And, actually, sometimes even people who say so are selling something.
Eh?
A friend sent me a link to this blog post, in reaction to my recent funk. From the post:
I called up Rae and complained. She snorted and said, “Join the club”. She was not unsympathetic, but merely voicing the truth: to be an artist means you are going to suffer. Why? Because to create takes time, and we want it now. Pulling those ideas down out of the ether or out of the universe or wherever the hell they come from is so damn time-consuming. And we want– no we expect the idea now.
Amen. That may be part of my current funk – the expectation that now that my care-giving role is over, I should be able to recover and just start being the brilliant and creative person I know I really am.
Ah, well. Good insight.
Oh, and good art. Take it from someone who owned and operated an art gallery for 8 years: this is good art, and the prices are quite reasonable.
Jim Downey
(Hat tip to ML. And if you didn’t recognize the quote used in the title, shame on you. It’s from this.)
Filed under: Astronomy, Carl Sagan, Fermi's Paradox, Preparedness, Science Fiction, SETI, Society, Space
Via TDG, a link to “10 Must-Read ‘First Contact’ Novels” by someone who should know: Mac Tonnies of the SETI.com blog.
Man, I just can’t believe that he didn’t list Communion of Dreams. Huh. But then, Contact by Carl Sagan didn’t make it either . . .
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Guns, Health, Hospice, Sleep
Sorry I haven’t posted much the last couple of days. Honestly, I am in a funk – the sort of deep-seated inertia which comes after completing a protracted project. On one level, it is just the downturn from the ballistics testing. But more, it is the still lingering exhaustion from care-giving.
Which is not surprising. You can’t expect to recover from years of poor sleep and intensely caring for someone else 24 hours a day in just a few weeks. Particularly not when we’re still very much dealing with resolution of the estate (strangers are here right now going through things, giving us estimates on the value of some items) and trying to play catch up on professional and personal obligations. We collapsed immediately following the memorial service for Martha Sr, but then tried to pretend that we were recovered, to get on with the life which had been put on hold for so long.
But now it feels like it is catching up with me again. Like how a battery can get a ‘surface charge’ quickly, but also wears out again quickly. I need a prolonged period of recovery and recuperation. That, however, is not likely to happen. There are books to repair, bills to pay, years worth of things to catch up on.
So, forgive the slight break. I’m not burned out – I still have a lot to say, to do, to write about here. I’m just tired.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Comics, Humor, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
The 4/13 Non Sequitur nails it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Guns, Health, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Press, Privacy, RKBA, Society, Survival, Terrorism, Violence
If you know me at all, from personal experience or just from my writings, you might be a bit surprised to know that when I was a kid I was considered bookish, uninterested in athletics, a bit nerdy. I distinctly remember being pushed to close whatever book I was quietly reading, and to go outside and play ‘like a real boy’.
Why do I mention this? Well, because I have been following with some interest the whole ‘controversy’ around Lenore Skenazy‘s recent column and subsequent news coverage/website devoted to the concept of “Free Range Kids“. In itself, it is fascinating that Skenazy’s ideas have generated this kind of reaction – challenging the prevailing cultural norms about child-rearing and parental control (under the guise of keeping kids safe). Lots of people are saying that it is about time for us to get away from “helicopter parents” who so over-protect their kids that the kids never get any real life experience. Just look at the comments at BoingBoing, on her website, or just about anywhere else – she gets some criticism, but for the most part people are saying either that “it’s about time” or “what’s the big deal – this is how most of the working class folks get along”.
But beyond that, there is something else that comes through: a basic desire for people to have some freedom back, that the whole “security” mindset may have gone too far, that we have gotten well away from our self-professed ideal of being the “Home of the Brave”. I don’t think that this is the least bit surprising, nor that it would show up in these kinds of discussions, because I think that the issues are very closely interrelated.
Let’s talk about Skenazy’s notions again for a moment. Her basic premise is that while we need as parents (and as a society) to take some reasonable precautions, it is also extremely important that kids be allowed to actually experience life outside the purview of parents and other authorities – to have a little room to learn about things like self reliance, independence, and problem solving. Her example is letting her 9 year old son ride the subway in NYC on his own. What happened? I’ll quote from her site:
When I wrote a column for The New York Sun on “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Take The Subway Alone,” I figured I’d get a few e-mails pro and con.
Two days later I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, FoxNews and all manner of talk radio with a new title under my smiling face: “America’s Worst Mom?”
Yes, that’s what it took for me to learn just what a hot-button this is — this issue of whether good parents ever let their kids out of their sight. But even as the anchors were having a field day with the story, many of the cameramen and make up people were pulling me aside to say that THEY had been allowed to get around by themselves as kids– and boy were they glad. They relished the memories!
