Looking Around

Character Interview: La-ren from my SF novel Twin-Bred

2012-02-14T15:35:00.000-05:00

Here's an interview with one of the Tofa characters from my science fiction novel Twin-Bred.

Q. Please introduce yourself.

A. My name is La-ren. The hyphen represents a sound that humans usually compare to a hiccup. Any approximation will do. I am not easily offended.

Q. How did you come to know any humans?

A. My species, the Tofa, is acquainted with humans because a small group of them came to my planet, Tofarn, approximately 85 Terran years ago and established a colony. I personally became acquainted with one human, my twin sister Judy, from the moment I can be said to have existed at all. Our host mother Laura carried us both. (Actually, Judy is Laura's biological daughter as well, but I do not believe it has made much difference.) Judy and I lived with Laura, in a cottage on the grounds of the L.E.V.I. Project, until our early teens, when we moved into the main compound to share a room near other Twin-Bred pairs. We are very fond of our host mother, but it is more entertaining and less constricting to live near our peers -- even with the constant oversight of Project staff.

Q. What is the L.E.V.I. Project?

A. The initials stand for Long-term Emissary Viviparous Initiative. The acronym has a significance that I am not at liberty to explain.

The goal of the Project is to enable the human and Tofa communities to understand each other better. Before the Project was initiated, and even while it has been underway, our mutual inability to comprehend each other's attitudes, motivations and behavior has led to many confrontations, any of which could have escalated into a major conflict.

Q. What do you think of humans?

A. My experience of humans is somewhat limited so far. I cannot expect those humans who chose to join the Project to be typical. If I did make that assumption, I would believe humans to be dedicated, curious, hard-working, friendly, and relatively hard to startle. But if that were the general human profile, I doubt the Project -- and Judy and I -- would exist at all.

Q. What is your role in the Project?

A. I am meant to serve multiple functions. From birth onward, I and the other Tofa Twin-Bred have been accessible for human observation and study. The difficulty is that we present a perhaps extreme example of the observer altering the phenomenon observed. We were altered in small ways at an embryonic stage in order that human women could carry us. We shared a womb with a human fetus, with results difficult to isolate. And we have been raised around more humans than Tofa. I wish I could tell you -- I wish I could know -- how much we differ from what you might call "normal" Tofa.

I hope to have the opportunity, before too long, to answer that question. We -- all of us Twin-Bred, Tofa and human -- have been trained to act as mediators between the human and Tofa communities. That is the second essential function we are meant to perform. There appear to be political obstacles. My friends and I are becoming impatient.

Advice for New and Would-Be Authors

2012-02-14T14:50:00.001-05:00

This is a presumptuous blog post. I am an appellate attorney and thus write for a living, but I have been writing fiction (after a thirty-year hiatus) for less than two years -- surely too short a time for me to pose as an experienced author deigning to instruct the novice. However, I spent much of the last year and more not only writing and revising, but searching out and devouring advice by authors for authors. What follows are suggestions that I have found in my reading and then verified by experience.

With no further apology, here is some advice for the new or would-be author.

• Read, read, read. Read fiction, biography, history -- whatever interests you. Read authors whose voice appeals to you.

• Don't let anyone tell you whether you're meant to be, or whether you are, a writer. Even well-meaning folks may be poor critics, and not everyone who makes pronouncements on your potential will be well-meaning.

• Keep pen and paper, or some other means of taking notes, with you at all times. Don't assume you'll remember your great idea five minutes from now -- write it down immediately! Get or jury-rig a lighted note pad for your bedside table. (A clip-on book light attached to a cheap note pad will work.) If you get ideas in the shower, mutter them over and over to yourself until you reach dry land.

• Become compulsive about multiple backups of your idea notes, works in progress, rough drafts, subsequent drafts, etc. Use "the cloud" (Web-based storage), e.g., Dropbox or Evernote. (I use Dropbox. Once it's running on your computer, it will back up a document stored in your Dropbox folder every time you save. But check periodically to make sure it's still running!) Email attachments to yourself (and then check whether your email host is periodically deleting them). Put files on a separate hard drive and on flash drives.

• This one is YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). That said, I and many other authors find it essential to keep the inner editor gagged and stuffed in a closet when we're working on a rough draft. Don't be afraid to leave blanks or bracketed notes as you go. (My second-to-latest rough draft had one that read "[insert appropriate South American country here].") National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org), in which participants aim to write a novel of at least 50,000 words within the month of November, is a great way to accomplish this. There'll be time enough later for lots and lots of rewriting.

• A related point: find the process that works for you. Some authors outline in detail. Others find too specific an outline stifling, and work from less organized notes of possible scenes, or with no notes at all. Some have a fixed time of day for writing, and allow nothing to disrupt it; others flit back and forth all day between writing and other tasks. Some use computers; some still write longhand, and a few swear by typerwriters.

• Think seriously about self-publishing. There's a wealth of info and support out there for indie authors. Conversely, this is a risky time to sign a contract with an agent or publisher. Because of the uncertain and fast-changing conditions in the publishing industry, many agents and publishers are inserting "rights grabs" and other clauses in their contracts that could cripple an author's career. Some of the worst language may be hidden in unexpected places like "warranty" clauses. If you do sign with an agent or publisher, try to find a way to pay a good IP attorney to go through the contract with a microscope. Don't let the allure of "having an agent" or "being published" lead you to grab at an offer of representation or publication without vetting it thoroughly.

That's all for now. Happy writing!

New blog with book covers and descriptions

2012-02-13T06:48:00.000-05:00

Just a shout-out to a new blog, Tomtey, that's helping authors by showing a nice big image of their book's cover. Click on the cover and you find the cover again :-), but this time with a description and a link to the Amazon purchase page. Thanks to the (unidentified) person who started this blog!

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory, Republican Primary Edition

2012-02-11T08:57:00.000-05:00

Great job, guys.

You've been sailing along on the good ship Republican Primary, shooting holes in the deck under each other's feet. The public is getting heartily sick of you: Obama's starting to whip your sorry butts in the polls. You may as well haul down the dishonored flag of the ex-president whose 11th Commandment you've been ignoring, and set fire to the foundering wreck.

Let's hope someone can bring that almost forgotten vessel Brokered Convention out of dry dock and plot a true course in her.

An Open Letter to Jon Huntsman

2012-01-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

Dear Governor Huntsman:

Please accept my sympathy on the occasion of your withdrawal from the presidential campaign. I believe your experience was undervalued, and I thank you for your willingness to serve.

You may well believe that Romney has unfairly been cast as the most "electable" of the Republicans running. I have no doubt that liberal and moderate Democratic voters would have considered you the least unacceptable Republican candidate. The problem, I suppose, is that such a status foreseeably does little good in the general election when these voters have an actual Democrat to vote for.

If you have a period of more leisure now that you have left the campaign, I respectfully suggest that you further investigate the issue of global warming, so that you will not again embarrass yourself by equating global warming skeptics with anti-evolution crusaders or by implying that there is a clear scientific consensus in favor of alarming and anthropogenic global warming. This is not, as in the case of civil unions, an issue on which your opposition is driven largely by ignorance or prejudice.

Please see this earlier blog post (from October 2010) for some good sources:

Global Warming, Skepticism, and the Liberal Mindset

A slightly more recent example of scientific disagreement as to the meaning of relevant data may be found in this December 2010 article from Reason magazine. See also this July 2011 article from Forbes magazine, relating how new data from NASA shows far more heat escaping Earth's atmosphere than alarmist AGW models had predicted.

Well, that should get you started. The best of luck in your political and personal future.

Silly poems I wrote for my daughter

2012-01-14T11:52:00.000-05:00

When my older daughter was around 8 years old, she had a computer program in which she could "write a book" by making drawings and typing accompanying text onto a screen that looked like lined paper. She was already an artist, and for a while she would do a drawing and I would write a silly poem to accompany it. I decided last night that it might be fun to post one of those poems from time to time. Here's my favorite, which I may never use in a published picture book because it includes one word that most children probably don't know.

Gooey globs of last year's lunch
Fossil feasts you used to munch
All the unremoved detritus
Of Don'twannabrusheeyitis
This is what you need a tool for
This is to clean up your drool for
If I haven't made it clear --
Please go brush your teeth, my dear!

The 2012 Science Fiction Experience, and Why I Read and Write SF

2012-01-08T22:18:00.001-05:00

I'm joining a Thing -- not a challenge or competition or anything very structured -- called the 2012 Science Fiction Experience, described at Stainless Steel Droppings. As a contribution thereto, I'm posting something I wrote for my recently completed virtual book tour, titled "Why I Love Reading and Writing Science Fiction." Here goes....

I'll start with a caveat. I do not always write science fiction. For many otherwise fallow years, I wrote picture book manuscripts. More recently, between my current release and the sequel (still in rough draft), I wrote what I suppose is general fiction, if a novel in that category can take place in my fanciful notion of an afterlife.

That said, I am proud to write science fiction.

I don't remember when I started reading science fiction, but I'd guess I was around ten or eleven. I have been reading it ever since. The day I met my husband, twenty-five years ago, we talked for two hours about Robert A. Heinlein and assorted other SF authors. As you might suppose, our marriage exposed me to even more of the genre.

How do I love science fiction? Let me count the ways. . . .

Science fiction explores how human beings – whether acknowledged as such, or in any of innumerable disguises – react to the unexpected. How do they – how would we – cope with the fulfillment of anything from dream to nightmare? How will the future we anticipate surprise us? How will we surprise ourselves when we confront it?

Science fiction's imaginative settings allow us to examine familiar themes and problems with a fresh eye. (Star Trek, despite its flaws, was often excellent at using the trappings of science fiction to explore issues like racism, war and peace, patriotism, gender identity, ambition, love versus career, et cetera.) I am a lawyer; I am writing a series of short stories which will eventually include legal issues raised by certain future technologies. I have long been fascinated by twins: my novel Twin-Bred features fraternal twins (carried by host mothers) belonging to different species. I have been deeply interested in parenthood since becoming a mother: I can create aliens for whom parenthood is in many ways different, and in some fundamental ways the same.

Science fiction paves the way. Its authors, often scientists themselves, extrapolate from current technology and knowledge, and make educated guesses about what we will be able to invent. Often they guess correctly. It might be easier to identify the scientific advances of the last sixty years that were not predicted in science fiction than to list those that were. By working within the constraints of scientific theory, science fiction honors those who have spent their lives helping us understand our universe (and any meta-universe which may include it).

Finally, science fiction gives the would-be builder of worlds a place to play. While fantasy does the same, science fiction imposes certain constraints – and as many a poet would testify, some constraints can actually spur creativity. At any rate, I find satisfaction in knowing that what I have imagined, or what another author lays before me, could possibly exist. Science fiction authors differ in how hard they strive to ensure that the physical features of their planets, aliens, and technologies fit within our current scientific theories (or at least, scientific hypotheses held by at least one adventurous scientist out there). No scientist myself, I still try fairly hard. I use my husband, whose scientific knowledge runs broad and deep, as my technical adviser – but if I really want to make the sky green, or put multiple sails on the sailboat, or whatever, and he is skeptical, I just keep researching until (with luck) I find some more or less plausible basis to do so. On the other hand, unlike historical fiction, where the possibility of error lurks behind every detail, the amount of research need not be too intimidating.

I'd love to see comments about what visitors to this blog like most about science fiction -- or about any problems they have with the genre.

Excerpt from Twin-Bred (for use in #SampleSunday)

2012-01-07T23:23:00.001-05:00

I just found out about #SampleSunday, where authors of Kindle books post excerpts from their novels and retweet each other's links. Here's an excerpt from my current release, Twin-Bred.

[Context: The human colony on Tofarn and the indigenous Tofa have great difficulty communicating with and basically comprehending each other. Scientist Mara Cadell is running a project where host mothers carry twins, one human and one Tofa, in the hope that the bond between twins can bridge the gap between species. Alan Kimball, a member of the governing human Council, is hostile to the Tofa and has inserted agents into the project.]

Tilda looked at her twins, cuddled close together in the crib. Mat-set had all four arms wrapped around Suzie. They seemed to cuddle any chance they got. Maybe they were glad to be free of separate amniotic sacs.

She looked down at Mat-set and remembered the rumors of Tofa with five arms instead of four. She had even seen pictures, but who knew whether they were authentic. Certainly none of the Tofa Twin-Bred babies had been born with extra limbs.

Tilda glanced over at the big dormitory clock and then back down at the babies. She gasped and staggered a step back. Mat-set was still holding Suzie with four arms. So how was he scratching his head with another one?

Tilda looked around wildly for a chair, found one blessedly nearby, and sank down on it. She pinched herself. Nothing changed. Well, who said you couldn’t pinch yourself in a dream and keep on dreaming?

She got up and walked, a bit unsteadily, to the intercom and buzzed for a nurse. Then she went back to the crib. Of course. Four arms, only four, and what was she going to do now?

She decided to be brave and sensible. If she had really seen it, the staff had to know. And if she hadn’t, and she didn’t wake up, then she was ill, and she should get the help she needed.

The chief nurse tucked Tilda in and watched her drift off to sleep, sedative patch in place. Then she went back to her station and called up the monitor footage on Tilda’s twins.
Well, well.

* CONFIDENTIAL *
CLEARANCE CLASS 3 AND ABOVE

LEVI Status Report, 12-15-71
Executive Summary

Anatomical Developments

Observation of the Tofa infants has shed some light on the longstanding question of whether the number of Tofa upper appendages is variable among the Tofa population. The thickest of the four armlike appendages is apparently capable of dividing when an additional upper appendage is desired. . . .

Councilman Kimball bookmarked the spot in his agent's report and opened his mail program. He owed an apology to the young man who had claimed his poor showing against a Tofa undesirable was due to the sudden appearance of an extra appendage. Apparently the man had been neither dishonest nor drunk.

After discharging that obligation, Kimball made a note to seek further details as to the divided arms' placement, reach, and muscular potential. His people needed adequate information to prepare them for future confrontations. After all, forewarned — he laughed out loud at the thought — was forearmed.

--------

And here's where to buy the Kindle version of Twin-Bred: http://amzn.to/u2OtVP

Interview with Terri Morgan, author of Playing the Genetic Lottery

2012-01-06T00:02:00.000-05:00

Today I'm featuring an interview with Terri Morgan, author of the novel Playing the Genetic Lottery. Welcome, Terri!

Q. Your novel is the story of a woman who grew up with two schizophrenic parents. How did you come to write this book?

A. The novel was sparked by a comment from a friend, who like me, is fascinated with people and what makes them behave the way they do. She mentioned something to me one day about a woman she had met who essentially raised her six younger siblings because both of her parents had schizophrenia. At the beginning of our conversation I had had not intentions of ever writing fiction. By the end, I just know I had to write this novel.

Q. Do you have any family members with schizophrenia?

A. My grandfather's cousin, Ina, who lived with my grandparents in Connecticut, was schizophrenic. She was a sweet, loving woman who was very much a treasured part of the family. Nobody really talked much about her condition, because that was just the way she was. They didn't try to hide it, but her illness wasn't what defined her. But no one in my immediate family has or had the disease, so this novel is in no way autobiographical.

