We have to stand for something or we'll fall for anything, why I support Public Radio and Public Television in the United States

We interrupt our regularly scheduled books, snark, and Sonars for a teensy rant about the importance of NPR.

National Public Radio is an important resource in American Media.

NPR is fighting to uphold a Code of Ethics. NPR is not loud, it is not flashy. Journalism is not what it once was, and many might think that NPR is fighting a losing battle. Nevertheless, they are there. 

Each of you stands for something. Every, gloriously different one of you. In spite of our differences, we can surely respect the crucial importance in a democracy of a news outlet that is not driven by commercials or profit, but by individuals, adhering to a code of conduct, driven by a desire to report ideas and incidents for us to assess. An organization that delivers news in such a way that we can come to our own conclusions and make the best decisions we can make. That is why I support Public Radio and Public Television in the United States.

Where do you get most of your news and information? Take a good, objective look at that resource. How does it serve you? What is its Code of Ethics? Does it have one that you can find? What does that outlet stand for and how does it demonstrate that stance to you? Who pays the bills?

In the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling, through the character of Mr. Weasley, cautioned us not to trust anything if you couldn’t find its brain.

Where is the brain in that media outlet?  Does your major news source deliver both news and commentary? Can you clearly distinguish between the two? Are the answers to these questions consistent with your personal values and the importance of reliable information in a democracy?  

Tell me what you find below. I don’t bite. I really want to know what you find. Let’s share our ideas here and learn something from one another. 

Book Review: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card

Sonar X10 brought this book home from the school library last week.  I love his school library and its librarian.  They have a fantastic collection, targeted so well to 10-12 year olds. Every time I go in there (which is every week when I volunteer) I find some new treasure and love the librarian even more.  I’m not sure what compelled me to read this one, other than that it was here, and I’ve heard a lot about it. 

This science fiction novel depicts an Earth after repelling a violent invasion by an insectoid alien species, viciously called The Buggers.  The technology is more advanced and global politics are settled into treaties of cooperation based on the threat of a return invasion.  Enough time has passed since the previous invasion that the political treaties are growing uneasy, and political leaders are making shifts to prepare for what will happen on Earth after the end of the Bugger threat.  

In the previous war, a single hero is credited with repelling the overwhelming alien attack.  Only through the ruthless ingenuity of Mazer Rackham was the Earth saved.  Believing that a similar leader will be necessary in a future war, children are carefully screened on Earth to try to find that hero of the future.  Promising child geniuses are then removed from their families to be trained in near-Earth orbit at Battle School.  This brutal environment turns bright children into soldiers from age 6 to 10, then sends them off for duty experience before Command School in the mid-teens.  For main character Ender Wiggam, six years old at the opening of the story and the most promising current candidate for leadership—and perhaps the Earth’s last hope as the enemy returns—his training is both more brutal and more accelerated than any other student has ever experienced.  

The story is violent.  Through “games” the children are trained in tactics and shaped into the defenders of the Earth.  The manipulation of Ender, in particular, by Graff, the head of the Battle School, is horrible, and nearly destroys Ender, even as it achieves its desired outcome.  Does the end justify the means?  

My main problem with this story is the credibility of the internal lives of the children.  Yes, these are supposed to be the most brilliant children on Earth, and Ender the cream of the crop, but they speak and act more like young adults.  Would children behave this way, under these extreme conditions? I can’t say.  I’m troubled by the violence as well, but that violence is a product of the circumstances of the story more than anything else, elevating the idea of children’s brutishness to an acute level.  

The turn toward hope and reconciliation at the end of the novel does not come about in any way that I expected, and feels somewhat disconnected from the rest of the story. But that hopefulness reiterates that Ender’s suitability for his role exceeds any of his handlers’ imagination of him.

The stark violence of Ender’s Game reminded me of some moments in The Giver, and these would be interesting novels to consider together, with their different visions of a future manipulated for the best outcomes.  In particular, comparing the sanitary environment of the Battle School here, to the utopia/dystopia of The Giver could lead to some interesting comparisons.  In each case, there is something sinister and ugly that is unseen under a veneer of positive control and order.  

Sonar X10 read the first few pages and didn’t care for the tone of the book. He was initially confused by the dual lines of narrative—one from the perspective of Ender, one from the perspective of his handlers, but even a clarification of the structure did not make him want to engage the tone of violence apparent in the story right from the start.  

A List of things that don't exist

I’ve been full of snot for a few days. All of the writing ideas apparently get tangled up in the snot, so I’ve spent a lot of time either passed out on the couch or cleaning off the desk in the hopes that if I found a pen I’d write something. 

All I have to show for it is a clear desktop, rearranged computer peripherals, and a bag of used tissues. These are some of the things I might have written, if any writing had happened in the past four days. 

*A review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, which I finished reading on Sunday. 

