incipit vita nova

Peanut Butter Jelly Time and Cory Doctorow's Book Review

There's two things about writing professionally.  First, it's all about what people have to say.  Second, it's about the money.

So, here are two different You Tube videos.

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

And a link to the Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince trailer.

So, the Harry Potter trailer has nearly four times the number of views than Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

At Book View Cafe, we have been discussing the ideas raised in Cory Doctorow's Guardian UK review of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, by Chris Anderson.  So, that's a book review, and therefore, this is commentary on the review, and not the original book, whose ideas may be quite different than those presented in the review.  The review is illustrated by a photo of a lovely Anthony Bourdain-worthy grouping of fruit at an open-air market, with the caption, "Stalls at Borough Market in London have vastly different characteristics to online service markets."  That caption is not only worthy of one of my academically-oriented nonfiction books for schools and libraries, it's also WTF???

The main gist of the review is a discussion of creative products, and their distribution and sales - i.e., books and music.  The main argument is that "it's impossible to exclude people from stealing these creative products," and "the cost of inventory at big online stores like Amazon and iTunes is next to nothing, or nothing," so - in Cory Doctorow's opinion, this type of "information" or "product" is easily distributable for free, and that people who pay for these products are essentially paying for convenience, i.e., "the banana one buys at at the cafe for eight times what it sells for at the grocers next door."  Other than the convenience factor, for which people will theoretically pay, Cory sees no way in which people would pay for those products.

My reaction to this is - books aren't bananas.  Movies aren't bananas.  Television shows, of which only a few are premium products for which people pay subscription prices, aren't bananas.  Recorded music isn't a banana.  Or, to put it another way, Beekeeping for Dummies (a real book) isn't the same as Twilight.  A few people who want to become beekeepers are going to buy Beekeeping for Dummies.  I'm willing to bet that fewer still would be interested in downloading a pirated copy.  The Dummies books are, after all, heavily reliant on their type design and illustration.  There is no way that the Dummies people or the author of Beekeeping for Dummies figured it would suddenly leap off the shelves and outsell Stephanie Meyer. On the first day of its sales, the last book in the Twilight series sold 1.3 million copies.  As I explained to a friend the other day, even a moderately-popular TV show has more viewers in a week than most movies have in their first run in a theater.  Enormously popular books like the Twilight series and Harry Potter, sell more book copies than the films do tickets.

Later in the review, Cory discusses distribution of resources and stuff one can get for free, which, to this day, no matter how much PR occurs, is still more along the lines of Beekeeping for Dummies than Twilight.

Then, he addresses the ideas of Malcolm Gladwell, who's apparently made a simple point regarding online services that rely upon free contributions of members, asking "How is You Tube making money?"

Some, such as Malcolm Gladwell, have faulted Anderson for failing to be sceptical enough of the businesses enabled by free, pointing out that services such as YouTube lack any sustainable revenue model (something that Anderson states in Free, contrasting it with its rival Hulu and making some shrewd observations about the potential future for both). Gladwell's criticisms ring hollow to me, blending a hand-wringing grievance about "theft" of information with special pleading for Gladwell and his fellow journalists.

Actually, I think Malcolm's point was more like - Who's going to be enough of a dumbass to pay for Peanut Butter Jelly Time?  Malcolm Gladwell doesn't have to worry about massive copies of Outliers being pirated.  Unlike other smarter people than me, I don't have daily access to BookScan numbers, but I can take a wild guess and say that between Outliers and the Tipping Point, Malcolm won't be worrying about how much he pays for bananas any time soon.  Reason being:  these are GREAT BOOKS.

All this discussion of "free information, freely provided" - it isn't just information.  It's not "just words."  It isn't solely-created product, given away freely.  And, in the absence of some sort of structure or cultural influence, one gets whatever.  Among the whatever, certainly there may be, and likely will be, some "gems".  But the person who is supposedly the "editor" is not the only one who plays a key role in what used to be the traditional publishing process.  There are also sales, design, art, accounting, management . . . and more. The lack today is not only "the distributor".  And all of these things are misnomers.  It's a business, and every segment plays an important part.  I have yet to see any of these online discussions about payment for creative work addressing those who know how to market and sell that work to the public - for real.

