Gibbon's Decline and Fall (a book review post)

All right, this will probably be the last Tepper novel I do for a while. Not because I've grown tired of her books or anything but because I'm out of all the ones I have and I don't plan to go book buying any time soon. Not until I finish some of the other books I have sitting around. Or unless I decide I just need the sequel to Grass.

That said, overall, I didn't enjoy this one as much as her others, and I'm going to tell you why, which means, yes, there will be spoilers, so, if you plan on picking this one up, you may want to bypass this. Not that I think any of you are making that plan because, if you were, you would have picked up The Gate To Women's Country, which is something you should certainly do.

Let me give you some context:
The book was published in '96 and is set in '99. The coming millennium looms over the events of the novel though it actually has little to do with the action. When it came out, it was a contemporary novel, though the present that Tepper shows is a bit removed from ours. Chimpanzees, elephants, and many other species are extinct in the wild. Prisons are full of pods that they sentence people to sleep in. Far Right groups roam the streets... Wait, that doesn't sound too far off.

Basically, Right-wing groups of fanatics of every flavor around the world are making their presence known in violent ways, mostly against women but, really, against anyone who doesn't agree with them. They've taken over the politics in the United States and, really, everywhere else, too. People who do not belong to these groups have fewer and fewer places to turn for help.

The beginning third of the book actually felt very prescient.

The action of the book revolves around the disappearance of one of the women the book is about. At least, that's the only theme that carries all the way through the book as the conflict is rather fluid other than that. That's all stuff I'm not going to get into. Why spoil everything, right? The supernatural element that Tepper so likes plays into this, and it's ultimately what ruined the book for me. Or what it leads to, which is an actual deus ex machina ending.

Let's just say I'm not a fan of having a god step in at the end to save everything, especially when that god was a character in the novel beyond a mere spoken about concept.

However, the real problem area for me was the antagonist. In a general sense, the antagonist is "men" and their antipathy toward women, or, at least, their antipathy towards women's rights. The unifying factor among all of the far Right groups in the book is their belief that women should get back in the kitchen, so to speak. They should be no more than baby makers and food preparers and house cleaners. The book deals a lot with how shitty men can be and how they systemically undermine women and their potential roles in the world.

And we're all good as far as that goes, because all of that is true. However, Tepper then sabotages her point by having the main villain, Webster, be an interstellar entity that is causing men to be the way that they are. Well, maybe he doesn't cause it, but he exacerbates and intensifies it, so, really, except in a few cases, it's not really their fault.

This is a problem because the men she portrays in the book are not caricatures or exaggerations. They are exactly the way men are. But Tepper gives them, gives us, an out: Oh, really, men, they're not that bad; it's just all of these really bad outside influences that make them that way. I really don't understand why she chose to go that route. It pulls the teeth out of any social commentary she was trying to make.

Not to mention the unresolved nature of the denouement. Or, rather, the fact that the resolution is unrevealed to the reader. This is a tactic that would work if Tepper had left the reader with a question which the reader needed to answer for himself, but that's not the nature of it as none of the choices the protagonist is given are choices any of us can actually choose, so we're just left to wonder what choice she made and that's the end of it. It was... unsatisfying. And it left with the feeling that Tepper herself didn't know how she would choose so just left it hanging. Rather like the end of Inception where Nolan left the ending hanging because he didn't know which way to go with it.

So... yeah... brilliant beginning, but she failed to nail the landing. It's not a book I would recommend. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy it -- it was certainly much better than many other books I've read -- but, again, I'd say go out and get a copy of The Gate To Women's Country.

Life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of Happiness (Part 3)

What is Liberty, anyway?

Probably something to do with being free has popped into your mind at just the thought of that question but, politically speaking, liberty and freedom are not quite the same thing. Let me give you an example:

Let's say you're driving down the highway, speed limit: 65. You're a little behind schedule and, after doing some quick calculations... Wait, who am I kidding? No one does the math to figure out if speeding is actually going to save them any time. [Like the other day when some dude on a motorcycle came weaving through tight traffic at something around 80 mph only to have me pull up next to him at the exit I was taking. So yeah, he save a LOT of time by almost causing two accidents (that I saw) as he zipped between cars.] You're running late, so you step on the gas and punch your car up to 80. Are you free to do that?

