A Political Fantasy For A Sunny Spring Morning

     [As I’m rather tired today, have a bit of whimsy that I posted at the old Eternity Road site on October 8, 2011. The ideas in it still tickle me – FWP]

* * *

     As one who writes frequently on political topics, I am of course given to the occasional bout of daydreaming, as in: If Fran Porretto were given the privilege of completely rewriting the American political system, how would it look?

     Most such daydreams should not be published at a family-friendly website, as they involve far too much rope and far too many lampposts. But now and then, an idea spools itself out that might...just...work...

     Much of our current trouble stems from the severe diminution of the sense of responsibility, at every level of our political structure. It's gotten worse as Washington has sucked all power and authority upward, out of the states and lesser political units, thus increasing the distance between the supposedly sovereign citizen and those who make the laws and dispose of his tax money. Representative governance, where the representatives and executives are chosen by popular vote, cannot be completely shorn of that tendency. However, it can be mitigated by reinforcing those aspects of the system that conserve responsibility and removing or weakening those aspects that reduce responsibility.

FWP's New Order Of The Ages:

     Start from the Constitution of the United States, as it stands, but with the following revisions:

     Have the Electoral College choose the president and vice-president directly, without reference to anyone's nominees. That process gave us six genuinely great chief executives in a row. It would also put a stake through the heart of the political parties, which have deserved to die for a long time now.

     Have each state legislature choose the state's Electoral College delegates, without regard to any popular vote or other criterion but the legislators' own judgment. That puts the state legislators on the spot, directly responsible for the quality of the men who assume the powers of the presidency, and gives those who choose the legislators themselves increased incentive to choose them wisely and watch them closely.

     Along with this reversion of power to the state legislatures, let's have them elect our federal legislators as well. Perhaps Congress could serve as the Electoral College; I can't see why it wouldn't, since the power to determine the president in the event of a deadlocked election rests with Congress anyway.

     But who should elect the states' legislators? Why, the counties' legislatures, of course! ("Boroughs" in Alaska; "parishes" in Louisiana.) Each county should send assemblymen to its state's assembly in proportion to the county's population, plus one state senator per county. As with the choice of electors, there should be no dependency on a popular vote or other expression of "popular sentiment."

     As for who should elect the county legislators, at this point we're close enough to the citizenry that popular elections become thinkable. America is a land of 3143 counties, which works out to about 100,000 persons per county on average. Of those 100,000, perhaps 30,000 will be qualified to vote; we'll get to the qualifications in a moment. The combinatorics of a population of that size suggest that a voter will be no more than three or four "handshakes" from direct acquaintance with a candidate. Thus, voters can be reasonably expected to learn enough about those who seek seats in the county legislature to make informed choices among them, and to be responsible for the consequences. If we blow it, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

     Now, the qualifications for voting for the county legislature:

1. Each voter shall be 21 years of age or older;
2. He shall have performed a minimum of two years' active service in the county police, or the state militia, or any branch of the nation's armed forces;
3. He shall reside in and own real property within the county;
4. He must not be currently incarcerated for a felony or misdemeanor.

     (Though I doubt there are any, feminist harridans in the audience should read all uses of "he" as "he or she." I have too much regard for the English language to pollute my prose with the "politically correct" but grammatically execrable forms they prefer.)

     Qualification #1 ensures a minimum degree of maturity. Qualification #2 ensures that the voter has demonstrated his concern for the commonweal by direct service to its defenses. Qualification #3 gives the voter an enduring stake in how the county is governed. Qualification #4 prevents those who have an interest in violating the law from having any opportunity to suborn it. And (hopefully) needless to say, no one shall be permitted to stand for election to the county legislature who is not also qualified to vote for it.

