Playing it by ear: a short interview with Jack Womack

Jack Womack is one of speculative fiction’s secret treasures. His 1995 novel Random Acts Of Senseless Violence is one of the most remarkable and emotionally affecting works I’ve ever read and the seed of my thinking about the whole Grim Meathook Future thing.It’s not science fiction, per se; it’s the story of how American civilization […]

Why We're All Going To Die Next Tuesday

In the past, large pharmaceutical companies were the primary sources of antibiotic research. But many of these companies have abandoned the field. “Eli Lilly and Company developed the first cephalosporins,” Moellering told me, referring to familiar drugs like Keflex. “They developed a huge number of important anti-microbial agents. They had incredible chemistry and incredible research […]

63 Years

63 years ago today, a fellow named Paul Tibbets flew a plane named after his mother halfway around the world and dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. If you want to know how this came to be, may I recommend my micropatronage-funded essay “Dark Miracle“? It’s about the Manhattan Project […]

There Is No Them.

Patton Oswalt is a genius. I’m not gonna give you a bit of this — go and read it, all of it, and come back to me. He’s right. I realize it more the older I get. There is no Them. There is only Us. The most vile fucking redneck Religious Right crusader asshole is […]