Interesting News 10/10/2021

This week's Interesting News includes things that are new and things that I just came across.

For example, the Missouri department that manages foster children has managed to lose over 900 kids.  Their absence was not reported to the federal government as mandated by law.  They have even discovered that dozens of these children were found by child traffickers who were exploiting them for prostitution purposes.  The GOP holds all of the important cards in the Missouri state government, yet the official responsible for this tragedy is still on the state's payroll.  

While not really a surprise, I did unearth this article about how armed citizens fare when it comes to limiting or preventing active shooter events.  94% isn't a bad batting average.

Big tech's lack of interest in promoting free speech and diverse viewpoints should be abundantly clear at this point.

• The band Five for Fighting had a song about our retreat from Afghanistan censored by Facebook.
• Google banned all ads from the pro-life group Live Action.

The many problems with the media and the government investigation of the Trump/Russia hoax were made manifest once again.  A lower-level figure involved with misleading the federal government was indicted.  The NY Times lede was dismayingly inaccurate.  About the only encouraging point is that the investigation will continue.  Putting some senior-level FBI agents in jail for malfeasance would be nice.  Seeing Hillary one cell over would be better.

An Astounding Campbell!

We are a few years removed from the major WorldCon kerfuffles.  The most recent issue associated with WorldCon was the decision to rename the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author  Effective in 2020, the award was renamed asthe Astounding Award for Best New Author.  For clarity, there is also a John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. 

At the time, the argument in favor of changing the name is that it was perceived that Mr. Campbell would not have approved of the identity (largely based on race) of many recent nominees. It was argued that it was wrong to give an award to a person that would have been viewed negatively by Mr. Campbell.

And let's be honest, John W. Campbell had more than a few questionable positions. Yes, "questionable" is an understatement.

The counterargument was that Mr. Campbell was not being memorialized in the naming of the award due to his opinions about race. He was memorialized for his outsized influence in the development of the speculative fiction genre. The counterargument continued by asserting that the effort to remove Mr. Campbell's name from the award was an act of "cancellation"; an attempt to remove him from history.

Those arguing in favor of the change said that such a complaint was nonsense. Mr. Campbell's place in genre history was settled and no one would attempt to rhetorically undo the past.

And yet people are doing precisely that. Jeannete Ng was the final recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. That is how the award she received in 2019 reads. Yet on her website she claims to be a recipient of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.  John Scalzi also claims to be an Astounding Award recipient.

While my mild case of OCD is telling me to check author bios/websites for John W. Campbell Award recipients (and what the hell, nominees as well) from the last twenty years, the more reasonable side of my brain is telling me something else.

I routinely encounter people (some authors, some fans, some both!) who will misname the award given to recipients prior to 2020 by calling them Astounding Award recipients. That is false.

They are recipients of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. That is the name engraved on the award that they received. That was the name printed in the program when the award was presented and the name used by the presenter at the time. Should complete context be desired, people might refer to those authors as recipients of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (later re-named the Astounding Award). Conversely, the complete context from 2020 forward should refer to authors as recipients of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (formerly named the John W. Campbell Award).

In any case, proclaiming recipients of the John W. Campbell Award to be something else is inaccurate and an attempt to erase a part of Campbell's productive history in creating and promoting the speculative fiction genre. What critics of the name change predicted is actually happening.

Tom Parsons would be proud.

[Updated to include the missing first paragraph plus a little light editing.]

They Blinded Me With Science!

Science is the process of developing a more accurate understanding of our world.  Observations generate theories to explain those observations.  The theories are tested/observed to find inaccuracies in the theories.  Those observations generate updated theories and the process rolls on until theories have been refined to the point where they accurately describe our world.

"Science" is a weapon; in turns a cudgel and a shield.  Something used to tell people to "shut up" and do as they are told by their betters.  In most cases, our "betters" are those that believe in "science" rather than science.

I frequently get into these discussions involving "science".  Rarely do such discussions involve much science.

As an example, many people got the vapors last summer as the delta variant of the Wuhan/Covid-19 virus became more prevalent.  This was at a time when people were more inclined to begin resuming a more normal lifestyle in the wake of the Trump Shots with summer in full swing.

The media was awash with stories about how there was a 300% growth in cases in just a few weeks. "300%" is a big, scary number.  But the reality is that cases across the United States were nearly at an all-time low.  We had a few hundred new cases every day instead of having thousands (if not tens of thousands) showing up every day.  While a 300% increase in near all-time low levels was certainly not pointed in the right direction, it also wasn't presaging an apocalypse.  

It was another marker in the process of a pandemic becoming endemic.  Without context, the alarmism about a 300% increase in cases was an example of semi-innumerate "science".

Another topic where I find myself arguing with the faithful believers in "science" is global warming.  There are a great many theories about global warming.  Some of them have science to back them up - at least partially. There is quite a bit of evidence that some of the theories need another few rounds of testing and revision before they will be useful for policymakers.

As an example, we are told that the number of hurricanes and the intensity of hurricanes will increase worse due to climate change.  One need only wait for the next hurricane story to receive that lecture.  Yet the long-term trend beginning early in the 20th century and continuing until today is for a slight decrease in the number of hurricanes and the severity of hurricanes in the Atlantic.  The last time I checked, typhoon frequency and strength showed a slightly increasing trend; certainly nothing to justify the hyperventilation being exhibited by the faithful.

There is a reasonable concern about warming on the peninsula of Antarctica.  There is a large volume of ice on the peninsula that could cause problems.  Studies have been published in the usually accepted journals indicating that Antarctica is currently in the midst of a decades-long cooling trend and it is accumulating snow and ice.  Will the faithful adjust their worldview in response to this scientific information?  Probably not.

