Sinister.

In re: Groundhog day.

2012-02-02T14:13:00.001-08:00

Listen - strange animals, lying in trees, distributing shadows, is no basis for a system of weather prediction. I mean if I went around saying I was a meterologist just because some furry rodent threw his shadow at me, they'd put me away. True weather prediction derives from a mandate from science, not from some farcical mammalian ceremony.

Shooter Vanished back on track

2012-01-31T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hopefully until it's finished (finally). I realized the problem with it was that I didn't have enough stuff in the plot - I didn't know enough about why the stuff was happening, and I couldn't make everything come together in a way that made sense. I think I've got that all sorted out now (in my brain at least), and it's just a question of getting it down on paper.

It'll be good to finally see this particular project come together and finish. God knows I've spent enough time dithering around with it.

Anyway, onward.

SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

I can't be bothered to try to figure out how to "black out" this blog, but do go tell your lawmakers to oppose SOPA and PIPA, and do your part to help save the Internet as we know it.

Here's some important background:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/17/1055592/-Wikipedia,-many-other-websites,-will-blackout-tomorrow-in-protest-of-SOPA-and-PIPA?via=blog_508369

http://sopastrike.com/

Sign that you're both a language geek and a Trekkie

2012-01-05T09:27:00.001-08:00

Step 1:Randomly stumble upon a site with every conceivable alphabet on it, including those throughout history.
Step 2: Look up Klingon (they have it).

http://www.omniglot.com/index.htm

Edit: Yes, I said Trekkie, not Trekker. I don't take Trek seriously enough for Trekker status. I have too many other interests.

Brief analysis of the Iowa Caucuses

2012-01-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

Last night's Iowa Republican caucuses were an interesting political exercise that may in the long run prove to be quite meaningless. However, I was struck by how well the outcome of the caucuses mirrors what I perceive to be the current state of the Republican Party. The three frontrunners: Romney, Paul, and Santorum, each represents a particular demographic within the Republican Party, and the fact that the three of them essentially split the vote provides an illuminating glimpse into the current state of the GOP.

Santorum is a "social conservative," code for moralistic hatemonger, who believes gay people want to marry goats, the pill is murder, and Bibles should replace science textbooks. He got the unified vote of the far-right evangelical base of the GOP - a base that had been hitherto split between Santorum, Bachmann, and Perry. His sharp rise to prominence shows that this constituency was desperate to unite behind a champion. I'd call this the "hate" wing of the Republican Party.

Paul is a libertarian, code for Ayn Rand worshiping super-capitalist. He wants to privatize everything, believes poor people should be left to die on the street, and that anything that interferes with a corporation's right to exploit its workers, such as child labor laws, disability laws, civil rights laws, safety laws, are all unconstitutional. He got the vote of the libertarian, government-hating, fences make good neighbors wing of the Republican party, whose only other choice was Gary Johnson, a candidate who couldn't get the attention of anyone. I'd call this the "greed" wing of the Republican Party.

Romney, of course, represents the rest of the Republican Party - generically moralistic, more afraid of skyrocketing deficits than of skyrocketing economic inequality, militaristic, nationalistic, pro-gun, and pro-business. His voters have to be more concerned with winning than anything else, because Romney hasn't taken a coherent position on any subject that he hasn't then subsequently argued against. Romney is the John McCain of this election - he's a political machine, and his handlers and analysts pull his switches one way or the other depending on how the political winds are blowing. I'd call this the "fear" wing of the Republican Party.

Thus, the three candidates who won Iowa represent the three wings of the Republican Party: hate, greed, and fear. It's an illuminating look at the current state of one of our two major political parties, and we'll have to see how doth it bode for November.

My husband's letter to American Airlines

2011-12-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

My husband Matthew wrote this letter & emailed it to AA's top executives based on an experience he had on one of their flights, in which the word "bisexual" was censored from an episode of 30 Rock shown on the flight. Read on.

Hello,
On November 24, 2011 (Thanksgiving day) I flew with your company on your flight 442 from San Francisco to Miami. The flight and service was excellent, and I enjoyed the trip. But, I want to let you know I was deeply offended when I watched your in-flight episode of 30 Rock.
The in-flight entertainment on your flights is censored for content. I understand that you would want to censor foul language from movies or truly objectionable content. What I object to is the censoring of the word 'bisexual' from the episode of 30 Rock. As a gay man, I am shocked that a national airline which I have always perceived as being open and accepting would censor the word bisexual from a prime-time program. I would like to know how the mention of bisexuality is offensive? The context in the show is not sexual at all; the line from which the word was censored is a joke referencing a television program wanting to appeal to a bisexual audience.
My partner and I frequently fly with American for vacations or to see family. We both also have a deep connection with American. My partner’s parents were both employees of American, and his father retired from the company. My grandfather worked at the Tulsa maintenance base for over thirty years. My aunt, uncle, and cousin all work at the Tulsa maintenance base. I spent many hours as a child watching your planes at Tulsa International with my father and grandfather. I love aviation, and I love to fly American, and have taken your airline whenever possible. In fact, I chose this routing through San Francisco because I trust American Airlines, and because I wanted to take one of your 767s for the first time.
After seeing this censoring, I am seriously reconsidering my preference for American Airlines. We travel at least four times each year, to visit our families and for pleasure. I just don’t feel welcome on your airline anymore. My partner and I are openly gay; are we still welcome on your flights? When we fly with you will we be asked to hide our relationship to one another? And will you be dismissing your LGBT employees? You seem to find even the existence of non-heterosexuals to be offensive, and I can’t help but take that personally.
If you wish to get in touch with me to discuss this situation, please contact me at the number above. I would love to talk with you about American’s commitment to diversity (if any) and what you are doing to rectify this situation. You have a chance to win back my business; I know I’m only a single passenger, but I don't believe this kind of evil should go unchallenged.
Sincerely,
Matthew W. Holloway

Taking a cruise

2011-11-26T15:29:00.001-08:00

I'm in Miami right now and tomorrow I will be embarking on a fabulous cruise vacation for a week. I know I don't update very often, and not posting for a week isn't a big deal here, but hey, whatever. I just wanted to make you all jealous. I'm (going to be) on a BOAT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfISlGLNU

Word of the day: Snain

2011-11-18T22:34:00.001-08:00

I drove through some snain on my way home from work today. Here's the definition from urbandictionary.com:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snain

EUTAM: Needs

2011-11-11T14:01:00.001-08:00

This is an EUTAM that isn't so much an incorrect usage of English, just one that specifically gets on my nerves.

It's the use of the word "needs" as a noun, viz, "For all your albino elephant juggling needs."

I don't know why this particular usage bugs me, but it does. I don't even have a better way to say what this sentence intends to convey. The thing advertised serves all of your albino elephant juggling needs. It is the thing you need to have when you're juggling a lot of albino elephants.

I mean, I suppose you could say, "This thing is what you need when you're juggling albino elephants," but it doesn't quite convey the same sense, does it?

I don't know. Needs. I don't like it. Anyone have anything else like that - a EUTAM that isn't wrong, and you don't have a better way of saying it, but it just bugs you?

The benefits of regular writing

2011-11-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

http://lifehacker.com/5855019/how-to-harness-the-mental-and-emotional-benefits-of-regular-writing

Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month, which I did two years ago and managed to hammer out the first draft of the novel I still haven't finished yet. I'm not doing NANO this year, because there's a huge chunk taken out of my November by a CRUISE TO THE CARIBBEAN (YEEEE!!!!) and I really do need to finish Shooter Vanished (and maybe the other two novels moldering on my hard drive) before I start a new project. Anyway, the above article has some good points about the mental benefits of writing regularly.

Grammar thing of the day: The Interrobang?!

2011-10-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Interrobang is a thing that should really be used more often.

Ursula K. LeGuin on Occupy Portland

2011-10-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

http://occupywriters.com/works/by-ursula-le-guin

What seems rather different about the Portland camp is that from the start, inevitably, it’s had to deal with and share space with a camp set up by homeless people right next to it as a kind of annex. Portland is more tolerant of the homeless than many cities and there’s a large population of them downtown. So far the two camps have managed to coexist pretty cheerfully. The homeless presence confuses the Occupiers’ message for some people, but reinforces it powerfully for others. Our mayor has been very Taoist in handling the whole business, gracefully evading decisions and ultimatums, then going off to China…. So far, so good! Having a huge urban university just up the street as a supply of young, unwearied relay Occupiers is helpful.

Word of the day: Effluvium.

2011-10-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

ef·flu·vi·um (-flv-m)
n. pl. ef·flu·vi·a (-v-) or ef·flu·vi·ums
1. A usually invisible emanation or exhalation, as of vapor or gas.
2.
a. A byproduct or residue; waste.
b. The odorous fumes given off by waste or decaying matter.
3. An impalpable emanation; an aura.
[Latin, from effluere, to flow out; see effluent.]

From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/effluvium

Example: Herman Cain talked about "used food" at the Republican debate. I thought that "used food" was a euphemism for the effluvium that tends to emanate from Republican candidates' mouths most of the time.

Something to lighten up your Monday.

2011-10-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on the Occupy movement

2011-10-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

When Occupy Wall Street started, I knew it would be ignored by the media, and I was sure it would fizzle immediately. It would be like the Shut Down the Pentagon action that the War Resisters League did when I was in college a decade ago. About a hundred people tried to encircle the Pentagon and prevent people entering it. The media did a "look at how deluded these people are" story, and that was the end of it.

At the start, I thought I was right. Occupy Wall Street was largely ignored by the media – the same media who were all too happy to scream coverage of every single tiny corporate-sponsored Tea Party rally that ever happened. It was a small group of people camping in a park in New York City for some reason, and nobody could quite figure out what to make of it.

Then something different happened. I don't want to go through the whole history, because while I am one of the 99%, I'm mostly an outsider to the movement, watching it happen. I haven't done any occupying myself, but I've watched and read and followed the movement's development from a comfortable, safe place on the sidelines. My skepticism about what the movement can actually accomplish remains, but I'm buoyed by the notion of people actually fighting the correct target.

So who are the 99%, and what do they want?

The Marxian analysis is simple: the 99% is the working class, and this is a new front in the ongoing class war that is a fixed and inevitable component of global capitalism. Slap that sticker on the movement and be done with it, right?

Yet, while that simplistic statement is correct, it doesn't get at the heart of what's actually happening. Never before has the working class had this much access to the tools of communication – the ability to self-organize outside of traditional power centers – to speak their minds without fear of reprisal from the bosses. It seems almost cliché to point to the Internet as being the "great democratizer," the thing that finally gives power to the powerless. Yet it's absolutely true that the 99% movement, along with everything that happened during the "Arab Spring" – were made possible because of instantaneous social media and the viral spread of information.

So what do the 99% want? That's a common complaint among the media class, many of whom seem incapable of covering any news story that can't be reduced to a quick headline or an easily deconstructed ideology. The Occupy movement is messy, it's unfocused, it's dangerous, it's scary, it's full of anarchists in black masks throwing gasoline cans at cops, it's hippies with bongoes, it's communists, it's…it's…

It's frustration. It's millions of people around the world who are sick and tired of feeling isolated. It's a direct reaction to the extremist individualism and austerity and "me first" ideology that has been so dominant in our discourse of late – the "if you don't have a job it's your fault" that seems to be on the lips of every Tea Partier and Republican presidential candidate – the notion of "I'm rich, so you should be able to get rich, and if you can't, well I shouldn't pay for it." People who have been unemployed for 2 years even though they thought they were doing everything right, following the rules, being good citizens – they're sick of that kind of rhetoric. People losing their houses because they were scammed into an unsustainable mortgage by predatory lenders don't want to hear that they shouldn't have signed that contract, and they should bail themselves out.

People also don't want to hear that kind of rhetoric because the people spouting it only point the judgment finger one way. A single mother struggling to pay bills and hold down two jobs who gets laid off and ends up living on the street with her kids shouldn't rely on the State to help her back on her feet. Yet a bank that bets on shady mortgages and ends up on the brink of collapse – that bank is deserving of billions of dollars in tax money. The notion of "shared sacrifice" always seems to be spouted by rich people who don't want to pay higher taxes on their foie gras and corporate jets, but think cutting Medicaid spending is just fine.

And that single mother, and the man who has been unemployed for two years, and spends every waking hour sending out thousands of resumes, and who works his tail off trying to get a job – they don't want to hear about shared sacrifice. The college graduate drowning in student loans who can't find a job – she doesn't want to hear about shared sacrifice. The veteran living on the street doesn't want to hear about shared sacrifice. Especially not now, at a time when corporate profits are at their highest level – and wages at their lowest – in decades. And when Congress is at its lowest approval rating ever because the majority party in the House would prefer to let the economy tank in order to defeat a President in an election a year from now than do anything about jobs, and the other party is the picture of impotence.

Thus, the grievances are many, but the impulse to organize has commonalities. Neither the government nor the "free market" seems to be capable of fixing anything, and what's more, they seem to be in bed together, with a shared goal of making the rich and powerful more rich and more powerful at the expense of everyone else. The 99% are being screwed on so many levels that it's a wonder it took this long to get everyone out onto the streets.

But now that they're out there, the goal should be simple. Communication. The consensus model of decision-making that has developed from this movement is messy and time-consuming, but it should serve as a model for building a new spirit of community and social consciousness. This is a leaderless movement that spontaneously organized, and its participants are as diverse as their grievances. And yet, they're able to come together, sit down, talk, and make decisions. Because at the heart of this movement is a recognition that the only way to win is to work together, and that any socially conscious, humane, truly democratic society is one in which each person recognizes the humanity in every other person, and recognizes the need for mutual cooperation and respect.

I went down to the Occupy Portland site the other day to see what the protesters had built. What I found was a picture of controlled chaos – a budding movement trying to define itself. It was the same impression I've been getting from following the movement on Facebook and the live video feed of the marches and General Assemblies. A spontaneous tent city had sprouted there, and its residents had begun to build the rudiments of social order. In the middle of the tent city was an area of tarps and tables offering volunteer-coordinated services – information, medicine, learning opportunities, food, Yoga, a children's activity zone. The tent city is dirty and a little unruly, and it's certainly not without its flaws – alcohol and drug use, concerns about people urinating into a sewer that empties directly into the river, lack of sanitation and hygiene, etc – but the community being built there is, in my opinion, quite positive and a little bit beautiful. And the consensus model itself is not without its flaws – my understanding is that General Assembly meetings can take several hours to reach only a few decisions – but it's not really the General Assemblies that matter so much as the idea of consensus and community being created there.

Thus, the lasting legacy of the Occupy movement, even if it doesn't succeed in changing any major laws, may be this notion of communal responsibility - this notion that we have to talk to one another in order to create a functioning society. If we can't depend on the powers that be, then we have to be able to depend on one another. Perhaps, then, the best bit of truth that comes out of the Occupy movement is simply this: that the tired argument over government vs. the "free market" is actually a false choice, and only by working together can the 99% create a new, more humane, more democratic system within the shell of the old. If we can reach that kind of collective realization, then we'll have really made significant progress.

An interactive guide to NPR's 100 best sci fi/fantasy novels

2011-10-03T12:38:00.003-07:00

Link in post title. Great interactive flowchart for figuring out which book in NPR's list you might want to read next. I did notice one error on it - it lists Ursula K. LeGuin's book The Dispossessed as being about "communism." It's not - it's a book exploring the notion of an anarchist utopia.

Still, not a bad tool for finding new stuff to read.

Arrrr

2011-09-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So, get yer parrot & your peg leg and shiver the heck out of some timbers.

Here's some music you should listen to - combining the greatness of pirates with the funky awesomeness of Steampunk.

http://www.abneypark.com

Abney Park used to be "goth," but their last three albums have been sweeping, imaginative, steampunk visions (with some occasionally cringe-worthy lyrics, but overall, they're quite fun to listen to). They're airship pirates - roaming the sky in a zeppelin, terrorizing the post-apocalyptic neo-Victorian landscape with goggles and clockwork stuff.

Speaking of Steampunk, I'm currently reading The Difference Engine by William Gibson (and someone else). It's pretty dense, technical, and not easy to get into, but I'm digging the alternate history stuff. Essentially, the premise of the book is that Babbage's "analytical engine" becomes the primary driver of the Industrial Revolution, and the computer age comes 100 years early. Intriguing stuff - conditionally recommended because I've only just started reading it.

Anyway, arrr and whatnot.

Why I don't want to buy a house

2011-09-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about the notion of buying a house. Yet, the more I think about exactly what's involved in buying a house, the sheer amount of money, the pitfalls, the nightmare of paperwork, the more I wonder whether it's really worth it.

Now, I don't know everything about what it takes to buy a house. I probably know very little, and so a lot of what I'm going to be pointing out may be easily refutable or just plain incorrect. However, what I want to convey is an impression – an impression gleaned from the news, from discussions with people, from my general absorption of what information is "out there" about buying a house. And I wonder how many other Americans in my position have a similar impression about buying a house, and who are holding back for similar reasons- and whether the housing market isn't bouncing back because of those fears. And finally, I want to know whether it's possible, and how, to convince me and those who think like me, that buying a house isn't as horrid as all that.

Or maybe I'm absolutely right about all of this.

The money

The biggest thing keeping me away from buying a house is money. First, there's the money that has to be spent up front for a down payment and closing costs. That's tens of thousands of dollars, and it's a lot more money in today's environment than it was during the heyday of the housing bubble, when everyone bought more house than they could afford. These days, you have to have a massive down payment and tons of money in the bank as a reserve, and that's just what you need to get a bank to look at you.

Additionally, before one can even start saving the money for a down payment, one has to pay off all one's debts, and get one's credit score in tip top shape. And in an America where consumer debt, student loans, and medical bills are a huge part of everyone's life, that's not an easy prospect. So there's another huge chunk of money gone before you can even think about buying a house.

Then, after you've finally bought the house, and signed the massive piles of paperwork, and gotten locked into a 30-year mortgage, you start making payments. Over the life of that 30-year mortgage, you end up paying more than the house is worth just in interest payments. A $200,000 house ends up costing you $400,000 or more. Back in the day when real estate prices were skyrocketing, that might not have been a big deal, because the value of the house was guaranteed to increase over the life of the loan, thus ensuring that you could build equity. These days – who knows? Beyond which, in any other circumstance, paying that much interest over and above the cost of the thing you're buying would be considered usurious, or at least, a very bad investment. Imagine if you bought a car for $10,000, and over the life of the loan, you ended up paying $25,000 for it because of the interest rate. That's a horrible deal – and one that I'm sure someone with bad credit is paying somewhere. But that's the point – it sounds like a bad deal. If someone could explain to me how throwing $200,000 or more away on interest payments is preferable to throwing $1,200 per month away on rent (when that rent generally comes with free maintenance and other perks), please – be my guest.

So that's the money end of it. Save every penny, scrub your credit clean, pay half the average American annual salary in down payments and closing costs, and then flush $200,000 or more down the toilet in interest charges over the life of your loan. How is that a good thing to do?

The paperwork

Buying a house involves reams of paperwork, much of it written in obscure legal language that the average American cannot begin to understand. And the banks don't make things easy. I've heard so many stories of people dealing with a six-month or longer process where they have to send things to the bank multiple times, and go through all kinds of hassle, just to get to the point of figuring out whether they can actually buy a house. Then, just when everything seems to be going well, something snags, and the sale falls through. Meanwhile, you have to live somewhere. Seriously- when you're planning to move into a house and everything's lined up, only to have the sale fall through at the last minute – what the heck do you do? Presumably you've given your move-out notice to your landlord, and you don't have another place to live lined up, so…then what? You scramble to find another apartment, move into it, and then start the process again?

And even if the paperwork goes smoothly, and you buy the house, you can't tell me that you've read every page of what you signed. What legal pitfalls have you willingly signed yourself over to? Do you know the precise details of what happens if you miss a payment? What else don't you know about the tome of a contract you've just signed?

