The Sci Fi Catholic

. . . Because the Queen Rules

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:32:00 +0000

"Queen Elizabeth Stuns Bride and Groom by Accepting Invite."

Novena to Stop the HHS Mandate

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:03:00 +0000

From Eric Scheidler:

Lord God,

You are Light, and in You there is no darkness.
You sent Your Son Jesus Christ
as the Light of the World,
and You sent Your Holy Spirit
to enlighten the hearts and minds of all.

Lord, we pray today
that we may always experience
the light of Your truth,
informing our conscience
of what is right and what is wrong.

We pray that this light
will reach all of our fellow citizens,
that they may recognize the dangers of evil
which are often hidden along their path.

Open the eyes and minds of all
to the threats that currently exist
to our religious freedom,
to the health and well-being of women,
and to the good of our nation.

Give us the grace not only to recognize evil,
but also to reject it with the unwavering strength
that comes from you.

We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sticking It to the Man

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:45:00 +0000

Being a blogger who makes his e-mail public, I get a lot of junk in my inbox, and most of it gets deleted without comment or reply, but when this showed up, I checked it out and it seems legit, since it also appears in U.S. Politics Today, and I think I'll reprint it verbatim with only a brief comment.

Catholic missionary suing government willing to risk health over HHS mandate

DENVER, Colo., March 6, 2012—A missionary with FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, and one of two private citizens who has joined states, senators and others in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' mandate that nearly all health insurance plans cover contraceptives free of charge, says she would give up her critically important health insurance if the mandate is not overturned.

Stacy Molai, of Omaha, Neb., suffers from Crohn’s disease and says her health insurance coverage is critical in order to avoid financial ruin and possibly life-threatening consequences. Medical supplies for her condition cost up to $400 every month.

Molai, 31, raises her own salary as a lay Catholic missionary and says that, “Should the mandate be upheld, I would gladly give up my insurance coverage, despite the very real risk that would pose to my financial well-being and my health.”

“The government mandate violates my constitutional guarantee of the Freedom of Association,” Molai added. “I'm no longer free to associate with another Catholic employer without grave risks in abandoning a grandfathered insurance policy. I have had four surgeries and countless hospitalizations because of my Crohn's disease.”

“But my relationship with Jesus Christ is at the core of who I am, and the government mandate violates my unalienable rights by interfering with that sacred relationship. I'm no longer free to follow the dictates of my conscience and the teaching of my Church without great financial and health risks. That's not freedom.”

Jeremy Rivera, director of communications at FOCUS, stated that, “FOCUS is proud to have a woman like Stacy among our missionary staff. As her employer, we stand in solidarity with her and her convictions to remain true to her conscience and to exercise her religious liberty in the face of the government’s proposed HHS mandate. Given the reality of Stacy’s serious health issues, her courage should inspire all Catholics and people of faith to reinforce the necessity to overturn this unjust law.”

Miss Molai shames me. Not being a Catholic business owner myself, I was just pondering exactly what my own obligation would be when the new law demanding that Catholics burn incense to Moloch comes into effect. If she, seriously ill, can give up health insurance to avoid sin, then I, who am healthy and physically fit, can do no less.

No More 'Terra Nova' for J00

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:16:00 +0000

From its IMDB page.

R.I.P., Terra Nova. Well, sort of, or maybe, or probably, or something like that. Fox has ousted Stephen Spielberg's dinosaur show with the great concept and the mediocre writing. I'm sad to see it go, as it was one of the few real family shows left, but I'm not surprised, because what I saw of it wasn't all that good.

The show was about a family joining a group of colonists who go back in time to live in the Cretaceous; it was more-or-less the Swiss Family Robinson with Dinosaurs and guns.

According to the BBC, Fox has dropped the show but is looking to sell it to another network. If it does continue, I personally suggest they get new writers and subject the show to some serious retcon. In particular, they should throw out that dumb detail about the rebels having control of their only source of iron. I mean, seriously, they got a rift in the space-time continuum that opens to the year 2149. Can they honestly not call up the future and say, "Yo, send iron"?

Thanks to a reader for sending this in.

Fan Fiction Update: 'Shadow of the Dragon Lords'

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 20:33:00 +0000

I stoled it.

I am actually going to shut up about ponies at some point in the future, really, but not before I tout my fan fiction work, "Shadow of the Dragon Lords," which is now on chapter 6, but don't let that intimidate you: the chapters are short.

While watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and yes, "Is" is capitalized in a title, it occurred to me to wonder why exactly Spike the dragon is hanging out with all these ponies. It also occurred to me to wonder why Spike has a crush on Rarity the Unicorn, or why, for that matter, we see him in the series premier bringing a teddy bear to a Unicorn mare named Moondancer, or why Twilight Sparkle calls him "Casanova," suggesting he has a reputation.

I came to the obvious conclusion almost immediately: clearly, Spike is a political hostage being held in Canterlot to prevent a draconic uprising, and he developed his unnatural attraction to ponies while serving as a harem guard in the palace seraglio, a role for which his masters mistakenly thought him well-suited, due to the species difference. See The Hostage by Zayd Muti Dammaj for further sordid details, or else see "Shadow of the Dragon Lords" for decidedly less sordid details.

Spike performs his harem duties.

Actually, Spike is not the main character of the piece. The main character is Princess Luna, awesomest of the ponies, who commands the moon, rides the storm, flies in a black chariot, wears a cloak of living bats, and speaks in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. I think her dialogue is supposed to be all Elizabethan, but it actually came out kind of Kimberlian, or even Meredithian. For the hay of it, in my story, I made her a practitioner of Lovecraftian black magic. Also, doing a Google image search for Princess Luna is a creepy experience.

Unfortunately, the episode in which Her Highness appears is largely about Twilight Sparkle trying to convince Her Highness to act more like an ill-mannered modern American and less like a princess, but so it goes. Personally, I really wanted to see Her Highness give Twilight a royal beat-down.

A quick explanation of Luna's awesomeness.

And remember that scene at the end in which little Pipsqueak grabs Her Highness's mane? Yeah, I wanted to see her give him a beat-down, too: "Unhoof me, dastard! Darest thou to lay hooves on majesty? Crouch in the dust and lick, thou cur! Thou dog!"

Although it may appear to be a waste of time, "Shadow of the Dragon Lords" is actually a public service: I am doing my part to reduce brony illiteracy by correctly naming the piece of furniture on which Rarity sometimes throws herself in mock displays of excessive emotion.

I stoled that one, too.

Never refer to a Unicorn's chaise longue as a "fainting couch." A Unicorn can mess you up.

Courtesy of Orthometer.

