Happy New Year!

Read in 2018

So, I did hit my goal of reading at least 1,000 pages a month, bit by chewy bit.

Reading books for the 2018 Whitney Awards helped a bit, though I wish I’d had more time for that.
Best book of the year? Going to go with an old favorite, “My Life and Hard Times," by James Thurber. I see a lot of myself in the characters Thurber writes about, and I love that he tells these tales from true life with, I hope, only slight embellishment, because I like to think his life is as interesting has he portrays.

The most trying book? Lots could go on that list, but I think it’s going to fall to “Nomad,” by Matthew Mather. It’s Apocalypse-by-Numbers, right down to the petty personal feud that’s got to come to some kind of conclusion even as the ENTIRE FREAKING EARTH is blowing up and crumbling to dust. I don’t know. I think if the Earth were literally falling apart underneath my feet, I might forget about that personal vendetta. Ironically, that the vendetta had to go on to the end required a suspension of disbelief I could not give the book, though I did let it go when it came to the trope of asteroid coming to destroy the Earth.

Most educational? “Education of A Wandering Man,” by Louis L'Amour. While I find L’Amour’s cliffhanger endings with each chapter to be a bit annoying, reading about his life and the foundation on which he built his writing career was enjoyable. Gives me hope that as I add to my own bits of cranial flotsam, some of it will eventually come out in book form.

Yes, there’s lots of comfort food on this list. But there were also some books that challenged me. Particularly “Monkey: A Journey to the West.” It’s easy for a Westerner to get lost in all the symbolism of jade and gold and whatnot. I kinda needed an interpreter alongside me as I read this one. That monkey transcends it all is, of course, symbolic of the kind of journey that we’re supposed to make in life, but I still get the feeling there’s a lot in the symbolism and metaphor that just shit right over my pointy little head.

So here’s the tally:

Amazing World of Gumball: Vol. 1, by Tyson Hesse and Frank Gibson. 118 pages.
Anzio, by Lloyd Clark. 392 pages.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are, by Frans de Waal. 352 pages.
Book of Mormon, The; translated by Joseph Smith Jun., 779 pages.
Brother Cadfael's Penance, by Ellis Peters. 196 pages.
Case of the Condemned Cat, The; by E. W. Hildick. 137 pages.
Case of the Felon's Fiddle, The; by E.W. Hildick. 138 pages.
Case of the Invisible Dog, The; by E.W. Hildiick. 119 pages.
Case of the Nervous Newsboy, The; by E.W. Hildick. 108 pages.
Case of the Phantom Frog, The; by E. W. Hildick. 132 pages.
Case of the Snowbound Spy, The; by E. W. Hildick. 132 pages.
Count of Monte Cristo, The; by Alexandre Dumas. 480 pages
Cruel Shoes, by Steve Martin. 128 pages.
Cubicles to Envy the Dead, by Scott Adams. 148 pages.
Deadline for McGurk, by E.W. Hildick. 120 pages.
Design of Everyday Things, The; by Donald Norman. 257 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Meltdown, by  Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Getaway, by Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw; by Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, by Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Dilbert Principle, The; by Scott Adams. 336 pages.
Dragon Orb, The; by Mike Shelton. 326 pages.
Dragons at Crumbling Castle, by Terry Pratchett. 337 pages.
Education of A Wandering Man, by Louis L'Amour. 260 pages.
Fire Queen, The; by Emily R. King 286 pages.
Grasshopper Trap, The; by Patrick F. McManus, 213 pages.
Great Government Goofs, by Leland H. Gregory III. 264 pages.
Great Rabbit Rip-Off, The; by E. W. Hildick. 130 pages.
Green Hills of Earth, The; by Robert A. Heinlein. 176 pages.
Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett. 402 pages.
Last Continent, The; by Terry Pratchett. 390 pages.
Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett. 314 pages.
Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates, by Jerome Beatty Jr. 159 pages.
Monkey: A Journey to the West, retold by David Kheridan. 211 pages.
Mouse with the Question Mark Tail, The, by Richard Peck. 227 pages.
My Life and Hard Times, by James Thurber. 115 pages.
Nixon Defense, The; by John Dean. 746 pages.
Nomad, by Matthew Mather. 334 pages.
Overlord, by Max Hastings. 368 pages.
Peter Principle, The; by Laurence J. Peter. 180 pages.
Poison's Kiss, by Breeana Sheilds, 295 pages.
Shepherd's Crown, The; by Terry Pratchett. 278 pages.
Snuff, by Terry Pratchett. 398 pages.
Up Front, by Bill Mauldin. 218 pages.
Waking Beauty, by Brittlyn Gallacher Doyle. 224 pages.
Page Total: 12,571.

That's What Christmas is All About, Charlie Brown

"God Bless All of You, All of You on the Good Earth."

I've had a tradition in years past to share the "That's What Christmas is All About, Charlie Brown," speech on this blog on Christmas Day.

Starting a new tradition sharing the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast today.

The famous Genesis reading starts at about 5:10 in.

Be Still, and Know that I Am God

I know it’s an ad.

And if I were in England and had the opportunity, I might shop at Sainsbury’s thanks to this ad.
But the truthfulness of the story transcends the – perhaps – commercial reasons for putting this commercial out there.



Did the things that happen in this ad actually happen?

Perhaps not the football match. But there were scattered bits along the front during World War I, 1914, where there was a truce declared not by generals but by the common soldiers who maybe just wanted forty-eight hours of sanity in a world gone mad.



I like what is said here:

“Even at the toughest of times, in the heat of war, the most dreadful occasions, there can be great humanity.” This from Alan Cleaver, a WWI author and researcher, interviewed for the making of video, and perhaps as a consultant as the commercial was produced.

This is as important a message in this day as was the truce in 1914.

Because you may have noticed we kinda live in a sucky world.

So Sainsburys, thanks for giving me a little bit of hope in a screwy world, even if I had to watch a commercial to do it.

Because there’s also this:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

There for will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.

There is a river, the streams thereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her and that right early.

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations ha hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

And this is what I will remember. Back in 1914, for a brief moment, God made a war cease, He broke the bow, cut the spear, and burned the chariot in the fire.

Fake News is A Problem. And Some Journalists Are Making it Worse.

NOTE: I do not confess to being a good journalist; that’s why I got out of the business more than a decade ago. I screwed things up and made mistakes, but I never flat out made things up.

We know “fake news” is a problem. But when journalists make their own fake news, the problem becomes a thousand times worse.

Example: Not long after the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017, German news magazine Der Spiegel sent award-winning journalist Claas Relotius to find a typical small American town and paint a picture for Germans of the America that sent Trump to the White House.

Unfortunately for real journalists everywhere, what Relotius wrote for the magazine was a lie.
It turns out it is one of at least 14 stories the journalist wrote for Der Spiegel that Relotius admits he made up entirely.

Even two residents of Fergus Falls, who might want to paint Trump supporters as less-than-savory, were appalled at what was written, and fact-checked the article themselves.

Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn, writing for Medium, agree there may be political tension, racism, and unsavory characters in their small town, what Der Spiegel published was at best a caricature of their friends and neighbors and at worse, a pile of German horseshit.

They write:

Yes, we have problems with racism here that he could have used real accounts of (the sign he mentions, “Mexicans Keep Out,” as far as we’ve asked other members of the community, was not seen by anyone else, and would have certainly generated a significant community discussion), but I would also have made sure he got the story of Fergus Falls residents who proudly attended the women’s marches in St. Paul or D.C., and displayed Black Lives Matters signs in our yards or buttons on our jackets, people who mentor immigrants and refugees in the region, people who grow their own food and bike everywhere in order to protect the environment and keep their families healthy, people who have chosen the simplicity rural life as a protest against the often extravagant necessities of city living.

This is just a hunch, but it seems to me that Relotius’ overseas readers might appreciate knowing that small American towns are more complex than they imagine — that die-hard liberals like me can still magically live alongside conservative Republicans — that sometimes we even find some common ground and share a meal together, and take the time to try to understand each other’s viewpoints. You see, we’re definitely not perfect here in Fergus Falls, and many of us feel a lot of responsibility right now, considering that our friends, family and neighbors voted against their own interests in 2016. But we also know how it feels to be ignored in policy and media for decades only to be lectured by ignorant articles such as this after so much silence about our challenges.

A small hunch on my part: Relotius probably figured no one from the hick town would read his article – Americans don’t know second languages after all,* and have never heard of things like Google Translate or, you know, actually KNOW foreign languages or at least someone who does. So why make it true to life when he could just write the kind of fiction he wants to write.

(There’s a link to Der Speigel’s investigation into Relotius’ fabrications in the Star-Tribune article, but it’s protected by a snarly German anti-ad blocker bot thing.)

When journalists and news organizations publish fake news, it makes the stupid cries of “Fake News” we hear coming from our President and his ardent supporters sound – bear with me here – at least somewhat plausible. Viz, via the Washington Post:

But at a time when political parties are deeply polarized on both sides of the Atlantic, the Spiegel controversy could also bolster those who now regularly portray reporting as “fake news.” As a publication that often allows its reporters to include subjective observations in their stories, Spiegel’s anti-Trump cover pieces had been widely shared in liberal circles in recent years. The fact that Relotius was initially exposed because of a story from the United States was immediately used to discredit the magazine’s wider coverage.

On Twitter, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party wrote: “CNN Journalist of the Year 2014 is #FakeNews. Enjoy #TeamTrump.” The party’s regional branch in the southern city of Heidelberg went on to suggest that other stories published by the magazine must also be fabricated, given the scale of the scandal.

Even Trump’s supporters deserve better treatment than what they got in Fergus Falls.

*Just in my family alone are members who speak French (like myself) Korean, Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese, and Cantonese.

"Round About Now . . . "

Round about now, you’re probably expecting an “I’m going to finish Doleful Creatures if it kills me” post.

Because this is usually the time of year when I realize, much to my surprise, that I have NOT finished my book. Yet again. Because of all the gremlins that so easily beset me. Like being totally lazy and neglectful of my book and finding any excuse under the sun to avoid editing it.

I’d like to say I’m going to turn over a new leaf.

I should also say I recently found a past editing attempt and threw it all into the recycling bin. So you can see how well that’s working.

A few things to try:

1. Now that curtailment is here, I will lock myself for two hours a day in the study to work on my book.
2. I will prepare a query letter and first chapter to submit to a BYU editing class that’s looking for YA novels right now for next semester.
3. I will not let future distractions (full-time job, part-time job, starting an all-girl Scouting BSA troop, etc., deter me from my current editing project.
4. I will cut lots of unnecessary words.

I think No. 4 is going to be the best thing. I’m far enough removed from the story now that I can cut those things that I really like, but that are slowing the story down.

So we’ll see how this goes.

Spoon River Revisited: Ahmed Youssef

When I was seventeen years old
My grandfather took me on the hajj
We circled the Kaaba the required seven times
Then he packed my family up and we moved to Skokie
Always he spoke of the old ways
Lamenting that his great-grandchildren
Likely would not do the hajj
Or ride a camel
Or smell the desert
What does he want?
I go to his mosque and my children will go
When they are old enough
as far as he knows
He died of a heart attack when my oldest boy
Spoke of walking seven times around The Bean in Chicago
And said that was enough hajj for him
And in Skokie I visited the Catholic church
With my wife who only converted to Islam on paper
Forgive me, jada,
I am buried at St. Peters.

NOTE: This one might be a little problematic.

Clear the Snow Off Your Solar Panels, or, Don't Believe the Salesman -- Who Knew?

Take this as clear evidence that if you have solar panels in a snowy climate, remove the snow as soon as possible.

Although, as I’m always willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, maybe we had meteorological conditions conspiring against us.

So, about a week ago, we got about two inches of snow. This being Idaho in December, we should have seen it coming.

With the snow came a week of below average temperatures, with mornings in the single digits or below zero, and afternoons rarely peeking over 20 degrees. Naturally, that meant the snow on the 16 panels on the roof of our two-story house didn’t melt off. In fact, it crusted.

Now, before we had the panels installed, snow was my first question: Do we have to clean the snow off of them in the winter?

You might, the salesman said, if you get a really good storm. Otherwise, the panels “run hot,” and the snow will melt off.

Haven’t seen that happen yet. But, again, I have to lay some of the blame with the cold temperatures.

Clearly, you can see after we got up on the roof Saturday to clean the panels (using a roof rake with a pool noodle attached as a squeegee) we got significantly more power generated than with the snow still in place. Of the methods I saw for snow removal, this seemed to be the one that promised the most return for the time invested.

(The method I’m most dubious about is spraying the panels with water. Maybe I’d try it once, but given we’ve got a two-story house, it’d be messy and difficult and I’m not sure I want all that excess water up there, even if most of it drips off.)

A friend who had panels installed at about the same time said his salesman said other wavelengths of light would get through the snow and help generate power – something his monitoring and customer service showed did not come to pass. We saw the same with our own monitoring, as the graphs show.

So, if you want maximum power, be prepared to clean the snow off. Or pray for wind to come with the snow.

Can you guess at about what time we cleared the snow off the panels?

Clearly, removing the snow was a good thing.

It snowed two days later. And will snow again tonight. But tonight's snow should be accompanied by 25 mph winds, so hopefully the snow will fly off.

I expect, given the scarcity of sunshine, that December will be our worst month for electricity generation. Knowing we’re getting more power with the snow gone is a bit more solace than listening to the salesman can provide.

Overall, we’re still pleased. Last month, we paid about $22 for electricity from the grid. Same billing period last year saw us pay $66. That still means with a payment of $90.11* for the panels, plus applicable fees and taxes, electricity still cost us more this month than it would have otherwise, but we’re looking long-term. It’ll be interesting to see where we are a year out from having the panels installed (and working at full-throttle, we had a month last year just after the panels were installed that things were pretty glitchy).

