Today's Diversions

Bush, Rumsfeld, and Powell take some time off to model for the Banana Republic catalog...

Matt Cheney's got a post up about some of the flack Strange Horizons appears to be taking for publishing a soft SF story... that's about the sexual relationship between two women. Though I agree that the story would have been better placed in an erotica anthology (and for erotica, it's not all that great either), I applaud SH for taking it on - if nothing else, it leads to discussions like this about what the hell SF is. Ideally, this story should have been weightier, and explored some issues, really gotten me in the gut - instead, it was like "Huh. Time travelers. The Love That Cannot Speak Its Name. Prostitution. What's the point?" As someone who was drawn to writing SF/fantasy because I felt it was the best place to explore worlds that were *really* different (including social roles), I've since become frustrated with just how narrow and conservative most of the genre really is. Like Matt said: "Science fiction, the literature of yesterday's future!" (to be fair, there are a number of writers doing great stuff - Kelly Link being a good example, but they get flack for it, and haven't been as commercially successful as they should be. Read her collection Stranger Things Happen).

For those interested, Nick Mamatas has also shown up in the comments section of that post, and sparks will fly.

And you may be interested in this double-speak Forbes article about how Americans are living longer, healthier lives... yet 69% of older Americans are "overweight", which is EVIL. Yet, we're living longer, healthier lives... yet...

Yea. C'mon you guys, when are you going to fess up and tell us that most people have an 80lb "healthy weight" range, not a 10lb one, and people's set weights and metabolisms are very different? When are you going to admit it's more important to move your ass than to have less of an ass?

Bah. These people exhaust me.