I haven't blogged for quite some time. I've been relying more on Facebook - where I have a great many more "friends" than I have followers here on my blog. That makes me feel remiss. I like my blog better than I like Facebook, though it is less immediate and less gratifying in the responses that I get. Still, here I can blather on at a length that seems unseemly on Facebook.
What I am going to climb onto my high horse about today is guns. Here's what I've got to say:
The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to apply to the right of individuals to own firearms. That horse has left the barn and there is no way to get it back in there unless the Court revisits and revises its decision - which is possible but unlikely - or Congress votes to amend the Constitution in regards to the matter, and then two-thirds of the states ratify that amendment - which is so unlikely as to be pretty much impossible.
But in all the carryings-on over defending the 2nd Amendment, people seem to ignore the words "well-regulated." Those words mean that the individual right to bear arms can be regulated by, for instance, restricting the ownership of certain types of weaponry - bazookas and tanks come to mind, fully-automatic weapons and by extension semi-automatic weapons or ammunition magazines over a certain size, or age requirements or background check requirements or a requirement that to purchase a gun a person needs to take a gun safety course first. There is nothing whatsoever unconstitutional about any of those regulations. You might not like them, you might be against them, fine, write your congressional representatives, but the constitutional argument against them doesn't hold water.
No constitutional right is absolute in any event. The classic example is that in spite of the guarantee of freedom of speech, you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Free speech, free press, freedom of religion (even if it's part of your belief system, you can't stone adulterers to death) are all regulated by the common good and common sense, and much of that is encoded into law.
And to be effective, those regulations need to be national, not state by state or city by city. Gun rights advocates love to point the finger of scorn at Chicago - a city with some of the strictest gun regulations in the country and a city with a horrifying amount of gun violence. See, they say, regulations don't work anyhow.
My sister lives in the heart of Chicago, right near Wrigley Field. The closest gun store to her is 3.7 miles away, just outside the Chicago city limits. The closest gun store to me, here in Los Angeles where there are fewer restrictions on guns, is 2.6 miles away. That's why Chicago's gun regulations don't work - if my sister wants a gun, I doubt that extra 1.1 mile drive is going to discourage her. It's not the regulations that don't work, it's the lack of coherence in them that doesn't work.
But, I have heard far too many people say, the right to bear arms protects all of our other rights, so it is the most basic, most essential right there is. If the government becomes a tyranny, how else are citizens to take matters into their own hands and overthrow it. To that I say - YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME. It's a romantic notion, but it's a fantasy.
Here in Los Angeles ex-cop turned cop-killer Chris Dorner took up arms against the tyrannical LAPD. He had extensive police and paramilitary training. He had a large arsenal of extremely powerful weapons - all of which, by the way, were obtained legally. (Even the fully-automatic weapons he used were legally bought semi-automatics that he had converted to full-auto with legally purchased kits to do just that.) He didn't last long and certainly didn't manage to change anything.
I actually read on Facebook, from several different people, that if only the Jews in Germany and Poland had been armed in the 1930s, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened. A couple of people cited the Warsaw Uprising as an example of what an armed citizenry could do in opposition to an oppressive government. Don't these people read history? The armed Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were heroes, certainly, but they were just as dead heroes by the end of it as the unarmed Jews in the extermination camps. It didn't work. It took other, more powerful, more populous, more technologically advanced governments to stop Hitler.
Even before the advent of modern weaponry controlled by the central government, the Confederacy took up arms in rebellion against the United States. They mounted huge armies, commanded by talented generals, possessed of weapons that while somewhat inferior to the Union troops, were closer to equal than any modern day insurgency could possibly employ against the government. The rebellion caused incredible bloodshed and destruction, but you might recall that it failed. It achieved, finally, only an unconditional surrender to the powers that be.
In fact, despite the occasional victory by groups of dedicated, armed insurgents against the generally overwhelming power of a government - the American Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, Vietnam - it usually goes the other way. And when the insurgents win, it is almost always because they are fighting off foreign occupiers, so they have tremendous support from the whole national population, or they are fighting a government that is barely clinging to power having lost all credibility with its citizens.
On top of which, other than the American Revolution, how many armed insurgencies can you name that resulted in a better country after they succeeded than the one they overthrew? Most of the people I know who are staunch defenders of gun rights sure as shit aren't about to pipe up with "Cuba, Vietnam..." And you sure as hell can't come up with any examples of a democratically elected government being overthrown by armed insurgents where it turned out for the best.
The thing about a democracy, even a flawed republican version of one like we've got, is that it is inherently vested with credibility by most of its citizens. Maybe you don't like President Obama, that's your right, but he was elected by a majority of voters in an election that no one has seriously claimed was in any way rigged. And his power is heavily constrained by something called the separation of powers. Perhaps you've noticed that he hasn't been able to do a whole lot of the things he has said he wants to do, because Congress won't let him. That's how it works. And in four years he will be gone and you will have your chance to elect your own President who plenty of other people also won't like, but too bad.
Our rights in this country are defended by a whole slew of things other than private citizens and their guns. By our laws. By our courts. By the separation of powers. By the fact that our population is so diverse, rather than homogenous - so it is very hard for any one group to gain full power over the others. (One of the arguments in favor of immigration that has, sadly, been lacking in the current discourse is that it helps protect our democracy and our rights.) By our culture of individualism and self-reliance. By the police, who are often called upon to defend even free speech that they might not like, but they know it is their duty to do so.
Sure, if in some fantasy dystopian future the president turns himself into a dictator and Congress and the courts allow it to happen and enough of the military and police forces go along with it to enforce it, I'd want to do what I could to overthrow that tyranny. But the chances of that are slim, while out of control gun violence in this country is all too real and immediate. And the chances of armed citizen insurgents succeeding against the armed forces of the U.S. are laughable.
14 February 2013
20 September 2012
I HATE THE FOREST. SO, SUE ME.
Before I get into the perfectly rational though highly subjective reasons why I hate the forest, an apology to you, my dear readers. I have neglected this blog. I have, instead, been posting too much on Facebook. I shall endeavor to do better, though I make no promises.
And for those of you more interested in hearing about my career than my neuroses - such as hating the forest - my next blog post will attempt to catch you up on developments.
But meanwhile: I HATE THE FOREST
Everybody dreads something or somewhere and more often than not for reasons that are personal, emotional, irrational. That's how I am about the forest. You'll read why below. What do you, dear readers, dread and why? Let me know in the comments section. I'm curious.
This is on my mind because the picture below is of where I recently returned from. I was at Nahmakanta Lake, Maine, a place I have been known to refer to as Mooseville, Bumfuck County, Maine, for the wedding of my sister Katie.
While in Mooseville I engaged in several of the activities that one is encouraged to engage in in such a place. I kayaked a bit and liked it. I sat in rustic chairs looking out over the scenery and drank and had conversations and read and I liked that. The wedding itself was great, beautiful, fun, just the way that good weddings ought to be. I went on a hike, more of a walk really, and well, I didn't die.
The walk was along a beautiful stream, on a well-marked path through dense forest. I’m fully capable of realizing how beautiful it was. I spent the whole time, about two hours, nervous.
There were 11 people and two dogs so there was nothing to be at all nervous about. But there you have it, I was. The whole thing filled me with anxiety, dread even.
Something that happened on the way back to civilization made me aware of just why this was. On the way back to the car which we had left at the trail-head, I found myself in the lead. At one point we were supposed to veer off to the left onto the well-marked red path from the white path we were on. In part due to the fact that when I walk in the woods I spend the whole time looking at my feet in order to avoid tripping, and in part because the woods all look the same to me without anything in the way of reference points or landmarks, I missed the turn. That, in turn, caused everyone to miss the turn because they were relying on whoever was in the lead. It was no big deal. Even with the missed turn the trail we were on led us back to where we were going, adding only about 15 extra minutes to the endeavor.
But I would never, ever in a million years have done such a thing in any environment other than the woods.
I am almost always extremely well-oriented in terms of where I am. People who know me marvel at my remarkable sense of direction and of place. That's not true in the woods.
Among the things that make me feel confident and whole in cities and most environments is that sense of location and direction. And I am utterly abandoned by it in the forest.
Add to that the smell of the forest – which to me is the scent of dank decay, death even – and it’s just plain an environment that brings me close to panic. Throw in a snake and I will almost certainly drop instantly dead of a heart attack.
Give me open land any time. I don’t even need a city particularly. I like the desert and the un-wooded coast and agricultural expanses, prairies, savannah and river deltas and places like Bali where it is lush and green but it is terraced and tamed and everywhere you look there are indications of my fellow human beings at work. Those are the places where I feel like I belong, like I know where I am and what I'm doing.
Now don't get me wrong. It's just fine with me that you might love the forest. And I have no desire whatsoever to do any clear cutting. Not one bit of any of this is an objective assessment other than how I personally relate to it. Earth is so filled with different environments and landscapes that there is plenty to keep nearly everybody happy. Just keep me out from the midst of all those trees and I'll be just fine.
Finally, in a desperate attempt to relate this to what I do in life, trees make pulp which makes paper which is what sooner or later my writing usually ends up on. I'll write about writing next time.
And for those of you more interested in hearing about my career than my neuroses - such as hating the forest - my next blog post will attempt to catch you up on developments.
But meanwhile: I HATE THE FOREST
Everybody dreads something or somewhere and more often than not for reasons that are personal, emotional, irrational. That's how I am about the forest. You'll read why below. What do you, dear readers, dread and why? Let me know in the comments section. I'm curious.
This is on my mind because the picture below is of where I recently returned from. I was at Nahmakanta Lake, Maine, a place I have been known to refer to as Mooseville, Bumfuck County, Maine, for the wedding of my sister Katie.
The walk was along a beautiful stream, on a well-marked path through dense forest. I’m fully capable of realizing how beautiful it was. I spent the whole time, about two hours, nervous.
There were 11 people and two dogs so there was nothing to be at all nervous about. But there you have it, I was. The whole thing filled me with anxiety, dread even.
Something that happened on the way back to civilization made me aware of just why this was. On the way back to the car which we had left at the trail-head, I found myself in the lead. At one point we were supposed to veer off to the left onto the well-marked red path from the white path we were on. In part due to the fact that when I walk in the woods I spend the whole time looking at my feet in order to avoid tripping, and in part because the woods all look the same to me without anything in the way of reference points or landmarks, I missed the turn. That, in turn, caused everyone to miss the turn because they were relying on whoever was in the lead. It was no big deal. Even with the missed turn the trail we were on led us back to where we were going, adding only about 15 extra minutes to the endeavor.
But I would never, ever in a million years have done such a thing in any environment other than the woods.
I am almost always extremely well-oriented in terms of where I am. People who know me marvel at my remarkable sense of direction and of place. That's not true in the woods.
Among the things that make me feel confident and whole in cities and most environments is that sense of location and direction. And I am utterly abandoned by it in the forest.
Add to that the smell of the forest – which to me is the scent of dank decay, death even – and it’s just plain an environment that brings me close to panic. Throw in a snake and I will almost certainly drop instantly dead of a heart attack.
Give me open land any time. I don’t even need a city particularly. I like the desert and the un-wooded coast and agricultural expanses, prairies, savannah and river deltas and places like Bali where it is lush and green but it is terraced and tamed and everywhere you look there are indications of my fellow human beings at work. Those are the places where I feel like I belong, like I know where I am and what I'm doing.
