Last week I was reading about Barbe-Nicole Cliquot Ponsardin, the woman who created the modern champagne industry at the time when all the other winemakers were still trying to remove those pesky bubbles. Although Dom Perignon, the “mythical” creator of champagne, did make many contributions to the wine industry, developing and commercializing champagne didn’t happen to be one of them. That was the doing of the Widow Cliquot more than a century later. In addition to developing the riddling rack necessary for modern champagne, as well as a number of other innovations, she was also a master of commercial tactics, including finding ways to break the British blockade of the continent in order to ship 10,000 bottles of the 1811 cuvee Veuve Cliquot to Konigsburg. Yet the myth of Dom Perignon remains, almost untouched.

Mankind, and I’m using that term advisedly, has always had cherished myths. For example, there is the myth of man the great hunter, and perhaps this is linked to the myth of the lion as the king of beasts. Of course, the real hunting is done by the lionesses, and the only prodigious feats of the lion are his ability to mate with incredible frequency and to kill off cubs he hasn’t sired. Likewise, for all the myths about man as the hunter, studies have shown that the vast majority of food in hunter-gatherer societies comes from the “gathering” efforts of the women. Nonetheless, every year tens of thousands of men in the USA pay homage to the myth of the hunter by going out and trying to kill something most of them won’t even eat.

This male mythmaking goes beyond that. For example, most of the world knows Emilie du Chatelet, if they’ve even heard of her at all, as the mistress of Voltaire, yet this brilliant woman not only translated Newton’s Principia into French, clarifying and expanding it, but also provided the first detailed prose explanation of Newton’s mathematics, as well as converting the work into continental algebra. She also wrote Foundations of Physics, which integrated the work of Newton, Leibniz, and Descartes. Voltaire himself wrote that her intellect far exceeded his, and yet the world remembers him, not du Chatelet. History also records the intellect of Archimedes, but who besides historians knows about Hypatia?

Women don’t fare much better in the myths surrounding writing, either. Although “writing” has been largely an almost exclusively male-dominated field until comparatively recently in historical terms, it is interesting to note that what many scholars consider the first “great novel” [The Tale of Genji, @1007 A.D.] was written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu — and that was seven hundred years before Richardson got around to writing Pamela. Historically, more than a few people seem to regard such writers as Poe, Verne, and H.G. Wells as the seminal figures in science fiction, but it’s far more accurate to cite Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as the first true S.F. novel. Of course, like Norton and even Austen, Shelley couldn’t even publish under her own name.

In the F&SF field, the current “grand old man” and mythical figure is always Robert A. Heinlein, who wrote forty-some novels and a dozen or so collections of short stories, and sold over 40 million books. Yet Andre Norton [Alice Mary Norton] wrote over 130 novels and had the first SF novel to sell over 1 million copies, and might have sold as many books as Heinlein, except that the sales records of her publishers are so fragmented erroneous that there’s no way to tell. And, then again, in sheer numbers, the books by another woman — J.K. Rowling — have sold over 400 million copies and dwarf Heinlien’s sales numbers.

So… why is it that so many mythical figures and accomplishments are male? Could it just be because most men, especially those who aren’t the ones doing the accomplishing, are obsessed with image… and women with results?

On Christmas Eve day, my wife and I watched It’s a Wonderful Life. After it was over, she turned to me and said, “The world needs more George Baileys and a lot fewer Potters.” She wasn’t talking just about their differing outlooks on life, and her words got me to thinking. She was right, of course, because she usually is, but especially in the deeper sense.

George Bailey spends his entire life in the small town of Bedford Falls, running the building and loan society, making loans to the working people, occasionally giving them a month or day of grace in making their house payments. He judges people on their character, not on their balance sheets. He never makes enough money for a high standard of living, and he and his wife live in a drafty old house that she, largely, has fixed up. Mr. Potter, of course, is the banker and businessman for whom success is measured strictly by the dollars earned, the return on investment, the overall profitability. Potter won’t hesitate to foreclose, to call for a bank examiner, or even keep money inadvertently left on his premises by Uncle Billy. He will unhesitatingly employ any tactic to boost his profitability, even those marginally legal. Like so many of the recent Wall Street CEOs whose ill-considered pursuit of maximum profit at any cost led to the current financial and economic crisis, and who walked away with ill-gotten gains without either guilt or punishment, so does Potter. He almost destroys the better man, and he still gets to keep the money and is never punished. All along the way, George Bailey builds a better Bedford Falls, even using his honeymoon savings. Potter is a parasite upon the town, yet he represents himself as a financially responsible pillar of the community.

Critics of the film have called it “Capra-corn,” a pun on the name of the director, but Frank Capra produced a film that was not only feel-good and sentimental, but one that encapsulated an economic truth that has tended to be overshadowed by the holiday sentiment generated by the plot and actors. One of the sad things about the film is that, while we have accepted it as a “holiday classic,” so to speak, we’ve ignored the deeper meaning behind that sentiment. When we haven’t been watching the film, we’ve forgotten the George Baileys of the world, and idolized the Potters.

And now we’re paying for that ill-considered idolization.

Congressional committees have revealed that executives of various banking and financial firms who ran them into financial disasters have already received over one billion dollars in bonuses and “expenses.” It appears likely that the various bailout plans will cost well over a trillion dollars, and it’s not even certain how effective they’ll be. In the meantime, states and local governments are cutting budgets right and left, because most states have constitutions that prohibit deficit spending, and most state politicians have an incredible aversion to maintaining reserves for hard times when state revenues are solid. They’d rather splurge or offer tax reductions. This idiocy, of course, means that when the national economy turns bad, matters get even worse on the state level, because the states don’t generally have recourse to deficit spending, and increasing taxes during economic bad times usually only decreases total revenues.

Here in the great state of Utah, for example, the legislature is talking about slashing the budget by over 20%, five percent since October, and fifteen percent next year. The single largest cuts will be in education, needless to say, despite the fact that Utah is dead last in per pupil spending on the elementary and secondary level, despite the fact that 13,500 new pupils are expected to enroll in school next year, and despite the fact that close to half of all public school funding comes from the state. In addition, the state junior colleges, colleges, and universities are projected to be required to cut close to a thousand positions, as well as eliminate a large percentage of part-time faculty. Needless to say, it doesn’t appear that the legislature has actually looked at the situation at most institutions, or at the findings of the state board of regents who noted that in times of economic down-turn, enrollments in college and post-graduate work go up. Nor does anyone seem to be noting that most state institutions already have full classrooms and faculty working overtime and beyond, so that, in many cases, there are neither enough teachers, classroom spaces, and time slots to accommodate existing students, let alone those who will be flooding the institutions next year because of a high birth rate and a lack of jobs for those without more education. At the same time, the universities are offering early retirement incentives, but the problem with these is that it encourages the loss of those professors with the most experience to offer, and, frankly, from what I’ve seen, most [but not all] work harder and longer than their younger “replacements” do. The same problems are occurring with police and fire departments throughout the state, which are freezing hires, and with prisons, which have already laid off employees. Likewise, the state is eliminating most spending on infrastructure improvements, which isn’t exactly reassuring, given the sad state of all too many highways, bridges, and mass transit systems.

