This much we do know: US Army PFC Bowe B. Bergdall became a captive of the Afghani Taliban on June 30. He was a member of an infantry regiment based at Ft. Richardson in Alaska and had joined the Army last fall. Before joining the military, he had been working as a barista in his hometown of Hailey, Idaho, where he was also active in ballet and fencing.
What is unclear and has not been officially clarified by the Defense Department is the circumstances surrounding his capture. His appearance on a Taliban video released two days ago confirmed his capture. Any comments about how he allowed himself to be captured must be considered to be conjecture at this point.
With this blog post I extend my thoughts and support to his family and friends. I join with them in begging the media (and other bloggers) to PLEASE respect their requests for total privacy during this difficult time. Now is not the time for the media to pressure family members for comments or interviews. Indeed, right now the best thing for the media to do is investigate whether it can help the Army secure his safe release and rescue in a reasonable time frame. In other words, for once, I would like to see the media working with, not against, the US military in the Islamic Middle East.
For my fellow bloggers and newspaper website story reader comment authors, I urge you to also respect the family’s request for privacy until they are ready to comment publically. In addition, please keep rumors, sarcastic and unfounded speculation and other negative comments to yourself. Such negativity only serves to increase their stress and pain, and the stress and pain felt in the Wood River Valley.
For those wanting to do something to help, well, if you are religious in some way, please include him in your prayers. One thing everyone can do is hope he is rescued sooner rather than later. To wax musical for a second, what else can be done? Well, "tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree" is a healthy place to start.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Walter Cronkite, the last of a dying breed of news professionals in America, has passed away
A consummate professional. A true gentleman, generous and slow to criticize, except when criticism was justified. An icon from America’s troubled twentieth century. A broadcasting professional once names “America’s most trusted man.” Walter Leland “Uncle Walter” Cronkite, Jr, a dentist’s son, was all of this, and more. Last night, July 17th, he passed away at his New York City home at the age of 92.
I read CNN’s very nice news report on his passing through tears for his news broadcasts formed a large part of my younger years. I still remember his straightforward and almost low-key coverage of the early US manned missions in space. He conveyed the sense of drama and history in the making without turning to sensationalism or spin like current news flacks seemingly can’t avoid.
Reflecting on his broadcasting career at CBS truly leaves me feeling old. When his nightly television news broadcasts began in the early 1960's, they lasted 15 minutes, were in black and white, and, on occasion, relied on day old news footage. On Labor Day, 1963, his broadcast expanded to 30 minutes, with an interview of President Kennedy as the broadcast centerpiece.
It was his coverage of JFK’s assassination three months later that likely did more than any other story that endeared him to the country. While seeking to remain professional in his tone and approach, still, his emotions crept in to his voice, and, while they weren’t copious, still, on camera, he did shed some tears while reporting the sad news. During that weekend, when Jack Ruby gunned down Oswald on national TV, again, his approach used an entirely appropriate tone devoid of editorializing, fluff or spin.
Indeed, his signature broadcast sign-off became part of the American vernacular while he was still on the air. I doubt that anyone who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s will fail to recognize his unique way of summing things up with “And that’s the way it is . . . this is Walter Cronkite, good night.”
So now Uncle Walter has signed off for the final time in this life. He was one of a kind, a newsman who took accuracy in reporting very seriously. Perhaps more importantly, he kept news reports and editorial comments clearly separate, the way they should be. At times he could be a difference maker without becoming the focus of the news, unlike current news hacks.
Indeed, in 1968, he traveled to Viet Nam, to report from there for a change. What he saw led him to editorially criticize the war as “mired in stalemate.” This criticism led then President Johnson to remark that “if I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” A few months later, President Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election as President. Johnson was savvy enough to realize that, without the support of Cronkite, re-election would be impossible to achieve. Such was the influence that he quietly amassed.
So yet one more high profile American has passed from the scene, joining Paul Harvey, Ed McMahon, Bea Arthur, John Updike, Michael Jackson, among others, who are now no longer with us. Each in his (or her) own way will be missed by those to whom they either were important or mattered.
As for me, well, “every man’s death diminishes me, for I am a part of all mankind. And send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” (John Donne)
And that’s the way it is, Saturday, July 18, 2009. Good night, Walter Cronkite, good night.
I read CNN’s very nice news report on his passing through tears for his news broadcasts formed a large part of my younger years. I still remember his straightforward and almost low-key coverage of the early US manned missions in space. He conveyed the sense of drama and history in the making without turning to sensationalism or spin like current news flacks seemingly can’t avoid.
Reflecting on his broadcasting career at CBS truly leaves me feeling old. When his nightly television news broadcasts began in the early 1960's, they lasted 15 minutes, were in black and white, and, on occasion, relied on day old news footage. On Labor Day, 1963, his broadcast expanded to 30 minutes, with an interview of President Kennedy as the broadcast centerpiece.
It was his coverage of JFK’s assassination three months later that likely did more than any other story that endeared him to the country. While seeking to remain professional in his tone and approach, still, his emotions crept in to his voice, and, while they weren’t copious, still, on camera, he did shed some tears while reporting the sad news. During that weekend, when Jack Ruby gunned down Oswald on national TV, again, his approach used an entirely appropriate tone devoid of editorializing, fluff or spin.
Indeed, his signature broadcast sign-off became part of the American vernacular while he was still on the air. I doubt that anyone who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s will fail to recognize his unique way of summing things up with “And that’s the way it is . . . this is Walter Cronkite, good night.”
So now Uncle Walter has signed off for the final time in this life. He was one of a kind, a newsman who took accuracy in reporting very seriously. Perhaps more importantly, he kept news reports and editorial comments clearly separate, the way they should be. At times he could be a difference maker without becoming the focus of the news, unlike current news hacks.
Indeed, in 1968, he traveled to Viet Nam, to report from there for a change. What he saw led him to editorially criticize the war as “mired in stalemate.” This criticism led then President Johnson to remark that “if I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” A few months later, President Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election as President. Johnson was savvy enough to realize that, without the support of Cronkite, re-election would be impossible to achieve. Such was the influence that he quietly amassed.
So yet one more high profile American has passed from the scene, joining Paul Harvey, Ed McMahon, Bea Arthur, John Updike, Michael Jackson, among others, who are now no longer with us. Each in his (or her) own way will be missed by those to whom they either were important or mattered.
As for me, well, “every man’s death diminishes me, for I am a part of all mankind. And send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” (John Donne)
And that’s the way it is, Saturday, July 18, 2009. Good night, Walter Cronkite, good night.
Mea Culpa to my readers, but I’m back
I have been away from this blog for way too long. For my absence, I do apologize.
Earlier this year, I encountered an interesting discovery, and learned some valuable new insights about the nature of my creativity in the process. Unfortunately, this blog, as well as my other two blogs, suffered as a result.
In March I participated in the NaNoWriMo follow-up called the National Novel Editing Month (EdMo for short). The goal here is to invest 50 hours of editing activities on one fiction manuscript during the month. I reached that threshold on March 22. Thus I needed fewer days to win EdMo than I did WriMo last November. Since I had some month left, I set my own advanced target: 100 hours for the month. I met that personal goal by logging a total of 101.5 hours of editing activities by the time March ended.
A lot of people wonder: is EdMo harder to win than WriMo? Yes, it is in the sense that any form of editing requires a higher level of intellectual effort than writing. With the latter activity, words can initially be slung onto the page (or screen) as they arise in the mind, without regard to correctness of grammar or spelling. Editing, on the other hand, requires close attention to the rules of spelling as well as the rules of grammar in order to render what has been written intelligible by others.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to give Script Mania a try in April (goal: 100 pages of either a properly formatted stage, radio, screen or television script in 30 days.) Big mistake. In April, I totally flopped at script writing. In fact, I never succeeded in even getting started. To me, this is a clear indication that script writing is a form of writing that my intellect is not suited for. Prose, most certainly. Poetry, quite possibly. Scripts? Nope. Am I bothered? Nope.
However, for some reason, this discovery, coming on the heels of the success of March triggered a fiendish, protracted bout of writer’s block that began in April and is only now beginning to ease off. That it is easing off definitely feels like a huge relief. Now I can get back to blogging on something approaching a regular basis.
Earlier this year, I encountered an interesting discovery, and learned some valuable new insights about the nature of my creativity in the process. Unfortunately, this blog, as well as my other two blogs, suffered as a result.
In March I participated in the NaNoWriMo follow-up called the National Novel Editing Month (EdMo for short). The goal here is to invest 50 hours of editing activities on one fiction manuscript during the month. I reached that threshold on March 22. Thus I needed fewer days to win EdMo than I did WriMo last November. Since I had some month left, I set my own advanced target: 100 hours for the month. I met that personal goal by logging a total of 101.5 hours of editing activities by the time March ended.
A lot of people wonder: is EdMo harder to win than WriMo? Yes, it is in the sense that any form of editing requires a higher level of intellectual effort than writing. With the latter activity, words can initially be slung onto the page (or screen) as they arise in the mind, without regard to correctness of grammar or spelling. Editing, on the other hand, requires close attention to the rules of spelling as well as the rules of grammar in order to render what has been written intelligible by others.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to give Script Mania a try in April (goal: 100 pages of either a properly formatted stage, radio, screen or television script in 30 days.) Big mistake. In April, I totally flopped at script writing. In fact, I never succeeded in even getting started. To me, this is a clear indication that script writing is a form of writing that my intellect is not suited for. Prose, most certainly. Poetry, quite possibly. Scripts? Nope. Am I bothered? Nope.
However, for some reason, this discovery, coming on the heels of the success of March triggered a fiendish, protracted bout of writer’s block that began in April and is only now beginning to ease off. That it is easing off definitely feels like a huge relief. Now I can get back to blogging on something approaching a regular basis.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Technology-driven Evolutionary Change and the Future of American Newspapers, Part II
Yes, the progressive disappearance of the print newspaper feels like a distinct shock, like something important to life has been taken away. Yet, over the past century there have been other such disappearances arising out of evolutionary advancements in technology. Some industries have had to either adapt to the changes or risk going out of business.
Even in my own lifetime I have seen several such technology-driven disappearances. When I was young, coal (usually stoker -sized lumps) dominated the home heating fuel options. True, it was cheap and did keep the house warm during the winter. However, a coal furnace was an attention hog, since the mechanical device that kept the firebox supplied with fresh coal (on demand), called a stoker, had to be refilled with coal on a regular basis. Then, the burning of coal produced unending supplies of unburned chunks of inorganic matter called clinkers that had to be pulled out of the firebox with a long-handled grabber and parked in a metal container to cool off so they could be safely disposed of somewhere. Over the last 45 years or so coal has increasingly given way to cleaner and more convenient fuel sources, such as heating oil and natural gas or propane (for people living in the country). Now, more and more houses and apartments use electricity to stay warm in the winter. A big benefit from this change is that cities really are cleaner today than they were 50 years ago.
This Sony laptop this post is being composed on represents several evolutionary changes I have lived through. In high school I took a typing course. For the first three quarters of the school year we learned how to type exclusively on manual typewriters. Only in the last quarter of the year were we allowed to use electric (not electronic) typewriters. In that era, the typist was responsible for returning the platen to the left margin on the paper at the end of each line.
In the early 1970's, while enrolled full-time at the local junior college I took a semester-long course in the then state of the art Fortran IV programming language. This was a widely used means of telling a computer what the programmer wanted it to do. Each program line of code was to be fed into the computer on a separate Hollerith card that had a pattern of punched holes in the card that varied depending on the text I typed onto the top of the card. The first computer I successfully programmed was an NCR Century 50 that effectively filled a small room and had 16k of hard-wired ferrite core memory.
Fast forward to today. I am composing this post at home, kicked back in my easy chair, my almost eight year old laptop sitting on my stomach. Despite its age, its RAM is 16,000 times larger than the room-sized Century 50. As it is a computer it does have a keyboard, like a typewriter. However, it does not have a round platen that has to be fussed with. Instead, lines of type appear on the monitor as the characters are typed in. At the end of each line, Word Perfect takes care of returning the insertion point to the start of the next line. It also automatically capitalizes the first letter of each sentence.
At one time, Smith Corona produced one of the best typewriter lines on the market. Is Smith Corona still in business? I actually don’t know. Indeed, does any one know anyone who still owns a typewriter?
Even US Libraries have undergone a truly evolutionary change, even here in Idaho. For well over a century, libraries organized their collection according to the rules of either the Dewey Decimal or the Library of Congress Cataloging System. (Public Libraries generally use the former because it is easier to explain to patrons. Academic Libraries generally use the latter because it is much more precise. Personally, I much prefer the latter.) Then they provided large chests of file drawers full of catalog cards so the Patrons could find the books they were looking for.
