Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 33

11-11-11: Armistice Day or Veterans Day

To all veterans and future veterans--thanks for your service.   Glad to be one of you.

November 10: Happy Birthday, Marines...and some thoughts

We often hear people say, of those in the military or who've served earlier, "We owe them."

But in what coin do the military and ex-military actually want to be paid?  Respect, of course.  Recognition that yeah, we did step forward (though I knew plenty of really good people who were drafted--but they did their duty afterward.)  Good care when they're wounded,  But when we get commended for "defending the country"....let's think about the country we thought we were defending.   What did "the home of the free and the brave" mean to us--not us in a lump, but us individually, when we joined up.

It's not the same country for all.  I knew people who were "military brats" to start with, growing up through dozens of school systems, on dozens of bases, always a little apart from most of the civilian kids they knew.  Don't make too tight a friendship, because we're due another transfer.  I knew people who were fresh off the family farm in the grain belt (including, believe it or not, a tall, husky young man from Iowa whose last name was Corn.  Nice fellow.)  People from New York City. People from suburbs in Maryland.  From California.  From Nevada.  Etc. So their idea of what kind of country they were defending had a large dollop of different in it, and it was in the military that we (including me, from the Texas/Mexican border downstream of Laredo) began to realize how diverse this country was...not from schoolbooks, or TV, but from rubbing up against the variety.  Most of us mellowed out some from the contacts, learned to see the worth to the country of people from different backgrounds and very unlike ourselves.  Some hardened into defensive shells.  That's diversity too.

What I wish those who'd never served would agree they owed me is that old dream: equality.  Respectful equality.  Does not mean I claim to be more than you--or as smart/strong/nice as "anyone" (there are plenty of people smarter than me, stronger than me, nicer than me)--but that I am equal *as a citizen*...I have my vote, you have yours.  Hear what I'm really saying.  Don't have to agree...but really hear it, and understand why, for me, that's how it is.  Tell me your story--I will listen and try to understand why, for you, that's how it is.

Another old dream: freedom, that can't exist without respect and the kind of equality I'm talking about.  Your life is yours to live...in the old phrase, you can swing your arm as much as you like until it reaches my nose.  My life is mine to live: win, lose, or draw, good decisions or stupid ones.  I won't try to run your life; don't you try to run mine. 

Respect.  And here I find myself turning on the idea like a dog on a pillow.  Does anyone owe me respect just because I served in the military? Well...yes, sort of.  But they also owe respect to everyone else for the services they've done for the country--which includes things like showing up for work on the garbage truck, going down mines, picking tomatoes.  Even being a female REMF in the '60s and early '70s had its dangers--the anti-war demonstrators in the D.C. area weren't any gentler to women in uniform than to men...but not compared to a coal miner in West Va., or a highway construction flagger on a busy road or the repair crew for the electric company trying to restore power in a storm.  Teachers, firefighters, truck drivers, bus drivers, people up in a bucket working on phone lines or power lines (saw three yesterday), people patching potholes,  mothers doing the grocery shopping with a toddler in tow and another one in the oven, nurses, doctors,  people restocking grocery shelves...where would this country be without them?  

What I think is owed to those who protect the country in uniform is for civilian citizens to be good citizens...because it's the civilian population that must hold the country together: feed it, clothe it, house it, transport it, make or grow or move the things everyone needs, keep its infrastructure intact.  And the same virtues needed in a military person--honesty, courage, fairness, judgment, initiative, all the rest--are needed in every single citizen.  Do what needs to be done as well as you possibly can.  Help others when they need it.  When you see someone fall, pick 'em up.  LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND.  Seriously.  If one single Marine tradition could be grafted into the heart of every civilian, I'd probably pick that over some others: LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND.

The idea that it's OK to dismiss individuals or groups because they're not worth the sacrifice of bringing them along--Ron Paul's disgusting comments that some are makers and some are takers--that's a slap in my face, and in the face of every other person who goes out full of the desire to serve and protect the country.   That idea unravels the country and its virtues behind our backs.  Especially since we now know how badly vets have been, and may be, treated by those who don't agree with that vet's choices.  The Marine Corps is and always will be my branch of service.  Once a Marine, always a Marine is not just a saying.  But the citizenry of this country are in my present unit.  And I resent the hell out of it when someone wants to leave behind immigrants, or a racial group, or the old, or the gay, or the single moms, or the children of divorce, or the poor, or the disabled or any other currently unfashionable "unprofitable" groups or individuals.  That's just wrong.

So: pay sideways.  If someone respects me, or wants to show gratitude to me...be a better citizen.  Respect those around you.  Show gratitude to the country for what it's given you (without complaining that's too little or you're asked to pay something back in taxes.)  Make choices that are good for the country--not just your precinct or your ethnic group or your faith community.  Think bigger.  Think deeper.  Think farther ahead.  Learn how to find the facts about things--learn to ignore the sound bites.  As a former mayor here said, "Back your ears and lean into the collar--we got a job to do."  Make the lives of everyone around you better--and by doing that, make the country better. 

That's what you owe me.  That's also what I owe you.  That's also what I owe the men and women now in uniform and those who will be.  We're in the same unit.

Semper Fi.

On a Lighter Note

Or, why flattery does not get you everywhere but only to the spam bucket and the chute leading down from it to the bit-bin incinerator.

