The economy is in the tank. Some might even go so far as to say our economy is rafting the rapids through hell on its way to Cocytus. It is not the first time such a downward spiral happened in the good old USA. Recession and depression are a natural part of the business cycle in Capitalist systems. But for those of us who take up the pen as a hobby, avocation, or vocation, one past administration, that of FDR, created a project that can help us and the US. It was called the “Federal Writers’ Project” and came under the New Deal Project knows as “Federal Project Number One.”
“Known as “Federal One” for short, Federal Project Number One was created in 1935 as a subdivision of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that sought to extend the relief of the New Deal to artists, actors, writers, and musicians.”
Federal Project Number One – Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site
The Federal Writers’ Project brought work to writers who FDR noted, “…are human beings. They have to live.” (King). The project put writers to work “preparing state guidebooks, writing historical pamphlets, and recording the points of interest of each state” (Roosevelt) and projects such as “Conch Town” (Florida). Many writers, including ‘John Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston, and John Cheever” (Wikipedia) took part in a project created to put a group of Americans to work and to create an enduring artistic legacy that would document the history of the time.
“I’m sitting in the railway station. Got a ticket for my destination.” Not really. Oh, spiritually and emotionally I am in a railway station. That is life, of course. We all sit in that railway station with the idea that we have a destination, that we know where we are going. We don’t. We all have tickets, but the destination on the ticket is blank. So we guess which train to board. We hope that train travels the direction that we have convinced ourselves we want to go. We are the emergent property of two gametes, coming from nowhere and going somewhere…we hope.
This is not about thanksgiving. The dinner is done, the turkey consumed, and way to much pie eaten. My wife and youngest son sleep in blessed satiation. My next youngest watches a Jimmy Neutron rerun. I should be working on my math homework, plugging away at my novel, or doing something constructive (honey-do list). Instead, I sit here in a bemused Simon and Garfunkel funk, thinking about old songs, and making mental connections between lyrics and the memory.
Thanksgiving, a day to look back, to be thankful of where the train took me. A day to remember a high-school girlfriend. A day to remember dead friends and missing enemies. An introspection inspection of my belly button, to pull myself out into the aether of memory along the silver cord attached to my umbilicus, a day to consider destinations.
A Zero-G Coffee Cup, how wonderful is the mind of man. I mean, a coffee cup for zero-g travelers. No more drinking coffee through a straw. How long before Starbucks opens up the first zero-g bistro. How long before the first beatnaut1 sips coffee from a wing shaped “Petite Cup” while reciting poetry.
This development changes the nature of space travel, bringing zero-g a little closer to right at home. Until they build big wheels in the sky that simulate gravity, or come up with some way of manipulating gravity so we can have the real thing, inventions like this will make space travel just a little easier, at least for coffee addicts.
Beatnaut – An astronaut who emulates the style and behavior of a follower of the Beat Generation, whose behavior, views, and often style of dress are pointedly unconventional. Beatnauts are most often seen in Zero-G bistros sipping coffee from wing shaped Petite Cups.
My short story, “The Last Toy” has now been published by Whortleberry Press in their annual Christmas Anthology “Santa’s Givings and Misgivings.”
Seeing my own words in print is more than a hoot. I feel a strange mixture of pride and worry, similar to the way I felt when I saw my children born. I’d like to spend time analyzing the whole emotional experience, but I have stories to write.
At 04:35:42, a magnitude 4.1 event occurred 16 km (10 miles) N of Palomar Observatory, CA, at 33 deg. 29.9 min. N (33.498N), 116 deg. 51.9 min. W (116.865W). The hypocentral depth is 8 km ( 5 miles). Those are the scientific measurements. It was a small event, on the scale of such things here on earth. I felt it, and more importantly heard it in my bed.
There was a distant sound, almost sub-audible, like a rifle shot heard a county away. Very quickly there after, I felt the shake and heard a second bang, like the breaking of the sound barrier. These two sequenced sounds were like hearing someone say Ta-Dah, as if the earth were trying to impress me with a ridiculous grandiloquent introduction.
As events go, this quake was small. I’ve slept though bigger quakes and rode a bush through the Northridge quake years back. But this even seemed to have produced mental aftershocks, triggering patterns of thought that bounce through my brain. I can not sleep.