The pitfalls

Every day brings a new story of a bank that screwed something up and foreclosed on someone by mistake. There you are, having gone through every bit of hassle, and shelled out all that money, and you're paying your payments just as you should – but someone on the other end screws up and suddenly you're teetering on the brink of homelessness. Sure, you can hire a lawyer to fight for you, but there's no guarantee that you won't lose your home, along with all the time, money, and hassle that went into buying it in the first place. Plus you're now out thousands of dollars in legal fees.

And what if something does go wrong, and you suddenly find you can't afford the house anymore, or the house value decreases and you find yourself underwater? What do you do then? Walk away? How can you walk away from all of the time and money you already spent trying to get into that house? Sure, that's a "sunk cost" fallacy, but that's been proven to be a powerful motivator.

There are other pitfalls as well. You buy the house, do the inspections, and everything looks fine. Then, suddenly, after everything's final and you're locked into the mortgage, you discover toxic mold hiding in your attic. That's on you now. You've got to spend thousands of dollars to remedy that. Or anything that goes wrong with the house. A water main blows and soaks your living room. That's on you. Sure, you have property insurance to take care of some things, but you've still got to keep a reserve of thousands of dollars in savings just in case disaster strikes.

Taking all of that into account, why isn't renting a smarter move?

When you rent an apartment or a house, it's easy. You pay a deposit, sign a lease, and move in. Boom, done. Total outlay: A couple of thousand dollars. Signing a lease usually takes just a few minutes. If something goes wrong with the apartment – if the dishwasher breaks, or the toilet clogs, or there is toxic mold, it's the landlord's responsibility to fix it – and if they don't, then (under certain circumstances) you have the right to move out and break the lease.

So there you are – paying $1,200/month in rent (for example), enjoying free maintenance and hassle-free living. Maybe you live in a building with nice perks like a gym or a hot tub, or a really nice roof deck with a gas grill. There's no fear that someone will screw something up and leave you homeless, there's no worry about what the apartment will be worth in 30 years, and if you end up hating the place after a year, you can move out.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a smarter move to me.

Tell me, then, homeowners – where am I wrong?

Star Trek celebrates 45 years of boldly going.

2011-09-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

(Link in post title). 4-part interview and article on the occasion of Star Trek's 45th Anniversary.

I'm an unabashed Trek fan. I'm neither a trekkie nor a trekker, because I refuse to get into a silly debate over proper labels, but I've seen nearly all of the movies and TV series, with the exception of the animated series and Enterprise. Trek had a profound effect on my love of sci-fi - the unmitigated joy of adventure and exploration of what's "out there."

Live long and prosper. Indeed.

How to sell your reader on your story's idea

2011-08-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

(Link in post title). Haven't had time to read through this article - more posting this here as a "note to self" kind of thing.

An apostrophe is the difference between...

2011-08-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

A business that knows its shit, and a business that knows it's shit.

(Link in post title).

WTNTBUMO: "Curses and Blast!"

2011-08-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Well alright, these WTNTBUMO entries are going to have a bit of an "old British" -ness about them, but that's just how it's gonna be, ok?

"Curses and Blast." I can't think of a better way to exclaim frustration, anger, or general displeasure over a situation while at the same time exhibiting a level of...well, a level of something.

"Curses and blast! Foiled again! Now my evil plan involving mutated prawns and a giant spatula will never see the light of day!"

The two words also work separately. "Curses! I appear to be on fire!" "Blast! My arm's come off! Would you pick it up for me? There's a good lad."

I seem to remember a scene in one of the original Star Wars movies in which Luke Skywalker says "Blast!" to express frustration at something, but I can't remember exactly where it is in the movie. I remember thinking it was an awkward line, but then again, we are talking about the Star Wars movies...not known for their natural-sounding dialogue. Ahem. I'll just point out again that any director who makes Samuel L. Jackson act like a piece of wood needs to seriously rethink some stuff...

But I digress. The point is that "Curses and Blast!" is a great exclamation, and you should use it more.

NPR's top 100 sci-fi and fantasy novels

2011-08-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

(Link in post title). NPR has revealed the results of the poll it took for the top 100 sci-fi and fantasy novels. I was delighted to find that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy made it to #2 on the list, behind only Lord of the Rings! Somewhere, Douglas Adams is smiling at that.

Having said that, there are a few surprising picks. For instance, I would argue that there were far too many books by Neal Stephenson on the list. I tried to read several of his books, and found them impenetrable and oddly written. That's obviously a personal opinion - and one that some of you might find inconsistent considering my love for another sometimes impenetrable and oddly written series, Dune. The Dune series finds itself at #4 on this list, which I think is a bit high, considering that it contains within it at least one utter dud, God Emperor of Dune. Still, it is a very important series in the sci-fi canon, so it definitely belongs on the list.

I'm also happy to see Terry Pratchett get a couple of his Discworld novels on here. He's in the same class as Douglas Adams, so he certainly deserves to be on this list.

I'm glad Ursula K. LeGuin got some books in there, although I'm disappointed not to see Lathe of Heaven or the Earthsea books listed. Lathe of Heaven is just a brilliant book - easily the equal of many on this list.

I would not have put anything by Terry Goodkind on the list. I read several of the Sword of Truth books. The way Goodkind just blatantly rips things off - from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars - should really give his readers pause before putting him among the greats.

The same argument applies to Terry Brooks' Sword of Shannara series. I couldn't even get through the first book of this one - it was so stiffly written and so incredibly derivative of Lord of the Rings that I just lost interest.

Also, what the hell is a Star Wars series novelization doing on this list?

So dear reader(s), what books do you wish were/were not on the list?

EUTAM: "In Terms Of"

2011-08-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

There's an increasing tendency that annoys me in terms of using the phrase "in terms of" as a way of adding words to the end of a sentence that should have been in the body of the sentence itself.

Example:

1) "We had an excellent year in terms of profit and pie."

No.

"Our profits and pie this year were excellent."

2) "We need to look forward in terms of seeking new revenue and more pie."

No.

"We need to seek new revenue and more pie."

Everyone is over-using this phrase. Everyone. And I really don't get it, in terms of why everyone insists on using it.

See how annoying it is?

It's like a little peg added to the end of a sentence that really doesn't mean anything at all.

We really need to stop doing things in terms of using the phrase "in terms of" too often.

Here endeth the lesson.

New Feature: Words That Need To Be Used More Often

2011-08-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

In the same spirit as my "English Usage That Annoys Me" (EUTAM) series, I present Words That Need To Be Used More Often (WTNTBUMO). Ok, the acronyms are a bit out of control...

Today's entry: Whilst.

Wiktionary thinks it sounds "pedantic or pompous." I don't know. I just like it.

I mean, which sounds better:

I am eating a sandwich while driving my hovercraft around the lake, or

I am eating a sandwich whilst driving my hovercraft around the lake?

Whilst. Use it wisely, and often. Let's bring it back.

Multiple universes?

2011-08-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

(Link in post title). A study has "found" evidence of four possible "alternate universes." These things apparently exist in a region of our universe so far away that it would be impossible for light from them to get to us, and impossible for us to travel to them. To me, that doesn't sound like an alternate universe, really. The fact that they're "really far away" from us doesn't necessarily make them really far away from somewhere else in our universe. A planet a billion light years from us, but clearly still in "our universe" might be quite close to these "alternate universes."

To me, an alternate universe suggests a region of space-time separated from our universe by some kind of barrier, or maybe a region of space-time slightly out of phase with us. Of course, the major theory of alternate universes has to do with the notion that each decision an individual makes creates a new timeline, and each timeline is its own universe. Thus, alternate universes are more about time than they are about space.

English Usage That Annoys Me

2011-07-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Today's EUTAM: Incorrect use of the word "impact," and outright fabrication of non-words like "impactful" and "impactfulness" and "impactive." See, my spell check is angry about all of those.

An "impact" is a physical collision of one thing into another - like a meteor impacting the earth.

Correct use: The meteor's impact was felt over a wide area.

Incorrect use: "This was an impactful movie." If it was, the film reel itself would have had to slam into the earth hard enough to create a new word out of thin air.

Correct use: "This movie affected me on a deep emotional level."

This gets into a whole other area of affect vs. effect, but I'll leave that for another day.

In sum: unless there's a meteor involved, or some other thing physically hitting another thing, you don't have an impact.

Here endeth the lesson.

Indeed.

2011-07-28T00:03:00.001-07:00

Stuff is afoot. Behold the new look of Sinister. Now with more sinister...ness.

Anyway. This will likely be tweaked further, but it is now time for bed.

Blog I need to devour

2011-07-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

This is a blog I just discovered that is chock full of good info for writers and writers-to-be. Great articles about how to build an audience via blogging and social networking etc, how to hook people & keep 'em coming back, etc.

If I'm going to ramp up my efforts to "become a writer," then I really should take some of this advice to heart.

Stay tuned. Stuff is afoot.

Shooter Vanished - a tiny excerpt.

2011-07-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

And now, as a treat, a tiny excerpt of what will likely be the first novel I eventually finish and send off to publishers, The Shooter Vanished. Stay tuned for further excerpts as the mood strikes me.

Thomas found himself back at the bookstore again, just looking in the windows at the endless rows of shelves, the warmth of the place, imagining the smell of old paper, the murmur of hushed voices discussing their favorite titles. The place haunted him, and so he stood there, trying, perhaps, to stare through the wall into the past.

His eyes were streaked black with lack of sleep; the scar on his face burned with memory; he shivered in the prickling drizzle and pulled his ratty trench coat close. It would be a good night. Then he'd find her again, be with her again, hold her, curl up next to her and rest. Finally rest.

Fear spiked through him as he was overcome with dizziness. He put his arms out to catch his fall. He put it down to stress, to depression, to the slow inexorable destruction of his rational mind.

He fell.

And landed hard on cold concrete. He blinked the world back to focus and pulled himself off the ground. He stood for a second, reorienting himself.

It was like the last time. He glanced around him. Something nagged at him. The bookstore’s marquee...

No. Impossible. That bastard had been in hiding for years. He wouldn't dare...

And yet, there he was, in big letters.

Thomas stared at the marquee, daring it to explain itself, daring it to tell him that the man he'd chased all these years...

A decision formed in the depths of his mind. He fingered the gun in his pocket. He took a few steps forward, and then with determination, pushed his way into the bookstore.

Author page on Facebook

2011-07-23T09:10:00.001-07:00

I've created an "Author Page" for myself on Facebook (link in post title). Not sure exactly what it's for yet, but you're welcome to "like" me.

BookMooch

2011-07-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

Interesting concept for a website - give books away, get free books from other people. Haven't used it yet, but I will probably sign up for it. God knows I have tons of books I could give away.

8 words you're confusing with other words

2011-07-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

Cracked.com is a surprisingly intelligent website with some really good articles. This is a funny one about commonly-confused words. It had me giggling a fair bit.

Ten Wizards who found themselves in sci fi

2011-07-12T08:59:00.001-07:00

Interesting article that shows how a "wizard" can show up in an ostensibly science fiction universe. Of note - The Doctor is included, which I agree with. Terry Pratchett, an author I really like, has said explicitly that Doctor Who isn't sci fi. I agree. The Doctor is a wizard, and his sonic screwdriver is nothing more than a magic wand. Even the softest sci-fi should have some semi-consistent rule set that establishes the boundaries of the universe in which it is set (think Star Trek and the rules for warp drives; think Dune and the mechanics of spice mining and the culture that develops around it). Doctor Who really doesn't have that.

Having said that, I love the hell out of Doctor Who - I think it's always a fantastic romp and lots of fun to watch. I've been watching all of the new series over again recently. I think of the three new doctors - and I'm going to catch hell for this - I like Matt Smith the best of all. Tennant had his own kind of charm and wonderfulness, of course, but Matt Smith is capable of taking the Doctor to some really dark places, giving the character some needed depth and intensity that I don't think Tennant ever really achieved.

New Feature: English Usage that Annoys Me

2011-07-11T10:10:00.001-07:00

Every so often I'll post one of these, starting below.

English Usage that Annoys Me for Monday, July 11, 2011

There's a tendency among professionals to use the word "same" in a particular way that annoys me. Example:

"I will draft the document and expect you to sign same."

I would replace the word "same" with the word "it."

"I will draft the document and expect you to sign it."

"Same" just seems like an unnecessary and awkward phrasing of something that can easily be expressed by the use of a pronoun.

It's not wrong, per se, but it is annoying.

I don't get a lot of comments on Sinister, but I know at least a few of you are reading same (see what I did there?), so please comment below. What's a grammar or language usage thing that annoys you?

If you're on Goodreads,

2011-07-09T12:22:00.001-07:00

Find me there. I'm "sinisterblogger."

2011-07-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th.

2011-07-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

Post title link: Allen Ginsberg reading an early, unfinished version of "America."

Below: Full text.

America

Allen Ginsberg

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Short Story Openings

2011-07-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Interesting article about 7 different types of short story openings, focused on sci-fi. Read the featured comments - they're funny.

Save the Oxford Comma!

2011-06-30T09:46:00.001-07:00

(Link in post title).

The Oxford Comma is an essential part of grammar - I use it in novels, short stories, and blog posts. Without it, you'd have mass confusion, chaos, disorder, and grammatical incoherence.

Letter to the Oregonian

2011-06-28T13:07:00.001-07:00

The Oregonian newspaper had a great editorial today calling for marriage equality in Oregon (link in post title). I wrote this letter to the editor in response.

Dear Editor,

Thank you for today's editorial calling for marriage equality in Oregon. I applaud the paper for its strong stance.

However, you've missed a critical point. Marriage isn’t only a state issue. Until the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed, married same-sex couples will only enjoy the State benefits of marriage, while being denied crucial Federal benefits their heterosexual counterparts enjoy. Furthermore, gay couples traveling from a state where their marriage is recognized to a state where it isn't, lose their state benefits. Heterosexual couples have no such worries - their marriages are automatically recognized across state lines.

Oregon should overturn Measure 36, but our Congressional delegation should take the lead to overturn DOMA. The Obama Administration, while not taking as firm a stance as it should, has declared DOMA unconstitutional. It's time for Congress to establish marriage equality as a matter of Federal law.

Sincerely,

Ethan Jones

If Robots could Laugh

2011-06-21T16:52:00.001-07:00

Interesting post about sci-fi from a DailyKos diarist.

What are the best Sci Fi/Fantasy novels?

2011-06-21T11:46:00.001-07:00

NPR wants to know! Go tell them what you think.

I am large; I contain multitudes

2011-05-31T15:32:00.000-07:00

Credit where credit's due - a geek blog I follow called Lifehacker reminded me that today is Walt Whitman's 192nd birthday. Please sound a barbaric YAWP in his honor.

An excerpt from Song of Myself:

It is time to explain myself—let us stand up.

What is known I strip away,

I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.

The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,

There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

Births have brought us richness and variety,

And other births will bring us richness and variety.

I do not call one greater and one smaller,

That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my
sister?

I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,

All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation,

(What have I to do with lamentation?)

I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things
to be.

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,

On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the
steps,

All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount.

Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,

Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,

I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,

And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.

Long I was hugg'd close—long and long.

Immense have been the preparations for me,

Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.

The Shooter Vanished

2011-05-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

and the direction of the story vanished from my brain for quite a while as well. Recall that just recently I was discussing turning it into a screenplay as a way of trying to avoid some of the stuff I was having difficulty with. But trying to write in a form I have no experience with isn't the answer.

Turns out the answer was simply sitting down and figuring out the damn timeline. This is a story that is very dependent on a precise timeline in which events unfold in a particular order. So I figured out the timeline. I made myself a little worksheet and plotted it all out. I even printed some blank calendars and handwrote the key events on the blank calendars to have a way of visualizing things better.

Once I did that, the story really started to click for me again. That, and I realized the yWriter software I thought had been helping me had actually just been throwing unnecessary complicated fiddliness into the mixture, which gave me another excuse to procrastinate. So I took the story out of yWriter and started writing it in Word again, and that also helped. Once I was able to look at what I had written as a whole, I was able to cut and paste, reorder, rearrange, rewrite, and start to really put the puzzle pieces together. I did a ton of that today, and I feel really good about it.

Three Bikes and a Broomstick (which is what I was previously working on) hit a wall for me when I realized that my three main protagonists were all completely flat and featureless. The story is fun, but I need to flesh out my characters before I continue it.

So, current status:

Jeff Thurman in Universe 12: Stalled, until I figure out how the hell it ends.
Three Bikes and a Broomstick: Stalled, until I flesh out the main characters.
"Ark Ship" (my hard sci-fi short story): Stalled, just generally, until I do some major tweaking.
The Shooter Vanished: Progressing nicely now - hopefully for some time to come.

Of course, knowing me, I'll hit a wall on Shooter Vanished next week. If that happens, I'll turn my attention to cracking one of the other things I have stalled. That's kind of how I'm going to operate, it turns out - have several projects going at once, and work on one of them until I hit a wall, and then move on to another, lather, rinse, repeat, ???, profit.

Anyway. Onward and upward.

Oh hai

2011-04-23T14:05:00.001-07:00

Much has happened since last we spoke. None of it particularly groundbreaking - I moved, which was about the biggest thing, into a different apartment.

It's a gorgeous day in the City of Roses, and I just spent the last hour sitting on my lovely balcony and writing.

What am I currently working on? It's the NANO that I started and then abandoned last year. It's really fun to write. It's an absurd story about ...well, you'll just have to see, won't you? If I ever get it finished. I'm almost to 20,000 words, so that's good progress.

Essentially, my obsessive admiration of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett is paying off with this story, and I think anyone who reads it will recognize that sort of bizarre humor infused all over this story.

I'm having a bit of a conundrum right now. The Shooter Vanished is stalled, but not for any good reason. I was in San Diego several months ago and spoke with a close friend of the family who suggested that I should consider turning it into a screenplay. My brother studied screenwriting in college, so I'm going to borrow some books from him on how to write a screenplay. If it seems like The Shooter Vanished will work better as a screenplay than as a novel, then I'll do that.

The conundrum, which is not a big deal, probably, is this. I have three novels in progress, all of which have a slightly different feel to them. The one I'm working on now (tentatively titled "Three Bikes and a Broomstick") is primarily a satire. Shooter Vanished is a serious sci-fi murder mystery. The other one is also probably going to be more serious than funny. All of them have to do with alternate universes and skewed realities, so that connects them. But if I publish a funny book first, and then publish a serious book, are the fans of my funny book going to be thrown by the fact that not all of my books are going to be funny? Likewise, if I publish a serious book first, and then a funny one...

These are silly questions, probably. I have to actually get one of these finished before I can think about establishing a "style" or an "identity" as an author. And then there are people like Neil Gaiman, who has written both serious and funny stuff (well, at least one funny thing - Good Omens, co-written with Terry Pratchett), and seems to be doing just fine.

Just things that rattle around in my brain, I suppose. The important thing right now is finishing something, which is harder than it sounds.

Well that's cool.

2011-02-07T16:51:00.000-08:00

Looks like Sinister Decade, my self-published poetry collection, has had over 500 downloads on feedbooks.com. *silly announcer voice* get yours today!

Hey there

2011-02-03T08:44:00.001-08:00

*pokes his head up* Hi!

Happy new year. Yes, it's February. Yes, I haven't written you since the end of November.

Briefly: I'm re-writing The Shooter Vanished, and it's going slowly. I have to read a whole lot of books on private detectives, because I realized that it's crucial that the main character be a PI separated from the action. You'll all understand when the book becomes a massive bestseller right after the big meteor blows us all to hell in 2012. Or whatever is supposed to happen.

Anyway. Stay tuned.

Or not.

2010-11-29T22:50:00.001-08:00

Nano didn't happen, for one reason or another. Whatever. Got about 13,000 words written and then just...stopped. Think I need more concrete direction on this story before I continue it. Also, I'm too tired, and I think a little depressed, to focus on writing right now...soon, I will get back into it, and finish something, and publish something, and get rich...that's the plan, anyway.

