I have a character in the short story ShutEye who gives her life for a love she knows she can never have, because it’s the right thing for the greater good. There’s a character in Best Shot (being shopped) who will…
Category: Essay
Nazi Anything
Sometimes writing takes a back seat, as it should, to reality. We spend a lot of time, in this Trumpian, Facebookish era, endlessly macerating previous texts, quotes, and media. It’s easier, it’s true, to quote others than to write one’s own clever…
“Last Run” Progress Report
After a lot of editing and wiping of cruft the novel stands at about 104k, and still has the main drama in front of it. I’m an unrepentant pantser, which means story outlines aren’t part of my usual practice. What that means,…
Words, badly used
A quote from the Jerusalem Post: “The warning comes after multiple mortar rounds, emanating from Syria, landed in Israeli territory near the border.” I lobbed the smell of roast chicken out the oven door.
On Language, Lies, and Reality
The British voters supported the referendum proposal to leave the EU. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (which describes the exit process, as as 261 words can) requires that the constitutionally represented leadership call for the cancellation of the treaty. Oops. Britain does…
Fake Magic Words to Keep Programming Cool & Mysterious
In preparation for a set of developer interviews I’ve been boning up on the “basics:” testing, objects, algorithms, etc. I approached testing with trepidation, as I (a) know what needs to go into it, and (b) know EXACTLY how little…
Scotland the Brave
Full Disclosure: I think an independent Scotland would be WAY cool. Sane disclosure: I think an independent Scotland is a _great_ idea. Except for the whole “we’ve been together for centuries and splitting things would be horrible.” As a very liberal…
“The Press,” mass media and bloggers
One of the keystones when I read the New York Times in its staining, non-soy-ink edition, at the tail end of it’s black-and-white “Grey Lady” era was the language. Reporters wrote, editors edited and their bosses vetted articles for publication. “All…
Companies, the new Golem
In Citizen’s United, the Supreme Court awarded citizenship to corporations. Now, the same majority on the Court ruled that family-held companies, whatever the size, can have a religion. The golem of the corporation as a person arises, one step at…
On “Truth” in the Triumvirate of the “American Way”
Dr. Tyson’s latest edition of Cosmos focused on leaded gasoline and a scientist’s unanticipated fight to stop it’s use as a side-effect of his work on cosmology. It’s a quaint, simplistic and, with the animation, almost naive approach to the story (although…