The same journals also accepted an article written about the statistical methodology that has served as the basis for assigning the relative cause of global warming to either natural or human-induced causes.  Essentially, the model that was developed in the 1990s contains fundamental errors that render any results derived from it to be nearly useless.  Will the faithful pause to reassess their translation of that flawed information into policy?  It is unlikely at best.

Other studies have been published in the same journals indicating that project[ions]s of future environmental conditions underestimate the variability of various climatological factors.  They also underestimate the uncertainty that underlies the results from their models.

One would think that an accurate understanding of the scope of anthropogenic climate change relative to the change in climate due to natural cycles of the atmosphere and the heliosphere would be critical to crafting sound public policies.  The faithful seem to be incurious when it comes to relevant questions about the size and scope of climate change.

Switching back to the Wuhan/Covid-19 virus, I was a strong proponent of wearing masks.  Early in 2020, I made cotton/cloth masks at home that were donated to area nursing homes and other healthcare facilities.  There was even a study done by the University of Virginia that suggested that such masks could reduce virus transmission by 50-70%.

Earlier this year there was another study done that seemed to suggest that cotton masks were less effective at preventing transmission of the virus; closer to 20-40% effective.  Enough so that they are better than nothing, but not much better.

The difference in results may have something to do with the questions being asked.  If one is looking at droplet transmission rather than particulate transmission, then cloth masks certainly seem to be better at containing the droplets being emitted by a Covid patient with a cough.

In any case, I have upgraded to using N95 masks whenever I am in a situation that demands a mask.

The point I'm making is that those that espouse "science" demonstrate little interest in counterfactuals; those pesky bits of information that undermine their preferred public policies.

One can acknowledge that human activities have had some impact on the climate.  One can agree that the Wuhan/Covid-19 virus is dangerous and worthy of preventative steps.  One can agree that the various flavors of sexuality that exist between the poles of "male" and "female" are worthy of respect and dignity.

But questioning their "science" is not allowed.  Any deviation from their beliefs is cause for expulsion from their circle of faith; a heretic unworthy of forgiveness or redemption.  The disciples in this holy house demand only penance and Inquisition.

Interesting News - 9/13/2021 - 9/19/2021

So those of us with reasonable concerns about the integrity of our elections keep being told that our concerns are not reasonable.  The experiences of California voters are not very supportive of that perspective.

Ben Stein's YouTube channel has been suspended and they have declined to broadcast the most recent episode.  Why?  He and his guests discussed Covid-19 and the various vaccines.  They indicated that they had received the vaccines and would be getting the boosters once they are approved.  So why punish Ben?  Because they actually discussed the positives and negatives of the vaccines.  No deviation from the established narrative is allowed, apparently.

Interesting News 8/30/2021 - 9/5/2021

The courts just rolled back a Trump administration rules governing American wetlands.  The Biden administration is now looking at creating new rules in the wake of this decision.  The Trump administration rules unmade Obama administration rules colloquially known as Waters Of The US or WOTUS.  WOTUS took every damp patch of earth with a tenuous connection to an interstate waterway and forced property owners to abide by EPA regulations.  The relevant law was passed in 1986.  None of the "rules" discussed above were ever passed by Congress and signed into law by a President.  Maybe we should return to Congress passing laws and the administration enforcing them?  Just a thought.

WorldCon Potential Future - 2023

I follow the activities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from time to time.  Mostly because I expect the proverbial "other shoe to drop".

The CCP has engaged in a decades-long propaganda campaign to normalize their activities and expand their relationships abroad.  At the same time, there has been a subtle campaign to establish cultural norms for the people of China that will give the CCP greater control over that society.

There is a bid to host WorldCon in Chengdu China in 2023 that is on the ballot this year.  Some of the more engaged members of WorldCon fandom have registered their concerns.  Their bid appears to have the general support of the CCP.  I'm not sure how deep that support actually runs.

This is my prediction.  Should the CCP actually consider hosting a WorldCon to be a significant enough activity within the context of their propaganda effort, then they may "encourage" some of their citizens to purchase supporting memberships that will (eventually) be allowed to vote this year on the site selection for 2023.  If they "encourage" enough participation, they could ensure that the Chengdu bid will win.

I would then expect there to be additional English language publishing of translations of works by Chinese authors in 2022 so that such works would be eligible for the awards in 2023.  

Thus far there are only 11 members of DisConIII from China out of a total of 4649 paid members.  One should reasonably expect that number to increase somewhat as we get closer to the Con actually happening.  Fandom exists everywhere, including in the PRC.

But if those numbers skyrocket into the thousands, then a more organized/directed effort may be underway.

What inspired me to put down this marker was a recent story about the CCP taking an interest in shaping Chinese popular culture.  Prominent media company owners and personalities have been forced out of the limelight and even out of China.  Entrepreneur Jack Ma has largely disappeared after he dared to criticize the CCP.  Then there has been the trampling of individual rights in Hong Kong and the serial threats against Taiwan.

A CCP that has the capacity for that sort of discrete targetting of individuals is a CCP that has the potential to "encourage" a pop-up campaign to capture the 2023 WorldCon.

I hope I'm wrong.  I think the odds are good that I am wrong.  It's just not far enough outside of the range of possibilities for my comfort.

Review: Artifact Space

Artifact Space by Miles Cameron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a first-rate piece of MilSF/Space Opera. A young cadet in a public orphanage gets a hacker to forge her graduation credentials so that she can join the crew of a Greatship; a massive, interstellar trade/combat ship that circles the region of space where humans have spread.

