I think that is one of the most irresponsible examples of journalism (if you want to call it that) I have ever seen. The interviewer was too wrapped up in her own insecurities to conduct a responsible interview. Very bad example of writing.

I suppose I can understand her getting insulted by what Herr Card said, but there was certainly NO attempt to conduct an objective interview here.

But I doubt Te Deteste's link was placed here for a discussion on writing.

O' Hater of Sin, if you come back, you may want to post the article in the main forum in the "Discussions About Orson Scott Card" section, because this isn't an appropriate place for such silliness.

Speaking of silliness, does anyone else find the term "homophobia" humorous? Mind you, a phobia is a serious debilitating fear. Many people suffer endlessly, imprisoned in their homes, because they fear they if they leave they may come in contact with a spider or a germ or whatever their object of terror may be.

It seems insensitive to those suffering with this horrible illness to apply the term to those that merely disapprove of some people's lifestyle choices. (That statement sounded a little too politically correct to me. I need to stop.)

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I worshipped militaristic Mormon science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card -- until we met

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Why does she say "Mormon" at all. Can't he just be science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card? If she starts off like that, she should always sign her pieces as "Jewish Lesbian Columnist Donna Minkowitz".
I hate it when people can't see through their own biggotry. She evidently suffers from it'sallaboutme syndrome.
And I am glad she was "holding back". How gracious of her.

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Well, since I have no respect whatsoever for Jung or any of his works, that's hardly a surprise. The beginnings of the science of psychology are filled with false prophets like Jung and Freud, people who really set back the science of psychology and had a huge and sickening influence in our culture. They are among the great frauds and evils of our time.

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Honesty can be powerfully funny. Psychology has improved over the years, but I think it's still more voodoo than science.

*Roll to Save Vs. Debating Phanto*
(clack)
*Success!*

No, check that. This woman has broken the most important rule of journalism, in that she hasn't remained impartial. A reporter is supposed to report. Yeah. You see what I did there? A reporter reports. It's that simple.

And yet, this woman, Donna Minkowitz, repeatedly inserts her own opinion, and editorializes the entire interview. She says adds exclamation points (which you're not supposed to do) and says "yaps", which is more editorializing. "Said" and "Stated" are really the only two ways you can quote an interviewer.

Ms Minkowitz gives her the interview as she saw it, and thus, is no longer a reporter, but a fan who was lucky enough to interview the man she admired.

I'm not saying I agree with OSC. In fact, unless she misquoted him, purposely or otherwise, he does come across as a bit of a homophobe, but she skewed the entire interview by giving it from her point of view. Sardonic comments that she added here and there pulled me from the article and made me think that all she really wanted to do was get a lesbian's revenge and bash other people.

In short, I liked hearing what OSC had to say, even if I didn't agree with them.

CVG

PS--This is what happens when you write out a response and then go ahead and read the responses that came before: you end up repeating what others have said.

BTW, if DoP is a certain person, thanks for the enjoyment your work has brought to our lives. (I could be wrong - wouldn't be the first time!).

Edit - Yeah, CV, I was reading and posted before seeing your response. It's ok - we all get to say how we feel, if we want to, and repeats are inevitable given the material so irresponsibly published by salon.com.

Now about interviews--if it had been me, and I think most of us can say the same thing, I would have sounded like a complete moron too. That's why I write. Because I can get my thoughts down on paper, read them again, edit them, make them sound like what I really believe instead of them coming out sounding like what I don't necessarily mean. But the worst thing about interviews is that a sharp (or in this case hateful) interviewer can take the words that spew from your mouth and misrepresent them, twist them, display them in the worst possible way to get her own point across.

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But wasn't the whole point of "Ender's Game" that the end never justifies the means? That hurting people is never, ever right except when minutely controlled and in immediate self-defense?

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I don't _think_ that was the point. I think the point was that in wars, people get killed. And those who do the killing have to learn to live with what they've done afterwards. I really don't see much in the book that supports her reading of it.

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No one's that interested in figuring out why people hit people unless they've gotten hit a lot themselves.

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As for the second part (and I don't mean to get all psychological on those of you who don't buy psychology, but it was right there...), this girl seems to have been hurt in her past and wanted to project those similiar experiences and feelings onto her hero as well. Somehow, she got the impression that Card had been hurt as a child and continued to refer to it throughout her entire skewed interview. Of course, wea ll know that there are plenty of other reasons to want to explore violence aside from having been hit....it's all part of the reason we want to be writers...to explore the human condition.

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...this girl seems to have been hurt in her past and wanted to project those similiar experiences and feelings onto her hero as well...

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This is the good part of psychology. Observation and common sense.

And I might even have felt sorry for Ms. Minkowitz, if she hadn't demonized a man I respect just to tell me she was hurting. I learned much more about her in the article than I wanted to. The impression I'm left with is that she's just a cruel little girl lashing out at anyone that doesn't join her pity party.

