Kyrre's Friends

ozarque

Thanks to Cindy Brown for alerting me to an article [at http://tinyurl.com/613zdb ] reporting that the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes -- a Jesuit, and the director of the Vatican Observatory -- has said in an interview with LOsservatore Romano that ruling out the existence of extraterrestrial life would be "putting limits" on the creative freedom of God. The interview itself was headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother."

I went immediately to Google to try to find a transcript of the interview, and had no luck with that, but did find another article, by Francis X. Rocca, titled "Vatican astronomer suggests aliens do not need salvation," at
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=15613 .

Rocca writes: "According to Funes, such creatures may never have fallen into sin, and so have no need of salvation through Christianity. 'It is not a given that they have need of redemption,' he said. 'They may have remained in full friendship with their Creator.' Asked about the possibility of redemption for sinful extraterrestrials, Funes said he was 'sure that even they, in some way, would have the possibility of enjoying the mercy of God.' "


Wow. One thoroughly astonished writer of science fiction here.

And I do understand that "The extraterrestrial is my sibling" would not have had the same ring to it.

ozarque

Where I am this morning....

1. Weather

The thunderstorms predicted for yesterday and last night got postponed to today and tonight, so they're still on my calendar. And I am now throughly ashamed of myself for whining about them, given the weather catastrophes in Burma/Myanmar and in China.

2. Emergency/crash/has-to-be-done-yesterday project

As always happens with these, I can't get started on the urgent work because I have to wait on a giant bureaucracy to make the first move. Than which few things are more frustrating.

3. First verbal self-defense book revision project

My proposed first draft, short a few bells and whistles that have to be done at the very last minute, goes to my editor today. And then I will wait, as it winds its way from reader to reader, to find out whether it's considered satisfactory or not.

4. Combination of #2 and #3

Both projects, both with deadlines rushing at me, are now on hold for a period of time that I can't predict and have no control over. Than which few things are more frustrating. Which means that the wisest move for me is to start writing the July/August newsletters now, so that they'll be done -- at least in rough draft, ready for updating -- when I'm finally able to start work on #2 and #3 again.

5. Mood

Stoical elderly. I don't think there's an icon for that.

ozarque

Anybody up for verbal self-defense haikus?

ozarque

First, I thank you for all your comments and responses. They're interesting, and they're helpful. And then I have just a couple of very brief things to say...


About the thesis stated by raging_tiggy's husband:
"What my experience has taught me, is that some persons will respond ONLY to a direct and aggressive counter-attack, intended to make continued aggression so unpleasant and counter-productive that they will leave you strictly alone in the future. Anything short of that is seen as weakness and an invitation to continue the bullying/improper aggression."

I can say only that I've worked in conflict resolution for more than thirty years, and have had the good fortune never to encounter an individual of that kind. If I did encounter one, my judgment would be that the situation represents illness -- pathology -- and that what's needed in such a case is the attention of a skilled therapist. It would be a situation that I consider to be far beyond the boundaries of my expertise.


And then there is the idea, stated by a number of you, that what's required to control bullying in children is adult intervention. I agree with you wholeheartedly that adults who find themselves witnessing bullying should not just stand there; they should intervene. But I don't believe that adult intervention is a solution to the problem. The usual consequences of adult intervention are (a) that the kids doing the bullying immediately learn to be far more careful to do it where adults can't see it happening, and (b) that the kids doing the bullying will take out their anger about the adult intervention on their targets, making the bullying more intense and more vicious.

What does help is peer intervention. We need children who are skilled at conflict resolution and have been trained in peer mediation.

ozarque

We're in for another bout of severe storms today, tonight, and tomorrow; if I'm not posting or responding, that will be the reason.

We were lucky here last weekend; we had two tornado warnings, but didn't even get the large hail that was falling all around us. But it was the first time in the 28 years we've lived here that I've ever seen six tornado warnings on the tv screen lined up one above the other all at the same time. In the past, seeing even one was rare; what we have now is, I'm afraid, the New Normal.

ozarque

All the way back on March 10th, elfwreck posted this comment:
"I'm annoyed that it seems that the only way to teach my child to defend herself from verbal bullies at school is to arm her with counter-attacks -- because even non-violent children don't often have the patience and tolerance to step away from a conflict directed at them. (And because children, unlike adults, don't necessarily stop when the conversation becomes pointless, and don't limit themselves to subtleties. The GASVD books don't have any advice about what to do when the verbal attacks consist of four kids in a circle saying 'you're stupid and fat and ugly and lazy.')"

