Jarrat and Stone are back ... and I'm stunned

Words fail me. I mean ... words ... just ... fail. What can I say? Have a look at these, and be amazed:

Ooof. It's like looking at stills from the movie. These are two "renders" out of a set of 10, all of which are online at Jade's Adventures in 3D -- and they're also uploaded at about twice this size, so go ahead, click the pic to see the larger shot. The Jarrat renders went up first, telling a scene from his POV. The Stone renders went up yesterday, telling the same scene from his POV.

They leave my fingers itching to write NARC. And I can't, because I'm churning my way steadily through Hellgate, and 2010 is about getting that whole series finished. This is sheer, unmitigated torture! I ask myself, could I possibly squeeze in a Jarrat-and-Stone short piece, something "only" around 50,000 words or so? In fact, there *is* a story which has been slated to be the high-action prologue to the next NARC novel -- and you all know what happened last time I did this. STOPOVER was supposed to be the opening "kaboom" for APHELION, and it ended up being taken right out and published on its own, because at 45,000 words it was a) too long to be an opening act, b) would have pushed the overall length of APHELION to 230,000 words, which is monstrous; and c) was quite large enough to be published as a pocket-size thriller.

Hence, I find myself literally, and enthusiastically, adrool ... and asking the question in all seriousness: can I squeeze in a NARC short, if I work, very very hard, fueled by the rush of seeing these pictures?

Stay tuned!

And please do link over to Jade's blog, where pictures like this are commonplace, what's more, she'll tell you how to do it yourself:

Cheers,
Mel

And now for something entirely different

About a decade ago -- when nanotechnology was entering the common vocabulary -- I read an SF book called Bloom (quite a good novel, actually), and then forgot all about it.

Much later, I read a feature article in some magazine, about how nano is being used in PAINT and COSMETICS these days; how the damned things, being so itsy-bitsy, can and do get right through the barrier of your skin and ... golly only knows what they're going to do to odd items like your heart, your liver. Your brain.

Well, far be it from me to be a doomsayer and a disaster monger. Heaven only knows, the worlds of NARC and Hellgate aren't likely to come to pass without nano. Turns out, we need those little guys.

Still, it makes you wonder -- when you know that the very cells of our bodies are turning to plastic. And then (all the while wondering) you stumble over a video like this:



Like I said, makes you wonder! And I think I'm going to pull our Will McCarth's SF novel, Bloom, and read it again. Last time I read it, I was on a plane halfway between Anchorage, Alaska and Tokyo. (I remember, I was also reading William Gibson's The Difference Engine -- that one, I finished while lying flat on my back in a departure lounge at Narita Airport.)

And I think ... just maybe ... I feel a novel idea coming on!

So, when someone asks you, "Where do you get your ideas from?" Well, blame the nano -- in all probability, your brain is already full of them. Like mine.

Bizarre concept, isn't it?

The future looks squeezy

Got something for you here ... as one science fiction writer to another reader. I talk muchly about the cars of the future, but somehow, I don't think the real future is going to turn out looking like NARC and Hellgate after all! Check this out:

The Future of Parking:



Now, I can just see Jarrat and Stone feeding themselves into and out of this ... I can really see Cronin and Ramos screeching across town in one of these ... not.

Oh, boy. Does the future really have to look like this?!

As a matter of fact, I blogged about this before Christmas. Remember this: The shape, color and texture of things to come ... in which we looked at the cars, clothes and cities you are I are very likely to be subjected to, should the genetic "tweaks" come along by 2050, which will allow us to live to 2150. The meaning of "kewl" appears to be changing. I don't know if it's for the better!

More later in the day. Just wanted to pass this along.

Ciao for now,
MK

More than human ... in fact,Transhuman

As I work on the Legends project, getting it ready to launch (soon!) I can't help thinking about other projects that are waiting not far down the track. Crystal Genesis is a project that's been close to my heart for almost two decades now; and then you have the NARC and Hellgate books, which share quite a bit in common -- as well they should, since they take place in the same space, albeit 200 years apart.

The biggest difference between the NARC and Hellgate "worlds" is the Transhuman element, which is the pivot point around which Crystal Genesis revolves. In the NARC stories (set a little under four centuries in our own future) people are ... well, they're still just people. There hasn't been much tinkering with the human genome to make humans over into "more" or "different." Then, along came the starship engines which pushed the frontier back so far that untold opportunities for colonization, industry ... empire ... came along. But a lot of these worlds were not quite earthlike. They were close enough to be terraformed to a degree, but the humans relocating there had to meet the new environment halfway.



And this meant the eventual acceptance of Transhuman engineering. It's a great term -- and not one I invented! It's already in use, and the ethics, protocols, politics, philosophies of Transhumanism are already being thrashed out, even here, even now, in 2009.

For a smattering of background on this, have a look at the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

While you're there, take a moment to notice that there's a new magazine on the subject. The first issue of H+ magazine came out for fall 2008, and is downloadable as a PDF from the website:
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/

I've just read quite a lot of the PDF and the whole thing interests me strangely. The world of NARC and Hellgate just came a step closer. One of the feature articles in H+ #1 is entitled, "Science Fiction gets funding."

If I could, I'd give you a little taste, to inspire you to get over to H+ and take a proper look; but the magazine is in PDF form, and -- quite understandably! -- the copy/paste feature is locked out. God knows, I lock it out on my own PDFs ... to make people get the whole thing, not just take a sniff or a bite in passing. So go here, and get the magazine:
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/hplusmag_fall_2008.pdf

Interesting, isn't it? Also controversial. As the technologies become realistic and the decision to be modified or not becomes exactly that -- an individual's own decision -- then, well, you can just bet your pension that the controversy will balloon. And it won't soon be over. You'll have religious bods who want everyone to grow old and die because they believe this is what god or God or gods intended; there'll be the moralists, who may be atheists, but who firmly believe that the warts-'n-all human is the right way to be ... diabetes and arthritis and heart disease being our birthright, and we'll stamp our collective foot if we get cheated outta them!

Nostrakeeganus going to stick neck way out and make big prophecy: the technology will come along within the next half century, though the arguments will still be in session. However, when the technology is a reality, sooner or later someone, somewhere will notice that rich people have stopped being 60. They're all 35. And they're slim, and muscular, and healthy, goddamn it. In other words, the therapies will be expensive and administered by rogue physicians in underground clinics frequented by the wealthy. Transhumanism will sneak in the back door, and when the Hollywood A-list of 2050 is, on average, 75 years old and looking forty years younger ... the tide of public pressure will sweep away the nay-sayers.

People want to look younger and slimmer; they want muscles; few actually want to be bald or have gray hair. We all desire perfect piano-key teeth, great eyesight, freedom from arthritis, deafness, cancer. If there's something amoral or weird about these desires, then the cosmetics industry ought to take another look at itself right now. Also modern dentistry, let alone the legions of plastic surgeons and research medicine gurus.

We slather our faces with anti-wrinkle cream, diet and exercise, put on our toupees and wigs, dye our hair, get our teeth capped, get fitted for contact lenses, do yoga, take fish oils and see chiropractors, invest in near-to-invisible hearing aids, and get screened for cancer every six months. This is normal and desirable, but transhumanism is amoral and weird?

Good question, isn't it? You have to know I'm solidly behind any harmless, side-effect-free, affordable, ecologically sound, financially supportable therapy that will "put paid" to disease and disability. Ever tried to have a sensible conversation with someone who's almost stone deaf? Ever helped a near-blind old aunt get groceries? Ever visited a near-the-end terminal cancer patient in the hospital? Have you experienced the first pains of unavoidable, normal "wear and tear" on your joints? Your doctor will patiently explain that everyone over about 35 has some degree of osteo arthritis. It's your body starting to wear out. And it hurts. The wear and tear is gradual, like the way your glasses keep getting thicker, and there's more gold and porcelaine in your mouth, and your face is, uh, spreading sideways and heading south!

