Out on a Limb

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You ...

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:36:42 GMT

A quote from an article about the President's upcoming address to school children:

*** What seems to be drawing the most ire are optional preparatory materials from the Department of Education asking students to "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president."

That has now been changed for students to "Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals" ***

JFK is spinning in his grave. While it's good to be self-aware, I don't think our educational system is currently lacking in opportunities for children to ponder their own lives. What we need to encourage is a sense of community, that we are participants in things greater than ourselves.

The Department of Education had it right the first time.

Time Paradox

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:58:58 GMT

I recently saw The Time Traveler's Wife and enjoyed it immensely, but it got me thinking about the issues of time paradoxes and how they have been played out in various movies. Time travel comes in two flavors, the first being the type where you can go back and change the past, and the second being where the past is unchangeable.

Most science fiction movies fall under the first category. The most recent Star Trek movie uses time travel in this way where the bad guy comes back in time to blow up the planet Vulcan and otherwise harass Spock who he held personally responsible for the destruction of his own planet. Of course, those kind of changes would drastically alter history which would most likely mean that the bad guy would never set on his journey of destruction in the first place (or perhaps he might never be born). But, most SF time travel stories avoid that paradox now by claiming that any change in the time line would result in the creation of a "new universe" pinched off from the original time line which continues on. But either way, the idea of being able to change the past is an intriguing one that offers lots of opportunity for the story tellers to play the "what if" game.

But, The Time Traveler's Wife is a movie that adheres to the other type of time travel - where the past is unchangeable. But if the past can't be changed, it's easy to ask "What's the point?" And the answer is "Fate". Both this movie and another time traveling love story from a while back (Somewhere in Time) have a time paradox that can't be resolved except for the inclusion of Fate. In Somewhere in Time, the paradox is in the form of a gold watch, which she gives to him and he subsequently gives to her, so that she can give it to him ... It's a time piece that comes from nowhere and loops endlessly through time. And in The Time Traveler's Wife, the paradox is in their relationship itself. When she sees him in the library for his first time, she has already had a long relationship with him and promptly takes him home and jumps him. Which then causes his later self to travel through time to meet her younger self and establish a relationship. There is no "first cause", only Fate.

I like this kind of story because it allows the characters to have glimpses of the future which they can't change, but makes a profound effect on their present. We take great stock in driving our own destiny, but sometimes the essence of life and the poetry of love is found in how we play out the hand that we're dealt.

Activism Run Amok

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:55:38 GMT

I'm sorry up front about the following rant, but some times you just have to let it out.

The LA times just published an article about the reactor melt-down at the Santa Sussana Field site in the hills above Simi Valley that occurred 50 years ago. The problem with the article is the problem I find with almost all journalism these days: The inability (or unwillingness) to actually investigate. Shouldn't a reporter do more than transcribe what people say? Don't they have an obligation to determine the veracity of statements that they pass along to readers?

When I worked for the State of California, I participated in some of the on-going activities concerning this site. Ostensibly, the state had no jurisdiction over the site because the Department of Energy was responsible for clean-up activities, but the political theory was that eventually it would be declared "clean" by DOE and if the State didn't agree with the final verdict, then officials would immediately declare the site to be "contaminated". So, it should still be relatively easy to clean-up a site, right? Just get the appropriate agencies with scientifically trained staff to review all the results of testing, right? Wrong, you foolish people. The most important thing to do is to get "community" involvement in the process. And then make sure that political pressure is applied to make "community" concerns trump expert opinion and analysis.

I highlight "community" because the people that show up at community meetings come in two varieties: 1) those who live nearby and heard there might be some problem and want to have a better understanding, and 2) professional activists. I love the former and hate the latter. The true concerned citizen just wants the problem to be solved, while the professional activist needs the problem to continue forever and will use any means necessary to further that end.

So, when the LA Times article leads with the picture of a local resident who believes her thyroid problems and leukemia are the results of the work done at the Santa Susanna field site, most readers are willing to take this as the de facto reality that must be disproved. But proving how someone got a disease when there is no statistical anomalies in the local population is practically impossible. Everyone who gets a life threatening disease, wants to know how it happened. We all want things to have a reason, but sometimes things happen because we won the lottery (albeit a negative one).

If I were writing the article from an objective (investigative) perspective, I would at least look for consistencies in cause and effect. If the resident's diseases can be caused by radiation, then what's the threshold dose that we know is likely to cause the disease? What are the conservative estimates for the dose likely received by the resident? What is the latency period of the disease (time between dose and onset of symptoms)? Did the resident begin to show symptoms of the disease after the appropriate latency period? If you ask enough questions, you can sometimes rule out causes. That's the main thing you do when you investigate - seperate the possible from the impossible, then seperate the likely from the unlikely. But, this reporter did none of that, instead all he did was transcribe.

One of the catch phrases that came out of the Watergate investigations (back when reporters actually did their job) was the declaration to "follow the money". If you want to figure out who the bad guys are from the good guys, then it helps to figure out who is making money. The LA Times article refers to Dan Hirsch of Committee to Bridge the Gap who states, "I have wasted three decades of my life trying to get them to clean up the mess they made, and we are still at least a decade away." Are you kidding me? Mr. Hirsch is a professional activist who has made a living screaming about cleanup of the site. As long as he is around, they will always be "at least a decade away." It's not in his personal interest for the issues to ever be resolved. So, here are the tactics that get used:
1) In public meetings, refer to any claims or statements made by yourself or your cronies at any time in the past as "proven truths" and claims by government regulators as lies. It helps immensly if this is accomplished by schills in the audience who shout their disaproval in a manner that makes the regulators look around to make sure security is on-hand and ready to help. The true concerned citizen has no way of knowing the history of such statements nor the depth of contention against them, but will be impressed with your passion. The regulators will check their watch and pray the charade will be over soon.
2) Question the integrity of all government workers by claiming they are in bed with industry because of past employment or because of fees collected from industry. But, never let anyone question where you get your money from. No one seems to ever wonder what it takes to become a full time activist. They have to raise money. The only way to raise money is if you have an important cause. They only way the Santa Susanna field lab is an important cause is if people are dying, and the government is covering it up.
3) If you don't get the results you want (the continuation of the cause) from the regulators who have other equally important tasks to attend to, then apply political/legal pressure.

One of the things Mr. Hirsch did was challenge a Federal rule that the State adopted which would set a standard for clean-up of radioactive material. He was successful in his challenge based on a failure by the state to correctly follow their own procedures. The technical merit of the clean-up level was never at issue, but that didn't stop Mr. Hirsch from claiming that it was thrown out because the clean-up levels were inadequate. But, for Mr. Hirsch, the clean-up levels will always be inadequate because it limits his ability to claim there is a problem, and if there's no problem, then he doesn't get paid. The State never went back and corrected the procedure to reinstate the rule because of ... political pressure.

My favorite anecdote about dealing with activists hit very close to home. When my boss refused to bend to the political will and stuck with the known science about radiation health effects, a bill was introduced into the State senate which would remove the entire branch from the Dept of Health Services and place it in Cal EPA, an organization known to be much more compliant to politicians. But the bill had one insidious catch: The Branch Chief (my boss) and all Section Chiefs (I was one at the time) would not be included in the move. Furthermore, the Branch Chief and Section Chiefs would be prohibited from taking advantage of Civil Service rules regarding employment retention. In other words, the politicians (at the behest of the activists) were trying to fire us.

So, in conclusion: I like real people with real issues who are looking for honest answers. I hate activists with inherent conflicts of interest regarding the problem they are claiming to solve. And, I'm beginning to loathe the reporters who are too lazy to figure out the differnce.

Proud Papa

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:57:36 GMT

I've always had a knack for writing. But there's a difference between being able to say what you mean, and creating a story. I wrote exactly one short story in high school. It was an assignment in my Freshman English class, and the instruction went something like this: "Write a short story." Since I was a fan of Jack London's at the time, I wrote a story that had some of the same elements as one of his stories about a guy in the Yukon who winds up freezing to death. We don't really know he's dead until his dog leaves him because there's no more warmth. In my story, I had a guy crash his car in the woods and when he wakes up, he's pinned under his car, and there's a snake that's curled up on his belly for the warmth. In the end, we know the character dies because the snake crawls off, looking for someplace warm. I got an A on the story and the teacher even commented that it read like a Jack London story, so I felt pretty good about it. But I needed more.

