Chancelucky

Six Degrees to the Steele Memo

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 17:00:00 +0000

Reading the Sunday paper is now one of the lost pleasures of American life. As an only child, I didn't have to fight over who got to read the comics page first, but once finished, I would sometimes have to wait for my father to finish the sports and editorial pages. While waiting, I often found myself reading Parade Magazine, a Sunday supplement that came with virtually every metropolitan daily's Sunday edition. The articles in Parade were generally this weird mixture of Reader's Digest fare, celebrity puff profiles, and less than profound world events. The heart of reading Parade was really the inner cover that had a bunch of photos and celebrity gossip, which was attributed to Water Scott. The Walter Scott thing was a precursor to both People Magazine and TMZ, though far gentler than the latter.

Before my sophomore year of college, I took a cross country car trip with a good friend in my family's Mazda RX4 rotary engined station wagon. We stayed in campgrounds and more frequently at the homes of people who we barely knew or whom our parents barely knew. When we got to Washington D.C. , Richard Nixon was on the brink of resigning. We stayed in Georgetown in the apartment of the son of a friend of my friend's father who lived in Pacific Palisades. My friend told me that they sometimes played tennis at their house. I mostly remember that the son of the friend of the friend's father knew a lot about what was happening with these last stages of Watergate that wasn't in the papers. In addition, it turned out that his family ran Parade Magazine and, much to my delight, I discovered that while his father usually wrote under the pseudonym, the son of the friend of the friend's father sometimes was Walter Scott. Mostly though, he was a very gracious host who patiently helped us figure out our route to Charleston, South Carolina. Our host was Cody Shearer.

I hadn't thought much about Cody Shearer for 40+ years until his name popped up in the news as the author of a second "dossier" that brought up some of the same concerns about Donald Trump as the far more prominent Steele dossier. Since that time, Shearer's name has been showing up in the right wing press a lot, where he's being accused of being a hatchet man for the Clintons who both nearly re-ignited hostilities in Bosnia and either dug up dirt on various Bill Clinton alleged paramours or threatened them in ways you only see in bad spy movies. It also struck me that Cody Shearer is now around 70 years old and this is the only time I've, personally, seen his name bubble up into news.

I think back about Walter Scott and Parade which both live on. The celebrity/news mix of the Walter Scott items were more or less the stem cells for what is today's blend of infotainment and fake news. It's just that back then, most of us treated it as a guilty Sunday morning pleasure, rather than something that would inform our votes about matters of global importance. We understood that they were meant to be "filler" for the Sunday paper hour, the alternative to church for non-religious households like mine.

What I also remember about Cody Shearer was that he was clearly a very bright man who seemed preternaturally well informed. He was a young guy then -- though a few years older than two sophomores to be at the time -- who seemed to be looking forward to a more serious career in journalism than Parade and Walter Scott; none of us have any control over what our parent's business either public or private turns out to be. Depending on one's political perspective, he may be one of the heroes who may yet save us from Donald Trump and the Russians, a kind of Paul Revere in secret memo form or some sort of Gringott's troll for the Clintons' nefarious scheme to control the world by getting people to donate to their foundation while personally enriching themselves.

I don't know which of these two poles is closer to the truth. I'm not a great judge of character, even when it comes to judging my own. Still my memory of my host in Washington D.C. that summer of 1974 (strange how there's both a Watergate connection and a Trump-Russia tie running through this) was that this was a very earnest guy who was less into the gossip than he was into ensuring that our system ran right. If I had to guess, Cody Shearer's memo, the one that even journalists don't seem to have seen, is based on real sources. Oddly, I also think he might have been uniquely qualified to ferret some of these things out.

Donald Trump as Andrew Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 00:32:00 +0000

192 years ago, the U.S. elected a President who opposed the economic plans of the Eastern bankers, rejected the benefits of education in favor of belief in the wisdom of the "common man", and who wanted to drive the indians out of the United States while favoring the expansion of black slavery. link to article

The President was Andew Jackson . I suppose the good news was that Jacksonian democracy didn't destroy the United States, but I'm not so sure that would be true in 2016.

We have an Alexander Hamilton with a black Hamilton and black versions of America's first Presidents. I wonder if there will be an Andrew Jackson musical. Jackson did have red hair.

