Discussion of the man and his work.

Preceding line to Harlan Ellison post
Daffy Duck: Anyone for Tennis?

?
Was there some kind of game?

WHAT...a TRADE-OFF!!

I thought Manning was going to take it all the way. But that's what makes a great game!

Nice game.

Abe Vigoda died years ago. He's a zombie these days. Contrary to popular beliefs (fostered by Night of the Living Dead) he does not dine on human flesh. Hell, he might not even know he's a zombie just yet.

Some of the symptoms are:

1. Some stiffness in the joints
2. Shortness of breath
3. A faint rotting smell
4. Body parts falling off
5. Occasional Drowsiness

If you start experiencing these symptoms, contact your physician as soon as possible. Early detection can lead to effective treatment, or at least a good deal on air fresheners.

This has been a public service announcement.

GO SAINTS!!!!

Woohoo!

News From The Super Bowl
Abe Vigoda still lives...

Greg....
Your below might be my favorite "Deco" post ever.

Back to the shadows,
Erik Nelson

Dystopia on the Half-Shell
All this time I thought Sagan died from some form of leukemia, but I'll accept the Reagan verdict. The only folks on the moon in 1968 were Roky Erickson and Syd Barrett.

Carl Sagan was very much of the John F. Kennedy Cape Canaveral era, like all the people wearing bell-bottoms on his TV series Cosmos...But Ronald Reagan won and he gradually lost visibility, dying at an early age...None of the subsequent space missions were as exciting as the 1968 moon landing. And never can be again....It’s the Entropy Law....

and...I signed my own name wrong
duh. I think I'm at 63.

-Keith (like atheist, or weird)

Mmmm, guns and butter.

First, Judy, thank you. Very flattering.

Second, David, you know, that may have something to do with it. I hadn’t considered that option. I was thinking it had more to do with corporate media control and gullibility, and was going to bring up the obvious point that the average intelligence quotient of the human population is 100, which means approximately half the people are below that mark. I would then extrapolate from there. But maybe that is too simplistic.

The fault may lie in the very nature of our political system. The biggest fault of Democracy as a form of government (and I’m not suggesting there is a better form of government), is there is a propensity for governing by referendum, basically putting unpopular or misunderstood issues to a popular vote instead of relying on our elected officials to do their jobs, i.e. gather all of the facts and then vote their consciences. Few elected officials want to be voted out of power by their constituents, whose opinions can be as easily swayed by special interests as Ulysses’ men were swayed by the songs of the sirens. Term limits for politicians would help us all by removing the temptation for them to horde and amass power, so they can make the decisions they need to make without worrying about popular opinion. Does an average dairy farmer in Wisconsin understand the intricacies of NAFTA or Cap and Trade? Can a man truly understand the abortion issue? Will a poultry farmer on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, and his hundreds of employees, vote for local politicians who support restrictions on pollutants entering the water supply? Will the crabbers on Tilghman island support laws to protect blue crabs from overfishing?

Sometimes, it is hard to see the big picture through our own prism of perception.

-Ketih

Yea, Cindy, Imagine a world with no Harlan. That secondary care, those doctor calls, very important. One of the main reasons African Americans are dying younger than us crackers.

You cannot get a check up in the emergency room.

Also, those emergency room visits raise the insurance rates up for everybody. We all pay in the end queen of Texas.

Every time a homeless person passes out on the concrete, that's over a thousand bucks for the taxi ride alone.

You pay the costs in raised premiums.

Single Payer is a right!

-------------

Steve Barber, Abe Lincoln was against wage slavery. I know you knew that, but wanted to refresh that addled mind. What we now call moderates are actually right wingers in disguise. They still call Lieberman a liberal.

The debate, if there is one, has gone way to the right, especially after the age of Reaganism, which was a disease not an ideal. The left are now the mainstream. The rest of you are the crazies. We reflect the enlightenment. So there.

Everything is ideology. What you like for dinner is ideology. Our music taste is ideology. The only ideology that matters is what reflects the Classical liberal tradition. May God have mercy on our souls.

Burp.

--------------

Harlan, you are cute but you are not as cute as a baby monkey. Baby monkey is a special class of cute. I on the other hand look like a lizard on a hot rock..

Ah,,,baby monkey. Look at him eat his banana...awwwwww.

Doctor Gaiman
Neil finally confirms that he will be writing an episode for Matt Smith's second season as Doctor Who:
http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=exclusive_neil_gaiman_confirms_doctor

guns and butter

Keith wrote:

"No social program that helps children, the elderly, and common men and women is going to be free. No war is going to be free. If we can go into debt for one, why not the other? If we can't afford one, why can we afford the other?"


I'll take this one.

It's because wars are macho and sexy. They make good news copy, and, of late, cool video footage. In fact, they manipulate our motions in much the same way as the summer blockbuster movies that so many of us are used to seeing come around every year.

Helping children, the elderly, and common men and women is boring. It never ends. It evokes emotions that are complex, pesky, and often suffused with an irritating spice of guilt. It's more like those art-house movies that often leave you with mixed emotions or downright depressed, and therefore don't score big at the box office.

Heavens, it's like being actively Christian.

And who wants that?

DTS, a friend of mine is travelling your east coast; she's in Byron Bay now on her way to Sydney and having a good time.

Not disagreeing with you about America, but I fail to see how Australians are more grown up. Until a short while ago, Australia was every bit as irresponsible as them where greenhouse gas emissions were concerned and it was part of the coalition of the willing too.

--

HARLAN. Spanish review of IHNMAIMS game http://tinyurl.com/yho5ky5
Italian review of BOY/DOG http://tinyurl.com/yevcazj
Spanish writer Roberto Malo influenced by HE http://tinyurl.com/y9yz3y8 (Boy/Dog is mentioned in his "Maldita novela". And here is his blog: http://robertomalo.blogspot.com/)
Mefisto in Onyx on the radio here again, Feb 18th, 23:00 on 1Live with is a popular mainstream music channel in my region and part of WDR, which produces such adaptations.
www.hoerspielkrimi.de/programm0210.htm

No one (or word) gets out alive...
Man: almost completed a whole post without a typo (so dipshits like "WC" can't snark). Make that government -- governamount, typed in the note to Barber, is actually something used to regulate the speed of one's horse in Baja Oklahoma (ask Cindy).
-DTS

Last words about politics, & notes 2 Shagin & Josh Olson & Cindy
ALL: No doubt to the displeasure of dips like "World Class," my subject line _doesn't_ mean I'm kicking the bucket. Just throwing in the towel. On discusssions (with _any_one in the USA) about healthcare, violence, religion, etc. But I wanted to make note of a couple of things before fading into the woodwork. Harlan's last post: he testified that he used private (secondary) _and_ public (primary) healthcare. From what I can discern, _that_ is the system which most people live by here in Australia -- and it has worked, and continues to work, just fine. It is a system also used in Canada, England and France.

No system is perfect, and certainly no government is perfect (which is why when people start dragging the "big government" argument into the discussion, it becomes a waste of time) (And trying to point out to such people in the USA that they have no problem with government with it comes to firemen, policemen, the National guard -- during a state crisis -- etc., etc., is also futile). No system is perfect, so therefore none of the healthcare systems which exist in _every major industrialised nation other than the USA_ aren't perfect. But unless you're Conan the Barbarian and don't give a fig about anyone else, an imperfect health system (which can be retooled and recalibrated as needed) is preferable to absolutely nothing. Which, until you're 65, is what we have in the USA: nothing.

And when it comes to "barbaric" attitudes (yes, that was hyperbole) I'm beginning to wonder about the folks back in the good ol' US of A. Strangely, Australia and "America" (AKA, the United States) were founded within only 30 years of each other. One country was founded by puritans, and, to this day, is _still_ steeped in the supernatural (and often backward) beliefs of a major religions (one in particular). The other country was founded largely as a penal colony, but has a general population which (thus far, in my experience), is _still_ more civilized and more inclined to view things through a scientific light rather than through the glasses fashioned by religious organizations formed over 1000 or 2000 years ago. One country is overflowing with guns; the other wisely did its best to get rid of most of theirs, and keep some controls on any future spread of ordinance (People do, indeed, kill people: and as headlines prove everyday in the USA, guns help just a whole lot). One country developed healthcare not long after their nation was formed. The other let big business and other self-interested groups scare the populace out of such a smart and "humane" move.

