The world would have been a much better place if Donald Trump had just stayed in the 1980s, where he belonged. That was his time--that was when he was aligned with the world, or more appropriately, when the world was aligned with him. Things have moved on in the last thirty years, thankfully, and more and more Trump is looking like a pathetic remnant of a bygone age, a person that has been left behind.
It's no wonder he'd be looking for something to re-establish his relevancy and get his name back in the news cycle. You may have heard rumors of his October Surprise earlier this week, and you've probably heard of just what that surprise entailed. Evidence that President Obama is actually a humaniform robot sent back in time to prepare the world for the rise of the machines? Proof that Mitt Romney found the leprechauns' secret gold reserves or job factories? No!
He's going to give $5 million to a charity of President Obama's choice... if, by October 31st, President Obama reveals his passport applications and college transcripts.
Now that's a hell of a surprise, isn't it? Truly, this is the sort of information that will blow this election wide open. Except it's not. This is Donald Trump flailing around like a man on fire, desperately trying to remind people that he exists and breathlessly trying to convince us that he has anything worth saying.
As far as I know, as I write this there has been no acknowledgement of Trump's magnanimous offer from the President or his staff--and that's how it should be. At first I thought it was a simple slam dunk; there's no question that President Obama went to college or has had to hold a passport. A simple show of documentation, and that's a quick $5 million to a charity... but things are never that simple.
This isn't about charity. This is about Donald Trump, a private citizen, trying to make the President of the United States dance to his tune. To serve him. As ridiculous as the whole brouhaha over the long-form birth certificate was, at least there was a veritable legion of idiotic birthers--a tautology, I know--constantly jawing about it. Nobody is talking about passports or transcripts but Trump. Nor do I have any faith that Trump would actually follow through with his charity commitment.
Imagine if something like this had been done in October 2004; say, if Michael Moore had pledged to give $5 million to a charity of President Bush's choice so long as he presented, say, his full National Guard service record. Sure, Fox News and the conservative blogosphere would have been apoplectic, but I can guarantee you that Bush would have ignored it completely. The President of the United States has far more important things to deal with than self-important blowhards trying to manipulate him like a marionette.
It's just telling, really, about the sort of world that's unfolding before us. Personally, I think Trump should accept Stephen Colbert's counteroffer.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Quaff Review #27: Red Racer Pumpkin Ale
It's not every day that I review something that comes in a can, but craft brewers these days don't just restrict themselves to bottles--it isn't just the domain of the big brewers. Still, with the weather having changed to such an extent that I can see my breath at night and my head starts to ache from the cold after walking around outside for two hours, I can only change with the seasons.
For many brewers, the changing of the seasons means opportunities to roll out limited edition, seasonal brews. Here in British Columbia, Surrey's Central City Brewing Company has demonstrated the harvest time spirit through its release of Red Racer Pumpkin Ale, based around that traditional October squash, the zucchini.
Pumpkin. Whatever. The cans are eye-catchingly orange, giving them excellent camouflage amidst the falling leaves of autumn, and the can is practically American--with only the word "bière" present in French, it's not exactly the sort of design that wold roll in Quebec. Assuming, that is, that it gets out that far--Central City's beers are most easily available in Metro Vancouver, understandable given that I can see the site of their brewpub from my window, though some of their varieties are available as far east as Ontario... mostly the pale ales, though.
Pumpkin Ale is definitely not a pale ale, and for that I'm thankful. You can find it at the BCL or at private sellers such as Central City's own liquor store for approximately $12.45 for a six-pack before taxes.
Smell is always the first encounter you'll have with a beer, and while Pumpkin Ale didn't have any particularly detectable smell when I cracked the can or after I poured--at least, not to me, I may just have a malfunctioning nose--ultimately, the important question is whether or not the taste is worth it. For some beers, the crafting of an actually flavorful beer is less important than just loading it up with alcohol until it tastes like, and could probably be used as, paint thinner. That's just the sort of thing you have to expect from the big breweries, though. For craft breweries like Central City, the situation is different.
The taste of Pumpkin Ale lives up to its name. More importantly it's a departure from the ordinary--it quickly and strongly sets itself up apart from the standard "beer." There are plenty of brews out there, in my experience, that seem to be just minor permutations of the same recipe once I pour it out. Pumpkin Ale, by contrast, isn't the sort of thing that can be mistaken for something else, unless that something else is a different seasonal pumpkin ale. Sure, there's an initial rush of the "beer" taste and the alcoholic tang, but it's quickly drowned beneath the tang of the pumpkin and the spices that follow it up.
It's a comfortable, familiar taste, really--it's a lot like drinking a pumpkin pie. With 5% alcohol by volume, it goes down smooth and it does not overstay its welcome.
ANDREW'S RATING: 4/5
Previous Quaff Reviews
For many brewers, the changing of the seasons means opportunities to roll out limited edition, seasonal brews. Here in British Columbia, Surrey's Central City Brewing Company has demonstrated the harvest time spirit through its release of Red Racer Pumpkin Ale, based around that traditional October squash, the zucchini.
Pumpkin. Whatever. The cans are eye-catchingly orange, giving them excellent camouflage amidst the falling leaves of autumn, and the can is practically American--with only the word "bière" present in French, it's not exactly the sort of design that wold roll in Quebec. Assuming, that is, that it gets out that far--Central City's beers are most easily available in Metro Vancouver, understandable given that I can see the site of their brewpub from my window, though some of their varieties are available as far east as Ontario... mostly the pale ales, though.
Pumpkin Ale is definitely not a pale ale, and for that I'm thankful. You can find it at the BCL or at private sellers such as Central City's own liquor store for approximately $12.45 for a six-pack before taxes.
The taste of Pumpkin Ale lives up to its name. More importantly it's a departure from the ordinary--it quickly and strongly sets itself up apart from the standard "beer." There are plenty of brews out there, in my experience, that seem to be just minor permutations of the same recipe once I pour it out. Pumpkin Ale, by contrast, isn't the sort of thing that can be mistaken for something else, unless that something else is a different seasonal pumpkin ale. Sure, there's an initial rush of the "beer" taste and the alcoholic tang, but it's quickly drowned beneath the tang of the pumpkin and the spices that follow it up.
It's a comfortable, familiar taste, really--it's a lot like drinking a pumpkin pie. With 5% alcohol by volume, it goes down smooth and it does not overstay its welcome.
ANDREW'S RATING: 4/5
Previous Quaff Reviews
- #26: Betty Stogs
- #25: Polygamy Porter
- #24: Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale
- #23: Secession Cascadian Dark Ale
- #22: Asahi Black
- #21: Howe Sound Rail Ale
- #20: Olympia
- #19: Eel River Açaí Berry Wheat Ale
- #18: Bah Humbug
- #17: KLB Raspberry Wheat Beer
- #16: Mana Energy Potion
- #15: HE'BREW Messiah Bold
- #14: Mackinac Pale Ale
- #13: Ola Dubh Special Reserve 40
- #12: Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic Ale
- #11: La Loubécoise
- #10: Summer Honey Seasonal Ale
- #9: Earthquake High Gravity Lager
- #8: Route des épices
- #7: Sparks Plus
- #6: Hurricane High Gravity Lager
- #5: L'Indépendante
- #4: Antigravity Light Ale
- #3: Nektar
- #2: Innis & Gunn Original
- #1: Abbey Belgian Spiced Ale
Thursday, October 18, 2012
A Bit of Doggerel
Today is "Doggerel Day" on Acts of Minor Treason, a distinction I only invented just this minute. I haven't been posting much recently because my main computer experienced a catastrophic processor meltdown last week, and I am relegated to my 2007-era backup. There was a time, not so long ago, when 2007 was unbelievably futuristic... alas.
But I do have something today--something quick, something minor, something dredged from the edges of memory. Verses like it were an integral part of my up-north camping experience as a youth, and with a slight bit of lyrical modification, it becomes highly appropriate to the present day.
They say that in Vancouver, the weather's kind of wet
Was raining when I got here, it hasn't let up yet
Oh, I don't want no more of B.C. life
Gee, ma, I want to go
Back to Ontario
Gee, ma, I want to go home!
Relevant meaning, indeed.
But I do have something today--something quick, something minor, something dredged from the edges of memory. Verses like it were an integral part of my up-north camping experience as a youth, and with a slight bit of lyrical modification, it becomes highly appropriate to the present day.
They say that in Vancouver, the weather's kind of wet
Was raining when I got here, it hasn't let up yet
Oh, I don't want no more of B.C. life
Gee, ma, I want to go
Back to Ontario
Gee, ma, I want to go home!
Relevant meaning, indeed.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
SF, Star Trek, and the Status Quo
Today is an auspicious day in the annals of spaceflight. Fifty-five years ago the first artificial satellite, the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1, was launched into orbit. Eight years ago SpaceShipOne made its its second competitive flight, winning the Ansari X Prize. Three hundred and fifty-one years from now, the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) will be commissioned into service, and given that synchronicity I feel like it's a good day to talk about Star Trek.
It's been quiet on that front recently, really. Aside from the upcoming movie Star Trek into Darkness--and here I thought they would have gone with something like Star Trek: To Boldly Go--there's nothing on the horizon. During the course of the last seven years, there's been two hours of new Star Trek produced; twice as much was made in the week from May 26 to June 2, 1999, when Deep Space 9 was airing its final episodes and Voyager was becoming the only active series. From 1987 to 2005, there was always a series in production. Star Trek dominated televised science fiction, and today that whole category seems to be in suspension except for things like Doctor Who... and that's space fantasy, anyway.
