Arrant Nonsense

In a story today about Trump's press room, the nation's birdcage liner, oh, wait, I mean, "Newspaper of Record," the New York Times, said:

Mr. Trump’s unconventional, sometimes hostile, relationship with the news media and his penchant for communicating through unfiltered Twitter posts threaten to upend a decades-old Washington tradition that relies almost entirely on protocol. The result, reporters and editors say, could be a loss of transparency that would hinder the press’s role as a conduit for information to the people.

No, you idiots. The word you're looking for is not "transparency." Trump's unfiltered tweets are wholly transparent. The word you're looking for is "spin." Or perhaps "control." Trump's "unfiltered tweets" are actually exactly transparent, because there they are for everyone to see. You're just mad because you can't twist his words, though I'm sure you'll still try to tell us what he really meant.

The Times complains about not being allowed to come on the plane with Trump to meet President Obama. And about the infamous "dinner incident" where he went to have dinner with his family and *gasp* didn't invite them, leaving them "scrambling for information," the poor lambs. Of course he didn't invite the press to dinner. Who wants a bunch of yapping purse dogs along when you're trying to eat?

Answer me this, New York Times, and all you other press outlets crying about all of this: Why the hell should he cater to you people? You have been mocking, incredulous, hostile, fear-mongering name-callers since the day he announced he was running. Be happy he's giving you any access. I hope he sticks you in the back of the room and puts Infowars, Breitbart, and WorldNetDaily on the front row, and only takes questions from Milo Yiannopoulos, since I can't have Milo as actual Press Secretary.

KIDDING. (Mostly.)

I said it before and I'll say it again: Everything should be turned upside down on occasion. It lets in air and light.

But press advocates say these traditions, even in the age of Twitter, ensure fundamental tenets of democracy: historical record and access to information.

Twitter is right there for everyone to see. Anything you post on the internet is forever. You cannot get more "historical record" and "access to information" than that. You people see your power and prestige slipping away, even more than it already has been, and it scares you to death.

Some former press secretaries suggested that Mr. Trump’s administration should rethink the tradition of broadcasting press briefings on live television, which many say has led to posturing and performance.

And Ari Fleisher thinks they should take the press briefings off live television altogether. Oh. So that's a "protocol" and a "tradition" you're perfectly willing to jettison because it suits your agenda, meaning you really do want it to be less transparent. You are positively terrified that you won't be able to filter things your way, that the American people will be able to see for themselves the raw quotes, and make up their own minds.

Well. Good. We're tired of your fake news, and your spin, and your fatuous arrogance, and your oblivious disconnect. Those of us in flyover country haven't been buying what you've been selling for a long time now, and maybe this will be the final nail in your well-deserved coffin.

Seriously, do you people even listen to yourselves?

Yes, yes. I've ranted about this before. At length. Well. I'm going to rant about it again, because it's getting more and more ridiculous.

Standard Manuscript Format. We all love it. It's ugly, but functional. It lends uniformity to our deathless prose. One-inch margins, double-spacing, name, story title, page number in the header, half-inch indent for paragraphs (via tab or ruler), first page with the contact info and word count. There's a few things up for grabs (two spaces after a period or one? Underlines or italics? It doesn't matter because those things are easy to change), but this is the standard for a professionally-prepared manuscript.

Unless you are a special snowflake.

I came across a market today (which shall remain unnamed). In their guidelines, they want:

• 1.5 spacing (not double spacing, no, that would be too easy)
  
• .3 indent (no tabs, use the ruler)
  
• no header
  
• very definite that they only want one space after a period
  
• Times New Roman (yes, I realize that TNR is becoming as accepted as Courier New, but bleargh)
  
• ETA: OH AND... a summary of the story. Kill me now.

