The Mallet of Loving Correction

2009.

I was very recently asked if there was something that I knew about myself that no one else believes when I tell them. I suspect that the question was meant to elicit a confession that I was born with twelve toes, or that I get s.e.xually aroused in the presence of yogurt (neither of which, incidentally, is true, I swear), or something along that line, so I sort of blew off the question at the time. That said, the question's been lingering with me for a few days, primarily because there is something about me that I know is true, which (almost) no one else believes about me, and that is that I am an introvert.

The reason almost no one believes it is because I quite admittedly exhibit the signs of being a shameless extrovert: I'm very social, I don't get lost or withdrawn in large groups, I handle public appearances and performances adeptly and in general I give the impression of enjoying being around people, including people I don't know particularly well. That's pretty textbook extroversion right there.

Naturally I admit to all the above. I do like people, I do enjoy myself in social situations, I like meeting new folks and (if I may say so) I'm pretty well socialized for someone who is both a writer and a geek. I'm not faking my generally sociable nature. But I think there's a difference between playing well with others, and genuine extroversion, in which being with other people is energizing to that person. As much as I like people and being with them, I'm not energized by them; sooner or later I turn into a pumpkin and go off to have time by myself, in order to recenter and hit the "reset" b.u.t.ton, and to be presentable to other human beings once more. Which is to say the way I energize is to spend time by myself, which is a cla.s.sic introvert thing.

I've always known this about myself, but the event that really brought it home to me was the book tour I did for The Last Colony. I had a great time doing the readings and signings and meeting people, but the moment I was done with the last bit, I was done. I had friends who saw me on the tour and a number of them remarked on the fact of how dazed I was after an event. It was true, and it wasn't just because I was tired; it was because I was peopled out. For me, doing an event like that is the human interaction equivalent of mainlining three king-sized Snickers bars: Yes, I'm on, but then, wow. Sugar crash.

There's a similar thing that goes on with me at science fiction conventions, particularly when I'm a Guest of Honor; during the day if I'm not on a panel or have some other commitment I'm often in my hotel room in order to conserve my sociability for scheduled events and for evening partying and hanging out. It's not to say I have to force myself into being a social person-as noted before I do actually like being sociable and partying, it's one reason I do so much of it. It's more of being aware of what my own limits and needs are. If I don't get a certain amount of alone time, I get cranky. And that's not good for anyone.

This is why, incidentally, living out in the middle of nowhere in rural Ohio is not actually a hardship for me. My geographically closest close friend is about an hour away; on a day-to-day basis I just don't get out much to see anyone. How do I feel about that? Just fine, thanks. Being alone works for me; I get writing done, I get thinking done, and generally speaking I keep myself suitably amused. I really like seeing my friends when I see them, and I wish I saw them more (including the one just an hour from me). But I'm not going stir-crazy out here in the sticks. It suits my temperament well.

Also, you know: hi, people coming to my blog. Thanks for providing me daily low-impact fraternization. The Internet was made for introverts, I suspect. In all, I'm covered on a day-to-day basis.

So, yes: Introvert. You might not see it when you meet me. But it's there.

Post-Election Notes For the GOP (Not That They've Asked For Them) Nov

7.

2012.

Having just voted against both its presidential and Ohio senatorial candidate, I am reasonably sure the GOP doesn't want any notes from me about its failures last night. On the other hand, I am a white, male, well-off, heteros.e.xually-married, college educated fellow, which means according to the exit polls at least, I am the GOP "demographic" down to the last jot and t.i.ttle. Maybe it'll listen for just that reason.

So, fellows! Some notes for you. Please note this is addressed to the party leaders, not the party members.

1. Recognize your brand is damaged. You can't seriously be considered to be the party of fiscal probity at this point; your record for the last thirty years makes this laughable. Bush shot your international relations standing in the foot. All you have left is social issues, and-surprise!-on social issues, most people who are not you think you're intolerant at best and racist, s.e.xist, h.o.m.ophobic and bigoted at worst.

Seriously, guys: What does the GOP actually want to be the party of? At this point, and for the last few years, it's been "The Party of Not Obama." This is not a good way to run a railroad.

