Year: 2015

When I was a kid in the village, I could tell what the oldest walls around fields or houses were.

You see, in the sixties the new, nice houses being built, would have very short walls.  Maybe four feet.  Walls more for decoration than for anything else.

This didn’t mean there was no theft, of course.  I mean, the smart woman brought in the wash from the line at night, and henhouses and rabbit hutches had as good a locking mechanism as a house’s.  Sometimes someone got over the little walls and took all your just-grown lemons, or whatever else.  That wasn’t unusual.  BUT no one would get over the walls and kill you and your entire family in your sleep, and the stories I heard from my grandmother about second-story men who engaged in home invasion were just that — stories that were safely in the past (to be fair, I think most of them were from her mother’s or grandmother’s time) and not at all scary, because they could never happen to us.

But the REALLY old houses in the village, the ones that probably dated back to the eighteenth century, not only had eight foot walls around them, but the walls were topped with bits of broken bottles so anyone trying to scale them would hurt himself badly.

More interestingly, the old fields (the village had clearly expanded greatly in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, mostly with migrants from the mountains, like my grandmother’s family) which again, I’d estimate had been farmed since about the eighteenth century, not only had the eight or ten foot tall walls topped with broken glass, but also gates at least as high and — importantly — faced with smooth sheets of metal in the front, so you couldn’t get a foothold to climb.

This makes sense in retrospect.  In that time it made sense only in light of grandma’s stories of bandits, but I’ve now read a lot about the Napoleonic wars.  I didn’t realize how devastating they’d been to people in Portugal.  Oh, sure, you heard stories like the boat bridge, which sank under the weight of people escaping Napoleon, and that’s one thing — the kind of tales that exist here about the civil war, say.

But then I read some memoirs of the peninsular war from British soldiers, and hey, well…  Stuff like all the cows in the country (even work oxen) being eaten, or stuff like the troops scouring entire regions for anything edible.  It appears neither the French nor the British were well provisioned as we think of it in the 21st century.  To an extent troops were expected to live off the land.  But Portugal was very close to the bone, and …  well, I now know why the broken bottles on top of very tall walls.  I suspect it was the only thing protecting one’s vineyards or fruit trees, very often.  It also explained why most of those were along the old Roman roads, still in use when I was a kid (of course.)  Because further in, in fields amid woods or whatever, there would often be no walls at all, or just bits of broken, knee-high wall (and sometimes just boundary stones written in Latin).  Apparently further in where invaders or counter invaders (sometimes I understand it was hard to tell the difference for peasants on the ground) didn’t reach, or were afraid to go lest they be ambushed, the local trust amid families that had been there forever, (and most of those family were old local families, at the time) kept the walls low.

Then came the nineteenth century, more prosperous, but still not great, and amid civil war and revolution and counter revolution, the walls were a little lower, and the gates might be wrought iron, and you could climb them.  But still, to get to grandma’s back patio where the door was open all day, you had to go past two gates, one of which had a lock (though I never saw it locked.)  And even though the big kitchen window gave out on the side patio, past a set of gates, grandma would put a big board into the frame at night, to block off anyone who might break the window and try to get in.

By the time my parents built their house in sixty eight, it had four foot tall walls and gates the same height, more of a symbolic barrier than a real one.  Of course all the windows had roll-down shutters of the kind here associated with store fronts.

Then the security measures started increasing.  First there was a gate between the garage and the house, locking, and keeping away anyone who might think to surprise us in the back patio.  (Which happened a couple of times before that, and could have got ugly if dad hadn’t been able to stop any intruder.)

And then… well, every time I go back, the walls have climbed a bit more, and are now slick marble-panels on the outside, and the gates are smooth and locking.  I’m half afraid next time I go back there will be broken glass (or more aesthetic spikes) atop the walls.  The last time there were bars in the windows, behind the shutters.

I honestly don’t know if crime is that bad, or if it’s a matter of my parents getting older and less able to defend themselves, plus living in a neighborhood where more people are older and less alert, so the neighbors hearing a disturbance won’t save you.  And also, of course, such neighborhoods attract bad elements as they tend to be easy prey.

But I do know that when I first came to the states it utterly blew my mind that people had decorations in their front yard, with not even a symbolic gate to protect them and NO ONE STOLE THEM.

In Portugal someone would steal these things even if they had no use at all for them.  By leaving them outside, you’re inviting someone to take them.

This morning we bought pumpkins (at last) to carve, and noted the vast bins of pumpkins outside the store, the trust it implies in people taking them inside to pay.

Someone here said something about Arab countries being full of people who want freedom/the blessings of liberty.

I believe them.  Portugal is too.  Many people will express disgust with the Shenanigans of governance, with corrupt authorities, with the general anything goes atmosphere, and will make comments about how much better it would be if–

But what you have to understand is that these people don’t know anything more about America than a cat knows of a king.  They will admire the results of American can-do and entrepreneurship, then commiserate with me when unemployment leaves us without health insurance, and tell me how much better they have it because the government takes care of them; they will talk about how it would be great to have honest policemen, but will expect to get out of a minor fine with a minor bribe; they will decry nepotism but be quite happy when their godfather gets them a job or a good deal on something.

In Arab countries (and in some regions in Portugal) this would extend to things like “there ought to be a law keeping these shameless women from going around in short skirts/short sleeves/etc.”

It’s easy to want liberty in the abstract, but in societies where individual rights, including the individual right to property are not a gut-level belief, it’s almost impossible to implement it.  You need to have citizens who have a minimum of trust among themselves, who view others’ property as sacred, who view others’ rights as inviolable to be able to have people truly govern themselves, without its rapidly devolving to the stuff of nightmares.

As our kids have been taught for the last forty years that the collective is more important, that those willing to hold on to their property or the fruits of their labors are greedy, and that (as Bernie supporters keep saying) one must care for “the people’ in great unwashed collective form, we are at risk of losing the ability to have that mutual trust and respect which is essential to self governance, too.

Cultures change very slowly, and it seems more so when it’s in the direction of liberty and trust.

One of the great flaws in classical SF was the assumption that the whole world could become a sort of extended America without those prerequisites.