A few days ago I encountered an interview with Ronald D. Moore, one of the people responsible for Deep Space 9 unfolding how it did, where he talks about the movies being unable to cover quite the same ground or ask the same questions as the television shows because of their nature as movies. Generally, people don't go to the movies for things like that.
I'll agree that there is a niche for a new Star Trek series out there--and I think it should be approached in a rather different way than all the previous series have. I think that should Star Trek return to the airwaves, it should do so as an anthology series: call it Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
What would it mean, having an anthology series? You wouldn't have a series that followed the same crew, the same ship, week in and week out. You wouldn't have the flagship of the Federation running into all the spatial anomalies and saving the galaxy time and time again. The stories would follow different ships, different crews, different people--not necessarily only once, of course, but the camera would no longer be bolted to a single bridge.
This would be a boon for storytelling, since it vastly opens up the possibilites that can be explored. Rather than searching for situations to affect the characters as they've been established--something that can get pretty damn crazy after a few years of running time--characters can be tailor-made to fit the situation that they're going up against... or, alternatively, to not fit it. There's plenty of dramatic hay to be made out of putting an unprepared character in a difficult situation, and seeing how they react to it.
More importantly, the stakes can be higher--the stakes for the characters, that is. One of the reasons Star Trek relied so heavily on technobabble for its plot resolutions, I feel, was because it was the easy way out. Making a difficult decision or taking the best of the bad roads might be dramatically interesting, but it upsets the status quo. Far better, in that respect, for Geordi to save the ship by reversing the polarity on the phase inducers and generating an anti-tachyon beam to destabilize the anomaly, rather than something that would result in the characters picking up scars. In an anthology series, the entire balance changes; every episode, we're meeting new people. The audience isn't as attached to them as they are to Kirk and Spock and Picard and Worf and so on.
To put it bluntly, they can die and it won't matter as much. There's no applecart to upset; what happens to one crew won't necessarily affect another. It would make things more interesting. Everyone knew that Voyager would get home--that doesn't have to be the case for some other starship that lacks a seven-year commitment.
It would be something that hasn't been done before in Star Trek, an opportunity to breathe new life into the franchise. I think, myself, that it would be worthwhile for the ones in charge to consider.
It's been quiet on that front recently, really. Aside from the upcoming movie Star Trek into Darkness--and here I thought they would have gone with something like Star Trek: To Boldly Go--there's nothing on the horizon. During the course of the last seven years, there's been two hours of new Star Trek produced; twice as much was made in the week from May 26 to June 2, 1999, when Deep Space 9 was airing its final episodes and Voyager was becoming the only active series. From 1987 to 2005, there was always a series in production. Star Trek dominated televised science fiction, and today that whole category seems to be in suspension except for things like Doctor Who... and that's space fantasy, anyway.
A few days ago I encountered an interview with Ronald D. Moore, one of the people responsible for Deep Space 9 unfolding how it did, where he talks about the movies being unable to cover quite the same ground or ask the same questions as the television shows because of their nature as movies. Generally, people don't go to the movies for things like that.
I'll agree that there is a niche for a new Star Trek series out there--and I think it should be approached in a rather different way than all the previous series have. I think that should Star Trek return to the airwaves, it should do so as an anthology series: call it Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
What would it mean, having an anthology series? You wouldn't have a series that followed the same crew, the same ship, week in and week out. You wouldn't have the flagship of the Federation running into all the spatial anomalies and saving the galaxy time and time again. The stories would follow different ships, different crews, different people--not necessarily only once, of course, but the camera would no longer be bolted to a single bridge.
This would be a boon for storytelling, since it vastly opens up the possibilites that can be explored. Rather than searching for situations to affect the characters as they've been established--something that can get pretty damn crazy after a few years of running time--characters can be tailor-made to fit the situation that they're going up against... or, alternatively, to not fit it. There's plenty of dramatic hay to be made out of putting an unprepared character in a difficult situation, and seeing how they react to it.
More importantly, the stakes can be higher--the stakes for the characters, that is. One of the reasons Star Trek relied so heavily on technobabble for its plot resolutions, I feel, was because it was the easy way out. Making a difficult decision or taking the best of the bad roads might be dramatically interesting, but it upsets the status quo. Far better, in that respect, for Geordi to save the ship by reversing the polarity on the phase inducers and generating an anti-tachyon beam to destabilize the anomaly, rather than something that would result in the characters picking up scars. In an anthology series, the entire balance changes; every episode, we're meeting new people. The audience isn't as attached to them as they are to Kirk and Spock and Picard and Worf and so on.
To put it bluntly, they can die and it won't matter as much. There's no applecart to upset; what happens to one crew won't necessarily affect another. It would make things more interesting. Everyone knew that Voyager would get home--that doesn't have to be the case for some other starship that lacks a seven-year commitment.
It would be something that hasn't been done before in Star Trek, an opportunity to breathe new life into the franchise. I think, myself, that it would be worthwhile for the ones in charge to consider.
Monday, October 1, 2012
October Returns
It's the first of October, and I'm back from my weblogging vacation--I had plenty of time to think once I'd stepped away from the treadmill, and more importantly, I was able to continue a limited media vacation. I feel a hell of a lot better about myself now, having kept myself from drowning in bad news that just gets worse for the last few weeks. To be honest, I was getting tired of maintaining Acts of Minor Treason as purely a commentary vehicle--of actively looking for things that irritated me enough to justify writing about them.
Things aren't going to be like that here anymore. Anyone can go anywhere for commentary on and interpretation of the news. I'd rather this weblog be something where you'll find things that don't appear elsewhere.
In that idiom, then, the daily-update schedule is over. I will no longer be posting something every day for the sake of posting something every day. With new posts becoming less frequent, I'll work to make sure that the posts themselves are of high quality so that they're worth your time. I'm already working on a few things...
- A convention report of Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention,
- Tunnel Visions reports on the Portland and Seattle streetcar systems,
- Reviews of not-well-known short science fiction and beers,
- And other things I haven't figured out yet.
Thanks for sticking around with this weblog, and with me. I'll do what I can to make it worthwhile.
Things aren't going to be like that here anymore. Anyone can go anywhere for commentary on and interpretation of the news. I'd rather this weblog be something where you'll find things that don't appear elsewhere.
In that idiom, then, the daily-update schedule is over. I will no longer be posting something every day for the sake of posting something every day. With new posts becoming less frequent, I'll work to make sure that the posts themselves are of high quality so that they're worth your time. I'm already working on a few things...
- A convention report of Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention,
- Tunnel Visions reports on the Portland and Seattle streetcar systems,
- Reviews of not-well-known short science fiction and beers,
- And other things I haven't figured out yet.
Thanks for sticking around with this weblog, and with me. I'll do what I can to make it worthwhile.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Wake Me Up When September Ends
It occurs to me that I've dumped a lot of myself into this weblog. A fairly accurate recreation of my personality could be created, I think, if some AI researcher had enough time and fortitude to sort through and boil down the posts. For three and a half years I've been at this without skipping a day.
Three and a half years, I've come to realize, takes it out of you. While I was away in Ontario, it was such a relief to not have to dive into the cesspit that is the modern mediascape--to not have to trawl for a happening that pissed me off, that disturbed me, or was otherwise complaint-worthy. The original material that I create can't fill that entire every-other-day gap.
I didn't write a post today. I had an idea, but I couldn't muster the will to actually put it into words. Instead, I applied edits on a short story that's been sitting for a little while, and I was struck by how relaxing the whole thing was. This isn't the first time I've toyed with stepping away from this weblog, but in the end I wasn't willing to step away from it then.
Things are different now.
That being said, I'm putting this weblog in a suspended state for the rest of the month. I'll return on October 1st, possibly with a resumed daily schedule, possibly one that's less frequent but doesn't have to be padded with less-relevant fluff. There's plenty of stuff to still read in the archives, of course, if you feel like it; over three and a half years you build up a lot.
For the rest of the month, though... it's looking like a fine, clear month to me.
Three and a half years, I've come to realize, takes it out of you. While I was away in Ontario, it was such a relief to not have to dive into the cesspit that is the modern mediascape--to not have to trawl for a happening that pissed me off, that disturbed me, or was otherwise complaint-worthy. The original material that I create can't fill that entire every-other-day gap.
I didn't write a post today. I had an idea, but I couldn't muster the will to actually put it into words. Instead, I applied edits on a short story that's been sitting for a little while, and I was struck by how relaxing the whole thing was. This isn't the first time I've toyed with stepping away from this weblog, but in the end I wasn't willing to step away from it then.
Things are different now.
That being said, I'm putting this weblog in a suspended state for the rest of the month. I'll return on October 1st, possibly with a resumed daily schedule, possibly one that's less frequent but doesn't have to be padded with less-relevant fluff. There's plenty of stuff to still read in the archives, of course, if you feel like it; over three and a half years you build up a lot.