And the next paragraph nicely summarizes what the real problem is, as I see it:
Had the world really become so much more dangerous in just one generation?Yes — in most people’s estimation. But no — not according to the evidence. Over at the think tank STATS.org, where they examine the way the media use statistics, researchers have found that the number of kids getting abducted by strangers actually holds very steady over the years. In 2006, that number was 115, and 40% of them were killed.
Now, why do people have the perception that the world is much more dangerous now, when the statistics don’t support that? Hmm. Think about it for half a moment and the answer is obvious: because that is what we are constantly told by the mainstream media, both in news and in fiction. And I’m not just talking about kids being kidnapped, assaulted, or murdered. If it isn’t the government trying to scare us senseless about some new terrorist threat, it is some TV show preying on your fears with murder or deadly ingredients in your food/water. Think of what sells papers and ad-time, and you’ll understand the motivation. It has always been so. But what has changed in the last generation is the absolute saturation that we get from these sources.
I am the first to acknowledge that the world is, indeed, a dangerous place. When I was barely starting adolescence my dad was murdered, and my mom was killed in a car accident, for crying out loud. Sure, neither of those is as bad as the loss of a child, but still. I do take reasonable precautions in going about my life, from trying to watch my diet to getting exercise to carrying a gun (and other safety tools). I use my seat belt and pay attention while driving. But I also live my life – because I know that no matter what, I’m going to die of something someday, and I would much rather enjoy the life I have than live in fear of losing it.
It is simply impossible to live a fully protected life. Just as it is simply impossible to fully protect kids from harm. Furthermore, it is completely counter-productive. In the case of kids, all you are doing is denying them the opportunity to really learn about themselves – the one and only person that they will have to rely on in the future. Kids have to learn to walk on their own. And they have to learn to get up when they fall. Sure, they’ll get hurt. They’ll scrape a knee, maybe get cut, maybe even break a bone. Know what? That’s life. They’ll heal, or learn to deal with it.
That’s harsh, but I am not advocating harshness. I am advocating bravery. Because that is what will come from learning that yes, you will get hurt – but you will recover from it. Yes, life will present problems, but you can learn to overcome them or cope with it. Learning that is liberating, and the sooner someone learns it, the more fully they will enjoy what life they have.
Likewise, in seeking to protect ourselves from threats, we have done nothing but lose our bravery as a nation. And lose our freedoms.
Let the kids range free. And let your own faith in yourself range a little freer, as well.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
It is enlightening, if sometimes dismaying, to discover what sorts of things motivate people. I have found that one of the most reliable ways of doing this is to see what sorts of motivations they perceive in others – what motives they attribute for a given behaviour.
Case in point: our caring for Martha Sr. I had mentioned previously that there was some discord in the family about the distribution of her estate. And what at the time seemed to be a misplaced guilt (that still may be the base motivation, actually) causing this has now manifested as a perception that we cared for her over the last five years out of some financial motivation. Yes, it seems that some thought that we did what we did in order to benefit from a more favorable disbursement of her estate.
*Sigh* This is so wrong that it took me a while to really wrap my head around it.
As I told a friend via email this morning:
Needless to say, this is not why we did what we did – honestly, no amount of money (well, no reasonable amount of money) would be sufficient inducement for me to have cared for someone like that for so long. It was done out of love – for her, and for my wife.
And I’ve been thinking more about it. Why? Because I like to understand my own motivations, and to keep them as honest and clean as possible. I’m an idealist, and try to approach the world that way, knowing full well that the world is not an ideal place and that reality will likely not be kind to my approach. When my motivations are questioned, either directly or by events, I like to step back and reconsider – and will make changes if necessary to insure that my motives are clear.
We were favored by Martha Sr. in her will. Not to a great degree – the value of it was less than I could have earned in the intervening years, had I been working rather than caring for her. And it was considerably less than would have been spent on either hiring full time care-givers, or moving her into a nursing home for that time. But because this additional benefit was there, some made the assumption that this was our motivation for caring for her. And this has caused the discord mentioned above.
So, after discussing the matter with my wife, we’re going to wipe out the benefit, just split up her estate equally and without consideration. It is not worth the grief. We didn’t do what we did for money or property – we did it because it was the right thing to do, and we could. Removing the benefit should resolve in anyone’s mind what our motivation was.
Everyone grieves in their own way. We may have wiped the slate clean, but that doesn’t mean that the grieving process is over. Not by a long shot. There are still sympathy cards on the mantelpiece. There is still a sudden slight panic over where the monitor is when I forget for a moment that Martha Sr is gone. There is guilt over the times we failed in some way, and joy over memories of happy moments Martha Sr had even in those final difficult days. And there is a profound gratitude I feel in having experienced this role of being a care provider.
