Right. It's also taboo for Democrats to criticize Democratic candidates. If you didn't adore Hillary — not just vote for her, you had to agree that she was the most qualified, progressive candidate evar — you were for Trump.

But that's also mainstream capitalism: Keep your government hands off my tax breaks, and bail me out when I get into trouble.

"cis genre fans"? So Ruiz is trans?

But then Britain also encompasses the former British empire, so a Jamaican, Kenyan, etc would fall under that umbrella. And many Scots or Irish would reject it — I guess you've never heard about Irish struggles for independence, or the recent referendum for Scotland to secede from the UK; that came very close to…

Interesting. I hated The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I thought it read like self-parody.

Heinlein began Stranger in the 1950s, got a fair ways into it and then set it aside. Picked it up around 1960 and completed it. A lot of people (including me) have tried to spot the seam, without success — everyone disagrees where it is — but there's general agreement that there's a big difference in tone and…

If, like me, you reread all or most of RAH every so often, you might want to try reading the uncut version next time you go through Stranger. It's not different substantially. Putnam thought it too long, and Heinlein went through it, cutting words here and there, purely for reasons of length. The cut version is not…

Yes, that was one thing that turned me off when I finally got around to reading more of PKD's fiction a few years ago. I got the Library of America compilations, and after reading the first volume and the first novel in the second I decided to take a break for a few decades. His depiction of women wasn't horrific,…

Oh, yes they are. Heinlein was always preachy.

If you don't know, I'm certainly not going to tell you! *runs weeping from the room*

So, what you're saying is that there's a special place in Hell for women who don't support other women, especially Hillary Clinton?

It doesn't matter. If you identify as a busty Kryptonian, you're a busty Kryptonian and only the privileged will oppress you by denying it.

I realized, reading those final sentences, that Rabin was also describing America itself. (Except for "short of murder," which we do mostly get away with.)

Brad wasn't a monster!

Yeah. I mean, shouldn't Spock be romantically involved with another Vulcan, preferably half-Vulcan, and Uhura with another African-Federationist? Cho's concern is well-taken only for the present (which is valid, since the movie's not made for a 25 1/2 century audience). "Racial" dynamics will probably be somewhat…

Actually, Kinsey found people shifting around two or three points on the continuum; he wasn't a believer in biological theories of sexual orientation (a term he didn't use, by the way). Not having seen the film, I'm wondering whether its version of Sulu is defined as a Kinsey 6. (6 is exclusively homosexual on the…

I agree with you. And I wonder how many of the people who are arguing about this (including Takei) have any idea about representations of gay / les / bi characters in East Asian cinema? Many of them are much better than anything that has been done by Hollywood.

I think a person could disagree on that. I think lots of Asian men, including stars, are hot. But John Cho's always got that whiny bleh expression, which has nothing to do with his being Asian. Give me Jason Scott Lee, Jackie Chan, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Leon Lai, any number of East Asian stars. (Remember, there's…

If the social sciences aren't "the humanities," they're pretty far over the line.

To say nothing of covering one's baldness between hair transpants.