The Pondering Tree, Mark III

Photo Essay: The Monday Doings On here at the Pod.

2011-01-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

Last night I made an end of winter break steak dinner for Trinity and I using a new cast iron grill pan. It didn't turn out too badly for a first effort though I suspect my technique needs a bit of work.

We haven't had much snow until this morning though. Here is what we woke up to.

Well, at least it isn't flooding like it is in other parts of the world.

Turns out Trinity came down with some sort of bug, probably the same one that has been trying to undermine my health for the last few days. Given that the roads were terrible and her health not the best, the decision was made to keep her here on this first day of the new semester.

I spent part of the morning reading the paper on the new Kindle.

For the record, that is black tea.

Later the Commanding General took over the couch while I worked on my very first batch of homemade chicken noodle soup.

The above is edited to clear up some of the underexposure. For those that have been to the Pod for parties, we see the living room in normal configuration.

Finally, the soup was more or less ready.

It seems a little bland and not salty enough for my taste but Trinity kept it down. Plutarch is taking a break so riding shotgun there is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. On this reading I notice that Scout has a thinly veiled contempt of the public education system. In fact, her attitudes mirror my own.

What I like best is that it is subtle, woven into the general narrative without cracking one upside the head with a ballbat. I wish writers would get back to this method.

So it goes. I'll get my workout and my writing in a bit later.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Research Project Number - 05: Pondering my work with John Birmingham

2010-08-02T10:00:00.001-07:00

Research Project Number - 05

For most regular and/or semi-regular readers, it is pretty well established that I work as a research consultant to Australian writer/novelist/blogger/Jack of All Trades John Birmingham. Later tonight, if I can find the right cable and MAKE IT WORK, I'll receive my marching orders for the latest project.

To date, I have worked on three novels for Birmingham. It started with an offhand review of his first alternate history novel Weapons of Choice. While the novel had flaws they were mainly technical or cultural in nature, enough to jar military readers out of the narrative but not enough to ruin the characterization or the plot of the novel. Birmingham left a comment at the first version of this blog and the rest, I guess you'd say, is history.

I've always struggled with exactly how to portray the work I do. I enjoy doing it, that is for certain. To me it is akin to an apprenticeship for novelists. I get to see how a novel is put together from the moment of inception. Each novel is different with their own struggles, growing pains and problems. I am proud of my small contribution to the projects.

That said, my original doctrine was to serve as a silent partner. This was pretty much in keeping with my relations with other writers. Keep things confidential. As I grew to be more unpopular in certain circles of the American Science Fiction Community, I figured it was best to stay quiet about the work. That is why the blog entries always referred to Birmingham as "the Client" and the novels received code names RPN-02 to RPN-05.

Birmo would have none of it. I end up the in the acknowledgements pretty regularly.

So, just what exactly do I do?

Originally I was brought on board to correct minor military errors. With Final Impact I was to go through and make sure the weapons, equipment and employment were plausible. There have been arguments elsewhere about whether or not it would have been possible to build an F-86 with 1944 technology that I will not rehash here. If it had been a matter of providing technical advice alone, I might have back those arguments. That said, I believed it was important to maintain continuity with the other two books series.

I realized, pretty quick, that it wasn't just a matter of looking up tech specs and vomiting the information to Birmingham. I did a fair amount of that to be sure, but there is a creative aspect to it as well. It seems to me that in order to provide research that your client can use, you have to either be in tune with their vision or better yet, inside their head. The work required some level of flexibility.

From military advice I moved up a bit to the cross chat between characters. Ever so often an Australian turn of phrase like, "to get a leg over" will find its way into an American character's mouth. I mark those for correction and provide suggestions accordingly.

In Without Warning it was a mix of drawing upon research and my own memories of military service. Small details like poncho liners, chili mac (yuk) and the like were handy in filling in the furniture. Bret Melton's tattoo along with his whole attitude about the term "Hooah" was my idea.

Sometimes problems arise which are somewhat intractable. In Without Warning the big problem was the nuclear warning shots across the bow of Hugo Chavez. The research I was able to obtain was very vague about whether or not an Ohio class sub could be convinced to fire without the authority of anyone in the line of Presidential succession. At the end of the day, the decision was made that the commanders of those subs were not lock step Prussians and they probably adapt to the conditions extant at the time.

As it was, we only needed one sub to do the job.

In other cases where problems arise, a discussion will transpire as to whether or not the details are really necessary. Sometimes a writer's greatest strength is knowing when to use a lot of detail and when to go vague. A little handwavium goes a long way. On the other hand, if you get a detail wrong, people will know.

And it happens to military research assistants. I've made my share of mistakes, getting the Captain of the Nimitz wrong for instance. Or letting things slip past you, like the capital of Alaska.

At other times, the smart thing to do is simply be honest. I have let Birmo know more than once, "This is outside of my area of expertise. I suggest consulting an expert." I've also advised upgrading to someone with more recent military experience (my knowledge is increasingly dated) but that usually falls on deaf ears. Fortunately, Birmo has people he can draw upon for advice in areas that fall outside of my balliwick.

Conversely, sometimes the research or the projected direction of the novel has prompted me to engage in some research for my own benefit. I would have to say that working for Birmingham has made me a better historian in many respects. Much of my time of late is spent reading up on the Founding Fathers and Early American History in an effort to understand how they dealt with problems which are very similar to problems faced by the characters in the Without Warning trilogy. A fair amount of that material ends up in lectures for my students in my American History 120 courses.

Strange to think that this all started with a one off blog entry. I've gotten a lot of grief about my blog over the years. When I do, I point to my work and my friendship with Birmingham as an example of why it isn't a total waste of time.

He's my client and he's my friend. To use an Australian turn of phrase, he's my mate.

Now it is time to clear off the decks and get to work on that project.

Where is that modem cable?

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering Shooter Video Games.

2010-07-01T08:16:00.001-07:00

I've had the new XBox for about a week or two now. For those that lost track, Trinity got me an XBox 360 as an early birthday present. I've always wanted one but I've always been somewhat worried about getting one. My fear is that the damned thing will chew up my time that should be spent on writing, with my girlfriend, teaching, working out, reading and the like.

Althought I've had some long sessions, in one case from 10 pm to 3 am last Thursday, I've been pretty good about keeping my XBox time under some level of control. And I think Trinity likes it because it keeps me in the Pod. We do not have internet and when she is busy doing homework or reading, I tend to head out to a wifi hotspot.

Further, strangely enough, she can sleep through the racket when I am playing the shooter games she got for me. I do not know how anyone does that. Yes, she tells me her two sons used to play those games and yes she had to get homework done when her family was steadily melting down into chaos (five people, even at full functionality, are probably going to get pretty noisy).

So, my thoughts.

The first game she purchased was Battlefield: Bad Company 2, just out this year. A sequel, obviously, we follow a squad of misfits through a campaign against the Russians. The dialogue and the wisecracks are pretty good. The characters have a certain level of development, though somewhat based on stereotypes. I think the African American Sergeant Redford is probably the most fully developed and sympathetic character in the series.

The plot? Meh, Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Kelly's Heroes and the Dirty Dozen. Not bad, not great. Besides, no one plays these games for the deep literary meaning and the plot, right?

We're playing for explodey goodness.

First, a gripe.

These games are not an accurate reflection of reality. By that I mean that when you are playing the game, you have to react differently and use your tactics somewhat differently than you would on an actual battlefield.

For instance, due to the nature of the television screen, you lack peripheral vision. I've lost track of the number of times I got tagged in shooter games due to threats from the sides. It is just as likely that I might have been killed or eliminated in the real world, but I have enough training experience to know the difference.

In training exercises as an infantryman, I often detected threats to my flanks, which is something given how bad my actual vision is.

Second, one's perception of sounds is different. If someone is behind you, often you simply know someone is behind you. Not always, but usually there is some sort of pressure back there, a weight, a stillness in the air, something that is difficult to describe. That is absent in the game. The screen is in front of you while you are sitting in an easy chair in the real world.

Finally, accuracy of fire. I will say that in Bad Company 2 it is possible to use controlled, accurate fire to achieve your objectives. Given the nature of the video environment, when possible, I preferred to engage targets at a distance. I knew that if I came to grips with opponents at close quarters that it would become a spray and pray match. There would be no time for accurate, aimed fire. The control inputs simply do not allow for that, at least they do not seem to.

The graphics are certainly better. I can see the improvement between the sequel and the first Bad Company, which I bought this week. That said, it seems to me that there is not much difference in terms of game play between the Bad Company shooter games and the games I played years back at demo stations.

It does seem to me that in a multiplayer environment, an older, calmer player with more experience in the real world might be able to outwit and outsmart their younger spray and pray style opponents with the use of controlled fire. My feeling is shaped by my experience with the Street Fighter 2 arcade game. I would often find myself going up against people who knew the Special Move and only the Special Move. If one timed their attack correctly, it was possible to negate their ability to use the Special Move (which always takes a couple of seconds to pull off, even if you are really fast) and defeat the opponent.

One thing I'd like to see, and perhaps this is the writer in me, is that the protags in these games have enough actual depth to generate emotional resonance in the players.

That way when they get "killed," they might feel something more than aggravation that they have to start the scene all over again. Maybe that is coming some day.

So it goes.

The Teaching Front

Finished the Second Quarter a day early so I'll drop a surprise on the students. Since they are almost certainly reading this blog (hi there) I'll keep the surprise to myself.

After the Fourth of July weekend we'll move into the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the Federalist Era. I plan on revising my Federalist Era lecture into something more thematic. If that works, then I'll do the same with the Jeffersonian Era.

I also have a test to build.

The Writing Front

Today and tomorrow are slated for revisions on JWP-02.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Post Crispy Monday with some history, writing and video game ponderings.

2010-06-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

Trinity and I, at long last, finally made it to the pool yesterday. The cloud cover cleared off around 1230 hours and from then on out we had perfect blue skies until we left at 1630 hours for dinner.

The pool in question is The Springs north of Zona Rosa off I-29. It features a water park element and a proper Olympic sized swimming pool. A first class facility if you ask me. The only fly in the ointment is that we failed to use the proper sunscreen and thus today we are crispy in the worst possible way. Even Trinity is burned which is unusual given her mixed Latina heritage.

So no workout for today. The plan is to return to the pool tomorrow, the gym on Wednesday.

The Writing Front: Maternal Soldier

I got a response back on Maternal Soldier yesterday which gave perhaps the best feedback yet. I got high marks for tactics, extrapolation of military hardware and the like but the problem stems with the protag's central conflict.

Or lack of one. The Editor was very clear that "The Choice" had been made by a character related to the Protag and thus there was very little to do about the lack of interpersonal conflict.

My mom (yes, my mom reads my stuff, so does my girlfriend for that matter) has a solution but unfortunately I do not agree with it. Yes, it works in terms of resolving the problem within the story but here is the problem.

I do not believe the protag would utilize the option of leaving the Army to solve their problems. Consider it, agonize over it, worry about it, feel guilty about it, sure. But actually leave the Army?

No. And because I always knew that the protag wasn't getting out of the Army (even if the protag wasn't sure) that is probably part of the problem.

If I can rectify this, then I think this story might work. And I can see, years later, what happened. I spent a great deal of time working over the tactics, the hardware, the unit in question without putting so much into the conflict. Yes, I know a great deal about the characters but I didn't know THE RIGHT information.

So it goes on that score.

The Writing Front: Joint Writing Project-02, In the Early Morning Rain

Berry Henderson sent me back his latest mods to this project, which is an alternate history piece. It is something I have wanted to work on for quite sometime but I never felt I had the cultural chops to handle it from the perspective I had in mind.

I may have created the concept but rest assured, Berry gave this project her soul.

I printed out a copy of the latest draft for marking up and revisions. Hopefully by this weekend I'll have something sent back.

The Teaching Front: Test Day

I've got a stack of thirty exams that I am working my way through. They are breaking out into two general groups.

Pretty good and pretty bad.

I'm slowly getting through the stack. I should have them graded by tomorrow but I'll hold off on returning them until Thursday. I've got some make up students floating around out there who still need to take their tests.

The XBox 360 Front

I've been asked which games I have. They are as follows, with brief commentary on them:

Battlefield 2: Modern Warfare. Trinity got me this game with the XBox. I'm not sure what I think of it yet. Gritty with realistic dialogue, I find the campaign mode a bit frustrating. From time to time one must drive vehicles but dismounting the vehicles is not intuitive at all. Further, the vehicles seem to have limited utility in terms of actually achieving one's goals.

Bullet drop is apparently something to keep in mind as well. Compensating for it on a 19 inch analog TV set is a bit dicey. In fact, more often than not, if I can get a sniper rifle or a fairly accurate infantry rifle, I find that I prefer to stick with that.

I am not a spray and pray type shooter in these games.

Gears of War: This is a used copy. I like the backstory, which I read about a couple of years back. I like the visuals. I also like the dialogue, which feels gritty and realistic enough.

On the other hand, this thing is definitely a rip of the Warhammer 40K's Imperial Guard.

I do not like the combat system. This game's strength is very much a matter of spray and pray. There is no way to take aimed shots that I have detected thus far. Yes, there is the chainsaw bayonet but I think that is a bit silly myself.

So I'm not so hot on this one.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2: I have played this game at demo stations around town when it was out a couple of years back. Of all of my games, I think this one is probably the most realistic. Aimed shots are preferrred to spray and pray, accuracy of fire over volume of fire. You are placed behind the shooter which compenstates for the lack of true periperhal vision.

I suspect the game's major downfall is that it can seem a bit too slow for someone who wants more frenetic, Hollywood like action sequences. But then again, that is what I consider to be realistic about the game. Sometimes you have to take your time approaching an objective. Sometimes you have to wait for the best opportunity. Sometimes you have to actually AIM the fucking weapon before taking the shot.

We got Call of Duty 4 but the disk isn't working so back to Game Stop it goes.

On the list of things to obtain is Red Dead Redemption. I'm interested in trying this one out.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Personal wars and their cost.

2010-06-06T09:57:00.001-07:00

Personal wars, not the kind of wars fought between nations or non-state terrorists, but the interpersonal kind between people, that is what I'm pondering today.

Lord knows I have fought enough of these wars, ruinous, destructive in their own way, costly in terms of time, emotional wear and tear, reputation, social and political capital. Most readers know that I have an ongoing war of sorts with Asimov's current editor. Most readers probably know I have an even longer war with That Market Which Shall Not Be Named Here. Then there are the self appointed politically correct fascists in the field of science fiction and fantasy, the same sort that Ray Bradbury complained about in his coda to F-451 long before their were a term called politically correct.

I fought personal wars with my sergeants in the Army to include a particularly nasty and vicious war which nearly destroyed my career during my year in Korea. I have fought such wars with my college instructors, notably a college philosophy instructor who rose to a position of some prominence and in turn, I believe, blocked me from teaching for six years.

I am actually pretty good at fighting these wars. I can win the tactical victory, engage in the war of attrition, slowly wearing my opponent, hammering them with invective, snide remarks, valid criticism and biting honesty which illustrates their flaws.

I am so good at fighting these wars that what I frequently hear from my opponents or people on the sidelines is, "Yeah, Murph, you've got a point. You are right about that."

Which led to my frequent response, "I'm tired of being right, why don't you fucking fix it?"

Aside from feeling wiry and amped after these battles, I never saw any real cost to these wars. I figured it was better than doing what so many people do when they are being screwed, blued and tattooed by people taking advantage of them, which is to do nothing at all.

Don't rock the boat. That is what Trinity's soon to be ex-husband likes to say. Don't rock the boat.

Which in my mind may as well translate into, "Just hand them the vaseline."

Cicero once said that money provides the sinews of war. At an intellectual level I have always understood this. The weapon I was issued in the Army was paid for by the US Taxpayer, as was my uniform, ammunition and the like. I couldn't afford to purchase that gear and field myself in the way an Athenian Hoplite might.

Conversely, here in the last year or so, I began to realize that personal wars, even if they don't cost any money to fight, even if they don't result in jail sentences or felony convictions, cost something in order to fight them.

Case in point. Once upon a time I think it is safe to say that I had a fair amount of social capital built up in the American Science Fiction Community. I built it up with my contributions to Asimov's Forum, which didn't always entail flamewars though toward the end it got that way. I had enough capital that I was able to fight limited conflicts with some of the known assholes of the community.

Thing is, these conflicts grew to consume my time and attention. They cost increasing amounts of social capital which I was not replacing. And while I may have been winning the battles, I was most certainly losing the war to win the hearts and minds of the members of the community.

I made one other mistake during those wars.

I felt that publication provided me with additional capital and prestige with which to take the war to the next level.

It didn't. Instead, publication raised the bar on what was expected of my conduct. It was okay to behave a certain way as an aspirant, but quite another to behave that way as a published writer.

And it didn't matter that many of the things I was fighting against, going to war over, were valid causes.

There are bullies in the field who use political correctness as a means of hammering anyone who disagrees with them into silence. Some of these bullies have no problem with attacking people when they are ill, or when they are well established, respectable members of the community like Gardner Dozois.

I suppose the good news about these wars is that I have been a great deal more careful about which hill I decide to fight and die on in my academic career. There aren't many wrongs or causes where I work. To be honest, teaching at a local community college is one of the best jobs I have ever had. I have a Boss I respect who in turn gives me the freedom to run my classroom as I will (within reason).

I try to run my personal life on the same principle. Do I really need to fight and die on this hill today? Do I really need to object to this?

Maybe something to consider is this.

What if you wanted to start a war with Steven Francis Murphy? How would you go about doing it?

Here is a list.

1. Lie to me.

I hate liars. I hate people who lie even when they don't have to. Yes, everyone tells lies, and I've been known to tell a few (in fact, so few that I can remember most of them, why I told them and when).

One example of a lie which might start a war is to ask me to do something for you, let's say provide free child care. You might state that you are working all weekend and thus need someone to watch the kids.

Then let me find out that on Saturday night you are out getting hammered. Which leads me to wonder why you couldn't be bothered to spend time with your kids on a Saturday night?

2. You don't play straight with me.

This is the classic reason for the war with Asimov's current editor. Without rehashing the whole story, I had a story that nearly sold, was asked to rewrite it (the instructions were muddy) and then rejected by the previous editor who, if he had still be in charge, would have bought it.

Don't give me the runaround.

3. False accusation.

From time to time I have been accused of things which are patently untrue. As a general rule, I'll fight this sort of thing whether I have the capital to fight it or not.

4. Take advantage of me or someone I care about, repeatedly.

Trinity and I presently have a situation with one of her daughters, who apparently thinks that child care is an entitlement. We watch her two children (whom we both love) while the daughter goes out and gets hammered. I've been told this daughter is working but I, frankly, don't believe it anymore. Yesterday I checked this daughter's facebook profile and found one of those promotional invites to something called Sinful Saturday, which took place last night down in Lee's Summit.

I'm not an idiot and I simply refuse to believe that this individual went home and enjoyed a quiet evening with her father in front of the television set. I'm not going to be a party to this.

5. Attack my personal or professional reputation.

That is pretty much the list. I'm sure there are things I have forgotten but I am actually pretty easy to get along with if you remember to tell the truth, be straight with me and don't fuck with me or the people I care about.

As of today I posted at Trinity's facebook, where her family members including this particular daughter can see it, that we are getting out of the free child care business. I didn't want to do this. I've been warning for months that I would take precisely this course of action if I so much as thought this daughter was doing anything but working.

Turns out we're enabling a party lifestyle. And perhaps I could swallow that, maybe, if the two children in question came with sufficient clothes, underwear, food and car seats. This weekend we were left without car seats and they are too small to be without them.

And what particularly makes me angry is that the boy in this situation spends the bulk of his time with his father. When he comes over on the weekends to be with his mother, it seems, strangely enough, without fail, that this mother has to work.

Work, then get hammered. Go to work again on Sunday.

You know, if I had more freedom as a science fiction writer, I'd write this situation up as a sort of science fiction story and send it off to market. But I know better than to do that. No market will touch a story that portrays a single mother in an unflattering light, even if it is an honest, accurate reflection of an ongoing trend in our present day society.

So it goes. I've got it off my chest. Now maybe I can get ready for classes tomorrow.

Hopefully this war will end before it even gets started. I neither have the time or the capital to fight such a conflict. I'm not angry at Trinity or the two children in question but my gut tells me that I'm looking at collateral damage if this goes on for any length of time.

Maybe another way to look at it is to picture the mother holding a gun to the heads of her two kids.

"If you don't watch them for me while I get hammered, I'll shoot them." Or in this case, "I'll make sure you never see them again."

Ah, but the status quo can not continue unabated either. Someone's got to put their foot down.

I guess it'll have to be me.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Book Trailer: After America by John Birmingham

2010-06-04T08:26:00.001-07:00

Also known at this blog as Research Project Number - 04.

I had a very, very small part in this and it gives me goosebumps to see the trailer.

So buy the book when it comes out this summer!

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering the Fallacy of Presentism in History Classes and in American Science Fiction.

2010-05-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I read my student's essay responses to the exam, I wonder what they are thinking. Or worse, what they are being taught outside of my classroom.

One frequently essay question which appears in my American History 121 classes is the issue of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. It is one of the most controversial issues in American History today and is often grist for the revisionist's mill in politics, history and even science fiction.

I give a pretty extensive lecture on the Rise of Japan stemming back to the 1840s and 1850s with the efforts of Commodore Biddle and later Commodore Perry to open Japan to trade with the United States. The lecture is perhaps more broad and than deep but in my defense, it is a survey course and I feel that it does provide some aspect of multiculturalism for the students. It is also a classic clash of two different cultures. I also give an extensive lecture on the causes of the war between the Empire of Japan and the United States, the nature of that war and the views of the Japanese Government up to the use of the atomic bomb.

Students are asked to analyze the options facing US leaders in 1945, consider the alternatives and then provide an opinion. In order to get most of their essay points, the student must demonstrate that they have a grasp of the events, particularly the causes, motivations and perceptions on both sides of the fence.

As a rule, when I give this lecture, I do not give my personal opinion on the matter. There are a number of reasons for this. First, I do not want my students regurgitating my own words back to me. Second, I am not trying to create intellectual clones/drones, I want them to learn to think for themselves. Third, I do want them to struggle with the material and give a solid, well argued opinion.

On the better essays, I get the usual arguments pro and con which have been exhaustively debated elsewhere. The pro-bombing argument is that it shortened the war, saved lives and was the only thing that would break the Japanese. The anti-bombing argument is that it was immoral, a war crime, and used primarily to dissuade the Soviets from invading the Japanese mainland as well as to show them who is boss in the post War world.

Sometimes I see arguments which make me wonder what is going on in their heads. For instance, one option was to continue General Curtis LeMay's firebombing campaign. I take great pains to point out, for a lot of reasons, that the firebombing killed far more Japanese civilians than both nuclear weapons combined.

To my horror, I have seen students argue that firebombing is better than the atomic bomb. Which leads me to wonder about their thinking. It is okay to firebomb but not okay to nuke? How is one any better than the other? They will argue that using the atomic bomb is unethical under any circumstances. Once they've made the statement, they do not elaborate on why the atomic bomb is unethical and how that compares to firebombing.

I will say that the anti-bombing side has never argued for a ground invasion, nor have they argued for a naval blockade to starve the Japanese into submission. No, what I have seen, on very rare instances, is something that bothers me.

Students on the anti-bombing side will argue that the cause of the problem stems back to Biddle and Perry's efforts to open Japan. That, on the face, is a pretty sophisticated argument and one worth conceding. It does ignore the reality that a European power was likely going to open Japan up to trade anyway but since I do not lecture on that and the textbook doesn't even cover that topic I give them a pass on that score.

What follows is what troubles me. Basically it can be summed up as follows.

If only Perry and Biddle, as well as the United States, had been respectful of the culture of Japan, perhaps the hundred years of diplomatic strife which lead to World War II could have been avoided.

Read that line for a minute and tell me if something bothers you about it. It seems pretty solid, doesn't it? It shows that the student in question (multiple students have used this argument, I might add so I am not singling any one particular student out). Even with my qualification, I have to admit that I've been reluctant to blog about this. My concern is that students will troll the internet looking for material to use in their essays or papers at other campuses. I have additional concerns but I will keep those to myself as they do not quite pertain to the matter at hand.

The problem with the statement in italics is that it is a fallacy. It makes the assumption, a false one, that Perry, or any other American dealing with Japan up to 1856, didn't respect Japanese culture. In fact I'd argue that Perry had a great deal of respect for it in that he studied what he could of their culture in order to figure out how to accomplish his mission, which was to open Japan up to US Trade.

What he learned, from Biddle's failure and his studies, is that the Japanese respected belligerency and strength.

Perhaps what the student meant by respect is that the United States respect Japan's desire for isolation and not resort to belligerency in order to open the Empire up. Thing is that Commodore Biddle tried the diplomatic, tactful approach during his mission in the 1840s and was pretty much blown off. Worse, he left the Japanese with the impression that America was incredibly weak and not deserving of respect.

The problem I'm describing, and I relate this in lecture, is a clash of differing cultural values on what constitutes respect between the Japanese and the Americans of the time.

What is probably most likely is that the students in question feel that if Perry and Biddle had a respect for Japanese culture in a 21st Century American sense, then perhaps the war could have been avoided.

And herein lies the core problem, the fallacy of presentism. Presentism is when a student of history takes their present day values system and makes a historical interpretation through that filter or bias.

If only Commodore Perry had been through a sensitivity session. If only he had our 21st Century values.

Well, you can and probably should make a moral judgement on those grounds, but does it get at the historical truth of the matter? Do we gain a clear perspective of what Perry was thinking in the 1850s?

Or perhaps I should put it this way.

To expect Commodore Perry to behave as a 21st Century US Naval Officer would is no different than expecting Socrates to hold forth on the Petrine Theory of Papal Supremacy. It'd be pretty difficult for Socrates, Plato or Aristotle to do any such thing as the Catholic Church didn't exist yet. Or perhaps just as unlikely would be to expect Marcus Tullius Cicero to write extensive essays on the Enlightenment or Marxism.

Out of what time warp is Perry supposed to get these values? He isn't a product of 21st Century America, he is a product of early 19th Century America. He simply wouldn't see the problem of contact with Japan in the same manner as we do.

He wouldn't have foresight of coming historical events either. I suspect if the Americans did have a crystal ball showing them what was down the pike that they probably would have behaved far more aggressively than they did.

How does this apply to American Science Fiction?

Well, a classic example is The Lucky Strike by Kim Stanley Robinson. Ostensibly an alternate history concerning the use of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, Robinson uses a protagonist who is somehow inculcated in the values of late 20th Century Liberal America. The protag, Captain January, is disgusted by the bomb and believes that he best alternative is to drop the bomb into the ocean near the coastline. When he does so, the Japanese see the effect of the bomb and surrender.

The moral of the story? If only we had tried something else then things could have ended better than they did.

Aside from presentism, the story is also flawed due to a poor understanding of what was going on in the halls of Japan's government in 1945. Their reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima was simply to state, and I paraphrase, "We lose more in firebombings than we did with this one atomic bomb. We may as well continue to fight."

Dropping the bomb into Tokyo Bay would not have impressed them anymore than the actual bombing of Hiroshima did.

I have also seen this in the Fantasy and Steampunk movements. There has been an effort over the last few years to modify the traditional medieval style Fantasy away from the original European roots into something that is more reflective of our 21st Century progressive values. The same can be said for the Steampunk movement with calls issued to move away from depictions of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and sexism.

As a fiction writer, I'm supportive of the idea that you ought to be able to write whatever it is you want to write. As a reader and a historian however, I have to admit that I find these politically correct fictionalizations of the past to be something of a disservice. Part of why the Fantasy genre doesn't interest me in the first place is that it seems to focus to the exclusion of all else on the nobility. Everything is too clean, too neat, with most problems whisked away with a sword or magic. I suspect before long it will be this way with Steampunk as well, a distorted, sanitized view of what Victorian culture was like.

The past as it should be, not how it was.

Such things I am pondering today.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

What is America?

2010-05-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

A couple of semesters back I took American Literature II with Terri Lowry, who is the instructor in a Creative Writing class that I take over and over again to maintain some level of skill. It should be noted that while I hold a minor in English, none of my coursework is in American Literature.

In fact, I avoided it when I was going through undergrad the first time.

I could have gotten more out of the class than I did, all things considered. It can be incredibly difficult, playing college student and college history instructor at the same time. Turns out that your teaching takes priority when the rest of your life isn't. That said, Terri had a question which she put to the class.

What is America? What does it mean to be an American?

There is no right answer in my mind, though I hear a lot of answers that simply exasperate me.

A common narrative theme in American History classes is this.

The United States of America is an aggressive, racist, imperialist superpower which is bent on crushing everything beneath her feet. It ruthlessly exploits the resources of the planet as well as non-Americans, engaging in wars of conquest which rival that of the Roman Empire or Nazi Germany. It is a pseudo Christian theocracy which suppresses dissent and demands conformity.

That is off the top of my head but I think that is a pretty accurate reflection. It is a theme I heard repeated over and over again when I went to Park University for my undergrad in the mid-1990s. It was prominent in the news media of the time and if you tune to the right channel, you'll hear it again and again. Go for a stroll in the Livejournal Science Fiction Community and you'll see variants of this narrative as well.

Basically, America is evil personified. She needs to have her wings clipped.

A narrative like this has some basis in fact. Let's run through them.

1. The systematic conquest and oppression of the Native American populations of North America.

Sometimes this is referred to as genocide, which I think is overstating the case. Efforts were made to reach some sort of understanding with various Native American tribes which would preserve them. Yes, agreements were made and frequently broken. Yes, the United States did engage in wholesale slaughter but genocide in my mind is indicative of an effort to completely exterminate a given population. I do not think this is the case.

Which doesn't really matter, semantics aside, what was done to the Native Americans was pretty bad.

Yet you ought to ask yourself if it could have happened differently. I personally do not think so though some historians would argue, "If only we had been more respective of their culture." Expecting someone like George Armstrong Custer or Andrew Jackson to embrace the concepts of tolerance, multiculturalism and diversity is not much different than expecting Julius Caesar or Marcus Tullius Cicero to start holding forth on the better points of the Enlightenment.

2. The United States is a racist, Eurocentric society which systematically oppresses people of color.

Historically, this is valid. Slavery, Jim Crow Laws, Segregation, the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc, etc, the list goes on.

3. The United States is an imperialist power.

I suppose that depends on how you define "imperialist power." We do not presently have significant colonial possession in the traditional sense. Granted, you could argue that this is because we have either let them go, such as the Philippines, or made them states, like Hawaii.

But would you call South Korea a colony? I think think they'd appreciate such a comparison even if their peers in the North would make just that point.

There is Iraq and Afghanistan but neither of them look like colonies to me. Afghanistan doesn't even possess anything of real value when you get right down to it. We are there mainly due to the events of September 11th. As for Iraq, I'd argue that putting paid to a dictator like Saddam Hussein was a good thing, not a bad one.

4. It ruthlessly exploits the resources of the planet.

We have a population of 300 million plus living in a petroleum based economy. Show me a first world nation that isn't exploiting the resources of the planet ruthlessly? Show me a developing nation that isn't exploiting the resources of the planet ruthlessly?

