Junk Drawer Ramble

Current Reading: Pinion, by Jay Lake

Inspirational Quote: "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." -- Thomas A. Edison.

Yesterday, Virginia decided it didn't like it's current location, so it picked itself up and moved itself about a quarter of an inch. It then settled back down, either content with its new location or exhausted from the move. No one can be sure. There are no certainties when geography gets restless.

A few days ago, Jack Layton, a Canadian politician who lead the federal New Democratic Party to it's current position as official opposition, died of cancer. In a rare move, the Prime Minister of Canada decided to hold a state funeral to honor his fallen opponent. Mr. Layton was only beginning to exert his influence in federal politics, and I think the business of the Nation will suffer for his absence.

The 2011 WorldCon SFF convention was held this past weekend in Reno, Nevada. I was not there. My absence was, of course, noted by almost no-one except me. However, I've been watching the Hugo Awards, which is the next best thing to being there in exactly the same way that hearing someone talk about Matchbox cars is the next best thing to driving in the Grand Prix. Next year, WorldCon is in Chicago. I want to go. However, since it falls over the same weekend as my 23rd anniversary, the odds of my being able to convince Penelope to tolerate my going (or even... gasp... come with me) are about equivalent to the odds of an ice-cube surviving a thermonuclear detonation.

Sigh.

So: every house I know of has a junk drawer. I don't know why. I think it's traditional. The junk drawer's express purpose is to serve as a repository for all those bits and pieces and odds and ends that don't really have any other place. Shoe laces. Batteries. Mismatched screws. Extra scissors. Mine has nightlights and doorstops and baby-proofing hardware leftover from before Cassandra stopped crawling.

Junk drawers are notable for three things:

(1) They're always in the kitchen. If you're ever walking down the street and suddenly find yourself in need of a button, or elastic band, or a bit of string, just walk into any house. Find the kitchen and start opening drawers. You'll find what you need inside of five minutes. Guaranteed. I don't know why it's always in the kitchen. Probably because that's usually where you are when you realize you need something obscure. Possibly because it's one of the few non-bedroom rooms in the house that has lots of drawers.

(2) They have a tendency to swell. When you move in, you've got one junk drawer that's half-full of stuff you know you're going to need eventually. A few years later, the drawer's full. A few years after that, it's a drawer and a bin on the kitchen counter and you've got no idea what's in it. Once in a while, you open it up and go "Hey! That's where that went! I haven't seen that in months. I'll have to remember it's there!" Then you close the drawer and five minutes later you've forgotten all about whatever it was. Soon it becomes a closet... but only the first two shelves. Or four. Or, okay, the whole closet. We'll find somewhere else to keep the blankets.

My parents have a shed. It's basically a massive junk drawer outside the main house. It contains nothing anyone would ever possibly need, but it's all stuff they don't want to get rid of because... well, you might never need it but the moment you get rid of it you're going to wish you hadn't.

(3) They contain everything. The cure for cancer is sitting in someone's junk drawer right now. So is Jimmy Hoffa. The end of Schubert's unfinished symphony was stuck in a junk drawer and lost to the ages. Einstein postulated that the average junk drawer contains a sufficient mass of esoteric matter as to form wormholes. Every junk drawer is in fact merely a visible manifestation of a single universal drawer which contains the missing dark matter required to close the universe.

Of course, the mathematics proving this were lost when Albert stuck the proof in a kitchen drawer and forgot about it.

Ad Astra

Current Reading: Scientific American. I have a lot of issues to catch up on. I'm about 6 months behind.

Inspirational Quote: "Per ardua ad astra." -- Motto of the RCAF.

On July 21st, the space shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center. It was the last flight of a program that began in 1981 with the maiden voyage of the Columbia. I remember watching the mission, although I can't recall details. I was 13, and it seemed like the stars were opening up to us. Within a few years, I thought, we'll have a space station as a jumping off point for Luna. Then, from Luna, in a few years more, we'll have the first manned expedition to Mars.

Of course, I was disappointed. But then, the aliens from Close Encounters never landed in real life either, and I'm STILL disappointed by that.

For the next 3 years, I watched every launch I could. After that, I was at University and spent more time reading and making things go bang than I did watching the news. The rest of the world grew more apathetic as well, as shuttle launches began their migration from front-page news to footnotes in the newspaper science section... if it had one. Of course, the disasters disrupted the program and made the shuttle news again, but on the whole, space travel became a regular part of life on earth: "Pauly Shore has made a movie that isn't funny, the space shuttle Discovery did something, and the Maple Leafs failed to make the playoffs..."

