World magazine has very kindly included What to Expect on its short list for book of the year. Their pick for book of the year, Melanie Kirkpatrick’s Escape from North Korea, is sensational and is, happily, also published by Encounter.

Galley Friend Yuval Levin was awarded a Bradley Prize this year, making him as the youngest man ever to receive the honor, and one of the most deserving, too. Yuval is basically the platonic ideal of what we hope for in the world of political intellectuals and his acceptance speech is worth reading. Sample awesome:

To my mind, conservatism is gratitude. Conservatives tend to begin from gratitude for what is good and what works in our society and then strive to build on it, while liberals tend to begin from outrage at what is bad and broken and seek to uproot it.

You need both, because some of what is good about our world is irreplaceable and has to be guarded, while some of what is bad is unacceptable and has to be changed. We should never forget that the people who oppose our various endeavors and argue for another way are well intentioned too, even when they’re wrong, and that they’re not always wrong.

But we can also never forget what moves us to gratitude, and so what we stand for and defend: the extraordinary cultural inheritance we have; the amazing country built for us by others and defended by our best and bravest; America’s unmatched potential for lifting the poor and the weak; the legacy of freedom—of ordered liberty—built up over centuries of hard work.

We value these things not because they are triumphant and invincible but because they are precious and vulnerable, because they weren’t fated to happen, and they’re not certain to survive. They need us—and our gratitude for them should move us to defend them and to build on them.

That’s not to say that conservatives are never outraged, of course. We’ve had a lot of reason to be outraged lately. But it tends to be when we think the legacy and promise we cherish are threatened, rather than when some burning ambition is frustrated.

Conservatives often begin from gratitude because we start from modest expectations of human affairs—we know that people are imperfect, and fallen, and weak; that human knowledge and power are not all they’re cracked up to be; and we’re enormously impressed by the institutions that have managed to make something great of this imperfect raw material. So we want to build on them because we don’t imagine we could do better starting from scratch.

Liberals often begin from outrage because they have much higher expectations—maybe even utopian expectations—about the perfectibility of human things and the potential of human knowledge and power. They’re often willing to ignore tradition and to push aside institutions that channel generations of wisdom because they think we can do better on our own.

This can sometimes leave conservatives feeling like we are the brakes on American life, while people on the left hold the steering wheel. Like they push for their idea of progress and we just want to go a little more slowly. But that’s a serious mistake.

The American idea of progress is the tradition that we’re defending. It is made possible precisely by sustaining our deep ties to the ideals of liberty, and equality, and human dignity expressed in our founding and our institutions. The great moral advances in our history have involved the vindication of those principles—have involved America becoming more like itself.

And in any society, the task of sustaining those kinds of institutions for the next generation is the essential task—the irreplaceable precondition for everything else. That is the work first and foremost of families, and of communities.

Remember that time Superman was tricked into making a porno with Mr. Miracle’s wife?

No, really.

Ever wonder what happens when nerdist social awkwardness is crossed with gender theory and the internets? Well here it is.

It’s long, but trust me. It’s worth it.

“Honey, your skirt is a little short.”

To be fair, it was a little short. It was short intentionally. I was dressed in a science officer costume from Star Trek: The Original Series. Not the sleek little work-appropriate but still sexy jewel tone tunics from the new movie, but the flared, strangely-constructed, unapologetically teal and chartreuse polyester cheerleader dresses that fit perfectly with the (now) retrofuturistic vibe of the original show. It’s a screen accurate dress. And by “screen accurate” I mean “short”. And at the beginning of the day, I just assumed the lady who commented was pointing out that I needed to tug down the dress a bit. That was the first comment. After the next 30 or so, I had had enough.

I was at Balticon, a great science fiction convention that leans more to the literary side than the ones that are normally in my wheelhouse. This was my second year going to this con, and my second year costuming there. . . .

As a costumer, you have to develop a fairly keen sense for what is a safe space and what is not. I felt safe at Balticon both years. It isn’t a space where any harm would come to me. I could wear anything I want there and I wouldn’t come to any legal form of harm. That said, the responses I was getting made me want to run away. Or possibly take a shower to wash off the feeling of eyes and comments.

This year, in my Star Trek dress, I was just as uncomfortable, but I decided to say frak it and ignore them. The discomfort came from a constant stream of microaggressions. . . .

At a convention like Dragon*Con, or CONvergence, or Pandoracon, in costume I feel like I’m part of the convention crowd. Yes, I’m a good costumer, and I look good in my costumes, but at the end of the day, I’m another nerd geeking out like crazy over her favorite subjects.

Dragon*Con isn’t perfect, and in most ways, is a much less safe convention for a woman. However, at Dragon*Con, I am accepted as a costumer. At a con like Balticon, I’m celebrated as eye candy. I felt like I was placed in the role of Convention Booth Babe, receiving both the objectified interest from the men and the scorn of the women.

That’s a problem. . . .

The people attending, on the other hand, were Not Comfortable With The Way I Chose to Present. I felt like they really, really wanted me to go back to my room and change into a long, historically accurate, shapeless Medieval dress. Or jeans and a geek t-shirt. Either would be acceptable: not too aggressively feminine, but not dressed nicely enough to make them nervous they were being invaded by mundanes. . . .

