Orwell Was 4 Years off

Orwell Was 4 Years off

Over at the Castalia House blog, a reader poses this pivotal question: Follow-up question. Several articles said the Hugo Awards have been a SocJus Safe Space for three decades and a little. So did the Hugo Awards go down hill in 1980? CH blog editor and Appendix N author Jeffro Johnson…
August 15, 20173 Comments
Razörfist on the YouTube Blacklist

Razörfist on the YouTube Blacklist

Razörfist, the double Hugo-nominated video blogger whose eloquence is rivaled only by his vulgarity, has conducted an experiment to test the criteria according to which YouTube's algorithm demonetizes videos. The results, documented below, are revelatory. The current censorship epidemic across social media platforms highlights a perennial deficiency of conservatives. They're…
August 14, 20175 Comments
Moral Cowards

Moral Cowards

My recent exchange with a British Twitter user in the wake of the Charlie Gard decision provides a case study in the moral cowardice of those who preen about their support for using the state to strip parents of their rights. As the record shows, it didn't take long for…
July 28, 201717 Comments

Pseudo-Language

The Z Man shines some much-needed light on the ruling class' attempts to stifle debate through the deliberate corruption of language. Maybe it has always been true, but it seems like we live in an age of esoteric language or pseudo-language. Everyone is familiar with the gag of using “undocumented…
June 30, 20177 Comments
The Last Megastars

The Last Megastars

Reader Michael Gross chimes in on my post about the tragic death of Chris Cornell with comments on the music industry that are so incisive, they merit his own guest post: Music started to worsen in the 90s as the music industry sabotaged itself (so to speak) as sales declined…
May 19, 201710 Comments
Writing to Reflect

Writing to Reflect

In the comments to my post about the decline of American comics, JD Cowan weighs in on the two-headed snake of message fic and postmodernism that is poisoning pop culture. Postmodernism is a labyrinth of fun-house mirrors. No matter where you look, you see yourself distorted and in the center…
May 12, 20172 Comments

Signs of Contradiction

Davis M.J. Aurini considers the six contradictions whose resolution will determine the future of the Alt-Media: For some time now, there have been tremors moving through the Alt Media; foreshocks of a coming seismic event.  Recently these shocks have been coming more frequently, and are increasingly evident to audiences, as…
May 3, 20174 Comments
They Hate Us a Lot

They Hate Us a Lot

The Zman takes his recent viewing of Casablanca as an occasion to meditate on a subject that I have often opined about myself. Here's the Zman: My generation was probably the last to grow up seeing these old films on television. They would turn up on the UHF channels at night or…
April 25, 20179 Comments
Regency Romance Authors Must Disavow Jane Austen

Regency Romance Authors Must Disavow Jane Austen

First it was cartoon frogs, then milk. Now the New York Times informs us that celebrated British author Jane Austen has become an insidious symbol for the dastardly alt-right. From the article: Nicole M. Wright, an assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado, describes finding a surprising Austen fan…
March 29, 201710 Comments
Amazon’s Civil War

Amazon’s Civil War

The controversy over The Corroding Empire just gets stranger and stranger. Amazon KDP has given Castalia House's new science fiction parody more green and red lights than a drag racing track. First it was thought that the book had been pulled at the behest of Tor Books, publisher of The Collapsing…
March 22, 201714 Comments