I could go on, but I think it'd be a waste of time.

BARBER: If you'd have asked me a year ago, I wouldn't have said this, but: you're tilting at windmills. The USA is a country that _still_ hasn't grown up. The general populace react to the use of fear like five-year-olds worried about what's under the bed. The majority of _adults_ STILL believe in fairy tales (they call it religion, but a rose by any other name...). They sanction more violence in films while screaming about treatments of sexuality and sensuality (because that stuff might corrupt young minds). The spread of urban culture (call it rap culture, call it white trash/ghetto lifestyle, whatever) is prized over good old-fashioned courtesy and civility. Altruism of the sort that drove (in part) politicians who became national leaders -- like Lincoln and FDR and (in their later years) even JFK and RFK -- doesn't seem to be enough to staunch the flow of the many corrupt, selfish and (sadly) ignorant people who hold public office in the US these days. From what I can see: unless there is a huge turnaround in the thinking and behavior of the general population, the corporations, cult groups and lobbyists have won the battle, folks. The fictional Gordon Gekko seems to have been right: in the minds of too many, "greed" (whether it be the sort that drives CEOs of large national companies, or the sort that drives the neighbor down the street to say, "Fuck, national healthcare -- I got mine, so screw the rest") is good. Looking from the outside in, the USA seems to have become the land of the fearful, home of the willfully ignorant. And if it continues on this downhill path (begun, I believe, back in the 50s, and really revved up in the Reagan 80s), I think the US is gonna wind up a cross between one of those "third world" nations "Amurricans" like to joke about (where religion is an inseparable part of the governamount) and...the USSR. There may be a bit of hyperbole in that last statment as well...but not much.

Hope I'm wrong. Time will tell. In any case, good luck with your political experiment.

SHAGIN: I wrote you a private email of congrats, but just in case it got lost (when you started getting all of that spam), I'll chime in late here and say it again: I know you were already selling stories, but since this one seems to be a BIG sale to an even better-paying market, congratulations again. Write on, Shagin, write on!

JOSH OLSON: Just "heard" that you were hired to write a script for a film based on one of Lee Child's novels. If that's so, congrats to you as well.

CINDY: xxoo, to you, too. :)

Cheers to all (except the odious "WC"),
DTS

Barber polls?
Steve:

I've a feeling that the Republicans will not be able to wrest the party from the grip of the reactionary right, and that many disaffected Democrats will be drifting toward Green or other further-left parties. Either that, or something really, really bad is gonna happen in the next coupla years. In either case, I'd be surprised to see you in GOP ranks. You might check Andrew Sullivan's "Daily Dish" blog over at the Atlantic site. I find myself agreeing with him much of the time, and he (a Conservative transplant from England) has decided that he is now "an Arlen Specter Democrat". I wouldn't go that far, myself, but...

Duane..."the party of Lincoln"

While credit is due your own better judgment, I'm always distraught when I hear people identify the modern Republican party with Lincoln. The Republicans ceased being "the Party of Lincoln" in the 1880's, when its policies became the tools of the robber barons.

One of the driving forces was the political power held by the railroads. One example was Leland Stanford, a former governor from California. In the 1880's, he used his political connections to have the state pass laws prohibiting competition for his Central Pacific Railroad. It was a monopoly that brought massive profits to himself and his business partners. (Look how we've come full circle some 124 years later!)

From that time on the Republicans - with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt - rigidly represented the interests of the wealthy.

What was once the Liberal party - defending abolition - became the complete opposite, who, by the early 1960's, opposed Civil Rights.

That's why I part with Steve Barber's faith that most Republicans "get it". By all my observations, Republicans by-and-large never got ANYTHING. And those who DID "get it" were either no longer Republicans or they parted from the parties key policies (the legalization of drugs, for example).

