A reckoning.

None of what's happening politically is new--it's just risen to the surface in a metastasized form. Either we'll deal with it or we'll die...or we'll shove it back under the surface until it rises up yet again.

I finished the book I talked about yesterday: "Astounding," by Alec Nevala-Lee, about John W. Campbell, the editor of the above pulp magazine during the Golden Age of S.F. and into the modern era.

The author does a very clever thing: while he profiles Campbell for the entire book, warts and all, he saves the biggest wart for last. The most problematic flaw of Campbell was his racism. It wasn't subtle. I suspect that if that had come up earlier in the book it would have left very little sympathy for the man.

What's interesting to me is how pertinent to the current troubles this book is. What many Republicans are currently saying is just a more disguised way to express the same racism. The reckoning for Campbell has come in the last few years. The "best new novel" is no longer called the "John W. Campbell Award."  He's been banished. Cancelled.

As he should be. That doesn't keep me from reading about him and his influence on the S.F. culture--it just means an award doesn't need to be named after him.