More tired to come...uf...
So the last two weeks I've been working non-stop (either prepping for festival or trimming trees) and dog sitting, which equals long days and disturbed nights, as dogs wake me up a good bit. B (real name rescinded) especially keeps me up, the old devil. He's 16 and coughs and hacks and mutters to himself, and some nights he turns into a little gas cloud and the stink wakes me up.
Anyway, this coming week I'm going on an adventure. Going to go 'rough it' with a group, which I've never really done. Never roughed it. Looking forward, though I do wish I was going into it better rested. Also coughed up a lung money-wise to get all the necessary gear I didn't have and food for the week. So that's just to say, no updates for at least a week, and then gotta get right back to working after I'm back. No rest for the weary.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
E'dum'acation
Brief rant, because I don't have time this morning to give the topic its due course, but I don't want to forget to write about it...
I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but...ya need an education. You don't need one for money, or prestige, but because it makes your life bigger. Reading great books makes your life bigger. Encountering new and unusual philosophies, not your own, makes your life bigger. Traveling away from home, sometimes even oversees, makes your life bigger.
There's a nasty, petty, crab-in-a-bucket anti-intellectualism frothing at the mouth and nipping at the heels of the American middle class. Who needs college? Who needs a --scoff-- "liberal arts" education? How about this countries founders, who are always unironically on the sneering lips of those anti-intellectuals? Our founders would have been well read in the classics, spoke other languages, including (SHOCK) French, and some even knew the 'dead' languages of Latin and Ancient Greek, because it allowed them to study in the original the great Books, the exemplars of the democratic principles upon which this countries own governance was based! Washington is said to have kept the (translated) writings of Cicero by his bedside even! They knew the histories, in and out, of Greece and Rome, the progenitors of American Democracy, along with the thinkers of the Enlightenment. They would have been educated in the geometry of Euclid, learning not mere number crunching but logical proofing and argumentation.
A citizen educates himself. Educating yourself liberally isn't a sin simply because it has the word 'liberal' in it. A citizen should have both everyday, practical knowledge and ability as well as headier, thoughtful philosophy to ponder and discuss. They should be familiar with the history of the world, not as apologia for their preconceived notions, but to smash their preconceived notions. They should read extensively and have a keen nose for bullshit, both pseudo-profound and otherwise.
While many of the founders did not enter college, their education would have been in kind with what we can receive there today. Lincoln didn't have much of a formal education, but he studied extensively on his own, and this would not have been an education by tabloid magazines and the equivalent of cable television news. In College, we have at our hands one of the greatest tools for higher education, available for more people than ever. It is not perfect, but it can be made more perfect. It can be made more broad, more deep, more available for the mass of people, and it should be. It should be promised improvement, not cursed and threatened for its deficiencies. Education is ultimately an American Duty.
I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but...ya need an education. You don't need one for money, or prestige, but because it makes your life bigger. Reading great books makes your life bigger. Encountering new and unusual philosophies, not your own, makes your life bigger. Traveling away from home, sometimes even oversees, makes your life bigger.
There's a nasty, petty, crab-in-a-bucket anti-intellectualism frothing at the mouth and nipping at the heels of the American middle class. Who needs college? Who needs a --scoff-- "liberal arts" education? How about this countries founders, who are always unironically on the sneering lips of those anti-intellectuals? Our founders would have been well read in the classics, spoke other languages, including (SHOCK) French, and some even knew the 'dead' languages of Latin and Ancient Greek, because it allowed them to study in the original the great Books, the exemplars of the democratic principles upon which this countries own governance was based! Washington is said to have kept the (translated) writings of Cicero by his bedside even! They knew the histories, in and out, of Greece and Rome, the progenitors of American Democracy, along with the thinkers of the Enlightenment. They would have been educated in the geometry of Euclid, learning not mere number crunching but logical proofing and argumentation.
A citizen educates himself. Educating yourself liberally isn't a sin simply because it has the word 'liberal' in it. A citizen should have both everyday, practical knowledge and ability as well as headier, thoughtful philosophy to ponder and discuss. They should be familiar with the history of the world, not as apologia for their preconceived notions, but to smash their preconceived notions. They should read extensively and have a keen nose for bullshit, both pseudo-profound and otherwise.
While many of the founders did not enter college, their education would have been in kind with what we can receive there today. Lincoln didn't have much of a formal education, but he studied extensively on his own, and this would not have been an education by tabloid magazines and the equivalent of cable television news. In College, we have at our hands one of the greatest tools for higher education, available for more people than ever. It is not perfect, but it can be made more perfect. It can be made more broad, more deep, more available for the mass of people, and it should be. It should be promised improvement, not cursed and threatened for its deficiencies. Education is ultimately an American Duty.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Periodic Writing Update
SUP!