You can take the moral high ground (as a lot of people do), and say it's all normal, and we should be glad to be mortal, go through this and go to that great typing pool in the sky --

But if you notice, the people perched on this moral high ground -- saying things that you might respond to with a smile and a nod while inwardly you wince -- are usually the ones with the beautifully dyed hair, the expensive spectacles, the perfectly capped teeth. And I'll bet they get screened for cancer and take the most expensive vitamins and antioxidants on the shelf. Fundamentally, they're breaking their own rules, because everything we do that aims to change what we are, what we were born, falls neatly into the Transhuman zone.

It's interesting, and it's going to be fascinating to watch this drama unfold between now, and, say, 2058 ... at which date, Keegan will be 100 years old. And driving a souped up, turbo-charged wheelchair up the line to get the newly-legalized therapies! Like a lot of other people, I'd like to live to be 120, which they say is the maximum normal human lifespan. But who the heck wants to live that long if you can't be mobile, active, creative, productive --

Good grief! It's just occurred to you that you'll have to read this bloody blog for another fifty years!

Ciao for now,
MK

The Vanishing Website Affair

To answer today's most-asked question, "Why the sweet, flying f**k am I getting some weird website when I try to logon to Mel Keegan Online" --


Well, it's complicated. DreamCraft is sorting the whole thing out even as I type this -- on the phone, long distance. Apparently, when you forget to update your credit card information, (see yesterday's post), and your domain actually expires ... things get seriously screwed up in terms of domain registration. This is not iPower.com at work -- if it were, it would have been easy to fix it online. It has something to do with another "registry" agency, with which iPower dovetails.

Anyway: Dave has the phone in his hand RIGHT NOW and is talking to an extraordinarily cool young man at iPower, who is fixing the whole thing. It's only a minor cardiac arrest; all will be remedied shortly.

Other things which came my way yesterday: you have GOT to see this:
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/12/astounding-japanese-highways-bridges.html

It's one page on an amusing and astonishing blog/site, and when you see this, you're just hit between the eyeballs with the solid impression that the worlds of Hellgate and NARC are already upon us. I'm going to borrow one image from the above page, to show you what I mean, and as an incentive to get to you GO OVER THERE and see the whole page! There are swags of images like this, and every one of them looks like something right out of NARC and Hellgate:


(Credit on the picture goes to Ken Ohyama, who has a link through to a website, but if you can't read Japanese, you'll have all kinds of fun trying to navigate the site! Give it a shot: http://blog.livedoor.jp/sohsai/)

Update on the dream-craft.com situation: iPower has remedied the whole thing and we're now just waiting for the server to update, which it will do in about 45 minutes or so, according to our tech support guru, who is certain to be beatified.

If you're looking for website hosting, iPower would have to be the one I recommend. You can stuff things up royally, pick up the phone, and it's just ... fixed. In fact (I might have mentioned this before), it's the only ISP DreamCraft has been recommending for eons -- in fact, they actually "re-sell" iPower services. Excuse the commercial, but if you're a similar bind, wondering who in the heck you can trust to babysit your brainchildren, this is worth a look:


My apologies to one and all about the "Disappearing Website Affair." This is the reason I blog as well as having a major website! Belt and suspenders. Double-indemnity.

Bear with us just a little longer...

Cheers,
MK

Is good health a right or a privilege?!

Very occasionally, there's a cast-iron reason for having a rant ... and this is one of them.

Personally, I don't smoke. I've never smoked. I watched my father take 18 years to die of lung and brain cancer caused by smoking, so I count myself a specialist in the consequences, while not suffering them myself. Who was it said, 'Only an idiot has to learn by his own mistakes.'

So far, so good: at least I'm qualified to indulge myself in a rant! So, here we go:
It's a bloody outrage when you can't have your cup of tea (or coffee) in your own backyard, without being subjected to the secondhand smoke of the (bleep)ing chainsmokers who live on the other side of the fence, and who smoke like (bleep)ing chimneys all morning. Secondhand smoke is a lot more dangerous than the garbage these morons are dragging into their own lungs, because at least they have benefit of the (bleep)ing filter. So, there's Keegan, sitting in a patch of shade on a glorious summer morning, cup of ooling in the hand, thinking about the day's work to be done, and --

Suddenly I'm coughing on someone else's (bleep)ing smoke. I'm inhaling carcinogenic compounds. My eyes are watering on the toxic fallout that's been EXHALED from the diseased lungs of the geriatric pea-brains who live over the fence. They rent. The rules are clear -- they're central to the Residential Tenancies Act: you do NOT smoke in a rental house. So what do these octogenarian cretins do? They go stand on the back step and force-feed the neighbors with the 4,000 artificial substances which are added to the tobacco to make it smolder for a long time rather than burning straight out.

I have no desire to have 4,000 chemicals force-fed into my lungs, and follow my father down an 18-year path that led to places you don't even want to know about. But apparently I don't have any rights to assert. It's their right to smoke on their doorstep and gas me with their toxic fallout. I have no right to ask them (much less tell them) to bugger off and poison themselves somewhere else, where they're not poisoning me too.

The worst part of all this is that when lifelong smokers get into middle age and older, the vaster majority of them get sick. My dad was one. There are hundreds of thousands like him, and they suck the Medicare system dry ... after having shot themselves deliberately in both feet. It's getting on towards half a century since the Surgeon General's report was published. Everyone has known for that long, that smoking causes cancers all over your body, plus peripheral circulation failure, heart disease, arterial disease --

In fact, the only thing it doesn't seem to cause is broken noses ... because if someone like myself, a non-smoker, were to ask these people to stop or go away, they'd get nasty ... it could turn into a big fight ... the fight could get physically violent ... someone's nose gets punched in the furore ... and it's the non-smoker who started it, by trying to save his own life from cancers and cardiac diseases that will eventually kill him! We call it self-bloody-preservation -- and it'll get us hauled up in front of a magistrate, with a huge fine to pay, or we'll go to jail, thirty or sixty days for aggravated assault. And when the non-smoker gets out of jail, what's to say the situation won't happen again? Because apparently smokers have every right to pollute the airspace of non-smokers with the rancid fallout from their diseased lungs.

There. I feel much better now. So, you want to look at ways to get people to quit?

Frankly, I don't think it's every likely to happen. I'm so certain than a majority of people will always smoke that even the characters in some of my novels -- Jarrat and Stone, Marin and Travers -- smoke the occasional cigarette. But, what are they smoking?! It sure as hell ain't the vile kind of crap people are smoking today. I called it kipgrass: a naturally occuring plant that only smolders, won't burn properly -- like the fibers of the Tasmanian white pine -- is then enhanced with mild euphorics, given a pleasant aroma by being scented with citrus, roses, whatever, and then rolled into a cigarette and sold by the 25 pack.

In other words, the smoke is harmless, smells okay, and isn't addictive. Fat chance of this happening outside a science fiction novel!

In the real world, people will always smoke and the tobacco companies control everything that isn't controlled by the oil companies, the drug companies, and the cosmetics industry.

So what can be done to alleviate the problem? Try this:

Recognize that smoking is a harmful, often lethal activity, that also stinks to high heaven. Make people -- and especially kids just starting -- hyper-aware of this, by making it illegal to buy cigarettes unless you are a licensed smoker. Issue smoker's licences, the same way driver's licenses are issued. You have to be 18 to get one, and it costs $100 per year to keep it current. You produce your license every time you buy a packet of smokes. The license is barcoded ... the machine reads the barcode, tracks you as you puff ... and updates your account. The tax on cigarettes is raised to 100% (ie., a $10 pack is now $20), and this amount is stashed in your account, accruing all the time -- to pay for your hospitalization, surgery, chemo and radiotherapy when you get sick. Because the illness you're giving yourself is self-inflicted, and you acknowledge that when you're 50 or 60 or whatever, you're going to be sucking Medicare dry. You pay in advance for your medical care.

