Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Feedback, Guns, Health, Migraine, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction, Sleep, Society, Writing stuff
As I have noted, I have been fairly busy of late. And in looking back over the last couple of months, I can see a real change in both my energy level and my ability to focus – it’s no longer the case that I want to nap most of the time. Yeah, I am still going through a detox process, still finding my way back to something akin to normalcy – but there has been a decided improvement. Fewer migraines. More energy. A willingness to take on some additional obligations.
So I had to debate a long time when I was recently contacted by a site wanting to expand their scope and impact. These folks. They were wanting me to do a column every two weeks, more-or-less related to Science Fiction (giving me a lot of latitude to define the scope of the column as I saw fit). They have a lot of good ideas, and seem to have a pretty good handle on where they want to go in the future. And the invitation was a real compliment to me – not only did they say nice things about my writing, but they have a good energy and attitude which is appealing.
But I declined the invitation. Why? Well, to a certain extent it’s like Bradbury says: “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”
I may come to regret this decision. It could possibly have helped my writing career, at least in terms of landing a conventional publishing contract. And I know from writing my newspaper column that the discipline can do good things for me – forcing me to address a specific topic rather than the more general musings I post here and at UTI. But I really do have a lot on my plate right now, and they are all things I want to do well, rather than just get done. Blogging here (which is really quite important to me). Participating at UTI. Crafting this book about being a care provider. Getting the ballistics project website up and running. All the book conservation work waiting for me. Eventually getting to work on St. Cybi’s Well again. And enjoying life. There’s been precious little of that these last few years.
So, I declined. But if you perhaps would be interested in the gig, they have contact info on their homepage.
Jim Downey
I just came across a clipping from four years ago – a political Op-Ed I’d written for one of the local papers. Thought I’d repost it, just for grins. Here it is, and it can also be found on my archive writing site.
Jim D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Real Americans
A local radio station promotes itself as “Real Radio – for real Americans!” It’s a station that I listen to occasionally, because I like to think I’m a real American. After all, I was born here (on the Fourth of July, no less). I pay my taxes, try and make my community a better place, fly my flag and love my country. Some of the shows are interesting. Some of the hosts are funny (sometimes intentionally so). Some of the opinions are ones I agree with.
But since I only occasionally listen to this station, I guess I’m not a “real American.” Or maybe I’m partly a real American, proportional to the amount of time I listen in. OK, but do I figure that as the percentage of my time listening to radio overall, as a percentage of my waking hours, or what? Perhaps it should be calculated according to how much I agree with the politics stated on the radio station. Well, that leads to problems, too, because after all, even the hosts have major disagreements from one show to the next.
I don’t conform completely to most of the right-wing ideas espoused by this radio station. Nor do I comfortably fit in with the beliefs of the far left. I’m pro-choice but also pro-death penalty. I believe in concealed-carry, but wanted the assault weapons ban. I supported Desert Storm, but think that the latest Iraqi Adventure was nothing more than a Neocon con-job. I find opera boring, but NASCAR is also a snooze. I read The Economist, but also check out Mother Jones regularly. The current version of “JFK” is a pale shadow of the one I remember being assassinated, but then, the current President Bush can’t hold a candle to the intellect, experience, and accomplishments of his father. I’ve worked in Republican presidential campaigns, but have contributed money to Democrats. I’m somewhere in the happy middle, and don’t trust fanatics of any stripe, either in politics or religion. Most people are like me, using common sense and their internal moral compass to make tough choices in a complicated world. So maybe that means we’re all not completely “real Americans.”
The numbers would seem to bear this out: the radio station only has a small share of the market (let’s be generous and say it’s 10%). Does that mean that 90% of the people here who aren’t tuned in aren’t real Americans?
Or maybe the hype of the radio station’s promotional material is out of sync with reality, a reflection of the unfortunate tendency for the far right to think that they somehow have a monopoly on what it means to be a “real American.” This radio station isn’t the only example of this I’ve come across lately.
Recently on NPR there was an interesting interview with a nice couple in Dallas who are putting together a film festival for those with a more conservative inclination. They’re doing this because they feel that so much mainstream film reflects a Hollywood liberalism, and wanted to balance the ledger a little. Great. But in the course of the interview the woman said that they’re putting together the film festival for ‘real Americans.” When asked by the host what the woman meant by that, she stuck to her guns, said she meant “folks like us – in tune with the news, such as the War on Terror.”
Ah. So, if I keep up with the news, I’m a real American. Got it. But once again, does that mean that everyone who doesn’t keep up with the news, particularly the war on terror, doesn’t qualify? And how do I scale this? If I can point to Afghanistan on a map, can pick out Osama bin Laden from a line-up, and can name the three countries in the Axis of Evil, do I qualify? Do I get extra points for being able to identify the Americans killed this week in Iraq, or being able to explain how their deaths make me safer?
What if I am current on the news, but just happen to disagree with the way the War on Terror is being conducted? Somehow, I doubt that the nice lady who is putting together the film festival would think that makes me a real American. Would she say that those families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq qualify as real Americans? Even the ones who oppose this war?
What about you, are you willing to let her decide whether or not you’re a real American? Isn’t it time that we asserted our status ourselves, rather than let some narrow partisan group or radio station claim that as their sole property? If you think that you’re a real American, whatever your politics, then don’t let someone else steal that from you. Patriotism isn’t only the province of the right; it belongs to all of us, and it’s high time we started saying so.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, ACLU, Babylon 5, Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Guns, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, RKBA, Science Fiction, Society, Survival
There’s a line from a Babylon 5 episode (I’m a big fan of the series) which has always stuck with me. Several characters are discussing the political situation on Earth following the imposition of martial law. One character says that people love it – crime is down, things are calm, peaceful.
“Yeah, the peace of the gun,” replies another character.
And that, my friends, is what we have today, here in the US. Specifically, in one small city in Arkansas:
HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. – Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that’s been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.
On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.
Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.
“Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I’m fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here,” Mayor James Valley said. “The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.”
From another source:
Controversial Curfew in Helena-West Helena
Mayor James Valley has given residents in one high-crime neighborhood two choices…. go home or go to jail.
Valley’s issued a mandatory curfew for Second Street and the surrounding blocks — a place he considers to be a “hot spot” for crime. The curfew applies to anyone of any age at any time of day.
* * *
“This turf belongs to taxpaying citizens, not to hustlers and drug dealers….We are going to pop them in the head,” Mayor Valley said.
* * *
The mayor only has the power to issue a 48 hour curfew – so he says when this one expires, he’ll issue another one, and another one.
Predictably, the ACLU is taking a rather dim view of this:
The ACLU has written a letter to Helena-West Helena Mayor James Valley protesting the curfew he imposed on a portion of the city. The mayor says he’s received the letter, but believes it’s intentions are misplaced.
* * *
Mayor James Valley says no constitutional rights have been violated — he says they’re doing what’s needed to clean up the streets.
No doubt. And he’s willing to be reasonable:
Helena-West Helena Curfew Changes
Leaders in Helena-West Helena have come up with a new plan after criticism by the ACLU of the mayor’s recent curfew on a particular part of town.
This past weekend, Mayor James Valley issued a mandatory curfew for Second Street and the surrounding blocks — a place he considers to be a “hot spot” for crime.
* * *
Valley’s curfew will remain in place for all minors, but adults will be allowed out if they can answer questions about their need to be outside their homes.
See, like I said – he’s being perfectly reasonable about this. You can leave your house. If you can explain to authorities why you need to do so.
How could anyone possibly object to this?
*sigh*
This is nothing more or less than the peace of the gun. This is the abrogation of civil liberties as a solution for incompetent governance. Of course people like it – let things get bad enough that they fear for their lives more than they value their liberties, and you can get people to do almost anything. Mayor Valley is just applying the same logic as he applied in mid July when he, well, here’s the news report:
Mayor Orders Dogs Released Into Forest
You’ve heard it before…..Arkansas animal shelters struggling to take care of unwanted dogs and cats. One mayor has decided the best way to fix the problem in his town is to set the animals free.
KARK visited the Helena-West Helena animal shelter back in January. Conditions were dirty and animals were in poor health.
Thursday, KARK learned the town’s mayor James Valley has taken the unconventional approach of releasing the animals into the wild. In a press release, the mayor says “we fed and watered them and took them to the St. Francis National Forest.”
Yeah, he just turned them loose.
Like I said, incompetence. Let things get so bad, and then you can take absurd steps.
Like imposing martial law.
Is this just a trial run for other cities? Other levels of government? Because you can be damned sure that there are power-hungry people watching this situation very closely, and drawing their own conclusions. If a small-town mayor can get away with it, why not a large city mayor? Or a governor? Or a president?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI and Daily Kos.)
Filed under: George Orwell, Government, Politics, Privacy, Publishing, Society, Writing stuff
Or maybe you don’t. My own knowledge of George Orwell was limited to his most popular novels (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four) until graduate school, when I also delved into some of his essays. Any would-be writer, and almost anyone interested in political rhetoric, should be familiar with “Politics and the English Language”. His piece on “Why I Write” had a powerful impact on me, and I still find that this passage at the end resonates strongly:
All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
Well, anyway, if you’ve enjoyed Orwell’s writing, you may also enjoy his diaries. The Orwell Prize has just started running entries from Orwell’s diaries 70 years ago, posting them day-to-day as a blog starting with the first entry dated August 9, 1938/2008. As stated on the blog:
From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.
What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be a largely unknown Orwell, whose great curiosity is focused on plants, animals, woodwork, and – above all – how many eggs his chickens have laid. From his political diaries (from 7th September), it may be the Orwell whose political observations and critical thinking have enthralled and inspired generations since his death in 1950. Whether writing about the Spanish Civil War or sloe gin, geraniums or Germany, Orwell’s perceptive eye and rebellion against the ‘gramophone mind’ he so despised are obvious.
I’m looking forward to it, to seeing how this man’s mind understood the changing events of the world around him at a critical juncture. Maybe you will, as well.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, General Musings, Government, Guns, Politics, Society, Violence
Last week, in the investigation of a major drug distribution network, police staged a no-knock entry into a private residence. They seized over 30 pounds of marijuana. Two guard dogs who were a threat to the police had to be killed in the execution of the raid. Two people in the residence at the time were handcuffed at the scene and questioned as to their involvement in the crime.
Sound pretty straight forward? More or less standard procedure when police are investigating a large quantity of narcotics?
Well, how about this version of the story?
It now appears that the entire raid on Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo may have been illegal. Last week, police stormed Calvo’s home without knocking, shot and killed his two black labs, and questioned him and his mother-in-law at gunpoint over a delivered package of marijuana that police now concede may have been intended for someone else.
The Washington Post reports that the police didn’t even bother to get a no-knock warrant, which means the tactics they used were illegal:
A Prince George’s police spokesman said last week that a Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and county police narcotics officers were operating under such a [no-knock] warrant when they broke down the door of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, shooting and killing his black Labrador retrievers.
But a review of the warrant indicates that police neither sought nor received permission from Circuit Court Judge Albert W. Northrup to enter without knocking. Northrup found probable cause to suspect that drugs might be in the house and granted police a standard search warrant.
“There’s nothing in the four corners of the warrant saying anything about the Calvos being a threat to law enforcement,” said Calvo’s attorney, Timothy Maloney. “This was a lawless act by law enforcement.”
Oh, a couple more things to fill in the blanks. One of the labs shot was running away from the police:
As the police came in, Calvo said, they shot his 7-year-old black Labrador retriever, Payton, near the front door and then his 4-year-old dog, Chase, also a black Lab, as the dog ran into a back room. Walking through his house yesterday, Calvo pointed out a bullet hole in the drywall where the younger dog had been shot.
The police were the ones who delivered the package:
Calvo’s home was raided after he brought a package addressed to his wife inside from his front porch. Police had been tracking the package since a dog sniffed the presence of drugs in Arizona. It was delivered to the house by police posing as deliverymen and left on the porch on the instruction of Calvo’s mother-in-law.