Steve B.,

I think there will be a fourth tier as well, as the Progressive branch of the Democrats find increasing incentive to break from the Corporate Blue Dogs who dominate the party.

However, I tend to disagree with the suggestion that the centrist position is ideal, while you consider one day becoming a Republican! Centrist politics helped the conservatives get the country where it is now. No one demonstrated that better than Bill Clinton, who deregulated powerful industries, and helped pass NAFTA. Clinton helped the Democrats turn into Republicans! Those decisions have really done us in.

I once considered the centrist position a formidable one, but it fails in foresight, because many centrists lack information or empathy to grasp the full weight of an issue.

***Even if the Obama administration DID support a government-run health care system - similar to Medicare "for everyone" - that would be FINE with me!! It would be COMPLETELY "sustainable".

If we all paid collectively a little bit from our paychecks and sales tax all our lives, we would see the safety nets "unemployment insurance" provides; and you're damn glad you GOT it once you NEED it.

I'm meeting a cousin of mine in April - Gilles, who lives in Southern France, and, in fact, is an engineer about to chair a meeting of the China Advisory Committee of DHV - gets government run medical coverage, and he is in remarkably good health. I was discussing with him by email last month. He's in his late 50's.

So, this bullshit demonizing of "government sponsored" medical care is - well, just THAT!

Cindy, the United States health care system is internationally ranked #37. I would hardly call that the "envy" of the world.

Having now caught up with all your sayings&doings for the last week, and loath to get into the current Health Care scrimmage due to my inordinate use the last couple of years of PRIVATE insurance coverage via the Writers Guild (secondary) and GOVERNMENT RUN coverage via Medicare/Medco(primary)...

I tell you truly, I weep for how massively deep and widespread is the American Need to act like either a rabid jackal or an unnamed Most Yokel Hayseed Sucker populist-pawn creature on the planet.

Were it not for the primary AND secondary, you would be talking 'mongst yourselves, without me here to swear uninvolvement with the chatter. Nonetheless, I have stood by the Saints for ten years, and I am pretty much thrilled at their chance tomorrow.

Having now caught up, I recede like the Waters of Nepenthe for the nonce.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

SANDRA SHAGIN ODELL KIDDO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Madame:

Pursuant to yr. post of last Wed. inst., & yr. gracious telecon of same, the following:

YOU G'WAN AN' GO! GUHRL!

Yrs. in Prosperity, Harlan Jay Ellison, kvetch-at-law

REPLY TO DAVID CRAIG'S POST LAST TUESDAY

Boy, y'got me on THAT one! Damned if I can remember whatever the hell I thought was "fraudulent" about Stowe's CABIN. Those reviews were written, if I recall rightly, during my most active and dangerous Civil Rights days, and I may have been reflecting the view--in one or the other--the prevailing p.c. attitudes--one way or the other--or BOTH WAYS at the same time--of those with whom I was working, marching, collaborating, breaking the law, doing gawd's goode work...

Hell, kiddo, I have to spread my paws out and away, palms up, with the look of a baby monkey suffusing my embarrassed grin.

I just have no answer for you.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Steve B, I'm right there with you, only in my case I'm coming from the other side. I was a lifelong member of the Party of Lincoln until I got so disgusted with the anti-science, pro-prayer in public schools faction that I went down to the DMV and registered as a Democrat. And if there's a "big tent" anyplace, that's where it resides.

REPLY TO DOC ZOMBIE

Re: your last Monday "gang commentator" suggestion. Really good of you to think on my behalf, and as said, I think long and hard before refusing ANY gig, but this one does, truly, feel like a bit of a stretch. What I did back in the 1950s, that seemed so dangerous, looks more than laughable next to "street gang" doings these days. As a curiosity, yeah, well, maybe; but I wouldn't want you wasting any creds in my behalf on this one, unless they were absolutely awash with saliva at the prospect of a pre-dial-up guy doing an Abe Simpson routine about zip guns.

A very manly Spartacus-type shoulder-bump just for the Good Offices.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

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