Okay, so . . . I lost my train of thought in there someplace. My point is that you should go read "Shadow of the Dragon Lords," or Rarity will run you over with a tank. Something like that.

Happy Derpy Day and Sad Day for Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 02:22:00 +0000

Borrowed from Equestria Daily.

I'm going to shut up about ponies at some point in the near future, really, but I thought it worth mentioning that today, March 1st, is Derpy Day, which is to be celebrated by the wearing of gray tee-shirts and the consumption of muffins.

I find it somehow fitting that the day chosen by My Little Pony fans to celebrate their favorite character, who was recently censored by the powers that be because she didn't please the over-sensitive appetites of the randomly offended PC-niks who may strike anywhere, anytime, over anything, so that it is impossible to please them because it is impossible to guess ahead of time what they might arbitrarily find offensive, should also be the day the U.S. Senate has decided that little thing we call the First Amendment isn't really so important, and has tabled the Blunt Amendment, which would have protected the conscience rights of Christians who don't wish to spend their money on people's fornications and adulteries, and who do not wish to pay for the murder of children or the various devices and pills that make it easy for men to use women like tissues, and for women to treat themselves as if they had no value, and for the culture to perpetuate the hatred of children that has become one of its chief defining characteristics.

If Obamacare and the HHS mandate finally go into law, it will be the duty of all followers of Christ, and all men of goodwill who care about the freedoms our Constitution is supposed to guarantee us, to rebel against them and refuse to comply, and also to refuse to pay the fines the government will levy against them, and to go to jail, and to make right nuisances of themselves in jail in order to make clear that they cannot be easily tucked away and forgotten about. Our bishops and priests, especially, must be prepared to lead the way in this civil disobedience.

Happy Derpy Day. Go have a muffin.

Disney Ruins John Carter

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:07:00 +0000

Why is it Hollywood can no longer make a decent pulpy action adventure movie? Look at what they did to Beowulf and Transformers, for crying out loud. How can they get such simple and timeless tales so horribly wrong?

Though I do have to admit that, to my eternal shock, they did all right by Captain America. But that was a fluke.

With a hat-tip to John C. Wright, we have news on the early screening of John Carter in Philadelphia, via Latino Review. Let me begin by pointing out the first thing wrong with this movie: the title. Shouldn't it have "of Mars" in it somewhere? Edgar Rice Burroughs's first novel in his long Martian series was called Under the Moons of Mars, later retitled A Princess of Mars. And Disney, in its brilliance, changes the title to . . . John Carter. Genius. That title is so totally not boring, really.

Here's from Latino Review, from which I also stole that picture up top:

. . . the story takes us back thirteen years earlier where American Civil War veteran Carter is prospecting in Arizona. Being that they are deep in Apache territory, an Army Colonel (played by an almost unrecognizable Bryan Cranston) takes Carter into custody with the intent of forcing him to join their fight against the Native Americans. After a series of fairly humorous escape attempts, Carter finally makes a real jail break and flees into the mountains on horseback, where he’s forced to save the Colonel’s life after the man and his pursuing soldiers have a run in with a tribe of natives. [more . . .]

In other words, they twisted up the opening of the novel to make the cavalry the bad guys and make John Carter, who in Burroughs is the greatest fighter on two worlds and likes it, war-weary.

I'll just let Mr. Wright give the response to this mutilation of the story's opening:

. . . I still have some hope for this film, but I also know that, in the same way Jackson could not portray Aragorn and Faramir in a LOTR film, Disney cannot portray John Carter. Political Correctness focuses on two main thoughts: undermining authority and emasculating masculinity. The storybook hero, since roughly the time of Mallory, has always had two characteristics: he was both humble and ferocious. That is the paradox of chivalry: a man obedient to the authority of country, king, and God, and all the noble principles of fair play, who is also a very devil in combat, laughing as he slays. There is no humility in PC, because there is no authority aside from the ego, and there is no laughter in PC, except for mocking laughter such as imps laugh when they see fair and fine things fail, and they have no joy in battle. [more . . .]

And what becomes of a society when the Leftists and PC-niks have had their way? What happens when heroism and chivalry are dead, men are taught to be cowards, women are taught to be men, marriages are destroyed, and children are raised in broken homes?

Han shoots second and Derpy gets removed from canon, that's what. Save your stories, fanboys: become a conservative Christian.

Hasbro to Fanboys: Drop Dead

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:23:00 +0000

In other, less grave news, I turned on the Internet this morning to discover that socially maladjusted geeks everywhere are in an uproar because Hasbro has censored one of their favorite characters from the absurdly popular and weirdly addictive cartoon show, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I find this quite disheartening, as I was enjoying the show myself. I mean, heck, I've even written fan fiction, and I don't do that for just anypony.

Your fond childhood memories, now twenty percent cooler.

Though I've never exactly been a huge fan, having a Y chromosome and therefore being outside the target demographic, I have always had a certain respect for the My Little Pony franchise. When I was a child, Ponies were ubiquitous; every girl in my grade school had one or more, and when I played games of pretend with my Female Childhood Friend™ from down the street, I had Transformers and (though I hate to admit it) Gobots, and she had Barbies and Ponies. I think in most of our games, I was a robot with a laser gun, and she was a princess with a unicorn. I mention that only because it occurs to me that a fantasy novel about a unicorn-riding princess with a laser-toting robot sidekick would totally kick awesome.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Also in my childhood, I sometimes watched the original cartoon show based on the Pony franchise, My Little Pony 'n Friends. I was probably about five or six when I saw it, so my memories of it are vague, but I recall it being surprisingly gritty for a girls' cartoon based on a series of pastel-colored miniature horses with brushable hair. By lurking on Internet fansites as well as talking to people who remember it better than I do, I get the impression that my memories of the show are not entirely incorrect, and that it really was kind of gritty. Also, I think the main reason I watched it when I was five was because I had a crush on Megan.

I remembered you cuter.

To give the uninitiated a quick rundown, it goes something like this: Without getting into all the complications, My Little Pony has gone through roughly four phases or "generations." According to the most trustworthy source on the Internet, Wikipedia, its inception was in 1982 when the first little pony was designed by Bonnie Zacherle, who shortly thereafter went to work for Hasbro. The concept of these toys is elegant and simple and designed to appeal to young girls: they're brightly colored plastic ponies, and you can brush and style their manes and tails The show I watched as a kid was, along with some TV specials and one theatrical film and a second short-lived series, the televised manifestation of the Generation 1 (G1) ponies. There was a second generation series of toys that saw no televised adaptation. Generation 3 (G3), which ran through the first decade of the twenty-first century, can be considered the franchise's Dork Age; it involves a number of straight-to-video releases featuring ponies who apparently have little to do with their lives except hold parties and fashion shows, a far cry from the original G1 ponies who know how to kick haunch and eat ice cream, except they're all out of ice cream.

