Short corn

 I planted our corn a little late, so it's not quite knee high yet.

Happy Fourth to everyone.

Fourth of July Voter Registration Drive Book Sale!

I know a lot of people are tired of being told that every election for the past decade WILL DETERMINE THE VERY SURVIVAL OF THE NATION!  But it’s true.  It seems every election now is a choice between democracy and the literal forces of evil.  And the fastest way for the forces of evil to fully seize power is if We The People can’t be bothered to vote.  To keep our democracy, we need to vote, in this election and every election.

But in order to vote, you need to be registered.  If you’re an American citizen who will be eighteen by Election Day, November 5th of this year, and you are not registered, I ask you to register.  Your state’s website should have all the necessary details.  

To try to sweeten the pot for people doing their patriotic duty, the week of the Fourth, three of my ebooks will be free to download.  All I ask is that if you download them, you register.  There’s no way for me to check if the people grabbing my books for free registered, so we’ll just go on the honor system.  Read them now, or hold on to them to have something to read while you wait in line to vote come November. 

But what if you’re already registered?  In that case I ask you to check your registration.  The list of voters needs constant updating as people register, move, and die.  And even without nefarious voter purges, it’s possible for mistakes to happen.  But if you catch the mistake now, you have plenty of time to get it fixed so that come Election Day, things will be smoother.  Your state’s website should also have the details on how to check your registration.

But what if you’re not American?  Well then, all I ask is that you participate however you can in your government.  The literal forces of evil aren’t just working here in the states.

***

The following three ebooks will be free to download from Monday, July 1st, through Friday, July 5th.  The title links take you to the US site for the book.

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

A Man of Few Words

A Man of Few Words is a collection of fifty of my flash fiction stories. What would really happen if a “T-Rex on steroids” attacked a city? Why do science fiction writers make the best lovers? How does a company get to Second Base with VIPs? I explore these questions and more using less than 1,000 words and in various genres from humor to horror and general fiction to science fiction.

Duty

For reasons of safety and avoiding paradoxes, Time Travel Incorporated assigns a Guardian to all its travelers. So when there is an accident during political historian Roj Hasol’s trip back to 1968, it’s his Guardian Susan who sets out on the arduous task of cleaning up the mess.

Short story – “Ben’s Time Carriage”

“Ben’s Time Carriage”

“Where is he?”

Alexander turned to the man sitting in a frail wooden chair.  “My dear James, how am I supposed to know?  But, if you believe the word of the good Doctor, then it should be difficult for him to be–”

A brilliant flash of blue light filled the room, and both men raised their hands to their eyes.  When they lowered them a portly, older gentleman stood before them in a metal cage.  He opened a door, took a staggering step and began to fall, but Alexander caught him. 

“Benjamin, are you all right?” James asked.

“Yes, yes,” the man replied.  He laughed.  “Traveling through time leaves one … dizzy, for a few moments.”

“So you have done it then?” Alexander asked looking at the cage.  “Built a … time carriage.”

“Oh yes,” Benjamin replied, “and the things I have seen.”

James sighed.  “Were you able to do as we asked, or did you spend your time impressing the women in every century?”

Benjamin smiled.  “If you do not make time for the ladies, they will not make time for you.”

Looking in the cage, Alexander asked, “Did you memorize everything?  I expected you to return with countless books.”

“My dear Sir,” Benjamin replied, “do you think I would return empty handed?” Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out what looked like a thin glass rod.  He held it up and said, “Gentlemen, all of the books in all of our libraries would fit on this, with plenty of room to spare.”

“Surely not.” Alexander held out his hand and Benjamin placed the object in it.  Holding it up to his eye, he asked, “Did you find some minuscule printing press?”

“No, no, it’s …” Benjamin scratched his head.  “It is something that even I don’t fully understand.”

“How are we to read these … books?” James asked squinting at the rod.

“With this.” From another pocket Benjamin took out an object about the size of a small book made of a strange material.

“What is that?” Alexander asked.

“It is called,” Benjamin answered, “a computer.” Setting this computer on a table, Benjamin lifted the top and flipped it back with a click, so it was now twice the size but half the thickness.  He did this three more times until he had a stiff object about the size of a newspaper. 

“Amazing,” James said.

Benjamin held his hand out to Alexander who returned the rod.  “First we turn this on,” he said, touching the upper right corner of the computer.  There were a few musical tones that made the other two men jump.  “I’m sorry, I should have warned you.  It makes … odd noises at times.”

The surface of the computer had been a dull, bluish-gray, but now it turned black before it was replaced by an image in bronze of Benjamin himself.  Benjamin laughed.  “I couldn’t help myself.  This is … an instant painting of a future bust of me.”

Benjamin inserted the rod in a slot along the side of the computer and told the two other men, “Don’t worry.  This is a very …” He paused and mumbled, “What was the phrase?” to himself.  “Oh yes,” he continued in his normal voice, “this is a very ‘user friendly’ model.  I’ll be able to talk you through using it in only a few minutes.”

