CAPTAIN SLOG: STARDATE 270906 September 27, 2006
I get e-mail, occasionally, that I feel it would be criminal not to share with my readers. I’m not complaining, mind you: whenever you dangle your name and notions out in public for everyone to see, you make a legitimate target of yourself (thousands — or at least dozens — would form a line to tell you I’m an illegitimate target, though not in those exact words). Happily, I’m a moving target, and I shoot back.
My all-time favorite came several years ago, when, in response to …
DEATH OF A GENERATION September 24, 2006
Attribute to _The Libertarian Enterprise_
http:/www.ncc-1776.org
My mother died night before last.
It was not unexpected. The small nursing home only three or four blocks from our house called us, and we went over to see my mother one last time and to begin all of the formalities associated with dying in America.
As I looked down at her dead face, the first thought that came to my mind, completely unbidden, was that here was the end of another life—exactly like my father’s which ended in 1991—that had been callously used, drained, and distorted from its proper, natural shape by the one predator on …
TAXES IN THE FEDERATED STATES OF TEXAS September 7, 2006
A reader wrote:
> I am reading and digging Roswell, TX. I have a question —
> how [do the Federated States] of Texas fund [the]
> government? In the scene where Lyndon Johnson gets in
> the shootout with the boys, the blue trash can is labelled
> with horrible warnings against damaging the trash can for
> any reason - the Rangers hold fire so as no to damage the
> trash can. How is the rule enforced? What are the pentalties?
….You’re on the right track, sir, and we explain it better in the text novel, which …
ROCKS IN MY HEAD September 6, 2006
Attribute to “L. Neil Smith at Random”
at http://www.BigHeadPress.com
….I found myself thinking about the Bridge on Jupiter this morning.
That’s an idea you can find in Clifford Simak’s wonderful collection
of related short stories entitled _City_ (not to be confused with
James Blish’s great _Cities in Flight_), a book that brightened my
young life considerably, and supplied me with some splendidly odd
ideas.
….Ask me, sometime, about the ants and what the mutants did to (or
possibly for) them. For once, somebody beat _The Simpsons_ to the
punch.
….The Bridge on Jupiter was an engineering project (like a lot of
government efforts …
MY _STAR WARS_ BOOKS September 1, 2006
A while back, the famous science fiction journalist Ian Hunter asked
me to answer some questions about my literary involvement in _Star
Wars_, for a book he’s writing on the subject. He very kindly gave me
permission to share the answers I gave him with my _TLE_ and blog
readers.
…