Politics gets in the way

[wombat_socho]

nhw was kind enough to respond to my post below about John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and pointed out that he'd done a follow-up post on the subject. It's also worth reading, as are the comments.

In fact, one of the comments made me think a bit about something common in the wider world of culture, not just in the SF genre. A lot of people these days seem to allow their politics to affect their judgment when it comes to the quality of a work of art, and I frankly find that sad. If you're allowing your politics to control or even influence what you enjoy in literature and music and the visual arts, you're really screwing yourself out of some good times. This is something Mitch Berg periodically rants about, though he hasn't done so lately, especially with respect to rock.

On an somewhat related topic (it comes up in the first nhw post on Old Man's War, I do feel different at 47 than I did at 19, and I don't mean just physically. I've become a lot more tolerant of other peoples' faults and mistakes, and this has led me to be more of a libertarian on social issues. Internationally and fiscally, I'm still the unreconstructed Falangist I was at 19. Some things just ain't gonna change.

I managed to get some cleaning done yesterday along with the laundry, but not nearly enough. So today I will forgo gaming at thaadd's and do my part to fill up the dumpster - I have a box and some garbage bags all ready to go already, but I really ought to pitch into the dishes. P, we need to set a time for tomorrow's chowdown.