Now, the program is over. Outer space is once more a distant frontier, with the Americans depending on the Russians to act as taxi drivers if they need a trip to the ISS.

We were discussing the demise of the shuttle program a few days ago when a friend asked me what the program had contributed. What had it done? Why was it a big deal? I thought about it for some time before giving the wrong answer: something about the ceramics knowledge that was developed while they were trying to create the heat shield tiles.

The real answer is that science isn't a matter of breakthroughs. It's about expanding knowledge, and the shuttle was a tool that made possible a myriad of incremental expansions. I don't know of any major leaps forward in science or technology that the shuttle created, but I know hundreds of experiments, some by school kids, would never have yielded results without the shuttle's ability to carry them into orbit.

But more important, the shuttle was a dream given form (a quote from Babylon 5). A generation of kids grew up seeing the shuttle launches and landings. They saw space not as something distant and unachievable, but as a place next door that they could visit someday. Heck, they even let Canadians on the thing. We never got around to going back to the moon. Mars is just a place we throw big hunks of expensive metal at every few years. But for a little while, we regularly stepped outside our atmosphere and stood on the threshold of the infinite, looking out at the still-distant stars and in at the blue marble where we lived.

By the time the shuttles retired, they were 30 years old. Aeons in technology terms. They are museum pieces now, as they deserve to be. They are reminders of what we can achieve, and of what we have yet to achieve, and I'm going to miss them.

*Image courtesy of NASA.

All Is Vanity

Current Reading: An issue of Canada's History Magazine (formerly The Beaver).

Inspirational Quote: "I'm not confused, I'm just well mixed" -- Robert Frost

Well, obviously, not ALL is vanity. Some of it is apples. And a little bit of it is people with red hair. But, you know, OVERALL, it looks like vanity if you squint.

I apologize yet again for the long delay between posts. I have plenty of excuses, but none of them will go back in time and force me to fill in the blanks, so they're useless.


Of course, sometimes I haven't been able to think of anything to write. This is a fallacy, of course. I'm looking at things the wrong way around. I simply need to write what I think and stop waiting for the perfect planetary alignment, or geological convergence, or whatever to light the fires of inspiration.

It's true that this approach will lead me to post nonsense that nobody outside my head could possibly care about.

But then the same phrase could describe the archives in their entirety. So, the more things change...

I really have to comment on the election. It was remarkable. We elected a majority Conservative government, which I fear to my toes because Mr. Harper's heavy-handed techniques and autocratic style make me suspect that his decisions will be hard on those of us who are not rich and priviledged.

I hope he proves me wrong.

Outgoing Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff watched his party shrink to a tiny fraction of its former size. I don't think anybody saw that coming. One of his final comments struck me as prophetic, though. When asked what their defeat meant for the federal Liberal party in the next election, he said that it was good news. "Nothing could be better for the Liberal party than four years of Conservative majority government with an NDP opposition."

The Bloc Quebecois was likewise annihilated. I'm okay with that. I think a party that espouses a distinctly provincial agenda and advocates disruption of the federation really shouldn't be in federal politics.

Now we have the NDP as official opposition. It has a few members who have been in the House before, but for the most part they are all rookies, and many of them are barely out of their teens. I get the feeling that most of them were watching the returns with as much disbelief as the rest of the country. "What the hell do you mean I won? I can't win! I don't know how to do anything!"

Yeah. Neither does anyone else. Congratulations on your outstanding qualifications. The job's yours.

Of course, they are the official opposition to a majority government, so even if they had the most savvy politicos on the planet running their caucus, they STILL wouldn't be able to do anything more effective than boo loudly. They are a tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The interesting thing about politics, though, is that after such a tremendous popular upheaval in which everything changed... once the new parliament sits on June 2, it'll still be business as usual.

Once More With Feeling!

Current Reading: Scientific American and Shakespeare... draw your own conclusions.

Inspirational Quote: "Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against." -- W.C. Fields

Yes, last Friday my beloved homeland, the True North, dissolved its parliament and called for a federal election.

Again.

Fourth time in seven years.

Democracy is getting a workout.

The newspapers and stations are going on and on about the waste of taxpayer's money, time and effort. I disagree. $2,500 for a working lunch is a waste of taxpayer's money. $1.5M in air travel a year is a waste of taxpayer's money. I can't ever consider shelling out for an election a waste. We live in a democracy, a system of government that is supposed to guarantee people the right to throw out their rulers just like they've done in Tunisia and Egypt, only without all the shooting, looting and property damage.

The current government was found in contempt of parliament because of some fiscal shenanigans they declined to explain adequately. As a result, a vote of non-confidence was called and the minority government of prime minister Stephen Harper was defeated.

