Send a "Thanks, George" Note to Senator Voinovich!

I was reading Leslie Turek's blog where she quoted from Debra Pickett's column in the Chicago Sun-Times. Pickett wrote about many current events, focusing on Senator Voinovich's moving speech on voting against John Bolton last week. I think Voinovich deserves a thank-you note from all of us who are being completely ignored by our Republican senators. So, I did. Voinovich did a very courageous thing last week, and we should support him for it.

Moderation Comments and Novel Progress

Three cheers for the return of moderation to the Senate (and maybe even the House). It would be nice to not loose our country to the loony fringe.

I continue to work on my novel in fits and starts. Last week, while I looked at my novel quite a lot, I really wrote very little. Over the last few days, I've started to make progress again, so I'm up to 71,000 words. So I'm continuing with my recent average of about 1000 words a day.

I'm going to be busy the next couple of days, but then Memorial Day weekend should be pretty quiet (other than a likely trip to the Ethnic Festival and a family picnic over in Crafton).

Medical Services: Central Massachusetts Versus Western Pennsylvania

I'm not sure where to start/where to go with this discussion, but I'm puzzled.

I live in Western Pennsylvania. We're all in reasonable health, but we all tend to have nuisance ailments like gastritis and allergies. We have HealthAmerica, and have never had any trouble getting treatment or tests for anything. For example, my doctor told me to have my sinuses X-rayed the next time I wasn't having an active sinus infection. I called last Wednesday, and got CAT scan appointment for next Monday. The ability to always get tests within a reasonable time has always been reassuring, partcularly since we have a high percentage of the elderly in our area.

My mother lives in Central Massachusetts. She's in her 70s, lives on her own, is in reasonable health, but has been having more age-realted health problems. Last fall, she had a major knee problem and it took her weeks to get all the tests she needed, and she didn't have surgery on it for something like four months after her injury. Currently, her doctor thinks she may have had a mini-stroke because her memory has gotten quite bad recently. But it's going to take her a month to get a CAT scan!! Now, I'd always thought medical care was reasonbly good in Central Mass (UMass Medical School is right there, Fallon is right there), so why does it take over a month to get tests for a potentially dangerous condition?

Is health care being rationed to the elderly? After her knee injury, my mother couldn't walk for a few days and wound up getting one of the last orthopedic beds in a rehab facility. Is health care merely incompetently managed in Central Massachusetts? What's up?

Mini Review and Commentary on Revenge of the Sith

We went to the 9am showing out at the Waterfront. The theater was probably about 1/4 full (but the 3, 5, and 7 pm showings were all listed as being sold out). No one was in any costume at 9am - I was wearing my "May the Force Be With You" button that I'd gotten at the Star Wars premire 28 years ago.

I thought it was very good but not great - probably a 7 on the IMDB rating scale, maybe even an 8 because I thought the last hour was much stronger than the first.

The first half hour or so is one solid video game - all sound and fury, signifying very little. It gets a little more interesting in the quieter moments, until an awkward Lucas line hits, or Hayden Christiansen looks more uncomfortable than dangerous. The effects are great, but because there so many special effects it seems like overkill after a while.

The final battle is pretty good, and there is a frighteningly ironic detail that shows you how Vader survives his encounter with hell.

The acting is all over the place, but it's mostly pretty good, led by very strong performances by Ian McDarmind (Palpatine) and Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan). Christiansen is certainly stronger in this movie than in Attack of the Clones, but still doesn't quite pull it off. Natalie Portman is good as Padme but is given depressingly little to do. It would have been nice to see more of Jimmy Smits. Yoda has become the best CGI character since Gollum.

This week, we watched episodes I & II before going to the theater to see episode III, and we watched episodes IV & V after seeing Sith. The earlier movies have a kind of visual elegance to them that's almost totally lacking in the current set (with a couple of exceptions in III, and cribbing from Dinotopia in II). Some special effects gurus feel compelled to fill up the screen with just more effects. This doesn't necessarily make a better movie.

***Comments on how it should have been*** **sorta spoilers**

There is a wonderful scene in Return of the Jedi between Luke and Leia, where they talk about their parents. Leia has a line where she simply says "I remember my mother. She was so beautiful...and so sad," as if she'd known her biological mother, and her mother had died when Leia was a little girl (and not just when Alderan is blown up in Star Wars). I'd always hoped that Padme survived childbirth, perhaps being presented as a queen on Alderan, to raise Leia as her daughter. Since Leia is, also, raised by an adoptive mother, that line won't feel the same the next time I see Return of the Jedi (probably this weekend!).

I thought it was a terrible cheat to not show Annikan slaughtering the Jedis-in-training. We saw him slaughter everyone else, and the movie was rated PG-13 for a reason! I'm not advocating blood and guts, just honest, on-camera proof of what a monster Vader had become.

More Voting Screw-ups

Well, we all know how things went in November? Think things are any better?

Apparently not.

I had no problem voting in November. I went to vote today and learned my voter registration change (I'd changed from Independent to Democrat in late January when I renewed my driver's license) didn't go through. So I was still listed as an Independent. Meaning I didn't get to cast a vote against Michael Diven *sigh* At least I could still vote yes for both ballot questions.

So the Mount Lebanon poll worker was really quick to blame the Department of Motor Vehicles. Said she'd heard the same story from other people. But I wonder where the problem really was? Was it with the DMV? The County Board of Elections? The Mount Lebanon board? Who knows? I will write a letter to the Allegheny County Board of Elections today to complain. This is ridiculous - it shouldn't take over three months to change your party!

Star Wars in All Its Forms - Honeymooning with Wookiees

We've been getting in the spirit of the upcoming Star Wars finale by watching the movies. We watched Phantom Menace on Friday and Attack of the Clones last night.

I've always enjoyed the movies, though George Lucas put spectacle in front of story for the most recent Star Wars movies. One thing I've always loved about the Lord of the Rings movies is that the story is so strong, Peter Jackson would have to have been a major idiot to let the special effects overwhelm it. The Star Wars saga, while certainly interesting, isn't as rich a story as LOTR, and much of the recent two movies felt like the movie was going from one video game to another.

It's particularly funny that Galaxy Quest, which came out in 1999, perfectly satirized the stupid "clone factory" sequence in Attack of the Clones, which didn't come out until 2002!

[thanks to IMDB for this relevant quote:
Gwen DeMarco: What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn't have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?
Jason Nesmith: 'Cause it's on the television show.
Gwen DeMarco: Well forget it, I'm not doing it, this episode was badly written.
]

But, anyway, I do look forward to seeing Revenge of the Sith this week. I think thse are all hopeful signs: the movie is dark, not for young kids and that Jar-Jar has no dialog!

The Post Gazette had a great Star Wars tribute today. I enjoyed the trivia test, particularly becuse I scored a 71 on it! ["The Force is strong with you, and the Jedi Council is preparing a seat for you"]

How much of a fan was I of the first three movies? Oh, a pretty major fan. A few years ago, I wrote Honeymooning with Wookiees, which was about my life as a 20-year-old Star Wars fan and newlywed.

Good News/Bad News Kind of a Day

Well, first the bad news - I didn't get hired for a full time job, but at least they wrote to me to tell me so (unlike another place where I had an in-person interview a few months back and never heard a thing).

But, in some ways, that's kind of good news. I'm still making progress on the novel and am up to 63,000 words.

I've been working more this week on the Growing Greener II primary ballot initiative. Remember, even if you're a registered Independent, you can still go and vote for ballot questions (like Growing Greener II if you live anywhere in Pennsylvania, and reducing the number of row offices if you live in Allegheny county).

Non-Smoking Restaurants and that Novel Obsession....

We've discovered another two restaurants considerate of non-smokers in the Pittsburgh area: Red Robin (out at the Waterfront, just down the street from Loew's) and Il Pizziola in Mt. Lebanon. Even better - Il Pizziola has added a non-smoking wine bar in the back, a place Jim and I will try out some night soon. We're at the point with restaurants that if we have to choose between a restaurant that permits smoking and one that is smoke-free, we'll always choose the smoke-free restaurant. And we really don't go to bars very often when we're at home as a result. Molly Brannigan's in Mt. Lebanon has turned out to be something of a disappointment. The food is erratic, and the "non-smoking bar" often isn't.

Sorry for my novel obsession, but I did reach 57,000 words this morning. I still work on it in fits and starts. Sometimes, I'll spend an hour or so just rearranging a few words. Other times, I write steadily for a couple of hours and find I finished a sticky scene or had added another 2,000 words. I'm working some for my old employer as a contractor, and soon I know I'll have a pile of database work to do for Interaction Programme. I haven't heard back yet on the interesting full-time job I interviewed for last week, and hope to hear either way soon.

Spring in Pittsburgh

Two signs, one a little old but one from today, that spring is really here:



I'm not sure what the salmon-colored flowers are, but we thought they were pretty so we'd planted a bunch of them.



We live on a busy street, so seeing some three deer in our teeny-tiny back yard during rush hour was a tad disconcerting. They stayed long enough for a photo session, then wandered away. We alerted the Mt. Lebanon police to warn them about this possible traffic hazard.



I've been doing some contract work for PennFuture recently. It involved mostly database work, but I've been distributing posters for the Growing Greener II referendum on May 17. I brought posters to Shadyside and Squirrel Hill yesterday, and to the South Side yesterday. I lived in Shadyside in the late '70s and wish I could afford to live there again!

My novel has been coming along slowly this week, because in addition to the contract work, I also had a very lengthy and interesting job interview yesterday. I'll probably hit at least 51,000 words tonight. Tomorrow, we'll probably go see Kingdom of Heaven. I like that it's both ambiguous and doesn't have a tight narrative structure - it was about a war, after all! I don't like that it seems to have put crossbows about 400 years early in time, but...

Up to 45,000 Words...

I hit 45,000 words today. Well over 1/2 way through it.

I've been envisioning this story for a while, since at least late 2000. The first chapter hasn't really changed much in over four years. Just after I wrote the first chapter, I realized what the structure of the novel would be, and have pretty much stuck to that structure.

Of course, some of the details have changed, but the character arcs are basically intact. And during most of the last four years, I really didn't have all that much of the novel actually written. I was up to about 17,000 words as of about six weeks ago, and have written over 28,000 words since then (probably closer to 30,000, but have periodically gone back and pruned). I also keep jumping around what I'm writing. Now that the beginning is solid, I'm mostly writing chapters in the middle and chapters near the end.

Now that I'm having some success at getting the writing done, a contract job is beckoning and I'll have a second interview for a permanent job that sounds pretty interesting. It never rains but it pours...

Letter to Senator Specter on S. 786

I appeal to you to please not vote for Senator Santorum's S. 786 - National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005. As written, it could privitize the excellent online services already provided by National Weather Service. It sounds like an act written only to protect the business of AccuWeather in State College - it again puts the interest of a private business (and contributor to Senator Santorum's re-election campaign) above the interests of the taxpayer.

Where will this kind of behavior end? Can we rely on at least one of our senators in Pennsylvania to care at all about its citizens?

Sincerely,

Laurie D. T. Mann
Mount Lebanon, PA

My Linguistic Profile...

45% Yankee

35% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I'm not sure how 5% Dixie crept into my speech as I've never lived further south than southern Ohio... The rest of it makes sense.

Santorum Bought by AccuWeather, Lock, Stock and Barrel

Do you think you have a right to get free weather information from the government's weather service? Rick doesn't think so - he thinks his constituants who own AccuWeather in State College should control online access to weather information. He's filed legislation (S. 786) that would, essentially, force much government meteorological information off-line. The relevant part states:

(b) COMPETITION WITH PRIVATE SECTOR- The Secretary of Commerce shall not provide, or assist other entities in providing, a product or service (other than a product or service described in subsection (a)(1)) that is or could be provided by the private sector unless--

(1) the Secretary determines that the private sector is unwilling or unable to provide such product or service; or

(2) the United States Government is obligated to provide such product or service under international aviation agreements to provide meteorological services and exchange meteorological information.

In short, since AccuWeather is in the private sector, it means that the NOAA Web site (http://www.erh.noaa.gov) and its data could be forced off the Web.

This is a typical Republican response - protect your corporate pals at all costs. Never mind that citizens, scientists and other people whose taxes have already paid for the collection of the data can't access it as easily. Just keep your buddies employed.

Thanks to The Daily Kos for picking up on this - no one in the Pittsburgh media seems to have yet.

Yet another reason that Rick must be voted out next year. If you need any more evidence, read DumpRick (yes, I know it's another Web site I own...).

Progress Continues on the Novel

I hit 37,000 words this afternoon, which I suspect is somewhere close to being half way through. If I continue at my current pace, I should be done in June.

I spent last weekend in California, in Palo Alto, which is becoming one of my favorite places in the country. One of the colleges I'd considered going to over thirty years ago was Stanford, just because it sounded so wonderful. Last week, I got to visit Stanford, and was very much impressed.

Jim and I went to Palo Alto to work on the scheduling of the Programme for this year's Worldcon, which will be in Glasgow. Scotland. Only in fandom! After a weekend of dealing with Post-It Notes on a large board, we went to Gilroy for dinner with Jim's employees and his boss. Then Jim stayed in California for a week of IBM meetings, and I came home on Monday.

Missing in Action: Environmental Protection Agencies...