Man, I'm really glad I've taken to writing more again. I'm hard at work on Celia part 2. I was told by folks who read the first one that they want more world building, so I'm going to try and improve on that for you fine folks in this sequel, which I guarantee is going to be better (what? but how!?) than the first.
Also, I am finalizing Drakenschloss. I'm never satisfied with my stories, but I have to get them out there to improve. I really hope that you love this thing warts and all, just as I do. I really do love it. I'm working on the cover image, and as soon as that is done, this ugly duckling will be uploaded and online!
Go ahead and let me know about any other things you liked/disliked about Celia. Maybe I left too many loose ends? Maybe you want more development for a favorite character? Go ahead and let me know!
Don't Bring a Gun to a Spoon Fight
So look, I'm a product of the '80s, when gun laws were so lax that you could be feel safe in the knowledge that if your daughter were ever kidnapped by Columbian drug lords, you could knock over a gun shop in the middle of the night and run off with enough destructive power to level a small island nation alone. That's just to say, I get the allure of guns.
But then you see arguments that say, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." And then there's, "Murdering with a gun is an misuse of a gun, but you can kill people with a spoon too! And that's a misuse of the spoon!"
These are stupid arguments.
Guns are effective at killing. Spoons aren't. Butter knives aren't. If you want us to control spoons to somehow be fair to guns, I'm sure we could do that, and I'm sure it would be really annoying. But looks, we don't arm our soldiers with spoons or butter knives, and while there certainly are trucks used by the armed forces, they aren't typically considered a weapon. The idea of every soldier driving a pick-up, but otherwise unarmed, is pretty amusing, but not an effective means of waging war. So, if you really think spoons and knives can be used to equal effect, then by all means, you should be purchasing those instead of guns.
 |
| Taking Spoon Control too far |
Folks have said, "If somebody wanted to use a truck to kill hundreds of people, what would you do then? Illegalize trucks?" Not a bad point. Really. So, let's think about this a second. How come people don't use trucks as often to commit mass murder? After all, there was the attack in Nice, France last year that was almost as effective as the Las Vegas shooting in terms of victims. Well, first, its actually hard to pull of an attack like Nice. 19 ton trucks aren't a whole lot easier to come by than arsenals of weapons, depending where in the world you are. You also need the right kinds of conditions for that kind of attack. You need a nice long straight road where lots of people have gathered and who cannot easily run away from the truck, and you need a long enough runway to crash through whatever police barricades have been set up and carry momentum into the target crowd. But if those guys had gotten ahold of lots of guns, would they have done that instead of using the truck? I'd wager they would have done whatever they thought most effective.
Why else would people use guns rather than trucks, or the other proposed implements (spoons) of destruction? Proximity comes to mind. Unless suicide or capture is part of the plan, trucks, knives, spoons, etc. require a very limited distance from the target, and the attacker is therefore exposed to counterattack and is less likely to escape, if escape is intended. While most of the mass shooters in the states have been captured, or they eluded capture through suicide, there's no evidence that they went in expecting to get caught; apparently the Columbine kids thought they'd get out of there, too. I guess we can chalk that up to the invincible feelings maniacs get when they're holding their guns.
When you hear gun apologists go after their critics, it quickly becomes clear they fantasize of a wasteland world, where the only thing that stands between the innocent and a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun. This, of course, mostly leads us to middle aged women shooting at shoplifters in parking lots. There are a few incidents where an armed person comes to the rescue, but mostly it just adds to the confusion. Here's the deal. We don't live in the wild west. People don't walk out into the street at noon to have duels. The ironic thing about the whole fantasy is that such mythic gun slingers as the Earp brothers protected their towns by imposing strict gun bans within city limits. Correct, legendary gun fighters knew about the usefulness of gun control for maintaining civil order.
 |
| That's right, not Tombstone! Its the other Wyatt Earp movie with Costner...oh, wait a sec... |
"OK, but I'm gonna come back to that truck thing! Trucks can kill people darn well! Nice! Nice! Nice!" Yeah, okay, but trucks also do other things. And here's the thing, we do indeed, as a society, make a very real choice, which is really callous in some ways, to keep using motor vehicles despite their inherent unsafety. We really could stop building freeways and start trying to have safer modes of transportation like trains. But we don't want to. We actively choose, even if we don't think we do, to embrace motor vehicles for their various benefits and despite their deficits.
