I found

http://www.sp-usa.org/

and read their platform for kicks.   They're like those children in a poor neighborhood trying to realize the American dream with a lemonade stand, with salt for sugar and vinegar in place of lemon juice.    It's not that salt and vinegar aren't useful or important.  

Americans should be able to organize and strike for better working conditions or wages.   We should have full gender and racial equality.    Rich and poor should have equal access to education, justice, and health care.  Society should invest in public transportation, libraries, and other programs that increase access and raise the quality of living for all.

In the right language, such things may appeal to the majority of Americans and people could get elected on such a platform, if they can back it up with facts and general competence.  I don't see the socialists doing this.  They alienate potential supporters with naive, archaic language, along with the stigma of socialism.  It's easy to say "it didn't work for Russia," and so on.   Real or perceived, socialists appear out of touch with the workers they -- irony -- patronize.

I'm on a fence post with sympathies leaning in many directions.  The best of the red and green parties can, I think, be very good for business.   Long-term, sustainable prosperity depends on the health of the environment and the well-being of the most vulnerable and underprivileged in society.  

We're all in the same boat and it won't do us any good to all be rowing in different directions.  It won't do us any good to let the strongest, or the loudest, or the richest, boss us around.   It won't do us any good to let ourselves be terrorized with tales of sea monsters or falling off the edge of the earth.  Let's be reasonable.  As the Beatles say, "We can work it out."

</a></b></a>msminlr says, "One of my favorite of Elizabeth Moon's short stories postulates the demolition of the levees and the conversion of living quarters, cattle barns, and equipment storage barns within the flood zones to being on barges. There is a sophisticated tethering system, which allows the house-barges to settle back down onto their utility connections when the water recedes. I forget the title off the top of my head, but it is in the anthology Lunar Activity."

Back in the 90s I had the idea for concrete modular homes that would be aerodynamic and buoyant, for areas subject to flooding and high winds.  The homes would be anchored or slide up and down poles driven into the ground.  The concrete and the shape was meant to help deflect debris thrown by tornado or hurricane-force winds.  The shape of a house could also keep it on the ground, rather than get blown away.  Formula race cars use this reverse-wing shape, to grip the track at speeds approaching 200mph.  

I also played with the idea of "off the grid" technology, which I first read about in the back of Popular Science.  Water, sewage, power, heating and cooling... it can all be done from the house.  If it couldn't, there'd be no point whatsoever entertaining the SF dream of living on the moon, or on Mars.  When people can live comfortably "off the grid" in the poorest regions in the world, on the surface or under the water.  When we've got  working biospheres in the most inhospitable places on earth, and we've developed the scientific understanding and the technology to deal with problems like flooding and hurricanes and drought, when we've really done our homework and know that a settlement on the moon or Mars (or wherever) can sustain itself -- but not before.   There's so much we can do on earth to prepare, while also helping people.  For now, let the robots and ROVs do the work off-earth. 

In my first interview with David C. Kopaska-Merkel, he talks about how coastal development often goes ahead regardless of warnings and advice from scientists.  John D. MacDonald wrote about such developers and corruption on the coast, also about the importance of barrier islands and green buffer zones, especially in _Condominium_ -- published decades ago.   The importance of marshes to the ecosystem and for the protection of human lives and property is nothing new, yet they continue to disappear. 

A letter to the National Geographic years ago described hurricane resistant houses on Guam built of cinder blocks.  This too is nothing new.  It doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. Stronger buildings could also be more insulated, saving money/energy and reducing pollution.  Yet people continue to build stick-built houses on the coast -- and in tornado alley -- as if they learned nothing from the three little pigs. 

The houses get blown away and the owners expect the government -- taxpayers -- us -- to bail them out, year after year.  The debris gets swept away.  They build the same kinds of houses, and -- with every report on the evening news -- we're supposed to admire their conservatism, their failure or unwillingness to learn from their mistakes. 

I'm reminded of Notes from Underground.  

