Monday, April 27, 2020

Closing down the country

This is probably going to annoy a lot of people, but I’ve just read a couple of persuasive articles urging people to speak out about the general lockdown imposed on us in order to “bend the curve” of serious cases and deaths. And it’s probably too late to change anything, because I also read articles saying that more and more people are ignoring their state-imposed rules; consider the crowded beaches In California this weekend.

Small businesses and their employees are still suffering, though. So are the health care workers who are being sent home because their hospitals are all but empty. It’s mainly on their behalf that I’m speaking out.

First, full disclosure: my family is not seriously affected - yet - by the lockdown as implemented here in Texas. Both my husband and I are over seventy and hence, I am given to understand, in the high-risk group. We are both working at jobs that don’t require us to leave home. Furthermore, the local market has resumed grocery deliveries.

One of our daughters and her husband live in Brooklyn and I do worry about them. So far, though, they haven’t left their apartment in weeks, and they too can get things delivered; they too can work from home; and they work for large companies that haven’t yet made any noises about shutting down or laying people off. The other daughter is a stay-at-home mom with two children. I’m mildly worried about her because her husband is a grocery store manager and considered essential. However, the safety precautions at his store are intense. And he hasn’t missed a paycheck yet.

So it’s on behalf of others that I’m speaking. The owners of the small restaurants we used to frequent. The nurses who have been sent home because our hospitals are virtually empty. The waiters, cooks and bartenders who can ill afford to miss a paycheck and tips. The owners and employees of the nail salon where my daughter gets her nails painted in unnatural colors. The hairdresser who used to put streaks of even more amazing colors in her hair. How are these people managing?

Now, about this lockdown. The models we’ve been shown have vastly overestimated deaths. Furthermore, the people and institutions waving the curve we’re supposed to worry about don’t show us the data and algorithms they’ve using, and most of them lump all the states in with New York City, which skews the hell out of their models. I don’t give any more credence to the models than I give to models of global warming (which are known to use worst-case scenarios and tend to rely heavily on many nonlinear equations (mathematicians, you may tear your hair out now.))

It appears to me that most of the country is in for terrible economic suffering on the basis of what’s happening in nursing homes and one extremely overcrowded city. Speaking for myself, I’m perfectly willing to take reasonable precautions until a vaccine or a universally valid treatment is developed. But what about the people who are young, healthy, and staring at serious financial problems? Why should they suffer for the minority of people like me?

Maybe they’ll survive economically, given that more and more people are ignoring state-imposed restrictions.

But I can’t help noticing that these restrictions are mostly put in place by people who have the luxury of staying home without missing a paycheck. And many of them think ordinary working people aren’t worth paying attention to, and voice death wishes on those who complain. Anyway, those protestors mostly deplorables, aren’t they?

And I find that attitude, well, deplorable.

(crossposted at https://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/)

Monday, March 2, 2020

Planned hiatus

... as opposed to the unplanned blogging hiatus of the last couple of weeks, when what attention I could muster was devoted to getting the first draft of the current book finished before my next date with the knee surgeon. That's done, the surgery is scheduled for oh-dark-thirty tomorrow morning, and I'll be back when I have something to say. Maybe a week, two weeks.

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The modern version of Cliff's Notes and condensed books

So while avoiding work and browsing on the internet, I saw an article entitled, “Read more using these apps…”
Oh, goody! Maybe one of the apps would offer a better way to discover new writers I’ll like. Because Amazon’s recommendations suck, and downloading/deleting stuff from KU can get discouraging after the ninth or tenth hopeless loser.

Well, no. The article might better have been entitled, “Feel virtuous while avoiding actually reading.” Then I wouldn’t have clicked, because (a) I have no desire to replace reading with potted book summaries, and (b) who the heck feels virtuous about reading, anyway? Like just about everybody I know, I consider reading a semi-guilty pleasure. As in, “Yeah, yeah, I know I promised to clean out the refrigerator today, but it’s really my duty as a writer to keep up with the current state of urban fantasy and I’ve just downloaded three new dragon fantasy novels.”

Sigh. Let’s face it, if anybody actually did design an app for people like me, it would be called something like “Get off your butt and clean the refrigerator!” and we’d never download it.

In the meantime, this article has been a mildly interesting window into the world of those for whom reading is a virtuous and not terribly attractive activity.