So, should YOU clean the snow off your panels?

If you’re looking at a string of cold weather, definitely. The snow will not disappear on its own if meteorological conditions aren’t conducive to melting, and your power generation will suffer.

If the snow comes with wind and is then followed by more moderate temperatures – here I’m guessing in the high 20s to low 30s, without the intervening below zero – maybe waiting a day or two for natural melting will pay off. You’ll have to decide the benefits of snow removal versus the expenditure in time (and, in our case, a climb up to our second-story roof). I’ll let you know if this pans out after our next storm, which is set to arrive later this week.

*Mileage may vary. Right now, Blue Raven is sending us a check for $90.11, a deal that’ll last for the first 18 months, and we’re turning that right around with additional cash on the loan, so the math is a little off.

Hubris' Tale

Inspired by "Mr. Seguin's Goat/Le Chevre de M. Seguin," by Alphonse Daudet.

I’d have been better off had Nan not been so bookish.

But because she ran offt and married the wandering book-seller and not settled in the village as the wife of the cobbler’s son, the life I lead is . . . well, Nan calls it interesting.

I call it a bother.

Then Nan says the bother – that’s all my fault.

“You’re much too stupid,” she said in the gentle goading way she had when she wanted me to do something I in no way wanted to do. “If you went on an adventure, hah! Come crying back to your Nan in a day, if you were lucky! But as you’re luckless, you’d be gone and done, et by a troll or a dragon or a wolf. You don’t have the guts to go past the garden gate.”

She cackled, and my stepsisters with her.

And I was stupid. Too stupid to see the goading for what it was. And too stupid not to sit still by the fire and listen to Nan’s tales night after night, while the more sensible members of the household slept or sneaked out once the moon set, or earlier if the wind blew.

What Nan didn’t know – or I thought she didn’t know – is that from inside the garden gate which, curse it, for a time I was too scared to pass unless it was holding tight onto Nan’s hand as she did her visits round about the neighboring farms, I could see the white tops of the distant mountains.

They frightened me too.

But they called their promises to me, over the wind and when the moon was tall and shining:

Come. The air is clear.

Come. The trees are green.

Come. Where your stepsisters are not.

But then the wind blew, and in the wind I felt Nan.

Nan’s hearing was never all that good, and she had one eye clouded and milky, so when the wind blew or the light dimmed, she had trouble counting those around the fire. My step-sisters thought they could sneak off, one by one, to find their horrible beaus in the woodshed, or the hay loft, or underneath the hawthorns that surrounded our farm. Still Nan knew. She knew when they slept or when they sneaked off, and always had a sharp word for them come morning.

Yet I’m the one she named Hubris. Explain me that.

Oh, but the tales. The tales Nan told. Stories of adventurers seeking their fortunes, seeking lost loves, seeking revenge. Revenge! Those were my favorites. Because once the adventurers found their fortunes, well, they had to cart it all home, didn’t they? The tellers of tales never told the returns, filled with highwaymen and lavish nights at the inns and adventurers and heroes slinking back home in rags without a penny in their pockets. But those who sought revenge! White-hot at the moment they found it, glorious and streaked with blood and making thrones of the skulls of their enemies! Those are the tales that kept me ‘round the fire and often caused the nightmares that made me roll into the fire once I did finally fall asleep.

And Nan always cackled as she stomped on me to beat out the flames.

“Stupid boy,” she’d say. “Last one I’d take on an adventure. You’d be the one to fall down the hole where the goblins live or get lost in the enchanted forest or be imprisoned by the Dark Lord and we’d all have to risk life and limb to find you, wretch. Maybe we’d leave you there. And you’d deserve it.”

And yet.

Often during the telling of a tale, I could see the tops of the white mountains far away.

“Don’t listen to the daft old woman,” they said. “Come to us and we’ll show you your bravery! You’re no whelp, you’re a warrior!”

And I was. Because when no one looked I practiced my swordsmanship with the bit of iron I beat out cold on the anvil at the far side of the barn. It didn’t have much of an edge to it, but I could do enough damage to a bit of sacking stuffed with straw that I felt confident, in a pinch, it might save my life.

And Nan saw me practicing one day and cackled. “It takes more than a bit of pointy metal to make a warrior,” she said. “There’s creatures just the other side of the fence know more about defense and battle than you do. Best stay home, milk the goats, boy. You wouldn’t last an hour out there.”

And yet.

When she learned a new tale – and you could tell when it was fresh, for the milky eye would glow and you swear you could see the tiniest of black pupils at its center as it roamed independent of the other – she made sure mother shaved my head and that I’d had a good ducking in the river before she told it, so afterwards when I rolled into the fire gripped in a nightmare my clothes would only smolder a bit and I’d only lose my eyebrows. Eyebrows grew back quickly, Nan said. “Don’t care if the rest hears it,” she’d say. “But you. You need this one.”

And she’d put on her pointy boots to do the kicking.

Father – as in many of the tales Nan told – was dead. Died right after I was born. Dead of disappointment, Nan said, for up until then he’d had only daughters and wot not to do with a son. And Mum worked hard washing laundry and taking in sewing and worked us hard in the garden and in the woods looking for berries and stealing firewood, often complaining of the hard life she led because of being the offspring of a bookish woman such as Nan.

“Books have done me a lot of good,” Nan said.

“Saved you from a life of prosperity as the wife of a cobbler, no doubt,” Mum retorted. Indeed, when knew nan’s former beau had made his fortune and moved to the city and had stables of cobblers making shoes for the lards and ladies there. Her own husband, the book-seller, died in a binding accident when Mum was only six days old.

“I’m happier with books,” Nan said. “Who needs money?”

“Money buys food!” Mum screamed.

“I’d like to see you wipe your bottom with money!”

That’s usually when they began throwing things at each other. Not that we had much to throw. But Mum and Nan collected rocks and rotten turnips for such occasions and hid them round the house.

This is when I usually left.

I was not afraid to pass the garden gate. It held no mysteries for me. For when I stepped out into the yard, I saw nothing but the distant mountains, and tried my best to run to them.

Usually. Because most of the time if I showed so much as a burnt eyebrow outside the hut, my sisters, they got unpleasant with me.

‘Baby! Oh Baby!”

Meridy typically started it, as Meridy was the one who also rarely ventured past the garden gate. Said she was tending the potatoes. Probably eating half the crop, raw, fat as she is. She’d been the youngest until I came along and resented my accident of birth.

“Nan says it’s always the youngest in the family who finds her fortune, reaps her rewards, finds her prince! You came and mucked it up. Though you’d probably like a prince, wouldn’t you, Baby?”

That was her standard speech. And Baby is what they all called me, sneering. And as she was too fat to leave her spot in the garden, that’s typically as far as she got into it before I was out of the house and running down the lane, singing one of Nan’s filthy songs to drown out Meridy’s voice.

I liked her the best of my sisters. Her weapons were words, and Nan’s tales always said that words could do no harm unless the victim were a complete and utter clod and dullard who bothered to think about what was being said by an enemy who used only words as weapons.