That's good. Mess with parliament and you should be sorry.

What's bad is that now we're in an election with some of the least appealing party leaders I've ever seen.

First is the ex-prime minister whose iron-fisted rule of his party and autocratic approach to governing have led directly to this disruption in the business of the legislature. I fear that if he is given a majority this time out, we'll see behavior that borders on the dictatorial.

Next is a man who was an expatriate until someone mentioned that he had a shot at leading the Liberal party. He insists that he's a committed Canadian, but leaving the country is a funny way to show it.

Third is the current head of the National Democratic Party, a man with a touch of charisma and maybe even a Plan, but he's leading a party with a reputation for overly socialist tendencies and reckless fiscal policies.

Last is the leader of a party founded on Quebec Nationalism. Given the opportunity, he'd take his home province right out of the country, so it's hard to believe he has the best interests of the nation at heart.

What Canada needs is a real leader, a man with charisma and vision and yet lacking in the monomania that so often accompanies those traits.

I'd run myself, but the country would melt from my awesome.

Hey, Look! Stuff is Happening in the Middle East!

Current Reading: Love's Labour's Lost, by William Shakespeare

Inspirational Quote: "I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body." -- Carlos Erwin Estevez (Charlie Sheen).

Say what you will about Charlie Sheen (and everyone is), he gives great quote.

Meanwhile in real news, people in the middle-east have been inspired by the revolt in Tunisia to demand political change in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Oman. It's also caused some unrest in Iran and, strangely enough, China.

It underscores the unwritten rule of human existence: No assembly can govern without the implicit consent of its people.

That simplifies things dramatically, I know. Dictators have held power for years on the backs of armies and secret police devoid of consciences and armed with machine guns. Defying them is usually an act of fatal courage, and few people are willing to give their lives without knowing if their deaths will change anything.

Governments, armies and police officers keep their positions because the people of their countries are unaware of one crucial fact: those in power are always a minority. The police know that they cannot arrest every single citizen. The army knows it cannot shoot every civilian. The government knows that it cannot rule every individual at every moment. They rely on acceptance. Here in Canada, the unspoken acceptance is "I will follow your rules because I believe doing so will help me and those around me live, prosper and seek happiness, eh?"

That's the covenant that ought to exist between governed and governor. In Canada, it's a shaky thing because each of us has a different (occasionally conflicting) definition of prosperity and happiness and a different opinion on how best we can obtain these things. I imagine it's that way in the majority of the world that doesn't make the six-o'clock news (when was the last time you heard from Finland? Belgium? Trinidad?).

In these middle-east headline places, the governments have broken that covenant (notice that one of the biggest griefs to tip the scales is not "they came in the night and took/killed my brother," but "there are no jobs." People can prosper without their brother, but not if they can't afford to eat). As a result, the people have looked out into the world (largely through the web) and realized that their rulers are a minority, and that the people who want change and are willing to make change happen outnumber that minority by a significant margin.

Enough people making enough noise can force a government out regardless of what tanks or terror tactics are used.

This is a good thing.

I recognize that many people are going to die before regimes change. It's a terrible loss, but unavoidable when people who don't want to give up power are forced to do so. My heart goes out to the survivors.

And what happens after? Many are shouting for democracy, and that's fine because democracy makes explicit that implicit consent I mentioned earlier. In a democracy, you can rule so long as you convince people you're doing a good job promoting their interests, or at least not angering too many of them at any one time. But honestly, anything is fine, provided those in government recognize that their mandate is to promote a good life for their people, and not to ignore that in favor of personal advantage.

Oil is one thing that could cause all this upheaval to end badly. If Tunisia (ranked 54th in world oil production) gets a little unstable, well that's okay. Egypt (29)? Well, some people are going to start to pay attention. Libya (18)? Suddenly unrest is dangerously close to threatening oil supplies. Turmoil in Iran (4) is something no industrial nation can afford to ignore, and the urge to meddle to ensure a political outcome favorable to "domestic" interests is irresistible. The moment things start to destabilize there, every country in the world will be in there like bums in a soup kitchen, trying to fill their bowls with as much oil as they can get.

For comparison and general interest, Iraq is now #12 in the world rankings. Its pre-war output would have ranked it #7 today.

2011 is shaping up to be one of the most politically interesting years in my life.

And, for the record: like Charlie Sheen, I too am a "total bitchin' rock star from Mars."

I Wonder What He'd Charge?

