Short story – “Vote With Your Fists”

“Vote With Your Fists”

After a final pat down, the state trooper pulled back the flap for Charles Roman to enter.  Three men were inside the pole tent.  A Secret Service agent stood at the entrance and gave Charles a quick look over.  Another man in a short-sleeved shirt with a black medical bag sat in a chair near the exit, reading a travel magazine.  The third man sat on a stool in the middle holding an ice pack to his face; blood splattered his white T-shirt.

Charles started towards the figure on the stool, but the Secret Service agent stepped in front of him, holding up a hand.  “Remember, you only get one punch.”

“I know.”

The agent nodded and returned to his place by the flap.

Charles walked up to the man on the stool.  “Senator Hoyer, happy Punch-Your-Politician Day.”

The Senator removed the ice pack.  “Just get this over with.”

“Not so fast.  There are a few things I want to tell you.  First off, you weren’t my first choice.  I had wanted to punch the President, but I couldn’t afford to stand in line all day so I had to settle for you.”

“I’m honored.”

Charles scoffed.  “Secondly, I don’t know why, but I actually voted for you last year.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you?  I wish that was something I could say to you.  What have you done for me this past year?” Charles closed his eyes and muttered, “Ah … let’s see … um … oh yeah.” He opened his eyes and glared at the Senator.  “Nothing.  During your campaign you made dozens of speeches about job creation and making education more affordable.  But have you done any of that?”

“The measures I support have yet to make their way out of their respective committees.”

“Oh, but the measures to give tax cuts to the rich go through committees, Congress, and on to the President in record time.” Charles clapped his hands, and in a somber voice said, “Hooray for American democracy.”

A little table stood next to the Senator with a glass of water.  The Senator set the ice pack down and picked up the glass and took a sip of water.  “Democracy,” he said, “means if you don’t like what your politician is doing, you vote them out of office.”

“I don’t like what you’ve done, but I have to wait five more years to vote you out?  Doesn’t seem fair.  I mean, if I get a bad hamburger at a drive-thru I can take it right back and get another one.”

The Senator chuckled.  “Would you rather politicians just did what the polls told them to do?”

“If the polls showed that the majority of the people supported a measure it would be nice if you politicians, who supposedly work for ‘the people,’ supported it as well, you know, instead of just listening to those who write you checks.”

Looking Charles in the eye, the Senator asked, “Do you actually know that all politicians are only out for their own good, or is that just what the media has fed you?”

Charles let a breath out through his nose.  “Just about a month before last year’s election, my mother-in-law had a stroke.”

“Is she all right?”

“Why do you care?  She lives in different state.”

“I care because I’m human.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.  Anyway, about three months ago my father had a heart attack.” Charles paused for a second.  “He does live in our state, but he never voted for you.  Anyway, it’s needless to say that our medical bills have been rather painful this past year, and what with our oldest starting her third year at college and our youngest starting to look at colleges, and my wife’s job being outsourced last year, we have no idea how we’re going to pay for it all.  So there you have it.  Two modest, hard working Americans who can’t pay their bills and who have been waiting – for years – for our elected officials to help us.”

The Senator looked at the ground.  “We can’t solve every problem overnight.”

“Have you even tried?” Before the Senator could reply Charles continued, “And don’t just blame the other party for all the ills of the country, because they say the same about you.  Actually, you’re probably both right.  You’re each too busy trying to beat the other guy to a bloody pulp that you don’t have time to do your jobs.”

“I might point out,” the Senator said, “that distractions like this don’t help either.”

“Ah, but if you did your jobs in the first place, this holiday wouldn’t be needed to show you how sick and tired we are of politics as usual.” Charles had more-or-less managed to keep his voice under control to this point, but now he began shouting, “You’re not supposed to just be paying back whoever bought you your election.  You’re supposed to be working for ‘We the People,’ and until you get that through your thick skulls we’ll continue to do this every year.”

Without warning, Charles’ fist slammed into the Senator’s jaw with all the hatred for what American politics had become behind it.  Knocking over the table, the Senator fell to the ground with fresh blood flowing from his mouth.  “Although, we should do this every day.” Charles drew his foot back to kick the Senator in the ribs.

This caused the Senator to curl into a fetal position and the Secret Service agent to grab Charles and push him towards the exit saying, “You got your punch.”

“I know, I know.  I wasn’t going to kick him.  I just needed to make him cringe.”