Today's first up, posted to a Paksworld blog's post "Nose to the Grindstone" (way, way, WAY back in the Paksworld blog's history.)

"This web site is certainly relatively helpful given that I’m with the second producing a web floral site – though I’m only beginning out as a result it is genuinely relatively tiny, practically nothing similar to this web site. Can hyperlink to some in the posts right here because they are fairly. Many thanks considerably."   (originator is iphone spam)

I don't actually think a blog about a fantasy world has anything to do with a "web floral site", but OK, glad to help, goodbye.

Posted to the post "Old Age and Treachery" (not as far back as the first):

"Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I am impressed! Very helpful info particularly the last part :) I care for such info much. I was looking for this certain info for a very long time."  source "availhosting.com" (private hosting service.)

and from same source, posted comment to a different original post:

"Enjoyed reading this, very good stuff, thankyou"

If a private hosting service--provided that's what the reference  really leads to--is engaging in old age and treachery, I'm sorry, world, I didn't mean to teach them anything.

Posted as comment to "Holidays and Religious Celebrations" was this from "dailycashclub.net":

"Wow, awesome blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your web site is magnificent, let alone the content!"

Daily Cash Club felt it necessary to try again to the same post with:

"I simply desired to thank you very much all over again. I’m not certain what I could possibly have taken care of in the absence of these tricks shown by you concerning this area. Certainly was a very intimidating case for me personally, however , witnessing this well-written manner you handled that forced me to leap with gladness. Now i am grateful for your help and in addition sincerely hope you find out what a powerful job your are getting into teaching people today by way of your webpage. Most likely you have never come across all of us."

Actually, I'm rather glad I have never come across all of you....even though it's my life's passion to have people leaping for gladness after they read something I wrote.   But anyone who thinks the details of a fantasy world's religious celebrations help with real-life "intimidating cases" kind of spooks me.

Of course, some aren't flattering:  Canadian viagra said of "Cover!":

"You should make the title of the post more related to the content, besides that I like your blog."

The content  of the post titled "Cover!" was a picture of the cover.  Sigh.  I do TRY to keep them all happy. Perhaps should have titled it "Picture of Cover!"??  Or maybe Canadian viagra should lay off the little blue pills and lower his testosterone level? 

At least "Giant twist comfort cs" was happy with the blog:

"You designed some decent points there. I looked more than the internet for your concern and discovered a lot of people will go along with together along with your internet site."

Yes, besides people leaping for gladness after reading it, what I want is "a lot of people will go along together" with it.   I never ever want to have anyone disagreeing with me, for goshsakes.

There were 128 of these little darlings (well, some were in Cyrillic, some weren't either flattering or scolding, just dull) this morning. Thanks be for Akismet, which found them, rolled them up for me, and has just delivered them to the bit bin.    The number of true blue definitely absolutely spam that I get every day explains why anything that ends up in the spam bucket gets dumped, usually without even glancing at it.  There's no time.  On a heavy spam day I might have to prowl through 1000 spam messages to find the one that fell in there accidentally. (There's not only the Paksworld blog spam bucket, but the ones for two other WordPress blogs and the one at SFF.net, the one for my other email account, and the spam that slides right on through and shows up in spite of spam blockers.)  

Libraries and Copyright

Michael Capobianco, former president (and many other offices) of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, has written an excellent post on some of the issues surrounding libraries, the HathiTrust, Google, and the abuse of copyright by those who want to profit from a writer's work by claiming the work is in the public domain.   Copyright Is People was the starting point for my post, so go read it first, and also read the comments. 

(And for those who wish I'd use an LJ cut more often, talk to LiveJournal.  Currently, I can't make my text go in the gray area that's "behind the cut"...attempts to do so result in being told to make another LJ cut.  LJ should learn from WordPress--on my WordPress-software blogs, I can put the cut where I want to at any time, even after writing the whole piece.)

Anyway--you've read Michael's post and the comments, right?  You do understand that Anonymous is being snarky and troll-like, right?   

To start with, I've been a fan of libraries since I first walked into one and that would be...longer ago than most of my readers have been alive.   I first got a library card at age 5 or 6.   My mother fought with the head librarian and the children's librarian until they quit trying to restrict me to books in my grade level and let me check out whatever I wanted.  It was a library for a town of about 15,000, at that time and it was not overseen by today's sort of library managers, who insist on throwing out (and in some places shredding) any book that hasn't been checked out recently or often enough in the past year.   Books on the shelves were considered a resource, no matter how old they were (that's how I read my way through several volumes of naval history that no one had ever checked out since they were put in place--but by the thumbprints, they'd certainly been read.  They were too big to fit in my bike basket.)   I've admired librarians for keeping all those books in order, and for preserving old books so that I could find and use them.  I've used libraries of all sizes from under 1000 volumes to university libraries filling vast stacks and city libraries (both main and branch) with immense collections.  I've ordered books from Interlibrary Loan (a wonderful program.)   It's from librarians that I learned to notice who wrote a book I liked (not something that interests a child until they have to ask for another book like it--and the librarian points out that knowing the author really helps locate the book.)   Librarians of my childhood and youth and college years understood copyright and pointed out to us the problems with both plagiarism and copyright infringement.  I have librarian friends, at least two of whom are also writers.  

