Filed under: Blade Runner, Gardening, Italy, Travel | Tags: Blade Runner, blogging, Classics, gardening, Italy, jim downey, NPR, Rome, Steve Tuck, travel, TSA
That may seem to be an odd choice to kick off a series of travelogs about my recent trip to Italy. The focus of the trip, after all, was on Classical Antiquity – specifically, “The Italy of Caesar and Vergil.” So what does a fictional character from 2019 have to do with it?
Well, me, not to put too fine a point on it.
Context is everything. While I had always kinda-sorta wanted to see Italy, it wasn’t a high priority for me. Other trips always took precedent. I figured I’d get around to seeing Italy sometime, or if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be a big deal. After all, while I knew the general history of that part of Europe, and even more than the average amount about Rome (and the Romans), neither was of particular interest. It didn’t play a part in my fiction. It wasn’t pertinent to my life. So I thought.
I was wrong. Hopefully, these travelogs will convey how.
* * * * * * *
An old and dear friend is an expert on Classical Antiquity. His name’s Steve Tuck. Associate Professor of Classics. Published author. DVD star. He’s one of those guys that gets called up when NPR needs a sound bite/expert on something in his field.
And for years he’s told me about the various classes and tour groups he’s taken to Italy. They always sounded like fun, if somewhat outside my own scope.
Well, just a couple of weeks before he was supposed to take another group over this summer, he dropped me a note. There was an unexpected opening in his tour – was I interested in filling in?
Sure. What the hell. It’d be a chance for me to get a out of my routine. Push the boundaries of my comfort zone a bit. Spend time with a good friend who I don’t see often enough. And maybe even learn something.
The tour was actually designed as a workshop for High School Latin teachers, and would help them be prepared for changes to the A.P. criteria going into effect. Part of most days the group would be in class, going over the scholarly material. And the site visits would all be tied to said material. While the rest of the group was in class, I’d have time to explore on my own, do some writing (note-taking), play tourist. When we went to sites, I’d get the same expert guide instruction as everyone else.
So, it was 24 Latin teachers, me and two other non-teachers (one the spouse of a teacher, one the mother of one), my friend and his Co-Director for the trip, a woman who is herself a Latin teacher but who also has extensive knowledge of the area/material and conducted the classroom sessions. 29 of us. Good number. Prime number.
* * * * * * *
Getting to Rome was pretty much routine international travel. Which is to say mildly annoying and took too long. I can’t wait until the TSA allows the use of transporter technology. (You did know that we actually have transporter technology, right? Yeah. They’re just trying to figure out how they can still get to hassle us about the size of our water bottles before they let us use it.)
I arrived in Rome early on July 11th. Going through Passport Control and Customs amounted to little more than blithely showing my passport to the bored agent who glanced at it an waived me on. Seriously, I stepped past the checkpoint and looked around for the Customs station. There was none. Or rather, there was off to the side, but the guys there were too busy talking and literally didn’t even look up at me when I paused to consider if I needed to take my luggage to them. Hell, everyone else was just walking past me and into the main concourse, so I figured I should as well.
It was about 9:00 AM. It was hot & humid in the airport. The first two ATMs I passed weren’t working. People seemed to be less harried than you usually find. Certainly, the uniformed staff were. But whenever I stopped and asked a question, they were happy to help, and pointed me on my way.
This, I found, pretty much summed up Italy.
Except Naples. I’ll get to that later.
* * * * * * *
The express train from the airport to the main station in Rome proper took about a half hour. It cost $14 (actually, 11 Euros, but I’m just going to use $ equivalents since I have a $ key on my keyboard and it will avoid confusion). The seats were comfortable, half the train was empty, and again there was no Air Conditioning.
Air Conditioning isn’t a big thing in Italy. This was something of a theme for the whole trip.
The train station was big. Hectic. Every variety of human, and most of our various languages being spoken. But the signage out to the bus stands was pretty clear, so I made my way through the crowds and went outside.
No buses. Taxis. But no buses.
There were supposed to be buses. I went back inside, looked at the signage. Yup. There were supposed to be buses. There was construction beyond the taxis, but no buses.
The only train station employees were all in windows with long lines of people waiting to talk to them. I decided that I could solve this problem on my own.
I went out the side of the station. Still no buses. But there across the street I saw an ATM (called a bancomat in Italy) in the side of a building. I walked over to it. It wasn’t working. There was another one further down, which was.
I decided that I’d just keep going, do a circle around the train station. The construction in the front of the building was still there. But on the other side of it, well-hidden from the station entrance, I found buses. Yay!
* * * * * * *
My friend Steve responded to my text message letting him know I was in town. Said he’d meet me at the bus stop. He did.