I needed someone to break down the elements of storytelling. I needed someone to explain to me what I had just accomplished. I needed a mentor. Or, if not a mentor, then perhaps other like minded students willing to push each other. But, this was a small town high school (total around 400, my graduating class had 79), and the odds of having a teacher with any real fiction writing skills would have been slim at best, and the odds of any other students having similar interests or talent was probably slimmer. So, I did what I always did when I was trying to figure things out, and I read books on the subject. But, the problem with reading books about writing is that most of it makes very little sense, until it's put in the context of your own writing. So, you need to be writing, before you get much of any benefit from books on writing. Which is not how I approached other subjects in school. If I wanted to understand math, I read the math book. Sure, I could solve problems and check answers, but I really understood it better when I read and understood the concepts. Math teachers were great, but for the most part, I had enough "talent" in math, that I didn't need a whole lot of instruction. Just explain it once and I usually got it. But, when it came to writing fiction, I wasn't really getting any instruction.

Ideally, it should have been similar to the way I learned to play tennis. I signed up for tennis in summer school and it started with the teacher tossing me some balls that I promptly whacked over the fence. But, with a few pointers about my grip and follow through on my swing, I had the tools to begin practicing effectively. I could have gotten books on tennis, but those books (like writing books) are useless until you have some level of experience with the physical act. And that's the thing I was missing for so many years. I wanted to approach writing like it was an academic subject, but writing is really more of a physical act. Yes, you can say that a story is derived from character and a character has to have compelling motivations to push the story along and interest the reader, but that's really just after-the-fact justification. The story is truly nothing until you actually begin to write it and you begin to see, hear, smell, and feel the character. When I was in high school, I needed someone to toss me some easy ones and then explain to me what worked and didn't work, and how to improve. But I didn't get that, and so stumbled around for nearly three decades on my own before taking a class that finally put me on the right path.

In hind sight, it seems kind of stupid. Writers write; the don't read about writing. But, I also recognize that it was part of my personality to try and figure things out, before starting anything new. And frankly, the study of writing (without actually writing) gave me a solid grasp of theory. How many times can you read "show, don't tell" before it becomes a part of your basic knowledge. So, when I did start writing, I think I had some things floating around in my head that had reached the level of "intuitive" simply because I had read about them so many times. In 2005, I took a fiction writing class and discovered (with a few friendly lobs, and some insightful pointers) that I might actually have some talent. I wrote two stories for that class, and the second one (after much polishing) I eventually sold to a magazine. However, I still struggled with my process. I wanted to write in a fashion that I would describe as "purposeful". If I was going to make a go of this writing, then I should be able to create a pattern or template to success. Start with story question, build plot, add characters, mix with description and dialogue and close with something exciting. It seemed like the logical thing to do, except that I've finally realized in hindsight that every story I've ever written doesn't follow this pattern. I was looking for the "right" process, one that appealed to my non-creative brain, instead of simply listening to my creative brain (Fred) who had been showing me all along how to do it. And the process is this: write the damned story, and build the elements like character and description as you go. No, it won't be perfect, but that's what revision is for. I didn't realize that this was the process, because the only stories I ever finished were to a deadline, and I assumed that "just getting it finished" meant that the process was different than it should have been. But, the reality is, that deadline's just help me get out of my way so Fred can do his thing.

Which brings me to 2007, when I completed my third story, just in time to submit it and the one I had previously sold, as a part of my application to the Clarion Writer's Workshop. In my arrogance, I really expected to be accepted. In hindsight, the arrogance was foolish, but the stories were enough to be accepted anyway. The workshop was a spectacular six weeks, but I continued to struggle with output. The goal in the workshop is to produce a new story for critique by the group every week. If I did it, I would be completing exactly twice as many stories as I'd ever written before. As it turned out, I could only muster three new stories, so I had doubled my lifetime output. Most everyone else seemed to have a pretty easy time meeting the goals. It was old hat for most of them. I recall having a conversation with one of my room mates about a friend of his who had been in a situation like mine, and his friend felt lost and overwhelmed. I didn't have the guts to admit I might be in the same boat, but I was determined to get as much out of the experience as possible. Even during those six weeks, I was trying to figure out my process, and still didn't recognize that it only worked when I finally got out of my way and let Fred finish. But, It's been two years since Clarion now, and while I don't have any completed stories to show for it, I have been writing, and more importantly, I think I've finally come to terms with how I write. It's not the way my logical brain would want to write, but it is the way that works ... for me.

I'm grateful that I'm finally in this place, feeling a bit more comfortable about the direction that I'm going with my writing, but the reason that I bring all this up is because of a sort of deja vu recognition in my home. Like me in high school, my seventeen year old daughter Alicia has a knack for writing. She recently got the results back on her ACT and it shows her in the 97th percentile for writing. And it dawned on me that she probably gets the same insightful instruction about writing (especially fiction) that I got in high school (not). So, today, I talked with her about her skills, and asked her if she's ever written any fiction. She promptly showed me a story she's been writing over the last several days. I'm very pleased to say that she's got some talent. She instinctively knows how to make the story move, she understands how to build a story with scenes (probably her drama training) and I find the characters believable and sympathetic. In short, I think she's way ahead of the curve. I talked with her about her process, about what she was doing right, and asked her to finish the story and I'd help her revise it. I don't think I even need to toss a few balls, just a couple of pointers on her grip and follow through on her swing. Sometimes it's hard to connect with a teenager at home, but I'm looking forward to the future possibilities.

Setting

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:57:24 GMT

I'm reading "House of Rain" by Craig Childs, about the Anasazi culture that disappeared from the Southwest around 1100 AD, and there's a quote from an archeologist named Tom Windes that struck a tone with me.

"You grow up in trees and lights, and you can't see anything. You come out here and it's clear for a hundred miles in every direction. That's a different mind-set. Each landscape allows or inhibits perspective, and that creates the culture. Views like you get our here, these make their own people."

I've lived a lot of places and I can attest to the feel of different cultures, but it never really dawned on me that the landscape itself could shape or mold that culture. I had a pretty good idea that weather could make a difference (one of the reasons that I live in California), but it never really dawned on me that the lay of the land might also affect culture. But, it seems to make sense.

A few years ago, I was on a work related trip and found myself standing in a playa (dry lake bed) just off the I-15 on the California side of the border with Nevada. As we looked across the playa and several miles further, we could see a freight train gliding on invisible tracks across the base of one of the numerous mountains in the area. One of the men I was with (a government worker from back east) scratched his head and said, "You know, I don't think I've ever seen an entire train before."

So, what does that do to a persons perspective in life? If it's easier to take in the whole of the world, does that help you become a "big picture" kind of person? Does it feed your humility when it's easy to see how small you are in the world? I'll have to think about this a little more in my writing and consider how the setting itself informs the culture as well as the individual.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:47:41 GMT

I got a nice camera for my birthday last August. And by nice, I mean "don't have to live with automatic settings". I got frustrated with cameras that think they know when and how you want to take a picture. There was quite a bit of luck in this shot. I didn't know exactly how it was going to turn out, but I like it a lot. It's a shot of an opening sequence in my daughters school play. That's her in the middle. The ghostly blurs behind her are from other cast members moving about the stage. I took it without the flash (for obvious reasons) and the shutter stays open a little longer to allow enough light in.

Where Is Creativity?

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:32:51 GMT

I'm currently reading a fascinating book, "Creativity" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Most of the time when you see a book with this kind of title, you'll find someone's personal insight to the creative process; the things they do to help themselves be creative. But this book is very different. The author is a research psychologist who applies the scientific process to analyzing creativity. It's a very fresh look at an old subject.

I'll try to blog periodically about what I learn as I go through the book, with a focus on writing as the creativity in question, although it applies to all creative endeavors. I'll start with the author's description of where we find creativity. Most people would say that creativity is soley a function of a particular individual. But Mihaly says creativity is a function of a system made up of three parts:

1) Domain: a set of symbolic rules and procedures. Writing consists of such things as letters, words, syntax, punctuation, scenes, and chapters, and much has been written about the appropriate way to put these all together to shape a narrative (rules and procedures). Domains are nested within a culture where the symbolic knowledge is shared.

