Saturday, December 31, 2016

Are Literary Critics Getting Behind the ''Cli-fi'' Term as a Subgenre of Sci-fi? Yes they are!

JANUARY 1, 2017 A.D. = (''ANNO DONALDO'' YEAR 1)

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017! Big year coming up with Kim Stanley Robinson's publication of major cli-fi novel titled ''NEW YORK 2140'' set in near future of 2140 with NYC half submerged under ocean water as sea levels have risen BUT New Yorkers remain in skyscrapers and soldier on! Comedy? Satire? Cli-Fi? Pub date in March 14, 2017 and this will be a big one.

Are Literary Critics Getting Behind the ''Cli-fi'' Term as a Subgenre of Sci-fi? Yes they are!



Are Literary Critics
Getting Behind
the ''Cli-fi'' Term as a Subgenre of Sci-fi?
Yes, they are!

An Oped by Staff Writer and Agencies

Are Literary Critics
Getting Behind
the ''Cli-fi'' Term as a Subgenre of Sci-fi?

Yes, slowly but surely, they are! And not just in the USA and Canada, but also in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Brazil, Mexico and Spain, among dozens of other nations worldwide.

Among them in recent years are:

Michael Berry,
Jason Mark,
A.L. Brady,
Jonathan Sturgeon,
Rodge Glass,
Richard Perez-Pena,
Claire Vaye Watkins,
Kim Stanley Robinson,
Ben Goldfarb,
Angela Evancie,
Mahvesh Murad,
Margaret Atwood,
Alison Flood,
Pilita Clark,
Karen Hardy,
Cat Sparks,
Yann Quero,
Jean-Marc Ligny,
Bruno Arpaia,
Liz Jensen,
Meg Little Reilly,
Charlene D'Avanzo,
David Thorpe,
Rio Fernandes,
James Bradley,
Alvaro Soto,
Sarah Stankorb,
Catherine LaLonde,
Spencer Robins,
James Sullivan,
Laura Galdeano,
Ed Wright,
Ron Meador,
Adeline Johns-Putra,
David Holmes,
Ryan Mizzen,
Bahar Topcu,
Missy Higgins,
and Sarah Holding, among others

Sunday, December 25, 2016

''From ‘Cli-Fi’ to Critical Ecofeminism: Narratives of Climate Change and Climate Justice'' by Professor Greta Gaard

Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism (Hardback) book cover

Contemporary Perspectives on Eco-feminism


 
https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=yZn4CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT252&lpg=PT252&dq=how+can+feminists+and+ecocritics+empathize+gaard&source=bl&ots=ACckVxDFF5&sig=7WioyXRMH8wCmwJR41MwOA5CSrY&hl=zh-TW&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiX7Oulh5HRAhXFmZQKHSbgB6sQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=how%20can%20feminists%20and%20ecocritics%20empathize%20gaard&f=false

About the Book

vCli-fi and Eco-feminism: edited by Mary Phillips and Nick Rumens with papers by Erika Cudworth, Greta Gaard, Trish Glazebrook and Niamh Moore, among others

Edited by Mary Phillips, Nick Rumens

Why is eco-feminism still needed to address the environmental emergencies and challenges of our times?
 
Ecofeminism has a chequered history in terms of its popularity and its perceived value in conceptualizing the relationship between gender and nature as well as feeding forms of activism that aim to confront the environmental challenges of the moment.
 
This book provides a much-needed comprehensive overview of the relevance and value of using eco-feminist theories.

It gives a broad coverage of traditional and emerging eco-feminist theories and explores, across a range of chapters, their various contributions and uniquely spans various strands of ecofeminist thinking.

The origins of influential eco-feminist theories are discussed including key themes and some of its leading figures (contributors include Erika Cudworth, Greta Gaard, Trish Glazebrook and Niamh Moore), and outlines its influence on how scholars might come to a more generative understanding of the natural environment.

The book examines eco-feminism’s potential contribution for advancing current discussions and research on the relationships between the humans and more than humans that share our world.

This timely volume makes a distinctive scholarly contribution and is a valuable resources for students and academics in the fields of environmentalism, cli-fi, political ecology, sustainability and nature resource management.

 

© 2016 – Routledge
 

Table of Contents

 
 9. From ‘Cli-Fi’ to Critical Ecofeminism: Narratives of Climate Change and Climate Justice by Professor Greta Gaard
 
 
Introducing Contemporary Ecofeminism Mary Philips and Nick Rumens 

 Part 1 Theory 1. Eco/Feminist Genealogies: Renewing Promises and New Possibilities Niamh Moore 2. Ecofeminism and the Animal Erika Cudworth 3. Developing ecofeminist corporeality: Writing the body as activist poetics Mary Phillips 4. Regeneration in Limbo: Ecofeminist Perspectives on the Multiple Crisis and Social Contract Adelheid Biesecker and Uta v. Winterfeld 5. Exploring the Confluence of Ecofeminism, Covenantal Ethics, and Action Research Mary Brydon-Miller and Anne Inga Hilsen 