"The patterns of rainfall, soil moisture, and runoff versus infiltration," geologist Kopaska-Merkel says, "are the proximal causes of floods (along with channelization of rivers, streams, and small tributaries). Distal causes are mostly meteorological. Common sense reveals that when you force water to run in concrete channels it can't soak into the ground and this is the number one cause of floods. At least where urban areas catch the rain.  Where the rain falls on the dirt floods result from heavy rains and they are controlled by El Niño, the jet stream, and other stuff like that.

"How well does scientists understand floods and the distribution of water? Well, hydrodynamics is pretty well understood. We know how water flows in a river although there are always some unanswered questions.

"The severity of floods can be predicted by looking at the heights of levees, the areas in which infiltration can take place, the patterns of soil moisture, and so on. This is not yet an exact science, but we are getting a better handle on this sort of thing all the time. I think most of us have an intuitive understanding of how accurate meteorological predictions are. They're fairly accurate, but would you bet your life or the existence of your house on them?

"The long-term effects of flood controls are fairly well understood by experts. The problem is that they are not always owned or managed by experts. I know of city levies in which tremendous trees have been allowed to grow. The people who didn't pull up the seedlings weren't thinking at all. The experts used to think that in the trees would destroy the levees effectiveness. Now some experts think they hold the levees together. So stay tuned on that one.

"But I think you are probably asking whether building the levees or other structures is a good idea and why or why not. I think there's legitimate disagreement about this. if you don't build any levees than the flood water soak into farmland. This might be bad for people who live on or near the farms. If you do build levees the soil goes downstream, possibly breaching the levees in other places. If it doesn't breach those levees then sediment is carried out to the Gulf of Mexico and kills creatures living there."

Thanks again to David Kopaska-Merkel for taking the time to answer my questions.   Sam's Dot publisher Tyree Campbell posted some first hand accounts of the flood on the SD message board.  I'm so out of touch, I didn't know about the flood -- one state away -- until I read the report of Iowans like Lisa Bradley and Tyree Campbell.  I get updates from The Washington Post but I don't always read the headlines.  I'm an ostrich, with my head buried in other issues or running around my hackneyed message track.

I slipped into that well-worn groove once again and deleted it.  Back to our regularly scheduled program:

"Some 5 million acres of farmland here in the midwest," says Campbell, "were also flooded. Most had been planted. Most had been fertilized. Many were in corn. The primary fertilizer for corn is nitrogen [think ammonia...I think it's in the form of ammonium hydroxide, the stuff they use in meth labs]. All that fertilizer has washed away into the rivers. It will go down the Mississippi. It will flow into the Gulf of Mexico. It will create a dead zone, where nothing can live. The shrimp fisheries, the seafood, fish, in that area of the Gulf--toast. Louisiana depends on fisheries for part of its livelihood."

The Iowa flood was no isolated event.  It has widespread causes and effects, ranging from climate change to changes to changes in the ecosystem.  People are caught in the middle, making decisions and trying to solve problems.  I could make a case for floods being essential for the rise of human civilization in the fertile crescent and elsewhere, including its role in early agriculture and its motivation to understand the causes and effects, to get organized and try to manage the process.  

Just as I go back to my message track, human civilization tries to deal with floods over and over again. 

Google hits:

Obama and God      26,100,000
Obama and atheist          98,300

McCain and God     13,600,000
McCain and atheist   1,140,000


It's a very easy way to survey and get statistics, but what does it mean?  I avoided content, and content is key.   You don't have to dig very hard to see both candidates scrambling to show the role of faith -- unfounded belief -- in their lives and in this election. 

To me, it's as though both candidates declared the irrelevance of evidence in a criminal trial.  I question their judgment if they think they can reconcile the dictatorship of faith with modern democracy and the kind of skepticism illustrated by our courts. 

At best, they're poseurs who refuse to distinguish morality from ancient ignorance and superstition if it may cost them the election.

