That’s My Dad

I haven’t been able to get this out of my head, so I’m getting it down.

I’m sure you’re aware of Gus Walz’s big moment at the Democratic Convention:

A young man, overwhelmed with love and pride as his dad accepts the Vice Presidential nomination. It was a beautiful moment, pure emotion. Pure love. M heart squeezed as I watched.

So I knew instantly MAGA was going to come for him.

The leading edge haters did — Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza (who is a convicted felon by the way). The usual bottom feeders, calling him “a puffy beta,” “weird” and a “soy boy.” Just mocking and dragging this young man for loving his dad. He’s only 17.

But they were quickly checked by people pointing out Gus is neurodivergent. He has a learning disorder and anxiety. Mocking the disabled is still too much for rank and file MAGA, although their Dear Leader. can do it with impunity.

Some MAGA complained that they were “tricked” into mocking Gus. Because they “didn’t know” he was disabled. Like this fine specimen.

The Walz family has spoken publicly about Gus’s challenges and how they help him navigate them. It took a lot for him to be there in that huge stadium full of screaming people at all — as someone with anxiety as well, I know. I would have melted down. With fear, not happiness.

But here’s the thing — it doesn’t matter if Gus is neurodivergent OR NOT. Being overwhelmed with love for your father at his proudest moment is PERFECTLY NORMAL HUMAN EMOTION. There is nothing strange or unnatural about it. We should all hope to be so loved.

And you just don’t mock people like that. You just don’t. * It’s cruel. It’s small. It’s ugly.

All sorts of grown-ass people who should know better mocked a teenage boy publicly on the Internet. For *showing emotion.*

This is the worldview MAGA and Project 2025 want to bring us. This kind of “Biblical man- and womanhood.” I’m horrified by the vision of human relations they espouse. Where men are supposed to be some kind of emotionless brutes who only speak with their fists or their dick. The only acceptable emotions are rage and lust.

And women are — well, property, basically. Livestock. Breeders. Look at the landscape post-Dobbs: women who could have a brief, safe medical procedure and go on to live their lives and have more children, are dying or having their fertility forever destroyed. The right fetishizes baby-making, but don’t care if women are killed and mutilated when it goes wrong. Why do they hold our lives so cheaply?

Trump and Co. will strip women of the right to vote if they can. They flat-out say so. Peter Thiel, Posobiec, Fuentes. It’s in there.

Black men will be next.

This is the world a vote for Trump will bring us. Shitty little white men imposing their thwarted desires to be “strong” and “powerful” on the whole nation, by color of law if they can. By force if they can’t.**

These people are not mentally healthy. My husband laughed at me when I implicated “abusive parenting,” but Google “blanket training” and see if you agree with him, or with me.

Emotionally mature and stable people know, like Vice President Harris said, that leadership is truly marked not by who you beat down, but who lift up. VP Harris and Coach Walz have lifted a lot of people in their lives.

We can’t let these broken people, who can’t even recognize real love when they see it., run the country. Vote for Gus’s dad and his running mate on November 8.

*Except fascists. Mocking them is essential.

**Expect violence leading up to and on the Election Day. That’s a whole separate thing.

August 27, 2024 0

For Love of Country

So I’m sitting here this morning rewatching the Democratic National Convention Roll Call, and I’m just weeping for love of country. The Roll Call starts at about 1:20:00. I don’t know how to link that, sorry.

But this is a wake and bake kind of day, and I’m retired and can do things like sit and watch a political convention all day. So take that into account.

I’m watching it on YouTube. As you see above. If you just want to watch it, it’s live-streaming on practically every social platform: YouTube, Facebook, even X.* Even Twitch. That’s how I’ve been watching. It’s great.

I should have mentioned it sooner. But there are still a couple days of convention left, and you can replay it and catch up. No commentary. ZERO spin or slant. Just the actual process of the convention itself. If you’re fed up with the “MSM” for our various reasons, ditch it and watch this beautiful celebration of democracy for yourself.

No overpaid talking heads flapping their yaps, creating their narratives, telling us we didn’t see what we all just saw. And it’s not slow or dull. It moves along at a fine clip. It is a stage production after all, and these people, unlike the GQP, are professionals. Watch it and see the diversity of the United States. This is the real America.