5. It is a pseudo-Christian theocracy.

Speaking as a militant agnostic, borderline atheist, I would argue that there is plenty of religious diversity in this country. Granted, the country is not particularly friendly towards the Islamic faith at the moment but then one might want to refer to a hole in NYC as the cause.

6. It isn't much different from Nazi Germany or the Roman Empire.

Hmm. There is a saying about the Romans, something to the effect that they make a desert and call it peace, meaning that they do not play patty cake with their enemies. The United States operates a little differently but I'll get to that in a second. As for the comparison with Nazi Germany, I simply do not see it.

Or consider this, if the United States of America did operate the way Nazi Germany did, here is how history might have unfolded since September 11th.

First, the response probably would have been nuclear in nature. I suspect a truly Fascist state would not hesitate to bomb whole populations out of existence simply on principle alone. Second, we probably would have invaded any state suspected of harboring people sympathetic with Osama Bin Laden.

In other words, we would have given Bin Laden exactly what he wanted.

Third, we would simply lock up/execute anyone considered to be either a terrorist or a dissident.

Strange thing. You can't really do that here in the United States of America, at least not for long, as someone will eventually find out and stop you.

Still, the record is pretty damning.

Does the United States of America have any redeeming traits? Or should it be relegated to the dustbin of history as soon as possible?

Well, I wouldn't write us off just yet.

Here is a narrative theme that I explore in my classes.

The United States of America is a work in progress, flawed in many respects, prone to mistakes and yet she constantly strives to better herself. She has expanded the rights and freedoms of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights originally reserved for white male aristocrats to ever growing numbers of people. She has sent her own sons and daughters overseas to help restore order. She offers aid and comfort to other nations in times of need and in the aftermath of various wars fought through history. She is a center of technological, cultural, and political innovation, pushing forward to improve the standard of living for everyone.

A more perfect Union. I think that is what America is. We are constantly arguing with ourselves as to what that means, who will be included in it, and how they will be included in it. We have committed crimes in our past but I think our accomplishments, our contributions, and our ongoing self examination give us some shred of redemption from those who would cheerfully damn us.

What did we get right?

First off you have the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. These two documents helped to frame a Federal Republic which would serve as a model for other nations as they moved away from absolute monarchy and/or tyranny. It is an amendable document which enables us to correct flaws contained within it such as the 3/5th Clause and adapt to changing conditions in the society with amendments that permit women and ethnic minorities the right to vote.

Second, over the last two centuries, we have expanded the ability of all of our citizens to participate in government.

Third, we have overturned laws which discriminated against people of color. We have also passed laws which are designed to redress grievances created by decades of systematic discrimination.

Granted, personally, I agree with the grievances but not the current solution, which I think punishes people for crimes they did not personally commit. That said, as a historian, I count programs such as affirmative action as a sign that we are trying to right the wrongs of the past.

Fourth, we helped Europe get back on their feet after World War II. This was as much out of economic self interest as anything else.

Fifth, we have served as a powerhouse of industrial and technological innovation. We may be moving away from this, the jury is still out, but our contributions in science, industry and technology can not be disputed.

Sixth, we feed the planet. While we are an industrial nation, we are also an agricultural nation.

Finally, in terms of culture, I think we have done a great deal to push forward the ideals of equality and egalitarianism. Granted, our greatest problem is that we do not always practice what we preach nor do we always live up to those ideals, but I think we strive to reach them as best we can.

So I guess I'm not as down on my country as many writers and historians are. I am not particularly a "My country right or wrong," sort nor do I see my country with rose tinted lenses.

But I don't see us as the arbiter of all that is evil, corrupt and wrong on planet Earth either.

In these ramblings, I do not know if I really answered the question Terri put to us. When I wrote a paper on this topic in her class (this is not a reproduction of that paper but I suspect if I found it that it would cover similar themes) I do not think I ever came up with a satisfactory answer either.

I will say this.

The United States of America is my homeland. She isn't perfect by any means, but I'm proud to live here while acknowledging her flaws.

And her contributions.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

First Week of Lifeguard Training, among other things.

2010-04-30T07:24:00.001-07:00

The Lifeguard Front

Good news. I passed the initial swim test. Granted, it was not pretty but I passed. It was probably not smart eating a slice of cake an hour before the exam but I was tired and hungry. I didn't think it would do to fall asleep in the pool.

We spent most of last night learning entry and extraction techniques. My entries suck. Yours truly sinks to the bottom of the pool like a rock when he jumps in. Entry from the raised platforms is especially problematic as I am trying to maintain my balance while keeping the tube under my arms.

My kick isn't strong enough to move a human body so I have to pin the victim to the tube and use my side stroke. Also, just as in fencing, it is more about finese than brute force.

By time it was all said and done last night, I was pretty well worn out.

I've got four more sessions of training before it is all said and done. I need to get back to lap swimming today in order to build up my endurance. Further, I think I need some lessons to improve my kicking ability.

Over at Cheeseburger Gothic

John Birmingham has an interesting image up at his blog. It is this.

The link takes you to the first page of his manuscript edits. I think this is a handy thing for aspiring writers and college students to look at. What you see is a series of scribbles, questions, concerns and ponderings all over the document. Perhaps what I like this most is that my nearly finished projects feature the same sort of scribbling edits all over them.

Anyway, go take a look.

The Teaching Front

We covered Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Japanese reaction to the bombs in American History 121 today. It is part of their final essay question asking them if they thought the use of the bomb was justified or not.

I never give my personal opinion and on the off chance that a student might drop by, I won't issue it here either. I think it is important for them to look at the evidence, the alternatives and try to generate their own opinion.

More and more I am thinking of leaving baseline historical information up to the textbook. I spend a lot of my time filling gaps, putting baseline information onto what are essentially blank slates. I'd like to spend more of my time talking about information not covered in the textbook such as the Rise of Japan and the nature of the war in the Pacific.

I'd also like to have them do more writing. I've already raised the bar by issuing three essay questions per exam. They never quite know which one they'll get. It hasn't hurt overall grade yields one way or the other in my classes. This semester's classes are performing about on par with last semester's, which had to deal with one essay per exam.

The big question is this. Just what other writing assignment could I give them? Term papers are not viable as many of our students haven't had the college level english they'd need. I could issue a supplementary essay assignmented tied to a targeted reading project. This essay would be part of the requirement for getting an A in my class. It would push serious students to learn more, get more out of the experience. Those that are happy with C's can just drag along.

There needs to be more social history I suppose, but I think I've decided that the textbook will be responsible for that. I can generate an essay question designed around the textbook, targeting elements of social history. That way I can say, "I covered it."

Things I am pondering.

The Writing Front

This weekend I'll prep my portfolio for Terri Lowry's Creative Writing class. When I do, I'll see about sending those projects off to those who volunteered for the new E-Lite Reader Corps. I will also send off a crit that I owe.

I'll see about looking over Joint Writing Project Number Two with an eye towards sending it back to the Partner.

A Limb Knitter's Love is still out to market and past the 30 day marker. When it reaches 60 days then I can query. But at this point, no news is good news.

A friend has been asking about more Tearing Down Tuesday based stories. I have a number of them but they all seem to suffer from some horrible flaw that I can't fix. I'm going to look those over here in the next month to see what can be done. I want to use the gap between the end of the semester and my projected summer job (I think I have a line on one) to work on them.

Hopefully if things work out right, I can get back to writing this summer.

Other Fronts

Dad's back from the hospital. We've got rain today and tomorrow is payday (none too soon if you ask me). If I can get this lifeguard gig nailed down, that will bring an end to the monthly march from payday to payday.

Finally.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering the Things Doing On.

2010-04-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

Dad's back in the ER this evening, making it his second trip in as many nights. Not good.

Have a thought for him.

The Doings On

Well, potential snag on the lifeguard front. It seems when I signed up that they are short two students. Hopefully they'll square that up or run the class anyway. In any case, I should noodle around the googleverse to see if I can find a backup.

This morning I talked about Pearl Harbor and the early phase of the Pacific War up to Midway. I didn't do my usual tactical lectures, in fact I find, as I was told I would, that it is best not to do them. The students are militantly resistant to learning that material. Granted, you have some gamers and military history buffs that like that stuff but you can count them on one hand, maybe one and a half hands. The rest of the students will zone completely out.

Conversely, last semester in Western Civ when I talked about Roman Marriage, they perked right up. Well, all except for the students who were more interested in learning about scutums, the gladius, and the pilum.

I assigned material up to Civil Rights but I suspect I will not get to lecture on it. The pop quizes chewed up a lot of time in that class. I won't make that mistake next semester. It doesn't seem to do anything to push them to perform better on their exams.

In my evening class and the other two day classes we are moving into the Civil War. Again I'll refrain from tactical lectures for the most part. It just doesn't seem to get an instructor anywhere.

I have to admit, I get pretty disgusted about this. I have to use an imaginary cat to illustrate what it means to "outflank" someone or some unit. And God forbid you start using terms like enfilade and defilade fire.

That said, I've got pretty good classes this year. However, I've got one class that just can't seem to get with it. I don't know what the malfunction is. Time of day maybe? Personality mix is off? Who knows?

Then I get other classes where the students are dialed in, responsive, even excited to be there. I am not doing anything particularly different from class to class. So it causes some headscratching.

In any case, a week and a half to go before lectures are over. Then we move to finals.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Swimming Front

2010-04-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

For those that vist infrequently (which is okay because lately I update infrequently), a brief rundown.

Two years ago the plan for dealing with summer employment in Adjunctland was to earn a lifeguard certification. This plan came off the rails two summers in a row, for one reason or another.

This time folks, I think this plan just might work. Over the last few months I have been trying to get up to speed for the lifeguard swim test. The first step was to reach a point where I could swim 300 meters without break. I surpassed that and can now swim 600 meters without break. The bad news is that I can only do this using the front crawl, aka freestyle. The swim test requires 100 meters in the breast stroke, something I was not very familiar with.

This would require private lessons and the target date for those lessons was March 1st. Unfortunately I caught bronchitis, which put me out of action for a month on the fitness front. In fact I still had the dregs of it when I went back to the pool.

By mid April I finally met with the private swim instructor from two years ago. She remembered me and after an initial eval, had pretty good things to say.

1. I have a lot of raw power due to my muscle mass.
2. I am coachable (that would surprise some people).
3. I am a powerful swimmer.
4. I am pretty close to ready for the test anyway.

Until this morning's lesson, my main trouble was the breast stroke. I just couldn't seem to put the biomechanics together.

But today, I managed to get it to work for me. It is still pretty sloppy if you ask me but it is better than what I was doing. With some consistent swimming over the next week, I think I can be ready for the test on time.

The second part of the plan, of course, is to lock down a summer job. That might be a little harder than I thought. The Community Center is approaching full summer strength. I might be able to work something out, or maybe I won't. However, I did find out that they prefer to work their guards no more than 25 hours a week.

Sounds far better than life during the Summer of '07, doesn't it? I'll have the rent paid and this income will arrive every two weeks. That should work about right.

There are other places to apply and I'll certainly try those. In fact I'll apply at every pool I can find. Thing is, I think this is The Solution to most of my intermediate income problems.

Getting lifeguard qualified, however, is only the start. I'd like to become certified as a swim instructor. The pay is a little better for swim instructors and it would keep my mind active. I won't be able to read or write while on duty as a lifeguard so an eventual move to instructor would be good for me. Further, it might help me as an instructor if I taught something other than history.

So it goes.

Other Fronts

We've got two of Trinity's grandkids this weekend. I love her grandkids but I sometimes wonder about are role in their lives. When they come over, they rarely have the clothes they need. We almost always get them at the end of the month when our resources are stretched thin. And of course, it is during a weekend when I have things I need to do.

1. Swim drills.
2. Grade exams.
3. Prep lectures.
4. Prep final study guides.
5. Prep portfolio for Terri's Creative Writing Class.

It also brings us closer in emotional orbital terms to the rest of Trinity's family, something I try very hard to avoid, evade, stay away from, put off, etc.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The History of Exercise.

2010-04-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Murphy's History with Physical Fitness

Baseball.

That was the big thing when I was a kid in grade school. Baseball. Your worth was measured by your ability to hit the ball, run bases and catch the ball. Given that I did not get a pair of glasses until the Fourth Grade, it was pretty unlikely that I was going to do well as a baseball player in school. I was always picked last, always sent way out into left field, and pretty much ignored.

It doesn't help that to this day I have a terminal fear of objects falling at high velocity from the sky.

I didn't run particularly well as a kid, always getting stitches in my sides, shins aching, hyperventilating and so forth. Basketball wasn't my thing either due to the glasses and so it goes.

Throughout most of my childhood, I was definitely a weak individual. I was the target of bullying throughout my public school experience and I didn't win my first fight until the fifth grade.

I was an active kid though. I rode my bicycle everywhere I could, constantly pushing the parental imposed boundaries. My mom made sure I got swim lessons so long as they were free. In fact, I became a fairly strong swimmer and those skills stay with me to this day. And by middle school I had a 20 to 40 pound pack on my back for my daily walk to and from Middle School.

Yet I was not a jock. I still do not consider myself to be one though I seem to get more respect from them these days.

What changed? Well, in roundabout terms, the Army changed me. But the answer is not as obvious as one might think. Plenty of people go through basic, get run to death, do push ups and so forth, and yet end up fat slobs by time they get out. Certainly I fought my battles with sloth and obesity in my post military career as well.

But it was the skills I picked up in the Army that got me started on the road to decent health.

Weight Training

It seemed insanity to me to workout more than once a day. The Army already made me do PT in the morning but Specialists Cathey and Stavros suggested that I take up weight lifting at the gym. I had just landed on the fatboy program after my deployment to the Gulf and I needed to lose the weight.

Granted, the fucking sergeant put his thumb under the tape but that is neither here nor there.

When I started I couldn't even curl the 45 pound bench press bar but over the course of a year, Cathey and Stavros patiently taught me how to use the weights. They taught me how to use the bench press, the curls, and other free weights. They showed me my first program, a three sets at 12, 10 and 8 reps with increasing weight per set. They also, as a plus, showed me the racquetball courts, which were free.

Toss in the salad bar at the mess hall during lunch, cutting back on the sodas and limiting myself to a bag of popcorn for snacks and it wasn't long before yours truly lost enough weight that even the thumb wasn't enough to keep me on the fatboy program.

Weight training has probably saved what little is left of my sanity over the years. It is something my body seems to be built for. I'll never look like a body builder but I seem to have a natural reservoir of raw strength potential, something I wouldn't have believed as a kid. Gym time got me through the worst of my year in Korea and it helps me get through the tough times today.

It definitely saved my sanity during the Uniguard era. Anytime my temper was about to explode, I'd go over to the gym and pump it all away. Next day I'd be sane enough to get through another day.

Swimming

It had always been my intent to get back to swimming. When the free swimming lessons came to an end, my Mom mentioned something about, if things got better, paying for more. We never got to that point and worse, there were no swim teams in the Northland when I was a kid (there are now). There were no indoor pools either (there are two now).

From time to time I'd swim in the Army. Fort Riley had two indoor pools but I never understood lap swimming, nor did anyone around me. It didn't occur to me to look for a book on the topic at the post library (where I spent a lot of my time) so I mainly splashed around without much thought.

I tried to get back to serious swimming in Graduate School. UMKC has an indoor pool but the problems were many. First, I didn't know what I was doing. Second, the pool was always jammed with early morning swimmers. Third, I was increasingly embarassed by my massive weight gain due to the paxil dose I was on. Fourth, I never seemed to have any energy at all.

In the summer of 2008 I tried again but the wash of life caught me. Same with 2009. We have a campus pool but at the time the water had some odd flavor to it which made me leery. Now, given that I don't want a summer job in security, I suck it up and swim anyway.

Once I set my mind to it, it did not take long to evolve from 100 meters nonstop to 200, then 300, then 500 and finally 600. I've had to modify my weight training a bit to augment my swimming objectives. More endurance based weight training, less effort at gaining raw strength and mass.

What I have found is that the two programs work hand in glove together. My private swim instructor tells me that I have a lot of raw power at my disposal. All I need now is to work on my form to improve efficiency, conserve energy and work more effectively.

The irony is that I am probably more athletic than most 38 year old Midwestern males. I definitely think I am one of the more athletic instructors in my division. Yet I do not consider myself an athlete. I am not a jock.

I'm just someone who wants to stay healthy, which I think is the best attitude to have about exercise.

The Teaching Front

Talked about Hitler today. I should have Poland invaded and the war underway by Hump Day.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Three Years at the Lectern

2010-04-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Pondering The Teaching Front

I still remember my first day as a college instructor. Trinity remembers it pretty clearly as well since she was there. More on that in a bit.

After six years of academic limbo the Boss assigned two classes to yours truly. I had spent the summer working forty to fifty hour weeks at World's of Fun, which really chewed into my prep time. When I wasn't working I was slamming my way through Eric Foner's book on Reconstruction.

Terrified does not begin to describe my state of mind. In fact, I do not think there is a word to accurately describe my mental state. I've been to war, been in danger, engaged in more than my fair share of physical altercations and struggled with more than one aggravating problem in my writing career.

Nothing chilled me so completely as the prospect of my own classes. I didn't realize, and I still do not think I fully grasp, how much of a zap six years of limbo put on my confidence as a historian. My time as Birmo's research consultant certainly helped some but I was in full fight or flight mode.

To work Trinity into the picture, it is worth pointing out that she was the only person on campus to notice just how badly rattled I was. She said, "You did a pretty good job of hiding it from everyone else. But I knew."

She put her hand on my forearm and said, "You'll do fine. You have trained for this."

Really? I've been out of it for six years thanks to a screwball interpretation of district policy at another campus. I was certainly a historian but I had focused on topics which drew my personal interest in the service of pushing forward on my writing career. Needless to say, if you asked me about Andrew Carnegie's business practices on August 24th, 2007, my response would have been, "He was that robber baron dude, right?"

Six weeks or so later, I gave a lecture on Carnegie which yielded a very positive eval from the Boss. Up to that point, I lived in perpetual fear that my first semester would be my last. Detractors in my previous college experience had always argued that I was not college material in the first place and certainly not someone who had the personality for classroom leadership.

So I have been at this three years now. I still have a lot to learn and a lot to improve upon. I do not have what anyone might call formal training as an educator. All I have is what I remember from my own experiences as a student. What works, what didn't, what I liked, what I absolutely hated, and unfair practices by other instructors that I swore not to repeat in my own classroom.

What is funny, I think, is that I find from the ones who have all of that educational training that I am pretty much doing what I am supposed to anyway. I use visual aids (granted, they are stick figures, but the students are endlessly fascinated by those). I tell stories (which work in most classes). I find a way to generate resonance in most students (granted, you always lose a few no matter what you do).

On the other hand, I am a lecture based instructor, like my peers. I lecture, you take notes, I answer questions, you study on your own time in prep for exams which demonstrate your understanding of the material. I'm supposed to be engaged in discussions with my students in the Socratic method but I have had too many encounters with the Deadly Wall of Silence to think that is a good idea. Besides, two students dominate while everyone else tunes out and it becomes a bull session of nonsense.

Three years. And it appears, so long as I do not make any serious mistakes or annoy my Boss (something I try very hard not to do, in fact I try not to bother my Boss at all) that I should be at this for some time to come.

I love my job. I love teaching history. I don't just like it or tolerate it, I love it. I love going into a motivated classroom and going over the material. I love it when we cover the boring material and the students are still dialed in because I was honest with them by saying, "This will be boring and you'll want to fall asleep. Don't do it or your grade will suffer."

I love it when they tie the past in with the present as many in my American History 120 classes are doing with the health care debate. We do not discuss politics per se in my classes and I definitely do not give my personal opinion on those subjects but if the students are drawing distinctions, even incorrect ones, then at least they are THINKING!

Granted, they do stupid things. All humans do but on the whole, I do not feel our students are stupid. Poorly prepared and perhaps on campus for not quite the right reasons, but they aren't stupid. I identify with them because at one point, I was one of them.

And I know what it is like to have people say you aren't college material.

It is a funny thing. If you had asked me back in 2007 where I expected to be in 2010, I would have said that I would be working on my first novel right about now. I would be an established writer with maybe a dozen or so stories to my credit. I may still go down that road, I certainly plan on doing that.

But three years as a college instructor? I wouldn't have missed it for the world. It is the best job I have ever had.

One other thing.

Contrary to what some might say, I think I might be good at this sort of thing.

So it goes.

The Commanding General wants to go to the campus kite festival today so I've got to sign off and prep for that.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering the Teaching Thing Off the Cuff.

2010-04-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

The Mundane Front

Today was something of a maintenance day. Trinity and I did some work on the Pod before I had to run off to an adjunct training session (more on that in a bit). After the adjunct thing we went up to my parents where I roto-tillered the garden and cleaned out the gutters while she helped my mom load stuff into the truck for Salvation Army. It was a clear blue spring day, unseasonably warm and full of promise. It was a good day to go for a walk and later, in my case, a 300 meter swim at the Northtown Community Center.

Sometimes you just enjoy the simple things.

The Teaching Front: Adjunctland

Today was the last of a series of training sessions designed to help adjunct instructors become better instructors. I sign up to attend these because there is always the possibility I might learn something and because we get paid to attend them.

Today's session pertained to creating active learners. For facebook followers, you've already seen my snark on this matter. First step in the presentation? Active PowerPoint. Murphy's Standard Response? Deactivate brain.

Which isn't quite what happens when I'm confronted with PowerPoint. What actually happens is I scan the slide, write down what seems important and then I tune the speaker out. That is what happens. When the speaker changes the slide, I'll dial back in and see if anything useful was said. Usually nothing useful was said so I'll stare at the walls and ponder the budget, my writing career, my lesson plans, how PowerPoint is a shitty way to teach people anything, etc, etc.

A lot of the presentation pertained to getting students engaged with the material. It isn't enough for them to show up, sit in the chair, take notes and turn the homework in. Not that I issue homework per se (truth to tell, the study guides are homework but I never call them that nor do I accept grades on them).

What you want is for the students to process the information, think about it and find a way to use it.

Depending on which of my four classes you talk about, I get this already. I have students who tie in my lectures about the Constitution to the current health care debate. I also have students who make ties between the Alien and Sedition Acts with the Patriot Act. The analogy doesn't quite work for me but at least the students are trying to relate to the information in order to process it.

Our goal though, according to this class, is to get all of the students to dial in.

The one thing that I thought was missing was a statement to the effect that at some point the student has to take responsibility for their own academic future. The tactics discussed for generating additional engagement smacked of my worst experiences from High School and Park University. Variations on group work were discussed along with finding a way to tie everything you discuss to their personal lives (something which is not always possible, even in history).

I am also troubled by an ongoing trend in education.

The notion is that we have students with varying styles of learning. We, the Instructors (or facilitators depending on how you see it) are supposed to adapt to these different styles of learning and provide the students with every opportunity to access the knowledge. In other words, cater to their strengths.

On the surface that sounds great. However the problem I have is based partly on my own personal experience.

I am, on the whole, a hands on and visual learner. I am not an auditory learner per se. In fact, PowerPoint should be my friend on many levels, yet it isn't. I am a professional in a field which prides itself on a very long tradition of oral/lecture based instruction, auditory learning. Somehow, I managed to adapt and overcome. I managed to adapt and create a new set of skills which enabled me to get through a program in a field where my learning style does not fit.

And isn't that part of what we are supposed to be teaching? Adaptability? The rest of the World isn't going to adapt to our students once they graduate. No, they are going to expect our students to adapt to them and if they don't then those students will find themselves out of a job.

In any case, as I sat through the presentation, dialing in to listen to my peers as they discussed what they do in their classes, I came to the conclusion that I work pretty hard to create active learners already. That said, at the end of the day, they have to take ownership of their own progress.

Moreover, it isn't my job to spoon feed everything to them. It is my job to challenge them, to push them beyond their limits, to make them write an essay response that is long enough and detailed enough to sufficiently answer the question. To force them to do more than just memorize data bits and vomit them back onto the scantron.

Other Fronts

At some point I need to sit down and get some more writing done. I have a peer's writing project that needs crits. The good news is that I have read the project and have some thoughts in my brainpan.

I've also been spending a lot of time reading history books, lately a lot of economic history.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

One Thousand Meters, More or Less.

2010-04-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Things A Ponderin'

I don't have a spring time shot of the Pondering Tree yet so this summer time shot will have to do. One should take note of the color of the sky in this shot, which in my mind is the proper color of a summer time sky. Over the last week the seasonal change has restored the luster to the deep blue sky above. And for that, I am grateful.

One Thousand Meters, More or Less

Today I swam 1000 meters in 100 meter increments. Actually I swam 1050 meters if you count the fifty meters of breast stroke I worked in, which was not very pretty. I need to work on that. This make two pool sessions this week thus far. Hopefully by Saturday I can bump this up to four sessions.

An ongoing problem is the pool across the street. Every time I go over there I find a cluster of swimmers jamming up the lanes. So far I have only been able to swim laps in that pool one time and that was last Saturday. Tonight I'll try again to get some laps in, probably after eight in the evening.

I also hit the gym twice this week for strength training. If I can add two more sessions than I'll be doing pretty well.

Other Things

The semester is on final toward the end of the academic year. Part of me is ready for it to end, another part of me is not. Once it is over I'll be without a class for the summer. In someways it reminds me of naval captains who were put on waiting orders for half pay, sitting around, waiting for a command.

Maybe, just maybe, I can get some writing and some lecture note revision in this summer. Shit, it can't possibly be any worse than the nightmare that was the Summer of 2009, can it?

Well, it had better not be worse.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Monday that is none too shabby so far.

2010-04-05T12:02:00.001-07:00

Well, here we are in the month of April. Easter went down well enough out at Sunset Acres where Trinity and I socialized with the owner's family. We had not only an Easter Egg hunt but also a Beer Hunt. I did better than I thought I would.

Trinity's spring break, a sunny, glorious spring break as she keeps reminding me (to which my response has been, "bite me" among other things) came to an end today. Thus we are both on terminal descent for the end of the semester.

In my American History 121 class we moved into the 1920s, later than I would have liked. I'm trying to summarize it but unfortunately I got hung up on talking about Communism. Hopefully I'll get through the rest of it on Wednesday.

Some would say I am a bad man because I do not spend time covering the social history of the period. Personally, neat as it is (you don't really buy it, do you? That I think it is neat. Because it really bores me) I feel like there are more important things to talk about like umm, oh, the rise of fascism in Europe and the rise of Japan in the Pacific. Given that we chucked two nukes at Japan toward the end of the war and some like to argue and debate that topic, I feel like that should be on priority.

Tomorrow I'll cover Slavery, getting away from the episodic type lectures to engage in a thematic lecture. This will be a nice break even if this lecture needs some revision. Following that, we'll see where we are at on the calendar.

The Fitness Front

0530 hour gym workout? Check. Got it in.

0930 hour swim workout? Check. Got it in too.

200 meters x 1
100 meters x 4
Total: 600 meters

Other Fronts

Not much to report. I have an exam to issue tonight so hopefully I can catch up on crits I owe to the Creative Writing students and one of my beta readers.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Easter Sunday Ponderings in General

2010-04-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been away from the Tree for so long. There were tests to grade and record, students to see, bills to pay since April Fool's was payday (irony be thy name), and sunny weather to enjoy with the Woman I Love. Needless to say, Reality has kept yours truly busy.

The April Fitness Plan

I've got until April 27th to get ready for Lifeguard Training. The good news is that I can push myself to reach 300 meters of swimming without break. The bad news is that it takes a great deal of effort and it only features the front crawl. I need to master the breast stroke and the turn required to effectively use the breast stroke. This has to be done in twenty days or less.

I ran into a bit of a snag with my revised swimming plan. Across from the Pod is North Kansas City Community Center (it is across the street from the burning Quik Trip in Birmingham's Without Warning for those wondering). I went across the street to knock out the first of my morning swim sessions only to find a large swim team contingent there. Granted, they left me to my own lane but I found it oft putting. It prompted me to rethink my fitness plan.

Here it is.

Monday-Wednesday-Fridays

0530 hours: NKC-CC, Strength Training

I'm going to make a change to my strength training workout. I had been working on sheer muscle mass mainly as a way to burn off more calories. The more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn. I also like the additional mass because it gives me a bit of an edge in the classroom (the mass adds just a bit to my command authority).

Instead, I'm going to aim for endurance instead. I'll drop the level of weight I am using just a notch, say my bench press down to 165 lbs at 10 reps rather than 185 at 6 reps. I have a lot of raw power at my disposal but not as much endurance as I'd like.

And it is probably worth pointing out that the swimming is increasing my overall strength anyway. Yesterday when I worked on the Lat Flex machine for the first time in two months (the Campus Rec Center doesn't have one I like) I noticed that I was pulling far more weight than I had in the past, up to 255 pounds. So I can probably modify my workout just a notch.

0930 hours: Campus Rec Center, Swim Training

The Campus Rec Center pool is pretty quiet at this time with lots of open lanes. For this week I am going to work at building up my form, breathing and endurance.

M: 100 meters x 5 for 500 meters.
W: 100 meters x 6 for 600 meters.
F: 200 meters x 3 for 600 meters.

1900 hours: Northtown Community Center, Additional Swim Training

I notice that I recover pretty fast between sets which leads me to believe I can probably push myself a bit more. In the evening I'll hit the pool again. Each night with the exception of Monday night (I teach so I can't swim) I'll try to reach the 300 meters mark consistently.

Tuesday-Thursdays

I have a body building class on campus at 1230 hours. I think I need to get down to the campus rec center earlier rather than hanging around the adjunct farm eating junk food and generally goofing off. I also need to work in a cardio element into my plan.

1130 hours: Strength and Cardio Training

It is easier to work back at Northtown so I'll work chest at the Campus Rec Center.

I will also work in a 20 minute session on the elliptical trainer. This will probably happen during the actual class as my fellow students tie up most of the weights.

If I feel like it, I may hit the pool for some swimming. I think I'll restrict myself to 100 meter sets.

Saturday and Sunday

With the Northtown Community Center back on line, I can work in some weekend workouts. These will probably be either easy going days or make up days. Usually Wednesday ends up being my paperwork catch up day so I suspect I'll be running with a variation of the MWF workout.

Consumption

I need to tweak my eating habits. One probably is that fresh fruit is a bit thin on the ground. The apples around here have been pretty crappy and it is still just a notch early for strawberries. I also need to watch the binging.

So it goes. My goal is still the same. Qualify for lifeguard training. Secondary goals include fat loss and increased muscle mass.

The Teaching Front

I handed exams back this week in three of my four classes. It was a mixed bag. Overall there were marginal improvements in all three day classes. The marginal improvement can be traced to some basic facts.

1. Some students have dropped or simply didn't take the test.
2. Some students took my advice and prepared.

The additional prep work, outlines and note cards, helped most of my students who used them. However there is always a couple of people for whom these tactics do not work. I don't quite know why this is and it bothers me to hand out a solution to a problem and see it fail for a few students. I don't think there is any one solution to the problem. Some students aren't ready for college. Some students aren't quite getting what I am trying to teach them. Some students have issues outside of the classroom which are beyond my control. Some students simply do not have time.

A few students, I think many students, approach the work the wrong way. They do the prep to get it done, much the same way a fast food cook or an assembly worker does work. Do Task A, go to Task B, connect to Task C, complete task order, set aside and move to next task order. They do it much the same way I used to fill out my DA-2404s when we were on maintenance in the motor pool. You find the same problems with the vehicle that the Army hasn't fixed, you list them, turn it in, call it good, go get a soda.