Well, obviously; you just did it, right? And this is where it can be confusing, I suppose, because, while you are free to do that (anyone is free to break the law if he so chooses), you do not have the liberty to do that. It's a bit like the difference between "can" and "may." You know:

"Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?"
"Well, I assume you can, but you may not."

So, whereas you have the freedom to relieve yourself (because no one can stop you from peeing right where you stand), you do not have the liberty to go to the bathroom to do it.

Why is this important?

One of the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence is that we have the unalienable Right to Liberty. In practice, this means we have Right to a Government which does not place arbitrary restraints, especially oppressive ones, upon its citizens and takes into account the Rights of all. And it takes those Rights into account for all equally, not favoring the wealthy over the poor, for instance.

Of course, it is natural to think of this idea of Liberty from the perspective that the Government should not be making laws that disproportionately favors one group over another...

Oh, wait, so that means that all of these voter ID laws and all that shit the GOP has been doing in places like North Carolina is a restriction of Liberty of its people. It makes it difficult in a disproportionate way for certain groups of people to be able to vote.

But I was saying: It's natural that we should think of this in the sense of passing laws that restrict the liberties of particular groups of people...

Oh, wait, like laws that make it difficult for women to get the kind of healthcare they need from places like Planned Parenthood or that straight up make abortion illegal, effectively taking a religious belief and imposing it upon everyone. I mean, not only does that restrict the Liberty of women, it's a direct violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. But, then, the GOP doesn't seem to care about those kinds of things.

But back to what I was saying: It's natural to think of restrictive laws as being the kinds of things that restrict Liberty, but it's more than that.

Like, the GOP's refusal to raise the minimum wage amount to a restriction of Liberty (and freedom) for a huge segment of the population. It makes it so that people in low wage jobs have no choices. It removes their freedoms and, effectively, makes them slaves of the system, working for the profit of others with no hope of bettering their own lives.

There was this comedian, Jerry Clower, who used to tell this story about going 'coon hunting when he was a boy. One of the men he hunted with believed that a 'coon should never be shot of a tree; he thought that wasn't fair to the 'coon. He believed that the 'coon deserved a "fightin' chance" and that the 'coon should be set loose amongst the dogs (so he would climb the tree and throw the 'coon down into the dog pack). That way, the 'coon had the option of whoopin' all those dogs and walking away. It never happened, but at least the raccoon had the freedom to do so.

I'll let you make the connection.

Also, what DeVos and the GOP want to do to education, the funneling of money from the public education system into private and charter schools, is also a removal of Liberty from the non-wealthy. What they want to do will negatively impact something like 85-95%, at least, of the population. It's another of those things that actually takes away freedom from people in the same way that restricting their pay does. You might pay lip service to their Liberty but, when you take away people's access to education, you are removing their freedom to get anything other than low wage jobs. It's just another way to keep people trapped.

All of that to say, again, as I did in part two of this series, it is time for us to remove our consent to being governed in this way. The Government only derives its Power from the consent of the People; if it does not have that consent, it has no Power. The current GOP led Form of Government has proven, and has been proving for decades, that it is destructive to the unalienable Rights Jefferson points to in the Declaration of Independence; as such, we have Right to alter or abolish that Form of Government. It's time.

It's Not That I Don't Understand You

Since the election, there has been a plea from those on the Right for understanding. For people to just listen to their side and understand why they're not racists and misogynists and assholes just because they voted for Trump. Now that Trump has won, we (on the Left) somehow owe them empathy so that we will quit making them feel bad for calling them out for their bad behavior. If only we would try to understand what drove them to it...