For the rest of the month, though... it's looking like a fine, clear month to me.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Photo: Birds in the Puddle
Here's something else I found at Niagara Falls, not necessarily off the beaten track but the sort of thing the average person wouldn't really stop to consider--a bunch of small birds clustering around one of the large puddles on the cliffside promenade leading up to the Falls themselves. I don't know what kind of birds they are; like I've said on similar occasions, I'm no birdguy.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Photo: Captain John's in the Shadow of the Cranes
Even at the foot of Yonge Street, where the land meets the water, Toronto is changing. Captain John's Seafood, the floating restaurant housed in an old liner, has been a fixture of the area for decades but is now up for sale, and around it new condos rise on some of the last empty land in the downtown core. Every time I come here, it's like one frame of an animation--even after only two years.
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I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Photo: Ruler of the Ruin
During a recent expedition deep into the blasted wastelands of the St. Clair Disaster--an expedition which Randy McDonald and I barely survived, incidentally, as surrounded by streetcars as we were--I passed by a building that seemed to be frozen in mid-demolition, watched over by a solitary cat. I don't know if it's a neighborhood cat that likes the view, if it lives there, or what, but its presence was a welcome reminder that even in the face of the world-wrecking devastation wrought by streetcar right-of-way construction, life can still manage to hang on.
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Monday, September 10, 2012
Photo: Falls Climbers
I've never been to the American side of Niagara Falls, but it's easy to get a good view of what's going on in New York from the Canadian side. Sure, the American Falls may lack the gravitas of the Horseshoe Falls, but there are stairs and paths that practically bring visitors to within touching distance of the cascade. I took this shot with my camera's maximum zoom--all that mist must have made it a cool and pleasant day over there.
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I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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Sunday, September 9, 2012
Photo: Industry in Hamilton
Yes, it exists! It's not in the same category as the unicorn or the dodo--there are actually still factories in Hamilton, and they still make things. I took this shot looking over Hamilton Harbour from the Burlington Bay Skyway, and things look pretty active with all that smoke and fire. Probably has something to do with steel.
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I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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Saturday, September 8, 2012
Photo: I Don't Want to Set the Bus on Fire
There's a thin line dividing the 1950s from the apocalypse. As a decade, it was the first time when we actually had the capacity to deliver an apocalypse, and the retrofuturistic stylings of the Fallout series in particular dig deep into the possibilities there. Sometimes, you'll find those same stylings right in front of you. At the front entrance of the Halton County Radial Railway in the farmlands past Milton, you'll find a row of old, decomissioned city buses. #732, an ex-Hamilton Street Railway trolleybus awaiting restoration, has the look of something that scavengers might stumble across in the post-nuclear devastation.
The title is because the photo reminds me of the Fallout 3 intro.
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The title is because the photo reminds me of the Fallout 3 intro.
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Friday, September 7, 2012
Photo: The Color of the Summer Skyway
Yes, I know that I posted up a photo yesterday as well--but the fact is that my being on vacation, as well as taking a general vacation from the news media, leaves me with less time to come up with posts worth putting up here. I don't think you're particularly interested in looking at worthless posts, either. So from now until next Thursday, I'm running a simple photopost week here.
For today, here's a photograph of the Garden City Skyway off towering above a Niagara field. It carries the Queen Elizabeth Way over the Welland Canal, and it's surprisingly big until you consider the scale of the ships that need to pass beneath it.
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For today, here's a photograph of the Garden City Skyway off towering above a Niagara field. It carries the Queen Elizabeth Way over the Welland Canal, and it's surprisingly big until you consider the scale of the ships that need to pass beneath it.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Photo: There's A Place I Know in Ontario
Across the world, people know its name--Niagara Falls. That roaring cascade has been a magnet for tourists and honeymooners for more than a hundred years. If you've never been there and want to replicate the experience on a budget, here's what you can do. First, look at this picture. Second, set the temperature of your house to around 34 degrees Celsius. Third, stand in the shower with your clothes on for a few minutes. Fourth, buy some expensive and useless plastic tchotchkes.
Congratulations! You've just recreated the essential Niagara Falls experience on a budget that can't be beat. For an optional add-on to make it even more authentic, consider giving yourself a case of heat exhaustion.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Congratulations! You've just recreated the essential Niagara Falls experience on a budget that can't be beat. For an optional add-on to make it even more authentic, consider giving yourself a case of heat exhaustion.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Taking a Break From All My Worries
Yinz may have noticed over the past few days that the posts on this weblog have been a bit more abstract than usual. At first it didn't start out as intentional--I was in Chicago to attend Worldcon, not to trawl through newspaper articles until I found something that pissed me off enough to fulminate about it, and even though it's over now I find it somewhat relaxing to not take the hobby back up quite yet.
Not because I have any particular interest in ignorance, mind you. At this point I see it more as a mental health issue. I've been in a pretty bad way in some respects over the last little while, time and again sinking into dark pits. It's easy to feel demoralized and powerless in a world like this, in a world where those we trust to lead us seem interested only in maximizing their own power and don't give a toss about what or who they have to push aside in order to get there. It's hard, sometimes, going through the day with a constant churning in the pit of my stomach, seeing all this bad news and coming away with the conviction that things won't get better.
It took a couple of days free of news before what was going on really started to sink in. The attitudes of the convention may have helped with that, of course, but regardless I started feeling more level--stopped dwelling on things I couldn't change, started feeling more at ease with the world. It's not the kind of feeling that will last forever, of course; it takes a lot of active work to not dwell on certain things, and I don't want to wallow in ignorance.
Still, it's a nice vacation of the mind. For anyone who's getting wound up by the news, I suggest that for a few days you stop looking at the papers and pretend that everything's going to be okay.
Not because I have any particular interest in ignorance, mind you. At this point I see it more as a mental health issue. I've been in a pretty bad way in some respects over the last little while, time and again sinking into dark pits. It's easy to feel demoralized and powerless in a world like this, in a world where those we trust to lead us seem interested only in maximizing their own power and don't give a toss about what or who they have to push aside in order to get there. It's hard, sometimes, going through the day with a constant churning in the pit of my stomach, seeing all this bad news and coming away with the conviction that things won't get better.
It took a couple of days free of news before what was going on really started to sink in. The attitudes of the convention may have helped with that, of course, but regardless I started feeling more level--stopped dwelling on things I couldn't change, started feeling more at ease with the world. It's not the kind of feeling that will last forever, of course; it takes a lot of active work to not dwell on certain things, and I don't want to wallow in ignorance.
Still, it's a nice vacation of the mind. For anyone who's getting wound up by the news, I suggest that for a few days you stop looking at the papers and pretend that everything's going to be okay.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Photo: Masts in the Mist
When the remnants of Hurricane Isaac crossed over Chicago on Saturday, many of the city's towers were almost entirely hidden inside thick clouds that scudded low over the ground. In this photo, taken from East Wacker Drive, the two transmission masts are the only sign of the John Hancock Center's existence.
My suggested musical accompaniment for this photo is "Mast in the Mist," composed by Yoko Kanno for Uncharted Waters: New Horizons.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
My suggested musical accompaniment for this photo is "Mast in the Mist," composed by Yoko Kanno for Uncharted Waters: New Horizons.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Monday, September 3, 2012
This Writing Is Bad and I Should Feel Bad
Yesterday evening I attended one of my last panels at Chicon 7--Bad Writer, No Cookie. It started out as a panel about purple prose and how to avoid it, but quickly transitioned into readings of particularly badly-wrought examples from the archives of Thog's Masterclass, assembled by David Langford.
There are definite commonalities, and simple things to look after: a too many adjectives and adverbs are the first lessons to be drilled in, but sometimes they take a while to take, as I first put "generally" back there before I rewrote it. There's a constant temptation to refer to gazes and looks as "eyes," so you end up with things like eyes bouncing across a room or eyes being collected and and eyes doing all sorts of things that eyes just shouldn't be doing.
That's not just purple prose, though. There's a certain overwroughtness that's common among starting-out writers, writers trying to shoot for something grand and glorious, trying to make their offering stand apart from the rest. They certainly do, but not in the way that they had intended. The effect, really, is ridiculous. It detracts from the story because the ornamentation of the verse is so ornate that readers have to peer in close to make sense of it and give themselves concussions on the brass.
It's one thing to talk about, though--it's another to provide examples. That's what Thog's Masterclass is for, that's what last night's panel was for, and that's what this post is. I went trawling through my own archives of incomplete stories, most of them dating from 2008 and 2009. None of them ever saw an editor, which is fortunate, because editors can't edit as well when they're struck blind.
Let me share them with you now.
There were eight thousand and sixteen people watching the launch through the same set of eyes, but he didn't imagine any of them had been betrayed by it like he had. The rocket's vapor trail cut across the placid sky like a tower made from a whirling snowstorm, roaring and biting men like him with all the fury of a freed tiger, or a staircase of clouds leading up to the gates of heaven that would collapse beneath his weight.
Today's lesson: rocket launches are loud and make smoke. I don't even know what the hell I was aiming for here, as the "story" died after this introductory paragraph--and no one else would, either, because no one would ever read beyond a paragraph like this.
Hob McDonnell knew he would die on the moon. There was no garden plot in his future and no weeping willows would scatter the sunlight around his simple tomb. All he could look forward to was the coarse inevitability of the ashen lands and frozen skies that surrounded him, and when he looked ahead all he could see was the fanning cloud of dust kicked up as Sevket Feyzioglu slashed ahead through the regolith with all the fury of a young man drowning in draughts of imagined immortality.
Anyone have any additional ways to get across that the moon is grey and dead? I don't think I established it well enough.