I spent last week working on Pittsburgh 2005: Conference on Health and Environment. It was a fascinating conference. As I wound up helping with A/V during the conference itself, I got to hear a number of researchers and public policy folks give very interesting talks on medical and public health issues around the environment.

This conference attracted about 250 folks from all over the northeast, probably about 1/3rd reserachers, 1/3rd activists and 1/3rd others. There were even a few people from the Centers for Disease Control, which was good - at least one governmental agency was paying some attention.

However, one agency that seemed to be completely unrepresented was the Environmental Protection Agency. There did not seem to be anyone from either the federal or the state EPA at this environmental and health conference.

Why not?

In the case of the federal EPA, it shouldn't be a big surprise. When was the last time the federal EPA considered health more important than business? I was a little more disappointed by the state EPA's failure to show up, but given the state had just given permission for a coke plant to blast even more mercury into our environment, I shouldn't have been surprised about that, either. Heavy metal toxicity is probably going to be a bigger problem to our health than nuclear power ever was threatened to be.

If Ya Can't Beat 'Em...The Unitarian Jihad (Reform) Strikes Again!

I saw the Unitarian Jihad comments from Jon Carroll all over the place, both in political and SF-related blogs over the last few days.

So I decided to join the reform movement...

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Switchblade of Moderation. What's yours?

This is kind of ironic as Mary Kay Kare, who looks a little like me but is rather smaller than I am, got to be the "Flaming Sword of Moderation." So does that mean I'm more moderate than she, or less? ;->

Been working on the novel more. It keeps getting darker and more marginally sfnal. Oh well, and there I was going for a contemporary novel with a few satiric twists. I hit 29,000 words today, after a few days of working on a local conference and recovering from that.

Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace

Russell wrote the splendid The Sparrow and Children of God in the late '90s, and went on to win the Campbell Award for best new writer. Then she spent the next seven or so years researching and writing A Thread of Grace, a book about the Holocaust set against the background of the Italian resistance, 1943-1945.

The book works pretty well on many levels, but it is a little hard to follow. However, as you finish it you understand why she had so many characters and so many locales and why this is so important to the story.

Russell's ability to write completely haunting scenes is very much in evidence in this book. One near the end caused me to burst out crying in a public location and will stay with me for a very long time (luckily, I was alone and managed to pull myself together before anyone happened by).

I highly recommend this book, though it's a shame that the one scene set in 2007 probably isn't enough to to make it nominatable for the Hugo next year. However, no doubt that this book is much closer to history than to speculative fiction.

Really Writing, Not Just Tinkering

So up until about three weeks ago, I had about 17,000 words of a novel on my PC, one I started thinking of about four years ago. From time to time, I'd change a word here or there, but really made little progress.

I've written nearly 6,000 words over the least three weeks, and still have some notes and miscellaneous scenes not yet online that I still plan to integrate. So I might have close to 30,000 words total. The story is taking an unexpected turn or two, but the basic outline is the same I came up with in early 2001.

Working on the novel has been slowed a little by my temporary job (which will be over in less than a week) and still doing some Briany History work. Still, I seem to be making progress.

Ayelet Waldman's Excellent Adventure

I've been a huge fan of Michael Chabon since I read The Mysteries of Pittsburgh back in the '80s. He went on to write The Wonder Boys and the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay. A few years back, he came to Pittsburgh to do an informal signing at Jay's Bookstall, and brought along his wife, Ayelet Waldman and their then-youngest daughter.

I was unfamiliar with Ayelet's writing, bought one of her novels, read it, and rather liked it considering that I really don't care for mysteries. Last year, I read Daughter's Keeper, which I generally liked quite a bit more. Today, I found she'd written an essay published by The New York Times on sex and parenthood. It was very honest and fairly funny. I found her (sadly now defunct) blog and her Salon essays. I really like that Ayelet is willing to write about many things that many of us think about but don't quite have the courage to publish!

Dancing Naked Was Nominated for a Hugo!

Phil sent me the good news on Monday night, so other than telling some friends, I haven't been able to say anything here until Interaction announced it officially today. Dancing Naked got a nomination for Best Related Book. Phil's really happy about this, and so am I. We both worked very hard on this book and am glad it has gotten some recognition.

Phil is unable to attend Worldcon due to a problem with his passport, which is a particular shame this year!



NESFA Press, an amature press, did something only one professional press did this year - it has two books nominated for Hugos. Peter Weston's With Stars in My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom was also nominated. Orbit also had two books nominated for Hugos; other publishers only had one each. Oddly, Tor, which usually publishes the best SF books and generally has at least one book nominated, has no books on the ballot this year.

Full 2005 Hugo Nomination List