I am going to assume that they also want italics rather than underlining, because that seems to be how they're rolling. But they didn't say so, perhaps assuming that modern writers don't use such outdated things. *snort*

And I look at guidelines like that, and make a o.O face, and then... don't submit, nine times out of ten. Because I am tired of ticky-tack guidelines that turn me into an unpaid typesetter for these people. And oh my God, but it seems like the less they pay, the more ticky-tack the formatting they want is! This is a small-press royalty antho. There's no guarantee I'll be paid anything at all!

I am also tired of having eight different files of the same damn story on my hard drive. PICK A FORMAT. I realize that publishing is in flux right now and everyone thinks that Word is a shiny toy they can play with, but... why do they insist on making my life more difficult than it already is?

The nice thing about Word is that I can make the stupid changes, save the file, send it, and then undo them back to my Standard file, especially for guidelines as ridiculous as this. But the weirdo formatting demands are becoming such that I don't even want to submit to these places unless they're offering pro rates or better. If you're going to throw wads of money at my head, sure, I'll format the damned thing in Papyrus or Comic Sans or friggin' Wingdings for you. "A share of the proceeds"? Ha, no, not unless I know you and I'm doing you a favor.

We'll just pass a law that says that people who plan to go on an ideologically-driven shooting rampage are prohibited from owning guns! BOOM, problem sol--

Wait, you say that won't help? You think that's ridiculous? You say that people who are going to go on a shooting rampage won't follow a law like that?

Well, genius, what the everlivin' fuck makes you think that they're going to follow any other law you pass concerning mag capacity, type of firearm, or background checks?

I saw an article the other day from an AR15 owner saying that "oh, if we just limited mags to ten rounds, it would fix everything because they'd have to reload and it would maybe give people time to charge him and disarm him." And I realize that this has been proposed and shot down more times than I can count, but, uh, in this specific case? The Orlando shooter was texting his wife and posting to Facebook during his rampage. I am pretty damned sure that having to reload a few extra times would not have fazed him. This guy's naivete was super cute but ultimately dangerous and not helpful.

This is assuming that if you suddenly pass a law saying "ten-round mags only!" that the high-cap ones people already own will just suddenly disappear like fucking magic or something. Basically, you're going to hamstring the law-abiding while the criminals and terrorists laugh up their sleeves at your stupid, stupid, knee-jerk Do-Something-Itis.

You know what they say about the road to Hell? That being said, at this point, I don't even think I can credit you with good intentions. You once again touted the "2 million people who shouldn't have had guns were stopped with background checks, huzzah!" statistic, but when you drill down into the actual numbers, you get this for the first two years of your administration:

2009: Total denials: 67,324. Referred for prosecution: 140. Guilty Plea or Conviction: 32.

2010: Total denials: 76,142. Referred for prosecution: 62. Guilty Plea or Conviction: 13.

That's right. 143,466 denied. 202 prosecuted. 43 either pled out or convicted. .0014%. Notice that the raw number of denials in 2010 was nearly 9,000 higher than in 2009, but the number referred for prosecution was less than half.

Are you seriously positing that your justice department--the same justice department that "masterminded" an international gun-walking scheme for which no one has received so much as a slap on the wrist--is going to suddenly start enforcing NICS violations because you've got a bug up your ass and issued an executive order about it?

WHY? Shouldn't they already be enforcing the fucking law? Oh, wait, I forgot. Your administration would rather flout our laws (See: the border) than enforce them.

I'm not going to take this point by point because it's tiresome and I'm sure other people will address it better than I can. But I'm going to get a few salient things off my chest.

1. Keep guns out of the wrong hands through background checks.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is making clear that it doesn’t matter where you conduct your business—from a store, at gun shows, or over the Internet: If you’re in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks.

Well, no shit, Sherlock. We already have that in place. I've purchased guns at gunbroker.com. They had to go through an FFL before they got into my hands. I had to fill out your four-page form. We don't need you to lecture us about it.

