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01 June
Slicing and Dicing

Another blackout day coming up. Back under the knife on Tuesday for a "little cleanup." The surgeon says I'll be rid of those back spasms after this trip. Somehow, I don't find that encouraging; he said that in January, too. OK, admittedly, things were more of a mess than the scans showed; nonetheless, it's my back, not his. This little trip in is supposed to be outpatient, and I've been promised that I'll be able to walk out (if I don't fall over from the drugs!). Perhaps some more Percodan-inspired poetry on the way?

An unfortunate exchange on The Rumor Mill (if you're a writer, but not a regular visitor, I have only one question: why?) drove home the moral bankruptcy of the American right to me. This is an extension of the exchange, which of itself only pointed out a blind spot; I certainly hope that the individual who has precipitated my ire isn't as mean-spirited and hypocritical as the average right-wing politician. (For the sake of "equal time," I'll dump on the extremist left—well, there isn't one in this country, but you'll have to suffer through that rant too—later this month. And don't get the idea that I'm some wishy-washy centrist, either.)

Moral bankruptcy? Aren't these the guys crying for a return to family values? Well, yes, they are. But their "family values" are to "values" as a "'Family' business" is to "business."

What actually happened is that I remarked that Danielle Steel's writing relentlessly celebrates an elitist reactionary/feodalistic/fascist viewpoint, in the context of supporting Orwell's observation that all writing is political (and that the decision to "depoliticize" the writing is itself a political decision). Someone then disgustedly remarked that my comment reflects the leftist view that anything disagreeable must be evil, wrong, and reactionary. That, my diligent readers, is knee-jerk conservatism.

Consider the converse. How many doyens of the right have any tolerance for anything from left of Attila the Hun?

It's the implications of this whole issue that expose the hypocrisy—and, therefore, moral bankruptcy, because refusal to follow even the self-serving moral values espoused is the best definition I can think of for "moral bankruptcy"—of turn-of-the-millenium American right-wing thought, whatever it calls itself. The nation is supposedly founded on good, traditional, Christian moral values. If so, would someone please explain to me (a) why our upright, uptight Founding Fathers (well, except for Ben Franklin, who was anything but uptight) revolted against a power structure 700 years old, however abusive it may have been (which is not to say that the colonists had no faults, either), and (b) why "Christian tolerance" isn't subsumed in said ideology. I have more questions, but those will do for starters.

And this is why "family values" are to "values" as a "'Family' business" is to "business." The business model of organized crime is very simple: nonproductive strongmen skim off the profits of the productive elements of society, ruthlessly exterminate all opposition (however token), and prey on the weaknesses of the most downtrodden members of society without any concern for the fact that many, if not most, members of organized crime "families" have fairly humble origins. The moral model of kneejerk conservatism is also very simple: nonproductive strongmen skim off the political power and ambitions of the productive elements of society, ruthlessly exterminate all opposition (however token), and prey on the weaknesses of the most downtrodden members of society without any concern for the fact that many, if not most, kneejerk conservatives have fairly humble origins.

What does this have to do with speculative fiction, or literature in general? Do I really have to answer that? OK, one hint: go to a good recent encyclopedia and read the entries for "academic freedom," "Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr," "Turing, Alan," and "Einstein, Albert." If reading those entries together (it's not a good encyclopedia if it doesn't have separate entries for all four) doesn't answer the question, my explanation wouldn't make any sense in any event.

One final caveat: These are observations about the conservative movement, not necessarily individual conservatives. I keep my mind open about any individual until he or she closes it for me. I have actually met a couple of truly compassionate individuals, who tolerated dissent, but were nevertheless very right-wing in their views and values. But, despite the fact that I served under three Presidents in the conservative military culture, only a couple.

04 June
The Left Hand Doesn't Know

Rather than keep y'all in suspense, particularly since I remain uncertain of the potential coherency of the next several entries, here's my initial criticism of what passes for the left in the US. (It's actually a center-left position in European politics. Whatever.)

