Brown v Board of Ed overturned

We miss you Sandra Day. Meaness has taken over the Supreme Court leading to bad decisions affecting everyone and looks like there will be many more such bad decisions for years to come.

Free speech-The student with the sign wasn't on school property. I don't get it.

Free money-Campaign finance reform. There needs to be a balancing of this money = speech idea. Democracy depends on it.

Aetheist case- All right the taxpayers really are fishing on this one, but the court seems to draw a distinction between standing to sue Congress vs. standing to sue the executive branch. It makes little sense unless you believe in the unitary executive.

School case. So here's the logic, diversity including racial diversity is a noble goal, just don't try to use race as any sort of factor in trying to reach that goal. I actually think the court has done a pretty good job on this topic in the past. No quotas but it can be a factor. Seems to make sense to me. In about twenty years we're going to be back where we were in the fifties. Argh.

Junior has packed the court and soon he's going to have a constitutional executive privilege challenge. hmm. wonder how that one's going to go.

By any other name.

Today I received an email stating that someone is actually interested in publishing one of the stories I sent out a week or so ago. Exciting news. My published credentials are still limited enough that this is a fairly big deal. It's always exciting to know that some editor somewhere thought enough of my piece and the story will be out there somewhere in the Universe where people who have no connection to me might stumble across it and enjoy.

Here's the interesting catch. The editor is suggesting a change in the title. He says he thinks the name might be a turn off and discourage people from clicking on the story and reading it. I'm not sure I by that. The title is short and honest and pretty direct and accurately names the piece.

I see two possible objections to the name that might be in his head that aren't really in mine.
1. One word in the title is the name of a popular American icon. I guess there's some possiblity out there of a trademark issue or something because people are still making money off this name. But I think literary license would cover this.

2. Another word in the title points to a particular ethnicity. Could that be an issue? I've thought a little about this and I don't think I'm stereotyping this ethnity in this story. The ethnicity is not a fact that is germane to the character, but I think it does make him more interesting in some regard. But maybe ethnicity just shouldn't be used this way. I'm not sure. Or maybe as a racial minority I'm just being sensitive to this possibility.

Anyway, I've told the editor that I'd try and come up with a new name by tomorrow. And although I don't really have something I like, I think I'll defend my original title and make a few half heart suggestions. Really, I haven't come across anything else I like.

Brief attack on some athletes.

1. Okay, Bonds is a jerk. He's admitted to unknowingly juiced before MLB figured out it needed to do something. He's about to break one of the most cherished records in baseball partially because he was juiced. He's easy to dislike and I dislike him. That being said, he's not all wrong about being a victim. Some people out there have done a whole lot of condemming and hate spewing that is seemingly disproportionate to him being a jerk.

2. I can understand Kobe having mixed feelings about the Lakers, but he really isn't doing him or his team any favors. What's a fan to think about his rants. Next he'll be saying he wants to be traded unless the fans all wear his jersey and only his jersey. What is Bynum supposed to think of his captain throwing him under the bus? Delusions of grandeur. Don't read anything into this comment, but he's a good argument for more than one kid and teaching siblings to share.

3. My bet is Odin will have a better career than Durant.

Where to govern.

I've been thinking maybe there really isn't enough political will to change things from a national level. Maybe Arnie from the state level and Bloomberg from the NYC level really governing makes more sense. Arnie gets stem cells could save lives and drive science. He sort of gets global warming (lose the Hummer's dude. even if they're tricked out.) and he's trying to do some good on the health care front. Bloomberg's running his own radical little experiments with hybrid taxis and what not. Going local means smaller resources, but less institutional inertia to deal with. I'm not sure why the federal government can't even attempt to govern like this. All they do is start wars they don't know how to finish.

Just today the Senate shot down an alternative energy bill because of a proposed $30 billion tax on oil companies. The naysayers says it will raise prices for all of us. I know $30 billion looks like a big number, but oil companies will pull down over 1 trillion in the next ten years. They could pay it and they should.

First Daddy Day

Little J must have negotiated away a little more of her future allowance, but the thought is appreciated. I very much like her present of The Best Hiking Trails in the Bay Area for Children. This should provide plenty of inspiration for future death marches.

Another thing she gave me was two poopy diapers that looked eerily like the babyfood we fed her. These were less appreciated.

Post Finals Plan

I promised myself that after NBA finals (Congrats to TD and the Spurs) I would take a break from television. Other than a Netflix movie once or twice a week and cathing up on old Sopranos during the dinner hour I'm not going to watch any TV. I'm telling myself I'll do this for at least a month, but if it grows comfortable, maybe I'll keep it up longer and add a couple years back to my life.