Quantity and frequency of sales are relevant indicators. There is no specific threshold number of firearms purchased or sold that triggers the licensure requirement. But it is important to note that even a few transactions, when combined with other evidence, can be sufficient to establish that a person is “engaged in the business.” For example, courts have upheld convictions for dealing without a license when as few as two firearms were sold or when only one or two transactions took place, when other factors also were present. (bolding mine)

What other factors? Are you kidding me with this? If I buy a gun, keep the packaging, and then a month later decide that I found one I like better and thus sell it (perhaps at a profit because I'm not stupid, and, hey, you're creating demand, so thanks for that!) with the packaging and instructions (because I do tend to keep stuff like that even for my electronics), this makes me an ex post facto "dealer" who's "engaged in business"? What?

And, no, I do not trust you to differentiate between a drug dealer thug who runs guns to his friends, and me, when you have shown absolutely no inclination to differentiate between a violent thug and a cop doing his duty--and, in fact, treated the cop far worse than you would have the thug. You haven't earned that much trust, and never will at this point.

Ensure smart and effective enforcement of our gun laws. In a call earlier today, the Attorney General discussed the importance of today’s announcements and directed the Nation’s 93 U.S. Attorneys across the country to continue to focus their resources—as they have for the past several years under the Department’s Smart on Crime initiative—on the most impactful cases, including those targeting violent offenders, illegal firearms traffickers, and dangerous individuals who bypass the background check system to acquire weapons illegally.

Oh, puh-lease. See above. Show me some more recent numbers to prove this is actually true. Until then, I call bullshit. Start enforcing the laws we already have (which might actually prove effective) before you throw up a bunch of new laws that you will then proceed not to enforce--and then bray about how we need yet more laws... which you will then also not enforce. Then you will use the lack of enforcement to "prove" that we should just ban guns altogether. You think we don't know how this works?

In the event of an emergency, victims of domestic violence should call 911 or otherwise contact state or local law enforcement officials, who have a broader range of options for responding to these crimes.

Right. Because when seconds count, law enforcement is minutes away, and will arrive in time to bag my dead body. But, hey, at least I didn't shoot anyone while they were beating me to death!

I will never, God willing, be the victim of domestic violence. My husband is one of the Good Guys. But if I were in danger of such, the last thing I would need is some fatuous prick in the White House who is surrounded by armed guards 24/7 telling me to "just call 911."

We must continue to remove the stigma around mental illness and its treatment...

Sounds good, until you drop down and see:

Although States generally report criminal history information to NICS, many continue to report little information about individuals who are prohibited by Federal law from possessing or receiving a gun for specific mental health reasons. Some State officials raised concerns about whether such reporting would be precluded by the Privacy Rule issued under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Today, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule expressly permitting certain HIPAA covered entities to provide to the NICS limited demographic and other necessary information about these individuals.

Oh, so we can violate HIPAA on your whim. Got it.

Look, if someone is actually adjudicated mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others, they should not have a firearm. I am wholly behind that, because Due Process has been met. But if I talk to a therapist while I'm going through some shit and idly bring up suicidal ideation, that is between me and my therapist. You are not going to get people to seek the help they need if they think they're going to be reported to law enforcement over it. So, congrats, you've just made it so that people look at this and go "ha, no, not going to therapy." Awesome.

I will give you this: At least there's nothing in this press release about your stupid, stupid statement about people on no-fly lists being able to buy guns. Considering the fact that a person can be placed the no-fly list without even knowing it until they show up at the airport, and having violated no law, I don't see how it's in your or Congress's power to deny those people a Constitutional right. I mean, you wouldn't tell them they couldn't, say, write a blog post, or go to church... would you? Would you break into their house without a warrant?

Well, maybe you would. Because, after all, this is an administration that has weaponized the IRS against its perceived political enemies, lied repeatedly to the American people about all manner of things, sucked up to our enemies and shat on our friends, and can't seem to keep its big fat Federal nose out of things that should by all rights be local law enforcement issues.

I realize that losing my paltry two paid accounts will not do much to your bottom line.

But you are getting to the point where DreamWidth is looking like a better and better option. I won't be jumping; your own actions will have pushed me. You don't listen to your userbase. When your userbase complains about things, your basic reaction is "suck it up and deal."

