joshwriting | Recent Entries

“Hey Trump voters! Yesterday Trump had a press conference in the Oval Office. He said, ‘You know, our country was the strongest, believe it or not, from 1870 to 1913. You know why? It was all tariff-based. We had no income tax. Then in 1913, some genius came up with the idea of let's charge the people of our country, not foreign countries that are ripping off our country. And the country was never relatively—was never that kind of wealth. We had so much wealth, we didn't know what to do with our money. We had meetings. We had committees. And these committees worked tirelessly to study one subject. We have so much money. What are we going to do with it? Who are we going to give it to?’

Did you know that you know an actual expert on the period of 1870 to 1913?

It's me. I am.

I've been studying this time period for two decades and I don't mean reading a Doris Kearns Goodwin book every few months. I am a trained scholar of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

There's a lot of us actually who study this period. In fact, I was in a room with many of them over the weekend. We stared at Trump Tower in Chicago while we met. It was... motivating.

Do you know what happened between 1870 and 1913? There were two economic panics. Huge ones. Deep, scarring panics where many working people went hungry and jobless. Do you know who was "rich" in that period? The Carnegies. The Vanderbilts. JP Morgan, who almost singlehandedly controlled the nation money's supply. Wild swings occurred in the stock market. Working people were paid pennies. Middle-class people made money, bought homes, and lost them with regularity. There was no economic stability. There was no regulation. Between 1880 and 1905 there were well over 36,000 strikes involving 6 million workers. Do you know what they were striking for? The biggest ask was an 8 hour work day. Do you know what Congress focused on instead? Passing obscenity law, obsessing about sex and white women's purity. Creating instability in the Phillipines, the Carribbean and Latin America via colonialist, eugenic-based projects. Enriching themselves on kickbacks from industries like the railroads. Rejecting appeals for women's suffrage and anti-lynching laws. State governments doubled-down on segregation law and passed laws to try to control what was taught in classrooms.

Sound familiar?”

- Lauren Thompson

Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you.

You keep sending emails begging for $15,
while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.
This administration is not simply “a different ideology.”
It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF.

That won’t save us.

I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech.

I want strategy.

I want fire.

I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.
Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds.
Surprise.
Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying,
“Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”
I call bullshit.
If you don’t know how to think outside the box…
If you don’t know how to strategize…
If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire…
what the hell are we giving you money for?
Some of us have two or three advanced degrees.
Some of us have military training.
Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.
Yes, the tours around the country? Nice.
The speeches? Nice.
The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.
That was great for giving hope.
Now we need action.
You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years.
We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.
Look at the disappearances.
Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights.
If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.
So here’s what I need from you — right now:
⸻
1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.
I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs.
Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse.
Make it public. Make it unshakable.
Let the people drag the rot into the light.
If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones.
If Congress won’t act, let the country act.
This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.
Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.
And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented.
You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.
The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.
⸻
2. Join the International Criminal Court.
Yes, I said it. Call their bluff.
You cannot control what the other side does.
But you can control your own integrity.
So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.
Join.
If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.
Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts.
Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty.
And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.
Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.
⸻
3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.
Don’t just send postcards. Send resources.
Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training.
If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it.
If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly.
This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.
Stop campaigning.
Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is.
We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.
Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy.
And let’s be clear:
The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.
They prepared for this.
They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions.
They built a machine while you wrote press releases.
We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years.
It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint.
You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029 —
a coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.
You should be publicly laying out:
• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again
• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine
• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable
• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador
You say you’re the party of the people?
Then show the people the plan.
⸻
4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.
If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth.
Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.
Give people tools, not soundbites.
We don’t need more slogans.
We need survival manuals.
⸻
5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.
Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up.
They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.
Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.
Make what’s happening in America a global scandal.
And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.
Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky.
That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up.
If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.
Get creative. Go underground. Go global.
If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.
⸻
6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.
Not everyone inside this regime is loyal.
Some are scared. Some want out.
Build the channels.
Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.
Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.
And while you’re at it?
Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors.
Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.
We are not the bullies.
We are not the ones filled with hate.
And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it.
They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.
But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd.
We don’t need purity.
We need numbers.
We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.
⸻
7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.
You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship.
They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.
They went after the structure.
The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.
They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —
until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on.
And his power crumbled beneath him.
You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025,
every aide who defies court orders,
every communications director repeating lies,
every policy writer enabling cruelty,
every water boy who keeps this engine running.
You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down.
You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.
⸻
Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.
They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS.
A M E R I C A N S.
And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.
We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines.
We want backbone.
We want action.
We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.
We are watching.
And I don’t just mean your base.
I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening.
I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.
Often when I speak, it echoes.
But when we ALL
speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.
We need to be deafening.
You still have a chance to do something historic.
To be remembered for courage, not caution.
To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.
But the clock is ticking.
And the deportation buses are idling.

Episode 1: Introduction

Music is deeply linked to our storytelling, though each can exist without the other. There are three primary ways in which their junction is expressed: Music co-created with the story, music inspired by the story, and story inspired by the music. An example of each of the three:

a) Music inspired by the story gave us Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite or Scriabin’s Prometheus;
b) Music co-created with the story gave us Anderson’s Olias of Sunhillow or Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf;
c) Story inspired by the music gave us Napoleon Symphony by Burgess..

It seems likely that there are more of the first of these than the other two. In this series, we’ll explore each of these three branches on the theme, through each of the three lenses of our title.
Of necessity, along the way we will look at the thin lines that separate myth from fairy tale and fairy tale from fantasy, but the very thinness of those lines may at times make them seem non-existent or at least arbitrary. At a minimum, what distinctions there are may blur or disappear over time or depending on the applications used.

Fairy tale and folk tales have their own thin line, but we’ll draw them as we may. For example, the legend of William Tell, which gave rise to Rossini’s William Tell Overture, doesn’t fit fairy tale or fantasy, let alone mythology. The Firebird is described varyingly as Slavic mythology or folklore. Scriabin’s Prometheus is decidedly mythological in origin.

The plan is to discuss one story per week. This will usually mean one piece of music, but there are a few tales that have inspired multiple works.

These are stories and their music on my list to explore, so far: The Firebird Suite (Stravinsky), Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev), Eroica (Beethoven), The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Dukas), Lovéren (Arkenstone and Brooks), Journey to the Center of the Earth (Wakeman), Olias of Sunhillow (Anderson), Prometheus (Scriabin), The Point (Nilsson), Jesus Christ, Superstar (Weber and Rice) and Godspell (Schwartz), The Last Unicorn (Webb), Star Wars (Williams), Field of Dreams (Horner), The Wizard of Oz (various), The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (various), The Water Goblin (Dvořák), The King of Elfland’s Daughter (Johnson and Kniight), Cinderella, and The Lion King.

Additional pieces may be added or substituted.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Turntable
Current Music: The Water Goblin

This is edited from a Facebook Note that I first crafted in 2018 and then edited in 2020. FB no longer allows old Notes to be edited, so the list is migrating here, with additional edits as people insist on having their websites change! (See also: Facebook.)

Suggestions for additions, edits, and deletions are welcome! So is sharing this page.

1. ~~http://www.schulers.com/books/author_index.htm~~ Closed. But instead go to:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191103175757/http://schulers.com/books/author_index.htm

Note: I have this set to the alphabetical Authors catalog, but it is alphabetical by author's first name! Also, punctuation comes ahead of letters, so (H)erbert (G)eorge Wells comes well ahead of H. G. Wells and Wells, H. G. does not exist at all. It is a little sloppy, so W. D. Howells, W.D. Howells, and William D. Howells are eaach listed separately, two different titles for each name. There is also an index by title, but I haven't explored it.

2. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page - the largest repository of free books

3. ~~http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/authors.html~~ -

NOTE: This site is officially closed. They mention a few other sites, all of which are here. But what they do not mention is that their site is at the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190410170409/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/authors.html - This won't always let you read some of their links online, but it does seem to allow downloads for those books that are theirs (blue open book icon), in Mobi (Kindle) and Epub formats, among others. They also have live links to other titles --> the red quarish icon goes to the Internet Archive or Gutenberg.

4. https://www.library.virginia.edu/libra/ - Libra is the University of Virginia’s scholarly institutional repository: This is their "online archive of scholarship created by the University community" Theses, Datasets, and more. While the theses and datasets are not open, the theses let you see their abstracts which then enables you to hunt them down.

5. http://books.google.com - but one has to be careful to select "full text" or one gets a lot of extraneous works

6. https://www.doaks.org/resources/rare-books - "Access full digital facsimiles of select titles in the Rare Book Collection, relating to Byzantine, Garden and Landscape, and Pre-Columbian Studies, through this searchable resource." The website also has some other online collections:
https://www.doaks.org/resources/online-exhibits - Coins, architecture, and much more!
https://www.doaks.org/resources/autograph-letter-collection - Autograph letters from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural notables.
https://www.doaks.org/resources/moche-iconography - The Moche culture (200–900 CE) is recognized as one of the first complex societies of the desert North Coast of Peru. (Spanish version available.)

7. https://www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/2012 - Baen is a publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy titles. This is a collection of more than 70 free science fiction and fantasy novels, anthologies, and non-fiction about SF & F. New titles get added sporadically.

8. https://dl.acm.org/acmbooks - This is the Digital Library of the Association for Computing Machinery. The link is to their collection of computer books, but they also have journals, magazines, and more. Total holdings in the tens of thousands. A search on "gifted" and "students" pulled up more than 14,000 entries, most of which are open access or free.

9. https://dp.la/ - The Digital Public Library of America "Discover 51,028,894 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States." They have a section explicitly providing access to banned books!
Also: https://dp.la/exhibitions - Stories of national significance drawn from source materials in libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.

10. https://shiplib.org/ - The Nautical Archaeology Digital Library - Shipwreck databases, treatises on ship building, models, and artifacts!

11. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/home - The CIA's Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room - former classified docs and so much more. Newest collection: Nixon!

12. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collections - The Biodiversity Heritage Library - 57 collections from cats to flowers to monsters

13. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ - The New York Public Library's digital collection: 893,593 items digitized with "new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more."

14. http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/ - Getty Publications Virtual Library: "More than 300 of our books to read and download for free"

15. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/index.html - History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine: "Digital materials related to health and disease. Through its online resources, patrons can view the earliest anatomical drawings, read about the history of forensic medicine and explore an exhibition dedicated to the accomplishments of women physicians."
--> They also have https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ - Digital Collections: "The National Library of Medicine's free online repository of biomedical resources including books, manuscripts, still images, videos, and maps." At the bottom of this page they have other digital offerings, including Profiles in Science, with a look at more than forty 20th century individuals and a link to a collection of Visual Culture and Health Posters.

16. http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ - The International Children's Digital Library: 4619 books in 60+ languages. There used to be instructions for the site in 16 languages. but I cannot find it currently.

More on audio books!

a good source for new fantasy short fiction:

17. http://podcastle.org/ - Their works run from roughly 5 minutes to 45 or 50, to my experience.

18. http://escapepod.org/ - This is the equivalent site to Pod Castle, but on the other side of the fantasy/SF split.

19. http://www.starshipsofa.com/ is "The Audio Science Fiction Magazine."

You can find a large number of pieces of various lengths by going to:
20. http://www.freesfonline.de

Using http://www.freesfonline.de/AdvancedSearch.html allows some good esoteric options. In the Format section, click on everything but the headphones. Then, below, in Date of Addition, click on "Any." Then start the search! That will give you the first 50 of 3071 they have - through Brin. If you narrow the search, it will give you different parts of the 3071.

Another place to find such things is at ~~hardsf.org~~
21. https://web.archive.org/web/20160120060359/http://hardsf.org/

These list individual works that are read aloud, whether short story or novel.
Authors A-F - https://web.archive.org/web/20120922005307/http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Sto1.htm

Authors G-0 - https://web.archive.org/web/20120922005307/http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Sto2.htm

Authors P-Z - https://web.archive.org/web/20120922005307/http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Sto3.htm

On the left side of those pages are various podcasts. I have not checked to see if they are viable either in or out of the Internet Archive, but it is worth copying the link and pasting it in its own url.

They also have some SF Drama, theoretically, but I am not getting much joy from the links at the moment.

You can also browse through

22. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=fantasy%20AND%20collection%3Aaudio_bookspoetry%20AND%20subject%3A%22fantasy%22

Lots of cool stuff there. Those were aimed at SF/Fantasy.

23. More generally, you can have a look at:http://librivox.org/

24. http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks

25. (really 2a) http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project

26. For German speakers: http://www.vorleser.net/

For many languages, the Internet Archive (archive.org), Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org), the International Children's Digital Library (icdl.org) and others above all have books in languages other than English.

Current Location: Midnight Library
Current Music: Paperback Writer

I've been reading about how much harder Aaron Judge's quest for 62 was than Barry Bonds' 73, Maris' 61, Ruth's 60, etc.

I'll confess that some of the arguments are baffling to me. There are a gazillion stats being tossed about, complaints about the advantages of facing fewer pitchers in a season, advantages of hitting in a post-expansion season, and advantages of not facing the pitchers excluded from MLB because of their race. Not to mention, of course, steroids! (Though almost never mentioned are greenies.)

I guess for me the stat that tells me the most about those various factors is HR/9 --> home runs hit across the league per 9 innings.

You would expect, for example, if the ball were more or less juiced in a period that the homers would go up. Similarly, if the pitching quality went down substantially you would expect that the homers would go up.

2022 HR/9 = 1.1 - Judge (AL)
2001 HR/9 = 1.2 Bonds (NL) Sosa (NL)
1999 HR/9 = 1.1 Sosa (NL
1998 HR/9 = 1.1/1.0 McGwire (AL) Sosa (NL)
1997 HR/9 = 1.1 McGwire (AL)
1961 HR/9 = 1.0 Maris (AL)
1927 HR/9 = 0.9 Ruth (AL)

Mind you, Ruth led the league with 11z homers in 1918! It took him a couple seasons to warm up.

1920 HR/9 = 10.2 Ruth (AL - 54 hr)
1921 HR/9 = 9.8 Ruth (AL - 59 hr)

And he had 54 in 1928, too:
1928 HR/9 = 9.7 Ruth (AL - 54 hr)

Giancarlo Stanton had 59 homers recently.
2017 HR/9 - 10.2 Stanton (NL - 59 hr)

Current Music: Nem mikh mit tsu der ball geym

In the days of yore, FB allowed folks to post notes. The notes are all still there, if you have their addresses, but without that they are tough to find - and even if you can find them, there is no editing function remaining! So, I will be republishing the notes I value over here over the next month or two, then editing them subsequently.

This one was last updated by me on August 22, 2010. I know some of the links no longer work and that I have found others that should be here. I will update the page over the next little bit.