Now don't get me wrong. It's just fine with me that you might love the forest. And I have no desire whatsoever to do any clear cutting. Not one bit of any of this is an objective assessment other than how I personally relate to it. Earth is so filled with different environments and landscapes that there is plenty to keep nearly everybody happy. Just keep me out from the midst of all those trees and I'll be just fine.
Finally, in a desperate attempt to relate this to what I do in life, trees make pulp which makes paper which is what sooner or later my writing usually ends up on. I'll write about writing next time.
09 June 2012
MUSINGS ON A MILESTONE BIRTHDAY
If you believe in
Chinese astrology – which I don’t, or any other form of astrology either – I was
born in the year of the Water Dragon.
According to
Water Dragon, Inc. – is there anything for which there isn’t a website, or a company? – here’s
what that means:
“In Chinese element theory, water produces
wood, which signifies growth and is the natural element of the dragon. The
dragon governs east/southeast, wealth accumulation & the hours of 7 a.m. -
9 a.m. Associated with thunder, lightning and arousal, the Water Dragon
personifies creativity at its best.”
In spite of what
that would seem to imply, I’m generally not all that interested in love- or money-making
between seven and nine a.m. I need my coffee first. (I do enjoy the occasional
good morning lightning and thunder storm.)
I do also like to
think of myself as creative, though, and I am usually at my desk by eight a.m.
at the latest.
So I’m turning 60
on June 20th. If I believed in all this astrology nonsense it would
be the second most significant birthday of my life. (The day of my birth,
obviously being the most important.) I suppose 120 would be up there, too, but
I am unlikely to be around to enjoy it. In rough, realistic terms my glass is
probably no more than a quarter to a third full anymore.
It seems as good
a time as any for a bit of introspective reflection on where I’ve been and
where I’m going.
It’s been a very
good life, remarkable even. I have been extraordinarily privileged thanks to
the very good fortune I had to be born when and where I was and to my
particular parents.
I haven’t cured
cancer or stopped hunger or been the cause of peace breaking out anywhere. But
I do think I have managed to get some small amount of good stuff done in both the
public and personal arenas. (Undoubtedly some bad stuff, too, on the personal
level but hey, in his private life even Gandhi was no saint.) I am confident
that there are some people whose lives have been improved by some of the things
I’ve done. There are fewer who, maybe not so much – but they’ve got over it.
Don’t worry, I have
no intention here of listing what I think of as my accomplishments. Though I do
take pride in enough of them that I feel I’ve made an adequate, even if not herculean
effort to live up to what I regard as my responsibilities to our planet and the
people who inhabit it. I have every intention of continuing those efforts.
I have, however, like
most people with the financial and physical ability to do so, made a far
greater effort toward indulging my whims, interests and urges over the years. I’ve
been lucky enough to achieve notable success at that.
Judge it, if you
want, as you will. It has all made for a very enjoyable, satisfying life so
far, one that I’ve happily shared with family, friends, acquaintances and even
strangers.
If someone were
to tell me that I was going to die tomorrow I’d be disappointed. There’s an
upcoming trip to Tijuana and another back to Mississippi that I’d sure hate to
miss. I still haven’t got to Tierra del Fuego or Kamchatka or the Carpathian
Alps or Ethiopia. But I wouldn’t think it was really all that premature. I have
lived the hell out of the life I’ve had and I intend to keep doing that as long
as I can.
So, happy
birthday to me. Thank you all for helping to make it so enjoyable getting to
here. I’m looking forward to more of it.
21 May 2012
Sorry Barack, Not Too Bad So Far But Still Not Far Enough On Gay Rights
Before I start in on criticizing him, I want to assure you, my readers, that I do intend to vote for the re-election of Barack Obama. While in some ways he has been something of a disappointment as president, I do think he has largely done a pretty good job against nearly overwhelming odds. He has managed to accomplish, or at least begin to accomplish, some good things that have already begun to - and if the Supreme Court and the Republicans don't get in the way - will do even more good for a lot of people in the years to come.
His healthcare bill is badly cobbled together, it is far too incomplete, and may well even make things worse for people like me who have to buy their own insurance. But it's a start. And like most sweeping legislation throughout the history of this country, it is likely to be improved upon over time. (Allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines would be a good start to making things better.)
While the country's economic recovery is slow, at least we're recovering. Obama continued and expanded upon many of the things that the Bush administration initiated. (I love it when Republicans criticize him for continuing what Bush started.) That has certainly helped prevent the bust and recession from turning into a massive economic depression. He courageously did some of what he did in the way of economic stimulus in the face of opposition from the left wing of his own party. And that stimulus, with all its attendant problems, is likely what has kept our economy as afloat as it is.
Sadly, in the course of all that stimuli, any meaningful reform to oversight and regulation of the financial industry in this country got trampled underfoot. We might be recovering, but in another ten to 15 to 20 years it's all going to happen all over again.
You get the picture. I could go on at great length about things I've liked and not liked about his presidency. I think he's done okay. I'll give him, I don't know, a solid B-minus / C-plus so far. In reality I think that's pretty good under the circumstances. He isn't a dictator, we live in a democracy. When a mature democracy works to improve things it tends to do it incrementally rather than in big leaps and bounds. And that's probably a good thing. Incremental change is much more likely to be sustainable over the long haul.
But Barack, what the hell is this nonsense of yours about gay marriage being an issue for the states? Sure, I'm glad you finally came out and said that you support the right of gay people to marry. But then you went and undermined it with this bullshit about it being a state issue.
Yeah, sure, just like civil rights for African-Americans should have been a state issue.
We are talking about a fundamental human right here, not speed limits. A gay couple who are married in, say, Iowa, still can't:
File a joint federal income tax return.
Give each other gifts without being regulated by the federal tax code's limitations on gift giving that is exempt from taxation as income.
Simply assume possession of what should be their joint estate upon the death of one of the spouses, without being subject to federal estate taxes.
Have their marriage and all the attached rights and responsibilities of marriage recognized if they move from one state to another. If they were filing joint state taxes in, say, Massachusetts, then they move to New Jersey, they have to go back to filing separate state taxes. The same is true for a whole wide range of matters, from hospital visitation rights to the status of adopted children, etc..
When they return from trips overseas and file customs forms, the duty free exemption for what they purchased while out of the country is still counted per individual rather than as a household.
There are undoubtedly a whole lot of other problems with treating marriage as an issue for the states as well, but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind. So Barack, just as you wouldn't want to have to use the "Colored" restroom when you are in Mississippi rather than in New York because it should be left up to the states how they want to deal with fundamental human rights issues, gay people and marriage deserve the same treatment.
His healthcare bill is badly cobbled together, it is far too incomplete, and may well even make things worse for people like me who have to buy their own insurance. But it's a start. And like most sweeping legislation throughout the history of this country, it is likely to be improved upon over time. (Allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines would be a good start to making things better.)
While the country's economic recovery is slow, at least we're recovering. Obama continued and expanded upon many of the things that the Bush administration initiated. (I love it when Republicans criticize him for continuing what Bush started.) That has certainly helped prevent the bust and recession from turning into a massive economic depression. He courageously did some of what he did in the way of economic stimulus in the face of opposition from the left wing of his own party. And that stimulus, with all its attendant problems, is likely what has kept our economy as afloat as it is.
Sadly, in the course of all that stimuli, any meaningful reform to oversight and regulation of the financial industry in this country got trampled underfoot. We might be recovering, but in another ten to 15 to 20 years it's all going to happen all over again.
You get the picture. I could go on at great length about things I've liked and not liked about his presidency. I think he's done okay. I'll give him, I don't know, a solid B-minus / C-plus so far. In reality I think that's pretty good under the circumstances. He isn't a dictator, we live in a democracy. When a mature democracy works to improve things it tends to do it incrementally rather than in big leaps and bounds. And that's probably a good thing. Incremental change is much more likely to be sustainable over the long haul.
But Barack, what the hell is this nonsense of yours about gay marriage being an issue for the states? Sure, I'm glad you finally came out and said that you support the right of gay people to marry. But then you went and undermined it with this bullshit about it being a state issue.
Yeah, sure, just like civil rights for African-Americans should have been a state issue.
We are talking about a fundamental human right here, not speed limits. A gay couple who are married in, say, Iowa, still can't:
File a joint federal income tax return.
Give each other gifts without being regulated by the federal tax code's limitations on gift giving that is exempt from taxation as income.
Simply assume possession of what should be their joint estate upon the death of one of the spouses, without being subject to federal estate taxes.
Have their marriage and all the attached rights and responsibilities of marriage recognized if they move from one state to another. If they were filing joint state taxes in, say, Massachusetts, then they move to New Jersey, they have to go back to filing separate state taxes. The same is true for a whole wide range of matters, from hospital visitation rights to the status of adopted children, etc..
When they return from trips overseas and file customs forms, the duty free exemption for what they purchased while out of the country is still counted per individual rather than as a household.
There are undoubtedly a whole lot of other problems with treating marriage as an issue for the states as well, but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind. So Barack, just as you wouldn't want to have to use the "Colored" restroom when you are in Mississippi rather than in New York because it should be left up to the states how they want to deal with fundamental human rights issues, gay people and marriage deserve the same treatment.
23 March 2012
WHY I AM AN ATHEIST - STANDING UP TO BE COUNTED
Tomorrow, Saturday March 24 there will be a rally in Washington D.C. called the Reason Rally. It is largely a gathering of my fellow atheists standing up publically for what they believe. I wish I could be there to stand up and be counted, too. Instead I have to rely on this, my blog.
In spite of all the self-serving crap from the religious right about the “war on Christianity,” those people are getting away with murder. Literally, in some instances. Atheists on the other hand are sometimes fired from their jobs, discriminated against, reviled and ridiculed publically, beaten even, ignored at best – all because of their beliefs.
Yes, we atheists are believers. We believe in reason and science and the golden rule. We believe in the wonders of the universe, the magnificence of the natural world and deeply feel the excitement that comes from the reasoned efforts to understand and make sense of it.
The idea that the world all around us is there because of the actions of some god – however you want to define “god” – is a feeble oversimplification that attempts to come to terms with things that people can’t explain, or simply don’t like or believe. “I don’t understand it, it must be the hand of god.”
How sad is that? Talk about taking all the wonder and majesty and glory and complexity out of it
Progress, all progress whether in the sciences or the humanities or the arts or economics or politics or anything else, comes about when people don’t take things on faith, when they don’t rest on tradition, when they don’t simply fall back on life being at the will or whim of some greater power.
All progress stems from dissatisfaction and curiosity. Let’s see how this thing works. Let’s see how to make it better. I wonder if we can fly? Why are there so many poor people? What can we do to fix that? My back itches, how am I going to reach it to scratch it?
The “power” of prayer, of faith, adherence to tradition just gets in the way.
Speaking for myself, as there is no way that any sane person could ever hope to represent the diverse views of us atheists, while I have nothing against religious people (unless they are trying to cram their religion down my or my country’s throat) and even count some among my friends and family, I loathe religion. All religion, any religion, take your pick.
