Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

On Epiphany, a Prayer for an Epiphany

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God of all that is, and was, and will be,
God of what is plain and what is mystery,
God of worlds beyond the wonders we see,
Hear this humble prayer

Help me find a purpose that is worthwhile
And ample peace, to live devoid of guile,
With power enough to go the extra mile —
Hear this humble prayer

What dreams should I abandon, and which pursue?
What thoughts examine to verify they’re true?
What truths to learn, and unlearn ones I knew?
Hear this humble prayer

God of all I will be, was, and am,
Hear this prayer and help me understand

Pray
(Image: “Pray,” by Esteban Chiner, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

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The Gift Church: How It Might Work

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This is the third entry in what has become a series. Links to the first two are at the end.

A few months ago on one of my walks, I started thinking about the idea of a church that would practice radical generosity on a regular basis. I had been reading about charities that were accused of not spending much of their collected funds on their target audiences (for instance, the Wounded Warrior Project apparently spends much more on its television commercials and executive salaries than it does to actually help wounded veterans), and I began to wonder about churches and their use of collected funds.

I’ve been active in many different churches over the years, in mainline denominations (e.g., Baptist, Presbyterian), in nondenominational churches, and in what I liked to call the “multi-denominational” environment of the chapels on various Air Force bases. I’ve visited many more churches, from the East Coast to the West Coast, many places in between, and even a few churches in other countries. In comparing all those churches, it should come as no surprise that some of the churches did more to serve the needy than others.

This past year in particular, I began to suspect that the donations we’ve made to local rescue missions did more to directly help the needy than the donations we’ve ever made to a local church, of whatever type. Why? Because the local churches’ receipts went almost entirely to cover their own operating expenses, and those expenses were not usually devoted to serving the needy. So I began to think about how a church might work if serving the less fortunate was its primary purpose for being.

Jesus Feeds the Hungry (5 of 12)
Serving the needy, two Saturdays out of the month. (Image: “Jesus Feeds the Hungry (5 of 12),” by Tony Fischer, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Gradually a picture formed in my head of a church — I called it The Gift Church — that would spend more money on helping others than it spent on itself. I outlined that purpose and the guiding principle behind it in the previous two posts on this subject. If you missed those installments, here’s how I put it:

Purpose. The purpose of the Church is to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ through service to the community and the world. The Church has been given gifts that are meant to be shared.

Central Tenet. Believing that the Lord Jesus Christ’s declaration is true (as reported by Paul the Apostle to the Ephesian church leaders in Acts 20:35), that it is indeed more blessed to give than it is to receive, the Church shall devote more of its monetary resources to serving the needy than it does to its own internal obligations, needs or desires.

Guiding Principle. In the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ did not select disciples so that they could serve only one another or that He could serve only them, the Church does not exist so its members can serve only one another or keep His blessings to themselves. If the Church ceases to serve others, or serves itself to the exclusion of others, it shall not have fulfilled its purpose, because the observation that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21, and especially Luke 12:33-4) can be understood to apply to the corporate Church as well as to individual believers, and so can the Lord’s teaching that service to the poor and downtrodden is, in effect, service to Him (Matthew 25:31-46).

How might that work in practice? First, I should admit that it might not. But if it could, I envision a few elements of its operating as:

  • Regular Charitable Support. The Church would donate regularly to organized charities that directly serve the needy (and/or give money directly to people in need), such that for every dollar the church spent on itself, it would spend a little more than a dollar on the needy. If the Church spent $100 on, say, office supplies, it would then donate $101 to charitable work, and so forth. The Church would have to keep its own expenses reasonable in order for its receipts to cover its own needs and its charitable donations.
  • At a Minimum, a Tithe. If the Church kept its expenses very low in relation to its receipts, it could conceivably retain a great deal of money as a surplus. That would not be bad, as Scripture encourages frugality and planning for lean times — and once some of the surplus was spent on church expenses, a charitable donation would still have to be made. However, it would seem appropriate for the Church to donate at least a tenth of its total receipts, regardless of its expenses.
  • Meeting Needs As They Arise. At any time, members may become aware of needs in the community or the wider world, so any member of the Church could propose a charity (or person) to receive a donation from the Church. The decision-making authority, however, would rest with the assembly of Deacons since that’s why the office of deacon was established.
  • Meeting a Mix of Needs. To keep its focus from becoming too narrow, the Church would distribute its donations to a variety of local and non-local charities. The actual mix might vary from year to year, but the Church would give more than a fourth of its donations to non-local charities. Of the remainder that stayed in the local area, the Church would ensure that no more than a fourth of its donations directly benefited its own needy members. But even a balance like that could be changed if the Elders and Deacons became aware of specific needs that the Church could help meet.
  • Charitable Missions. To maintain its focus on helping the needy, the Church would only count donations to missions as “charitable” if those missions themselves involved direct service to needy people.
  • Provisions for Large Donations or Expenses. From time to time, starting in the early church, people have liquidated property and given the proceeds to the church; most churches could receive such a large gift easily, but under the “tithe” provision above a large gift could stress The Gift Church’s ability to live up to its own central tenet if it did not have funds on hand to donate one-tenth of the gift’s value to charity. Likewise, sometimes a church is faced with a large expense for which making a more-than-matching lump-sum donation would be impractical. In these events, the Church would have the leeway to make its charitable donations in installments.
  • Reporting and Accountability. The Elders would report the cumulative receipts, expenses, and donations to the congregation at intervals throughout the year, and provide a detailed report at year’s end. In this way, the members could be sure the Church was living up to its stated purpose — and if for some reason the Church failed to do so, could take corrective action.

