Three day weekend marginalia

As I imagine the blogosphere will be relatively quiet over the holiday weekend, (more a four-day weekend for me thanks to assisting oldest daughter with her return to college Friday), here’s a variety of wide ranging items to explore:

• It’s awards time at the World Science Fiction convention. Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End won the biggie — the Hugo Award for Best Novel. I’ve read three of the five finalists and have one on the TBR bookshelf. Vinge’s book was also a finalist for the Prometheus Award, given by the Libertarian Futurist Association for books that “examine the meaning of freedom.” Charles Stross won for Glasshouse, which was also a finalist for the best novel Hugo. As the linked reviews indicate, my favorite of the two was Glasshouse.
• A member of the South Dakota media tells his colleagues, “Get over it” in a rational and intelligent fashion. (Via.)
• With the State Fair underway, the heavens part and members of both the South Dakota right and left agree it’s time to end the damn thing, something I’ve believed for probably two decades or more.
• The new issue of Rolling Stone reports that the new album by The Eagles, set for release in October, “will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart for the first year.” So much for the reputed social conscience of Messrs. Henley, Frey, Schmidt and Walsh.
• I don’t read The Huffington Post but the fact Paul Krassner now writes”Assholes of the Week” has led me to sign up to get e-mails from the site whenever he posts to the blog. (Via.)
• This is intriguing: “The National Endowment for the Arts will partner with XM Radio to bring literature to satellite radio with the launch of ‘The Big Read on XM,’ a series airing audio versions of classic novels in 30-minute installments.” The Big Read has been used in South Dakota over the last couple years and expanding it to audio seems worthwhile. (Via.)
• I have to agree with the ImmmigrationProf that most legal blogging (I would say the vast majority) is not legal scholarship. Proliferation is not the same as quality, as any of us who read blogs are well aware.
• I think this would lead to arachnophobia in damn near anyone.

Title Cut, Frank Zappa, You Are What You Is