Most atheists are afraid to say something like that because it might get them in trouble. Just coming out as an atheist can cause problems. I’ve been yelled at by seemingly nice enough people when I merely told them I was an atheist. I’ve been told that I couldn’t possibly be, that I am too smart to be an atheist and dismissed as a nutjob. (As if the belief in god isn’t even nuttier.) I know some fellow atheists who have been slugged and tossed out of places for owning up to their beliefs.
But I’m willing to say it again. Not only am I an atheist, but I loathe religion. I think it is a great evil, that has caused and still causes more pain and suffering and harm than it does good. It doesn’t matter the slightest to me that a large majority of people profess some sort of faith. It may be a base, primitive human need, but that doesn’t make it good, or right.
And like it or not, hating religion and not believing in god does not make me a bad person. I, and I’d venture to guess most of the people who know me, consider me to be a generally pretty good, decent sort of guy. (No doubt with a few quirks, but that’s for some other blog post some other time.)
I do not try to do the right things in my life because I am afraid of hell, or some sort of eternal torment or being excluded from an eternal life (another thing I loathe – harp music) or because I’ll be reincarnated as a cockroach.
I do the right thing as often as I can for several reasons. Simply because it is the right thing. Because of the adage – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Because of wanting to go along to get along. And in some cases because I don’t want to end up in jail which sounds like hell enough to me.
So I’m glad that my fellow atheists are standing up publically to show their faces, to do the same thing that the gay rights movement did when it took up chants such as, “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” That’s one of the things I’m saying in this blog.
But I am a little disappointed by the failure of tomorrow’s rally to address some specific issues on which we atheists should be leading the charge. In my mind the most important has to do with the impact of faith-based finance in the public arena. This is particularly important in an election year.
Religious organizations in this country have a lot of money. They’re able to use that money to push their political agenda – whatever agenda that may be. They can mobilize their congregations to show up at rallies, canvass districts, get out the vote, donate to super-pacs. Because of all that they are invaluable to politicians, who are in turn terrified to do anything that might alienate them.
And one of the main reasons that religious groups have all that money is that they are given huge tax exemptions to go about their business. Rather than the state making war on churches, as so many religious right wingers like to claim, religious organizations get enormous advantages granted to them by the government.
The Catholic Church, Scientology and several Jewish temples and organizations are among the largest landowners in Los Angeles County for example. They don’t pay any property tax.
Religious affiliated charities are regarded as non-profits and are tax exempt, as are contributions to them. The Catholic Diocese in Los Angeles raided those charitable coffers to defend pedophile priests and build its giant new downtown cathedral – the Taj [Cardinal] Mahoney, a monument to venality and crass opulence. Other religious groups use their tax-deductible contributions to fund and fill anti-abortion rallies, to lobby the government to leave Israel alone about the building of settlements in the occupied territories, to take cruises and drive expensive cars and… you name it.
There is a very large gray area in which religions and their charities operate, where it is nearly impossible to separate their religious activities from their public, secular ones. The scope for, and actual abuse of these tax exemptions is enormous. And it is especially bad at a time when most governments, from the federal on down to the cities, could use the money.
Tax the churches ought to be one of the rallying cries at tomorrow’s rally. Let’s really separate church and state by not giving churches huge advantages over everyone else. Let them go about their business on their own, without taking money out of our pockets by not paying their fair share.
For all you religious folk out there, there is even a Bible verse that supports what I’m saying: “And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.” – Mark 12: 17, King James version.
In spite of all the self-serving crap from the religious right about the “war on Christianity,” those people are getting away with murder. Literally, in some instances. Atheists on the other hand are sometimes fired from their jobs, discriminated against, reviled and ridiculed publically, beaten even, ignored at best – all because of their beliefs.
Yes, we atheists are believers. We believe in reason and science and the golden rule. We believe in the wonders of the universe, the magnificence of the natural world and deeply feel the excitement that comes from the reasoned efforts to understand and make sense of it.
The idea that the world all around us is there because of the actions of some god – however you want to define “god” – is a feeble oversimplification that attempts to come to terms with things that people can’t explain, or simply don’t like or believe. “I don’t understand it, it must be the hand of god.”
How sad is that? Talk about taking all the wonder and majesty and glory and complexity out of it
Progress, all progress whether in the sciences or the humanities or the arts or economics or politics or anything else, comes about when people don’t take things on faith, when they don’t rest on tradition, when they don’t simply fall back on life being at the will or whim of some greater power.
All progress stems from dissatisfaction and curiosity. Let’s see how this thing works. Let’s see how to make it better. I wonder if we can fly? Why are there so many poor people? What can we do to fix that? My back itches, how am I going to reach it to scratch it?
The “power” of prayer, of faith, adherence to tradition just gets in the way.
Speaking for myself, as there is no way that any sane person could ever hope to represent the diverse views of us atheists, while I have nothing against religious people (unless they are trying to cram their religion down my or my country’s throat) and even count some among my friends and family, I loathe religion. All religion, any religion, take your pick.
Most atheists are afraid to say something like that because it might get them in trouble. Just coming out as an atheist can cause problems. I’ve been yelled at by seemingly nice enough people when I merely told them I was an atheist. I’ve been told that I couldn’t possibly be, that I am too smart to be an atheist and dismissed as a nutjob. (As if the belief in god isn’t even nuttier.) I know some fellow atheists who have been slugged and tossed out of places for owning up to their beliefs.
But I’m willing to say it again. Not only am I an atheist, but I loathe religion. I think it is a great evil, that has caused and still causes more pain and suffering and harm than it does good. It doesn’t matter the slightest to me that a large majority of people profess some sort of faith. It may be a base, primitive human need, but that doesn’t make it good, or right.
And like it or not, hating religion and not believing in god does not make me a bad person. I, and I’d venture to guess most of the people who know me, consider me to be a generally pretty good, decent sort of guy. (No doubt with a few quirks, but that’s for some other blog post some other time.)
I do not try to do the right things in my life because I am afraid of hell, or some sort of eternal torment or being excluded from an eternal life (another thing I loathe – harp music) or because I’ll be reincarnated as a cockroach.
I do the right thing as often as I can for several reasons. Simply because it is the right thing. Because of the adage – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Because of wanting to go along to get along. And in some cases because I don’t want to end up in jail which sounds like hell enough to me.
So I’m glad that my fellow atheists are standing up publically to show their faces, to do the same thing that the gay rights movement did when it took up chants such as, “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” That’s one of the things I’m saying in this blog.
But I am a little disappointed by the failure of tomorrow’s rally to address some specific issues on which we atheists should be leading the charge. In my mind the most important has to do with the impact of faith-based finance in the public arena. This is particularly important in an election year.
Religious organizations in this country have a lot of money. They’re able to use that money to push their political agenda – whatever agenda that may be. They can mobilize their congregations to show up at rallies, canvass districts, get out the vote, donate to super-pacs. Because of all that they are invaluable to politicians, who are in turn terrified to do anything that might alienate them.
And one of the main reasons that religious groups have all that money is that they are given huge tax exemptions to go about their business. Rather than the state making war on churches, as so many religious right wingers like to claim, religious organizations get enormous advantages granted to them by the government.
The Catholic Church, Scientology and several Jewish temples and organizations are among the largest landowners in Los Angeles County for example. They don’t pay any property tax.
Religious affiliated charities are regarded as non-profits and are tax exempt, as are contributions to them. The Catholic Diocese in Los Angeles raided those charitable coffers to defend pedophile priests and build its giant new downtown cathedral – the Taj [Cardinal] Mahoney, a monument to venality and crass opulence. Other religious groups use their tax-deductible contributions to fund and fill anti-abortion rallies, to lobby the government to leave Israel alone about the building of settlements in the occupied territories, to take cruises and drive expensive cars and… you name it.
There is a very large gray area in which religions and their charities operate, where it is nearly impossible to separate their religious activities from their public, secular ones. The scope for, and actual abuse of these tax exemptions is enormous. And it is especially bad at a time when most governments, from the federal on down to the cities, could use the money.
Tax the churches ought to be one of the rallying cries at tomorrow’s rally. Let’s really separate church and state by not giving churches huge advantages over everyone else. Let them go about their business on their own, without taking money out of our pockets by not paying their fair share.
For all you religious folk out there, there is even a Bible verse that supports what I’m saying: “And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.” – Mark 12: 17, King James version.
16 March 2012
HANDS ON YOUR HEAD, TURN AROUND, SPREAD YOUR LEGS & FACE THE WALL, GRANNY
While standing in the long, slow security line for a recent flight to Chicago, juggling to get my laptop and a small bag of liquid and gels out of my bags, my coat off, my belt off, my shoes off my feet, my pockets emptied, the loathsome med-alert necklace off from around my neck, I noticed a sign I’d never seen before. “Passengers 12 and under do not need to remove their shoes and coats.”
This morning as I was leafing through the L.A. Times over my coffee, I came across this article: “A pass for some older air travelers.” The gist of the story is that starting this coming Monday, some air travelers 75 or older will also be allowed through security lines without taking off their shoes, coats, etc. and will be much less likely to be asked to step aside to be frisked. The program is being started on a trial basis in Chicago, Denver, Orlando and Portland, Oregon because those airports have a high percentage of elderly travelers.
I have long suspected that an awful lot of what the TSA makes us go through in airport security lines is more for show than for actual security. Maybe the show does have a deterrent effect on most of us. But now they’ve just announced that two whole groups of people don’t have to worry about it.
Are there no elderly terrorists? Or are there no old people who can’t be convinced, bribed, bullied or blackmailed into carrying weapons and/or explosives onto an airplane? “We’ve got your beloved grandson, put this under your coat.”
One of my grandmothers was a fairly nasty piece of work, and bullheaded and wasn’t going to do what she didn’t want to do for anybody or any reason. The other, however, all sweetness and light and fluff was as gullible as a person gets – she could be manipulated into almost anything.
And kids? Don’t get me started on kids. They are little more than short sociopaths, especially these days when they are constantly told they are everybody’s little darlings. A kid will do anything if you approach it right and dangle the right treat in front of it. “Mommy loves you, darling. I know the vest is heavy under your coat and that your shoes fit funny, but don’t worry, it won’t be for long and you’ll get your reward soon.”
I’ve always been nervous when I’ve spotted nuns on planes that I’m on. What are they keeping under their habits? Now add the elderly and kids to the list.
This morning as I was leafing through the L.A. Times over my coffee, I came across this article: “A pass for some older air travelers.” The gist of the story is that starting this coming Monday, some air travelers 75 or older will also be allowed through security lines without taking off their shoes, coats, etc. and will be much less likely to be asked to step aside to be frisked. The program is being started on a trial basis in Chicago, Denver, Orlando and Portland, Oregon because those airports have a high percentage of elderly travelers.
I have long suspected that an awful lot of what the TSA makes us go through in airport security lines is more for show than for actual security. Maybe the show does have a deterrent effect on most of us. But now they’ve just announced that two whole groups of people don’t have to worry about it.
Are there no elderly terrorists? Or are there no old people who can’t be convinced, bribed, bullied or blackmailed into carrying weapons and/or explosives onto an airplane? “We’ve got your beloved grandson, put this under your coat.”