Do you think a church like that might be able to function for very long?

Would it be able to keep its expenses reasonable and encourage its members to give sufficiently to cover the expenses and its charitable work?

I don’t know.

What I believe is this: When Scripture tells us to “bring the whole tithe into the storehouse” (Malachi 3:10), the implication is not that all the food in the storehouse is intended to stay there. It is intended for the Levites and the needs of the Temple, yes, but not for the worshipers. And any excess is not meant to be left in the storehouse to rot.

But maybe I’m the only person who thinks that.

___
Previously in this series:
The Church I’d Like to Start: A Church that GIVES
The Gift Church: Its Guiding Principle

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The Gift Church: Its Guiding Principle

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In late October, I posted about The Church I’d Like to Start: a church that, more than anything else, would serve others more than it served itself. As I noted then, I would call it The Gift Church, or The Gift for short.

In this season of giving, it seems appropriate to revisit the idea.

Pablo Picasso The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away
(“Pablo Picasso: The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away,” by BK, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

In that earlier post I laid out what I see as the purpose and the central tenet of such a church, a congregation that would make “giving its most fundamental reason for being.” Basically, the church would commit itself to spending more on the needy than it spent on itself.

How could a church begin to do such a thing? Obviously (perhaps), all who joined it would have to agree on the importance of service to others. But it seems important for the church to develop a clear statement of why they consider it important, such that even those who might just think about joining could understand.

In my musings on the subject, I put it down like this:

Guiding Principle. In the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ did not select disciples so that they could serve only one another or that He could serve only them, the Church does not exist so its members can serve only one another or keep His blessings to themselves. If the Church ceases to serve others, or serves itself to the exclusion of others, it shall not have fulfilled its purpose, because the observation that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21, and especially Luke 12:33-4) can be understood to apply to the corporate Church as well as to individual believers, and so can the Lord’s teaching that service to the poor and downtrodden is, in effect, service to Him (Matthew 25:31-46).

How does that break down?

In the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ did not select disciples so that they could serve only one another or that He could serve only them, the Church does not exist so its members can serve only one another or keep His blessings to themselves. What did He say to the fishermen? That if they came with Him, He would make them “fishers of men.” Once they were gathered together, did the disciples settle down and have weekly Bible studies and monthly family night suppers with one another? Maybe they did, but if so it wasn’t important to the Gospel writers to record it.

What we do have from the Gospel record is that Jesus sent disciples out into the towns and villages, and to do what? To serve (primarily to heal the sick). And when that phase of the ministry was over, He continued to lead his core group from place to place as he taught and healed and inspired the multitudes.

If the Church ceases to serve others, or serves itself to the exclusion of others, it shall not have fulfilled its purpose…. It seems that statement could — emphasis on could — be true of the church as a whole: the small-c catholic or “universal” church. But it would certainly be true of the specific church as visualized here, the church that would adopt this Guiding Principle. The “Gift” would be a church with a clear purpose, and definite call, to serve others more than it served itself; and if it failed in that purpose, then it should disband and free its members to serve in other places to accomplish other purposes.

… the observation that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21, and especially Luke 12:33-4) can be understood to apply to the corporate Church as well as to individual believers…. What do those passages teach? That “you can’t take it with you.”

Those passages encourage believers to make themselves ready for the coming kingdom of God by “laying up … treasures in Heaven” rather than accumulating treasures on Earth. On Earth, treasures lose their value, can be destroyed or stolen; not so treasures in Heaven. And while the passages are almost always discussed in personal terms, i.e., with respect to what individuals might treasure, have you ever thought of the church as having a heart that reflects what it treasures?

Have you been to churches that have laid up for themselves treasures here on Earth? Churches, for example, that treasure their facilities, their buildings and yards, their parking lots and playgrounds, their stained glass windows and sound systems, etc., etc., more than they seem to treasure the people that use them? (As a point of reference, I was once told I couldn’t have a bottle of water in the sanctuary of a church, because I might spill some on the carpet.) That’s not to say those things are bad, or that they should be taken for granted, only that the perception of their worth can be out of proportion.

Consider that the passage in Luke’s Gospel goes further than that in Matthew’s, in that it quotes Jesus as telling his listeners to sell their possessions and give to charity. In that context, it is hard enough to justify as individuals the accumulation of wealth; how can a Christian church justify it?

