Journal of No. 118

I recently traveled by plane for the first time in 2 years. Unfortunately the occasion was not an altogether happy one. I attended the memorial in San Jose for my uncle Don. I'm glad cousin Jim included a bit of roasting in his own touching comments about his dad, so I don't feel too mean in making my own comments.

In my childhood, 3 of the Murphy sisters all lived in Sunnyvale/San Jose, so a bunch of us cousins (their kids) saw a lot of each other. We weren't quite raised in common, but there were lots of evenings with the aunts and uncles playing euchre, while the cousins all played together at one house or another. Or trips to the local lakes for waterskiing. Birthday parties and holidays. Uncle Don was a big part of all that. Even later when my family had moved away, many summers through high school included me staying with them for a week or two. Getting into trouble with Jim and Tom, of course, but also time with Aunt Fran and Uncle Don.

It's probably not literally true, but sometimes I think that I learned thriftiness from Don. Thrift is a bit of a left-handed virtue; I may have heard it said that Don could pinch a penny until it squealed in pain. And yet.

And yet what I remember most about Don was his generosity. He was generous in spirit. Generous with a helping hand. Generous with a listening ear. Generous with a good joke. Or a bad one (more likely). Generous with hospitality (that I availed myself of many a time). Generous with family. Generous with friends and strangers alike.

He was just a great fun guy and he'll be missed. I hope he serves as inspiration to those who knew him to emulate his giving spirit. I'm sure the world would be a better place for it.






--

The celebration went really well. My only regret is I didn't take more pictures, but it was great to reconnect with Jim and Tom and their families, and Aunt Fran, of course, and cousin Patty. To be amazed at how Jim's and Tom's kids have grown. And even hang out with some of Jim's and Tom's friends, some of whom I've known (a bit) since back in those high school summers.

Subtitled An Unnatural History, the book looks into the effect that human beings are having on the extinction of other species on Earth. The title refers to the five established major extinction events that have happened over the course of Earth's history, where large fractions of the species living on earth have gone extinct. The sexiest one is the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.

It's hard to deny the overall concept that our influence on the planet is causing a similar extinction event similar in size to these. Kolbert focuses on a number of particular research groups studying a particular species or groups of species that is under threat. These are really great looks at how science operates, and what scientists do, and paints a vivid picture of the facts and conclusions. At the same time, I think that in addition to these embedded journalist pieces, the book could have used a better summary and conclusion to tie everything together to suggest the overall impact. But perhaps that's just too huge to tackle and loses some immediacy in its hugeness. People will care more about that adorable squeaking bat over there suffering from white nose syndrome than about "37% of all species on earth".

There's also good variety among the cases and causes. Ocean acidification affecting corals, predation of moas and other prehistoric fauna that isn't around any more, climate change shifting habitable zones -- if you live on flat land, and the climate warms up, you can move north to stay at the right temperature. But if you live on a mountainside, all you can do is go up in altitude. Not only does the temperate zone shrinks, but if your mountain isn't tall enough, it vanishes.

Now that humans have air travel and poke our noses all over the place, things come along for the ride. Species that never would have run into each other do so now. Sure, we know about how smallpox affected Native Americans, but this story is being played out many times over, including the white nose syndrome decimating some bat populations in North America, caused by a European fungus that doesn't much bother European bats.

Fresh off reading about Tough Guy Writers, it was maybe inevitable that a few titles caught my eye. Death in a Bowl, featuring a murder of the conductor at the Hollywood Bowl during a concert certainly punched the right buttons. Sadly, there's not as much local color as I hoped, and a plot that's hopelessly cockamamie by the end. But a few bloodthirsty and cold-blooded nouns and verbs smash together pleasingly every once in a while.

"Do I look like a killer?"
"I never saw a man who looked like one...You look like a liar to me--I've seen them before."

