More On #OccupyWallStreet

Despite appearances, this essay’s about #OccupyWallSt.
Now.  I’m in a bad mood because my work day has been yet another tangle of “This documentation tells me this will work, but it doesn’t” and people changing their minds willy-nilly, causing me to have to reprogram entire modules because they can’t decide how things should function.
Furthermore, I’m working in the kind of code where I have to concentrate.  And Gini’s the sort of person who, despite years of getting better about it, still sees me on the couch, thinks “Couch is not work,” and will jar me out of programmer-space me without so much as a by-your-leave to tell me about some internet meme.
So when Gini barges into my concentration for the third time today to ask me if I’ve seen so-and-so’s post on cheesemaking, I:
a)  Say “JESUS CHRIST, WHAT THE FUCK WOMAN, I’M WORKING HERE, CAN’T YOU FUCKING GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL?  IT’S BEEN YEARS, YOU SHOULD KNOW THE LOOK ON MY FACE.”
b)  Snap, “Working.  Now.  See?” and point at the computer to let her know just what an idiot she is.
c)  Shake off the rage, which isn’t really her fault, and quietly point out that I am working, sweetie, and you’ve interrupted me twice today, and if you don’t stop that I’m probably going to eventually snap at you in a way I’ll regret.  Please respect my space.
The correct answer, of course, is C…. But it’s also the least satisfying.  I don’t get to have the Tower of Righteous Rage, I don’t get to make her feel as crappy as I do, I don’t get the satisfaction of the dramatic apology I might (miiiight) get if I made a much bigger deal of this.
On the other hand, I don’t have to apologize later, and I don’t make her feel as crappy as I do, and she doesn’t pack her bags and leave after I pull that shit enough times.  So there’s that.
The lesson here, children, is one of those big fundaments of life: The right move is not necessarily the satisfying move.  It’s said that in diplomacy, a good compromise often makes both parties feel as though they didn’t get what they wanted.  And they didn’t.  But they got more than if they’d went to war, and probably lost.
The reason I bring this up is because I just got a comment that read:

So I’m doing a little teeth-grinding here, Ferrett.
Because at what point is something going to count as doing something?
You’ve previously posted, grouchy about people who make Tweets or posts or whatever in solidarity with something because they weren’t out doing anything.
Well? Now people are out doing something, and you STILL are saying they aren’t doing anything. At what point will it count? What has to be done for it to count as “doing something?” People are doing what they can; why isn’t it enough? Why can’t you/we not recognize that you don’t go from nothing to everything in a snap?

That’s an incorrect summary of my position.
I wasn’t grouchy because they weren’t out doing anything.
I was grouchy because they weren’t doing anything effective.
Too much of activism is about what feels satisfying, and not what’s actually effective.  One of the reasons I laud MLK is that he said, “Hey, you know what, we could yell a lot and be ignored, but frankly, these people are going to go out of business if we stop patronizing them.  Let’s be respectful enough that we always look meek and noble in the press, and behind the scenes we fucking squeeze their throats until they choke.”
That wasn’t satisfying, I’m sure, taking the upper hand as much of the time.  I’m sure rioting is a lot more satisfying.  But it would have just gotten everyone jailed.
Now, at this point, I’m glad that #OccupyWallSt is raising big questions; that’s great.  Whether they’re actually going to be effective in the long term in achieving their goals is another matter.  And I’m concerned that it’s going to turn into some big ball of everyone getting their satisfaction on by making a big stink and hanging around in crowds and waving signs, and in the end getting actually no legislation passed. (And hey, they’re not rioting and causing bad press.  Good job!)
I can recognize that we don’t go from nothing to everything in a snap.  But I can also recognize, for I have seen, protest groups dwindle into irrelevance because they’re more concerned about feeling good than doing what’s effective.
As such, for me to ask, “Hey, is this actually working?” is not only a question you shouldn’t be grinding your teeth over, but one that should be foremost in your fucking mind when you’re looking at it.  I’ve seen groups whose sole goal’s been to get the word out, and they got plenty of that word out, and nobody fucking cared.  I don’t deny they’re doing something.  But what are they actually doing?
As I said, I want to be proven wrong.  Maybe this evolves into something more significant than a bunch of people getting together, feeling good, and walking away with exactly the same legislation and power structure that was here when they got here.  Maybe the questions take root and make real change.  I am, at least, heartened to see consistent nationwide protests about this sort of thing, which is more than has been done in recent memory for any non-war-related activity that I can imagine.
But what I see from here is an awful lot of satisfaction in the form of “YEAH WE’RE HERE YOU SHOULD BE TOO, IT’S AWESOME” and comparatively little effectiveness in the form of “THIS IS WHAT WE THINK WOULD FIX THINGS, GO DO THAT.”
As such, I’m never going to stop asking, “Well, is this working?”  And neither should you.

