VirusHead

Which science fiction writer are you?

I am: William Gibson

The chief instigator of the “cyberpunk” wave of the 1980s, his razzle-dazzle futuristic intrigues were, for a while, the most imitated work in science fiction.

(Yeah, but that’s not why I like his books!)

VirusHead has been featured at the Bloggapedia blog!

A caveat – it’s on a short list of eight of the most opinionated bloggers, out of the some 6,300 listed in their directory. Hmm…

Virushead: An academic, a mom, one opinionated lady.

“Opinionated” has negative connotations to me (I’ll leave the “lady” part alone… for now. Tip: “woman” is usually better).

Sure, I have strong opinions. I’ve worked pretty hard for most of my life to be able to have confidence in my opinions. I’m also an ethicist, and so I really try my very best to consider those judgments very carefully. I don’t often spew (although I will admit that occasionally the blog serves to take the edge off rather than to consider something seriously and in depth).

I’m “unreasonable and stubborn” only about issues on which I feel that I am standing against destructiveness and injustice, in compassion and solidarity with others. I’m an idealist in the sense that I deeply feel – and vividly imagine the circumstances of – injustice. I feel a sort of duty, at least on some issues, to speak up. Even if the only result is to register a statistical voice, it’s better than silence. I hope that some of my work opposing authoritarian, totalitarian forms of power may comfort or inspire others.

Then again, sometimes I’m just repulsed by some news item. I’m only human (grin).

I’m listed with Bookslut Blog, Opinionated Bastard, Skippy the Bush Kangeroo, Velvet Hammer, Plastic, SistersTalk and PoliBlog.

One more thing, just for the record: our providing featured blog post links to the above blogs does not in any way imply affiliation or agreement with any one particular opinion or viewpoint. In fact, we appreciate them all simply because that’s the whole point of a little thing called ‘freedom of speech.’

Thank you Bloggapedia, for the mention! ‘Preciate it muchly.

Sometime tonight, I will have received one million hits to the VirusHead site. That includes visitors to the entire site, including the blog.

I’ve had the virushead.net domain since 2001 (after hosting a version of the BabyBoo subsite from 1999-2001 on a free hosting site).

Given that, it may not be that big a deal to have accumulated a million hits. It’s been more than five years. Only in the last couple of years have daily hits of over a thousand become commonplace.

Still, a million is a great big number. Yay!

The transcript of the Jehovah’s Witness gloom and doom sermon I made for the Breaking Down a Watchtower Message to the Great Crowd post has been translated into French at the Viaveritas site. Copernic, Fantasio, and Lucretius have crafted a great post, and it includes serious consideration of some of the points I was trying to make. Thanks!

The rest of the site looks very interesting, too. Reading through it, I realize that my French has gotten pretty rusty. It’s good practice for me.

It is always fun for me to see familiar vocabulary in another language. For example, “un contrôle des esprits” expresses something more, something different, than “mind control,” doesn’t it?

(Beaucoup de mercis de vos commentaires aimables, Fantasio.)

I am looking for anecdotes about family behavior and traditions around the birth of a child.

When a child is born in your family, what happens next?

How long is it before (nearby) family typically meets the newborn child?

Is it traditional for family members who live nearby to give some kind of help to the new parents – babysitting older children, bringing food, running errands, delivering presents?

Do you know of any specific traditions?

If you don’t really have traditions per se, share something that you really appreciated, or that you wished would have happened but didn’t.

newborn