Real Men Take Care of Their Children

This will be growing by about two or three links per day as I get my bookmark data gradually transcribed here.


Most Recent Edit: Freya's Day, the 10th Day of April, 2015 C.E., 11:43 a.m., C.D.T.


Animation World Magazine; Ariel Gore; "Arts Beat Weblog", the New York Times

Bad Astronomy; Bear's Battlestar Galactica Blog; Big Head Press; Black Gate; Blag Hag; BlastR; Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century; Brendan Calling; Bullshytitis; By Ken Levine

Chaos Manor Musings; Chaos Manor Reviews; Cheryl's Mewsings; Classically Liberal; Comics Ought to Be Fun!; Consumerist; Crooks And Liars; The Crotchety Old Fan; Cult News from Rick Ross

The Daily Dish; The Daily WTF; Dandelion Salad; Darth Mojo; Disloyal Opposition; Drex Files

Eavesdropping with Johnny; Egyptology News; Escape From Terra; Eschaton

The Faculty Lounge; Fafblog; Famous Mark Verheidens of Filmland; Felicia Day; File 770; For What It's Worth

Generation Y; Goodbye, Microsoft; Grits for Breakfast

Have Phaser, Will Travel; Hero Complex; The Hill; Hullabaloo; Human Rights Now

Ideas; iFeminists.net; Instapinch

J. Neil Schulman @ RationalReview.com; Johnny Dollar's Place; JustOneMinute

L. Neil Smith At Random; Lance Mannion; Larry Nemecek's Trekland; Lifeboat Foundation

Mad Rantings of a Midwest Chick; Maddow Blog; Mightygodking; Mises.org Weblog; My Favorite Books

Neil Gaiman; Neptunus Lex; News From Me; Norman Spinrad at Large; Notes from a Final Frontiersman; notmymayor

Okuda Log; The One Ring; Operation Yellow Elephant; Orcinus

Pangloss; Papers, Please!; Peter Watts "Crawl"; PeterDavid.Net; Physorg.com; The Planetary Society blog; Popehat; Pro Libertate

Que Sera Sara

Real Live Preacher

Schneier On Security; Science in My Fiction; SFScope; The Sideshow; Skippy's List; Slacktivist; Something Positive; Soul of Star Trek; The Space Review, Space Solar Power; Spaceflight Now; Spaceflight Now News; Spider Robinson; Starship Dimensions; Startrekdom; Sunni and the Conspirators; Susie Bright's Journal; Swingers' Chatter

Tailspin's Tales; This Modern World; Thomas Jefferson Center; Threat Level; Tom Wilson USA...Large Man, Good Blog; Toonopedia; Topless Robot; Trek Movie Report; Trek Today

Uncle Jay Explains the News; An Unfortunate Set of Events; Universe Today

View from Above; Views from the Cyberhenge

Waiter Rant; We'll Know When We Get There; Wendy McElroy.com; The Wild Hunt; Witchvox.com; WWdN: in Exile

Zoe Paleologa

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the premier of Star Trek on NBC-TV, the start of what will be an eventual planet-wide holiday, Thursday, September 8th, 1966.

On the 15th Anniversary, also a Thursday, I called Gene Roddenberry on the telephone to congratulate him. He said he was surprised that I cared enough to call him, as nobody else he had spoken with that day remembered what day it was except me. He was pleased that it meant so much to me, he said, and gratified at my call.

At the LASFS meeting that night, I mentioned it on the contents page of APA-L -- everyone I spoke with about it that night was surprised it had been that long, and glad that I had noted it.

I was very fannishly active, and it was important to me.

On the 35th Anniversary I found a handsome ST e-card with a good picture of Leonard Nimoy as Spock, and sent it too all my friends for whom I had e-mail addresses who I thought would care. Again, lots of grateful replies from friends that I had reminded them.

I've noted plenty of other anniversaries in other years, too, many of them here on LiveJournal.

So today is the 50th Anniversary, and I find I feel sad. I'm not going to any meetings or conventions, not fannishly involved beyond electronic correspondence because of family health issues, although I remain grateful to everyone ever involved with the shows because I met nilajean, my beloved wife, at a Star Trek club meeting in 1987 only a couple of months before the premier of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Regardless, this is a day to shine around the planet in marvel at how different our world is for the better because of the little television program that could, and did, wind up moving mountains.

Many of you here, and a whole bunch off of LiveJournal, I know because of Star Trek. My whole world would be much more lonely and directionless without it. I would never have known about most of the other sub-cultures which fascinate me so, were it not for Star Trek and the first steps it gave me into a larger world.

"A future of optimism, hope, excitement, and challenge. A future which proudly proclaims man's ability to survive in peace and reach for the stars as his reward." -- Steven E. Whitfield / Stephen Poe, at the end of his book, The Making of STAR TREK

Those worlds still stir me, still tingle my spine, still hold a promise for a future we all await with enthusiasm and joy.

