Cat Valente moans/whines about Puppygate.

Tom Knighten does an superb job fisking the woman here.

There isn't much I can add.  Certainly not on the Hugo front, he says everything much better than I ever could.

But Cat's take on diversity (or what she thinks is the Puppys' definition), which matches the other in-clique writers?

Her attitude towards diversity makes me think of the problems we're having where I live. Our school districts aren't uniform enough, because the state has decided in their infinite wisdom that children can't learn if there isn't the right balance of melanin in a classroom.  It can only be a certain percentage off from the overall town "balance".  (That a proportion of "minority" that is too much in one town isn't enough in another is completely lost on them.)  So we're having to spend thousands coming up with a remediation plan, and then thousands more a year bussing kids who've been going to the same schools for years to opposite sides of the town.  A former board of ed member told me that she's read plans (Agenda 21 maybe) which would involve not allowing people to purchase or rent housing in certain areas based on skin color, to achieve that magical racial diversity.

There is no proof that this will improve anyone's education, and for that matter, stuffing kids on busses for 45 minutes each way can only hurt, taking away homework and play time, and irritating the heck out of them when they wonder why they have to be bussed past the school they've attended for years to one where the only kids they know are the other poor bussees.

I've been arguing for years that all this sort of crap does is tell kids what hypocrites adults are.  We spend years preaching at them about how they need to ignore skin color and concentrate on content of character. Then we turn around and tell them that they have to change schools because they don't have the right color skin to keep going to the one down the street.

How does this functionally differ from having two water fountains labeled "Black" and "White", or having a diner with a sign "No blacks"?  Yes, blacks (and hispanics, and asians, and [insert minority group here] are allowed entry to all establishments, but only if they pass a "racial balance" test now. If their presence would make too many of [minority group], they can't enter, they have to go a mile down the street to the next restaurant, and hope that not too many of [minority group] are already seated at that one too.

One of those weeks

I spent Thursday trying to get my schedule for the fall semester sorted out. I had called Iowa day before to tell them that the college had never recieved my transcript only to find out that they had never sent one.

Iowa: But you only ordered one, to be sent to your home address.
Me: No, I ordered two, one for me, one for TRCC. I can't use the one for me for them since it's been opened and is no longer "official".
Iowa: We only billed you for one.
Me: (thinking of bill for $32, $16 each), but I know I ordered two!
Iowa: Well, let me check the files..... Oops.  We'll get it out tomorrow.

Thursday involved going to the cashier's to see why I still hadn't recieved my studnet loan check (there's only 4 weeks left in the semester, for heaven's sake!).  So the poor guy looks it up, sees where we asked them to cancel the first one I never received and sent out a new one. He calls someone (I think) in Hartford, and they check, and.... the request was never processed. I just put my head down on the counter and started laughing. Hopefully it will get sent out this week.  We could really, really use the funds which I was supposed to get over a month ago.

So later Thursday, as I'm taking a break and getting ready to microwave my dinner I try to sign up for my fall classes, to have every single one of the not go through because they all require me to have been placed in English 101.  So I got to spend an hour in admin, part of it waiting, and then part with a counsellor who agreed that if I already had BA from UConn, I should definitely meet the requirement of being placed in English 101, so she manually overrode it, and I'm finally registered.