Some of the responses to my recent blogs illustrate a tendency that illustrates a particularly human foible – the tendency to attribute a problem or a success to a single factor. I recently suggested that there were multiple causal factors lying behind fatal police interactions with young blacks, and a number of individuals basically insisted that the sole or the overwhelming cause was the racist excessive use of force and position by police officers and the policing system. There’s no doubt that in many cases, as in Ferguson particularly, such racist excessive use of force exists.

But there are other factors, also important, that have led to situations such as the Michael Brown and Anthony Robinson cases, and they’re continually minimized or dismissed as self-serving conservative or establishment rhetoric.

Young black males commit over a quarter of all homicides in the United States every year, yet those young black males comprise less than one percent of the population. Young white males also have a much higher homicide rate than the average as well, committing 16% of all homicides, but there are six times as many young white males as young black males. It’s not surprising that black males commit the majority of black homicides [roughly 90%], just as 84% of white homicides are committed by whites, because the vast majority of homicides are committed by people who know the victim.

But cities with primarily black police forces, such as Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, have only slightly lower murder rates than the ten worst cities in the U.S., with rates well above the national average, and the murder rates in many cities with high percentages of black police officers are among the highest in the country.

Regardless of all the rhetoric, there are a myriad of factors contributing to the higher percentage of blacks being killed by police than racist police officers. Poverty is an enormous contributing factor. So is the prevalence of dysfunctional and single-parent families, as is a bias against education among all too many young black males, as are poor schools in all too many minority communities, not to mention the gang structure in many inner cities and minority communities.

And, just as there isn’t one cause of the problem, there isn’t going to be one single solution, no matter how politically convenient that might be.

With all the uproar over the shootings of Michael Brown and now Anthony Robinson, I’m very definitely getting the impression that both the protesters and the media are simplifying the situations to the point of tragic absurdity in their single-minded focus on police bias and misbehavior. And no, I’m not condoning any police incompetence, bias, or excessive use of force. But there’s another critical factor that is being totally overlooked. And it’s very fundamental.

Teenagers and even adults in their very early twenties are stupid in their lack of judgment. Virtually all of them, black, brown, white, multi-racial, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, it doesn’t matter. Their brains are reprogramming themselves, and people in this age group make a far greater percentage of bad decisions than they will at any other time in their life. They allow peer pressure to override better judgments because belonging becomes a paramount value. They make unwise spur-of-the-moment decisions based on how they feel right at that instant. They become so focused on the moment that they’ll ignore the dangers involved in texting/cell phones while walking and driving to the point of getting themselves injured or killed or killing someone else. Their hormones are raging and readjusting, and the combination of hormonal and neural readjustment taking place simultaneously often results in poor judgment.

This is nothing new. Societies have known this behavior pattern for millennia, even if they haven’t understood the cause. They also imposed, in various ways, fairly stringent social codes… and the understanding that there were definite and often fatal consequences for bad judgment. For a myriad of reasons, in American society today, the entire thought that there are indeed consequences for actions has been minimized. Add first to that the fact that our advanced technology multiplies the impact of bad judgment. Add second that the pie-in-the-sky idea that any child can do anything. This combination has proved, and will continue to prove, deadly, especially to those young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

A number of the recent high-profile incidents in which young blacks have been killed began with illegal actions that escalated into confrontations. In a good many cases, the police officer felt his life was threatened, and certainly in some, the officer was injured before he fired a weapon. Everyone is asking why the police had to use force, possibly excessive force, and that is a good question, and one that needs to be asked, and answered, and those answers used as the basis for improving policing.

But no one I’ve seen is asking the other question. Why didn’t any of these young individuals understand the fact that there were likely to be adverse consequences for their actions, possibly severe ones — even if the police had managed to avoid using excessive force? Where were the adults who should have pointed out that even petty crimes can blight one’s future? Just recently, the actor Mark Wahlberg petitioned the governor of Massachusetts for a pardon to remove a minor felony conviction from his record because that record of conviction could make it difficult if not impossible to engage in certain business activities. If the white and wealthy Wahlberg is having trouble over one felony conviction, shouldn’t that suggest to minority youth – and their parents — that it’s a very good idea not to engage in illegal activities, that is if they want the best possible future? Or that, even if the police are arrogant and high-handed, getting into a confrontation on the street isn’t exactly conducive to future happiness and success?

This lack of understanding of consequences isn’t a problem confined to minorities, either. My wife, the university professor, deals with it on a daily basis. A significant percentage of first-year college students seem to think they shouldn’t be downgraded for failing to turn in reports on time… or failing to show up for lessons or classes. Many are so thin-skinned that even telling them that they need to improve brings tears to their eyes [and that includes young men]. The music department holds auditions for admittance to the program and to determine which students will get financial aid based on vocal ability. The audition dates are posted on the departmental website, and all students who have expressed an interest are also informed well in advance. Yet applications flood in well after the dates, often even after acceptances have been sent and scholarships awarded. Then there are the college students who don’t understand that they can flunk a class that is largely participation, such as chorus, if they don’t attend. Students are often stunned when they lose financial aid after their grade point average drops to unacceptable levels – but they have more than enough time for partying and social media.

The issue of rape on college campuses is another example – cases of young men from “outstanding” backgrounds not even considering the implications for them and their future – and the fact that such a felony on their record will close off most professional occupations, assuming they can even finish college after a prison sentence.

My niece, a high school art teacher who has won a number of awards for her art and teaching, was verbally assaulted by an angry parent who wanted to know how his son could be flunked from an art course. The parent either didn’t seem to understand that never turning in an assignment for the entire semester and missing a huge percentage of classes was an easy “F” or didn’t even know that his son was such a flake-off.

All across our culture, the message these young people are getting is that the consequences for failing to act responsibly are minimal… and that it’s all the teacher’s fault, or the administrator’s, or the police officer’s. Where are the parents and adults who should be pointing out, early on, that actions have consequences, and that failure to act responsibly can have permanent, if not deadly, consequences?

No…the police and the educators are far from blameless, but blaming it all on them is also a deadly societal cop-out, and it’s also incredibly hypocritical when the police are under immense public pressure to reduce crime and when teachers take all too much of the blame for parental shortcomings.