It was a fairly short walk over to our hotel, right in the heart of downtown. Steve showed me our room – in the “annex.” Up about 47 flights of steps. All lovely marble, mind. But still.
But still, it was charming. About halfway up we came out on a little outdoor landing where more permanent residents had their little rooftop gardens.
hotel landing
Rooftop gardens are very big in Rome.
* * * * * * *
After dropping off my bag, getting a little cleaned up from having been traveling the better part of a day, we went out. We met Steve’s co-director, Amy Leonard, and had a little lunch before stomping off across the city. Steve and Amy still had to do some checking on things before starting the tour stuff the next day.
You might think that most of this stuff could be done in advance. That information about museum opening times and whatnot would all be available online. And it is available online. You just can’t trust it.
This was one of the key things I learned about Italy: the randomness of how things work. You can take nothing for granted. Places which are supposed to be open certain hours seldom actually are. Shows/galleries which are supposed to be in place frequently aren’t. Things which are supposed to be available “just ran out.” Things that are supposed to work, don’t. You get more-or-less used to this pretty quickly, and learn to be relaxed about it, staying flexible about anything and everything.
So Steve and Amy had to do a lot of checking stuff to see what was actually there, what would actually work. And I tagged along for the walk.
* * * * * * *
Yeah, walk. The things we needed to see were all within walking distance. Well, walking distance if you’re used to walking a lot. I thought I was. I walk about 1.5 miles every morning. Briskly. Up and down hills. So when Steve and Amy said that things were within walking distance, I just grinned and said “sure.”
I’m an idiot.
Well, no, not for saying that I’d be able/willing to walk that much. For making a last-minute decision to wear some decent but lightweight Nike walking shoes on the trip, rather than the heftier hiking boots I usually walk in.
See, downtown Rome is paved with cobblestones. Oh, not all of it – there are some main roads which are concrete and whatnot. But the vast majority of places where you walk is cobblestones. My feet were aching and bruised before we were halfway done.
* * * * * * *
Well, what did I see?
This:
Roman Forum
And a lot more like it.
* * * * * * *
When they were mostly done checking to make sure that their plans would work, we paused. All along the way Steve (mostly – occasionally Amy would chime in) would point out this or that notable structure. He didn’t go into detail with me, as all of this stuff was on the agenda for a complete explanation with the entire group, and there was no need to thrash over it all now.
But we paused on the east edge of the archeological site of the Forum. There was a raised platform about ten meters square.
“That’s where the original Colossus was” said Steve. I think he added something about it having been replaced by Nero with a statue of himself, which was subsequently torn down.
In the background was the Colosseum.
I looked around. Between all the walking, the jet-lag, and the quick intro into Rome, I was stunned. I looked back at Steve. At Amy. “I don’t know if you guys can still appreciate this, since you’re used to it, but this . . . this is . . . incredible. Just the scale of it. I mean, I have seen all of these things in images and documentaries all my life. But in person . . . they’re just overwhelming. You don’t really get a sense of how big, how grand, these things are.”
* * * * * * *
On the way back from the reconnoiter we stopped at Mad Jack’s Irish Pub for a beer.
I was still stunned. Still reeling from the size of the structures. From the scale of everything. From the deep history of the place.
I was used to seeing castles in northern Europe. Stuff six or seven hundred years old.
Where I had breakfast for the next three days was in the basement of the hotel. Or, more accurately, in part of the entry way to the Pompei Theatre, which was over 2,000 years old.
Sorta puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, Feedback, Guns, Health, Hospice, NPR, Politics, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, Sleep, Society, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, blogging, jim downey, Kindle, NPR, predictions, promotion, Science Fiction, technology, writing
While I’m on a bit of vacation, I have decided to re-post some items from the first year of this blog (2007). This item first ran on December 1, 2007.
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As I’ve mentioned previously, I try and catch NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday regularly. This morning’s show was hosted by John Ydstie, and had a very nice three minute meditation titled Reflecting on a Past Generation which dealt with the differences between his life and his father-in-law’s, as measured in physical weight and strength. You should listen to it, but the main thrust of the piece is how Ydstie’s FIL was a man of the mechanical age, used to dealing with tools and metal and machines, whereas Ydstie is used to working with computers and electronic equipment which is becoming increasingly light weight, almost immaterial.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Last weekend, as part of my preparations for tackling in earnest the big conservation job for the seminary, I got a large fireproof safe. I needed something much larger than my little cabinet to safely secure the many books I will have here at any given time. And about the most cost-effective solution to this need was a commercial gun safe, the sort of thing you see in sporting goods stores and gun shops all around the country.
So, since a local retailer was having a big Holiday sale, I went and bought a safe. It’s 60 inches tall, 30 inches wide, and 24 inches deep. And it weighs 600 pounds.
