Category Archives: society & culture

The Anti-Trans Wave

In recent months, Republican legislators in state governments across the U.S. have introduced a torrent of bills that attack LGBTQ rights. If enacted into law, as some of them surely will be, these bills will cause both hardship and pain … Continue reading

Posted in politics, society & culture | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Lame & Queer

Apparently, Ursula Le Guin’s son has knuckled under to the forces of political correctness. He has consented to a few editorial changes in her children’s books. (You can read his explanation here.) The words “lame” and “queer” are being excised … Continue reading

Posted in fiction, society & culture | Leave a comment

White-Out

In today’s news, Elon Musk (a flagrant asshole) is defending Dilbert creator Scott Adams (also a flagrant asshole). Adams made some overtly racist remarks, as a result of which his once-popular comic strip is being dropped by a lot of … Continue reading

Posted in society & culture, unitarian universalism | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Changes in UU Article II (TL;DR)

Regular readers of this space (all five of you) will be aware that I’m concerned about some of the changes that have transpired in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) during the last few years. In 2020, the UUA charged a … Continue reading

Posted in religion, society & culture, unitarian universalism | 1 Comment

Ghost Stories

No, I’m not going to tell you how to write a story with ghosts in it. What interests me are the ghostly ideas that drift, unexamined or even unnoticed, across the pages of even the most realistic fiction. I don’t … Continue reading

Posted in fiction, society & culture, writing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Heretics R Us

In 325 A.D., the emperor Constantine arranged a conference among the Roman world’s Christian bishops. Accounts vary, but about 300 bishops traveled from near and far to the city of Nicaea, in what is now Turkey. Constantine paid for their … Continue reading

Posted in random musings, religion, society & culture | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Slinging Bullshit

Tonight on Facebook one of my friends posted some images of a thread about how a Harry Potter game has some implied anti-Jewish bigotry in it. I haven’t seen the game, but the description made it seem pretty bad. So … Continue reading

Posted in media, society & culture | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Get It Right, and Get It Written

I’ve written two novels that are historical mysteries. One of them is unpublished, and I’ll probably never get around to revising it, because it has problems. The other, While Caesar Sang of Hercules, I think worked pretty well. You can … Continue reading

Posted in fiction, society & culture, writing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Game Night!

We’re living in a sort of Golden Age of board games. When you say “board games,” many people surely think you mean Monopoly and Scrabble, or possibly checkers. But modern board games have advanced miles past those dusty classics. Today’s … Continue reading

Posted in games, random musings, society & culture | Tagged | 2 Comments

White Light

I won’t pretend to be comfortable with the idea of identity politics and “centering marginalized voices.” I would prefer to look at how things are now for individuals rather than agonize over past wrongs done to large groups. But I … Continue reading

Posted in random musings, society & culture | Tagged | Leave a comment