A post-apocalyptic story where the apocalypse is a plague that takes out most of humanity, and is more fatal among women than men, making women even rarer in the post-world. This sets up a brutal scenario with supply and demand turning women into commodities. Our unnamed medical professional manages to stay safe(r) by cross-dressing, but every interaction with others is fraught with danger. I enjoy a good 'men are pigs' story, but this one may tread a bit over the line into unintentional parody from time to time.
It also bears interesting comparisons to Earth Abides, especially with the beginning of this book set in the Bay Area. But our heroine makes her way into the Rockies, gaining and losing companions from time to time. Some of the best writing and interaction is when she lives on the outskirts of a Mormon settlement that survived slightly better than most of the world due to remoteness and isolation.
Ostensibly a journal, the book occasionally interpolates other stories that the midwife copies into it, but the work as a whole doesn't stick to this formula, to its detriment I think. Certain passages break the illusion, providing information on what's going on in other parts of the world, or giving us the unhappy story of what happens to two former companions after they part ways with the unnamed midwife.
A good read, despite my quibbles. 

Why Violence Has Declined takes a long, long, too-long look at rates of violence over the past umpty-thousand years from our hunter-gatherer forebears to today. Pinker has marshalled a shitload of facts and statistics, and though there may be some niggling details here and there, on the whole, he's pretty convincing that rates of murder, war, and violence have declined per capita. This does require an explanation, and I think Pinker certainly outlines many ideas that contribute, but he doesn't seem to present a very strong thesis for an explanation. Rather he takes us on a plodding journey through the museum of ideas that every political philosopher has considered. The book plods so much that I found much of it a chore to get through. Reading through the outline in Wikipedia is good enough -- just feel certain that each point is held up by a few hundred footnotes each.

One of the ideas that did stick with me was that many violent acts are considered acts of justice by their perpetrators. They are not doing wrong, they are taking justice into their own hands. That bitch stole my man -- smack. That driver cut me off -- blam. Obviously, these solutions are not terribly rational, and generally frowned upon by Leviathan. I think it could extend to larger actions -- riots in Watts and LA. It doesn't make any fucking sense, but there was some ache for a justice that was not going to come from traditional channels.

Now, I have plodded so slowly through the book that that idea lodged some time ago. And then as I mulled it over in my mind, I considered the Trump voters in the lead-up to the election. Can a vote be an act of violence? A stupid plea for justice when you're aching for a justice that was not going to come from traditional channels? Mmmmm... no, I can't quite bring myself to consider a vote for Trump to be an act of violence. And then the vote actually happened, and Trump won. I still can't quite elevate it to an act of violence. But I think a lot of my friends may consider it to have been an act of violence. And certainly we have seen (even given some level of pernicious fakes) that some Trump supporters have been emboldened to enact actual violence. And we've also seen protests of Trump that have also risen to the level of violence.

Now I have to tread carefully here, because I think there are significant differences between the two sides. It is not just that I am trapped in my bubble and not their bubble (and I'll get to the bubble later, especially since almost everyone who will read this is in my liberal bubble). At the same time, the people (considered as people) in the two camps. Are not all that different.

Now apparently the worst thing I could possibly do is to suggest that we should reach out and hug the other side and unite. Which is fine, because I'm not suggesting that. When Trump has rotten plans, they should be fought. And many of his plans are rotten.

But possibly I'm saying something even worse. That people are people. And people on both sides are not all that different. And to realize that, it definitely helps to spend time outside your bubble.

Many of you know of the long years I've spent in the mission fields of Christian websites, spreading the good news of rationality and fact-based argument. It is not easy work, because they are beset by demons that deceive them. And again, it's not about compromise -- I think the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and they think it's 6,000 years old. I'm not looking to compromise at 2,250,003,000 years old. Wait, I'm rambling a little too much, but maybe we'll come back to this.

Another bit of bubble escape was listening to the infuriating drive-time talk show on a Christian radio station, though I haven't in many years. Until election night. As I drove home, feeling pretty confident that it was going to be close (my prediction: Hillary 278 EV) but would go blue, I turned that station on hoping for election news and... delicious Christian tears. Because that's a thing now. Enjoying people's tears. And because I'm a bad person.