It's not a bad idea, surely. A license, and a medicare levy. What's wrong with that? The added expense of puffing away might even cause some of the more intelligent people to quit. For the rest of us, the so-called "fresh air fascists," the fewer smokers there are in the community, the better we like it. Also, since these cretins are now paying for their own medical treatment in advance, the hospital systems will improve vastly for the rest of us.

It's a win-win situation. Licensed, legal smokers who are determined get to keep on puffing, the hospital system benefits, the government gets extra revenue, underage kids find it harder to get supply, more people quit to save money so the air quality improves, and in our old age, the rest of us non-smokers get better medical care, because the people who're inflicting their own terminal disease have prepaid for their care, rather than being utterly self-indulgent for decades and then hogging the lion's share of Medicare as well. The government would have to love this: it's political manna. The technology is easily available to manage this system. And it'd be difficult for the tobacco companies to find an argument...

Uh ... just a thought, guys.

Ciao for now,
MK

If you found this post interesting or useful, please email the url to your friends! Google still has my page rankings zeroed out, so I can't win a Google search or blog search, no matter how well my posts are crafted. I'm in contact with the company, but it's a long, slow process to find a resolution. How can you help?! By email the urls of useful posts! Thank you kindly.

Writing: the challenge of Science Fiction

It's not often I get a reader's question that leaves me blank for five minutes, but this one did. It's a beauty, because it's so fundamental, and fundamental questions tend to be so broad in scope, they touch ... well, everything.

So, here was the question: "How do I write science fiction?"

The kneejerk reaction is to say, "Same bloody way as you write anything else, what's your problem?!" But in fact, this is too swift (and too brusque!) an answer, which doesn't do justice to a question that is, in fact, brilliant in its sheer simplicity.

And since I couldn't get the question out of my mind for the next two hours, I thought it might be an interesting topic for a post -- quite a few writers are reading this blog; some are looking for publishers, others are fully intending to use POD services, but they all have one thing in common: they write.

So, how do you write science fiction?

The truth is, anyone can write anything. It's writing something well that's the challenge, and how well we do something is what sorts the wheat from the chaff. Seriously, anyone can take a crack at writing absolutely anything, but one can't guarantee the results.

Let's say you're a massive fan of G-Force and Mecha Godzilla, it's what you like, what you read, what you watch, and where your brain is ... and somebody bets you $25 you can't write a women's historical romance. Take the bet with impunity, because -- of course you can write one ... and the person didn't bet you $25 that you couldn't write a good one.

Creative writing starts with three things: 1) the burning desire to write; 2) the energy and discipline to sit down and bash out the words, all of them, right to The End; 3) a real, genuine story that's worth reading, as well as writing.

After these three jewels, the words are on paper (or on the hard drive), the story is told ... everything else is about quality: integrity, readability, characterisation, editing, coherence, denouement, style.

Let's reverse the bet, and have someone who lives and breathes women's historical romance, and somebody bets them $25 that s/he can't write a Japanese Monsterama story.

Of course s/he can. Take the money!!

Now, if the bet had been, "I'll bet you $250 that you can't write a GOOD Japanese Monsterama story" ... well, be a bit more cagey. See if you can dragoon somebody's 12-year-old kid to explain to you what the bloody hell this genre is all about. Maybe the kid will propel you in the general direction of the video store, and you can rent some. Grit your teeth and actually watch them, right through to the end credits. Something by Toho Studios would be absolutely perfect for this purpose.

In other words ... you're doing some research, because you want that $250, and it's enough money to warrant spending a few hours on getting it juuuuust right. If you're a natural born writer, the basic skills are mostly transferable: the ability to write one thing converts into the ability to write the body copy for something else --

With one proviso. Style. The hardboiled language in which a lot of SF and detective fiction is written does not lend itself well to historical romances (!), and the often florid and, shall we say, botanical (I don't want to say 'flowery,' because someone will probably thump me) language in which a lot of historicals and/or romances are constructed doesn't lend itself well to nuts and bolts SF and hardboiled detective fiction!

So you, the writer, will be using your judgment, and you'll be re-tune your "ear" to hear the difference. You've learned your skills writing 'whatever,' and a helluva lot of it; and you're coming to the challenge of writing SF with both eyes -- and ears -- open.

It all starts with the desire to write SF, having a fantastic story that you have to tell or die, plus the discipline to get all the words down on paper.

Now, if you have this burning desire to write SF, you might have actually read some -- but then again, maybe not.

If you've read Greg Bear and Charles Sheffield, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, you're on the home stretch. Follow their lead. Do what they do: write very well, with very good grammar; keep the story on course, don't let it wander; reveal the story's pivot points at exactly the right moment -- ie., don't 'telegraph' your punches, but don't don't wait so long to throw them that the reader is bored or confused. (Bore or confuse a reader, and s/he will stop reading. End of statement.)

However, if your total exposure to SF has been Star Wars trilogy (c. 1980), Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, classic Battlestar Galactica (1980), classic Star Trek (1969), classic Doctor Who (1970s), Planet of the Apes (TV series) Logan's Run (series), Knight Rider, and so forth ... you could have a problem.

These projects are certainly SF, but their genre is very different: TV science fiction of the 1960s to 1980s vintage is a Hollywood product, designed and crafted to amuse an American audience which was naive even for its day. The plotlines are very frequently soap opera dressed in SF costumes, or World War II, Korea and Vietnam stories rearmed with rayguns and energy weapons. The characterizations are "US TV standard" for their era ... meaning, you can watch SWAT, Starsky & Hutch, and any SF show made for US TV in the era, and the characters are pretty much of a sameness. They tend to have an artificial look about them to today's eyes, because they're the product not of their era on the street, but the product of their era on TV. (Hollyweird executives designed what television would look and sound like, to make the end product squeaky clean, wholesome and acceptable in Middle American living rooms at 7:00pm. It didn't make for "real" characters.)

If this is your concept of SF -- you'll certainly write an SF story ... but will it be a good one? The person betting you $250 might have a bone to pick with the kind of story, the way it's developed, and the "artificiality" of the characterization. In other words, if you want to win the bet -- look further afield.

In fact, if classic TV SF has been your exposure to SF, yet now you're sure you have a red-hot story and you're desperate to write it -- STOP. Do some research. Read some books, find out what the real thing is like. Can I give you some recommendations? Sure. Greg Bear: Eon, Eternity and Moving Mars. Charles Sheffield, Godspeed and Cold as Ice. Arthur C. Clarke -- almost anything. Robert Heinlein: Friday, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. This'll get you off to a flying start. There's about a thousand more, you'll find them as you start to look around and do a little research.

Now, I assume the technicalities of the language are in good order before you get this far. Right? In other words, your English is nothing less that superb -- grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, all those fiddling little details that make or break a writer? If they're under control, take the story by the scruff of its neck and get it written. If they're out of control --

Still write the story, but use it as a learning experience. Learn to punctuate and format text as you go. Buy some books on grammar. Seriously! Indulge yourself in The Elements of Style (Strunk & White). You don't even have to buy that slim volume, though it's still in print if you want to. You can also access it online: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html ... and for background info on the work itself, hit Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style.

In other words -- write your story while you learn to write ... then rewrite your story, using everything you've learned about characterization, denouement -- even grammar and punctuation!

The technicalities are especially important if you want to take a crack at finding a publisher, or POD publishing. You won't impress a publisher with iffy English writing skills ... and if you go POD, you won't have an editor working with you (some might say, breathing down your neck) to make sure all the eyes are dotted and the tees are crossed. When you're flying solo, you have to be very good, and very confident of your skills.

