Someone's Thoughts on Avatar

I have not written a post about Avatar myself. I had considered doing so. I've seen the movie twice and I enjoyed it very much both times. I felt that to write about it, however, would require an investment of time that I did not have available. Fortunately, plenty of others have written about it, and I have read many reviews and critiques. Today I discovered what, in my opinion, is the finest review of the film out there, by Andries du Toit, author of the blog, A Subtle Knife. It hits everything that I would have tried to address, plus a whole lot more... and it even refers to two of my favorite works of literature along the way: The Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials. Give it a read... it'll be well worth your time spent.

Soon To Be Read

My previous post was about the last book that I finished reading. This is about the next one that I plan to start (not likely to be the next book that I finish, as I've got several others in progress already): Anathem by Neal Stephenson. The massive hard-bound book was given to me by one of my colleagues over a year ago and it has been sitting on a shelf taunting me ever since. My attention was recently redirected to Anathem by a friend (and frequent blog commenter), George Berger, who has just had his highly eloquent, expertly informed and intelligently critical review of Anathem published on The Zone, a prominent magazine-style website devoted to Science Fiction. Congratulations George! I know, based on George's review and the recommendations of other friends, that I will thoroughly enjoy the book. The two reasons that I've taken so long to start it are 1) that I'm pretty sure that I will be entirely absorbed by it and will have difficulty doing anything productive until it's finished and 2) it's so damned big that it'll be a royal pain in the ass to haul around with me. The second obstacle was recently eliminated when I received a Kindle for my birthday and promptly downloaded Anathem. As for the first problem... well, I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

Recently Read

Yesterday I finished reading China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. I'm not sure how to even begin to describe it: there are so many overlapping genres and themes represented that to start by calling it science fiction or fantasy or social commentary and then adding appropriate modifiers and descriptors seems inadequate. It was certainly an enjoyable read -- one of those books that consumed my waking (and often sleeping) consciousness and that kept me happily distracted from many other activities, obligations and other stressors (as you may have noticed, my blogging has fallen off of late) -- and even as mere entertainment for its own sake, this book is well worth reading. My own ambivalence about whether to call it fantasy or science fiction is reflected in the variety of awards and honors that the book has received (or for which it has been nominated). When talking to people about the book over the past few weeks I have most often described it as a science fiction novel set in a fantasy world. Yes, there are all manner of strange fantastical creatures coinhabiting the city of New Crobuzon in the world of Bas-Lag, and yes, there is magic (referred to as thaumaturgy) scattered fairly heavily throughout, but the protagonist, Isaac Grimnebulin, is a freelance scientist who seems to approach these magical aspects of his world (as any scientist should) as though they are merely phenomena that have yet to be adequately investigated. He is only really interested in thaumaturgy, however, to the extent that it can help him further his real work: demonstration and utilization of a theoretical virtually limitless source of energy. Early in the novel Grimnebulin is contracted to help a formerly winged creature (whose wings were taken as punishment for an unspeakable crime) regain the power of flight. As he explores the various approaches to the problem, Grimnebulin collects a vast array of winged animals for study, some of which are far more dangerous than he initially realizes. In his frenzy for knowledge and successful completion of his project, he unwittingly unleashes a creature that threatens the existence of all sentient being in New Crobuzon. Most of the book follows Grimnebulin and his various companions and acquaintances as they seek to control this unholy terror, and the slimily disgusting and horrifically painful ordeals that they endure along the way are described so skillfully that as a reader I found myself cringing, crying and cowering along with them. I could go on describing the story, but ultimately it wasn't the story itself that kept me reading -- it was the characters. They are drawn with incredible depth and their conflicts (both internal and external) are explored with elegant finesse. Grimnebulin, for example, is an overweight scientist who has abandoned the mainstream academic world in order to have more freedom to pursue his somewhat unorthodox ideas. He has been careful not to burn bridges however, and maintains frequent (if somewhat strained) relations with his former mentor and the University. As might be expected of a freelance scientist, he's constantly struggling for funding and New Crobuzon doesn't seem to offer much in the way of grants for independent investigators. So when a lucrative offer comes along he is forced to balance the practical demands of life against his driving intellectual passions. He also has another passion: his Khepri girlfriend, Lin. The Khepri are a species whose females have humanoid bodies with giant scarab bodies for for their heads (yes, I had a hard time with this at first too -- there's no hint of how such a race might have evolved -- but eventually Mieville's writing helped me overcome my doubts and just accept it) and interspecies relationships between humans and Khepri are taboo at best. Lin is an artist, however, and among her avant-garde circle of friends she is allowed to be a little more open about Grimnebulin than Grimnebulin can be about her with his academic crowd. This asymetry in the relationship leads, predictably, to tensions that are just a small sample of the interspecies (and inter-class) tensions that abound throughout the city. So where are we now... we've got a science fiction story set in a fantasy world that is replete with magic, monsters and complex relationships... What else can we add to the mix? How about AI? Yes, artificial intelligence plays a big role in the story too, as some of the steampunk robots (or constructs, as they are called) develop viruses that usually result in system failure, but very rarely lead to self-awareness. The difference between artificial intelligence and the consciousness of living organisms becomes very important as the two classes of intelligent beings alternately collaborate with and antagonize one another in their efforts to control the devastation being visited upon New Crobuzon. Tying the story together and serving as periodic interludes are the first-person, present-tense reflections of Grimnebulin's un-winged flight-hungry client who comes from a very different part of Bas-Lag and whose values and perspectives differ greatly from those of the rest of the characters. His story is both inspiring and tragic, and is only fully revealed at the conclusion of the book... a conclusion, I might add, that feels far more like that of a modern literary novel than that of an action filled SF or fantasy thriller. It's a conclusion which does not bring resolution of many many of the story strings and which will probably leave many readers feeling unsatisfied. I found it pleasantly credible, however, as in (at least my own experience of) real life, the endpoints of the various processes, projects and problems rarely coincide. So give it a read... and let me know what you think. It's one of the stranger more unexpected books I've read in quite some time.