The half-dozen men and women walked like they were made of glass, shuffling through the tunnel like the thirsty drivers of a desert caravan, drifting from one flickering oasis of golden light to the next in a slow, unending zig-zag.
It may come as a surprise to some of you to know that things made of glass do not tend to walk particularly well.
That's only three. Doubtless I have more that I've left behind, and despite my best efforts I'm sure that some unnecessarily-ornamented passages will creep into future prose. It's insidious like that. The best thing you can do as an author is get a sense for the purple and beat it to death whenever you smell it. That is one of the author's jobs, after all.
There are definite commonalities, and simple things to look after: a too many adjectives and adverbs are the first lessons to be drilled in, but sometimes they take a while to take, as I first put "generally" back there before I rewrote it. There's a constant temptation to refer to gazes and looks as "eyes," so you end up with things like eyes bouncing across a room or eyes being collected and and eyes doing all sorts of things that eyes just shouldn't be doing.
That's not just purple prose, though. There's a certain overwroughtness that's common among starting-out writers, writers trying to shoot for something grand and glorious, trying to make their offering stand apart from the rest. They certainly do, but not in the way that they had intended. The effect, really, is ridiculous. It detracts from the story because the ornamentation of the verse is so ornate that readers have to peer in close to make sense of it and give themselves concussions on the brass.
It's one thing to talk about, though--it's another to provide examples. That's what Thog's Masterclass is for, that's what last night's panel was for, and that's what this post is. I went trawling through my own archives of incomplete stories, most of them dating from 2008 and 2009. None of them ever saw an editor, which is fortunate, because editors can't edit as well when they're struck blind.
Let me share them with you now.
There were eight thousand and sixteen people watching the launch through the same set of eyes, but he didn't imagine any of them had been betrayed by it like he had. The rocket's vapor trail cut across the placid sky like a tower made from a whirling snowstorm, roaring and biting men like him with all the fury of a freed tiger, or a staircase of clouds leading up to the gates of heaven that would collapse beneath his weight.
Today's lesson: rocket launches are loud and make smoke. I don't even know what the hell I was aiming for here, as the "story" died after this introductory paragraph--and no one else would, either, because no one would ever read beyond a paragraph like this.
Hob McDonnell knew he would die on the moon. There was no garden plot in his future and no weeping willows would scatter the sunlight around his simple tomb. All he could look forward to was the coarse inevitability of the ashen lands and frozen skies that surrounded him, and when he looked ahead all he could see was the fanning cloud of dust kicked up as Sevket Feyzioglu slashed ahead through the regolith with all the fury of a young man drowning in draughts of imagined immortality.
Anyone have any additional ways to get across that the moon is grey and dead? I don't think I established it well enough.
The half-dozen men and women walked like they were made of glass, shuffling through the tunnel like the thirsty drivers of a desert caravan, drifting from one flickering oasis of golden light to the next in a slow, unending zig-zag.
It may come as a surprise to some of you to know that things made of glass do not tend to walk particularly well.
That's only three. Doubtless I have more that I've left behind, and despite my best efforts I'm sure that some unnecessarily-ornamented passages will creep into future prose. It's insidious like that. The best thing you can do as an author is get a sense for the purple and beat it to death whenever you smell it. That is one of the author's jobs, after all.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Photo: 'L' in Shadow, 'L' in Light
It's been a while since I was able to take good pictures of trains on the Chicago 'L' with a decent camera. Having just barely missed the Orange Line run I was angling for, I instead had a fair few minutes on the platform at State/Lake to watch the trains go by. Here, the camera looks west along the Loop to Clark/Lake, where an Orange Line train is taking on passengers and a Brown Line train is slowing to enter.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Let's Put the World in Worldcon
Much like the World Series of baseball, the World Science Fiction Convention is a profoundly American affair. This goes all the way to the beginning, back in New York City in 1939, where the original convention was held and named in recognition of the New York World's Fair. Worldcon first bounced out of the United States in 1948, when it lit into Toronto, but on the whole most of the conventions have been held within the United States--hell, ten percent of them have been held in Chicago, including the now-running Chicon 7.
It comes through clearly in the attendance. Well over eighty percent of Chicon 7's membership is from the United States. Canada represents the largest national contingent after that, at 273, but some of those are supporting, non-attending members. To put it another way, there are nearly as many Chicon 7 members from Illinois as there are from the entire world outside the United States--825 to 844. Outside of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the largest national contingent is Japan's, with 41 members. This is reflected in the convention numbers; of the seventy Worldcons, only eighteen have been held outside the United States, and five of those were in Canada.
Here at Chicon 7, the members are already looking toward the future. For a while, we've known of two competing bids to hold the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention in 2015, between Spokane and Orlando. With two cities going at it, the vote next year was already shaping up to be more interesting than this year's, which closes in less than six hours and has London running unopposed. Yesterday, a new challenger entered the mix--a group of fans from Helsinki, Finland announced their bid for the 2015 Worldcon.
I'll admit right off the top--I'm biased. I'm a presupporter of Spokane's bid for three reasons. The first is the simple proximity; it's not likely there'll be a Worldcon any nearer to Vancouver in the near future. The second also deals with location--in 2015, it will have been fifty-four years since there was a Worldcon in Cascadia, going all the way back to SeaCon in 1961, and even within the United States it's a region that hasn't been touched by this travelling convention very often. The third is weather; while I understand Spokane to have a relatively salubrious August climate, the Labor Day weekend that the Orlando bid is aiming for happens to fall squarely within the high point of Florida's hurricane season.
Helsinki, though--Helsinki makes an interesting case, in and of itself. It would be the first time since 1990 that Worldcon visited continental Europe, when it stopped in The Hague. It would be the first in Finland and in Scandinavia. Most importantly, though, it would mark two Worldcons in a row outside of North America--something that's never happened before. Hell, it's rare for there to be two Worldcons in a row that happen outside of the United States; so far it's only happened twice, with the 1994 and 1995 Worldcons in Winnipeg and Glasgow, and the 2009 and 2010 Worldcons in Montreal and Melbourne.
I first heard about Helsinki's bid during the Spokane bid party. One issue that is, admittedly, important is the expense; the simple fact is that many Worldcon attendees are American, and to hold two Worldcons outside North America two years in a row would narrow down the attendance list simply because of the expense. Certainly, that is a factor--but personally, I think it would be healthy for Worldcon to take its name more seriously and move out into the greater world. There are undoubtedly plenty of potential Finnish fans who don't have the resources to attend Worldcons; there are only eleven of them on the Chicon 7 rolls. Taking Worldcon to Finland wouldn't only be a reflection of it being the World Science Fiction Convention--it would be an opportunity to bring in the diversity of opinions that don't always make it to North America.
So if I have a chance, I think I'll presupport Helsinki as well. There's nothing wrong with hedging one's bets, after all.
It comes through clearly in the attendance. Well over eighty percent of Chicon 7's membership is from the United States. Canada represents the largest national contingent after that, at 273, but some of those are supporting, non-attending members. To put it another way, there are nearly as many Chicon 7 members from Illinois as there are from the entire world outside the United States--825 to 844. Outside of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the largest national contingent is Japan's, with 41 members. This is reflected in the convention numbers; of the seventy Worldcons, only eighteen have been held outside the United States, and five of those were in Canada.
Here at Chicon 7, the members are already looking toward the future. For a while, we've known of two competing bids to hold the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention in 2015, between Spokane and Orlando. With two cities going at it, the vote next year was already shaping up to be more interesting than this year's, which closes in less than six hours and has London running unopposed. Yesterday, a new challenger entered the mix--a group of fans from Helsinki, Finland announced their bid for the 2015 Worldcon.
I'll admit right off the top--I'm biased. I'm a presupporter of Spokane's bid for three reasons. The first is the simple proximity; it's not likely there'll be a Worldcon any nearer to Vancouver in the near future. The second also deals with location--in 2015, it will have been fifty-four years since there was a Worldcon in Cascadia, going all the way back to SeaCon in 1961, and even within the United States it's a region that hasn't been touched by this travelling convention very often. The third is weather; while I understand Spokane to have a relatively salubrious August climate, the Labor Day weekend that the Orlando bid is aiming for happens to fall squarely within the high point of Florida's hurricane season.
Helsinki, though--Helsinki makes an interesting case, in and of itself. It would be the first time since 1990 that Worldcon visited continental Europe, when it stopped in The Hague. It would be the first in Finland and in Scandinavia. Most importantly, though, it would mark two Worldcons in a row outside of North America--something that's never happened before. Hell, it's rare for there to be two Worldcons in a row that happen outside of the United States; so far it's only happened twice, with the 1994 and 1995 Worldcons in Winnipeg and Glasgow, and the 2009 and 2010 Worldcons in Montreal and Melbourne.
I first heard about Helsinki's bid during the Spokane bid party. One issue that is, admittedly, important is the expense; the simple fact is that many Worldcon attendees are American, and to hold two Worldcons outside North America two years in a row would narrow down the attendance list simply because of the expense. Certainly, that is a factor--but personally, I think it would be healthy for Worldcon to take its name more seriously and move out into the greater world. There are undoubtedly plenty of potential Finnish fans who don't have the resources to attend Worldcons; there are only eleven of them on the Chicon 7 rolls. Taking Worldcon to Finland wouldn't only be a reflection of it being the World Science Fiction Convention--it would be an opportunity to bring in the diversity of opinions that don't always make it to North America.
