Tag: This is

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This is … Something I Stumbled Upon

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… in my reading. I opened up the copy of the Federalist Papers I keep in iBooks, and saw that I’d highlighted a passage some time ago. I read it to see if it still resonated.

Yes, I really do keep the Federalist Papers on my devices, along with the Constitution of the United States. Why, yes, I have actually read both of these documents and study them periodically. I do this because I want to understand the principles and sentiments my country was founded on. I think all Americans and those who would like to be Americans should read them and attempt to understand what they mean. The second paragraph is especially resonant.

This was the passage I’d highlighted:

“And yet, however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.

“On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.” — Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, For the Independent Journal. Saturday, October 27, 1787

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This is … Hogwarts (Or Not)

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This is … Hogwarts West. Or at least it should be, don’t you think?

It’s actually a student hall at the University of Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh which Jeff and I visited when we were Guests of Honor at Confluence last year.

The University also had some amazing classrooms with international decor.

I should note that Pittsburgh is a beautiful city which we got to see remarkable aspects of thanks to able guides Randy Hoff and France Andrews Zeve.

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This is … Something I Saw the Other Day

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This is … a gathering of Macaws are apparently chatting while their custodian is having lunch at a local Boulanger.

They are not tethered in any way, nor was their guardian anywhere in sight. He (or she) had gone into the restaurant for a bite … which is what would happen to any one brazen enough (and naive enough) to attempt to steal these glorious birds.

Those beaks can crush a Brazil nut with no problem. Just imagine what they would do to sticky fingers.

My daughter noted that the truck matched the color of their tail feathers. A bold fashion statement.

We spent several minutes inventing alternatives to someone having driven to Boulanger with birds festooning their truck. Perhaps the birds didn’t arrive on the truck at all, but were flying over when they saw a rest stop whose color offered the appropriate camouflage. After all, they blend right in.

Perhaps there is no human driver and the birds are aliens out for a Saturday visitation and who did not realize that the chameleon circuit on their vessel and EVA suits had failed spectacularly.

I suppose we will never know.

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“This is…” a Photo Journal

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I was poring over my cache of photos and images this morning and decided that I’d like to share them with y’all (in my opinion, the single most useful word concatenation in the universe) in a sort of photo journal. I’d love for it to be a daily photo journal but the chances of me doing something on a daily basis besides waking up eventually and drinking a cup of coffee (or two) are slim and none and, as a new writing collaborator put it, slim just left town.

So, here is the first “This is…”

This is … a tattoo worn discreetly upon the person of Gina Suzu Myoko (aka Tinkerbell), the young female detective displayed here on the cover of her debut novelette, Tinkerbell on Walkabout. It’s a design that celebrates her religious and spiritual heritage. Yes, that is a Buddha and, yes, he is indeed seated at the heart of a lotus situated in the center of a Russian Orthodox cross.

There is a reason for this juxtaposition of Buddhism and its younger sibling, Christianity. Gina’s mother, Nadezhda Miyoko (a professor of Eastern European folklore at SFSU) is Russian Orthodox. Gina’s father, Ed Miyoko (a retired SFPD officer) is Buddhist. He is also the chairman of a Sherlock Holmes appreciation society, but that’s a story for another day.

I am not telling where the tattoo is situated. You’ll have to wait until the first Tinkerbell novel is published. No, I haven’t yet found a publisher. But I hope to continue to release Gina Miyoko mystery short fiction through Book View Cafe while I wait with patience and faith in my delightful agent.