Free Online Books - Audio and Text
These are just a few of the many links out there - the audio books have a Fantasy and Science Fiction orientation. A couple of the print links do, too, but the others are far broader.

Audio links... Let me start with a good source for new fantasy short fiction:http://podcastle.org/

Their works run from roughly 5 minutes to 45 or 50, to my experience.

...http://escapepod.org/ - This is the equivalent site to Pod Castle, but on the other side of the fantasy/SF split.

http://www.starshipsofa.com/ is "The Audio Science Fiction Magazine."

You can find a large number of pieces of various lengths by going to:http://www.freesfonline.de/AdvancedSearch.html

In the Format section, click on everything but the headphones. Then, below, in Date of Addition, click on "Any." Then start the search! That will give you the first 50 of 435 they have - through Brin. If you narrow the search, it will give you different parts of the 435.

Another place to find such things is at hardsf.org - they have alphabetical lists:Authors A-F - http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Sto1.htmAuthors G-0 - http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Sto2.htmAuthors P-Z - http://www.hardsf.org/HSF0Sto3.htm

They also have some SF Drama, theoretically, but I am not getting much joy from the links at the moment.

You can also browse throughhttp://www.archive.org/search.php?query=fantasy+AND+collection%3Aaudio_bookspoetry+AND+subject%3A%22fantasy%22

**********

These are a few of my favorite sites for online books to read, though I confess to haunting books.google.com more than a little!

http://www.baen.com/library

http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/digitalcuration/etext.html

http://manybooks.net/

Besides the audio books (and how to find them) that I mentioned above, http://www.freesfonline.de/ has more than a few really great titles.

Lots of cool stuff there.

Enjoy!

p.s. For a change, I have set this to be visible to everyone, if you want to link it. But do feel free to just copy it or to share your own favorites!

Current Mood: distracted
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Thinking Out Loud (Sheeran)

Saturday, March 16

10 - Noon -- Chess Variations

Noon - 1 -- LUNCH!

1 - 3 -- Magic Systems in Fantasy Stories

3 - 5 -- Building Histories for Your Fantasy, Science Fiction, or Dystopia

Sunday, March 17

9 - 11 -- What Does It Mean to be Gifted? (Kids)

11 - 12 LUNCH

Everything below here is in the Student Center (W20) on the 3rd floor, as part of the Spark Parents Program
Note: These are one hour blocks, as opposed to the 2 hour blocks for the Kids' program.

12 - 1 -- What Does It Mean To Be Gifted?

1 - 2 -- Magic Systems in Fantasy Stories

2 - 3 -- Non-Traditional Students, Non-Traditional College Options

3 - 4 -- Non-Traditional Students, Non-Traditional College Options (Repeat Session)

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
Current Music: Teach Your Children Well

In 2009, as part of an internet meme of sorts, I listed "15 books in 15 minutes." I think I listed 18, with two at #14 and three at #15. This is about the three at #15.

When I was 16, I had the great good fortune to travel to Europe for the summer, first with a group of other high school students, then with two different groups of adults with some transition time on my own, before rejoining the first group. While I was in one airport or another, I picked up two science fiction novels - British Penguin editions of John Brunner's TelepathistThe Long Result.

Telepathist tells the story of Gerald Howson, from birth through age 20, and on into his professional life from there. Brunner constructs a world believably reached from where we are in which the safety of Gerald's mother's world is turned on its head by the effects of terrorism coming where nobody expected it would, and their dealing with the invasion, such as it is, of peacekeepers. Among the peacekeepers is a legendary telepathist. Her presence is brief, but it gives us a glimpse into the world of one sort of professional mind-reader.

Gerald was born with a number of defects, any of which might have been a burden but all of which combine to make his life very difficult. Nor is his mother any too supportive, while dad is not in the picture at all (and we learn why not). All he really wants, he thinks, is to matter - being noticed and noteworthy, even on a small scale.

At age 20, his life changes and then changes again. He realizes he is a telepath, though the only things he knows about that are from movies he has watched. And he has a distrust of the government... But he finds somebody who he thinks he can help and he does so, to the best of his ability. Unfortunately for him, his lack of understanding of his abilities draws him to the government's attention, anyway, and they take him away.

But this is not a dystopian world, even though it seemed so to him as a youth - The government forces are not the bad guys in this tale! They treat his wounds and weaknesses as well as they can, though it doesn't change his underlying conditions. They offer training in how to use his powers. He is... resistant and distrustful. In his hypervigilance, he "listens in" on a difficult situation and he is moved to act.

With his acting, he understands bunches of lessons in short order, lessons that spoke to me then and speak to me now - part of what prompts my writing this.

Current Mood: Reflective
Current Location: The Future and the Past, at the same time
Current Music: Rudi's composition in Telepathist

In 2009, as part of an internet meme of sorts, I listed "15 books in 15 minutes." I think I listed 18, with two at #14 and three at #15. This is about the three at #15.

When I was 16, I had the great good fortune to travel to Europe for the summer, first with a group of other high school students, then with two different groups of adults with some transition time on my own, before rejoining the first group. While I was in one airport or another, I picked up two science fiction novels - British Penguin editions of John Brunner's TelepathistThe Long Result.

Telepathist tells the story of Gerald Howson, from birth through age 20, and on into his professional life from there. Brunner constructs a world believably reached from where we are in which the safety of Gerald's mother's world is turned on its head by the effects of terrorism coming where nobody expected it would, and their dealing with the invasion, such as it is, of peacekeepers. Among the peacekeepers is a legendary telepathist. Her presence is brief, but it gives us a glimpse into the world of one sort of professional mind-reader.

Gerald was born with a number of defects, any of which might have been a burden but all of which combine to make his life very difficult. Nor is his mother any too supportive, while dad is not in the picture at all (and we learn why not). All he really wants, he thinks, is to matter - being noticed and noteworthy, even on a small scale.

At age 20, his life changes and then changes again. He realizes he is a telepath, though the only things he knows about that are from movies he has watched. And he has a distrust of the government... But he finds somebody who he thinks he can help and he does so, to the best of his ability. Unfortunately for him, his lack of understanding of his abilities draws him to the government's attention, anyway, and they take him away, despite his best efforts.

He found strength in terror.
NO NO NO LEAVE ME ALONE!

The thought blasted out unaimed, and the copter directly above him reacted as though he had riddled it with gunfire. ... it fell crunching among piled rubble, and the rotor blades snapped like dry sticks.

Unbelieving, Howson watched it crash, hardly daring to accept that he could have been responsible. Yet he knew that he was... Moreover, he had driven out the mental voice of the telepathist addressing him, and where the link had formed between them there was a sensation like a half-healed bruise.
...
Elation seized him briefly. If he could do this, he could do anything! Let them come for him; he would drive them back with blasts of mental resistance until they did what he wanted and left him alone.

And then he felt the pain.

His discover that inflicting pain on others hurts him as much and more taught me, even if I learned it more slowly than he (by far). I know it doesn't work that way for everybody or even very many people, but I know it works that way for me and for a signicant percentage of those with whom I work.

This is not a dystopian world, even though it seemed so to him as a youth - The government forces are not the bad guys in this tale! They treat his wounds and weaknesses as well as they can, though it doesn't change his underlying conditions. They offer training in how to use his powers. He is... resistant and distrustful. In his hypervigilance, he "listens in" on a difficult situation and he is moved to act.

