Earl vs. New York 2140

Despite my wavering ambivalence of Kim Stanley Robinson's work, I continue to read his books.

I purchased New York 2140 from the West Edmonton Mall Chapters in 2017. As with many of Robinson's books, I found my greatest enjoyment in his worldbuilding and theme while struggling to work my way through his baffling characterization and prose. (I will say that this time around some of his characters come close to resembling human beings.) But at last, after nine and a half years, I have finished the book. 

In Robinson's imagined future, the sea level in the vicinity of New York has risen some 50 feet. Its residents have adapted by creating a Venice-like existence, Manhattan's streets now waterways. 

Strangely, aside from the comeback of airships--for travel, shipping, and anchoring floating communities in midair--there's very little mention of technological change in this novel, such as details on adaptive mechanisms for the higher sea levels, resilience measures, computers, transportation, what's going on with space exploration, health care, and so on. Aside from the airships and the sea level change, this book feels like it could have taken place in 1988. 

Robinson's central concern here is economics. The novel is a critique of unfettered capitalism and the harm its done to the world and its people. And by the time we reach the end of this 600 page novel, there's a peaceful revolution wherein the people of the United States and elsewhere in the world force the trillionaires to pay their fair share of society's burdens. 

(So this is a science fiction novel, after all, ha-ha, as Robinson might write.)

There are two action scenes--a midair floating city rescue, and a whopper of a hurricane that precipitates the revolution near the novel's end. Robinson somehow manages to make both of these scenes boring. 

This isn't to say that I don't appreciate the novel. I think its message is important, and the solution the characters find at the novel's climax something we might apply to our current situation. Indeed. I think if I'd read this back before Trump, its impact would have been somewhat lessened. As history has played out in recent years, I find myself thinking that Robinson's prescription might be needed about 120 years earlier than predicted. 
 

Request Your Special Ballot for the Alberta Referendumb

Elections Alberta is now accepting requests for special ballots for the October 19 Alberta Referendum. Just fill out the online form and they'll mail you a ballot with all ten referendum questions; fill it out, mail it back, and you've done your civic duty. 

Why Is This Important? 
Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party are subjecting Albertans to a pointless, divisive, misleading, and non-binding referendum. This means that no matter what the results, the Alberta government is under no legal obligation to act on the results of the vote. Given the performance of the UCP government thus far, with its track record of scandals, censorship, pandering to the Trump administration, working to undermine and eventually privatize public institutions, there's every reason to believe that the UCP will simply do what they want and ignore the people--unless of course the vote aligns with UCP values and strategy. 

There are nine blatantly leading questions about immigration and Canadian constitutional matters, all of them dog whistles to cast suspicion and resentment against immigrants and our fellow Canadians in other provinces--but especially the federal government, which happens to be Liberal these days. Surely a coincidence. 

So why vote? Because there's still a slight chance that a massive turnout and a massive vote against the immigration and constitutional questions and a massive vote to remain in Canada will at least give the UCP pause. 

How Should We Vote? 
I can't tell you how to vote, nor can any one else, nor should anyone. But I believe that anyone with common sense, empathy, and a basic understanding of politics should "no" on the first nine questions--not just for the sake of immigrants and marginalized people, which is reason enough, but because voting yes on these issues opens the door to escalating restrictions on personal freedom, loss of privacy, loss of crucial public services, worsening relations with the rest of Canada, and disrespecting the constitutional role of Canada's Indigenous peoples. 

Here's question ten, which of course the UCP has written to obfuscate the issue. Rather than a simple "Should Alberta stay in Canada?" or even "Should Alberta separate from Canada?", we get: 

Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

The available responses are: 

Option 1: Alberta should remain a province of Canada.

Option 2: The Government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.

I'll be choosing option one, and I hope at least 85% of Albertans will do the same. Also, note the wording of option two, which explicitly states that the next referendum, unlike this one, would be binding--should Albertans vote for option two (and should we get shunted into a parallel universe where the Clarity Act doesn't exist). 

