Tag: News

Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense Out Now!

On By emperorpondersIn English, writing1 Comment

The Spring issue of the All-New Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense is out now!

The big star of the spring issue, of course, is the brand-new Tarzan story Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She, by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Michael Tierney. Based on a fragment […]

via Cirsova Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense Out Now! — Cirsova

There’s a piece of forgotten literary history there (the Tarzan story) and just the cover of the magazine is probably worth the price, but I also have a story there, “The Elephant Idol,” so you might want to check it out. And by might I mean should. How many times have you read a story with a blind protagonist and not a single visual reference or visual descriptions in the entire text?

For those interested in background, creative work, the initial inspiration for the story was a not-so-subtle scene situation from the video game Thief (Gold,) the map The Song of the Caverns, to be precise, which is about the thieving protagonist getting into an opera house through a cavern (and I was aware that Cirsova’s editor is a great Thief fan, so this was a great way to subconsciously manipulate him into buying it something I guessed he might enjoy.)

I know not exactly from where, although I believe it came as I was thinking about what makes a first-person narration truly tick or not and about the descriptive excesses of some modern writing, but I got the fancy idea of writing a story with a blind protagonist, almost as a challenge. It was a risky and experimental move because I chose to write it in third-person, with a free yet at the same time limited narrator tied to the character’s senses, but I believe it worked well in the end. That’s something for the readers to decide, though.

I honestly had no idea of where the story would lead from there, and at first my idea was to make it somewhat humorous, but as usually happens in my writing, it evolved into horror as everything is thrown into The Warp, which is probably for the better and it also gave me the option to play around with the peculiar situation of a character whose handicap, at least at first, actually helps him because it shields him from what is going on around him.

You can buy the issue on Amazon (and other places as stated in the link above)

The institutionalized, privileged, casual, and shallow racial animus of the Woke Generation.

On By emperorpondersIn EnglishLeave a comment

 

“On a second front, the distinction between belief and behavior, between prejudice and discrimination, came under growing assault. The key moment here was the rapid acceptance of the concept of “institutional racism,” hailed by many as a great analytic advance, when, in fact, the only advance was in an ideological agenda. Institutional racism referred to the structural inequalities between racial and/or ethnic groups, in short, to the consequences of behavioral discrimination. These were said to be independent of individual attitudes, indeed, to have a self-perpetuating institutional life of their own. Attitudes were asserted to be irrelevant to the existence of institutional racism.”

From the entry “Race (Racism)” by Pierre L Van den Berghe in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2007 Bolded part is mine.

Another day, another idiot on Twatter, but this time, and showing that mainstream liberal press is scraping the bottom of the barrel, this idiot is a New York Times hire.

Continue reading “The institutionalized, privileged, casual, and shallow racial animus of the Woke Generation.” →

Updating my journal: literary projects, Cirsova, and other people’s work.

On By emperorpondersIn English, Review2 Comments

I have realized that I have managed to accumulate a reasonable number of short stories/novelettes, some of them unsent to potential publishers or awards, others sent but rejected (although usually with an “almost a winner” note appended, so there’s that.) And I have also realized that since I follow a setting-less style of writing (or at least a setting that is hidden from the reader and unexplained) I can just string them together. And that’s probably what I will do.

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Kultural Kontroversy Kommentators, you are still not political.

On By emperorpondersIn EnglishLeave a comment

Of the many things I wrote in my book Dangerous Gaymers Gamers, one that readers (the half-dozen of you) usually point out as surprising is my claim that the Internet kerfuffles and “controversies” surrounding entertainment and, especially, the so-called political bent, bias, or content that has been injected in video games, games, movies, books… (i.e. nerd and popular culture) is not really political. In fact, I even said that political thinking and sociopolitical content has virtually disappeared from popular culture. And I was right, and I’m still right.

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Game of Scoliosis*, manly posture, suits, and other stuff.