Claiming to like the Ender series and admire OSC is a ploy that lulls the reader into a false sense of kinship, to make any accusations seem that much larger. Perhaps the writer doesn’t like Mormons. Or the military. Or violence. Or simply has a grudge against OSC.. I don’t know and the article didn’t make me care. Since the writer appears so biased from the beginning, all information in the article is suspect. I would liken it to the type of journalism in the Globe, Examiner, or the Star; typically lop sided, with some basis in fact an a whole lot of conjecture.

Simply coming to OSC's website, and posting only a link with an inflamatory title is an odd thing to do. So your point was...

"I knew that Card, like his readership, was an outrageous hodgepodge. He writes strange, passionate books full of yearning but no sex and ardent little boys frisking around in zero gravity pretending to shoot each other. A devout Mormon, he is squeaky clean but adorably perverse and the author of a hit Mormon musical called "Barefoot to Zion," which celebrates the sesquicentennial of the entry of the Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley. (I wanted to get my hands on a copy of that musical, badly.)"

This really is journalism, in that she is telling a factual story of her interview. The problem is viewpoint. She made herself the focus of the story, not the interview subject. She used it as an excuse to bring her opinions and views to center stage. They really are her opinions and views, so she gets to report tham as facts.

This is a classic example of what happens when a journalist makes himself/herself the subject of their own story.

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In journalism, silence about one's own opinion is often the only way to get the goods. Actually, that's partly why I chose this profession -- it offers a great deal of opportunity for not protesting, not fighting back, for hiding.

I prefer to get my digs in when I write the piece up, like this. It's a way of fighting back without ever having to face my tormentor head-on.

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And this is good.

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I love this. Beyond anything, it amuses me to see how much I love Card calling something "wicked" when it's a judgment that I happen to agree with.

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She actually says that a few times, how she thinks Card is brilliant whenever he says something she already takes as an article of faith.

And she's not afraid to admit things that make her look really stupid.

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I am trying so valiantly to be bigger and better than Card. It's excruciating. Like Ender, I really am afraid that if I ever really unleash my anger, it'll blow up the world.

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, yeah, that's the real reason she chooses to be sneaky and non-confrontational, saving her attacks for publication.

She's even willing to admit when Card see's right through her and totally gets the better hand.

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But during the actual interview, I get very nervous at this point and change the subject. (Or perhaps more accurately, I ask the very same question, but in a covert form so that Card will have no idea I'm really making reference to him and his homophobia.) I ask: "Why is Bean so much less ethically concerned than Ender? He's only worried about betraying his friends. He has no compunction about killing his enemies."

Says Card, "He simply grew up without being able to afford introspection. When you have kids in a street gang, they consider their actions to be noble if they act in a way that serves the street gang. Members of the homosexual community consider themselves to be noble when they indulge in shameless name-calling and distorted positions of people who oppose them, because they believe they're serving their higher cause. But Bean is ethical to somebody who's in his own community while being very unethical to somebody who doesn't belong to that community."

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This quote was chosen because it was close to the other (immediately following it in the text, actually), where she admits that the whole reason she became a reporter is that it lets her "win" arguments in retrospect, without actually having to risk being proven wrong in a head to head debate. But she doesn't stint on these revelations of her relative lack of intellectual stature elsewhere in the article. Here she is, totally admitting that she was trying to get him to say something that she could point to gleefully and announce that he's the one that is ethically challenged, and he sees right through her and answers the question she thought she wasn't asking.

She's totally honest about being interested in Christianity only insofar as it can be used to tell people that they must tolerate homosexuality and practice communism, she's totally honest about finding Card scintillating and witty whenever she already agrees with what he's saying, she's totally honest about being a reporter so she can say stuff to the public behind people's backs....

From reading that article (note who I don't say interview), I believe at first she intended for it to be a straightforward interview, and after it had ended, changed her mind and went for more of a editorial piece as part of her agenda.

That said, it doesn't matter whether or not anyone agrees with OSC -- it's his opinion, he's entitled to believe whatever he wants to believe.

Setting aside religion and religious beliefs for a moment, the purpose of life -- of all life here on this planet -- is simply: Survival. If it turned out that the whole of humanity became gay, we would not survive as a species. So, when OSC says homosexuality goes against biology, he is absolutely correct in that statment. In order for us to continue, we must procreate and bear offspring (or until we decide that science and technology can do it for us -- and we know that it's possible, yet is it desirable?). It's an intriguing dilemma. We are rapidly becoming more and more capable of ignoring our inherent biology. In effect, it is entirely plausible that we could do (gasp) do away with sex altogether -- or, even worse, do away with one gender completely. Imagine that, for a moment. (I'm sure someone has already written a story about this...)

Take away the scientific ability, and completly ignoring cultural beliefs, homosexuality does indeed become deviant behavior, but only in the sense of biological Survival. Yet, this doesn't make someone who is gay completely useless to humankind. In fact, it can be easily argued that plenty of gay people are quite a bit more useful than their heterosexual counterparts in society.

