Founded 1983: Liberal Mindset; Conservative Morality

March 7, 2026

I Wrote the Book I Was Born to Write

Fifty years is a long time to prepare for a single sentence. I did not know I was preparing. I thought I was living, which I was, and writing, which I was, and teaching, which I was, and publishing, which I was. I thought the Fractional Fiction novels and the EleMenTs trilogy and the Prairie Voice reporting and the Human Meme episodes and the dramatic literature and the ASL linguistics and the cultural criticism were separate projects, separate impulses, separate rooms in the interior country I have been building since I was old enough to read. They were not separate. They were all rehearsals for this.

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March 8, 2013July 21, 2013

From Barbie to Borrowing: Hanging Out with Dad

I am convinced that my father was born with a newspaper in one tiny hand and a neck tie instead of an umbilical cord. I mean this in the most complimentary way possible; the man has a work ethic that can make any zealous overachiever feel lazy. As a kid, I hardly appreciated or even noticed how tirelessly he worked to support my family and me.

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April 9, 2009February 4, 2013

The Grand Unification Theory… (…and How I Lost My Cosmic Direction in the Contemplation of the Unknowable)

by Steve Gaines

Several years ago, as an adjunct teacher of television production, I was responsible for a tutorial in the fine points of distance learning while with the University of Nebraska Lincoln. I had two post doctoral students from India who were both physicists. Both these very intelligent students could not understand how I was so interested in their field of study, but still so incapable of understanding its finer points. I wrote the following piece for their benefit. I must admit that it did not help them accept my ignorance in any way. But it did occupy me for a day or two. And its basic sub-text still rings true.

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