Have you been to churches that seem as if they devote more money to the parishioners’ creature comforts, whether air conditioning or cushy chairs or flatscreen TVs, than they do to helping other people? The sanctuary, classrooms, and furnishings in many churches are usually used only a few hours a week (as an exercise, drive by almost any mainline church at 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and count the cars in the parking lot), and even if the cost per attendee per hour was low, do those things amount to Heavenly treasures?

In contrast, have you been to churches that denied themselves in order to more fully serve others, in order to lay up treasures in Heaven? Or at least tried to serve others to the same degree they served themselves? I’m not sure I have.

I’m not sure such a church could long survive.

… so can the Lord’s teaching that service to the poor and downtrodden is, in effect, service to Him (Matthew 25:31-46).

This Scripture, about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, etc., is also usually invoked in reference to individuals. But the Church is a group of individuals that considers itself one body; why can’t the instructions directed at people be taken to include the collective Church itself? Should the Church exclude itself from opportunities to serve Christ by serving those in need, or should it seek out those opportunities?

Some churches do this very well, by operating food pantries or soup kitchens or job programs or a myriad of other services. Some, however, seem to offer little more than platitudes; and Christ is quite clear that when the day of reckoning comes the King’s response to those who failed to tend to the thirsty, the strangers, the prisoners, etc., will be, “Depart from me.”

___

That’s what I came up with as the guiding principle behind The Gift Church, a congregation that would take “it is more blessed to give than it is to receive” (Acts 20:35) seriously.

Do you think such a church could operate long enough to make a difference in the world? Does the idea resonate with you at all? Or am I the only one?

___
Previously on this topic: The Church I’d Like to Start: A Church that GIVES

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Quantifying My Contribution, or, Picking Up After the House of Cards Fell

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A few months ago, during my campaign for Town Council, I wanted to refer potential voters to a blog entry I wrote when I worked at NC State University. Unfortunately, when I searched for it, I found instead that nearly every post I had made to the Industrial Extension Service blog had been deleted when the outfit rebranded itself, changed its name, and revamped its website.

Specifically, of the 145 posts that I personally wrote for the blog, only 1 — an entry about a company joining the “Manufacturing Makes It Real” Network — was left online. Why that one was left is a mystery to me,* since the manufacturing network languished since my departure and now for all practical purposes appears defunct.

Although I missed the campaign opportunity to refer to my blog entry about North Carolina’s restrictive small business licensure requirements, I contacted IES — they still use the same acronym as when I worked there — to obtain a copy of the blog archive. It took some time, but eventually I got what appears to be a complete collection of the entries. One of my former colleagues had to piece the records together, since apparently IES’s effort to purge the blog did not include a concurrent effort to preserve its contents. That’s odd and disappointing, since as public records of the state — having, in at least a few cases, some historical value — their retention would seem to be important even if public access to them is no longer desirable.

Why we blog
Yeah, that about sums it up. (Image: “Why We Blog,” by Duane Storey, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

At any rate, I obtained the collection, and it was easy to see just how thoroughly the old blog was destroyed in producing the new one. Of the 546 entries that had been made prior to my April 2014 departure — I was made an offer I had to refuse — only 9 are still available as of this morning (1 of those being the mysterious MMIR Network reference I mentioned above).

It was also easy to see just how much I contributed to the old IES blog. My 145 solo entries accounted for over 25% of the blog’s content; not surprising, really, since I was employed as a writer and at the time we saw the blog as a viable platform for telling people about what IES did. (For the last couple of years I was actually in charge of the whole blog, and coordinated a team of folks who contributed other entries.) I also ghost-wrote some entries for people, and I’m not sure exactly how many of the remainder I either edited or posted on behalf of the authors, but it’s safe to say that I had a hand in producing at least 40% of the blog.

It was also disappointing, and a bit sad, to see what that platform has become. The numbers above show how active it used to be in terms of content, even if its readership was limited. But as of today there have been a grand total of 15 new entries made to the blog in the over 18 months since I left IES. (Add that to the pre-departure entries still extant and you’ll see there are only 24 entries on that blog currently … dating back to 2009.**) If IES maintains that rate — not even 1 new entry a month — it will take them until around 2057 for their blog to have as much content as it had when I left.

I could speculate as to how it came about that the IES blog was so completely scrubbed of content. At first I thought all the entries by people who had left IES had been purged; if so, they obviously missed a few. But entries by some people who are still IES employees were also dropped from the blog, so it seems the content removal was general as well as radical. I cannot discern any rhyme or reason in what was deleted versus what was retained; perhaps there was no rationale or philosophy behind it at all. That, unfortunately, would not surprise me.

But don’t be surprised if from time to time you see a “blast from the past” post here on my blog, in which I reprise some entry of mine from the old IES blog that still has some value or interest. Even if I’m the only one who thinks so.