Inspirational Quote: ""It turns out writers are now a dime a dozen but house painters are becoming rare . . . I will make more money painting three houses a year than I would if I wrote three bestsellers." -- Farley Mowat

I came across this quote here. I remember reading Lost in the Barrens and the Curse of the Viking Grave, although it's been so many years that I doubt I'd be able to tell you anything more about them than the titles.

All in all, an interesting fellow.

Happy Birthday, Jim

Jim Henson would have been 76 today. His birthday should be celebrated every year by the eating of a rubber tire to the music of the Flight of the Bumblebee.

Someday, if I am very, very good, I will be immortalized in foam by having a muppet made in my likeness.

The Drink Takes the Man

Current Reading: Set the Seas On Fire, by Chris Roberson

Inspirational Quote: "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." -- Ernest Hemingway

"First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man."

I've never understood why writers have such an affiinity for addiction. You'd think that because we spend so much time in a solitary pursuit that we'd be less prone to social vices. And you'd be wrong. It sometimes seems that we have as high a percentage of alcoholics and coke-addicts as do musicians or actors, who publicly fall apart with staggering frequency.

In the latest big news, Robert Munsch (famous Canadian children's writer... Cassandra loves his books) has publicly acknowledged his battles with alcohol and cocaine. I never considered this a possibility. Like most, I guess I figured that being a children's author partook of some of childhood's innocence. That the author of "Aaron's Hair" and "More Pies" spent so much of his time stoned came as an unwelcome revelation.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. I have no doubt that being a children's author requires the same sort of mind and carries with it the same sort of pressures that come with all writing. Or artistry of any kind, I guess. I'm sure there are painters out there chasing heroin, sculptors picking up chisels when they can barely pick up themselves, and fashion designers trying through bloodshot eyes to get fabrics to drape just right.

Writers have a long history of battling addiction, and it seems that the more well-known an author is, the more likely it is that they are susceptible. Stephen King's On Writing documents his battles with cocaine and booze. Ernie Hemingway is famous for hard drinking. Dorothy Parker likewise. One writer I admire, Barry B. Longyear, wrote a fictionalized memoire of his time in rehab called Saint Mary Blue. It's an eye opener.

I don't believe I have an addiction (unless chocolate counts). I don't drink or smoke anything. I have a horror of needles and I haven't put anything up my nose since I was two (it took mom ten minutes to dig the peas out, so it's not something I'm anxious to try again). However, I come from a long line of alcoholics and the children of alcoholics are statistically more likely to become alcoholics themselves.

Of course, as Mr. Longyear mentions in his book, addiction is the only disease that tells you that you haven't got it.

I Don't Make Up The News... I Just Report It.

Inspirational Quote: "It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four, besides being very amusing." -- Samuel Butler

Current Reading: Set the Seas on Fire, by Chris Roberson

Today's Toronto Star carried a story about a woman who is suing Rogers Wireless.

It seems that she had a personal cell phone in her maiden name with a Rogers account. Rogers offered her husband one of their bundling options where he could get his home phone, cable, internet and cell phones all on one bill and save a few dollars as a result. He went for it, and his first bill contained several hour-long calls to a number he didn't recognize. He investigated, discovered his wife's affair, and then he left.

She claims Rogers ruined her marriage.

What follows is my opinion on the matter:

Um, no.

Rogers Wireless just exposed her infidelity. Had she kept her pants on, she'd still be married. Now, had Rogers Wireless seduced her in a moment of weakness with a video invitation (delivered by cable), taken compromising pictures (with a cell phone) and then e-mailed them (internet) to her husband... THEN she'd have reason to sue.

Please don't assume that I think her husband's flawless. When he discovered her affair, he abandoned her and their children (which I find reprehensible), and it may be that some action or behavior of his made her susceptible to another man's charms. Regardless, Roger's ain't at fault here.

It'll be interesting to see if the Canadian Legal Establishment agrees with me.

I love the human species. Not just because I'm a lifetime member, either. I love it because, whenever I find myself without something to write about, someone on this wonderful planet comes up with something absurd enough to catch my attention.

Canadian Publishing: Just Like Everywhere Else

Geoff Pevere, one of the Toronto Star's entertainment columnists, has an article about getting published. Although written within a Canadian environment and with reference to Canadian sources, what he outlines is pretty much what I've been reading about everywhere else for the last few years.

Key takeaways:

• Getting published is harder now than it used to be. Publishing has consolidated.
• Fiction isn't known for making money.
• It pays to know the industry, and the internet has made a lot of information, opinions and advice available.
• You need to write a book people will want to read.
  

Birthdays Have Chuck Norris.

I notice that today is Chuck Norris's 70th birthday.