In his acting, he is transformed. He's not healed. He's not instantly wise or trained. But he is instantly approachable. And that makes all the difference.

I'm not going to go through the whole plot. I'd like to highlight some of the lessons that I see in the book.

The first, as becomes apparent with the discovery of Gerard, is that great power untrained is problematic. Yes, it is more of a problem with a projecting telepath than with most non-science fiction aptitudes, but it is still a problem in the real world, too.

This lesson is reiterated later in the book, in a slightly different way: just because I think I am giving somebody something valuable doesn't make it so for them. (Some of this makes its way into my story, A Loss of Wonder.) This situation was a problem because of the lack of knowledge/training.

Another: just because somebody has rational reasons for actions doesn't make the actions wise or good. Things that people with power over others do for their own amusement can have harsh consequences for the others.

Things that happen to us have long term impact - emotional/mental, not just physical. This is refected in both positive and negative ways.

Letting others in to help us is as important as helping them is - even if/though it is hard.

And just because we cannot express an idea, art, music, does not mean it is any less artistic or musical - merely all the more frustrating for that.

The Long Result is a very different tale. This is a brighter future with no telepathy. Instead, we have space colonies and aliens. Our hero, Roald, is an intelligent man in a job that doesn't challenge him. It keeps him busy, to be sure, but it requires no intellectually heavy lifting. His boss is more than a bit annoyed with him for his lack of ambition.

"It's no business of mine if your ambition is limited to supervising trade in sonnets and string quartets from Viridis - you can stick at that job till you rot, for all I care."

It might have helped if his boss had previously explained to Roald why he was hired.

Roald is about to get pushed way out of his comfort zone. And he's going to thrive.

Lessons along the way?

The habit of coasting is limiting.

Breaking past low expectations - our own or others' - is hard, but often worth it. Unfortunately, the results are not always what those who are urging us on expect them to be.

Sometimes, it takes events beyond our control to force us to grow.

Big growth/change in ourselves can result in loss of what had been important relationships. That doesn't make it a bad thing, but it doesn't make it easy, either.

Sometimes knowledge is better held than shared. Sometimes knowledge is better shared than held. Telling the difference between these is a lot harder than it looks.

Our actions have way bigger potential ripples than we ourselves can see at any given moment. Often, bigger than we will ever know.

Current Mood: Reflective
Current Location: The Future and the Past, at the same time
Current Music: Rudi's composition in Telepathist

All comments are screened. Anonymous posts are permitted (but not required). IP addresses are off.

For some people, discussing emotions is a fairly simple and straight forward process. If we think of them as colors, they tend to have a basic set of 10 or 30 (or some other number of) colors. This is the genesis of the face charts of emotions we see:
Ten Emotions - What colors would *you* give them?

Ten Emotions - What colors would *you* give them?

30 Faces of Emotions - What colors would *you* use for each one?

But many of us are aware of experiencing many more emotions than those charts - even those with many more faces. Hence the effort to take advantage of the hexadecimal color system to provide greater variety and gradation of emotional expression.

The way that hexadecimal colors work: each digit has 16 possible values, going from 0-9 with a-f added on the end to count as 10-15. The first two digits of the number represent the brightness of red, f being the brightest, 0 the darkest. the second two are for green, and the last two are for blue.

In this system the first two digits (those representing red) stand in for physical excitement; with 0 being a very slow, and f being high on adrenaline.

The second two digits (those representing green) standing in for mental excitement, or the amount of noise and thought going on in ones head. A 0 here would mean it is very hard to think, while a f would mean the thoughts are tumbling on top of each other too fast to keep track of.

The last two digits (those representing blue) stand in for pain vs pleasure. a 0 here is very painful, and an f very pleasurable.

This gives a way of categorizing emotions using color. for instance: When all are at their highest value (the most physically and mentally excited, and pleasurable), we get white; while the lowest values on all three would show black.

As this is very much an idea that is early in its development, it would be very helpful if you would use the charts above and the Hexadecimal Color Chooser to provide the colors that would represent those emotions to you and then either post them anonymously below or send them along to kindgrove@gmail.com.

Our intention is to use the information provided to us to develop a better guideline for using the color selector or other system for expressing one's own emotions. We will not use anybody's name or identifying information without advance permission nor do we anticipate doing so with permission.

Thank you for your time and assistance!

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Color Palette
Current Music: Dolphin Dream by Tom Barabas

The following questions are aimed at those who have a high sensitivity to others’ emotions, whether they use that sensitivity in any professional way or not. All answers on this page will be kept anonymous unless you expressly wish them not to be. Comments are all screened such that only I can read them, but in addition, if you want to comment anonymously that is an available option. LiveJournal may record your IP, but I won’t be checking them (even if they would tell me anything about the poster). I think I have turned off IP logging on the Dreamwidth account.

This information is going to be used by me in presentations I do and in work I do with adolescents and adults. While there is no immediate plan to formally publish it in any medium, I imagine that at some point I might, depending on (a) whether I actually learn anything worth sharing in that fashion and (b) getting out of my own way!

Preamble, preamble, preamble…

Please direct any inquiries to me: Josh Shaine, josh_shaine@yahoo.com.

Role: _____ Professional in a therapeutic field _____ Former professional in a therapeutic field
_____ Out of College (or school), not working in a therapeutic field _____ Still a student

Information that would be welcome, but which you may choose not to answer:
Race(s): ______________________________ Gender(s) __________________________Birth Year _____

1. Was there a point in your life at which you either developed or suddenly discovered that you had a high degree of sensitivity to other people’s emotions or have you had it as long as you can remember?

2. Do you remember becoming aware of this being something you did and others did not do? If so, do you know how old you were when you had that realization?

3. Did you (do you) find yourself feeling overwhelmed by too much emotional input when you are in a group or a crowd, whether or not they are directly interacting with you? If so, what have you tried to do about it and has any of it worked for you? Are there particular situations or settings in which the overwhelmed feeling is likelier/likeliest to occur?

4. When you are working with an individual (regardless of whether this is in a professional capacity), do you intentionally seek to be more sensitive, to dive deeper or get a broader sense? If so, do you know how you did it and if it worked?

5. If it did work, have you ever tried that technique in reverse to be less attuned to others’ feelings? Did that work?

6. Have you experienced burnout as a result of your emotional sensitivity, whether or not you had been intentionally using it? If so, have you found an effective way to deal with those burnout feelings? What have you tried and what has worked?

7. Have you talked with any others about your sensitivity to others’ emotions? How did that go?

8. Are there any questions you think I should have asked you? If so, what question and what would be your answer?

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Night Light by Liquid Mind

This January, assuming enough students sign up for it, I will start teaching a 15 week course through GHF Online (Gifted Homeschoolers Forum). (See link at bottom.)
Powers Beyond the Ordinary: ‘Super’ Women and Men in Science Fiction and Fantasy
In addition to the titles/topics listed, I am interested in your thoughts on what would be good works to include - books, movies, plays, etc. I know I won't even remotely have time to even check out all of them between now and then, but I know I will look at many of them and make note of the others - including them in a broader list for students who want to go further in the topic. (Students should be 12 years old and up for this course.)

( A few of the items on my list beyond those mentioned in the course outline: )
There is no way that I will even thoroughly cover the topics I already have - but I imagine I will be teaching this again!

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Course description as well as outline are at the link.

Click here for the course description and outline.

