Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my post-election ennui. Now I'm doing something about it.

Today is #GivingTuesday, and regardless of how you feel about the proliferation of Thanksgiving holiday adjuncts (Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc.), there are many opportunities to amplify your donations today and this week due to other people and organizations matching funds.

And sure, those folks could just give their money freely instead of digging a hole in the ground, but it's their money. Anyway, the point of matching funds is to spread awareness and encourage others to give as well.

I'm taking the advice of many wiser people and setting up monthly donations to support causes I believe in. I can spare $100 a month—that's $10 to each group, in case you're counting—and here's where it's going:

1. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - not tax deductible, FYI.
2. Planned Parenthood (PPFA) - tax deductible "to the fullest extent allowable," because laws matter, goddammit.
3. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - "fully tax deductible as allowed by law, less the fair market value of any substantial gifts received."
4. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) - now based in Portland, Oregon!
5. Black Lives Matter - "IDEX provides services such as fiduciary oversight, financial management, and other administrative services to Black Lives Matter. IDEX is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization for both federal and state purposes. Our federal tax identification number is 77-0071852."
6. Native American Rights Fund - not just because their acronym is NARF.
7. National Immigration Law Center - because immigrants, we get the job done.
8. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) - "a not-for-profit organization recognized as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3)."
9. Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) - "a 501(c)(3) under federal tax guidelines. TAX ID: 77-0646756"
10. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) - the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization in the United States.

So. Tell me. What are you doing to fuck shit up?

We Can Be Heroes

Hello. This is my post-terrible-election blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I've had a lot of thoughts and feelings over the past week. I haven't been very productive, writing-wise. But here, I think, is some much-needed perspective:


https://youtu.be/SHG0ezLiVGc

To wit, nobody should be surprised to learn that America—overall, historically, demonstrably—is racist as fuck. Non-white minorities have always known this. If you look like any kind of brown person, it's something you have to deal with every single day. (I could tell you stories. Oh boy, could I tell you stories. But later.)

So. Racism wins: not that surprising. Still devastating, yeah. Many of us hoped for better from our fellow citizens. But we are ready to face this.

Remember back in the year 2000, in DC Comics, when Lex Luthor was elected President of the United States? That's right, evil supervillain Lex Luthor. And that motherfucker was a straight-up murderer.

That storyline had some logic issues, as pointed out in the article linked above, but my point is: we've been imagining dystopias for, well, ever. 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, is any of this ringing a bell?

This situation is nothing new. We've been seeing it for years, in fiction and in other nations' oppressive regimes. The difference is that now, we get a chance to fight for real. We are the Rebel Alliance. We are the Maquis. We are the Green Martians.

So fight, if you haven't already been fighting. Fight for the oppressed. Fight for those who are weaker and less privileged than yourself. Donate money if you can. Volunteer if you have time. Fight for truth, justice, and the goddamn American way. Because this is where heroes are made, in the crucible of change.

And never forget—this is important—always remember, we are stronger together.

We all have a choice: to kneel before Zod, or to rise up with Alexander Hamilton.

What will you choose?



P.S. If you don't know where to start, HOLY FUCK THE ELECTION might help.

I Have Set a Dangerous Precedent

I missed blogging last Wednesday because I was driving to a writers' retreat, but nobody complained. (Maybe you were all distracted by the awesome new Puzzled Pint blog?) I will continue to make my best effort to blog weekly, but no promises, Mister Scott.

Anyway. A lot of terrible things have been happening lately, and we (as individual people) can't really do much about most of it. The world is full of systemic ills that require long-term solutions.

I can't tell you how to fix racism or improve disaster relief. But I can tell you how to make ringtones in iTunes, because I had to do this myself recently, and it was a bit of a pain to figure out.

1. Follow these instructions to change your import settings from MP3 to AAC.
2. Follow these instructions to create ringtone files, BUT...
3. ...BEFORE step 7 above, FIRST delete the .m4a library tracks (keep files on disk), THEN import the .m4r files

That's it.

I know, it's a tiny, small, insignificant thing, but the tallest dune begins with a single grain of sand. And it doesn't help with the problems of the day per se, but I appreciate anything that makes life a little easier. Even if it's a tiny, small, insignificant thing.