2. Deal with your base. Your base is killing you. Did you see your presidential nominee slate this year? I know your base was excited about them, but from the outside we were all, like, "seriously, WTF?" The fact that an unrepentant bigot like Rick Santorum managed to pace Mitt Romney for the nomination as far into the process as he did should have sent up enough red flags to rival Beijing on May Day. Then it makes the (relative) moderates who eventually win the nominations spend too much time tending to its issues and selecting awful vice presidential candidates. Sarah Palin terrified the non-base voters she was supposed to attract. That Paul Ryan counts as an "intellectual" in GOP circles speaks to the almost unfathomable poverty of your brain trust at the moment. That these two were brought on to bolster their respective presidential candidates with the party's base should throw up all sorts of warning signs.

Your base is fine for now with mid-terms, when you're dealing with House races, and districts that have been gerrymandered to allow for genuinely horrible politicians to be elected (yes, on both sides, but we're talking about you for now). For presidential elections, when you have to deal with a national electorate? They're a bad foundation. They're going to keep making you fail. If you don't want to believe it, two words for you: Akin, Mourdock. If you think they only lost their races, think again.

3. Accept the fact that the US is browner and more tolerant than you are, and that you need to become more of both of these things. By "tolerant" I mean that we're okay with gays marrying and women deciding what to do with their own wombs and that we think science doesn't want to shiv Jesus in the night when no one is looking. By "browner," we mean, well, browner. Lots of Latinos and blacks and other ethnic minorities out there. More every day. And very few of them want to have anything to do with you. Both of these mean that lots of younger white people don't want to have anything to do with you either, because-again, surprise!-many of the people who they love and grew up with in this browner and more tolerant nation are the folks you spend a lot of time railing against, in code or just straight up. And that's bulls.h.i.t.

I am a white, well-off, college-educated man married to a woman. And in my family and close circle of friends I have Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, gay, bis.e.xual and trans people, religious, agnostic and atheist, able-bodied and disabled. You lose me when you cla.s.sify any of them as the other. They're not the other; they're us.

4. Stop letting your media run you. Look, guys: Fox News and Rush Limbaugh don't actually care about the GOP. They really don't. They are in the business of terrifying aging white people for money. To the extent that your political agenda conforms to this goal, they're on your side. But when you step outside of their "terrify aging white people for money" agenda, they're going to stomp on you. How many GOP politicians have had to grovel at Limbaugh's feet because they said something he didn't approve of? Stop it. Tell him to f.u.c.k off every once in a while. It'll be good for you.

And while you're at it, tell Grover Norquist to f.u.c.k off, too. The fact this dude keeps the lot of you from facing economic reality with that d.a.m.ned pledge of his is an embarra.s.sment.

These are the things I would start with.

Do I expect you to consider them? Not really, no. What I expect you to do is the same thing you've been doing for the last twenty years, which is to decide that the problem with the GOP is that it's not socially conservative or fiscally irresponsible enough, cull anyone who doesn't subscribe to the new tighter and angrier level of orthodoxy and go from there. If that's the direction you go, I wish you joy in it, and look forward to years and years of Democratic presidents.

Reality Check Nov

5.

2008.