Current Mood: anticipatory
Current Location: cyberspace
Current Music: Superman (Five for Fighting)

I don't do regret, as a general rule. It doesn't mean that there are not things that I wish I had done differently, 'merely' that I try to learn from them and move on, aiming to do better next time.

Sometimes, though, even that is not quite enough.

My mother wrote. She wrote children's books, novels, poetry, and various bits of non-fiction. The novels were not particularly good, I suppose. The children's books were pleasant enough, if not stuff that will live in the literature forever. The poetry was pretty good, but it is a tough field in which to be merely pretty good. Some of the non-fiction is still kicking about - if nothing else, as testimony she gave concerning parental leave.

She knew that I wrote, though what she saw of my writing was the non-fiction about gifted education, underachievement, and Dabrowski. I did not start writing fiction until she was in her last years, mostly past ability to appreciate it. She did not get to see Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter - a work she would have enjoyed quite a bit. With the exception of the beginning Tales of the Teddy Bear Forest, my fairy tale writing came after her passing.

And I wish, from time to time, that I could share them with her, both for her editing and her pleasure. I think it would have tickled her that I've become a writer, if not yet either persistent or prolific.

It tickles me.

That will have to do.

In honor of my 60th birthday (which will be next November 12th), I am going to try to write 60 stories and/or chapters between now and then (with some slush days if I need them through the end of the 2016 calendar year).

If you would like me to write a story for you (or one of your loved ones), respond to this message indicating that you want one and what you would like the theme or genre or topic to be. (Western, Children's story, Underachievement, etc.)

If it is not for you, personally, then let me know for whom it is being written and preferably age and gender, as well as preferred theme/topic/genre. Age/gender can be in a private message rather than a post. I prefer one per person/family. If you want more, mention that, too. I *can* do one for a family or a group.

Unlike last time I did something like this (with 11 stories in a year), there is no need for participants to create 10 things for others, though if you did that would be very cool!
The ~~first 58~~ next 20 people who respond will receive a story or chapter (unless you specify that you want me not to). (If you replied to the Facebook post, please don't reply to this post!)

I think I'm nuts.

Current Mood: tentative
Current Location: The Land of Make-Believe
Current Music: The Lass of Aughrim

(Today's blog entry is dedicated to the late Sharon Lind, a passionate defender of and guide for the gifted, whose succinct explanations of Dabrowski continue to echo in my head.)

For almost 25 years I have been hearing and reading about gifted kids and Overexcitabilities (OEs). Dr. Linda Silverman provided my first view of them at a conference run by the Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted Children, then my second view of them in her (wonderful) book, Counseling the Gifted and Talented (Love Publishing, 1991).

The thing is that both of those presented me with the OEs but also with Dynamisms, Factors, and Levels, all parts of Dr. Kazimierz Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD). These days, as I read articles on Overexcitabilities, it’s a fortunate event when Dabrowski is mentioned and a pleasant surprise to see TPD mentioned even in passing. Dynamisms, Factors, and Levels do not show up at all and there is very rarely an intimation as to what is being disintegrated, why it might be disintegrated, and what the OEs have to do with any of it!

I understand the attraction of the OEs, really I do. They have a face validity to a substantial majority of parents who have gifted kids and almost as surely for themselves when they reflect on their childhoods or even their current daily lives. “Oh! That’s me!” comes almost as quickly and often as “That’s my kid(s)!”

Having a label for the twitching and bobbing, the sensitivities, the endless questions, the wild stories, the melt downs over seemingly trivial issues or unmanageably large issues, provides a degree of calm for at least a moment and a language for discussing these bits with other people where before it was almost always pure defensiveness. An honest–to-god theory that talks about this stuff?! Hooray!

I get it.
...

Unfortunately, the purveyors of Overexcitability information are largely doing you a disservice, in my opinion, by perhaps giving just a link to more information or, more often, not. There is so much more to the OEs than that first blush would suggest!

To get a small taste of what I am talking about, check out the beginning of Cait Fitz’s OE blog entry on My Little Poppies, where she dives deeper than most into the Theory of Positive Disintegration. (But then come back!)

The Rest of the Story (with apologies to the late Paul Harvey)

Welcome back. :-) Let’s start with a few basic background pieces that might be of interest, that might be obvious to many a reader, or at least won’t bore you too much:

Before Dabrowski called it overexcitability he called it hyperstimulatability and then nervousness.

The Polish word that Dr. Dabrowski used for this set of traits, nadpobudliwość, is now one of the translations for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Just as it is the first part of TPD to catch most people’s eyes, it was the first to catch Dabrowski’s attention.

From a Dabrowskian perspective, OEs exist for several reasons; the reasons vary with the specific OE and one’s Level of Personality Development. (More on this later.)

One specific purpose, at lower levels, is to create conflict in one’s world. The stronger the OE the greater the chance and degree of disruption and, as Cait pointed out, Dabrowski was a great believer in the “no pain, no gain” school of thought.

Where there is an individual with more than one OE, there is an individual whose OEs do not exist in isolation from each other. For example, children with both imaginational and emotional OEs might be distraught on behalf of the last leaf of a tree, feeling its loneliness and fear deep in their being.

With the Intellectual OE seems to travel a ‘sense of justice,’ that looks at unfairness beyond how it might serve or offend one's personal needs.

These points are important and largely disagree with most of what I read:
There were times when Dabrowski felt a client’s Overexcitabilities might indicate the need for medication and/or psychotherapy.

Dabrowski believed that the development of inhibition of expression of the Overexcitabilities was appropriate and necessary for development of Personality.

***********

To say that the gifted seem to show more OEs than the average person is not exactly true, though you will read statements to that effect all over the internet. Sensual and Psychomotor OEs seem to be spread out across the population, with no particular regard for giftedness. It’s harder to be sure with Emotional, Imaginational, and Intellectual OEs because a) there is conflicting data and b) our instruments are largely inadequate, at best. (That also means that all those internet questionnaires that purport to tell you how much OE you or your child has are not worth the electrons they are not printed with, because they have not been normed or validated in appropriate ways, IMO.)

I noted above both the conflict function and that there are other uses for OEs according to the Theory of Positive Disintegration. One example of that is Psychomotor, which provides the energy and impetus for growth. Without that energy, a traumatic, potentially transformative experience is likely to result in an individual’s settling back into a familiar life, rather than disintegrating.

Huh – there’s that word again! Disintegrating is a description of the process of growth in personality through a series of transformations in world view:

Primary Integration: No sense of alternative world views, no sense of hierarchies of values. A substantial number of Level 1 individuals are about self-aggrandizement. No internal conflict, just external.

Unilevel Disintegration: Recognition of alternative world views, but still no hierarchization. (Hence unilevel.) Dabrowski represents Level II as very unstable for the majority of people there. Internal conflict and external conflict as well.

Spontaneous Multi-level Disintegration: The realization that some values are higher than others, with the nearly crippling conviction that they are unattainable. Predominantly internal conflict, increasingly so as one develops.

Organized Multi-level Disintegration: Generally living without much external conflict, but usually an ongoing drive to grow. Living far more closely in accordance to one’s ideals.

Secondary Integration: Personality Ideal; living for the purpose of making the world a better place. Self-promotion is no longer a valid self-concept or goal.

It’s all well and good to list these as if they are clear, distinct ways of being, but one can have a foot in more than one. And even the concept of “being in one” is not really valid because one progresses within each of these, as if there were dozens of steps along the way, even though they are not commonly identified as such in Dabrowski’s works, with the exception of Level 1 for which there is a beginning exploration of the shades of “oneness” one might have gone through or at least which one can identify.

