Well, at least we're assured an elected member of the executive branch who has done national service this time around. Maybe it's time to get up off the couch and help govern…
- About four decades too late, D&D is removing "race" from the basic character attributes. That was a topic of some griping in my gaming group back in the day (you are not supposed to ask about that heavily-annotated-in-the-margins three-volume set and copy of Chainmail over on the bookshelves, including the corrections of the measurement typos).
However, it led, and continues to lead, to a broader question that both the gaming community and speculative fiction have generally refused to confront: Given that the subjects of both are exceptional individuals engaged in exceptional acts/quests/etc., exactly how much sense does it make to turn the rest of the milieu back to Valdosta in 1832 (unless, that is, one is gaming the rural antebellum South — into which orcs would be a tough fit, and it was decades too early for Grand Dragons)? Doesn't that sort of stereotyping actually undermine and devalue the central characters, and for games the players themselves? Do rhetorical questions with obvious answers provide any relief from the ongoing political campaigns?
- As to that last, I'm afraid not. We just had a jungle-primary election here. Results are still coming in, but it looks like at least one of the White Walkers won't be on the fall ballot. Which is a good thing; this is Seattle — rain is coming.
- Speaking of quasizombies, Utah is banning books (again). Not just demanding proof of adulthood, but actually removing them from libraries. This pisses me off. This is unAmerican, and demonstrates that those in power in Utah have no shred of common decency. Callbacks entirely intentional… but it won't be long before books that might enlighten those in Utah about it will themselves be removed from libraries…
- Quips and improvised attempts to be/seem clever have a tendency to reveal some ugly defects in the speaker's worldview (I cannot invoke even illusory absolute immunity) — and especially from politicians. When a candidate proclaims that only those with children should be listened to because only those people have a stake in the future of the nation — and then tries to revise the plain/original public meaning of what he said by retroactively claiming he had an entirely different purpose and target, despite the dearth of supporting evidence (and despite his failure at the time to so state, when he had plenty of opportunity to do so) — one must wonder. <SARCASM> Foster and adoptive parents clearly aren't worth listening to because those aren't their biological offspring. Those who learn of their own genetic issues (or chemical exposures) and won't inflict the defects on children obviously care nothing for the future. Those who lose their only child also care nothing for the future. </SARCASM>
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