Deadlines

I have two deadlines in December. One is for a chapbook collection of some of my writing, part of series of chapbooks being done by a small press in the Bay Area. A darn fine small press. Thus far, they have published chapbooks by Terry Bisson and Kim Stanley Robinson.

The chapbook editor apparently likes my fiction contribution as is. I just finished updating my 2004 Guest of Honor speech at Wiscon ("Writing Science Fiction during the Third World War"). The editor likes the new version of the speech. He says it's luminous, which is high praise. Nothing remains except an interview.

The other project is a short novel or a very long novella. I have to finish revising it this week. It's 100 pages in the current version. I figure 25 pages a day. The story was a bear to write, and I'm still not happy with it. Maybe it will be okay. At least it will be done and out the door in four days.

Quote for the Day

This from Viggo Mortensen, with whom I fell in love while watching The Lord of the Rings:

As Howard Zinn has often pointed out, history told from above -- from the standpoint of generals and kings and presidents -- encourages passivity, a sense of helplessness. In this version of history, "great men" make history, not ordinary people. But looked at from below, history has another lesson. Whenever change as happened, it has been through protest, dissent, struggle, social movements, ordinary people picketing, striking, boycotting, sitting down, sitting in. All this means that we make history, history is effected by our everyday decisions.

More Thankfulness

In the interests of not being a churl and grouch, I am going to continue being thankful --
for the sunlight on the red brick buildings across the street,
the National Geographic photo of the day,
the astronomy photo of the day,
a picture of a feathered dinosaur which I saw on Daily Kos this morning,
for the essay I have almost finished, and the other writing I am working on,
for Patrick and our home, full of lovely things to look at,
for friends and relatives,
for our hoya which is about to put out more flowers.

Thanksgiving II

Pat just gave thanks for the Internet and flash drives, because he has a lot of videos by the South African musician Johnny Clegg, which we can play later. According to Pat, Clegg is an accomplished Zulu dancer. Petty good for a white guy born in England.

I don't know anything about Zulu dance styles, but I will enjoy the Clegg videos.

Clegg's bands are interracial, which was illegal when he first began playing. His music combines Western and Africa musical forms and instruments, English and Zulu lyrics.

Something else to be grateful for: the music of Africa and the African diaspora.

Thanksgiving

Patrick and I just got up at 10 a.m. We are fiddling around the kitchen, heating English muffins and making coffee. Patrick began to make a list of things to be give thanks for: our health and having a home and lovely things to look at. He then put on an Albany River Rats baseball cap and gave thanks for American Hockey League teams with great team logos. He said he'd put on a Hersey Bears cap later.

The coffee's hot and tastes pretty good. A cd by Madeleine Peyroux is on our new Bose radio/cd player. Outside is gray, but not raining or snowing.

Some of the people in the building are doing a Thanksgiving dinner for family, friends and fellow tenants in the community room. But we are staying in our own apartment (with lovely things to look at) and having a quiet, private dinner.

I gave some money to Al Franken's campaign and am on Franken's e-mail list. Yesterday, Al's wife Franni sent out some favorite family recipes. I'm going to try Al's wild rice recipe, slightly modified, along with a chicken and root vegetables, basted in olive oil and maple syrup. The latter is not a Franken recipe. It comes from L.L. Bean.

I could say something cynical about faux community and getting one's holiday recipes from politicians and catalogue stores. But one of many things to be thankful for is -- I don't have to be cynical. I can simply be happy. The L.L. Bean recipe is from one of their employees and is terrific. Al's wild rice sounds darn fine.

Happy Thankgiving.

National Geographic Photo of the Day

The photo today is labeled Blue Lagoon. The steam rising suggests this is the famous Blue Lagoon in Iceland. So here the photo is, since I love most things Icelandic, though not the bankers and politicians who did so much damage to the Icelandic economy.

Morning in November

I got up late today, at eight. It's a gray, misty morning. We had no coffee in the house, so I went to a local coffee shop to buy half a pound of beans. Now I'm back home, listening to classicial music on the new radio.

I will check the usual websites for jobs, then think about what to do next.

Meteors

Two comments from a thread on FireDogLake discussing hunger in America and the Leonid meteor shower currently taking place:

Crystal clear here in central Texas. Much ambient light makes it about 2 visible meteors every 5 minutes. Still very cool...

For us household income is down by more than half in the last 5 years. Both of us are under-employed and now, because of age, that is irreversible. Health insurance costs forced a choice late this year and now one of us is uninsured. Both of us are well and have between us seen a doctor only 3 times in the last 2 years. Insurance declined to pay for the office visits because the provider billed the clinic as a hospital. So in spite of being payed over $26,000.00 over the 2.5 years of the policy they would not pay the only $400.00 ever submitted for payment. Great system.

The bottom line is this; a once solid middle class family is on the brink of ruin as a result of economic mismanagement begun under Reagan and relentlessly carried on by every administration since. The saddest and most disturbing thing is, we are not an anomaly. We are average.

*

I could go out and star-gaze for a bit, but I don’t think it’s strong enough medicine to make me forget. I haven’t had a job in nearly two years, have had cancer and been dropped by the good folks at Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. Yet I am one of the lucky ones, I am not “food insecure”. Thank You Bill Clinton for NAFTA, and Blue Dog Democrats for voting with Republicans during the Bush years; thus contributing to our current state of affairs that allows for 1% of the population to control 95% of the wealth. And thanks to this current crop of do-nothings for raising my hopes only to leave me with one of the biggest let downs of my life. This situation calls for a jug of rum and some Xanax.