So her words fell on my back as if she were pelting me with daisies. I’d laugh and run and see the mountains coming and –

Hagg always tripped me near the briar patch, near a fresh pile of horse dung, or near the poison ivy. One could say I could avoid such obstacles, but Hagg cultivated both briar and ivy, and collected fresh dung by the bucketsful and always varied the location of her traps.

I had bruises on my shins from the ash branches she used to foul my legs.

“Stupid Baby, you smell like a horse!” And she’d croak out a laugh.

I never saw Hagg. Only heard the voice, like a frog tired of eating flies.

I’d have hugged her out of revenge, (Oh, revenge!) but it never paid to linger where Hagg set her snares. Just when you thought you were past them, bang! Another bucket of dung.

And Nan never let me back into the house smelling of horse. I had to go duck in the creek first. That awful creek full of leeches and ice water.

After such a ducking, as I stood shivering on the threshold – Nan didn’t cotton to water dripping all over her clean dirt floor – why I tried to run.

I pulled a leech from my left ear, flicked it into the grass, and waved my arms expansively. “You see all this, Nan? It’s the same. Every day. Every day mother leaves to collect the washing. Every day I try to leave and the sisters get me. I’m bored of it. Bored.”

“Ah. Boredom. My old friend,” she said. “Ought to be happy with boredom. It’s predicatable. Always know where you stand when you’re bored. Now, interesting. When things get interesting, come back and talk with me. After you’ve patted out interesting’s flames and maybe pulled her teeth out of your hide. Boring is safe.”

Her milky eye, always her betrayer, spun as she looked at me.

“You’re having me on,” I said.

“Huh,” Nan snorted. “So maybe you need a change? Need life more interesting?”

Never liked it when Nan spoke of change. Change usually involved Jaundice.

She never spoke at all – frighteningly quiet, our Jaundice. I never knew why she hated me so, though I suspect she didn’t really need a reason.

Meridy was easy to pass. And Hagg too, once I learned her habits and learned to salt her patches of ivy and briar.

But Jaundice. Jaundice was tougher to pass.

“Why do you do it, boy?” Nan would ask, helping me pick the briar thorns out of my skin, or smearing her skunk-smell poison ivy salve on my rashes. “I’ve set so many traps around the farm, you’ll never get out. Yet you keep trying. Why?”

All I had to do was look at the white tops of the distant mountains, and she knew.

And to goad me, those nights when the thorns were especially stubborn or the rash exceptionally itchy, she’d tell us new tales of hapless boys who left their farms to fight dragons in the mountains. And as she told her tales, her blind milky eye seemed to stare directly at me, no matter where I sat near the fire, and the firelight danced on it and I vowed to try again.

Where Hagg was mostly passive in her aggression, Jaundice was overt, always had her hair in a severe bun and her fists balled up, and almost always waited until I’d nearly picked all the briars out of my face or brushed off the worst of the manure before she leaped out of her hiding place and began beating my kidneys. And where Nan’s fire-kickings were generally enjoyable because the dogs joined and soon enough were tugging on opposite sides of Nan’s shawl and she was batting at them and I could dart away, laughing, Jaundice aimed to end the fight quickly with blows that would fell a troll.

And if I hollered, in anger or pain, she hit harder. So I learned to be quiet, kept my thoughts on the tops of those mountains, where the air must be clear of firewood smoke, and one could see the lights of the farms and the villages as if they were fireflies lit in the dark valley.

And oh, the sunrises one must see up there! When the sun pops over the horizon and lights the tops of the mountains first – islands of light when all around them is dark!

Nan always knew when I was thinking such thoughts.
“Go there, you’ll get et, plain and simple,” she said many times, her milky eye strangely aglow. “There be dragons.”

“There be dragons here too,” I muttered.

“Aye,” she said. “But they’ll never kill you. Just keep you in your place. Only place a dragon’ll keep you is her belly.”

“Maybe I could give her gas.”

Nan chuckled, then slapped me upside the head.

“An imp like you, not likely to cause even a single burp.”

Dragons, she said.

Oh, she told tales of dragons and how they et princesses and townsfolk and virgins and warriors sent to free the virgins from them.

“I could take my sword,” I told her.

“Nice of you. Dragon could use it to pick her teeth.”

Still, the mountaintops called.

I felt it most the days I passed Hagg and her traps.

Then Jaundice. Never felt brave enough to pass Jaundice. Of course, if she used your kidneys and punching-bags like she did mine, you’d not walk near her often.

But if I could resist the blows. Or dodge them, maybe for thirty seconds. She loved to punch – but did she like to run?

I began running. First, short bursts of speed between the house and barn, startling the chickens.
Faster, faster, pushing each day. Soon the trip between the house and barn took ten seconds, rather than the laggardly twenty-two I started with.

Maybe I was ready.

Run past Meridy. Easy enough. Her weapons were words and if I ran fast enough, she’d only get half a sentence out of her fat face before I was out of earshot.

Hagg. Hagg would be trickier. There, I’d have to combine speed with luck.

Twelve tries. Then on lucky thirteen, I got past her and her traps without much injury. Pulling the thorns out could wait if I could only get past Jaundice.

There, twenty tries. And a year and a half of running, because while Meridy and Hagg didn’t like to run, it was clear Jaundice would. And when she caught me, the blows were even more severe.

On the twentieth, I crawled home, with Hagg and Meridy laughing at me, kicking at me as I crossed the threshold.

“Stop that, you two,” she snapped. “Don’t know a good thing when you see it, do you?” Nan looked at me. “I know what you’re planning. And it’s daft. Almost as daft as marrying a book-seller.”

Then she turned to Hagg and Meridy. “He’ll leave us one day, sure enough. Probably go straight to the mountains, straight to the dragons’ gullets,” she said.

“But he might do. He might do.”

“Do what?” Meridy sniffed.

“Treat him poorly enough, he’ll flee,” Nan said. “But dragons don’t like bruised meat. He passes you, he passes you. And if he passes Jaundice – little chance of that, no matter how fast he’s getting – he’ll flee.”

“So?”

Nan rolled her milky eye. “And then he’ll come back, bringing a fortune back to us all on his return, one of these days.” And the family believed her. Because that’s how it always was, in the tales she told.

So one day, when I was about fourteen or fifteen – both good ages to run away from the unpleasantness to seek one’s fortune, Nan always reminded me – I did run off.

And my life got a lot worse.

[Morgan Freeman] It Was About the Money

Remember, it’s never about the money.

Well, it is about the money. Until it isn’t.

And frankly, the kind of fake news this BBC story describes really isn’t what concerns me. It’s so patently false on first appearances it’s simple for the reasonable to detect and ignore. Hyperpartisans in any party are going to believe what they want to believe, especially if it appears too good to be true.

What irks me is the money thing.

Pity Mr. Blair. The Great Recession killed the construction industry that fed his family. So he turned to creating fake news and reveled in the fact it brought him enough money he could quit his day job.
Then Facebook changed its algorithm and he’s not making as much money as he was in the past.
So does the BBC ask him how he’s supporting his family?

