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Danny Adams

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The Only Thing Chuck Norris Is Afraid Of... [May. 23rd, 2012|06:19 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[Current Location |A Safe Distance]
[Current Mood |curiouscurious]
[Current Music |North or South, nobody sings songs about spiders]

...And it showed up next to our porch yesterday.







I think it's also responsible for killing the dinosaurs.

In all seriousness, this is a brown wolf spider, which actually is not much of a threat to people--they tend to be timid and only bite if repeatedly provoked, and even then it's a low toxin--and is handy to have around because they eat mass quantities of insects (and thanks to all the rain and how much I procrastinate mowing the lawn, there's been plenty of fodder for all our spiders lately). I was just startled to see ho huge it was--in this case "huge" being defined as "the size of my hand". The little guy behind it is the size of the spiders that normally hang around our Spider Sanctuary, i.e. the front porch.

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The Bible On Homosexuality's Equivalency [May. 23rd, 2012|04:58 pm]
[Tags|, ]
[Current Location |We Don't Need No Stinking Concordances Land]
[Current Mood |frustratedfrustrated]
[Current Music |"The One On The Right Was On The Left" by Johnny Cash]

There's a popular picture going around Facebook and other sources right now that has someone showing a tattoo with Leviticus' prohibition of homosexuality--the irony being, of course, that Leviticus also prohibits tattoos. This suddenly made me realize that even the folks who point stuff out like this miss a much broader point, and that in a way both sides of the argument are missing something critical in the context of the passages.

As examples, I take four passages about homosexuality from the Bible, two from the Old Testament and two from the New, to illustrate my point. Here they are:

Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13: "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them."

1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God."

Romans 1:26-27: "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error."

Seems pretty cut and dried, doesn't it? The problem is that if you just quote these passages, you're actually taking them out of context in a way. Because none exist in isolation, and they weren't intended to be quoted in such an isolated way. (In fact chapters and verses in the Bible didn't even exist until the Middle Ages--all the text was written together without such artificial breaks.) So what does that mean?

Paul's passages are a great examples. Look at them again: In Corinthians he insists that "neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers" will inherit the Kingdom of God. In Romans 1:28-30 he adds "And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

In other words, all of these are considered equal offenses.

Paul doesn't say "If you gossip three times a day, you might be risking the Kingdom of Heaven". He doesn't say "Homosexuality is horrible, but envy you might be able to slide by with". No, what he's saying is that homosexuality, envy, murder, greed, insolence, arrogance, boasting, drunkenness, reviling, being unloving and unmerciful are all one and the same to God. Being unloving and unmerciful are as much sins worthy of death as homosexuality.

You politicians out there, you may want to pay attention to that last bit.

If you consider homosexuality to be the pit of evil, then so are the gossips and the boastful. If you think that gossip isn't so bad...well, then, neither is homosexuality.

What this all boils down to for me is that one way or another, a lot of self-righteous people out there are going to be surprised when they wind up in the same afterlife as gays.
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Catching Up With The 18th Century [May. 21st, 2012|01:52 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Location |Waiting For The Revolution Land]
[Current Mood |rushedrushed]
[Current Music |"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by the Beatles]

I've been getting lazy about posting these, I know, and as it is I don't even have a daily word count because I lost track of where I stopped and started on different days. Ah well. Just a little obsessive detail that bothers only me. The main thing is that Writing Has Been Done.

PROGRESS REPORT FOR 5/15-17, 5/19-20


New Words: 7700 on Chapter 6 ("The Presidio") of Arizona. Obsessive young Spaniard, Alejandro Alvarez, meet obsessive young female Apache warrior, Itsa-Ichii. The Apaches steal Alejandro's family's horses, Alejandro tries to get his back, and Itsa-Ichii tries to stop him. Meanwhile, the fort that will become the city of Tucson has only two walls, and those walls are only 3 1/2 feet high, because the Spaniards are more interested in misappropriating the building funds than paying their laborers.

Total Words: 121750.

Book Year(s): 1776-77.

Reasons For Stopping: Usually to get ready for work. Over the weekend I was doing yard work.

Mammalian Assistance: Vegas has occasionally been guarding the Writing Room from his temporarily reduced box pile, while Nugget guarded it from my lap a couple of times, and Friday once.

Exercise: Moving the aforementioned tens of thousands of books. Walking to campus, and most nights walking back.

Stimulants: Dr. Peppers mostly, with one glass-bottled HFCS-free glass-bottled Coke yesterday.