More and more libraries are retiring the card catalogs. They have been replaced by computer terminals where a patron keyboards in to the software what it is they are looking for, and the software, in a sense, consults its own card catalog, then provides the information sought (or not.) Indeed, with a slowly growing number of libraries, it is now possible for Patrons to do their “card catalog” research from home. What foes this change portend for the manufacturers of blank catalogue cards? Well, given the seemingly sharp drop off in demand, they will find it necessary to find new products to manufacture, or go out of business.
Newspapers are in the same position. Old technologies and ways of doing things don’t work any more. If they want to survive, adapting to the changing way the world now communicates will have to become a way of life. Personally, I see the future newspaper existing only on line, with no print editions appearing anywhere. Is this a bad thing? Far from it.
Even in my own lifetime I have seen several such technology-driven disappearances. When I was young, coal (usually stoker -sized lumps) dominated the home heating fuel options. True, it was cheap and did keep the house warm during the winter. However, a coal furnace was an attention hog, since the mechanical device that kept the firebox supplied with fresh coal (on demand), called a stoker, had to be refilled with coal on a regular basis. Then, the burning of coal produced unending supplies of unburned chunks of inorganic matter called clinkers that had to be pulled out of the firebox with a long-handled grabber and parked in a metal container to cool off so they could be safely disposed of somewhere. Over the last 45 years or so coal has increasingly given way to cleaner and more convenient fuel sources, such as heating oil and natural gas or propane (for people living in the country). Now, more and more houses and apartments use electricity to stay warm in the winter. A big benefit from this change is that cities really are cleaner today than they were 50 years ago.
This Sony laptop this post is being composed on represents several evolutionary changes I have lived through. In high school I took a typing course. For the first three quarters of the school year we learned how to type exclusively on manual typewriters. Only in the last quarter of the year were we allowed to use electric (not electronic) typewriters. In that era, the typist was responsible for returning the platen to the left margin on the paper at the end of each line.
In the early 1970's, while enrolled full-time at the local junior college I took a semester-long course in the then state of the art Fortran IV programming language. This was a widely used means of telling a computer what the programmer wanted it to do. Each program line of code was to be fed into the computer on a separate Hollerith card that had a pattern of punched holes in the card that varied depending on the text I typed onto the top of the card. The first computer I successfully programmed was an NCR Century 50 that effectively filled a small room and had 16k of hard-wired ferrite core memory.
Fast forward to today. I am composing this post at home, kicked back in my easy chair, my almost eight year old laptop sitting on my stomach. Despite its age, its RAM is 16,000 times larger than the room-sized Century 50. As it is a computer it does have a keyboard, like a typewriter. However, it does not have a round platen that has to be fussed with. Instead, lines of type appear on the monitor as the characters are typed in. At the end of each line, Word Perfect takes care of returning the insertion point to the start of the next line. It also automatically capitalizes the first letter of each sentence.
At one time, Smith Corona produced one of the best typewriter lines on the market. Is Smith Corona still in business? I actually don’t know. Indeed, does any one know anyone who still owns a typewriter?
Even US Libraries have undergone a truly evolutionary change, even here in Idaho. For well over a century, libraries organized their collection according to the rules of either the Dewey Decimal or the Library of Congress Cataloging System. (Public Libraries generally use the former because it is easier to explain to patrons. Academic Libraries generally use the latter because it is much more precise. Personally, I much prefer the latter.) Then they provided large chests of file drawers full of catalog cards so the Patrons could find the books they were looking for.
More and more libraries are retiring the card catalogs. They have been replaced by computer terminals where a patron keyboards in to the software what it is they are looking for, and the software, in a sense, consults its own card catalog, then provides the information sought (or not.) Indeed, with a slowly growing number of libraries, it is now possible for Patrons to do their “card catalog” research from home. What foes this change portend for the manufacturers of blank catalogue cards? Well, given the seemingly sharp drop off in demand, they will find it necessary to find new products to manufacture, or go out of business.
Newspapers are in the same position. Old technologies and ways of doing things don’t work any more. If they want to survive, adapting to the changing way the world now communicates will have to become a way of life. Personally, I see the future newspaper existing only on line, with no print editions appearing anywhere. Is this a bad thing? Far from it.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Are Print Newspapers Breathing Their Last? (Technology-driven Evolutionary Change and the Future of American Newspapers, Part I)
I have always enjoyed reading the newspaper in its traditional mode of delivery: printed on newsprint. Some of this comes from my innate curiosity about the world around me. Most of it, however, stems from the years that my late father worked as a combination photographer and journalist for several print newspapers.
Now it is beginning to look like the traditional print newspaper is moving toward extinction in the United States. Here in Idaho’s Magic Valley (a seven county, broad valley just north of Nevada) in the past year five County seats last their weekly newspaper and another lost its six day a week paper when they were merged into the region’s largest daily paper. Reason? Corporate cost cutting. Thus six communities lost a central part of their identity.
Nationally, already the owners of three of the nation’s largest daily papers – the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times have filed for bankruptcy protection. Off and on for months I have seen rumors floating around cyberspace that the New York Times is considering either sharply reducing the size of its print editions, or eliminating them completely.
Earlier this year the owner of the Denver Rocky Mountain News shut it down completely. Since the 19th Century, Denver residents had been kept informed of events by two competing newspapers. Now, only the Denver Post remains.
This week brings word that the Seattle Post-Intelligencier has dropped its print editions while keeping its Internet edition active. At the same time, the San Francisco Chronicle reportedly will be shut down within a month if a buyer cannot be found (it sounds like no rescuer is on the horizon.) This week brings still other news that I see as sad.
In 1881, the legendary, yet very real, shootout at the OK Corral occurred in the small frontier Arizona town called Tombstone. A newspaper from nearby Tucson, the Arizona Citizen reported on the event in beautiful prose. As all of southeast Arizona grew into the modern era, and as Tucson grew into a major metropolitan area, the paper grew with it even as it chronicled the growth. In 1976 the paper was sold to the Gannett Corporation, which renamed it the Tucson Citizen.
As has happened in other cities where Gannett owns local papers, over time, the paper’s quality declined, driving subscribers away. With any newspaper (or any other periodical, for that matter) when the number of subscribers falls, the rates the paper can charge advertisers decline as well. This downward spiral hit Tucson’s first newspaper as well. So, this Saturday, March 21, after surviving for 139 years, the paper will publish its final, farewell edition.
In Idaho’s Capitol city of Boise, the state’s largest newspaper, the Idaho Daily Statesman is also struggling with remaining profitable. On top of shrinking the physical page size of the print edition and outsourcing the printing of its editions to a newspaper in a nearby city, thereby eliminating 40 plus production jobs, today its website announced still more changes. On April 3, 25 additional employees will be laid off, cutting its total workforce by another 10%. For all remaining employees, pay cuts of 3% to 10% (determined by broad wage bracket) will go into effect.
This upheaval in the newspaper industry leads to one main question: what’s going on?
I see these changes as the first stirrings of a major evolutionary change in the overall news industry. In the past, newspapers survived the development of local radio news that offered the advantage of being able to cover important news events as they happened. Later they survived the development of television news that could both report on “breaking” news and show viewers what was happening.
Now, the Internet is emerging as an increasingly important news dissemination medium. With the Internet, it is possible for people worldwide (who are paying attention) to learn of major news events potentially within seconds of when they happen. Plus, the Internet offers the added advantage of being able to hyperlink related content together as it develops. I see this ease of rapid updating and ease of tying together related information as combining with the increasing availability of free WiFi zones to present traditional newspapers with a challenge they are structurally incapable of responding to.
In time – conceivably as little as ten years, certainly by the mid 21st Century – I see traditional print newspapers largely to completely fading into history, replaced by on-line papers and non-traditional news web sites. Many older adults will struggle with accepting this inevitable change, however, from an environmental perspective, this is a very positive change. How?
As the number of print newspapers drops, the demand for newsprint proportionally declines. Manufacturers, in response, reduce the amount they produce to keep their finished goods inventory value under control. As they reduce production, they reduce their emission of a variety of air and water pollutants, thus helping clean up the environment. Reduced production also reduces carbon oxide emissions into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to the reduction in the human impact on global warming. In addition, reducing paper production allows the trees being grown by the paper companies to remain planted in the ground possibly years longer, thereby increasing the volume of carbon dioxide the planet’s biosphere can absorb throughout the growing season.
A similar chain of reasoning is easily developed regarding the printing inks that are used to produce newspapers. Again, reducing the demand for web-offset printing inks reduces pollution and the industry’s carbon footprint, thereby benefitting the environment.
In Part II of this post, I will reflect on the technology advancement-driven changes I have witnessed with my own eyes.
Now it is beginning to look like the traditional print newspaper is moving toward extinction in the United States. Here in Idaho’s Magic Valley (a seven county, broad valley just north of Nevada) in the past year five County seats last their weekly newspaper and another lost its six day a week paper when they were merged into the region’s largest daily paper. Reason? Corporate cost cutting. Thus six communities lost a central part of their identity.
Nationally, already the owners of three of the nation’s largest daily papers – the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times have filed for bankruptcy protection. Off and on for months I have seen rumors floating around cyberspace that the New York Times is considering either sharply reducing the size of its print editions, or eliminating them completely.
Earlier this year the owner of the Denver Rocky Mountain News shut it down completely. Since the 19th Century, Denver residents had been kept informed of events by two competing newspapers. Now, only the Denver Post remains.
This week brings word that the Seattle Post-Intelligencier has dropped its print editions while keeping its Internet edition active. At the same time, the San Francisco Chronicle reportedly will be shut down within a month if a buyer cannot be found (it sounds like no rescuer is on the horizon.) This week brings still other news that I see as sad.
In 1881, the legendary, yet very real, shootout at the OK Corral occurred in the small frontier Arizona town called Tombstone. A newspaper from nearby Tucson, the Arizona Citizen reported on the event in beautiful prose. As all of southeast Arizona grew into the modern era, and as Tucson grew into a major metropolitan area, the paper grew with it even as it chronicled the growth. In 1976 the paper was sold to the Gannett Corporation, which renamed it the Tucson Citizen.
As has happened in other cities where Gannett owns local papers, over time, the paper’s quality declined, driving subscribers away. With any newspaper (or any other periodical, for that matter) when the number of subscribers falls, the rates the paper can charge advertisers decline as well. This downward spiral hit Tucson’s first newspaper as well. So, this Saturday, March 21, after surviving for 139 years, the paper will publish its final, farewell edition.
In Idaho’s Capitol city of Boise, the state’s largest newspaper, the Idaho Daily Statesman is also struggling with remaining profitable. On top of shrinking the physical page size of the print edition and outsourcing the printing of its editions to a newspaper in a nearby city, thereby eliminating 40 plus production jobs, today its website announced still more changes. On April 3, 25 additional employees will be laid off, cutting its total workforce by another 10%. For all remaining employees, pay cuts of 3% to 10% (determined by broad wage bracket) will go into effect.
This upheaval in the newspaper industry leads to one main question: what’s going on?
I see these changes as the first stirrings of a major evolutionary change in the overall news industry. In the past, newspapers survived the development of local radio news that offered the advantage of being able to cover important news events as they happened. Later they survived the development of television news that could both report on “breaking” news and show viewers what was happening.
Now, the Internet is emerging as an increasingly important news dissemination medium. With the Internet, it is possible for people worldwide (who are paying attention) to learn of major news events potentially within seconds of when they happen. Plus, the Internet offers the added advantage of being able to hyperlink related content together as it develops. I see this ease of rapid updating and ease of tying together related information as combining with the increasing availability of free WiFi zones to present traditional newspapers with a challenge they are structurally incapable of responding to.
In time – conceivably as little as ten years, certainly by the mid 21st Century – I see traditional print newspapers largely to completely fading into history, replaced by on-line papers and non-traditional news web sites. Many older adults will struggle with accepting this inevitable change, however, from an environmental perspective, this is a very positive change. How?
As the number of print newspapers drops, the demand for newsprint proportionally declines. Manufacturers, in response, reduce the amount they produce to keep their finished goods inventory value under control. As they reduce production, they reduce their emission of a variety of air and water pollutants, thus helping clean up the environment. Reduced production also reduces carbon oxide emissions into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to the reduction in the human impact on global warming. In addition, reducing paper production allows the trees being grown by the paper companies to remain planted in the ground possibly years longer, thereby increasing the volume of carbon dioxide the planet’s biosphere can absorb throughout the growing season.
A similar chain of reasoning is easily developed regarding the printing inks that are used to produce newspapers. Again, reducing the demand for web-offset printing inks reduces pollution and the industry’s carbon footprint, thereby benefitting the environment.