Wikipedia is free.  What is some of the effect that it is having?  Well, despite the rampant promotion and everyone "working together," Wikipedia kind of sucks more often than not.  Just one example of its suckitude in its English version is its weakness in literature. It's a horrible resource for literature and I would flog any student using Wikipedia in preference to primary sources that are easily available through heir online library databases, and many different college and university resources, and I hesitate to mention it, but . . . real books.  One aspect of all this free information is a relatively small group of people telling each other stuff they already think they know, and then reinforcing it.  That's like, awesome for them.  But they're not buying Twilight too much, or Outliers.  Millions of other dumbasses are, not realizing they could download pirate versions and read them for free on their computer screens.  Or maybe, not wanting to. 

In another way, this idea of "free" vs. "something people will pay for" is like the difference between a free ballpoint pen from the Holiday Inn (which is low-cost, long-term advertising for them) and a Waterman pen.  There is nearly an infinite number of Holiday Inn pens out there.  Every business has some type of free pen or pencil.  If you wanted to never pay for another writing implement again, you could easily do so, or you could take the pirate mentality approach and just steal 'em from your work!  Anywhere from 18 to 67 percent of office workers admit to having done so, according to various surveys.  This being the case, it can easily be seen that since these materials are easily accessible for free, and office thieves can't realistically be excluded, no pens of any type are sold to private individuals.  However, for some strange reason, Waterman continues to successfully make and sell their beautiful writing instruments.  Bic even sells pens to regular people that don't say "Holiday Inn."  Little girls still buy special colored paper and gel pens.  I'm sure there are some "open source" glittery gel pens and fancy paper and stickers out there.  Aren't there? 

Oh, I forgot.  Open source software people don't write with glittery gel pens or draw ponies.  They are busy using their new ASUS and downloading stuff for free.

It's as simple as this:  the old paper publishing models had important parts of their business -- the sales force.  Who's the Amazon sales force?  It's pretty passive, rudimentary selling.  Regarding genre and other fiction writing efforts - people are still buying books in large numbers.  More and more people are buying Kindles and acquiring eBooks and reading them in that somewhat different way that device works.  The giant inventory models work by selling large numbers of a few items, and then being able to stock and sell over time, a vast number of additional items with a smaller, sporadic demand.  Some people view that this makes it "bad" for the people who are creating the material in the large, sporadic inventory section.  That's a problem that is going to find a solution for itself over time. 

Right now, yes, it isn't rewarding to write a book that sells 5,000 paper copies, and then 1,000 eBook copies.  But, that's kind of a product of false expectations, because I just did an overview of "A Distant Episode" by Paul Bowles, and I am doubting that 750-copy cloth cover Black Sparrow editions made stampeding amounts of cash; they were and are also not free. There has never been any great, stampeding number of people making a working living writing fiction - and most certainly not making the type of $$ I make by not writing genre fiction.  I recall Cassie Edwards, the bestselling romance author who plagiarized the ferret descriptions from the nature writer for her Native American romance books?  I took Cassie's large number of titles and divided their number into her self-stated amount earned over her 20-year romance writing career.  It came out to less than $7,000 per book.  With that amount of money being made per-book, I'd probably cut-and-paste ferret action myself after a while.

If one is doing it for the money, of course, and that's an entirely different conversation. 

Oh, and by the way, all 7 billion people on this planet don't want to "create" in preference to "consuming."  What nimwit thought up that?  When somebody invents matter compositors, we'll all just design and make our own clothes, too.  Or paint ourselves up in bioreactive glowpaint and walk around like cuttlefishes.  Ugh.

Paul Bowles and "A Distant Episode"

The extraordinary expatriate American writer Paul Bowles (1911-1999) is primarily remembered for his short fiction. I have in my house the Paul Bowles shelf.  Admittedly, one of the books, his autobiography, is a former library book.  The majority of the rest are Black Sparrow first editions.  Yes, once I was a buyer of literature, without knowing what I was doing.  In 1980 or so, first attending Scripps College, I came across a beautiful Black Sparrow cloth trade paperback of the Collected Stories of Paul Bowles.  Upon opening this beautiful book, I read the first few paragraphs of the introduction by Gore Vidal, in which he said of Bowles, after explaining a bit of Gore Vidal history (as was his wont), "As a short story writer, he has few equals in the second half of the twentieth century."

