You’re Not Rich, Quit Voting Like You Are

Posted on 18 June 2011 by Larry Russwurm

This is a problem that emanates from the United States but has also crossed the border into my country of Canada. The problem is that a large portion of the electorate vote for reforms that are especially good for the rich of the country. These policies are not so good for the poor or the middle class but even though this group outnumbers everyone else they vote the pro rich policies in.

I think a large portion of the electorate believes that the right attitude will make them rich. I think they are delusional. The vast majority will never be that rich, it happens every generation. Positive thinking is not enough to get you there.

Let me first state that you don’t need the permission of the rich to become rich. Indeed if you were to meet on a superlative golf course with your favourite financial wizard to discuss your business idea that might get you to their standing, I bet you might be heard.

Your rich wizard will probably ask you questions like why and even agree to meet to discuss it further. Then when they know your business program well enough they’ll cut you out and do it themselves.

Now you can probably find business wizards who would deny this. Of course they deny it because they want you to have confidence in them.

But the fact of the matter is, you don’t need the permission of rich people to be rich – instead you need society’s permission.

I once thought of writing a story where “spot inflation” occurs in society. You see, the mega wealthy live in tiny enclaves that it would be easy to surround and let very little in or out. (You’re thinking helicopter – don’t forget the rest of society pays for something called the military). You could tax food and necessities for these areas at thousands or millions of times the worth of the products. Sure the rich would go on a firing spree to find people to dare crossing the line. But everyone fired could be hired by the spot inflation people. The line would be strengthened further.

And most of economics is based on belief. Paper currency is no longer backed by gold. Just the government. Bonds are backed by the institution or corporation that put them out. Many times these corporations and institutions failed to back them and the bonds became worthless. Company stock can be made worthless, too.

I state it again. Society permits certain people to be rich or not.

Did you hear the political lie over the last few years that letting the mega rich keep more money leads to jobs?

I don’t know about you but the fastest way to make money get back into the economy is by giving it to poor people. Give all the poor $100 more and watch it go back into the economy almost instantly. The rich will invest to make more money. Like buying up coffee crops when that occupation is in surplus growth and then saving the surplus till coffee yields are scarce. Then while the price is up the rich can sell their sat on coffee at a big profit. Notice that nothing gets done with this money for years and it thus doesn’t get back into the economy for years. The rich person might have to pay for storage over the time of this scheme,, but that needn’t take place in this country.

Not to mention the propensity of the rich to invest in foreign markets. And when you have all the world to play with, the domestic market only rarely seems good.

And then there is my favourite scam of the mega rich – portraying themselves as an expert in the stock market. Then buying certain stocks. Then on a stock talk show giving the buy signal for the stocks they just bought. Then watch the public improve their investments. Then later they can sell these stocks. After they’ve sold them, they can tell their followers to sell. Look at the small risks they’ve incurred and the potential for their followers to make them lots of money.

Stop believing so strongly in the mega rich. They’re just out to make a buck and the easiest target is you. Please don’t vote the way they want you to vote.

And I know one sure thing. You’ll get the message if I ever become rich.

And then I’ll never get to do the stock picking thing.

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Stanley Cup Strike

Posted on 16 June 2011 by Larry Russwurm

A strike by the refs is exactly what I thought I was watching for the last game of the playoffs. Last night Boston defeated Vancouver to win the Stanley Cup, but it was the officiating that made me angry, not the play.

For the first half of the game, no penalties were called. If you’ve ever seen an NHL game you know there are usually about 5 – 8 penalties at about this point. Indeed in the whole game only 3 penalties were called.

I think when the hosts on CBC discovered this, they then delighted to show each would-have-been penalty. Through the game they must have shown 8 penalties that would ordinarily cost a team two or more minutes being down by a player.

This “let the player’s play” attitude may have been costly to Vancouver. After all, each hockey club has special teams precisely for penalties. And Vancouver’s power play is mighty, but they only got to use it twice last night.

When a paid member of an organization like the NHL does a bare minimum of their job, it is called a work slow down. That is precisely what the refs in last night’s game did. It is a form of strike, thus my title.

Also, such a strategy is dangerous to the NHL. The NHL gets away with various assaults by its millionaire players precisely because they say they police themselves. Well without the refs calling things, you can say goodbye to that lie.

But that’s okay. I wouldn’t mind seeing police arrest millionaire NHLers. Of course cities with teams would have to pay more taxes to the police services. But if that’s the way we want to go then it’s okay.

Then there’s the way the rules were the same all the way through the season and even the playoffs. Till the very last game, an important winner-take-all affair, when the way the game was played suddenly changed.

I dabble in fiction writing. What if I were to write a nuts and bolts detective story? The detective hero dutifully tracks down clues in a murder or other important crime. The hero tracks down one clue after another that leads to a blind alley. You’re intrigued to find all clues led to nothing and there’s only 5 pages left in the book.

Then I spring it on you that the detective is really an alien with excellent telepathic abilities. He found it intriguing to try sleuthing the human way. But he gives up and just reads everyone’s mind and uncovers the killer.

Would you throw this book or movie across the room in anger at this cheat of an ending? Many would. This is exactly what I felt after watching the officiating in last night’s Stanley cup Final. I felt like the refs cheated me.

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One Possible Reparation for a Genocide

Posted on 15 June 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The Armenian genocide doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves. Firstly, almost all Turks are Armenian genocide deniers. Secondly, after the bigger (and more obvious to the west) Jewish holocaust, not much is spoken about the Armenian trials. The newer Rwandan and Bosnian genocides get more attention just because they are newer.

So Armenians struggle for attention in this area that probably defined their society in the aftermath of World War I. I think it’s time we gave Armenians some respect for what has happened to them.

Naming can be a respectful kind of thing. It’s common to name a baby after someone important to the parents’ lives. What new things do we have to name in current society?

It’s not so long ago that star Gliese 581 was detected to have planets near or in the habitable zone of that star.

Perhaps we could start naming habitable zone planets names that are reminiscent of Armenian words or names. How about we name such worlds Kardash, Sarmaze, Trevane, Sarkis or Alexane?

And if we develop big enough telescopes, that can identify the content of these planet’s atmospheres, I vote that the very first one we find that has free oxygen be named planet Armene. Such telescopes are currently predicted to come on line somewhere in mid century.

Now that would be a unique reparation for the genocide. Of course this idea loses some of its sparkle outside of the English language. If the naming occurs, I think Earth should carry on in the slow process of the English language becoming the universal language.

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Rock Star Early Warning System

Posted on 11 June 2011 by Larry Russwurm

“Look up in the sky…”

“It’s a bird…”

“It’s a plane…”

“No, it’s a rock star in a private jet!”

The above, almost superhero like treatment, begins to reflect some of the high esteem rock stars in the mid 1980’s were held in by the public.

Bob Geldof really started the ball rolling with the Band Aid song “Do They Know It’s Christmas-time” when the proceeds of said record went to aid starving people in Ethiopia. This was followed up by Live Aid – simultaneous concerts held around the world for the same cause of Ethiopia.

Geldof was inspired to help Ethiopia because of some footage on the plight of that country broadcast by the BBC. He got the message out and the help of all the musicians considerably lessened the suffering in Ethiopia during that famine. This was the first big use of the ‘rock star early warning system’ we have gotten to know over the years.

‘Rock star early warning systems’ have also helped out in Live 8 and with other celebrities in the recent Haitian earthquake and the Indian Ocean Boxing Day tsunami.

I’m sorry to say that my belief that there was a ‘rock star early warning system’ made me complacent. I thought others would alert me if something like starvation was happening on the earth somewhere. I was wrong.

I thought that the Geldofs of this world had made it impossible for famine to kill people. The way the Ethiopian crisis was diverted. Not so. I’m sorry to find that I’m way late to the game. I found out from this recent article that there was a famine in Malawi in 2002 that killed thousands.

What did the developed world do to avert this? Precious little. In fact, from the article linked, an arm of the developed world might have caused it. What did rock stars do? Well in 2006 and 2009 Madonna adopted Malawi children.

Maybe it was the genocides of the 1990s that hardened our hearts. The world seemed very less friendly and perhaps we steeled ourselves for bad things to happen, instead of working to divert them.

I think we can bring back the gains we had made in the eighties and make sure there are no more killer famines. Maybe we won’t have the novelty of the eighties going for it but many rock stars live more than comfortably in this world. They can at least try to be that early warning system that so many of us desire. I know I’ll listen and I bet I’m not so different than many other people. I want a working rock star early warning system.

I know some of you are thinking that I should just follow the news to keep at or further ahead than these rock stars. But I thought I was keeping abreast of things in 2002. I didn’t hear the Malawi story in my regular news. And now there’s less “normal” journalism. I believe blogs are trying to replace what has disappeared but it’s hard to keep abreast of all blogs everywhere. Maybe the ‘rock star early warning system’ can shine light in the right places. I think this type of charity should begin with famine – the world doesn’t have low crop yields everywhere at the same time – i.e. we can and should heal that first – it’s just supply routing which can be cured by money.

And if you’re worried about Haiti’s earthquake still, here’s Wavin’ Flag and here’s We Are the World 25. Links can be found for donation. They aren’t original hits but effort was put in. Although the Japan earthquake/tsunami/nuclear accident is more recent, Japan is a developed country and has it’s own stars to collect and a government and corporations in a position to reinvest in stricken areas.

And there’s me and you who can point out the important. Tweeting, blogging and other electronic means are becoming important. Look how fast the uprisings in the Arab world came about and spread across many borders. Still artists know how to play on emotions. Or perhaps I’m still stuck in the mid eighties with my idea of a rock star early warning system.

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Liberal Vagueness Might Still Exist for Alternating PMs

Posted on 8 June 2011 by Larry Russwurm

It begins with a simple fact. Federal Liberal leaders since 1887 have alternated between French and English Canadians. That’s 124 years of history. That has changed this year.

With the drubbing the federal Liberals took in the last federal election earlier this year, they have been reduced to taking extreme measures. For the first time ever, they have taken Bob Rae as their next political leader. Just a month ago they were led by Michael Ignatieff, another English Canadian.

The streak is officially over. Or is it?

By this political article, I offer proof of the 1887 stat as well as the idea further in the article that not all federal Liberals believe that the alternation between French and English leaders was tradition. That’s right, despite the 124 year history, Liberals could still insist that it was merit that led to an interesting ‘tradition’.

The alternation may seem a bit unfair to those who know the makeup of Canada. French speaking Canadians make up only ¼ of the present population of Canada. ¾ are English speakers. The fairness comes about because federal political leaders need to be fluent in both official languages of Canada. The majority of French speakers are bilingual and only a minority of the English speakers can claim the same.

But in a way, the Liberals might still continue the tradition. You see, Bob Rae took the leadership under exceptional terms. This time, the leader of the party must rebuild. As such Rae agreed to such terms that as leader he will never run for prime minister of Canada.

So, for the first time ever, a leader of the Liberal Party of Canada will not be allowed to run for the highest office in this country.

If the next leader is from French Canada, then the Liberal party can brag that every nominee for prime minister from the party since 1887 has alternated between French and English Canadians.

The Liberal Party of Canada – taking vague tradition to the extremes.

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Is Phys Ed Where Cliques Begin

Posted on 3 June 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I suspect this happens in most organized physical education classes in schools across the continent. You know, the attempt early on, for physical education teachers to give some of their responsibility to some of the kids. Did you ever see these teachers pick two good athletes from the class and get them to choose teams?

The two good athletes were evenly matched and in a desire to win, the teacher made these kids take turns and assumed in an effort to pick the next best players, would pick evenly matched teams. Of course every time this happened, it would prove embarrassing for the last few students to be picked. Of course these Phys. Ed. teachers would let this happen many, many times.

In my experience, this picking process happened in every grade as far back as I can remember. Roughly grade 1 to when I could get rid of intellectually unchallenging phys. ed., in grade 9. Oh you have got it right, why would I bring all this up unless I was one of the last to be picked?

Teachers paid lip service to making things fair. But even though they mixed up the two players chosen to pick the teams, they never strayed far from the top players. I should know. From grade 1 to grade 8 there were only about 24 kids in my grade – my school was that small. That’s about 12 boys. So if you were one of the last picked, you were always one of the last picked.

And every year, we would have a new phys. ed. teacher. Couldn’t one of them, any of them break the mould? In 9 years of phys. ed. I never once got to pick a team.

Did the teachers think we were physically stupid and could not pick a good team? Trust me, if I and one of the other low ranking players got to pick, the teams would be just as evenly matched. Or perhaps we could take our chance for revenge and pick the other lesser players. Which would end up in the two teams again being evenly matched. Or maybe we could just pick our closest friends. Which might have the horrible repercussion of being fun for the kids. What were all those conformist teachers afraid of?

If this part of old tyme phys. ed. was beyond changing, why don’t we spread some of the effects into other parts of the school system?

Perhaps we could make a point of handing back tests in the order of what score was received. One by one we would find out who was last and thus should be most embarrassed. Wouldn’t this be fun, every time, like clock work, for every test from grade 1 to high school?

Maybe the two kids with the highest marks could pick teams and maybe debates could occur. Wouldn’t this result in some out of the box thinking – imagine, boys might pick girls and girls might pick boys to ensure a victory for their debating team. And you know, I think it might be proper to bench some of the worst debaters on either team on occasion. They could cheer their teammates on. And if some of these cheerers were the best at sports, well then so be it.

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Anchored in Past Tense

Posted on 29 May 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The first thing I thought as I perused my sister Laurie’s draft of her novel Inconstant Moon was that it was unfortunately in present tense. ‘Why is this unfortunate?’ you might ask, and I would tell you that I immediately thought that she would make many mistakes and slip into past tense.

But I kept reading the draft and never found a slip up. I was expecting a slip up because years earlier I had made my first and only attempt to write a story in present tense. I failed. In only a novelette length of story, I slipped into past tense and back into present tense many times. I discovered from this exercise that I am firmly mired in using past tense. It’s how I naturally think and I have the overwhelming examples of almost every novel I’ve read to thank for this. I can intuit the proper phrasing in past tense, something I find hard to do in present tense.

And I wanted very much to succeed at writing present tense. If I could do it properly, I would be ambitious and try something out in future tense, something I’ve never seen before although it is possible in English.

I want to write future tense for the simple reason that I write science fiction almost exclusively. And the vast majority of my work takes place in, you guessed it, the future. I feel incapable of ever meeting this goal after my poor attempt at simpler present tense. So it was a surprise that my sister was not only capable of present tense, she wrote it well. If you wish to see her suspense novel, Inconstant Moon, she is serializing it under a Creative Commons Licence here.

So, today, I am left wondering why almost all of science fiction is written in past tense. It is incredibly ironic.

I’m reminded of the phrase “future history” that many science fiction authors use when discussing their work. I think it is an attempt at verisimilitude that future stories say they are rooted in history. The appearance of being real is achieved by using the ‘fact of the history’.

Or, in past tense, being real is achieved by the ‘fact of the past’. This is my excuse today. If I never write a story in future tense, I can just say “It’s all for the verisimilitude.” It’s nice to have a rationalization for your faults.

Posted in Announcements, Language, Science Fiction, SF Criticism, Wee Bit O' Humour, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fire Breathing Dragon Guitars

Posted on 25 May 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I was a kid during the lion share of the Glam Rock period. Still, the imprint was there when I first started playing guitar in the mid 1980’s.

So, despite possibly being seen as a throwback, when I came up with the fire breathing dragon guitar idea, I thought everyone would view the guitar as incredibly cool, fashion be damned. Below is a rough I drew up, I think maybe the wing could maybe be bigger and have a third webbing and a fourth ‘finger’. The base of the wing is supposed to lift a few inches off the guitar before going up – so I can easily play it.

But if you’re going to have one dragon guitar in a band, you might as well make the rhythm, lead and bass guitars into fire breathing dragons. Right away we come up with my first problem. You see basses are bigger than guitars. The low pitch of the bass demands this extra length. So if we were to have a bassist-guitarist dragon fight, it would look like the bass would win.

Fine, maybe the guitarist could solo so impressively and thus ‘win musically’ over the bassist. It’s true that most bassists won’t solo. I only know of two songs (Does it Really Happen? by Yes and Play With Me by Bootsauce), that have bass solos that could compete with the usual guitar solos of a song. But here again, I’m beat because I’m a rhythm guitarist. I know all sorts of chords and techniques to use them, as well as some impressive intros and repetitive lead lines. But, alas, I’m not very good at soloing.

It would never do to have a bassist or a guitar soloist beat me, the creator of the fire breathing dragon guitar. But all of this battling may be a moot point.

As you might be able to tell from the drawing, the dragon guitar is kind of one sided. In other words, with the usual right handed guitarists, battles couldn’t really be fought. There are left handed guitarists but they are rare. I have two left handed brothers and both play guitar right handed.

So any battles taking place on stage, would be three fire breathing dragon guitars attacking one poor stationary drummer from the one side. That’s not nearly as exciting as I had envisioned at the outset. Fire breathing dragon guitar idea may you rest in peace.

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Approaches by the Other

Posted on 21 May 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Here’s what I have written on a scrap of paper as an idea for this post:

Since the weaker members of society are being given more respect, what will we use for insults? Maybe sacrifice the F word and totally divorce it from being gay.

Believe it or not I hadn’t seen the South Park episode, “The F Word” from season 13. Just saw it two days ago – alright I’m slow and not at the cutting edge this time. And the group they chose to represent the F word? Why Harley drivers. Having lived at a place where Harley drivers (or other owners of large bikes) would pass regularly, I’ve built up quite a hatred of motorcycles. Huge trucks and souped up sports cars aren’t as loud.

My point was going to be we have to sacrifice at least one word. And judging by middle school boys, the F word is considered to be the “ultimate” insult and thus the first one used. If we leave a total vacuum of insults they are going to rebel and use perhaps all of them. Since the F word seems to be the first one back, filling that vacuum, it seems to be the one most needed to sacrifice.

