Nurses: the Best of People, the Worst of People

A recent post over at Educated and Poor asking for individual experiences with nurses got me thinking. Compassionate nurses are among the best of people, but those who lack compassion can be among the worst of people. Yet I also suspect in many cases even the worst of nurses didn't start out hard-hearted. The suffering they are exposed to seems to burn out the compassion in even the most decent people. Yet it is hard for the patients in their hands to remember that.

My own worst experience with a nurse occurred when I was eight or nine. I was due for one of my regular shots, and the nurse marched in, announced "This won't hurt a bit" in a tone that, rather than being reassuring, informed me I would get nothing but a label as a crybaby if I complained. Without waiting for a response, she stuck the needle in. I was watching while she did it, and she jabbed me so hard, the shaft of the needle visibly bent. Shudder. I think it was sheer horror that helped me contain my instinct to howl in pain and outrage.

I know little about this particular nurse, but in fairness, the pediatrician she worked for was far worse, so she may have picked up the attitude at work. Although not an experience with a nurse, I'll relate one of my two worst personal medical experiences ever, involving her boss. It does illustrate the harm a complete lack of compassion can inflict. I was ten, nearly eleven, at the time. To be fair, even I didn't yet understand that my physiology was out of the ordinary in various ways. I had an ear infection, and the doctor decided to clean the wax out of the other ear. He took out whatever sort of probe they used at the time, stuck it into my ear, and began hauling out the wax.

Even with intense migraines and pinched nerves, I am not sure I have ever felt such intense pain again in my life. It felt as if a huge, red-hot knife blade was being jammed into my ear. I couldn't help screaming and crying. The doctor ignored my pleas to stop, and mocked me as a crybaby. He finished up and turned away, and I felt a tickle on that earlobe. I put my hand up to scratch it, and when I took my hand away, it was covered in blood! Blood was pouring out of my ear. The doctor glanced at it, didn't even bother to reassure me - and yes, I was panicked by this point. Feeling so much pain, followed by bleeding so badly, had me convinced I was going to die, probably horribly.

He turned to my mother, said "How was I supposed to know he had hair in his ears?", and turned back, very matter of factly, to deal with me. No apology, no admission that if he had listened to my protests he might have figured it out before doing so much harm, nothing. I ended up having to lay on one side with that ear up for almost an hour before blood stopped trickling out. And since that day, I have had trouble trusting any doctor.

However, I have seen examples of real compassion, especially from nurses. When I was nineteen, my month-old son was clearly very sick. We took him to the hospital emergency room, where they finally figured out he was having heart problems his pediatrician had completely overlooked. He was going to have to be transferred, by ambulance, to Children's Hospital in Boston. One of the nurses took the time and trouble to reassure us that he had a good chance of doing okay, and promised she would ride with him, which she did. She made a terrifying day much more bearable.

It turned out he had been born with a hole in his heart, and would need surgery as soon as he was big enough that would be possible. He was in the ICU for a while, and I was not in very good shape myself. First, any parent would be upset in that situation. Second, it didn't help my emotions that he had been named after my best friend in high school - who had died. Third, I somehow got the flu, and even after I was over it, I felt terrible. And I wasn't getting enough sleep, or eating decently, as anyone who's snatched meals from hospital vending machines and cafeterias will understand.

On top of that, I had been overprotected as a child to a degree that I was still learning how to interact with normal human beings. Looking back, I honestly think if I'd been raised by wolves I would have ended up with better social skills. I was hyper, inwardly dreadfully shy and trying to hide it by being just the opposite outwardly, and had no idea how to behave. On top of that, I was now frantic and feeling miserable. Anyone who blew my head off with a shotgun would have had more than enough justification.

One particular nurse cared for my son much of the time. Her name was Jan. She was calm, patient, compassionate, and incredibly competent. She managed to such a good job of caring for Michael even I couldn't miss it. On top of that, she had the decency and patience to do all that she could to alleviate my fears, listen to my babbling, and put up with my no doubt incredibly annoying, hyper presence. At that point, I had total distrust of anything medical: on top of my own experiences, I'd grown up listening to my father's stories of how her doctor killed his grandmother, and a vet had maliciously caused the death of my first two cats.

Despite that prejudice, despite an ingrained predisposition to assume anyone even vaguely medical was either incompetent, uncaring, or probably an outright sadist, Jan managed to make such an impression on me I trusted her. When Michael went back for his surgery, as soon as I heard she was the nurse assigned to him after the operation, I calmed right down and relaxed. Yes, there were other very decent doctors and nurses at Children's Hospital. I remember at least some of them. But she was the one who first allowed me to calm down enough to see that. Any ability at all I now have to trust the medical profession, I owe to her.

I hope all the suffering kids, all the ones who died, never managed to destroy her inside. That would be a double tragedy, because I owe her more than I can express, and I'd hate to think she suffered in any way for her caring, and also because it would be such a terrible loss to the patients she cared for and their families. Yet I do know decent nurses can burn out.

How do I know this? One of my aunts was a nurse. When I knew her, she wasn't hard-hearted, and she could be compassionate, but to hear her talk of her patients, she obviously treated them in a brisk, businesslike way. Yet later, I learned more of her history. She was an Army nurse in World War Two, and good enough to be promoted to Lieutenant. She was stationed in Britain, and was given some of the worst cases to care for. So many suffering, horribly maimed and disfigured young men passed through her care that the experience finally broke her. She had what at the time was called a nervous breakdown.

Even to the end of her life, more than fifty years later, she was never completely whole. Her very compassion proved to be the instrument of its own destruction. Who can blame anyone for that? And she did try to be fair. For years, I heard her talk of patients who complained that their IVs hurt. She made it plain she briskly assured them that was impossible, and it was all in their minds. Then, she found herself a patient. She had to have an IV, and she discovered that it caused a burning sensation in her arm that did hurt. She was honestly surprised, and apologetic, and vowed to do her best to minimise the hurt in the future.

I've also visited enough people in hospitals by now, and observed enough, to see that often, it is the system and not the individuals that causes problems. How is any nurse to do their best when they aren't allowed enough time to do so? How are they to be at their best when they are forced to work such long shifts they're exhausted? Yes, it is dreadful for the people who suffer, but it is not always the nurse's fault.

What do I conclude from all this? First of all, that nurses are a perfect example of all the best that humans are capable of, when they choose to be. Second of all, that even when they are not, they are often doing their best. Yes, they need to try to find some way to do even better, for the sake of their victims, but none of us is perfect. We owe it to all nurses to at least stop and try to discover what the problem really is, and if they really should be blamed, no matter how bitterly we might wish to blame them. And finally, for those few who really do lack compassion, who have simply found a job they can use to earn a living and don't care a bit about their patients - and, no matter how few they may be, there do seem to be a few - some way needs to be found to identify those few and force them out of nursing, for the sake of their patients and the sake of all the other nurses whose reputations they stain.

In Memoriam: Neda Soltani

In Iran, a teenage girl stood watching the protests. She was not even taking part, simply peacefully watching with her father. The next moment, she was shot down and lay in the street, bloody, dying. Her name was Neda Soltani. The video of her death is a tragedy. What is even more tragic is that anyone calling themselves a cleric of any religion could support such murder.

The only thing the clerics of Iran may now do to show their religion is not one of murder and savagery is to strip themselves of everything - power, wealth, even possessions, and live in the gutter on the charity of strangers. Neda Soltani's blood cries out, accusing them, staining them with the crimson of murderers, vicious criminals who will lie, kill, oppress, anything to keep themselves in power.

How long must young girls such as Neda live at the mercy of such beasts? How long will the people of Iran permit such injustice among themselves. My heart bleeds for the people living in Iran, for, with the exception of a few savage, murderous monsters who lust after power, they have a horrible choice ahead. They may submit to the injustice, the cruelty, the snatching after power in the name of religion, the murder of innocent young girls, they may make themselves accomplices to all that - or they may face the guns and tanks of the monsters in power.

Make no mistake, such men do not surrender all the privileges they exploit to assuage their terrible lusts easily. They will fight, they will invoke their twisted image of God, they will lie. And the worst among the Iranian people, the bullies, the thugs, the criminals, those are the people who support such a regime because they grow fat and powerful under it. They will fight to preserve it. They will satisfy their own hunger for blood.

And the innocent people, the decent people, will suffer, no matter what they do. I hate that fact, I rage against it in my mind and with my words, and if I lived in Iran I would rage against it in protest. Yet all that rage cannot change the way the world is. When evil men cling to power, the innocent suffer. I can only think of poor Neda Soltani, suffering and frightened on the ground as she lay dying, and pray that she will not be forgotten, that her memory will rise up and smash the evil that grips Iran right now.

May everyone who looks upon the grim, hate twisted face of Iran's "President" see the blood of Neda Soltani that drips from his beard, staining it, thanks to his greedy gulping of power. May every appearance of the "Supreme Leader" with his smug ability to twist the truth, to distort the God he claims to worship into nothing but a pillar of his own power, reveal Neda's lifeblood dripping from his beard. May they choke on her blood, may it spill over and drown them, before the blood they shed drowns more of the innocent people they exploit.

In Memoriam: Stephen T. Johns

Stephen T. Johns died yesterday heroically defending one of the most important sites in the world, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D. C. He was gunned down in cold blood by a man unable to bear the presence of such a museum, one dedicated to proving the awful destructiveness of hate. Mr. Johns died protecting others, and if not for his actions and those of his colleagues, we can only imagine how many visitors to the museum might have died.

I urge everyone who reads this to learn the lesson that was enacted again yesterday, in minature. Hatred is a destructive force. It accomplishes nothing but killing. It deserves only enough attention to understand why it must be avoided. The important story is that of Stephen Johns, who gave his own life in order to save others. That is a legacy which is worthy of being remembered, and I urge all of you to keep Stephen Johns and his family in your thoughts and your prayers, and to remember his sacrifice.

Although what is important was how Mr. Johns, as an individual, acted yesterday, and although I know most of my readers understand this anyway, I do want to make one other point. Mr. Johns happened to be a black man. His murderer was white, someone who endorsed the absurd belief that that single fact, the colour of his skin, made him somehow superior. However, his own actions and those of Mr. Johns yesterday give the lie, once and for all, to that belief.

It is ironic this bigot proved exactly what he would have liked to disprove, but I think it is important to take note of this. A white man, convinced this fact alone made him superior, proved by his own actions he was inferior to the black man he confronted. Superiority is not conferred by skin colour, race, heritage, or anything other than what each of us, as individuals, chooses to do and how we choose to act. And the fact a self professed "genius" could overlook the way in which what he planned to do would demonstrate how very wrong he was illustrates, clearly, how little anyone really learns who chooses to blame all their frustrations on a scapegoat.

I'm very, very sorry Stephen Johns had to die proving that lesson, which most of us already understood, once again, but I'd like to think, if it had to happen anyway, he would be pleased to know his actions did affirm just how dreadful a lie racism and bigotry really are. And if even one person who reads this finally understands the reality of this important lesson for the first time, perhaps some small good can come out of such a great tragedy.

And, although I hardly dare hope so, if this incident, which so emphatically establishes just what pathetic losers all those people are who believe in any sort of racial supremacy, reverses the spread of hate groups through our society like cancer, I hope Stephen Johns will at least be remembered as the man whose heroism brought it about. Whatever the outcome, he deserved better. From now on, when I hear the phrase "only the good die young", the name of Stephen T. Johns will be added to the list of those who come to mind. May God bless you and may you rest in peace, Mr. Johns.

An Apology: To the Government and People of Israel

This is my two hundredth post. I've been busy, but I'd hoped to make this a bit of a celebration. Instead, I'm posting this with tears on my face, confronted with a reality I find unbearable. I am certainly not a blind supporter of US policy, and never have been. There are any number of incidents that disturb me, and policies I oppose. But President Obama, in his speech in Cairo last week, has gone too far.