Some brief points about the Levels and how other pieces of TPD and of life fit with them:

The chances of going past Level 1 or Level II (which seem to have 60-80% of the folks) depend on “Developmental Potential,” again as Cait noted. The more and the stronger the OEs, the more likely there will be progress. But no Psychomotor means reduced chance of development from lower levels.

Self-Shame and Self-Astonishment and other modes of internal dialog/awareness (referred to as Dynamisms) reflect and affect the growth of the individual. (Dynamisms could be a year of blog posts all by themselves!)

First Factor is one’s genetic component. A strong first factor is important. A weak one may be impossible to overcome. Second Factor is environmental. More feasible to overcome a weak Second Factor, but it is hard. Third Factor is autonomous drive – to this author’s mind, one of the most poorly defined elements, but dealing with the internal push toward self-perfection.

OEs (remember them) change in manifestation as one develops, shifting from running an individual’s life to providing some background richness. Where Psychomotor was vital before, the others become far more important for development.

Everything else in life changes, too, as one becomes less caught up in the regular human/rat race – and the theory includes explanations of just what those look like along the way.

Yes, there is such a thing as Negative Disintegration. No, no explanation tonight!

Along the way, as you look at yourselves or your kids, keep an eye out for Positive Maladjustment – when you go against your immediate community or group because what they are doing feels wrong to you. The opposite, negative adjustment, is when you go along to get along, even though what is being done is hurtful and/or inappropriate.

Some of Dabrowski’s material is available currently, though not a lot of it. More is on its way, however!

To get more of my sense of Dabrowski and the Theory of Positive Disintegration, check out either of these links: From overt behavior to developing potential: The gifted underachiever was written in the 1990’s and reflects my first real exploration of the OEs in application. Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration - A Narrative Overview was written in 2010 and is a more comprehensive look at TPD.

For far more material, wander over to Bill Tillier’s site, www.positivedisintegration.com

Acknowledgements and Credits

This blog article is part of the Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page Blog Hop on Overexcitabilities. I thank my friends at Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page and elsewhere for their inspiration, support, and suggestions. In particular, I would like to thank Linda Silverman, Cheryl Ackerman, Bill Tillier, Patti Rae Miliotis, Leslie Forstadt, and always Susan Shaine for their parts in this journey into Dabrowski.

Please click on the graphic above (created by Pamela S Ryan–thanks!) to see the titles, blog names, and links of other Hoagies’ Blog Hop participants, or cut and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_overexcitabilities.htm

(And stay tuned for a few big announcements in the next few months on this topic!)

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: And You and I

The following was written from a writing prompt of my own, as part of an offer I made on Jan 17, 2014. This story is for Kim Roche.

Second Cousin, Twice Removed

He was my grandmother’s sister’s grandson and as such family. We were required to be nice to family, even when the family member in question was not nice. Ren, as he liked to be called, was anything but nice.

It was easy as kids to make excuses for him or to believe the excuses that others made for him, despite the frequency with which those excuses needed to be made. Yeah, he cheated at games, and sure, he would sometimes take stuff that didn’t belong to him – even stuff he had no interest in, but which he took anyway because it was there. It wasn’t malice, or at least it wasn’t initially malice. Often it was habit or impulse. That was how it seemed, at least, and I have no reason to be sure it was otherwise even now.

Ren was a bit less than a year older than I was, in the same grade for a while, then one grade behind me when I skipped and then two when he was kept back for missing too much school. From my perspective, this was pretty dumb – Ren knew as much as I did academically and far more in a variety of other areas, if not quite as much in others still. His being a grade behind made sense if his school would not skip him, but two behind? No sense at all.

I think it was after he was kept back that he started really resenting me and he turned mean and, in hindsight, creepy.

Even when he was being mean, I could deal with him on my own. I could pick on him far worse than he could pick on me – his weaknesses were more glaring than mine and he more vulnerable to them. I knew when he took my stuff and could make him give it back without invoking the power of my parents or his, let alone one generation further back – even when you were in the right, you did not want the attention of the grandparents! But the night he showed up in my bed required more than I could handle on my own. It required a reset.

He was my grandmother’s sister’s grandson and as such family. We were required to be nice to family, even when the family member in question was not nice. Ren, as he liked to be called, was too sad to be called nice.

It was easy as kids to make excuses for him or to believe the excuses that others made for him, despite the frequency with which those excuses needed to be made. Yeah, he cried at the drop of a hat, and sure, he would sometimes take off in the middle of a game or activity – even those he was really interested in, but which he left anyway just because. It wasn’t dislike of me, or at least it wasn’t initially dislike. Often it was misery or impulse. That was how it seemed, at least, and I have no reason to be sure it was otherwise even now.

Ren was a bit less than a year older than I was, in the same grade for a while, then one grade behind me when I skipped and then two when he was kept back for missing too much school. From my perspective, this was pretty dumb – Ren knew as much as I did academically and far more in a variety of other areas, if not quite as much in others still. His being a grade behind made sense if his school would not skip him, but two behind? No sense at all.

I think it was after he was kept back that he started really resenting life and he turned depressive and, in hindsight, suicidal.

Even when he was being depressed, I could deal with him on my own. I could support him far more than he could resist me – his vulnerabilities were glaring to me and he was more susceptible to my words. I knew when he was hiding and could help him rejoin us without invoking the power of my parents or his, let alone one generation further back – even when you were in the right, you did not want the attention of the grandparents! But the night he tried to kill himself required more than I could handle on my own. It required a reset.

The thing about a reset is that only the person who does it knows that it was done, let alone why. Ordinarily, the only people allowed to do resets are the elders, but when it is nearing time for an elder to step down or move on, they choose a successor. My grandmother chose me and as such I had to do Ren’s resets.

I talked with her about the two life paths that Ren had been on, because I was not sure how I could do a reset that would have any better results than the first two paths. She mulled it over for a couple days, talked to my parents a bit and then with me, and then worked with me to shape the reset, even though she insisted that I still perform it.

He was my grandmother’s sister’s grandson and as such family. We were required to be nice to family, even when the family member in question was not nice. Ren’s parents were anything but nice.

It was easy to see why Ren was sometimes very poorly behaved and other times quite sad. Yeah, he cheated at games, and sure, he would sometimes take stuff that didn’t belong to him – even stuff he had no interest in, but which he took anyway because it was there. And yeah, he cried at the drop of a hat, and sure, he would sometimes take off in the middle of a game or activity – even those he was really interested in, but which he left anyway just because.
Ren was a bit less than a year older than I was, in the same grade for a while, then one grade behind me when I skipped. The school recommended keeping him back for missing too much school. From my perspective, this was pretty dumb – Ren knew as much as I did academically and far more in a variety of other areas, if not quite as much in others still. His being a grade behind made sense if his school would not skip him, but two behind? No sense at all.

I think it was when his parents tentatively agreed to it that he started really resenting me and he turned mean and depressed, both.

Even when he had been acting out, either against others or against himself, I had been able to cope with it without invoking the power of my parents or his, let alone one generation further back – even when you were in the right, generally speaking you did not want the attention of the grandparents! But their plan to have him kept back required more than I could handle on my own. I turned first to my parents and then to both sets of grandparents. The grandparents intervened.

I think it was when my parents took him in and assured him that he would not be kept back that he started to be able to relax. He didn’t stop being mean or depressed immediately, but it came with time and support and unconditional love – theirs in addition to mine. The relationship shifted over the next few years, as his self-confidence grew. The year I applied to colleges he did too, as a junior. We chose to go to the same one, best friends then and now, many years later.

