Whatsoever a Man Soweth…

“The figures will also raise questions about why the government did not balance the books in years of strong growth and went into a downturn with such high levels of borrowing.”

As Alistair Darling follows his actually rather terrifying “do something rather than nothing” approach to lessening (and let’s not be mistaken; this is only about lessening, not fixing) the impact of the global economic crisis/slowdown, I once again find myself asking the very question that Hugh Pym asked in the abovequoted piece for the BBC.

Also, I’m certainly no economist, but another question I find myself asking is this: ultimately, will even these high degrees of government borrowing actually adequately address the problem? Darling forecasts that the annual budget (excluding investment) will be back in balance in 2015. But if Treasury forecasts were to be relied upon, shouldn’t we — or rather, they — have seen the current predicament coming?

Maybe we just need to accept that we have to hunker down and take what we’ve had coming for rather a long time. This strikes me as merely a postponement — and one, for that matter, that might actually make things even worse in the long run.

Like I said, I’m no economist. But is Alistair Darling?

Captain of the Titanic: We’ve hit an iceberg!

Alistair Darling: No problem, we’ll just make another hole to let the water out!

© 2008 Gary William Murning

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The Unholy Trinity.

Ah yes. It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it, before McCain rolled out the esteemed and intellectually challenged Arnold Schwarzenegger to make up his Rapturous Unholy Trinity? With talk of war heroes and backlashes, he wowed his audience and looked… well… suitably Arnie-ish.

I have no idea how Mr Schwarzenegger’s rhetoric and hyperbole sounds to your average American voter, but I would seriously hope that they find it as unimpressive and hollow as I.

A couple of points that got me shaking my head and sighing:

• Apparently, Mr Obama — with the money he used for television ads — could have bailed out the banks and paid off everyone’s mortgages. This was hyperbole, wasn’t it? He wasn’t really being serious, right? You see, from this side of the pond it’s difficult to be completely certain — but I’m going to assume that he was speaking literally, even though I realise he probably wasn’t, because I can 😉 Obama’s campaign budget was estimated at the beginning of October as being somewhere in the region of $450 million. This was money raised for campaign purposes. The money allocated to television ads would have been a percentage of this. I don’t know the actual figures and it’s irrelevant, anyway. The point is, this money was never intended to be used as an economic crutch — or anything else other than campaign funds. It is preposterous to even suggest (with or without hyperbole) that it could have been used in any other way. Yes, it is rather excessive but, on an interesting side note, back in 2006 Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal wealth was said to be around the $800 million mark. Hey, Arnie, why don’t you bail out the banks? Jerk.
• John McCain was a prisoner of war. D’you know something, I have a deep-seated suspicion of war heroes who use their past exploits in this way. My great-grandfather (who died when I was about eight or nine) fought in the trenches in France during the First World War, and no one in our family knew anything of what he went through during that time — other than the fact that it was so distressing that he chose not to talk about it. Now this isn’t to say, of course, that everyone who talks about what they went through during battle is somehow embroidering the facts. People quite often need to talk, to share, to help others — from friends to historians — understand the reality of the situations in which they found themselves. But to use those memories, the dead colleagues and friends, the suffering… to use them on the campaign trail, to allow fellow campaigners to refer to them, that I’m afraid strikes me as cynical and inherently suspicious. There were many heroes during the Vietnam War, some in the Armed Forces, and some on the steps of the Kent State University. If Mr McCain is a real hero, it may well have served him better to not have used it for possible political gain.

There’s a definite superficiality to McCain’s campaign that seems to be predominating. Whilst I’m no political commentator — and certainly not the obsessive campaign-watcher that some are — it does strike me that this is the fundamental difference between McCain and Obama. Granted, the latter is far from perfect (anyone who chooses to be a politician is by definition imperfect in my book!) but he at least seems to have something like substance.

I may be wrong — but when I hear Schwarzenegger referring to Obama’s “scrawny little arms”, I tend to feel that I’m not.

Hey, Arnie! Another suggestion for you: why don’t you go and beef up your scrawny little brain?

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:

Jerk.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Christopher Hitchens on (Not Literally) Sarah Palin.

Contrary to many a rumour out there, I don’t always agree with Old Hitch. But in this recent article for Slate, he takes the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate and very ably shows her for what we all already knew her to be:

“With Palin, however, the contempt for science may be something a little more sinister than the bluff, empty-headed plain-man’s philistinism of McCain. We never get a chance to ask her in detail about these things, but she is known to favor the teaching of creationism in schools (smuggling this crazy idea through customs in the innocent disguise of “teaching the argument,” as if there was an argument), and so it is at least probable that she believes all creatures from humans to fruit flies were created just as they are now. This would make DNA or any other kind of research pointless, whether conducted in Paris or not. Projects such as sequencing the DNA of the flu virus, the better to inoculate against it, would not need to be funded. We could all expire happily in the name of God. Gov. Palin also says that she doesn’t think humans are responsible for global warming; again, one would like to ask her whether, like some of her co-religionists, she is a “premillenial dispensationalist”—in other words, someone who believes that there is no point in protecting and preserving the natural world, since the end of days will soon be upon us.”