When I was first published in book form, I was thrilled at the thought that my book would be in some libraries (I knew not all) and that people like me (still using a library sometimes despite all the books in my house)  would get to discover my books the way I had discovered so many other writers' books...by cruising the shelves or by a librarian's recommendation.   I was glad that people who couldn't afford to buy my books could read them without charge in a library--thus both supporting the library and (maybe) acquiring such a taste for my books that they would seek them out elsewhere and maybe someday buy one.

But.  But attitudes have changed. With the ease of copying works (starting with photocopies and copiers in libraries) and particularly with the rise of digital works, even librarians--even good librarians--have leapt on the bandwagon of "copyright is a nuisance when I want what I want right this minute and I should have it free."    Although librarians are discarding books--perfectly good books, often rare books, books they didn't even have to pay for because they were donated (and let me tell you, it annoys writers who have donated one of their precious authors' copies to a library and finds out that the library just trashed it)--because they aren't checked out enough.    It's cheaper to "house" digital copies of books.   It's cheaper to just make more digital copies if you have a run on a certain title, than to buy a few more paper copies.   And if you want a book that's not in print--heck, just digitize it and hand it out that way.   Best of all, if you can claim the work is an "orphan" you can claim that copyright shouldn't count.  Only easy, cheap availability counts. 

And authors who complain are just...well, a nuisance that you can slander to your heart's content, because after all they're just writers--what do they know? 

They know Google stole from them.  They know libraries are now stealing from them.   Reminder: I never minded libraries having my books available for people to check out.   That's how I got hooked on books and on certain writers.   The libraries bought the books (albeit at a library discount, but fine) thus supporting my publisher and maybe a crumb for me.    I was in this for the long haul, so the fact that years might pass before a reader who liked Sheepfarmer's Daughter in a library actually bought one of the others in a store didn't bother me.  Doesn't bother most writers.  We have long honored libraries for preserving books and promoting reading and have accepted the short-term loss resulting from 50 people reading the same copy of the book in order to hook some of those 50 people on other books later.  But now...the new attitude among librarians that writers are a nuisance to be slapped down if they object to being digitized and distributed without their consent or remuneration is changing how many writers feel about librarians and libraries.    Combined with the relentless "culling" of library shelves  that results in a shallower selection--that has cost library after library any value as a historical repository--it seems to me, and to many others, that many librarians have become actively hostile to the people who write the books that are the reason for a library's existence.

Mr. Smith, in a letter to Mr. Salamanca, whose work had been digitized without his knowledge or consent, a letter dripping with condescension and, frankly, insulting, states that "libraries are not your enemies" and "We are in the business of helping authors find readers..."  Which is, frankly, nonsense when applied to the modern model of library, busily dumping books into shredders and incinerators when the books don't find enough readers by themselves.   Libraries today are in the business of handing readers what they already want--the latest bestseller, the books assigned by a professor,. etc.   The other books are just a nuisance, and so are their authors.  Moreover, authors are in a very different business, that of making a living from their writing.  For this purpose, writers do need readers...but we have many other ways to find them than through libraries, valuable as libraries were (and still are, in some cases.)   We, too, have entered the digital age; we have websites and blogs and social media sites (like LJ and Twitter.)  

So libraries are "not our enemies" if and only if libraries increase--or at least do not markedly decrease--our income stream.  Crass?  No, realistic.    Libraries started dumping their collections for economic reasons.   We protect our copyright for economic reasons.   Anyone who thinks this is terrible/horrible/etc. is welcome to choose a writer to support economically, to become a writer's patron in perpetuity.  Otherwise, shut up about the crassness of writers, who at least earned their copyright by writing the books.   Those who attack copyright are not attacking "giant international corporations" or "the music industry"...they are attacking me and my family, who depend on my writing for basic things like food, clothing, utilities, place to live, etc.   They are attacking every individual writer in the country...those who make more than I do, those who make less, those who are famous, those who are struggling to get that first work published.   And we have just as much right to care about our needs, our budgets, our families as anyone else.    Yet writers are traditionally, and still, expected to "do more with less" than, say, plumbers or the guy driving the backhoe.   We've always been expected to write stuff for nothing, give talks at schools for nothing, let someone use our work "for charity," donate books (not yet knowing they'd be destroyed at the whim of a librarian), give free advice to  as-yet-unpublished writers, etc.  And most of us have done quite a bit of that.

And now libraries (some libraries, certainly many academic libraries and those part of the HathiTrust--and Google of course) expect that writers should just roll over and play dead whenever a library or a big corporation wants to take the writer's work (without permission and ignoring all previous contracts that may still apply)  and let Google or the HathiTrust digitize and distribute the work without any remuneration.

It's as if a farmer discovered that a corporation or non-profit decided that since no one was home at the moment, it was OK to go steal the crop--pick the apples or the pears, pull the carrots and onions--because after all it's more convenient if you don't have to worry about the fact that someone else planted that field, possibly even saving seed from last year, grafting those trees, and doing the cultivation--if you can just pick what you want for free any time you wish. 