No, they don’t.

And they let him get away with saying it was never about the money.

Here is what they say:

“But once the fake news started to get clicks, he was able to use Google’s advertising platform to convert page views into money. In 2014, he quit his day job.

“’Once writing became lucrative enough to not destroy my body in construction any more,’ he says with a laugh, ‘that’s when it became time to stay at home with the kids and do this.’”

Yet later, it’s this:

“For Blair, the money began to dry up. Largely because of Facebook’s changes, he says he now makes a faction of what he did at the height of the fake news boom.

“But he insists money was never the motivator, and instead he claims to be a ‘leader of the resistance’ against President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.”

Cheers to Mr. Blair for keeping up the good fight.

But a wag of the finger to the BBC that let this contradiction go unaddressed in its story.

Because it was about the money. Until the money dried up. And it might still be about the money, though neither Mr. Blair nor the BBC tell us.

Now you probably suppose I’m pro Trump.

No, I’m not.

I voted for Ted Cruz in the primaries – not my proudest moment – and for Evan McMullin in the final election. My presidential voting record is across the board – I’ve voted for Obama. For Romney. For Bush. Heaven help me, I also voted for H. Ross Perot and Ralph Nader. I’m more of a protest voter than a party-liner. That’s my way of protesting and I’ve never made a dime off it.

And also, it’s pretty harmless, my way of protesting. My protest votes occur in a solidly partisan state, where protest votes cannot swing any election.

Producing fake news and trolling conservative websites, well, we’ve seen the harm that’s done. You don’t have to look much further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to see what fake news has wrought.

Mr. Blair can protest and resist all he wants. But the biggest bit of fake news I see in this story is the lie that it never was for the money. It was, until it wasn’t. And when mainstream media outlets leave holes in their own stories like this, that’s more troubling than any number of Hillary Clinton death hoaxes. Legitimate news outlets can produce fake news of their own, wittingly or unwittingly in the blink of an eye, and by doing so they toss kerosene onto the fake news fire.

Spoon River Revisited: Rubinia deSpain

Oh we sneered at the village-folk
Coming into our big city to gawp at the skyscrapers
And eat the terrible street vendor hotdogs.
We laughed when they jumped at the traffic
And shook their heads at our big-city-“rudeness,”
Not knowing in their ignorant fashion, of course,
That it wasn’t rudeness, just big-city hustle.
Get out of the way, we said to them
Hesitating for half a second at the crosswalks
Or we didn’t talk to them at all, muttering only
About the yokels walking four abreast on the sidewalks.
Yet they laughed when I screamed
When I saw the rat in the street
They said it was a possum
And described a world of possums and ferrets and raccoons
And heifers and horses
And creeks that didn’t flow between concrete walls
And sunrises and sunsets you could see on the horizon
Not at random between the buildings.
And of the freedom to walk without car exhaust but only the smell of dung;
which we have in the city too. But not from horses.
And it sounded terrible.
And wonderful.
Ci I git, mes amis, buried in the only plot of land I could call my own.

Bringing Christ Home

I’ve never been shy about enjoying Christmas music year-round. But now with Thanksgiving in the past, I can officially begin really enjoying my music.

First, this:



Silent Night is, of course, one of the most enduring Christmas hymns. Its simple message and melody can’t be drowned out by the clamour of the world.

And the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s video brings Christ to us by allegory as well as by the spirit. Which leads me to one of my favorite Christmas carols:



Here we have the Catlan carol, famous in the area of France where I spent half of my mission. This simple song brings the wonderful events of Bethlehem to some unnamed Catlan farm, where the humble and faithful are invited to welcome the Christ child. Not from some faraway place. But at home. Which is where Christ should be.

"I Think it Says 'Fragile,' Honey."

Back when we switched our clocks off Daylight Saving Time, I had to replace a battery in the clock that hangs in the stairwell. I succeeded at that mission, but:
1. Did not notice the clock was dusty 2. Left two distinct finger streaks in the dust.
So tonight, my wife asked me to go dust the clock. I dutifully complied and re-hung the clock, which immediately fell off the nail, bounced down the stairs and shattered at the bottom.
I salvaged the battery -- the only functioning part of the now defunct clock -- and told my wife I'd take the rest outside to bury next to the garage.
When I came back in from the trash can, she had Alexa playing Taps, and asked if we had any glue.
I was always jealous of that clock.

Stan Lee, Who Helped Introduce Me to -- Comic Strips

As a kid, the closest I ever came to liking your traditional superheroes came thanks to the Spiderman segments on The Electric Company.



My older brother Jeff had many of the comic books. I remember glancing at a few (the one that sticks out most in my head features Iron Man locked in his outfit, with people using hand grenades to try to get him out for some reason). And I only recognize him as Iron Man now – had no idea who he was then, nor why anyone would want to blow him up in such a useless fashion.

There were other comic books in his collection – notably B.C. comic strips – that more fully engaged my attention. Somehow it was easier to relate to and understand cavemen, or the denizens of the Kingdom of Id, than it was the people who inhabited the Spiderman universe.

But still, to hear of Stan Lee’s death today at 95, takes me back to my childhood.

Superhero comics could have been my window into the comics world, had it not been for BC and Thor and Clumsy Carp. Looking back, I’m glad I chose the path I did. My personality lends more to the silliness and whimsy I find in comic strips, rather than to the more serious storylines to be found in superhero comics. And maybe there’s silliness and whimsy there too; I’m just glad I took the path I did.

I’ve come to enjoy the fringes of the superhero universe, though I’ve never seen much to draw me into the center of it. Things like The Incredibles, The Iron Giant, and such were to my liking. And the LEGO Batman Movie? Best Batman movie ever made.

One thing always confused me about those comic books though. That name. Stan Lee. Was it a guy being funny with his given name of Stanley? For a kid encountering the two-first-name phenomenon for the first time, it was confusing.

Or Am I Being Too Obvious?

So I've been teaching online English courses at BYU-Idaho since -- I realized this week -- 2012. And there's this thing to think about that's been bugging me for a while.

This semester, I found a Facebook group dedicated to BYUI online classes. It's student-run. About half of the posts in the course are from students listing the courses they want to take the following semester, and recommendations on who the best teachers are for the class. Sometimes familiar names come up -- once I even saw my own.

But part of me wonders: Are they asking the right question?

Or are they asking the question outwardly, when it's one that should be asked inwardly?

Because when we online instructors meet, together or in legion, we get a lot of education on what we're doing wrong, or, in other words, what we're not doing right. The focus, put less negatively, is on improvement. We're imperfect beings, we instructors. We have many areas in which we can improve. And whether it's to be believed or not, we are working to improve.

Is the same being asked of students at BYUI?

A semester or two ago we had an online instructors' forum where students were invited to present their desires to the instructors. They pointed out many things we are not doing to their liking -- we don't grade fast enough; we don't respond to questions fast enough, and so on.