     But of course, along with these entirely sensible restrictions on the power of the franchise, there must be correlated restrictions on the power of the legislatures, to wit:

1. All occupants of public offices, without exception, shall be subject to recall. A majority vote of the lower house of the legislature responsible for the election of an official shall constitute a nonprejudicial removal of that official from his office. (Nonprejudicial means he may contend for that office in the future, if he chooses to do so.) In the case of county legislators, a majority vote of the county's enfranchised residents shall constitute a recall of the county legislator at issue.
2. No legislature may impose taxes on any political unit except the ones directly below it. Thus, Congress may tax the state governments, and no one else; the state governments may tax the county governments, and no one else; and the county governments may directly tax the citizenry.
3. Laws, Acts, and Bills of Appropriation shall be proposed in the lower house of a legislature only. The upper house may ratify them or vote them down, but it shall possess no power to amend them.
4. Either house of a legislature, by a two-thirds majority, may repeal any Law, Act, or Bill of Appropriation previously passed by that legislature, with no requirement for concurrence by the other house.
5. No legislature shall be permitted to delegate lawmaking or regulatory power to any other body, whether elected or appointed; all laws and regulations binding on anyone shall be debated and voted on by the appropriate legislature in open session, in all their particulars.
6. There shall be harsh statutory penalties, written explicitly into the Constitution of the United States and the subsidiary charters of the states and counties, for legislators and executives who propose, vote, or act to violate the explicit terms of the Constitution or any subsidiary charter to which they have sworn fidelity.
7. A Bill of Particulars, filed by a member of the legislature responsible for the election of an official, if approved by a majority vote of the lower house of that legislature, shall impeach the official so accused and compel him to stand trial before the upper house of that legislature. A two-thirds majority of the upper house shall be sufficient for removal from office; a three-fourths majority shall be required for the imposition of the relevant criminal penalties. No person removed from office under this procedure shall henceforth be eligible for any office of public trust, at any level.

     Now you're looking at real federalism. Let's have some opinions!

Regaining Peace

     Have a little something to pin your outrage meter:

This young black girl attacked, then k*IIed a McDonald's employee over the employee accidentally putting onions on her burger.

A person lost their lives because this savage animal couldn’t communicate that she didn’t want onions on a burger. pic.twitter.com/HacaG4whp0

— Liberacrat™️ (@ViralVideos) March 23, 2026

     Murder over onions! We’ve reached a new nadir in social relations. I’ve no idea of the race of the victim, but does that really matter?

     It’s not possible for anyone to concoct a defense of such behavior. But of course, the ever-vociferous defenders of black savagery will try to defend it anyway. Probably with something about “the N-word.”

     The apologists for “chimping out” behavior have a slightly easier time:

This is absolute hell on earth.

- No social decorum
- Loud
- Violent
- No respect for authority
- Incompatible with civilized society

I completely understand segregation now and why Americans didn’t want it to end.

Someone should run on it. It would have my vote.

You? pic.twitter.com/wTSzuWpdQs

— Amiri King (@AmiriKing) March 24, 2026

     “It’s just high spirits.” “They were celebrating.” “Nobody got hurt.” And of course, “It’s racist to criticize it.” But what if the crowd of revelers were White and the critic were black? Then we would be told this:

“Black women CANNOT BE RACIST to white women…are you kidding me?”

Ummmm….anyone wanna tell her? pic.twitter.com/p04FVdWtK5

— Ashley (TeamTrump47) (@TeamTrump47) March 23, 2026

     I have acquaintances who struggle over these things. They’re desperate to believe that it’s not a racial difference. The racial correlation must be explained away. But how? The usual fallback is “culture:”

We can't even have nice hotels anymore.

Shalonda and Shakeesha assault a police officer after he tries to break up a hotel squabble between 7 or 8 reprobates.

How do we fix this violent culture? pic.twitter.com/pS282rgTZ6

— Shane (@shane7777ssss) March 23, 2026

     He who asks “But aren’t we all immersed in the same culture?” will usually be dismissed with the usual denunciation (“Racist!”). That’s just the way it goes, these days.

     Smart Whites are done with trying to civilize the uncivil. We’re also done with excuses like “systemic racism” and “the legacy of slavery.” Now all we hope for is peace.