Part 2 Practice 6. Climate Adaptation in the Global South: Funding Women’s Farming Trish Glazebrook 7: Hidden Lives, Invisible Vocation? Giving Voice to Game Rangers’ Wives in Kwazulu–Natal, South Africa Ida Sabelis, Tamarisk van Vliet and Harry Wels 8. The Township Gaze: A Postcolonial Ecofeminist Theory for Touring the New South Africa Laura Wright 

 9. From ‘Cli-Fi’ to Critical Ecofeminism: Narratives of Climate Change and Climate Justice by Professor Greta Gaard

10. The Advantages of Gender theories in Analyses of Nature resource Management Christine Katz 11. Organizing and Managing Ecofeminism: Material Manifestations of Spiritual Principles in Business Ali Young and Scott Taylor

234 pages | 1 B/W Illus.
Purchasing Options:£ = GBP

Hardback: 9781138019744
pub: 2015-11-24
£95.00
x

eBook (VitalSource) : 9781315778686
pub: 2015-11-19
from
£34.99
£24.49

FREE Standard Shipping!

About the Book

Why is ecofeminism still needed to address the environmental emergencies and challenges of our times? Ecofeminism has a chequered history in terms of its popularity and its perceived value in conceptualizing the relationship between gender and nature as well as feeding forms of activism that aim to confront the environmental challenges of the moment.
This book provides a much-needed comprehensive overview of the relevance and value of using eco-feminist theories. It gives a broad coverage of traditional and emerging eco-feminist theories and explores, across a range of chapters, their various contributions and uniquely spans various strands of ecofeminist thinking. The origins of influential eco-feminist theories are discussed including key themes and some of its leading figures (contributors include Erika Cudworth, Greta Gaard, Trish Glazebrook and Niamh Moore), and outlines its influence on how scholars might come to a more generative understanding of the natural environment. The book examines eco-feminism’s potential contribution for advancing current discussions and research on the relationships between the humans and more than humans that share our world.
This timely volume makes a distinctive scholarly contribution and is a valuable resources for students and academics in the fields of environmentalism, political ecology, sustainability and nature resource management.

Friday, December 23, 2016

Peter Navarro's name in Chinese characters is written as 納瓦羅 or as 納瓦洛 (Peter Navarro) in Chinese traditional characters in free, democratic sovereign, independent Taiwan........BUT as 纳瓦罗(Peter Navarro)in the Communist Dictatorship of China in their Chinese simplified characters as ordained (dictated) by Mao Tse-dung.


December 25, 2016 A.D. [re ''Anno Donaldo'']

SPOT THE DIFFERENCES?

NOTE TO INTL MEDIA:

Dr Peter Navarro's name in Chinese characters is written as 納瓦羅 or as 納瓦洛 Peter Navarroin Chinese traditional characters in free, democratic sovereign, independent Taiwan........BUT as Peter Navarroin the Communist Dictatorship of China in their Chinese simplified characters as ordained (dictated) by Mao Tse-dung.

Taiwan and China are two different countries and there is no ONE CHINA. There are two countries here, one called Taiwan and the other called China. Taiwan's official name is THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA, and China's official name is THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA, which is a brazen euphemistic lie since Communist China is in no way run by the PEOPLE of CHINA at all but by the brutal dictactorship of Xi Xiping and the USSR-like Chinese Communist Party.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Tufts-trained and Jumbo alum PETER NAVARRO (納瓦羅) in Taiwan, (纳瓦罗) in Commie China, Tufts Class of 1972, joins the TRUMP team as head of National Council of Trade 12/22/2016 A.D. re ''Anno Donaldo''

Tufts-trained and Jumbo alum #PETERNAVARRO, class of 1972, joins #TRUMP team as head of National Council of Trade

SEE NEW LINK HERE at mirro site:

http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2016/12/tufts-alum-peter-navarro-class-of-1972.html

Tufts-trained and Jumbo alum #PETERNAVARRO, class of 1972, joins #TRUMP team as head of National Council of Trade http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2016/12/tufts-alum-peter-navarro-class-of-1972.html

Thursday, December 22, 2016 A.D. [re ''Anno Donaldo'']

SPOT THE DIFFERENCES? NOTE TO INTL MEDIA: Dr Navarro's name in Chinese charaters is written as 納瓦羅 or as 納瓦洛 Peter Navarroin Chinese traditional characters in free, democratic sovereign, independent Taiwan, BUT as Peter Navarroin the Communist Dictatorship of China in their Chinese simplified characters as ordained (dictated) by Mao Tse-dung.

Tufts alum PETER NAVARRO, class of 1972, joins Trump team as head of National Council of Trade

What You Might Want to Know About the Tufts Alum (class of 1972) and California Professor Who Is Trump's Pick to Head the National Council of Trade   

by Goldie Blumenstyk who writes about the intersection of business and higher education in DC.               
Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg via Getty Images
Peter Navarro, a 1972 Tufts graduate and now an economist in the U. of California at Irvine’s business school, has positions on trade that few in his field share. But TRUMP is listening. Above, Dr. Navarro meets people outside a media center at Hofstra U. ahead of the presidential debate there in September.
Peter Navarro, a professor and author who became known during the presidential campaign as the only academic economist directly advising the Trump campaign, continues to be one of the most public voices on economic matters for President-elect Donald J. TrumpPETER NAVARRO, class of 1972,  has joined the Trump team as head of National Council of Trade.

