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Personal Things
Posted on September 3, 2002
Someone wrote in not long ago to ask me why I haven’t written about Athena recently. The short answer is that what with the books and all, I haven’t actually been writing about much of anything here, much less Athena. But the other reason is that simply that I haven’t much felt like it. As […]
Stupid Conservative Tricks
Posted on August 24, 2002
There’s nothing that makes me want to gag more than conservative white men in power who complain people are bigoted against their kind. That’s what Florida governor Jeb Bush is doing, talking specifically about Jerry Regier, a man Bush picked to run Florida’s Department of Children & Families — you know, the one that keeps […]
Moral Relativism, Scalzi Style
Posted on June 24, 2002 4 Comments
My wife is in summer school (she is 16, you see — no, not really), and among the classes she’s taking this quarter is an introduction to ethics course, one of those courses where the great moral issues of the day are plopped on the table and everybody goes back and forth on the issue […]
Mowing Life Lessons
Posted on June 20, 2002 1 Comment
Based on the immense (and frankly, somewhat inexplicable) popularity of the last Whatever, I now present All The Things I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know About Mowing My Lawn, an excerpt of my upcoming (and no doubt soon-to-be-spectacularly-successful) yard care book, Everything I Ever Knew About Mowing I Learned in Just the Last Two Weeks. […]
Cogent Childfree Arguments
Posted on April 25, 2002 1 Comment
Ahh. This time, I come not to troll alt.support.childfree members, but to praise them (one, at least). A certain J. Metz has posted a long, cogent and well-written piece on the complaints of the childfree, and I actively encourage everyone who has been enjoying the carnage of the last few days to head on over […]
Sometimes I’m Not Nice
Posted on April 23, 2002
Note to any alt.support.childfree folks still loitering around. About yesterday’s piece: You Have Been Trolled. Not only have you been trolled, but it was a cross-platform troll; I didn’t even have to go over to your newsgroups and message boards to do it. I just slipped a note to a particularly excitable member of your […]
Trolling the Childfree
Posted on April 22, 2002 13 Comments
The chum monkeys of alt.support.childfree are hooting over this Whatever, in which I admit that since becoming a parent, I find e-mail hoaxes about exploding babies less amusing than I used to. Since this particular Whatever has been loitering unnoticed in the archives for a couple of years, I was curious as to how it […]
Hints for White People
Posted on April 19, 2002
Abercrombie & Fitch just had to recall a whole bunch of shirts from its new line when it discovered, to its shock and dismay, that there are some Asian people out there who object to a t-shirt which features two slanty-eyed Chinese in coolie hats flanking a motto (“Two Wongs can make it white”) whose […]
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Demographic
Posted on April 18, 2002
I am a demographic anomaly. Since I’m essentially a yuppie geek living in farm country, the living embodiment of Green Acres (except that, given my wife’s love of the lawn tractor, I’m the one playing Eva Gabor), this isn’t exactly what one would call a surprise. Still, there’s a difference between thinking you’re a fish […]
Little Bomber Girl
Posted on April 13, 2002 3 Comments
For my money (and since I am a taxpayer and at least a ten-spot of my taxes goes to the State Department every year, it is my money), this is the picture that should utterly kill what little sympathy for the Palestinian cause remains here in the United States: The picture is of a protest […]
Being a Good Father
Posted on April 12, 2002 9 Comments
E-mail today from a correspondent who suggests that on the basis of what I wrote yesterday, I consider myself better than the “so-called deadbeat” dads that I imagine others seeing me as because I’m out alone with my kid in the middle of the afternoon — i.e., unemployed and/or seeing their children through court-ordered visitation. […]
Afternoon Dads
Posted on April 11, 2002
There is nothing more pathetic than a dad alone with his kid in the early afternoon. I don’t say this as a matter of a personal opinion, mind you. Having been out with my kid during that time, I’m here to tell you that the time is generally pleasantly spent, although it’s generally spent in […]
Blog Numbers Followup
Posted on April 9, 2002 1 Comment
Quick follow-up on yesterday’s piece, and I do mean quick, since it’s 2:30 and I have to be up in a few hours to take Athena to preschool: * Several people wrote to ask why, when I was discussing my readership here vs. my readership elsewhere, I compared circulation numbers of newspapers and magazines with […]
Questioning Blog Numbers
Posted on April 8, 2002 1 Comment
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that the People of the ‘Blog — the folks who write and post Weblogs on their Web sites — have been feeling like they’re riding the crest of a media wave. This was capped this last week by two positive media notices: An LA Times opinion piece […]
Breastfeeding God
Posted on March 27, 2002 10 Comments
PETA wants to promote breastfeeding in Mississippi with billboards showing the Baby Jesus suckling at the Virgin Mary’s nipple. This is a bit like the Beef Advisory Council promoting their product by placing a burger in each of the many hands of Shiva. You could chalk it up to miscalculation and ignorance, but it’s PETA, […]
Ayn Rand as Mom
Posted on March 26, 2002 1 Comment
Mail from Libertarians (more than one) discussing the crack I made in the “I Hate Your Politics” rant about them all being disappointed that they’re not the illegitimate children of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein. Most are admitting this is true (The Libertarians as a group are being rather good-natured about the ribbing, much like […]
Scalzi the Blog Killer
Posted on March 25, 2002 2 Comments
Apparently over the weekend I went from occasionally griping about blogs to actually killing one off: Journalist Bill Peschel headlined his Saturday ‘blog entry “JOHN SCALZI KILLED OFF THIS BLOG” and then credited one of my commentaries on writing online as a tipping point in his decision to can his blog and use the time […]
I Hate Your Politics Followup
Posted on March 25, 2002
I got lots of e-mail and read lots of fun commentary on the “I Hate Your Politics” column I wrote on Friday. The e-mail I’ll keep private, but the commentary threads are available for you to read on Plastic and MetaFilter. These conversations are pretty interesting, and feature some good put-downs as well as plaudits, […]
I Hate Your Politics
Posted on March 22, 2002 148 Comments
I hate your politics. No, I don’t know what they are. And no, I probably don’t know who you are, either. Really, those two points are immaterial (no offense). As it turns out about, about 46% of you are liberal, 46% of you are conservative, and the rest of you just want your guns, drugs […]
Football With Jesus
Posted on March 18, 2002 5 Comments
The lord is my receiver; I shall not fumble. He maketh me perform the handoff, and occasionally leadeth me to the Hail Mary pass. He restoreth the point spread; He leadeth me down the field toward victory in His name. Yea, though I thread through the Valley of the Blitzing 350-Pound Defensive Line, I will […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying