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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Meltdown, We are witnessing the meltdown of the Executive Branch. As more excesses and abuse are discovered, these will fuel an ever growing sense of public outrage. It started with Benghazi, continued with the IRS scandal, then came the AP revelations that indirectly led to James Rosen being named in a subpoena as a coconspirator. Now are coming revelations that the National Security Agency has gotten records from Verizon and likely every other telephone company in the country on all calls made nationally and internationally. Amid all this abuse the White House expects the American people to “Trust Them.” Until the current administration came along most moderates had a general sense of trust in our government. Sure, most reasoned, there would be some abuses but basically any administration would work within the Constitution and serve the general welfare of the people. Were we naïve or what? Benghazi has been swept under the carpet in a cloak of secrecy hiding from the American people what happened that fateful night when an Ambassador and three other Americans were killed. The President’s National Security Advisor has resigned for no apparent reason and has been replaced by a woman whose claim to fame is that she mislead the nation as to what happened… "A spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand..." Get real! She got the job as National Security Advisor for her loyalty to an administration that has circled the wagons to weather the coming storm. Does that inspire trust? Then came the IRS Scandal. Not only was the power of Government used for political purposes--- to target those who held views that ran contrary to the Administrations, but revelations have shown that $50 million dollars was spent by bureaucrats on lavish self serving conferences. What we can expect in future testimony is perhaps more details on how information gathered from inappropriate questionnaires were fed into a common data base, used to generate an “Enemies List.” That this list was orchestrated to insure a “Pile On” of intimidation by other agencies. Is anyone wondering how information generated by 401K applications found its way to OSHA and the FBI? How much trust does this inspire? Then there was the heavy handed gathering of AP records that got one member of the Administration’s love bird media’s all spun up. The stupidity of this blunder defies common sense. The reason the scandalous behavior of the current administration has gone unchecked is because most of the media have turned a blind eye to fair and honest reporting. Except of course for FOX news. And on the heels of the AP revelations James Rosen, a top FOX news commentator, was named a “Coconspirator” in a justice subpoena of all his phone records. Does this inspire trust or send a chill to the opposition? The latest is that the NSA has a secret computer facility in Utah. This mammoth information gathering hub is capable of taking every phone call made inside and outside the United States and determining who made the call, who received it, how long it lasted…. not to mention all the cell towers it passed through. How long is it going to take these "Chicago Politicians" to realize what a gold mine they have here. After learning about all the other abuses going on how much trust does this inspire in our Government? The current Administration considers itself above the law and does not hesitate to trample on the safeguards provided by the Constitution. Our founders warned us to be wary of big government and provided us some safeguards. Unfortunately, it has become a hollow document the current Administration pays little heed to. What we are witnessing is just the beginning. The paste is out of the tube and we need to brace ourselves for the firestorm that is coming. |
| Walking the Sign Today in Vidalia Georgia, where I am visiting my son-in-law, daughter and grandchildren, I drove down to the donut shop, which is across the parking lot from the Municipal Building. As I walked back to the car I noticed someone walking with a sign alongside the highway. My first impression was that somebody was on strike. As I drove past I noticed instead that the sign said words to the effect… “I was DUI and this is part of my punishment.” (To me this was an innovative twist on requiring a person to do public service) When I drove by later he was joined by a second sign carrier and this one said words to the effect, “I was convicted of Disorderly Conduct and this is a part of my punishment. (He was found guilty of urinating in a parking lot.) In this instance there was a photo journal crew interviewing the two sign carriers. I was intrigued and asked the woman who headed the crew if this was a new procedure that had just been put into effect? She replied that she didn’t know and was driving by with her crew and saw the two sentence servers walking with their signs. I was interested in finding out who she represented and what view on the political spectrum she represented, conservative, liberal or moderate. Anyway she asked if she could interview me and when she said she was an anthropologist and represented a moderate point of view I was willing to take her at her word. “What do you think of this,” she asked. “I think it’s great,” I responded. “Don’t you think this punishment is a bit severe? The only thing that one guy did was take a wiz in the parking lot.” “I think it’s a very mild form of sanction, “ I replied. “ I congratulate the city of Vidalia for giving a judge recourse to such an intermediate and sensible step to enforce the law.” “Why do you say that?” “Because today in our families, schools and communities there seem to be only two options of dealing with lawbreakers. The first is to do noting, the second is the nuclear option… some form of lockup. “I see.” “A community has to have standards. Most of us try and follow a higher moral and that keeps us from getting in trouble with the law. The law is a very low standard below which society will not suffer its citizens to behave. The normal progression is that a young person’s behavior is overlooked and ignored and it gets progressively worse until a law is broken which carries with it a serious sanction and the convict is sent off to state prison. “ So you favor this type of penalty?” “Think about it. While some ACLU lawyer might consider it cruel and unusual all sanctions have an element of cruelty and if this considered unusual its only because we don’t see more of it. In my view it is a great tool for a judge to have on hand. If the offense isn’t that terrible, this punishment gives the perpetrator time to reflect on his misdeed, be embarrassed, deter him from doing it again while at the same time reminding those who drive by what the consequence of such miss-deeds are. It serves as an appropriate form of social remediation that lies somewhere between doing nothing and more drastic measures where a convict is locked in a cell for a long period, with hardened criminals who introduce the rookie to a whole new meaning of CRUEL and UNUSUAL.” I walked up and took a picture with my cell phone and the Photo Journalist thanked me for expressing my viewpoint. |
