Anyway, there were a few things I’d intended to include in my link roundup post this weekend that were lurking on my laptop. The first is this response by David Simon to criticism from the current Baltimore police commissioner about the effect of The Wire on the city. Makes an interesting comparison with this article about Portugal’s decriminalization of drug possession. (As the person who posted the Portugal link on Twitter said, “Portugal is Hamsterdam.”) I don’t buy the argument that the commissioner is making, either — the notion that a fictionalized portrayal of real problems in a city somehow harms the city more than the actual problems do. Or that fictionalizing real life makes the fictionalized version untrustworthy, as if the only thing art were good for was creating documentation.

And speaking of complicated things, I’ve been meaning to link to this post about ebook piracy, by a writer who grew up in Malaysia and has been living in the UK recently. But I’m glad I hadn’t yet, because Karen Healey, who was involved in the original Twitter discussion (? maybe not quite the right word) about pirating ebooks, has also made a sensible and apologetic post owning up to the fact that she hadn’t really considered the points brought up in Zen’s post, or in colorblue’s post, which focuses on (in colorblue’s words) “the underlying hierarchies & inequalities in the both the current concept of IPR and the ways that it is used and enforced.” Seriously, read all of these. For a number of reasons, including the fact that I taught Lessig’s Free Culture a few years ago, I’m not ever likely to go off on Twitter about how kids on BitTorrent are ruining my career — though it’s entirely possible that that would change if I were trying to make a living solely off my writing, or if I were in striking distance of a bestseller list, which I am totally not. But I can’t say I had considered the points made in these posts as fully as I should have either. The conversation authors often have on the internet about intellectual property rights and piracy is lamentably American-centric, but it doesn’t have to be.

Tamil pulp fiction, now translated into English.

An interesting blog post on mechanical means of ensuring that more works of fiction and film pass the Bechdel test, written by a self-identified “registered Republican with a concealed-carry permit.” I don’t agree with everything in this post, but I do think that being aware of the context of your choices as a writer is always important, even when those choices seem as minor as deciding the gender of a parking attendant who makes a two-line appearance in your novel. And I think this sentence is worth thinking about in other contexts, too:

And if there’s one thing I’ve taken away from the discussions of feminism and queer politics and anti-racism that I’ve read, it’s that I don’t have to agree with people to learn how they would like to be treated.

On a related note: a collection of signs from the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

And also related (if you squint), in that they are a means of sharing comfort and support: the best damn gluten-free cookies I’ve baked in my two years as a diagnosed celiac. Mine weren’t vegan, and I made them with raisins instead of chocolate chips. Highly recommended, should you ever need to make GF cookies for yourself, or for a friend.

Frank Rich at the Times on Obama’s condescendingly piecemeal approach to gay rights, forty years later.

… we should be happy that in 2006 science fiction pulled on its balaclava. Whether or not we can wring out the slightest sympathy for suicide bombers from Iraq or Palestine or Leeds, we should certainly be forced to try, if only to clarify our thinking. And while mainstream authors such as Updike and Amis and Rushdie have tried to take us into the mind of terrorists, they stopped short of what would have been far more disturbing and effective: making their plotters into likeable heroes and seducing us into a unwary emotional involvement with their struggle.

Only science fiction has gone that far, and for this — even more than for decrying the theft of our civil liberties — it deserves our rapt attention.

(Link via Colleen Mondor)

I remember seeing this call for submissions last year; I’m fiercely glad the project was successful.

She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation.

… together, they fight crime!

Previously linked here: a new and more complete transcript of Colbert’s speech at the White House correspondents’ dinner.

The video of Colbert’s speech. (Plus a YouTube mirror of the video.)

Thank You Stephen Colbert — collecting signatures of thanks for Colbert’s “speaking truthiness to power,” as the site puts it.