If the book, The Black Box by E. Phillips Oppenheim, was a science fiction type novel I think I would be less surprised. But it’s a detective story. Mind, the lead character is a detective with a scientific bent, but like most pulp fiction of the era the books is filled with plot twists, outrageous and largely impossible happenings — and a glimpse of the future.

The detective invents a wireless communication device which allows him, and a person with a similar device, to text back and forth. Sounds downright possible, now, doesn’t it? The telecam thing is a little odder — when you make a call, a person on one end (the detective or his helpers) holds a mirror type thing up to the phone receiver and it somehow shows what is going on in the room on the other end of the line in the mirror. Without the people in the other room knowing about it. Personally, I’m kinda glad that that one hasn’t actually been invented (yet), but the video cam thingies come close!

I don’t know much about what life was like during that period of time. I mean, I know the general history, but people must have spent time dreaming up all sorts of impossible things, even then. Or seemingly impossible anyway. Then I got to wondering — what do we, today, dream of that is impossible?

I need to do some thinking about that one.

Still, you see and hear stories of people being killed and maimed and wondering where “the West” is, how come we are not helping them. And you think, well, we have all this military power, why aren’t we using it for good? But the use of major firepower is never an unqualified good, and rarely does “the West” enter into conflicts, even humanitarian ones, just out of the goodness of our hearts. And what about all the people who are being killed by their governments and militaries whose fights we are not joining?

So. What to think.

I admit my first thought, when I heard that the French planes were patrolling the skies, and that the US military ships were off the coast, was of the reputed “Lafayette, we are here” saying, which, of course, is not at all analogous. But it does go to show how deeply the U.S. American mystique penetrates, or can penetrate, into even those who disdain it. Still, we “came to the rescue” of Europe in WWI and WWII — why not come to the rescue of the Libyans?

Of course millions of people died in those wars. (As an aside, I am always left a little bemused when people point to conflicts somewhere in Africa or in India or something, and bemoan the “savagery” of people who kill “their own.” They seem to forget that white Europeans and Americans spent almost the entire 20th century trying to annihilate one another.)

Anyway, I hope this is over soon.

[Update] Here is a view of the situation in Libya and other areas, from a reader at TPM, that sort expresses what I’d like to see as a result of this military action.

I think its primary attraction, for me, is that there is nothing else there to think about or do but write. No unfinished drafts, no obligations, no responsibility for saving the work, nothing. There you are, sitting in front of an almost completely blank, white page with nothing to fiddle with and no distractions. I don’t feel as boxed in and almost claustrophobic as I do with some of the “distraction-free” desktop software. With 750 Words escape is just a click away – but I rarely make that click. And if I do, it’s only for a moment or so – though sometimes if the words are just not coming in the morning (even aimless nattering sometimes has limits) I will just leave and come back to finish my word count later in the day.

This morning I typed part of my stuff with my eyes closed. My version of meditating. I had pictures in my mind (I think in pictures, sometimes) and I wanted to get them on paper so I closed my eyes and just let my fingers go. Also I was tired.

It helps if you are a touch typist, of course – and if you keep your fingers on the right keys. For a couple of lines my right hand was one key over and while the output was interesting it was not in the least bit readable. So I went back and redid that while the thoughts were still fresh.

Anyway, the December challenge (they have one every month, I think) is to reach the 750 word count every single day of the month (you can write more if you want – it doesn’t cut you off at 750 or anything). You don’t get anything for doing this and there are no penalties if you fail, but it’s good exercise for hermity people like me. I tend to go into silent mode at the drop of a hat, so this prevents some of that. Also, once I get used to writing a page a day in one place, instead of scattered all over, it’ll become easier and easier to do. Then maybe two or three pages a day. And who knows, next year I may be ready for NaNowhatever!

Is anyone else doing the challenge? Starts today, of course, lol.

Oh, and an update on my “41 words” thing. I used two of them in the Ghost’s Stories piece yesterday: deliberate (or, rather, deliberately – I probably need my fingers rapped for .. er… deliberately inserting an adverb into the post) and grotesque. See? Nothing big or odd (and I’m pretty sure that I do use “deliberate” but maybe not so much), but thinking about words and where to put them is something I don’t do often enough.

My immediate thought – well, it’s right here, in many on and offline communities of color, in Labor, in some feminism, in some liberalism. In other words, pretty much where it’s always been – but I guess it has even less of an audible voice than it had in times past if people are having to ask.

