Indecision: The Complicated Lives of Acorns and Boots
“Quickly, they are coming! Now is not the time to be shy.
Cast off your indecision or be left to wither and die!”, the 15/16ths American Chestnut sprout shouted
to the small acorn lying on the floor of the greenhouse. They watched as the door swung open and two pairs of well-worn hiking boots entered.
“Aye!” squeaked the acorn, “What a quandary this be, how can I decide?
To stay is death, to go is unknown; no place for me to hide!” responded the nut in the way all sentient
plants must.
The two humans remained oblivious to the acorn and its plight as they set to work.
“I’ve been asked to give a talk on the Asian Long-horned beetle in Maine” the voice of the dark brown boots ventured after gently rearranging the seedling trays.
“That’s wonderful. Make sure you get out and hike when you are done.” replied his partner, the voice
of the tan colored boots. “I’m headed out to Oregon. My husband and I are taking a little vacation from the kids.”
But the acorn had no time for their small talk. It had to escape this greenhouse, and those boots were
the only way. Only, which boots? It wished it had more information to help figure out this conundrum.
“Chestnut, chestnut what is best?
To go east or to go west?
I’ll hide on a boot, I won’t be noticed
But how can I know where home is?” whined the acorn in a panic. Time to jump was running out.
“If you are undecided I cannot help,
My home is here upon this shelf!
When I’m big enough so they say
I’ll move to a park and play all day.
So ask the wind, they would know well
Or a rock, a bug or even a seashell.”
The acorn looked around for friends and not much later a gust of wind briefly blew open the greenhouse door.
The wind does not speak as a plant does. It whispers and seduces, cajoles, then abandons.
“East head I, to the morning sun.
To a land of watercolors.
To the mountains so old and worn
To the salty sea must I flee.
Join me, won’t you, little oak tree
Grow proud and strong with friends to spare,
When season’s late be colorful and bold
Let your leaves come and dance with me.”
This was sound reasoning to the acorn and it hopped on board the dark boot.
But a rock holding down important paperwork had something to say in its stubborn, terse way.
“How can you decide without hearing the rest?
Rest assured the wind does not tell all.
All that you know, is yet undetermined at best.
Best to hear what I have to say.
Go east if you want to hide among your cousins in a crowd.
Crowded with colors on mere hills on the ground.
Ground yourself in the boulders further west and beyond.
Beyond lays mountains of rock so tall.
Tall trees of might tower over the fields.
Fields of wildflowers dance at your feet.”
“Aye!” exclaimed the acorn, “That sounds wonderful to me.
West with adventure and mountains it shall be!” and the acorn quickly jumped ship to the tan boots.
“Oh little tree it tells you not,
The life of oak out there is hard.
Scraggly and short you will be,
Black oak, sad oak, small stunted tree.”
What is a poor little acorn to do? Before it could think to switch boots again, the tan boot voice spoke, “Mike! Looks like we missed one of the oak acorns. Let’s get this little guy planted!”
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Troll is Strong with this One
On occasion I write on a site called AuthorStand. They do user generated contests from time to time (with the only prize being bragging rights - and judging done mostly by peers) which I have submitted to twice now.
I had posted The Shirt up there for their for money contest as well. Some of the feedback I got was great, some of it was deriding me for pushing a homosexual agenda, and that God probably has something against it. I've since come across several AuthorStand members who are extremely Christian and in pretty much every thing they write - which often makes their stories bland; touting the same old stories when I'd like to see new, fresh, inventive stories. So when the contest came up for a flash fiction under the title of "Winter" and utilizing a "rose" in the story, I suspect part of me wanted to lash out against this and even if I was not acting a rebel, based on the brazenness with which several authors wrote more parables than stories about how turning to God was the only thing to do, I felt that I could be just as brazen. Below is my submittal.
WINTER
I stop at the headstone and kneel, placing a single red rose, purchased
earlier at the local florist, upon the grave. The snow has been falling
for hours now, not too unusual for this time of year in Maine. The grey
sky above me reminds me of the many winter days I spent with my grandmother
when she was still alive. She would bring me outside while the overcast
sky was illuminated by a shy, hidden sun. There we would build snowmen
and snow igloos until the two of us were exhausted and rosy cheeked. I
miss her even still.I get up off my knees and watch the first snowflakes begin to collect on the rose. In minutes it will have crusted over each edge of the flower, giving it a crystalline appearance. In hours it will be buried; vanished under a thick sheet of white like the letters of my grandmother's grave.
As I stand and think fondly of my grandmother, I adjust my hood. It is thick with a faux fur padding lining the edge of the felt exterior. I’ve always loved these coats for the winter. I would pretend I was an Eskimo while playing in the backyard of my grandmother’s house.
Suddenly, I feel a strong yet scrawny hand clench my shoulder; giving me a start.
“You scared me!” I shout as I turn sharply on my heel. I search the face for some sign of recognition, yet while I can tell that underneath the fleece outwear the figure is somewhat tall and lanky, I cannot even tell if it is female or male and a hood hide everything but the person’s face. When our eyes make contact a devious and red, wide smile blooms on its pale and drawn face.
“So, have I won yet?” the person asks mischievously, its voice high pitched and nasal.
“Who are you?” I implore, “are you here to pay your respects to my grandmother?”
The person completely ignores my query and supplies its own demands, “Guess my name already!” The figure recoils from me and starts to dance around a young tree, denuded by the season, in the graveyard. “Guess guess!” are the taunts that are flung at me like confetti.
