Author Archives: Bob Evans

Playing Politics with Our Lives

It’s not new or shocking to state that Trump cares for no one but Trump. Those who expect or hope that his brush with COVID-19 and his mortality will somehow implant the barest empathy for another human being are deluding themselves. A person in the mid-70s is set in who that are and in Trump’s case that is an immoral, narcissistic, sociopath interested only in his own well-being and wealth.

In addition to this the pressures of the election and his immunity towards state and federal crimes along with civil threats including $400 million dollars in personal debts coming due in the next four years provide incentive, beyond his inherent selfish needs, for Trump to do whatever it takes to retain the office of President of the United States.

Which of course means interfering in the process the approve the vital vaccine we need for COVID-19.

The FDA wants to publish guidelines that any vaccine before approval must first have its participant monitored for two months following their last does, waiting to see in adverse events develop or if the vaccine’s protections show signs of being only a short duration. This reasonable, if still highly rushed, guideline is quite acceptable unless your eye is on election day in which case this is terrible. No vaccine can meet this guideline and be approved before November 3rd 2020. Of course, interference from the White House undermines confidence in the vaccine and damages intake of this vital measure to protect our health, our lives, and our economy.

Trump doesn’t care if the vaccine works.

Trump doesn’t care if you die.

Trump only cares for Trump.

Trump only wants to win and your corpse is an acceptable price for that victory.

Share

Lovecraft Country Impressions After 7 Episodes

Lovecraft Country is an HBO limited series adapted from the novel of the same name written by Matt Ruff and centers on a group of Black characters dealing with magic, monsters, and racism during Jim Crow America. Mild spoilers ahead.

The story’s protagonist is Atticus ‘Tic’ Freeman, a Korean War veteran, genre fiction enthusiast, and a descendant of the founding member of cult order.

I have now watched seven episode of Lovecraft Country and my feelings are hopeful but with a dash of apprehension.

The characters are well drawn with complex backstories and vibrant inner lives that all the actors of the series portray beautifully. The drama and dynamics are grounded in a realistic approach with the various character struggling with lingering abuse, trauma, and trust issues while still possessing aspirational motivations that speak to a high nature within them. In the face of a racist, unjust, and oppressive system that surrounds them they maintain, for the most part, their own dignity.

The fantastical elements, monsters and magic, are handled quite adeptly with fresh shocks and turns that has prevented the genre elements from becoming stale even seven hours into the story.

My apprehensions arise from concerns of the course of the narrative and the coming conclusion and break down into two major categories.

First; The lack of direct objectives for the protagonists. Tic, for most of the series now, has been searching for and attempting to decipher pages from a magical text with the goal of protecting his family. But it is not clear exactly what he is protecting them from. While there are evil supernatural forces, and one such force attempted to use Tic as part of a dangerous ritual, the surviving members of the cults do not appear to offer a direct and specific threat to Tic. It is not clear what will happen if Tic fails in obtaining ‘protection’ or what will happen if the surviving cultists are unopposed. This would be fine if we were only 1/3 of the way into the story but at 2/3 we need to have a clear appreciation of the stakes.

While the character drama is proceeding nicely, and the characters are being tested on their inner natures and being forced to change and grow that is sufficient for dramatic fiction but lacking for genre stories. Genre is more plot dependent; we need more than Luke Skywalker gaining maturity we need the defeat of the Death Star as well.

My Second apprehension centers on the thematic elements of the story and specifically with the racism of Jim Crow America. It is good to tell this story set in the Jim Crow period. It is a dark disgusting chapter of American History too often swept aside in popular entertainment. My issues do not arise from setting here and being direct in depicting the overt racism, but I fear the series is setting itself up for an unsatisfactory conclusion.

We know that Jim Crow will not end until the middle of the next decade and that systemic racism will persist after its legal abolition. making it a central thematic conflict in the show without a fictionalized character to stand in for it means that the characters no matter their eventually outcome with the cultists will lose in the greater cultural conflict. This is where having a character stand in for the wider culture is a useful device. A white racist character that comes to see the evil and ignorance of their racism can be used to suggest that cultural change and growth is possible and hinting that victory of those evil forces is possible even if your story ends within racist times but Lovecraft Country has no recurring major racist characters to suggest such a growth is possible. Because the racist characters come and go as part of the universal background the background becomes unchanging and unchangeable.