Police are required to provide a copy of any search warrant at the time the search is conducted. They got around to doing this several days later:
Another issue that could arise in court is whether officers provided Calvo a copy of the warrant at the time of the raid, as required by law. Maloney [attorney for Calvo] said they did not, even though a detective signed a sworn statement to the judge indicating that he had. Instead, the detective brought the warrant to Calvo several days later, Maloney said.
*Sigh*
Let’s recap: In the course of investigating a suspected drug distribution network known to be using false deliveries to private homes, police intercept one such package. Posing as delivery personnel, they take it to the home of Cheye Calvo. Where they are told to leave it on the porch. (Who the hell would leave an expected shipment of 32 pounds of pot sitting on the porch???) When Mayor Calvo gets home, he takes the package inside and sets it aside, leaving it unopened. A short time later, a SWAT team kicks in his door, and shoots his dogs, rather than having coordinated with local police to gain access to the suspect and home without the need to resort to violent tactics. Calvo and his MIL are handcuffed and interrogated at the premises for hours. No warrant authorizing the raid is produced until days after the event.
One more quote from the Washington Post story yesterday:
Were Calvo or his wife, Trinity Tomsic, to be charged in the case, the issue of the search could come up if prosecutors tried to introduce the box of marijuana as evidence. More likely, experts said, the issue could form the basis of a civil rights lawsuit filed by the family against the county in the incident.
No shit. The authorities responsible for this debacle are facing a huge lawsuit. And they’re damned lucky that the only bodies on the floor were dogs (as tragic as that itself is).
And consider for just a moment how this situation might have been reported differently were Calvo and his wife black or Hispanic, had they not lived in a nice middle-class home, had he not been well established and politically connected. Consider for just a moment if this situation had happened to you.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos and UTI.)
Filed under: BoingBoing, Climate Change, Cory Doctorow, Emergency, Flu, General Musings, Global Warming, Government, Heinlein, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Tor.com, Weather, Writing stuff
Via BoingBoing, an interesting discussion over on Tor.com: The Dystopic Earths of Heinlein’s Juveniles. An excerpt:
It’s funny how it’s overpopulation and political unpleasantness that cause the problems, never ecological disaster. Maybe that wasn’t on the horizon at all in the fifties and early sixties? I suppose every age has its own disaster story. It’s nice how little they worry about nuclear war too, except in Space Cadet which is all nuclear threat, Venusians and pancakes. They don’t make them like that any more. Come to think it’s probably just as well.
* * *
No individual one of these would be particularly noticeable, especially as they’re just background, but sitting here adding them up doesn’t make a pretty picture. What’s with all these dystopias? How is it that we don’t see them that way? Is it really that the message is all about “Earth sucks, better get into space fast”? And if so, is that really a sensible message to be giving young people? Did Heinlein really mean it? And did we really buy into it?
Yeah, he meant it. And further, he was right.
No, I’m not really calling into question the premise of the piece – that Heinlein had something of a bias about population and governmental control. And I’m not saying that he was entirely correct in either his politics or his vision of the future.
But consider the biggest threat facing us: No, not Paris Hilton’s involvement in the presidential election, though a legitimate case can be made that this is indeed an indication of the end of the world. Rather, I mean global warming.
And why do we have global warming? Because of the environmental impact of human civilization. And why is this impact significant? Because of the size of the human population on this planet.
And what is the likely response to the coming changes? Increased governmental control.
[Mild spoilers ahead.]
For Communion of Dreams I killed off a significant portion of the human race as part of the ‘back story’. Why? Well, it served my purposes for the story. But also because I think that one way or another, we need to understand and accept that the size of our population is a major factor in all the other problems we face. Whether it is limitations caused by peak oil or some other resource running out, or the impact of ‘carbon footprints’, or urban sprawl, or food shortages, all of these problems have one common element: population pressure. We have too many people consuming too many resources and generating too much pollution. In fact, when I once again turn my writing the prequel to Communion, I may very well make this connection more explicit, and have the motivation of the people responsible for the fireflu based on this understanding.