Here is a lovely 40's-looking photo of Paul Bowles - it is identified as "in Morocco," but it is very likely Tangier, where he made his home for good in 1945 until the end of his life.

So, I write this because this evening, someone from former Alaskan governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla, AK searched for "Critical essay on Paul Bowles 'A Distant Episode'" and was carried here to this top interweb destination, thus learning that my Clarion admission story was a combination of an old Star Trek episode ("Metamorphosis" - the one featuring Zephram Cochrane, inventor of the "warp drive" and "The Companion") and - "A Distant Episode."

I might try to defend myself in this horrific combination, by saying "I didn't know anything about how to write a story!  I didn't even know what a story was!  How could I know that I was doing the mashup from Hell . . ."  From Hell, Mithter Luthk - I thpit at thee!

Well, look.  This is the deal with "A Distant Episode."  It's a cruel, shocking, gorgeous story.  It's rather famous, and according to the horrific Wikipedia stumbling over what it might sort of be about, it is "a favorite of such authors as Tobias Wolff and Jay McInerny."  In fact, if I ever bothered with Wikipedia, I might go fix that some - but it's actually a several-hour project or longer, the description is SO BAD.  "One of the obvious themes of the piece," says the Wikipedist, is "the dangers of Cultural Imperialism."

Well, one can certainly see such ideas in the story.  However, it's more like a realistic horror story, with desert tribal characters we Westerners easily fear as "alien" and who act in implacable, cruel, irretrievable ways.  The plot of the story is simple.  A tragedy, the main character is "The Professor," a French linguist who has traveled to North Africa ostensibly to survey "variations on Moghrebi," which is a Moroccan dialect.  He travels to Ain Tadouirt, supposedly an "imaginary city," but this strikes me as calling a Southern California town "San Pablo" or something, as there are cities called Ain Temouchent in Algeria, and Ain Behira in Morocco.  It is, according to the story, "In the warm country," and it cannot be so far south as the Professor eventually goes, for the chauffeur who takes him to his hotel speaks French, and believes him at first to be a geologist.  When the Professor confesses he is a linguist, the chauffeur tells him "Keep on going south.  You'll find some languages you never heard of before."

It is good to read Paul Bowles for economy.  In that, he is like all great short story writers, from Chekov to Carver.  After getting settled in his small hotel room, the Professor engages upon a series of idiotic blunders all caused by his emotional deafness, as well as a complete lack of common sense.  He has gone to the town to look for a cafe owner he had met there during a three-day stay a decade before -- Hassan Ramani.  Hassan is - like - dead.  The current owner of the cafe, or qaouaji, is offended over a series of gaffes made by the Professor.  At last, the Professor requests the qaouaji to obtain camel-udder boxes for him for ten francs apiece, and being told they are brought in only by the Reguibat and they aren't wanted by the townspeople, the Professor insists. With seeming reluctance, the qaouaji then leads the Professor through a alleys and streets, supposedly to obtain these boxes, but in reality, leading the Professor far away from the town center, his hotel, and safety.

He then directs the Professor to leave the town by scrambling down a cliff to get his souvenirs - which, not wanting to appear like a crying wussy in front of the qaouaji, and basically lacking all semblance of any common sense, the Professor does.  In short order, the Professor is confronted by Reguiba tribesmen and their guns and dogs.  They kick and punch and terrorize him, then march him away from the town; while unconscious, he is carried far away to the Reguibat desert domain.  Upon awakening, one of them cuts out the Professor's tongue.  The Professor is then transformed into a performing clown complete with tin-can-bottom clanging bells and other tin bangles.  He soon adjusts to performing for the tribe, and learns dance moves, obscene gestures, and many other feigned emotions for the entertainment of his captors.  It takes only a brief time for him to go from French linguist to mute captive clown.  A year passes, until his captors devise a plan of taking him to the city of Fogara and selling him to the Touareg.  As I know from my friend Hayat, who is Algerian, the Touareg do not speak Arabic, they speak Tifinagh, their own language.  The Reguiba are Berber, but according to the untrustworthy Wikipedia, speak a dialect of Arabic.  In the town of Fogara, a villager is approached as the broker or buyer of the Professor.  Once sold and at the home of the broker, the Professor awakens to what has happened to him, and he rebels.  The owner, horribly unsatisfied, runs into the street of another tribe, the Ouled Nail, seeking to revenge himself upon the Reguibat who have sold him this defective clown.  Upon finding them, he quickly cuts the throat of one, then throws down the razar and runs off.  However, he is quickly caught, which leaves the Professor alone in his house.  He stays a night and a day in increasing confusion and hunger, and at last is awakened to a kind of desire for escape by seeing a French-language calendar on the wall and reading the days. 