And that has been worrying me ever since. [This is not elfwreck's fault; I am by nature a worrier, and have had seventy-one years practice.] What I'd like to do here, as a first step toward a response to the comment, is post a brief excerpt from some guidelines on pp. 161-162 of The Gentle Art of Communicating with Kids. Just in case that might be helpful.


Excerpt


1. Always remember that your language behavior is the model that the youngsters you interact with use to learn their language behavior.

Often this won't be obvious on the surface. You may feel that the children around you are as different from you as rabbits are from seals. But if you're someone constantly present in their language environment, even children who "wouldn't be caught DEAD!" using your slang or wearing your clothes or otherwise copying you will still acquire your language strategies -- your methods for handling conflict, for getting your way, for persuading others, and so on. The child will also acquire your nonverbal communication system, which carries almost all the emotional information and does most of the communication work. This gives you an awesome power, both to help and to harm. Use it wisely.


2. Don't lecture children to teach them something; model it instead.

The temptation is always just to tell. It's quick and easy to say to a child, "What Bill just said to you was an example of a verbal attack pattern. Here's what you should say back...." It's quick and easy to say, "The reason you're having trouble communicating with your math teacher is because you're touch dominant and she's sight dominant. Here's how you fix it...." It's harder and slower to make sure your own language behavior models the principles and techniques the kids need to know -- and to give them plenty of opportunities to see you demonstrating those principles and techniques. It's also much more likely to succeed.

In emergencies, when speed is the most important thing and there's no time to worry about the niceties, you may have to just say "This is how you do it. Say this:......" When a child asks you a direct question about the way you communicate, you should answer with explicit instructions and explanation. But always remember that that's not how language learning happens, not for youngsters.

You never told your children, "This is how you make an English yes/no question: Take the first auxiliary verb and move it to the immediate left of the surface subject position in the sentence." They learned how yes/no questions are made by observing the examples all around them and using their innate ability to figure out the rule from the raw data. They learned it so well that they'll never have to think about it again. The best way to teach kids communication is to provide the data and let them work out the rules on their own, so that they will internalize them the same way they internalized all the other rules of their grammar.

###

secret_vice

conlangs

conlangs

Hi I was wondering if anyone here might know a good conlang book(s) that might be of use to new conlangers such as myself. In particular I am looking for a how-to book that uses simplistic language as I only have a very basic understanding of the subject matter -so nothing too complicated please.

ozarque

(1)
The words of English
can always be made empty
by intonation.

(2)
A noun is not a
person or a place or thing.
A noun is a name.

(3)
A verb is not an
action word. It is a word
you can add "-ing" to.

(4)
A preposition
isn't just a word that is
short and on a list.

(5)
A preposition
is a word that tells you how
all the parts are linked.


I'd be pleased to have additions to this set from you [youall], if you're willing...

ozarque

Strongly recommended: the May 8, 2008 column titled "The Candidate And The Pastor," by Bill Press, at
http://www.billpressshow.com/column .

ozarque

From the questions that are being asked, I can tell that I haven't been making myself clear, and I'd like to fix that if I can. There are three things that seem to me to need clarifying....

First:
I didn't write an enormous notebookful of backstory and background for the fictional universe of Abba. I did write a sketchy outline of basic factoids, but I didn't do what I later adopted as a standard method for writing novels. I didn't write a biography of all the characters, and a detailed description of every setting, and a complete outline of the history of Abba, and a detailed account of the culture .... and so on. When I wrote At the Seventh Level in 1971, I was a linguistics graduate student and a graduate teaching assistant and a "working mother" and a person with a teaching job at night and a person writing novels "on the side," and I was so desperately busy every single minute of the day and half of the night that I scarcely had time to breathe. I genuinely didn't have time to do the Abban backstory; I wrote only as much of it as I had to have for the actual text of the novel and the short stories, and I let it go at that. Which means that most of the questions you're asking me about Abba are questions I don't know the answer to.

Two:
For the record, it's perfectly all right with me if you want to write in the fictional universe of Abba yourself, which would let you answer all the questions you might have.

Three:
I understand why many of you perceive the Abban fiction as "horror." I understand it now. But I didn't perceive it that way when I was writing in it myself. I really -- truly -- perceived the Abban culture as a metaphor for the culture of the United States in 1971, and I thought it would be clear to every reader that that was what it was. [Novelists, especially inexperienced novelists, tend to suffer from that sort of illusion.] I took the characteristics of the culture that I was living in myself, as I perceived it, and I exaggerated those characteristics to the point of parody, and the result was Abba.


