J-
I definitely agree we have a gun problem... and the recent reports of
"travel warnings" to some of our states (Red ones in particular)
emphasizes that. Many of us are somewhat innured to the presence of
guns and have a fair to good sense of when/where/how they are a bigger
problem than not, but that said, we do have a gun/bullet/shooter problem
and I don't mind acknowledging that anyone not already used to our
nonsense in this regard is wise to avoid us. I doubt anyone has a worse
record of shooting ourselves and one another up than we do... though
each demographic and region has a different way of doing it. Mary and I
each grew up with at least one person known to have been involved
(victim or perpetrator) in a family murder-suicide (rejected husband
shoots wife, kids, self) so yeh... we are deplorable and we use guns to
demonstrate it. Maybe Russia or other eastern-block countries suck like
we do too? I don't know.. the relative poverty probably keeps the
number of guns and volumes of ammunition down? Our "gun shows" are
extravagant/opulent affairs with parking lots full of $60k 4x4 diesel
crew-cab trucks even if the bumper stickers and casual conversations
overheard would have you thinking the folks there buying/selling were
suffering some kind of harsh recession...
And police abuse of power (including fatal encounters) is it's own
problem somewhat orthogonal (but not entirely) to our gun violence
problem. I prefer/enjoy European detective shows because for the most
part even when police are armed their first instinct/action is NOT to
pull a gun and threaten/shoot first. Ohio is on the red side of purple
but not deep red like many of our Western and Southern states. And
major metropolitan areas (red and blue) have gang violence which almost
by definition includes guns.
I agree that our "average" (restaurant) food is in fact pretty
weak...without even mentioning "fast food". We have plenty of
healthy/good food options IMO but it requires some work to find and
usually comes at a premium. The areas we recently traveled through were
definitely a "food desert/swamp" for the most part. I appreciated the
food we experienced in France and Belgium and Germany and Netherlands
(not so much England/Ireland) and suspect that the "average" food was
maybe healthier than our "average" but I didn't feel that there was that
big of a difference, but then we eat vegetarian and fresh food where
possible so maybe there is less difference there? Or maybe I just don't
know "really good food". When eating out we lean toward Indian and Thai
and Vietnamese but I wouldn't know authentic from otherwise there... My
daughter is a fitness/nutritionist coach in Denver and has some pretty
strict ideas of what "healthy" food is (they are carnivores so that
expands the range of issues and options)... I do get the feeling that
European food regulations are much stricter (or more clear, less muddled
by industry lobbies?) and I for one am thankful for your leadership in
that area. I suspect that 99% of the vast swaths of agriculture I just
drove through is heavily GMO and heavily chemically managed... I'll add
a footnote that despite collecting a LOT of bugs on the hood and mirrors
of our vehicle it was a fraction of what I remember from the "old days"
We are very much in new "silent spring", though I felt the same was
afoot in Northern Europe when we were there in 2022... not nearly as
many birds and insects as I'd expect?
When I was in NZ in 2000 they had just transitioned from "virtually
nothing but boiled meat with boiled starch" options to a range of "asian
fusion" options which I really enjoyed.... but was quite excited to have
some good New Mexico Green Chile when we returned after a month! We
felt the same returning from EU in 2022 and the midwest just now... but
it is generally agreed that Green Chile is addictive (in the same ways
as many chile/curries might be in Asian cuisine?)
- S
On 9/3/23 4:14 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Well, I still believe there is a gun problem in the United States,
yes. Definitely. Just recently a police officer fatally shot a
pregnant Black woman in the parking lot of a grocery store in Ohio
after she refused to exit her car. And Ohio is not even a red state,
right? It is also well known that the US has substantially more mass
shootings than other countries. This is one reason why I do not want
to travel to the USA at the moment - South Africa also does not feel
safe to me after various reports in the last months about missing
tourists.
The other is the lack of good food. In Europe and Asia there is such a
variety of good restaurants and healthy food. In Germany and Great
Britain not so much, except in the larger cities, but in the
Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy, Greece and Israel the food
is awesome. In South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan as well.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com>
Date: 9/3/23 8:59 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Science Fiction Books
Jochen -
I thought of you more than few times on my long walkabout through
Red/Purple-state 'murrica... mostly your concerns a year or two ago
about traveling to the US "because gun violence". I was in the heart
of "gun country" through this trip and saw a few artifacts of that
which would naturally be *very* disturbing (methinks) to someone not
already innured to it... but not nearly as many as you might expect.