From what I've seen on the Interwebs, fans of the current G4 series enjoy pouring their hate on G3. That might sound a little ridiculous, but to show that their hate is not entirely unwarranted, I suggest we play a little game. I'm going to post an excerpt from a G3 video here; you play the video, and then tell all of us how far you made it before you either stopped the video or gouged your own eyes out.

Yes, I agree: make it stop!

The franchise got a kick in the pants, and an unexpectedly broad fanbase, with the advent of G4 and a new television series with the cumbersome title of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which is largely the brainchild of Lauren Faust, who earlier worked on Powerpuff Girls, though she has moved onto other projects while Friendship continues in its second season. To the surprise of its creators, G4 has picked up a sizable and vocal peripheral fanbase made up largely of young men in their teens and early twenties, who have spread the word through Internet threads, meme-sharing, and goofy "ponifications" on YouTube, with the result that just about everypony seems to be watching this show. As a result, we have gems like this:

Yeah, I'd watch that.

G4 gives us a slimmed-down Ponyverse based heavily on G3. The story takes place in a land called Equestria where most of the people are, not surprisingly, talking ponies. An obsessive-compulsive young Unicorn mare named Twilight Sparkle, a student of magic in a school for gifted Unicorns, is ordered by the immortal and goddess-like Princess Celestia to leave the capitol of Canterlot and move to the small town of Ponyville to make some friends, because she seriously needs a break from study. Accompanied by her assistant, a baby dragon named Spike (who has the honor of being the only character to appear in G1, G3, and G4), Twilight quickly meets five other ponies, all of them with distinct and rather eccentric personalities. Twilight, however, is uninterested in making friends because she is convinced that, as she has discovered in a book of ancient legends, an evil demigoddess imprisoned in the moon will soon be set free to cover the world in eternal darkness. She is of course correct about that, but eventually discovers that friendship, far from being an unnecessary distraction, is key to saving Equestria.

Because of the huge fanbase and the hype, I admit I was slightly disappointed when I sat down and actually watched this. I was expecting something along the lines of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's certainly not that good, but it is a charming, funny, and highly entertaining little show. The pace is quick, the writing is clever, and the musical numbers (only occasional in the early episodes but growing in frequency) are catchy. Each episode revolves around some lesson about friendship, usually delivered by Twilight in a monologue at the end of the episode and usually involving playing nice with others and the like. Most of those lessons, although I would rephrase or edit a few of them if I could, are surprisingly wholesome and unpoisoned by Politically Correct claptrap. To my pleasant surprise, I have not even once had to endure a character saying, "Believe in yourself," even though that content-free non-message would conceivably fit in a few places. My only complaint is regarding the message at the end of the first-season episode, "Feeling Pinkie Keen," which goes like this:

I am happy to report that I now realize there are wonderful things in this world that you can't explain, but that doesn't make them any less true. You just have to choose to believe in them. And sometimes it takes a friend to show you the way.

I am still trying to figure out what the hay that means.

The show is quite episodic; only the season premiers have story arcs that run for more than one episode, and the writers show no qualms about shifting around details and allowing little discrepencies for the sake of an individual episode's plot. Although Lauren Faust has said in an interview that she originally conceived of the show as an action-adventure, it is actually more like a sit-com, making it, at least in my experience, unique amongst children's toons. It succeeds because it has a large cast of instantly lovable characters, good writing, and a lot of zany humor, not to mention goofy speech patterns that a viewer could easily, to his embarrassment, pick up:

That's not what I meant.

The adolescent, adult, and mostly male fans call themselves "bronies," and one of the hobbies with which bronies like to occupy themselves is naming and discussing the "background ponies," the characters without speaking roles who only appear in the background. Background ponies don't have official names, and the animators apparently construct them for the most part out of a set of prefabricated designs, but that doesn't stop the fans from examining them minutely. You can see a massive list of background pones here, for example. Although my personal favorite background pony is a stallion fans have taken to calling Dr. Whooves, by far the most popular is a character named Derpy Hooves.

Derpy first appears in the series premier. Originally, her face was covered by another pony's flank, but somebody up top decided the scene would look better if her face were uncovered, and so the scene was changed, revealing her face and unexpectedly starting a fan subculture. As either a mistake or more likely as a joke, she is represented with crossed eyes. Fans noticed and went nuts, dubbing her "Derpy."

Derpy's First Appearance.

A pony with the same design, minus the crossed eyes, appears in other episodes, and after she mouthed the word "muffins" at one point, fans went nuts again. It has become a standard part of fanon that Derpy is a muffin lover, and a banana muffin lover specifically, though I'm not sure why.

You ponies have too much time on your hooves.

The creators of the show, upon learning of Derpy's popularity, started inserting her, now with eyes always crossed, into more scenes, usually doing something goofy. She finally received a speaking role and the official name Derpy in the second-season episode, "The Last Roundup," in which she accidentally destroys Ponyville's Town Hall. Derpy is therefore the ultimate ascended Internet meme.

No, on second thought, I'm going to stop using the word "meme." Ideas are not viruses, people.

Anyway, with the ascension of Derpy, the bronies believed they had triumphed, and it really appeared they had. They gained respectability with an article in the Wall Street Journal, and recently, Hasbro announced the release of some Toys 'R' Us-exclusive toys that appear to be aimed at bronies specifically (or at least the bronies think so), including a toy Princess Celestia more accurate to the show than the earlier version, about which bronies had often complained, and a toy based on a popular background character the fans have dubbed Vinyl Scratch or DJ P0n3, who appears for all of three seconds in the first-season episode, "Suited for Success." The Hub, the network broadcasting the show, has catered to the peripheral base by making reference both to bronies and to DJ P0n3 in a remarkable advertisement:

That kind of creeped me out.

Just as the bronies have reached the pinnacle of their apparent success in gaining the attention of the show's creators and owners, it has suddenly fallen apart. The news is fresh, and rumors on the Internet are flying, so the following comments may be based partly on misinformation, but what is clear is that the episode "The Last Roundup" disappeared for a while from iTunes, and Derpy-related gear disappeared or got altered on Welovefine.com, which sells Pony merchandise. "The Last Roundup" has just reappeared on iTunes, but Derpy has a new voiceover, no longer has crossed eyes, and is not referred to by name. Some bronies have suggested that this is the doing of Apple, but that cannot be, for Apple doesn't own the copyright. This clearly comes straight from Hasbro, apparently as the result of complaints that Derpy is insulting to children with developmental disorders or crossed eyes or something like that. In other words, the Politically Correct thought police finally came for the ponies. Equestria Daily has posts on the subject.