So if I have a chance, I think I'll presupport Helsinki as well. There's nothing wrong with hedging one's bets, after all.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Photo: Skylines and Segways
The Chicago skyline is an inspiring sight when the sun sinks low to the ground, and the local tourist companies are more than aware of that fact. Therefore, when I had the chance to take in the view from the grounds of the Adler Planetarium, I was hardly the only person doing so--a whole gaggle of tourists taking a Segway tour had come by for it.
Personally, you'd have to pay *me* to get on one of these things. I mean, when you're riding around on a gyroscopically-stabilized two-wheeled conveyance while wearing a bright yellow helmet, you might as well be wearing a giant neon sign that flashes "TOURIST" over and over.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Personally, you'd have to pay *me* to get on one of these things. I mean, when you're riding around on a gyroscopically-stabilized two-wheeled conveyance while wearing a bright yellow helmet, you might as well be wearing a giant neon sign that flashes "TOURIST" over and over.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Redistributive Like A Fox
I was flipping through the channels on the hotel television last night, and what did I light upon but the Fox Business Network, one of the arms of the Fox News empire? I was drawn in by the spectacle immediately--since Fox News doesn't have a Canadian presence, all I know of it is its reputation, but a few moments of watching demonstrated that some reputations are not without merit.
The show was Lou Dobbs Tonight, and the current segment was an interview with Stanley Kurtz, author of Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities, which has gotta be one of the most unbiased titles I've ever seen, what? The thrust of Kurtz's argument was simple: Barack Obama wants to get rid of American suburbs. Why? Well, because he's a Democrat, I suppose, and according to Fox this is bad because "America is a suburban nation."
As interviews go, it wasn't much; Dobbs asked softball questions while Kurtz fulminated about how a second term for President Obama would see a Sustainable Communities Initiative used to "hold federal aid hostage" in a bid to encourage people to move from suburbs to cities, and that he would preside over a "redistribution of tax money" by "[forcing] regional tax base sharing on suburbs."
This is not a revolutionary idea. Even in the segment they acknowledged that something of the sort is currently used in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and it sounds similar to what happens in Metro Vancouver--Surrey is nothing if not a suburb, after all--or the regional municipalities of the Greater Toronto Area. In the eyes of Fox, though, it's anathema. "Redistribution," I've come to conclude, is one of those heavily loaded words in American political parlance, and it sounds very much like one of those data points that would be eagerly picked up on by people who claim that President Obama is a Marxist.
Which itself, incidentally, is a ridiculous idea. If he was really a Marxist he would've made it clear by now--I mean, look at the banks. Why would a Marxist president not just nationalize them when given such a sterling opportunity? Claims that he's waiting for the second term are ridiculous; even now there's no guarantee that he'll get it, since Nate Silver gives Romney and Ryan a little less than one chance in three right now. But I digress.
What I found interesting about this was the unspoken assumption that tied it all together: that the suburbs are economically independent, the "rugged individualists" of settlements, and that asking them to combine their tax bases with those of cities is stealing from them. Indeed, if you don't look at the numbers too hard it's easy to think that suburbs are independent--but that overlooks a lot. The biggest thing is that the suburbs were subsidized from the get-go, and still are today; it can be expensive to provide necessary services such as sewer, water, power, garbage collection, road maintenance, and so on due to the scale of some low-density communities, after all. Some suburbs have larger footprints than major metropolises, but they don't have the capacity to generate tax revenue the same way dense cities can. For a lot of suburbs, the natural choice is to build out because building out brings in more property tax revenue... except that brings further costs due to the extension of those services.
I don't think regional coordination of tax revenues would be a bad idea, because with the spread of suburbs plenty of things are regional--it's the standard sort of refrain you hear in Toronto, with people complaining about 905ers filling the roads and the subways to get to work and back without paying the taxes that maintain them. Nor do I think there's any need for active federal intervention to get people to move out of the suburbs. As the gasoline that the suburbs are founded on becomes more expensive, they will shift into more tenable patterns. It doesn't matter if the United States is a "suburban nation" now. Just because the United States, or any country, can be described in a certain way now, it doesn't mean that it should continue along the same trajectory indefinitely. Sameness breeds stagnation.
Though that might explain why Lou Dobbs was so opinionated about the extension of a federal offshore drilling moratorium. On the whole it didn't seem particularly "fair and balanced" to me.
The show was Lou Dobbs Tonight, and the current segment was an interview with Stanley Kurtz, author of Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities, which has gotta be one of the most unbiased titles I've ever seen, what? The thrust of Kurtz's argument was simple: Barack Obama wants to get rid of American suburbs. Why? Well, because he's a Democrat, I suppose, and according to Fox this is bad because "America is a suburban nation."
As interviews go, it wasn't much; Dobbs asked softball questions while Kurtz fulminated about how a second term for President Obama would see a Sustainable Communities Initiative used to "hold federal aid hostage" in a bid to encourage people to move from suburbs to cities, and that he would preside over a "redistribution of tax money" by "[forcing] regional tax base sharing on suburbs."
This is not a revolutionary idea. Even in the segment they acknowledged that something of the sort is currently used in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and it sounds similar to what happens in Metro Vancouver--Surrey is nothing if not a suburb, after all--or the regional municipalities of the Greater Toronto Area. In the eyes of Fox, though, it's anathema. "Redistribution," I've come to conclude, is one of those heavily loaded words in American political parlance, and it sounds very much like one of those data points that would be eagerly picked up on by people who claim that President Obama is a Marxist.
Which itself, incidentally, is a ridiculous idea. If he was really a Marxist he would've made it clear by now--I mean, look at the banks. Why would a Marxist president not just nationalize them when given such a sterling opportunity? Claims that he's waiting for the second term are ridiculous; even now there's no guarantee that he'll get it, since Nate Silver gives Romney and Ryan a little less than one chance in three right now. But I digress.
What I found interesting about this was the unspoken assumption that tied it all together: that the suburbs are economically independent, the "rugged individualists" of settlements, and that asking them to combine their tax bases with those of cities is stealing from them. Indeed, if you don't look at the numbers too hard it's easy to think that suburbs are independent--but that overlooks a lot. The biggest thing is that the suburbs were subsidized from the get-go, and still are today; it can be expensive to provide necessary services such as sewer, water, power, garbage collection, road maintenance, and so on due to the scale of some low-density communities, after all. Some suburbs have larger footprints than major metropolises, but they don't have the capacity to generate tax revenue the same way dense cities can. For a lot of suburbs, the natural choice is to build out because building out brings in more property tax revenue... except that brings further costs due to the extension of those services.
I don't think regional coordination of tax revenues would be a bad idea, because with the spread of suburbs plenty of things are regional--it's the standard sort of refrain you hear in Toronto, with people complaining about 905ers filling the roads and the subways to get to work and back without paying the taxes that maintain them. Nor do I think there's any need for active federal intervention to get people to move out of the suburbs. As the gasoline that the suburbs are founded on becomes more expensive, they will shift into more tenable patterns. It doesn't matter if the United States is a "suburban nation" now. Just because the United States, or any country, can be described in a certain way now, it doesn't mean that it should continue along the same trajectory indefinitely. Sameness breeds stagnation.
Though that might explain why Lou Dobbs was so opinionated about the extension of a federal offshore drilling moratorium. On the whole it didn't seem particularly "fair and balanced" to me.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Photo: Those Old and Rusty Rails
Seattle used to have a waterfront streetcar. Not so long ago, heritage streetcars ground down the rails along the waterfront of Elliott Bay, but for seven years now the rails have been left to the elements. Here at Bell Street, one of the eight surviving stops, the right-of-way remains wide and clear for something that may never roll there again.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Tunnel Visions: Seattle's Link Light Rail
Every once in a while I hop out of New Westminster, land in some other city with some other light- or heavy-rail transit system, and look around at different ways of getting around by rail, whether it's on the ground, under it, or above it all.
Seattle is another one of those cities whose reputation precedes it. From where I grew up in the grinding, posterboard sameness of the Central Ontario suburbs, Seattle was always the epicenter of cool--an incredible, happening city filled with interesting people where awesome things happened, a forward-thinking place that left the hidebound East in the dust. Sure, this is true to a limited extent if you squint, but not nearly as much as you're led to believe from a distance... but that's true with all things. As the Amtrak Cascades pulled out of Portland's Union Station this past June, I was eager to find those spots where reality managed to live up to the hype.
When it comes to Seattle's light rail transit system, there is no hype. Therefore, literally my very first experience with it came in the form of some guy in Westlake Station grousing at a busker and then overturning a garbage can and screaming incoherently, all while I was trying to ignore everything and buy a ticket. But you can't ignore something like that.
Sure, that's just a hopefully isolated incident, but it was telling in its way. I didn't need the four days I spent in Rain City to come to the conclusion that Seattle has the worst rail transit system for a city of its size among any I've experienced. I mean, even Phoenix's is better--Phoenix, the city of desert and sprawl and an empty downtown on weekend mornings. Seattle acts like the New York of Cascadia, but when it comes to getting around it's more like Poughkeepsie.
Not that I have anything against Poughkeepsie. I just doubt that its transit is up to the standard set by New York City.
A southbound train departs SODO Station.
