If you had a President Romney…

A spokesperson for the Romney campaign recently said, regarding the protests and violence in the Middle East, “…if you had a President Romney, you’d be in a different situation…” Romney…

Worst Book Cover Ever?

Is this book cover for Alien Sex, a fantasy sci-fi short-story compilation, the worst ever? Let’s look at the evidence. The background color is pus gray usually reserved for orphan-grade…

The Living Structure Meme

If you want to prepare for a new and illustrious career for future, I would recommend bioengineering, since future ships and buildings will be living things. Paolo Bacigalupi’s “A Pocketful for…

Bovary and the Beatles

Near the end of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, in the translation by Geoffrey Wall, there is a line, describing Charles’s inability to cope with the loss of his wife:…

A Worthy Quote from Borges

From “The Immortal,” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley: “I have noticed that in spite of religion, the conviction as to one’s own immortality is extraordinarily rare. Jews,…

It All Starts with Sturgeon, sort of…

Science fiction took a big step toward modernity (actually postmodernity) with Theodore Sturgeon’s  “Unite and Conquer,” which I read recently in the collection A Way Home. Within that story, the…

Sweat of (Something’s) Brow

There has been much criticism over the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Unfortunately, critics have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Court…

We are all Morton Downey Jr.

Remember that girl, during the 2008 presidential election, who faked an attack from an ardent Obama supporter? She scratched a backward B on her cheek, as one might do if…