Teaching of evolution
Last months' Scientific American had an article on the teaching of evolution in US schools. Highly variable, and in places - actually, in some unlikely places - appalling. I have no idea what Canada is like. I suspect, unhappily, that it may be akin to the liberal states, prepared to sacrifice science to social and cultural inclusiveness. (You can tell I'm in the 37% who are of the opinion that creationism does not deserve any mention in a science class, can't you ... which by the way may be a minority but is not a small number.)

Last line: "Many who are indifferent to conservative theology give creationism some support, perhaps because, as mathematician Norman Levitt of Rutgers University suggests, the subject of evolution provokes anxiety about the nature of human existence, an anxiety that antievolutionists use to promote creationist ideas." Note that whose anxiety is never said. Evolution is quite clear about the nature of human existance. People just don't care for its interpretation. It doesn't just knock God off his plinth, it knocks man off his pedestal. It raises questions. People who wish to control - others beliefs or freedoms, or the natural world - are threatened by questions.

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Blog in motion
And it works. After considerable grief and some use of Very Bad Words. I can now post to the Blog(s) from my Palm. Anywhere, anytime, courtesy of AvantBlog. (Though AvantBlog stashes them all for the next hotsynch and Blogger date-time stamps them at the time of that hotsynch ... I am not wireless). Despite nonexistant documentation and some guesswork when the AvantBlog configuration string didn't dump properly into the Avantgo channel, it should have been straightforward, except that I had duplicate Hotsynch conduits on my system hanging around from a previous reinstall of the desktop software, and although I was advised of this and invited to select by the installer, the program did not settle down and actually install the Avantgo software until I hunted down and deleted all the extras. I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to have to reinstall Palm desktop, which had major headache-potential because of the fact that I'd have had to go back and download the version I was using ... if it hadn't been upgraded, and if I couldn't find that version then I could well have gotten into hassles with my versions of Backup Buddy and who knows what else. Upgrades, who needs 'em. Except I keep getting tempted by programs like this!
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This is a test - I'm posting from my palm -
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Space medicine
In my recent researches I ran across a (US) National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine report on space medicine, specifically as it addresses the safety of astronauts travelling, working and living in space:

Safe Passage: Astronaut Care for Exploration Missions

It's a bit unweildy, effectively having been mounted on the web as single-page PDFs, and it's 300 pages long, but in that form it is free (there is a charge for the complete PDF). And I'm more able to tackle that than the news article about the report on Space.com. The first screen is squeezed down to about a quarter of the window-width by an orange and black FLASHING ad. Ugh. Impossible to concentrate on the words. And they didn't provide a link to the source document.
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Lynda has gone off to Norwescon
While due to a bout of job uncertainty when financial commitments had to be made, and a sense of being peopled-out after an active and sociable month, I have welched and stayed home with the intention of being utterly antisocial, writing my brains out, organizing my life (again) and avoiding perfumes, cigarette smoke and other noxious inhalants.
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You don't have to have lived in Calgary ...
... but it helps. I dropped in on the Con-Version website, and nearly fell off the chair laughing. This year they're doing Con-Version in conjunction with Con-Spec and they have the Con-Spec - thematic art, I suppose you'd call it - up. For the non-Canadians: Consider that Calgary is often dissed as "cowtown" and is most widely known for the Calgary Stampede, and ...


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old picture

new picture

Winter 2002 edition of Reflection on Water up, finally. Not ORU related, except I recycled the picture detail I used for Research and Commentary to use for the editorial. Quite a difference! Snapshot vs. studio photo. Reflections on Water, Winter 2002 Editorial

True, but I'm intrigued by the flash performance art in the gallery, and I don't think innovations in form are completely outwith the ORU remit, given the ideas we have kicked around over the years. I was a bit challenged by what was links and what was not on the front page - A.

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Publicity Photo Fun

Playing with good photographs is neat. I've stuck a detail cropped from one and suitably converted on the "Research and Commentary" page of the ORU. Whatcha think?

Also did a cool effects variation on one from the contact sheet which might do for wallpaper on an older PC screen.

• Original picture (bit grainy in places)


• Effects version(a different statement, which eradicates the grain)

Angela Resistant to Beautification Also had to share a home photo of Angela being made beautiful by Erin, a friend of Jennifer's. My excuse for posting it to the ORU is that she reminded me of Alivda under similiar circumstances. Erin never did succeed in curling all her hair. She rebelled moments after the photo was taken and unrepentantly spent the rest of the day with only half her hair curled.

