Tyler's Turn Blog

The other day I told someone I liked young-adult literature. She asked me what books I liked. After I finished going on about C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, and (yes) even Laura Ingles Wilder, my friend said, "You realize all of your favorite books are more than twenty years old?"

Well, I do like Harry Potter, have read the His Dark Materials trilogy, and am in the middle of Eragon. I guess that only shows I'm a dedicated follower of fashion. (Why didn't I think to mention The Tale of Despereaux?)

So, yesterday, I bought a couple contemporary young-adult fantasy novels, and put some more on my Audible Wish List. I'm now in the middle of The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones, and am thoroughly enjoying it.

It's the story of a boy with an unfortunate lack of magical talent, parents who won't speak to each other, and a series of thoroughly boring governesses. However, he does have the ability to visit other worlds. That's enough information to get you started. But, be warned, if you do start reading this book, you might find yourself at work wishing you were home with Christopher Chant.

Thanks to Ann Coulter, people this week are debating the use of the word 'faggot' in polite company. As a gay man, this is something that often comes up in conversation, and which I've thought a lot about. So, here are my thoughts on the word 'faggot.'

Faggot, and its derivative fag, are the deepest and most hurtful of the slurs used against gay men. Unlike words like queer, gay, homoSEXual (preferred by Baptist ministers), or even fairy, faggot has no usefulness except as a slur. Sure it's been co-opted by some gay men -- just as nigger has by black men -- who use it casually to dampen it's sting. But faggot is still sharp, biting, and hurtful. Even the gay men who call each other 'fag' as a joke, do so with haunting memories of times when it wasn't a joke. You can see it in their eyes.

For that reason, I never use the word faggot. I don't even like the term 'fag hag,' which is doubly-offensive because it calls my girlfriends 'hags.' (I prefer 'fairy princess.')

I don't make a big deal of it, and I don't make a practice of policing people's speech. However, as far as I'm concerned, faggot should be stricken from our vocabulary. Whether it's used by a gay man or a political hack, faggot is irredeemably horrid.

Incidentally, I'm not one of those people who uses 'n-word' and 'f-word' when talking about these words that shouldn't be used in polite company. To me, that's like the Hogwarts kids whispering about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named -- it just gives the evil in our world even more power.

The President's visit to New Orleans is as good a time as any to remind ourselves that government, at all levels, is completely useless to us in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Should your region of the country experience a major catastrophe, you and the ones you love will be on your own. Are you prepared?

Two likely scenarios are a Category 4 or 5 Pandemic, or a terrorist attack that seriously disrupts the supply chain. In both cases, you might need to survive for thirty days or so with what you have on hand. In the case of a pandemic, the utilities in your city could fail, because so many of their employees will be sick. In the case of a terrorist attack on the supply chain, the grocery stores will certainly run out of food and water, and the utilities could be affected if they run out of fuel.

Think about the food in your cupboard and the water in your filter pitchers. Could you live on that for a month? What about the pet food you have on hand? Could your animals survive on it?

If not, this might be a good time to start doing something about it. No need to go overboard. Just buy some extra imperishables and water on each grocery trip, and in a few months you'll be prepared for the most-likely scenarios.

Either that, or you could wait for a government bail-out, which may arrive a couple years after the emergency is over.