A brief note from yesterday’s news:
NEW YORK — It is high season for literary contests.
Two leading booksellers announced competitions Monday, continuing the industry’s unending search for new talent and the increasing willingness to let others do the searching.
Amazon.com, Penguin Group (USA) and Hewlett-Packard Co. have launched the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which offers a contract with Penguin and a small advance, $25,000. Meanwhile, Borders Group Inc., Court TV and Gather.com announced The Next Great Crime Novel competition, with the winner receiving $5,000 and a publishing deal through Borders, the superstore chain.
I’d argue that when an industry is so disfunctional as to need to pull these kinds of stunts to select content, the system is broken. Completely. How is it possible that the publishing industry is in an “unending search for new talent” but is so swamped by submissions that they can’t deal with it all? They’re not looking for talent – they’re looking for name recognition, whether by existing celebrities or by ones created by this kind of gimmick. It is an aspect of our celebrity/sensationalist culture. And a $25,000 advance is considered “small”?
Oh, and we’ve now passed 5,700 downloads of Communion of Dreams. That’s some 1,200 in September alone. Thanks to all who have helped pass along word of the novel to friends and message boards!
Jim Downey
I got back from my morning walk with the dog to find my wife helping her mom take her after-breakfast pills. Not just encouraging her, but actually placing the pills in her mouth for her, helping her hold up and drink from the glass of juice.
I changed the dog’s collar, put away his leash. Took off my knee braces and the little belly pouch I wear for walking the dog which contains some treats, a small bottle of water, plastic bags for droppings. Removed my light jacket and MP3 player. Went back into the kitchen and leaned against the counter opposite where my wife and MIL were sitting. My wife looked up.
“Another T.I.A.?”
She nodded.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
From MedlinePlus:
Transient Ischemic Attack
Also called: Mini-stroke, TIA
A transient ischemic attack (TIA) is a stroke that comes and goes quickly. It happens when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in your brain. This causes the blood supply to the brain to stop briefly. Symptoms of a TIA are like other stroke symptoms, but do not last as long. They happen suddenly, and include
- Numbness or weakness, especially on one side of the body
- Confusion or trouble speaking or understanding speech
- Trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Loss of balance or coordination
Most symptoms of a TIA disappear within an hour, although they may last for up to 24 hours. Because you cannot tell if these symptoms are from a TIA or a stroke, you should get to the hospital quickly.
TIAs are often a warning sign for future strokes. Taking medicine, such as blood thinners, may reduce your risk of a stroke. Your doctor might also recommend surgery.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
They’re coming more frequently now. We saw the first (that we noticed) early this year. I was helping my MIL out to the car for a hair appointment, and all of a sudden she just slumped, slipping straight down, knees buckling to the pavement before I caught her.
The first time you see a T.I.A. hit someone, you’re completely bewildered by it. Well, at least I was. My MIL, who was capable of standing and stepping with care and help, and who is usually somewhat plugged into her immediate surroundings, just seemed to “shut down”. I got her in her chair, but she slumped over. She seemed unaware of anything around her, barely responsive to my questions and prodding. It was early in the day, but she was acting like it was the very end of the evening, when she would usually be deep into ‘sundowning‘, exhausted and ready for bed. So, I put her to bed.
Then I called my wife, did some research. I had thought it was likely a T.I.A., and brushing up on the available info confirmed it. So did my MIL’s doctor, who my wife called.
What to do? With someone of my MIL’s age, and with her other medical issues? Nothing really to be done. Bed rest, note it. Roll with it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
When we’d had a couple more T.I.A.s this summer, and with the other indications we’d seen (some of which I’ve mentioned), we decided the time was here to again seek Hospice. In the month since, my MIL has had several more T.I.A.s, about one a week. Each time, the treatment is the same: get her into bed, let her sleep it off. After a couple of hours she’s back to what passes for normal. We note it, and are sure to tell the Hospice nurse when she comes for her weekly visit.
A T.I.A. itself isn’t really that big a deal, as noted on that site cited above. It is, however, something of a warning. As the Wiki page on T.I.A. states under “Prognosis”:
Patients diagnosed with a TIA are sometimes said to have had a warning for an approaching cerebrovascular accident. If the time period of blood supply impairment lasts more than a few minutes, the nerve cells of that area of the brain die and cause permanent neurologic deficit. One third of the people with TIA later have recurrent TIAs and one third have a stroke due to permanent nerve cell loss.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
So, we wait. For either another T.I.A., or a full-fledged stroke. And we try to make her days as comfortable and enjoyable as we can, within the constraints of our own exhaustion and need to pace ourselves for what could yet be a long haul.
