Star Trek Reminds Us We Can Do Better: Thoughts on Star Trek's 60th Anniversary

 

My 60th anniversary popcorn bucket from AMC Theaters

The first time I realized I loved Star Trek was while watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a memory I relived yesterday at my local theater for Star Trek's 60th anniversary. 

Captain Kirk and crew go back in time from the 23rd century to 1986 San Francisco to bring some whales back to the future in order to avert a cataclysm via mysterious whale-song aliens (most Star Trek fans refer to this as The One With The Whales!). When they arrive in 1986 and Starfleet-out-of-water shenanigans unfold, Kirk remembers, "they're still using money."

My ten-year-old mind reeled! They don't have money in the future? What? How could something that caused so much drama and heartache in the lives of all the adults in my life simply .... not exist?

MLK Day 2026: Hierarchical Chaos or Equitable Community?

 

MLK Day Parade and March, Chattanooga, TN (Jan. 19, 2026)

Since last year’s MLK Day post was called “Where Do We Go From Here?” I thought I’d continue alluding to King’s 1967 book by calling this one “Chaos or Community?” 

Seattle Worldcon: Post-Con Report!

 

I've been home from Seattle Worlcon for a couple weeks now, but school starting immediately upon my return has kept me too busy to make a post about it. Until now! I'm happy to report that I had a great time!

Due to weather on Tuesday, my flight from Chattanooga to Chicago was canceled, and I had to rebook for the next day. I barely made it to my first panel in Seattle on Wednesday evening. I walked into the panel a few minutes late straight from the airport. Oh, and they lost my luggage in Chicago (I was reunited with it in Seattle several hours later).

Seattle Worldcon 2025: Robots, Rights, and More!

 

Summer is almost over for me (school starts next week), but I have one more trip planned: I'm thrilled to be going to Seattle tomorrow to attend the 2025 Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention)! Worldcon will take place at the Seattle Convention Center Aug. 13-17, 2025.

I will be on one panel Wednesday evening and giving one talk on Saturday afternoon, both in part through my role as President of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society. Both are also in honor of my late friend and colleague Anand Vaidya, especially his work on artificial intelligence and moral standing. I'm hoping to someday teach a course on AI in science fiction and philosophy, so Worldcon will be a good step into that process.

My friend and cofounder of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society, science fiction author Manjula Menon, will be on the first panel with me. She's also on a whole bunch of other panels, including one on "Artificial Honesty," South Asian speculative fiction, and more! See the full schedule for details.

More specific information on my panels can be found below. Maybe I will see you in Seattle!

Thoughts on Our Fifth Pandemiversary

The masks I carry with me everywhere, even though I rarely wear them these days.

 

Five years ago today, the world changed with one press conference. The World Health Organization declared that the COVID-19 health crisis was officially a pandemic. I was traveling at the time. I cut my trip short and rented a car to drive home instead of flying. And everything changed.

Or did it?

I've been writing these pandemiversary posts since 2021. I often use it as a chance to reflect on how this experience has changed myself and others--and whether any of us have learned anything through our collective trauma.

MLK Day 2025: We Do We Go From Here?

 

MLK Day Parade, Chattanooga, TN, Jan. 20, 2025

Today the United States simultaneously observes two things: 1. A holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 2. The inauguration of Donald Trump for his second, non-consecutive term as US President. This coincidence offers as succinct a summary of where my country is morally and politically as anything I could imagine: many of my fellow Americans both claim to admire Martin Luther King, Jr. and voted for Donald Trump. 

How did we get here? And drawing on the title of King’ s most challenging book, where do we go from here?

MLK Day Parade Photos 2025

The Chattanooga MLK Day Parade wraps up with the Howard High School Marching Band near the mural at the corner of MLK Blvd. and Peeples St. (Jan. 20, 2025)

 

It's a chilly afternoon here in Chattanooga, TN, and I went down to watch our local MLK Day Parade. It's in the low 20's Fahrenheit (around -5 Celsius), which is considerably colder than usual for this part of the world, so the turnout was lower than usual. In the past, I've participated in the parade with my local chapter of United Campus Workers, but we didn't get organized in time this year. Since MLK Day is my favorite holiday and there's a weirdness this year as it coincides with a Presidential Inauguration, I figured I'd just go down by myself.

I took some pictures! And here they are, along with a bit of commentary. I will have a lot more commentary on the day and the state of US politics in another post, coming soon.

It has often amused me that we have a King and King intersection along the parade route.

Lookout Mountain (mentioned in the "I Have a Dream" speech from the parking lot of the church that did not hire King as pastor in the mid-1950's. Don't worry, he went down to Montgomery and down in history afterwards.

The Bessie Smith Center (the parade goes right by it)

The parade begins!

A good MLK quote for the parade

Another mural on the parade route

Obligatory selfie (I only break out the warm hat and scarf a couple days around these parts, but today was one of those days)

I also took a video of the Howard High School Marching Band's performance, but apparently Blogger is not cooperating with video uploads today. Oh, well.

So there you have it! Happy MLK Day!

Democracy to Tyranny?: Lessons from Plato’s Critique of Democracy

 

This week I'm participating along with two of my colleagues in an event on my campus to promote voting and civic engagement. It's part of a series called Mocs Go Vote ("Mocs" are our mascot here at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga). Here's the poster for the event.

With the US Presidential election coming up next week, I figured I'd post a version of my talk here on the blog (my fellow Americans eligible to vote can look here for information about how to vote).

To Absent Friends: Jerry and Anand

 

To absent friends...

I lost two friends last week. It has been difficult. If you might be so kind, dear reader, let me say a bit to honor these two absent friends, Jerry and Anand. 