___
*It may get deleted if they see this post.
**Specifically: 14 entries so far in 2015, including 3 each in October and November; 1 from 2014, after my departure; and, prior to my departure, 1 from 2013, 1 from 2012 (my MMIR Network post), 1 from 2011, 4 from 2010, and 2 from 2009.

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Where Did ’60 Minutes’ Get a Classified State Department Cable?

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Last night on 60 Minutes, correspondent Lara Logan read part of what she described as a “diplomatic cable” to Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of “the largest Shiite force” in Iraq fighting against the false caliphate that we are now encouraged to refer to as “Daesh.”*

Admitting that it pains me to do this,** here’s a screenshot of the video on the CBS News page:


(Screenshot of “60 Minutes” segment entitled “A Common Enemy,” produced by Max McClellan.)

The banner line — the overall classification marking at the top of the document — isn’t visible, but do you notice anything about the paragraph markings on that page on top? It’s hard to see at this resolution, but there’s a parenthetical (C) after the number of paragraph 2. If you served in the military or some other national security posts, you will recognize that portion marking: it means that paragraph contains CONFIDENTIAL information, the lowest level of classified information.

Here’s a close-up:


(Screenshot close-up of “60 Minutes” segment entitled “A Common Enemy,” produced by Max McClellan. It’s evident that the image is not of a properly declassified document, because in that case the classification markings would have been crossed out.)

Paragraph 3 is even more interesting, as it is portion-marked (S/NF). (It is of minor interest that the classification marking appears to be formatted incorrectly; did the producers create their own facsimile of another document?) The S indicates that the paragraph contains SECRET information, and the NF is the release marking shorthand for NOFORN, which means information that is “not releasable to foreign nationals.”

It is at least possible that CBS News obtained a declassified document and then re-worked it to something like its original condition, but as presented it appears that they used a still-classified memo. If so, then the question is how did CBS obtain the document? Why did they feel obliged to display it so prominently? And, perhaps more to the point, did Lara Logan know when she read part of paragraph 3 that she was releasing information that the Government had deemed should not be released to any foreign national?

If that document was indeed classified, as it appeared to be, I hope the appropriate parties at the State Department and within the Intelligence Community are investigating how this information was passed to the producer and correspondent.

___
*”Daesh” is equivalent to the Arabic acronym for ISIL, but according to this article it “is nearly identical to the Arabic word ‘dais,’ meaning something that crushes or tramples. That’s an ominous definition on its own, but not the one this self-aggrandizing group wants in its quest for Islamic rule.”

**It goes against my training and long-ingrained experience for me to post screenshots that may contain classified information, but the images were already broadcast as part of a national news program. As the Operative said in Serenity, “Damage done.” However, if a US Government representative asks me to remove the images, I will gladly do so.

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Social Media is a Marvel

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Social media has, in some ways, made the Internet itself ironic.

What we know as the Web began as the ARPANET, developed to let Advanced Research Projects Agency scientists share information with one another to advance their researches. It devolved into something much less edifying as it expanded. Today, online courses and encyclopedias and other resources may combine to provide great opportunities for enlightenment, advancement, and fulfillment, but the various social media platforms seem to be strongholds for the ever more banal and degenerate.

Social Media Explained (with Donuts)
(Image: “Social Media Explained (with Donuts),” by Chris Lott, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

On social media, the irreligious can register expert opinions on religion and faith. People who never served a day in uniform or studied a fraction of military history, war, or conflict can share their supposed expertise on strategy, tactics, and military matters. Provincials who have never ventured beyond a comfortable distance from their birthplaces can claim authoritative knowledge on international affairs, those who have never run businesses or managed sums of money can pose as experts on economics, people who have never calibrated an instrument or written a computer model or conducted a designed experiment can proclaim scientific veracity, etc., etc. Add in striking graphics and a healthy dose of vulgarity, and social media enables the uninformed to substitute opinion for reason and feeling for fact.

In effect, by virtue of social media it is as if we have all become … politicians, bloviating and pandering rather than really listening or engaging in meaningful discourse. And only rarely do we step down from our ever-so-precarious soapboxes.

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My Ideal Speechwriting Client

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Of all the writing I do, I find speechwriting to be some of the most challenging and rewarding. It’s a great privilege to help someone craft a clear and effective message for a unique audience.

In addition to enjoying speechwriting, I flatter myself that I’m fairly good at it. All told I’ve written over 200 executive-level speeches and presentations, and I’ve had two different full-time speechwriting gigs, first at Headquarters Air Force and then at NC State University.*

And (hint, hint) I’m always in the market for new speechwriting clients.

So how can you know if I’m the speechwriter for you, and you’re the client for me? Maybe by considering the second part of that question, it will help you answer the first part.