It's a sunny day in the Twin Cities. I am updating my 2004 Wiscon speech on "Writing Science Fiction during the Third World War," which was a somewhat grim look at contemporary world conditions. I have been collecting new data for the essay and posting much of it on my blog, so I don't lose track of it. This explains a lot of somewhat grim blog entries.

Taken all in all, I am in a good mood. Congress and the Administration are looking at another stimulus package, which is very good news.

Hunger

This is from today's New York Times, writing about an US Agriculture Department report that just came out:

In its annual report on hunger, the department said that 17 million American households, or 14.6 percent of the total, “had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year.” That was an increase from 13 million households, or 11.1 percent, the previous year...

Overall, one-third of all the families that are affected by hunger, or 6.7 million households, were classified as having very low food security, meaning that members of the household had too little to eat or saw their eating habits disrupted during 2008. That was 2 million households more than in 2007.

14% is one in seven households.

According to the blog Political Animal these households represent 49 million people. Since the current population of the US is 304 million people, this means 16% of the population does not have reliable access to adequate food.

16% is getting close to one in six people.

Sick Leave

I have just been on the fine public health blog Effect Measure, where I found this quote from the English paper The Independent:

The United States is one of only five countries in the world without a national policy on paid sick leave, (Senator Chris) Dodd said.

"We're in the company - and I say this respectfully of these countries - of Lesotho, Liberia, Papua-New Guinea and Swaziland. Those countries and the United States are the five that don't have paid sick leave," Dodd said.

"Five nations, four of whom are struggling economies, barely surviving as nation-states, and the richest country in the world," he told a hearing in the Senate health, education, labor and pensions subcommittee.

And here is a comment by Revere, the public health doc who runs Effect Measure:

There are an estimated 57 million private sector workers without sick leave who are much more likely to go to work while sick or send their children to school when they are sick. The attack rate for this virus isn't know with certainty, but CDC is using a reasonable estimate of 10% of workplace contacts. It might be more or it might be less but it is avoidable. Dodd has introduced emergency legislation to require paid sick days for influenza, but it's not likely to pass nor is it any where near sufficient. Republicans have already announced their opposition on the grounds it would hurt an "already aching economy."

Floyd B. Olson

From the Wikipedia entry on Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson, governor of Minnesota from 1930 to 1936:

In its April 24, 1933, issue, Time magazine quoted Olson speaking from the steps of the state capitol:

"I am making a last appeal to the Legislature. If the Senate does not make provision for the sufferers in the State and the Federal Government refuses to aid, I shall invoke the powers I hold and shall declare martial law. ... A lot of people who are now fighting [relief] measures because they happen to possess considerable wealth will be brought in by provost guard and be obliged to give up more than they would now. There is not going to be misery in this State if I can humanly prevent it. . . Unless the Federal and State governments act to insure against recurrence of the present situation, I hope the present system of government goes right down to hell."

Also from Wikipedia:

During his three terms as governor, Olson proposed, and the legislature passed, bills that instituted a progressive income tax, created a social security program for the elderly, expanded the state's environmental conservation programs, guaranteed equal pay for women and the right to collective bargaining, and instituted a minimum wage and a system of unemployment insurance.

November Weather Report

The sun is up and shining on the buildings across the street.

October was cold. November is unseasonably warm, according to the DJ on Minnesota Public Radio. I'd prefer more traditional weather. But the sunlight on the buildings is lovely.

Early A.M. Thoughts

It's six thirty, my usual rising time. In the summer, light comes into my bedroom at four thirty. Right now, it's pitch black outside. But I'm up and making coffee and thinking about Bill Holm.

Bill, who was slightly younger than me, died a few months after retiring from a job that was wearing him down, a job he had come to dislike intensely. He was beginning the life he had dreamed about for years, when he would be free to spend his life doing what he wanted, especially free to write.

I am not being depressed when I mention Bill, though heaven knows I wish he were still with us.

I am thinking -- I am free to write. I have the time; I have enough money to get by; and I am still alive.

So why not be grateful for the time and the freedom from a job that was sucking my life? Why not do what Bill can't do and write?

*

Patrick and I went out last week and bought a new radio/CD player, a Bose. I am listening to it right now. The DJ just told us that Dvorak was a passionate train spotter, something I didn't know, and then went on to play "Funiculi, Funicula" which is -- I just learned --a song about the new funicular railway up Mount Vesuvius that opened in 1880.

The train theme is in honor of the North Star, the new commuter train into Minneapolis from the northern suburbs, which is making its first run today.

I love trains.

I love finding out that "Funiculi, Funicula" is about a railway.

I have been looking at Bose radios for something like 20 years, but I could never nerve myself to spend the money. It sounds a lot better than the FM radio my father gave me 40 years ago or Patrick's boombox radio and tape player.

*

Finally, I am making toast from the bread I bought at the St. Paul Farmers Market yesterday. It's good bread and makes good toast.

So, good bread, good music on a radio that sounds just fine, and time to write.

*

I still want a part-time job. But my life right now is okay. I should stop brooding about things in the world that could be better and write.