And I got those tears. But I did not find them enjoyable. pout

A young Latina called in to the show. Her voice shook with raw emotion, clearly crying. Hillary was going to win, and as everyone in the conservative Christian bubble knew (as did I since I'd been visiting), Hillary believed that "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs have to be changed". And as it was being spun in the bubble, this young woman knew that President Hillary was going to forcibly change religious beliefs in America. She was genuinely, fearfully afraid that hers was the last generation that was going to hear the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

All bullshit, of course. But the tears and pain in that bubble were real. Just like they were real when Obama was elected in 2008 and was going to take everyone's guns.

Anyway, fast-forward a few hours, and suddenly the tears were on the other foot. (Shut up.) There were organized cry-ins. And, and... the other side mocked it. They were enjoying those tears! How could they be so cruel?



Not all that different.

But they're all racists!

Yes, half of Trump voters hold implicit bias against POC. And only a third of Hillary voters do.

Not all that different.

But Trump's spouting ugly racism!

Well, yeah. Again, I don't want to rest on any false equivalencies. But if you want to characterize the GOP as full of racists, then you should step inside the other bubble and look at yourself.

You support murdering babies. You literally want doctors to crush the skulls of infants with forceps.
You want perverts to molest our delicate American girlhood in the bathroom at Target.
You want religious expression to be locked inside the walls of churches.
You let the biased(*) lame-stream media do your thinking for you.

[* I'm too tired, but to its credit, the media finally decided that he said/she said journalistic equivalency was no longer valid. Trump was lying. They called him on it. They endorsed Hillary. But... it does feed the narrative that the media is biased against Trump.]

You want them to stop being racist and join the correct party? Well, maybe you should stop killing babies, and join the correct party.

You scoff when people say they aren't racist, but voted for Trump? Well, what do you think of Tim Kaine, who personally opposes abortion, but stood for VP of the Democrat Party? And he's by no means alone. There are Democrats who think abortion is murder. If you can be against baby-murdering, and vote for a baby-murdering candidate, then surely you can be a non-racist and vote for a racist candidate. Sure, it must be a terrible internal conflict. Sucks to be them. But they got their racism/baby-killing just like the people-of-yesteryear got Skinemax with the package.

Not all that different.

But they are so very fact-challenged!

Well yes. That's what I combat the most. You give them a snopes link, and they don't believe snopes. You provide the links on the snopes page to the NYT, and they don't believe the NYT. There are some people there whose solitary (it appears) information source is infowars(*). They were primed and ready to believe crap like a Kenyan born Obama, or a Jade Helm takeover of Texas. Because it fits their narrative.

(* I'm too tired, but if you're getting info from occupydemocrats or Huffpo... Not all that different.)

In our bubble, the narrative is that Trump is a sexual predator. And I'm morally certain that Trump has grabbed more unwilling pussies than trans people have assaulted anybody in a bathroom. So the woman who accused Trump of raping her when she was a teenager fits the narrative. But when the press conference was announced, my baloney detector started beeping. Because (for better or worse) before I am a Democrat or a liberal, I am a skeptic. A court of law is where these things are decided, not at press conferences or FBI memos. And when the press conference was cancelled due to 'threats', my suspicion grew. It was not impossible that threats had deterred some poor woman, but I was not buying it at this point. But a lot of other people were. They railed against the Trumpeters who had cowed this woman. Maybe Trump had bought her off. How many millions did it take him? And then two days later, she dropped the suit. No cause given. Bought off? Full of shit? We may never know. But a retracted anonymous accusation is not much to hang something on, unless the narrative is more important than evidence.

And if you point to snopes articles showing that some cases of 'postelection Trump supporter racism' are imaginary... some people don't want to hear that shit. It doesn't fit the narrative.

I've showed dozens of snopes articles to conservatives, and know what it feels like to be ignored. So when it comes from the other side, it just shows that...

Not all that different.

We all laughed (I did, I'm a bad person) at that stupid bint who cut a backwards B on her face.



