Are you reading this on paper or screening this online?
danbloom
- Birthday
- April 07
- Bio
- Danny Bloom is a global citizen who helped midwife, er, midhusband, Jim Laughter's new cli fi novel titled POLAR CITY RED, now for sale worldwide, google the title to find ordering info. In the distant future—some say the near future—North America, northern Asia and Europe will see millions of climate refugees from southern lands trekking northward, and the entire Lower 48 might be under threat from the devastating impacts of “climate chaos” —from rising sea levels to a scary scarcity of food, fuel and shelter.
Polar City Red is set in an imagined Alaska in the year 2075. But it could just as well be Tokyo or Oslo or Berlin. Global warming is borderless, and so are our fears.
“A thought experiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate.” —New York Times
“Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship. The retreat will be toward the poles.” —New York Times
“We cannot regard the future of the civilized world in the same way as we see our personal futures. The planet may have already passed the tipping point on global warming. Is it already too late? Are the well-intentioned preservation campaigns just feel-good window dressing?” —James Lovelock, CBE, FRS, author of Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (2000)
“We’re seeing the collapse of the Arctic sea ice. This year (2011) alone, planet Earth lost an area of Arctic sea ice twice the size of British Columbia. The impact on the entire global climate system will be enormous—the Arctic sea ice is the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is almost dead.” —Dr. Michael Byers, Professor of Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia
MY RECENT POSTS
- Jim Laughter, author of POLAR
CITY RED, 'cli fi' novel
May 11, 2012 11:49PM - David Mitchell Fail: Raise a
Laugh from Anne Frank's Ghost?
April 20, 2012 04:34AM - A Second 'Open Letter' to
Ricky Gervais and Karl
Pilkington
April 20, 2012 04:28AM - A Second 'Open Letter' to
Ricky Gervais and Karl
Pilkington
April 19, 2012 09:16PM - Ricky Gervais owes Anne Frank
a big fat apology
April 18, 2012 09:00AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Russell Howard's way of
looking at the subject is
perhaps the
simplest:
"The…”
April 20, 2012 04:42AM - “A Second ''Open Letter''
to Ricky Gervais and
Karl
Pilkington”
April 19, 2012 09:17PM - “http://www.sdjewishworld
.com/2012/04/14/open-letter-to
-ricky-gervais-and-karl-pil
230;”
April 14, 2012 10:03PM - “RIP, Mike Wallace. But
there's another part of Mike
Wallace's
life that needs
exa…”
April 14, 2012 09:58PM - “great story, you are a
writer born! bravo
--
and this follow
up
-mike-wallace-faux
…”
April 14, 2012 09:57PM
Danbloom's Links
Jim Laughter, author of POLAR CITY RED, 'cli fi' novel
from the PREFACE:
The year is 2075 and humanity must survive!
The crown jewel of creation, humanity is the only species on the planet capable of destroying itself and bringing about its own extinction. It doesn’t really matter whether that destruction come thro… Read full post »
David Mitchell Fail: Raise a Laugh from Anne Frank's Ghost?
[Richard Ferrer reported in November 2009 in the UK, three years
before my OPEN LETTER to Ricky Gervais made headlines.]
Anne Frank's stepsister has expressed her shock and dismay after one of Britain's top comedians cracked a tasteless joke about the Holocaust diarist on a show broadcast by the BBC.… Read full post »
A Second 'Open Letter' to Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington
A Second ''Open Letter'' to Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington
(and Joan Rivers and David Mitchell and Jon Stewart)
Dear Ricky Gervais:
Your response to my first "open letter" to you was recently published
in the UK media, and I was glad to see you take
the time to respond to… Read full post »
A Second 'Open Letter' to Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington
A Second ''Open Letter'' to Ricky Gervais and Karl
Pilkington --
(and Joan Rivers and David Mitchell and Jon
Stewart...)
Dear Ricky Gervais:
Your response to my first "open letter" to you was recently
published
in the UK media, and I was glad to see you take
the time to respond to me.… Read full post »
Ricky Gervais owes Anne Frank a big fat apology
From the Forward, slighted edited for impact:
Jon Stewart Leibowitz seemed rather uncomfortable with some of the tasteless things that his TV guest Ricky Gervais was saying so vulgarly about Anne Frank on the Daily Show back on April 11. But while Jon took it no further/… Read full post »
'Cli fi' novel 'POLAR CITY RED' predicts end of Lower 48
An Open Letter to Ricky Gervais: Stop Anne Frank 'jokes'
An Open Letter to British Comedians Ricky Gervais and
Karl Pilkington:
Please Stop the Tasteless Anne Frank Jokes and Here's
Why...
Dear Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington,
Can you guys maybe start to leave Anne Frank out of your
comedy
routines? Okay, some of your fans
are laughing, but I'm not: why did… Read full post »
New York Times apologizes for faux Sartre quote on March 13
New York Times correction on a Jean-Paul Sartre misquote in the newspaper's overseas editions of the Times Weekly insert in 26 nations on March 13, 2012
Being, nothingness, and a faux Sartre quote that won’t die
Andrew Beaujon noted over a Poynter that there's some trouble in
quoteland.
Linking to a recent Mary Schmich column at the Chicago Tribune,
Beaujon wrote:
"Writing in the Atlantic in 2003, Jonathan Rauch made [what he thought was] a joke.