I wanted to back up my claim that voters cared more about faith than science, so I googled the '08 presidential candidates with the word "faith" or "science" and was pleasantly surprised by the number of hits.   I'm not sure if it means anything but...

Obama faith              16,700,000
Obama science        30,800,000

McCain faith                9,400,000
McCain science        15,600,000

I'd cherry pick and interpret this as:

1) I'm wrong.  

2) People are -- on the internet, at least -- about twice as interested in Obama as McCain.  I'm not surprised by this, though.  I predicted months ago that Obama will be our next president -- and that he will compromise and accomplish nothing of importance, or push for progress and be blocked by conservatives in congress / the US supreme court. 

I got hung up on other issues, like buying a house and (ostrich that I am) plunging headlong into a novel.  Writing one.  My blood pressure was 140/90 last I checked, so I had to cut out the coffee.  I've had a headache for the last three days.   It's probably just allergies.  And stress. 

The house is 80 years old and will require lots of renovation.  My wife is doing most of the work there, while I sit on the baby.  Babysit.  I'm inundated and have neglected my "investigation" of the IA flood, when I started out with such good intentions... 

My geology book and Life on the Mississippi are in boxes along with most all of my books, because of the move(s) and the baby, who learned to crawl and has just learned to walk in this apartment.  Like a flood, she'll destroy any books within reach and there's only so much room on the upper shelves.  I selected those books before I the IA flood, and for other projects.

I did find this quote online:

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower
Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.
That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year.
Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic,
can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period,' just a million
years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards
of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out
over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token
any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now
the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long,
and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together,
and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual
board of aldermen.  There is something fascinating about science.
One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling
investment of fact."
                   --Mark Twain
                               Life on the Mississippi, chapter 17


Much the same thing could be said about racism.   Science has helped debunk the junk that many scientists once had faith in.   The scientific method, not faith, helps us to understand and deal with problems in the real world -- a flood, hurricane, pandemic, oil shortage, global warming, poverty, injustice, etc.   But voters are much more concerned with a candidate's faith than his skepticism or understanding of nature and how it works; they confuse morality -- we do want our public officials to be moral -- with ancient ignorance and superstition,  sabotaging not only systems of justice and education but public works. 

Let's be reasonable, and learn from our mistakes.  Belief must conform to the evidence, not the other way around.  

"The 500 year flood," says David C. Kopaska-Merkel, "is a useful and misleading fiction."  It's based on less than 500 years of data and assumes:

1) a stable environment

2) the near future will have the same stable environment. 

"Even if it was not for global warming, this would be obvious nonsense."

(Blogger's note: I took a class in geology years ago, not long after reading Life on the Mississippi.  Both provided a sense of the changing earth, which I now see everywhere -- the cracks in the sidewalk, disappearing footprints on a sandy beach, dirt carried away from a construction site by wind and rain...  -- but people often overlook the obvious and seem to believe in all kinds of nonsense.  One of my fellow students stormed out of that geology class early on because the prof would not put science on equal footing with Judeo-Christian mythology.)

Kopaska-Merkel goes on to say, "We can predict a 50 year flood or 100 year flood with some hope of reasonable accuracy...  because we've been collecting data for longer than 50 or even 100 years, and also because the climate might be more or less stable over the next 50 years. Maybe."   If we had 500 years of data... "How helpful is it, really, to know that your building (likely to fall down in less than a hundred years) might be flooded on the average once every 500 years over the next n years, where n is a number much larger than 500?"

