Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Failure, Government, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Steampunk, Terrorism, Travel, Wired
Via BB, an item in Wired from an insider telling all of us what we already know: that Airport Security is nothing but an expensive farce, based on bad science:
TSA is trying to get away from its stigma of being the guys who grope and photograph you. It’s taking the porno out of the scanners by getting rid of the “nude” imaging displays. Its director, John Pistole, talks about becoming an “intelligence driven” agency that compiles behavioral profiles of potential terrorists and — someday — targeting its toughest screening on only those who fit the profile. Kids no longer have to take their shoes off before boarding a plane.
Just one problem, according to Brandt: The behavioral science is no panacea. “The scientific community is divided as to whether behavioral detection of terrorists is viable,” he writes. According to the Government Accountability Office, TSA put together a behavioral profiling program “without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment.” Even if the science was sound, the office found last year, TSA officers “lack a mechanism to input data on suspicious passengers into a database used by TSA analysts and also lack a means to obtain information from the Transportation System Operations Center on a timely basis.”
It’s like the government awarded military contracts during the Civil War for the development of æther craft in order to defeat the South – makes for a good story, perhaps, but has little or nothing to do with reality.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, General Musings, Guns, Politics, Predictions, RKBA, Society, Writing stuff
Over the last week or so, I’ve tried to write this piece about a dozen times, only to give up and delete what I had come up with. I’m not sure whether this one will work or not.
What’s the problem? Well, it’s easy for whatever I say to only be seen as bitterness. And while I am a bit bitter, that’s not the reason for my writing.
* * * * * * *
Timing is everything.
The best ice cream in the world won’t sell worth a damn in the middle of a blizzard.
And so it is with writing.
I’ve been very frustrated with our inability to sell Her Final Year. I don’t think we’ve broken 30 sales yet. It’s depressing enough that I don’t even bother to check the sales figures these days. And it seems that nothing we do makes the slightest difference.
I thought that the timing for the book would be perfect. There’s been a slew of studies and warnings about the impending crunch of an aging population, and how that will require more care-givers. Organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association have been working hard to build awareness, create support mechanisms for care-providers and their charges.
But people don’t want to think about such things. The news of the day is depressing enough as it is, with little prospect for getting better anytime soon.
* * * * * * *
And it isn’t just that. I’ve noticed that increasingly, people are not in a mood for conversation. They’re in a mood for argument. Or just shouting at one another.
I was relieved a couple of years ago when Brent decided to shut down Unscrewing the Inscrutable. Because I had gotten tired of having the same old arguments time and again, frequently with the same people. No one was willing to change their mind, they just wanted to rehash the same words, endlessly.
The same was true of making a pro-2nd Amendment argument on the political blog Daily Kos. For years, I had been engaged, and it seemed to make a real difference – people would change their minds when presented with a cogent position, supported by facts and logic. But then earlier this year, the mood changed. And even trying to hold those conversations became pointless – no one would ever change their mind, no matter what.
I’ve seen the same thing happen in other venues, as well. My writing for Guns.com is generally well received, but anything which is even the slightest challenge to the conventional wisdom or political alignment of the bulk of the readers tends to get less attention and support. If I write something which is ‘preaching to the choir’, people go nuts and love it.
* * * * * * *
And it isn’t just me, either. Others have noticed the same thing, though I’m not sure anyone has phrased it in quite the same terms.
I don’t think people want to be challenged at all. They want to hear familiar, soothing tones. They want to be told that they are right, and that the “other side” is wrong. They want to be certain that only they are being reasonable and open minded.
Now, this is usually the case to a greater or lesser extent. People always want to have their prejudices and biases affirmed. That is a human trait – one we all share, whether or not we like it or are willing to admit it.
But it has become even more strident of late. Politics in this country has been polarized for a while, and the rhetoric from all sides has been dire building to extreme. I get the sense that a kind of madness is developing, a mindless tribalism that shunts off all contrary data in favor of those things which serve the tribal identity.
Things change. I think the time to rend is coming.