People with that attitude are my enemies as long as they're stealing.   They are thieves, whatever mantle of "social service" they wrap themselves in.   Google is a thief.  Hathi-Trust is a thief.    Google's digitization of my work was illegal.  They have yet to apologize to me, or state that they have destroyed the digital copy(ies) they made of my works.   So: thief.    Hathi-Trust has not revealed that it holds Google's digitization of my work (though it's an off shoot of Google's project) , but it has clearly infringed on Salamanca's and others' copyrights: and by the snide response from Mr. Smith, they aren't showing any remorse at all.  Mr. Smith chooses not to understand that the digitization alone--just that--was already an infringement and a theft.  I have no reason to think they are not secretly holding more illegal digitizations than they claim.   So: thief.   It is one thing to have thieves running around stealing stuff and acting like normal criminals.  But to have libraries--LIBRARIES--stealing without any conscience at all?   Because it's convenient?  Because it's cheap?   That's so far over the line, the line is invisible 100 miles back.

Libraries are now upset because publishers are limiting the number of readings per loaded e-reader they buy.  What the Sam Hilll did they expect would happen when they started this "digitize and distribute innumerable copies nationwide free" thing?   Oh, yeah, sure it's easier.  Cheaper.  For the library.   But are librarians completely blind to what keeps writers and their publishers alive?  No, it's not "finding readers."   It's finding readers who pay for the writing.   Those of you who "monetize" (make money from) your blogs by allowing ads, some of which is based on "click-throughs" should get this.   If people don't "click through" to the ad, you get less (in some cases no) money.   Some of you allow the ads because you can't afford to pay for the blog yourself; you get free space that's paid for by the ads  Fine.  Then you know that writers can't afford to live on pure admiration, no matter how much of it there is.  

For anyone who wants a "platform" on which to spout her/his stuff--fiction, nonfiction, poetry, recipes,whatever--there's a cost to put the platform up, be it in print or digitally on your own website.   The cost may be money, or allowing the web host to run ads on your site or blog.  The servers, the electricity to run the servers, the techs to keep the servers running...none of that is free.   Neither are the components that go into a book.   The more of the income stream is diverted by thieves (any kind of thieves, including libraries) the more the necessary price of the book goes up, even if nothing else does.  (Other things do.  Resource scarcity.)   I can't tell the power company that because my book sales dropped, I'll be paying them only a percentage of my electric bill.  The publisher can't tell their power company that.   If I self-published e-books (something we might all come to someday) I still can't tell the power company (or the propane company, or the city water department, or the grocery store) that.   And it wouldn't be fair if I did.  The person who grew the tomatoes that are in the can of diced tomatoes I buy also has needs; the person who drives the city truck out to check the city sewer system has needs.  The guy employed by the printing company who prints the paper books has needs; the guy who drives the trucks loaded with boxes of books has needs; the bookstore clerk has needs.  They should not make less just because I made less, and none of us should make less because some fat-assed smirking lawyer thinks it's OK for Hathi-Trust--doing this wonderful public service of infringing copyright--to steal from me and my publisher. 

Copyright is definitely people.  It's writers, first of all, but their copyright protection also serves everyone in the publishing chain and everyone with whom the writer or the publisher or the printer or the binder or the truck driver comes in economic contact, from the farmers who feed us to the road construction crews and rail construction crews who carry cargo we use or sell.  There are writers, artists, editors, printers, electricians, plumbers, factory workers in multiple industries,  retail business persons in large and small businesses, public and private utility workers...ALL of them, whether they read my books or not, who are affected by thefts from my publisher's income stream and mine. 

So I say to Mr. Smith (and many others) "Keep your sticky fingers off my property."  (And that of any other writer, since--if they get away with it with one, they'll get away with it with us all.)

The Stock Answer to What to Do With a Tough Beef Neck

(Written on Friday, but not posted then due to internet problems...so "today" is Friday throughout.)
Those uncertain of their ability to handle the blood and guts, as it were, of basic cooking, should turn aside and go eat something that never looked you in the eye.  Those who, for reasons of economy or a determination to be involved in their own food-gathering, meat included, and who have not yet encountered the neck of bull might find this useful.  


In my initial enthusiasm for dismembering a 2000 pound bull (and that didn't last long into the process, I can tell you.  The 600 and 900 pounders were nothing to this monster...the assembled crew began to feel like Cro-Magnons dismembering a mammoth)  I had wanted the neck because I wanted to make a traditional mince pie or several.   I have recipes from my great-grandmother's time, in which mincemeat was made from the neck meat of adult cattle--boiled in aromatics and spices, just as I do for stock, and then the meat picked off, minced, and mixed with fruits and spices and so on and packed into stone jars to keep until needed for a mincemeat pie.

But the freezer-burned neck was not that prepossessing.  Still....there's always the stock pot.  So a hefty (guessing at 7-10 pounds) of neck went into the 12 quart pot, along with onion, garlic, peppercorns, carrot, celery, bay leaves, and some dried herbs (all we have, thanks to the drought.)    And after it finally simmered to the point where the meat was falling off the bones, I looked at the meat and thought...well, no, not tonight.   My husband fell upon the neck with glee, and ate quite a bit of the meat, even though I'd told him it was freezer-burned.    That was last night.  With all the other stuff out (first pass of clearing the pot down to stock)  I had about 5-6 quarts left.  It needed chilling (to make the fat layer so I could easily remove it) and simmering down, and it needed a pass through the colander to get out the last bits that I can never quite capture.   