He thrashes the new owner's house, and runs into the street, making a terrible noise, and then heads out of town.  The last one to see him is a French soldier guarding the town gate, who believes him to be a "holy maniac," and who takes a shot at him (narrowly missing) just for "good luck."  In the desert heat, the soldier watches as the Professor, now fool forever, disappears into the desert.

"A Distant Episode" is told with poetic economy and balance.  It is a detailed description of capture, torture, intimidation, identification with one's captors, and the impossibility of escape after such an event.  It does wryly indicate that a useless person such as a linguist who knows no culture, and who apparently is incapable of learning any, may as well be a mute clown, fated to clang and clash madly in the dark and endless desert night.  By reading the names of the cities and the tribe names, I now think this story is meant to be set in southwestern Algeria, and not Morocco.  But I could be wrong; however, I think this description will help many students to write their papers.  I hope that it will.

Paul Bowles is exactly as Gore Vidal described him.  One of the most gifted writers, with profound things to say, of his part of the twentieth century.

But Why??

Sometimes things happen that make us say simply, "Why?"  The news this a.m. had two extremely disturbing reports.  First, a beautiful, brilliant, talented young Los Angeles girl, Lily Burk, was found dead early Saturday morning in a parking lot near 5th and Alameda (by Skid Row).  Friday afternoon, Lily had gone to run an errand for her mother, who is an attorney.  Lily's father is a writer and Lily herself wanted to be a writer.  She was a National Merit scholar, just as once, many years ago, I was.

In half an hour's time, they have already arrested the person wanted for suspicion of Lily's murder - a 50-year old man.  Apparently, the incident is a robbery gone wrong.

This is the type of thing that makes you simply ask, "Why?" I can only say that my heart goes out to Lily's parents, the rest of her family and her many friends from school, who must be absolutely shattered and asking, "Why?"

Downtown Los Angeles, where I WORK DAILY, isn't thought to be that dangerous, or at least, not as dangerous as when I was working at the LA Times years ago and saw the dead guy in the ivy by my parking lot. 

The parking lot attendants never left their "hut" and hundreds of people walked by this area on Spring St. headed toward the corner of 2nd and Spring (the Times building).  Here I went, and I even think I was wearing my lavendar flowered dress, and I saw this guy lying face down in the ivy, and the sprinklers were on.  There was no doubt he was dead.  The sprinkler was going thwack, thwack over the back of his head.  Even the most catatonically drunk individual wouldn't have "slept" through that.

So I went in and told the parking lot guys and asked them to call 9-1-1.  This was in the days before cell phones.  It took a little blond girl that looked at the time like Alice in Wonderland assuring them that there was a dead guy in their ivy to get them to leave their hut.  One of them started running around in a circle and hollering when they saw the body.  And I was late to work - so I left!  By the end of the day, the gentleman's body was indeed, gone.  Hundreds of people had gone by before me, and I was the only one who stopped. 

And there's more denigration of Michael Jackson, with the report that he wore prosthetic noses, and that the prosthesis was "missing" upon his autopsy, according to the well-known outstanding news source, Rolling Stone.  Most people know that I've written a lot of stories about people with differing appearances, from those who've been genetically altered, to cosmetic surgery, to people born with different abilities, from "Jonny Punkinhead" to Mel in "To Kiss the Star."  

Facial prosthetics are real, and they are used for important purposes.  This is a photo of Robert R. Barron, a former "master of disguise" for the CIA who is now using his talents at creating realistic facial prosthetics to help people with many different types of facial problems who require help.  The realism and effect of Mr. Barron's prostheses is almost beyond belief.

I honestly cannot understand why Lily Burk lost her life, or what conceivable purpose in the world could be served by such horrific evil.

But as to the news reports of further humiliation and denigration of Michael Jackson, I can see a good purpose.  Whether Michael Jackson required a nasal prosthesis or not, if people's attention is drawn to the positive effects of realistic facial prostheses, good can come of that.  There are probably many people out there who are hiding due to disfigurement, whose lives could be immeasurably improved by one of Mr. Barron's incredibly effective, realistic prostheses.  If just one or two people learn about this, and improve their lives because of the news reports - then yes, good will come of that.