A Melange Of Reactions To #OccupyWallSt

Here’s the thing about Occupy Wall Street: I want to like it. I’m sympathetic towards its causes.
I just don’t know if it’s really doing anything.
I mean, right now it’s doing something, and that “something” appears to be the purpose of Dennis Kucinich showing up at the Democratic Presidential Debates: raising a lot of questions that nobody really wants to answer. In particular, the responses to Occupy Wall Street have produced a lot of good videos and op-eds in response to “Why would all of these people just hang around waving signs?”
In particular, I rather like this four-minute-long video that explains everything that’s gone wrong with deregulation:

And wow, does former Representative Grayson absolutely school P.J. O’Rourke in this video (who resembles nothing more than a slightly more hysterical Harlan Ellison here, interrupting and capering):

And Paul Krugman’s Panic of the Plutocrats is succinct and well-written.
But that’s the problem I have. The responses are being inspired by Occupy Wall Street, not coming directly from Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street seems like that shy, emotionally incoherent girl in eighth grade who everyone told you dude, she’s totally into you, but whenever you talked to her you just got damp hands folded in skirts and low mutterings you couldn’t quite hear.
In a sense, that’s its strength: Occupy Wall Street isn’t like The Tea Party, which was bankrolled by corporate interests from the get-go, and had its soul pretty much gripped in the tight fists of spin doctors from Day One. No, Occupy Wall Street is a genuine grass-roots movement, and like grass, the roots go every which way.
That’s good. It’s hard to co-opt a movement like that. But it’s also hard for a movement like that to go anywhere. What we have is a seething mass of people who feel strongly about things and can’t quite seem to form a coherent shout that tells us what they want.
And people say that it’s the media who’s doing this, the media is following their traditional methodology of “Ignore, then overblow,” but I’ve been reading a fair number of the blogs and videos and Tweets from the whole thing – not all of them, but certainly enough that I feel reasonably confident that if there was a consistent solution that all of them were seeking, I would have stumbled across it by now.
It feels like they’re just sort of, you know, angry about the 1% in power (and they are in power) and the way so many conservatives have fetishized being rich as being equivalent to smart and qualified to lead, and they want people to, you know, do stuff about it. And I don’t know how that’s going to work out.
Steven Gould, that notable children’s author, told me that if I was on the ground I’d know. It’s clear there. And that’s fine, but he’s in New York and I gotta work. I hope to make it to one of the Cleveland groups, but really, from here it’s a bunch of echoed watermelon-cantelope-watermelon-cantelope noises.
Keep in mind, I agree with them. So if it’s not necessarily clear to me, how’s it playing in Peoria?
Occupy Wall Street is useful for now, because the question of “What do they want?” is circulating through the media, forcing debates on things that Fox would prefer not to discuss, holding Democrats’ feet to the fire so at least some of them are stating the truth of “Yes, this is class warfare, it’s always been class warfare, and we’ve been losing for three straight decades now.”
But what happens next? Brad Hicks makes a cogent analysis (as he usually does) about the likely consequences of Occupy Wall Street, and what he says about “Hey, when it gets cold and freezy, how many people are likely to keep showing up for hours at a time?” seem particularly relevant.
Then again, Occupy Wall Street is a peaceful movement. Say what you will about violent revolution, but it gets results one way or the other: either you smash or get smashed. The fail state of a peaceful movement is incoherent stasis – I remember seeing a protestor group in 1994 standing in New Haven green, passing out fliers to “Stop The Gulf War.”
For the record, this was four years after the first Gulf War had ended.
But they were still upset about the changes that had been wrought, and took the not-entirely-indefensible-but-certainly-unclear position that the ongoing damage and fallout still counted as a current war. They were handing fliers to baffled citizenry who you could see muttering to each other: “Did another war start up when we weren’t looking?”
The danger of Occupy Wall Street is that they become the Kucinich – the guy who raises some damn fine questions, then hangs around for too long after it becomes clear that the people in charge have zero interest in answering them and he doesn’t have any power to compel them.  The Tea Party was effective because even if you hated them, you had to admit they all lined up nicely to be voter-aimed in a specific direction.
Is Occupy Wall Street the new core of a revived Democratic Party the way that the Tea Party has become the chocolate center of conservative power, with old-school Republicanism rapidly becoming a thin, crunchy shell?  I don’t think so.  Would I want it to?  I think so, because we’d have some real fire at last.  People would be stating what the Democrats really want, making a case for socialism and regulation and government aid, instead of muttering it quickly like a sniggering teenager says “adouchesayswhat?”  We’d have to stumble for a while, given that you know, every major politician has been agreeing with most of the main Republican tenets (LOW TAXES BUSINESS GOOD REGULATION BAD) for years… But you know, the Republicans spent the better part of a decade in the wilderness before finally finding culmination in a Reagan who stood on the podium to express sentiments that would have been unthinkable in the 1960s: “Yes, greed is good.”
I dunno. I want this to work. I want to be heartened. Instead, I just find myself with the same sort of hold-your-breath feelings I had when Dubya invaded Iraq: I can’t see this working, but let’s hope.