The person does not look dangerous, but I don’t want to incite further passions in fellow that might make it dangerous. “Uhh” I begin. What sort of name can I suggest without running the risk of offending. I still can’t tell the gender of the person. “Casey?” a good gender neutral name. I am greeted with a harsh frown. “Pat? Kerry?”
The figure approaches me again, this time taking the tone of an exasperated mother. “You aren’t doing very well. Fine. Let me help you.” In one smooth motion, the figure pulls his hood revealing short platinum hair. “Just call me a boy already.” I wonder if he is reading my mind.
Still, he is not familiar to me whatsoever. “I need a hint” I say sheepishly. “Where did we last meet?”
“Same place as always, in a graveyard. Wait!” he stops as a new thought appears to have crossed his mind as he furrows his brows. “Maybe YOU don’t even know who YOU are! Oh wonderful.”
“Of course I know who I am.” I reply defensively.
“Then who are you?” he sneers.
“I’m Lily Stanley’s granddaughter. I’m…” I stop as I realize that for whatever reason, I’ve blanked on my own name. It has been a weird morning.
He takes my hand. “Come” and with unexpected strength, he pulls me through rows of unfamiliar headstones. The snow remains unbroken in the path we take until we reach our destination. Here the snow has been piled off to the side of a plot, with clumps of icy white sprinkled with specks of rock and dirt that the falling snow is working hard to cover fully. The plot was freshly excavated but the covering dirt had recently been replaced. And on top of the plot were eleven long stem roses only slightly covered by new precipitation.
Now I am feeling more than a little bit nervous. What is this supposed to mean?
“Go ahead, take a look. Nothing ground shaking I assure you.” He sings, whistling when he’s run out of words to say.
Grace Burney, b. Feb. 14, 1989 d. Dec. 24, 2012.
I recognize the name as my own.
“How can this be?” I ask, “I’ve got to be dreaming.”
He is completely oblivious, or perhaps unconcerned with my emotional duress and childishly asks, “Yes, yes, now do you know who I am?”
“No, not at all. The Grim Reaper? An angel? I don’t know. I don’t believe in any of this. I’m an atheist.” I say, exasperated.
He chuckled uncontrollably at this. “I know, it is amusing. I’ve never heard of an atheist Thor or agnostic Hades, but the world does do strange things to an ignorant god.” he uttered in an unnaturally serious tone, until his face brightened. “Let’s play a game!”
“But what about this other game you keep asking about if you’ve won?”
“That’s not a game!” he snapped sharply, “That is a bet. And dearie, you are losing.”
“Ok” I say with trepidation. “I’ll play this game.”
“I have many names, and so do you in this world. I’ll give you one of your names, and in return, you must give me one of mine. Ok! Start! You are Pywll. Now, give me one.”
I stare at him blankly. “Pywll?”
He turns at me, clearly vexed. “Fine, I guess that was a hard one. The answer is Gwydion. Try this: You are Set. You are El, later called Yahweh or among others Hadad, you are Jupiter, you are Odin.”
My mind goes fuzzy, but somewhere between my mortal experiences and beyond, these names ring true to me. “And you are Seth. You are known as Lucifer…”
“Ouch! That name doesn’t mean what it used to Zeus. The Canaanites are all grown up and they’ve since reformed Yahweh and Lucifer into monotheistic legends.”
I continue unhindered. “You are Mercury and you are Loki.”
“Loki! Coyote! I always liked those two the best. But you recollect yourself, so you cannot avoid the question any longer. Have I won?” he chirped incessantly. I know he will not leave me alone in this.
There is no getting around the truth. “Yes, you have won our bet. You tricked a god into thinking that I’m mortal this time. I was wholly convinced.”
“Double or nothing?” he asks craftily.
“You bet. I’ll see you in 80 years or so.”
****
Loki watched as the king of the gods took his leave to be reborn as the lone
son to a rural Chinese couple. He laughed
over the 11 remaining roses.“You got one thing wrong. Not just this time. Every time. And I will trick you again, and you will go back to Earth again and again as a mortal.”
But he took on an earnest face that he reserved for rare times, “And this is how I keep us bloody violent gods out of the world of man. Your children will thank me for this eventually.”
Monday, November 26, 2012
Sci-fi story - anyone want to pick up the baton?
The rise and fall of empires is systematic throughout the course of human history. Civilization reaches a peak, unseen by the world thus far, yet it cannot last. Soon, the civilization will crumble from within and die as another takes its spoils for their own. For the Han Chinese, infighting and rebellion transformed the centuries old center of philosophy, mathematics and engineering into three shadows of its former self. Athens, jewel of the Balkans was rotted out and destroyed by the Peloponnesian War. Rome spread across the Mediterranean but after a mere thousand years of existence it too faded. The Abbasid Caliphate birthed the very numbers we used to reach the stars were crushed under the feet of the Mongols.
The modern age changed that. For the first time, global monarch Great Britain steped down in friendship with its successor, the United States of America. Outside threats from the Red Scare did not weaken this hegemony, it strengthened it and America pushed global society further.
Yet at its waning, the United States very nearly brought humanity back onto the destructive path of rise and fall of empires, as it stubbornly refused to pass the baton as Great Britain had done two generations prior. Like the civilizations that came before it, it chose to resist the changing world and rile its people with fear of the unknown hegemony of another. But unlike the Mongols or the Spartans, the peoples of two civilizations that could not be more different from the western Earth, were an educated population with histories spanning from beyond the birth of the written word to the present. Rather than war, the Earth countries of Zhongguo and Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān challenged the United States to battles of economics and science and they pushed humanity further.