The problem with the political extremists on the left and right could be described, crudely, is that each side doesn’t believe their excrement is odoriferous. What do I mean by that? For example, the right-wing business types won’t accept the fact that there are some businesses that will do anything to make a profit, no matter who gets hurt. For them, all business is good and can do no wrong. Oh, in theory, they’ll admit unethical behavior exists, but I don’t see many, if any, calling out their wrong-doing peers for excessive greed or unethical behavior. On the left, in similar fashion, there is no such thing as a minority, no matter what that person has done, who can’t be saved by the proper incentives, government programs, therapy or what have you. For gun nuts, everyone should have the right to a gun. For libertarian extremists, any government restriction on behavior or action is bad. I could spend hundreds of words describing extremists of all sorts who deeply, truly, and honestly believe that, if everyone followed their beliefs to the extreme, there would be fewer problems in society, and everyone would be better off, and each one of them can easily point out why any opposition to their views is wrong.

Unfortunately, people aren’t ideals, and almost no one lives up even to their own ideals. There have always been business people who abuse trust, workers, clients, and customers. There always will be. There have always been lazy bums that no amount of coaxing, schooling, therapy or what have you will ever turn into industrious citizens. There are vicious criminals who’ve come from the “best” of backgrounds. That is why societies that work have laws to put restrictions on the worst of those who cannot be trusted to act honestly and ethically.

And for all the pressure for all young people to have a college education, the plain fact is that a significant fraction of young people don’t belong in college and never will. That’s not to say that many of them can’t pursue remunerative careers or fields, because they can, and many of them, if given the right opportunities, may well make more money and be much happier than if they went to college – but this side is never raised by the “no child left behind” or “college for everyone” extremists.

Problems arise, also, when certain groups of people don’t believe that “their group” contains unethical or criminal elements. The financial meltdown of 2008 was essentially caused by two groups of people who had no restrictions on them – financiers out to make a buck at any cost and people either too crooked, too uneducated, or too deluded to pay those mortgages. Both were aided and abetted by Congress and various administrations, which passed laws and regulations mandating, effectively, that almost anyone could take out a loan to buy or to refinance a home, and in fact, made it difficult if not impossible for many lenders to refuse to make loans.

Yet, I’ve seen each side claim that the other was totally responsible, saying, in effect, my shit doesn’t stink, but yours does.

This attitude, although illustrated in the primary cause of the Great Recession, goes well beyond that. Democrats push cost-ineffective social programs on the basis that everyone can benefit, and Republicans push tax breaks and subsidies on the same grounds. The fact is that some social programs work, and some don’t. The fact is that taxes that are either unrealistically low or prohibitively high don’t work, either. And again, both sides agree in theory, but when it comes down to practice, every social program is sacred to that side, and every tax break sacred to the other side.

But, as a society we’ve gotten to that point where the “leaders” in any field refuse to deal with the beams in their own eyes, while decrying the motes in their opponents’ eyes. Because, after all, pragmatism and cooperation are dirty words to extremists of any stripe… and right now, because of partisan gridlock, the number of extremists in the United States appears to be growing.

Outside of one snowfall right after Christmas, where we live in Cedar City had experienced on of the driest winters on record. From the second week in January until the third week in February, we also experienced record highs for winter, with the high on many days in the sixties and the low not even freezing. In the twenty-one years we’ve lived here, we’ve never seen anything like this. We had tulips actually leafing out – two months ahead of time. Even in a time of climate change, this couldn’t possibly last, and sure enough, it didn’t. On Sunday, February 22nd, it began to snow, and by the time it cleared, Cedar City had experienced another record – 24 inches of snow, an all-time record. By Wednesday, it was into the high forties, and then we had more snow flurries, and on Saturday – the day my wife was directing a multi-state regional singing competition at the university, at five in the morning it began to snow again… and when it stopped snowing at six that evening – about the time the competition ended – we had another foot of snow. Sunday was mostly clear, until sunset, when it began to snow once more, and when that snowfall ended on Monday afternoon, we had another ten inches of the stuff. And yes, I was again very glad for the snowblower I purchased last fall.

Now… we’ve certainly experienced more snow in our lives – every year when we lived in New Hampshire at the foot of the White Mountains, but Cedar City is high desert, and the water content of the snow was also a record. While weather is not necessarily indicative of climate change, what we’ve experienced tends to suggest that climate is indeed changing.

Of course, the fact that local weather and world-wide climate aren’t the same, or even close at times, is a fact lost on certain powerful Republican politicians. While the eastern U.S. has had one of the colder winters on record, the fact is that the planet as a whole is experiencing, so far, the warmest on record, and the west and southwest, and even large sections of Alaska have had far warmer winters than usual. In fact, the part of the U.S. suffering record-low winter temperatures comprises less than 3% of the world’s land, and roughly just as much of the U.S. is experiencing record-high winter temperatures. But then again, when did most politicians ever look farther that their own bubble… or the views of those who elected them?

On a lighter, or at least, more amusing, note, on Monday morning, my wife received an email, as did all the faculty at the university, stating that because of the massive amounts of snow blanketing the university, campus mail would not be delivered until further notice. Classes, however, were neither delayed nor cancelled. Now… if the mail carriers can’t even trudge across the four block by four block central campus… how does the administration expect students and faculty to do so?

Several weeks ago, a police officer in Salt Lake City went to investigate a report of a man with a snow shovel behaving erratically. When the officer found the man, he asked for his name. Within moments, the man attacked to officer with the shovel. The officer shot and killed the man – but only after that officer had received significant injuries, including a broken arm and foot. The officer was wearing a body cam, and the footage of that camera shows unequivocally that the officer in no way threatened the man and that the man attacked the officer with no provocation.

In late January, in Denver, Denver police stopped a stolen car containing five teenagers. Police testimony stated that the officers fired at the car when the driver aimed the car at the officers and struck one, breaking his leg. The driver died from the gunshots. The teenagers insist that the police stopped the car, then were stepping away when the officers shot the driver, who lost control of the car, which then struck the officer. The teen testimony tends to overlook one critical fact. If the car was stopped and not in gear, it couldn’t have moved when the driver was shot, and everyone agrees that it did. Moreover, the driver had been stopped by the Colorado Highway Patrol several weeks before and cited for driving 25 miles per hour over the speed limit and attempting to elude the highway patrol officer.

Then there is the Michael Brown case. No matter what anyone says, Brown had committed two crimes and attacked a policeman.

I’m not saying that law enforcement is always right or sacrosanct. Law enforcement is like any other profession. Most of the police are basically good people, but every large law enforcement agency has its bad apples, just as the medical, legal, software, and any other profession have their bad apples. And the media is right to run stories that call attention to possible wrong-doing, provided that the reports are accurate and as objective as possible.

