Wis[s]e Words

The Dark Griffin — K. J. Taylor

Published on June 15, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of The Dark Griffin

The Dark Griffin
K. J. Taylor
369 pages
published in 2009

One of the things I’ve been trying to do more of these past five years or so has been to try out more new to me authors. K. J. Taylor is one of these authors, an Australian fantasy writer whose Black Griffin looked interesting when I was browsing the Amsterdam library shelves. I had no choice but to like a writer who said of herself: “a lot of fantasy authors take their inspiration from Tolkien. I take mine from G. R. R. Martin and Finnish metal”. A bit of research online discovered that she isn’t even thirty years old, published her first book at twenty in 2006 and has had seven books published since. Which makes her on a par with Elizabeth Bear with regards to productivity (and here I have trouble writing a blogpost sometimes…)

The Dark Griffin is the first in a fantasy trilogy, which in turn was followed by another trilogy. You may suspect therefore that this is pretty much a setup book and you may be right. What this is, is an origin story, both of the titular dark griffin (literally, as the book starts with his birth) and his ride, Arren Cardockson. As the story starts Arren is the only Northerner griffin rider in the city of Eagleholm, of far humbler origins than his fellow griffineers. His parents are freedmen, ex-slaves, while all other griffin riders are aristocrats. Nevertheless and despite the occassional tension, he feels well supported by the city’s elite. Even more so when lord Rannagon, one of the leaders of the griffiners and master of law, suggest a way for Arren to get out of his money problems.

Your Happening World (June 12th through June 15th)

Published on June 15, 2014Leave a comment

Blog fodder for June 12th through June 15th:

The Netherlands: Victory for Transgender Rights | Human Rights Watch – The law on transgender rights that the Dutch Senate approved on December 18, 2013, is an important step toward equality, Human Rights Watch said today. The new law will allow transgender people to change the gender marker in their official identity papers to their preferred gender. It does away with previous requirements for taking hormones and surgery, including irreversible sterilization, though it is a step short of complete personal autonomy for the decision.
On Telling the Truth – People of Color in European Art History – I’m sick and tired of suffering in silence. I’m sick of “keeping things civil”, and I’m tired of giving the benefit of the doubt to people who mean me nothing but ill. There is real violence happening to myself and other bloggers for more reasons than that people do not like what we have to say…people take exception to who we are, how we speak, what we look like, who we call friend, and who we call family. No one is obligated to justify their existence.
Holland’s World Cup win over Spain wasn’t the return of Total Football – Louis van Gaal has created something new – Telegraph – The 3-4-3 that Van Gaal played on Friday night was essentially a reactive formation designed to combat Spain’s dominant midfield. The wing-backs did not venture too far forward, and with midfielders Nigel De Jong and Jonathan de Guzman essentially screening the back three, Holland reverted to a 5-2-3, or even a 7-3, without the ball. And seeing as this was Spain, they were quite often without the ball.
Maliki’s most solemn hour — The Arabist – Just days ago, ISIS pushed forward from its safehouses and camps in the Nineveh Governorate, which it had won control over in the past months, to take over the city of Mosul. It has attacked several other cities in northern Iraq as well, and disrupted the siege that federal forces in Iraq brought against it and its allies in Al Anbar Governorate this Spring. Mosul was living under a state of siege with the government resorting to an air bridge due to the danger ISIS ambushes posed to highway traffic. The group has for over a year now been following a strategic campaign it dubbed "Soldier's Harvest": the aim has been to retake the territories lost by al Qaeda-aligned jihadists during the final years of the U.S. Occupation by terrorizing the local authorities into quitting the fight. ISIS would then fill the resulting vacuum caused by their retreat. "This started in rural sections of Iraq such as the desert regions of Anbar and the Hamrin Mountains that stretch across Diyala and Salahadd
Portugal indebted to Angola after economic reversal of fortune – "Portugal is in a tricky situation. It needs Angolan money and must also watch out for Portuguese residents in Angola," Filipe explains. About 100,000 Portuguese nationals currently live in the former colony. Much as with Brazil in the past, many young Portuguese, dogged by unemployment at home, see their future in Angola.

I’m sorry Mario, your harasser is in another castle

Published on June 14, 2014Leave a comment

Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!

