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Reading, Writing, Pondering: Big Life Themes, Literature, Contemporary/Historical Issues |
 Welcome to the 14th century, in a farflung outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, and a new Convent outpost of the terrrifically powerful Roman Catholic Church. Sound historically dull? Hopefully not so--for this is NOT an ordinary 14th Century Convent. Back after a six-year hiatus.... From NaNoWriMo historical Supernatural novels in Scotland, Michigan, South Alabama and historical horror in Standwood Station, GA-to the Phantom Northern Woods-to singlehandedly refighting the American Civil War-to exploring Social Justice and standing for First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution-we deal out horror, Supernatural, Historical, fantasy, mystery, and more. We do not fear outspokeness. And always, always, always, We Do History. Find it here. We write it. We read it. We hold strong opinions. We orate. Meanwhile, whether we're writing or just reading, we love to rave about books and authors right here!  |
These entries will be primarily free reading for the next few days or however long it takes for me to battle out this jaw-gum infection {which began on June 4); last evening and this morning have been much the worse, and I've resorted to a homemade ice pack. I have a rear molar loosening at the roots and the infection, which also seems to be an ear-sinus type, is centering there; the jaw is swollen and my throat, jaw, gum, mouth, and ear hurts. My head aches. I can't think clearly. Reading and viewing a screen are uncomfortable. Before you ask, why don't I take steps to solve it: I have not taken any kind of internal medication since the first week of January 2007, due to a severe allergic reaction to an oral generic cold liquid which confined me to bed for 5 nights and 4 days, and fogged my thought processes for a week following that. Since I have not even consumed a single Tylenol. I use muscle rub, Vicks, Orajel, which are topical treatments. I won't take pills or liquids. Additionally, without health insurance, funds, or transportation I couldn't see a physician or a dentist if I desired to do so; I live with my health issues while many who make a career of visiting doctors and rave about their medications claim to suffer so much. Not saying they don't have pain; only saying there are degrees. I know of one individual in this category who states: “I could not live without my pain medication.” Oddly enough, I do live-without. {i}Finding The Abandoned Child{/i}: Chapter Five epigram: “All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again.” Ecclesiastes 1:7 The night our little portion of the world changed, Mamma, Pastor Janns, Natay-lee, Jahro, and I scurried West along quiet streets and through alleys, heads down and paying little attention to our surroundings. The fitful light of the moon shining between taller buildings kept us concentrating on our footing. But when we eventually reached the diagonally crossing Swan Street, though, we were amidst buildings of only two and rarely three stories, and because Swan was diagonal and slanted downhill toward the Harbor, we were at last able to see the water, and soon we identified the source of the roar. We crossed narrow square lawn in front of a two-story apartment building, beside the alley we had just walked up, and suddenly the roar was unmistakable. We stopped for a moment, set down our packages to rest, and gazed downhill in astonishment and shock. The only sound other than the roar of the tidal waves encompassing the city's small Harbour was the voice of Pastor Janns, quoting from one of his interminable religious scriptures. epigram: “All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again.” Not quite sure how that was applicable, I continued to stare at the sea, washing over the Harbour and the fishing sheds on the wharf, or where the wharf should be. Fishing boats and small craft dotted the high waves, bobbing as if nodding to us. Of the fishing sheds on the wharf, and of the homes and huts of the fisherfolk, we could see nothing. We could only hope they had been given some kind of warning, by the noise, as had Pastor Janns, who, awake, had recognized the sound of danger and had alerted Mamma, myself, and the cousins, so we could leave. So now we knew of danger, knew the identify of it, and had left our homes, but now where could we go. Although Pastor Janns had orchestrated the initial exit from our compound by alerting Mamma, now she seemed to take over orchestrating of it, leading the charge across to the West side of the city. We sped across Swan, sparing not one more glance toward the devastation of the Harbour, and raced along East-West streets and alleys till we reached the Gymnasium, a tall building with an arched ceiling and tin plating on its slightly domed roof. To my surprise, if not to Mamma's and Pastor Jann's, many of the city-dwellers, including what seemed to be all fo the fisher-folk (for which I found myself unaccountably grateful) milled about the corners of the Gymanasium, or stood along the back wall. Mamma sent Pastor Janns around to the front to see if the double doors were open, but he reported back that they were locked. One of the West Side residents had informed him that