The American Left is just as obsessed with ancestry as the American Right. One isn't really accepted unless one can point to grievously oppressed ancestors; the one exception is those who flaunt a nonheterosexual lifestyle. It's very much like buying a Model T from Henry Ford (those who've actually read Brave New World closely are probably laughing harder than the rest):

If you want to be a liberal in America, you can be any color you want—as long as it's black.

This is the American Left's method of displacing noblesse oblige and noble blood. I, for example, as a straight white male, am not accepted in liberal circles as having sufficient authenticity. This is as crippling as the discrimination fought as a first step by the last American liberals, who probably died around the time Korematsu and Hirabayashi admitted, for the first time, that the US government had a formally racist policy. Admitting the problem was the first step to a solution, which then proved almost inevitable.

The irony of this is the leveling/amalgamation theory, coupled with ghetto-building practices, of the whole movement. Even more so than the American Right, the American Left no longer wants intellectuals, or any other practice that even hints at "elitism." A war fought for individual rights has turned around completely into labelling, groupthink, and "the greatest good for the greatest number, and to hell with individualismus." This is the real power of one of the most significant events in The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin's greatly underappreciated novel. Aside: I'll have to wait for the promised videotape, as my local station was not able to broadcast it. It's part of an expensive package from APT that stations had to buy sight-unseen last September. The image of the grey people as the simplest way to avoid discrimination has substantial power. But lurking there in the background, we know that greyness is not enough, because George, Heather, and Dr. Haber remain different. Heather's difference is so much a part of her that she disappears from the narrative for a time.

Again, what does this have to do with literature or writing? Leaving aside the severe damage of faulty, self-contradictory thought processes, there's this: Literature above what William Goldman calls the "comic-book story" (which is irrelevant to modern "comics") depends upon character, upon exploring individual differences and fates. This is where so much "fiction of the left" falls apart: the difficulty of disdaining elitism while concentrating on the fate of one or more individuals who must really matter to the reader is too much for all but the true masters. Thus, there's a huge gap between dogma and fiction on the American Left—one that cannot be filled without undermining either the fiction or the dogma.

The so-called "communitarian movement" (the only thing that matters is the strength of the community, which can be a discrete subcommunity) espoused by Amitai Etzioni and his cohort makes a grievous error, one almost the necessary converse of the American Right. One cannot build a strong structure using only identical units. The shapes, strengths, and finishes of the individual units do matter. One can't place individual over society consistently, or society over individual constantly, without reaching dystopia or anarchy. Melissa Scott's Dreaming Metal (and the companion books) presents an interesting vision of the consequences. But, as a heterosexual white male, I'm not supposed to make such a comment, because I don't have the authenticity qualifications.

And here I always thought that the historical treatment of my mother's ancestors would be sufficiently authentic. I guess not.

Again, these are observations on the American Left as a "movement" (such as it is), not intended to comment upon any particular individuals not explicitly named. Except, perhaps, the current leadership of the NAACP, but that's another story.

A parable to close this whole mess on "extremism." Once upon a time, a starving man sat on a rocky beach. Now, choose your ending:

• A compassionate woman came along and offered to share a loaf of bread. The starving man leaped up, snatched the bread from her hand, perhaps committed sexual assault, and ran away. The next day, he was hungry again.
• A compassionate woman came along and offered to share a loaf of bread. The two peacefully ate the bread and parted. The next day, the starving man was hungry again.
• A compassionate woman came along carrying a fishing pole. She handed the pole to the man without a word, and turned away. The man starved to death before he learned how to fish.
• A compassionate woman came along and began teaching the man to fish. He collapsed and died of hunger about a third of the way through the lesson.
• A compassionate woman came along and began teaching the man to fish. When she realized that he was so hungry that he wasn't paying attention, but was instead eating the bait, she gave him a loaf of bread. The man survived and learned to fish. Whether he became infested with parasites from eating raw fish must wait for another time, as must what happens when the pond is frozen over or fished out.

10 June
Where Have You Gone, Harlan Ellison?
Or, Radio Free Albemuth Returns to the Air

This program is tape-delayed. It has been altered from the original: The text has been formatted to fit your screen.