They see the material as little bits of data to be memorized. This is not a new observation, James Loewen makes this point in his Lies my Teacher Told Me book (probably one of the only decent points he makes, overall I find the book questionable). So they memorize a little bit of data, hope they see something that matches it on the test, throw it against the wall and hope it sticks. And the more they dislike a given topic, the more likely a student is going to respond in this fashion.

Lately I've taken to telling my classes these things.

1. History is not about memorizing useless bits of data. If that were the case then I tell you that I can get a classroom full of parrots to earn As on the test if you give me enough time and crackers to train them.

2. History is about motivations, causes and consequences. A student needs at least that level of comprehension if they are going to understand what is going on. This is different from "intellectual history" which is what some say I should be teaching. But I can't have a discussion about trends and historiography if they don't have the slightest idea of the basic facts.

3. 99% of History is about this question, "Who got screwed and why?"

The response I sometimes get is this.

1. I just need my history credit.

2. Just tell me what you want me to put on the essay.

3. I am never going to use this information, why am I in this class anyway? It has no purpose.

I have some sympathy with the later one. The question which drives so many people, my father is a classic case in point is, "Will this put food on the table, pay the bills, make me happier?"

In the immediate sense? No, it won't. For me it is only lately that my skills as a historian has helped pay the bills, put food on the table and make me happier. But even before I started teaching, my skills as a historian had use in my life. As a security officer it helped me to write a more effective report, which is a first draft of history. Most of my students are moving on to Vocational training in fields where I know they will be writing reports. Mechanics, techs, medical, law enforcement, teaching, so on and so forth, they'll be expected to write reports, fill out forms, diagnose problems. The skills taught in an history class helps with that, even if they can't see that we are trying to teach them a way of thinking.

For others there is only ONE right answer. The subjective nature of history drives some black and white thinkers nuts and generates the "Just tell me what you want" statement. Some items are certainly locked in stone, such as dates, who signed what document and why, where places are, where events took place, and who was there.

No one except a nutjob is going to argue that the Declaration of Independence doesn't exist. It does. We have sufficient documentation to tell us when it was written, by who, how it was revised and why, and the reason for the creation of such a document. Those are facts.

What is subjective is the effects the document had on follow on events or what the people who helped write the document were thinking at the time. If a student thinks there is just one right answer to any question, then this will drive them mad. It will be worse if they are simply trying to get the work done and out of the way.

Anyway, these are the issues I face in the classroom on a general level. Next time I might ponder some about student attitudes toward the essay questions I issue with each exam.

Payday Activities

Well, the first of the month is payday from the teaching gig so it was off to pay bills and whatnot. We've restocked the larder, laid in enough to hopefully get us through the month. Perishables are a bit of a problem but we'll do what we can.

I've been making Trinity's car payment for the last few months. I'm a bit worried about what will happen once summer arrives. There will be no money for the car then. Hopefully we'll both pick up part time jobs and maybe her summer student financial aid will help with that. Still, I'm looking forward to having the car paid off. Once we get that cleared, we can see about upgrades to the office and living room areas.

And I can start restocking my personal library.

Speaking of books, lately I've been looking for books on economic history. I found a couple of good surveys of US Economic History, one set in the Gilded Age, the other a comprehensive examination form 1600 to about the mid 1980s (when the book was published). I was driven down this road for a couple of reasons. One is that I would like to reach a point where I could discuss economic history more effectively in the classroom. The other is tied to Research Project Number - 05, which I think is as much about economic power as it is about military and political power. When I read these books, I'll post reviews on them.

Niall Ferguson also has what looks like a pretty good book called The Ascent of Money. I'm going to try and snag a copy of that.

Hopefully at some point over the summer I can sit down with a revised understanding of economic history and rebuild my lectures for both American History classes.

Clash of the Titans

I struggled mightily to get out of seeing this movie but Trinity wanted to see it. So off we went, yours truly not very happy about it but I did my best to suck it up.

The film sucks ass. No character development, no reason to give a shit about what happens, it is just awful. Only Liam Neeson's little moments make it bearable and then just barely so.

That said, there is this.

It is better than the original.

But then, how could it not be?

Other Stuff

Yesterday was a mad day of spring cleaning at the Pod. We scrubbed the shit out of that place and it needed it.

And finally, we've been invited out to Sunset Bed and Breakfast for Easter Sunday doings so I'll be dropping back off the net.

Tomorrow will be another day.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Guess I better shit or get off the pot because Apex is closing to submissions.

2010-03-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

It is a theme in my writing career. Always just a week or so late. It was that way with Maternal Soldier. It was that way with Convergence Point, my one novel effort to date killed by the collapse of the economy, and if I don't get my ass in gear and figure out what is wrong with one story, it'll happen again.

Argh.

Time to get my ass in gear. Deadline to submit is March 31st.

Maybe a deadline is what I need.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering the Writing Game: Rejections and things you should and should not do in response to them.

2010-03-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ponderings on Writing

I may have related this story here at the Pondering Tree or perhaps it was as the first version over at Journalspace. If I did it at Journalspace it is most likely lost forever, in which case I should probably tell the story again.

You probably should not openly state that the quality of a certain publication would be greatly improved if its' editor stepped out in front of a speeding bus. Especially if this editor rejected your story.

Rejections are strange things. On the surface they are easy enough to understand. "We don't want your story." But they can be so much more, to the point where reading them and comparing stories is akin to reading the tea leaves. In Terri Lowry's Creative Writing course we actually spend time talking about rejection letters and their stages of evolution. I should probably talk about that first.

When you send your first stories off you will most likely receive either no response back or a form letter. The form letter will be pretty clear. Depending on the publisher, the form letter may contain guidelines, frequent errors and the like. This is what I received in 2001 when I sent my first stories off to John Joseph Adams, the Editorial Assistant at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Over time, and with some luck, you will evolve as a writer. Editors will begin to leave little comments or notes on your rejections. Gardner Dozois at Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine was known for doing this. What gave me hope is that I received these handwritten slips in very short order, by 2003.

This is a sign that the editor is paying attention and sees some potential. It is also meant to encourage you. It does not mean resubmit that story. I'll get to resubmissions here in a bit.

If you are persistent, you will eventually receive a full letter in response to your submission. This letter will most likely be typed or these days e-mailed to you. It will contain a critique of your story, what the editor liked, what worked, what the editor did not like and why the editor isn't going to buy this story. Again, this is a sign of progress. You are getting closer. The editor is taking valuable time to advise you and mentor you. Gardner Dozois sent me such a letter in response to my story Tranquility Lost, which can be found and read for free at Bewildering Stories.

At this point of the game, two things can happen. The Editor in question considers you to be pro-material. You are on the brink of breaking through, right on the edge. It can go either way with your next submission.

The best case scenario is a straight acceptance. I received my first one in 2007 from Andy Cox and his Fiction Committee at Interzone Magazine. This acceptance will talk about why they like the story and what they are prepared to do in order to acquire the story for their publication.

The next best case scenario can be (but isn't always, I'll get to that) the rewrite request.

The rewrite request looks like the personal rejection letter. It contains positives and negatives. It also contains advice and suggestions on how to fix the story. Finally, last but not least, this letter will contain an invitation to resubmit your story after you have made the revisions.

Depending on the editor and the quality of advice, you have two choices at this point.

1. Follow the advice and hope for the best.
2. Disregard and send the story to the next market on the list.

I say it depends on the editor because editors, just like writers, have reputations. Some editors have reputations for being supportive, straight up, honest and fair. Other editors have a reputation for being fickle, unclear, or in some cases they have other agendas driving their mission which have nothing whatsoever to do with your career or your story.

In most cases, I would advise this. If you agree AND TRUST the editor in question, as I trusted (and still trust) Gardner Dozois, then rewrite the story and resubmit it.

On the other hand, if you disagree and DO NOT TRUST the editor in question, then you really need to ask yourself if this trip is necessary. Again, there are no guarantees.

Case in point. Most regular readers know this but Gardner Dozois retired (sometimes I'm inclined to think he was forced out by a controversy that brewed up over a particular story but I have absolutely no proof of this) as Editor of Asimov's. This affected me personally because I rewrote a story for his consideration and it missed his retirement date by one week or so. In fact, fellow writer Lou Antonelli was the last writer purchased by Gardner, he made it by that one week margin.

The new editor, who I won't name here for a lot of reasons, took over. They took their sweet time getting back to me while I waited on pins and needles for a response, any response, on my story.

The new editor sent another rewrite request. Unlike Gardner's, it was muddled, unclear and in my mind, contrary to what I was trying to achieve with the story. In fact, at the time, it read very much like a veiled rejection letter. However, I was prodded, both by people in the community and people here in my personal life, to rewrite my story and resubmit it.

I tried to get clarification on the required changes. I received nothing. I had nothing to go on with this new editor, no track record or anything else. All I had was word of mouth from various people who had met her personally. I wasn't reassured by what I heard but when a goal seems to be SO CLOSE, you decide to push forward.

I rewrote (actually, I butchered) my story.

And I sent it off.

And then it was rejected. If it says anything at all about this new editor, the rejection was partially written by her predecessor and it was a half hearted one at that.

As I said, rejections are funny things. I've received maybe fifty to sixty rejections over my career to date. Given that many writers receive hundreds of rejections before they achieve their first professional sales, I have done pretty well. None of those other rejections make me angry. They are part of the business, part of the deal. You just roll with them. You weren't the flavor of the month.

And most of the rejections since my first sales have been personal ones which indicate, "So close, Murphy but not quite."

Now here is what you should not do as a writer.

For nearly two years I kept my anger bottled up, something I am not very good at. My friends and family will tell you that the longer I try to suppress my anger, the stronger, the more virulent, the more powerful it will become. However, I kept it pretty well in check for awhile.

Until my first sale in 2007. The reviews came in and contrary to what I expected, they were all positive.

The common belief, one that I held until those reviews started coming in, is that my success at Interzone with Tearing Down Tuesday should have negated the anger, the growing ball of something that transcends anger to a point where the emotion I experience doesn't even have a proper name.

Instead, success served to reinforce and fuel that anger. My feeling today is that Maternal Soldier is every bit as good as Tearing Down Tuesday and The Limb Knitter. Yet I can't sell it to save my life.

With the second sale in 2008, more positive reviews plus lots of reader comments at Apex and again, my anger grew.

At the same time that Interzone purchased Tuesday, Asimov's rejected a story set in the same universe, featuring similar themes. For the record, they aren't the same story but they do feature a post singularity world.

The current editor at Asimov's rejected it. Readers aren't familiar enough with the singularity to know what I was talking about.

Which was really the final straw, I thought. The same magazine that published Charles Stross and his singularity stories wasn't going to publish this? Especially when Interzone was willing go do down that road?

I remember reading that reject in my dock office at 1000 Walnut on a very cold, snowy day with a mug of tea in hand thinking, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The message of that reject was pretty clear to me. Gardner's replacement wasn't going to buy anything I wrote, no matter what it was.

Eventually, sooner or later, my anger will vent. If you are an aspiring writer or even a small writers, you've got to learn how to manage this. Anger scares the living daylights out of folks who do not live in the Blue Collar World.

My anger vented in a series of postings at the magazine's forum. I basically stated, in many different forms, that I thought the magazine would be greatly improved if the current editor was hit by a speeding bus.

I didn't threaten this person directly. That is against the law. However, it is not against the law to openly wish for bad things to happen to people. It is just bad manners and perhaps more importantly, bad for your writing career.

Why?

Well, the editorial community is pretty small and they do talk to each other. More to the point they read the forum comments left by readers and writers. What happened is probably common knowledge.

Now, to date, I have no evidence at hand that indicates that my behavior has resulted in the rejection of my stories. No evidence at all. It is possible that it is a factor, in fact it is probable in some cases that it is a factor. Editors don't want to be associated with nutters and the like.

However, I'm realistic enough to believe that the rejections I have received pertain more to the same things which caused many of my stories to get rejected. The story doesn't match the editor's tastes, or the anthology, they have some quirk or flaw that isn't worth fixing, that sort of thing. It is, again, part of the game.

I should probably make one additional point.

Folks would probably forget what I did eventually, especially if I didn't remind anyone about it like I am doing right now. But the thing they won't forget is this.

I am unrepentant. I do still hope for the eventual replacement of the current editor at Asimov's. By speeding bus, by retirement, by medical emergency or through getting forced out, it matters not to me. I harbor no good will toward this person who I feel is cowardly, dishonest, unclear and incredibly fickle.

My lack of repentance probably doesn't help my case.

There are things I could be doing with my career. I've been advised more than once to give up on short stories and move off into novels. I've got some options I am looking at and I will probably see about that. I've been advised to give up on science fiction and try my hand at mainstream literature. I've been advised to give up on writing fiction and concentrate on my career as a college history instructor. Given that within a year I will have finally realized a full return on my investment as a historian, I can see that point.

For now, however, I will endeavor to keep writing fiction. I'll write what I want to write.

And we'll see how it goes.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Constitutional Ponderings with some Health Care plus the revised Writing Front.

2010-03-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Health Care Fracas

For those that were wondering what I was talking about yesterday, it seems that activists on both sides have taken it upon themselves to threaten, vandalize and harass elected officials concerning the aftermath of the Health Care Debate. For the most part it appears that Democrats have been targeted.

Trinity was asking what the Tea Party types were thinking. I told her that they were drawing upon their historical inspiration, the Sons of Liberty, in opposing Health Care. The Sons of Liberty opposed British policies during the Pre-Revolutionary Era between 1763 to 1775. In some cases, that opposition manifested itself through vandalism, threats, coercion, and ultimately, violence. The Tea Party folks see the health care system as unconstitutional (they interpret the Constitution strictly, or through the Jeffersonian Interpretation) and they see it as a tax they do not consent to.

Understanding does not equal agreement or consent. I want to be very clear on this point. More to the point, there are means by which the opposition can continue the fight against the legislation. Various State Attorneys General are filing court cases on constitutional grounds in the hopes of appealing the legislation all the way to the Supreme Court.

Trinity asked me what I thought would happen if they were successful.

Given that the court has five conservative justices, which includes the Chief Justice, I suspect they will find in favor of the Attorneys General and declare the Health Care Reform Legislation unconstitutional. I am assuming, of course, that the conservative justices apply a strict interpretation to the Constitution and it doesn't get to the crux of the issue. Whether or not the Federal Government should be in the business of issuing Universal Health Care. The Supreme Court can only validate or invalidate a law, they can't write a new one.

My point? The opposition does not need to resort to violence to continue to struggle against the bill. They can use the Constitutionally established system of checks and balances to test the law to destruction.

Now it is possible that the Supremes will verify the law, validate it, decide that the Federal Government does have the Constitutional authority to mandate that Americans purchase health insurance. If that happens then the only option after that will be to repeal the law or modify it in the legislative branch.

Again, the violence is unnecessary and indeed, it is counterproductive.

So it goes.

The Teaching Front

I'm trying to wrap up World War One in my American History 121 class. I should be done in time for the second exam but explaining Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy (and notably, what is wrong with it) takes a little bit of time. In the American History 120 classes we've reached the Election of 1800.

Which ties in with the above commentary. I tell students that the Election of 1800 is where the full potential of our system is realized. For the first time we see the peaceful transition of power from one political party/faction, the Federalists, to another political party/faction, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans. As nasty as the election was, when the votes were tallied, Jefferson was sworn into office without any issues concerning violence, coup de tats and the like.

This is no small thing considering that this is where most Republics fall apart or have trouble, accepting the fact that one party lost and letting the winner take office. With a few notable and rather unfortunate exceptions, this will continue to be the pattern in American History. Those exceptions, of course, include the American Civil War.

The Health Care Debate has also allowed me to tie the lectures on the Constitution to something which affects the students right now. Part of the debate revolves around how much power the Federal Government has. The Democrats, using a Hamiltonian interpretation of the Constitution (a loose interpretation) argue that the Government does have the power. The Republicans, using a Jeffersonian interpretation of the Constitution, argue that the Government doesn't have the power.

I was able to tie that in with a discussion about Hamilton's Economic Plan during the Washington Administration and to the debate over the First National Bank of the United States. And I did it without editorializing about my own opinion or political views concerning health care.

The students, for once, dialed into the lecture as a result of the modern day tie in. That does not always happen with lectures concerning the Constitution but this one did. And that made me feel pretty good.

Tests are next week. We'll see how it goes.

The Writing Front

Here are the projects I am hoping to have ready by May 15th.

A Bicycle for Kyle
A Limb Knitter's Love (changed from A Knitter's Day)
Joint Writing Project - 02
Maternal Soldier
A Forlorn Harvest

A Forlorn Harvest is a recycle project which I was looking over the other night as I was pondering novel projects. I think it is pretty good as is. Granted, it needs a coat of polish and a different ending but I think I can have her ready.

So five projects by May 15 ready for the main SF markets.

In addition, I received word on a writing opportunity pertaining to novels and short stories. Instead of sending a completed piece they want a sample text plus an outline. I think I'll generate a three short story outlines and a novel concept as well. Deadline for this project is July 31st of this year.

So, we'll see how that goes.

Not much else to report otherwise.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Hump Day Ponderings

2010-03-24T07:18:00.001-07:00

The Teaching Front

We moved up to Woodrow Wilson and The Great War today in my American History 121 class. I can go through the start of the war pretty much off the top of my head without any great effort. I should be well on my way to finishing by the projected test date.

In my American History 120 classes we are going to finish up the Washington Administration and get into John Adams. Once I clear Adams then it will be test time for them.

I think, starting in the Fall, I will transition over to five exams for a semester. In my American History 121 class that would mean a 100 point exam on Reconstruction. In my American History 120 class it would mean an exam on the early colonial era running from 1492 to 1750. My thinking is that I am too slow at getting the first exam out. If I got one out sooner, it would serve as an earlier wake up call to students who are not taking the class seriously enough.

It might also serve to clear off dead weight. Students who sit in the class passively, even when they are quiet, are sort of a psychological dead weight. Their apathy is sort of like a rot which spreads to the more upbeat and interested students. It doesn't happen in every class but I do have cases where it does happen. I am hopeful that the earlier test will clear those out sooner.

In my American History 120 class I have some lectures to write on the Transportation Revolution, Early Industrialization and a revision of Andrew Jackson's lecture. I'm going to try to get to that this weekend.

The Writing Front

I've been looking over A Knitter's Day, which is a love story of sorts, perhaps a tragedy. Right now the story has a 600 word gap in it where the two characters fall in love with each other. This gap is the heart of the story and without it, I am pretty certain it will not sell. It won't work.

600 words doesn't sound like a lot and it isn't. I easily write that much per blog entry daily.

The question is this.

How do I get the two to fall in love with each other? I know it happens. The characters indicate as much. Yet sometimes characters are coy and fickle. Sometimes they'll tell you what you need to know, sometimes they won't.

I put this to Trinity and she said, "Maybe you aren't supposed to know how it happens. Does anyone know how they fall in love with someone?"

Which is a valid point. I couldn't tell you how I fall in love with people (perhaps that is the problem right there). I just know when it has happened. I couldn't take it apart and dissect it for a class on love and literature.

If I can find out how to convey or show the love, then this story will work. I know in my bones that it will.

On other writing fronts, research proceeds on Joint Writing Project - 02. Hopefully at some point I'll be able to sit down somewhere quiet and get some work done on it.

The Fitness Front

Monday saw my return to the gym after two weeks of bronchitis. My strength on the weights did not decline that much, maybe ten pounds on all fronts.

More importantly, when I swam my laps on Monday, I reached 200 meters uninterupted which is right where I left off two weeks previously. Hopefully by the end of this week I will reach 250 meters.

Right now I'm mainly concentrating on the front crawl. I want to hold off on the breast stroke until I've had a chance to take some private lessons.

The swim goals are as follows:

1. 300 meters uninterrupted by the second week of April.
2. 500 meters by the end of April.
3. Proficient in the breast stroke by the end of April.
4. Lifeguard qualified by the second week of May.
5. Summer job by the last week of May.
6. Longterm goals include 1000 meters and eventually 2000 meters uninterrupted.

Other Fronts

Trinity is watching her grandkids this weekend for her eldest daughter. I have mixed feelings about that. I love her grandkids, it is the eldest daughter I am none too pleased with. However, sometimes you compromise. It is the nature of the beast.

Payday is upcoming which means additional upgrades to the Pod. We are slowly picking up bits of furniture for the office and dining areas. I think on this next pass we'll pick up another shelf or two. I also need to work at picking up some more books. I'd like to get my own copy of The Remains of the Day and I'd like to read Temple Grandin's works pertaining to her experiences with autism. Something tells me that Temple is the solution to my creative problems with Tuesday and the other days of the week in the TDT universe.

So it goes. A mundane entry for the most part.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Wanna know what your new government health care system is going to look like?

2010-03-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

I will tell you.

The more I read, the less I like the reform bill.

First, it will become mandatory for me to purchase health insurance. If I don't, the government will fuck me with a seven hundred dollar fine. To the assholes in Congress that passed this monstrosity, I'm sure $700 doesn't seem like a lot of money to them. Pocket change really.

Want to know what it means to me?

Seven hundred dollars is the rent plus the light bill. That is what seven hundred dollars is to me. It is also groceries for a month and a half. It is a gym membership at the community center for two years. It is half a year's worth of fuel at current prices.

In other words, seven hundred dollars is a lot of God Damned Fucking Money on Planet Murphy. To make this money, here is what I'd need to do.

1. Work at a job which pays roughly $12.00 an hour for two weeks at forty hours per week. After I get fucked on taxes, including the Kansas City Gross Earnings Tax, aka the E-Tax, I might get enough to cover the bill.

2. Teach two weeks worth of history classes at current rates.

3. If I were at a minimum wage job like the one I had at World's of Fun in the summer of 2007, I'd have to work a month and a half.

Now I know, someone will say, "But you can opt into Medicaid." Yeah, great. From what I hear, Medicaid is about as worthless as the Veteran's Affairs Medical System. And there are a lot of Docs who are saying they won't take Medicaid anymore. There is additional talk about cutting Medicaid reimbursements to those Docs that do.

Well, that is just fucking wonderful.

I suppose my possible saving grace is that my veteran's status and my ties with the Veteran's Affairs Medical System means that I will somehow be exempt from the Mandatory Insurance Requirement. I can just hold up my VA Medical Card and say, "Nope. I'm covered, buddy." But then again, I'm zero percent disabled, meaning that I am at the bottom rung of the system. If I actually earn enough money, the VA expects me to pay for my care.

So I'm probably going to get shafted with this bill, this mandatory bill, this seven hundred dollar no lube assrape of a bill that I can not afford.

Or I can quit teaching, go find another security guard job that is full time and dial into a worthless fucking Healthcare Management Organization.

And as it stands, it'll be shitty care no matter which way I go.

Oh, what are my complaints about the VA? Oh, let's take it by the numbers.

First, I have an umbilical hernia. I've had this for more than fifteen years. The VA saw it in 2000, before I had Uniguard health coverage. They said, "That could kill you, you need to get it fixed."

"Okay," I replied. "When?"

"Well," they said. "Figure six months to a year for a consult, probably another year to eighteen months after that."

"Wait, wait, wait a minute. This could kill me. Right? That is what you said. This could kill me dead while we are sitting here jawing about it yet you want me to wait nearly two years to get it fixed?"

"Well, maybe it won't take that long."

This is at the same time that the Kansas City VA Medical Center had a rat infestation problem and patients were waking up to find maggots in their noses and wounds.

Yeah. Cut me open right now. Hell, may as well fix it with a pocket knife and some fishing line myself.

Second, broke my collarbone back in 2003. Again, before Uniguard health coverage. I was whisked down to the VA Medical Center. They said, "You've got a broken collarbone. Not much we can do for it. Here is some motrin."

The Doc held up a bag full of 600 mg pills of motrin. Motrin doesn't work for me. It doesn't work at all. I can eat the whole bag and shit it into the toilet without any effect at all. The idiot Doctor may as well have held up a bag full of skittles.

My mother was there so she'll verify this next exchange.

"Doc, those pills won't work. They do not work for pain with me."

"Well," she said without missing a beat or waiting for me to finish my sentence. "I'll give it to you for the swelling."

I looked at my mom and replied, "What part of 'Those pills don't fucking work,' did this idiot not understand? I may as well have had the ambulance take me to a vet, they don't expect their patients to talk back to them."

Beer numbed the pain. That is what I ended up using. I'm extremely resistant to pain meds. The Docs never seem to hear me.

Last example, summer of '96. I ate at a Chinese place and came down with something awful. Cold sweats and chills, hallucinations, the running trots, aches and cramps. For six days I fought this crap. Within the first twenty-four hours I went to the VA Medical Center and tried to get some help.

Since it was June they gave me a saline bag and pumped that into me. Nothing. Then the Doc showed up and wanted to probe my butthole.

"Doc," I said, trying to hold the contents in place, which was a Herculean effort on my part. "I wouldn't do that."

"Why?" she asked.

"The contents are under pressure."

"I know what I am doing," she said.

Do I have to tell you what happened next? Needless to say, she went for a change of clothes. In any case, they collected a sample, declared that I was dehydrated and sent me home where I languished in bed on death's door step for another five days. In the meantime my father's heart gave out and my schizophrenic brother decided he wasn't getting enough attention so he decided it was the perfect moment to have a mental breakdown.

Whereupon in a sane world, the response would have been to shoot my brother and put him out of everybody's misery.

I digress.

On the sixth day, my mom asked me if I wanted to go back to the VA.

"Why? So they can squirt another bag of saline solution in me and say I am still dehydrated? I'm sweating my balls off and freezing to death at the same time. I'm no Doc but this isn't fucking dehydration."

So we went to a private doc who stuffed a needle in my buttcheek. I don't know what it had in it. He charged my mom fifty bucks I recall, money she probably didn't have, and sent me home.

Miracle of miracles, within an hour, I was better. Within 24 hours, I was back in the saddle.

The story doesn't end there.

Six months later the VA Medical Center called me to let me know that the tests came back on the sample.

I had food poisoning.

"What? Did you call to see if you managed to kill me with your incompetence?"

Three examples of my experience with government healthcare. All negative. But I could go on.

There is the Army's reaction to shin splints, "Just stretch a whole lot and run more."

There is the Army's reaction to an incredibly stupid order to shave more than once a day, "Just be real careful not to cut yourself."

There is the Army's reaction to any cold or flu symptoms, "Just go for a two mile run and you'll feel better."

There is the Army's reaction to any objections about the flu vaccination which makes you sick everytime you get one. "It is a myth that flu shots make you sick." And their reaction when you show up a week later sick due to the flu shot, "The flu shot didn't make you sick."

A Brave New World, my friends. Things will be so much better now. Now you will get the same shitty substandard care that I have always received at the hands of the government. It won't be what the Aussies have and it won't be what the Europeans have either.

It'll be a nightmare. One would be better off to lay in a stock pile of hacksaws, fishing line and pocket knifes in order to do the work themselves.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Schizophrenic Weather and some ponderings on The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

2010-03-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

Local

We have snow again. Sigh.

If you are a fan of John Birmingham's work then chances are probable that you have read Without Warning. If you haven't, go to the bookstore or library, buy a copy, read it and come back to see me. I'll wait.

Back already?

There is a passage in the novel where a GlobalHawk drone is flying recon over the now deserted United States of America, notably the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Unlike many major metro areas, Kansas City did not erupt in a firestorm of failed power nets, running appliances and the like due to the weather in March 2003 per the alternate timeline. The reason is due to the "schizophrenic weather" of the region.

Which is what we are experiencing now. Technically today is supposed to be the first day of spring. Yesterday before three in the afternoon it was shirt sleeve warm and sunny, enough so that Trinity and I went for a walk around North Kansas City (you'll notice a QuikTrip burning in the novel which is a stone's throw from where we live today). By time we made it back home, the clouds had moved in and the temperature had fallen through the floor.

So another blanket of the white stuff for us. Just great.

The Writing Front: Projected Plans

I looked over two stories yesterday and I plan on getting moving on a third in the next day or so. If I play my cards right and get enough writing time in, I think I can have two of my stories ready for market in addition to the Joint Writing Project.

So my goal is pretty simple.

I want three new stories ready for market by May 18th of this year. In addition, I'll pull Maternal Soldier out and send that story out to market again. That will make four stories with my name on it and a fifth as part of a dual header if you count JWP-02.

I had been working on a project in the second person. I don't like this approach but I still like the story. So I'll start over on that one.

Reading: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I'm almost through with The Remains of the Day which follows the reflections of Mr. Stevens, a British Butler to the late Lord Darlington. Told entirely from the first person point of view, Ishiguro effectively establishes characterization and conflict within two pages of his introduction. It is the first book in years that I felt compelled to sit and read to completion in one sitting. Unfortunately my life is such that extended stretches of reading do not seem to be possible anymore.

I've already seen bits of the film and read reviews and summaries of the novel so I have already had it spoiled. Mr. Stevens is someone who is deeply invested in the concept of maintaining one's dignity as one carries out their duties as a butler. In the pursuit of this dignity, an ever fleeting sense of total perfection which is unobtainable, he loses a bit of his humanity it seems. And he also misses his chance at true love with one of his peers, the housekeeper Miss Kenton, who eventually leaves the Household in search of happiness with another man.

Deluded, a bit defensive and certainly a little snobbish, Mr. Stevens is a quirky man who strives never to give overt offense. Unfortunately, he is so wedded to the avoidance of offense that sometimes he misses the point, which is what makes him human in spite of the fact that he has lost some of his own humanity. I found him to be refreshing to read, to explore his mind, though I suspect I would not care to have a drink with him.

I think I'll check up on more of Ishiguro's work to see what I can learn.

They say that writers read, especially the good ones. I agree, unfortunately, I am an incredibly picky reader. My patience for most of what passes as literature these days is slim at best. I dislike political novels intensely and style monkey stunts do not interest me either. What we have in The Remains of the Day is a solid, interesting and novel character study.

It would be nice to find more such work out there.

So it goes. It has my recommendation.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

“We don’t do long distance runs in combat,” says recent combat vets.

2010-03-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

My reply? "Duh, fucker."

Check this news article out.

In addition to getting rid of bayonet training, the Army has decided to replace long distance formation runs in basic training with sprint training instead. In other words, train the soldiers for combat.

Well, far as this Army veteran is concerned, this change is about twenty-one years overdue. I remember asking, repeatedly, over my four years of active why we went on long distance runs. None of us were planning on reenacting the Battle of Marathon near as I could tell. The only instance I knew of from recent US History where running for distance was required pertained to Task Force Smith in the early dark days of the Korean War. In fact you could argue that US Forces Korea and the 2nd Infantry Division still have institutional PTSD as a result of Task Force Smith since running was the Big Thing when I was in Korea and probably still is.

To me, it just seemed fucking stupid. It seemed even more stupid once you consider how you are supposed to shoot, move and communicate on the battlefield. Worse, running, for some screwball institutional reason, seemed to be the primary measure of a decent soldier. A soldier could be a complete and total fuck up in every other regard and yet if he or she could run a ten minute two mile then they were golden. Conversely, you could be tactically and technically proficient, know your shit backwards and forwards but if you had trouble with running, then you were a dirt bag in the eyes of many.