Go to the link and read the original post which upset me. I have no idea how many things Erick Erickson and I would agree on, but on this issue we agree totally. I can't even bring myself to repeat the offending quote. If I simply retyped it, my fingers would feel filthy for the rest of my life. If you read the archives of this blog for January, you'll see that I tried to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt any new president deserves.

I'll admit, I've never thought any politician would be able to do much to make the world a better place, but some of them at least manage to avoid making it noticeably worse. Now, his defenders will no doubt say it was just a speech, and he was trying to appeal to his audience... No! That is not an excuse. First, because such a comparison is so utterly outrageous, so horrific, it deserves to be treated as the type of propaganda it is: a "Big Lie". Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, would be rubbing his hands in glee if he read that statement. And any statement we can imagine making Goebbels happy is inexcusable.

And it is not just a speech. There is the context as well, a context in which America, a huge country, seeks to use our power to force Israel, a small and young country, into a false peace which will destroy them. The Palestinians in charge have made it plain they are murderers, bent on Israel's total destruction, and that they are willing to violate any promise they make. Any deal under such conditions will eventually prove to be a fatal one.

Let me be very clear here. I don't hate Palestinians as individuals. Many of them may honestly wish to live in peace. I hope they get that wish. I cry when I see reports of women and children killed. The difference is, instead of blaming Israel as so many people do, I look at the facts. Many of those innocent deaths were planned, as a cold calculation, by the leaders who want to use them as propaganda. Many of the ordinary people are misled by their leaders' lies. Their blood is on the hands of their own leaders. And now, the country I live in is siding with those vicious monsters.

We're singling out the very people so many other nations have persecuted and tried to exterminate for thousands of years, and we're trying to hand them over to their enemies. Then, when the inevitable tragedy happens, we'll shrug and say it wasn't our fault, because we really believed the Palestinians wanted peace. Perhaps some of them do - but not those in power! Those in power want blood, and that blood will be on the hands of anyone who helps them.

If you read this, you can ignore it. It isn't very well written; it's a blog post, after all, not a polished editorial. But if you ignore it, you too will be guilty. Every individual has a choice: to speak out and oppose such wrong, or to stay silent. If you stay silent, you will be just like the Germans at the end of World War Two who claimed they knew nothing of the horrors that took place in their own cities and towns. If true, it was because they turned away, because they didn't want to know.

I've sent the following message to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D. C. to let them know that they are not utterly alone in the world. Governments may be against them, but not every individual agrees. I hope you'll consider doing the same.

To the Government and People of Israel;

I am an ordinary American citisen, with no power or authority to speak for anyone but myself. Recently, though, I've been distressed observing some of the policies of the government I live under. In specific, I've found the insistence that the nation of Israel deal on equal terms with terrorists who have consistently violated their earlier obligations, made their intentions to destroy Israel every bit as plain as Adolf Hitler ever made his intent to kill Jews, and who continue to murder innocent Israeli citizens, utterly repugnant. As far as I can see, this serves no purpose other than to cement our President's reputation and gain him political capital as the President who "solved" the tension in the Middle East.

I was not alive when Adolf Hitler was in power, and so I could only hope, if I ever saw anything so terrible happening again, that I would have the sense and the courage to speak out. Now, I do see something that may prove just as terrible happening, although I hope it will not be allowed to go that far. I must at least speak out. I have little power to stop it. I am one voter, with one vote, all but drowned out among the sea of idiots who believe the half-truths and outright lies published in our press. (After seeing how our reporters refuse to print the truth out of fear of reprisals, I am ashamed that I ever considered becoming a journalist.)

Yet I do have the ability to speak, publicly. If I fail to do at least that much, I am guilty of whatever harm is done to Israel. If I were a Jew, with the "right of return", I would move to Israel to stand beside you as you struggle to survive. I am not, so I cannot do that, but I can at least add my voice to those protesting this travesty of justice. I am ashamed to live in a nation that is putting more pressure on Israel than on Iran or North Korea, nations guilty of real crimes. I am ashamed to see an innocent country and her innocent citisens punished in my name.

When I read some of the outrageous statements made by President Obama in Cairo - so outrageous I refuse to even repeat them - I could no longer bear to remain silent. When I consider what the country I live in now stands for, I am sick. I cannot bear the thought of living in a country guilty of actions any Nazi would be proud of. Yet I cannot prevent those actions. I can only apologise for them, insofar as they are carried out in my name, and beg the government and the people of Israel to keep in mind that not every American agrees with the moral depravity which would deliberately equate actions taken only as a defense against unprovoked attacks with those meant to exterminate an entire people.

In fact, I would like to thank Israel and her people for standing firm against terrorists who believe murder is a legitimate political tool. I for one am glad you are there to do what my country has lost the decency or the courage to do.

Wolfram Alpha Launch - Dead in the Water

I've been hearing a lot about Wolfram Alpha and how it will replace Google, since it can parse natural language phrases and figure out the user's intent. Well, tonight I was watching the live broadcast of the preparations to launch Wolfram Alpha for the first time. I actually managed to load the page and run a few queries while the data center was still reporting no connections. (But the page only loaded after they announced they'd activated, about ten to fifteen seconds after, so I was not using the broken, 'back door' version.)

It was interesting to be in at the very start, but rather underwhelming once I tried it out. I admit, I tried a few queries I was sure would not work, just to see how it handled them. It wasn't sure what to do with them. Okay, fine. This is just the launch, and I was asking questions I really didn't expect it to get right. So, for my first real test, I decided to hand it a fairly easy one. I tried phrasing my test question a few ways, and it kept being unsure what to do with the question, so I decided to all but hand the computation engine the answer on a silver platter. After all, I don't know how it works yet, so it is only fair to tweak my question until it ought to be easy for the engine to figure out what I want.

I asked "What major events happened in London, England during the year 1666?" I defined 'London' in the question; I specified that 1666 was a year - and I still got the answer "Wolfram/Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." I have a screenshot of this - it was hard to imagine, after all the hype, it would miss the Great Fire of London. Now it did at least list "More to Explore", so I clicked on "People & History" - which opened with "Harriet Tubman" filled in as a suggestion. This is when I really began to wonder what all the fuss was about. It has a place, a date, and all it can think of to suggest is a woman who lived on another continent nearly two centuries later?

I tried another question, this one admittedly a bit more difficult, but surely one with many potential answers or at least links. "How can I improve my fiction writing skills?" Wolfram Alpha wasn't sure what to do with that, either. Well, it is a less clearly defined question, so perhaps it isn't fair to judge the engine too harshly for shrugging. So I decided to give it something easy, something it could calculate. "Is India larger than America?" It didn't know what to do with that, either. So much for natural language.

I was wondering if it was simply not working, so I decided to try baby talk. "Who was Abraham Lincoln?" Well, that showed me it was working, sort of. It told me he was a head of state - but not of which country - it gave me dates and places for his birth and death, and that was that. No links, no details at all about the man. By this time, my hopes of a real alternative to Google, something that might let me gather information instead of wading through commercial links I have no interest in were fading fast.

Okay, I still wanted to see what it can do, so I figured I'd ask a question with a simple, short answer. "When did the Emperor of Brazil abdicate?" It didn't know how to handle that, either. I asked it an admittedly vague question next, one I hoped it might at least ask me to clarify. "How long would it take a rocket to reach Pluto?" To be fair, this leaves a lot of variables out - but it is exactly the kind of question a normal user might ask. I thought it might at least ask for details. No, it simply didn't know what to do again.

By now, I was desperate to find something it could do. I typed in "November 15 1889" (which, by the way, is the date the Emperor of Brazil abdicated) and it did figure out I'd entered a date, and gave me a few dull details, like how many weeks, days, and years ago this date was. It also told me nothing important happened on that date. Well, perhaps the designers simply weren't that concerned with South America. So I tried again. "November 15 1889 in Brazil". That ought to tell it what to look for. It almost worked. It listed "Republic Day (Brazil)" - the holiday celebrating the end of the monarchy. But it also said "(no known major notable events)". It has the holiday, but not the event it is based on. I might just put this down to the fact it is just a launch, if it weren't for all the other problems I've had, even when I tried to help the engine along with hints.