It was a beautiful dream, but it’s not how things work.

And when the west welcomes large groups of immigrants who don’t understand the rule of law or the meaning of civic trust, it becomes very hard to keep self-government going.

It is essential immigrants assimilate or leave.  Oh, not in things like food and modes of dress.  That is not important.  But the assimilation of the principles of trust and individual rights?  That is essential.

Teach your children well, and explain to those who would be like us what it actually entails.

Okay, that might have been stay away from Jazz and liquor.

Sorry, guys, had dinner with friends after an exhausting day and while I didn’t even drink my normal, I was so wiped out I woke up feeling still dead.

I’m having tea and trying to come to normal non-zombie state.

Post early afternoon, I think.

That’s what I am today.  Also, not able to settle very long, because we’re going out for most of the day, so…

Anyway, I’m trying to write only three of the hard-to-write posts a week, and I have one scheduled for tomorrow.

So, let’s talk about art.  Not art in general, that’s one of the dangerous posts that will end up at two thousand words and frothing at the mouth.  No, let’s talk about my art, attempts at art, etc.

When I was very young, say around 14 I did art as well as writing.  Then I decided I had to concentrate on ONE, and because art required materials and I was perma-broke and hated to ask my parents to finance me, I decided not to do art.

I was perfectly happy with this decision (Dad might have been less so, since his first degree was in art, and he regrets not having pursued it) until almost 13 years ago I passed out in our tiny bathroom (and we still don’t know why I passed out.  For years I was afraid it was a mini-stroke, but there have been no others this long, so…  we assume it was my blood-pressure bottoming out, which it does at times) and hit my head so hard that I had memory fugues for six months, and my eyes went up a diopeter (I went from wear glasses only to read, to wear glasses all the time.)

And then, as I recovered I got an incredible need to draw.

There was a problem.  It quickly became obvious that my drawing had “frozen” at 14.

Mind you for 14 that’s pretty gifted.  For 40, not so much.

So I started taking lessons and classes and…

There were also realistic portraits and stuff, like this one of D’Artagnan-cat.

And this was a model at a class, that I decided looked like the real D’Artagnan in the mysteries.

This guy looked like Plato to me, so I might have changed his clothing… somewhat.

This was done from a picture-model and you can see the difference (Also it was before the others.):

This was also done from a model in a book, but after classes. (And in colored pencil.)

And this one which I’m rather fond of:

Anyway…  I have progressed from 14 to about Senior in High School Level.  But the thing is, I haven’t done it in about 6 years (no money for classes, too sick) and I miss it horribly.  I’m hoping after the Great Move of 15 is done I can draw again.  I will never be professional (that’s writing) but I’m hoping to be better, and to inflict it on you now and then, because I can.

So, wish me luck.  And now I’m running to several appointments.  Have fun.

*I didn’t mean to post this today, but since everyone is posting this (it would help if stupid blogger remembered to link.  Have pity on me.  The day has included everything but a plague of locusts.) and asking my opinion, I think it’s a good time to do so.  First, remember that international news are about as accurate about Portugal as about the US.  Second, remember that Portugal doesn’t have two parties, it has fifty so every government is coalition.  This means the right might have associated with lower-voting right wing parties instead of going to the higher ranked left.  It doesn’t mean a fascist take over.  SECOND and very important, remember right and left is not right and left in the US.  One of the right-most parties in Portugal is Popular Social Democrats.  The other (anti-EU btws) is the Christian Social Democrats. There ARE NO PARTIES THAT DON’T HAVE “SOCIAL” on the program.  If my reading of the current spectrum there is right, Bernie would be dead center.  Hilary would probably be right of center.  So, when the press reports these things, remember that it’s not the US and what is going on might be a little harder ball than is normally played there, but it’s NOT a totalitarian take over (The Brits probably know this, but hate to ruin a good story/want to sound like there’s great alarm.  Whatevs.  If the anti EU left had won they’d have reported it as “Nationalist fascist take over.”  The weird part is in a way they’d have been right, just not the way it reads here.)  BUT most all of all remember right and left are not what they are here, and if there were a way they could BOTH lose, I’d consider moving back.*

Someone asked me to write this a while back, and I’d completely spaced it until he reminded me on Facebook.

But sometimes, particularly when dealing with multinational twitter mobs, I feel like we’re speaking different languages and terms like “right” and “left” wing get wildly misinterpreted, leading to a certain twit(teriac) for instance saying I hated everyone to the left of Jeb Bush (Hate, no.  Despise their politics, yes.  And I include Jeb Bush and quite a few people nominally to the right of him in that.) while others claimed I was a big Jeb Bush fan because they think that’s what “right wing” means and they’ve self-obviously decided I’m right wing since I hate Marxists.

First, right-left have almost no meaning to where I stand.  I define myself in the authoritarian/non authoritarian axis, which is completely separate, and where I’m just a little shy of the “no government nutters” (I can call them that because, you know, they differ far less from me than the “government in your face” weasels, so I can say they’re totally crazy.)  Round about where the founding fathers were.  Government is a good servant but a bad master, and all that.

Of course, in the American spectrum, uninfected by the European Spectrum, that is indeed what should be called “right wing.”

The problem of course is that the spectrum is NOT uninfected, since we’re in an era of global communications and the meaning of Right Wing in Europe has started to seep in over here, both in leftists minds and in the minds of those who are self-defining as the right.

The other problem is that technically, if you go by the original meaning, the sides should be flipped.

Clear as mud?

Don’t worry, I can confuse it more.

Let’s start with the ever-reliable wikipedia: In France, where the terms originated, the Left has been called “the party of movement” and the Right “the party of order.”^[1][2][3][4] The intermediate stance is called centrism and a person with such a position is a moderate.

Let’s first correct the obvious problem.  If you’re precisely in the center, the position is called “dunderhead” — and this applies to anything, not just politics. That out of the way, if center is defined by “not following an exact party line” I think most of us would be.

OTOH look at that definition again.  “The party of movement” and “the Party of order.”

First of all impossible, since life is movement.  This is where I think the left gets their bright idea reality is leftist, except they’re missing the point of where these definitions originated and what “movement” and “order” really mean.