###

I first wrote this story twenty years ago, back when we expected Bush to be the dumbest President.  I republished it in my collection Political Pies in 2012.  I was reminded of this recently for … reasons, and figured I should post it again.

Let me assure you that I do not advocate violence against our elected officials.  Violence should play no part in a democracy.  Still, I do think the line from V for Vendetta, “People should not be afraid of their governments.  Governments should be afraid of their people,” should be made the national motto.

Now, one little issue that I will point out.  Let me ask, why are we Americans and not British?  Well, one – of several – reasons is that the British politicians didn’t seem to care all that much about what the colonials had to say in regards to taxes.  Interesting bit of history, isn’t it?  And those who think we are taxed too much and those who think the rich aren’t taxed enough can both find meaning in that, which makes it even more interesting.

Thoughts on Artemis II

 What are my thoughts on the Artemis II mission?  Uh, complicated.

On one hand, I am a big supporter of space missions, especially crewed missions, and I am a huge supporter of going back to the moon.  But I’m not a fan of the Artemis Program because I want a sustained presence on the moon, and a billion-dollar rocket that launches once a year isn’t how you do that.  My biggest fear right now, is that maybe we’ll do a landing or two, and then the politics will change and all these Grand Moon Base plans will be canceled because we need that money to give billionaires another tax cut. 

I didn’t follow the mission that closely – there was an impending WWIII I was a bit concerned with – but I did hear talk of it being inspirational.  Which is something I’ve come to hate.  I have forgotten how many times I’ve heard something will “inspire future generations.” Why don’t we build something now, for the current generation?  Like, the SLS is a great rocket, but if it flies ten times I’ll be flabbergasted.  So we’ll have spent untold billions and all these years to, what, just inspire future generations to build a better system?  Couldn’t we have just built the better system to begin with? 

I guess, in the end I’ll say that Artemis II was a great mission.  I just don’t think we’ll go too far down the path it started.

I saw a Cybertruck

 I was driving to work yesterday, when I saw something odd coming towards me.  I actually went, "Holy shit," because it was a Cybertruck.  My guess, since they were heading towards the interstate, is that someone was on a road trip, and they needed to stop to use a restroom, or to grab some food, or whatever.  I very much doubt they were local, because I live in Pennsylvania, where it rains and/or snows.  Two things Cybertrucks apparently have difficulty with.  I also live in a rural area where trucks are used to haul large loads of hay bales, or firewood, or fill dirt.  And haulling large loads of things is something Cybertrucks also apparently have difficulty with.  I would say that people where I live have common sense and wouldn't spend what could get you a small house for, whatever a Cybertruck is supposed to give you, but about 80% voted for Trump, so ....

Having only seen one in real life, and only for a few seconds, I have to say ... it looked fucking ridiculous.  It looked smaller that I thought it would be, which somehow just made it stupider.  

Random Story – This is a weird prologue

This is just an odd little story from my life.

Some years ago, a girlfriend and I broke up a few days before my birthday.  It was for the best.  Anyway, during the exchange of things like spare keys and whatnot, I got the book she had bought for my birthday gift.  It was something like The Dragons of Warevin, or something, by an author I hadn’t heard of.  I still have it, and could look it up, but I don’t feel like doing it now.

So this book sat on a shelf for a few months, but at some point I figured I should move on and only remember the good times, and I figured I should read this book.  It started with this fifteen or so page prologue that began with the tale of two kingdoms, one with magic and one with dragons, or something.  I only vaguely remember the details of the story.  Anyway, I’m reading through this and I’m thinking it seems rather odd.  There’s no dialogue, or even a story, it’s almost just bullet points, like an outline of a story.  I read a couple pages of this, and then we find out the kingdoms were joined through marriage, and then we start in on some scandal that rocked this new kingdom some twenty years later.

Eventually, sadly later than it should have taken, I start to wonder if this is like the sixth book in a series.  I go back and scan the cover, and there’s just The Dragons of Warevin, and on the back there’s a blurb about this author’s outstanding Krithrak Series, or whatever.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Inside the book, on the list of other works by the author, there’s several apparently stand-alone novels, as well as five or six books in the Krithrak Series, and The Dragons of Warevin isn’t anywhere on this list.  Which isn’t all that strange. 

