The anthology factory

Frederik Pohl remembers Martin Harry Greenberg

Good Golly

Susie Bright remembers her first gay bar.

Addams Family Values

I loved it because it was the one sitcom where Daddy & Mommy liked each other and neither was a moron. I could imagine Gomez & Morticia Doing It. (I didn't want to think about whether the Kramdens did it, but it still seems unlikely that, if they did, they both enjoyed it.) I think it also subliminally programmed and brainwashed me. The message was that if you're weird, don't pretend to be normal; find someone with complementary weirdness. It worked, and unlike W.C. Fields with the woman who drove him to drink, I hereby thank them for it.

The Rotund likes them too.

Disease

I could do the easy popular, thing and say that evolutionary psychologists have a First Amendment right to their beliefs, but it would be wrong. EvPsych is a contagious disease; let one vector loose, and all around them will start believing that men and women are absolute opposites and that brutal competition is the only way to survive. The Republican Wards are thus a necessary public health measure…

But Seriously Folks. Thomas Szasz never said that there are no crazy people. (Even R.D. Laing didn't.) He said that "mental illness" is a metaphor, rather than a simple description, so we must always examine particular uses to make sure the metaphor works. Maybe the most dangerous misuse is the image of contagion, whereby beliefs and behaviors we don't like are treated not as matters of individual choice but as plagues that can infect innocent outsiders. Treating Judaism as such is seriously out of fashion, but there's still some enthusiasm for applying the image to homosexuality, obesity, (some) drug use, and other offenses. I'm happy to see an allegedly scientific plague scare debunked.

Thanx to Follow Me Here