David Erik Nelson's Blog, page 36

Handmade Letterpress Editions of "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate"--THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT! (for certain persons of ill-repute and refined tastes)

Still looking for that literary, yet semi-obscene, gift to give to your favorite brass-goggled poindexter? May I suggest he or she might really and truly enjoy a personalized, handmade chapbook of my celebrated novella "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate"? The cover is handset and printed on the *very same* Chandler & Price 10x15 New Style Printing Press featured in Wikipedia!

The illustrated ebook pack is the same as the Kindle version available through Amazon, but DRM-free, and in formats suitable for almost any device. Includes mobi, ePub, PDF (in several print-ready layouts) files, and digital extras(!!!) Buying at the “Patrons” level gets you an exclusive, handmade, signed and numbered print edition (like the one in the pic)! Details on Pick-What-You-Pay options

Pick-What-You-Pay:
Candy Money $0.99 USD
Market Value $1.50 USD
Steampunk $5.00 USD
Patron! (print edition) $15.00 USD

Domestic shipping is free; international folks: we'll have to figure that out. It's a big, crazy world.

Oh Yeah, Syria

Until very recently an old pal of mine was living and working in Syria. She's since split, because her momma raised no fools. When I hear American folks--both progressive and conservative--start to get lathered about what's happing in Syria, the talk turns pretty quickly to sending troops, and I've got to level with you: Even if the citizens of the United States had the stomach for a new and exciting war, I'm pretty sure that Syria's problem right now *isn't* an insufficiency of bullets and bombs. There are currently half-a-million Syrians in refugee camps and snow will be coming soon, I'm told. Meanwhile, I live in Michigan, where we don't get snow any more. In other words, I've got some extra blankets. I've got some extra money that I won't need for heat this winter. I've got an extra special Xmas Wish that someday folks who speak languages I can't even readily identify will recognize "MADE IN U.S.A." as the thing stamped on the sides of crates full of peanut butter, woolens, and water purifiers, not the motto stamped on the side of tear-gas canisters and unexploded ordinance.

But, so, here's a little bit about Iran and Syria and Russia and China and Us and them:

Every Place is Khalidiya < Killing the Buddha

“Everything is in Farsi,” B. points out. “I speak to them in Arabic, and they answer in Farsi.” If he were a Syrian against the government, he adds, he would do something here. “Because Syrians know what our [the Iranian] government is doing.” Then he jokes nervously: “35 Iranian pilgrims have been kidnapped already; today there will be 37, and one American.”

“No, she’s fine,” W. quips.

“Because if they kill her, Obama will make a war on Syria,” B. rejoins. “But us—10,000 people make no difference.”

Though America is not really a consistent enemy. It sanctions Syria as a sponsor of terrorism, but also renders terrorists there for interrogation on its behalf. Syria, too, has excelled at double-dealing: after backing Iran in its war against Iraq, the rival Baathist next door, Assad senior then backed the U.S.—no friend of Khomeini—in its 1991 war against the same. In return, the U.S. tacitly allowed Syria to increase its influence over Lebanon—including its world-class hash production, thus guaranteeing Hezbollah a lucrative market among the pot-smokers of “The Zionist Entity.”

It's a long read, but worth it, and worth meditating on, because the situation is complex. It reminds me of my favorite sinister joke from back in the G.W. Bush years:

So I went into the bar the other day where I found Bush and Rumsfeld bellied up to the bar sipping their beers. I was so amazed to find them there I had to go up and ask "Hey aren't you guys the leaders of the free world? What are you doing here in my neighborhood bar?" To which Rumsfeld replied "We like going to out of the way places like this to plan big things like our invasion of Iran."

"Whoa" says I, "How is that going to happen?"

"Well," says Rumsfeld, "We plan to kill five hundred thousand Iranians and one bicycle repair man."

"No way!" says I, "Why would you kill a bicycle repair man?"

Bush then smacks Rumsfeld on the arm and says "See, I told you no one would care about five hundred thousand dead Iranians!"

Yikes! Michigan's Legislature Has Gone Caca-KoOko0--Contact Your Reps RIGHT NOW!

Yesterday the Ann Arbor Chronicle published my latest column, which is about how Michigan's lame-duck lawmakers are cramming through several laws that will privatize education--and doing so without public debate, and despite wide ranging protest from families, educators, and freaked out citizens. The column begins:

It’s the letter writing season.