In this chapter, you will study the fall-out of the "Rocket Heard Around the World" event and the development early Moon colonization missions. Key points to note are:
His parents were, of course, no where to be seen as the colony prepared for nearly 40 hours of night. His mother, Neda Amiri, had been at the Jupiter-side research outpost for the past 60 days conducting her studies on planet-satellite electromagnetic interactions. His father, Zheng Xiaowang an astronomer and a poet by trade, had left to join his wife and take pictures of a spectacular Jupiter horizon.
The modern age changed that. For the first time, global monarch Great Britain steped down in friendship with its successor, the United States of America. Outside threats from the Red Scare did not weaken this hegemony, it strengthened it and America pushed global society further.
Yet at its waning, the United States very nearly brought humanity back onto the destructive path of rise and fall of empires, as it stubbornly refused to pass the baton as Great Britain had done two generations prior. Like the civilizations that came before it, it chose to resist the changing world and rile its people with fear of the unknown hegemony of another. But unlike the Mongols or the Spartans, the peoples of two civilizations that could not be more different from the western Earth, were an educated population with histories spanning from beyond the birth of the written word to the present. Rather than war, the Earth countries of Zhongguo and Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān challenged the United States to battles of economics and science and they pushed humanity further.
In this chapter, you will study the fall-out of the "Rocket Heard Around the World" event and the development early Moon colonization missions. Key points to note are:
- the ascension of Premier Xi Jinping and the impact on his tenure of Bo Xilai and the attempted assassination of his daughter by British supremacists
- the reelection of President Barack Hussein Obama and the rise of succession-ism leading to the Great Divorce of the American States following the Rocket Heard Around the World
- the launching of the first Iranian Moon mission using a fission powered rocket, known as the Rocket Heard Around the World
His parents were, of course, no where to be seen as the colony prepared for nearly 40 hours of night. His mother, Neda Amiri, had been at the Jupiter-side research outpost for the past 60 days conducting her studies on planet-satellite electromagnetic interactions. His father, Zheng Xiaowang an astronomer and a poet by trade, had left to join his wife and take pictures of a spectacular Jupiter horizon.
Friday, November 23, 2012
on Life, Death and Chickens part II
This follows the previous chicken musings found at: http://strawbeaner.blogspot.com/2012/10/on-life-death-and-chickens-part-i.html
So Thanksgiving was the big day; the end of the line for one rooster.
So Thanksgiving was the big day; the end of the line for one rooster.
We salute you, who are about to die
No graphic pictures will be displayed here of blood or guts; I'll keep it to familiar pictures of either 100% live or a view you'd easily see in a grocery store to avoid making anybody lose their lunch. But the process is something we had to research extensively beforehand. To those interested I highly recommend the following in order of usefulness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_S3P0eU0lE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy_vutu5qO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_S3P0eU0lE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy_vutu5qO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDtXeMHOMLw
Staring into the end
So this is our poor rooster pre-execution in our makeshift killing cone. In theory, the guy gets a nick to the jugular and bleeds out. He's already pretty calm as a result of having a bunch of blood to his head.
Now, a lot of what I had written before had dealt with the suspected emotional reaction I might experience as a result of this slaughter, and what philosophical lessons I might learn, particularly in the question of whether or not it is ethical to kill, in this case, an animal for food.
Perhaps because we had done so much study the night before, or maybe because I was simply in the right mindset, but there was very little emotional kickback from this slaughter. It wasn't that I felt bad about the process, nor was it that the rooster itself was annoying and mean and killing it was just desserts or at least the solution to a problem. The slaughter itself was quite clinical.
But I say this with some reservation on two counts. I ended up not actually doing the killing part. Previously, Kyle (some random dude I happen to live with) and I agreed to take on the tasks that we would rather do. He preferred being the executioner. I agreed to do the evisceration. He was supposed to also do the plucking, but it ended up falling mostly to me, no big deal.
The second count was that the slaughter did not go perfectly and neither of us feel great about that particular aspect of the day. It is somewhat ambiguous as to how much that had a cruel impact to the rooster. Our number 1 lesson in this experience was that our knives were not sharp enough. We had sharpened them with great effort, but even when I was preping the carcass, it was constantly a problem for me as well. We will not be doing this again without professional and/or an electric sharpener.
It can't be discounted as well that the actual killing was further hampered by our inexperience, and thus our lack of confidence. The poor guy hung upside-down for a decent amount of time as we tried to locate the jugular while avoiding the windpipe, and of course the spinal cord (of course this would have proven difficult to separate anyway under our set up) I attemped to help Kyle locate the jugular, and used the descriptions offered by the above referenced videos to determine where to cut, but we never felt solid that this really was the best spot.
Kyle's first attempt did not even break skin. We got out other knives, including my very sharp but very long slicing sashimi knife. When he finally was able to cut through skin, it was not clear whether Kyle had cut enough. There was clearly blood, but it didn't come out at as fast a rate as the videos, so we both became concerned that we were adding additional duress. Were we? I can't know.
Finally Kyle had to take out his pocket knife to further open the artery, because it had a bit of a saw. And finally it seemed to do the trick. The rooster shuttered a bit, but according to the above videos, that is bound to happen. To be sure, per the second video, I suggested Kyle also stab the rooster in the brain which Kyle did very successfully. At that point we were confident that he had to be dead. Surely nothing at this point could be causing him pain.
And even now we can't know if it was a post-mortem reaction or if the rooster was really still alive, but he pulled his head up, certainly appearing alive. This was quite disturbing to myself, and even moreso to Kyle, who was right there and responsible for giving the guy a quick, clean death. We have no desire to cause any more pain than is required. To a slight degree, we panicked. Kyle tried to break its neck to ensure the rooster was dead. Even as I heard a loud snap, the guy was still lifting his head up. Again, we don't know why. But we didn't want to chance it. We wanted to be 100% absolutely sure he was dead, so we had to chop off its head. By that point the rooster had lost the vast majority of its blood, so we didn't have to worry about contaminating the meat, however it is an unfortunate circumstance that we didn't/ don't know our impact to the rooster himself was.
At this point, Kyle was clearly shaken. Well after the slaughter, he noted that was the one thing he felt bad about; that he couldn't do it cleanly and quickly. I took on de-feathering.
scalding pot of water that we dipped the rooster into to loosen feathers
At this point, I realize that in spite of the panic we were previously in, now that it is over, there is little remorse at the concept of the rooster being dead. As I dip the guy in the scalding water (which loosens the feathers), tie him up and begin to pluck, I also see this transformation occurring from live chicken to dinner ingredient. Per the first video, I really like her commentary expressing how as she also was plucking, she contemplates how she has a live chicken, and then she has a dead chicken, and is left wondering, "where does the [living] chicken go?"
At this point I realize that part of the reason why this is easier than I might have expected is that I am completely comfortable with this carcass. I like to cook and have bought and made whole chickens before. As I take away feathers, what remains is something quite familiar. If I had to butcher an animal I had never prepared in the kitchen, would this clinical look at death be so easily obtained? Part of me suspects no.
The beginning of evisceration is hard. Don't want to pop any internal organs. The end is messy and gross, having to scoop out those organs. Neither of them is emotionally distressing.
By this point, absolutely nothing is bothering me. I should note that chickens are kinda stinky on the inside and out when you kill them. That is why I am wearing the kerchief which did its job 100%. while this picture is taken before I took out any innards, this very picture doesn't look like anything past someone taking a store bought chicken and cutting it up outside. It is hard to get disturbed at something that is so commonplace, whether it is a terrible thing or not.
I should note, a few months back when our hens were all starting to lay eggs and look like actual chickens, instead of cute fuzz balls, we had to start taking the concept of slaughter seriously, as opposed to some pie in the sky notion that would happen one day, was when I started getting nightmares. Not of killing chickens, but of killing my cats. I had a couple of very vivid dreams when I physically slaughtered my cats - particularly my cat "Q", but "Arashi" as well sometimes - sometimes by accident, like running them over, but mostly on purpose, by slitting their throats. I'd wake up nearly inconsolable, much to Kyle's confusion. This likely was in part due to me still being sad (and perhaps guilty though I'd never admit that) to this day of my poor cat, Gordie Down, a small, rough and tumble girl calico cat I had before Q, who was run over while I was still living in Indianapolis. However, the impending chicken slaughter was the catalyst for it all.
The issue that this all boils down to is one of permanence. Slaughter, or killing at all, is something that you can never take back, regardless of your reasons or emotions at the time of the action. We can turn a new leaf and think back on an event like slaughtering, and have different emotions given the state of mind we are in. We can never change what happened however. (This was a huge part of the cat nightmares, where even as I was killing the cats, I was already regretting what I was doing, but I couldn't stop since if I had, it would have been even worse, a mortally maimed feline) Once that person, character, creature, is taken off the stage, they will never return.
And that our rooster is never returning to the stage, that we will never see him accost one of the hens and mount her, or crow in the morning, is not a point of sadness, neither is it a point of happiness. It just is. Our chickens are not family, whereas our cats are, yes that is a part of it, but I still find myself mourning a cat in the street or news of a friend's friend's death, so that isn't the whole story. More I think of it in this way: I have done the best I can by that chicken, I gave it a good life of running around the yard, being able to be a chicken. If I were a chicken, with a chicken brain, in spite of the whole death thing, I think I'd be one of the lucky ones to be a chicken here, at this house.
It doesn't justify the execution, but I don't think it makes the execution a reprehensible thing either. It just is.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
on Chickens, Cats and Misogyny
I have a terrible and bad habit.
I read youtube comments. I read newspaper article comments. I read editorials. I click the links rabid commenters use to justify their positions. It is fairly poisonous, but I do it because I want to have a better grasp on what it means to be human, for better and for worse. I feel this can inform my fiction writing.
After a long and tiring conference in San Diego, last night in our hotel room, I decided to just fool around on the internet as a way to relax. I visited one of my favorite web comic's tumblr site, the creator of Hark! A Vagrant! http://beatonna.tumblr.com
She showcased a great deal of old anti-suffragette propaganda. Note: I love old propaganda! Communist Chinese propaganda is my personal favorite, but in general, propaganda from older times, where what we take for granted to be true or untrue now, can be very telling. We see a lot of the same types of attacks between people on either side of the issues, the same method of boiling down and distilling well thought out rationale into offensive talking points and ad hominems. Caricatures are made of complex and multifaceted people, in this case suffragettes, and detailing them as a large group of ugly spinsters. It is scarily fascinating as we similar fights being waged now against marriage equality, or birth control as a point of health care.
But of course, I followed the links down the rabbit hole, to the places that archived these pictures and the comments surrounding them.
What I found is disturbing.
There are people in America who literally believe the 19th amendment should be repealed. There are people who unabashedly believe that if they are married to a woman, what that means is the house they have is always the man's, the woman is only there to clean it and take care of the children. There are people who believe that women who have career aspirations are being selfish and leading to men's misery. There are also people who genuinely believe that feminism is the result of ugly old women reacting to the threat that men can go out and choose pretty young women in stead, in the form of prostitutes, and not say, because women wanted to have a little bit of self determination in their lives. http://historyoffeminism.com/
This is not made up.
So why do I call this on Chickens, Cats and Misogyny? Because it is interesting to see these aspects of humans as reflected in the behaviors and practices in other species. There is a species that I own that clings very tightly to very gendered behaviors. The girls do one thing, and if they are good at being girls, they stay. The boys do another thing, and if they are good at it, they also stay, at least for awhile. I am of course referring to my chickens.
As an interested party, I like this gendered set up. I want chicken eggs. I want my girls to be girls and lay them. I want my boys to be boys and wake up the girls, get them out and pecking at food, and to inform and protect them in the case of danger. As it is, our fully adult rooster is very bad at being a boy. Roosters are supposed to eat last, and go in the coop last, to make sure all girls are accounted for. He doesn't. He is getting the chop.
But as much as I like the gendered roles of chickens, I am extremely glad to not be a chicken. I'd also note that our taxonomy is also quite different, particularly in relation to the other animal I own: a cat.
Now my observations are skewed since our male and female cats are both fixed. Additionally feral colonies, which are matriarchal in nature, behave differently than lone wanderers. When left to their own devices, domesticated and abandoned cats will behave more or less in the same way, as long as they are not in heat. None of the behaviors of my cats can be attributed to the fact that they are one sex or the other, excepting for Arashi when he humps a pillow, due to a late neutering.
I, personally, would much rather be more like a cat and less like a chicken.
But I digress. I go down these rabbit holes to try to understand why people genuinely believe that my desire to be treated no differently from a man, to have a say in government and my life as much as a man does, is insidious; that me wanting to stand up for my rights is wrong while Washington, or Adams, or Jefferson wanting "freedom" is right. And so I trolled. But I trolled with a curious heart, even as I wrote on one website "Wrong! you are wrong! I have a she-wee, I pee standing up all the time!" I only was obnoxious once. The other trollings I did more was a reach out to develop this understanding.
Sometimes ridiculous claims in any debate come from a suppressed frustration about a real problem. People who think medicine is evil are on the far spectrum of understanding that there is a profit incentive in modern health care, rather than a health incentive. Women who think all men are evil may have had traumatic experiences with men. It isn't a far cry to say men who think women shouldn't vote probably have had traumatic experiences with women, or they recognize that a majority of women voted for Obama, and they really wanted Romney to win. This doesn't make anybody justified of course, but it provides a logical interface that I can engage directly. It isn't a question then, of what they think men and women should be doing, but rather, a morality that thinks it is acceptable to silence people they do not believe in.
All I can think about when I view the some of the other arguments against feminism is that, if we lived in a Chicken World, where the line between men and women was strong and would never fall, how much of life would I be missing out on? I already have depression issues and have contemplated 自殺 in the past. When do I least feel like that? After a hard climb up a glacier laden mountain, during a board game with some of my male friends, meeting people in the community who thank me for doing my profession. Those things would be forbidden to me in a Chicken World. Or what of my sisters? Much as I despise one of them, what a waste would it be to waste her talented mind doing something she is not as interested in doing; childrearing, instead of something she is interested in doing, electrical engineering. Why in the world should she be barred from doing that which she loves when it is what she loves? Anti-feminists say women are only truly happy with a family. Even if that was true for every other woman in the world, why should any one woman be barred from making an alternate decision with her life?
After finally turning the computer off and laying in bed, trying to sleep, I realized something that means I won't be going down this rabbit hole again. These people who live in the Chicken World, whether it be based on gender or race or any arbitrary qualification, they aren't where the interesting stories lie. I try to get a handle on the diverse perspectives of people to develop believable characters, but you never really see characters like these in an engaging and thought provoking story. Who do you see in these interesting stories? You see the women who became fighter pilots in WWII to test out the planes that were to be taken out in the field. You read about the young black boy who grew up in a poor inner city but is now a leading voice in the field of quantum mechanics. When is the last time you read a compelling story where any of the main characters were people with one dimensional appraisals of huge swaths of the population?
You don't.
So I'll leave them to their Chicken World. I'm going to go lick my butthole and be a cat.
I read youtube comments. I read newspaper article comments. I read editorials. I click the links rabid commenters use to justify their positions. It is fairly poisonous, but I do it because I want to have a better grasp on what it means to be human, for better and for worse. I feel this can inform my fiction writing.
After a long and tiring conference in San Diego, last night in our hotel room, I decided to just fool around on the internet as a way to relax. I visited one of my favorite web comic's tumblr site, the creator of Hark! A Vagrant! http://beatonna.tumblr.com
She showcased a great deal of old anti-suffragette propaganda. Note: I love old propaganda! Communist Chinese propaganda is my personal favorite, but in general, propaganda from older times, where what we take for granted to be true or untrue now, can be very telling. We see a lot of the same types of attacks between people on either side of the issues, the same method of boiling down and distilling well thought out rationale into offensive talking points and ad hominems. Caricatures are made of complex and multifaceted people, in this case suffragettes, and detailing them as a large group of ugly spinsters. It is scarily fascinating as we similar fights being waged now against marriage equality, or birth control as a point of health care.