On the other hand I just saw a news item that Canada and many other
first-world countries have in place "travel warnings" for not the US
proper, but many of the more egregious "red states". I believe you
may have already made your 'murrican sojourn so the point may be
moot... but I couldn't help thinking "how would Jochen see this?" as I
stumbled through a landscape of bison, hay bales, corn fields,
motorcycles, strip malls, and gun shows.
I have read "Highway of Eternity" from Clifford D. Simak this
weekend, one of the books from the golden age of science fiction
which is comparable to "The city and the Stars" from Arthur C. Clarke
and "The end of eternity" from Isaac Asimov. Both belong to my
favorite books. Modern authors don't write like this anymore. Their
books are often gloomy and depressive, and do not span millions of
years. What is your favorite science fiction book? Will the AI
breakthrough in large language models lead to more optimistic science
fiction books again?
Back on topic: I grew up on a lot of "Golden Age" works/authors which
includes Simak/Clarke/Asimov of course. I would claim that this time
was naturally one of "Utopianism" that came with the rapid development
of industry/technology/science. I think the Dystopianism ramped up
with PostModernism and Cyberpunk. I'm a big fan of Cyberpunk (esp..
Gibson/Sterling/Stephenson/Cadigan/etc.) and *some* post-Apocalyptic
works... now almost exclusively "CliFi" (Climate Fiction), but I get
your yearning for "the good ole days". I'd say Elon Musk grew up on
"too much Utopian SF" as well and (unlike me) hasn't outgrown it?
My *favorite* golden-age author is Jack Williamson
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Williamson> who I've mentioned
here before and had the distinction of being somewhat elder when he
published his first work at age 20 (1928) in Hugo Gernsback's
first-of-kind Amazing Stories (1926). I feel like he hit his stride
after WWII where he had been a (civilian, not military due to age)
Weatherman in the Pacific and reacted to a dawning self-awareness of
the flip side of techno-Utopianism (exemplified by
Hiroshima/Nagasaki)... His (re)entry into publication after a long
hiatus (during/after WWII) was With Folded Hands
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands>, a reflective
dystopian view of techno-utopianism as well as work presaging Asimov's
Robot series as well as a plethora of concepts like
Borg/Cylon/Replicant/Terminators/Cybermen/Sentinels, etc... and of
course all of this was preceded by Lem's Trurl and Klapaucius
(wizard-robot constructors) and the Hebrew Golem (and Frankenstein's
Monster and... and and.) He wrote over 50 novels ultimately in his 98
year long life as well as myriad short stories, novellas and a 3 year
run of a comic strip (early 50s)... He also penned a reflective
autobiography late in life (70s) but with nearly 20 years worth of
career following that! He taught writing at Eastern NM University
well into his 90s as well.
For the most part I'm thankful to be beyond the flat-character
cardboard-cutout, misogynistic, stoicly independent/capable
(white-male) hero-worship classic SF tropes but I hear your interest
in more positive grand narratives that the Golden Age also carried.
For the seminal Epoch-spanning humanity I offer Olaf Stapledon's "Last
and First Men" (1930) and "Starmaker" (1933). The former spans 2
billion years and 18 human species...
Robert Heinlein is the avowed Master of Human Chauvanistic
technoUtopian/Libertarian fantasies which even satisfies some of us
reformed/anti-Libertarians sometimes. Many of his more minor novels
are a fun romp in near-future techno-utopianism (e.g. Moon is a Harsh
Mistress) as well as epoch and dimensional spanning works such as
/Time Enough for Love /and /Job/ (respectively). /Stranger in a
Strange Land/ stood up well next to Herbert's /Dune/ in the 60s to
satisfy Hippies and non-Hippies alike.
Larry Niven's /Ringworld /series are pretty
far-flung/futuristic/optimistic epochal. He does post-Apocalyptic
well too (e.g. /FootFall/, /Mote in God's Eye/)
I did enjoy Simak's work "back in the day" and his 1968 "So Bright the
Vision" gestured toward what ChatGPT is today.
A.E. Van Vogt offers some great classics as well... /The Worlds of
Null A /and /Weapons Shops of Isher/ stand out.
Poul Anderson simultaneously created/celebrated and lampooned the
canonical pulp hero with his Nicholas van Rijn characters in a series
of works and his /PsychoTechnic League/ is a Future History to rival
Asimov's /Foundation/ series.
I know you asked for "_*A*_ favorite" but I'm not so good at narrowing
such things down... hope you made it through my romp of
recommendations and at least one is useful! If you lived closer
(same continent?) I would bequeath you a few boxes of pulp from that
era <grin>...
- Steve
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