Lochte for President?

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 20 Aug 2016 14:36:00 +0000

Timing is such an odd thing. In the same week, Donald Trump and Ryan Lochte expressed public regrets without actually apologizing or specifying what they did wrong. In Lochte's case, he's persisting with a story that someone who was not a police officer pointed a gun at him and demanded money. He neglects to mention what came before: a drunken Lochte and his younger swim friends were urinating on a gas station wall, committed some level of vandalism (It's not clear how far it went), and then told police they'd been "robbed". While Lochte's hair is more Guy Fieri than orange chaos and he actually does appear to be in better physical health than anyone who's ever served as President of the United States, the behavior is peculiarly Trumptastic.

TMZ had a mini-article that Ryan Locthe's home, somehow he made it home before a couple of his comrades, was being guarded by police who were keeping a 99 yard perimeter between America's second biggest medal winning swimmer and most famous public urinator and any angry mobs of outraged citizens. TMZ didn't specify whether the Charlotte taxpayers are subsidizing his protection. If so, I suspect they're doing it because Lochte had piloted a solution to North Carolina's transgender-bathroom dilemma. Given the number of cross dressers and transgender said to wander through Rio, I suspect Lochte and friends were afraid to use a gender-designated bathroom. In the meantime, I credit the police for protecting someone who basically is calling their Brazilian brother and sister officers 'liars', now that he's several thousand miles away. I also probably shouldn't comment abou thte Black LIves Matter juxtaposition of the whole thing.

I doubt that I'll be around in 24 years when Ryan Lochte runs for President, but I'd love to see how they find a way to spin his adventure in Rio. .

Mr. Trump Regrets

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:16:00 +0000

After re-arranging deck chairs with his campaign staff and seemingly heading towards an even deeper "let Trump be Trump" direction by bringing Steve Bannon of Breitbart on board, Donald Trump did a mildly unexpected thing: he publicly said that he regretted some of the things he'd said. This-coming from a candidate who never apologizes-was quite a departure for someone who was expected to double down on the Attila the Trump persona.

Here's my stray thought. There's a fingerprint here and it's not Bannon's. Trump's softening reminds me of the "kinder-gentler nation candidate" from 16 years ago. More significant, candidate Trump has started repeating a curious mantra about Hillary Clinton taking the black vote for granted. Some estimates have Trump's share of the black vote at 1%. It's a bit of a leap, but it reminds me of the Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 when Roger Ailes, through Fox News, took a candidate's strength and turned it into a weakness by relentlessly attacking it with marginal information.

Is it possible that the recently disgraced Roger Ailes who some sources say has been advising the campaign is really the one calling the shots for the Trump Campaign now? Kellyanne Conway's promotion to campaign manager may just be cover for Ailes's own enhanced role in the shadows where he can hide the incredibly bad optics of having a serial sexual harasser work for a candidate who suggested that women who get abortions face punishment. Consider this. Of the three, Bannon, Conway, and Ailes, only one has any experience running a campaign. Like him or not, Ailes was very effective at it.

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:54:00 +0000

The Next Big Thing

A couple weeks ago, my friend May-Lan Tan , a wonderful writer, asked me if I wanted to participate in a project called the Next Big Thing. May-Lan's also a very talented artist, so my interview page is going to look pitiful by comparison. Here goes.

What is the working title of the book?

The Fortress of Light is a novel whose plot explores the power of the movies as a storytelling device. The story alternates between a current day digital special effects studio and Mongol China, though it’s a Mongol China that already has the movie projector.

Early movie film stock was celluloid which was flexible but also perishable, because it was highly flammable. In order to show movies safely in a crowded public space, they had to develop projection booths with fireproof, usually concrete, walls. In the novel, the title refers to both the projection booth and the human imagination.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

About three years ago my wife and I went to a Silk Road exhibit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Being Chinese-American and old enough to remember a time when multi-culturalism wasn’t a word used by ordinary people, I was fascinated to see how much mixing of cultures took place under Kublai Khan centuries before public service announcements. It’s no accident that Marco Polo might be the most famous individual from the 13^th century. I not only share a name with him (more or less), I made him a character in my book.