My prescription: 
"No to the nine, and Option 1 is just fine." Or maybe "No to the nine, one for the ten, and let's not go through this nonsense again." 

Sad Times for Leaf Rapids

Mom, Dad, and Sean, summer of 1976 or possibly 1977
at the Suwanee River campground near Leaf Rapids

I only lived in Leaf Rapids for seven years or so, but they were foundational years. In the 1970s, Leaf Rapids was a thriving community of great natural beauty, built on the Canadian Shield's bedrock and wound through several acres of thick evergreen forest. It was a place not just for humans, but birds, bears, wolves, and--alas--thick clouds of mosquitoes and sandflies. Fortunately, dragonflies the size of sparrows hunted the pests down to manageable levels. 

Once the Ruttan Mine closed down, though Leaf Rapids has been in steady decline. Population, services, amenities, even local government--all the essentials are in short supply, and as CBC reports, things are getting worse. 

Part of me realizes that with no base for an economy, it's probably pragmatic to move the remaining residents to Lynn Lake or Thompson. But neither of those places ever captured my imagination, nor, in my view, have the natural beauty and ineffable mystery of Leaf Rapids. It was a great place to be a kid. 

 I hope that Manitobans can find a way to save Leaf Rapids. 

Never Get Too Comfortable

For a few days after the 2008 election, my corner office was equipped with the fancy furniture MLAs get. Naturally, it was soon replaced with standard worker drone furniture: 

Alberta's Referendumb

I've avoided writing about Alberta politics very much for the last few years. It's because everything Danielle Smith and her crew of UCP grifters do is engineered to hurt Albertans while enriching themselves and their circle of cronies. They've demonized the LGBTQ+ community, censored books, short-changed municipalities, failed to hold the oil and gas industry accountable for environmental cleanup coasts, and encouraged a separatists movement to divide Canada. And ever since she became Premier, Danielle Smith several of her MLAs have been openly cozying up to Donald Trump and his circle of criminals. 

All this infamy has come to a head with the announcement of Alberta Referendum 2026. If you can stand to explore the site, you'll discover the NINE (mis)leading questions Albertans will be asked to vote on this October. You'll find the carefully crafted findings of the Alberta Next Panel, an exercise in finding the answers they wanted to divisive questions. 

Speaking of the questions: five on immigration (controlled by the federal government) and four on the Canadian Constitution. 

All nine questions are specifically crafted to foster resentment of immigrants and the rest of Canada. Even if Albertans overwhelmingly voted YES on all nine questions, Alberta would be put through years of painful, harmful negotiations with the rest of the country. And we would deserve the scorn of our neighbours from coast to coast. 

The most obvious insult to our intelligence? Referenda aren't binding in Alberta. So even if Albertans vote NO on each of the nine questions, the Smith government can do whatever it wants, given they have a majority in the Alberta Legislature and a proven willingness to use the notwithstanding clause to overcome any court challenge. 

Indeed, the Smith government only just announced that Alberta will be switching to permanent daylight savings time--despite the recent referendum where Albertans rejected that very change. Wherever you stand on time zones, why would any Albertan believe the UCP would obey the outcome of any referendum now? 

This also shows that the Alberta government will clearly not enact the referendum question put forward by Forever Canadian, whose petition reached the required number of signatures even before the provincial government changed the rules to make a competing petition by separatists easier to succeed. In fact, Alberta separatists are still on the streets collecting signatures, even though today's announcement seems to make their efforts moot--in that the UCP government have done their work for them. 

Every Albertan with an ounce of sense must take this threat seriously. Please--vote NO on all nine questions on October 19. Even the ones that sound reasonable, like reforming the Senate, are engineered to increase division and, contrary to what Smith and the UCP claim, tear Alberta away from Canada and give future UCP governments more and more power to trample human rights, privatize pubic institutions, and enrich the one percent to the detriment of the rest of us. That's their endgame. 

And the gall--the absolute, unmitigated gall--to drape their separatist, hateful website with the maple leaf. And to claim it's about "a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada." Goebbels would be proud. 

