Shiva In Shadow * Nancy Kress

I enjoyed the story because it was a page turning adventure & I missed the characters when the story was over. I'd consider this a just-for-fun story because it really didn't challenge my thinking. However, the writing was well done because the sci-fi portion of sending a mental memory of you off to another part of the galaxy in a probe wasn't a big leap - worked fine in the context of the story.

The People Of Sand And Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi, on the other hand, was a total waste of time. The plot was too slim to hold my interest; but a person who loves having animals hanging around a house might enjoy the story. Guess if I were in a proper mood I might do a bit of thinking about some of the moral questions brought up.

Two Stories * Moles & Rowe

The Third Part by David Moles (Year's Best SciFi) is intriguing in that it starts off as Romeo & Juliet, morphs into James Bond, and ends up as Ace Ventura with a touch of bi-lateral history. In the end, it's simply too much and not enough. I learned nothing and felt nothing by the end. It almost feels like it's the start of something bigger instead of a true short story. Romeo ends up either back in the world, or on a spaceship - or most likely both in a bi-lateral universe. And, so what? Juliet may or may not end up aiding and abbetting Romeo's "enemy", but who cares?

The Voluntary State by Christopher Rowe (Year's Best SciFi) is a prose comic book without pictures. Enjoyed reading the settings & animation type situations; but the story had nothing to anchor on to fulfill me as a reader.

Going to a teacher conference for the next week. Hate these things - sitting in class 8 hours a day. Only one good thing I can see about these things is it shows how truly bored a student (myself) can be going to class & it keeps me motivated to never treat my students in such a poor manner that they will definitely be bored all week long. These things keep me thinking of ways to keep the class hopping & joyful (and awake).

Note from Hank Beukema

From: Hank Beukema
Subject: The New Century

I have found a startling passage in a book I'm reading and want to share it with you:

"He felt the sense of human effects of the enormous and constantly accelerating release of usable energy resulting from the evolving scientific technology of the new century. Virtually every major premise, every cherished human value, every certainty of that old century whose child the man felt himself to be, had been destroyed by the end of the century, and nothing had been put in their places that could give a comparable feeling of security and direction in an amiable, reasonable world. The world was no longer amiable OR reasonable. Power had gone out of control. An anarchy of stupendous forces raged through the city of man. And of all this, of all this, the New York City skyline as seen from the deck of a ship entering the harbor had seemed symbolic. "The outline of the city became frantic..." he wrote, "The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone andsteam against the sky."

This is from the 1972 book FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny and was from the 1904 writings of Henry Adams...... Unbelievable,,,,, This is why I love reading, and the blues, and poetry, and this group......: It's all happened before......... and somebody else knows how You feel...... Hank

See more of my writing at:
http://www.mytown.ca/beukema/

Start The Clock * Benjamin Rosenbaum

Another excellent story. The plot is an old one - when someone you love decides to take a different turn and grow in a different way than you choose, what do you do? Story is well written and presents a different view of the world 30 years from now - but despite the sociological differences, the emotional issues remain. A worthy read - one I would definitely recommend to high school English teachers because of the discussions it could elicit.

We all have to make our own mistakes, I know - but I'm betting if I had a story like this to reflect on with good discussions with my peers I would have made the same mistake less often in this life, thus hurting fewer people along the way. At least I would hope that would have been true.

On a similar note I received the strangest phone call of my life this morning. I was working with several special ed kids when a voice came over the intercom - "Mr Soos, call your wife as soon as possible." Of course I replied, "What do you want me to call her?" The answer I got back was "Mrs Soos".

So I found a phone and called her. She asked if I could be home at noon becuase my dad was getting married. "My dad is what?" Sheesh. I'm 50 - that makes my dad something like 74. Do 74 year olds get marrried without warning? Apparently so. It worked out, the school counselor covered for me, I got to the church on time, and yes - my dad got married to someone I've never met or even heard of. Turns out she's a delightful woman, and I'm sure my dad will be very happy. But what a shock =:-) Nothing better than a good shock to the system from time to time!

The story theme fits because one has to make a choice when someone you love chooses a life track different than you expect. Should you shun them, or love them for who they are? I've seen many grown-ups act like 9 year old children and shun their wives, parents, siblings, etc. I've made the same stupid mistake more times than I'm willing to try to count. But this time I made the right decision, I think. I accepted my dad's wishes and wish him only the best =:-)

Good story, good day.