And in the meantime, tomorrow is our 20th wedding anniversary. For the most part, observation of same is postponed until later by tacit agreement between my wife and I, though we will make a favorite meal and bake a cake. We have one another, the details will sort themselves out later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Climate Change, Flu, Flu Wiki, General Musings, Global Warming, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Science, Society
You’ve probably seen it – the media is filled with reports of the brain-eating amoeba which has killed six. Here’s a sample:
PHOENIX – It sounds like science fiction but it’s true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.
“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”
Scary, eh? And tying it to climate change makes it even moreso.
But explain to me why this is more frightening than the 8 new cases of Ebola reported in Congo. The Ebola hemorrhagic fever family of viruses have no treatment, no vaccine, a mortality rate up to 90%, and are easily passed from person to person.
Or why six people dying from swimming in lakes is worse than the 65 people who have died already this year from H5N1, according to the FluWiki. This influenza virus (and related variants) is considered to be the most likely cause of the next global pandemic.
Oh, never mind. I know why – because it’s here in the US. And it eats brains. And it is an easy connection to the effects of climate change. And because it is new. Fear sells, as I discussed in comments in this post a couple of weeks back.
But really, either Ebola or H5N1 are a much greater threat, as any public health official or doctor will tell you. They just don’t have the cool name of “Zombie Amoeba.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Blade Runner, BoingBoing, Diane Rehm, movies, NPR, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Wired
Via BoingBoing, an extensive interview in Wired with Ridley Scott about the upcoming release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut. From the prologue:
At age 69, Ridley Scott is finally satisfied with his most challenging film. He’s still turning out movies at a furious pace — American Gangster, with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, is due in November — building on an extraordinary oeuvre that includes Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. But he seems ready to accept Blade Runner as his crowning achievement. In his northern English accent, he describes its genesis and lasting influence. And, inevitably, he returns to the darkness that pervades his view of the future — the shadows that shield Deckard from a reality that may be too disturbing to face.
It’s an excellent interview. But then, I’m biased – I consider Blade Runner to be one of the best movies ever made, and certainly one of top SF movies. (In this I am hardly alone, of course – even Diane Rehm of NPR considers it one of her favorite movies.) The 1992 ‘Director’s Cut’ was a huge improvement over the original release, even with the crappy quality of the DVD. I particularly enjoyed this bit from the interview itself:
Wired: Dream kitchens aside, it’s a rather bleak vision of the future.
Scott:I was always aware that this whole Earth is on overload. I’ve been that way for 30 years. People used to think I was — you know, not exactly depressive, but dark. And I’d say, “It’s not dark, mate, it’s a fact. It’s going to come and hit you on the head.”
Exactly. Yesterday I wrote about the tension between visions of the future and the reality of scientific achievement. Clearly, the world of 2019 depicted in Blade Runner is not going to be here, at least not on that schedule. But that’s OK. It is still a very valuable cautionary tale and damned fine alternative future history. And I think that is all that any author or artist or director can ever hope to accomplish.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, General Musings, Government, Iraq, Nuclear weapons, Predictions, Society, Violence
So, three weeks ago I wrote about the initial reports that the Air Force had managed to lose track of some of its nukes, and accidentally transported them across the country.
Well, the story just keeps getting better. From the Washington Post this past Sunday:
Three weeks after word of the incident leaked to the public, new details obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force investigation of the incident.
The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from the Air Force’s nuclear safety net for more than a day without anyone’s knowledge.
“I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any incident more disturbing,” retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served as U.S. Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, said in an interview.
Yeah, that’s disturbing, all right. But why bring it back up? We knew already that the incident was a colossal fuck-up. What more is there to be said?
Go read the Washington Post follow-up, and you’ll get a sense of why this is a big deal. Here’s another excerpt:
Military officers, nuclear weapons analysts and lawmakers have expressed concern that it was not just a fluke, but a symptom of deeper problems in the handling of nuclear weapons now that Cold War anxieties have abated.
But could there be something else at work?
The Air Force’s inspector general in 2003 found that half of the “nuclear surety” inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades — the worst performance since inspections of weapons-handling began. Minot’s 5th Bomb Wing was among the units that failed, and the Louisiana-based 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale garnered an unsatisfactory rating in 2005.
Both units passed subsequent nuclear inspections, and Minot was given high marks in a 2006 inspection. The 2003 report on the 5th Bomb Wing attributed its poor performance to the demands of supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wartime stresses had “resulted in a lack of time to focus and practice nuclear operations,” the report stated.