| Yesterday I was struck listening to Louis Learner invoking her Fifth Amendment rights before a congressional committee. First however, she read from a prepared statement saying she was innocent of all wrongdoing, and had broken no law or IRS Regulations. The reason a person invokes these rights is because they fear they have broken the law and don’t want to elaborate on their illegal behavior because it might get them hoisted on their own petard. However, it wasn’t just the statutes she was trying to avoid, which is a rather low standard. She is also trying to hide behind a higher moral standard of “Wrongdoing.” We are raised in families, go to church and have it instilled in us that the goal of a quality citizen is the Golden Rule. Naturally that rule is a high standard and one that it is difficult to meet all the time. A much lower standard, like way down in the cellar, is the law. The standard of law is a low rung on the spectrum of human behavior below which society will not suffer a citizen to operate. When we fall below this low hurdle society is required to impose sanctions in order to remind the wrong doers, what the minimum expectations are. So, when somebody hides behind their rights and refuses to answer questions, the reason is because they fear the sanctions of the law and believe they are open to prosecution. So Mrs. Lerner can‘t have it both ways, saying she is innocent and still invoke her right to silence. It is hugely inconsistent and defies all belief. I am reminded of the case involving Lieutenant Calley in the aftermath of the Mei Lai massacre. The parallels and analogies are remarkably similar. At Mei Lai, suddenly a large number of civilian casualties turned up dead at the same time Lieutenant Calley’s platoon was in the area. At the IRS a large stack of files turned up that weren’t being acted upon. Not only were they being stone walled but also the groups that submitted them did not share the same political ideology of the administration in power. These are analogous to the pile of dead civilians, which everybody agreed was “Outrageous." Calley contended that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. In the heat of contact, he contended, the dead civilians were the result of collateral damage--- that they had not been murdered with coldblooded premeditation but rather something to be expected in the fog of war. It was just one of those things, so the argument went, that happens when soldiers become hardened to the conditions, and descend Maslow’s scale into a pit of uncivilized savagery. Is this was happened to Ms. Learner? Was she so hardened to the political infighting that she saw herself as a blameless partisan hero, innocent of all blame and wrongoing? We don’t know the answer to that and hopefully the truth will begin to emerge in the months ahead as the investigators smoke out the truth. Before that we will get to see plenty of stonewalling as everybody tries to cover their political fannies. Like a platoon in combat you can draw the analogy of Ms. Lerner to her oversight of the branch of the IRS that approved tax exemption waivers. Here are some of the scenarios that can be expected. Scenario #1: I inherited the culture and conditions under which the office was operating and feared that if I tried to change things I would be demoted. Scenario#2: The people in my branch were out of control and as soon as I tried to fix one thing some other abuse would rear it’s ugly head. My workers knew and were willing to go over my head knowing that my superiors would not support any effort on my part to make redress. Finally I gave up and looked the other way. Scenario#3: In the culture in which I work the pathway to success and promotion rests in meeting the boss’s expectations. I wanted to show that I was a team player and shared their unwritten agenda. It so doing I expected to be promoted as I had been in the past even though historically my slanted efforts did not meet the “Weight of Law” test. The case, which I brought against the Christian Coalition, cost them many hundred thousand of dollars and turned out to be a losing effort. Still in the eyes of the current administration it was seen as a good impediment, and served as both a warning to others and as a graduate course in how to use government power to stymie and intimidate citizens with a different point of view . |
| In yesterday’s blog I developed a “Best Case” scenario to explain the voids that are being concealed by the Administration. I don’t claim this is exactly what happened but only that this is the best possible spin that could be put on what has been revealed. I am neither a fan nor a detractor of the President and his Administration. As an American I believe that the success of our country requires citizens to support the Chief Executive and the office of the Presidency regardless of whether or not you support his policies or approach to governance. To understand the scenario I am using in this analysis please read the blog I wrote yesterday. Once you have that in mind you are likely to conclude, “Hey! That wasn’t so bad. If that is close to what happened, why is it such a big deal? What’s so bad about taking a sleeping pill and going to bed after the grueling pace of concurrently being President and campaigning for reelection? “ The reason why the “Engagement Issue” is so important is because The President must be available in minutes in the event or a worst case, scenario. I believe the President was out of the net that night not for minutes but for hours. Here is why I hold that view. First, if the President had been engaged, as he was in the Situation Room, the night Bin Laden was brought down, does anyone really believe he would have let his Ambassador and the other three Americans die as they screamed for help… and done nothing? Can you imagine him being engaged and doing that? Of course you can’t. It simply isn’t in President Obama’s character to do nothing as twenty-five highly placed and important people standing around, looking to him for a decision. His ego simply would not allow him to look so "Uncool." If for no other reason any sensible person must conclude that he was not engaged that night as events were unfolding by the hour. There are however, other facts that all but confirm this was the case. These are so chilling to the National Command Authority that they are enabling the President to cover up why he was asleep at the switch. Second imagine a crisis beginning to surface in the Situation room and say the SECDEF or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff listening and seeing it develop. As I showed yesterday, suppose the President had been informed initially and responded in the best case scenario that was set forth. In this scenario he gave some preliminary guidance and then dropped out of sight. On that fateful night events were happening fast under conditions that were murky at best. By the time the President reappeared the next morning, “The pen had writ and moved on.” For reasons the public has yet to appreciate Benghazi is a “Sideshow,” and exactly where the President was that night is “Irrelevant.” What is relevant is that in the midst of a developing National Crisis the President dropped out of the loop and the National Command Authority was paralyzed into inactivity. The main act was played out of the world stage as the President was sought and could not be engaged. If you don’t believe a word I’m saying listen closely. In a developing national crisis, when the President can’t be engaged, it is a matter relevant to every American in this great nation. What happened that night reverberated as protocols were set in motion and the readiness posture was heightened. Those who are watching the news are not connecting the dots. The Benghazi and AP Scandal’s are linked and the consequences will be felt long after Benghazi is forgotten. |