Writing Status

2010-11-02T22:59:00.002-07:00

I'm doing NANO again, this time a rollicking story of chaos and mayhem that is turning out to be an absolute HOOT to write. I have 4,748 words so far, which is right on track for the first two days. As soon as the Nano people get their SITE working again, grr, I'm going to install a word tracker on this blog like I did last year, so you can keep track of my progress. Excerpts from this year's Nano will more than likely NOT appear here. One thing a Nano isn't is a well written, tightly woven story. It's more like a 150 page ramble, that, when you're done with it, you have to go back and untangle it and make sense out of it. Or some other mixed metaphor.

Aside from that, I still have The Shooter Vanished moldering on my hard drive waiting for me to revive it and make it sexy and perfect.

And, thirdly, I have about half of another novel done, but the trouble is that I don't know how that one ends, and I had to take about half of the plot out of it because it was in the wrong place. It's complicated. Anyway, that one is on hold.

Well, everything is on hold until Nano is done. Still, once Nano is complete, and I actually finish this novel, which will happen sometime after Nano, I will then have two complete novels under my belt, which is where they will stay until they are perfect and ready to emerge into the scary world of publishing.

In political news, I'm so glad we've decided to give the fire hose back to the arsonists, since the firefighters were doing such a lousy job.

You go, then I'll go

2010-10-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many of you watched Jon Stewart's rally today (it was streamed live on ComedyCentral.com), but it was a pretty incredible event. There were probably 200,000 people there, all with a very basic, very positive message - let's put aside the partisan crap and try to work together. Let's stop screaming and start listening. "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing," as Stewart put it. It's tough to put aside cynicism and let a message like that penetrate, but I think Stewart's rally might just do that for a lot of people. It is certainly making me think.

I've been guilty, probably more so than many people, of espousing a radicalism that has not always been positive and productive. In the spirit of civility, I'd like to apologize to anyone I've offended or alienated with any of my hardline Marxist bluster. I've begun to realize, and Jon Stewart's rally really helped put this into perspective, that the things we all need to work on aren't based on ideology or political theory or anything like that. The key is dialogue, and being willing to say, "you know, I disagree with your approach, but if you think it'll work, I'm willing to talk about it, because we've got a lot of shit to fix, and it'll take all of us to do it."

The only enemies we need to fight are willful ignorance and ideological stubbornness. I've had to purge a lot of my own ideological prejudices over the years, because ideology by its very nature disconnects itself from the everyday issues that really matter to people.

The scientific method starts with a hypothesis, tests it, and then either accepts or rejects the original hypothesis based on the results. If the hypothesis is rejected, then you modify that hypothesis, and the process begins again. Politics should be done in a similar manner. If you think cutting taxes will help the economy, and then you test that, and it fails, then you have to modify that idea and start again. If you think nationalizing the banking industry will help the economy, and you test that, and it fails, then you have to modify that and start again. The key is not who's right, but rather what's right. Sure, all of this is an oversimplification, but the point is sound.

The one thing that really resonated with me was what Jon Stewart said at the end. He had an excellent metaphor. He put up a picture of a snarl of traffic, six lanes funneling down into two lanes to get through a tunnel. He illustrated that in each car was someone with a distinct political opinion. Here was an NRA member. There was a lesbian soccer mom. There was an Oprah-loving gay carpenter. Whatever. They're all in the traffic snarl together, and somehow, they have to figure out how to get through that tunnel. Politics doesn't have a place in such a scenario; it's just, "You go, then I'll go," and they make it through. "Oh, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Whatever, you go, then I'll go."

You go, then I'll go. I think that's the central message that we can take away from Stewart's rally. If we take turns letting each other "go," letting ideas we don't agree with be tested, then working together to find a solution we can all agree with, and we stop calling each other Nazis or Communists anytime we disagree with each other, then a lot of the hate and the vitriol and the ideology can go by the wayside and we can get through that tunnel. Even if the tunnel only leads to New Jersey.

So again, to those of you who have found my own particular brand of radicalism off-putting, I apologize. I have ideas and prejudices of my own, as we all do, but now I think I'm more willing to listen.

You go, then I'll go. I think if we spread that message, we can really cut through the cynicism and the isolation and the hate, and really start to talk to each other again, with respect, as human beings.

My note to Senator Ron Wyden

2010-09-26T16:55:00.001-07:00

Moveon.org has endorsed Senator Ron Wyden in his re-election bid, and sent me an e-mail asking for my endorsement. Here's the note I sent to Wyden's campaign in response.

Click here to help the Working Families Party and Bruce Cronk's campaign for Senate.

Despite your support from Moveon, I am not voting for you in November.

I do believe you are the least worst choice of the two major party candidates. I also believe that you will win handily in November.

To be frank, I am sick to death of the Democratic Party. The complete political ineptitude and cowardice of Senate Democrats boggles the mind. I find myself rooting for Sharron Angle just so America can rid itself of Harry Reed's incompetence. Every time Senate Democrats are confronted with a difficult vote or a difficult issue, you back down and cower, afraid that the Republicans will twist what you do into a win for them. The truth that none of you seem to be able to fathom is that Republicans are going to attack you whether you do something or nothing. They're going to attack you no matter what. That's how they operate.

So, I don't know, why not do something, anything at all, instead of always backing down at the mere threat of a filibuster? The Republicans have managed to create a Senate in which 60 votes is required to do ANYTHING, and Senate Democrats seem completely incapable of overcoming that.

I could go on forever about how fed up I am with the utter lunacy of the American political system, the ineptitude of the Democratic Party, the unified cadre of evil that the Republican Party has become.

Instead, I will work to build the Working Families Party, an alternative voice, at least here in Oregon, for those of us who would like to see our government actually function like it's supposed to.

And you and your colleagues can go back to the Senate in January and continue not to do the people's work.

Also, this.

2010-08-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

Because this should not be relegated to obscurity.

The ADL Does Not Speak for Me

2010-07-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

I am outraged by the Anti-Defamation League's recent statement opposing the building of an Islamic center in New York City near where the Twin Towers once stood. The ADL's statement is an embarrassment to the organization and to Jews everywhere, and it should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

The Anti-Defamation League is supposed to be the Jewish people's advocate for understanding, civil rights, and cross-cultural dialogue. It's supposed to be our defender against bigotry and intolerance. It's supposed to serve as an example to the world of Jewish ethical morality.

The ADL's statement says, in essence, that because bigots oppose something, we ought to respect their right to oppose it by also opposing it ourselves, while at the same time condemning the bigotry that leads us to oppose it.

Others have come out with strings of examples of where such twisted logic could lead. I have no interest in getting bogged down in metaphor.

Instead, I want to state unequivocally and stridently that the ADL's statement does not reflect my understanding of Jewish values, and should not be taken as an example of how the vast majority of Jewish people think.

Jewish ethics require us to "love our neighbors as ourselves." The ADL is not adhering to this standard.

Jewish ethics, not to mention American law, demands respect for the right of religious organizations to build structures and worship on whatever land that they control or possess. I do not have the right, nor do you, nor does the ADL, nor does the American government, to dictate where a Muslim organization may place its institutions. Or a Christian organization. Or a Jewish organization.

Beyond which, I believe that building an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero is a GOOD step, a POSITIVE step, something that may just lead to better cross-cultural dialogue, as we work to build peace and understanding in a world that is increasingly interconnected technologically but still so divided by political ideology and religious misunderstanding. As Jews, we should be helping the Muslim community, defending them against this kind of bigotry and fear.

Do I really need to explain why the Jewish people should be on the side of the Muslims in this particular fight? If I do, then we're all in trouble.

Jewish people who, like me, are horrified and offended by the Anti-Defamation League's statement, need to do something about it. Call your local ADL chapter and protest. Local chapter phone numbers can be found on the ADL website. Write letters to the editor. Blog about this. Talk to your Muslim neighbors and express your support. Contact the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and express your opposition to the ADL statement, and ask how you can help. Donate money to organizations that understand the urgent need for respectful cross-cultural dialogue.

As Jews, we have a special obligation to smother the very kind of bigotry and fear that the ADL is demonstrating with its statement. I am simply mystified and infuriated that the ADL completely failed to adhere to its own values in this case, and I condemn their position unequivocally.

So Hungry

2010-07-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

So Hungry

I

Jeff Briggs and his guild had cleared the first boss, and Jeff had looted an epic sword that he’d been trying to get for ages.

The raid leader called for a restroom break, and Jeff took the opportunity to go into his kitchen and grab a beer. When he returned and sat down, he saw an odd shadow, something that was distorting the game picture. It was right on the edge of the screen, like a smudge. He reached out and touched his monitor, thinking that he might have some dead pixels, but the shadow remained steady. It looked like it was a part of the game world itself.

There was a clicking noise coming from the monitor. It sounded like someone tapping on an old television screen with a long fingernail, very slowly, and very quietly.

Jeff put his headphones back on. The raid group was gabbing away.

“Hey, any of you guys see a shadow on your game board, kind of near where Kayman is standing?”

Kayman piped up. His avatar moved around in a circle, indicating that he was looking around the game space. “No, man, I don’t see anything. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I guess my monitor must be acting up. Never mind. Let’s do this.”

With that, the group busied themselves with the important task of hashing out the strategy for attacking the next boss. It was clear that this would be a fight in which warriors, of which Jeff’s character was one of the best, would play a key role. He needed to keep the beast’s attention, take as much damage as possible, so the magic users could drain the beast’s hit points.

While the guild discussed the minutiae of their strategy, the shadow, and the clicking noise, slowly faded from Jeff’s computer monitor.

II

The guild had gotten as far as the third boss before wiping three times in a row, and had decided to call it a night and spend some time thinking about strategy. After eight hours of straight gaming, Marco Rubenstein’s eyes burned and his head throbbed. He looked at the clock. 2:30 AM. Shit. He had to be at work in six hours.

He rubbed his eyes, stretched, said goodnight to his guildmates, and removed his headset. At that moment, Marco noticed a shadow right at the lower left edge of his computer screen, like someone had used a fingerprint pad and then smeared it there. He tried to wipe it away, but he realized it wasn’t on the outside of the monitor.

He heard a tapping sound. Tap…tap…tap. He leaned in closer to the screen, squinting at the smudge, trying to make out what it could possibly be. It had no real defined shape; it seemed like just a dark spot, a place where the game world got dimmer.

As he leaned in, the tapping became louder, more rhythmic. Under the tapping, he thought he could hear…whispering?

Very suddenly, something scratched his arm, and he screamed, and jumped.

He looked down, to see his very bewildered cat. She had merely wanted his attention, and had been swatting at him as he sat at his computer desk.

“Silly cat.” He scratched her behind the ears.

When he looked back at the screen, a face was staring back at him. It was the face of a young girl, with stringy blond hair covering half of her sallow face. The face was hollow, dead, and it flickered like a bad television signal. Its lips were pulled back. Shadow smudges filled the sockets where its eyes should be.

Its mouth opened to reveal a gaping maw of darkness that flooded outward, escaping the monitor, and came straight at Marco.

This time, Marco screamed louder.

III

Jeff yawned. These late night raids were tough, especially after an eight hour day doing mindless transcription for a medical office. Still, the game kept him from going mad with boredom. Sure, he could go outside and meet real people, but that would require, well, going outside and meeting real people. He just wasn’t up for that. He preferred the anonymity of the transcription office and the relative anonymity of the online game.

He grabbed a beer, sat down at his machine, and put on his headphones.

“Hey hey hey! Anthros the mighty signing on. Let’s go kick some dragon ass.”

“Hey, Anthros – you heard from Kayman? He hasn’t checked in.” It was the guild leader, Thunderhoof.

“No.” Jeff couldn’t imagine why their top mage would be missing on a raid night.

“Hmm. Well, we’ll wait a little longer for him and then I guess we’ll have to just figure something out.”

The shadow was back. It was a dark patch on the screen, hovering where one of the guild’s healers, a lithe nymph named Ravena, was standing. The tapping was also back.

Jeff decided it had to be a hardware problem that would either resolve itself or force him to replace the monitor altogether. He wasn’t enough of a hardware geek to really know for sure.

He stood up and shook off a feeling of vague uneasiness by sucking down the rest of his beer and then going into the kitchen for another one. In the kitchen, the tapping sound was barely audible. Jeff stood there for a while, drinking his beer, unsure of what to do next.

The beer having magnified his courage center, Jeff walked over and sat back down at his computer. The tapping and the shadow were gone. He put on his headset. The guild members were discussing strategy.

“Hey, Anthros, so since Kayman is AWOL, we need you to pull out Panadar for this one,” instructed Thunderhoof.

“Right, I figured that. Be right back.” He logged off of Anthros and logged back on as his backup character, a damage-dealing mage named Panadar. His monitor flashed for a second. Jeff was struck by a sudden terror as he could have sworn he saw a skeletal face in the screen. Just for a second, two deep skeletal holes stared at him from where his game screen should be. A chill whisper, like the screech of a bad AM radio signal, escaped the screen.

So hungry…

The sound came out of the computer and scorched Jeff’s brain with ice.

Then the apparition was gone, and Jeff was left staring at his character, Panadar, on the game screen.

IV

Nobody else in the guild had seen the apparition, heard the whispering, the tapping, or even seen the shadows. Jeff was alone with this particular nightmare. Thankfully, whatever it was didn’t come back, and Jeff was able to help his guild defeat the third boss in the raid successfully.

Ravena, in particular, outdid herself. She was right there with her healing spells when needed, and nobody was killed even once.

“Hey, nice job, Ravena,” Jeff said over his headset.

“Thanks. I really felt like everything was clicking.” Ravena’s reply was distorted. Her voice sounded digitized, like little bits of the transmission were breaking apart, the very waves of sound disassembling themselves. Jeff strained to hear her. He took off his headset, shook it, and put it back on. Must be a loose connection, he thought. But something nagged at him.

He remembered then that the shadow he’d seen earlier had been hovering over Ravena, and as he looked, it was back.

“Ravena, is everything ok?”

“What? I don’t know…everything’s fine. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. There’s some kind of a shadow on my scree-“

A scream pierced Jeff’s headset, distorted, unraveled, and then cut off completely.

The shadow around Ravena disappeared from Jeff’s game screen.

And so did Ravena.

“Ravena?” Jeff ventured.

“Ok, what the fuck was that?” It was Thunderhoof. He’d also heard the scream.

“I have no clue. Ravena?”

The line was silent, but for a distant electric crackling sound.

V.

A headline the next day caught Jeff’s attention. The game was downloading a patch, so he had some time to kill before he could log on, and he was idly browsing the web.

“Man Found Starved to Death Sitting At His Computer.”

The headline linked to a video of a local news reporter.

“This is Chip Hedley in Tulsa. 21-year-old Marco Rubenstein was found dead yesterday in his apartment. Authorities are not releasing a lot of details here, but I’m being told that he died of starvation. His emaciated body was found slumped over his computer. Police suspect he may have been an online gaming addict…”

Jeff shut off the video. That was Kayman. Kayman was dead. But starvation? The guy logged off regularly. He had a job. Jeff knew this from the times they’d chatted during raids.

He went to Google News and typed “dead” and “computer” into the search box. A million things came up, most of them irrelevant. However, on the third page, an article caught his eye. It was from a couple of months ago. Jeff recognized the name. Erika Valle. She had raided with them from time to time, and she’d had an array of high-level characters, all with the best gear. She and Jeff had become fast friends during the raids, because she, like him, was a major introvert, and they had bonded over their shared social awkwardness.

She had disappeared about two months ago, and Jeff thought she’d moved on.

Jeff clicked on the article, headlined “Girl Found Starved to Death at Computer.” The story was horrible. The police had found her slumped over her computer, completely emaciated, her apartment a filthy mess, a dead cat in one corner. The autopsy revealed that she hadn’t eaten or consumed any liquid for over a week, and had died of starvation, dehydration, and exhaustion. The investigators discovered that her characters had been logged on to the game for more than 150 hours straight.

Jeff shuddered. He knew he gamed a lot, but he at least took breaks to eat, drink, and sleep.

The patch was finished downloading. Jeff clicked open his video chat program, put on his headphones, and logged on.

The shadow was back. This time it was over Thunderhoof. The tapping was louder, more insistent, and Jeff thought he could see the shadow pulse with each tap.

Fear gripped Jeff – Thunderhoof was a good guy and a great guild leader, but he was also one of only a few people Jeff could call a friend in the real world. Jeff looked up to Thunderhoof, who, though he was much older than Jeff, had always treated Jeff with respect. In fact, Thunderhoof was the only person who could drag Jeff out of the house once in a while to get a beer.

There was static in his earpiece. Behind the static, a high pitched keening. Behind that, a voice. A whisper. A bad radio connection. So hungry…

“Thunderhoof?” Jeff’s voice wavered.

“Yeah I’m here.” But his voice was distorted, crackling, broken, like Ravena’s had been.

VI

Edgar Hansen was proud of his role as guild leader, and took it very seriously. His office was decked out with maps and charts and strategy guides. He knew what each member of his raid group was capable of. He had spent some time in the military when he was younger, and now, in his retirement years, was enjoying the challenge of leading a group of soldiers again.

He was focused on his computer screen, arranging his gear for the night, when the entire screen became shrouded by what looked like a cloud hovering over the game world. The monitor flickered and made a sharp keening noise, like an old television warming up. Behind the keening, a rhythmic tapping.

The shadow on the screen began to take a shape. Edgar stood up and backed away from the screen. His headset, which was making the same kind of shrieking electronic noise, reached the end of its cord and pulled out of the machine, severing his connection to the rest of the guild. But the sound from his monitor continued, and grew, and began to hurt his ears.

Carefully, he pushed the button to turn off the monitor. The picture and the sound died.

He plugged his headset back into his computer tower. The screeching was still there, and he winced.

“Guys, I’m going to have to log off – think my computer’s about to clunk out…” He just hoped they could hear him. He didn’t know a lot about computers, but this kind of a problem couldn’t be good.

He decided that for safety’s sake, he’d better turn off his entire computer, and then maybe have Jeff come over and look at it. Jeff was a good kid, and knew a lot about this stuff.

He turned around and began to walk out of his office. As he left the room, he realized he could still hear a soft tapping coming from inside his computer monitor.

VII

Jeff ran downstairs and got in his car. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew – just knew – that something bad was about to happen to his good friend and guild leader. He had to get to Edgar’s house and try to figure out how to stop it.

Jeff peeled out of his parking space and sped over to Edgar’s house.

He realized then that he had forgotten his cell phone, so he couldn’t even call Edgar and warn him. But warn him of what? He hadn’t the faintest clue about what was happening – he just had a hunch, a dread, a horrible feeling that Edgar was going to die tonight.

He turned on the radio. This car had never had a good antenna, but tonight the reception was especially bad. FM began to sound like AM, with high pitched wavering distortions. He was in range of the NPR station he liked to listen to, but he couldn’t quite get it. He turned the tuning knob and tried to fix the signal.

At that moment, the signal cleared. A young female voice, a cold, empty, hollow, voice, a voice wrapped in shadows, was repeating, softly, insistently, words that drove an ice pick of fear into Jeff’s brain.

“So hungry…so hungry…”

VIII

The tapping was louder. A faint green glow pulsed in the corner of the screen, in rhythm with the tapping. The glow got bigger, fading in and out with the tapping. Soon the glow covered the entire screen. The overhead light in the office blew out, shrouding the room in green.

Edgar stood there, silent, unsure.

The AM radio sound started up again, the wavering static of a signal that isn’t quite in range.

The green glow faded, dimmed, the monitor emitted a harsh buzz, and suddenly turned itself on.

There was a face there. It was a face Edgar recognized.

Erika. The girl with whom Edgar had shared a brief online romance, who had run raids with Edgar’s guild, who had been beautiful, and smart, and funny, and had taken Edgar’s mind off of his wife, dead for one year. They’d exchanged photos, e-mails, had chatted via messenger, had even called each other on the phone, long distance, which hadn’t been cheap for either of them.

And then she’d disappeared.

Her face was gaunt, pale, drawn, her eyes were shadows, her lips were drawn up over her teeth, her beautiful blond hair tangled and knotted over one side of her face.

“Erika?” He whispered.

The face on the monitor opened its mouth, the shadows inside rushed forth, broke through the monitor, and reached for him with long, spindly, fingers.