But we were also mad. She perpetrated a pernicious lie to denigrate a particular political candidate.

We were furious. She lied to say a black man did this. I hate her.

And now Trump supporters tore the hijab off a woman. Stole her wallet. That feeds the narrative.
But it's bullshit. All a lie.

C'mon now, everyone. Let's laugh at her. And hate her. C'mon. She made a pernicious lie to denigrate a particular political candidate. She lied to say white men did this to her. I hate her. I really do. But more importantly...

Not all that different.

As promised, this book review has devolved. Let me pull it back, at least briefly.

"According to Hofstede's data, countries differ along six dimensions. One of them is Long-Term versus Short-Term Orientation: 'Long-term oriented societies foster pragmatic virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular saving, persistence, and adapting to changing circumstances. Short-term oriented societies foster virtues related to the past and present such as national pride, respect for tradition, preservation of 'face' and fulfilling social obligations.'"

Those are not bad descriptors of the two societies living in their bubbles that exist within America. The liberal and the conservative.

One of my regrets about the election is that so much was about the personalities and less about the issues. I have read that the Clinton campaign gamely released insightful policy statements to the media, but they never reached me. Since the Donald sucked all the oxygen in the primary fight, one would have thought that the Clinton team would strive harder in the general to make sure its message got out, but it didn't. Honestly, perhaps I'm giving them credit for having a message, because from my standpoint, most of what I heard from the Hillary campaign was...

It's her fucking turn. She cashed in her chips to keep the competition away. Only that asshole Sanders and McWhatever didn't get the memo. "Trump is awful. I'm not Trump."

Though true, this is not compelling. She could've done better with "I will be the third Obama term."

Anyway, one of the few policy things that did come out (because I watch closely) is for the coal miners of America.

HuffPo:

"Hillary Clinton has a $30 billion, 4,300-word plan to retrain coal workers that covers everything from education and infrastructure to tax credits and school funding.

Donald Trump’s coal plan is a duckface thumbs-up in a miner’s hard hat and a rant about hair spray, President Barack Obama and China."

Retrain coal workers? That's "adapting to changing circumstances". That's a Long-Term society strategy. And it's right.

A duckface thumbs-up? Well, if you can see through the HuffPo bias, that's a strategy oriented on today. Short-term. For the white working class families that are struggling.

And now, for you in my liberal well-informed bubble. Surely you are cognizant of the current spot price for coal.

No? Well, there are lots of reasons for it, but coal prices have tripled recently. And although US miners have not (yet) seen much of a boon, due to the horrible EPA, and Obama rules about coal-fueled power plants, a Trump presidency is clearly going to change that. Yes, there are certainly problems with burning coal like there is no tomorrow, but... if you are a part of an unemployed coal-mining family in Pennsylvania or Ohio focused on today... then you are part of the Short-Term Society, and I can see reasons other than racism to vote for Trump. And they did. And they are legitimately mad when we say their votes were racist.

In conclusion:

WE'RE ALL A BUNCH OF APES WHO ONLY RELATIVELY RECENTLY LEARNED TO WEAR CLOTHES AND NOT KILL EACH OTHER SO MUCH.

Not entirely realistic, but this 1957 novel is a depressing peek into those days of yesteryear when we all lived under threat of nuclear annihilation (and hey maybe those days are coming back, better than ever!). A nuclear war has killed the Northern Hemisphere, and as the airborne radiation slowly crosses the equatorial barrier, spreading further south, the various inhabitants of Melbourne slowly come to terms with the inevitable and do what seems best with their remaining months, weeks, days, and hours, as they lose contact with other cities in the southern hemisphere one by one. If you need a book that will grind down your your sense of hope, this will fit the bill nicely.

A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science

The book interleaves the career of serial killer/mutilator/rapist Joseph Vacher with the development of modern (or at least modern-like (or at least not too pseudoscientific)) forensic techniques through Lombroso, Bertillon, and most relevant to these cases, Lacassagne (Lombroso's rival).

