It's Them or Us.

Yesterday, while on the road to pick up my wife from work, I took time to watch and admire how kids coming out of a high school were playing, smiling and having fun while waiting for the bus. I mused that it must take years to learn to stop doing that, comparing it to how grown men stand twenty feet apart around perfectly good sheltered bus stops up in Pontiac, instead of under them together. I wished that we could be so carefree.

A block up the road, traffic on Evergreen suddenly went bad and I had to make a detour. And then, only a little afterward, helicopters and police cars were everywhere. Someone had just jumped out of a car right here and shot four of these kids, and I found out later that one's now dead. You probably saw it on the news, and I was there.

I don't know how disturbing I can make it sound, that I was surrounded by smiling faces who are now crying for the loss of one of our own. I want you to be disturbed.

Everybody out there with a kid in school, do me a big favor and be a little more family to them. Be a little more real to them than their friends for a moment, because some of their friends are bad friends who will eventually get them killed.

The news is now full of this story, which gives you images of troubled
neighborhood, troubled school, troubled city police system, and troubled streets.

These killings are not taking 'their kids' away from us. They are taking our kids away from us. You just have to be there to see how much all kids deserve to live and learn in peace, just like people who watch the news, not those who make it.

We're living here with the threat, and this isn't happening 'somewhere else'. Your kids need to know they belong with family first, and gangs
last - if at all. Even the mayor isn't a role model. You are. Own up.

If your kid is in or near a posse right now, sit him or her down and tell them you don't want to see them dead someday over something as stupid as wanting to 'belong' in a gang. Our 'us' has always been and always should be more important than THEIR 'us'.

Take a little time, okay? For me?

 

f [Detroit, Oct 17]

INFROMANT - essay by Freon

The Year We Lose Contact
Have to rant for a moment - sorry to go all futurist on you.

Sure signs that Radio Concentration has already claimed your broadcast area as a victim:

1) Common street names like Bunert and Schoenherr are pronounced BUNNERT and SHOW-NAR.
2) Ads that you hear when you're out of state that sound identical but have local terms and places dubbed in
4) Morning shows that read the newspaper and cnn.com at you instead of writing items themselves
5) Songs coming in several remixes to fit the demographics of differing stations under the corporate umbrella
6) Money. Prizes. Ticket giveaways to sold-out concerts.
7) Memorable Beer Commercials.

Y'know, friends, we're doomed. Sorry. That's in the past - and look now at the telly of the future:

-=2010=1984=-

The big 'news' being that communities are protesting the second-rate status that cable is giving them by making public access television viewers use rf-converters to be able to view content on HDTVs which don't support analog cable/broadcast anymore.

Viewers Pissed about Taking it Up the Spectrum(sic)

Of course, Comcast HAS to comply (oh dear) by taking CATV into their pipeline (for a fee), and leaving the community with NO NEED FOR BROADCAST TVs and therefore NO BALANCED MEDIUM, beginning the moment the last television hits the curb. Duh. Sorry - that's what you get for buying what your government tells you to buy. Or what Sony tells your government to tell you to buy. Get the picture? It's not news. It's fallout. Community access has swallowed. We're on our own.

Why complain? Analog cell phones are finished as of this year. XMRadio is somehow still here against all reason, and as I've mentioned, Broadcast Radio is already rotted at the roots. I'm on a pulpit built by AT&T Broadband, and I can already see the death of dialup from here.

Smart people will always have public access, minimum requirement tools and freedom of information. Too bad we're running out of all four.

And you can quote me on that.

In 2010, everyone else just HAS to be satisfied with Coors, Fox 'News' and their next president - all chosen for them by that trusted one percent of the voting population, incorporated. What's scary? They ARE.

On Friday night, I bring NBC's broadcast of Orwell's classic, prophetic fiction '1984' with David Niven - 12am on RFF. Crack open a Blue and enjoy. ;-)

freon, doing his part by keeping the rabbit ears
LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS-RADIO FREE ANYTHING

Freon is Canadian. If he's too loud we can deport him.

Why Bob Was Great - by MKeaton

1. Bob was Bob.
Robert Heinlein was one of the driving and defining characters in the writing scene of his day. His personality and support for other writers as well as his uncredited collaborations earned him a love and respect from his peers that was outside of his writing. In many ways, the man meant more to SF than his work.

2. Bob was a writer for his time.
Robert feared no evil and no man. In an era defined by nuclear fear, he steadfastly wrote against the evils of communism. In a time when every good conservative was of prurient morals, he wrote with a libertine ease that should have been impossible given his political views. To fully understand how much of the power of his writing was due to the time when he wrote it (and remember, he was the first to do many things that have since been repeated and possibly done better), take a look at Starship Troopers. Specifically, the (lack of) racism in it. The hero is black and it doesn't matter to either author or reader because of the deft skill of the author.

3. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Robert's real strength lay in his political books like Moon and Farnham's rather than (in my opinion) his more popular pieces of claptrap like Job and Stranger in a Strange Land. His ability, at a time when the nation lived in fear for the continued existence of mankind itself, to present the resilient, self-reliant spirit of humanity with all its 'never say die' swagger was like a beacon of hope on book shelves filled with dystopia.

4. Bob was not a children's author.
Except, really he was. He was one of the few writers who moved beyond a specific audience and wrote for everyone. Today, the books are lumped together under the heading of "Heinlein Juveniles" but his YA books were some of the best written (and still are).