On a personal level it was not only stupid but painful. I have chronic shin splints which seem to defy any remedy known to medical or sports science. Stretch 'em, ice 'em, heat 'em, etc, etc, it didn't seem to matter. After about a hundred yards of running, it always felt as if some asshole were driving an ice pick into my shins with each passing step.

The other aspect of this article is that the soldiers interviewed pointed out that the soldiers needed improved core body strength in order to carry the body armor and gear. Again, duh. I lost track of how many soldiers I heard whining and crying, the ones who could do that ten minute two mile run, bitching about how heavy all their gear was.

"My ruck is hurting my back," they'd cry. "My body armor is too heavy. Oh, hold my hand, wipe my ass and help me breathe."

Funny thing. I had no problem humping my load. Never had any back pain. Never had any problem shootin' and scootin' from one bit of cover to the next under a full load. In fact, here is a scary thought.

Though I may have been slower than my peers without a combat load, I was actually FASTER than many of them WITH a full combat load. When I went to Infantry School I heard it over and over again, "Wow, that Murphy guy is fast."

Really grinds my gears that it took ten years of warfare for the United States Army to finally wake up to the clue bat which has been cracking them in the institutional melon for quite some time now.

On the other hand, I'm glad things are changing, in this case, for the better.

Hell, if they had made this change in 1993, I'd probably still be on active duty. Jesus, I hated this Jimmy Fixx running bullshit.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering Economics: It's all mush.

2010-03-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Recovery

Aside from a nagging cough and some bubbling down in the depths of my right lung, I seem to be on the mend. The antibiotics are putting paid to the sinus infection and the worst of the symptoms, namely the aches, dizziness and chills, have passed. Hell of a great way to spend a Spring Break.

I had plans after all. Get some writing done. Revise some lectures. Work on my swimming endurance so I could pass the Lifeguard certification and get a part time job I might like this summer. Maybe even get some reading done.

Well, there wasn't much of any of that.

Joint Writing Project - 02

I managed to get some research in on this over the last few days, in spite of the illness. I also managed to get some writing in, maybe a thousand words. My partner in crime also managed to get some work done as well. They will be focusing on the cultural-mythological aspects of this story. I'm concentrating on some of the harder science based material (I can't be more specific, it'd spoil the story).

We both have a pretty clear idea of what we do not want to do with this story. This was something that was a problem with the first attempted Joint Writing Project, which was never completed. My partner in that project had, I think, different objectives and agendas in mind. I simply wanted to tell a story.

This time around, and I have a different partner for those wondering, we seem to be on the same page of the play book.

We'll see how it goes.

Economics on My Mind

I never took an economics class in college. I don't think the topic was ever discussed in great detail in high school and if it was, it was so brief as to be unmemorable. If you asked me why I didn't take an econ class, I'd tell you that it probably stemmed from a fear that it pertained to mathematics and that it wasn't that much different from accounting.

So I traipsed through college, taking history course after history course, which would sometimes, briefly, touch on economics, before moving on to something else. At the 100 level there would be blips, especially in Larry Cox's American History classes at Maple Woods. At Park where the "I Skip the Wars" Professor held court, it seemed we spent most of our time on baseball, catholicism and engaged in classroom debates much like the forum firefights of the science fiction community.

In other words, it was fucking pointless. When Park sends me letters asking for donations I am sometimes tempted to send them a letter demanding my money back for the worthless degree I got from their school.

At the graduate level, economics usually revolved around Marxism only long enough for the professor to bash capitalism, conservatives, Republicans and anyone else who wasn't a Yellow Dog Democrat before moving off to other topics. Granted, my level of education and value for it at UMKC was far higher than at Park. It should be as I paid through the nose for it.

But economics?

It didn't seem to come up that much.

Now, I did do a paper in grad school touching on the reasons why the British did not intervene in the American Civil War. I had to push myself pretty hard to get the numbers put forth by Owsley in King Cotton Diplomacy but I managed to get the gist of his point, that a cotton glut prior to the American Civil War undermined the Confederate notion that they could cut off cotton and thus draw the nations of Europe into the conflict.

And I worked up another paper, not so good, on how the Black Death caused a spike in labor prices, which drove up the cost of business for the English nobility thus forcing them to raid France for booty in order to continue funding their lifestyle. My thesis was that this prolonged what we know as the Hundred Years War. I used primary source documents to account for changes in tax revenues, prices of labor, goods, and used the practical example of what it might take to maintain one to three horses for an English Knight.

Yeah, in retrospect, that later paper is probably not that good. I'm loathe to even mention it and if I had my druthers, I would not have taken six hours of material on The Black Death. But I needed a Research Seminar and a Colloquium in European History. The Black Death was what was available.

So, why am I pondering economics?

First, it concerns Research Project Number - 05. I can't get into the details of this project but it seems to me that it is a book about economics. It has to be. How does one build an economy where one does not exist? How does one salvage an economy where one once existed? Perhaps the Black Death material might be useful after all. How do you establish a viable currency? What about debts? Credit? All of the problems which plagued the Founding Fathers and perplex us today in 2010 are tied up in this project.

The first feeds into the second. I naturally turn to my training as a historian to understand how such problems have been tackled before. This led me, eventually, to Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United States.

Kids, teaching this is a first class son of a bitch. But here it is in a nutshell.

When Washington becomes the President, the economy is in bad shape. How bad? Here is what Paul E. Johnson tells us in The Early American Republic 1789 to 1820.

Johnson tells us that Hamilton's report to Congress on the public finances in 1789 was that the debt fell into three categories.

The First Category was Foreign Debt: $11 million (I'm guess this is contemporary dollars not 2010 dollars).
The Second and Third Categories were debts by the Federal and State Governments to Private US Citizens: This amount ran to $48 million total (half and half).

Gotta pay the foreign debts, everyone agreed. You had to do that in order to borrow more money. Fair enough.

What about the rest of it? Well, here is where it gets sticky. Speculators had moved into the market and bought up the Federal and State IOUs many private citizens held at rock bottom prices, far less than face value. If you don't have any money at all, then maybe a little bit of money is better when the economy is in the shitter, right?

Most of those IOUs were held by banking interests in the Northeast, New York Stockjobbers, as Thomas Jefferson would call them. If the government paid off the IOUs at face value, it would concentrate a massive amount of wealth in the Northeast, exacerbating sectional rivalry, concentrating power, etc.

Gets better. Here is what Hamilton wanted to do.

Hamilton wanted to concentrate the state debts, the IOUs and combine it with the Federal debt, make it all one in the same. Consolidate the debt as it were.

Johnson says it better than I can so I'll quote him.

A permanent, unified debt would attract the wealthiest financiers in the country as creditors and would render them loyal and dependent on the national government. If you are wondering, that is page 12 in his book.

The goals were simple enough.

1. Pay off foreign debt.
2. Take control of state debt.
3. Enhance the power of the Federal government by financing the public debt.
4. Obtain credit at home and abroad.

Follow me? If you did, then you are doing pretty well. I have a hell of a time sorting this out. The nearest example I can think of is either consolidating your credit card debt in order to reduce interest and overall payments or consolidating your student loans. I am fairly certain that the moneyed interests would support this because they'd get a better return on Hamilton's system than they would on the status quo.

And yet it is still so much mush in my head. It is easier for me to see why Jefferson opposed the Bank in the first place. If I walk into a classroom and offer to pay all of my students credit card bills, toss in the cellphone bills while you are at it, I'll pick up a fair amount of power and popularity in very short order. The creditors will want to talk to me, not them. I can understand that too.

I can talk about political ideologies with relative ease in my classes. I was definitely trained on how to do that. I can talk about social history if I absolutely have to though I avoid it like the plague. I have no difficulty talking about science, technology, industry and foreign relations. The military material comes to me without much effort at all.

But economics . . . money is the sinews of war, so goes the saying. Not only that, but the issue of economics is driving one other concern.

My fiction writing. What will the new model for making money as a writer be? Does anyone know with any certainty? In my actual stories, how does economics play a role? A practical concern is Forces Velaysia universe of The Limb Knitter. I know that Forces Velaysia is a closed command economy but it has been sustaining itself for nearly 80 to 90 years during a time of war. How does that work?

I should know how it works because economics, to one degree or another, shapes the culture.

Thus, as I proceed through the semester, I find myself wondering why I wasn't made to take an economic history course in college?

So it goes.

Other Fronts

You can see that Hamilton is on my mind. I've got a week to get him sorted out for another go at explaining the National Bank of the United States. My students are bearing down on their second exams, later than I'd like. They will probably get them on April Fool's Day, April 2nd and April 4th respectively. I'll have to crop the third quarter a bit in order to get to the Civil War in American History 120 and the Cold War Era in American History 121.

And it is time to start applying for jobs for the summer. I suppose I should grit my teeth and start applying for security guard jobs as a hedge against the lifeguard position.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Cease Commo Silence

2010-03-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

I've picked up a bit of a chest cold it appears, which kept Trinity up all night. She had to drive down to campus today so I do not envy her in the least. On the other hand, I am not on campus trying to teach as it is spring break for yours truly.

Our party went off well enough though attendance was a bit lower than we thought it would be. Probably just as well as we had the right amount of food for maybe twelve people maximum. Which is about what we had and that, frankly, suits me fine. We started a bit slow but the party went on until about eleven which is not bad for a bunch of college instructors. All in all, a good time had by all.

Trinity did a first class job with her brisket, potato salad and other fixings. She can cook, that is for certain.

We made our way back to Sunset after midnight and went to bed immediately. In the morning I took over in the kitchen and made breakfast. Compared to what is normally offered out here at Sunset with five star elegant morning breakfasts, mine was pretty pedestrian. We had scrambled eggs, bacon, pork sausage with some toast. Not quite french toast or crepes, but it wasn't bad.

Afterwards we spent most of the afternoon sitting around in the living room socializing. Around about four or so in the afternoon, our friends Bill and Jayme had to take leave which left us with one of our adjunct poli-sci peers for movie night.

We were trying to watch The Philadelphia Story but toward the end the disk seized up, which was rather annoying as I was enjoying the film. This seemed like a better way to spend the evening than watching the Oscars. I guess Hepburn got her career back on track with this film. She was known for her dislike of reporters and fans.

Hmm, I like me some fans but I'm not so hot on some reporters.

Unfortunately I seem to have picked up some sort of chest cold after last night's trip to the hot tub. I spent part of the night trying to hack up my right lung. Fortunately I managed to hang onto that lung but I kept Trinity up in the process. I'll have to pamper her when she gets back from campus later today.

We've got a few more days out here at Sunset before the owners, Bill and Brenda, get back from their travels. I'm hoping to get some writing done in the meantime.

The Teaching Front: To Do List

Third Quarter Lectures - American History 120

-The Industrial Revolution, Lowell Mills and the Social Consequences
-The Transportation Revolution, Steam Power and Railroads
-The Women's Movement
-Revise Slavery Lecture

The Writing Front: To Do List

First up, I need to prep A Knitter's Day for the new group of E-Light Reader Volunteers I have assembled. Hopefully I'll get that story out the door here in the next day or so.

Second, I need to look over the other two stories, A Bicycle for Kyle and Reborn for Glory to see what needs doing in both cases.

Third, there is Joint Writing Project - 02.

In other words, I'm going to try and get some writing done over the next few days. My short term goal is to finish one story and have it ready for submission by the end of Spring Break.

Other Doings

Not much else to report. My chest cold will keep me out of the pool for a day or so. Hopefully I can get back at it soon.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
Writing from Sunset Acres Bed and Breakfast

Spring Break Doings at Sunset and the Pod.

2010-03-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

Spring Break 2010

Trinity and I have different spring breaks this year, mine comes up first running from today until a week from next Monday. Hers is at the end of the month. And yet we managed to get a vacation of sorts in over the last few days. Our friends, Bill and Brenda of Sunset Acres Bed and Breakfast invited us to stay at their home for ten days while they traveled to Florida for a much needed vacation. We eagerly took them up on the offer and have been out here since last week.

So life, at least in between classes, has been a slice of what I imagine Birmo's life might be like. Oh, we don't have a gold plated hovercraft in a silo below the pool, but we do have a hot tub.

Er, no ninja bunnies either. Trinity said, "No ninja bunnies unless I get some ninja Chipendales."

Fair enough.

That said, we've been sleeping pretty good in spite of the need to wake up early for our respective morning classes. It is an hour long drive from Sunset in Odessa to Kansas City proper. Still, we don't have noisy neighbors or rattling trains to keep us up all night.

If I ever do get that novel contract and a tenured position, I think my first purchase is a little place in the country of my own. Yes sir.

Spring Break Night of Mayhem at the Pod

Well, it won't really be a night of mayhem. How can you top the doings of Birmo and Flinthart in the Tas Babes Fisaco? I just don't see that happening, but we are anticipating a decent sized crowd of fifteen to twenty guests. I suppose there would be more if Richard Branson had Spaceship Three up and running with a special stop in Kansas City. That said, twenty plus is probably all we can handle space wise.

In fact, we are starting to think that maybe a larger place is needed for our parties.

Trinity will be doing up a nice beef brisket, potato salad and green bean casserole. I'm not sure what I am making yet aside from a meat and cheese plate. I'll have to ponder the matter some. I think cooking up a pot of chili is probably out.

When it is all said and done, a few of us will retire to Sunset for a bit of late night chat, maybe a few games, beverages and that sort of thing.

And as is tradition, I do believe I am responsible for breakfast on Sundays. So I'll be cooking up for our friends, who plan on getting married in May. If the money situation works out right (it probably won't, but you never know) we hope to be there with them in Florida when the ball and chains are attached.

After this weekend, I'll have to knuckle down and get some work done.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Ups and Downs on the Teaching Front

2010-03-04T17:12:00.000-08:00

Lately life on the Teaching Front has been frustrating for yours truly. There has been a severe spike in failure rates in my classes. I'm used to a very slow, steady decline over the last three years which I ascribe to a number of different things: poor quality of public education, poor study skills, so forth.

This spike, on the other hand, is a bit distressing. Oh, I won't lose my job over something like this. If anything, my superiors will see it as a sign that I am running a tight ship. That said, I'm not happy about the poor performance. I know I'm not supposed to take it personally, but I do. I see some of these poor grades as a personal failure, mainly the students who I see putting forth exceptional amounts of effort in the hopes of improving their situation.

I've been talking to some of these students over the last few days. Federal law prevents me from discussing these contacts in detail and even if it didn't, I'd be reluctant to provide any specific details. That said, the standard issue comments are pretty much as follows:

1. I don't like history.
2. I don't like the wars.
3. My high school history teacher didn't push me very hard.
4. I just need this credit for X, Y, or Z.

The later is usually just a plea to grade a student based upon effort expended alone. I, personally, might be inclined to bend to this but my superiors won't stand for it.

The second one, I don't like the wars, is a bit harder to get a grip on. Having been to one, I have to say that I don't like wars per se either. Sure, I've argued in favor of wars, and I've argued against wars. I also know the cost of these damned things. That said, the thing that many students do not seem to understand is that "like" or "understand" does not mean "condone" or "agree."

Other problems include things I witnessed when I was in High School years ago (which is why I do not have much patience for the No Child Left Behind Catch All "It is All Bush's fault" argument). This includes showing videos instead of teaching (videos have to be used carefully not just tossed in as babysitting tools) and busy work in the form of simplistic dittos for turn in.

Thing is, I'm not just trying to teach these students history. Yes, that is my primary mission, but I have some secondary objectives.

1. Creating a proactive student. I'm trying to teach students to be proactive, come talk to me, ask me questions, follow up on their grades and the like. So many of them simply want to sit there and take no action at all.

2. Model efficient note taking skills. I've lost track of the number of students who seem to think it is vital, absolutely imperative, that they write down EVERY FUCKING WORD I say. I simply do not understand this beyond the fact that it is a case of anxiety coupled with perfectionism. Part of why I write on the board while refusing to use powerpoint is so I can force these students to take short hand notes. I move at my pace and they must keep up.

3. Improve their writing skills. I give out essay questions designed to make them think about their writing. So many of them just vomit something onto the page and assume that if they put enough lead/ink onto the page, something will stick.

So it has been pretty frustrating lately because what I hear, more often than not is, "I hate history," followed by, "You move too fast," coupled with, "I just need this class so I can graduate."

That is before you get to these favorite things which they are no longer allowed to ask.

1. Will this be on the test?
2. Should I write this down?
3. Did I miss anything important?

Having said all of that, it wasn't all bad this week. I ran into one of my former students who lamented that they missed the multiple choice portion of my exams. Apparently they are thick in the middle of a couple of writing intensive courses.

I asked, "Did my essay questions help prep you for those classes?"

The student replied that they did, indeed, help a great deal.

So some of my students get it.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering the Nature of World Building.

2010-03-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have a couple of full time peers who will be setting up a learning community based class this Fall which will feature as part of the workload, the task of creating a fictional world. Ever so often one of the peers will talk with me about the task, which prompted me to give some thought to how I do it for my stories.

In the past, I have fiddled with bibles that contained information about the world I had constructed. Eventually I lost track of them, lost interest in them, stopped using them. Over the weekend I tried to do some work on a bible for Velaysia and it wasn't long before I stopped and deleted the file.

Why? Shouldn't I have a wikipedia like article which breaks down every detail of the world that Kyle Hackshaw or Delauchen Severis lives in? All I'd have to do is go look and see if something is possible or not, then do it.

The worlds, be it the nation-state of Velaysia, or Circeville, Missouri, are both well established in my head. I have a pretty good idea of what is there, what isn't, how it is set up, and what the rules are. However, I think I like the flexibility of working without a bible. Part of the writing process, for me at least, is discovering the characters and their reaction to their world.

In other words, I prefer to explore the world as I create it.

I think another reason why story bibles do not work for me is that during my early writing years I tried to use books like the Starfleet Technical Manual to come up with story ideas. At the end of the day, the manual contained neat toys, tools and items but it didn't contain characters dealing with problems, which is what any given piece of literature is about. Even if it is an ambigious, experimental piece of literature, there is usually a problem and one that is not always resolved.

That said, if one is going to build a planet, I think the only piece of advice I can give is one I first read from Charles Stross. Basically his gripe is that planets in science fiction feature one homegenous group. Think of the planet of the United States as opposed to the planet Earth for an example. Or planet Japan for another. Planets are awfully big in any case, just consider that we have more than 180 nation-states on our planet alone.

Otherwise, I think it is best to build them as you go. This is what I did for both of my stories. This is how I build my characters. And it is the method which seems to work best for me.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pay Day Activities: March 2010

2010-02-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

Easy come, easy go, they say. The Woman I Love and I have been out taking care of various errands on the way to Sunset Acres Bed and Breakfast. We stopped at Shoe Carnival at the Odessa outlet mall to pick up a new pair of shoes a piece. My three year old Sketchers have had it and probably should have been replaced a year ago. We managed to get a pretty good deal.

The Outlet Mall is a victim of the economic decline. The spike in gas prices to nearly four dollars a gallon a few years back pushed most of the tenants out. Those that remained had to face the Great Recession of the last year or so (the same recession that killed my first novel effort) and they are slowly fading out. Still, there is Patricia's Grocery Store, which is where we had lunch today.

In between cleaning the cars, getting oil changed, fueling vehicles, paying bills and the like, we've been pretty busy. Here is what has been afoot.

Saturday Activities

I had a full day yesterday starting at 0400 hours with supply purchases and what not. The first formal event of the day was adjunct academy, a training event where you can pick up an extra fifty bucks. I've attended the last few sessions and I've found them pretty handy.

Yesterday's session? Was it handy? Useful?

No. No it wasn't. In fact, it is the first session I have attended where I felt like my time was wasted. I really can't elaborate, unfortunately. I probably said too much in the feedback form.

The other event was a public speaking opportunity with a fellow full time teaching peer concerning the Democratization of the Technology. I was there mainly in a support mode while my peer did most of the talking, but I was able to ask questions, prompt some clarification and add some points of my own. In fact, it was very much like a public speaking version of the world I do for the Client. We will probably do more of this sort of thing in the future.

So, Saturday afternoon was productive, Saturday morning, not so much.

Joint Writing Project - 02

My partner sent back some their work on JWP-02. I like what I see. At some point later I'll do a bit of work on it myself. I believe our combined word count is now 1000 or so.

Other Fronts

Well, we're a week away from my Spring Break and that means we're one week away from the Big Night of Mayhem at the Pod. We've been out brisket shopping, trying to find just the right cut of meat at the right price. Aside from that, we've been taking it easy.

Tomorrow in my American History 121 class we'll roll into the Spanish American War. In my American History 120s we'll fight the Revolutionary War.

And so it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

"Why won't my book work?"

2010-02-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

I became an infantryman to get away from this problem.

The Writing Front

Hell for a prose fiction writer, I think, is being in a creative writing group where everyone else seems to be interested in writing poetry.

For those wondering about the E-Light Reader Corps, I think I've got the right number of people for now. Any additional volunteers can contact me if they like.

First up on the roster for review will be the first draft of A Knitter's Day. This is rough and needs a lot of work. Feel free to boil my baby in a stewpot and tell me how it tastes. I'll send these out in the next week.

Not much else doing at the moment but that may change shortly.

A Ten Day Stay at Sunset Acres Bed and Breakfast

Trinity and I will be staying at Sunset Acres in Odessa for ten days starting this Saturday and concluding March 9th. I get a bit lucky because this stay stretches over part of my spring break. We'll be posting from there I'm sure. We almost thought to move the Night of Mayhem Spring Break Party there but decided against it. We've already set everything up to hold it at the Pod.

I'm hoping that a few days at Sunset will enable me to get a few things done writing wise. In the meantime, of course, I'm looking forward to some romantic quality time with the Woman I Love.

The Teaching Front

We moved into the American Revolution today. I'm a bit behind my peers so I'll be picking up the speed in order to catch up.

And a word of advice.

You probably shouldn't tell your instructor that you had a few too many the night before or show that you are in obvious pain. Especially since the instructor in this instance tends to be very loud, mouthy and likes to pound the board with his fist for emphasis.

I actually felt bad for the student.

Well, sorta.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

I want that one percent.

2010-02-23T17:21:00.000-08:00

The Teaching Front

I handed tests back today.

You know, a forty to fifty percent failure rate is not uncommon in the classes at the 100 level. If you are doing your job that is, which is setting up an exam that pushes them to do more than merely regurge some memorized data points. In fact, if I get a forty to fifty percent failure rate, I'm seen as doing my job. Further, given that the four year schools will demand a great deal out of our students, I feel it is my job as an instructor to get them ready.

I can identify pretty handily what is causing most of the failures. They aren't paying attention, aren't taking notes, staring off into who knows where, texting (I'd have a jammer in my room if I thought I could get away with it) and so forth. In those cases, I simply write them off. They did it to themselves.

What bothers me are the two to three percent who are trying. They take notes, they show up, they ask questions, they prep note cards, in some cases they do the outlines. They do everything I advise them to do and yet at the end of the day, the results still come up short. Of course, I have no way of knowing if they are using those study tools when I am not around but I assume that they are expending the effort.

In these cases I'm advised that some students simply aren't capable of thinking historically. They just don't get it, or don't want to get it. I shouldn't let it bother me.

Yet it does because the same things were said about me. That is what was usually said when I fought with algebra and geometry. He just isn't going to get it. Why waste the time?

The ones who don't try, I can't do anything about them. But what about the ones who are trying? How do I reach them? How do I get them to think historically? Is it an attitude or is it a way of perceiving the world? History seems like so much mush to them and worse, they honestly think it is about memorizing dates and events.

I try to tell them that it is about motivations, causes and consequences. Why did Columbus sail the ocean blue? What were the consequences of his discovery of the New World? How did that change history? In a 300 level class you'd probably debate the different interpretations of how that event changed history (invasion or discovery, for instance).

Sometimes I give them creative writing tools to help them study. Clustering is one tool I use pretty frequently and it has some limited effect. They take a name or a term, write it on a sheet of paper, draw a circle around it and start matching like terms to that first one. That helps some of them, but there are others who slip between the cracks.

I want that one percent who tries but has trouble to pass. I want them to pass because they earned it not because I inflated their grade.

The big question is wondering how I'm going to pull that off.

Fitness

I got thirty minutes in on the elliptical today. Tomorrow is another weight day.

Not much else to report.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Writing Front: Reborn for Glory

2010-02-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Reborn for Glory
WC: 1479

Well, the good news is that I figured out what this story is about. I'm pretty happy with that, though I wonder if it doesn't use a well worn cliche. We'll see. In any case, I got some writing done.

I don't know if this story will need 5,000 words to tell it. I think I can get the story cleared off the decks in less than 3000.

The E-Light Reader Corps

I'm giving some thought to reforming the E-Light Reader Corps. This was a group of people who helped out with various stories by reading them and telling me what worked, what didn't. I've already got one person on board for this (I think).

In any case, I'm considering expanding this group. I want more than just fellow writers. I'd like readers/fans to participate. I also want to keep the numbers small, maybe no more than six people at first.

Interested parties can e-mail me at tearingdowntuesday(at no spam)yahooDOTcoDOTuk or leave a comment here.

If you are a fellow writer I will try my best to give a crit for every crit I get. I've been a lot better about this lately.

The Teaching Front

My evening class has their test tonight. I think I'll test them, show a bit of John Adams and let them go. Next week we'll start on the Revolution. Hopefully they'll do better than my morning students. While they are testing, I'll move forward with grading.

One new rule I imposed on myself is that I no longer take the tests home with me. I grade them there on campus or while I am giving another test. Grading is such a frustrating experience because frankly, these students should be doing better than they are. And every student I have met who moves onto the four year schools constantly report the same thing.

"It is awfully fucking hard here at the four year level."

I figure the harder I can make my class, the better I can prepare those who are moving on and perhaps convince others that it won't be a cake walk. Weeding them out is not my personal goal per se, I don't see myself as a gatekeeper unlike some in the field, but if I can show them that it isn't a joke and they move onto something else, then that can't hurt.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Fitness Entry: Monday, 02-22-2010

2010-02-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

Arrival at Gym: 1000 hours
Departure: 1130 hours
Weigh in at Start: 206 pounds
Weigh in at End: 203 pounds

Warm Up:

Stretching followed by 5 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

Weights:

Benchpress: 3 x 6 at max, 175 pounds
Back Press: 3 x 6 at max, 80 pounds
Barbell Curl: 3 x 6 at max, 80 pounds
Seated Leg Press: 3 x 6 at max, 340 pounds

I learned I was doing back presses, where I stand with a barbell and press it behind my head. This works the triceps as well as the shoulders. I should be using a Smith machine for this task and the true military press (in front of your head). I'll adjust accordingly.

Cardio:

Elliptical Trainer: 20 minutes

Swimming:

150 meters.

Instead of doing the usual workout, I decided to see how far I could swim without a rest. It turns out I can swim further than I thought. I got to 100 meters before I had to stop. I did another 50 after a break before deciding that was enough for today. I've got two problems. The first is that my breathing form gets erratic when I get tired. The other is that I really use a lot of energy on those flips/turns. That is what is wearing me out. The actual swimming doesn't wear me out as much.

So I think I'll revise my workout plan for swimming. Instead of 50 meters per set, I'll do 100 meters per set and go for a total goal of 500 meters per swim session.

Consumption Log

Not so good here.

Breakfast:

-Two Waffles plus two brownies.
-Tea

Lunch:

-Pot Roast and Sweet Peas

Snack:

-Two brownies plus three chocolate chip cookies.

It is a wonder that I am not heavier than I am. One thing I have noticed is that my workout and fitness plans go to crap when a test for my teaching classes comes up. I'll have to watch for that on the next cycle.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Monday Morning Thirty Minute Entry.

2010-02-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

Because I know I won't get anything done until I sit down in front of the idiot box, I make it a point to mark off 0900 to 0930 for the internet. This gives me time to read anything important, deal with e-mails, punch in a blog entry, etc.

Of course, the problem is that it gives me an opportunity to get into mischief and trouble. It is easy for thirty minutes to become an hour. It is easier, the longer I am on the web, to find some flamewar to get into. I've been better about avoiding these mainly due to obligations, other goals and probably just getting older.

Still, it seems I read somewhere once that some bad habits are like that comfortable jacket, that worn shirt, the broken in pair of gloves. You put it on and it feels like a second skin.

I got a dose of that this weekend when I dropped into Asimov's Forum. Usually it is a quick scan, see what it is going on, back out. Nominally I am banned there but if I want to post, I can find a way to do so without much effort.

The problem, of course, is that the posts, when I do make them, all have the same general objectives. Going over The Grudge and hashing over a lot of other crap.

I'm not a forgive and forget kind of guy. I will not forgive what happened concerning Maternal Soldier. I won't forgive much else that happened there either.

But one does have to ask themselves if this is really the best way to spend one's time. I told a friend of mine the other day that in the worst days of 2007 and 2008, the keyboard bounced on the desk with the same rhythm as an M-60 on automatic.

And it isn't like the various endeavors haven't moved forward either. I'm in my third year of teaching history, something I never thought I'd get to do. What I have learned about the job is that I have a lot more to learn. I have two story publications, which is two more than most of my detractors thought I'd ever get. I continue to work for Birmo as the research assistant, sounding board, tactican, and so forth. My personal life is well enough and fiscally, though I am not in great shape, I'm in better shape than many. If I can get lifeguard certified this summer then I suspect I'll be okay.

Is the Crusade really worth it? It isn't like this is the only Grudge I have. It isn't like this is the only person on my shit list. I've got maybe five others who are pretty high up there and when I did the inventory, the rest weren't even in science fiction, they were in education.

So I'll simply sit back and watch. Chances are I'll never get a real opportunity to get any payback. But I'll be watching for it.

In the meantime, I do have other things to do.

The Monday Fitness Plan

I'll probably get to the gym around 1000 hours today. Here is today's projected workout plan.

Weights:

Benchpress: 3 x 6 at max, probably 175 pounds
Military Press: 3 x 6 at max, probably 80 pounds
Barbell Curl: 3 x 6 at max, probably 80 pounds
Latflex: 3 x 6 at max, probably 140 pounds
Seated Leg Press: 3 x 6 at max, probably 300 pounds

Cardio:

Elliptical Trainer: 20 minutes

Swimming:

9 x 50 for 450 meters

I should be done around noon. I'll boost for home to get some grading and dinner in before tonight's exam.

Joint Writing Project - 02

I wrote 600 words over the weekend and I sent off what I have to the Partner. We'll see what they think. I still need to see about some plot work and I need to do some detail research on geography.

A Knitter's Day

I've gotten a couple of crits of this story over the last few days, though none from Terri's class as of yet. I also reviewed the project myself.

So far, it seems to be pretty solid. I think some detail work is in order and perhaps some tweaking of the character relationships. Otherwise, I think this project might be ready for market in a month or so.

The Teaching Front

Even though the weather is awful and the roads are treacherous, we had school today. I got them started on American Imperialism today.

And since it is 0923 hours, I think it is time to copy this in triplicate and get on with other things.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Strike against Historical Ignorance. A Review of The Lucky Strike by Kim Stanley Robinson

2010-02-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

I almost never do this. I dislike using my blog to write a negative review of a piece of science fiction. However, I have my exceptions.