informed him that the Gymnasium's Manager, Loreeta Wills, who lived to the far North-East, just below the hills where cattle peacefully grazed, had been alerted and was now on her way here to open up the building for use as a shelter, till rebuilding could commence. When Madame Wills arrived, the Gymnasium was quickly opened and made ready for our use, all of the residents who had evacuated Center City and the South Side. A few had even come in from Swan Street, from North of Center City, which I found surprising. Most of these were families with young children-those who could not afford housing elsewhere. Although the disaster did not promise to reach as far as their homes, I guess they felt safer bringing their children to the Gymnasium for shelter, as the building sat securely on its own Knoll to the NorthWest of Mellaigch. Outside the Gymnasium we could all barely hear the roar of the tidal waves; inside once the doors were shut, we could not hear it at all. The thick stone walls of the building kept out all exterior sounds; in a way this was reassuring, yet it also was frightening. Anything could have been happening outside, and we inside would not have known. Because the double doors were of such a thickness of wellterr wood, and because the stone walls were twenty centimeters in thickness, a narrow rectangular window had been set into the door on the left, so that anyone inside could open it to see if someone waited at the door-quite likely, a knock might not be heard. Since the circumstances were rather dire, Madame Wills opened the slider covering this narrow window, so that someone at the door could be immediately seen and granted entrance. |
| Happy Father's Day to all the dads, grandpas, great-grandpas, dads-in-law, and stepdads who assume both the role and the responsibility as role models, disciplinarians, examples of love, and friends to a child. To those who manage to father but refuse this responsibility, sorry for you I am, but not as sorry as I am for those children who suffer from your lack of faith in yourself and them. As a friend of mine mentioned, Happy Father's Day also to all the moms who have had to assume the role of both parents, whether through death, divorce, or deployment. You go, Mothers!! I had planned to add more on the Oil Spill today after I saw there is worse news, but I find myself speechless again. I just want to ask this: according to BP publicity, the time CEO Tony Hayward spent with his son yesterday at a South Britain yachting race was “downtime.” So WHERE'S THE DOWNTIME FOR THE SEA BIRDS AND MARINE LIFE DESTROYED OR DAMAGED IN THE SPILL AND ITS AFTERMATH?? Finding the Abandoned Child: Chapter Four Standing still for a moment where Denguer ended at Swan, I glanced down toward the ruins of the Harbour, then sighed and turned away. I decided to walk more slowly back to the Shelter; maybe Mamma would catch me up before I got there (and catch me up as well for disobeying, as only she could), maybe I would reach there first. I hoped that now she had determined to return to our compound to collect some possessions, that meant we would soon be moving into our new home on the West side, whichever and wherever that was going to be. As I turned back onto the sidewalk on Denguer, I glanced down: in the grassy lawn right next to the sidewalk, in among the overgrown grass stalks, dandelions, and weeds, lay a naked, silent, very much alive infant. Never stopping to think, I stared into the infant's calm grey eyes as I reached down for it and cuddled it to my shoulder. Then I headed for the sound of voices, in the alley stemming just North of me at an angle from Swan Street. I heard, I thought, a woman and maybe a man or boy chatting, so I raced there as quickly as I could, considering I was juggling a naked infant, uncaring and unthinking as to the fact that it was not swaddled and I held it to my shirt. Speeding down the alley, at first I saw no one. Then a slender woman about my height walked out of a shed carrying a box, and saw me. She looked startled, as well she might. “Madam! I just found this-him-please-call for help! We need-he needs to be checked-his health!” She scowled at me but turned to the boy of about sixteen who had exited the shed behind her and thrust the box to him. “Here, Joh-lee, load this one.” Reaching into her vest pocket for a communicator, she quickly dialed and connected with the City Dispatch. “Yes-we need EMT here-Denguer Street at Swan-immediately. This girl-just found a naked infant-where?” she turned to me to inquire. “I saw it in the grass, just over there, across the street, near the corner-in the unkempt lawn of that first empty house-” and I pointed past the direction of the shed from which she had carried her box out. “We need a Constable out here too, please-” she added, then closed the communicator and turned to me. “Would you like me to hold him?” I grasped the baby closer to my shoulder and demurred, shaking my head. We waited in silence while the boy Joh-lee-I supposed him to be her son or nephew-continued to move in and out of the shed, loading boxes, carriers, and sacks of grain onto a large wagon. She kept watching the infant and me, still scowling, turning every few minutes to direct the boy, yet without losing track of me. It seemed long, but was probably not more than twenty