From what I can tell and from recent news reports, similar problems are occurring across the nation. Given this trend, what I want to ask is: Why can we easily spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out reckless banks and brokerage firms, to rescue mismanaged auto manufacturers, but ignore education, public safety, and local infrastructure? Even under “trickle-down” economics, very little of the revenues generated by the various bailout proposals will flow to support these basic areas of our society.

One of the greatest difficulties in assessing quality in the arts, particularly in fields such as writing, singing, and painting, lies in two related problems. First, a truly “objective” way of assessing excellence doesn’t exist. Second, because anyone with a basic ability in grammar can write, because anyone with a voice can sing, because anyone can pick up pencils or oils and paint, all too many otherwise intelligent individuals feel that they can accurately judge excellence in these areas and that their opinion has equal value in assessing excellence with the view of someone with great experience and expertise in the field.

My wife is a professional singer and a professor of opera, but she has gotten out of the habit of discussing her true evaluations of musical performances, except with other professional colleagues… or me. Instead, she makes generic comments. Why? Because most people think they can evaluate singing and will rave about a singer because he or she is attractive, charismatic, and has great stage presence, even while a good fraction of the notes sung are off-key, off-tempo, or even the wrong words. It may be good “entertainment,” but it’s not good singing. In the past, she’s tried to explain why performances weren’t good, or why a given work isn’t as good as another, but her evaluation is almost invariably dismissed as “a matter of opinion,” especially by those who have the least knowledge of music.

As I noted in Part I, the good professor was absolutely convinced that his views were superior to those of four different review sources and those of several hundred thousand readers. He may not like the books, and that’s his privilege. He even admitted he was not an expert in the field, but still asserted that his likes and dislikes were more accurate, as a measure of the overall quality of the books, than a considerable weight of well-informed and educated evaluation from editors to reviewers.

By comparison, very few people, or at least not without advanced degrees in physics, would even consider telling top physicists that their theories on wave states or quantum mechanics were wrong, but an amazing number of individuals without any real grounding beyond basic courses in literature, music, or arts have no problem in pronouncing their opinions, which isn’t a problem, and giving them equal value with experts in a given field, which is. This could be described as the “if I like it, it’s good, and if I don’t, it’s not” approach.

In fiction, in particular, this can be a significant problem. Authors always run the risk of alienating readers because of the subject matter they choose or the way in which they present it, and the emotional reaction overrides any sense of judgment on the part of readers who are offended, usually because the author’s presentation jolts the reader’s preconceived view of propriety or reality. This can also be true in music. There were actually riots after the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and more than a few books, later acclaimed as excellent, have been banned in one locale or another.

Now, obviously, in a field where only subjective evaluation of excellence is possible, there are times where even a consensus of experts on what is excellent may not be totally accurate. There will also be questions, at times, about the degree of excellence, and I’ve certainly raised such questions myself, but, almost always, the judgment of long-time knowledgeable scholars and practitioners in a field in assessing excellence, not popularity, is superior to the opinions of those who do not possess such experience.

But… in the end, the fact is: Not all opinions are of equal value in assessing excellence.

Recently, I had an on-line “discussion” with a professor who didn’t care much for the Spellsong Cycle. While I respect his opinion that the books did not impress him, I was less than enthused about his views that his assessment was far superior to other time-tested means of assessing quality for novels. Four of the five books received starred reviews from review sources such as Kirkus, Booklist, and even Romantic Times, which also gave the last book an award. The series also sold well, if not so well as the Saga of Recluce, and all the books are still in print ten years later. His counter to the issue of reviews was that he was amazed that any F&SF book received a negative review. This led me to thinking about the issue of quality or excellence.

Now… as many of you who have followed my thoughts for a time know, I’m not the greatest champion of reviews. I suppose my assessment of them is along the lines of Churchill’s view on democracy; they’re the worst way of assessing excellence, except for anything else that’s ever been tried.

Every year more than 1,000 new titles are published in the F&SF field. Kirkus reviews less than fifty of these each year and might award 10 starred reviews. Publishers Weekly reviews perhaps a hundred, Booklist, and Library Journal far less. Given the overlap, since some books may get reviews in more than one publication, it’s unlikely than more than 150 new titles get reviews. That’s fifteen percent. Of that number less than twenty percent get starred reviews or the equivalent, and again, some of those will overlap. So…something like 30 titles might get starred reviews. That’s less than three percent, which is a far cry from the idea that all reviews are raves. Almost all reviews are a mixed bag, where the reviewer likes some things and dislikes others.

Now… in the interests of fairness, it is also true that publicists do have the habit of excerpting the best lines from reviews for cover blurbs. Take a review that stated, “After a dull and pedantic beginning, the author finally reaches an exciting conclusion.” We all know what part of that review will appear on the cover, but that doesn’t invalidate the entire review.

As for the issue of negative reviews, in general, what’s the point? Readers usually want to know what to read, not what not to read. I’ve observed that most negative reviews are about books by best-selling authors or authors who have had past works critically acclaimed, where the reviewer is suggesting that the book being reviewed isn’t up to the author’s standards. Sometimes, I have disagreed with such assessments, but I think it’s fair to say that most reviewers don’t provide negative reviews just for the sake of trashing a book.

But…in the end, the plain fact is that the vast majority of titles published each year get no reviews from the major review sources, and only a few more get reviews from smaller specialized online genre reviewers.

Reviews, of course, are really the last step in assessing quality. The first, and most important step, occurs with the editor. The editor picks out what will be published and works with the author to improve it. It’s analogous to the peer review process in academia. Contrary to popular opinion, editors aren’t just interested in what sells, although what they buy for a publisher obviously has to sell. For example, my editor has been involved in the publishing field for some forty years, but also has a Ph.D. in Comparative Medieval Literature and has taught as a visiting professor at a number of universities, including Harvard. He’s edited several authoritative and widely acclaimed texts on the field, as well as a number of acclaimed anthologies. And it’s not just my editor. Virtually all editors who have any length of service have great ability to assess both quality and saleability, because it’s a competitive field. After the editor and author finish revisions, copy-editors enter the process, nit-picking punctuation, definitions, missing referents and the like. Then, of course, after publication, reviewers take their turn.

In addition, readers do “vote” on quality, or at least on appeal, and, if they don’t like a book, they won’t buy it… and that includes my books. Even after the success of The Magic of Recluce, when The Green Progression came out, it didn’t sell, despite favorable reviews. In fact, it may have been the worst-selling hardcover published by Tor in the 1990s. [To be continued]

This past weekend, I went to two musical performances, a “Best of Broadway” touring show, featuring four singers who had performed a number of lead roles of well-known musicals on Broadway, and a fund-raising dinner performance by local university undergraduate music students. The Best of Broadway show received a standing ovation at the local city theatre. The student concert, to a limited and intimate audience, raised several thousand dollars.

Which was better? In terms of musical quality, there was no comparison, according to the experts who attended both concerts. I am NOT an expert, and those who are included two former orchestral concertmasters, a former music department chair, a former Ted Mack Amateur Hour winner — for those of you who are younger, think “American Idol” of the 1950s, a professional percussionist who has played with a number of first class symphonies, and, of course, in the spirit of full disclosure, my wife. The “Broadway” performers had better costumes and slightly better stage presence and charisma, but their actual singing and their arrangements left something to be desired, and were far inferior to that of the college students. Now… this is nothing new. I, and the professionals, have seen this time and time again. The vast majority of audiences key in on costumes, appearances, physical beauty, and presence… as well as the theatre setting itself. Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker, has also commented on this, albeit dealing with comparing first class regional musical performances to New York performances that received great applause and were inferior, as well as noting the rise of standing ovations for performances that deserved tepid applause at best.