How To Have A Long-Distance Poly Relationship

Those who say you can’t fall in love with someone because of their words don’t know how to read properly.  No, in these days of the Internet, it’s startingly easy to fall in love with people who are inconveniently distant.  And if you’re poly, you may start a relationship with these far-flung lovers, trying to make a real relationship out of someone you get to see twice a year.
Long-distance relationships are fucking hard, man.
But having had both some success (I’ve been dating Angie for almost three years, I married my wife who I met online) and some magnificent failures (*cough cough* NO NAMES) on the LDR front, I think I’m qualified to discuss some of the guidelines for carrying on a successful LDR.
Tip #1: Recognize That An LDR Makes For Ugly Fights, and Plan Appropriately.  
The reasons that LDRs are so hard is that the arguments last, but the snuggles are crap.
Which is to say that if you have an argument with your meatspace partner, you’ll fight – but then you’ll snuggle afterwards, hug off the tears, and probably have some rather nice makeup sex afterwards.  There’s all this slack just hanging around, free and lovely, and you don’t even think about it.
Whereas in an LDR, the arguments can start like brushfire because often you’re texting and can’t read expressions or body language, and those arguments stay longer.  You don’t have the benefit of happy cuddle-time to wash away the inevitable clashes, so every conflict feels magnified.
The solution here is twofold: first, recognize that any arguments seem way worse than they are because of that distance.  Second, the best way of preventing arguments is to assume nothing but good will from your partner.  If they say something that seems dickish, suppress your normal RAGE TO KILL and ask, “If I was going to frame this in the best possible way to make it sound as though they loved me ahow would I do it?”  Then speak to them as though they were, indeed, trying to be good people.
Doesn’t always work.  Sometimes they are being dickish, at which point it’s time to course-correct.  But by assuming the best intentions, you will stave off a lot of the little miscommunications that kill.
Tip #2: Get Used To Disappointment, Princess.  
An LDR is a lot of lonely longing.  You want them around, but you can’t afford the plane fare or the vacation time or whatever.
You have to recognize this is what you’re signing up for when you get on-board.  It’s not going to be as fulfilling as having them around to take to the movies; the reward is that you get some time with that fabulous brain that you wouldn’t have otherwise had.  But you’re going to spend the majority of your time living in the real world, without them.
You can ameliorate that with texts and constant emails and whatnot, but an LDR is to a certain extent an exercise in loneliness.  It’s not going to be like your other real-world dating relationships – it can be emotionally intense and time-intensive, but it’s still going to be saturated with “This would be so much easier if she were here.”  But she’s not.  She can’t be, by definition – that’s why you have an LDR.  And if that longing is going to be a constant ache that you cannot deal with, then you probably shouldn’t be in one.
Which is why the next tip is so important…
Tip #3: Have A Real Life, And If Possible Have Have It Symmetrical.
A lot of LDRs bomb out because one partner has a vibrant social life and is going to parties all the time, and the other is stuck in an shit apartment with a bare bulb and no friends.  That imbalance is going to cause jealousy, because one partner is going to want a lot of time that Mrs. Party-Happy may not necessarily be able to give.
The solution?  Don’t let your LDR be the excuse for not building up your own life.  The more satisfying your life is in the place you actually live, well… I mean, come on, do I have to sell you on the idea that “It’s a good idea to be happy in your own space”?  But if you have an LDR and hate where you live, that’s going to cause problems.  If you want your LDR to work, then recognize that “improving your life without your LDR” is part of the process.
And this applies even if you plan on moving to be with them!  If you’re the sort of person who never gets out and stays lonely inside your shell, then moving in with your LDR just means that there’s a better-than-even chance you’ll be lonely and clingy and miserable with her.  If you can’t maximize your happiness without your LDR, you’re probably not gonna do it with your now just-plain-R, and it’ll bomb out a few months down the line.