I hope this has covered the whole question! And now --

It's actually my day off, and I'm headed for the coast to do some rock hopping. Will take pictures and if anything looks especially fine, I'll put up a few images tomorrow.

Ciao for now,
MK

The shape, color and texture of things to come

If you're waiting for me to comment on the US election and Prop 8 -- call back tomorrow, when it's all over barring the shouting, and when I've thrown off the gastro I picked up somewhere. I spent the wee small hours of the morning in the bathroom, feeling like dying, and insufficient of my brain cells are in functional order today for me to say anything remarkable. Or even particularly intelligent.

But at least I can be interesting. As a science fiction writer, I always take a keen interest in what the near future is likely to look, sound and work like. And it's not always what you might be hoping for.

Get ready for cramped style and melted cool:

SF offers us flying cars and incredible aerodynes ... costing about a gazillion dollars each. In fact, this is Nissan's next generation small car -- ie., the one ordinary working stiffs (like you and me) will be able to afford. Now, let's see how much luck you have, cruising for coooool dudes (and/or babes, if you prefer) in this contraption. The last time you saw something like this, Roger Rabbit was driving it ... and it was a joke. This object hails from the '08 Paris Motor Show. Yeek.

If the Nissan Roger-Rabbit-mobile is just too far out for you (and I can't blame you), try this puppy. I call it Renault's little joke. They certainly can't have been serious. It has 93.7% less cool than the average Tinkertoy. This one is the automotive equivalent of Thomas the Tank Engine. Yurk. Also from the '08 Paris Motor Show, gods help us.

This is what you'll be wearing in 2017 for cleaning house.

By then, housework is tipped to be a tag-team event, where unisex partners like these take turns to invert each other through 180 degrees, dunk one another in the bucket of sudsy water, and I'd better shut up now before someone throws something.

But, really, the mop heads come in seven different colors, and are nanotech, where the filth and grime from those floors on which the cat threw up and the puppy forget he wasn't outside wash right off. The rest of the apparel is made in HypaStretch Spandex, so one size fits all, up to XXXXL ... though the manufacturers refuse to take responsibility for what their product actually looks like under such hyperextension...

All you couch potatoes will be zipping down to the grocery store for your chips'n'dips and pork rinds and deep fried Mars bars and beers and ice cream, aboard something like this.

The helmet comes in very handy when civilians panic when they see you going by; stuff 327lbs of blubber into one of these suits, put it on wheels and send it careening off to the store ... a certain amount of panic is perfectly understandable; and people *do* tend to throw things when they freak out.

So be sure to wear the helmet at all times; failure to do so will invalidate the warranty of the Gyroscoot Couchie-Moover.

As of 2020, human females are going to be genetically engineered to be bald and have humongous feet. However, until the necessary research has been performed and tested, you'll be able to get a jump on "the look" cosmetically, with designer head shaving and the new Bigfoot range of quality footwear coming soon to a mall near you. This "look" has been trademarked and patented by Asylum Boot'n'Shoobiz, who are currently thrashing out the third party liability insurance implications. Of greatest concern is how much is to be awarded when someone gets dizzy and falls of their shoes.

Meanwhile, if you thought the Thinking Guy was going to get away scot free and keep his kewl while the unisexers and the females of our species were looking like they just walked (or biked) out of a 1960s SF movie shot in ten days on a budget of $225.42 ... think again.

Just when you were thinking you'd be able to swan around like Captain Kirk, come 2017 ... the demigods of fashion have decreed that you'll be looking like a walking towel rack when you climb about your Gyroscoot Couchie Moover.

Just don't forget the helmet. Looking like this, you're going to need it, when people lob cartons of Nappy-San at you.

Think you'll opt out of the high-fashion end of the industry and try for the modest, conservative look? Good for you. But it's gonna take some doing.

You see, after decades of telling you that you gotta be in the gym, pumping away so you can look like Arnie, Sly, and the rest of 'em ... well, the fashion gurus of tomorrow are about to do a one-eighty on you.

By 2012, muscles are going to be verboten. They'll be like, so ten minutes ago. You'll be mailordering illegal products like Muscle-away, and Physique-buster, and Shoulder-squincher, to make your muscles vamoos, leaving you looking like ... a hills hoist wearing a tie and kewl shades.

The market leading product is tipped to be LuckyLegs (TM) -- "they'll be so skinny people will tell you, you're lucky they carry you around." This, of course it "the look" that's been foisted on young females for the last several decades, so why should they have all the fun? They'll into bald heads and humongous feet, so guys can exercise their rights to spaghetti legs and banana arms. And cooooool shades.

Of course, no one's actually going to notice what you look like, with or without your Bigfoot Boots and your green helmet ... or even your duds. Because we're all going to be living and working in towns where the buildings have had their shapes, colors and textures inspired by Nature. Welcome to Fungusville, population 788,941, where the buildings grow themselves to accommodate population blowout as needed, so long as you just remember to put plenty of (synthetic) cow poop in the basement, leave the roller doors up, and pray for rain. The bigger the population gets, the taller Fungusville grows. And then there's...

The bananascraper, which speaks for itself, and has been known to produce allergic reactions in certain residents.

People have have known to come out in hives from head to foot, so, before taking up residence there (where an apartment can be purchased for a measly $22,847,999.95), be sure to first perform a patch test, and make sure you won't be wearing your green Gyroscoot Couchie-Moover helmet so your fellow coworkers over at the office in Fungusville won't be freaking when they see your latest crop of, uh, hives.

Y'know, I think I'll stick with the bluejeans and sweaters, and keep on driving the old Holden beater, and live in the countryside. I might be an SF writer, but I don't think I'm going to want to participate in the more fashionable side of it!

Ciao for now,
MK

You must remember this ... or, maybe not

As a science fiction writer, I keep an eye on breaking science and technology stories, and sometimes they can be a leeetle bit perturbing.

Where's the story about the flying car, the starship engine, the time machine? Of these, there is no sign, and yet mind control and memory erasure are apparently (!) almost within our grasp. Which is worrying, because this planet is in an incredible mess, both environmentally and politically speaking,with an assortment of lunatics and maniacs in charge ... and scientists are rapidly placing into their hands the tools to bring about the classic Orwellian future.

Did you see the story, yesterday? It's all over the web today; here is is a Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081022135801.htm

Memories Selectively, Safely Erased In Mice.

Well, everything starts out with research in mice and progresses up the ladder from there, which is fine ... unless you're a mouse, of course. But then again, since you just had your memory erased, you can't remember what the humans did to you, so, what the hey?

Is anyone out there old enough to remember the SF novels from the 1960s? The best of the earlier SF from 1940 onward was reprinted in that era, as well as a lot of new stuff. You had short novels like The Android Avenger and The Mad Metropolis and what have you ... the word "dystopian" took on a whole new meaning.

A familiar theme in those days was "the government uses a massive computer to scan people's minds, and then either wipes the minds of the "deviants," or sends them laboring in the asteroid mines, or executes them. It made for fun reading, I'll tell you -- and Ace Science Fiction made a ton of money on these novels, at about 40c a pop. I read this stuff in the late 60s and early 70s ... I read way ahead of my reading age, and was encouraged to read anything and everything.

But there was always a cushy sense of, "it makes a good story but it can't possibly happen, because these things are utterly impossible."

Uh...huh. Right. Okay. That certainly explains TIME Magazine's feature article last month, "The Army's Totally Serious Mind Control Project." Read it here:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1841108,00.html

The issue of memory erasure is yet another double-edged sword, which goes hand in hand with mind control. Consider this:

First, you'd blank key memories in the person's mind ... those memories which tell you and me what's right, wrong, rational, compassionate, sane and bonkers. Then you reprogram the individual with whatever the game plan is today, wind him up, (or her; I'm impartial), hand out the automatic weapons, and send 'em off to war.