This was of course in revolutionary France.  Movement had a very specific meaning — mostly towards Madame Guillotine, obviously — in terms of you wanted to change everything, the hours of the day and the names of the days of the week included.  Order, meanwhile was the “not so fast, this structure works.”

So, what that actually means is that left is the side of “let’s change everything” and the right the side of “let’s keep everything as it is.”

If you apply that to the current spectrum in the US (and most of the west) where socialist-like-structures and “leftist” ideas have permeated the political lives of the citizens for far longer than anyone reading this has been alive, the spectrum does a tilt-whirl and suddenly we who are don’t tread on me libertarians and who think the cause of liberty could be justly served by taking everyone from office and putting them in jail become left wingers, in the mold of the ones who shouted “Aristo, aristo, to the lamppost.”  (And since I’ve often felt like shouting that, I empathize.)

BUT that is not really a good picture.  We know how the French revolution ended.  Having dived down that rabbit hole in order to write Through Fire, it became obvious that the French Revolution, the “leftist” movement of our time par excellence, the grandmother of the Russian Revolution and of every other movement that has fed the graveyards of the 20th century was very much a STATIST revolution.  If you ask yourself what the difference between the American and the French revolution was, it would be that in the American revolution the people were set free to pursue happiness and equality before the law, while in the French revolution, both happiness and absolute equality were ENFORCED.  (If you think happiness wasn’t enforced, read some of the trials of people who declared themselves less than ecstatic in post revolutionary times.)

So, left would be best defined as “movement towards an imaginary utopia in which the government grants all sorts of happiness, equality and other boons.”

And the right?

Ah, there we hit on the crux of the problem.  While we’re fairly sure what the left is (and btw, the definition above is why they believe they are the party of the future and they will inevitably win, because in their scatology any “progress” ends one way, with the government as a sort of smiling goddling dispensing benes to the happy people of Brutopia.) “right” can mean many things.

First let’s dispense with the left-enforced definition of right which ends in Hitler.  To quote a public figure “that’s just retarded, sir.”  Just because Hitler and Stalin had a big tiff and pulled each other’s hair, it doesn’t mean they weren’t both leftist, socialist bastards.  They were just arguing whether socialism — that utopian final stage of the revolution where the state looks after everyone like a mother or a father, depending on your language of origin — should be national or international.  And in this case “international” meant “Russian” — or at least it did in the seventies, and I have no reason to think it changed — while national meant “of the genetically related people.”

(For instance when Bernie Sanders announces he’s a socialist but a nationalist then says he’s not a communist, I believe him.  The appropriate name for his announced ideology is Fascist.)

That fascination of the fascists with nationalism, btw, explains why the left can’t seem to accept national love/pride (i.e. they’re not NATIONAL socialists) and why so much of Europe thinks patriotism is a precursor to war.  Europeans are taught that in school too.  I was.

Okay, so that’s disposed of, now … if the right isn’t National Socialism, what is the right?

If I had to hazard a definition that would fit both Europe and the US I’d say the “right wing” meant “a clinging to the essence of what the nation means and to the nation’s original idea”, as it were.

In Europe, of necessity, right wing means a lot of “our people, our land” and really in its ultimate expression “our king.”  Right wing parties in Europe are often associated with keeping or reviving ancient traditions, with the country’s state-religion and with the “way things have always been done.”  There will almost always be a reflexive xenophobia, for instance, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  It is not racist to say “our land, our customs.  You want to live here, you conform to us.”  (The left’s reflexive oikophobia tends to chew the ground out from what people know they can count on, from language in everyday interactions to things like protection of children and women. It is time the European right learns to say “No, not all cultures are alike.”) If you’re thinking that this is the same as us saying “if you want to live here, speak English and conform to our laws”… not quite.  In Europe an immigrant will never be “of the land, the people, the traditions.”  You could be Yoless from Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell, and learn Morris dance, and you’d still not be “quite British.”  Assimilation takes generations, and sometimes not even that.  Other things come with that definition as freight.  The right will still prefer to keep women and men in traditional roles, and they’re often shocked half to death by differing sexual personas.

Now if that description sounds familiar, it is because it is what the left assumes the right here is.  And some right wing people, reflexively, will embrace it and claim it.  Just because the left hates it.

But by and large, as someone who has cruised right of center blogs in this country for a very long time, no.  That’s not what right means in the US.

This is why when the leftists (who true to their origins only understand themselves as in opposition to the European right) come cruising in, they’re always shocked when we don’t rise to the bait of “racist, sexist, homophobic.”  They’re always terribly confused a lot of people here in fact are of “non conforming religions” (or none at all) and non-conforming sexual habits, and varying shades of tan.  And the only explanation they can find is “self-hating.”

That is because the left (worldwide, really) since the collapse of their model, the Soviet Union, has gone a little loony and fallen down a time-space-funnel, in which they’re fighting “right wing” in Europe (and probably circa the eighteen hundreds, but never mind that) not in the States.

The right in the US is the side that clings to the origins and the founding.  This is the side that believes ultimately sovereignty rests in the individual and the government should bow and doff its hat to us. We’re the side that believes that no matter what color, size, sex or whomever you decide to sleep with, you’re still an individual, entitled to equal protection under the law.

We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Which means in many ways we’re the horror of the European right.  If it weren’t for the fact that both “rights” are fighting the much greater evil of the Marxist theology unleashed upon the world (and yes, it is more evil than even the European right) we’d be going at it like two equal weight boxers in a ring.

My dad, who is Europe-right (mom weirdly is MOSTLY American-right.  Not fully, because she still thinks morality, etc. should be enforced, but I think that’s a generational thing.  And no, I don’t know how she ended up don’t-tread-on-me in Europe.  She didn’t even read Heinlein) for instance believes it is not only the government’s right but the government’s duty to look after things like health care.  Oh, and if the government periodically shoots the wrong guy, well, that’s the cost of keeping other people safe.  He’s not a bad man, understand — but he’s a man of his time and place.  He draws the line at communism, not just because it’s evil, but because it’s a stranger to his country and enforced from outside.