* * *

     How do American Whites get peace when our environment is permeated by savages? I suppose we could exterminate them, but that’s a distasteful prospect. All that rotting flesh… no, there must be an alternative.

     Time was, the prescription was segregation. They have their part of town and we have ours; they have their businesses and we have ours; they have their institutions and accommodations, and we have ours. It worked reasonably well. Yes, there were still occasional violent incidents and spells of “acting up.” But judged by the standard of peace, it was preferable to what we endure today.

     Legally, bringing it back would be next to impossible. Practically, the degree of interpenetration of the races makes it a challenge. Yet it’s already happening. New, all-White enclaves are being formed, often by older Whites and usually in less populated areas. Many of them, though not all, are also all-Christian.

     When blacks attempt to move into such an enclave, they soon find that it’s not possible. No one will sell or rent to them. Cries of “racism!” change nothing, for the residents are all private persons who cannot be compelled to sell. No cooperative complex or homeowners’ association was ever more stringent in its admissions policy.

     There are problems, of course. Municipal police, regulators, and zoning boards are hostile to such communities. Ambitious politicians use them as whipping boys when “on the stump.” They’re sometimes targeted by black racial activists. Yet they remain attractive for what they offer: peace and public order.

     Niven and Pournelle’s Oath of Fealty offered a vision of such a community, albeit without racial segregation. While their depiction had many virtues, a single-race arcology of that sort would undoubtedly be targeted for abortion while in its planning stage. It would need too many approvals from too many local and regional authorities.

     And as I write this, I find myself looking toward the sky. Toward Luna and beyond.

* * *

     Please don’t think too harshly of me, Gentle Reader. I’m old. The old are more desirous of peace than the young. I sense that many other older Whites feel the same as do I. It’s very hard for us to get peace in any quantity, these days.

     To any younger readers: please imagine a state of society in which older Whites who’ve “made their piles” elect to relocate to some airless planetoid rather than endure the Sturm und Drang of our ever more violent and disorderly Earthside environment. Think about what it would signify that we would rather render ourselves inaccessible to you – and you inaccessible to us, of course – than remain exposed to race-based crime and chaos. Are you really so sure that “solidarity” with “our black brothers” is worth losing touch with us? Think of how hard it is to find a babysitter these days. (Never mind what they charge.)

     That’s all. I’m tapped out for the present. Do have a nice day.

Demonstrator

     [A short story for you today. As it’s Passion Sunday, on which Catholics read from the Gospel of John about Jesus’s final miracle before He went to Jerusalem, I thought a related tale might be appropriate.
     This story first appeared at the V2.0 site, now defunct, on March 26, 2023 – FWP.]

***

     The last of his perceptions dimmed and winked out. He found himself without sensation of any sort, not even that of his own weight. Though his eyes were open, they saw nothing. His ears registered no slightest sound. His senses of smell, taste, and touch were equally idle. It gave him a eerie sense of displacement, as if he were floating in an ocean that had no water. Yet not even the gentle motions of such a body, stirred by sun, wind, and tide, could he feel.
     But he remained aware. The thought stream that had bedeviled him continued unbroken.
     What place is this?
     Am I not to face judgment?
     He could still detect the passage of time. What meaning has time, in the complete absence of sensations, material things, and the events that accompany them? How would one measure it?
     Yet he had not ended. He persisted. The sequence of his thoughts continued, unbroken by death.
     Therefore there is more.
     I will wait. What else I can do, after all?
     A soundless reply, words without volume or timbre, arrived in his consciousness.
     Reflect.
     It startled him, jolted him into a new plane of consciousness.
     Is it You, my God?
     Again the reply was undeniable, though it transcended perception.
     I am what I am.
     It stilled him, turned his thoughts back upon themselves.
     To persist is to have significance. I have a destiny to fulfill. Yet afloat in this void, I have no way to seek it out or embark upon it. What, then?
     The reply was the same.
     Reflect.
     He did so.
     I cannot act. Yet I persist. Therefore, I am to be acted upon. But how?
     No answer came to him.
     Could this be punishment for my sins? Helplessness as the penalty for squandering my life? But did I truly squander it? I worked. I prayed. I did my best for my loved ones. Surely those were not sins.
     Still nothing.
     Perhaps I do not understand sin.
     He examined the course of his life, straining to remember its details down to the smallest minutiae. He found a few peccadillos, but nothing against the Commandments or what they implied. He slowly became convinced that, in that timeless place where his thoughts continued to flow, he did indeed await a destiny yet to be fulfilled…but that his future lay in the hands of another.
     I am to be used.
     The idea might have brought resentment, but it did not.
     If I can be used, then despite my death I have worth. It will not be my own deeds that fulfill that destiny, but the deeds of another.
     With that thought there came a mighty roaring. Insubstantial forces seized and held him. Power unfathomed by men had massed around him and taken him up for use. His ponderings ceased and were replaced by an ecstatic peace.
     Let all be as it must be.
     He sensed rather than heard the words of his liberation spoken.
     LAZARUS, COME FORTH!
     And it was so.