Q. What's your background as a writer?

A. I've been a freelance journalist for over 30 years, writing for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, web pages, you name it. I've written literally thousands of different articles on hundreds of different topics. I've also written four non-fiction books for young adults, and co-authored four additional non-fiction books.

Q. This is your first novel. Did you envision yourself writing fiction?

A. A long long time ago I did. Like my protagonist, I've always loved reading. So it was natural for me to start writing creatively when I was in about the sixth grade. I wrote a lot of fiction off and on until my junior year of college. I knew I wanted a career as a writer, and I realized my chances of success were much greater if I switched to non-fiction. So I pursued a career as a freelance journalist, and never, ever thought I'd write any fiction again, let alone a novel.

Q. Many first novels are autobiographical. Is this the case in Playing the Genetic Lottery?

A. Definitely not. However, I did borrow tidbits from my life, my husband's life, and stories friends had told me over the years in minor ways. I took so many liberties with those tales, however, that they barely resemble the original events.

Q. Any examples?

A. My husband and I had a running joke about the president being Calvin Coolidge. Like the character Caitlin and Jason meet in the waiting room of the behavioral health unit, Gary was fascinated with history and politics, and had a fantastic memory historical figures, events, and dates.

Q. Your novel is set largely in Cumberland Oregon, but I can't find Cumberland on any map. Why is that?

A. That's because it doesn't exist, except in my head and in the book. That's the beauty of fiction, you can invent new worlds. Residents of my home town in Santa Cruz County, California, however, will recognize some of the names of local businesses and landmarks that I borrowed to use in Cumberland. Even though some of the places in my novel share the same name as some real sites in another state, they are all used fictionally and in no way resemble the originals.

Q. Did you borrow any other real names or places for the novel?

A. Most of the names I made up, although I did use the first and last names of several of my favorite elementary school teachers as some of the characters as a tribute to them. I also used some dates that are significant to family members. That's one of the fun things about being a novelist. You can honor the important people in your life privately in a very public manner.

Q. What did you like best about writing this novel?

A. I loved it all. I love learning new things, so researching schizophrenia was a labor of love. I read everything I could find on schizophrenia and the impact it has on patients and their families. I talked to people who had schizophrenic relatives, and read a lot of blogs and posts on-line to get a feel for what it's like to care for someone who is mentally ill. I loved creating the characters in this book, and inventing stories and situations for them. I enjoyed putting them onto paper. It was all fun.

Q. What message or messages would you like readers to come away with?

To be compassionate with people who may look or act differently. Don't be so quick to judge someone who appears odd because they could be suffering from a medical condition. And keep in mind that mentally ill people also have families and friends who love them. Nobody wants to be hit with a devastating mental illness, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect.

Q. Where can readers find your novel?

A. Right now, it's available as an e-book through www.smashwords.com/books/view/104186, and at www.amazon.com. I expect to release a paperback version of Playing the Genetic Lottery this spring. Readers can also find out more about the book at www.terrimorgan.net. Anyone who wants me to notify them when the paperback is available is welcome to email me at terri@terrimorgan.net.

Paperback of my current novel is discounted on Amazon!

2011-12-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

The mysterious gods of Amazon have decreed that, for some unknown period, my science fiction novel Twin-Bred is on sale on Amazon -- marked down from $12.99 to $9.35. Time to take the plunge, y'all!...

Some Favorite Reads from 2011

2011-12-29T12:23:00.000-05:00

Now that Twin-Bred has made two lists of favorite 2011 reads :-), it seems only right that I "pay it forward" and post a list of my own. Mine will include both 2011 releases and books I read for the first time in 2011.

In no particular order, here are a few books I read this year and greatly enjoyed. The first two were released in 2011.

--Doc by Mary Doria Russell. I have loved every book except one by this author (the one being Dreamers of the Day). Her science fiction novel The Sparrow may be my favorite novel of any genre or type, from any era. I'm delighted that I loved Doc as well.

Doc is historical fiction, dealing with the early days of John ("Doc") Holliday. I learned a great deal about characters with whom most of us (in the U.S. at least) are somewhat familiar, and about others in the Earp circle. As usual for Russell, the writing is beautiful and the portrayal of the characters often deeply moving. There is one long and stylistically unusual passage, about how things might have gone if one event had been different, that I particularly cherish in memory.

--These is My Words by Nancy Turner. Also historical fiction -- and yes, this and science fiction are probably my favorite genres. . . . This novel purports to be the diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, Arizona pioneer, written from 1881 to 1901. While the events described are not unrelieved tragedy, this account in other hands could have been leaden and depressing. It is, instead, inspirational, uplifting, and often very funny.

--Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon. This science fiction novel was published in 2003, but I had never encountered it before this month. Like my debut novel Twin-Bred, it concerns issues in communicating with the indigenous sentient species on another planet. I recommend it for its handling of those issues and of the alien species itself, but even more for the evolution of the main character, Ofelia. It's a delight to see her come into her own.

--Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge. More science fiction published in 2003 -- a good year, it seems. . . . I'm going to be lazy and suggest that you look it up on Amazon for plot info. The plot, for me, was secondary. I loved the relationships between characters, and Eskridge's enviable gift for just the right amount of vivid and original description.

--Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. Butler apparently died in 2006, but somehow I missed the news until recently. Readers of science fiction will greatly miss her. This is my favorite of several related books, eventually published together under the title From Seed to Harvest. It involves two very unusual and formidable people who meet and develop a relationship as unique as they are. One of them, in particular, is in many ways very unsympathetic -- and yet, we sympathize.

That's all for now. I may add a few more in a subsequent post. (Maybe if Twin-Bred shows up on any more end-of-year lists. :-) )

Old purchase link for Twin-Bred on Kindle defunct -- new link...

2011-12-24T16:08:00.002-05:00

For some reason or other, Amazon has switched the URL for purchasing the Kindle edition of Twin-Bred. The one I've distributed far and wide no longer works. :-( Here's the new one.... http://www.amazon.com/Twin-Bred-ebook/dp/B005VDVHQ2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324759955&sr=8-2

Merry Whatever (or, our crazy holiday season)

2011-12-24T15:34:00.002-05:00

My parents were Jewish refugees from Hitler's Europe. Neither had had a strongly religious upbringing. Both were intent on assimilating into American life as thoroughly as possible. The result: my brother and I had Christmas trees. Note the plural: on at least one occasion, when each of us fell in love with a different tree, we came home with both.

Over time, my mother grew increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of celebrating Christmas. I recall her suggesting, "Couldn't we just decorate a branch?" My father, on the other hand -- an avowed atheist -- has a sentimental fondness for Christmas. He believes people are nicer to each other at this time of year. He also enjoys Christmas lights: when I lived in Los Angeles, where my parents live, we used to drive around and look at them one evening every year. I remember him working in his home office (he was a workaholic, and retired reluctantly at age 80 due to health problems) with Christmas carols playing on his portable tape deck.

My husband (the Hoosier Gadfly ) was raised a Christian, and became an agnostic (or by some definitions an atheist) in his teens. He is also something of a Grinch where Christmas is concerned, viewing it as an inconvenient commercial creation. He converted to Judaism prior to marrying his first wife (with the assistance of an unusually lenient rabbi).

So here we are, married and raising two daughters. What to do about the holidays?

I wanted my children to have the fun of decorating a tree and seeing presents piled around it on a festive holiday morning. But like my mother, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with celebrating Christmas as such. Nor was my husband thrilled with the idea. But then, the holiday tree wasn't originally a Christian notion -- the Christians borrowed it, and the timing of their festival, from pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice. Problem solved! We have a Solstice tree, and open presents on Solstice morning.

But we are Jewish, ethnically (in my case) and tribally, if not as a matter of religious belief. Moreover, my husband and I appreciate the roots of Chanukah as a celebration of the freedom to believe as one chooses. (My husband, a self-taught expert in military history, also enjoys the David vs. Goliath aspects of the Maccabees' victory over Syrian forces.) So we also celebrate Chanukah. We try to limit ourselves to small presents on each of the eight nights, as closer to Jewish tradition. (Chanukah is a relatively minor holiday, and if not for the influence of Christmas, it would involve no gifts greater than candy or small coins.)

So is Christmas out of the picture entirely? Well, no. Many years ago, my husband's mother sent the girls personalized Christmas stockings. It seems a shame not to use them. So: stocking stuffers on Christmas morning as well.

And sometimes, as I'm driving around in December, I sing a carol or two.

Breaking free of the hunter-gatherer mentality

2011-11-19T23:32:00.000-05:00

Pervasive in the Occupy movement is the assumption that relative inequality of wealth -- as opposed to the absolute amount of wealth (on the low end of the spectrum) that some possess -- is per se a problem. This is atavistic thinking, a leftover from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. If one member of the tribe goes out and gathers all the nuts and berries within walking distance and refuses to share, the whole tribe suffers. If the idea that inequality of wealth can be acceptable seems counterintuitive, it is because we evolved to our present state before most of the activities that generate wealth were invented.

This insight comes courtesy of my husband, aka The Hoosier Gadfly.

Rambling about my father

2011-11-04T14:38:00.000-04:00

My father, Charley Wyle, is in the hospital again, with a recurrent gastrointestinal problem, and I feel like recounting some of his war stories, what with Veterans' Day coming up. I'll probably post others when the mood takes me. There are plenty to tell.

My father and his immediate family escaped Nazi Germany when he was about 15. They spent a year or so in Palestine waiting for their U.S. visa to be in effect, and then came to New York. Once this country entered the war, my father and his next-youngest brother Bert wanted to enlist, but they were viewed as German nationals, absurdly enough, and had trouble doing so. Eventually they finagled their way into the army. Bert became a medic with a glider company. (I use the term "company" without being at all sure it's the right one. I have only the vaguest notion of what constitutes a platoon, company, or any other military unit.) My dad ended up in the infantry.

Since he was 5'6" and scrawny, they gave him the largest available rifle. I believe it was a grenade launcher. As he had no sense of direction, they made him a scout.

A stubborn democratic idealist, he took great exception to the custom of having enlisted men used as servants in the officer's mess. He was almost court-martialed. After a painful personal struggle, he conceded, but he was never reconciled to the idea.

It was in the army that my father first met someone who convinced him that he had a fine mind and should do something with it after the war. His friend "Doc" was older, and well educated. Doc was killed by a mine or bomb that exploded just next to my father. My father had only minor injuries, enough to earn him a Purple Heart.

My father's unit helped to liberate Dachau. They were there early enough that German concentration camp staff seen dead in the well-known photos were still alive. Some of Dad's comrades in arms gave pistols to the prisoners and told them to do whatever came naturally.

Late in the war, when a few German soldiers here and there were just starting to surrender, my father and two other soldiers got separated from their unit and stumbled on a German company(?), about 200 strong. As they hid behind trees, one of the others suggested they start shooting. My father strongly disagreed, pointing out that they would be immediately slaughtered. Instead, he stood up and shouted in German that the Germans were surrounded, and that their only possible chance of surviving the day was to surrender and lay down their arms. They did. Three American soldiers herded 200 prisoners back and presented them to their second lieutenant. The lieutenant asked my father if he thought he could do it again. Dad said he could try. He was sent on several missions to talk Germans into surrendering, and succeeded. The lieutenant got a Silver Star. My dad got bupkes. But he knows what he accomplished.

That's all for now.

Caroline Cooney, Unflinching Moralist of YA Fiction

2011-11-03T16:35:00.002-04:00

I enjoy reading YA fiction. One of my favorite YA authors is Caroline Cooney. I don't know how I first discovered her, but she's remarkable.

What most interests and impresses me about her is her moral focus. I've found no other author besides George Eliot who so clearly forces us to confront the irrevocable nature of bad choices. In one of her novels, where youthful thoughtless irresponsibility leads to the death of an innocent bystander, she periodically repeats the line, "She is still dead." It's like the tolling of a bell, the obsessive chant of a guilty conscience.

In Cooney's books, if you take a big risk, it may kill you. If you screw up, it may kill someone else. You may start the day as a regular kid and end up ruined, or ruinous -- or heroic. The other side of her moralist's coin is everyday people -- naturally, young people -- rising to the occasion, astonishing themselves and those who supposedly knew them well.

Many of Cooney's young characters also ponder explicitly religious questions, often experiencing estrangement from and reconciliation with God. My lifelong interest in religions -- the interest of an agnostic outsider -- means that I enjoy these journeys. But it is Cooney's nonreligious explorations of moral choices that move me more, and linger with me longer.

Excerpt from Farsighted

2011-10-24T23:10:00.002-04:00

Still doing the blog tour thing, and today I'm posting the first chapter of Farsighted....

(BTW, I'll be doing my own blog tour in early December for Twin-Bred.

Here's an excerpt from Emlyn Chand's hot new paranormal novel, Farsighted (it just released on 10/24). Before diving in, check out this teaser for the book:

Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still “see” things others can’t. When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider.

Okay, now that you're caught up, on to the excerpt! I hope you'll enjoy it.

Farsighted: Chapter 1

Our hero is about to embark on a journey. Life as he knows it is quiet, boring, and predictable, but it’s also comforting and familiar. That will soon change.

Today is the last day of summer, but I’m not doing anything even remotely close to fun. I’m just lying here in Mom’s garden, running my hands over the spiky blades of grass—back and forth, back and forth until my fingertips go numb. Until everything goes numb. I sigh, but no one’s around to hear.

“Alex,” Dad yells from the kitchen window. “Dinner.”

Already? How long have I been out here? I spring up from the ground and the grass springs up with me, one blade at a time – boing, boink, boint. The sounds would be imperceptible to any normal person, but they roar inside my ears. I picture an army of earthworms raising the blades as spears in their turf wars and smile to myself.

Dad opens the back door and calls out to me again. “C’mon, Alex. What’s taking you so long?”

Grabbing my cane, I shuffle over to the house, brushing past him as I squeeze inside. The kitchen reeks of fast food restaurants and movie theaters—butter and grease. That means it’s breakfast for dinner. We do this every Sunday night, because Mom goes out to garden club and Dad doesn’t know how to cook anything else. Plus it’s cheap.

Breathing heavily, Dad plunks some food onto both our plates and collapses into his chair. He groans and asks me to pass the butter, or rather the “bud-dah.” He grew up in Boston and every once in a while the accent works itself into his speech.

I slide the tub to dad; he reaches out and stops it before it can glide clear off the table.

“What’s this?” Dad asks.

“Uh, the butter. Obviously.”

Dad’s voice raises an octave. “I know it’s the butter, so don’t get smart. Why’d you give it to me?”

“Uh, because you asked me to.”

“No, I didn’t.” He exhales as if the wind has been knocked out of him by an ill-timed punch to the stomach. “Guess you must’ve read my mind.” He chuckles to himself and slides the cool metal knife into the butter and scrapes it across his toast.

Dad and I don’t usually talk to each other unless Mom is around, asking about our days, chatting on, working hard to create those warm and fuzzy family moments we don’t seem to create naturally. And even though Mom has reassured me a million times, I know that Dad resents me for being born blind.

I can tell he would have much rather had a son like Brady—the same guy who insists on making my high school experience as difficult as possible. Nothing’s worse than knowing that your own father thinks you’re a loser.

Dad and I finish our meal in silence and my mind wanders.