IX

Jeff screeched to a halt in front of Edgar’s house, threw the car into park, jumped out, and ran to the front door, bruising his knuckles as he knocked.

An electronic squeal shot forth from inside the house. Jeff tried the doorknob, found the house open, and ran inside. He reached Edgar’s office.

The computer screen was smashed on the floor. Edgar was standing over it.

“It was Erika.” Edgar could barely get the words out. He slumped down in his office chair.

“Is she…gone?”

“No, she’s here.” Edgar’s voice had changed. It was cold, electric, but clear, like a perfect digital approximation of a voice. Edgar’s eyes darkened, shrouded, the whites flickering, then cleared again.

“I’m here.” Edgar stood up, his body jerking. Jeff backed away.

“So hungry…” Edgar lurched toward Jeff. Jeff tripped over something on the floor and nearly lost his balance, but recovered.

Edgar’s features were distorting, his whole body began to flicker and shimmer, as he shuffled forward, slowly, toward Jeff.

Edgar opened his mouth, a black hole, endless, impenetrable, drawing Jeff toward it, a keening digital wail emanating from it. The shadows exhaled from the blackness of that mouth and reached for Jeff. The shadows became perfect human fingers pale, withered, dead, with long fingernails. Jeff stumbled backwards, and this time he did fall. Hard. His head slammed against the hardwood floor, and he struggled to remain conscious. Dark splotches threatened to consume his vision, his head swam, but he willed himself not to black out. He sat up.

The shadow fingers were right on top of him. They yearned to consume him, to draw out all of his strength and leave his desiccated corpse lying there on the hallway floor.

He screamed, putting his hands over his face, trying to block out those dark, seeking, fingers.

The fingers touched him, and grew into a large, twisting, shadow that wrapped itself around him, and he felt himself being drained. His consciousness receded, slowly, dark walls closing, a wave of panic rushing in.

X

A rumor developed that if someone saw a shadow covering your character, then something bad would happen to you in real life.

Nobody was really quite certain what might happen, but there were stories of a psychotic hacker who put a virus into the game to terrorize people online and then went and killed his chosen targets in real life.

Police who were called to investigate the incidents invariably found someone who had clearly been a game addict, and who had starved to death rather than stop playing.

No glitch was found in the game to account for the shadows.

RIP Peter Orlovsky

2010-06-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

Poet and longtime companion to Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, died on Sunday. His unique poetic voice will be missed.

Here's a beautiful one by Peter. I particularly love the line: "I walk on the street looking for eyes that will caress my face."

FRIST POEM

A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified.
Songs burst from my breast, all my crying stops, mistory fills
the air.
I look for my shues under my bed.
A fat colored woman becomes my mother.
I have no false teeth yet. Suddenly ten children sit on my lap.
I grow a beard in one day.
I drink a hole bottle of wine with my eyes shut.
I draw on paper and I feel I am two again. I want everybody to
talk to me.
I empty the garbage on the tabol.
I invite thousands of bottles into my room, June bugs I call them.
I use the typewritter as my pillow.
A spoon becomes a fork before my eyes.
Bums give all their money to me.
All I need is a mirror for the rest of my life.
My frist five years I lived in chicken coups with not enough
bacon.
My mother showed her witch face in the night and told stories of
blue beards.
My dreams lifted me right out of my bed.
I dreamt I jumped into the nozzle of a gun to fight it out with a
bullet.
I met Kafka and he jumped over a building to get away from me.
My body turned into sugar, poured into tea I found the meaning
of life
All I needed was ink to be a black boy.
I walk on the street looking for eyes that will caress my face.
I sang in the elevators believing I was going to heaven.
I got off at the 86th floor, walked down the corridor looking for
fresh butts.
My comes turns into a silver dollar on the bed.
I look out the window and see nobody, I go down to the street,
look up at my window and see nobody.
So I talk to the fire hydrant, asking "Do you have bigger tears
then I do?"
Nobody around, I piss anywhere.
My Gabriel horns, my Gabriel horns: unfold the cheerfulies,
my gay jubilation.

The flotilla incident

2010-05-31T14:40:00.000-07:00

(Edit: There's a lot going on in the world, and while I have converted this blog to focus on fiction writing, I'm still a political animal, and sometimes I have to speak out.)

There are more questions than answers right now. The facts as we know them:

1) A "flotilla" of ships was headed toward Gaza.

2) This "flotilla" was asked by Israeli authorities to divert to Ashdod.

3) The "flotilla" refused to divert, was confronted by Israeli authorities, and people were killed.

As far as I can tell from what I'm reading, those are the only concrete facts that have been established.

Things that have not yet been established, but are being speculated on and used as rallying points for various angry parties:

1) What was the "flotilla" actually carrying? Food? Medicine? Weapons?

2) Who fired first?

I haven't seen a single objective report on this situation. People are posting videos all over the web that seem to support one side's view or the other side's view. I just watched a choppy video posted on BoingBoing with commentary in English, Arablic, and I think Turkish. The video was choppy and difficult to interpret, and as I don't speak Arabic or Turkish, I can't really tell what the commentators were saying.

I also saw a video from the Israeli military, with captions in English, telling a very different story.

My point is this. When we're dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian situation, we must take any "news" report with a grain of salt. The first question we must answer when looking at a video is: who shot the video, do they have an agenda, are they a neutral party? One cannot make any assumptions in this conflict. We cannot assume a) that this flotilla was actually carrying aid, b) that the Israeli military fired first, and c) that the people they were firing at were unarmed innocent victims. Likewise, we cannot assume that a) the flotilla was actually carrying weapons and other dangerous materials to arm Hamas, b) the Israeli military was defending itself from rioters carrying knives, broken bottles, and other weapons, and c) the deaths on the ship were only a result of such defense.

I don't know what happened. I wasn't there. I haven't seen a single objective news report. The objective fact that people were killed is a tragedy. But that is all that I know for a fact.

Eyes open, people. Be smart. Don't fall from propaganda - from either side.

When do we open our eyes?

2010-05-30T01:27:00.001-07:00

Let's recap the last few years. Briefly.

1) The economic system collapsed because the financial market wasn't sufficiently regulated by the government. As a result, millions lost their homes, their jobs, their livelihoods. The people who caused the problem gave themselves a nice bonus at our expense. The vast majority of Americans sat back in disbelief, completely unable to do anything about anything, because the decisions that caused so much chaos and destruction were being made in corporate boardrooms and stock trading floors that the average American had no access to or right to vote in.

2) 29 miners were killed in an explosion because the mining industry wasn't sufficiently regulated by the government, and the owner of that particular mine found it to his economic benefit to pay fines repeatedly rather than fix a myriad of safety violations. The miners who were killed weren't even given the benefit of a right to organize into a union, where they would at least have a voice to challenge the company's practices.

3) The Gulf of Mexico is currently being utterly destroyed because the government agency overseeing the drilling industry was rife with corruption, and let companies like BP do essentially whatever they wanted. As a result, a rig exploded, a dozen people were killed, and, again, the Gulf of Mexico is currently being utterly destroyed. The vast majority of Americans can do absolutely nothing to stop this disaster, because the decisions that led to it took place in corporate boardrooms in which none of us has a vote.

Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, teabaggers, radical corporatists, are all convinced that government is the enemy, that freedom is the opposite of government. Yet that freedom they cherish is only freedom for a select few: those who sit in corporate boardrooms, those who own the factories, those who steer the wheels of our collective economic fates.

For the rest of us, this freedom is a lie.

You're pissed because BP is destroying the Gulf of Mexico? Alright then, go fly to London, go to BP headquarters and tell them to stop. See what happens. Sure, boycott them. That'll help. What are you going to not buy, exactly?

You're pissed because you're losing your house, because a mortgage lender lied to you? Go yell at your mortgage broker. See how far that gets you.

You're furious because your husband works in a non-unionized mine, and the mine owner isn't fixing safety violations? What, precisely, are you going to do about it? Your husband has the freedom not to work at that mine, you say? Sure he does. Is there another job available to him? Does that feel like freedom to you and your husband?

What freedom does the "free market" really offer the vast majority of people? The freedom to buy, or not to buy? How does that translate to BP? Or the mining industry? Or the financial system? Absent government intervention, what freedom do we have to hold BP accountable for destroying the Gulf of Mexico? What rights does the capitalist system grant us? What power to effect change?

Left to their own devices, capitalists will always choose the cheapest path that gets them the greatest profit, no matter what other factors may be involved. And if they have to kill people or destroy an ecosystem to get that profit, they'll do it. And there's not a damned thing we can do about it, as long as we believe the lie that this economic tyranny somehow equates to "freedom."

True freedom would be a democratic economy in which we could all participate. True freedom would be a collective understanding of our responsibility to each other and the planet. True freedom would mean that you and I could go tomorrow and vote to shut down BP and press for criminal charges for its top executives.

The anarcho-capitalist teabaggers are lying to you. If you make the government smaller, take away what little power it now has to regulate the market, then the capitalists will shortly destroy the planet in a fireball of incompetence, ignorance, and greed.

How many more massive capitalist failures that cause untold misery? How many more, before we open our eyes?

I'm not waving the red flag of revolution just yet. I just want people at least to recognize the lie. And the only solution, for now, is MORE government regulation, STRICTER government regulation, COMPETENT government regulation, and HIGHER taxes, especially on the wealthy. The capitalists need to be kept on a much tighter leash than they are now, and that costs money.

We can talk about revolution after the next massive failure of the "free" market.

Shouldn't take long. Probably already happened.

This isn't rocket science, people. It's simple economics - and in our current system, economics boils down to this:

Are you the one doing the screwing, or are you the one being screwed?

That's freedom?

Cylons vs. Klingons

2010-05-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Cylons vs. Klingons

“Vodka is not meant to be drunk straight.”

“Russians do it.” Jesse looked at me, still holding the bottle.

“Well they're Russian.”

“I could be Russian.”

“You're not Russian.”

“God, it burned my lips!”

I squinted at him. I don't wear my glasses when I'm sitting at my laptop, so things far away tend to be blurry. “God, how much of that have you had?” He'd been making himself screwdrivers for a couple of hours.

“Not much.” He showed me the bottle, which to my unglassed eyes looked as if it had been pixellated. In other words, it was blurry as hell. But it was clearly still mostly full.

“I just wanted to know what it tasted like.”

I repeated, “Vodka is not meant to be drunk straight. It tastes like fire.”

Still, I shouldn't be one to criticize him for drinking. I'd gone through entire bottles of sherry in one night before. I'd gone through entire liters of whiskey in two or three nights. Recently, I'd started to cut down a bit, but tonight I had a shiny new bottle of Wild Turkey burning a hole in my cabinet, and it needed to be addressed. I got up from the laptop and poured myself another. Adele was singing about chasing pavements, her sweet British voice emanating from my laptop's tinny speakers, which really didn't do her justice.

Jesse came back into the room as I was settling back down at my laptop. He made some kind of odd noise, startling me, and then came over and attacked me with a smooch.

“You're being very annoying tonight.”

“You should get an Irish accent,” he suggested.

“How exactly would I accomplish that?”

He didn't seem to have an answer, and so he shuffled back into the other room to watch his television show on his own laptop. I had a novel to write, so I went back to staring at the blinking cursor. The damned thing just kept blinking, and the page kept being blank, so I typed some words onto it. I think I had the idea to write some kind of an epic science fiction adventure story, but it wasn't starting out well. I'd been watching a lot of downloaded episodes of old science fiction shows lately, which, now that I thought about it, had been the entire problem, the entire reason why I hadn't gotten any writing done. I'd just been zoning out in front of the desktop computer, watching episode after episode, killing my evenings one Cylon at a time. Now I was afraid that my writing would just be full of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, and I'd end up with Cylons fighting Klingons. Nobody would want to read that. Unless there was porn in it, and then there would certainly be a market for it on the Internet. Still, tonight I had put the television watching to bed, and I was determined as all hell to write something, anything, even if it was utter crap. I was sick of wasting my time.

I sighed. The Wild Turkey certainly wasn't helping matters; in fact, the more I had of it, the less I liked it. How could Jim Beam make a delicious rye whiskey, and this Wild Turkey stuff, which was more expensive, tasted like bathtub death?

Suddenly I hit on an idea, and started typing furiously, my fingers blurring over the keys like another metaphor I didn't have time to think of because I was too damned busy coming up with the next great science fiction epic classic adventure thingy. This was it, this was the thing that would be optioned for television, movies, and the inevitable Internet porn. There were no Cylons, no Klingons, nothing but a brand new science fiction universe that I had created myself, that was entirely mine, and that would make me millions. There would be at least twelve novels in this series, if not more, and that would just be the start.

“....hot dog stand burned to the ground,” explained Jesse, who was standing in front of the open freezer door eating ice cream out of the carton.

I blinked, realizing that I had hyperfocused again.

“What?”

“The hot dog stand – you know, the one we go to sometimes – apparently someone burned it down. It's on Oregon Live.”

“Shit, that sucks. Go away now – I'm creating a masterpiece of unbridled genius.”

He shrugged, put the ice cream back, and wandered back into the other room.

But by then, of course, all was lost. My work of unbridled genius stared at me, unfinished, the cursor blinking, waiting for me to figure out what comes next. I imagined my lead character sitting there in his fighter jet, twiddling his thumbs, staring at me expectantly. Ok, buddy, I thought. You tell me. What are you about to do? He shrugged. A lot of help you are.

I sighed, saved the document in progress, closed my laptop, and went over to the desktop computer. Another episode of Battlestar Galactica should help me focus my mind...

An ADHD moment

2010-04-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

I wanted to sit down and write a story. But of course, I have ADHD, which makes any task explode into a tangent of other tasks that are only marginally related to the original task of writing.

I started out just fine. I took my medication, which is a long-acting form of Ritalin. The problem with this medication is that because it is long-acting, it also takes a while to start working. So if I start trying to focus on something immediately, it doesn't always work.

I walked the dog, came back, got myself a glass of tea, and sat down with my laptop. When I opened OpenOffice, an information bubble popped up, telling me I needed to update something. I'm so fed up with information bubbles popping up on my computer. I clicked on the stupid thing and it crashed OpenOffice.

Well, at that point I decided I'd had enough of OpenOffice, and got on the web to find another kind of freeware word processing software. As I was scrolling through the list of programs available, I remembered that Matthew had a copy of Word 2007 on the main desktop. I don't want to use the main desktop for writing, because we don't have a good computer desk, and the chair is way too low, so it's uncomfortable.

Anyway, I got the idea that maybe I could turn on network sharing so that I could share the copy of Word that was on the desktop computer and use it on my laptop. I know now that such things are not possible, but at the time it seemed like a likely possibility. So I took my laptop over to the desktop and connected the homegroups using the password, making sure everything was shared properly. In the process, I noticed that while the laptop could see the desktop, the reverse was not true, so I spent some time trying to fix that problem. While I was doing that, I decided to set up all of the homegroup settings, making sure that I could use the network printer, and that my iTunes library on the desktop was shared with my laptop.

That accomplished, I went about trying to open the desktop copy of Word on my laptop. Unfortunately, my laptop showed that copy only as a shortcut, and since Word wasn't installed on my laptop, I realized that my genius idea just wasn't going to work, and I was going to have to either stick with using OpenOffice or find another program.

I took my laptop back over to my comfy writing nook and checked to make sure the network settings were all working, and then, since I was doing that anyway, opened iTunes on my laptop and synced it with my desktop library. Then I went back to the website and tried to find a freeware word processing software. I found one called AbiWord, and downloaded it. While it was installing, I checked to see how much Word actually costs, but for some reason, the website I was looking at didn't list the price.

AbiWord installed itself and I started trying to use it, only to discover that its dictionary didn't recognize contractions. Well that was no good at all. Finally, I gave up and opened OpenOffice, wrote a few sentences, and then got up to get myself a glass of tea. I got a glass out of the cabinet, got the tea out of the fridge, and then realized I had a glass of tea already, put the tea back in the fridge, leaving the glass on the counter, and went back and sat down at my laptop.

I wrote a few more sentences of what I was originally writing, and then realized how funny the whole previous sequence of events had to be if seen from the perspective of someone who doesn't have ADHD, so I switched to a new document and started writing this.

Mine Disasters

2010-04-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hello Sinister ...well, I've been away so long I doubt anyone's still reading this...so here comes a rare political post that hearkens back to the glory days of this once-mighty blog.

Yesterday's mine disaster in West Virginia is obviously tragic and upsetting for a great number of reasons. But I want to make a couple of points about it.

Rachel Maddow tonight pointed out that the company who runs the mine had literally thousands of safety violations over several years, and had been fined millions of dollars. The trouble is, the mine owners made a cold calculation: it was cheaper to pay the fines than it would be to fix the problems. Thus, they put profit over the safety and lives of the mine workers - and did so in a very conscious, calculating, capitalist manner.

The lesson I think needs to be drawn from this is quite simple: capitalists, left to their own devices, will kill people to keep their pocketbooks fat.

The "free market" offers absolutely no protection from this barbarity. And clearly, the regimen of fines set up by the government isn't working, because the fines cost less than would fixing the safety violations.

My first question to the government is this: Why doesn't the punishment for a violation require fixing the violation, instead of just a fine? Fine the company, and as part of that punishment, require that they pay the fine AND fix the violations - or face immediate shut down. Why is that not the case now?

Still, I fear that even such a solution as that would not be sufficient - capitalists tend to hire lawyers to help them weasel out of regulations so they can protect their bottom line. Or they just ignore them and buy Congressmen to keep the regulators out of their hair.

The "free market" clearly cannot be trusted with the lives of our coal miners. Too many have died because the capitalists literally decided that they'd rather pay a fine than create a safe work environment.

Of course, part of the problem is that we're running out of coal, and the coal that we're going after now is in much more dangerous places. But still - when you have such a blatant example of this kind of callous disregard for human life, this capitalist need to kill to protect profits - there's not much else that can be said.

I'd like to call on Congress and the President to consider a new spending program that would create safe mines, help us get control of our energy infrastructure, and probably create jobs in the process.

Nationalize the coal mining industry, and allow the United Mine Workers in to each site to unionize the workplaces. When mines are run by capitalists, union busting, just like safety violations, is rampant. When mines are unionized, mines are safe - as one commentator on Rachel Maddow's show put it, mining becomes a brotherhood, with all miners looking out for each other, and fire captains assigned to stand guard against accidents.

Nationalizing the coal industry will also serve another purpose, beyond creating safe, unionized, secure work places for miners. By nationalizing the coal industry, the government can take the profits gained from the industry to build new nuclear power plants, thus weaning us away from the need to use fossil fuels. Then, eventually, we can begin retraining programs, so that mine workers can enter safer, more healthy lines of work, and we can kill this dirty, unsafe industry once and for all.

RIP Howard Zinn

2010-01-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

You will be missed.

writing writing

2010-01-21T22:47:00.000-08:00

My writing buddies and I have committed to writing 1000 words a day, and we're going to hold each other accountable. That's going to be good for me. Tonight I did not make the 1000 word goal, but I did sit down and pound out a good 750. That's more than I would have done otherwise.

Anyway. One or two of you may remember that a while ago I posted part 1 of a trifle of a short story I wrote called The Nondescript Man. Well, here's the rest of it. Let me know what you think.