Shape up.  It’s a good idea regardless.
Tip #4: Have Goals.  
LDRs are lonely, but it can be better if you have plans.  Always try to have the next visit-date planned as soon as you can, so you have something to look forward to (even if that visit date is “Christmas, 2012”).  If the goal is to move in together, then try to set a date for that.
Give your LDR a sense of “I get to see him in X weeks!”  It genuinely does help.
Tip #5: Have Dates.  Or At Least Rituals.
This can be as complex as a Wednesday night Skype-date, or as simple as making sure you see the same movie and talking about it afterwards.  But make sure that even as LDRs, you have activities you do together.  For me, it’s often writing long-ass emails about my day, wherein they respond with long-ass emails about their day.  In either case, having this symmetric set of activities works.  It makes the distance feel shorter.  It makes you feel as though you’re sharing things.
Tip #6: Let Real Life Happen.
One of the greatest gifts I was ever given was by my girlfriend Angie.  We only see each other maybe five times a year, and I was in the middle of my annual spring depression YES I HAVE INVERTED SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER, YES IT’S IN THE SPRING IT HAPPENS SHUT UP.
But I was down.  I couldn’t function.  And I said that I didn’t think I could make it out, I was too oversocialized, too low on battery power, and if I came out I think it would just go poorly.
And she let me cancel.  She let me reduce the number of physical visits from five to four just because I was in a black hole.  She didn’t yell at me, she didn’t make this about her being insufficient, she just let it go.
That is, I think, a major portion of the reason we’re still together.  It’s not that she didn’t want to see me, but rather that she was willing to let real life be real life.  I would have been shit that weekend, probably depressive and crying and fight-picking…
…and while others would have made me feel terrible for having issues, and don’t you realize this is all the time we have, we have to make it work?, Angie just let it slide.  And we hugged a lot closer the next time we get together.
The point is that you’re going to have real life intrusions.  Don’t make them personal.  Sometimes she genuinely won’t have the cash to come out when she said she would, or his fibro will flare, and all your grand plans will fall down.  Just like they would in real life.  Yes, your get-togethers are scarcer, but let real life happen.
Tip #7: Think Your Partner Is Amazingly Awesome.
Really.  You’re gonna go through all that trouble for someone who’s not that awesome?  Just remember why you wanted them in the first place.

Two Kickstarters For Writers I Like

Kickstarter is one of the best things to come out of the Internet in a while; it’s enabling artists everywhere to crowd-fund projects in a powerful, flexible way.  Anything that rewards the die-hard fans with scalable prizes for donating and allows an artist to keep producting new work is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
And there are two writers I like personally who have Kickstarter projects that I think you should take a look at.
The first is Tobias Buckell, who I’ve referenced in this blog previously a few times for his politics, but he also has the Crystal Rain universe – a genuinely diverse set of science fiction adventure novels.  I forget who said it, but there was an essay somewhere that discussed that for a lot of sci-fi books, the reader had to wonder about the plague that had killed off all the blacks and Chinese and other non-white races, because none of them seemed to exist in space at all.  Tobias’s universe has all sorts of interesting people of differing races.
His Kickstarter is for the fourth book in the series, which is a concern, but I know he’s a smart enough writer to make it accessible to newbies.  Check out his Kickstarter here.
Then we have my old Clarion teacher Mary Anne Mohanraj, who writes some rather intense erotic fiction, and what she wants to do is to create an interconnected science fiction series where the world is ending and there’s a lot of fucking.  To quote her pitch for Demimonde:

On a planet far, far away, tensions are rising.  Men against men, men against aliens — the players in this game are complex, and the average citizen doesn’t really understand what’s going on.  They just want to go on with their life:  go to work, go home, make love to their wife.  Or wives.  Or husbands.  Or indeterminate gender human and/or alien partners.

She’s only got 23 hours to go, and as with all Kickstarter projects if she doesn’t make her target the project fails, so I’d seriously check it out now if you’d like some nice hot squirmy writing.

New Story! "Run," Bakri Says

I’ve only written two stories where I finished them and went, “I’m going to sell this.”  As a writer, you live for those moments – it must be what Babe Ruth felt like when he pointed to the bleachers and smashed the run.
One of them was “As Below, So Above,” which was picked up by Beneath Ceaseless Skies and was later made into a PodCastle audio production.  The other was this story: “‘Run,’ Bakri Says,” perhaps the most powerful story I’ve ever written.  It’s certainly the only story to get a “Recommended” from Lois Tilton over at Locus, a notably tough reviewer who’s slammed some of my previous work.  (Writing a tale that impressed her was one of my minor goals for this year, so I’m especially proud.)
This story is about a girl and her mad scientist, terrorist, time-travelling brother.  It starts like this:

“I just want to know where my brother is,” Irena yells at the guards.  The English words are thick and slow on her tongue, like honey.  She holds her hands high in the air; the gun she’s tucked into the back of her pants jabs at her spine.
She doesn’t want to kill the soldiers on this iteration; she’s never killed anyone before, and doesn’t want to start.  But unless she can get poor, weak Sammi out of that prison in the next fifty/infinity minutes, they’ll start in on him with the rubber hoses and he’ll tell them what he’s done.  And though she loves her brother with all her heart, it would be a blessing then if the Americans beat him to death.
The guards are still at the far end of the street, just before the tangle of barbed wire that bars the prison entrance.  Irena stands still, lets them approach her, guns out.  One is a black man, the skin around his eyes creased with a habitual expression of distrust; a fringe of white hair and an unwavering aim marks him as a career man.  The other is a younger man, squinting nervously, his babyfat face the picture of every new American soldier.  Above them, a third soldier looks down from his wooden tower, reaching for the radio at his belt.
She hopes she won’t get to know them.  This will be easier if all they do is point guns and yell.  It’ll be just like Sammi’s stupid videogames.
“My brother,” she repeats, her mouth dry; it hurts to raise her arms after the rough surgery Bakri’s done with an X-acto knife and some fishing line.  “His name is Sammi Daraghmeh.  You rounded him up last night, with many other men.  He is — “
Their gazes catch on the rough iron manacle dangling from her left wrist.  She looks up, remembers that Bakri installed a button on the tether so she could rewind, realizes the front of her cornflower-blue abayah is splotched with blood from her oozing stitches.
“Wait.” She backs away.  “I’m not — “
The younger soldier yells, “She’s got something!”  They open fire.  Something tugs at her neck, parting flesh; another crack, and she swallows her own teeth.  She tries to talk but her windpipe whistles; her body betrays her, refusing to move as she crumples to the ground, willing herself to keep going.  Nothing listens.
This is death, she thinks.  This is what it’s like to die.

This story is in the latest issue of Asimov’s, available at many fine bookstores – or, if you have no bookstore available, you can purchase the latest issue for your Kindle for a mere $2.99.
And I feel so strongly about this story that I’ll do something I’ve done for only one other tale – if you buy this because you read the excerpt here and don’t like it, I’ll give you your money back.  That’s right; $2.99 in your pocket if you think it stinks.  I did that for “A Window, Clear As A Mirror” and had no takers, and I’m pretty sure this won’t disappoint anyone.
Anyway, take a look.