Author Archives: Bob Evans

A Snapshot of the current economic picture

So last night a friend and I were were discussing politics, life, the universe and everything. He seemed incredulous that I thought that from some measurements and perspectives the economy was doing quite well and that from other points of view it was doing quite poorly. I believe that it was his impression that the economy was doing poorly. This morning after having blood drawn I went and looked up a few graphs to illustrate what I was talking about.

All of the graphs come from the same source the Federal Reserve at St. Louis.

So street level, how does this economy look to the person who is working for a living?

Employment:unemployment

So from this graph it’s quite clear that employment, while improving has yet to recover fully from the disastrous financial crisis of 2008. Bad for the working person.

Household Income
household income

Median Household Income has only recently began to recover from the 2008 crisis. As you can see in the graph, the household income continues to fall even after the recession had ended. Bad for the working Person.

Stock Prices

Stock prices

Stock prices have fully recovered are in fact higher than before the crisis. The stock market  is going like gangbusters.

Corporate Profits

Coporate profits

Corporate Profits have fully recovered from the crisis and just as with stock prices are now higher than before the crisis.

I think that this is one of the essential driving forces in the ‘throw the bums’ out mood of the electorate in the 2014 Midterms. The working person isn’t feeling like that they are in an economic recovery, their view is that jobs are scare, the jobs available are not as good as the ones that they used to have and that their incomes are low. Where this leads I do not know, but it will be interesting.

 

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E.P. Review: Without You Renee Olstead

cover170x170First let me say that I have no formal training in music, musical theory or criticism. I know what I like and I know how it makes me fee and it will be from that perspective that disc this recently released E.P. by Ms. Olstead.

Renee Olstead is a singer/actress with a dazzling voice and a love of jazz. I discovered her as I slowly discovered my own appreciation for Jazz and bassa nova music.

Without You a crowd-sourced E.P. featuring 4 covers, all in a airy jazz style.

First up is Blue Moon. Being a cinephile I principally am aware of this song from it’s prominent use in the comedy horror film An American Werewolf in London. Renee’s voice and the arraignment give this cover a haunting dreamlike quality that makes this version stand out as a new take on a standard song.

Next is Leaving On your Mind. Patsy Kline made this song into a country hit back when country music didn’t go around a rock roll’s lesser cousin. Renee’s take on the song is so different that as I listened I had a hard time remembering just where it was I knew the tune from. Again the over all impression is one that is ethereal and nearly spectral in its floating vocals.

Without You a song where I am unfamiliar with the original or other covers, so I can’t compare what has changed, but as she typically does woth Love song, Renee’s fills this rendition with heart, soul, and longing.

The E.P. ends with the song Everything. Another piece where I have no knowledge of the source material, but continues in the floating, haunting vocals.

I thoroughly enjoyed this mini-album and throughout my listened I was repeatedly struck by how well these songs and this performance would have fir onto the soundtracks for either Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks.

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The core challenge of our times

I believe that the central challenge, politically, for our age can best be expressed in a single graph from the Economic Policy Institute.

Productivity vs wages

Quite simply, in real dollar terms, wages have been effectively flat for 30 years. This effect has been masked by easy credit, and a real estate bubble, but the underlying core condition is a grave one.

What cannot go on will not go on, House prices cannot rise forever and a consumer driven economy cannot survive if the consumers do not posses the excess money to go out and consume.

I propose no solutions. I know of no magic wand that will reunite these tends but something will happen. Whichever political party or ideology that finds and implements a solution to this will reap tremendous benefits, those that stick their heads in the sand are likely, in the long run, to get their asses kicked.

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Movie Review: Interstellar

I was sold on seeing this film in the theter the moment I heard that writer/director Christopher Nolan was doing a space based SF film. I have been a fan of Mr. Nolan’s work dating back to ‘Memento.’ I have found that from that film onward and without except his movies are intelligence challenging pieces that I have thoroughly enjoyed.

Interstellar is the story of retired engineer/astronaut Cooper. Earth is racked by environmental collapse and each year more crops catastrophically fail into extinction. Nolan’s supplements this grounding of this opening hour of the film with actual survivors tales for the 1930’s Great Dustbowl.

Led by mysterious unexplained events, Coop discovers that a plan is afoot to save humanity from the dying earth and he is recruited for an interstellar survey mission. Emotionally torn by the requirement to abandon his family, the cruel physics of relativity requires that to his family the mission may take decades, Coop joins a small band of scientists on the mission.

The film explores the limits if human costs and bravery in exploration, and comes down solidly on the side of the explorers. (It even takes a moment to ridicule those who believe that the Moon landings were nothing more than a hoax.)

I was evident to me as I watched the film that Christopher Nolan is a huge fan of the classic SF film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. This film is very much a 2001 for a new generation, though with less stringent engineering and science, but not by much.