In Part II of this post, I will reflect on the technology advancement-driven changes I have witnessed with my own eyes.
Monday, March 2, 2009
In Remembrance: Paul Harvey, Broadcasting Legend
Sometime on Saturday, February 28, 2009, American broadcasting legend Paul Harvey passed away at the age of 90, surrounded by family, in a hospital near Phoenix, Arizona. Cause of death has not been released.
In one respect, Paul Harvey’s daily news and commentary broadcasts formed the pulse of my life growing up. Everyone in my family avidly listened to him and it was easy to see why. He brought an easy-going approach to the text he was reading that inspired confidence (and loyalty.) Whether you agreed with his opinions or not did not matter; the manner in which he presented them always underscored the sense in his viewpoint.
I still remember his long-running program feature that honored the longest-lasting marriage that was celebrating an anniversary that day. Often these were couples who had been married for sixty to seventy years or more. Most of the time, these couples lived either on the family farm that had been in the family for generations, or in small farming towns.
At times, one got the impression that the state of Nebraska had a monopoly on very long-lasting marriages. So listeners began writing in to him, asking if this was the case, and if, so, could anyone explain it? Sure enough someone responded from Nebraska, and explained it in this manner. Thousands of people hold season tickets to University of Nebraska Cornhuskers Football games year after year. Some even indicate in their wills who is to receive the tickets after they pass on. Well, since the same people sit in the same seats every year, of course couples are going to stay married. After all, if they got a divorce, at the games, they would be stuck sitting next to each other, perhaps for a good many years.
That explanation may have some seeds of truth to it. However, I feel it is the strong presence of the family farm in the state that encourages long marriages. On the traditional family farm, when something broke, or quit working like it should, the family fixed it, got it working again, and moved on to the next task at hand. Thus, when a farm family marriage encountered a rough patch, the couple knew they were expected to fix it. So they did.
In the area of general news reporting and features presentation, I see radio as having only three true legends who deserved the tag of “great.” Lowell Thomas described far away, exotic places so accurately and vividly that it was easy to see each place come to life in one’s mind was the first. Edward R. Murrow, with his well-modulated bass voice reporting on World War II (or whatever) in the same calm, somewhat deadpan delivery, was the second. Paul Harvey was the third. Now all three have passed from the scene. Their kind will never be heard from again.
Mr. Harvey impressed me as a rare broadcaster, in the sense that, whether I agreed with the political stance he was taking or not, I always respected the position he was taking. On issues or positions he felt strongly about, he always spoke from the heart with immense sincerity. In 1974, during the depths of the Watergate scandal that took down President Nixon, I switched my party loyalty from the Republican to the Democratic party. Even after my switch, his unwavering support of, and friendship with, many Republican office holders never bothered me.
In 1976 he began his daily five minute (or so) “The Rest of the Story” features that brought to light some notable event or historical fact about some well-known person. In his trademark style, each program proceeded with a tightly written, chronological narrative that withheld the identity of the person to whom the piece was about until the end of the account. He always closed each installment with “And now you know . . . the rest of the story.”
With his passing, yet another major chunk of my past fades from the scene. Inside I do feel a bit of a hole right now for he was a link to my happiest memories. Indeed, upon reading of his death, first at cnn.com and then later at the Tucson Arizona Star website, I found the immortal words of English cleric and poet John Donne rising back into my awareness. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . . .any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Tonight, all who grew up hearing his broadcasts are at least a little bit diminished.
My thoughts go out to his family and friends. May they know the peace, comfort and support they need in their time of loss.
In one respect, Paul Harvey’s daily news and commentary broadcasts formed the pulse of my life growing up. Everyone in my family avidly listened to him and it was easy to see why. He brought an easy-going approach to the text he was reading that inspired confidence (and loyalty.) Whether you agreed with his opinions or not did not matter; the manner in which he presented them always underscored the sense in his viewpoint.
I still remember his long-running program feature that honored the longest-lasting marriage that was celebrating an anniversary that day. Often these were couples who had been married for sixty to seventy years or more. Most of the time, these couples lived either on the family farm that had been in the family for generations, or in small farming towns.
At times, one got the impression that the state of Nebraska had a monopoly on very long-lasting marriages. So listeners began writing in to him, asking if this was the case, and if, so, could anyone explain it? Sure enough someone responded from Nebraska, and explained it in this manner. Thousands of people hold season tickets to University of Nebraska Cornhuskers Football games year after year. Some even indicate in their wills who is to receive the tickets after they pass on. Well, since the same people sit in the same seats every year, of course couples are going to stay married. After all, if they got a divorce, at the games, they would be stuck sitting next to each other, perhaps for a good many years.
That explanation may have some seeds of truth to it. However, I feel it is the strong presence of the family farm in the state that encourages long marriages. On the traditional family farm, when something broke, or quit working like it should, the family fixed it, got it working again, and moved on to the next task at hand. Thus, when a farm family marriage encountered a rough patch, the couple knew they were expected to fix it. So they did.
In the area of general news reporting and features presentation, I see radio as having only three true legends who deserved the tag of “great.” Lowell Thomas described far away, exotic places so accurately and vividly that it was easy to see each place come to life in one’s mind was the first. Edward R. Murrow, with his well-modulated bass voice reporting on World War II (or whatever) in the same calm, somewhat deadpan delivery, was the second. Paul Harvey was the third. Now all three have passed from the scene. Their kind will never be heard from again.
Mr. Harvey impressed me as a rare broadcaster, in the sense that, whether I agreed with the political stance he was taking or not, I always respected the position he was taking. On issues or positions he felt strongly about, he always spoke from the heart with immense sincerity. In 1974, during the depths of the Watergate scandal that took down President Nixon, I switched my party loyalty from the Republican to the Democratic party. Even after my switch, his unwavering support of, and friendship with, many Republican office holders never bothered me.
In 1976 he began his daily five minute (or so) “The Rest of the Story” features that brought to light some notable event or historical fact about some well-known person. In his trademark style, each program proceeded with a tightly written, chronological narrative that withheld the identity of the person to whom the piece was about until the end of the account. He always closed each installment with “And now you know . . . the rest of the story.”
With his passing, yet another major chunk of my past fades from the scene. Inside I do feel a bit of a hole right now for he was a link to my happiest memories. Indeed, upon reading of his death, first at cnn.com and then later at the Tucson Arizona Star website, I found the immortal words of English cleric and poet John Donne rising back into my awareness. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . . .any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Tonight, all who grew up hearing his broadcasts are at least a little bit diminished.
My thoughts go out to his family and friends. May they know the peace, comfort and support they need in their time of loss.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
I Expected That: Follow-up to February 1 Post
It has now been three business days since I sent the e-mail message included at the end of February 1's post. No response. I am not surprised because groups such as “Americans For Truth About Homosexuality” actually aren’t interested in either well-reasoned dialogue or open, unbiased truth about anything.
What concerns me the most is that the members of such groups are teaching their children that it is ok to hate without really knowing what you are hating. That is it ok to oppose whichever Bill of Rights Amendments or Amendment clauses get in the way of your personal ideology. Further, if relevant state or federal laws prove to be inconvenient hindrances to your personal goals, then they, too are to be ignored. Are these the values America can afford to have the next generation of leaders learn? I certainly hope not.
I am seeing the same sorts of twisted logic fueling bizarre remarks and positions being taken on an almost routine basis by Idaho Legislative members. Take the need for improved funding for local Highway Districts (Idaho has hundreds statewide). Out in the wide open countryside, the rural roads are old and increasingly falling apart because they weren’t designed to handle the weight of modern farm trucks or equipment. Last year, during the 2008 Session, one Legislator actually quipped “well, as long as we can still drive around the potholes, we don’t need to fix the roads.” Other comments are too far out there to waste the space to quote, or even paraphrase them.
If these are the values being taught the next generation of America’s business and political leaders, does the US of A still have a viable future?
What concerns me the most is that the members of such groups are teaching their children that it is ok to hate without really knowing what you are hating. That is it ok to oppose whichever Bill of Rights Amendments or Amendment clauses get in the way of your personal ideology. Further, if relevant state or federal laws prove to be inconvenient hindrances to your personal goals, then they, too are to be ignored. Are these the values America can afford to have the next generation of leaders learn? I certainly hope not.
I am seeing the same sorts of twisted logic fueling bizarre remarks and positions being taken on an almost routine basis by Idaho Legislative members. Take the need for improved funding for local Highway Districts (Idaho has hundreds statewide). Out in the wide open countryside, the rural roads are old and increasingly falling apart because they weren’t designed to handle the weight of modern farm trucks or equipment. Last year, during the 2008 Session, one Legislator actually quipped “well, as long as we can still drive around the potholes, we don’t need to fix the roads.” Other comments are too far out there to waste the space to quote, or even paraphrase them.
If these are the values being taught the next generation of America’s business and political leaders, does the US of A still have a viable future?
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Will the Christian Fundamentalist Right Ever Grow Up?
Occasionally the Google Transsexual Blogs Search widget delivers a lulu. Today, the top blog listing quoted the title of an article on an over the top inflammatory website. The article title is “ACLU and Sexual Amputees Sue Illinois.” The website is attached to a reorganized group calling itself “Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.” From the tone and focus of this article it is clear that this group does not care about fair and balanced discussions, nor do they allow diversity of any kind.
The article, written by Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, responds to a news article in the January 28, 2009 editions of the Chicago Tribune reporting on a lawsuit brought against the State of Illinois by two male to female transsexuals. The suit seeks to force the State to change the gender designator on their Birth Certificates from male to female. Doing so will bring this designator in line with that on their current driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security records.
Ms Higgins’ article transcends derogatory commentary and crosses the line separating civil dialogue and hate speech. As a sister transsexual there is much in her article that is offensive. In the second paragraph she harshly criticizes the Tribune for referring to them using female pronouns and describing them as women. Instead this article describes them as “terribly confused men.”
That assertion is unconscionable for they are NOT men, they are women in their minds and their hearts, if not their souls. They pursued Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS) in order to bring their physical bodies into congruence with their minds. Thus, regardless of the aesthetic outcome of their procedures, from a soft tissue anatomical perspective, they are women. They will remain women until the day they die. They can not be seen as ever having been men because their minds and brains have never been masculine. What will it take to get these organizations to finally understand this?
The article then tries to link the MtF desire for female external genitalia with Body Integrity Identity Disorder(BIID) sufferers. (Those with this disorder feel an intense desire to amputate a healthy limb.) She then quotes Dr. Annie Lawrence who said “. . . some researchers propose that it may be a disorder similar to Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or transsexualism.” This is a perfect example of quote cherry picking combined with total misunderstanding of what is being quoted.
She clearly sees this abstracted quote as proving her warped point, but it doesn’t. By including “propose” and “may be” in the same sentence, Dr Lawrence shows she is not issuing a definitive conclusion. Rather this is a preliminary comment. Further, “some” qualifying “researchers” indicates the presence of a division of opinion among relevant researchers on this proposed linkage. The author also is unaware of the extent to which Dr. Lawrence has been discredited within the transsexual community.
Her idea that the desire for reassignment surgery equals the desire for amputating a healthy limb makes no sense at all. For one thing, in medicine the term limb refers to arms and legs only. Hence a penis does not meet this standard definition of a limb. True, it is an appendage extending out from the lower torso. However, the head is likewise an appendage extending upward from the upper torso (with the neck connecting the two.) No one ever refers to someone’s head as a limb, so how can the penis be called one? It strains credulity and is illogical.
For another, say a guy develops BIID and obsesses about only having one leg, and convinces a surgeon to remove it. Whenever he goes shopping, such as at Wal Mart, everyone can see, especially at a distance, that he is missing a leg since he will either be on crutches or in a wheelchair. Yet a post-op male to female transsexual can enter the store behind him, shop extensively to her heart’s content, and no one will be able to tell that she ever had surgery of any kind. Perhaps this is the key point. BIID-related surgery produces visible results that cannot be hidden and that limit mobility. GID-related surgery produces invisible results that do not affect mobility at all. Hence, the two are not equivalent.
Let’s look at this from a different perspective. The human body is designed to walk on two legs and use two arms in its daily activities. Lose the use of one of these limbs, either through paralysis or amputation, and the guy is impaired in everything he tries to do. Lose his penis and ordinary daily activities continue unimpaired. So describing a post-op mtf transsexual woman as a “sexual amputee” is inaccurate, illogical, derogatory and insulting to transsexuals and limb amputees alike. This is why her comment “. . . it is difficult to see how amputating a healthy arm or leg is substantively different for amputating a healthy penis or breasts” merely underscores her ignorance.
