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.

Take two singers.  One is a talented all-around musician, with a full grasp of her craft, pleasantly attractive, but not beauty pageant class.  The other is beauty pageant class, with a good natural singing voice, and one knock-out classical song, and not much else.  Do you want to guess which one wins singing contests that involve an audition of only one song?  There are also certain singers who win or place highly in competitions, but never have a career because the only thing they’re really good at is winning competitions, just like those pleasing personalities who are so good at interviews and much less competent at doing the job.

Take the CEOs of large companies.  There are the competent-looking tall ones with a commanding presence… and then there are the others – except a number of studies over the years have shown that while there is a far higher percentage of  tall and competent-looking CEOs at larger companies (who get paid significantly more, on average), there’s absolutely no correlation between appearance and their performance as CEOs.

It’s a bit different with authors, but there are more than a few who publish one book and nothing more. Possibly the most famous authors who only wrote a single book are Harper Lee  [To Kill a Mockingbird] and Margaret Mitchell [Gone with the Wind].  The music industry is filled with singers and musicians who had only one hit song in their entire career. It’s no different in politics, and it would be hard to count the members of Congress who served exactly one term… and who are now long forgotten.

The problem with all too many of these one-hit wonders and one-trick ponies is that, all too often, their one trick overshadows others who are actually far better at whatever field it may be.  The least glamorous CEOs are generally far better than the ones who merely look good, and a great many executives who don’t have the height and “look” likely never get the chance because their talents are deeper but less obvious. There are significant numbers of authors who have produced large numbers of good, and sometimes great, books who’ve never made the big best-seller lists, but whose total sales have been respectable if not substantial over a long period. And there are authors who didn’t have the “flash” or trick to impress agents or publishers who self-published and later made the best-seller lists.  In this, Richard Paul Evans comes to mind.

There are good character actors who are far better at their craft than many big name stars, and whose careers have lasted far longer, and, unhappily, there are younger actors with the same kinds of talent and determination who will never get the chance because they’re solid, dependable… and don’t have a flashy trick… or gimmick, as the old song says.

Being married to a performing singer and university opera director means that I get to meet all sorts of people, ranging from students to retirees, from those who are very creative and interesting to those who are financially very well-off and support the arts, some few of whom are also creative.  I also have been drafted at times to craft various documents, including fund-raising letters, and this has led to some interesting situations. 

Although the university is located in the Utah county with the lowest individual and per family income, with a large rural component, and no heavy industry and only a comparatively few mid-tech or light industrial concerns, several directors of one charitable group absolutely refused to allow the use of those facts in a fund-raising appeal.  Why?  Because, first, they felt it would alienate any executives in the small manufacturing community, because it implied to them a criticism of their wage scales, even though the appeal specifically noted that the small manufacturing community was an exception to the generally prevailing low wage scale.

When I attempted to discuss this with one of the individuals who insisted on deleting the statistics, that individual provided a detailed explanation of how his company paid far higher wages than the local average and how their training program had enabled workers to move from the bottom to the top of the wage scale, all of which was absolutely true.  He then claimed that that low income problem was because of four factors: a local culture that emphasizes large families at a young age; the lack of high-tech manufacturing; a rural economy outside of the city proper; and the fact that “people choose their life-styles.” 

The executive who listed those factors was largely correct in his assessment, and, more than likely, equally correct in assessing how his peers would react, but that assessment didn’t make the problems go away. It did make it more difficult to explain why an organization needs funds for programs to benefit the children of those who are less fortunate without pointing out that more of such families exist in one’s community.  It’s as if some of these more financially fortunate individuals want to deny the reality of a situation while attempting to ameliorate some of the problems caused by that reality.

I’d be the first to admit that people make both good and bad choices, having made some of both myself over the years.  And some bad choices do lead to low incomes and, often, poverty, but the fact remains, after all the rhetoric, that the county does in fact have the lowest per capita and family income in the state, and  not all of that can be explained away by poor choices on the part of individuals.  In addition, children don’t choose their parents, what work those parents do, or what culture exists where the family lives. Geographically isolated small cities and towns without plentiful water supplies will not have much, if any heavy manufacturing.

