According to The Economist, the United States has the highest rate of credit card fraud of any developed nation, a rate far, far higher, than European Union nations, as well as far higher monetary losses. This isn’t necessarily just because we have more credit card thieves, which we apparently do, but also because the United States has far more credit cards and, equally important, has lagged behind the E.U. in adopting the so-called “pin and chip” credit card that contains a microchip with security features. The “pin and chip” system means effectively that it is far more difficult to use a stolen card or card number.

American business has lagged in employing this system, although Target, the latest and largest victim of hacking and the theft of tens of millions of credit card numbers and user names, is now looking into developing and issuing credit cards with greater security features. The reason for the delay? The new systems will cost more to install and implement, because new card readers will be required.

Or, in other words, until the losses to business make it clear that it’s “cost-effective” for them, regardless of the costs and hassles to consumers, they really don’t want to adopt a new and more secure system. These are also the men and women who, not unanimously, but overwhelmingly, try every method they can to reduce their costs. They beg their consumers to “go paperless,” claiming that doing so will benefit consumers while their real reason is to reduce their own paperwork burden. They’re the same retail executives who employ part-timers so that they won’t have to pay health benefits, who cut middle-management and overwork the survivors, and who outsource overseas anything they can to reduce costs, disregarding what it does to both their employees and the economy as a whole.

Yet when it comes to reducing the burden of fraud on their consumers, most are notably silent, or even oppose any improvement because it will increase their short-term costs. Just as cleaner environmental production and distribution systems might do… or health insurance or living wages. Fancy that.

The other day I was reading reader reviews of Rex Regis , a habit that my wife disparages, and there is, I must admit, a certain validity to that disparagement, but I occasionally find useful comments and every so often those which are thought-provoking.

The comment that I found thought-provoking was one reader’s comment that because a lead-lined room for limiting the power of imagers figured in the book, I had to be running out of ideas. To me that comment revealed a certain unrealistic short-sightedness. In the world of Terahnar, the use of lead-lined rooms for imagers dates back well before the beginning of Scholar, and there’s no secret to the usefulness of lead in this regard. Those who used the lead room did so exactly because that usefulness was well known, although they did employ another device that had just been developed, a fact seemingly overlooked by the reader.

Now and again, I’ve noted similar comments about other authors’ works as well; so my observations don’t represent something limited just to my work. As I have stated more than once, human beings will employ what is useful, and they will continue to use whatever they find useful until it is no longer useful or until they find a better way or tool. If more than one person uses a gun or laser or whatever, that doesn’t mean an author is out of ideas; it means he or she understands people and tools.

Somewhere, among a certain group of fantasy readers, there seems to be a belief that each and every problem must be resolved in a new and unique way, as if the only measure of author creativity is a new and different solution to each problem, even if some of those problems are the same nature as preceding difficulties. It’s one thing to use a new technique or technology if it fits into the story, can be supported by the magic/technology in use or is a logical outgrowth of that magic or technology, and doesn’t require resources beyond the ability of the individual or culture, but to throw in “new” gimmicks merely to keep readers interested or for the sake of trying to usually ends up undermining the credibility of the story… and the author.

Yet, at the same time, I do understand the desire on the part of readers for something “new,” for something to inspire that sense of wonder. The problem is that “new” things don’t happen that often in any civilization, and need to be introduced sparingly… or the author ends up producing a magic funhouse (in fantasy) or technoporn (in SF), neither of which are something to which I aspire. So it’s likely you’ll only see “new” techniques and/or gadgets in my work when they fit in the societies I’m describing… as I’ve tried to do all along.

There’s a phrase that exists in the American/English language: “It’s never too late to [fill in some goal or action].” I don’t know if similar phraseology exists in other languages, but its prevalence in today’s society is indicative of a mindset that Americans can do anything, even if it seems too late. After all, late as it was, didn’t the U.S. enter World War II and turn the tide, so to speak? Didn’t we come late to rocketry, but become the first to put astronauts on the moon? And I have to admit that there are a number of other examples.

BUT… all too many people fail to realize that there are just as many examples of “too little, too late,” and I have the feeling that, as a result of a society that has become ever more one of instant gratification, just-in-time supply deliveries, and the up-and-coming 3D print-it-yourself technology, we’re losing sight of too many areas where it may well become “too late.

In some areas, we accept, if grudgingly, that “too late” exists. If a child doesn’t learn a second language young, that child will never learn to speak the language without an accent. If you don’t master the violin by age 13-14, you’ll never be a concertmaster/mistress. At some point, it is too late even for a professional athlete to continue performing at a high level. In other areas, we don’t seem to get it at all. Remedial writing instruction for college students [except for foreign students who write well in their own language] is largely useless. Those skills have to be learned close to the time of puberty, yet universities pour billions of dollars into such courses.

The idea of it never being too late is more pronounced in socio-political issues. Gun violence at American schools, now at even grade schools and middle schools, not just colleges and high schools, is continuing to increase to the point that I have to question if it is not too late to ever reduce the carnage. With close to 400 million firearms in circulation, with popular opposition over any control whatsoever of who can use weapons and under what conditions, and a growing lack of self-discipline by a growing percentage of the American public, is there really any way the violence and deaths can be reduced?

Global warming is continuing, despite recent evidence of a slight decrease in solar radiation received by the entire earth. Billions of years ago, Venus and earth were more similar, until runaway global warming turned Venus into a hothouse torrid enough that lead can melt in places on its surface. Another study just revealed that the firn ice of Greenland has either reached or is close to reaching its capability for absorbing meltwater, and further increases in meltwater could lead to the melting of the entire icecap of Greenland. How long before it’s too late to save much of Florida and U.S. coastal cities?