What angers me is that those people close to the shovel wielder, the Latino teenager, or Michael Brown immediately come up with stories about how good those individuals were… and how awful the police were… and the media immediately broadcasts them. I’m sure each of those individuals did in fact do some good deeds, but so have some of the worse criminals on record. That doesn’t excuse the fact that in these cases, the police officers had reason to fear for their lives – and that their attackers were not the innocents portrayed by the media… and that all the demonstrations and the publicity given them represent misplaced media hype.

Yes… we could stand improved police training in using lethal force and in dealing with underprivileged citizenry angry with years of discrimination, but trumping up media coverage in dubious cases such as these is counterproductive. Maybe I’ve missed it, but where was the national coverage of the black man shot in a Walmart while inspecting a BB gun? Where are the news stories about true minority innocents actually victimized by shoddy or prejudiced law enforcement? I’m sure there are some, and probably a lot, but discovering and covering those takes work. Covering the sensational instances doesn’t. Just load up your instacam or whatever and listen to those with an ax to grind. Quick work and high ratings, just like that.

But the result of quick and easy coverage is, in effect, a sensationalist demonization of law enforcement, rather than a thoughtful examination of both sides. What I’ve been seeing doesn’t represent anything close to impartial news reporting. It’s simply ratings gathering that contributes to societal polarization. It’s also making it harder and harder for many law enforcement agencies to attract top quality recruits.

But then, who really wants objectivity? It’s all too clear that, no matter what people say, most just want news that confirms their beliefs… and too much of the media, at least right now, appears to be too profit-driven to be anywhere close to objective in dealing with hot-button issues. And that means we all lose.

Most human beings would like to believe that they are moral or ethical individuals, at least in their own terms, and most would like to prosper or, especially, succeed beyond their wildest dreams while retaining that morality. Most also have a definite idea on what constitutes moral/ethical behavior in life and in literature. The majority of F&SF novels comment on morality and ethics, either directly, indirectly, or by omission, because most books are, in the end, about some aspect of power, and what intelligent organisms do in response to or in pursuit of power reveals who they are in ethical terms.

But who the characters of a book are in moral or ethical terms is also defined by the ethical traits and background of the reader. I’ve seen this more than a few times in regard to characters in my own books, where one reader will declare that a character is morally weak or has no moral fiber whatsoever, and other reader will find the same character highly ethical. This is scarcely surprising, not when we see the same diversity in views among political pundits, politicians, civic leaders, and other public figures – and that’s just in the United States.

Obviously, a significant fraction of Islamic believers feel that any depiction of the prophet Mohammed is immoral, and a significant fraction of Western journalists and cartoonists see nothing immoral in presenting satiric images of the prophet.

At the same time, there are certain ethical issues that are universal. How much should one compromise one’s morals in order to survive? The moral extremists would opt for little or no compromise, but that raises another issue. One cannot be ethical or do good in the future if one is dead. Nor can one raise one’s children to be “good” people if one is dead. So if that moral compromise does not injure others and allows one to survive to do good in the future, is it that immoral? But then… one compromise can lead to another… and another… and may set a terrible example for others. Yet we’ve seen in life that that is not necessarily the case. There have always been those individuals living in despotic societies that were frankly immoral by any meaning of the term who professed allegiance to the regime in order to survive… and then helped others to survive and escape.

The conflict of values with survival and power have always interested me, and that’s why I write about them so often, and with different viewpoints in different situations, in a way, trying to show that matters often are not nearly so simple as they seem. Despite what has often been said, doing what is “right” is never as simple as it seems… and that usually makes a good book… and just as often that’s also why one reader finds a book good and another despises it, not because the book is necessarily badly written, although that’s often the justification given, but because what’s presented conflicts too much with the belief system of that reader.

In almost every artistic field, there are awards for excellence and achievement, and the F&SF world is no exception. While it isn’t as well known a field to many people, it’s not exactly small, either. In 2014, the number of F&SF original novels published by the big five and known and established small presses was around 1,000, and the self-published F&SF novels likely exceeded that several-fold.

Supposedly, the Hugo is the most “prestigious award” in fantasy and science fiction [at least, it’s billed that way], and who wins the Hugo in various categories [short story, novella, novel, best editor, best artist, etc., for work published for the first time in the previous year] is determined annually by vote. To vote, one must be a member of the current World Science Fiction Convention, or as I recall, the previous WorldCon or the forthcoming WorldCon. In short, it’s a popularity contest generally voted on by insiders, although anyone can become one of those insiders by paying for a full WorldCon membership or a less expensive, supporting [non-attending] membership. Over the last twenty years, WorldCon membership numbers have generally fluctuated in the three to six thousand range, with the exception of last year’s WorldCon in London, which had over ten thousand attending and supporting memberships.

Theoretically, voters are supposed to nominate those works which display excellence, since the works are for “the best” in each category. The problem, as I’ve discussed in other areas and blogs, rests on what each voter/reader feels is “best.” In more cases than not, I suspect, “best” refers to those books enjoyed and liked the most, not necessarily the best, but what institution offering a “prestigious” award would want to admit that it’s really a “readers” favorite? I’ve so often disagreed with the nominees that I might as well not have voted in almost every case. As a side note, I might add that the folks at RT [otherwise known as Romantic Times] label their awards as “Reviewers’ Choice Awards,” which strikes me as a bit more honest. [I mention this because they actually do give awards to F&SF books].

The other “major” set of awards in the field are the World Fantasy Awards. While members of the World Fantasy Convention can nominate works, the majority of nominees – and the winners – are determined by a panel of five judges who are professionals in the fantasy publishing field. Each judge serves for one time in his or her life for one year, and as the saying goes, in the interest of full disclosure, I was a judge almost twenty years ago. It was a brutal year, and I read parts of more than three hundred novels and all of more than fifty. We did the best we could, but there’s no doubt in my mind that we likely missed or overlooked works that could easily have been nominated and possibly won with other judges in other years.

Having seen both processes at work, I’d say that neither is anywhere close to perfect, but I do feel that the World Fantasy awards do come close to presenting a slate of good to excellent books, while the Hugos are far more of a hype and popularity contest, where the works of authors with expansive social media, egos to match, ebullient public personae, and enthusiastic, if not rabid, fan bases tend to be nominated and win in greater measure than the quality of their work might otherwise merit, at least in my anything but humble opinion.