And the retailer doesn’t offer any kind of delivery and set-up.
“Liability issues,” explained the salesman when I asked. “But the guys out at the loading dock will help get it loaded into your truck or trailer.”
Gee, thanks.
So I went and rented a low-to the ground trailer sufficiently strong for hauling a 600 pound safe (I have a little trailer which wouldn’t be suitable). And an appliance dolly. And went and got the safe.
When I showed up at the loading dock and said I needed to pick up a safe, people scattered. The poor bastard I handed the paperwork to sighed, then disappeared into the warehouse. He returned a few minutes later with some help and my safe, mounted on its own little wooden pallet and boxed up. The four guys who loaded it into my trailer used a little cargo-loader, and were still grunting and cursing. I mostly stayed out of their way and let them do the job the way they wanted. Liability issues, you know.
I drove the couple miles home, and parked. And with a little (but critical) help from my good lady wife, it took just a half an hour and a bit of effort to get the safe in the house and settled where I wanted it. Yes, it was difficult, and I wouldn’t really want to tackle moving anything larger essentially on my own. But using some intelligence, an understanding of balance, and the right tool for the job I was able to move the 600 pound mass of metal with relative ease. And it made me feel damned good about my flabby own self.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
In contrast, the most difficult things I have ever done don’t really have a ‘weight’ to them. Communion of Dreams took me years of hard work to write and rewrite (multiple times), and yet is nothing more than phantasm, able to fly through the internet and be read by thousands. There are no physical copies to be bought, shared with a friend, lugged around and cherished or dropped disgustedly into a recycle bin. It is just electrons, little packets of yes and no.
And these past years of being a care provider, how do I weigh them (other than the additional fat I carry around from lack of proper exercise and too little sleep)? I suppose that I could count up all the times I have had to pick up my MIL, transfer her between chair and toilet, or lay her down gently on her bed. But even in this, things tend towards the immaterial, as she slowly loses weight along with her memories of this life. And soon, she will be no more than a body to be removed, carried one last time by others sent by the funeral home.
How do you weigh a life?
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Constitution, Cory Doctorow, Emergency, Failure, Government, Marketing, NYT, Politics, Predictions, Press, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech, Terrorism | Tags: blogging, free, jim downey, NPR, predictions, science, Science Fiction, technology
While I’m on a bit of vacation, I have decided to re-post some items from the first year of this blog (2007). This item first ran on November 12, 2007.
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Over the weekend, news came out of yet another “Trust us, we’re the government” debacle, this time in the form of the principal deputy director of national intelligence saying that Americans have to give up on the idea that they have any expectation of privacy. Rather, he said, we should simply trust the government to properly safeguard the communications and financial information that they gather about us. No, I am not making this up. From the NYT:
“Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,” Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, told attendees of the Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s symposium in Dallas.
* * *
“Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity,” he said, according to a transcript [pdf]. “But in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity – or the appearance of anonymity – is quickly becoming a thing of the past.”
The future, Mr. Kerr says, is seen in MySpace and other online troves of volunteered information, and also in the the millions of commercial transactions made on the web or on the phone every day. If online merchants can be trusted, he asks, then why not federal employees, who face five years in jail and a $100,000 fine for misusing data from surveillance?
Or, from the Washington Post:
“Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,” Kerr said. “I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn’t empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.”
This mindset, that allowing the government to just vacuum up all of our personal information, to monitor our email and phone communications, or whatever else they are doing but don’t want to tell is, is somehow equivalent to my posting information on this blog or giving some company my credit card number when I want to buy something, is fucking absurd. First off, there is a fundamental difference between what I willingly reveal to someone in either a personal or commercial exchange, and having my information taken without my knowledge or agreement. To say otherwise is to say that just because my phone number is listed in the phone directory, everyone who has the ability to do so is free to listen in on my phone conversations.
Even worse, it shows how we are viewed by this individual, and our government: as their subjects, without rights or expectations of being in control of our lives.
And the notion that we can just trust governmental employees with our private information is patently ridiculous. First off, saying that we should because we already trust commercial businesses with our private information is completely specious – how many times in the last year have you heard of this or that company’s database having been hacked and credit card, personal, and financial information having been stolen? This alone is a good reason to not allow further concentration of our private data to be gathered in one place. Secondly, think of the many instances when hard drives with delicate information have been lost by government employees in the State Department, at the Department of Veterans Affairs, or even at Los Alamos National Laboratory – and those are just the things which have actually made it into the news. Third, and last (for now), anyone who has had any experience with any government agency can attest to just how screwed up such a large bureaucracy can be, in dealing with even the simplest information.