In the end, there is a difference between situations where “it’s never too late”; situations where it soon will be too late; and situations where it’s already too late. But because of the human tendencies to procrastinate and to demand just one position, maybe, just maybe, in cases where there’s any doubt at all we ought to take the default position that, if we don’t do something now, all too soon it will be too late.

Recently, in response to one of my blogs about the excessive salaries paid to university administrators here in the U.S., and particularly in Utah, one of my readers sent me a link to a UK site, which, interestingly enough, contained a news story about how university administrators there had received a five figure pay increase while faculty got, as I recall, less than a one percent increase, after almost a decade of essentially no pay increases. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t confined to universities; it’s also a trend in business, and that trend is to stiff the people actually doing the work and reward the executives and managers for keeping costs down and profits up – effectively by keeping pay as low as possible and piling more and more work on those under them.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, observed just several weeks ago that the 99% versus the one percent was a highly inaccurate and deceptive depiction of income inequality, in that nine-tenths of the uppermost one percent had seen modest real gains in income, perhaps less than ten percent after inflation, accompanied by as much as a twenty-percent increase in hours worked… and that didn’t take into account that this group already worked long hours. In short, 99% of the working people in the United States have seen real wages and salaries decline, the next nine-tenths of a percent have managed modest gains in income by working much longer hours, while the income of the top tenth of one percent has skyrocketed.

To make matters worse, at least here in the United States, wealthy business types, such as the DeVos and Koch families, have embarked on what amounts to political crusade to reduce the bargaining power of “labor” at all levels – except very upper management – while also pressuring politicians at all levels to keep taxes low and to reduce support services to the poor and working poor, as well as the unemployed…and, of course, to provide a wider range of “business” tax subsidies. The result is, of course, more of what we’re already experiencing – increasing income inequality as the real income of the top tenth of one percent goes up and the real [after taxes and inflation] income of everyone else goes down, or perhaps holds steady or rises slightly for a “fortunate” few; slow, almost non-existent job growth; and an anemic economy at best.

I’m as incensed as anyone about the comparative handful of the “professional poor,” and the grifters, especially huge agribusiness combines and special interest loophole users, who employ every angle to con money from the federal government, and I’m not exactly pleased by couples who have far more offspring than they can support, and knowing that, who continue to have more children. BUT… statistics show that the majority of those receiving unemployment assistance are still looking for work… and the vast majority of working Americans are getting screwed.

Meantime, the top one tenth of one percent, such as hedge fund managers, and the DeVos and Koch families, are doing just fine, and all too many of them are trying to find ways to lower their taxes and keep down labor costs, regardless of the devastating impact on most working Americans.

For all the reputed values, enthusiasm, and idealism reported as embodied in today’s college students and younger professionals, there’s one value far too many are lacking and whose value these young adults totally fail to grasp.

That’s the necessity of practicing certain skills until they are letter-perfect, even when such practice is boring and seems to be drudgery. A few weeks ago, I attended a professional opera convention [as a guest.  You’d never want to hear me sing.].  One of the comments that came up time and time again from professional directors in the field was the necessity for young singers to not only have a fine and trained voice, but to have mastered basic musicianship – to have the ability to play the piano well enough to accompany themselves in practice, to be able to work out the most complex rhythms, to have mastered perfect intonation and diction [and that means working to eliminate regionalisms and mispronunciations in everyday speech].  These are not the exciting aspects of opera, singing the grand arias, perfecting stage presence, and the like.  They’re fundamentals, and mastering them takes long and hard work.  Year after year, my wife sees students with great natural voices who she knows will go absolutely nowhere, simply because they’ve gotten where they are on pure natural talent, but they’ll never get any better, because, to get to the truly professional level, their fundamental musicianship has to be outstanding, and that takes work they aren’t willing to undertake, and in some cases, those skills are so lacking that it’s literally too late for such students to develop them, even if they were willing to work that hard on those basics.

This principle applies in all fields. One of my daughters is a doctor, surgeon, and senior professor at an excellent medical school.  Several years ago, more than a few would-be doctors were absolutely appalled at their additional weekend assignment – if necessary, hours of repetition in practicing stitches until these doctors-to-be could meet her standards, simply because their stitches were sloppy, uneven, and didn’t meet professional standards.  Boring?  Yes.  Drudgery?  Absolutely!  But if you’re the one they might be operating on, wouldn’t you want those stitches to be as perfect as possible? And despite surgical staples and modern adhesives, there are times and places where old-fashioned stitches are indeed necessary.

I’ve seen the same thing in writing, especially in science fiction and fantasy.  Too many young would-be writers immediately embark upon writing the great fantasy novel.  Some do not even understand, on a technical level, what a sentence is.  Nor do most understand that, to write a truly original work of SF or fantasy, a writer must actually know far more than a “mainstream” writer does. When writing mainstream fiction, a writer doesn’t have to think in any great depth about the economic or political structure of our society, but only about how it works or doesn’t. I still remember a comment Ben Bova made on one of my early stories.  He pointed out that a gadget I mentioned in the second paragraph invalidated the entire culture and setting. When you write F&SF, if you want it to be good, the magic/technology has to fit with the culture, the people, the economics, the geography, the political structure… and a lot more… and learning all that isn’t easy. Neither is applying it.  Both take work, intellectual drudgery, if you will.

The problem is that, today, everything’s supposed to be interesting, even fun. I’m sorry, but being successful in anything is going to take a whole lot of drudgery, and those who skip it may succeed for a while… before the roof – and the world – fall on them and crush them.

According to a just-published study in the American Journal of Sociology, the reason why divorce rates are higher in religiously conservative “red” states than in more liberal “blue” states is precisely because of those religious values.  That’s right, ultra-religious protestant values undermine the stability of marriage, contrary to what all those ultra-religious types profess about the sanctity of marriage.