One of them is Kim Stanley Robinson. Over at Cory Doctorow's blog there is a post referencing a chapbook of The Lucky Strike which was recently released. I left a long, by the seat of my pants post at Cory's place and at SFSignal. It is being held for moderation at Cory's blog (which I nominally assume means it will be deleted these days but I don't know for certain). I cross posted it at SFSignal and now I'm posting it here. It probably needs editing, polish and footnotes crosswired seven ways from Sunday, but this is a telephone booth I've been in many times.

So here it is. Enjoy.

A Strike against Historical Ignorance. A Review of The Lucky Strike by Kim Stanley Robinson
By Steven Francis Murphy

This is a deeply flawed story from a historical perspective.

By the numbers.

First, we can examine Japanese reaction to the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima in the original timeline. More or less, the reaction was this.

"They are killing more of us with firebombing than they are with this one superweapon. And the Americans surely only have one of these. We should continue to resist."

The quote is mine but the attitude can be found in Edwin P. Hoyt's book Japan's War, the Great Pacific Conflict. You can also find that sentiment, expressed by the Japanese militarists of the Supreme War Council, recounted in John Skate's work, The Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb.

If dropping the weapon a city, killing 60 to 80 thousand outright didn't move the Japanese Government (who correctly pointed out that they had lost 200,000 plus in the Tokyo Firebombings alone) then I sorely doubt that dropping the bomb in the water would have the effect predicted by this story.

That, is the first problem with this story. It denies evidence from the original timeline from the point of view of the very enemy it is purporting to spare.

Second, it is very unlikely that aircrews would be rotated to the Pacific for this mission or any other mission from Europe.

Third, the Army Air Force would have had plenty of time to get into the heads of these people. I sorely doubt Captain January would have been in a position to misuse the weapon.

Of course, KSR has a political message he wants to push with this novel, mainly that the bomb was wrong. He also pushes this farcical notion that FDR would not have used the weapon (after authorizing the project, I find that laughable).

The only way this story works is if the reader is completely ignorant of what the Japanese were thinking at the end of the war. It also complete ignores their continued willingness to resist even though they knew, militarily, the war was lost.

Finally, the story does not address alternatives other than a demonstration. Setting aside the two projected invasions, Olympic and Coronet, there were other plans.

One was a total naval blockade advocated by Admiral Kelso, which would have starved millions of Japanese civilians to death.

A second was continued firebombing without a ground invasion. This would have killed far more than simply using nuclear weapons.

A third option was to combine blockade and firebombing.

Even the use of the second weapon on Japan did not immediately produce an end to the war. It took direct intervention from the Emperor to push the council to accept unconditional surrender. Even then there was an attempted coup de tat by hardliners at the last minute.

Finally, the depictions of the other characters in the story, nominally depicted as gung-ho rednecks bent on killing, does not reflect the overall war weariness extant at that time.

In terms of pure literature, it is well written.

In terms of historical accuracy, it is a sorely flawed work in desperate need of consideration against the background of evidence and research on this period.

Of course, KSR's main point is to peddle a polemic, not educate. So long as readers remain ignorant of the rest of the original historical narrative, he will probably continue to achieve his goal.

This story does not have my recommendation unless the reader has first read these books.

Japan's War, The Great Pacific Conflict by Edwin P. Hoyt
The Invasion of Japan, Alternative to the Bomb by John Skates

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

I don't want to watch.

2010-02-18T16:21:00.000-08:00

Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy BSG-71
Location: Situation Room
Mission One: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Mission Two: General Updates

The Teaching Front

First exams went out today and came back. Given that students are probably reading this blog, I can't really get into them.

Other than to say this.

I am very disappointed.

Essay performance was abysmal. Since I still have classes which are slated to take exams, I will hold off on the After Action until all exams have been sent out.

Part of the problem seems pretty clear to me. They aren't taking notes, they aren't there, they are texting and they aren't paying attention.

Joint Writing Project Number - 02
Research Project Number - 06

I've got a possible short story project I am working with a peer who will remain, unless they chose to do other wise, nameless. It is a story I have been itching to write for quite some time but I don't have the cultural knowledge to write it.

It features a research element and a writing element, thus the dual designation.

RPN - 06 is separate from the currently ongoing RPN - 05.

Other Fronts

Aside from the exams, it was not a bad day. The weather was warm, the physical training session good, and I had a first class dinner with the Woman I Love at the Pod.

What more could one ask for?

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Scribblin' on a rare day off plus some other ponderings.

2010-02-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

I've got the day off, probably the last true day off I will have for at least a week given that I will soon have nearly 160 exams to grade. The reason I have the day off is due to in service for the full timers. Every account that I have heard of this event gives me cause to believe that for once, I am getting the better end of the deal.

Since I have the time, best make use of it.

The Writing Front

I finished the first draft of A Knitter's Day this morning. She has a word count of roughly 4,440 or so. It is very rough and in need of polishing. Still, it feels good to have an actual, finished, first draft. The bones of the story are there. Now it just needs revision and polishing.

Here is the irony. I used to hate this part of the process. I still get frustrated with it but over the last decade I have grown to see the value of it. That would give a time traveling Murphy from 2001 absolute fits to hear. Of course, I'd probably point out to him that the reason he left grad school with a B average (notwithstanding the C) is due to the fact that he felt that a first draft was a finished draft.

Yeah, he wouldn't like that either.

The final word count goal is 5,000 words. I've got a target market in mind and my hope is to have this one downrange by the end of May.

In the meantime, I've got a volunteer reading over it in return for a crit from yours truly (which I need to get to right now). Terri's Creative Writing class will get a look at it pretty soon as well. Technical issues continue to plague efforts to post files in that class.

On the other hand, I'm two pages away from my total page count requirement for her class. I plan on going well over the minimum 30 pages of raw copy. Maybe I should go for 60 or 90? Who knows?

And since I'm on that topic, the other part of the class is giving crits out to the other students. So far all we've got up is a bit of poetry. I will get to that soon but I was kind of hoping for some meaty prose to crit.

The next project up will probably be Reborn for Glory. I'm still thinking on that one. As for A Bicycle for Kyle, I need to read over it again before I finish it. There are still narrative gaps which need to be filled. In addition to the gaps, I need to do some research. I have a feeling that A Bicycle for Kyle will not be a quick project.

The Teaching Front

Exams start tomorrow. I gave pop quizes which are actually harder than the test (yes, I'm sick like that). However, it did prompt students to say, over and over again, "I'd better go study."

Why don't you do that?

Maybe I'll see some positive results this time around.

Other Fronts

I'll get my undergrad transcripts sent to UMKC this week. I can't stand to go to Park's home campus if I can help it so I'll do it online. In the meantime I need to apply for a Masters Program. I think a Masters in Political Science would work for my purposes. I've been meaning to get a second masters anyway.

The financial aid form is filled out and submitted for the next academic year. Given the summer gap I think I'll try and get a late form in for the summer (which falls under the 2009-2010 academic year). If I can pull that off, I may simply go to grad school in the summer.

My goals are pretty simple on the academic front.

1. Get my GPA up to 3.5 plus.
2. Get 12 to 18 hours of American History at the Graduate Level in order to seal up a potential hole in my academic flanks.
3. Begin taking Political Science at the Graduate Level in prep for a potential Interdisciplinary PhD program.
4. See about journal publications.

To be honest, I'd prefer to go to KU or MU for a PhD but I just don't see that in the cards. The only way I might be able to pull something like that off is if I got a novel contract similar to the one Al Reynolds pulled down this last year. That said, if I had a contract like that, then that begs the question.

Why get a PhD? And sometimes I wonder about that anyway. Why get a PhD? Sometimes it ranks right up there with "Why get a Hummer?" or "Why get a private jet?"

So it goes.

Time for lunch.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

There has to be a better way to . . .

2010-02-15T19:40:00.000-08:00

The Teaching Front

I just got through the last series of lectures for the Pre-Revolutionary Era of American History. It is a period of history jammed full of various acts of British Parliament designed to get revenue from the Colonies to pay for the newly expanded Empire. It is important to discuss because it gets into issues of representation, civil liberties, abuse of government power and the methods used to counter that abuse.

And it bores the piss out of most students, even the hardcore history students.

I can jazz up a number of different topics but this one seems to escape my magic touch. Part of the problem is that elements of this narrative have been drilled into their skulls since grade school. Well, those that were paying attention that is. Another part of the problem is that it is policy wonk stuff which leaves most folks cold. A third problem is that it is just a bit too abstract for most students, who see it as ancient history. You can try tying it to Michael Moore, the Patriot Act, put a feather in it and call it macaroni but the result is still the same.

Glazed eyes, blank faces, yawns and expressions of "What the Fuck?"

It could be possible that I am not going deep enough into the material. This might be one of those places where I should plunge into political philosophy and theory. I could do that but my experiences with that have been mixed. Depth in a class often leaves them cold.

I could summarize more, using the Declaration of Independence as a guide. I could just go by the numbers and tie various elements of the document to events in history. Teach the class as an exercise in literary criticism and historical analysis. Require them to read the chapter, then the document, and have something for discussion.

Of course there is always the old stand by, go talk about Social History (just hand me the ballpeen hammer now please).

Factually there is nothing really wrong with the lecture. But it is a lecture in need of tweaking and reworking. The facts do me no good if I can't get anyone to dial into the lecture.

So color me frustrated.

The first exams are up this week. I had some sporadic students drop by with test prep outlines, some of them not bad. We had a pop quiz in my American History 121 class partly to rattle their cages a bit and get them to wake up. Most other instructors wouldn't bother with something like that. Or they'd do a traditional review, which I'm opposed to doing on the principle that this is not high school, no matter how much it might look, taste, smell and feel like High School.

We'll clear those exams and see how they do. Given that I almost certainly have current and former students reading this blog, I'd probably better keep my thoughts on how the performance will go to myself.

I should talk about that. I do not advertise my blog in the class, or my facebook, or anything else. They are told that I am a published writer, partly as a prod to get them to understand that I will demand a great deal out of their writing ability. They are not told, unless they ask, what I write, where to get it, or who I work for per se. Sometimes in passing I'll discuss Birmo mainly as a contrast between real time commo and the tyranny of distance extant in periods prior to the late 20th Century.

That said, they have access to Google. If they punch my name into it or anything else, they'll find this blog before they find anything else.

So I have to act with a notch of caution, and more than a little bit of respect for the notion that what I write here might influence them in the classroom.

Other Fronts

Not much to report. I finally got the Blackboard Attachments problem sorted out by NOT following the directions provided by Blackboard. I should have remembered from the Army that when in doubt, throw the manual out of the rig. Since there is no computer server I can drop on the concrete (U.S. Army Radio Repair Method Number One) throwing the instructions out was the next best thing.

I am apparently in my second year of eligibility for the John W. Campbell Award for New Writer. Apparently you have to let the people who run the award know you are eligible. So I did, not expecting much out of that. I am eligible for The Limb Knitter, which appeared in Apex back in September 2008.

Granted, at the Writertopia site it says, "The Lamb Knitter." I could write a parody based on that title with a lot of sick jokes in it but I already have three stories to work on. At some point I'll edit the profile and make the changes.

Apparently if you are going to Aussiecon, you can vote for who should win the award. I can't go, the Viper is still in the shop. Apparently it won't run without tylium. I don't know if it is appropriate to prostitute myself out for votes or not. I suspect it probably isn't.

Getting published was reward enough anyway.

Speaking of TLK, the Descended from Darkness anthology which contains TLK may appear as an iPhone app here before too long. When that announcement is made, if it is made, I'll be sure to mention it here.

And since I'm feeling a bit rundown, here is some music.

And here is some disgustingly cheerful music which Jetse de Vries should use as the theme song for the Shine Anthology. Which is my way of saying I like this song anyway.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering Dr. Bishop and Revenge.

2010-02-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

Last week at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a Biology Professor walked into a faculty meeting and shot six people. Three dead, three wounded. Dr. Amy Bishop was taken into custody and chances are, she'll stand trial for what she did.

The reason?

She got denied tenure.

Folks, the academic job market is a first class motherfucker. I waited six years to get a job as an adjunct and there is no guarantee that I will ever get a decent shot at a full time tenure track job. Even if I get that shot I will have a probationary period to get through, at the end of which I could find myself without a job.

I can understand getting angry. I've been fucked over before. Two incidents which stand out in my mind are the Asimov's/Maternal Soldier fucking over, which makes me angry everytime I think about it. The other incident is the Prof during my last semester of grad school who fucked me with a C. Subjective grading combined with sexist, vindictive behavior (I should have sued, it was that bad) was how I got the C.

The first offence put my writing career behind by three years. I would not see print as a pro until 2007. The second makes it problematic to get into a Doctoral Program until I get my GPA up above 3.5.

Another incident might be the screwball interpretation of a college policy which barred me from teaching for six years. I know the people involved in that situation.

And yet not once did I think, "I'll go and blow their brains out." Angry? Yes. Wronged? Definitely. Would like to get some measure of payback out of it? Hell, yeah.

But popping them like Dr. Bishop did? Not an option.

Why? Do I have some moral issue with revenge? Not per se. I definitely enjoy it whenever someone who screwed me over gets their comeuppance. I've been known to get a favorite adult beverage and savor that treat very slowly while I reflect upon the comeuppance.

No, the real reasons are pretty simple.

First, if I shoot or otherwise physically harm them, then I have made them a martyr. No one will care about the wrong they committed, my act will supercede that in any consideration of the narrative.

Second, it won't change anything.

Third, to be honest, once you get out of Cloud Cuckooland on the revenge fantasy front, there is the gutless quality of shooting someone who is essentially defenseless.

And to add one more reason, it would reflect badly on my family.

Dr. Bishop, however, might have done this before. She "accidentally" shot her brother in the face with a shotgun years back. A disturbed, angry person.

Maybe there is something we don't know. Maybe the student evals figured more deeply into her tenure process than she liked. Maybe she was unpopular with the students. There is no way of knowing at the present.

I suspect probably the best thing to do is to pity her.

We all get fucked over at some point or another. A desire for revenge is natural enough. Shooting someone in order to get it, on the other hand, is not the right call.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Every Day Should Be Valentine's Day.

2010-02-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

Every day should be Valentine's Day.

Every day should be a day filled with kisses.

Every night should be filled with passionate embraces.

Every day should feature a pancake breakfast for two.

Every night should dazzle with a candlelit dinner for two.

Every day should come with a card reaffirming the love you share.

Every night should come with a gaze deep into the eyes of your lover.

Every day should start with a smile and a wake up kiss.

Every night should end with the same.

Every day should be Valentine's Day.

To the Woman I Love, who puts up with my foul moods, my rants and my blue collar knuckledragging, Happy Valentine's Day.

Steven Francis Murphy

Something I can rant about, technology.

2010-02-13T14:02:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, more than twenty years ago, I viewed technology as the cure to all that ails humanity. A real technophilac I was. So when the Army offered me a job in the Signal Corps, showed me a laserdisc video of satellite dishes and such, I signed on thinking, "Science fiction technology today."

I should have known better. It was twenty to thirty year old crap with a spotty track record of reliability. I spent a lot of my time trying to make it work and sometimes, I wondered if maybe I needed to sacrifice a chicken or throw holy oil on the junk to make it work.

I should have known better because my reaction to fixing things which do not work is almost always to get completely and totally pissed off. This does not mean I CAN'T fix something. I do actually possess my father's knack for figuring out how things work. Given enough time, parts, and info, I can probably get a Mickey Mouse piece of shit to work. At least for a little bit.

The difference is that my father loved doing that.

I fucking hate it. I hate it with the same passion that I hate puzzles and trying to figure out the veiled meanings in the things people do and say.

My feeling about technology is pretty simple.

Technology should be idiot proof. It should do what I tell it to do exactly when I tell it to do it without a lot of fuck knuckling around, tweaking, fixing, or changing things around. In fact, it should be EXACTLY like an AK-47. Simple, robust, reliable.

If Ahmed the Taliban pulls the trigger on his AK, it goes bang everytime. The only time it won't go bang is when he runs out of ammo.

If I pull the trigger on an M-16, it DOES NOT go bang everytime. Sometimes I forgot to get a microscopic little bit of carbon out of the bolt carrier. Sometimes it gets just a grain of sand in it and jams up that way. Maybe I put too much lube on it, or not enough or maybe it got wet or maybe it just didn't feel like going off that day or maybe the humidity was fucking with it, or the Alien Space Bats, or Sunspots or some other bullshit because the M-16 always was, always has been, always WILL BE, a Mickey Mouse Piece of Shit.

Which is why I asked for the undermounted M-203. It would, if needs must, work everytime.

Another case in point? WordPerfect. I use it because to me, it is the AK-47 of word processors. I have used it for years. It does what I tell it to do when I tell it to do it everytime. It does not go and change shit behind my back (no, Bill Gates' fucking abortions do that). It does not change the settings back to some sort of default mode everytime I turn it off. It doesn't screw with the font, tell me how to write my document or autoformat it.

It assumes that I took a typing class and can make those command decisions myself.

Not so with Bill Gates' latest fucking abortion, MS Office 2007, particularly Word 2007. Which does do all of the irritating things I have outlined above.

I can hear it now.

"Oh, but Murph? Murph? You can fix all of those problems by . . . "

Fix? Fix? Why is it my fucking job to fix the fucking thing when I had a program that works exactly the way I wanted it to work from the very fucking beginning? I'm not a computer IT puke, I'm a soldier, a writer, a historian. It isn't MY JOB TO FIX IT!

I don't sit around at home masturbating to IT manuals fantasizing about various problems I could fix when my computer goes tango uniform. And don't get me started on those Apple users who are down on Bill Gates and then respond, "Oh, I use Word for Mac."

What

The

Fuck?

So, what is the source of this rant? Why I'm I venting my spleen?

Well, it turns out that my files are not attached at the Blackboard site used by the Creative Writing Class.

This isn't Terri's fault. Not by my estimate it isn't. But when you hit the attach button, the fucking file should fucking attach to the system. That is how it works on my e-mail systems. That is how it works when I want to send a picture to someone.

Why, pray tell, does it not work with 100% reliability on Blackboard?

What a Mickey Mouse piece of crap anyway. I have to hit the confirm button TWICE in my other course to submit an answer to a quiz. It is easier to launch a Minuteman III ICBM than it is to get through one of these fucking quizes. The discussion board is a nightmare to navigate and everything seems designed to deter community and interaction rather than facilitate it.

It should be replaced. I do not know who thought this system was a great fucking idea but as a student level consumer of this shit, I am growing more and more convinced that the last place I want to use this piece of fucking shit is at the teaching level.

Christ, next someone will demand that I use PowerPoint. I may as well stand in the classroom and crack myself in the head repeatedly with a ball peen hammer. Everytime you try to advance a slide you can count on hearing this sentence.

"Wait, wait, wait! I'm not done writing it down," and thus you wait while they write down EVERY LAST WORD.

Because if it is on the PowerPoint, it MUST BE IMPORTANT.

Fuck.

Now I feel better.

This might be pretty funny if someone converted it to a Downfall YouTube rant parody.

Respects (sorta),
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

What good is a fucking blog if I can't write what I think in the fucking thing?

2010-02-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

I've got two rants rolling around in my head right now. And in my head they will stay.

Why? Well, discretion is the better part of valor. Or maybe I do not want to work the damage control which will result if I type up these two rants.

It is moments such as this when I wonder, briefly, if perhaps a blog which was not attached to my name would not be a handy thing.

And then I remember my feelings about faceless fucks who troll the internet like America's answer to the Taliban.

So, rather than type up that rant, I'm simply going to keep it locked up in my brain.

Which doesn't make me any happier.

Sometimes though, I think I could change the title of this entry to read, "What good is a writing career if I can't write what I want to write without a brigade of PC Nazis starting a flamewar over the stuff?"

So it goes.

Actual content on Monday perhaps.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering

2010-02-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes these days I write an entry.

Then I read it.

And I remember.

Then I delete it.

For those wondering, it pertained to the American Science Fiction Community. It wasn't relationship related, or teaching related, or anything else other than the American Science Fiction Community.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Prepping for the Semester's First Engagements.

2010-02-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy, BSG-71
Location: Combat Information Center
Mission: Prepping for the Semester's First Engagement

The Teaching Front

Today we covered more of the Pre-Revolutionary Era which runs from 1763 to 1775. It is, to be certain, a hash of mythology, entangled narratives and a lot of confusing policy wonk stuff.

On the upside, most students have had these lines hammered into their heads.

"No Taxation without Representation." That is good. But ask them what that means?

"I don't know."

So you have to explain the British Parliamentary System. You also, while you are at it, probably better get into the English Civil War (briefly, a little dab will do ya). You might want to mention that the mantra, "No taxation without representation" was not an original notion. Parliamentarians argued about that back in the 1600s.

Then after you line all of that out, you have to explain to them that the Colonials do not have representatives in Parliament. If you want to confuse them, tell them it wouldn't have done any good to have them there anyway due to the Tyranny of Distance and the time lag in communications.

Next, you have to hammer home the taxes. You should have spent some time explaining the fact that the colonies were allowed to run their own affairs, more or less, up to the 1750s. They are not happy with meddlers and micromanagers. They definitely are not happy with getting the bill for the French-Indian War or making installment payments for the greatly expanded British Empire.

From there you go from taxes and representation to enforcement. That leads to the Vice Admiralty Courts and British efforts to pull away two basic liberties provided for by the common law.

Right to a jury trial and that one is innocent until proven guilty.

So it goes.

Ideally what should happen, if they have been paying attention (and I'm getting better responsiveness out of some classes, probably because they saw the rant in the previous entry) is that they could use the Declaration of Independence as a study guide.

Right now it feels mushy. Sometimes I think what I should do is throw out the current lecture and build a new one based entirely on the Declaration of Independence. Then I can simply go down the list that Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams hammered out to make their case in 1775. Here is the various tax acts. There is the effort to block the right to assembly. Over here is that bit about the King's agents and so on.

In fact, the longer I think on it, the more I like that idea. Hell, it can't hurt.

Sadly, I won't be able to truly test it out until the next semester.

We are about to hit the start of the Revolutionary War. They'll test next Thursday and then we'll see what we get.

The Fitness Front

Made it to the gym twice this week. If I can get a session in tomorrow and Saturday after class then that will make four.

The Writing Front

I posted elements of my three short story challenge projects at Terri Lowry's Creative Writing class. They are up a bit early and I suspect it will be a bit before they receive any crits. Of course part of the problem is that sometimes you get a crit that isn't very helpful. The other part is that I need to crit the work of other students in order to get some likewise response.

Still, they are up and I am ahead.

The more I think on it, the more I think that the key to greater productivity in yours truly is to write the beginning and the end first. Then figure out how we get to the end of the story. The Middle is where I usually have trouble, get lost, lose interest.

Reading

I'm continuing to read Ronald Takaki's book A Different Mirror. Today I started the chapter covering slavery in American History. Some of this is material I know already. I have to know it if I am going to teach American History 120 effectively since it will lead to the American Civil War. I am not learning anything new per se but I am getting neat little tidbits and details that I greatly enjoy hearing about.

Why wasn't I exposed to this book? Readers know that I am no fan of political correctness run amok (and there has been plenty of that, especially here lately in the SF field). On the other hand, I can't see deleting known history out of the narrative. If nothing else, I want to provide a complete survey, or at least as close as possible in the sixteen weeks I have. My students, all of them, regardless of their ethnicity, gender or orientation, deserve no less.

Instead of this book I was exposed to a lot of bloviation and preaching by my instructors at Park College. Instead of this book I encountered a revisionist book called Arming America, which tried to argue that gun ownership prior to the Civil War was a myth. It was the worst sort of book, pseudohistory with falsified, fictional research serving a political agenda (gun control). It won the Bancroft Award and for a long time was held up as the standard by which other historians should orient their efforts.

Turns out the book is pure bunk. Yet you can still purchase it even though most of the book's assertions have been shown to be false.

Then there is Joseph Ellis and his work. I have trouble taking the man seriously because he lied about his military service. If he lied about that then how I can take his scholarship seriously? He especially caters to the Jefferson/Hemmings narrative which many simply accept at face value.

Myself? I'm skeptical but mainly because there seems to be some room for debate on the matter. I am not skeptical because I'm deeply wedded to the notion of protecting Thomas Jefferson. To me he is just a human being, a smart one, conflicted, and not someone who is above scrutiny.

I wonder, frankly, if I wouldn't have turned out differently in terms of intellectual and historical development if I had encountered this book sooner.

Full report when I get done with it.

Other Fronts

Completed my Federal Aid Form today. It seems to think that my parents will contribute $80K a year to my education. I nearly fell out of the chair laughing about that. Yes, my parents help a great deal, but they do not have that kind of money. Not even now.

So I suspect I should have filled out that section on the parents after all. I'll get a chance to change it later.

The objective, right now, is to reenter grad school this Fall. Originally I was thinking about a PhD but it turns out that the C I got fucked with in my last semester at UMKC dropped my GPA just low enough to disqualify my entry into the program.

The gift that keeps on giving. If readers think I am angry at the current editor of Asimov's, then you have no idea how angry I am at the instructor who fucked me with the C (subjective grading standards, no rubric, and I should have appealed and sued). My anger with the editor at Asimov's is a mere spark compared to the nuclear inferno I feel about this C.

Which is fine. I know why I was given the C and this sort of bullshit happens in academia. I was given the C to impair my efforts at getting additional graduate hours or a higher degree. There are ways to outflank that and I'll be making use of it.

Needless to say, at some point, before I depart the planet, I will be getting some measure of revenge (legal revenge).

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Four Weeks, Four Stories started with a pondering about the nature of 0800 students.

2010-02-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front

A final update to the final update on the Swirsky Short Story A Week Challenge. As of today I have started four short stories, thus meeting one part of the challenge of trying to reach a story a week. The bad news is that none of these stories are completed to submission ready standard as of yet. Here is the rundown.

A Bicycle for Kyle
WC: 3,600
Fourth Draft
Presently in Terri's Workshop awaiting critiques

Free Range Humans
WC: 800
First Draft
On Hold

A Knitter's Day
WC: 4,000
First Draft
Part One presently in Terri's Workshop awaiting critiques

Reborn for Glory
WC: 1,000
First Draft
Part One presently in Terri's Workshop awaiting critiques

Three of the four are still works in progress. I think I solve the problem with the Knitter story. Kyle is going to take a bit more pondering. All of the TDT universe stories suffer anytime I try to push back into Kyle Hackshaw's childhood. Writing credible, believeable children is incredibly difficult. Sandra Cisneros has the knack so maybe I should read a bit more of her work and see how she does it.

So, it was a pretty good challenge. And I've got some material I'm pretty happy with.

The Teaching Front

What the hell is wrong with these students? I look out at my 0800 classes and I see crossed arms, heads down, one student actually looking like they were going to read a novel during yesterday's class (no, no, no, no, no, but hell fucking no,they thought better of it at the last minute). They just sit there staring at me while I lecture. I've NEVER seen it this way before and I know they aren't all the type of student who can sit there and just absorb what I am saying. If they were that type of student they would be at Harvard or Oxford.

I gave a lecture on Andrew Carnegie this week. It is a pretty good lecture. The Boss gave it a glowing review when they saw it back in the Fall of 2007. It has been tweaked a bit but it is still the same lecture. I can usually get a rise out of the students, get them to react to the material but not this bunch. Nothing. No pulse, no nothing.

It is the same in the other 0800 class, where we covered the Pre-Revolutionary Era. I have a more active component in that class, but there are still people who are just sitting there waiting for the clock to strike 0915 hours.

There are theories as to what is wrong. The most commonly trotted out theory is the No Child Left Behind program. Too much standardized testing, too much memorization, too much regurge, too much skill and drill.

I do not have a lot of patience for this theory because there were severe problems with the education system before Bush took office. I also lack patience for this theory because it fails to hold public schools accountable. One great failing, as I see it, is this ridiculous requirement that teachers get certified (an expensive, time consuming process which guarantees absolutely nothing). Everyone I have talked to about those education courses all say the same thing.

When you get into the classroom, you have to unlearn all of the bullshit.

My personal theory is that we have given those under the age of 25 an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. They should pass because they try, not because they learned the material. They should get an A because they followed all the rules, not because they can think critically. They should get a passing grade because they showed up everyday.

Or worse, it must be the Instructor's fault. It is the Instructor's fault that I am bored. It is the Instructor's fault that I don't understand. It is the Instructor's fault that I don't give a shit one way or the other. It is the Instructor's fault that I failed because I do not earn grades, I receive them. The Instructor gives grades, he doesn't award them.

It was a little different in my day. The Instructor may be a first class moron and God knows I had those. Anyone who suffered Mister Shomer's Geometry class at North Kansas City High School knows exactly what I am talking about. Monotone, dull, draws the equation on the board and stands back as if to say, "Ta Da!"

And yet no one cared about that. My grade is my responsibility. It is my job to wrench an A or something out of that man, no matter how incompetent and senile he was (of course, unlike me, he was protected by tenure and for all I know, he is probably still down there teaching at this very moment). It was my job to figure him out.

The only theory I can come up with, aside from entitlement as a total lack of ownership, is the sense that no matter how often they have been barked at, or had someone do the Bad Cop thing to them, these students have always been "saved" at the last minute. Saved by extra credit, by bending the rules the Instructor set up, by easing up on the test, by deploying a test that isn't near as hard as it was advertised to be.

That, I think, is the only other thing that makes any sense. Even with former students in my classes (I do get repeat customers because they like me, it does happen, more often than I let on) TELLING THEM what will happen, there still seems to be a general sense of malaise that won't go away.

I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated because there are many who say that these people are idiots and they are simply verifying that by their behavior. I know they are not idiots.

But they are definitely making a serious mistake in reading their Instructor.

So it goes on that.

Other Fronts

Well, I've been slacking on the workout front. That'll change tomorrow and Friday when I pick up my minimum three workout sessions.

Outside of that, not much to report. At least not much to report in public.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Photos: Sunday Chili Lunch at the Pod

2010-02-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

The Table is Set

The Spoon does indeed stand

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Short Story Challenge: Final Update plus a bit about chilli.

2010-02-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front
Short Story Challenge-Final Update

The challenge officially ends on the 10th of this month but I'm effectively done. I will need to focus on my school work, teaching and RPN-05 this week which will leave little time for additional writing.

A Knitter's Day seems to be the stronger of the two stories. The first draft seems clearer than many fourth or fifth draft projects to me. There is still maybe 1400 words of room to flesh out and to be honest, I think it needs heavy polishing and refinement. Still, it feels pretty solid to me.

A Bicycle for Kyle is a strong project as well but it has a problem. In fact it is the same problem which did in The Tinkerin' Woman from last semester.

I have a child, about eight years old, who doesn't sound like a child. The child isn't behaving properly or realistically. This is one benefit to having Trinity's grandkids visit ever so often. I can watch Monkeytoes (a six year old boy) and see where I am going right and where I am going wrong.

So I've got some work to do here. Also, the "Big Change" is missing.

In a week or so I'll polish these up a bit more. They'll go through Terri's Creative Writing class for critiques from the students. If I get two or three solid crits then it will be money well spent. In the meantime, I have a Beta Reader or two who will help out.

So it goes.

Again, a big thanks to Rachel Swirsky for constantly dropping by. I opted out of the e-mail list mainly because I thought my presence would cause more harm than good. She was good enough to come and see how it was going.