2) Field: all the individuals who act as gate keepers to the domain. The members of the Field decide whether a new idea of product should be included in the Domain.

3) Individual. Creativity happens only when the individual uses the symbols of the Domain to form a new idea or pattern, AND the Field decides the new idea should be included in the Domain.

So, Creativity is then defined as:

"... any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one."

And a creative person is:

"... someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain, or establish a new domain."

So, when I write a story, I'm using the rules of the domain to create something new. If no one will publish it, then by definition I'm not creative because the gate keepers have decided the story does not belong in the domain. If the story is published and recieves little attention, then I can say I've changed the domain by expanding it ever so little and my creativity can be characterized as "ever so little". But if I write the story and it receives great attention (critical acclaim, awards, multiple publishing runs, fan fic, etc.) then I can say that I've demonstrated a high level of creativity.

Speculative fiction has been especially creative in pushing hard at the edges of the domain. That's why we see sub-genre's popping up all the time: Steampunk, Mannerpunk, New Wave, Space Opera, Vampire Lit, etc. I think Spec fic writers instinctively try to push the edges of the domain. Sometimes it works spectacularly, and sometimes it doesn't.

But now here's the really weird thing to consider about creativity: What about those times when a writer creates stories that no one wants to read ... at first. But, then later on they are hailed as great. Phillip K. Dick was not appreciated well during his life, but now everything he wrote seems to be golden. Was it creative work when it was written, or did it only become creative when the Field decided it was great?

According to a systems definition of creativity, his writing wasn't creative until the field decided it was!

Next time I'll write about "The Creative Personality".

Profundity

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:28:12 GMT

I turned fifty in August.

At the time, it seemed like I should post something really profound, something to show off my accumulated wisdom. But you'll notice it's now two months later, and I'm afraid the delay was not because I had too much material to organize. It appears that I don't have any secret insights to life. I can tell you about where I've been, and where I think I'm going, but the meaning of it all often escapes me. But I'm fifty now, so I have to offer at least a little reflection. I don't really want to, but I think it's a rule or something. So here goes:

As time passes, we get older!!!!!!

That's it. Nothing special. Time doesn't guarantee any additional wisdom. A lot of men go through mid-life crises around this age because they feel like doors are closing. They have the affair and buy the sports car because they are confusing youthful pleasures with pleasures of youth. And the real pleasure of youth is the open ended sense of opportunity, the ability to point your life in whichever direction you choose. But are those opportunities really gone? I can think of three separate careers that I'd probably enjoy more than my current choice except that I'd lose at least half my income and all or most of my benefits if I switched. So, the choices are still there, but there's a cost to making the change that never had to be considered from a youthful perspective. But it's still a choice. And there are plenty of other choices and paths to take that are not so drastic. I can keep my current career and explore other paths, other careers, more easily at age fifty than I could at age twenty.

So, as time passes, we make choices, take paths, and get older. Then we make more choices, take additional paths, and get older still. If we all focus on the choices and paths, does the age really matter?

Confluence of Events

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:13:09 GMT

When I'm writing I'm always looking at the plausibility of events. Would it really happen that way? Am I pulling a rabbit out of the hat, making something happen simply because it needs to happen? But what about the surprises in life? Sometimes, unlikely things just happen. We can simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For instance, three days ago I drove up to see the observatory on the top of Palomar Mountain. It was a beautiful drive out, but on the way back I took a wrong turn. I drove for about three miles before I realized my mistake and began to backtrack. While driving back, we saw a helicopter flying around, and then lost view of it as it descended somewhere ahead. When we got to within a hundred yards of my original wrong turn, we saw dust and dirt swirling around and quickly closed our windows as the helicopter we had seen before ascended from an open area to the right of the road. A car approached us from the other direction, so I glanced at the helicopter for only a moment before looking back at the road to verify I was still driving on my side of the line. As usual, I was fine. I'm a decent driver and can usually manage the basics like staying on my side of the road. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the other driver. When I realized she was crossing the line, I pulled quickly to the right but she hit me at a point near the end of the passenger door and scraped to the end of the bumper (estimated $2100 damage). The lady driving the other car apologized but said that she lost her attention because she was "afraid" of the helicopter.

Now here's the point I'm turning over in my mind. In order for this accident to occur, I have to make a wrong turn, then I have to drive for a pretty good distance before returning to arrive at exactly the same time as the helicopter lifts off and a distracted local driver approaches me from the other direction. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, could I use this scenario in a story? Things are supposed to happen for a reason in fiction. But I think there is one major exception. You can use fateful events as the hook or push into the story as long as you're faithful in making everything else happen for a reason. So, I could write a story that starts with this fateful collision and then follow the drivers or passengers to show how they are changed.

I could also turn what seems to be a fateful event and reveal that it wasn't so fateful. Perhaps the people in the helicopter were looking for me and the other driver was in on it. When they spotted me returning, they quickly drew up the plan to distract me with the helicopter so the driver could hit me. Maybe they were hoping to disable the car, but my quick reaction turned it into just a scrape, sending them to plan B (I'm looking over my shoulder now). Or maybe the fateful event occurred because the "fates" conspired for it to happen to further their supernatural agenda. I was meant to meet the distracted driver who will ultimately lead me to the holy grail.

In the real world, sometimes shit happens. In fiction, it has to be a little more interesting than that.

Who's the idiot who invented writing anyway?

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:55:32 GMT

It's been one of those weeks where I struggle with any kind of satisfaction with my own writing. My characters say and do things that are either stupid or just don't make any coherent sense. It's exhausting. It makes me question the whole gig. When the writing sucks, it's easy to start looking at other ways to add meaning to your life. Maybe I could be better, more productive, more meaningful if I spent the time taking long walks, solving the Theory of Everything, or contemplating the fate of the universe.

And along those lines I started indulging a new distraction in the last couple of weeks. I had my eye on this eight volume "History of Philosophy" set that's at the University Book Store. They've been sitting there beckoning to me for months and I finally bit the bullet and got one of the volumes. I couldn't start with Volume I because it was already gone, So, I have to intuit some of the basics about Greek philosophy and dive directly into medieval philosophy, which I find to be mostly about the struggle to make a distinction between philosophy and theology. And I LOVE it. Which means of course that I'm a hopeless geek. For the most part it's completely useless information; so much counting of angels dancing on the head of a pin. It has more to do with attempts to construct a false sense of certitude even though ambiguity reigns in the real world. But it's utterly fascinating to me. I'll probably buy the rest of the volumes as I feel the urge, but I don't want to read them all at once. My brain needs a little time to digest it's food.

But, even with interesting brain candy out there trying to distract me, I'm not willing to give up the writing. The occasional decent stuff I produce is enough to keep me going for now. And I also draw some perverse encouragement when I watch TV and realize that people are actually getting paid to write some of that nonsense. I watched an episode of NCIS the other day and they had a female agent looking for her 16 or 17 year old "contact" in Baghdad. The contact's father had tried to help her brother (a marine) and was killed by other marines for his troubles. The agent was of course grateful, so she bequeathed this amazing and touching gift:

"What? You are giving us your laptop so my younger sister can have contact with the world? Never mind that you haven't given us a power cord. Never mind that the conditions of the community don't look like they even have power, let alone any kind of connectivity. But, thank you, O wise and gracious keeper of holy technology. This more than makes up for the loss of our father."

At least, that's how it came across to me. I wanted to throw something at the TV.

And then I watched an episode of Shark. I love James Woods acting, but the writers are killing his credibility. They have him diving to the floor to avoid sniper bullets that are shattering the windows of his home, and then a day later he gets upset and takes a walk alone on a dark and deserted road. He gets picked up in a limo (miraculous timing) by the same guy who was trying to kill him. But NOW, with nobody watching, the bad guy only wants to give him a low-ball bribe. Is it too much to ask for just a little bit of intelligent consistency in characters?