The extra hours not taken up by the vampire baby will mostly be sucked up by reading and writing.

I have no formula for writing. Sometimes, I have little stories trying to crawl out of my mind. Other times, there are big meaty things that need to stew for a while and then be dragged out. Starting on a novel has sort of been like that. Way slow.

So I have a few short piece published. At times I think I should be trying harder to get things published. I've got some stories and I should have a systematic approach to sending stories out and collecting rejection letters.

But I don't. Sometime I send out a story once or twice and if I don't get a bite, that's it. Sometimes, I don't even get that far and I forget that I've written something as I move on to the next piece. Usually, I don't think about sending out anything for months at a time, but just this week, I sent out two. But it's hard to worry about the market. At the end, I usually think if I just keep writing, somehow the rest of that stuff should take care of itself. Probably a bit naive.

Anyway, I thought I'd just post the sites for some short fiction that I check out pretty regularly. There are probably half a dozen others that I sample once in a while, but these are the usuals. If anyone's got some others I should check out, let me know.

http://www.pindeldyboz.com/
http://www.flashquake.org/
http://www.juked.com/

What happened to justice?

I think at some point I promised myself that celebutard (how can you not love that word) Paris Hilton would never be a subject of my blog, but recent events have my wheels spinning on the meaning of what she is going through. Two probation violations. In essence three strikes, three opportunities to live by the same laws we all do. Three failures, seemingly at least in part to her hubris as a public figure. I have no idea what motivated the LA Sherrif in this case, but I can understand the judge and the prosecutor's outrage. And I really don't get the fans sitting outside the court house supporting, Paris? Are they getting paid? Justice eroding before our eyes.

Scooter was also in court this week being sentenced. He came armed with about 150 letters written by public officials, people he's worked with, and maybe fans of his novel about what a great guy he is. People have been saying things like "tragic events that befell him" and "dedicated public servant". Isn't that the whole point that he wasn't a dedicated public servant? When you get right to it, he sold out a CIA agent and then lied about it to save his own skin? What's so noble about that? Again, it's unlikely justice will get carried out. If a demosquid wins the office, Junior will pardon him after the election. If a republiskunk wins the election, he'll make the next guy do it for me.

There just doesn't seem to be enough outrage at all this stuff.

Go Ducks.

From a bad Emelio Estevez movie into Stanley Cup Champions. Who would have figured? I'm not really from there, but there's an ounce of civic pride today because my parents have called Anaheim home for the last fifteen plus years.

Killing Yourself

Today the state legislature is discussing a bill similar to Oregon's phsyician assisted suicide law. As usual in these culture war days, both sides are mustering their lobbyists to make clear lines and goalposts out of all that fuzziness about right to life vs. quality of life and individual rights vs. state rights. If you care give your legislator a holler.

Terminal illness and that sort of thing feels very removed from my day to day life right now. I'm relatively young and healthy and generally my family is in good condition. Though last year, I finally got around to helping my grandmother prepare a DNR(A Do Not Resuscitate Order) requested years ago. Still, if I am to think about it, right now, I feel like life is short enough as it is. I want to enjoy it for as long as I can. I want to experience everything life has to offer. We're all gone in a millisecond anyway.

But I can understand reaching a point, where my health has deterioriated so far and I am in so much pain and there is no reasonable hope for any recovery where it just might not make sense anymore. And if I can reasonably and rationally discuss the implications with my kin and doctors and choose that course of action, why should the state prevent that? Yeah, there are dangers with this kind of legislation. I'm sure you can all imagine the scenarios of grisly murders by greedy children and so forth, but so far, the law seems to have worked very well in Oregon and several people have "benefited" though not nearly as many as we might expect.

For the record, if I have no chance of reasonable chance of recovery, please let me go and give my organs to whoever might benefit. I say this though I'm too cowardly to give blood on a regular basis.

BANR

In the last couple years, Best American Non Required Reading has surpassed Best American Short Stories in selecting fascinating things to read. I would recommend it to anyone. Instead of being selected by some icon in the literary community, these pieces are selected by a small bunch of high school kids who try and read just about anything out there in print. They find some absolutely amazing stuff.

The 2006 edition has everything from best fake Onion headlines to best military blog to a commencement speech to an essay about returning to New Orleans after Katrina to a piece of propoganda written by an American think tank for publication in Iraqi papers.

Somehow, they seem to have known enough to include Kurt Vonnegut in this collection. He writes a piece called, Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing.

"First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

Another great quote from this piece, "Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enourmous reward. You will have created something."