Pigeon Weather Productions

Moon Base Twelve

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:51:00 +0000

Now available for FREE from Smashwords: HERE

"They weren't exactly the crew the President had in mind when he announced his plan to build a permanent base on the moon so the Chinese wouldn't do it first, but there they were, a boring collection of peaceful, happy settlers who couldn't even get a decent reality TV show rating. Life was perfectly dull until the new guy arrived. Now if they could only find out who he was or where he'd come from."

The Book's Review Of Itself:

In the hands of a more traditional writer, this could have been a full-fledged novel replete with well-developed characters enduring dramatic interpersonal conflicts portending dire consequences for all mankind. Instead, it's just another silly, light-hearted satirical sketch of the kind its characters have come to expect of their author. Of course there are the usual larger meanings lurking beneath the surface, but you'd have to drill a little to build something out of them. The book may have one possible answer to that infamous question, "can't we all just get along?" Well? What if we could?

cover art images gimped from sources:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/24/benchmark-couchsurfing/
http://vintagraph.com/space-photos/apollo-11/5488816
http://www.123rf.com/photo_7384622_reach-for-the-stars-with-space-gridded-starmap-and-bright-destination-star.html

Moon Base update

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:57:00 +0000

My new short sci-fi novel, The New Guy in Moon Base Twelve, is coming along quite well. In some ways it's related to Renegade Robot, my Singularity Comedy that hasn't yet reached as many people as I'd like. I was hoping it would turn out to be funny, and I think it has. At least to me. I was laughing out loud the other day when I got to the part where Mister Wonderful appears. It's unlike any "alien encounter" story I've ever come across, so I'll give myself a few points for originality. The first draft is close to complete - just a little denouement is in order now. Then some re-visioning and re-wiring and re-writing, and then it'll be out there ... floating in a tin can ...

always nice to come across a gcl reference

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:42:00 +0000

From The Waste Books

Author of the Week - at Liibook

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:02:00 +0000

this was nice to see at Liibook today

Shelfari

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:02:00 +0000

I just discovered this Amazon readers site - Shelfari - which includes an author page about my ebooks. It's kind of funny to see that some people have taken the time to write out little descriptions of the characters in the books - the characters seem to be automatically extracted by some kind of Kindle magic. It's a whole new world out there. I guess it's like a Goodreads for Amazon devotees.

Interview onLiibooks

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:22:00 +0000

This in on their blog today:

) What started you writing?

Books were always a part of my life. My grandfather was a publisher, my mother a librarian, and I worked in bookstores for many years as well. I think I always wanted to write stories but thought you had to have some kind of special qualifications or training to do it! One day in my early twenties I just had an idea for a story and wrote it. It was terrible - truly awful - but I loved writing it, so I did some more.

) What do you do when you can't get started writing?

I don't worry about it. I don't take myself very seriously and I certainly don't think the world would suffer if I never wrote another story! Every time I finish a story I tell my family it's my last one, that it's all over. They laugh at me.

) What do you hope to accomplish with your writing?

I have no goals with it. When I start a story, I find out soon enough if it has enough ideas in it to keep me going. My writing is very momentum-driven. Once a story gets going, I just keep at it until it's done, and that's all I really want.

) What questions do you hate to answer as an author?

I prefer to give my stories away, so I put them out as ebooks on services that allow me to set the price to zero, such as Liibooks and Smashwords and Feedbooks. I have them on Amazon too for as low a price as they allow, and I've been happy to see them price-match many of them to zero. I hear a lot about how free ebooks are destroying the "profession" of writing, and that bothers me. I wish there was no money in it for anyone, so that the only people who wrote would be the people who really want to, who can't help themselves, who aren't doing it for the money. So I don't like it when people ask me about how to make money from writing. My answer is, for money get a job.

) What questions do you wish people would ask you?

I really enjoy hearing anything from readers. Before I could put my books out there (thanks to the internet), my stories hardly had any readers. Now they've had lots, but I don't hear from them as often as I'd like. When I do, it's usually, "why did the story end the way it did?" because many of my stories have sudden and unexpected endings. My favorite question so far has been, "what's next?"

) What audience did you hope to reach with "Macedonia?"