Speaking of Science Fiction Careers

Last night after I completed some initial work for the Client on RPN-05, I did some google searching of yours truly. Depending on what I put into google, I get my stories along with the reviews or I get the remnants of nearly three years of internet warfare.

I read over some of those old fights last night. There was a particularly nasty one at Asimov's back in the summer of 2008 pertaining to my attitude about what you can and can't write as a science fiction writer. I vented my spleen consistently for a number of posts, pretty much to the dismay of many Asimov's Forum regulars.

There have been other fights of course. The various Fail fights, I was directly involved in early variants of them.

Then of course, there have been plenty of posts where I vented my fury at the current editor of Asimov's concerning the goat screw of a runaround I got concerning Maternal Soldier.

I guess I have enough distance to read those posts without getting really angry. Or in the case of the Maternal Soldier goat fuck, no more angry than I have been.

That said, I didn't feel a stitch of remorse. Not an ounce of shame. Not even a little bit of sorrow. In examining those posts I saw the same consistent theme. I was honest about my opinion, my feelings and I was upfront about my anger. That behavior cost me, to be certain. I am sure my name is on a blacklist at certain publications but then again, I was pretty certain my name was on that list anyway for my politics.

I'm systematically barred from Asimov's, I suspect because I said repeatedly that the current editor could best serve science fiction by stepping in front of a speeding bus. My feeling hasn't changed on that score either. Nor does it change my attitude about the quality of what the magazine is publishing (getting worse each issue, everytime I pick one up I quickly put it back down as unreadable).

The smart thing, perhaps, would have been to refrain from hammering away at the keyboard at those forums. Maybe even better would be to lie through my teeth about my concerns, feelings, perhaps sign my ventings with a solid screen name like many in the Fail Fandom Community do.

I didn't do the smart thing. Perhaps my career has suffered as a result. Or perhaps just as likely, my career suffered more due to the fact that I was incredibly busy during the first three years of my teaching career trying to make sure that it wasn't a flash in the pan.

The plan now, of course, is to restart my career. My options are pretty tight, given what I prefer to write, the nature of the market, in terms of politics and economics.

I'm a writer. What else can I do but strive? My lack of repentance or contrition will not endear me to some. Some will remember my actions and always hold it against me. I accept that since I live by the same sword.

I do know this.

The time for such internet firefights has passed. I simply do not have the time for it and I think I've finally come to the conclusion recently that they are truly pointless.

So it goes.

Murphy's Standing Spoon Only Chilli

Trinity wanted chilli. She kept trying to get me to make it with turkey meat.

Heresy! No way!

So I finally get to make it my way. Flickr and Border's Wifi aren't playing well together but here is a shot of the work in progress.

Trinity was a bit iffy when I told her to pour the beans in (four cans) after draining the juice off (don't want anything to get between the meat and the beans). However, once she dug out a couple of scoops and mixed it with sour cream, she pronounced it divine.

It was good to cook up a pot of this stuff again. I've not made this in nearly two years.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Writing Exercise: Rewrite the Opening Paragraph of a Famous Novel in two different points of view.

2010-02-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Student Mode

In Terri's Creative Writing we've reached Task 10, which is to rewrite the opening paragraph of a famous novel in different points of view. I chose Eric Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front for my assignment. Everytime I sit down with the novel I find that I am drawn very quickly into a world that is very familiar to me.

In any case, here is what I wrote.

All Quiet on the Western Front: Third Person

Paul Baumer had finally found a bit of safety after fourteen days on the line. Relieved the day before by a company of fresh fish, the remnants of the Second Company made their way back to the rear. His belly was full of beef and haricot beans. With a full mess-tin for the evening came an additional double ration of sausage and bread. Baumer thought that put a man in fine trim and was grateful for the manifestation of such good fortune. Watching the carroty headed cook hold forth with his ladle, great dollops of stew end up in the mess-tins. The cook is making a heroic effort to empty the stewpot in time for coffee but Baumer isn't sure how he will pull that off. A couple of Baumer's comrades, Tjaden and Muller, have produced two washbasins and had them filled up as a reverse. Baumer knows that for Tjaden this is voracity whereas for Muller this is foresight. Baumer wondered where Tjaden put it all for he was as thin as a beanpole and always would be.

All Quiet on the Western Front: Second Person

You resting five miles behind the front. The day before you were relieved and now your belly is full of beef and haricot beans. The remnants of the Second Company are satisfied and at peace. Everyone has another mess-tin full for the evening as well as a double ration of sausage and bread. This puts you in fine trim and you wonder how you came to have such good fortune. Sitting at ease, you watch the carroty headed cook beg everyone to eat the rest of the stew in time to make coffee. Your comrades, Tjaden and Muller, have produced two washbasins and had them filled up as a reverse. Baumer knows that for Tjaden this is voracity whereas for Muller this is foresight. You always wondered where Tjaden put it all for he was as thin as a beanpole and always would be.

I'm not a fan of second person myself. I prefer either first or third person limited.

The Teaching Front

We've got tests incoming or upcoming depending on your point of view. I went to talk about the Transcontinental Railroad today and mightily bored most of my students were. I've got some sharp students in there but most of them are asleep at the switch.

It'll end in tears I suspect.

The Fitness Front

I'm down to 200 pounds as of this week. I only made the gym three times this week. Next week I'll try to do four to five times a week.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Scribblin' Update plus the start of Research Project Number - 05.

2010-02-03T12:23:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front

Actually, I am not at my desk at the Pod. We do not have internet there (for a lot of reasons, cost being one of them, my sanity being another). That said, I am at a table making some progress.

First, I printed off the drafts of A Bicycle for Kyle and A Knitter's Day for a hard copy review. I just can't edit copy on a screen. I need to be able to mark all over it, which feels more organic than pecking at keys.

I think both of these projects have potential, far more so than the previous aborted endeavors over the last two years. They've got a saleable feel to them, which some of my detractors scoff at but I sense that with the right tweaking, these two might be winners.

They are incomplete, insofar as parts of the middle are missing. For whatever reason, I have the most trouble with middles. Beginnings are easy. Endings take a bit more effort but not much. For instance, I always knew how Tearing Down Tuesday would end. At some point, someone was going to drop Tuesday's brain out the window of an airship into the Missouri River. Granted that at one point this someone was a girl and not a boy and the context was a bit different, but the ending never, ever changed. It was always going to be about setting Tuesday free.

The still unsold Maternal Soldier has the same ending. No matter how I write it, the protag always remains in the Army. I suspect, at the end of the day, this is why this story doesn't sell. Given what happens in the story, no one who has never been a soldier can understand why I made the choice I did.

In fact, I suspect the writing effort would go faster if I simply wrote beginnings and endings, set the project aside for a bit and returned to stuff the filling in.

I also read A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, which has inspired some thoughts on how to approach the stalled out Free Range Humans. Tip of the beanie to Terri Lowry for that suggestion.

I doubt that I will start a fourth story for the Swirsky Short Story Challenge (she didn't originate this challenge but she does come and check in on me so I'll name it after her). However, I do have two stories which can be brought to completion soon and a third which has potential.

That is far more than I accomplished over the last two years.

If things work out I will submit these projects to Terri's class for peer review. In the meantime, I've got a recruit for the Newly Reformed E-Lite Reader Corps. I may stick to just a very small chosen few for now.

So it goes.

Research Project Number - 05

I started an outline for the Client covering their requests today. One thing on the To Do List is to build a government and a governing administration for the project. This meant going back and taking a look at historical models. I also have to decide whether or not I think using the existing constitution is a good idea. I'm leaning towards shit canning it myself (not the US Constitution, something else).

I'm also working on some modeling for a central character. For this effort, I am looking at these examples from American History.

Thomas Jefferson
Alexander Hamilton
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Johnson

And I'm sure I'll look at some other folks from outside of US History.

When I get this outline polished up, I'll send it along to the Client.

The Teaching Front

We are exploiting the Great Plains today. I had a snoozing student, which usually doesn't bother me but he was sleeping soundly enough that I could hear his breathing while I lectured. Not too far from snoring so I had one of his fellow students tap his desk.

It is nuts and bolts stuff, the Homestead Act, talking about mining, cattle drives, and the like. I also mentioned David Halladay, Joseph Glidden and Pale Rider with Clint Eastwood.

And since the Transcontinental Railroad is coming up, I got a rare shot at the Obama Administration's decision to kill human space flight in the United States.

It is a stupid, short sighted decision on his part. I almost never, ever go there with my lectures but it dovetailed nicely into the reasoning for the Transcon in the first place.

Other Fronts

Trinity gets paid today so I predict errands to do this evening. It is her last paycheck after losing that bookstore job at UMKC (which I am not happy about). We're another source of revenue comes in to pay the tags on her new car.

In any case, it means I'm carrying the load again, no thanks to that damned book store.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Go Forth, Young Man. And Scribble!

2010-02-03T07:34:00.001-08:00

The Writing Front

I had a bit of a depression about the writing markets yesterday coupled with the incredibly stupid decision by the current regime here in my country to murder the human spaceflight program at NASA.

So, I can do one of three things.

One, I can go look for a fight on the internet. That is what I used to do when I'd get like this. Surely there is some disaster in progress that needs addressing.

Two, I can go to the gym and work off my frustrations. That said, I have been to the gym twice this week and for the first time in a while, I've been able to pull the belt in another notch.

Three, I can take the rough drafts of two stories, go somewhere quiet where no one will find me and work on them.

The first isn't a viable option anymore, for a lot of reasons, mainly because there is no sense in arguing with politically correct trolls. Everyone already knows what I think about science fiction stories which are more interested in editorializing than telling a story.

So I think I shall go forth and get some writing done. I'll figure out which market to send them to later.

Maybe this amazon/kindle/whatever nonsense will blow over and the situation will right itself. Given the problems I am having at my end of the food chain, I should be concerned but I just can't quite get there.

Especially since, well, I hate e-readers anyway.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Colonial History versus the Present in conjunction with the planned murder of Project Constellation by the Obama Administration.

2010-01-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

That is a mouthful of a header isn't it.

In the YouTube clip above you can witness the first flight test of the Ares I rocket. It is projected to be the replacement for the Space Shuttle Program and the first tier in a redevelopment of America's human space flight capability. Part of Project Constellation included the development of a heavy lift vehicle capable of carrying heavy payloads to low orbit or sending missions to the Moon.

The Obama Administration is planning on killing it. You can check that out here at the Orlando Sentinel.

We don't need to go to the moon again.

In my American History 120 classes this week we arrived at the moment where the English would make their way to the Eastern Seaboard. This after engaging in a test run of sorts in Ireland. They weren't the best and the brightest. They weren't government finance operations. England did not set up the 1600s equivalent of NASA or Starfleet to go to North America. These were private ventures funded by joint stock companies with one simple goal.

Profit.

To emphasize this point I asked students this question.

"The year is 2010. Why aren't we on the Moon or Mars?"

Some said we lacked the know how, which I don't buy. If we wanted to get there, we could get there. Some of the sharper ones said there was nothing there to visit. The Moon and Mars are both desolate places which require you to bring all of your goodies with you. Finally, it was pointed out that the expense of the trip was not worth the investment.

In other words, there are no Martian Canals, no ruins, no Moon Bunnies and green cheese. There is no unobtainum or handwavium to justify the effort.

The sad fact is that this exercise allowed me to hammer a point home to my students. The reverse is opposite with English Colonization. They are coming for profit. Initially it was all about finding gold and silver. That is what the Spanish found after all. Once that option dried up, they found other ways to make money while terrorizing the local Native American populations. In Virginia it would be tobacco, in New England it would be timber, naval stores, rum and their participation in the slave trade. If you wanted a hamburger chances are it was made with cattle raised in New England (not that you could get a hamburger back then). In the Carolinas it would be rice (which would make slavery a profitable investment in terms of labor versus return).

The Obama Administration, much like every Democrat who has either come to office or in the case of Walter Mondale, tried to get into office, feels pretty much the same way my students do.

The money is better spent elsewhere. Something has to be cut. We can't cut defense like we normally do because the American electorate will not tolerate that (they finally learned something, too bad it is a decade late) so we'll cut the human spaceflight program.

Again, I think the administration made a bad call. If they wanted to create jobs, high paying jobs with benefits that will provide tax revenues for the communities that will provide our space hardware, then investing in NASA is a sure bet. These are government jobs in many cases with some of the best benefits packages in the country.

Instead, I get the impression that the Obama Administration wants to boost job numbers pretty much the same way the Clinton Administration did. That is create a whole bunch of minimum wage part time jobs (which is what happened in the late 1990s) and then have those of us at the lower rungs go and try and patch two or three part time jobs together to make one half ass full time job. So we'll slash NASA's budget, retire the shuttle anyway, rely upon the Russians to ferry us up to the International Space Station and fund the station to 2020.

Given this attitude, I've got to wonder, why even bother to fund the ISS? Why not just deorbit it and bring everyone home? Never mind that we are just about finished building it. Never mind that the Chinese, the Indians and a number of other powers are looking to develop their own human space flight programs.

Two ironic points to consider.

1. Democrats and American Liberals in general are usually the first to complain about the capitalist issue whereby profit is the bottom line justification for any action. Yet the lack of profit in the human space flight program will be one justification for killing it.

So much for knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

2. Democrats and American Liberals frequently rail against our tendency to return to our Isolationist nature. It is a global society, they frequently point out. And yet, rather than look beyond the atmosphere, they would prefer to focus only on that part of the universe which provides free oxygen.

It is an attitude that reminds me of my students who are furiously texting their lives away while I lecture. The thing that kills me is that they think I do not see the texting activity. This is not much different. Better to focus on Davos than to shoot for the Moon. Better to focus on wind turbines rather than orbital power sats.

I can't remember the title of the story but a few years back I read a story that featured a world in ruins. The protag was one of the few remaining humans left, picking through the ruins, living his life. Was he alone? No, it turns out that everyone else pretty much turned inward toward virtual reality. By now the idea is somewhat cliche but the scary truth is that more and more human beings in the first world are doing just that, tunning into the idiot boxes, the net, and their text message devices.

And they are tunning out just about everything else.

Then again, what do you expect out of a President who didn't want to part with his Blackberry?

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Reading: A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

2010-01-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

The Reading Front

Over the last few days I've been reading a book recommended to me by a full time teaching peer (different discipline). It is called A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki.

Why?

To be perfectly honest, race is a part of history, regardless of whether you discuss American History or Western Civilization. I have to discuss issues such as slavery, discrimination, exploitation and the motivations and justifications which drive those issues. My academic training does not center on these topics specifically though I've had passing contact with all of them on the way to a Masters Degree.

I'll never be a politically correct person, I'm just too contrarian for that. However, I did want to present a more sophisticated and nuanced interpretation of American History. I also wanted to fact check and verify a few things I was already saying.

For instance, one thing I tell my classes is that racism is part of the human condition. At least historically it has been, which is not a justification for racism I might add. I further tell them that with regard to English Colonization, the virulent strain of racism that we have in American Society was spawned in Ireland.

Before the English came to America, they did a test run of sorts by invading nearby Ireland. It was full of savages living in a tribal culture still closely wedded to their pagan roots. They were nominally Catholic which meant they were a potential security threat to Protestant (in name at least) England. And of course, every good monarch wants to expand.

The Irish, once invaded, fought back. Hard. The English responded by dehumanizing them and using whatever tactics seemed legitimate. Eventually, the Irish were, more or less, brought under some semblance of control and for the next four centuries are systematically exploited by the English.

The English took this sense of cultural and racial superiority and applied it to their dealings with the Native American population. Yes at first relations were tolerable but that did not last. In many respects, the English colonials did not see much difference between the Irish and the Native Americans. When it came to conflict with the Native Americans, the response was to use "Irish Tactics" against them. Burn the villages, the farms, kill anyone and everyone.

It set the pattern for how we would deal with Native Americans that would hold up to Wounded Knee and beyond.

It also set the pattern for how we would treat Africans, later African-Americans, when they were brought to the colonies as a source of labor.

This is what I tell my students. Reading Takaki's book verified what I had been telling them.

I'm still reading his work but one of the strengths is that he goes into a number of different ethnic minorities in American History. He describes how they came to this land and how the English, later Americans, dealt with them. In the case of the Irish he details how they became very much the personification of the very English oppressors they left behind, how they pointed out their similiar skin tone as a sign of belonging to the same general culture. Their knowledge of the language and their skin tone would put them two steps closer to assimilation.

I read the Irish chapter first because I must confess, I am pretty ignorant of my own ethnic past. My academic specialization is Ancient History, English History and Gender Studies. I knew vaguely about the Potato Famine but only by name, not in detail. I knew we assimilated by striving to be more racist than our English counterparts. I just didn't have the details.

One striking thing about Takaki. At the beginning of his book he relates a story about an encounter he had with a cab driver when he went to attend a conference on multiculturalism. The cab driver, white, turns and asks him how long he has been in the country. The cab driver remarks that Takaki speaks pretty good English.

Takaki had been an American all of his life. His family arrived in the 1880s.

I could see where Takaki was coming from but I do not think I would have reacted the same way the cab driver did.

Why? Well, probably because my best friend was second generation Chinese-American. His father was a Nationalist who came to the states after the Communists secured the mainland in 1949.

Still, I wonder what Alex would make of Takaki. I'd ask him but unfortunately he died of cancer back in the 1990s.

Anyway, I'm working my way through this. I'm hoping to use it to expand my Latino History component for certain and the Asian History element of American History.

The funny thing is this. All throughout the 1990s I heard about multiculturalism and yet never once did I see, hear or encounter Takaki's book.

It seems like it might be a handy book to assign as additional reading in future American History classes.

I'll have to think on it.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Some Pics from a year ago in NYC.

2010-01-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

One Year Ago Trinity and I made the trip to New York City. It was partly business and partly pleasure. We were going to meet John Birmingham, usually referred to as The Client around here, but he is also our friend. Birmo was in NYC as part of his Without Warning book tour. I was there to meet him, do a bit of research for After America and meet some of the other Burgers.

I always meant to post more photos and blog entries but the crush of teaching and the head cold scotched those plans.

Still, I've got a few pictures at flickr. Here they are.

Other Fronts

Killed Custer, updated rosters and did a lot of scut work today. I may get a bit of writing done today but I suspect not. Later tonight Trinity and I will head down to the Nelson to wander around for a bit.

We'll see how it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Take Notes? Seriously? Like, why would I do that? And other updates.

2010-01-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

The Teaching Front

Take a few minutes to write down what you know about George Washington. Do not consult the net, don't go grab that book off the shelf, just do it from memory.

I did a little impromptu exercise in my classes today because we are on the edge of the French-Indian War in my American History One classes. So often the problem with history is the same problem many stories have.

Lack of character development. It is just a name the students are expected to remember and not much more.

For giggles, I got some pretty decent answers. First President of the US. Commanding General of the Continental Army. Slave owner from Virginia and from one student the mention that his wife's name was Martha.

Not much else after that. I went around the classroom and sampled what they had then went to fill in the blanks.

That worked in my 0800 but not so much in my 0930 which was in some sort of funk today. More to the point, I've noticed a trend.

No one is taking notes. I can count note takers on one hand, maybe five maximum per each class. Which astonishes me. I understand that perhaps history is not a favorite subject, everyone has a subject they don't like. I understand that it might be boring, in spite of my histrionics in the classroom. Yet when I had classes I didn't like, felt like were boring, whatever, I made it a point to take notes. If nothing else, taking the notes kept me from tuning completely out.

Now it could be that some of them are recording the lecture but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why record a lecture and listen to it again? Especially if you didn't like the lecture the first time? It could be that they are distracted by my delivery, but then that explains only a third of the students. I have other students which are tuned out no matter what.

The latest theory in education is that we are supposed to adapt to the students and that I am supposed to bring a great deal of discussion, multimedia and powerpoint into the classroom. Frankly I rebel against this notion on the simple principle that the student is supposed to adapt to me, not the other way around. And I find powerpoint to be too rigid, too much like a strait jacket and of course, the students will write down every word you put on a powerpoint because if it is on the powerpoint, it must be on the test, right?

So I predict a lot of pain, woe and agony for the upcoming test. It could be that they are sharp and will do okay but I tend to judge my classes last semester's Western Civ kids. They took notes even though many of them probably didn't have to. They asked questions, dialed into the lecture and focused.

They didn't wait for the first test to come along and kick them in the head, like these kids are.

Fitness Front

Four cardio workouts down this week bringing the total time on the elliptical to 110 minutes. I put in a thirty minute session today. The body fat continues to drop alongside the weight on the scale.

Next week I'll start a new weight training program.

The Writing Front: The Short Story Challenge Week Three

I have three projects.

A Bicycle for Kyle
Fourth Draft
3600 words

Free Range Humans
First Draft in progress
800 words

A Knitter's Day (likely to be changed to A Knitter's Love)
First Draft
1000 words

So I have three stories, one for each week. I suspect Free Range Humans is going to fall by the wayside. I need to think about A Bicycle. I know how it ends I just need to figure out the middle of the story a bit better. If I play it right, I think Bicycle will come in under 5000.

A Knitter's Day is set in The Limb Knitter/Forces Velaysia universe. It is not a sequel or a prequel but a stand alone story in that universe. For some reason, this story is pretty clear in my head. I've been writing it in five hundred word spurts.

In fact, here in a bit I'll see if I can't get another five hundred, or perhaps a thousand words down. I want to write the ending while I have it fresh in my head.

Again, I'm plugging along.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Another 500 words

2010-01-27T14:10:00.001-08:00

The Writing Front
A Knitter's Day
Status: First Draft
Word Count: 1,000 approximate

Well, I'm having a bit of luck on the writing front.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

I think the iPad is my next computer.

2010-01-27T13:05:00.001-08:00

Hmm, I think this will make up for the jetpack and the flying car I'm still waiting on.

If I can use this as a word processor, and I suspect I can, then this will be my next computer.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Three doses of cardio while pondering the Summer Gap.

2010-01-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

The Fitness Front

So far this week, yours truly has managed to get on the elliptical three days so far for a combined total of 80 minutes. I plan to do this five times a week for the next couple of weeks in order to strip down some of this extra weight. I've already dropped from 208 to 204, which is a good thing.

After week two I'll get back into weight training with an eye toward increasing strength. If that works out over the following weeks I will work in swimming after the cardio. The swimming is important because I need to find a job for the upcoming summer gap. Lifeguard work seems to be the best bet.

The Teaching Front

We started the Battle of Little Big Horn today in my American History 121 class and my students were, for the most part, mightily bored. I suspect maybe thirty of them were tuned out, focused on something else, not paying attention. The trendy types in education would argue that it is my fault because I dare to lecture to them for more than ten minutes. Short attention span, demands something other than verbal input, etc.

On the other hand, for the most part, your profs at the colleges higher up the chain are still giving lectures longer than ten minutes so as far as I'm concerned the little darlings can suck it up.

I've got maybe five, perhaps seven students in there who are dialed in and participating. The rest? Meh.

It is a living.

The Upcoming Summer Gap

Once upon a time I looked forward to summer. Good things happened in the summer. Stories were written, romances blossomed, adventures experienced, books read, time spent basking under the sun.

Now? Well, the last three summers have been motherfuckers of the first order. 2007? Will he get the teaching job or not? 2008? Working a depressing third shift security job while watching a relationship slowly fall apart. 2009? Not working at all due to the economy while watching another relationship go off the deep end.

The summers have been wet, humid, cloudy and fucking miserable. They have featured moments of terror and aggravation spiced with long spasms of boredom and depression.

It can't happen again. So I've already started looking for a summer job for 2010. I can't count on getting a class to teach this summer and planning on substitute hours is the road to ruin.

What am I finding?

It isn't looking too good. I am trying to avoid security work again if I can help it. If I can get trained as a lifeguard, I think that might provide a solution to my semester gap woes.

Everything else? It looks pretty grim. I suspect I should probably suck it up and get ready for security work.

Blah.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Swirksy asks and I shall answer.

2010-01-25T07:24:00.001-08:00

Rachel Swirsky, who is keeping me moving on the short story a week challenge, asked this question.

Do you usually work on more than one project at once? I do, which makes it hard for me to figure out how many months it generally takes to prepare a story. It can be several years between concept and completion, but since I work on so many things in the meantime, it’s hard to boil that down to a useful number.

For better or worse, I tend to work on multiple projects. Back in the Uniguard Era (I worked as a security guard after grad school from 2001 to 2007) I used to maintain an activity log for each project. It was possible, if I wanted to put the time into it, to count up the hours spent on each project. I have never done that but I assumed that I usually spent four months on a project.

That said, it is nearly impossible to tell just how much time I put into something. Both of my published stories have been through a full cycle of revisions since their first versions were completed. Does that mean I spent eight months? Do I count from the moment I wrote the first word to the day I submitted the story?

At some point during the process I will start to narrow down to one project which will push the others to the side. I think A Bicycle for Kyle is that story.

Of course, one thing that will hold me up is my ongoing head cold. On the other hand, the head cold gave me an idea for a particular problem one of my character's has in the story. So it is six of one, half dozen of the other.

The Teaching Front

We did Western Migration and Immigration today, a very scattered lecture it seemed to me. I also handed out the study guide. For some reason my students are not taking notes in there. I don't know what is causing that.

Other Fronts

I'm heading to the gym later on the theory that working out sick is better than not working out. I'll follow that up with a review of tonight's notes on American History 120. Then maybe if I have any energy left, I'll try to get some writing done.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Scribblin' Update with some weekend doin's and a bit of the professor thing.

2010-01-24T11:40:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Short Story Challenge Start of Week Three

A Bicycle for Kyle
Status: Fourth Draft
WC: 3,600 approx

I suspect this will be a story that I will work on to completion. The challenge, for those that missed the entry, is to write one short story a week for four weeks. Given that it normally takes me four months to prepare a story, if I could shorten that down to one month, that would be a massive improvement.

Free Range Humans
Status: First Draft In Progress
WC: 800

No progress on this story. Since it does not have a beginning, a middle and an end, I've technically blown one of my objectives, which was to have a first draft ready by the end of each week. We'll see what can be done about that.

I'll need two new story concepts this week if I want to keep up the pace. We'll see what happens.

A tip of the beanie to Rachel Swirsky for blogging about this challenge AND for dropping by to nudge me every week or so. I've been more productive in the last two weeks than I have been in the last year. Thanks.

The Weekend Doings

Trinity had the Sensible Son over last night. I'll call him the Sensible Son because, in my eyes, well, he is the Sensible One. I could be prejudiced by the fact that I get along with him. I could also be prejudiced by the fact that the Sensible One treats his mother with a modicum of respect, something absent in the Other One.

Besides, I'm not their father nor do I aspire to the rank of "Step Father" so I get to have my favorites.

In other words, people who behave like Jerry Springer contestants need not drop by the Pod.

So we had him over for movie night which included The Hurt Locker, the latest Family Guy Star Wars spoof (not as good as Blue Harvest) and The Invention of Lying. Trinity fried up his favorites, fried chicken, grean bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn and broccoli, which went over pretty well. It was quiet at the Pod, which he appreciated.

Given what I remember of barracks life (Aussies can read Felafel, throw fatigues on the characters and you'll be right on the money) he was probably happy to get somewhere without any drama. At the Pod, we try to keep the Drama Factor down to zero when possible.

After a decent night of sleep I took over the kitchen, did the bacon, sausage, flapjacks and eggs thing before settling in for a mug of tea. We took him back over to Blue Springs a few hours ago.

Whereupon the older sisters reportedly asked, "Where is our food?"

I don't see what is so hard to understand. Civil treatment and respect will be rewarded with civil treatment and respect in turn. It might also come with a decent meal. People who are foul tempered, threaten violence and act like a pain in the ass will not get an invite.

Personally, I care for two reasons. First, Trinity loves all of her children equally (claims of the older notwithstanding). Second, when they treat her badly (and they do) it hurts her deeply.

When Trinity gets hurt I get pissed off. When she gets threatened, I get pissed off. See a pattern?

I can see one, Trinity can see it. Other people can see it and it has been explained to the three who can't get with the program what the deal is. And they persist in, well, not getting with the program.

Which is why Trinity and I will be eating the leftovers tonight.

The Teaching Front: The Upcoming Week

In American History 121 we will be moving away from Reconstruction for a lecture or two in order to cover the Western Migration and the Battle of Little Big Horn. I describe it as a massive cultural train wreck waiting to happen between the Native American populations and the three migratory fronts. You've got the folks from the East moving West (the traditional emphasis), Exodusters (former slaves who have had it with Reconstruction) headed from the South to the West, and finally you have some population pressure from the West to the East with limited forays from the Western Seaboard onto the Plains. Throw in the Hispanic populations South of the Rio Grande and what you've got is a clamp which is slowly crushing the life out of the Native Americans on the plains.

So we will cover that, then go over the motivations for moving out West such as the Homestead Act, the Transcon Railroad, and resource exploitation.

In American History 120 we should be moving up on the economic means of sustaining the various colonies. Once we are clear of that we will cover the Quakers and Pennsylvania, which is a religious topic I enjoy talking about. It seems much of what one might consider to be progressive in this country springs forth from the Quakers which is why I spend time on them.

I also need to dole out the study guides for the first exam. All courses are switching to multiple essay questions without being told ahead of time which one will be on the test. Frankly, it is material they should master anyway and the best way to master it is to prep for all three essay questions per quarter. It won't be seen as popular among my students I suspect, but then I am not there to win a popularity contest.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Writing Front: Take That, bloody head cold!

2010-01-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: A Bicycle For Kyle
Status: Fourth Draft
WC: 3,400 approx

At this point, a word count probably doesn't serve. I'm chopping, cutting, adding, pasting and rearranging as I work. This is probably where either a miracle or a disaster occurs in the writing process. It is also where some of my best ideas come to me.

I will never claim to be a literary writer, at least I don't think I am. I write what I mean, I say what I mean, I type out what I mean. I like to think that I am spare with the language. I also prefer to stay away from symbolism if I can help it. Still, I don't want my work to sound like a tech manual or a paper for grad school. That said, I usually save the polish for the final draft.

Right now, I'm just trying to get the cogs, gears and sprockets in place. It is somewhat challenging, having been away from it for so long. Over the last two years every other project has morphed into a potential novel which I have set aside.

But I think I can get this one to work on a reasonable scale.

The goal is still 5,000 words. Unlike Tearing Down Tuesday or The Limb Knitter, this story will not have a true horror element in it.

We'll see how it goes. Swirsky's challenge set a goal of one short story a week for the next four weeks. I'm not so sure I am going to meet that goal. However, if I got one short story done inside of a month, that would be a massive improvement over the usual four to six months to finish a project.

The Teaching Front

Tomorrow we continue with American Reconstruction. We left off with a summary of the Black Codes of Mississippi, which was designed to ensure that African-Americans stayed on the plantations, regardless of what the Thirteenth Amendment had to say about slavery. Most students are not aware that much of what became Jim Crow and Segregation law was laid down during the post-Civil War period. So I take the time to explain it.

I read Eric Foner's book on the subject to prep for that lecture, which was not a fun read. Still, I think this is one of my stronger lectures.

And it doesn't hurt that I have it practically memorized at this point.

