I’ve written a fairly long post about thought balloons on the Herevile website. I would have cross-posted it here, but resizing the images sounds like too much work. :-)
When I was a kid, the “Timespirits” comic book — which was published by Marvel (under the “Epic Comics” imprint) and only lasted nine issues — was very special to me. I read the too-few issues again and again, captivated by the rather trippy time-travel adventures and by Tom Yeates’ artwork.
Timespirits was probably the first comic book I read in which nearly all the important characters (including the ghost of Jimmi Hendrix, extremely well drawn by Tom Yeates), and both the protagonists, were people of color. That’s still damned rare nowadays, but it was virtually unknown in the 1980s.
I haven’t read Timespirits in years (it’s long out of print, alas, although apparently Image is working on a trade paperback reprint), and I don’t know how well they’d hold up. But I remember them fondly, so I was sad to find out that Steve Perry, the writer of Timespirits (and also a writer on the old “Thundercats” TV show), is having troubles he won’t recover from.
I got a lovely thank you note from Steve Perry, but the contents break my heart:
I want you to know I am so very grateful to you for being so kind, generous and wonderful — my own fate is pretty iffy and I care most about my five year old. He has been with me 24/7 all his life, and even more so since his mother left a year ago because she could not deal with the discovery that I had cancer. Now that it has returned, the future is pretty raw, and while Leo and I face homelessness again, your kindness will be forever appreciated. Thank you so very, very much.
He also says he’s still trying to get his electricity back on. In case it wasn’t clear from my last post, Steve is dying of bladder cancer. And on top of that, he has no home and is trying to look after a young child. No one should have to go through all this in the last months of their life. So, again, I’m asking you to send a donation, however small, to his PayPal account (sandramaples48 @ yahoo.com). Some of you boosted the signal on this, and a lot of you went ‘eh, nothing to do with me’. Which is sad, really, because anyone can end up with cancer, and anyone could end up homeless too.
Well, if I can’t incentivise you any other way, I will give a free copy of any of my ebooks – self-published or not, including the one which I can’t officially give you – to anyone who sends me a receipt for their Paypal donation of at least $10 to Steve. Redact your real name, but I want to see proof. Forward it to me at logophilos@gmail.com and tell me the book you want.
Feel free to repost this message.
I’ll offer a similar deal: If you’re one of the first five people to email me a copy of their Paypal receipt, showing a donation of $40 or more to Steve Perry, I’ll mail you a hand-drawn sketch of the Hereville character of your choice — or even a Thundercat, if you prefer — on good-quality paper. (I’ll update this post once the offer is closed — so if you can read this, then the offer’s still open!).
Steve Bissette and Johnny Bacardi have both posted more about Steve Perry’s circumstances.
Conservative David Frum on the (apparent) passage of health care reform:
At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.
Right away, reading that paragraph, I was in shock. I cannot recall hearing another conservative admit this fairly obvious truth about the Republican strategy; that Republicans made a decision, regardless of the policy on offer, to not make any deals at all — even though Obama was clearly, transparently, flagrantly desperate for even a handful of Republican votes.
And to be fair, it was a strategy that almost worked, because of Ted Kennedy’s untimely death, and because Democrats in Congress are fractious and easily panicked. It probably would have worked without Nancy Pelosi.
What Frum doesn’t acknowledge is that conservatives actually got enormous concessions in the legislation, even though they didn’t give it a single vote. Quoting Ezra:
As Democrats came to realize that they couldn’t get Republican votes for the bill by adding policies that Republican senators supported, they began trimming their ambitions in order to keep their caucus together. As they came to realize that they couldn’t pass the legislation without their most conservative members, they gave their most conservative members a veto card over the bill’s provisions. The result is legislation that’s not only much more conservative and incremental than what past presidents have proposed, but is also much more conservative than the major health-care reforms — namely Medicare and Medicaid — that past presidents have passed. And Republicans got these substantive concessions not by making a deal, but by not making a deal.
Back to Frum:
But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
Again, I am stunned.
Not stunned by what Frum is saying — he’s absolutely correct, and everyone who pays attention has known that for months. There’s very little air between the “Obamacare” plan and what Republicans favored (and Democrats opposed) in the 1990s.
No, I’m stunned to hear a conservative admit it. Conservatives mostly — either because they’re liars, or because they’re genuinely ignorant of health care policy 101 — have been claiming that the Health Care Reform bill is so extreme it’s socialist! It’s the end of freedom! It’s a takeover of the economy! It’s just like the UK! Hearing a conservative acknowledge reality feels like being an actress in a TV commercial for York Peppermint Patties. It’s that refreshing.
