Part 3 (1/2)

As an agnostic, I'm not afraid of my child learning about faith and how it's practiced. I think it's necessary, and I think it's valuable. I'm also not afraid that my child might adopt a faith as her own; she may indeed. If I have done my job as a parent, she will have done so from a position of knowledge, and of understanding everything that comes with adhering to a practice of faith-and with the ability to ignore or act against those who would try to use that faith as a lever to get her to do things counter to its teachings.

Likewise, I don't think any agnostic or atheist has much to fear in teaching their children about religion, if they answer their kids' questions truthfully, openly and in the spirit of giving their kids as much information as they can so their children can make their own decisions-which they will anyway, unless you've raised a drone, which is something I think most of us would rather not do. Raising your children to know they can ask things, they will get answers and that they can question any belief, religious or otherwise, raises the chance that whatever path they choose regarding faith-including the path that espouses no faith at all-they are on the correct path for them. As a parent, I think that's what you want.

A Couple of Quick and Final Post-Election Notes to Liberals and/or Obama Supporters Nov

13.

2012.

As I did offer some notes yesterday to those unhappy with Obama's victory, I figure it might be worth it to give a couple of notes to those who are thrilled about his re-election. Seems fair, etc. So: 1. It's been a week. You can crank back the schadenfreude. Yes, it's time. There's only so much poking of wounded conservatives you can do before you cross the line into just being an a.s.shole about it.

2. Don't get c.o.c.ky. Obama won by almost exactly the same popular vote margin as George Bush won in 2004. While the point is taken that in presidential elections it's the electoral votes that count, and that getting 271 of those is just as good as getting 400 in terms of job placement, it's worth recognizing that among the citizenry, there's a close-to-even split on how to run this particular railroad. Which dovetails nicely with the next point: 3. The mid-terms elections are out there. And the mid-term elections a) historically tend to favor the non-inc.u.mbent presidential party, b) tend to be decided by a smaller, more-committed group of voters. Which is to say: Hey, remember the 2010 elections? Don't think it can't happen again. It can, and it very well may.

4. 2012's electoral coalition isn't automatically permanent. In the short-term? Sure, it'll likely cohere for a couple election cycles at least. But, for example, if the GOP genuinely reaches out to Hispanics-more than the now grossly-obvious rush to embrace immigration reform-I don't think it's impossible that many Hispanics will find elements of the GOP platform attractive. As another example, if same-s.e.x marriage becomes a settled issue in the US, I know enough gays whose economic point of view would make conservatism a congenial intellectual home for them (aside from, you know, the ones who are already there).

5. Don't think the GOP is stupid. Yes, it got its a.s.s handed to it by Obama's high-tech/low-tech combo of exhaustive quant a.n.a.lysis and field operatives knocking on doors. That's going to work once. When 2016 comes around, the GOP will have baked that into their operation, and they'll have some new strategies to try out too. And if whoever is the 2016 Democratic candidate tries to run a 2012 campaign, he or she will get their a.s.s handed to them, too. And in the meantime the GOP is going to do what it does, namely, finding ways to block and frustrate Obama's and the Democrats legislative agenda. They're good at it, too. They own the House of Representatives, remember?

6. Don't think the most reactionary conservatives are actually going to ”go Galt.” That's just the reactionary conservative version of ”moving to Canada.” Just as liberals didn't rush the border in 2004, neither are these folks going to crawl into a bunker, or creva.s.se, or seastead or whatever. They're going to stay where they are, they're eventually going to calm down, and then they're going to get back to what it is they do. This is real world, and it's really hard to flounce out of it.

7. Don't think you know what the future will bring. Hey, around this time 2004, did you think the dude just elected as the junior senator from Illinois would be president? Had you even heard of him? I knew of him very vaguely, mostly because he won his seat against Alan Keyes, who had been recruited when the former Republican candidate fell out because of a s.e.x scandal. Illinois, man. When he announced his presidential candidacy in February 2007, did anyone think he was going to be anything other than a speedb.u.mp for Hillary Clinton? If you think you know how 2016 is going to play out, you may be deluding yourself.

8. Nothing's been decided but who was elected president. I mentioned this last Wednesday, but it bears repeating. Obama's got four more years. Everything else? We'll see. And if you thought you were going to be able to lie back for the next four years, guess again. No one else is taking the time off. The GOP isn't. Almost certainly Obama isn't.