Perhaps that is the thematic intent of the show’s creators but it is very difficult to make failure and futility into satisfying ends for stories.

Share

Welcome to October

It would seem that nature, the fates, or God, which force is most prominent in your belief system, has taken a hand in springing an October Surprise into our Presidential election season by infecting President Trump with COVID-19.

It is very tempting to mock and jeer at this news.

Trump’s willful mismanagement of the crisis has left tens of thousands of American needlessly dead. While possessing just about 4% of the world’s population the United States account for about 20% of the pandemic’s death total.

Trump cruelty to those who he sees as his enemies invites other to retaliate with their own cruelty.

His mocking of others with afflictions makes the desire to mock his own nearly irresistible.

I cannot speak for other but for myself I am not Trump and I am a better person than he. I will not mock him. I will not delight in his misery. I will not wish for him a slow painful and terrifying death no matter how poetically ironic it would prove to be.

I will confess to a dark delight that I would love to see Trump survive and then endure a crushing defeat delivered by Team Biden.

I would love to see Biden’s electoral team roll that ‘crit’ and crush the GOP with 400 electoral vote victory. Which according to the projections from the Washington Post’s data nerds is about a 10% chance, making it more likely than a natural ‘crit’ in D&D.

I would love to see a Democratic Tide so high that it washes away Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnel, however unlikely such an outcome is. Only through such a crushing defeat could the GOP be forced to rebuild itself as the sort of respectable conservative party that would be immune to future Trumps and I want Trump to live to see that happen.

Share

Painful Television

No, I am not referring to the televised US Presidential Debate. I did not watch as I already have more than enough information to make an informed vote. Sadly, I am talking about a Scottish murder mystery limited series Deadwater Fell.

Currently available on the steaming service Acorn but also available as a single stand-alone purchase for the limited series Deadwater Fell is the story of a tragic fire that kills the wife and children of the village local doctor, Tom (David Tennant) and how the fallout from the events splinters the town and relationships.

My problem with the series is I truly disliked spending time with these characters. There is scarcely one that is pleasant, and most are actively abusive and manipulative. While all the characters have big dramatic issue, events, and troubles, the very nature of the characters make me immune to care.

The actors perform their tasks admirably, making these repulsive characters real and I do not hold them accountable for the writing. Though as I said to my sweetie-wife while we were watching the final episode, ‘If I want to watch Tennant being manipulative and evil, I’ll just watch Season One of Jessica Jones.’

In addition to the character abrasive natures the writing also seems to suffer from the author pushing the characters into scene for the audiences benefits rather than from a natural outgrowth of character motivation. For example, Tom, the Doctor, goes to Jess and tells her a sad story of his abuse as a child, as story Jess later learns is a lie. It reveals a bit of Tom’s character and his manipulative nature but Tom going to jess served no purpose for Tom. He wasn’t gaining anything. No cooperation, no item he needed, there was literally from Tom’s perspective, no purpose to do that. It advanced plot and revealed character but only by being out of character.

With less than ten minutes left to the final episode we abandoned the series and played Dominion.

I cannot recommend this series to anyone.

Share

It’s Good to Have Hope and to be Wary

No, this is not about the Presidential Debate last night September 29th.

The New York Times has an interesting story about a tech start-up in Massachusetts that is raising funds and planning to construct a test reactor for nuclear fusion.

Working with MIT the start-up Commonwealth Fusion Systems hopes to have their reactor built in just 3-4 years and if all goes according to their plans producing net gain energy from fusion.

We have seen this road before and it has, to date, only led to washed-out bridge, collapsed tunnels, and chasms yet to be spanned, but things are impossible to achieve until they aren’t. This is not some fly-by-night operation working without the benefit of major scientific and technological might and several physicists have publisher papers agreeing that this approach looks sound.