#

     “Did you sleep, brother?” Martha said.
     He shook his head. “I rested, but I was aware. How long…?”
     Her face spasmed. “Four days.”
     “It did not seem so.”
     “We feared that he might fail,” she said. “That you would be lost to us.”
     He shook his head. “He has never failed, sister.”
     “Did you…expect it?”
     “Not at all. I knew only that…something awaited. That I had an unfulfilled destiny, but that it was not mine to initiate it.” He smiled. “I realized that I would be used for a task of which I was not capable.”
     “And it was so,” Martha said. “Many came to believe today. Many who had been skeptical even knowing of his other deeds.”
     Lazarus nodded. “I among them.” His heart filled afresh with joy and peace. “What an honor, to be used thus!”
     Martha bowed her head.

==<O>==

     Copyright © 2023 Francis W. Porretto. All rights reserved worldwide.

***

     May God bless and keep you all.

Rest In Peace, Chuck Norris

     I can’t quite believe it. Chuck Norris, the martial arts legend and hero to millions, has lost a match – to the Grim Reaper! Incredible. The man was still in fighting trim in his eighties. No black-cloaked buffoon toting a scythe should have stood a chance against him.

     But there it is. Norris passed away at the age of 86 from an undisclosed sudden illness. The world is a sadder place for his departure from it.

     Let us enumerate some of his many achievements in remembrance:

• Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience.
• Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.
• When the Boogeyman goes to bed, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
• Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
• Chuck Norris counted to infinity—twice.
• When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he isn't lifting himself up—he's pushing the Earth down.
• Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
• Chuck Norris can hear sign language.
• Chuck Norris doesn't wear a watch. He decides what time it is.
• When Chuck Norris enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on—he turns the dark off.
• The flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year.
• Chuck Norris can build a snowman out of rain.
• Chuck Norris doesn't dial the wrong number. You pick up the wrong phone.
• Chuck Norris has a grizzly bear carpet in his room. The bear isn't dead—it's just afraid to move.
• Chuck Norris' cowboy boots are made from real cowboys.
• Fear of spiders is called arachnophobia. Fear of Chuck Norris is called logic.
• Chuck Norris once kicked a horse in the chin. Its descendants are now known as giraffes.
• Chuck Norris can cook minute rice in 30 seconds.
• There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
• Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
• Chuck Norris doesn't play hide and seek. He plays hide and pray I don't find you.
• Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.
• Chuck Norris can speak Braille.
• Chuck Norris can make a Happy Meal cry.
• Aliens are real. They're just afraid to come to Earth because Chuck Norris lives here.
• Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.
• Chuck Norris can win a staring contest with his eyes closed.
• Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick is so powerful it can be seen from space by the naked eye.
• Chuck Norris once won a game of Connect Four in three moves.
• Chuck Norris can unscramble an egg.
• Chuck Norris can drown a fish.
• Chuck Norris can delete the Recycle Bin.
• Chuck Norris can clap with one hand.
• Chuck Norris can make onions cry.
• Chuck Norris doesn't age—he levels up.
• Chuck Norris can win at solitaire with real cards.
• Chuck Norris' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd. No one fools Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can start a fire with an ice cube.
• Chuck Norris doesn't do refunds. You do.
• Chuck Norris can microwave popcorn by staring at it.
• Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.
• Chuck Norris doesn't vacuum. He scares the dirt away.
• Chuck Norris can hear sign language over the phone.
• Chuck Norris doesn't spell-check. Words conform to him.
• Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife with butter.
• Chuck Norris can parallel park in two moves.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a GPS. Locations report to him.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need sleep—he recharges by staring at the sun.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need food. Food needs Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a belt. Gravity submits to him.
• Chuck Norris can make a campfire with wet wood and attitude.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a parachute. Gravity is afraid to pull him down.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need Wi-Fi. The internet connects to him.
• Chuck Norris can solve a Rubik's Cube by staring at it.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a map. Maps need Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need oxygen. Oxygen needs Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can make a mime talk.
• Chuck Norris can make a ghost haunt itself.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a mirror. Mirrors reflect what he allows.
• Chuck Norris can make lightning ask for permission.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a shadow. Shadows follow him.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need luck. Luck needs Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can roundhouse kick the future into the past.
• Chuck Norris doesn't tell jokes. Jokes tell Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't cheat death. He wins fair and square.

     Chuck, you’re already being missed. Rest in Peace, old warrior.

Creating Your Own Problems

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. Happy Vernal Equinox (traditional). Wherever you are in this blessed land, I hope you’ll enjoy beautiful spring weather today, because I won’t. Here on the World’s Largest Piece of Terminal Moraine, it’s predicted to be overcast and damp all day. Bummer.

     I’ve come reluctantly to the conclusion that, with the notable exception of the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch, people are pretty BLEEP!ing stupid. They’re nearly always the source of their own miseries. They overspend and then complain about being broke. They cloister themselves and then complain about having no friends or social life. They try to drive North-South on East-West roads, get smacked up, and then complain about “careless drivers” and high insurance premiums.

     The enveloping diagnosis for this malady is “It’s Someone Else’s Fault” syndrome. Given its prevalence, I have no doubt that you’ve observed it in someone you know. There’ve been days when I’ve imagined it everywhere.

     That may be because it really is everywhere.

* * *

     A brief vignette: Many years ago I had a coworker whom I shall henceforward refer to as “old Ray,” because that’s how he was known around the office. “Old Ray” couldn’t be bothered about things the rest of us regarded as the basic requirements of courtesy, such as tossing trash in a trash can rather than on the floor. He was a well-respected senior engineer, but so heedless of his surroundings that he created chaos for the rest of us.

     In particular, “old Ray” regularly failed to check whether the coffeemaker had ended its cycle before grabbing the carafe and filling his mug. He created many messes in this fashion. I, being a snotty little shit, upbraided him for it one day when his proclivity had left a large puddle of coffee on the floor of our office. He took umbrage, and a shouting match ensued. Management intervened before blows could be struck.

     I was taken aside and admonished for the incident. I’d “created the problem,” you see. “Everyone” knew that we had to make allowances for “old Ray.” I asked whether management was aware of the effect on the rest of us, and was answered with a “what can you do” shrug. I went back to my own labors shaking my head.

     It got me a reputation as a boat rocker. “Be careful around Fran,” the office gospel ran, “He says things.” Never mind that I was also the one who “does things,” such as solving others’ intractable problems and cleaning up after “old Ray;” that was deemed immaterial.

     I realized then that the rest of us were fated to clean up after “old Ray” until his retirement date should arrive. Management policy had deemed the status quo preferable to an uproar. Given that consensus, I, who’d evoked an uproar, was “the problem.” We’d been doomed to trash tossed aside in hallways and regular puddles on the floor.