Well, sucking it up and dealing by bailing on the site is looking like a more and more attractive option. I finally found the "thread/link" link you so helpfully got rid of/changed to the date/time stamp, but it sure would have been nice if you'd put something in a News or LJReleases post to the effect of "hey, that thing you've been used to for over ten years? Yeah, we moved it."

But this business of not being able to preview a post when I simply have LJLogin enabled (so I can see which of ten accounts I'm logged in to--two of which, as mentioned, are paid accounts with extra icons, and one of which had extra icons, though I haven't re-upped those this time, yet, because, well. You don't want me, clearly) is super sucky. I realize that you "don't support third-party software," and I'm not asking you to. But that software is incredibly useful to those very few of us still clinging bitterly to our roleplay accounts on LJ. What I'm asking you to do is not make it completely unusable to those of us who used it for years with no issues. It feels like you borked it on purpose, honestly, and the fact that you don't seem to care that it affected a wide swath of people with paid accounts makes me more and more likely to migrate to a place that actually wants me and welcomes me.

No love,
agilebrit & werewolf_hacker

Got back from the Easter Jeep Safari in Moab to find that the internet blew up in my absence. Since I knew the Hugo nominations would be announced on Easter Saturday, this was inevitable. And I thought long and hard about whether I was going to make a public post or just lock it to the folks I trust, but I've decided I'm not going to let fear rule me. I'm going to do my best to be a Voice of Reason. Considering the fact that in other circles I'm considered The Mean One, this may be difficult, but I'll try.

Disclaimer: Larry Correia and Brad Torgerson are friends of mine. I do not know Vox Day, and have never had a conversation with him, though I have on occasion visited his blog, and I've read (and enjoyed) some of his fiction.

First of all, congrats to all the nominees. Special shout-outs to Kevin J. Anderson, Jim Butcher, John C. Wright, Tom Kratman, Gray Rhinehart, Annie Bellet, Kary English, Carter Reid, and Bryan Thomas Schmidt. I look forward to reading the Hugo voter packet once it's ready.

I am somewhat gobsmacked by the reaction, though I suppose I shouldn't be. I've been trying to unpack my own reaction to the reaction, and it boils down to a few points:

1. The Hugos are a fan award, and the "fans" in this instance are the ones who buy at least a Supporting Membership to Worldcon. The fact that more fans found out they could do this, and blew at least forty bucks of their hard-earned money in order to make their voices heard, thus putting more money into Worldcon coffers? Is a good thing. The fact that those fans might not be the Sorts Of People that "fandom" is used to having vote on "their" award? Is also a good thing. Because, you know what? The award belongs to them too. Everything should be turned upside down on occasion; it lets in air and light.

2. I keep seeing people saying that they're going to vote "No Award" for anything and anyone who appeared on the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies slate. I am gobsmacked by this reaction as well. Are you seriously going to punish Jim Butcher, Kary English, John C. Wright, and all the others because of how you think they got on the ballot? Because of who supported them? Do you honestly think they don't belong there?

This strikes me as petty, and beneath us. I thought we were better than that. But apparently there are Cool Kids, and there are the Cooler Kids, and then there are the Great Unwashed. If giving everyone a fair shake--by actually reading the works and voting accordingly--makes me one of the Great Unwashed, well, I'll stand proudly with them. And if your conscience is clear when you vote No Award over the godfather of an entire freaking genre without even reading him, well. I guess it's your conscience.

3. The idea that the nominees aren't "real" and should have an asterisk or something on their win. I'll be succinct here: Bull fucking shit. Jim Butcher is, as said earlier, the godfather of an entire genre and helps writers out wherever he can. Kevin J. Anderson has written more books than God and also helps out new writers. John C. Wright is generally the smartest guy in any room and has books published by Tor, which is not precisely easy. Kary English won Writers of the Future, which is also not precisely easy, and she is lovely. Toni Weisskopf manages--very well!--a publishing house that gives no shits about the politics of their writers. Are you seriously telling me that these luminaries don't belong on the ballot? Please.