Still, I decided to give it one more chance to play to its own strengths. I typed in the date of a very major event, the start of the Great Fire of London, "September 2 1666". It offered me an 'input interpretation' that suggested this was a date in the Gregorian calendar - without offering any option for the Julian calendar, still in use in the English speaking world at this date. And it didn't mention anything about any events that might have happened on this day in either calendar.

I don't know. The idea might be sound. After another ten years of fiddling with natural language and letting it look at data, it might actually be able to answer a few questions that aren't mathematical. I deliberately avoided those; after all, Mathematica already exists, and works. If Wolfram Alpha is just another front end for Mathematica, it isn't very impressive at all. Yet of all the "Wow!" comments I read in the chat reports of other users' tests, they all seemed to be asking it to calculate something, and using pretty standard terms to do it. I guess the guys at Google can get some sleep tonight. Meanwhile, all of the researchers who were hoping for more can keep on dreaming, because Wolfram Alpha just is not going to make our lives any easier. Even with the spam, I can pull more information out of Google faster - and as for the suggestion just before the launch that people might forget how to think because Wolfram Alpha will do all the work for them - HA! I was thinking harder than I usually do, trying to lead it to the answers and figure out what kept tripping it up, and it still couldn't manage much.

Yes, these are one user's impressions, typed right after trying it out, and they are harsh. But I do understand every launch like this is someone's dream, and a lot of hard work has gone into it. I don't enjoy crushing dreams, not that my one post will have the power to do that. But if the Wolfram Alpha people ever read this, it will be discouraging for them, and I don't do that lightly. I honestly don't think the hype raised my expectations too high; I just think there isn't very much there to work with. In one way, this is a vindication for something I've long believed, that math and language are so inherently different that a computer will never be any good at language. Yet it is also a huge disappointment, because I wish I could see at least the potential for a useful new tool that might be helpful in research.

Footnote: I'm aware this isn't very well written. It is late, I'm tired, and I just wanted to get my first impressions down. I'd thought I was witnessing something historic, and the impetus of that carried me forward. Now, I'm just deflated.

Annoyances In A Writer's Life

I'm still thinking about "time and attention", which is an important concept to get right. It would seem so simple. Just focus your attention, and spend your time, on those things that are most important. First, of course, you have to decide what is most important. That isn't very difficult for most of us, until you start to realise all the dimensions "important" takes on.

None of us wants to waste time being sick, but it is one of those things that are hard to avoid. That's just a little annoyance, but then there are the big issues. I want to be writing. Instead, I'm trying to keep my computer cooled down while I figure out what's wrong. Since I can't afford a new one right now, it becomes most important to keep the stupid thing from melting down so I can keep on writing.

It is running sluggishly, thanks to some bottleneck of processes at the CPU, and all these racing cycles have it on the verge of overheating any time I try to do much with it. Okay, I know enough about computers to solve this - or at least I thought I did. I cleaned out most of the apps that start up with Windows. I pruned my fonts folder to the lowest level it has ever reached on this machine (which ran fine with more fonts installed for a couple of years). Nothing.

I set up resource meters to see what was gobbling up all my resources. Nothing unusual there, no reason for the trouble. I'm pretty careful, but I downloaded a few more powerful malware scanners, which is where I really got stuck. There seems to be something quietly sitting in the background meddling with every process. Before you helpfully point out in the comments that this must be the malware I was looking for, my research has uncovered the thrilling fact that security software acts in many of the same ways as malware. It hides itself, refuses to identify itself, and makes itself abominably difficult to get rid of.

My particular "infection" is so murky, I have not yet been able to figure out whether it is true malware, or the security software I paid cold hard cash for. Thanks, guys! Either you failed to protect me, or your product is as bad as malware on my system. Either way, I wasted all that cash, and I'm wasting a dreadful amount of time I could be spending writing. I have to work out a plan to uninstall my security software: anti-virus, firewall, and malware detector, and make sure it's gone.