Because I'm aware of what PC-types are capable of, and of how they can make mountains out of molehills and tempests in teapots, I'm not terribly surprised that they eventually came for Friendship Is Magic, though I am surprised that they came for Derpy, of all ponies. I actually expected the complaints to center around Zecora the Zebra. I mean, seriously, when they added an African character to the show, they made her a witch doctor who talks in rhyme. I didn't think you could get away with that anymore.

Please don't take my Zecora.

I personally own an uncensored copy of "The Last Roundup," but I think I'll move it to my external hard drive just in case the folks at iTunes decide to pull an Amazon Kindle on me and delete it from my computer without my consent. Because this post is already too long and heavy with YouTube videos, what's say I go ahead and post a pirated copy of the scene as it looked before Bowlderization:

The scene Hasbro doesn't want you to see!

I won't give the edited version the dignity of a posting here. It's much the same, only with a higher-pitched voice, eyes uncrossed, the elimination of the name Derpy, and a worse voice performance from Ashleigh Ball, who plays Rainbow Dash. I will, however, give this:

Simmer down, now.

Anyway, as you can see, Derpy is a funny and likable character. Because she's no goofier than the rest of the cast, it never even occurred to me that she was supposed to be mentally retarded, though she's apparently been interpreted that way by those who make a hobby out of being offended. Hasbro deserves only a little blame for this: they of course have an eye on the bottom line, so we can imagine that some suited executives somewhere considered whether they'd rather tick off a bunch of teenage fanboys, or tick off Mom. Realizing that Mom signs more of their checks, they naturally sided with her and risked subjecting themselves to brony wrath. Rumor has it (though I haven't been able to find it and confirm it) that the official word from Hasbro is that Derpy can keep appearing in the background, but she will never speak again.

You make Derpy cry!

One of the reasons I have always had a respect, though mostly from a distance, for this franchise, is because it has a certain inherent immunity to the sleaze of the postmodern age. Hatred of femininity and innocence are built into the ideologies of today's leftists and feminists, but in the midst of a world where British schools teach five-year-olds about sodomy and where everything that makes girls different from boys is derided or denied, My Little Pony has been an unassailable fortress in the storm, mostly because it is built around childishness and femininity and cannot let go of those things without ceasing to exist. I suspect the people who own it know it: it is a franchise about pretty ponies who wear dresses. In remarkably simple and elegant fashion, it encapsulates the universe of the five-year-old girl, who, unadulterated as yet by the world's message that she is supposed to be just like a boy, loves things like princesses and pretty ponies and playing dress-up. It might look absurd to a grownup, or at least to a grownup who has become too jaded and too convinced of his own maturity, but ponies in dresses are serious business to a little girl. I know this because I grew up alongside girls who took them seriously.

I suspect this is also the source of the current popularity with the unexpectedly broad fan base, the members of which have probably seen very few examples of unabashed and unembarrassed femininity. My Little Pony is inherently counter-feminist, and the cartoon adapation of it is for the most part lacking in anything that people today mistakenly call "irony." Although the new series gives more nods and winks than earlier incarnations (drawing heavily on Internet fads as well as on pop culture icons ranging from Star Wars to I Love Lucy), and though it sometimes appears to be a little too amused with the fact that its cast is made up of talking ponies, it nonetheless usually plays it straight, taking itself seriously enough to avoid being snide, but not so seriously as to become pretentious.

Because I respect and love what My Little Pony is all about, I'm actually pleased with something else Hasbro has done that has cheesed off a large section of the bronies. That something else is named Princess Cadence.

Lemme give y'all the background here. According to the setup in the first episode of Friendship Is Magic, the land of Equestria has two princesses (actually queens or even goddesses, but little girls like princesses so we're calling them princesses, darn it), Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Princess Celestia raises and lowers the sun every day with her freaky magic powers, and Luna raises and lowers the moon every night. A thousand years ago, Luna went all bad and tried to bring eternal night on the land, so Celestia opened a can of magical whoop-haunch and shut Luna up in the moon for a thousand years. Then Luna got loose again and Twilight Sparkle and company had to open yet another can of whoop-haunch. You got all that? It's biblical, sort of. Or Lovecraftian, maybe.

Anyway, in G4, Celestia and Luna are the only winged Unicorns (known as Alicorns in the fandom) and also, apparently, the only immortals. The toy Princess Celestia has been pink, even though the character in the show is white, presumably because another one of those suited execs at Hasbro thinks pink princesses sell better to the target demographic than white ones do.

A white Celestia is now available, though it's unclear at the moment whether it will completely oust the pink model, but another princess, also pink, is in the works. That is the aforementioned Princess Cadence, who has a couple of playsets in which she is depicted getting married to a hunk of a Unicorn stallion named Shining Armor. I have, to my delight, seen at least one feminist go ballistic over this, because feminists hate things like children and marriage, but My Little Pony is for little girls, not for feminist busybodies, and the folks at Hasbro, whatever their personal politics might be, know which side their bread is buttered on. They also undoubtedly know that little girls like pink, ponies, princesses, and weddings. Let's face it: creating a little girls' playset about a pink pony princess having a wedding is an act of marketing genius.

However, Princess Cadence, if she ever appears in the show, will throw the established worldbuilding all to heck. Friendship Is Magic has shown adeptness at shoehorning in new elements, but explaining why there's a third goddess-princess who's never been mentioned previously will prove difficult. Rumor has it that Cadence and Shining Armor will appear in the season finale of season 2, and Andrew Francis, who has played a small part in the series previously, has apparently done the voice work for Shining Armor. This is unsurprising: it would be strange if Hasbro didn't order the show's creators to stick the major toy characters in there someplace, since one of the show's most important purposes will always, inevitably, be to advertise the toys. Nonetheless, Princess Cadence has a chance of becoming the Scrappy and single-hoofedly making the show jump the shark. Personally, I'm hoping she turns out awesome, though I admit I like the two-princess thing the show set up at the beginning. Considering that both of the current princesses are under-utilized as characters, I can't imagine what they'll do with a third one.

Princess Cadence lays the smack down on all her brony haters.
(Stolen from here.)

One way or the other, the addition of Cadence is a small problem for the bronies compared to the censorship of Derpy. Will #SaveDerpy tweets be enough to save her? Only time will tell.

But the important question, as far as I'm concerned, is what Fluttershy thinks of the Derpy and Cadence controversies. I figure I'll just do whatever she says.

Yes, ma'am! Whatever you say, ma'am!

Sign the Petition to Stop the HHS Mandate

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:14:00 +0000

I haven't been posting lately, of course. Real life has gotten in the way. Nonetheless, for whoever stumbles by this blog during the lonely time between its last active period and the next, I post the following image, which is also a link, which I encourage you to visit.