Crimes of Education Jan

30.

2011.

I've been getting a lot of e-mail asking for my thoughts about Kelley Williams-Bolar, a woman here in Ohio who was recently sentenced to ten days in prison (of which apparently she served nine) and now has a felony record because she and her father listed the father's residence as the primary residence of her children, in order that the kids could go to school in a better school district. As I understand it, idea here is that because she didn't live in the district and pay taxes there, she committed fraud, although from what I understand the jury wouldn't or couldn't convict on that charge and instead she was found guilty of tampering with court doc.u.ments. Ironically Ms. Williams-Bolar is not that far off from getting a teaching credential, which she now may not be able to use because she's a felon.

How do I feel about this? Well, I will tell you a true story. When I was in sixth grade, my mother and her then-husband broke up, and in the s.p.a.ce of three months I lived in four different houses in three different cities, and in three different school districts. The school district I had been in when this all started had a genuinely excellent ”gifted and talented” program, and my teacher at the time, Keith Johnson, was one of those teachers that you're lucky to get once in your entire life. I'd been at the school for a couple of years and I had friends who I still have now. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the breakup of my mother and her husband wasn't exactly out of the blue, and the school and the people who were there who cared about me were an island of stability in a life which was, though no fault of my own, completely messed up.

When my mother left our house and moved, taking me and my sister with her, what she should have done, procedurally speaking, was take me out of that school and put me in a new one, in the city we then lived in. And then two months and two moves later, when we were in a new city and new school district entirely, she should have done it again, giving me three different schools, three sets of schoolmates and three entirely different social situations to adapt to on top of the fact that my family and home life had just been blown up.

She did no such thing. Through four moves, three cities and three school districts I stayed in the same cla.s.s with the same teacher and the same friends and cla.s.smates. How my mother managed to do this is something she would have to tell you, but in point of fact I know that officially-and, I suspect, legally-speaking I was not supposed to have been allowed to stay there. My mother made the decision to do what she thought was better for me rather than what was probably the letter of the law.

Did my mother break the law doing what she did? I don't know, but possibly. Did she break the rules? She certainly did. Did she do the right thing? Probably not, from the point of view of the procedures of the school district. From the point of view of what was best for her child: Absolutely. There's really no doubt about that. And if in fact my mother broke the law on my behalf way back when, I can say that doing so made a positive difference at a critical time in my life.

So: How do I feel about Ms. Williams-Bolar? Basically, I think she deserves a prison term and a felony conviction about as much as my mother did, for performing essentially the same actions, thirty years ago.

The Cool Kids Hanging Out Mar

22.

2012.

Lance in Huntington Beach asks: Wil Wheaton just Tweeted Chris Hayes about Rachel Maddow. Why is it that everyone I follow on Twitter, watch on TV or read seems to know one another? Is the world really that small? Does a bit of notoriety buy you immediate acceptance from other notables? Or is there a special club you all belong to and once again, it's me being picked last for dodgeball? Please explain.

First: Dude, it's totally you being picked last for dodgeball, man. You're too slow. You keep being taken out first! And your throwing arm? Sheesh.

Second: Just because you tweet someone about someone else on Twitter doesn't mean you know them to any significant degree. Twitter just gives one the ability to send a comment to anyone else on Twitter, and if you're following one or both of those people, you'll see the tweet. I could tweet, say, Fred Durst about the Dalai Lama, it doesn't mean I know either of them. Fred Durst could even respond to me (or for that matter, so could the Dalai Lama) and it still wouldn't qualify as ”knowing” either of them in any meaningful sense. So that's an important thing to remember about Twitter.

Third: It's not that the world is small, it's that who you are interested in as notables is specialized enough that there's a reasonably good chance they might know each other.

As an example: I am notable, to the extent I am notable, primarily for being a science fiction writer-many of the people who follow me online one way or another (although not all) did so at least initially because they heard of me as a science fiction writer. This means there's a pretty good chance they read science fiction and fantasy and also consider other science fiction and fantasy writers as notable to some extent or another.

