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Lakeshore
An author of no particular popularity

Jay Lake
Date: 2010-05-07 07:01
Subject: [links] Link salad wants a Red Bull Party in politics
Security: Public
Tags:cool, culture, ebooks, links, personal, photos, politics, publishing, reviews, science, stories
talekyn with a review of my novella "Chain of Fools" among other stories

Innsmouth Free Press reviews Dark Faith — They really liked my story in that volume, "Mother Urban's Booke of Dayes".

The free music mirage — A fascinating essay on "music wants to be free", which has strong parallels for online fiction and in particular, ebooks. (Via Cheryl Morgan.)

The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn — Very early color photos from around the world.

Neanderthal Genome Rewrites Human Evolution — Genetic evidence suggests there's a little Neanderthal in all of us. No one knows what's it like to be the sad man behind Neanderthal eyes.

The Sex And Oil Scandals Of The Minerals Management Service — Those scandals would be under the Bush administration, meaning these guys were appointees and hires from the party of family values. Loves me that justly-famed Republican principled consistency.

Abortion veto choice is defining, or redefining, moment for Charlie Crist — "Even though I'm pro-life I don't want to impose my will on others." Wow. I have never heard a conservative politician say that. Generally conservatives are all about imposing their will on others — persecuting gays and pregnant women, giving private religious beliefs the force of law for the population as whole, eliminating assistance for those in need, etc. are all clearly-stated core values of the conservative movement. Assuming Crist doesn't do a Limbaugh walk-back in the next day or two, I am provisionally impressed.

It's Not That You're Racist... — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the conservative "outrage" over Obama's use of the term "tea bagger", and comparisons conservatives are making to the N-word. "Tea bagger" would be a term that the Tea Party came up with to describe themselves, and that some of their leadership is still using. (Unlike, say, "libtard", which I was recently called for using the Tea Party's own term to refer to them. No liberal came up with "libtard", and no liberal ever used it.) This reminds me of how the Republicans tried to pin their own term "nuclear option" on the Democrats during the filibuster kerfuffle a few years ago when the phrase polled badly. They're now trying to pin the Tea Party's own term "tea bagger" on liberal critics. Your Liberal Media is of course giving them voice without actually, well, fact checking or anything.

?otD: Tea or coffee?


5/7/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1 hour (revisions)
Body movement: n/a (off schedule as we prep for chemo infusion)
Hours slept: 7.0 (interrupted)
This morning's weigh-in: n/a (off schedule as we prep for chemo infusion)
Yesterday's chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue)
Currently (re)reading: Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

Post A Comment | 11 Comments | | Flag | Link


Rafe
User: etcet
Date: 2010-05-07 14:25 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
Gov. Crist recently told the GOP to stick it, and declared that he is running as a candidate sans party affiliation for the Senate this November, to distance himself from the increasingly deranged and strident ultra-conservative leanings espoused by that party, and their candidate of choice, Marco "Drill Baby Drill" Rubio.
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Clint Harris
User: wendigomountain
Date: 2010-05-07 14:26 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
Re Neanderthals: Ron Perlman. I'm just sayin'. :)
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the_blue_fenix
User: the_blue_fenix
Date: 2010-05-07 21:24 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
I think Perlman has a hormonal condition. Gerard Depardieu is more of a classic Neandert(h)al face.

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Nathan
User: mastadge
Date: 2010-05-07 14:34 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
But the new research shows that modern humans in Africa have a lower percentage of the Neanderthal genome than non-Africans do--implying that the founder group that left Africa interbred with Neanderthals before moving on to populate the other continents.

Ah, good. A new excuse for racism.
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User: swan_tower
Date: 2010-05-07 18:02 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
Keyword:Maleficent
Actually, I would read it as the reverse, presuming that by racism you mean an excuse to call Africans primitive. People from Africa are more "purely" anatomically modern H. sapiens, whereas the ones who left to eventually become Europeans and Asians and all the rest of it picked up more of the "backward" archaic H. sapiens DNA.

It's stupid to filter it through that kind of progressive evolutionary lens, of course, especially since the article points out that there seems to be no Neandertal DNA in the areas having to do with brain function, which is pretty much the one place that having a sense of superiority over our archaic cousins could be justified. But if somebody wants to use Neandertal genes as the basis for an insult, they'll be insulting everybody, but Africans less than the others.

(Of course, if by racism you meant an all-directional thing, rather than an anti-African thing, then yes -- anything that describes a genetic difference between different human populations can be used as the basis for prejudice. Which, again, is stupid.)

Anyway, the article's fascinating. When I was studying archaeology, the "out of Africa" vs. "regional continuity" debate was exclusively on the side of Africa, because there was no evidence for interbreeding with archaics like the Neandertals, and in fact it was a tossup whether they should be called H. sapiens neandertalensis or H. neandertalensis, i.e. a different species, i.e. not capable of interbreeding with anatomical moderns. Seems like "out of Africa" is still most of the explanation, but my instinct as a freshman was right; there's just a little from Column B mixed in.
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Nathan
User: mastadge
Date: 2010-05-07 21:53 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
I wasn't really looking at it as what came first or what's more pure, more a case of hegemonically privileged idiots being able to point and say, "You see! There is a difference! And difference combined with privilege means that there is a valid basis for our superiority!"

I agree that the article's fascinating and awesome. I was being at least moderately sarcastic. But unfortunately I can see it happening.
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User: swan_tower
Date: 2010-05-07 22:46 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
Keyword:Maleficent
I wasn't sure which way to interpret your words -- whether you thought the research would specifically feed anti-African bias, or were just imagining (quite rightly) how people tend to interpret any evidence of difference. And since the confusion of specialized terminology in human evolution (e.g. archaics vs. anatomical moderns) sometimes leads to people misunderstanding what these discoveries actually mean, I decided to err on the side of clarifying. Sorry if that came across as pedantic!
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User: (Anonymous)
Date: 2010-05-07 16:27 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
The Sex And Oil Scandals Of The Minerals Management Service — Those scandals would be under the Bush administration

So which of those people are still employed there?


/bemusedoutsider/
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Jay Lake
User: jaylake
Date: 2010-05-07 20:17 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
After all the years I spent hearing how Republicans had a moral compass and could be trusted to behave with virtue and integrity, unlike the immoral situational ethicists on the left, I have a profound allergy to such stories, as screaming examples of the hypocrisy of the "family values" party.

On a similar note, imagine if this story were about Clinton appointees. It would be front page headlines and topic one on talk radio and cable tv.
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Jay Lake
User: jaylake
Date: 2010-05-08 17:28 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
So which of those people are still employed there?

I think you're missing my point. The current administration doesn't represent the party that has built thirty years of electoral success on claiming absolute moral superiority and the mantle of ethics.
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User: mmegaera
Date: 2010-05-07 23:52 (UTC)
Subject: (no subject)
Keyword:reading
You want over-caffeinated politicians? Aren't they hyper enough already???
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