In Memory of Jennifer Corbin and Dolly Hearn

I just finished reading a book by Ann Rule called Too Late to Say Goodbye.  This book tells the story of two beautiful women, inside and out, who were murdered by a man who was the former boyfriend of the first victim, Dolly Hearn, and husband to the second victim, Jennifer Corbin. 

As a mother, and a fellow woman who has experienced abuse and stalking from a virtual stranger who is not unlike the murderer, a man now serving concurrent life sentences for murder in Georgia, I wanted to recognize the wonderful tributes that Jennifer and Dolly's families have established in their memory on the internet.  Ann Rule's book points up the internet component in the case of Jennifer's situation.  While there are certainly many bad things on the internet, the continuing, loving memories portrayed on these websites represent the triumph of the human spirit and good over evil.

This is the link to the Caring Bridge, a website in memory of Jennifer Corbin.  Jennifer was killed in cold blood by her husband a little more than a month before my baby Anthony died.  In this case, her sons Dillon and Dalton have been formally adopted by Jennifer's sister Heather Tierney and her husband, and they now have a blended family.  At Jennifer's memorial service, a rainbow came out, which is shown on the website.  Everyone felt that this was Jennifer's spirit.  Although I never knew any of them, with the number of tragedies I have suffered, this rang so pure and true to me.  That is why I am writing about this.

The murderer's other victim was a beautiful young woman who was almost exactly my age, Dolly Hearn.  Dolly had the misfortune to date the man who, after murdering Dolly in cold blood and getting away with it for more than fourteen years, later married Jennifer.  This is a link to the website that Dolly's family has put on the internet in her memory.  Most recently, in 2007, Dolly was granted her dentistry degree from the school where the murderer tried to ruin her school career prior to taking her life away:  today, the truth is known, and Dolly is "Dr. Dolly" forever, as she always wanted to be.

These were famous cases in Georgia, but I never heard of them before reading Ann Rule's book.  I wasn't keeping up with any type of news after Anthony's death. 

The most magical thing of all, out of such a terrible, evil monster as the man who would do such a thing, is the legacy and memory of both Jennifer and Dolly.  These women were not just beautiful on the outside, they were beautiful on the inside.  This, in a way, is what cost them their lives.  For they "took" the abusive behavior of the killer; Dolly tried to break things off, but it cost her her life, and later, Jennifer came to the same decision, also causing her death.  I read in the book how the killer's attorneys planned to defend him with smearing Jennifer's name and presenting a false picture of this selfless, loving wife and mother who endured eight years with a monster who eventually snuck up on her from behind and shot her in the head.  He did the same with Dolly, and was likely lurking in her apartment shortly before her death, ambushing her from behind as well. 

Ann Rule wrote so much more eloquently than I am able, about the unbelievable price that families and friends pay in the wake of murder.  The victim's life is taken, and something will always be missing from the lives of family and friends as well.  There really is no limit or depth to the depravity or extent of lies that somebody like the killer (Bart Corbin, anticipated to not be eligible for parole for another 24 years) will tell.  And in the case of Dolly, everyone who knew her knew she couldn't possibly have committed suicide as Corbin alleged at the time - but investigators didn't follow up properly at the time.  It took Jennifer's almost identical death 14 years later to re-open the case of Dolly's death by gunshot wound to the head.  I think that they later understood their mistakes, and certainly rectified them later on, but Dolly's family worked for years in the dark, with private investigators and constant effort -- knowing that Bart Corbin had murdered Dolly, but feeling absolutely alone and isolated.

And I guess that's why I decided this was a good time for a tribute.  Because, like Pierre Bezhukov in War & Peace - a killer without a soul, can murder a good person, and cause incalculable pain.  But the killer can never fill up the empty lack that is his own soul.  He can never be a person.  He will be - forever nothing, a shell, already damned.  And the soul lives forever - and so does the legacy of good and caring people like Dolly and Jennifer.

Survivalists, Rejoice!

Retiring US Army Col. Henry Moak consumed a can of C-rations from 1969, which he had saved as a souvenir all this time.  This was all on AP video; I noticed he had a plastic bag of pound cake from a 1990s-era MRE as well, but that wasn't opened up on camera.

