What We Ought

 

A man who neglects his rights as a citizen
is not entitled to his rights as a citizen
-- Tiorio

Joe Biden doesn't inspire me.

Said I, ironically. 

I said it on social media yesterday (that's a screenshot of the offending post on one of the platforms where I said it)

I said the same a week ago in a similar post. 

I'll probably say it again at some future date and for the same reasons. 

Joe Biden doesn't inspire me. 

Now, given the context of that post, given my background, given the literally millions of words I've written on the subject of citizenship over the last two decades, it would seem to me that the irony would be obvious.

He said, ironically, yet again, knowing damn well that it wouldn't be. 

Here's Trump again bragging about some horrible thing he did and I'm just not inspired to vote against him, right? 

My comment was meant as biting sarcasm, because that's what I do best. 

The context seemed rather obvious, maybe too obvious I thought. My audience would be all, yeah, yeah, we get it, Jim. You're beating that poor horse into glue. 

But such are the times we live in that for many, it wasn't. Obvious, that is.

So, to be clear: my statement was sarcastic commentary on those who during the last two elections said, Joe Biden doesn't inspire me, Hillary Clinton doesn't inspire me. Democrats don't inspire me. And here we are. 

I'm just not inspired. 

That's what they said. 

The thought of losing my rights, the threat of others losing theirs, that's not enough to motivate me. The threat of literal fascism marching in the streets of America, that's not enough to get me to the polls. A Supreme Court of partisan hacks bought and paid for by billionaires, I'm just not worried about that, not enough to get excited anyway. The rise of religious fanaticism just doesn't do it for me. Nor does violent racism, or  jingoism, nationalism, war, or the loss of our allies and a new alignment with our enemies. Hillary wears pantsuits, Joe is old, meh, let's see what's on Netflix. 

It's not my problem. 

Or, well, okay, maybe it is. But, still, I need to like the candidate. They have to excite me. They have to earn my vote. They have to connect with me. I need to be inspired. 

I need a unicorn. 

Or I'm just not going to show up. 

Right? You remember. 

What's that? Oh, you don't remember? Yeah, funny how short our collective memory is, ain't it? 

You can find those very comments right here on this blog. Take a look at my social media feeds. Roll back to 2015-16, 2019-20. I wrote thousands of words about it and got tens of thousand of comments -- from uninspired Progressives and far left liberals who told me they weren't going to show if they didn't get a pony and pat on the head.

Hell, look at the elections. Sure, Biden won the last time around, but it was a close thing and it shouldn't have been. 

Look at the House and tell me why there's a Republican majority hung like a millstone around Biden's neck? 

I wrote about it in such volume and in such frequency during the last twenty years of elections that now I am uninspired to write about it any more -- which is one of the reasons you see so few long-form essays from me these days. 

It really started to feel like pissing into the wind. 

But I digress. 

Look, you don't have to get it from me, you can find those very comments right now, today, across social media. Some are foreign agents trying to keep you home and put Trump back in office, true, but sadly many are not. 

(In fairness, I got thousands of responses from those who understood their duty and who intended to do it even if they had to crawl through broken glass to the polling station. Vote blue, no matter who, remember? And they did, thankfully)

But it was the ones who weren't inspired then and who tell me they're just not inspired now that I was sarcastically mocking. The ones mad about a war in a foreign land or inflation or global warming or whatever single issue cause is worth burning down civilization for. 

Joe Biden just doesn't inspire me, they say. 

Joe Biden doesn't inspire me, I said, ironically quoting those Americans. 

A lot of my audience got it. 

But a some didn't and, boy, were they mad. 

Whadayya mean, you ain't inspired! How dare you not be inspired! Why, Joe Biden is the most inspirational president since Jesus! He's practically Washington, Lincoln, and FDR all rolled into one! How can you not be inspired? What are you, some sort of Trump voter? 

One guy suggested I be hauled away by "brownshirts" as a fitting punishment for not being sufficiently inspired. 

When he found out I was being ironic, he got even madder and more insulting. 

He wasn't the only one. I've got an inbox here full of threats and hate and anger from self described lefties. 

I'm not sure what the goal is, the point of this hate.

I asked, but I never got an answer. 

Oh, you're not inspired? Weeell, I hope the Nazis come and haul you away! You ignorant dipshit!

What's the objective of wishing some (assumed) uninspired progressive into the cornfield? 

(for the record: I'm neither uninspired or a progressive. Nor am I actually a democrat. And I'm only a liberal in comparison to the hard right turn this country has made in recent years)

For my critic, it's not enough to vote for Joe Biden, you have to be inspired or you deserve to get murdered by fascists.  

Tell me, how is that better, more moral, more righteous than those MAGA Republicans threatening to murder and imprison the jurists who convicted Trump of crimes in New York? That's like wishing rape on someone sent to prison, as I pointed out to my critic. He didn't get it. That said I wouldn't wish that violation on anyone including Trump should he ever actually be held accountable for his crimes. And you shouldn't either -- if you're the people you say you are anyway. 

I get the anger. 

I feel it myself. 

But where's the moral high ground in wishing horror on your enemies -- or on those who, in point of fact, might even be your allies, except they're not enthusiastic about it enough to suit you? 

Which is it? The cheering or the results that matter?

Joe Biden doesn't inspire me.

Even if I hadn't meant that ironically, it's not a particularly controversial statement. 

Certainly not controversial enough to wish Nazis on someone. 

A politician doesn't inspire me and so what? I'm not in a cult. 

Do you have to be inspired to vote for the guy? 

Really? Do you have to be illuminated by a divine light from heaven accompanied by a chorus of angels in order to do your duty to the Republic? 

Do you really?

Me? I don't need to be inspired to vote for good and against bad. 

I don't need inspiration to stand against fascism and insanity and the violent implosion of civilization. 

I don't even need to be excited about it. 

I mean, if my choices are the runny shit sandwich that is Donald Trump or literally anything else, I'm going to march my uninspired ass down to the polling station, pushing aside armed goons in MAGA hats if I have to, and do my job as a citizen. 

I don't need to be excited about it. 

I don't need a pat on the head and an attaboy.

I don't need to be inspired. 

For more than twenty years in uniform, I did my duty to my country. There were damn few days I felt particularly inspired by it. Most of those days were goddamn grim indeed, that's the nature of war and of serving under leaders who lie to you and a citizenry who thinks you're some sort of monster or robot -- until they need you to be a hero. But again, I digress. 

It was my job and I did it, because if I didn't others would suffer for my dereliction. 

Likewise, I don't need inspiration to do my job as a citizen. 

Joe Biden doesn't inspire me and so what? 

You know who's inspired? 

Nazis. 

Shouting crowds of wannabe fascists. Oh, are they ever inspired. 

There was nothing more inspiring than a hundred thousand Germans shouting Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! as that charismatic madman ranted about Jews and communists and led them to ruin and death while heroic music thundered over the field and the Swastika banners cracked in the cold wind.

Goddamn, you talk about inspiring! 