Big things take a long time to build. Big changes take a lot of little actions to bring about.

Meanwhile, as Abraham Lincoln once said: "Be excellent to each other... and party on, dudes!"

I Knew Jay Lake

And now he's gone forever.


Photo by Waterloo Productions

I didn't know Jay very well, but I did have the privilege of spending some time with him over the past few years—in local "co-working" writing groups, at a few different conventions, and once while waiting for our shared flight back to Portland (we talked about how home genome sequencing and "chemjet" drug printers could revolutionize medicine).

We were both writers, and we were both born in Taiwan. That's about where the similarities end, but he was a wonderful person to know and an inspiration in many ways. I'll miss him a lot.


Lunch at Paradise Lost 2013. Photo by Donnie G. Reynolds

As a tribute, here's my own, somewhat morbid version of Link Salad, a frequent feature on Jay's personal blog, and from which I always gleaned something fascinating.

A little bird told me — Twitter is awesome, in all senses of the word. In this case, it was good to know from the source sooner rather than later, but those four little words hit me with a sharp, deep pain.

It was dark and cold that morning — on June 1st, the power went out in our neighborhood just after 4:30 AM, and stayed out until 5:45 AM, the same time as Jay's passing. It's meaningless. But it's a thing. I don't know.

I've seen the future, baby It is murder. — Lisa's post about "the day after." (The title of the blog post is lyrics from the Leonard Cohen song "The Future." It's okay, I had to look it up too.)

The Oregonian story on Jay's passing — longer than an obituary, but still too short.

Remembering Jay Lake, 1964-2014 — a more SFnal perspective on Jay's life.

Free Speculative Fiction Online: Jay Lake — read some of Jay's many, many, many published stories.

Some of Jay Lake's books at Powell's — the greatest bookstore in the world.

International Fuck Cancer Day — the first Saturday of every June. Because seriously, fuck cancer. (Join the Facebook group if you're into that sort of thing.)

The Clayton Memorial Medical Fund — if you'd like to make a contribution in Jay's name, there are many other Pacific Northwest writers who are currently enduring or will someday encounter medical emergencies which strain their personal resources.

Lakeside — a documentary by my friend Donnie, currently in post-production. The original concept was "a year in the life of Jay Lake," but after Jay's cancer diagnosis, the film morphed into something else. I want to see it, and I know I'm going to cry. It's okay. It's going to be okay.

I Hate the Word "Tribe"

Just to be clear: this is not a rant against Seth Godin. I actually think he's got some pretty great ideas about leadership, as shown in his TED talk from 2009 (worth watching for the vintage Kindle 1 prop, if nothing else).

My problem is with the word "tribe" and all it implies: exclusion, small-mindedness, and bigotry.

I know. You're probably thinking that tribe is a positive concept, as Godin argues in his book; that it signals connection and camaraderie, often across great distances; that it can be a lifeline for those who feel isolated by their unusual interests. And that is all true and good, ideologically speaking. My specific problem is with terminology, and the unfortunate etymological baggage that comes with calling something a "tribe."

Try this. Do a Google Image Search for the word "tribe." I'm guessing your entire first page of results will be photos of primitive-looking, possibly aboriginal peoples:



And that, I believe, is the first thing that comes to mind when anyone says the word "tribe:" it's not some noble grassroots movement petitioning for political change, and not some far-flung collective which has self-organized over the Internet. No. It's a bunch of crudely dressed people of color standing around a jungle, forest, or other wilderness. In a word: savages.

I know how people want to use the word, as a rallying point--perhaps even subverting that prejudicial, historical meaning--but it's difficult for me to get beyond it. Because the concept of "tribe" is explicitly discriminatory. People talk about "finding their tribe" in a good way, but I'm always painfully aware of the flip side: that by identifying yourself with one group, you are also willfully segregating yourself from others. If only a select group are "your people," then everyone else in the world is, by definition, not your brethren. And that puts you one step closer to thinking of them as your enemy.

Even if you don't go that far, one could argue that these tribal distinctions are necessary and unavoidable. We could talk about the Rule of 150 (a.k.a. Dunbar's number), but it's more fun to discuss...

...the Monkeysphere!

Because, you know, monkeys.