I also have to find alternates so my computer isn't left unprotected. Some of what I have now is freeware, and I'm hoping all of what I put in its place will be free. The best tools I have, the ones I've already been able to verify aren't causing me any trouble at all, are all freeware. Then I have to take the time to back up everything crucial, in case of real trouble, remove the old junk, and install the new stuff so I can see what happens. If that doesn't fix the problem, I'll have to seek out the malware some jerk put on my computer.

What really annoys me is the fact this is too important to ignore, yet it means I'm going to lose a whole lot of writing time. Life is short! Time not spent writing is wasted! (Well, mostly.) When I'm done all that, I need to work out the best (that is, the one that is most helpful without requiring a huge investment of time) method for keeping my attention focused where it ought to be, rather than allowing myself to be distracted by every tantalising article in the tech press.

Avoiding distractions is hard when you're a writer. After all, many ideas come from hunting down this or that intriguing lead. So any promising headline might be a great new idea just waiting to burst onto the stage of my consciousness. Then, of course, saving and managing all those great new resources I find takes up time of its own, but how can I use them if I can't find them again? So time and attention are important resources, but allocating them well is not as easy as it sounds.

After reading an article over at The Technium about preserving information in a digital age, I have some thoughts I hope to expand on here. Preserving information is, or ought to be, an issue of great concern to every writer. The thought of losing any of my manuscripts to any of a thousand possible mishaps fills me with dread. Add to that my background as a former genealogist and my interest in emergency preparedness, and the subject is just too interesting to resist.

Tonight, though, since my theme is annoyances, I'm going to end with something that has been bothering me ever since the election. I'm not very political - my opinion is that either party is just the flip side of the other one. They are both part of "the way things work", and since I believe that needs a real overhaul (my only surprise in this whole economic mess has been how long it took to fall apart), I don't think either choice matters that much.

Oh, it matters a great deal to the specific special interests that stand to gain or lose, but to the average person, life is much the same. So I wasn't convinced the election of either candidate spelled out either our doom or our salvation. Barack Obama isn't a bad man, but I couldn't justify spending my own time and attention (big grin) on whether he or John McCain won.

What I can't ignore is the outpouring of hatred since Barack Obama did win. Instead of accepting their loss and getting over it, this time many of those who opposed him seem determined to keep their fight going. I'm referring to the racial incidents since the election, and especially to the news that there have been significantly more threats against Barack Obama's life than against any other President-elect.

Now, if you oppose the policies he intends to follow, and can make a rational statement of your opposition on those grounds, I may be bored, but I'll at least contend you have a right to your opinions. Even that, of course, is no justification for threatening someone's life. But in this case, it seems the problem is simply the colour of his skin.

Haven't we grown up a bit more than that? Aren't we smarter than that? Some of us are, and I'd hoped most of us were, but it appears that isn't the case. There seem to be people out there who want to kill a man for no better reason than the fact his skin is darker than theirs. Anyone who even has a stray thought along those lines ought to be ashamed of themselves. I know I'm ashamed of my fellow humans.

Even considering killing anyone for any reason is a pretty drastic thing to do. Doing so for no better reason than their outward appearance would be pathetic if it weren't so frightening that so many people seem inclined to do so. So I sit here, sick at heart, horrified at what could happen if just one idiot gets lucky. I'd like to think, if you're reading my blog, that you share my feelings. If so, I hope you'll say a prayer for Barack Obama and for his family, that they will all stay safe and unharmed. And once he is inaugurated, I hope you'll support President Obama. He's going to be facing enough difficulties without that kind of hatred to deal with. No matter which side you're on when it comes to his policies, he doesn't deserve that.

Time, Attention, and Creativity

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the new direction Merlin Mann is taking over at 43 Folders. His new focus is less on productivity, and more on "time, attention, and creative work". It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

What difference does it make if I'm twice as productive, if I'm wasting my time and focusing my attention on something marginal? For widget makers, as long as they can sell the widgets they churn out, I suppose productivity is all they need care about. But what about writers, artists, musicians, and anyone else creative? Wouldn't we all be better off creating something of lasting value, instead of whipping out words (or cartoons, riffs, what have you) no one cares about at the time, let alone three months later?