If you've been around here for a while, you already know most of this (after all, I did a whole series on racism last year before I knew what kind of issue it was going to be in the Presidential election), but let me just reiterate:

• I grew up in the South. I grew up amongst "good, hard working folk," almost all of whom voted for Trump.
• I grew up in the Church. And not one of those liberal Methodist-type churches (they dance!), either. I grew up in a good ole Bible thumpin' evangelical Southern Baptists church. I even spent years working in the Church.
• I grew up surrounded by and immersed in racism. (I fought against it in my church.)
• I have been told, "That's just your education talking," which, honestly, as a teenager, I didn't understand. Of course, it was my education talking, at least in that I was getting educated so that I would be... well, educated!
• I have been told in all sincerity that higher education is a waste of time because you don't need to know anything that's not in the Bible. All you need to do is read the Good Book.

So, see, it's not that I don't understand you; it's that I do understand you, and I understand you all too well.

So you don't like being called a racist despite the fact that when you voted for Trump you were joining Team Racism. Fine...

So you don't like being called sexist despite the fact that when you voted for Trump you cast a vote for misogyny, both personal and institutionalized. Fine...

Let's just settle on "asshole," then. What? You don't like that, either? Let me call your attention back to a book I reviewed last year: Assholes. Specifically, let's look at the definition Aaron James provides us for what an asshole is. At the time I wrote the review, no one protested the provided definition:

1. The asshole allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically.
2. The asshole does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement.
3. The asshole is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people.

And I'm going to add a fourth:

• The asshole complains if anyone tries to take the special advantages away. A frequent refrain is, "That's not fair!" Perhaps, the asshole even tries to forcibly regain the special advantages, not seeing (or caring), because of his entitlement, that those advantages come at the expense of other people. [Most frequently in this country, those advantages come at the expense of women, but we can't get to the point of adequately dealing with rampant sexism because we can't get to it through all of the racism.]

I think these points pretty thoroughly describe Trump voters, virtually all of whom were white and/or male. [Yes, a large percentage of white women voted for Trump because they align with "white" rather than "women." Almost no women of color (any color (other than white)) voted for Trump.]

I'm not going to try to walk you all through it (you know what you did), but I will nutshell it for you:

When you're candidate says, "I will give you these things you want, but I am also going to do bad things to these other people," and you vote for him because you want the things even at the expense of the other people (Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, women, people of sexual orientation you don't agree with or understand), that puts you right in the ASSHOLE definition (see point 3 (which marches back up to 2 and, then, 1)). And all of that came about because you spent so much time whining about how you were losing your "special place" at the front of the line.

Let me put it another way:

When you believe that you, white person, deserve special treatment at the expense of non-white people and/or non-traditionally white people, it does, indeed, make you racist. It is the definition of racism. And I grew up with you; I know how all of this works; I know the tricks you play on yourself so that you can tell yourself that you're not one of the racist ones and that you are a good person, the primary one being, "I have black friends! I can't be racist!" Racism isn't about how you treat people you know; it's about how you treat people you don't know and how you think about those same people.

All of that to say this:
Quit asking us to "understand you." We do understand you. All of us. We know what you voted for and why. Sure, you may not have been voting against those other people, but you were voting for yourselves. And you were voting for yourselves at the expense of others, and you were fully aware of that at the time. That you are willing to sacrifice the very safety of others just so you can feel special again is, actually, racism. You need to come to grips with that and either embrace it or reject it. You can't play both sides.

The problem here is not that we don't understand you. The problem is that you refuse to look at yourselves and understand that your actions don't fit your words. And, sorry (not sorry), actions still do speak louder.

Reading Is Power

I was having one of those thought things recently, and I want to point out that it was just a thought thing. A thing like "I wonder if there's a connection here" kind of thing. Of course, since I'm about to talk about it, I think there is a connection, but my wife tells me I'm wrong about this one. But, hey, it's my thought, and she's just telling me that because I don't have any data to back it up. And, it's true, I don't have any data to back it up (she's a real data person), but, what's more, I'm not going to do the research, right now, to figure this one out, because it was just a thought thing.

However, it all makes sense to me, so I'm going to go with it. I mean, I'm going to go with it at least as far as I'm going to talk about it as an idea. It's not like I'm putting this forth as law or, even, as any kind of fact.

It does make me wonder if there's any data out there about this, though, or, even, how one would go about figuring it out. It doesn't make me wonder enough, though, to do the research.