My ideal speechwriting client will:

  • Have Something Worth Saying. Presumably, if you’ve been asked to give a speech — especially a major speech to a sizeable audience — it’s because someone recognizes your experience or knowledge or enthusiasm and wants you to bring that to their event. My ideal client will start with a core message — a central idea around which to build the speech, or a single key item the audience can take from the speech that will help them in some way — that they are passionate about and excited to share.
  • Be Willing to Tailor That Message to the Audience. Every audience is unique, down to each individual in each seat. While it’s unrealistic to think that we can present any message so well that it’s equally powerful for each listener, we can make sure that the message touches on some common elements that unite that audience. My ideal client will want to find and rely on those common elements so the message reaches as much of the audience as possible.
  • Give the Audience Credit, But Not Take Them for Granted. Every audience represents a wide range of knowledge and experience. Some listeners will grasp the message immediately; others may need more time, or additional proof, or a different approach. Some listeners crave statistics and facts; some prefer stories and anecdotal examples. My ideal client will respect the audience’s intelligence and want to incorporate different ways of delivering and enhancing the message.
  • Not Try to Speak Like Someone Else. Think of any famous orator — it is unlikely you will think of yourself in that regard — and consider what my speechwriting teacher Joan Detz pointed out very early in my speechwriting career: your audience is not coming to hear that other person speak, they are coming to hear you. They are not expecting to hear you speak like another person or to watch you put on an act. My ideal client will know that they are the right person to speak to that audience, and will not try to present a false impression by speaking like someone else.
  • Practice. You would not perform a concert without practicing, or play a tournament without practicing, so why would you give a speech without practicing? My ideal client will put in the time to rehearse the speech, alone or with me and/or other trusted advisors in the room, to master the material and ensure that they can deliver the message clearly and confidently.

Lincoln, the Orator
Don’t try to sound like Lincoln. Be yourself. (Image: “Lincoln, the Orator,” by Ann Fisher, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

So, that’s what I’m looking for in speechwriting clients. If you need someone who can help you craft a keynote or other important speech, maybe I could be the speechwriter for you. I’m not cheap — speechwriting takes me away from my other gigs, after all — but I’m confident that I can help you whether your purpose is to educate the audience, motivate the audience, or advocate for a particular position or cause. I can help you make complex technical topics accessible to general audiences, and structure your message so it resonates with the particular audience who is coming to hear you.

Let me know if you’d like to talk about writing a speech together, or if you know someone else who might need some speechwriting assistance.

___
*In the Air Force, I was part of the Secretary and Chief of Staff’s Executive Action Group and wrote primarily for two different Under Secretaries and one Acting Secretary of the Air Force; at the university, I was part of the Industrial Extension Service and wrote primarily for the Executive Director.

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Political Lessons, and … the Hugo Awards?

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I ran for elective office this year, and lost. (For the record, I spent about 0.41% of the total that all four candidates in my district spent up until the election, and I got 3.5% of the vote. Not close to winning, but a good return on my meager investment.)

I was also nominated for a Hugo Award this year, and lost. The story behind that has been chronicled on this blog and elsewhere, and I won’t go into it in this post. (For the record, and as nearly as I can tell from trying to figure out the preferential voting numbers, about 9% of the 5100 novelette voters selected my story as their first choice. I ended up in fourth place . . . two spots below “No Award.”)

I introduce the fact of my being on political and literary ballots this year because I observed two things in the recent Town Council election process that seem pertinent to this year’s Hugo Awards. Specifically, that the political parties inserted themselves deeply into what was supposed to be a nonpartisan race, and other players also wielded considerable influence; and that a lot of voter information was readily available for the candidates to use.

Now, with the caveat that this post is very long, I’ll try to make those connections.

Parties, Power Brokers, and Influence. I ran for Town Council in a single district here in Cary, North Carolina, and though the race was ostensibly nonpartisan the parties definitely made their presence known. The Republican Party endorsed one of the three of us who identified as Republicans — though not this particular candidate — and the Democratic Party endorsed the fourth candidate. The party endorsements brought with them not only some cachet, which those two candidates used to their advantage, but also party money for advertising as well as organized volunteer efforts for canvassing neighborhoods and working the polls.

In addition to the parties, several civic and professional groups were quite interested in the campaign. Some invited the candidates to meet with them in interviews or to fill out interview questionnaires; some sponsored “meet the candidate” social events; some even sponsored debates between the candidates. A few of those groups also endorsed candidates — again, not this candidate — and encouraged their members to support that person who they felt most confident would represent their interests if elected.

What relation does this have to the Hugo Awards? Simply, fandom has developed its own “parties” and thus the Hugo Awards have their own sets of power brokers (or would-be power brokers).

This year some people were very open about exercising their power. The “Sad Puppies” campaign was a party of sorts and encouraged people to consider specific works (mine included), while the follow-on (and aptly named) “Rabid Puppies” campaign flatly admitted that they intended to wield whatever power they could. When they succeeded at placing their preferred stories and people on the ballot — beyond my wildest imagining, if not others’ — a less organized but much more vocal cohort coalesced to wrest the voting power back into the hands of long-time WorldCon members (i.e., the traditional Hugo nominating-and-voting fans).