It so happens that the announcement that the Antichrist will in a year's time require Catholics to get a new special tattoo in order to buy or sell in the United States comes right at the beginning of the season of Lent. It is a good time to fast and pray.

New Rag & Muffin Short Story: 'Prelude to a Fall'

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:55:00 +0000

I realize I haven't posted in quite a while, as my work situation is currently somewhat odd and I'm busily editing my recently completed novel.

But if you'd like to see a small teaser of what I'm up to, you can now read a brand new Rag & Muffin flash fiction story, "Prelude to a Fall," featuring some of the same characters as my novel in progress, over at the Catholic Flash Fiction website. Here comes the introductory hook paragraph:

Her name was Mademoiselle Anne Defoy, but to the criminals of Godtown, she was the Ragamuffin, or “Rags” for short. By day she was a fourth grader at Valhalla Primary, but by night she was the temple city’s most feared preadolescent dispenser of vigilante justice. [more . . .]

'Rag & Muffin' Rough Draft Complete: Well, That Was Easy

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 01:04:00 +0000

I just finished the rough draft of Rag & Muffin: Tales of a Fourth Grade War Goddess, the novel I like to believe will open up a new sub-genre I call "magical girl noir," except it won't really. It's a magical girl warrior story in an exotic setting with elements of Dungeon Punk and lots of angst with some odd twists caused by my magical girls being different from the usual: they're sort of like a cross between a Nepalese kumari and a Little Sister from BioShock, with magic powers.

That gap I mentioned . . . it filled in rather easily. That probably means I'll need to rewrite that whole section, but still. I'll give the thing a first go-over right away to fix the most obvious weak parts, grammatical errors, and continuity problems, but then I'll probably inflict it on some poor beta readers and put it away for a month so I can look at it fresh when I make the next draft.

I'm sure it has some continuity problems to fix. I'm reasonably certain I accidentally gave at least one character Hollywood-style infinite ammo for her AK-47. I actually mean for the characters to be limited in the amount of ammunition they can pack, but then again, this particular character can blow people away with an assault rifle while listening to heavy metal and playing blindfold speed chess at the same time, so maybe she deserves infinite ammo.

At any rate, this seems to be a good time, at least to me, to check whether the rough draft is sufficiently awesome. If the awesomeness appears insufficient, I will have to jot "add more awesome" on my list of things that need to be done in the second draft.

Let's take a look:

Click to enlarge.
(Stolen from here.)

So there it is, the Periodic Table of Awesoments. The rough draft, as it presently stands, includes the following:

Bacon. One character eats twelve slices at once.
Ninja. That's a stretch, but ninja are mentioned in the dialogue.
Sniper.
Explosion. (That goes without saying.)
Grenades.
Assassin.
Bombs.
Christopher Walken. Okay, not really.
Proximity Mines. Whoa. I almost can't believe I actually worked those in there.
Minigun.
Kung fu. They call it something different, but it's basically Hong Kong wire-fu chop-sockey.
Helicopter. Magitek airships, actually, but I think they should count.
Sword.
Tank.
Moon jumps. I'm not really sure what this means, but if it means using your awesome Kung fu to jump really high, then that happens a lot. My characters are practically living super balls.
Mecha. Not just mecha, but demon-possessed mecha that can drag you to hell.
Lightning.
Fire. Goes with the explosions.
Liquor.
Robots. Not just robots, but demon-possessed robots that can drag you to hell.
Motorcycle.
Storms. How 'bout a whole frickin' monsoon?
Ribs. Not sure if this means any old ribs or ribs prepared for eating, but ribs play an important role in the story one way or the other.
Fortress. Not just a fortress, but a temple fortress. And it's a transformer.
Metal. Not sure if it means any old metal, or the music. One way or the other, we have both.
Money. Yeah, it gets mentioned.
Dinosaur. Also a stretch. Mentioned in dialogue.
Dragon. The "Muffin" of the title is the name of the heroine's pet dragon.
Cheetah. Do anthropomorphic furry cheetahs count?
Skulls. Of religious importance, no less.
Scars. When you look at everything else on this list, somebody is going to have to get a scar sooner or later.
Sunglasses. Worn at night, even.
Guitar solo. Believe it or not, I worked one in there.

That's not too bad, really. If I can throw in a penguin, mention cheese, and give somebody a cup of coffee, I should be able to make this even more awesome. I actually had a stuffed penguin in an earlier version, but eventually I needed to replace it with something else.

Yet Another Narcissistic Update

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:30:00 +0000

I am work on the rough draft of Rag & Muffin: Tales of a Fourth Grade War Goddess, a novel I have been working on, sort of, for just a little over four years. I say "sort of" because Rag & Muffin has gone through so many mutations in that time that the only constants have been the title, and the fact that it's about a girl with a fuzzy companion, and that it takes place in a city. Everything else has changed, and I've written probably over 4,000 pages just to get to the point of having completed the rough draft of a 100,000-word novel. I guess I'm not an efficient writer.

Except it's not quite complete yet. One chapter still has a gap. Not a huge gap, necessarily, but a gap. It needs filled in, and I have only to the end of the week to meet my self-imposed deadline of having an R&M draft by the end of the year.

What to do with that gap is admittedly flummoxing me. Except for the normal bout of weariness at the midway point, I have had the experience of watching this draft come together absurdly quickly and--at least in the not-so-humble opinion of an author writing his rough draft--absurdly well. But that of course is because it has four years of work behind it, and many of the scenes were ones I had already written and polished when I started, albeit in a different format. Most of the time, when I got stuck, I could simply open an older file and use dialogue and situations I'd already penned.

Nonetheless, this one scene (or two, or three) in the middle of one of the latter chapters has me a mite stuck. It has no precedent in anything Rag & Muffinish I've written before. It is new territory, and I must explore it before the end of the week.

Also, I'm still of two minds about the kooky one-liners I've thrown into the action sequences. Some of them will stay, I'm sure, but I'm debating whether or not to take the parodic references to "all out of bubblegum" and "that's not a knife" out of the second draft.

Because You Don't Mess with Santa

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 04:52:00 +0000

Nooo!!

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 04:45:00 +0000

Science Fiction Sermons

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:26:00 +0000

Not very long ago, I read and forgot to review George L. Murphy's Pulpit Science Fiction, a collection of science fiction short stories meant to illustrate biblical passages, which Rev. Murphy had preached from the pulpit. I was recently reminded of my fault when Dave Maass, of Syfy's Blastr blog, kindly sent me a post he had put together, rounding up videos of actual sermons using science fiction as illustrations.

Here's his post, and a big thanks to Maass for sending it our way.