Did you noticed that the current economic collapse has roused the New World Order into full gallop. We’re talking G20, G8, European Union, Breton Woods redux, and who knows what other alphabet soup mix of international organizations. Now, I am aware that the phrase “New World Order” carries a very dark bias. Many on the right see it as a dark blend of Nazi-Commie-Illuminati conspiracy bent on world domination and ending, forever, that special status that the United States is supposed to have as the City on a Hill, created by God as the New Canaan, destined to bring the light and Salvation to a the elect among mankind’s many people. I am not talking about that “New World Order.” What I see as a new world order, the little “n” little “w” little “d” new world order of International organizations that have evolved since the Geneva Convention in 1864 and the League of Nations in 1917 began the slow evolution of extra-national organizations designed to handle global problems in a global rather than a national way.
Many problems transcend national boundaries. Even the most powerful nations can not approach real solutions to these problems on a unilateral basis. A world wide depression needs a world wide response. This new world order to approach and solve the crises that threatens to sink all economies is the tied that floats all boats. In some ways, this appears to be a repudiation of the Bush years of unilateral national solutions to international crises. The global war on terror has failed because we as a nation tried to impose our will and our goals on the rest of the world. Approaching this new crises as a world seems to be the next best step to expanding the evolving international systems. From here, we can use these solutions to global warming (climate change if you prefer), and many other problems that plague humanity.
Saturn is showing off again, doing things that scientists do not expect and can not explain. I am not implying magic, or some mysterious event, but it raises questions.
Mysterious glowing aurora over Saturn confounds scientists
A stunning light display over Saturn has stumped scientists who say it behaves unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system.
The blueish-green glow was found over the ringed planet’s north polar region just like Earth’s northern lights.
It was discovered by the infrared instruments on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
There is not enough time to write every story that comes to mind. It is fun to play, just imagine. What if intelligent life living in the Clouds of Saturn use auroras to contact a force that they conceive of as God or Gods. Perhaps these beings manipulate magnetic fields to communicate as they drift though the clouds and raging storms. These mysterious auroras are calls to God. But it doesn’t have to be a religious message, perhaps they are using these lights to contact life outside their world.
We live in interesting times. The world changed on November 4th, or so they say. Obama became President elect, and a majority of the people in California who voted for Obama also voted to outlaw marriage between gays and lesbians.
On one hand we have this incredible landmark event. A man, and a member of a group that many still consider children of a lesser god, was elected. On the other, Californians voted to deny equal access to the law by other humans. And it is human rights we are talking about here. This is not simply about black and white, strait and gay. We are supposed to be equal under the law. As long as that laws dictate that the government determines who marries by require all applicants to acquire a marriage license, then it is a matter of the law rather than morality or religion.
This conflict has writerly applications.
This new law is the real opening of a new civil rights movement. Just as the last civil rights movement in the 60’s caused enormous upheaval in our society, this new movement will also create conflict. Heroes will arise on both sides of he question. What new Martin Luther King Jr. will rise up for gays and lesbians to lead them? Among those who oppose the very idea that a man can love a man and a woman can love a woman, will become the hero and lead those forces in opposition?
But twist this idea a little.
What if Gays and Lesbians were aliens. In the original Star Trek series, Spock was half Vulcan half human and Worf was half Klingon and half human. Yes, there is the problem that different species evolved independently on very different worlds would not find reproducing easy, or even possible, like attempting to cross breed a chitzu with a hermit crab. They addressed that in a Next Generation episode by making all life the descendants of one distance ancestral race, long extinct, but I digress.
Keep the notion that it would be impossible to reproduce, what kind of cultural change would happen if an alien species came to earth and chose to intermarry with humans? Would that be bestiality, or would that simply be two or more loving people seeking to spend their lives together? Two sexes is no limit with alien physiology. Who has the right to say no? Who is hurt? Who wins? Who loses?
The economy is in the tank. Some might even go so far as to say our economy is rafting the rapids through hell on its way to Cocytus. It is not the first time such a downward spiral happened in the good old USA. Recession and depression are a natural part of the business cycle in Capitalist systems. But for those of us who take up the pen as a hobby, avocation, or vocation, one past administration, that of FDR, created a project that can help us and the US. It was called the “Federal Writers’ Project” and came under the New Deal Project knows as “Federal Project Number One.”
