Blogocentric Formulations

Orson Scott Card needs to Be Sedated

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SONG: "I Wanna Be Sedated"
ARTIST: The Ramones
STATUS: Defunct (last concert was 8/6/1996)
ALBUM: Road to Ruin (1979)

Even though I used the date the band broke up for the chronology, I just want all of you to know that I did my homework... not only are all four original members of the band dead, but they also each died from a different cause than any of the other artists on my list (lead singer Joey Ramone died from lymphoma in 2001; guitarist Johnny Ramone died from prostate cancer in 2004; bassist Dee Dee Ramone died from a heroin overdose in 2002, and drummer Tommy Ramone died in 2014 of bile duct cancer).

What I love about The Ramones is that they had a massive influence on the punk rock movement, even though their commercial success was somewhat limited. Many rock bands cite The Ramones as a major influence, and for the twenty years the band was active, it's not hard to see why. My favorite piece of trivia about the band, though is that none of the band members are actually related. The four original band members are friends from the middle-class neighborhood of Forest Hills, New York. "Dee Dee" was the one who came up with the idea to use stage names with the same last name (inspired by Paul McCartney's days with the Silver Beatles under the pseudonym Paul Ramon), and eventually every member of the band would take up a pseudonym. Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy were the original four, but over the years the band also welcomed Marky Ramone, Richie Ramone, Elvis Ramone, and C.J. Ramone as others came and went. Johnny and Joey are the only two to stay with the band the entire time. It was Joey and Johnny's conflicting personalities (the former was a liberal who struggled with OCD and alcoholism while the latter was a disciplined conservative who came from military school) that gave the band so much color over the years.

With the possible exception of "Blitzkrieg Bop," their song "I Wanna Be Sedated" is one of their best known works. It's #145 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" ("Blitzkrieg Bop" is #92), and was included in the "NPR 100," a list of National Public Radio music editors' one hundred most important musical works of the 20th century. The song has been covered by bands such as Motley Crue, The Offspring, The Go-Go's, New Found Glory, and by a previous artist on my list for this activity... Kirsty MacColl.

                   

PROMPT: An author whose work I've specifically read (or not read) based on a personal reaction to the author him/herself is...


Even though I read this classic book ages ago:

ASIN: 0812550706	Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet) Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 6.94 Buy Now!

And even though this book from the Elements of Fiction Writing series remains a staple of my writing how-to book collection:

ASIN: 0898799279	Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 11.72 Buy Now!

I pretty much refuse to read anything else by Orson Scott Card on general principle. While everyone is certainly entitled to his or her opinions, for me Card approaches the borderline between offensively close-minded and downright bigoted. Whether his opinions are the result of his Mormon background or not I can't say, but here are just a few of the opinions he's rather vocally expressed over the years:

In 2013, he wrote an "experimental fiction" essay which imagined President Obama as a "Hitler or Stalin-style dictator" with a national police force of "young out-of-work urban men" who - with his wife Michelle - amends the Constitution to allow himself to stay in power for life.

Also in 2013, he retracted a statement he made in a 1990 essay where he advocated for laws banning homosexuality to remain on the books and be enforced to the point where "those who flagrantly violate society's regulation on sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society." (2013 was also the year that he resigned from his position on the board of the National Organization for Marriage an anti-gay-marriage lobby that he joined in 2009 after publishing another essay the year before in which he claimed that any government that supported same-sex marriage is a "mortal enemy" that he would actively try to destroy.

Card has also claimed in a 2004 essay that the "dark secret" of homosexuals is how many of them entered that world through molestation, rape, incest, abuse, or other paraphilias.

He has stated that he believes scientific evidence disproving global warming has been suppressed due to a conspiracy in the academic/scientific community.

When the Ender's Game movie came out, Card found himself at the center of controversy when several groups petitioned for a boycott of the film based on Card's views on homosexuality. Rather than addressing questions or even choosing to remain silent, Card repeatedly threw accusations of his own against his "attackers," claiming it was everything from character assassination to pathetic attempts for people to drum up attention and publicity for their causes.

In Card's defense, whether it's a political move or not, he has distanced himself from some of his earlier and much stronger assertions about the issue of homosexuality in particular, even adding a new introduction to that 1990 essay clarifying that now that DOMA has passed, his issues with the legality of gay marriage are moot. He's also gone on record saying even though he doesn't like Obama, it's "about time" a major party nominated a black candidate. And Card supports government-funded research into alternatives to fossil fuel. So I freely admit that I don't disagree with him on everything, and I'm fairly sure he didn't deserve as much demonizing as he received in the media, especially around the release of the Ender's Game movie.

However, it's pretty clear that Card has some strong morally conservative views about certain issues that I simply do not share with him in any way, shape, or form. And while he's certainly free to hold those opinions, I'm also free to disagree. There are hundreds, if not thousands of books out there that I want to read. I think it's pretty safe to say that I won't be able to read them all before my time on this planet is at an end. And with so many options when it comes to reading material, I choose not to support someone who apparently views at least certain categories of the population as morally and legally inferior. So while I respect Card's contribution to the world of writing, I won't be supporting him by buying or reading any of his books anytime soon.