Musings by Ursula K. Le Guin

I was reading the most interesting thoughts of Ursula K. Le Guin at The Book View Cafe Blog regarding the overuse of profanity in books and movies these days. She cleverly describes how film and literature have both moved beyond the shock value of profanity and now use it as a crutch for writing instead of looking for creative words or dialogue to describe a setting or situation. A quote from her humorous piece:

"I keep reading books and seeing movies where nobody can fucking say anything except fuck, unless they say shit. I mean they don’t seem to have any adjective to describe fucking except fucking even when they’re fucking fucking. And shit is what they say when they’re fucked. When shit happens, they say shit, or oh shit, or oh shit we’re fucked. The imagination involved is staggering. I mean, literally."

The way she expresses her viewpoint is fun, worth the read, and by the way, I agree 100% with her. I enjoy naughty words here and there but would much rather read clever dialogue that transports me from the mundane into an incredible world of fantasy.
You can read her opinion HERE.

Japan 9.0 Earthquake

I have been watching the events of the 9.0 Japanese earthquake with horror and sadness wishing instead that I were watching one of my science fiction end of the world movies; sadly, what I have been watching is reality and I feel sorry for the people in Japan. I am no stranger to earthquakes throughout my life and more recently the 2010 Baja California quake during which I felt tremendous fear so I cannot imagine how a 9.0 earthquake felt and the amount of time it lasted, it must have felt like an eternity that the ground shook. Then the subsequent tsunami was frightful and now the nuclear power plants are melting down, sadly this is a true real life disaster in the making.
The magnitude of the quake was so intense there were actual physical changes to the Earth's rotation on its axis.
From NewsRoomAmerica:

(Newsroom America) -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the March 11, magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the length of each Earth day and shifted its axis, but it says you shouldn't notice the difference.Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake-the fifth largest since 1900-affected Earth's rotation.His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).The calculations also show the Japan quake should have shifted the position of Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), towards 133 degrees east longitude.Gross said Earth's figure axis should not be confused with its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet). This shift in Earth's figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it will not cause a shift of Earth's axis in space-only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets can do that, it said.

Wow, amazing statistics. You can read more HERE.

Space Shuttle Discovery Has Retired!

The Space Shuttle Discovery has returned from its final mission and proved itself a worthy craft. From AOL news:

It made its debut in 1984 following shuttles Columbia and Challenger, dispatched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, flew the first shuttle rendezvous to Russia's Mir space station and carried the first female shuttle pilot in 1995, and gave another ride into space to John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1998.

It got NASA flying again, in 1988 and 2005, following the Challenger and Columbia disasters. And it flew 13 times to the International Space Station, more than any other craft. On its last trip, it delivered a new storage compartment packed with supplies and a humanoid robot.

NASA's boss, Charles Bolden, a former shuttle commander, led the welcoming party. He'll announce the final homes for Endeavour and Atlantis on April 12 - 30 years to the day that Columbia soared on the first shuttle flight.
NASA planned to move Endeavour out to the launch pad Wednesday night for its April 19 liftoff, but delayed the move until Thursday because bad weather was expected. The mission will be commanded by the husband of wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly. His identical twin brother Scott is currently the skipper of the space station; he returns to Earth next week on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Atlantis is slated to make its last trip at the end of June.

It looks like one down and two to go!
Read entire article HERE.

Science Fiction & The International Women's Day

I love science fiction stories and on this day, The International Women's Day, I had to rack my brains to come up with some famous women who specialized in writing science fiction; the first and not at all least I remembered was Mary Shelley and her famous story "Frankenstein." That is no small or insignificant story as it has been remembered since its inception in 1818. As for other female writers, their names roll off my tongue, names such as Beatrix Potter, Emily Bronte, Louisa May Alcott and easily come to mind for the more romantic, familial, or children themed subject matter, not to say these women did not struggle to get published, their efforts and works are remarkable. However, a stark absence of more female writers of science fiction from earlier times is missing amongst these other wonderful writers.
It appears that more women sci fi writers were published after the 1960's and the first to come to my mind is Margaret Atwood albeit she denies being such a writer, and Ursula K. Le Guin famous for "The Left Hand of Darkness," and many other novels.
I wish on this day in the future, I will be able to not only list the famous women authors of fiction off the top of my head, but also many famous women science fiction writers as well who will eventually write stories that will transport us to new worlds, inspire us to look differently at the positives and negatives of science, and invite us into strange dystopian futures. I do look forward to those stories and I am convinced they are being written at this very moment and soon will be published.