That is not to say that Hugo Award power brokers have only been active in recent years. Key figures in the science fiction and fantasy industry have long enjoyed considerable influence within the relatively small community of WorldCon fandom. Whether by their positions in publishing houses or the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), their notoriety, or the force of their personality; whether by their knowledge of the field, their literary achievements, or the number of people who read their blogs; or whether by other factors entirely, clearly some people became movers and shakers in fandom, and perhaps even kingmakers in terms of placing their favored selections on the Hugo ballot.

There was, for instance, considerable electronic weeping and wailing this year over whether, in the past, some “cabal” of industry insiders exercised deliberate and coordinated control over the nominating process. Accusations were levied with no proof beyond some statistical correlations, and despite the relatively weak charges they were at times denied with enough stridence that the old phrase “the hit dog howls” came to mind.* But from a group dynamics standpoint, a cabal was never necessary in order for insiders to have influence over the process. In the same way that a CEO or other leader can forget how much power they have over their employees and followers, people with informal power can forget that even a casual suggestion or question — “Have you read the new novel by [beloved author]? It’s marvelous” — can have an outsized effect on those who hear it.

Pillars of Influence
People can exert influence accidentally as well as intentionally. (Image: “Pillars of Influence,” by David Armano, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Taking that a step further, people can in some ways grow comfortable with or even addicted to the power they wield, even if that power is informal. They can come to enjoy it, to depend on it, and therefore to resent when it seems to have been taken away from them. In response, they could resort to making veiled (or not so veiled) threats, or to levying personal accusations that are demonstrably untrue. Again, the hit dog howls.

I will say at this point that I doubt there ever was a super-secret cabal directing Hugo-related fandom. But I know for a fact that insider politicking is as real in SF&F as it is in electoral politics, because I was faced with it in mid-April. Shortly after the nominations were announced, a friend of mine who has won Hugo and other awards and is generally well-known in SFWA and the SF&F community approached me, unsolicited and unexpectedly, to encourage me to withdraw my story from consideration.**

My friend wrote,

I think that you are a talented writer and that this is not going to be your only good story. . . . I think that if you made a statement withdrawing your story from the ballot, that you would get a bump next year and land on the ballot again. Not guaranteed, but I think that you would get a lot of good will.

My friend rightly pointed out that in some ways my nomination made me a pawn, a human shield, in the great Hugo fracas. My friend somewhat glossed over the point that I was destined to end up in someone’s bad graces no matter whether I let my nomination stand or withdrew it, but my friend was unceasingly gracious and pledged to support me no matter which decision I made. I very much appreciate that friend’s concern and their willingness to share their point of view while respecting mine; I count myself fortunate to have such a friend.

Now, a concerned friend reaching out like that would not by itself constitute insider politicking, even when the friend is nearly as deep inside the SF&F community as is possible to go. But when that same friend sends pretty much the same message to other nominees (a fact I verified from other people contacted), then . . . well, it certainly seemed to fit the description of a relatively powerful insider trying to exert influence over the process.

When one of the other nominees asked my friend about the fact that they had approached several of us, my friend wrote,

I was talking with a bunch of you individually . . . and started cutting and pasting from one email to the other. . . . I should have thought of how that would look. Please convey my apologies to whoever you spoke with.

I give my friend the benefit of the doubt, but I saw much the same thing even in the little Town Council race: insiders and special interests approaching candidates to see if we agreed with them or could be swayed to their positions. Some were more open and obvious about it than others, and their motives were clearer. As for my friend, I believe they were genuinely concerned for me and the other friends they contacted, and concerned for what the schism appeared to be doing to the community of fandom.

Looking back at what my friend proposed, it seems somewhat ironic to think that by withdrawing after being nominated I might improve my chances of being nominated in the future, not because anything else I might publish would be better than my 2015 nominated story, but because I would have engendered “good will” with the traditional fan contingent. As I wrote in reply,

. . . from a pragmatic standpoint I’m not sure whether withdrawing would really earn me the good will you speak of. I hope it might. But if good will garnered in that fashion is more important than any qualities inherent in my work . . . then the award really is more than just literary.

Consider this: If some of those who did withdraw — such as my friends Annie Bellet and Edmund Schubert — are nominated in the future, will they wonder if factors besides literary merit influenced the outcome? Since the primary complaint against my story and others was that they were nominated for reasons having little to do with their relative merits, it’s hard to see much of a difference with regards to receiving a friendly “bump” to “land on the ballot again.”

But in addition to the influence (deliberate or incidental) of insiders and power brokers, the other thing I observed in electoral politics that has some bearing on the recent Hugo unpleasantness is

A Plethora of Voter Information. Very early in my run for Town Council, I learned that the Wake County Board of Elections had available a comprehensive database of registered voters. I downloaded it as a huge Excel spreadsheet and narrowed it down first to Cary and then to just my district. In the end, I still had a lengthy list of around 24,000 registered voters that included names, addresses, party affiliations and other information, up to and including whether (and by what method) they voted in recent elections. The only thing missing was exactly for whom they voted.

How does that relate to the Hugo Awards?