We’ve gone the full rounds (one of the few times we’ve yelled at each other) because he can’t understand that I don’t view the government as some thing that should “look after” me, but as something that should do the minimum possible to ensure I have the space to look after myself, and anything more than that is a violation of my rights and a thwarting of my duties as a free human being.

And that’s the difference between our right and their right.  I’ve found it easier and far more conducive to familial harmony to pretend there is no difference, and to nod along with their serene belief that “right wing” in America means the same it does there.

Since our left doesn’t see the dividing chasm, they often refer to the “right” as monolithic and what they get in their press (which is to the left of ours) is convenient in obscuring the differences.

No reason to shock mom and dad by letting them know their daughter has become a USAian radical, after all.

BUT the actual meaning is radically different (quite literally RADICALLY different.  We are the “radicals” who turned the world upside down by believing authority flows from the individual up, not from the state down.)  As I hope it shows above.  Though being a word more often defined by opponents and people with the “feels” it has the imprecise quality of a mirage rising from asphalt on a hot day.

One caveat is that the American right wing might never make any sense in Europe.  Culture is something that changes very slowly and often doubles back.  So I restrain my evangelizing impulses there.  They might come to be like us, but it won’t be in my life time.

And the right in Europe only makes upside-down sense in America.  It would be impossible to create a right-wing-in-European-terms country out of the US.  Our multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-racial country couldn’t turn into an European traditional country.  Not for a few hundred years at least.  Which is why all movies that do that are profoundly unconvincing.  And why it’s so weird that the left doesn’t see the difference between the two rights.

It is also, unfortunately, why the sf books from the fifties or so, particularly the ones by Heinlein, which show the whole world unified under the American system are such a pipe dream.

It might have seemed logical and even attainable after WWII but as he himself seems to have realized in Tramp Royale, the real world is too diverse and culture and cultural differences too real for that utopia ever to have been possible.

America is a place in the heart, and as such it can only be won one heart at a time.

The Beautiful But Evil Space Princess knew something was wrong before she approached her lair.  She was almost sure she had left the spot light on over the piranha tank, but now it was turned off.  And it was strangely cold in the lair, usually kept at a comfortable 86 degrees (Hey, you get an evil lair, you keep it at any temperature you want.)

But more importantly no chirpy voice greeted her at the door.  No supercomputer-engineered-for-world-domination said “Welcome oh, dread one, how may thy trembling minions serve you.”

Because she wasn’t born yesterday or even the day before, the BBESP decided she could not go in through the front door.  (Yep, she could see the piranha tank from the front door.  It was right in front of the picture window.)

She couldn’t even use her secondary entrance, through the basement.

So she climbed the lookout tower by the lair.  By the time she reached the top, she’d torn her beautiful but evil black dress, and she was in a p*ssy mood, not improved by finding that some joker had relocated the piranhas right on top the tower, where she would have to climb in if she came in through the window.

Fortunately she had no intentions of going in.  Instead she swung from the tower onto the balcony of her beautiful but evil lair, and jimmied the bedroom door open.

As she’d expected none of her enemies had made it to the bedroom. They had doubtlessly looked in and run away screaming, since she had made every surface the sort of glowing pink that only an evil soul can withstand for very long.

This was good because it gave her the time needed to open the weapons cache under the bed.  This meant when she went out to face the world, she could shoot the bad guys through the head.

It took her a little longer to bring her computer up to snuff again, and then she had to get someone to put the piranhas in their proper tank once more.  Fortunately her minions had survived, having had the foresight of hiding in her bathroom, which is even more pink than her bedroom.

The minions fed the bad guys’ bodies to the piranhas.  And the BBESP could settle down in her armchair and write this post to communicate to her remote minions.

This is a slightly (very slightly) fictionalized account of my day.  With more explosions, deaths and piranhas.  But not markedly more stressful.

Somebody bring me a drink.

A minor planning issue has me stuck away from home and the net, typing this on my tablet. Depending on when I get home, I’ll post something.

One of the things I’m doing tonight, as I sit down to write this post, is ripping some CDs and copying it to a brand new mp3 player.  (Cheapest possible, natch, but the sound on my computer is unreliable and I can’t write without music, which, yes, is stupid.  Deal. The only mp3 player still functioning is for audiobooks, so I needed a different one for songs, or I’ll be forever running out of memory.)

And one of the things I found are CD copies made by Dan for me to take to Oregon Writers Professional Writers Workshop — 16?  Good Lord, SEVENTEEN? — years ago.  He made them because he didn’t want me to potentially lose part of our cd library.  Also, because he could condense a lot of cds into one disk.

One of the CDs I just came across made me giggle because it says “French Music, listen to should wild euphoria erupt and should you need some countermeasures.”

And then I looked at the song titles and decided I’m not nearly euphoric enough to have them on the mp3 player.

Which brings us to those little influences that can make you feel like you’re dragging your tail.

I’ve been, as you all know, preoccupied with a lot of things, most of them pertaining to real estate.  Because I’m in and out of the house and stressed, I’ve been reading a lot of mystery.

And in a moment of weakness I bought the “Agatha Christie” Mystery “co-authored” by a young author.  In my defense, I assumed this was bonna fide fan-fic, written from a Christie outline.  I didn’t expect masterful prose, or even really Christie, but I expected good, honest fanfic.  You know, tips hate to material, etc.

I expected, as it were to meet an old friend, somewhat altered but not unrecognizable.

I should have read the reviews.  Because what I got was not a childhood friend aged 20 or 30 years.  What I got was finding mommy in the kitchen, eating live snakes in the middle of the night.

Took a while to sink in too.  It wasn’t that the book was so awful that I threw it against the wall.  I mean it was in no way, shape or form an Agatha Christie book.  It was all explained when I learned the “co-author” was not working from outline, had decided not to use Christie’s voice AND writes “psychological thrillers.”  That last one explained the police detective who was almost too neurotic to remember to breathe and walk at the same time, and who kept giving us hints he was gay, something that a) had no relevance to the plot and b) was so jarring in a Christie world as to make me ALMOST throw the book against the wall. And also why NO ONE in the book was clean.