There are reasons for this that I’d like to explore (with access to those far more knowledgeable than I, when I am able) – from racism (consciously or unconsciously thinking that primarily the white left counts here – which is sort of true, in the way that banks like to (or used to) only lend money to those who don’t need it) to accomodationist (or just plain embarrassed by the margins, by the “identity groups”) Liberalism/Progressivism, to incessant right-wing rhetoric and more.

I also think one answer to the question of where the activist, political Left is may lie in the reason the question is asked in the first place: this Left, peopled often with those to whom issues are not so much a matter of policy or political strategy but of life or death, are sought out for the express purpose of being a type of foil to the mainstream left. Of having these same imperative issues brought forward so that they can be explicitly and loudly dismissed by the mainstream Left – which serves to make them (the mainstream) look moderate and “sane” – and serves the “far Left” not at all, that I can see. Or little, anyway.

So, I don’t know. Many I know, while not completely disdaining the political process, are not exactly enamored with their place on the dance card that’s been set out for them. Maybe some have decided not to dance to this tune at all.

Organizing within communities quietly and fiercely, using freely available (to some) tools such as the internet to communicate issues and needs – and successes and strategies – across national, political, religious, racial and ethnic lines instead of (or, at times, in addition to) agitating in the streets or the US Congress, may yet bring a better return for the far left in the US, and other places, than all the political theater of being the designated “fringe” can do.

None of this is to say, by the way, that I don’t agree that President Obama should be pushed from the left, or that I wouldn’t love to see a vibrant, activist and active politically relevant (and represented) class opening up huge spaces for Obama (and other politicians), not only pushing him leftward but providing an opening for him to move there – but with seats at the table, not as just more political theater, to be marginalized with little return.

not my cat

Looking around my house this afternoon I noticed that my fridge is freshly cleaned but my kitchen is a mess; all the laundry is washed and dried, but not put away; my mom is all washed and in bed, but her bathroom is only partly cleaned; cat is fed, but she needs water; my… well, no reason to go on and on. You get the idea. I think I may have a problem with finishing things. Or, rather, finishing things which can never really be considered finished. Cycles don’t just end, after all. They come to a stopping place (sometimes) and then start over again.

Me, I think I’ve decided to eliminate the stopping place and just have one cycle roll over into the next, as it’s going to do it anyway. The annoying thing about that, though, is that I never really feel done. With anything (that comes to mind at the moment). Even with a completely clean and laundered house, watered cat, fresh mom and rested self, I tend to get that little niggling feeling that there, surely, is something else yet to do, even if I have no desire or intention of doing it, whatever it is.

Perhaps I should take up meditation. I’ve never been very good at that, though.

I’m not certain any of this has anything to do with my blogroll, but there it is – for some reason, adding people to my blogroll brought on this train of thought. Possibly because that too is a thing that is never really complete. Oh, I guess for some people it is, who add whoever they are going to and that’s that, but for many the basic list is only the beginning.

On that subject I have to make a confession: not only am I, often, a Bad Blogger but I am even more so a Bad Blogroller. Mine is always beginning and never really moving past that. Some people, I know, have huge lists, really long rolls of sites so what I do, when I want to find a new site or an old favorite I’ve lost the address for, is head on over to someone who actually maintains a blogroll and click from there. I always mean to have a really long list, but, well… there you go.

Maybe it has something to do with not accumulating stuff. I don’t, you know, in my offline life. I use my computers until they are, in essence, dented, rusted out and the bumpers are falling off. I’m fine with my clothes, year after year, as long as they are not stained and don’t have too many holes (holey clothing always seeming pass in and out of fashion). I have a few sentimental pieces of antique furniture and some artwork I am fond of, but other than that… Part of it is no doubt due to the fact that I hate shopping, and have money to burn only in rare instances. That can’t be all of it, though. When I was making much more money working in sales or in other jobs and had plenty to burn, I was not much different.

Hmmm. The bulk of my work is stored online. There is little here, inanimate, that has a permanency in my life, that I would grieve over if parted from. Even my cat is a temporary cat, and has been for 17 years now – living with me only until I find her a good home.

You know – it occurs to me that I live, have always lived, ready to leave. And why not? We left a lot, when I was growing up. Still, I should think I’d be over that by now, at my age.

This bears thinking on. Funny what new vistas blogrolls will lead you to, no?