'Macedonia' is a very special book to me and I'm very happy to be able to have it on Liibooks, especially. I was fortunate in my life to live for a time in South America, and to have some wonderful teachers who introduced me to so much fantastic literature, including so many great Argentine writers. More than anything else, these writers inspired me to want to write my own stories in my own way. I've also been heavily influenced by the ethic of open-source software, which is one of the motivations behind my preference to give my stories away. It's a privilege to be able to contribute what you have to offer in this world. These two streams converged in a fascinating way when I discovered the work and legend of Macedonio Fernandez, who wrote what was in essence an 'open-source' book in "The Museum of Eterna's Novel". I love his inventiveness and humor and generous human spirit. My own 'Macedonia' is both a tribute to him and a bit of gratitude to all the Latin American writers whose work I've enjoyed so much. Although I wrote the book in English, I tried to write it as if I was translating it from Spanish!

) What overall picture or feeling did you want to leave your audience with?

With most of my stories, I like to imagine that my reader will continue the story in their mind after they're done. I try to leave some important elements unsaid. For instance, in 'Snapdragon Alley', I never explain the central mystery at the heart of the book. 'Zombie Nights' ends with a big dangling what-if. 'Ledman Pickup' might feel like the story is just about to begin when it ends. I love books that don't wrap everything up all nice and tidy - I like to say that 'mystery' novels should really be called 'solution' novels because there's never any mystery left when you're done. I want the characters in my stories to have a future beyond the book, a future inside the heads of the readers. I don't think this ever happens, but I like to make believe - which is why I write fiction, after all!

Working Title - The New Guy In Moon Base Twelve

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:51:00 +0000

He's not popular, but why? Could he be a human impostor? A Trans-specian? Or maybe he's just a weirdo. Galen Harbid sets out to discover the truth.

The moon bases were established on a whim (thank you, Newt Gingrich) and for a while we had some things to do - mainly, to build the moon bases. But then, two things happened. We ran out of things to do, and the people back home ran out of interest. We were put into "maintenance mode", in the expectation that sooner or later someone would think of something for us to do.

Oh, you should know that "Moon Base Twelve" is an inside joke. There are really only three moon bases. Moon Base One. Moon Base Two, and Moon Base Twelve. One and Two are from the original mission. Moon Base Twelve was built by us. It was sort of like a barn raising, gave us something to do. It was never much of a moon base, and eventually we abandoned it. That's one reason why the new guy on moon base twelve was an instant curiosity. Nobody seemed to know where he came from, or why, and he wouldn't give us straight answers. Very mysterious altogether.

They weren't exactly what Republican President Spud Goodman had in mind when he first proposed his absurd idea of a permanent base on the moon just to get there before the Chinese did. It turned out that the most viable candidates had to meet certain qualifications; they had to be bisexual, atheist, communist vegetarians. No one else was quite so fit to endure the long duration expected under those conditions. Even with the characteristics they shared, they all dealt with the situation in different ways. Some of them preferred to sleep for weeks, even months at a time. They were the usual assortment of crew, including engineers, mechanics, scientists, researchers, IT guys and communications experts. They had no leader but made their decisions together in rowdy bullshit sessions. They tried their hand at various activities, such as mining, lunar agriculture, inventing new sports and games, continuing to search for intelligent life by radio; all the things you would expect them to do. Mostly they tried to keep their spirits up. Not so easy when you're essentially stuck in a cube farm in space, assigned to a death march project.

Dodo Bozosan Zumba - a short video

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:26:00 +0000

The Mortal Hole

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:22:00 +0000

Some months ago I had a dream that I published a book with this title, and I also dreamt vaguely of the cover. I went about making the cover, finding and tweaking a photo I found of a mortal hole, which is a hole made in stone by a pestle. Well, I had a cover and a dream but no book! Today I published it anyway, using the title and cover for a collection of some of my shorter pieces. It is free, as always, on Smashwords.