Elizabeth Barrett provided the link on her blog.  I typed in my bearleyport address,  it did some binary number crunching and came up with this:

Based on the lj interests lists of those who share my more unusual interests, the interests suggestion meme thinks I might be interested in

jim thompson
first amendment
dashiell hammett
cornell woolrich
luis bunuel
richard matheson
portrait
portraiture
crime fiction
david goodis
arthur conan doyle
freethought
andrei tarkovsky
freedom from religion
james ellroy
josephine tey
70's rock
charles willeford
ins wasser gucken

Ever read The Sheep Look Up?  Check this out:


Pentagon Fights EPA On Pollution Cleanup
The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment.
(By Lyndsey Layton, The Washington Post)

David C. Kopaska-Merkel answered my questions about the flood and flooding at

dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com

which includes some tips for people and things to look up as I go forward with this project.  I haven't made up my mind yet whether to use interview or article format for my posts.  Perhaps a combination of both.  

If any of you have any special concerns, tips, or questions, comment here and I'll see what I can do.   I'll try to get my first geological post up in a few days.  

Check out

samharris.org

for surveys and information on MRI testing to better understand the neurology of belief and disbelief of Christianity.  The surveys of the agree/disagree variety and quick, but they're only interested in responses from Christians and atheists/nonbelievers.  Trying to limit the number of variables, I suppose.  Either/or.  The questions are that obvious, with few exceptions. 

For ex., the line about humans having evolved "like every other animal."   I just assumed they meant "all other animals."  

I asked David C. Kopaska-Merkel -- SF poet and geologist -- some questions to start off my "investigation" of the Iowa flood, but I sent my message by LJ.   Unfortunately, his voice recognition software and LJ combined to wipe out his answers.  We'll try again.  After the flood, I plan to look into the problems and potential benefits of increasing accessibility.



My flood plan:

1) to explore this flood and flooding as geological

2) to consider the potential for mosquito- or water-borne disease, following a flood

3) flooding and agriculture; the economy

4) recovery efforts; who pays the price; profiteers

5) flood prevention; effects and side effects of dams, levees, etc.

6) climate change and the redistribution of water



I  don't have the standing or access of a professional journalist, but I have no deadlines and I'm my own editor.   I can keep plugging away at this long after the journalists have gone on to other stories.   I have no illusions about my insignificance here.  Let the pros question the people "on the ground" and busy helping out, because -- through their readership and audience -- they can make a difference.  They all have a job to do.  I'm just trying to satisfy my curiosity and do research for future novels.  When the crisis is over, the helpers I talk to will have had some time to relax and reflect.  Erosion precedes deposition.  Information accumulates after the fact.

In other news, books I borrowed from the library include Such, Such were the Joys, a collection of essays by George Orwell.  One, "Poetry and the Microphone" describes -- in 1945 -- problems discussed by poets today.  At least, those poets interested in reaching a wider audience.  Orwell talks about the spoken poetry as opposed to patterns on a page.  He suggests the radio as a medium and explains how it can be preferable to the in-person poetry reading, where the audience can intimidate a poet and affect -- or deter -- the performance.   

Lisa Bradley talked about people in her city are helping out and provided the following links on her blog:


UI Flood Foundation

Iowa City Animal Shelter

Iowa City - Cedar Rapids Corridor recovery



The corridor recovery site includes logos for different charities.  Of these, I give blood and money to the Red Cross but discourage anyone from giving to the Salvation Army.  We must distinguish humanitarian work from the business of Make-believe. 

By all means, give.  But don't let much-needed resources and effort be diverted by con-men or crusaders. 

I sent a batch of questions to Iowa poet, writer, and editor Lisa Bradley and she replied yesterday with her answers.

In future posts, I plan to include links to secular organizations helping Iowans and animals recover from the flood, a follow-up discussion on "pests,"  and perhaps further interviews with Lisa and others.  Subjects will include: climate change and rainfall; geography/geology, engineering, and floods; floods and the mosquito population; mosquitoes and the spread of disease; historical and speculative consequences of disease; what has, can, and should be done; collateral damage and how to prevent it.  Call it research for mundane SF novels. 

I want to thank Lisa again for animating this interview.

What's new?

Our city is still coping with floods that forced 5000 folks out of their homes and bisected the town.  Parts of town will likely be under water for weeks to come. 