If you haven't yet, go and read "What is the Monkeysphere?" by David Wong. Yes, it's on Cracked.com, but don't let that fool you--the tone may be flippant, but the issues it addresses are serious, and his conclusions are sound.

(BTW, "David Wong" is the pen name of Jason Pargin, executive editor of Cracked.com; he's also written two comic horror novels, John Dies at the End and This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It. I did not make up any of this.)

Wong's basic argument is the same as Dunbar's, Gladwell's, and any number of other social scientists: that there is an upper limit to human beings' cognitive ability to maintain stable social relationships, and that limit is about a hundred and fifty people. But Wong distinguishes himself on page 2 of his article, where he offers this advice:

[R]eject [the] binary thinking of "good vs. bad" or "us vs. them." Know problems cannot be solved with clever slogans and over-simplified step-by-step programs... take the amount you think you know, reduce it by 99.999%, and then you'll have an idea of how much you actually know regarding things outside your Monkeysphere.

It's not about denying our biological deficiencies. It's about acknowledging and accepting those limits, and finding ways to overcome or bypass them. Can't run fast enough to chase down that prey animal? Try riding a horse, or domesticating dogs, or inventing projectile weapons. Not sure when it's going to get cold again or when's a good time to plant crops? Invent the calendar and keep track of annual weather cycles. The history of human civilization is all about us giving Mother Nature the middle finger and saying "screw this, we can do better."

In this case, however, it's not about science or technology or engineering; it's about changing the way we think of ourselves and others, and that is a tough, long-term, cultural conundrum. It's not something we can cure with a pill or a device or legislation or even a good story. It's something that has to happen to every person, individually, as he or she grows up. You've got to be carefully taught and all that.

I hate the word "tribe" because it implies we're still restricted by that cognitive limit, and we can't get beyond it. And that's just not true. Maybe I don't personally know every single one of the hundreds of people I'm connected to through Twitter or Facebook or other social media, but I know a little bit about each of them. And every small piece of information makes those names and tiny pictures more human to me.

It's not about who's in which tribe, or whether I share all (or any) of their likes or dislikes or political views. It's about people, and understanding that diversity is good. I want to be friends with smart people who disagree with me (as long as they're not jerks about it)!

The thing I'm really interested in is community. (I know some people don't like that word either, and I can understand where they're coming from: again, it's all about usage and intent. Prefixing anything with "the" can assign it an undeserved weight--for example, consider the difference between one show called "Following," versus another called "The Following".)

To me, "community" implies openness and a willingness to embrace new members. Fandom is a community. The Internet is chock-full of meeting places for all sorts of virtual communities, new cultures whose only entrance requirement is a shared interest in something. Create an account and you can immediately start posting and commenting and participating.

You might still have to kiss some frogs, but keep trying and you will find a place where you belong. And if that's taking too long? Start your own community. Plant the seed and see what happens. You have nothing to lose but your loneliness.

I Miss My Friends

Last year, two of my friends took their own lives.

I was completely blindsided both times. Of course, no one should ever expect anybody they know to kill themselves, but I had not even an inkling that either of these people was so afflicted that they would even consider suicide. I know it's not my fault, and I know depression is complicated. It's been long enough that I've stopped wondering if I might have done something to help these two people specifically, and am now asking what I can do to help others with similar troubles.

I suppose that's progress.



Igal Koshevoy died on April 9, 2013. I hadn't seen him for a while, probably not since the last Portland tech community event. I missed BarCamp Portland 7 because of a trip to Seattle. At the end of that weekend, the Query Shark thing happened; two days later, I threw my "100 Rejections" party; and less than a week after that, as I was leaving for Paradise Lost III, I saw the terrible news on Twitter.

On one hand, it was a lot to deal with all at once; but it was also good, to have some distractions, and to be physically away from the immediate grief of his loss. We weren't especially close, but every time I saw Igal, he had a smile on his face and he was excited about something. Maybe that was a side effect of where I usually saw him--tech conferences, community events, party-type environments--but he always looked like he was happy to be there. I didn't know about his struggles with depression, and even if I had, I couldn't have helped. It's an illness, and sometimes we just can't cure an illness.

That's what I keep telling myself.