I’d like you to add at least one more letter to your list: I need you to drop a line to your state reps, senators, and the governor telling them that you’re opposed to any expansion of Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority during the current lame duck session.

You’ll want to tell these folks to oppose or veto House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358 (which expand the Education Achievement Authority) and House Bill 5923 (allowing for the unlimited formation of new publicly-funded charter and cyber schools).

More than that, though, I want you to activate your whole network – that Facebook thing you do, that Twitter thing and even LinkedIn. Because I bet you have friends, family members and colleagues who live in Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Bad Ax or wherever else in Michigan, who you can move to action by nudging them with social media. What we want to do here is activate the entire state.

And is followed by a template letter and contact info for your reps, plus 3000 words explaining whats wrong with this specific education scheme. Since this column went live *yesterday* our Governor has pulled a 180 on right-to-work legislation (a confusing double-speak name; it means that the Governor and state GOP are now aggressively anti-union and passing laws to hobble collective bargaining) and our State Senate has pushed through draconian, bigoted anti-abortion laws.

These bills are being raced through without debate or public comment. They locked the capitol yesterday afternoon--in contempt of a court order *not to do so*--in order to keep out the People out yesterday, and maced protestors on the capitol steps.

So, *damn*; if there was ever a day to email your reps and the governor, it's *TODAY* Go. Go now. DO THIS!

UPDATE: VICE Magazine and Per-pupil Spending in Detroit Public Schools

In response to this post (Poor Mojo's Newswire: Detroit schools are worse than you can possibly imagine) astute Mojonaut JP Pagán writes:

First off, LOVE your site. I check the news feed daily and you guys have a very very signal to noise ratio.

That said, I have one issue with the link to the VICE story on Detroit Public Schools. I don't know much of anything about DPS, but the fact that VICE had no source for the claim that DPS spends the most money per student (a claim you guys highlighted) got me wondering and sofa-googling.

There is data here (http://www.mackinac.org/depts/epi/fiscal.aspx), not that it's easy to comb through, but I also found this article that places DPS spending at 5th-highest in the state (http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/17280) and this one, which again takes Detroit out of the top spot (http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2012/07/29/opinion/doc5010760ba77b9432361166.txt?viewmode=fullstory). You'll probably notice both of those articles come back around to the Mackinac Center data I linked to the first time.

Anyway... it may be a minor point, but I'd take VICE's claim with a grain of salt. The overall point is hard to deny though: the schools suck.

Thanks again you guys (and gals) for what you do.

And thank *you* for keeping us honest, JP! This sounded off to me, too (I'd been poking around school spending numbers a little for me next "In It for the Money" column on the Ann Arbor Chronicle--SHAMELESS PLUG!) I checked with my wife--a Metro area high school teacher who did her training in DPS--and she says there's *no way* DPS is currently the top spender. She further notes that their high rank--among the top five--largely has to do with the fact that they're saddled with old, collapsing facilities, which cost an *enormous* amount to heat and maintain. That's a big part of why--absent fraud--little of the money makes it to the classroom: the bulk of it is wrapped up on patching the roof and keeping the boilers minimally functional.

*thanks jp!*

STEAMPUNK III: Steampunk Revolution Launches Today! Features Fiction by Poor Mojo's Giant Squid (as well as some humans)!

We're pleased as punch to note that today is the official launch (check out the cake!) of Steampunk Revolution--the third steampunk anthology edited by Ann VanderMeer (widely praised for the last two volumes in the series, as well as her past work for Weird Tales and on a slew of other anthos). This go 'round Ann is looking at the post-steampunk end of steampunk, the bits that push past the tight aesthetic focus on dirigibles, steam, brass goggles, and white people in Victorian England. According to Ann, breaking a genre's most cherished conventions is about as punk as you can get, so that's where this book aims to go.