…Strong words in the chatroom
The accusations fly
It's no use
He reads it
He starts the "Shaker" cough
Just like the lawsuit on
That book by Nabakov

Don't scan so
Don't scan so
Don't scan so much for me
Don't scan so
Don't scan so
Don't scan so much for me

That's the Net Police with a classic from the turn of the century. This is Wolfman Warren on Radio Free Albemuth, live from London—your station for true classic rock. Ah-ooooooh! And now, the guitar prowess of Mark Knopfler getting us ready for the reality of New Age publishing and distribution, oh yeah.

I want my MP3s
I want my MP3s
I want my MP3s

Now look at them yoyos
That's the way you do it
You hear my guitar on your MP3
That ain't stealin'?
That's the way you do it
Music for nothin' and the books for free …

Rumor has it that one of the Big Five record companies has closed a multimillion-dollar licensing agreement with MP3.com, to be structured similar to ASCAP/BMI. The real questions are how use is going to get measured, and how the fees are going to get passed on to the users (and they always are, even if invisibly—for example, raising the price to support more advertising). Don't touch that dial! It's the same issue that e-publishers have yet to deal with.

12 June
We Interrupt This Program …

… so what'll it be, transistorheads? The results are too close to call: 35% want me to smash every Led Zeppelin CD in the collection, 34% vote to crush the Barry Manilow stuff, and 31% vote to disintegrate Zeppelin, Manilow, and Frank Sinatra all at once. Time for a caller. The request line is open—867-5309. Here we go! You're on the air!

Like, could you play something by Oedipa Maas and the Paranoids, man? My bong just went dry, and I need to keep mellow.

Your request is my payola!

"The Electronic Media Blues"

My manuscript never touched paper
Past the first chapter or two
But when will my novel earn money?
The publisher hasn't a clue

My writing is perfect for webheads
The paragraphs always stay short
However the grammers atrocious
And the speling's of similar sort

I got the blues, real bad
Them unedited electronic media blues

[long, gratuitous guitar solo]

I got the blues, real bad
Them no-deposit no-return electronic media blues

They told me my book's been remaindered
They only sold twenty CDs
Nineteen of those to my family
And one to the editor's niece

I got the blues, real bad
Them 21st century electronic media blues

Yep. That Percodan's good stuff. Too bad the lyric isn't.

It's a good thing the Percodan is good stuff. I came home after my little experience with the scalpels, collapsed, woke up at 0230, tried to check my email … and got nothing. Then I realized it wasn't 0230, since the sun was coming up. Power outage? Yep, at about 0300. Then I saw the scorch marks.

To make things worse, the backups were almost all corrupted due to a bug known to our "friends" in Redmond, but carefully suppressed until last week. Thus, I've been clunking away on the old battle-ready 286 (darned thing masses 8kg with the battery pack!) until I could get the hard disk stable, recover what I could, slap in a new (old) drive, and start reloading programs. Just what I needed.

As I thought, there was a partial settlement in the MP3 case—Warner and Bertelsmann have each signed $20-million licensing agreements with MP3.com. And, of course, both sides acted like alpha males and dicked things up. This creates some complex law, but I'm not going to go into the details.

One common argument that internet book pirates use is that they should be entitled to read copies they own on any media they have available—standard desktop or laptop, Palm, Windows CE, whatever. This "justifies" posting the entire Anne McCaffrey ouevre, right? Think again. And, if you've been following Harlan's Adventures in Legalland (either through Locus or USA Today), you'll "get" the snide remarks made over the last two days. Authors and readers who care about making it possible for an author to live on his/her writing should stop and think about this. Unlike national-label musicians, writers do not get relatively rich, idle, and famous just because their books have come out from commercial publishers. The royalty stream for books is a lot shorter than that for music, both in volume and in time.