I go back to the prologue, and hundreds of years past, and there’s civil wars, and dynasties fall, and gunpowder is invented, and a lot of stuff happens.  By the end of the prologue, I’m convinced that this is indeed the sixth or so book in a series, and the prologue was just a bullet point listing of the big events from the previous books.  I then Google the book (back when you could actually get an answer from Google instead of AI slop or pointless ads trying to sell be shit) and it turns out that, yes, The Dragons of Warevin was indeed the sixth book of the Krithrak Series.  Knowing this, I again looked all over the book, but could not find any indication of this.  I guess if you were buying this author’s book, you knew the series.  Or were my ex-girlfriend.

Since all the big events covered in the prologue seemed self-contained in their respective books, I figured I probably wouldn’t miss much reading The Dragons of Warevin.  I don’t think I did miss anything, and the book was okay.  If it wasn’t the last gift of an ex, and for some reason they decided not to show it was part of a series, I’d probably have completely forgotten about it. 

Short story – “Moon Light”

“Moon Light”

With her four-year-old son Jason half asleep on her shoulder, Lenia Davidson walked out into her backyard.  As with any four-year-old, getting him to go to bed was a challenge, which would only be even more challenging in the days ahead after waking him in the middle of the night.  But he needed to see this.

Between the neighbor’s lights, the glow from Houston, and a nearly half-a-moon, there were only a couple of stars visible.  Although, Lenia thought one of them was supposed to be Jupiter, but she couldn’t remember which one.

#

Commander Sean Davidson quietly counted down, “Three, two, one.” At zero, the only thing that happened was a change on his computer screen.  After glancing over everything for a few seconds, he transmitted, “Houston, everything on our end indicates Moon Light is working and running its first program.”

A few seconds later came the reply, “Copy Armstrong.  We can see that it’s working.”

Sean turned to his crew – in various stages of making dinner – and announced, “It appears Project Moon Light is a success.”

His crew nodded and applauded, then went back to work.

Sean checked the displays again, then looked up and smiled.

#

After a few minutes of trying to keep Jason awake by pointing out the fireflies or the distant hoot of an owl, Lenia finally saw what she was waiting for.  She turned him around so he could see the moon.  Half was lit by the sun, but in the dark half was a point of bright, white light.  “Jason, look.”

Jason yawned and rubbed his eyes.

 “See that point of light on the moon?”

Jason stopped rubbing his eyes, and looked up at the moon.  After a second or two, he nodded.

“That’s where your daddy is.”

Jason turned to her, then back to the moon with his mouth open.

Lenia explained, “They have a really bright flashlight that they can turn on for a minute at a time, so everyone on Earth can see that there are people on the moon.”

Whatever tiredness Jason had was replaced with awe, and he waved at the moon.

By now, the light had turned red and was starting to shift its way through the rainbow.

Lenia kissed Jason on the top of his head, then waved at the moon with him.

My idea for a lunar program

I’m not really a fan of the Artemis Program.  The main reason is the SLS.  I want a permanently crewed lunar base, and a billion-dollar rocket that launches once a year (maybe) isn’t how you do that.  And I seriously doubt Starship will meet expectations.  So recently, while waiting for Artemis II, I started wondering how I would have designed the lunar program if I had control of it.  And this is what I came up with.  Now, I’m sure a real space engineer will be able to point out, “You can’t do X for this reason,” but this is basically the idea a space fan came up with some night while at work.

The number one point of this plan is that everything will be designed to launch on existing rockets, such as the Falcon 9.  No need to spend untold billions and years and years of work to build some super-duper rocket that can do it all in one launch.  Each mission would require components launched on multiple rockets spaced out over a few months, and some of these could be components could be launched on European, Japanese, or Indian rockets. 

A big element of my plan would be two “space stations,” one in Earth orbit and one in lunar orbit.  I say “space stations” because on the less expensive – and quicker – end they could just be satellites, while on the more expensive – and longer – end they could be permanently crewed space stations.  The option I lean towards is where they are basically satellites, but they have a module where a crew can dock for a week or so to do maintenance or repairs.

These stations would consist of three modules.  There would be a command module that would have all the computers, and communication equipment, and solar panels.  On one end of this would be the crew module, which would have two or three docking ports and an airlock.  On the other end of the command module would be a module with the thrusters for station keeping, as well as the fuel tanks.  There would also be a docking port for a refueling craft.  These refueling craft would likely be some version of the X-37.  It would launch, dock with the station, transfer fuel, then return to Earth to be relaunched. 