I would be embarrassed ... or maybe I should say I am embarrassed to write such ridiculous dreck. But, I'll continue to plug away with the hope that some day I'll reach a level of competency that doesn't make me cringe without twenty rewrites. It will probably take years and makes me wish I had started much earlier in my life. I don't want to become a competent writer just in time to keel over with a stroke. I might have to make plans to live forever just to get it right. Or, I can always give it up and become an irritated TV critic.

A Question of Faith

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:24:54 GMT

I stuck my neck out a bit over on a blog that I really enjoy called Depleted Cranium. The blog focusses on bad science and crazy alarmist fears and such things as that. But, they had a post about a particularly nasty looking cult and one of the commenters expressed a desire not to hear things that makes her question her faith. The Atheists that hang out there immediately jumped on it and told her that the only conclusion she could draw was that "everything she had been told about god was a lie, and god didn't exist." Now, I'm fine with letting people believe whatever they believe, but I couldn't let that stand as the only option. Not, when someone's faith was hanging out there, blowing in the wind.

Chances are, the commenter didn't even read it, but I took at least a little bit of pleasure in it.

Depth of Character

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:32:25 GMT

When we are writing fictional characters we are told to make them real, by making them more than one-dimensional. A character who is bad and has no redeeming qualities may work in fiction up to a point, but when we want some kind of lasting depth to the story, we need to recognize that even the bad guy is a hero in his own story. We don't have to agree with his motives or fully understand his reasoning, but simply knowing that the character does things for a reason is enough to give them depth.

So, why do we try to ignore that in real life? Senator Obama says that Rev. Wright is characterized by so much more than those few statements that are being played by the media. He feeds the hungry and generally helps others in need. But many of the pundits continue to tell us that Senator Obama must reject Rev. Wright, not just the statements, but the man himself. But you can only do that if you believe those few statements define the man, and Senator Obama has already assured us that they don't.

Back in the 90's I attended a couple of Promise Keeper events, where Christian men came together and encouraged each other to a masculine approach to their faith. I must honestly admit that I didn't come away with a whole lot of new insight. I believe all of us, men and women have characteristics that can be defined as feminine and masculine and we need to work effectively with what we have, what God has given us. I've never been a "manly man" and am perfectly comfortable with what that means. Manly men get together and talk about football over beer. I'd rather talk about the future of humanity over a bottle of water. But, one of the things that Promise Keepers pushed quite a bit was the need in this country for racial healing. It recognized the biblical pronouncement that the sins of the father are visited upon the children for up to nine generations. The consequences of the enslavement and degradation of a race of people does not end when the next generation comes along and says they aren't going to do that anymore. We have created two separate realities and it will take a lot of work from future generations on both sides to bridge the gap.

So, when I read the full transcript of Senator Obama's recent speech, it literally brought tears to my eyes. It is simply the finest statement on race from a politician that I've ever seen. He is standing in the gap and sees both realities, and knows that abandoning one side for the other will never bring the two sides together. His approach is ultimately Christian, demonstrating forgiveness and love for one another, as we've been instructed to do. And yet, I don't see the outspoken "religious right" flocking to his cause. If Bill Clinton was bad for the country because of his moral failings, then shouldn't they be supporting the candidate with the highest moral integrity? I suspect (but have no proof) that this is where Senator Obama is getting the majority of his cross-over from the "other side".

It's my hope that over time, this country will abandon its obsessive desire for politicians that can be portrayed as one-dimensional caricatures, but we're going to have to find our own depth of character to get there.

Shout Out For Justin Nozuka

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:30:44 GMT

I love music and I really try to keep what I'm listening to as fresh as possible. I went through high school in the 70's but I'm not one of those people that thinks they stopped making music after Kansas or the Eagles. I loved them then, but I rarely have the urge to listen to them now because there's always someone new and creative who speaks to us for today, this very moment. I try to pay attention to new artists when I can, and I recently discovered that channel 101 on DirecTV had 24 hours of music programming from the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin. And that's where I found Justin Nozuka. He is simply the most amazing artist I have come across in a long, long, long time. And he's only 19.

Here's a sample.

Spread the word!

Something Greater Than Ourselves

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:06:45 GMT

One of the standard requirements of a story is having a character or characters with some kind of goal or desire. It's their drive to reach their goal that pushes the story along. So, I recently started reading Undertow, by Elizabeth Bear (my first try with this author), and I struggled with the beginning of it, lots of characters, and lots of description. I could only grab fifteen minutes here, twenty minutes there, to read the book, and I found myself completely confused after about forty pages, so I started over and really paid attention to the different characters and slowed my reading down so I could fully grasp the world that the author was building. I rarely start over like that, because if the story doesn't grab me, I'd rather spend my limited time reading something else that does, but people I respect continue to praise her writing, so I wanted to give it a respectable try.

I must admit that sometimes I grow impatient with descriptions, because it often gets in the way of the story (for me), but when I slowed myself down, I really couldn't fault any of the descriptions as being out of place. They did a good job of coloring in the strangeness of this world. And by starting over and slowing down, I kept better track of the characters and found of course that they all had goals and desires. And yet, I still wasn't hooked into the story ... until I got to somewhere close to page 100. And then it grabbed me and I'm running with it, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

So, I had to scratch my head a bit to figure out what happened, and I realized that prior to that point, the characters all had their own goals and desires, but for the most part, everyone was trying to do their own thing, meet their own needs. But, then it was revealed that their were bigger things going on in the galaxy, things that could have dire consequences for everyone, human and alien alike. It sets up lot's of questions where you have to ask if the bad guys are really bad and the good guys really good. But mostly what it does is moves the goals and desires from a strictly personal level to something that is important for a lot of people.

This is where art imitates life. If everyone cares only for their own issues, tries to solve only their own personal problem, we don't get very excited about it. For instance, let's say it's my goal to get ahead at work, but I have a crappy boss trying to keep me down. Maybe if I watch the boss very closely, I can find him doing something really bad and work through the inherent roadblocks of the system but eventually cause him to be fired. If I make myself really sympathetic to you, you might be interested in my story simply because you want to see me win. But, let's assume that I'm not so sympathetic. I make a decent living already and there's lots of people who would love to have my job, so going after the boss can become very petty ... unless ... I'm going after the boss because he represents all that's bad with the company and by going after him, I'm making changes in the company that will benefit everyone. It's the idea of doing something that's greater than ourselves that resonates.

I need to remember this in my own writing.

I Hate The Popular Press

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:33:02 GMT

I hate reading anything by the popular press that has anything to do with something I actually have some knowledge about because almost 99 times out of 100 they really screw it up, especially if it has anything to do with science. Take for instance the recent announcement from the TimesOnline about the death of Arthur C. Clarke. In the write-up the reporter states:

The visionary author of more than 70 books, who was nominated for a Nobel Prize after predicting the existence of satellites ...

What a flaming dumbass. Every creature on earth has a front row seat to view one of the largest satellites in our solar system. It creates our tides, affects our moods (ask any ER worker), and established one of our primary senses of the passage of time. But according to this reporter, the existence of the moon had to be predicted!

What the reporter should have said was that Arthur C. Clarke was nominated for the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for the intellectual work leading to the creation of communication satellites. I fear for our future when it seems like the people we've entrusted to keep us informed are too stupid to understand the basic reality of the world they live in.

A Hard Days Night

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:49:23 GMT

The computer screen started warbling back and forth and I pushed the chair back to let my eyes refocus. It helped, but I could tell something was very wrong. Could this be a stroke, or something else neurological? It was Saturday, and I was working my "other" day job, alone in an office on the UCR campus with the front door locked. If I passed out, it would be difficult to get to me, so I grabbed my cell phone so I could keep some access to communication, walked to the front door and unlocked it, then went on outside and took a few deep breaths of fresh air.

Everything seemed OK, so I went back inside. But when I tried looking at the computer screen , the view shook back and forth again. It was about 4:30 PM, about time to eat, so I thought maybe it was some kind of blood-sugar thing, and I laid on the floor and even propped my legs up on the chair. It felt better, so I called my wife on my cell phone, and told her I had something really weird just happen to me. She offered to come pick me up, but I told her no, I'm going to let it clear and then I'll come home. I just wanted to give her a heads up in case it got worse.