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Cut Cemetary: Entry 1

The Golden prince was still addressing Di Mon in flattering rel-peerage, encouraging the fantasy that they were working together in a common cause, which while not exactly Ameron's still fell within the intersection of the shadows Ameron cast on their separate souls.

The sentence above was cut from Second Contact last night, in Chapter 11 "Politics of a Pregnancy", where Di Mon investigates Von's disappearance on Gelion. I just like the sentence! And the idea of Ameron being a real, but very differently interpreted, inspiration for both D'Ander and Di Mon. No two disciples see the same master, but there is still a bond.

It fell to the cutting floor along with a lot of internalization that I could not help seeing was a ball and chain that the conversation between Di Mon and D'Ander had to drag along. Down to 163,000 words and falling fast.

Michael Armstrong wears Okal Rel T-Shirt for Inspiration

Went to another "West of Unruly" reading last night. My friend Michael Armstrong was reading at Art Space in Prince George, on a slate with Barry McKinnon and bill bissett. I was feeling tired and bummed until he gave me a hug and pulled back the side of his poetically open, white shirt to reveal that the black T-Shirt beneath bore an Okal Rel symbol. Doubtless it lent its strength to making his reading a rel one.

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Broken links
Lynda, I've noticed that all pictures with relative links are lost to the archive because the archive is stashed in another directory. The two below, I've used absolute, but put in the "images" directory.

Good point. I've noticed that too and started using absolute references. Great pictures! Do you have any of the ones with people wearing Okal Rel Universe T-Shirts?

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Photos from March 16th (Unruly Tomorrows) reading

Alison, reading Erien's arrival at Green Hearth.

Lynda, keeping them in suspense over Amel's clandestine interview with Ranar.

Love the pictures!

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Guest Book Contribution to Bridget Moran Conference

Above is my thought for the day with regard to the Bridget Moran Conference taking place in Prince George this coming weekend. Organizer Si Transken was broad minded enough to include the Okal Rel Universe story Going Back Out in the "papers" to be presented (Friday Mar 22, 2-3 pm Rm 6-205 UNBC P.G. Campus). The rationale is that in Going Back Out Ann urges fellow pilot Gadar to stick with space service even though Reetions are up against supepilots on the Sevolite side of the universe, because however good Sevolite pilots may be, they won't be flying for Reetion reasons.

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Far Arena RTFs
Uploaded ... but I chickened out and put them in a directory dated today within the Far Arena directory. I didn't want to risk clobbering a file you'd worked on since I uploaded it the last time. Probably at some point we should haul them out and into the main directory. I used our file naming convention, too.
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Ilse plot notes

..uploaded. Also contains exploratory scene of Amel making suggestion Horth "owes" Ilse re: Erien rescue.

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FA plot notes

...as discussed during your visit are now uploaded. I tend to include both .doc and .rtf versions but have my copy of WORD configured to use RTF by default so if ever in doubt assume the .RTF version is the authority. I've put bulleted points in the file to explain the meaning of jots in the columns.

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And now what ...
I have just deleted three versions of the leafy sea dragons post. I don't know how it got duplicated - let's see what happens.
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Lynda, I wanna regress!
I have decided I do not like this pro thing. I cannot get on through Netscape, either 4.75 or 6. IE is currently displaying four separate versions of my second to last post. Heaven alone knows what will happen when I post this. Netscape 4.75 is displaying the blog itself as a photograph-width ribbon down the middle, with the text strung out like very feeble modern poetry - 1-3 words per line.

I wanted to post because I ran across a 2001 press release from UNISYS in which they apologised for all the aggravations of the computer age they set in motion with their 1951 invention and promised to do better next time.
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Enemy Action
OK, that is the third time that instead of re-posting an edited post, Blogger has deleted it.
Having first told me pro-blogs were unavailable through Netscape 4.75 on a non-pro interface, then refused to let me see any of my blogs on Netscape 6.
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
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Improbable Beasts

As mentioned on the phone, leafy seadragons from Seattle Aquarium. S. Australian, cool waters; live in seaweed - duh!; eat small shrimp and other floating titbits; true bony fishes related to seahorse and pipefish - hence the male gestates; grow to about 40 cm; numbers unknown - protected from the usual culprits, collectors and makers of traditional medicines; fins absolutely minimal - tiny flutterings at the heads and spine - drift along angled in the water (just fast enough to blur in my little digital camera in low light).