When Mr. Trump broke nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and spoke directly to the president of Taiwan, at least one account highlighted the likely role that Dr. Navarro’s get-tough-with-China influence may have had on the president-elect’s actions.

Dr. Navarro, who is 67, is a Tufts-trained professor of economics and public policy who has been on the faculty of the business school at the University of California at Irvine since 1989.

Before that, he spent two years as an assistant professor of business and government at the University of San Diego.

His ties to Mr. Trump began years before the campaign, when Mr. Navarro produced a film in connection with his 2011 book, Death by China: Confronting the Dragon — A Global Call to Action (Pearson FT Press). He sent the film to Mr. Trump, and soon got back an endorsement from the real-estate developer that called the film "right on."

This past October, a column in the The New Yorker speculated that if Mr. Trump won, "Peter Navarro would likely become the single most powerful economic adviser in the United States." The author of the piece also said he found some of Mr. Navarro’s ideas on China and trade "so radical" that he couldn’t find another economist who fully agreed with them.

According to Irvine officials, Mr. Navarro remains a full-time faculty member. In fact, during this academic quarter, even as he was publicly defending Mr. Trump’s tax, trade, and immigration policies — in some cases with bombastic language — Mr. Navarro continued with his full teaching load, teaching one undergraduate and two M.B.A. classes, mostly online. (Here’s an example of one of his arguments, from June, a response to a critique of Mr. Trump’s tax plan by Mark M. Zandi and other economists with Moody’s Analytics.)

That sums up why Mr. Navarro has been in the news lately. Here are 5 other things you might want to know about him:

He’s prolific. Mr. Navarro has written 13 books, including several that provide advice on investing — although at least one fellow Irvine economist, Amihai Glazer, says that his recent books and articles have been "more journalistic than academic" and "not what academic economists value."
Mr. Navarro’s latest book, published a year ago, is Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World (Prometheus Books). He’s also published dozens of articles in journals, and, early on, he wrote extensively about electricity and energy.
But according to Mr. Glazer, a professor in the economics department who has had reason to assess Mr. Navarro’s publications, his work from the past 10 years lacks a lot of the "rigorous analysis of data with statistics" that a top-ranked economics journal requires. Mr. Glazer said that university personnel policies prohibited him from saying why he had reviewed Mr. Navarro’s publishing record. The university system has a post-tenure review process that it uses for salary decisions, which could explain Mr. Glazer’s familiarity with Mr. Navarro’s work.
He enjoys public speaking. For the past 10 years, Mr. Navarro has been represented by the Sweeney Agency, a speakers’ bureau, according to the agency’s founder, Derek Sweeney. On his Sweeney Agency web page, Mr. Navarro appears in a video in which he describes his interactive speaking style (he likes to have the audience respond using electronic clickers) and his speaking philosophy. He says he’ll teach his audiences to become "their own economic forecasters." The expected self-promotion also includes a mention of the financial crisis, followed by the boast "which I did indeed accurately predict months before it hit." Mr. Sweeney would not disclose Mr. Navarro’s speaking fees but said that "he does an awful lot of stuff for free," especially when he can talk about trade issues.
He’s been honored for his teaching. Mr. Navarro has won teaching awards at the business school several times in the past 10 years. Those awards are voted on by students, which "speaks for itself," said Mary Gilly, senior associate dean. In November 2015, he was also honored with a universitywide Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching presented by the Academic Senate.
He’s long had a public-service streak. After graduating with a B.A. from Tufts University in 1972, Mr. Navarro served in the Peace Corps in Thailand. He then went to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and received his master’s in public administration in 1979. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1986.
Between 1992 and 2001, he ran (unsuccessfully) for seats on the San Diego City Council and the county Board of Supervisors, for mayor, and for the U.S. Congress. He considered himself a Democrat. As The Orange County Register put it in a profile of him this summer, "In those years, Navarro described himself as pro-environment, pro-choice, and pro-gay rights, and had little use for the GOP’s economic programs."
He was an early adopter of technology. Mr. Navarro has developed and taught at least two MOOCs. One of them was an experimental one-credit course designed to help undergraduates better understand their own finances. Another, which can be taken for free by anyone via Coursera or for credit through UC-Irvine, is "The Power of Macroeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World." It is made up of 13 hours of videos and quizzes and, according to its listing on the Coursera website, has been highly ranked by participants. Interested? The latest offering of the course began just this week.
Goldie Blumenstyk writes about the intersection of business and higher education.