minutes, when first the Constable car, with behind it the EMT's machine, pulled across the alley's end. The Constable was a woman, light-haired, pale of complexion, perhaps four inches shorter than the woman next to me and I. She pulled a notebook from her back pocket, and a pen from her shirt pocket, and walked towards us. “Constable-in-Training Lucysha Ware. Constable Jackmund is down at the Harbour still, working with the fisherfolk to take damage tallies. What have we here?” I looked at the woman from the shed and she stared back at me. Finally she had stopped scowling, but just looked at me unsmilingly, and then nodded for me to begin. “I was following my Mother back toward our compound in Center City, but she moved too fast and I lost sight of her. I turned at Swan Street to return to the Shelter-you know, at the Gymnasium at Wicher's Point?” The constable nodded. The woman just looked bemused. I noticed her son-or nephew-had moved up behind her and was listening intently. “When I turned around, over there-” I moved up the alley so I could see past the shed, and pointed toward the apparently empty house on the end of Denguer, on the South side of the street-”right there, in the lawn next to the sidewalk, where the grass is so high? I saw him,” and I looked at the baby who still did not cry nor make any sound, and I cuddled him closer. By now the EMT had pulled a gurney out of the back of his vehicle and an oxygen tank and mask, the portable kind, and was moving toward us. I knew he was about to take the baby from me, so I quickly told the Constable, “I can take you over there and show you exactly the spot.” |
| Chapter Two ”I don't know, child. Pastor says-” “Please, both of you-I'm not certain-just pack a quick bag and go! Go West!” With that admonition, Pastor Janns rushed back to his Study in the South wing and we could hear him stacking books. I looked at Mamma and she nodded. “Go, then, child, just a quick few changes of clothes, and meet me out in the patio. Quickly now.” We each returned to our rooms and hurried to find the necessities. I reached the patio before her, but Pastor Janns already stood outside, satchel overloaded with books on his left shoudler. He reminded me of a colt straining at the stable door to get out and run. Clearly he was in a hurry and something had badly spooked him. As Mamma exited behind me with the cousins beyond her, I heard something now myself. An odd roar combined with a sort of rumble, as if the air itself were ruffled and perturbed. I noticed each of the nephews carried a bag too; so did Pastor Janns, and he reached over and took Natay-lee's. Though he was older by a year, he was tall and wiry, whereas Jahro was sturdy and stocky, much more able to carry heavy loads, even though this sack was not so. With Mamma in the lead, we headed toward the outer door, located in the NorthWest corner of our compound. I saw that Mamma had locked the front door of our complex when the boys exited, and now she unlocked the outer gate, preceded us out, then turned to lock it behind us. She used an odd old huge skeleton key with a strange emblem inside the circle which formed the handle. Our compound had been in Mamma's family for untold generations; she had told me once that her family had been one of the first to found our city. Without a word now she headed out, straight West toward the far side of town. Our home sat on a hill, not as high as the hills to the North where cattle grazed in meadows overlooking the Harbor, but high enough that we could not see the Harbor or the see from our compound. When we eventually reached the diagonally crossing Swan Street, though, we were amidst buildings of only two and rarely three stories, and because Swan was diagonal and slanted downhill toward the Harbor, we were at last able to see the water, and soon we identified the source of the roar. Chapter Three Several days passed before the imminent danger had receded with the flood waters, and folks within the Center City were able to return to their homes to assess the damage and to receover what possessions they could. Mamma did not give us notice at our hurried breakfast in the shelter far on the West Side. Instead, she rose from the table and announced she was going back to our compound. I cried out, “Wait, Mamma! I'll go with you!” “No, Fenrich, you remain here.” and with that directive she was gone. I had to waste time finding a shelter caregiver to watch over the two boys, so by the time I rushed out the front door of the big temporarily converted Gymnasium and around its corner, Mamma was several blocks away. I trailed her at a run, but she moved preternaturally quickly and by the time I had reached diagonal Swan Street, Mamma had disappeared from sight. Actually, she had gone missing a few blocks earlier, but I of course remembered the way back to Center City and kept on moving East. Still I kept moving as speedily as possible, as if sheer force of my intent would be enough to propel her back towards me, or at least to cause her to slow down till I could catch up. Note that I fully remembered that she had told me to stay, and that I really had no logical or mentally sound excuse to keep going. It was emotionally that I feared something was wrong-well, something “new” was wrong-beyond what had happened to our Center City