But of course, I followed the links down the rabbit hole, to the places that archived these pictures and the comments surrounding them.
What I found is disturbing.
There are people in America who literally believe the 19th amendment should be repealed. There are people who unabashedly believe that if they are married to a woman, what that means is the house they have is always the man's, the woman is only there to clean it and take care of the children. There are people who believe that women who have career aspirations are being selfish and leading to men's misery. There are also people who genuinely believe that feminism is the result of ugly old women reacting to the threat that men can go out and choose pretty young women in stead, in the form of prostitutes, and not say, because women wanted to have a little bit of self determination in their lives. http://historyoffeminism.com/
This is not made up.
So why do I call this on Chickens, Cats and Misogyny? Because it is interesting to see these aspects of humans as reflected in the behaviors and practices in other species. There is a species that I own that clings very tightly to very gendered behaviors. The girls do one thing, and if they are good at being girls, they stay. The boys do another thing, and if they are good at it, they also stay, at least for awhile. I am of course referring to my chickens.
As an interested party, I like this gendered set up. I want chicken eggs. I want my girls to be girls and lay them. I want my boys to be boys and wake up the girls, get them out and pecking at food, and to inform and protect them in the case of danger. As it is, our fully adult rooster is very bad at being a boy. Roosters are supposed to eat last, and go in the coop last, to make sure all girls are accounted for. He doesn't. He is getting the chop.
But as much as I like the gendered roles of chickens, I am extremely glad to not be a chicken. I'd also note that our taxonomy is also quite different, particularly in relation to the other animal I own: a cat.
Now my observations are skewed since our male and female cats are both fixed. Additionally feral colonies, which are matriarchal in nature, behave differently than lone wanderers. When left to their own devices, domesticated and abandoned cats will behave more or less in the same way, as long as they are not in heat. None of the behaviors of my cats can be attributed to the fact that they are one sex or the other, excepting for Arashi when he humps a pillow, due to a late neutering.
I, personally, would much rather be more like a cat and less like a chicken.
But I digress. I go down these rabbit holes to try to understand why people genuinely believe that my desire to be treated no differently from a man, to have a say in government and my life as much as a man does, is insidious; that me wanting to stand up for my rights is wrong while Washington, or Adams, or Jefferson wanting "freedom" is right. And so I trolled. But I trolled with a curious heart, even as I wrote on one website "Wrong! you are wrong! I have a she-wee, I pee standing up all the time!" I only was obnoxious once. The other trollings I did more was a reach out to develop this understanding.
Sometimes ridiculous claims in any debate come from a suppressed frustration about a real problem. People who think medicine is evil are on the far spectrum of understanding that there is a profit incentive in modern health care, rather than a health incentive. Women who think all men are evil may have had traumatic experiences with men. It isn't a far cry to say men who think women shouldn't vote probably have had traumatic experiences with women, or they recognize that a majority of women voted for Obama, and they really wanted Romney to win. This doesn't make anybody justified of course, but it provides a logical interface that I can engage directly. It isn't a question then, of what they think men and women should be doing, but rather, a morality that thinks it is acceptable to silence people they do not believe in.
All I can think about when I view the some of the other arguments against feminism is that, if we lived in a Chicken World, where the line between men and women was strong and would never fall, how much of life would I be missing out on? I already have depression issues and have contemplated 自殺 in the past. When do I least feel like that? After a hard climb up a glacier laden mountain, during a board game with some of my male friends, meeting people in the community who thank me for doing my profession. Those things would be forbidden to me in a Chicken World. Or what of my sisters? Much as I despise one of them, what a waste would it be to waste her talented mind doing something she is not as interested in doing; childrearing, instead of something she is interested in doing, electrical engineering. Why in the world should she be barred from doing that which she loves when it is what she loves? Anti-feminists say women are only truly happy with a family. Even if that was true for every other woman in the world, why should any one woman be barred from making an alternate decision with her life?
After finally turning the computer off and laying in bed, trying to sleep, I realized something that means I won't be going down this rabbit hole again. These people who live in the Chicken World, whether it be based on gender or race or any arbitrary qualification, they aren't where the interesting stories lie. I try to get a handle on the diverse perspectives of people to develop believable characters, but you never really see characters like these in an engaging and thought provoking story. Who do you see in these interesting stories? You see the women who became fighter pilots in WWII to test out the planes that were to be taken out in the field. You read about the young black boy who grew up in a poor inner city but is now a leading voice in the field of quantum mechanics. When is the last time you read a compelling story where any of the main characters were people with one dimensional appraisals of huge swaths of the population?
You don't.
So I'll leave them to their Chicken World. I'm going to go lick my butthole and be a cat.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Chapter 8 - Part IV
Who am I?! the question burst from his mind, running naked through his guarded sensibilities. Who is Gregor and who is this girl?! He closed his eyes and thought back to the first time he ever met Gregor.
Was it the smile of a kind stranger, an Ally of Rel? The smell of fish and money in the air surrounding us? Alms deposited in his oak bowl followed by a word, which led to a warm conversation with a like-minded spirit? That was the first meeting, right?