If these instances were limited to entertainment, we would merely have a problem of uneducated taste… but, alas… they’re not. From the experiences of the recent financial melt-down, it’s fairly obvious that all too many corporate decisions haven’t been made on the best of financial or economic grounds, but in terms of short-term profits. Likewise, it’s clear that far too many corporate CEOs are being selected on the basis of personality and charisma, image, if you will, rather than decision-making expertise. For example, the Board of Directors of General Motors has expressed confidence in the current CEO, despite the fact that the CEO has been in charge for years and that GM is in such financial trouble that it will require more than $20 billion to weather little more than a year. The same situation has afflicted a score or more of other companies.

In the educational area, again, scholarships and awards are largely awarded on the basis of grade-point-averages, regardless of the difficulty of the classes taken by the students, a slightly different form of image, but often image, nonetheless.

Recent sociological research indicates that younger women tend to be attracted to tall, dark, and “dangerous” men, and that men judge women’s attractiveness and appeal, across all cultures, largely by an unconscious relationship between waist and hip size and an equally unconscious evaluation of facial regularity.

All of these are examples of judging by inappropriate, largely inaccurate, or misrepresentative guidelines, and most of those guidelines come from evolutionary pressures. In the hunter-gatherer societies which comprise the vast majority of human experience and evolution, failure to make largely accurate instantaneous decisions generally resulted in adverse, if not fatal results. The problem today is that those kinds of judgments often don’t work, and certainly not well, in higher-tech societies. Just because a man is tall, charismatic, and friendly doesn’t mean he’ll make good judgments dealing with long-term complex situations. It may even mean that a man isn’t the best person for the position. Maximizing this year’s harvest makes great survival sense if you’re in a borderline food stock situation, as most early human cultures were, but it’s a lousy strategy for both corporations and agriculture in a world where corporate and societal survival depends on longer term social and economic stability. And evaluating ability by near-blind reliance on numbers is nothing more than a crude adaptation of seeing who’s taller and can run faster.

The question of whether our world can survive and prosper may well depend on whether we can adapt away from unconscious and sometimes blind following of our evolutionarily-derived decision-making processes before the cumulative results of recent bad decisions foreclose our options as a species.

If one reads about the younger generation, those in the last stages of education or in the first stages of their working life, there are a fair amount of observations. There are those who believe that generation to be the brightest and most hard-working ever and those who deplore it as shallow and filled with self-indulgence… as well as a range of comments in between. Is there any way to reconcile that divergence?

I think so. I’d claim that this generation has perfected the “reflecting mind.” They are supremely able to reflect back simple facts and known applications, as well as deal with uncomplicated or routine or mundane tasks with speed — often only with the help of technology, however. Their reflexes and hand-to-eye coordination in general surpass earlier generations.

What they don’t do well, if at all, in many cases [Warning! This is a generalization that does not apply to a small and distinguished minority] is think and analyze. Nor are most of them able to learn from the experiences of others or from aural/oral communications.

More than a few educators — far more than those in my family — have noted that listening comprehension among students is markedly down. A doctor who teaches medical school has observed that even med-school students have trouble retaining material presented orally unless they take notes.

It’s not just listening retention. I’ve noticed something else as well, as have others in various fields, but one set of examples comes to mind. Although I’m required to proof-read the galleys of my books, they also go to proofreaders as well, and I’ve noted in the past few years, more and more proofreaders are asking me to clarify references unnecessarily. For example, in a forthcoming book, a pilot refers to a vessel by name. The proofreader requested that there be more identification, and that I show that the name referred to a class of ship. That would be fine if it had been 100 or 200 pages since the name was used, but I’d given that very description in some detail a page and a half before. Another proofreader wanted clarification of a point, requesting specific information — despite the fact that that same information ended one of the key chapters. My wife the professor has noted that even “good” students often cannot remember material presented in class lectures, discussed in workshops, and included in reading assignments.

Another example comes up in the Internet Database Forum, where readers ask me questions about books. All too often the younger readers ask questions about books of mine that they have read, when the answers were already in the books. Most of the time, older readers supply the answers even before I do; so it’s not as though the material is that obscure.

This non-thinking reflexivity shows up in other parts of society as well, such as in the stock market. Recently, crude oil prices have plunged, and consequently so have the prices of energy stocks — regardless of whether the company in question is even affected by the price of crude oil. Natural gas companies have seen their prices fall, even though natural gas prices have effectively stabilized and reserve stocks are declining. Pipelines, who get paid the same for transporting petroleum products regardless of crude oil prices, have also suffered stock price declines of roughly the same magnitude as oil producers. None of that makes any economic sense, but the computers and the techies react in nanoseconds.

It does make reflexive market sense, as noted by Henry Blodgett in an article just published in The Atlantic Monthly, where he notes that (1) the vast majority of stock trading is handled by younger people, well below 40, who have no historical memory and who react quickly, pragmatically, and instantly and (2) the greatest short term profits come from reflexively following the herd. He points out that the same kind of thinking was what triggered the real estate boom and bust. This is similar to jockeying for position among the lemmings as they rush to the ocean. You do just fine until everyone goes over the cliff.

In short, brilliantly reflecting answers back in a test-taking educational system prepares our students for quick answers and short-term decision-making. But it’s not doing them — or us — much good in the long run, because planning beyond the now requires an understanding of more than the present and the surface of the past, not to mention analytical and considered decision-making. Especially when such “brilliant” short-term decisions more often than not lead to long-term disasters.

Certainly, times are tough in publishing. Editors and staff are being laid off. Some publishing houses have instituted acquisition freezes or slowed down acquiring new titles. Apparently, the majority of publishing firms have indicated that raises will be either minimal or non-existent. Overall, in recent months, book sales are down, and Borders Books is teetering on the edge on whether it will even survive.

Does the publishing industry need saving? Does it deserve it?

Obviously, as an author, my views tend to be influenced, if not outright biased, by my experiences and observations over the years, but I think that we do need a publishing industry, even if many of those in the industry have not looked to the future as wisely as they should have… as is clearly the case with many other industries as well.

The industry as a whole does have flaws, and these flaws have certainly contributed to the difficulties in which it finds itself, but not all the blame, or possibly even the majority of it, lies within the industry. First, however, the flaws I’ve observed within the industry.

Most editors I’ve observed over the years have great difficulty in balancing the demands of the marketplace with their own tastes, and often have even more difficulty in understanding that an excellent work that is not to their taste can exist and can in fact be published and be successful. And most editors who read that sentence will insist that it’s not true. It is. From what I’ve observed, the number of either critically acclaimed or best-selling books from first-time or unknown authors rejected by editors is far greater than those accepted by the first editor to whom they were submitted. In partial support of my observation, I would also note that the largest publisher of F&SF in the world started out as the smallest when it was founded more than twenty years ago, but has editors with by far the widest and most differing tastes of any F&SF publisher and is also one of the few houses to accept un-agented manuscripts. While agents do provide a valuable service, one aspect of that service is knowing what is acceptable to what editor, and this effectively simply extends the “taste restrictions” or various editors to the agents who are trying to sell new titles.

As I’ve noted previously, the major bookstore chains, facing pressure to increase/maintain profitability, have cut back drastically on smaller stores and outlets, particularly mall stores, and especially on mall stores in less affluent areas. This has increased short-term profits, but it has reduced book “impulse” buying and also reduced the exposure to potential new readers. Likewise, the growth of smaller “generic” genre sections in large wholesale-supplied outlets, such as WalMart and Costco, has restricted choices… and thus sales. The consolidation of the book wholesaling industry has reinforced this lack of selection — just think about all the airport “bookstores” that have the same display of books you’ve already read or don’t want to read.

There are a number of other factors, however, well beyond the control of the industry. One factor, once noted, but apparently forgotten, is the tax treatment of books in inventory in publishers’ warehouses, which effectively punishes publishers who hold larger inventories. This means that slow but steady selling books don’t remain in stock long and that even books that sell well over the years get reprinted more often and at a higher cost.

Another factor is that a lower percentage of Americans read fiction for pleasure, and many of those who do read fewer books, at least in part because Americans actually work longer hours than do people in any other advanced industrialized society. A related factor is that younger Americans read less and their reading comprehension, all the tests notwithstanding, is lower.

Yet another factor has been the inexorable and steady rise in the price of paper, leading to increased costs of production, and since paper is in fact the largest single cost factor in costs, it can’t be factored away by reductions in other costs.

And, of course, there is the obvious and large problem that, at the moment, people are worried about money and are spending less on many things, including books.

In the end, publishing will survive, but it will change. I have my doubts that ebooks or Kindles or the like will dominate the field, or not for a long time, and I don’t think self-publishing will ever be more than a small percentage of actual titles sold, simply because publishing does provide a decent service [but not outstanding, as noted above] of determining what is readable and popular enough to appeal to millions of Americans.

At the same time, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if more leaders in the publishing field didn’t ask themselves more questions about how they could improve the quality of their offerings and not just their bottom line.

A few days ago I attended a memorial service for a friend and neighbor who succumbed to cancer after several harrowing years of medical treatments that eventually failed. The first impression he made on almost everyone was that of a curmudgeon, but behind that exterior was a practical and caring philanthropist, and several hundred people turned out for the memorial service. They didn’t come, for the most part, because he donated money to various local medical, arts, and educational institutions, but because he would not give money without giving his time and advice and physical support and presence as well. Because he did so, even though his name was never tied to a PR-style gift or donation, he touched people, not on a “mass” basis, but one-on-one.

His example, however, got me to thinking about all the people who give and give, of themselves, but who are seldom, if ever, recognized or appreciated because there are no visible dollar signs attached to their efforts. I’m not disabusing those whose philanthropy consists in whole or part of financial support of worthy efforts or institutions, but I am suggesting that we, as a society, tend to think of “philanthropists” almost entirely in terms of their monetary support.

But what about the teachers who, year after year, buy extra supplies and equipment out of their far from extravagant salaries so that their pupils will have a better education and who give of their time well beyond what is required? What about the volunteers who read to students or to those in hospitals and retirement homes? What about the doctors and dentists who spend weeks or months, at their own expense, treating the poor and underprivileged, either here or abroad?

Oh, I know, there is often recognition of “volunteers” on both the community and even the national level, but the distinction made between “volunteer” and “philanthropist” bothers me more than a little.

For example, take a teacher who spends five to ten percent of his or her salary on items used in teaching and for the sole benefit of the students. After thirty years of teaching, that teacher will have effectively donated not only time, but from $50,000 to well over $100,000 to the education of the students. Yet if a local business pledged $50,000 to a single public school, there would certainly be press and recognition.

A “volunteer” reads to students or patients for just five hours a week for, say, forty weeks out of the year. Assuming the value of this effort even at the minimum wage, that reading is worth more than $1,000. Most institutions will list a thousand dollar contributor on their “valued donor” list, but how many list such volunteers in the same way?

What I find equally interesting is that monetary gifts are, in themselves, useless. Fifty thousand, or fifty million, dollars in hundred dollar bills, or in a single check, doesn’t cure people, doesn’t aid or help people. What those gifts do is allow the institution to purchase goods or services that will help people. It’s those goods and services that count in the end… and yet we tend not to recognize those who provide such services on an unpaid and/or unrecognized basis, especially if they’re provided quietly and over time.

To me, this is just another aspect of the worship of financial gain, and the failure of all too many Americans, and perhaps others as well, to understand that amassing money, or even disbursing it, is not anywhere near the only measure of success, or even the full or accurate measure of success… or of philanthropy.

I just read yet another article on the need for education reform in the United States, with its semi-standard prescriptions of better teachers, more focused resources, higher standards, and greater accountability for teachers and schools. This particular article was written by a former CEO of one of the larger U.S. corporations, and he should have known better. In fact, most of the so-called reformers should know better, because almost all of their solutions fall into the “emperor has no clothes” category.

That’s because of the fallacious assumptions that lie behind their recommendations. I may not identify all of the faulty assumptions, but here’s my list:

All or at least most students want to learn.

All students can and should succeed.

The responsibility for student learning lies primarily, if not entirely, upon the teacher.

Formal, classroom-style education is the only way to success in a modern technological society.

First off, speaking as someone who has taught, and coming from a family with a long and broad line of very successful teachers, I can say that very few students actually want to learn if the subject matter is difficult and if they’re given almost any options or excuses not to learn. They talk about wanting to learn, but most don’t want to put in the work required. This is nothing new. It’s a fact of human nature noted all the way back to the time of Socrates. Most students would prefer to be spoon-fed just enough knowledge to obtain their goals.

Second, ALL students will fail at something, somewhere, if they try enough subjects, although the most able may not fail until they’re on the doctoral level in a subject not tailored to their background and inclination. A small percentage of students simply lack more than very rudimentary intellectual skills; a much larger number are good at basic subjects; from then on, the percentage of success will decrease as the difficulty of the subject matter increases. Contrary to popular and political opinions, this is not debatable, but a simple fact of the distribution of human abilities and intelligence.

Students vary greatly in their levels of intellectual capability, their ability and willingness to concentrate, and in their emotional maturity. Setting uniform standards penalizes both the most able and the least able and effectively limits excellence. Equally important, given the variability in student abilities, any system or curriculum designed on the basis of universal student mastery of skills is doomed to failure, either because some students will indeed be unable to master the subject matter and under current political conditions, that is unacceptable, or in fact the standards will be so watered down that they are meaningless, or students will be taught skills by blind rote so that they can pass the appropriate assessment tests. Educational systems — those serving large student bodies — with either excessively high or inordinately low failure rates are themselves failures.

Third, as I’ve noted in an earlier blog, if the teacher is solely responsible for a student’s learning, most students will take the path of least resistance and show little or no initiative. Since they will achieve little, more blame will fall on the teacher, especially if no meaningful adverse consequences from failure to learn fall on the student. The assumption of total teacher responsibility means that the student faces no adverse impacts for failing to learn and can take no earned personal credit for whatever learning is achieved.

Finally, just how many indifferent business school and college graduates, or drop-outs, do we as a society need? We need electricians, mechanics, information technicians and a whole host of professions requiring specialized on-the-job training or at least on-the-job internships. We also need people in service industries. Assuming that classroom education is the only effective form of education is a one-size-fits-all solution that serves no one well and packs too many high school and undergraduate college classrooms with high numbers of students who have little real interest in being there, and even less in learning.

The bottom line, in my book, is simple enough. If you design a system on faulty assumptions, it won’t work, or not well, and the vast majority of proposed educational reforms incorporate at least one of the assumptions I’ve listed above.

Why do they persist? That’s simple, too. It’s the Lake Wobegon syndrome: As a society we have to maintain that all children are above average in intelligence, initiative, and ability, even when it’s painfully obvious that they’re not. But until the “reformers” address their faulty assumptions, American education will face an increasing downward spiral, regardless of standards, legislation, and increased resources.

A survey of almost 30,000 high school students in 100 randomly selected public and private high schools nationwide revealed that 64% of all students have cheated on a test in the past year, and almost forty percent did so repeatedly, while 36% plagiarized assignments from the Internet and 30% stole something from a store. These figures represent an increase of 5% over the past two years, according to the Josephson Institute, which conducted the survey. Most disturbing was the finding that 77% of the students believed that “when it comes to doing what is right I am better than most people I know.”

These figures not only indicate that American public behavior is headed in the wrong direction, but they also suggest that American students are very perceptive. They see misleading advertising on television and understand that it’s effective in selling products. They see unethical behavior in the financial community and note that those who practice it are rewarded with multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses. They read about or watch superheroes who aren’t bound by conventional law and ethics and reap the benefits, as do their creators.

They also see that the people who are the pillars of the community — the teachers, the firefighters, the police, the social workers, nurses, and others — aren’t nearly so well compensated as those who use their intelligence to game the system, regardless of the ethical implications and the adverse effects on others. They also learn that the highest test score counts, no matter how the score is obtained, whether from the high-priced cram school, the higher-priced private school, or outright cheating, and that those high scores are the passports to better colleges and graduate schools and high income professions.

And, alas, the writing community hasn’t done much better. Even in F&SF… and especially in its spin-off sub-genres, various writers and publishers have sold out, in the name of profit and popular entertainment, in order to boost sales in an industry historically plagued with low margins and profitability. Understandable? Yes… but at what cost?

As I noted sometime back, one of the main critics for The Atlantic Monthly effectively trashed F&SF because it didn’t have enough sex. Recently, The New York Times notable book list for 2008 included several novels with passages cited as possible contenders for The Guardian’s “Literary Review of Bad Sex in Fiction” award, at least according to Andrew Wheeler, and not only were such sex scenes bad, but exceedingly graphic. What exactly does the “sex quotient” have to do with the excellence, or lack thereof, of a book? Not much, if anything, but from the best-seller lists, it’s clear that “sex sells,” and it sells big time. Just look at the Laurel Hamilton books and others of the same ilk… and all those hurrying to emulate such sales success.

Now… I certainly understand the need to sell books in order to stay in business, but there are more than a few authors who manage to sell well without resorting to graphic descriptions of human plumbing. I’d also be the first to admit that, at times, in some types of books, a certain amount of sex is necessary to both plot and resolution, but its necessity is far less than all too many authors will insist. Writing sex has always been the fast and dirty way to avoid hard and honest writing, and, in that sense, using bad and graphic sex as a sales tool is only a half-step removed from misleading advertising. For that matter, so is writing “action at all costs,” whether in thrillers or in SF. Again, I’m not against action. I’m just against filling a novel with gadgets and body-counts and pages that might as well be printed in blood for the sake of thrills and pseudo-action that have little to do with either plot or character.

After all, if we blame the financial types for cutting corners in their fields, shouldn’t we look at our own field? Just because the costs aren’t so obvious, or so immediate, doesn’t mean that there aren’t costs. How many of those “cheating” students were hooked on meaningless action movies or graphic novels or books? Or F&SF erotica pumped out as romance? Or vampire sex and slash best-sellers? The message is exactly the same: Self-satisfaction and more dollars at any cost and don’t let ethics, excellence, and good taste get in the way if they’re not convenient.

After all, we are a society that values results, no matter unethically they’re obtained — just so long as we can claim legality… and sometimes, even that doesn’t matter.

In past blogs, I’ve commented, not necessarily in the most positive terms, about the explosive growth of anime and manga. Yet, to be fair, the art in the best of these and of the current graphic novels can be indeed inspiring and fascinating, not to mention eye-riveting, and certainly contributes to the genres’ popularity.

In large part, that growth, and the change in the creation of current “art” itself, is being driven and inspired by electronic technology. The entire process of creating visual images is changing. Once, all artists who created the artwork for book covers did actual physical paintings, usually in oils or acrylics, but whatever the medium, they created a static physical product. Today, more and more covers are created digitally. For example, I may have the only physical artwork that exists of the cover painting for my novel Ghost of the White Nights, and the only reason I have it was because my son persuaded the artist to print out a large copy on a design printer and sign it. Even artists who are skilled in the physical media, such as John Picacio, often create multiple physical paintings and merge them digitally

There are doubtless thousands of on-line galleries of electronically created artwork, but such artistic developments and their growth, however, are only one facet of an even larger change in American society… and possibly Western European and Asian cultures as well. With the development of visual communications media — primarily television, personal computers and image/texting cellphones — our means of communications have become more and more visual.

This encompasses all aspects of communication. Television news stories are illustrated with visio-bites. Computer-generated special effects enhance almost all cinema these days. Power-point displays/slide-shows apparently are mandatory for business presentations now. Going beyond art itself, even “texting” is evolving from written language founded on phonetically based aural communication to simplified visual text. Computer icons are replacing words in emails and instant messaging.

Unfortunately, there’s an aspect of this change that appears to be largely unnoticed. Visual communications are less than ideal for conveying complex ideas, ideals, and complicated transactions and situations, yet the comparative simplicity, speed, and appeal of more visual communications results in a continuing dumbing-down and over-simplification of matters, and pushes communicators toward communicating quickly rather than accurately.

If a political or economic concept can’t be expressed concisely and in less than thirty seconds, it doesn’t stand a chance. Nor does a business proposal, nor the idea for a new movie. This isn’t new. I had one of my novels turned down by a major producer some ten years ago, because, while it was a good story, it was “too complex.” But the trend is accelerating. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the reason for the current economic melt-down was the oversimplification and dumbing down of the explanations of how financial derivatives actually work… because you can’t explain all the ramifications in 30 seconds, and it’s equally clear that those who were selling and those who were buying didn’t understand those implications.

I’m not saying that all types of visually-based or influenced communications are bad, but I am saying that, like anything, there are times when they’re appropriate and times when they’re not. At the moment, unhappily, most people, especially those who should know better, don’t seem to know the difference.

In overall terms, the world of books is rapidly becoming a scary place. Borders Books is teetering on the edge, with an anticipated report of poor sales in the third quarter of the year. While Borders is not the largest of the chains, it still represents a significant chunk of the retail book market, and no author, me included, wants to see something like 400 super-stores vanish. Nor does any publisher. Fall sales of virtually all new titles from all publishers have declined, and one major publisher has reputedly ordered the editorial staff to stop acquiring new titles, at least for a while. Some agents are reporting more difficulty in pitching titles to publishers.

Is all this just because of the economic slowdown? In some respects, I’d like to think that it is. Unfortunately, it’s not. The economic hard times are revealing a real weakness in the market for books, especially for fiction. As I’ve observed in earlier blogs, the modest increases in books sales have come more from greater sales to an ever-smaller percentage of the population, because the percentage of the population that reads is decreasing, and the greatest decrease is among the 16-25 age group. Likewise, historically the over-55 age group, particularly those who are college-educated, has had the highest reading percentage, and retirees, often steady readers, are economically harder-pressed and are likely buying fewer books.

But, there’s far more to the decline in book sales than these factors.

At one point, I’ve been told, there were over 1,500 Waldenbooks, B. Daltons, and small mall bookstores, often two in every mall. In addition, before that, there were individual paperback book racks in almost every drugstore in the country, and those racks were tailored to local reading habits, and often were located right next to the comic book racks. Both the mall stores and the drugstores allowed easy access, what’s called impulse book buying. While the more profitable small mall stores have been replaced by book superstores that are actually mall anchors, these stores tend to be more destinations for already determined book buyers than a source of impulse buying — and there are far fewer of them than there were smaller mall bookstores.

At one time, virtually no mall was without a bookstore, albeit a small one. Now there are hundreds of malls without any bookstores, and whole sections of major cities without bookstores, and most of the corner drugstores are long-since gone, and I don’t see many book displays in the generic drug chains that replaced them. Yes, many supermarkets, and even WalMarts, have book sections, but most Super WalMarts are lucky to have 20 F&SF titles, or for that matter more than 50 titles of any genre or mainstream fiction. In other supermarkets the selection is even more meager. Even the tiniest of Waldenbooks used to have several hundred titles in each genre [and I know, because I visited that store before it was closed].

By concentrating resources in book superstores, the book chains have largely eliminated what was effectively a feeder network that helped make books available to a larger segment of the population. It’s unscientific, but I’ve traveled most of the United States in the past fifteen years and found that very few malls in minority sections of most cities have bookstores. The bookstores tend to be concentrated in or near affluent white, higher-income neighborhoods. This is a great way to maximize an existing customer base, but given the fact that a considerable number of children in lower income areas will grow up to be higher-wage earners, it’s a very poor long-term strategy, and another example of our cultural mindset to maximize short-term profits, regardless of the long-term implications.

Add to that an educational system that tries to do too much with too little discipline, too few teachers and inadequate resources, and it shouldn’t be any surprise that effective reading levels continue to decline, regardless of what the school “tests” say, since more accurate Department of Education tests on college graduates show that almost 60% lack the capacity to read and understand a complex newspaper editorial. On top of that, regardless of the intellectual brilliance of students, the current teaching systems and the video culture have created a mindset where long-term concentration is difficult, if not impossible, for all too many students — and long-term concentration is definitely required for reading books.

So… I suspect that the majority of publishers [excepting mine, who has spoken out long and hard against these trends and taken steps to counter them] and book store executives will console themselves that the declining sales are merely a function of economic hard times. But those who believe that recent declining sales are all a function of lower income and higher unemployment are seriously deluding themselves.

Last week the business section of several papers had headlines reading something like, “Retail Sales Plummet.” Because I’m an economist by educational background and training and also because I’m skeptical of scare-style headlines, I read the stories. The bottom line was simple. Retail sales dropped off about 2.8% in October compared to sales in October 2007. Now, the papers also had a graph that showed what appeared to be a convincing drop from one month to another — unless you read the numbers. The scale showed only the range of sales figures from $360 billion to $400 billion, or roughly ten percent of the total sales range — so of course a drop of nearly 3%, close to $12 billion, shows a “visual” drop of one third of the graph. Pretty scary — but it would have been hard to pick out that three percent drop on a graph that showed the entire $380 billion.

Needless to say, following the news story, which doubtless ran coast to coast, the stock market sank, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if more Americans decided not to purchase unnecessary goods.

All of this illustrates one of the greatest problems in a generally free market economy: everything literally rests on the margin… and much of what happens on the margin reflects popular perception. Since mid-summer for example, the price of crude oil has dropped from almost $140 a barrel to about $50, a decline of more than 60%. Did crude oil supplies increase by 60% or even 20%? Or did demand for gasoline drop by 20%-60%? Hardly. In fact, crude oil production has been cut, and demand for gasoline is down around 5% from last year at the same time. The same sort of marginal “tightness” and increased demand in housing was what fueled the housing boom… and a comparatively small, in percentage terms, number of defaults and lessened demand led to the subsequent bust.

A similar set of circumstances is wracking the stock market, if with slightly different mechanics at work. Hedge funds and private investors seemed convinced that the market would continue to rise, and they leveraged their investments through buying stock on margin and in various other creative ways. But when the market turned down, and investors in those funds wanted out, the hedge funds had to liquidate huge blocks of stock at whatever price they could, and prices headed down. That panicked more investors into selling… and so the cycle went. Then, because business outlooks deteriorated, a number of dividend-paying stocks cut or eliminated dividends — one financially solvent Canadian power trust even cut its dividend by over 70% — and the prices of those stocks deteriorated even more.

Effectively, on average, most pension and retirement funds have been cut between 30%-60% over the last few months, but especially in the last month. As more Americans saw their assets melt away, they further decreased their buying, and sales of large items like automobiles fell dramatically. Now the big three American manufacturers, who never understood that they couldn’t sell oversized and overpriced SUVs forever, are begging for a bailout from Congress.

In an economy as large as that of the United States, comparatively small changes in supply and demand, generally all on the margin, so to speak, can have enormous financial and economic consequences.

Now… when you add to that the scare tactics of the media, always in search of the next headline, small problems get bigger, and moderate problems become major… and that, unfortunately, is what is happening… and it will most likely get worse.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” How many times have you heard that saying? The problem with the saying, however, is that one seldom asks the necessary accompanying question: “For what?” I’m not being flippant. The value of any picture lies in its use.

A photo ID is far more valuable than a written description of the ID-bearer. In terms of showing straight “action,” a graphic novel can depict battle scenes in far greater detail than is easily possible in straight prose. But no picture can carry the rhythmic auditory impact of poetry or words set to music, and even pictures set to music have an impact different from words and music. As human beings we remember and re-create songs and lullabies. We don’t and can’t do that in the same way with visual images [unless you’re a professional entertainment sound designer].

Even more important, because words are symbolic as well as literal representations, and because words are the only way we have of expressing and conveying abstract concepts such as idealism, altruism, love, hate, friendship, and so on, words can do far more than pictures in affecting and changing both the course of individual lives and the direction of entire societies.

In terms of the underlying “worth” of various types of entertainment, the old saying of “you get what you pay for” holds true, if in a slightly different context. In general, cinema or graphic novels/manga are more accessible, and more sense-oriented, and if a quick rush of action or romance is what you want, they usually can provide it far more easily and, for most people, far more quickly than can a book. While a paperback book is comparable in cost, it also has a second “cost.” It requires active thought and reader participation, but, for that cost, can often [I won’t say always because there are bad books and bad readers, just as there are bad cinema and bad manga and bad viewers] deliver far more than mere entertainment and can leave you with greater insight or feeling, if not both.

In an overall sense, pictures tend to be “complete” in themselves. There’s little or no stimulus to consider beyond the image presented. That limitation may well have been one of the reasons why nineteenth century art led toward into surrealism, abstractionism, and all the other “non-representationalist” forms, as part of an effort on the part of the artists to engage their viewers beyond the image itself.

By comparison, a single word [except “yes” or “no”] is seldom ever complete, and sentences lead on to more sentences and more meanings and questions, often into the exploration of ideas and concepts. It’s no accident that generally the most advanced and most vital cultures have had languages with the largest vocabularies and greatest complexity in language.

So… just because a picture presents a particular image more completely than words, don’t assume that the picture is necessarily better. It all depends on what’s at stake… and, often, whether you want to look beyond the image.

I was recently reminded of a pattern I’ve observed over the years in academia, when professors sneak to a chair or a dean complaining about the acts or behavior of a colleague, citing their interest “for the good of the students.” In no cases have such individuals actually talked to their colleague, even when the complainers are fully tenured and risk nothing, and in the majority of the cases, they don’t even know the facts surrounding their complaint. Their sole interest is not in the “good of the students” or solving the problem, but in creating trouble for a colleague.

The problem with this kind of behavior is that, unfortunately, it’s not confined to academia. Remember, there was a fellow named Hitler who engaged in genocide and created something called the Holocaust “for the good of” the Reich, the Fatherland, and the purity of the Aryan race. And there were some folks in the United States who seceded from the Union, for “the good of states’ rights,” otherwise known as the freedom to enslave others. We’ve recently had “ethnic cleansing” in what was once Yugoslavia and Rwanda, for the “good” of this or that group or culture. More than a few centuries before that, the Spanish inquisition and other functionaries of the Catholic Church tortured people to death in order to “save their souls,” all for their victims’ own good, of course.

In the United States, as a result of a single terrorist attack, we’ve endured all sorts of restrictions and infringements of civil liberties for our own “good” and security, even when subsequent acts by airline passengers, for example, have suggested strongly that repetition of the 9/11 methodology is highly unlikely to be successful a second time around.

Most recently, we’ve had the leadership of the Church of the Latter Day Saints pouring millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers into the effort to support Proposition 8 in California, in order to prohibit same-sex marriages, all supposedly for the good of the “traditional” family, which, for all the rhetoric, really makes no sense. If you’re concerned about family stability, shouldn’t you be for anything that strengthens families, even non-traditional ones? Besides, it’s not as though many same-sex couples are interested in undermining Mormon marriages, unlike the Mormon Church, which seems clearly interested in undermining same-sex marriages.

In all these cases, and doubtless hundreds, if not thousands of others, those who have professed to be “for the good” of something really weren’t. They were using the argument of “good” to oppose, if not to kill or destroy, that which they opposed, and most of those using the “for the good of” argument have in mind restrictions and punishments of others, and not solutions to problems.

I object strongly to this tactic. It’s hypocritical, devious, misleading, and unethical. If you believe something to be wrong, say so, and be prepared to explain exactly why it’s wrong, and why you need to destroy, restrict, or otherwise infringe on the liberties of others, and why there is no other better solution. There times when that may in fact be necessary, but I’d wager that those cases are very few indeed, especially compared to the number of times when “good” is trotted out to harm others.

Over the past few years, there’s been what I’d call a desultory, on-and-off debate, if it can be termed such, over the future of books, and of fiction. While few believe that either books or fiction in some form of print will vanish, it’s clear that changes are occurring, and those changes both reflect current trends in society and foreshadow future changes.

Over the past decade the number of fiction titles and the number of copies sold are up, but not so much as population growth. Other studies suggest that there actually may be fewer readers, but that those readers are individually buying more books, as a result of the growth of chain bookstores and on-line stores. This possibility is bolstered by the distribution of sales figures as well. With the exception of authors of block-buster works such as Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, and the top romances, most authors are writing more books, but the numbers of copies of each title sold tend to be lower. In the F&SF field, more than a few authors who used to be mid-list authors published by major houses are now being published by smaller houses, even while they’re getting quite favorable reviews and positive critical attention. Recent surveys also indicate that fiction reading has dropped off enormously among the 16-25 year old age-group.

What do these changes mean? For one thing, I personally believe that they largely reflect a change in personal entertainment preferences, and that change is driven, in large part, by the impact of technology on our lives and in the corresponding transformation of the nature of work. A greater and greater percentage of work has moved from physical labor to tasks requiring mental efforts or services with social interaction, if not both, and the hours worked have not decreased in the U.S.A., and in many fields, have actually increased significantly. I have heard more and more individuals say, time and time again, that when they get home from work, they’re simply too exhausted to be able to concentrate on a book, and like it or not, reading does require a certain amount of concentration.

Bookstores are also carrying larger and larger sections of graphic novels, anime, and manga. This isn’t totally surprising, given that younger Americans are a more video/visual entertainment generation, which also explains the growth of video/computer games. The concern that I have about this shift is that reading, fiction in particular, requires the reader to construct a mental image of the setting and the events, rather than merely to observe and participate, as is the case for visually-based entertainment.

Where will these changes in entertainment preferences lead society as a whole? Will they have that great an effect? Some preliminary studies suggest that the brain development of the video generation is different, but I haven’t seen any work that says what the change in development does to perception and behavior. Some differences that I’ve observed and that concern me are: (1) the younger generation seems to have a greater difficulty in visualizing or imagining things described only in words; (2) they have more difficulty in transferring skills learned in one application to a different application; (3) their writing skills, in general, are far weaker than those of earlier generations; (4) while constructing and supporting statements/arguments logically and factually has always been difficult for students, that difficulty seems even greater now than in earlier generations.

Even assuming that my observations are true and hold for a larger body of young Americans than I’ve observed, will they affect the future of the United States? How?

Based on history, one has to wonder. Certainly, a significant number and great percentage of our ancestors either could not read or never read fiction. In fact, the first recognized novel [Pamela, by Richardson] wasn’t even published until 1740, relatively late in the development of what we call civilization. And, generations ago, fiction was considered by some pillars of society to be frivolous and mentally damaging, just as video and computer games are by some today.

In the end, the question may not be about how many people are reading fiction, but who those readers happen to be, and what they take from it.

Last week, I went to the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary [which was why there was no posting the previous Friday]. While I was there, in addition to talking to a number of American and Canadian writers, I also had the good fortune to meet with some Dutch and French fans and writers, among many others.

One of the French writers, who has been published in American F&SF magazines, made the observation that a very large segment of the French market in F&SF novels has been taken up by translations of American works, so much so that it was easier to write in English and be published by U.S. publishers and magazines than to be published in French. What’s intriguing about this is that it costs more to publish translated American fiction because of the linguistic differences. Any American or English work accurately translated into French will run at least thirty percent longer in French, and sometimes more than that. In my own case, most of my books translated into French come out in two volumes, and they’re not slim.

The same volume/translation problems also crop up with other romance languages, largely because American English has over three times the number of words as any romance language does, and that means that what is often a single American word requires either a phrase or a continuing simplification process in translation.

One of the Dutch participants observed that she preferred to read American F&SF in English, because the translations, even by respected Dutch publishers, leave something to be desired.

