Bird Watching

There is a covey of quail nesting about the vacant lots adjacent to Fernley House. This morning, when I went out on the front porch, I disturbed them in the lot to the east of the house, and they scattered. I see that they are raising two families of little ones, as there are some tiny, still-slightly-fuzzy chicks and some medium-sized youngsters mixed in with them. I guess quail aren't the kind of birds who drive off other families of their type. They certainly are cute, but hard to catch with the camera unless you know they're already there and have the camera ready.

Kuma Bear Likes Helsinki

Although he's not allowed to vote, travelswithkuma knows who he'd be voting for in the 2015 Worldcon Site Selection if he could. He'll do his part to campaign for the Bid With Bears.

Yes, They Really Believe This

I have been accused of lying when I recount stories of people demanding that "The Hugo Committee" withdraw Hugo Awards from given winners because whoever was writing the post thought it was a bad decision. This is because I don't keep track and bookmark every single web site and page I've ever read. And while I cannot easily find the actual statement that I saw where the writer was convinced that "the Hugo Committee" decided who won the Award and could withdraw it and give it to the "right" work, it wasn't all that difficult to find the following quotes from people who similarly do not understand that the Hugos aren't given out by a tiny secret group of SMOFS. So here you go, Mr. Pictures-or-it-didn't-happen:

"I sort of question the Harry Potter selection. I assume that was an attempt by the Hugo committee to remain relevant to the tween generation."

"boy oh boy does the Hugo committee love it some Lois McMaster Bujold. Four Hugos: that’s as many as Heinlein, twice as many as LeGuin or Asimov, and as much as Herbert, Bester, Dick and Brunner put together. Also exactly four more than Samuel Delaney, Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler, Johnathan Lethem, Douglas Adams, Gene Wolfe, Thomas Disch or China Mieville, to name a few at random. What gives?"

"It must have been slim pickings for the Hugo committee when Robert Sawyer‘s book Hominids took science fiction’s big prize in 2003."

"Maybe the Hugo committee that year was full of frustrated Furries."

Every single one of those comments sounds to me that the writer thinks that the Hugos are selected by a small secret jury, not by an open nomination and election process in which anyone who wants to buy a WSFS membership can participate. And these are just the easy comments to find. I admit that I can't find the original comment that set me off (it was years ago), but that doesn't mean it wasn't made, just that it's buried in the mass of data that is The Interwebz. Indeed, there's more than a passing chance that the original comment is gone entirely.

I really dislike being accused of lying. If I hadn't seen the "The Committee Must Withdraw that Hugo" comment in the first place, it would never have stuck in my head the way it has. And being accused of having made things like this up makes me more prone to speak in footnotes than I already do. If any of you think that I digress too much and provide Too Much Detail, it's accusations that I'm lying about things that are one of the prods to me being that way.