Finally, I want to thank those of you who have said that you'd like to see more of my fiction set in that fictional universe; that's high praise, and I'm grateful for it.


==================
Nonfiction online: "How Verbal Self-Defense Works" at http://people.howstuffworks.com/vsd.htm ; "Why Are Old Women Older Than Old Men And How Can We Fix That?" at http://www.seniorwomen.com/articles/articlesElginOld.html ; Religious Language Newsletter archive at http://www.forlovingkindness.org ; Fiction online: "We Have Always Spoken Panglish" at http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/Story-Panglish.html ; "What The EPA Don't Know Won't Hurt Them" at http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/epa.htm ; "Weather Bulletin" at http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/Weather.html ; "A Quorum Of Grandmothers" at http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/QuorumOfGrandmothers.html ; The Communipaths at http://www.jackiepowers.com/SuzetteHadenElgin/TheCommunipaths.html . More stuff at http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/SiteMap.html ; LiveJournal blog index at http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=ozarque .

ozarque

Here's an edited excerpt from At the Seventh Level with some background information about Abba; it's a conversation between Coyote Jones, in his role as superspy, and his boss, "the Fish." It appears on pp. 259-261 of Communipath Worlds.

Excerpt

Even the Fish was appalled by Abba, and he didn't apall easy. He had explained the assignment to Coyote with a faint air of distaste, like a Martian Orthodox Flannist discussing poultry farming.

"The whole system is ridiculous," Coyote told him. "How can such a thing be allowed to go on?"

The Fish shrugged. "It's a vast improvement over what they had before," he said.

"That's a matter of opinion."

"Let me review the basic facts for you," said the Fish. "And don't, for the Light's sake, go tramping about Abba suggesting improvements in their social system. In the first place it's none of our business. In the second place, they have ten thousand years of recorded history, and evidence of thirty thousand before that, and they look upon the rest of us as kindergarteners at the business of being civilizations." ...

"When our space colonists worked their way out to the middle of the Second Galaxy," the old man went on, "they found Abba already settled... The people were humanoid, indistinguishable from Earth-type humans except for the presence of three extra ribs and some sort of difference in the liver that escapes me. At that time the Galactic Council was already well established, the Federation was a firm entity, and there were many very obvious advantages to Federation membership. It was almost unknown for a planet to refuse membership -- however, in this case the Federation wasn't offering."

He pressed a stud on his desk and a threedy flashed on the wall behind him. Coyote stared at it and shuddered.

"Exactly," said the Fish. "The colonists reacted as you did, with total repulsion. They found a civilization at a high degree of technological advancement, the male citizens living in luxury, and all the females in breeding pens, with stables for inclement weather, treated precisely as we treat domestic animals."

"Sick," said Coyote. "Just plain sick."

"It seemed perfectly reasonable to the Abbans," the Fish went on, "that being the way they had always done things... But it was most definitely not acceptable to the members of the Galactic Federation. The impasse was solved by a gentleman named David Rutherford Williams, who went out to Abba with a proposal and managed to produce the ingenious compromise they have today."

"The harem. The Women's Discipline Unit."

"Well, I agree with you that it doesn't seem very enlightened, Mr. Jones, but it was at least a form of society that was tolerable to the members of the Federation at the time. And you must admit that it shows a high degree of organization for a society so totally unEarth-like to be able to superimpose a sort of amalgamation of ancient Egypt, Arabia, and the French diplomatic service over its own culture. Practically overnight."

"How long did it take?"

"Less than six months, as I recall. Williams showed them a stack of threedies, they went 'Ah, yes' at him, their carpenters and masons trotted off and built women's quarters to specifications, and it all worked. Amazing."

"Does it really work?"

The Fish shrugged again. "Who can tell? It seems to. At least, since the Abban conversion to the religion of the Holy Light, they believe that women have souls."

Coyote made a sound of disgust, and the Fish raised a warning hand.

"I think you'll be surprised," he said. "I really do, Mr. Jones. If you expect primitive barbarians lurching about whipping their concubines you are going to be very surprised. Why don't you wait and see? And since no interference is allowed in any case, you might just as well relax."

###

ozarque

About my response to Question #6, mamadeb commented:

"From what I gathered from "For the Sake of Grace" (a story I have read multiple times, but not in the last several years), the ONLY Profession a woman on Abba could apply to was Poetry - and the penalty for her failing was horrific."

Mercy. This is what happens when you don't go back and read fiction you wrote decades ago, and you just try to Wing It. mamadeb is absolutely right. And the reason is a matter of law, set out clearly in "For the Sake of Grace":

"The law provides that since the Profession of Poetry is a religious office, there must be a channel provided for the rare occasion when the Light might see fit to call a female to Its service."

