Take a closer look

Chris Christie is not a good governor.

Yes, to be fair he did a good job handling the disaster of superstorm Sandy.

But also to be fair, that just means that he was doing his job.

You know what else Christie did to New Jersey?  He canceled the commuter tunnel to New York which cost the state more than $300 million, thousands of jobs and millions in business revenue.  He also cost the state more than $400 million in education funding.  He cut $1 billion from education spending, increased taxes on the poor and disabled by cutting property tax rebates, funneled tax dollars to corporations to support charter – not public – schools, and basically is a bully to anyone he doesn’t like, particularly teachers.  Apparently he doesn’t like public school teachers, or union members, but maybe that’s the reason.

He also vetoed a minimum wage increase which have helped hundreds of thousands of people, created thousands of jobs and put hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy.  New Jersey is currently near the bottom in economic growth.

So yeah, Christie did what he should have done to help the state after a natural disaster.  To quote someone on the Internet, what does he want, a cookie?

Being governor is hard, but you have to spend a lot of time and money to get that job so if you don’t want to do the hard work, don’t run for office.  It really is that simple.

Doing good in one case and so bad in many others does not help the state.  He may look good from far away across the country because he looks strong and committed to New Jersey, but up close Christie is not a good governor.

Not by The Human League

I’ve read the second novel in the Library of America American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s collection, namely, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon.

My first and last thought about this book was ‘Wow’, in appreciation of the writing and the intensity of the story.  I can’t think of anything to compare this to.  The concept of More Than Human is amazing.  The book is not perfect, there were a few things about the structure and plot I didn’t like, but it does what it does very well.  Around any of its shortcomings the novel wraps a strong and intriguing story.

Don’t expect rocket ships and aliens, this is not nuts and bolts science fiction.  More Than Human is sociology, psychology and biology, exploring the potential of humans as individuals and as a society.  It looks at what makes someone human and what it is that you do if you are human.  

In the ordinary 1953 world of this story there are humans with extraordinary abilities.  Yet for all their powers they are subject to all of the problems of growing up in human society, with the added challenge of being absolute outsiders.  You could easily see this as a metaphor for the average person, or even society, developing and finding their way in the world.  It’s about making those first halting steps, stumbling, growing, being an adolescent pain and being surprised every step of the way – especially when you think you’ve reached the end and know it all.

Are we our parts, their sum or more than that?  Should we be solitary individuals, interacting with society only when we need something, or is it important to be a part of something larger, or some interesting variation in between?  How should you use extraordinary powers and how do you know, and then do, what is right?  It’s complicated.

The book isn’t really as boring and ordinary as I just made it sound.  Sturgeon has built a unique story that I found compelling, if enervating.  I needed a rest after this one and I fell back on a comfort reread of Dorothy L. Sayers to recover – Unnatural Death if you’re curious.

Some people seem to think that the book is racist.  Some of the characters are, but while it may not do it the way everyone would like it to, the book itself is against racism.

I won’t put any spoilers in here, but I will say that for me, it isn’t the central gestalt human of the story that the title refers to; it is all of us together that are more than human.

When reform isn’t reform

So Harry Reid, and some Democrats, apparently want to keep the filibuster blockade in place in order to use it as a campaign issue for Democrats in 2014.

Isn’t it great when politics is placed before country?  The Republicans do it with the abusive use of the filibuster and Democrats are doing it by letting the Republicans do it with the abusive use of the filibuster.

In case I wasn’t clear, I think this is a ploy to get votes for more Democrats by letting Republicans make themselves look bad.  After Reid’s repeated claims that he was serious about reform, that’s the only thing I can think of to explain this move.  Just reverting to the 1970s rule of a talking filibuster wasn’t exactly a radical idea, but apparently even that is too much to ask for right now.

Maybe it’s enough to help, but with gerrymandering and electoral vote games, any gains in the Senate in 2014 will be much too little and way too late.

Because they can

I think the next Presidential election will see a Republican win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote by 5 million votes.

Selling Venus by the pound

No plot spoilers.  I tend to review on readability, plot, character and the quality of the writing – which is distinguished from readability in that the former refers to how easy or fun a book is to read and the latter concerns the structure of the words.

So, I just read The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth and here’s my immediate review without taking time for much cogitation.

This is in some ways a disturbingly prescient story.  As SF does, especially SF of this time, the story tried to describe a possible future extrapolated from what the authors saw as the significant – or what would become significant – social trends of the time.  Nothing has happened quite the way the book predicts, but some of it has come close.  Of course using hindsight I could be very critical, but that wouldn’t be fair, and these things could happen yet.

Also like much SF of the 50s this is a short novel, but the authors got a lot into those pages.  Some of the plot points are sudden pivots, but, well, events are compressed a bit.  The concepts keep coming and the ideas and attitudes that the authors want to explore permeate the story.  There isn’t much character development, come to think of it, there isn’t any character development, but this story is not about the characters.  It’s about the ideas and attitudes.  Things are painted in very broad and very bold strokes and some may find it heavy handed.  There are more subtle satires, but this is not out of step with the times or the genre.

The Space Merchants is an enjoyable read.  It is intelligently written and well paced and fairly well thought out.  There are a few conceits that I thought were out of place, used just to emphasize the futuristic nature of the setting.  You get the idea that this is the future very concisely in the first few pages, which I like and which I think is enough.  The rest is just superfluous and, I think, not as well reasoned.  But that was only a small part of it and probably easily ignored by everyone else.

The gender roles are only superficially advanced from standard 1950s fiction.  Job titles without active roles by the female characters may get people thinking but they don’t adequately counter the problem.  I wouldn’t normally focus on this in a book from 1952, but since there is a hint that there might be stronger action from the female characters I was disappointed when it didn’t pan out.  It could have been done easily and in line with the other social commentary in the story.

Be aware of what you’re getting into with a 1950s SF novel, but don’t avoid it because of that.  That’s a reason to read it.  The book is now as much a look at the past as it was an attempt to give a view of a possible future.  This is well written, clever and entertaining.  Things happen fast and you’re pretty much hit over the head with the class dichotomy, but that’s often how things were done back then.  This is a good look at some of the best of early SF and a landmark novel.

Their hands are out but their hearts and minds are closed

(language warning)

Part of me thinks that the next time the Midwest or South is hit by a natural disaster and needs help from the Federal Government the Democrats in the Northeast should be rational and responsible and magnanimously vote for the disaster relief.

But then I think, fuck ‘em.  If they don’t like the Federal Government but they think that they should get help but the Northeast shouldn’t, then they shouldn’t get anything either.

But I know that that isn’t right.

Now, if we could help the people but screw the politicians who are opposing relief for Sandy, that I could get behind.

Filling in the gaps

I used to read a lot.  I read all the time.  I read everything I could get ahold of.  I still read as much as possible these days.  Yet with all that reading over the years there are a lot of things I haven’t read.

Oh, I’ve read some of the classics:  Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, the Foundation trilogy, Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space.  Still, there are many that I never got around to reading.  Well, for Christmas I received the new Library of America 2 volume boxed set American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s and I am making my way through it.  Most of them are new to me and what I have read I want to re-read.

I’ll try to post about these as I read them or as soon after as possible.  Then, once I finish these two volumes, there are still a dozen or so Tom Swift, Jr. books left to read.