The Crazy Years
Published on 1. June 2009
305 pages
978-1-935251-54-5 (ISBN)
Description
A collection of witty, irreverent essays on subjects running the gamut from the space program to airport bans on smoking are included in this anthology. Written by Spider Robinson, The Crazy Years takes its name from Robert A. Heinlein's designation of the last years of the 20th century and contains essays from Robinson's tenure as op-ed columnist for The Globe and Mail and from Galaxy Online. Environmentalists that place the survival of earth before the survival of humanity, the idiocy of computer designs, and the downsides of the Internet are among the subjects Robinson uses to take the world to task.
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Book
10/2004
Benbella Books
€32.39
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Person
Spider Robinson
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Introduction
- The Crazy Years: A Mission Statement
- Information Overload
- Braindrain Wave
- Says Who?
- The Mahooha Filter
- A Tale of Two Charlies
- And Now the News . . .
- Substance Abuse
- Bean Counting
- Reflections of a Recovering Nicotinic
- Mugging the Poor for Their Own Good
- Big Nanny's New Clothes
- Terminal Improvement
- Where There's No Smoke . . .
- Imagination Has Its Downside
- Science in Fishnet Stockings
- Buzzed High Zonked Stoned Wasted
- Flinging Phlegm at the Flim Flam in Flin Flon
- O Canada
- Citizen Keen
- Thanks for All the Fish
- Phone-y Manners
- Night of the Impolite Canadian
- Pull Up a Soapbox
- Hail on the Chief
- There Are No Good Bushwhackers
- The Opposite of a Great Lie
- Free Speech Is Worth Paying For
- I Want a Really Interactive Newspaper
- Lead Us Not Into Temptation
- The Process
- Qui Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
- Declarative Sentients
- Present Imperative, or Social Mahooha
- Burning the Sambuca
- The Fall-Guy Shortage
- Seduction of the Innocent
- You Never Forget the First Time
- Lay Off the Lady
- School Will Be Ending, Next Month
- What Is It With Bankers?
- "More than enough is-a too much . . ."
- Please Don't Talk About Him 'Til He's Gone
- A God Too Old to Change, or Pope Sinks Hope
- You Just Can't Kill for Jesus/Allah/Jahweh/Rama/Elvis. . . .
- Biting the Hand That Leads Us
- Whatever
- Environmental Floss
- Loathe Yourself, Fine-But Leave Me Out of It.
- Some Cats Know
- Voluntary Poverty Threatens Real Poor People
- Ain't That a Shame
- Extreme Forms of Argument
- Mass Destruction Isn't Rocket Science
- What Does It Mean to be Human?
- The Only Thing We Have to Fear
- Strapped for Takeoff
- The Beam Up Mine Own
- "It claims to be fully automatic-but actually, you have to push this little button, here . . ."
- "His bow-tie is really a camera . . . ," or The Future Is Not Listening
- Sting of the Cyber Trifles, or How I spent my winter worktime
- Compared to What?
- Don't Go Toward the Light . . .
- Off the Road
- Got to Admit It's Gotten Better
- The New Idiot Box
- Be Less Than You Can Be, or The most important component is the off switch
- Give It Another Kick, David-
- Cyberspace Cadets
- About as Reliable as a Computer . . . .
- Nuking Themselves in the Foot or, Look out, tech's press!
- Devil's Advocate
- "Fool, fool, back to the beginning is the rule-"
- Character Defects
- Space
- Headline
- ".still I persist in wondering"
- The Day It Hailed Columbia
- The Virgin Next Door Is Wet
- Starsong on My Desktop
- If You Can Fry an Egg in Space, Hilton Wants to Talk to You
- Senator Socksdryer and the Two Million Dollar Boondoggle
- Nostalgia for Tomorrow
- 2001, by God!, or Looking back at the future
- The Future Ain't What It Used to Be
- Futures We Never Dreamed
- Evil's Rootkiller, or Brother, can you spare a paradigm?
- Plus ça Change
- Intellectual Property
- St. George, We Need You Now!
- "The worm on the skyhook"
- They Don't Make Unreality Like They Used To
- Recutting the Crown Jewels
- The Anarchists Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, or Please don't shoot the guitar player
- If You Take It . . . We Can't Leave It
- Silver Lining
- Valmiki's Third Reality
- The Ones with a Zero on the End
- Precious Are the Eggs of the Sturgeon
- Thanks for the Music
- Farewell to Nova Scotia
- Why Pamela Wallin Is Dangerous
- Lagniappe
- What's All This Brouhaha? Ha Ha . . .
- The Yoomins of Sol III
- Yoomins Reconsidered
- Afterword