A century later and there is no one more inspired than a crowd of dimwitted goons in MAGA hats and Fuck Your Feelings t-shirts shouting Make America Great Again! as another charismatic madman rants about sharks and batteries and building walls to keep the undesirables from getting a piece of America for themselves. 

The same feverish glow of inspiration shines in their eyes just as it did at Nuremberg all those years ago. 

The choices in this election couldn't be more stark. 

So a lot of people are fired up and, yeah, maybe they're finally inspired enough to vote for a politician, or at least against the other one. 

Maybe. 

Maybe it will be inspiration that decides the fate of our nation this time around. 

But what about those elections where it's not life and death? 

What about those elections where it's just the dogcatcher? Or the local mayor. Or a couple of judges. Or some ballot initiative that has no impact on you either way? 

What about those off-year elections where you're just voting on your Congressman? 

Nothing very inspiring about those elections, is there? 

So why show up at all? 

If you have to be inspired, well, you won't. 

And then others will suffer.

Because when you don't show up we end up here.

You see, it's not about inspiration. 

It's not about excitement. 

It's not about liking a politician. 

It's not about you. 

It's about civilization. 

It's about all those who depend on us. It's about giving voice to the voiceless. It's about lifting up others. It's about defending those who can't defend themselves and it's about standing as allies with those who can. 

It's about being on the right side of history. 

It's about leadership, it's about citizenship, it's about duty, it's about doing your goddamn job because it's your goddamn job and nobody else's. 

It's about being an adult. 

You don't need a pony or a pat on the head. 

And if you only show up because you're inspired, well, then you're a shitty excuse for a citizen and a human being.

Guess what? You're not a fucking hero.

You're something more, better, you're a American and it's your goddamn job to do the grunt work of democracy, not for yourself but for future generations. 

You don't need to be inspired. 

Instead, you must be the inspiration for others. 

If you want a better nation, be a better citizen. 

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.
-- Saint Augustine

The Menace from Space

 

"The spear, the bow, the gun, and finally the guided missile had given him weapons of infinite range and all but infinite power. Without those weapons, often though he had used them against himself, Man would never have conquered his world. Into them he had put his heart and soul, and for ages they had served him well. But now, as long as they existed, he was living on borrowed time."
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Jewish Space Lasers Lady is back.

The Republican from Georgia (which sounds like the title of a 1950s science fiction pulp novel) Marjorie Taylor Greene, submitted an amendment to the Israel Aid funding bill that, if approved, would provide funds to "develop space laser technology for use on the Southern Border." 

Space laser technology.

For use on the Southern Border. 

Space lasers.

Again. I mean, you remember the space lasers, right? 

But what do I know? Greene asks. I just like to read a lot. 

She likes to read nutty antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Rothschild Investment Corporation and and she likes to imagine "The Jews" have some secret space program so advanced it can launch industrial grade orbital solar power stations without anyone actually noticing but some smelly beardo in a dirty bathrobe living in a run down trailer somewhere in West Virginia and posting his "findings" to Truth Social. And not just those launches, but somehow vast orbital acres of highly reflective solar panels necessary to such installations have likewise somehow gone unnoticed by not only military, government, and academic observatories but those amateur telescope wranglers who track everything from SpaceX launches to the International Space Station. 

But, yeah, what would she know, right? 

Greene says America deserves the "same type of defense for our border that Israel has and proudly uses." (emphasis mine).

Has and proudly uses. 

Space lasers. 

Apparently she thinks Israel has space lasers. Which they use to defend their borders (and if that's the case, it's hardly an advertisement given the current state of affairs). This system Which I guess was lofted by the vast Israeli space program is also used to start forest fires in California on the orders of some secret Jewish investment bank because something something gazpacho and sure it sounds crazy when you say it out loud on social media but that doesn't mean it's not actually bugfuck insane, does it?

Folks, we really have to stop electing lunatics to run our government. 

Yes, even you, Georgia. Seriously, just stop it. 

That said, imagine it. 

No, really, imagine weapons grade lasers in orbit.

Space-based laser weapons powerful enough to punch through 200km of increasingly thick atmosphere with enough energy to ... what exactly? fry people and vehicles on the ground? Start forest fires? defend Israeli borders? burn ants? I don't know and the amendment doesn't say, but, imagine that weapon. 

Imagine what you could do with it, not just on the border, but anywhere, anytime, against anyone. 

Now, imagine giving control of that weapon to ... who? Trump? Biden? Booger eating crazypants Ex-General Flynn? The Arizona Supreme Court? Who?

Yes, imagine that. 

But then, you don't have to imagine it. 

We already have this, you know. 

Well, not have have, but we've got fully developed engineering plans for a similar weapons system. One that would have actually worked. 

Project Thor. 

That's right: Rods from God. The finger of death, smiting the sinners from upon high. 

Orbital-based Kinetic Bombardment. 

And if the sound of that doesn't scare the shit out of you, you've never read enough military science fiction. 

Except it wasn't fiction. 

The whole thing was thought up back in the 1980s by a bunch of science fiction writers and NASA engineers led by Dr. Jerry Pournelle (who was both). Thor is a fully fleshed-out design for kinetic energy weapons. Telephone pole sized solid tungsten rods, dropped from low orbit. A satellite might hold a dozen or more of these missiles. You can drop one or all of them at once, then a solid fuel rocket engine deorbits the Thor impactor and simple basic missile electronics guide it precisely to target (you wonder why we ever developed something so expensive as the GPS system? You didn't think it was for the public good did you?). Tons of metal moving at hypersonic velocity, you don't need a warhead or explosives. Depending on a number of variables, the impact energy of these things could be measured in kilotons. They could hit nearly anywhere on earth's surface with the power of a nuclear bomb, a manmade meteor. No radiation, no fallout. You could drop one or a hundred, or thousands, globally, all at once. Scalable, flexible, the system could target a tank column or a missile silo, a single building or an entire city, a battle group at sea or even submerged submarines. 

Simple and elegant in design -- if elegant is a word you associate with mass death from the sky. 

You don't need any new technology. The materials and engineering have existed for decades. We could have built a basic system as far back as the 1970s. 

There could be no defense against it.

It was developed as part of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program. It was expensive and it would get more expensive the more satellites you put into orbit (it got cheaper if you had a reusable launch system, hey, and now you know some of the impetus behind the Shuttle's development and why Reagan was willing to keep funding it) but not nearly as expensive as maintaining a massive nuclear arsenal and the associated delivery systems (except the Shuttle vastly exceeded its design and operating budgets and never even came close to lowering the cost of launching material into orbit, and it turned out the nuke ICBMs were cheaper after all). 

But it wasn't the expense that ultimately canceled the program, so much as the idea of the sheer power of such a weapon.

You see, Thor, once implemented, could be used to impose an ironclad dictatorship over friend and foe alike.

You could use it against targets in the Middle East and the Soviet Union (remember, it was still the Cold War), but you could also use it against uppity Americans. Or your allies, if they forgot who their friends were. 

Now, there were certainly those who salivated at the idea of such power, but eventually it was cancelled before any serious hardware was constructed. They never got a working platform into space (probably).

But...