===============

hina trade

Beijing fires trade warning

after Trump appoints China hawk

and Tufts alum Peter Navarro,

Class of 1972       

Navarro appointment shocks Communist China dictatorship officials


China has warned Donald Trump that “co-operation is the only correct choice” after the US president-elect tapped a China hawk to run a new White House trade policy office.
The appointment of Peter Navarro, a campaign adviser, to a formal White House post shocked Chinese officials and scholars who had hoped that Mr Trump would tone down his anti-Beijing rhetoric after assuming office.
Mr Navarro, a Tufts-trained economist and University of California Irvine professor, is the author of Death by China and other books that paint the country as America’s most dangerous adversary.
“Chinese officials had hoped that, as a businessman, Trump would be open to negotiating deals,” said Zhu Ning, a finance professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “But they have been surprised by his decision to appoint such a hawk to a key post.”
Adding to rising tensions between the two countries, the US Office of the Trade Representative yesterday put Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce platform, back on its “notorious markets” blacklist of companies accused of being involved in peddling fake goods.
China is preparing itself for US trade actions. China will respond with counteractions of its own
Cui Fan, China Society of WTO Studies

Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said Beijing would monitor the policy positions of the incoming US administration. "As two major powers with broad mutual interests, co-operation is the only correct choice," she said on Thursday.
Speaking hours before the appointment of Mr Navarro, which was first reported by the Financial Times, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist party’s flagship newspaper, that China and the US faced "new, complicated and uncertain factors affecting bilateral relations". He said the world’s two largest economies must respect each other's "core interests".
Cui Fan at the China Society of WTO Studies, a think-tank affiliated with China’s commerce ministry, warned that Beijing would respond to any unilateral action by the incoming Trump administration. “China is preparing itself for US trade actions,” he said. “China will respond with counteractions of its own.”
China has been scrambling to assess Mr Trump’s stance since he took a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen in early December, defying almost four decades of precedent. Under the “One China” policy, Washington has abstained from official interactions with the island, which Beijing regards as a “rogue province”.
Chinese diplomats have been setting up meetings with current and former US officials who focus on Asia to try to discern what Mr Trump is thinking. But many US experts have little contact with the Trump transition team, which is run out of Trump Tower in New York, complicating efforts to glean meaningful intelligence.
The highest level contact between China and the Trump team came last week when Yang Jiechi, the top Chinese foreign policy official, met Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, in New York. While much of the Asia team remains unknown, Mr Trump is considering Matthew Pottinger, a former US marine and Wall Street Journal correspondent in China, for the top Asia adviser role in the White House.
Mr Trump’s recent rhetoric about China has given Beijing even more cause for concern. Since the call with Ms Tsai, he has publicly criticised China’s currency policies and island fortifications in the South China Sea. He has questioned Washington’s commitment to the One China policy, and also angered Beijing by alleging at the weekend that a Chinese warship had “stolen” a US navy submarine drone, which was later returned.
Mr Wang told the People’s Daily: "We will lead the way amid a shake-up in global governance and take hold of the situation amid international chaos. We will protect our interests amid intense and complex games."
Last week, the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates and hinted at three more rises next year. The Fed move and expectations of tax cuts and infrastructure stimulus in the Trump administration are putting more downward pressure on the renminbi, which has been declining in value against the dollar as Chinese authorities struggle to contain capital flight.
He Weiwen, deputy director of the Center for China and Globalisation, added that Beijing could retaliate against US exports and restrict market access for US companies.
Additional reporting by Yuan Yang and Archie Zhang in Beijing
Twitter: @tmitchpk and @dimi
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

"The Year There Was No Christmas" - a children's story poem by an American expat living in Venezuela in late 2016, BUT WITH A HAPPY ENDING, READ IT NOW HERE VIA LINK -- PASS IT ON, NO COPYRIGHT!

 "The Year There Was No Christmas"

- a children's story poem by an American expat living in cash-strapped Venezuela in late 2016 BUT WITH A HAPPY ENDING FOR KIDS, READ IT NOW -

http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2016/12/the-year-there-was-no-christmas.html

-- PASS IT ON, NO COPYRIGHT!

===============

POSTED on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 A.D.


"The Year There Was No Christmas"

 

- a children's story poem by an American expat living in Venezuela in late 2016






An American expat writer living in Venezuela in 2016 read the news on The Drudge Report front page the other day that said that Christmas had been ''cancelled'' in Venezuela this December because of the food shortages and currency problems and the headline on Drudge read:


'Santa Claus isn't coming,' recession-hit Venezuelans tell kids...

So this American expat living in South America for many years sat down to write this poem. Read and weep, and then, when you get to the end, read it and rejoice! The 45-year-old author prefers to remain anonymous and purposely did not copyright his words. ''Feel free to copy and resend and publish anywhere,'' he told this blog,

============================

"The Year There Was No Christmas"


[a story poem for children everywhere penned in 2016]

There's supposed to be a Christmas,
As every child knows,
A cold Christmas, a warm Christmas
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

But one year there was no Christmas,
And Father Christmas never came.
There were no stockings, no trees,
And Christmas was not the same.

There was no money and stores were all closed,
This was not the Christmas that we had all supposed,
For children 'twas a sadness they never ever knew,
But you know, or you should know,
This could even happen to you!

Food was scarce, the stock market collapsed,
Kids could no longer sit on Santa Clauses' laps,
This was the end of the world as we knew it that year.
There were no presents,no Christmas cheer.

