Imagine Spending Four Billion Years Stocking The

It Used To Be Almost The First Question (just After 'can You Type?') In The Standard Female Job Interview: 'are You Now, Or Have You Ever, Contemplated Marriage, Motherhood, Or The Violent Overthrow Of The U.s. Government?

Anyone Who Has Invented A Better Mousetrap, Or The Contemporary Equivalent, Can Expect To Be Harassed By Strangers Demanding That You Read Their Unpublished Manuscripts Or Undergo The Humiliation Of Public Speaking, Usually On Remote Midwestern Campuses.

The Urge To Transform One's Appearance, To Dance Outdoors, To Mock The Powerful And Embrace Perfect Strangers Is Not Easy To Suppress." --barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing In The Streets, 260.

I Realize That After Decades Of Positive Thinking The Notion Of Realism, Of Things As They Are, May Seem A Little Quaint. ... When The Stakes Are High Enough And The Risks Obvious, We Still Turn To People Who Can Be Counted On To Understand Those Risks And Prepare For Worst-case Scenarios. A Chief Of State Does Not Want To Hear A General In The Field Say That He 'hopes' To Win Tomorrow's Battle Or That He's 'visualizing Victory'.

In Sci-fi Convention, Life-forms That Hadn't Developed Space Travel Were Mere Prehistory -- Horse-shoe Crabs Of The Cosmic Scene -- And Something Of The Humiliation Of Being Stuck On A Provincial Planet In A Galactic Backwater Has Stayed With Me Ever Since.