Matthew Schuler died on May 13, 2013. I knew him better than I knew Igal; he had joined Puzzled Pint Game Control in late 2012, and I saw him almost every week at our meetings. He brought a new energy and perspective to our monthly events, much of which came from his love of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). I got to know him better, a little bit at a time; DeeAnn and I played our first games of Starship Artemis at his house, and we celebrated his 40th birthday at Teardrop, where he explained about "serious cocktails."

I know more about Matthew's death than I know about Igal's. I sat in his house for most of that Monday, after receiving an e-mail with the awful news. People came and went all day, and none of us could believe it; at least once, someone joked that they were still hoping it might be a hoax, possibly the rabbit hole for the most tasteless ARG ever. But it wasn't. It was real, and the unyielding truth of it felt like an ever-increasing, oppressive gravity.

The day after Matthew died was our next Puzzled Pint event. We didn't cancel it; we presented the last puzzle he would ever make, all the men on Game Control wore neckties in his honor, and we observed a moment of silence. We sat with other people who had known him and talked about how it didn't make sense, how he had been making so many future plans with all of us.

What I really don't get is this:



That's Matthew, posting a comment about Igal right after his memorial service.

Yeah.

I was able to attend both Igal's and Matthew's memorial services, and both times was struck by the many similarities in our lives. Igal immigrated to the United States as a child, like me, and was two years younger than I am (born in the same year as my sister); Matthew was five months and eight days older than I am, and part Chinese (I'm a purebred).

On one day, I looked at a display of artifacts from Igal's childhood--many of which could have come out of my own closet. On another day, I listened to Matthew's family and friends talk about his love of games and music.

And on both days, I cried, because my friends are gone forever and I miss them.

Friday Flash Fiction: "Who Died?"

Read "Who Died?" at 512 Words or Fewer

I like to imagine Jeremy Irons performing this particular monologue. YMMV.

And now, apropos of nothing, some a cappella:


http://youtu.be/tJT4L7HGKzQ

It's been a rough couple of weeks. I guess I'm still processing Matthew's death.

(edited to remove emo coredump)

Friday Flash Fiction: "Down to Earth"

Read "Down to Earth" at 512 Words or Fewer

I freely admit that this week's story was inspired in part by the Gravity trailer:


http://youtu.be/ufsrgE0BYf0

I'm sure I was also influenced by the death of my friend Matthew Schuler.

It's been a rough week. But the show must go on. Make good art and all that.

Friday Flash Fiction: "Hailing Frequency"

Before you broadcast news based on unconfirmed, unofficial reports, ask yourself W.W.U.D.: "What Would Uhura Do?"

Read "Hailing Frequency" at 512 Words or Fewer

Friday Flash Fiction: "Now and Later"

For the record: Guns don't murder people. Fucked-up assholes murder people, and they don't need guns to do it. But firearms do carry a lot of psychic freight.

Read "Now and Later" at 512 Words or Fewer

Friday Flash Fiction: "Shoot First"

Tangentially related, but important: If you have not already done so, please consider donating to help tsunami victims in Japan.

Read "Shoot First" at 512 Words or Fewer

Comic Book Report: X-Men: Magneto Testament

This coming Sunday is the start of the Days of Remembrance, so it's fitting that I just read the excellent X-Men: Magneto Testament. I came to this book by another route--that of researching writer and filmmaker Greg Pak's oeuvre, the same way I wandered into Planet Hulk--and I'm glad I found it.

I generally have little or no interest in the epic soap opera that is the Marvel Comics universe (another exception: Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run), but I have to give them props, especially in this book, for adhering to historical accuracy and their own fictional continuity. It's a high degree of difficulty squared, and Pak and his editorial team handle it very well.

This is not a superhero story. It's not even a supervillain story. You could call it sneaky way to educate kids about the Holocaust using a comic book (or not-so-sneaky, given the big letters proclaiming INCLUDES TEACHER'S GUIDE on the front cover), but it's a good story any way you look at it.

Buy the book: Powell's, Amazon

And speaking of the Holocaust... PBS is airing the 2009 BBC miniseries of The Diary of Anne Frank this Sunday (you can watch online starting Monday until May 11th). I've seen nothing but good reviews of this show.