Sunday 5 January 2025 10:22:45 PM CDT

If it was his only work The Forever War would probably have given Joe Haldeman a ticket into the SF writers hall of fame if they have one. The SF world does have prestigious awards like other art forms. The Forever War won the two biggest ones and is in qualified to stand with the other greats like Dune and Asimov's Foundation books which I haven't read yet but they're on the to-read list. Knowing that Joe Haledman got drafted during the Vietnam war is useful (my mentor briefs me when introducing a new author so I knew) is helpful. I know only a few Vietnam vets even casually - it was only about thirty years between the ending of WWII and the Vietnam War and almost all the WWII vets are gone. The youngest ones would have been twenty or so in when the war ended in 1975 and that was almost fifty years ago. If I got that right they're all in their seventies now. One non-veteran I know says:

I have a soft spot for Nixon because I turned 18 in 1974. If the war had gone on I would have gone - my family of WWII and Korea vets would have disowned me and besides I believed all the 'have to stop the spread of Communism' stuff. I lost a cousin on my mother's side of the family - he was about nine years older than me but like a big brother when I was younger. He left his pregnant wife behind to go on his second tour and never came back and the kid never knew his father. In an interview with our small-town newspaper he said what pretty much everybody believed - it was important to stop the Communists.

That's the way it was then and we didn't know. Ironically the hippies and peacenicks were right about the war but (most of them) for the wrong reasons. They wanted to turn the USA socialist - as they believed socialism to be. ~ Varinax

The funeral for former President Jimmy Carter is Thursday. Is it former only if he served two terms or just didn't seek a second term rather than being defeated as Carter was or would he be an ex-president? If it's ex then President Trump would at present be an ex-president and after 2028 would be a former president. Not much else about his presidency has been ordinary so that seems appropriate.

I wasn't born yet when Carter was president an so didn't have that experience to compare with the travesty of an administration that is about to end. That it was awful is a historical fact but opinions vary about the subject. Most people I know have a similar view:

Carter was one of those accidental presidents. The Republicans were screwed after Nixon (Watergate) and the Democrats probably could have gotten just about anything elected. Thus a guy who was in no way prepared to be president was elected and was a post turtle. Most people including Republicans saw him as a basically decent person in over his head. Some of that was because he spent his life doing good works instead of cashing in for whatever that was worth. I don't find him as odious as most Democrats - make that all Democrats - but that's about faint praise. ~ Faxtus

It's hard to be angry at a fool for doing foolish things. Carter wasn't dumb - he graduated high in his class at the Naval Academy and was a successful farmer. Considering who the Democrats put up I'm not even sure he was he worst of the three contenders for the nomination but where most Democrats are thoroughly corrupt Carter was just inept. I would probably forgive him for most of his maladministration but he was still badmouthing Republicans up through Trump including accusing him of being being put in office by the Russians. George W. Bush at least pretty much stayed quiet after he was out of office and I was beginning to dislike him a little less but he jumped in trying to stop Trump. ~ Damianos

The subject of the Panama Canal came up as President Trump has suggested repossessing it because Panama is in bed with China and putting screws to US shipping. That Carter 'gave it away' isn't quite the case as it was required by the treaty but the Panamanians aren't abiding by their obligations. Probably the worst thing from a moral perspective was the attempt to extract the hostages from Iran because he saw himself losing the election because of them. If nothing had gone wrong the chances of it working were slim and people died because of it. I have a lot of military in my family and friends and the older guys remember that and despise him for that even more than pardoning the draft-dodgers. Knowing now how dirty that deal was one can forgive them for not wanting to die for rich people who don't even care about our own country but put their globalist agenda first. You could say they did the right thing for the wrong reasons. The Nobel prize people did finally get around to giving him one in 2002. He didn't deserve it as much as President Reagan - he never got one - but after giving it to a bloody-handed terrorist who devoted his life to preventing peace and a president who had done less than nothing to deserve it by the time Carter got one it was more of the participation prizes that were in vogue by then. I supposed they assuaged whatever conscience they might of had by awarding it to the two Israeli prime ministers. Did they get the irony of the juxtapostion of the defenders of peace and freedom with one who tried to destroy it? I know, rhetorical question.

I suspect President Trump will deal with the Panama situation in a satisfactory way to us at least. The Chinese might not be too happy about it but that's their problem. Actually relations with China and Russia are likely to improve, as if they could be much worse.



















































The Taurans relearned war, after a fashion. They never got really good at it, and would eventually have lost. The Taurans, the book explained, couldn't communicate with humans because they had no concept of the individual; they had been natural clones for millions of years. Eventually, Earth's cruisers were manned by Man, Kahn-clones, and they were for the first time able to get through to each other. The book stated this as a bald fact. I asked a Man to explain what it meant, what was special about clone-to-clone communication, and he said that I a priori couldn't understand it. There were no words for it. And my brain wouldn't be able to accommodate the concepts even if there were words. All right. It sounded a little fishy, but I was willing to accept it. I'd accept that up was down if it meant the war was over. The Forever War Joe Haldeman
At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different -- in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.