One of my motivations for doing this was to get the Sexy Teenage Vampire stories into the hands of people who would never download a book called Sexy Teenage Vampires! I kind of think they're pretty good stories :}

Cracked - a short story

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:39:00 +0000

I was at work one day when my wife called to tell me she was hearing some weird sounds coming from the kitchen. She said it was like a rustling noise, as if someone was crumpling up newspapers behind the sink. I said she should just ignore it, but she said "easy for you to say". She was trying to get some work done and it was driving her crazy.
"Maybe it's mice," she suggested.
"Or rats," I said to myself after pausing to think long enough not to say it out loud. There was no sense in making the situation any worse. I told her I'd look into it when I got home, but if she had some other suggestions she should go right ahead and do whatever she thought best.
"I don't want to do anything," she replied. "I guess I'll just go into the office after all."
That night when we got home we didn't hear anything in the kitchen. I decided to inspect the perimeter of the house to see if there was any way any varmints could have gotten in, but I was already pretty sure of the answer. Our house was made of cinder block walls and a solid cement floor. There were no cracks that I could find, nothing to indicate there was any entry point for rats or mice or squirrels or anything like that. It could have been cockroaches, I thought, except that where we lived there were no cockroaches. Ants don't typically make a lot of noise so I ruled them out as well.
"It was coming from behind the sink," my wife reminded me, so we got out the flashlight and looked under there. It was possible. We had redone the kitchen at one point and put in new cabinets that were not flush against the concrete walls. If something had somehow found a way into the house, and then behind the cabinets, there was definitely a few inches of horizontal space behind the kitchen sink that could be inhabited. And there was a way in from the front, an electrical outlet that did not have a cover around it.
There were two questions now. One, how did it get there, and two, how to get it out, whatever it was. A trap didn't make sense until we had a better idea of what the thing was - or things were, if there were more than one of them - and the same went for poison. I was all for poison, though. I could take the temporary stench of a decaying corpse of any kind as long as it meant an end to the problem. If there really was a problem. After all, I had never yet heard a thing, and didn't hear the noises for a few days after that.
It wasn't until the weekend, when I happened to be around at mid-morning when I did finally hear it. Like my wife had said, it sounded like something crumpling paper, or crackling those really tiny packing material things that go off like little fireworks when you crease them with your palm. I tip-toed into the kitchen as if I was afraid it would stop at my approach, but it didn't. The noises continued. I could narrow it down, not to behind the kitchen sink, but over to the right a bit, behind the cabinet where we used to keep the cat food before we finally got rid of the damn cat.
It had to be rats. I don't know why I came to that conclusion, but I had had some experience with rats in a previous lifetime, and I thought I could smell them now. I decided again not to tell my wife about this suspicion, but went down to the store and bought some poison. This poison came in pretty blue blocks that allegedly tasted like peanut butter. That ought to do the trick, I told myself, and rushed home to toss a couple of the blocks through the open electrical outlet. Then I stood back and waited, silently for a time, unti finally I heard some tiny creeping noises, as whatever it was seemed to scurry closer and closer to the poison. I imagined I could hear gnawing then, and chewing, and swallowing, and just as I was about to do a silent fist pump celebration, I heard a frantic squeaking come from behind the sink, and then a banging sound like a little tiny head being bashed against a wall. I stopped in mid-pump and held my breath in anticipation of more victimly outbursts, but instead there was silence, Just like that.
We didn't hear any more sounds after that, and didn't smell any rotting corpses either. It was as if the poison had managed to evaporate the creature, or teleport it bodily to another dimension. Several times during the following week I inspected the perimeter of the house, but saw no dead creatures, and found no cracks. The whole thing remained a mystery, and I was on the verge of depositing the remaining poison blocks in the trash, when my wife shushed me one morning, and directed my attention once again to the kitchen. It was back. Or they were, whatever it or they was or were. The same scratchy noises. The same rustling paper, coming now from the other side, to the left of the sink instead of off to the right. I hurried to put some more poison down and waited for the familiar chomping, but it didn't take the bait this time. I waited and waited but all I got for my patience was to be treated to the endless rustling, which was beginning to really make me mad. I was thinking about ripping out the entire cabinet system just to see, just to find out what was back there, and hopefully kill it dead and find the hole it crawled in from and stop it up as well. But that would have cost a lot of money, so I backed away from that decision. My wife would not have gone for it either, at least not yet.
That day would come soon enough, the day the things began to speak. At first we couldn't make out the words. They were whispered and rushed and unclear. It didn't even sound like words the first time we heard it. It sounded more like somebody who couldn't whistle trying really hard to whistle, and I know what that sounds like because I'm one of those people who do that. My wife and I crept into the kitchen and sat at the table and strained our ears, because the sound was somehow oddly compelling. It was almost like music. She was the first one to realize it was speech. It was all sped up, she told me, like one of those old record players you could play the records faster than you were supposed to. I don't know how she understood it, and for a few minutes I figured she was maybe going crazy. That was not necessarily a new idea, but I thought about it long enough not to say it out loud. What was the point, after all? I did try to make some suggestions about what it could be, but she kept shushing me, so eventually I shut up and just listened, and then suddenly it began to become clear even to my waxy ears. It did sound like speeded up words, high-pitched and silvery but definitely English. There were syllables I could make out now and then, like '-er' and 'un-' and '-tion', but never an entire word altogether. My wife was having no better luck. This had gone on for something like a half an hour when I just lost it. I jumped up and stomped over to the sink and shouted as loud as I could, "WILL WHATEVER YOU ARE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP?"
That did the trick. There was no further conversation or whatever you call it for the rest of that day. But that was the last time I yelled at them. After all, it wasn't their fault. Over time, we got to understand what they were saying, those poor creatures. We got used to the noises and didn't even try to poison them again after we found out more about them. They were only people, after all, unlucky people who'd been careless enough to have this appalling misfortune catch up with them. Yes, they were irrelevant and that was partially their own doing. Their lives were pointless and meaningless, true, but lots of our lives are like that, and we don't all have to pay such a price. No one could explain it. It didn't make any sense, but somehow, some way, they were people who had gotten lost in the system, fallen through the cracks, and there they were, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. At least they're not nocturnal, and once my wife explained her work-at-home situation, they were more considerate about when they voiced their futile complaints. I still think about tearing the house down some days, but mostly I just live with it. You can get used to pretty much anything in this life. At least that's what they tell me