Power

One of my favorite quotes about power is from Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune:

"It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible."

This is part of longer passage about the failings of governments:

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

The theme is repeated elsewhere throughout the book:

"Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it."

...and...

"We should grant power over affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase the reluctance."

I recently read Iain M. Banks new book, Transition, and discovered this particularly eloquent statement of the same basic idea:

"Only people already riddled with the internalized special pleading and self-importance that too much power brings could even start to imagine that this might be in any way sustainable."

It the conclusion of this longer reflection on the problem of life extension and/or immortality for the "wise" and the powerful:

"The old and powerful never want to let go. They always think they're both profoundly indispensable and uniquely right. They are always wrong. Part of the function of aging and dying is to let the next generation have its say, its time in the sun, to sweep away the mistakes of the previous age while, if they're lucky, retaining the advances made and the benefits accrued. It is an insane conceit. Power always drives to perpetuate itself, but this is a phenomenal extra distillation of idiocy. Only people already riddled with the internalized special pleading and self-importance that too much power brings could even start to imagine that this might be in any way sustainable."

These quotes bring to mind a number of current situations. There are myriad obvious examples of corruption among the powerful, but I'm especially struck by the applicability of these quotes to the appalling lack of term limits for elected officials AND the level of compensation enjoyed by such officials.

In my perfect world higher education would be freely available to all and would be a requirement for eligibility to vote. Those who chose to pursue higher education would also be required to repay their years of education in service work, for which they would receive a decent living wage. Those who serve well would be promoted to higher levels of authority—some of them to governing positions, as representatives of their peers—but not to never levels of pay (pay grade during service years would depend on number of dependents in the household). Once their terms of service were complete, they would be returned to the working population and would not be allowed to hold official positions again. If they were particularly passionate or motivated, they would be free to communicate their opinions to their representatives in government; they would have no official say (beyond their vote as an ordinary educated citizen, of course) in matters of state though.

OK. Now, dear readers, please start shooting holes in my utopian scheme so that I can begin work on plugging and repairing them.

Ronnie

Knock.knock.knock.

Today at 10:00 in the morning I am sitting at my computer putting together this week's laboratory medicine quiz for the pathology residents. Which of the following fluids may be transfused simultaneously through an infusion line with red blood cells? I don't actually know the answer off the top of my head, but that doesn't really matter. I just pick questions from a question bank, copy them to the body of an email and send them out to the residents. They have a week in which to send me the answers. At the end of the year the person with highest percentage correct answers will get a cash prize. Usually about $150, but it depends on how generous the attending pathologists feel when I make the rounds, asking for contributions. It's a bit of a pain having to go from office to office, knocking on the doors, asking for contributions for this year's laboratory medicine quiz contest, but in the end all of the pathologists are great about it. They like to see us engaged in friendly intellectual competition and they understand that this is a fun way for us to get ourselves to study some rather dry topics. We're all intelligent, motivated, successful young doctors, after all. Of course they don't mind putting $10 or $20 dollars in the pot for our collective educational motivation.

Knock.knock.knock.

I go to the front door, dreading the possibilities. A pair of young, bright-eyed Jehovah's Witness missionaries for me to deflate with my superior biblical knowledge? A real-estate agent asking permission to post signs in our yard, directing people to his open house? A 2o-year-old single mother of three selling the latest, greatest cleaning supplies that are both environmentally friendly and sure to remove grease, rust, blood, and fruit juice stains from even the stubbornest of surfaces?

Knock.knock.knock.

It's Ronnie.

Ronnie is a young man who lives in the neighborhood with his diabetic father. Ronnie works two part-time minimum wage jobs and does yard work and other odd jobs when he can find them. Ronnie's father is severely disabled, cannot perform any sort of manual labor, and has never been trained for any other type of work. Between Ronnie's meager earnings and his father's social security benefits, the two of them are usually able to pay for rent and utilities, with just a little left for groceries. Ronnie's father is on Medicaid and most of his medications are covered, but there is a $34 copay each month for the insulin to control his blood sugar.

It is winter here and it gets fairly cold at night. The bill for heating gas in the winter months can easily reach four or five times that of the summer months. When forced to choose between paying the gas bill and the copay for his insulin last week, Ronnie's father decided to keep himself and his son warm. He did not tell Ronnie that there had not been enough money for insulin. Ronnie only found out when he found his father on the floor, unconscious and barely breathing. Diabetic ketoacidosis. An ambulance trip. A day and a half of treatment and observation in the emergency room. A day of work lost for Ronnie. Ronnie and his father return home this morning to a house with heat and a little bit of food, but with no $34 for the insulin copay. They will not have $34 dollars again until Ronnie's next paycheck, five days from now.

Knock. knock. knock.

Ronnie hates doing this. He hates having to walk around the neighborhood asking for yard work. He hates knowing that all of us in our warm homes, happy and content with our own lives, will be made to feel uncomfortable by his neediness, by his very existence. He hates knowing that many of us will look through our peep-hole, see a slightly bedraggled young man, and automatically assume that he needs money for his next fix. Ronnie hates to ask for help. He also hates to see his father dying.

Knock. knock. knock.

Ronnie tells me about his last two days in the emergency room with his father. I already know why he is here at my door and I'm desperately trying to think of some odd jobs that I can have him do around the place. $34. On my resident's salary, that's about two hours worth of work. Can I find two hours worth of work for Ronnie to do? Two hours that he'll save me so that I can feel justified giving him the money to keep his father alive? Should I have him pick up the dog shit in our back yard? Should I have him pull weeds from the front yard that is going to be re-landscaped in a couple months anyway? Should I just give him the money and send him away so that I can get on with my day?

Ronnie and his father are a small but fairly representative sample of a huge and rapidly growing segment of our population: the underserved, underemployed, underpaid, and largely unheard poor. The poor. The poor without adequate access to healthcare. The poor without adequate government assistance for food and utilities. The poor who are reminded of how much it sucks to be poor in this country every time they have to ask for help. The poor who were born to the similarly poor. The poor who are marginalized when it comes to educational and employment opportunities. The poor who grow up undernourished because they're eating the shitty processed food that is less expensive per calorie than the healthy balanced diet that their developing bodies and minds really need. The poor who make the rest of us uncomfortable with their very existence. The poor who are desperate and sometimes steal to make ends meet. The poor who suffer at least as much mental illness as the rest of us, but who have virtually no access to treatment for such disease and must therefore self medicate with alcohol and illicit drugs. The poor who commit suicide far more frequently than the rest of us. The poor who are a nuisance to the rest of us, a problem about which we'd rather not have to think. The poor who turn to drugs to temporarily escape their poverty, only to find themselves enslaved to substances and dealers. The poor who cross an arbitrary line in the desert looking for employment, only to be arrested and deported... or to die of thirst under the hot sun when they've lost their way and are afraid to stay close to a road for fear of being arrested. The poor who have seen their mothers and older siblings beaten and raped and therefore figure that it's part of life and don't seek help or refuge when their turn comes. The poor who are far more likely to be murdered. The poor who join gangs and commit horrible acts of violence in an attempt to gain some sense of control and empowerment. The poor who rot in prisons for the rest of their productive lives while their families grow up, grow apart, grow old. The poor who bother us, interrupting our productive, healthy, happy lives by asking for help.

$34. A minuscule grain transferred across the fulcrum of economic disparity. A sick sad reminder of that day in the near future when the the situation will recur, when that $34 won't be available and the ambulance may or may not arrive in time. A reminder that the status quo just isn't enough when it comes to health care in this country.

Knock. knock.knock.

Frankl, Avatar, and most of all, Star Trek

Sorry folks, but I'm not literate, eloquent or creative enough to have drawn all of the above listed themes together. Fortunately someone else is. Areophany of Martian Utopia Cafe has written (yet another) truly excellent post. So good that I think I'll have to go back and read it again very soon. It is, in part, a reflection on finding meaning in an all too often cruel and ridiculous world, and in part an homage to the Star Trek novels, in the form of a series of well crafted mini-reviews. I've never read any of the Star Trek novels, but now that I know where to start, I think I might just have to.

Selah

Selah is the transliteration of a Hebrew word that occurs frequently in the Psalms of David. There seems to be some debate about the correct interpretation, but the one that I was told most frequently as a child was, "stop and consider what you've just heard." Another translation is, "Let those who have eyes see and those who have ears hear." It is also used in some passages as a verb meaning to weigh or to measure against.

All of these are appropriate responses to a recent post by Areophany at Martian Utopia Cafe about the atrocious Isreali policies toward Palestinians.

So read his post; read the references; weigh his words; stop and consider. Selah!