At nearly three hours I think this film is either too long or not long enough, but either way I enjoyed watching it on the big screen.

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The Red Election

I can’t take credit for the comparison between this week’s U.S. Mid-Term elections and the disastrous wedding for the Starks in ‘Game of Thrones’ I spotted it on twitter, but the analogy is quite apt.

The Democratic Party, with a coalition that is better suited to presidential elections, found itself thoroughly routed electorally from the contest as the Republican Party, its ranks filled with people willing to crawl across broken glass to cast a vote against Obama and his allies, swept the national legislature.

I would have written about this yesterday but I have taken ill and on Wednesday I was unable to craft sentences beyond ‘tree good fire bad.’

Now that the House and the Senate at firmly under Republican control, but short of veto proof levels, it shall be interesting to see which track the Conservative trains depart along.

When the Democrats held the senate the Speak of the House had no pressure keep back any of the more extreme conservative measures. Passing repeals of the ACA was easy when you knew it would die leaving the House, but with a friendly Senate things get more complicated,

The truth of the matter is killing the ACA would involve throwing millions of their insurance, and forcing the issue through a government shutdown. No simple repeal bill will be signed by the president. Any bill defunding it will not be signed by the president. You can only get those signature by attached it to ‘must pass’ legislation and then refusing to back down as the government shutters in crisis.

A smarter course would be to seek modifications to the ACA and then declare victory, but after selling the evils of the ACA to their base for six years it will be hard convincing said base that now it is acceptable policy no matter how much tinkering at the edges (medical device taxes etc) you have performed.

Of course the Republican now own the budget process. No longer can they pass the Ryan budget confident it will go nowhere and have the actual pain its cuts would cause remain theoretical. It’s true that the Democrats, in a fine display to invertebrate physiology, failed to pass a budget for 4 years, but last year when they did pass one, the Republicans refuse to conference on the matter. Now it is all theirs.

I do not know what is going to happen, but I do suspect it will be interesting.

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I have gone insane

My life is going to be insanely busy the next few months —

My day job has kicked into its seasonal overdrive and my days have turned into 10 hour days. (Hectic but good I like the money)

I’ve committed myself to trying to write a one act SF play by Dec 15th

I’m working on a new short story in a branch of spec fic I have not done before. (The idea exploded in my head today and already I have 500 words of notes and concepts for this short)

And I am in the final edit pass of my novel ..

 

I am way too busy

 

 

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A trope I am tired of seeing …

Saturday night a friend and I sat down and watch the 2013 re-make of Carrie, based on King’s novel. The film was a very good adaptation, though it has been a long time since I read the book, I thought that the writers and filmmakers had captured the characters, tone, and heart of the piece.

Of course you can’t delve into Carrie without getting into one of king’s favorite tropes: the crazy christian character (C3.) He uses the C3 over and over again, plus he is not alone. The C3 is an overused stereotype through hollywood and television. Now, I am myself not a Christian. I am of the opinion that all regions look wacky from the outside and I seem to be outside all of them. HoweverI am a writer and I really get tired of seeing lazy, ignorant work.

The C3 is a lazy, stupid, stereotype, These ‘characters’ can very nearly be picked up and dropped in replacing other C3s in a plot and not one thing would really change. They are rarely handled with any sense on an individual with agency and background. as with Nazis, they are go-to bad guys that are used for plot connivence.

As I said before I am not a christian, this is not me taking personal offense at a stereotype. it is the artist in my really sick of the hack work. When we pay money for a piece of commercial art, we deserve the very best the artist could do at that moment, and the C3 is not the very best for many of these artist.

It is important for a writer to treat all the characters as fully realized human beings, with faults and talent, with hopes and dreams, with pain and joy.

 

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A Counter-Factual Life

There was an odd event during my family reunion that keeps circling about in my mind. to understand it you’ll need a little personal history of your host.

As a child I did not read fiction. I was much more obsessed with learning new thing than reading made-up stuff. this came to a crashing halt when as a school assignment I was struggling with a book report – the book was about Mars and I could not work out its plot or conflict – and my sister assigned me Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘The Star Beast.’ to read and report upon. This started a love affair with SF and reading fiction and the eventual drive to craft some of it myself.

Same sister made a comment during the reunion asking if she had done the right thing by starting me down that path. I think she might have been envisioning an alternate history where I continued with a tight focus on academic issues, gone on to college instead of the Navy, and ending up with a far different life.

It’s possible that might have happened, but I doubt it. Certainly by high school some teacher would have forced fiction upon me and there’s no reason to believe that my reaction would have been substantially different, but there a stronger case in my opinion that an academic path was not in my cards.

I did not have the discipline to succeed at college. Hell, I didn’t have the discipline to succeed in the USN where they have the legal power to jail you for screwing up. I do not doubt that I would have crashed and burned at college. I think that my life has worked out, on balance, for the better. Only time will tell what is left to come…

 

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