Other Fronts

Not much else to report. The Woman I Love went to meet her son at the airport. Since I am not on good terms with her two eldest daughters (if you've seen Jerry Springer then you've seen these two) and I have a head cold, I decided it would be best to be somewhere else.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

500 words is about as good as it gets

2010-01-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front

Five hundred words total for a current count of 3,100 for A Bicycle for Kyle. On the other hand, I made good use of being congested to flesh out a problem I had with the story.

Now I'm going to head home, take a shower and get a nap in before the Woman I Love gets home.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Short Story Challenge Update Three and other stuff

2010-01-20T12:08:00.001-08:00

The Writing Front

I'm trying to write fiction with a stuffed head and now that I think on it, I think I get this damned ailment every year at about this time. It is the same crap I had when I got on the plane to go to NYC last year. It is the same crap that make it nearly impossible to think or hear what anyone else had to say.

And I'm in the initial stages of it. Just splendid.

I'm working on the third draft of A Bicycle for Kyle, mainly poking and tweaking it. Only 200 words down so far today. I think trying to write another 800 might be overly ambitious but I'm going to try.

I'm having trouble focusing on the screen too.

Just what I need.

The Teaching Front

We continued with Reconstruction in American History Two today, moving into the Black Codes of Mississippi. It takes awhile to get out of this time period and yet it is important to cover it or they won't understand the Civil Rights Era later in the course. So we're slugging our way through various Federal Reconstruction policies.

Tomorrow in American History One we will start with Europe and get ready to sail the ocean blue in the search for silk underbritches.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Revising my Alienation through clogged sinuses

2010-01-19T16:17:00.001-08:00

The Teaching Front: Revisions to the Lecture Notes

This morning was directed at revising the lecture notes for American History One. I needed to rework the period from 1492 to 1754. The end result was two summary lectures instead of one. Now I have a lecture which covers Europe, issues of trade and slavery and Spain's conquest of the New World. Following that I have a lecture on England's rise and the various religious issues at hand concluding with a summary of the broad areas of English colonization in the New World.

I also prepped study guides.

Tomorrow we will continue forward with Reconstruction in American History Two. On Thursday in American History One, we will talk about silk underbritches.

The Teaching Front: A bit of alienation

I've been fortunate these last few years. It is rare that I felt truly at home in academia. I'm a bit too blue collar, a bit too wedded to my military past, a bit too much of a contrarian for my own good. Yet for most of this time, I have felt like I was part of a community.

This evening? Not so sure. Perhaps for the same reasons that I do not always feel like I am welcome in the science fiction community.

We sat through convocation and watched a program on intergenerational differences. As a historian I expected to be entertained and I was, yet the longer the discussion went on, the less I felt a part of the community.

Why? I come at life from a different approach vector. If they had asked me what the most important historical event in my life had been, I would have said the Persian Gulf War. My generational peers on the panel mentioned it in passing. Conversely, many of the younger ones mentioned 09-11 but they didn't seem to draw a connection to the Persian Gulf War, that perhaps one sprang from the other.

And I think my brain locked up when social justice was mentioned in conjunction with the 1960s, which is a very difficult period for me to see dispassionately. My father was rather badly treated during that decade, not only by history itself but also by folks who would chat fondly of social justice in one breath before damning my father as a babykiller in the next. Then their peers would slash funding to the Veteran's Administration, deny that there was a problem like Agent Orange and so forth.

It took me back, perhaps unfortunately, to my first years in college. It took me back to the days when it was instantly assumed that I must be a conservative if I was also an unrepentant combat veteran.

Needless to say, I ate dinner by myself. I didn't trust myself to say anything.

I probably shouldn't have blogged about this either.

Sometimes, and this evening is one of those moments, I suspect that my teaching ability and knowledge of the subject matter will not be enough to keep me in this profession. Sometimes I think that because I am not part of the orthodoxy that I might find myself on the wrong side of an opinion someday.

I hope it passes.

The Writing Front

As I told Rachel Swirsky in the previous entry, I have not written much this week. I did revise and review one of my stories, which does have a beginning, a middle and an end so I believe that counts as one story for the challenge.

Tomorrow I'll see if I can't crank out another 1000 to 2000 words.

Research Project Number - 04

Answered a quick question from the Client today.

A clue?

Vertical envelopment.

Fitness Front

I put in twenty minutes on the elliptical today. Tomorrow I'll put in another workout session before heading home to write.

Other Fronts

I think I've got some sort of sinus thing going, which is just great. I really didn't need this.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesay
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Monday Off Work with Photos.

2010-01-18T14:19:00.000-08:00

A Day Off Well Spent

Yours truly spent the morning reading a history book which covers the period from 1789 to 1829. There is a significant section on the evolution of slavery after the end of the American Revolutionary War, which is an appropriate topic for today. When I wasn't reading that, I was prepping study guides for my American History 121 class. All of my exams now feature three essay question possibilities, which matches the standard I was expected to meet at the 100 level years ago. It is long past time to upgrade.

Tomorrow we have convocation on campus, which will mean another day lost which could have been spent on lecture. James Van Pelt was grousing at his livejournal about attending something like this. I find myself wondering what we are supposed to learn this time around. It is rather difficult to scrub out of my mind the guest speaker who said there had been three World Wars during my first convocation back in August 2007.

Call me cynical, but how many of my students actually spent this day focusing on the historical import of this day?

I suspect very few.

On other fronts I got my contributor's copy of the anthology Descended from Darkness: Apex Magazine Volume One. It includes The Limb Knitter written by some guy named Steve Murphy.

There it is on my messy desk. How messy?

Lastly, I spent the afternoon looking for cookbooks. We, or at least I, need to change the eating habits. I am steadily gaining weight, at least a pound every two weeks. I suspect part of that is due to getting older, seeing my metabolism slow down and not getting in enough cardio.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Just what did I eat for breakfast?

2010-01-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

Some folks complain that many blogs and facebook posts are so much, "This is what I did" posts. Am I guilty of that? Yep. Then again, well, it is my blog. I write it primarily for me. Visitors are, it goes without saying, always welcome.

Well, some are more welcome than others.

And in case you are wondering, I had two apples and two waffles without butter or syrup for breakfast. I also started on the last box of Tazo Awake Tea. Tazo recently transitioned over to a new tea bag sold in a metal tin which shot the price from five bucks for a box of 24 bags to seven bucks for a box of 15 bags. Which means I'm going to find a new tea brand.

The Teaching Front

I read over the assigned chapters (always a good idea) and looked at a couple of lectures. One lecture is in need of heavy revision, mainly the sort of thing you'd do to polish a first draft into something more presentable. The good news is that my fiction writing skills are handy for this task, rearranging the narrative as it were.

And I continue to ponder the issue of what to do with perpetually late students. Last semester I am almost certain that I can point to solid evidence that one perpetually late student caused low scores results for their neighboring students. Personally, at the end of the day, I really do not care that much. Yes, late students distract me and I do find it extremely disrespectful but I am not as personally invested in that on a personal level.

But when it affects other students, then it irks me more.

Something will come to me. I know something will come to me.

The Writing Front

I worked on revisions for A Bicycle For Kyle today. Hopefully I'll make it to third draft status today.

Films: John Adams

I've been watching the miniseries John Adams over the last few days and I have to say, I'm really impressed. There is a great scene in Washington's cabinet where Hamilton and Jefferson are arguing about a National Bank. Hamilton describes his objectives, Jefferson describes his objections and the controversy is set out in clear terms in less than five minutes.

It is a great clip because one of the hardest things to discuss during Washington's Presidency is that damned National Bank. Students just don't get it and I have yet to find a way to break it down and explain it to them in a fashion which makes me happy. I understand it at an instinctive, intellectual level. I could answer test questions about it but writing about it is incredibly difficult for me.

There are other clips which might serve as well. It might be worth the money to buy my own set for teaching purposes.

Other Fronts

Trinity, at my suggestion and prompting, is off enjoying her new car today. It has been months since she was able to take a vehicle of her own and just go do what she wanted to do. This is a good thing because it means I don't have to fight with her about going to thrift stores (gag), going to see comedies and romantic comedies (which I find offensive as the males in those films are universally depicted as fucking idiots) or feel like my time is being wasted while she is looking at shoes.

I still do not understand why I am dragged along for my opinion, which will be universally ignored anyway.

One old timer that we ran into at the Corner Cafe in Liberty told it to me like this.

"She wants you to make the decision so it can be your fault when it goes wrong."

Sometimes, I think that is what it is all about. I love her dearly but sometimes, I want a chance to miss her.

So it goes on a sun drenched, warm Sunday afternoon in Kansas City.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Screen versus print, a brief thought coupled with some other ponderings

2010-01-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

I got my contributor's copy of Descended from Darkness: Apex Magazine Volume One a couple of days back. This is the first time a story of mine has appeared in a print anthology but this is not a pimp my story entry.

No, an interesting thing happened. I sat down with the anthology and thumbed through it. I started with the bios at the back then flipped through the titles. Before I knew it, I was reading the stories.

Big deal? Well, maybe. Apex is now an online publication. I go there to see each new issue. If I have time I make an attempt to read the fiction.

And after a few seconds, I drop back off the site.

Did this happen with the print anthology? No, it didn't. I completed a number of stories in very short order. At some point I'll review a few of them.

I prefer books. I have always preferred books. Something about the reading process when it comes to fictions and yours truly requires the texture of paper between my fingers. Reading off of the screen is simply not the same, it is akin to watching water skitter across a hot skillet. Yet this is supposedly the Wave of the Future. Everyone is going to spend more time reading their material off of iPods, iPhones and Kindles.

But is that the best vector for fiction? Do we read fiction the same way on the screen? I know I don't. My mind shuts off partly due to the fact that I could be doing something else like, well, watching a fully realized movie or video.

And it doesn't require batteries or maintenance. When I talked to my students this week I pointed out that they were receiving printed syllabi for the same reason. No batteries, no hacking, no operating code. I even stomped on a spare syllabus to demonstrate durability.

However, if they are reading more fiction off of a screen, how does one reach them? Does one need to change their writing tactics or not? It seems that one big change is story length, shorter is better.

Anyway, go buy a copy of the anthology.

The Writing Front

I've got a copy of Bicycle printed out and I promise, later today, I will sit down and read over it for editing. The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can move onto a third draft. In the meantime, I need to generate two other story ideas to meet the short story challenge requirement for weeks three and four.

Movies

We watched the movie Hangover last night, which Trinity had been told was funny. I don't know why they simply didn't contact Birmingham for the rights to Felafel. The film was awful, a sort of sick parody of Sideways. Another batch of cliches writ large on the screen.

Trinity wanted to finish watching a Tyler Perry movie. I know, inspirational, Perry is. Was homeless once or something and I've got to admit, he is productive. I bear him no ill will.

But I don't care for his work.

We did watch the first episode of John Adams last night. I had seen clips previously but this was the first full episode I had seen. The Boston Massacre, for the most part, appeared to have been accurately depicted. The Sons of Liberty may have whitewashed the event for public relations purposes but HBO films accurately depicted Crispus Attucks.

I'm looking forward to watching more of that mini-series. I agree with a peer of mine that it can be a useful teaching tool.

Other Fronts

We've got the Pod cleaned for the most part and Trinity is off to work. I worried that her work schedule will affect her course work. On the other hand, I'm not sure what to do about that. In reality both of us need part time jobs and at some point, here in the next few months, I'll have to beat the bushes for one. If I can get lifeguard qualified then it shouldn't be a problem. Barring that, it is back to security work I suspect, at a company other than Uniguard.

Six years of experience is enough to get me an interview.

On other Trinity fronts she is having second thoughts about Sociology as a major. For awhile there was talk about a double major in Sociology and Criminal Justice. The workload and the nature of the material has been something of an eye opener for Trinity. A lot of theory written in dense academese coupled with a heavy paper writing load. Given that she is blue collar like me in many respects she is finding (like me) that she doesn't have a lot of patience for this sort of thing.

So it will be interesting to see how it shakes out. She has talked about leaving college briefly but I pointed out that the economy is still in the crapper. Why not just stay there and take courses?

Or get a degree in something you love. That is what I did. It isn't the road to riches but it will ensure that you actually complete the academic program. We'll see how it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pride Goes Before a Fall.

2010-01-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

I guess today is not going to be my day. I tried to get my homework done in Terri's class only to have that infernal blackboard system go down in midpost. So I will have to punch that up again.

The Teaching Front: Adapt and Overcome

There is fog on the road and that was everyone's excuse for late arrival in my eight o'clock class. It is an amazing thing, as there is always an excuse.

My policy, previously, was to deny entry. And 99 times out of a 100, that usually works.

It didn't today. I've been told it won't work. So I have to adjust, adapt and overcome. In my syllabus it already states that tardy students will be counted as absent. Once they reach the minimum drop day requirement, they can be dropped.

Another solution is to tie attendance to grades. That method has never appealed to me and to be perfectly honest, I hate taking attendance at all. You are an adult and you should be there. Of course I have to take it because many students are on financial aid and we are required to track them in order to insure that they aren't just collecting a check and heading off to the party.

The other issue, with regard to lateness, is that the late person invariably distracts everyone else around them. Last semester in one class I found that a miasma of stupidity (they aren't stupid people) spread from the perpetually late and the talking types in a circle infecting everyone else.

So today I stubbed my toe on this and thus, next week, we shall start again.

We moved forward into Reconstruction today which is vital for understanding much of the racial discord which transpires in the years after the Civil War. I should, hopefully, get through it by next Friday. We are losing two days next week for Martin Luther King Jr Day and In Service which will slow me down a bit.

On a more positive note, I do have some decent interaction in the class. A few of the students chimed in with some good solid questions and comments.

I think, if I can get this lateness disorder dealt with, it will be a good semester in there.

Fitness Front

I made the gym four times this week, which is good. On the other hand, my waist measure (where they'd measure for an Army Body Fat Tape Test) is 40 inches. Four inches more than what I'd prefer. So I've got to get that under control.

The good news is that I went swimming twice this week and did the weights three times this week.

The goals for next week are as follows:

Weight training: Five times next week.
Swimming: Three times next week, Mon-Wed-Fri.
Cardio: Elliptical Trainer, three times, Mon-Tues-Thurs

I also need to get back to keeping a food journal.

The Writing Front: Week One Update

Free Range Humans
Status: First Draft in Progress
Word Count: 800

A Bicycle for Kyle
Status: Second Draft in Progress
Word Count: 2660

I am going to print Bicycle out for review here in a bit.

Other Fronts

Later today I'll head for the barn and see about helping Trinity clean up the Pod. It desperately needs cleaning. Then we'll see about spending some quality time with each other.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

I did this and that and this and that.

2010-01-14T16:23:00.001-08:00

I went to teach.

Then I went to workout.

After that I went to the hot tub on campus.

Then I had dinner with the Woman I Love.

And now I am here.

Signing with my real name. :)

Something more substantial tomorrow perhaps.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Short Story Challenge: Update Two and The Miasma of Stupidity in the Classroom.

2010-01-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Story Challenge

Today I worked on my other story project, A Bicycle for Kyle. I moved into second draft territory and wrote another 1000 words. That brings the total word count to approximately 2600 words. The more I think about this project, given the set up I have in mind, this could be a series. I also wrote the probable ending for this story. For some reason, when I know the ending, I can figure the rest of the story out.

No progress on Free Range Humans today. I did a lot of thinking about this story and I know the probable ending for this one as well. We'll see how it goes.

The Teaching Front

I used a new phrase in class this week while addressing two pet peeves of mine, talking in class while I am lecturing (a sure fire way to get ejected) and arriving late.

Last semester in one particularly difficult class I had a corner of the classroom that seemed to operate in their own universe. There was a core of maybe five or six students surrounded by a larger contingent of perhaps five to ten. They frequently talked while I was talking, making jokes, the usual things that students do when they are bored, don't want to be there and are trying to entertain themselves.

As the test scores started to come in I noticed something. Yes, the talkers were doing badly and yes, I was throwing them out, counseling them (frequently in a couple of cases). What I notices is that a concentric circle of students who were not talking themselves were, in spite of their best efforts, performing poorly. A least one letter grade less possibly more in some cases.

The same happens with frequently late people. I made the mistake of granting a rare exemption to a student last semester and around that chair test performance suffered as well. The student had (and I still feel this way) very real reasons for not getting there on time.

Unfortunately, in both instances, they hurt their fellow students. Scores were bad in both troubled patches of the classroom. You could, if you wanted to take the time, graph it on a seating chart. It was as if a miasma of stupidity flowed from the eye of the distraction to infect everyone else.

So this semester I explained my realization to my students while thumping the usual dead horse about my two pet peeves.

We'll see if it does any good.

As for my classes, it is early days yet. All of my classes are given a choice between the nice nerdy instructor or the nightmare instructor. They are told, in no uncertain terms, that their choice will be a collective one and that one person can ruin it for everyone else. One of my eight in the morning classes, I suspect, has already made their choice for the nightmare. Since I have two such classes any lurkers can just wait and see what it is going to be.

My evening class seems to be pretty hardcore, aside from a few problems. You always have a couple of people who are going to buck the system because no one else has told them, "Nope, not going to be tolerated here."

We'll see how it goes.

In my only American History 121 class we will get started on the depressing facts of the Reconstruction Era. No doubt I will have to summarize the American Civil War because my students won't know anything about that. In the American History 120s we'll be approaching the Summary of the Early Colonial Era, running from the Age of Discovery to roughly 1750. Part of why I summarize that period is because I do not want my students walking around with zero knowledge of the Civil War when they take American History 121.

Besides, I'd rather spend four weeks on the Civil War as opposed to the 1600s in Colonial America.

Finally, I've decided all classes will now receive three essay question possibilities per exam quarter. This is the standard I was expected to me at the 100 level years ago and it is high time my students met it as well.

Yeah, I'm not trying to win a popularity contest or anything.

The Fitness Front

I've made it to the gym three times this week so far. I swam 450 meters in the pool today in an effort to get back into the habit of swimming laps. The weight training continues as well.

Yesterday's bit of good news was learning that my body fat reading did not go up during the Winter Break. Still, I need to shave off five to eight percent of the fat I've got on board.

Other Fronts

Not much else to report. I spent most of the day reading when I wasn't writing or working out.

I did take a picnic basket dinner down to the Woman I Love at UMKC this evening since she wouldn't have time to come home for dinner. Since it is cold out, we sensibly ate inside Royall Hall behind Einstein Bros Bagels.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Cleared the First Day off the Deck.

2010-01-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

The Teaching Front

Well, I was going to wear my suit to class but found it was all wrinkly. Not good. So it was jeans and a sweater instead.

I did Bad Cop in my last two classes this morning, both American History 120s running at 0800 and 0930 respectively. I had a lot of late students (which always makes my head explode). Having said that, they seemed to take the syllabus well enough.

Last night in my evening class I did have a consistent, habitual talker who just couldn't get the cue to be quiet. I had to take measures. Meh.

So we're set. In all classes we'll do Lecture Zero: What is History and how do we study it (which features a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure reference) followed by the first actual lecture. That means the Reconstruction Era in American History 121 and a Summary of Colonization in American History 120. I need to revise that summary anyway.

Other Fronts

I suspect that there will not be much in the way of writing today. I have Body Building at 1 pm followed by a run to UMKC for dinner with the Woman I Love, the Commanding General, so on and so forth. After dinner I'll see if I have enough energy to clean the kitchen, which is awash in disaster.

We're living like college students and sometimes it shows.

Tomorrow I'll make a push for a thousand words on both of my current story projects.

Oh, lastly. We received a package of Arnot's cookies, which are like Australian Tim Tams I am told. Trinity and I will sample them on Friday.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Short Story A Week Challenge: Update One, and the rest of the news.

2010-01-11T15:52:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: The Short Story Challenge

So, Rachel Swirsky has extended a challenge (not to me personally but to folks in general). She is going to try to write a short story a week for the next four weeks. As a means of motivating folks, Rachel set up an e-mail round robin motivating list. I opted out of the list but in to the challenge.

So I got 500 words down for the first draft of Free Range Humans this morning, bringing that story to 800 words approximate.

I will be working on two stories alternately over the next two weeks as time permits. Updates as I generate them.

The Teaching Front: First Day

Previous experience over the last two and a half years has taught me that it is easier, for me at least, to start off with Bad Cop and then, if things work out, morph into Good Cop. This is one of those things which I am sure goes against the current teaching doctrine (coddle their self esteem, be their friend, put up with just about everything). However, I have noticed that my classes run better, for myself and for the students who want to be there, if I start this way.

That means on Day One everyone is looking at me as if I am their worst enough or as if they do not believe I mean what I say.

This applies to the morning classes. The issue will be the evening class I have this semester, my first full evening class as an instructor. As an evening student myself I know that the population is somewhat different and there are different challenges for the students. So we'll see how that goes.

The Fitness Front

I ran home after my morning class, knocked out the writing mentioned above and made my way to the gym. Put in my time on the weights then went for a swim.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

A Story A Week Challenge: Week One

2010-01-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: The Story a Week Challenge

Rachel Swirsky posted a challenge of sorts (she is not the origin point, that is another writer) to her readers. The challenge is simple enough. Writers who participate should see if they can write one short story per week starting today for the next four weeks. I've decided to take a stab at it though I'll be rolling along on the Lone Wolf side of it rather than tying into Rachel's larger e-mail network. The reason for not pinging Rachel has nothing to do with her and more to do with the real probability that I her peers may not care for my comments.

So, here is where I am at as of today.

I have two stories that I will work on over the next two weeks. These stories will be completed, at least to a first draft standard, no later than 24 January 2010.

1. A Bicycle for Kyle
2. Free Range Humans

I worked up the plot outlines for both stories which should help with revisions. In the case of Bicycle, I already have most of a first draft. For Humans all I have is a scene which has been in my head for years.

The challenge this week will be working on these two projects while spinning up the first week of a new semester. I've got four courses to teach, three of them in American History to 1865. However I am enrolled in Terri Lowry's Creative Writing class so maybe that will provide some drive to get the work done.

Other Fronts

Trinity made the run down to work in her new car today. I trailed behind mainly to make sure it went okay. It has been years since she has driven a stick and the roads are still iffy in places. The trip went well for the most part.

So for the first time in sixteen months I am free from ongoing transportation requirements. This also gives her a renewed sense of freedom and independence that she desperately needed. I predict that this will serve only to improve the relationship over all.

And since tomorrow is the start of the new semester for both of us, we'll be teaming up to clean up the Pod, which desperately needs a top to bottom cleaning. You know it is bad if I am saying it needs work.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

An Interesting Thing Happened on the Way to Oblivion.

2010-01-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

Revised Rules of Discussion: 01-10-10

This will be seen as unpopular but my standard on this matter is well known. If you can not be bothered to take responsibility for your post and sign your name to it then it will not be posted.

I sign my name to EVERY post, even the unpopular ones, and the politically incorrect ones. I did this before I became an instructor and I still do this now that I am an instructor. I am also very well aware of the career risk I run in continuing this practice.

However, the standard remains. Sign your posts. If you don't, they'll won't manifest.

And as of this moment, the comment moderation switch is on at the Pondering Tree Mark II.

Signed,
Steven Francis Murphy
Murphy's Pondering Tree

Entry Continues

Fail Fandom. If you do not know this term, I'll explain it for you.

Around about the middle of the previous decade a community of internet activists within the American Science Fiction Community began to coalesce around issues such as racism, sexism, and other issues of discrimination.

For the record, let me get a few things off the deck before we get any further.

First, politically I lean right of center. However, I am not a Republican. I am often labeled as a “neo-con” because I support a robust foreign policy backed, if needs must, by military force. I support a strong, well funded, well equipped, military. And I am not the sort of person who believes that you can give the enemy the benefit of the doubt.

When one assumes that I am a “neo-con” they make a number of other assumptions about my political views, which may or may not be correct. I have never sat down and truly outlined my political views in detail but I will simply refer to former Secretary of State Colin Powell who once said that he was never really comfortable in either party.

Second, as a rule, I believe that judging a person by virtue of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or life background, is wrong. I am aware that I am prone to my own prejudices but as a rule, I do not believe myself to be superior by virtue of my gender or my own ethnicity.

Third, I am a published science fiction writer with two publication credits to date. I do operate in this field as a writer, a consumer and a research assistant.

Back to the fail bit. In the middle of the last decade a number of controversies manifested themselves on the internet with regard to the issue of underrepresentation. The argument is that science fiction and fantasy are mainly dominated by white men. The argument further states that this domination must be a manifestation of an active or subconscious prejudice on the part of the writers and editors in the science fiction and fantasy community. The call to action, which has varied over time, ranges from accusing writers and editors of racism, sexism, bigotry and the like to outright boycott of incorrect members of the community. Additional sanctions have included shunning (whereby they simply act like you do not exist at all) and in extreme cases, going after the incorrect member’s livelihood in the world outside of science fiction and fantasy.

The fail has manifested itself into Racefail (google that) Boobfail, and the list goes on. Each of these cycles revolves around a charge against an editor or writer, perhaps a publication, of discriminatory conduct. In some cases, these charges have the patina of legitimacy. In other cases, they do not.

What is probably most reprehensible about these fail cycles is the veiled or outright accusation of bigoted behavior by members of fail fandom (some of whom are either writers or aspiring writers themselves). Even when these accusations are brought down by other members of the community, there is almost never a retraction of the original charges, never a true apology.

Why am I blogging about this?

Well, over the last two years I began to believe that there was no room for someone like me in the community. I am white (Irish-German-English-Dutch for the record). I am male and I am straight. I’m an unrepentant veteran of the United States Army (Signal Corps and Infantry respectively). I am politically right of center and I tend to disagree with affirmative action as a means of redressing very real imbalances in our society.

The message was pretty clear to me. Folks like Murphy need to go. Moreover, we don’t want stories like the ones Murphy or people like him write.

If you are wondering, I tend to write stories that are set in the American Midwest. The people who populate these stories tend to be Midwestern Farmers, who, for better or worse, are descended from European origins. Given demographic trends for the United States and the Midwest in particular, if I were to speculate on the future ethnic composition of the Midwest, I’d say we will see more Latino-Americans. And I’m working to address that concern.

That said, I write what I know. The objective of fail fandom is that I am supposed to feel some guilt about this. More to the point, I’m supposed to expand my horizons and write about something else. Perhaps I agree in principle but the problem is a very simple one for me.

I’m interested in writing about the American Midwest. I live here, spent most of my life here. It is what I know. I prefer to write in a rural setting because that is where I am most comfortable. I am also interested in writing military science fiction but previous experience over the last six years has demonstrated to my satisfaction that if there is a prejudice in the community, it is one against military science fiction in the short markets.

I am not particularly interested in writing stories set in an urban environment, which is a place I view, personally, as a negative. Sure, the historian in me sees the value of cities as producers of revenue, culture, industrial products and as consumers of what the rural outer marches produce but on a personal, gut level, I’d rather be writing this from a kitchen table on a farm rather than the table of a Panera’s at Crown Center in Kansas City.

So I began to think, especially after the various fails of the last two years, “That’s it. Game over. I should wash my hands of this and concentrate on teaching history.”

A funny thing happened on the way to oblivion. I read a journal entry by Liz Williams called My Struggle. For those that do not know, Liz Williams is a respected and accomplished fantasy and science fiction writer from Great Britain. Nine Layers of Sky still ranks as one of my personal favorites and before I gave up my subscription to Asimov’s, I enjoyed her frequent contributions to that publication.

When I clicked on her entry, I expected to read yet another litany of poor behavior by men against women in science fiction. To my surprise, that is not what I encountered at all. Instead, Liz Williams wondered, in her entry, where all of the support from the feminist science fiction community was. She heard a lot of noise and saw a lot of light, but to sum it up, these folks rarely had her back.

If you’d like to read more of what she had to say and some of the comments, there is this link.

Elizabeth Moon, a former Marine, also had some interesting comments about her own experiences which I think are telling. Go check it out.

In any case, for the first time in nearly two years of this grief, I took heart. No one is saying that real problems do not exist in and out of the science fiction community. However, I think a lot of folks are starting to get very tired of the constant cycle of poisonous hysteria which sweeps through the community every six months to a year.

Then about a week later, Douglas Cohen over at Realms of Fantasy put out a journal entry concerning an all female issue of RoF which was accepting submissions. Apparently Douglas worded his entry in a fashion which rubbed some in the fail community wrong and the fail wave began to build yet again. He had previously been involved in the fracas over a cover which graced RoF alternately called Fishboob and Boobfail, etc.

It looked like Douglas was going to take a lot of grief again when the Fiction Editor of RoF started her own blog and took up his defense. Shawna McCarthy’s response can be seen in this link.

What do I take from these two posts?

Basically the message seems to be, “Is this trip really necessary?” Or maybe another way to think of it is, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” I’ve always been put off by this rampant McCarthy Era like fear mongering that spices these various fail waves up. It is reassuring to note that while folks are listening to the concerns of the fail folks, they are also getting awfully tired of it.

None of this addresses some of my continuing concerns about the community. I still feel as if Rednecks need not apply unless they are prepared to satirize and parody themselves for publication. I still get the feeling that the only acceptable military science fiction is the kind which uses The Forever War and The Things They Carried as their literary touchstones.

If you want to know more about my feelings, here is an earlier journal entry on the issue.

However, I do get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there is room for someone like me in the tent after all.

We shall see.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Spinning Up for the New Semester and some photos

2010-01-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy BSG-71'
Location: Situation Room
Mission: Prep Syllabi and whatnot for Monday

So much of teaching is paperwork. I'm used to that I guess. In High School it seemed like all we did was fill out one ditto sheet after another. In the Army it was the DA-2404 PMCS form followed by this form and that form and every form in triplicate to include an evac and a call for fire form. Once I got to college there were more forms in order to get the folding stuff I earned as a result of my service to my country. Then I filled out reports, forms and other nonsense while playing rent-a-donut during the Don't Eat That Donut In Public Era.

Paperwork. I spent the afternoon working up rosters, attendance and grade rosters, followed by generating the new survey sheet topped off by syllabi prep.

What does the survey ask? Well, here is a sample.

Essay Question:
Instructions

Using a clean sheet of notebook paper and a pen, answer this question to the best of your ability. This is not a graded exercise however students should take this exercise seriously.

What is the most important historical event, in your opinion, in American History? The student should describe this event in detail. Who was involved in this event and when did it take place? What were the motivations of the individuals and factions involved in this event? What were the repercussions of this event upon American History?

Finally, how did this event personally affect you?

No telling what I'll get, but this is a variation on the general format of essay question I use in my exams (those will not be posted here).

I also started building the Master Course Binders. Each semester I build a dedicated MCBs for use in each course I teach. I used to build one for each class session, but this seemed overly redundant so now I simply combine the rosters of the class sections into their relevant MCB.

So that is what I spent this afternoon working on.

Photos

Here is a shot of some of the goodies we had for New Year's. That bottle is a Christmas Present from a good friend of ours. Not too shabby I thought.

This next shot is Trinity's half of the new office area. We're planning on getting her a new desk more to her liking and a couple of other items. Those pics on the wall are of her kids (three out of five of which should be thumped violently about the head and shoulder regions for various reasons).

And of course, every writer needs a beverage tray.

So it goes. I think I'm going to go chase down some hot tea myself. It is cold down here in adjunct land.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Cure for Baldness and Other Ponderings

2010-01-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

The cure for baldness is to cut your hair off, or in my case, get an Army style high and tight. I've not had one of these since basic training back in 1989. While I never grew my hair terribly long, I always preferred to have a bit on the top of my head that would actually lay down. This is mainly due to the notion that I have big ears, a lumpy skull, etc.