The idea of staging the Roll Call as some kind of geriatric rave was strangely genius. It has a live DJ with the most GenX playlist ever. But people were hyped and it moved along and it was genuinely emotional to see our country actually represented. The party grunts, the people who plan and execute these things, must all be GenX now. If we end up as kingmakers in the background, that seems strangely appropriate, doesn’t it?

I’ll have more to say about the power of live video in the future. But for now, if you’re sick of the media bullshit, watch the process of party-level democracy for yourself. It’s fun.

I’m not giving those sons of bitches any clicks.

August 21, 2024 0

Murphy’s Law

So I barely left the house for two whole years.

Then I tried to start living again, and went to a writer’s conference.

The conference was great. But I caught Covid-19 out there.

I’m fully vaxxed of course. But you can still get it.

I got the monoclonal antibodies today because of my underlying conditions. It’s supposed to help me feel better quickly. I don’t feel better.

Don’t travel these holidays. Cases are rising. It’s not worth it. Wait a year.

November 23, 2021 1

You Just Have to Do It

I had a great time at the Geek Fest down at Main Library Saturday. I sat on an author’s panel, and we had a really good talk, “Can Science Fiction inspire change in the real world?” (Spoiler: Yes.)

Geekpanel — Left to right, authors Claudia Gray, Brandon Black, Maurice Ruffin, myself, Zach Bartlett, moderator.

I met bestselling author Maurice Ruffin, author of WE CAST A SHADOW:

Alys Arden was running the Tubby & Coo’s table, and she hand-sold my book! (Or tried to anyway.)

Alys was a real team player Saturday, helping out and supporting other authors, like having an impromptu panel with Bryan Camp:

Big shout out to Alys, whose third book in the Casquette Girls series, The Cities of Dead, just came out. I appreciated her support Saturday.

Bryan’s second book, Gather the Fortunes, sequel to The City of Lost Fortunes, comes out later this month!

So I did have a really great time. But the thing is, I had to force myself to do it. Represent myself as an author allied with the library, who deserved to be there.

I have real issues with marketing my work. I’m so introverted and socially avoidant, I quail at the thought of putting myself or my work out there, even if it’s just online. God forbid actually in public in front of real people.

But you have to do it. No one’s going to read your books if they don’t know they’re there.

When my book was first published, I asked Alys, “How do you make yourself market your book?”

And she said, “You just have to do it. You just have to put yourself out there. It’s hard. But you just do it, and it gets easier.”

Well, I struggled and avoided it for a long time, but when I learned of Geek Fest, I thought, I have to be involved in this. I thought, Hey, why aren’t I on that panel?

So I talked to the organizers, some of my colleagues at Main Library, and said, “Hey, I want to be on that panel at Geek Fest.” And they said okay.

And it went well. And there are rewards too:

This is Bethany. She came up to me after the panel. I thought she was going to give me grief for trash-talking Laurel K. Hamilton. (An unpopular opinion.)

But no. She said, “I’m Bethany. I work with your husband. He gave me your book to read, and I loved it!”

Wow! My first time hearing from a fan out in the field. What an incredible moment. Isn’t this why we write at all? To reach people, to be heard? Thank you, Bethany!

“She said, “I just wanted you to know.” I offered her one of my cards with this website on it, and she said, “I have one, Sam gave it to me.” So, hi Bethany! Great to meet you! We talked about my follow-on book to Daughter of Atlas, which isn’t a straight sequel, but shows what happens elsewhere when Atlantis falls. Which Bethany said was what she was curious about in a sequel. So that was wildly encouraging.

They say that’s the way indie authors build their fan base, one reader at a time. The only way you can do that is by reaching out to them, both on and off-line.

So, if you are struggling with marketing your books, don’t be afraid. If I can do it, anyone can do it. Go ahead and shoulder yourself onto a panel at your local sci-fi con. You never know who you might meet.

May 6, 2019 1

See You at Geek Fest

Tomorrow is both Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you) and Free Comic Book Day. And to celebrate, New Orleans Public Library with have its third (I think) annual Geek Fest, a one-day mini-con of all things geek. There will be vendors, a cosplay fashion show and workshop, gaming, snacks, and more. The Best Buy Teen Center makerspace will be open for everyone to play.

I’ll be on the Science Fiction Writers panel at 11:00 AM with other local authors. The topic is , “Can sci-fi affect change in the real world?” What do you think?

Here is the schedule. There’s a lot going on!

GF Program Guide

Hope to see you there if you are in town!

May 3, 2019 0