     No, I didn’t stay there very long.

* * *

     Why am I exercised about this particular subject, you ask? Because few have grasped a simple fact of life in society:

Politics is not the source of solutions,
But of burdens, dissatisfactions, and disharmony.

     A private problem can be mitigated or solved by private means. A politicized problem becomes everyone’s problem. It draws the State into the matter and compels everyone to “take a side.” Such an expansion of the scope of the problem creates several things:

• Resentment among the unwillingly involved;
• Hard feelings between those who disagree about the matter;
• An opportunity for the State to expand its powers, which it will surely exploit.

     As if further irony were required, it also lessens the feeling of responsibility among those who did the politicizing. Now that it’s “everyone’s problem,” they can sit back while “everybody” – meaning the State, of course – does whatever will be done about it, good, bad, or indifferent.

     It’s madness, but it’s everywhere. “The personal is political!” shout the rabble-rousers of the Left. That means the end of privacy – the end of private action in response to private problems. It means that we must wait upon the State for the remediation of what displeases us. Finally, it means those who disapprove of you, whatever the reason, can bludgeon you into complying with their preferences. Assuming they can assemble a local preponderance of force, that is.

     I’m not going to thrash this into the magma layer. I just needed a moment to vent about… well, about “things as they are,” including ordinary people’s lack of resistance to the politicization of what should be private matters handled privately. We keep getting sucked into it, when a moment’s consideration should make it plain that politicizing an “issue” nearly always makes it worse.

     For the love of God, stop politicizing petty shit! Stop trying to compel others to conform to your preferences! Accept human variation as long as it does you no harm. If you find it intolerable, either wall it off, or move away from it and build a wall around yourself.

     See also this old tirade. And do have a nice day.

The Last Bastion

     There are days when I oscillate between black despair and a degree of fury so murderous that I can only thank God that I’m too old and frail to act on it. Today is one such day.

     Get a load of this:

     THE FACE OF EVIL.
     This is Alice Mann. She's responsible for the bill a senate committee passed yesterday that would MANDATE MMR vaccination for All kids in MN.
     No exceptions. Even for homeschool.
     This is Effectively saying: vaccination or jail.
     This woman wants to strap down children & inject them w/severely undertested, Big Pharma GMO concoctions directly into their veins...whether parents agree or not.
     That's evil. An authoritarian overreach & body violation so severe, it should make any human being shudder with disgust.
     It goes against the very thing America stands for & holds dear: Freedom.
     Pro tip: If you want people to vaccinate...make your product safer, test it properly, & educate us on why we should do it.
     Do not force it. You evil, evil woman.
     Personally, I don't trust Big Pharma & won't poison my kids. Especially for a natural infection w/a ~100% survival rate, & can be managed naturally.
     So anyway. Anyone know a good state to move to? (I live in MN 😭)

     Minnesota – its legislature, at least – has decided that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to its juvenile residents. Granted that a state that could elect a mannequin like Tim Walz Governor has a collective screw loose, this still goes beyond anything I’ve seen from the Land of 10,000 Lakes to date.

     It might pass legal muster, albeit barely, were this requirement to be applied solely to children enrolled in a “public” school. But to make it unconditional and sweeping is a defiance of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of bodily autonomy.

     I’ve ranted before about the power of small groups with narrowly focused agendas. It’s old news; I shan’t do so again this morning. But a passing mention of the incredible power they can wield would not be out of place. The medical-products community is such a group. Apparently the reaction against the mandatory application of vaccines, brought on by the insanity of the COVID-19 debacle, has provoked vaccine vendors to a counterattack. Minnesota, its government having already gone fully anti-individual rights, was a well-chosen entry point.