I recently went round and round with the IRS over some forms which they thought I had to file. I didn’t, and established that to the satisfaction of the office which contacted me. Yet for six months I was still being contacted by another office in charge with collecting the necessary fees and fines – three times I had to send a copy of the letter from the initial office which cleared me of the matter, before they finally, and almost grudgingly, admitted that I owed them no money (for not filing the documents I didn’t need to file). These are not the same people I want to trust to handle even *more* information about me.
Allowing the government to take this position – that the default should be that they can just take whatever information about us they want, so long as they promise not to misuse it – is to abandon any illusions that we are in any way, shape, or form a free people. It would turn the entire equation of the Constitution on its head, saying that the government is sovereign and we its subjects. That such a thing is even proposed by a government employee is extremely revealing, and should cause no little amount of concern.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, Art, Astronomy, Constellation program, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Government, ISS, Man Conquers Space, NASA, NPR, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Scott Simon, Space, Survival, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: jim downey, NASA, NPR, predictions, science, Science Fiction, Scott Simon, space, technology, travel
While I’m on a bit of vacation, I have decided to re-post some items from the first year of this blog (2007). This item first ran on November 24, 2007.
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I have a special place in my heart for Scott Simon, the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday program. Oh, I’ve long enjoyed his reporting and work at NPR, but in particular it was the experience of being interviewed by him in 2001 for my “Paint the Moon” art project which endeared him to me. As it was just at the beginning of the media coverage of that project, and most people as yet didn’t understand what I was trying to do with the project, it would have been easy to mock the idea and portray me as something of a fool – but Simon was kind and considerate in his interview with me (which took almost an hour to do from my local NPR station facilities), and the end result was an interesting and insightful segment for his show.
Anyway, I go out of my way to try and catch the broadcast of Weekend Edition Saturday each week, and today was no different. One of the segments this morning was an interview with Pat Duggins, who has covered over 80 shuttle launches for NPR and now has a new book out titled Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program. In the course of the interview, Simon asked the following question (paraphrased; I may correct when the transcript of the show is posted later): “Are Americans unrealistic in the expectation of safety from our space program?”
Duggins paused a moment, and then gave an unequivocal “Yes.”
I had already answered the question in my own mind, and was pleased to hear him say the same thing. Because as I have mentioned before, I think that a realistic assessment of the risks involved with the space program is necessary. Further, everyone involved in the space program, from the politicians who fund it to the NASA administers to aerospace engineers to astronauts to the journalists who cover the program, should all – all – be very clear that there are real risks involved but that those risks are worth taking. Certainly, foolish risks should be avoided. But trying to establish and promote space exploration as being “safe” is foolish and counter-productive.
I am often cynical and somewhat disparaging of the intelligence of my fellow humans. But I actually believe that if you give people honest answers, honest information, and explain both the risks and benefits of something as important as the space program, they will be able to digest and think intelligently about it. We have gotten into trouble because we don’t demand that our populace be informed and responsible – we’ve fallen very much into the habit of feeding people a bunch of bullshit, of letting them off the hook for being responsible citizens, and treating them as children rather than participating adults. By and large, people will react the way you treat them – and if you just treat people as irresponsible children, they will act the same way.
So it was good to hear Duggins say that one simple word: “Yes.”
What we have accomplished in space, from the earliest days right through to the present, has always been risky. But for crying out loud, just going to the grocery store is risky. None of us will get out of this life alive, and you can be sure that for even the most pampered and protected there will be pain and suffering at times. To think otherwise is to live in a fantasy, and to collapse at the first experience of hardship.
I think that we are better than that. Just look at all humankind has accomplished, in spite of the risks. To say that Americans are unwilling to accept a realistic view of death and injury associated with the exploration of space is to sell us short, and to artificially limit the progress we make. I think it *has* artificially limited the progress we have made.
One of the most common complaints I get about the world I envision in Communion of Dreams is that the exploration of space is too far along to be “realistic”. Nonsense. Look at what was accomplished in the fifty years that lead up to the first Moon landing. In a world filled with trauma, war, and grief, some risks are more easily accepted. In the world of Communion, post-pandemic and having suffered regional nuclear wars, there would be little fixation on making sure that spaceflight was “safe”, and more on pushing to rapidly develop it.
We can go to the planets, and then on to the stars. It is just a matter of having the will to do so, and of accepting the risks of trying.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Failure, Feedback, Mark Twain, Marketing, NPR, Promotion, Publishing, Scott Simon, Writing stuff | Tags: jim downey, literature, NPR, promotion, Scott Simon, writing
While I’m on a bit of vacation, I have decided to re-post some items from the first year of this blog (2007). This item first ran on July 1, 2007.
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There was a very good segment on this morning’s Weekend Edition Sunday with Jon Clinch, the author of the novel Finn. Clinch talks about his experience in working on several prior novels, none of which were satisfactory to him, before embarking on Finn. It is interesting that he used the web to first promote himself, then land an agent, then get a publisher for the novel – the same kind of thing I am attempting to do with this site and Communion of Dreams.
But even more interesting was the business with his attitude towards his previous novels, which he thought were important in helping him as a writer, even though they were “failed” projects ultimately in terms of artistic satisfaction (and not being published.) I think we tend to underestimate the value of failure, in our focus on success. I have lots of what would conventionally be characterized as “failures” in my life, but each one was an experience which helped lead me to new understanding about myself and the world. Basically, I’m of the opinion that if a failure doesn’t kill you, it isn’t really a failure. And since none of us gets out of this life alive, anyway, we’re all doomed to “failure”.
The most interesting people I know are not the ones who have only succeeded in everything they’ve tried – that type is either too self-satisfied to be interesting, or so unambitious to have never pushed themselves. Give me people who go too far, who push themselves in what they do past their abilities, who are ambitious enough to want to Paint the Moon. Those are the people who are interesting.
Communion was not my first novel. No, during college I wrote one, another near-term speculative novel, once again based on the notion that a pandemic had caused a general societal collapse. I think it is stuck away in a box someplace in the attic. Even though post college I spent several months trying to rewrite it, it is fairly dreadful, and deserves banishment to the attic. But it helped me learn a *lot* about writing a novel, and allowed me to work out a number of themes and ideas which I then used in Communion to much better effect. So that book (titled Equipoise) was not entirely a failure. And I’d bet that most ‘successful’ authors have one or more such books tucked away in a box somewhere, if you can only get them to admit it.
Anyway, I enjoyed the interview with Clinch, and will have to look up his book one of these days.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Connections, Constitution, Emergency, Failure, Feedback, Gardening, General Musings, Global Warming, Government, Kindle, Marketing, NPR, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Travel, Violence | Tags: Amazon, banking, blogging, climate change, direct publishing, drought, finance, gardening, Italy, jim downey, Kindle, literature, NPR, politics, predictions, Rome, science, Science Fiction, technology, travel
In about 47 hours I’ll be on the shuttle to the airport.
* * * * * * *
There was a news item I saw the other day which indicates that this year’s extreme temperature records are starting to convince more Americans that global climate change is real.
Every summer it seems like a different kind of out-of-control weather pattern decides to strike. In the past month alone, we’ve experienced deadly Colorado wildfires, early-season heat waves and a wind-whipping hurricane, convincing formerly dubious Americans that climate change is actually real, according to the Associated Press.
“Many people around the world are beginning to appreciate that climate change is under way, that it’s having consequences that are playing out in real time and, in the United States at least, we are seeing more and more examples of extreme weather and extreme climate-related events,” Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told the AP.
* * * * * * *
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said he was “dead wrong” when he dismissed media reports over trading in the bank’s chief investment office two months ago as “a complete tempest in a teapot.”
“When I made that statement I was dead wrong,” Dimon said in his Senate Banking Committee hearing on Wednesday, pointing the finger at the former chief investment office head Ina Drew, who Dimon said assured him that “this was an isolated small issue and that it wasn’t a big problem.”
* * *
Dimon abruptly disclosed last month that JPMorgan has suffered at least $2 billion of trading losses in a few weeks. The estimate of the trading losses has since increased to $3 billion and maybe more, although Dimon reiterated in Washington that he expects the bank’s second quarter to be solidly profitable and suggested the losses are under control.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Investors are gearing up for a week full of earnings reports and domestic news, but Europe will once again be hard for U.S. investors to ignore.
Dozens of companies are set to kick off earnings season this week. All eyes will turn to JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) on Friday, as the company will post its trading losses tied to its bad hedge from its London unit.
Some estimate that the loss could be as high as $9 billion, though the bank’s chief executive officer, Jamie Dimon, said back in May that the loss then stood at $2 billion.
* * * * * * *
My garden is about fifty paces behind our house, in a lovely large & open area. There are large trees closer to the house, but nothing back further, so it gets plenty of sun. Decades before we moved in my (to-be) father-in-law maintained a large truck garden there. He had a good eye for the spot.
Every three days for the last few weeks I make multiple trips out to the garden, swapping the feed on the soaker hoses. Each hose is laid out to water two clusters of plants. And I run each one for about 20 minutes. This whole process takes two hours.
Today, as I walked out to the garden, for the first time I noticed the crunch of dry grass underfoot. I had been watching as the lawn slowly turned increasingly brown, but this was the first time I noticed the actual sound of the grass breaking underfoot.