Inappropriate Behavior * Pat Murphy

This is the 1st story in the 22nd "Year's Best Science Fiction" anthology. This one is a winner for me, perhaps because of my position as a special ed teacher. I've met all these characters, and have the same feelings for them as the author. NT's are "neurotypicals", the teachers who think all kids should act the same; and in the current Bush climate of NCLBA, all kids should achieve at the same time and at the same level. And they're not kidding when they say ALL. The powers that be feel that even special ed children who are mentally retarded whether because of brain damage or a genetic difference (like an extra 22nd chromosome) should achieve at exactly the same level and timing as the regular ed kids. That's not what this story is about, but it brings up all the issues of the NT's and the fact that they do not listen to anyone but themselves.

The main character in the book has been diagnosed. "All the doctors put their own names on my condition. High-functioning autism, one doctor called it. Asperger's Syndrome, said another. Another one said I was PDD, which stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorders. The first doctor said that wasn't really a diagnosis, it was just a label." Sounds funny, but it's all too typical. Very few of my students, aside from the ones with Down's Syndrome, have a specific diagnosis that more than one psychologist agrees with.

The main character is one of those brilliant thinkers that no one can get along with. This type of student can pass the state mandated tests with 100% score, if they were alllowed to bend the rules a little and try approaching the problem from a different perspective; but the rules are set for EVERYONE for what is considered "equality" purposes. So, these brilliant thinkers are simply forced into failing an otherwise simple exam for them.

I enjoyed the entire story. I know way too many people who are exactly like Dr Rhodes. But what really got me excited was the ending, which I won't give away. Suffice it to say is it gives me the willies, and had me wondering just how NT I really am even if I don't want to be. Am I a Dr Rhodes in some circumstances? Can some forms of physical restraints be deemed "okay" if it is a path acceptable to a young child? Should a young child be allowed to make such decisions, even of they have parents that agree? No easy answers to these questions - which makes it a great read because the story left me with many things to think about.

short update * John Roberts

Guess I shoulda guessed something would pop up that would disgust me. This is from this morning's newspapers: John Roberts "was part of a three-judge panel that ruled last week that controversial military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba could go ahead."

My feelings about the military holding people without charge for several years has already been expressed many times. Anyone who supports this clearly illegal activity if it happened in the United States, buts says it's okay simply because it's on foreign soil or on an American ship at sea is a dirtbag in my estimation.

Pleasantly Surprised * John G. Roberts Jr.

Well, I'm back. Been in some sort of doldrum state lately. with a bad writing attitude, Since I don't want my personal diary to be a book of complaints, I've avoided saying anything for awhile. It's kinda nonsensical to complain about things you can' t change anyway, like the government.

Anyway, in my last posting, more than two weeks ago I made a bold statement: "
Unless Bush makes a huge error in his usual judgement, I doubt if he'll pick anyone with true integrity to sit on the supreme court." Well, these words came back to hit me tonight. And I'm glad. In my defense, I did say, "My hope is of course that Bush will rise to the occassion and choose a person of wisdom to be on the court", but I had little real hope for that.

I'm sure some sorta dirt will be brought up by political folks, but this guy seems seriously to be a person of character, so I expect good things from him. I know his views on Roe vrs Wade will play big during the hearing; but there's no way a person should be held to account on one issue when his job description will cover multitudes of issues. What I can figure from what he's said about the issue publically is that he will uphold the law as it stands, even though he disagrees with the way it became law; and that his theory on our constitution is that congress should pass laws, not the courts.

Well, that is truly what the constitution says, so, hey, why not? So he's a strict constitutionalist - can't hold that against anybody. If you think that through, it means his personal opinion on matters brought before him will not make him decide to change the law during court time - that should be left to congress. If he can hold that belief to it's final processing then he can do no real harm on the bench.

I'd be personally interested in how he would have voted on the eminent domain issue that still bugs me. Also, small things, like the President declaring war instead of Congress. But those honest questions will probably never be brought up, so we'll never know. Good news is I don't feel uncomfortable with the nomination.

The only downside I see to John G. Roberts Jr. is that he seems to have spent a good portion of his career in Washington, DC and mixed up with politics a good portion of that time. I know, a guy has to work somewhere; but it seems like having someone who has actually had to deal with real, honest working people in the real America would have been cool. That's my only concern, and I admit it's a minor concern. So, Bush is on my happy list until I read about another soldier killed for his crusade to democraticize the world, which I unfortunately think will happen sometime in the next 24 hours.

Tonight we studied Chapter 25 in Genesis. Esau and Jacob, what a pair. In Malachi God mentions in passing, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. I love what Spurgeon told the woman that said she couldn't understand how God, who we call love, could hate Esau. His reply was so true: "I don't have any problem with that, my problem is how could God have loved Jacob!" Jacob is quite a character, and well worth the time to reflect on. He is a believer in the same way most of us are believers - always trying to help God out =:-)

In Chapter 25 we see Abraham's death, so the homework was to reflect on Abraham's life as a person of faith and consider his stumblings and see which part of Abraham's path we personally fit on. No one could truthfully say they had reached the faith of Abraham in Chapter 22. I'm betting that after we study Jacob that most of us will feel comfortable identifying with him =:-) He's definitely not one we could call "perfect", although we can sort of almost see him "perfecting" - maybe not as clearly as we see Abraham, but he earned his stripes enough to be called a person of faith in Hebrews 11. Should be a fun few weeks - will go by kind of fast compared to Abraham, whom we've studied for 6 months.

Started reading a new book that popped in today - read the introduction this afternoon: "The Year's Best Science Fiction - 22nd Annual Collection" edited by Gardner Dozois. I've been away from Science Fiction for a few years, and delving into some of the classics made me wonder which current writers are worth reading. Sometimes the best place to discover that is in these anthologies - after all, that's where Asimov & all those folks first became recognized outside the small circle of readership of sci-fi mags.

What intrigues me the most so far is how far I've been "away". Very close to 1/2 of the selections in this book are seeing "print" for the first time because their original "publication" was on-line in a science fiction webzine. That's amazing, even to me, and I shouldn't be - because early on I was an advocate of on-line publishing. Turned out not to work too well for me personally, because I couldn't think of a way to generate an income, and simply spending time editing and giving it away was cool; but I went cold turkey from print to on-line. Our readership grew fast and furious - that was a great ego-boost, but I lacked the knowledge of how to turn that readership into an income. Losing the income from the print magazine meant I had to take on a real job, thus became a teacher.

Point is, I'm glad to see that on-line publishing does have some true status - the next thing will be to actually read these stories and see of the writing holds up enough to convince me to keep an eye on these writers. I think that's my next blog project - to report on these stories as I read them

Of course, I planned to do that with Leaves Of Grass, which I actually did sit and read in one sitting. The "problem" is I read it while traveling, and while I thought I'd write about it when I came back, I keep reading other stuff and experiencing other things, and I don't feel the need to re-hash everything I thought while reading, tho I kept lots of notes =:-)

The one thing I did think about a lot and discussed with several people was the thought that Whitman has had a much bigger impact on my life than I ever realized. I read the paperback version that I had a lot as a young dude. I picked it up in 1971, and never looked back - I kept it near me for several years, reading parts of it over and over. Not to memorize it, but to absorb it. Let's face it, Whitman makes writing look a lot easier than it is.

I didn't consciously try to absorb his philosopy; but I can see now it seeped in. His love of people and belief that every trade is worthy of praise has crept into my understanding of Christianity, and may explain why my take on Christianity is so much different from the popular TV preachers. I don't see going to a building to watch some guy in a tie spout off for 45 minutes as being very spiritual, or uplifting at all. I can see why TV preachers would hate Whitman, and would go out of their way to demonize him like they do everything else. What's funny about that is Whitman, at one point, talked about the sermon as something worthy of one's time to absorb. The only thing I can figger is he ran into a better brand of preacher once than we have nowadays =:-)

Point is, tho I can see why modern Christians would shun him, I think I have allowed my early reading to influence the type of thinking I do today when I teach the Bible. The big question is, of course, is this a bad thing or a good thing?

I do feel that Whitman would be much like myself in that I have a hard time identifying with Christians and Christianity because the truth is what I've experienced is mostly culture and Churchianity. It's very difficult to want to label myself in such a way that anyone would feel I identify with some of the mularky that comes out of their mouths. It's going to happen anyway, since people like the concept of wrapping things in neat little boxes - can't help the world and won't convince them to start thinking independently any time soon. Where is this rambling going? Oh, I remember - I have decided that the seemingly "non-Christian" Whitman (as a modern "believer" would label him) acted more like Christ than any modern "Christian" I've met.

Oh, not to worry. I know there's other followers of Jesus Christ out there who believe that love is what He was teaching. Just seems to not be as many of them as one would hope.