Me? I have no problem with homosexuality. I'm not gay because, quite simply, I'm not attracted to members of my own sex. Not because of religous beliefs, or cultural upbringing, or even for fear of being shamed within my own homophobic family. And with that, my wife and I have made a personal decision to not have children. We don't want them. So, in effect, we are not going to be successful in the biological aspect of Survival. Our genes will not carry on to the next generation -- they will die out. We are the losers, so to speak.

We are absolutely fine with that, too. There are plenty of people in the world, and one might argue that there is too many as it is. Freedom of choice, really. And in the free world, freedom of opinion.

I don't wish to go off topic, but I can't help it: Biology is an odd thing, with random mutations that produce the wildest sort of creatures imaginable. Even still, if we look at the simple variations that can happen in the human species alone, it's quite amazing. Hermaphrodites, for example.

Again, setting aside religious beliefs, what if this strange biological oddity [hermaphrodites] (not so odd when you look at the stats, actually) is in fact, the next biological evolutionary phase for us?

Perhaps two genders isn't quite the most efficient and successful design after all? Why have two responsible for carrying on the species, when you only need one? Snails have worked this out, as have other species on this planet. (I know these things have been covered quite extensively in SF, btw.)

http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/1999/11/18/minkowitz/index.html

First of all, I think she definitely had an agenda before her interview with Card. She wants us to BELIEVE that it was originally aimed at being simply an interview which went so badly she was compelled to editorialize; but in fact it seems clear to me that she was expecting friction from the onset. Her emotionalizing of Card's responses make it clear she's undergone a personal crusade to justify her personal views, while castigating a well-known author for his.

Secondly, upon reading her article on the most recent link posted I can only conclude that this is a very confused individual. She may be very honest, as Survivor states, but that makes her neither sensible nor clear. She cannot seem to make up her mind about whether she's a pacifist seeking out violence, or whether she's inherintly a violent person who's learned to subdue her urges.

At one point she throws Homophobes into the same category as Rapists and Murderers. Then she later classifies Card as a homophobe. Interesting that this author whom she once apparently revered and who is a devoutely religios husband and father, a man who can be said to have commited no greater harm than the mere offense of his words, suddenly is now so terrible a person that he would hold (at least in the mind of one) the same regard as those who would kill senselessly or rape.

Just because one does not agree with homosexuality, it does not mean they are homophobic. I myself find it morally incorrect and simply unnatural. By Minkowitz's standard, I am a homophobe--nevermind that two of the closest friends I ever had were quite openly gay.

But supposing her assumption is correct, and all of those who don't agree with her views on homosexuality are severely homophobic, it is still a rank error in logic to compare those who are anti-gay (homophobic) with rapists and murderers. You see, while a homophobe MAY posess a threat to a gay or lesbian individual, a murderer or rapist poses a severe threat to any persons with assurity. However, she apparently equates anyone who expresses outrage at a gay lifestyle with the same misguided and hate-filled demons who commited those reprehensible acts against Matthew Shepard.

I cannot claim to properly understand the mind of a person who clearly hasn't gained a clear understanding of who she is herself. That's fine. But if she's going to editorialize about the mindset and consistency of thought and emotion of another individual, one should expect she'd have worked her own self first.

It seems the only things she's worked out for certain is that gays are good and violence really isn't the greatest thing in the world.

Oh...and Orson Scott Card is a homophobic jerk--and the worst interview she's ever had.

But what do I expect from such an un-biased source?

I'm quite certain he knew exactly what he was getting into with this woman. In fact, OSC should be commended for not shying away from her like many other "celebs" would likely have done.

I think she DEFINITELY played up Card's responses. Whether or not he was prepared in advance I don't know--but it seemed clear to me that he could see through the smoke and rhetoric on many of her questions. Her attempts to outwit and outsmart Card only left her outwitted and outsmarted.

And nothing in Card's comments led me to believe he was losing his temper or becoming angry. In fact, the only indication one has that he was losing his cool came from her own editorializing after his answers by constantly TELLING us that he was becoming terse or combative.

Much as some people are sadists and masochists, do you think this reporter might have a, um, well– a screw loose? Some kind of voyeuristic thing going?

I guess this belief of mine comes from my loathing of society's fascination for all things celebrity. We exalt celebs, like gods in some cases, value their opinions, think they have valuable insight -- when in fact they don't usually anything worthwhile to say. Likewise with the media.

[QUOTE]In effect, it is entirely plausible that we could do (gasp) do away with sex altogether -- or, even worse, do away with one gender completely. Imagine that, for a moment. (I'm sure someone has already written a story about this...)[\QUOTE]

HSO: I read a short story when I was much, much younger that talked about this. It was a long time ago, so please forgive me if I get things wrong.

A group of people get stranded on a planet. One of the group is a militant feminist and (if I'm remembering right) a genetic engineer. She begins engineering the women (with their consent) so that they're truly equal to men in every way. The women end up becoming these brutal, sub-human creatures and kill off all the men except for one (the narrator).