*A pondering on my preparations for NaNoWriMo. That might have included my tinkering with a romance in a video store, a murder mystery in a Las Cruces apartment building, a comedy about two friends who only see each other at work, and an existential rambling about whatever came out of my fingertips into the keyboard.

*A rundown on the Halloween costume plans that are in the works here. Normally I am involved in a great deal of sewy, crafty goodness in October, but the Sonars are taking that job from me. 

*A list of all of the inspiring, instructional, cool writery encouragement that I’ve stumbled upon recently. 

Alas, none of these things exist except in a mist of thought in my clogged head. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe some of these things will emerge soon. Or maybe not. 

I’ll leave you with the funniest line I’ve heard all week. Partner, contemplating the apparent irony of his personal politics relative to his profession, recently claimed that he doesn’t usually start things and he doesn’t usually join things.  When asked what he Does Do, he replied:  Mostly I sit at home and question my complicit participation in a patriarchal structure. 

He knows the way to my heart.

10 Things: Backpack

10 Things participation has been very low lately. Apparently everyone has been Working when they should be Writing 10 Things. We must put a stop to this productivity right now.

Stop what you’re doing.

Take out a writing implement.

Write the first 10 Things you think of when I say BACKPACK!

Write yours first. Read mine if you want to. Put yours in the comments. Or put them on your site and link back here. Whatever floats your pack. Go go go go go. 

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My 10 Things for BACKPACK

1. You need to know what’s in your BACKPACK. If your friends put things in your BACKPACK, then you must be able to trust your friends. Better yet, don’t let anyone else put anything in your BACKPACK.

2. A tiny Sonar, in a sweatshirt, sleeping in the kid BACKPACK on Partner’s back, while Partner washed clothes at the laundromat and I read dusty books, and wrote 20 pages treatises that were only ever read by two people. 

3. BACKPACKing across Europe. A Euro-rail pass and a change of clothes. Can anyone over 30 or with children do this?

4. BACKPACKs filled with books and lunch, on a kid, on the way to school.

5. BACKPACKs for kids, a school-supply charity drive.

6. BACKPACKing in the mountains with extreme-weather gear that weighs mere ounces, and carrying tiny tubes of gourmet spices. 

7. A jet-pack on your back. No, not on YOUR back, on Connie Chung’s back at the Republican National Convention, circa 1984.  Am I remembering that right? Who remembers this? Political conventions are apparently good opportunities for weird stunts. 

8. Rolling BACKPACKs are nuisances in schools.

9. BACKPACK as euphemism? Anything can be euphemism. There must be a way to spin BACKPACKing as euphemism for something. It should include a monkey. Like a monkey on your BACKPACK. But NOT a monkey BACKPACK.

10. The BACK PACK, a lesser-known cousin of the Brat Pack. Who would you put in the BACK PACK? People with hairy backs like Robyn Williams? Or perhaps quarterbacks and fullbacks?

Some weeks are harder than others!

What’s coming out of your BACKPACK??? It must be better than mine. Share it. Now! 

Programs, phone books, obituaries: where I find names for my characters

I look for names everywhere. Partner is so aware of this search for names that he regularly tells me about interesting names he hears at work.

Anyone can look in a baby name book, but those names feel so sterile. They’re connected to definitions, but they lack life, they feel too contrived sometimes. The telephone book is a great source of names, of course, but they tend to feel like lifeless words on a page too. I like the phone book best for the name of a minor character. I use it like a random name generator. Flip it open to any page and point without looking. Do it twice, once for first name, once for a last name. Bam. Bam. Colleen Figueroa. That can be the name of my character’s workplace friend. A minor character involved in one important conversation.

If I want to find names that feel more rich, that feel like they have history and messiness, my favorite place to look is the obituaries of my daily newspaper. Go ahead and think it’s weird. You may think it’s morbid. But those obituaries are printed there for a reason. They are remembrance and celebration of lives that have ended. Friends and family want the obituaries read or they wouldn’t put them in the paper. They want their loved ones to be remembered. I live in a small town, so I’ve never used a whole name from the obituary section; I tend to look for just first or last names. The style of names sometimes sound more old-fashioned, but characters come in a whole range of ages. These names, attached to real people, feel alive to me.

The stories in the obituary section can also offer other kinds of inspiration. Need ideas for how to build an extended family for a character? Want to have a range of causes of death for your mysteries? Want to consider the range of euphemisms for dying to help build honest-sounding dialogue? Sometimes the obituaries include very detailed biographies of different life experiences and activities, clubs and accomplishments. You never know what might inspire you in there.

I intend absolutely no disrespect by reading the obituaries for inspiration. It’s a way of celebrating and reviving bits of a life lived.

If I’m looking for names for very young characters, my favorite source is school lists. Each spring, the newspaper prints a list of high school graduates, but with a high school administrator in the family, we also tend to accumulate programs from different events. I skim through them for interesting first and last names and rearrange them until I find things that work for my characters.

How do you come up with the names for your characters? What is your favorite character from a story you’ve written or read?