I think that I am richer for this experience than others who have not been through it. I sometimes wonder whether the tendency to put people in nursing homes is partially done out of a fear of grieving – to create a distance from a loved one who is reaching the end of life, and so to mitigate the pain of loss. If so, those who take that path have indeed curtailed the amount of pain that they would feel, perhaps even cut short the time needed to completely grieve. But they have also cut themselves off from a remarkable human experience.
Jim Downey
Updated, April 13: I cross-posted this to dKos yesterday, where it generated some interest and discussion you wish to also see. You can find that here.
JD
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Expert systems, General Musings, Government, Predictions, Privacy, Space, tech, Terrorism
Ah, great – the military has a new techno gizmo to use in the Global War on Terror: a hand-held lie detector! From the article:
FORT JACKSON, S.C. – The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.
The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We’re not promising perfection — we’ve been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it’s properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”
Of course, there are all kinds of problems here. let’s just start with the next paragraph in the story:
But the lead author of a national study of the polygraph says that American military men and women will be put at risk by an untested technology. “I don’t understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment,” said statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security. “Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report.”
Furthermore, the only tests which have been conducted on the devices has been done by the company selling them to the military. And that only involved a small group of paid volunteers (226 people, from the same MSNBC story). American volunteers. Here at home. Meaning without taking into consideration either cultural differences or the stress factors of a war environment.
Now, think about that for just a moment. They sold the military a bunch (94) of these units, even though they haven’t been tested for the situation where they’ll be used. That the military would leap at the chance to use such a thing without adequate data supporting it does not come as any surprise to me. Not at all. But look past the military, at a much larger market, where that data supporting the effectiveness of the devices *would* seem a lot more appropriate: used on Americans, here at home.
Never mind the fundamental problems with any kind of polygraph – that technology is already widely accepted as an investigative tool up to and including being accepted in some courts of law. Never mind that this device is much more limited than a conventional polygraph machine, and doesn’t require the operator to have extensive training to use it.
The device is being tested by the military. They just don’t know it. And once it is in use, some version of the technology will be adapted for more generalized police use. Just consider how it will be promoted to the law enforcement community: as a way of screening suspects. Then, as a way of finding suspects. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to some critical facility. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to an airplane, train, or bus.
Just how long do you think it will be before you have to pass a test by one of these types of devices in your day-to-day life? I give it maybe ten years. But I worry that I am an optimist.
Jim Downey
(Via this dKos story. Cross-posted to UTI.)
. . . doesn’t mean that the aliens are not out to get you:
A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens.
* * *
But Mr Lajic, who has had a steel girder reinforced roof put on the house he owns in the northern village of Gornja Lamovite, has an alternative explanation.
He said: “I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don’t know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit five times has to be deliberate.”
The first meteorite fell on his house in November last year and since then a further four have smashed into his home. The strikes always happen when it is raining heavily, never when there are clear skies.
OK, it’s from Ananova, and a quick search didn’t turn up any other dependable sources, so take it for what it is worth.
But think, what if it is true? Aliens dropping rocks on this poor bastard. And only when it rains, so no one can see them. It’s driving the guy nuts. Now, that’s what I call a sense of humor. Aliens like that would really fit in here. Probably get their own show on Comedy Central.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI. Via BoingBoing.)
One of the major things we still need to do for our ballistics project is to come up with a name for the website/url where all the information and data will be hosted. It is something we (me, Jim K and Steve) really should have discussed over the course of the long weekend just past, but honestly we were always just too worn out at the end of a long day of testing to be very creative. And trying to think about it myself right now is problematic, because I am trying to fight a migraine at the same time and only have enough focus for one thing or the other (and sorry, but getting rid of the migraine takes precedence).
So I thought I would throw out the idea here, see if any of my occasional readers would have any thoughts to contribute. Ideally, the site name/url will be short, easy to remember/type, convey exactly what the project is all about, and available to reserve as a domain.
Here is a list of some of the names we have kicked around previously, to give you some idea where we’re going with this:
- ammobytheinch.com (et cetera = .etc)
- ballisticsbytheinch.etc
- handgunballistics.etc
- pistolballistics.etc
- handgunammovsbarreldata.etc
- pistolammovsbarreldata.etc
- pistoldata-barrelandammoeffects.etc
- pistol-barrelvsammodata.etc
- muzzlemeasure.etc
- muzzlevelocity.etc
- muzzledata.etc
- barrelvelocity.etc
We’d probably prefer to do a .org for the primary domain, if one is available in the name we want, but also buy up the .com and other common variants and have them redirect. So, that is a consideration. Of the ones listed above, I like the simpler and shorter ones.
Thoughts?
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 