I think his fame and reputation has only increased with the spread of the Internet as a result of the staggering number of Chuck Norris comparisons that get made.

In honor of this most auspicious occasion, I present the top ten Chuck Norris jokes:

1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
2. Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
3. Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
4. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.
5. Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
6. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
7. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck Norris met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
8. Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life there.
9. They once made a Chuck Norris toilet paper, but it wouldn't take shit from anybody.
10. A blind man once stepped on Chuck Norris' shoe. Chuck replied, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Chuck Norris!" The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Chuck Norris.

(Stolen shamelessly from here.)

Monsters

It began when Cassandra's night light burned out. It was a pretty little thing, a fluorescent bulb behind a rolling blue screen with dolphins on it and a rippled plastic case that made everything look like it was underwater. She doesn't like the dark. A lot of five-year-olds don't. They think it's full of monsters, and it doesn't matter how often you check the closet or look under the bed, you can't convince them that what they can't see isn't somehow dangerous.

Or maybe it began on January 29 when a young woman was reported as missing because she had failed to show up for work. People put up posters and organized searches and formed facebook groups and looked to the local police and then the Ontario Provincial Police to find her somehow. They did. On February 8, they found her body just outside the village where my brother maintains his business.

Or maybe it began back in 1987. I remember riding the TTC from my part-time job in Etobicoke to my apartment near Lansdowne subway stop. The train passed over the park and river valley east of the Old Mill stop, and I was thinking about the news. A lot of women had been assaulted in Scarborough. The police were trying to find the man responsible. A few years later, they did.

Regardless, last night I dug through drawers and opened boxes and finally came up with a light that was bright enough to dispel the shadows, but dim enough that Cassandra could sleep. Because that's what Daddies do. They fix things. They protect their children even from harmless shadows. They tuck their little girls into their beds and tell them stories full of friendly unicorns and giant penguins and they rig up nightlights. They check in the closet and find only old clothes and a box of stuffed animals. They check under the bed and find only coloring books and slippers and the box where they keep fairy wands and princess crowns. Most important of all, they tell their babies that monsters don't exist.

Then they go out into the living room and they watch the news and they try not to bawl their eyes out because monsters do exist. They're real and they look like us and there's nothing a whole army of Daddies can do to protect little girls of any age against them. In the face of that kind of realization, all any Daddy can do is savor every day and hope for more of them and try to drown the terrible helpless feeling in the bustle of everyday living.

In the face of that, it's all Daddy can do not to confiscate every light in the house and turn his daughter's room into a fucking Christmas tree as bright as the sun.

What Dreams May Come...

Current Reading: The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

Inspirational Quote: "What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers." -- Logan Pearsall Smith

Some recent passages:

J.D. Salinger. I never read Catcher in the Rye. About the time I was Holden Caulfield's age, I was reading the Hobbit and Watership Down, the Chronicles of Prydain and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Regardless. His words gave form to the teen angst and disaffectedness of generations.

Kage Baker. Another whose work I have not read, but whose passing has affected many and whose work inspired many others. The SFWA's notice of her death is here.

Woody Allen once said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying." I agree wholeheartedly, but realize that death is one of the things which defines human existence, and is one of the realities which inspire us to art. Art is, for many of us, a way to face death, to think about it and explore the ramifications of it and try to figure it out while we still have the opportunity without the experience. Occasionally an artist will achieve immortality by finding something new to say or finding something old to say in a new way that resonates with people outside of his own time. Then their words outlive them and can reach across time, across the great divide of death, to speak to those who come after.

As legacies go, it's a good one.

A Misanthropist Moment

Current Reading: Myths of the North American Indians, by Lewis Spence

Inspirational Quote: If you're looking for inspiration, I recommend not reading the following post.

First: Haiti.

Earthquakes are remarkable phenomena. Like hurricanes and tornados they remind me that for all our technological advancement, for as often as we look around at the environment we've transformed, we are not the masters of our domain. To our planet our human concerns are nothing. Faith, love, art, science, even existence are of no consequence to continental plates and vagrant air masses. As "Life After People" shows, the planet would get along fine without us. Maybe better, because there are so many of us.

But from a human (and humane) perspective, what's happened in Haiti is tragic. So many dead, injured and dying. So many looting and stealing and stockpiling supplies to feed a black market that must, by now, be staggering in its reach. Yet I haven't seen it mentioned on the news. I've heard no reports on those who are making a killing off the billions that are pouring into Haiti. There is profit to be made, and so there must be those who are making it at the cost of lives and suffering. Because this is a facet of the human animal: we are not a moral species.

Second: Late Night Television.