people who fell through the cracks

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:51:00 +0000

the idea for this story is a contagion of irrelevance that passes from person to person by glances of recognition. we know who we are, the people who fell through the cracks. we're still there but you only hear us sometimes, when we squeak in distress, late at night.

do unto others

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:12:00 +0000

this idea spoken by ron paul tonight at the debate was actually booed by the republican audience. then again they are f****** morons.

what I was really thinking about was the first europeans who came to america. most of them were poor and had a poverty mentality. they were conscripts, convicts, indentured servants, peasants. The european culture was a culture of poverty, of tremendous inequality. these people were hungry to grab whatever they could get their hands on. the cultures they found here were completely different and they could not understand them. we still live the way those Europeans thought, to take whatever you can get whenever you can get it, to leave no stone unturned, to leave nothing behind. they were only doing unto others what had been done on to them, by their kings and nobles. we still worship and follow the ways of greed and short sightedness. like the child beaten by his father and grows up to beat his own child, that's what they did to this land.

super size matters

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:17:00 +0000

a recent blog post in smashwords revealed that the average popular ebook contains about 105,000 words. That's a lot of words! Maybe words are to books what calories are to food. Then mass market best sellers are like Mcdonalds and Burger King. Action is carbs and emotions are fat. These act on the mind like those substances act on the body. The people who put those things together know exactly what they are doing. They measure it all out precisely. Popular authors have secret formulae just like KFC or Taco Bell. Still, is mere quantity of words enough, as long as the grams of action and emotion meet the minimum requirements? In many cases, yes. If the action is sexually violent enough, in these times, all else can be forgiven. Just like on TV. That is the recipe for making money.the author, the one who is all about the benjamins, need only concern him or herself about sufficiently stimulating the pleasure centers of the reader's brain.

where every song is a theme song ...

