Part of being nice (Rule #1 from my article “Rogue Waves in Calm Seas”) is being ethical about how you treat readers and other writers.  One of my interests is scientific ethics, but this is a little more general and more complex.  Let’s say you receive a bad review from person X.  Is attacking that person online ethical?  If X is a writer, is it ethical to write a bad review of X’s book in revenge?  I hope you agree with me that it isn’t.

I’ve been on both ends of this little debate.  I received a questionable review and made the mistake of saying something like “I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy Y, but I can offer you a free copy of Z.”  (I won’t go into details here because I have so few reviews you might be able to figure out who it is.)  On the other hand, one person called me to task for a review I wrote, saying that I hadn’t even read the book (exactly what the first person did—he admitted it).  Again, I apologized (I’m human and read a lot, so there’s a small probability I mixed the book with another—that’s about as likely as winning the lottery, though).  But I also stuck by my guns (that’s Rule #2), and added the experience to my list of reasons to stop reviewing on Amazon and return to my mini-reviews for booksI casually read.  (BTW, if I review a book, I’ve read it.  For casual reading, I often only read it once.  For my Bookpleasures reviews, I usually read the book twice, once as a casual reader and again with a critic’s eagle eye.)

If I sinned, it isn’t at the level I described in the first paragraph.  But we can go farther.  I once discussed a plot idea with an author who didn’t express any interest in the idea (I was thinking we might become the next Preston and Child).  Later I found he’d written a book using basically that plot idea.  Is that ethical?  Whatever your opinion, it taught me a lesson that I’d better not discuss my plot ideas with other authors.  I’ve worked hard over the years to accumulate what-ifs, story and character ideas, and possible venues for my novels.  I’ve learned now to keep them to myself.  (When you see an excerpt for the next ebook in a series at the end of the present one, be assured that novel’s done and in editing mode at least—it will be released before another writer can release her/his with the same plot idea.)

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I had just finished Scott Dyson’s short story collection Dark Windows on Monday night a week ago, so I decided to cruise a bit through the 999 Comcast channels we pay so much for and so seldom use (anyone believe that the planned merger with TWC will make that any better?).  I came across Mike and Molly, a sitcom, on one of the traditional network TV channels.  I remembered an episode from a few weeks ago I watched under similar circumstances (rather than launch into a new book and stay up late, I often watch TV to make me drowsy—that and a finger of Jameson whiskey often works to cure insomnia).  In that episode, Molly, the ex-teacher, was finishing an erotic romance—it sounded better than Fifty Shades, though (that was parody #1).

In the new episode, Molly’s picked up by a big-time editor (publishing company not named, but the fancy, uncluttered desk implies he has plenty of minions to work through his slush pile).  He’s suave, sophisticated, and sociopathic (like that alliteration?), i.e. a snooty know-it-all.  He tries to convince Molly to rewrite the book.  She rebels, but he says he owns her (she signed a standard author’s contract, you see, complete with advance).  We now have parody #2 that offers a humorous critique of the traditional publishing paradigm—and maybe a painful reminder to midlist authors?

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I’m amused by the euphemistic phrase “climate control.”  Have we become so politically correct that we can’t say “don’t poison the environment” or “don’t kill Gaia”?  Even the latter phrases don’t put the blame where it belongs.  The very liberal NYC mayor Bill De Blasio is calling to reduce the Big Apple’s greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050.  That’s laughable not only for the date but because NYC’s contribution represents one little drop in a huge ocean of pollution in the Northeastern U.S.  Every wee bit helps, I suppose, but the city and its people don’t produce most of the greenhouse gases and pollution.  It’s industry.  Our slogan should be “control industry’s excesses.”  But industry likes the phrase “climate control” because it avoids blame.  It wants people to forget that it’s industry that’s destroying the planet.  De Blasio is a nincompoop falling into industry’s trap.  But what else is old news?

NYC might be producing tons of garbage and polluting waterways with sewage effluent, but industry is the culprit for that and other pollution as well.  Has been, is, and will always will be, unless controls are enacted to lower greenhouse emissions.  I don’t want to hear any whining about the cost.  Sure, we want to make this reduction as painless as possible—heaven forbid that we use a few millions out of the many billions industry makes in order to clean up the planet it’s made into a dirty mess!  Industry is naïve.  Do they think they’ll still be making these billions when the world’s population is starved of oxygen and simmering on the polluted planet that’s fast becoming another Venus?  Greed obviously has no foresight, no appreciation for future problems in its haste to roll in the dough.  Industry lives for the present, not the future.  It doesn’t give a rat’s ass about human beings, let alone the environment.

