A Possum in Kentucky

So, I'm on vacation in Kentucky today. We're staying at my mother-in-law's house, and this morning I went out to the car to put more washer fluid in the tank. I pulled up the hood and saw something gray in the corner. There's not supposed to be anything gray under my hood. So I look closer and see that its a baby possum. Creepy little buggers, it had its mouth open in a threatening posture. So, my mother-in-law got the hose and sprayed it until it left, which took a while because it decided to crawl back through the engine block to leave underneath the car. Dumb, creepy possum.

We spent the day in downtown Louisville today. We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and went on a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory. Very cool. I'll try to post pictures eventually, but that might not be until I get home next week.

A Possum in Kentucky

Voting for Kucinich

Okay, so, I might have to vote for Dennis Kucinic in the next presidential race.

Is it because I like the guy?

No.

Is it because I agree with his politics?

Not likely.

Is it because of his extraordinarily hot wife?

Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner!

She's a 28-year old British woman, with natural red head and, rumour (changing it up to the British spelling) has it, she has or had a tongue stud. I could vote for her husband just so we'd have the first hot First Lady. She's someone I wouldn't mind seeing in the paper.

Now, is it worth having Dennis Kucinich as the president?

Judge for yourself (if I can get pictures to load on my blog).

I've gotten things like this in my inbox before. It's only worth as much as you take it for, but it is interesting. How long does the US really have before our democracy goes down the crapper. If you look at the falls of great societies, you can see a lot of the things that contributed to that fall in our society now. Here is the e-mail I received:

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.

How Long Do We Have?About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.""A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years""During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence: 1. from bondage to spiritual faith; 2. from spiritual faith to great courage; 3. from courage to liberty; 4. from liberty to abundance; 5. from abundance to complacency; 6. from complacency to apathy; 7. from apathy to dependence; 8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Gore: 19 Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000 Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million Bush: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2 Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.Thanks for reading.

Okay, back to me.
Yeah, I believe the cycle of democracy is generally true. And I think we're in the stage the professor says we are. It makes sense to me. Now, what was said about illegals gaining citizenship, and the country going to pot in five years? Somehow I'm not that much of a pessimist. I think we have a little longer than that. And what would happen to our country if democracy failed? Well, something would come along to replace it. Maybe a different form of democracy. Maybe the Republic would be strengthened so voters couldn't simply vote themselves whatever they wanted. Who knows. I can't really worry about all that. I just try to live my life and be happy. It's all we can do.

Poison Study

I just finished this book by debut author Maria V Snyder. It's published by Luna, which is an imprint of Harlequin. Harlequin publishes romance. Let me say first, this is NOT a romance novel. And I am so glad it wasn't. I was worried. Luna was set up to be a publisher of speculative fiction written by women, with women protagonists.

That said, the book is your typical fantasy: a medieval era story involving magic. The main character is Yelena, a nineteen-year old girl that is in prison for murder. The murder was self-defense, but in the country of Ixia, that doesn't matter. According to Code of Behavior, however, whenever a new food taster is required, the job has to be offered to the next person awaiting execution. Of course, Yelena takes the job. The risk of death by poison is much better than the obvious death by hanging.

So, Yelena takes the job. Learning to identify poisons is not fun, but that's the least of her problems. The father of the man she killed wants vengeance, the ghost of the man she killed is haunting her, a witch from the southern country of Sitia attempts to kill her, most of the soldiers give her a hard time, and she thinks she may be a magician herself, a capital offense in Ixia.

Through all this she gains allies and trains herself in defense. She is smart and has a bad attitude. Just the kind of girl I like. The story is predictable at times, but it's still fun and kept me up late reading.

So. Would I recommend this to a friend?
Yes.
Would I buy the next book in this series?
Yes.
Would I buy another book by Maria V Snyder?
Yes.

All in all, its a really good first effort for a novel. The characters have enough depth, the motives of the protagonists and antagonists are made apparent, and the story never drags.

The Fourth Draft

I finished the fourth draft of my book today. And why, do you ask, is that important? Because now I'm going to have a friend go over it, then I'll make small changes as necessary, then start looking for an agent. This is exciting, I should be able to start shopping the book by June or July. No, I don't expect any six figure book deals, I'd settle for a four figure number. A four figure number that started with a three (because that's about what a beginning author can make). I've done a lot of research, and I guess my next step is to start to put together a query letter. It's one of those thing I haven't worried about until now because it does no good to write a query letter if your novel isn't finished. Agents, from what I hear, don't want to hear from you if the book isn't done. But hey, now it is. And life is grand. I guess I ought to start saving up stamps for all those query letters.