I leave you, then, with no comment besides this: I like sermons, and I like science fiction, but I don't particularly like them together. I don't like preachy science fiction stories, and I don't much care for science fiction stories in my preaching, either. In fact, all though a few of the stories in the aforementioned Murphy collection were not bad (none of them were stellar), I thought the short explanations he wrote after them, to explain when he'd preached them and why, were more illuminating than the stories themselves.

You see, the Mass or other church service already contains storytelling: it's in the biblical readings. The job of the sermon is to illuminate the biblical passages and explain what they mean. Storytelling is great, but the purpose of the sermon is to comment on and illuminate the stories already told. Using the sermon to tell yet another story is likely to be obfuscating rather than illuminating. And inviting people to wear sf costumes to church is just kind of stupid.

And as for sci-fi illustrations in sermons, well . . . that might not be so bad, but it stands a good chance of coming across as flip or silly, and may fail to make the point intended.

Disney's 'Sofia the First'

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:42:00 +0000

According to The New York Times, Disney is hard at work on a new animated television show, featuring yet another princess, this time aimed at the younger crowd: the show is entitled Sofia the First, and the protagonist is apparently around five, Disney's aim apparently being to attract the youngest viewers.

The character looks cute, and her show will probably be more wholesome than those teen shows that the Disney Channel has been turning out in recent years, and since I try to avoid indulging in the Disney-hate popular these days on both the right and the left, I wish the show's creators all the best, though knowing Disney's history, I doubt Sofia the First will manage to come up with any important life lessons aside from "Believe in Yourself, Whatever That Means."

Image Blatantly Stolen from the Source because This Is a Small Blog and I Can Get Away with That. Also, Awwww.

The image attached to the article looks like a real actual cartoon character instead of that CGI stuff I'm officially sick of, so that makes me happy. Maybe I'll even check out the show myself. I rather like children's cartoons as a general rule, though I don't seem to be able to handle the ones aimed at preschoolers; I tried Dora the Explorer once or twice, and she kept repeating stuff, and she apparently wanted me to talk to the screen or something . . . anyway, I couldn't handle it. I was just sitting there, watching this little girl say the same thing over and over again, and finally I was just, like, "So, is she ever going to pull out an Uzi and blow up something, or what?" Back in my day, children's cartoons involved senseless violence, even the ones for girls. Anyone seen the original My Little Pony? That thing was a gore-fest, or at least that's how I remember it. Speaking of which, this:

TV & Movie Spoofs Channel
Tags: Atom.com | Funny Videos | Tournament | Upload

Whoa, one of those has already actually happened since that parody was made. Well, considering that the film adaptation of Battleship is coming out in the near future, this seems apropos. Also, I just want to mention that I thought Care Bears was hella lame, even when I was a kid.

Where was I? Ah, yes. The real reason I'm posting on this topic is because I'm creeped out--again--by the comments appearing under the article. The article on Sofia the First, I mean, which I was talking about before I got off track. Joyless politically correct types, or maybe just people who enjoy the ever-popular sport of Hatin' on Disney, are angry at this new show, even though it doesn't exist yet, because it's about a princess. Yikes. If nothing else, we can say that political correctness is no fun.

I don't really understand the complaints being made. Princesses are bad role models, or something, and little girls only like princesses because princesses are presented to them in their entertainment, and little girls would like exactly the same things as little boys if only we didn't give them little girl entertainment instead, or something. The idea that girls might dream of being princesses or enjoy girlish things because they're girls is apparently too much for the PC types to wrap their minds around.

If I had George MacDonald in front of me, I'd quote him, but I don't, so I'll paraphrase him from memory instead. In the original serial publication of The Princess and the Goblin, he has a footnote in which he imagines a frustrated reader asking him why his protagonists are always princesses, and MacDonald, being a wise man, replies that he wants the reader to understand that every little girl is a princess. Looking at the angry objections to Sofia the First offered before the first episode has even come out, I'd say we need a good dose of MacDonald's wisdom. Just to give silent support to the project over and against the naysayers, I might even be there to catch the pilot episode, though I make no promise that I will last longer with it than I did with Dora . . .

However, if they ever have the Very Special Episode in which Sofia meets up with Dora to find some crystal in the deep jungle, and they end up in a running gun battle or something, call me. That's what children's cartoons should be like.

Portlandia on Battlestar Galactica

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:16:00 +0000

I really didn't think it was that good. In fact, I thought the original was better, so there.

News from the Fish Bowl Extra: Party on a Space Station

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky the Goldfish) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:25:00 +0000

The Deej got this from a reader and gave it to me, so here it is.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Astronauts on the International Space Station are planning a big holiday bash to welcome three new crewmates, who are slated to arrive just before Christmas.

The addition of three more spaceflyers on Dec. 23 will double the population of the orbiting lab, bringing it back up to full operational strength after a month at skeleton-crew levels. That's good news for scientists keen to maximize thespace station's research potential, and it'll make the holidays a little less lonely 240 miles (386 kilometers) above the Earth's surface. [more . . .]

Weird Maintenance Issue Involving Sharing Buttons

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:35:00 +0000

Nobody uses these things anyway, at least not around here, but I've been trying to adjust the sharing buttons you see at the bottom (formerly at the top) of each post. The Google +1 button is a funny, temperamental little beast: the code from the third-party sharing button provider I use had stopped working for unknown reasons, and so I went straight to Google to get code for the button and found their site was only for people already completely fluent in Java script, so I ripped off a piece of code from somebody else having the same problem. I discovered that the button will disappear or reappear depending on where I put the code; it will only show up if it's placed right before the Pinterest button, on the same line, yet the button itself shows up on the end of the line . . . go figure.

Anyway, I know this sounds like a way of tricking you into using my sharing buttons, but I'd appreciate it if anyone would tell me whether he can or can't see the Google +1 button, and whether it works. Thanks.

So have fun with that. Now I'm going to go see if I can figure out why the buffer around the Facebook Like button is so freaking huge.

Book Review: Scientific Mythologies

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:20:00 +0000

But can I still have a cathedral-shaped spaceship?

Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs by James A. Herrick. IVP Academic-InterVarsity Press (Downers Grove, Illinois), 2008. 288 pages. Paperback. ISBN: 978-0-8308-2588-2. $23.00.

In this slim volume, James A. Herrick sets out on the ambitious task of demonstrating that science fiction, far from being merely a form of low entertainment, has often inspired scientists, even to the point of influencing how scientific questions are asked, and of informing how many scientists have viewed subjects that go beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. Herrick's basic thesis is that a collection of interwoven stories and metaphysical suppositions unsupported and insupportable by empirical science but nonetheless uncritically supposed by many to be scientifically founded, forms the basis of a modern Zeitgeist that stands in opposition to Christianity.