And boy did it get worse. The view of the room began to shimmer and shake. I would say it was spinning, because that's what people seem to understand, but there was really no "spin" involved. My eyes couldn't stay tracked on one point, so from my vantage everything was shaking back and forth at a rapid rate. I began to feel nausea, so I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. I checked the movements of my arms and legs which felt normal, and put my hands to my face to see if there was anything out of the ordinary with the muscles on my face. Back in 1973 or 1974 I had an issue which resulted in temporary paralysis of one side of my face, so I knew what I was looking for. Everything checked out, which was of some comfort, but by this time I couldn't get up from the floor. If my life depended on it, I might have been able to claw my way up to the desk phone, and I might have been able to find and punch out 9-1-1 to get the campus police, but I'm not certain of it. But, I still had my cell phone with me on the floor, and I managed to find the button to redial. I don't think I could have connected any other way.

I told her that my problem had just gotten much worse. She offered to come pick me up again, but I told her it had gotten to the "call 9-1-1" stage. She used her conference calling skills and tied me in so we got the ball rolling. My wife asked me if I knew where they would be taking me, but I didn't know. She said she would drive on up (from home, 35 miles away) and she'd have her cell phone. She would try to find me when she got in the area.

The campus police were the first to enter the building a few minutes later, and they asked me all the standard questions so they could fill in their report as well as see how lucid I was. I don't know what they looked like because I couldn't open my eyes without getting exceptionally nauseous. I puked a couple of times in a small blue plastic recycling bin that I was able to roll/lean into for a moment, before the paramedics finally arrived. More of the same questions as they took my vitals, then managed to get me on the gurney and out the door.

The sunlight on my closed eyelids was almost too much to handle, then we were finally inside the ambulance and on our way. More questions (actually, the same questions) and I overheard someone say we were going to Riverside Community Hospital. I asked if someone could call my wife. They said someone would call when we got to the hospital. When we got to the hospital, we had to wait somewhere for a while for a bed to open up. I don't know if I was still in the ambulance, or if they had moved me inside somewhere or whether the people near me were the paramedics, or nurses from the hospital. I couldn't open my eyes long enough to get any kind of bearing. I asked again if someone could call my wife and they said as soon as I get checked in to the hospital.

After awhile they moved me again and when they stopped, they asked me if I could scoot myself onto the bed. I could not, so they had to do it. They took off my shirt and hooked up to new equipment, then stuck me, in first unsuccessfully in the left and then successfully in the right hand to get an IV going, and gave me something for motion sickness. Somewhere along the way they drew blood for tests as well. I asked again if someone could call my wife and they said the doctor would call as soon as he saw me. Lights would go on and off and occasionally I would open my eyes, but I never got any firm sense of where I was other than some kind of a space that had a curtain pulled across the front. The doctor finally showed up repeated all the questions and I heard something about virus and he said they were going to give me different medicine to get the nausea down. I asked again if someone would call my wife and the doctor took her phone number.

I listened to bits of conversations that came and went from beyond the curtain and I finally heard my wife's voice. It was comforting to know she was there along with our fifteen year old daughter. Apparently I looked very pale. I asked her if the doctor had it figured out yet because I knew she would get to that point very quickly with them. She asked if anyone had told me what was wrong and I said I had overheard someone say something about a virus, but I wasn't sure if they were even talking about me when I heard it. She confirmed that they thought a virus had gotten into my inner ear and was playing havoc, giving me vertigo. Someone showed up a while later with a new medicine, this time in the form of a pill, and asked if I could take it without water or could I sit up and take it with a swallow. I said no, and no. She said I needed to take the pill. I said I didn't know what else to tell her. She said I didn't have to sit up on my own, they could lift the bed (or gurney or whatever I was on) up, I didn't have to lift myself. We tried it, and I managed to get it down, and it stayed down. No small feat.

An X-ray tech showed up to give me a chest x-ray and I had to lean forward enough for him to slide something behind my back. I wanted to get a look at the equipment, but still couldn't open my eyes. When he was finally through with the abuse I got to lay back down. We asked someone what was going to happen next, and they said the doctor was waiting for the results of the blood work and x-ray and for the nausea to subside. They injected something else into my IV and said if the nausea didn't go away in about an hour, they'd do a CAT scan to make sure there was nothing wrong with my brain (other than the obvious problems familiar to friends and family).

The X-ray tech came back one more time because the first shot didn't take, but the abuse of leaning forward was a little easier to take this time. And after an hour or more had passed and the nausea was still quite present, they wheeled me into another room for the CAT scan. Again, I would have liked to see the equipment, but I only stole momentary flashes. The scan came back clean and they were ready to let me go with a doctor's note and instruction to stay home for the next four days.

The ride home was uneventful except I learned that if I pressed my head against the back of the seat, it secured at least one direction of possible movement and every little bit helped. When we got home and pulled into the garage, I asked for a folding chair that I knew was near by, and used it like a walker to steady me and allow me to pace myself. I found that holding onto someone was just too unsteady. But, by the time I got to the stairs I was pretty much out of it. There was no way I could walk up the stairs and there was no way anyone was going to carry me to my bed. I got on all fours and crawled a few steps, then rested to let the nausea pass, then crawled a few more and repeated, until I was eventually up the stairs and by the side of the bed. My wife helped me get my shoes off as I lay on the floor, and I declined the offer to get out of my clothes. With one final push I got into bed and rested my head on my very stationary pillow and was asleep in minutes. The time at that point was almost midnight. From onset to crawling into bed took a little over 7 hours. With my eyes closed most of the time, it seemed like a lot less time had passed.

It's been two days now, and while I haven't had any nausea to contend with since the first night, I still walk like I'm drunk and I rely heavily on walls and railings to keep me upright. When our understanding and expertise in biology is sophisticated enough to deal with a stupid virus, I'll be a happy camper.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:38:29 GMT

As much as I like "change" in my life (because it's that's the part that's interesting), when it comes to my writing, I need to have consistency. By which I mean that I have to get myself into that writing space in my head as well as my body so that the focus is only on the writing. This can be very difficult at times since I do the bulk of my writing on the bus or train. But my ritual is to try and get the same seat (or similar seat) that I've found to work best for me, put on the headphones, crank up the tunes, and let the rest of the world fade into the background.

On the bus, I like seats that have a certain amount of clearance so that I can open my laptop without hitting a chair. I will need to lose quite a few more pounds (23 and counting) before that's possible in every seat, but I have all the good ones scoped out. In the morning, I'm generally the first one on the bus, so I have my pick of seats, but in the evening I have to scramble a little before my train stops to be the first one out the door, then walk briskly to stay ahead of the everyone else walking across the parking lot to get into the bus.

On the train, I like to get one of the few seats with a table. Again, in the morning, I'm generally the first one on so I get what I need. I've also experimented with different cars on the train because of various distractions. For instance, one car has a lot of very boisterous people that are hard to ignore even with headphones on, and another car has two ladies that just annoy me simply because they have probably 60 or 70 open seats on the upper level of the train to chose from and they always take two of the eight seats around tables and then lay their glasses or a book on the table (preventing use of the space) and promptly doze off. That kind of unthinking selfishness is just too hard to watch. In the evenings, I have to scramble to get a table, but I've settled into a particular car where the regulars leave the tables open unless they are actually using them and there are usually one or two spots open by the time I arrive.

But, yesterday was interesting. Yesterday, I went home on a different train, so I had to explore a little before I found a seat. I started in the last car but quickly saw all the tables were taken so I moved to the next car. I found a table with two gentleman sitting next to the window which left the two aisle seats open. I prefer the window seats because the table is in a wedge shape and doesn't quite extend it's length to the aisle, so the computer has to be used at a slight angle and offset just a little bit. But, I still like that option better than using my lap, so I grabbed the seat and started setting up shop. As I turned the computer on and got out my headphones, I listened to the two men talking to each other. The man next to me appeared to be Hispanic and had a slight accent. The one across from me was Black, also with a slight accent, probably from Africa. I didn't pay attention to the content of their conversation, but I got the sense that their was a certain familiarity between them. Not that they were necessarily "friends" in the standard sense of the word, but more like "train friends", people who spend an hour together every day, but otherwise lead separate lives.