This is an SF scenario from waaaay back when. It was done best in the Kurt Russell movie, SOLDIER. If you can rent it, do. It's ... a very good movie, as well as being chilling in more ways than on. Russell must have worked for months to get the physique ... time which he didn't have to spend learning his dialog; he doesn't have any. Cool.

(It's not a movie you'll watch often, but Jason Scott Lee and Jason Isaacs were very good in this; and Russell was in another league from the usual. I can't say "highly recommended" as a movie, because it's not that pleasant; but "highly recommended" as a piece of movie making, with a "message" that has (unfortunately) been lost among the SF and special effects. Take a fresh look at it, in light of what's starting to happen on the line where science and SF meet and become somewhat fuzzy. Hmmm.

Of course, it's not all bad news. We might not be getting flying cars anytime soon, but a little while ago BMW unveiled a new model ... imagine this: a Bimmer that's also a shapeshifter. The car changes its morphology to suit the caprice of its driver. (Take that, Batman!) BMW released a photo shoot of the car in various modes, and I was reminded of something right out of the NARC series:

Some things in the future are going to be very cool indeed. Mind you, they're also going to cost an arm and a leg. Seriously. We're slithering into an era where you could sell your limbs and organs for human transplants. No joke. Did you see the news story last week about the guy in German who lost both arms in a combine harvester accident, and back in July surgeons grafted on a pair of replacement limbs ... and they work. See it (with picture) here:
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/08/1969564-german-doing-well-after-1st-double-arm-transplant

...woah. But it's all going to cost megabucks. Folks like you and me won't be able to afford this stuff, though we'll be able to drool over the later offspring of the BMW Gina (the shapeshifting car, above) as it drives by ... "poodling" sloooowly down the street so everyone can see it.

And you find yourself imagining a society in which the super-rich can have the high-tech cars and the transplant organs, while the story at street level doesn't change a hell of a lot -- save for the gradual phasing-in of things which are for our own good; like the selective memory erasure.

Suppose the Dominionists get into power in the US in 4, or 8, or 16 years. (Don't get me started on Dominionists! If you're not aware of who they are, just SEARCH on this blog, right here, and I've posted several times about them -- and how close they are to the White House.) Suppose they do indeed intend to switch out the US Constitution for Old Testament law, which folks like McCain and Palin believe has to be instituted all over the world and reign for a thousand years (!) before Jesus will get himself back here...

Now, it would be bloody damned hard to make a country like the USA conform to Old Testament law ... unless you selectively erased what you didn't want people to remember/know, and replaced it with, say, Biblical teachings dished up in classrooms, along with the Creationism lessons.

In fact, it's not actually that hard to get people to forget what's important. Alas, it's happening every day -- and an unfortunately apt example of this is the fact that African Americans are much more likely that their white neighbors to vote "Yes" to Proposition 8, which will ban gay marriage rights in California.

It's counter intuitive. You'd be prepared to swear that Americans of color would fight tooth and claw to prevent civil liberties being taken away. But in fact, they're likely to believe that "marriage is something that happens between a man and a woman." Why? Because their pastor told them so.

Half a century ago, African Americans were categorized as labor-grades by society, and as the comedy relief in movies. Their rights were few, and they were often treated with derision -- especially when they attended church, where they sang and danced. Other Christians would respond with gales of laughter to the weird exhibition in the church. It took many years of struggle, hard work, clean living, courage and intelligence to earn, and keep, the civil liberties African Americans enjoy today. And then you read stuff like this:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-blackvote22-2008oct22,0,895684.story



The story is called, "Black clergy both for and against gay marriage speak out."

...and at this point, one just gives up. In future, we're going to get to the point where memory erasure can be achieved chemically in an afternoon; but right now we're at a point in history where all you have to do is tell people, "God says this," and "God says that," and tell them often enough, and loudly enough --

And they'll forget the past and, secure in their own civil liberties, blithely vote to confiscate civil liberties from other users of this poor planet, who are just as deserving of freedom as they are. (Unless you listen to churchmen, of course. Then the whole world goes haywire.)

Meanwhile, UFOs have been seen over Australia in vastly increasing numbers in the last few years. Any chance the aliens might get here in the nick of time and rescue us all from ourselves?!
Cheers,
MK

Digital cameras - which is best, and for whom?

Today I'll be answering two readers' questions, both of them good, and well worth answering on the blog here.

I can satisfy in a paragraph; the second will take a good bit longer:

Q: When will HELLGATE be finished?
A: 2009. All of it, right to the end. The whole series will be finished and out in paperbacks and ebooks by Christmas '09, and you'll also be able to buy it in three big hardcovers, if you want something swank for your bookshelf. Makes a hell of a gift, too. We'll also be able to offer a package, where you can order all the ebooks in one Zip archive, at a special price. Lulu.com doesn't do package deals or gift vouchers yet, but they might start offering this, in the next twelve months. Also (and this is breaking news -- we won't even be making a big announcement for a few days yet), Keegan is in the process of going to Amazon.com. At last. So in 2009 you might be able to get some kind of bulk deal with Amazon, who do offer gift vouchers and so forth. (The Amazon trade paperback editions will be produced by CreateSpace.com, not Lulu.com -- but we WILL be keeping the Lulu editions up too, because the CreateSpace editions are very expensive for Aussie and Kiwi readers ... not the books, the postage. More about this later.)

Next -- the important question:

DIGITAL CAMERAS - which would I recommend?

The question was fired at me because I spent years as a professional photographer, back in the days of optical and film. I've made the transfer to digital of necessity ... optical became vastly too expensive, and I like to grab up to 1000 frames on one "shoot" and sort them out later. With digital, this just means a couple of full flashcards. With optical, it means 40 rolls of film, which would cost upwards of five hundred bucks ... sorry, Kodak, but I've got better things to spend money on these days. Like, a whole new camera for that price.

So, which camera are you going shopping for?

It's a simple question to ask, but a lot more complex to answer. I'll try to be brief. Which camera is the "best" depends on two basic questions: 1) What you want it to do; 2) What your budget is.

If you're a wannabe professional (I won't say pro here, because if you're a pro, you're not asking this question, nor as you reading this post: you already know the answers!), you need to get a digital SLR with the best computerized body and power system you can afford, plus one or more lenses suited to your line of work.

Sports and wildlife photography demand long lenses. You'll want something in the 1000mm range ... and the bad news is, the lens could easily cost more than the camera body. Model photography (meaning young people in scanty clothes, rather than Tamaya and Airfix planes and tanks!) demands very sharp lenses with a zoom in the 25mm - 300mm range (wide angle to moderate telephoto). This lens would also go a long way towards doubling as news photography equipment, but it's too short for wildlife, and too limited to do well at air shows. Equestrian and grand prix events are within its capacity, though, so long as you're careful and know what you're doing.

What brand do I recommend, if you're shopping for a top-end camera with a view to selling your work? For myself, I'd go with Canon or Pentax, though other professionals recommend Nikon. In fact, it's "six of one, half a dozen of the other." Depends what you're familiar with.

As a ground rule, get the BEST camera body you can possibly afford. Also, as a general rule, don't buy a second hand digital SLR body, because you can't know if it's been dropped, hit, drowned or cooked. Heat, moisture and impacts hurt the electronics. They can "go intermittent" and work, sorta-kinda, for some time after the accident ... long enough for them to find their way onto the secondhand gear shelf, and into the hands of an unsuspecting newbie. Buy new, as per the body ... look at secondhand to save money on the lenses.

(Very good lenses will be starting to change hands around now, because there isn't a lot of work for professional photographers these days; and everyone, everywhere, bar none, is feeling the pinch. A top of the range, 1000mm lens could cost (!) five grand. Used ... I'd look at $2000-$2500 as a decent price. But shop around -- and don't forget to look for Internet specials.

On the other hand...

If you're a semi-pro or keen amateur, you could do a hell of a lot worse than look at the top digitals, just short of the SLR bracket. You're looking for 6 megapixels or better, and a 10:1 optical zoom, or better.

TIP: Don't pay money for big digital zooms, because all the camera is doing is electronically enhancing pixels in-camera ... something you can do at home, with fantastic FREE software like Irfanview ... http://www.irfanview.com/ ... Pay money for extra pixels in the capture and/or display, or features such as manual focus, a bigger, sharper screen, a wider range of exposures and virtual film-speeds, the ability to shoot 640x480 video, and record sound. In-camera editing is not worth extra bucks, when you're going right home (or back to the hotel) and will be loading the whole shoot onto the computer.

Makes and models? When you're up around the 6-8 megapixel range, they're all pretty much of a sameness, so you need to look at features, price, and also the comfort factor. How does it fit your hand? Is it too heavy? Is it too small? What do YOU feel comfortable with?

The camera that fits my hand the best is the Fuji FinePix S6500fd. It has 6MP, a 2.5" screen, a 10.7 optical zoom, an extremely crisp lens, and manual focus. The downsides are, it takes XD cards which, being Olympus proprietorial technology, are a good deal more expensive than other cards ... and it's noticeably heavy -- a lot heavier than the 5500 model (I have one of those too), which feels like a feather by comparison! For me, the extra weight is a a good trade-off, because the manual focus makes possible photos we thought we'd never get again, since we laid our optical SLRs to rest. The 6500 has gadgets and features galore, some of which are useful, some of which are "touristy" stuff which you won't use. It's also robust: I confess to having bounced mine several times, and stood on it once (accidentally!) and it's none the worse for wear.

Price-wise, you can turn one up for about $500, which makes it the best dollar-value, in my own experience. (It's little brother, the 5500 -- with 5MP and a smaller screen, and no real manual focus -- is available at about $350. If you can't use a heavy camera, look at the 5500.)



If you can afford to go to about $700 or so, do take a look at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, which has 8 MP and an 18x optical zoom, and uses SD cards, which are cheaper. The camera is a beauty, though stuffed with touristy features which you're paying for though you might never use them; and it's a little small. For those of us who are used to the "feel" of a big SLR body, and can therefore handle the Fuji comfortably, the Panasonic Lumix could take some getting used to. However, one drools over the Leica lens! The camera is not quite as sturdy as the Fuji ... you can also get it in silver as well as black. To me, cameras are black, so I've pasted in the catalog pic that shows this little number in black.

As per examples of the work from these two cameras, I can't show you anything from the Panasonic Lumix, but I can certainly show you a good cross-section of work from the Fuji ... and I'll be doing this tomorrow, since for today, I just ran out of time!



Ciao for now,
MK

Palin and McCain: advocating a new AIDS epidemic

It's all about the consequences to our actions. It's about the fallout from what we do, what we think ... what we force others to do; consequences that could be turning human lives into wreckage 50 years after we've been consigned to holes in the ground.

The United States, at this moment, stands at a crossroads. Voters can do a 180 and head back to safer roads. They can turn one way and forge ahead into an iffy future where there are no guarantees, but where intelligent, reasonable, compassionate and forward-thinking people work side by side to build a future we can actually live in. Or they can turn the other way, and cruise into the dystopian future which has been featured in several novels which, frankly, people like you and me find so bizarre and depressing, we can't even finish them.

Imagine an America where most people actually believe the very letter of the Bible .. the world WAS created 6,000 years ago, and sinners DO get burned in Hell, and the second coming is due NOW, so Armageddon in the form of a nuclear war with Russia, China, Iran, or whomever is an attractive proposition, because Judgement Day is hanging on the coattails of Amareggon, and the Faithful are going to be awarded their fluffy white wings by default.

Imagine an America spoiling for this war overseas, while at home educators and scientists are being arrested for teaching evolution ... 18 year olds are sucked up en masse to be trained for the army, according to military conscription regulations ... and no one, anywhere, can buy a condom because contraception has been banned.

Imaging being 16 or 18 in this world: terrified at the looming prospect of being drafted while the heads of state are trying to bully Russia into firing missiles, so that Armageddon can take place in their lifetime, landing them in the "garden of Eden on earth" which everyone who can't be stuffed into Heaven will inherit while the rest of our billions have been snuffed out for not measuring up to the standards of the entity in charge of this mass murder.

Imaging ... you're 17 ... you're gay, you've always known you were gay. You're dreading the army, either because you're a non-conformist; or because you know your secret will be out and you'll be victimized by instructors and peers alike. You don't have a choice about enlisting: you just GO when they tell you. And if you're victimized, it'll be your own fault, and you know some of the abuse is bound to be sexual ... and no one has a condom, because they're illegal.

You're 17 and gay, just coming out, or wanting to ... and the politicians are delighted to start World War III, because they have warm bodies by the millions to feed into uniform, and those politicians embrace Armageddon with open arms. You? You're gay, and you've been taught in school all about how the Christian all-father really DID create the world and all things in it ... so the Bible must be true, by extension ... and Hell. You're gay, you're going to burn.

And even if, in the wealth of your 17 year old wisdom, you don't believe a word of this guano, you still can't get a condom: they're illegal. You have 8 siblings under 12 years old, because your mother couldn't get birth control. She was doomed to multiple, redundant, irrelevant pregnancies, and you yourself are doomed to the Russian-roulette of unsafe sex, because an old man in a peculiarly-designed office with no corners, in an ostentatious building painted white all over, believes that contraception in any form is against his God.

Not your God. His. You could be a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Daoist, Confucian, Jew, Shintoist, Sikh, Wiccan, Jat, Jane, Shamanist, Spiritualist ... not good enough. You live in the old man's country, you obey the laws of his God.

His God says that you have no privilege of safe sex. If you have sex at all, married or not, gay or not, you must run the risk of pregnancy (at best), STDs if you're unlucky, and, at worst, death. AIDS.

The old man has a co-conspirator, a younger woman who believes just as he does. She's such a believer, her teenage daughter has been raised to be so ignorant, she's unwed, underage, pregnant ... and seemingly proud of it. Proud of the blind, idiotic ignorance, that is ... she doesn't know any better, and is happy not knowing.

Very soon, in this scenario, no young people will know any better -- or, if they do, they're caught between a rock and a hard place ... they're kids with rampaging hormones. Gay or straight -- it hardly matters. They're 16, and if they don't want to get pregnant, or get sick and dead, they're facing a lifetime of celibacy.

Imagine: you're 17 and gay, knowing for a fact that God is going to burn you as a miserable sinner when you die, and you'll never have sex as long as you live -- if you want to live very long that is, because AIDS is waiting for you, since safe sex was legislated to be as illegal as grand theft auto, insider trading and abduction.

Fact: The only thing that slowed the AIDS epidemic in thinking, rational, realistic free world countries was sex education and free access to condoms.

Fact: Sarah Palin and John McCain oppose sex education and contraception.

Fact: Abstinence for birth control or safe sex is utterly ineffective.

Fact: ban contraception, and the population will blow out on one hand, while AIDS will quickly return to the epidemic proportions we all feared 20 years ago.

Fact: Continental North America cannot support a population of 500 million plus, where everyone wants the right to live the American lifestyle. The resources are not there to allow the lifestyle; the big population means everyone has to accept a lot less ... except the mega-rich and the politicians, of course ... while the atmosphere declines, the climate continues to change, the oceans gradually expire, and global food reserves plummet.

Imagine an America 50 years from now, with 750 million people, most living in second world conditions, some sitting along drought-stricken roadways, dressed in rags, and holding out their rice bowls as better-off folks pass by. The very poor are starving. The children are the worst; big-bellied and hollow-eyed, 40% of them were born with AIDS; they won't live to be adults, even if someone feeds them as they drive by. Fuel is as scarce as food; when the giant storms come through, and the forest fires and earthquakes and tornadoes, there are too few resources to fight them, or pick up the pieces afterward. And the gay community...