Our young cadet has problems both small and large. Her small problems include the above forgery and also where the head of the orphanage is trying to blackmail her. Then she also needs to develop as a pilot of the small trade/fighter transports that service the Greatships. And learn all the basics of being an officer. And learning about galactic trade, repelling boarders, shooting guns and other little necessities.

The large problems include uncovering a network of spies and saboteurs that are trying to take out the Greatship Athens. Uncovering the mysterious enemy who is blowing up the Greatships. Helping to find a way to communicate with the alien "starfish" whose xenoglas makes the great galactic circle of trade viable.

The book is a non-stop joyride that would make Robert Heinlein proud. I literally could not put this down; the hallmark of excellent storytelling. The best book of 2021 that I've read thus far.

Miles Cameron hits another home run!

-------

A small gripe. Most won't notice it.

The political system is somewhat odd. There is a wealthy upper class that is funded by their companies and trade. A person can buy into this upper class and obtain the right to vote and other benefits. The characters claim that their system is "democratic-socialism" and that it is someway superior to our current political/economic environment that the characters describe as the Chaos times.

But in reality, their system isn't too much different from our own. There is a thriving free-market trade in goods and services. The "socialism" is limited to health care and basic income allowances. The companies are regulated and taxed to the point where they cannot/will not perform basic research. Essentially, their world exists because of the "Chaos times" where freer markets allowed greater innovation.

The polity is in turn deluded about their level of "socialism" and blind to the effect of excessive regulation and taxes. At one point one of the characters points out that she didn't think her ancestors would have understood their version of "socialism".

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Hugo Awards - 2021 - Short Stories

 I've been read other books lately and had not intended to return to the Hugo nominees.  But as I had them downloaded anyway....

1 - “Metal Like Blood in the Dark”, T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2020) - a great little story about the loss of innocence for a pair AI driven robots.  Or at least one of them

2 - “A Guide for Working Breeds”, Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)) - An interesting twist on AI/robots as contract labor.  You never really see where the humans intersect with the AI/robots, but it's there all along.

3 - No Award

4 - “The Mermaid Astronaut”, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, February 2020) - a somewhat interesting space travel story with merfolk added on the side.  Good, but not above the bar on my ballot.

5 - “Open House on Haunted Hill”, John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots – 2020, ed. David Steffen) - a pedestrian haunted house story.  Nice, but not really notable.

6 - “Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse”, Rae Carson (Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2020) - Surviving the zombie apocalypse without men.  But they still want babies.  Almost half of which will end up being men.  Illogical setting/world building.

7 - Little Free Library, Naomi Kritzer (Tor.com) - a twee little story using a plot device that has been done too many times already.

Interesting News 8/26/2021

 Yes, I'm still interested in these weekly collections of interesting items.  Yes, I went a few weeks without publishing one.  And yet you are back for more!

Brad Torgersen has a great essay regarding Covid, vaccines, mandates, masks, etc.  I generally agree.  The technology behind the vaccines is sound.  Almost everyone should get one.  A bit of commonsense about masks, handwashing, etc. will go a long way.  The folks pushing mandates are really very scary.  It's almost as if they've been waiting for an excuse to send rough men to hold people down and do "things" to them.

They found 300 recall election ballots in the car of a thug.  But sure...the election system is safe and sound.  One is foolish to wonder about election security breaches associated with using a mail-in system.

This is old news, but so is the theory of gravity and the knowledge that water is wet.  Children do far better living in a home with both their mom and dad present.  Single-parent households are a self-reinforcing spiral into poverty.  Solutions aren't easy, but you will never find a solution if you are not first willing to accurately identify the problem.

In another victory for Trump administration policies, the NY Times has an extensive piece on the billing/pricing of medical procedures and how providers and insurers are colluding to make pricing models as opaque as possible to improve their respective profits.  Red State has the news with links to the NY Times.

A final item comes in a National Review piece about a recent US Supreme Court decision that confirms Joe Biden's prediction that the court would strike down the CDC's moratorium on the eviction of renters.  At the center of the piece is the observation that the leftist faction of the court wants the administrative branch to pretty much be able to do whatever it wants with the thinnest of legislative justifications.  I would add that the American left wants the entire government to be able to do whatever it wants without any Constitutional justification.

Review: Always Coming Home

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star, DNF review.

The setting for the book is the American west coast after intelligent computers have surpassed humanity. The AI are barely present as a potential source of information via computer terminals.

Humanity has devolved back into tribes that seem heavily influenced by North American First Nations peoples. Many of the circumstances in the story evoke those cultural and religious traditions.

The circumstances that cause most of the dominant American culture to disappear never become clear.

I picked up this book because some fellow genre fans recommended it. While I didn't think it was bad, it just didn't hold my attention - hence the DNF. There were characters that might have been interesting but just weren't.

The presence of serious consideration of First Nations religious beliefs was odd. There wasn't anything to suggest that those beliefs were anything more important than beliefs.

Also odd was the potential for consulting the AI computers for information and solutions to human problems was not more widely utilized. Instead, the entire culture had devolved back into near subsistance survival. The cultural avoidance of seeking improvement and progress was inhuman. Every human culture seeks some sort of improvement.

I put it down about 60% of the way through and just couldn't justify picking it back up.

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Review: Storm Between the Stars: Book 1 in the Fall of the Censor

Storm Between the Stars: Book 1 in the Fall of the Censor by Karl K. Gallagher
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star DNF review. The only reason it gets 2-stars is because the English spelling/grammar editing is quite good.