So, the train got rolling, and the tunes were drowning out the conversation and everything should have been right with my world. Except, I couldn't write anything to save my life. It turns out, both of the nice gentlemen next to the windows were hand talkers. One would lean forward and punctuate his end of the conversation with hands and arms and fingers, swinging and sliding and curling in the space just over the table, then lean back and let the other do the same to make his own point. I felt like I was at the free throw line trying to shoot a basket and the crowd behind the left side of the basket all got their psycho wheels spinning and thunder sticks flapping. I simply could not ignore the visual distraction. I tried for quite a while, but eventually gave up, and by that point, I just didn't have the energy to pack everything up and start over in a new seat, so I cleaned up some files on my computer instead.

But, if I ever ride that train again, I'll be on the lookout for those two.

Denial or Free Access

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:25:37 GMT

I had an enjoyable time at CONDOR XV this weekend. Highlights included seeing fellow Clarion alum, Shweta, and moderating a panel that included one of my favorite authors, Vernor Vinge. I also thoroughly enjoyed a one hour work shop on dialog, led by author Kay Kenyon, who's work is now receiving some critical acclaim. In fact I liked her as a person and a teacher so much that I marched down to the dealers room and bought one of her latest books. I'm looking forward to the read.

But, it makes me wonder how many authors actually hurt their careers at cons because of their own bad behavior. I must say that when I see an author being arrogant or selfishly monopolizing the time (often without adding any valuable content), I'm much more inclined to stay away from their work. On the face of it, that work should stand on it's own, but unfortunately, once I've seen the author in action, I won't be able to get their face and voice out of my head when I'm reading and it will color everything.

But, the thing that I've been struggling with since the convention isn't about obnoxious panelists, in fact it's the opposite. For the last two or three years, I've been going to the San Diego cons, and I keep running into two local writers (one probably in his late forties/early fifties, the other probably late fifties) who I've either sat with in the audience, or watched speaking on various panels as they proudly display their latest book. They are both kind, polite gentlemen, who never provide any great insights on panels, but seem to add reasonable input to the dialog most of the time. They are certainly not the type to ruin their careers because of obnoxious behavior. But, It wasn't until last year that I finally did a little investigation and discovered that both of these men are published through AuthorHouse, which is a self-publishing company.

So, this year I found myself on a panel about manuscripts being "dead on arrival" which included a literary agent who immediately launched into a plea to all writer's in the audience never to self-publish because it would greatly harm their career in terms of being taken seriously by editors and agents and published writers, and also in terms of the loss of appropriate feedback about the quality of the work. In short, most self-published books couldn't be published otherwise because they're crap (my words). One of the friendly self-published authors was sitting in the front row, so I watched him closely for a reaction and got nada! He listened calmly and even participated in discussions later, but he seemed unaffected by the complaint against self-publishing. But, I've read excerpts from his book and the other self-published author and both do nothing to change the status quo. They are both writing unadulterated dreck that no publisher in their right mind would touch, even if one of the books was awarded the San Diego Book Award for Best Science Fiction or Fantasy in 2005 (An award limited to contestants who live in San Diego County and pay the $25 submission fee).

Later on, I saw the gentleman in a hallway and we had a short conversation. I asked him how the writing was going and he told me it's been hard because of the problems with the book. I dug deeper and he told me that he had been "lucky" to get the book published because the editor he hired (yes, he paid his editor) also happened to be on the board of the publishing house and managed to use his influence to push the book through (imagine that). But, then the publisher went out of business and kept his money for publishing the book. Now, I don't think he was talking about AuthorHouse because it still appears to be in business, but clearly the original company was in the self-publishing business as well since the money never flowed towards the writer.

So, while he's telling me this story, my brain is screaming at him, "don't you see you've been duped?" And if I knew him better, had some kind of real relationship with him, I'm sure I would lay it out for him as clearly as possible. But, I almost believe, because of his story and his reaction to the admonition during the earlier panel, that he doesn't think what he did was self-publishing. But if you go to these conventions for any length of time and you're paying attention, it's not really very hard to figure out. So, are they in denial about the reality of their credentials and the quality of their work, or are they the kind of people that enjoy getting free access to conventions to sit on panels and being "published" helps them do that?

I think I'm going to go with "denial" on this one, but the sad thing is by they time they realize the truth (if ever), they probably will have wasted ten years of their life in pursuit of marketing and exposure instead of learning the craft of writing.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:32:29 GMT

Jeff and Ann VanderMeer are looking for weird personal stories, in promotion of their anthology The New Weird. Post, and then they'll pick three winners with a cool prize. Check it out:

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/02/10/contest-tell-us-your-new-weird-story-win-tons-of-cool-stuff/

Here's my story:

In June of 1971 I was sitting in my seventh grade language arts class and a friend of mine, named Frank, got into an argument with the teacher. Now, Frank was the son of another teacher in the same school (same as me) and was considered one of the “good kids” who never got into trouble. And the teacher was your prototypical school marm, a small, gray haired, little old lady who never had a cross word to say to anybody. So the whole class was a little bit in shock when the argument erupted and resulted in Frank walking defiantly down to the principal’s office. He had never been in any kind of trouble before (and nothing like it ever occurred again).

But here’s the weird part. About two months earlier I picked up a how-to book on precognition which made the case that the way to predict the future was to practice predicting the future. So all I had to do was make predictions and see if they came true. I guess there was supposed to be some kind of psychic feedback mechanism in place; the more you did it, the better you would get. So, I promptly made a few predictions that had a snowballs chance in hell of happening, like “In two weeks I will have a million dollars” (I’m still waiting) and “Arlen will become Student Body President” (a goofball friend who never ran for anything) and lastly “Frank will be sent to the Principal’s office in June”.

I never told anyone about it and never tried to make predictions again because avoiding the “freak” label in Junior High took way more precedence over some useless (but really cool) psychic ability.

The Opposite of Deja Vu?

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:06:30 GMT

If deja vu is that feeling when you're in the present but it feels like you've experienced this moment before, then what do you call it when you're in the present but it feels like you've just dropped back into the past?

I had a moment like that the other day. My mother recently gave me a folder with a bunch of keepsakes and news clippings about me that were mostly from things I did in high school and shortly after. I showed them to my 15 year old daughter, which was kind of fun and nostalgic for me and I enjoyed the opportunity to give her a little more sense of where I've come from. It's easy for teenagers to dismiss their parents as out-of-touch adults, but showing the reality of me as a real person who was once her age is an opportunity that's hard to miss.

But it wasn't the nostalgia of times gone by that threw me into the past. It was a small bit of information at the end of a very yellowed newspaper article (circa 1975). The article itself was about an award I had won, but my daughter pointed to a few lines at the end and said "Wow, was that really your address?" I looked, and sure enough they had the name and address of my 16 year old self printed right there at the end of the article, and I had this sudden sensation like I was actually there, back in 1975 and I could feel the presence of that now alien world wrapped all around me ... the teenage angst, the youthful health, the idealistic outlook. I was right there in the midst of it even if only for a moment. And all because of something small that was very common in its day, but would never happen today. It was something unique to the time.

It's just like when you're writing and your want to pull the reader into the story. It's the subtle but unique details, told almost as an afterthought, that can make the most impact.

Am I Changing My Taste in Fiction?

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:06:18 GMT

I've had people I respect tell me that Kage Baker is awesome, so I recently read her novel, "In the Garden of Iden." It's the first in her "Company" series. I thought it was great. The characters were interesting and engaging and pulled me along the whole way. And the world-building was wonderful as well. She is clearly a gifted writer. I don't think it was a perfect book, but I hold it up as a keeper. In fact, I've already purchased another book in the series, so I put my money where my mouth is.