No, was it two boys running naked along the beach in the middle of the days governed by the major moon? The beach seemed like their private little world save for the huge wooden ships that passed them on their way north. Just two little boys, laughing, throwing sand at each other while their young fathers looked on. The fathers would disappear, but the boys would be forever.
'Friends until the end, just like our dads, right?' he had said.
"Aaaaaggggghhhhhhhh!" the pale former chef screamed "What are these memories? Who am I?!" *(note, to be expressed in Lithenese - when I get the chance) the man called Cedric shook from head to toe, sobbing loudly to himself. Onion stood up and quickly distanced herself from the man, thoroughly unnerved.
Or is that laughter!? she thought to herself.
The revelry of the Soa caravan laid thickly on the wind, suffocating most sounds, but a noise unnatural to the Cedric Onion had come to know floated over the lusty laughter of women and men deep in their cups. As it became more and more apparent that it was a maniacal mirth, not a cry of desolation, that was escaping his lips Onion began looking around nervously for a weapon; a rock, a heavy branch, anything that might keep whoever this man was at bay.
Until this point, Onion had vividly recorded in her memory, the visage of a man, skinny, shrunken and reluctant. The Cedric she had come to know had the voice of a mewling kitten. Neither of these descriptors would serve her now as Cedric stood tall and erect; his shoulders set back while aggressive and calculating blue eyes surveyed her every muscle twitch in his peripheral view.
Was it the smile of a kind stranger, an Ally of Rel? The smell of fish and money in the air surrounding us? Alms deposited in his oak bowl followed by a word, which led to a warm conversation with a like-minded spirit? That was the first meeting, right?
No, was it two boys running naked along the beach in the middle of the days governed by the major moon? The beach seemed like their private little world save for the huge wooden ships that passed them on their way north. Just two little boys, laughing, throwing sand at each other while their young fathers looked on. The fathers would disappear, but the boys would be forever.
'Friends until the end, just like our dads, right?' he had said.
"Aaaaaggggghhhhhhhh!" the pale former chef screamed "What are these memories? Who am I?!" *(note, to be expressed in Lithenese - when I get the chance) the man called Cedric shook from head to toe, sobbing loudly to himself. Onion stood up and quickly distanced herself from the man, thoroughly unnerved.
Or is that laughter!? she thought to herself.
The revelry of the Soa caravan laid thickly on the wind, suffocating most sounds, but a noise unnatural to the Cedric Onion had come to know floated over the lusty laughter of women and men deep in their cups. As it became more and more apparent that it was a maniacal mirth, not a cry of desolation, that was escaping his lips Onion began looking around nervously for a weapon; a rock, a heavy branch, anything that might keep whoever this man was at bay.
Until this point, Onion had vividly recorded in her memory, the visage of a man, skinny, shrunken and reluctant. The Cedric she had come to know had the voice of a mewling kitten. Neither of these descriptors would serve her now as Cedric stood tall and erect; his shoulders set back while aggressive and calculating blue eyes surveyed her every muscle twitch in his peripheral view.
Monday, November 12, 2012
New Story Notes
The following are some notes I have started to develop on a new story idea. I'm hoping to make this a collaborative project, so I'm posting them.
Background/ questions:
Logistical:
A colony on Europa = how often within range of Earth? 12 years?
Once every 12 years there is an X month period where travel to and from earth can occur.
Information exchange can occur a little more regularly but still limited (how long does it take for a voyager satellite to transmit data in the modern age? - base earth - Jupiter transmission on this answer)
Europa = tidally locked = Colonies on far side of the moon to maximize sunlight? Colonist frontier on Jupiter facing side => research stations, maybe some natural resource extraction? To go to the Jupiter facing side is somewhat a badge of courage, perhaps protagonist has visited, seen sight of Jupiter, huge in the sky
how often does Europa rotate around Jupiter? (3.5 days)
Water & ice surface = > floating arcologies?
Historical:
Need to point to a reason why people began to colonize space:
Main idea: space race style.
Iran actually has been hiding nuclear program this whole time (modern day) in order to send out a manned mission via nuclear core space shuttle. Why? Understand the rapidly disintegrating power of a theocracy as a means to control population => needed give people a moral imperative with economic benefits. => discover mineral/ energy source on Mars/Moon
Have protagonist thinking about the celebrated "Shotgun Day" (play on shotgun heard around the world) => the day that Iran launched their first rocket => western world plus China, Russia and Japan go into near panic, but luckily before any hasty nukes could be shot at Iran, scientists point out that it is a shuttle, not a bomb => however, perceiving their own hegemonic in threat, China (Who is Hu Jintao's successor?) and US (Obama), quickly start/ restart their space programs => provides great moral imperative to both countries respectively, adds jobs, and reestablishes the value of science for a generation of impressionable young people => MESSAGE OF HOPE to reader.
Turns out Ahmadinejad was just one big distraction this whole time, with his UN, jews should be exterminated, holocaust never happened, displays really designed to keep other countries in the dark about Iranian ambitions.
3 generations before setting of story, Martian and Lunar colonies established. Begin missions on the other side of the asteroid belt.
Protagonist's grandparents on these initial surveys. Technically, not first colonists, just scientists, but after a colony on Europa is established, they have already been there for decades and join the population in ernest. Their children were born on Mars, but grow up on Europa.
Colonies on Moon/Mars abandoned after limited resources are exhausted. However, Jupiter is a font of economically useful materials. Colony persists.