But then, I’ve always been a bit skeptical of the wisdom of crowds, especially where a certain level of intelligence and perception is required, as well as a wider vocabulary, which is also why I don’t care much for the majority of “popular” music these days.

This past weekend I was at LTUE – a science fiction and fantasy literary symposium/conference in Provo, Utah [and the reason why there was no blog last Friday was because my not-so-trusty and relatively new laptop crashed right after I arrived there]. I was on a fair number of panels, but in the course of convention events, I found one of my basic tenets about writing being reinforced. It’s simple. All realistic and real worlds have history, and that history is NEVER just the “dead past.”

Over the past fifty plus years, I’ve read a considerable amount of science fiction and fantasy, and although the majority of writers who dealt with invented literary worlds or even future human society made an effort to create workable societies, while I could see how those societies might work, in far too many cases I could see no way as to how such societies or cultures could have evolved and developed into what the writer presented. Most likely, for most readers, that really isn’t a problem, but, perhaps because I am a student of society, politics, and history, it bothers me a lot.

Just think about this. How many of the killings, the wars, and the terrorist threats we face today are the result of past Islamic history and teachings? Mohammed may have lived over 1400 years ago, but that part of history and how it has evolved affects the entire world today, and certainly thousands if not tens of thousands of followers don’t act as though he’s dead and forgotten. World War II was effectively the result of historical conflicts and rancor between France and Germany that date back to the time of Louis XIV, if not before. Obvious as this may seem, in too many F&SF books, there’s little if no sense of real history woven into the background of the story… or how that history affects the present. Everything is in the here and now.

Or sometimes there’s an eternal empire. Eternal? I have my doubts. Although one can claim with some degree of accuracy that the basic structure of Egyptian government was essentially unchanged for almost three thousand years, dynasties rose and fell; invaders periodically intervened and ruled; and in the end, the structure toppled. And that’s the most long-lived empire/pseudo-empire in human history. The British Empire, the one on which the sun never set, lasted less than a century in any true imperial form.

William Faulkner once made the observation to the effect that the “dead past” is not only not dead, but it’s not even past. Obviously, I agree.

Talent, or ability, by itself, is overrated. So is pure intelligence. Over the years, I have seen so many people with great talents, and others with incredible intellectual brilliance, fail, sometimes catastrophically, in a range of fields and occupations. I’ve seen executives who not only knew their market, their customers, and their products, but who could explain and sell, stall in dead-end positions. I’ve seen brilliant attorneys crash and burn, and literally destroy their lives and themselves. I’ve known talented writers who flamed out, never to be heard of again. I’ve met singers with incredible voices, good looks, and great stage presence who never even made the lowest rungs of an operatic career.

A failing I’ve seen far too often over the years is the tendency of people with great natural ability or intelligence to reach for “short-cuts” of various sorts. From what I’ve seen, the tendency to want to shortcut the path to success is, for some reason, highly linked to people with great natural abilities, almost as if they have the feeling that, because of their talents, they really don’t have to learn what other people do. That’s exactly why most of those who try the short-cut route fail… because the shortcutters don’t learn enough to handle the situations in which they find themselves as a result of their initial – and often short-lived – success in obtaining what they sought.

Yes, every once in a great while a short-cut succeeds, or someone reaches great heights in their field on pure ability, and little else – and manages to hold on, but the odds are a hundred to one against either.

Talent, ability, intellectual capability… these are absolutely necessary components of success, but in today’s highly competitive society, where almost half the work force in the United States possesses a college degree, and close to fifteen percent has a graduate degree, and in a world economy, those are far from enough to assure success in any field, let alone outstanding achievement.

As I’ve mentioned before, dependability is a vital necessity, as is a modicum of congeniality, or at least moderate sociability… and, of course, the understanding that, no matter what the field, there is always a certain amount of just plain hard work involved, often nit-picking drudgery. I started out as a low-level economist, long before computers provided neat and nifty analyses of numbers and statistical patterns. I had to calculate the statistics from raw data, and I learned a great deal about statistics and numbers. From what I’ve seen over the years, as computers can do more and more, most “analysts” seem to know less and less what the numbers and computer-generated statistics actually mean… and what they represent.

I’ve watched with amusement as politicians, executives, writers, and business people delegate more and more of that “drudgery” to computers, subordinates, or consultants, and then discover that somehow their position, success, power, are slowly slipping away.

While some delegation is necessary, especially the higher one gets in an organization, every delegation results in a greater removal from the world, and that reduces one’s understanding of that world.

There are no good short-cuts, only short-run expedient short-cuts with longer-term and higher costs.

Right now, I’m getting the very strong feeling that the U.S. economic system is running on what amounts to faith in magic. Every statistic I look at seems to be unsustainable… and most of those indicators have been at what traditionally seem to have been unsustainable levels for several years, whether it’s the various stock market indices, the price/earnings ratios of the vast majority of American companies, the ratio of various capital reserves to the debt levels they support, the plummeting velocity of money, the amount of government securities purchased by the Federal Reserve [although the official end of quantitative easing is as much a suggestion that continuing the QE program was unsustainable as it was that the economy has “recovered” enough that QE is no longer necessary]. The fact that the federal funds interest rate remains essentially at zero has meant that various bank deposits pay next to nothing in interest, which is likely the primary reason why stocks are priced at levels that would seem unrealistically high in almost any other situation.

What many people overlook is that U.S. financial policies combined with the high price of crude oil several years ago and the lack of decent returns on investment to make available billions of dollars for investment in new oil extraction technology, i.e., the combination of fracking and horizontal drilling, which in turn resulted in a temporary oversupply of oil. That led inevitably to the decline in the price of crude oil, and an on-going slow-down in the development of new oil wells. Because production levels of fracked wells drop off swiftly, so will world oil supplies, initially at the margin, but in a year or two oil prices may well begin to creep back.

Associated with all these magic numbers is the fact that a significant percentage of new and emerging companies are technically overvalued businesses which often command a premium in the marketplace, but hire comparatively few, if often high-paid, people. Valuing companies primarily on popular appeal, limited product/services, and the need to keep innovating in order to maintain marketplace appeal is another form of “magic.”

But what will support those jobs and valuations if the appeal dims or vanishes?

In the meantime, governments at all levels, and companies in the “infrastructure” business tend to be delaying or minimizing investment in highways, bridges, power plants, water systems, air navigation systems, and the like, all of which result in more jobs and more permanent assets.