I am starting with my edit, because while this is an addendum to my thoughts on the funding issue, this is the most vital piece of the response to me.

Why advocating for the gifted in underfunded schools and where kids are in poverty is VITAL

a) Raising the top students of a school tends to raise the whole school more than any other approach we have tried.

b) The argument that one should not ask for specific spending on gifted is, to me, like not asking for SPED money for special education students --> gifted education is not a FRILL. It is a need.

c) When you consider that gifted programs are often getting less than a penny on the dollar, asking for spending on gifted is not exactly asking for much - As a quick example... in the Texas 2011-2012 legislative cycle, Gifted Education got $56 million. The full budget for that cycle was $91 billion. Gifted got .0006 (or .06%).

d) The funding of gifted programs is itself a red herring. Pull-out programs are among the least cost-effective ways to meet the needs of gifted kids.

If you want to serve the kids in poverty, then more attention to gifted kids (or even some!) is going to have a more beneficial result than less attention will. This is the sub-population within the gifted that is hurt *most* by abandonment of the fight.

And dropping the gifted word makes that advocacy harder, not easier.

Children matter - not just gifted children
When I was previously teaching in the public schools, my principal, after observing class, wondered to me: "I get why you are good with the bright kids - it's why I hired you! But why are you good with the slow kids?!"

I explained to him that I teach people, not subjects, and that I sought to understand what each kid knew and how each kid learned and how each kid needed to have their needs met, to the best of my ability.

Why I advocate for gifted children
I advocate for gifted children because they lack sufficient advocacy. I advocate for funds for gifted children because their needs are no less real and because in a vacuum of such advocacy, the voices for other children are heard and gifted children's needs are set aside.

I push for that funding because it is a drop in the bucket compared with the rest of academic funding - and because the argument that if they give gifted kids funding, then they will have to cut funding for other programs is a FALSE argument designed to divide and to set populations against each other, making it harder for BOTH to have their needs met.

In pushing for certain additional children to be included in a certain program, an administrator noted that it was totally to be expected that I would advocate for my program. He didn't get it! If there were no need for them to be in the program, I would not want them there - that would do nothing to help the kids already in it, while possibly being negative for everybody concerned.

I advocate for these kids and these programs because even the mediocre programs do something worthwhile that these kids need.

Alternative Words, Part 1
I do not like the term “children of high intelligence” because that is not (all of) what I mean by gifted!”

I mean children with artistic and emotional gifts, leadership and wisdom gifts, and others less readily defined – I mean children for whom their innate higher aptitude leads them to need a qualitatively different kind of support from their parents, their teachers, and their counselors.

Alternative Words, Part 2
My friend noted that she never wants to tell a kid that s/he is ungifted.

Yeah, that is a pretty harsh thing to say, right?

How about "below average?"

"Not tall."

"Not able to dance well enough."

"Not athletic."

We do all of those things. Is it fun? No. We don't have to use "ungifted" to have a problem. "You are not highly intelligent." "You aren't smart enough to be in this program."

Still pretty harsh.

I don't see how changing the word fixes that problem, either.

Alternative Words, Part 3
I oppose the change in terminology not because I am wedded to the word GIFTED, but because the push to change it is a red herring.

I grew up in a school system in which there were no gifted children – it was school policy – but that did nothing to enhance the education of the children of high intelligence, nor to reduce the bullying behaviors toward the children of big vocabularies or the children of androgynous behaviors or the children who got the answers right too often in class by the children who resented kids who would have been called gifted in other schools but were never called that there (or the adults who felt the same way).

I have lived most of my life in a state in which the NAGC affiliate was named the Massachusetts Association for the Advancement of Individual Potential to avoid offense – but it did nothing to advance our cause or to help our children.

I live in a state in which we have a certification for teachers of Academically Advanced learners, but for which there are no courses offered that would lead to such a degree nor an approved pathway for an organization to base a program upon.

To what end, then, changing the word?

The kids still get bullied, the programs still get short shrift, the teachers still get no training.

I work with gifted children - no matter what you call them.

*******************
This blog is part of the Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page inaugural Blog Hop on The “G” Word (“Gifted”). To read more blogs in this hop, visit this Blog Hop at www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_the_g_word.htm

It seemed to Sam that everything that happened in her life could have come from one of the books she had read as a child. It was not so much that everything was overly simple or moralistic, the way so many children's books are, but rather that the world around her seemed thoroughly mysterious - things happened for no apparent reason, with no apparent cause, and with no obvious response. She could control only her own responses to the neverending series of accidents and adventures that life seemed intent upon serving her.

The current situation, if anything, exacerbated that feeling. She'd gotten on the bus to go to work, as she had each morning since the last "thrilling adventure" with her car and the black ice. The bus was safer, after all, right? Yet, here she was having had her bus siezed, not by terrorists but by pirates! Whatever were pirates doing in the middle of Chattanooga, let alone "capturing" a bus and claiming it as treasure?

They were pirates, though, no matter how unlikely it seemed. They dressed the part, though their language was not quite the stereotypical bit of "Arrrh, matey" that she might have anticipated, had anticipating anything seemed reasonable to do. Salty, yes. They swore plenty, especially when the chest they pulled out from under one of the bus seats failed to have in it the gold they expected.

Gold? Why would anybody expect to find a chest of gold on a city bus heading downtown, or headed anywhere for that matter.

"Lassie, you would not have happened to see somebody open the chest from under this seat this mornin', would ye have?"

"Um... no? I mean, I haven't exactly been watching, but I'd like to think I would have noticed something as unlikely as that."

"Perhaps not so unlikely as you might think, but that's of no matter now. We'll have to be takin' you back to the island with us."

"Island? What island? And... and I have to get to work!"

With that the leader of the pirates gave a great guffaw. He gestured toward her and a pair of his men seized her arms and hustled her off the bus and onto one of the duck boats that had surrounded the bus. She'd never gotten around to riding one of the boats, but this was not exactly what she'd expected whenever she thought about such a ride!

A couple hours later, she was sitting, stunned, on an island in the middle of the Tennessee River, surrounded by men and boys, laughing and singing, despite the ill-timed raid on the bus's chest. Every time she could interrupt their revelry enough to ask them what was happening, all she got back was laughter. It was quite maddening, all in all! She was unharmed, except for missing work and possibly getting fired as a result - and even that she was not sure counted as harm, as she had been feeling more than a bit worn and bored by work. But the feeling of 'out of control' was perhaps greater than ever.

A voice over her shoulder whispered "Isn't this the best yet?!" She looked behind her, but couldn't figure out where the voice came from. And, on reflection, it was not quite a whisper, but more like the full speech of somebody who just wasn't very loud."

"Who's there? And what do you mean?"

A small giggle followed, then a pop.

A bellow from in front of her: "Let's make her walk the plank!" They started chanting, "Walk the plank! Walk the plank! Walk the plank! Walk the plank! Walk the plank! Walk the plank!" There were about 15 of them, ranging from 12 to somewhere nearly triple her own age of 25, bouncing and hooting and shouting. "Walk the plank!"

This did not sound to her like a good idea at all. "But I don't want to walk the plank! Really!" Nothing she heard in response suggested that she'd gotten through any more this time than the last 10 times she had tried to talk with them. If it weren't so nerve-wracking, she supposed, it might even be tedious, but nerve-wracking it was.

