Here we go again.
It was only last year that Megyn Kelly from Fox News was insisting that not only is Santa Claus white (despite being based on St. Nicholas, who was from modern-day Turkey) but so is Jesus (who was a Jewish lad from the middle east).
This Christmas, people are complaining that a new play about the Harry Potter gang is wrong because it casts Hermione as a black woman.
Ron, Hermione, and Harry as adults. Look, they got the teeth right.
Hello? Hermione is fictional! She’s a made-up people! She doesn’t really exist! (And anyway, J.K. Rowling pointed out that at no time is Hermione’s race mentioned in the books — only that she has “brown eyes and frizzy hair.” And then “large front teeth.” And there’s another mention in a later book that talks about her “looking brown.” Seriously.)
Not all of the complaints about this are from racist bigots. Sometimes the biggest complainers are the fanboys who get an idea in their heads and decide that X version of a fictional character is the only one possible, and any variation is blasphemy. “Superman can’t be black!” they scream, ignoring the fact that Superman isn’t even human — he could be green and polka dotted (although that might make his secret identity a bit tougher to hide).
Sometimes the race of a character matters in a fictional story. I’m currently working on a steampunk novel featuring Teddy Roosevelt. The main character is a black woman, and that is very important to the plotline, since the story takes place at a time when neither women nor blacks had any real power.
But Hermione? Why not? Isn’t one of the biggest themes in the Harry Potter novel about how we should accept people for who they are and not discriminate? The bad guys were all concerned with “purity of blood,” remember? Isn’t it obvious that the race of their fellow students didn’t matter to the Potter gang? Before hooking up with Ginny, Harry had dates with Cho Chang (Chinese ancestry) and Pavarti Patil (Indian ancestry), right? And didn’t Rowlings have a pretty diverse cast (well, for something taking place in England)? Okay, enough — my inner nerd is escaping.
Re-interpretations of fictional works happen all the time. Geez, look at how many times Shakespeare is done in a new way. Fictional characters can change race and sex and everything.
Which, coincidentally, brings me to another book I am editing now: Alternate Sherlocks — a collection of short stories featuring some pretty well-known authors — with Sherlock Holmes in new versions: as a female child, as an alien, as a vampire, as a parrot …
I sure hope that the speciests don’t come after me for that one.
According to a new poll from PPP, 30% of Republicans favor bombing Agrabah.
As any Disney fan will tell you, Agrabah is the completely fictional made-up country where Aladdin lives. But hey, it sounds Muslim and if there’s one thing Republicans love, it’s bombing things, even when they don’t have a reason to do so. 
I am not making this up.
These are the people who are supporting another cartoon character named Donald Trump for president. These are the people who are willfully stupid and proud of it.
There are other revealing results in this poll which are just as disturbing:
On the other hand, even the most conservative among us believe in reasonable gun control (despite what the NRA tells you):
Bottom line: We’re dealing with a party that has been taken over by bigots who believe lies and hate the United States Constitution. And they seem quite proud of it, too.
I love Christmas — the feeling of good cheer, the lights, the trees, the celebrations — why should Christians get all the fun? 
Some holidays have become secular so that everyone can enjoy them. I know plenty of Jews who set up Christmas trees and exchange gifts, for instance. (And, even though I am not Jewish either, I join them for the traditional Christmas Chinese dinner.) Although many of the ideas of Christmas are based in religion, many do not require religion at all.
In fact, you don’t have to be Christian to agree with what Christmas is supposed to celebrate. That Jesus had some damned good ideas. Peace on earth, goodwill to all, caring for those less fortunate, being with your family — how can you be against that? Why wouldn’t you want everyone to share in that, no matter what their beliefs? Not to mention festive lights, presents, mistletoe, jingle bells, Christmas parties, Santa Claus, and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (The Chuck Jones one, not the Jim Carey one).
That’s why it’s so frustrating to have angry Christians complaining that we have stolen their religion (“Put Christ back in Christmas!”). Let’s ignore for the moment that Jesus was probably born in the spring (when shepherds watched their fields) and that much of this holiday was stolen from earlier religions. Wouldn’t a true Christian be happy that others are celebrating peace? That others use this season to promote the values they supposedly teach?
I know many Christians who welcome all to celebrate with them, no matter their beliefs. I have a feeling that this Jesus guy would approve.
After a recent debate on Facebook about guns, I told everyone I had enough and was signing off in order to play Fallout 4, a computer game where I could run around a post-apocalyptic Boston shooting mutated zombies with a variety of firearms.
“Aha!” you say. “You’re a hypocrite!”
Well, no. You see, Fallout 4 is fiction. It’s not real.
Weapons in fiction serve a purpose of providing drama, action, adventure. Weapons have featured prominently in my novels, too. They help make a great story. A great fictional story.
That doesn’t mean I think everyone should be running around with one in real life. I know the difference between fiction and reality, you see.
(I’m also against dropping anvils on people’s heads in real life.)
And that’s one of the biggest problems I have when dealing with some of the gun enthusiasts out there: They don’t seem to be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.
In their world, more guns means less violence; people with guns stop mass shootings even when trained police can’t; and gun control doesn’t reduce gun violence.
And that’s all fiction. There’s not the slightest bit of evidence to support any of those beliefs, and plenty to prove otherwise.
So I guess I’m not surprised when some people think I am a hypocrite for hating guns in real life while liking them in fiction — because they can’t tell the difference.
Some of my conservative friends have been complaining about the number of mass shootings we’ve had so far this year, rightly pointing out that it all depends on how you define “mass shooting.” Should you include shootings where people were only maimed and didn’t die? How many deaths are needed before it counts as a mass shooting? And so on.
So let’s be generous and assume that the numbers showing an average of about one a day is unrealistic. 
Sure, let’s cut that in half, and we’ll say it’s only one every other day. Or even one a week.
Just let me know: How many innocent deaths do we need before you will say, “Maybe we should do something about this”?
Fill in the blank for me: “My right to own any deadly weapon free from restriction is worth the lives of _____ people.”
Is there a number? If so, remember: If you haven’t already agreed that maybe we should do something, the number in that blank has to be at least 30,000 a year. If you’ve been an adult for, say, twenty years and have done done nothing to try to prevent all these deaths, then the number in that blank needs to be at least 600,000, or roughly every single person in Seattle, Washington.
No, I don’t want to read another rant about guns. Don’t change the subject, answer the question. If you want to debate guns, search this blog for that topic and you’ll find plenty of threads where your comments will be appropriate and welcome.
So please: Give me a number. Let me know how many innocent dead people it will take before we can sit down and talk reasonably about what we should do about it.
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