Into which genre does your book fall?

I call it ‘Silk Road Punk’. Steam Punk is a science fiction/alternate history genre where modern devices are re-imagined as creations of the Victorian era, so flying machines might be powered by steam engines and computers might be mechanical instead of electronic.The Chinese already

knew about the camera obscura and the zoetrope. The Persians had Greek fire.

It also has bits of romance, ghost story, and what they used to call the ‘novel of ideas’. There’s a lot of stuff in it about the nature of storytelling that threatens to push the book towards the “L” word, though not the L from the TV series.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

It’s a ghost story in part, so I guess it’s fair to use actors who are dead. I’d love to have Sessue Hayakawa, who played Hollywood romantic leads in the silent era and Anna May Wong, the Chinese-American actress who couldn’t get the lead in the Good Earth over a Caucasian actress. I’d also want John Cho (Harold and Kumar), Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern), and Julianne Hough (Dancing with the Stars).

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Two teenagers make romantic comedy movies in Mongol China.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

The main character is a ghost with an eight-hundred-year-old case of writer’s block.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My father loved to read. I’d give him books for birthdays and Christmas. We’d both read them and talk about them. He died when I was twenty-two. I’ve often thought about how stories and storytelling connect us to people who are no longer with us.

Six writers I'm tagging
Wendy Fleet
Myra Sherman
Sarah Amador
Patrick Fanning
Shirley Kwan
L. McKenna Donovan

The Haircut Lady

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 18:07:00 +0000

For the last eleven years, I've gotten my hair cut by the same woman. My wife, who's not Asian, was convinced that most people who work in those ten dollar haircut places have no idea how to cut Asian hair. My guess is that it might have more to do with their working in ten dollar haircut shops. We happened upon this one woman who happens to be a Cambodian immigrant and my wife decreed that I should always go to her to get my hair cut.

I've since followed her to three different salons. Somewhere around year eight after talking about Asian restaurants, vacations, learning that she never learned to swim because she almost drowned in the river as a child when her family was trying to leave Cambodia,her family's real estate misadventure (they bought 6 rental houses at exactly the wrong time, for about a year I kept wondering why a woman who owned 7 houses was cutting my hair). I eventually learned that she sings in Cambodian and performs for weddings, birthday parties, and other gatherings. Most recently someone she didn't really know asked her to sing at her daughter's sixteenth birthday party.

First I was surprised thata sixteen year old living in Santa Clara county would want Cambodian singers at her birthday party. When I was that age, the last thing I wanted was any hints of being that different. Times change and people get smarter I think. I then asked the inevitable American question. "Are they paying you to sing?" link to Khmer singer not my haircut lady

She looked at me, "No, I coldn't charge for singing. I do it because it's fun."

"I'm sure they'd be happy to pay a little bit." She was driving across a couple counties, spending hours at strangers' parties, etc. Surely these people were taking advantage of her.

"They probably would, but I couldn't do that."

But why? I thought. Obviously after going through 6 foreclusures, having to sell your hair salon, etc., she could clearly use a little extra cash.

"I just couldn't charge people. It would change things."

Here I was getting my hair cut by a female-Cambodian vesion of Searchiing for Sugarman.

Somewhere between the time she was aksing me for the 200th time if I wanted gel in my hair (yikes!) and my saying "No, not this time." It struck me that she's maybe saner about what she does than I am about what I do (the writing thing).

She sings because she loves to sing. She only sings in Cambodian. She loves knowing that people appreciate her singing and ask her to share it. She simply doesn't want to equate it with money. I'ts not about that and it's not for that. It's sane, admirable, quite beautiful in a way that I can't quite grasp because I'm maybe too American except for my hair.

I've asked her if she had a CD, Mp3, or something, but maybe it's almost better that I have no idea what her singing sounds like.

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:04:00 +0000

Wordrunner e-Chapbook is proud to announce the publication of "Our Place", excerpts from Atar Hadari's novel. It's a fascinating multi-layered look at kibbutzes c. 1938.