But the politicians, especially the Republicans, are all for the “new” economics because it promises something for nothing… like magic.

I don’t watch much in the way of sports, especially professional sports, but I did watch the Super Bowl this past weekend, and I couldn’t help but come away with an observation…although most writers and probably many readers will likely cringe at the comparison I’m about to make. As writers, we’re in the same general business as professional sports. Our job is to entertain, and winning entertains far more than losing. In football, the score at the end of the game signifies who wins the game, but the box office receipts at the end of the season also determine who wins… as do the salaries and bonuses paid to players and, less substantially usually, to coaches.

In a sense, every player on an NFL team is a winner. They’re the professionals, and so long as they perform, they can keep playing and getting paid. In writing, the same thing is true. So long as a writer performs, he or she can keep keeping published and paid. And performing means not only writing books, but also writing them in a way that they sell enough that the publisher makes money – just as players have to perform well enough so that the team makes money.

Just as in football, in publishing there are mega-stars, and there are rookies, and journeyman authors. Every year, there’s a new group of writing stars, acclaimed by the writing pundits, and every year some of them sell enough books, and every year some don’t. And just as some football players seem to have all the talents and all the moves, but never quite make it in the big time, the same thing is true in writing fiction. And then there are the authors who never initially impress the literary pundits, just as there are players who never initially impress the football pundits, but who win, by selling hundreds of thousands or millions of books. But in this regard, football and writing differ. A writer can be an excellent writer and sell millions of books and never impress the literary pundits, whereas a football pundit who tries to sell his column by trashing players who perform outstandingly for a long time is likely to run into a substantial backlash. That doesn’t happen to literary pundits.

Another similarity between writing and professional football is that to be successful, a writer has to execute well and avoid mistakes, especially major mistakes, particularly at the end. If a writer blows the ending of a book, just as the Seahawks blew the ending of the Super Bowl, that book isn’t going anywhere… and if a writer does it too often, neither is the writer – just like a quarterback who throws interceptions at a critical time.

All the hype about style goes out the window if either a writer or a football player can’t execute and finish. Of course, style definitely helps, and if those in either profession can execute well, minimize mistakes, and finish on top in terms of their personal performance, that’s what makes them a professional.

And that’s an aspect of writing that’s all too often overlooked.

The word “barbarian” derives from the Greek “barbaros,” which originally meant someone who did not speak Greek, i.e., an outsider, and since then its derivations through Latin and French have come to take on the connotation of an outsider who is uncultured, indeed uncivilized. The modern concept of “civilization” in turn has its roots in the Roman “civitas,” the body of citizens united under the common law that bound them together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other.

An accepted and shared law that lays out responsibilities and rights for citizens is not only the definition of civilization but also a practical requirement for any civilized culture to endure. But… in this sense culture and civilization are not synonymous. One can have a civilization of many cultures, or a single culture that is in no way a civilization.

The rise of the “modern barbarian” is the result, paradoxically, of technological advances and the massive human population growth that technology has engendered. Higher technology levels and greater population density combine so that every human being has the potential to create greater harm to every other human being, often in ways not considered by or known to the individual. In order to prevent or at least minimize this harm, civilizations pass laws, such as emissions standards on cars, where certain businesses can be located, how individuals and businesses must handle waste so that it doesn’t poison their neighbors or neighborhoods, safety standards for products, traffic laws… The list is long, but the laws have generally proved necessary because there are always individuals who believe it is “their right” to do what is not prohibited.

Then there are the “modern barbarians,” who reject any law or regulation that impedes their “right” to do what they think best, regardless of the impact on others. Some of these barbarians are individuals, and some are businesses and corporations, but whatever the type of barbarian, they all ignore the laws, or twist them – or flout them – so that they can continue practices that harm others in order to make money, gain power… if not both.

Maybe we should consider a different way of dealing with the severe lawbreakers, who break the compact, and “modern barbarians,” who break, bend, or ignore it. Since they don’t want to abide by the laws, perhaps we should remove all protections and privileges of civilization from them. You don’t want to follow the laws, then the laws won’t protect you… and no one will be prosecuted for shooting you, or dumping trash on your property. You won’t have to pay taxes, but you won’t get any benefits, no medical care unless you can pay cash for it, and you can’t drive on any road or highway because you aren’t paying for its construction and upkeep… and so on.

Such an approach would never fly… but it is a useful thought experiment. Not that any of the modern barbarians would understand. Nor would most liberals be anything but horrified, I suspect, at even the thought.

A recent Locus writers’ roundtable addressed the question of “the unpublished writer’s despair,” and from the discussion it appears that there is a lot of despair out there, most likely because there are a great number of writers who have not been successful, either in getting published or in self-publishing and not selling many books. And there are more than a few published authors who either have trouble getting published at present or in living on what they make from writing. And then there are the published writers deemed successful who still despair at times.

I found myself reacting to the discussion in a fashion that was most analogous to culture shock. It’s not as though I haven’t experienced a fair amount of rejection over the fifty years I’ve been writing or trying to write. As I’ve mentioned here and there, out of the more than one hundred short stories I wrote in my first years, something like six were ever published, and it took almost four years, after almost ten years of writing short stories, and rejections by a goodly number of publishers, after I finished my first novel before it finally found a publisher and was published.

It isn’t that I don’t feel and feel strongly about writing and what I write. Like many writers, I just don’t talk much about those feelings, except to my wife. Perhaps because I have a generally upbeat nature, despair doesn’t strike me often, and so far, not about writing matters. Now… anger… and absolute fury at some of the idiocy I’ve seen published, even though I fully understand that there is a large market for certain types of idiocy… those are another question.

In the whole business of getting published and continuing to get published, I try to be pragmatic. I know that when I write certain types of books, they’ll sell less well. It doesn’t mean I don’t write books that are difficult for some readers; I just space them out. But we as writers are in a profession, and that profession is intellectual entertainment. Some writers are more intellectual and less popularly entertaining, and some writers offer little more than spur-of-the-moment entertainment with minimal intellectual content. Add to that the fact that every reader has a somewhat different view of what is intellectual and what is entertaining, and it all makes writing a difficult profession for most who attempt it, and it’s scarcely surprising that most would-be writers fail to be successful.

What’s overlooked by too many writers, successful or unsuccessful, is that most who attempt a career in any field relying on a degree of popular appeal do in fact fail. Talented people fail. Even writers whom editors love for their style, technique, and stories have failed – miserably.

And I have failed in other occupations and endeavors, sometimes miserably. I was possibly the worst musician to ever lift a clarinet, and certainly one of the worst real estate salesmen in the state of Colorado, and was less than a rousing success in dealing with internal corporate politics. And, frankly, no one cared… or cares now. Nor did anyone really care for the ten years when I was fortunate to sell one short story a year… and I never expected that anyone would.

But no one is granted the “right” to be successful in anything, and success can vanish in a moment. I’ve seen it happen time and time again… and I live and write knowing that it could happen to me as it has to others [although I believe I work hard to avoid that]. All of which is why I find writerly “despair” a foreign country. I don’t find anger, discouragement, indignation, frustration, and consternation foreign… just despair. But maybe that’s because I’ve failed enough in other areas to know that it’s not the end of the world… and also because I’ve also seen how fickle popular taste can be, and how it often has little to do with the worth of what is criticized or rejected… and then, too, I’ve read enough unpublished manuscripts over the years to know that some unpublished writers should remain unpublished.

For understanding all that… and seeing the despair in other writers… I still find despair a foreign country…and one I hope never to inhabit.

After President Obama’s State of the Union, quite a number of Congressional Republicans were both perplexed and almost outraged. Why, the Republicans had won overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. Why wasn’t the President seeking cooperation? Why wasn’t he acknowledging that the “people had spoken”? How could he not “listen” to them? One even declared that the President needed a “reality check.”

I have no inside track to the President. I’ve never met the man, and I think he’s made a number of mistakes, many of which weren’t necessary and got in the way of what he wanted to do. I also think he’s gone overboard in a number of areas. Technically, I’m a registered Republican and always have been, and even was staff director for a Republican Congressman and served in the Reagan Administration. More to the point, I’m not terribly happy with either party, and I suspect I’m far from the only one.

As for the President, why would he want to “cooperate” with Republicans? They have a radically different ideology than his, and one even more right-wing than the beliefs of the majority of Americans [just as the Congressional Democrats have an ideology far more left-wing than the majority of Americans], and they’ve rebuffed what few attempts he’s made in that direction. Republicans have been very clear on what they want – and that’s nothing for anyone but business. “No,” if you will, except for “yes” to big business and vested interests. They harp on the need for lower taxes, despite the fact that individual tax rates are the lowest they’ve been in more than sixty years and that the country needs massive infrastructure replacement and repair; they want less government interference, i.e., less regulation on business, especially on big business and the financial community that has already wrecked the economy once; and they’re demanding a repeal of health insurance just gained by millions of Americans… and that’s just for starters. Exactly why would a President want to “cooperate” with a Congress whose agenda is to dismantle what few things he has been able to do?

As for the people speaking, well… the people spoke twice in electing and reelecting Obama, and the Congressional Republicans didn’t listen to the people then, but they’re expecting him to listen when they “won”? But did the Republicans even win in the larger sense? Oh, there’s no doubt they won the majority of the votes cast in all those districts and states, but given the fact that turn-out was just about the lowest on record, because it was an off-year election and because a significant number of Americans are disgusted with both parties, to characterize the GOP majority as a mandate of any sort is misleading at best. Obama actually won far more votes than the Republicans in 2008 and 2012, and the Republicans certainly didn’t consider that a mandate.

Reality check for the President? What about for the Republicans?

And what about some “cooperation” in the areas where they actually agree… and there are more than a few of those. That way, we could at least see some progress.

… or not nearly what those who endorse it claim. Far too many social theorists, educators, and politicians push more education, especially higher education, as a solution to the problem of too many people who are poor or economically disadvantaged. The President’s latest initiative of wanting to provide free community college education is certainly well-intentioned, but, even if enacted, which frankly appears doubtful, would at best only provide marginal improvement. From what I can tell, the push for more higher education is based on two undeniable facts. First, in general, people with more education make more money. Second, more and more of the highest-paid salaried jobs demand higher education as a prerequisite for entry and employment.

Unhappily, very few people seem to be looking at the other side of the equation – jobs. There are only so many high-level, high paying jobs in any society, and American business has been quite busy reducing the number of decent-paying mid-level jobs. If we as a society continue to produce more and more graduates of traditional higher education every year, what is the likely result? More competition for those jobs, more unemployed or underemployed graduates, and most likely an eventual reduction in pay.

In my wife’s field, which is classical voice and opera, the United States produces more graduate singers, especially sopranos, in a year than jobs for them are created in roughly more than five years… and does so every year. The result is that competition for those jobs is absolutely brutal, and that the pay, until a singer reaches the very top tier, which only a fraction of a percent do, ranges from abysmal to modest. The other day I was talking to the conductor of a fairly well-known Russian symphony, and he observed that the United States has, overall, the best training and education for singers of any nation… and that even some of the very best end up taking jobs in Europe because there are so few openings in the United States.

Despite or perhaps because of all the MFA programs that profess to teach writers, the same thing is true in the field of writing, except since the U.S. is effectively the largest single market for fiction, there are few alternatives.

Now, the lack of remuneration in the arts, except for a comparatively small percentage of success stories, has always been a fact of life, but it’s even more noticeable now.

What’s different is that we’re also beginning to see gluts in other fields. The number of moderate and high-paying jobs for lawyers has decreased even as law schools produce more graduates. There are more job seekers in health care than there are jobs, with the possible exception of doctors, and most of the openings for physicians are in small towns, inner cities, or rural areas. There is far higher unemployment, according to a recent article in The Atlantic, among scientists and engineers than is recognized, far higher than in professions such as physicians, dentists, and registered nurses, and surprisingly high unemployment exists for recent graduates even in fields with alleged serious “shortages” such as engineering (7.0 percent), computer science (7.8 percent) and information systems (11.7 percent).

Half the twenty-two year old college graduates over the past three years are working in jobs not requiring a degree. Only 27% of all U.S. jobs require a college degree, but now some 47% of the workforce has a college degree, and the number of jobs requiring such a degree is forecast to grow by less than one percent per year.

The problem isn’t just one of education, and, in fact, education may be making the problem even worse for those with only a high school diploma – or less – as over-educated graduates continue to push the less educated into less and less remunerative fields.