One of my grandmothers was a fairly nasty piece of work, and bullheaded and wasn’t going to do what she didn’t want to do for anybody or any reason. The other, however, all sweetness and light and fluff was as gullible as a person gets – she could be manipulated into almost anything.
And kids? Don’t get me started on kids. They are little more than short sociopaths, especially these days when they are constantly told they are everybody’s little darlings. A kid will do anything if you approach it right and dangle the right treat in front of it. “Mommy loves you, darling. I know the vest is heavy under your coat and that your shoes fit funny, but don’t worry, it won’t be for long and you’ll get your reward soon.”
I’ve always been nervous when I’ve spotted nuns on planes that I’m on. What are they keeping under their habits? Now add the elderly and kids to the list.
06 March 2012
EXPENSIVE ME
I just finished doing my taxes for 2011. It was not a good year. I had $13,821 in deductible, unreimbursed medical expenses (including my over $5,000 insurance premium.)
Which is to say that I've got health insurance. My insurance did pay more than $13,821 on my behalf, but not a whole lot more.
It's a very good thing that my blood clot was diagnosed in Mississippi. It's nearly impossible to figure these things out exactly - what hospitals charge for medical care is about as transparent as the average lead-lined bank vault - but from what I have been able to gather, had my clot been diagnosed here in Los Angeles and had I gone to Cedars-Sinai (the big name hospital in town) it would have cost me and my insurance company at least three times as much money.
And I don't see how any of that is going to change with the new healthcare law.
Certainly, as of 2014 if the Republicans don't manage to dump the thing - which I don't think they will - I'll be able to get health insurance even if I want to change plans, even with my pre-existing conditions. And that's not a bad thing, nothing to sneeze at.
But I'm still going to have to pay through the nose for it. Possibly even more than I do now because the insurance companies aren't prevented from raising their rates to make up for what they see as higher costs. The word "affordable" in the act's actual name of record is laughable.
And if I need to use it, it's still not going to cover me well enough to avoid enormous out of pocket expenses.
I don't know what the solution is to any of this. The asswipes on both sides of the Congressional aisle talk about increasing competition among the insurance companies as a way to lower prices. Yet no one has bothered doing the simple thing of allowing companies to sell insurance across state lines - using the lower costs in, say, Mississippi to help offset the higher costs here in California. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know there are complications involved, but are they really any less surmountable than all the grief that the current system is causing?)
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that at some point in the next 10 to 15 or so years I have but one of several alternatives:
Get rich, really rich, somehow or another.
Move to a more civilized country where even if they don't have a national health care plan, at least health care is affordable - like Thailand or Costa Rica or Romania.
Suicide - a trip to a pet store in Mexico to stock up on Pentobarbital isn't such a bad idea. (By way of a related aside - read my friend Ashley Ream's recently published book: Losing Clementine.)
That's all I've got to say about my taxes this year. Well, I do wish to hell that I owed a whole lot of taxes, enormous amounts of taxes, enough to kill at least one Taliban fighter (which is pretty damn expensive) or fill 50 or 60 potholes on my street even - which is a lot less expensive. If I did, it would mean I made a whole lot more money than I did.
Which is to say that I've got health insurance. My insurance did pay more than $13,821 on my behalf, but not a whole lot more.
It's a very good thing that my blood clot was diagnosed in Mississippi. It's nearly impossible to figure these things out exactly - what hospitals charge for medical care is about as transparent as the average lead-lined bank vault - but from what I have been able to gather, had my clot been diagnosed here in Los Angeles and had I gone to Cedars-Sinai (the big name hospital in town) it would have cost me and my insurance company at least three times as much money.
And I don't see how any of that is going to change with the new healthcare law.
Certainly, as of 2014 if the Republicans don't manage to dump the thing - which I don't think they will - I'll be able to get health insurance even if I want to change plans, even with my pre-existing conditions. And that's not a bad thing, nothing to sneeze at.
But I'm still going to have to pay through the nose for it. Possibly even more than I do now because the insurance companies aren't prevented from raising their rates to make up for what they see as higher costs. The word "affordable" in the act's actual name of record is laughable.
And if I need to use it, it's still not going to cover me well enough to avoid enormous out of pocket expenses.
I don't know what the solution is to any of this. The asswipes on both sides of the Congressional aisle talk about increasing competition among the insurance companies as a way to lower prices. Yet no one has bothered doing the simple thing of allowing companies to sell insurance across state lines - using the lower costs in, say, Mississippi to help offset the higher costs here in California. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know there are complications involved, but are they really any less surmountable than all the grief that the current system is causing?)
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that at some point in the next 10 to 15 or so years I have but one of several alternatives:
Get rich, really rich, somehow or another.
Move to a more civilized country where even if they don't have a national health care plan, at least health care is affordable - like Thailand or Costa Rica or Romania.
Suicide - a trip to a pet store in Mexico to stock up on Pentobarbital isn't such a bad idea. (By way of a related aside - read my friend Ashley Ream's recently published book: Losing Clementine.)
That's all I've got to say about my taxes this year. Well, I do wish to hell that I owed a whole lot of taxes, enormous amounts of taxes, enough to kill at least one Taliban fighter (which is pretty damn expensive) or fill 50 or 60 potholes on my street even - which is a lot less expensive. If I did, it would mean I made a whole lot more money than I did.
09 January 2012
THE JOYS - NOT - OF AMERICAN PROVINCIALISM
Last year I had a short story published in the anthology Bangkok Noir. I received my first royalty check for it today - 2,383.83 Thai Baht (US$74.97 as of this morning.) Not a big amount of money, but only the first check and certainly better than nothing.
When I lived in Asia from 1986 to 1997 checks in foreign currencies weren't a problem. I could even deposit them to my accounts with Citibank in Hong Kong or Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank through their ATMs and the money, in my choice of Hong Kong or U.S. dollars, would show up in my account within about 24 hours if they were for a freely traded currency like Thai Baht. Less freely traded currencies like Chinese Yuan might take an extra day. Sure, they'd make some money by giving me a lousier exchange rate than I might otherwise get, but it still wasn't a bad rate.
Coming to the U.S. could present problems, however. We may well be the world's largest and most globally influential economy, but just as fewer Americans speak languages other than English than people in other countries speak languages other than their native tongue, fewer American banks seem to know much about the rest of the world.
Once I was in New York city and I needed cash. I had a Hong Kong dollar one thousand dollar bill in my wallet. (US$128.20 - it's a fixed rate and has been for many years.) In Hong Kong there are three different types of banknotes, issued by three different banks: Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of China. I was in New York's Chinatown where there is a large branch of Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, so I went in there to change my Hong Kong money into U.S. dollars. (The HK thousand dollar bill had a big picture of Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank's headquarters on it. The same picture was on all the brochures in the bank and hanging on the walls of the bank branch in frames.)
The teller had no idea what I was talking about. She said, "But how will I know how much this is worth?" I suggested that it was probably in her computer system and pretty easy to access. She seemed quite flummoxed by that.
Finally, I asked to see a manager. A manager came over, looked at the bill and said, "How do I know this is really a Hong Kong dollar banknote?" I suggested that might be true of any banknote from anywhere, and that perhaps she ought to compare the picture on the banknote with identical pictures in their very own brochures.
In any event, after about a half hour of toing and froing I was turned away.
So, this morning when I received my royalty check I had a nagging suspicion that it wasn't going to be a simple matter to simply deposit it into my U.S. bank account. So I called. My bank branch sent me to some central bank phone line in North Carolina who sent me to BofA's foreign currency phone line. At least they knew what I was talking about and what Thai baht are.
If the check was worth US$200 or more, Bank of America could send it back to the bank in Thailand "for collection." That would cost US$40, plus whatever fees, commissions, postage, etc. were incurred along the way by either BofA or United Overseas Bank of Thailand. It would take four to eight weeks and maybe I'd then get what remained of the money in my U.S. account.
I suppose I can frame the check and hang it over my desk along with my Enron stock certificate. I did email the publisher and ask if there was some way they could reissue the check in U.S. dollars. If not, I think I will assign my royalties to Colin Cotterill, a good pal, a great writer, who lives in Thailand and runs charitable education programs in Laos. US$74.97 can probably do a lot more good in Laos than it can in my bank account.
When I lived in Asia from 1986 to 1997 checks in foreign currencies weren't a problem. I could even deposit them to my accounts with Citibank in Hong Kong or Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank through their ATMs and the money, in my choice of Hong Kong or U.S. dollars, would show up in my account within about 24 hours if they were for a freely traded currency like Thai Baht. Less freely traded currencies like Chinese Yuan might take an extra day. Sure, they'd make some money by giving me a lousier exchange rate than I might otherwise get, but it still wasn't a bad rate.
Coming to the U.S. could present problems, however. We may well be the world's largest and most globally influential economy, but just as fewer Americans speak languages other than English than people in other countries speak languages other than their native tongue, fewer American banks seem to know much about the rest of the world.
Once I was in New York city and I needed cash. I had a Hong Kong dollar one thousand dollar bill in my wallet. (US$128.20 - it's a fixed rate and has been for many years.) In Hong Kong there are three different types of banknotes, issued by three different banks: Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of China. I was in New York's Chinatown where there is a large branch of Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, so I went in there to change my Hong Kong money into U.S. dollars. (The HK thousand dollar bill had a big picture of Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank's headquarters on it. The same picture was on all the brochures in the bank and hanging on the walls of the bank branch in frames.)
The teller had no idea what I was talking about. She said, "But how will I know how much this is worth?" I suggested that it was probably in her computer system and pretty easy to access. She seemed quite flummoxed by that.
Finally, I asked to see a manager. A manager came over, looked at the bill and said, "How do I know this is really a Hong Kong dollar banknote?" I suggested that might be true of any banknote from anywhere, and that perhaps she ought to compare the picture on the banknote with identical pictures in their very own brochures.
In any event, after about a half hour of toing and froing I was turned away.
So, this morning when I received my royalty check I had a nagging suspicion that it wasn't going to be a simple matter to simply deposit it into my U.S. bank account. So I called. My bank branch sent me to some central bank phone line in North Carolina who sent me to BofA's foreign currency phone line. At least they knew what I was talking about and what Thai baht are.
If the check was worth US$200 or more, Bank of America could send it back to the bank in Thailand "for collection." That would cost US$40, plus whatever fees, commissions, postage, etc. were incurred along the way by either BofA or United Overseas Bank of Thailand. It would take four to eight weeks and maybe I'd then get what remained of the money in my U.S. account.
I suppose I can frame the check and hang it over my desk along with my Enron stock certificate. I did email the publisher and ask if there was some way they could reissue the check in U.S. dollars. If not, I think I will assign my royalties to Colin Cotterill, a good pal, a great writer, who lives in Thailand and runs charitable education programs in Laos. US$74.97 can probably do a lot more good in Laos than it can in my bank account.
20 December 2011
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT XMAS - NO, REALLY
Most of you reading this probably figure you know me well enough by now to know that I loathe Xmas. (See, I can't even bring myself to spell it out.) And you'd be right, mostly. But this year, rather than writing the usual screed about everything I find appalling about the season at hand, I'm going to write about the things I like this time of year. So much for predictability.