Made it 15% into the book and found that I really didn't care about any of the characters. They were cardboard cut-outs that were moving around on the author's whim.

And the digital equivalent of the Dorothy Parker treatment ensued.

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Dann's Ultimate Styx Playlist

While listening to all of Styx's studio albums, it seemed like a good idea to generate an ultimate playlist.  They have released (thus far) (17) studio albums.  

My playlist covers some of the hits as well as some of the more obscure pieces from their earlier years.  And of course, this is just my list of great Styx music.  Others will focus on other songs according to their whims and tastes.

There are 51 songs on my Ultimate Styx Playlist.  There was only one album that doesn't have a song on this playlist; Cyclorama.  All of the other albums had at least one or two interesting songs.

I was reluctant to include too many songs from their early albums.  I love those albums from their time with Wooden Nickel Records.  But the tunes tend to run towards the "generic 70s rock band" style. 

In terms of percentages, the albums I love the most have the highest percentage of songs on the list.  For example, the album Crystal Ball only has seven tracks; three of which made the playlist.  That is almost half of that album!  By comparison, Edge of the Century has ten tracks; only two of which made the list.

This is listed in order of when the albums were released.  It is a time capsule of sorts.  I've added the playlist to Spotify and YouTube (coming soon).  You are welcome!

• Movement for the Common Man
• Best Thing
• Lady
• Father O.S.A.
• I'm Gonna Make You Feel It
• The Grove of Eglantine
• Jonas Psalter
• Christopher, Mr. Christopher
• Man of Miracles
• Light Up
• Lorelei
• Suite Madame Blue
• Mademoiselle
• Crystal Ball
• Claire de lune / Ballerina
• Grand Illusion
• Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
• Come Sail Away
• Miss America
• Man in the Wilderness
• Castle Walls
• Sing For The Day
• Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)
• Renegade
• Babe
• Borrowed Time 
• Nothing Ever Goes As Planned
• She Cares
• Snowblind
• Don't Let It End
• Just Get Through This Night
• Haven't We Been Here Before?
• Show Me The Way
• Love At First Sight
  
• I Will Be Your Witness
• Brave New World
• Heavy Water
• Waiting For Our Time
• I Can See For Miles
• Locomotive Breath
• Gone Gone Gone
• Hundred Million Miles From Home
• Locomotive
• Radio Silence
• Time May Bend
• Red Storm
• Reveries
• Hold Back The Darkness
• Save Us From Ourselves
• Long Live The King
• Dear John
• Crystal Ball (with the 3rd verse)

Styx Studio Albums - Ranked

I am a huge Styx fan.  My best friend from high school and I poured over Styx albums.  We knew the hits.  We knew the other stuff.  We were discussing the relative strength of their more recent albums recently which prompted me to think about how I would prioritize the studio albums in their career thus far.

Courtesy of Spotify, I've listened to their entire discography a couple of times.  But I had not really spent any time thinking about how I would rank their albums.

This list is based on the albums as complete works.  Having a favorite song or two on an album doesn't make it a good one.  What makes a great Styx album?  Good lyrics that tell an engaging story.  Good music with a unique hook.  Strong lead vocals.  Good harmonization.  And an interesting use of their instruments.  These have historically been the hallmark of a band that rose out of a mass of "generic rock bands" to become one of the great rock bands of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Styx is the only group in history to issue four consecutive Platinum-selling albums.  Given the fractured nature of modern music distribution, I doubt that any other group will ever come close to that feat.  I have marked those albums with an asterisk *.

At the outset, I want to say that I enjoy all of these albums.  I either currently own or have previously owned most of their studio albums.  Spotify has altered my album purchasing habits.  You have to go pretty deep into this list to find an album that I wouldn't recommend to a non-Styx fan.

There are several places where I was splitting hairs by putting one album ahead of another.  Ask me again next year and I would probably have a completely different list.  In truth, I am a Styx fan because I have enjoyed almost every album in their discography.  Most of the time it came down to "which of these two would I rather hear today?"  How do you pick between two gems?

Will any of the albums fall below the "don't bother buying" point?  Let's find out.

The Grand Illusion (1977)* The Grand Illusion is the first of four consecutive triple-platinum-rated albums.  It does represent a shift from their prior work.  The keyboards and guitars all have a cleaner sound when compared with the early albums.  The album features three and a half hit songs with the rest being solid, well-constructed pieces.  While being a great album, it really isn't a huge improvement from Crystal Ball.  Had the music world been paying attention, then The Grand Illusion would have been the second of five consecutive triple-platinum-rated albums.

Crystal Ball (1976)  Crystal Ball was the first Styx album that I considered to be great.  The only thing it needs is the elusive third verse for the titular song Crystal Ball.  The songs present a range of instrumental and vocal musical styles.  The storytelling was great.  The evolving formula for what makes a great Styx album was crystalizing (pun intended).  Some multipart harmonies.  A growling song with JY singing the lead.  A song or two each for Dennis and Tommy to sing vocals.  Lots of power ballad elements.  The rougher sound of their early albums was left behind like the slag leftover from creating steel; necessary to the process but not particularly useful in the future.

The Mission (2017)  Good mix of musical styles telling a unified story.  Several memorable songs with great hooks.  Doesn't really stick the landing with the last song.  With the heavy thematic element of a trip to Mars serving as the focus for this album, I thought this should have been a good nominee for the 2018 Best Related Works Hugo Award.  This album takes me back to albums like Crystal Ball and The Grand Illusion.  It also recalls some of the sounds of the best parts of their first three albums.  Great three-part harmonies.  Unique melodies.  Interesting use of their instruments.  The Mission was a success!