So, anyway, here's where the thought began:

Reading Is Power

As someone who reads, this seems like a pretty obvious statement to me, but let me re-frame it by walking you through a bit of history.

For centuries (at least) only the wealthy have been able to read. Well, the wealthy and the priests, but there was wealth in the priesthood even if not controlled by the individual priests. And not just the wealthy but, more specifically, wealthy men. I'm not just talking about European culture; this has been prevalent across all cultures for thousands of years.

Now, an argument could be made that it's the wealth that created the power, but I think it was the ability to read. I think the reading created the wealth and the wealth was used to maintain the power. Books were expensive, so it was, then, easy to keep reading out of the hands of the "common man."

Over time, the power base expanded as reading was taught to those few who became successful enough, or wealthy enough, to be able to buy the knowledge. Remember, for hundreds of years, schooling only went to those who could buy it.

Eventually, though, education had to become more widely available because of a growing need for skilled professions (doctors, lawyers, even skilled laborers). And, then, an American guy had the startling idea that education should be available for all, and thus was born the public education system.

An interesting thing happened after that: Women started reading. I'm not trying to suggest that no women ever read prior to that, but, after public education, reading became available to women en masse. And, not long after that, women began to demand the right to vote. With the ability to read, women gained power.

Likewise, when under privileged minorities have learned to read, they have gained power.

When people in countries of oppression have learned to read, they have gained power.

It's through reading where ideas like "freedom" and "democracy" are spread.

Ideas are power, and ideas come from reading.

And here is where my thoughts lead me:
It is often widely bemoaned how boys don't read anymore and, when I say "boys," I mean white males in the USA. Reading has fallen out of fashion for white males and, as such, the white male power base has been eroding for years. Or decades. White men in power are gnashing their teeth about all sorts of things that are undermining their power. Like women. And "minorities." And "gays." And whoever else they complain about.

Well, I think it's their own fault. The white males, that is. It's their own fault that power is slipping from their grasp, because they have largely given up on reading and learning and are doing all they can to foster a society that thrives on ignorance, "faith," and a lack of education (the ability to read). White male leadership continually undermines the power of reading and science by clinging to... well, all sorts of things that have no factual basis.

Why?

Because they don't read.

So I don't feel bad for them that they are all fearful of losing their grip on power, because people who cling to ignorance don't deserve to lead.

The Pocket Problem

Here's something I bet you didn't know:
Where the pockets are placed on the back of the jeans you're wearing affect how your butt looks. Now I bet you're trying to look behind yourself at your butt, aren't you? It's okay, go ahead. Mostly, I suppose, this is not a thing that matters to guys, though it's probably no less applicable to them; they just don't really care. But women... Well, women care about their butts.

Wait. That sounds wrong. Let's try again:

Women care how their butts look. You know it guys. What guy doesn't dread the question, "Do these jeans make my butt look fat?"

Let me give you some background:
A while back, my wife needed to buy some new jeans. For most people, that means going to the store... Okay, wait a minute. For most guys, that means going to the store going to the jeans section, grabbing the right size, and paying for them. There may not even be any trying on of the jeans. For women, though... well, I'm not even going to explain the ordeal of buying clothing. If you're a woman, you know what it is; if you're a man, there is every chance you don't have a clue. You have an idea of women liking to shop and think that answers the question of why they spend so much time trying to figure out what clothes to buy and, while it may be true that any given woman may like to shop, that has nothing to do with why it's so much work for them to buy clothes. Just... you know, get her to explain it to you. Seriously.

Anyway...

My wife needed to buy some jeans, and my wife is not one of those women who likes to shop; in fact, she pretty much hates it. So what my wife does, to cut down on the actual shopping time, is research. Which is where I come into this. My wife wanted me to help her with the jeans selection, which started online. But, first, she had to explain to me this whole pocket theory thing, which involved her showing me lots of pictures of women's butts. Before I go on: There are whole websites devoted to this issue of pocket placement. So she showed me scores of pictures of opposing views of women's butts: bad pocket placement vs. good pocket placement. You know, so I would understand. And, then, the question: Tell me which butts you think look good. Yeah, okay, it's not a question, but I'm sure you understand.