Vacher's early career is the most interesting part. After being spurned by a woman, he bought a gun. Unbeknownst to him, it had been loaded with half powder charges. So he managed to shoot the woman four times, and himself twice in the head, and both survived. He was placed in a mental institution, but released 'fully cured' a year later. Of course that's when he went on to murder, disembowel and rape a dozen or more teenage girls and boys over the next few years. This part of the story gets rather tedious, as he settles on a successful MO, and the murders are depressingly alike, so it's good to have it interleaved with the developments of forensics, and then the trail of evidence (and hard work) that leads to his capture and trial, his failed insanity defense, and ultimate execution.

I met Jim in Portland at the HPLFF. I was intrigued by a horror-tinged mystery novel with the action set at a girls' school. Dr. Pookie and I both love a couple such, written by female authors -- Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers & Miss Pym Disposes, by Josephine Tey. It was too much to hope that Smiley's first novel would live up to those. And it doesn't, though it's really of a different genre -- more hard-boiled pulp detective. He has some good, snappy dialogue and character interaction, but there's a lot to be desired. Ostensibly set in Prohibition-era Los Angeles, there are very few details that set the scene in either time or place. Of course, as an Angeleno, one of my favorite things is reading a story set in my town that feels like my town. And it's a consequent bugaboo if it's not done well. As a feminist, another one of my favorite things is female characters that have more than one dimension. And it's a consequent bugaboo if it's not done well. Most of the students at the school may actually have zero dimensions; they are shuttled from a dorm to another place to keep them safe, but I'll be damned if anyone actually ever talks to them, or asks them questions about the murder in their midst.

Swann Galleries sent me the catalog for their upcoming autograph auction. One of the items really caught my eye.

Two Autograph Letters Signed, to President Garfield's private secretary J. Stanley Brown.

July 15: "Experiments made last night with Induction Balance very promising. Please send two bullets same size as that in President's body. Keep newspaper correspondents away from my laboratory if possible."

After the assassination attempt on President Garfield on July 2, Bell offered to help extract the bullet that was lodged in the President's back by means of an electro-magnetic device. By the time the device was ready for use, the President's physicians refused to allow it to be employed because of their patient's weakness.

Some weeks back, I think therrin started a thread about SF/noir detective fiction, and I recalled George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails and its sequels. The Wiki page mentioned a detail of which I was unaware: "Effinger started work on a fourth Audran novel, Word of Night, but died before that work was completed. The existing chapters of Word of Night are now available in the posthumously published Budayeen Nights, along with some other Budayeen and non-Budayeen short stories."

And so, a little ebaying, and here I am with an ex-library copy of the Golden Gryphon edition of Budayeen Nights. The foreword and story introductions are provided by Barbara Hambly, and they are (in addition to being useful and insightful) occasionally uncomfortably frank about his problems with alcohol and drugs, which he used to combat the physical and mental pain in his life. In volume 2 of things I didn't know, Hambly and Effinger were briefly married near the end of his life.

Despite that depressing lead-in, it's still delightful to hang out with Marîd again in his usual haunts, in and around the events of the existing novels, and also in one story set long after those events. Other stories don't feature Marîd, but are clearly in the same world, including the Nebula and Hugo winning "Schrödinger's Kitten" (which struck me as being merely great, rather than award-sweeping) and "King of the Cyber Rifles," which has more to offer than just the cleverness of the title.

"The City on the Sand" from 1973 is less interesting as a story than as a look into the proto-Budayeen, inhabited by proto-Budayeen characters and Effinger's stand-in, Sandor Courane. It helps to draw the line from what Effinger was up to in the 70s to When Gravity Fails. And the other bookend is a peek into the unfinished fourth novel, with what counts as a short story to set things in motion.

I had the great fortune to meet Effinger briefly, and express my admiration for his work, when I was a lowly gofer, helping out at the 1996 Nebula Awards, which were held at the Queen Mary. And while we're name dropping, Barbara Hambly was kind enough to come to the very first EnigmaCon back in 1987.