If we had built it, can you imagine handing over control of such a thing to Donald Trump in 2016? The power of surgical strike tactical and/or strategic nuclear weapons without the associated downside of radiation, EMP, and long term contamination? Can you imagine handing control of that system over to the guy who wanted to know why we couldn't just nuke a hurricane? The guy who gleefully bragged on worldwide TV about dropping the "Mother of all Bombs" on Afghanistan?

That guy? 

Can you? 

Can you imagine that?

Who would he have used such weapons on? Think about that. Think about that power in any president's hands. 

I know Marjorie Taylor Greene is thinking about such power right now. 

I know she is. I don't have to guess. She told us. She keeps telling us.

That's all she and her ilk think about.

The power of God. And using it on us, those she considers undesirable and where have we heard this sort of thing before?

Yes, of course, Greene's amendment is idiotic. 

We're not going to build space lasers. Not yet. Not now. For the same reasons we didn't build Thor. We won't build Space Lasers for a lot of reasons. 

But this isn't really about that, is it?

It's about how these vile people think. 

It's about how they dream of having the absolute power of gods, being able to send down lightning from the heavens and fry the people they hate. Us.

The state of the art -- and the limitations of the budget -- won't let them do that. Yet.

But that doesn't make us safe from our leaders who dream about killing us. 

If you let them have power, they'll find a way to eliminate those they despise and they won't need science fiction weapons to do it. Whether it's cattle cars, camps, cyanide showers, and gas chambers or something more modern, they'll find a way just as those of their evil ilk always have. 

Because that's all they dream about. 

It's all they dream about. They tell you this in speeches, in their social media posts, in every amendment they write. They can not go a single minute without fantasizing about mass murder. 

Those like Marjorie Taylor Greene, like Trump, like the modern Republican Party, they don't build better futures. Not even for themselves. 

The only things they build are walls. 

The only things they create are new ways to to commit mass murder.

Their gods are hate and fear and profit. 

If you give them power, they'll use it to kill. To burn. To destroy. To tear down civilization and bury history in mass graves next to all those they despise. They told us so. 

It's all they dream about.

It's right there in their words, they don't even try to hide it. 

It's aways fascinating to me, the irony when someone whose entire identity is vested in some charismatic wannabe dictator calls me a communist.

A communist. 

Fuck. 

I'm not a communist. Never have been. And in fact I spent a not insignificant fraction of my adult life in the uniform of my country standing against communism. I despise communism. 

I'm not even a socialist -- not that these drooling halfwits can tell the difference between socialism and communism, or care to find out.

Hell, I barely qualify as a liberal most of the time. 

And you wouldn't have to read very far back in the archives of this blog to figure that out. But the truly ironic part is where most of these people proudly wear their Christianity on their sleeve. A religion whose own founding prophet allegedly told his adherents in no uncertain terms: feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven, judge not least ye by judged... 

And we could have done that. 

Even if you don't believe in that god, even if you don't adhere to that religion, those are good ideas. Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Heal the sick. The Golden Rule. We could have done all of that. We could have fed everyone by now. We could have clothed and sheltered everyone on the planet. We could have healed almost everyone, or at least made sure everyone had effective quality medical care. We could all be wealthy. We could all be entitled to liberty and justice. We could have made this world a paradise for all, instead of embracing an ideology that promises salvation to only a select few and eternal misery to all the rest. 

We could have done that.

Mad?

You damn right, I'm mad. 

Scared?

Yes, that too. 

I'm fucking furious at all the things we could have dared, and did not. 

I'm terrified of what these dirty rotten selfish greedy miserable fanatical sons of bitches will do next, should we let them have power again. 

We better show up. 

We better do our duty. 

We'd better stand fast, shoulder to shoulder, against the fall of night, or one day real soon they'll find a way to burn us all down and civilization along with us. 

You want a better nation? 

Hell, you want a future where our leaders don't dream about murdering us? 

Then you have to be a better citizen. That's where it starts. 

 

"Pffaww, They're a pair! They don't like anything. They don't even like the dachshund. Who doesn't like dachshunds? They're little parcels of dog-shaped goodness. I've known Jalabite Hegemon ships that give up conquest and start little farmsteads just so they can have happy dachshunds. Everyone likes dachshunds, everywhere in the universe. Well, except on Bithomorency. People there got into a war with a refugee column of evolutionarily advanced dachshund super soldiers fleeing the destruction of their home world. The wire-haired marines took out an entire town. Two hundred thousand dead. And it was a tragic misunderstanding. The dachshunds only stopped to ask for some biscuits, automated defense systems fired on them. There's a lesson: never give control of your space weapons to an unsupervised machine. Schoolboy error.”
― Nick Harkaway, Doctor Who: Keeping Up with the Joneses

No Safety

 

"The only evidence I see of the antichrist here is everyone's desire to see him at work."
-- William of Baskerville, The Name of the Rose

God will not save us.

If that's what you were hoping for, you're going to be disappointed.

Your deity will not save the Republic and it's not like he promised to anyway. 

Either he's not up there, or he doesn't much care. 

Or, more likely, he's a Republican and from what I gather he doesn't have much use for democracy in the first place.

Either way, he's not going to save us. 

He's not. 

Plague, genocide, mass murder, fire, flood, locusts, nailing people to crosses, those are his specialties. He's not big on free will or women thinking for themselves and Donald Trump is right up his alley -- well, at least the American Evangelical version anyway. 

What's that? 

Oh, you're insulted already and we're only a couple paragraphs in? 

Good. It's about time you got mad. If I'd known, I would have insulted your god long ago. 

You're going to need that energy in the coming years.

You see, whatever your god is or is not, what I'm saying is that while I'd be happy to be proven wrong, given his track record when it comes to such things I probably wouldn't count on thoughts and prayers saving the Republic anytime soon.

Nope. 

Likewise, some Special Counsel isn't going to save us. 

The Attorney General isn't going to save us -- and can't now even if he wanted to, which he very clearly does not. 

I told you, back when the liberals were all giddy and swooning over Robert Mueller, that it would go nowhere. Oh, there was plenty there, sure. Obviously so. Russia Russia Russia. We all saw it. Hell, Putin bragged openly about how he diddled our elections. A massive Russian intelligence operation was uncovered. Thirty-four people were indicted, including prominent members of Trump's Campaign. A bunch of them went to jail, but not Trump. Mueller was too much of an old school G-man. He thought it would be enough to lay out the evidence and Department of Justice and Congress and Republicans would do the right and honorable thing like it was 1974 and Richard Nixon was giving us the finger on the way out the door with the White House silverware. Mueller couldn't wrap his head around the fact that there were no honorable Republicans left, including and most especially Bill Barr -- who is ironically today warning America about the dangers of electing Donald Trump again and he certainly would know, wouldn't he? 

Speaking of Attorney Generals, I told you Merrick Garland would fail us. I fucking told you. I told you that if Trump wasn't indicted, charged, and convicted in time, he never would be. There was a window, maybe two years, where Garland could have put Trump away and the nation might have accepted it and we could have moved on with minimal violence. He's got to go slow! Garland has to cross the T's and dot the I's! It's a painstaking process, have faith in the system! My audience screamed at me. You're not a lawyer! You don't know! And you were right, I'm not a lawyer. But I do know politics. I'm certainly not an expert on the law, but I know what civil war looks like -- I've been in the middle of more than one. 

