Why are you so hostile towards my family anyway? Never got it together to make one of your own? Don't take out your problems on me, lady. Also, you make alot of assumptions about me that are just hillariously wrong... I'm not as privleged as you wish I was.. grew up working class in North Jersey and worked my way through undergrad (no "stipend" for me) just like I'm working my way through my Masters. Not sure why you have so much anger and issues towards your grad experience, but I guess that's what happens to folks who aren't in the sciences - the stakes are lower and the egos are more delicate. If you think the Peace Corps and NGO work is only for the priveleged, then you're deeply out of touch with reality. I'll admit that I've had amazing advantages just by being born and raised in the US - but I've had to work for everything I've ever had. And I'm damn proud of that. I think you're assumption of "privlege" on my part says more about you than it does me. But my REAL point is that I did more than just whine about things. I actually used my few advantages to DO something to make the world a better place. Not sure why you're so hostile to that work, either. But, yeah, writing Science FIction is just as valuable as eradicating Malaria. You're a laughable clown.

LOL - Nice try, but YOU'RE the one playing "turnaround." Looks like I hit the nail on the head - you're bitter than you never had a family. Poor you. Never said I wasn't priveleged, genius, just said that I didn't whine about it. For all the impressive degrees you claim, you seem pretty fucking dense. So tell me, what the hell have you ever done besides write science fiction books? Seriously. You sit there and call me a "moral snob" (and an inept one, to boot) and a "family fascist" and all your other bitter bullshit - but tell me, what have YOU done? Seriously? I'm dying to know. Gosh, I wish we could all be so selfless as to spend our lives pursuing a degree in Medieval studies at Oxford and writing Science Fiction novels. You have truly given of yourself for the betterment of mankind.

Hey - sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I actually have quite a bit of respect for the arts, especially music and dance. I'm also a big fiction reader (My best friend wanted to take me to see Dennis Johnson read at the New School last week for my birthday. But I couldn't go and am still kind of down about it). I just don't consider Science Fiction... or speculative fiction, or whatever the kids call it to be worth taking seriously. It's a bunch of geeky nonsense for teenagers and dorks who don't have the courage to face the real world. I'm rather be stuck on a desert island with ONE Nuruddin Farah novel than the entire oeuvre of Orson Scott Card or whatever. I'm not saying it's worthless, it's just like comic books and MTV - it's fine for adolescent tastes, but it does nothing for me.

That's why I read Conde Nast Traveller and National Geographic... it's the robots and laser beams that I find childish (no disrespect to Karl Capek - a great Czech nationalist playwright even if he did invent a disreputable genre). I prefert to take my escapes on planet earth - our own world is fascinating enough. Meanwhile, I couldn't write a story as well (or as poorly) as Ayn Rand, let alone Ray Bradbury. Never said I could. That's why I'm an engineer. But I still find the genre to be kidstuff... If I want the human condition, I'll take it without space cruisers, thanks.

I'll try to keep that in mind...

But I'll call you when I am... but I think it's more about discipline than rigidity. Also, the science fiction-y aspect is always what I most hated about Vonnegut. You could excise all the claptrap about - what was is, trafalmador? - from Slaughterhouse Five and it would have been an even better book in my opinion. Hell, most of Vonnegut's writing is pretty much unreadable. Like I said, it appealed to me as a teenager, but not as an adult. Which is not to say that I don't find his worldview extremely human and compelling. I just think his writing could have been better at points. But what do I know, I'm just a rigid, "stupid" engineer? But then again, so was Vonnegut's beloved brother. LOL

My work isn't done yet - you never know. I might just end up eradicating malaria. In the long run, who did more for humanity - Edward Jenner or Jonathan Swift? Swift may be remembered as a great writer, but Jenner saved more lives. So look me up when I retire and we'll see...

I introduced this ridiculous valuation system just to further wind up Greeneyed. But she was the one who began the denigration of the work of others with her ad hominem attacks on my NGO work. To tell you the truth, I really don't think this way...

And why do you keep harping on my supposed privelege? I already acknowledged it. But you're overestimating what little real privlege I have. And don't play the immigrant card with me, my parents were immigrants, too - and I hardly have a "normal" name.