Certainly, the season of persuasion is ending.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Guns, Music, N. Am. Welsh Choir, New Zealand, Society, Travel
Looking out the window of our hotel room, clouds of steam rose from the various hot thermal springs and mud pools near the hotel and then drifted through the trees.
* * * * * * * *
Sunday morning we had some free time, with a number of different options open to us. I decided to have a nice walk in the redwoods of the Whakarewarewa forest. A little over a century ago there was an effort to see whether redwoods would grow well in this part of the North Island. They did OK, but not as well as some other species, so the effort was mostly abandoned, leaving a nice sized grove (about 15 acres) of coastal redwoods. What’s a little odd, is that they also have a mix of tree ferns. But it made for a very nice walk of about an hour.
* * * * * * *
I got back to the hotel to find that Martha had gone into town to do a bit of shopping. We didn’t have anything going on until that afternoon’s concert. I decided to try calling another contact I had concerning the shooting sports, a man named Don Perry. Don was a driving force behind the local shooting club, and one of the major players in bringing the 2013 Australasian IPSCAA pistol championships to Rotorua.
Don answered his phone, had been hoping that I would call. “Where you at?”
“At the Holiday Inn. Tell me where to go, and I’ll get a taxi out to the club.”
“Don’t be absurd. That’d cost you a small fortune. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I think he was two minutes late. I didn’t mind.
* * * * * * *
Again, I’m going to write about this more completely for Guns.com, but let me say that what Don and the other members of his club are trying to do in preparation for the 2013 IPSC event is nothing short of stunning. Seriously, they’re hard at work to take a decent-sized shooting range and turn it into probably the largest and most varied range in the world. It’s huge – everything from a score of short (25 meter) and medium (50 meter) shooting bays to a 180 and a 200 meter rifle range, and about a dozen different long-range (50 to 100 meter) bays where different tactical scenarios can be set up which competitors will have to move through. And all of these – all of them – have to have side and back berms which are 5 meters (16 feet) high, in some places almost twice that. Here’s a shot of a large CAT in the distance building one of the tall berms:
* * * * * * *
I spent about an hour tromping around the range with Don. In addition to the impressive scope of what they’re building, the site is situated in a gorgeous and mostly remote valley, which makes building the range and getting the necessary permits much easier, since it doesn’t present any kind of problem for neighboring houses or suchlike. If they can pull it all together, they will have a world class facility in one of the most beautiful locations imaginable.
When we were done, Don gave me a lift back to the hotel.
* * * * * * *
Martha and I had a bite of lunch before it was time for the choir to go to their pre-performance rehearsal. Our friend ML and I were the designated “sales team” for the choir, handling CD sales, handing out the programs for each concert, et cetera. We went along to help get things set up.
Good thing we did, too – there was a fair amount of set-up necessary at the church (St. Lukes), and the choir accompanist had forgotten something back at the hotel. ML popped out to get that, I took care of getting the display table ready and hanging a Welsh flag in the front window of the church. Handy that I had my little emergency kit with me, with 30′ of Spiderwire in it.
* * * * * * *
Since the choir was performing in a church, it was against the law to charge admission, even though the proceeds were going to help with rebuilding damage from the Christchurch earthquake. But they have this handy Maori term which is commonly used in New Zealand: Koha. The closest English is ‘donation’ or ‘gift’, but there’s more to it than that – it contains an element of respect. You show more respect, and gain more respect, by making a nicer gift/donation. So the little basket we set up had a note on it which simply said “Admission by Koha.”
Given that the local Welsh heritage society had been the ones to organize the venue for the choir, much of the audience were of Welsh settler stock, and they appreciated the choir coming. Donations were generous. And once the performance was done, more than a few people stopped by the basket to increase their Koha.
Because yeah, it was a great performance. The church was quite full, the acoustics good, the audience enthusiastic listeners and participants whenever they were offered the opportunity to join in (plus some times when they decided to join in anyway). ML and I sold a fair number of CDs, and a good time was had by all.
