Harry Harrison died earlier this week, and the F&SF press and blogosphere is now filled with incredible praise for his work, much of which was truly ground-breaking and ahead of the time in which it was published. Rather belatedly, Harrison was inducted into the SF Hall of Fame in 2004, and received the SFWA Grand Master Award in 2009 – when he was 84, and already in ill health.

All the current praise is deserved, but its timing frankly once again raises some questions that are continually swept under the metaphorical carpet.

Where the hell was most of this praise when Harry really could have used it and had time to enjoy it?  Or for that matter, where was it for many other ground-breaking and influential writers [such as Fred Saberhagen] who sometimes were never fully recognized? And why do some many readers vote for awards for whatever the current literary or genre “flavor de jour” happens to be?

Harry’s death was noted by the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and innumerable other news outlets, and yet, in a writing career that spanned more than five decades, he never won a Hugo, although he was nominated twice, and shared in only a single Nebula (and that was for the movie Soylent Green, adapted from his book Make Room!  Make Room!).

Interestingly enough, now that George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series has become a popular HBO miniseries, his latest book – A Dance with Dragons – is now a Hugo and World Fantasy nominee for best novel, and Martin was just named a lifetime award winner by the World Fantasy Convention, at the comparatively young age of 63.  And pretty much all the other novel award nominees for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards have some or all of the following – strong and active PR, fanatical fan bases, extensive insider connections, and internet presences.

Harry, by comparison, just had his books and ideas behind him, and he was never a “flavor de jour.”  My salute to him and his books!

As some long-time readers of this blog may know, some forty years ago, I served briefly as a legislative director to a Congressman.  One of my duties was to handle the staff work for one of his subcommittees – the one dealing with appropriations for the U.S. Post Office [before it was theoretically made an independent agency].  Way back then I raised the issue as to why the Post Office was basing its revenue on first class mail rates and treating bulk mail as a marginal cost. Over the years, I’ve raised this issue, and to this day, no one seems to want to deal with it.

Last quarter, the Postal Service lost $5 billion, and those concerned in the USPS and Congress keep talking about raising first class rates, closing post offices, and eliminating Saturday delivery.  None of these steps will address the problem.

The vast majority of my mail – measured by weight, not rate class – is either bulk advertising mail, reduced rate charitable solicitations, or periodical reduced rate mail.  I’ve asked a number of people with various Postal Service profiles, and that seems to be true of all of them as well.  As first class rates have soared, first class volume has declined, and periodical and bulk [junk] mail make up as greater and greater percentage of Postal Service deliveries, again by weight.  But weight is what counts!  Ask FedEx and UPS.  They charge by a combination of weight and speed of delivery.

The problem is that USPS “bulk,” periodical, and “non-profit” rates aren’t literally carrying their weight… or paying their freight.  But neither the USPS management nor the Congress has wanted to face the fact that these rates are too low, because, in effect, the USPS inherited built-in subsidies adopted for political purposes.  Some of those purposes are still political. For example, all members of Congress have a “franking” privilege that allows them to send letters to their constituents over their signature on the envelope for literally pennies.  The direct mail industry is being subsidized as well, as are non-profit organizations and periodicals. If I’ve read the rate charts correctly, advertising mail and periodicals are charged at slightly over twenty cents a pound[ or in some cases twenty-one cents for the first three ounces], while first class letters are now forty-five cents an ounce.

If Congress wants those subsidies to continue, then it should fund the USPS deficit… but in this time of fiscal difficulty, it won’t do that, and it won’t force the USPS management to adopt a realistic and practical rate structure, because churches, political organizations, direct mailers, and Congress itself would all have to pay more.  Instead, the everyday Americans who don’t like all the junk mail and political and endless charitable solicitations are faced with poorer service and higher prices for personal communications – and not all of us can or want to pay our bills electronically. Nor can we, since  it’s not possible for all businesses or for all individuals. Nor should we have to when those higher postal rates are subsidizing the unrealistically low rates paid by other classes of mail.

It may well be that lower postal rates for periodicals and non-profits serve a greater social purpose, but, if that is so, then Congress should subsidize those rates with public funding.  But, as usual, Congress doesn’t want to pay for its privileges [the franking privilege] and doesn’t want to admit the degree to which it wants everyone else to subsidize bulk mail for business, charities, non-profits, and political organizations, all of which apparently have more political clout than the citizenry as a whole.

Not that any of this is surprising, but I have yet to see any public discussion of this aspect of the Postal Service cost structure, not in more than forty years – except for my own comments.

Last week, the American gymnast Ali Raisman tied for third place at the Olympics in the all-around competition… and lost the tie-breaker because she was a more consistent performer than the Russian gymnast with whom she was tied.  Yes… that’s correct.  The more consistent performer lost in a competition designed to reward the most consistent   I doubt that was what the gymnastics federation had in mind when they drew up the tie-breaker rule, but that sort of result was absolutely and mathematically inevitable because of the rule, which provided that, in the event of a tie, the lowest score each of the two gymnasts had, out of the four events, would be thrown out, and the one with the highest remaining score would be declared the winner.  The result mathematically is that when two gymnasts are tied, if one has a particularly bad single event, the winner will always be that one.

This is an excellent example of how what seems, on the surface, to be a perfectly logical “solution” created a result totally at odds with the goal of the competition.  Unhappily, this doesn’t just happen in Olympic gymnastics, but in all too many areas of society, business, and government. It occurs because too many decision-makers, from politicians to business CEOs, don’t think through the implications and ramifications of their decisions.  Sometimes, that occurs because they don’t think events will ever require contingency plans – as in the case of safety requirements at Japanese nuclear facilities.  After all, who could have predicted the freakish combination of earthquake and tsunami? And in gymnastics, what was the probability of a tie with that many judges and four events with scores measured in thousandths of a point?

Results at variance with what one might call common sense also occur when situations change and the rules or procedures don’t. Or they occur because everyone is so concerned about the moment that something totally predictable that occurs periodically, but at long intervals, is totally overlooked, as in the case of Delta Airlines forgetting to renew their online security certification at a time when they had cut commissions to travel agents and increased the fees required for telephone booking, thus increasing the percentage of reservations and payments made online.

All of these situations are the result of failure, in some way, to consider the implications of either certain actions or of failing to act… and all are preventable… but, given human nature, few will be.

Several days ago, a former student of my wife called, frantically trying to locate an original copy of music he needed – by the next day.  Last week, her department chair informed her that a special grant was available for her opera program, if she could submit the paperwork by Monday.  Now… he had been informed that she was leaving for a singing appearance the next day and would not be returning until Monday evening… and he’d had the information about the grant for almost a month.  And more than once I’ve had editors of periodicals [not my regular editor; he knows better] request corrections to proofs in a day or two.

What gives with people these days?  Now that we have instant messaging and email and networks, etc., it’s as though half the population, if not more, believes that everything can be done instantly… and that everyone is instantly available all the time.  Yet often these demands and requests involve material objects that can’t be produced or located instantly.  Electronic instantaneousness doesn’t translate automatically to instant physical production, especially of objects involving more than text, a fact that is increasingly lost on many superiors.  Nor is everyone always physically located where they can comply with such requests and demands.  Yet the creation of near-instant communications has created the illusion for many that everything is instant.

Even when someone is present and ready, these last-minute requests and demands create the danger of fast and shoddy work, often with little or no oversight and review. For the most part, speed is dangerous.  This fact is certainly recognized in areas such as aviation and various racing sports, where great attention to detail is the hallmark of those who are successful. There’s all too much truth to the truism that “speed kills.” But the dangers of speed appear far less well-recognized in business or education, or finance, despite such mishaps as the flash crash of the stock market several years ago, or the more recent mishaps dealing with a portfolio of stocks handled by a large market-maker, caused, incidentally, by the adoption of new trading software designed in part to speed trades.  And the use of fast electronic processing by shoddy mortgage firms has doomed many homeowners to unnecessary financial ruin.

There’s a huge difference between planned and careful use of speed and laziness, incompetence, and procrastination enabled by rapid communications… and it’s well past time that individuals, not to mention organizations and their leaders, recognized that difference.

Mozart was a genius.  That’s something on which almost all professionals in classical music agree.  Outside of music, however, his acts, language, and behavior left, shall we say, something to be desired.  The same was also true of Richard Wagner.  Because my wife is a professional singer, as well as a professor of voice and opera, over the years, I’ve met a few renowned figures in the field.  Several, often described as outstanding or geniuses, have come across as boors, bitches, and self-absorbed bastards [no..I won’t name names].  In my years in politics, I went through the same experience, except that occurred in the back rooms, so to speak, because any competent politician, in general, is warm and caring in public… or at least careful in dealing with anyone who can vote or contribute or give good media coverage. 

Now… not all geniuses are uncaring, self-centered egotists, but from what I’ve seen, a disproportionate number are – especially in private or when they think they can get away with such behavior.  What is it about so many people who have great talent that makes them so indifferent to the feelings of others and so willing to tromp over others – even when it gains them nothing and often costs them far more than they realize? That might just be a reason why the career of pop music phenoms average 18 months.

Some have claimed that such egotistic behavior is one of the costs of or prices for genius.  I don’t buy that.  I suspect that people tend to excuse behaviors by those with great talent, wealth, or power that they would not tolerate in others.  I understand [but still find repulsive] such excuses when people feel they must ignore or excuse bad behavior by those with great power, as in the case of corporate subordinates of egocentric CEOs, because calling your boss on bad behavior is usually a career-limiting move.  And I have to admit that I’ve never understood the appeal of rock stars or popular musicians whose popularity seems to be enhanced by bad behavior.  That might possibly be because fans wish they could do the same and identify with it, but, elitist that I am, I much prefer quiet class to the openly displayed arrogance of power.

As I’ve noted before, in the corporate area, competent and quiet CEOs almost always outperform the egocentric ones, but both the public and the media seem all too willing to praise the egotists, at least until they fail… and most do.  As for Mozart, while his music lives on, he was buried almost without mourners in an unmarked grave.  Maybe that fact ought to be trumpeted a bit more.