As a science fiction writer, I attend a reasonable number of conventions, where I've met other science fiction and fantasy writers; I've also been a member of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for nearly a decade, and through that I have also had contact with a large number of sf/f writers. Over several years of seeing these folks over and over, some of them have become friends-some of them very good friends-because we have similar life situations, professional concerns, and recreational enthusiasms. Many of the rest of them I've come to know professionally as peers, particularly after I became president of SFWA and these writers became my const.i.tuency.

So if you're an sf/f fan for whom these writers are important, and you see me chatting online with my friends who also happen to be sf/f writers, it looks like all the cool kids are hanging out, doing cool kid stuff together online, and so on. And how cool is that? Pretty cool. Of course, if you're not an sf/f fan, and you saw me chatting online with my friends who also happen to be sf/f writers, it looks like a middle-aged dude doing a whole lot of procrastination on Twitter with a bunch of other mostly lumpy 30-, 40- and 50-somethings. That is, if you're looking at my Twitter feed at all, and if you're not an sf/f fan, why would you? And thus we learn the truly specialized nature of ”notability.”

I know sf/f writers because I am an sf/f writer, and this sort of professional a.s.sociation is why (of course) a lot of your favorite actors will know other of your favorite actors, why your favorite musicians will know other of your favorite musicians, why the cool scientists out there seem to know the other cool scientists, and so on. Beyond mere professions, there will be other sorts of situational overlaps. One of the great cultural questions of our time is why do very successful musicians and actors always seem to date other very successful actors or musicians (or supermodels). The answer is, well, who else are they going to date? It's not as if someone like George Clooney can put up an OK Cupid profile like a common schmoe. They're going to date other famous people because a) they're the people they know, b) they're the people who understand the life and can (possibly) tolerate all the c.r.a.p around it. An actor dating a supermodel, or an actress dating a musician, is the famous person equivalent of a corporate VP dating a manager in human resources.

The actual mundane rationales for the surface fabulousness of the famous (or at least notable) aside, there is one advantage to being a notable of any sort, which is that it makes it slightly easier to make the acquaintance of the people you nerd out over, because it's possible they already know who you are and may even be fans of your work (or you). And while mutual admiration is not a good foundation to a lifelong friends.h.i.+p, it does make that initial encounter a lot easier, because you each already think positively of the other.

Look, I'm not going to lie: like any other person, ”notable” people geek out at getting to meet and hang out with the people they admire. I mean, s.h.i.+t, man: The fact that Robert Silverberg knows me? Seems to tolerate me? Does not in fact recoil when I enter the room? There have to be multiple universes because this one universe cannot contain all of my squee. If you have the chance to meet the people you admire, chances are pretty good you're going to take it. If it turns out nothing comes of it, then no harm done. But if it turns out you like each other and become pals? Then you're living the fanboy dream. Which you never say out loud, of course. But even so.

And then there's the fact that when you're friends with someone notable, they often have other friends who are notable, who you then get to meet, and thus your network of notable acquaintances grows, simply because your friends have friends, i.e., you meet people like any person meets people, i.e., through your friends.

Now, there's the flip side, which is you meet someone you admire and then find out they're kind of an a.s.s. But I'm delighted to say that at least so far, this has not been my experience. Also, notable or not, you don't want to be That Social Climbing d.i.c.k, i.e., the guy who becomes friends with someone and then immediately starts looking to trade up in their friend circle. People aren't stupid and don't like being used. And that, too, is a constant in all human relations.h.i.+ps, whether the people in them are ”notable” or not.

But basically, Lance, when you see all the folks you consider the ”cool kids” talking to each other online, it's that fact that you consider them the cool kids that makes it seem like something special. Believe me, they probably thank you for it. But someone else who does not see these people as notable might see it as what it is: a bunch of folks who know each other to varying degrees, doing what people do online-letting each other know they're part of each others' lives. And possibly planning a dodgeball tournament.

The Cubbies Win the Existential Pennant! The Cubbies Win the Existential Pennant!

Oct

5.

2008.

A few days ago someone sent me an e-mail asking me if I was at all concerned that the Chicago Cubs, who finished at the top of the National League, would go all the way to the World Series and win, thus rendering obsolete a comment that one of my characters made in Old Man's War, defending the Cubbies despite their then at least two centuries of champions.h.i.+p futility. I wrote back and said this was one of those things I really didn't worry about. One reason I didn't worry about it is that there are no explicit dates noted in OMW, so I could just say that those two centuries of futility begin whenever it is the Cubbies win their last one.