Frum brings another unwelcome dose of reality to conservatives:
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?
Republicans will do well in November’s elections — they would have done so no matter what happened to this bill. The Democratic majority is too large to be sustained, especially in an off-year election. But if they run on promises of repeal! repeal! repeal!, then in 2011 they’ll have a bitterly disappointed base.
So why didn’t Republicans in Congress compromise?
There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother? […]
The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
Unfortunately, I can’t see any way any of that will change.
But I am thrilled that Health Care Reform — compromised as it is — is about to pass. I’ll go back to being pissed off at the Democrats soon enough, but right now, they done good. ((Unless, of course, they manage to drop the ball when they’re this close to victory. In which case the major egg on my face due to this post will be the very least of my concerns, believe me.)) To quote Frum one last time:
Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever.
It is Norouz, the Persian New Year, which is celebrated far and wide throughout what used to be the Persian Empire, and I thought I would share with you the section of Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, often called the Iranian national epic, in which the story of the first Norouz is told. The Shahnameh is a work of profound nationalism, an assertion of Iranian national identity against the power and influence of the Muslim Arab culture that conquered Iran in the 7th century CE. Composed by Ferdowsi in the 10th century, the poem constitutes a kind of mythopoetic and historical archeology, telling the story of pre-Islamic Iran through the stories of the empire’s rulers, starting with the first, mythical king, whose name was Kayumars. Kayumars and three kings who follow him, Houshang, Tahmures and Jamshid, are responsible for bringing civilization to the world, each one deepening and strengthening the social order that is necessary for humanity to survive.
The greatest, and also the most disappointing, of these four is Jamshid, for it is Jamshid who establishes social classes, brings the science of medicine to humanity, teaches his people to make clothing and perfume, and in general orders the society if his time such that it is recognizable to us as the kind of social world in which we live. Jamshid, also, however is the first king to allow his pride to get the better of him, declaring himself a deity and losing the farr, which people often translate into English as aura, but is more accurately described as the visible quality in a king that signifies for his subjects the fact that God favors his rule. If you imagine the halos that were drawn around Christ’s head in medieval paintings, but picture them around the heads of kings and understand them to be visible proof of what the Europeans used to believe was the divine right of kings, you have something close to what the farr is.
Once Jamshid loses the farr, there is room for evil to enter the world, which it does in the form of Zahhak, part of whose story you can read in my translation on Ekleksographia. In addition to the word farr, you need to know that peris are supernatural creatures upon which are based the faeries of Victorian England; and you need to know as well that “Demon Binder” was the name given to Jamshid’s father, Tahmures, because he bound Ahriman–the source of evil–and rode him, more or less like a horse, around the world.
Here is my translation of Jamshid’s story, which is also the story of the first Norouz:
Filled with his father’s wisdom, when the world
was done mourning the Demon Binder,
Jamshid joined the line of men
to ascend the throne and wear the crown.
Peace spread across his kingdom,
and the birds and peris bowed to him too.
“I will,” he said, “keep evil from evil-doers’
hands, and I will guide souls to light.
The royal farr rests with me. I rule
as shah and priest.”He turned first
to making weapons, paving for his warriors
a road to glory and renown. Iron,
beneath his farr, softened, became swords
and helmets, chain mail and horse armor,
and he gave fifty years to training
the men he charged with building his armory.The next five decades, Jamshid devoted
to clothing, contriving different fabrics—
linen and silk, brocades and satin—
teaching people to spin and to weave,
to dye what they’d woven, and then sew a garment
for feasting or fighting. When he finished, he divided
men by their profession, sending
first to the mountains, to worship their Master
and live lives of devotion, the Katuzi.
Second, he summoned the Neysari,
lion-hearted fighters whose luster
lit the entire land, whose leadership
and courage kept the king secure,
and whose valor ensured the nation’s reputation.
Those who farmed the fields came next,
the Basudi, who sow and reap,
who receive no thanks, but whom none reproach
when there’s food to eat. Free people
who kneel to no one and seek no quarrel,
despite the rags they wear, their care
makes the earth flourish and nourishes peace.
A wise elder once said,
“If a free man finds himself a slave,
he has only his own laziness to blame.”Jamshid gathered the craftsmen last,
the anxious and stubborn Ahtukhoshi.
Haughty and contrary, they work with their hands
to make the goods sold in the market,
and they are always anxious. Fifty years
marched by while Jamshid showed
each person breathing earth’s air
his proper place and path, teaching
the scope of the life he’d been given to live.He ordered the demons to pour water
over earth, stirring it into clay
they filled molds with to form bricks.
With mortar and stone, they laid foundations
for public baths and beautiful palaces,
and castles to protect against attack.
From rocks, Jamshid’s magic extracted
the lustrous gems and precious metals
he found hidden there, filling his hands
with gold and silver, amber and jacinth.
He distilled perfumes for his people’s pleasure:
balsam and ambergris, rose water and camphor,
musk and aloe. He made medicines
to bring the sick back to health
and to help the healthy stay that way.Jamshid revealed these secret things
as none before him had done. No one
discovered and ordered the world as he did.Yet another fifty years
saw Jamshid building ships
he could sail quickly across the sea,
making port in each realm he reached;
and then, although he was already great,
Jamshid stepped past greatness.
He used his farr to fashion a jeweled
throne, decreeing the demons should raise it
high in the sky, where he sat shining
like the sun, and the world’s creatures gathered
around him, standing in awe, scattering
gems at his feet. It was the first of Farvadin,
and Jamshid set that day aside,
naming it Norooz, “new day,”
the day he rested, the first of the year.
His nobles declared a feast, a festival
of wine and song we still celebrate
in Jamshid’s memory.For three centuries,
Jamshid ruled in peace. His people
knew neither death nor hardship; the demons
stood ready to serve; and all who heard
the king’s command obeyed it. The land,
filled with music, flourished. Jamshid,
however, gave himself to vanity.
Seeing he had no peer in the world,
he forgot the gratitude that is God’s due
and called the nobles of his court before him
to make this fateful proclamation:
“From this day forward, I know no lord
but me: my word brought beauty
and skilled men to adorn the earth!
My word! Sunshine and sleep, security
and comfort, the clothes you wear, your food—
all came to you through me!
Who else ended death’s desolation
and with medicine vanished illness from your lives?
Without me, neither mind nor soul
would inhabit your bodies. So who besides me
can claim, unchallenged, the crown and its power?
You understand this now. So now,
who else can you call Creator but me?!”The elders bowed their heads and held
their tongues, silenced by what he’d said,
but when the last sound left his mouth,
the farr left him, and his realm fell
into discord. A sensible, pious man
once said, “A king must make himself
God’s slave. Ingratitude towards God
will fill your heart with innumerable fears.”
Jamshid’s men deserted; his destiny
darkened, and his light disappeared from the world.
Cross-posted on It’s All Connected.
The Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Workshop for Young Writers provides a ten-day crash course in speculative fiction writing for students aged 14-19. The students write and revise a short story, receive critiques, and work with four professional authors–which have included big names like Tamora Pierce and Charles Coleman Finlay.
For the past few years, I’ve been peripherally involved by providing extra critiques of student submission stories. My first year, I critiqued Rachel Sobel’s submission story, “The Loyalty of Birds,” which she revised and sold to Clarkesworld Magazine as an impressive debut. She’s an exceptional case, but not the only Alpha student to go on and publish–the Alpha website includes a list of alumni achievements, including publications in Lady Churchill’s, Aberrant Dreams, Fantasy Magazine, and multiple Dell Award placements.
Professional workshops like the Clarions are well known for helping emerging writers, but Alpha goes back a stage further than that. Not every writer starts working as a teenager, but I know that when I was a kid, I was hungry for feedback and eager to meet other writers and be taken seriously–the chance to get together with other writers and receive feedback from real, live authors would have sounded like a dream.
Like any workshop that wants to get the best students, Alpha provides need-based scholarships. And like any workshop in this economy, Alpha is struggling to provide for all of its students. They’ve recently put up a website requesting donations to help them send teenagers to writer-camp.
They are offering a bit of bait, too–donations of five dollars and over will be rewarded with a copy of Ned and Jane, a collaborative girl-meets-zombie story written by the Alpha class of 2009.
Check out their website and consider donating, whether to get the zombie story or just show support for young writers.
When I was getting my master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), we learned about a study–I wish I could remember the details, but it’s been more than 20 years, and I have forgotten–which measured the responses of people on a subway who spoke only English to a conversation taking place between a man and a woman speaking a language other than English. If I recall, one of the most common reactions the English-only speaking passengers had was to suspect that the couple was talking about them, or perhaps about Americans in general, and the assumption was almost always that whatever the couple had been saying, it couldn’t have been nice.
That kind of xenophobia, often mixed with racism, emerges quite commonly when discussions of linguistic pluralism or tolerance turn to the question of the degree to which United States society and culture can accommodate the public use, official and unofficial, of languages other than English. When my wife and I decided to raise our son to be bilingual, for example, and we chose to speak only, or at least predominantly, Persian to him for the first couple of years of his life, members of my family were very concerned that we were setting him up for ridicule, and even failure, because they were sure not only that he would learn to speak English with an Iranian accent, but that there was a good chance he would speak English ungrammatically. What bothered me, however, was not this practical concern my relatives had about whether or not my son would acquire English as a native speaker. Misplaced as that concern is–children are, after all, language sponges and can, if they start young enough, learn to speak multiple languages fluently, with the appropriate accent in each, without any trouble at all–I think it’s not an unreasonable one for people to have who have not yet thought closely about how children are socialized into their native language. No matter how exclusively my wife and I might have tried to speak only Persian with him, for example, he was immersed in the culture that is American English in almost every other aspect of his life. It would have been difficult, especially since English is my native language, for him not to have acquired English as a native speaker.
Rather, what troubled me about my relatives’ response was the anger, the tone of one who has been betrayed, that entered their voices, when they would tell me things like, “He’s never going to sound American, you know, and he’s going to hate you for that when he’s older.” Over time, despite the fact that we tried as much as possible to speak English to our son when people who didn’t speak Persian were around, it became clear that much of what some of my family members resented was that they couldn’t understand what my wife was saying to our son when she spoke to him in her language. Not that I don’t understand the discomfort that being unable to comprehend the language spoken by the people standing next to you can make you feel. In the late 1980s, I lived for about a year and a half in South Korea, and I neither spoke nor read a word of Korean when I got there. It was frightening. Moreover, unlike the people in the study I described above–who had no way of knowing what the conversations they were overhearing were about–I knew for a fact that a lot of the people I rode the train with every day, whose conversations I could not penetrate even the slightest fraction of an inch, or whom I passed in the street, or stood on line with at the bank, were often talking about me, and I knew this because they were not shy about pointing at me while they were saying whatever it was they had to say.
It was very hard at first not to assume that at least some of what they were saying was less than flattering, though I learned over time that most were probably just saying an adult version of what the kids in my Chamshil apartment complex would say every time I walked past, pointing and laughing with a delighted curiosity at the strangeness of my presence: Migook saram! Migook saram imnida! (An American! It’s an American!). Still, I have never understood the attitude, which I have only ever heard expressed by Americans, displayed so prominently by two guys from Chicago who were in Seoul for a medical conference of some sort. I know where they were from and why they were in Korea because my friends and I, all of us English teachers at the same school in Yoksam-Dong, overheard their conversation in the Pizza Inn (or maybe it was Pizza Hut, I am not sure) in the Samsung Building, which was one of the places we’d go for lunch when we had a craving for western food. These two men wanted whatever kind of overloaded pizza they were trying to order without one of the toppings on the menu, black olives, which they were trying without much success to explain to their waitress, whose English was not very good and who was very flustered at having to use it, especially as she could sense the rising frustration in her customer’s voices when it became clear to them that she wasn’t really understanding what they wanted. Finally, the waitress said, “Okay, okay!” as if she understood and went back into the kitchen. When she brought out their order a little while later, though, there were black olives on the pizza, and the guys from Chicago were furious. They didn’t exactly yell at the waitress, but their voices were raised as they demonstrated what they wanted by picking the olives off their food and setting them aside. This time the look on the waitress’ face confirmed that she had indeed understood what the men from Chicago wanted, and she took the incorrect order and went back into the kitchen.
I don’t remember why none of us tried to intervene, since there were those among us whose Korean was good enough to defuse the whole situation, but after the waitress had gone back into the kitchen, one of the guys leaned over the table and in a voice choked with anger and frustration said, “Why don’t these people learn to speak the fucking language!” His friend nodded, said, “Do you want to leave?” and they walked out.
LOL, thanks!
I want to put that WORDS poster on a t-shirt!
While Bob Hope was indeed an immigrant, white anglo saxon protestant male immigrants are explicitly welcomed by the current shitocracy…
I bet I.C.E. comes back for them later.
@Avvaa: I'm not sure even WASP male immigrants are welcome. There have been several tourists who have been detained because…