UPDATE (5 Aug 2010): Hat tip to David Garnier, whose comment got gobbled up by the ether monsters, but who pointed me to the admission of the woman in the case described, who says it actually isn’t pregnancy denial. Nope, she just doesn’t like doctors. (And that’s why she committed infanticide a bunch of times? Crikey!) ORIGINAL POST: Robert Koehler twittered this article: The question is as horrifying as it is important to ask: Why are a rising number of French women killing their newborn babies? Finding the answer has become a matter of urgency following the discovery on Wednesday …
Month: July 2010
Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Well, it took me almost a decade–due mostly to lack of interest, I’ll admit, since it’s less than 600 pages of text in total–but I finally have finished Asimov’s “Foundation Trilogy.” I know there are more books in the series, but all I ever intended to read was that main, original trilogy. I read the first book in 2002, mainly because it was among the books I’d brought over to Korea, thinking a lack of English-language books would force me to read it. But there were more English books here than I expected, and I’m a slow enough reader that …
War With the Newts by Karel Čapek
Well, it’s been a while but I’m back with a review of a book I recently finished. I don’t know if I’ll manage to review all of the books I’ve read this year — so far, there’s six this month alone, though one of those I’m reviewing for a newspaper– but I quite enjoyed this bizarre novel and so I figured I’d mention it here.I’ve wanted to read the book since 2001 or so, when my friend Jack was reading it, but I only got myself a copy a few years ago and, well, finally I made the time for …
Why, Revisited: The KOFAC Presentation
On the afternoon of Thursday, July 22nd I spoke at a short SF-related seminar for KOFAC (The Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science & Creativity) in Gangbyeon. I was asked to lay say a bit about how SF writers choose what to write about. Basically, to answer that question I felt I had to explain what I think SF is. So I put it this way: SF is how modern, industrialized culture digests the two shocks of technologically-imposed change on society, and the philosophical changes imposed on culture by science. That’s meaty — note that culture and society are …
Lost
I’m not sure I can really be counted as a fan of the show Lost… I watched it somewhat obsessively into Season 3, and then during Seasons 4, 5, 6 waited till I could watch everything in one fell swoop or, um, gulp, perhaps. My ex and I used to watch it together, and when I last saw her, she asked me if I’d watched the finale of Season 6; that was when I realized I hadn’t even noticed it starting up again, and the show had finished, and maybe I’d like to check it out. Yet whenever I watched …