He rises suddenly from his chair, breaking apart my thoughts. “Let’s get this table cleared before your mother comes home,” he says, without pronouncing the r in cleared.

I stand too and pick up my plate and glass. Guess I’ll pass on that fifth biscuit.

“Your mother has a surprise for you.”

I smile for my dad’s benefit. My parents are horrible at keeping secrets. Last night, I overheard them talking in their room. Mom was bragging about how she found some “cute” new shades on Wal-Mart’s clearance rack.

About ten minutes later, the tires of Mom’s van crunch on the gravel in our driveway with lots of little pings and a big cuh-clunk. As usual, she steers directly into the pothole we don’t have the money to repair. Sometimes I wonder if she does it on purpose.

The door creaks open, inviting a comforting floral fragrance into the house. Mom always smells like flowers—today it’s tulips and jasmine. She steps lightly across the floor and places a wet kiss on my cheek. When she turns to greet Dad, I wipe at the left-over moistness with my shirt sleeve. I’m getting too old for this kind of thing—been too old for a while now actually, but this doesn’t seem to matter to her.

“How was your day, my little sapling?” she asks. I really wish she would stop calling me her “little sapling.”

“Hi, Mom.” I hug her, because it makes her happy.

“Are you excited for tomorrow?”

I snap my fingers, which is how I say “yes” without actually saying it, kind of how most people nod their heads. I’m excited to learn, to have something to do other than lie in the grass, to possibly make a friend. More than likely though, things won’t change. I’ll still be an outcast. I’ll still be all by myself, but at least I’ll know where I stand. No more wondering.

“A sophomore already! I hope I can keep up enough to help you with your homework,” Dad says, acting like a completely different person than he was just a few minutes ago. He has this way of being nicer to me whenever Mom is around. I know it’s for show, and it pisses me off.

Ignoring him, I turn toward Mom. “So, Dad told me you’ve got a surprise for me?” I’d rather get this over with quickly before they try too hard to build up the suspense.

“Oh, yes,” she chirps, fluttering over to the other side of the living room, pulling out the drawer of the small table in the corner, and rustling the unpaid bills inside. She comes back over to me and places a small bag in my lap.

“Wait,” Dad says as my hand is about to reach inside the bag. “Before you open that, I just want to say that I know we haven’t been able to give you as many back-to-school supplies as you need this year. Your backpack is starting to tear and your boots are scuffed…”

I had no idea my boots were scuffed, but now that he’s pointed it out, it’s all I can think about.

“And all of this is my fault,” Dad continues as I wonder how badly my boots are scuffed. Where? On the heel? On the toe?

Mom clicks her tongue and rubs Dad’s shoulder sympathetically, dragging her fingernails across his thick shirt. The scratching sound draws my attention back to his melodramatic speech.

“I want to make you a promise, as soon as I get a job we’re going to buy all of those things for you. Okay?”

“It’s okay, Dad. I don’t need anything.” Except for you to be nice to me even when Mom isn’t around, and, oh yeah, a friend or two.

“That’s my brave little oak tree,” Mom says, giving me another hug. I swear, sometimes I think she’s from another planet, or at least another time period. But still, she loves me, even if she’s constantly saying stupid things like that.

When they seem to have nothing more to say, my left hand reaches into the bag and brings a pair of sunglasses up into the palm. I run my right hand over them, trying to make out their shape. They’ve got hard plastic frames and cushiony rubber ends for where they sit on top of the ears. They’re broad in front; the rim goes in a straight line all the way across about a half an inch above the nosepiece. These aren’t the normal bookworm glasses. They’re cool guy glasses.

“We thought you deserved a new pair of cool guy glasses since you’re practically sixteen,” Mom says.

Ugh, I hate when she uses the same words as me. I make a mental note never to say, or think, the words “cool guy glasses” again.

“And they’re even your favorite color!” Mom shouts, unable to contain herself.

Then they’re green. I “see” color through my nose and like green best because so many of the best-smelling things are that hue, like grass and leaves and vegetables and limes. But with green glasses, I’m afraid I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb—a sore green thumb. I smile and reach out my arms. Both my parents come in for a hug. I whisper a quick prayer for tomorrow and head to bed.

The next morning, my alarm starts yelling at six o’clock. Is it excited or trying to give me a warning? Well, time to get this over with, time to see if this year will be any different from all the crappy ones before. I reach over and flip the off-switch and stumble about in a sleepy haze, getting ready for the first day of the new school year.

On the way to the bathroom, I stub my toe on some bulky object that’s just sitting in the middle of the hallway, not even pushed up against the wall. I kick it to the side—clunk, straight into the wall—and continue to the bathroom. I shouldn’t need my cane to get around my own house. That had to be something of Dad’s. What, is he actually trying to kill me now?

I turn the shower knob and wait for the water to get warm. It’s taking forever since I’m the first one up today. Aggravated by the wait, I go back into the hall to find that object again. Stooping down, I attempt to work out the shape. Rectangular, with a handle, made of leather or something leather-like, with little metal clasps. A briefcase, I guess. But Dad’s a contractor, why would he need a briefcase? Why now? I flip the clasp, eager to find out what’s inside. But the case doesn’t open. Brushing my fingers across the top again, I find a twisty-turny thing on either side. A combination lock. If it’s so important, why’s it laying here in the middle of the hall like a discarded sock?

A wall of steam pushes into my back, returning my attention to the running shower. I return the case to its original position in the middle of the hall and go to wash up for school. Afterward, I towel off and put on my favorite shirt, which is soft and made of flannel. I wear my favorite pants too—they’re baggy with big pockets on the sides. As I’m pulling them on, I feel a tickle at my ankles where the hem now rests two full inches above where it should be. I groan, realizing I must’ve grown over the summer. How much taller can I get? I’m really tall now, at least a couple of inches over six feet, but we just don’t have the money to keep buying me new clothes every time I grow another inch.

To add the finishing touch to my first-day-of-school look, I slip my new cool guy glasses—er, sunglasses—on over my nose. The lenses are extra thick. Probably, if I wanted, I could sleep in class and no teacher would ever notice. But I’m not like that; I like to learn.

“Honey?” Mom calls from the end of the hallway. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” I yell back. “Just a sec.” I fiddle with my boots, trying to stuff my pants into them, so no one at school sees they’re too short. I’m sure this makes me look even more like a teenage Paul Bunyan than usual, but I don’t care. The boots are comfortable and help to support my ankles. Anyway I could probably wear nothing but expensive designer clothes and still be considered a freak.

Before standing, I run my hands over my feet. The right boot has a long narrow indentation across the toe. They are scuffed. Great. With a drawn-out sigh, I pick up my backpack and walk over to the kitchen where Mom is waiting. She has way too much energy for this early in the day.

“Yogurt with berries fresh from the garden,” she says, placing a glass in my hand. “You can eat in the car.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I jab a heaping spoonful into my mouth and finish it in five huge bites, then grab my cane from the hook near the front door, loop the cord around my wrist, and follow Mom out to the driveway where the rattly old family van is parked. As she shifts the car into drive, sadness washes over me. I’m almost sixteen, but I’ll never be able to drive. I’ll always be forced to rely on my parents for everything, my entire life.

We drive the twelve minutes to school, while Mom talks non-stop about new beginnings and the “carefree happiness of youth.” When the van stops, I take a deep breath, and wrap my fingers around the door handle, ready to find out what’s in store for me this year at Grandon High.

“Hey, Alex?” Mom stops me just as I’m about to step out onto the curb. I pause and wait. “Have a good day at school.”

“I will.”

“Dad’ll pick you up and bring you to the shop in the afternoon, okay?”

“Okay. Bye, Mom.” The longer we draw this scene out, the higher the chances of her kissing me on the head or calling me her “little sapling.” I just can’t risk starting out the year on such an embarrassing note.

I get out of the car and head straight inside the building. A bunch of kids are hanging around outside, chatting away about their summers, getting back into the swing of things. They don’t notice me as I slink by and make my way to my first hour, English—I memorized the location of all of my classes during the summer, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by getting lost or arriving after the bell rings.

Entering the classroom, I drop my backpack on the floor, and prop my cane between the seat and the desk; that way it’s near at hand and easy to get later. Nobody else is here yet, not even the teacher. Bored already, I decide to go get a drink of water from the fountain. As I’m rounding the corner of the familiar hall, the air gets heavy like it does after a rainstorm. The aroma of wet grass and asphalt overpowers my senses. This definitely seems out of place for a high school hallway.

“Hey, Alex, how was it today?” Dad asks in a much better mood than usual.

I turn around in shock. What is my Dad doing here? Mom just dropped me off. Dad should be in bed still, not here at school embarrassing me.

“Dad?” I ask tentatively. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I’m not your daddy, you no-eyed freak!” comes the voice of Brady Evans, the running-back of the school’s Junior Varsity football team—my biggest enemy.

The air becomes lighter all of a sudden, as if a vacuum cleaner has sucked up all the humidity. The fragrance of sweat and Axe deodorant spray fills my nostrils. I’m totally confused now.

“Brady?”

“No, it’s your daddy. Loser…” Laughter comes from at least six different people, most of them girls.

“Sorry,” I mumble and head back to English class, forgetting to get my drink of water. Brady and his entourage follow me in, making jokes at my expense.

I put my head down on my desk, wishing I was a chameleon, so I could become one with the desk and fade out of view—being a reptile couldn’t be that much worse than having to endure high school.

“Mr. Kosmitoras, could you please come here?” the teacher calls, butchering the pronunciation of my name.

“Um, it’s Caas-me-toe-rh-aas actually,” I respond, getting up and walking over to the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. Brady and his friends are still laughing. I hope they’ve moved onto a new topic.

“Here are your textbooks for the year. We’re starting out with this basic reader,” she says, plopping a thick book into my hands. “Then we’ll be moving on to The Odyssey and finally Romeo and Juliet.” She places these into my outstretched palms as well.

“Thanks,” I mutter and head back to my seat. I begin skimming the basic reader, flipping through several pages at once, randomly trailing my finger over little snippets of text. Since no school around here caters specifically to visually impaired kids, my teachers special-order textbooks in braille for me. That’s all I need to get by, really. With very few exceptions, I can do anything other kids my age do. I’ve been this way my whole life; I know how to make it work.

Bit by bit, the other students trickle into the class. Someone who smells like cherry candy sits down across the room. Then, a series of loud thuds comes from that direction—she must’ve dropped her books.

“Simmi! Simmi, Jeez! Don’t make so much noise!” says some boy, who sounds a bit like Brady, but I don’t think is Brady. I don’t know anybody named Simmi, so this girl must be a new student. Why’s this boy being so mean to her already? Hope rises within me. Maybe she’ll be an outcast too; the two of us could team up.

The bell rings, taking away the cherries. I don’t pay any attention to the teacher as she introduces herself to the class. Instead, I think about the strange things that have been happening today. What was in that briefcase in the hall this morning, and why couldn’t I open it? Why did I think Brady Evans was my dad? Why do we have to read Romeo and Juliet this year in English class? We’re less than five minutes into first period, and my hopes for the new year are pretty much dashed.

Blog Tour Notes

THE BOOK: Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still “see” things others can’t. When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. Get your copy today by visiting Amazon.com’s Kindle store or the eBook retailer of your choice. The paperback edition will be available on November 24 (for the author’s birthday).

THE CASH PRIZES: Guess what? You could win a $100 Amazon gift card as part of this special blog tour. That’s right! Just leave a comment below saying something about the post you just read, and you’ll be entered into the raffle. I could win $100 too! Please help by voting for my blog in the traffic-breaker poll. To cast your vote, visit the official Farsighted blog tour page and scroll all the way to the bottom. Thank you for your help with that.

THE GIVEAWAYS: Win 1 of 10 autographed copies of Farsighted before its paperback release by entering the giveaway on GoodReads. Perhaps you’d like an autographed postcard from the author; you can request one on her site.

THE AUTHOR: Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb. Visit www.emlynchand.com for more info. Don’t forget to say “hi” to her sun conure Ducky!

MORE FUN: There's more fun below. Watch the live action Farsighted book trailer and take the quiz to find out which character is most like you!

Welcome to the Farsighted virtual book tour!

2011-10-23T20:56:00.005-04:00

I'm one of many hosts on author Emlyn Chand's virtual book tour for her new novel Farsighted. Today, a guest post; Tuesday, an excerpt!

This is a guest post by Emlyn Chand, author of Farsighted

Let's face it - the publishing industry is changing. We can all pretty much agree on that, right?

What we've got on our hands is an oncoming era of enlightenment (I prefer that to the often-touted “revolution”). ‘T wasn’t long ago that being a self-published author was practically as shocking and horrific as being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts circa 1700.

“What damnation have you wrought upon yourself? Upon us all?” The traditional pub villagers would cry as they rushed for their pitch forks and torches. “Be gone with you, unnatural creatures!”

And those unkind words were enough to send us packing. They didn’t have to chase us out of the village, for we never had any real magic, we were never any real threat.

Until…

We opened our eyes. We saw the true powers we possessed, and we saw the villagers for what they lacked.

We are able to manipulate our circumstances. We have more control than any who’ve gone before us. Self-publishing truly is magic.

But we can’t just walk around all blasé, showing off our green skin and harry warts while levitating our way through the park. That would be a mistake. We need to put on a little bit of concealer and keep our feet on the ground. We wouldn’t want to scare them away.

Similarly, a self-published or indie author needs to put on a bit of a show. We need to know when to conform to the “village” way of life and when to do our own damn thang. If we can get them to come in for a closer look, they might understand our allure. Then they’ll stop being so afraid.

Our make-up isn’t Maybelline to cover that green skin (I ♥ you, Elphaba). No. We apply our foundation by writing a truly fetching and well-edited manuscript. We dab on the blush when we take the time and expense needed to don an attractive book cover. Our lipstick is a professional, personal, and functional web presence.

Don’t we look pretty? We do, I tell you. And we’re all the more beautiful for knowing that we possess something so much deeper within: creativity, stick-to-it-ness, bravery, and of course – magic.

If you really examine the state of the publishing industry, it’s not the traditional house execs that populate the villages. Oh, they’re definitely the mayors, the cryers, and a few other choice townspeople. But if you want to see who lives in the village, go and knock on a few doors.

It’s the readers, bibliophiles, book addicts. They’re the ones who built this town. The mayor would have no village to govern if ‘tweren’t for them.

And thank God for it!

We arrived on their doorsteps – beaten, bloody, in need of a hot meal and a bit of rest. They may have been put off by our bedraggled appearance, but they ultimately let us in and showed us the true nature of their hospitality.

I kind of like this town; I think I’ll move in ;-)

Blog Tour Notes

Book review -- Chicken Feed by Ellen Ghyll

2011-10-18T11:01:00.002-04:00

As promised, here's my first book review!

Chicken Feed recounts a tumultuous few days in the lives of a number of people involved with what we in the U.S. would call a flea market.

Simply put, Chicken Feed is a fun read. The authors tangle and untangle the characters' lives in a lighthearted and somehow affectionate manner. The book introduces several memorable characters. The husband-and-wife "Ellen Ghyll" team have a gift for descriptive, revealing and amusing detail. Some hilarious scenes cry out for cinematic treatment. The book would make a terrific one- or two-part mini-series.

