Urban spelunking

In an article recently published on BldgBlog (HT: Boing Boing), there's an absolutely fascinating interview with Michael Cook, a Canadian writer and photographer who devotes himself to exploring the subterranean infrastructure - that is to say, the storm sewers, spillways, abandoned hydroelectric complexes, dams, and all manner of tunnels and…

Continue ReadingUrban spelunking

Reading In America

In a recent poll, reading in America is revealed to be, well, less than appreciated by large swaths of the population. This ought come as no surprise. We live in a time of stupendous ignorance, which allows for the expression of epic stupidity. The Founding Fathers were suspicious of democracy…

Continue ReadingReading In America

Have You Accepted Jesus as Your Personal Savior?

I spent this past weekend in the Indiana woods, camping with a few hundred others in the cause of contradance. Near the end of the weekend I was conversing with a gent with a tale of how a pet psychic helped him solve a relationship issue by remotely reading his…

Continue ReadingHave You Accepted Jesus as Your Personal Savior?

TANSTAAFL

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.TANSTAAFL.

Anybody recognize that? Where it comes from? What it refers to?

This past weekend was the 100th birthday of Robert A. Heinlein. I was not there, though I’d wanted to be. You see, Robert A. Heinlein was one of the greatest science fiction writers in the world, and when I was a child, his books informed my apprehension of just about everything. It might be questioned whether one man deserves the kind of press Heinlein gets. Even when he was alive (he passed away in 1988) he was controversial but there were still many places you could walk into where not a soul would know who he was. I think he’s important because, in a way, he made modern America.

What? A science fiction writer? Made America?

Such a statement demands clarification.

A biography is soon to be out by a gentleman named Bill Patterson. You can read it, read about the man who once wore the title “The Dean of Space Age Fiction”, and judge for yourself. I won’t go into huge detail about his life or work here. I want to make a smaller, more pointed observation.

In 33 novels and a significant number of short stories, Robert A. Heinlein established a didactic approach to science fiction that has been copied, improved, debated, revered, and hated since he began his career in 1938. Heinlein was born in Missouri. He graduated from Annapolis. He received a medical discharge from …

Share

Continue ReadingTANSTAAFL