But that takes us to the first thing I like, which has to do with predictability - in this particular case the predictability of physics. Click on this paragraph to read one of the Leaders from this year's year-end double issue of The Economist. Then make sure to come back here to read the rest of my blog. (If you use Windows you can right click on the paragraph and open the article in another window. If you use a Mac there must be something you can do but I don't know what that is.)
I love the special year end double issue of The Economist. It is probably the one thing that I look most forward to reading every year. The Leader that you have just - hopefully - read, is a perfect example of why. It is beautifully written. It is clear and easy to understand. It is witty and entertaining and fascinating and makes plain some things that you have undoubtedly seen throughout the past year in headlines. The whole issue is full of articles like this, about a wide variety of subjects. I only wish it was bigger, or came out twice a year.
I love Xmas Day. Though truth be told I could do the same thing any day of the year. Which is - I get together with friends, we go eat dim sum in a gigantic noisy Chinese restaurant that is jam packed with people of a similar bent, then we go to a movie matinee - usually something blockbusterish - this year probably the new Mission Impossible movie. It's got the Burj Khalifa in it and the Kremlin blows up. What could be more festive than that?
Okay, so what else do I love about Xmas? I'm thinking, I'm thinking...
The best Xmas I ever spent was in Dakar, Senegal.
I spent December 24th wandering the town, admiring the occasional African Santa Claus I encountered and the rather odd mix of African and French decorations. I caught a pickpocket with his hand in my camera bag in the main street market. Though then I worried about him. He couldn't have been much more than 12 and when I grabbed his hand and held it in the air and yelled at him, I was joined by a bunch of angry market women who took over his chastisement from me. I don't know what happened to him after that. Maybe they just humiliated him and sent him home. Maybe they beat him to death.
But I digress. My friend and traveling companion Ronna and I had dinner at one of the swankest French colonial restaurants in town. I had the very best steak frites (with a fresh green peppercorn sauce) that I have ever had, and we shared a bottle of excellent wine.
Then we wandered down to the wrong side of the tracks where all the tourist guides tell you not to go. Actually, it was under the tracks - a very sleazy, big nightclub that was mostly an enormous colorfully lighted patio with a band set up at one end of it. It was riotous with all the people that well-intentioned "experts" warn you against hanging out with: hookers, their pimps, their best customers, a variety of gangsters and assorted other crooks and junkies and drunks.
We had a blast. The Ventilateur was the dance craze of the moment (1984) - a dance in which one turns one's ass to the rest of the crowd and spins and jiggles it as best one can in emulation of a fan. Ronna proved to be particularly adept at this. I can't recall if she was the only white girl in the place, but she was certainly the only one who could hold her own dancing.
We drank. We smoked. There may have been some hash laced into some of those cigarettes. We chatted with everyone, in English when possible, in our tortured French when we needed to. We got lessons in Wolof - the primary local language from which jazz idioms such as "heebie jeebies" and "hepcat" derive.
At dawn Xmas morning the whole place emptied out and everybody walked through the deserted streets of town down to the beach where we scrounged coffee and breakfast from the few vendors who were around and a cafe that was open.
It was even better than dim sum and a movie matinee.
But that takes us to the first thing I like, which has to do with predictability - in this particular case the predictability of physics. Click on this paragraph to read one of the Leaders from this year's year-end double issue of The Economist. Then make sure to come back here to read the rest of my blog. (If you use Windows you can right click on the paragraph and open the article in another window. If you use a Mac there must be something you can do but I don't know what that is.)
I love the special year end double issue of The Economist. It is probably the one thing that I look most forward to reading every year. The Leader that you have just - hopefully - read, is a perfect example of why. It is beautifully written. It is clear and easy to understand. It is witty and entertaining and fascinating and makes plain some things that you have undoubtedly seen throughout the past year in headlines. The whole issue is full of articles like this, about a wide variety of subjects. I only wish it was bigger, or came out twice a year.
I love Xmas Day. Though truth be told I could do the same thing any day of the year. Which is - I get together with friends, we go eat dim sum in a gigantic noisy Chinese restaurant that is jam packed with people of a similar bent, then we go to a movie matinee - usually something blockbusterish - this year probably the new Mission Impossible movie. It's got the Burj Khalifa in it and the Kremlin blows up. What could be more festive than that?
Okay, so what else do I love about Xmas? I'm thinking, I'm thinking...
The best Xmas I ever spent was in Dakar, Senegal.
I spent December 24th wandering the town, admiring the occasional African Santa Claus I encountered and the rather odd mix of African and French decorations. I caught a pickpocket with his hand in my camera bag in the main street market. Though then I worried about him. He couldn't have been much more than 12 and when I grabbed his hand and held it in the air and yelled at him, I was joined by a bunch of angry market women who took over his chastisement from me. I don't know what happened to him after that. Maybe they just humiliated him and sent him home. Maybe they beat him to death.
But I digress. My friend and traveling companion Ronna and I had dinner at one of the swankest French colonial restaurants in town. I had the very best steak frites (with a fresh green peppercorn sauce) that I have ever had, and we shared a bottle of excellent wine.
Then we wandered down to the wrong side of the tracks where all the tourist guides tell you not to go. Actually, it was under the tracks - a very sleazy, big nightclub that was mostly an enormous colorfully lighted patio with a band set up at one end of it. It was riotous with all the people that well-intentioned "experts" warn you against hanging out with: hookers, their pimps, their best customers, a variety of gangsters and assorted other crooks and junkies and drunks.
We had a blast. The Ventilateur was the dance craze of the moment (1984) - a dance in which one turns one's ass to the rest of the crowd and spins and jiggles it as best one can in emulation of a fan. Ronna proved to be particularly adept at this. I can't recall if she was the only white girl in the place, but she was certainly the only one who could hold her own dancing.
We drank. We smoked. There may have been some hash laced into some of those cigarettes. We chatted with everyone, in English when possible, in our tortured French when we needed to. We got lessons in Wolof - the primary local language from which jazz idioms such as "heebie jeebies" and "hepcat" derive.
At dawn Xmas morning the whole place emptied out and everybody walked through the deserted streets of town down to the beach where we scrounged coffee and breakfast from the few vendors who were around and a cafe that was open.
It was even better than dim sum and a movie matinee.
10 December 2011
BRAVE AWFUL GREAT NEW WORLD - AMAZON, FRIEND OR FOE?
Progress isn't always pretty. It's got victims. Even when it tries to accommodate the past, sooner or later it's just going to steamroll over it in many instances. Today might be one of those days.
Today Amazon is running a promotion. Take your smartphone to a shop, any shop that sells something Amazon also sells, let the Amazon app on your phone know what product you're considering buying and up will spring the - almost certainly cheaper - Amazon price. And to further encourage you to do this, today you get a five percent discount (up to $5) when you buy the product from Amazon rather than from the store where you're doing your browsing.
Retail stores are furious. And rightly so. Amazon is forcing them to become its storefront and not compensating them for that. It is taking sales directly away from them in the most crass possible way. Already, bookstore owners frequently see shoppers writing down titles, that they are certain - with good reason - those people will go home and order from Amazon instead.
Is this the future? Is this a case of technology being used to the benefit of consumers, even though it is hurting traditional, small businesses? Or is it just another typical instance of a huge corporation ruthlessly trying to stomp on its competition?
It's both, I suppose. Therein lies the dilemma.
As a consumer, I like to buy things as inexpensively as possible. If one place is selling a book I want for $24.95 and the other is selling it for $15.95, I'm not rich enough to ignore the difference.
As an author, wanting to sell books to readers, if I can sell more books at a lower price, while still getting the same - or even higher in the case of my ebooks - royalty as at the higher price, I'm also not successful enough to turn away those additional sales. As a matter of fact, it's in my interest to encourage them.
But I also like shopping in real, brick and mortar stores. I like browsing through books on tables and shelves. I like sifting through clothes on racks and trying them on before buying them. I like feeling the heft of cookware before making up my mind what pot, pan, knife or gizmo I want to bring home. I like the social aspect of it - chatting with fellow shoppers, with the people who work in the store. In a good store, the knowledge and opinions of the shopkeepers is an important and valuable part of the experience of shopping. I end up buying less stuff that I want to return in brick and mortar stores than I do online.
And Amazon is threatening all those things that I enjoy as a shopper. Too many bookstores are closing down. Record stores are mostly all gone. What sort of shops are next on the hit list?
Am I, as a consumer, as much to blame for this as Amazon? I'm certainly an enabler. Hell, there are even specialty food items I buy online rather than from shops, even some fresh ones, yet I love going to food markets. Is my economic self-interest worth giving up much of what I do enjoy about shopping?
The sad fact is that other than for the currently infamous "one percent," economic self-interest will always trump the niceties of the marketplace or the "joys" of shopping. And it is always going to be cheaper for an online retailer to sell its products than for a brick and mortar store to sell the same products, even if the online stores are forced to charge sales tax - which I think they should be.
Does this mean the end of shops as we know them? For stores that try to compete with companies like Amazon on Amazon's own terms, yep, they're going to get crushed.
In the future, the brick and mortar shops that will survive are those that play up and enhance the type of shopping experience that they can provide and an online retailer can't. They need to find ways to make the higher prices they have no choice but to charge, worth the premium. It's not unlike how TV commercials need to become more and more entertaining and/or informative in order to encourage viewers to not simply bypass them on their DVRs.
Here's a few things that shops can do that Amazon can't, that might help them keep my/your business:
Like most people, I want it all. I want the deep discounts that I get from Amazon and other online retailers, and I want my local small businesses to thrive. In some cases those desires are proving to be mutually exclusive. But they don't have to be, at least not for all small businesses, especially those that manage to adapt to this ugly/beautiful, brave new world.
Today Amazon is running a promotion. Take your smartphone to a shop, any shop that sells something Amazon also sells, let the Amazon app on your phone know what product you're considering buying and up will spring the - almost certainly cheaper - Amazon price. And to further encourage you to do this, today you get a five percent discount (up to $5) when you buy the product from Amazon rather than from the store where you're doing your browsing.
Retail stores are furious. And rightly so. Amazon is forcing them to become its storefront and not compensating them for that. It is taking sales directly away from them in the most crass possible way. Already, bookstore owners frequently see shoppers writing down titles, that they are certain - with good reason - those people will go home and order from Amazon instead.
Is this the future? Is this a case of technology being used to the benefit of consumers, even though it is hurting traditional, small businesses? Or is it just another typical instance of a huge corporation ruthlessly trying to stomp on its competition?
It's both, I suppose. Therein lies the dilemma.
As a consumer, I like to buy things as inexpensively as possible. If one place is selling a book I want for $24.95 and the other is selling it for $15.95, I'm not rich enough to ignore the difference.
As an author, wanting to sell books to readers, if I can sell more books at a lower price, while still getting the same - or even higher in the case of my ebooks - royalty as at the higher price, I'm also not successful enough to turn away those additional sales. As a matter of fact, it's in my interest to encourage them.
But I also like shopping in real, brick and mortar stores. I like browsing through books on tables and shelves. I like sifting through clothes on racks and trying them on before buying them. I like feeling the heft of cookware before making up my mind what pot, pan, knife or gizmo I want to bring home. I like the social aspect of it - chatting with fellow shoppers, with the people who work in the store. In a good store, the knowledge and opinions of the shopkeepers is an important and valuable part of the experience of shopping. I end up buying less stuff that I want to return in brick and mortar stores than I do online.