Then out of the blue, we all turned the page,
Christmas was restored, repackaged with sage.
Presents fell from treetops, and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed.
And all was well in the world again,
The break with the past never showed.

And Christmas came back that year with such singing,
So every child knew,
''The Year There Was No Christmas''
Was a just a bad dream never true.

For every year there *is* a Christmas,
and every year dreams do come true.

Yes, you forgot to pray that year,
And yes, you forgot to sing.
And yes, you went astray that year,
And didn't hear the sleighbells ring.

But fear not, my child, don't be afraid
There will always be a Christmas
It's something that God made

So arise and shine and sing and shout,
''A Year There Is No Christmas''
Is a year with too much doubt.

Arise, believe, wake up, stop dreaming
The table's set and steaming!


-- Christmas 2016, words written on a napkin in Venezuela


===========================================================

The Grinch that DID steal Christmas
On November first Nicolas Maduro announced that Christmas had started and he went as far as already lightening up the traditional cross on the Avila mountain which is normally turned on December 1. Well, since then he did his utmost to wreck the Christmas of joy he promised in spite of shortages, crime and what not. After what happened this week, he has definitely wrecked Christmas for all, without possible redemption by December 24.

The news of today are dramatic, and even tragic as there is at least one dead protester/looter. At this point people are hungry and frustrated enough so the line between looter and protester is easily crossed.


Reports of looting and protests from all around Venezuela came in. They included even the looting of banks in the belief that the regime kept inside the new bills that are not appearing anywhere. And that is the crux of the problem, the regime has not made available the proposed new bills as it was taken away all the ones that were the blood line of a wrecked economy.

For your understanding. A large portion of Venezuelan everyday economy is run through cash transactions, in particular outside of Caracas. There is a very large sector of the population that does not hold a real job and do not even have a savings account. And even if they have one, they probably do not have an ATM card (not that this matters much as ATM are not delivering bills these days). And in many small towns and villages there may not even be a bank, and if they have electronic payment points those are limited to very few stores and do not work well due to the distance and bad communications with rerouters and the like.

As a consequence of that a large chunk of the population did not deposit their 100 banknotes because they had nowhere to deposit them. They had to wait for today when the banknote exchange would officially start at the state owned banks and the Central Bank. But it did not happen and the population were furious when the only thing offered, if at all, was a certificate of deposit to be honored when the new bills would arrive.  How would these people buy food? Take the bus? Buy something for their child's fever? Even less, prepare for Christmas?  No wonder we had serious stuff happening all through the day (I re tweeted some, you can find them on my time line on the right).

What is quite amazing is how tone deaf the regime has been. Last night Maduro pushed his chutzpah at reducing the number of days allowed for exchange at the Central Bank, probably assuming that most people had deposited. It is simply amazing that a government of "el pueblo" ignores the real life conditions of that "el pueblo". But tonight we learned that in spite of Maduro words the Central Bank will open this week end...  We'll see, and at any rate in an unsafe area of Caracas at 10 PM people were in line at the Central Bank building. Also, additional proof of the regime utter mess is announcing that the subway would be free which is like applying a small bandage on a large open broken bleeding leg.

To finish this post, there is no point in dwelling on how fucked up the regime is, how lost Christmas are, you just need to watch the news or read twitter to understand the magnitude of the disaster. Journalists are having a field day with a furious population that has unusually harsh words against Maduro. Let's instead try to perceive why the regime took such an idiotic, ill planned measure.

From what I can gather, the leftist economic counselors of Maduro, from Cuba and Spain Podemos, suggested that a spiraling black market rate of the dollar could be countered by merely reducing the monetary mass.  That simplistic of a theory is believed, ignoring that the structural inflation of Venezuela is its lack of production due to a decade and a half of wrong headed economic decisions. To which you may add internal chavista infighting where a gang was willing to risk such a disaster in order to punish another gang. There were probably other motivations such as increasing control over the populace by making them more dependent on the government by the mere fact of monetary scarcity, so to speak.  Indeed there was a tiny grain of truth in it. Incorporating the new higher denomination bills would have been a sudden increase in monetary mass without support, and hence accrued inflation. But the solution was a slow incorporation as the old bills were removed.  Not what happened.

So why did the government act so brutally at possibly the very worst time? This is were the conspiracy theories take hold. Some say that the crazy measures may have been ignored by those who knew better in order to speed up the end of Maduro. Others, that Maduro felt that by doing such a change was an irresistible way to show resolve and vision. The border mafias could be accused, The conspiratorial NGO treachery could be advanced with hoards of 100 bills in Switzerland vaults, etc. The nincompoopier the better. While at the same time slowing down inflation long enough for, say, a snap election advantage.

I do not know whether inflation will be stopped, My guess is that December inflation instead of being 30% may end up being a mere 20%, only to roar back in January.  The black market rate did indeed dropped by half but that is no surprise. There was a speculative component to it. But what Maduro cannot stop is that there are Colombians that need to buy bolivars to pay for their businesses inside Venezuela and as such they need to sell Pesos even though nobody right now has the cash for them. Hence the  temporary drop in the black market quotes. But just you wait. That the black market rate is still the double of what it was two months ago is an early sign of failure.