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Unruly Promo Pic That Didn't Work Out

Rather liked this in its various versions but wouldn't work for poster printing on a white background
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Prince George Citizen Article

Click for scan of newspaper article on the Just West of Unruly event in P.G.

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Beam me your doctor

If we get the same cross-section of people other Jefferson/Da Vinci lecture attracted, we should have 40-70 mixed UNBC types with an emphasis on science faculty and students. I will also notify Ian, who is the doc in town in charge of continuing education for doctors, but haven't much sense of whether that will result in people showing up.

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You're out there!
And I'm one to talk. Contributors to silence have consisted of: vile cold, parents' visit, fixed determination to make noticable progress a series of short papers I started while at the CMAJ, need to buff up the talk and complete the abandoned visual presentation. I'd like to fill out the AI side of it a bit more - any ideas on who is going to come?? Novel, what novel? I am beginning to notice irritable withdrawal symptoms.

I haven't faded out the rel symbol - you're welcome to have a go. The trick you used to fade the braid to inconspicuous should work on it.
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Web Site

Oh! And I talked to Brian about the web site plans. He is positive about both a more accessible, "current book" based side to the site and retaining the back pages in all their current sprawl and glory for those interested in delving deeper.

Should also tell you how nice the glossary looks with your new style sheet. Did you get around to fading out the rel symbol a little more? Guess we can discuss what we'll put in the promotional wing of the site, and how we'll divide up the work of creating it, while you are up. As well as work on Far Arena, of course.

Finally, I told Brian I was going to meet with a contact at a Prince George web advertizing agency, Denis and Muentener, just to find out what sort of professional assistance is available for what price. Not thinking in terms of delegating the site building or design--you and I can do enough of that to suit our budgets and purposes for the moment--but just getting some guidance and input. Talk about this when you're up, too.

Looking forward to having you here!

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Phone Call with Brian
Brian called tonight and we talked for half an hour. We discussed everything from the web site to the cons to re-affirming Edge's commitment to the series. Here are a few nuggets I thought I should get down on the blog before they escape:

• He'll be sending a letter of understanding to affirm our mutual commitment to putting out the whole series together.


• He'd like Second Contact by May for editorial work to begin.


• He'll take Far Arena then too, or a little later


• Edge will decide, in time to put out the 2nd novel within a year of Throne Price being release, which one to go with.


• It is desirable if I send along Mekan'stan so he and Cheyenne have it, but there are no definite plans for novellas at this time apart from an interest in using them as part of bringing out the whole series; this need not preclude other avenues of release but he'd like to be "in the loop" if that should happen and be sure any choices made are not detrimental to future use in print form as part of the series


• I let him know that taping Mekan'stan, with the UNBC student radio station, had fallen through at least until the summer


• He is going ahead with launch plans for Conversion; I told him I'd be attending and so will Derryl Murphy. (Derryl offered to find out from the con com how you and I can get involved with the program)


• Hopes to have books in PG for "Just West of Unruly" conference beginning March 13, and they'll be there for sure by the "Unruly Futures" event March 16. These are the beta 3 pre-prints.


• Brian asked if we'd consider changing the title Unfinished Business to something more engaging. He thought it sounded too much like the title of a business seminar, and failed to roll off the tounge trippingly. I've no problem with that. Unless you do, we can consider it a working title until we are inspired.


• I MUST get my photo done SOON for Brian's publicity packages for Throne Price which he is now putting together.

If there's more to dredge up, it will surface in our next phone call. Feel about due for one. :-) I was dragging myself around there for weeks, with a cold and nagging sense of guilt about some pending duties but both seem to be clearing up.

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Dinner March 15
Prepare to be wined and dined. Lee Keener, host of the Jefferson/Da Vinci lecture series to which you will be contributing March 15, has booked dinner at one of the "only two really good restaurants in Prince George". You will be the guest so you don't need to worry about the prices on the menu. :-) I think it is close to being one of those places where they don't put the prices on the menu.
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