Chicken Feed could have used another run by a good copy editor to deal with occasional punctuation errors and awkward transitions. (In the Smashwords epub, there are apparently random shifts between black text and blue -- I don't know how noticeable this would be on a Kindle.) These are minor flaws that didn't keep me from thoroughly enjoying the book.

Book Stuff (reviews and interviews)

2011-10-17T20:08:00.005-04:00

I've been busy trying to promote my just-published science fiction novel Twin-Bred. I've gotten several nice reviews and a few interviews. It'll be interesting to see if this leads to one or more people I've never met and never communicated with in cyberspace actually buying the book.

Here are the reviews, interviews, guest blog posts and promotional spotlights that have appeared so far:

Reviews:

Ellen Ghyll's blog

Pearls Before a McPig

Womb Twin Survivors

Interviews (well, one so far -- others coming):

JeanzBookReadNReview

Guest Blog Posts (again, one up, more coming):

Indies Unlimited

Promotion Spotlights:

JeanzBookReadNReview (again)

A.F. Stewart Promotion

My first review of someone else's book should be up in a week or less. The book: Chicken Feed by Ellen Ghyll.

Daughter's and Book's Birthday

2011-10-04T12:27:00.003-04:00

If all goes moderately well, I will be publishing my debut novel, Twin-Bred via various online outlets on October 15th, my older daughter's birthday. It seemed like a good day, for several reasons:
--she is the one who led me to National Novel Writing Month, which helped me get past decades-old obstacles and start writing fiction again;
--she did Twin-Bred's cover art;
--she liked the book! :-)

As I try to publicize the book without becoming obnoxious about it, I'll probably do some book review exchanges. So watch this space for book reviews!

About that Palestinian state including East Jerusalem...

2011-09-11T12:50:00.002-04:00

As we contemplate the current Palestinian establishment, controlled by Hamas, demanding a Palestinian state including East Jerusalem in its territory, I suggest remembering the Palestinians in East Jerusalem celebrating the September 11 attacks.

(BTW, it was no hoax, nor video from some other occasion -- see this rebuttal of such claims.)

Sorry, folks. You've had your fun. No statehood celebration in East Jerusalem for you. F*ck you very much.

More cover tweaks...

2011-09-07T18:08:00.003-04:00

Well, I've darkened the planet, enlarged the artwork, and tried two different ways to add stars. Plus made the text purple just in case that's better. I've been looking for the right clip art of a comet or of the Milky Way to add as well, but no luck so far.

Need comments on possible book cover!

2011-09-06T11:41:00.004-04:00

I hope I've succeeded in sending some people here from Goodreads. I would greatly appreciate some comments on whether either of the book covers shown above for my SF novel is a suitable cover for actual publication, or whether it's one or more of the following:

--artwork not sufficiently professional

--layout not sufficiently professional

--the wrong font for the text

--the wrong color for the text

--other text problems

--too much unused space

--too "creepy"

The version with the smaller planet is what I'd thought of using for the e-book, as the other is hard to read in thumbnail size.

Thanks for your input!

Thoughts of my brother, on hearing Romeo and Juliet

2011-08-22T10:04:00.001-04:00

This morning, as I drove home from errands, music from the soundtrack to Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet came up on my iPod. I suspect that many people get teary when they hear this music: because of the sad story with which it is associated, because of their own lost loves, or because the music is intrinsically poignant. I have another reason: I hear the music and think of my brother.

David was a brilliant pianist. When he was young, when people still expected achievement from him, many thought he would have a career in music. He did some composing, mostly freeform and improvisational, but it was the way he played that hit people hardest. He was always unabashedly emotional, a thorough romantic, and his music was that in spades. I especially loved to hear him play Romeo and Juliet. It was the perfect marriage of music and musician. One of many tragedies concerning my brother is that there are no good recordings of his playing. The only one ever made was destroyed in a fire, about two months before he died.

I expected to outlive my brother. He was older. He was mentally ill for most of his life. He sometimes cut off all contact with me or our parents or both, for months or years at a time. He was often unable to work; he lived largely on disability and assistance from our parents. His judgment of other people was unreliable and led him into strange and potentially perilous associations. In his youth, he used many recreational drugs in various combinations; later, he took psychotropic prescription drugs whose side effects needed close monitoring. I would not have been surprised if he died of those side effects, or were found dead on the street, or simply disappeared without word or return.

What I didn't expect was that he would die of lung cancer. It shouldn't have surprised me: he was a heavy smoker for decades, almost a chain smoker. I would have had more warning if he had told me, when his beloved cat died, that she died of lung cancer.

We were close as children. Our relationship changed forever when, in his days as an evangelist for drug use, he gave me an "Alice B. Toklas" brownie and lied to me about its contents. I ate little of the brownie, and it had no effect on me, but the lie destroyed something between us. As he grew older and stranger, I learned to distance myself from him and from his troubles. When he jumped off a building in case he could fly, and broke his neck, I visited the hospital and wrote a poem about the leaves in his hair, but I was neither desolate nor terrified. I was relieved at his full recovery, but not deeply thankful. I followed subsequent hospitalizations, relocations and adventures with little emotion or engagement.

David was a paradoxical combination of generosity and need, egoism and selflessness. He was a wonderful friend to some; he was a heartbreaking disappointment to others, including the woman to whom he was briefly engaged. He escaped his own problems by helping others with theirs. I, by contrast, became cautious in exposing myself to the needs of others. When David had money, he lent it to near-strangers or gave away the things he had bought with it; then he would need rescuing to pay the rent or buy his medicines. My parents did the rescuing, often with strings attached that twisted and almost strangled their relationship. To avoid such unintended consequences, and to protect myself and later my own family, I made a vow never to lend him money. He only asked once.

After I moved from California to Indiana, he came for one visit. He met my older daughter when she was two or three. It was the only time he saw her.

We spoke on the phone rarely. In his latter years, he suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome. I never knew when he would be resting. It was a good excuse not to call. If I called, I never knew whether he would be irrational, or hard to understand, or querulous, or demanding -- or my loving big brother, my only sibling, sharer of my childhood. Often, I didn't take the chance of finding out.

After his diagnosis, we spoke more often. I thought of addressing the unfinished business between us, the old hurts, and decided against it. There was no ongoing problem to solve, little to gain. We chatted about little things; we talked about my children. I am no singer, but sometimes I sang to him over the phone -- lullabies, folk songs, anything soothing. He was lavishly appreciative.

My younger daughter wanted to meet her uncle while she could. She and I went to visit him in Palo Alto, California in April 2005, just after she turned nine. They bonded immediately. She doesn't play the piano, but they played duets together. They made silly noises together. She is a dancer, and she danced for him, and he delighted in her. On this same visit, I read him some of my picture book manuscripts; he praised them. We dredged up memories from the years we had lived together. Just before we left, we celebrated Passover, in the lovely little yard outside his small cluttered apartment. And we heard him play Romeo and Juliet -- the first time for my daughter, the last time for me.

We planned to come again in June. But before we could, a fire in his apartment -- possibly from a cigarette, possibly from bad wiring -- destroyed the apartment and most of his possessions. He was found wandering in the street, incoherent. His health declined rapidly from that day on, and he died in June, hours after my daughter graduated from 3rd grade. My parents, both my daughters, and I came to Palo Alto in June for a memorial service with his friends.

We got our first dog that September. We named her Davida, which not everyone in the family thought appropriate. It turned out to make sense, in a way. David and I had both liked walking at night; we were less awkward, most relaxed and loving with each other, on such walks. Now, I had a reason to walk at night, every night.

Sometimes I talk to Davida about my brother as we walk and pause and walk again through our quiet neighborhood.

And every time I hear the music from Romeo and Juliet, I tear up, and I cherish every note.

The author as problem-solver

2011-08-18T10:52:00.002-04:00

The women in my family tend to be good problem-solvers. Give us a problem -- at least, one that doesn't have to be solved within seconds to avoid mayhem -- and much of the time, we'll come up with a creative yet practical solution.

After a decades-long detour, I am back to writing fiction, and I've discovered how much of it is my old friend, problem-solving. The problem may be how to reveal key facts without a boring info-dump, or how to keep the reader's sympathies for a character despite her dismaying behavior. Whatever it is, if I park it on the mental stovetop for a bit, it doesn't take long before the pot starts bubbling. Well, it may take a day or three. Problem: how to find a better metaphor for problem-solving?...

Republican stump speech for the taking

2011-08-18T10:50:00.002-04:00

In the extremely unlikely event that anyone working on Rick Perry's, or some other Republican candidate's, campaign should stumble across this blog:

One of y'all needs a stump speech, and/or some campaign commercials, on the theme of "What Would the Founders Say." Collect egregious instances of regulatory interference and overreach, and recite them with proper indignation, following each with "What would the Founders say about that?"

You're welcome.

If they let themselves be bulldozed, it's their fault

2011-07-25T11:03:00.003-04:00

The latest proposal for the debt ceiling impasse is a committee of members of the House and Senate -- presumably senior and powerful members -- that would come up with a plan to be voted on, but not debated, in both chambers. Some bloggers are screaming that this would be unconstitutional. Nope -- just undemocratic. If the members of Congress follow their internal rules, they can inflict this on themselves. But why would any of the freshfolk supported by the Tea Party, or any members devoted to budgetary restraint, vote for such a proposal?

Cute Couple of the Year

2011-07-25T10:58:00.002-04:00

I'm sure I'm one of many, many people smiling at the photos of the first couple to wed in New York, Phyllis Sifel and Connie Kopelov, aged 77 and 85 respectively. The cynical might also note that these ladies are a good symbolic choice for first couple, as they're less likely than most others to get divorced.

And the Mean-Spirited Gesture of the Year award goes to the diehards who are seeking to get these first marriages annulled because the clerks waived the 24-hour waiting period. Ahem. Excuse me, I believe it's a good bet that these ladies have been waiting a while already....

Adults not armed, tragedy not averted

2011-07-24T13:51:00.002-04:00

I am horrified, shocked, sickened, shaken, by the deaths of so many young people at the Swedish camp. I am also waiting for someone to mention that during the 90 minutes or so after the shooting began, armed adult staff members could have stopped the carnage. But of course, they weren't armed. Perhaps this kind of attack was unimaginable -- before. Now?

The devil and the deep blue sea of publishing

2011-07-24T13:47:00.002-04:00

As I ponder whether to self-publish my SF novel or seek an agent and/or a traditional publisher, I hear discouraging news about both options.

According to one industry blogger, Barnes & Noble is responding to the death of Borders not by increasing its space for books, but by allocating less space for books and more for games. Another blogger reports that books will be given only 45 days, rather than the current 90 days, to sell before they're returned to publishers.

On the other hand, there is allegedly so much mediocre (or worse) self-published SF on Amazon nowadays that shoppers are supposedly avoiding the SF category.

Oy vey!

I'm baaack...

2011-06-08T12:07:00.003-04:00

I've been planning to start up a separate "author" blog. Now comes this post suggesting why I might be better off staying right here.

When I next take a breather from revising a SF novel, I'll catch up on politics, etc....

If I Wrote a Singles Ad

2011-03-05T11:09:00.003-05:00

Just walked the dog in the rain. Neither of us enjoyed it. Trudging along, I imagined the singles ad I would post if I needed one: "I do NOT love walking in the rain. I loathe it. I do like walking in the snow, if it isn't windy and Jack Frost isn't gnawing on my extremities."

link to a blog on website for writers and readers

2011-02-16T15:30:00.002-05:00

Here's a link to my first blog entry on the Red Room, a website for writers and readers (as I am now both).

Expect to hear more about my first novel -- well, my second, if you count the one I wrote when I was 10. Which I try to forget about.

This Jewish lawyer's take on the Mount Soledad cross

2011-01-05T11:41:00.003-05:00

For what it's worth, this Jewish lawyer and civil libertarian thinks it's kind of a shame to make, so to speak, a federal case over the Mount Soledad Memorial. Aka the Mount Soledad cross.

If someone sees the cross and knows nothing about it, then they won't know it's on federal land, and thus won't have a reason to read it as a government endorsement of religion. If they see it and know it's a war memorial, then what follows? American military cemeteries are full of crosses. This is because they are full of dead American soldiers, most of whom were Christians. Seeing a plain giant cross used as a war memorial is more likely to call up memories of military cemeteries than of churches.

In the article I just read, the attorney who fought against the cross for 15 years (!) says it's "a great day for religious tolerance." I would hardly call it a great day, or a great devotion of 15 years, for any kind of tolerance.

Genuine, Not Modest, Legislative Proposal re the TSA

2010-11-20T15:38:00.003-05:00

I have a suggestion. It is a serious one, not a "modest proposal," although some might view it as a trifle wholesale. Here goes. This bill, or something equivalent, needs to be introduced in the next Congressional session. Todd Young (my soon-to-be-Congressman): how about it?

------------

(a) All legislation establishing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), defining its duties, funding it, or empowering it in any way is repealed as regards the TSA, effective immediately, except as set forth below.

(b) No other agency, whether currently in existence or subsequently established, may take on any function previously exercised by the TSA.

(c) All regulations and rules of any kind promulgated by the TSA or pursuant to its authority directly or indirectly are nullified and of no future effect. This subsection is effective 30 days from the date this statute is enacted.

(d) Nothing in this or any other federal statute or regulation shall be construed to prohibit individual airports or airlines from adopting rules for the protection of airline passengers and crew. If applied to passengers or crew on interstate or international flights or to airlines conducting such flights, such rules must be posted prominently in any airport where the rule is to be applied, as well as on a website easily reached by inputting either the official name or any commonly used name of the airport or airline in a readily available Internet search engine.

(e) The TSA continues to exist in order to perform the following functions, and only those functions:

(1) Studying possible methods by which airports and/or airlines may protect passengers and crew from terrorist or other intentional destructive acts or from negligent or reckless behavior.

(2) Publicizing the results of the studies described in subsection (e)(1) of this statute.

(3) Receiving complaints from passengers, crew or others as to the security operations of any airport or airline and offering assistance in the resolution of the concerns prompting those complaints. No complainant, airport or airline will be compelled to utilize such assistance, and the use of such assistance shall not be a prerequisite to any other civil or administrative action.

(4) Testing the security at airports within the United States, in any reasonable manner that does not involve direct interaction with passengers or crew. Testing procedures that may result in indirect impacts on passengers or crew, by causing delays if security screening identifies the testing personnel as a threat to airport or airline security, are permitted.

(5) Publicizing the results of the testing described in subsection (e)(5) of this statute. A summary of any such result must be published on the TSA website within seven (7) calendar days of its completion, unless the TSA obtains a court order stating that publication of such a summary would compromise national security or airport or airline security. Any such order must limit the withheld material to the smallest amount consistent with the basis of the order.

---------

How's that sound?

Global Warming, Skepticism, and the Liberal Mindset

2010-10-22T16:37:00.002-04:00

I was recently part of a sadly predictable exchange in the comments of a friend's Facebook. She had posted a link to a New York Times article titled, "Climate Change Doubt is Tea Party Article of Faith." I found this phrasing ironic, since it is my experience that many liberals treat anthropogenic and dangerous global warming (AGW) as an important tenet in an environmentalist religion. (What distinguishes political faith is that the believers don't acknowledge that they rely on faith rather than proof. There are, of course, religious people who do feel the need for supporting argument, or at least are adept at producing it -- e.g. C.S. Lewis, a great Christian apologist -- but a great many believe in faith without proof as a virtue or a religious necessity.)