In other news, Conan O'Brien has lost his job. Jay Leno is getting his old job back. David Letterman is having a field day. The masses seem split between O'Brien and Leno. I'm split between disgust and loathing.

I think I've seen far too many people who have lost their jobs and who did not have million-dollar homes in Los Angeles or New York, who did not make more in one evening than most of us are likely to see in our lives. Why are so many people paying attention to this? Personally? I'd rather fire Jay, Conan, Letterman and every executive at NBC, then blow my meager savings on buying them shovels and plane tickets to Haiti. Let them dig for bodies and scrounge for food. Maybe they'll come back with some perspective. Maybe they won't come back at all. Either is fine with me.

We live in a society where a person who plays a doctor on television makes more pretending to save fictional lives than does a real doctor trying to save real lives. We live in a society where millions of dollars are spent on cell-phones and ipods while the food bank down the road from my house pleads for donations because my neighbors don't have enough to pay for groceries and shelter at the same time. We live in a society where celebrities are patted on the back for organizing telethons to extract money from people who have lost their houses and watched their cities drown when they and their circle of friends could donate every penny they own and still not be reduced to the circumstances of those from whom they are soliciting donations.

And this is one of the most advanced societies our species has ever developed.

Please understand. I like people. I love my family and friends. I know other people love theirs, and that the loss of any one of us is a tragedy to someone.

Still: Looking at the whole overpopulated species of homo modernis, I think we could use a good meteor strike.

Seismic Disturbances in the Force

Current Reading: Myths of the North American Indians, by Lewis Spence

Inspirational Quote: Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it.

A couple of interesting things happened in the book world last week.

First, Sarah Palin's memoir became available. I had originally planned to say something witty and pithy about that, but given that every other comedian on the planet has weighed in, I feel outclassed and will settle for just saying, "Oh, really?" with a raised eyebrow.

Second, Harlequin abandoned ethics. I can't help wonder where in the corporate structure this idea originated and how on earth it made it to the executive decision level without anyone going, "Jeeze. That's a stupid idea guaranteed to antagonize every professional organization on the planet." On the other hand, I work for the largest bankrupt telecommunications firm on Earth, so I guess my question ought to be not, "how did this happen," but "why did it take so long to happen?"

Cynicism, folks, it's what's for breakfast.

In other news, it's almost December and my lawn is still green, growing, and visible. Tell me again that climate change is a myth. There's something disturbingly anachronistic about people putting up Christmas decorations while raking leaves.

Braindump

Current Reading: Now and Forever, by Ray Bradbury

Inspirational Quote: "I believe that we are here for each other, not against each other. Everything comes from an understanding that you are a gift in my life - whoever you are, whatever our differences." -- John Denver

Success
I've found myself thinking more and more about the definition of success. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a great deal of analysis, in several parts, that indicates why the idea might be worth some contemplation.

I've never felt like a success. I got through university, I eventually got a job which led to other jobs and to about as much financial reward as could reasonably be expected. By that measure, I guess I'm doing alright (although that could change in the next three weeks. Yes, I know, but I've been told that deadlines have slipped and dates are approximate. My happiness is immeasurable). I've got a working marriage and a family that clunks along without actually flying apart, so I guess that could be considered success of a sort.

However, I feel less like a success than as though I simply haven't failed.

But that judgement demands I define personal success. What am I reaching for that I haven't achieved? I haven't finished thinking about that. Until I have, I guess worrying about whether or not I'm successful is a fool's exercise.

Musical Interlude, Part I
I feel bad about this: more than 20 years after hearing "Summer of Sixty-Nine" the first time, I've realized that I don't like Bryan Adams's music.

Please, don't tell anyone. They'll revoke my Canadian citizenship and I'll have to move to somewhere foreign, like Andorra.

I could just move to Quebec, but I refuse to worship Celine Dion and that may cause greater difficulty than my lack of French fluency.

Politics
No modern politician has had as significant an impact on my country (Canada, not Andorra. Not yet.) than Pierre Trudeau. The Toronto Star asked Pierre's son, Justin Trudeau, to review the second book of his father's biography. Interesting reading.

Musical Interlude, Part II
October 12th was the anniversary of the death of John Denver, a musician, writer and actor who was everyone's kid brother during the 70's. As a teenager, my favorite albums were Star Wars (by John Williams and the LSO), and Greatest Hits Volume 1 (by John Denver). This is perhaps greater testimony to my innate oddity than any other single fact I could relate.

And of course he had numerous appearances on the Muppet Show.

He lost me when he began turning to New Age concepts and away from the sort of grass-roots innocence that informed his early work, but that's the way it goes.