* * * * * * *
When the performance and chatting with the audience was all done, we loaded back on the bus. It stopped in the downtown area to drop off those who wanted to get something to eat there, but Martha and I decided to just grab something from the Bar Menu at the hotel. ML joined us, and we had a good meal, relaxing over drinks in the large lobby area. It was a good ending to a busy day.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, George Orwell, Government, movies, Predictions, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, tech, The Prisoner
I’m beginning to think that Orwell was an optimist:
Oxford taxi conversations to be recorded, council rules
By April 2015 it will be mandatory for all of the city’s 600 plus cabs to have cameras fitted to record passengers.
The council said the cameras would run continuously, but only view footage relating to police matters would be reviewed.
Big Brother Watch said it was “a total disregard for civil liberties”.
When I first saw this on BoingBoing, I thought “oh, another DailyMail exaggeration piece, blowing something relatively innocuous all out of proportion.” Then I saw it was from the BBC. Reading the full article makes it quite clear that this is not exaggerated in the slightest.
>sigh<
How long before you think someplace in the US follows suit? I give it five years.
Jim Downey
After a bracing shower (there was still no hot water at the hotel) Martha and I went downstairs for breakfast.
It was touch crazy. Crowded, hectic, clusters of people swarming around the two buffets – one hot, one cold. But the food was plentiful, and good, and typical of what we found at all our hotels, so I’ll describe it here.
The hot buffet included bacon (this time American style, other times occasionally British), scrambled eggs, fried mushrooms, hot tomato halves, baked beans, and breakfast sausages. These last looked a little like the British counterparts, which are nasty, pasty things – but they turned out to be chicken sausages with a a fair amount of spice and flavor. There was also pancakes, rice, miso soup.
The cold buffet had different cereals, cold cuts of meat and cheese, yogurt, and plenty of sliced/chopped fruit. There was also a selection of different breads (and a toaster) as well as various rolls and pastries. And different juices – including kiwi fruit juice. (What we call kiwis the Kiwis call “kiwi fruit” – which makes sense and saves on confusion.)
We dove into the buzzing clouds, got our food, and escaped to the quiet of a table on the periphery.
* * * * * * *
We heard back from our bank. They had removed the block on our debit cards, said that we should have notified them that we were going to be traveling to New Zealand, which they consider a “fraud haven”. Who knew?
Anyway, we had access to our money.
* * * * * * *
Martha had a rehearsal that morning. ML and I went to the Auckland Domain, where the Auckland War Memorial Museum is located. It was wonderful. But don’t take my word for it: explore their site, and see what I mean. We spent the whole morning there, catching a taxi back to our hotel just as the choir practice ended.
* * * * * * *
I had made arrangements to meet some people involved in the shooting sports in New Zealand, for a series of articles for Guns.com. The first of these was in an outer suburb of Auckland. My contact had told me to catch the 1:30 ferry to Half Moon Bay, where she would meet us.
So I asked Helen (our guide) where we’d go to catch said ferry. At first she just looked at me in shock. “Half Moon Bay? Why would you want to go there? It’s nothing but a suburb. There’s nothing there.”
Of course, after explaining that we were meeting some people there, she was happy to provide full information. The ferry docked just down the hill from our hotel. Martha and I made it in plenty of time, and enjoyed the 40 minute trip up the coast.
* * * * * * *
I won’t go into a lot of detail about what we learned about the shooting sports – that’ll be covered in the articles on Guns.com, which I will link here once they’re published – but I would like to share some observations from that afternoon and evening.
I mentioned in the first entry about this trip that I had expected New Zealand to be more like the UK than it actually is. Getting together with some locals was a quick way to find out how much the Kiwis are more like folks in the US. Specifically, how they’re more like most Midwesterners I’ve known. It’s always dangerous to make a generalization based on just a limited pool of experience, but this perception held true through our whole trip.
We were met at the dock by Debbie and her husband Andy. They’re in their 40s, solidly middle class. They have a nice suburban home on a cul-de-sac like you’d find just about anywhere in the States, though the yard is perhaps a bit smaller than we’re used to. She teaches their equivalent of High School, he has a factory job and runs a small side-line business doing gunsmithing. Two cars, no kids, a couple of friendly cats.