Sorting

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:22:00 +0000

I like to think that Escher would appreciate the idea that the key to puzzling is an infinite regression of sorting

Thinking, Fast and Slow - a book review

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:49:00 +0000

The human mind (it will happily tell you) is the pinnacle achievement of the entire universe. Everyone agrees. One might argue that the universe itself could be a tad grander than the inner workings of a single part of a single one of its incalculable number of inhabitants, but let's not split hairs. Let's set that argument aside for another day and, instead, take a more objective look at this fabulous instrument. What we will find, as documented so wonderfully and thoroughly in Daniel Kahneman's book, "Thinking Fast and Slow", is that the human mind is exquisitely built to leap to unfounded conclusions, to believe whatever is easiest and feels best, to completely convince itself of its own correctness at any and all times, to never let mere facts get in the way, and to basically take care of its business in the manner it deems most efficient and effective.

It has no rival in self-denial, unless we consider that this is very likely how ALL animal brains work, and for good reason. As animals of this planet, we all have many elements in common to contend with. We need to eat, to find shelter for sleeping, to keep warm but not too warm, to find mates for the myriad purposes of happiness and/or procreation. We need to raise our young, and protect ourselves and them from harm. We have certain obligations as social creatures like others of that kind. There's a lot to get done and the brain is the central coordinating mechanism for a lot of that. It's where all the nerves and sense organs send their data and has the job of controlling motion and directing attention. Above all, it needs to be as certain as it can be of the information it receives and the commands it dispatches.

The mind is "right" a good deal of the time. Kahneman describes two "systems" - the instinctual, in-the-moment, "experiencing self", and the more reflective, thoughtful and calculating "remembering self" which puts together the pieces of our lives and creates meaning and stories out of events and experiences. System One, the former, has to handle tasks such as driving and reacting in crowds and so forth, and does a good job of it, most of the time. System Two, the other, is responsible (collectively) for the inventions and civilizations we've been coming up with over the past ten thousand years, and the advent of languages and social behaviors long before then. So, good job, guys! They deserve the applause.

On the other hand, the mind is "often wrong but never in doubt", and how this works is the main focus of the book. Examples abound in the many fascinating psychological and behavioral studies reported in here, from the lunacy of the stock market to the many ways we are easily influenced by suggestion, by circumstance, by accident or persuasion. How, even when we know for a fact there is no basis for our beliefs, we persist in them regardless. One of my favorite examples here is from the author's own past, where he was in the army and had to judge candidates for officer training based on observing a team-building exercise. While convinced he and his colleagues were making rational, reasonable choices, they later found out that they might as well have picked at random for all the good they did. Nonetheless, even knowing this, they continued with their work without altering their selection process in the slightest!

We know the sky is "blue" because isn't it obvious? Even realizing the fact that it only appears to be blue because of the way our eyes process light information, nothing changes with this knowledge. The sky is still blue.

While reading this book, I wanted to tell my System Two brain to back off and shut up, since it doesn't matter, in the long run, what stories I tell myself about my life. Only the moment matters, therefore System One should be the top dog! But System Two reminded me that System One is an idiot with no memory and no context, and cannot get along without its counterpart. So there we are, stuck with the two of them, each doing the very best they can, the pinnacle achievement in the history of the entire universe. You go, brain!

Corazones 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:04:00 +0000

It's Arte Motu Corazones time again. My idea for this year is to use some leftover materials and celebrate a passing and an arrival. I have some old pegboard leftover from the tool shed renovation and some paint samples leftover from last year's Capradero exhibit. Add a photo of my late stepfather and another of my newborn-friend Joaquin, the first on the left heart-cheek and the other on the right, with red-to-orange-to-yellow gradation from bottom left to top right ...

roughly ...

plot twist

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:16:00 +0000

kill all the characters in the beginning. Saves time getting to know the buggers. who do think they are anyway? hanging around eating all your food. no loitering. kill them all!

Working title, Zara Says

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:34:00 +0000

The devil tries to get a TV show produced featuring a nasty little bitch of a girl

The strangeness of childhood

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:56:00 +0000

Interview with Sendak

Watch "TateShots: Maurice Sendak" on YouTube

on endings, continued

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0000

In his TED Talk, The Riddle of Experience and Memory, Daniel Kahneman tells a story about two patients who underwent a medical procedure. Along the way they were asked about their pain at regular intervals. Patient B reported more pain throughout the procedure, but later it was Patient A who reported a worse overall experience. The reason was that Patient A experienced pain at the very end, while Patient B did not. The ending disproportionately determined the memory of the experience.