Cultural:
Population is fairly small and hyper interdependent so common language is needed (Chinese? English? Farsi? => based on historical account => or something in between the three? One as official communication to earth, with a local pidgin? Likely English would be mode of communication at least at first. Could even do something where English is used in official communications, but part of the plot twist is that when crew finally arrive on Earth, find out English has become a near obsolete language (or at least used only in pockets of cultures), maybe most colonists are Chinese, as they are the group most running out of land, with large numbers of Iranian scientists => if that is the case we'd have pidgin Chinese heavily influenced by Farsi. If Farsi is involved, will need to do a lot of research as I have no experience in that language)
Modern style of education, etc => kids go through compulsory education => however due to the fact that initial space sponsors were from China, US or Iran (those gvts have an interest in a whitewashed history that paints their countries/cultures as great) plus limited communication with earth = we must present a very altered understanding of events from the protagonist's viewpoint =>
SUCH AS
Students are taught a very Iran friendly history in which Iran, China and the US were allies, teaming up with their varying skills to make first colonies in space => present countries as archetypes, US: Christian/Capitalist, China : Atheist/Confucian/Communist, Iran : Islamic/Theocracy, where the view of those religions has drained away from the fundamentalism we see now/ potentially earth at the time of the story is still seeing, and they are used more as historical identities.
More ideas? There has to be more to this.
Protagonist: young man, wanting space from his parents, wants to return to earth. Perhaps of a Farsi and Chinese mixed descent? American? not sure. The once every 12 year opportunity to go to earth comes around, he is the first to sign up.
Many supporting characters to be developed.
Background/ questions:
Logistical:
A colony on Europa = how often within range of Earth? 12 years?
Once every 12 years there is an X month period where travel to and from earth can occur.
Information exchange can occur a little more regularly but still limited (how long does it take for a voyager satellite to transmit data in the modern age? - base earth - Jupiter transmission on this answer)
Europa = tidally locked = Colonies on far side of the moon to maximize sunlight? Colonist frontier on Jupiter facing side => research stations, maybe some natural resource extraction? To go to the Jupiter facing side is somewhat a badge of courage, perhaps protagonist has visited, seen sight of Jupiter, huge in the sky
how often does Europa rotate around Jupiter? (3.5 days)
Water & ice surface = > floating arcologies?
Historical:
Need to point to a reason why people began to colonize space:
Main idea: space race style.
Iran actually has been hiding nuclear program this whole time (modern day) in order to send out a manned mission via nuclear core space shuttle. Why? Understand the rapidly disintegrating power of a theocracy as a means to control population => needed give people a moral imperative with economic benefits. => discover mineral/ energy source on Mars/Moon
Have protagonist thinking about the celebrated "Shotgun Day" (play on shotgun heard around the world) => the day that Iran launched their first rocket => western world plus China, Russia and Japan go into near panic, but luckily before any hasty nukes could be shot at Iran, scientists point out that it is a shuttle, not a bomb => however, perceiving their own hegemonic in threat, China (Who is Hu Jintao's successor?) and US (Obama), quickly start/ restart their space programs => provides great moral imperative to both countries respectively, adds jobs, and reestablishes the value of science for a generation of impressionable young people => MESSAGE OF HOPE to reader.
Turns out Ahmadinejad was just one big distraction this whole time, with his UN, jews should be exterminated, holocaust never happened, displays really designed to keep other countries in the dark about Iranian ambitions.
3 generations before setting of story, Martian and Lunar colonies established. Begin missions on the other side of the asteroid belt.
Protagonist's grandparents on these initial surveys. Technically, not first colonists, just scientists, but after a colony on Europa is established, they have already been there for decades and join the population in ernest. Their children were born on Mars, but grow up on Europa.
Colonies on Moon/Mars abandoned after limited resources are exhausted. However, Jupiter is a font of economically useful materials. Colony persists.
Cultural:
Population is fairly small and hyper interdependent so common language is needed (Chinese? English? Farsi? => based on historical account => or something in between the three? One as official communication to earth, with a local pidgin? Likely English would be mode of communication at least at first. Could even do something where English is used in official communications, but part of the plot twist is that when crew finally arrive on Earth, find out English has become a near obsolete language (or at least used only in pockets of cultures), maybe most colonists are Chinese, as they are the group most running out of land, with large numbers of Iranian scientists => if that is the case we'd have pidgin Chinese heavily influenced by Farsi. If Farsi is involved, will need to do a lot of research as I have no experience in that language)
Modern style of education, etc => kids go through compulsory education => however due to the fact that initial space sponsors were from China, US or Iran (those gvts have an interest in a whitewashed history that paints their countries/cultures as great) plus limited communication with earth = we must present a very altered understanding of events from the protagonist's viewpoint =>
SUCH AS
Students are taught a very Iran friendly history in which Iran, China and the US were allies, teaming up with their varying skills to make first colonies in space => present countries as archetypes, US: Christian/Capitalist, China : Atheist/Confucian/Communist, Iran : Islamic/Theocracy, where the view of those religions has drained away from the fundamentalism we see now/ potentially earth at the time of the story is still seeing, and they are used more as historical identities.
More ideas? There has to be more to this.
Protagonist: young man, wanting space from his parents, wants to return to earth. Perhaps of a Farsi and Chinese mixed descent? American? not sure. The once every 12 year opportunity to go to earth comes around, he is the first to sign up.
Many supporting characters to be developed.
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