That last one is what took a while to sink in.  I was so revolted with that book calling itself a Christie book, that I returned it.  And then I got another mystery (I’m almost sure it’s original indie, but I haven’t checked) and read that, and then another…

And then today I realized I felt depressed and out of sorts.  Not the active depressed where you want to kick someone or something or cry but just the blah depressed, a low grade sort of grey cloud hanging over me and my life.

And I realized the last three mysteries I read, starting with the fake Christie were DEPRESSING.

They aren’t outright supposed to be depressing.  I mean, these are cozies, set in England, and they are supposed to be… cozies, set in England.  yeah, there is supposed to be a murder, but you don’t dwell on it, you dwell on the puzzle.

And a couple of them actually have decent puzzles…

The problem is this feeling that no one is good, no one is honest, no one is even acceptable, and the detectives are often the worst of all.

Agatha Christie gave her characters foibles, sure, and often there was  a tight intrigue and not just the murderer but two or three other people would be no good.  BUT the propensity of the characters gave you the impression of being good sort of people.  Perhaps muddled, confused, or driven by circumstances to the less than honorable, but in general driven by principles of honor or love (even sometimes the murderer) and wanting to do the right thing for those they cared about.

You emerge from a Christie memory with the idea, sure, that of course there was unpleasantness, but most of the people are not horrors.

How did we get from there to now, where the characters aren’t even evil?  They’re just dingy and grey and tainted, all of them equally.  The victim, the detectives, the witnesses, will be vile and contorted, grotesque shapes walking in the world of men.

If this is a reflection of the psyches of most authors, I suddenly understand a lot about the self-hatred of western intellectuals.

But I wonder if it’s a fashion absorbed and perpetuated, communicated like the flu, a low grade dingy patina of … not even evil, just discontent and depression and a feeling that everyone in the world is similarly tainted.

I realized that was part of what was depressing me, partly because I’m a depressive, so I monitor my mood fairly regularly.  BUT what about normal people?  What if they just absorb this world view — and the idea that it’s smart and sophisticated, too — through popular entertainment, through movies and books and shows and then spew it out into the world, because it stands like a veil between them and reality, changing the way they perceive everything.

My friend David Burkhead, wrote a blog post about something like this (Well, actually about star wars, but…)

Back in the mid to late 70’s the “New Wave” was in full force. Downbeat endings, “black and gray morality” (which can be good if handled well, at least as a change-up from more clear cut items) or worse “black and black.” Those were the tone of Science Fiction.

Then, fairly close to each other, two movies came out which took an entirely different approach: Lucas’ “Star Wars” and Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The rogue was given back his heart of gold. The callous youth could be the hero of the piece, not ground down by the world weary cynics. Heroes who are actually heroes fighting bad guys who weren’t so “sympathetic” that you couldn’t tell hero from villain.

It was a refreshing change. And the result was that, for a time, it became OK to have good guys who were good guys. Bad guys who were actually bad and not just “oppressed” or “victims of their backgrounds”. You didn’t have to wonder who to root for.

Today we’re kind of in a similar position. One of the best selling series, for young people is The Hunger Games. Black and Very-Dark-Gray morality, little really to choose from in the sides, and (no spoilers) that’s shown pretty clearly in the ending. And in printed SF? So much “humanity is a plague” stuff. Bleah. (Read the whole thing)

What he didn’t say, though he might very well have thought it, is that such despairing stuff, such low grade despair and unpleasantness change us, particularly when they’re unremitting.  You internalize these thoughts, they become part of you.  If humanity is a plague, who will have children?  If humanity is a plague, why not encourage the criminals and terrorists?  If humanity is a plague who is clean?

You.  Me.  Most human beings.  Oh, sure, we’re not perfect — I often think people who write this lack the ability to distinguish between not being perfect and being corrupt and evil — and we often have unlovely characteristics.  But, with very few exceptions, most people I know TRY to be decent by their lights, try to raise their kids, help their friends and generally leave the world a little better.

Now, are we representative of everyone?  Of course not.  A lot of people are raised in cultures (here and abroad) that simply don’t give their best selves a chance.  But why enshrine those people and not the vast majority who are decent and well… human?

Even in a mystery there should be innocent and well intentioned people.  It gives contrast to the darker and more evil people and events.

Painting only in dark tints is no more accurate than painting only in pale tints.  It doesn’t denote greater artistry.  It just hangs a grey, blotched veil between your reader and reality, a veil that hides what is worthwhile in humans and events.

Make yourself aware of the veil and remove it.  It’s time the low-grade depression of western civilization were defeated.  No, it’s not perfect, but with all its failings it has secured the most benefits to the greatest number of people in the long and convoluted history of mankind. Self-criticism might be appropriate, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

Say no to the dingy-grey-patina.  Wash your eyes and look at the world anew.  And then paint in all the tints not just grey or black.

 

 

 

 

Kids and their games – Danette Schardt-Cordova

I am a gamer. I am completely and unrepentantly a gamer and have been since I was introduced to Atari (long live Pong!) at age 11, personal computers at age 12(does anyone even remember the affectionately nick named TRaSh 80 Color Computer 3 from Radio Shack?) and good ‘ole Dungeons and Dragons at age 14. Now days except for the bi-monthly AD&D game I run for my kids and a couple of their friends I do most of my gaming on the computer and a lot of it online. Even among other gaming people (of all ages) I get many strange looks for actually insisting on doing my gaming on the PC instead of any of the many console systems that can be found. But I do have a real reason for why I prefer it. Games, even open ended games like many RPGs are (that’s Role Playing Games for the unfamiliar) are still fully set and planned out requiring only that you remember two or three key strategies for several different games no matter how different they appear from the outer package. Computer games on the other hand ask for much more.

A few years ago my kids got me into this little indie game they had found. I usually describe it as Lego blocks on the computer since that is the basic premise, you take blocks and you build stuff with it. On the surface this is a game most would dismiss out of hand since in the age of such graphic and programing marvels as World of Warcraft, Skyrim and Halo the environment consists of lots and lots…and lots of blocks and the graphics are very simple eight bit. For those without kids that game was Minecraft, I think even the hermit in the cave has heard of this game by now. No one can really agree on what exactly makes this game so popular and truthfully that’s not the point of this anyway. I will however note that my three kids (19, 15, and 11) who are notorious for binging on a game for a month or two and then abandoning it have come *back* to this game multiple times so it has a stay-ability that a lot of games now days don’t seem to have.