The New York Times article gave short shrift to the disagreement in the scientific community about the extent, causes and dangers of global warming. I ventured to say as much. It wasn't long before another commenter asked me if I had been "following the 'scientific debates' over evolution and whether or not the earth revolves around the sun, too?" (I would link to this and the following exchanges, so that readers could check context, but I don't believe it's feasible or permissible to link to Facebook posts.)

I got a bit testy, and suggested he "look in the mirror and see the elitist snobbery that keeps you from recognizing the intelligence and humanity of those who disagree with you." He replied, "I guess if I'm adamant in my deeply-held beliefs that the sky is blue, the grass is green and 2+2=4 then that's arrogant, elitist snobbery." Apparently the extremely complex and multidisciplinary subject of global climate change may be equated with the simplest of arithmetic. It speaks volumes about this mindset that its adherents can imply such an equation and feel smugly intellectual while doing so.

Below are a number of links demonstrating the ongoing scientific debate about global climate change, as well as the developing cracks in the AGW edifice. I'll preface them with a summary by my husband, the Hoosier Gadfly, a computer scientist with deep and broad knowledge in many scientific and technical areas. (He doesn't typically use all-cap words, but he's kind of exasperated where AGW is concerned.)

------------------

Here is what SCIENCE really says about anthropogenic CO2:

(1) Satellites possess the only instrumentation sensitive and accurate enough to show a measurable CO2 effect on temperature today.
(2) Those temperatures are LESS than the predicted (from 1895 by Svante Arrhenius and still used up until the late 1980's) 1.1 C (2 F) [degrees] from doubling CO2 (we are only about halfway to the doubling).
(3) The IPCC and alarmists claim 4 and 5 degree C from a doubling based upon their models -- models such as the one developed by CRU [see links for info re the limitations of computer modeling, problems with CRU's software, etc.].
(4) The relationship of CO2 to temperature is NOT linear, it is logarithmic, which means that with around 1/2 of the CO2 increase having occurred, MOST of the effect should have already occurred. In other words, the satellites should be showing much, much higher temperatures [if the IPCC-etc. predictions are correct].
(5) There is evidence of a variety of NEGATIVE feedbacks that explain the satellite data. The IPCC, etc., posit only POSITIVE feedbacks and the data do not support that.
(6) I suppose I should throw in that ice core data that [in the early '80's] I said was "dispositive" of the CO2-temperature connection, upon further analysis showed that CO2 concentration LAGGED temperature changes by 800 to 1000 years. Causes do not follow events.

So, the fact is that, although there is no disagreement concerning [some] CO2 effect on temperature, the skeptical position is that the other side has not only exaggerated the effect way beyond what the data support, the other side has in some cases engaged in scientific fraud to make their case. (I should note that I never assumed actual fraud prior to "Climategate" - I attributed everything to bureacratic groupthink and cognitive dissonance. Scientific fraud on the scale I've seen [in "Climategate" and related events] has been a profoundly disillusioning experience for me.)

-------------

Thanks, hon!

Here are the promised links:

100 Scientists' Letter to the United Nations on Global Warming, December 13, 2007

Letter of Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, October 6, 2010, resigning from the American Physical Society

U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Minority Staff Report, updated 2009 (supported by more than 700 identified scientists)

"Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society," Freeman Dyson, August 8, 2007

International Climate Science Coalition website (check, among other links, the "Who We Are" link, including the advisory boards, and "Climate Change 101")

"Empirical Evidence for a Celestial Origin of the Climate Oscillations and its Implications," Nicola Scafetta, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2010

Czech President Vaclav Klaus' inaugural Global Warming Policy Foundation lecture, October 21, 2010 (hot off the presses!)

Links to research articles by Dr. Roy Spencer, climatologist, author and former NASA scientist

Middleburg Community Network primer on global warming titled "Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?" -- long, very detailed exploration of AGW claims, with an informal, irreverent tone combined with an enormous amount of information

Re "Climategate":

--"Open science and Climategate: the IPCC/CRU needs to take a leaf out of CERN's Book," Gary Richmond at Free Software Magazine, December 16, 2009

--"Climategate Computer Codes are the Real Story," Charlie Martin, Pajamas Media, November 24, 2009

--"Climate Change Data Dumped," Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor, Sunday Times, November 29, 2009

--"Climategate Stunner: NASA Heads Knew NASA Data was Poor, Then Used Data from CRU," Charlie Martin, Pajamas Media, March 10, 2010

--"Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995," Jonathan Petre, Mail Online, February 14, 2010

Another shot in the foot

2010-10-16T15:13:00.002-04:00

The Obama administration is pretty hard on feet these days -- either putting them in mouths or just shooting them. Latest example: AG Holder's declaration that the feds will "vigorously" enforce federal laws against marijuana possession and use, even if California legalizes same.

Let's see, now. What big state has hard-fought races for Senator and Governor, this election cycle?

And how important will GOTV be for the parties in those races?

And what issue might bring otherwise-apolitical, but Democrat-leaning, voters to the polls?

Just how much sense does it make to discourage those potential voters by claiming that even if they show up to vote for pot legalization, it won't make as much difference as they're hoping?

Sheesh.

Those Pesky Quotations

2010-09-06T22:58:00.001-04:00

Mark Twain apparently said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain't so." But if I were going to put that quotation on the White House rug, I'd verify it first....

Leaving the parents

2010-09-03T15:42:00.005-04:00

My oldest daughter is heading for college in a few days. I'll be driving her there -- well, we'll be taking turns at the wheel, switching back and forth between her and my "road trip" playlists. A couple of days later, I'll be driving back alone.

I remember being on the other side. I remember coming home on college vacations, talking a mile a minute to my mother in the kitchen, still feeling pretty much at home. I remember later visits, and the gradual shift in my relationship with my parents. I remember realizing that what had been effortless and natural was, at times, more awkward and uncertain. I remember realizing that when I needed comforting, my mother wasn't always the one who could.

All of which makes the coming transition somewhat terrifying.

Before having children, I was not especially comfortable with children -- especially small children and babies. My first child's birth -- or more precisely, the period from her birth to a few weeks afterward -- transformed me in a fundamental way. In becoming a mother, I became a very different being. I have other interests, and in a modest way other goals, unrelated to my role as parent -- but they are secondary.

I'm pining in advance for the particular things I'll be losing -- my daughter's daily presence, the knowledge that if she isn't around the house now, she will be in a few hours; our quick and cautious hugs. Thanks to Live Journal and Twitter, I'll still get to enjoy her quirky creativity and sense of humor on a maybe-daily basis, but diluted by the absence of tone of voice, gesture, body language. But the feeling of impending loss goes beyond that, in some way I haven't put my finger on.

I have a different perspective now on what it's like for my parents, making do with frequent phone calls and very infrequent cross-country visits. And it could be, and for many has been, so much more drastic a deprivation. This country of immigrants was founded on the grief of parents left behind. I can hardly conceive of how many parents had to say such a final and thorough goodbye. I cannot imagine what it was like to go on with life after such an amputation.

I will have, I hope, a better chance now of remembering to cherish my younger daughter's remaining time at home, despite all the sound and fury, the angst, the turmoil of the high school years. I wish she didn't have to bear her own loss, the loss of her sister's presence and everyday support, the vacuum Liana will leave behind.

And now, time to start packing. Time for roadside breakfasts, motels, hotels, confusion, orientation, disorientation. Time to get my daughter launched on her way. I'll be the one wearing waterproof mascara.

First, and One Hopes, the Last

2010-07-05T12:08:00.002-04:00

I was musing about our current president the other night. I wondered how many other people had thought of him as an example of the "Peter Principle": ""In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." Turns out many people have (google it), although the heap he's atop of isn't exactly the type of hierarchy Dr. Peter was talking about. My husband suggests that Obama exemplified the Peter Principle back when he was a law professor. Could be.

More seriously, it occurred to me that Obama is the first president we've managed to elect who is more or less hostile towards this country. I can't think of another who had anything like his mixture of anger, contempt and embarrassment about being an American and representing the United States before the world.

Obama's presidency has been a wake-up call and learning experience for a great many people, in various respects. I hope that includes making damned sure, in the future, that a president at least likes his country, and possibly even loves it and shows the world that s/he is proud of it, imperfections notwithstanding.

(One of Spider Robinson's characters, Russell Walker, with whom I don't entirely agree on matters political, said something I rather like: "[I]t must be admitted that so far, the United States of America has the most magnificent set of ideals any nation ever failed to live up to." That is the minimum we should expect of a president where admiration of this country is concerned.)

What the Supreme Court is Waiting For

2010-06-29T19:00:00.004-04:00

I've taken a first quick look at how the McDonald opinions deal with the Privileges and Immunities Clause. As has been widely reported, only Justice Thomas was ready to revive the PIC and use it to incorporate the 2nd Amendment, while Justice Alito's opinion (joined by three other Justices on this point) "decline[d] to disturb" the current minimalist interpretation. However, the Alito opinion did quote and paraphrase some pretty strong statements about the scholarly consensus opposing that interpretation.

Alito et al.'s refusal to reopen the debate on the PIC seems to be based on two factors:
--The many decades of "substantive due process" precedent offer a usable framework; and
--Neither the petitioners in McDonald nor the scholars who have pointed out the flaws in the minimalist interpretation have provided a coherent explanation of how far the PIC would reach.

Justice Thomas describes the substantive due process approach as "rest[ing] on such tenuous footing" that he cannot endorse it. I suspect he would have more company in this view if it were not for the undefined scope of the PIC. Should some future litigant (or amicus curiae) come forward with an intelligible and historically supported definition of what the PIC should cover, we might see some interest from Justice Alito and/or from one or more of the Justices who joined his opinion.

The problem is related to the problem of how to interpret -- and, some hope, resuscitate -- the 9th Amendment. If the PIC covers more than the first eight amendments to the Constitution, it arguably covers the same rights that are protected from federal infringement by the 9th Amendment.

How to Stump a RNC Fundraising Caller

2010-06-21T16:01:00.003-04:00

Just got a call from someone raising money for the Republican National Committee. I told him we were not giving money to the RNC at this time, but rather, were assessing and supporting individual candidates. He asked why; I said it was partly some of the candidates the RNC had supported, and partly an overall impression that the Republican national leadership had less spine than our preferred candidates. He replied, "Well, I'll accept that criticism -- but keep in mind that these conservative candidates absolutely depend on the RNC for various crucial support systems like polling, ..."

(Approximate dialogue:)
KAW: "As soon as the candidates ask us to send our money to the RNC instead of to them directly, we'll certainly heed that request."
RNC: "Whoa, good comeback! Did you write that down? Were you thinking about that ahead of time?"
KAW: "No. I'm a lawyer -- we're supposed to have good comebacks."
RNC: "Good one! I'll have to think about how to answer that one!"
KAW: "OK, why don't you do that on the way to calling the next name on your list."
RNC: "You're bad, Mrs. Wyle!"

(Very satisfying.)

Now There's a Title

2010-06-15T16:41:00.002-04:00

A book I may have to read:

Whiny Little Bitch: The Excuse-Filled Presidency of Barack Obama....

The Hell He Will

2010-06-15T08:59:00.002-04:00

The headline: "Obama Begins 'Lifestyle Health Modification' Program, Mandating Behavioural Changes Within US Society"

I need a less vulgar and far more emphatic way of saying, "Up yours." Any suggestions?

Obvious and Less Obvious Remedies

2010-05-05T07:10:00.003-04:00

Well, Dan Coats, former Senator, Republican establishment pick, won the Indiana Republican primary for Bayh's former seat. No surprise there, with four more conservative opponents in the race splitting the vote, three of them relatively fresh faces.

Coats won by slightly more than the combined vote totals of the two last-place finishers. In hindsight, it appears that the only way any of the challengers could have won was for all of them to get together and decide who should continue. I can see why neither Hostettler nor Stutzman wanted to make that move, but for weeks now, Behning and Bates must have known they had no chance whatsoever -- zero, nada, zilch -- of getting the nomination. Why didn't either of them withdraw and throw support to one of the stronger candidates? They couldn't know that would be insufficient -- and who knows, such a move by both of them might have changed the dynamics of the race enough that it would have sufficed.

Meanwhile, there's a relatively simple solution to this perennial problem. In multi-candidate races, the way to avoid splitting of the vote is a voting system that allows voters to choose more than one candidate. By far the simplest such system to understand and to implement is approval voting. In approval voting, each voter votes for as many candidates as s/he finds acceptable, and the one with the highest vote total wins. Voters who wanted a candidate with no Congressional experience could have voted for Bates, Behning and Stutzman; voters who wanted a strong candidate with small-government credibility could have voted for Stutzman and Hostettler. In two other Indiana races, State House District 60 and U.S. Congressional District 9, better-known politicos lost to relative newcomers (although in the latter, another split-vote situation almost gave former Congressman Mike Sodrel the victory). With approval voting, Coats might have gone down as well.

Sorta Like a Published Author

2010-05-01T11:21:00.002-04:00

Well, one of my picture book manuscripts made the first cut at smories.com, a site that has children reading picture book MSS aloud. Follow this link to hear it:

http://www.smories.com/watch/where_do_fireflies_sleep/

Still learning after 20 years

2010-03-31T12:47:00.000-04:00

My husband and I have been married for over 20 years. For all that time, we’ve shared a king-sized bed.

I’m someone who typically gets up at least during the aptly-named wee hours of the night. Frequently, when I climb back into bed, I encounter a knee, elbow and/or shoulder. My husband has, in that brief interval, shifted over toward my side of the bed.

For over 20 years, I have grumbled (mildly) about this apparent bed-hogging behavior. It’s a king-sized bed! Why does he need to take over even more space?

A few weeks ago, as a result of a conversation I don’t remember in detail, it dawned on me: that wasn’t what was happening.

When I get out of bed, and he half-rouses from sleep, he senses something missing. He’s been checking to see if I’m still there.

For over 20 years, he’s been reaching out for me.

I’ve stopped grumbling.

One more on health care

2010-03-12T12:16:00.001-05:00

Well, it appears we aren't done with Obamacare, so here's one more letter I sent (to the allegedly-Blue-Dog Democrats):

-------

Please vote Nay on, and actively oppose, the Senate-passed version of Obamacare and any procedural vote related to Obamacare.

Both the House and Senate bills would greatly expand government involvement in health care and impose an unconstitutional mandate on individuals to buy government-defined health insurance packages, while (if honestly examined) greatly expanding future federal deficits. Both are full of little-known booby traps, such as a marriage penalty for many low and middle income couples. The Senate bill, however, adds some particularly loathsome touches -- blatant vote-buying provisions including the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback. It would also saddle the states with massive new unfunded mandates.

There is every reason to expect that if the House passes the Senate bill, the President will sign it. There is no reason to assume that the reconciliation process will be used, or lawfully can be used, to correct any significant portion of what is wrong with this bill.