Random Thoughts, Part 24: Opinions, Generations, AI, Ambition, 666, Doppelgängers, Noticing the Beauty of the Universe, etc.

 

My long-running Random Thoughts series has continued, randomly. Here we are at Part 24, which I'm happy to announce includes Random Thought 666! And there are also memes, because why not? Enjoy!

Holiday Horror 2023, Part Two!

 

Is it too late for Part 2 of my Holiday Horror 2023? I don't know, but I'm doing it anyway! It may be early January, but the true horror of the holidays is with us all year, so check out some thoughts on Night of the Comet, I Trapped the Devil, The Sacrifice Game, and There's Something in the Barn ... and because I count New Year's as part of "the holidays," Strange Days, and Midnight Kiss.

Review of Reviews: December 2023

 

It's the week between Christmas and New Year's, that blank time filled with cheese, sugar, and not knowing what day of the week it is. I've been having fun reading, but I have been somewhat remiss when it comes to writing reviews. Lest I disappoint the small handful of humans and bots who will read this, here are my reviews of some of what I've been reading lately: Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I also recently finished A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, but I need more time to process how much I loved everything about it. I'm also returning to an old favorite, The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, which I'm loving just as much if not more than I did when I first read it ten years ago. Anyway, on to this Review of Reviews: December 2023!

Random Thoughts, Part 22: Dentists, Strikes, Care, Work-Life Balance, and Semis in the Left Lane

 

My random thoughts series has all led to this: Part 22! It sounds portentous, but it's actually just trivially true. Your whole life has led to you reading this blog post! See?

My random thoughts keep coming. If anything, my thoughts get more random every year. Or is that actually not random at all? If something becomes incrementally more random, is it thereby not random? Maybe let's set the AIs on that one instead of deciding people's economic fates or giving students new ways to cheat.

Anyway, enjoy this crop of random thoughts as well as another non-random fact: the ever-more ridiculous amount of random memes!

Hugo Ballot 2023: Short Stories and Novelettes!

 

It's Hugo reading season! The voting deadline is coming up on Sept. 30! There was a bit of a delay in releasing the list of nominees and the Hugo packet, and then summer travels and the beginning of the fall semester happened to me ... so, how am I doing?

I'm almost done with the novels. I may or may not get to all the novellas (sad, I know!). But I have now finished the novelettes and short stories.  Maybe because this year's Worldcon will be taking place in Chengdu, China, there are more finalists from China than usual! Unfortunately I won't get to China this year, but Worldcon will be in Glasgow, Scotland next year, and I'm hoping to attend in person as part of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society (stay tuned for details).

Anyway, overall I thought there were some great novelettes and short stories this year. The novelettes in particular were really difficult to rank (reading the Hugo nominees in the last several years has taught me that I seem to enjoy the novelette-length short fiction best: enough space to dig in, but it's still not too long). Here are my rankings and what I thought about this year's short stories and novelettes!

Serious Cozybusiness: Legends & Lattés by Travis Baldree

 

I definitely recommend Legends & Lattés to anyone who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons, or really anyone who enjoys this quote from Tolkien: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

I'm nearing the end of my Hugo reading (for novels, anyway). I admit when I first saw this was nominated, I ... didn't know what to think. It kind of looked like a wacky self-published thing (and it was originally published directly on Amazon before Tor picked it up). It didn't really seem, well, like a Serious Hugo Nominee.

Dear reader, I was wrong. This may be my favorite Hugo novel nominee yet. It's not that the novel is "serious" in the sense of not having any humor. I chuckled out loud several times reading it. But there is, I think, a serious deeper point.

Dark Fantasy Horror Comedy: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

 

I'm continuing my Hugo reading with the next nominee: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher!

At first I thought Nettle & Bone might be an entry in the genre of "modern retellings of fairy tales." But it is not that. Not really. (If you like that sort of thing, that's great, but it's not my personal cup of tea). Rather, Nettle & Bone is something much weirder and more fun, which shouldn't have been a surprise from T. Kingfisher.

Fun with Kaiju: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

 

My Hugo reading has begun! Maybe it's because school starts this week and I told myself I'd get a post out there before that, but this review is sadly (some may say "blessedly") short. Enjoy!

Postcolonial Hogwarts with Fun Etymologies: Babel by R. F. Kuang

 

If I had to describe R. F. Kuang's Babel, or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution in one phrase, I'd go with "Postcolonial Hogwarts with Fun Etymologies." Depending on how you feel about Harry Potter, postcolonial theory, and etymology, that may sound dismissive, but I don't mean to be dismissive at all. I really loved almost everything about this book, especially the etymologies (although I have to point out a mistake with the Devanagari script when a Sanskrit etymology is given on p. 474). 

Movie and TV Mini-Reviews: The Boogeyman, Yellowjackets, Star Trek: Picard, Beavis & Butt-Head, and More

As the prophecy of a recent post foretold, I'm back with some short reviews of movies and TV I've been watching lately. I'm including The Boogeyman, Yellowjackets, Star Trek: Picard, Beavis & Butt-Head, John Wick 4, Sinister, Insidious, and X. These reviews get weirdly impressionistic, so if you're looking for elaborate plot summaries and the like, you may be disappointed. Just the mood I'm in these days, I guess. Enjoy!

Review of Reviews: May 2023

 

I'm a bit behind on book reviews, but rather than doing a few separate shorter reviews, I figured I'd do a review of reviews! This time it's Billy Summers by Stephen King, Dreaming Me by Jan Willis, and Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed.

I'll stick to books this time, but I may do some reviews of some notable TV and movies soon (maybe including Star Trek: Picard, Beef, Yellowjackets, Sinister, X, Dungeons & Dragons, John Wick 4, and the latest (surprisingly science fictional!) iteration of Beavis & Butt-Head.