The gay community is very small, as it always has been, and must be, since being gay is comparatively rare in the community at large. The gay community supports its own, in secret societies where people stick together, share what little they have ... and everyone is a criminal. They're smugglers, or they buy and use smuggled goods, both of which which carry a hefty prison sentence.

They smuggle condoms, and some of them are getting rich off it. America has a history of this; this bizarre, absurd scenario has happened before. Last time, it was booze, and it was called Prohibition. Some of 2008's massive fortunes go back to the booze smuggling operations. In 2060, it's the condom smugglers who're getting rich.

Condoms are smuggled in from Africa, where it's easy to get them because Europe, the UN, the WHO and so on, literally bomb Africa with them, to keep AIDS and the population under control. But the UK and WHO are not allowed to bomb America with them. There's another old man in a weird room with no corners whose God won't allow it.

However, the WHO can supply the contraband, if a few brave, foolhardy people will run the gauntlet of the Secret Service, the Army -- all the high-tech security services that were whipped into shape to fight the War Against Terror. Those systems are already in place; for the love of God and the hope of Salvation, conscripted 18 year olds who've been indoctrinated in Bible-babble all their lives, will turn the high-tech against the contraceptive smugglers ... and why not? They're only fags, only poofs, aren't they? They're going to burn in Hell eventually anyway, why not send them there right now -- who says it's not their time to go and start a-roasting? SMS to Satan: fire up ovens nxt bunch hedng ur way.

The new generation of heroes run the gauntlet of God's Own, flying light planes under the radar and landing in remote places. They're gay, they're smart, they're going to survive his long, slow holocaust: it is written that The Crash is coming, very soon. Climate, weather, over-population, drought, famine, rampaging incurable disease -- it's been coming on since the presidential elections of 2008, it's been a half century slide to the very gates of hell, but at the end it will be frighteningly quick.

The great storms of 2059. The drought years of 2047-59. The famine of the 2040s and 50s. And the AIDS pandemic of 2045-62 which, at its height, killed 400 million people, when the dead were buried in mass graves, because the resources were unavailable to deal with them properly ... though there was plenty of praying over the corpses. For what that was worth.

It was the AIDS that provided the final straw. The Army and security services were riddled with it, because of the illegality of condoms and the indoctrination which made forcibly conscripted gay kids into too-easy targets. When the army collapsed, in the same year as the famine, drought, water shortages, storms, fires, and pandemic ... it was all over.

Except for the gay community, which supported and protected its own, and from which the future's new heroes had already emerged.

...

This scenario is science fiction, but its foundations are being set in concrete right now. You don't believe me? I'm going to give you a bunch of links ... not to SF and fiction sites, but to political sites. Go there. Read. Think. Each one of these links will also click through to many others ... click there. Read. The facts are front of you. (And, you think the Islamic extremists are not laughing up their sleeves at this three-ringed circus, and encouraging the likes of Palin and McCain? They stand to win the God War, hands down, without firing another shot ... and anyone in the rest of the world who can see what's happening is already running scared.)

http://www.americablog.com/2008/07/what-is-john-mccains-problem-with-birth.html What is John McCain's problem with birth control?
[Outtake: ...it's not that McCain didn't want to talk about Viagra. It's that he didn't want to talk about birth control. And it's not that McCain isn't familiar with either the pill or Viagra -- it's that for McCain, birth control is a politically touchy subject.Believe it or not, many wingers think birth control should be made illegal. Case in point: Mike Huckabee. And McCain doesn't want to run afoul of them.


http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2006/4/24/the-antiabortion-t-shirt-is-here150is-the-no.html The antiabortion T-shirt is here–is the no-birth-control bumper sticker next?
[ Outtake: Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Susan Paynter writes today that birth control is the next target for religious conservatives (and by inference, their president). She received an E-mail from a Christian antiabortion group called No Room for Contraception. She writes that it said, "There can be no common ground [on birth control], the No Room folks objected, insisting that no 'artificial contraception' of any kind can be effective in preventing abortion."
She goes on, "And, just recently when Page [an abortion-rights author] was debating Jim Sedlak of the American Life League, she asked him about the sweeping South Dakota abortion ban. His response? It isn't a perfect law. If it were a perfect law, it would ban contraception, too, he said."
So, ladies and gents, hang on to, or perhaps, stock up on, your pills, IUDs, and condoms, 'cause they're next.]


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jan-schakowsky/warning-to-women-mccain-p_b_125809.html Warning to Women [and the community! -MK]: McCain-Palin are Dangerous to Your Well-Being
[Outtake: * Speaking of rape, when Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, her police department charged victims of rape for the rape kits that are needed for investigating this devastating crime. These kits cost between $300 and $1200. It took a state law passed in 2000 to stop the practice in Wasilla. Alaska Governor Tony Knowles said at the time, "We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence. Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies."* It's bad enough to be anti-choice, but those two are really anti-birth control too. McCain voted that even insurance companies that cover Viagra don't have to cover prescription birth control.* They are against teaching about sex, despite the problems of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as the challenge of teen pregnancies. Both McCain and Palin are for abstinence-only sex education and against comprehensive, age-appropriate health education.]



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090102305.html TheLesson of Bristol Palin
[ Outtake: The 2008 Republican Party platform acknowledges that "each year, more than 3 million American teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases, causing emotional harm and serious health consequences, even death." It expresses support for "efforts to educate teens and parents about the health risks associated with early sexual activity and provide the tools needed to help teens make healthy choices."
Then it adds, "Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases."
Yes, but talking about abstinence turns out to be easier than abstaining. More than 60 percent of high school seniors report having had sex at least once. The message that every family should take from Bristol Palin's pregnancy is: It can happen here. The 2008 Republican Party platform acknowledges that "each year, more than 3 million American teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases, causing emotional harm and serious health consequences, even death." It expresses support for "efforts to educate teens and parents about the health risks associated with early sexual activity and provide the tools needed to help teens make healthy choices."
Then it adds, "Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases."
Yes, but talking about abstinence turns out to be easier than abstaining. More than 60 percent of high school seniors report having had sex at least once. The message that every family should take from Bristol Palin's pregnancy is: It can happen here.]

Anyone for a Valium? Or two?!

Clooney and Pitt to star in hot gay scifi action thriller

Top news for gay flicks fans

KINS, San Francisco, September 10, 2008 -- It's the news gay flicks fans have waited years to hear. Pink Flamingo Pictures and Urban Streaker Productions present a Tommy Lee Castro Film, a hot, gay, sci-fi action-thriller starring your two favorite, hottest, hunkiest Hollywood heroes.

MARTIAN BOYS ARE EASY will shoot in Death Valley (a red desert location doubling for Olympus Mons and various other parts of the Red Planet), in this epic gay movie featuring space battles, gun fights, hot bods, fast cars, bare butts, full-frontals and huge explosions.

Director Tommy Lee Castro is delighted to have signed the two performers who have have uplifted gay audiences for years. Biff Clooney and Billy Bob Pitt III signed last night, at a pre-launch party in JoJo Bazooka's, the famous 24/7 strip club in Vegas, where Castro was subsequently reportedly dancing naked on a table with Clooney and Pitt

In the last five years, Biff Clooney has starred in such thrilling gay epics as BLACK LEATHER AND A FEW HARD MEN, and F**KING IN THE FAST LANE, while Billy Bob Pitt III wowed audiences in BOTTOMS UP IN ACAPULCO, and the award-winning "Martin Shortfuse mystery," THE CUCUMBER VANISHES.

Expect MARTIAN BOYS ARE EASY for the summer of 2009, with CG effects by Industrial Lighthouse Mouses, and an epic musical score by Harold H. Zimmer Jr., and K Ernest Williams.