just scant days before. The street on which I had been heading East, Denguer Road, was a lengthy but narrow residential street constructed back when the City was fairly new, perhaps two centuries ago. The houses were set close together, as befitted a new town which was uncertain of its surroundings and whether or not protection from enemies might be essential. The yards were narrow between the houses and the sidewalk, but lawns also grew prettily now between sidewalk and street. To my right, on the South side, a long block of one-story and one-and-a-half story homes stretched, and across the street was a row of mostly slightly smaller houses. Behind that was an alley running at an angle, East to West. Eventually, I remembered, the alley came out onto Sentinel Street, a long North-South avenue which ran directly behind the converted Gymnasium which was currently being utilized for shelter for Center City residents who had lost their homes-temporarily or for most, permanently, as the damage in that part of the City had been fairly extensive. In front of me diagonalled Swan Street, a very long street (as long or longer than Sentinel) that instead of running straight North-South, instead began at the Northwest corner of the city of Mellaigch, and ran on to the Southeast, ending near the Harbor-well, where the harbor had been until a few days before. Swan Street had become a row of two-story and three-story houses long since converted into apartment buildings. Although its neighborhoods (there were several) were nearly as ancient as the West Side of the city, Swan Street sported a lower economic contingent: the converted apartments frequently housed many singles per building, some Apothecary students from the nearby College-some doctors of medicine just starting out in practice. Others were older folks-in their thirties and forties-who simply could not scrape up the income to live in a better home. Few were the families who called Swan Street home, and oddly, most of them lived farther to the North, quite near to the shadow of the Apothecary College, while the students seemed to gravitate from the middle of the street's length on farther South, though not as far as the Harbor. In that section lived fisherfolk, wharf boys who earned their pittance living at scrap jobs, ships' chandlers, and black-market merchants and entrepreneurs. |
| Many years ago I read Norman Mailer's book The Executioner's Song, a sort of fictionalized account of the life and execution by Utah firing squad of convicted killer Gary Gilmore. I found it intriguing because at that time, as now, Utah is the only state maintaining this particular execution method. Now, life once again imitates art: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-firing-squad-20100618,0,668... A convicted Death Row inmate was executed earlier this morning, at his request by firing squad, allowed because his conviction occurred before the law was changed to use the method of lethal injection so popular in other states. This is Utah's first execution by firing squad in 14 years. I've been struggling with a gum infection for 15 days; think it's the kind of infection usually termed “ear,” but in my case it has lodged below a back molar and is paining my gum, mouth, and jaw. The first two days of it-June 4 and 5-I had a painful canker sore on my tongue. Mostly the problem is it makes my thinking patchy and vague, and causes a constant low-grade irritability and inability to concentrate. Got to get in gear; the 2nd June Mad Dash starts tonight and I've committed again to 500 words/daily blogging and 500 words/daily on the novel Finding the Abandoned Child. I didn't blog on Tuesday but I wrote 500+ on the novel; Wednesday and Thursday I blogged, but wrote nothing on the novel. I am “struggling” in the Sequels Workshop, because it has turned out to be geared toward publication-which is fine, but not at all helpful to me. Plus with my incapacity for clear thinking these past two weeks nothing seems to make sense to me. Poor me LOL Today's Free Read: Chapter One of Finding The Abandoned Child: Chapter One epigram: “We all live in a Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine.”-The Beatles We were all asleep-almost all of us- when the event occurred that changed our lives. Only Pastor Janns, in our compound, was awake and alert, studying his endless progression of religious works in the study at the South angle of our pale stucco home. The Pastor slept very little, perhaps two to four hours per night, due to injuries he had suffered during the Big War twenty-two years earlier, when he was a very young man. Pains kept him awake, and rather than take laudanum, which he believed to be addictive, he read and studied all night. Mamma and I slept, as did my cousins Natay-lee and Jahro, boys of twelve and eleven, respectively. Mamma and I had taken the boys in when her sister Ja-lil-ah passed away last autumn season. Now that it had been a year, the boys had pretty much settled in, although once in a while we would be awakened by Jahro's muted weeping in the night-but not nearly as often as when they first appeared, when Natay-lee acted out, and Jahro cried all night, every night. Dawn slipped flat spatulate fingers across window sills and under the edges of curtains before the event that changed our city