91% of Missouri is now under what is officially described as either “extreme” or “severe” drought conditions.
* * * * * * *
The biggest scandal in the world right now has nothing to do with sex or celebrities. It’s about an interest rate called LIBOR, or the London Interbank Offered Rate.
* * *
LIBOR, as it turns out, is the rate at which banks lend to each other. And more importantly, it has become the global benchmark for lending.
Banks look at it every day to figure out what they should charge you for not just home loans, but car loans, commercial loans, credit cards. LIBOR ends up almost everywhere.
Gillian Tett, an editor with the Financial Times, says that $350 trillion worth of contracts have been made that refer to LIBOR.
So literally hundreds of trillions of dollars around the world, all these deals, are based on this number. Now we find out this number might be a lie. At least one bank was tampering with that number for their own profit.
This past week Barclay’s Bank was fined $455 million, and two senior executives (the chairman and the CEO) resigned as investigation into the scandal started to turn up evidence of the scope of the market-rigging. But many people familiar with the industry say that this is just the tip of the iceberg — that there will likely be a number of other multi-national banks proven to have participated.
* * * * * * *
Climate change? Climate change.
Global Annual Mean Surface Air Temperature Change
Line plot of global mean land-ocean temperature index, 1880 to present, with the base period 1951-1980. The dotted black line is the annual mean and the solid red line is the five-year mean. The green bars show uncertainty estimates. [This is an update of Fig. 1A in Hansen et al. (2006).]
Figure also available as PDF, or Postscript. Also available are tabular data.
(I don’t put up with climate change denial here. Take it to your own blog.)
* * * * * * *
Leaders shape the frame of argument. They delineate the forms of dissent and opposition. They define, both by what they say and by what they fail to rule out, whether we have a small “r” republican approach to government, or rule by the manipulators of the manipulated mob. When they stay silent they are the cowards of the headline, passive bystanders as their followers betray the basic principles of (small “d”) democratic politics.
Greece is a good place from which to think about this. You don’t have to go back to Agamemnon or to Plato; living memory—the civil war, the colonels, very recent memory indeed offer regular reminders of the fragility of government by consent of the governed. Words matter here, and have for millennia.
So it is in this place, with that history in mind, that I am reminded once again that the habit of dismissing crap like that spewed by Nicholson and Davis as wingnuts being wingnuts is not acceptable. The speakers themselves may not count for much, but for a nominally civil society to allow such speech to pass without massive retaliation, actual leadership from those who would lead from that side…well, that’s how individuals get hurt, and democracies die. It’s happened before, not many miles from where I sit as I write this.
* * * * * * *
In about 47 hours I’ll be on the shuttle to the airport.
Of course, I don’t have everything done which needs to be done. And I really shouldn’t have taken the time to put together such a long and wide-ranging post.
But I wanted to take a moment and thank those who bought books yesterday. It may have been prompted by yesterday’s blog entry, it may not — I have no way of knowing. But thank you. It wasn’t a big day for sales, but it was a nice bump up from the single sale the day before.
I won’t be traveling to Greece, but to Rome. And it won’t surprise me if I find a new perspective or two while I’m there. I’m hoping that the change will allow me to integrate some of the many things I have been thinking about concerning the next book.
Things like spontaneous combustion. It seems that the world is ripe for it.
Again.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, Flu, Government, Health, NPR, Pandemic, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: avian flu, flu, H5N1, health, influenza, jim downey, NPR, pandemic, predictions, science, Science Fiction, technology
From the first page of Chapter 17:
“Sorry.” She looked over at him, the dread in her eye replaced by something else. “The 1918 flu was recreated in the early part of this century, as there was a growing concern about Avian flu. The scientists at the time discovered that the prevailing form of Avian Flu, the H5N1 virus, was surprisingly related to the 1918 pandemic virus. Almost identical RNA structure, similar DNA.”
“But you say this one is different.”
“Yeah. Ignis was such a nasty bug because it spread by aerosol, but it also had a very short incubation period, just a couple of days. Then the disease itself was very swift, and victims died within hours of onset. Like it was all time- compressed, hyper-virulent. This is one of the reasons that people thought then, and still debate now, whether it was a weaponized version of Avian flu.”
From yesterday’s All Things Considered:
Anyone and everyone can now look in the journal Science and read about how to make lab-altered bird flu viruses that have been at the center of a controversy that’s raged for months.
But in the eyes of some critics, the details of these experiments are effectively the recipe for a dangerous flu pandemic.
The H5N1 bird flu virus isn’t normally contagious between people, but these mutants most likely are. They were created with the best of intentions by a lab that’s trying to understand how flu viruses might change in the wild and start spreading in humans.