What makes this game so interesting for this though is what it can teach our kids when they play it, even in the dreaded console version. At the most base, straight out of the box level it not only encourages imagination and creativity but planning, requiring not only envisioning the final result but organizing, keeping track of and acquiring the resources necessary for the project that is being worked on. People playing this game have recreated-in block form-everything from the Taj Majal to King’s Landing to a 1 block to one inch recreation of their bedroom to a working computer(only simple math but yes fully working computer within the game restrictions). And we aren’t talking about “oh that kinda, might be it” but true, beautiful, very realistic reproductions.

Another popular use for this is the very common pixel art often used for cross stitch and quilting. These works of detail oriented art have included things so well done as to fool the viewer into thinking it is a drawing or low resolution picture. I’ve seen reproductions of everything from Nyan Cat to well-known Nintendo icons to the iconic Da Vinci painting “The Mona Lisa”

In addition to this there is the versatility of these games. Ever since 1986 when the first Construction Kit was introduced players have been making modifications or ‘mods’. While they have been available for some time it really wasn’t until May 2002 and June 2002 when Bethesda released Morrowind and BioWare released Neverwinter Nights with the Construction Set as part and parcel of the game that the concept really became big. It is so big that the Elder Scrolls series has four different websites where mod content for the games can be found.

In Minecraft the first possible mods are called resource packs (changed from the original texture packs as it now includes the ability to change even the music in the game). A simple Google search for ‘resource packs minecraft’ nets you over 2 million hits in less than a quarter of a second. There are packs that change the art from the original 16×16 format to a simpler 8×8 to allow it to run better on lower computers to a mind boggling(and RAM hogging) 512×512 format. Those of all ages have made these for every reason from “I want it to look prettier” to “I want it to look like this thing there”. A quick scan of one of several sites hosting these show pack that simply clean up the art to packs that are homages to everything from Star Wars to Nintendo’s Link to Candyland. Many of these packs require the author to not only be artistic but familiar with programs such as Paint, Photoshop and GIMP. These packs have been made with everything a simple mouse to drawing tablets.

Another piece of editable work is one that one of my own daughters (who claims she’s not artistic at all) participates in. The term skin or skins is used for the look of the avatar that represents the player. These have also been used to pay homages but have birthed a plethora of original art that have led to the popularity of ‘skin competitions’. The making of these requires the learning of yet another art program as well as an artistic eye.

Not interested in art but still want to build something and don’t think you have enough blocks? Add in the More Blocks mod that adds enough blocks to the game to keep even the busiest, build happy for years. Maybe the next thing you build will have you learning architecture.

Like the farming mechanics? Try your hand at Magical Crops that has recipes for making seeds for every resource available in the program including the metals.

Want to pretend you’re Merlin? Have a look at Thaumcraft or Witchery.

Rather play with some Tech? There’s Applied Energistics or Buildcraft.

Not enough trees? How about Biomes ‘O Plently!

Adding in this content makes the kids playing have to learn more than just how to point and shoot at something. They have to learn mapmaking, accounting, wiring (yes the tech ones can get that fussy), energy creation and consumption, ecology, forestry. And most of the time? They don’t even realize it! Heck they go looking for stuff that teaches this to them themselves!

And the best part of it? Most of the people making these? Had to learn how to make them first. Had to teach themselves or be taught how to use the programs or the programing. At least two of the authors I know for a fact ended up going into the field of programming because of making mods for Minecraft. So the next time your kids ask for a game? If they already have a computer look see if it’s available on the PC with a construction set attached. Who knows you might turn out to have the next ‘Notch’ in your house. Because I can certainly get behind something that just might be the push needed to gel a future career choice for my kid.

Sorry this is so ridiculously late.  I went to bed and slept almost twelve hours.  Not sure why, except that my body might sense the onset of winter. I have been having allergies from h*ll but no sign of infection, which is new.  Anyway, I gave in to the sleep, partly because we’ve been driving all over creation in all our spare time, looking for the “permanent house.”  (We’re in a rental right now.)

Partly this is because I need a sense of permanence (and I need the d*mn research books which are either packed or thrown on a single bookcase, higgledy, piggledly with no discernible organization, which makes it hard to find just the sentence or the reference I need in the middle of a story.

Partly it is because the whole search itself keeps throwing off my attempt to establish “regular habits.”

“Regular habits” is often used in old fashioned mysteries, as in “he is a gentleman of regular habits” by which we are to assume they are somber and modest and unlikely to commit crimes.

I was talking, in a private group, recently with one of my fans who is in the mental health profession, and he was expressing his feeling that civilization is doomed, since we started not only allowing people with the worst possible genetic tendencies to survive (by subsidizing their survival) but we also subsidize their reproduction.

To an extent I think he’s unwarrantedly gloomy (and in his defense, he said nothing about weeding out the unworthy or the carriers of bad traits, okay?)  Yes, the useless (in terms of societal maintenance or utility) flourish like the green bay tree, but they are also, to a great extent, dying young and hard.  Yes, I know all the stuff about teeth per tattoo ratio.  And I know if you have more tattoos than teeth you’re unkillable.  But that’s only true to an extent.  And at any rate, your continued survival is ALWAYS at the expense of others.  Which means when the blue state hits a hard patch, your survival becomes very… chancy.

But it goes beyond that.  I am somewhat sensitive to this, because I come from a mixed marriage.  Dad’s family could have “We have the bourgeois virtues” engraved on their forehead.  I grew up with such helpful proverbs as “them who don’t work when they’re young will break their backs when they’re old.” His paternal family was very well to do indeed, but grandad I suspect had the same sensory issues of younger son and in those days, being the 9th son they didn’t bother discovering that.  His brothers (some of them at least) went to college, but he was considered “stupid” and left school in third grade to learn a trade (carpentry.)  He eventually married grandma, who came from a relatively well to do background (in that her family owned several houses) but who had no one with a college degree and who were only wealthy in terms of the village.  OTOH they had habits of thrift and work.  (And I suspect their rise in the world had mostly been hampered by the permanent depression that seems to come with the Marques name.  It was not the sort of depression that leads to grand dramatic suicides, just a sort of little grey cloud that makes your focus not as keen.) Not to say they were unlettered.  For their time and place they were “bookish.”  All the women knew how to read, and great grandmother would pinch the family budget in order to buy books.  To her we owed the complete collection of Dumas and Sir Walter Scott, also Mark Twain and others.)

