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Our Fair City
"Our Fair City" is a fantasy short story by Robert A. Heinlein, originally printed in ''Weird Tales'', January 1949. The story involves an old parking lot attendant, his pet whirlwind (named Kitten), and a muckraking newspaper columnist who decide to "clean up" their city's corrupt government by running the whirlwind for political office. Reception Alexei Panshin has called it an "amiable trifle",Heinlein in Dimension: 1949 published 1968; archived at Panshin.com while has described it as an example of "preliminary de-historicization followed by re-accommodation to American pragmatism". [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weird Tales January 1949
Weird may refer to: Places * Weird Lake, a lake in Minnesota, U.S. People *"Weird Al" Yankovic (born 1959), American musician and parodist Art, entertainment, and media Literature * '' Weird US'', a series of travel guides * ''The Weird'', a 2012 anthology of weird fiction * Weird fiction, speculative literature written in the late 19th and early 20th century Music * "Weird" (Hanson song), 1998 * "Weird", a song from Hilary Duff's album ''Hilary Duff'' * ''Weird!'', a 2020 album by Yungblud * New Weird America, a subgenre of psychedelic folk music of the mid-late 2000s * "Weird", a song from Lizzy McAlpine's album ''Five Seconds Flat'' (2022) Other art, entertainment, and media * Weird (character), a fictional DC Comics character * '' Weird: The Al Yankovic Story'', a biographical comedy Other uses * WEIRD, an acronym for "Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic", cultural identifier of psychology test subjects * Weird number In number theory, a weird number ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 list of sovereign states, independent national governments and government agency, subsidiary organizations. The main types of modern political systems recognized are democracy, democracies, totalitarian regimes, and, sitting between these two, authoritarianism, authoritarian regimes with a variety of hybrid regimes. Modern classification systems also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1948 Short Stories
Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) go into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British Railways. * January 4 – British rule in Burma, Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom, becoming an independent republic, named the 'Post-independence Burma (1948–1962), Union of Burma', with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu its first Prime Minister. * January 5 – In the United States: ** Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (''Tournament of Roses Parade'' and the ''Rose Bowl Game''). ** The first Kinsey Reports, Kinsey Report, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'', is published. * January 7 – Mantell UFO incident: Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of an unidentified fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd in the United Kingdom and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC in the United States) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the Big Five (publishers), "Big Five" English language publishers (along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster). Founded in London in 1843 by Scottish brothers Daniel MacMillan, Daniel and Alexander MacMillan (publisher), Alexander MacMillan, the firm soon established itself as a leading publisher in Britain. It published two of the best-known works of Victorian-era children's literature, Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' (1894). Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, was chairman of the company from 1964 until his death in December 1986. Since 1999, Macmi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dust Devil
A dust devil (also known regionally as a dirt devil) is a strong, well-formed, and relatively short-lived whirlwind. Its size ranges from small (18 in/half a metre wide and a few yards/metres tall) to large (more than 30 ft/10 m wide and more than half a mile/1 km tall). The primary vertical motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless, but can on rare occasions grow large enough to pose a threat to both people and property. They are comparable to tornadoes in that both are a weather phenomenon involving a vertically oriented rotating column of wind. Most tornadoes are associated with a larger parent circulation, the mesocyclone on the back of a supercell thunderstorm. Dust devils form as a swirling updraft under sunny conditions during fair weather, rarely coming close to the intensity of a tornado. Formation Dust devils form when a pocket of hot air near the surface rises quickly through cooler air above it, forming an updraft. If conditions ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wildside Press
Wildside Press is an independent publishing company in Cabin John, Maryland. It was founded in 1989 by John Betancourt and Kim Betancourt. While the press was originally conceived as a publisher of speculative fiction in both trade and limited editions, its focus has broadened since then, both in content and format. Its website notes publication of works of mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction, as well as downloadable audiobooks and CDs, ebooks, magazines, and physical books. Wildside Press has published approximately 10,000 books through print on demand and traditional means. Writers The company has published work by a number of contemporary writers, including Lloyd Biggle Jr., Alan Dean Foster, Paul Di Filippo, Esther Friesner, S. T. Joshi, Ionuț Caragea, Michael Kurland, Paul Levinson, David Langford, Nick Mamatas, Brian McNaughton, Vera Nazarian, Paul Park, Tim Pratt, Stephen Mark Rainey, Alan Rodgers, Darrell Schweitzer, Lawrence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford (25 July 1948 – 24 February 2024) was a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who published a hundred novels and over a hundred volumes of translations. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but later ones dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for some of his very early and late works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work. Biography Born in Shipley, Yorkshire, Stableford graduated with a degree in biology from the University of York in 1969 before going on to do postgraduate research in biology and later in sociology. In 1979 he received a PhD with a doctoral thesis on ''The Sociology of Science Fiction''. Until 1988, he worked as a lecturer in sociology at the University of Reading. He was later a full-ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexei Panshin
Alexei Panshin (August 14, 1940 – August 21, 2022) was an American writer and science fiction critic. He wrote several critical works and several novels, including the 1968 Nebula Award–winning novel ''Rite of Passage (Panshin), Rite of Passage''Nicholls 1979, p. 447. and, with his wife Cory Panshin, the 1990 Hugo Award–winning study of science fiction ''The World Beyond the Hill''. Personal life Panshin was born in Lansing, Michigan, on August 14, 1940. He died on August 21, 2022, at the age of 82.Alexei Panshin (1940–2022) by Mike Glyer, at File 770; published August 21, 2022; retrieved August 21, 2022 Career Fiction Panshin was the author of the Anthony Villiers series made up of ''Star Well'', ''The Thurb Revolution'', and ''Masque World''. A fourth volume, e ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columnist
A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Column (periodical), Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the form of a short essay by a specific writer who offers a personal point of view. Columns are sometimes written by a composite or a team, appearing under a pseudonym, or (in effect) a brand name. Columnists typically write daily or weekly columns. Some columns are later collected and reprinted in book form. Radio and television Newspaper columnists of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Franklin Pierce Adams (also known as FPA), Nick Kenny (poet), Nick Kenny, John Crosby (media critic), John Crosby, Jimmie Fidler, Louella Parsons, Drew Pearson (journalist), Drew Pearson, Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell, achieved a celebrity status and used their Print syndication, syndicated columns as a springboard to move into radio and television. In some cases, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature, fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games. The expression ''fantastic literature'' is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is ''phantasy''. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness. Characteristics Many works of fantasy use magic (paranorma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports, art, and science. They often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, Obituary, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns. Most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of Subscription business model, subscription revenue, Newsagent's shop, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. The journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often Metonymy, metonymically called newspapers. Newspapers have traditionally been published Printing, in print (usually on cheap, low-grade paper called newsprint). However, today most newspapers are also Electronic publishing, published on webs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muckraking
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publications. The modern term generally references investigative journalism or watchdog journalism; investigative journalists in the US are occasionally called "muckrakers" informally. The muckrakers played a highly visible role during the Progressive Era. Muckraking magazines—notably ''McClure's'' of the publisher S. S. McClure—took on corporate monopolies and political machines, while trying to raise public awareness and anger at urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, prostitution, and child labor. Most of the muckrakers wrote nonfiction, but fictional exposés often had a major impact, too, such as those by Upton Sinclair. In contemporary American usage, the term can refer to journalists or others who "dig deep for the facts" or, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
