(Joe Lansdale is actually a very friendly and gregarious gentleman. He also once accidentally trashed a hotel room doing martial-arts demonstrations for friends, and on listening to him have a discussion with another con-goer about martial arts, I counted at least four different disciplines he’s studies. Later, on reading a short bio, I came across a mention of a fifth. The man wasn’t bragging, just stating facts.)

This is the first time I’ve really been to a con that focused on the professional and literary aspects of a genre, rather than being primarily a fan hangout. I’m sure there are interpersonal politics and bitchery like everywhere else, but I didn’t see it; everyone was gracious, friendly, and willing to talk about writing and horror without first insuring that I was an Important Person.

It was also very exciting to see Mr. K— get positive feedback on his writing. Why he believes I’d say nice things for no reason, I have no idea, but there is nothing quite like a roomful of strangers telling you ‘cool story, bro’ to make you believe hey, maybe my friends aren’t puffing me up about my writing being good.

And, of course, came home with a metric frackload of books.

One of the most interesting, and telling, things about her post was the reaction of some of her co-workers. While some of them thought it was pretty cool, others objected – often in irrational and bizarre ways that had nothing whatsoever to do with the stated objection. (For example, a complaint about the bot’s name being too long, or about “spamming” even though it was a response to a bot that, itself, was “spamming”.)

To me, all of this seems like typical geek behaviour: something is making them uncomfortable, and so they attack it on “rational” grounds. Most likely, they aren’t even aware of the gut reaction fueling their logic.

Spot on. Geeks are not very good at admitting to having irrational emotions, particularly if they are not especially admirable ones, and will construct jaw-droppingly elaborate towers of logicfail in order to prove themselves “right”. Even so, Smith’s constructive criticism made her point elegantly in a way that presented no purchase for sexist flailing. Kudos.

I would have thought previous takedowns would have ended his 15 minutes, but nobody apparently goes broke catering to the wealthy racist class in America.

In my case, I’d first say that marriage is a kin-making institution, which by definition transforms two unrelated (or at least not closely related) people into close kin. It makes no more sense for marriage to turn close kin into close kin than it does for an alchemist to transform gold into gold. It’s already gold.

Second, I’d point out that limiting incestuous marriage to adults would not solve the problem of child abuse, and could conceivably make it worse. Legal recognition of incestuous marriage could give sexually abusive fathers (or mothers — but in most cases, sexually abusive parents are fathers) a strong incentive to sexually abuse their daughters, in hopes of crushing her will before she comes of age, so she’ll agree to marriage.

Finally, I’d argue that child health and child abuse are not the only harms of incest. Importantly, legalizing incestuous marriage between the infertile would transform currently existing families, by introducing the possibility of marriage into relationships that have never had that possibility. It fundamentally changes the relationship between father and son, or between sister and brother, if we add the possibility of marital union to those relationships.

First was the whole nonsense about “discrimination”, as if left-handers had any different treatment than their right-handed counterparts. A lefty could, if he or she wanted, marry a righty, just as a righty can marry a righty. Tell me, how is that discrimination? Nobody said they couldn’t marry at all; they just want special treatment. (Don’t ask about the “ambidextrous.” They don’t exist; that’s just a phase a lot of people go through until they make up their mind as to whether they’re righties or lefties.)

Then they ignored the fact that left-handedness is not only rare, but something we would like to discourage. Of course many left-handed people can’t help the way they are, but they may be more likely to have left-handed children. And those children will struggle to get along in a right-handed world geared towards right-handed people in everything from pens to circular saws. It’s also well-known that being left-handed increases the risk of everything from ADHD to schizophrenia. Don’t we want to protect our children from the negative effects of sinister marriage?

The court’s decision also spit in the face of millennia of tradition favoring right-handedness. The same word for the majority of people’s hand orientation even means “correct” and “proper” in English. Multiple languages recognize the left side, and left-handedness, as being unlucky or evil – “sinister” in English and “gauche” in French, to pick two easy examples. Many cultures also treat the left hand as unclean or disfavored, useful only for unpleasant tasks. Yet the activist judges in the majority saw fit to set aside a hallowed cultural tradition held by human cultures going back to the dawn of time.

Don’t ask me if the opinion makes any legal sense; we don’t like the result, and that’s all we right-minded folk need to know that the court got it wrong.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make a donation to a religious charity that helps train left-handed people to hold a pencil in the correct hand; with time and effort, many can write their names legibly, and accept that they should marry a right-handed person, as all right-thinking people do.