Near the end of the article she further describes the two transwomen as deluded men who are seeking to include all of society in their delusion. She concludes from this that they are asking the state to commit fraud by correcting their birth certificates. I’m not an attorney, however, I am not sold on this idea. To me, they are seeking the right to correct a mistake on an official form made by the attending doctor at the time of their births.
The depth of visceral hatred evident in this article, to me, is worrisome. It is one thing to opine that the Tribune erred by using female pronouns in its story, and to civilly point out why she felt this way. This response reads more like an intentional attack on all transsexuals while case building for retention of GID and transsexuality in DSM-V when it is released in 2012. According to the article, BIID is not listed in DSM-IVR. Thus, by erroneously linking it with GID (already there) the author is trying to coat tail this new disorder into the DSM. Is it appropriate for lay religious organizations to be attempting to influence the DSM editorial process?
Late today (1/30/09) I went ahead and submitted the following website response to the organization.
After reading Laurie Higgins' article about the Illinois lawsuit posted on 1/30, I am confused and deeply troubled. Why do you hate transsexuals to the depth you do? Transsexual identities are very real, and all of the steps involved in transitioning are entirely valid. For male to female transsexuals, reassignment surgery does not create a new form of amputees. Rather, it allows the individual to finally have congruence between their physical bodies and their neurological selves. Why is that wrong?
It will be interesting to see what, if any response I receive, and when.
The article, written by Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, responds to a news article in the January 28, 2009 editions of the Chicago Tribune reporting on a lawsuit brought against the State of Illinois by two male to female transsexuals. The suit seeks to force the State to change the gender designator on their Birth Certificates from male to female. Doing so will bring this designator in line with that on their current driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security records.
Ms Higgins’ article transcends derogatory commentary and crosses the line separating civil dialogue and hate speech. As a sister transsexual there is much in her article that is offensive. In the second paragraph she harshly criticizes the Tribune for referring to them using female pronouns and describing them as women. Instead this article describes them as “terribly confused men.”
That assertion is unconscionable for they are NOT men, they are women in their minds and their hearts, if not their souls. They pursued Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS) in order to bring their physical bodies into congruence with their minds. Thus, regardless of the aesthetic outcome of their procedures, from a soft tissue anatomical perspective, they are women. They will remain women until the day they die. They can not be seen as ever having been men because their minds and brains have never been masculine. What will it take to get these organizations to finally understand this?
The article then tries to link the MtF desire for female external genitalia with Body Integrity Identity Disorder(BIID) sufferers. (Those with this disorder feel an intense desire to amputate a healthy limb.) She then quotes Dr. Annie Lawrence who said “. . . some researchers propose that it may be a disorder similar to Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or transsexualism.” This is a perfect example of quote cherry picking combined with total misunderstanding of what is being quoted.
She clearly sees this abstracted quote as proving her warped point, but it doesn’t. By including “propose” and “may be” in the same sentence, Dr Lawrence shows she is not issuing a definitive conclusion. Rather this is a preliminary comment. Further, “some” qualifying “researchers” indicates the presence of a division of opinion among relevant researchers on this proposed linkage. The author also is unaware of the extent to which Dr. Lawrence has been discredited within the transsexual community.
Her idea that the desire for reassignment surgery equals the desire for amputating a healthy limb makes no sense at all. For one thing, in medicine the term limb refers to arms and legs only. Hence a penis does not meet this standard definition of a limb. True, it is an appendage extending out from the lower torso. However, the head is likewise an appendage extending upward from the upper torso (with the neck connecting the two.) No one ever refers to someone’s head as a limb, so how can the penis be called one? It strains credulity and is illogical.
For another, say a guy develops BIID and obsesses about only having one leg, and convinces a surgeon to remove it. Whenever he goes shopping, such as at Wal Mart, everyone can see, especially at a distance, that he is missing a leg since he will either be on crutches or in a wheelchair. Yet a post-op male to female transsexual can enter the store behind him, shop extensively to her heart’s content, and no one will be able to tell that she ever had surgery of any kind. Perhaps this is the key point. BIID-related surgery produces visible results that cannot be hidden and that limit mobility. GID-related surgery produces invisible results that do not affect mobility at all. Hence, the two are not equivalent.
Let’s look at this from a different perspective. The human body is designed to walk on two legs and use two arms in its daily activities. Lose the use of one of these limbs, either through paralysis or amputation, and the guy is impaired in everything he tries to do. Lose his penis and ordinary daily activities continue unimpaired. So describing a post-op mtf transsexual woman as a “sexual amputee” is inaccurate, illogical, derogatory and insulting to transsexuals and limb amputees alike. This is why her comment “. . . it is difficult to see how amputating a healthy arm or leg is substantively different for amputating a healthy penis or breasts” merely underscores her ignorance.
Near the end of the article she further describes the two transwomen as deluded men who are seeking to include all of society in their delusion. She concludes from this that they are asking the state to commit fraud by correcting their birth certificates. I’m not an attorney, however, I am not sold on this idea. To me, they are seeking the right to correct a mistake on an official form made by the attending doctor at the time of their births.
The depth of visceral hatred evident in this article, to me, is worrisome. It is one thing to opine that the Tribune erred by using female pronouns in its story, and to civilly point out why she felt this way. This response reads more like an intentional attack on all transsexuals while case building for retention of GID and transsexuality in DSM-V when it is released in 2012. According to the article, BIID is not listed in DSM-IVR. Thus, by erroneously linking it with GID (already there) the author is trying to coat tail this new disorder into the DSM. Is it appropriate for lay religious organizations to be attempting to influence the DSM editorial process?
Late today (1/30/09) I went ahead and submitted the following website response to the organization.
After reading Laurie Higgins' article about the Illinois lawsuit posted on 1/30, I am confused and deeply troubled. Why do you hate transsexuals to the depth you do? Transsexual identities are very real, and all of the steps involved in transitioning are entirely valid. For male to female transsexuals, reassignment surgery does not create a new form of amputees. Rather, it allows the individual to finally have congruence between their physical bodies and their neurological selves. Why is that wrong?
It will be interesting to see what, if any response I receive, and when.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Inauguration Day Impressions
The Inauguration of President Barack Obama occurred under sunny yet cold skies. I cannot recall a time when I saw that many people filling Washington, DC. (One estimate put the total at 2.5 million, and that number is plausible.) Despite the cold, the enthusiasm level among the attendees was truly impressive, likely topping even that found at a Super Bowl. Certainly the enthusiasm far exceeded the enthusiasm that greeted then new President George Walker Bush in 2001. The spontaneous, boisterous chant of “O Ba Ma! O Ba Ma!” that greeted him as he stepped up to the podium felt very genuine and spontaneous.
I really enjoyed the chamber music composition “Air and Simple Things” by John Williams and played by a truly world class quartet. To me, this affirming composition suggests that the Obama Administration will be a much kinder, gentler, more humane Administration than the one that ended yesterday. At Greg Laden’s Blog (scienceblogs.com), several commentators suggested that Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare For the Common Man” would have been more appropriate. While they do have a point, I disagree. While this is also a timeless American masterpiece that I never get tired of hearing, it sets the wrong tone for this new Administration. The “Fanfare” conveys a bit of a militaristic tone. Conversely, the Williams composition is affirming and healing.
The decision to include this composition in the Inauguration is a master stroke from another angle. Within the composition, the “Simple Things” part comes from an old Quaker hymn. Including this in the Inauguration, particularly immediately before Obama’s Oath of Office, can be seen as affirming Obama’s independence from any background Muslim influences. Whether it will quiet his critics or not remains to be seen.
The Oath itself nearly turned into an embarrasing event. Right at its start, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to fumble the Oath script he was reading from. There were several tense seconds while he got squared away and left Obama unsure of how to proceed. Once squared away, the Oath did proceed smoothly until the closing affirmation,
The Presidential Oath traditionally ends with the affirmation “so help me God.” The Chief Justice is expected to read this as the statement it is. Then when the President elect echoes it back, the swearing in is officially concluded and the Chief Justice confirms the successful conclusion by saying “Congratulations, Mr. President” as he shakes the new President’s hand.
Chief Justice Roberts, however, departed from this standard script. Instead of reading the expected text for Obama to repeat, Roberts quite pointedly restated it as “So help you God?” Obama looked a little surprised at this, so he repeated the expected text any way. My lingering impression is that, instead of going on and saying “Congratulations, Mr President” the Chief Justice again pointedly asked Obama the same question. Although gracious, frankly, President Obama looked irked the second time through.
I don’t know exactly how to interpret this unusual Oath administration. First, was the initial fumble due to unfamiliarity of the process by the Chief Justice? Possibly, although he had plenty of time to practice the text and process. Could this have been a subtle way of showing his intent to use the Supreme Court to thwart the Obama administration whenever possible? Only time will answer this question, but it does seem possible.
Second, what motivated his startling departure from the Oath’s wrap up? Suspicion about the new President’s loyalty to the US is one somewhat plausible answer. Suspicion about his loyalty to Christianity is another plausible answer. Either way, I feel his actions merit close investigation by the new Administration. The question that needs to be answered is whether his actions violated the clause prohibiting religious tests or affirmations as a condition of qualifying for elected office. Personally, I saw his latter action as sufficiently suspicious to warrant consideration for a possible impeachment action by the US House.
I really enjoyed the chamber music composition “Air and Simple Things” by John Williams and played by a truly world class quartet. To me, this affirming composition suggests that the Obama Administration will be a much kinder, gentler, more humane Administration than the one that ended yesterday. At Greg Laden’s Blog (scienceblogs.com), several commentators suggested that Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare For the Common Man” would have been more appropriate. While they do have a point, I disagree. While this is also a timeless American masterpiece that I never get tired of hearing, it sets the wrong tone for this new Administration. The “Fanfare” conveys a bit of a militaristic tone. Conversely, the Williams composition is affirming and healing.
The decision to include this composition in the Inauguration is a master stroke from another angle. Within the composition, the “Simple Things” part comes from an old Quaker hymn. Including this in the Inauguration, particularly immediately before Obama’s Oath of Office, can be seen as affirming Obama’s independence from any background Muslim influences. Whether it will quiet his critics or not remains to be seen.
The Oath itself nearly turned into an embarrasing event. Right at its start, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to fumble the Oath script he was reading from. There were several tense seconds while he got squared away and left Obama unsure of how to proceed. Once squared away, the Oath did proceed smoothly until the closing affirmation,
The Presidential Oath traditionally ends with the affirmation “so help me God.” The Chief Justice is expected to read this as the statement it is. Then when the President elect echoes it back, the swearing in is officially concluded and the Chief Justice confirms the successful conclusion by saying “Congratulations, Mr. President” as he shakes the new President’s hand.
Chief Justice Roberts, however, departed from this standard script. Instead of reading the expected text for Obama to repeat, Roberts quite pointedly restated it as “So help you God?” Obama looked a little surprised at this, so he repeated the expected text any way. My lingering impression is that, instead of going on and saying “Congratulations, Mr President” the Chief Justice again pointedly asked Obama the same question. Although gracious, frankly, President Obama looked irked the second time through.
I don’t know exactly how to interpret this unusual Oath administration. First, was the initial fumble due to unfamiliarity of the process by the Chief Justice? Possibly, although he had plenty of time to practice the text and process. Could this have been a subtle way of showing his intent to use the Supreme Court to thwart the Obama administration whenever possible? Only time will answer this question, but it does seem possible.
Second, what motivated his startling departure from the Oath’s wrap up? Suspicion about the new President’s loyalty to the US is one somewhat plausible answer. Suspicion about his loyalty to Christianity is another plausible answer. Either way, I feel his actions merit close investigation by the new Administration. The question that needs to be answered is whether his actions violated the clause prohibiting religious tests or affirmations as a condition of qualifying for elected office. Personally, I saw his latter action as sufficiently suspicious to warrant consideration for a possible impeachment action by the US House.
Friday, January 9, 2009
In 2009, What Should the US Government Focus On? One Citizen’s Opinion, Part 2
This post wraps up my personal “Top 10" suggestions for the incoming Obama Administration. Domestically, what should be the new administration’s domestic focus?
First, restore the broadcasting fairness doctrine This doctrine, abolished by President Reagan, mandated equal air time (on radio and television) for opposing viewpoints. In its absence, right wing conservative talk radio has run amok since the Clinton era. If the incoming Administration hopes to accomplish any meaningful goals over the next four years, this doctrine must be fully restored, accompanied by FCC enforcement clout to ensure compliance. Otherwise, Republican-backed talk radio hosts (and a few television hosts as well) will stymie the Administration by egging on the remaining conservatives in Congress to disrupt Democratic proposals.