As a Brit, there is very little I can do directly to prevent her and McCain from gaining office. And yet the choices that you, my American friends and readers, will soon make will have consequences on a global scale. This impacts on us all. As imperfect a political specimen as Obama might be, he’s far superior to McCain and Little Miss Full of Shit. So please, use your vote wisely.

Don’t give these inbred arseholes the opportunity to, amongst other things, possibly make the End of Days prophecy a reality.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Children of the Resolution — Update.

Yesterday I heard from an agent to whom I’d sent samples of Children of the Resolution. The rest of the manuscript has been requested and I was informed that she had been “utterly absorbed” by what she had read so far.

Naturally, it’s too early to draw any conclusions from this and I’m trying not to get my hopes up. I’ve done this too many times — and I therefore won’t be happy until I’ve heard her final response/decision.

It is, however, satisfying to know that someone within the industry seems to have “got” at least part of what I’m trying to achieve with Children.

Utterly absorbed is good. I can live with that 😉

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Project Guttenberg and Voice Recognition Software — My Saviours!

So I lost my copy of Her Privates We (also known as The Middle Parts of Fortune), Frederic Manning‘s (highly factual) fictional account of life in the trenches during World War I. It’ll probably turn up but, to be frank, I didn’t much fancy actually sitting down and reading it. I knew it would provide invaluable background for my new novel, but I have so much research to get through that as soon as I remembered that I had it somewhere I started trying to think of research shortcuts (i.e. ways of avoiding reading it!)

And, sure enough, one occurred to me — a fairly considerable one.

First, I took a look at Project Guttenberg to see if it was available as a free ebook, which, as it turned out, it was, along with lots of other books that could be highly relevant. So, I downloaded it as a plain text document and then, to save my poor old eyes, I sat back and, using the “Read This” function on my voice recognition software, listened to the opening chapter.

Now, it isn’t a perfect system. It has a number of “voices” but my voice of choice sounds very much like Stephen Hawking. Which is fine by me. The idea of having Hawking reading to me tickles me. However, I probably wouldn’t use it in any situation other than research. I wouldn’t read a book for relaxation this way because, well, the mechanical tone would quite possibly spoil it (although it isn’t half as bad as you’d probably imagine it to be.)

For this purpose, though, the combination of the Project Guttenberg texts and the voice recognition “Read This” function is pretty much perfect. I can even have it reading to me in the background whilst I do something else.

Ain’t technology brilliant?

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Looking Back…

It seems I’m pulling in quite a few new readers at the moment. My daily page hit count has been around 184 over the past week or so, jumping up to 233 on one occasion. Not exactly in the same league as some out there, but a definite improvement and rather gratifying nonetheless.

So, I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank you all for helping my blog to grow. Your comments are always welcome (in fact, if you’re a new reader, please feel free to treat this as an opportunity to say hello — pimp your own blog, even, if you wish!)

Because so many new people are dropping by I thought it might be fun to look back at some of my earlier articles. I’ve picked five of my personal favourites. If you’re a regular reader and there’s an older article of mine that you like which I haven’t mentioned, please feel free to shout up!

Five of the Best.

1. Drawing the Line. February 25, 2008. I like this piece because it gives an insight into how I write and, in particular, how I wrote Children of the Resolution. It was good for me to read it again. Especially at this “between-projects” time.
2. Disability in Fiction. February 16, 2008. Another writing-related piece concerning expectation in writing.
3. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. November 26, 2007. The Richard Feynman Horizon interview — with a short introduction by me.
4. You Can’t Say That. June 23, 2008. A rant on our ridiculous fear of causing offence. In part a tribute to the late George Carlin.
5. Elvis, Marty Lacker… and Me. August 3, 2008. This is one of my all-time favourites because it provided me, quite unexpectedly, with the opportunity to exchange emails with one of Elvis Presley’s closest friends, Memphis Mafia member Marty Lacker. I may have a further update on this story in the not too distant future.

Well, I think that’s all for now. Take a look when you have time and enjoy. These five post probably epitomise pretty well just what I am about — or what my blog is about, at least!

© 2008 Gary William Murning

What Doesn’t Kill You…

… just leaves you bleeding and battered on the floor.

I guess today is just destined to be “one of those days”. No sooner had my foot started to feel better than I heard from the Acquisitions Editor at Kunati. As mentioned here, he had passed my novel, The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, along to his associates with a recommendation. Unanimity was required, however, and, to cut a long story short, it didn’t bloody well get it.

I’m disappointed. I know it’s par for the course, and I certainly don’t hold it against the guys at Kunati, but this was a “close call”, and these are the rejections that are always the toughest to get one’s head around. Kicking something would help, but that probably isn’t wise, what with my dodgy foot an’ all.

Still, Children of the Resolution (a very different novel to Realm) is almost complete so I’ll just pin my hopes on that. I believe it to be a far more marketable novel.

Now, where have I heard that before?

(Please note: I’m not really as pissed off as I possibly sound, so I don’t need the number for the Samaritans. And anyone who thinks it might be funny to send me it anyway can just… well, try it. Go on, I dares ya 😉 )