And Amazon is threatening all those things that I enjoy as a shopper. Too many bookstores are closing down. Record stores are mostly all gone. What sort of shops are next on the hit list?
Am I, as a consumer, as much to blame for this as Amazon? I'm certainly an enabler. Hell, there are even specialty food items I buy online rather than from shops, even some fresh ones, yet I love going to food markets. Is my economic self-interest worth giving up much of what I do enjoy about shopping?
The sad fact is that other than for the currently infamous "one percent," economic self-interest will always trump the niceties of the marketplace or the "joys" of shopping. And it is always going to be cheaper for an online retailer to sell its products than for a brick and mortar store to sell the same products, even if the online stores are forced to charge sales tax - which I think they should be.
Does this mean the end of shops as we know them? For stores that try to compete with companies like Amazon on Amazon's own terms, yep, they're going to get crushed.
In the future, the brick and mortar shops that will survive are those that play up and enhance the type of shopping experience that they can provide and an online retailer can't. They need to find ways to make the higher prices they have no choice but to charge, worth the premium. It's not unlike how TV commercials need to become more and more entertaining and/or informative in order to encourage viewers to not simply bypass them on their DVRs.
Here's a few things that shops can do that Amazon can't, that might help them keep my/your business:
Foster a community. Turn your shop into a gathering place for people with like-minded interests. You can do that through events, promotions, contests, classes, film screenings, whatever. It's easier if you run a specialty shop - a mystery or cookbook or history store, rather than a general book store, for example. This is applicable to all kinds of stores, not just bookstores. (Though some of your shoppers are still going to browse in your place then buy elsewhere. There's no avoiding that.)
Provide a variety of things to lure customers in and keep them there. The most obvious are hybrids - cafe, bar or laundromat and bookstore, salad and sandwich shop and clothing store, etc. Use the revenue from one to help support the other.
Personal service from knowledgeable salespeople. Every successful brick and mortar shop may well need its equivalent of the Apple "Genius Bar."
Sell products that buyers need, or greatly want to feel and/or see in three dimensions, taste, smell or otherwise experience in person before buying. These are often specialty and high-end items or most fresh products.I'm not a huge shopaholic, but I also don't want small, local stores to disappear. One of the things I love about the neighborhood I live in is the abundance of small, locally-owned shops selling a variety of products and the sense of community I get when I spend time in them. I don't get that from Amazon. But like anyone without an unlimited well of money to draw from, I just can't afford to pay too much of a premium for the things I need and want.
Like most people, I want it all. I want the deep discounts that I get from Amazon and other online retailers, and I want my local small businesses to thrive. In some cases those desires are proving to be mutually exclusive. But they don't have to be, at least not for all small businesses, especially those that manage to adapt to this ugly/beautiful, brave new world.
19 November 2011
WHAT DO BANKS WANT? THOUGHTS ON REFINANCING OUR HOUSE
They want to make money. That's what every business wants.
Traditionally, the most stable, steady profit-making enterprise for banks has been lending money. Sure, there's much higher yields to be made from speculative, high-risk investments and money manipulation, but to ensure the continued health of a bank it needs a solid portfolio of dependable low-risk loans.
And, one of the primary reasons that the economy is still so stubbornly sluggish is that banks are sitting on piles of cash that they aren't lending out. Because of that, companies can't expand, they can't hire new workers, people can't build, buy or sell houses. For any free market economy to survive it needs constant activity fueled by money - more often than not in the form of loans. It's like the proverbial shark that will die if it doesn't keep swimming.
So why was it so enormously difficult for Eva - who I live with - and I to refinance our house recently?
We are about as close as it gets to zero risk borrowers and yet trying to get a bank to take our money was a Herculean task.
We bought our house eleven years ago, not quite at the bottom of the market but near enough to it that our property is still well above water. For our refinance, we were attempting to borrow approximately 15 percent of the current appraised value of our house. (And, according to three different realtors the official appraised value was laughably low compared with current real market value.) If our house burned to the ground, the lot alone would be worth at least two or three times the amount we were asking for.
And we're excellent customers. We have never missed, or even been so much as a day late with any payment.
And the whole point of refinancing in the first place was to cut our monthly payments - by about half - which would make it even less likely that we would miss a payment or be late with one in the future.
So we called up Harris Bank - our then current lender - reminded them of what good customers we've been and told them we wanted to refinance.
They turned us down flat.
On the one hand, what incentive did they have to give us a lower interest rate when we've been paying a higher one for the past eleven years? That would have meant they'd be making less money off of us.
On the other, they were risking losing a couple of very good, reliable customers at a time when banks are claiming that the going is tough for them, and making no money at all from us.
I pointed this out to them. They said sorry, that's the way it is.
Too bad for them. Bye bye Harris.
Thanks to the tenacious, patient and expert efforts of a fantastic mortgage broker, Eva and I jumped through numerous flaming hoops, shoveled the requested shit out of the Augean stables of our finances - being self-employed didn't help - and prevailed. We refinanced our house down from a five percent loan to a three-and-a-half percent loan, cutting our monthly payments in half. (If any of you need a really good mortgage broker I can send you the name and contact information for ours.)
So, I've got to ask, why?
Certainly banks ought to be more cautious than they were over the last decade when it comes to lending money for houses. They got severely burned making stupid loans to pretty much anyone who asked for one for any property no matter how ill-conceived the whole deal was, or how unlikely the person taking out the loan was to be able to pay it back. They figured that the property market was going to continue going up and up and up forever, so even if the loans blew up, they'd still be left with property worth a lot more than they'd loaned out for it.
They were wrong.
So now, to avoid it happening all over again, a lot of banks have put into place internal regulations that make it very difficult for them to loan money to anyone - not just the people who probably shouldn't be taking out loans in the first place.
But because banks' lending business has slowed to a crawl and they still want to make money, they are returning to the other, even riskier, financial juggling activities. Sometimes those do chalk up huge gains. But they also can cause enormous, rapid losses that are horribly destructive.
Apparently banks, and the various government agencies that oversee them, and Congress (of course) haven't learned anything from the recent and ongoing debacle.
The fact that Eva and I had such a difficult time refinancing our house may seem like a little thing. But it is a symptom of a much more severe malady that is not merely getting in the way of our country's (and big chunks of the rest of the world for that matter) economic recovery, but setting us up for the next big fall.
Traditionally, the most stable, steady profit-making enterprise for banks has been lending money. Sure, there's much higher yields to be made from speculative, high-risk investments and money manipulation, but to ensure the continued health of a bank it needs a solid portfolio of dependable low-risk loans.
And, one of the primary reasons that the economy is still so stubbornly sluggish is that banks are sitting on piles of cash that they aren't lending out. Because of that, companies can't expand, they can't hire new workers, people can't build, buy or sell houses. For any free market economy to survive it needs constant activity fueled by money - more often than not in the form of loans. It's like the proverbial shark that will die if it doesn't keep swimming.
So why was it so enormously difficult for Eva - who I live with - and I to refinance our house recently?
We are about as close as it gets to zero risk borrowers and yet trying to get a bank to take our money was a Herculean task.
We bought our house eleven years ago, not quite at the bottom of the market but near enough to it that our property is still well above water. For our refinance, we were attempting to borrow approximately 15 percent of the current appraised value of our house. (And, according to three different realtors the official appraised value was laughably low compared with current real market value.) If our house burned to the ground, the lot alone would be worth at least two or three times the amount we were asking for.
And we're excellent customers. We have never missed, or even been so much as a day late with any payment.
And the whole point of refinancing in the first place was to cut our monthly payments - by about half - which would make it even less likely that we would miss a payment or be late with one in the future.
So we called up Harris Bank - our then current lender - reminded them of what good customers we've been and told them we wanted to refinance.
They turned us down flat.
On the one hand, what incentive did they have to give us a lower interest rate when we've been paying a higher one for the past eleven years? That would have meant they'd be making less money off of us.
On the other, they were risking losing a couple of very good, reliable customers at a time when banks are claiming that the going is tough for them, and making no money at all from us.
I pointed this out to them. They said sorry, that's the way it is.
Too bad for them. Bye bye Harris.
Thanks to the tenacious, patient and expert efforts of a fantastic mortgage broker, Eva and I jumped through numerous flaming hoops, shoveled the requested shit out of the Augean stables of our finances - being self-employed didn't help - and prevailed. We refinanced our house down from a five percent loan to a three-and-a-half percent loan, cutting our monthly payments in half. (If any of you need a really good mortgage broker I can send you the name and contact information for ours.)
So, I've got to ask, why?
Certainly banks ought to be more cautious than they were over the last decade when it comes to lending money for houses. They got severely burned making stupid loans to pretty much anyone who asked for one for any property no matter how ill-conceived the whole deal was, or how unlikely the person taking out the loan was to be able to pay it back. They figured that the property market was going to continue going up and up and up forever, so even if the loans blew up, they'd still be left with property worth a lot more than they'd loaned out for it.
They were wrong.
So now, to avoid it happening all over again, a lot of banks have put into place internal regulations that make it very difficult for them to loan money to anyone - not just the people who probably shouldn't be taking out loans in the first place.
But because banks' lending business has slowed to a crawl and they still want to make money, they are returning to the other, even riskier, financial juggling activities. Sometimes those do chalk up huge gains. But they also can cause enormous, rapid losses that are horribly destructive.
Apparently banks, and the various government agencies that oversee them, and Congress (of course) haven't learned anything from the recent and ongoing debacle.
The fact that Eva and I had such a difficult time refinancing our house may seem like a little thing. But it is a symptom of a much more severe malady that is not merely getting in the way of our country's (and big chunks of the rest of the world for that matter) economic recovery, but setting us up for the next big fall.
14 November 2011
REFLECTIONS - IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY? - ON NOSTALGIA
I've had cause over the past couple of months to think about my past more than usual.
On the personal / mortality side of things: one aunt died. Another has been diagnosed with what is possibly her terminal illness. It was the seventh anniversary of my mother's death. For the first time in my life I spent a week in the hospital due to something that could have killed me.
There aren't a whole lot of pictures of me from my first nine years of life. That's because November 7 this year was the 50th anniversary of my family's house burning down in a wildfire that gave us little time to evacuate, much less take much of anything with us. The only thing other than memories that I have left from the years before the fire is this:
It's the cooled puddle of a silver or steel or some kind of vase that melted in the house and that my mom scraped up from the ashes when we were allowed to go back and sift among the smoldering ruins.
Then there's the personal / political side of things. Occupy Wall Street makes me think back to the days when I was a student radical in the '60s and '70s. I've been watching the new History Channel show "Vietnam in HD." Growing up when I did - a teenager in the late 1960s, eligible to be drafted in 1970 when kids just like me were being drafted in large numbers and sent to die in Vietnam - did a lot to make me the person I am today.
I went to a book launch party not so long ago for an anthology of short stories called "Send My Love And A Molotov Cocktail," edited by my pal Gary Phillips. One of the contributors, John A. Imani, had written a story set during antiwar demonstrations at UCLA in 1972. I'd also been at those demonstrations.
