Things I Know I Know

Great Gatsby:
My next door neighbour has led a pretty strange life, but he lies half the time. Also, I am a bit strange.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
I'm stupid, I'm smart, I'm wicked smart, I die. And I have a pet mouse named Algernon.

The Lovely Bones.
I was raped and murdered. Still, look on the bright side.

Animal Farm
All revolutions devour their young, especially when they taste like chicken

All that and more at Summarise a Novel in 25 Words.

Posted by debco at 04:01 PM | Permalink

I like the number 12. I have this short story entitled, 'Twelve.' It's not finished because I don't know exactly why it's called 'Twelve.' But 12...good number.

So, naturally, I'm drawn to GatorGSA at the University of Florida and their 12 Reasons Gay Marriage will Ruin Society, including:

• Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America.
• Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.
• Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

Posted by debco at 03:46 PM | Permalink

Things people have searched for in the last month that have brought them here:

• all farms in the world and their email addresses
• something that happened in Texas
• international bankers rule the world
• I have a scanner, but I don't know how to change my grade

Posted by debco at 08:35 PM | Permalink

Arguments rage in the Buffyverse, even now that the show is no longer on the air--Is it Buffy and Angel 4ever? Did Buffy ever really love Spike? Did Willow pay a deep enough price for her Dark Willowiness? Was Spike redeemed only after he got his soul? From what I've seen and read--and I admit there's much I've neither seen nor read--Joss Whedon and the writers would answer, 'no,' to this latter question. Spike was still evil before he got his soul back, he just couldn't act on his evilness.

Now, if the writers say it's so, it's so--or at least they intended that it be so. But let me see if I can explain why I--and, I think, a lot of other viewers--thought that what actually played out in front of us on-screen told us a different story.

In his book, Good Business, author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, says this about soul:

Perhaps the best way to explain what the word "soul" connotes is that, no matter how complex a system is, we judge it as having no soul if all its energies are devoted merely to keeping itself alive and growing. We attribute soul to those entities that use some portion of their energy not only for their own sake, but to make contact with other beings and to care for them.

This definition actually works pretty well in the Buffyverse.

Angel--cared about people; had a soul
Angelus--cared about nothing; had no soul

Vampires in general--care about nothing except their next meal and a little violence

You can apply these criteria to the humans, and the ex-demon, Anya, as well.

When Anya was a demon, she didn't care about anything except vengence. When she first become human, she didn't care about much except getting her powers back and staying alive. But then, she started to care about Xander. Gradually, though she didn't always like it, she started to care about Xander's friends and even about saving the world. When Xander dumped her at their wedding and she got her vengence demon-ness back, she was a lousy vengence demon because she wasn't willing to give up her soul.

Willow was all about soul through the first five and a half (okay, maybe the first five) seasons. She cared about the world, she cared about her friends, she was brave and smart and her career choice when she graduated from high school was to help save the world. But she put her soul in danger when she started to care more about power than about her friends (though she fooled herself into thinking it was about them). And she lost it entirely when Tara was killed. She didn't care about anything then except destroying the world. She got her soul back because Xander cared about her.

Spike cared about Drusilla right from the start. He cared about Dawn, and a little bit about Joyce, in season five, though he didn't really want to and I don't think he liked it much. He thought he cared about Buffy, but he didn't until maybe the end of season five or possibly the beginning of season six. By then, I think he did care about her (though it was also very mixed up with the things Spike didn't know much about--like being human--and with obsession and sex and violence).

So, by my reckoning, Spike already had his soul when he went to Africa, though I'm not sure he knew it. I think the demon gave him what he wanted, sort of like the Wizard gave the scarecrow and the tin man and the cowardly lion the things they wanted--things they already had, but hadn't realized yet.

Posted by debco at 04:40 PM | Permalink

My short story, Articles of a Personal Nature, is now up at SCIFICTION.

Check it out!!!!!!!!!

I am So. Incredibly. Cool!!!

Posted by debco at 10:03 AM | Permalink

I've been watching season four of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, which used to be my least favorite season, but is growing on me (it's probably still my least favorite season, but it has lovely little gems like--'My contrition complete dwarfs the impending apocalypse.').

Anyway, in one of the episodes (Pangs, I'm thinking, since that's the Thanksgiving one), Riley says that he's from Huxley, IA, which I'm guessing is supposed to be really, really rural. And by some standards, I suppose it is. But I've got to say that I lived farther from airports and malls when I lived in western New York than people in Huxley, IA do. Huxley is ten minutes from Ames (fifth largest city in Iowa!) and half an hour from Des Moines (don't ask me how big Des Moines is, because then you'll just laugh).

If you want rural Iowa for your novel or screenplay, you should consider Lewis or Humeston or Maquoketa (Maquoketa isn't really that rural by Iowa standards, but it sounds cool--Ma-COKE-e-ta--and will make people think you know what you're talking about).

Posted by debco at 03:24 PM | Permalink

Bruce Schneier, security expert, writes:

In recent years there has been an increased use of identification checks as a security measure. Airlines always demand photo IDs, and hotels increasingly do so. They're often required for admittance into government buildings, and sometimes even hospitals. Everywhere, it seems, someone is checking IDs. The ostensible reason is that ID checks make us all safer, but that's just not so. In most cases, identification has very little to do with security.

He also says, and I think this is extremely important:

There's another, even more dangerous, failure mode for these systems: honest people who fit the evildoer profile. Because evildoers are so rare, almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be a false alarm. This not only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent elsewhere, but it causes grave harm to those innocents who fit the profile. Whether it's something as simple as "driving while black" or "flying while Arab," or something more complicated such as taking scuba lessons or protesting the Bush administration, profiling harms society because it causes us all to live in fear...not from the evildoers, but from the police.

Security is a trade-off; we have to weigh the security we get against the price we pay for it. Better trade-offs are to spend money on intelligence and analysis, investigation and making ourselves less of a pariah on the world stage. And to spend money on the other, nonterrorist security issues that affect far more Americans every year.

If you're interested in this stuff, I recommend Bruce Schneier's book, Beyond Fear

Posted by debco at 02:57 PM | Permalink

How funny are those states anyway?

...although I've always hated the Missouri slogan of "The Show-Me State." What, does that make the rest of us gullible? Besides, Missourians, as far as I know, don't have a specific character. You know who does?

That's right, Nebraska. When I gave a talk at Hastings College, the entire auditorium knew the State Song ("Beautiful Nebraska"). Do any of the 19 million residents of New York State know the state song of New York?

Yes, well, New York State's motto is 'Excelsior!' which for many years I thought basically meant that weird straw that you wrap things in, but presumably is not what New York meant when they made it their motto.

Posted by debco at 12:18 PM | Permalink