Paradise Theatre (1981)*  My first bit of heresy.  Paradise Theater is arguably their most successful album.  The only album to hit the #1 spot on the charts.  The only album with five singles to hit the charts.  The album is a complete thematic piece.  But when I pressed myself for how often I would reach for this album, it just wasn't as good at the albums listed above.

Equinox (1975)   Equinox marks the next significant step in the development of the Styx style after the first four albums.  Leading off with the powerful Light Up and Lorelei and concluding with Suite Madame Blue, the album is filled with good music and noticeably lacks any of the quirky pieces that were a part of the prior albums.

Crash of the Crown (2021)  This was a bit of a confounding album for me.  On the one hand, the musicality of the songs was very good.  The lyrics were good if a little bit nuanced.  If there was a central narrative message to the album, it was obscured in their attempt to leave that message indistinct.  Were they making an album about Donald Trump?  About Covid or some other pandemic?  Was this more about the general disjointed nature of our culture?  The result leaned a bit too close to being generic to be certain.  I suspect this album will continue to grow on me.

Pieces of Eight (1978)*   My second bit of heresy.  While the songs on this album are definitely Styx material, the subject matter is kind of a mess.  There isn't much of a theme in an album with a boxing song (Great White Hope) and a song alluding to fantasy fiction (Lords of the Ring).  The second half of the album is where most of the good music resides with Blue Collar Man (Long Nights), Renegade, and potentially Queen of Spades and the title track Pieces of Eight.  The album concludes with the return of the oddity track named Aku-Aku.

Brave New World (1999)  This album witnessed the return of Tommy Shaw to the fold.  It also marks the last album with Dennis DeYoung.  The tracklisting illustrates how the group had already begun to split with Shaw and James Young collaborating on one set of tracts and DeYoung working on this own, separate songs.  DeYoung's tracks still sound more like modern Broadway show tunes.  This album is still a collection of very good music.

Cornerstone (1979)*  And here's another bit of heresy.  While none of the songs on Cornerstone are bad, very few of them (Babe aside) stand out in the Styx catalog.  Some of them (e.g. Why Me, Never Say Never) seem to be more filler than anything else.  Good filler, but filler nonetheless.  Dennis DeYoung is recognized by some as the originator of the power ballad.  This album seems to be an effort to make every song some flavor of power ballad.  The result is a collection of not very memorable but pleasant songs.

Kilroy Was Here (1983)  This is the album the famously presaged the break-up of the semi-original Styx lineup.  Dennis DeYoung was enamored with more theatrical writing.  The rest of the band, more prominently James Young and Tommy Shaw, wanted to stay closer to their rock roots.  While the band continued for many years, this was the album where the cracks in their relationship first formed.  Mr. Roboto was the much-maligned lead single for the album.  It was on the radio all of the time.  Sometimes oversaturation of a song can hurt an album's reputation.  Nonetheless, the album has a number of solid songs including Don't Let It End, Just Get Through This Night, and Haven't We Been Here Before.  By the end of the album, it felt a bit more like the soundtrack of something like Oklahoma! or The Music Man.  It was good rock and roll, but it had a touch too many theatrical flourishes.  The ending song, Don't Let It End (reprise), felt a bit more like an old vaudeville number and less of a rock song.

Styx II (1973)  This album marks a slow progression in the development of the band's songwriting and musical style.  It still retains the musical feel of an early 70s album by a generic band of that time with the additional storytelling style that is the hallmark of Styx albums down the ages.

Man of Miracles (1974)  While the album lacks any of the unusual pieces that marked the first three albums, it also doesn't contain any notable songs.  The music is solid and worth a listen.

Styx (1972)   Their debut album is still quite listenable.  "Movement For The Common Man" covers a broad range of musical styles in a single extended track with an interview of a taxicab driver to break things up a bit.  Kind of odd.  While the songs seem to have a sound similar to many other early 1970s bands, you can hear the basic skills that would later take Styx to the top of the charts.  The sounds of the guitars and keyboards are a little fuzzy.  Some of that may be an early 1970s aesthetic and some of it may be the studios at Wooden Nickel Records.

The Serpent Is Rising (1973)   This album was a personal favorite from the time that I discovered it in the 1980s.  So it pains me to say that this album was a modest step backward from their first two albums.  There are elements of progress in their musicality as indicated by The Grove of Eglantine and the first part of As Bad As This.  But there are also quirky elements (the last half of As Bad As This, Krakatoa e.g.) that simply don't fit in on a rock album.  I still want to hear their version of the Halleluja Chorus on the radio one time.

Big Bang Theory (2005)  This collection of covers is somewhat interesting.  The band displays their usual musical and vocal talents and manages to present a couple of interesting performances.  As these are covers rather than new songs, they aren't really all that new/interesting.  It's worth a listen...once.

Cyclorama (2003)  This is a curious album.  It contains some generic 80s rock band music.  It has some pieces that sound like a later-era rock band; think Fountains of Wayne.  It has a quirky snippet with guest vocals by Billy Bob Thorton.  And it has a few pieces that are solidly Styx.  Good but not necessarily memorable music.

Edge of the Century (1990)  Tommy Shaw was in Damn Yankees and unavailable for this album.  Glenn Burtnick replaced Tommy on this album.  It shows.  The musical styles range from mildly 80s electronica to blues to something of a generic 50s vibe.  There is plenty of camp as well.  The addition of a harmonica shifts the sound away from this historical Styx sound.  Aside from a couple of songs like Show Me The Way and Love At First Sight, there isn't really much memorable to this album.  At the end of the day, I am unlikely to listen to this album again.