The launch was held at The Southern California Library, "...a people's library, dedicated to documenting and preserving the histories of communities in struggle for justice..." I poked around in the library's archives, just looking at the labels on the boxes of collected materials. There were a number of collections that were familiar to me, that possibly even hold leaflets or newsletters or posters or articles that I wrote, edited, distributed or hand cranked the mimeograph machines to help print.
I have my own collection of printed materials from those days. I plan to go through them and see if the library wants any of them. And I've got a collection of "buttons" that I hadn't looked at in many years until I just now took this picture of some of them:
It pleased me to think that some part of my past might be preserved in that collection, that I may have contributed in some very small way to the historical record. And I do recall those days fondly, though I think of them as neither the good old or bad old days, just as days like any other - a mix of good, bad and mostly just getting by.
I like to think that I lack nostalgia, that in my mind the good days are still ahead of me, that the next book I write is going to be my best, that I get handsomer and more desirable with age - okay, well, maybe that one not so much, there's only so much self-deception that even I can muster.
Nostalgia is almost always made up of convenient lies and selective truths. It is good to remember the past - ideally with all its blemishes, failures, ugliness, beauty and triumphs acknowledged - but it is seldom of any use to dwell in it.
If you're reading this and hoping that I'm somehow going to wrap it up in a way that makes sense of it, that has something significant to impart, sorry you are S.O.L. The only lessons I've learned from any reflecting I've done on my past, the past of others or the past in general are that there is nothing whatsoever that can be done about it and that you can't let it get in the way of trying to do things better in the future.
Oh yeah, and that the future is pretty much out of your control, too, but you can't let that stop you from trying.
I guess I just talked myself into getting back to work on the next book.
On the personal / mortality side of things: one aunt died. Another has been diagnosed with what is possibly her terminal illness. It was the seventh anniversary of my mother's death. For the first time in my life I spent a week in the hospital due to something that could have killed me.
There aren't a whole lot of pictures of me from my first nine years of life. That's because November 7 this year was the 50th anniversary of my family's house burning down in a wildfire that gave us little time to evacuate, much less take much of anything with us. The only thing other than memories that I have left from the years before the fire is this:
It's the cooled puddle of a silver or steel or some kind of vase that melted in the house and that my mom scraped up from the ashes when we were allowed to go back and sift among the smoldering ruins.Then there's the personal / political side of things. Occupy Wall Street makes me think back to the days when I was a student radical in the '60s and '70s. I've been watching the new History Channel show "Vietnam in HD." Growing up when I did - a teenager in the late 1960s, eligible to be drafted in 1970 when kids just like me were being drafted in large numbers and sent to die in Vietnam - did a lot to make me the person I am today.
I went to a book launch party not so long ago for an anthology of short stories called "Send My Love And A Molotov Cocktail," edited by my pal Gary Phillips. One of the contributors, John A. Imani, had written a story set during antiwar demonstrations at UCLA in 1972. I'd also been at those demonstrations.
The launch was held at The Southern California Library, "...a people's library, dedicated to documenting and preserving the histories of communities in struggle for justice..." I poked around in the library's archives, just looking at the labels on the boxes of collected materials. There were a number of collections that were familiar to me, that possibly even hold leaflets or newsletters or posters or articles that I wrote, edited, distributed or hand cranked the mimeograph machines to help print.
I have my own collection of printed materials from those days. I plan to go through them and see if the library wants any of them. And I've got a collection of "buttons" that I hadn't looked at in many years until I just now took this picture of some of them:
It pleased me to think that some part of my past might be preserved in that collection, that I may have contributed in some very small way to the historical record. And I do recall those days fondly, though I think of them as neither the good old or bad old days, just as days like any other - a mix of good, bad and mostly just getting by.I like to think that I lack nostalgia, that in my mind the good days are still ahead of me, that the next book I write is going to be my best, that I get handsomer and more desirable with age - okay, well, maybe that one not so much, there's only so much self-deception that even I can muster.
Nostalgia is almost always made up of convenient lies and selective truths. It is good to remember the past - ideally with all its blemishes, failures, ugliness, beauty and triumphs acknowledged - but it is seldom of any use to dwell in it.
If you're reading this and hoping that I'm somehow going to wrap it up in a way that makes sense of it, that has something significant to impart, sorry you are S.O.L. The only lessons I've learned from any reflecting I've done on my past, the past of others or the past in general are that there is nothing whatsoever that can be done about it and that you can't let it get in the way of trying to do things better in the future.
Oh yeah, and that the future is pretty much out of your control, too, but you can't let that stop you from trying.
I guess I just talked myself into getting back to work on the next book.
17 October 2011
UPON REFLECTION, A MEA CULPA
With regard to the last post, having further reflected on the matter I think I left something important out. It's one thing for strangers to rip each others writing apart. Any reasonable writer expects that from editors and critics, desires it even. But for friends to do it, first requires the development of a great deal of trust.
I do have one friend like that - Ashley Ream. We know each other well enough, are confident and secure enough in the knowledge that we respect, like and admire each others writing that when we tell each other that something we have written sucks our reaction is to wince, sometimes curse, then start thinking about why it might actually suck. (Sometimes we decide the other was wrong, sometimes right, but we know each other well enough to take each other seriously and not take offense at what we have to say to each other.)
But it took a while to get to that point with each other. Trust doesn't develop quickly, no matter how much you like someone or how sympatico you are with them.
The mea culpa part of this post is that I now realize that I jumped the gun, possibly by several years, with the friend whose work I criticized. That was a big mistake on my part. It was stupid and I'm sorry for it.
While I certainly stand by what I said in my previous post, there was an important element left out. Let that be a cautionary tale.
I do have one friend like that - Ashley Ream. We know each other well enough, are confident and secure enough in the knowledge that we respect, like and admire each others writing that when we tell each other that something we have written sucks our reaction is to wince, sometimes curse, then start thinking about why it might actually suck. (Sometimes we decide the other was wrong, sometimes right, but we know each other well enough to take each other seriously and not take offense at what we have to say to each other.)
But it took a while to get to that point with each other. Trust doesn't develop quickly, no matter how much you like someone or how sympatico you are with them.
The mea culpa part of this post is that I now realize that I jumped the gun, possibly by several years, with the friend whose work I criticized. That was a big mistake on my part. It was stupid and I'm sorry for it.
While I certainly stand by what I said in my previous post, there was an important element left out. Let that be a cautionary tale.
14 October 2011
THE TYRANNY OF PRAISE – WHAT DO WRITERS WANT, OR NOT, FROM EACH OTHER
It seems possible that a recently expressed honest opinion of mine may have lost me a developing friendship that I had high hopes for.
Like many of my friends, this one is a writer and a lot of our talk has been about writing, other writers, books, ideas, etc. Our talk was always straightforward, honest and filled with our opinions about the subjects at hand. I encouraged this person (who shall remain nameless and genderless) to send me some of their writing. (I offered to send some of my works in progress in return as I am always on the prowl for intelligent, honest, blunt criticism of my own work.) I got sent a short story.
While I liked the writing in general, I didn’t particularly like the story. My opinion – I know, we’ve all got them just like assholes – was that it didn’t work for a couple of big reasons (macro-level) and it had some other stuff wrong with it for more specific (micro-level) reasons. I said as much, giving the two major reasons and offering to go over the others if that was wanted.
It wasn't wanted. My friend did not take my initial criticism of the big picture problems well, not at all. To the point where I’m concerned that it may have ended our friendship.
This has made me think a lot about what us writers want from each other, or not and how to be clear about it.
All of us want praise, of course, who doesn’t? It’s encouraging, stimulating, pumps us up and pushes us forward.
But praise is easy to come by, whether it’s honest or not, whether it’s informed or ignorant. I’m very happy that I’ve got supportive family and friends. My life is better because of it. I’m certain that I have more self-confidence in everything I do in life because of it. It’s an important component in making me who I am. And because of all that it even helps make my writing better.
It’s not enough though, not nearly enough, to help make my writing as good as it can be. I need the addition of criticism for that – solid, intelligent, insightful, honest and blunt – sometimes hard to take - criticism.
Believe it or not, sometimes I write crap. (Hell, a lot of what I write is crap, at least at first.) So does every single other writer. The only difference between a good writer and a lousy writer is the ability to keep working through the crap, to recognize it for what it is and to make it better.
And that part of the process can be very painful because one of the reasons why we all keep writing is that we know in our hearts that we are good at it, that what we write is good, and that it’s worthy of being read by other people, by strangers. So when something we write is crap, or someone else thinks that it is, that punches us in the gut.
I am not saying that my opinion is the be-all and end-all when it comes to recognizing crap, or problems with a story or a manuscript or anything else. It’s just my opinion. Try and nail down the opinions of any dozen of us writers, and you’ll probably come up with several dozen different conflicting opinions.
But listening to those opinions, weeding out the ones that are due to some sort of twisted personal problems or that stem from an ill- or misinformed reading, or all too obviously have their heads up their asses, then giving consideration to the ones that are left, is the only way any writer ever gets any better.
Sadly, getting honest, well-informed, blunt, pulling no punches opinions and criticism out of someone is an extremely rare and precious commodity.
I’ve never been a member of a writers group. That is because in my experience they almost all exist as a means to provide support, encouragement, incentive and praise to their members and to do that they fail to provide the really hard to hear criticism that all writers also need.
If I ever do hook up with a writers group, it will probably need to be one in which none of the members know each other outside the room where they meet. (Or maybe we should all be masked and disguising our voices.) Where we aren’t trying to maintain or create friendships. Where the only thing we want to do in there is help to make each other’s writing better by being as shitty and unpleasant and brutally honest with each other as it takes.
One of the most important lessons of my life as a writer came when I was a new hire on a business magazine in Hong Kong. I came up with what I thought was a great idea for a story. It was a monthly magazine and I worked my ass off on that story for three weeks. I got some great interviews, I unearthed some remarkable facts that hadn’t come to light before, and then I sat down and wrote the hell out of the thing. I turned it in to the editor in the full glow of knowing that it was the best thing I’d ever written – prize-winning material.
I got it back a half hour later with a note scribbled on the first page: “This is shit. It’s not why I hired you. Rewrite.”
I wanted to walk into his office and quit. I wanted to throw things, break windows, slug somebody, anybody.
I took a walk. I had a bowl of soup noodles with fish balls into which I ladled nearly an entire jar of extra-spicy chili paste.
When I got back to the office I took several very deep breaths, picked up my article and walked into the editor’s office to ask him what was wrong with my piece.
He looked at me and said, “I don’t have time to explain. Figure it out.”
I went back to my desk, mumbled and swore and grumbled and cursed my editor and every generation of his family all the way back to the apes.
Then I got to work and I figured it out and it was a much better article for it. (But he was still an asshole and I would have appreciated some clue as to what he thought was wrong with it.)
So what is it that we writers actually do want from each other? And how do we make it clear that’s what we really want and aren’t just paying lip service to what we think we should want?
Like many of my friends, this one is a writer and a lot of our talk has been about writing, other writers, books, ideas, etc. Our talk was always straightforward, honest and filled with our opinions about the subjects at hand. I encouraged this person (who shall remain nameless and genderless) to send me some of their writing. (I offered to send some of my works in progress in return as I am always on the prowl for intelligent, honest, blunt criticism of my own work.) I got sent a short story.
