The Brits are getting it right. Us? not so much.

The British High Court came to the conclusion that "United States" authorities had violated the Convention Against Torture treaty that was signed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by congress.

This treaty states that whenever credible reports of torture are made, they must be investigated, first in the jurisdiction in which the torture was alleged to have taken place.

The treaty also directs third party countries to investigate and bring charges if the power accused refuses to investigate on its own.

Obama has no choice now but to investigate if he wishes to conform to the law. If he fails to do so, he is an accomplice after the fact.

Back from Florida. The drive was awesome. I raced up the east coast to avoid the "snowpocalypse" blizzard that slammed the megalopolis from New York to Richmond. Made the entire 1400 miles from Orlando to Vassalboro in about 30 hours.

I meditate while driving. The tunes are cranked, and I drive like a fucking crazy man, so my mind is almost constantly engaged in trying to look for cops, maximize the speed, looking for road signs. the whole front part of my brain is involved, psyched, grooving, moving. The back part, Mystic Half, is free to dream.

And dream he does.

The car is nice, a 1999 Saturn wagon, but it is white, not my favorite color. Named her Amalthea (from the glowing silver chick that the Last Unicorn turned into when she was hiding from the Bull) We got along well, immediately. I wasn't even off Disney property before she managed to become an extension of me, and I forgot completely about the physical part of driving. The rest of the ride was just sweet. Two three-hour naps in the back (she isn't quite long enough for me to fit into comfortably, but nonstop speedfreaking the miles takes a toll, and sleep was, for a change, easy)

And mystic half dreamed of plots, and characters, and possible narratives. I made progress on what I have tentatively called "Spinners" but the block is not yet broken. I have characters, names, places, maps, everything but a story. But the drive got me a bit closer to that.

More later.

Off to Florida

Tomorrow I fly to Florida, pick up a car, and drive it back to Maine. This should resolve some of our mobility problems, but it is only a temporary quick fix. Poverty really sucks.

I think I am going to start writing in this blog again, because I am in the midst of the worst bit of piece-specific writer's block I have ever experienced, and blogging seems to help.

I have the universe, I have the characters, I have the theme, I know what I want to say, and I have done an enormous amount of work on this one 'project'. what I DON'T have is a story.

It has been a while

It has been a bit more than a year, I think, since I last wrote to this blog. I still get hits, but now very few.

I am going to try to get back to this blog, health permitting, and pending agreement with my ethereal Muse (who is a rank lazy BITCH)and pursuant to gently pressure from my tangible muse (Thanks, Lady Dusk).

I have been writing a lot, most of it is either garbage (which I don't share because it is... well..... garbage) and a lot more is background work (lists of Neofelid names, governmental structures in the 14 worlds, Variken team names, etc, which is basically self-generated reference material, sort of an encyclopedia of the 14 worlds. I am saving most of this work, but I do the majority of it away from the computer, so it is actually ink (graphite, dye, crayon) on paper (menus, the backs of prescription forms, napkins, etc)

I have a moral question, and I really want answers.

Okay, here is the situation. I am asleep in the daytime (as usual) and my doorbell rings. It is, say, noonish. It is a sunday. At my door is a twentysomething woman and her son, who is about 8. They are well dressed, and holding copies of some colorful christian religious propaganda. I am grumpy and annoyed. If the woman had been alone, I would have either slammed the door, or given her one of a number of verbally abusive but clever lines that I keep in the back of my head for such intrusions, but the kid's presence alters the tableau a bit.

What I want to do is ignore the woman completely, kneel down, and say to the child, in a very pleasant voice "Hi. The only difference between Jesus Christ and the Easter Bunny is that your mommy thinks one of them is real." and then stand up, and smile, and hold out my hand for the mother to shake.

Am I justified in doing that?