There really isn't a binary "listen/don't listen" line to this list.  The Styx discography breaks down into three eras.  The early era obviously begins with the Wooden Nickel Records (Styx, Styx II, TheSerpent is Rising) and concludes with Equinox as the transition album.  The middle section includes their 70s and 80s era albums.  The late section is strung out from the 90s until today.

Each era had notable songs.  Any true Styx fan should at least be familiar with the albums that make up their discography.

I wouldn't recommend Edge of the Century, Cyclorama, or The Big Bang Theory to anyone that isn't a hardcore Styx fan.  There just isn't enough there to be memorable.

Otherwise, I think the list is pretty self-evident.  The albums at the top of the list are worth having in heavy rotation in your music queue.  The further down the list, the less frequently I would listen to those albums.

How would you rank Styx's discography?

The Echoes of American Military Policies

Pundits are currently rushing to their keyboards to write pieces pointing out how America's departure from Afghanistan is eerily similar to our departure from Vietnam in the 1970s.  In their many breathless words, they will not be wrong.  There are many similarities between our exit from these two conflicts.

Of great importance will be the many veterans left to deal with the emotional impact of leaving pieces of themselves on the battlefield in a cause that was ultimately abandoned because their fellow citizens failed to muster sufficient support.  They lost friends on the battlefield.  They lost friends to suicide on the other battlefield of emotions that follow when they came home.  They lost pieces of themselves overseas and now our nation has said that this wasn't a worthwhile endeavor.

This is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Or at least it shouldn't be regardless of the many people that will try to make it one.  President GW Bush famously shifted focus to Iraq and away from Afghanistan.  President Obama's anti-colonial mindset largely precluded him from mounting a truly effective strategy at ending the Taliban/al-Qaida presence in the region.  To be honest, both men did far more good in Afghanistan than their detractors will ever give them credit.

President Trump campaigned in part on supporting the military but also on getting us out of the Middle East.  It is an odd combination when one considers that the military and the veterans of a conflict genuinely want to win.  In any case, Mr. Trump began voicing a policy preference for leaving Afghanistan regardless of the conditions on the ground.

President Biden is completing the arc.  Our Afghani allies have been abandoned.  The Taliban has already begun the process of restoring their cultural diktats on a populace that really wanted to live more freely than was possible before our invasion of their country.  Members of the Afghani military are being murdered.  Our translators and their families are being slaughtered.  Young girls are being forcibly taken as brides by Taliban fighters.

Most of those breathless columns will seek to shame America for daring to wade into yet another military conflict.  They will point out how we have wasted blood and treasure in another pointless military escapade.

They will be wrong.

In Marine boot camp, many years ago, we were taught some very (very) basic hand-to-hand fighting techniques.  One of those was called the "pillow of death".  Essentially, one arm crossed in front of someone's throat and was locked in place by the other hand.  In combat, you were then supposed to throw them to the ground so that the combination of your shoulder pressing on the back of their head and your forearm across the front of their neck would cause the neck to break.  In training, you put a knee in the middle of their back so that you could practice the handhold without risking your partner's life.

A few years later I found myself taking another Marine home.  He was drunk.  I didn't know it at the time, but he was an unreasonable drunk.  One might even say a mean drunk.

He had not told his wife where he was going that evening.  It was a celebration for a friend that had been accepted for promotion to warrant officer.  She was pissed when we got to his home.  She also lacked the wisdom to know that harping at a drunkard was the least productive way of dealing with the situation.

Arguing led to shouting.  Several times in a row I talked him down and had him pointed towards bed.  Several times in a row, she started in on him again.

Eventually, he took a swing at her.  He found himself with my knee in his back and my forearm across his neck whispering in his ear that he really needed to calm down and just go to bed.

He calmed down.  We talked for a while.  I thought he had his mind right.  So even though his wife wanted me to stay, we walked to the door and I foolishly left.  The bolt clicked home and he screamed his wife's name.

Fortunately, she had gotten the kids out while he and I were talking at the door.

This is not a memory that I'd like to keep, but I suspect it will be with me for some time to come.  I ultimately failed that night.

The point is that in that moment of time, he had precisely two desires.  The first was to be out of sight of witnesses.  The second was to really hurt his wife.  

Those twin desires are also present in much larger groups.

For close to two decades, the American military supported the people of Southeast Asia who did not want to live under the subjugation of a socialist/communist government.  They might not have wanted to be an Asian mirror of Western Europe or the United States.  They also didn't want the poverty, oppression, and murder that were the inevitable result of collectivist governments.

For that brief span, the American military were the shield; they held back the tide.  And while a victorious peace was never realized, what those people had was better than submission to the communists.

I have friends that were in Vietnam for Tet.  They will vociferously point out that we were winning when they left.  And the truth is that we were.  Vietnamese military and civilian leaders confirmed decades later that they lacked the capability to win a military conflict against the United States.  They simply held on until our anti-war movement could persuade our politicians to abandon Southeast Asia.

When we left, those innocent civilians were left alone at the hands of a group that had two great desires.  The first was to be left alone with their pending victims.  The second was to commit great harm upon people whose only crime was daring to disagree with their socialist/communist abusers.

Roughly 600,000 to 800,000 Vietnamese were murdered by the communists after we left Vietnam.  Roughly 2,000,000 Cambodians were murdered by that nation's communists.