It may still fail.

It may yet be another crushing disappointment.

It may also work.

We need something like this. While viable fusion power would attract attacks from both the lest and the right it would be a huge leap forward in de-carbonizing our energy systems.

Share

Is This the Year for me and NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in October when participants commit themselves to the lofty goal of completing 50,000 words on a manuscript between November 1 and November 30. (Couldn’t that have least selected a month with 31 days?) That comes out to an average of 1667 words per day, every day, including Saturday and Sunday.

I attempted this once before, on a lark, and experimenting with an idea that I was going to ‘pants’ all the way through. That did not work.

For reason that can’t be fully detailed here I may be producing a new novel here and unlike my other excursions into novel length projects this one may require speed.

However, my writing process is to write Monday thru Friday reserving my weekends as fun and recharge time. IF I want to commit to meeting NaNoWriMo goals that would raise my average daily word count to 2500.

That’s not undoable.

When things are going well, and I am not lolly-gagging I can maintain a production north of 2000 words per day.

Factors in my favor are that I have an outline broken down into the five acts, I have character notes and descriptions, I have world building notes and cultural details for the sub-cultures involved, so I am well prepared for this book.

Factors against me is that I’m lazy, I like playing my Xbox One, and there are too many movies to watch.

 

Share

Trump’s Finances and The Larger Scandal Exposed

The New York Times has obtained tax returns for Donald Trump covering a number of years exposing his lies, both as a ‘businessman’ and as a citizen. For many the bombshell fact will be that for many years Trump paid zero, nothing at all, in Federal Income taxes and in fact at one point claimed a tax credit, that is not a deduction that reduced his obligation but a credit where the US Federal Government paid him nearly 73 million dollars, a credit that was quite possibly fraudulent and if the IRS audit, yes he actually is under an audit for this particular credit, finds he abused the system to claim this credit then he could, on this one point alone, owe more than 100 million in taxes and fines.

In addition to this, the absurd sums deducted as business expenses, such as 70,000 dollars in haircuts (Do you remember GOP outrage at President Clinton’s $200 haircut?) and the possibly illegal nearly $800,000 ‘consulting fees’ paid to his daughter Ivanka, and the 400 Million dollars in debt coming due between now and 2024, that is during his second term should he pull off another electoral college victory, we need to remember his other financial shenanigans, the proven fraud of his non-profit foundation which the Trump’s used as a shell to hide money and their own personal piggy bank, and the dubious and secretive financial dealing with foreign powers.

But these frauds and tax schemes of Trump’s is not the larger scandal.

The larger, structural scandal is that so much of what Trump does is standard operating procedure for the massively wealthy. Wealth has captured the regulatory state and while the GOP slashes and burns their way through environmental regulations in the name of business and profit the wealthy dive through loops holes escaping what little tax burden the law does require of them. Until Trump leaped into the hot glare of presidential politics much of this, certainly his non-profit foundation scams, would have escape justice but he is far from the only one.

Should the Democratic Party regain the levers of power they should use this outrage to launch a new era of accountability for the wealthy and make false the bragging of one Leona Helmsley that, ‘We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.’

Share

Hardball for Me and Stickball for Thee

First off, there is nothing the Democrats can do to stop the GOP senate from filling RBG’s seat with whoever they want. There’s no parliamentary rule or maneuverer open to them and without the support of 3 or 4 GOP senators, the number varies by the timing of the vote and if Mark Kelly wins because he would not wait to be seated with the new Senate, the chair is lost to them. No petition, no calls, no letters, can stop this only the GOP and the prize is too great for them to pass. They will do this, and impact will last 30 or 40 years.