The Nondescript Man, Part 2 of 2

IX

The nondescript man stood outside of Julie's apartment staring intently at her kitchen window. Since it was a Saturday at about noon, near Christmas, the sidewalk was jammed with people, but they all seemed to unconsciously walk around him, leaving him in kind of an eddy in the flow of the crowd. Julie, who was inside making some eggs, was oblivious. However, she did take notice when her radio station started playing her favorite song again. Then, her eyes widened as she noticed that her radio was sitting on top of a copy of the very CD that she had been looking for all these years, the one with that song on it. She grabbed it quickly, knocking the radio over on its front. Her hands trembling, she stared at the CD, daring it to explain its presence. It made no sense. She had never owned this CD. What was it doing here? She began to get paranoid, thinking maybe she had a stalker, maybe a radio DJ stalker, who was playing her song and sneaking into her apartment leaving her CDs. But that was crazy, she thought. Who stalks a forty-ish librarian with cankles, bad teeth, and a limp? There had to be some other explanation.
She decided to phone Mona, her childhood friend who also worked at the library. Mona picked up immediately.
“Mona, it's Julie.”
“Hey, what's going on, girlfriend?”
Julie thought about what to say, and decided on, “Weird things are afoot, Mona. And you know I don't use the word “afoot” unless it's serious.”
“Ooh, I like it when things are afoot. Or a foot long,” Mona added, giggling.
Julie grinned. “Oh, you're incorrigible.”
“Guilty as charged,” Mona chirped. “So what's afoot, exactly?”
Julie explained about the song and the CD, and her theory about the radio DJ stalker. Mona was silent for a minute, and then said, “Alright, so say you have a radio DJ stalker. Do you know anybody who fits that description?”
“No, that's the crazy thing. I don't know anybody in radio. I just have my one radio station that I love to listen to because it plays bossa nova music, and that's the station that's been playing this song that, until a few days ago, I hadn't heard in years. And now this CD shows up. I'm just a little baffled, that's all.”
“Julie, I'm coming over, and we'll figure this out. You know me - I love a good mystery.”
Julie smiled. “Ok, I'm making some eggs – I'll make some for you.”
“Great! I love eggs!” Mona hung up.
Outside the apartment, the eddy in the crowd surrounding the nondescript man closed, and he disappeared.

X

Mike woke up feeling strangely refreshed and awake, ready to take on the world. He sat up and realized he wasn't anywhere he recognized. He was on a small narrow bed in the middle of a room that was hard for him to describe. It was as though his gaze slid off of everything, and he couldn't really get a good grasp of perspective. He also had a strange feeling that he wouldn't remember anything about this place if and when he ever got out of it.

A man was standing at the foot of the bed. Like the room, he was difficult to focus on. Mike couldn't really pinpoint his height, facial features, hair color, or anything about his clothing. It was very odd.
The man began to speak. “Where are you? Who am I? What are you doing here? Those are the questions you're about to ask me, right?” Mike nodded slowly.
“Did you bring the harmonica and the marbles?” asked the man. He looked at Mike expectantly.
Mike was astonished to find that the harmonica and the marbles were in his left hand. “Uh, yeah, it looks like I did,” he said. “But -”
“Hand them to me, please.” The man held out a very long, very pale hand. Mike handed them over.
“What do you think these are, Mike?”
“You're asking me?”
“I'm asking you? I kidnap you, bring you to this weird room, and instead of giving you answers, all I do is ask you questions you have no idea how to answer? Who am I? That's what you're going to say, right? God, this is like a bad science fiction movie.”
“What?” Mike was growing increasingly confused and more than a little bit frightened.
“Beep boop, beep boop, take me to your leader.” The man began strutting around the room making “beep boop” noises. Mike looked for a way out, but he still couldn't focus on anything in the room, and it was beginning to make him a little bit nauseous.
“Um, so, can you just tell me what you want, and let me go? I have a bus to catch.”
“Oh, you have a bus to catch, do you? Well, I won't keep you then.” The man pressed a switch, and Mike suddenly felt like his stomach had wrapped around his brain. The world disappeared, and then reappeared, and he was back in his dorm room. Within fifteen minutes, he had forgotten the whole incident.

XI

The intercom buzzed.
“Captain, I think we need to talk about our man downstairs.”
“Why? What's he done now?”
“Well, he had the college student, got the items, but then he sort of...lost control.”
Captain Vorbo sighed. He had known that Marko was completely wrong for this assignment. The whole thing was way too complex for him. The precision required to engage the targets, connect them to each other, and perform the intercept really needed a precise strategic mind, and Marko just didn't have it. The whole situation was giving Vorbo a headache.
“Ok, bring Marko to me. I'll talk to him.”
“Aye, captain.”
A few minutes later, the nondescript man walked into the captain's office. He saluted.
“Sit down, Marko.” The captain sat behind his desk and peered at Marko intently. Sure, the appearance was perfect – nobody would remember a face like that – but the mind was flawed.
Marko sat. “What do you need, Captain? I'm very busy.”
“Marko, you know how important this mission is to the whole scheme of things, don't you?”
“I do, Captain, I do. But I can't help feeling that everything about it, including this conversation we're having here, comes right out of a terrible science fiction novel. I mean, you're going to berate me for my incompetence, demand that I do a better job of acquiring the targets, but do so in a way that doesn't actually reveal the plot, right?”
The captain blinked, which he didn't do very often. “Marko, you read too much...though yes, that's just about exactly what I was going to say to you.”
“Well, alright then, I promise I'll do better at,” Marko made some exaggerated quote gestures and winked very dramatically, “acquiring the targets, captain.”
“Are you not taking this mission seriously, soldier?”
“Really, captain? That line? I could write better dialogue in my sleep.”
Vorbo had had just about enough of this.
“You just thought to yourself that you've had just about enough of this, didn't you, captain?”
Irritated, the captain pressed a button, and Marko disappeared. This wasn't going well.

XII

A nondescript man walked into a bar, sat down, and ordered a series of vodka martinis. Or at least, he tried to, but the bartender kept forgetting about him as soon as he turned his back to make the drink. The man sighed, jumped behind the bar, took several bottles of the shelf, and walked out. The bartender was confused and disoriented for a second, and then blinked in amazement as he realized he'd been robbed. He looked around frantically, but he had no idea who could have nicked four bottles of vodka, three bottles of vermouth, and a jar of olives right out from under his nose.

Later, a nondescript man slept it off on a park bench, and wasn't bothered by the police.

XIII

Julie met Mona for coffee at the coffee shop, making sure to order tea as she always did. At a corner table, the nondescript man, looking a little the worse for wear, was nursing a large cup of very hot coffee that he had had to get for himself. He recognized Julie as one of his, he thought bitterly, “targets,” though he could never really understand what it was Vorbo wanted from the three of them. I mean really, he thought to himself, giving them strange things – childhood toys, a harmonica, an obscure CD – and then expecting, through a series of convoluted machinations and ridiculous leaps of logic, that somehow they'd realize their common plight and then...what? Vorbo hadn't really explained that last bit very well at all. It would be simpler if the objects led to some overarching mystery, that, when solved, prevented the imminent destruction of the planet, or something. Or if they really were aliens hovering over the planet conducting experiments on humanity. But this was just silly.
“So, any more sign of the radio DJ stalker?” Mona grinned.
“No, funnily enough, it's been a couple of weeks, and I haven't heard that song again. I still have the CD, but nothing else weird has happened.” Julie sipped her tea and looked around the room. Her gaze still slid off of the nondescript man, who was glaring daggers at her. He stuck his tongue out at her, made some incomprehensible but clearly obscene gestures, all in a futile attempt to get her attention. He was getting tired of being invisible. He hadn't signed up for this assignment, and he was getting sick of it all. Finally, he gave up, got up from the table, grabbed the table and threw it over, like in an old Western, threw his chair at the barista and missed. He stormed out, making sure to rip the door off its hinges as he left. The chair crashed into the espresso machine, breaking it. The barista blinked for a second and then looked at the broken chair and the broken espresso machine, and then over at the upside down table. She couldn't imagine how any of that could have happened. Then she looked at the door, hanging from one hinge. Julie and Mona were also looking around, wondering what the hell had happened.
At that moment, Eric walked in, surveyed the damage, and began to walk out again. Julie spotted him and said, “Wait!” Eric stopped and turned.
“Oh, from the park, hello,” he waved.
Julie hobbled over to him, her limp a little worse than usual.
“Hey, do you know what's going on here? I'm not a kind of conspiracy nut, but I've had some weird things happening to me lately.”
“Hey, there's nothing nutty about conspiracy theories if there actually is a conspiracy,” Eric said.
“Will you join us for a cup of coffee?” asked Julie. The barista seemed to be in a confused trance, as she cleaned up a mess she had no memory of happening.
Eric, who decided he could use a break from his writing anyway, agreed, and joined Julie and Mona at their table. Julie told Eric about the music, and the mysterious CD, and connected it to the grass at the park and the mysterious mess in the coffee shop. Eric told Julie about the firetruck. They discussed the possibilities intently for a while, mostly relying on old science fiction novels and movies, because those kinds of stories always had this kind of intricate threading that seemed completely unconnected until the hero solves everything in the last few pages or minutes.
Mike walked in then, again laden with his backpack. He was just starting the January term, and he had a lot of homework to get done. He sat down at a table, dropped the backpack onto the floor with an audible thud, opened it, and took out a rather imposing looking tome on quantum mechanics. He began to read. Then, he overheard Julie and Mona's conversation with Eric. He'd read many of Eric's novels, but he didn't know enough about the author to be able to recognize him in a coffee shop. Excited now, he reached into his backpack, where he happened to have one of Eric's Flabian Continuum novels, the one where the wily space pirate finally defeats the evil bureaucrats at the High Federation. He brought the book over and said, timidly,
“Excuse me, Mr. Vaughn? I'm a big fan. Can you sign this book?”
Eric grinned, took the book, and signed it.
Julie asked Mike, “Hey, so you know science fiction, maybe you can solve this mystery.” Mike listened to her story about the CD, and Eric's story about the firetruck, and a lightbulb clicked on in his brain.
“Wow. That's kind of a funny coincidence. I wonder if this is connected. A few weeks ago I got a harmonica and some marbles in the mail with no explanation, and there's also this period of about six hours that I can't for the life of me remember what I was doing, but I have a vague memory of being somewhere else.”
“Do the marbles and the harmonica mean anything to you?” asked Mona, who, as an outsider to this whole situation, felt that she had a unique perspective to offer.
“I don't know. For some reason, I don't seem to have them anymore.”
“Hmm,” said Julie. “You know, normally in these kinds of stories, something would happen here that would connect the three situations.”
“Well, I don't know, we're all kind of connected by Mr. Vaughn's stories, aren't we? I mean, right?” Mike hazarded.

At that moment, the four of them were startled to find a man standing at one end of the table. He was quite visible, quite memorable, and quite drunk. He began to speak, and to wobble.
“Look, you three were supposed to be the lynchpins to this whole big thing that we had planned for you. But – but you know what? It was a stupid, stupid plan. God it was stupid. Stupid, stupid stupid. Man, see? Now I'm quoting Ed Wood movies. What the hell?” The man sat down hard in the table's remaining empty chair. He put his head in his hands.
“God, captain Vorbo is going to be pissed at me. I'm a complete failure. He's going to have to start all over again.” The man was visibly sobbing now. Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared into thin air.

XIV

The intercom buzzed.
“We've taken care of Marko, captain.”
“Good.” Captain Vorbo sighed. This scheme had taken years of planning, and now it was ruined, all because the hierarchy had assigned an under-qualified agent.
“Send a note to the affected people, apologizing for the inconvenience, explaining the whole thing, and telling them not to worry about it. We'll just have to try something else, I guess.”
He closed the intercom connection and got up to pour himself a stiff drink.

Sleepy.

2010-01-15T08:45:00.000-08:00

Looking forward to a three day weekend.

On the theme of sleep, here's a poem for today.

A Dream Within a Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Finished the novel!

2010-01-02T18:39:00.001-08:00

The Shooter Vanished draft one is now complete. Now comes the hard part - revising it!

The ending of it was very different from the one I originally thought of when I started this novel - but I think it works.

Stay tuned for more info on revisions. I might publish more excerpts here if I'm feeling saucy.

Hey, it's 2010.

2010-01-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

Neat. Happy new year, everyone. May the teens be better for the world than were the aughts.

Interestingly, this is my first Portland overlap day. A year ago today, I arrived in Portland to interview for the job I have now. Three weeks later, after my partner had come up here, gotten himself a job, and found us the apartment, we drove a moving van & a station wagon with my partner, me, my dad, a dog, a cat, and a Betta fish, from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Portland, Oregon, and started a new life. I'll do a reflection post at some point, but not today.

Poem for today

2009-12-30T12:41:00.000-08:00

It's been one of those weeks that makes you wonder about the state of humanity. That sounds overdramatic.

Here's a poem for today by Allen Ginsberg.

An Eastern Ballad

I speak of love that comes to mind:
The moon is faithful, although blind;
She moves in thought she cannot speak.
Perfect care has made her bleak.

I never dreamed the sea so deep,
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
I have become another child.
I wake to see the world go wild.

Novel progress

2009-12-26T15:58:00.000-08:00

I hit 200 pages today, which feels really good. I'm getting close to some kind of a climactic showdown in the story, which is going to be complicated. I'm hoping I can get the book to 250 pages, which I think is a respectable length for a first novel.

I'm heartened by a novel I'm reading - The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin. It's less than 200 pages long, and it's been wildly successful. I think the classic novel Heart of Darkness is also about that length. So I'm in good company, even if I end up with a short-ish first novel. Ultimately, it's not the length of the thing that matters, of course, but I'm always intimidated when I pick up a tome that's more than 500 pages long, and I wonder - how the hell did this author write that much? In some cases, obviously, like pulp fiction, a lot of it is written from a formula. But there are a lot of authors out there with enormous imaginations - Frank Herbert comes to mind - who can just churn out thousands of pages worth of brilliance (mixed with incomprehensible crap).

Anyway - I'm getting there. I can honestly say at this point that I have a novel, and that I'm going to finish it.

I might post another excerpt of it soon.

Well I'm 31 today

2009-12-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

so there's that. :-)

And now for no reason at all

2009-12-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

Here's Carol Channing.

I had a little dreidel

2009-12-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

Happy Chanukah to one and all.

Novel progress has been stalled this week by various abstract "busyness." I'm going to try to write a lot more of it this weekend, since we're evidently going to be enjoying some lovely sleet, freezing rain, snow, and other unpleasantness.

Here's a sweet poem for today by the late, great, e. e. cummings, who may have been a raving lunatic and an antisemite, but he was also a literary innovator the likes of which the world rarely sees.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Excerpt from "The Shooter Vanished" (working title)

2009-12-07T22:05:00.001-08:00

EDIT 1/31/12: This scene appeared in a now-tossed first draft. Enjoy it as a one-off, but don't expect it to appear as a part of the final project.

Here's a small taste of my novel-in-progress, tentatively titled The Shooter Vanished. I've still got a lot of writing left to do - the novel currently stands at a very slim 178 pages, and I intend to get it to 250 at least. NANO really doesn't give you a novel at the end - it gives you a dime store paperback and a kick in the pants to put more meat on it.

I want to have the initial draft of the thing finished by January - that's my current goal. Initial draft by January, editing done by March or April, finalized by summer, published and making me millions by early 2011. Not ever having done this sort of thing before, of course, means that those dates are entirely arbitrary. Like Douglas Adams said,

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

So without more ado, here's something to whet your appetite.

Chapter 27

Michael was walking past Powell's bookstore. He was feeling a bit disoriented. He'd had another one of his mystery episodes – flashing lights, dizziness, a quick blackout. They'd been coming more frequently recently, and now they were accompanied by weird hallucinations. As he looked up at the marquee, he was absolutely astonished to see the name of the author who was up in the Pearl Room doing a signing at that very moment. Henry Garson?? After all these years of searching, of justice denied, of the pain of crushing loss destroying his spirit daily, could this be the moment when Michael finally got his revenge? Beyond which, what the hell was Garson doing out in public being featured and promoted by a major bookstore? The bastard had been in hiding for so long that Michael thought the world might have forgotten about him, especially after the controversy that had followed his acquittal in the murder trial.

Michael walked into Powell's. Some things didn't look quite right, and there were several book titles that made no sense to him, but Michael dismissed this as just being a symptom of the fact that he hadn't actually been into a bookstore in ages.

He ducked into the men's room and locked himself into a stall. He took out his pistol, which he had had to start carrying with him at all times just for his own peace of mind, and checked to make sure it was loaded. He wanted to see the look on that bastard Garson's face as he ended Garson's life, just as Garson must've looked straight into Jasmine's eyes before murdering her in cold blood.

Shit. He was having another episode. The world went swimmy, started to melt around the edges. Michael had been to quite a few doctors over the past few weeks, but none of them had been able to explain what the hell had been happening to him. Now, here it was, happening again. At a most inconvenient time, actually.

He sat down on the toilet, closed his eyes, and waited for the world to resolve itself again. There was the flash of light. He opened his eyes again. The world reasserted itself into his vision. He shook off the dizziness, stood up, and put his gun back in its holster nestled under his left arm and well-concealed under his finely tailored wool blazer. He brushed the wrinkles out of his slacks, opened the stall door, and walked over to the mirror. He looked at himself. His eyes were a little bit bloodshot, with black smears under them from the sleep he hadn't been getting enough of recently. He studied the ugly scar on his face, from a jagged beer bottle swung at him several years before. He opened his mouth, grinning at himself, checking for food between his teeth. Satisfied that his teeth were clean, he addressed his attire. If he was going to do this revenge thing, he wanted to do it while he was looking his classiest.

His gray wool slacks were immaculate, the careful crease in them undamaged by the walking he'd done to get here. His Italian loafers were shiny and polished. His maroon cashmere turtleneck draped across his slim form perfectly, and the color exactly complemented his black sport coat.

Michael took pride in his appearance, and used it to his advantage in his line of work.

Satisfied that he was appropriately dressed for his revenge, Michael walked out of the men's room, found the elevator, and started to take it up to the Pearl Room.

As the elevator doors opened, the world started to melt again. Mike cursed himself, determined to shake this one off so that he could complete his revenge. As he looked around through the haze, he noticed something odd. The Pearl Room seemed to be empty. No chairs were lined up in front of a podium where Garson should have spoken before beginning the book signing. There was no podium. Mike kept walking, through the haze, convinced that this hallucination was just part of whatever was happening to him.

There was the flash, and as the world resolved itself, more quickly than it ever had, Michael was staring at Henry Garson, at his smug face, that sickly sweet smile that he used to con the world into thinking he was such a good guy, that face that had convinced a jury that there just wasn't enough evidence to convict him of Jasmine's murder.

Without even thinking about it, he took out his gun and fired. There were screams, but they were lost in a fog that was enveloping Michael. Suddenly, Michael gasped. Through the fog, through the confusion, he could swear that he saw, running toward Henry and screaming...no, no, it was impossible...Jasmine??

Another flash. Michael blacked out.

Did it.

2009-11-29T17:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it - 50,000 words in 30 days. Who knew that such things were possible?

46,684

2009-11-28T18:42:00.001-08:00

Home stretch now. I should hit the 50,000 mark tomorrow. Very exciting. The novel won't be done, but I'll have completed the overall task. I will have shown myself that I can write a damned novel, and I can do it in a month, even while having a job and a life. This whole process has been pretty incredible, a real learning experience, a resounding "PROBABLY" to the question of whether I have what it takes to try to be a serious writer, to make it a career, to put myself out there and write material that I can send out to be published.

One thing I have learned is this. If, during this month, I had been able to devote my time solely to NANO, it is entirely possible that I would have finished this novel in two weeks. Not just the 50,000 words - finished the novel. With the pace I was writing, with the solid story that I had to work with, with the creative juices pouring out of my brain, this story would have written itself very, very, quickly, given no other distractions.

That says something.

38596

2009-11-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

Did a bunch of catch up tonight after totally blowing off my NANO this weekend. Now I'm back on track. Digging where the story is right now - clearly this thing is going to surpass the 50,000 word goal and become a real full length novel. There's just a lot that still has to happen, and it won't happen in 10,000 words.

Getting toward the end of this is a pretty incredible feeling. I've now written a story that is almost four times longer than anything I've ever written. And what's more, it doesn't suck! I mean it'll need a hell of a lot of revision, tightening, editing, proofreading, tweaking, whatever you want to call it, but I think I've really got something here. Many thanks to my Portland crew for opening my eyes to Nano. I've got something I never thought I'd have - a damned good start on a possibly publishable novel.

Anyway - onward and upward.