 |
| "Cut it out, Kevin" |
And that's kinda the same with guns, too. And to me, its the only good argument for our liberal interpretation of the second amendment (if the use of liberal in this context confuses you, here's something more your speed
). Why not have stronger gun laws? Because its worth it. The deaths are worth it. |
| I mean, "Cut it out, Kevin." |
For self defense? To save lives? No, hardly ever. Guns in safes aren't that handy for self defense in a hurry. And obviously we're losing more lives from guns in the hands of the public than we're saving (if you think that maybe the gun deaths are offset by the lack of violence that would be used if we had stricter gun laws, just look up crime statistics for similar countries to the US...maybe I'll put a relevant link here a little later). But its a right we cherish, and so we say, it's worth it. Now that's an honest answer. Much more honest than saying, "But...but spoons can kill people?" Grow up you mook! You know you're being insincere. Just say what you mean! Its worth the lives lost to protect yourself from North Korean invaders! Or from Obama's Jade Helm invasion force!
Look, there are decent reasons to keep an armed populace. Even...well I was about to use the infamous "a rifle behind every blade of grass" quote, but turns out it was misattributed.We'll just allude to the "Shoot twice and go home" quote instead. Whatever, all I'm saying is, be honest with your arguments. (and go buy stuff from my sponsors)
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Expecto Patronus
Lately I've been thinking about the Patronage of the early Romans, and how it fits into our current world. I forget whether I had it in mind before, but I started thinking more about it after seeing this Simon Sinek video on leadership and brain chemistry. Here he's saying that not only did we grow to be a species that relies on the group, but on one that is naturally hierarchical, which isn't something I personally like to hear, being deeply suspicious of hierarchies. But I'm not so stubborn so as to ignore it. Aha, but its not just hierarchical, its also reciprocal! Well of course it is, and we all know that, but something was clicking in my mind, and I started thinking about clientelism and where we are today.
Its not really like there was a codified law about patron-client relationships in ancient Rome so much as the relationship had grown organically and was then supported by law. Its hard to even think of a modern analogue, because, by its nature, its assumed. Maybe it is like how America is a capitalism: some people like to say the founders "chose" capitalism, but this isn't really true. There weren't other candidates; a market was just assumed. Its how things worked. Likewise Roman Clientelism was a background ideology; it was assumed. Toward the end of Republican Rome, some of the older, more conservative senators pointed to the diminishing of the patron-client relationship as a source of the growing political turmoil, which ultimately ended in Julius Caesar's populist driven coup and the rise of the Roman Empire. Whereas Rome had always had its hierarchies, its patricians and plebes, its various levels of slavery, its citizens and non-citizens, cities which were Roman and cities which were Italian client states, as people like Cato the younger saw it, there was always a kind of reciprocity: the clients worked for their patrons, but the patrons also had responsibilities to their clients. Toward the end of the Republican era, Rome had grown much stronger, the upper class citizens were taking less direct part in military matters and accruing more wealth toward themselves. Meanwhile the lower classes were seeing economic stagnation. In other words, Rome had reached a decadent phase after its successful military expansion, and now it was just sitting on its laurel leaves (I thought I was being funny here and quickly realized that, no, this is in fact the origin of the phrase "sitting on one's laurels").
During the latest NFL kneeling kerfluffle, the President of the United States dropped this line in an interview: speaking of the lack of action by the owners to punish those players kneeling, he says, "...I think they're afraid of their players, if you want to know the truth, and I think it's disgraceful." Many people jumped at this as "racial dog whistling", saying that its disgraceful for "white" owners to be afraid of their "black" players. Its not where I went. I don't want to put words in the President's mouth, and I don't want to say, "this is definitely what he meant!" But when I heard him say that, what I could not help but think of was this patron-client relationship. Because whether explicitly or implicitly, he's saying there's something "disgraceful" about an owner's actions being dependent upon considerations of his players, that authority is a one way street. There's no notion of reciprocity here, not even the consideration that owners 'should' be "afraid" of players, even though the whole enterprise relies on the players. Now ideally you don't want the leaders or the led to be afraid of one another; you want them to trust in one another. But this is in the context of the owners being called upon to discipline and even fire the players. So the owner's authority, his inspiring of fear, is actually considered a good thing here, but the reverse, the owner's fear of his players, upon whom he relies, is "disgraceful".
Our economic language betrays this understanding of reciprocity, or lack thereof, too. That a business's only business is making money, you'll see, is it's making money for "the patron", while "the client", the worker, is only there to make the money. The worker making money himself is just a happy accident. The idea of trickle down actually makes this explicit. That people on the bottom even make money is just the incidental byproduct of the wealthy getting wealthier. Heap upon this the Reaganian proclamation of "the business of America is business," and the ideology of non-reciprocity is spread and enshrined in all areas of life, public and private.
I think whatever we call this reciprocal relationship, forgetting that it exists is dangerous. The French Revolution, with its bloody terror, wasn't just an ideologically driven, Democratic endeavor. It happened because French people were starving, because the aristocracy could make more money selling grain overseas than to their own populace. The Bolshevik Revolution wouldn't have happened if the Csar was seeing to it that the starving Russian masses were fed; Csar Nicolas was the richest man in the world, and if he'd spent that wealth on feeding his populace, that poor country would not have borne witness to what was probably the most destructively psychotic regime the world has ever known. In American history you can see it happening over and over, the Gilded Age, the Roaring 20's followed by the Great Depression, etc. The pattern is something like Rise, Hubris, Fall, and we seem to be preoccupied with extending the hubris phase as long as possible, which is natural, because that's the phase when we can sit contentedly in our solipsistic time capsule and feel good about sitting on our laurels, because we earned it.
Its not really like there was a codified law about patron-client relationships in ancient Rome so much as the relationship had grown organically and was then supported by law. Its hard to even think of a modern analogue, because, by its nature, its assumed. Maybe it is like how America is a capitalism: some people like to say the founders "chose" capitalism, but this isn't really true. There weren't other candidates; a market was just assumed. Its how things worked. Likewise Roman Clientelism was a background ideology; it was assumed. Toward the end of Republican Rome, some of the older, more conservative senators pointed to the diminishing of the patron-client relationship as a source of the growing political turmoil, which ultimately ended in Julius Caesar's populist driven coup and the rise of the Roman Empire. Whereas Rome had always had its hierarchies, its patricians and plebes, its various levels of slavery, its citizens and non-citizens, cities which were Roman and cities which were Italian client states, as people like Cato the younger saw it, there was always a kind of reciprocity: the clients worked for their patrons, but the patrons also had responsibilities to their clients. Toward the end of the Republican era, Rome had grown much stronger, the upper class citizens were taking less direct part in military matters and accruing more wealth toward themselves. Meanwhile the lower classes were seeing economic stagnation. In other words, Rome had reached a decadent phase after its successful military expansion, and now it was just sitting on its laurel leaves (I thought I was being funny here and quickly realized that, no, this is in fact the origin of the phrase "sitting on one's laurels").
During the latest NFL kneeling kerfluffle, the President of the United States dropped this line in an interview: speaking of the lack of action by the owners to punish those players kneeling, he says, "...I think they're afraid of their players, if you want to know the truth, and I think it's disgraceful." Many people jumped at this as "racial dog whistling", saying that its disgraceful for "white" owners to be afraid of their "black" players. Its not where I went. I don't want to put words in the President's mouth, and I don't want to say, "this is definitely what he meant!" But when I heard him say that, what I could not help but think of was this patron-client relationship. Because whether explicitly or implicitly, he's saying there's something "disgraceful" about an owner's actions being dependent upon considerations of his players, that authority is a one way street. There's no notion of reciprocity here, not even the consideration that owners 'should' be "afraid" of players, even though the whole enterprise relies on the players. Now ideally you don't want the leaders or the led to be afraid of one another; you want them to trust in one another. But this is in the context of the owners being called upon to discipline and even fire the players. So the owner's authority, his inspiring of fear, is actually considered a good thing here, but the reverse, the owner's fear of his players, upon whom he relies, is "disgraceful".
Our economic language betrays this understanding of reciprocity, or lack thereof, too. That a business's only business is making money, you'll see, is it's making money for "the patron", while "the client", the worker, is only there to make the money. The worker making money himself is just a happy accident. The idea of trickle down actually makes this explicit. That people on the bottom even make money is just the incidental byproduct of the wealthy getting wealthier. Heap upon this the Reaganian proclamation of "the business of America is business," and the ideology of non-reciprocity is spread and enshrined in all areas of life, public and private.
I think whatever we call this reciprocal relationship, forgetting that it exists is dangerous. The French Revolution, with its bloody terror, wasn't just an ideologically driven, Democratic endeavor. It happened because French people were starving, because the aristocracy could make more money selling grain overseas than to their own populace. The Bolshevik Revolution wouldn't have happened if the Csar was seeing to it that the starving Russian masses were fed; Csar Nicolas was the richest man in the world, and if he'd spent that wealth on feeding his populace, that poor country would not have borne witness to what was probably the most destructively psychotic regime the world has ever known. In American history you can see it happening over and over, the Gilded Age, the Roaring 20's followed by the Great Depression, etc. The pattern is something like Rise, Hubris, Fall, and we seem to be preoccupied with extending the hubris phase as long as possible, which is natural, because that's the phase when we can sit contentedly in our solipsistic time capsule and feel good about sitting on our laurels, because we earned it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)