For those who need it: 1. It was Obama who won, not necessarily the Democrats. Which is why, while the Democrats gained in both the House and the Senate, they don't appear to be having the blow-out additions to their numbers some folks seemed to think would happen (note that at least a couple of Senate races are still in play). Which suggests, to me at least, that rather than the Democrats putting wind into Obama's sails, they rode on his coattails. I think people who are under the impression the Democrats now have a mandate are misreading what happened yesterday. It's Obama who has the mandate. The Democrats are along for the ride. Don't think Obama, at least, isn't aware of this. Which brings us to: 2. The United States did not become a deep blue paradise overnight. Fox News will not implode. Matt Drudge will not spontaneously combust. Rush Limbaugh will not choke on his own tongue. And aside from all those pleasant images, America is the same essentially purple-y place it was yesterday. If you need proof of that, please to see the results of Proposition 8 in California, which, alas, seems headed for a win, along with amendments and resolutions in other states intended to make sure same-s.e.x marriage is illegal in those places. It would be tempting to imagine that this is a departing knife twist by religious and social conservatives before they start to tear at each other's intestines ("I can't have Sarah Palin but at least I can screw the gays"), but that's delusional thinking. There are more pro-Obama, pro-Prop 8 (and etc) types out there than some folks are ready to admit. Which brings us to: 3. Obama will not give you everything you want, when you want it. Since Obama seems to have this crazy idea that he might want to be president of the whole d.a.m.n country, I think he's going to be small-c conservative in his battles, at least the early ones, and will likely stick to the economic issues that got him elected. Anyone who's observed the man in the campaign who is also not totally high on crazy wing juice (either the right or left vintages) will note that Obama is a man of exceptionally practical strategies; one of those strategies is to lead people to where he wants to go by using the paths they like to go by. Per point 2, this means frustrating people who want to go off the beaten paths. Which brings us to: 4. Your next president is going to disappoint you. Barack Obama does not fart cinnamon-scented rainbows. He is not trailed by angels and unicorns. Reality does not reshape itself to his wishes. Dude's a human being, and a politician, and he's going to have to work with other human beings who are also politicians. Per point 2, some things you want him to do he won't be able to do, and some of the things you want him to do he won't want to do, so they won't get done. He will make mistakes. He will make errors. He will be caught flat-footed from time to time. He will be challenged by antagonists, foreign and domestic, who will have an interest in seeing him faceplant. He will p.i.s.s most people off. His approval rating will drop below 50%. He is going to disappoint you. Get used to the idea.

5. Last night's election didn't change the country; it offered a chance for the country to change. Which is something Obama himself pointed out last night, because he's a smart man like that. He will effect some of that change through the power of the presidency, and through his relationship with Congress, but ultimately what will change things is whether people want change and are willing to work for it. Elections are the easy part, basically. Now comes the work. As the saying goes, you have been offered a country, if you can keep it. It's up to you more than it's up to your next president.

Regarding Sn.o.bbery Nov

30.

2011.

Apropos of nothing in particular, a few thoughts on the subject of sn.o.bbery.

1.One is perfectly within one's own prerogatives to feel sn.o.bby about things, if one feels invested in them in one way or another.

2.However, being a sn.o.b often makes one look like an a.s.shole.

3.It especially makes one look like an a.s.shole if the basis for one's sn.o.bbery lacks an adequate foundation. For example, if despite rhetorical flourishes and handwaving, one's critical thesis devolves to "This stuff is awesome because I like it; this stuff sucks because I don't; those who like the things I do not are stupid," then one will look like an a.s.shole.

4.If one's critical thesis exhibits this level of foundational poverty, no amount of rhetorical flourish or handwaving will hide it. One's pleasure at the presumed rhetorical cleverness will likely be noted, however, and added to the tally of things that make one look like an a.s.shole.

5.Likewise, gathering friends of like-minded sn.o.bbery and exegetic facility will not make your common critical thesis better. It merely means that as a group you enjoy the smell of your own farts. This is nice for you, and likely obvious to anyone outside your circle.

6.If one's feeling of sn.o.bbery leads one to believe that one is in fact some way superior to those who do not hold the same sn.o.bbery, then one is at severe risk of crossing over from merely looking like an a.s.shole to actually being an a.s.shole.

7.A reason for this is that one is exhibiting a childishly binary way of looking at the world, and while that is fine for a child, who may not know better, one is an adult and should have the ability to exhibit complexity whilst thinking. Because it is polite to a.s.sume that an adult is, in fact, not stupid or incapable of complex thought, the maintenance of such a binary cla.s.sification system relating to people suggests one might be an a.s.shole. There may be other reasons for this choice besides being an a.s.shole, but if Occam's Razor teaches us anything, it is that the simplest explanation is often the correct one.


8.If one uses such simple, non-complex binary sorting to cla.s.sify others as inferior in some manner, it does not make one any more of an a.s.shole, but it may mean that one's sense of irony is not as finely tuned as one would hope.

