The Winners and Recommended Short List for the 2009 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards will be announced at Gaylaxicon 2009 in October 2009 in Minneapolis. (Which I will be attending!)

Here's the full awesome list of novel nominations (buddies and/or books I read are in bold):

Adijan and Her Genie by L-J Baker (Bedazzled Ink)
All The Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear (Tor)
Alliance in Blood by Ariel Tachna (Dreamspinner Press)
The Archer's Heart by Astrid Amara (Blind Eye Books)
Blood Magic by Matthew Cook (Juno)
City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (McElderry)
Covenant in Blood by Ariel Tachna (Dreamspinner Press)
Dragon & Fenyx: Called By Power by Auburnimp & Michael Barnette (Shadowfire Press)
Dragon & Fenyx 2: Swordbrothers by Auburnimp & Michael Barnette (Shadowfire Press)
Face Your Fears by Jeffrey L Stoddard (PD Publishing)
Half A Crown by Jo Walton (Tor)
Havemercy by Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett (Bantam Spectra)
Hell and Earth by Elizabeth Bear (Roc)
Ink and Steel by Elizabeth Bear (Roc)
Jawk, Tales of the Chosen by Kayelle Allen (Liquid Silver Books)
The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak (Bantam)
The Magician and the Fool by Barth Anderson (Bantam)
My Hero by Tristram Burden (Rebel Satori Press)
Nights of Sin by Matthew Cook (Juno)
On Azrael's Wings by D. Jordan Redhawk (PD Publishing)
Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes by Robert Devereaux (Booklocker)
Seti's Heart by Kiernan Kelly (Torquere)
Shadow's Return by Lynn Flewelling (Bantam Spectra)
Turnskin by Nicole Kimberling (Blind Eye Books)


Link to Gaylactic Spectrum site.

Friday
Writing in the Recession   Senate A
4:00 - 5:15 pm

Saturday
Post–Oil Economy Food   Conference
2:30 - 3:45 pm

Sunday
Shadow over Powderhorn (Reading; see post below this one)
Room of One's Oen Bookstore
2:30 - 3:45 pm

Monday
The SignOut   Capitol/Wisconsin
11:30 - 12:45 pm

Sunday, May 24
Room of One's Own
307 W. Johnson St.
Madison, WI

"The future world painted by Anderson is a believable extension on the current state of affairs between the U.S. and Mexico: the shared border disintegrates into anarchy; governments turn tyrannically corrupt; cultural and racial tensions escalate to a fevered pitch."  --Bahia de Banderas News (Puerta Vallarta)

Doug Lain is a fun interviewer and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him on his podcast for Diet Soap. Check it out. We talk about swine flu, tarot, and I rip the veil off Doug Lain's canard about his having "children."

Meanwhile, in H1N1 news, a new study suggests that Mexicans of mixed ancestry (roughly 80% of population) may have genetic predisposition for killer flu.

Husband of US flu victim considers wrongful death suit against Giant Pig Farm (TM).

The suit could spur a more aggressive epidemiological investigation. It also presupposes a source for the H1N1 outbreak, which is not helpful for such an investigation. An intriguing development, nonetheless.

From Slate

There Are Four Lights!
Revisiting Star Trek: The Next Generation's eerily prescient torture episode


I'm not sure how eerily prescient that episode was. Some issues surrounding torture are described effectively, I suppose, and those issues are now swirling around a far more complicated and disturbing situation, namely, that the "good guys" not only tortured, but they did so as amatter of policy, the policy was defended publicly by the Vice President and others, the media and average citizens defended the practice, too, and, worst of all, the highest officials who ordered this policy, seemingly, weren't and won't be prosecuted.

TNG's depiction of these issues are actually too neat and gentrified to really capture the horror of where we are. Now, if a new, Vulcan-like leader of the Federation had learned that Picard was stacking Cardassians in naked human pyramids under orders, and then that wise, progressive leader turned a blind eye to the Federation policy compelling the Captain to do so -- well, that would have been prescient.