Good fun, as long as it isn't as grim as Temple of Doom, or has a story and dialog as problematic as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Fans who object to continuing the series given Harrison Ford's calendar age forget that he is in marvelous shape for a man in his '70s, heals from injury much more quickly than the average person, and that an eyepatched, eyeglassed Indy was shown in his '90s (portrayed by the late George Hall) in the framing sequences of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

http://www.whosay.com/articles/14306-indiana-jones-new-movie#14306-steven-spielberg-and-harrison-ford-sent-indiana-jones-fans-into-a-collective-frenzy

"They long for an Eden, where Spring comes." -- Spock, describing Dr. Severin's group, "The Way to Eden", original Star Trek

Terri Luanna Mountainborne Robinson da Silva, daughter of Spider and the late Jeanne Robinson, is now in The Undiscovered Country, occurring Friday, December 5th, 2014, at the age of 40 years, due to Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (which she described as "the most common form of breast cancer"). Waiting for their time to greet her again are her father Spider Robinson, her husband Heron da Silva, her daughter Marissa ("Miss M"), and a huge extended family of relatives and intimate friends, as well as many, many more distant friends around the world.

The announcement came from Laurie O'Neal ("Auntie L") on Terri's WordPress weblog about her life with cancer, "gracefulwomanwarrior" [ http :// gracefulwomanwarrior . com ], and on her Facebook page [ https :// www. facebook . com / pages / Gracefulwomanwarrior / 247095598695612 ] (remove spaces to access the links, of course).

With the name Luanna Mountainborne, she was depicted as dancing on Luna in 1/6 gravity in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein.

A crowdfunding request for her medical expenses is at [ https :// www . youcaring . com / medical - fundraiser / terri - s - stage - 4 - cancer - fight / 269274 ]

A crowdfunding request for her memorial is at [ http :// www . gofundme . com / icqknk ]

(Again, remove spaces to access the links.)

This information comes from openly accessible web pages and public announcements, no confidences are being violated.

Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart has Myeloma -- bone cancer -- and her spine and later her pelvis fractured from the weakness; another tumor is in one of her femurs. She has had breast reduction surgery to reduce backbone stress, but she also has had trouble with kidney failure and pneumonia. A pre-wake is planned (so that she can see friends she hasn't been able to see for a long time) from which I infer that after several years of treatment, her prognosis is fatal. She is in hospital right now, but her and Oberon's 40th Wedding Anniversary is soon, and they'd like to be together for it. Medical expenses remain high.

If you know her or know of her through her many activities (the Neo-Pagan religious movement, science fiction fandom, the Society for Creative Anachronism, various Renaissance Faires, the breeding and raising of actual Unicorns, and more), and your life has been positively affected by her, please help.

The morning news says Fred Phelps, famed for his family hate-church in Topeka, Kansas has entered a hospice. Here's my offhand prediction for what will happen after his death:

Just as the Worldwide Church of God (the people who used to send you those free subscriptions to The Plain Truth) and its Ambassador College in Pasadena, California fell apart after the death of its founder and theology dictator, Herbert W. Armstrong, so will the Phelps church do the same -- without him there to browbeat (or just plain beat) the other family members, eventually the fence will come down from around the group of houses.

Some of the family members will wander away into normal lives.

Some will reunite with other family members who escaped and are now shunned.

Some will join another American minority religion -- Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Mormon, Pagan, whatever -- or become atheist, to distance themselves in angry reaction to how they were raised.

Some will join more conventional Protestant churches.

Some will have PTSD.

Some will seek therapy.

Some will self-medicate with a bottle, pill jar, or needle until they crash and burn.

A couple of them will have ghost-written tell-all books to promote.

Some will be approached by "reality" shows; some of those will accept, to extend their proverbial "fifteen minutes of fame."

Some will come out of the closet.

Probably the History Channel will make a biography of Fred Phelps heavy on re-created scenes with unknown actors who will only resemble who they're portraying in a dim room at night, interviews with a couple of family members edited to fit the slant the producer wants, and twelve minutes of actual information repeated sufficiently to fill 42 minutes of program time.

And probably some other pseudo-Christians, some relatives of dead military, and some gay and lesbian people will collectively imagine Mr. Phelps' head photoshopped onto Jeffrey Hunter's body in the scene from "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" of Enterprise Captain Pike under an illusion taken "from a fable [he] learned in childhood" (i.e., burning in Hell).

If we're under a Polar Vortex, what I want to know is, why haven't we seen the TARDIS?

I know who I am, would-be Daleks. And I know you.

I am David Kevin Michael Klaus.

You'll lose. You will never win!

There has been a lot of hooraw and foofoorah about big box stores opening on today, Thanksgiving Day.

And rightly so -- I don't think it fair to the employees to be denied their holidays, either. If nobody was willing to shop on the holidays, the stores wouldn't be open, as they require a minimum amount of sales per hour to justify it. I know this because in the late '70s I worked at a Peaches Records, and we had to move $900 of product out the door every hour -- on nights when we weren't, the store closed early.

But as you celebrate your holiday, remember that other people, doing essential jobs, are working today: hospitality employees -- both hotel and restaurant -- firefighters and paramedics; bus drivers and transit conductors; ward resident and emergency physicians, nurses, hospital food service, laundry, sanitation, and miscellaneous support people (I was one and worked Christmas Day and Easter Sunday because I was needed), pharmacists (my late father opened his pharmacy a half-day every Sunday and holiday, so those who had gotten prescriptions the day before could get them filled); police officers (the good ones, we hope), electric power plant workers, water treatment workers, telephone support people for all kinds of industries, not just computers and consumer electronics, regular landline operators; pilots, flight attendants and counter people, air traffic controllers; radio and television station engineers; and oh, so many others, all so that we who are non-essential can enjoy our holiday.

So thank, too, the people you meet along your way who are at work -- hardly anyone ever does -- so you can celebrate at ease. They're doing it for you.