5. Bob was prolific.
The dual edged sword of an author is that, if you write a lot, you write some bad stuff. You also write some pure gold and then there is a whole lot of stuff that hits some people right in the heart and blows past others. Robert did it all. This makes it easy for critic after critic to mischaracterize his work, and easy for a reader to overlook a great writer because of a few bad books. Job, Fear No Evil, and the like are bad books. Stranger in a Strange Land, I liked when I was in high school but now, when I reread it, I realize it's pretty shallow pap. But, the hippies who would burst into flame at the touch of MoonHM loved these books. MoonHM, in turn, is written simplistically and is not, from a purely literary stance, all that stunning, is a wonderful book because of the underlying themes. The Cat That Walked Through Walls is a puerile book until you know something of Robert and his personal life and his writing compatriots, and then you realize that the entire book is a huge Larry Niven style inside joke--suddenly a book with no point is a carnival of nostalgia and humor. Part of Robert's greatness was his ability to give something to everyone eventually.

6. Bob was one of my mentors.
He wrote simple, clean prose that worked. For this alone, he is worthy of study by any writer.

7. Bob loved his wife.
There was an intimate trust and bond with the reader in much of Robert's work that let him take the reader further than the reader would have allowed another author to go. Robert McKammon's Blue World is a modern example of this kind of trust/risk relationship with writer and reader that lets both go to darker places than either would comfortably go alone.

It's not a full list nor, I'm sure, one that everyone would agree with; but, in my humble but correct opinion, it is a fair starting point. Hope this helps.

~MKeaton doesn't blog. But his cat lets him write essays for us, from the sprawling metropolis of Hindsville Arkansas and/or Centerline Michigan

URGENT ASSISTANCE -posted by freon

Good for a laugh. If you're familiar with the typical Gold Coast scam,
here's some 'supplemental info' that you can pass on to people to further
'inform' them. Sheesh.

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael A Andaluz
To: danielibe@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:44:39 -0500
Subject: Re: ASSISTANCE

Daniel, as a poor, struggling editor I can only offer editing assistance. Please feel free to use the following instead and you may have more success!


STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

DEAR Sir/Madam,

I am engineer Daniel Ibe, a spam acammer trolling for fax numbers, but posing as an engineer with some bogus federal ministry of petroleum Resources. I bought your email address from a bulk mailing outfit which, like myself, thrives on chokers like you. I told them I needed assistance on some information, although I did not disclose the nature of business to him since it demands absolute secrecy and therefore is transparently criminal to email recipients around the civilized world.

The tiny Republic of benin (not to be confused with Benin, a country with a capital letter as well as a capital city) a country in west africa (not to be confused with West Africa or west Africa, or West africa, three separate and distinct entities which for now we will just call 'more likely') discovered crude oil, black Gold, what cha call Texas Tea, that is - in port-novo (which is of course not actually Port Novo as outlined above). Since they are not members of ORGANIZATION OF PETROLEUM EXPORTING COUNTRY(OPEC) and therefore can't be bigger thieves than ourselves, they told me to cut-and-paste the following nonsense:

'request our assistance through our ministry whose subsidiary is the (NNPC),we were able to assist in drilling and excavating of this black Gold and also spot lifting.'

In other, more sensible words, they thought it would be more discreet to have me email THOUSANDS of peopl WORLDWIDE to deal with their huge secret oil discovery - with excruciatingly painful grammar, no less - instead of sending one damn memo that says 'confidential' on it. Sorry. Those beninites are stupider than dirt.

'As a result of the spot lifting an excess of (us$50.5m)fifty million five hundred thousand united states Dollars was recorded and it is in our favour, my colleagues then decided we should look for an honest and sincere person who would clear responsibility of this amount because the law of our country does not allow civil servants to operate foreign account.'

Again, you can probably tell that the foregoing, SINGLE SENTENCE was cut-and-paste shash that the lowly beninites have forced me to recite verbatim. I don't write this crap - but they told me to tell you, so there it is. The gist is that we're all crooks, and we wanted to find one honest and sincere person to supply a fax number so we can cut to the chase and hook you for some scratch.

Presently the money is safely kept in an escrow account secure from all eyes, including any regulatory commission that would ordinarily salt those eyes with warnings, red flags, scam-alerts, and litigation that would make your head spin off like a loose screw on a Volkswagen's carb.

We shall be meeting with you if you accept to assist us, secondly it would also afford us to know what percentage that will be given to you, for your assistance. If you have any questions please send them off a cliff; we're not customer support.

It will take seven working days to actualize this project and safely transfer into your bank account on our behalf and yourself. Oh, did I say 'into'? Sorry again. I meant 'let me know once it is all right to transfer the money'. Forget I mentioned the direction.

I will appreciate your quick response through my e-mail address, and I am open to further question you may wish to ask in respect of this business transaction. Please kindly send the local non-emergency law enforcement access numbers for your city of residence, so that I may be tracked efficiently and cannot do this to thousands of others.

On second thought please report me directly to the authorities. Someone as criminally stupid as I am deserves the international ridicule, as well as a week in a wooden box with no view.

Best Regards
Daniel 'Solitary Bin Beri Beri Good To Me' Ibe


Complimentary Proofreading - it's an Art.

Freon edits the ConUtopian... for now.