Had Maduro listened to any one else than the commie hacks that surround him, he would have been told that as long as the lingering structural causes of inflation were not dealt with it the only thing he could get through crunching monetary mass was a brief, very brief lull in inflation. But never an end to it. That and the hubris of wanting to be in control of a general situation that has escaped his hands explains while he took such a gamble that even if well prepared would not have turned out well. Instead it brought upon his regime a new disaster and probably the loss of a significant chunk of whatever support he may have still had.

Now let's see if the opposition can cash in that mess.


Saturday, December 17, 2016

From Middle-earth to Narnia, ''Literary Wonderlands'' is a tour of the greatest fictional worlds ever created, says critic Alec Scott

From Middle-Earth to Narnia, ''Literary Wonderlands'' edited by Laura Miller is a tour of the greatest fictional worlds ever created


 

  • Title ''Literary Wonderlands''
  • Author Laura Miller
  • Genre Non-Fiction
  • Publisher Black Dog & Leventhal
  • Pages 320
  • Price $38.99
Shortly after the U.S. presidential election where Trump took office, an American dropped Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood a note on Twitter: “Thanks for writing The Handmaid’s Tale so at least we know what’s coming.”
 
Atwood sent back an uncharacteristically chipper reply to the reader and his fellow citizens. “Dear Americans: It will be all right in the long run. (How long? We’ll see.) We’ve been through worse, remember.”

Atwood’s 1985 novel is, of course, set in a future New England where the old puritanism has come back in a new, virulent form, and scripture is used to justify the ruling class’s use of fertile women, the eponymous handmaids, to breed heirs.
 
The book is one of several works of fantastical fiction referenced in Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created, a new compendium of imaginary places edited by the distinguished American lit crit Laura Miller.
 
In 2008, this co-founder of the online magazine Salon explored her childhood affection for C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia in The Magician’s Book. The alt-worlds featured in this new miscellany run the gamut, in tone, from the young-adult-appropriate Narnia, with its talking animals ruled over by the benevolent Lion-God Aslan, to Atwood’s X-rated depiction of a bleak, theocratic New England.
 
The entries also cover a wide swath in time, moving from the myths told by the ancients, the Babylonians, Greeks, Welsh and Norse, via J.M. Barrie, Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, to the blockbuster fantasies of the current day, the likes of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series and Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy.
 
I expected to feel a sense of homecoming when diving into this lavishly illustrated list of speculative fiction’s greatest hits. Like Miller, I was a child turned on to reading by Lewis and the many other YA authors who followed in his and the other early fantasy masters’ footsteps. At a cottage we rented near Brockville, Ont., for a few weeks each summer, my brothers and I named all the landmarks within running or paddling distance for sites from Narnia, Oz and Middle-earth, producing our own versions of the requisite maps that tend to feature at the front of speculative fiction books.
But I felt no welcome return here. Literary Wonderlands is a miscellany of dry, literate descriptions, with little connective tissue bringing it all together. What uses we make of enchantment, why we’ve been drawn, generation upon generation, to such stories – these fundamental questions are left unaddressed.
Some of the featured works bathe in the human past – most famously evidenced by Tolkien, who took the raw material of Norse myths and some notion of Old Englishness, and transmuted them into The Lord of the Rings. But many others conjure up speculative futures: Here, along with Atwood’s visions, are the political nightmares of George Orwell, the druggy fantasies of Aldous Huxley and the gadgety space odysseys of Isaac Asimov.
The two types of work, fantasy and sci-fi, jar in juxtaposition with each other here, just as their fans have often tended to do at conferences – and the book makes no real case for a fundamental kinship between those who face backward and the others who peer forward.
Some works featured here are, as the title would suggest, ultra-literary. And so we find, in chronological order, thumbnail sketches of Beowulf doing battle with his monster, Dante’s alter ego exploring the circles of hell, Cervantes’s Don Quixote tilting at windmills, Swift’s Gulliver travelling among tiny folk, giants and talking horses, and Kafka’s K. trying to figure out that puzzling Castle. But schlock also abounds, with descriptions of Conan the Barbarian and Planet of the Apes sandwiched between ones of celebrated literary classics. If this all sounds needlessly chaotic, it is.
I mainly stopped reading speculative fiction when I grew up. This book toys with the old arguments as to whether such escapes to other worlds, not our own, are all very well for those in their formative years, but are best left behind in adulthood, as so many childish things.
Miller’s entry on Narnia goes at this debate obliquely, and compacts some of the key arguments she made in her longer, earlier work. Here, as there, she makes good use of Lewis’s biography to show why he felt compelled to create Narnia. His own childhood he describes, evocatively, as one of “long corridors, empty sunlit rooms … attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the [roof] tiles.”
With a mother who died young and a frequently panicky father, Lewis and his brother also imagined themselves in another, better place – and later, much later, Narnia resulted. For Lewis, according to Miller, The Chronicles represented an extended lamentation over what is lost when we grow up – even if our childhoods are less than ideal. The Narnia books had another agenda, hidden to Miller when she was a girl: They introduce children to the central Christian story, with the death and resurrection of Aslan.
Another solid entry, that on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, points out how opposed Pullman’s project is to Lewis’s. “The trilogy is in many ways a retelling of Paradise Lost. In Pullman’s own words: ‘My books are about killing God.’”
As in Lewis’s books, an early scene in one of Pullman’s books has a girl creeping into a wardrobe that is “bigger than she’d thought”, but, as this book points out, it “doesn’t open to a new world.” Pullman celebrates this girl’s moves toward greater knowledge, as she learns to view others with a healthy skepticism. Her move to adulthood is cause for celebration not sadness.
Where Lewis thinks we lose the ability to reach Narnia when we grow up, Pullman evidently does not. In her other work, Miller has quoted Pullman as saying, “You have to go all the way through human life. You have to go around the world and re-enter Paradise through the back way.” The seeds of this lively debate are here, in this new book, but they aren’t allowed to grow – as they did in Miller’s earlier book.
Still, the vigour of this line of stories is well conveyed here. It’s a tent big enough to contain godly tales and ungodly ones, celebrations of childhood and its end, guesstimates at the future along with re-embroidered versions of the mythic past. It demonstrates how this vitality has drawn talents such as Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro to it, along with lesser literary lights such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. P. Lovecraft. Although there are some curious omissions here – the Irish myths and Grimm’s Fairy Tales don’t feature – what is included makes the point that fantastical stories, far from being a genre, are the main trunk of our literary tree.
 