On mom’s side, OTOH…

It is rumored in the family that when dad announced his engagement, my grandmother threatened to not receive her daughter in law.  (I’m sure rumors that she threatened to climb on the roof and put her head in the gas oven are false.  For one she didn’t own a gas oven, and if she did, it wouldn’t be on the roof.)

Mom held this against her all of grandma’s life, but I’m the mother of boys and I don’t.

Mom’s family had roots in local gentry, but it was decayed.  VERY decayed.  Mom’s dad drank away his inheritance, and raised five kids in a one bedroom shotgun cottage with a dirt kitchen floor, in the middle of a slum.  I suspect, from the architecture, that my grandparents’ (leased) home was once a crafter’s cottage in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, and for that time it was spacious and tidy, but in the 20th century?  No.

As a little kid I hated going to visit my grandparents, because we passed an insula — i.e. an “ilha”  (Beyond its meaning as “island” in Portugal the term is applied to any decayed building with lots of tenants.  Some of them MIGHT be survivals from Rome, but that’s unlikely) and we’d have to run the gauntlet of half naked, (the bottom half) dirty kids begging for money and scratching at you for anything they could steal.  Sometimes they took the ribbons from my braids.

With all this, all of mom’s sisters became solidly middle class, having married professional men.  The brothers… well, one of them was probably brain damaged to some extent (or the result of too many cousins marrying.)  I loved my uncle, but he never seemed fully grown up.  He worked as an orderly at an hospital and married twice.  The first time he married a woman from “decayed good families” and when that broke up he married a woman from the lowest urban class, and raised the second family in an urban slum.  My second uncle, I did not like.  He was accounted “the wit” of the family, but this was usually at others’ expense.  He was trained as a plumber and made very good money, but it ran through his hands.  He raised his family in the same slum he was raised.

Which brings us to heredity and “regular habits.”

It might be that my uncles received the short end of the genetic inheritance.  Or it might be that being boys in Portugal they never had to work as hard for parental approval as the girls.  Or it may be that grandad had problems with his sons in particular.  I mean, I loved him dearly but he seemed to me to be a lousy father to ALL his offspring.  However, for reasons of family dynamics and his history he might have been particularly bad as a parent for the boys.  (I.e. he might have derided them and undermined their confidence more.)

I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care (it’s a long time.  The uncles are both dead, and I have no contact with my cousins from them.)

However, it’s important to note something: from mom’s side, the only grandkids who went to college were my brother and I and the abandoned, cut-off (I’ve never met them) cousins of my oldest uncle’s first marriage.)

The children of my aunts are middle class and relatively well to do, but never pursued college.

And my brother and I were raised more or less BY my dad’s family, where all the cousins but one (and that one for various reasons) have degrees.  (Most of them engineering or medicine.  The cousins in law, psychology and I are the black sheep.)

To me — and I realize anecdotes aren’t data — having grown up in my family, it was perfectly clear that my brother and I weren’t that different from our maternal cousins.  In fact, mentally, we probably had more in common with mom’s side of the family.  (Except for my grey cloud thing.)

Mom’s dad was a brilliant man, who could discourse with and intimidate college professors (one of his favorite games) on his self-taught knowledge.  I remember he had a lot of books in his carpenter’s workshop, and he seemed to have known all the luminaries of the arts and literature from when he was a young man.  (The fact these were mostly Romantics probably did nothing for grandad’s moral character, mind.)

Dad’s side, people were smart and bookish (save for the one uncle who inherited grandad’s issues) and well informed of the world, but the casual brilliance, the ability to learn with minimal effort, and the almost casual way of correlating knowledge were missing.  My brother and I, though, seemed to realize early on that we learned easier than other people.

And I figure therein lay the rub, at least for my aunts’ children and maybe for the ones of one of my uncle’s.

When you know you can “cram” stuff two hours before the test and remember it for ten years, or even deduce the stuff you should memorize from other stuff you’ve picked up, it’s very easy to leave it till it’s too late.

And yet, my brother and I had results like those of our paternal uncles, not our maternal ones.  How?

Well, mostly because we were raised under the influence of dad’s mom.  And because mom adopted the culture of the family she married into.  For both my brother and I there was “no try, there’s only do.”

So, while my classmates could come home with Cs or Ds and have their parents say “it’s okay, do better next time” the only time I had a negative grade in a test (and the teacher had mis-graded) I got threatened with being locked out of the house.

Look, in first grade, I knew myself to take after mom’s family.  I was indolent, unless forced not to be, a wretched planner, and very fond of wasting time (and money.)

But I knew those were simply not acceptable.  If I wanted to keep grandma’s respect (and I’m still aiming for that, even though she’s gone.  She might still be keeping an eye on me, after all.  Formidable woman, grandma, I don’t think a little thing like death can stop her) I had to develop regular habits that countered my innate defects.  And so I did.  I studied EARLIER because I was afraid I’d be sick just before the test and unable to study.  I applied myself.  I didn’t miss classes.  I didn’t go to coffee shops or hang out with the bad girls on my spare time.  I knew my tendency to the irregular and the bohemian and I tried to counter it with “regular habits.”

This is part of the reason I watch myself, all the time.  Like, you know, not admitting I’m sick, because it might be just an excuse to do nothing.  It’s also part of the reason it took me so long to stay home and try to do the writing thing — I wanted to write, and was as close to having a vocation for it as it’s possible, but it seemed like an irregular, bohemian and risky way of life, while having a regular nine to five job was what I’d been trained for and SHOULD do.  It was only having kids, and not wanting to give them to someone else to raise that got me to stay home and also write on the side.

