Ultimate Woke- bladeless Swiss Army knife- Boy Scouts say hold my beer.

[philip964]

I’m watching Jeopardy final jeopardy on Thursday.

A short haired woman named Rowan easily won.

The announcer kept referring to her as “They” and I kept looking for the person with her or thinking he was referring to the othe contestants with her. He wasn’t.

https://www.advocate.com/television/202 ... nce-finals

[C-dub]

I’m watching Jeopardy final jeopardy on Thursday.

A short haired woman named Rowan easily won.

The announcer kept referring to her as “They” and I kept looking for the person with her or thinking he was referring to the othe contestants with her. He wasn’t.

https://www.advocate.com/television/202 ... nce-finals

It kinda makes me wonder how many personalities are in there.

[philip964]

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/12/f ... n-college/

Oberlin College finally pays the $36 million.

Go woke go broke.

[philip964]

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/12/14/n ... orm-rules/

Non binary flight attendant sues Alaskan Airlines over not being able to mix and match uniforms and restrictions on tattoos , piercings and hair styles.

[Rafe]

The 2022 Hugo Awards (the top science fiction literary award) were announced recently and I had a discussion about gender "wokeness" with a writer friend that didn't go so well.

Background is that for several years now, whether it's the National Book Awards or just the books recommended in Publishers Weekly's "tip sheet" emailed every Friday, it's increasingly become that books with "wokeness" are more liable to get recognition than those that don't center around it. The 2022 Hugo Award for best novel pretty well was cementing evidence for me, but my writerly friend disagreed.

I extrapolated some numbers from this article at TheHill.com, which used 2020 U.S. Census results. An estimated 20 million U.S. adults (of the 258.3 million total) identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. That's about 7.74% of the adult population, and roughly twice as large as prior estimates. But it's still only 7.74%. Of those, adults who identify as bisexual make up about 4% of the adult population, gay and lesbian adults about 3%, and those who identify as transgender about 0.77% of the adult population.

The Hugo award for best novel each year lists a winner, plus five titles that were on the final shortlist for the award. For 2022, all six of the titles had either a LGBTQ+ protagonist and/or a LGBTQ+ thematic element. Further, of the six authors themselves, one is transgender, one identifies as gender non-binary, and two are women married to other women.

My stance, which my writer friend vehemently disagreed with, is that, just like the travesty that has become Disney (and their destruction of the Marvel Comics Universe), fiction publishing has become a morass of virtue-signaling. Gender--like just about everything else--has been a theme of great speculative fiction in the past (e.g., Heinlein’s 1961 A Stranger in Strange Land and LeGuin’s 1969 The Left Hand of Darkness), but now it's gotten to the point that if you want an agent to represent you and a chance at an award, you have to have a main character who is both bi-racial and transgender, and the plot has to be thematically peppered with loads of societal oppression about the character being bi-racial and transgender. For bonus points, make the "societal oppression" that of some shadowy, fascist government so that it's pervasive, a la Orwell's 1984. And it goes without saying that you'd have to make any kind of gun "a very bad thing" and clearly not know the first thing about how historic or current-day firearms work.

Hm. I wonder if ChatGPT could churn out a book outline...

[Chemist45]

The HUGO, Nebula other F&SFG awards have been woke for a very long time.
Most of the publishing houses are run by college educated liberal women.
I have been a SF fan for 50 years. I don't pay attention to the awards anymore.
For real SciFi read Larry Correia, Tim Zahn, David Weber, John Ringo and others like them.
Look for books published by Baen books.
These people will never win a Hugo and they don't care.
They write books with good guys using guns to get stuff done.
They write books that I want to read.
They write books that you will want to read.
They write books that they want to read.

[RSX11]

For real SciFi read Larry Correia, Tim Zahn, David Weber, John Ringo and others like them.

Excellent authors, all.
MIght I also recommend David Drake (the Hammer's Slammer's series in particular), Taylor Anderson (the Destroyermen series) and Charles Stross (the Laundry series). All quality science fiction, untainted by wokeness.

[srothstein]

I am not a big fan of Larry Correia though I do like Zahn, Weber,Ringo, David Drake and many similar authors. I got hooked on SF in elementary school in the 60's. I remember starting with Lester Del Rey's work, some of Ray Bradbury's work, and then moving on to Asimov and Heinlein. RAH quickly became my favorite of all time (still is) with Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land being my two favorites.

One thing I noticed, even with RAH, is that many stories included elements of sexual changes/freedoms in daily life. This includes homosexual incidents in the stories. While there were some comments on gender roles in several books, the only RAH book I recall delving into gender identity/transexuality was I Will Fear No Evil. The story, for those who are not familiar, is based on a rich old man who gets a brain transplant when his body was failing. The donor body was a young female. The premise is that the woman's personality was still in the body and the man was able to talk to her.

With most of the authors listed above or by me, sexual content references were almost always incidental to the story and never hit the reader over the head or forced them into it. I also agree with Chemist45 that most of the authors he lists and others published by Baen are not writing to win Hugo awards (or any other), They write to tell good stories that the reader will enjoy as entertainment. Using Baen publishing as a filter when looking at new authors is usually a good bet. I may miss some, but I can't remember being disappointed by one.