Liberals just never understood that this was never about the law. 

It was always about public perception and that's something Donald Trump understands very well indeed. 

Now it's election season and it's too damn late for Merrick Garland. We can't put Trump away because he's the nominee. We can't even keep him off the ballot. Q.E.D.

And here we are exactly as I told you we would be.

The Court is not going to save us. 

I mean, come on, you're not in any way whatsoever surprised by the Trump Supreme Court decision, are you? 

You're not that damn naive. 

No, you knew, or you should have anyway. It's not like you weren't warned. 

SCOTUS, champion of "States Rights," has decided that states do not have the right to keep Trump off their primary ballots despite the very, very clear and unambiguous language of the Constitution specifically requiring them to do exactly that. 

But, again, you're not really surprised, are you? You were warned, over and over and over again. You were warned what would happened if Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell were allowed to pick the majority of Justices. You were warned. You knew. Don't pretend you didn't. But not enough Americans cared, not back when it would have made a difference. Not enough to show up for the elections where their votes could have actually changed the outcomes. Those elections weren't sexy enough, weren't important enough, didn't affect them personally enough. Hell here in my own Florida District 1, serial sex trafficker Matt Gaetz's district, less than half of registered voters even bother to show up for anything less than the general election every four years -- the one election where their vote doesn't actually decide the outcome. 

And here we are.  

This bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court was never going to save the Republic. You knew that. 

Yes, you did. 

This Court was put in place to save Trump not the Republic. 

This Court was put in place to serve Republicans and the Kochs, to turn women into livestock, to unleash Christian Evangelical fanaticism on us. And they will do exactly that. 

Oh yes they will, with a vengeance. 

We could have stopped it, but it wasn't important enough to enough Americans. And by the time it was, it was too late. 

And here we are. 

The Press for goddamn sure isn't going to save us. 

The Press is the only private enterprise given enumerated rights in the Constitution. Did you know that? But the Press has long ago given up their sacred role as the watchdog of liberty in exchange for clicks and likes and profit. 

The kind of journalism that once brought down Richard Nixon is as dead and buried as Trump's first wife. 

Moreover, the Press has no interest in saving the Republic. 

Why would they? 

Blood, war, disaster, Trump, that's what sells, that's what pays million dollar CEO salaries. That's what built William Randolph Hearst a castle on top of a mountain. Trump has been a media cash cow for forty years, they won't give him up until he's dead and probably not even then. 

When the Press tells you Joe Biden is old, what they really mean is that Joe Biden is boring.

They're not wrong. Biden is boring. Good government should be boring. You shouldn't have to think about it all the time. You shouldn't have to spend every minute worrying if the lunatic in charge is going to start a trade war or invade your uterus or just randomly decide to drop nuclear bombs on a hurricane. 

But boring doesn't sell. 

Boring doesn't generate views. 

Boring doesn't make media CEOs into billionaires or build castles on top of California mountains. 

The Press isn't going to save us, even if it means they get put against the wall. Hell, they'll livestream their own execution for clout. Watch and see if they don't. 

A lifetime of sloth, fast food, and clogged arteries is not going to save us. 

Not in time anyway.

The Republican nominee for president is a twice impeached, self-declared serial rapist, a convicted fraud, and a tax cheat currently out on bail, facing ninety-one felonies in four different jurisdictions, who owes over a half a billion dollars in restitution for his crimes, who can't differentiate between a picture of the woman he raped and the mother of his children (who he also raped, that's why she divorced his flabby orange ass, and why he had her buried in an overgrown weed-choked plot on his golf course for a tax break), who is so addlepated he often doesn't know the name of the current president and his supporters have to keep making excuses for his fits of dementia and increasing memory lapses, who brags about how he managed to identify an elephant like he'd discovered nuclear fusion on a test any five year old could pass, and who led an insurrection against his own country live on national television.

His opponent is boring. 

But we're acting like this is some sort of normal race between normal candidates. 

It isn't. And hasn't been for at least twenty years now.

It's not just Trump who is spiraling down into madness, it's the entire Republican Party. But we keep acting like this is normal. Just like the good Germans did a few generations back. 

And here we are. 

We all know what another Trump presidency means. 

Liberals know. 

Conservatives know. 

Our allies know. Putin knows. 

The courts know. The Press knows. 

Your god knows, if he's up there. 

We all know. We don't have to guess. Trump is literally telling the entire world what he'll do:

I'd love to see the following question put to Trump. 

GIVE US A "THEORETICAL" EXAMPLE OF A "PROPER DECISION" THAT REQUIRES PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY FROM THE LAW.

What's that? The Press? No, I don't expect the Press to demand that answer from Trump or even from Republicans. He wouldn't answer anyway. 

But Congress? 

The Court? 

Yeah, the branches of government charged with checks and balances on Executive power? I expect it from them.

That's their goddamn duty. 

Listen, can a president order the FBI to dismember a journalist with a bone saw if he thinks it's the "proper decision" for America? That's what happens in Saudi Arabia where those in charge have immunity from the law. 

Is that what Trump means? 

Can a president order the CIA to throw those who criticize government out of a 10th story window for the public good? That's what happens in Russia where Vladimir Putin is immune from accountability. Is that what Trump means? 

Can a president order the army to execute his brother-in-law with an anti-aircraft gun? That's what happens in North Korea where Kim Jong Un has total presidential immunity. 

Well? 

You think I'm engaged in hyperbole, don't you? 

But am I? 

Donald Trump has promised to be a dictator on Day One. What does he mean by that and who will suffer for it? Don't you think maybe we should find out before he's allowed back in office? 

Don't you think maybe Congress should find out?

Don't you think the Court should find out before they allow him back on the ballot?

If the president has total immunity, can he then order the government to raise taxes on the citizenry and business without regard to their particular representation in congress? What if it's to pay for a war with, say, France? If not, why not? And is there perhaps a historical example of this particular situation in American history?

Say, speaking of our history, let me ask you this: If the president has total immunity, can the president then refuse to sign or enforce laws -- even those "most wholesome and necessary for the public good?" Can he? Can the president order state Governors to likewise refuse to "pass laws of immediate and pressing importance?" How about this: Can the president refuse to pass laws unless the people who want those laws are willing to give up their right to "Representation in the Legislature?" If you're a Republican, think about this in the context of your complaint regarding Joe Biden and the border. 

Can the president order the congress to meet in locations "unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records?" Can the president just dissolve Congress entirely, if the legislature opposes him "with manly firmness?" and then refuse to allow election of new representatives?

Can the president refuse to allow immigration? (I know. I know, you're wondering what sort of weird tangent I've gone off on, aren't you? Can the president refuse to allow immigration and what? Hang on, it'll become clear in a few more lines)

Can he refuse to appoint judges? Or only appoint them if they swear loyalty to him? (and has he done so already?)

Can the president just appoint new government officials and send them out to "harass our people and eat out their substance?"