We are about to witness the same thing in Afghanistan.  The Taliban will return to stoning people before soccer matches for various offenses.  Women will be forced to cover themselves from head to toe.  They will be denied basic education.  They will be raped.

And I believe it likely that Al-Qaida will rebuild their training camps and indoctrination centers.  Terrorism will have another safe haven.

Staying in Afghanistan would have been bloody, painful, and expensive.  It would never have become something akin to a modern Western democratic state.  But an Afghani government supported by the west was better than the alternative.

In leaving, we offer the Islamists their deepest desire.  They are left alone with their victims.  They are free to brutalize them, rape them, and murder them with impunity.

Such brutality was the norm before we arrived.  It will become the norm again because we have left.

Anyone that advocated leaving should spend the next several years watching what happens in Afghanistan.  The bitter harvest that is about to occur is the direct result of their policy preferences.

Responding Just In Time - Or Just Not At All

I have a habit...one might call it a penchant...for responding in various forums in a manner that has been falsely described as necro-ing and ghosting.

Essentially, if I read something a few days (and sometimes longer) after something is posted, and if I see something worth putting in my two cents, then my response will neccesarily appear a few days (and sometimes longer) after the item was initially being bandied about.  The inappropriate allegation is that I am necro-ing the topic in that I am creating interest in something long after it is "dead".

Alternatively, I might be in the middle of a conversation and decide not to respond to my interlocutors' rejoinders.  The cool kids call this "ghosting".

I offer the following for the few that complain about such things.

- It's usually a good idea to let ideas rest for a moment before responding.  There are times where giving myself some additional time to think about something either leads to a better response or sometimes see that all that needs to be said has been said.

- When responding to a conversation, there are times when it becomes clear that the discussion is going south pretty quickly.  It is headed into an area where name-calling is the least of the bad outcomes.  When I see the trainwreck coming, I try to step away from the tracks.

- There are people that are not worth engaging with for various reasons.  Sometimes they clearly aren't open to anything that might modify their perspective.  Sometimes their Overton window is broken.  There are other reasons.  It generally takes quite a few interactions before I decided not to respond to an individual.  And I generally will try again with the same individual on another topic at some point down the road.  It takes a lot of effort on their part for me to plonk someone.

- I have other tasks to accomplish in my life.  I work 40+ hours a week at a job.  I enjoy the company of my beloved bride.  And our kids.  And our grandchildren.  I make quilts.  I read quite a bit.  I help care for my elderly family members.  Life is full and life is good (mostly).

- Sometimes life isn't good.  I had to spend a couple hours helping a family member clear some downed trees that had fallen on their house recently.  I also spent a couple hours retrieving someone that had literally lost their way while driving home.  Getting old sucks.

At the end of the day, I comment and correspond when I have the interest, something useful to add, an interesting interlocutor, and the time.  In this, I have deep sympathy for George R.R. Martin.  Unless someone is paying my bills, they have no right to demand that I respond on their schedule.  Even then, I still have a choice and my interlocutor's desires are not determinative of that decision.  It is, at the very least, rude of someone to behave otherwise.

Rules For Life - Mr. Marvez Edition

Monique Marvez is a comedian.  For a time she had a weekend show on KFI out of Los Angeles that was distributed on the iHeart radio/streaming network.  I picked up the show as a podcast and was routinely impressed by her ability to switch between humor and commentary at a moment's notice and never really undermine her topic.

In fact, I think it made her perspective more persuasive.

She had a number of "rules for life" that she repeated quite frequently.  I started making a list.  And then her show left KFI and went out into podcast-land where the tone and presentation all changed.  

I still listen from time to time, but the radio show was really a better format for her.

Her abbreviated "rules for life" are:

1. You don't have to tell the fat kid that they are fat.  They know.
2. When the village idiot gives you their best ball of string, you take it and you say "thank you".
3. If you are the intellectual superior in any relationship, it is your obligation to see that it goes well.

And then there are the supplementals:

• Retail is detail.  
• You are always selling something, even if it's only yourself.

Sound advice.

An Offer Of Violence

The coarsening of our culture continues apace.  That includes within the SF/F genre.  

A little while back there were legitimate questions raised about a conservative-leaning author making a thinly (very thinly it turned out) veiled reference to tossing communists out of helicopters.  It raised a stink.

Seriously, I think we should do the media next. Put the fear of Americans into them.

Saint Augusto bless us.

Anyone has helicopters?

To be clear, it should raise a stink.  I had initially pushed back a bit in part because I was unfamiliar with the reference to Pinochet's army tossing communists out of helicopters.  I remain steadfastly opposed to patent threats of violence.

Parenthetically, I'm also opposed to the tactic of miscategorizing dissenting speech as "violence".

The latest example of casually threatening speech come courtesy of Steve Davidson.  Mr. Davidson is an editor of the Amazing Stories Anthology series and is significantly involved* with the company that owns the trademark to "Amazing Stories".

Via his Facebook page, Mr. Davidson offered the following bit of authoritarianism.

sorry, but I have to say it, even if I get banned because of it:

Yesterday, member's of the Idiots Party - also known as Republicans" conducted a mass march protest through the Capitol to register their displeasure with the new mask mandate.

That action, by "elected leaders" makes me start to believe that that "Eugenics" thing Hitler was promoting might not be an entirely bad idea...maybe its even a good idea that's been tainted by bad history.

Hardly anyone would object to isolating someone with, say, smallpox, and apparently, a fair number of people in this country are infected with mental smallpox.  We ought to have the means to protect ourselves from them - and the sooner we get rid of them and stop them from indiscriminately breeding all over the place, the better off we'll be.