The Chapter's Opening Passage: The old-fashioned storytelling variety...

Even while they were still alive, the legend throughout the Pimeria Alta—northern Mexico and the southern third of Arizona—was that Alejandro Alvarez, Arizona’s last great warrior while it still belonged to Spain, and Itsa-Ichii, the greatest Apache woman warrior of her time, had been enemies locked in combat their whole lives. That story was not altogether far from the truth. They met at age twelve when he refused to stay in his villa during an Apache attack and she refused to stay in her father’s fire-shelter while he raided the Spaniards’ settlements on the border of the Apacheria. From that moment, even when apart they were locked in combat.

Darling Du Jour: Time's running short, so I'll just skip hunting through the text this time.

Submissions Sent Out In April: 1.

Total Submissions Out Right Now: 4.

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr / [info]dancinghorse.
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Not Dead, Just Busy [May. 21st, 2012|12:46 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Location |Awaiting The Next Book Move Land ]
[Current Mood |restlessrestless]
[Current Music |"My Baby Loves A Bunch Of Authors" by Moxy Fruvous]

I've been writing again finally, after a three-week hiatus, and also spending the last few weeks moving several tens of thousands of books to open room for renovations. Sooner or later I'll post something at least a little substantive, but in the meantime here's a picture of me dancing with a gorilla.



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Stamping Done On The Seventeenth Century [Apr. 23rd, 2012|03:54 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Location |Onward To The Presidio]
[Current Mood |tiredtired]
[Current Music |Not much]

I have been writing--five days out of the last ten--I've just been lazy about posting Progress Reports. At any rate, the result of this latest effort was a total of 8550 words and finishing off the current chapter, which weighs in at a meaty 42,000 words or something like that.

For once, though, my problem with my writing isn't that I think it's too long in general, just that it doesn't do enough where it needs to do more and does too much where it needs to do less. (I should've just stuck with "too long"--that's simpler). But it covers a pretty vast span of time as such things go, the years 1628 to 1700. I did "whole era" chapters in my Shenandoah novels, but the length of time in this one is a first for me, so it was also a giant experiment as well as a giant chapter. Mostly it's set in the Hopi pueblo village of Awatovi--following four generations of one Hopi family and two friars who interact with them--plus brief excursions to Mexico and Santa Fe.

I'm not going to try replicating five Progress Reports, so I'll just do one for yesterday's writing.

PROGRESS REPORT FOR 4/22/12


New Words: 2900 on Chapter 5 ("Spirit, Faith, and Reason") of Arizona. Killed some people off, burned some things, and finally drove out the Spanish from the Arizona pueblos. Oh, I also introduce Padre Eusebio Kino, who comes and goes and gets far less wordage than he deserves.

Total Words: 114050.

Reason For Stopping: Finished the chapter. After long last. As I posted the other day on Facebook, with all the stuff that happened while I was writing this chapter such as the flood and my aunt's passing, I felt like it not only covered seven decades, but took that long to write.

Book Years: 1696-1700.

Mammalian Assistance: My door was open much of the time, though only Vegas and Nugget took advantage of that invitation.

Exercise: Walked Tucker around the neighborhood; walked down to campus.

Stimulants: Minute Maid Orangeade.

Today's Opening Passage: Ramon de Alvarez stared into the sun every day hoping it would blind him.

Darling Du Jour: Completely context based...

He never returned to Awatovi. Neither did anyone else.

Non-Research Review Books In Progress: Turtledove; Christian; Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale.
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First World Writerly Problems [Apr. 23rd, 2012|02:41 pm]
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[Current Location |Moving 18th-Centuryward]
[Current Mood |curiouscurious]
[Current Music |"Once This Was the Promise Land" ala John Coinman]

I don't know if this qualifies as fear of success or me just being spoiled, but I had a personal insight about one reason e-publishing is so attractive to me despite all of my concerns: There's less chance of getting pigeonholed.

Granted this may qualify for placement in the "I Wish I Had That Problem" department, and I won't exactly say my writing has been all over the map, but I have covered a lot of terrain. In the last eight years the novels I've completed include alternate history, science fiction, historicals, historical fantasy, and young adult fantasy. I've left unfinished one young adult fantasy, one historical fantasy, and two science fiction novels. And theoretically I could publish at least one collection of short stories and/or poems, nearly all of which would be speculative. The next three books I have in mind are one quasi-historical humorous science fiction and two historicals, the latter including another Arizona-styled epic about the Mississippi River.

In short, I could theoretically drive a publisher or agent crazy, especially if I want to try publishing them all under my own name.

Of course, there's a reason it might drive the industry members crazy: This kind of back-and-forth could make it incredibly difficult for me to find any kind of fan base, not to mention hindering sales. I know even bestselling authors have trouble with their less-popular stuff, like the major drops Terry Brooks would suffer whenever he switched from Shannara to The Word and the Void.

On the other hand I'm enjoying the freedom immensely, and it guarantees that I won't be writing a book that my heart isn't in. So I have to figure out a way to balance the two--provided I don't enjoy the unlikely Joe R. Lansdale event of finding fan bases in each genre.

Right now, as probably goes without saying if you at least catch this journal from time to time, I'm leaning towards Enjoying Myself.
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50 Things To Do Before You're 11 3/4 [Apr. 19th, 2012|04:34 pm]
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[Current Location |Wanting To Go Climb A Tree Land]
[Current Mood |amusedamused]
[Current Music |70s TV theme songs]

This is the National Trust's list of 50 Things To Do Before You're 11 3/4. I'm bold-facing the ones I've done, and not cheating by including things I did after that age (though I will post notes on a few).

1. Climb a tree. Like a lot of other things on this list, this is something I still enjoy doing!

2. Roll down a really big hill

3. Camp out in the wild

4. Build a den

5. Skim a stone

6. Run around in the rain

7. Fly a kite - I tried, but actually never got the hang of it until I was a teenager.

8. Catch a fish with a net

9. Eat an apple straight from a tree

10. Play conkers - No, as I'd never heard of the game before this list came out.

11. Throw some snow

12. Hunt for treasure on the beach

13. Make a mud pie

14. Dam a stream

15. Go sledging - Maybe. I went sledding, but my understanding of the word is that this is somewhat different--a sled or sleigh pulled by an animal. Which I don't think I did, but I could be misremembering.

16. Bury someone in the sand

17. Set up a snail race - I did, however, race earthworms.

18. Balance on a fallen tree - Preferably over a stream.

19. Swing on a rope swing - Preferably swinging into water.

20. Make a mud slide

21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild

22. Take a look inside a tree - And when I could, I went into the tree too.

23. Visit an island

24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind

25. Make a grass trumpet

26. Hunt for fossils and bones

27. Watch the sun wake up

28. Climb a huge hill

29. Get behind a waterfall - I don't think so, but I've done it plenty of times since 11 3/4.

30. Feed a bird from your hand

31. Hunt for bugs

32. Find some frogspawn

33. Catch a butterfly in a net - I don't think so, but I did catch some in jars.

34. Track wild animals - Deer, anyway.

35. Discover what’s in a pond

36. Call an owl

37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool

38. Bring up a butterfly

39. Catch a crab - I don't think so, though I did catch "crawdads", which also had pinchers.

40. Go on a nature walk at night

41. Plant it, grow it, eat it

42. Go wild swimming - Wild swimming? As in skinny dipping? Not before 11 3/4.

43. Go rafting

44. Light a fire without matches - I'm not including using a lighter here, either.

45. Find your way with a map and compass

46. Try bouldering (rock climbing outdoors but with safety mats and short drops) - I did go bouldering. But not with safety mats and short drops. Ahem.

47. Cook on a campfire

48. Try abseiling - Not till I was 22.

49. Find a geocache (use GPS and other navigational aides to locate hidden containers.) - Erm, GPS didn't exist at the time, or at least not for public consumption.

50. Canoe down a river - Not down a river, though I did canoe in a lake.

So...34 out of 50. Not bad at all. I see certain patterns developing earlier in my life here.

And quite honestly, out of those 34, I still do 23. Aside from my giveaway of #1, I'll let you guess which ones.

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Things Were Better Then, Except When They Weren't [Apr. 16th, 2012|08:19 pm]
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[Current Location |More Here Than There]
[Current Mood |curiouscurious]

Lately I've been hearing a lot of variations of the "Things were better in the 1950s" theme. So aside from the arguments about "Better for who?", I thought I would stroll around my library's reference section and see if I could grab some statistics and compare them to today. I grabbed the 1959 editions of the World Almanac and Information Please Almanac and compared percentages by population between then and now.

Offered without comment:

Church, etc. Membership (including Orthodox, Jewish, and Buddhist):
1957: 59.7%
2012: 43%

Total Crime Rate (as provided online by the FBI):

1959: .019%
2010: .033%

Violent Crime Rate (ditto):
1959: .0016%
2010: .004%

Divorce Rate:
1958: 25%
2011: ~50% (The sources disagree. For first marriages the percentages vary from 41-50%.)

The highest percentage of divorces, by the way, occurs in my native South: 10.2 men per 1000, and 11.1 women per 1000.

Poverty Rate:

1959: 20%
2012: 15.5%

Individual Tax Rates:

1959: 20-91% (The 91% tax rate was for those making over $200,000 per year.)
2012: 10-35%

Top Corporate Tax Rates:

1959: 52%
2012: 35%

Union Membership:

1959: 39%
2011: 11.8%

So there you go. Run the numbers as you will.

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Rosa L. Smith - Roanoke, Virginia's Second Policewoman [Apr. 16th, 2012|06:10 pm]
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[Current Location |"I Declare!" Land]
[Current Mood |sadsad]

This is a memorial to my Aunt Rose, who passed away yesterday. Essentially it's an expansion of this memorial.

ROSA LILLIAN ADAMS SMITH

Rosa Lillian Adams Smith, 92, of Roanoke and Woodhaven Nursing Home, died Sunday, April 15, 2012.

Rosa was predeceased by her husband of fifty-eight years, Albert Lee Smith, parents Hardy Douglas Adams and Cora Emma Walters Adams, and brothers Charlie Allen, Willie Douglas, James Monroe (Dickie) and John Robert (Bobby) Adams.

Rosa was born on October 8, 1919 in Roanoke, Virginia and married Al Smith in 1935. During World War II, when many police officers were away serving in the military, her brother Doug, an officer with the Roanoke City Police Department, convinced her to try getting a job with the force. She resisted until the police chief himself called her, and on April 1, 1944 she became Roanoke’s second policewoman and detective, walking night beats in southwest Roanoke that ranged from downtown to Highland Park. She retired for health reasons on August 8, 1963, but never stopped loving the job and telling stories about her time with the RCPD.

Survivors include nephews Robert Adams of Vinton, Danny Adams of Ferrum, and James Adams of Phoenix, Ariz.; nieces Jana Heck of Roanoke, Rose Marie Bullard of Phoenix, Ariz., Karen Giroux of Laveen, Ariz, Shannon Spiller of Washington D.C., Lisa Amatos of Tbilisi, Georgia, and Jacque Giroux of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and sister-in-law Patricia Adams of Phoenix, Ariz. A graveside service will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, 2012, at Sherwood Memorial Park, with the Rev. David Vaughan officiating.

The family would like to thank the Woodhaven staff for its concern and loving care the past two years. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Roanoke LOA's Meals on Wheels program (540-777-0860). Arrangements by Oakey's Roanoke Chapel. Online condolences may be made at www.oakeys.com.

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Devil To The Friars, Saint To The Hopi [Apr. 11th, 2012|09:49 pm]
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Location |Pondering Brush Fires Land]
[Current Mood |frustratedfrustrated]
[Current Music |Sarah McLachlan]

PROGRESS REPORT


New Words: 1800 on Chapter 5 ("Spirit, Faith, and Reason") of Arizona. In his desire to get back to Awatovi, Fray Miguel allies himself as a translator with his enemy: The new governor. He doesn't realize until it's too late that the governor supports the Indians' rights to do any traditional non-Christian thing they want, the more pagan the better.

Total Words: 103200.

Reason For Stopping: Getting ready for work.

Book Year(s): 1658-59.

Mammalian Assistance: Nugget guarded my lap briefly, as did Vegas later.

Exercise: Walked down to campus.

Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.

Today's Opening Passage: It was in the late winter of 1659 when Fray Miguel returned to Awatovi. Despite the years he spent trying to accomplish this, he was miserable when it finally happened.

Darling Du Jour: Miguel broke away from the governor without leave and strode towards Solomon to—do what? Miguel himself wasn’t sure, only that he had a powerful need to speak to his one-time brother in Christ again, to clasp his hands, to be assured that Solomon still had his gaze on Heaven. To learn that things were well in Awatovi, or to find out what he could do to right any wrongs the pueblo endured since his departure. But he never got the chance. Solomon saw him coming and darted away into the rectangular shadows of nightfall, leaving Miguel with a gaping mouth, grief welling in his heart, and a vague awareness of Governor Mendizabal laughing at something not far away.

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: More; The Pendragon by Catherine Christian; The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund.
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