occurred. Only the cattle in the meadows atop the hilltop overlooking the harbor watched it happen: both sunrise and the event. They lowed quietly amongst themselves, looking down at the quiet fishing boats in the harbor bobbing on the sudden swells. They likely ignored the signs out to sea: the ashy slate colour of the firmament at the Eastern horizon; the booming surf just below that; the pounding from under the ocean as a tectonic plate shifted and resettled itself. The cattle weren't affected and so they didn't care. In their own creaturish way, they recognized that the dawn brought their milkers, and so they lowed patiently while they awaited relief. Pastor Janns had just reached down a text on the Apocalypse and settled back into his reading chair at the study table by the window when he perceived the rumble. At first he thought he must have fallen asleep, and tilting the chair, had almost fallen and righted himself; then he realized he was not asleep at all and had not been. The rumble came from outdoors, not near the Complex, but somewhere just outside the City of Mellaigch. He slapped the book closed, jumping from the chair and this time in actuality tipping it over, running out of the Study and down the hall to the Northeast angle, where my mother had her suite. He banged on her sitting-room door until she awoke and sped through from her bedroom to open it. “Washundra! Awake! Something's happening-Apocalypse!” My mother doubted that, but clearly it must be a serious imminent event to disturb Pastor Janns to this extent. She tightened the sash on the blue silk robe she had already donned and opened the sitting-room door, pushing past the Pastor and rushing down the hall toward my room, which was three doors down, also on the North wall, so that my views were all of the hills North of the City. Since I had become a light sleeper over the past seasons, due to my perceived need to protect my young orphaned cousins, I was already awake and stepping through my doorway. “What is it, my Mother?” |
An intriguing surprise yesterday: I discovered that you, Gentle Readers, do indeed exist!  And here all this time I thought I preached to the void! But no-a comment on Facebook impelled me to check for the first time the stats on this item, and most amazingly, I do have readers: the vast majority non-WDC members! That seriously freaked me out. But that's fine: the blog restriction is set to allow public reading, so be it. Most of my writings in my WDC Portfolio now are set for Registered Authors and above-which, it is true, does not allow for the general public, but hey, how easy it is to first open a free account, thereby becoming a Registered User, and then to add one single item into one's Port, becoming a Registered Author? No problemo!Actually it was a positive response that impelled me to check the stats, and very possibly-likely-unrelated to the blog; but I had the content of yesterday's entry on my mind when I read the message, so I thought to myself to check out the readership. Expecting none, I was pleasantly surprised and gratified. In the bad news category (and isn't there always a plenitude of that) we now learn that not only the OIL SPILL is killing marine life and birds, but so is the clean-up. Yes, Gentle Readers, the very acts supposed to clear the SPILL are destroying Gulf life. I strongly recommend all read this enlightening article-”read it and weep”: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-burnbox-20100617,... I guess now that I know I have readership  I shall begin serializing my current novel-in-progress, Finding The Abandoned Child, a stand-alone novel in a sub-sub-sub-genre niche I term “Environmental Disaster Fantasy.” Hence, Finding The Abandoned Cbild.FINDING THE ABANDONED CHILD An Environmental Disaster Urban Fantasy Novel PROLOGUE A mild natural disaster had caused our small town to shift itself some distance to one end: that is, everybody moved out of the “center city” to one side and extended the town away from the area most affected. One set of those was the compound in which I and my mother lived. Buildings were not destroyed, or not to the point that we could not re-enter to acquire our possessions. No injuries, apparently, either. Just a good bit of uproar, an entire city, for the most part, moving house. A pastor lived in our compound too; besides my mother, he, and myself, there were maybe only four others. We owned a long, oddly-angled, pale stucco home with airy rooms and a wide yard. We all moved out, to the far edge of town, and then my mother determined to go back to the former home for our possessions. I wanted to go along but she said she could do it alone and took off. The others will fixing up the new house, so I left to follow her but she moved faster than was possible and was soon out of sight. I walked up a residential road with a narrow sidewalk and grass between the street and the sidewalk and with narrow but lush lawns before the houses, seeing nothing amiss at that time. When I came to a street angling diagonally in front of me, a less well-mannered neighborhood with houses converted into apartment buildings, many people were about, and the atmosphere was almost more like that of a block party than of moving day. I could not find my mother so rather than go on to our old home, I decided