That was today, assisted by the cold front and not turning the heat on in the house because it's too early.   Chill, remove fat layer,  then pour contents of 12 quart pot through colander into 8 quart pot.   Take congealed fat layer pieces out to the  place under the pear tree where we leave treats for critters.  It won't be there in the morning.   Bring 8 quart pot to boil, then down to simmer to reduce to 3-4 quarts. (Because I store stock in one-quart plastic sherbet containers--broad-based ones that stack nicely in the freezer. )  Wash and dry 12 quart pot and lid, and the steel bowl used to hold the pieces of congealed fat.  Wash and dry everything that needs it, whatever it might be.  

Yield was three quarts of stock, plus a cup and a smidgen.    I reduced it a tad more than I meant to (but--all the richer.)

The cup and a smidgen made all the difference to supper's sausage and potatoes.  Good gravy, in other words.

This is my annual "yes, anyone can make stock" post.  The basic recipe is the same for beef, lamb, turkey, chicken stock (add more vegetables for vegetable stock, and I dunno about fish stock--we're not in fish territory, until someone gene-engineers land-dwelling, drought-tolerant fish who can live on grass and forbs.)   For 5-7 pounds of bones & meat (if a meat-based stock), one large onion, one head of garlic (yup, all those cloves), about half a bunch of celery (the leafy end), one carrot, a bunch of parsley, a rounded tablespoon of peppercorns, 2-3 bay leaves, some rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, basil (dry if, like us, you've been in a historic, worst in 3 centuries, drought).  Double that for a giant, 20-quart-pot batch of 10-15 pounds of bones & meat.  Just cover with water, bring to boil, down to simmer, simmer until the bones (if using meat) look "dry" and white and the meat is coming off by itself.  Most of the time you can be doing anything else you want while it simmers.   (Those are my proportions for the stock--you can wiggle them around to suit you, but if you get it too carroty and you don't like carroty--you have to rebalance in anything you put it into.  Carrot-flavor can really stick out.  You need the carrot in there, but you only need so much.)   Notice that you do not add salt to the stock.  (Great for people on low-sodium diets.)   Salt, if needed, can be added to the final food of which stock is only one ingredient.

And what you get out of it is this magical stuff that makes week-night cooking much, much easier (and tasting better.)   Store-bought stock does not (whatever the ads say) have the flavors and intensity of  homemade stock.  Better than no stock, but not as good as your stock.   If you have been wise (or sneaky) and put up 2-cup packets of cooked cubed meat (turkey, chicken, beef, ham)  in the freezer as well, the appropriate stock allows you to make delicious homemade soups in an amazingly short time.   Plop a frozen lump of chicken stock in a pot, for instance...then a quart of water, dump in a can of diced tomatoes & green chilis (or no chilis if you hate spicy food),  a can of drained, rinsed black beans, and when the lump of stock is melted and the mix is bubbling, a cup of barley or rice.  When that's cooked, add in the 2 cups of cubed chicken or turkey.   If you want (and I often do) you can add sliced or diced carrot, celery, and green onion in the last minute--right after adding the cubed meat--for fresh crunchiness.  I like a squirt of fresh lime juice in my chicken soup but that's a personal thing.  Now you have a hearty homemade soup better than anything in a can--with almost no prep time and cooking time related to the starch you choose to use, if you want a starch in there.   If you use pasta instead of rice or barley, you have it faster.   I've added corn, or red or white beans, or green beans, or whatever was handy--fresh, frozen, canned--to the mix.  
 

Revision: The Chainsaw of Correction

The Chainsaw of Correction Is Being  Applied to Scenes of Great
Beauty and No Particular Utility.

There was snarling from the Chainsaw
And weeping from the words
As whole paragraphs broke open
and stray letters flew like birds.
There was savagery and violence
beneath the Chainsaw's roar
And the velvet curtains shredded
In a whirlwind of rose gore.

For the Writer had decreed
from her throne and keyboard fine,
"There has got to be some cutting!
I must draw a thick black line!
Though this character is charming
Though her face is very fair
She must earn her place in this book
Or I'll yank her out of there!"

"But" the fair-faced character pleaded
"I'm a queen, you know that well!
I am gracious, I am stately
And I fight so very well."
"Then advance the plot," cried Writer
As the Chainsaw snarled its song,
"Or like all this other rubbish
You'll be gone by midnight's gong."

Though it's vivid, no description
Can escape the Chainsaw's bite
Without being more plot-relevant
Than a tourist's pretty sight.
Conversations too are falling
One by one and two by two
And as branches crash around them
Story's real road comes in view.

Weighty ponderings of nobles,
Clever backchat from a child,
Long and boring dissertations:
Their death sentences are filed.
Does it matter who dismounted first?
Not a bit...then cut it out.
Does it matter what they ate for lunch
or what they talked about?

Ever onward through the undergrowth
The Chainsaw snarls its way...
(But writing verse will not get done
What must be done today.)

(Brought to you by your friendly local verse daemon and stopped mid-stanza by the harried writer.)

Another Lazy-day recipe: Soup again

With a new soup pot, it was necessary to use it today.   I also had three (green, red, yellow) bell peppers that hadn't yet been used.

So: 

1 quart frozen homemade chicken stock (sensing a trend here?  the homemade stock?)
1 quart water
1 half very large onion, diced and sauteed until goldenish
3 peppers, cored and diced
1/2 cup barley
2 cups cooked chicken, chunked
salt and pepper to taste

It was my lunch and a snack for my husband, and will be supper real-soon-now.  Could have been enriched (if I had wanted to) with some chopped celery and carrot, and even a can of Ro-Tel with cilantro and lime juice, but today the stomach wanted simple and gentle.