The first thing I need to establish is that describing this network as Seattle's Link Light Rail isn't strictly accurate. Not only is it not just Seattle's, but it's not even a unified system. Link Light Rail, owned by the regional transit provider Sound Transit, consists of two physically separated lines--Central Link, which serves Seattle and is the main spine of the system, and Tacoma Link, which serves Tacoma, is separated from Central Link's southern terminus by about twenty-three miles, and was actually finished first. I didn't have an opportunity to get myself down to Tacoma, so this overview is thus limited to just the Central Link.
The fact that I have to make that sort of explanation, something I've never had to do for any other transit network I've studied, really sets the bar for me.
The Central Link consists of one line, beginning in the north underneath downtown Seattle at Westlake Station and ending in the south at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, with a total of thirteen stations for good luck. Outside of downtown it proceeds along a pretty strict north-south axis, if for no other reason than local geography forced Seattle itself to develop in the same manner.
The nature of the areas that the Central Link serves, however, make it distinct from a lot of other systems. Sure, the Phoenix light rail may pass through a lot of hollow-seeming areas, like downtown Phoenix, but it links up with places like downtown Tempe and Papago Park and Sky Harbor International Airport along the way. For the Central Link, the airport is more of a destination in and of itself. That's not a bad thing, mind you. There are plenty of cities out there that are only connected to their airports by buses, and if you haven't tried to carry your luggage home on a bus, you are surely missing some kind of fun.
In Seattle, it felt less like the airport was one of the potential destinations along the line, and more like the line's route was specifically chosen to connect to the airport. Again, nothing wrong with this on the surface, but here's where Seattle's rather stark urban geography comes into play. Travelling south from International District/Chinatown Station, immediately adjacent to the city's train station and close at hand to the downtown core, you will encounter Seattle's two primary stadiums, and then you will be surrounded by warehouses. Further south, the neighborhoods transition into a more residential character along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, but they give the impression of neighborhoods that didn't previously have transit service, the way that rapid transit or light rail lines in other cities were built along former streetcar routes.
At least, that's what it seemed like to me. My experience with these areas is admittedly superficial. The point is, though, that there don't seem to be many trip generators outside of the northern and southern termini. Construction is underway to extend the light rail north, deeper into Seattle proper, but service isn't expected to begin on those lines until at least the early 2020s. If you're talking about extending it down to Tacoma and finally combining the system into a coherent whole, you'll more likely be waiting until the 2040s before you see something like that.
Central Link ticket machines at SODO Station. Hmm, with a slogan "ride the wave" you think it'd have made sense to call the system something like "Wave Light Rail." Unless that was thought to be stupid.
Ticket vending machines are pretty much the same anywhere, so I'm not going to belabor the point. Where the Central Link differs from the crowd is the manner in which it charges fares. Despite its simple layout, there are fare zones here, and not the usual kind of zones where the core city is zone 1 and the inner suburbs are zone 2 and so forth. Instead they're based on distance, where each mile of the trip adds five cents to the $2.00 base fare, with the resulting zones depending on the station you're starting from. Even day passes are influenced by this structure; rather than the "pay one price, get unlimited use" that's standard elsewhere, on the Central Link a day pass is just twice the one-way fare between the two specific stations you intend to be travelling between.
Yes, it's strange. No, I don't know why it's done like that. It is, at least, better than the system used by King County Metro, operator of the Central Link. There isn't even such a thing as a day pass on KCM buses. Because, you know, the prospect of getting around Seattle wasn't irritating enough already.
The high, curved roof of Pioneer Square Station not only keeps people in the station from asphyxiating, but may make it more welcoming to claustrophobes than underground stations elsewhere.
When it comes to transit downtown, the Central Link and Vancouver's SkyTrain have an element in common; their routes in the core were determined by the route of the pre-existing infrastructure they use. In Seattle, this is the 2.1 kilometer long Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, opened in 1990 to give buses an alternative to Seattle's traffic-clogged streets. Structurally, the tunnel stations are reminiscent of something you'd find on the Montreal Metro, and they're the only transit stations I know of where the same platforms are shared between light rail and diesel hybrid buses.
Beyond the downtown tunnel, designs are varied. Many of the stations, like SODO and Columbia City, are built at grade in the right-of-way, while a few are elevated or underground. Each station has its own unique logo to represent each station, like the Fukuoka City Subway or the Mexico City Metro--Rainier Beach is a stork, Pioneer Square is a clipper ship, and so on. These logos are used on the ticket machines when you're selecting the active stations, and they do help to bring a touch of character to the system.
With the immense scale of the tunnel stations, it's likely they'd be able to handle any length of train that Seattle's demand could require, and outside of it the stations are generally built with future expansion in mind. Eyeballing it, they look to be able to accomodate four-car trainsets, double the size that are in use today, but it's evident that some prepatory work would have to be done before that extra platform space could be comfortably used. At some stations, there aren't enough shelters to cover even the footprint of the two-car trains that are used today, and the misery of waiting for a train in Cascadia rain isn't exactly going to endear a lot of people toward using transit, I'd imagine.
A Central Link train waits in what I believe to be International District/Chinatown Station.
The trains themselves, at least, were familiar--Central Link uses the same Kinkisharyo rolling stock as does Phoenix, and what's true for one is true for the other, though the air aboard the trains I was on did seem somewhat stale; in a city like Seattle, with overcast skies a fact of life, it's not necessary to constantly run the air conditioning to make sure the passengers keep breathing.
I actually don't have anything else to say about them, really. They're powered by pantographs, they seem to run smoothly, and their digital rollsigns make it easy to know where they're going, which presumably would become a factor only on occasions when they're short-turned. They're low-floored and there is plenty of seating room and they're generally clean except when people flout the "no eating" rule. What else is there, really?
There are no barriers to entry at Stadium Station.
In some respects, the Central Link reflects what Vancouver's SkyTrain could have been. You won't find any turnstiles on the system; instead, when you're entering and leaving you'll hear the constant electronic beep of ORCA cards touching the readers. The unified electronic card of the Puget Sound area, ORCA seems to be extremely common among Seattle's transit riders. The fare inspector who came through the train with a handheld reader seemed almost bemused that I had a paper ticket to present instead, the same way you might react to someone seeking to purchase a movie on VHS. I'm not sure whether fare evasion is a significant problem in Seattle, but it does demonstrate that electronic farecards and turnstiles don't always have to be combined.
Like other new-built systems, Central Link stations are unstaffed save for the cleaning crews that pass through and some security personnel here and there. If you're having an issue with one of the ticket machines, there's nothing to do but hope some other traveller comes by who can give you a hand. Depending on where you are, though, even that may be unlikely.
The Central Link connects marginally well to the rest of the urban transit network. At its Westlake terminus, it's only a few flights of stairs to the Seattle Center Monorail, and the southernmost stop of the South Lake Union Streetcar is only a block or so away. I'm not sure to what degree intermediate stations beyond the tunnel are connected with the bus system, but at Tukwila International Boulevard Station--originally the southern terminus until the line was extended to Sea-Tac, literally on the other side of the highway--there's an impressive array of bus connections underneath the towering railbed. There's plenty of information provided at the stops here, from route maps and arrival times to full-on system maps and fare information for King County Metro's bus system. That sort of integration is necessary, of course; with the light rail being as limited as it is, and directly serving such a small area of the city, most passengers would likely be relying on the bus system for outlying parts of their journey.
It was hard writing this, as hard as I've ever experienced writing about a transit system. In other cities, I've found it to be easy--there are plenty of new things to find, curiosities to trip over, and weaknesses to exploit. In Seattle, I had a hard time coming up with strengths. Whenever I tried to take myself onto the Link it was an ordeal, simply because from all appearances there was nothing particularly interesting for me to take it to, and I don't think it was just the fact that my hotel in Queen Anne was a bit of a walk from the nearest railhead. Plenty of times I just didn't step on the Link at all, because I couldn't think of anything it would take me to that would be worth the money it cost me to get there and back again.
Honestly, I found it an embarrassment. If it was a city like Spokane, say, that operated such a system, I would be far more understanding. The simple fact of the matter is that Seattle is not only the prime city of modern Cascadia, but it has been so for over a hundred years, and it nevertheless waited until the twenty-first century to get serious about building a system with rails on--and even then it's not much. The Central Link, as it exists in 2012, strikes me as the result of "well, we've got to build SOMETHING, so what's the easiest and cheapest route to do?"
Sure, it's still in its early stages, and last week Sound Transit officially broke ground on the 4.3-mile extension to Northgate, and when it opens in 2021 or wherever it does it'll significantly expand Seattle's transit-accessible area. What gets me is that I feel like Seattle is pursuing these early stages way too late. Especially for a city with the reputation of Seattle, what's going on now would have been more appropriate back in 1982. If that was the case, Seattle would have a far bigger, more comprehensive transit network, one far more appropriate to its size than the current Central Link.
That's what there is, though. Especially when it comes to higher-order transit, sometimes people just have to take whatever it is they can get.
Previous Tunnel Visions
Seattle is another one of those cities whose reputation precedes it. From where I grew up in the grinding, posterboard sameness of the Central Ontario suburbs, Seattle was always the epicenter of cool--an incredible, happening city filled with interesting people where awesome things happened, a forward-thinking place that left the hidebound East in the dust. Sure, this is true to a limited extent if you squint, but not nearly as much as you're led to believe from a distance... but that's true with all things. As the Amtrak Cascades pulled out of Portland's Union Station this past June, I was eager to find those spots where reality managed to live up to the hype.