14 June
The Line

We'll start off with some good, and hopeful, news. Today, the MacArthur Foundation announced the 2000 MacArthur Fellows. Quite an interesting group of people. One trend does stand out: almost all of the physicists are working in optics. This might mean that the "best" physicists work in optics; that optics is a hot area; that the anonymous panel/nominator(s) work in optics; or some combination thereof. Keep in mind that one does not apply for a MacArthur "genius grant"—the entire process is supposed to remain unknown to the candidate(s).

One member of the SF community has received a MacArthur grant (and there may well be more than one that I just missed): Octavia E. Butler. Ms. Butler is, unfortunately, an inhabitant of the midlist. Until she abandoned the "traditional" New York SF publishers, her works simply vanished after a year or two each, despite consistent Hugo and Nebula nominations. Only when she moved to Seven Stories has her work developed a "frontlist baseline" sufficient to keep her work moving. The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents are being kept afloat by the non-speculative-fiction community. This says quite a bit about "judging a book by its cover"—and by its publisher. Of course, nobody in New York is really listening, at least partly because most of what we call the "New York" commercial publishers are not American!

• Ace and Roc are ultimately subsidiaries of Pearson, the English media conglomerate
• Eos is ultimately a subsidiary of Newscorp, Rupert Murdoch's corporate alter(ed) ego
• Bantam Spectra and Del Rey are ultimately subsidiaries of Bertelsmann gmBh, the German media conglomerate
• Tor is ultimately a subsidiary of Von Holtzbrinck, an English/Canadian/American/Dutch publishing conglomerate (which is also a major factor in serious magazines)

Not trying to be a xenophobe, I do not think that this is a Good Thing. Had the DOJ and FTC not been asleep at the switch, at least two of the mergers that have created this mess would not have occurred. When properly measured, the mergers in question fall within the "highly suspect" band of the government's guidelines! Only by manipulating the definition of "market" a la Humpty-Dumpty ("a word means exactly what I say it does") can one reach the conclusion that the Bertelsmann, Pearson, and possibly Newscorp grabs are individually acceptable, let alone in combination. The problem is not xenophobia; it is that the top management inherently brings its own assumptions in to final evaluations, and those assumptions are seldom consistent with the pro-author emphasis of the Copyright Clause (Art. I, § 8, cl. 8) and First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

There's a fine line between genius and madness. I think this entry demonstrates the latter; now it's time to work on the former. That's right, Mr. Savage. Just ease up a little, and we'll be able to remove some of the restraints and lower your doseage of Quell.

18 June
"Plastic"

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon,
Going to the candidates' debate,
Laugh about it, shout about it,
When you've got to choose—
Ev'ry way you look at it you lose!

© 1968 Paul Simon (not the former Senator, but might as well be)
(on second thought, the singer is too hip to wear a bow tie)

It's a Presidential election year. I expect every reader of this journal—hell, everyone—to go out, register to vote, and then actually vote. (On the day I turned 18, I registered to vote … and then registered for the draft.) If you don't, I'm gonna whup your ass so hard it'll make Shaft look like a goddam peacenik.

This is the radical position that has been abandoned in American politics. Both the Right and the so-called Left have come to the conclusion that the "political process" doesn't work. The Right uses urban and economic terrorism and expensive, glacial litigation to push its agenda. The Left uses suburban and intellectual terrorism and expensive, glacial litigation to push its agenda. A "Great Society" program (the actual values of which are irrelevant; what matters is the commitment to real, legislatively mandated change) wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even getting seconded in today's American legislatures, let alone getting out of committee. Why does this happen? Because the voters believe that they can't make a difference; that, no matter what they do, things will just stay the same.