In personal news, this summer I have poetry appearing in Spaceports and Spidersilk and Southern Fried Weirdness.  My story "The Evolution of Angels" will appear in an upcoming issue of Oddlands.

When did you become a vegetarian, and why?  How did you go about it?

It happened in stages.  After adopting my cat, I could no longer rationalize to myself loving an animal I called a "pet" yet eating animals called "dinner."  So, in 2002, I gave up red meat and pork for my new year's resolution.  I gave up eating mammals first because I felt the most affinity with them.  Once that restriction became second nature to me, I scaled back on poultry. (I'd never been a huge fan of fish.)  By 2004, even poultry tasted unpleasantly "gamey" to me, but I was pregnant; sometimes my instincts and options overcame my ethics.  After my daughter was born, I gave up all birds and fish, but I ate a lot of shrimp--crustaceans are like sea insects, and I don't have a lot of high feelings for bugs.  But I got tired of shrimp, and they're creepy-looking anyway, so now I don't eat any animals.  I might eat clam chowder, but it's usually prepared with other animal products.  I'd love to go vegan--we already use butter, milk, and egg substitutes at home--but I'm not ready to interrogate restaurant chefs about ingredients or hassle my friends about whether there's dairy at the potluck. So I'd just be calling myself a vegan.

 

How do you support animal rights?

Well, obviously, I'm a vegetarian.  I've convinced my husband to give up eating cows and pigs.  My daughter eats poultry, but she will probably become vegetarian when she's older.  She's already asking the right questions.  Our family also tries not to buy leather, wool, or silk.

We adopted a cat from the local shelter, and we'll adopt other animals in the future.  We escort most bugs out of our home. 

I give money to the ASPCA, Farm Sanctuary, the local animal shelter, and a local pet rescue operation.  When I buy Christmas or birthday presents, I look for possibilities at the ASPCA and Farm Sanctuary websites.  I've circulated petitions and written letters regarding downed "food animals," horse slaughter, free-range hen eggs, traveling animal shows, and veal in baby food…

I try to see animals in general, and to present them in my writing, whether it's poetry or blog posts.  I'm teaching my daughter to see animals also.

 

How might increasing animal rights affect human society, politics, or the economy? 

I'll quibble over the notion of "increasing" animal rights later.

There's a disturbing consonance between the treatment of food animals and the treatment of the employees in the "processing plants" where these animals are slaughtered.  Fast Food Nation and Dominion have reported a 100% turnover rate in slaughterhouse staff.  No one wants to work there; that should tell us something.  Illegal immigrants are recruited to work in these facilities and are then subject to outrageous abuses--awful working conditions, withheld wages, blackmail, rape, orchestrated immigration raids.  The callousness that this work requires naturally leads to animal abuse and desensitizes people to the mistreatment of their fellow human beings.  If we improve recognition of animal rights, we will raise the bar for recognition of human rights, as well. 

"Vertical integration" of farms is eradicating the human element in farming, and the humane element, as well.  Most farmers do not want to mistreat their animals, even food animals.  But economics--that is, consumer demand (without regard for consequences)--force many farmers to treat animals as products and to incorporate practices contrary to common sense: using animal "byproducts" in herbivores' feed; abusing preventative antibiotics; separating mothers from offspring; sequestering creatures from the light of day; forklifting ill animals into the human food supply…  Acknowledging animal rights might put corporate "farms" out of business; it will surely increase the price of meat products.  But it will also force us to make the connection between an animal's life and the hamburger on the table, a connection most Americans blissfully ignore.

Concern for the environment and concern for animal rights are natural corollaries.  Once we acknowledge that we share this planet with other creatures all intent on fulfilling their destinies just like us, we must address our role as stewards of the earth.  And vice versa, if we seek a healthier planet for ourselves and our children, we will end up protecting environments and biodiversity.

 

What distinguishes humans from other animals?