Caspian Fiasco and Delgard Darvish

I'll say this about generative AI tools; if nothing else, they're handy for creating portraits of Dungeons & Dragons characters. Pete is starting an online D&D campaign next month, and I'm trying to decide between the rich, spoiled swashbuckler above or the taciturn wanderer in exile below. I simply ask the engine to create an oil painting in a particular style, describe the character's appearance based on my character sheet's ability statistics and their list of equipment. 

That being said, these works appear pretty lifeless to me and can't capture the spirit of what a talented human artist can achieve--artists that the AI engines have frankly, ripped off without compensation, because I don't think the fair use doctrine really applies here. Once again, as technology advances, we come closer and closer to the day when no one will be able to work. We desperately need mechanisms to redistribute the wealth that's come from all these productivity gains so that even more people aren't starving in our streets. That could be a role 90% of us could be playing sooner than we think. 
 

Memory Wall

I picked up this wall-hanger thing for sixteen bucks and used it to display about 75% of my collection of buttons and pins dating from the 1970s to the 2020s. This saves a little bit of closet space and, more importantly, puts the nostalgia out where I can see it.
 

Forever Canadian: Signed

Thanks to a couple of volunteers from our very own condo complex, Sylvia and I signed the Forever Canadian petition today. If the petition collects slightly less than 300,000 signatures, the question "Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?" will be on a referendum ballot for all Albertans to vote on, beating the competing separatist referendum tacitly supported by Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP provincial government to the punch. 

And on Saturday, August 16, the Forever Canadian organization is opening a permanent petition signing location at the Kingsway Legion, which is located at 14339 50th Street, Edmonton. You can sign in the front lobby between noon and 8PM Thursday to Saturday and from 10:30 AM to 3:00 PM on Sundays. 

No online signatures are accepted for this petition, so if you want to support Alberta remaining within Confederation, please find the time to sign as soon as possible. Canada isn't perfect, but Alberta alone would most likely be quickly absorbed the United States, with all the downsides that entails--from widespread gun violence to private health care to the very real threat of fascism completely taking over that nation in the imminent future. 

I don't want any part of that, and I imagine most people reading this blog agree with me. 

Earl Am Canadian, Am You?

Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party government, clearly in the thrall of their Maple MAGA behind-the-scenes leaders, have long been planning to ask Albertans, via referendum, if the province should leave Confederation. Leaving aside the question if doing so would even be constitutional, this unnecessary and divisive proposition should be fiercely rejected. 

Fortunately, former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister and MLA Thomas Lukaszuk has more sense than Smith and the UCP and has beat the provincial government to the punch with his own referendum question: 

Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada? 

Yes I do, and if you do too, please support the referendum here. You can donate to defray expenses, volunteer, canvas for signatures, or simply pledge to sign the petition--it needs roughly 300,000 signatures to proceed to official referendum stage, while Smith's "Let's separate!" petition will require only 177,000--because of course they changed the rules. 

Why does my title sound like Bizarro wrote it? Because we're clearly living in Bizarro World these days. Let's try to round off the corners of our square earth, bit by bit. It can start here. 

Unconscionable

Today Alberta's UCP government announced most Albertans will have to pay for COVID-19 vaccinations starting this fall.

The government claims this is because over half of Alberta's supply wasn't used over the last couple of years. This isn't surprising, since premier Smith's government has consistently downplayed the severity of COVID-19 and refuses to properly publicize the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots.

Currently, Alberta has the highest rate of measles cases (per capita) in Canada. This is what happens when a government abdicates its responsibility to debunk anti-vaxxers and instead implicitly supports anti-vax messages through its policies. 

Anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-vax thinking has brought measles back from the brink of extinction--a disease that can cause death and permanent disability. 

Just like COVID-19. 

Sylvia and I can and will pay for our booster shots. We have that privilege. But what about the majority of Albertans, living paycheque to paycheque, who can't afford a shot expected to cost over $100? I guess they'll just have to take their chances. 