And I bet you guys out there are shouting at your monitors in your best Ackbar imitations: "It's a trap!"
Don't get me wrong; that thought crossed my mind. But just wait; it gets better.

So we went through all of these pictures until I had it down what to look for in regards to how back pockets should be on the pants, and then we went out in public... It was a festival-type thing. You know, lots of people. We let the kids go off and do their thing, and my wife and I sat down, and she said to me, "Help me look at women's butts, and make sure you point out the ones that look good." I know! I know! IT'S A TRAP!

But it wasn't a trap. We sat there or walked around for a few hours pointing out butts to each other and determined that, on the whole, women do not do a good job of purchasing jeans. Older women, especially, were prone to jeans that sagged off the butt and left the butt looking rather formless. Younger women liked pockets with lots of bling; I suppose to draw attention to the butt, but that usually was a bad thing. Those women tended to have pockets that were either placed too far apart or were too long (going past the butt down onto the leg), both of which flattened the butt out, leaving it looking like a board.

'Cause, see (and now we get to the point), the problem is that there is no general pocket solution. No one pocket fixes all, which is, of course, what we want. We want THE pocket that we can just slap on any butt and SHAZAM! THAT BUTT LOOKS AMAZING! But all butts are different, and each butt needs pockets that fit the design, so to speak, of that butt. Which can make it difficult to find just the right pocket. And, guys, that's just a small insight into why it takes women so long when they're clothes shopping.

But, of course, this doesn't just apply to butts. It applies to writing and, well, to EVERYTHING! There are very few, almost no, easy solutions in life. No magical fixes. No simple set of rules you can follow to success or whatever it is you're after. It all takes work, research, some trial and error, mistakes, wrong roads, right roads, errors in judgment, missing the target, getting the bulls-eye, tripping, falling, getting back up, trying again, all to get to the the thing that fits you. That set of pockets that makes your butt look good. That turns heads and makes people whistle. Whatever.

Just to let you know, my wife found some awesome jeans. As she said, there's no reason that, just because she's a mom, she should have to wear "mom jeans." I agree. Figure out what fits you and makes you look good. Do the research. The work. Put in the effort. There's no need to settle for a saggy, shapeless butt when you can have, instead, "Now that's an ass!"

Comic Shop Girls

Way back a long, long time ago, a girl in a comic shop was... I can't even say it was rare, because it just didn't happen. I mean, it was almost the equivalent of a sign of an impending apocalypse. And, if you believe in apocalypses (apocalypsi?) the way Joss Whedon does, maybe they were signs of various impending dooms all headed off by some special group or another. At any rate, it just didn't happen. I didn't know a single girl that read anything beyond Archie comics (or the equivalent) until my mid-twenties, like almost two decades ago.

Let me make it clear that I had had pretty extensive experience in and around the comic's industry by that point. I started collecting comic books during middle school. All the way through the end of high school, I never once saw a girl in the shop I bought comics at except for the one time I took one with me, and, although she agreed to go, it was more out of boredom than anything else, because her other option was to hang out at our church alone (not alone, alone; there were adults there, but there were no other teenagers). During college, I worked in a comic shop, and we had no female customers. At all. Ever. The only girl that ever came in was the girlfriend of one of my friends and only because he always trapped her into it. Then, I had my own comic business and worked in another shop, and neither place had any female customers.

The last shop I worked in in Shreveport (while also running a kind of sub-business under that shop (yeah, it was complicated, but it increased the owner's circulation, so he was good with it)) had a total of two female-type people that came in with any regularity. One of them was a girlfriend of a guy that had been one of my students (this was my last year in Shreveport, and I wasn't teaching at the time), and she always looked like she'd rather be at the dentist, especially since one of the other employees, Mark, would always try to hit on her while her boyfriend was busy talking comics. Yes, I do say that he tried hitting on her, because he never actually quite succeeded. He just made her uncomfortable and followed her around the shop as she tried to avoid him. The other was an "older" woman (to us) around 50(?) that actually played Magic and came in for tournaments. She sort of creeped everyone out, especially since she often "went home" with Boogie (and, yes, he had earned that nickname), and, if you can't figure out that euphemism, there may be no hope for you. That was it...