The next book I read was "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge which recently received the Hugo award. I've met the man on several occasions (presentation at a futurists meeting, a couple of cons in San Diego, and Clarion) and while I thoroughly enjoy hearing him talk about our technological future and while I absolutely loved his previous two Hugo winning novels, I had to force myself to finish this one. Part of my dissatisfaction may be because of the big increase in the amount of writing I've been accomplishing. I'm much more in tune with what a writer is trying to accomplish in a scene, and if the mechanics become too obvious it takes me right out of the story. There were some scenes where the characters said and did things only to provide the reader with explanations of the technologies. It wasn't a full blown "As you know Bob" but to my more attuned sense of story it slapped me in the face. And there were scenes later in the book where two groups from different "belief circles" were engaged in a big demonstration/riot and I assume it was supposed to be very climactic and such, but it just seemed like filler material to me. I think the bottom line for me was that I didn't find any of the characters to be engaging. Maybe it was their motivations (or lack of it) that turned me off. The character reactions to what was happening in the story just didn't ring true to me. I really think that the issues I have with the novel would probably disappear into the background if I could have believed in the characters.

I used to think that great world-building was one of the most important keys to my reading enjoyment, giving me that "sense of wonder" that I really love. But its really come home to me that "it's the character, stupid."

Nanotechnology Roadmap

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:38:29 GMT

I like to keep an eye out for good reference documents, ones that provide a good big picture. This one here is a great overview of nanotechnology; where we are, and where we need to go.

If I created a character who was President ...

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:46 GMT

This post is about politics ... wait ... come back! I don't mean I'm going to rant about who's wrong and who's right (Well, maybe just a little). What I want to do is talk about my own perceptions on the topic, and why I've been so disgusted with politics in general but also why I have a surprising sense of hope today.

So first, let me lay out my political philosophy. I call myself a conservative. And by that, I'm saying I believe government should be limited to certain roles and activities, those being primarily to protect us from harm, to create and build infrastructure for the common good, and to create or promote an economy that allows equal access and participation. And laying on top of that, I have a strong sense of pragmatism. I try not to get caught up in rhetoric. I'm not so concerned with a particular activity being "right" as I am about whether or not it actually works.

Let's start with public safety. It should really be a no-brainer and should be the first thing governments spend money on. Any time I hear politicians pledge to add funding for police it actually pisses me off because it means they already know how important it is and they've chosen to spend money in the budget on other things. They know if they spent the necessary money on public safety first and then asked the tax payer for more money to promote a healthy diet, or build a new park, the public is much less likely to agree. And I'm not saying those other things are bad. A healthy diet targeted at certain sectors of society could help level the economic playing field for those individuals, and a park can be a wonderful addition to the common good. But if your child is getting assaulted on his way to school, would you rather the government put a priority on his or her safety, or would you prefer they teach him to eat better or build her a new park to play in. Why isn't every government budget prioritized this way and then published with the rankings in place. If you want to complain about funding for something, you should be able to point to a list and make your case that your pet concern should have a higher priority than one further up the list. And if a politician says he wants to add something to the budget, he should justify it's priority. But politicians usually don't like this kind of clarity.

And what about infrastructure? I think governments should be responsible for building and maintaining roads because that particular bit of infrastructure is important to our economy as well as our personal livelihood and well being. And frankly, government is the only entity capable of providing the common oversight and management of that infrastructure (at this time). Broad-band communications is a similar type of infrastructure, but the US government has not taken responsibility to build and maintain it. I like free-market enterprise, but compared to other parts of the world, the US is lagging in broad-band services, so perhaps the government needs to step in. As I said, I'm more interested in what works best than hanging onto a particular ideology like free market competition.

And now let's talk about level playing field. I think laws like the Sherman Anti-trust Act helps to level the business playing field. I think the Civil Rights Act heps to level the personal playing field. Welfare of any kind (corporate or personal) is a good idea if it levels the playing field AND demonstrates that it works. I think a lot of corporate welfare is a complete fraud. And while I like the idea of helping individuals in need, something is obviously not working when some sectors of society remain on welfare from one generation to the next. I think it demeans those who work in lower paying jobs when they know they aren't making much more than those who don't work at all. I would rather see welfare money spent on "work-fare" of some sort where the work is geared to public projects like building parks and libraries, or even housing projects (see habitat for humanity). And I would like to see money saved from the various forms of welfare go towards two areas that would level personal playing fields: education and health care. But I would not want either of those programs to be completely controlled and managed by the government. Our current K-12 system is a joke and needs to be turned on its head and rebuilt with less government intrusion (No Child Left Behind is clearly not working). We need to stop being afraid to try new approaches to education when the old way is clearly broken. And as for health care, much as we all dislike HMO's, a health care system controlled completely by the government would be worse in the long run. (Don't get me started on military health care). I see changes in the way health care is delivered looming on the horizon as the industry gets pulled into the information age kicking an screaming, while at the same time treatments will become more specific to the individual (By this, I mean medical treatment designed for the specific individual, not just better customer service). I guess what I'm saying is that I think decent health care delivery will work itself out without too much government intervention as long as we figure out a decent way to get everyone covered. And therein lies the crux of the matter. How are you going to pay for universal health care if no politician is willing to take any responsibility for the priorities in the budget?

So, these are the kind of things that I see as priorities in this country, and all too often I'm hearing nothing but crap come out of the politicians. As a Christian, I cringe when I hear conservatives pandering to the religious right about constitutional bans on same sex marriage. Yes, a society has the right to create it's own rules, even rules about what is considered moral or immoral, but is that really the most important thing you've got going? And from the left I hear too much derision towards business as some kind of evil in the world. Where do they think the life style to which our society has grown accustomed to came from? Government spending? And from the extremes of both ends I see a loathsome attack on science, either from overstating risks (vote for me and I'll save you from the evils of nuclear power/genetically modified foods/ etc.) or attacking research on flimsy moral grounds (vote for me and I'll stop progress on unholy stem cell research/genetic basis of sexual orientation/ etc).

We all know that politicians are a different breed. Many of them are just in it because they enjoy the power and fame. And I would probably be OK with that if they actually did something productive. Yes, I voted for Bush-43 and yes, I now admit that he turned out to be certainly the worst President in my lifetime, but I'm not convinced that my buffoon is any worse than either of the Democrat buffoons that challenged him for the position. I'm so disgusted with politicians saying one thing and doing another that I think ideology has become a moot point. I've finally reached the point that I'm really more interested in how believable they are as a real human being than where there ideological slant is, because a real human being will listen to arguments and look for solutions that work. I want them to be able to speak in a way that seems real to me; real like a character in one of my stories would speak, which isn't real per se, but holds the ring of truth. If I had written a character that spoke like Bush-43 it would only work if it were a comedy. And while his predecessor, Clinton had a great knack for soundbites, I thought everything he ever said was insincere, from "I feel your pain" to "I never had sexually relations...". I want a president that says things that make them a real person or at least gives me hope that they are real. I could never vote for Hillary. Like Bill, nothing she says strikes me as sincere, and she doesn't have anywhere near the gravitas that Bill could command (Characters need to fit in the role you've put them in). I don't like McCain because he changes stripes when it suits him (Characters should be consistent unless you're setting up the reader for a big surprise). I don't like Romney because his message is inconsequential (Talking heads will kill a good story). I like Giuliani because of his emphasis on leadership with statements like "It's congress' job to make decisions", but when he accuses another candidate of hiring illegal aliens, he falls back into the same old crap (Characters need to be fully realized so they don't fall back into cliche). And that brings me finally to Obama. He seems real to me. And even though he leans much further towards the liberal than I'm usually comfortable with, I get the sense (or maybe the hope) that he'll look for solutions that work without tearing half the country apart on the way. From a character standpoint, I would say that he seems fully realized.

And we desperately need a fully realized President.

Where Science Meets Art

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:20:03 GMT

I just read an editorial that has some interesting insights about how we study the brain/mind, including these words:

The question, of course, is how neuroscience can get beyond reductionism. Science rightfully adheres to a strict methodology, relying on experimental data and testability, but this method could benefit from an additional set of inputs. Artists, for instance, have studied the world of experience for centuries. They describe the mind from the inside, expressing our first-person perspective in prose, poetry and paint. Although a work of art obviously isn't a substitute for a scientific experiment -- Proust isn't going to invent Prozac -- the artist can help scientists better understand what, exactly, they are trying to reduce in the first place. Before you break something apart, it helps to know how it hangs together.

Virginia Woolf, for example, famously declared that the task of the novelist is to "examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day ... [tracing] the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness."