The GOP has ceased using legislation, aside from reconciliation to enact tax cuts, to advance their agenda but instead have more and more become reliant upon the courts to strike down laws and regulations that they wish to see done away with. A prime example of this is the Voting Rights Act. The VRA, originally passed in 1965, was most recently reauthorized in full in 2013 but a 77-19 vote with only 2 GOP Senator voting against it but when the Supreme Court removed key provision the GOP refused to move or even suggest legislative fixes. Unable to repeal the ACA in the legislature they are currently suing to have the Court throw the law out. The foundation of this strategy is conservative jurists with lifetime appointments face no political blowback or cost for enacting conservative agendas. Occasional losses pf the house, Senate, or White House are acceptable trade-offs for this long-term power. It is a pragmatic powerplay and no charge of hypocrisy will stop it. The GOP has been playing the field while saying ‘find a rule to stop me.’

Should the Democrats take back the Senate and the White House there will be pressure to play the same game and at that moment GOP pearls will be clutched, fainting salts administered, and cries ‘I’m shocked, shocked! To Find power politics being played here!’ The GOP will insist with convoluted logic and a deep sudden dread of the future, along with a rediscovered desire to slash spending, that the Democratic Party must adhere to traditions and norms and not make any bold plays to expand their power.

These must be ignored.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander and the Democratic party must not allow itself to become mired in the GOP’s never-ending version of Calvin-ball. Once one side has traded in plastic bats and whiffle balls for Louisville Sluggers and regulation baseballs then it is political malpractice to not move fully to the new contested field.

Share

The Central Dilemma of Economics

The central dilemma of economics is often presented as ‘people have infinite wants in a world of finite resources,’ and I would say that it is generally true, but it misses one vital aspect. That while there are in fact finite resources individuals are in general incapable of perceiving the limitations and emotionally react as though resources were in fact infinite.

Electricity is a limited resource, generated from limited resources and distributed by limited system but an individual’s relationship to electricity, at least in rich nations, is that it is always there in limitless amounts. Food, material good, are all produced in quantities so vast that it becomes nothing more than an abstraction in same way that a single death is a tragedy and 200,000 thousand a statistic.

However, when the resource limitations are stark and undeniable, survival and disaster situations, people do not act like engines of infinite wants. Contrary to most disaster and post-collapse stories people in general do not become self-centered engines of destruction and exclusion but often become more generous and supportive to others, including strangers.

On any scale beyond a few thousand people and with resources that feel infinite economics central dilemma applied in full force, but what happens if very tightly contained and constrained environments that last indefinitely?

That is one of the central questions in what is likely to be my next novel. It should be fun to explore.

Share

The Exorcist is a Very 70s Novel

I just finished re-reading William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist. The story by now is familiar to nearly everyone interested in horror fiction. Young Regan McNeil is possessed by the spirit of demon and her fiercely atheist mother Chris McNeil after exhausting everything the worlds of science and medicine have to offer calls upon a Jesuit priest suffering a crisis of faith Father Karras and an aged but experienced exorcist Father Merrin to save her daughter.

Published in 1971 The Exorcist displays some interesting hallmarks of that period in its construction. Now, I am not referring to disco music or leisure suits but rather the way extra-sensory perceptions and abilities had been absorbed into the public consciousness.

What started in science-fiction print media and had grown throughout the 50s and 60s, telepathy, prescience, and telekinesis became accepted wisdom, along with pyramid power and ancient astronauts.

What does this have to do with a novel about the demon Pazuzu possessing the body of 12-year old Regan McNeil?

Before Karras can appeal to his Bishop for permission to perform the ritual of exorcism he must first eliminate the possibility that the phenomena associated with Regan are natural and explainable by the science at the time. This includes the shaking of her bed, objects flying about her room, and Regan possessing knowledge of events and languages unknown to her.

As Karras grapples with the enormity of the possibility of an actual possession his faith, already shaken, is undermined by the explanation that all the strange events may be caused by telepathy and telekinesis. This is not a by-product of Karras being a person who is weak in his scientific knowledge or understanding, he is a trained and respected psychiatrist. The novel, though published in the early 70s, is so infused with the popular wisdom at the time, that this priest of science considers telekinesis are rational and scientific justification for observed events.

I was a teenager in the late 70s and re-reading the novel for the first time in many decades it is a strange deja vu sensation to be brought back to that unique period in American Culture.

Share