So, you can see here that the cake still looks like cake, and he says it tastes good.  I'm sure that's an exaggeration, although I am equally sure that the pound cake (around which you can see the frilly paper "cupcake" wrapper) tastes better than Mike's C-ration scrambled eggs (these were also Vietnam-era, still in use when poor Mike had to eat them, 10 years later).  There was no ham, but there were green eggs.

Col. Moak also opened the can with his military-issue can opener.  He also said he went to OCS, class of 1965.  And if that's the case (no reason to doubt it), I guess survivalists have another reason to rejoice, because Col. Moak looks unbelievably great for a man of about 67 years old.  Update: there is a whole MRE culture online.  These guys also share C-Ration lore, and two years ago, looks like they tested a slightly "younger" poundcake than Col. Moak's 40-year old cake.  It definitely looks the same, and they said they ate it all and it was excellent.  I've noticed some strange, non-military-looking MRE's out there for sale.  If I find out of those are camping or "survivalist" substitutes, I'll report back later.

Or, the moral of this story is - if you want to survive Armageddon, yes, you can live on C-rations for a long time, and also - good things come in olive drab packages.

Abalone Cove

Abalone Cove is one of the beaches on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.  Yesterday, I figured it would be a good idea to check out that area as far as hiking goes.  There are some popular hiking trails in the area, and I thought about the Shipwreck Trail, which isn't very far from Abalone Cove.  I was put off that adventure by the recent Local Hikes comments that said there were a bunch of dead, headless seals on way that really stank.  Why there would be so many dead seals there, and headless - is a mystery to me.  But it was a sight I didn't want to see.

So instead I went to Abalone Cove, which is the site of most excellent tidepools.  I went at the wrong time of the day (early afternoon) because the tide was in, obscuring most of the pools.  Abalone Cove is a very beautiful area, and there were a few people taking in the sun, and a couple of people fishing.  It's not easy to get to no matter which way you go.  It's not far from Portuguese Bend - and I even saw people calling it "the poor man's Portuguese Bend."  You get to the area by parking in the large Abalone Cove Shoreline Park parking lot, which does cost $5.  I think it is a city of Palos Verdes Park, and there is also a beach school down by the beach which is super-cute.

This is a view of the main beach area looking south from near the beach school.  To reach the tide pools, it is a lot of rock scrambling.  With the tide farther out, you could probably walk on hard sand, which would be easier.

Here is another view of the beach, looking north.

Finally, a short way down the beach, there are some really gorgeous rocks in the water.  It is amazing how much this area, although very developed, with numerous neighborhoods of beautiful homes and even the Trump National Golf Club, looks like the Central Coast once you are down on the beach.  The weather is very different, however.  It is much more like Orange County beach weather than the cooler climate just a few miles to the north. 

Yesterday was a very bright, sunny day and the water color was unbelievably blue.  Ocean coloration depends on a number of factors, but ocean water absorbs light in the red spectrum, causing the deep blue color.  That is why, on a bright, sunny day, the ocean will often appear strikingly blue, and also why, on a cloudy day, the ocean appears grayish.

This UCLA web page explains all of this, and much more.

The Abalone Cove trail/beachwalk was described as "moderate" and, while these are questionable terms, since one person's "moderate" will be another one's "easy" and so-on, I think it really is moderate.  I think it's about 2 1/2 miles, which is no big deal, but it's all downhill on the way in, and all uphill (steep) on the way out.  That's "officially" moderate as far as I'm concerned.  Abalone Cove is a beautiful natural area on the Los Angeles County coast, and a fun trip for anyone interested in the beach, nature and the outdoors.  Minus the headless seals (thank goodness!).  I also missed the nude sunbathers - those are supposed be located at Smugglers Cove, south of Abalone Cove.  I went around the point and had a look - there were only two people there, with clothing on.  How sad is that?  You are either going to hike this beach in good boots, or you are going to take one of the several trails down from the top of the cliffs to the beaches, and not move around a lot, because the beaches are mostly rocky.

Mr. Hammy - God of Hamsters

This is the best job I could do getting a picture of Mr. Hammy last night.  As a nocturnal animal, Hammy does his personality things after dark.  This includes running madly on his wheel all night long.  Meredith bought a "noise no more" wheel for him, and you might think that wouldn't be important. 

It is.

Mr. Hammy is Meredith's hamster and he was jealous that Meredith and her friend Nazareth were petting the dogs and not him.  He stood up on his hind legs like a person and gestured beseechingly.

Not kidding!

It's hard to believe, but even a tiny animal like Hammy has a personality, and even feelings.  If what Hammy was doing was some "other" instinctive behavior, I'm just not getting it.

Another funny thing that Hammy did was, when we got a particular sort of food that he really liked, he filled his ENTIRE HEAD with it.  You know how they fill their cheeks?  He put so much of the food in his mouth that it expanded the cheeks to make his head almost as large as his body.  I should have taken a picture of that!

I had heard that American hamsters are all descended from a single family of rodents that were found in Syria in the 1950's.  This is not precisely true. Syrian hamsters are a common variety, but there are also Russian, Chinese, and Roborovski hamsters.  Each type is slightly different, and beyond ordinary brown and white spotted fellows like Hammy, there are long-haired, silky, and small and quick types of hamsters to be found. And just in case you thought I didn't want to enrich everyone's lives with an irreplaceable cultural experience, here is a link to the original "hampster dance." The "Hampster Dance" website is now totally commercial, with cartoon-like characters for the hampsters (which we originally saw as one of the old-school internet forwarding memees). And for good measure, here is also a link to what they say is the original Dancing Internet Baby. I think by the time I saw it, it had better music.  The music on that link is awful.  If you haven't seen these before - do comment!  Both the hampsters and the baby were like - EVERYWHERE when they first came out.

Are U a NASCAR Fan?

OK, here's one of America's most-famous NASCAR fans.  This dude shaved "3" for Dale Earnhardt into his back.

A while back, somehow I got on the Zogby survey and poll list.  At first, it was pretty cool.  Over time, the surveys got less basic and more and more detailed, filled with "leading" questions.  The surveys focused on politics basically forced the survey-taker to choose beween two extremes - otherwise known as a false dichotomy.  Questions sometimes ran up into two and three sentences worth, including double-negatives.

I'm someone who continues to be confused by the California ballot initiatives where "No means Yes" - such as last Fall's Proposition 8 (a "no" vote meant "yes," you supported gay marriage - and vice-versa).  Therefore, I get to the end of one of these long Zogby questions and have no clue as to what it's really asking.  I'll usually guess based on the general thrust of the questions and might well be answering opposite to what the question is actually trying to convey.

Well, this survey in particular seemed to focus on the Second Amendment.  It asked many questions about the right to bear arms and gun ownership.  It had ludicrously-phrased questions with hypothetical people (Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, I think).  It seemed to be promoting the Canadian gun ownership approach, which is basically "it's a privilege, not a right". 

I'm sure anyone visiting here can see I'm as evolved as Dale Earnhardt's biggest fan pictured above.  I can sympathize, because if you think his back is hairy . . . (just kidding).  So, I get to the end of this survey and it asks, "ARE YOU A NASCAR FAN?" Previously, it had asked me how much I shopped at WalMart!  Well, I had to answer "yes," because I am a NASCAR fan and have been for years.  I don't attend races any longer, but I've sen more than a few in my day.  I used to watch the stock cars with my grandfather, and Lloyd Ruby was my favorite at that time (because his name was "Ruby" - get it?).  This was the generation of Richard Petty and David Pearson, also.  Then came Cay-ull (Cale) Yarbrough.  And then it was Darrell (Darl) Waltrip and #3 - Rest in Peace, Dale (Day-ull).  Now, there are not just second, but third-generation racers, and I don't follow the series closely any more. 

I wrote Zogby and said, "Drop this question" because it's ridiculous.  Some people might think it's funny, and they may think there's some type of validity to the question, but NASCAR remains the most popular viewing sport in America, with an estimated 80 million fans.  I will guarantee that not all 80 million of those fans can, and would want to, shave "#3" into their backs.  And if I were asked the question a different way, which would be, "Which racing series do you prefer?" I would say "I prefer Formula 1."  Now everyone knows that I had the Union Jack and "Mansell" tattooed onto my lower back.  Or wait - was that Keke Rosberg and the Finnish flag?  Ugh.  Are Yew a NASCAR Fan?  Yay-up.  I shure am, Mister Zog-Bee.  I gradiated frum Grade Skool Too, Mister Zog-Bee.  Let's see:  Which term do you think best applies to the person that writes these Zogby Surveys: 

A) Asshat

B) Tool

C) Douche

D) All

No Good Atheists

Someone was actually searching for "Harlan Ellison and Peter Singer" this a.m., which allowed me to see this older message board conversation regarding "Are there any good Atheists?"  I still have no idea what the searcher was looking for regarding Singer and Ellison.