This has been clearly true in my fiction as well. Over and over readers have reported that while they enjoyed reading the book(s), the ending(s) so jarred and discombobulated them that they ended up rating the book(s) a full point lower (at least) than they intended to. They often complain that the ending was either too abrupt or too unexpected (or both) and suggest that I go back and change it!

I suppose they mean I should either draw the endings out longer or change them altogether so they are happier or at least more expected endings. I'm not going to do that. In every case the ending is what I think it should be, and I do want to bring up that feeling of conflict in the reader between their experiencing self and their remembering self (to use Kahneman's language).

Endings of most things (in my experience) are jarring. Whether it is a relationship ending (out of the blue) or losing your job (all of a sudden) or friends moving away or accidents or deaths or just people changing, this is how things most often end. They rarely wind down comfortably and slide to a peaceful, restful termination.

We don't want our art to imitate life, really. We want it to be better than that (and by 'better' we mean easier and nicer!)

Weird Bible verses

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:41:00 +0000

Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse: 200 foreskins as a wedding price for a bride

python edition of "the leading cause of problems is solutions"

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:54:00 +0000

so i am replacing selenium rc 1 with webdriver (a.l.a. selenium 2) and have found it to both solve old problems and create new ones. yay. i can upload files in every browser. boo, now it can't find the buttons in javascript frames. does it solve more problems than it creates? unfortunately, it seems to be about even. grrr

Time and Maximizing

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:17:00 +0000

Want to do too much at once these days. Reading two books, working on a puzzle with my son, studying Blender, not enough time for any one of them. And of course the job and commute. Frustrating. Must maximize better.

1493

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:33:00 +0000

Human history no longer belongs to the twin poles of Eurocentricism, which either praise or damn European superiority or dominance, respectively. One consequence of recent globalization and multiculturalism is a redress of the balance of the human story, one which assigns both place and respect (and appropriate blame) to all of the civilizations of size in this world. It reminds us that not only Europeans engaged in the African slave trade, that not only Europeans conquered and settled and traded and stole. Certainly they did all this as well, and in large measure, but not exclusively. The book 1493, by Charles C Mann, is part of this trend and has many interesting stories to tell, centered around the global ecological consequences of Columbus' voyages to the Caribbean. These tales range from tracking the history of malaria and its attendant socio-political consequences (on slavery and war, among other things), to the suggestion that the mini Ice Age in Europe in the 17th century may have been due to the mass decimation of North American native peoples, which was primarily due to the introduction to the continent of infectious diseases such as smallpox. Apparently the native people engaged in widespread burning as an agricultural practice, and the cessation of this, along with the consequent overgrowth of trees, led to a reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In other words, wherever there have been large numbers of humans, they have impacted the environment, including the realm of climate change. That we are doing such now with the fossil fuel burn-off is undeniable, but it is also not unprecedented. It's a conceit of our time that we are the first to do everything. In fact, all of our actions and their unintended consequences are part of a sequence that has been ongoing since the time of the first large-scale human populations, such as in China, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, and elsewhere. Mann argues that the voyages of Columbus kicked off the process of globalization that we are merely continuing now and have been for more than five hundred years. It's a long and complex story, with lots of fascinating aspects, covering the entire planet, from Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas. It is a truism that history is the story of the conquerors, but we are all now, in this time, survivors of the past, and merely by survival we are all the victors today. History is becoming more and more a story of us all, a vast and curious tapestry of societies all around the world that have far more in common than they ever had differences. It's about time we were all included.

friends and friends

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Lichtenberg) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:16:00 +0000

online people know by now that the term "friends" has come to have new meanings.there are friends and then there are friends. people still resist change in the language. On Goodreads, for example, some people are horrified by the thought that you want to be "friends" with them. you didn't mean to offend. you merely thought their taste in books was interesting. but no matter, you can still follow their reviews.

it's very common for people to feel protective of their special words and to hate it when they change their meanings, but this is what language is about. it happens.

I was never very attached to the word "friends". Perhaps it's because I've lost so many over the years and some who I thought of as friends were really not, after all. on the other hand there's no mistaking "family". it is what it is.