Second, enact a transgender inclusive ENDA This was attempted last year, and failed due to Bush Administration opposition and less than honest efforts by the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign. This year, with a new Administration in Washington, this long-overdue legal patch needs to be passed early in the current Congressional session. The era of legalized discrimination against the GLBT community in the United States must end sooner rather than later. ENDA is an ideal place to start humanizing the US.
Third, sharply reduce the administrative overhead in the Medicare and Medicaid programs Both programs are administratively top heavy and need to be placed on Administrative diets. For starters, the number of required medical procedure prior approvals needs to be massively reduced. This should make a noticeable dent in both budgets while reducing the paper work burden placed on health care professionals while improving the overall quality of US health care.
Fourth, eliminate all unfunded mandates placed on the states Mandates are Federal requirements that states must comply with. Unfunded mandates mean just that: requirements placed on the states with the expectation that full compliance expenses will be covered by the states. This practice transforms the Federal government into a political bully. A very good example is the ill-designed Real ID requirement dreamed up by the Bush administration. This is a bad idea that needs to be scrapped because it will not provide the level of protection against terrorism that its proponents claim. I have read the Final Rule (twice) in its entirety, and, in my opinion, it contains too many holes that can (and will) be exploited by terrorist organizations. Providing the states with a palette of approved license designs to choose from will make it easier for counterfeiters to develop passable forgeries. Further, I came away from both readings with the distinct impression that the rule does not extend to state issued ID cards. To me, that represents a fatal flaw in the entire idea. But there are many other such mandates that need to be suspended or scrapped in order to help the states cope more effectively with the current economic downturn.
Fifth, repeal the recently enacted federal health care conscience rules These rules, enacted late in 2008 by President Bush, protect health care workers from repercussions when they refuse to provide medical care to any patient on the grounds of the care violating personal ethical, moral or religious beliefs. Further the rules effectively use the threat of federal funding termination to coerce health care organizations into enforcing the rule. While this rule supposedly is aimed only at women seeking birth control information or products, it has implications that are ominously broader. A recent case out of Great Britain gives a look at what could start happening in this country if these rules are not repealed. A 59 year old disabled man called paramedics because he was experiencing chest pains. When they arrived, they decided that, in light of his age, the fact that was disabled, and that his house was unkempt and filthy (in their eyes) he wasn’t worth their efforts, so they stood by and let him die. Clearly these rules must be repealed early in this Congressional session.
Sixth, allow all of the Bush tax cuts to expire Now I know that economists will scream that allowing the tax cuts to expire will further damage the economy, but I disagree. Given that the dominant majority of these tax cuts only benefit the ultra rich elite, it is time for the spoiled brat rich to begin paying their fair share of taxes. Once the economy does show definite signs of stable, sustainable recovery, then it would make sense for the Administration to reinvent the income tax structure so that the middle and lower classes benefit the most from future tax cuts. One change that I do champion is a deep cut in the federal corporate tax rates coupled with significant new tax credits for meaningful investments in alternative energy research and design. The tax credits ought to encourage corporations to significantly ease the need for federal funding of this badly needed research.
Seventh, end federal funds availability to religious organizations that are exclusionary in nature Exclusionary rules exist to selectively exclude individual Americans from organizational activities or services based on one criterion or another. In this way, discrimination and covert bigotry continue to spread throughout the country. In my blunt opinion, any clinic, thrift store, soup kitchen, homeless shelter or church-run social services program that refuses to help those in need because of their history, their current life situation, or who they are plants a black eye on the face of Christianity. By providing federal tax dollars to such organizations the Federal government is promoting the kinds of discrimination that were outlawed in the 1960's. At the same time, by either fully or partially funding such organizations, it gives the impression that the First Amendment separation of church and state doctrine no longer exists in the US. If this is the case, then I don’t see how the American Muslim community can feel any sense of security, given that the government is openly supporting a variety of organizations who openly shun Muslims on religious grounds. A much fairer approach would be to provide a set baseline funding level for religious organizations, and then extend significant bonuses to those organizations that can document an open door policy that screen no one out, not even transsexuals.
Eighth, end the Federal stem cell research ban This policy did more to damage the biomedical sciences in the US than any other policy by encouraging a researcher brain drain to other countries where such research is legal. Further, it has set back chronic disease research for potentially many years, which, in turn, will set back the development of effective treatments even longer. For perhaps most Americans, this debate had no real meaning because the science behind it is rather complex. For others, myself included, this outrage is personal. One disease that research suggests stem cells as a viable curative treatment is Parkinson’s Disease. This presently incurable, degenerative disease saps the patient’s quality of life by making normal movements problematical, then impossible. I know first hand the devastating effect this disease can have on the patient and those trying to provide proper care: in the 199's my own dad died from the disease, and I seriously damaged my own health trying to take care of him at home. Diabetics are another group who quite possibly could be cured through stem sell research derived treatments. How can it be moral for a government to force these human beings to needlessly suffer, and die far younger than they otherwise would have, just so some twisted, failed form of Christianity can be adhered to?
Ninth, make non petroleum-derived transportation fuel development a national priority Simply put, the US needs to begin weaning itself off of foreign oil imports in the very near future. Petroleum is a non-renewable resource. When the world’s supply of crude oil and recoverable shale oil, it is gone. So it is imperative that the federal government begin now to encourage the development of petroleum-free yet viable fuels that can be produced within the US borders. What form these fuels might take in the future isn’t clearly known currently. Personally I champion hydrogen as a gasoline and diesel replacement because of its abundant presence in water and because its combustion, by itself, adds no new pollutants into the atmosphere.
Tenth, restore governmental transparency to pre-Reagan levels For some reason I have yet to figure out completely, Republicans give the appearance of almost worshiping secrecy. President Bush was especially notorious with this, frequently ordering documents already in storage at the National Archives pulled and declared to be secret on accounts of “national security”. The curious thing is that possibly a majority of these documents had no connection at all to national security issues, yet they still were declared to be off limits to the country. This practice has got to end in order to restore accountability to the Federal government, its departments and agencies. Indeed, complete honesty about just how far into debt the Federal government actually is will be both a very good, and a very necessary place to start.
There. This private citizen’s armchair observations on what I see as the necessary top priorities for the new Administration is now complete.
First, restore the broadcasting fairness doctrine This doctrine, abolished by President Reagan, mandated equal air time (on radio and television) for opposing viewpoints. In its absence, right wing conservative talk radio has run amok since the Clinton era. If the incoming Administration hopes to accomplish any meaningful goals over the next four years, this doctrine must be fully restored, accompanied by FCC enforcement clout to ensure compliance. Otherwise, Republican-backed talk radio hosts (and a few television hosts as well) will stymie the Administration by egging on the remaining conservatives in Congress to disrupt Democratic proposals.
Second, enact a transgender inclusive ENDA This was attempted last year, and failed due to Bush Administration opposition and less than honest efforts by the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign. This year, with a new Administration in Washington, this long-overdue legal patch needs to be passed early in the current Congressional session. The era of legalized discrimination against the GLBT community in the United States must end sooner rather than later. ENDA is an ideal place to start humanizing the US.
Third, sharply reduce the administrative overhead in the Medicare and Medicaid programs Both programs are administratively top heavy and need to be placed on Administrative diets. For starters, the number of required medical procedure prior approvals needs to be massively reduced. This should make a noticeable dent in both budgets while reducing the paper work burden placed on health care professionals while improving the overall quality of US health care.
Fourth, eliminate all unfunded mandates placed on the states Mandates are Federal requirements that states must comply with. Unfunded mandates mean just that: requirements placed on the states with the expectation that full compliance expenses will be covered by the states. This practice transforms the Federal government into a political bully. A very good example is the ill-designed Real ID requirement dreamed up by the Bush administration. This is a bad idea that needs to be scrapped because it will not provide the level of protection against terrorism that its proponents claim. I have read the Final Rule (twice) in its entirety, and, in my opinion, it contains too many holes that can (and will) be exploited by terrorist organizations. Providing the states with a palette of approved license designs to choose from will make it easier for counterfeiters to develop passable forgeries. Further, I came away from both readings with the distinct impression that the rule does not extend to state issued ID cards. To me, that represents a fatal flaw in the entire idea. But there are many other such mandates that need to be suspended or scrapped in order to help the states cope more effectively with the current economic downturn.
Fifth, repeal the recently enacted federal health care conscience rules These rules, enacted late in 2008 by President Bush, protect health care workers from repercussions when they refuse to provide medical care to any patient on the grounds of the care violating personal ethical, moral or religious beliefs. Further the rules effectively use the threat of federal funding termination to coerce health care organizations into enforcing the rule. While this rule supposedly is aimed only at women seeking birth control information or products, it has implications that are ominously broader. A recent case out of Great Britain gives a look at what could start happening in this country if these rules are not repealed. A 59 year old disabled man called paramedics because he was experiencing chest pains. When they arrived, they decided that, in light of his age, the fact that was disabled, and that his house was unkempt and filthy (in their eyes) he wasn’t worth their efforts, so they stood by and let him die. Clearly these rules must be repealed early in this Congressional session.
Sixth, allow all of the Bush tax cuts to expire Now I know that economists will scream that allowing the tax cuts to expire will further damage the economy, but I disagree. Given that the dominant majority of these tax cuts only benefit the ultra rich elite, it is time for the spoiled brat rich to begin paying their fair share of taxes. Once the economy does show definite signs of stable, sustainable recovery, then it would make sense for the Administration to reinvent the income tax structure so that the middle and lower classes benefit the most from future tax cuts. One change that I do champion is a deep cut in the federal corporate tax rates coupled with significant new tax credits for meaningful investments in alternative energy research and design. The tax credits ought to encourage corporations to significantly ease the need for federal funding of this badly needed research.
Seventh, end federal funds availability to religious organizations that are exclusionary in nature Exclusionary rules exist to selectively exclude individual Americans from organizational activities or services based on one criterion or another. In this way, discrimination and covert bigotry continue to spread throughout the country. In my blunt opinion, any clinic, thrift store, soup kitchen, homeless shelter or church-run social services program that refuses to help those in need because of their history, their current life situation, or who they are plants a black eye on the face of Christianity. By providing federal tax dollars to such organizations the Federal government is promoting the kinds of discrimination that were outlawed in the 1960's. At the same time, by either fully or partially funding such organizations, it gives the impression that the First Amendment separation of church and state doctrine no longer exists in the US. If this is the case, then I don’t see how the American Muslim community can feel any sense of security, given that the government is openly supporting a variety of organizations who openly shun Muslims on religious grounds. A much fairer approach would be to provide a set baseline funding level for religious organizations, and then extend significant bonuses to those organizations that can document an open door policy that screen no one out, not even transsexuals.
Eighth, end the Federal stem cell research ban This policy did more to damage the biomedical sciences in the US than any other policy by encouraging a researcher brain drain to other countries where such research is legal. Further, it has set back chronic disease research for potentially many years, which, in turn, will set back the development of effective treatments even longer. For perhaps most Americans, this debate had no real meaning because the science behind it is rather complex. For others, myself included, this outrage is personal. One disease that research suggests stem cells as a viable curative treatment is Parkinson’s Disease. This presently incurable, degenerative disease saps the patient’s quality of life by making normal movements problematical, then impossible. I know first hand the devastating effect this disease can have on the patient and those trying to provide proper care: in the 199's my own dad died from the disease, and I seriously damaged my own health trying to take care of him at home. Diabetics are another group who quite possibly could be cured through stem sell research derived treatments. How can it be moral for a government to force these human beings to needlessly suffer, and die far younger than they otherwise would have, just so some twisted, failed form of Christianity can be adhered to?
Ninth, make non petroleum-derived transportation fuel development a national priority Simply put, the US needs to begin weaning itself off of foreign oil imports in the very near future. Petroleum is a non-renewable resource. When the world’s supply of crude oil and recoverable shale oil, it is gone. So it is imperative that the federal government begin now to encourage the development of petroleum-free yet viable fuels that can be produced within the US borders. What form these fuels might take in the future isn’t clearly known currently. Personally I champion hydrogen as a gasoline and diesel replacement because of its abundant presence in water and because its combustion, by itself, adds no new pollutants into the atmosphere.
Tenth, restore governmental transparency to pre-Reagan levels For some reason I have yet to figure out completely, Republicans give the appearance of almost worshiping secrecy. President Bush was especially notorious with this, frequently ordering documents already in storage at the National Archives pulled and declared to be secret on accounts of “national security”. The curious thing is that possibly a majority of these documents had no connection at all to national security issues, yet they still were declared to be off limits to the country. This practice has got to end in order to restore accountability to the Federal government, its departments and agencies. Indeed, complete honesty about just how far into debt the Federal government actually is will be both a very good, and a very necessary place to start.
