The first amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. states:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or….”  Previously, perhaps in several posts, I underlined the point that this proves the Constitution is an evolving, living document that was written to adapt to new situations that would appear in our young democracy, something some sectors of our society and even some obstinate Supreme Court judges deny:  This is the first amendment—it wasn’t in the original document.

Today I will focus on those freedoms that deal with publishing—speech and press.  While Sixty Minutes (CBS) has suffered the same blows as all network news programs and is in a downward spiral, I still watched the segment last Sunday night about Greg Mortensen.  I remember when, several years back now, a colleague at work recommended the book Three Cups of Tea, a heart-warming portrayal of a person trying to do some good in this world.  I’ll confess that my first knew-jerk reaction was cynicism.  Someone who’s rich enough to go halfway round the world to climb mountains wants to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan?  I thought, “Either this guy is Paul on the road to Damascus, celebrating a personal epiphany, or he’s a con artist.”

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[I’m publishing tomorrow’s blog post a wee bit earlier to nudge it under the wire for St. Paddy’s Day.  We are faced with foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and tragic disaster in Japan, so perhaps a little Irish cheer is in order.  The following is an edited repeat from last year.  Ireland has been hit hard by the rot of the financial sector that spread round the world in 2008-2009, so she deserves a toast…raise a mug of green beer to old Eire.]

The title quote is by George Bernard Shaw.  Today is St. Patrick’s Day so I thought it was a perfect day to set the record straight: many great writers in the English language that you may have heard about are not English but Irish.  Shaw was one of them.  His plays and other writings poked fun at the English establishment, a commendable thing to do even today.  His biting wit transferred easily into words on the page and probably embarrassed everyone from royalty on down.  On the other hand, the endurance of his work over the years is proof of its quality—it is classic literature in the English language written by an Irishman.

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Those readers familiar with this website probably have visited the webpage “Steve’s Bookshelf” at least once.  A new addition to the subsection “Non-Fiction Recommendations” is Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia. I also have introduced the new subsection “Stealth Reads—Books by New And Promising Authors” where you will find Donna Carrick’s The First Excellence and Carolyn J. Rose’s Hemlock Lake.  Each of these books receives my recommendation, as does every book that appears on this page of my website.  I should hasten to add that neither Donna’s nor Carolyn’s novels is related to Matt’s book—they are associated only in that they appear in the same update to this webpage.  Matt’s blog can be found at the Rolling Stone website.  Donna and Carolyn also have their own websites.  All can be found on Facebook.

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With the Middle East crises and the three stooges, Michele, Sarah, and Christine, the last few blog posts have been a little on the heavy side, so today let me sail into smooth seas and soft breezes to discuss a trivial thing that sometimes irks the hell out of me:  series in fiction.  It’s a criticism of my own writing profession—a self-criticism, in a way.  We all have our favorite characters and we tend to look for sequels where they appear again and again.  However, what I’m complaining about is when writers’ do it just for the almighty dollar.

Fictional characters become famous largely due to series, of course.  Sherlock Holmes would not be as famous if Conan Doyle had only written one Holmes mystery.  Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot would not be as famous if Christie had only written one of their mysteries.  John Carter, nearly forgotten by now, I suppose, would not be as famous if Rice Burroughs had written only one Martian story—and probably Star Wars would never have been made for lack of all those names lifted from them.  We readers love our series because we love the characters in them.

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Much of human history took place after the invention of writing.  The progress from Babylonian cuneiform to the gilded manuscripts of the Middle Ages represents a span of many centuries.  Gutenberg instigated the first paradigm shift by inventing movable type and a printing press around 1439, inventions that made mass book production possible.  Up to Gutenberg’s time, book production was generally done by monks and academics, for monks and academics.  After Gutenberg, more people had access to the written word, a definite factor in the general increase in literacy over many centuries.  But there were no real paradigm shifts again until digital printing became commonplace.  Sure, color was added and multiple fonts (the medieval Book of Kells, found in Trinity College in Dublin, possesses rich colors, lavishly done by hand by Irish monks), but digital printing is now having a bigger effect than Gutenberg’s inventions.

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Just in time to detour the national debate from Arizona, the media is touting the virtues of the newly crowned Miss America Teresa Scanlan, a seventeen-year-old who looks and acts twenty-five.  From second-hand sources (I found her name with a quick google), I have learned that she is an accomplished pianist, is focused on getting a law degree, wants to be a Supreme Court judge, and looks ravishing in an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bikini.

It’s the last part that bothers me.  While I’m one of the first to decry the plight of women in other cultures who are treated as sex objects (we’re probably more familiar with Middle Eastern cultures, but Latin America, India, China, and Southeast Asia should be considered in our class of misogynist strongholds), is the whole Miss America, Miss Universe, and other beauty pageant nonsense not the same thing?  Yeah, I know, the bikini bit was to show how fit the women are, wink, wink.  It’s a fitness show.  Bull!  What it does is give many men and not a few women some place to aim their testosterone beyond guns and politics, just what we need to heal from Arizona.  Yeah!  God bless America!

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Like three hundred million other Americans, I was moved by the untimely and senseless death of Christina-Taylor Green, the nine-year-old victim of the Arizona shooter.  Perhaps the syrupy media attention and Mr. Obama’s moving words, which dominated his eulogy of the victims and praise for the heroes, is just what we need to pull this nation back together.  However, the rational part of me, not the emotional, tells me that this is an impossible task unless we come to some consensus based on cold logic and unemotional compromise.

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(Sven Michael Davison, State of Mind, Bedouin Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9666149-2-3)

With State of Mind, Mr. Davison has written a bloody and mind-blowing tour de force, both literally and figuratively.  It is both entertaining and thought-provoking but definitely not for the faint of heart.  What happens when future bioengineering technologies permit doctors to embed a chip in the head that can help the average joe control his cravings and better his life while at the same time create a more efficient and programmable soldier to fight terrorism?  The author supplies one answer.

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Some people might think I’m talking about body attributes here or plastic surgery.  Heaven forbid!  (Or hell, for that matter.)  I am a little envious of David Baldacci, for example, but it’s not because he’s a chick magnet.  It’s because he’s able to produce two or three bestsellers each year and has been doing so since Absolute Power.  I can’t keep up with the guy.  I am also envious of J. K. Rowling, but it’s not because she’s the quintessential English female that almost, but not quite, drives me to like the British.  (Of course, even if she weren’t cute and mysterious, she’s wealthy enough to buy Angelina Jolie’s body parts for a complete makeover.)  My problem with Ms. Rowling is that she was able to write a successful fantasy series and I can’t even write fantasy.

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