The pot is perfect for this kind of thing.   And it fits inside the 8 quart pot for storage.  Very happy with new soup pot.

Discoveries

1) I still have pretty darn good reflexes.   This afternoon, on a major and fast-moving divided highway, some foraminiferous idiot stopped to rubberneck at a car being picked up by a wrecker beside the road.   Everyone behind him came to a screeching (increasingly screeching) halt, including me.   Thank you, new tires and effective anti-lock brakes. 

2) I still don't shake too badly after such a startling moment until I've come to a safe place,  and even then not too long.  Made it to the store I'd been headed for (still several miles away at that point) but noticed I was twitchier than usual on the way.  Then sat in the car in the parking lot for a minute or two until my legs quit feeling like overboiled spaghetti.

3) Even in the midst of a Williams-Sonoma outlet lavishly decorating for the holidays, I can look at but not buy such things as the gorgeous wild turkey napkins (full color.  Gorgeous.  Overpriced for my budget, but gorgeous.)  I went in with four things on the list, and came out with four things.   No, despite the way pot manufacturers count things, the lid  for a pot that comes with a lid is not another thing.  It's part of that pot.  The pot of the day was a 4 quart soup pot (All-Clad.)   A jar of demi-glace, a molded baking pan (puts a pretty patterned top on quick breads--or should), a pumpkin-pecan-quickbread mix.  Four things.

4) Even in the midst of a large Office Max full of enticing paper/pens/calendars/desk organizers/useful stuff I don't really need, I came out with the one thing on my list:  ink cartridges for the printer.  Two stores, two exhibitions of self-control.   (This self-control was somewhat dented by the last shopping of the day, in a grocery store on the way home.  I called my husband to see if he had any particular needs at that store, and, well, somehow a package of three big chocolate-chip muffins hopped into my shopping cart, pretty much canceling out the lack of calories in club soda.)

5) My voice teacher/coach/Svengali is a genius.   This is not a new discovery, but that he is still doing things that make my voice (which, after all, is 66 now)  not just slighter better, but amazingly better.  He gets tones out of my voice that I never knew existed (and they're good ones.  That's the shock.)   And it's not just the voice.  It's the rest of music stuff that I'm learning.   The old dog can indeed learn new tricks.   (HOW high was that note?  And is that voice I'm hearing really mine?)  If I wanted to torture myself with lost opportunities, I'd focus on how much better my voice could have been if I'd had voice lessons (from someone like him) in my twenties.  But I'm not in the mood to torture myself...today is today and today I had a really good voice lesson and sang "If Music Be the Food of Love" (Purcell)    Not perfectly. But SO much better.   

Some discoveries are unpleasant (and I'm afraid the back door threshold is one such...it needs to be replaced.  Also the progression of my cataracts that will require surgery.)   But these--and especially the musical--are more than pleasant. 

"Protect Life Act" Is Lying Fraud

Like the "Defense of Marriage Act", the "Protect Life Act," largely a product of the GOP's initiative, is a tissue of lies and fraud, aimed not at its title, but at the promotion of one religious viewpoint over all others, the intrusion of government into private life, and (in this latter case) the deliberate attempt to control women, and force them to risk--and some to lose--their lives.

If the GOP really wanted to "protect life"...even limiting that to human life....the GOP would be hot on the trail of elements in our society that damage human lives.  Toxic materials dumped into common water and air supplies by corporations who insist it's economically necessary...if they wanted to "protect life" they'd be supporting the EPA's mandate to assure that we have unpolluted water to drink, unpolluted air to breathe.  But they aren't.  They're trying to keep the EPA from doing anything to protect these common resources.   Preventable contamination of the food supply, ditto.   But they aren't--it's the GOP who think adding inspectors is too costly.   If the GOP gave a damn about human lives, they would be supporting universal health care.   But they aren't.  "It costs too much."   They'd be promoting healthy environments for all Americans--and that means parks and playgrounds and community gardens in the cities.   But they aren't.   "It costs too much...the land will yield a profit if developers develop it..."   They'd be doing something about the number of injuries and deaths among workers. But they aren't.   That would involved regulation and inspection of industries, especially the very dangerous construction industry...and that would be government impeding business....can't have that.   Or then there's the murders, suicides, assaults....what is the GOP doing there?  Not a damn thing but throw people in prison AFTER the crime.   Do they support educational and other programs to eliminate bullying?   To eliminate assaults on minorities of all kinds?  No and no.  Do they support  improving housing, improving education, ensuring that there are jobs for all the jobless?  Demonstrably not: they have systematically frustrated every single initiative that would have either improved the lives or, or saved the lives of,  what I'm sure they call the "post-born."   You.  Me.  My spouse.  Our son.   My friends.  Your friends. 

The only "life" they care to protect is that of the "pre-born" as they say....and why is that?

Well, the most obvious reason is that it costs them a helluva lot less to "protect"  the life of the "pre-born" by making abortion illegal than to protect the lives of men, women, and children by any of the things mentioned above.    All they have to do is pass a law and pat themselves on the back, which I'm sure they're doing right now.   The "pre-born" are cheap.   The "post-born" have more obvious needs than just being left in someone's uterus until they emerge.   The pre-born would also benefit, of course, from the measures above.  Being born into a family with the means to support them...in an environment that is not toxic, where the water and air and food won't cause disease, where they will have a healthy home, a healthy place to play, where they won't be bullied, where they will have a good education, adequate medical care, employment providing an income sufficient for a healthy life....all that would, in the long run (something the GOP is singularly bad at noticing) benefit the "pre-born" as well as the born. 