Cirque in Atticus Review

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:48:00 +0000

I'm pleased that the Atticus Review has published my story, "Cirque". link to Atticus Review

Two out of Three

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:54:00 +0000

I used to be a long-suffering fan of the San Francisco Giants. I can’t say that any longer and likely won’t be able to say it for the rest of my life. I was born in 1955, the year after the New York Giants won their last world series against the Indians. Most people remember 1954 as the series during which Willie Mays made “the catch” off of Vic Wertz. I first attended a major league game in 1963, the night after the Marichal vs. Spahn 16 inning 1-0 game won on a Willie Mays home run. It was also the year after the Giants took the Yankees to 7 games in the Worlds Series and Willie McCovey lined out to Bobby Richardson. After that, it was 48 years of bad karma best exemplified by the Loma Prieta World Series in 1987 when the first World Series game in Candlestick Park in 25 years was interrupted by a major earthquake. In the 2002, Rob Nen’s arm suddenly gave out right before the world series. This ended with 2010 and the Island of Misfit Toys team. Edgar Renteria was the MVP of the World Series. The next spring he was with the Cincinnati Reds. Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Andres Torres, and Brian Wilson all played major roles on that team. Only Huff played in 2012. That team was built around ultra-reliable starting pitching and the ability of the entire lineup to hit a home run now and then. Pablo Sandoval looked like he’d eaten his way out of baseball and Barry Zito was left off the playoff roster. The 2012 team hit fewer home runs than any team in the majors. The starting pitching was up and down all year and through the first half of the playoffs. Sergio Romo’s career high for saves before 2012 was four. The team dealt with the loss of Freddy Sanchez, Brian Wilson, and Melky Cabrera. In fact, the Giants went through two suspensions for performance enhancing drugs. Guillermo Mota was suspended for 50 games too. Marco Scutaro had the best three month stretch of his 12 year major league career. The team went with an All Brandon infield. Both Belt and Crawford were homegrown and neither player was a lock to even make the team in the Spring. Partly because of them, the team morphed from leading the majors in errors in April (Crawford went through a really bad stretch) to being the best fielding team in the baseball. Fear the beard became bullpen by committee. Barry Zito started the first game of the World Series and beat Justin Verlander. Tim Lincecum suddenly became a middle reliever. Bottom line, the team won 2 championships in 3 years and even more amazingly totally changed formula in doing so. It may be time to recognize Bruce Bochy and Dave Righetti as the best manager/pitching coach combination in baseball. Believe it or not, Davey Johnson (deserving in many ways) was named the Sporting News National League Manager of the Year. The baseball writer’s award is yet to be announced. As much attention as Buster Posey has received, the other factor is that Bochy has quietly gotten guys to produce, set guys down who weren’t producing without any disruption to the team’s chemistry, and found ways to keep players like Ryan Theriot relevant and ready. Bottom line, I don’t know that I’ve seen a team managed better than this one. Righetti’s run as pitching coach has been similarly miraculous. One last thing. In the sixties, the team built around the best player in baseball, Willie Mays, and finished second 5 times in a row. That team had 5 Hall of Famers who played significant roles for the team. Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Marichal, and Gaylord Perry. In the Nineties and early 2000’s, the team built around Barry Bonds who like him or not was the best player of his generation. Throughout that time, there was this whole steroids business hanging over the team and there was sense that whatever success the team had during that era was some sort of deal with the steroid devil. In 2010, the Giants became the Los Angeles Dodgers of the mid-sixties. Under Bochy, the Giants transformed from one man show into a team. Melkey Cabrera could have joined the team for the playoffs. He had been the MVP of the 2012 All Star Game and had the highest batting average in baseball, though Buster Posey officially won the batting title. The team simply said ‘no’, one player does not a team make. Tim Lincecum quietly gave up his starting role for the playoffs and turned into a tremendous middle reliever. Hunter Pence, in the middle of a horrible slump and a late season pickup, rallied the team after it went down 0-2 to the Reds. This team was all about being a team and the result was a run through the playoffs that appeared to be about winning the right way. No high-priced free agents (Zito being the exception), no egos, mostly home grown starters, no one caring about who was getting the credit or the attention. I could make the argument that this Giant team (the playoff version) might be the best thing to happen to baseball in the last twenty years. As the team with the fewest homers in the game, they spiritually put the steroid era behind the game for at least a little while. Just think, had it not been for Scott Cousins (btw he hit .163 in 2012), it might have been 3 in a row. But would it have smelled this sweep?