Cosplay is not Consent campaigns are great for events like Dragon*Con and CONvergence, but the kind of problems at this con were different and not easily addressed through something like that. No one touched me, or even made inappropriate come-ons. No one groped me, cornered me, made me feel like I was in danger. I never worried about walking the halls alone, even late at night, costume or not. . . .

So, in my case, I’ve decided that my solution starts with me.

Rather than bitching to my friends about the comments, backhanded compliments and trivia grilling sessions, I’m going to say something. I will respond to comments about my skirt being too short with questions about why that’s a problem. I will call out men grilling me about trivia (I do that already, but I need to do it more consistently.)

There is no reason I should have to do this, but I came to realize something in reflecting on events at Balticon: I am, at all conventions, surrounded by people who accept me, who care for me and who are willing to hand me a gin and tonic or three when I look like I’m about ready to punch the next person who comments on my skirt. It’s not a position of power, but it is a position of safety. Every place I go will not be a safe space, but the people around me make it one for me.

So my solution? Not be invisible. Not anymore. Not let my legs and skirt short speak for my presence, but speak for myself. Challenge the male gaze both metaphorically and literally. Sitting in the bar and fuming at other convention attendees won’t help. Opening my mouth and answering them just might. Or it might make other people witnessing the exchange think about what happened. Point out that I can both wear a short skirt and have a brain under my beehive. Out loud. And probably snarkily.

I have a privileged position, in that I can do this and then safely retreat to my friends and colleagues. I am not walking into a convention alone and for the first time. So if I can speak out a little bit and make sure that other women, who don’t have the space to safely challenge the microaggressions, might stick around and develop their own support network, I will challenge it. Because I can. I’m tired of being invisible except when being objectified, so I’m not going to be anymore.

And if anyone wants to fight me about it? You can find me in the bar. Surrounded by 40+ skeptics, costumers and science communicators who have had a little too much bourbon, and who fully embrace my right to be there. Good luck with that.

Right now, you’re asking yourself two questions. (1) Is this for real? Because it reads like the parody version of an essay on this topic. Except that the Onion could never get it this on-the-nose. That said, so far as I can tell, it’s genuine.

And (2) Are there pictures? Oh yes. Yes there are.

I’ve now seen a whopping four sets of the 2013 French Open and during the first set of Williams-Errani, Chris Evert uncorked single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard a tennis commentator say. I’ve gone and exactly transcribed it so we’ll have this verbatim, for posterity.

At 4-0, 40-love in the fist set, with Serena dominating a totally under-manned Errani, Everet had the following exchange with Chris Fowler:

Evert: You know what, bring Nadal and Djokovic out right now. Because this is incredible women’s tennis.

Fowler: Let’s not get carried away.

Evert: No, I’m serious. I’m serious.

Fowler: You mean the match tomorrow? Or against her?

Evert: Bring them out to play Serena Williams. Because I don’t know anyone who could beat her the way she’s playing now.

Evert is lucky. Fowler, being a gentleman, quickly exited the exchange by saying, “Well, five-love” and moving to commercial break. If McEnroe had been on set, it would have been ugly.

(For people who don’t understand tennis, Serena almost certainly couldn’t get a set off of any man ranked in the top 200. It’s been tried before. Against a top 25 male player, she’d be lucky to get more than a couple points. It’s not just a question of power and spin, which the men possess enormous amounts more of, but speed and court coverage. This isn’t like saying Britney Griner could merely play in the NBA, it’s like saying she could take LeBron or Kobe in one-on-one.)

Santino has gone back to the vineyards to explain why the “lack of female superheroes in movies” isn’t corporate/cultural sexism. This time, Santino is spurred on by stupid remarks from Joss Whedon, who really ought to know better. Here’s Sonny:

But, since we seem to have to relitigate this stuff every single solitary year (sometimes several times a year!), allow me to briefly point out that Angie Han and Joss Whedon are remarkably, spectacularly wrong. There is actually a metric ton of evidence that a superheroine movies don’t work. For instance: all the superheroinemovies that haven’t worked.

There’s Elektra, a spinoff of a modestly successful superhero film that starred a popular actress and grossed just $24M on a $43M production budget (plus another $20M to $30M on advertising). There’s Catwoman, a film about a longstanding female comic book character that starred an absolute boffo, Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated cast (Halle Berry! Sharon Stone!) that tanked, grossing just $40M on a $100M production budget (plus, again, advertising costs). There’s the action-comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which grossed just $22.5M on a $30-$40M budget. Don’t even get me started on Supergirl.

Noticing a pattern yet?

Just as a factual matter, Sonny is right. But I’d add something else:

Ever since Buffy, we’ve had an endless cavalcade of ass-kicking female action leads: River Tam in Firefly/Serenity; Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider/Wanted/Salt; Kate Beckinsale in Underworld series, Uma Thermon in Kill Bill; the various Sarah Connors; Milla Jovovitch in every role since The Fifth Element; the girls of Sucker Punch; Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Cloe Moretz as Hit Girl.

This commencement address is basically Leon Wieseltier’s The Things We Think and Do Not Say, right?

In any case, it is awesome.

1) An IMAX screen. In your house.

2) Google setting up a plausible explanation should Glass fail by banning porn. Oculus Rift, you’re our only hope . . .

3) This short essay by Chris Caldwell is by turns hysterical, awe-inspiring, and profound. Also, it contains two sentences which are instant classics. I’ll give you one of them:

People like him collect the fruits of modernity in the form of intensity, rather than longevity or comfort.

Treat yourself. Right. Now.