9.If one declares oneself publicly to be a sn.o.b, then one actively invites scrutiny of the sort detailed above, often by those with the means to determine whether the sn.o.bbery proclaimed is warranted by anything other than one's own estimation of self-worth. There are more of such people than you may expect.

10.It is worth considering what benefits one ultimately receives in declaring one's sn.o.bbery. There may be fewer than one thinks.

Thank you for your attention.

Reminder: There's No Actual Office for "President of the Left"

Jul

2.

2008.

Apparently some Obama supporters are shocked and appalled to discover that now that he's out of the primaries, their man is running to be the President of all the people in the United States, not just the people in the United States who have the "Yes We Can" YouTube video bookmarked on their Web browser. Well, you know: Surprise, people. For example, Obama's supporting an extension, with significant caveats, of some of the faith-oriented policies started by Bush, has gotten a lot of folks spun up. But from where I stand it makes perfect sense.

1. Many evangelicals are disenchanted with the GOP, and young evangelicals in particular seem to be coloring outside the lines, politically speaking, more and more these days. Splintering off young evangelicals, perhaps on a permanent basis, would be like cutting off the GOP's fuel supply for future elections, given that the evangelicals have been in the tank for the GOP for at least three decades. Even just putting them into play on a regular basis means the GOP has to fight (and use money to fight) for a demographic it took for granted just a single presidential election cycle ago.

2. It's an act of political ball-cutting. There's nowhere on Obama's political agenda that McCain wants to go, because the GOP base is already horrified that the man is not conservative enough for them. But Obama has some room to snack on elements of McCain's potential agenda, and in doing so make an appeal to voters (and not just those noted in the first point) that McCain's people probably thought they wouldn't have to fight for. Whether Obama gets those voters is immaterial to the fact that for the relatively low cost of giving a speech on the subject of faith-based programs, he's just committed McCain to spending a lot of time and money to keep them in his camp.

3. There are still places in the United States-some which I can see right out my window, thank you very much-where there lives a significant number of people who are under the impression Barack Obama is an Islamicist mole whose first act as president will be to suicide bomb himself in the Oval Office. Obama is many things, but "dumb" isn't one of them. If he simply denies or tries to ignore the "Obama will fly a plane into a building" meme, it'll fester. If he offers a substantive example of an actual policy that counteracts that meme, he's got a tool he can use to beat it, or at least beat it down.

4. The is the part where I'm confused that people haven't figured this out yet: Obama clearly doesn't just want to win, folks. He wants to win big. We're talking about Super Bowl blowout big. Spanish-American War big. Friends vs. whatever the h.e.l.l was on TV against Friends big. 400+ electoral votes big. He wants a generational vote, like Reagan had in 1980-and given the abysmal standing of the GOP and the sitting president at the moment, it's entirely possible he can get it with a little outreach and some strategic tacking to the center.

The folks who are currently braying about how Obama is where is he is right now because he didn't swing toward the center are somewhat disingenuously forgetting how well Clinton did in the last few Democratic primaries, appealing to more conservative Democratic voters. Remember how the primaries went all the way to the end? Yes, good times, good times. Anyway, those folks can conveniently forget the lessons of the last few Democratic primaries; Obama really can't, and apparently hasn't.

5. Obama's probably also aware that he's got the left in the tank. Some folks on the left were goofy enough in 2000 to think that voting for, say, Nader, wouldn't make a huge difference in the end, so why not make a cute little protest vote. Here in 2008, anyone on the left who isn't planning to pull a lever for Obama probably has congenital brain damage. Seriously, there is unlikely to be another chance for the left to so definitively remake the political map as it has this year, if the folks on the left simply don't lose their s.h.i.t at the idea of Obama trying to widen his margin of victory, the better to make the case that his election represents a major shift in US politics.

Now, I'm a firm believer in never discounting the Democratic party's ability to s.n.a.t.c.h defeat from the jaws of victory; I'm still appalled at the incompetence of the Kerry campaign in 2004 and for that matter, the bad strategy of the Gore campaign in 2000, which involved separating their man from the most popular president in recent history. In this case I think the people involved in the presidential campaign are doing pretty smart things, and it might be the other folks who blow it.