While I liked the writing in general, I didn’t particularly like the story. My opinion – I know, we’ve all got them just like assholes – was that it didn’t work for a couple of big reasons (macro-level) and it had some other stuff wrong with it for more specific (micro-level) reasons. I said as much, giving the two major reasons and offering to go over the others if that was wanted.
It wasn't wanted. My friend did not take my initial criticism of the big picture problems well, not at all. To the point where I’m concerned that it may have ended our friendship.
This has made me think a lot about what us writers want from each other, or not and how to be clear about it.
All of us want praise, of course, who doesn’t? It’s encouraging, stimulating, pumps us up and pushes us forward.
But praise is easy to come by, whether it’s honest or not, whether it’s informed or ignorant. I’m very happy that I’ve got supportive family and friends. My life is better because of it. I’m certain that I have more self-confidence in everything I do in life because of it. It’s an important component in making me who I am. And because of all that it even helps make my writing better.
It’s not enough though, not nearly enough, to help make my writing as good as it can be. I need the addition of criticism for that – solid, intelligent, insightful, honest and blunt – sometimes hard to take - criticism.
Believe it or not, sometimes I write crap. (Hell, a lot of what I write is crap, at least at first.) So does every single other writer. The only difference between a good writer and a lousy writer is the ability to keep working through the crap, to recognize it for what it is and to make it better.
And that part of the process can be very painful because one of the reasons why we all keep writing is that we know in our hearts that we are good at it, that what we write is good, and that it’s worthy of being read by other people, by strangers. So when something we write is crap, or someone else thinks that it is, that punches us in the gut.
I am not saying that my opinion is the be-all and end-all when it comes to recognizing crap, or problems with a story or a manuscript or anything else. It’s just my opinion. Try and nail down the opinions of any dozen of us writers, and you’ll probably come up with several dozen different conflicting opinions.
But listening to those opinions, weeding out the ones that are due to some sort of twisted personal problems or that stem from an ill- or misinformed reading, or all too obviously have their heads up their asses, then giving consideration to the ones that are left, is the only way any writer ever gets any better.
Sadly, getting honest, well-informed, blunt, pulling no punches opinions and criticism out of someone is an extremely rare and precious commodity.
I’ve never been a member of a writers group. That is because in my experience they almost all exist as a means to provide support, encouragement, incentive and praise to their members and to do that they fail to provide the really hard to hear criticism that all writers also need.
If I ever do hook up with a writers group, it will probably need to be one in which none of the members know each other outside the room where they meet. (Or maybe we should all be masked and disguising our voices.) Where we aren’t trying to maintain or create friendships. Where the only thing we want to do in there is help to make each other’s writing better by being as shitty and unpleasant and brutally honest with each other as it takes.
One of the most important lessons of my life as a writer came when I was a new hire on a business magazine in Hong Kong. I came up with what I thought was a great idea for a story. It was a monthly magazine and I worked my ass off on that story for three weeks. I got some great interviews, I unearthed some remarkable facts that hadn’t come to light before, and then I sat down and wrote the hell out of the thing. I turned it in to the editor in the full glow of knowing that it was the best thing I’d ever written – prize-winning material.
I got it back a half hour later with a note scribbled on the first page: “This is shit. It’s not why I hired you. Rewrite.”
I wanted to walk into his office and quit. I wanted to throw things, break windows, slug somebody, anybody.
I took a walk. I had a bowl of soup noodles with fish balls into which I ladled nearly an entire jar of extra-spicy chili paste.
When I got back to the office I took several very deep breaths, picked up my article and walked into the editor’s office to ask him what was wrong with my piece.
He looked at me and said, “I don’t have time to explain. Figure it out.”
I went back to my desk, mumbled and swore and grumbled and cursed my editor and every generation of his family all the way back to the apes.
Then I got to work and I figured it out and it was a much better article for it. (But he was still an asshole and I would have appreciated some clue as to what he thought was wrong with it.)
So what is it that we writers actually do want from each other? And how do we make it clear that’s what we really want and aren’t just paying lip service to what we think we should want?
08 October 2011
BACK AT THE DESK, DILEMMA AT MY FINGERTIPS
What is a writer to do when faced with the realization that the best way to tell a story he wants to tell is in a style that he isn’t all that comfortable with and doesn’t even particularly like to read?
I don’t like magical realism. I forced myself to finish the first 50 pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and then I threw it across the room in frustration and disgust. I loathed it. So sue me. Other than Eduardo Galleano I haven’t been able to get through any of the other much lauded South Americans, either.
I am not entirely consistent. One of my favorite books of the past few years was Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea (who is Mexican – Tijuana – by way of Chicago) and it certainly takes a few spins around the room with magical realism. I have never been able to read what is widely regarded as his masterpiece – The Hummingbird’s Daughter. Although on my recent road trip I listened to him read it – he does a wonderful job, which is rare for a writer reading his own book – on my car stereo and enjoyed it thoroughly. It worked for me as a story that someone was telling me in a way that it didn’t work for me to read.
The book I am currently working on has given me fits and starts. Initially it was going to be the middle one of three thematically linked novellas. I finished it, I thought, at about 40,000 words. (Long for a novella but too short for a novel.) But that grand scheme didn’t work out.
Now I’m faced with rewriting it as a full length novel that will stand alone. And I can’t simply expand it. It’s not going to work that way.
Worse yet, it has occurred to me that the story involved can best be told in a way that at least flirts with magical realism, and maybe even has to actually climb into bed with it and get down and dirty.
What’s a writer to do? Sometimes a story will dictate its form and if you want to do an adequate job of telling it, you have to succumb to its demands.
It’s times like this when I have thoughts of going to trade school and becoming something useful, like an electrician.
I don’t like magical realism. I forced myself to finish the first 50 pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and then I threw it across the room in frustration and disgust. I loathed it. So sue me. Other than Eduardo Galleano I haven’t been able to get through any of the other much lauded South Americans, either.
I am not entirely consistent. One of my favorite books of the past few years was Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea (who is Mexican – Tijuana – by way of Chicago) and it certainly takes a few spins around the room with magical realism. I have never been able to read what is widely regarded as his masterpiece – The Hummingbird’s Daughter. Although on my recent road trip I listened to him read it – he does a wonderful job, which is rare for a writer reading his own book – on my car stereo and enjoyed it thoroughly. It worked for me as a story that someone was telling me in a way that it didn’t work for me to read.
The book I am currently working on has given me fits and starts. Initially it was going to be the middle one of three thematically linked novellas. I finished it, I thought, at about 40,000 words. (Long for a novella but too short for a novel.) But that grand scheme didn’t work out.
Now I’m faced with rewriting it as a full length novel that will stand alone. And I can’t simply expand it. It’s not going to work that way.
Worse yet, it has occurred to me that the story involved can best be told in a way that at least flirts with magical realism, and maybe even has to actually climb into bed with it and get down and dirty.
What’s a writer to do? Sometimes a story will dictate its form and if you want to do an adequate job of telling it, you have to succumb to its demands.
It’s times like this when I have thoughts of going to trade school and becoming something useful, like an electrician.
05 October 2011
ACROSS AMERICA ONE HOUR AT A TIME - DAY SIX
Kingman, Arizona to Home (Los Angeles, CA): Finally made it. The weather didn't cooperate, it poured rain and blew wind from Victorville all the rest of the way home. There were wrecks littered along the road, but they couldn't stop us. A stop at Total Wine & More in Rancho Cucamonga nearly bankrupted us though. It is the Disneyland of Booze. I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to be drinking on the varied dope they've got me on, but there's plenty to drink in the house should I be so inclined. And I am so inclined.
Here's my latest photographic victims:
Needles, CA. A couple who'd just driven down from Washington State.
Ludlow, CA. They were repaving part of a gas station.
Victorville, CA. A clerk in a convenience store. At first she thought I might be a secret shopper, since they take pictures.
Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Candy, on the left, is terrifyingly knowledgeable about wine and other booze. I blame her for the amount of money we spent in the place. But I recommend her should you ever be in Rancho Cucamonga and want the perfect tour guide to the wonderland of booze.
Home. This is what I look like after two weeks without shaving. Because I am so very skilled at finding ways to cut myself shaving, and the drugs they've got me on have thinned my blood, I have been warned to only shave with an electric razor for fear of nicking my nose and bleeding out on the bathroom floor. I ordered a well-reviewed electric razor online and it was waiting for me when I arrived home. I think it is now just about charged up. But I figured I'd humiliate myself first by posting this picture. It's good to be home.
Here's my latest photographic victims:
Needles, CA. A couple who'd just driven down from Washington State.
Ludlow, CA. They were repaving part of a gas station.
Victorville, CA. A clerk in a convenience store. At first she thought I might be a secret shopper, since they take pictures.
Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Candy, on the left, is terrifyingly knowledgeable about wine and other booze. I blame her for the amount of money we spent in the place. But I recommend her should you ever be in Rancho Cucamonga and want the perfect tour guide to the wonderland of booze.
Home. This is what I look like after two weeks without shaving. Because I am so very skilled at finding ways to cut myself shaving, and the drugs they've got me on have thinned my blood, I have been warned to only shave with an electric razor for fear of nicking my nose and bleeding out on the bathroom floor. I ordered a well-reviewed electric razor online and it was waiting for me when I arrived home. I think it is now just about charged up. But I figured I'd humiliate myself first by posting this picture. It's good to be home.
04 October 2011
ACROSS AMERICA ONE HOUR AT A TIME - DAY FIVE
Gallup, New Mexico to Kingman, Arizona: By now, if you've been paying attention, you should realize that we are taking, essentially, Route 66 across the country. Well, we're on Interstate 40 but for most of its way it either parallels what is left of Route 66 or runs right over it. Some towns, like Seligman, Arizona, seem to survive entirely off nostalgia for the old highway. 
Here's some of the people I encountered today on my hourly stops.
Ofelia's Knife City, AZ. I asked Ofelia - at least I'm pretty sure she was Ofelia - if she would pose with her favorite knife. She said, "They are all my favorites. They make me money." So I posed her at the cash register instead.
Winslow, AZ. Stopped for lunch at La Posada Hotel, one of the great quirky hotels anywhere. Run in part by , a painter with a twisted sense of humor. Here's a woman in front of a painting of Nancy Reagan, part of the First Ladies series.
Seligman, AZ. Inside the Route 66 souvenir shop pictured above. A group of tourists from Quebec, Canada were shopping for t-shirts. They were a little concerned when I wanted to take their picture, they'd just finished a three day hike into a nearby canyon and hadn't had a shower yet.
Here's some of the people I encountered today on my hourly stops.
Ofelia's Knife City, AZ. I asked Ofelia - at least I'm pretty sure she was Ofelia - if she would pose with her favorite knife. She said, "They are all my favorites. They make me money." So I posed her at the cash register instead.
Winslow, AZ. Stopped for lunch at La Posada Hotel, one of the great quirky hotels anywhere. Run in part by , a painter with a twisted sense of humor. Here's a woman in front of a painting of Nancy Reagan, part of the First Ladies series.
Seligman, AZ. Inside the Route 66 souvenir shop pictured above. A group of tourists from Quebec, Canada were shopping for t-shirts. They were a little concerned when I wanted to take their picture, they'd just finished a three day hike into a nearby canyon and hadn't had a shower yet.
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