In other words, she wanted to describe the mind from the inside, to distill the details of our psychological experience into prose. That's why her novels have endured: because they feel true. And they feel true because they capture a layer of reality that reductionism cannot. As Noam Chomsky said, "It is quite possible -- overwhelmingly probable, one might guess -- that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology." In this sense, the arts are an incredibly rich data set, providing neuroscience with a glimpse behind its blind spots.

GO TEAM!

Alien World

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:02:04 GMT

al-ien [eyl-yuhn, ey-lee-uhn]

-noun

... a person who has been estranged or excluded.

-adjective

... unlike one's own; strange; not belonging to one:

This is the true story of an alien world and the aliens who lived there.

A very good friend of mine (let's call him Bob) recently moved because of his job and found himself living about an hour from his estranged sister (let's call her Cindy), which was much closer than he had been in years. Cindy was estranged simply because she stopped responding to letters, emails and phone calls, it wasn't the result of any kind of emotional falling out. So, being the stand-up kind of guy Bob is, he reached out to her once again and arranged to go out to dinner with his family and hers. Cindy has two daughters, we'll call them Denise and Erin, ages 27 and 18 respectively.

During the dinner Bob and his family asked the usual questions about what everyone was doing with their lives and learned that Cindy had been struggling to keep a job and was currently on unemployment. And, with Erin close to turning 19, they were also about to lose a small amount of child support that was being garnished from the father's wages. It was a sad but rather common tale, but made horrifying with the revelation that both Denise and Erin quit going to school in the ninth grade, didn't know how to drive, and had never held a job. Their life consisted of watching TV and going online.

Bob is the kind of guy who is pathologically incapable of letting odd or bad behavior go unchallenged. He doesn't attack people, he just states the obvious consequences to what's going on. So, he did what I'm afraid many of us wouldn't do under similar circumstances and read the riot act to Cindy, and even more so to Denise and Erin. The most important point he drove home was that if anything should happen to Cindy, the next stop for Denise and Erin would be the local homeless shelter. He told them they both needed to start by getting their drivers license, and then getting a job, and he would help show them how to do it if they needed. They declined his help.

A couple of months later, Bob got a phone call from Denise and Erin, who told him that Cindy had a stroke and the EMTs took her to the hospital. He picked them up at their house and brought them to the hospital where he found a very grave situation. If his sister survives, she will require a high degree of care for the rest of her life. It has changed his nieces lives forever.

He drove his nieces back to their house early in the morning. They lived in a single-wide mobile home, in a mobile home "park" out in the middle of nowhere, in which each home sat in the middle of a one acre lot. He'd never been inside their home before. When his nieces opened the door and walked in, he had to hold back for a moment because of the overwhelming stench that sent him gagging.. He finally entered the home and found the place was overrun with cats. He saw that nearly every square inch of the floor, and all but about a two foot strip of kitchen counter was covered in cat shit. But, the main stench was the ammonia smell emanating from cat urine that had soaked into everything. He asked his nieces if the EMTs came inside the house, or had the two of them dragged their mother outside. They confirmed that the EMTs had come inside and one had also yelled at them about the condition of the house, and said he was going to call the Sheriff's department. Bob asked if the Sherriff had come out, and they said yes, but it was okay, because they hid out behind the neighbor's house until he left.

Unlike his nieces, Bob knew the sheriff would be back, probably sometime that morning, and the place would be condemned. He also knew what had to be done. He started by telling Denise and Erin that their life as they knew it had just ended. They were going to come live with him, follow his rules. He would help them become self sufficient so they could find there own place and learn to take care of their mother when she got out of the hospital. They objected because they wanted to stay in their own home. He had to convince them it was not possible. And this was a home where the bathtubs were completely filled with cat shit and piss. His nieces had been cleaning themselves with the occasional sponge bath once or so a week, usually at the same time they would hand wash their one and only set of clothes in the sink. The only household appliance that still worked in the house was the refrigerator. The ammonia from the cat piss was so saturated in the air that it had been condensing out on anything that was warm. So the lights, TV, computers, all had gooey streaks of slime that was disgusting to touch and horrible to smell. When the Sheriff finally came around with orders to vacate, accompanied by righteous indignation at the depravity of conditions, Bob did they only thing he could do at that point. He apologized. Then he apologized again.

And then Bob set to the task of cleaning up the mess. The first step was to capture all of the cats. They thought about calling the humane society, but knew it would become one of those "Crazy cat lady" stories on the news, and that wouldn't benefit anyone in this situation. So, he set about capturing the cats one at a time. The eventual number captured was over sixty. A number of cats were quite feral in nature. Bob found a place that would take most of the cats, but only if they had some minimal socialization. He had to take twenty of the most feral cats to the humane society to be euthanized (at a cost of $25 each). To capture the cats, he wore thick leather gloves, but he got bitten through them a number of times and received multiple deep scratches on the arms as well. He found out later that the humane society uses lead lined gloves, and he can certainly understand why. The worst cat of the bunch actually left four of its nails embedded in his arm before he could get it locked in the cage. As he picked the claws out of his skin and placed them on a counter, Erin asked "Do you want me to make a necklace out of those for you?"

The cats had also destroyed every piece of furniture and cabinetry in the house. They had scratched holes into the cabinets so they could jump in from the end and walk all the way to the other end passing through from cabinet to cabinet. One set of cabinets was a few feet from the others, but cats would jump from the scratched out hole of one to the scratched out hole of the other, flying across at head level. Some of the more evasive cats had to be captured by grabbing them in mid-Air as they jumped. And every couch and chair and bed had cats living in it. When Bob turned his sister's boxsprings over, ten cats crawled out.

When they cleared a particular piece of furniture of cats, they couldn't leave it there or it would become repopulated again. And the furniture also added to the overall stench of the place, so they would haul it out the front door and dump it in the yard. Eventually, Bob realized that the pile in the yard was growing too large and the stench was beginning to bother the neighbors, so he called to have it picked up. When the men in the garbage truck arrived, he paid them and then apologized profusely for what they were about to endure. They assured him, that they were experienced garbage men and there was nothing they hadn't already seen or smelled. Bob watched them loading the truck from a distance, and wasn't surprised when about half way through; both men ran to the side and puked.

After going through the process of capturing the cats, Bob realized that nothing in the house was salvageable. Everything was either completely destroyed or covered with the condensed slimy smelly residue of cat piss/ammonia. Denise and Erin begged to keep their computers, their portal to the world, their very life. Bob finally agreed to a compromise. He would take only the hard drives from the computers leaving everything else, and he would purchase a single computer for both of them and put in a removable hard drive bay. When he tried to extract the hard drives, he opened the slimed case to discover that the entire inside of the computer casing was one giant hairball. He had to dig out the hair to find the hard drive in both computers. When he got them back home he had to leave the hard drives in his garage for several days so the embedded stench could dissipate before bringing them inside.

Once Bob was finished with the capture and salvage operations, he looked into his sister's finances. She had two bank accounts and was overdrawn in each. She owed money on the single-wide as well. He called the company she had purchased the home from and apologized to them, but informed them that no future payments would be coming, explained the medical situation, and let them know that the home was available for them to do with as they pleased. But, he also advised them that if it were his decision, he would burn it in place because it was a complete loss. They thanked him, but were sure there was still some value they could get out of it. When there own inspectors came to look they changed there mind. It will be burned in place.

Bob is helping Denise and Erin reintegrate into society. The first step was to get a picture ID. But, adults who have never had a picture ID before and never been employed, require extra signatures on paperwork and a visit to a state investigator a couple of hours away in order to prove identity. The next step is to learn to drive and then make a plan for the future. Bob already had them take the test for their GED. They both passed easily. Denise's scores were so good that she was told to show her GED scores when she applies to college. And, Bob is encouraging them to take college classes, as long as it directly relates to a chosen career field or immediate job skills. Denise wanted to take a class in Japanese because it would be "fun". Bob told her they're not going to be doing "fun" for a while.

So, progress is being made, but nothing is certain. Bob hopes that his nieces can reclaim a place in society and sees some progress, but at times it's like trying to deal with aliens; you never quite know if you're working from the same logic set.

A few days ago Erin asked Bob, "Can we get a cat?"