But as to, "Are there any good Atheists?"  Well, of course there are.  I don't agree with many of Peter Singer's views, but I think his motives seem clearly "good" in that he is concerned for the moral and ethical growth of humanity.  He brings up questions for people to consider about their behavior toward others and in the world that are important to consider.

Here is Princeton professor and philosopher Singer with a friend from the animal kingdom (Mr. Sheep).  Singer was the founder of the animal rights movement in the West.  His 1960s manifestos got the whole thing going by drawing attention to the negative treatment animals have historically received at human hands, and he introduced the term "speciesism," a curiously SFnal concept.  I think the upcoming film D-9 seems to have a lot to do with "speciesism."

Anyway, that old 2003 message board conversation referenced above quickly turned from the original question, which was "which Atheists are good?" to the moronic Atheist issues with Christians.  Someone seriously referenced Gandhi as a "good Atheist."  Then, they quickly descended into ignorance and Christian-bashing.

As I have pointed up several times, though it's none of my personal business as a Christian, many Western Atheists are far more concerned with attacking Christians and debunking Christianity, rather than doing as Peter Singer clearly has.  Singer has investigated and written about many aspects of moral and ethical behavior.  He has invested much time and brilliant thought in advancing the human understanding of our relations with each other and with the world.  I do have disagreements with some of his thought.  For example, I agree with his underlying reasoning that ethically, there is no difference between a person who is starving and in distress in our own communities, vs. such a person on the other side of the world whom we do not know.  However, I do not agree that we must necessarily divest ourselves of a large amount of resources to make "resource distribution" equal between ourselves, and the person on the other side of the world who lacks resources.  Rather than simple distribution of current resources, I am much more in favor of overall strengthening of ability to create and obtain sufficient resources.  And Wangari Maathai has the ideas about these issues with which I most strongly agree.

Wangari promotes ideas and systems of ethics and interpersonal relations that seem to me to be simple common sense.  They are greatly informed by her culture, and many years of positive experience.

If you are an angry American Atheist reading about this, you might want to step outside your blinders and cultural comfort zone of attacking Christians and certain translations of The Bible and look at Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement website, linked above.  The world is a lot bigger than your tiny corner of it.  And for that, those who believe similarly to me - well, we do thank our Lord, or we should, every day.  Oh, and by the way - yes - from personal experience, I can say that yes, Harlan Ellison is both a thoughtful and a good Atheist.

Lijit is Like a Great Big Quarter Map!

I didn't know what to expect when I installed Lijit on my blog.  I liked the idea, but I had no idea how it would work.

I see readers using it all the time now, to find more content on my blog.  They can also use it to find content in other networks.

Some of us are verbal, some of us are visual, and others are combinations of both.  I guess a few of us still experience the world by putting everything we come across into our mouths (PS: if you've never had a child, that means "babies" - that's what babies do).  Lijit is providing a great online experience for just about everybody.

And what does Lijit do for me?

Lijit is one big Quarter Map!

Look at that!  Is that not one of the best quarter maps ever?  One of my most favorite childhood memories was filling in the quarter map.  Now, some kids probably got pre-bought sets of state quarters.  Not me!  I had to get mine the hard way - I know.  Some of you are thinking, "By stealing from your older brother?"  Um.  Well maybe. 

I never filled in all 50 states.  I was still super-confused as to Vermont, New Hampshire and all the other hard-to-jam-the-quarter-in original former colony states.  But Lijit's visitors map gives me the full quarter map experience every day.  Go to the right and click on it.  Right now, I've got "quarters" for Bogota, Barbados, Bangkok and Stone Mountain, Georgia.  Where else could I learn world geography except Lijit? It isn't showing right now, but last month, I popped in the last quarter - Greenland.  Greenland!!!  OMG, it's better than Tony Bourdain.