Now the possibly bigger part of my plan would be a ferry craft.  Ideally, this would be reusable, with part of the reason for the stations to be a place to store fuel for this ferry.  But if that was too complicated, then the alternative would be to have a reusable command ferry with all the computers, communication equipment, and solar panels, that would dock with the Earth Station and wait for an expendable rocket stage that would send it to the moon. 

How I see this working, is you’d have this ferry craft docked to the Earth Station.  Then a rocket would launch the cargo, which – with the help of a robotic arm or two – would be attached to the ferry.  This ferry stack would then undock and set off for the moon.  If it’s just plain cargo, then it would take the most fuel-efficient way to get to the moon, taking a month or more.  When it reached the moon, it would go into orbit and dock to the Lunar Station. 

In the case of human cargo, it would take a shorter, more fuel intense trip.  One possibility, is that instead of taking whatever craft carried the crew to orbit, they’d dock to the Earth Station, and transfer over to a travel habitat, or whatever.  This would have more room for the astronauts, but the downside would be that these travel habitats would only be for traveling between Earth and Lunar orbits.  They could not reenter and land, meaning if something happened to the craft docked to the Earth Station, they’d be stranded.  This sounds bad, but what would the difference be if something happened to the craft docked to the Lunar Station while the crew was on the surface?

The lunar landing system, at first, would consist of two components.  One would be an expendable descent stage.  The other would be a reusable habitat with an ascent stage.  Eventually, this could be replaced by an entirely reusable system, but I expect that to be more complicated.  That’s the eventual goal, but it’s tough to start there.

All of this sounds like a lot, and it is, but part of the point of this is you can spend a year or more launching the various parts and getting everything in place before you start landing on the moon.  And I figure the way to start the lunar landings would be with cargo that would land on the descent stages.  This way we can get multiple landings to make sure everything works long before we risk humans.  Probably one of the first landings would be of a RTG rover that could scout out future landing sites and take samples.  Later landings would have experiments, and could start landing cargo for a future base.  Then you could do a dress rehearsal with an ascent stage.  But instead of people, it would land some cargo, then be filled with a few hundred kilograms of rocks and samples.  This would take off and eventually get to the Earth Station.  Then a crew capsule could launch, but instead of four crew members, maybe only two go up.  They would transfer the samples over to their craft, and then return home.

Once deemed safe, we’d start flying people.  At first for short stays of a week or two, but eventually – once there’s enough equipment and supplies – for months.  Eventually, a permanently crewed base would take shape.  And by that time, a new system would probably be developed.  Because the goal of all of this would be to find a safe, efficient way to get to the moon with existing technology.  And hopefully in the years it would take to design, test, and launch all this, maybe we could finally crack the super-duper rocket issues and do all this with a single launch.  Or maybe we’d just scale everything up.  Or maybe we’d discover issues and have to figure out a different approach.  In the end, I want humans on the moon in a safe, efficient, sustainable way.  I don’t care how it’s done, but I’m pretty sure the current program won’t be it.

Short story – “Still Relevant”

“Still Relevant”

With a sigh, Gary opened the bottom drawer of his dresser and took out a threadbare t-shirt.  Thirtyish years ago, it had been a plain, dark blue shirt his girlfriend at the time had ironed a political message on.  Now it was a faded blue and the message was hard to read since the letters had started peeling. 

His wife Susan watched him for a moment.  “It’s time to throw that away.”

“As I’ve explained before,” Gary stated, “I told my college girlfriend I would wear this shirt until it was no longer needed.  But sadly, we live in a world run by assholes who have no qualms about shedding other people’s blood for their oil.”

Gary pulled the shirt over his head, and looking at Susan gave it a firm tug over the belly that had somehow grown since college.  This unfortunately caused a large rip to open on the left side of the shirt.

Gary took a breath, then took the shirt off.  He folded it up, placed it back, then closed the drawer.  He turned to see Susan watching him with a raised eyebrow.  “Perhaps I should order a new one.”

#

For those who didn’t get the reference, I remember back in 1990 in the lead up to the Gulf War, a lot of people protested the war with the phrase “No blood for oil.” While this was mostly on signs, I’m sure a few people put it on shirts.  I don’t know if anyone still has a shirt from then, but they, sadly, probably need a new one.