Until The Day...

It was a Wednesday, and I was shelving the new comics for the week (I was in charge of comics and CCG stuff), and a girl walked in. Alone. Not a mom (okay, she was a mom (of a not-quite toddler), but she wasn't a mom looking for a gift), not a girlfriend, just a girl walking into the comic shop. Alone. I took note of her, but I was busy, and I kept doing what I was doing. However, one-by-one, every other guy that worked in the shop made his way over to her and asked her if she needed any help. Every one of them: Mark, Rick, Scott, Tony. She turned each of them down, browsing through the comics until she made her way over to me and asked me if I could help her. Hmm... and that's a story for another time. Anyway, her ex-boyfriend (the father of her child) had been into comics, and she's picked through them occasionally, so she was looking for some suggestions about comics that she could get into. After listening to the types of she was into, I suggested The Sandman and Strangers in Paradise. She became our first (and only) weekly female customer, coming in to see what new comics were in and trying things out every now and then.

Flash forward to last week. I was sitting in the local comic shop (editing and reading) waiting for a Magic tournament to start up. At one point, I glanced around the room and noted the number of -- hmm... my wife doesn't like it when I call them "girls," although I'm certain some of them must have still been in high school -- young ladies that were hanging out in the store. I mean, hanging out on their own because they wanted to be there. There was one that was definitely a girlfriend, but the other more-than-half-dozen were obviously there because they wanted to be there. Some were playing Magic, one was browsing the comics, there was even grandmotherly type that was obviously looking at things for herself rather than looking for a gift (yeah, you can tell the difference when you've been in the environment). I was struck by the difference a couple of decades had made. Sure, it was still 80-90% guys, but, two decades ago, it would have been 100% guys.

I mentioned it to my wife, and she noted to me that there are a lot of guys that are against girls being in this kind of environment. It's like some group of 10-year-olds with a clubhouse and big "no girls allowed" signs stuck all over it. No girls in comics. No girls in gaming. Of any kind. Evidently, girls shouldn't play Magic and the certainly shouldn't play video games. According to these guys.

Which brought up the whole SFWA thing that happened a couple of weeks ago where a group of male sci-fi writers was proclaiming how writing science fiction is no place for women.

And I just don't get it. I mean, I really don't get it.

Maybe, this is me thinking as a retailer (from back when I did that), but the goal, then, was always to try and figure out how to open the doors of comic books to girls. It was an ongoing thing with Marvel (and other companies, but Marvel talked about it the most) in the late 80s through the mid-90s: How do we get girls interested in comics? And I was all for that, because, well, more business. So this idea that girls don't belong there is really puzzling to me.

And, well, my favorite sci-fi book was written by a woman: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. And you can't discount The Doomsday Book, a more than excellent sci-fi novel also written by a woman: Connie Willis. I'm sure I could go on, but I don't think there's a need.

At any rate, the idea that some of these things are "boys' clubs" just doesn't make sense to me. Why would that be so? I never had a "no girls allowed" clubhouse as a boy; maybe, that's because one of my main playmates as a kid was a female cousin; I don't know. One of my best friends was also a girl; we started kindergarten together and went all the way through to the end of high school, the only person I did that with, and we're still friends, today (well, you know, the kind of friend that only speak to each other every few years, because you don't live anywhere near the other person, but, still...).

And, well, despite the fact that I did a lot of what were pretty exclusively "guy" things when I was younger (like comic books and gaming), I would never have even thought that girls shouldn't be there, because, hello, I spent most of time hanging out with guys, and having some girls around would have meant, well, having some girls around.

So I don't get the attitude that women shouldn't be involved in gaming or comic books or science fiction. Or politics or science or math. Or whatever. I'm glad to see that there are girls hanging out in the comic store, and, after my wife told me about all of the hate that women get online about that kind of stuff, I'm glad to see that the dudes in the store seemed totally at ease with the fact that there were girls. I mean, there weren't lines of guys trying to hit on them or pick them up. They were just part of the environment, like everyone else. Maybe, there is some hope for the future.

I hope...