During the WorldCon business meeting, when changes to the nomination-and-voting procedures were being proposed and debated, the membership passed a resolution calling for the convention organizers to release anonymized nomination data. The convention committee agreed to do so, but shortly thereafter appeared to back away from fulfilling that agreement because, as I understand it, they were finding it too difficult to produce the data without giving away the identifying information.

Why would the nomination data be interesting?

Consider that, within hours of the Hugo Awards ceremony closing, the io9 blog published an article with the title “This Is What The 2015 Hugo Ballot Should Have Been” in which the author put forth a vision of what the award results might have been had the “Sad Puppies” and “Rabid Puppies” entries not been nominated. The author began with this:

Based on the newly released statistics, Brandon Kempner of Chaos Horizon has a good analysis of the Hugo vote, (as does Nicholas Whyte in From the Heart Of Europe)—they estimate that the Rabid Puppies bloc was composed of 550-525 voters, while the Sad Puppies bloc made up 500-400 voters: around 20% of the 5,950 total voters. Of those numbers, around 3500 likely voted “No Award” out of principle, objecting to the lockstep nomination process of the Puppies.

and then made the leap from the number of voters to the idea that the SP/RP entries might not have been nominated at all. To me (the former engineer and nonstatistician), that seems to be trying to produce orange juice from a bag of apples. The question of what would have been nominated requires delving into the nomination statistics; the voting statistics are irrelevant to that question, because it turns on how many SP/RP nominations there were, not how many votes there were after months of competing rhetoric. With only the raw nomination figures, i.e., without the data that would provide insight into nomination patterns, it seems unsupportable to conclude that none of the stories and people on the SP/RP lists would have been nominated.***

Returning to the example of voter rolls that do not reveal voting results, it seems reasonable to imagine that if the Board of Elections can record votes and yet produce a database of registered voters that contains everything but those voting results, then it should be a simple enough — or certainly no more complicated — database management task for the WorldCon committee to produce records of the Hugo nominations without including identifying information, whether name or membership number or IP address.

Along those lines, if the WorldCon committee’s IT experts — and it’s a committee of geeks, surely they have ready access to a number of technology, computing, and database experts — cannot find a way to produce the promised data, then perhaps they could turn to the local Board of Elections for assistance. I doubt my local Board of Elections is that much different from any other in the country; it seems that their local board in Spokane should be able to provide some guidance.

Conclusion: Heinlein May Be Right.

Robert A. Heinlein maintained in Double Star that “Politics is the only sport for grownups — all other games are for kids.” As someone who enjoys other games and sports, as a spectator and participant, I’m not so sure about that; maybe I haven’t “put away childish things” in that respect, but I’m generally in favor of practicing youthful exuberance in order to stay young at heart. So I suggest a corollary to RAH’s observation: Politics is the sport people play even when they don’t intend to.

All human organizations, from churches to businesses to science fiction and fantasy conventions, are suffused with politics, some of it practiced openly and some of it practiced surreptitiously. It would be disingenuous to claim that the Hugo Awards were ever without politics and politicking; indeed, during the run-up to this year’s awards many thoughtful commentators acknowledged the awards’ political past, though the degree to which politics overshadowed this year’s award was unprecedented.

Perhaps I’m uncomfortable with Heinlein’s assertion because I obviously have not played the political game well, but I’d like to suggest that another of his observations may be more apt, more relevant as we move forward. From Friday: “It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population.”

We continue to see this play out in electoral politics, as small groups band together in solidarity over their specific interests. And we’ve seen it in genre politics as well, whether the rallying cry is “Diversity Now!” or “Golden Age Forever!” or something equally narrow in scope. The implication is that the way we think about the subject is right and all other ways must be wrong, which is a peculiarly limiting viewpoint in a community that enjoys speculating about all manner of fantastic encounters and possible futures.

From my perspective it seems that part of the issue from the beginning of this year’s Hugo Awards melee was a difference in outlook among people who love genre fiction in all its forms, but who placed themselves in one of two groups: one that loves genre and also loves fandom itself, and considers fandom the ultimate expression of its love for the genre; and another that loves genre but for which fandom and the fan community is an adjunct, an addendum, rather than a critical component of their genre experience. That is, one group was devoted to fandom as well as genre; the other was devoted to genre but not (or less) to fandom.

And as long as we divide ourselves, or in the case of fandom subdivide ourselves; as long as we separate ourselves into (virtual or actual) walled-off enclaves and echo chambers, and associate only with those who look like us, act like us, and believe the things we do; we will find it harder to understand, relate to, and get along with one another — in civil life as well as in the SF&F community.

I think we would be well-served as a fannish community if we talked more about what we love and why we love it, without implying that those who do not love it as we do are ignorant or contemptible. And I think we would be better off if we recalled another RAH observation, also from Friday (emphasis in original): “Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms . . . but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” I believe the pithy advice that bears ST:TNG alumnus Wil Wheaton’s name sums that up rather well.****

I had several e-mail exchanges with the friend who encouraged me to withdraw my nomination, and my friend helped me refine this statement of what I would like to see in our discourse: I’d like to have less shouting and more talking; less gloating, more humility; less blaming, more acknowledgement of different points of view; less name-calling, more self-deprecation; less rage (but no less passion), more acceptance.