For those of you who expected a teen-aged Ulysses to an angst-ridden fan of rebel-music, metal or counterculture, I'm sorry to disappoint. I'm too shallow for any of that.

Anyway, here's Calypso in memoriam, a piece which never fails to stir my nostalgia.

His description of a moment of subconscious creative breakthrough (a conscious mind becomes saturated with a problem it is unable to solve despite complete concentration, it distracts itself with some other activity only to find the subconscious providing a complete solution during that activity) should be familiar to creative people in any field.

The Whole Story

Current Reading: Best New Fantasy, ed. by Sean Wallace

Inspirational Quote: "To understand all is to forgive all." -- Various, possibly Buddah or a French Proverb.

Only crazy people confuse reality with written fiction. There are lots of reasons why this is so, but they all boil down to the fact that written fiction presents a world idealized and abstracted and without all the contradictions and surprises that make up normal human existence.

In reality we never know the whole story.

An example: a Toronto woman is held in Kenya despite numerous protestations and reams of evidence that she is a Canadian citizen. It's a horror story that has a happy ending, or at least an ending in which the mistake was cleared up although the victim is certainly not happy. One wonders what prompted representatives from the Canadian High Commission to look at all that evidence and deny the identity of the woman in front of them.

They have yet to be publicly identified. They have yet to tell their story, but I don't think what people tell us is all of the truth anyway. I don't think people can know all of their own truth. People tell us what they think happened, a thought shaped as much by their own perceptions, fears and beliefs as by the actual facts. If I've uncovered any truth about human behavior is this: all of us act the way we do for one reason -- it seems like a good idea at the time. Whoever those officials were, they had what they believed to be sufficient reason, within their own minds, to doubt Suaad Hagi Mohamud was who she said.

They were wrong.

Why they concluded what they did is something we'll never really know. We'll never understand. The mistake seems pretty obvious to us, so much so that one wonders if there weren't some nefarous motive behind this case of misidentity. But it only seems obvious because we can't be there, in their minds, following their trains of thought, knowing what they knew or believed they knew.

Written fiction gives us a world of understandable human beings. We can enter their minds, follow their thoughts, understand why they reach the conclusions they do about the world around them. We can understand fictional characters in ways we simply can't understand real people, not even those with whom we share a life. Between the covers of a book, we are allowed to understand.

In the real world, Ms. Mohamud is taking steps to obtain what she believes is justice, or as much justice as is allowable by law. We'll never know if the result is truly just, or if it's only what the people who make the decision on her suit believe to be just.

We'll never know the whole story.

Tidbits

Current Reading: Work-related documentation. Sigh.

Inspirational Quote: "Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it" -- Robert Frost

I see Ann and Victoria have survived another legal challenge to their work, and come out laughing. That's always good news.

I have this to say about the Google Books settlement: No. Also: Hell no. Authors should get paid for their work so long as they or their heirs can collect. The digital age has created an environment where a book can still be available (in print) even though no printed copies of it are currenly available.

I've almost completed another draft of the Magnus Somnium. Yay me. I think, when I've finished, I'm going to buy myself a new desk chair. This one sucks.

And now, Ithaka reviewed by two true professionals...

Government Corruption and the Species Exchange Rate

Current Reading: Marching As To War, by Pierre Berton (I believe I've been spelling his last name wrong for months. How rude.)

Inspirational Quote: "You will see, in mixed confusion, snatches of cutpurses, wiles of cheats, enterprises of rogues; also delicious repulsiveness, bitter sweets, foolish decisions, mistaken faith and crippled hopes, niggard charities, judges noble and serious for other men's affairs with little truth in their own; virile women, effeminate men and voices of craft and not of mercy so that he who believes most is most fooled--and everywhere the love of gold." -- Giovanni Gentile

While driving in this morning, I heard an article on the radio news. It seems that the Chief Executive Officer for Ontario's eHealth program has been forced to resign after it was publicly revealed that her department had allowed $2 million in untendered contracts and paid consultants fees so high that reading the numbers made my nose bleed. Details are here.
She's still, apparently, going to receive $317,000 in compensation.

What struck me about the article was the quote from the government indicating that the dismissal of the eHealth CEO would somehow restore faith in the government and its programs.

The absurdity of this is beyond description, so I won't even try.

Perhaps, if it were an isolated incident, it would be possible to have some faith in government integrity worthy of being restored. However, the Brian Mulroney/Karlheinz Schreiber affair has yet to be resolved despite more than a decade of investigation. The Mayor of Ottawa is under investigation for influence peddling. Ontario's Chief Coroner was recently found to have faked results on a number of investigations, resulting in a disturbing number of innocent people being convicted. And I believe the Mayor of Vaughn (I may be wrong here) is being called to account for taking Council to dinner to the tune of over $1000.