They showed us around, Andy taking some pride with his shop (clearly a working space, not just for show – and a decent selection of milling tools and other equipment I wouldn’t mind having). He opened his safe, we talked guns, they got things ready to go out to their shooting club. It was, to be honest, exactly the sort of conversation I could have had with about half the people I know here in the US.
We loaded up the car, drove out to the club, some 20 minutes further out of town.
* * * * * * *
I’m not one for ‘formal’ shooting ranges. I prefer the very informal shooting I can do on my own, or with my wife or a friend, on our property south of Columbia. I said this to Debs and Andy. They said they wished they could do the same, but this is one way that shooting sports differs between the US and NZ – any kind of pistol shooting (and most long gun shooting which isn’t hunting) has to be done at a government licensed club.
That said, their club, while meeting all the required safety and environmental regulations, wasn’t like some spotless formal facility I’ve seen in Europe. It was a little ramshackle in a very friendly and inviting way. Non-intimidating.
So were the other people we met there. Most of them were busy getting things set up for hosting a competition the next day. Again, they were just middle-class folks, doing the necessary volunteer work on their time off, so that everyone in the club could enjoy shooting that weekend.
After they introduced us and shown us the place, we went to one of the shooting areas so they could check some tweaks to one of their competition guns. Martha and I got hearing protection from a box available for visitors, Debs and Andy put their own on out of their range bags. A magazine or two of ammo satisfied them that the minor gunsmithing work was good, then they offered to let me shoot one of their guns. It was no big deal.
I felt right at home.
* * * * * * *
We went back to their place, chatted while Andy grilled some steaks and brats as we sat out on their patio. Another friend of theirs, Chris, who was originally from South Africa, joined us. He’d lived in the US for a while, where he had gone through apprenticeship as a gunsmith. He’d moved to NZ a few years back, and was as friendly and out-going as Andy and Debs.
Dinner was good, as was the company and discussion. We didn’t have anything alcoholic to drink, since after dinner they took us over to another shooting club for a .22 rifle meet.
* * * * * * *
This was a little more formal, both in terms of the facility and in how the club operates. The facility is actually government owned (local government), and rented out to several different shooting clubs which use it on different nights of the week. Because of this, they have a specific set of procedures that they go over as club business and safety protocols, but it wasn’t anything more onerous than what you’d find at most formal ranges here in the US.
Again, the others we met there were friendly and welcoming. We weren’t the only ‘newcomers’ there that evening, and I had the feeling that they were very used to having visitors and helping them get involved in shooting. At several junctures different people asked if I wanted to shoot any of the club’s .22s.
After about 90 minutes, we headed back to Debbie & Andy’s place.
* * * * * * *
They got all the guns and gear put away. We sat and had some dessert, chatted a while longer. Andy showed us some funny videos he’d seen online – stuff which I have since seen referenced by others here in the US.
Then, since they had a competition to run the next day, and we had an early departure and then a full day of travel, they drove us back to our hotel. It was about 10:00 when they dropped us off, wishing us well on the rest of our tour. I felt like I had made new friends who I’d never see again.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Failure, Feedback, Gardening, Hospice, Marketing, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Society, Travel
A good friend was visiting last weekend. We see each other fairly often, communicate regularly. But there are things best discussed in person.
“How’s your mom doing?”
“Not bad. I think we’re getting to the point where we need to have that conversation about her driving.”
“Ah. That’s a hard one.”
“Yeah. But my sister largely drives her everywhere as it is, anyway. So that will make it easier.”
* * * * * * *
I mentioned a week ago that I was surprised that Her Final Year hasn’t done better.
Well, I had been waiting for a couple of additional pieces to appear in different publications in the hopes that would spur awareness of the book, as well as sales. One of those being my college alumni magazine. Yesterday I saw that they had posted the Fall 2011 issue as a .pdf on their website, so I took a look.
It’s a blurb, not a review. You can find it at the bottom of page 39, if you want. Next to another book blurb, and one of about a dozen in this issue. My fellow alumni are intelligent, accomplished people.