Some time ago in this blog's ancient history, I linked the review of Herrick's Scientific Mythologies over at Dr. James McGrath's blog, Exploring Our Matrix. McGrath and I rarely see eye to eye, and now that I've read this book for myself, I can confirm that this is one of those times. Although McGrath makes a few good points in his lengthy discussion of this book, most of his review consists of textbook examples of tu quoque; for example, when Herrick points out, among other things, that we have no empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials, McGrath criticizes Herrick by pointing out that historical evidence does not favor a literal historical Exodus, either. But Herrick never mentions the Exodus nor says whether he thinks it is a literal historical event. Similarly, McGrath criticizes Left Behind not once but twice in his review--though Herrick never mentions that book nor says what he thinks of it--apparently assuming that the ideas in LaHaye and Jenkins's novel reflect Herrick's own. While attempting to criticize Herrick, McGrath gets off-track and shadowboxes with his favorite bogeyman, the Evangelical Fundamentalist.

I would like to set the record straight. Though flawed, Scientific Mythologies is not the Protestant Landscape with Dragons. It is thoughtful and even-toned, and most of its arguments are well-made (with unfortunate exceptions I'll discuss presently), though it relies too heavily on secondary sources and at time makes factual errors. In spite of McGrath's strange claims to the contrary, it is interested more in description and analysis than in condemnation, of which it offers very little, and most of the information it presents should not even be controversial: much of the book is devoted to a history of certain ideas in both science fiction and popular scientific writings, most of which are probably already well-known to many sf fans.

Contra McGrath, Herrick states early in the book exactly what he means by myth, and he sticks to the definition. He is clearly not using the word in a pejorative sense (though one or two unfortunate rhetorical flourishes may give that impression); quoting Richard Cavendish, Herrick accepts a definition of myth as a story that makes sense of the world and imposes certain obligations and values, and he accepts also the claims of both Cavendish and Mary Midgley that myths are something we cannot do without. His point in this book, then, is not to dismiss what he calls "scientific mythologies" by pointing out that they are myths, but rather to point out that they do not have the basis in science that many claim they have.

After the first few chapters introduce the book and its aims, Herrick moves into discussions of the modern myths he has discerned in science fiction and speculative science. His first, and probably strongest chapter on the subject is chapter 3, "The Myth of the Extraterrestrial." He briefly outlines the history of speculation on the subject of extraterrestrial life. Again, contra McGrath, he does not condemn any and all such speculation, and even says (much later in the book) that the discovery of extraterrestrials would present no, or present little, challenge to Christianity. Herrick's actual concern is to criticize those who write or speak as if extraterrestrials were already known to exist, and who try to base metaphysical or spiritual speculations on this supposed fact. Herrick summarizes his "Myth of the Extraterrestrial" thus, and cites scientists such as Carl Sagan who have been proponents of it:

(1) The universe is vast and contains an unimaginably large number of planets, many of which are likely habitable. (2) Probability, if nothing else, suggests that there must be other intelligent beings "out there." (3) These beings might be willing to communicate with humans. (4) They are more technologically and biologically "advanced" than we are. And (5) they may wish to help us progress. (p. 64)

Herrick quotes numerous scientists and popularizers who have written or spoken of extraterrestrials as if they were already discovered, and quotes a few who insist that Earth's religions will have to change utterly to accommodate their existence. By simply pointing out that we have no evidence of extraterrestrials' existence, and that we don't really know the probability of their existence, he succeeds quite well, without ever getting shrill or casting insults, at making these imaginative claims look silly. Certainly, the insistence that we must change our religious views to accommodate aliens is premature, to say the least.

His subsequent chapters build on this first one. In chapter 4, "The Myth of Space," Herrick criticizes the idea that space exploration must be somehow capable of granting spiritual insights. He wonders why exploration of space ought to grant spiritual knowledge that is not already available on Earth, and in the sources he examines, he can find no clear answer. This chapter, in particular, McGrath does not appear to have read carefully enough; although it is true that Herrick mentions C. S. Lewis's opposition to space travel, Herrick neither elaborates on it nor expresses agreement with it. He mentions Lewis a few times, but mostly uses him only to set up a discussion of the film Conquest of Space, which depicts a Christian character in a negative light. Herrick interprets this film as a criticism of Lewis's view. Herrick gives no clear indication that he opposes space exploration as a scientific enterprise (and I do wish he were more clear about his opinion of the subject), but only that he opposes the unsupported notion that a scientific exploration of space will lead to some vaguely defined new spiritual insight capable of sweeping away older religions, a notion based on nothing but wishful thinking.

It is in chapter 5, "The Myth of the New Humanity," that Herrick temporarily loses his mind and is replaced by a politically correct pod person. He discusses the history of eugenics and points out, quite rightly, that much science fiction from the early twentieth century and to some extent even beyond is supportive of eugenic aims. It is in this chapter, too, that he gets into a subject that is truly central to his book, and to which I wish he had devoted a clearer and lengthier discussion: he is sharply critical of the idea that humanity is necessarily on an upward progression, carried along by evolution from one stage to another, each stage higher than the last. He points out that this idea has often been tied both to racism--usually the belief that whites are inherently superior to others--and to atrocious policies of sterilization or extermination. He also notes that many science fiction writers have supported such things.

Herrick expresses no opposition to the truly scientific theory of evolution. McGrath, again play-fighting with his favorite imaginary enemy, appears to miss this, and spends some time in his review criticizing Young-Earth Creationism even though Herrick never identifies himself as a Creationist. What is lacking in Herrick's book, however, is a clear distinction between the scientific theory of evolution, which holds that populations of biological organisms change over time due to mutations, those mutations maladapted to the current environment being weeded out, and the popular but unscientific notion, which holds that evolution inevitably leads to greater complexity, intelligence, and eventually to some sort of Nietzschean superman. It is clearly only the popular and unscientific but oddly persistent conception of evolution that is the target of Herrick's criticism, but a careless reader, or one unfamiliar with what the theory of evolution actually teaches, could easily arrive at the mistaken conclusion that he is "anti-science," just as the previous chapter could give the impression that he is anti-spaceflight. Also, I might add, this chapter is lacking a discussion of Tielhard de Chardin, the theologian who was important in formulating this bogus notion of evolution.

Where Herrick, or rather the PC-bot who temporarily replaced him, no doubt in a life-and-death struggle involving rayguns, goes crazy, is where he tries to accuse Star Trek and Star Wars of racism. His accusation against Star Trek is based almost entirely on the fact that the character Q, a godlike being, is played by a white boy. When I read that, my head exploded.