So yeah, Heinlein was right. He may not have spelled out the end result (ecological disaster) per se, but he understood the dynamic at work, and what it would lead to. Just because things haven’t gotten as bad as they can get doesn’t mean that we’re not headed that direction. Our technology can only compensate for so long – already we see things breaking down at the margins, and the long term problems are very real. You can call it ‘dystopic’, but I’ll just call it our future.
Jim Downey
Hank dropped me a note last evening. A nice, short one. Noted that today is National Friendship Day, and wished me well, as a friend. A bit of a surprise, because while I do indeed consider Hank to be a friend, he’s one I’ve never met and only corresponded with occasionally. I get the impression he’s just that way.
I’ve mentioned previously that I have been blessed with a number of good friends. Earlier this week one of them sent me this quote:
Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.
— Honore de Balzac
My response:
Like the Balzac, but as applies to us I think it would have to be tweaked to this:
“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of each friend that the other is superior.”
Actually, more that I think about it, this applies to most of my really close friendships. Maybe that says something.
My friend responded:
Yes. We don’t gravitate to people so like us that we have identical abilities, but persons from whom we can learn and grow and by whom we can be intrigued.
As it happened, another friend was visiting the next day, and stayed overnight. He and I were sitting up late, as old friends are wont to do, sipping a bit of decent single malt. I hit him with this notion of friendship. After due consideration, he agreed with my take on the matter, and added his own bit, along these lines:
It is only through my friendships that I have come to appreciate some of the things in myself that others admire.
I don’t know about Balzac, but I would have never made it through a somewhat rough and tumble life without my friends. Some have come and gone, held close for a brief season. Others have weathered storms with me, and I with them, establishing deep foundations which have held fast even through years of neglect. And while I am honest about my abilities, and know that on some things I may be more skilled, or knowledgeable, or talented, in no way does that permit a thought of superiority. Lord knows I have an ego – but even I would tire of thinking myself superior to others I consider friends. For real friendship, real love, there needs to be respect and a bit of a challenge. At least for me.
To all my friends, thank you.
Jim Downey
Makes it sound almost reasonable, doesn’t it?
Small problem – the ‘he’ was a 16 year old kid who had fallen from a highway overpass and had broken his back. So, naturally, since he didn’t respond to the authoritah of the cops on the scene, the cops had to Taser him. 19 times.
See, kids, never make the mistake of not instantly jumping up to comply with instructions given by a cop. Just because you’re severely injured is no excuse.
And of course, the multiple “rides” on the Taser didn’t help his injuries. I’m sure there was the usual spasmodic response that happens when about 50,000 volts of juice hit you. And it also delayed surgery to correct the damage of the initial fall:
His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.
“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”
I smell lawsuit.
But that’s not the only such incident from down this way. Just last week we had a very similar thing happen in my hometown:
Police review Taser use
Captain says device escalated situation.A man injured in a Taser-related fall from the Providence Road pedestrian bridge over Interstate 70 remained in critical condition last night at University Hospital as Columbia police sought to defend their use of force in the incident that began with a man threatening to jump from the overpass.
Phillip McDuffy, 45, suffered two broken arms, a fractured skull and possibly a broken jaw in the fall, Columbia police Capt. Zim Schwartze said yesterday. Police estimate McDuffy fell about 15 feet onto a concrete embankment beside I-70, landing on his right side after the 1½-hour standoff.
Yeah, they didn’t want him to hurt himself, so they Tased him. Gee, too bad that he fell and broke all those bones. Who would have expected *that* to happen?
The police use of Tasers is just simply out of control in this country. Seriously. My dad was a cop, and a lot of my family’s friends growing up were cops. They’ve got a tough job. I know that the use of Tasers have protected the lives of officers. But this is insane. It is no longer just the odd asshole who happens to make the Greatest Hits of Police Abuse on YouTube. It has now become commonplace for the police to grab their Taser anytime someone doesn’t immediately do what they’re told. Time to get rid of the things, nationwide.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos and my blog.)
Communion Of Dreams 