But it would cost money.  And it would step on toes. 

The second obvious reason, though, has to do with "women's place."   If you conceive of women as walking wombs, whose best use is making more babies....and if you conceive of them as needing to be controlled for the benefit of society....then outlawing abortion (and ultimately all forms of birth control) is the first step to ensuring that women are not allowed the protection of privacy, are not allowed the freedom to make their own choices and live with them.   And there are, among the GOP, a majority who believe that women are exactly that.   Like many dictators throughout history (and many in the 20th c.),  too many believe that it's OK to control women for the benefit of others....be those others the male members of their family, or a religion, or the need of a country or a culture to increase its population and gain power thereby...or be it that "pre-born child" in her womb. 

First you ensure that she cannot rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy.   Then you ensure that she cannot prevent a pregnancy from occurring.   If she dies from a pregnancy she did not want and could not sustain--shrug it off.   It might have worked.  You might have forced her to bear a child and that would have been a greater good.   Her life means nothing.   Even if she has children already, even if her death means those children are left without their mother....her life means nothing.   The only life that counts is the life that hasn't yet proven itself outside the womb.   The discounting of women's worth is nothing new, of course.   In earlier legal systems the wergeld for a woman was half or less that than for a man.   Women were just...well...women.  In the Nuremberg trials, rape wasn't even considered-- "We don't want a lot of crying women in the court."  And so rape--which occurred in WWII as in every other war--was swept under the rug.  Numerous religious groups have discounted women's worth and bent their efforts on controlling women and keeping them in "their" place.  

It's interesting to consider how this would play if, every time a woman's life is in danger during her pregnancy, the life of a GOP male were in danger.   Literal danger: a gun pointed at his head, or strapped down in an electric chair.  "Her life is in danger," the medical team might say.  "She should terminate the pregnancy."  And of course, the GOP male would say "No.  We made that illegal!"  And then he would be told.  "Fine.  And if she dies, then you die.  It's only fair.  You put her life in danger; you should share the danger; if she dies, you will have killed her...and any children she might have had later in a  healthy pregnancy."  And it need not be the man who impregnated her.  Let it be any man who would refuse her the right to decide for herself, and refuse her doctor the right to advise what is best for her...for her, the live woman.   Or...any person, male or female.   Because every member of the House who voted to make abortion illegal is directly risking the life of every woman whose health and life are threatened by a pregnancy.   They are individually responsible for every woman who--refused an abortion--dies as a result.   Every one of them has said, in effect, "Your life is worthless: all your worth is in that fetus.  You are nothing:  your actions, your past, your family, your situation, your potential, none of that means anything.  You exist to give life to that which is in you now, and if you can't do that and live---then die." And to that kind of contempt there is only one answer.  "Treat yourself as you would treat them.  Take the same risk.  Endure the same pain.  And pay the same price."   They're always blatting about "accountability."  So make them accountable.  Take them first, one by one, in alphabetical order...pair them with women whose abortions they prevent.  Right there with them (but silent--don't let the politicians start ranting) ...knowing that if the pregnant woman dies, so will they. 

Of course that would never happen, because those in power always set it up so somone else pays the price.   Just like Congresspersons haven't been unemployed, running out of money, losing their houses, their cars, everything they've worked for...even hope, when Congress doesn't do anything about creating jobs.   Just like Congresspersons have medical benefits only the rich can afford for themselves--paid for by our taxes--and want to dismantle every remaining tax-supported medical program but their own.   So when women die--as they will, and as they used to--when abortion is not available, Congresspersons will still be smug and untouchable...and they know it.   Accountability is for the other guy, the little guy.   They will still say "She got herself pregnant" just as they've blamed American workers for the loss of American jobs.  They will still say "She made the bed, let her lie in it" just as they've shrugged off the loss of American homes, the slide into poverty of middle class families and the slide into abject misery of the poor.  Accountability is for serfs, peasants, the underclass...anyone not in the right club, with the right number of zeroes to the left of the decimal point in their net worth...hold them accountable, by all means, but don't demand any accountability of those in power, those with the right connections, the right investment advisors.  .   

Like many other pro-choice people, I think abortion is a lousy method of birth control.   Better to prevent pregnancy, if you don't want it...and no, abstinence isn't a sure preventive, in a society where women are raped every day in every state.   Better to have no rapists than to deal with the aftermath of rape (and that includes, of course, date rape and marital rape.)    Better to have no pregnancies that go wrong, that endanger or end women's lives.  But the reality is that women cannot completely control getting pregnant (rape and birth control failures) and cannot control at all the problems that develop during it that threaten their lives.   And therefore, both birth control and abortion are necessary for women to have the "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for which the American Revolution was fought.  