The problem here, as in so much in politics, law, and life, is a combination of scale and time. Of course my individual vote is not suddenly going to remove my financial worries the day after Election Day. That's not how government works. Despite the rapidly accelerating pace of change in our individual lives and in technology, a nontotalitarian government is never going to even be in the same race. (I contend that a totalitarian one wouldn't, either, but that's for another time, in another forum.) But things do change, given time. Consider the difference between Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ("separate but equal" may be enforced by state action) and Brown v. Board of Education (I) (1954) ("separate" is not "equal," and may therefore not be enforced by state action). The text of the Constitution did not change in relevant part during that 60-year gap. Or, maybe, it did: Amendment XIX (1920) doubled the size of the electorate by giving women the vote. In any event, the political process of the 1880s and 1890s resulted in Senate rubberstamping of candidates for the Supreme Court, and the subordinate federal courts. By the 1940s and 1950s, such was no longer the case, and an entirely different kind of man was being appointed. The 1896 Court had seven of nine members who had never had to work for a living, being of inherited independent means; the 1954 Court had two. When one looks at the per-year change, though, it looks like nothing happened. A scholar or historian would note all of the incremental changes, beginning with an obscure decision in West Virginia in 1911, that bridge much of the gap between Plessy and Brown I. That is how a democracy works: incrementally. It's not for the impatient. Although I think I really do know better (doesn't everyone?), I've seen too much totalitarianism (political, economic, religious) to be entirely comfortable imposing my "moral fibre" upon others without their explicit approval.

John Hart Ely has famously, and persuasively, argued that the function of the courts in a republican democracy is to fulfill a "countermajoritarian" role. That's why it's important that federal judges have life tenure: they are insulated from the need to run for office. (Whether it is Constitutional to elect state-court judges is an interesting question uniformly punted, both in the courts and in the scholarly literature.) But what is the role of the courts when that majority—the vast majority—doesn't even bother to vote?

And, thus, the radical position: That the individual does matter, and that communities are structures built of strong individuals. This is the foundation of all good fiction, too; is it any wonder that the memorable characters have become so much more remote over the last 30 years, when that is exactly what the electorate has done? Is it any wonder that the Star Warts, Star Drek, and other popular media franchises, which are actually purchased by a shockingly small portion of the population, are all built around totalitarian leaders? (What is Kirk if not an overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood? And all of those other starship captains are no better.)

I don't care if you agree with me. Just vote, dammit! (Of course, by doing so, whomever you support, you'll be advancing my radical agenda. Bwahahahahaha!) Dissent is meaningless when it remains silent. Without dissent, there is no room for literature.

20 June
The Texan Inquisition

The Supremes got one right yesterday. In Santa Fe Ind. Schl. Dist. v. Doe, a six-member majority of the Court held that so-called "student-led and initiated prayer" prior to weekly football games, delivered over the stadium loudspeaker, is an impermissible establishment of religion. Since the Court, constrained as it is by the realities of legal procedure, couldn't say what it meant, I'll say it:

Yeah, right. <SARCASM>We really believe that the students came up with the idea for this pre-game prayer independently of their parents and of school officials, forced it upon the board, and will act completely independently of official guidance in implementing it. We also really believe that the parents, school officials, and school board have no intention whatsoever of putting even minimal pressure on students to actively participate in this ceremony, and that the students are independently capable of ensuring that the prayers offered are nonsectarian and nondiscriminatory. Finally, we completely trust that school officials will offer non-majority believers a fair and equal opportunity to participate. After all, no semirural Texas football season would be complete without an "appropriate" prayer in Hebrew!</SARCASM>

Do you really think we're that clueless? OK, the College Savings Bank decisions last Term were brain-dead, but they're so hypertechnical that we don't expect anyone else to notice, and anyway we're already beginning to regret them. Even though we're all lawyers, we have some familiarity with the realities of high-school politics. Hell, one of us was in prep school as little as 40 years ago, so we know all about peer pressure!

This decision is important for another reason. Had the "student-initiated prayer" system been found acceptable, we would next see "student-initiated" censorship as students begin demanding (all without any parental or clerical pressure, of course) that certain "filthy" books be removed from school libraries and curricula. In the interim since the Santa Fe schools adopted the prayer policy, we've seen lots of attempts to censor speculative fiction right out of the schools and local libraries. Some of those attempts have been at a general level ("get all of the books with magic out"); some have been more specific ("the Harry Potter books are unacceptably enthusiastic about witches"); some have been exceptionally pathetic (like the three attempts to remove Fahrenheit 451). All have been brain-dead. To slightly rephrase what I said Sunday night: "Dissent is meaningless when … silen[ced]. Without dissent, there is no room for literature."