Both my wife and I listened to that forum and had the same question afterward: Why was there no time for instructor rebuttal?

So as I see students asking questions about who the best instructors are, and creating spreadsheets and other resources to track the "best" instructors, I have to ask the question: Who are the best students? And if I see a student in my classroom who doesn't come recommended, do I get to decide they don't belong there?

I do not.

I get to teach whomever comes in, does the work, and hangs on until the end.

Now we're getting somewhere: We can't put together a list of ideal students by name and put that information on a tidy little spreadsheet.

We can do what some students do with their recommendations: Go beyond the name to good attributes.

So who is the best student at BYUI?

Here's my list:

• Good students know the learning environment enough to find their own lessons each week, where to find instructor feedback, and where to find instructor announcements
• Good students read instructor announcements
• Good students ask questions
• Good students ask questions in a timely manner. They don't wait until the 11th hour before an assignment is due to ask those questions, and get irritated when they do not get an immediate answer
• Good students do their work to the best of their ability
• Good students realize that instructors have other students. It's also likely they have other jobs. And families. And other things they like to do outside of their jobs, so if an answer isn't immediate or if a grade isn't done when desired, it's not because instructors are slackers, but because instructors -- like students -- have a lot going on outside that one class
• Good students realize that the online instructors at BYUI do not create the curriculum for the classes they teach. It's highly likely if students are frustrated with unclear assignments, or broken links, or assignments that seem like busy work, the instructors are too. It's also likely instructors are asking for better instructions and less busy work. But they, like students, have to wait until those in power decide to take their questions seriously.

I could go on. But these seem to be the core attributes I'd like to see in students. And I realize many of these attributes are mutual attributes. So I'm going to add one more:

• Good students -- and good instructors -- aren't the tail wagging the dog. They try their hardest to work together, and take a mutual interest in the class.

Re: That Previous Post; or, “But I’m Feeling Much Better Now”

Clearly, whatever is ailing me at the moment bubbled to the surface, viz. But thanks to Night Court, I’ve got a catchphrase that should put some reassurance into your heads, if you forget it’s coming from man recently released from a psychiatric institution:





It’s stress. I’m dealing with the stress right now. It’s part of my long-term strategy of becoming Wally. Or an early death, whichever comes first.

The source of said stress? Legion:

1. Full-time job. Remember the Big Failure from a while back?  It kind of revisited under a different form, but that, too, appears to be on the mend. And there was a drill today that I had little time to prepare for, but that’s over.

2. Part-time job. Which is what I do, or at least which is what it feels like I do, whenever I’m not at the full-time job.

3. Church. That explains the previous post quite a bit, in vague and scary terms. But I’m coming to grips with things better now, as Buddy might say. Also Liam is preparing for his mission call. We had a visit with LDS Family Services about a week ago, in which we discussed his position on the autism spectrum. I personally think he’d struggle on a teaching mission. But we’ll see where the Lord decides to send him. At least this is something completely out of my hands. Then I have my own inadequacies, to which I’m slowly getting a fix on how to fix.

4. Schedule. I’m always a bit discombobulated when the days shorten and I get a lot less sun in my eyeballs. With the passing of Daylight Saving Time, that means I’m full into the phase when I get up before the sun rises and don’t get home until after it sets. That piles on the stress.

5. Book. Doleful Creatures still calls to me. I have no idea how to fix it.

So that all kinda came to a head when that last post hit. Which is fine; it shouldn’t be all good news that comes to the surface. There are struggles that all of us go through.

Spiritual Entertainment

So this past weekend, I did something I've never done in my entire life: I attended the entirety of stake conference, including the leadership session.

Biggest take-home: "Spiritual entertainment without transformative action."

I think it was Elder Rollins who said this. Or maybe it was one of the other guys. My notes are kinda sketchy.

But this is what stuck with me: Am I merely being spiritually entertained, say, by watching videos like the one posted above?

Or am I acting on what's being said to me?

Some days, it's hard to tell.

Lots of stress lately. Full-time job, part-time job. No time to work on the book I started five years ago. Well, there's time. And then there isn't, because of reasons. It's hard.

I'm being pulled in a taffy-puller, and I'm one of the people cranking it to ludicrous speed. So I've got some stuff to sort out. Thinking out loud sometimes helps.

Spoon River Revisited: John Dickey

There’s something about late fall that always takes me back to Spoon River, and the thought of what Edgar Lee Masters would write today.

Maybe something like this. Only better.

John Dickey

On the bus, I wondered
what this place looked like before It needed buses.
Were there reeds on the dunes on Lake Michigan?
Were there places a man could go
and not hear even the slightest murmur of traffic?
Or the grumble of minds weary of bus seats?
Were there people who walked slowly?
Were there people who cared
whether John Dickey were alive?
And how did they kill themselves
Without buses to walk in front of?
They tell me Chicago means
“The smell of wild onions.”
But sir, if that’s true today,
wild onions must smell like buses.

“I’m From Silicon Valley and I’m Here to Help”

In the years to come, we will probably come to recognize the phrase “I’m from Silicon Valley and I’m here to help” as the most frightening phrase uttered.

Their latest creation?

They have this nifty little app that will let you out your friends who have a spotty voting record, who are registered Republicans*, or who are the scum of the earth because they whine about politics all the time but don’t ever make it to the polls.

Oh, they won’t tell you that on their website. There’s a lot of things they won’t tell you about on their website. But that’s what’s going to happen.

It’s Vote Shaming, from Your Friends!

When the geniuses at Buzzfeed look at your app and think, yeah, this is a little creepy, you might have a problem.

Yes, it’s true voting records are public records. And thanks to the vacuousness of the techies, it’s information that can now easily be weaponized.

I know that’s not their intent. But once you offer a service to the masses, you no longer control how the masses use your service. Some will use the app to gently remind their friends to go vote. Others will use the app to shame those who don’t hold their own political views or for other nefarious mischief. Voila the birth of yet another tool that will be used in the “us-vs-them” mentality that is poisoning our politics. If you can’t convince your opponents with logical statements and reasoned argument, SHAME THEM WITH PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE VOTER DATA!

But remember, “VoteWithMe is 20 times more effective than traditional get out the vote methods,” they claim on their website. No matter they don’t substantiate that claim in any way, but they CLAIM IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE.

Pardon my cynicism. I see their pure intent. I see the stars in their eyes. Yet I also see how the Internet takes a good thing and pounds it into the ground.

So use the app if you want. Persuade your friends in swing districts to vote – since those are the votes that count the most, apparently; forget that all politics is local and follow the Democratic mantra of getting the vote out, winning the popular vote for president, yet failing twice in the past 16 years to win the Electoral College and then INEXPLICABLY failing to do anything about the Electoral College because amending the Constitution is, like, SO HARD.

Or support Electoral College-elected demagogues who suddenly want to do lots of cutting and pasting in the U.S. Constitution. It’s up to you.



*Not that some registered Republicans – or Democrats, for that matter, don’t deserve to be publicly shamed from time to time. It clears the tubes.

At Least it's A Classy Earworm

This has been my earworm as of late. At least it's a classy earworm.

No Redemption for Milkshake Duck

I only read about Kelvin Pena afterwards.

Reading about him inspired two thoughts:

1. What the hell is “milkshake ducked”?
2. Dude, come on.

The first thought was easily answered. A milkshake duck is how the Interwebs refers to someone who briefly basks in Internet fame, only to have a “sordid” past surface to tarnish the fame.

Apparently, Pena, who gained fame as Brother Nature – and naturally branded it and is selling, probably, t-shirts and deer-related merchandise thanks to his relationship with a handful of deer which show up in his backyard to eat carrots and such, sent racist and other stupid tweets as a pre-teenager.

This means, according to the Internet, his Internet fame is tainted and over and he must needs be shunned forevermore because any association with him means you would kiss Hitler full on the lips given a chance.

This leads, of course, to the second thought.

That second thought is not directed at Pena, who acknowledges his past stupidity. It’s directed, rather, at the rest of us who probably all have sordid thoughts in our past – or even our present – but since we’re not Internet famous, they can remain solidly in their closets.

We’ve become so cynical. It’s like we all go into the Wabac Machine and are all present when Ron Ziegler, press secretary for US President Richard Nixon, uttered the famous “This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative,” in trying to explain the Watergate scandal which eventually brought Nixon down.

Sure, we think. He’s repentant now. But he said UGLY THINGS in the past so that must mean he’s an UGLY PERSON, no matter his apologies and what appears – on Pena’s part, not necessarily Nixon’s – to be contrition. ANY ASSOCIATION with Scumbag Brother Nature means you accept his past ideas, even if he now rejects them and admits he said them as an attention-seeking geek who should have known better and certainly knows better now – and very likely knew better before the rage started.



To me, it’s a faux rage that denies forgiveness. It’s spite writ large for everyone to see.

Ten Influential Films -- and the Real People I Connect With Them

Facebook -- and other social media, probably -- has got a thing going where we post an image a day for ten days from films that've had a lasting impact on our lives.

As I, like Jack Handey, am rich in television (and film, for that matter) there are a lot to try to cram onto a list of ten. I'll try my best.

Neat thing is that as I thought about the films I'd put on the list, I connected the films to people in my life, so it's a film/person association.

Day One:

Inspector Clouseau looking for cleues in "Revenge of the Pink Panther. This film reminds me of my Dad. Back in the dinosaur years when we'd rent a VCR and some movies. we'd almost always come home with a Pink Panther film. Dad loved the slapstick and the idiot accent (he had his own, of Dutch extraction).

I was lucky enough to serve a mission in France, so seeing these movies knowing a bit of the language certainly changed them for the better.

Day Two:

I first read "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" sitting in one of the back corners of Mrs. Barrett's third-grade class. Shortly after I finished reading the book, they announced the film. I was stoked. This was the first movie, as a kid, I wanted to see. We went to the expensive theater ($4.50 a head at the time) to see it. And it did not disappoint.

Well, maybe a little. It was my first introduction to Hollywood altering books for movies. But as I think of this film, I think of my elementary school teachers, who were always kind enough to stick me in the back of the room next to the library books.

Day Three:

Though there are many people associated with "The Three Amigos," the memory that sticks out the most is my mission companion, Elder Omerza, listening politely as I sang "Arizona Moon" from this film to some French members who wanted to hear us sing. I think he was relieved I volunteered when they asked us to sing them something. And maybe they were too stunned by my rotten singing to ask for an encore, even from Elder Omerza, after I was done.

Day Four:

This was me as a kid, but absent the self-confidence. Chunk knew he was fat, was tired of the other kids pointing it out to him, but he just rolled with it (no pun intended). So this is a me film.

It's also a sister Chris film, since Chris is the one who introduced us to The Goonies, and who still calls me Chunk -- lovingly, of course.

Day Five:

Oh my goodness. How many people in my life does this film involve? Probably all of them, to be honest. Dad chuckled at it. Everyone thought I looked like Ralphie. And now, as a father, I see a lot of myself in The Old Man. I think this film has a character and a mood for everyone at every time in their lives. I even use the video of Miss Shields correcting papers to let my students know I'm working on theirs.

Day Six:

Two people come to mind whenever I watch this film:

My wife, of course. She is Gwen deMarco, and laughs at herself whenever she finds herself repeating what the computer says. But she's also badass enough I don't want to mess with her.

Then my brother-in-law Carl. He's a very serious kinda guy, but I got to hear him giggle all the way through this film.

Day Seven:

This film. This is an Albert and Jeff production. They love humor, they love nonsequiturs, and they love knowing that if anyone in the family asks "where do these stairs go," they can respond "they go up," and everyone will immediately know what's going on.

Day Eight:

If Ghostbusters is for brothers, this film is for sisters. Maaike and Sherri, because they know the film just as well as I do and can quote the most obscure lines from it. And also Marina, who doesn't have a connection to this film per se, except I remember many nights at home, listening to her play the guitar and sing. Of anyone in the family, she helped me appreciate a good singing voice and good songs, which this film has in abundance.

Day Nine:

This one. This one represents many of the fine folk I know only grace of myths and legends, or at least the Internet. If I'm in a funk after work, I know I can come home and on a good day find someone griping about Fop, complaining about geographic oddities or lamenting about the livestock. Thanks, folks, for the low-cost therapy you provide.

Day Ten:

A funny film, both as in funny ha-ha and a film to make you think you're living your own life funy. When Brother Warnick showed us this film in either my first or second year at college, I had to wonder what it meant for me, a punk kid.

Decades later, it means a lot.

It means don't get a brain cloud and then not get a second opinion.

So this film reminds me of my college years, and the many friends I had there who were always willing to give me a second opinion.

Delusions of Adequacy

I’m trying not to draw any conclusions. However . . .

This week begins the grading of Part One papers. Right now, based on topics and outlines, I judge about half of my students will produce Part One papers that broadly fit with the expected outcome, meaning they will identify and analyze a problem and briefly outline the solutions they’ll explore in Part Two.

The other half will need more coaching, with about a third to a half of those again getting on the right track for Part Two. The remainder will continue to struggle with the paper through Part Three, when blessed relief arrives and we get to move on to a different assignment.

These outcomes, and rough percentages, occur in my classes whether or not I aggressively push at the beginning to help them understand what this three-part paper is about, and how to succeed at it. And from conversations I’ve had with my wife, who probably puts in five hours for each hour I do in class, these percentages hold the same for her as well.

So for those conclusions I’m reluctant to draw:

How much do we, as instructors, have to bang our heads on the wall to help students understand what’s expected, particularly when the outcome in the aggregate, appears to be the same whether or not great effort is expended?

So this is the problem I need to examine in my own version of this paper. Or maybe something spun in more positive light that makes me sound less lazy.

It’s hard to say additional professional development is a solution. My wife has a current teaching certificate in English. That was her major in college. I have little training in teaching. Yet our outcomes mirror each other.