Stories include an instructional tale for writers by our own Poor Mojo's Giant Squid (written with an assist from Poor Mojo's editors Morgan Johnson, David Erik Nelson, and Fritz Swanson), as well as fiction by Cherie Priest, Bruce Sterling, Jeffrey Ford, Lavie Tidhar, Jeff VanderMeer, and plenty more. Check it out:

For the squid-obsessed or steampunk-enthusiastic, I also have a different squid-themed story in the VanderMeer's previous anthology Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded:

Genocide and Israel and Hamas and Rockets and Rockets

Running Chicken: Words Continue To Matter

My friend Jonathan Cunningham has spent a lot of time over the past few days writing about Israel and Gaza in a state of understandable rage. He reblogged a couple of my posts, furious that I refused to comdemn only Israel for what he termed a genocide against Palestinians.

We’ve gone back and forth on this issue on Twitter, but I wanted to take a few minutes to write a bit about the problem that Cunningham faces, as well as to provide my reasons for refusing to go nuclear on the topic of Israel.

First, I should begin by noting that I don’t think Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes should be thought of as being similar in any way. I condemn both of them, but they aren’t comparable. I’m tired of seeing Facebook and Tumblr posts about the terror of Hamas rocket attacks, as if a) they occur in a vacuum and b) they are somehow terrorizing the Israeli populace in even a remotely similar way that Israeli airstrikes are terrorizing Gazans. But I’m also tired of the Facebook and Tumblr posts about how the ineffectiveness of the rocket attacks somehow means that they are the equivalent of not shooting rockets at civilians.

In other words, it’s possible for the Israeli government to be acting immorally and it’s possible for Hamas to also be acting immorally … even if the results of their immoral behavior are not equally terrible. There’s no moral high ground here. The fact that Hamas rockets aren’t killing more Israeli civilians doesn’t negate the fact that the intention of the shooters is to kill Israeli civilians. The fact of Israel’s reprehensible treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza doesn’t give Hamas carte blanche to attempt to terrorize and kill Israeli citizens. But nor do Hamas rockets give the Israeli government carte blanche to terrorize and kill Gazans. Nor is there any reason, as far as I’m concerned, for Israel to maintain its abusive treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. . . .

I'm gonna level with you: Even setting aside the Hamas charter as a "historical document," and accepting that its weird anti-Semitic screeds don't *really* represent the *real* positions of the *current* Hamas leadership, I still don't know what to do with the fact that Hamas leaders like Ismail Haniyeh are met with adoring chants of "Death to the Jews," and that they make hay with that. I mean, maybe it's hard to be really specific in an Arabic political slogan--maybe the throngs really *do* mean something more like "Death to the Jews Who Are Enlisted in the IDF and Actively Shelling Our Communities!" But all I'm hearing them say is "Death to the Jews"--which includes me and my children, which includes Kohen (who is an ethics prof in Nebraska, and an admirably more even-keeled thinker than I), and which *kinda sorta* sounds like advocating genocide--but, whatevs. Just saying'.

Frankly, that chant (and the weird conspiracy stuff in the Hamas charter--which I know, I know, I said I was gonna let be water under the bridge) makes me feel bad in exactly the same way as Ann Coulter saying something like "We should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" makes me feel bad. In fact, now that I think about it, both statements make me feel *threatened* in roughly the same way--with the obvious proviso that Hamas is unlikely to build a rocket that can reach me, while Coulter might well (inadvertently?) rile up a brain-addled patriot who'll take it upon himself to wreck some havoc domestically.

*sigh* I guess that's Thanksgiving for you. My, I'm thankful to be largely out of range of all of this. Amen.

*DISCLOSURE* I know Ari from way back in knucklehead days.

I'm Having Trouble Cheering for the Bullying of Bullies; Do I Need Therapy?

Anonymous and MTV: trying to protect kids online. - Slate Magazine (more detailed coverage here: Daily Dot | How Anonymous helped prevent a teen's suicide)

So, the tl;dr on this: A teenaged girl is being bullied at school. One evening when she's feeling especially low on Twitter, a pair of these bullies start hounding her to cut and kill herself. Some folks (evidently from Anonymous, or some similar group) swoop in to her defense--by threatening and hounding the bullies.

On the one hand, we want to say "Yeah! The Internet does a good thing! Protects damsel in distress!" but on the other, this really looks like a bunch of adults coming in and bullying two other kids (albeit ones who are being assholes and--regardless of whether they understand the repercussions or not--dangerously goading a classmate; I'll set aside the weirdly racist/homophibic/sexist overtones of the counter-bullying).