Of seven recommended apps, four are book summaries and three purport to teach speedreading techniques. While the speedreading courses leave me cold – what I really want is a slowreading course so I can make books I really enjoy last more than a day – the proffers of summaries taking anywhere from 3 to 12 minutes to read leave me mildly curious… and ambitious to try my own. What do you suppose a five-minute summary of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire would contain? How about a one-paragraph precis of King Lear? The twelve-minute version of War and Peace?

By the way, the prices of these apps are even more impressive than their promises of instant literacy – in more than one way. Quoted list prices range from $100 to a whopping $1200… but they’re all “on sale” for at most 20% of list price, some at a mere 5 to 10%. One gets the feeling that not too many people are actually springing for canned book summaries and promises of increased reading speed. Certainly, even though I’m faintly embarrassed by the fact that I somehow managed to get a minor in German literature without actually reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, I’m not really tempted to pay one of these services to summarize it for me. I’ll settle for Thackeray’s version:

WERTHER had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.

Monday, February 3, 2020

But what about the madrassas?

Elizabeth Warren recently made a statement that, predictably, outrages much of the Right while much of the Left nods in agreement.

“States should focus on funding public schools, not private ones—especially not ones that maintain anti-LGBTQ+ policies. We must ensure every kid—especially LGBTQ+ kids—can get a high-quality public education.”

-Elizabeth Warren

Right-leaning columnists and writers are screaming that this would amount to religious discrimination against Christian schools. Left-leaning writers, on the other hand, are just fine with discrimination against Christian schools.

So… I read that there are ever more Islamic schools in this country. And, you know, Islam is not precisely gay-friendly. Some Christians believe that homosexual acts are sinful; but some Moslems believe that gays should be flogged, hanged, or maybe just tossed off high buildings. I mean, enough Moslems believe that to make such draconian punishments for homosexuality the law in every Moslem country I’ve checked on.

So I just wonder… what happens if somebody goes after not only Christian religious schools, but also Islamic ones, for discriminating against gays or teaching that homosexuality is wrong?

Will the Right still be upset about religious discrimination, or will it decide that in some cases it’s a great idea? Will the Left prioritize Islam over gay rights, and scream that madrassas must get those precious tax credits, or will they attempt to be consistent with prior statements?

Short answer is, of course, that it’s not going to happen, because nobody’s going to attack Islamic schools. In the Leftist victim hierarchy, Moslems > LGBTQWERTY > women (Christians don’t even make the list), so the present situation is just hunky-dory. And leaders on the Right are, so far, much more interested in defending Christian schools than in having a serious discussion about values in education.

But I do wonder what’ll happen if the question ever comes up.

(Image: andrew wales [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)])

Friday, January 17, 2020

Traveling in Europe half a century ago



Inspired by the discovery that I really need subtitles now to follow German-language movies that I haven’t already memorized (I can still follow The Merry Widow just fine, but Generation War was another story) I’ve been reviewing German via programs and audiobooks for a couple of weeks. It seems to be working in that my comprehension is improving, but now there is a different kind of frustration, one I remember from earlier days: whatever foreign language I’ve most recently used, that’s what comes up when I reach for any foreign language. It’s like my brain has just two boxes, one labeled “English, aka the Real Stuff” and one labeled “Everything Else” which operates on the LIFO principal. I rediscovered this problem when the cleaning crew arrived while the First Reader had the flu. “Bitte gehen Sie nicht in das Schlafzimmer, mein Mann ist krank,” didn’t do a thing for them. I had to look up how to say “sick” in Spanish! I knew that much Spanish three weeks ago!

That kind of thing used to be hugely frustrating on European trips when I needed to switch languages frequently. And it has reminded me of the language techniques I found most useful in those days. So, here’s a compendium of how to survive while traveling around Europe – somewhat dated. Things change. My survival strategy was developed in the sixties and seventies, when World War II was still a vivid memory and the Iron Curtain was still solid. But let’s pretend you’re interested anyway:

1. When in France, speak French just long enough to make people realize that everybody will be much happier if they switch to English, because no matter how bad their English is, it won’t hurt their ears like your French accent.

2. In Germany, German works just fine, although you may have to beg people to slow down because their assumption is that you’re a native speaker who just happens to come from some distant region with a funny-sounding dialect.