There. This private citizen’s armchair observations on what I see as the necessary top priorities for the new Administration is now complete.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
In 2009, What Should the US Government Focus On? One Citizen’s Opinion, Part 1
Around the end of one year and the beginning of the next, the practice of drawing up various lists is slowly becoming a cottage industry. Earlier this week I skimmed several lists of “Ten Products I can’t live without” on some of the tech blogs at Gizmodo and Tech Crunch and a list of ten suggestions for the incoming Administration published on line at Front Page Magazine. That latter list ed on Homeland Security exclusively. As I read it, the sense emerged that it was too narrowly focused and overlooked several pressing issues confronting the new Administration.
The twin lists below (and in Part 2) are my personal opinions, thus they are not based on professional training in Federal policy making. The first list merges homeland security with foreign policy because, to me, the two are inextricably linked. Another way to express this is “if I was the President, what would my Administration focus on this year?
First, finish the job in Iraq. This is critical to the standing of the US in the eyes of the world community of nations. To be taken seriously as the sole free world super power, the Federal government simply must develop a track record of completing foreign projects that we start. Among older adults, the specter of Viet Nam still looms large. If we cut and run from Iraq with the reconstruction unfinished, the damage to America’s reputation will be immense. More critically, it will empower Islamic (and possibly Palestinian) extremist groups to more aggressively attack US interests around the globe.
Second, end the war in Afghanistan This invasion served no practical purpose from the beginning. Contrary to initial claims by the Bush Administration, it is now clear that capturing Osama Bin Laden was not the objective from the get go. There is a commonly held belief here in the US that we invaded Afghanistan and toppled the ruling Taliban government to serve US petroleum industry interests. Thus, this corporate military action needs to be brought to a close.
Third, locate and eradicate all Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan This is necessary for continuing security of US interests globally. As a side benefit, it should help increase the domestic security of US allies as well.
Fourth, defer any changes to Homeland Security until after 2010 With any new administration, there is always the temptation to revise or eliminate creations left by the previous Administration. Even though the current set up of DHS is far from perfect (as FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina showed). However, the Administration would be wise to leave this protective apparatus alone until it has cleaned out the last Al Qaeda hideout and stronghold. Once that task has been accomplished, then it will be appropriate to give DHS a badly needed reinvention so it fulfills its mission far more efficiently.
Fifth, make bolstering cybersecurity a priority As computers grow progressively smaller and more sophisticated, the number of misguided individuals who can access the raw computing power needed to hack into, and damage, critical computer systems increases. With the global nature of the world wide web it is possible for cyber terrorists to hide almost anywhere and attack critical energy, financial, law enforcement, and transportation computer systems in this country. For this reason it is imperative that the Administration develop innovative techniques for hardening computers against outside attacks.
Sixth, appropriately harden US borders The focus needs to be on stopping smugglers more than terrorists while making it easier for legitimate cross border traffic to both enter and leave the US. Perhaps the best approach would be to seek regional collaboration with Canada and Mexico on entry requirements. At air ports, the mandatary scanning of every traveler’s shoes needs to come to an end.
Also, it seems to me, for airports to be truly secure, the security checkpoints belong just inside the front doors so everyone entering the terminal must pass the screening process, not just those traveling.
Seventh, sign the UN International Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity That the Bush administration refused to do this shows how out of touch that bunch truly is. It should be a point of national embarrassment that Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua all signed it, along with 62 other countries. To me, this confirms the Bush administration as the most deeply bigoted and cruel administration in American history. Given that France took the lead in presenting this proposed declaration to the UN General Assembly, I can’t help wondering if this refusal to sign could also be Washington’s payback for France refusing to join the US led Iraqi coalition in 2002.
Eighth, continue to be wary about Iran and North Korea Both countries are regional bullies with strong dislikes for the US. Both may be near to developing viable nuclear weapons (or not), which makes them doubly dangerous. Iran also has the potential for uniting a wide swath of the Muslim world in its hatred of US interests regionally and globally. At the same time, all diplomatic channels of international dispute resolution must be exhausted before any military action is initially considered for two reasons. First, the US cannot budgetarily afford another war any time soon. Second, military action against either one could draw China into the conflict, and that is something best avoided.
Ninth, enhance DODs high tech superiority The US military simply must remain ahead of what the rest of the world defines as cutting edge military technologies and techniques. The era of massive infantry and artillery formations shooting at each other from foxholes dug into the landscape, a la WW I and II is over. More and more it seems that military actions are more urbanized, localized and conducted by sophisticated small units now than ever before. Also, the more US forces are able to conduct operations using remote controlled robotic drones, the fewer American lives will be lost .
Tenth, back away from the hard line mind set of the present administration Since 2001 the Bush administration has maintained an illogical mind set when it comes to foreign affairs. His “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists” remarks reflect an inappropriate mind set for the leader of a super power. At the same time, Washington’s staunch anti abortion (and anti contraceptives) stance with regard to foreign aid must stop. The US is not the world’s morality guardian. In my opinion, no nation possesses the right to impose its moral code on any other nation. Softening these hard headed attitudes should help improve America’s reputation abroad.
In Part 2 of this blog, to be posted tomorrow, I will focus on the domestic scene. Obviously, the shaky economic situation impacts this list far more significantly than the foreign agenda.
The twin lists below (and in Part 2) are my personal opinions, thus they are not based on professional training in Federal policy making. The first list merges homeland security with foreign policy because, to me, the two are inextricably linked. Another way to express this is “if I was the President, what would my Administration focus on this year?
First, finish the job in Iraq. This is critical to the standing of the US in the eyes of the world community of nations. To be taken seriously as the sole free world super power, the Federal government simply must develop a track record of completing foreign projects that we start. Among older adults, the specter of Viet Nam still looms large. If we cut and run from Iraq with the reconstruction unfinished, the damage to America’s reputation will be immense. More critically, it will empower Islamic (and possibly Palestinian) extremist groups to more aggressively attack US interests around the globe.
Second, end the war in Afghanistan This invasion served no practical purpose from the beginning. Contrary to initial claims by the Bush Administration, it is now clear that capturing Osama Bin Laden was not the objective from the get go. There is a commonly held belief here in the US that we invaded Afghanistan and toppled the ruling Taliban government to serve US petroleum industry interests. Thus, this corporate military action needs to be brought to a close.
Third, locate and eradicate all Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan This is necessary for continuing security of US interests globally. As a side benefit, it should help increase the domestic security of US allies as well.
Fourth, defer any changes to Homeland Security until after 2010 With any new administration, there is always the temptation to revise or eliminate creations left by the previous Administration. Even though the current set up of DHS is far from perfect (as FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina showed). However, the Administration would be wise to leave this protective apparatus alone until it has cleaned out the last Al Qaeda hideout and stronghold. Once that task has been accomplished, then it will be appropriate to give DHS a badly needed reinvention so it fulfills its mission far more efficiently.
Fifth, make bolstering cybersecurity a priority As computers grow progressively smaller and more sophisticated, the number of misguided individuals who can access the raw computing power needed to hack into, and damage, critical computer systems increases. With the global nature of the world wide web it is possible for cyber terrorists to hide almost anywhere and attack critical energy, financial, law enforcement, and transportation computer systems in this country. For this reason it is imperative that the Administration develop innovative techniques for hardening computers against outside attacks.
Sixth, appropriately harden US borders The focus needs to be on stopping smugglers more than terrorists while making it easier for legitimate cross border traffic to both enter and leave the US. Perhaps the best approach would be to seek regional collaboration with Canada and Mexico on entry requirements. At air ports, the mandatary scanning of every traveler’s shoes needs to come to an end.
Also, it seems to me, for airports to be truly secure, the security checkpoints belong just inside the front doors so everyone entering the terminal must pass the screening process, not just those traveling.
Seventh, sign the UN International Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity That the Bush administration refused to do this shows how out of touch that bunch truly is. It should be a point of national embarrassment that Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua all signed it, along with 62 other countries. To me, this confirms the Bush administration as the most deeply bigoted and cruel administration in American history. Given that France took the lead in presenting this proposed declaration to the UN General Assembly, I can’t help wondering if this refusal to sign could also be Washington’s payback for France refusing to join the US led Iraqi coalition in 2002.
Eighth, continue to be wary about Iran and North Korea Both countries are regional bullies with strong dislikes for the US. Both may be near to developing viable nuclear weapons (or not), which makes them doubly dangerous. Iran also has the potential for uniting a wide swath of the Muslim world in its hatred of US interests regionally and globally. At the same time, all diplomatic channels of international dispute resolution must be exhausted before any military action is initially considered for two reasons. First, the US cannot budgetarily afford another war any time soon. Second, military action against either one could draw China into the conflict, and that is something best avoided.
Ninth, enhance DODs high tech superiority The US military simply must remain ahead of what the rest of the world defines as cutting edge military technologies and techniques. The era of massive infantry and artillery formations shooting at each other from foxholes dug into the landscape, a la WW I and II is over. More and more it seems that military actions are more urbanized, localized and conducted by sophisticated small units now than ever before. Also, the more US forces are able to conduct operations using remote controlled robotic drones, the fewer American lives will be lost .
Tenth, back away from the hard line mind set of the present administration Since 2001 the Bush administration has maintained an illogical mind set when it comes to foreign affairs. His “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists” remarks reflect an inappropriate mind set for the leader of a super power. At the same time, Washington’s staunch anti abortion (and anti contraceptives) stance with regard to foreign aid must stop. The US is not the world’s morality guardian. In my opinion, no nation possesses the right to impose its moral code on any other nation. Softening these hard headed attitudes should help improve America’s reputation abroad.
In Part 2 of this blog, to be posted tomorrow, I will focus on the domestic scene. Obviously, the shaky economic situation impacts this list far more significantly than the foreign agenda.
Friday, January 2, 2009
MY NEW YEAR’S DREAM OF A BETTER WORLD
New Year’s Day is a day of boundless hope tempered this year by searing reality. The years in development credit crunch continues with no clear end in sight. As a result, new employment creation is at a virtual standstill as businesses small and large no longer have easy access to the fresh capital needed to expand. Further tempering this is the on-going run of small business and corporate bankruptcies and failures. So there is plenty of economic material available to justify wallowing in gloom and doom.
To combat this temptation I choose to take a longer term look at things. This current recession will resolve itself in time and the credit markets will loosen up. Employment will begin growing again, and consumer confidence will once again turn from negative to positive. Only time can tell whether Wall Street investors will be able to regain the $7 trillion in paper asset value the markets lost in 2008.
From a long term perspective, this is but a hiccough in life’s path. So rather than wallow in abject misery driven by fear and worry, my mind is focusing on the world that will still exist when this nightmare is over. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1963, I dream of a better world.
Lying within the human mind is an ability to produce great works when inspired. Fortunately, many of these are very positive. Great works of literature, art, architecture and music are examples, as are the major breakthroughs in science and technology that make modern life possible. Sadly, others are works of great evil, as seen in a recurring pattern throughout history. For the gender variant, my mind envisions a world free from evil’s predations. With a new Administration set to assume the mantle of power in Washington, D.C., I feel it is once again safe to dream of a bright, positive future.
I dream of a world where all mankind is safe and free to move about the planet as whims or opportunities arise. In this world, effective laws provide protection from hate, and other violent, crimes by removing truly dangerous criminals from society. In this world the transgender community is finally free to boldly move forth free from fear of becoming a crime statistic, and free from the fear of arrest for using the public restroom that matches their inner identity, rather than the one flagged as appropriate by some piece of paper (like a birth certificate).
The Preamble of the US Constitution asserts that mankind is granted certain rights by his creator, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In the modern world, pursuing these bedrock rights requires access to money, which means holding a job. Too long have racial minorities, the disabled and handicapped, older workers, women, and members of the GLBT community suffered from various forms of the same discrimination and persecution visited upon African Americans for the better part of a century following America’s Civil War. Consider the parallel: for decades throughout the South, drinking fountains and restrooms were routinely labeled “Whites Only.” today, fully dressed male to female transsexuals risk arrest and incarceration just for using women’s restrooms. Apparently law enforcement would rather they enter a men’s restroom while outfitted in a skirt, blouse, pantyhose and heels. This rank discrimination must end.