The mass market paperback book is rapidly becoming a threatened species. Now, I knew that the paperback market has largely collapsed, as least for science fiction and fantasy, but until I talked with my longtime editor last week and went over some numbers, I hadn’t realized just how bad it had gotten. I did know that my own paperback sales had dropped off, but the increase in ebook sales has largely compensated for the paperback decline in my own case…. but only because I have a large backlist, since the increase in ebook sales from more current titles has not compensated for the drop-off in mass market sales of those titles.

Historically speaking, for most authors, more than half, if not more than eighty percent, of paperback sales of a title occur in the year or so after the initial paperback release. Because the decline in mass market paperback sales has been so precipitous, more and more authors sold by major publishers, especially midlist authors, are discovering that their only print publication is either in hardcover or trade paperback, after which the titles are only available in ebook format.

At the same time, it appears that self-publishing in ebook format is becoming increasingly competitive and that, as a result, for many authors who’ve chosen this route their ebook revenues are also dwindling. Then add to this the fact that Amazon is still pressing, if less obviously, for the top price for ebooks to be $9.99, and the fact that author revenues for ebooks are calculated as a percentage of the net revenues based on the sales price and not the list price. In addition, Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program in a very convoluted way [involving an opaque pooling system] that I’m not about to try to explain in a blog will reduce the revenues of participating authors considerably. Then add in the impact of the shift/increase in VAT tax rates for EU countries, and the likely decrease in revenues from that, one way or another.

While industry-wide publishing statistics indicate that ebooks only comprise around a quarter of total book sales, I have serious doubts about the applicability of those statistics to fiction publishing and especially to F&SF sales, since Nielsen statistics indicate that for the last quarter of 2014, 65% of all ebook sales were adult fiction of some sort.

The bottom line is pretty simple from what I can see. On average, the very top authors will continue to sell about as many units as they recently have, but will make somewhat less money. Best-selling authors below the top hundred [that’s an estimate] will see noticeable declines in revenues per title released… and authors below that level will likely see even greater decreases in income unless they increase their output and/or marketing efforts. This is, of course, a prediction of a general pattern, and there will always be some authors who will prove the exception… but I doubt there will be many.

Everywhere I look, today, large numbers of people are taking things to extremes, and declaring they’re exercising their Constitutional rights. Some are; and quite a few are carrying the exercise of those “rights” to extremes. Even when the extremes are legal, and many aren’t, is this always a good idea? Even when one can make a case for such excess, is it good when so many “rights” are being pushed to the limits… and beyond?

The first amendment grants and protects the “right of the people to peaceably assemble,” as it should, but all too many assemblies these days are anything but peaceable. The first amendment also prohibits abridging the freedom of the press, and with each year the media pushes out more obnoxious, vulgar, intolerant, and generally inflammatory content, with less and less factual substance. It’s become more and more about “stirring people up,” as a fictional politician in the movie Primary Colors once declared.

And somehow, the Religious Right seems to believe that: (1) allowing women to decide whether they want to be pregnant or not violates religious rights of the Religious Right; (2) private corporations are individuals that can impose their beliefs on their employees; (3) while insisting that every zygote be carried to full term and born, they also insist that government should provide no aid or support for all those unwanted children once they are born. And they honestly feel that these beliefs are not in the slightest extreme.

Then there’s the second amendment. Now that there’s no doubt that any gun-lover in the United States can own and shoot semi-automatic weapons with fifty bullet magazines, what’s next? Private armored personnel carriers [after all, the police now have them] or your own suitcase A-Bomb?

How about a little self-restraint? Not that our media will allow that, because restraint doesn’t sell. As a matter of fact, at least one media outlet has suggested just such restraint – and has been roundly criticized in some quarters for betraying “freedom of the press.”

Charlie Hebdo carried freedom of the press to extremes; the gunmen who brutally assassinated twelve people at the newspaper carried their beliefs to extremes. Is this the world we wish to create, where extremes battle extremes, and the one with the most firepower wins?

And, please, forget about declaring that extreme use of words and cartoons isn’t the same as extreme use of bullets. No, it’s not, but what the extreme users of words and symbols so easily forget or ignore is that such extreme use of words shapes social and political structures, and that shaping influences those with bullets, just as the words and “teachings” of extremist Islamists influenced the killers of those at Charlie Hebdo. Being one step removed from causing violence doesn’t remove all the blood from your hands. Like it or not, people are swayed by words and symbols, and the extreme use of either all too often results in disaster. Just look at what Hitler accomplished, and it all began with words… just words.

What’s the reason for all this extremism? Is it because we’re all so busy trying to be heard and to make our points that the din we’ve created drowns out all our efforts… or is it because we’re so preoccupied with what we’re doing that we’re not listening… or is it because we’re so convinced of our own “truth” that we disregard the “truths” of others?

Whatever it is, the result is the multiplication of extremism in all forms, and that is the road to hell, superbly paved with our good intentions based on the assumption that we know best, and that only we have the truth on our side in exerting our “freedoms” and beliefs to their extremes.

Recently, following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, signs have sprouted in numerous places and at a number of rallies and protests concerned with “police brutality” and the way in which police are alleged, and certainly do at least at times, to deal with minorities, particularly those of African-American descent. Those signs read “Black Lives Matter.” Since I cannot read the minds of those creating and parading the signs, I will assume that the full meaning of those signs is that black lives matter just as much as white Caucasian lives, especially in the administration of law by the police. That is certainly an appropriate and understandable principle.

Except… principles in theory and administration in fact are two different things.

In point of fact, I know very few people who value all lives as equal in meaning and value. The vast majority of us value our own lives highly, and those of our nearest kin highly. Some parents value their children’s lives more highly than their own; some do not, but almost all individuals value the lives of those near and dear to them more than the lives of those they do not know, or know but slightly.

People also value the lives of those who have accomplished worthwhile goals more than the lives those who have not. They may deny that, or even say something to the effect that, in the eyes of whatever Deity they worship, all lives are equal. That’s a polite admission that they don’t place equal value on all lives.

While the laws of the land, and those who enforce those laws, should in fact treat all those innocent of wrong-doing equally, and should presume someone innocent until proven guilty – or, at the very least, observed in wrong-doing – that does not mean that all lives are in fact equal, or that we truly value them as equal.

At the same time, the fact that we place differing levels of value on life, depending on who we are and where we live, does not justify differing treatment under the law. Laws are meant to be applied fairly and evenly to all. Unhappily, often they are not, and at times, as I have noted before, sometimes the laws themselves have been written in ways that disadvantage one group or unfairly advantage another.