4. On "fixing" this "problem": The thing is, no one did anything against the rules. Anyone and everyone is free to suggest their own slate based on their own agenda. Others probably will, next year. As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier. The way to combat speech you disagree with is not to ban that speech, it's more speech. So. You don't like how this panned out? Start your own campaign. Come up with your own slate next year. Get your friends who read SFF involved. Let them know that they can be involved, for crying out loud. I keep seeing, again and again and freaking again "Oh, wow, I did not realize I could actually have a voice in this, how cool."

We don't need to shut it down. We need to pump it up.

I'm perusing Drudge today (as one does) and see this headline:

Secret of healthy aging discovered in 35-year study...

Eat well, work out and never smoke...

Well. NO SHIT.

So I click through to the article in the Guardian and find that they asked 2500 men to volunteer for this thing back in 1979...

and 25 of them actually stuck with it.

So. On the basis of a 1% participation rate, we have a headline screaming at us that a healthy lifestyle *gasp* makes you healthier! And they proceed to draw all kinds of conclusions from these 25 dudes who ate healthy, exercised, didn't smoke, and drank in moderation. Nevermind that a self-selecting "study" like this (which picked guys from a single moderately-sized village) is hardly scientific or comprehensive, or the fact that the rest of us realize that this is, you know, common friggin' sense. NO. We need a 40-year university study to tell us what we already know!

[quote] Dementia expert Professor John Gallacher of Cardiff University said: "The Caerphilly Study has made a tremendous contribution to UK Science."

...no. No, it really hasn't. Good grief. It's made a tremendous contribution to your pocketbook, no doubt (who paid for this study? The article, mysteriously, fails to mention this), but this isn't "science" in any meaningful sense of the term.

I weep for my planet when "news" and "science" like this passes muster.

Okay, look.

We live in a world where Bad People do Bad Things and frankly don't give a shit who they hurt.

Should we teach our boys that Rape Is Bad? Of course. And we do. I don't know a single man who thinks it's okay to coerce a woman into having sex, and every one of the men of my acquaintance thinks that rapists are the scum of the earth. Hell, even other criminals hate rapists.

We should also teach them that robbing banks is bad, and setting houses and woods on fire is bad, and killing people is bad. Newsflash: We. Already. Do. This. If we are not doing this, we are falling down on the job as parents and a society.

Another newsflash: Sometimes our kids don't listen to us. We can teach them all the right things, and they still make their own terrible choices. It happens. Free Will is a Thing.

So. Knowing that we live in this kind of world, what's better? To tell potential victims to "Lie back and think of England"? Or to tell them "Shoot him in the face"? Telling them "hey, self-defense is something you should learn" is not "victim blaming." It is common fucking sense. It is taking back the night. I thought we wanted this, but somehow, somewhere, saying "learn self-defense, because this is smart" suddenly turned into "we should just wish rape away because that is super effective."

Seriously, what's a better deterrent? Having a finger shaken in your face and being told that what you're doing is bad and you should feel bad, or having a gun shaken in your face and being told that, along with a solid kick to the nuts or knee, an elbow to the jaw, and a punch to the throat?

I realize that not everyone is willing or able to obtain a concealed-carry permit, or is able to take self-defense classes. I am an old(ish), small-boned woman with a herniated disk in my back. The wrong move, on the wrong day, puts me on the ground, writhing in agony. But the thing is, the bare fact that there are people who are willing and able to put it on the line makes everyone else safer. A potential rapist shouldn't know if the victim he's scoping out is the sort who will hurt him--and that should at least make him a bit uneasy. I for one like the idea of uneasy rapists. And uneasy criminals, period.

Shouldn't we all?

Criminy, the fact that this is somehow controversial makes me weep for my country.

What an interesting "bill" I just received from you.

"The amount of $15.98, which you owe for your Reader's Digest magazine subscription, is now several months past due. You have already received several issues of this unpaid subscription. Despite several notices, we have not heard from you.

We ask that you SEND PAYMENT IMMEDIATELY. [capslock theirs]

Please return the attached bill yaddayadda..."

You know, Reader's Digest Billing Department, the fact that we didn't renew the subscription in a timely manner should have been a friggin' clue that we didn't want to receive your magazine any more. The fact that you kept sending us issues after the subscription expired is not on us, it's on you. And the fact that you're sending me a dunning letter for something that's your fault does not endear you to me. At all.

Perhaps you need to send out these increasingly desperate renewal attempts because your current editorial slant means that you're bleeding subscribers. Your current editorial slant is the reason we, ourselves, have not renewed--nor will we. "Bill" notwithstanding. That's a pretty shoddy business practice, dudes, and I don't particularly like paying money to get liberalism shoved in my face. I get that enough in my free entertainment without shelling out cash for it.

So. Stop sending us both magazines and bills, and we will all be happy.

I decided that I nevertheless want to weigh in, even though a couple of giants have already done so. Larry Corriea did a masterful fisking of the HuffPo article, and John C. Wright gave his own thoughts as well.

So, Ms. Shepherd, congratulations, you've garnered some attention. Probably not the kind of attention you wanted, but when you write something that utterly, egregiously stupid, be prepared to reap the consequences from people smarter than you.

In the writing world as well as the economic world, a rising tide lifts all boats. I look at people like Jim Butcher and Carrie Vaughn and Patty Briggs and Rob Thurman, and I don't want them to stop writing so there's more room for me in anthologies. I want them to stick around because they are creating a market for the things I write too. Someday, in some far-off future when I'm actually writing novels instead of shorts, maybe some fan of theirs will be poking through the shelf, find my book, and think "Hey! That sounds exactly like the sort of thing I love to read! I think I'll check it out."

The mere fact that they exist has the potential to put money in my pocket. And this is the point that Ms. Shepherd is woefully ignorant of.

The other ridiculousness here is that Rowling's mysteries are nothing like Shepherd's. "The Cuckoo's Calling" takes place in the modern day, while Shepherd's detective is a Sherlock Holmes knockoff in 1850's England. Rowling's prose is clear and evocative; Shepherd's... well. Isn't. Look at this opening from "The Cuckoo's Calling":

"The buzz in the streets was like the humming of flies. Photographers stood massed behind barriers patrolled by police, their long-snouted cameras poised, their breath rising like steam."

I don't know about you, but I immediately got a sense of "flies around a corpse" from that even though we don't even know there's a body for several more paragraphs. I thought that was pretty neat. Not only that, but there is action here. People are doing things--interesting things. Clearly something just happened, and we keep reading to find out what it was.

Contrast it with this, from "A Fatal Likeness":

"We began before thick in autumn fog; we open now in the fury of a west and winter wind. Above us high loose clouds drive across a steep grey sky--"

And that's about when I started skimming. She goes on in this vein for a page and a half. I realize that my personal loathing of present tense is not Shepherd's fault, but the pretentiously "royal we" POV is the icing on that particular cake.

I don't pretend that I know everything about writing; I'm a barely-published short story writer and Shepherd has had five novels published. But I do know better than to open on the weather and then spend a page and a half waxing rhapsodic about it and the city street it's taking place on, in a POV that only college lit professors and others of that ilk will find endearing. There is "setting a scene," and there is "bludgeoning the reader with turgid atmosphere until they are semi-conscious and bleeding from the eyeballs."

So, Ms. Shepherd, my advice to you is this: stop bawwing about how Rowling is daring to exist in your (loosely-defined) genre, crack open her book, and actually learn how to write a bestseller from reading it. And then other wannabe writers can write whiny screeds about you sucking all the air out of your genre and how you ought to step aside and make room for them.

That's assuming you haven't killed your incipient career altogether with this ill-considered diatribe.