To them I would suggest that they consider that the Obama campaign is paying them a compliment, in that they are making the (not necessarily self-evident) a.s.sumption that they're all smart enough to realize that tacking toward the center in the campaign is going to pay huge dividends for the left when at the end of the 2008 election it finds itself in charge of the executive and legislative branches, and finds itself in a position to fill two or possibly even three seats on the Supreme Court in the next four years, and possibly in the bargain create a st.u.r.dy new left-leaning political base that lasts as long as the GOP base that Reagan used as a foundation three decades ago. I guess we'll see if that compliment pays off.

Personally speaking I'm not hugely thrilled with every move Obama has made recently; I don't like the continuation of the faith-based office that much (which should not be a huge surprise), although my real ire is for his position on the FISA "compromise" bill which will hopefully die in the Senate sometime next week. On the other hand, I have strong suspicions that President Obama would nominate to the high court the sort of judges that would see the FISA "compromise" bill as fundamentally unconst.i.tutional, and in the meantime his positioning deprives the right-wing shouty chorus of some oxygen during his presidential campaign.

Which is to say that I'm fundamentally unsurprised to discover that Barack Obama, who has been in politics for a number of years, is a politician. And a politician who wants to win as big as he can.

Reminder: Tis the Season Not to Be an a.s.s Dec

21.

2011.

Question from e-mail: Any thoughts on the current state of the War on Christmas?

I think it's about as silly as it ever was, considering that Christmas has conquered December, occupied November and metastasized into late October. To suggest that the holiday is under serious threat from politically correct non-Christians is like suggesting an earthworm is a serious threat to a Humvee. This is obvious enough to anyone with sense that I use The War on Christmas as an emergency diagnostic, which is to say, if you genuinely believe there's a War on Christmas, you may want to see a doctor, since you might have a tumor pressing on your frontal lobes.

But-but-what about all those horrible atheists taking over holiday displays with crucified Santa skeletons? Surely that's evidence of a war! Well, no, it's evidence of some non-believers taking a page out of the PETA playbook, i.e., being d.i.c.ks to get attention and to make a point. I do strongly suspect that if we didn't have some certain excitable conservatives playing The War on Christmas card when a business says "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas," and such, there would be less incentive for certain excitable non-believers to make a public show of desecrating Christmas symbols, but that's just an opinion and I don't have anything to back that up. What I do know is that the War on Christmas crusaders and the Santa crucifiers deserve each other; the rest of us, unfortunately, have to watch them both make public a.s.ses of themselves.

This is not to say that non-believers have to pa.s.sively suck it up during the Christmas season; they have as much right to public display s.p.a.ce as anyone and in a theoretical sense I'm glad they're out there to remind people that not everyone defaults to Christian or even "religious." I like it better when they do it in a manner that doesn't explicitly say "take the symbols you cherish and shove them right up your a.s.s." But then I'm also the sort of non-believer who doesn't take every public religious display as an intentional slap in the face. When people put up Christmas displays, or (to the point) when munic.i.p.alities allow public s.p.a.ce to be used for them, I don't see them as a Christian majority saying "bow down to our hegemony, heretics and infidels," I see them as people saying "Yay! Christmas!" Which is a different motivation entirely.

Here's the thing: If you're using the holiday season to go out of your way to be an a.s.shole to someone, believer or non-believer, you're doing it wrong, and I wish you would stop. That's not a war, it's a slap fight and it's embarra.s.sing. As a non-believer, when someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, I say "Merry Christmas" back, because generally speaking I understand that what "Merry Christmas" means in this context is "I am offering you good will in a way I know how," and I appreciate that sentiment. Left to my own devices, I use "Happy holidays" because I know a lot of people who aren't Christians (or at least Christmas-centered) and that seems the best way to express my own good will; the vast majority of people get what I'm doing and appreciate that sentiment too.

I think most people get the idea that regardless of religion or lack thereof, we've designated this time of year as the one where we make an effort to be decent to each other. Accept it. Welcome it. Live it, in the best way you know how. Be tolerant and gracious when others share this sentiment in a way different than you would. Look for what they're saying means, not just the words they use to say it. It would be a fine way to have everyone enjoy the season.

The Ripper Owens Syndrome Mar

2.

