However, he recently invoked The Rape of Mr. Smith to show how wrong-headed some prosecutors can be in interrogating rape victims. The story itself is great reading, and it’s short, so go ahead and give it a gander now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

The questions at the end of the article are hideously biased. For instance, one of them reads, “How else are women blamed for their own oppression?” Really? How about something a little more neutral, like “List other circumstances where a sex is blamed for its own oppression”. The second question just sounds less “men are monsters”-ish.

However, my real issue with the analogy is that it can easily make the opposite point:

If Mr. Smith went into a biker bar in a fancy suit, reeking of booze and slapped a stack of hundreds on the table, you would expect something to happen. In fact, many prosecutors would probably claim he was enticing a robbery. He should have known better than to be in the biker bar in the first place, and that his behaviour was outrageous, and likely to lead to a robbery. A prosecutor would in all likelihood never prosecute that. However, say a stripper went to the bar (maybe she was hired for a stag or something) and was raped, there would definitely be prosecutions.

The problem here is that analogies like The Rape of Mr. Smith make us think of gray areas, when in fact, with rape, there ARE NO GRAY AREAS. Rape is wrong. Period.

Sure.

First of all, time and again torture has proven to be a poor means of extracting information. Suspects will often make up information to escape another beating, and it’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s been concocted.

Secondly, torture is wrong. Period.

Third, I kinda doubt that a terrorist will keep silent, simply because they know they cannot be water-boarded. There are other techniques for extracting information that have been used by police forces across the nation for years which have proven to be extremely effective, even against cults and Mafia organizations that could like likened to jihadist cells.

To conclude, I just have to share this quote from Robert Gibbs, which, I feel, is a profoundly awesome burn. Said Mr. Gibbs:

“That policy disagreement is whether or not you can uphold the values in which this country was founded at the same time that you protect the citizens that live in that country. (The) president of the United States in this administration believes that you can. The vice president has come to, in our opinion, a different conclusion,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

This is a stupid reason to have a court case. I am for complete equality, but not at the expense of common sense.

First, why the hell are they suing Vanoc? What can Vanoc do about it? Defy the IOC? Fine! No olympics for you!

Second, the IOC has said that the sport is not developed enough for the Olympics. What that probably means is that in Canada there are a bunch of female jumpers and perhaps there’s a small contingent of them in some Nordic countries, but internationally, there just isn’t a large enough pool of athletes to make it a worthwhile competition. What good is highlighting the best in the world when only four people are competing (hyperbole, I know). So you’re the best of four. So what? Kind of defeats the purpose of a global competition like the Olympics.

The women say that either they should be allowed their sport or the men’s sport should be canceled, which feels like fantastically poor sportsmanship to me.

Instead, why not roll the women into the men’s competition? Why is this not a solution? Perhaps there’s some physical reason why the women would beat the men or vice-versa, but in the article some of the women claim they beat some of the men, so the footing seems pretty equal to me. Why hasn’t anyone considered this solution?

In any case, I spotted this article about the recent legalization of same sex marriages in Iowa . Personally, I’m not really for or against “gay marriage”, but more for “personal freedom”. If gays want to marry, who the heck are we to tell them no? I sure as heck wouldn’t have wanted anyone to tell me that Alicia and I couldn’t tie the knot. I mean honestly, if Rob and Bob down the street decide to get married, how can it possibly affect you? What doesn’t affect me doesn’t concern me.

In any case, I think Iowa’s governor said it right. Most reasoned broaching of the subject that I’ve see in a long time.

That said, sometimes there’s a reason those voices aren’t heard. From the article:

We would also recommend that you ask staff to consider if potential penalties involved with Vancouver withdrawing from hosting the 2010 Games outweigh the looming costs to the City for security and other Olympic costs.

This is marginal thinking at best. Pull out of the games? Are you nuts? Imagine the lawsuits from every business owner who decided to move to Vancouver, from every condo owner who bought here, from all the investors in the various Olympic venues, not to mention the costs of all the infrastructure projects begun here in the last four years.

Publishing an open letter by nut cases like this damages the reputation of the Georgia Straight and marginalizes voices that might have genuine, well-thought out issues about the Games (whatever they might be). Most frighteningly, there appears to be some people with medium-sized reputations who signed that letter. Come on, people, try reading what you signed!

Since then, she’s pretty much been living in the lap of luxury… until her life savings were taken from her by Bernie Madoff. To make end’s meat, she’s been writing these blog posts which recount her plunge from a life of opulence, to one slightly above middle class. Horrors!

Now, Penney is either a cunning entrepreneur or the worst author ever. The articles come across as being about the most pompous, self-serving individual you can imagine. But it’s autobiographical!!! Surely a decent author could make herself sound sympathetic? But, and here’s the thing, the articles look like she’s trying to do just that!

Before I reached for a bedtime Tylenol PM, I Googled the Hemlock Society. I wanted to know a painless way to die.

Sympathetic, right? But then…

I began to think about my options: I’d have to sell the cottage in West Palm Beach immediately. I’d need to lay off Yolanda. I could cancel the newspaper subscriptions and read everything online. I only needed a cell phone. I’d have to stop taking taxis. And who could highlight my hair for almost no money? And how hard was it to give yourself a really good pedicure?