Perhaps only that we ask these questions and write them down and worry about them.  We used to draw the line at "culture," then at "language."  But now we know that certain animals develop culture (thanks, EO Wilson) and some can manipulate symbols (apes and dolphins, for examples).  "Ethics" might be the new standard, but the line keeps moving.  After all, we've seen altruistic, selfish, and thoughtless behaviors on the part of animals we might consider of comparable intelligence to ourselves (thanks, Lyall Watson).  Having ethical codes and the will to obey or ignore them…sounds very "human" to me.

 

Do some animals deserve more rights than others?  If so, why?

Deserve is a problematic term, as it can imply an actor who earns and another who rewards.  I think we're in a better position to recognize the rights of some creatures than others.  We should be able to "let alone" those animals who require large habitats; we have the means to adapt, while they may not.  We should be able to work out harmonious arrangements with apes, since we have such insight into what they need to be happy.  So-called food animals are already giving their lives to humans; must we torture them, too?  It's harder to see how we can respect the needs of smelt, fleas, mosquitoes, and "pests," but [Editors note: I asked Lisa some follow-up questions about the rest of her answer here, which -- as a subscriber to the Hans Zinsser-Jared Diamond school of history -- I find fascinating.  And timely!  Can humans live "harmoniously" with the carriers of bubonic plague and malaria?  How effective are nets and sprays against the spread of disease?   What about evolving resistance to pesticides?  Collateral damage from pesticide use and the draining of wetlands?   How much risk do mosquitoes pose to post-flood Iowans?  And what can we do?  We'll take this up again in another post, and perhaps further interviews.]

 

What should be done about animals that threaten humans or livestock?

We have to ask ourselves, What is a threat?  What is the magnitude of the threat?  Is it an imminent threat?  If the threat is to property, what might be just compensation?  How can we buffer ourselves from such threats?  We don't need to martyr ourselves or the animals.  "Us versus them" is such an outdated mentality.  We need to aim for win-win solutions.

 

How might SPCA views of birth control and euthanasia for cats and dogs apply to humans?

They don't.  But similar ethical considerations might inform our decisions about humans who are not in the position to make life-and-death choices themselves.  Determining which individuals are in need of such stewardship, and who should steward them, is preliminary to making such decisions.  Not all animal rights activists agree with the ASPCA's stances on population control and animal guardianship.  It won't be any easier to conjure consensus regarding humans.

 

Why do you think there's so much anthropomorphic art and literature for children?

Many, many reasons!  The first that comes to mind is that children are acted upon and projected upon by adults, just as animals are.  Neither children nor domesticated animals are in control of their own bodies or actions or "meanings"; they are at the mercy of (usually well-meaning) human adults.  Many human parents are under the impression that their young children can be made into their image, and that pets can be forced into an easy family lifestyle, when in reality both children and animals come with their own instincts, interests, and temperaments that should be accommodated as much as possible.  Children see they share this inherent injustice, so they readily identify with animals.

 Also, children recognize that they are developing skills shared by other animals, whereas adults would prefer to ignore our commonalities with the animal world.  Children spend less time in unnatural human-only settings, more time in nature, even if it's only the backyard or park.

 Portraying animals is also obviously a way of postponing long overdue questions about race in children's literature.  If the main character is white, the dominant paradigm marches on.  If the main character is not white, the material becomes a book about/for diversity, or the creators are harangued for their choices (Ezra Jack Keats).  If the main character is an animal, critics are chided for injecting race into the matter and it's business as usual.

 Animals are also cute and cool and fun and humans have a natural tendency to put words in their mouths.  Witness lolcats!

 

How can art and literature affect the way humans view and treat animals?

Personally, I feel more integrated with reality when I partake of art that includes animals.  Such art and literature confirms my sense of my place in the world.  The more of it I live with, the harder it is for me to ignore my connections with the earth and the critters on it.  I would hope other people feel the same.

 

Is there anything you'd like to add?

No, I've talked too much already!

Far as I know, nobody but rich Christian lawyers had a shot at the presidency in '08.     Due to all that SS protection, no doubt.