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Continuing our discussion from Tuesday about rampant commercialism, I find Apple annoying.  Contrary to many people’s opinions, they’ve become like a Wall Street bank—too big to fail!  It would have been enough that they tried to control the ebook business to turn me against them, but I’ve disliked them for years.  Starting with the old toaster MACs, they’ve never made a computer that I like.  Of course, in my old day job, powerful UNIX workstations were required, but I still had to make presentations.  Between Microsoft and Apple, my cursing vocabulary became extensive—in several languages, mind you.  It was the opposite of trying to crack a walnut with a sledgehammer.  I needed the latter and Apple just couldn’t deliver.  Still can’t.

Now that we’re on iPhone 6, I suspect that the geeky gadget lovers are having paroxysms of delight and orgasmic gizmo-dreams.  Who knows?  Maybe that iPhone has more computing power than those old workstations, but that’s comparing Apples to oranges.  Modern servers and workstations still make anything Apple makes about as useful as William Shatner’s tricorder—flashy but fake.  It’s all window dressing, even the apps.  That goes for Samsung smart phones too.  (I’m an equal opportunity kibitzer.)  You own of these, you’re a slave to your apps.  Just try to combine their functionalities or add new functionalities.  Just try to read all those sliding icons (tiles, in MS 8.1 terminology) when you’re on the beach.  And just try to make your data secure—some Hollywood starlets found out the hard way that it’s not.

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I suppose this could be interpreted as a follow-up on last Tuesday’s post.  People minimize the onslaught of commercials by using DVRs and streaming video now, but commercial interests still bombard everyone with commercials.  Pop-up ads on websites, especially those with video and sound, are only a small part of the problem.  Theaters, struggling to compete in this internet age, bombard us with commercials too—many of them are the same ones you see on TV.  It’s not enough that you have to mortgage your house to buy your candy and popcorn.  They sell advertising time too.  (I don’t buy anything at concession stands anymore.  If I can’t smuggle in trail mix or a fruit bar, I go without.  Eating distracts from the movie anyway.)  Facebook is even selling political ads.

Some commercials are entertaining if you only see them once.  Being bludgeoned by them over and over again is a bit like an eternity listening to that stupid song “Frozen” (unlike many American businesses, my writing business isn’t a Disney subsidiary—I can tell you the truth about their crappy songs!).  Even worse, on our local stations, commercial X is played at the beginning of a commercial break and then again at the end.  Any cuteness—pets and kids are common—becomes stale (cuteness is over-rated anyway).  Any cleverness also becomes stale.  Make sure all the knives and guns are safely under lock and key because you’ll soon become suicidal with this torture going on.

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As a progressive, I’m reluctant to attack that so-called bastion of liberal Northeast thought, but the NY Times is starting to piss me off.  So, launch the torpedoes!  Every newspaper in the world has an editorial slant that permeates their news reporting, especially ones in totalitarian states or theocracies where the press is part of the government.  Even not printing certain news items is an editorial slant, so the NY Times, in violation of its famous motto, is doubly culpable.  It biases the news it deems “fit to print” and considers some news involving opposing viewpoints not “fit to print” because these newsworthy items will negatively affect its livelihood.

I’m referring to how the Times is reporting on the Hachette v. Amazon controversy.  Every article I’ve seen (last Monday’s  is but one example) is completely biased.  But I’m not going to call for a boycott of the Times or even cancel my subscription.  I simply feel sorry for the venerable dinosaurs of the publishing industry who feel so threatened by the digital revolution in publishing.  Their days are numbered, no matter what they do (although they seem to on a tear to hasten their demise).  The last article was about Amazon’s email to KDP Select authors and publishers (mostly indies who are completely ignored by the Times) where they used the paperback book as a model for how new technology can revitalize publishing.  That’s a valid point; the Times irrelevant rebuttal: Amazon quoted Orwell out of context.  Huh?  Do I care?

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John Stuart pointed it out.  Ignoring all the crude jokes and spiffy graphics, he talked about four ex-EPA leaders serving four different Republican presidents (all the way back to Reagan) stating before Congress that global warming is a problem we MUST solve.  Those weren’t the exact words, but that’s the idea.  It was amusing to hear this, of course, coming from Republican mouths that usually “speak with a forked tongue” (maybe all the good old white boys that stole land from Native Americans were Republican?).  More amusing perhaps was the global warming denial espoused by the GOP idiots, aka honorable congress people, who were questioning these ex-EPA officials.  What’s with this denial of global warming?

Some of it, of course, is due to this frightening current running through America, a prehistoric, Neanderthal anti-science current, if not an all-out hatred of science.  This covers the gamut of people distrusting science (didn’t it cause all the world’s problems?) to religious fanatics who find science far too secular.  Our nation now has millennials to old geezers covering that whole spectrum who are technical savages, addicted to their technology and enjoying the internet’s social media, iTunes, NetFlix, iPhones, and other technological marvels, but know less about where this all comes from than an aborigine in Australia (who, in fact, probably understands practical weather-related science more than these millenials—or those GOP idiots).  Our nation also has religious fanatics, again from all ages, who love that museum in Kentucky that shows modern human beings coexisting with dinosaurs (all those fossils are just consequences of Noah’s flood, don’t you know?).  And, above all, our nation has unscrupulous business people, mostly wealthy old farts, who deny global warming simply because they want to continue their polluting, toxic chemical leaching, and natural-gas-fracking ways.  The latter are those represented by those GOP congressional lackeys, of course.

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I was tempted to make this a humorous post too, a parody of “How Book Publishers Can Beat Amazon,” an op-ed column (two or three columns, in fact) written by lawyer Bob Kohn in last Saturday’s (May 31) NY Times.  Last Wednesday (June 4), the lead editorial in the Times also attacked Amazon.  Pretty clear where their sympathies lie.  Moreover, they’re clearly not on the side of readers or writers!  Of course, they claim they’re protecting them…bla-bla-bla.  Back to that temptation: it occurred because I already said pretty much all I wanted to say about this storm-in-a-tea-cup in my “News and Notices” a week ago Friday.  But I’ve been watching the debates on LinkedIn and elsewhere in my general internet lurking mode.

It’s amusing to watch people come down on either side.  We’re talking about two behemoths here—Amazon, a rip-snorting, fire-breathing Yankee company in pitched battle against a greedy French member of the Big Five, conglomerate Hachette—you’re supposed to pronounce this name the same way you sneeze, by the way, but I like the pronunciation “hatchet” better because it’s a more appropriate description of their questionable business practices.  In fact, it’s also fun to remind people that Hachette is the only company in this new dispute ever accused of unfair business practices—they settled with the government because they knew they’d not win the lawsuit involving them, other publishers, and that other behemoth and corporate bully, Apple (I hate to speak badly of the dead, but Jobs introduced that bullying philosophy into Apple management).

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[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

The evil one who shall not be named decided Uncle Jang (Jang Song-thaek), his mentor, was a threat to solidifying his power in this oppressive, dark, and paranoid country.  Exit Uncle Jang.  Hanging…poison…ten thousand lashes…does it matter?  While some people in Washington might think this is just a distraction from their negotiations with the Persian nutniks in Iran, I call on them to remember that, in contrast to Allah’s warriors, he who shall not be named already has nukes and missiles to carry them—if not to the U.S., at least to South Korea, Japan, Vladivostok, and Beijing.  Any of his neighbors that pisses him off and sends him into a spoiled brat’s tantrum better be prepared for a nuclear attack.  And, as the case of Uncle Jang shows, it doesn’t take much to piss him off.  Talk about dysfunctional families.

Like Grandpa and Daddy, the North Korean leader doesn’t give a rat’s ass that his people are starving, that North Korean children are turning into low IQ zombies from malnutrition, that his prisons are just thinly disguised torture camps, and that his economy is the laughing stock of the Asian world.  He’s a sociopathic psychopath so much into establishing his own cult of personality—he wants to become God—that psychiatrists wouldn’t know what to do with him, except put him in a strait jacket and lock him up in a padded cell.  He makes Kaddafi, Pinochet, Amin, and even Hitler look like angels.  Given the state of his economy, he probably smoke-cured Uncle Jang and is slicing ham from the carcass for his breakfast.

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In many states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures—even here in NJ with a Republican governor and Democratic legislature—teachers’ unions and public school teachers have come under fire.  The issue here isn’t black and white—issues rarely are.  I can’t pretend to be comprehensive in a simple blog post, but let me throw in some loose change to up the ante and gray up the issue even more (forty shades, remember?).

Most of us have heard the adage that goes something like “People who know, create; people who don’t know, teach.”  Like many stereotypes and adages, there is some truth to that statement.  Back in prehistoric times when I attended college (I’m a product of state-run universities–when I started, I paid about $300/quarter + room and board and everyone with a B+ HS average could enter some state university), this adage was somewhat formalized, at least in the math department—there was a track for math majors and another track for students who wanted to teach primary and/or secondary mathematics.  This bifurcation engendered a bit of what nowadays we call bullying.  Moreover, for whatever reason, students in the first track seemed to do better than students in the second.

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