Two Months in the Facebook Hellhole

WARNING: Philip K. Dick spoilers. If you don’t want to read them, you probably ought to stop reading here.

You may have noticed that I have not been present much of late on Facebook.

Facebook
Enforcing Our Community Standards  —  We believe in giving people a voice, but we also want everyone using Facebook to feel safe.  It’s why we have Community Standards and remove anything that violates them, including hate speech that attacks or dehumanizes others.

I guess being governed by robots with awesome powers and no appeal is making me feel “safe”? No.

I was NOT in Facebook jail. No: I experienced something much darker, which almost convinced me to roll up the writing tent and pack it away for the foreseeable future.

There is a very good and very ugly reason for this. I’ve been locked in Facebook limbo, stuck in an infinite do-loop, and lost in a Kafkaesque nightmare of our possible future. Let’s back up …

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Please Don’t Ever Say I Didn’t Try To Warn You

May it Please the Kangaroos of the Court:

People’s Exhibit A:

Fresh off his felony pardon (D’Souza, not Trump):

People’s Exhibit B:

I, most respectfully, rest my case.

Courage.

Beyond A (t)Reasonable Doubt

Senator John McCain released the following press release earlier today. It is worth repeating in its entirety. It is also entirely in the Public Domain:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement today on President Trump’s meeting and press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki:

“Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.

Bill Rotsler’s Birthday

Today is the late William Rotsler’s birthday. It was often a feature at WESTERCONs, falling, as it did, on July 3.

Portrait of the Artist as an undissolute Man
by Bill Rotsler, drawn on July 3, 1976

I met Bill Rotsler at WESTERCON 29 on his birthday, that interim Bicentennial. (see “The Bison Tenniel — An Origin Story“) between July 2 (actual independence day, when Virginia’s resolution on “independency” was adopted by the Second Continental Congress) and July 4, when the “Declaration” was adopted by that same body.

Harlan Ellison Dead at 84

American writer Harlan Ellison died in his sleep at his home in the hills above Sherman Oaks, California yesterday.

Absent anything coherent to say, I will reprint a piece from his vorpal sword‘s archives.

In Which I Force Harlan Ellison to Work for FREE
26 JANUARY 2008 · 4:34 PM

From an upcoming documentary about that guy the proprietors and employees of Dangerous Visions Bookstore on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks (alas, R.I.P.) used to call “The angry old man up on the Hill.” If you’re having trouble seeing it, you could go HERE.*

Must reading for just reading

Buy Hart Williams’ new ebook — Nine of Hart’s — at Amazon … everywhere. For all devices!

You can find it here …

Courage.

Nine of Hart’s is Published!

My latest ebook, Nine of Hart’s, was published on Amazon this morning. Consisting of sixteen short stories written over the course of my forty-plus year writing career, it encapsulates the arc of my fiction writing.

Here’s the Amazon blurb:

Sixteen short stories of unicorns, trophies, stuff found in attics, of Christmas invasions, Chautauquas, Family secrets, sequels to classic films, and imaginary musicals. Moving examinations of “what it means to be a man” in a new era without rulebooks or codes. And hilarity in equal doses.

Here’s the Introduction: