Category Archives: Meta

‘Trump or Hitler’ part 2

Posted on May 12, 2018 by H.W. MacNaughton

I’ve been reading Volker Ullrich’s ‘Hitler: Ascent‘ and finding it quite illuminating. The point of this tongue-in-cheek series is to point out Trump’s authoritarian parallels…remember, Hitler rose to power legally, while continuing his attacks on order, truth and social norms. … Continue reading →

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‘Trump or Hitler,’ new political parlor game

Posted on April 30, 2018 by H.W. MacNaughton

I’ve been reading Volker Ullrich’s ‘Hitler: Ascent‘ and finding it quite illuminating. And it has sparked an idea – a parlor game called “Trump or Hitler?” Ask these questions of your friends and neighbors. Sure to spark some lively discourse? … Continue reading →

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The Fall of America, Part 2: How the Republicans Flim-flammed the American Electorate

Posted on June 10, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

Yes, this is a long post. But when you are trying to illustrate how a superpower can fall, it takes some words. In the last installment I discussed how the inevitable leveling of globalization started eroding the well-being of American … Continue reading →

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The Fall of America Part One: Winds of Economic of Change

Posted on May 14, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

Series: The inevitable weakening of American economics, the disintegration of the American political system, and the rise of a global bureaucracy. In my Pat Hayden Jones universe, the Earth and its colonies are ruled by a bureaucracy. This structure, the … Continue reading →

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Dialing in on Nin, and why an SF/F guy is reading her

Posted on March 18, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

I’m reading Anaïs Nin this month, having started with Henry and June, her unexpurgated diary (review here), and now have read through more than half of the earlier (heavily edited) Diaries, Vol 1. One might wonder why a Sci Fi … Continue reading →

Posted in Meta, Writing | Tagged , | 6 Comments

On Charlotte Shane

Posted on March 7, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

I wrote this a year ago. This article still gets hits so it deserves a refresh. I stopped following Ms. Shane not long after writing this and on a recent look at her Twitter stream, the issue I point out … Continue reading →

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The agony and ecstasy of online reviewing

Posted on January 25, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

Professional authors (e.g., folks who can actually live on their authorial earnings) are likely to have really good editors. The editor is known to them, there is give-and-take between author and editor, they build trust over multiple projects, and like … Continue reading →

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Using Twitter, a less-than-ambitious but humanistic approach

Posted on January 17, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

There are a lot of folks who are really working Twitter. They’re getting to 10,000, maybe 50,000 users as fast as they can….good for them. They use auto-follow and auto-unfollow tools and plan to turn that huge twitter base into … Continue reading →

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Pat Hayden Jones – Renegade update

Posted on January 10, 2016 by H.W. MacNaughton

15 months and about 2 weeks after my last edit, I’m back at it. In the interim I spent a lot of time learning stuff for my new job, so now yes I know how to set up DHCP, LDAP … Continue reading →

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Review: Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

Posted on November 16, 2015 by H.W. MacNaughton

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre My rating: 4 of 5 stars Double-cross promises a long scorecard of unusual characters in a trying–and dangerous–game, spying for Britain in WW2. It delivers, both in the … Continue reading →

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