[Rafe]

For real SciFi read Larry Correia, Tim Zahn, David Weber, John Ringo and others like them.
Look for books published by Baen books.
These people will never win a Hugo and they don't care.

Well, it isn't exactly that they don't care. Back in 2013, Larry Correia took a stand against the lack of diversity in the Hugo nominations, and was quickly joined by Brad Torgersen (some background here at The Washington Free Beacon). Correia called the campaign to prove the leftist bias "Sad Puppies," because, as he said, "boring message fiction is the leading cause of Puppy Related Sadness."

The overall effort got one of Larry's books, Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles, shortlisted for the 2014 Hugo for best novel. Because he classifies himself as an outspoken right-winger, controversy and character assassination ensued. Larry wrote a long blog post about it in April 2014.

Subsequently, though, and at least to my knowledge, the Hugos settled quickly back into the firmly-to-the-left themes. Leftist but not expressly gender-centric, one perennial nominee (nominated--I think--7 times and won once), China Miéville, is a British, card-carrying, communist; much of his nonfiction writing is about Marxism. Just sayin'.

I'd have to double-check, but I think I've read most of the Hugo novel winners since 2000. J.K. Rowling won one year for the first Harry Potter book (which I read just because the franchise became so popular), but otherwise the only ones that still stand out at all was American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (I like Norse mythology) and The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, each of the three winning best novel. The winner this year was A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine. I started reading the precursor to this one, her A Memory Called Empire, which won in 2020, and couldn't get past the first few chapters. Just not my cup of tea. So I'll skip the 2022 winner.

That said, my preferred genre is more military and thriller fiction, like Brad Thor, Mark Greaney, and Barry Eisler. I've read all five of Jack Carr's books so far, and I'm really hoping that he can clean up some of the mechanical problems he still has. My fear is that he got too much success too quickly. I cannot not read his stuff--subject matter, his personal expertise, and solid plotting--but he has some beginning-writer issues like POV control, pacing lapses, and failing to understand how much detail the narrative can bear and when. He could also use a better editor; his books aren't rife with them, but there are still occasional grammatical/syntax mistakes that get into print.

All this should probably be in the Books and Videos category, shouldn't it? Sorry. Started as being only about wokeism. But while I'm at it...Die Hard is the best Christmas movie!

[RSX11]

[quoteOne thing I noticed, even with RAH, is that many stories included elements of sexual changes/freedoms in daily life. This includes homosexual incidents in the stories. While there were some comments on gender roles in several books, the only RAH book I recall delving into gender identity/transexuality was I Will Fear No Evil. The story, for those who are not familiar, is based on a rich old man who gets a brain transplant when his body was failing. The donor body was a young female. The premise is that the woman's personality was still in the body and the man was able to talk to her.][/quote]

Well...I WIll Fear No Weevils is probably Heinlein's weakest book. It was publishced by his wife before he had finished editing it, while he was incapacitated by a severe stroke. Not all of his books treated homosexuality as well as his later works did- for instance, in his most famous book, Stranger In A Strange Land, he viewed it very negatively.

[Rafe]

And speaking of speculative fiction and this holiday season, wokeness is the gift that just keeps on giving. The film opened in theaters last Monday, I believe...



Below Ms. Woods' tweet is something I don't remember seeing pre-Elon: a section titled "Readers added context they thought people might want to know"

The Na'vi are a race of sapient extraterrestrial humanoids who inhabit the lush jungle moon of Pandora.

james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Na'vi

They are extraterrestrials, non-human. There are no extraterrestrials on earth to play these roles. Therefore, the race of the human playing them is irrelevant.

And I'm very sorry, Ms. Woods. While we celebrate His birth this week and He can can accomplish miraculous things, my personal opinion is that Jesus is not likely to intervene to fix your own willful stupidity and racism.

[mayor]

And speaking of speculative fiction and this holiday season, wokeness is the gift that just keeps on giving. The film opened in theaters last Monday, I believe...



Below Ms. Woods' tweet is something I don't remember seeing pre-Elon: a section titled "Readers added context they thought people might want to know"

The Na'vi are a race of sapient extraterrestrial humanoids who inhabit the lush jungle moon of Pandora.

james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Na'vi

They are extraterrestrials, non-human. There are no extraterrestrials on earth to play these roles. Therefore, the race of the human playing them is irrelevant.

And I'm very sorry, Ms. Woods. While we celebrate His birth this week and He can can accomplish miraculous things, my personal opinion is that Jesus is not likely to intervene to fix your own willful stupidity and racism.

These people are stupid and just lay it out there for everyone to witness.

[Grayling813]

Ultimate woke in meme form...

[philip964]

English bishop pushes back at rewritten 'woke' Christmas carol sung at 'inclusive' church

https://www.foxnews.com/world/english-b ... ive-church

A little woke Christmas Carol for the holidays.

[Chemist45]

philip964 wrote

English bishop pushes back at rewritten 'woke' Christmas carol sung at 'inclusive' church

one of the verses:
"God rest you also, women, who by men have been erased. Through history ignored and scorned, defiled and displaced."

I would have stood up and walked out on that church forever.