When it comes to Seattle's light rail transit system, there is no hype. Therefore, literally my very first experience with it came in the form of some guy in Westlake Station grousing at a busker and then overturning a garbage can and screaming incoherently, all while I was trying to ignore everything and buy a ticket. But you can't ignore something like that.
Sure, that's just a hopefully isolated incident, but it was telling in its way. I didn't need the four days I spent in Rain City to come to the conclusion that Seattle has the worst rail transit system for a city of its size among any I've experienced. I mean, even Phoenix's is better--Phoenix, the city of desert and sprawl and an empty downtown on weekend mornings. Seattle acts like the New York of Cascadia, but when it comes to getting around it's more like Poughkeepsie.
Not that I have anything against Poughkeepsie. I just doubt that its transit is up to the standard set by New York City.
System
A southbound train departs SODO Station.The first thing I need to establish is that describing this network as Seattle's Link Light Rail isn't strictly accurate. Not only is it not just Seattle's, but it's not even a unified system. Link Light Rail, owned by the regional transit provider Sound Transit, consists of two physically separated lines--Central Link, which serves Seattle and is the main spine of the system, and Tacoma Link, which serves Tacoma, is separated from Central Link's southern terminus by about twenty-three miles, and was actually finished first. I didn't have an opportunity to get myself down to Tacoma, so this overview is thus limited to just the Central Link.
The fact that I have to make that sort of explanation, something I've never had to do for any other transit network I've studied, really sets the bar for me.
The Central Link consists of one line, beginning in the north underneath downtown Seattle at Westlake Station and ending in the south at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, with a total of thirteen stations for good luck. Outside of downtown it proceeds along a pretty strict north-south axis, if for no other reason than local geography forced Seattle itself to develop in the same manner.
The nature of the areas that the Central Link serves, however, make it distinct from a lot of other systems. Sure, the Phoenix light rail may pass through a lot of hollow-seeming areas, like downtown Phoenix, but it links up with places like downtown Tempe and Papago Park and Sky Harbor International Airport along the way. For the Central Link, the airport is more of a destination in and of itself. That's not a bad thing, mind you. There are plenty of cities out there that are only connected to their airports by buses, and if you haven't tried to carry your luggage home on a bus, you are surely missing some kind of fun.
In Seattle, it felt less like the airport was one of the potential destinations along the line, and more like the line's route was specifically chosen to connect to the airport. Again, nothing wrong with this on the surface, but here's where Seattle's rather stark urban geography comes into play. Travelling south from International District/Chinatown Station, immediately adjacent to the city's train station and close at hand to the downtown core, you will encounter Seattle's two primary stadiums, and then you will be surrounded by warehouses. Further south, the neighborhoods transition into a more residential character along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, but they give the impression of neighborhoods that didn't previously have transit service, the way that rapid transit or light rail lines in other cities were built along former streetcar routes.
At least, that's what it seemed like to me. My experience with these areas is admittedly superficial. The point is, though, that there don't seem to be many trip generators outside of the northern and southern termini. Construction is underway to extend the light rail north, deeper into Seattle proper, but service isn't expected to begin on those lines until at least the early 2020s. If you're talking about extending it down to Tacoma and finally combining the system into a coherent whole, you'll more likely be waiting until the 2040s before you see something like that.
Central Link ticket machines at SODO Station. Hmm, with a slogan "ride the wave" you think it'd have made sense to call the system something like "Wave Light Rail." Unless that was thought to be stupid.Ticket vending machines are pretty much the same anywhere, so I'm not going to belabor the point. Where the Central Link differs from the crowd is the manner in which it charges fares. Despite its simple layout, there are fare zones here, and not the usual kind of zones where the core city is zone 1 and the inner suburbs are zone 2 and so forth. Instead they're based on distance, where each mile of the trip adds five cents to the $2.00 base fare, with the resulting zones depending on the station you're starting from. Even day passes are influenced by this structure; rather than the "pay one price, get unlimited use" that's standard elsewhere, on the Central Link a day pass is just twice the one-way fare between the two specific stations you intend to be travelling between.
Yes, it's strange. No, I don't know why it's done like that. It is, at least, better than the system used by King County Metro, operator of the Central Link. There isn't even such a thing as a day pass on KCM buses. Because, you know, the prospect of getting around Seattle wasn't irritating enough already.
Stations
The high, curved roof of Pioneer Square Station not only keeps people in the station from asphyxiating, but may make it more welcoming to claustrophobes than underground stations elsewhere.When it comes to transit downtown, the Central Link and Vancouver's SkyTrain have an element in common; their routes in the core were determined by the route of the pre-existing infrastructure they use. In Seattle, this is the 2.1 kilometer long Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, opened in 1990 to give buses an alternative to Seattle's traffic-clogged streets. Structurally, the tunnel stations are reminiscent of something you'd find on the Montreal Metro, and they're the only transit stations I know of where the same platforms are shared between light rail and diesel hybrid buses.
Beyond the downtown tunnel, designs are varied. Many of the stations, like SODO and Columbia City, are built at grade in the right-of-way, while a few are elevated or underground. Each station has its own unique logo to represent each station, like the Fukuoka City Subway or the Mexico City Metro--Rainier Beach is a stork, Pioneer Square is a clipper ship, and so on. These logos are used on the ticket machines when you're selecting the active stations, and they do help to bring a touch of character to the system.
With the immense scale of the tunnel stations, it's likely they'd be able to handle any length of train that Seattle's demand could require, and outside of it the stations are generally built with future expansion in mind. Eyeballing it, they look to be able to accomodate four-car trainsets, double the size that are in use today, but it's evident that some prepatory work would have to be done before that extra platform space could be comfortably used. At some stations, there aren't enough shelters to cover even the footprint of the two-car trains that are used today, and the misery of waiting for a train in Cascadia rain isn't exactly going to endear a lot of people toward using transit, I'd imagine.
Equipment
A Central Link train waits in what I believe to be International District/Chinatown Station.The trains themselves, at least, were familiar--Central Link uses the same Kinkisharyo rolling stock as does Phoenix, and what's true for one is true for the other, though the air aboard the trains I was on did seem somewhat stale; in a city like Seattle, with overcast skies a fact of life, it's not necessary to constantly run the air conditioning to make sure the passengers keep breathing.
I actually don't have anything else to say about them, really. They're powered by pantographs, they seem to run smoothly, and their digital rollsigns make it easy to know where they're going, which presumably would become a factor only on occasions when they're short-turned. They're low-floored and there is plenty of seating room and they're generally clean except when people flout the "no eating" rule. What else is there, really?
Ease of Access and Ease of Use
There are no barriers to entry at Stadium Station.In some respects, the Central Link reflects what Vancouver's SkyTrain could have been. You won't find any turnstiles on the system; instead, when you're entering and leaving you'll hear the constant electronic beep of ORCA cards touching the readers. The unified electronic card of the Puget Sound area, ORCA seems to be extremely common among Seattle's transit riders. The fare inspector who came through the train with a handheld reader seemed almost bemused that I had a paper ticket to present instead, the same way you might react to someone seeking to purchase a movie on VHS. I'm not sure whether fare evasion is a significant problem in Seattle, but it does demonstrate that electronic farecards and turnstiles don't always have to be combined.
Like other new-built systems, Central Link stations are unstaffed save for the cleaning crews that pass through and some security personnel here and there. If you're having an issue with one of the ticket machines, there's nothing to do but hope some other traveller comes by who can give you a hand. Depending on where you are, though, even that may be unlikely.
The Central Link connects marginally well to the rest of the urban transit network. At its Westlake terminus, it's only a few flights of stairs to the Seattle Center Monorail, and the southernmost stop of the South Lake Union Streetcar is only a block or so away. I'm not sure to what degree intermediate stations beyond the tunnel are connected with the bus system, but at Tukwila International Boulevard Station--originally the southern terminus until the line was extended to Sea-Tac, literally on the other side of the highway--there's an impressive array of bus connections underneath the towering railbed. There's plenty of information provided at the stops here, from route maps and arrival times to full-on system maps and fare information for King County Metro's bus system. That sort of integration is necessary, of course; with the light rail being as limited as it is, and directly serving such a small area of the city, most passengers would likely be relying on the bus system for outlying parts of their journey.
Conclusion
It was hard writing this, as hard as I've ever experienced writing about a transit system. In other cities, I've found it to be easy--there are plenty of new things to find, curiosities to trip over, and weaknesses to exploit. In Seattle, I had a hard time coming up with strengths. Whenever I tried to take myself onto the Link it was an ordeal, simply because from all appearances there was nothing particularly interesting for me to take it to, and I don't think it was just the fact that my hotel in Queen Anne was a bit of a walk from the nearest railhead. Plenty of times I just didn't step on the Link at all, because I couldn't think of anything it would take me to that would be worth the money it cost me to get there and back again.
Honestly, I found it an embarrassment. If it was a city like Spokane, say, that operated such a system, I would be far more understanding. The simple fact of the matter is that Seattle is not only the prime city of modern Cascadia, but it has been so for over a hundred years, and it nevertheless waited until the twenty-first century to get serious about building a system with rails on--and even then it's not much. The Central Link, as it exists in 2012, strikes me as the result of "well, we've got to build SOMETHING, so what's the easiest and cheapest route to do?"