Don't I care about the unborn?  Yes.  But I care more about the live woman.   I care about the women who are already being hassled, even arrested, because some idiot thought they were trying to cause a miscarriage--who will be mistreated on suspicion of that, who will have their privacy invaded, their medical records scanned, who will be treated (as they have been) as criminals.  I care about the rape victims.  I care about the women whose birth control failed, whose lovers lied about having had a vasectomy.  I care about the actual live-right-now woman.   I think these women--all women--have a right to make choices, even choices I disagree with--perhaps especially choices I disagree with--about their personal lives.  Including reproduction.   I wasn't able to have biological children, and wanted them.  We were able to adopt--but not for years.  Still, I would not have wanted one woman--any woman--to bear a child she didn't want just so I had one to adopt.   My wish for children was my wish--my responsibility to deal with.   I had no "right" to a child, and certainly no right to treat another woman as a mere pawn to satisfy my desire.   Or as a symbol of anything, including piety. 

So if you are one of those who believes abortion is evil....don't have one or (if you're the other sex) don't cause any unwanted pregnancies.   Beyond that, grant all women the freedom to make their own choices--including mistakes--and leave the judgment to God.   Which, after all, is what Jesus said to do.

And to the GOP: If you want to protect life, quit interfering with those who are trying to protect the substance on which our life on this planet depends: air, water, soil, climate, food...that stuff.  Support the EPA.  Grasp the enormity of climate change and start helping, not foot-dragging.  Otherwise all those little embryos you're so tender about are going to have a far worse life, and a shorter one.

Personhood USA: right wing extremists who misunderstand the Gospel

"The Primary Mission of Personhood USA is to serve Jesus by being an Advocate for those who can not speak for themselves, the pre-born child."   This statement comes up when you Google the organization's name and is on their website.  

This group wants to pass legislation in every state to grant "personhood" to fertilized eggs, and thus make both birth control and abortion illegal, and to criminalize the many spontaneous miscarriages that occur at every stage from ovulation to full term, on the grounds that they're "serving Jesus."  

Jesus would be appalled.  Keep in mind that methods of birth control and abortion (not very effective but in use) existed in Jesus'  time, and Jesus never said "Do not try to have fewer children and do not terminate a pregnancy."   Others said that; Jesus didn't.   Jesus said, "Judge not."   Over and over again, Jesus said that people should not try to condemn and control others, but help (not control) those in need.   That God would judge individuals and their acts; that his disciples should  focus on other things.  That they should reform themselves, get the plank out of their own eyes first, quit being so critical and controlling of others.   Jesus said his followers should feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, comfort the sick and those in prison.  Jesus did not mention the "pre-born child." 

God the Father would be appalled at Personhood USA.  Because if you believe that God set up the human reproductive apparatus, then you have to acknowledge that the failure of many fertilized eggs to implant and the failure of many fetuses to survive to full-term live birth--without any human intervention at all--are in fact part of God's plan.  If you believe in that kind of God, then you have to believe that God wanted some fertilized eggs to be lost, some embryos to be lost, some fetuses to be lost, some to be born dead:  because that's the way the human reproductive system works.   Personhood USA's petitions would make natural miscarriages illegal....and thus, if you believe God set up the human reproductive system, would make God's plan illegal.  Serving God by telling God He is wrong?   I don't think that one's going to fly in the Last Judgment.

Personhood USA claims they're being an Advocate (capitalization theirs) "for those who cannot speak for themselves--the pre-born child."   Leaving aside the fact that Jesus didn't mention the pre-born child, let's see what their record is in speaking for others who "cannot speak for themselves."   Do they agitate for personhood for those who are rendered speechless by disabilities (whether from birth or illness or trauma)?   Do they agitate for personhood for children who were brought to this country as infants or small children and now have no legal standing as persons?  Do they help the disabled, the sick, the  imprisoned, the mistreated, the poor, the noncitizen get a hearing when their rights are violated?   Well...no.  And yet Jesus (who, in my faith community, is the only advocate to rate a capital A, and is our Advocate with the Father)  specifically mentioned in parables all those categories as those which his disciples should seek to help. 

An egg, fertilized or not, is not a person.   It's not even an embryo.   An embryo is not a person.  It's not even a fetus.   A fetus is not a person, however much the pregnant woman who wants that fetus to become a baby may fantasize about it, pick a name, imagine its future.  A baby born alive is a person...but a very incomplete one.  For a baby to become a person, it must have nurturance from society. 

Does Personhood USA help provide a society in which born children have the best chance at achieving their full potential as persons, including individual liberty and a voice, a way of making themselves heard?   Does it support, for instance, universal health care, universal quality education,  decent housing for all,  fair treatment of workers, respect for the rights of persons already born?   Does it take a stand on bullying in and out of schools?   Does it take a stand on quality of care in mental hospitals, homes for the aged, orphanages,  rehab centers, group homes, making sure that those persons aren't being mistreated?   Does it do anything about child abuse, including abuse in church settings? Does it take a stand on environmental issues that affect quality of life for every person now alive?   I don't see that it does.  And thus I don't see that Personhood USA is doing anything Jesus said to do--but has arrogantly claimed to be serving Jesus by choosing something easier than what Jesus commanded.  Because housing the homeless, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry,  defending and comforting the sick, disabled, imprisoned all take actual work--take getting out among the real people in the real world and risking getting down and dirty with the crowd.   Like Jesus.  Setting oneself up as a moral superior and trying to control others is easier and more fun...but, according to Jesus, completely wrong.


Note: comments have been disabled as I will be short of time for dealing with them for most of the next week and making people wait days and days for screened comments to be dealt with isn't fair.