How refreshing to have Hillbilly Clinton and L. Ron Huckabee out of the running.   God-fearing Americans may hate gay marriage but they sure love the idea of a two-man race, with the usual fun and games.  Bobbing for asphalt.  Three card monte.   Say "cheese" for the camera.  Media vampires caught necking under the klieg lights.  Unrequited love for a jar of mayonnaise. 

Prediction:

Age and skin color will prove irrelevant in November.  The war, economy, health care, none of that stuff matters.  Shoe size and favorite color.  Whose brand of Christianity will prove least objectionable to the average voter.  Who cares!  This contest will be won on the basis of the schoolyard taunt, with most voters associating Obama with Osama and McCain with McNuggets.  For a very fat and fast food nation, the future is clear if not very bright. 

Elect the dead white guy.  Deep fry liberty and justice for all.  Abandon ship, you dirty rats. 

_Bill Moyer's Journal_ recently did a story about how wages haven't kept up with the cost of living.  One guy -- a clerk at UCLA at Berkeley, I think -- claimed to be "$20 away" from losing everything and had a $150 phone bill. 

I was on my own after graduating HS in the early 90s and supported myself at minimum wage jobs, hovering about halfway between zero and the poverty line.  I considered how many hours I'd have to work to pay any goods or services.  Would the purchase be worth the hours spent in drudgery?  Usually not.  I adapted lessons from _Walden_ to my situation in the modern world.  I used a pay phone when I had to.  I got the news and weather off a radio.  The library has newspapers, magazines, computers, etc., as well as books you can borrow for free.  I never owned a car, never liked going out to restaurants, movies, or concerts, don't eat junk food, and prefer to be "out of reach" -- free from interruption.  From a John LeCarre novel: "What is urgent is ephemeral, and what is ephemeral is unimportant."  As it was in Thoreau's time, it's all about priorities.  What choices people make, what trivial things they'll do without in order to achieve something important. 

In my opinion, greater and wiser investment of tax dollars in education, health care, and public transportation will contribute more to our economic well-being than any minimum wage hike, because the investment would pay off in dividends but employees paying higher wages will always make their consumers pay.  

What was it I said about getting away from my own hackneyed message track?  I'm still waiting to hear back from Lisa Bradley and J. Alan Erwine after sending a batch of questions out for second interviews.  I asked Lisa about veggies and animal rights, J. about biking and  pedal-powered technology.   Topics they're interested in, as am I.  If they're not too busy -- J. recently announced his engagement, and everyone has a more hectic life than me -- maybe I'll get some answers yet. 


Meanwhile, I open the virtual floor to any readers out there.  Who would you like interviewed?  What subjects would you like me to look into?  Which questions would you like answered?  Comments welcome.  Hopes, dreams, and wishful thinking to be discouraged because I am but a lowly amateur, deserving of disdain and Pantagruel.  So fix your wagon to the stairs and follow me down, down, down into the dank and darkened basement.  Watch me "scoop" the litter box. 

POOH
Winnie's delicate condition, then,
was more than they could bear. 
But cat chocolate!  Cat chocolate! 
It's dessert that you can wear!
Mold it when it's squishy. 
Stack it when it's hard. 
Cat's make it in the box,
when they can't go in the yard.

In his blog at

dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com

David C. Kopaska-Merkel linked to a New Scientist article about evolution in a laboratory at Michigan State University.   I said, Don't they hold the Clarion workshops there? and wondered if attendees went out to meet the scientists and see the science going on there first-hand.  If they don't, I implied that science fiction was, like Christian Science -- a misnomer.  In reply, David mentioned some SF writers who are scientists like himself.  I'll add the name Carl Frederick here.   But if human genome scientists can entertain traditional religious, creationist beliefs it must be no problem at all for "hard" scientists to entertain the most implausible and escapist notions in SF, include time machines and faster-than-light travel.  Make believe. 