Along this line, it is now all too clear that the soon to be departing Bush administration is by far the most blatantly transphobic Administration in history. In the name of the “war on terror” one regulation is explicitly anti-transsexual. Employers are now required to cross check employment application information with Social Security records, and any applicant (or current employee) whose application form gender indicator does not match SS records must be rejected. A regulation like that does not belong in a free, democratic society. Likewise, pre-op and no op transsexuals must submit to being identified by their birth identification on US Passports while post op transsexuals can list their real gender without opposition. Finally, recently implemented changes in Federal health care policies may make it impossible for transsexuals to receive any medical care at all.
As a case in point: a few years ago, a pre op transsexual woman was injured in a Washington, DC traffic accident. Even though her injuries would not have been fatal with proper medical attention. However, when the responding EMTs discovered her transsexuality, they laughed and allowed her to die unattended at the scene. Under these new regulations, by claiming transsexuals violate either their personal values or their religious beliefs, they would get away with murder. In the world I dream of, such regulations do not exist.
In this world of which I speak, comprehensive health care is available to every citizen without regard to ability to pay, sexual orientation, gender identity, or citizenship status. This would be true universal health care that covers all aspects of cradle to grave medical needs, and would cover all costs attendant to the transsexual journey, including feminizing plastic surgery and reassignment surgery. In time, all chronic diseases would be cured through a combination of stem cell and gene therapy. Indeed, in this world, physicians would be able to practice medicine free from the burden of bureaucratic red tape and record keeping mandates that have nothing to do with sound medical decision making.
Changes in Federal employment law would guarantee a true living wage for all employees, along with time and a half for all employees, without regard to job title or employer’s economic sector. The practice, reportedly widely practiced in the retail sector, of requiring employees to work for free, or “off the clock,” would be rendered illegal by new laws that would require full back pay for all such hours. Likewise, employees would be meaningfully protected from sexual harassment on the job, and would be protected from termination for any reason other than job performance.
In this world, the family would be strengthened by the churches being restored to what they were in earlier eras: institutions that focused solely on the spiritual needs of their congregations and on helping the less fortunate members of society. Separation of church and state would be strengthened in the Constitution and become a two-way barrier: government would be prevented from regulating or controlling religion in any way, and the churches would be blocked from controlling government. At the same time, gay marriage would be converted into a non issue by a simple change in terminology. Unions entered into in a religious ceremony would be called marriages, in accordance with custom, while those entered into in a secular ceremony presided over by a public official would be called civil unions. Both options would be open to everyone without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.
This world of which I dream would finally bring to fruition the dream that Dr. King so eloquently expressed in August, 1963. I have kept that dream alive within myself since his murder in 1968. Within my being that dream is of a time when people are judged on what they can do, not who or what they are. When mankind reaches that point we truly will be “free at last.”
is the world portrayed above merely a pipe dream, or can it be achieved in our lifetimes? I truly believe the world portrayed above is attainable in time IF the transgender and LGB communities can come together and form a united front consistently pulling in the same direction and sharing the same message. In 2009 I truly hope this united front does emerge and begin speaking with one voice.
To combat this temptation I choose to take a longer term look at things. This current recession will resolve itself in time and the credit markets will loosen up. Employment will begin growing again, and consumer confidence will once again turn from negative to positive. Only time can tell whether Wall Street investors will be able to regain the $7 trillion in paper asset value the markets lost in 2008.
From a long term perspective, this is but a hiccough in life’s path. So rather than wallow in abject misery driven by fear and worry, my mind is focusing on the world that will still exist when this nightmare is over. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1963, I dream of a better world.
Lying within the human mind is an ability to produce great works when inspired. Fortunately, many of these are very positive. Great works of literature, art, architecture and music are examples, as are the major breakthroughs in science and technology that make modern life possible. Sadly, others are works of great evil, as seen in a recurring pattern throughout history. For the gender variant, my mind envisions a world free from evil’s predations. With a new Administration set to assume the mantle of power in Washington, D.C., I feel it is once again safe to dream of a bright, positive future.
I dream of a world where all mankind is safe and free to move about the planet as whims or opportunities arise. In this world, effective laws provide protection from hate, and other violent, crimes by removing truly dangerous criminals from society. In this world the transgender community is finally free to boldly move forth free from fear of becoming a crime statistic, and free from the fear of arrest for using the public restroom that matches their inner identity, rather than the one flagged as appropriate by some piece of paper (like a birth certificate).
The Preamble of the US Constitution asserts that mankind is granted certain rights by his creator, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In the modern world, pursuing these bedrock rights requires access to money, which means holding a job. Too long have racial minorities, the disabled and handicapped, older workers, women, and members of the GLBT community suffered from various forms of the same discrimination and persecution visited upon African Americans for the better part of a century following America’s Civil War. Consider the parallel: for decades throughout the South, drinking fountains and restrooms were routinely labeled “Whites Only.” today, fully dressed male to female transsexuals risk arrest and incarceration just for using women’s restrooms. Apparently law enforcement would rather they enter a men’s restroom while outfitted in a skirt, blouse, pantyhose and heels. This rank discrimination must end.
Along this line, it is now all too clear that the soon to be departing Bush administration is by far the most blatantly transphobic Administration in history. In the name of the “war on terror” one regulation is explicitly anti-transsexual. Employers are now required to cross check employment application information with Social Security records, and any applicant (or current employee) whose application form gender indicator does not match SS records must be rejected. A regulation like that does not belong in a free, democratic society. Likewise, pre-op and no op transsexuals must submit to being identified by their birth identification on US Passports while post op transsexuals can list their real gender without opposition. Finally, recently implemented changes in Federal health care policies may make it impossible for transsexuals to receive any medical care at all.
As a case in point: a few years ago, a pre op transsexual woman was injured in a Washington, DC traffic accident. Even though her injuries would not have been fatal with proper medical attention. However, when the responding EMTs discovered her transsexuality, they laughed and allowed her to die unattended at the scene. Under these new regulations, by claiming transsexuals violate either their personal values or their religious beliefs, they would get away with murder. In the world I dream of, such regulations do not exist.
In this world of which I speak, comprehensive health care is available to every citizen without regard to ability to pay, sexual orientation, gender identity, or citizenship status. This would be true universal health care that covers all aspects of cradle to grave medical needs, and would cover all costs attendant to the transsexual journey, including feminizing plastic surgery and reassignment surgery. In time, all chronic diseases would be cured through a combination of stem cell and gene therapy. Indeed, in this world, physicians would be able to practice medicine free from the burden of bureaucratic red tape and record keeping mandates that have nothing to do with sound medical decision making.
Changes in Federal employment law would guarantee a true living wage for all employees, along with time and a half for all employees, without regard to job title or employer’s economic sector. The practice, reportedly widely practiced in the retail sector, of requiring employees to work for free, or “off the clock,” would be rendered illegal by new laws that would require full back pay for all such hours. Likewise, employees would be meaningfully protected from sexual harassment on the job, and would be protected from termination for any reason other than job performance.
In this world, the family would be strengthened by the churches being restored to what they were in earlier eras: institutions that focused solely on the spiritual needs of their congregations and on helping the less fortunate members of society. Separation of church and state would be strengthened in the Constitution and become a two-way barrier: government would be prevented from regulating or controlling religion in any way, and the churches would be blocked from controlling government. At the same time, gay marriage would be converted into a non issue by a simple change in terminology. Unions entered into in a religious ceremony would be called marriages, in accordance with custom, while those entered into in a secular ceremony presided over by a public official would be called civil unions. Both options would be open to everyone without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.
This world of which I dream would finally bring to fruition the dream that Dr. King so eloquently expressed in August, 1963. I have kept that dream alive within myself since his murder in 1968. Within my being that dream is of a time when people are judged on what they can do, not who or what they are. When mankind reaches that point we truly will be “free at last.”
is the world portrayed above merely a pipe dream, or can it be achieved in our lifetimes? I truly believe the world portrayed above is attainable in time IF the transgender and LGB communities can come together and form a united front consistently pulling in the same direction and sharing the same message. In 2009 I truly hope this united front does emerge and begin speaking with one voice.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Happy 40th, Computer Mouse
This week the iconic computer mouse turned 40. On December 9, 1996, the first prototype was unveiled. This ancestor of the modern mouse had only one button on top of a notably non-ergonomically shaped, yet still not bad looking, wood case. Motion of the mouse was detected by two rolling wheels on the bottom set at right angles to each other. Since that early design idea, the mouse has developed additional buttons, a rolling track ball in place of the two wheels, a scrolling wheel (on some models) and the option of a cable-free mouse.
Clearly the mouse’s emergence has empowered the emergence of graphical user interfaces, like Windows, and productivity software that can offer functionality far beyond that of the DOS era. Indeed, one can only speculate about whether the personal computer would have developed its immense popularity had the mouse not become a standard part of all systems. For that matter, had the mouse not have been invented by a British group of outside the box thinkers in the 1960's, then Microsoft might have found it necessary to invent one themselves. Given their track record with Windows, I shudder at that idea. Let’s see, had that happened, would we have progressed through MS Mouse 3.1, MS Mouse 95, MS Mouse 98, etc up through MS Mouse Vista? Ugh.
Let’s take a step back for a moment and, as a thought experiment, envision a world in which the keyboard is the only means of interfacing with a computer. In this world, all commands would be entered only through keyboard shortcut keystroke combinations. In this world, could monitor color choices have progressed beyond 16 colors, given that each available color would need its own keystroke combination?
I will admit I qualify as a technology old timer, if not outright dinosaur, despite only being in my early to mid 50's. When I started my college career as a chemistry major, the highest tech calculating device I used was a pocket slide rule. A year later, when I took a FORTRAN IV programming class, a keypunch was used to record program instructions and test data on 80 column Hollerith punch cards. These, in turn, were entered into the school’s NCR Century 50 small mainframe computer (which filled most of a small room) with a main memory (the term RAM didn’t exist in those days) of 16k of hard-wired ferrite core memory. The impact printer sat on the floor, and generated black capital letters, numbers and a few standard typographical symbols a line at a time on the very wide, green and white striped paper commonly seen in those days. Color printing with multiple fonts and special symbols? Only in science fiction. The university I attended later on used an IBM 370 mainframe, and its 8 platter, 12" wide removable disks held (at that time) an impressive 600 megabytes.
Contrast that with today: instead of discussing main memory in terms of thousands of bytes of true physical memory, now memory is contained in sets of small chips capable of holding billions of bytes of information. Just a few years ago, the debate about the ideal amount of RAM centered on 256 MB vs 512 MB. Now, with the release of Windows Vista the debate over how much RAM is needed has shifted to “which works better: 3 gigabytes or 4?” (Or is that question actually: What is the largest amount of RAM that Vista can still crash?”)
In the late 1990's, typical hard drive capacities topped out in the hundreds of megabytes, and a one gigabyte drive was still in development. Now, hard drive capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes are commonplace and a one trillion byte capacity hard drive is on the market. When the emergent solid state memory technology achieves commercial viability, over time, even one terabyte mechanical hard drives will become obsolete, replaced by solid state drives (SSDs) that will offer storage capacities far beyond mechanical hard drive technology capabilities. By being moving part free, this emergent technology will also be able to provide significantly faster response times. This, in turn, will either challenge engineers to significantly increase front side bus speeds, or develop an entirely new internal data transfer technology capable of keeping up with the SSDs.
My mind feels boggled at times whenever I pause to reflect on the extent to which computer technology has developed and grown since I studied FORTRAN IV. That first computer I successfully programmed lacked the ability to print in color, did not have a monitor, used disk packs the size of a large pizza, and filled a small room. This blog is being revised and finished on a Sony Vaio laptop with a back lit TFT color monitor. Instead of having to go to the computer, I am parked in my easy chair, with this computer parked on my abdomen.
So the question remains: how much of this computer technological growth would have happened in the absence of the mouse?
Clearly the mouse’s emergence has empowered the emergence of graphical user interfaces, like Windows, and productivity software that can offer functionality far beyond that of the DOS era. Indeed, one can only speculate about whether the personal computer would have developed its immense popularity had the mouse not become a standard part of all systems. For that matter, had the mouse not have been invented by a British group of outside the box thinkers in the 1960's, then Microsoft might have found it necessary to invent one themselves. Given their track record with Windows, I shudder at that idea. Let’s see, had that happened, would we have progressed through MS Mouse 3.1, MS Mouse 95, MS Mouse 98, etc up through MS Mouse Vista? Ugh.
Let’s take a step back for a moment and, as a thought experiment, envision a world in which the keyboard is the only means of interfacing with a computer. In this world, all commands would be entered only through keyboard shortcut keystroke combinations. In this world, could monitor color choices have progressed beyond 16 colors, given that each available color would need its own keystroke combination?