* * * * * * *
After discovering that, I went out to pick tomatoes from my garden. The very wet summer we had meant that there was a big delay in a bunch of the tomato plants blooming and setting fruit. But I am lucky, since many people I know have had a horrible year for tomatoes, while mine were just delayed.
I was able to pick about 25 pounds of tomatoes, a nice mix of Lemon Boy and Brandywine and Black Prince and Better Boy. Most look great, have a wonderful taste. We had some with BLTs last night for dinner, and I made up two quarts of sauce from the ones with slight blemishes. I’ll probably go ahead and can or sauce the rest in the next day or two.
But I didn’t get to picking them for about two hours, because first I had to completely re-do the netting around the garden (about 40×50). Deer had gotten in, then tore the hell out of everything getting out.
Yeah, they munched on the tomato plants, and that was annoying. But they also ate the tops out of my habanero plants. Well, not all of them. Just the ones which had done the best.
See, as bad as the summer was on tomatoes, it was worse on the habaneros. They just started setting fruit a couple of weeks ago. And it was a race to see whether any of the pods ripened fully before I leave for New Zealand.
Now I doubt whether any of the pods will ripen. Oh, the deer stayed away from the fruit. But with the bulk of the leaves eaten out of the top, I don’t know whether they can ripen. We’ll see.
* * * * * * *
A dear friend used to always say “Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Plan as if you will live forever.”
She passed away over 20 years ago from breast cancer.
* * * * * * *
“Still, once you tell her that she has to stop driving, things change.”
“I know.” He looked at me. “I got copies of your book for all four of my siblings. Told them to read it.”
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you – I don’t think any of them have really thought through how this is likely to go with Mom.”
“Every experience is different.”
“Yeah, but at least having *some* idea of what to plan for, what to watch for, will help.”
Jim Downey
*from this. Cross posted to the HFY blog.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Ballistics, Guns, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff
As a side-line, I’m a writer for Guns.com. Mostly what are called ‘features’ but are actually akin to a newspaper column, plus some reviews and other things now and again. I generally write about one piece a week. It’s fun, they let me write about just anything I want, and I like the discipline of sitting down to write a column of a specific length and focus as I did when I was writing about the arts for my local paper. It doesn’t pay much, but for the approximately 20,000 words I’ve written for them this year, I’ve made over a thousand dollars. And I’m told by my editor that I’m considered one of the best and most popular writers for the site, but that could just be blowing smoke. Regardless, I know that thousands of people see almost everything I write there, and the direct feedback I get is very positive. I consider the hour or two I put into writing each article to be time well spent.
So far this month we haven’t sold any copies of Her Final Year. Last month we sold 11. All told, we’ve sold about 30. That’s about 10% of what we need to sell just to break even on out-of-pocket expenses.
I’m honestly surprised by this. Oh, I know that it takes time for word to get around, that times are tight for people. Et cetera. But by about this point in time, my novel had been downloaded over 2,000 times (currently the total is well over 30,000 downloads). And that launched with less of a promotional effort than we put behind HFY, without the supporting structures of social media and forums dedicated to care-giving.
Granted, Communion of Dreams is free. But it is also just an e-book. You can’t (yet) get a paperback copy of it to keep, or to give as a gift. And while I think that it is well written, Her Final Year is a much better and more powerful book.
This isn’t meant to be a “woe is me, please buy my book” plea. Rather, it is just an observation on what is valued by our culture. Writing about firearms is. I get paid for that, and know that it is well received. Writing fiction is. Word of my novel spread widely, and it remains popular (some 636 people downloaded it last month.) Even writing about the arts was valued – my newspaper columns generated a little income, and were once again fairly popular.
Writing about care-giving? Not so much, it seems. I wonder why that is.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted from the HFY blog.)
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Constitution, Failure, Government, Society, Star Wars
Via BB, an interesting news item:
Couple in shock after drug raid
ROSWELL, N.M. (KRQE) – A massive drug raid in Roswell last week targeted dozens of people at homes across the city.