But as word of the experiments got out, scary headlines warned of a “doomsday” virus and a “super-flu.” Scientists, public health officials and security experts debated what to do in closed-door meetings, as others made their arguments in op-eds and at public meetings.
Remember when the “fire-flu” (Latin name: Ignis) was supposed to happen?
Yeah, 2012.
Draw your own conclusions.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Bipolar, Connections, Diane Rehm, Failure, Feedback, Health, Hospice, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Music, NPR, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, Diane Rehm, direct publishing, free, health, hospice, humor, jim downey, John Bourke, literature, memoir, music, NPR, science, Science Fiction, Scott O'Neill, Shawn Colvin, writing
“Now, you would normally expect to pay $16.95 for a book of this size and quality! Just look at it! 420 pages full of the touching story of caring for a loved one! And those aren’t little trade paperback pages, either, but memoir-sized pages, each one charged with honest emotion and providing insight into one of the most challenging — and rewarding — experiences in life!”
“That’s right – you would expect to pay $16.95 for such a book – and it would be a fair deal. A modest price in exchange for access to the innermost thoughts and feelings of four people, each on a personal journey of love and self-discovery.”
“But you don’t have to pay $16.95. No you don’t. Why you can get the whole book — containing every single word, every single lesson learned — in Kindle format for the low, low price of JUST $8.99. That’s right — a huge savings, including no shipping or handling fees!”
“But Wait! There’s More!”
* * * * * * *
Shawn Colvin has a new book out, and has been doing the promotional circuit. I had the pleasure of hearing most of an hour-long interview with her this morning on the Diane Rehm show.
Colvin is just a couple of years older than I am. I can’t say that I have been a huge fan of hers, but I have been aware of her for a long time, and have always appreciated her talents. And Diane Rehm is one of the best in the business. As noted, I’d love to have a chance to have her interview me. The interview was engaging, and touching.
Because Colvin’s book is a memoir. No, not of care-giving. Not care-giving for someone else, anyway. Rather, it was about her own path to deal with her own demons. Depression. Substance abuse. Bad relationships. Anorexia. Toss in the usual professional stresses and failures, and it makes for a compelling story.
* * * * * * *
“That’s right, friend, there’s more: a *LOT* more.”
“Because not only can you get Her Final Year for the low, low price of just $8.99, but you can ALSO get this incredible companion volume: Communion of Dreams! That’s right — James Downey, one of the co-authors of Her Final Year, has also written a novel. And not just any novel — a work of speculative fiction which has fired the imagination of thousands, and prompted dozens of 5-star reviews on Amazon!”
“For such a work you would expect to pay at least $11.95 for the 350 page paperback! But it is available in the Kindle edition for just $4.95. That’s fight, LESS THAN one thin five-dollar bill. Such A Deal!!”
“But Wait! There’s More!”
* * * * * * *
Fascinating story this morning about efforts to stop the spread of Dengue Fever on NPR. The basic idea was to use a known effect where mosquitoes infected with a naturally-occurring bacteria are unable to transmit the virus which causes Dengue Fever. The science in the story was good, but what really caught my attention was how the effort to get this idea to work had been a *very* long and frustrating quest for the scientist behind it.
See, Scott O’Neill had been working on this project for some 20 years. The biggest problem was technical — it is phenomenally difficult to infect living mosquitoes with the bacteria. It takes thousands and thousands of attempts, working at a microscopic level, to inject the necessary bacteria into a mosquito egg, and then having said egg develop to adulthood and actually *have* the disease. Failure is a constant companion.
And so this is what caught my ear when I heard it:
Take the day in 2006, when one of Scott’s graduate students told him he thought he’d finally succeed in infecting a dengue mosquito with Wolbachia.
I figured this must have been a red-letter day for Scott, a day of sheer elation. Scott told me looking back on it, it was. But at the time it didn’t seem that way.
“Because you’re so used to failure that you don’t believe anything when you see it,” he says. “And so you can think back to when there was a Eureka moment, but at the time, you’re probably, ‘this looks good but I’ve been burnt thousands of times before. Let’s go and do it again, and the do it another time, and check and check and make sure it’s actually real.’ “
* * * * * * *
“That’s right, friend, there’s more: a *LOT* more.”
“Because while you would think that just $8.99 for Her Final Year or only $4.95 for Communion of Dreams would be a STEAL — and you would be correct to think that! — you can get *BOTH* of these books for FREE this Saturday!”
“That’s right, I said FREE, friend. As in beer! The Kindle edition of each book will be completely and totally FREE all day Saturday! All you have to do is just go and download it. Why, you do not even need to own a Kindle in order to take advantage of this phenomenal offer! That’s right, you can get a FREE Kindle app for almost every computer, tablet, or mobile device known to man!”
