1 77%  22%  0mph WSW bar 30.73 falls  Yuletide

           Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

Today is the day I devote to marketing my work, an idea suggested by Scott Edelstein.  A day a month on it, then put it away, he said.  That way it has time set aside and does not weigh on the work.  I’ve done just that since September and I have finished all my short story edits.  Next month I will have some to submit.

I heard from my brother, Mark, who told me a while ago he was afraid the political unrest in Thailand might set off violence.  He was right, as he says, regrettably.  

United States democracy, and democracies in most of the developed world, are a reasoned trade-off between the power of violence and the assertion of authoritarian government.  The nation’s focus on Iowa tomorrow has such edge because the result in that agricultural state might change foreign and domestic policy in the world’s strongest economy backed up by the world’s most expensive military.   That is, we expect a peaceful transition of power between one government and the other, in fact, we insist upon it.  Not all countries can harbor such expectations.

It is just this peaceful transition that Al Gore protected when he refused a public challenge to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Florida voting discrepancies.   His graciousness was necessary, I think, in spite of the horrors that resulted directly from it.

Some people call it the silly season.  Others turn off their TV sets and stop reading newspapers.  I call it the best show on earth with the exception of the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500.  A presidential election year.  What a year it is.  The first time in 80 years that no incumbent president or vice-president is on the ballot.  Think of that.  This is the first time in two generations, my whole life.

The first chapter opens tomorrow in a corn field near you.