Ah, there ya go. The stresses of the ongoing debacle in Iraq is now playing havoc with the security of our nuclear forces. That’s not a terribly comforting thought, is it? I mean, letting nukes sit unsecured out on an air force base for more than 24 hours means that any number of really bad things could have happened, up to and including the possible theft of one (or more) of the weapons. Gee, now think . . . who might want to have access to such a weapon? Even if you didn’t have the capability of using it as a nuclear bomb, you could still crack open the thing and get access to the highly toxic and extremely radioactive fissionable material. That’d make a swell terror weapon if used on American soil.
And, unfortunately, I am no longer willing to dismiss entirely the possibility that our own government (or parts thereof) might be willing to see such a thing happen for their own reasons. Yeah, I know, tin-foil beanie stuff. But can you honestly say that you would put the idea 100% out of mind?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
The Columbia Daily Tribune did a feature piece today about Alzheimer’s, tying a presentation by a local researcher to the experience that my wife and I have had in caring for her mom. Nothing really new in it, for anyone who has read my materials here, but I thought you might find it interesting to get another perspective on the matter. I think she did a good job with the piece.
A note: while I wrote a regular column on the arts for the Trib until the first of this year, I did not know the reporter who did this piece prior to meeting her for an interview about this story last Tuesday.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Flu, Flu Wiki, General Musings, Health, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space
Fulfilling about 2/3 of all Science Fiction tropes ever created, it seems that there may be a connection with the impact of a meteorite and a mystery illness in a rural Peruvian village:
LIMA (AFP) – Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.
Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.
Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a “strange odor,” local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.
It wasn’t a little thing, either – it left an impact crater reported to be about 100′ wide and 20′ deep.
Now, it remains to be seen whether this is anything more than a simple case of mass hysteria. I mean, if you’re some llama herder and a big damn fireball lands outside your village, it’d be pretty easy to get a case of the vapours over it.
But that don’t mean that it isn’t possible that there’s actually something to this. Panspermia (or more narrowly, exogenesis) has some fairly solid evidence behind it, enough to suggest that it is possible that there is some form of life capable of surviving coming to Earth on a meteor. And, if that form of life is similar enough to us, it could become a problem. A problem our biology might not be able to handle. One that would make a pandemic flu look like a nice little summer cold. One that generations of SF writers have speculated about. Except that in this case, it might actually be true.
Frightened yet?
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing.)
Filed under: Apollo program, Astronomy, Buzz Aldrin, Constellation program, General Musings, Google, Government, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Peter Diamandis, Predictions, Press, Science, Society, Space, tech
As I mentioned the other day, news of the new Google Lunar X Prize organized by Peter Diamandis is getting a fair amount of attention, and appropriately so. It’s good to see Diamandis pursuing his dream, as I wrote about in this post about the Heinlein Centennial Gala:
And then Peter Diamandis‘ brilliant, inspiring presentation about how he considered Heinlein to have written not just visionary fiction, but had actually mapped out a functional business plan with The Man Who Sold the Moon. Diamandis said his dream, his goal, was to be there to welcome NASA back to the Moon when the Constellation Program vehicle arrives. This brought a standing ovation and cheers.
Indeed. And with the new Google Lunar X Prize, there’s a fair chance that could actually happen. If private space companies can land a remote-operated vehicle on the Moon under the prize guidelines by 2013 (most people are of the opinion that it’ll happen sooner), then I’d bet that scaling up the tech used to accomplish that to have people – perhaps even Diamandis himself – on the Moon before NASA’s target date of 2020 for Constellation is certainly possible. Remember, we went from having barely function sub-orbital craft to the Apollo 11 Moonshot in just 8 years.
One of the things I find particularly interesting is a bonus possible under the Google Lunar X Prize guidelines. Here it is:
• BONUSES: An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days).
That one bit right there in the middle that I bolded is what I’m talking about. It simultaneously nods to the accomplishments of NASA and also thumbs its nose at the agency. It perfectly sums up the mixed emotions many in the private sector feel about the government’s involvement in space exploration and development: respect for what was accomplished in the past, yet a burning desire to prove that the private players can do more, do it faster, and do it for less money.
I haven’t begun work on it yet, but one of the ‘intervening’ novels of my future history series (between Communion of Dreams and the prequel I’ve started titled St. Cybi’s Well) would be set sometime in the 2030s at one of the Israeli colonies on the Moon. The main character would be an artist who is on sabbatical there, exploring how the space environment effects an aesthetic sensibility. And one of the scenes I’ve envisioned would have him visiting the site of the first Lunar Landing, which has been carefully secured to preserve it as it was left by Armstrong and Aldrin, in order to use the site as inspiration. I must admit, I sort of hate the thought that there would be additional rover tracks there in order that someone could claim a bonus for the X Prize.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 