I apologize. And my thanks to mamadeb for rescuing me....

ozarque

After I posted the list of Professions on Abba, akitrom commented with a set of questions that I'm going to try to answer. But before I do that, I have to tell you that I wouldn't be able to answer many -- perhaps most -- questions about Abba. The work I've done in that fictional universe ["For the Sake of Grace," At the Seventh Level, "Final Exam," and "Modulation in All Things"] has been focused mostly on a narrow segment of the society, and I've never worked out the rest of the culture in detail. There wasn't the sort of intricately fleshed-out backstory for Abba that I did for my later novels; I was a much younger and much less experienced writer then.

Now, to the questions...

1. What kind of crimes are legal, and what kinds are always illegal?

There are only two ways a crime can be illegal. One is if the Criminal fails to do the paperwork properly ... doesn't fill out some form, fills out some form incorrectly, fails to meet a deadline for filing some form, violates some obscure technicality ... that kind of thing. The other way is if the application for the crime is rejected by the administrators and the Criminal goes ahead with the crime in defiance of the rejection.


2. Can it be legal for criminals to impersonate members of other professions?

If the paperwork is done properly and the application for the impersonation is not rejected, it's a legal crime.


3. Do members of other professions who commit illegal acts become Criminals? Is that the Entrance Exam?

No; it's not like that. For one thing, in the Abban culture the idea of doing something outside the boundaries of your own Profession is horrifying and repulsive. For a Lawyer or a Scientist to do an act ordinarily reserved for Criminals would not be perceived as having committed a crime; only Criminals are qualified to commit crimes. The most likely outcome if someone other than a Criminal did something illegal would be a diagnosis of mental illness.


4. Why did Abba's founders think that it was important to have a recognized Criminal profession?

For Abbans, the most important thing of all, and the most desirable, is order. How could you have an orderly society if your Criminals could be just any old body?


5. Do you see something particularly "Male" to all this classification?

No. Not at all.


6. How do women function in this society? Every historical patriarchy with which I am familiar, whether they treat normal women as children or property, make room for the exceptional woman.

On Abba, anyone can apply to take the exams for any Profession, and any woman who was able to pass the qualifying exams for a Profession would have to be admitted to that Profession. [That's the core of the plot for the fiction I've done about Abba. The "what if" question was: "What if a young girl passed the qualifying exams for Poetry? Then what?"] But females in this culture are excluded all their lives long from almost every experience that would make them likely to be able to pass the exams.


7. But there have to be people who cannot pass exams, even Revolutionary ones. What happens to them?

People who fail all the other exams have no trouble passing the exams for the Profession of Service. Those exams are made so easy that it would be almost impossible to fail them. Especially if you are male, and have therefore been allowed to have a standard education.

ozarque

Just FYI, here's the list of the Professions on Abba...

Law
Service
Government
Poetry [equivalent to Religion]
Medicine
Business
Crime
Science
Education
Leisure
Arts
Agriculture & Animal Husbandry
Revolutionary

ozarque

Final Exam

It was a solemn occasion. The fact that the sun shone brilliant and blue through the windows, clearly signalling joy, was no help. If anything, it made it worse, setting off the grim faces of the Administrators in sharp relief, burning their frowns on their foreheads like Ritual-Markings for the spring festivals. Kelah would have welcomed rain, a dismal weather to match the dismal weather of his mind.

Beside him, his father sat stiff and nervous in the formal robes of his Profession, trying to explain the situation to the other seven men. "My son refuses," he said in the dead voice that Kelah had grown miserably familiar with lately. "He refuses. He says flatly that he will not enter the competitions for any of the Professions."

"Hmmmmmm," said the Senior Administrator.

"I have brought him up according to every dictate of our culture. I have given him everything a boy could want. He has been provided with the finest schools, the most brilliant tutors, the best of--"

The Senior Administrator cut him off. "Yes, yes, Lawyer ban-Tressix," he said, "we understand all that. The reputation of your household is secure, and you need not belabor us with a recitation of all the things you have done for this unfortunate and ungrateful young man."

The Lawyer flushed, mumbling. "I beg your pardon, Citizen Administrator."

The Administrator-Advocate began, then, to ask Kelah the set of questions he had been expecting. Did he understand the consequences of his decision? Was he sure of that? Did he understand that he would be an outcast and a pariah? Did he understand that every credit disc issued to a citizen was issued on the basis of membership in one of the Twelve Professions, and that he would therefore be unable to buy even the minimum necessities of life? And to all of those questions, and more like them, Kelah doggedly answered yes. Yes, and yes, and yes.