Why?  The answer lies in the fact that such belief systems pressure young people to avoid sexual encounters before marriage; to avoid “artificial” or “anti-life” birth control measures, often endorsing only abstinence-only birth control; and usually to have large families.  The result is early marriage under higher economic stress by young people who often do not know who or what they are, and this is reflected in a long-standing and continuing divorce rate higher than that in states where the culture is less religiously dominated.

Not only that, but because the religious cultures permeate all aspects of the regions in which they are predominant, even non-believers in those areas are influenced through various effects, such as local and state laws, educational curricula, and social interactions.  In addition, also according to the study, “If you live in a marriage market where everybody marries young, you postpone marriage at your own risk. The best catches… are going to go first.”

The problem these religious types face is that what they believe about sex and young people, and how they should behave, is totally at odds with human behavior, and at a time when the age gap between physical/sexual maturity and economic/social maturity is the largest ever in human history, the only way the vast majority of young people can deal with that gap over time is either early marriage or sex without marriage, and when effective contraception is against religious values, the results are usually early marriage, with more than the normal rate of “premature” first births.  That puts a high percentage of such early marriages at risk from the beginning,

Having spent the last twenty years in exactly one of those cultures, I have seen exactly that scenario play out time and time again, and it continues to amuse me, if ironically [since I’m long since past any real amazement], that people here deny the fact that the divorce rate is higher and that their beliefs are the principal reason for the family instability that they so decry.

But then, as I’ve often observed, true believers often pay no attention to reality, especially where religion is concerned.

First, a question.  When does the Constitutional requirement for separation of church and state mean essentially nothing?

One answer:  When you live in a state where virtually all members of the state legislature are members of a single faith.  Or, as in my case, when one lives in the semi-sovereign theocracy of Deseret, more formally known as the state of Utah.

What reminded me of this, more forcefully than usual, was an official pronouncement the other day by the LDS Church.  The core of the declaration reads as follows:

“The Church is opposed to any legislation that will weaken Utah’s alcohol laws and regulations, including (1) privatization of the alcoholic beverage control system; (2) increases in alcohol license quotas; (3) permitting sales of heavy beer, wine and distilled spirits in grocery and convenience stores or allowing direct distribution of these products outside the state control system; and (4) any other proposals that would promote increased sales or consumption of alcoholic products in Utah.

“The Church also strongly supports maintaining the important distinctions between restaurants and bars. This includes retaining the current provisions that require the separation in restaurants of alcoholic beverage storage and dispensing functions from dining areas and patrons, the requirement of “intent to dine,” the 70%/30% food to alcohol ratio requirements for restaurants, and different hours of operations for restaurants and bars.”

This statement was issued exactly one week before the state legislature began its short annual session, and has actually generated a certain amount of controversy, even among members of the LDS faith.  Very few people disagree with the idea that the state, or any state, should have some regulations governing the sale of alcoholic beverages, but the degree of regulation varies greatly from state to state.  At one time in Utah, it was almost impossible to have a drink without a meal [and often not even then] unless one belonged to a “private club.”   So many establishments created “clubs” that any adult could join.  That requirement was eliminated a number of years ago, but a number of other seemingly senseless requirements remain on the books, including a population-based formula that makes it exceedingly difficult for restaurants to obtain liquor licenses and close to impossible for more than a comparative handful of bars/taverns to exist [to my knowledge there are only two in my home town, in an area of more than 50,000 people], a system that some claim begets hidden favoritism in awarding such licenses.  There is also the “Zion curtain” requirement – that the space in which drinks are prepared must be shielded from the view of all diners. There’s also a requirement that a diner must show intent to purchase food before obtaining a drink, and that a server may not provide a second drink until the first is entirely consumed. In addition, the importation of any alcohol from anywhere outside the state is prohibited, and all alcoholic products [with the exception of beers with less than 3.2% alcohol, which can be sold at grocery and convenience stores, and wines sold at local vineyards/wineries] must be purchased through the state liquor control stores or system.

You have a favorite wine from Sonoma or Napa?  Or anywhere outside of Utah?  If it’s not carried by the state stores, you’re out of luck.  No reputable vineyard or liquor outlet will knowingly ship alcohol to private citizens in Utah, Not only that, but several years ago, the state sent “observers” to watch Nevada liquor stores near the border, and those observers relayed the license plate numbers of Utah cars purchasing liquor… and those cars were stopped inside Utah, and their purchases confiscated.

Since I’m not a drinker and am, in fact, highly allergic to alcohol, all this doesn’t directly affect me, but my wife would like to occasionally sip certain wines, and it even takes me extra steps to send wine to my brother in Colorado – because the vineyard’s computers flag and question every order billed to a Utah address.

As a result of what many people feel are excessively stringent and unnecessarily burdensome regulations, there’s been a groundswell of popular pressure for additional reform of the state liquor laws. The result?  A proclamation by the LDS Church, which contends that it merely wants to keep alcoholism low in the state. Except that the regulations most people want changed won’t affect alcoholism.  Hard-core alcoholics aren’t going to order wines from out of state or order overpriced wines or cocktails at restaurants.  But certain name restauranteurs have decided to stay out of Utah… and there’s only one Trader Joes in the entire state.

Even more important than all that, though, is the fact that a church is openly dictating what the state laws should be on alcohol… and marriage… and sexuality – based directly on religious beliefs — and the state legislature doesn’t even have second thoughts about following those pronouncements.

