelist was interesting enough to share, in part because of the analogies one can make to the music industry, which is of course, also in free-fall. Generally, i think the music industry is getting what it deserves for producing so much utter garbage over the years that people simply aren't willing to front their hard-earned money for something that sounds exactly like 4000 other records that already exist and that as a matter of design, doesn't take the listener anywhere new, intellectually or spiritually. Still, his comments towards the end of the post concerning "lengthy, ambitious, complex works — works that take years of full-time effort to produce" are worth thinking about. (07/27/10 by Jesus H. Chris #)
• G’Day Mates! – If you were to subject me to a snap quiz in which i had to name the current elected/ appointed/ inherited leaders of all the world's 190+ nations, i would probably score less that 5% correctly. The fact that i admit this does not make it any less embarrassing. Once in every very long while, i make a half-baked effort to skim through the CIA Factbook and see who the latest crop of clowns are who are running various countries into the ground across the planet. Then i promptly forget, displacing these facts with more important things like the names of recently drafted professional hockey players. One place i tend to pay a tiny, tiny, tiny bit more attention to is Australia. Partly because in many ways it is an analog to Canada. Partly because i used to live there when i was 5. Partly because outside of central/ south america, it is the place on the planet where we have been most warmly received as a band. I know many Australians visit this site. So i thought i'd post a link to the this very short and provocative piece about some of the players in post-Rudd Australia. In the words of Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes, "food for thought!". (07/23/10 by Jesus H. Chris #)
• Bad times at the Calgary Stampede. – 4 animals are dead within 24 hours at the Calgary Stampede. Hmm..I thought they said that abusing animals for fun was one of the signs a kid might grow up to be a serial killer? Oh well, everybody's doing it! Sure the Stampede is a tradition in Calgary, so is Agribition in Regina and, in some other places, so are cockfights, dog fights and bear baiting. I understand; I used to have my own gun holster, hat, vest, and chaps, my favorite uncle was a stampede pick up man, I even had the rodeo queen come with me to school for show and tell once but there is a time when we've got to come to terms with the fact that the unparalleled joy of watching cowboys twist steer necks and menace poor bulls and horses to the point that the animals jump around like maniacs must come to an end. There's no use in trying to extend our demented childhoods beyond their expiry date. Feel free to rope each other, tie things around your nuts (if you've got them) or the nuts of your willing, yet bucking, friends if you want to but leave the poor animals out of it. Thanks. (07/13/10 by The Rod #)
• Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – Here, the former director of the Israeli office for Physicians for Human Rights, Neve Gordon, offers a short and clear argument in favor of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign against Israeli apartheid. (07/12/10 by Jesus H. Chris #)
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