“But Wait! There’s More!”
* * * * * * *
I sometimes wonder whether I shouldn’t play up my own “demons” more.
Now, I haven’t been shy about talking about them. Anyone who has read my stuff for any length of time knows this. I’m honest about my background (orphaned at 13), my failures (both recent and older ones), and my own struggles with mild bipolar disorder and health problems. Talking about these aspects of my life helps to provide some context for the things I think and do — it is all part of who I am and why I see the world as I do.
But I try not to dwell on such things. I have never considered myself a tragic figure or particularly burdened. Whether or not it was Plato who actually said “be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” that aphorism is still very true, and my own battle hasn’t been especially more difficult than the one many people fight. In very many ways I have been extremely fortunate, and I know that. And I’m thankful for it.
But still, there is no denying that tragedy sells.
* * * * * * *
“More? How can there be More? The Kindle edition of both books are already FREE — what more could any reasonable person ask for???”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. How about a *signed* copy of the paperback edition of each book? For FREE!”
“That’s right. FREE!”
“All you gotta do is post a comment here. Or on our Facebook page. Or send a Tweet. Do any of these things between now and Sunday morning, and your name will be entered into a drawing for a FREE signed copy of the paperback! You can enter once for each book at each venue — a possibility of 6 chances in total! What more could you possible ask for?”
“So, don’t delay — enter your name, today! And remember to download your FREE copy of the Kindle edition of Her Final Year and Communion of Dreams this coming Saturday!”
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the Her Final Year blog.)
Filed under: Amazon, Failure, Gardening, Health, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Survival, Violence | Tags: Amazon, David Bowie, Deathworld, direct publishing, gardening, Habaneros, Harry Harrison, health, jim downey, Kindle, literature, music, NPR, Pyrrus, Science Fiction, Thomas Jefferson, tomatoes
This ain’t Pyrrus.
* * * * * * *
About two weeks ago I mentioned this:
Oh, I know the reality of modern publishing well enough to realize that I would still have to do a lot of work to promote the book(s). But being able to hand most of that over to others would be worthwhile. And getting a sufficient amount of money in advance to take off some of the financial pressure of needing to earn money day in and day out would be a big help as well.
* * * * * * *
HATCH: For Jefferson’s to come out into this garden was sort of an affirmation of his vigor in so many different ways. And even at the age of 83, Jefferson read about giant cucumbers in a Cleveland, Ohio newspaper. And he wrote to the governor of Ohio and asked him for seeds of this cucumber, and passed them around to his friends in Charlottesville; grew them in his garden; typically measured how long each one was that came out of his garden. And Jefferson once wrote that although I’m an old man, I am but a young gardener.
* * * * * * *
It was a difficult year. A painful year. And while that pain has lessened over the months, it still causes difficulties for me in terms of limiting my energy and ability to focus on what I need to do.
I’m 53. Be 54 in July. Overall, I’m in much better health than I could be, as my doc reminded me at my recent annual physical. I don’t like to think of myself as being limited in what I can do. Oh, I have no illusions that I’m still 20 or anything, but still I find it frustrating that there is this factor which intrudes on my ability to accomplish things.
* * * * * * *
This ain’t Pyrrus. The gravity isn’t twice Earth normal. All the flora and fauna isn’t dedicated to the notion that it should kill me as quickly as possible, and I don’t have to be in peak physical condition at all times to just have a *chance* to survive each day.
That’s what most people remember about Harry Harrison’s classic novel Deathworld, if they remember anything at all. What is too often forgotten is that the real story was one of adaptation and learning to live with the environment of Pyrrus rather than just battling it in a forever war.
And out of necessity, that is the lessen I am going to attempt with my garden this year. Where for most of the last decade I have put a huge amount of effort into trying to keep the local critters out of my substantial garden, I just don’t have the time or energy for that now.
I’m scaling back the whole garden – yeah, a bunch of hot peppers, but other than that I’m just going to plant a half dozen or so tomato plants. Enough to provide us fresh toms this summer and fall, perhaps with some extra for a couple batches of sauce. But I’m not going to try and set up to can my usual 60 pints of chopped tomatoes and a couple dozen pints of sauce. And I’m not going to put down a double layer of landscape fabric to keep down weeds. Perhaps most importantly, I’m not going to set up a 200′ perimeter deer fence 7′ tall with a 2′ chicken wire base to try and keep out all the critters. I’ll take some other steps to try and keep the individual plants safe, but that’s it.
This is a big change for me. I really enjoyed gardening the way I have for the last few years. But I just don’t have the necessary energy to do it, given the other things I have to see to.
But everyone makes those decisions. You have to change, or you die.
Maybe this place is more like Pyrrus than I thought.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 