Alec Scott is a Canadian writer based in Oakland, Calif., whose work has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco magazine and The Walrus.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Writers alert -- A publisher has asked me to try to find a novelist , either a first time writer or someone who already has published a novel of any genre, who would want to turn their attention to writing a cli fi novel set in the present time about a female scientist whose phd was on the Krakatoa volcanic eruption Indonesia in 1883 ...and whose current work is about global warming studies in the 21st century...and her husband who is a newspaper reporter.. and their circle of family and friends.. in the writing and storytelling style of say , Barbara Kingsolver. Or David Brin. 250 pages. Publication guaranteed under your name. Standard royalties to you after publication and no advance. if interested contact us

Writers alert -- A publisher has asked me to try to find a novelist , either a first time writer or someone who already has published a novel of any genre, who would want to turn their attention to writing a cli fi novel set in the present time about a female scientist whose phd was on the Krakatoa volcanic eruption Indonesia in 1883 ...and whose current work is about global warming studies in the 21st century...and her husband who is a newspaper reporter.. and their circle ...of family and friends.. in the writing and storytelling style of say , Barbara Kingsolver or David Brin. 250 pages. Publication guaranteed under your name. Standard royalties to you after publication and no advance. if interested contact me ...in private email here at this blog or a cli-fi.net contact address...hoping to find this writer asap For possible publication of yr novel in 2018 or 2019 depending on yr schedule. 2020 is fine, too.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Watershed dates in the rise of ''cli-fi''


''THE VIRGIN MARY OF GLOBAL WARMING''
Photo and Title by French sci-fi novelist Yann Quero

1926 - Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing Stories.[11]

1937 - John W. Campbell, Jr. became editor of Astounding Stories; he promptly changed the title to Astounding Science Fiction.[19]


1951 - Isaac Asimov published the first book in the Foundation series.

1984 By Aldous Huxley is social sci-fi, a new subgenre

1993 - Octavia E. Butler published ''Parable of the Sower''

2007 -- Oxford University Press published what was said to be "the first historical dictionary devoted to science fiction": Brave New Words.[43]

2012 - "Polar City Red" by Jim Laughter is a cli-fi subgenre novel set in a dystopian Alaska in 2075.

2013 - NPR broadcast a radio segment nationwide, arranged by freelancer producer Angela Evancie, about the rise of a new subgenre of sci fi dubbed ''cli-fi'' (for climate fiction)

2015 - Paolo Bacigalupi published "The Water Knife", part of a new sub genre of cli-fi sci-fi, focussing on clmate change stories.

2017  - Sci-fi legend Kim Stanley Robinson published ''NEW York 2140'', his first full-fledged cli-fi novel, set in, yes, 2140, about NYC under water, or at least half under water.

2020 -- MORE TO COME....

2050 - EVEN MORE TO COME.....

50 Essential Sci-fi and Cli-fi Books (1864-2017)

 (1864 - 2017)