Unfortunately, the mindset represented by those who didn’t want the facts listed has an impact well beyond local charitable appeals.  Problems of all sorts don’t go away just because there is a “good explanation” for their cause.  Put in a lighter way, one of my friends, a retired engineer, observed that, when the highway department installed a huge sign on the interstate highway stating “Bump Ahead,” the highway types thought they’d solved the problem.  They’d only described it… and solutions have to go beyond description.

A little while ago I came across a book review website/blog that pretty much trashed my 2002 novel, Archform:Beauty in a way that was clear the blogger had neither any understanding of what the book was about nor of a lot of other things.  So I simply posted the following comment on the review, “Interestingly enough, both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly gave it starred reviews.”  Not surprisingly, the blogger replied to the effect that he really didn’t care what they thought and that he was selling it back to the used book store… and by the way, that my own words said that minority voices were important.  I agreed that minority voices needed to be heard, but that didn’t mean that they were either accurate or inaccurate simply by virtue of being minority voices.  Then I was questioned about why I’d made the first comment, as if it were somehow rude to question a review offered with open comments. When the blogger then stated that I‘d never change his mind, I pointed out that my comments weren’t made for that point since it was obvious I would never change his mind. I should have left it at that, but, unfortunately, I didn’t.  I added the phrase that I wrote for people who could think, with the clear implication that he couldn’t. I understand that created a slight furor with some people.

This “discussion” of sorts, however, crystalized, at least in my mind, something that I and a great many others have talked around and about, but which tends to be overlooked.  With the proliferation of niche news, niche blogs, niche products, we are creating, or have created, a society where anyone can express the most inaccurate or misrepresentative or misleading views or selected facts for “their” following,” and because like attracts like, seldom are these facts ever challenged in that niche.  Oh, CNN may dispute Fox News, or CBS and BBC news may present very different views of a story, but there is seldom another side shown on any niche program.  What’s truly frightening to me is that there’s more discussion of the other side on the entertainment shows such as Colbert or Bill Maher, or it’s buried on early Sunday morning news shows.  Obviously, there are exceptions, but they’re few, and getting fewer. This “niche isolation” also contributes to societal polarization because the followers in each niche continually reinforce their beliefs in their interactions with each other, which makes it easier and easier to ignore, minimize, or marginalize any conflicting views.  

In addition, the internet/world wide web has become a “wild west” of information dissemination, where some sources are good, some bad, and all misrepresentative to some degree.  The web has also become more and more powerful in influencing what readers choose to buy or not to buy, and for authors that makes favorable information valuable and unfavorable information worrisome, particularly if that unfavorable information is highly misrepresentative or inaccurate.  What compounds this us that with people compartmentalizing their information intake there’s no telling if they’ll ever encounter other information to balance or expand their knowledge base about an author, particularly if their initial information comes from a source that views the author unfavorably.

Part of the reason why I made the initial comment in the first place is because I’ve always disliked anonymous snipers, particularly when they don’t know what they’re talking about. I think, far too idealistically, that such people should not go unquestioned.  But what I realized well after the fact, was that society has become so polarized that, for the most part, very few people still retain even semi-open minds when their judgments or beliefs are questioned. The problem with my reaction to the “review” is that, in all likelihood, all it did was make people who would never like my books anyway mad at me, while suggesting to those who do like my work that I’m excessively sensitive.

But all writers are.  That’s not the question.  The question is how we should balance such sensitivity when facing adverse material on the web that could affect our sales, reputation, and livelihood… and how we actually do.  It’s easy to suggest we remain above the fray, and that has historically been the best policy, but with the way the times are changing, I have to wonder if such “neutrality” is necessarily wise… and yet, I’ve seen and heard certain authors have spent so much time and money reacting to so many slights, misrepresentations, and inaccuracies that I’ve wondered if that didn’t do more damage than help.

It’s definitely a brave new world (web).

On October 22^nd, Liz Bourke’s article on “Reading, Writing, Radicalisation” appeared on Tor.com.  In the article, she notes:

“…the US market has seen near parity [in books published by male and female authors] over the last three years but the volume of noise on the internet is still, in general, louder when it comes to male authors. Now, I will freely grant that many male authors write rather good books, but the engagement/ enthusiasm surrounding them, surrounding their series, and their new releases, seems rather disproportionate by comparison. (It is certainly disproportionate in terms of what is reviewed in genre publications and what makes it onto New And Notable bookshop displays.)

She also notes that in the British F&SF market male authors published exceed female authors by fifteen to thirty percent annually.

One theme pervades both the article and the comments on the article, and that is that with the possible exception of a literal handful of female authors, such as J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer, male authors get more sales and more press than do female authors.  I’m not about to argue with that fact, because, from what I’ve seen, and the facts and figures I’ve observed, it appears to be the case. On a personal basis, I went back over the titles on my Kindle and the paper books I’ve purchased and read over the past three years, and 45% were written by women and 55% by men.  Interestingly enough, the four books I had no interest in finishing were all written by men [and no, I won’t name them].

I would argue, however, that the difference in sales and press does not lie, per se, anywhere close to exclusively in the gender of the writer, but in the approach taken by the writer, and that, on a statistical basis, those books receiving press (especially within the F&SF genre) and massive sales tend to emphasize certain obvious and often violent aspects of human behavior and culture and minimize less blatant details of culture and behavior.  In turn, from what I’ve read, in general, and only in general, since individual authors vary widely, more female authors, even some writing under male or androgynous pen names, tend to show a greater range of subtle details than do male authors and focus more on character and character development than do male authors.

Personally, I have also observed that any book that I write with a female protagonist sells far less well than those with male protagonists, even those in my best-selling fantasy series. Yet while only ten percent of my published novels have female protagonists, those books account for over a quarter of the books of mine that have received starred reviews.  So I have some doubts that it’s because the books featuring women as protagonists aren’t as good as the others.

What all this suggests to me is that certain kinds of books draw more sales and press than do other kinds [obviously], and that the difference isn’t so much because of the gender implied by the author’s name [although I will note that there are still references in places on the internet that insist that I am female, which clearly I’m not], but because of the way in which the book is written, and that, in general, the approach taken by women writers tends to be more thoughtful and detailed… and, frankly, thoughtful and detailed doesn’t sell as well… as I have previously noted in regard to what I write, which is why I think it’s somewhat misleading to suggest that the issue is primarily based on the perceived gender of the author.  I wouldn’t deny that some gender prejudice exists, because I’ve seen it in every field, including writing, but the bottom line in publishing is in fact sales, and for now, the blatant, direct, and not-very-subtle tends to dominate the publishing best-sellers, regardless of author gender.  

The other day was, as one children’s book puts it, “an awful, no-good, horrible, very bad day.”  Well… it wasn’t THAT bad, by any measure, but it was incredibly frustrating.  I discovered that a document required by a government agency, a document that had been sent twice, had apparently been lost or misplaced twice  — which required sending it once again. I also discovered that the manuscript that I’d sent to my editor by UPS two-day air had not arrived, and had been sitting for almost two days in Salt Lake, and when I tried to follow-up, no one knew where it was.  Now, I’d sent the manuscript by two-day air, at his request, so that he could get it and read it during his travels. Another day passed, and UPS finally located it in Des Moines, and I was assured it would be only a day late [which was too late for my editor, meaning a three-week delay before he could read it]… Another day passed, and the manuscript finally reached Philadelphia.  It finally reached New York and the Tor offices five days after being sent as a two-day air shipment.

Both the government and UPS are large institutions, and I think the thing that bothers me about institutional incompetence is that, in essence, no one is accountable.  If I screw up as an author, there’s no doubt that I screwed up.  I can’t blame anything but the price and the package on anyone else, and, in the interests of full disclosure, I will point out that, with the advent of electronic publishing, the vast majority of typos are my fault.  The editors and I both try to catch them, but I made them, not my editors.

The other problem with institutional incompetence is that too many of the “solutions” simply don’t work very well, particularly those which attempt to reward good employees and not less competent ones.  In every institutional, educational, and government or corporate setting in which I’ve worked, and in every one for which I did consulting work, the one thing that was common to all was that the highest rated employees were the ones who knew how to work the system.  Some of them were also quite good at their work as well, but there were many who were far less competent than lower-rated employees who were not as politically skilled, and many incompetent employees managed to keep jobs they screwed up through their political skills.  Yet, as time and experience have shown, reliance on purely “subjective” standards results in massive discrimination and even more corruption, not to mention unbridled nepotism.

Why does this happen even with laws dealing with the matter?  Because the law demands that procedures be “fair,” i.e., not only applied equitably to all employees, but also that employees be judged on objective and measurable standards.  One of the big problems there is that subjective standards are often more accurate.  I’ve watched organizations be torn apart by gossip and back-biting, by underhanded use of accurate information to misinform and to undermine the performance of others, who then appear incompetent, and sometimes do incompetent acts because of such misinformation. Individuals who engage in this kind of manipulative and unscrupulous behavior are usually skilled enough in doing it that they never violate any objective standard.  Thus, the most a supervisor can do is refuse to promote them, and that can be tricky as well, both legally and in practice.  I’ve seen individuals promoted just so that a supervisor could get rid of them.

Do I have any real and workable answers?  Not really, because, like it or not, a certain measure of incompetence is inevitable in any large structure… and that’s why I, and others, have late packages and must sometimes submit forms time and again.

More than a few times in my life, I’ve seen a legal decision and thought, “How could that ever be considered just… or even ethical?”  I’ve certainly heard others voice similar sentiments. Now, I know that while many lawyers and judges, perhaps the vast majority, believe that the highest priority of law is the pursuit of justice, I also know that as a tool for obtaining justice, the law and those who enforce and interpret it often fall short in seeking justice… or in many cases even being able to seek it. Part of the reason for that, besides incompetence or corruption, is the simple fact that we as a society must reconcile conflicting ethical hierarchies.

In the United States, the Congress and the courts have made an effort over the life of the nation to press for the equality of individuals under the law, and that includes the rights of people to be able to vote based on their qualifications rather than their appearance or color or gender, and more recently to be considered for employment based on qualifications. Obviously, we have a ways to go, but the legal emphasis on equal rights has been broadened and, in this regard, matters have improved over the years.

At the same time, with the increase and widening of individual rights, other historic “rights” have been limited, such as, at least for white males, the right to associate with those they chose and the right not to be forced to associate with those they do not choose, the right of to whom they might sell property, and the right to choose the employees they feel are “best” for a position, regardless of more objective qualifications.  So, while at one time, the right of employer’s choice and an individual’s “free association” ruled supreme, now, under current law, those former rights to discriminate on the basis of creed or color or gender have been placed lower on the legal hierarchy than the right of individuals to be considered on their other qualifications.

 The same shift in rights has also occurred in determining the membership in clubs and organizations, so that it has become far more difficult for a club to reject applicants because of gender, color, or religion.  One predictable reaction is that initiation fees at private country clubs have, in general, soared to astronomical levels, so that the discrimination has become, at least theoretically, purely economic.

There is another area where there is a conflict still playing out, and that is between the general “right to life” of a person and the right to property and to protect one’s property.  In general, the general framework of the law has historically allowed the use of deadly force in self-defense, but not to allow in a broad construct the use of deadly force “merely” to protect property, and in recent years there have actually been court cases where burglars have been awarded damages because a property owner used excessive force in protecting his or her property.  In some states, even the right to self-defense was limited if the person whose property was being invaded could withdraw safely.  And most police and lawyers say that, no matter what happened even a few moments before, shooting an intruder or attacker in the back is definitely a dangerous move from a legal standpoint.

The often unspoken justification for this particular “hierarchy” is that no property has a value equivalent to a human life, because one cannot put a value on life.  Even as a general principle, however, there are some problems with this justification. First, both government regulations for the environment and safely are based on fixed [if varied] values for human life, as are the limits for wrongful death under law in many instances. So are insurance policies. Then there’s the question of what property is and what it represents.  If you work and use some of your income to buy various goods – a house, a car, a television, a stereo – you have literally “spent” some of your life on those goods.  If someone steals or destroys those goods, in a sense, they’ve taken part of your life.   This is also true if someone hacks into your bank account or credit card.

But, for the most part, the law doesn’t see it that way.  So you have criminals who”steal,” if you will, small or sometimes significant parts of people’s lives getting minor sentences, and then serving them and returning to doing the same thing, while someone who is convicted of  killing someone will be punished more severely… yet if you add up the “pieces” of lives stolen by so-called non-violent criminals, the total damage to people in society might be far greater.

But that’s the way the hierarchy of law works.