3. Outside France and Germany, wave your hands and speak English. Then, having established that you yourself are not German, switch to German. Everybody over 40 understands you just fine.
3a. Do not try this in Crete. Just… don’t. The story is too long to tell here…
4. Don’t bother trying out your Russian in Hungary. Despite the fact that Russian had been mandatory in Hungarian schools for my entire lifetime, Hungarians were really good at not understanding Russian. The German Strategy works much better.
4a. If you do have even a few words of Hungarian, you can drive people crazy by using them. Because they are resigned to the fact that no foreigners ever, ever even attempt their language, and they can tell by looking that you’re not one of them. You must be a space alien!
5. Outside the larger towns in Yugoslavia (Yeah, I know. There is no more Yugoslavia. I told you this list is dated.) don’t bother with your carefully memorized “I don’t speak Serbo-Croatian.” The response is likely to be, “That’s fine, we don’t either,” followed by, “You must come from far away, like the other side of the mountain.” See German Strategy, above.

6. The western third of Romania is populated by ethnic Hungarians. Speaking Hungarian in Transylvania will get you the good will of the locals… and the unfriendly interest of the secret police.

7. In Italy, get your back against a wall before trying any conversation whatsoever. It won’t improve communications, but at least you won’t get your bottom pinched.

8. Do not under any circumstances respond to young men who follow you down the street calling, “Miss… Mademoiselle… Fräulein… Señorita…” and watching to see which language elicits a response.
8a. One exception to this rule: if you have a grenade and are not afraid to use it.
8b. A second exception: if you happen to be fluent in a truly obscure, non-European language, you can discourage pursuers by smiling sweetly at them and burying them in a torrent of Hindi, Japanese, Luo, or whatever comes to mind. In Paris I once drowned some importunate young men in Swahili. As they slouched away one of them commented in French, “She’s awfully tall for a Chinese.”

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Forget the flying cars, the rest is good!


One of the few good things about being an old codger is the sense of perspective. We may not have flying cars or moon colonies yet, but 2020 has a lot of features that I find more immediately useful than being able to zoom over the live oaks to the supermarket. (Grocery delivery, for one.)

90 percent of my favorite books are available as e-books and, for the first time since 1990, I can see pockets of empty space on the bookshelves!

I get to research a historical fantasy from my couch instead of trekking over to the rare books collection where I'm strip-searched and refused any writing implements other than one pencil... to read a modern facsimile edition of an Elizabethan fencing manual.

The kid in Brooklyn can call any time she wants to chat instead of waiting for messages urgent enough to justify three minutes at night time lower calling rates.

Instead of parsing mainstream media stories to figure out what they're carefully not saying, I can check out a wide variety of alternative news sources and form my own opinions about the story behind the spin.

Looking farther afield... charities that distribute used clothing overseas now tell me that they don't want any garments that aren't in excellent condition. Being able to hold out for a new-looking shirt instead of being happy with a ripped and stained undershirt probably doesn't seem like luxury to us in America, but it's a vast improvement for much of Africa. The wealth created by the Industrial Revolution continues to spread.

Those millions of people who were supposed to starve to death during the overpopulation famines to follow 1970... didn't. I'm sorry about the ones who did starve and are starving because of our inability to completely destroy all manifestations of socialism/communism/totalitarianism, but in celebration of the non-famines, we could do worse than erect a statue to Norman Borlaug.

And as for the personal robots... Pass on that one. I'm not letting Alexa or any of her friends into the house, thank you very much! And the First Reader gave me a nifty little phone case that supposedly blocks location tracking, so in the unlikely event I actually go anywhere, the Data Giants won't have an automatic record of my movements. Some "progress" is to be celebrated, but some is to be thwarted.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Here comes another year!


"Hark, it's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year!”
-Ogden Nash

Personally and professionally, 2019 was - to say the least - not a good year. I'm not so much making resolutions for 2020 as I am engaging in pre-emptive ducking. I finally picked up the long-dormant Regency fantasy two days ago and will be very happy if this time I can resume regular writing and not get derailed by events. I'll be ecstatic if we go more than a month without a health, family, or professional crisis.

Resolution: to remember this and to be properly grateful if at the end of January I have finished the book I struggled with through nine months of distractions and problems in 2019. If in addition I have a reasonably fleshed-out idea for the next book, I'll make a sacrifice to whatever gods may be. Do you suppose they like chocolate? Everybody likes chocolate, right? O gods of chance, I know where to get the good stuff, the high cocoa content dark chocolate. Just be nice to me - no, scratch that - just don't pay any attention whatsoever to me - and I'll give you a cut from my secret stash, okay?
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