50 Essential Sci-fi and Cli-fi Books

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864) A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864)
Famous adventure tale that practically launched the genre in 1864.
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1898) The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1898)
The Martians come to England. A famous example of invasion literature from 1898.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
Set in 2540, this novel imagines a radically different future. So good, it’s taught in schools.
When Worlds Collide by Edwin Balmer & Philip Wylie (1933) When Worlds Collide by Edwin Balmer & Philip Wylie (1933)
Earth must be evacuated because another planet is on a collision course.
Odd John by Olaf Stapledon (1935) Odd John by Olaf Stapledon (1935)
A superhuman novel where supernormal abilities lead to conflict.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949) Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)
Social sci-fi from the era of Soviet growth where a nasty political system defines the plot.
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (1949) Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (1949)
Written shortly after Hiroshima, this post-apocalyptic novel imagines the rebuilding process.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951) Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
The original novel in a pioneering series. An immense plot that I cannot sum up in a sentence.
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (1951) The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (1951)
18 masterful and highly imaginative short stories from one of the genre's masters.
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (1953) The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (1953)
First Hugo winner. A science fiction detective novel featuring telepathy.
Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak (1953) Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak (1953)
Clever invasion novel from the 1950s where aliens introduce devices to disrupt Earth's economy.
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement (1954) Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement (1954)
A world-building novel on a planet with variable surface gravity. Insect-like locals, human explorers.
The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett (1955) The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett (1955)
Following a nuclear war, religious sects create an anti-technology society.
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (1955) The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (1955)
Set way in the future in a fundamentalist society. Telepathy makes people different.
The Death of Grass or No Blade of Grass by John Christopher (1956) The Death of Grass or No Blade of Grass by John Christopher (1956)
A virus kills off all strains of grasses & causes a famine. England descends into anarchy.
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1959) Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1959)
Fine example of military science fiction from the late 1950s. A war against bugs.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut (1959) The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut (1959)
Douglas Adams described it as a “tour de force” – a novel set amid a Martian invasion of Earth.
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959) Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959)
Frank imagines the effects of nuclear war on a small town in Florida.
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (1960) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (1960)
Post-apocalyptic science fiction where monks are trying to preserve vital books and humanity.
Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon (1960) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon (1960)
20th century Charlie Johns wakes in a future filled with overpopulation, bigotry and no gender.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1961) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1961)
Humans study a planet while the planet studies them. A novel about miscommunication.
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (1962) The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (1962)
The ice-caps melt and the world floods. Set in 2145, the protagonist has adapted rather well.
Hothouse by Brian Aldiss (1962) Hothouse by Brian Aldiss (1962)
An ecological-themed novel set in the far future with fantasy elements.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
Children’s fiction, with fantasy elements, where a government scientist goes missing.
Dune by Frank Herbert (1965) Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
This novel has sold 12 million copies so can’t be bad. Spice before the Spice Girls.
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (1966) Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (1966)
Set in 1999, a novel about over-population. Basis for the movie, Soylent Green.
Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson (1967) Logan's Run by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson (1967)
Age-themed science fiction. Everyone is killed off at 21 but there are “runners.”
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968)
A bounty hunter tracks down escaped androids in a post-apocalyptic future.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
Le Guin is prolific and a must-read for everyone. This book details an imagined universe.
Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock (1969) Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock (1969)
A time travel story where a man goes from 1970 back to AD 28 to meet Jesus.
Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970) Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)
From the golden era of the early 1970s. Set in 2850 in a radically different universe.
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1972) Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1972)
A classic set in the 22nd century, an alien starship enters the solar system.
Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky (1972) Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky (1972)
Roadside Picnic is a classic alien-encounter story from Russia’s most important sci-fi writers.
The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975) The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
A novel following the lives of four women in parallel worlds. Feminist sci-fi.
Man Plus by Frederik Pohl (1976) Man Plus by Frederik Pohl (1976)
Cyborg (where man & machine combine) science fiction as humans attempt to colonize Mars.
The Stand by Stephen King (1978) The Stand by Stephen King (1978)
Apocalyptic novel where a virus kills off most people and it is nightmarish for survivors.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
A radio series. Adams introduced a huge and much-needed dose of humor into the genre.
Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster (1982) Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster (1982)
Imagines the Humanx Commonwealth where humans exist alongside aliens.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (1985) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (1985)
Violent futuristic sci-fi where the Earth is threatened by an ant-like species.
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (1987) Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (1987)
Pure space opera. First in the Culture series, this novel features a sprawling space war between species.
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1988) Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1988)
Quaddies are genetically modified humans used as slaves. They become obsolete and face a grim end.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989) Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989)
A complicated story-within-a-story novel with humanity spread across the galaxy.
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1993) Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1993)
First in a readable trilogy imagining the colonization of Mars.
Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo (1996) Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo (1996)
Biopunk short story collection – a spin-off from cyberpunk featuring biotechnology.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999) Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999)
Historical science fiction adored by Geeks for its technology themes.
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (2005) Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (2005)
A novel based on cosmetic surgery for teenagers. Modern science fiction on a modern issue.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi (2005) Old Man's War by John Scalzi (2005)
Scalzi's debut saw humans fighting aliens Heinlein-style except old people pull the trigger.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2007) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2007)
Modern cyberpunk in post-9/11 era. Teenage hackers battle Homeland Security over civil rights.
Acme Novelty Library #19 by Chris Ware (2008) Acme Novelty Library #19 by Chris Ware (2008)
Post-modern plot in a graphic novel. A sci-fi writer & his girlfriend are the last humans on Earth.
Embassytown by China Miéville (2011) Embassytown by China Miéville (2011)
Set in a small town on a distant planet, this 2011 novel depicts interaction between aliens & humans.

KSR, ''NEW YORK 2140'', set for March 14, 2017 release