The men blind-folded her and took her for a walk. It seemed about 5 minutes or 2 hours or just a moment, all at once. One of them told her to step up. When she just stopped, she was lifted onto what felt under her feet like a flexible piece of wood, just wide enough for her to stand on. "Walk the plank!" came the cheer, and again, "Walk the plank!"

She felt a poke and moved hesitantly forward. More pokes, more steps. The men went silent, which told her she must be at the end of the plank. It was as if they were all holding their breaths at the same time. She felt like doing the same. Another poke, not quite enough to knock her off, just make her wobble a bit. "Go ahead, lassie - might as well get it over with!"

She leapt.

...

and landed about 6 inches below her starting point. A great roar came from the group, first of approval and then mirth.

"Isn't this just the best?" came the quiet voice, again.

The leader of the pirates took her blindfold off. "Howdy do, lassie! I'm called Fred the Blue, on account a' my bushy red beard. These here are my men. We want to thank you for being such a good sport. We'll drop you back in the city, now."

An hour later, she was outside her workplace, though her head was still spinning. When she wandered in, her boss brought her into his office where he explained that her tardiness was just not acceptable.

"But I was kidnapped! Didn't you hear about the duckboat pirates and my bus?"

"Oh, yes, we heard. Really, Samantha. If you wanted out of the job, you did not need to go to such elaborate lengths. A simple resignation would have been quite enough."

**********

She did not remember going home. She must have, because certainly she was home now, and talking on the phone.

"Yes, Sam, we were greatly impressed with your application. And our recruiting manager said the job interview went extremely well. So, welcome aboard! Adventure Publishing is excited to have you as the new lead for our children's book division."

"Wait, what?" Interview? Recruiting manager? Who?"

"Fred Bluebeard, our lead recruiter - he said he met with you this morning."

("Isn't this amazing!")

She twirled fast enough to see the pop this time. "Come back here!"

The voice on the phone asked her to clarify, but she distantly said "Thank you, I am looking forward to it," and hung up. "Come back here!" she demanded.

Another pop and a pixie appeared, fluttering its wings.

"What is going on here? What was this morning all about?! And what do you mean by "the best yet?"

"When you were 5, you were lonely and bored and miserable and a few of us took pity on you and came to play. And you begged us to never let you get that bored again. We agreed and have been playing with you ever since - but only when you seem particularly at risk of deep boredom. Then we disappear, taking the immediate memory of our presence because that seems to make it harder for anything else to be as much fun.

"We make sure though that a part of you knows we are real."

"And this morning?"

"You told us how much you have dreamt of this sort of job - we just got you the interview (and then livened it up slightly). But the job is real and now it's really yours. This is the best yet!"

Suddenly, a string of memories became clearer to her and she understood anew the reason her life often felt the way it did. And she laughed and gently hugged the pixie.

"Thank you, friend."

Current Mood: triumphant
Current Location: Chattanooga
Current Music: I am the Pirate King

When we walk in darkness, those of us fortunate enough to have vision are conscious of the lack. We are tentative in our steps, feeling our way along with whatever glimmers and memories we have. If we are outside in the snow, we are careful of the path, the depth, and potential tripping hazards.

When we walk in the beginnings of false dawn, it feels so much lighter and easier to see that we tend to slough off a lot of that timidity and walk as if we can actually see where we are going. And we can, to an extent. We can see short distance destinations fairly well, but we really don't have a good sense of our footing. There is a flatness to light at twilight, whether pre-dawn or dusk, that denies us effective depth perception. Skiers know this sort of condition well, and remember in their muscles as well as their minds the feeling of unanticipated moguls and dips on the slopes and trails, as we wend our way down them on the last runs of the day.

Shadows are absent, as are other visual clues about the edges where one height blends into another, most often discovered by... accident.

What we tend to miss is how much of our lives is actually spent in metaphorical twilight - areas in which we have just enough light to think we can see, while the nuances, the shadows, the edges that mark important differences are missing - missing to the point that we don't even know there is something there to see, as we might if we were totally ignorant. This is the essence of the phrase "knows just enough to be dangerous."

What is it like to be black, gay, Jewish, blind, brilliant, OCD, immigrant, impoverished, care-taking, abused, without spoons, or a thousand other conditions - positive, negative, neutral, other?!

We don't know, but we are quick to decide what *we* would do in those situations and how /that/ person or /those/ people are mishandling it.

This does not make us wrong - but it increases the chance of our being wrong to a huge extent. And the bigger problem that goes with that is that our belief that we have enough light to see makes us resistant to input from those who are living or have lived the circumstances or for whom there has been far more light than the dimness we are inhabiting.

I don't have a fix for the lack of vision from which you suffer, from which I suffer, with regard to lives that are too distinct from our own. I cannot automatically shed light on these for you/us.

I can tell you:

LISTEN to the voices of the folks in those places.

*START* with the assumption that you are in twilight and cannot see clearly.

Just knowing you are in twilight may make it easier to avoid unnecessary stumbling.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: walking through the snow at 6am
Current Music: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (from Frostiana)

Unlike the NYC Public Librarians, I have decided to go year by year with my top choice.

(To be continued)

1913 - Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter (runner up - Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books. by H.G. Wells.)

( Ultimately, the next 100 years will be behind the cut. There are fewer than that now. This cut goes to 1914. )( This cut goes to 1924. )( This cut goes to 1944. )( This cut goes to 1964. )( This cut goes to 1984. )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: library

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The period of 1870 to 1913
From Liz Cheney
Music from Myth, Fairy Tales, and Fantasy
Some Free Online Books!
Aaron Judge, Barry Bonds, Roger Maris, et al
Free Online Books - Audio and Text - an out-of-date (2010) post from my FB notes
Josh's MIT Spark! Schedule for March 16 & 17, 2019
Reflections on some of John Brunner's Gifted Characters (Part 1 of 2)
Reflections on some of John Brunner's Gifted Characters
Colors and Emotions
A Survey about Sensitivity to Others' Emotions
Powers Beyond the Ordinary: ‘Super’ Women and Men in Science Fiction and Fantasy - an online course
Regret - A Mother's Day Message for 2016
60th Year Writing Project
Overexcitabilities, Dabrowski, and “The Rest of the Story”
Second Cousin, Twice Removed
Disjoint thoughts on the "G" word, prompted by a friend's blog
Children's Book: A Fairy Tale
Depth Perception
100 Years, 100 Children's Books - Josh's List

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The period of 1870 to 1913

From Liz Cheney

Music from Myth, Fairy Tales, and Fantasy

Some Free Online Books!

Aaron Judge, Barry Bonds, Roger Maris, et al

Free Online Books - Audio and Text - an out-of-date (2010) post from my FB notes

Josh's MIT Spark! Schedule for March 16 & 17, 2019

Reflections on some of John Brunner's Gifted Characters (Part 1 of 2)

Reflections on some of John Brunner's Gifted Characters

Colors and Emotions

A Survey about Sensitivity to Others' Emotions

Powers Beyond the Ordinary: ‘Super’ Women and Men in Science Fiction and Fantasy - an online course

Regret - A Mother's Day Message for 2016

60th Year Writing Project

Overexcitabilities, Dabrowski, and “The Rest of the Story”

Second Cousin, Twice Removed

Disjoint thoughts on the "G" word, prompted by a friend's blog

Children's Book: A Fairy Tale

Depth Perception

100 Years, 100 Children's Books - Josh's List