Public opposition to this approach to health care reform is unyielding and increasing. It is outpaced only by public revulsion for the strong-arm tactics that have been used, and even more for those being contemplated. Any Democrat whose legislative agenda does not begin and end with Obamacare must realize that if this bill is passed, the Republicans are likely to take the House, and to greatly reduce (at least) the Democratic majority in the Senate. Is it worth it? Is it worth the likelihood of losing your own Congressional seat? Are you a Congressional Representative or a lemming?

Please bring this sorry episode to an end, and facilitate a new and better-considered approach to health care reform.

Sincerely,

Karen A. Wyle

Let's have a party, we'll all dance the hora

2010-03-12T12:15:00.002-05:00

I should have done it long ago. I am a neglectful Jewish parent. But finally, yesterday, I taught my younger daughter to dance the hora.

Turned out my older daughter didn't know it either. We demonstrated it. More formal instruction will follow.

Curt Schilling's defamation action

2010-01-16T11:01:00.002-05:00

Well, the inimitable gaffe-mistress Martha Coakley has done it again. After ridiculing her opponent, Scott Brown, for "standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?", she has now called famed Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling a Yankee fan.

Schilling may have a cause of action here. It is slander per se (no need to prove damages) to make false allegations injurious to another in their trade, business, or profession. Schilling has retired, but if he makes money from speaking tours, promotional items, etc., that income would surely suffer if people believed he was a secret Yankees fan. The only question is whether anyone (besides Martha Coakley) would be foolish enough to believe it.

No F-ing Way

2009-12-27T22:59:00.003-05:00

Oh, come on, now.

In addition to double searches of carry-on luggage and other random searches, we hear that for the last hour of a flight, passengers will be forbidden to hold anything in their laps -- blankets, books, notepads, and of course, laptops -- or to leave their seats. Let's examine this bright idea.

How many businesspeople will decide that a day at the office plus a video conference is more productive than spending maybe three or four hours in security, and then sitting on a plane unable to work? (Gee, didn't the airlines just spend money on making wireless Internet available on planes? Too bad.) How many trips to see family or go on vacation will be switched to cars, trains and buses? (I'm due to go to Chicago in January, and if this policy is in place, you can bet I won't fly there.) But that isn't the best part.

Picture a plane with 15 or 20 young children on board. For the last hour of the flight, none of those children may play with toy cars or Barbies or handheld games; hold their blankets, lambies or teddy bears; look at a picture book; color with crayons; curl up with a pillow; or go to the bathroom.

How long will it take until a flight attendant commits seppuku? or assaults a TSA official?

Senator Bayh and the Washington Post

2009-12-14T20:29:00.002-05:00

The Washington Post opines that Senator Evan Bayh's recent record of "crossing the aisle" and breaking away from the Democratic lockstep "virtually ensures he will not be a serious candidate for national office." I'm not so sure. Yes, many Democratic primary voters will want someone with a purer devotion, but others will be worried enough at the party's sinking popularity that they'll hold their noses and vote for a centrist.

Here's the message I sent Sen. Bayh earlier today:

--------

Dear Senator Bayh:

A Washington Post article today suggested that your relative "conservatism" and tendency to "cross the aisle" must mean that you were abandoning any Presidential aspirations. Well, that's the Washington Post for you.... I am quite skeptical about the notion that political moderation, and refusal to go along with ill-conceived and damaging legislation like "cap and trade", would disqualify a senator from nationwide recognition and support.

Whatever your plans for the future, here's one Hoosier and American applauding the independence you have sometimes shown, and urging you to go further in the same direction. Please assess, soberly and apart from partisan considerations, whether the current health care bill is well-conceived, thoroughly thought out, inclusive of all sensible reforms, and devoid of serious unintended consequences. If you cannot answer a decisive "Yes!" to all these questions, please stand up and vote against ending debate on the health care bill. If you do, I for one will hope to see you prove the Washington Post wrong.

Sincerely,
Karen A. Wyle

still trying on health care

2009-12-08T11:14:00.002-05:00

Well, here's the latest missive into the whirling void:

Dear Senator Bayh:

Some of the latest tidbits from the healthcare debate should give any moderate senator or voter pause about the current enterprise. The proposed legislation would make disproportionate cuts in Medicare's home care coverage. This could be in a Proverb Dictionary under "penny-wise, pound-foolish". To somehow compensate, an amendment is passed to say that no "guaranteed" home care benefits will be cut -- a word with no reliable content. A new program, the "Class Act", is set up, with premiums due for years before benefits, but with expected payouts far exceeding benefits. So those who are losing home health care from the Medicare cuts can now pay out premiums for years before receiving anything, under a program that will founder in a few years from inadequate funding.
This muddled and destructive approach to one aspect of healthcare cannot reasonably be expected to be the exception to the bill's overall quality and impact. How can you support this ill-conceived political behemoth?
Do you really have more to fear politically from the Democratic leadership than from Hoosier voters, if this bill or anything like it becomes law? As a member of what is supposed to be the more sober and deliberative legislative body, don't you owe it to your consituents and the country to call, "Whoa!" and give a more considered, less politicized process a chance?
Please!

Not just a pig

2009-11-01T14:49:00.001-05:00

From my latest message to my Congressman, Baron Hill:

"The House’s health care bill: 1,990 pages, much of it in impenetrable legislative jargon. This isn’t just a pig in a poke – it’s a manure lagoon."

In other news, making Biden look good

2009-10-23T11:01:00.002-04:00

Whodathunkit: in the context of the ineptness of the Obama administration -- junking the planned Eastern European missile installations, without prior notice to Poland, on the anniversary of the Soviet's invasion of that country -- Vice President Biden looks like a skilled statesman.

Still trying on health care "reform"

2009-10-23T10:59:00.003-04:00

Since Senator Evan Bayh is one of my senators, I keep sending him messages about Obamacare and its siblings. I dunno how often is too often -- I hope my emails aren't being automatically roundfiled. Anyhow, here's the latest. The subject line was "impact of medical device tax -- another unintended consequence".

----

One of Bloomington, IN’s premier companies, Cook Medical, would take a serious financial hit from the proposed health care “reform” legislation. The 4% tax on medical devices would threaten a company that provides your constituents not only with thousands of good jobs, but with the pride of hosting a company whose products improve medical care worldwide. Other medical device companies face similar damage. There’s an irony – health care “reform” that undermines health-enhancing technology. This is just one of the unintended consequences that would flow from ill-considered, patched-together, politically driven legislation.

You are in a position to hit the brakes. Please do so, for the good of your constituents and your country. Give us a chance to accomplish real health care reform with the appropriate care, thoroughness, and bipartisan creativity.

A Pig in a Poke -- free meme....

2009-10-05T12:46:00.003-04:00

Well, I just made my first Facebook Flair, and there it is. I'm going to do my feeble best to get this meme out there in the blogosphere....

If I can get my talented artist daughter to do a cartoon, I'll focus in particular on what a Conference Committee would turn out.

Although "Frankenstein" would be as good a label as "pig in a poke" for what would probably result....

Meanwhile, at the UN - a Contrast in Leadership

2009-09-25T13:34:00.002-04:00

I do NOT wish I lived in Israel, but boy howdy, I'm up for a leadership exchange program.

Israel's Netanyahu gives a speech worthy of Churchill. It starts out focusing on Iranian Holocaust denial, and gets broader in scope as it goes along. It's an exhilarating defense of science and innovation, of freedom, of human potential.

Meanwhile, our very own President seasons his generality soup with a sprinkle of self-importance and a soupcon of stale apologies. Not to mention that he's all excited about closing Pandora's box -- whoops, I meant eliminating all nuclear weapons from the planet (I guess everyone will forget how to make them). Oh, and to prevent bad guys from getting hold of fissile material, he wants to have an "internationally supervised" nuclear fuel bank. Which would hold low-enriched nuclear fuel, which is easy to process into weapons-grade material. Russia and Kazakhstan have offered to host it. What could possibly go wrong?

OY VEY.

Constituents of Gang of 6 -- Beware the Conference Committee

2009-09-15T14:49:00.002-04:00

The constituents of the Senate Finance Committee's "Gang of 6" may be our only hope for stopping Obamacare. Whatever careful compromise the 6 think they've worked out, they will have no control over the last-minute deals made in the Conference Committee, and there will be enormous pressure on both houses to pass whatever Frankenstein that committee patches together and lets loose. The Gang's constituents need to bombard them with the message that they most hold the pass. (It might be better to come up with better-matching metaphors than I'm offering....)

Life's little ironies

2009-09-15T12:17:00.003-04:00

(As opposed to the big irony about which I posted yesterday.)

I've been dieting and losing weight. I look slimmer, especially in pants, but what I didn't expect is that most of my skirts are riding lower and therefore look longer. Which makes me look shorter. Slimmer but shorter.

Since I mainly wear skirts in warm weather, and fall and winter approach, I'm OK with the tradeoff, for now.

Two cautionary tales

2009-09-15T06:11:00.003-04:00

Yesterday my husband embarked upon life as a civil servant. (He will be aiding the national defense -- so he will be among perhaps a minority of civil servants who are performing functions authorized by the Constitution.) He immediately encountered two distinct instances of the federal bureaucracy fouling things up, in a way we may ponder as we contemplate a greater federal role in American health care and/or business.

As part of "in-processing", he took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. This was his first opportunity to do so, and he was proud and moved to make such a declaration. He was discomfited to discover that the form given him to sign, while properly allowing him to "swear (or affirm)", included the language "so help me God". He asked the lady in charge whether he could cross out the religious language and was told, "No, you can't change anything on a federal form." The form by which he was to declare his allegiance to the Constitution violated the Constitution.

He was troubled enough to do some research when he had the chance. As it turned out, a previous version of the form specified that, should the "appointee" choose to affirm, the words "swear" and "so help me God" should be stricken out. The fine print on the current form is less specific, and was perhaps intended to be less restrictive: "Note - If the appointee objects to the form of the oath on religious grounds, certain modifications may be permitted pursuant to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Please contact your agency's legal counsel for advice." The bureaucrat in charge of the procedure was unaware of this language, and her statement directly contradicted it. Even had she made some attempt to comply with it, the form gave her little guidance and no convenient way to obtain any.

Our next surprise concerned health insurance. My husband and I had both grown up hearing that federal employment offers particularly good benefits. This may be, but it turns out he is not yet covered by his new insurance. In fact, he -- and the rest of the family -- won't be covered for more than two weeks. None of his previous employers -- government contractors -- have left him out in the cold this long. This instance of federal management of health care has not inspired us to optimism where Obamacare is concerned.

One big crowd

2009-09-14T07:11:00.002-04:00

So we have estimates from 60,000 to 2 million Tea Party protesters in D.C. on September 12, 2009. A time-lapse aerial view from 8 to 11:30 a.m., while not great quality, shows a Whole Lot of People -- and that's at a time when many were in very long lines for subway tokens and the like. I'm no expert, but I would bet a fair amount of money, which we are not flush with right now, that the crowd was well into the six figures. Over 200,000 would be my conservative guess, and over 300,000 would be my if-I-were-taking-a-flyer guess.

Still at it -- more emails to Congress

2009-09-12T15:41:00.003-04:00

Here's my latest, sent to my senators and to the members of the Senate Finance Committee:

------

Dear Senator:

I am disturbed about some features of the emerging possible compromise on health care legislation. I read that this compromise is likely to include mandatory insurance for individuals, as well as requirements that insurance companies cover those who are already known to need continual expensive care.

There is something fundamentally un-American – not to mention unconstitutional – about the federal government telling people that they must purchase an expensive product for their own use that they do not believe they need. The comparison to auto insurance misses the mark, as that requirement is: (1) a feature of state, not federal law; (2) confined to those who choose to drive; and (3) mainly designed to ensure that the driver can pay for injuries or property damage his driving inflicts on others.

As for requiring insurers to cover all pre-existing conditions, this further distorts the already strained meaning of “insurance”. Insurance is a form of hedging one’s bets, protecting against unlikely events (e.g. fire, accident). Where known medical conditions will require extensive future medical care, “insurance” is a misnomer. Placing the costs of such care on insurers is a kind of tax, which will be passed on to all the insurers’ customers in the form of higher premiums. Such higher premiums are one of several reasons that people currently satisfied with their insurance cannot count on their employers’ retaining such insurance.

The question of how to help Americans pay for chronic health conditions is a difficult one, and we need a great deal more brainstorming on the subject. Greatly expanding the federal bureaucracy, either expanding or imitating existing bureaucracies that are financially imperiled and administratively lackluster, cannot be the best answer available.

There are good ideas already out there for addressing many other aspects of health care. By letting Americans use pre-tax dollars to pay for both health care and health insurance, we can disconnect health care from employment and let people be cost-conscious health care consumers. Health insurance could then fill its more appropriate role, instead of being used for predictable everyday health care. Allowing insurance companies to compete nationwide would greatly reduce cost and expand choice.

Please do not allow the push for a bipartisan solution [replaced in some emails with: the demands of party leaders] to obscure the merits of the issue.

Sincerely,

Karen A. Wyle

UPDATE: Holy cow! My readership just jumped substantially. Hello and welcome, new folks! Please feel free to comment.

If we have 4 years to play with....

2009-09-10T12:14:00.000-04:00

My email to my senators:

Dear Senator Bayh/Lugar:

In his speech to Congress last night, Pres. Obama said his plan would go into effect in four years, so that we'd have time to get it right. Conveniently, that gives him time to get re-elected before the actual effects of his plan become evident.
If we have that much time, how about starting over and getting the right bill? How about letting individuals use pre-tax dollars to buy health care and/or health insurance, and letting insurers compete nationwide? How about examining some of the interesting proposals various economists and other experts have been floating?
Please don't let yourself be stampeded into supporting a flawed bill that, according to the President himself, doesn't need to go into effect any time soon.

Karen A. Wyle

Who gave you that microphone, Congressman?

2009-09-02T22:35:00.003-04:00

Well, I attended the town hall meeting that my congressman, Baron Hill, finally decided to hold. It was informative -- I'd imagined that he might still be on the fence, or even inclined to live up to his Blue Dog label, but he'd clearly decided to support the Democratic leadership's approach, complete with public option if he can get it.

Hill tried to be fair about the way he ran the meeting, sometimes affirmatively looking for people who opposed his views and wanted to speak. I was, however, disturbed by one of his ground rules: no audio or video recordings except by "accredited news agencies". He was asked twice why he would not let audience members record the proceedings. I don't think he answered the first time, but the second time he replied, "This is MY town hall and I set the rules." That got an angry reaction, and he defiantly repeated that this was "MY town hall." (He also explained that he didn't want recordings showing up on YouTube, which was at least honest.)

So what does that mean, "MY town hall"? He was the one who deigned to hold a meeting. He's the one who is (for now at least) in Congress. But he's there as our employee and representative. We put him there. If we call on him to meet with us on how he's doing his job, is it really "his" meeting? or is it more like his performance review?

An open letter to my Senators

2009-08-30T10:20:00.002-04:00

Here's what I just sent Senators Lugar and Bayh:

-----

Dear Senator Lugar/Bayh:

I know that you and your colleagues respected Senator Kennedy’s passion and dedication. I can understand that many of you may identify with a senator who desperately wanted to remain on the battlefield during a crucial fight and was unable to do so. I know you will be urged to honor his memory by ensuring that his removal from the scene does not defeat the cause about which he cared so deeply.