The Special Counsel for the Education Group of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund recently decried what she termed the “education to prison” pipeline. The point she made was that black students, even at early primary school levels, are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than are their white peers and that fifty percent of arrest referrals from schools involve black or Latino students. According to the attorney, such suspensions result in so much time lost from learning and disaffection with school that a much higher percentage drop out of school and/or end up serving time in prison, yet ninety-five percent of the infractions that result in suspension or expulsion from school involve non-violent offenses such as disruption of class or abusive talking back to a teacher.

The proposed solution? Focusing on “instructional discipline” and referring the problem students to guidance counselors rather than the police.

First off, instructional discipline doesn’t work if the student won’t do it, nor can guidance counselors help if the students won’t listen – and those are the very behavior patterns that cause students to get suspended in the first place. It’s not that the students are initially bad; it’s that the culture from which they come hasn’t provided them with the behavior patterns necessary for scholastic success. What makes matters worse is that these students desperately need discipline in their lives, but because of their background, they won’t get it outside of school and “modern” requirements for teachers make it almost impossible for classroom teachers to supply that.

A relative of mine was teaching in a city school several years ago when a second grader told her that he wasn’t going to do an in-class assignment… and that if she insisted, he’d yell and claim that she beat him. She said he needed to do it. He repeated the threat. She insisted. He screamed. She called the principal, who said that she could either recommend suspension… and face possible legal threats, or not insist on the boy doing the work. She quit and found a job in a suburban district where she taught successfully for years.

Abusive talk and disruptive behavior in a classroom are not “minor” problems. They threaten the learning of all the non-disruptive students, and if a teacher is required to spend the time necessary with the disruptive student, then the other students suffer. There is only so much time available in a class period or school day, and putting any additional burden on the classroom teacher simply penalizes the other students.

There are very successful charter schools in some of the toughest inner-city neighborhoods in the United States. And yes, they have dedicated teachers, but a great number of regular public school teachers are also dedicated. What the successful charter schools all have in common is that there is a commitment to a disciplined approach to learning and that disruptive behavior is simply not allowed. In most, but not all, cases, this also requires a commitment on the part of the parent/parents. Regular public schools don’t have those options, not with the feeling that every student, no matter how disruptive, has the “right” to an education.

The problem in the non-charter public schools is that essentially the only tool left to a classroom teacher to deal with highly disruptive students is to remove them. This solves the immediate problem, but not the underlying one, yet well-meaning people like the special counsel mentioned above don’t seem willing to accept that the basic problem doesn’t lie with the schools, but with the culture in which those students grow up, and in which they still spend most of their time. And until that problem is addressed, one way or another, there will continue to be problem students who get into more and more difficulties until they work their way from indifferent or non-learning school behavior to underemployment or prison… and all too many “reformers” will continue to blame the teachers or insist that those teachers undertake tasks that are impossible in most cases in the conditions under which they work.  Just like the problem students, too many “reformers” have exhibited a failure to learn.

As most readers of this blog know, I’m not exactly enchanted with George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Ice saga, although I have said repeatedly that he is a good writer. I just don’t like what he’s writing in that saga, but, based on something I heard in New York City, I may, just may, have to rethink at least part of my comments about this massive work.

One evening two weeks ago, at dinner with our son and his wife, our son made the observation, almost out of the blue, that “everyone on Wall Street reads Martin’s Game of Thrones. They’re obsessed with it.” He’s not a Wall Streeter, but he is the U.S. manager of a fashion outlet that caters to very upscale men, and a significant percentage of his clientele comes from the financial district. Then he mentioned that the same group really liked the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. Both Game of Thrones and The Wolf of Wall Street share several attributes, most of all the fact that they’re about characters with few, if any, real redeeming characteristics who are out for wealth and power without any concern whatsoever about how they get it.

Then I considered another literary brouhaha between two writers, one of whom insists that writers who write works where the readers can identify with the characters are not writing “literature” and another who feels that the quality of writing is what counts in determining literary worth [with which I’m inclined to agree], with the subtext that almost all writing that gets published has an audience that identifies with a particular work… or author.

Combining our son’s observations with the reports of the literary kerfuffle, I couldn’t help but wonder if George is actually writing satirically about today in the guise of fantasy, if Westeros is really the western hemisphere in disguise, so to speak, where all those with power have few in any redeeming qualities, and where all those who succeed essentially have none… and all those finance types really love both Game of Thronesand The Wolf of Wall Street because they do in fact identify with the characters.

Could it just be that George R.R. Martin is actually this century’s Jonathon Swift… and I’ve missed it entirely? Even if that’s not what George had in mind, it’s what he’s effectively portrayed, and that segment of his audience certainly confirms that effectiveness.

As noted earlier on the website news section, I was in New York City last week for a signing at Singularity & Co. The night before we left to return home, an email from the airline revealed that we had been placed on an earlier flight, necessitating our rising far, far, earlier than we had anticipated. There was no explanation, but when I reviewed the airline’s schedules, the carrier had shifted the times of the two flights we had been on by roughly fifteen minutes each, so that a forty-five minute layover had become fifteen. I understand adjusting schedules, but what I found interesting – and irritating – is that I’ve been flying a fair number of miles on book business for the past twenty years, and this has happened at least four times in the last two years. I don’t recall a single instance in the eighteen years before, and I’ve actually traveled a bit less in the last two years. I’ve also noticed that connecting times tend to be either around forty minutes or over two hours, unless I’ve been flying very heavily traveled routes. I’ve talked this over with other travelers, and most of them have noticed a similar trend. Either way, I’m either worried and rushed or wasting time in connecting airports.

Now I realize that the so-called deregulated airline industry is still heavily regulated and that there are only limited number of landing and take-off slots at major airports. That means every schedule change affects an airline’s entire schedule. I also know that commercial aircraft are not getting faster, or slower, but posted flight times are now longer than ever, simply because of greater and greater ground delays. Because the airlines don’t want most of their flights listed as “late,” they just factor in delay time as well. This means that on some flights I take semi-regularly I can arrive as much as a half hour early or ten to twenty minutes late. Then there are the fees for baggage – although I do fly enough that so far I don’t have to pay those – and the dropping of food service in cattle class, and even fees for telephone [as opposed to internet] ticketing. And with the excess baggage charges, every square inch – and more – is filled on most flights.

In a similar vein – although it won’t seem so at first reading – almost every institution I do business with is pushing me to “go paperless,” supposedly for environmental reasons. Why would I want to do that? For all too many of them, I have expenditures that are business-related, and the IRS isn’t about to trust my word about writing expenses. They want receipts and bills, on real paper. If I go “paperless,” then I’m the one who has to spend ink, time, and money printing out what I need, and the “environment” still suffers.

Likewise, more and more businesses are adopting automated telephone answering systems, where there are no real people unless you can punch-button your way to them. And all too many of those systems lack an option for services or items not on the menu. I know… I’ve tried.

All these items make one thing very clear. None of these changes are really for the benefit of the traveler or customer. They’re designed to add revenues, maximize profits, or to reduce costs, regardless of the inconvenience or added time or cost to travelers or customers.

The thing is – as customers we’re still paying as much, if not more, as ever, and we’re getting less… and no one seems to say much, even as corporate profits soar.

At present, it appears likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to make decisions affecting state law on same-sex marriage and whether companies and institutions providing health care insurance have the right not to cover contraception methods that go against the religion of the providers.  The State of Utah has filed an appeal against a federal court decision allowing same sex marriage, and a number of companies and organizations have suits pending on the abortion/contraception issue,

At the heart of these issues is the supposed question of whether the federal government can “impose” its will on these states and organization against the deeply held religious and moral beliefs of their constituents and various individual employers.  The problem is that those who have brought those lawsuits are the ones who wish to impose their values on others, not the other way around.

In the same-sex marriage issue, allowing same-sex marriages does not require any religion or individual to perform such marriages. Nor does the existence of same-sex unions limit or damage any rights of other individuals.  As the lower courts have held, failing to allow same-sex marriage does damage and limit the rights of same-sex couples. 

The same principle holds true for the health insurance/contraception/abortion issue. The founders of Hobby Lobby, as well as other employers, have insisted that being required to provide health insurance which covers certain procedures violates their beliefs and thus their rights.  Except, again, no one is insisting that they, or anyone covered by these policies, must undergo or use such services.  What the organizations are insisting is that their beliefs be imposed on all their employees. In effect, they want the Supreme Court to mandate that their personal beliefs limit the freedom of choice open to their employees.  We don’t allow religious beliefs to exempt employers from health and safety standards, nor from minimum wage requirements.  Why should religious beliefs be allowed to trump laws on healthcare?  And why should some employers be allowed to provide fewer benefits based on their personal religious beliefs, which restriction effectively imposes the practices of their beliefs on their employees… or requires employees to pay extra to have the same rights as employees of “less religion dominated” employers?

And for that matter, why should employers with certain specific religious doctrines be granted such exemptions when others are not?  Rigid adherence to Christian Science doctrine would prohibit any doctor-based health insurance, while adherence to the doctrines of Jehovah’s Witnesses would prohibit coverage for use of blood or blood products?  Scientologists oppose pharmaceutical products used for psychiatric purposes. So far, at least, employers with those beliefs have not filed lawsuits, but if the Supreme Court finds for Hobby Lobby and others, health insurance could soon be shredded with exemptions.

In short, while we as a people oppose government restricting our freedoms when the exercises of those freedoms do not hurt others, and sometimes when they do – as in the case of gun control measures – why should we then allow organizations and individuals to restrict those freedoms based on the religious beliefs of the provider? 

In the “By the Books” column of The New York Times last Sunday, in response to the question “And how would you describe the kinds of books you steer clear of?” the apparently noted author Russell Banks replied: “Anything described by the author or publisher as fantasy, which to me says, “Don’t worry, Reader, Death will be absent here.” In his brief introduction to Slow Learner, Thomas Pynchon says he takes serious writing to be that in which Death is present. I agree.”

Here we go again. Once more, an entire genre is being wrongly stereotyped by someone who has no idea of either its content or its variety. Death not present in fantasy? If George R.R. Martin read this, he should be laughing his head off. Not only is death present at every character’s elbow, but forget about virtue triumphing. At least so far, there doesn’t seem to be a character who’s survived that comes anywhere close to being even vaguely admirable. And Martin’s certainly not the only fantasy author in whose works death is a very close and brooding presence.

When Banks goes on to quote Thomas Pynchon, he’s clearly unaware that Amazon, literary critics, and some bookstores seem to think that Pynchon writes a form of fantasy, and there are over 3 million Google hits that link Pynchon and “fantasy.”

In one respect, I understand. Mainstream writers are just like everyone else. They’re absolutely secure in their delusions. We all have delusions, and we all have gaps in our background knowledge. But I have this old-fashioned idea that, especially if you’re a public figure of some type, you really should think about what you say. How in the hell can a man who thinks he’s never read a fantasy book, because he’s steered away from what he thinks is fantasy, possibly offer an accurate observation on an entire genre? Obviously, Russell Banks has no trouble in parading his ignorance, and the Times book section even highlighted and bolded the quote as the lead into the column.

I have great difficulty with that as well, because that emphasis on the quote either means someone at the Times is either as ignorant as Banks, or they’re taking a snide swipe at fantasy, or trying to provoke a controversy clearly using an ignorant, if talented, author as a foil. Banks deserves any potshots that come his way, including this blog, but the readers of F&SF – and the Times – deserve far better. In this case, the “Grey Lady” of journalism has behaved more like a street slut in outing an unwitting john.

Yesterday I set out on my morning walk with the over-enthusiastic but sweet Aussie-Saluki, and after leaving the path through our property and entering the community footpath – which begins with a large sign prohibiting all wheeled and motorized vehicles – I found myself walking in the wake/tracks of an ATV. It had to have been a small ATV because a full-sized one wouldn’t have made it along the narrow hillside path. Even so, the small ATV had churned and chewed up the packed snow and some of the dirt beneath, leaving a residue of frozen mud, not to mention dislodging and throwing aside some of the small stones that had marked the edges of the path. The ATV driver had traveled almost half a mile of the path, creating mud and mild destruction the entire way. In one place, later on my walk, along an abandoned side road between two developed areas, the ATV driver had attempted to rip down a small stone wall that, years ago, the owner of an adjoining property had presumably built to stop ATVs and others from riding off the side road and through his/her property. That small wall has been vandalized at least a dozen times over the past five years – always by ATV types, given away by the tracks of their vehicles, who apparently don’t believe that private property owners have the right to place any obstacles in their path of destruction.

Here in Utah, this behavior is scarcely limited to the ambit of my morning walks. Some two years ago, a prominent state legislator actually led on his own massive ATV a protest “rally” of scores of ATV owners which ripped through a federal roadless area, creating untold destruction. The local federal officials turned a blind eye, despite state-wide media coverage. In places, hillsides are so badly scarred that they won’t likely recover for centuries. If that destruction occurs on private property, with the consent of the owner, while I abhor it, that’s the owner’s business, but the possession and use of an ATV does not grant the user the right to destructive use of a home-owner association-owned and maintained footpath that explicitly prohibits such use, the destruction of a wall on private property, or the destruction of the environment on federal lands. Yet many of these people get actually irate if anyone challenges where they drive their vehicles, and they seem to regard any land that’s not fenced or posted as fair game – and much, obviously, that is as well.

Here in southwestern Utah, the land is high desert, and the hills are ecologically fragile enough as it is. Any path or track ripped through the soil becomes a channel for erosion and more destruction, either from the gale force winds that are always present or from the infrequent but deadly cloudburst. There are scars and traces from pioneer times almost a century and a half ago that nature has still not reclaimed or revegetated. That doesn’t seem to matter to the ATV types… and they’re multiplying! I’ve seen children no more than eight or ten years old, with their own ATVs, motoring down public streets at frighteningly high rates of speed, doubtless abusing the Utah state law that “allows” use of the streets to reach “ATV areas,” which seems to mean any open land not fenced, posted, and patrolled.

Obviously, I just don’t share the idea of “freedom” espoused by the ATV types, nor do I understand the “joy” of ripping up the soil in a cloud of dust or snow while riding a noisy machine through lands you can barely see.

The year 2013 is on its very last legs and, from my point of view, sprinting to the finish. Like most years, it has had its good and bad points, the bad ones largely related to politics and government, which is scarcely surprising, since politics reflect the intersection of beliefs and power in the extreme, and the extreme of belief and the extreme of power represent the ugliest facets of human nature.

On the other hand, what is astounding, and I do mean that, is what Pope Francis has already said and demonstrated are his goals in rebuilding the Catholic Church, unlike the theocrats of the LDS faith who have now pressured the Utah legislature to undertake a massive lawsuit against gay marriage, a lawsuit that the Federal Appeals Court has already suggested the state will lose. And I have to say that I never thought that I’d see the leader of the Catholic faith more enlightened than any other major faith, even the LDS faith.

The last year has seen ebooks come close, from the figures I’ve observed, to undermining, if not destroying, the dominance of mass market paperbacks in providing comparatively lower-cost fiction in the field of F&SF. That’s a very mixed blessing, because with ebooks comes the ease of piracy, and regardless of what “studies” show, the sales and royalty figures for new releases indicate to me that piracy has had a definite negative impact on new releases. The upside is that ebooks enable longer and more profitable sales of an author’s backlist. How this will work out won’t be clear for several more years, I suspect.

The recent wave of state legislatures beginning to enact laws that allow gay marriage, as well as the accompanying court decisions and the significant shift in public opinion, give some hope to the idea that marriages in the United States might be better judged on whether they’re loving, supportive, and successful in matters such as raising children rather than being judged on whether they meet a particular theological criteria.

The public in general and the “education establishment,” on the other hand, for all the studies and rhetoric, still can’t accept the fact that student success requires not only good and responsible teachers, but also good and responsible students – and parents. Without all three, no real improvement or progress is possible, yet both parents and the education administrators, as well as politicians, continue dump all responsibility on the teachers… and, unhappily, I don’t see this changing in the near future.

The record profits of corporate America, the highest level of Wall Street stock indices ever, and the growing income inequality in the United States all go hand in hand with an economy that has still not fully recovered from the Great Recession. As I’ve said before, and as has Paul Krugman, the Nobel-prize-winning economist, it’s almost impossible to have robust economic growth with an economy based on consumption when you don’t have an export surplus and you don’t pay your workers enough to buy all that you produce. Not that anyone in corporate America or Wall Street listens to either of us.

So I’ll just have to take “consolation” [actually, it’s far more than that] in the fact that I’m still writing, still enjoying it, and still have readers who also enjoy what I’m writing. Here’s hoping you all had the best 2013 you could, and whether you did or not, my best to you for 2014.

Both UPS and FedEx announced that a significant number of Christmas packages were not delivered on time and in time for Christmas, although both package delivery services admitted that those were packages promised for Christmas delivery.  The non-delivery was the result of a confluence of circumstances, some of which were unforeseen and some of which should have been anticipated.  The unforeseen factor was the occurrence of the worst ice storms in ten years in the northeastern United States.

The factors that should have been seen and planned for were: (1) the shortest period between Thanksgiving and Christmas in years, effectively allowing buyers a week less to purchase and ship goods; (2) the growth in the number of Americans who wait until the last minute to buy and ship Christmas gifts; and (3) the growing shortage of “free time” among higher-earning gift-givers.

Despite the ever-earlier onset of the Christmas shopping season, a substantial number of shoppers do not begin shopping for Christmas gifts until after Thanksgiving.  This year Thanksgiving fell on one of the latest dates possible, effectively cutting off one week of shopping (and shipping) time, in effect meaning that the shipping needs of those shoppers were jammed into 80% of the time they normally had, and most likely many of them never even realized that until a week or two before Christmas, when they suddenly needed to buy and ship.

In addition, with the growth of overnight shipping and the entire U.S. culture of “you can have it now,” a significant and growing percentage of Americans don’t plan that far ahead and then cram it all in at the last moment.

Some of those shoppers feel as though they have no choice, and paradoxically some are those employed in various retail industries.  Because in many retail fields, the financial success of the business depends on the Christmas season, executives and employees in those fields are pressed into working longer and harder.  In other areas of the economy, businesses tend to press their employees to complete projects before Christmas, knowing that many will take off vacation or leave time to spend time with family over the holidays.  This is certainly true in at least some publishing firms – I’ve been asked to have manuscripts, proofed galleys and other materials to my publisher well before Christmas for the reason that very little gets done in the week after Christmas.  Effectively, much of the business year ends around December 23^rd.

Yet, despite the obviousness of these factors, on December 24^th, UPS admitted that the volume of packages accepted for shipment and delivery before Christmas day exceeded the capacity of their system.  I understand the problem the company faces.  UPS doesn’t want to create and maintain a system built to handle a volume of packages that only occurs a few days a year.  FedEx didn’t say much beyond admitting that very few of their packages were delayed – except one of those was purchased a week before Christmas by my wife, and, as of the time I write this, still hasn’t arrived, although promised for Christmas delivery. At the same time, neither FedEx nor UPS nor the various merchants really want to impose cut-off dates for Christmas delivery because it goes against the explicit promises they’ve been making for years.

But… given the changes in culture and consumer expectations and perceived needs, I don’t see this as a one-time problem.  Then again, maybe by next year, when it happens again, most people will have forgotten the previous year’s problems.

As the years pass, I feel they go by faster and faster and seem to get closer and closer together. Most people my age and older seem to feel the same way.  Some who are younger do as well, but having watched grandchildren and listened to them, it’s clear that time often drags for them and that they want things to happen “faster.”  Those of us who are older want to say something to the effect of “Don’t ever wish for that; it will happen soon enough.”  Sometimes we actually voice that thought, and usually the young person looks at us as if we’re out of our minds.

Christmas tends to emphasize that difference in viewpoint.  For small children it seems as though Christmas Eve or Christmas day will never come.  For all too many adults, it seems as though there’s never enough time to get everything done before Christmas…

Whichever applies to you… Merry Christmas!

The university where my wife the professor teaches has just completed a search for a new president, necessary because his predecessor was hired by a much larger university for twice the salary he was paid here in Utah.  I’ve never met the new president, but I’m already worried. Why?  Because he was the president of a Utah junior college, and he’s a lawyer.

The junior college business concerns my wife especially, because, over twenty years, virtually every junior college transfer coming into the Music Department from anywhere has been below average, despite grades and test scores that would indicate otherwise, including all those from the institution that the new president headed.  Every single one has required remedial work or extensive individual coaching, if not more.  So have some transfers from other four year institutions, but certainly not 100% of them.  What makes this more telling is that S.U.U. is not an Ivy League college, nor even a research university, although it does have a very good music program.  While there may be, and doubtless are, junior colleges with high academic standards, I’m sorry, for the most part junior colleges don’t provide academic rigor.  So that’s one reason for concern.

The second one is the lawyer business.  As several commenters have noted, almost every institution of any size in the United States is already inundated in legalese.  Colleges and universities require more and more paper.  Course syllabi at S.U.U. – and probably everywhere – have more than quintupled in length over the past two decades as the legal types have turned what used to be a simple course guides and assignment sheets into massive legal documents, almost contracts.  Every year professors are briefed on all the things they cannot do, some because of federal law, and some because of the fear administrators have of litigation.  Unhappily, it’s a fear justified by the explosion of litigation in the United States. Given that my father was an attorney, as is a daughter and a son-in-law, and several cousins, I’m not unduly prejudiced against lawyers, but lawyers need to be reined in, especially in institutional settings.

And when existing university administrators are already coming up with more paperwork requirements for professors, requirements that do nothing to improve teaching, but only provide meaningless statistics to satisfy some vague idea of accountability, the last thing a university needs is more legalese… or a president more interested in legally covering the university’s collective rear end than in improving teaching and all that entails.

That’s why we’re worried… and hope we’ll be proved wrong.  But I’m not about to bet anything on that.

All too often I concentrate on talking about problems to be solved, but something occurred the other day that pointed out the value of a virtue too often ignored by students and others.  My wife the voice professor had a series of voice juries – the performing equivalent of a final examination – and one student didn’t make her jury.  That’s usually an automatic failure, but this student has always been intelligent, hard-working and so dependable that my wife’s immediate assumption was that something had happened.  And it had – a freak snowstorm south of us and just north of Las Vegas – had closed the interstate through the Virgin River Gorge for almost a day, trapping hundreds of motorists and trucks there, including the student – and, by the way, there’s no cell phone reception there. Obviously, this was something beyond the student’s control, but there was no doubt on my wife’s part, even before she knew the reason, that something out of the ordinary had happened to the student… and the jury was rescheduled.