I will admit I qualify as a technology old timer, if not outright dinosaur, despite only being in my early to mid 50's. When I started my college career as a chemistry major, the highest tech calculating device I used was a pocket slide rule. A year later, when I took a FORTRAN IV programming class, a keypunch was used to record program instructions and test data on 80 column Hollerith punch cards. These, in turn, were entered into the school’s NCR Century 50 small mainframe computer (which filled most of a small room) with a main memory (the term RAM didn’t exist in those days) of 16k of hard-wired ferrite core memory. The impact printer sat on the floor, and generated black capital letters, numbers and a few standard typographical symbols a line at a time on the very wide, green and white striped paper commonly seen in those days. Color printing with multiple fonts and special symbols? Only in science fiction. The university I attended later on used an IBM 370 mainframe, and its 8 platter, 12" wide removable disks held (at that time) an impressive 600 megabytes.
Contrast that with today: instead of discussing main memory in terms of thousands of bytes of true physical memory, now memory is contained in sets of small chips capable of holding billions of bytes of information. Just a few years ago, the debate about the ideal amount of RAM centered on 256 MB vs 512 MB. Now, with the release of Windows Vista the debate over how much RAM is needed has shifted to “which works better: 3 gigabytes or 4?” (Or is that question actually: What is the largest amount of RAM that Vista can still crash?”)
In the late 1990's, typical hard drive capacities topped out in the hundreds of megabytes, and a one gigabyte drive was still in development. Now, hard drive capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes are commonplace and a one trillion byte capacity hard drive is on the market. When the emergent solid state memory technology achieves commercial viability, over time, even one terabyte mechanical hard drives will become obsolete, replaced by solid state drives (SSDs) that will offer storage capacities far beyond mechanical hard drive technology capabilities. By being moving part free, this emergent technology will also be able to provide significantly faster response times. This, in turn, will either challenge engineers to significantly increase front side bus speeds, or develop an entirely new internal data transfer technology capable of keeping up with the SSDs.
My mind feels boggled at times whenever I pause to reflect on the extent to which computer technology has developed and grown since I studied FORTRAN IV. That first computer I successfully programmed lacked the ability to print in color, did not have a monitor, used disk packs the size of a large pizza, and filled a small room. This blog is being revised and finished on a Sony Vaio laptop with a back lit TFT color monitor. Instead of having to go to the computer, I am parked in my easy chair, with this computer parked on my abdomen.
So the question remains: how much of this computer technological growth would have happened in the absence of the mouse?
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Nativity Scenes on Public Property: Conflict Begins Anew in Olympia, Washington
This is December, which means it is time for rampant consumerism (normally), office parties, Christmas seasonal music old & new, and Christian Nativity scenes on public property. Every year, somewhere in the United States these public nativity scenes evoke challenges and protests of one kind or another. This year is going to be no exception.
This past week a Nativity scene has been set up in Washington State’s Legislative Building in Olympia. Early Friday morning the Freedom From Religion Foundation posted a rather heavy metal sign near the display. Its top sentence, to me, makes a lot of sense: “At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE [caps are in the original] may reason prevail.” In the spirit of fairness, where Christian displays are allowed, other faiths, other viewpoints possess an equal right of access to space for equally tasteful displays.
Still, groups such as the Christian Coalition ceaselessly fight against this access fairness by arguing that such displays, no matter how tasteful, attack religion. Even though the Olympia sign concludes by describing religion as “myth and superstition that hardens the heart and enslaves the mind”, in my opinion, it does not attack religion. Rather, it expresses an opinion, a viewpoint. Under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, public expression of this type of opinion is, or at least should be, Constitutionally protected speech.
What the Christian Coalition and similar groups fail to recognize is that, by maintaining what strikes me as an exclusionary expressive right of public sphere access, they are increasingly proving observations such as the one that concludes the Olympia sign right. The near universal blindness of the more radical Fundamentalist groups never ceases to amaze me. What concerns me is the increasing extent to which many of these groups are diverging from the teachings of the Judao-Christian Scriptures in general, and the Christian New Testament in particular.
I grew up in a strict Christian faith so from childhood on I read the King James version of The Bible on my own. Thus, through the years, I have read, and thought about, the entire text of both Testaments several times. The positions on a number of positions they maintain do not mesh with my readings of Scripture.
On this Olympia flap, I find it amused that one or more local Christians became so incensed over the Freedom From Religion sign that they felt justified in breaking one of the Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt Not Steal). The sign installation was completed by 6:30 am; an hour later it disappeared. A few hours later someone spotted it in a ditch outside town, and dropped it off at a local radio station.
This situation in Olympia strikes me as an extension of the disputes over displays of the Ten Commandments in public places. generally such displays are challenged on the grounds that they promote Christianity to the exclusion of all other faiths and beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, the Ten Commandments descended to Christianity from Judaism, thus they predate the birth of Christianity. For another thing, similar expressions are found in many, if not all, wisdom traditions both east and west. I don’t have access to a Qu’ran, however I suspect that a similar set of commandments appears there as well. Similar guidelines for how to live also appear in Buddhism, the Tao, and probably Hinduism as well. Thus the Ten Commandments need to be seen as universal in nature, which means they promote no specific religion.
Personally I don’t have a problem with tastefully designed displays of the Ten Commandments and Nativity scenes on public property as long as the displays minimize the name of the sponsoring Church (or Churches). Equally, as long as such displays are set up so that viewing is voluntary by all passers by, then I fail to see how they differ from monuments honoring veterans or pioneers mounted on public property.
Perhaps, too, these disagreements during the holiday season underscore the extent to which Christmas has digressed from what it technically is about: the virgin birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Is it time for US society to reevaluate the meaning of the entire holiday season?
This past week a Nativity scene has been set up in Washington State’s Legislative Building in Olympia. Early Friday morning the Freedom From Religion Foundation posted a rather heavy metal sign near the display. Its top sentence, to me, makes a lot of sense: “At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE [caps are in the original] may reason prevail.” In the spirit of fairness, where Christian displays are allowed, other faiths, other viewpoints possess an equal right of access to space for equally tasteful displays.
Still, groups such as the Christian Coalition ceaselessly fight against this access fairness by arguing that such displays, no matter how tasteful, attack religion. Even though the Olympia sign concludes by describing religion as “myth and superstition that hardens the heart and enslaves the mind”, in my opinion, it does not attack religion. Rather, it expresses an opinion, a viewpoint. Under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, public expression of this type of opinion is, or at least should be, Constitutionally protected speech.
What the Christian Coalition and similar groups fail to recognize is that, by maintaining what strikes me as an exclusionary expressive right of public sphere access, they are increasingly proving observations such as the one that concludes the Olympia sign right. The near universal blindness of the more radical Fundamentalist groups never ceases to amaze me. What concerns me is the increasing extent to which many of these groups are diverging from the teachings of the Judao-Christian Scriptures in general, and the Christian New Testament in particular.
I grew up in a strict Christian faith so from childhood on I read the King James version of The Bible on my own. Thus, through the years, I have read, and thought about, the entire text of both Testaments several times. The positions on a number of positions they maintain do not mesh with my readings of Scripture.
On this Olympia flap, I find it amused that one or more local Christians became so incensed over the Freedom From Religion sign that they felt justified in breaking one of the Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt Not Steal). The sign installation was completed by 6:30 am; an hour later it disappeared. A few hours later someone spotted it in a ditch outside town, and dropped it off at a local radio station.
This situation in Olympia strikes me as an extension of the disputes over displays of the Ten Commandments in public places. generally such displays are challenged on the grounds that they promote Christianity to the exclusion of all other faiths and beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, the Ten Commandments descended to Christianity from Judaism, thus they predate the birth of Christianity. For another thing, similar expressions are found in many, if not all, wisdom traditions both east and west. I don’t have access to a Qu’ran, however I suspect that a similar set of commandments appears there as well. Similar guidelines for how to live also appear in Buddhism, the Tao, and probably Hinduism as well. Thus the Ten Commandments need to be seen as universal in nature, which means they promote no specific religion.
Personally I don’t have a problem with tastefully designed displays of the Ten Commandments and Nativity scenes on public property as long as the displays minimize the name of the sponsoring Church (or Churches). Equally, as long as such displays are set up so that viewing is voluntary by all passers by, then I fail to see how they differ from monuments honoring veterans or pioneers mounted on public property.
Perhaps, too, these disagreements during the holiday season underscore the extent to which Christmas has digressed from what it technically is about: the virgin birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Is it time for US society to reevaluate the meaning of the entire holiday season?
Monday, December 1, 2008
NaNoWriMo Update: I Did It!
The subtitle of this post says it all: in less than thirty days I wrote slightly more than 50,000 words toward my first novel. This is a notable accomplishment, given that I reached that level in 23 days of actual writing. Now that I have ascended to the top of Mount NaNoWriMo, my mind feels lost since I no longer have the deadline driving me forward. Even so, this accomplishment feels really, really nice.
Now comes the challenging intellectual weight lifting: editing and polishing this initial draft into a publishable manuscript before the end of next August so I can have a clear desk come September 1st when I will launch a personal challenge: write at least 50,000 nonfiction words on Transgender Civil Rights within the month of September. That will give my mind one month to sketch out what fiction manuscript (or manuscripts) I will tackle when NaNoWriMo 2009 kicks off next November.
So, some in the reading audience may be rightfully wondering, how hard can it be to edit and polish a work of fiction?
The answer: with this project’s challenging goals yet to be addressed, very. I visualize this novel’s overall structure as a woven tapestry made from warp and woof fibers that meet at right angles throughout the cloth. The novel’s background is a fictionalized transsexual autobiography, with flashbacks to earlier generations as appropriate, that forms the warp fibers. The woof fibers will be composed of insights and information from transgender studies research already completed and additional research as needed to fill in the holes. Where appropriate, the autobiographical elements will illustrate the research supported points contained in the woof threads, thereby adhering to the “show, don’t tell” rule of thumb that, when properly applied, produces readable, gripping fiction that is a joy to read.
Now that I have joined the winner’s circle in my initial NaNoWriMo challenge, what new personal challenges exist for next year? It’s true, I could once again shoot for the 50,000 word goal, or, now that I have shown that I can do it, I can up the degree of expectation I place upon my fingers. There are some writers this year who go well beyond the general 50,000 word mark, and a thread on the NaNoWriMo Shoutouts forum provides a place for word counts above 80,000 words to compare notes and encourage each other. Joining that determined group is my target next year.
I’ll admit that the idea of spinning out that many words in one month on one (or two) manuscripts sounds impossible, yet I can see that it is easily attainable. Consider: an average pace of 2,000 words per day produces 60,000 words in one month. This year I found that writing 3,500 words in an evening is an easy pace. Sustained over 30 days, that pace yields 105,000 words. Thus, by limbering up my creative juices next fall, 75,000 to 80,000 words or more will be easily attainable.
Now comes the challenging intellectual weight lifting: editing and polishing this initial draft into a publishable manuscript before the end of next August so I can have a clear desk come September 1st when I will launch a personal challenge: write at least 50,000 nonfiction words on Transgender Civil Rights within the month of September. That will give my mind one month to sketch out what fiction manuscript (or manuscripts) I will tackle when NaNoWriMo 2009 kicks off next November.
So, some in the reading audience may be rightfully wondering, how hard can it be to edit and polish a work of fiction?
The answer: with this project’s challenging goals yet to be addressed, very. I visualize this novel’s overall structure as a woven tapestry made from warp and woof fibers that meet at right angles throughout the cloth. The novel’s background is a fictionalized transsexual autobiography, with flashbacks to earlier generations as appropriate, that forms the warp fibers. The woof fibers will be composed of insights and information from transgender studies research already completed and additional research as needed to fill in the holes. Where appropriate, the autobiographical elements will illustrate the research supported points contained in the woof threads, thereby adhering to the “show, don’t tell” rule of thumb that, when properly applied, produces readable, gripping fiction that is a joy to read.
Now that I have joined the winner’s circle in my initial NaNoWriMo challenge, what new personal challenges exist for next year? It’s true, I could once again shoot for the 50,000 word goal, or, now that I have shown that I can do it, I can up the degree of expectation I place upon my fingers. There are some writers this year who go well beyond the general 50,000 word mark, and a thread on the NaNoWriMo Shoutouts forum provides a place for word counts above 80,000 words to compare notes and encourage each other. Joining that determined group is my target next year.
I’ll admit that the idea of spinning out that many words in one month on one (or two) manuscripts sounds impossible, yet I can see that it is easily attainable. Consider: an average pace of 2,000 words per day produces 60,000 words in one month. This year I found that writing 3,500 words in an evening is an easy pace. Sustained over 30 days, that pace yields 105,000 words. Thus, by limbering up my creative juices next fall, 75,000 to 80,000 words or more will be easily attainable.
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