Jun 26


On vacation

by Terry 26 June 2009


I’m taking off tonight for an intensive 2 week writers’ workshop in the North Carolina mountains. It’s going to be a true retreat, with no tv, radio, or cell phone to break the mood. I will, however, have access to satellite internet. But I need this time to focus on my novel and hopefully push myself over the “halfway hump” and on toward the end, so posting will be more sporadic than usual here. If I get into the groove, I may not post at all.

So have fun while I’m gone, everyone. I’ll think of you at sunset while I’m rocking on the porch, sipping a mint julep and playing Scrabble with Sherry Chandler. If she has enough to drink, I may actually win a game. :)

Bye!

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Jun 22


This space for rent

by Terry 22 June 2009


From the New York Times:

When a neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Movement volunteered last year to clean a Missouri highway, and get official recognition for it in the form of an Adopt-a-Highway sign, state officials felt powerless to refuse. So they took a rather clever tack.

…Officials are renaming the stretch of highway near Springfield that the organization cleans after Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who fled Nazi Germany and became a prominent Jewish theologian and civil rights advocate in the United States.

I hope they put up a great big sign announcing the new name.

I do have mixed feelings about this, though. Adopt-A-Highway is used to save millions of dollars, but at the expense of appearing to grant governmental approval to the sponsors. I smile at the thought of an adult bookstore being acknowledged with a sign in the heart of the Bible Belt, but the recent case in California of a Minuteman militia group sponsoring a stretch of border highway makes me extremely uneasy. While Missouri found a way to make its position clear, other localities have not been as creative, or as perhaps as lucky.

This is part of a larger fiscal trend that has resulted in public buildings nationwide bearing the name of corporate sponsors. Qualcomm Stadium, Safeco Field, and Metropolitan Life Convention Center take facilities erected with public funds, and in exchange for saving a small percentage of the total cost, slaps an advertisement on them. Even sponsorship by the local Lutheran Church compromises the sacred split between church and state and violates, if not the letter, then the spirit of the law.

It would be better, I think, to downsize a project, or pay for less frequent litter control, than to sell out our civic responsibilities to the first comer with money in hand. For Adopt-A-Highway, all the sponsors give up is a couple of hours four times a year. Is it worth it to give the appearance of official sanction to all who ask?

I don’t think so. How about you?

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Jun 22


Twilight, anyone?

by Terry


song chart memes

Le Stat would never sparkle.

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Jun 19


There is no happy ending

by Terry 19 June 2009


I spent a decade unsuccessfully attempting to write salable historical romance.  After 4 completed novels, I gave up.  My problem?  I couldn’t do interpersonal conflict.  Characters tormented by internal conflicts?  No problem.  Conflict between the protags and the bad guy?  No problem.  But between hero and heroine, who were supposed to love each other?  It made me sick.

Literally.  My stomach rolled over and my hands shook.  I cried.  I threw up.  We had a running joke that when I wrote the darkest part of my story, my critique partner needed Valium to get through getting me through it.  In the end, I decided I just couldn’t write something that demanded that of me anymore.  I write more gentle things now and I’m much happier, if not any more successful.

It’s not just in my writing.  I know I promised not to make you listen to anything about my therapy, but I’m making an exception because I think it’s relevant.

The major issue I have to confront in making myself healthy is anger, both my own and that of others.   Last week, my therapist asked me what was the first thing that came to mind when I thought of anger.  Instantly, the word “violence” was on my lips.  My early life taught me this was true, and I still feel the effects of it.  When confronted with anger I avoid.  I appease.  When I can’t do either of those of those, I melt down until I need drugs to calm me.  Someday that won’t be true anymore, but for now I have to begin dealing with it.

How is that relevant now?  Because of what’s happening in Iran.

I’m following multiple news outlets, including #iranelection on Twitter.  The latter, in particular, is extremely upsetting to me.  The immediacy of it twists my gut.  It’s real, it’s now, it’s happening inside my own head.  I remember Tiananmen Square and the massacre that happened there.  I remember the protests in Myanmar, and the massacre that happened there.  Now, I see the pattern happening all over again.

I feel sick.  I cry.  But I can’t look away.  I want to avoid and appease.  I want them to avoid and appease.  Because the established power is getting angry, and violence is the inevitable result.  I know it’s coming and I can’t do anything about it.

The worst of it is, I don’t believe it’s going to do any good.  It will be Tienanmen Square all over again, then the world will go on like nothing happened.  I’ll still get up and make coffee in the morning, talk to my children on the phone, and cook spaghetti for dinner.

And whether I change my icon to green, or tweet “stay strong” or read every single thing to come across the wire, I’m not going to change anything.  People are still going to die over this conflict.

And in the end, it’s not going to change a damn thing.

I can’t write a gentle ending to this story.  I wish I could believe otherwise, but I can’t.  Horror is going to happen tomorrow, and I’m going to be sitting here reading about it.  Because I can’t help myself.

The world is watching, but it’s Irani lives on the line.  We’re cheering on their deaths.  And it’s just wrong.

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Jun 19


That’s extortion

by Terry


Who says they’re unenlightened rednecks in Montana?

If you want a job with the city of Bozeman,  be prepared to hand over the addresses of any websites you participate in, any forums you use, and any chat rooms you visit, as well as your Facebook, Goggle, MySpace, YouTube and other accounts, along with your usernames and passwords.

What about your right to privacy?  Tough.

From Montana’s News Station:

The City takes privacy rights very seriously, but this request balances those rights with the City’s need to ensure employees will protect the public trust, according to city attorney Greg Sullivan.

“So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City,” Sullivan said.

Sounds like voyeurism to me. On Facebook, this gives them the ability to see not only what you’ve been up to and what pictures you’ve posted, but to see the record of all your friends, as well.

Why usernames and passwords?  Why not just google you and see what turns up?

What this does in actuality is give the city the opportunity to impersonate you.  How else can they inspect your moral character if not by presenting themselves as you to your friends?

Want to torpedo a rival for love or money?  Take that information, log into the other guy’s IRC channel, and start passing out porn under his nickname.  Upload copyrighted material to YouTube.  Disclose industry gossip on the stocks and bonds message boards at Yahoo.  Log into his blog and talk about the drunken orgy you and your dog hosted last weekend.  And do it all under his identity.

But you have no choice but to trust them not to do any of that.  Not if you need a job.

That’s more than a privacy violation.  In this economy, that’s extortion.  And I hope to hell someone sues city hall out from underneath them for it.

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Jun 19


Is this Ohio 2009 or Mississippi 1963?

by Terry


Ohio teen sentenced in parking lot noose attack

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – A central Ohio teenager accused of putting a noose around a Hispanic boy’s neck and dragging him in a parking lot has been sentenced to 10 days in jail.

The 18-year-old was sentenced Wednesday in juvenile court in Mount Vernon, a city of 15,000 residents an hour’s drive northeast of Columbus. He dropped his original plea of not guilty and pleaded no contest to ethnic intimidation.

A charge of aggravated menacing was dropped.

Seventeen-year-old Robert Cantu says in May 2008 he was dragged from a sidewalk to a parking lot with the noose wrapped around his neck by a group of teenagers shouting racial slurs. He says the teens threatened to hang him before a bystander intervened.

His family says it plans to sue the city, dubbed the state’s Most Livable Community in 1994.

This is so wrong – not just the crime, but also the news coverage.

  • The victim is named but the criminal remains anonymous.
  • The case was tried in Juvenile Court, for what appears to be misdemeanors.  Why no hate crime charges, a felony?
  • The crime was committed by a mob – only 1 perpetrator was tried.
  • The perpetrator is referred to as a “teen.”  Technically correct, but it downplays his responsibility for his crime.
  • That’s not a “bystander,” by any definition. S/he didn’t “stand by.”  That’s a hero.
  • 10 days in the local jail for attempted lynching.  That’s less that he would have served for possession of a beer.
If there is to be any justice, charges should be filed in federal court for the denial of civil rights.  Will it happen?  I doubt it.
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Jun 17


Sleepyhead Moxie

by Terry 17 June 2009


Sleepy Moxie

Because I’m down and don’t know why, here’s my sleepy little baby.  She always makes me feel better.

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Jun 17


The revolution will be tweeted

by Terry


After my last post expressing my disenchantment with Twitter and Facebook, I should note the incredible use Twitter has been to Irani protestors in getting their message out.   This has been their media of last resort because the govenment has strangled available bandwidth down to 12 K to make it impossible to upload video.  Compare that against an average of 128K for DSL and the 8 megabit I get on my high-speed cable and you’ll see why sending 140 characters is preferable to trying to push anything bigger through the teeny tiny tubez.

I’m following the protest movement via Andrew Sullivan because I can’t keep up with the thousands of tweets per hour, including all the re-tweets to spread the word.  I recommend you do the same.

I must note, however that this statement he quotes gives me great concern:  “Ali Gharib makes the stellar point that what’s going on in Iran is reaffirmation of the Islamic Revolution, not a repudiation of it.”

That Islamic Revolution was not a good thing for women.  Anything that reaffirms it probably will not be, either.  Be careful what you wish for, West.

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Jun 17


How social do I want to be?

by Terry


I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about this social media thing, and I”m coming to the conclusion that with the exception of this blog, I’m pretty much anti-social.

I used Twitter for awhile, mainly to feed little tidbits into my sidebar here.  That was unrewarding because it was completely one sided – just me sounding off rather than talking to anyone.  I had a few friends also using the service, but most of them are now just feeding in status updates from Facebook and not actively watching the streams anymore.  It’s just an echo chamber for other things.

I tried Facebook, too.  It was fun for a little while, but I couldn’t get into the “gift giving” and the hundreds of pop quizzes that some of my “friends” do and flood across my updates page.  I don’t upload pictures and seldom look at those anyone else posts.  I don’t join causes or sign petitions, and I don’t belong to any organizations that have a presence there.  I sometimes played Scrabble, but I’ve since found a dedicated site where I can play with others or just play solitaire if I want.   I’ve got a couple of true friends on FB but I don’t really use it for staying in touch. I’d rather email, or IM.

The thing I’ve found disappointing about Twitter and Facebook is how shallow those relationships are.  Anytime you have 500+ friends (in my case, 50), how well do you actually know any of them?  How well do you care to?  I know it’s supposed to be networking, but to what end?  I know some of you use it and really enjoy it – that’s great.  I’m glad it works for you.  But it just makes me feel lonelier than I did before I signed up.   I don’t need that.

So I think I’m going to kill my accounts.  Before I go I’ll leave messages to say that I can be found here, if anyone cares enough to look for me.  Sadly, so many of the people I met through blogging have disappeared and moved on to other things, or migrated completely over to Facebook.  I miss them.  But blogging is far more suited to my temperament than 140 characters and one-line status updates. Perhaps I’m drawn to the soapbox and have to have my own center stage.  Maybe it’s all ego.  But you folks talk back to me, and when I write here I feel like I’m making real human contact.

I need that.   Thanks for being here.

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Jun 11


Was Final Destination fiction?

by Terry 11 June 2009


Woman who missed AirFrance Flight 447 dies a week later in a car crash.

(Final Destination)

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