Yeah, sure, some innocents will get sweapt up in the purge, some will not actualy deserve that fate but, you know what they say about making omelets - cracking a few eggs is mandatory.

Eugenics, exposure on a hillside (presuming we've not exterminated the local wolf population), putting them on an ice floe, summary execution - these are all becoming more and more reasonable solutions, the deeper down this rabbit hole we go.

A veil that thin on a model would move the photographs from a fashion magazine into Playboy territory pretty quickly.  Opining that Hitler might have had a good idea is never a good look.  Or at least, it shouldn't be.  

Comments wandered into approval of using flamethrowers and other bits of nastiness.

Given the modern cultural penchant for black-holing gross behavior, I offer the screenshots, below.  

Unabashedly offering violence to people due to differences of political opinion ought to be something that earns widespread concern and rebuke.

Make no mistake.  This is about a difference of political opinion.  Should the state be authorized to send rough, armed men to your door, hold you down, and inject something into your body; in particular an experimental vaccine?  I think not.

Mr. Davidson's commentary reflects a mindset that is inappropriate for governing a free people.  At the very least, someone ought to offer him tea.

Paraphrasing Mrs. Hoyt, one hundred million eggs and still no omelet.

For some perspective, I have taken the Pfizer vaccine.  The net risk made it a no-brainer for me.  I respect that other people have different risk levels that may cause them to make a different decision.  I also made cloth masks for myself, my family, and several healthcare companies early on in the pandemic.  I now have N95 masks for those rare occasions where such a thing is warranted.  I am much less inclined to go to a cloth mask as our knowledge about the efficacy of them has been evolving; regrettably downward.

And no.  I don't trust the CDC nor the FDA further than I can throw them.

A modest postscript.  Mr. Davidson bought a 30-day restriction from Facebook for the post documented above.  I found the post above well after he became aware of that restriction.  At some point in the last 24 hours, he has either deleted that post or restricted access to something less than "general public".  If he decided to delete it, then he has made the world a slightly better place.

*I looked.  I couldn't find a clear definition of the relationship.  So...vague on purpose!

Review: American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot by Craig Ferguson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Craig Ferguson was once the host of The Late Late Show that aired after David Letterman. He was in the running for The Late Show when David retired. Craig didn't get the job and the country is a poorer place for it.

Craig is a funny guy. I was a big fan of his show. And while YouTube will show you tons of "Craig with the ladies" segments, his monologues were really the thing that attracted me to his show. Sure, he told jokes. But he would also take the time to express a serious message from time to time. Mostly that he had learned some things the hard way and wished that people wouldn't make those same mistakes.

He loves America - warts and all.

I thought this would be a "funny" book. Lots of jokes or stories exaggerated for the laughs. While I'm sure there were a few exaggerations here and there, it wasn't for laughs. While I smiled a bit here and there, it quickly became obvious that this was more about how Craig's life lived on the edge of the guardrail and perhaps even a step or two on the wrong side of it.

Rather than being about comedy, this is a book of inspiration. If he can make it through his minefield of a life then so can you. So can I.

Welcome to America, Craig. Patriots are always welcome.

View all my reviews

Book Review - The Lost War

The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was the winner of the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off for 2020-2021. I always read the winner of that contest and have never been disappointed.

This book was engrossing. I read far too late into the evenings.

I'm giving it 4 stars because for the first 75% of the book, it was a pretty traditional fantasy book. A hero that is saving his country. Everyone is on edge from a recently concluded war.

Go here. Do the thing. Go there. Encounter bad stuff on the way. Get there. Discover something new. Break the king's orders. Go other places. Get the thing. Face the evil villain.

And then the book changes. The hero finds that they weren't really fighting for the right side. And the book really takes off from there.

Not getting more specific because this book is worth every penny you will pay. A very satisfying read.

View all my reviews

2021 Hugo Awards - Best Graphic Novel

Once & Future vol. 1: The King Is Undead, written by Kieron Gillen, Illustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain, lettered by Ed Dukeshire (BOOM! Studios) - An innovative twist on the Arthurian legends in all their guises.  Great art.  Thoroughly engaging storyline.

Monstress, vol. 5: Warchild, Author: Marjorie Liu, Artist: Sana Takeda (Image Comics) - Liu and Takeda continue their series in style.  There were very few moments where I felt that I was missing something important from the volumes that I had not read.

Ghost-Spider vol. 1: Dog Days Are Over, Author: Seanan McGuire, Artist: Takeshi Miyazawa and Rosi Kämpe (Marvel) - Classic Marvel art style. Good story.  Not exactly groundbreaking work, but still very enjoyable.

DIE, Volume 2: Split the Party, written by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics) - Further adventures of people that end up playing D&D for real.  Several mini-plots.  A derivative plot culdesac involving Charlotte Bronte and her siblings.  Good art.  Decent story.  Too much of the plot is dependent on knowledge of the past volume.

No Award 

Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, written by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, illustrated by John Jennings (Harry N. Abrams) - Marginal art.  I don't think the original work by Ms. Butler translates as well into the graphic novel format.  At least in this case there was a lot of telling and not as much showing.  I dropped out about a third of the way through due to the style of the graphic novel, but am now inspired to read the original book.

Invisible Kingdom, vol 2: Edge of Everything, Author: G. Willow Wilson, Artist: Christian Ward (Dark Horse Comics) - Unremarkable art.  Unmemorable story.  Not worthy of consideration for this award.