The German market for translating U.S. works literally boomed in the 1990s and the very early 2000s… and then almost totally vanished, so much so that my German publisher literally left the second half of Scion of Cyador unpublished, which has led to more than a few inquiries by German readers.

I was surprised, but pleased, to discover from an Israeli publisher that my Hammer of Darkness has recently appeared in Israel in Hebrew, which I did not know because U.S. publishers are rather slow about informing authors about foreign sales [perhaps because their parent companies like to hang on to the royalties longer?] and because I overlooked or did not see the single Google reference to it. But then, search engines aren’t all that good searching in other languages, particularly when I can’t speak or read the language in question.

All in all, a good conference… with good people… and lots of intriguing information.

There are and have been quite a few teachers in my family, as far back as my grandmother, and they include those who have taught or are teaching at the elementary, secondary, collegiate, and post-graduate/doctoral levels. Every single one of them, at one time or another, has been singled out as an excellent and inspirational teacher. And every single one of them who is still living is concerned about a trend in American education that has received very little attention.

Oh… there is a great amount of concern about the state of education and whether students are getting the education they need to succeed in an ever-more complex and technological society. There are the proponents and the opponents of more testing to ensure accountability. There are those who favor more inclusive curricula and those who favor a “back to basics” approach. There are those who push merit pay for “better” [I quote this, because to date, I haven’t seen any good and fair way to determine exactly what determines “better”] teachers, and those who oppose it.

But… while someone, somewhere, may have pointed out the trend I’m about to mention, if they have, it’s certainly been lost amid all the other “teaching issues.” And it shouldn’t be. It’s very basic.

The responsibility for learning has been quietly but dramatically shifted over the past two generations. Long years ago, when I was in school, and longer years ago, when my parents and grandparents were in school, the responsibility was very clear. Regardless of the circumstances, the student was the one who was responsible for learning, and the teacher was responsible for teaching. Today, everywhere I look, and everywhere the teachers in my family look, the responsibility for both has been placed on the teacher. Today, teachers must inspire; they must create the atmosphere in which children will learn; they must create a climate where student self-esteem promotes learning. Everything must be positive, despite the fact that, outside of school, life has a tendency to provide far more sticks than carrots, and that “life lessons” can be brutal.

It has gotten to the point where most students take little or no responsibility for learning, particularly if the subject is difficult or “boring.” I’m sorry, but learning well the basics of most disciplines can and will be boring. It takes practice and more practice. Everyone seems to understand that in terms of athletics, but it’s a point apparently lost in school and academics. Learning beyond the simple basics is work; work requires effort; and it shouldn’t be the teacher’s responsibility to provide the student’s motivation.

Whether this is the result of a media culture that spoon-feeds, simplifies, and dumbs down everything, or a tendency to over-protect children, or results from other societal factors is, frankly, secondary. What is being overlooked is that no teacher, no matter how good, talented, and inspirational, can be more than marginally effective when faced with large classrooms filled primarily with students whose motivation is not to learn, but to get through without working or to obtain good grades with the least amount of effort. And all the educational reforms, all the merit pay, all the “back-to-basics” movements, all the testing, and all the legislation will not improve education significantly until parents and society recognize that students have a responsibility for their own education… and act to instill that responsibility.

The actual will to learn has to come from the student, and until our society understands that — and acts on it by emphasizing that students are personally responsible and by letting them fail, horrible as that sounds, when they are not responsible — all of the other “reforms” will result in little improvement in the education of the majority of students.

Over the years, I’ve often heard the argument that all too many laws are biased against the poor or the disadvantaged. One particular example that was cited for years was that in many jurisdictions, the penalties for possessing “crack” cocaine were far stiffer than for possessing exactly the same amount of powdered cocaine, and because crack was more prevalent in poorer neighborhoods, the law was more lenient in dealing with wealthier addicts. Another example is that often criminals who commit what amount to small scale robberies with weapons face far, far greater sentences than do “white collar” criminals who embezzle or misdirect far, far greater sums. In fact, from what I’ve seen, this differential goes much farther than that and generally seems based on the idea that threatening someone with a weapon or violence outweighs all other factors.

I’m not suggesting greater leniency for criminals who try to get their way with weapons or force. Far from it. What I am going to suggest, however, is that, as a society, we’ve bought into the idea that a crime that does not involve violence is somehow less of a crime… or that an act that “legally” deprives others of their money, houses, or other goods, even when the victims are not culpable, is not a crime at all.

Currently, we’re in a financial crisis that has effectively reduced the collective wealth of the United States by something like forty percent. Certainly, my retirement funds, parked in a solid and stable and conservative set of mutual funds, are down somewhere in that neighborhood, and I’ve heard of others losing even more. I didn’t gamble with the money. I didn’t follow hot-shot brokers and tips. But like hundreds of millions of Americans, I had that money taken, in effect, stolen because a group of hot-shot money managers came up with ways to leverage financial assets, in some cases as high as 130 to one, in order to boost their corporate profits and to “earn” extraordinary bonuses.

Now… if you asked any one of them what would happen if ten percent of these assets went bad, at least some of them could have predicted what would happen. That’s knowledgeable neglect. Most didn’t understand at all. They just went along. That’s negligence.

The basis behind criminal law, in an overall sense, is to deter crime and harm to the individual and to punish those who create such harm. We tend to classify such crimes on the severity of the harm and on the intent of the perpetrator, with an offense such as premeditated murder being one of the more severe, because the perpetrator knew he or she was going to commit the offense of taking another life. Assault generally merits less punishment… and so on. But some acts, even when “accidental,” also merit punishment, such as involuntary manslaughter or accidental vehicular manslaughter.

Now… let us say that an individual has diligently saved five percent of his or her earnings for thirty or forty years, a sum amounting to years of work… and through either premeditation or negligence someone takes it away. If that someone is a thief or an embezzler, the act comes under criminal law. If that someone is a corporate CEO who agrees to massive trades in credit-default swaps and derivatives, then he can just claim he made a mistake… and most won’t even do that, even in front of a Congressional hearing.

Right now, a broker, a brokerage firm, an investment banker, and many other individuals can take actions that lead to financial devastation for millions of others — and walk away, essentially unscathed, saying, “It was just the market.” Or “we did the best we could.” And all too many of them take enormous bonuses when they leave. We tend not to let careless drivers, doctors, or lawyers get away with such excuses when they’ve committed malpractice. Exactly how did we set up a structure where those individuals who manage our savings and our retirement have no liability and accountability for incredibly poor judgment or out-and-out negligence?

Perhaps to take care of the worst abuses, we ought to enact legislation that creates criminal punishments for “involuntary theft” or “fiduciary negligence,” in cases where the actions of an individual, regardless of his corporate standing, lead directly to the loss of significant sums of money on the part of large numbers of individuals. Perhaps then, if they faced the possibility of long prison terms, some of these financial types wouldn’t be quite so quick to adopt and endorse leverage schemes they don’t understand.

I know… any such suggestion will have the financial gurus claiming that such laws and regulations will destroy the world financial structures. So… for all those of you who don’t like my thoughts and suggestions, what exactly would you suggest to create greater accountability and responsibility? And… please, please… don’t cite Adam Smith and the invisible hand or the pure and free market. History has proved, time and time again, that, while such a free market might work if men and women were angels, history has also demonstrated that people aren’t anywhere close to that honest and altruistic where money is concerned, especially other people’s money.