An hour later, both men were finally able to use the computer to read the information on the rod.  Once he was sure they understood how to use it, Benjamin told them, “Now, gentlemen, you have access to all the important historical events for the next three centuries.  With this you will be able to foresee all the difficulties this new nation will face and write the perfect Constitution for it.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an engagement I wish to attend.” He opened the door to the cage and stepped inside.

Alexander turned from the computer and asked, “Where is … or should I say, when is this engagement?”

“To answer both questions, Philadelphia in 2006.  They are having a 300th birthday party for me.  Courtesy requires that I attend.” With that he closed the door of the cage, and in a flash of red light, was gone.

***

I first wrote this story in 2008 as part of my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge I used to do.  I updated it for my 2012 collection Political Pies.  But I was reminded of it recently by all the talk of Originalism in regards to all the problems certain groups aren’t allowing us to fix, and figured I should repost it so I can share it easily. 

The original reason for this story, is every time I hear some schmuck say we shouldn’t do something because it “wasn’t the intent of the Founding Fathers,” I want to ask if the Founding Fathers had a crystal ball with which they could foresee all the problems the country would face, and thus write the solutions into the Constitution?  Don’t get me wrong, the Founding Fathers were some of the brightest minds of the Eighteenth Century.  Of course, we live in the Twenty-First Century where we have things like indoor plumbing and cyber terrorism.

Random Story – Quick stories from school

These are just odd little stories from my life.

Speeling

I was a terrible speller back in school. I can’t remember which grade it was, maybe 7th or 8th, but the English teacher gave a weekly spelling test. She said she would continue giving them until everyone in the class had received at least one 100%. I was the second to last person in the class to get a 100%, and I remember it happened on my birthday, which is in February, so it took me awhile. The other thing I remember is that when I took out a sheet of paper and put my name on it, I wrote “speeling test” on it. (That’s why I put that as this blog title, it’s not a typo!) The teacher said she wasn’t sure if my 100% should count because of that, but I think she wanted to stop giving the tests, so nothing more was said.

The reason I brought this up, is that my spelling has greatly improved over the years. The best reason I can think of is my writing. Yes, I do count on the spellchecker to catch mistakes, but most of the time it seems like I use it for words I don’t know how to spell. I just get something close, then pick the correct one out of the spellchecker options. But I was surprised the other day when – for a story – I spelled aneurysm correctly. (And I just did it again!) Back in high school I’d probably spell it anyourism. If my high school English teachers could see me now.

Not doing my calculus homework.

I can’t remember if it was in pre-calc, or calc class, but one day I show up and the teacher says something about checking our homework.  And I had completely forgotten that he had assigned a dozen or so problems the day before.  So I sat there for twenty or so seconds almost crapping myself because A, I couldn’t believe I had completely forgotten to do my homework, but also B, we had a homework grade.  I wasn’t in any danger of failing, but I was a good student who didn’t want the teacher – who was pretty cool – to think I was a slacker, or whatever.

Well, the way he checked our homework was to walk around to see what we had done and if we had any questions.  Fortunately, for me, the first girl said that she had trouble with the last problem.  Thinking quick, I turned to a blank page in my notebook, and copied down problem 12, or whatever.  I started working on it, and I got to a part and got stuck. 

So I’m trying a couple things on this problem a minute or so later when I notice the teacher standing next to me.  I look up and say, “I’m just trying to figure out this last one.” He nods and moves on to the next student.  Sometimes, being known as a good student pays off.

An Elon Musk Joke

About a week ago, I came up with a little joke about Elon Musk.  To tell the joke, I’d need to slightly photoshop four images.  The problem, while I could easily find two of the images, I had a hard time finding appropriate ones for the other two.  I guess I don’t know how to search for anything now.  Years ago, I’d do an image search for fire and get a bunch of images of flames.  Now I search for fire, and I get images of … glasses of water.  Anyway, after spending twenty or so minutes not getting anywhere in my image searches, I thought the images could just be cartoons.  But my cartooning skills are way worse than my poor photoshopping skills.  So I could write this joke, but I couldn’t illustrate it.  Which brings us to this blog.  I will lay out the joke, and if anyone has the modicum of skill needed to illustrate it, go for it.

This joke has four panels, and is called, “What I imagine it is like working at Tesla.” The first panel show Elon on some stage saying, “And … ah … in six months, we’ll have … ah … flying cars.” The first version of the second panel had some frantic engineer screaming, “Will you shut the fuck up!” but I think a funnier version has a group of Tesla engineers in a conference room all with their heads in their hands and someone saying, “Will someone please take the microphone from him.” The third panel says “Ten years later” and shows a smoking, car-sized crater in the desert.  The fourth panel shows a deranged Elon saying, “Gimme $60 billion for my genius!”