Can he increase the size of the army and make us pay for it? And can he make the military independent of civilian oversight or give it power over civilian authority or even require us to house soldiers in our homes? And if the military turns its guns on Americans, can the president protect those soldiers from any punishment or accountability -- particularly if they did so on his orders? (Say in Chicago, for example)

Can the president just cut off trade with the rest of the world if he wants? (why does this sound so familiar?)

Can he raise taxes? He can lower them, right? So, why can't he just raise taxes as well? If not, why not? 

Can the president suspend your right to trial by jury? Or transport you overseas without a trial to be tried by a foreign court for "pretended offenses?" (and if you're thinking about rendition right now, you get a cookie)

Can the president invade a neighboring country, abolish its government, establish his own totalitarian puppet state and then point to it as an example of why absolutism would be likewise good for you? If not, why not? What stops him? (and will Mexico pay for it?)

Can the president fundamentally change the nature of our government?

Can the president make laws without Congress?

Can the president declare war on his own citizens? Or if not war, then refuse to defend America from those who would "plunder our seas, ravage our coasts, burn our towns, and destroy the lives of our people?" Can he hire foreign mercenaries to do it instead of the army? Can he conscript you and make you wage war on your fellows? 

What does Trump mean by "total presidential immunity?"

Does he mean any of that? 

No? Of course not. That sounds crazy -- well, except for the parts where it doesn't, right? Are you sure? 

Are you? 

How do you know?

Because that's the Declaration of Independence. 

Those were the grievances our Founders used as justification to tell King George III to shove his immunity up his inbred ass. 

Oh, but then there's the last line, the final straw.

This one: "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us..."

Yeah. Right there. That.

The Founding Fathers were so outraged by that idea of the guy in charge fomenting domestic insurrection, turning American colonist against American colonist, that it pushed them into open rebellion against a King who likewise thought he should have immunity from the very laws he imposed on his subjects.

Presidents do not have immunity.

The very idea is abhorrent to liberty and justice and the founding of this country.  

Instead our leaders must be held to the highest levels of accountability at all times.

That is literally the entire point of the Constitution itself. 

The Grand Old Party started out with Abraham Lincoln and ended up with Trump. 

Lincoln was assassinated by a cowardly seditionist who believed in the same violent rhetoric and oppression as Donald Trump -- and it's little wonder why the ideological descendants of John Wilkes Booth are front and center at every Trump rally proudly waving their Confederate flags and shouting for violence and murder. 

That's the Republican candidate for president. 

The Courts will not save us. History and tradition will not save us. The Press will not save us. 

Our children are not going to save us -- but they very well might end up pissing on our graves for our lack of courage. 

And your silly god will most certainly not save us. 

There's no miracle coming. 

There is no easy way out of this where you again get to be a lazy spectator to history while someone else does the grunt work of democracy. 

Not this time. 

No, you're going to have to show up. 

You're going to have to show up and do your duty even if you don't want to. 

You're going to have to show up and make a decision, even if you don't like the choices. That's why they call it duty, Citizen. 

It's not about you. It's about the Republic. 

You're going to have to face down the goons and the brawlers and demand your just place on the right side of history, even if it costs you your life.

You're going to have to face down the violent fanatics, not for yourself but for those who cannot fight themselves -- for if civilization cannot defend the helpless from savage brutality, if it cannot give voice to the voiceless, if it cannot grant freedom to those in chains and liberty to all, then what damn good is it? 

If you want a better nation, then you're going to have to be a better citizen. Even if you don't want to be.

It's up to us, same as it always was.

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”
-- Eugene Victor Debs

Support

Greetings from your friendly internet writer.

Yes, writer.

A few years back, I wouldn’t have believed this possible.

A few years back it wouldn’t have been possible.

But despite the sneering complaints of certain vocal critics, it is possible for a writer to make a modest living this way.

It used to be “writer” was defined as somebody who assembled words and ideas into books, short stories, articles, and perhaps screenplays, fact or fiction, and submitted those efforts via various means to editors at publishing houses or various presses or various media outlets, and then lived on cheese sandwiches hoping a check of some small amount would come back. Traditionally the profession of “writer” meant you repeated this cycle without healthcare or adequate hygiene or presentable clothes until you died, or gave it up for a real job.

That model, that definition of writer, still very much exists.

And a lot of writers make varying degrees of living from it.

And I do that. I write various stories for various publishers and they give money. Not much, but enough to call myself a professional and enough to get invited to various writing conventions to talk about it. If you were at WorldCon in Chicago this year, or MisCon in Missoula where I was a guest of honor, it was great to see you there, thanks for coming and saying hi. 

Which is, you know, pretty cool -- at least to me. 

See, I wanted to be a writer since I was kid. 

Other kids wanted to be fire fighters or astronauts or dentists. Not me. I wanted to be writer. 

It’s a sickness, writing. A weird mental disorder that makes you sit in front of a keyboard for hours, daydreaming and playing with ideas and wondering why anyone would read the blather on the screen. No matter how upbeat and confident you are, and I am often very upbeat and probably too confident in myself for my own good, writing is fraught with self doubt and black depression mixed with mania. In that way, it's sort of like my previous military profession which is best described as "long periods of tedious boredom punctuated with moments of furious insanity."

I know exactly when I caught it, this sickness. 

As a kid of maybe nine or so, my grandmother gave me a Hardy Boys book (#8; The Mystery of Cabin Island) for Christmas one year. I’d been an indifferent reader up to that point, but that book captivated me and my lifelong obsession with words began right there. It was long before I discovered the local library, and then Robert Anson Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. Somewhere shortly thereafter, in a staggering moment of epiphany, I realized there were actually people out there who got paid to sit in front of a keyboard and daydream and those people didn’t have to put on pants every day. Hell they might not even own actual pants – unless you consider pajamas legitimate work apparel.

I knew then that’s what I wanted to do.

I’d always intended to go the traditional route, cheese sandwiches and all.

I’d never intended to write about politics. But evidence would suggest that’s where my talent lies – if you’re charitable and agree that it is indeed an actual talent and not just something you could train a chimpanzee to do (they taught monkeys to fly spaceships, so I imagine political pundit wouldn’t be that difficult).

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, by the time I was free to write what I wanted (upon my retirement from the military) and I started writing in earnest with the idea that someday somebody somewhere would give me actual money for it, the world had changed. How we connect to it had changed and continues to evolve at a rapid pace and a new type of “writer” became possible – well maybe not new new, but perhaps a more modern version of the political broadsides and pamphlets penned by the likes of Thomas Paine.

Ten years ago, I would never have guessed that social media would become my primary platform for day to day short form.  

Social media is horrible. 

Absolutely horrible. 

Social media is horrible in all the ways it's possible for human interaction to be horrible. No matter the platform, or the owner, social media is howling a bastard cross between an opinion column and a public forum and doesn’t do either very well. It’s subject to arbitrary and random censorship. There’s no protection for intellectual property at all. It lacks the most basic of editing tools and formatting functions, its search capability is ridiculous and all but useless. As a general rule, and again no matter the particular platform, the interface, timeline management, and display are one of the single most infuriatingly horrible experiences in an age of limitless customization. Universally, social media is subject to every kind of cyber-abuse from bullying to trolling to sexual assault. 