And of course this makes life even more difficult and hazardous for the small minority of people who legitimately cannot be vaccinated for health reasons. These people are usually protected by herd immunity, but Alberta's COVID-19 vaccination rate has dropped down to around 13 percent. Herd immunity requires over 90% of any given population to be vaccinated to protect those who cannot be vaccinated. 

The UCP's decision to charge people for a life-saving vaccine could very well sicken and even kill scores of people. It will likely place immense strain on our already overworked health care providers.

Unconscionable. 

The Compassion and Excellence of Alberta's Health Care Professionals

The last few days have been pretty rough for the Woods family. But in the midst of worry and stress, we are united in our gratitude for the nurses, doctors, porters, volunteers, and lab technicians who have been unfailingly kind and relentless in their efforts to figure out why Mom is currently sick and how to heal her. She is in very good hands and we are optimistic that soon she'll be back home. It helps immeasurably that Mom is incredibly tough and brave. 

In Canada, we are blessed to have a robust publicly-funded, publicly-delivered health care system, despite unrelenting efforts by right-wing politicians to privatize that system. Our current experience reinforces my belief that Canadians everywhere should recognize that our public system needs our consistent moral, financial, and political support.

We hope to see you tomorrow, Mom, or the next day, when you're well enough. Angels and ministers of grace be with you. 

Watch the Dynamite Lady Blow Herself Apart

Many years ago, I remember laughing at a commercial for a monster truck show. The highlight was when the announcer screamed "Watch the Dynamite Lady BLOW HERSELF APART!" 

Feels like the Dynamite Lady really blew herself apart today. That I painted this miniature a few days ago is an odd coincidence or an unfortunate portent. You decide. 
 

Trump's Song(s)

I've been following electoral-vote.com since 2004; it's my go-to site for reasoned analysis of politics in the United States. A few days ago the site's writers asked readers to suggest appropriate theme songs for Donald Trump. I did so, and they ran my choices today: 

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/May11-3.html

I'm "E.W. in Edmonton, AB, Canada," around the bottom third of the page. My choices were "Entrance of the Gladiators" and "Frolic," for those who don't care to follow the link. My reasoning is explained at the electoral-vote link above. 

Command Z

Here's a neat idea: Steven Soderbergh has released Command Z, a series of interconnected shorts about time travelling to fight climate change. To watch, you pay 8 bucks, all of which goes to support Children's Aid and the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. 

I've just finished the series, and while it's not peak Soderbergh, its heart is in the right place and there are some good laughs and thoughtful commentary on our present catastrophe. Plus, giving 8 bucks to charity to see what amounts to a feature-length film is a way better deal than most moviegoing opportunities. Three out of five stars, with a bonus half-star for trying to change the world for the better.

Perhaps a Short Era of Bad Feelings

Obviously I'm not happy the United Conservative Party won the most seats in yesterday's provincial election. I find most of their policies regressive, abhorrent, and inimical to human happiness and quality of life not just in Alberta, but beyond. 

On the other hand, the provincial New Democrats just formed the largest Official Opposition in Alberta history, and they have grown their vote share election after election. It's possible that beginning in 2015, Alberta entered an era of not-necessarily-uninterrupted right-wing rule. New Democrats have proven that progressives can win and can come close to winning. 

Indeed, had less than two thousand votes swung from the UCP to the NDP in Calgary, the NDP would have won a majority of seats. As things stand, when you consider the UCP needs to elect a speaker and one of their MLAS will sit as an independent because of her sickening comments about transgendered people during the campaign, the UCP's majority is really quite narrow--only a handful of seats. The election being this close may possibly stop the UCP from being too cavalier about inflicting their worst policies on Albertans, lest they swing just a few too many moderates away from the UCP and over to the New Democrats in 2027. 

It's a sliver of hope for more rational governance. That's what I cling to today. 

Alberta Votes 2023: A Choice of Eras

About 30 minutes from the time I write this, news stations will begin to report on the results of the 2023 Alberta provincial election. This time around, Albertans are choosing between the centrist New Democratic Party led by Rachel Notley and the United Conservative Party led by Danielle Smith. 