“Introverts are also not misanthropic,”… Read full post »
An antidote for faux quotes: Mary Schmich dishes the dirt
"We need an antidote for bad quotes" goes the headline in this week's Chicago Tribune, placed gingerly atop another very good column by Mary "Kurt Vonnegut" Schmich.
"In this digital age, the wording and attribution of quotes is often wrong," adds the subheadline.
Jean-Paul Sartre
POLAR CITY RED launches as global wake up call about climate
How to promote a new science fiction book about climate change
in a world where climate
headlines are a daily warning and a wake up call at the same
time?
Unless you are already an
established and famous author or have written something so
outrageously fantastic
that it makes ''Catch-22'' look l… Read full post »
Opinion: You can't judge an author by his writing
Opinion: You can't judge an author by his writing
by Geraint Anderson
Friday, 16 March 2012
[To promote your book, you've got to be prepared to do stuff that
others won't, and lots of it, writes Geraint Anderson] -- agree?
disagree? di… Read full post »
"Hell is other people at breakfast" faux-quote goes viral
This is how things work in the Internet Age.
A witty writer in Boston
sets up a fake quote from the late Jean-Paul Sartre back in 2003 in
an
article about introverts and
extroverts that was published in the Atlantic Monthly online
and
almost ten years later the fake quote -- "Hell is other… Read full post »
Cli-fi novel explores future scenarios, emotions of dystopia
Sad to say, maybe even tragic to say, we humans in the 21st
Century have failed to address
the Earth's worsening emergencies of climate change, species'
extinction and resource -not necessarily because of a lack of
information, but also because of a lack of imagination, many social
scientists
and… Read full post »
Is ‘faithism’ as dangerous as ‘racism’? Blogger seeks input
Is ‘faithism’ as dangerous as ‘racism’? Columnist seeks input
By Danny Bloom
Danny Bloom
If racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination, then faithism is the belief that belief in different gods or Gods justifies… Read full post »
I do not accept Jeffrey Zaslow's death
On the senseless, meaningless, ill-fated death of Jeffrey Zaslow that was not "meant to be" and did not have to be: a ''commentary'' from afar
by Danny Bloom (danbloom@gmail.com)
I do not accept Jeffrey
Zaslow's death.
But before I explain why, or rather, as I am
explaining why, let's review… Read full post »
Trying to make sense of Jeff Zaslow's senseless death
Jeffrey Zaslow, WSJ reporter based in Detroit, and overall good good man, great husband to Sherry, wonderful dad to three wonderful girls, aged 53, dies in senseless fateful freak car accident skidding on icy Michigan road to go to a small book signing in a very small town, for his new… Read full post »
'Baby in Womb' bumper sticker goes viral worldwide
Remember those old "Baby on Board" signs placed on car windows
and
bumper stickers? Sometimes they said "Baby in Car" and their
message,
which went worldwide in over
35 languages, was to drive carefully and pay attention to the
cars
around you, especially this car with a baby infant seated
inside… Read full post »
Dystopian ''cli-fi'' climate novel has roots in Poland
Science fiction in Poland has a long history and dates all the way
back to the late 18th Century. Perhaps the best known Polish sci fi
writer of all time is the great Stanisław Lem (1921-2006).
Lem's books
have been translated into over 40 languages worldwide and have sold
over 30 million cop… Read full post »
A genius of 1990s Taiwanese cinema: Huang Ming-chuan
Some have called him madman, lunatic, visionary.
So who is Huang Mingchuan? Outside of Taiwan, film director HMC
(黃明å·) is
not well-known, and even inside Taiwan, he has been relegated to
the
sidelines
of the commercial film industry. Even worse,… Read full post »
Just an old-fashioned sci-fi yarn in Alaska dystopia of 2080
Oklahoma science fiction writer Jim Laughter
— his real name — has
seen the future, and he’s not laughing.
In his new novel, the
59-year-old grandfather envisions so-called ”polar
cities” for future
survivors of devastating climate change disasters that might
direct… Read full post »
The Alaska Dryrotta - Still Resonating After All These Years
Longtime Alaskans might remember a humorous poster called "The Alaska Dryrotta" that made the rounds of Juneau and Anchorage during the 1980s.
The author was listed as "Leinad Moolb," surely a pen name, and
he
uncorked the "message found in a bottle floating down the
Mendenhall
River on a bright sunny… Read full post »
MRI, PET scans to show readin on paper superior to screens?
What I am really trying to emphasize is that this issue is not so much about comfort or preference, but about the brain chemistry of the reading brain. And my hunch is that reading on paper is superior, brain-wise, vs screen reading. Not to say that screen-reading is bad or should… Read full post »
Memories are made of this
Memories are made of this
Popular
Date: 20 December 2011
“Polish Holocaust story might be possible fabrication, embellishment,” writes journalist Dan Bloom.
While we at Cogo don’t necessarily share his conclusions, we find Mr Bloom’s point of view interesting and
Shakira gets star on Walk of Fame, AP reports it cost $30K
Earlier this year, I wrote a rather contentious commentary in which I spilled the beans on how celebrities today get stars on the famous Walk of Fame in Hollywood. And I asked the national media to start reporting the back story to the Walk of Fame “awards,” since they are not… Read full post »
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com