to turn back. When I came up on to the sidewalk at that end of the quiet residential street, I glanced down. In the lawn near the sidewalk at the corner closest to the diagonal street, lay an abandoned infant, naked, silent, awake. Immediately I reached down and picked up the child. Rather than try at any of the homes, which now appeared empty, if not actually abandoned, I crossed the street and entered an alley running diagonally away from the street on which I had discovered the baby. Here there was plenty of activity, and I soon came to a woman and her adolescent son, who were collecting their possessions and bringing them out into the alley for loading and transport. I asked her to please call the police, and she did and then handed me her cell phone. I continued to hold the child, who still had not cried nor shown any signs of distress, talking on the cell phone to the dispatcher while first a police car, then an ambulance, pulled up on the street near the end of the alley. The policewoman quizzed me at great length, over and over, while I refused to release the baby until the EMT arrived with a stretcher and diaper and checked the boy over to ascertain injury. He reported the infant was in good condition, then bundled him into the ambulance to take in to the hospital, thus relieving me of his immediate care, though not of my concern. |
| A little change of Blogging Scenery today, a different view from the train-coming out of the tunnel of environmental despair for a few moments, though I never stop thinking and worrying about apocalyptic ecological collapse. I've been going through some strenuous personal issues (as the old Miles Davis song put it, “My mind keeps goin' thru them changes”) and the last 13 days have been emotionally horrendous. I had a shorter spell of this in May, about 4-5 days; this one started June 4 and has just rolled on like a French Revolution Juggernaut. I alternate between terrified anxiety about apocalyptic environmental collapse-or as I call it “the end of civilization as we know it”-anger, depression, despair, emotional numbness-you get it. Most of the time I don't feel like myself, but still I don't know whom I do feel like. So it's been difficult. Part of this I think is occasioned by the 40th anniversary reunion of my high school class this past weekend. No, of course, I didn't go: I live 4 states away and no way to go. But two weeks before that I opened a new Facebook account in my at-that-time name and started trying to locate classmates. It's been good and bad: some ignored my friends request; Sunday one from my class claimed not to know me at all. Others were pleased to find me. I reconnected with one close friend I had not been in contact with since 1984. But yesterday morning I was asked into chat by a man from my high school graduating class, on whom I had had quite a crush then. He had married, fathered four, and is now unfortunately widowed. I don't know the background to that. He lives several states away, had never to my recollection spoken to me in high school nor even knew of my existence. So, no, Gentle Readers and those with particularly romantic hearts: this is NOT going to be a “childhood sweethearts and old flames reconnect” story. But he did ask to speak to me yesterday and we had a 3-hour chat, which left me feeling more than miserable. Many old issues were awakened and I ended feeling as if my O-ring (remember the Challenger explosion) had broken, or the iron rod at my core (think nuclear reactor) was skewed and cracked. Then later in the evening I began to back away from the conversation and to analyze it, and I realized that I would never have tolerated the direction of the conversation if someone-a complete stranger-had come to me online and started this-nor would I have in person, I would simply have walked away, or if online, closed out the chat window. But because it was somebody from high school, whom I had “admired” at the time, and because it was flattering, I let it to go. And I was a fool to do so! I was foolish because I allowed somebody else's issues to color my own perception of myself. Just because I am “different” from another does not make me automatically wrong, or less, or inferior, or skewed; just because I once found someone “crushworthy” does not make that person a worthy individual now: that comes from character and integrity, not flattery nor inappropriate conversation. And that is what I have learned. |
| Seems like my May silence-speechlessness-on the subject of the current environmental disaster has reached its conclusion a week ago. Nowadays I spend my online time researching, looking at “both sides” of the issue (is this REALLY a two-sided issue?), seeking information, and posting here, thither, and yon, links and my outspoken thoughts. You, Gentle Readers, are not the only ones whose ears are burning with my thinking. Is anyone reading me? I have several links to offer this morning on the subject of: marine life environment Warning on this one: queasy stomachs need not apply: this article has photos and horrifying news about the dearth of sea turtles, those five precious endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-turtles-20100613,... Here's one that offers, if not hope, at least activism for all of us: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/be-an-armchair-oil-spill-activist.html