Why won't Doug Lain call me??

Swinefighter -- The Swine Flu Game.

The World Health Organization seems to be softening people up for a move to Level 6, that is, calling H1N1  a pandemic.

Let's review:

Endemic means that a disease is native to a particular region. So what does pandemic mean?

Right. It's not a reference to the death count or severity of the outbreak. It's a reference to where H1N1 can be found. WHO is wise to spell this out for an information-hungry public ahead of time.

Meanwhile, check out this article (via H5N1 blog) SARS Sleuth Tracks H1N1, Criticizes WHO: One virus hunter's take on how important it is for WHO to accurately get their levels right during an outbreak.

Swine Flu Starts a Trend in Mexico: Face Masks (LA Times)


Newspapers here have carried graphics showing how to turn a piece of scrap cloth into a mask. Some people have tried to add a splash of personality by painting their masks with skeleton faces or colorful butterflies...The tapaboca phenomenon in Mexico has yielded some incongruous images: the motorist with face covered, though alone in his car; the couple aboard a motorcycle, masked but not wearing helmets; sunbathers wearing swimsuits and surgical masks.

Newspaper columnist Juan Villoro said the mask, by revealing only the eyes, added a touch of the exotic to Mexican life. "Those who are not good-looking at least have become mysterious," he quipped in Friday's edition of the Reforma newspaper.

It's telling that this fad has been indulged in Japan for decades.

I'll be on The Uptake, live, at 2pm-ish tomoorw (Sunday, May3) talking about The Patron Saint of Plagues and H1N1 swine flu. Huge hat tip to the Irish-Jewish-Lesbian mafia (seanmmurphy and, especially, lyda222 ) for the hook up.

If you miss it, don't sweat. The Uptake will no doubt archive it. I'll keep you apprised.

Meanwhile, it seems like some others are starting to draw the lines between PSOP and the "current unpleasantness" (to quote Willy Wonka).

Via darinbradley 

Texas cancels all school competitions through May 11.

Of note in this article, the 23-month-old boy who died in Houston was from Mexico City and had underlying health problems. Terrible as that is, those circumstances make the case seem rather unusual and incidental for a "US confirmed death" and has to be of some relief to public health officials in the States.

Plus, the article describes a fascinating, city council level discussion on the immigration issue vis a vis H1N1.

First US death attributed to H1N1.

Mexico and the World Health Organization better get on the same page about the number of H1N1-related deaths in Mexico, pronto. Here's what the Mexican federal government is saying (from the Sydney Morning Herald):

Mexico's Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova, told reporters that the probable death toll from swine flu in his country had risen from 152 to 159.

Meanwhile, WHO is sticking to official, lab tested, and confirmed cases only:

"That figure[150+ deaths ~b.] is not a figure that's come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven."

Awesome!

Well, they both better have a long talk with this guy, Dr Antonio Chavez, a specialist in respiratory diseases at the Mexico National Institute of Health, from Mexico City:

"The truth is that mortality is even higher than what is being reported by the authorities, at least in the hospital where I work. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks."


And there you have a peek into the stressed out, confused, red-lined craziness inside a hot zone. It's also why everyone has to be a little skeptical of the news they're reading out of Mexico.


 

It's a nightmare trying to Google decent information on swine flu right now. SO. I beseech thee, holy intarwebs! Hear my query!

In avian flu, the key "antigenic shift" that can rearrange a poultry-to-poultry flu virus into a poultry-to-human virus (or human-to-human flu virus)  occurs, typically, when there is prolonged contact between birds and humans. That's why there was so much attention paid to Indonesia over the last few years, because there is a cultural predisposition for owning flocks of chickens in that country.

Is it the same thing with swine flu? Is it contact between pigs and humans? Or does the shift happen solely among pigs and the humans are irrelevant? What are the prime conditions under which there might be an antigenic shift in pig-to-pig swine flu, making it into a human friendly virus?