A quick look at the books for Nortel or GM Canada are full of enough excesses to make one sick. My company recently gave out bonuses to the remaining employees (including executives) a week before cutting one third of the local workforce. Our CEO has a combination salary and bonuses well in excess of five million dollars, even though we've been under bankruptcy protection for months. Yet the government tables no legislation to prevent such looting of company coffers, and indeed they are willing to cover GM's losses by using taxpayer money to buy up company debt.

Sigh. Signore Gentile, above, was commenting on the text of a play written by Giordano Bruno, a Renaissance Italian scientist and philosopher. Bruno wrote the play as a scathing indictment of the Roman Catholic church. For his criticisms, and his insistence on the heliocentric model of the solar system, he was burned at the stake in 1600. Giovanni Gentile himself was an early twentieth century philosopher who proposed Fascism, and ghost wrote the Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. We all know how well that worked out.

All of which indicates that a lack of faith in government has been with us, justifiably, forever. The "me first" attitude is contrary to the mores of our society, but is common among those who rise to peaks of what that society recognizes as success. How am I supposed to teach my children generosity, empathy and frugality when they are surrounded by examples showing those traits to be only for the downtrodden? Yes, "me first" thinking is leading us to a ghastly environmental extinction, but it is the rich and exploitative who will be the last to die out because they can continue to buy comfort until there's no one left to supply it to them.

Personally, I'm heartily sick of us and am looking forward to the fall of Western Civilization. Or I would be if I thought any other Civilization stood a chance of being better. Of course I suspect that the corrupt will find some way of making the innocent stand in for them when they're called to the wall during the revolution. Thus it was, thus it shall always be.

Clearly, although homo modernis has the intellect of a god, it has the wisdom of a coconut. I think I'd be willing to trade in the entire species for a reusable bag of chocolate covered almonds and a bio-degradable bottle of strawberry-orange juice.

Any takers?

Chaos Ain't Just a Theory

Current Reading: Marching As To War, by Pierre Burton

Inspirational Quote: "Discontent is the first necessity of progress." -- Thomas A. Edison

Things that have been on my mind:

I'm 5 days behind on my writing. I'm not concerned, just chagrined.

Reading about the stupidity that permeated Canada's involvement in the First World War has convinced me that, when we look back on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, historians will realize that we have learned nothing in eighty years.

Miss California may soon lose her title because she appeared without clothing in a few pictures. Beauty pageants, as I understand them, are all about selecting a winner based on physical attractiveness. I find it absurd that she can appear with her full attractiveness concealed in evening gowns and bikinis, but not with said charms fully visible. This is because beauty pageants now present contestants as paragons of intelligence and virtue instead of just eye-candy. This is also absurd. Her views on same-sex marriage compound that absurdity to the point where I can only shake my head and pray we Canadians never come to take such things seriously.

Elizabeth Edwards, husband of one-time Presidential hopeful John Edwards, has penned a tell-all book, "Resilience." In this book, she candidly discusses discovering her husband's affair with a video producer while he was campaigning for the Democratic nomination. I'm conflicted on how to feel about this. On the one hand, I figure a writer's life is fair game for their work. I have read that Mrs. Edwards wrote the book herself, without benefit of a ghost writer, and if this is true, then she qualifies as a writer and therefore is allowed to recycle her personal garbage in literature. However, I question the purpose and value of a work that airs dirty personal laundry in public.

In related news: apparently the National Enquirer was the first to break the story of the affair. That says something about the state of modern journalism. I'm really not sure what conclusion one can come to on the basis of this evidence, but it can't be good.

The new Star Trek film is a lot of fun. Before seeing it, I spent some time wondering if there was any way they could integrate the "canon" of a forty-year-old failed television show (it was canceled twice) with a story that would appeal to a modern audience. I think they did a good job. This prequel is neither Enterprise, nor The Phantom Menace. It starts with a bang (several dozen, actually), has lots of good character moments and humor. It's a story which calls back to episodes of both the original show, the Next Generation, and the movies, but takes a logical twist which makes it clear that this ain't the same Star Trek that's been re-run for the better part of half a century.

Children. Quantum theory and Schrodinger's work indicate that for each and every probable event, a universe exists in which that probability manifested. Thus there is a universe in which Ulysses knows exactly how to raise children in such a way that they grow up happy and healthy. He does not guess. He does not fudge. He does not agonize over the road not taken or the road that should be taken. I hate the bastard.