     Blue-state legislatures throughout America will note this and emulate it – not because of the horror of mumps and rubella or unbounded faith in vaccines, but because bodily privacy is the last bastion of individual rights. If an individual’s physical corpus is not his own, with the right of arbitrary and absolute exclusion that accompanies the right of property, then nothing can be one’s own. Force becomes the sole standard.

     I have no doubt that those who favor this execrable measure will defend it on the grounds of “precedent” and “public health.” But that merely strengthens the indictment of the concept of “public health.” What is it? On what grounds have “medical authorities” been granted an enforceable easement into our children’s bodies? And if it can be defended in the case of school-age children, how would it not apply to all of us, from the cradle to the grave?

     I can feel myself about to start frothing at the mouth, so I’ll close now. Have a nice day.

Our Invisible Servants

     Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! As befits one who has “green blood,” here at the Fortress it’s a day of celebration. Bet you didn’t know that Patrick was born in Scotland, kidnapped by Irish raiders, and sold as a slave to a Druid priest. Or that missionaries he ordained were deemed responsible for converting much of Europe to Christianity. But that’s why Patrick is considered high in the Church’s hagiography.

     However, I’m not here to rhapsodize about ol’ Paddy. I’ve been thinking about what most of us take for granted nearly all the time. We hardly ever see it. We almost never think about it. Yet it makes our lives possible and pleasant… until it doesn’t.

     On Sunday evening, the Fortress suffered a “backup.” Water that was intended to run down the kitchen sink drain and thence to the cesspool came back up through the shower drain instead. Very unpleasant. But one doesn’t call a plumber on Sunday, especially after 6:00 PM.

     Monday dawned bright and early. Thank God, Roto-Rooter of Long Island was answering its phone. By 9:00 AM, a tech was here to deal with the problem – and what a problem it was! A significant segment of outfall pipe had clogged so completely that water could no longer pass through it. To compound the damage, that pipe – originally installed in 1959 when the house was built – was close to rotting through. The tech had to take down a piece of wall, cut into the pipe, remove and replace it. He managed it, and before 11 AM, at that. Moreover, he put the wall back up and cleaned up after himself. I wanted to applaud.

     No, it wasn’t cheap. $1500! But that’s the sort of thing one faces when plumbing from 1959 goes bad.

     But it got me thinking about our invisible servants. Plumbing is certainly one such. When it’s working more or less to specification, there’s no reason to think about it. When it fails, as ours did Sunday evening, we start to froth at the mouth. We don’t thank the failed parts for their service as they’re hauled away. Then there’s the cost, about which let no more be said here.

     Plumbing. Heating systems. Floor joists. The foundation itself. The roof overhead. All doing what they were designed to do, continuously, whether or not we take notice. Until they don’t, of course. Then the swearing begins.

     I steeled myself and said a prayer of gratitude. I gave thanks for them all, and promised that I would henceforth try not to take them for granted. I also gave thanks that I could afford the repairs. And I think I’ll be doing more of that in the future.

     God didn’t provide those things to us directly, of course. Rather, He equipped generations of men with the imagination to conceive of them, the skills to design them, the power to fabricate and install them, and – insert extra thanks here – the talent required to diagnose and repair them when they fail. Those men are the “proximate causes” for our invisible servants and why they serve us so faithfully for such long stretches of time. They too deserve our gratitude, even if we have no idea of their names, faces, or the lives they led.

     Other men with talents other than ours are gifts to us. The division-of-labor economy that makes their specialties viable is a gift, as well. The free market economy that smoothly provides them in the necessary quantities is beneath it all, of course… and let’s give special thanks that the Big Parasite (you know what I’m talking about), for all its attempts, hasn’t yet managed to destroy that completely.

     No, it’s not cheap. Neither the products nor the services come to us for free. But let’s also give thanks that, with a few pitiable exceptions, we can afford both to purchase them and to service them when they fail us. That, too, is a gift, for who among us, were he transported to North Korea, Cambodia, Burma, or Laos, would be able to maintain an American standard of living and all the servants that go with it?