And if there's one thing that is the terrible same across every single social media platform, it is this: You will never get any kind of help from the operators and AI is only going to make that worse by orders of magnitude. You can't argue with a machine, and you'll never get any human sympathy from software. Ever. 

If Facebook is your dysfunctional community, then Twitter is Monkey Island in that community’s monstrous zoo, a screeching riot of flying shit and bared fangs. Twitter is a chemical plant for distilling out the absolute worst elements of human existence, like some sort of highway where every driver is armed and in the throes of seething road rage and they don’t care if they die so long as they can take everybody else with them. I left Twitter a few months back due to the owner's increasing bigotry and unhinged madness, and moved my microblogging to Threads, which is basically just more Facebook but with the single redeeming quality of not be subject to the random capricious machinations of Elon Musk. I'm active on a dozen other platforms, including my own here, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. 

As a platform for writing, social media, whatever the flavor, stinks. 

And yet – and yet – these platforms do one thing very, very well.

They do the one thing that traditional publishing venues cannot do.

Social media connects creators to people in an organic, viral, geometrically expanding manner that is completely impossible anywhere else.

Now, interacting with readers on a real time basis for hours upon hours every single goddamned day isn’t for every writer. It takes a certain degree of masochism to do it, see my previous comments about road rage and flying monkey shit. In point of fact, a lot of writers become writers because they are anti-social curmudgeons who enjoy living on moldy fake-cheese sandwiches and sitting around all day in dirty pajamas and who tend to break out in a cold sweat when they actually have to put on pants and go outside where all the other people are.

So real time interaction with their audience isn’t something they consider a feature.

And that’s okay. 

“Writer” is a loose enough definition that it accommodates the gregarious right alongside the hermit.

But, if you write well, if you write the things people are interested in, and if you’re willing to interact with your audience directly and in real time, then social media makes it possible for your work to spread far beyond the size of audiences normally available to traditional writers. 

Social media, for all its ills, has created new opportunity, an alternative to traditional writing models. Not a replacement, a supplement.

And that’s where I ended up.

I admit that in my case there is some degree of luck. I happened to be in the right place just as opportunity opened with the right experience and skillset and enough free time to take advantage of it.  It suits me. It’s not easy. Really it’s not. It sometimes (often) takes 14 to 18 hour days, research, writing, swearing at the screen, it can be incredibly frustrating at times for reasons you never imagine or anticipate. It requires constant attention, a constant presence, and everything becomes grist for the mill, making much of your life public – something that is often less than thrilling to your spouse.

It’s work.

And it is … writing.

I’ve had a number of critics sneer at me, you’re not a real writer! Well, okay. Fair enough. I’m not particularly put out by that and I’m willing to go with whatever description you want to call it.  Sincerely.

But what do you call it?

I sometimes crank out a quarter million words in a month for a dedicated audience larger than that of many highly successful novelists. Hell, news sites steal my work on nearly a daily basis, and publish my stuff as their own for profit – that’s got to mean something, right? Now, I’m willing to accept any label you want to slap on that, but before you do, I’d like to suggest you try it. Start a substack, social media sites, assemble words every day, build an audience without gimmicks or tricks solely on the basis of what you write, and then tell me what you call that effort.

As a cautionary note: no matter what you call yourself, no matter how much adoring admiration you manage to inspire in your audience, no matter how many people send you fan mail and messages of respect, no matter how successful you eventually manage to be and how full of yourself you become as a result, your family and friends still think you’re a putz and remind you of it as often as possible.  Ideally this keeps you grounded and from turning into a complete ass. Ideally.

And every day, every single day, no matter how well you’ve done, everyday, you’re sure that’ll be the day it all falls apart and you’ll have to go get a real job again.

And every day, every single damn day, you'll get hate mail and death threats and DMs filled with gibbering insanity that you can't decipher (even if, like me, you were once trained as a code breaker). That can be pretty depressing unless you have a very, very thick skin. 

I’ve been invited to a number of writer’s conventions to talk about this with other writers and those who are interested in such things. That’s something I’m happy to do. I’ve been pretty lucky and I’m glad to pay that forward. The world is a big place, there’s plenty of room for many, many more writers – or whatever you call ‘em – in this new arena.

But, here’s the downside – or at least the part I like least.

Every once in a while I need to ask for money.

I don’t like this. 

No, I really don’t like this. I don’t like asking for money. I feel bad about it. It gives me endless anxiety. I’m getting more used it, especially since it doesn’t seem to bother readers at all – well except for that one guy who shows up periodically to call me names and generally make an ass of himself. But ideally, I write something and if you like it enough, you’ll kick in, or you buy my artwork which I very much appreciate it. And thankfully, you do so often enough that I can mostly survive on that part.

But I still feel guilty about it.

So, when I began this I found a way to assuage my conscience.

Thus: Any subscriber who donates any amount via the donation button or as a new Patreon for the next 30 days, will be put in the running for a giveaway. 

Every few days over the next month, I’ll give away loot. It's the end of the year and I’ve got at least a hundred of my handmade ink pens, engraved with Stonekettle Station. I’ve signed copies of books that my work appears in. I’ve got signed copies of my photography – and given that I generally don’t sign those prints, these will be unique. And since I've recently started making calendars with my photography, I'll print and sign a selection of each version and give those away too. 

Winners will be announced here every few days until I run out things to give away.

To donate, click on the “Donation” button on the upper right side of this screen and follow the directions or click on the Patreon link for additional options.

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PayPal is here 

If you want to become a monthly supporter My Patreon is here

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You may enter more than once. Each donation will be counted as a unique subscription. 

If you’ve already donated to Stonekettle Station this month, you’re already on the subscription list.

Those of you who already donate via an automatic monthly payment, you’ll be entered automatically in the giveaway.

Note: I’ve discovered that winners sometimes, often it seems, do not want their names made public. I’d like to tell readers who got the various art pieces, but if you want your name kept private I will certainly do so. Last time I did this, the first person I selected to receive a prize refused because they lived on a boat and had no room for addition items. The alternate also refused for personal reasons and requested that the artwork go instead to a charity for auction to raise money for a cause important to them. They wanted it kept anonymous. So, that I did. 

I will honor any reasonable request when it comes to such things.

Legal Disclaimer: To be clear, this is not a lottery or a raffle.  Donations are voluntary subscription fees specifically in support of this blog and the associated social media feeds and conducted in accordance with state and federal requirements.

That is:  you’re paying for content not a chance to win something.

I am not claiming any tax-exempt status or charity. Donations are considered business income and I pay all applicable state and federal taxes on that income and I have the records to prove it.

The items I give away are my artwork, created and paid for by me.  As such I chose to randomly give them away to supporters, just as I gave away my custom made pens to my fellow writers -- and if you come find me at a convention, I'll give one to you, whatever your profession.  The giveaway list is generated from voluntary subscriptions, since I have no other way to determine who readers are.  You are not donating for a chance to win a prize, you’re paying for the content I create and I’m using this opportunity to give something back other than just my usual blog essays and social media posts.