And there seems to be some movement to divorce it from meaning gay. When the long F word was used in school, I remember teachers just saying “it means a bundle of sticks, look it up in the dictionary.” And the short F word only refers to gays in North America. In Britain it is slang for cigarettes. I remember hilarity ensued watching a film from Britain(I’m in Canada) where a smoker was jonesing for a smoke. That incongruence between societies was funny.

So with that long winded introduction, I want now to look at insults that mean the other in society and how different approaches are used by different groups. And these disparate approaches mostly seem to be working, meaning to me that society is more enlightened than it’s ever been.

First up is the N word. We all know how offensive the word can be to blacks. And by cracking down on saying it at all, the other N word hardly ever gets said anymore. That second N word is negro which is usually not used to offend. When this word disappears people are less likely to corrupt it into the N word that is insulting to black people. The problem with this approach so far is that young blacks have used the N word in rap songs. So I have to say that the last time I heard the N word was by a rap fan.

Next up is my own group. The world of mental illness used to be filled with hopeless cases until the 1950’s when treatments began transforming the lives of my peoples. Previous to this, being locked up in sanitariums was the rule. And eventually the language, here, too, began to be cleaned up. Both patients and society began to use illness to describe these conditions; nuts, loco, spinning a pointed finger at the temple and even the word crazy ended up in the trash bin for talking by and about my people. In fact for quite a few years after being diagnosed, I would still say “when I was crazy…” when mentioning any ‘episode’ I’d had. I would get funny stares from my peers and the mental health establishment so finally I gave up the ghost and now say “when I was ill…”

The intellectually challenged is the next group I’d like to look at. In a previous post I’d mentioned them and the euphemism treadmill they are on. Supporters of this group keep finding that they are still insulted by some parts of society. So I suggest cycling the euphemisms instead of all the time coming up with new ones. Right now we could use intellectually challenged, in 20 years slow learners, and in 20 more years we could go back to mentally retarded. You see, the segment of society that does the insulting doesn’t come up with something unique every time, so why should the response be unique every time?

The physically disabled have also been insulted. In fact, some of you may have cringed at the physically disabled descriptor and may have thought to yourself the “differently abled”. This group chooses to remind us that they can do many things on their own -in fact, they can usually do many more things than they can’t do. Plus there are workarounds.

And here we have the one minority insult that I’m still guilty of using – dumb. But still this group remains silent on the subject. I kid, before they find me and shout me down. I kid again. Guess I’ll have to start using the word stupid. My last use of the word dumb – for a previous post mentioning “dumb” blondes (which I said was a racist stereotype). In the insulting segment of society, the pairing of the racist with the ignorant seems natural. And honestly, if there are some mutes perusing this article, I quite expect you to use some of the hurtful terms listed above, against me (not my group though).

I still haven’t gotten to approaches of the obese or other ethnicities and even religions. Instead I would like to close with what may be even a better sacrifice than the F word. Regular readers of this site might already be expecting this. We can start to make “leader” or in the case of Canada, the prime minister, the ultimate insult.

Say this with a derisive tone of voice: “You’re such a prime minister!”

Or, if you prefer to be specific, “You’re such a Stephen Harper!” Of course, as regards everything with Stephen Harper (the prime minister of my country), the derisive tone was assumed.

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The 27 Year Old Musician Jinx

Posted on 18 May 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I remember reading a list of about 15 musicians who had their careers cut short by death. There was a brief biography of each which amongst other things listed the age of their deaths. Half of them died at the age of 27. This was the first I heard about the 27 year old jinx.

The big 5 of this group are Brian Jones (the Rolling Stones), Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain. Although the most famous of these musicians are the rock ones, there are blues musicians on this list too. To see a more complete list, check this Wikipedia article entitled the 27 Club.

So what are we to learn from this? If you’re a 27 year old musician, stay clear of swimming pools, mixing wine with sleeping pills, hard drugs, things that could cause heart failure, shotguns, strychnine, etc., etc. Actually if we go too long and far into the Wikipedia list, it gets to the point where you should just say 27 year old musicians should just avoid life. Which in itself might be a danger to 27 year old musicians.

But I have a solution for some of us. What if we were to have a music making forum where only those over 28 years of age could apply? Maybe we could start it off as one of those music talent shows, with a record production division. Maybe then it could grow to take over other rock and blues venues.

But I sense that Junior would object. “Why are all these grandmas and grandpas making music now? I want to see someone my own age.”

But Junior doesn’t know that he’s condemning some of his rock star heroes to death when they are 27. Maybe when the first one dies, he’ll come over to the old side.

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