     Enough of that for now. My cesspool service has just arrived. I must brace myself for his exactions. If the week continues in this vein, I expect to be bankrupt by this coming Sunday. Pray for me. When you’re finished giving thanks for your plumbing et cetera, that is.

The Seining

     This question is being raised ever more often:

     As I’m one who both reads and writes science fiction, this is often on my mind. Granted that “you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince,” the problem can’t be reduced solely to sifting through the massive heaps of SF being published annually. The science fiction genre has always known great internal variety.

     The origins of SF brought us both gee-whizzy stuff and thoughtful explorations of all kinds of questions. Consider two of the earliest SF writers: Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. These men both wrote SF, but their aims were radically different.

     Verne wrote about marginally imaginable adventures and possibilities, with a focus on the “gee-whiz” factor. If you’ve read his stuff, you can see that at once: From The Earth To The Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Master Of The World, and so forth were aimed to dazzle the reader with possibilities that were out of reach when Verne wrote. (Yes, some of them remain so today.)

     By contrast, Wells, a historian by inclination, was much more concerned with societies. His books The First Men in the Moon, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and War of the Worlds invoked pseudoscience to make possible an examination of how people behave, and how societies are transformed, when disturbed by something unprecedented.

     So even at its origin, the science fiction genre knew some internal variety. Yet for reasons beyond the scope of this screed, SF in English was dominated by Gee-Whizzers – with emphasis on space opera and time travel – until the emergence of a single, seminal figure: Robert A. Heinlein.

     Heinlein has been called “the dean of science fiction,” with great justice. He was the first to meld the speculative bent of the Gee-Whizzers and the probing orientation of the Social Analysts with deep characterization and graceful style. To read his pre-1970 novels for the first time is to touch a priceless treasure. The initiate is often overwhelmed by that first acquaintance, in a “Where have you been all my life?” sort of fashion. Even his juveniles, such as Time For The Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, and Tunnel In The Sky are packed with insights into the psychodynamics of both individuals and societies.

     From Heinlein and several of his near contemporaries (e.g., Isaac Asimov) flowered ever-newer strains of SF. They improved steadily over the years, broadening their outlook as they refined their storytelling powers. No, they weren’t entirely consistent. Then as now, it was what a publisher believed he could sell that determined what would reach the SF reader. Sometimes, a writer whose income was primarily from his stories would feel forced to pander to the devotees of some particular sub-genre. Some had to turn out lowbrow romances; others had to write porn. There were also some “dry spells” during which a large fraction of the SF reading community felt under-served; the “New Wave” period is part of that. Yet today’s SF writer is typically a considerably better writer and storyteller than those of a century ago.

     All the same, he might not write what you want to read.

* * *

     Selecting among writers requires more delving than was once the case. The space-opera buffs don’t want the sociological studies. The time-travel aficionados shrug aside the post-apocalyptic stories. As the varieties multiply, the job gets harder.

     There’s also the related problem of auctorial sensibility. A writer’s values come through his stories no matter how hard he tries. If the reader has important differences with those values, it won’t matter how well told are the writer’s stories. Thus a freedom advocate like your humble Curmudgeon cannot abide socialists such as Octavia Butler or Kim Stanley Robinson. Nor would a hard-driven atheist, violently allergic to any treatment of the supernatural or the spiritual, be able to stomach novels such as these, these, or these. (And that will be my only plug for my own crap.)

     This is a subject in which reviewers could play an important part. Amazon reviews can make or break a writer. But seldom do reviewers spend many pixels on the writer’s sensibility. If his values powerfully shape his stories, reviewers should mention that – and them. But it doesn’t happen often.

     To sum up: the reader must seine diligently among the tens of thousands of SF writers currently publishing to find the kind of material that will please him. It’s a chore, but it’s in service to one’s own satisfaction with the entertainment he selects. And do please review! It’s a service to other potential readers. Also, it’s sometimes invaluable as a catharsis after finishing a novel that proved not to be to one’s taste.