2009.

Here's my problem: Unlike a fair number of people of my general political description, I don't buy into the trendy sound bite that Rush Limbaugh is the true leader of the Republican Party. The bad news, though, is that for the life of me I can't think of who is-and I suspect neither can anyone else, which means a professional attention-seeking loudmouth like Limbaugh seems to have the gig for no other reason than no one else has stepped up. He's not a leader, he's just wearing bells and spangles, and everyone's looking at him and cheering as he capers. If you're looking in from the outside, the one everyone's paying attention to looks like the leader.

What really worries me is that if this vacuum at the top of the GOP goes on for long enough, then Limbaugh eventually will be considered the GOP's true leader, because he does a fairly impressive act of looking and sounding just like a GOP leader should look and act, even if at the end of the day all he's doing is mouthing the GOP Greatest Hits to a bunch of people who are doing the political equivalent of holding up lighters when their favorite-but-now-unfashionable power ballad gets cranked up at a concert.

Indeed, Limbaugh is the GOP manifestation of what I call The Ripper Owens Syndrome, in which a tribute band version of the lead singer performs the function of mimicking the actual lead singer so well that the real band hires him when the actual lead singer takes a hike-thus dooming the band to a shadowy half-life in which it releases alb.u.ms no one buys and it becomes its own cover band and plays the state fairs and is generally miserable. Not that the new lead singer minds; he's having a ball-until he gets unceremoniously dumped by the band a couple of years later. Because the fact is, there's more to being the lead singer than just standing up there and singing the same dozen songs someone else wrote and that everyone already knows.

Where the a.n.a.logy breaks down is that poor Ripper Owens was (sorry, Mr. Owens) some schmoe from Ohio who got a break from a band cynical enough to use him for life support; Limbaugh, on the other hand, has his own immense popularity and is canny enough to sense the vacuum at the top of the GOP as an opportunity for him to wield some genuine political power without that annoying intermediary step of having to get elected, either by the public or by the party. But what's good for Limbaugh is not necessarily good for the GOP-nor is it good for the country as a whole.

The real problem with Limbaugh is not his political positions, which are the bog-standard GOP sour mash of once-upon-a-time genuine conservatism denatured through three decades of 100 proof Will to Power, which makes sense because it's not like Limbaugh is interested in or capable of generating original political thoughts on his own. The real problem with Limbaugh is at the end of the day he's an entertainer, and his shtick relies on political division and dissension.

When Limbaugh bloviates that he wants the President of the United States to fail, his motivation is not a genuine pa.s.sion for conservatism, or alternately a genuine nilhilistic embrace thereof, in which he believes it's better for civilization to collapse than liberalism to succeed. Limbaugh wants to the President of the United States to fail because saying so is the sort of attention-getting jacka.s.sery that gives him a goose in the ratings. Expecting him to retract such a comment is just going to get him to double down on it. Limbaugh wants Obama to fail because it's good for his livelihood; whether it's bad for the GOP or the US as a whole is really not Limbaugh's problem.

You can't blame an attention-seeking blowhard who makes a living saying outrageous things for doing what he does; it's not like Limbaugh has anything else going for him. The GOP, on the other hand, ought to know better than to allow itself to be played by someone whose goals are short-term and selfish and at the end of the day only marginally aligned with the long-term goals of the GOP. But that's the GOP these days, isn't it: so rudderless that even its executive cla.s.s seems to have confused its top salesman with the CEO.

Or maybe it's they actually prefer it that way. Maybe the GOP is happy to be its own cover band. In the short term, I can't say this bothers me, because unlike Limbaugh, I have no desire for the president to fail, if for no other reason than if he fails, he's likely to take the country with him. It's not as if the GOP has a plan to get us out of this jam, other than to shout "tax cuts!" while running in tight little circles. In the long term, of course, it's depressing and worrying. The GOP needs to figure out what it stands for and how it's going to effectively embody genuine conservative thoughts and positions moving forward. It's certainly not going to do it with Limbaugh at the mike. There are only so many GOP Greatest Hits he knows, and there aren't that many state fairs left to play.

Romney and the LDS Church Feb