Things I Know I Know

John Henry continues to improve.

He got the staples out on Monday, which perked him up considerable. He was very good about getting them out. In fact, he's been very good at the vet school and he's not a dog who is easy to take to crowded, loud places with lots of barking dogs. He's been getting around even better with the staples out. He can now go down stairs by himself (my short three steps to the back door) but still needs a little help going up. He can get on the couch when I'm not looking, so I'm confident that soon he'll be able to get on the couch when I am looking. The surgeon said he could start to get back to his regular activity level though I'm still trying to figure out whether he can be loose in the back yard (I live on a corner lot--lots of activity and many things to chase...). I expect I'll figure it out somehow.

I still don't have the final pathology report. I'm going to call tomorrow and see what's up. Continue to hope for good news.

Next week I'm in San Antonio for a conference so John Henry is going to the kennel and Billie is going to visit her brother.

Posted by debco at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

To continue--and, yeah, SPOILERS, Spoilers, spoilers....

In The Butterfly Effect, Evan keeps returning to the past to change it and make it all better. In one of his first trips he ends up saving his girlfriend from her pedophilic abusive father (sort of), while turning her brother into a sadistic criminal. Saving the sister turned her (and apparently by association) Evan into preppies, she a member of the most popular sorority and he a frat boy who dresses in bright yellow jackets.

While it's interesting to speculate why she would be able to watch her father constantly beating her brother and be unaffected (or maybe that's why she's in a sorority--to have the perfect life and learn to ignore bad stuff), that's not relevant to our thoughts today. Back in the ‘present' Evan is happily dating Kayleigh (though apparently before he came back from the past he was a boorish, cheating, jerky frat guy, happily dating Kayleigh). The returned-from-the-past Evan prepares a beautiful dinner for Kayleigh (which she says is not at all like him) but it's ruined by the destruction of his car and the news that Tommy, the sadistic, evil brother is out of prison. As Evan is walking Kayleigh home (and if they're as worried about the brother as they say they are--why are they walking alone through the woods), Evan is attacked by baseball bat wielding Tommy. Evan gets the bat away from Tommy and defeats Tommy. Then, after he's defeated, Evan deliberately beats him to death.

Eventually after several more trips back in time, Evan makes everything more or less all right. We're supposed to forget, I think, that out of four main characters in the story, three of them have been, in one reality or another, murderers.

So here's the question: if you're willing to kill someone in one timeline or alternate reality does that make you a killer in this one? I think the answer is yes. If you did it, and you remember it, you're a killer. Circumstances matter, of course, and the circumstance for Evan is that he meant to kill Tommy. At this point in the movie, Tommy had done some horrible things--killed a pet dog and beat up innocent bystanders and, of course, Evan remembers bad things from other time lines, too. But he still deliberately killed him, not in self-defense, not in panic, by bashing his head in with a baseball bat.

Obviously, you're never going to be punished for killing someone in an alternate timeline that doesn't exist any more. In the ‘real' or final timeline the person is alive. So, is it really murder or is it more like wishing they were dead. Well, it's really murder. You really did it. And it counts.

The more important questions are what does it mean and what do you do about it? This, to me, is more interesting than the question the movie actually asked, which is how do I ‘fix' my life and my girlfriend's life so they're just right? Maybe someday I'll write that story--if I can make it sufficiently unlike The Butterfly Effect. It would also have to incorporate the premise that women are people too and not just objects that men rescue or love or improve the lives of without asking

Posted by debco at 06:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This (and the post following) are ones I wrote about a year ago and never posted because that was about the time I quit blogging for awhile.

SPOILERS ABOUND

And, if you want to read an actual good article about morality and choices and fictional characters, you should read Creating the Innocent Killer by John Kessel, instead of this one, which is just stuff I made up off the top of my head.

So, I just watched (most of) The Butterfly Effect. This is the story of a kid who blacks out in his youth when certain terrible things happen. It turns out that he has the ability to go back to these points in time and change what happened. It's grim and occasionally mean-spirited though it has a happy ending, which, coupled with its grimness makes the feeling of the movie very uneven. The blackouts are never explained--you think it's because that's when his adult self is possessing his child body, but the event really happens unchanged in at least one reality and so the first time it must have been just him, the child, standing there seeing it.

The central story is that Evan can return to these moments in time by reading his journal. He takes over the body of his younger self and ‘fixes' the situation. Of course, the way the situation is handled turns out to affect way more than Evan expects because although Evan is book-smart and majoring in psychology he's not really that bright about how the world works. It's not really the Butterfly Effect (which says that the flutter of a butterfly's wings can cause a typhoon in China--or something to that effect--and is a simplistic explanation of chaos theory). Because for one thing the effects are always clear right there in front of us in the event. They happen at the moment Evan makes the change. A child murders another child; a boy hears something so horrible he is compelled to become that thing; a girl dies; a boy loses his arms and the use of his legs. Those things don't happen because of a ripple effect; they happen right then and there. How life turns out from there is, of course, mighty different.

There are two issues with the movie--quite different issues that affect different factors. It takes Evan an enormously long time to figure out that what he does matters. He wants to just make one person's life ‘right' and he always winds up screwing everyone's life up (and, of course, making one person's life really, really bad) but it takes him probably four trips into the past before it even seems to occur to him that this is happening. He wants to do heroic things without paying any prices. And it's clear (though we are never given the details) that his father, who had the same talent never got beyond this stage. Evan eventually does but it's repetitious and doesn't speak well of Evan's character. It's possibly a weakness of the limits of movie-making, but I think it's more likely a flaw in the story. Evan needs someone in the world to talk to and plan with and process. Of course, that wouldn't have allowed him to get into all those grim, life-threatening, sexually perverted situations.

The other issue that the movie walks away from and never addresses at all is that at least three of the main characters whose lives Evan is playing with (including Evan himself) are completely capable of murder. Evan (and of course no one else since they don't know what's going on) never face up to this. He never questions what kind of person he is--a boy his father tries to kill, who continues to play god for the sake of one woman's life, who would kill a childhood friend because he (Evan) was holding a bat in his hand.

Posted by debco at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Henry goes outside and lifts his leg to pee...

(note to anyone who doesn't find this amusing--he doesn't actually fall over when he does this)

Posted by debco at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...to find this image vastly amusing:

...Let's translate that metaphorically [something someone else said that I'm not quoting], shall we? Book publishing is a sinking ship. The former passengers on the ship have given in to their feral instincts and are dismantling the ship board by board. The remaining crew are being wedged further and further back into what little of the ship remains above the waterline. Eventually the whole ship will disappear beneath the waves and all the crew will drown. The thought of possibly jumping off the ship apparently doesn't occur to the crew; rather, their ambition is simply to be the last person to drown.

Screw 'em. Let them drown. Because here's the thing about that "sinking ship:" Even if we grant it is sinking (which we should not), and that the passengers are scurvy pirates (which we ought not), this ship is sinking in about five feet of water and the shore is fifty yards away. And if you haven't the wit to make it to shore, then by God, you deserve to die.

Posted by debco at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the last three months, the top search term bringing people to this site has been:

mean pitbulls

They must be kind of disappointed when they find that it's all about: The Pitbull Cuteness Factor

Posted by debco at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Henry continues to do well. He's really getting around very well.

I haven't been letting him go in his crate because I'm worried about him getting in there and not being able to get out. So, yesterday he went into Billie's crate, which is smaller. I wouldn't let him stay in that one either, but at least we all know he can if he really, really wants to.

He gets sore, I think, when he does too much (hangs out in the back yard or such) mostly when he's getting up or lying down. And he is often peeved because he can't lie down on the side with all the staples on it. But, mainly, he's doing pretty well.

He will get his stitches out on Monday and it looks, to non-professional me, at least, as if the incision is healing really well. Keep your fingers crossed that I will also get the final pathologist's report on Monday too and that it will be good news.

Posted by debco at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, fine, I don't hate him. I don't even know him. But, hey, it doesn't seem to stop anyone else.

I haven't read all of what Cory's written or spoken about (but I've read more than one paragraph from one interview, you betcha), but I am excited and interested in some of the things he's doing, including the ways in which he's distributed his science fiction writings. Here, though, is some of what I've been hearing whenever online fiction and filesharing and copyright and Cory come up (liberally paraphrased, I'm sure sometimes unfairly, by me):

--He can't change copyright because I don't want him to--

Well, you know, hurray. I'm not going to interpret Cory for the masses because--see above--I don't know him and besides he's a writer so he ought to be able to interpret himself. But it would be a big surprise to me if Cory or Lawrence Lessig or the EFF want to get rid of copyright. And if they do then ha, ha, ha, the joke's on them because copyright's not going anywhere.

Cory's thinking is out there--all over the place in fact. If I wanted to know what Cory was thinking and/or advocating about copyright and its future I'd read what he's saying--and more of it than just one scare quote from an interview that someone's brought up to prove that Cory is a great big stupid and I hate him.

And, by the way, if someone can show me where Cory says I hates me some copyright and I want to kill it dead, dead, dead, please point me to it.

--Don't take copyright away from me--

Well, then don't take it away from me either. In case no one's noticed, copyright is being extended and extended. Works that would have gone into the public domain are not. In fact no new works will go into the public domain for the next several years. The RIAA is suing 12 year old girls and elderly women who've never owned computers. Assaults are being made on our rights of first sale, on fair use, on our ability to use things we've legally purchased.

Do I want writers to be paid for their work? Yes, absolutely. I'm a writer. I like getting paid. Do I want to live in a world where ideas are only available to those who can pay for them. No, no, no. Democracy and civil society do not survive without a free exchange of ideas. I want copyright to live up to its promise--to promote innovation and serve society. Protection of intellectual property promotes innovation. Limited time serves society.

--I like how I'm making a living now (writing stuff). I don't want to self-promote or teach classes or give talks to people.--

First of all, lucky you, to make a living writing. Second, the world changes, you know. New people find new ways to make it work. I want to have a job tomorrow morning when I wake up, but it might not happen. I want my dogs to live forever. I want lots of things to stay the same and they never do.

When I hear writers saying--I made it in the world as it existed twenty years ago or I had a spouse working a regular job with benefits or I already have a built-in audience so don't you mess with my status quo. I want to say at least three things:

--The RIAA and the MPAA are messing with the status quo in ways that hurt everyone (and will ultimately hurt even them)
--You don't want Cory (or whoever) to mess with your ability to make a living? Well, who died and made you the only writers who count?
--You know, I probably want your life too--so just dismiss me as jealous--but what was so twenty years ago is not so today and pretending that it is (or hating Cory for it) doesn't change anything or put us back to the way things were.

What I am much more concerned about than the far-fetched idea that Cory Doctorow will kill us all by doing away with copyright forever, are the following:

--as a reader, I want to read things. I want to be treated as if I am an honest, responsible person, which I am and I don't want to have to waste excessive time getting access to stuff I purchased or have to prove that I'm an honest human being who pays for things.
--as a writer, I want to be published and I want to be read. I want my works to have the best opportunity to find an audience in a world that's overflowing with information
--as a creator, I want to be able to do what William Shakespeare and Edna St. Vincent Millay and Georgia O'Keeffe and every other great artist and creator--build off the creative zeitgeist and add to the collective understanding of the world.

Do I want to be paid for what I write--you betch 'um, Red Ryder!

Do I want copyright to protect my work from exploitive bastards trying to make money off my work? Absolutely.

Do I want people I don't know, fifty years after I'm dead, to be making money off work that I did? Not so much.

Do I want my work lost fifty years after I'm dead because--see above--people I don't know and who never did anything for me have control over my stuff? No

Do I have the answer to filesharing and broadband access and digitization and income streams and how writers will make a living next week or next year or fifty years from now? No, I don't. I wish I did because I would so be a lot richer than I am now. But I do think ways that work now ought to be encouraged and investigated and Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi and a bunch of other people are busily exploring ways that work now and we ought to be paying close attention and learning everything we can.

Maybe I can't have everything I want. Maybe I live in a little rose-colored world of idealism and misinformation. But I think very strongly that any time writers set up readers as the adversary that writers lose.

And, BTW, 'Search Inside' at Amazon has absolutely led me to buy books and, equally important, not buy books that wouldn't let me look before buying.

Posted by debco at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Year that the trustees of Social Security expect their program's trust fund to run out: 2041

Percent of benefits that would still be paid through the program's other sources of income in 2041: 74

Year that the trustees of Medicare expect their program's trust fund to run out: 2020

Percent of answers about billing provided by Medicare customer service representatives that were wrong: 96

Percent of wrong answers that a toad, through random leaps, provided to the same questions: 50

Posted by debco at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I took John Henry to the vet school yesterday. They said that everything looks really good. I think he's been kind of depressed, plus falling on his incision, because it perked him right up to go for a ride and hang out in the waiting room and, well, do something.

The preliminary pathology report indicates that his cancer might be a fibrosarcoma, which is a soft tissue cancer rather than a bone cancer. If it turns out that this is so, it would be a really good thing because fibrosarcomas rarely metastisize (I hope that's spelled right...)

Riley had a fibrosarcoma (which she lived with for three years and which is not what killed her). The oncologist I talked to then said, 'well, you know, the 100% cure is to cut off the leg.'

Ha, ha, vet humor.

Posted by debco at 06:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm reading Full Bloom by Hunter Drohojowska-Philip, which is a new-ish biography of Georgia O'Keefe. It has some neato quotes.

On creativity:

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you. Catching, crystalizing your simpler clearer vision of life--only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead--that you must always keep working to grasp.

On being a woman and an artist and learning to listen to yourself:

I grew up pretty much as everybody else grows up and one day seven years ago found myself saying to myself--I can't live where I want to--I can't go where I want to--I cna't do what I want to--I can't even say what I want to--. School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. i decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as i wanted to and say waht I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself--that was nobody's business but my own. So these paintings and drawings happened and many others that are not here--I foudn that I could say things with color and shapes that I coudln't say in any other way--things that I had not words for. Some of the wise men say it is not painting, some of them say it is. Art or not art--they disagree.

Posted by debco at 04:47 PM | Permalink

John Henry sort of fell on his inicision yesterday and was a bit sore--I think when he stretched the incision. I'm taking him back to the vet school tomorrow to make sure it's more or less okay. Then tonight he sort of fell on it again. The first time I felt sorry for him. The second time I still felt sorry for him, but, mostly I realized that even after living with them for more than fifteen years I still have to be reminded that under certain circumstances Rottweilers are really just giant idiots.

I have mentioned before that Rule Number One of the Code of the Rottweiler is: Pain is as nothing.

Because, really, if you'd recently had major surgery and you'd just hurt yourself the night before and your incision was still sore, would you think it was absolutely critical that you bounce like an idiot at the end of your leash because the neighbor was walking his dog? If you were a Rottweiler, you would so be doing just that.

Posted by debco at 10:14 PM | Permalink

Yes, I do need to find more creative titles...

I let John Henry get up on the couch last night. He was the happiest boy alive. He'd already managed to get up on the couch in the spare bedroom by himself (I don't know how--I didn't see it), but it wasn't comfortable because he couldn't lie down the right way.

Word of advice--When you bring that new puppy home and wonder if you should let them get up on the furniture or not, you really ought to ask yourself--when they get to be ten years old and they have bone cancer and they have to have their leg amputated, will that getting up on the furniture thing be a really big hassle then?

John Henry continues to get around better, which pleases me though it makes life more difficult. Now that it's finally stopped raining he is getting around the yard pretty well (he already shows interest in chasing things he shouldn't chase).

I haven't heard back from the pathology lab yet so don't know whether there are next steps to take or not, but may find out more next week.

(and thank you for the comments--although I generally assume there's someone out there, occasionally it helps to know for sure :-)

Posted by debco at 07:23 AM | Permalink

Not sure how interested anyone is in this...not sure anyone's paying attention since I haven't updated much lately.

But if anyone is interested...John Henry continues to get better each day. He's getting around fairly well, thinks he should be allowed up on the couch and is perfectly willing to kill himself trying (though I have not allowed him to actually try). He has some pain somewhere that I can't identify though I half suspect it's his incision itching because it seems to go away when he has anything else to do.

Posted by debco at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

John Henry came home this morning.

He's actually fairly mobile, which I was worried about as he was having a lot of trouble getting around at the vet school (they have slippery floors). And he's interested in food and water and things he can't do yet.

There's not much else to report at the moment. He moves. I run around and try to make sure he doesn't get anywhere he can't get out of. I worry about pills and food and getting in and out of the house. We'll see how it all goes from here.

Posted by debco at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next to my dog training building, there is a vacant lot. On the other side of the vacant lot, there is a crematorium (because that's what you need together--cremation and dog training--one stop shopping). The vacant lot, which has a for sale sign on it, has lately been home to lots (by lots I mean more than thirty) of large (by large I mean five hundred pounds or more) boulders. The number of boulders increases and decreases and they move around. We have ongoing theories about these boulders (the husband of one of my partners told his teenaged daughter that there was a pile of ashes under each one from the crematorium).

In the last week or so the boulders have been joined by mounds of dirt. Today when I was out there one of the boulders was on top of one of the mounds of dirt.

Maybe they move themselves.

Posted by debco at 01:14 PM | Permalink

To the people who wouldn't let me buy their house...

Thank you.

It's a lousy yard for a dog with three legs.

Posted by debco at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, John Henry broke his leg.

And, you know, a ten-year-old Rottweiler does not break his femur right up next to his hip bone while running in his backyard unless there's something else going on. John Henry has bone cancer. Has had it for awhile, apparently. He hasn't really shown any outward signs of it, although several little things now make sense.

Many tests were done. They can't see cancer elsewhere (though there are no guarantees of course). So, yesterday they removed his left rear leg. He's doing great so far. I will get to see the new John Henry this afternoon.

We'll see how it goes from here...

Posted by debco at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)