25 June
"You Shall Be Avenged"

….
A Catholic would be killed tonight to even up the score
Oh Christ! It's young McDonald that they've taken from the door
"Isaac was my friend!" he cried, he begged them with his tears
But centuries of hatred made ears that cannot hear
An eye for an eye—it was all that filled their minds
And another eye for another eye, till everyone is blind

There were roses, roses
There were roses
And the tears of the people ran together

….

Now I don't know where the moral is, or where this song should end
But I wonder just how many wars are fought between good friends
And those who give the orders—they are not the ones to die
It's Scott, and McDonald, and the likes of you and I …

© 1985 Elmgrove Music

29 June
Recess

Finally. It's time for summer recess for those most unruly children who maintain their office immediately behind the Capitol Building. I would have given quite a bit to be there on Wednesday morning, watching Sandra and the Supremes (two women and seven guys in dresses) snarl, and spit, and pull each other's receding hair. Apparently, this last day of October Term 1999 was the most contentious session of the Court in years. It's not that common, although not that unusual, for a day's work to result in eight written opinions. But that was just one case—a majority opinion, three concurring opinions, and four dissents that demonstrated all the intellectual detachment and emotional maturity of third-grade recess. (Of course, the two youngest were the worst.)

And so, this is where we are. Tasini is in the midst of the certiorari process at this writing. I do not expect a decision on cert. until November at the earliest, as briefing will not be completed until mid-July (on the ordinary calendar). That means oral argument in March or April of 2001, at the earliest, and more probably not until the October 2001 Term.

In the meantime, the Court is very much like it was during the last few years of the Burger Court. The Chief Justice seems to have lost his ability to control the factional warfare raging in the halls, which would be a superhuman feat in any event; the justices are getting older and more set in their ways; there is a major national election looming, one which will probably determine the Court's course for ten to fifteen years as three or four members retire; new technologies further expose the Court's Luddite tendencies; I could go on, but I won't.

Many observers believe that this presidential election is more about who gets to shape the Court than anything else. There's certainly little substantively to separate two candidates born with silver feet in their mouths. I can't vote for a double-talking Southern governor who can't be bothered to fulfill his responsibilities under the Texas constitution. Neither can I vote for a double-talking Southern Senator whose wife couldn't find the First Amendment if it slid up her leg and bit her in that delicate place that nice people just don't talk about. ("Listen, lady, it's an act!") Harold Stassen isn't an option any more; even in Chicago, it's only the voters who can be dead, not the candidates.

Maybe the South did win the Civil War (War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, whatever blows your skirt up), but just didn't tell anyone. The last few presidents have been Lyndon Brainless Johnson (Southerner), Richard M. Nixon (Duke Law graduate), Gerald R. Ford (ok, one token westerner), Mr. Peanut (Southern governor), Ronald Reagan (not of this world), Bush the Elder (considers himself a Texan), and Tubby the Two-timer (Southern governor), with the prospect of a Southern governor or a Southern Senator to come. The last Speaker of the House from north of the Mason-Dixon line was Tip O'Neill—and he followed close upon the heels of Sam Rayburn. Similarly for Presidents Pro-Tempore of the Senate.

This isn't Reconstruction. It's Deconstruction. Damned rednecks are probably laughing around their illegal stills out in Deliverance country at the way they've pulled a fast one on them Yankee city-slickers.

My first hardback will hit the streets on August 1st. And none of y'all will ever see it, in all probability, unless you're looking in exactly the right place. So it's only 128 pages. It's still a hardback. I've also got a coauthored article due out in a couple of days on a completely different area of law that might well get some very unfavorable reviews in Geneva, which would be quite gratifying. They'll just love the followup.

Probably no fiction for the rest of the month, as it's time for quarterly accounts reconciliation. I feel very much like a pelican: no matter which way I turn, there's always an enormous bill in front of me.

Only 62 days until the streets of downtown Chicago become unsafe for the mundanes.

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