31,739

2009-11-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

I committed the cardinal NANO sin of revising last night, because I realized that my timeline made no sense. And since the second part of my book is a retelling of the first part, from a different perspective, it's sort of important that I get the timeline hammered down. This weekend, I might go through and write an actual timeline with notes as to when important events occur. Then again, I'm reminded that the goal of NANO isn't necessarily to write something perfect, it's to write something quickly and consistently, so I may not do so much of that kind of detail work.

NANO isn't easy. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's certainly not easy.

In other news, I do believe that it has rained every single day for the past couple of weeks at least. While at the start of this process, my mind was mossy, now I'm just growing moss.

In honor of moss, here's this:

The IT Crowd - Maurice Moss - fire
by Reghy

Quote and video for today

2009-11-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

--Carl Sagan

In honor of the space shuttle lifting off.

Passed 27,000 words last night. Still on track.

I've often felt like this on a Sunday.

2009-11-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you’ve taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."

NANO is at just over 26,000 words. I'm still on track, but I killed the cushion I had last week. Gotta hit it hard this week.

20,050

2009-11-08T16:58:00.001-08:00

words and still going strong. The only trouble I'm having is that I think I might be telling my story too quickly. I'm going to have to go back and add some bulk into the plot before I get to this point in the story, but that's fine. I don't know though - part of me is questioning whether the arbitrary 50,000 word goal of Nano is something I need to be concerned about if it causes me to add unnecessary filler to my story. Then again, the point is to write a novel, not a short story - so I need the story to fill the pages. That's the challenge.

Nano update

2009-11-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

I've got 7282 words now - this story is racing out of my head faster than a metaphor I can't think of right now because all of my words are being sucked out of my head by this novel.

I won't be posting it here - this is something I want to get published, like actually published, some day, so no peeksies. And for those of you dying to know what happens with The Nondescript Man, well, I'll post the rest of that story soon, probably. But that's just a bit of silliness.

Oh, and forget about Ark Ship for a while - that rewrite is on hold until after Nano, and then I might just turn it into a novel. I'm on a roll, baby.

Like Kramer said, in that one episode of Seinfeld, "Oh, I'm percolating, Jerry. I'm telling you, I have never felt so fertile. I'm mossy, Jerry. My brain is mossy."

And it begins.

2009-11-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

National Novel Writing Month.

Current word count: 1942.

Taking a break. Hoping for at least 3000 words today.

Poem for Today

2009-10-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

Bowery Blues

by Jack Kerouac

The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, outside,
I don't know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To cut
Out

For no Church told me
No Guru holds me
No advice
Just stone
Of New York
And on the cafeteria
We hear
The saxophone
O dead Ruby
Died of Shot
In Thirty Two,
Sounding like old times
And de bombed
Empty decapitated
Murder by the clock.

And I see Shadows
Dancing into Doom
In love, holding
Tight the lovely asses
Of the little girls
In love with sex
Showing themselves
In white undergarments
At elevated windows
Hoping for the Worst.

I can't take it
Anymore
If I can't hold
My little behind
To me in my room

Then it's goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren't as good
As they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think
When it starts in
Hitting your head
In with Buzz
Of glittergold
Heaven's Angels
Wailing

Saying

We've been waiting for you
Since Morning, Jack
Why were you so long
Dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part
(of Nothingness
I sing)

Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop.

Regarding "Ark Ship"

2009-10-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

I'm rewriting it from scratch (both because it needs it and because doing so will be good prep for Nano). Going back through it, it's pretty clear that much of the story suffers from a dry narrative structure and lack of descriptive language. Still, I think the concept of the story is solid, and I want to try to make it into something good. I wrote 6 pages of the rewrite this weekend, and I'm pretty happy with the end result. That said, I'm not posting the rewrite here until I'm absolutely satisfied with it.

The Nondescript Man - Part 1 of 2

2009-10-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

This is a little something I wrote a few months ago. And yes, I know, I reuse character names, especially the name Mike. I have no idea why.

The Nondescript Man

I

Mike Harris was sitting in the coffee shop with an imposing stack of textbooks next to him. He had to study for his final exams in geophysics and astronomy, and he only had three hours before the first one began.

Julie Smith did not have any exams to study for. She was at the coffee shop reading a newspaper and enjoying a lovely cup of tea. She made a point of going to coffee shops and ordering tea. It was her own private little joke.

Eric Vaughn was wearing a dark suit and carrying a laptop bag. He ordered a double espresso and sat down, placing the laptop bag on the table. Out of it he took out a very expensive looking and very sleek laptop, opened it, and began to type. His novel was due at the publisher's in two weeks, and he had a few big threads he still needed to tie up.

Julie was the first of the three to leave, and she closed her newspaper with a flourish, drained the last of her tea, and heaved herself to her feet. At that moment she noticed Eric and recognized him as one of her favorite sci fi authors. She just loved his series of novels about the great Flabian space empire. She debated whether to go over and introduce herself, but she saw that he was typing intently on his laptop and decided not to disturb him. On her way out, she tried to get a glimpse of what he was typing, but she realized she wouldn't really be able to see anything without making it really obvious that she was reading over his shoulder. A car accident several years earlier had left her with a slight limp, but she carried herself proudly despite it.

Mike had been studying for more than two and a half hours, when he stopped, looked up, blinked, and looked at his watch. Realizing the time, he leapt to his feet, struggled to get all of his books back into his backpack, hefted the now incredibly heavy backpack onto his back, and stumbled quickly out the door.

Eric, engrossed in his writing, was oblivious to the comings and goings of the other patrons. He was on a roll. His central character was about to encounter the thing that would explain the tightly woven and intricate plot that Eric had spent months putting together. It was a critical moment for the novel, and he had to get it just right.

Unfortunately, Eric had also failed to notice that his laptop was about to lose battery power. He had meant to get the battery replaced months ago, of course, for a battery that would allow him to go out into the woods, away from every day annoyances and distractions, and sit under a tree and write for hours. Now he noticed the little battery icon on his system tray, saw that it had a little exclamation mark next to it, and he clicked his tongue in frustration. He saved his document, closed the laptop, put it back in its bag, and left the coffee shop.

A fourth character, who had gone unnoticed by any of the others, and indeed had gone unnoticed by the staff of the coffee shop, stood up from the table in the corner where he had been sitting quietly, peering at the other patrons, and scribbling with a black pen on a yellow legal pad. He was a thin man, forty-ish, bald, wearing a nondescript blue shirt, khaki pants, and black sneakers.

The barista looked to be slightly surprised to see the man as he left. Her gaze slid off of him almost immediately, and she had forgotten about him entirely within a few minutes.

Eric was on the phone with his agent, assuring her that his novel would, in fact, be ready by the deadline, and that no, she didn't have to rent a hotel room and lock him into it until he finished. He hung up the phone, sighed, and padded into his kitchen to look for a snack.

His foot hit something lying on the floor. He looked down, and was astonished to find a red toy firetruck. He picked it up and examined it closely. His eyes widened as his mind went back to his childhood, and he quickly turned the firetruck over to look at the bottom. There, crudely scratched into the plastic bottom of the toy, were the initials “E. V.” But what was it doing in his kitchen, today, now, when he hadn't seen it in twenty years?

III

Mike was just leaving the student union and looking at a stack of mail in his hand. He was a little worried about his astronomy final, but he was pretty sure he had aced the geophysics exam.

As he walked across campus to his dorm, he noticed that one of the envelopes in his hand was bulky and had an odd weight to it. He wondered what it might be as he tore it open. Inside was a small brass harmonica and two blue marbles. Surprised, he looked at the envelope again, but there was no return address, and no note inside to explain the items.

Julie was taking a long, hot bubble bath. She found that the slight pain she continued to feel from her accident was eased by a nice bath. Her bathroom was small but cozy and functional, and she had arranged several candles around the room to make the bath just that much more pleasant. She had placed a small radio on top of her toilet tank, and the radio station she enjoyed was currently playing some very nice bossa nova music.

As the last chords of “The Girl from Ipanema” ended, the disc jockey broke in and announced that because of a special request, the station would now play a rather obscure piece by an artist that, until now, Julie had thought almost nobody else had heard of. In fact, it was her favorite song, and she hadn't heard it in ten years, though she had searched far and wide for the CD. Delighted and amazed, Julie sat back and hummed along.

Somewhere nearby, a nondescript man walked through a park, stopped in the middle, and seemed to disappear.

Nobody could quite explain what had happened. The news stations trained their cameras on the scene, and the polished reporters blabbered on about how nobody could quite explain what had happened. Witnesses described how a large, cylindrically shaped section of grass in the park had seemed to spontaneously ignite. Now, what looked like a tiny crop circle was burnt into the middle of the park.

Eric, who had taken a break from writing and was going to meet a friend for a beer, stopped to see what all of the commotion was about. Julie was already there and peering intently at the burned patch on the ground. She saw Eric and decided that this time she would introduce herself.

“Hi, I'm a big fan of your novels,” she began, offering her hand. Eric, who was a bit distracted, gave her a cursory “Thank you,” shook her hand, and went back to looking at the scene. Julie decided to try again.

“So what do you think happened here? I bet it was the Flabians,” she joked, hoping that referencing his novels might draw Eric into conversation.

Eric laughed. “No, I doubt it. Remember, the Flabians use a propulsion system that doesn't create heat.”

“Right, I remember that now.” Julie grinned. “I'm Julie. It's a real pleasure to meet you, Mr. Vaughn.”

“I'm always pleased to meet a fan.” Eric started walking to try to get a better view of the scene. This was weird stuff. Julie followed a respectful distance behind.

Suddenly, one of the news reporters noticed Eric, and motioned for the camera to follow her. She shoved her microphone in Eric's face. “Well, folks, this is a treat. I have with me Mr. Eric Vaughn, noted author of the Flabian Continuum series of science fiction novels. Mr. Vaughn, this seems like your area. What do you think?”

Eric blinked, startled and somewhat annoyed at the ambush. “Um, well, I'm not sure what this is,” he began, “but I don't think we should jump to any conclusions before the proper authorities have had their chance to investigate.”

The reporter was persistent. “But really, a cylindrical patch of grass just spontaneously combusts? Sounds like something out of one of your novels, like an invisible spaceship taking off or something, doesn't it?” The reporter was grinning. She was desperate for something concrete to report on about this situation, but since nobody had any information, she had been forced to just kind of make it up as she went along. Now, she thought, she had an exclusive scoop that could keep this story interesting, just as long as she could keep Eric from escaping.

“Look, you have to remember that my novels are fict-” Eric began, but was cut off mid-sentence by a low rumbling sound that seemed to emanate from the ground below his feet. The crowd of onlookers and reporters started murmuring, and the cameras swung wildly, trying to find the source of the phenomenon.

A nondescript man materialized in the middle of the patch of burned grass. He walked past the reporters and the crowd of onlookers and off into the night. Nobody paid attention to him. The rumbling stopped.

The intercom buzzed. “Yes, captain?”

“What's the status of our man downstairs?”

“Well, captain, the items are in place and the ball is rolling.”

“You know that this whole scheme sounds like a bad science fiction movie, don't you?”

“Yes, captain, but we have our orders.”

“I know. I just really don't get why we have to go to all this trouble.”

“Now, captain, you know better than to ask those kinds of questions.”

“I know, I know. Ok, what's next?”

VII

Mike had forgotten about the mysterious harmonica and marbles he had received a few days before. He had tossed them into the general pile of stuff that he kept piled on the desk in his dorm room. Sure, he had wondered who would send him such an odd assortment of items. After all, he had once attempted to play the harmonica, but like most people, had given up after making some really horrid noises with it. And he had never been any good at marbles, though he had had a childhood friend who had tried to teach him how to play.

Right now, he was busy packing to go home for winter break. He shoved all of his dirty laundry into a giant mesh sack, put his mp3 player, a book, and his toothbrush into a messenger bag, and checked to make sure he had his bus ticket. At first, he couldn't find his ticket, and in a panic, he started rifling through the pile on his desk. He came upon the harmonica and the marbles, but he tossed them aside in his frantic search for the bus ticket.

Finally, he found the ticket and put it into his messenger bag.

Suddenly, he started feeling woozy. He stumbled, fell onto the floor, and passed out.

VIII

The news reporters had moved on to other matters, because nobody had any answers to what had happened in the park. At first, Eric had found himself bombarded with requests for interviews, because after that one reporter had gone off on her bizarre tangent about invisible spaceships, every other news agency had trained their attention directly on him. He didn't really understand why; after all, in his stories, the aliens traveled by supercooled fusion warp, which didn't generate any heat, and none of the spaceships had a cloaking device. He wasn't about to steal that idea from Roddenberry. In fact, he remembered a scene from Star Trek IV in which the crew had landed a cloaked Klingon vessel in a park, and it had generated a large commotion when it had taken off. Maybe the news reporters were confusing his novels with Trek. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. But beyond all of that, his novels were fiction, for crying out loud. He wasn't quite ready to believe that aliens had landed and were setting parks on fire.

But then there was the matter of this firetruck. Eric was one of those people whose mind connected things together that shouldn't necessarily be connected. He loved conspiracy theories, and had a whole notebook full of ideas about the Kennedy assassination. He had read and seen the Da Vinci Code more than a few times, and had even done some research on his own to see how much if any of it was true. So what was this firetruck doing in his apartment? This firetruck that he hadn't seen since he was a small child? He picked it up again and stared at it, hoping that it would explain itself.

Show, don't tell

2009-10-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

Show, don't tell, is one of the cardinal rules of good writing. I've known that for years, kind of in the back of my mind, but somehow I'd kind of forgotten what it meant until I was reminded of it by a friend at a writing group last week. Instead of, for example, saying, "He walked into the room and sat down," it's better to describe the guy and the room using as many descriptive words as possible. This rule will help me immensely when I'm doing Nano, which is all about writing as many words as possible as quickly as possible.

Here's what I'd like to know. I've just finished posting Ark Ship here. Clearly it's not a finished product; it needs work, hell it needs a new title, but what I'm afraid of is that for a majority of the story, I "told." I'm considering doing a total rewrite, because I think the concept of the story is sound, but the execution may be weak.

If you've read Ark Ship, please tell me if you think I'm "showing" or "telling" you the story, because clearly that's an area where I need improvement.

Or, if you think Ark Ship is a work of staggering genius as it is, then hey, I'd like to hear that as well.

kthxbai.

Ark Ship - Part 6 (The End)

2009-10-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

A financial crisis at home had exacerbated the problem with the Russians. A major celebrity had been found in a compromising situation with a politician. Those two stories, along with a myriad of juicy gossip and chatter, were dominating the news.

Sutton was exhausted. His team had been working diligently to try to get the tachyon communication system up and running, and they had just made a major breakthrough. A grainy picture of Susan Macintosh appeared on the screen in front of them. The audio was distorted, but audible. She said, “Hello, Earth. If you can hear this, and see me, then we've done it.”

Sutton and his team cheered. With any luck, Susan would be getting a video message from them within a couple of days. Sutton instructed his press assistant to contact the news outlets. Sutton himself, after punching out a quick quantum message of congratulations to Susan, called Markey at the White House. He and Markey discussed the breakthrough excitedly and they were both awed by the potential to reinvigorate the space program. Markey said that he'd get the news to the President immediately, but of course, with everything else that was going on, Markey couldn't guarantee any kind of Presidential response or action. Sutton disconnected the call. His press assistant came over to him.

“Sir, I'm sorry, but none of the major news outlets will touch the story. They've all told me that there's too much happening on this planet to worry about stuff happening on other planets.”

“Dammit. I was afraid of that.” Sutton shook his head in frustration.

“I do have a reporter from Scientific American coming over to do a piece.”

“Well, at least that's something.”

Susan stared at the clumsy video rig she and her team had constructed. With any luck, the message from Sutton's team would be coming through any minute. Susan was desperate that this would work, because Woods and his anti-Earth supporters had come to dominate the colony. She hoped that seeing a video link to their home planet would help change some minds.

The video screen flashed a couple of times, and then slowly, a grainy picture came up. It showed a small room filled with computer equipment. A man in the middle of the screen started speaking, the audio distorted but audible. “Hello, Susan. I'm George Sutton. If you see me, then we've done it.”

Susan smiled and tapped a quantum message back to Sutton – they now knew that two way video communication was possible. It was an incredible breakthrough.

Something was nagging at her, though. Somehow, she had expected – she didn't know – something more official looking? The room in the video didn't look like the old newsreel footage she'd seen of NASA Mission Control. It looked like a small office building. And nobody was wearing a uniform. She decided it was probably nothing, and decided to call a colony meeting to discuss the breakthrough and watch the video message.

The meeting was sparsely attended. Woods had told his supporters to stay in their own quarters, and many of them had. Still, Susan was convinced that she could move a few people, and maybe they would move a few more. She stood up at the lectern and pointed at the video display.

“For centuries, the only contact our little band of explorers has had with our home planet has been through quantum code. Short, typed messages, no audio, no video, no real connection. Well, today that has changed. Thanks to our good friend, George Sutton, whose ancestor Verne Poole helped lead the crew that started our journey across the stars, and thanks to my science team here, who have wrought miracles from ancient technology, we now have a new, more concrete, more direct connection to our home world.

“Tachyons – particles that travel faster than light – can carry audio and video messages. Until recently, this has only been a theoretical statement, at the edges of physics. Well, it's no longer just a theory.”

With that, Susan activated the message. The colonists watched, and Susan could tell that they were impressed. When the message was over, Susan said, “We've set it up so that we can receive a video message from Earth about once a week. We can also send Earth messages about what we're doing.”

Susan paused and looked serious for a moment. “Look, I know it's tempting to want to abandon contact with Earth and just do our own thing. I know it's sometimes difficult to feel a connection to that planet. But Earth is our home – it's our origin. It's where we come from. And that's important. I think it's very important both for us and them.

“Please, when you leave here, please talk to your friends and family. Tell them not to buy into radical isolationism. We need Earth, and they need us.”

There was a smattering of applause, and the colonists filed out. Outside the meeting hall, a small knot of protesters carried signs demanding a halt to all communications with Earth. Susan noticed to her dismay that Mike Harris seemed to be among the leaders of this protest.

George Sutton had finally managed to attract the attention of a few of the news outlets, and he had made the rounds of the chat shows to discuss the tachyon communication breakthrough. Of course, he had to argue and claw his way around the army of pundits that the news outlets put on the chat shows with him to show a “balanced” perspective, many of whom had absolutely no scientific knowledge whatsoever. George's disdain for the media grew stronger every day. His disdain for government also grew. Despite this major breakthrough, nobody in Congress wanted to even talk to him about the possibility of America starting up a new space program. And President Gibson, while he was good for an encouraging word and the occasional press statement about the importance of continued space research, certainly hadn't done much to move the ball forward. George understood that there was a financial crisis, and the situation with Russia, and blah blah blah, but there was always that crap – politics was never quiet.

A new video message was coming through from the colony. Susan's grainy face filled his video monitor. She was discussing the colony's upcoming elections, and George was alarmed to hear about Woods and his band of isolationists. Then, Susan asked the question that George had hoped he would never have to answer.

“I hate to ask this, but - I am talking to NASA, right?”

The first video message from Earth had changed the political dynamics in the colony, but not as much as Susan had hoped. Woods had lost some following, and one of the other candidates, a charismatic leader of Susan's science team who enthusiastically backed continuing communications with Earth, was picking up support. Susan continued to be dismayed by Mike's devotion to the isolationist cause, and she worried that if Mike and John Woods got two of the three administrator seats, it would mean the end of everything she'd worked for.

George's face appeared on her video monitor. Unlike the last message, he was alone, sitting behind a desk, and when he spoke, Susan's jaw dropped.

“Susan, I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell you about this, but I believe in total openness and honesty – especially now, since we've made this major breakthrough. The truth is that I don't work for NASA. In fact, NASA doesn't exist anymore. It was privatized. America doesn't have a space program anymore. You represent our last great space project.”

As George continued, and explained the whole sordid history of the last two and half centuries, Susan realized just how completely alienated her group of colonists was. Maybe the isolationists were right, she thought to herself. After all – if Earth doesn't care about us, then why should we care about Earth? But it was what George said next that really took her by surprise.