As always, thank you for your support // Jim 

Fear, Hope, and Polling

Headlines this morning: Biden's poll numbers continue to fall despite surging economy!

Oh no!

What are we gonna do! 

CNN has a whole panel of earnest looking talking heads enthusiastically opining on the subject. Dire! Woe! Terrible! The End is Near! 

It's the same over on Fox, except the talking heads are all gleeful and showing a lot of cleavage. 

My social media feeds are clogged with MAGAs (or foreign intelligence assets pretending to be MAGAs), all pushing the same message:

See the common theme? 

Fear sells. 

Rage sells. 

Anger sells. 

Cleavage sells ... okay, that's probably not the point here, but anyway. 

It's not about the economy. Not this election, not really. 

"The Economy" is just a convenient narrative the press and politicians use when they don't want to do any actual work. It's an easy fiction that no one bothers to dispute. 

Gotta be the economy, Stupid. 

No kidding, right?

But it's bullshit. Voters don't show up because gas prices are high. And they don't show up because prices are low and there are plenty of jobs. They'll bitch and complain about inflation and the cost of milk, but they don't show up either way. 

They do show up, however, because they're mad about something.

Or they're afraid of something.

Or they hate something. 

Rage, fear, anger are all far more powerful motivators than the economy. That's why the press and the politicians spend so much time making you mad and afraid -- and the easiest way to do that is "The Economy" because America is a capitalist society and Americans are all driven by money. 

You mention money, Americans get very, very afraid very quickly. 

That's the entire basis of supply-side economics: fear. What's good for business is good for us. What's bad for business is bad for us. If business doesn't have to pay taxes, isn't hobbled by pesky regulation, isn't constrained by antitrust laws or any concern for the environment or the health and safety of consumers, then we all profit. Now, it's true that some profit a lot more than others, but that's the American way, isn't it? We gotta make the rich richer so some of it trickles down to the rest of us. That's what they tell us -- they being the rich. If business fails, we all fail. Be afraid. Be afraid of anyone who might put constraints on profit. 

That is the entire message of our economic system. 

Americans were afraid of inflation, but business boomed. Profits are way up. The stock market is riding an all time high. Because Americans paid more for goods and blamed the White House, but it wasn't actually inflation at all was it? It was that business blamed the economy while conspiring to raise prices and pocket the difference. 

See the price of eggs and gasoline et al. That wasn't inflation. That's the rich raising the price of goods to make themselves richer. 

Americans were afraid of COVID, but business got bailed out on the backs of Americans who'd lost their jobs, and not a single wealthy CEO lost even a penny's worth of income. 

That's the lesson the rich learned from the Great Depression: never gamble with your own money. 

A rising tide lifts all boats, which is great if you've got a boat. When things are good, the poor and middle class sacrifice to make the richer richer on the idea that some of that largess will trickle down to them. And when things go bad, the poor and recently unemployed lose their homes, college funds, and retirements and pay for bailouts to those same failed businesses while the rich pocket bonuses and then declare bankruptcy and leave the government they so utterly despise to clean up the economic, social, and environmental wreckage left in their wake which is also paid for by the middle class and the poor. 

That's how it works in America. Profits are personal, but the risks all public. 

Republicans hate "socialism," but they sure do love socializing failure. 

Profit is a privilege of the wealthy, failure is the responsibility of the poor, and you don't have to look any further than Donald Trump's business record to see it. And that is what republicans love about him, right there. And that is the thing the rich are terrified you'll figure out -- because the guillotines typically follow that social epiphany in short order.  So they push fear, fear of economic failure. What's bad for them is bad for you. Fear of losing your job, your income, your retirement, your home, your healthcare...

That's what actually trickles down, you know. Fear. That fear. That fear the rich will lose everything and we'll have to pay for it. 

But you know what? Hope is a hell of a motivator too. 

Yes it is. Remember that guy? The one who talked about hope and change? He pushed hope instead of fear and he won, won big. Twice. That's a lesson everyone seems to have forgotten. Because hate, rage, and fear are all a hell of a lot easier. 

You gotta be a hell of a leader to win on hope instead of fear. 

And those sorts of leaders are in short supply these days.

My point here is: those polls? Yeah, polls are like the Bible, they tell you whatever you want to hear. Polls are absolute evidence of whatever narrative the shouty guy up front wants you to believe today. Tomorrow they'll be absolute evidence of exactly the opposite and no one will even notice the switcheroo. 

Don't listen to the polls, they're trying to manipulate you, trying to make you confidently hopeful so you'll stay home because you believe the job is done, or trying to make you depressed and defeated so you'll stay home because the job isn't worth doing. 

Don't listen. Don't listen to the talking heads, their only interest is rage, fear, and anger because that's what sells advertising copy. That's what makes them rich. The more terrible the world, the richer they get, so they have an interest in making the world seem a worse place. 

Steady on, Folks. Be hopeful instead. 

Show up and you'll win.

You want a better nation, be a better citizen. 

The Month In Pictures: Michigan Autumn

 

I spent most of November in Michigan.

Which isn't a bad time of year to spend in the Midwest. 

November is fall colors and migrating birds and apple cider and hay rides. Pretty great if you're a photographer.

Pretty good if you're not a photographer too.

Not great for my mobile bandwidth though. I tend to take a lot of pictures. Given that I make a not insignificant fraction of my income from photography, I don't suppose that's any sort of surprise to you. And of course, if you follow me on social media, you know I post a lot of images to my various audiences on multiple platforms. Which is, as I said, not real great for mobile bandwidth. I burned through 150GB, all of my primary mobile hotspot, in about 28 days and was well into my reserve allocation on my backup device when I finally was able to pack up and return home. 

So, instead of posting my normal week in pictures from the road, you're getting the whole month all at once. 

I spent most of my time in Michigan at my mother's place outside of Middleville, a small farming town turned Norman Rockwell bedroom community in the Lower Peninsula's southwest. 

Long ago, the place used to be a mill town and a stage coach stop on the routes between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo and Battle Creek. The mill is long gone, so is the stage coach and the railroad that replaced it in later years. The old rail line is now a Rails-to-Trails conversion and a popular path for hikers on the North American Birding Trail. 

The old dam that once held back the Thornapple River is still there though, a fixture of downtown, and still doing its job generating some small amount of electricity and regulating the flow of the river. And because of that, the miles-long millpond that once powered those long gone wheels and grinding stones is still there too. It's shallow these days, a wetland overgrown with cattails and reeds, home to white sucker fish, trout, bass, carp, leeches, several species of squirrels, chipmunks, a half dozen species of turtle, mink, fox, bobcat, deer, muskrats, ground hogs, seven species of woodpecker, cranes, herons, jays, sparrows, finches, juncos, coots, grebes, ducks, geese, swans, a colony of kingfishers, and a vast, vast biome of native and imported plant species. 

It is the perfect stop for migrating birds. 

Such as these sandhill cranes:

For certain reasons, I shot the cranes primarily in the very early morning hours before the sun was fully up or in the late evenings at and after sunset. 