Expect Clooney and Pitt for beers at Big Dick Cannon's BBQ Smokehouse on the evening of September 13 ... all welcome, but BYO boyfriends, entertainment not provided (conditions apply.)

KINS (Keegan's Idiotic News Service) is a new news service, bringing you the very latest in hot gay goss from the little studio in the back of Mick Parkinson's basment.

Was it an AC/DC ice age?

When you're writing a big fantasy novel, trying to give it full justice (not just churn out another hack-em-up story about evil wizards, axe-wielding barbarians, sensuality in exotic locations, battling demons, monsters and ... the usual fare), your mind goes off in some weird and wonderful directions.

Bear with me, while I elaborate! THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE is set in a kind of "parallel Earth" which could be contemporary with our time, or could be 50,000 years in the past: it's impossible to tell, because (as I said a few posts ago) the events triggering the shift in the parallel timestreams between their world and ours happened so long ago, it actually decided where tectonics would go, and ocean rising patterns. In other words, even their land masses are different, though it's clearly the same planet: the sun, the moon, gravity, the general climate, animals and vegetation, the human genome ... all the same.

So this world clearly evolved along the same lines (a horse is a horse, a grape vine still produces fermentable fruit ...), so it's a safe bet that the process of evolution itself is the same.

Now, LORDS has a technology about even with Europe's middle fifteen century: steel, textiles, glass, architecture, lathing, intensive agriculture, road building, paper, bookbinding ... no steam or electricity yet, but they know their chemistry.

Setting the technology gives you a good grasp of what the culture would look like, on a superficial level: these people don't dress in bearskins and live in caves; they're well dressed and shod, carry fine swords, live in sophisticated buildings, have domesticated their animals ...

But the development of political structure, mythology and spirituality, philosophy and art, morality and sexuality, are only tangentially connected to the evolution of technology -- and the jury is still out as per the relationship between the two. Does one drive the other? If so, which one is driving? Theories abound, and that's still all they are: theories.

So, going through THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE again ... rewriting, adding to, cutting from, polishing, renaming things according to newly-set lingual rules ... I soon found myself thumping my head against a question which has always been there, for every human being; but few people ever notice it, much less tackle it.

Evolution was designed by Mama Nature to create the best, biggest, strongest, smartest critter, which would inherit the planet. The mechanism of evolution is simple: "sex+time+death" ... critters share chromosomes, raise kids, and proptly kick the bucket to make way for the next generation; repeat process over 750,000 years, and a whole new species will be created.

So, how in the hell did the "gay gene" develop? (This makes the assumption that being gay is genetic ... the research is still unfinished, but something is *probably* going on in a bunch of DNA known as Xq28, we just don't know what (yet) and it's so damned expensive to do this research, it could be a looooong time before we know anything for sure. (And in any case, who wants to know? Am I the only one with the squirmy feeling that if "they" can trace being gay to a gene, "they" can develop a therapy and a "cure" ...?)

The Natural History of Homosexuality is a book you could see on the shelves in another five or ten years -- with David Attenborough narrating its documentary series for BBC2, explaining how Homo Habilis, and Homo Erectus (I kid you not; look him up), Neanderthals and Cro Magnons had a developing society 100,000 years before anyone twigged to the fact that it's sex between men and women that (!) makes babies.

Now, before folks made that fine distinction, what earthly objection could people have had to the fact that maybe 10% of people chose to settle down and build a nest with people of their own gender? Surely, the objection of the community at large to its gay component came about when the god emperors and pharaohs realized that they needed to breed up big, new armies -- it was an era when battlefield deaths could account for fifty thousand men in a single day. Again, look it up. Believe what they show you in ALEXANDER and TROY and GLADIATOR, and so forth.

It makes sense (at least to me) that the god emperors would forbid a person to be gay, on pain of death, because they need bodies for the army. Then along come the "true faith" religions (arising in the exact same location as the god kings with their monstrous armies), and they cemented the whole thing into place. Fast forward 2000 years, and we're still trying to get out from under the yoke of oppression that began when Hamurabi or Ramses, or whomever, had to be able to throw a hundred thousand men into a massive battle -- and then, less than a generation later, do it again.

Where this line of thinking is going, is this: today's surviving homophobia is the result of the empire building in the ancient world, with their cynical, man-made laws which were later concreted in by the "true faith" religions which still set the patterns of our own world.

(The prejudice against, and oppression of, women could be traced to the same root cause: enslave 'em and keep 'em pregnant ... bodies for the army. And also, prior to people knowing that it's sex between different genders that makes babies, there would have been nada, zero, nothing to be gained from oppressing women. Duh.)

Now, against this, you've got evolution still working in the background ... but Mama Nature was never interested in empire building. She just wants to make bigger, better, faster, stronger, smarter individuals. Okay: gays don't have so many kids, but -- Nature being Nature -- the gay component of the community at large is only ever quite small. So the expression of gay genes is restricted to a quite small sub-community which bumbles on happily in the background for millennia...

Until one day something called "the homophobe's paradox" raises its peculiar head. Now ... I'm not sure if I believe a word of this, and it's NOT my idea. But I have to admit, it's worth thinking about because it does make a weird kind of sense --

However, it's not the paradox itself I want to direct your attention to in the following outtake from an article in DISCOVER ... it's the response to it, which nailed the absolute truth with such accuracy, it's as if a searchlight turned on. If I might therefore direct you to the second of these two paragraphs...!

The model shows that over centuries an effect you might call the homophobe’s paradox has been at work on the human genome: The more intolerant the society, the more likely it is to maintain gay genes. If a society’s conventions keep homosexuals in the closet, then they will be more likely to conform, get married, and have children. This is especially true if gay genes are also responsible for making women more fecund. Imagine, for instance, that for every extra child that such a gay gene–carrying woman has, a gay man can have one fewer and the balance necessary for the survival of the gene is still maintained. The more children he has, thanks to what his contemporaries demand of him, the less evolutionary pressure there is for his female counterpart to have more. “As a society becomes more intolerant, there’s more pressure to have offspring,” says Gavrilets. “The real [evolutionary] cost of being homosexual isn’t too big if you’re forced to have kids.” On the other hand, the more tolerant the society, the more gay men can be free to be who they are, so the more likely they will be childless—and the more difficult it will be for any female in the family to make up for the loss.

“Bullshit,” says Bocklandt. “A mathematical model is a nice exercise, a mental masturbation about how these things could work, but it makes better sense to do that once we know a bit more. One of the problems that none of the mathematical models take into account is that we have no idea what it meant to be gay 10,000 years ago. We have some idea what it meant 200 years ago but not 10,000.”

[Source: DISCOVER Magazine - Mind & Brain / Sex & Gender: "The Real Story on Gay Genes" link]

You see the searchlight going on? In a world before the god emperors and the massive armies ... in a world before anyone knew what alchemy made a baby ... in a society where there was nothing to be gained from oppressing women and forcing people to be heterosexual in order to keep up the baby boom, bodies for the army ...

How much d'you wanna bet that about 10,000 years ago, before the dawn of writing (which means we'll never know the truth, because no one was writing it down), there were some wild, exotic, potentially gorgeous societies. Robert E. Howard, who wrote the Conan stories, penned this line: "In the time before the oceans drank Atlantis, there was an age undreamed of."

Woah. I mean, seriously -- woah.

Now, excuse me, if I go get back into THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE!

And now, some completely gratuitous pictures ... because I feel like it ... but you take my meaning, right? (Photos are all production and publicity still from ALEXANDER and acknowledged as such. Click on an image for a larger view.)





And just to make sure your sense of spacetime is thoroughly stuffed up for the remainder of the day:

One final, parting goodie: if you're interested in the human journey, from our ancestral primate beginnings to who we are (biologically speaking) today, don't miss this:

The Journey of Mankind.

Have a good one,
MK