Random Story – Something you don’t want to hear from your dentist

This is just an odd little story from my life.

About twenty years ago, I had a bad cavity and I figured the dentist would just pull the tooth.  But he said they tried to save teeth, and recommended a root canal.  But since root canals are specialized, the one who did them worked with like ten dentists in the area and she wouldn’t be back to that office for a couple of days.  So he did the prep work and I came back in a few days for the rest of the root canal.

While they were getting ready, I was sitting there getting nervous.  I’m not a fan of doctors in general and dentists in particular.  But the root canal dentist noticed my heart rate was up, and asked and I said it was nerves, but she wondered if the novocaine, or the super-novocaine they used had gotten in my bloodstream and was working me up.  So she said she’d wait a few minutes and let me relax some before they started.

I think from previous visits, I had picked up that the assistant was from … Colombia and had been a dentist there, but when she moved to the US she wasn’t certified to be a dentist here.  So she was working as an assistant, while going to night school to be a US dentist.

While they waited for me to calm down, the root canal dentist asked the assistant what they were studying.  And the assistant replied with … something.  It was some medical jargony thing that probably translates to … I don’t, braces.  And the root canal dentist replied with something like, “Oh, I’ve forgotten half that stuff.”

Now, I understand that she focused on root canals, and that was what she did.  You don’t call her in for your basic cleaning.  But as someone already uncomfortable at the dentists, with a little chemical goose to my nerves, hearing the dentist go, “I don’t remember half the stuff I learned in dentist school, now let’s start drilling,” wasn’t the best thing to hear.  After a few seconds, I was able to remind myself that she had specialized in root canals, and it was a tad funny.  If half my face wasn’t numb, I might even have told them that.

Reinventing voting

Recently, as a fun little exercise to pass the time, I wondered how would I – if I magically had the power – change the way we vote here in the US.  Now you could say this was a pointless exercise, but thinking of alternative voting styles could lead to story ideas which, honestly, I have too many as it is but I can’t say no to more, but more importantly it can make me wonder how could we go from what we currently have to this “better” system?

First off, I would make some no-brainer changes.  I’d get rid of the Electoral College, I’d make some standardized methods for drawing districts to try to do away with gerrymandering, and I’d make Election Day a holiday.  I’d also introduce ranked choice voting.  I think a lot of our political problems stem from being stuck with a two party system, and ranked choice would let us explore other, better, options.  Another thing I’d do is make some standardized set of rules for polling places: if a population exceeds X, you either have to open another polling place, or have the one polling place open for so many days before the election.  The goal would be to have the time from showing up at the polling place, checking in, and voting to be measured in minutes, not hours.  Worst case scenario, maybe half-an-hour. 

Another change I’d make would be automatic registration.  Once you turn eighteen, you’re a voter.  Speaking of registration, for a few days after this post is posted, I’ll be having a Voter Registration Drive Book Sale, where I ask American adults to either register to vote or to check their registration, and as a reward, you could grab four of my ebooks for free.  Maybe hold on to them so you have something to read while you wait in line to vote come November.  This blog post has all the details.  And if you came across this after the sale, still, register to vote or check your registration.  There are a lot of problems in this country, and the easiest way to fix some of them is for We the People to have our voice heard, i.e. voting, which requires you to register.  And if you’re not an American citizen, I hope you engage with your country’s government however you can.

Now, all of these changes I think make sense, would improve our elections, and could possibly be done without some divine intervention.  Don’t get me wrong, it would still be a Sisyphean task, but it might be doable.  But the automatic registration does raise a complex problem: keeping track of voters.

Let’s say you’re building a country from scratch.  How do you keep track of the voters?  Well, you give every voter an ID number.  So you set up this bureaucracy that keeps track of where everyone lives and you give them a number that people use a couple of times a year, at most.  And you make it a crime for banks, or businesses, or anyone but election people to ask you for this number.  And then you set up this entirely separate bureaucracy that keeps track of where everyone lives for tax purposes.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just combine these bureaucracies and supply everyone with some sort of national ID that works for tax purposes, and other financial matters, and for voting whenever there’s an election?  But you don’t want the one number stopping someone from stealing your identity to just be about as long as a phone number.  But if your ID number is 400 digits with multiple internal checks, nobody will remember them.  Meaning you’ll have to give everyone cards with their photo and basic information, and then some QR code.  Which means banks and employers will need to scan your QR code, meaning there will be plenty of opportunity for your data to be hacked, meaning the need for even more security firewalls, which … wait, wasn’t I just talking about voting?

I started with such a simple idea, but even trying to build it from scratch would be a colossal nightmare.  And even without the 1001 special interest groups that would fight against, or try to twist it for their own purpose, trying to change our current system would be … a colossal nightmare of a colossal nightmare.  And I think a lot of people realize that, and give up.  But that just leaves us at the mercy of those who won’t give up.  So register to vote, get involved, and maybe together we can make some slight changes for the better.