“Now that I've told you everything, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself that your isolationist comrades might be right – that if Earth doesn't care about you, then why should you care about Earth? But that's exactly the wrong attitude to take here. I've been working my tail off to get your mission the respect and admiration and honor that it deserves here. I've been in regular contact with the President, and he is very supportive of you. I've been calling Congressmen. I've been on the news, advocating for a rebirth of America's space program. Your video messages have been played all over the planet. There is movement, but it's slow. We need you - now more than ever - to show us why Earth needs to care about space.

“Obviously, it's up to you whether you share the information I've just given you with the rest of the colonists. If you do, it might embolden the isolationists. I recognize that. By telling you this, I might have completely doomed everything we've been trying to achieve. But again – I've come to believe that if we're got a chance to succeed here – to make people on Earth interested in space again, and to give your colony the respect and honor that it deserves – then we need to be totally honest with each other.

“I give you my word that the Ark Ship Project will always be devoted to you, and with any luck, we will make the rest of the world see how important you are.”

The message ended.

Susan's face on the video screen was grave, and her message was simple. “I've been instructed by the new co-administrators of the Colony to cease all communications with Earth, effective immediately.”

George shook his head slowly. His weeks of publicity, of campaigning, of meeting after meeting, of slowly turning the tide of public opinion until there was at last a beginning of something that could lead to a resurgence in space research – finished. Without the excitement caused by the video messages from the Colony, the momentum he'd built would fade and disappear. Worse than that, perhaps, was the fact the Ark Ship Project's mission was finished.

The story was leaked to the media later that day, and this time, the media ate it up. Of course they did, thought George. Anytime something failed spectacularly and embarrassed or otherwise discredited someone important – that was something the media would report on mercilessly. The Ark Ship Project was attacked first for lying to the ship's crew for two and a half centuries by not telling them about the political changes on Earth, then attacked again for telling the colonists the truth now. Funding sources dried up, the office was closed, and George and his team found themselves unemployed. George's team did receive one consolation prize. Liaison Markey had convinced President Gibson to purchase the tachyon communication system and put together a research team to study its possible uses. It wasn't NASA, but at least there was a government team working on something related to space travel again.

Life in the colony continued apace, and soon a new generation – the first ever humans born on an alien planet – began to grow up. In school, they learned that their parents had come across the stars, but they learned nothing about the planet that had launched their exodus. Instead, they were taught a new history, emphasizing the importance of self reliance and independence, and the incontrovertible fact that the planet where they were living was the only home they would ever know.

On Earth, the colony was quickly forgotten, once the next celebrity/political scandal took over the news reports. The Ark Ship Project was relegated to a footnote in the history books, and the Houston Space Center, Inc. continued as Earth's only viable space project, launching billboards continuously into low Earth orbit.

Ark Ship - Part Five

2009-10-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

For the next several weeks, the colonists busied themselves with the task of putting together a viable, comfortable community. The ark ship was fully dismantled and brought down in cargo ships, all parts of it integrated into the building of communal structures. Greenhouses were built to grow the crops that the colonists had brought with them that weren't compatible with the planet's arid soil. A farming rotation was established, with all able-bodied colonists taking a shift tending the few crops that had been implantable directly onto the planet's surface. Exploratory teams continued to map the colony's borders and venture beyond them. There had been a few accidents, injuries, and mishaps, but, all things considered, Susan was pleased with the colony's progress.

With all of the colony's activities, sometimes Susan forgot to check in with Communicator Sutton, even though he sent her a status request message every morning. After a time, George began to become concerned, because there seemed to be an increasing interval between messages, and he would often not hear from Susan for several days. The line connecting them seemed to be fraying.

Also fraying was George's patience with the media. He had tried to get someone, anyone, to provide continuous coverage of the colonists' progress. So far, only one major news outlet had done an extended piece about the project, and that had been weeks ago, and had focused more on the history of the project and the public backlash that had essentially destroyed the American space program after the launch of the ark ship.

George had always felt personally insulted when he'd read the historical accounts of that period. One of his ancestors had been aboard that ship, and George valued that connection. It was why he'd taken the job at the Ark Ship Project, and had wrangled his way to a position as Communicator, so that he'd be the one to make contact when the ship landed. And he had, and it had been an amazing moment for him. But it was also strangely unsatisfying. The world continued on its way, only a few people taking note of what he had heard the President call “an Apollo moment.” Sure, George had spoken to the President, but still. More needed to be done here. An appropriate global recognition of the momentousness of the event just hadn't happened, and to George, that was a grave injustice.

He grabbed an info pad and pulled up some of the news footage from after the launch, when the public backlash had begun in earnest. Senator Vince Hockley of Oklahoma, a radical anti-spending crusader, was debating NASA Administrator Jan Mahoney, on a cable news talk show.

Hockley said, “Look, you folks at NASA just blew about a trillion dollars shooting something into space that we'll never see again. Meanwhile, the deficit -”

Mahoney interrupted, “The ark ship project was deficit neutral, Senator. You know that. I know that. The American people know that. It was paid for by repealing tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, and by -”

“Yeah, you liberals raised taxes! You raised taxes to shoot a thing into space that'll take, what is it, 250 years to get to where it's going? Now how is that something I should pay for, when I'll be long dead -”

“If you'll recall, Senator, when the project was passed by Congress and signed by President Blancheford, there was overwhelming public support for it.”

“But the American people were never told the real cost of the project -”

“Look, Senator. I don't recall you being this upset when former President Stockard blew trillions of dollars on an intractable war with Venezuela – a war, I might add, that we're still paying for.”

“We went to war with Venezuela to protect freedom and democracy down there. Those pinkos were about to spread their socialist garbage all over South America. That was something we couldn't risk.”

George knew the rest. Hockley, who had always been a crusader against what he perceived as “government waste,” had gone on to lead a vicious smear campaign against President Blancheford and her party in Congress, and had used the massive cost of the ark ship project as a rallying cry that cost Blancheford her reelection chances and shifted the balance of power in Congress. Eight years later, Hockley had been elected President himself, and had privatized every bit of the government he could get his hands on. The resulting economic chaos had almost bankrupted the country, with ripples felt around the world, and Hockley had been driven out of office in shame. Unfortunately, the damage had been done, and America's space program lay in ruins, broken up, split, and privatized into a dozen different and competing pieces. America retreated into itself, and much of the world, watching the drama unfold, followed America's lead. The space elevator was dismantled and sold for scrap, the International Space Station project was abandoned, and the station itself, along with the orbital construction dock, eventually decayed its orbit and burned up in the atmosphere.

Of course, thought George, the colonists weren't aware of any of that, and that fact gave him hope. If he could convince the world to care about the colonists, then maybe he could get the world to care about space again.

He decided he needed to talk to the President.

Mike and Susan were having dinner in the colony's newly constructed communal dining room. In preparing for her role as Coordinator, Susan had done a lot of reading about the various ways humans had organized themselves in communities throughout history. She had a particular affinity for the Kibbutz movement of twentieth century Israel, especially since at least one of her ancestors who was part of the launch crew had been Jewish. Kibbutzim had been developed to foster a sense of communal responsibility and the sharing of limited resources in a difficult an untamed environment. Susan felt that such a philosophy would serve the colony well, and so she had guided the construction of the colony so that it roughly resembled a Kibbutz. Colonists had their own sleeping quarters, but they dined communally, shared work duties, and shared resources equally among them. So far, it was working well, but she knew that the colony's natural growth pattern would necessarily create challenges to this model.

“Any word from Earth?” Mike asked.

Susan looked up from her food, startled and confused a bit by the question. “Oh shoot – I keep forgetting to contact them. I hope they don't think something horrible has happened.”

“If you'd like, I can help you with the messages.”

“Thanks, Mike, maybe I'll take you up on that one of these days.”

“I know we've all been pretty busy, but hey, we've got a pretty good colony taking shape here.”

Susan nodded. “Yep. I'm pretty proud of it. Pretty soon I'm going to look into the feasibility of creating a democratic governance structure. I'm not comfortable being a dictator.”

Mike was surprised by Susan's admission. He hadn't thought of her as being a dictator, because the technical nature of the task before them necessitated that certain people take on certain roles, and Susan had long been designated as Coordinator. It was just what had been decided. Still, as he thought about it, he realized that she was right. After a certain point, there would be no continuing pressing need for her to remain as Coordinator, and any colonist should have the democratic right to lead. Hell, Mike thought to himself that he might want to run for some colony office. He was getting a little bit weary of tending the greenhouses.

The Russia situation was simmering at a slow boil, and so President Gibson felt for the first time in weeks that he could relax. He was growing tired of fighting the same battles with the same people, knowing that these battles had been being fought for centuries before he was born and would continue to be fought centuries after he died. Most of it, he knew, was for show. For votes. Nationalistic military posturing always played well to a certain portion of the populace. It had worked well throughout history, and the United States certainly had its own examples of such nonsense. Give the people something to fear, and then tell them you can solve it, and you'll get their vote every time. Gibson himself had used that tactic in his own campaign.

Liaison Markey had been bugging him for a meeting, and today, Gibson felt that talking to Markey would be the best thing to take his mind off of things for a while. The presidential secretary showed Markey into the Oval Office.

“Mr. President, thanks for seeing me.”

“No problem, Henry. I'm always happy to hear about the exploits of our intrepid space team.”

“Well, I've been contacted by Communicator Sutton, who has an interesting point to make.” Markey hesitated. “He said you and he talked, and you referred to this as an 'Apollo moment.'”

The President nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Well, sir, if it is an Apollo moment, then why doesn't it feel like one? Why isn't the world tuning in?”

“I don't know – it's been two and a half centuries since that ship took off. And we really haven't had a space program since then. People have taken it off their radar. They're busy living their lives, going to work, trying to pay the bills.”

“Yes, I know that, Mr. President, but -”

“But what? It's not newsworthy anymore. Joe Schmo out there learned from his history teacher that the whole project was a waste of taxpayer money. That's how the official history goes. The official line is that the project nearly bankrupted the country, and that we're still paying for it today. And it's been two and a half centuries. And I can't risk my own political neck to tell Joe Schmo that his history book is wrong.”

“But his history book is wrong, Mr. President. There are now hundreds of human beings living about a hundred and fifty light years away, establishing the first human foothold on an extrasolar planet. I don't call that a waste. I call that an amazing feat of human ingenuity.”

“I know that. So what does Mr. Sutton want me to do, exactly?”

“We want to figure out a way to set up a video link between Earth and the colonists.”

“But that's impossible. The only way we can communicate with them is through quantum code. Everybody knows that.”

“Everybody knew that until just recently, sir. We've discovered that a team in France is working on tachyon communication.”

“Tachyons. Particles that move faster than light speed, right?”

“Yes, sir. The French team believes that they can instruct the colonists to modify their existing equipment to allow for the transmission of tachyon particles between Earth and the colony. That would definitely allow for audio communication, but it might also allow for video. It all depends on the quality of the colonists' video equipment and whether it can be modified to accept the tachyon particles.”

“Would that allow for instantaneous communication?”

“No, there would still be a delay. The French team estimates it'd be a week or so between messages. But still, if we can get a video message to the colony, and get a video message back, now that would be something the news media wouldn't be able to ignore.”

“Alright, tell Sutton he has my backing to look into this. But let's keep a lid on it for now. Cat, bag, and all that.”

“Understood, sir.”

The colony was preparing for its first democratic elections. Susan had convened a meeting of all of the colonists to hammer out what kind of governance structure they wanted, and the colonists had voted to establish a council of three co-administrators. Seven colonists had stepped forward to declare candidacy for one of the three spots, including Mike Harris.

Among the other candidates was a charismatic leader named John Woods, who had become the de facto leader of the “anti-Earth” faction of the colonists. Essentially, he argued, the colony had no connection to Earth, really, because of the time and distance separating them. Therefore, the colony should cut off all communication with Earth and establish its own identity and culture. He had a growing number of supporters, and Susan worried about the effect that this isolationist group might have on colony morale.

Susan herself had decided not to be a candidate for one of the three administrator positions, because she felt very strongly that other colonists should be given the chance to lead. She had been busy communicating with Earth and trying to figure out this new tachyon communication system they wanted to try. She had a team of scientific experts working on modifying their existing equipment to accept the tachyons and translate them into audio and video. It had been a daunting task, and Susan wasn't at all sure it would work. Their efforts thus far hadn't been promising, and Susan feared that if Woods became one of the colony's administrators and managed to pass through his mandate to cease communication, all of this work would be for nothing. Susan was convinced, however, that if audio and video communication with Earth became possible, the dynamics on the colony would shift against Woods and his isolationist comrades. Since elections were to be held a little over a month, the situation was becoming more urgent by the day.

She heard a noise outside, and peered out the window of her office. She was surprised to see a small knot of people, including Woods, holding a protest against her. They held signs demanding she stop work on the tachyon project, and chanted anti-Earth slogans. This was the first protest she'd ever actually seen, and she wasn't exactly sure how to respond.

Susan walked outside to talk to Woods and see if she could appease the protesters. She raised her voice to be heard above the cacophonous chanting.

“Now look here, everyone – let's talk about this. Hey -” The group simply tried to drown her out. She continued trying to communicate with them, but it was clear that the group's interest lay in disruption rather than dialogue.

Mike wasn't as convinced as Susan of the importance of maintaining communication with Earth. He had attended several of the meetings led by Woods, and he liked the idea of the colony creating its own identity. He was, however, wary of the charisma that Woods exuded, of the fierce loyalty his followers had for him. Mike had read plenty of history books that detailed the kinds of major problems such a cult of personality could engender.

John Woods had noticed Mike at his meetings, which wasn't difficult, as Mike was certainly the youngest colonist to have taken an interest in local politics. John knew that Mike was running for an administrator position, and he hoped to sway Mike to his way of thinking and campaign together as a kind of coalition ticket. Heck, if John could sway one more of the candidates to his side, he'd have a powerful case to make to the colonists to vote for a unified anti-Earth ticket.

Susan had seen Mike attending John Woods' meetings, and she was worried that his association with Woods would fray their longstanding friendship. During one of their regular meals together, she broached the subject.

“Mike, I'm a little concerned about your association with John Woods.”

Mike looked at her, surprised, and said, “Why?”

“Well, it's just, I'm worried that if he gets his way, we'll lose a vital link to our history. I mean, I know we've been separated from Earth for two and a half centuries – but that planet is where we come from, and we should honor that. They spent trillions of dollars to send us out here – we can't just abandon them.”

Mike thought for a second. “I see your point, but I also see Woods' point. If we tether ourselves to the Earth, a planet that none of us has ever seen, then we'll never be able to establish our own identity as a people.”

“I don't agree with that. I think we've already established our own identity as a people, and we've done so not despite our continued link with Earth, but because of it.”

“Look, Susan, why do you feel so threatened by Woods? You're the one who wanted democracy here – and this is what democracy looks like.”

“I know that.” Susan sighed. “It's just – I'm working on a big project right now to establish a video link with Earth. It would be a huge breakthrough in tachyon communications and a major boost to America's space program.”

Mike snapped back, “Who cares about America's space program? They shot us out here into the middle of cosmic nowhere without any idea of whether we'd make it. They doomed thousands of people to live out their lives on a spaceship and have no choice in the matter. And those are the people we want to help? I'm sorry, but I just don't think so.”

Ark Ship - Part Four

2009-10-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

President Gibson sat by the fireplace in the residence wing of the White House sipping a scotch on the rocks. When Liaison Markey had delivered the news of the ark ship's arrival, Gibson hadn't immediately understood what Markey was talking about. It took a few minutes for Markey to jog his memory of the ark ship mission, and only then did Gibson really understand the importance of what Markey was telling him. Even Secretary Thacker was suitably impressed, had finally stopped reciting statistics about Russian military maneuvers, and began asking questions about the ark ship mission. The President had summoned his press secretary, and they'd hammered out a quick statement to be distributed to the news media. It carried the appropriate tone to convey the gravity of the moment, but Gibson knew the media wouldn't spend too much time on it.

Markey had mentioned that he had gotten the news from the Ark Ship Project, and mentioned a Communicator named Sutton. Gibson decided that he wanted to speak to Sutton. He checked the time. 21:00 hours, which meant in Houston it would be 20:00 hours. Not too late to call.

The Ark Ship Project office was abuzz with activity. Communicator Sutton and his team were still analyzing the colony ship's data and helping the colonists plan next steps. Sutton's phone rang. “Please hold for the President.” A second later, a familiar voice was on the other end of the line.

“Communicator Sutton. This is President Gibson.”

“Mr. President. It's an honor, sir.”

“I heard the good news about the ark ship.”

“Yes, sir. All appears to be going well. We're analyzing the data that the colonists are sending back, and we're pretty confident that they're going to make it.”

“Excellent news.” The President paused, and a slightly awkward silence developed.

“Mr. President?” George was afraid he'd been cut off.

“I was just thinking, Sutton. This is an Apollo moment. The whole planet should be tuned in.”

“I know, sir.”

Another pause.

“Well, keep up the good work. America salutes its heroes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The line was disconnected.

The colonists gathered the next morning for their first dawn. It was a slow sunrise, with waves of brilliant color radiating outward from a point on the horizon that got subtly brighter until the red fireball of the sun pierced the horizon and began to draw sharp lines of light and shadow on the distant mountains and the landing site.

Mike and Susan had breakfast together, as they often did on the ship. Mike pointed at the distant mountains.

“I'd like to try climbing those someday. Looks like a pretty incredible view from the top.”

Susan grinned. “Once we get everything settled here, you're welcome to.”

“Any word from Earth?”

“Nothing since last night. I sent a message yesterday detailing the sort of “time zone” differential here, so I don't expect them to try to contact us until a little bit later this morning.”

“What's the plan for today?”

“The plan is to get all of the teams together and map out a plan to establish a crop cycle here. We also need to start constructing some more permanent facilities for storing the food and provisions that we brought down from the ship.”

“Where do you need me?”

“I've assigned you to the greenhouse construction team. We've got our first construction shuttle coming down from the ship today with building materials. A greenhouse will allow us to jump start the crop cycle using the plants and seeds we've already brought down from the ship.”

Susan heard the quantum computer beeping and went to check it. The message from Earth was simple: “Good morning! How did you sleep?”

Susan grinned and typed back, “Slept fine. Beautiful sunrise.” Susan had developed an affection for Communicator Sutton, whose reassuring messages had helped her manage the incredible stress of the task before the colonists. Despite her reservations, and the odd sense of disconnection that nagged at her, she was glad that after all of this time, Earth, and especially America, hadn't forgotten about them. It would have been a real problem for morale if they'd gotten this far only to find that something radical had changed on Earth and they were out here on their own.

“What are your plans for today?”

“Today the real work begins. The colonists who stayed on the ship are beginning work on dismantling it and bringing it down in cargo shuttles. We're scouting the area for other food sources or potential hidden dangers.”

“How are you feeling?”

Susan grinned and typed back, “Feeling good. Stress level is high, but it will be until we get established.”

“Understandable. I'm sending you our analysis of the soil and atmospheric data you sent us. Should be helpful.”

“Thanks.”

Susan thought for a second, and then typed back, “Tell me you're not the only one watching us back there.”

Sutton's reply came after a brief pause. “Assure yourself that America is proud of you, and that you're not alone.”

President Gibson was watching a recorded broadcast from the launch ceremony of the ark ship. History recorded that nearly everyone on the planet had tuned in, that it had been, as Gibson liked to say, an Apollo moment. He watched as then-President Jill Blancheford got up to make her speech.

“My fellow Americans, and those watching around the world. This is indeed an historic day. A century ago, our nation stood on the moon. It was a giant leap for humankind, and our footprint on the moon remains. Since then, we've flung probes into the farthest reaches of the galaxy, which have sent back amazing photos of what's out there, beyond the cosmic borders of our imagination. We've put rovers on Mars, on its two moons, and dropped probes into Venus. We've built an international space station with a construction dock capable of building ships in orbit, and a space elevator to shuttle supplies back and forth. We've harnessed the energy of the sun to power our planet and eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.