I'm Not The Only One

Guess I feel like a dreamer. I really thought the supreme court was going to try it's best to wait out the final years of Bush. As much as I disliked Reagan's foreign policy and secret wars; I really liked some of his domestic ideas (not all - obviously I would dislike his union busting policies, etc). And he made a wise decision with Sandra Day O'Connor. She wrote the dissenting opinion for the stupid decision made by the Supreme Court about eminent domain a few days back. I have respect for her wisdom.

Unless Bush makes a huge error in his usual judgement, I doubt if he'll pick anyone with true integrity to sit on the supreme court. Hopefully the senate will be able to keep his radicalism out of the supreme court; but since there seems to be so little public discussion in the senate about how radically the country has changed because of Bush, I feel like they're all asleep, and I'm just a dreamer along with them.

I don't know. My hope is of course that Bush will rise to the occassion and choose a person of wisdom to be on the court. But when I look at his choices for his cabinet and advisors, it just seems hopeless.

I'm still angry about the eminent domain decision that was the theme of my last post. I don't really want to post about something while I'm angry; but where does that leave me? I seem to be angry a lot - so I'd really have nothing to post about. I seem to post only when something really upsets me.

That ideal doesn't seem to answer to my original purpose - to be able to look back and see where me head is at, and how it got there. Of course to do that, this should be more like a diary than a diatribe about political stuff that I have no possibility of influencing anyway. I know a bit over 1/2 of the country agrees about Bush, and even Sandra Day O'Connor, whom I sorta praised above, thought he should be given the opportunity to rule the roost for awhile. Her retirement could very well mean she doesn't feel she made a mistake when she gave him the nod.

Anyway, today we finished our Serengeti Trek. The credo was simple: Know God, Talk To God, Tell About God, Love God, and today: Work For God. Well, my take on working for God is pretty well known in these parts - I choose to believe in what Jesus said when asked what God requires of men in regards to work: "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. John 6:29." Of course, I used a modern translation for the kids, but it conveyed the same meaning, this time. (Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. -NKJV)

I had the opportunity for a brief 25 minutes in the morning to tell the kids NOT to listen to anyone who tried to convince them that Got had something they were "supposed" to do for God. Jesus made it quite clear all need to do to keep God happy with us is to believe (see also 1 John 5). Well, lo and behold the kids had to visit 5 other classes today. The outside fun stuff was run by a cool guy whom I trust with God's word. But there's no way to control everyone - even Bush has learned that lesson =:-) So the kids heard from the other 4 teachers things they were "supposed to do". By the "Main Event" (last meeting) they were totally confused.

I don't regret doing what I did - I'd rather have a confused kid who goes home and asks questions than a kid totally brainwashed into thinking God has unreasonable expectations of them and no longer wants them to be a child. I made all those mistakes as a young parent - not pretty. Can really turn kids off of God completely if they feel his expectations are for us to be perfect little robots.

I think the worst example of legalism I heard was from a teacher who said: "It's not enough that you ask Jesus into your life. If that's all you do, then you've made a big mistake. You have to go tell the Pastor or myself or some other adult so we can tell you what else you need to do." Arrrggghhhh. It's a mantra, of course: 'Let's do something for God'. Yep, like God really needs our help.

Like I told the kids, Jesus said that in the Bible shortly after he walked on the water - and explained that the faith we have is really no faith at all. Only the faith he gives us is faith he recognizes. We don't do anything to deserve, nor do we do anything to keep it. Sure, as we walk in faith, we learn more and more about how much more faith we've been given than we realized - but we didn't earn that faith - it was already there, we simply don't utilize it. The lesson of Abraham.

Anyway, I was a good boy and didn't interrupt the legalists (funny, it seems to me, but they're also supporters of George Bush - wonder if that means anything?). My take on life is that my insisting that Jesus was right and the legalists are wrong is just as bad as being a legalist. Let the kids hear both versions - the Bible version and the "churchified" version. They'll grow knowing there are choices, which is good. To only hear one or the other without being given the opportunity to think for oneself will create an incomplete person who is unable to reach God on a personal level.

We all have to experience the truth that Jesus was right, and "churchified" traditions are neither historically correct, nor biblically correct. It simply takes a lifetime to keep that understanding growing deeper and deeper. I love the way Jesus set it up so I can grow more and more in the knowledge of him each and every day, and that knowledge helps me understand myself and my own motivations better.

Meandered all over the map with this entry, so I feel great. Time to snooze.