Equally unfortunate, however, is when laws are applied equally, and some group or another believes that they are not.

Then, too, there is the very difficult problem of dealing with those apprehended for breaking the law when such individuals do not wish to be detained or arrested. The Garner case is an unfortunate, but illustrative, example. No matter what anyone claims, Garner was not choked to death. One cannot say he “can’t breathe” a number of times if his airway is blocked. That doesn’t mean that the police efforts didn’t result in his death. Based on the situation, his ill health, and the autopsy reports, he most likely died of an internal violent asthmatic reaction to stress and to his attempted arrest. The simplistic explanation that he was choked to death, unfortunately, obscures the more difficult problem facing police officers. To what degree should force be used? How are officers to know if someone has a health problem, as Garner did, especially if they resist arrest? Garner’s situation is truly unfortunate, but it’s also an example of how complicated the issue of “rights” can be.

While one can and should expect police officers to treat people equally, what exactly does “equally” mean when they are dealing with individuals whom they have either witnessed committing a crime or who they have strong reason to believe have committed a crime – as in the case of Michael Brown? The recent case of the two New City detectives who were shot by individuals committing a burglary is an illustration of the other side of the issue.

What also seems to be overlooked is that mandate laid upon police officers is to keep the peace and apprehend law-breakers. Are they supposed to ignore less violent crime because the perpetrator is black or another minority? Perhaps they should, given that current law certainly doesn’t require the immediate arrest and hand-cuffing for white-collar crime, a less violent form of crime committed disproportionately by whites. And maybe, just maybe, we might then see some “interesting” results.

Either way… the issue is anything but simple, and simple slogans, by themselves, won’t resolve it.

While Cedar City does have winter, often bitingly cold, if not nearly so cold as Canadian winters, it does reach below zero [Fahrenheit] temperatures a handful of times most winters, and most winter nights have sub-freezing temperatures. We also have lots of wind. Because at almost 6,000 feet, Cedar City is high desert, we don’t get huge amounts of snow, but it does tend to stay around, and we usually get 2-5 significant snowfalls, significant being more than a foot where I live. And because I do walk a lot for exercise, half on trails and half on streets/sidewalks, when this occurs, as it has in the last few weeks, I do notice which houses evidence snow removal, which do not, and how much is cleared, either by shovel, snow-blower, or plow.

There are those houses, thankfully a minority, where no snow ever appears to be shoveled, and where the inhabitants merely pack down the snow into a solid mass on driveways and sidewalks. Eventually, this turns to ice or a reasonable facsimile thereof. In time, in our dry air, it eventually sublimates, but not before causing slips and falls.

Then there are those houses where only the driveway is shoveled, clearly indicating that the thought that anyone walks anywhere except from or to a vehicle has never occurred to the inhabitants. Next come the houses where the sidewalk to the street and/or mailbox is shoveled, as well as the driveway, but nothing else.

Finally, there are the houses where every walk and driveway is shoveled/cleared. Ours fits this category, except for the redwood deck that’s effectively unusable in winter and inaccessible except from inside the house – although I do clear the access to the bird feeder.

In observing all the different stages of snow removal or lack thereof, certain thoughts have occurred to me. First, clearing sidewalks – especially the walks other than those providing access to house, mailbox, or vehicle – is essentially a matter of both courtesy and safety to others.

Second, snow removal appears to be largely deficient in those dwellings harboring teenagers and young adults, except as necessary to obtain vehicle access.

Third, a high percentage of older couples still manage snow removal, although, understandably, it often takes them longer.

Fourth, after one or two winters, a certain percentage of retirees who moved here from California decide to move south.

Fifth, I’m really glad I have both a snow-blower and an ergonomic snow shovel.

The other day I read a reader review of Heritage of Cyador which stated that “Modesitt’s Utah heritage and belief system comes through in his writing.” That’s about half right. My books do reflect to a greater or lesser degree my beliefs. I believe that to be true of almost all writers, although it is more obvious with some writers and less so with others.

“Utah heritage,” however is another question, since I am neither of the LDS faith, nor am I a native-born Utahan. In fact, if we’re talking “heritage,” I’m a fourth generation Coloradan, who didn’t even move to Utah until I was fifty years old, years seasoned by nearly two decades spent in Washington, D.C., and whose beliefs are probably best described as Anglican/agnostic, and the reason I say Anglican rather than Episcopalian is because whatever religious traditions I do have are rooted in the King James versions of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, which the Episcopalians abandoned years and years ago.

Why any of this matters is because it reflects on the human tendency to jump to conclusions based on inadequate or inaccurate facts… or even ignoring easily available facts. Since I write in a certain style and have lived in Utah for a number of years, this reader has immediately pigeon-holed me and assumed that my heritage is entirely based on my locale. This is obviously just one reader, but I could have given many examples of other equally erroneous “deductions” buy readers and others. At the same time, several more perceptive readers have deduced my “Anglican” aspects from the ritual passages describing the anomen services in the Imager Portfolio books, but such deduction requires more knowledge and thought, especially when there might be multiple explanations.

One reason often cited for jumping to conclusions is Occam’s Razor, which states that among competing hypotheses or ideas, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected, but all too often those who think they’re operating accurately under Occam’s principle fail to consider the linkage between a fact and the assumptions made based on those facts. Just because 62% of Utah’s population happens to be LDS, and 62% of the current population happens to have been born in Utah, doesn’t automatically or even statistically mean that because I live in Utah my heritage is Utahan – especially when my biography says I was born in Colorado. But it’s so much easier to assume I’m LDS and have a Utah heritage because I live in Cedar City and my writing meets a preconceived notion of what “LDS writing” is like. I explore moral themes. So do other writers. Some are LDS; some are not. To assume that a writer “is” something because of perceived similarities and where the writer lives, especially when there are published facts to the contrary, is not only intellectually sloppy, but also reflects a culture that wants quick and easy answers without much thought or research.

Then, too, it could also reflect the simplest interpretation of existing facts. My wife graduated from a Utah university, and has taught at two separate Utah universities for quite a number of years. I’m clean-shaven, don’t drink or smoke, and generally don’t use blasphemous curses in my writing [other kinds, definitely so]. We have far more than the average number of children… all of which suggests – erroneously – a certain religious affiliation.

And all of this also suggests why I tend to be most skeptical of people who cite Occam’s Razor, especially when they jump to conclusions. Life and the universe just aren’t that simple.