The Tea Party mantra, the Libertarian golden fleece, the holy grail of conservatives, and so forth, have long been summarized in these two words “less government.”  As the Wall Street bankers ride the commuter rail from New Jersey’s posh Upper Mountain estates in Montclair and their rustic McMansions in the woodlands of Bernardsville, as the Madison Avenue shakers and movers take their ferries across the Hudson from their penthouses along the river, as the professors of Princeton drive their BMWs and Mercedes into their labs financed by federal funding, and as the Lock-Martian engineers from Moorestown sign yet another fat contract with the Pentagon, you would think that these members of the nation’s “elite” would recognize the contradictory crap that trips so easily off their tongues.  Unfortunately for this country the rich and powerful are not inoculated against stupidity—they live it in their daily lives continuously.

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Ever since the Nixon-Eisenhower White House wedding in 1968 I have wondered about America’s need for royalty and royal weddings.  While old George showed his sanity and humility by not allowing the rest of the colonials to make him king (I’m speaking of our first President, not the inept British king the colonials defeated), it seems that many of my compatriots feel short-changed.  Many of them go after the gossip, intrigues, and photos by the paparazzi like ants at a pastry makers’ picnic, all in their haste to find a truly American substitute.  And when the Lohans and the Pitts just don’t do it, there’s always a White House wedding.

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If you’re a soon-to-be or recent retiree, this short story might have special meaning.  Consider it a new twist on Huxley’s Brave New World.  Or, for the people out there looking for jobs, consider it a warning to check out the retirement plans when you are interviewing.  It is a brave new world.  Enjoy.

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Brenda moved along the dim corridor and stopped at room 114.  After checking off the visit on her list, she peeked into the room at her patient.

Rafael, the old retiree, sat in his rocker, muttering to himself.  As usual, he was smiling and staring out the window between the thick wrought iron bars at the bleak Virginia countryside.

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The release of the Afghan Papers this weekend—notably in the N.Y. Times today—brings to the fore once again the perpetual conflict between national security and personal morality.  We don’t like to talk about this gray area even though most of us probably have opinions about particular cases, but I will try to touch upon some of the issues and hope for the best.

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The Wylie Agency’s creation of Odyssey Editions is a new slap at traditional book publishers and the usual writer/agent/publisher minefield that authors traditionally face.  Here is an agency that decided to publish its own eBook versions of works by its clients, works previously unavailable in eBook format, like Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man.  Wylie’s argument is that digital rights to these works were not conveyed to publishers since the book contracts were signed before eBooks existed.  At least one big time publisher, Random House, sees a future lawsuit, claiming that Wylie’s action may be illegal.

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The case of Shirley Sherwood is another example of emotions running amok on the internet.  This wonderful digital media allows us to get information very fast but often, through incomplete reporting and/or users not getting the complete story, that same information stimulates a knee-jerk reaction that diminishes our humanity and foments embarrassing spins on a story.

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As if it wasn’t enough that the Brits’ famous oil company has destroyed the ecosystem of the Gulf for the next thirty years or so (the BP disaster makes the Exxon-Valdes one look like stealing from the cookie jar), they are seeking revenge for their poor showing in the World Cup, especially relative to the Yanks.  The British government continues to deny the Haudenosaunee team’s entry to the World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester, England, insisting that the team travel on U.S. passports.  You see, the Haudenosaunee are Iroquois tribesmen.  They don’t need U.S. passports and travel fine without them—usually, until they ran into the Brits.  Even though their ancestors invented the game of lacrosse, the Brits are still fighting the French and Indian Wars and want nothing to do with Native Americans.  Any excuse to equalize the playing field, eh, mate?

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Steve:  I have reviewed both of John Betcher’s novels, The Missing Element and The 19^th Element, for Book Pleasures (see my blog category “Book Reviews”).  John is a lawyer/writer living in Red Wing, Minnesota (great name for a town).  I thought that the readers of this blog would enjoy hearing opinions from him about his novels and writing in general.  He offers a different perspective and background than yours truly.  You’ll find his answers interesting.

(Note:  This is the first interview to appear in this blog.  I’ll probably limit these to authors, agents, editors and publishers, but not necessarily.  Hey, it’s my blog!)

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Steve:  Your book The 19^th Element is a thriller; The Missing Element is a mystery.  Which genre is easiest to write in?  Are there any special quirks of either genre?

John:  I don’t consider one genre or the other easier to write in.  They are significantly different, though.  In a typical mystery, you’re not sure who the bad guys (or maybe even the good guys) are until the climax.  In a typical thriller, the reader follows the bad guys and the good guys on separate courses toward the same destination – an intended calamity.  I like writing both.

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I’m not cheering.  I’m wondering how long it will take BP to clean up the mess they made in the gulf.  Two years?  Five?  Ten?  Twenty?  One hundred?  A logarithmic scale seems appropriate here since the spill in the gulf is a multiplier of the Exxon Valdes disaster.  BP is probably counting on the media losing interest (they already are—success isn’t newsworthy), the local people either moving away or quietly accepting what little money BP or the government hands out, and the majority of the rest of the American public turning back to their sports, stupid reality shows, and celebrity watching (they’re already salivating with the Mel Gibson scandal).

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Yes, I know he has a following on Facebook.  The snail in my garden probably has a following on Facebook and a movie on YouTube.  Congress people, moving just as slowly, rarely say anything more worthwhile than the 140 character tweets on Twitter either.  So maybe internet fame doesn’t mean that much.  Yet, if we accept the premise that this man-boy’s fame goes beyond his desire to expose everybody to his foot odor, the question of the title is still meaningful.

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