September 15, 2010 archive

The President of the United States is about to publish “an inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story”, says Chip Gibson, president and publisher of Random House Children’s Books.

From the “patriotism” of America’s first president George Washington to the “artistry” of Georgia O’Keeffe and the “courage” of baseball player Jackie Robinson, the 40-page book is  “an inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story”, said Chip Gibson, president and publisher of Random House Children’s Books. Illustrated by Loren Long, who has previously provided the artwork for bestselling books including The Little Engine That Could, the picture book’s cover shows Obama’s daughters Sasha and Malia walking their dog, Bo, through a sunny, grassy field.

Children need to know! The Father of Our Country was a “patriot!”

But do they also need to know that this “patriot” led an armed revolution against his own country’s government from 1775 to 1781?

Those pointy-headed bureaucrats want to tax our tea!

Kill them! Kill them all!

Obama’s secret agenda is obvious enough on the cover of his book, which shows Sasha goose-stepping across a “sunny, grassy field!”

Mussolini would be proud!

Give those girls some machine-guns!

And those militant children should also know that George Washington was a totally unscrupulous war-profiteer!

When Congress offered to pay him $500 per month, he declined, instead asking only that his expenses be paid. Washington used his expense account to indulge lavishly in food, drink, and other amenities. In the end, the bill he presented to Congress was $449,261.51 (far greater than the $48,000 he would have received in pay.

$449, 261.51! In constant dollars, that would be more than $11 million today!

For “expenses!”

And Barack Obama understands that lesson all too well!

Five days before being sworn in as President, Obama secured a $500,000 advance for an abridged version of “Dreams From My Father” for middle-school-aged children.

And that’s only the most recent publishing payoff for Obama’s career in “public service,” which now includes multi-million dollar royalties from Dreams from My Father and The Audacity to Profiteer.

But before Obama got his face on TV at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Dreams from My Father had only sold about 10,000 copies and gone out of print, after a final small edition from a Japanese publishing house way back in 1996.

Politics pays, children!

And that’s really all you need to know.

Please pardon the extremely low tech, wordy approach this extremely brief essay takes.  I’m writing it “borrowing” Internet from my neighbor (who is away), so my laptop is sitting on the barbecue (no, it’s not on) while I write this.  I will not regale you (sorry for the wind pun) with why I don’t have my own Internet this evening.

I’m in Bahia Soliman, which is just north of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico.  This afternoon I (and probably everyone else in the world who cares about this) learned that what we following as Invest 92 had indeed attained Tropical Storm Status (TST) and was now named TS Karl.  TS Karl, the computer models and other models (imagine I had posted a map of that right here) is planning to come through the front door of my house tomorrow morning or afternoon.  What’s that mean?  Who knows: it probably means up to 50 knot winds and up to 8″ of rain.  Knots, I am reliably told, are bigger than miles.

On one level, I consider this retribution.  I have been working on my novel, working title “Tulum,” here for more than a week.  I am working in what IB Singer called the “literary factory,” i.e. I write and I take breaks, I write and I take breaks, repeat and repeat again ad infinitum.  So it is I who wrote the Hurricane scenes in the book, and now I have “called” in a real storm with my maniacal focus on storms.  It’s “the law of attraction” gone crazy, if you will.  Or it’s the Damapada.  I am what I think, and I’ve been thinking a lot about TS’s and Hurricanes, if you will.  If you won’t, fine, but it’s thundering as I type this.

On another level, I consider this a study in how most people in the US don’t give a rat’s ass about what happens in Mexico.  They and their media are obsessing about what will happen when the storm leaves the Yucatan Peninsula and heads towards South Texas.  If TS Karl decides instead to come ashore (again) in Mexico the story won’t merit a 1″ column on page 23 of your local newspaper.  But if it should head for Texas, there will be guys with slickers standing in the surf and reporting every 3 minutes on what it feels like.

Hell, I can tell you “what it feels like.”  And I’m not wearing one of those jackets.  It feels like tomorrow the weather is really gonna suck here.  High wind, lots of rain, high tides, flooding.  You’ve seen it before on TV, right?  It makes a mess of things.

I have taken my book, all almost 80,000 words of it, and saved the entire thing on two key drives, and put them in a safe, where they will be dry, no matter what.  I will also put this 10 year old lap top, whose aging memory also contains my book, in a safe place.  Everything of value is in a place where it cannot get ruined.  By wind.  By water.  By anything.  Everything that’s not tied down is likely to end up in the next state, which is Campeche, and in Mayan means, the place of snakes and scorpions.  In other words, you will not likely retrieve any of it.

Meanwhile, many of us stand on the beach looking at the lightning, listening to the wind, watching the tide.

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cross-posted (maybe) at The Dream Antilles