Sure, it's still in its early stages, and last week Sound Transit officially broke ground on the 4.3-mile extension to Northgate, and when it opens in 2021 or wherever it does it'll significantly expand Seattle's transit-accessible area. What gets me is that I feel like Seattle is pursuing these early stages way too late. Especially for a city with the reputation of Seattle, what's going on now would have been more appropriate back in 1982. If that was the case, Seattle would have a far bigger, more comprehensive transit network, one far more appropriate to its size than the current Central Link.
That's what there is, though. Especially when it comes to higher-order transit, sometimes people just have to take whatever it is they can get.
Previous Tunnel Visions
Monday, August 27, 2012
Photo: Shadows in the Sky
There was a lucky arrangement of clouds in the evening sky over New Westminster a couple of weekends back, lit up amid shadows in the sunset that spread across the sky like an unfolded fan of darkness and light. I took this shot looking north, across the street from New Westminster City Hall.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Sunday, August 26, 2012
For Neil
When my right index finger starts going numb, something that I've only experienced in the context of funerals, I know it's a serious thing. So it was when I heard the news that Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, died yesterday. While it's the sort of news I knew that I'd hear one day, for it to be extracted from that comfortably distant future and dropped into the present was a shock. You don't ever wake up and expect that particular day to be the Day.
But it was, and the man who took one small step forty-three years ago is gone. There are other moonwalkers, of course; Buzz Aldrin is still alive, still healthy, and still punching out moon landing deniers. Neil Armstrong was different, though--he was the first. First in a way that it's difficult to conceive of without some thought, first in a way that's utterly foreign to Earth.
Barring an ancient extraterrestrial scout mission or some previous technological species that's been obliterated from the fossil record, he was the first thinking being to step out among those rocks in the history of time. Not just the first man, not just the first human, but the first sapient being in all the universe.
The first, and he returned to Earth to live a modest life. He didn't allow his experience to go to his head. He didn't take advantage of his fame for political ends. He did things no one had ever done before, and as long as there are those who look up in wonder at that silver world in the sky, he will never be forgotten.
But it was, and the man who took one small step forty-three years ago is gone. There are other moonwalkers, of course; Buzz Aldrin is still alive, still healthy, and still punching out moon landing deniers. Neil Armstrong was different, though--he was the first. First in a way that it's difficult to conceive of without some thought, first in a way that's utterly foreign to Earth.
Barring an ancient extraterrestrial scout mission or some previous technological species that's been obliterated from the fossil record, he was the first thinking being to step out among those rocks in the history of time. Not just the first man, not just the first human, but the first sapient being in all the universe.
The first, and he returned to Earth to live a modest life. He didn't allow his experience to go to his head. He didn't take advantage of his fame for political ends. He did things no one had ever done before, and as long as there are those who look up in wonder at that silver world in the sky, he will never be forgotten.
see you space cowboy...
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Photo: One of These Things Ain't Like the Others
For your consideration: an ordinary wood board on an ordinary street in New Westminster, perhaps covering a broken door or window. Graffiti has been left on it, as graffiti tends to be. Given the experience of the last few years, I can understand why some would be attracted to brutally simplistic economic solutions and new political modes... and then there's the "Harry Potter Rules" at the bottom.
Kind of a departure from the previously-established theme.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This means that you are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to Remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: Attribution (you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), Noncommercial (you may not use this work for commercial purposes), and Share Alike (if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one).
Kind of a departure from the previously-established theme.
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Friday, August 24, 2012
Don't Implausibly Mess With Texas
You've probably heard about what's come out of Texas lately. If you haven't, well, you're in for a hell of a trip to the other side of the looking glass. In recent television and radio interviews, Lubbock County Judge Tom Head--who, despite his title, is in fact the county's chief executive--attempted to justify the tax increase his government is trying to levy by saying that it's necessary to properly equip Lubbock County's law enforcement personnel so they can resist a United Nations invasion.
Let that one just sink in for a minute.
Fear of the United Nations has a long provenance in certain parts of the United States. I really have difficulty understanding why. If the United States had, say, turned over its nuclear weapons to the organization in 1946 to give it the necessary teeth to enforce world peace, as people such as Robert Heinlein advocated at the time, it would make sense--after all, I mean, when words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS they're not quite as easy to ignore. But words are all the United Nations is about. It's the biggest debating society on the planet. So, instead, it seems that much of the anti-UN fear has coalesced around the concept of the UN leading a "one world government" charge in line with some Biblical prophecy of the End Times or another.
Fear because if President Obama gets re-elected, he's going to surrender American sovereignty to the United Nations and become a dictator, even though I always thought that in order to be a dictator of something you had to retain sovereignty over it. Maybe he means that Obama would instead become the dictatorial viceroy, like the Vice President in Metal Wolf Chaos. Sure, that would trigger civil war, and so Obama would call in the UN troops. Yes, the 124,000 UN peacekeeping troops, significant chunks of which are provided by such cutting-edge military powerhouses as Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Senegal. I can certainly see such a force making progress in a country where there's a rifle behind every blade of grass.
But he's serious. Judge Head wants to keep the UN invaders out of Lubbock County, and so his brilliant plan to defend American liberty is to "[stand] in front of their personnel carriers and say, 'You're not coming in here.'"
Yeah, I think the gas pedal over here has something to say about that.
There's a certain amount of doublethink that's necessary for people who think like this. First off, there's the simple fact that the United States is a juggernaut, commanding the single most powerful military force that has ever existed. Yet, nevertheless, it must also be vulnerable. How? Well, that's the crux of it, isn't it? The new Red Dawn had to give its North Korean invaders a way to turn off technology, and even then it's still ridiculous.
To put it simply, people who believe that this sort of thing is possible, that this sort of thing is a legitimate threat, do not live in the same world as the rest of us. I mean, where are all those UN troops going to come from? How are they going to be brought to the United States? How are they going to be supplied in the United States? Why not just nuke a few American cities to demonstrate that they mean business?
The killer part of it is, Head's plans don't even make sense in the context of his fears. If he was seriously worried about an invasion, he should be organizing things like hidden ammo dumps and supply caches out in the countryside, known to the local defenders but not officially marked, so that they could have equipment reserves to fall back on once the invaders arrive in force. He should be arranging things so that a county police force has the equipment it needs to fight a military. Most importantly of all, he shouldn't be bloody well telling people about it! The United States government is intelligent enough to hide its black ops budgets underneath $30,000 wrenches. I mean, do you think the activities of Area 51 are going to show up as individual line items in a publicly-available budget?
The other possibility is that Head knows this is all bull, but is using it as a necessary smokescreen to get the voters to approve a tax increase. If that's the case, well... if that's the case maybe Texas would be better off invaded by the UN.
Let that one just sink in for a minute.
Fear of the United Nations has a long provenance in certain parts of the United States. I really have difficulty understanding why. If the United States had, say, turned over its nuclear weapons to the organization in 1946 to give it the necessary teeth to enforce world peace, as people such as Robert Heinlein advocated at the time, it would make sense--after all, I mean, when words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS they're not quite as easy to ignore. But words are all the United Nations is about. It's the biggest debating society on the planet. So, instead, it seems that much of the anti-UN fear has coalesced around the concept of the UN leading a "one world government" charge in line with some Biblical prophecy of the End Times or another.
Fear because if President Obama gets re-elected, he's going to surrender American sovereignty to the United Nations and become a dictator, even though I always thought that in order to be a dictator of something you had to retain sovereignty over it. Maybe he means that Obama would instead become the dictatorial viceroy, like the Vice President in Metal Wolf Chaos. Sure, that would trigger civil war, and so Obama would call in the UN troops. Yes, the 124,000 UN peacekeeping troops, significant chunks of which are provided by such cutting-edge military powerhouses as Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Senegal. I can certainly see such a force making progress in a country where there's a rifle behind every blade of grass.
But he's serious. Judge Head wants to keep the UN invaders out of Lubbock County, and so his brilliant plan to defend American liberty is to "[stand] in front of their personnel carriers and say, 'You're not coming in here.'"
Yeah, I think the gas pedal over here has something to say about that.There's a certain amount of doublethink that's necessary for people who think like this. First off, there's the simple fact that the United States is a juggernaut, commanding the single most powerful military force that has ever existed. Yet, nevertheless, it must also be vulnerable. How? Well, that's the crux of it, isn't it? The new Red Dawn had to give its North Korean invaders a way to turn off technology, and even then it's still ridiculous.
To put it simply, people who believe that this sort of thing is possible, that this sort of thing is a legitimate threat, do not live in the same world as the rest of us. I mean, where are all those UN troops going to come from? How are they going to be brought to the United States? How are they going to be supplied in the United States? Why not just nuke a few American cities to demonstrate that they mean business?
The killer part of it is, Head's plans don't even make sense in the context of his fears. If he was seriously worried about an invasion, he should be organizing things like hidden ammo dumps and supply caches out in the countryside, known to the local defenders but not officially marked, so that they could have equipment reserves to fall back on once the invaders arrive in force. He should be arranging things so that a county police force has the equipment it needs to fight a military. Most importantly of all, he shouldn't be bloody well telling people about it! The United States government is intelligent enough to hide its black ops budgets underneath $30,000 wrenches. I mean, do you think the activities of Area 51 are going to show up as individual line items in a publicly-available budget?
The other possibility is that Head knows this is all bull, but is using it as a necessary smokescreen to get the voters to approve a tax increase. If that's the case, well... if that's the case maybe Texas would be better off invaded by the UN.
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