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:11:00 +0000

My articles about the electronic chapbook are now up at Flash Fiction Chronicles.

e-Chapbook Anthology "Found"

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:03:00 +0000

Please check out the lastest issue of e-Chapbook

Found

Laura Loomis • Meeting Angel
Tania Hershman • Manoeuvres
Jeff Haas • Things Not Seen
Lucille Gang Shulklapper • Roommates
• The Inheritance
Mary McCluskey • Who Are You?

Sara Toruno-Conley • In the
Beginning • Growing Neurons in
the Desert • Mother’s Aftermath
Angela Corbet • Genealogy
Bianca Diaz • Finds
• Brother Bougainvillea
Victor Arnoldo Perez • Photograph of
Mexico, 1953

George Washington and the Teabaggers

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:35:00 +0000

I’ve been reading Ron Chernow’s excellent biography of George Washington, Washington: A Life. It's a fascinating portrait full of unexpected details like the fact that George Washington had issues with his mother who may have even sympathized with the English during the revolution and that Washington had frequent money troubles.

In the last several years, the conservative movement and the Teabaggers in particular have made a point of claiming the Founding Fathers. I've even seen Chernow quoted in one blog as a source to support Washington's view of Jesus as essential to the American government. Chernow's book does nothing of the sort. He acknowledges that Washington prayed and mentioned "Providence" frequently. He also mentions that Washington was not a regular churchgoer, very rarely used Jesus's name in public, and made a point of visiting a variety of churches and synagogues to underscore his belief that the government did not have a chosen religion or religious sect. He even said nice things about atheists on at least one occasion.

The Teabaggers have always puzzled me with their talk about history, because they so often leave out the fact that Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father. In fact, Hamilton and Jay (both Federalists) were two of the three main authors of the Federalist Papers. Hamilton did things like help establish a bank of the United States (not the Federal Reserve, but something of a cousin), persuaded the President to go to war to enforce a Federal tax on whiskey, and encouraged what became the national debt. No, he probably would be upset that it's gotten as big as it has, but the bigger wealthier states were none too happy when Hamilton endorsed the idea of the federal government taking on the debts of the individual states and borrowing a large sum of money from (get this!) France. Washington almost always backed Hamilton in financial matters, which might suggest that Washington who wanted a stronger Federal government and who discouraged the formation of militias in favor of a Federally-controlled standing army wasn't exactly a Teabagger.

Maybe most significant, Washington, in his own life, regretted the formation of political parties because he believed that we were Americans-first not members of a political party. Of course, the Tea Baggers claim to not be affiliated with a party. They just happen to vote Republican and never support Democrats. If they believe what they say they believe, Shouldn't they be voting for Gary Johnson anyway?

Washington was also very much in favor of the new government encouraging the manufacturing sector, by investing in it and in developing infrastructure through roads, bridges, etc. When it came to the growth of the US, he wasn't anti-tax at all (though they didn't have a federal income tax back then).

Bottom line, George Washington, if he were alive today, likely wouldn't be agreeing with the Teabaggers or the conservatives about much of anything. Just as interesting, the Constitutional period and the early years of the Republic reflect a period when there was vigorous disagreement about most every imaginable matter. The great minds from both sides Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison found ways to work together on the basics rather than demonize one another. It was part of Washington's greatness as a President that he presided over this and the mix that resulted was the result of give and take between big state vs small state, merchants vs farmers, east vs. west, pro-English vs. pro-French, strong central government vs. states' rights. This country was the result of any number of compromises.

In that sense, the Teabaggers have run deeply counter to the spirit in which this country was founded and how it evolved. It's little wonder that they've depended so heavily on a "fantasy" history of the United States.

Mitt Romney-Birther

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 01:48:00 +0000

It was meant as a joke, but it's strangely similar to a joke where you pin down a gay classmate and shave the guy's head.
The problem with Mitt stooping to making the birther joke about no one asking him to see his birth certificate is that it betrays his spectacular lack of diplomacy and sense of nuance in a manner consistent with his disastrous trip to Europe and Israel. This is a guy who lacks the skill to run a country. In the business world, if you manage to offend a major client in this way, you get fired.

Speaking of fired, one reason the joke isn't such a good joke is that Romney's never actually repudiated the birthers. He even pals around with Donald Trump.

If you remember, Obama made a joke about Seamus recently and the Romney campaign took offense. One significant difference, the Seamus story was true and it came from Mitt's son.

D-Day

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:11:00 +0000

This story about a widow trying to find out if her husband was killed at D-Day is fascinating all by itself.

The really interesting thing is that as much lip service as gets paid to how much they value the military, her congressman lied about having checked into the story with the National Archives. They simply made up an answer and told her that they had.

I looked up the party affiliation for Congressman Mac Thornberry and naturally he's a very conservative Republican. All Congressional staffs make mistakes, but sometimes those mistakes are telling. What's it suggest about the Congressman's actual patriotism?

So much has been written about Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment and what it meant, I just thought I'd give the blogosphere a break :} and share this story about how one congressional office treated a military widow.

Interesting article on right wing terror issues

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 00:32:00 +0000

link to Johnston article

The Republicans politicized it, but the Obama administration also backed down in the wake of the right wing furor over the suggestion that right wing terrorists needed to be investigated. It sums up where we are in a nutshell. Sometimes, data doesn't have a political affiliation or, at least, it shouldn't. I would rather have an administration that would take a principled stand in matters like this. That, however, does not mean I think we should elect the people who made the trouble in the first place instead. As a political judgment, Secretary Napolitano was probably making an accurate assessment of what could and couldn't be done. In the meantime, we can't run around teaching history and science based on the way we want things to be or interpreting weather and other environmental data based on what's good for business. We need to figure out what the available facts say and make judgments based on that.

On the other side, there was the Family Research Council shooting. One difference though is that Lesbian and gay groups quickly condemned the shooting. I've still never seen a comment from Michelle Bachmann or those saying similar things about non-Christian groups about the Sikh temple killings in the state right next to hers.

Rafalca

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:44:00 +0000

Was Caligula the Roman Emperor who appointed his horse consul? I'm not saying that anything similar will happen for the Romney family's horse-tax deduction source, Rafalca who recently competed in the Olympics in dressage (btw Rafalca finished 28th, if only his owner will do the same in November). It did get me interested in Ann Romney and, thanks to Wikipedia, I learned that she converted to Mormonism for Mitt which meant that her family weren't members of the church.

At first, I was shocked to learn that her own parents didn't get to go to the wedding, because only Mormons can attend weddings in a Mormon temple (not to be confused with the meeting house where they attend services on Sunday). I then learned that the Romneys had a civil ceremony at Ann's parents' home first that was attended by the members of her family. They then flew to Salt Lake City for a Mormon service in the temple there. Ann's family attended a reception breakfast in Salt Lake City the next morning. After that various members of Ann Romney's family did convert to Mormonism.

It suggests strongly that the couple understands the difference between a civil marriage and a religious wedding ceremony well. It's little wonder that Mitt once appeared to support civil marriage for gay couples. I'm curious why someone who so thoughtfully made this distinction in his own life, suddenly changed his mind.

I did have the chance to interview Mitt's little known younger brother, Flop, about this and he explained that Mormon marriages don't have an until death do you part clause. A Mormon family stays a family after everyone dies, something that I have to say is quite touching. Through my connections as a writer for the vast right wing conspiracy (VRWC), I had the good fortune to interview Flop Romney, Rafalca, and Seamus (the family's deceased Irish Setter who's currently living in heaven in the Romney house in the after-life complete with an elevator for Seamus's station wagon). Apparently, they were impressed with the fact that I'd gotten access to Meth Palin's secret diary and its entry about the magic clothes (as opposed to special underwear) four years ago. I'll be posting excerpts from that interview soon. Seamus had just come in from another Romney family vacation and had a little accident all over my notes.

Michelle Bachmann and Wisconsin

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:21:00 +0000

I've been googling for comments by Michelle Bachmann in response to the Sikh Temple Shootings. I can't find them. Does that mean that no one's asking her about it or that she's not answering the question? If someone turns up her response, let me know.

Aurora

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:04:00 +0000

I'm horrified by the recent theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. Perhaps it's too early for me to ask this question, but one of the arguments against gun control is that potentially someone being fired upon might be able to fire back. Why is it that it never happens though? Or are there instances where some civilian with a gun has shot a mass murderer mid-rampage?
There were hundreds of people in that theater and no one used a gun to shoot back? Do mass murderers pick their crowds to eliminate this possibility? There was the one in the Unitarian Church in Tennessee a few years ago. The hero simply tackled the shooter, more or less exactly what Batman (who generally doesn't use firearms) would have done.
Okay, I decided to look it up and accurate or not Wikipedia has a page on "spree killers". Some really fascinating patterns. The killers are overwhelmingly male. Only 2 were female and one of those was in the company of her boyfriend. There's a huge cluster of these kinds of shootings after the year 2000 and I didn't find any instance where one of the victims to be pulled out a gun and shot the shooter.
fwiw, their list is incomplete. It's missing the big Stockton shooting at Cleveland School in 1989 and the Montreal Ecole Polytechnique shootings also in 1989. I am, however, assuming that it's reasonably representative. The other interesting thing is that these things are clearly not strictly an American phenomenon. In fact, the most horrific ones have been in other countries like Norway and Australia.
The vast majority of the shooter/killers were very clearly mentally ill and showed signs of stress well before they did what they did. Whatever one's thoughts about gun control, it should also raise questions about providing services and treatment for the seriously mentally ill. It's not a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Michelle Bachmann and Mitt Romney

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:36:00 +0000

A number of Republican leaders have come forward in the last couple days to condemn fellow Republican, Michelle Bachmann's attacks on Huma Abedin (AKA Mrs. Anthony Weiner) and other Moslems in governement or who work with the government. Fascinatingly, one Republican has been noticeably silent on the matter, the presumptive leader of the Republican party, Mitt Romney. I googled Mitt and Bachmann to see if he or his campaign had weighed in on the matter. The only articles that came up were about Mitt having considered Michelle Bachmann as a possible running mate. In the words of his wife, "You people" know all you need to know about her husband. Taking on Bachmann would just be bad for business.

The Rain in Bain

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:09:00 +0000

I don't think any of us can know how "smart" Mitt's refusal to share his past tax returns is without knowing what's in them. For instance, people would have wanted OJ to turn over the knife, but I'd have to say that he was probably smart to get rid of it (assuming OJ, in fact, killed his wife and Ron Goldman). If there's stuff in there that would take him out of the race, Mitt's being very smart indeed and it's worth the cost.

The thing I notice is that even Richard Nixon claimed "executive privilege". He had some "principle" he was trying to protect by refusing to turn over his tapes. Mitt's not claiming any kind of principle other than his insistence that it would be bad strategy. (a difference between business leadership and political leadership. Whenever the guy really left Bain, his mindset never did leave)

That's not smart. His people should have helped him make some claim that he wants to make a stand about "privacy" even for Presidential candidates and the limits of what the debate should be about, "issues" rather than pecadillos. He should also then make a point of refusing to call for information about the President's past and how "gotcha" politics is crippling the process and the real debate we need to have.

Romney's gone the other way instead and it's made it look like he's covering something up. He's playing it more like Darth Vader than say uh Batman. iirc Batman has dark stuff about himself and certainly has secrets, but he also has a strong sense of principle and honor. It's the latter that makes Batman a "hero", albeit a complex one. Mitt had a chance to act like Batman and he chose to play the Joker instead.

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:52:00 +0000

My story "Forever Plastic" is up at Slurve Magazine

My Articles on First Person Narration

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:41:00 +0000

I wrote two craft articles on first person narration for Mackenna Donovan's fine site, "To Write Well". Sadly, Mackenna closed her site and after getting a couple requests, the articles are now at this link.

If you happen to read them, let me know how you liked them.

Party of Three

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:50:00 +0000

My very short story "Party of Three" is in Extracts

Fight of the Century

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:39:00 +0000

My story, Fight of the Century is now up at Kweli Journal.

Simulators (fiction)

noreply@blogger.com (Chancelucky) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:31:00 +0000

My story "Simulators" is now up in the Spring 2012 issue of RKVRY.