| The Benghazi Scandal lies at the heart of all the controversy that is taking place in Washington and casting a pall over the White House. Something Shameful happened, so damaging in the eyes of Key Officials that it has been concealed from the American People and indeed the whole world. We know that the President was informed that something was going on in Libya. No doubt it was a preliminary report that was perhaps ambiguous. The President must have responded in some manner and since the facts are being concealed, reason mandates the use of assumptions, or proxy facts to figure out what was going on. Thus the problem is defined as: To determine what happened that fnight in Benghazi. Facts The President was informed late in the day. The President went somewhere. Crisis action measures that could have been taken were not. Key Generals were asked to retire. There was a big shake-up in the land based missile leg of the Triad. (Minot AFB) A shroud of secrecy was imposed that remains in effect to this day. This event took place leading up to an election. The record shows some of what happened before and after the night in question. Security in the area of the crisis was inadequate and deteriorating. The Administration tried to paint the incident as a “Demonstration that got out of control.” The Administration has gone to extreme lengths to conceal what happened. In the event of a preemptive strike the President would have minutes to react and respond. Assumptions: Had the President been engaged he would have done something to save the four (4) Americans. In a crisis with growing National Security Implications, where the President could not be "Engaged" there would be an increase in the alert posture. The Soviets have their own protocols and if they suspected a preemptive strike would attempt to disrupt the American Command Authority. The Soviets learned early in the cycle that the US was on a heightened alert posture and efforts to find out why were not cleared up on the "Hot Line." The Soviets used embedded resources to determine what was going on. What happened has serious underlying National Security Implications. The incident revealed a huge flaw in the crisis action process where the President must be able to react in in a narrow window of response. It was hours before he realized the extent of what had happened. There was a breach in National Security on the night of the event. When the President was told the situation was still fluid and the scope was limited. The hypothetical scenario that follows puts matters in the best possible light. Yes, it is based upon an assumption, but one that places what happened in a scenario that is least damaging to the White House. The election was coming to a crucial point. In addition to getting reelected, (a matter then at issue), the President was concurrently expected to perform his duties as head of State. That night his mind was full of both politics and his elected responsibilities. As the day came to a close, faced with a grueling campaign schedule in the days ahead, the Secretary of Defense approached the President informing him of late breaking news on Libya. “Mr. President we just got word from our Ambassador that he is under attack at the Libyan Embassy.” “What does “Under Attack Mean”? “We aren’t sure. Nothing is certain right now. I’m quoting a communiqué.” “What are we doing in response?” “We have an emergency response plan for contingencies of this sort. Special Operating forces are being moved into position that can be on the scene in hours.” “Are you sure this is an attack and not some sort of demonstration like we are seeing in Egypt?” “Like I said Mr. President, the Ambassador says he's under attack.” LOOK! I have assured the American People we would not act unilaterally in the execution of our Foreign Policy. The last thing I want to do is commit “Boots to the Ground,” into a sovereign nation unless we are absolutely sure there is a very serious incident taking place. Is the Embassy being overrun? If its being threatened we need to get the permission and support of the Libyan Government and determine the exact scope of what is going on before we go off half-cocked. Keep me posted on developments, but for now I want you to “Stand Down,” on any deployment of American troops. I think in the morning we will discover this preliminary report was overstated.” The President departed for the White House and the Situation Room went on Alert Status. The President had dinner, took a sleeping pill and went to bed early. His wife told the security liaison that the President was not to be disturbed. The following morning the President learned what happened. |
| I am watching the above scandals unfold and am absolutely stunned by the revelations. It is hard to believe that this is really happening and not something made up by a team of Hollywood scriptwriters. Benghazi: Imagine your house was being broken into and you were pleading with 911 to send help and the operator hung up. When your body was finally recovered wouldn't your family want to know what happened? Would they be satisfied months later when the police commissioner finally got around to issuing a statement saying it was all a big mistake and it would'nt happen again? IRS: Imagine if you felt strongly about a social issue and filed to create a social action group to express your views. How would you feel that after you sent in your application to be visited by agents of OSHA, Treasury, IRS, the FBI, that your business was audited for the first time as well as your personal financial records. That you were asked, "How much money is in your wallet?" These questions are so bizarre they defy explanation of why the government would ever need such absurd elements of information. Yet the fact is that this harassment was directed by the IRS against conservative political groups using the machinery of the government to gain a political advantage. What the heck was going on? Two scenarios come readily to mind. The first is that the IRS workers were trying to discourage the applicants and trying to get them to withdraw their requests. This is supported by revelations by one targeted group in Texas that was told they were not going to get an exemption and asked it they wanted to resubmit? The lawyers replied that they were not going to "Resubmit" but were going to litigate instead, whereupon, less then a week later, their request was approved. I believe this was a part of what was going on that explains all the bizarre requests for information by the IRS. Workers were being encouraged to harass conservative groups and try and get them to withdraw their applications. The problem was that workers started getting nervous about all the active files that were building up that were receiving no action. Having the petitioner withdraw from the process was a desirable outcome that the low level bureaucrats were encouraged to foster. Hence it became a sort of "Gallows Humor," making crazy creative requests in the hope that petitioners would give up. The second aspect to this is the possibility that the donor lists were being placed in a file that could be accessed by other government agencies that were then encouraged to "Pile On." This would explain how non-IRS agencies were made aware of the names and able to jump onto the harassment bandwagon. If this is true the White House would probably have had access and someone somewhere would have been a clearing house that orchestrated the interagency suppression effort. How else can it be explained that a request that began at the IRS came to be acted upon by so many different government agencies? For this to happen a database had to exist, and as names were identified other branches of government, controlled by political appointees somewhere, joined in a coordinated conspiracy of targeted harassment. Then comes an IG audit from a Mr. George at the Treasury Department. Suddenly comes word that "the crap is about to hit the fan." What if you were running the IRS department that was suppressing these requests? I can imagine how the lady that had inherited that mess and let it continue for a year must have felt. No doubt she expressed her fears to Mr. Miller and he probably gave an evasive answer, (like he did to the congressional committee) saying words to the effect it was her problem... deal with it. Then when she sees her boss about to retire, and that the IG report will name her branch responsible, what must have been going through her mind? "Oh my GAWD! She must have thought.... They're going to throw me under the bus!. While this is speculation on my part, I have worked in bureaucracies and know what would have been going through my mind if it had happened to me. JAIL TIME! So, she takes a page out of the White House play book, plants a question admits to wrong-doing and apologizes, thinking it will be released on Friday, nobody will really take note and she can manufacture a little cover showing she was open, realized what was happening and was trying to take action to rectify matters. Like I say this is a story that even Hollywood could'nt have scripted. |
| In investigating why a system failure happened it is necessary to look at what took place before, during and after the failure. What happened at Benghazi and at the IRS is the same thing. An administration in power used the machinery of office to gain a political advantage. Everybody who is following the news realizes this and even the President has expressed his “Outrage” over what happened. The party in power is trying desperately to protect him and minimize the damage. To this end they are trying to keep the focus on the last part of the process, which is fixing the problem. In the Benghazi scandal, those vested, want only to examine the aftermath in order to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The reason for not looking at the before and during parts is because somebody was asleep at the switch and the administration doesn’t want it known who those responsible were. It matters because 4 Americans died screaming for help while those who should have acted were in a state of paralysis. In this case ANYTHING! Would have been better than the nothing that took place. With the IRS scandal we see the same thing happening. The president doesn’t want to look at the before and during part but rather only the after part. He understandably thinks that the last part is bad enough and wants the focus to be on cleanup and not the cause. Here again in order to fix the problem the people need to know the full story. In these times of e-mail, Internet, leaks and instant communications, it is no longer as easy as it once was to cover-up the mistakes that caused these scandals, which those responsible are desperately trying to do. In both cases we are seeing only the tip of what happened because to reveal more of the truth will adversely affect the ability of the Democrats to accomplish their social agenda and perhaps retain political power in the next election. There is much talk about forming a Select Committee with subpoena powers to get to the bottom of things. This in my view is “The Nuclear Option” and a trump card that should only be used as a last resort. When that card is played Government essentially grinds to a halt as the people watch a worst-case government abuse scenario unfold. Instead we are seeing the power of the information age, leaks and new legislative tools, such as the “Whistle Blower Laws,” exerting influence at the investigative table. What will happen next is that a bright light will be shined into the darkness that shrouds both scandals. As more and more truth comes to light, Americans will be shocked at the excesses that have taken place. The people are going to find out what happened that fateful night in Benghazi as well as how the information that was gathered by the IRS was flowing upward and being used by the Whitehouse. Already, the cruise ship of the current administration is dead in the water, beginning to settle and the rats are jumping overboard. In all this the President continues to demonstrate how out of touch he really is. One of the first lessons a military man learns is regarding the use of umbrellas. Having Marines required to perform this onerous task, prohibited by regulations, is another example of his detachment from reality. It was a horrible image for which The President should apologize to all Servicemen. |
| A Sex Based Bio Organism Assuming our origins came from a small dimension all but invisible but to the most sophisticated of microscopy and that our creators used a life model similar to the one we use, a very interesting development took place. The mechanical life forms we make do not have a capability to evolve or replicate themselves. Why was such a capability necessary? Assume we decide it would be cool to have our Martian Rover able to produce other Martin rovers so we don’t have to ship replacement models all the way to Mars. What we would do is design robots that could mine raw materials, build a manufacturing facility and produce some clones based on drawings made on Earth. However, think how much more subtle and elegant the process would be if the Robots were designed to replicate and evolve? Of the two steps the replication part would be the most achievable. Such a machine would be designed to reproduce components that would then be assembled into a cloned machine. This would be an amazing accomplishment but it would be an optimal design only for the conditions that existed at a single point in space and time. Having an evolutionary component would require having sexes which could record a diversity of changes in conditions and a mechanism that could run two copies of code concurrently and choose from each data stream, code that was uncorrupted and offered a product improved enhancement. For example suppose a “Catastrophic Death Message,” got sent at system termination or maybe the female rover almost got sucked into some quicksand and only by the narrowest of margins got the tracks spinning in reverse and returned to tell the tale. From the last transmission or a “Flight Recorder” or a mission debrief, this event would be saved in a “Near Death” history file and when the reproduction program was run during replication the coding would be changed on the margin… say to expand the width of the track by one centimeter. Whoever designed life had some pretty innovative ideas for their life forms. I think one of the most misunderstood aspects of our current understanding is a failure to grasp that creation and evolution are light years apart. The mechanisms of evolution are easy enough to grasp while Creation seems beyond the scope of all understanding. They are definitely not the same thing. |
| DNA, The Hieroglyphics of Life #2 I really like this analogy. When we look at genome code it’s like reading from a telephone book where the names and numbers are a random assortment of incomprehensible characters. We know that these characters are written in a language called Chemicalese. (I made that up.) This adds another layer of complexity to the problem. When DNA analysis is done in a criminal investigation, a sample of a person’s body is compared with a sample found at the crime scene. The result is two sets of chemical barcodes which if identical show the genetic material came from the same person. This is a very useful tool but in the grander scheme of things can only be described as remedial. For example an archeologist might examine two cave paintings and using a set of criteria conclude, they were painted by the same individual in the distant past. That says something but not much about why they were painted in the greater context of what they represent. So what we have is not cave paintings but something more like the hieroglyphics (barcodes) left by the ancient Egyptians, which went for a long time undeciphered. However, hieroglyphics painted on the wall of a tomb used symbols in their context that gave clues to their meaning plus there was a beginning and an end. With DNA we don’t know where the blueprint begins or ends and the language is totally foreign to an intuitive grasp. So how will it be deciphered it? I suspect the methodology will be to take a string and implant it in an egg. Then let the egg develop and see what it looks like. Say we get an arrangement that can be recognized. For example … say the result looks like an appendage or tissue from a recognized part of the body. Then the researcher goes step by step down the link trying to decipher exactly what each bit of information is saying. As the research continues and the process can be repeated with the same results and the string of code can be manipulated to make subtle changes that confirm our knowledge of what that small string of code is saying. This continues until there is a thorough understanding of how that string works in the replication process. When this is done for different bones, sensors and tissues we will ultimately have a better understanding of exactly the function a string of code is expected to perform and have our Rosetta Stone. Step two will be to write a program that translates the DNA code into a language that can be readily understood. That will be a huge accomplishment. The claim that we have “Mapped” the Human Genome is misleading. A map tells us where on the sheet of paper things are located. The genome mapping at present, while a major step forward, provides little that is in a useable form. We need that telephone book of symbols to be changed into something readable. Then broken down into chapters, paragraphs and sentences that explain exactly what is going on. Many years ago I learned German by reading paragraph-by-paragraph and sentence-by-sentence the “Three Musketeers” in both languages. This is something similar to what I hope researchers are in the process of doing. |
| Hieroglyphics of Life Part of finding something is knowing where to look. If life originated on this planet from a different dimension where would that world be located? Since we are full of fluids that resemble salt water the ocean would be a good starting point. In the ocean are a multitude of living organisms so vast it boggles the mind. Next the place where it all began would be small. If we look at the blueprints for say an automobile or house and the blueprints for a living organism, the scale is small to the point that it is hardly visible, even with the most advanced of technology. Next it uses a chemically based language, rather than one based upon alpha characters and numbers (binary) that we are more familiar with. We can see the characters and print them off but we can’t read them. We don’t have a Rosetta Stone that helped us learn to read Hieroglyphics. Still a language is a language and something not entirely foreign to our understanding. So while we are getting closer there is plenty we still don’t know. We don’t know where this dimension is located, what it looks like inside and if its still inhabited or not. We know that the design uses symbols we can see but don’t really understand. We know that the writers did not have an easy access to the range of resources we do. The materials they had access to were chemical enzymes and chains of amino acids where humans have a broader range of elements and compound. The evidence is in the materials they built their life forms with as opposed to the materials we are using to build our life forms. Still if you look at the functions the human body performs and the functions of a Mars Explorer you see some definite similarities. So using the Life Model it looks like a fair assumption to say that we are heading down the same path our creators took at a different scale using raw materials we are more comfortable using, but still following the basic principles that we see evidenced in our minds and bodies. Some people, who have nearly died, say that the experience is like going down a tunnel with a light at the other end. That is as close as we can get to what happens when the life cycle of an organism ends. I only mention this because we see the PCV pipe analogy being used. It might be a reach but could it be that in death we return to the dimension where life began its journey? |
As I look at the big news stories that aired of late, I see men and women giving exercise to the dark side of their characters. They bend the rules to satisfy the compelling and often perverse desires that motivate them to take action. For example look at Benghazi. We have a president focused on getting reelected. The incident begins on the cusp of his second term victory as he is doing whatever it takes to retain the power of his office. Then we see a famous general who was head of the CIA. He was between a rock and a hard spot. An affair coming to light, which he hoped the Administration would overlook so he could keep his job. He knew he brought it upon himself, but as is often the case he was driven by his “Maleness” to do a dumb thing. It is ironic that his nickname was “King David.” Get the connection? Anyway the administration had the dirt on him and he realized his only alternative was to come clean and take his lumps. Even so his testimony showed that he supported the Susan Wright contention of a Spontaneous Demonstration. Lucky for him that he left when he did. Then we have the Altered Talking Points. Regardless if this was a man’s idea or a woman’s’ we see plenty of female enablers, working the situation. I won’t even bother to name them all. Both men and women are actively engaged in compromising their values to achieve a political end. Why all the lies and deceit to cover up something that happens all the time? Look! I know this might sound calloused but there is an occupational hazard associated with what the State Department, The Central Intelligence Agency and the Military are involved in. Every day thousands of breaks occur in the chain of readiness to respond to a given contingency. Then once the crap hits the fan we have players who fail to respond to the needs of the situation. In a sense life is like a football game. In the course of the four quarters many mistakes are made as the interactive forces respond to one another. Blaming the president (No doubt partially to blame) is like blaming the field goal kicker for missing a fifty yard attempt in the closing seconds of a game. At least the general woke up and acknowledged a situation that was largely of his own making. The Cover Up of the Talking points memos was a hundred times worse than the Operational failure that lead to the deaths of the four Americans. This happens all the time and it isn’t worth the compromise of ideals that go into painting a lie. Then we have this Castro guy in Cleveland who abducted and held three young girls hostage for over ten years. That is too horrible to even imagine… what they went through… but here again we see those compelling forces of procreation, this time in a male guise, doing things the perpetrator knew was wrong but doing them anyway. And what about the female who shot, stabbed and slit the throat of her boyfriend? Now the latest is where the Internal Revenue Service has been forced to admit that the power of their public office was used to persecute those of a different political persuasion. This is a citizens’ nightmare. Maybe not as bad as being abducted, raped or having your throat slit, but from a larger social perspective, still pretty bad. The liberals who suffered under McCarthy have become the very monsters who persecuted them. There are dark forces at work in the Human Psyche and the events in the news show how fragile the threads of human decency and behavior are… Pay attention everybody! Before you become too indignant, remember that opportunity makes a thief. The false wall of veneer that stands between us and the pit is thin indeed. |
| Backtracking the Threads If you want to know where we came from then look to where we are heading. There seems to be this great mystery in people’s minds as to the origin of life. We are following what I call to be “The Life Model.” We are doing what life is designed to do. The purpose of life is to change the Universe and in this Dimension as well as others that Physicists are showing that exist with a mathematical certainty, forces are at work driving the light of the sun and the darkness of the elements in directions that will speed up the snails pace of the Natural Default. The Natural Default is what will happen if life takes no action what so ever. If life fails to intervene something will happen and that is the Natural Default. The sun will gradually dim, or maybe a bigger comet will strike the earth like the one that finished the dinosaurs. So what is life? Life is the consequence of taking the elements, making a membrane, and into that injecting the energy of the sun. Life is like a bunch of little light bulbs scurrying around this planet. It is the synthesis of light and matter. Where it originated can be determined by backtracking on three threads. What we are doing, where we are heading and the evidence of what we know. What we are doing: What we are doing is following the Life model. Living things do two things. They gather information and resources. They are curious and have needs. What we do illuminates who we are and where we came from. For example the development of the computer is simply an extension of the way our brain works. Where we are heading. We are heading into the universe. The universe is a hostile place and we will be creating primitive life forms to go places we can’t or don’t want to risk our lives going to. This is evidenced by our exploration of Mars using the Rovers. These machines are primitive mechanical life forms. (They have a membrane and use energy and are designed to gather information and resources.) The evidence of what we know: We are on the verge of discovering where we originated. This is that there are other dimensions to the world we know than the one we are familiar with. We are perched on the edge of a rock with a spectacular view of the universe. There are however other dimensions around us that see things from a different perspective. These are being described as worlds like the inside of a PCV pipe. What would such a world be like? Think of a PCV pipe buried in a dung heap that is warmed indirectly by the earth and absorbs heat and chemicals through a plastic membrane that allows the elements to seep down like drops of water in an underground cavern. In such a place, the world is much different than what we imagine. Consider however what would happen if a life form came to be in such a world that evolved to a level similar to what we know in our own dimension. In such a world chemical sequences would be understood with the same intuitive acceptance that we give to trees and rocks and babbling brooks. How cool is that? |
| Dimensional Evolution If we try and envision the conditions in a laboratory in which life was created the evidence suggests that those conditions were much different from the world we live in. Physicists theorize that there are other dimensions in the physical world that surrounds us. One example they give is a dimension like the inside of a cacoon where the world view is one that develops from what such an existence would be inside a long narrow cylinder. Taking this as a starting point, what would life, if it existed, be like in such a place? Now if life evolved in such a place on an order similar to our own, the day would come when they would crack the bulkhead door at the end of the cylinder to get a sense for what was going on outside. Isn’t this exactly what we are doing in exploring Mars. That the environment was too hostile outside and they realized that to discover the world beyond they needed to create some vehicles suited to exploring and returning the findings to the dimension. So given the resources they had and their understanding of chemistry they made a bio organism. At first these organisms were simple but as time went on they produced vehicles that were more and more sophisticated. Isn’t this exactly what we are doing with the Mars Rovers. They started out primitive but are evolving as humanities insatiable hunger for information expands to meet our ability to gather it. This is humanities contribution to the Life Model. In conclusion the hypothesis is that life came from inner rather than outer space and evolved from organisms originally designed to gather information and resources. That these organisms had a design module that enabled it to change the DNA code on the margin and adapt to changing conditions. However major design changes were not evolutionary but rather artistically or functionally driven in the same sense that we see product improvements and enhancements added to the robotic devices we send into space. |
| The human genome is written in a code that is analogous to a computer program. Instead of a language written in alpha characters it uses a language written in chemical chains of acids. Still a language, regardless of how it is written, is still a language. A language is used to explain things and the genome language provides the instructions on how a living thing is put together. The analogy is that a program tells a computer how something will work and the same is true for a program that codes a living thing. One of the first things a programmer realizes is that there is art in writing a program. It is not just the science that gives it utility but the art that makes it awesome. An artless program can be made to work just as an elegant one. If you call up and look at programs that have been expanded and reworked for a long period of time you often see lines of code injected helter-skelter without regard to functional symmetry. These modifications are not transparent to the user who tends to be more interested in how the program operates rather than the underlying beauty with which it is written. What biologists are seeing as they look at the coding of the various genomes is evolutionary reprogramming to enhance the survival of a species. It is not elegantly written and the code is not arranged with the balance and symmetry of a modular program written by a virtuoso. Rather it appears to be written with an eye more to utility than form. To me this speaks volumes about the difference between creation and evolution. If we ever discover the seminal program of life I suspect we will see a primordial beauty of form that is uncluttered by all the changes that have been appended in the course of evolution. |
| I am intrigued by the direction that Screen Drama has gone with regard to the use of greater openness and adult language. I always felt that writers could go further into sexuality than traditionally allowed and in my lifetime have seen the line shift towards revealing more about this aspect of the human experience. At WDC there are forums where writers can experiment with how graphic a love scene can be portrayed and I have seen some good examples of how the physicality transitions into an amazing sensual experience. Most would agree that Porn is too graphic and closing the bedroom door altogether is not enough. On the Hollywood screen and on television the line is moving towards showing more. As it moves what is often revealed is how naive and unprepared writers and directors are for this greater openness. Often what we see in TV Dramas such as Deadwood, The Americans and Game of Thrones is a more graphic rendering and dialog about aspects of human sensuality that defy the belief of even the most traditional of practitioners. So when a director tells a writer to, “Amp up a love scene,” what we see are many of the misconceptions and mistaken stereotypes that have been around forever. I could provide examples but they would exceed the classification of this blog. There is more than the physical dimension and porn movies show that aspect is easy enough to render. However, portraying the emotions and how the experience can be taken from the carnal to the sublime is either not well understood or too hard to demonstrate. The more a reader has to suspend their disbelief and roll their eyes, the more it detracts from the story. I am all for opening the door a little wider but get real, making the most from an intimate human experience requires some emotional and spiritual grease not to mention some practice and experience. A graduate level of performance should not be portrayed as an expectation for the first night of class. Is it just me or am I missing something? |
| There are those who rightly advocate a systems approach to writing. The popular “Snowflake” is one example of how writers can take advantage of this organizational tool. I support any systematic technique a writer is comfortable with that will help organize and focus the wild and untamed forces of creation (Art) and turn them into something that can be controlled and appreciated. Still, I have to emphasize that the art trumps science. There must first come that burst of creative insight before we try and make something out of nothing. Regardless of how well you write you first have to have something to write about. Think for example about the story line in the Gift of the Magi. Was this a great love story line or what? The hero had a watch as a prized possession and the heroine a beautiful head of hair. He sells his watch to buy her a set of combs and she has her hair cut to buy him a watch chain. If that isn’t the essence of love I don’t know what is. A moron of a writer could have written a great story with that as a story line. In the Exploratory Writing Workshop we begin by trying to coax the art of imagination out into the open where it can be snared in the web of our awareness and wrought into a literary creation that can be enjoyed and appreciated by readers. To accomplish the “Coaxing,” part, the students write six vignettes. This is an unconstrained, free thought process that begins with character creation, moves on to character interaction, is fueled by wants needs and desires, faces a life changing event, struggles with crisis and emerges as someone transformed from who they were to begin with. Once the artfulness of the story is chased into the open, then it is time for the science to step in and give organization and focus to the creative process we call literature. The point to keep in mind is that the science can’t gin up the story any more than an automobile can create itself. Once the six vignettes are completed the writer should know enough of the art to outline the story. |
| It would seem to me that with all the aids in software many of the more common writing errors would be a thing of the past. For example, using the spell check offered by this window, a potential error is highlighted and by placing the cursor at the end of the highlighted word, some alternative spellings are offered. Still, that doesn't address the situation where an incorrect word is used that is spelled correctly. This brings us to the important point of proofreading your work. Part of the science of being a writer is turning out clean copy and nothing shows the work of an amateur quicker than poor grammar and spelling. However, proofreading is more than this. It also includes what I call "Critical Reading." This is reading for over use of adjectives, adverbs and modifying phrases. Many new writers can't seem to write a sentence without embellishing it with too much syrup. A good sentence expresses an idea in a chain which creates the perfect image of what the writer is trying to convey. It all goes back to "Subject, Verb, Object," and once that vision is coded in alpha characters, that move the idea from the symbols on a page into the imagination of the reader, the task is accomplished. Good writing is not impressing the reader with your fancy command of words but rather using the perfect word sequence, unadorned with unnecessary modifiers and clauses. Think of the reader's mind as a computer and you are a programmer feeding in the most elegant code possible. Another common problem is over use of pronouns. This is particularly evident in dialogue (dialog) where the same word is repeated over and over again. "He" and "She" are the worst offenders and used in moderation are all but invisible. However, when used without restraint they get wearisome. Ideally, in a vignette, a word is used once but since this is impractical the same word should be used as infrequently as possible, without obsessing. Finally a proof read should be done for sound. As any poet can tell you sound is important. The Bible says that in the beginning was the "Word." This implies that sound is as important as sight. When you proofread have your ear inclined for resonance. The goal to keep in mind is allowing words to flow with optimal ease into the reader's bio-processor with a minimum of hick-ups. It's like driving down a smooth rather than a bumpy road. Make the readers mental suspension shake as little as possible. |
| In a Romance Writing Course I took between terms at New Horizon's Academy, I really got something hammered home that I thought I understood already. This was the difference between writing from a male POV and a female POV. A requirement of the course was to write a vignette from both a male and Female POV. The instructor did not seem to particularly like my male protagonist. I got the sense he reminded her of somebody she wanted to forget. My Central Character brought to the story a man's immediate need. He was attracted to the female supporting character physically, began falling in love (in his own way) but to begin with their relationship was driven by his compelling physical need. This Protagonist, was in my view, a fairly normal male and passed the authenticity test in my mind which has some experience in how a man thinks. My female character was an undercover police woman investigating my male central character. What I had in mind was someone who gotten into the profession driven by a desire for social justice. Now I know for a fact that there are woman who work undercover in narcotics but lacked a sense for what their real motivations are. I envisioned her desire as one of revenge, linked to a job that was a ticket to a better life and once into the job continued because she was good at it. In the story she is not very attractive and it gave her low self esteem a sorely need boost. However, underneath it all she was a woman drawn by a deeper need for a family and children. However, when I put on my female POV hat, I was thinking of a female, something like the Girl in The Dragon Tattoo, who is not your typical romance novel heroine. I simply had no frame of reference, other than my wife, who would never consider in her wildest fantasy being an undercover cop. Anyway, when I was really put to it, explaining what was going on in my female POV's mind it was a struggle. My instructor however, liked my female character better than the male. (This surprised me, because I tried to make him redeeming.) I guess what I am trying to explain is that men and women have much in common emotionally but the differences are significant enough that in order to pass the authenticity test, the writer needs to have a basic understanding of the opposite sex and not see them as same sex with some minor differences in plumbing. For a man intimacy is more like a door that opens and closes to the moment while for a woman it is more like a window that opens and closes to the future. If a writer keeps that in mind maybe it will help keep "believability" in the ballpark. Then again, what do I know? |
| Point of View (POV) Characters As a writer you only have one POV and that is yourself. Yes you can imagine being someone different and that is part of the wonder of imagination but like it or not you are unique and are what you are. Thus when you write you are naturally inclined to write from your POV. All the baggage you have acquired in the course of a lifetime, all the things your seedy little brain has been attracted to, all the areas of interest that have compelled you like a moth to a flame give you the personal perspective of how you look at things. When you write, about yourself, or some factious character, your POV puts your signature upon it. At conception men and women begin to differentiate and as they mature begin to see things from different perspectives. Volumes have been written on how men are from Mars and Women are from Venus but as sexes go men and women have much more in common then they have at issue. Superficially there are some plumbing and strength differences that evolved in support of our roles in reproduction but while men and women have much in common, the differences are still huge and the forces that attract men and women to make babies is a subject of great interest. Now we know that at conception those little squiggles carry an X or a Y and depending on the sperm the sex of a human is decided. However, a good question to ask is what happens to the X or Y, who like the Man in the Iron Mask is sent to spend a lifetime in the dungeon of our souls. Actually this is a bad analogy. We have a female and male side regardless of the sex we are issued thru the biological process. In some cases the strength of the submerged attribute is strong indeed and finds expression in many interesting (troubling?) ways as we discover ourselves inclined to those compelling inclinations and voices that speak to us as we toss and turn, or share "muse" dialog with as we go about our days. So while as writers we find ourselves generally fitting into one category or the other and are usually better suited to writing in the POV we are born into, we still, in the pursuit of our craft, need to create characters that share a different overt sexuality than we do. Thus, as we write from the opposite POV, unless gay or particularly sensitive to the opposite orientation, there is the danger we will create a character that does not exactly ring with authenticity. This doesn't mean the character won't be interesting and that the reader won't suspend disbelief that such a person can exist and the whole nature of imaginative writing is full of examples, such as Wonder Woman, Amazons, and Girl in the Dragon Tattoo that are really men disguised as women or the flip side, those sensitive men in Romance Novels who are totally unlike any man I've ever seen in real life. So what is the writer to do? A male writer can't write a novel with only males any more than a female can write one that has only females. The answer is proceed cautiously if you want a believable character that is remotely authentic. Shakespeare was faulted for having children characters that sounded like miniature adults. r I often read ethnic characters who sound like the author with a little skin tone. I submit that many male characters I read about are very unmanly sounding. I am sure that many of the female characters I write about are very unfemale sounding. If you are a female writer don't think that writing a male character is going to be easy and vice-versa. Getting to the "gut" of an out of sex character is a daunting task. To begin with I recommend authors write from the POV they are comfortable with, which is usually the one they are born with and grew up in. In creating out of sex characters use men or women you know well as examples. One last thing I would disabuse writers from is the notion that men and woman can be "lifelong friends." It simply doesn't work that way despite what some would have you believe. Life is a journey and between the sexes there always comes that day of reckoning. |
| Well this morning the sun is out. This has been a long winter in Wisconsin and maybe now Spring is at hand. I have been giving my Students advice on how to take the Workshop prior to its starting. One of the things I tell them is that in writing vignettes try and write a little every day. Sure take a day (and a night) and think a little about what the thread of the story will be but don’t obsess about it. To begin with, think about having the right mix of components and maybe a general idea about a character and then just start pushing the pencil or pounding the keys. At this point in the creation process just come up with a first draft of something. It doesn’t have to be a publication quality effort to begin with. Some of the best stuff I have written was done when I really didn’t feel ready to write and my notions of the characters and story line were fuzzy at best. Anyway I don’t think that writing is as much about me as about my muse. It never fails that once I get started I find her looking over my shoulder and offering ideas and advice. Once she shows up its like the light in the room comes on and the words begin to flow. Sometimes my muse goes with me on walks with the dog and about halfway on the hike I need to return home to capture the fire-hose of ideas that begin filling my head. In the beginning I don’t try and force things but rather go with the flow. Once I have written a few vignettes and things begin to firm I write the outline and from there I begin to focus and don’t let my muse lead me off on far flung digressions any more. But to begin with simply write the first vignette, relax and enjoy yourself. |
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