Geoff Ryman gave a speech

http://mundane-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/take-third-star-on-left-and-on-til.html

in which he says:

"Most commercial SF is scientifically out to lunch. Would it be all that surprising if scientists were concerned with that? It is the centre of their lives. What, the debate may be asking, can we do about the lies science fiction tells?

"If there is an estrangement between science and science fiction, then it should be possible to do something about it. It can only be fruitful."

Ryman describes most commercial and media SF as wish fulfillment, far from coming to grips with the real problems of the present or the future, comparing it to Peter Pan.  I've said much the same thing for years in less public venues.  Good ideas are in the air for everyone to breathe, to be inspired and express from their own points of view.   I agree with so much that Ryman says, but...

1) wouldn't Mundane SF treat real problems in a traditional SFnal way.  Denying that a story is SF if the near-future setting or speculative elements -- global warming, rising sea levels and national deficit, with a monster storm slamming Miami, for ex. -- complicate what could otherwise be termed a mainstream, literary, or crime/suspense plot. 

2) wouldn't highly plausible, relevant, and accessible SF reach a wider and more appreciative audience by avoiding the SF label  altogether?

Check out

http://www.slate.com/id/2193213/

for a Fighting Words column from Christopher Hitchens, here calling on that "old lion" Nelson Mendela to join him in speaking out against Mugabe and the dictatorship in Zimbabwe.   After describing how one of Mugabe's opponents, an archbishop, was conveniently removed by the Vatican for having an affair with a married woman, Hitchens says of the dictator:

"A man of his age is perhaps unlikely to be caught using a condom, but one still has to hope that Mugabe will be found red-handed in this way because it seems that nothing less is going to bring the condemnation of the church down upon his sinful head."

Mother Theresa -- according to Hitchens in other articles and books -- claimed that condom use posed one of the greatest threats to world peace, equating birth control with genocide. 

"Every sperm is beautiful," said the Monty Python crew,
and everything they said has now been proven true.
 
What's more, if you must know, I have a hunch
there wasn't a bad apple in the bunch. 

They say that Idle hands will do the devils work,
but I think Eric and the others would rather use a fork.

Yes, every sperm is beautiful, and anxious to be used
in a child-making pearly sort of ooze. 

Children, what tasty morsels!   I modestly propose
we eat 'em up -- starting with their toes. 

"Knot Wurst" came out of a discussion in at Elizabeth Barrette's blog at

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/208593.html

where I seemed to be playing devil's advocate.  Elizabeth made some interesting points in her post, "How to recognize BAD poetry," listing a number of rules that a poem should follow.  She thinks that criticism can help improve the quality and appeal of poetry.  It can do that, but whose criticism? and how? 

When I was a young artist, teachers would say I had to master the rules before I could break them.  I had to paint conventionally before I could do my own thing.  Before I could play, explore, take chances, create.  If I wanted to make a living as an artist, sure, I'd want to learn how to jump through hoops for people who want no surprises.  They don't want self-expression.  They want their expectations met.  They want my work to sell their product. 

Rules are functionally conservative.  Some -- the First Amendment, for ex. -- conserve values that are tremendously important to artists, writers, poets, journalists, anyone.  Other rules enforce opinions, whether it's "Shellfish are vile" or what defines a good poem.  

Stravinsky's Poetics of Music illustrated the problem of structure and freedom in a way that has stuck with me for almost half a lifetime.   I'll paraphrase.  Picture structure as the walls, ceilings, floor, etc., of a building and freedom as the empty space -- halls, rooms, doorways, windows,  etc.  Freedom and structure work together in a building to provide shelter.  Humans and other animals seek many different forms of shelter, from the termite mound to a Manhattan skyscraper, with different rules to meet different requirements. 

Poetry too serves many purposes, far more than can usually be found in a poetry magazine.  More people are exposed to lyrics, advertising jingles, greeting cards, rhyming children's books, etc. 

Rules and criticism may only apply
to a sliver or slice of poetry's pie.