On By emperorpondersIn English, fantasy, Philosophy, Uncategorized1 Comment

*Kyphosis, actually, but that doesn’t sound that funny.

I saw this image yesterday, and I chuckled immediately. It was a reflexive laughter, and it took me awhile to understand what exactly had triggered my reaction.

GoT
That’s from the TV show Game of Thrones, in case you have been living under a rock these last years. Image Sauce: NYTimes

As I said, I laughed when I saw this, even before I had consciously processed what I had seen. A few minutes of heavy thunkin’ later, I realized what was wrong: they look ridiculous while trying to look cool, which is the worst kind of ridiculousness that exists.

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DISUM 19-04-2018

On By emperorpondersIn Disum, UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

  1. You definitely have a problem, Houston.

Ex-Houston 911 operator guilty of hanging up thousands of callers – CBS News 19.04.2018

A former 911 operator in Houston has been found guilty of hanging up on people calling for emergency services. Jurors on Wednesday found 44-year-old Crenshanda Williams guilty of interference with emergency telephone calls, a misdemeanor.

She was sentenced to 10 days in jail and 18 months of probation.

Prosecutors from the Harris County district attorney’s office say she worked as a 911 operator for a year and a half, ending in 2016. Records showed that thousands of calls lasting less than 20 seconds were attributed to her hanging up. She was fired after a supervisor noticed the unusual number of “short calls,”

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DISUM 26-03-2018

On By emperorpondersIn Disum, EnglishLeave a comment

1. Sweden, yes!

In Sweden’s Preschools, Boys Learn to Dance and Girls Learn to Yell – New York Times 24.03.2018

Science may still be divided over whether gender differences are rooted in biology or culture, but many of Sweden’s government-funded preschools are doing what they can to deconstruct them. State curriculum urges teachers and principals to embrace their role as social engineers, requiring them to “counteract traditional gender roles and gender patterns.”

It is normal, in many Swedish preschools, for teachers to avoid referring to their students’ gender — instead of “boys and girls,” they say “friends,” or call children by name.[…]

Exactly how this teaching method affects children is still unclear.

One of the few peer-reviewed efforts to examine the method’s effects, published last year in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, concluded that some behaviors do go away when students attend what the study called “gender-neutral” preschools.

For instance, the children at these schools do not show a strong preference for playmates of the same gender, and are less likely to make assumptions based on stereotypes. Yet, the scientists found no difference at all in the children’s tendency to notice gender, suggesting that may be under a genetic influence.

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DISUM 24-03-2018: Astute retirement plan and Inconceivable Chaos

On By emperorpondersIn Disum, UncategorizedLeave a comment

1. French officer who swapped places with a hostage in terror attack dies – CNN 24.03.2018

A police officer who swapped places with a female hostage during an attack by an ISIS supporter on a supermarket in southern France has died of his wounds, French authorities said.

Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, 45, was shot in the neck Friday after offering to take the place of a woman during a gunman’s assault on the Super U supermarket in Trèbes.
[…]
Last year Beltrame was appointed deputy commander of the anti-terror police in the Aude region.
According to the newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, Beltrame led a simulated terror attack in December on a supermarket for training purposes, similar to the one Friday in which he lost his life.

 

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DISUM 22-03-2018: Robot fish, dictators, and referendums.

On By emperorpondersIn Disum, UncategorizedLeave a comment

1.The elimination of the dreaded female gender goes apace, evil patriarchs all around the world rejoice.

All-women’s college asks profs not to call students ‘women’ – Campus Reform 19.03.2018

Mount Holyoke College, an all-women’s school, is asking professors to avoid calling students “women” or otherwise referring to “the two genders.”

The Supporting Trans and Non-Binary Students guide was created by officials at the college, which touts its legacy as an all-women’s college, in an effort to promote a “gender neutral” classroom environment.

Continue reading “DISUM 22-03-2018: Robot fish, dictators, and referendums.” →