“And we've used our most powerful telescopes to peer into the heavens and look for other planets like ours, where there might be life, or where we might be able to make another footprint, another giant leap across the stars. We found one such planet, and we named it Amerigo, to honor the tradition of exploration and adventure that made our own nation possible.”

Gibson paused the playback. He had always wondered about that name. From his knowledge of history, Amerigo Vespucci's role in discovering America was decidedly limited, and the continent had been named after him because a cartographer had read Vespucci's name in some letters that may or may not have actually been written by Vespucci. Still, Gibson thought to himself, the writing of history is often different from the living of it.

Secretary Thacker poked his head into the Oval Office.

“Mr. President?” Thacker asked.

“Come in, Evan. I was just watching the ark ship launch ceremony.”

“I see. Well, I've got some bad news about Russia.”

Gibson sighed. Always with the Russians.

Poem for today

2009-10-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

To You
by Walt Whitman


Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of
 dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your
 feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
 troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops,
 work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating,
 drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you
 be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better
 than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted
 nothing but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to
 yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no
 imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will
 never consent to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better,
 God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-
 figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of
 gold-color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its
 nimbus of gold-color'd light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it
 streams, effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon
 yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
 mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
 accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or
 from yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if
 these balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,
 premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied
 in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good
 is in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits
 for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like
 carefully to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than
 I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at an hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are
 immense and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of
 apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or
 mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements,
 pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing
 sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
 whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided,
 nothing is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what
 you are picks its way.

Funny video

2009-10-10T23:27:00.001-07:00

Since I'm not doing regular "happy Friday" videos anymore, here's this, because it's just a great song.

They Might Be Giants - Ana Ng from They Might Be Giants on Vimeo.

Ark Ship - Part Three

2009-10-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

The media carried a brief mention of the ship's arrival, along with snippets of the President's prepared statement urging the world to “mark this historic moment and consider it in context with the petty problems of international politics.”

In Houston, Communicator Sutton had been sending messages back and forth to the colony all day, and he was analyzing the data the colonists had transmitted. It looked like the primitive equipment that the space program had used to find the planet and determine that it was appropriate for colonization had gotten a few things wrong. The colonists had a challenge on their hands.

George thought back to all of those ancient science fiction books he had read as a kid, and he wished that it had been possible to invent faster than light travel, teleportation, and all of those other ideas that, he was sure, had once filled the world with hope for a fantastical future of unfettered space exploration and global peace and harmony. Unfortunately, the laws of physics and the financial and practical limitations imposed by political reality had seriously limited what the world's space programs were able to achieve in the centuries since humanity had first set foot on the moon. America had barely even managed to build the orbital dock and space elevator that had made construction of the ark ship possible, and that was only achieved because a President with an incredibly strong personality and filibuster-proof majorities in Congress had demanded it. And then she was voted out of office with the next term, as America realized the cost of the project and turned radically away from it.

The truth was, as George had long ago realized, that the future is never as incredible or different as you think it's going to be. Computers get faster, new things get invented to make life easier, fossil fuels get phased out and fusion power gets phased in, global warming takes its toll as governments fail to act, but nothing really radically changes. An interconnected world had led to a stasis in international politics, as governments became less interested in conquest and more interested in competition. Most of the world's oppressive states had finally succumbed to the pressures of the international marketplace, and nearly every country had achieved some approximation of democracy, or at least enough of the illusion of democracy, to keep the populace from revolting and keep business moving forward. Sure, capitalism's inherent tendency to “boom and bust” continued, and certain countries did stupid belligerent things that made other countries angry, but nothing had happened in more than two centuries that might even possibly lead to global warfare or even a radical realignment in the global power structure. No, George thought to himself, there would never be a United Federation of Planets, nor would there be a horrible dystopian future of robot wars and nuclear holocaust.

A new message was coming through. The quantum computer translated it.

“Scouting reports complete. Analysis suggests colony establishment will be difficult. This isn't the planet we were promised.”

The last sentence made George blink in surprise.

The colonists were bedding down for the night in their landing pods. They had all gathered to watch their first ever sunset, as the white fireball sank to the horizon, turned pink, and then dusky red, and the sky had burned away to reveal a canopy of unfamiliar stars. A large, crater-filled moon began to rise red on the horizon to the southeast, framed by the craggy mountains.

Mike had gone to visit his good friend Paul Venster, whose father had led the botanical teams in their surveys. Paul sat in an armchair in his pod, reading an info pad. Music played over the pod's sound system, and Mike recognized it as the kind of ancient Brazilian bossa nova music that Paul had fallen in love with on the ship.

“Hey Mike. What's shakin'?” Paul put down the info pad and peered at Mike, who was standing in the doorway of the pod.

“Pretty incredible sunset, eh?” Mike said as he sat across from Paul in one of the pod's two dining chairs.

“I just can't believe we're really here. I mean, this is it, man, this is what this whole thing has been all about. We're just the lucky ones who get to actually do this thing.” Paul was not known for his eloquence.

“Yeah, I know.” Mike paused, and looked thoughtful. “But, I mean, why are we here, really?”

Paul blinked. “We know why we're here.” Paul started speaking in the proud, unwavering voice of the announcers on one of those mission indoctrination videos they'd all been forced to watch repeatedly. “We're here to show that America is the greatest power on Earth, so great that we're able to establish a foothold -”

Mike cut him off. “Yeah, we've all seen the glorious inspirational mission films, man, but really, what are we doing here?”

Paul thought a minute. “What do you mean?”

Mike tried to put his thoughts into words. “What I mean is, what connection do we really have to this mythical America place that sent us here? None of us, none of our parents, and on back from there, ever set foot there, and we'll certainly never see the place.”

“Yeah, but,” Paul stopped. He wasn't sure where this conversation was going.

Susan was just sending the last bit of data from the day's explorations back to Earth. She had begun to regret the somewhat testy note she had sent earlier about the planet they were “promised.” The space program had had no way to know with absolute certainty that the colonists would have an easy time of it. Still, she wasn't happy about the task before her.

Hell, in her heart of hearts, she wasn't happy about any of this, and she suspected that not many of the colonists were really pleased to be here either. Oh sure, they had all had the freedom to choose what role they would play in building the colony, but beyond that, they were all slaves to the mission, just as their parents and grandparents had been. And while she too had been forced to sit through a dozen or more indoctrination films, she was having a hell of a time trying to figure out her purpose here.

Ark Ship - Part Two

2009-10-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

The first part of the mission was to survey the landing site. The colonists fanned out across the rocky promontory and used their geological scanners to get a picture of the area. Mike Harris had been given the assignment to survey a small plateau to the southeast of the ship. His scanner's compass had found the magnetic north pole of this new planet, so he knew which direction to walk. He found that despite the low gravity, he was quickly out of breath, and as he examined his readings, he noticed that the oxygen level on this planet was somewhat lower than the oxygen on the ship, and his scanner also measured a lower air pressure than the ship's life support systems.

Mike found the plateau and used his scanner to take pictures, samples, and readings of the surface and the air. It was a fairly uninteresting piece of scenery, but to Mike, it was a breathtaking new world. The ground was a dusky red color, and the low gravity meant that with every footstep, he kicked up a fine haze of maroon dust that shimmered around him as he walked and coated his skin. He was looking for the kinds of soil nutrients that would be needed if the colonists were to be successful in creating a sustainable crop cycle on this new planet. If soil conditions made it impossible to do direct implantation of Earth crops, the colonists had brought along some chemical substitutes that might do the job. The botanical teams would be coming around later to examine the local plant life and determine what if any uses the colonists might make of it.

To Mike's eyes, it looked like implantation would be difficult, but not impossible. He had to get his report back to the Colony Coordinator immediately.

Communicator Sutton had been trying to get through to the White House to deliver the news of the ark ship's landing. The Project was supposed to have access to the President to report any developments, but it had been quite a while since they'd tried to communicate with Washington. Unfortunately, today, the White House communications staff had no idea what he was talking about.

Finally, he got through to Liaison Henry Markey, the President's advisor in charge of keeping in touch with the Project.

“Henry, good god, man, you need to brief your people about this thing. I had to wrangle my way through four levels of staff before I got to you.”

“I know, George, I know, but with the Russia situation heating up, there's just a lot going on here, and I can't be everywhere at once.”

“Well, look, please deliver this message to the President. The Amerigo has landed. Big day for America and all that.”

“Wow. That is big news. I'll get it to Gibson right away.”

Defense Secretary Evan Thacker walked in to the Oval Office. He was carrying a pad on which a large red message was flashing repeatedly.

“Sir, it's the Russians. I swear, if they keep this up -”

“What, Evan? If they keep this up, what?” President Gibson had begun to regret choosing Evan as his Defense Secretary, but it had been a grand gesture to the Party to give the job to his main rival for the primary nomination. Evan had always had a hot head, and Gibson shuddered to think what the Secretary might do if he were in charge instead of Gibson.

Evan threw down the message pad and pointed at it.

“See? This is a communique from our spy on board one of the Russian ships.”

The President looked at the pad. Evan was right – the Russians were behaving very badly. Of course, they had elections coming up, and the Communists were looking stronger than ever, so the hard line nationalist government had to scare the populace into voting for them, lest the imperialist Americans threaten their sovereignty. Gibson sighed. The more politics changed...

The President's intercom beeped and his secretary notified him that Liaison Markey wanted to see him.

“Right, tell him to wait a minute – I'm in with Thacker.”

Each of the colonists would be sleeping in their own pod, which would eventually be converted to create more permanent living quarters. The pods had been designed for this purpose, and, though cramped, were equipped with necessities such as beds, tables, chairs, and sanitary waste disposal and food and water recycling facilities. The colonists had also been able to bring a limited quantity of personal items down from the orbiting ark with which to make their landing pods more like home. The ark ship itself would eventually be disassembled in orbit and brought down piece by piece in cargo shuttles to be converted into buildings and equipment for the colony.

Colony Coordinator Susan Macintosh had set up a temporary command center outside of her landing pod. Susan had received survey reports from most of her teams, and she wasn't exactly happy about what she was seeing. The landing site's soil PH was alkaline, which limited what Earth plants would grow here, and the sunlight, though oddly bright, was almost too weak for adequate photosynthesis. However, there were signs of nitrogen and other nutrients in the dusky red soil, so there was hope. The botanical teams reported that the local flora was, while not poisonous, of a scrubby variety with little nutritive value whose primary purpose seemed to be providing the planet with its limited oxygen supply. The ship's climatologists had insisted to Susan that this was the best spot for establishing the first colony, with a weather pattern that they described as “temperate semi-arid desert,” whatever that meant. Essentially, they told her, it doesn't rain much, and local flora is thin on the ground, but the temperature range is reasonable from summer to winter. The presence of the river nearby had also been a bonus. The planet had no real oceans to speak of - much of the equatorial region was desert – but the far northern and southern latitudes each had a system of shallow rivers and lakes fed by a limited rain cycle and snow melt from the tall mountains.

With the chemicals and equipment on board the ship, she thought, the colony should be able to create a very basic crop cycle, focusing on vegetables and grains that thrive in desert and semi-arid conditions. The colony's diet would be limited, but adequate. The establishment of greenhouses to grow those plants that wouldn't be directly implantable would further augment the colony's diet.

Her quantum computer beeped – she had a message from Earth. She looked at the display terminal. America salutes its heroes, eh? She imagined that the President would probably give a big speech, that there would be parades, and all of those things she'd seen in the old newsreels.

Mike Harris arrived at her command center and presented his report. Just like the others, it indicated that taming this planet would be a challenge.

“Look at this, Mike.” She pointed to the quantum computer.

“America salutes its heroes,” Mike read. “Huh. Well, that's nice. I imagine there'll be parades and whatnot, like -”

Susan finished his thought. “- you see in those old newsreels.”

Susan had taken Mike under her wing early, because he had shown a precocious intellect and a keen interest in the mission. They had developed a kind of mother-son bond, especially after Mike's own mother had succumbed to the same kind of crushing depression that had claimed dozens of the crew over the centuries. Some people, when they realized that they were going to live their entire lives on the ark ship, and die there, without ever setting foot outside of it, couldn't cope with that knowledge, went catatonic, and eventually either took their own lives or literally starved to death, unable to find the will to eat. It had been a persistent problem, one that at times had even threatened the viability of the mission.

Susan and Mike looked at the message from the distant planet.

Poem for today

2009-10-05T12:45:00.001-07:00

Refrain
by Allen Ginsberg

The air is dark, the night is sad,
I lie sleepless and I groan.
Nobody cares when a man goes mad:
He is sorry, God is glad.
Shadow changes into bone.

Every shadow has a name;
When I think of mine I moan,
I hear rumors of such fame.
Not for pride, but only shame,
Shadow changes into bone.

When I blush I weep for joy,
And laughter drops from me like a stone:
The aging laughter of the boy
To see the ageless dead so coy.
Shadow changes into bone.

Ark Ship - Part One

2009-10-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

The landing pods were coming down from the orbiting ship. On one of the pods sat young Mike Harris, a descendant of those who had begun the journey to this new colony two hundred fifty years ago.

It hadn't been easy to grow up on an interstellar ship, never having set foot on a planet, never breathing fresh air, never seeing the sun rise over the hills as he'd heard about in the stories that had been passed down. Now, setting foot on a strange planet, feeling dirt under his feet for the first time, rather than the reassuring clang of the metal walkways, not to mention getting used to the lower gravity, was going to be a real challenge for all of them.

Mike's pod landed, and he opened the air lock, breathing real fresh air for the first time in his life. He was immediately overwhelmed by the scale of the planet. He knew this planet was slightly smaller than the Earth, but it still seemed huge to him.

In front of him, the terrain was rocky, with tall, craggy mountains stretching to sharp peaks. There was a smattering of scrubby plant life here, most of it scattered around a narrow river that the orbital survey teams had named the Mississippi, which would serve as the colony's water source. They had all been warned not to touch any of the plants until they had been analyzed to determine potential dangers or hidden poisons.

The sky was a pale blue, the sun a white fireball to the north. Mike had to squint and shield his eyes in the unaccustomed glare. Sure, he had been given training in what to expect on this planet – they all had. They had been forced to sit for hours every week under sun simulation lamps so that their eyes wouldn't atrophy in the dim light of the ark ship. They had done physical training and studied the scientific disciplines they'd need to build their colony. But after so many centuries of travel, some of the equipment hadn't worked to optimum efficiency, and so the training hadn't been as rigorous or thorough as his ancestors might have intended.

Mike was a thin, pale young man, whose age calculated in Earth years would be about twenty one. However, the strange way time passed on the ship, the lack of seasons, of a definable day or night, the irregular sleep schedule, not to mention the relativistic effects of traveling near light speed, meant that Mike wasn't sure exactly how old he was. And on this planet, whose year passed in 300 earth days, and whose day was 27 hours long, Mike couldn't begin to calculate his age. Still, he was clearly in his prime, though like all of the colonists, he was slightly malnourished from the replicated and recycled food stores on the ship. In time, he and his comrades would adjust to local conditions, and the hard work of taming this planet would make them strong and hardy.

He took a deep breath and stepped out of the airlock, and was immediately struck by how different, how odd, how utterly alien the planet felt under his feet. The gravity, slightly lower than it had been on the ship, was causing him difficulty in walking, and as he looked around, he noticed the other colonists having similar problems. It was a bit of a funny moment, and he suppressed a smile.

The Houston Space Center, Inc., where the generational ark ship had been designed and the orbital construction dock and space elevator had been built, was privatized (along with the rest of NASA, and a lot of other government agencies deemed “unnecessary taxpayer burdens”) after the launch of the ark ship. Since that time, most of its efforts had been focused on orbital advertising platforms – giant billboards hovering in low earth orbit filling the night sky with ads for toothpaste, condoms, and cigarettes.

During the privatization process, the systems used to communicate with the ship had been sold to The Ark Ship Project, a non-profit organization that had been set up to ensure that contact was maintained throughout the ark ship's centuries of travel. It had been decided not to tell the ark ship crew about the transfer, so as not to hurt morale on the ship. As far as the ship's crew knew, they were still communicating directly with NASA.

The Project kept tabs on the ship using the principle of quantum entanglement. Before the ship departed, a molecule of hydrogen on Earth had been tagged to a molecule of hydrogen on the ship, and by “jiggling” the molecule on Earth using certain patterns, thus “jiggling” the molecule on the ark ship, the Project could send messages to the ship, and vice-versa, in a kind of quantum Morse code. This method of communication had been a critical breakthrough for the space team, one that had circumvented the limitations of light speed in a practical and ingenious manner.

A new message was coming through, and the quantum computers were busy translating it. The uncertain nature of quantum mechanics made this a job requiring a massive amount of computing power, and messages had to be kept short and succinct.

Communicator George Sutton, an ancestor of whose had been among the launch crew for the mission, read the message from the display terminal.

“The Eagle has landed on Amerigo. Survey teams dispatched.”

He typed back, “Congratulations. A historic day. America salutes its heroes.”

Welcome to the new Sinister.

2009-10-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

The left-handed electric mice who run this blog have made a tactical decision to shift its focus from politics to writing. This decision was reached because:

1) The mice have neither the time nor the energy to attempt to follow and comment coherently on the increasingly bewildering political circus.

2) A good deal of pretty good fiction and poetry has lately been spewing forth from the sinister brain that controls the mice.

3) In November, the electric mice will be working quite a bit of overtime to write an entire novel in the span of 30 days. This particular experiment might kill most of the mice.

Several things to note. First, the archives will remain available and visible on the left sidebar. Secondly, the right sidebar has been removed, allowing the main text to take up the majority of the screen. Thirdly, the font has been changed from courier to arial/helvetica, which is, in my opinion, much easier to read.

This relaunch simply reflects a change in emphasis. While the primary purpose of this blog will be to showcase my fiction and poetry, I may still write about politics from time to time. However, my intent is for all posts to be interesting, engaging, and held to a higher standard of writing quality than is usually found in a purely political blog.

Now, this next bit is critical. This blog isn't just for me to show off my work and go "woo look at me I'm great." I want people to give me feedback on what I write. I want constructive criticism. I want you to tell me, "Hey, this idea here works, but you've done something kind of stupid over here." Most of all, I want you to tell me if you think something I've written is good enough to submit to someone who might publish it, and if not, what you think I need to do to get to that point. I want to grow as a writer, to work hard at it, to focus my energies on creating a unique voice that I can contribute to the greater literary world. I want to be one of the people that high school students get bored having to study - because that's how you know you've really made it.

In any event, enjoy the new format. In a little while, I'll be posting the first part of a science fiction story I've been working on.

Please stand by.

2009-10-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

This blog is experiencing technical difficulties. We apologize for the inconvenience*.

*note: The inconvenience in question is not actually caused by technical difficulties, but rather by the author's continued inability to find the time or energy to do political blog posts at the moment. Your results may vary. Do not apply internally. If accidentally swallowed, do not induce vomiting. Not valid in all states. Sinister is a production of me, my brain, and my penchant for political pontification. Stay tuned - I have plans for this blog. I'm doing a lot more fiction and other kinds of writing lately, so Sinister might just shift its emphasis to feature stuff I'm writing rather than being a purely political blog. I'm not sure yet. But rest assured, this blog is not dead - merely hibernating.

Happy Friday

2009-09-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

In honor of the upcoming Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, here's this:

Happy Friday!

2009-09-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

In Tulsa, enjoying a weekend with family.

Here's a great video of a thunderstorm hitting downtown Tulsa earlier this year.

Breaking: Obama to address joint session of Congress September 9th on health care

2009-09-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

If he's not crystal clear about the need for a strong public option, and if he doesn't address, condemn, refute, and/or ridicule the far right fringe astroturf propaganda groups terrorizing the American people with images of Hitler and Stalin, and if he doesn't demand that Congress pass something now, and if he doesn't chastise the Republicans (and Blue Dog Dems) in Congress who simply refuse to vote for any reasonable reform bill, then this speech will not accomplish anything.

Monday loldog

2009-08-30T23:42:00.001-07:00

see more dog and puppy pictures
Three day week for me.