And a list of twelve animal species in danger: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/12-animals-threatened-by-the-oil-spill.html Yes, Gentle Readers, I have posted these at two Facebook accounts, I am commenting on others' reports, I am reading both the FB BoycottBP posts and the posts from that profiteering bugaboo British Petroleum. I also read everything President Obama posts on his page relating to the SPILL. Then, intentional pun, I sift everything I read with a grain of sand. I think what broke the silence of my speechlessness was a series of dreams that occurred early in the morning of Saturday, June 5. All my life I've been concerned that my dreams will turn out to be prophetic (hey, it worked for Daniel!) and I hope and pray with all my might that these WON'T. But that morning I began an entirely new novel, dropping my current projects, in an entirely new niche, Urban Fantasy-it's turning out to have elements of straight fantasy too, but what I'm categorizing it as now is “Environmental Disaster Urban Fantasy.” From the first sentence it was clear that the environmental disaster is just as important in the novel as is the clue which is found in the title: “Finding the Abandoned Child.” I realize now that this is my soul's way of working out my tremendous fears and anxieties about the SPILL. I truly believe this is the end: the beginning of the Apocalypse, the end of life as we know it, and the world ending with a whimper and not a bang. Yes, how well I know I sound just like a Grade-B Science Fiction movie out of the 1950's. Well folks I feel like I should drop all my other current reading and start on the post-apocalyptic genre again: James Axler's wonderful and extensive DEATHLANDS Series (95 books); William Johnstone's ASHES Series (34 books), even scientifically-trained Larry Niven. I'm feeling it, deeper than I feel most events. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/j/william-w-johnstone/ http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/james-axler/ On this note, I'll treat you to a peek at the new novel, so you can begin to see the scope of the environmental disaster occurring to this city: From
“epigram: “All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again.” Not quite sure how that was applicable, I continued to stare at the sea, washing over the Harbour and the fishing sheds on the wharf, or where the wharf should be. Fishing boats and small craft dotted the high waves, bobbing as if nodding to us. Of the fishing sheds on the wharf, and of the homes and huts of the fisherfolk, we could see nothing. We could only hope they had been given some kind of warning, by the noise, as had Pastor Janns, who, awake, had recognized the sound of danger and had alerted Mamma, myself, and the cousins, so we could leave. So now we knew of danger, knew the identify of it, and had left our homes, but now where could we go. ….. “The natural disaster which had overtaken our city had been a terrifying and destructive event, yet thinking back, all of us-excepting the fisherfolk and shippers, whose homes and livelihoods had been destroyed-realized that the consequences could have been far, far worse. As of this morning, when I had found the baby, no loss of life had yet been reported-or not up to the point I left the Gymnasium following mother; only diminishment of the entire Harbour, the Wharf, and of course loss of the fish and marine life in the Harbour and in the nearby sea. So the fisherfolk, although still alive, were in serious danger now of having no livelihood whatsoever, as were the ship outfitters and chandlers. The shipowners who lived up on the hills on the NorthWest side could probably survive readily, unless they had gone heavily into debt. Ships, after all, could eventually be rebuilt. It was the lower class-the fisherfolk who survived on their daily catch-and the middle class-ship craftsman and outfitters-who would suffer right away.” |
| I was not planning another anti-BP rant today, but ths one really deserves comment: http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033657&contentId=7061734 Wonderful. More drilling? Drilling caused the original problem. And the term "permanent solution" tends to carry a negative history, as that is what Hitler called his treatment of Gypsies, Jews, and homosexuals. Sorry but the terminology could be redone. |
| It is said that a frog dropped into boiling water will immediately leap free, but a frog placed in lukewarm water on which the temperature is gradually increased will be unwittingly boiled to death. I truly believe such is the thinking condition of this world over the past 20 years. We've become way too accustomed-those of us who are not directly nor indirectly victims-to racial and ethnic genocide, to wars and conflicts, to “disappearances” in Central America, to atrocities like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Argentina's “Dirty War.” Any more, it's just something we see on TV, happening to somebody else-somewhere else; until American money is pledged to a Third World country, and then most of us manage to make a loud uproar, “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” (And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28 ) http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/tomorrow-tomorrow-tomorrow I've come to be very much afraid that this same attitude-of the frog gradually boiled-is going to be the attitude of the human population of this planet as the only planet we have is being systematically destroyed. Overpopulation, global warming, thinning of the ozone layer, intensified natural disasters, crime resulting from overpopulation (and genuine evil), and the continual destruction of the natural environment, wildlife, plant life, and destructive consumption of natural resources. And now this: http://www.alternet.org/environment/147185/bp_censoring_media,_destroying_eviden... A former high school classmate of mine visited the Gulf of Mexico beaches last week, and returned to report the horrendous damage to sea birds there. In a nation in which Michael Vick and others placed dogs in brutal fighting, then killed the ones who couldn't win (and later Vick was awarded by a Philadelphia organization!), a world which closes its eyes to the disappearances of thousands in Latin America, to torture of “political” prisoners (which always, just as it did in the Stalinist Soviet Union means only “those who don't agree with us”), to racial genocide, to brutal crime everywhere, is it in any way surprising that a multinational profiteer such as British Petroleum, a corporation which allegedly had been informed BEFORE the Deepwater Horizons explosion that there was danger of that very event, would hide the extent of the destruction IT has caused? In a world of human ostriches, yes, British Petroleum can escape this with impunity. But I have to wonder: what good will oil profiteering profits-might as well call it “piracy of the environment” be in a world gone dead? When all is lost in an apocalyptic collapse-when the world indeed “goes out with a whimper, not with a bang”, when the environment is completely destroyed and life is no longer in any sense sustainable-what profits from profiteering then? What will all the lying, deviousness, media-spinning, propaganda benefit then? When there is no more life on earth? What karma carried on, when the only planet we possess is unutterably useless-not from nuclear holocaust, as we all so feared in the 1950's, but from sheer environmental collapse? What profit then? |
| from my novel Child-Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation, in progress: Chapter Thirteen It had been a long and very difficult walk in the night for Willis Jenks, carrying his tiny six-day old son bundled in what few blankets they possessed, from his tiny house in Rennald-itself not much bigger than a two-room gardening shed) to his Pappy Callwood's wedge-shaped farm off Knox Road, next to important Farmer Jennell's place. He was still without a clue as to what had happened; his wife Clytie had simply disappeared, without notice, without a note. He knew it had to have happened prior to nightfall, because neither of the lanterns had been lit; probably it was even before twilight, because in November, winter night came early in The Big Forest region, and their tiny two-room house only had one window, in the kitchen, looking out on to the small back yard. What didn't make sense, either, was for a six-day-old newborn to be freshly dressed and swaddled in a dry nappie, as Clyde was when Willis came in (and still was, if his daddy had taken time to stop and check him while still on the road). Fifty years later, in 1950, there would have been occasional traffic along this stretch; a decade before that, more traffic; and in the 1920's, still twenty to thirty years in the future, log truckers would be piling up and down these roads. But not tonight, not in November 1900, not while young darkie Willis Jenks carried his almost week-old infant son home to his GrandPappy Callwood's farm, the farm that Willis himself only a year ago had rejected as unworthy of himself. Willis just could not understand what had gone wrong. He had been so happy for the past year or so since he had met Clytie; he had changed himself into a new, hard-working man, he had a beautiful wife he loved so very much, and a darling newborn son to carry on the family name. Willis didn't care whether Clyde grew up to work on Callwood's farm, or got himself a job in town. He just wanted Clyde to be a good man-and happy with it. And mostly he just wanted Clytie back, but that thumbnail-size dried blood spot on the kitchen floor, between the small round scratched wood table and the single door, worried him terribly. Willis had mutated from shiftless and lazy to hard-working and productive, but he hadn't gained intuition in the process, nor any psychic abilitiy. He didn't know the real nature of his son Clyde (and would not have believed it if he had been told), he didn't know what could have happened to his wife Clytie-why she would just disappear from the house in only her nightie-and she sure would never have left their precious son! (and if somebody had told Willis she was taken by a Demon, he would have laughed, until he remembered her loss, and then he would have sat down and cried) He didn't know the secrets his Pappy Callwood carried-not any of them. But some of these secrets-about Clyde, and about Callwood, and about Clytie-Willis was indeed just about to find out. |
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