Senator, the issue of American health care’s future is too important to be decided on such grounds. Senator Kennedy’s vision of government-dominated, government-administered health care is wrong for this country. Polls show that most Americans agree with that assessment. Legislators across the country have been confronted with the fear and anger their constituents feel at the possibility of their choices being curtailed and their health care overtaken by a wave of bureaucratic interference.

The challenge of the day is to address the flaws of our generally enviable system without undermining what we are doing so right. There are ideas floating around that meet that test. They include:

--Disconnecting normal health care from insurance. Insurance is for the big bad things that we hope won’t happen – fire, flood, catastrophic illness. It isn’t an appropriate vehicle for dealing with ordinary and predictable expenses. Using insurance for normal health care also prevents people from being intelligent consumers of health care, because they are insulated from its actual costs. We can let people put some of their income, untaxed, into health savings accounts, and spend that money on health care, so health insurance can play the more limited role that’s appropriate to it.

--Disconnecting health insurance from employment. If health insurance has a smaller job to do – covering catastrophic health events – it becomes more affordable. When it’s more affordable, more people can afford it, themselves, rather than getting it as an employment benefit. If we open up insurance to nationwide competition, the costs should go down further.

--Tort reform. We shouldn’t eliminate malpractice litigation, but some limits are necessary. Huge judgments and correspondingly high malpractice insurance premiums translate into higher costs for medical care.

While you honor the colleague you have lost, please maintain your focus on those Americans who remain with us, and who will be deeply affected in the future by the decisions you make today.

Sincerely,

Karen A. Wyle

Anniversary cards

2009-08-14T21:29:00.004-04:00

I went looking for a couple of anniversary cards earlier this week (to give my folks for their 60-something'th, and my husband for our 20th). I found abundant birthday cards in every possible variation and specification. I found Congratulations, Thank You, Thinking of You, Friendship, and Carpool Lines. I finally found a very few anniversary cards, providing very little choice in style or sentiment.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Fewer people married for fewer years, with years passing before any remarriage, means fewer anniversaries. I also suspect that people are less likely to send anniversary cards for friends and family who are on their second or subsequent marriage. I would guess also that divorced people, so numerous in this era, don't get much pleasure out of sending anniversary cards: "Congratulations on staying married when I couldn't!"

In the end, I bought a blank card for my husband, with a photo of a boy and girl dressed in wedding garments (she was kissing him). And I used one of my own photos, a couple in silhouette walking on a beach, for a card to my folks. I wonder how many people make do in a similar manner, and how many drop the idea of sending a card -- shrinking the market further.

...and more about toilets

2009-08-08T16:07:00.002-04:00

Re my earlier post about automatic toilets: I could be wrong, but it seems to me that in bathrooms with manual flush toilets, there are more unflushed toilets than there used to be. (I'm not talking about deliberately clogged ones.)

My guess: people have gotten used to automatic toilets doing their flushing for them, even though it doesn't always work. They've started to assume that all toilets are automatic, without checking. They no longer view flushing as their responsibility.

Again, an example and a symbol of larger trends.

Has anyone written this book?...

2009-07-26T15:38:00.004-04:00

If someone provided me with a good researcher, I might undertake to write a book called something like "A Nation of Cowards: Raising Our Children in Fear". It would compare how Americans addressed risk fifty years ago with how we do it today. Of course, research might find some exceptions to the rule -- were we more germ-phobic in the late 1950's than we are today? On the whole, though, I expect one could document that my now-middle-aged generation was expected to accept many more everyday risks without a second thought, and society as a whole was more prepared to undertake risky endeavors (e.g. going to the moon).

But maybe there are several books like this out there already. Names, anyone?

The automatic toilet as symbol

2009-07-26T15:33:00.002-04:00

The other day, I was in a mall bathroom with automatic toilets. Several had been left unflushed; the one I used was, as is common, both under- and over-sensitive, flushing before it should and not flushing when it needed to. It occurred to me that automatic toilets are both a symptom and a symbol of what ails this country (well, one important ailment).

Instead of assuming that people can take responsibility to the minimal extent of flushing away their own waste, we replace individual responsibility with a System. The System doesn't really do the job, failing at least as often (I'd guess more often) than the individuals did -- but its very existence leads people to assume that they no longer have to take any action. Thus the System's failures go uncorrected.

Grudging Benefit of the Doubt -- Obama and Iran - UPDATED

2009-06-17T12:50:00.004-04:00

Much as I'd like to join the chorus of those excoriating Obama for not unequivocally backing the Iranian protesters, I can't quite. Why give the mullahs a more credible opportunity to blame the unrest on outside agitators? If Obama actually had guts and a devotion to American-style democracy, wouldn't it be wise for him to walk pretty much the line he's walking?

UPDATE: OK, they're blaming us anyway, and Mousavi's spokesman didn't ask us to keep out of it. Time to man up, Pres-boy!

Where the Money Is

2009-02-27T11:11:00.004-05:00

I don't remember which bank robber said he robbed banks because "that's where the money is". A similar principle appears to guide Democratic tax policy: tax the heck out of rich people because that's where the money is.

Trouble is, the economy needs rich people and their money. We need rich people's money for investment, for new businesses, for expansion of existing businesses.

Obama says he won't wallop the rich folks with taxes until the economy recovers. But what makes him think that recovery can be sustained without them?

Or maybe he figures there'll be plenty of money left over, and that it'll still get spent where we need it. Better hope so.

It is utterly obvious that I'm no economist -- but I don't think I'm completely missing the boat here.

Chilly

2009-02-06T19:53:00.002-05:00

Thursday morning, it was minus 9 degrees Farenheit at 8 a.m., and the radio cheerfully commented that it was "really chilly".

This is one way I know I no longer live in Southern California.

We are now in that interlude when there is melted snow on top of unmelted ice. This is awkward.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

2008-12-03T14:02:00.003-05:00

I am relieved to see Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, for the same reasons I would have been happier to see her as Commander in Chief. The lady is tough, and is probably perceived as such by those who have little reason to assume the same of our President-Elect.

As my husband, the Hoosier Gadfly, said in an email to a friend: "[H]aving a gimlet-eyed sociopath to intimidate one's adversaries is a big asset. She really is something out of a Nietzchean nightmare - the abyss that gazes back at you." He is looking forward to seeing her effect on Putin.

I also suspect that Obama wants her handy for good cop/bad cop routines. "Respond favorably to my warm smile, or the next meeting will be with Medusa here...."

Unintended Consequences Dept. -- Rebuttal of Victim Impact Videos

2008-11-30T16:30:00.003-05:00

I've been reading about the U.S. Supreme Court's recent refusal to hear two challenges to victim impact videos, played for juries in the penalty phase of (usually) murder trials. It strikes me that this will, sooner or later, spawn an unforeseen and very messy response.

The relevance of such videos, presumably, is to show the jury what the family and the community have lost due to the defendant's actions. If I were a defense attorney in (especially) death penalty cases, I would consider it my duty to attempt some rebuttal of this evidence. Enter the private investigator, tasked with finding out whether (fictional example!) the young woman feeding the stray puppy in the video had had a neglected attack dog chained up behind her house, or had been spreading STD's, or was fired from a day care for molesting toddlers, or . . . .

I don't see how one can legally justify admitting the favorable video and excluding the nastier evidence. Of course, with some jurors, this approach could backfire big-time. It'd take a masterful defense attorney to pull it off.

McCain is a mensch; Obama, maybe not

2008-11-04T00:34:00.002-05:00

I wish it weren't so late, and I weren't so tired, and could find and link to all the right examples.

John McCain is one of the few people, of all those who've known and worked with former Senator Udall, who visits him regularly in the veteran's hospital.

Obama's impoverished relatives don't appear to have benefited much from his fame and fortune.

Flaws notwithstanding, my bet is that John McCain is a mensch. My jury's still out on Obama.

Has Palin caught Thompson-itis?

2008-09-18T16:19:00.002-04:00

I've been somewhat disturbed by the percentage of empty platitudes and generalities in Palin's recent interviews. I just realized what it reminds me of. Fred Thompson had his own, vigorous voice -- before he became a candidate. Then, suddenly, it was all mail-in politician-speak. Is the same thing happening to Palin? Say it ain't so....

Housing vs. Travel Per Diem

2008-09-10T14:50:00.002-04:00

The Washington Post finally scored a point or two against Gov. Palin with its per diem story. It appears plenty of people now believe that Palin charged the state for hotel-type expenses while staying in her home in Wasila (and commuting to Anchorage or Juneau).

WaPo sure didn't try to make clear that Palin didn't take a housing per diem for this time -- just the travel-expenses portion of the per diem. The expense reports show this -- the portion for hotel/housing expense is left blank.

One could get into an interesting discussion about whether it cost the state more for her to commute from Wasila or to stay at the mansion in Juneau, plus what she gained in effectiveness by staying in Wasila -- plus how much latitude a mother in a high-profile position should have to make things easier for herself and her family, while overall spending a lot less than her predecessor. That discussion won't happen while most of those not obsessed with politics have the impression that she sought hotel-type expenses for living at home. The latter would seriously undercut her “reformer” credentials -- the truth, perhaps not so much.

Gov. Palin's experience

2008-08-29T15:44:00.002-04:00

I thought of it first, I bleat.... One of Instapundit's readers notes Alaska's proximity to the former USSR and calls it "two years of foreign policy experience". I've been talking about this since my husband and I started tossing Gov. Palin's name around. Any governor of Alaska who's good at her job would keep a close eye on what's happening in Russia and surrounding countries -- and Palin is reportedly good at her job. A related point (not yet scooped...) -- a competent governor of a state to whom oil is so important would keep up with what's happening in oil-producing states -- which would entail a fair amount of awareness of developments re Islamic extremism.

So Palin may add some real foreign policy expertise (if not exactly "experience") to her executive experience, toughness, reformer credentials, etc.

It Just Don't Look Right

2008-08-27T19:39:00.000-04:00

I watched the Democratic Convention roll call, on and off. Since Hillary had released her delegates, the numbers were far more lopsided in Obama's favor than they would have been had they reflected the actual primary/caucus votes. Then, of course, Hillary moved for Obama's selection by acclamation.

I assume this was all negotiated and considered. I assume Obama and staff thought this would be a helpful way for things to go. But I have my doubts. Though I didn't support either candidate, I watched those accumulating numbers and felt that this drastic understatement of Hillary's real support was somehow disrespectful -- of her and of those who voted for her. It looked like a distortion and even, in some sense, a humiliation. Numbers like that belonged to a race between an overwhelming favorite and a pathetic also-ran with delusions of seriousness. If I were a Hillary supporter having trouble swallowing the current situation, those numbers would REALLY tick me off. And Hillary's being a team player, good sport, etc. would make me angrier, not more reconciled.

Mazel tov!

2008-07-07T19:04:00.003-04:00

A red-letter day, a personal and family triumph -- daughter Alissa tried and enjoyed a bagel with lox and cream cheese.

Alissa is quite fond of salmon, but had the notion that she didn't like lox, aka smoked salmon. (Feel free to enlighten me on when smoked salmon is and isn't technically lox.) I am not very picky about my lox, and she may have previously tried a worse-than-average sample of the cheap stuff with which I usually content myself. Paul, with craft and persuasion, managed to get her to try the expensive variety he likes. One small taste, and she admitted with only slight sheepishness that she liked it too. The two of them dined on toasted bagel, cream cheese and lox.

Paul was triumphant that one of his daughters, at least (the other is a vegetarian), would eat this Jewish staple henceforth. I find this somewhat endearing and amusing, given that he's a blond (now gray-blond) Texan ex-Methodist, Jewish by conversion only (via a particularly tolerant rabbi who somehow overlooked agnosticism verging on atheism).

I am also pleased. Tradi-tion!

McCain campaign needs to tell stories like this

2008-07-06T10:57:00.002-04:00

When voters get bored with hearing in general terms about McCain's captivity and fortitude in North Vietnam, they need to hear stories like this (from the Wall Street Journal via Powerline):

"[Colonel Bud Day, a Medal of Honor recipient and America's most highly decorated veteran, shared a cell for some time with McCain.] Day escaped his original detention in North Vietnam, but was recaptured. Upon recapture, the North Vietnamese conveyed a harsh message:
'When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."
'The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
'But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.' "

The Wall Street Journal article has other stories as well, including how Cindy McCain brought a dying orphan from Bangladesh to the U.S. for medical treatment and the McCains adopted her.

If the McCain campaign can't find a way to tell stories like these effectively, 527's had better get on the stick!

Su-per Senator passes laws solo!

2008-07-02T12:08:00.002-04:00

Not once, but twice! Both of Obama's general election ads have trumpted that he "passed laws" doing thus-and-so. As has been noted elsewhere, no one legislator can pass a law. But since Obama is supposed to be the harbinger of a new kind of politics, maybe Yes He Can....

(I also read an article somewhere claiming that he didn't end up supporting one or more of the laws on which his claims (in the first ad) were based -- but other articles, such as the post I just linked to, seem to disagree.)

Let Uncommitted be Uncommitted

2008-05-31T11:38:00.003-04:00

One thing should be easy about the overall-difficult issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates. At whatever strength the Michigan delegates are seated, the proportion derived from the vote for "uncommitted" should get to be -- gee -- uncommitted! That's what people voted for. Like superdelegates, the delegates in the uncommitted group could wait until the convention to announce their preferences, or could let people know (in a nonbinding way) ahead of time.

armchair sociology

2008-02-14T11:11:00.003-05:00

I had occasion to see some interesting social patterns in action a couple of weeks ago. (And if I were close to diligent about blogging, I'd have mentioned it then.)

Joshua Bell, world-famous classical violinist, hails from Bloomington, IN, and was gracious enough to give a free concert here last weekend, with a pianist friend of his, Jeremy Denk. Tickets were available as of 11 a.m. on a weekday morning. The line started forming around 8:40 a.m. (I know because an acquaintance of mine was first in line). I arrived around 10:40 a.m. and found a line of people waiting in the cold -- a line that looked surprisingly short, until I saw that most of it was inside the building. The line snaked back and forth through the lobby. The loops were crowded so close together that it was sometimes difficult to keep track of which was which, especially since people kept stepping across to chat with each other. And yet no one, so far as I could see, made any attempt to jump the queue. Nor was there any impatience evident, although those of us in my part of the line ended up waiting for two hours. The line etiquette/ethos may have been bolstered by the presence of auditorium staff, giving occasional updates and reassurances, discreetly keeping an eye on things. And of course, it was reasonably clear what we were supposed to do and where we were supposed to go.

On to the nearby parking garage -- and a very different scene. Cars converged from several directions on the narrow exit. The line of cars with the clearest shot did not, most of the time, take turns with those coming from the side. It took ingenuity and/or recklessness to get one's car out of a spot in the first place, and then to get the heck out. (I had to create a new lane of traffic -- yes, there was room -- in order to get out of my spot, and then play chicken with a driver in the favorably positioned lane.)

And of course, these were pretty much all the same people who'd been following the rules so nicely in the line at the auditorium.