As a male-type person fully acquainted with the low impulses of male-type people (and obviously assuming these counter-bullies were likewise male-type people) I have to wonder: Were these saviors roused to righteous anger by the cruelty of these bullies, or was their righteous anger casting about looking for a justifiable target? Does a notion like "forcing them to do the right thing" even precisely make sense? And why does this all make things like this headline gong in my head so damn loud?

I'm going to level with you, Internet: This doesn't seem like progress, somehow. It just feels like that time Mike Tyson got pissed at a reporter and, in the midst of his tirade, shouted: I'll fuck you 'til you love me, faggot!"--a phrase that always comes to mind when I hear people talking about how we can bomb our way to peace, or how the *real* solution to movie-theater shootings or sexual assaults or police brutality is for everyone to have a gun all the time.

"I Didn’t Come Back to Jerusalem To Be in a War"

Israel Gaza fighting: What’s it’s like to be in Jerusalem as the conflict escalates. - Slate Magazine

I don’t know how to talk about what is happening here but it’s probably less about writers’ block than readers’ block. It says so much about the state of our discourse that the surest way to enrage everyone is to tweet about peace in the Middle East. We should be doing better because, much as I hate to say it, the harrowing accounts of burnt-out basements and baby shoes on each side of this conflict don’t constitute a conversation. Counting and photographing and tweeting injured children on each side isn’t dialogue. Scoring your own side’s suffering is a powerful way to avoid fixing the real problems, and trust me when I tell you that everyone—absolutely everyone—is suffering and sad and yet being sad is not fixing the problems either.

One good lesson I am learning this week is to shut up and listen. Because the only way to cut through the mutual agony here is to find people who have solutions and to hear what they have to say. Bombing the other side into oblivion is no more a solution than counting your dead children in public. The best thing about shutting up and listening? You eventually lose the impulse to speak.

Please don’t judge. Work toward solutions. Because everyone on every side of this is desperate. This isn’t a way to live and we all know it. Last night I was at a study session with a group of women in Jerusalem. A teenage girl was crying and I assumed it was over a guy. It’s always a guy. But it wasn’t. She was headed to the army today. . . .

I heard on NPR this morning--sort of mentioned in passing--that the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) call and text people in Gaza before bombing. I frankly found that hard to believe, but it appears to be the case (also reported in the New York Times and other sources, in case it seems like I'm being naive). I . . . I don't even know what to do with knowing that. It somehow puts me in the mind of this conversation Vonnegut recounts having with movie producer Harrison Starr.

There Are No Red or Blue States: A More Precise Map of the Electorate

As we all gird ourselves to be with our often fractious families over the upcoming long weekend, it behooves us to meditate long and deep upon our Purple Mountain's Majesty, and our Pinkly Fruited Plains.

As ever, we're One Nation, under a False Impression, with Liberty and Justice as long as we're willing to work to keep them. Amen

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This Is the Real Political Map of America—We Are Not That Divided

There's no huge area of red. There is a gradient. A lot of purple. That's the accurate map that reflects the actual result of the election. It also shows that the divide between the cities and the countryside is not that huge. There are differences of opinion everywhere.

The large map is even better. It factors in population density, showing the importance of every county based on the population. The lighter the color, the less populated, the less weight in the election. The more saturated it is, the more populated and more weight it shows.

*thx, alan b!*

UPDATE: Accuser Recants Underage-Sex Allegations Against Voice-of-Elmo Guy

One day after publicly accusing Kevin Clash (the puppeteer behind Elmo) of having molested him, Clash's accuser has recanted. I, for one, am not particularly interested in who consenting adults have sex with, but since we posted about the initial accusation, this seemed to warrant a follow-up:

Accuser Recants Allegation Against Elmo Puppeteer - NYTimes.com

The man who accused Kevin Clash, the voice and puppeteer of the “Sesame Street” character Elmo, of an underage sexual relationship has recanted that claim, his lawyer said on Tuesday. The reversal came a day after the claim was first published by the gossip Web site TMZ.

Evidently third-party investigators checked out the accusations months ago, and deemed them to be without merit (a fact that sounds more persuasive when not presented within "scare quotes"). Likely the rest of us should do likewise. I heard that there were some other adults who also did some sex that we're all supposed to be very angry about. I likewise don't give a crap about that.