There are other students who have an excuse for everything, and then when something truly exceptional happens, professors are dubious, to say the least, along the lines of the old fairy tale about the boy who cried “Wolf!” too often.

What tends not to be realized, particularly by young people, is that, in a very real sense, dependability/reliability is a form of personal insurance. If you’re always reliable and dependable, when something happens truly beyond your control, that dependability may just prove very useful… or at least mitigate the consequences.  Obviously, it won’t save you from the physical consequences of automobile accident, where someone else broadsides you, or from the physical results of the flu – but if you’re not one to take sick days at the drop of a hat, your employer or professor is going to be far more inclined to give you break.

The same thing is true in terms of work products.  We all screw up somewhere or some time.  But if you’re always conscientious and almost always turn in a good solid and workmanlike result, if once you don’t, you just might get some allowances, as opposed to the door.

And besides that, the more you concentrate on being dependable, the more you will be, and the less likely things are to go wrong… and that makes life easier and a lot more enjoyable.

There’s a huge difference between being able to decipher letters and grammatical structure and to recognize or say the words on the page and being able to truly read, that is, to understand what those words actually mean. I was reminded of this earlier in the week by events at the university.  Students in the music program cannot take their final performance jury [applied examination] until they have paid all their fees. Similar policies are in effect in other departments.  A number of students discovered when appearing for their juries that they would not be allowed to take the jury.  This practice is not arbitrary or capricious.  The Music Department discovered through bitter experience that, without this policy, a substantial number of students never paid those fees. As a result, course syllabi carry that warning; every applied music instructor is required to announce that policy; and signs are posted on the bulletin boards for the week before finals reminding students of the consequences.

Yet with each succeeding year, more and more students, primarily first year students, discover that the warnings are accurate. This suggests to me that we have a generation – or at least a portion of a generation – that either (1) does not truly comprehend written instructions, or  (2) feels that there is no responsibility to read such instructions, or (3) feels no compunction to follow such instructions, or (4) believes that no instruction applies unless it is specifically addressed verbally to them on repeated occasions, or (5) applies only to everyone else, or (6) possibly all of the above.  This phenomenon is not new.  There have always been individuals who have ignored warning signs, wet paint signs, and the like, but when a growing and significant percentage of college students protest “I didn’t know [whatever]” after being told at the beginning of the semester, reminded in their course syllabus, after being reminded in their last class, and having notices posted on the bulletin boards, then we as a society have a problem… and so do those students.

Part of the problem, frankly, lies in the secondary school system which has become so preoccupied with “student success,” i.e., getting students through, that far too many students enter college with no understanding that failure to do the work – all of the work and not just what they like – and to finish it in the time period required is not only necessary in college, but in the world beyond college. Each year college syllabi become longer and more detailed, partly because incoming college students also cannot or choose not to listen, possibly because it is difficult to hear when one spends most of one’s time with earbuds in both ears.  Now, it appears, many also do not respond to written communication, possibly because both eyes are so locked on  smartphones that nothing written registers, either.  Yet the education gurus respond to this by declaring that faculty need to use more interactive technology to reach students.

At what point will all the “reformers” realize that students have responsibilities… and not just faculty?

“Have It Your Way” was the central theme behind a series of Burger King commercials first aired in the early 1970s and then re-introduced and re-emphasized in the 2000s, and the idea has clearly a special resonance with Americans.  According to a Google search, there are over 80 million ads and approaches on the idea of doing it “your way.”  Then there’s the iconic song, “My Way,” written by Paul Anka and popularized by Frank Sinatra, which is one of the songs most recorded and performed by other artists. While Sinatra reportedly later stated that he hated the song and found it self-serving, it remains one of the most popular songs sung at funerals.

Although there is nothing wrong with wanting things to go our way, and trying our best to make them so, there’s a difference between aspirations or goals and expectations, and a generation or more of commercial enticements based on the theme that we “deserve” to have things our way seems to have created – or definitely boosted – the expectation that “things” ought to go our way.

In economic terms, American businesses, as I’ve discussed more than once, are concentrating almost exclusively on maximizing profits – having it their way, if you will – without regard to either employment wage levels of their employees.  Employees, those that can, are pressing more and more for jobs that are “meaningful” to them, often regardless of what business needs happen to be.  Increasing numbers of college students have begun to tell their professors what they think they should learn and how much work they should do, while state legislatures are telling state universities what percentage of students should graduate in how many years, without any consideration of the costs or the number of instructors or professors necessary to meet those goals.

The same expectations are revealed in national politics.  Eighty percent of Republicans believe President Obama lied to pass the Affordable Care Act, while seventy-five percent of Democrats believe he didn’t.  What makes these numbers interesting is that the majority of Republicans believe that the ACA will hurt them personally and financially, while the majority of Democrats feel that the ACA will benefit them.  In its latest issue, the Economist published graph illustrating how the legislative process has changed in the United States Senate drastically over the past thirty-five years, showing legislation that in the late 1980s the majority of legislation was passed by cooperative efforts of both parties and how that has changed over the years so that, by 2013, almost none was passed cooperatively.

I doubt if anyone can say which came first, the commercial emphasis on “having it your way” or the social change in attitude that found that message so appealing, but how it happened matters far less than the devastating effect that belief is having on American society and politics.

None of us can have everything all “our way” all the time, or even close to it, not if we want to have a working economy and an even halfway functional government in the years to come, and it’s past time that we not only came to grips with that, but started doing something about it.