It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable; if it were not, I would have far fewer friends in this field. It may not be easy, but it is possible — and if Heinlein is right, it is actually necessary if the community (whether the SF&F community or the larger polis) is to survive.

I hope, for my part, I have succeeded in doing so. But that is for others to judge.

___
*If you prefer something more eloquent, perhaps “doth protest too much” would fit the bill.

**I do not intend to identify the person, because I do not want them to face any recriminations; I realize that makes some of the usage here awkward. If my friend wants to self-identify, that’s up to them.

***For example, I perused the 2015 Hugo Award Statistics and it appeared to me that both Annie Bellet’s “Goodnight Stars” and Kary English’s “Totaled” might well have been nominated even if they had not appeared on an anathema list. If that’s true, I’m not sure whether that would make their Annie’s subsequent withdrawal of the stories her story more ironic or tragic. (Whether other listed works would have fared so well is more difficult to tell.)

As a final note on the statistics, it would be interesting if the Hugo Award record-keepers would report the number of works that received ANY votes in a given year; in other words, to show that, out of the entire universe of eligible short stories or whatever, X received at least one nomination. The total number of nominating ballots is given in the statistics, but knowing how many unique works were on those ballots might give a glimpse into how homogeneous the reading tastes of the nominating cohort were.

****Wheaton’s Law: “Don’t be a dick.”

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Blogging the New CD: W is for Winter

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This is the final post in a series about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

The most intense winter I ever experienced was at Thule Air Base, Greenland. I was stationed there from July 2000 to July 2001, and had the privilege of commanding the largest tracking station in the Air Force Satellite Control Network and the pleasure of making friends with a lot of terrific people. Among other things, I got to stand on the Greenland ice cap, to visit Inuit hunting camps, and to swim in North Star Bay — while icebergs floated nearby!

So when my friend James Maxey asked me to write a song for a winter-themed event he was hosting, my thoughts immediately turned to what winter was like at the top of the world, only 750 miles from the North Pole.

I have been where the winter steals the sun for months on end
Where ice-laden winds blow blinding storms down to the frozen bay
And the solstice noon is midnight dark and the cold will not relent
And every soul despairs a little as the old year fades away

— “Winter Simplifies the World”

Sled dogs on North Star Bay
The frozen bay, with Mount Dundas in the background. Thule Air Base is behind you as you look across the bay. (Image: “Sled dogs on North Star Bay,” by NASA ICE, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

The song moves through sadness and loss and into determination and hope, because if we can hang on through the dark, cold night that seems as if it will never end, we can find love and joy when spring returns. And so I hope you can find something to like — or even something to relate to — in “Winter Simplifies the World”.

To paraphrase George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy, winter is always coming. But spring is always coming, too.

___

Finally, here’s a picture of where I used to work, taken in January 2007:


View of the Thule Tracking Station’s radomes that protect the ground antennas from the elements. Taken during the long Thule winter “night.” (USAF Image.)

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Blogging the New CD: T is for Ten Thousand

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This is the penultimate post in a series about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

When I write filk songs, I sometimes mash together in one song different science fiction or fantasy stories, movies, or ideas. In “Ten Thousand Years Ago”, which is actually the first song on my new CD, I included references to Highlander, the first movie of that franchise; some key elements of Doctor Who; vampire stories in general, with allusions to one recent series in particular; and the first Harry Potter book, all in an attempt to create a funny song.

If I had been born 10 thousand years ago
At the dawn of civilization, one thing that I know
Is that if I had been born 10 thousand years ago …
I’d be dead by now

Unless, that is, I was immortal
Like that fellow in that movie where there could “be only one”
But I’m not a very good swordsman, so if I met the Spaniard or the Kurgan
I’m pretty sure I would be done

— “Ten Thousand Years Ago”

Guilty Viewing Pleasures: Highlander
“If I met the Spaniard … I’m pretty sure I would be done.” (Image: “Guilty Viewing Pleasures: Highlander,” by Ingrid Richter, on Flickr under Creative Commons even though she probably didn’t have permission to reproduce the image either.)

When I first wrote this song, it consisted of just the chorus (and the time period was only 1000 years) — in other words, it started out as a simple joke, kind of a sung one-liner. Then I added the verse about Highlander, and decided to try to expand the song with other immortality or longevity references. The second verse I came up with, though, was about zombies; it seemed to work well enough when I sang the song at conventions, but when the time came to record the final vocals I decided I didn’t like that verse anymore. So the morning before I was going to record, I wrote a new second verse about Doctor Who. I like that verse, so I think the final recorded track turned out much better than that intermediate version.

But only you can decide if it’s truly funny. I hope “Ten Thousand Years Ago” gives you a chuckle!

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