One main difference was that there were rules apparent in the auditorium. Another was the presence of those who might enforce those rules. And finally, as my husband pointed out: people are different in cars.

Snow and the ebbing of the American spirit

2008-02-14T11:02:00.002-05:00

Apparently some of the local schools no longer let kids play in the snow at recess. I find that appalling enough. But what's really dispiriting is the collection of letters that were in the paper the other day. It appears that some 6th grade class was given the assignment of writing letters to the editor re whether they approved or disapproved of the no-play policy. (Here's the link, but I don't think it'll work for anyone who doesn't subscribe to the Bloomington Herald-Times.) Given how much the letters resembled each other, the kids may have had a list of pros and cons to choose from. What really makes me wonder where America went and how long it's been gone is that 9 out of 16 kids thought they should not be allowed to play in the snow at recess. Reasons:
--Kids could get wet and cold. (Example: "Just imagine every kid cold and wet from playing in the snow and how fast kids would get sick.") And they might not have snow gear.
--Kids could get hurt. Someone could put a rock in a snowball.
--Whatever will the teachers do with the wet outerwear?...

Risk is the only thing to consider. Any risk is too much. The way to handle the risk of inappropriate behavior is to ban all related activity. Any difficulty is too much to handle.

Is there ANY way to turn this around?!!??...

Woman, the tool-using animal

2008-02-14T10:59:00.002-05:00

We had ice raining down the other night, covering pretty much everything. (My daughter described this in, I think, quite amusing terms on her live journal.) One temporary casualty was the flag on our mail box: frozen in the down ("nothing here, guys!") position. So I took a screwdriver out there and chipped away the ice. Presto, functional mailbox flag!

It doesn't take much in the way of technical achievement to make me feel proud of myself....

Thompson Blogburst (notwithstanding...)

2008-01-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

Despite my reservations about Fred Thompson, noted earlier, I'd like to see him stay in the race, and I may prefer him to the rest of the pack. He is bright and can write. He does not steer by polls. Most important to me, he understands that we are in a real, hot war to preserve a number of things that make humanity a worthwhile accident-or-invention (that's for another post) -- like democracy, scientific method, freedom of conscience, secular thinking, treating women like human beings, treating human beings ditto.

Right Wing Nut House asks bloggers who support Thompson (I refuse to say "Fred") to ask their readers to cough up some money. In the event I have any readers, please consider it....

What Thompson's campaign says about his ability to reshape a bureaucracy

2008-01-04T23:47:00.000-05:00

Since Fred Thompson's campaign actually began, I've been quite disappointed in its feel and tone -- cookie cutter EveryPolitician stuff with no individual touch and no appearance of respecting the voter's intelligence. It occurred to me today that the campaign tastes and smells as if it's run by the campaign equivalent of bureaucrats. Which doesn't bode well for how a President Thompson would deal with the entrenched federal bureaucracy. Would he be able to shake it up at all, to reshape it, to exert much control over it? I'd like to think so, but I'm not too optimistic at present.

Some improvs

2008-01-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, younger daughter Alissa asked me to give her some improv acting assignments. Here are a few I came up with. Feel free to try these at home....

--Porcupine with an itchy rash
--Extreme fishing
--Game show host with a hangover
--Dracula at a job interview
--Boxer with a phobia about contact
--Underdog at the vet
--Realtor showing a haunted house
--Infomercial for hemorrhoid cream
--Time traveller in ancient Athens looking for the bathroom
--The Queen in Snow White shopping for a new mirror

Does Fred Thompson want my money?

2008-01-01T17:36:00.000-05:00

I was excited about Fred Thompson for a while, before he actually got in the race, because I liked his blog posts -- both their content (usually) and their style. I was not thrilled with the style of his campaign -- recycled politician-pap for the most part -- but I am still inclined to prefer him over the other major candidates, so I decided to pony up a bit of money. I tried to contribute $15.00 -- the same amount I've recently sent to ACLU Indiana and to St. Jude's -- to his campaign. However, when I entered that amount at the Donate link on his campaign website, I got a little message in red saying the amount was "inappropriate".

And how inappropriate is it to diss a would-be contributor? (Is that how to spell "diss"?)

I've sent an email, also through the website, asking whether they really don't want my money. I'll update with any response I get.

The Catch-All Amendment

2007-11-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

A while back (it takes an idea a while to make it here), as I was dealing with some statute or other, it occurred to me how often statutes listing factors for trial courts to consider end the list with some sort of catch-all. Such a provision typically authorizes the judge to consider "all other relevant factors" or something of the sort. Viewed in this context, the Ninth Amendment seems somewhat less troubling and impractical. If statutes can have catch-all provisions, why not the Bill of Rights? In each case, it's left to members of the judiciary to fill in the blanks.

Chill

2007-11-19T13:03:00.000-05:00

I just read a post on Pajamas Media about how to deal with potentially nasty political discussions at family gatherings (e.g. Thanksgiving dinner). It reminded me of last summer's trip to Los Angeles, where much of my generally-liberal extended family resides.

Some time before, one of my daughters came up with the idea of a "CHILL" sign, to be produced and displayed when a political or other discussion became heated. During the summer visit, we spent some time at a cousin's house, gathered around a long table. At one end, I got into a spirited but friendly debate with an uncle about Iraq. One daughter, at the other end of the table, feared that things were getting out of hand, and made a CHILL sign from a napkin. The other daughter, closer to the action, could see that all was civil. She responded with her own napkin stating "They're just discussing". We then put the two signs together to read "Chill -- they're just discussing".... I rather like the idea of having both signs available, and deploying either or both as needed.

some thoughts on abortion and technological advances

2007-10-16T11:17:00.000-04:00

I sometimes think up imaginary conversations while driving, and today's concerned abortion. I imagined someone asking me how I felt about abortion. The initial answer: "Queasy...." However, I went on, I basically thought that up to some point in the pregnancy, it should be the mother's (if that's the right word) decision. Trying to figure out just where that point was, I ended up with an answer dependent on technology we don't have yet: once we have artificial wombs capable of nurturing a fetus until it's full-term, it should probably not be the woman's option to kill it rather than off-loading it.

Althought that raises lots of sticky questions: who pays for the out-of-mother gestation? Can a woman still abort if the state won't pay? And what parental rights, if any, does a woman retain who was ready to kill her fetus? May she veto a social service agency's decision as to where to place the baby? A factor further confusing things: once it's possible to end pregnancy early without harming the fetus, many women will want to do so, without any present intention of avoiding the maternal role post-partum. At that point, it will often be impossible to determine who was ready to abort, and who decided later that she wanted to give her baby up for adoption. I don't know whether parents who give up babies for adoption have any leverage, at present, as to what happens to the baby.

That's as far as I can follow this tangle for the moment.

The genocide resolution: more than one way to skin a president

2007-10-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen any discussion of what seems to me a likely motive for the Democrats' persistence in pushing the genocide resolution.

The Democrats have been unable to muster the political will-muscle combination to force a withdrawal from Iraq. However, passing this resolution is likely to do serious, possibly fatal, harm to the Iraq military mission. Turkey may well withdraw various key permissions. Our position might finally become as untenable as the Democrats keep pretending it already is. Gee, I wonder who'd be happy about that (aside from AQ in Iraq, Iran, etc.)?

This way, they can undercut "Bush's war" while acting self-righteous about something supposedly unrelated.

UPDATE: At least one commentator has now made this point -- Thomas Sowell.

The deterioration continues

2007-08-15T10:19:00.001-04:00

In other news, my arthritic toes aren't giving too much trouble, but I now have tennis elbow. I believe I acquired this from utterly sedentary activity -- too much image processing in too short of time. (I photographed a wedding on 7-07-07, and had to edit 1000+ images and post the better ones before leaving town on 7-25.)

I'm oddly un-resentful of this sort of sign of aging. I'm less complaisant about the cosmetic changes. It has something to do with having decided, at 50+, to finally start paying attention to dress and grooming. I'd like not to have my nose rubbed in the fact that I got started just a lee-tle late.

Miscellanea, including a rant and Harry Potter questions

2007-08-15T09:52:00.001-04:00

Someone actually looked at my blog recently, which inspires me to stop proscrastinating and post. Actually, I can blog and procrastinate simultaneously, as I have literally a pile of work to do (exhibits to review).

As I was contemplating writing this, it occurred to me that someone should cobble together and market a gizmo allowing one to dictate and transmit draft blog posts while driving. Hands-free, please.

I've promised a rant and some Harry Potter questions -- I feel more like the latter, so it'll come first.

SPOILER ALERT! These questions may imply plot points in the seventh HP book!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Hope that's enough >'s....

I've finished the last book, reread the second, am rereading the first, and am VERY glad that Rowling is likely to write an encyclopedia. I am not ready to un-immerse myself.

Rowling has done interviews and at least one long chat in which she's answered various questions the book didn't answer. I was pleased that she answered one of mine: what's the Hufflepuff common room like?... However, I have a few left:

--Why does Dumbledore repeatedly show and declare SO much trust in Hagrid? He's completely goodhearted, of course, but his judgment is very unreliable. (Examples aren't limited to his persistent tendency to underestimate the dangers posed by various magical creatures. When Harry encounters Draco Malfoy in a shop -- I forget in what part of which book -- Hagrid is wrongly confident that Draco wouldn't cause trouble in such a public place.)

--Why (other than for literary reasons) does Dumbledore usually refer to "Voldemort" rather than "Tom Riddle"? Wouldn't it be useful for V's origins to be more widely known? And doesn't Dumbledore believe in calling things by their real names?

--How did Dumbledore defeat Grindelwald? The usual way to defeat an owner of the Elder Wand is by underhanded stealth (e.g. murdering the owner in his sleep). One hopes that wasn't Dumbledore's approach, and I believe there are references to a climactic duel -- but how would he defeat someone wielding the Elder Wand in a duel?

--This may be a plot hole: Voldemort thought he was the only one to know about the Room of Requirement. Therefore, when he hid the tiara there, there can't have been any other hidden possessions in the room. But when Harry hid his (Snape's old) Potions book in that room in Book Five, there were generations' worth of hidden possessions there. Voldemort can't have specified a hiding place no one else could discover, because Harry saw the tiara there, without knowing what it was. Did all the other hidden items accumulate after Voldemort's time? Seems unlikely, given the quantity and the age of Hogwarts.

Please add more questions in Comments!

... OK, the rant. You've heard (read) this song before -- here's another verse.

It appears that we now have a growing societal problem with Vitamin D deficiency, attributable to people following all the advice to avoid exposure to sunlight. (Here's a link, and another, to a couple of the articles on the subject.) I find this nicely symbolic of the effects of our societal obsession with safety. As in this instance, it is often simplistic, short-sighted, focusing on one or two trees and ignoring even the possibility of a forest.

The sun has historically been a symbol of life. We've been telling people to hide from it. It fits. We've trained the younger generations to spend all their time poised to recognize and protect themselves from one supposed hazard after another. That attitude is fundamentally inconsistent with a spirit of exploration and innovation -- and even with enjoying the everyday incidents and pleasures of life. A pervasive and constant fear of death ends up, in effect, as fear of life.

OK, who's next on the soapbox? Be sure it isn't too high, and that it's been inspected for its weight-bearing properties....

an open letter to Fred Thompson

2007-06-27T22:44:00.000-04:00

Dear Senator Thompson:

[Query: is that the proper form of address for an ex-Sen?]

I am one of those who have been hoping you would seek the Republican presidential nomination. I have read a fair number of your columns. I was excited by how often I agreed with them, and thrilled at the prospect that someone as articulate and straightforward as you appeared to be might have a real chance at the Presidency.

I sent a modest contribution, and here are some excerpts from the email I got in return.

"Now we’re moving forward together. . . . [I]f I do take on this challenge, we’re not going to do things the same old way. . . . We’re going to plow some new ground and make a real difference for our nation. . . . I believe there is a real sense across our country that we’re tired of the same old petty politics. Our fellow Americans want to see some real change."

This is the same type and style of politician-speak that I would have expected to see in a message from the campaign of Mark Warner, or Barack Obama, or who knows how many politicians past and present. It is stale. It is boring. It is fungible. It belies the very idea of "real change".

Please, Senator -- don't subside into this sort of sludge before you've fairly begun.

Sincerely, Karen A. Wyle, would-be actual supporter of a Presidential candidate

Looking Around

Character Interview: La-ren from my SF novel Twin-Bred

Advice for New and Would-Be Authors

New blog with book covers and descriptions

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory, Republican Primary Edition

An Open Letter to Jon Huntsman

Silly poems I wrote for my daughter

The 2012 Science Fiction Experience, and Why I Read and Write SF

Excerpt from Twin-Bred (for use in #SampleSunday)

Interview with Terri Morgan, author of Playing the Genetic Lottery

Paperback of my current novel is discounted on Amazon!

Some Favorite Reads from 2011

Old purchase link for Twin-Bred on Kindle defunct -- new link...

Merry Whatever (or, our crazy holiday season)

Breaking free of the hunter-gatherer mentality

More war stories - Charley Wyle, American soldier in WWII

Rambling about my father

Caroline Cooney, Unflinching Moralist of YA Fiction

Excerpt from Farsighted

Farsighted: Chapter 1

Blog Tour Notes

Welcome to the Farsighted virtual book tour!

This is a guest post by Emlyn Chand, author of Farsighted

Blog Tour Notes

Book review -- Chicken Feed by Ellen Ghyll

Book Stuff (reviews and interviews)

Daughter's and Book's Birthday

About that Palestinian state including East Jerusalem...

More cover tweaks...

Need comments on possible book cover!

Thoughts of my brother, on hearing Romeo and Juliet

The author as problem-solver

Republican stump speech for the taking

If they let themselves be bulldozed, it's their fault

Cute Couple of the Year

Adults not armed, tragedy not averted

The devil and the deep blue sea of publishing

I'm baaack...

If I Wrote a Singles Ad

link to a blog on website for writers and readers

This Jewish lawyer's take on the Mount Soledad cross

Genuine, Not Modest, Legislative Proposal re the TSA

Global Warming, Skepticism, and the Liberal Mindset

Another shot in the foot

Those Pesky Quotations

Leaving the parents

First, and One Hopes, the Last

What the Supreme Court is Waiting For

How to Stump a RNC Fundraising Caller

Now There's a Title

The Hell He Will

Obvious and Less Obvious Remedies

Sorta Like a Published Author

Still learning after 20 years

One more on health care

Let's have a party, we'll all dance the hora

Curt Schilling's defamation action

No F-ing Way

Senator Bayh and the Washington Post

still trying on health care

Not just a pig

In other news, making Biden look good

Still trying on health care "reform"

A Pig in a Poke -- free meme....

Meanwhile, at the UN - a Contrast in Leadership

Constituents of Gang of 6 -- Beware the Conference Committee

Life's little ironies

Two cautionary tales

One big crowd

Still at it -- more emails to Congress

If we have 4 years to play with....

Who gave you that microphone, Congressman?

An open letter to my Senators

Anniversary cards

...and more about toilets

Has anyone written this book?...

The automatic toilet as symbol

Grudging Benefit of the Doubt -- Obama and Iran - UPDATED

Where the Money Is

Chilly