But one of those homes didn’t have what police were looking for, and their unexpected visit left the people inside shaken and upset.
* * *
She said her husband opened the door to multiple officers in raid gear with guns drawn.
“We were completely shocked, upset,” she continued. “I was panicked because I’ve never had anything like this happen to us before, never.”
She said the officers demanded to come inside her home.
“And my husband asked, ‘Do you have a warrant? Who are you looking for?’ and they said, ‘Gerald Sentell,'” Parker said. “We don’t even know this person.”
OK, at this point, what usually happens in these situations is the DEA or other law enforcement agency comes in, ‘secures’ the house (including putting occupants on the ground, perhaps with handcuffs or suchlike, and if there are any dogs…), does their search and any apologies or reparations for damage to the house comes later after a big public outcry.
What happened this time?
Parker said she and her husband were wary of cooperating because they weren’t sure what was going on.
When asked if she thought the officers could have been imposters, Parker replied, “Yes. That’s very much what we thought, and that’s why my husband said no, you’re not coming in this house without a warrant.”
The DEA spokesperson said the agents left when they were denied entry by the couple.
* * *
The DEA said all of the officers involved in the raid were following procedure and did nothing wrong.
Huh.
This both delights me, and outrages/frightens me.
I mean, I’m glad that Mr. Parker seems to have Jedi mind-control powers (not to mention the presence of mind to ask for a warrant under these circumstances) and so avoided going through the additional trauma usually inflicted on citizens in this situation. Seriously – that’s great. His door is still on the hinges, no shots were fired, the DEA actually respected his constitutional rights. Wonderful!
But the “following procedure” statement outrages me. So the DEA procedure is to conduct these raids without a warrant?
Really?
Think about that.
Then think about the fact that this probably comes as a surprise. I know it did to me. No, not that the DEA raid was conducted without a warrant (I call that stupid, but not terribly surprising). What’s surprising is that they didn’t just go ahead and conduct the raid, anyway, once they were there, under the pretense that one of the agents “smelled something” or “thought he saw drug paraphernalia” or some other excuse. Because that’s the usual script in these cases.
Yeah, it’s surprising that the DEA actually respected the 4th Amendment.
That should scare the hell out of you.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Civil Rights, Government, Privacy, Society, Terrorism, Violence
I saw the blurb headline, figured it had to be a joke:
NFL adopts TSA-style full body pat-downs for fans at stadiums
No, it’s not. A bit of an exaggeration, but not a joke. Here’s the news item:
NFL wants pat-downs from ankles up at all stadiums
The NFL wants all fans patted down from the ankles up this season to improve fan safety.Under the new “enhanced” pat-down procedures, the NFL wants all 32 clubs to search fans from the ankles to the knees as well as the waist up. Previously, security guards only patted down fans from the waist up while looking for booze, weapons or other banned items.
The stricter physical screening policy impacts the 16.6 million fans expected to attend live regular season NFL games this season. The more thorough searches will spell longer lines for ticket-holding fans seeking entry to games. It’s sure to raise the ire of some fans who consider it an invasion of privacy.
Now, I don’t go to sporting events like that. I’m just not into being a fan for a sport. And so I wasn’t even aware that it was current policy to pat down fans “from the waist up while looking for booze, weapons or other banned items.”
People have been putting up with this level of hassle and personal intrusion? In order to pay a buttload of money for tickets to watch millionaires play a game, and then another buttload for overpriced food & drink in a likely taxpayer financed stadium owned by billionaires? Really?? Why?
Good lord, this has to be some of the most depressing news I’ve heard in a long time.
Little wonder that the TSA has been able to get away with the “enhanced pat-downs” and other crap – if people are willing to put up with being frisked in order to watch a game, *of course* they’re willing to put up with something marginally more intrusive in order to fly.
We used to value freedom. Personal liberty. Now we’ll give it up so we can spend a couple of hours at a football game. The conditioning to allow our ‘protectors’ to do whatever they want in order to keep us safe is complete.
Gah. I need a drink.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 