Pedicures? Highlights? Come on. Two paragraphs ago, you were talking about suicide.

Believe it or not, I highly recommend reading these articles. Why? Because, if I didn’t know they were factual, I would have said the protagonist wasn’t believable. You wanna know how to write “rich and clueless”? It’s all right there in these articles.

**Her story has a happy ending. She was able to secure a book deal from an old friend. Looks like she’s back to sipping Crystal!

1) Deck of Cards – This is the first thing you should get when you move into a new place. If you have nothing else, you can always play solitaire and weep softly into a can of beer.

2) A Toaster – Your first appliance! Congrats! Pop Tarts become a major food group

3) A Bedroom – This feels like luxury after living in a studio/bachelor suite. Better yet, if you run out of sofa space, people aren’t likely to spill beer on your clean sheets (cause they’re all the way in that other room).

4) A Dishwasher – Hundreds of hours of washing dishes are now gone. You begin to wonder why no one has yet invented a “potwasher”.

5) Washer/Dryer – No more begging the dour-looking clerk at the corner store for precious, precious change. You can use the dryer to make your pajamas warm and toasty before you go to bed.

5) Stairs – Owning stairs means you own multiple levels of house. You are your own upstairs neighbor. Who cares if the bed squeaks? Go to town.

6) A Garage – Your very own car-hole. Coupled with underground parking at work, you can stay entirely suntan-free. No need to cordon off a parking space with broken white plastic buckets, you are lord and master of eight feet of concrete.

7) A Lawn – Congrats. You own grass. However, you must now purchase a lawnmower, weed-eater, fertilizer, …etc. Get ready for hours of caddyshack-esque gofer-based fun!

8 ) A Two Car Garage – Your car has a mate. Hopefully you do too. If not, well, there’s now room for an in-home gym. Use it. If you’re at point 8, you’ve pretty much made it. (Apparently, there’s a bug in WordPress that cuts off anything after point 8, so: If you have anything to add at any point in this list, please mention it in the comments, and I’d add it in the appropriate location.)

In effect, he was using a steretype to prove that my stereotype wasn’t believable.

Somewhere, Lady Irony snorted coffee through her nose.

I have a nervous tic that compels me to point out hypocrisy wherever I see it. I enjoy it. I’m damn good at it. Logic is my kung-fu. However, when you do this in response to a criticism, it looks like you’re getting defensive. This is the part of the story where the protagonist experiences character growth.  You see, the comment was made in a pretty public forum attended by people I respect.  Therefore, in order to not accidentally come across as defensive, I kept my mouth shut. I thanked him for him comments, and moved on.

Sure, I could have gotten some kind of cerebral thrill from being what David Pitchford once called an “intellectual bully”. But instead, I behaved like a professional. And you know what? It felt pretty good. Who knows? Maybe I might make a career of this thing.

First time I saw this movie was on DVD, and I thought it was amazing. It was almost perfectly constructed, with only one notable plot hole (where Ashton’s character stabs himself in the hands). I wondered at the time why it wasn’t a bigger hit.

Then I watched the Theatrical version on DVD. Wow. The ending was terrible. And I mean terrible. It’s tough not to discuss this without giving away what happens, but let’s just say that the Director’s Cut, while extremely awesome, might have been a little too challenging for the American Public, whereas the Theatrical Version was probably Watered-Down But Acceptable.

I noticed that it was the writers themselves who directed this movie, so that neatly explains its dual nature. They shot the movie they wrote, showed it to a producer who was all like, “you can’t show that to the American Public”, and were forced to re-shoot with the horrible compromise.

The message here is that if writers direct a movie, you should listen to them. Produces gave the Wachowski Brothers a lot of leeway and we got the Matrix. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck gave us Good Will Hunting. I feel certain the Butterfly Effect would have enjoyed the same success if Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber had been able to make the movie they wanted to make.

I think people are confusing the death of the short fiction magazine with the end of science fiction in general. I know it’s hard to come up with new tropes like Time Travel and Alternate Universes, but I don’t think we’ve stopped entirely. Had anyone imagined downloading yourself into a machine earlier than the 1950? Greg Bear pretty much started off a slew of stories on Nano technology in the 80s.

And since when does “Science Fiction” only encompass the narrow field of “Hard Science Fiction”. Surely Space Operas like Star Wars and Star Trek are alive and well. This is especially true in the video game sectore.

I think the real question being asked, is, “Are we at the end of Clarke style idea-driven science fiction?”. And to that, I think the answer is probably yes. Idea driven stories don’t sell these days (at least in short fiction. The DaVinci Code had very little BUT an idea going for it), and I think that’s a good thing. Character driven fiction is really the only way the field will survive. With video games and TV becoming so prominent, books have to go where they CAN’T–into the characters heads to compete. It’s simple economics.

Anyways, the articles are a little long, but certainly recommended reading. After you’ve had a look, please come back to the blog and share your thoughts in the comments section.