Should Rachel Notley's NDP win, I expect a middle-of-the-road government that will attempt to shore up Alberta's public health care system, balance the needs of the oil and gas industry with our collective need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect human rights, and reinvest in public education. I also expect a government reasonably free of drama and scandal. In other words, I expect something like Rachel Notley's first government term from 2015-2019. 

Should Danielle Smith's UCP win, I fully expect her government attempt to further privatize our health care, foster the ever-vocal alt-right movement in Canada, get rid of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in favour of an Alberta police force, withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan in favour of an Alberta pension plan, slash taxes for the rich and corporations while increasing user fees for public services (including health care), and, Florida-style, attack marginalized people of all kinds through vindictive legislation. I also expect a greater-than-average level of corruption. 

Historians in the United States refer to a ten-year period from about 1815 to 1825 as the "Era of Good Feeling," renowned for its unusual optimism among the public and the political class. 

I feel like we've been in an "Era of Bad Feeling" since 2016 or so. The roots of the Trump presidency go far, far back into American history, of course, but Trump gave racists and regressive permission to say the quiet parts out loud--to openly threaten anyone not on their team, to embrace ethnocentrism and racism, and to advocate against democracy. 

I don't believe Rachel Notley's team has the power to usher in an Albertan Era of Good Feeling. I think they could deliver an Era of Relative Calm, or perhaps an Era of Hints of Better Times Ahead. 

I do believe that a UCP victory will lead to a made-in-Alberta Era of Bad Feelings. It'll be a place where the fearful and the cruel will be given outsized influence, while the thoughtful and the compassionate will have to fight to hold back the tide of regress. 

I have no idea what Albertans will choose. We'll know soon enough. 

Generation X-tinction

Last night Sylvia was out visiting Norma, so I puttered around watering the plants and trying not to choke on the wildfire smoke. This photo doesn't really do justice to the terrible air quality.
 

This one comes closer, though. My frame of mind is pretty pessimistic these days, what with <gestures at everything>. As I was shooting some photos of the apocalyptic sky, I thought about my own privilege, and how Generation X seems to be the last generation to have had a shot at living prosperously--that is, a lot of us own our own homes, we have well-paying jobs, and (perhaps) a chance at a decent retirement. Aside from a very lucky few, the Millennials, Gen Z, and those following have the cards stacked against them in terms of career opportunities, relatively stable government, general affordability, and so on. 

The post-war boom of the mid-20th century gave us the illusion and the expectation that generation after generation would enjoy more prosperity than the one preceding it. That notion has fallen apart, thanks to a tiny minority of psychopathic billionaires and their political enablers working together to hoard the planet's wealth while destroying the biosphere in the process. 

And in the midst of all this, polls still suggest that this month's provincial election is still a 50-50 race between Rachel Notley's NDP and Danielle Smith's UCP, who are hell-bent on privatizing our public institutions and reviving the coal industry even in the midst of wildfires burning down communities and poisoning our air.

What a world we've made for ourselves. 

About "Chekov's Gun"

Until this week, my attempts to write fiction have been undisciplined; typically, I just start writing. I usually have a theme in mind, and a loose plot, but I've never really made any effort to follow the formal structure of a short story--until "Chekov's Gun." So here's the story behind the story . . . 

Where No Earl Has Gone Before
For many years, I've thought there should be a Star Trek story that played on Ensign Pavel Chekov's name and that of playwright Anton Chekhov, who famously believed that if you introduce a gun at the beginning of a story, it must go off before the story is over. Otherwise, why put the gun there in the first place? "Gun," of course, could mean any significant story element, and Chekhov himself didn't always follow this principle. Even so, the pun was too delicious to resist, especially since Chekhov and Chekov are, of course, Russian. 

I was originally going to call the story "Chekov's Phaser" to align with Star Trek lore, but reverted to "Chekov's Gun" to make the pun even more apparent. 

An idea doesn't have much value unless it's used to create something, and at first I had in mind a murder mystery involving the theft of Chekov's phaser and its use in the murder of a visiting alien diplomat. But mystery writing requires knowledge and techniques that I simply don't have. I'd have to come up with something else. 

Spectre of the Gun
Guns, and weapons in general, loom large in human culture and our collective artistic tradition. Guns are particularly potent symbols because practically anyone can wield the power of life and death in one hand with barely any training at all; to kill has become practically effortless, and that reality has resulted in millions of deaths in just a few centuries. 

In action-adventure stories, guns and their consequences are often trivialized or even fetishized; they're tools of empowerment that allow heroes to overcome evil or villains to slay innocents. Film noir, crime stories, and mainstream literature sometimes treat guns with greater ambiguity, treating the problem of violence more seriously; revisionist westerns do this, too. 

But by and large, it seems to me that most people, if they think about weapons at all, probably have a neutral or positive view of guns as tools for hunting or defence. 

In Star Trek and nearly ever other science fiction series, guns are ubiquitous. But unlike, for example, Battlestar Galactica, Space: 1999, Babylon 5, and so on, weapons in Star Trek are usually seen as a last resort; we see this repeatedly through character dialogue and actions. 

That suggests there exists a strong cultural taboo in the world of Star Trek against indiscriminate use of lethal force--much stronger, I would say, than the real world of today, in which petty criminals and innocents are far too often killed by the very police who are theoretically supposed to protect them; where wars continue to rage, and are seen as justified; where mass shootings kill children and trigger only thoughts and prayers. 

Patterns of Force
On the other hand, we've seen many characters on Star Trek take lives. In the very first episode broadcast, Doctor McCoy kills a clearly sapient alien who's threatening Captain Kirk. Commander Riker guns down an alien assassin (after warning her several times to stop threatening her victim). Captain Picard kills at least one of the terrorists attempting to rob materials from his ship. Miles O'Brien kills several Cardassians during a prisoner rescue. And that's not to mention the scores of deaths resulting from starship combat. Worf kills the man who murdered his wife. Major Kira made a career of killing Cardassians during her time in the Bajoran resistance. 

Even so, if a heroic character in Star Trek kills someone, there's usually a justifiable reason for it; or if not justifiable, at least the killings are (mostly) legal in the world of the show. 

Still, it bothers me that we never see anyone on Star Trek go through any kind of emotional trauma after they've vaporized someone or chopped them in half with a sword. In a television production, we can assume that this trauma occurs offscreen. But I think it would be valuable to Star Trek if the creators devoted at least one episode to the costs of killing, even when the circumstances seem to leave no other option. 

The Enemy Within
Here, then, was my theme for the story; the price of killing. I wanted to explicitly show that even if it appears the characters on Star Trek sometimes take lives without seeming to feel any remorse, I think if we are to have any sympathy for our heroes we have to believe their consciences weigh heavily in the aftermath. 

Once I had my theme in mind, I just needed to put poor Chekov in a situation where he would be forced to kill--and be forced to face the consequences of his choice. 

A Private Little War
Once putting my thoughts in order, I turned all the way back to grade school Language Arts classes to recall the structure of a short story: exposition, complication (or conflict), which together form the rising action; the climax; and the falling action, including the denouement or resolution. Following this structure ensured I put the right elements in the story in the right places without missing anything important. 

Wink of an Eye
Following a formal structure helped clarify my thinking and gave me the confidence I needed to try some little tricks; for example, while Chekov's phaser is the obvious "gun" referenced in the title, it's not the only one: Chekov's esper rating and the bronze gunk he gets on his clothing also play key roles in the plot. 

I have one aside: During revision, I discovered a continuity error, and at first I wrote it out--but then, indulging a bit of playfulness, I left it intact. Why? Because the original series had all kinds of continuity errors, and inserting one by accident tickled me a little. Can you spot it? 

Pierre Trudeau Action Figure

Here's what Stable Diffusion came up with when I prompted it to create an image of Pierre Trudeau as an action figure. Not too bad, all things considered. Too many fingers, though...
 

Cock of the Perp Walk