Following on from this post, if we do want to change as fandom, want to make cons safe, what should we be doing? For a start of course cons need to do what Readercon and then Wiscon failed to do: not allow a known harasser back next year. Cons need not just a consistent, thought out policy against harassment, they also need to make it known to concom, volunteers and members alike and make sure that any incidents and harassers are known to next year’s concom and volunteers as well.

The key point to remember is that if a con doesn’t prevent know harassers from attending, it means excluding or even endangering their victims; while it may be harsh on a harasser to be ejected and banned, it’s much harsher to subject victims to potential new harassment. The other thing to remember is that for every victim of a harasser that comes forward, there are usually more who don’t for various reasons, especially in a climate where until very recently harassment wasn’t taken seriously.

But there’s a larger problem. Even if every con has its harassment policy and bans harassers, it of course won’t help much if they can just amble along to the next con to menace fresh victims. That’s the silo problem, where each con knows who their problem cases are, but the cons aren’t sharing that information. There therefore need to be some way to share information. You can’t rely on informal networks, as Deirdre Saoirse Moen’s comment on the previous post shows, because there will always be people and cons left out of it.

So there needs to be more formal ways of cons to inform each other about harassers, as well as its own members, volunteers and concom. This doesn’t necessarily mean making this information public, but there are back channels for con “professionals” where this sort of exchange could happen. We need to get this in place sooner rather than later, to avoid harassers just choosing new cons to trawl.

1-5? Bloody nora!

Published on June 13, 2014Leave a comment

Robin van Persie dives to head home the equaliser for Holland against Spain

So that was unexpected. Like a lot of people I was worried getting into this game, a rematch of the 2010 Worldcup Final, with Holland playing Spain again. Our team had gotten worse in the past four years while Spain’s seemed unbeatable, some of our best players had retired while van Gaal seemed to rely mainly on young talent from the own competition, largely untested internationally. And then Spain got a soft penalty and of course scored and I thought it was done and dusted.

And then came van Persie. A great pass from Daley Blind, van Persie accelerating just in time and then that great, great header. It came at the right time, just before halftime and it fired Orange on to greatness in the second half. Robben once again showed his greatness; he always looks super awkward and ungainly, his arms flailing around, but boy oh boy was that first goal a beauty and then that second one, perhaps even better. Van Persie as well had a great second goal, while Stefan de Vrij managed to smuggle one in as well.

Juichen!

It’s been a great night.

Your Happening World (June 11th through June 12th)

Published on June 12, 2014Leave a comment

Blog fodder for June 11th through June 12th:

Brussels Brontë Blog: Football and the Brussels Brontë Story… – But not only were the Jenkinses responsible for introducing the two literary geniuses to Brussels, the same family was also largely responsible for the introduction of the British sport of football to Brussels. (For these two feats alone, perhaps the Jenkinses merit some day an honorary plaque or a street named after them in their adopted city?!)
Stuck in Condoland | Toronto Life –
Your Fave Is Problematic — Dan Savage –
RealClearDefense – Why Are We So Afraid of Small Carriers? – This leaves us in an awkward situation, where the Navy sails a fleet of flat-decked aircraft carrying warships that will soon fly one of the most advanced tactical fighter jets in the future, and that are comparable in size and capability to the largest “aircraft carriers” that any other navy has to offer. And yet for bureaucratic and public relations reasons, we can’t call these warships “aircraft carriers,” even though they perform many of the missions that aircraft carriers execute, and in time of war would be expected to shoulder much of the burden placed on the larger carrier fleet.
Anorak | The Judges of Miss World, 1970: Bombs, Blacks And The Angry Brigade – The Miss World contest of 1970, of course, isn’t famous for its motley crew of judges but for the feminist protest that took place in the middle of the show. While the judges were putting women in order of beauty, Bob Hope the London-born compere, came on stage to go through a comedy routine. All of a sudden about fifty women and a few men started throwing flour bombs, stink bombs, ink bombs and leaflets at the stage wile yelling “we are liberationists!”, “We’re not beautiful, we’re not ugly, we’re angry” and “ban this disgraceful cattle market!”. The worldwide live television audience couldn’t fail to notice what was happening. Bob Hope certainly noticed and he quickly tried to flee the stage as the missiles flew by. Julia Morley, the wife of the organiser Eric Morley, grabbed hold of his ankle in a desperate attempt to stop him leaving. It only took a few minutes for the police to restore order but ‘Women’s Lib’ had in one fell swoop established itself as part of the seventies.