I refute Herrick thusly. Star Trek featured an innovative multi-ethnic bridge crew and had the first interracial kiss on television. At least one episode of the original series that I can think of was dedicated to lampooning racism. Although Q is a godlike being, he is not represented unequivocally as a "higher" or "better" being. More typically, he is like a petulant child. One episode of Voyager even suggests that suicide would be preferable to a godlike eternity in the Q Continuum. Although Star Trek does indeed accept uncritically the unscientific notion of evolution as progression, it is usually suspicious of highly evolved demigods: benign demigods are praised on occasion, but those that lord it over lesser beings are usually treated to a good dose of the Enterprise's phaser banks. Star Trek implicitly, whether its writers intended it or not, holds the view that there is an ethical standard to which even "highly evolved" beings are obligated. And though it does express the notion that humans are on some vaguely defined upward progression, it clearly envisions all of humanity going there together, and does not present one race as superior to the others. Star Trek also appears to be opposed to the cyborg enthusiasms of the cyberpunks and transhumanists (also criticized in this chapter), since the only cyborgs of note in the Star Trek universe are the Borg.

Herrick's criticism of Star Wars consists largely of pointing out that many of the actors in the films were British. That does not even deserve a response.

It is also in this chapter that pseudo-Herrick makes his most obvious errors (and thus we know that he is not the true Herrick). He confuses the original Battlestar Galactica with the remake and shows himself incapable of correctly spelling "Adama" or "Cylon." In his discussion of Star Wars, too, he for some reason can't spell "midi-chlorian," but then again, who would want to?

Herrick turns sane again in the following chapters, "The Myth of Space Religion," and "The Myth of Alien Gnosis." Neither needs a discussion here, as they merely expand on the previous chapters. "The Myth of Space Religion" again criticizes the idea that beings in space must necessarily have deep religious knowledge, and "The Myth of Alien Gnosis" discusses the frequent appearance of Gnostic or Neo-Gnostic concepts in sf, something of which anyone who's seen the Matrix films is aware.

To my mind, Herrick says little here that is remarkable. As a form of popular literature, science fiction naturally tends to reflect the philosophical fashions of the age, so it should be no surprise to anyone that, for example, sf tended to support eugenics in an age of eugenics. Nor should anyone be surprised that in a politically correct age, in which the progressives have stuffed their former support of eugenics down the memory hole, science fiction tends to be politically correct. And though many people today apparently believe that entertainments are incapable of shaping their thoughts, anyone with a realistic view of fiction should also find it unremarkable that science fiction has not only accepted ideas current in the culture, but has also reinforced them and in some ways shaped them. Taken as a brief history of ideas (and that is for the most part what it is), Herrick's Scientific Mythologies is engagingly written and informative, though as mentioned previously, it relies too heavily on secondary sources. I would like to see a second edition that corrects the errors, delves more deeply into the topic, depends more heavily on the thinkers Herrick discusses, and depends less heavily on their later interpreters. While he's at it, although he does for the most part maintain a professional tone, he should remove the occasional snide asides and scare quotes, as well as the baseless race-baiting.

I must agree with McGrath, however, in saying that this book fails as a work of Christian apologetics. Herrick sets up these "Scientific Mythologies" in opposition to Christianity, never explaining why these are the only alternatives, nor explaining why the reader ought to prefer Christianity to science fictional speculation. He also, strangely, avoids mentioning that many of the ideas he criticizes were posited by Christian thinkers (for example, the notion that the universe must be full of inhabited worlds was based in part on a theological argument that God does not waste space). He states in his acknowledgments that he presented much of his material in lecture form to church and youth groups, and the book does read throughout as if Herrick is preaching to a choir. He treats Christianity as if it is firmly established on irrefutable historical data, an assertion he does not support and to which even a mildly skeptical reader might object.

I think it would be best if Herrick removed his brief and inadequate mentions of Christianity from each of the present chapters and wrote a final chapter explaining in detail why he thinks Christianity stands on firmer ground than the "scientific mythologies" he criticizes. His criticism that these "scientific mythologies" are not actually scientific appears to me to be a strong one, and the jarring, undefended praises he gives his religion do not help his argument. He could make his case more effectively if he began by explaining that empirical investigation is necessarily limited in its aims, and continued by describing how many scientists have overstepped their fields of expertise by launching into imaginative speculation or metaphysics, continue by explaining why these speculations are baseless or these metaphysics self-refuting, and then finish by defending Christianity on both metaphysical and historical grounds. In this way, he could produce a better work of apologetics and could also avoid the criticism to which the book in its present form is easily susceptible, that his religion is no more empirically verifiable than the myths he condemns.

Worth a Read

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:43:00 +0000

Without much comment, I direct you to Tim Molloy's article, "TV's Disturbing New Trend--Kids in Danger," about the frequent depiction of children getting killed in recent television shows.

More disturbing than the contents of article are the comments underneath it, the majority of which berate Molloy with statements like, "It's just a show," often accusing him of being unable to tell fiction from reality, though he actually shows no such confusion in what he writes. Implicit in these angry comments is the quite obviously false assumption that you cannot be negatively affected by the entertainment you consume.

Random Link

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:41:00 +0000

I know I haven't posted much lately, but don't complain or I will punish you with this. Or, alternatively, this.

Get Your Own Redshirt

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:19:00 +0000

John Scalzi's novel Redshirts, which pokes fun at Star Trek's short-lived red-shirted ensigns who always die on away missions, but, according to promises over at Tor.com, turns into something bigger than a mere parody, is coming out on June 5, but you can buy your own Scalzi red shirt right now, as well as other crazy redshirt gear. Some of the items for sale are pretty funny.

Star Trek Comic Strip Mocking Patheos

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:34:00 +0000

I just found, over at Acts of the Apostasy, a B-Movie Catechism-style comic strip using images from Star Trek: TNG to poke fun at Catholic bloggers who blog at Patheos, a website bringing together loads of religious articles and blogs. The comic is overlong, but amusing. Also, I'm not quite sure what its point is; so some bloggers blog at Patheos . . . so what?

And just for the record, I had an article on Patheos before Patheos was big.

I Should Sue James Cameron

noreply@blogger.com (D. G. D. Davidson) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:47:00 +0000

At least three people have brought lawsuits against James Cameron, or his company, or somebody, because they claim the film Avatar closely resembles certain ideas of theirs, according to this article from CNN and this one from the Hollywood Reporter.

Well, sure. As I pointed out in my review of the film, it eerily resembles a novel I was writing back when I was in middle school. Avatar isn't exactly full of farm-fresh ideas.

Of course, that doesn't mean the claims in any of the lawsuits aren't legit; on that I have no actual basis for judgment.