Oh, and folks with high and tights seem, well, they always seemed like the ones who'd do the really crazy things. Attack foxholes with nothing but a knife in their teeth or some such.

All I'm missing is a set of ACUs and some enlistment papers, which will not happen. I could stand to lose a few pounds but it is winter time.

Trinity Got a Car!

Thank God, finally, she got a car. For sixteen months I have been the primary means of transport for the Woman I Love. It has been the source of real friction in the relationship, especially over the last semester. Now she has one which means she can run her schedule and I can run mine.

So that leaves . . . well, it leaves three of her five kids (which are in need of a violent and prolonged case of headspace and timing adjustment).

Things keep getting better for the Woman I Love. Hopefully the next semester will bring more success her way.

In Murphy's Theatre of Operations

Looks like I'm stuck with jury duty on the first day of class, which pisses me off to no end. Why didn't these fuckers call me during the Uniguard Era, or perhaps even last summer when I was out of work? Why did they have to call me NOW?

Classes are locked in place. Here in a bit I'll return to the Pod and print of syllabi for the students. I have to have that task completed tomorrow in case I am not available on Monday. Course binders still need to be prepped but I think I can get that taken care of tomorrow as well.

We've restocked the larder, got the laundry going, replaced the busted mop (which means I'm on latrine duty, yeah me) and got the above depicted haircut.

Thus we are on the edge of another sixteen week semester. During this semester, while teaching and writing, I need to get the following things done.

1. Get lifeguard certified.
2. Get a lifeguard job for the summer.
3. Get back into grad school in order to pick up some American History courses.
4. Get back into the science fiction marketplace as a producing writer.
5. Get my CV out to a sister campus.

So it goes. Not very exciting. I'll try to post snow pics at some point.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Pondering the Teaching of History: Perhaps the First of Many Such Ponderings.

2010-01-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Before the Army, yours truly slugged his way through the mandatory experience known as public education. To be honest, I hated the experience but there were a few exceptions. It turns out, if you look at my High School transcripts, that I had some aptitude for Biology. In fact, I have, to some degree or another, modeled my own teaching doctrine on those of my biology instructors.

If you look a little further, I did well in Basic and Advanced Composition, probably because I was allowed to write what I wanted to write. Granted, I did not do so well in Reading, Composition and Grammar courses, simply passing instead of excelling. I passed those classes probably due to the fact that I was, when possible, allowed to write what I wanted to write.

I was always told, "You are a good writer," yet I never quite understood what everyone was talking about. Grammar gives me fits and it still does if you ask me to explain the mechanics of the language. Only recently, as a college instructor, do I really understand what was meant by that compliment.

What about history? Well, I passed my classes. I liked reading about history. I checked out lots of history, biographies and autobiographies from the library.

And yet I hated my history classes with an unbridled passion.

Why? Well, they never seemed to teach me anything I didn't already know. They glossed over or skipped the wars with frequently abandon. They never spent anytime explaining why certain periods of history were relevant with the present. Given that these courses were, with one exception, taught by coaches from the phys ed department (a common problem in the United States) I suppose it is no surprise that the material was watered down pap. We did have one New Age type instructor (she taught Citizenship) who was pushing a forerunner of the politically correct version of history but her class was a chaotic nightmare run by the folks with behavioral disorders. Today we'd call those folks Goths but back then we called them Freaks or Freakers.

In her class, coupled with subsequent experience in college, I learned how NOT to teach or manage a classroom.

None of which gets to the meat of the matter. When I left the Army in 1993 for college, I was interested in history as a possible major. I took every history course offered at Maple Woods Community College and picked up an A for each class. For some reason, I just seemed to have a knack for history, one that I had previously been unaware of.

Biology, on the other hand, didn't go so well. The Instructor came from another country and while I liked this instructor and respect them, their English and mine did not mesh. Too bad as I think an MS in Biology would probably have served me better fiscally and as a science fiction writer.

So history it was. Years later I earned my Master of Arts in European History from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, burned out, suffering from clinical depression and a deep malaise about the field in general not unlike the one I currently experience with regard to the American Science Fiction Community.

I've experienced the teaching of history in a number of manifestations. At Maple Woods the method was a traditional lecture format. The Instructor lectured, you took notes, you read the textbook, studied and took the test. Depending on the Instructor, you might be able to ask questions and make comments though for the most part, they preferred that you did not interrupt the lecture. At Park University in nearby Parkville, the Instructor preferred to dole out reading assignments from the textbooks, have you write a two page essay (which seems, and still does, pathetically easy for a 200 to 300 level course) followed by a discussion of the material.

These discussions often degenerated into politically correct bull sessions (the term came into widespread use during the 1990s). I learned to argue in a spirited and passionate manner. I polished some of my public speaking skills, but to be honest, I do not believe I learned much about history at Park. I learned more about the instructor's love of baseball and catholicism than anything else, when there wasn't an ongoing discussion about politics.

I also learned, at Park, just how much some academics hate soldiers and veterans. It was at Park that I experienced a political conversion away from the Democratic Party. These days I wouldn't say I'm a Republican (I've always registered as an Independent) but I'm definitely not a Democrat. As for Liberal or Conservative? I'm finding that the terms really do not apply to my personal beliefs.

So at Park I learned that Instructors preach their politics, something which I experienced again when I moved on to grad school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Part of what drove my decision to specialize in European History (aside from the very real fact that I like European History) was a deep desire to escape the political editorials which so many American History instructors since Maple Woods seemed prone to. I encountered the editorials in any event, often hearing absurd comparisons of William Clinton to Julius Caesar in Ancient Roman History.

At UMKC it was back to exams and term papers. I learned more at UMKC as a historian than I did at Park and my research methodology certainly improved. Unfortunately one negative aspect of hearing, "You are a good writer" is that one does not edit their papers the way they should. I suffered accordingly when papers which should have received an A got a B+ or a B instead.

At UMKC I first encountered the History of History, aka Historiography, something which had not been discussed elsewhere. In my classes we often examined not just the historical figures, events and motivations but also the varying interpretations of those events by professional historians. Also at UMKC I learned not to take a printed source, primary or secondary, on face value alone. We were encouraged to read and offer our own interpretations of this material.

Additionally, I learned about a couple of schools of history. I learned Marxist History, which takes any historical problem and arrives at the same conclusion. It is the conclusion most blue collar types already know, namely that the poor get screwed by the rich. One didn't, I suspect, need a specific school of history to figure this out.

I also learned about gender studies.

Now folks, it is possible for a Feminist Historian to look at a historical event and not see the Evil Hand of Patriarchy guiding every decision, every exploitation, but unlikely.

My problem, now that I teach history myself, is that a school of history that arrives at the same general conclusion no matter what question you ask is probably too simplistic to provide true depth of understanding.

So how does one teach history? Well, that is an interesting question. I fell back upon what I liked when I was a student, namely the traditional lecture format I enjoyed as a student at Maple Woods.

What are some problems I have encountered?

First, students seem to have difficulty with the concept of concurrent events. They do not seem to understand the notion that the textbook may not be organized in linear sequential format. As a result, they are unable to see the interelated nature of history on a wider scale.

Second, many students do not seem to be able to associate facts in a manner that allows them to naturally form the historical narrative in their own mind. At best these students memorize small bits of data and spit them back out on a test. However, ask them for the meaning or to describe the sequence of events and what you'll get is a lot of gibberish. They will parrot the information back at you without organizing it into a logical fashion.

Third, students do not see why history is important at all. Punch into google, "I hate History" and read the first result. Such people seem to think that they are completely insulated from the past and that current events (which are products of past decisions, actions, agendas and motivations) have very little bearing upon their very small lives.

It is funny. One thing you can say about the Vietnam Era is that the Draft Card brought history up close and personal to many young men, including my father, during that time.

Finally, they think it is all about dates.

Geniuses in the field say that the best thing to do is find a way to get students to relate to the material. To which this published writer of science fiction says, "Duh." If you can find a way to generate emotional resonance in the student then you might be able to get them to see the material as more than dry facts in need of memorization.

How do you do that? That is one question worth pondering. Another question worth pondering is whether or not the new educational doctrine of the last forty years is worth spit. One might also ponder whether lectures are the way to go. Not a semester passes that I do not have students demanding the use of Powerpoint slides (something I absolutely hate, both as a student and as an instructor) or more discussion groups (something dominated by two or three strong students while everyone else nods off).

Of course, the final question to consider is just what should you teach the students in the first place. History is so vast, so wide, so deep that it is impossible to get to it all. It is all important at the end of the day but as the saying goes, some are more equal than others. How does one pick?

The current trend is to spend more time on social history, which I think is a ghastly mistake. If the student doesn't understand the political framework of the time period then how are they going to understand the lot of a steelworker at the Homestead Steel Mill when confronted by Pinkertons followed by the Pennsylvania National Guard?

One politically incorrect tactic is to find an individual and use them as a focal point. If I describe the life of Andrew Carnegie and outline what a hypocrite he was in many respects, the students understand the social ramifications for the mill worker at Homestead. On the other hand, if I stand around talking about progressivism and labor unions without attaching any faces to the intellectual concept, the students (and their instructor for that matter) glaze off.

Anyway, these are things I am pondering today. Maybe I'll ponder some more on this topic.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

I think I have a completed first draft here.

2010-01-03T17:00:00.001-08:00

The Writing Front: A Bicycle for Kyle
Status: First Draft Completed
WC: 1600 approximate

For the first time in nearly two years, I've managed to complete a first draft that I felt pretty happy about. Granted, this is a story which ties into the Tearing Down Tuesday universe and perhaps it won't go anywhere marketwise. That is not why I wrote the story.

Yesterday I expressed some frustration at the market situation with regard to word count limits. Most of my stories weigh in at 7K to 10K words. The market demands a shorter story than the ones I am writing. That is simply a fact. My problem, up till yesterday, was that I didn't think I could write something shorter.

Then I had an a-ha moment. A Bicycle for Kyle is the result.

What I have right now is a solid core. I've budgeted 3000 words for the project which should give me plenty of room to correct any screaming problems. One problem is currently has is that you need to read Tearing Down Tuesday in order to understand what is going on. I think with some additional character details woven into the material, that problem should go away.

I don't know if this story will get anywhere. However, the main purpose is to figure out how to tell a story in fewer words. If I can master this and get to a point where I am producing a story every other month, then maybe I can get my writing career on track again.

So it goes.

Research Project Number - 04

Looks like I'm in the final stretch on this project. I've got a manuscript that I am looking over right now for any real howlers. Sadly enough I found a couple but I sent the client an e-mail about that matter.

Soon enough we'll be powering up for Research Project Number - 05.

Trinity to get a car, hopefully

If things work out then by the end of this week, Trinity should have her own car again. This will take a great burden off of my back and give us both a certain amount of desperately needed freedom. We've found a pretty decent Honda Civic for a reasonable price. They have a pretty good rep so we're hoping this car will do the trick. She also has a part time job now which is adding money to the coffers. All I need to do is lock down a part time job of my own by semester's end and I think we'll be pretty comfortable.

The Teaching Front: Getting Ready

Starting Tuesday I'll begin to spin up for the next semester. I will focus my prep on my American History 120 courses, which are in need of some polish and improvement.

And we're going to learn the dates.

Yes, dates.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Writing Front: Scratching My Head about Story Length

2010-01-02T09:53:00.001-08:00

The Writing Front

In the aftermath of the Maternal Soldier reject, I looked over my inventory of stories which are nominally complete to see what was available. I have three other stories in addition to Maternal Soldier which I will not name at the moment.

The problem? Word count. You see the remaining major markets that offer a professional rate (which is where I like to start) have relatively low word counts running between 2000 to 8000 optimistically. My writing stride is between 7K to 10K and while I've been able to tweak some stories to get them below a target word count, it is never an easy task.

Part of my problem as a writer is that I rely heavily upon dialog to move things along. In looking at other successful short stories, the primary method is the narrative, usually third person, sometimes first, usually with long passages of material.

The best thing to do would be to figure out how to write a number of stories that are 2000 words or less and send them out. If such stories could be written quickly then I could saturate the marketplace.

Sandra Cisneros might provide the key but I suspect that would mean moving away from almost everything I have learned about writing fiction.

The other solution is to sit down with the four extant projects and see what can be done to compress them. Since Entangled is up for recycle anyway I suppose this project could be the first victim. The problem there is that Entangled doesn't feel like a short story, it feels like a novel.

Lost, kids. I'm just lost. Rejections are part of the deal and that isn't what has me down.

I simply do not know what to do as a writer, which is worse than being blocked.

Well, I'll ponder the matter. Maybe something will come to me.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Maternal Soldier comes back and some photos of Christmas.

2010-01-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Maternal Soldier

Well, it was worth a shot. I sent my girl off to John Joseph Adams who is now the editor of Lightspeed Magazine, a new online science fiction publication. He had seen this story before in his role as editor of Federations. I have to admit that I didn't expect much to come of it but I sent my girl out in order to start the year off right on the writing front.

He provided a kind reject. What more can you ask.

So, I'm not quite sure what to do with this story at this point. Rotate it through the remaining markets is probably my best bet. I'm not going to sit down and work on a major revision at this point. There is simply too much water under the bridge.

Tip of the beanie to John Joseph Adams and a plug for his new publication. May Lightspeed meet with some success. We could certainly use more science fiction venues if you ask me.

December Photography

Well I have a bit of time so I figured I'd load some photos onboard.

Trinity took a number of pictures using my somewhat fickle camera. This one turned out pretty well given than she is shooting past my nose. This is a view of the KC skyline from the Northtown side of the Heart of American Bridge. If memory serves, this bridge, among others, was featured in John Birmingham's novel Without Warning.

Trinity went to a lot of effort on Christmas Day, far more than she needed to really, but it is an important day for her. It was bad enough that she was having trouble with three of her five children (still having trouble with them to be perfectly honest). She is used to setting up a very large spread for her family, something that just isn't possible. So we had dinner for two. She puts together an impressive spread.

She let me carve the turkey, which was probably a mistake. It is not a textbook carving by any means but it tasted great.

A tradition is to toast each other and the relationship.

And since there was snow, here is a shot of what we saw out of the East Windows.

I think that is enough photos for one entry. I'll post a few more later.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

How many endings do you need to write one story? Oh, and the other ponderings on this cold day.

2009-12-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Entangled
Word Count: Maybe 3,500, maybe not

One problem I consistently have as a writer of fiction is that I can't find an ending I am happy with. I suppose that is why most of my remaining finished stories sit on my shelves unsubmitted to market. My standard policy is to send them out to a couple of markets before pulling them from the field. People scream at me for doing this but my reasoning is that there are a limited number of markets as it is (fewer when you figure that there are places I refuse to submit to on principle). If there is something wrong with a story then there is no sense burning through markets without fixing the problem.

Why are endings so hard? Hell if I know. I always knew how Tearing Down Tuesday would end, I just didn't know quite how Kyle would get there. With The Limb Knitter the ending changed many times.

So, what of it? Well, I think that I might make my life a lot easier with the current project if I just write a number of possible endings and see which one feels good to me. Once I find one I'm happy with, I'll fill in the middle.

So that is what I did this morning before Trinity woke up, hammered out one of those possible endings.

Another problem I am having is that I feel an urge to adopt Sandra Cisneros as a model for my writing. I am not sure this is wise with regards to the current project. It is never a good idea to make a change that radical in midstream.

In any case, that is what has been going on.

Research Project Number - 04

I have most of the new story arc now and in terms of military/technical advice, there is little for yours truly to do. That said, I've long since evolved beyond providing military research alone. I think the arc is a solid one but it needs just one more bit of emotional heft to make the sale to the Reader.

Fortunately this is just a small matter of salting material through the narrative arc, offhand mentions here and there. I'll work on that over the next day or so.

The Physical Fitness Front

I made it to the gym this morning with Trinity in tow. Work continues on the maximum strength program I learned in Body Building (three sets of six at your maximum weight per any given exercise). I did not swim laps however due to stomach troubles.

Other Fronts

I've got some aggravations that I can't blog about. Most of it pertains to Trinity's kids, who delight in making their mother feel bad.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Has it been a year already?

2009-12-28T18:59:00.001-08:00

A Year Already?

Roughly one year ago, Journalspace blew up for the last time, taking the blogs houses there with it. For some it was a disaster, for others, like myself, a blessing in disguise. In any case, we all seem to have found new homes. Or if you are paranoid like myself, you have found three new homes.

Annual Assessment

Time to inspect the lint. What have we got?

First, I have two stories published to date with an honorable mention for each story in Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction. I got a mention and a plug in the summation, which is a pretty big deal in my book. The only thing which might have been sweeter would have been to get republished in his anthology.

I got the next best thing. The Limb Knitter has been republished in Descended from Darkness: Apex Magazine Volume One. Head over to the Apex Book Store and order your copy today.

Second, I was acknowledged as a last minute co-writer in Without Warning by John Birmingham. That does not make me a novelist by any means and John didn't have to do that. Still, a tip of the beanie is a tip of the beanie. I doff mine back at him.

Third, I am in the middle of my third year as an adjunct instructor of history at a local community college, which shall remain unnamed as there are shits on the internet who might like to make my life unpleasant. I am on a very steep learning curve and yet I seem to be wildly successful as a college instructor. I've received positive evals at every turn. Which is ironic, given that policy at a sister campus is that I am not qualified to teach due to a lack of American History graduate hours.

I'll be rectifying that problem over the next year or so, not because I want to teach at the sister campus, but mainly to ensure that they have one less excuse for not hiring me on full time.

Fourth, I traveled to New York City to meet with John Birmingham. With Trinity in tow, we saw the city together, or at least as much of it as Trinity and I could squeeze in with him over a weekend. I meant to blog more about the experience but the crush of teaching pretty much scotched that. That said, we had a great time. It might have gone better if my head hadn't been stuffed with snot and my ears on vacation (I spent most of the weekend shouting at people to speak up, which was embarrassing).

Fifth, I moved back out of my parents house (I was there for seven months longer than I had planned anyway) and into the new Pod with Trinity.

Those are the positives.

On the negatives, it was a very rough summer in that Pod. The relationship with Trinity nearly blew apart on more than one instance. I do not handle living with someone very well and I handle getting orders less well. We still struggle with finding compromise in the relationship and some days are better than others.

I did not get any significant writing of my own done this year. Teaching is partly to blame for that. Stress in all of my relationships here in the Midwest didn't help either between the family, Trinity and Trinity's own family. The never ending struggle to find a quiet place where I can be left the fuck alone to get some writing done continues.

I am still angry. About what?

Well, for one thing, I'm still angry about Maternal Soldier. The offending editor could step in front of a bus and that might, maybe, make me feel a little bit better. Still, I got goat fucked over that story and when I check my anger on that issue I find that it is just as hot today as it was last year or even four years ago.

I am angry about the fact that my writing career was delayed and the reality that, when my stories do get published, they receive award nominations, positive reviews, honorable mentions, and so on and so forth. It seems counter intuitive but as I explained it to one of our psych instructors, I feel like the success serves to demonstrate that I would have been successful in 2004 or 2005 if Maternal Soldier had been published. Maybe I'd have three or more stories published by now.

Or maybe a novel contract. And given that there were plenty of naysayers here in IRL and in the SF field who said I'd never get published, it serves only to increase my anger.

In the same vein, I feel the same way about the teaching situation. I've proven myself to be a capable, adaptable, flexible instructor of history and yet I was denied for six years due to a screwball interpretation of a district policy (one I am told is untenable by my Boss and many others).

I do not mind failure when it is my own doing. I do mind being systematically blocked from an opportunity to prove myself.

2009 was very much a mixed bag and I'm glad to see it coming to an end. In some respects it has been a very successful year. In other respects, it has been the worst year of my life since my tour of duty in Korea back in 1992-1993, especially the summer.

I'm hoping for better in 2010.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Research, reading about Mango, a bit of writing with a dash of art, roller skates and American History.

2009-12-27T13:34:00.000-08:00

Research Project Number - 04

I read over the first two chapters of a new story arc over the last week. They look pretty good. Right now I'm waiting to see if the Client sends anything else or has additional instructions.

And I'm starting to think about the third novel in this trilogy again, which will be designated here as Research Project Number - 05.

Reading: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I'm presently reading Trinity's copy of The House on Mango Street by Latina writer Sandra Cisneros. This book has been on my "to read" list since last May when Cisneros came to Kansas City. I was impressed by her candor, her refreshing tone and her advice to writers (namely that you need Alone Time to write). For some reason I frequently drift just outside the orbit of the Latino-Latina world (lots of reasons I won't get into, some military, some personal) so I felt it was high time to get a sample of Latino literature.

Cisneros writes what we'd probably call flash fiction though I doubt it was called that twenty-five years ago when she wrote this book. It is a collection of very short stories which defy the usual rules on plot. Often told from her perspective as a young child, I felt as if she had somehow managed to capture the voice of childhood. I was also impressed with her personal view of storytelling, namely that we need more stories written for everyone. She aspired to write stories which could be handed to those who do not have time to read, folks who wouldn't feel embarrassed if they didn't understand the story.

So I'm about halfway through the book right now. When I'm through, I may try a few tricks from her playbook.

I'm also reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest, which is moving awfully slow. We're hemmed up with this journalist who doesn't want to be a journal protag. That isn't a good thing if you ask me. I'll keep at it though.

I've also got a stack of books to read on child labor (research) and a book to finish on Andrew Jackson.

The Writing Front: Entangled
Word Count: Same as last entry

Trinity had cabin fever this morning. It doesn't help that her family doesn't treat her the best and that they are at the other end of the city. She misses her dogs (I am not a dog person) so we made a run to the Nelson-Atkins Museum today to look at an exhibit called Hide and Seek. Basically photography depicting childhood for those wondering.

I might get some writing done later tonight after she turns in. Trinity tends to go to bed early and wake up early. During that period from 2100 to 2300 hours is pretty quiet so I try to use that time to write or read.

I had a very long rant about three of Trinity's five kids here. You aren't reading it because I deleted it. All I will say is that they are not much better than the screaming variety I complain about. In fact, given that they are between 20 and 26, frankly, one should expect better behavior out of them.

All I will say is that they seem to get their rocks off hurting my girlfriend.

Well, you know what they say.

You reap what you sow. If they have a lick of sense at all, they'll plow this bumper crop under before the harvest comes due. I don't think they'll like what I bring to market.

In any case, no writing as of yet today.

Other Fronts

Yesterday afternoon Trinity and I went roller skating over at the Winwood Roller Skating Rink, which is not too far from my parent's house.

Once upon a long time ago, before I was born, Winwood was the site of a lake and boardwalk, often referred to as the Atlantic City of the Midwest. The swimming and boardwalk section of the lake was out of commission by time the Murphy Clan arrived in the area, but the skating rink was still a going concern. My elementary school used to sponsor skating parties over there which was the big social event. I used to beg my parents to let me go. Sometimes Mom took me and sometimes I was dropped off, usually with a few quarters for a treat (in my case, it was video games, which I could never get enough of as a kid).

The rink reopened a few years back after a stint as a carpet outlet. Last night was the first time I had been in there in decades. Trinity and I had a pretty good time, though my right skate didn't fit quite right. I had a hell of a shin splint by time I got off the floor.

It hasn't changed much. Most of the video games are long gone and those that remain are not operational. The railings are gone and they've stained the floor a darker color. For some reason I had a harder time roller skating (something I used to do regularly as a kid) than I did ice skating (something I had never done until a week or so ago). I also had this deep fear that I was going to fall forward and bust my lip open, something which didn't bother me at the ice skating event.

In any case, it was a good time. We'll have to do it again sometime.

The Teaching Front: Winter Semester 2010 Prep

While I have not officially started prep work, I'm starting to think about it. I'm going to be making some changes to my American History 120 (up to the Civil War) course.

For one thing, we're going to memorize the dates.

Oh, the humanity, I can hear the screaming now, the stomping of James Loewen as he runs to my classroom with his books. Why memorize the dates?

Well, the problem I have faced over the last two and a half years is pretty simple. My students can not seem to wrap their head around a concept called "concurrent events." Even though I lecture about this on day one, even though I tell them that understanding the sequence of events and how they relate to each is vital to writing an essay that makes since, they can't seem to get with the program. Everything is a jumble of facts which are thrown against the wall in a pell mell fashion in the hopes that their instructor merely skims the essays instead of reading them.

Why memorize the dates?

First reason. Students who do not know anything about history measure the credibility of their Instructor based upon the Instructor's grasp of the dates. I got a couple of them wrong last semester and part of the reason why is that I stopped refreshing my memory on those dates. I'm not teaching it so it fell into disuse. The students figure, "If he doesn't know the dates, he doesn't know anything else."

Which is patent nonsense. I may have the date off but I do know the "sequence of events." I know that every historical story has a beginning, a middle and an ending. With this I can usually suss out the more important aspects of history, one of the most important of which is the motivation, interests and objectives of the parties involved in a given historical event.

So, if they are made to memorize the dates, or at least I try to make them learn it, then they will get just a notch closer to putting together the beginning, the middle and the end of a given event. That is the second reason.

Third reason. If they understand the beginning, the middle and the end, they might be able to put together that higher order stuff that Loewen (who is a sociologist, not a historian and maybe ought to practice in his own field rather than bitch about how historians work) says I should be focusing on anyway.

Things like motivation for instance. No one goes to war on a whim, not even the most evil of leaders has ever done that. There is always a reason, a motivation, or a collection of them. No one protests against working conditions at a factory just for the hell of it, they are usually upset about something. No one leaves for an unsettled part of the world just on a whim either, usually they are leaving their old surroundings for greed, opportunity, freedom, etc.

So I'll make the students learn the dates. In the process I'll relearn them.

That will lead to a lot of screaming in the classroom. It will lead to lower test scores because students rebel at learning the dates.

So be it.

I'm also going to tighten attendance and tardiness policies. Last semester I forgot to tweak my Tuesday-Thursday classes to reflect the two week drop standard. Six days in a Tuesday-Thursday class is three weeks, which is too long if you ask me. If you miss four days, you're gone. If you're tardy, you are counted as absent. When you reach four, you are gone too.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

The Christmas After Action Report and the Writing Front.

2009-12-26T09:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas at the Pod

Well, Trinity and I opened presents on Christmas Eve after starting off with an early present for her. Don't let her protests about geekiness fool you because Trinity is a big Star Wars fan. Her previous copies of Star Wars were stolen during a break in at her old home a few years back so I figured it was time to rebuild her collection.

The only sticking point is that the enhanced version of Episode IV is defective which means a trip back to Target for a replacement. That said, the film lifted her spirits (family troubles, again).

I got Trinity a number of things she wanted, a robe, some sock monkey slippers, perfume, lotion, and other such things. In turn I got a number of sweaters, a sign that I have grown up because I didn't get irritated about the sweaters. Trinity also got me a UMKC Alumni Mug that I mentioned I liked. She got an armband for her iPod nano.

For Christmas Day we did pretty well with the ten pound turkey. Trinity is quite the cook so I left her to her domain while she whipped up stuffing, giblet gravy and green bean casserole for her youngest son who had duty this Christmas. We toasted his service and pitched in around noon. Then I volunteered for KP Duty and got most of the dishes washed up. We had just about the right amount of food, not too much or too little. A good thing since we are both watching our weight.

The Blizzard of 2009 left six to eight inches of snow on the ground which left us wondering what to do next. We hadn't picked up videos for staying in and we were not sure if Screenland Armour was open down the road or not. Good news for us is that Screenland was open and taking customers for the new Sherlock Holmes film with Jude Law and Robert Downey Junior. We got there early enough to enjoy the plush recliner seats near the front of the theater.

As for the film itself? Well, the acting was good and certainly the depiction of Victorian Era London was impressive. It felt right, if that means anything. However, the pacing of the story seemed to be very haphazard with a lot of stop and go back and forth. It felt as if they were making things up as they went, which might be how real life works but it is not a good way to build a story.

Overall, we had a pretty good Christmas.

My only regret is that Trinity did not get to spend time with her family. There is an ongoing communications failure between Trinity and her family which leads to a fair amount of friction. I get pretty angry about it because frankly, if someone plans something and is trying to contact us, they might try something like actually leaving a message on our answering machine.

Which is a lot better than trying to lie to us about failed attempts to contact us over a three day period. The caller ID shows no such record.

What can you do?

The Writing Front: Entangled
Word Count: 3,000 approximate

Over the last two days I managed to get some more work done. An ongoing issue now is just how much do I need to salvage from the original story. More and more, given the POV change, I am thinking that there will not be much to salvage. That means instead of a recycle, I'm looking at a new story, more or less. The question now, among many, is whether or not to change the title.

I'm still pondering that.

The Fitness Front

Trinity and I hit the gym this morning. I'm a bit disturbed by this bit of pudge over my waistline. Oh, I'll never look like Brad Pitt or George Clooney, but I don't like it when my jeans get tight on me. It reminds me of the darkest days of grad school. Part of the problem is the weather, another part is that I am getting older which means it is time to tweak the workout plan again.

On the other hand, there has been no degradation of strength over the last month or so.

Pictures to follow at some point of all the doings at the Pod. Until then, later.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Getting some writing done on this Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

The Writing Front: Entangled
Status: Second Cycle, First Draft
Word Count: 1500 approximate

I put together a project binder during the last week of school. I gathered all of my initial research material and now I'm hard at work. Last night I managed to crank out about 540 words. This morning I pressed on after dropping Trinity off at work until I had a total yield of 1500 words.

Nancy Kress says at her blog that it can be hard to get back into the swing of things after you have been away for awhile. She isn't lying, brother. My brain simply did not want to get back into the groove. I fought for every word that came out of my brain and that dreaded internal editor, something I am usually able to ignore, was hot on my ass the whole time.

Still, I made progress. I always tell myself, give myself permission actually, that the first draft is crap. It is going to have problems, Murph, just get the thing written, then edit it.

In any case, we'll see how it goes. I plan on running this through Terri's Creative Writing class.

Christmas

Here in a bit I'll wade into Crown Center to get a bit of last minute shopping done. Most of what I need can be purchased down here without too much grief.

So Merry Christmas everyone.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri

Photos of the Pod's Refitted Office Space and other shots.

2009-12-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Pod: Photos of the Refitted Office Space

We didn't go for the kitchen tables but we improved the space anyway. Here are some shots.

We got a new three tier shelf for the endless field of binders, most of which are mine. Trinity's cranial explosions will occur less frequently since these binders are now orderly and shelved. I have to admit that I feel better now that they are on the shelves as well.

I still do not feel like I have enough desk space. I suspect at some point I'll get a small writing desk to fill out the left flank of my area.

And of course, we have to have a proofreading spot.

Jesus, I've got to lose weight. That said, these two photographs lack some shiny brass and dark varnish but other than that, we're getting there.

Since it is Christmas, here is the obligatory Christmas shot of Trinity and I.

Plus a bonus cute shot.

We used to get shit about our matching clothing at the campus I teach at all the time. Frankly, given that I spent nearly twelve years of my life wearing uniforms of one sort or another (hell, tack on another four for Civil War Reenacting) I don't see what the problem is.

On this note, I leave you with some music that I am mighty fond of before heading back to the Pod to work on the Client's material.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri