I’ve been thinking a lot of these things since the early 90s: I’m obviously not the only one. This is salutary. I think there needs to be more than just this. I think we need to rein in corporations to the point where they’re in service to human beings. I think it should be illegal to run a company where a percentage share of the profit, and of the responsibility, goes to every employee. Maybe not a huge percentage, but a percentage. We like the idea of democracy: it’s time to apply it to corporate structure, too — that is, …
Month: December 2011
Getting Pickled
So, lately, I’ve had a few experimental fermentations going on. One of them is a simple revisiting of the sauerkaraut I made last year. It’s a much smaller batch, and made with non-iodized salt, but with one difference: Yeah, I used red cabbage. I salted it in exactly the way I had the white cabbage, but to my surprise, the cabbage didn’t sweat as much, and there wasn’t much brine. Probably it’s because I used only one small head of red cabbage, not two very large heads of green cabbage. In any case, the problem was easy to solve: I …
One For the Morning Glory by John Barnes
John Barnes is one of those genre writers I’d heard of, but never happened to read until now. Oddly enough, he’s more well known for his SF work, but the book I stumbled upon, and decided to read, was his foray into the realm of magical adventure. Not epic fantasy, mind: One For the Morning Glory was intended as the second in a trilogy (of which neither first nor third got written, from what I can tell) it is as far from epic fantasy as can be. Rather, it is a lot like a fairytale, or maybe an existentialist’s version …
… Made With Real Hops
Those of you out there who like beer, know what hops are. Probably anyone reading this blog must know by know at least a little about the wonders of hops, those resinous flowers we’ve been using for hundreds of years to bitter, and sometimes to flavor and aromatize, our beer. Well, a few weeks ago Miss Jiwaku and I made an unusual use of hops: we made some hand soap with some old hops. I had a few grams of some old Willamette hops, and some very old Cascade leaf hops — though the later, I discovered, is old enough …
Deus ex Pigritia, or Why You’d Better Not Get Me Started on Battlestar Galactica
Inevitably, when someone hears that I am an SF writer, they immediately mentioned whatever SF things they happen to know about or like, expecting I, too, will like it. This is awkward because I usually rather hate their favorite book, TV show, or movie. Not all SF fans, or SF authors, like all SF. It’s a simple thing to say. But it’s another thing to explain it, and they usually seem to find the fact so unbelievable that an explanation seems wanted. My explanation almost never satisfies them, but maybe that’s because I haven’t rehearsed my sound bite. After all, …