I’d be interested to see if there’s a correlation between teaching this class online as compared to teaching it in the classroom. Do we struggle with physical and psychological distance in the online classroom that leads to poorer outcomes – or are the outcomes the same whether the class is taught online or face-to-face? Given the physical and psychological barriers between classroom teachers and online teachers at BYU-Idaho, finding this out might be difficult. I could perhaps pose the question in the BYUI teaching forum (but does it include only online instructors, or all instructors?) or in one of the Facebook forums I’ve discovered (which may suffer the same separation).

Nevertheless, I think I’ll ask in our online forums if other instructors in this course see the same percentages. Can’t hurt but to try. And perhaps I need to better quantify what I’m seeing in my own classes in order to make a case – for something; I don’t yet know what – down the road.

And maybe there’s nothing to be done. This is just how it’s going to be.

If only I could chase away these feelings of inadequacy.

Perhaps they’re better than delusions.

Infamous. Infamous?

COME TO SANTO POCO PUT ON SHOW STOP THE INFAMOUS EL GUAPO

Clearly, knowing where the period is in this sentence – and getting past the clunky language of telegrams – is crucial to understanding this sentence, and The Three Amigos fail miserably at it.

Nevermind that without the misunderstanding we have no story. Because the senders of this telegram had to settle for the ten-peso version, tragedy (“I’ve been shot already!”) and comedy (“Lip balm?”) ensue.

So I agree with Joe Moran, professor of English at Liverpool John Moores University when he says “If you want to write well, learn to love the full stop. See it as the goal towards which the words in your sentence adamantly move.”

But some of the rest of what Moran writes would fit in well with a comedy of words.

Moran decries the advent of texting and chatting online, where “[w]e live in a digital age that likes to pretend that writing is speech. We tap out emails, texts and update our social media profiles in the places – busy commuter trains, cafes and streets – where we also talk. We write as if we were talking. This kind of digital writing is often done quickly in the hope of an instant response. It is a slightly interrupted way of having a conversation.”*

Considering that most early records of written communication are little more than accountancy made permanent, I have to wonder how much tweed is stuffed up Mr. Moran’s bum.

Writing and speech have often had a hostile relationship. The Linguistic Society of America has a few choice words on the topic:

Written language is associated with political and economic power, admired literature, and educational institutions, all of which lend it high prestige. In literate societies, people often come to think of their written language as basic; they may regard speech as inferior. Nevertheless, writing can be perceived as colder or more impersonal than speech.

The best books I’ve read are mixtures of both writing and speech. Writing as we speak – and this applies to nonfiction as well as fiction – allows us to remove some of the tweed from our bums; to remove the colder, impersonal air that writing can entail. Some writers are better at this than others. And there are times when we want the cold informality of the written word, rather than the casualness of speech. But both styles have their places, can often be intermixed successfully. Neither should be regarded as better than the other, but rather should be seen as equal partners to be called upon when the need arises.

Our ears – used to speech – can tell when something sounds written, particularly when it’s delivered in an active medium like a radio play, a movie, or such. The nuance of circumstance, context, and place help us – complex linguistic creatures that we are – to tell when a character is cleverly written to appear stiff and wooden, and when a character’s lines are poorly written.

Our brains – used to writing – can tell when something sounds casually out of place, irreverent, or informal when the opposite is called for. Yet we can begin to hear characters speak in our minds – we often give them distinct voices, too – when the casualness of transcribed speech allows us to hear the characters speaking. And this goes for those characters who are cleverly-written to sound as if there’s tweed in their bums.

Learn to write both ways, young man, and the west will be yours, even if El Guapo turns out to be a big, dangerous man who wants to kill you. He certainly didn’t sound that way in the telegram.

*We can also see Moran is no fan of the Oxford comma, but that’s fodder for another post.

Our Savior's Love

Had something happen today that first sent me down one path of thought, but quickly brought me to this one:

We have to remember when we go after the one sheep who has strayed, they may come back to the fold with traumas from their time away, or even their previous time with the flock, that will manifest in ways that will startle and frighten the flock that did not stray. This is when the flock needs to show the increased love the Savior speaks of.

Conversely, for some, showing that love can be as hard as surviving the aforementioned trauma. The flock in general is not used to shocks or forgets them easily, and will occasionally react to trauma revisited inside the flock in ways that will seem panicky or cruel. This is when those who stray need to deepen their well of forgiveness.

The flock needs greater practice in showing love. Those who stray need to forgive the occasional panics and realize they do not mean the flock does not want them there.

I don't know about the veracity of this path. But it seems more compassionate than where I started out.

We're all Becoming Daleks

I should probably start to watch Dr. Who.

Specifically, the episodes featuring the Daleks.

Because we’re becoming Daleks. Every last one of us.

Study the metaphor. According to Wikipedia, the Daleks were created for the Dr. Who television program as “violent, merciless and pitiless cyborg aliens who demand total conformity to their will, bent on the conquest of the universe and the exterminations of what they see as inferior races.”

I’m going to expand that metaphor just only slightly, adopting the accepted metaphor used by British society in general:  “English-speakers sometimes use the term metaphorically to describe people, usually authority figures, who act like robots unable to break from their programming.”

It’s necessary to include this expanded metaphor, lest those who are “woke” attempt to say they aren’t among the Dalek-like.

Now shift here:

In democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real, when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

That comes from Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard, writing for The Atlantic.

He writes about the disconnect between the “woke” and the “resentful.” You’ll recognize them:

They’re the ones you typically see shouting at each other loudly in any public or social media space, both assured that they are right and those who don’t believe exactly like them are troglodytes not worthy of licking the scum off their boots. They’re human Daleks.

Mounk writes further than though both camps believe they speak for the majority, they do, in fact, speak only for a minority on either end of the political spectrum. He looked at a study that considered support for political correctness. The study found support for PC culture – which the survey left undefined – was much more narrow than most people believe.

Mounk writes:

For the millions upon millions of Americans of all ages and all races who do not follow politics with rapt attention, and who are much more worried about paying their rent than about debating the prom dress worn by a teenager in Utah, contemporary callout culture merely looks like an excuse to mock the values or ignorance of others.

The gap between the progressive perception and the reality of public views on this issue could do damage to the institutions that the woke elite collectively run. A publication whose editors think they represent the views of a majority of Americans when they actually speak to a small minority of the country may eventually see its influence wane and its readership decline. And a political candidate who believes she is speaking for half of the population when she is actually voicing the opinions of one-fifth is likely to lose the next election.

It’s the classic Pauline Kael, even if you stick with the original quote, not the paraphrase.

It also shows up in things like this.

Because clearly the liberals on the Supreme Court should absolutely refuse admission to the newest justice based on the woke’s opinion, which everyone shares because that appointment is still “convulsing” the nation.

Or is it?

Maybe it’s time for all of us to get out of our own special little worlds, shed the Dalek suits, and bask in the sun of actually listening to each other.