Now, normally, this would be less than optimal, photography wise, but the equipment I'm using (Nikon's latest mirrorless system, the Z9 and the Z8) is very, very good in low light. And I'm fortunate enough to own very good, very fast glass (i.e. lenses that are able to both provide high magnification and a very wide aperture). 

So if low light is what you have, said I to myself, quit bitching and make the most of it. 

It takes some experimenting to get it right and capture these ghostly apparitions in the dark.

It's not just a matter of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. In these conditions, the light changes. The quality and the wavelengths of light change. The sun is low on the horizon, certain wavelengths (colors, in layman's terms) are filtered out by those extra miles of dense atmosphere, by rain, by moisture, by clouds, by temperature, by dust, and pollutants in the air. The color changes. The amount of light changes. Very rapidly. Sometime there's a bright moon, sometimes it's as dark as a cave on the far side of Pluto. 

You might have only a very few minutes to get the shot. Sometimes less than that. And remember, the subject has to cooperate in that brief period as well. 

In the old days, you'd need to swap out film as the light changed. You'd get pretty good at it, like a soldier reloading a weapon in the dark. But it was complicated and clumsy and not particularly optimal. Or you could carry multiple cameras, each loaded with different film, sensitive to different wavelengths and light levels, that would produce different results. 

That gets expensive and logistically complicated pretty quickly. 

Nowadays, most of us use digital cameras. 

This is where the purists spit on the ground, but modern digital sensors make for photography that would have been simply impossible not very long ago. Film has some pretty specific limitations as dictated by chemistry and physics, and there is only so much you can do with it. Chemical emulsions can only react so fast, at least the ones most of us can afford or are safe enough to use.  

Digital sensors have limits too, of course, but those boundaries are often much, much broader and can be adjusted in the field very, very rapidly (if you know what you're doing). 

Don't get me wrong, it's still about physics.

Photography is ultimately about light. And light is physics. And physics is the law, there's no way around it. 

You want to see in the dark, in color, then you have to gather more light. More light means bigger lenses (or mirrors, if you're an astronomer). Bigger lenses mean more glass. But more glass can mean less light if that glass isn't very, very optically pure in the wavelengths you want. And what that means in a practical sense is: money.

More light means more glass means it's going to cost you a lot more. 

And it's heavy. 

My big lens, a Nikkor 600mmf4E weighs about 18 pounds (that's without the camera) and costs about what a decent small car does (then again, people spend that on golf clubs, so your mileage may vary). 

I'm not actually trying to impress you with the quality of my equipment or trying to dazzle you with technobabble, but I keep getting asked: How do you get photographs of birds, sharp, in motion, in color, in the pitch dark? 

Actually, the question I usually get is: Settings? 

That's the question professional photographers get asked most often. What are your settings, exposure and shutter speed? 

What were your settings for that image of sandhill cranes at night reflected like ghosts in still wine dark water?

Will you tell me?

And I can do that, I can give you those numbers, and I will, but it likely won't do you much good. 

For the reasons I've described above, you can't just plug those two settings into any camera and get the same results. 

I'm not saying you can't get similar results with lesser equipment. I'm saying you can't get it by just plugging in a couple of numbers you got from some random guy on the internet. 

What I'm actually saying here is this: If you want to do photography (and I highly encourage any and all to do so, the more the better, the world needs art and it's never been easier or cheaper to make than it is today) as opposed to just clicking selfies and snapshots, then you have to learn how your equipment works.

Experiment. Take notes. Make mistakes. Shoot a lot of crappy pictures. 

And learn what works for you.

There's an old truism among photographers: Amateurs talk about equipment, professionals talk about results. 

I find that to be pretty true  -- after I just spent how many paragraphs talking about equipment? Heh heh. That said, I hope my results speak for themselves. 

It took me a lot of years to get where I not only liked the results I got, but also to be able to predict with decent accuracy what results I'd get in any given situation. 

I'm still learning. 

I think that's true of most photographers. 

I have days, fairly rare now, where I shoot a thousand shots, sometime ten thousand shots, and don't like any of them. 

Most of the time, I get something that I like -- and sometimes I really, really like it. 

Sometimes I take one shot, but that's the shot. That's the one. 

I'm always looking to do better. 

And not just do better, but help others do better too. 

Art is subjective. 

Some of my own work, stuff that really speaks to me on a personal level, elicits little more than a "meh, nice" from my audience. 

And some things I think might be derivative or done to death or not my best work gets tens of thousands of likes and comments and goes viral on social media and I sell hundreds of copies. 

And that's great. That's what pays for the gear, and my mortgage. 

But, you never know what will appeal to people. 

Because art is subjective. 

We like what we like and that's okay. 

The point of making art isn't so much for the audience, but that the artist enjoy it.

If you're getting the results you want, so long as you're not hurting others or making the world a worse place, then you're probably doing it right.

That means you don't have to be a professional or have hundreds of thousands of dollars in gear.

It means you just have to enjoy doing it for your own sake and to hell with the critics. 

Note that this is also true of any other art, not just photography. Paint. Write. Make the music you enjoy. For your own sake. 

Speaking of liking your own work, this blue heron fishing in the very early morning light is probably my favorite shot from this month. 

It was a tough shot, long distance, weird light, damn bird kept moving and turning its rear at me. I kept waiting for him to strike, and waiting, and waiting, and it was about 13F, and waiting, and my hands were numb, and waiting and I had to wrap my hat around the camera to keep the batteries from dying in the cold too fast because I'd left the spares in the car, and my ears were about to fall off, and waiting, and waiting, and finally he slammed his face into the water and came up with that white sucker fish and the light was just right and, yeah, I got the shot. And it's a hell of a shot. It's a shot I love.

That's a good morning. 

That's what makes it worth it. That's what makes it fun. 

This is probably the most popular shot I did this month.

It's one of those things that took a lot of work. Several weeks of tracking the cranes' flight path as they returned to the pond each night. Watching the phases of the moon. Figuring out the right spot to get both in the frame at once. Right equipment. Right settings. And then it all lined up and I got it. 

But it was mostly just to see if I could.

This was one of those shots that I did for myself and didn't think anyone else would care. Meh, birds, moon, whatever. You know. 

Instead, it's the one that appealed to everybody and I got the most requests to put in the store.

You never know.

Or maybe it's this little chickadee I like the best. 

I love every bit of how this shot came out. The colors, the framing, the soft focus but dead sharp on the berry in the bird's beak, the pastel colors, the implied motion, the feel of the season. 

This is the kind of image I love, right here.

Most of these images will available for purchase in various formats, prints, canvas, metal, puzzles, mousepads, and more, in my store, this coming weekend. Just in time for Christmas, along with a selection of my other art, pens and seam rippers and so on. 

I'm uploading now, but it's not fast even with my office connection. 

That's it. 

That's the month of November in pictures. 

Hope you enjoyed this little break from the ugliness of the world. 

_____________
Addendum

Prints, Puzzles, Calendars, and other products featuring my work are available for purchase from my store.  // Jim