Unfortunately we’re all susceptible to what Kris and Dean call “bad life rolls” from a game they developed to teach their students how a writing life can change.  Over the last three to four years, starting I think with burnout, and a sudden relaxation of the stress I’d lived under (when it became obvious Indie was an alternative) my “regular habits” broke.

I’d long ago realized the only way I CAN make a go of writing is to establish a work routine and writing hours.  If I didn’t get up when Dan got up to go to work, I was as likely as not to get up at noon, take till three pm to get dressed/showered, and generally get nothing done. Even as a stay at home mom that was deadly (I wanted to model good habits for the boys) but as a writer that was deadly.  I could very easily write only one short story a year.

So I made/make it a point of getting up when Dan does, getting dressed by the time he’s dressed.

The complement to this is “get to my desk when he gets to his” — but that means I have a little more time to linger over a cup of coffee and the morning instapundit — and only knock off when he does.

But having been very burned out, then ill, for … oh, a good four years, I couldn’t concentrate and I broke my regular habits and fell into irregular ones of loitering on social media, checking news obsessively (though I also do that when I’m … not feeling good about the state of the world) and such.

I’m trying very hard to build new ones, but hampered by things like house sale/search for house.

None of which matter.  I still need to try as hard as I can to build regular habits again.

Because I suspect while some genetic component goes into developing bourgeois virtues, a lot of it is just “regular habits.”

There is some back up for this in that the countries that industrialized later are those we associate with slovenly habits of time and application.  BUT if you read to the beginning of the industrial revolution you find those habits even among the famously punctual British people.

Which brings me to the mental health professional’s assessment that we’re breeding civilization away.  Yeah, to an extent, maybe.

But man is more than what he’s born with.  The worst thing we’re doing to the new generation is teaching them (in school, in popular entertainment, in philosophy) to mock the bourgeois virtues, those “regular habits” of careful spending, careful living, regular schedules and faithful work.

And that — THAT — will be the undoing of Western civilization.

Teach your children well.  Give them regular habits. Enshrine those as “the way to be” and don’t be afraid to criticize people who don’t have those habits in front of your kids.

Humans are social apes.  Social disapproval and general enshrining of regular habits will bring even those who weren’t taught from childhood into the fold.

Humans are unruly apes, but habit is a powerful force.

It might yet save civilization from itself.

Just what does Cultural Assimilation mean? – Doug Irvin

Reading or watching the news, it’s easy to tell what groups are most represented in the media. There is positively a competition to see who gets the largest scare fonts, or who will generate the most column inches of coverage.

And the main issue seems to be group rights that are perceived to be trampled on by the government of that country.

Refugees from Islamic societies are in arms (not always figuratively!) because Italy dares to serve them pasta, instead of the types of foods they are used to. Mexican spokespersons (legal or otherwise) are fighting to gain benefits and rights for the people they represent. And curiously, the same people are often in the news supporting union measures that would limit or eliminate any jobs the migrant workers would do.

But it wasn’t that long ago – certainly within my lifetime – when such activities were not only not needed, they weren’t even contemplated.

I could claim membership in several groups. Of Irish and German descent on my father’s side, and Irish and Indian on my mother’s, I represent a large portion of Americans who also have mixed ancestry.

But that’s okay. I rather like it like that.

America has been described as a melting pot of nations and cultures. It’s never been so. Instead, it is a thick and chunky stew of varied tastes and shapes. It’s only been the last few decades that the stew has decided to curdle and separate. It can’t successfully; it can only be rendered useless. But that, I think, is the intention of the masterminds behind all the ruckus. There may or may not be a conspiracy, but it’s really hard to see how the idea of America can be destroyed without one.

For America is more than a country, a nation. Its actual borders are enclosed only by the hopes and dreams of people wanting a chance for themselves. And during the 19^th and most of the 20^th Centuries, the groups representing America expanded those borders not by maintaining their separate status, but by working together despite their differences. Communities abounded with ethnic clubs such as Sons of Italy, Oktoberfest societies, even Native American ceremonies where non-natives were allowed to observe.

We were different, together. America was most vibrant as a society when the differences combined to impel us all forward. And that is true cultural assimilation. It isn’t the destruction of cultural imperatives to create homogeneity of thought and practice. It is enjoying the differences that could separate us, but are allowed to unite us. We are different, but we are one. That is America at its finest.

But why is there such a fuss today about different races being oppressed? How did that idea get started?

Well, there have always been segments of society that sought to magnify the abuses different peoples faced. It’s true – America has had a great deal of prejudice and abuse in its history. And, yes, some groups had a greater proportion than others. But individuals of all races and cultures face obstacles. Some fail to conquer them. And some conquer their barriers and succeed beyond what was expected.

People like Helen Keller, who as a deaf-mute was expected to be stuck in an asylum all her life, yet became an internationally renowned speaker and orator. Mickey Mantle, who overcame the polio that struck him in child hood yet caused him to struggle all the greater to become a sports hero. Ben Carson, who as the son of a single mother of limited means and education, became an internationally acclaimed brain surgeon.

Animal scientists tell us that the most crucial time in an animal’s life is when it is born or hatched. A tiny lamb must struggle to gain its feet and walk; although wobbly, those first steps enable it to overcome other challenges. Birds must fight to break out of their eggs; if you do it for them, to save them the struggle – they’ll die. They MUST win their fight or they won’t even try to survive

And those struggles continue on past the birth process. But success breeds success.

Those seeking to make things easier for various races and groups are not doing them a favor, but are causing a hindrance. Those crying out against abuses are correct, if they can stop the abuse. But when they start demanding special favors, requiring more than others, they become traitors to their people.

America – as a system – is not designed to promote any particular group, but it is designed to allow those who struggle against difficulties to rise above the crowd.

And cultural assimilation? Today some say that’s the voice that whispers, “You aren’t any better than anyone else. Why even try? Don’t make waves. Go along to get along.” That’s not the way America succeeded. America never achieved greatness by just getting along. America was born in turmoil, faced dangers throughout its existence, and now faces another one.

To make America great again, it’s not enough to proclaim the glories of our ancestors, from wherever they came. America is great when we make our ancestors proud of their descendants.

Never mind what they did; what are you doing? Be different: stand out.