"Light's Beard, young man!" the Senior Admministrator put in, "Don't you know you'll be no better off than a woman? You will literally have no rights at all! You will simply .... not exist!"

Kelah nodded. He knew it all. He bowed his head and let it all flow over him again, unresisting, since it had long since ceased to be anything but noise. The disgrace to his family. The pain he would cause his household. The fact that he could never marry, never have a household of his own. The fact that he could not be buried, since all burials were in Profession Plots. On and on and on. He didn't care. He knew it all, and he didn't care. He would not, he would not be shoved into a slot for the rest of his life, his every move and every word until he died prescribed for him by the Regulations Manual of his Profession! He would not spend his life as a slave, the way all of them spent their lives! He didn't even care if they saw his disgust on his face. There was nothing more they could do to him now.

"Are you convinced?" It was his father asking, rigid beside him, his voice almost trembling. "Do you see that it is hopeless?"

The Senior Administrator looked around him, taking a count of the heads nodding an affirmative, and said, "Indeed we do." And he pushed a set of studs on the comset at his side.

"Congratulations!" the comset caroled, red and yellow lights flashing, bells ringing, a jet of perfume of thorka-flowers rising slowly into the air. "Congratulations, Citizen ban-Tressix, you have passed all the tests for admission into your profession! If you will just step into the Robing Room, Citizen, you will be issued your robes and your credit disc! Congratulations!"

Kelah was almost too stunned to ask for an explanation. "What...." he stammered. "What...." And he saw that now they had, one and all, smiles to match the sunshine.

The Senior Administrator pushed another stud and the wall at his left went suddenly translucent. On it, lifesize, was a three-dimensional projection of a young man whose robe -- unlike all the others Kelah had ever seen, with their solid color and single contrasting stripe -- was a rainbow of colors, a mingled and melting absolute riot of color. Around its neck hung a string of tiny haffa-bells, with a credit disc pendant from the center bell. And beside its head was the printed legend: Authorized Costume of the Profession of Revolutionary.

"Oh, no," Kelah breathed. "Oh, please, no..."

The Senior Administrator cleared his throat. "This," he said gravely, "is the Thirteenth Profession. You will understand, I am sure, why it is not publicized."

"Surely," Kelah pleaded, "surely, this is a joke?"

Lawyer ban-Tressix shook his head. "No, my son," he said happily. "It is as true as that you are my very dear son! My only fear was that they would not be convinced, that you would not pass the test. The Light bless you, my son, you have made me a happy man!"

As the Administrators filed out of the room, and his father with them, Kelah gripped his hair with both hands, laid his head down on the table, and beat his forehead against the syntho-wood. "No," he said, over and over and over. "No. No. No." When the fedrobots came to take him to the Robing Room he was still saying it.

They paid no attention to him at all.

ozarque

Recommended: the new blog by Crescent Dragonwagon -- author of The Cornbread Gospels -- over at http://crescentdragonwagon.typepad.com/nothing_is_wasted_crescen/ .

ozarque

There have been developments since I last posted...

First, my agent called yesterday afternoon with a huge project for me that -- as is typical -- has to be done at top speed on an emergency basis because it started being desperately needed some months ago. It's a totally nonlinear project, with Pieces X having to be done before other Pieces Y -- that those Pieces X ought to be based on -- are done. It will for sure cut into my LJ time, and I'm sorry about that. On the other hand, because it has to be done so fast it will be over in a hurry and I'll get the time back. This too shall pass.

Second, our day began here with a whopping thunderstorm, and the power going off. George went out to turn on the generator, something that ordinarily takes no more than three or four minutes at the most .... and he didn't come back, and didn't come back, and didn't come back, and the generator didn't come on. The idea that he'd been struck by lightning was starting to bother me -- and I was trying to decide whether going out to check on that and getting struck by lightning my own self would be a rational move -- when he did at last appear and the generator (and lights and water) did come on. [Thank you, Providence.]

What had happened was that when he took off the tarp that serves as cover for the generator, he was greeted by a wasp nest complete with angry wasps. He had to go to his shop -- where he found no cans of wasp spray -- so he grabbed a can of spray paint and a towel, went back and spray-painted the wasps into a sodden clump, wrapped the whole mess in the towel and stomped on it, and then was able to turn on the generator. Not quite like killing a wooly mammoth and hauling it back to the cave, but impressive all the same. Especially since it meant that we could now make coffee. [Thank you, Providence.]

Moving right along...