Nonetheless, in the interests of self-help: No, you’re not crazy and yes, s/he is a complete jackass.

I sometimes think that these same people end up running socially conservative activist groups.

Witness the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s recent decision to end funding for Planned Parenthood’s breast-cancer screening program. Their claim, which they continue to maintain, is that this has nothing to do with abortion or contraception, but is simply pursuant to a (brand new) rule that they don’t give grants to groups “under government investigation”. By a startling coincidence, an anti-choice Congressman  has (again) started an investigation as to whether Planned Parenthood spend public money on providing abortions. By an even more startling coincidence, the foundation recently hired as its VP an anti-choice politician who made defunding Planned Parenthood part of her unsuccessful campaign. And Ms. Handel quietly ended the foundation’s support of cancer research (you know, a thing that’s part of its mission) involving embryonic stem cells. Nor has there been any suggestion that the new guidelines have been, or will be, applied to any of the other thousands of organizations receiving grants.

So why is the Komen foundation lying about its reasons for defunding Planned Parenthood?

Because that’s what they do. They can’t help it.

I recall hearing an interview with an anti-choice leader of the movement to pass a “parental notification” initiative in my state, in which they added a little paragraph about life starting at conception. The woman being interviewed was shocked, shocked at the suggestion that said paragraph might be taken as anything other than a legally meaningless statement of purpose: “I’m a lawyer,” she said, and she therefore knew there was no possible way that could bleed out into any other legislation. Which, as anybody who got their JD from an actual law school instead of a cereal box knows, is not only horseshit but is the exact opposite of how laws work.

Or consider when Mark Leno introduced SB-906 in California, which explicitly stated the (existing) rule that religious groups would not be forced to solemnize same-sex marriage. You would think that anti-LGBT groups would embrace it, but unsurprisingly, they did not; because one of their anti-equality talking points is “Your church will be forced to marry gay couples!” and they didn’t want to lose it.

A principled stance would be for the Komen foundation to state that they believe funding Planned Parenthood detracts from their mission of ending breast cancer; or that they believe Planned Parenthood engaged in misconduct; or that they believe abortion and contraception are contrary to the mission of protecting women’s health. But these aren’t principles; they are socially conservative politicians. They can’t help themselves.

• Make a 3-2-1 pie crust: three parts flour, two parts fat, one part water (by weight). Fat should be butter, but if you’re one of those people who freaks out at working with butter, use a little Crisco or leaf lard if you prefer. The water should be ice cold. Throw in a big pinch of salt and a little sugar. Prebake.
• Yes, you have to cook the pumpkin instead of using canned. You’re not a bad human being for using canned, but it just won’t taste as good. Get a pie pumpkin half the size of your head and roast it for about an hour at 350F. Cool slightly, get rid of the seedy pulp, and use the meat.
• Use this recipe.

1 1/2 to 2 cups cooked and cooled pumpkin (more or less depending on how firm and pumpkiny you want your pie), or a large can of canned pumpkin (sigh)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups half and half

1/4 cup (packed) brown sugar, light or dark, your choice, but I use light

1/2 cup regular white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspooon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Preheat your oven to 400F.

Blend the pumpkin in a food processor or blender. If your machine can hold everything, put in a cup of the half-and-half and everything else and blend until smooth, then add the rest of the half-and-half. If you don’t, or if you have canned pumpkin, just beat everything together in a bowl. Pour into your prebaked pie crust and cook for 15 minutes (it’s probably a good idea to put pie strips or foil over the pie crust edge, by the way). Turn your oven down to 350F and bake for 25-35 minutes, until the center of the pie is just barely still jiggly. Take it out and cool it well away from little helpers:

Kickstarter page has excerpts. A measly $5 gets a PDF copy for you crazy kids with your e-readers, and a published dead-tree version is only $20. I spent more than that for Halloween candy.

Desamours felt a hand around his ankle, heard a low, wet giggle.

“Like I say, focus on the future,” Kalfu said. “You’re back, you’re in the game. You need anything at all, let me know.”

Desamours woke up suddenly, a hand over his eyes. He smelled rum and rancid fat, heard Kalfu’s gunpowder hiss as the hand receded.

“Because, the way it’s looking now, baby,” Kalfu said, fading into the shadows of the room, “you could use some friends.”