Yes, a knowledge of how to work more effectively is good; it might mean the difference between a life's work that comprises a single ten thousand page novel exploring the meaning of life, or two ten thousand page novels... Seriously, I do think some effort to improve work habits, learn to get things done more quickly, and so on, does pay off, if only in a bit more time to do the things you really want to.

In my opinion, the important difference is in the effect your efforts have. If they do leave you more time to do the important work, they're worth keeping up. If you're just losing a lot of time downloading cool software you'll use once and forget, you'd probably be happier doing something else. Yes, you have to allow room for mistakes; that's part of the learning process.

The point isn't to be so cautious, so miserly with your time, that you avoid all mistakes. Almost nothing is truly wasted when real creativity is applied to extracting some meaning from it. The point is to remain aware, to stop the experiment as soon as you've learned it is a mistake, instead of going ahead out of habit, or some sense of duty.

How do these thoughts apply to my blog? I haven't fully decided yet whether or not Blogger will remain its permanent home, but I will keep a blog. I will try to post to it with something approaching semi-regularity. As I learn to focus my time and attention where I want them, I may even do a better job of posting. What I won't do is spend much time writing "filler" posts. Either I'll write a post on an issue I'm trying to work out my own thoughts on, as in this case, or I'll post about something I believe may be of real value to my readers, which I also hope this post may prove to be, if it gets you thinking as well.

If you do start thinking about this, remember, the point isn't to focus your time and attention in the place I think it ought to be, or anyone else, for that matter. The point is to make up your mind where you believe your efforts will best be spent. If you're at all creative, you ought to be able to find someplace fulfilling to spend your energies.

NaNo Diary: the Aftermath

The next day, the 29th, I had a party I had (and did want) to go to, later in the evening. I had originally hoped I might slip in a bit more work on the WIP, just to pile up a more impressive word count, even thought I'd officially become a winner the night before. This and that cropped up, however, and since I no longer had the urgent drive to win, I couldn't swat them aside as easily. In any case, I was pretty tired, and not exactly blazing through anything at impressive speed.

After the party, a friend stuck around for a while, so I was up much later than planned. Between that and NaNo, I was exhausted for the final day of November, and barely crawled out of bed. The weather was nasty, too, which didn't help; dark, gloomy, and wet without light, wind, or anything else to recommend it. Bleah! I got up the next day full of good resolutions, but determined first of all to begin catching up on all that backlog from November.

I started to climb that mountain, and discovered it was much higher, and steeper, than I'd guessed from the bottom. A few minor things cropped up, as they always do, just to make things interesting, and left me updating this diary over a week later than planned. Sorry to anyone who was watching the drama, I didn't mean to let you down. A server malfunction on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to didn't help; it dumped a heap of delayed e-mails, including a whole raft of duplicate ones (with no way to sort the dupes except by opening and scanning), into my inbox starting the other day. They're still coming...

For those of you who are wondering; I do like the book, I think it has potential. I plan to finish the first draft as soon as I can catch my breath and settle down to that, then let it sit in the dark for a while before I revise it and decide just what to do with it. I can't let a chance to slaughter a few sacred cows in SF pass, now can I?

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Eight

I sat down and wrote as soon as I could, for as long as I could stand. I knew the next two days would be too busy to fit in much writing, if any, and I wanted to get as far as I possibly could. I had continuity issues, and spent quite a lot of time re-reading, going back and tweaking this or that mention, or adding a line or two as needed. I know you're not supposed to do that during NaNo, as it slows you down, but I prefer a book that is at least mostly coherent.

By the end of my writing marathon, I suspected I'd passed 50,000 words, at least barely, and a quick check of my word count agreed, but only NaNo's validator could tell for sure. I was exhausted, but I pasted the full manuscript into the validator - and won! The official count was 50,794 words, and that in only twenty-eight days instead of the full thirty, with problems dragging me backwards all month. I paused to smile broadly at the result, then went to bed while I still had the energy to do that.