Brief Hiatus.

I am taking a brief hiatus from political commentary on this blog–even though that’s a large part of its raison d’etre. But I find myself so angry at the right and so frustrated with so-called centrists, that I don’t have the patience for ordinary conversation. My frustration level stems from the bizarre way our system works: When the Republicans win, the far right gets nearly everything they want–usually with FAR too much cooperation from Democrats and a fawning media. When the Democrats win elections, even with large majorities and clear mandates, the right STILL controls too much of the debate and the Dems start off by watering down bills and lowering expectations before even TRYING.  Oh for a Party that was as tough and disciplined as the Republicans usually are, but with the progressive mainstream values of the country.  GOP= bad ideas plus strong determination to achieve them. Democrats=good ideas when in the minority and no hope of passing them, but as soon as they win becoming too afraid of success or their own shadows or something to get done what they were elected to DO. It’s enough to make a saint swear like a sailor.  And it is far too frustrating right now for me to be civil to conservative critics who comment here.

So, for awhile, I’m gonna stick with apolitical topics until I can regain equilibrium.

Public Option Healthcare: Where Senate Dems Stand

The “public option” a robust, competitive public health insurance plan mandated for all, is the key to REAL healthcare reform that isn’t just a giant taxpayer giveaway to the “death-by-spreadsheet” health insurance corporations.  If we had gotten single-payer universal healthcare in 1948, when Harry Truman tried to get it to complete the New Deal, we wouldn’t be fighting the health insurance companies because most of them didn’t exist then. (This is the time period when most Western democracies instituted universal healthcare. Ours was shot down because Southern senators were afraid it would mean integrating Southern hospitals and clinics. Yes, racism destroyed our first great chance at universal healthcare. Look it up.) So, now we have to get something which is cheaper and better than the private insurers so that it can compete head to head and win–to lower costs and cover everyone.

Don’t listen to those saying “the health insurance companies won’t be able to compete.” They could if they would stop paying obscene amounts to their CEOs and on advertising and to lobby against universal healthcare. Competing against the private companies IS THE POINT. 

So, Open Left has a chart on where the Democratic Senators stand on the public option. With Harry Reid openly proclaiming his weakness  and inability to be an effective Democratic Majority Leader (”I don’t tell people how to vote.” Really? THAT’S YOUR JOB! “I’m not very good at arm twisting.” Wimp! Step down and let someone take your gavel who IS good at arm twisting or else grow a BACKBONE!), it’s up to us citizens to corral the votes needed for this. Apparently polls showing 72% of the country wanting a public option (and 90% of Democrats, even 50% of GOP!) isn’t enough to compete with the insurance company money for senators’ attention. So check out Open Left’s chart. Anyone who isn’t listed as a YES  should hear from you–every day until this passes. It’’s now or never, folks. The 2010 budget ALREADY pays for universal healthcare. Now we need to get it–or healthcare costs will cripple our economy even faster than global warming.

We know it works.  We have seen Medicare work. We have seen that senators, of both parties, like govt.  health insurance FOR THEMSELVES. Now it’s time for the rest of us. Healthcare, quality healthcare, is a RIGHT, not a privilege. But it’s a right we are going to have to organize and fight for. Remember the words of Mother Jones, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

P.S. Citizen Pressure DOES work. Sen. Hagan (D-NC) said last week that she wasn’t sure about the public option. After her office was flooded with calls, letters, emails, etc. from her constituents, she announced that she  supports the public option! The others will fold to the same pressure. And keep up the pressure on Wimpy Reid to do  his job or surrender his gavel!

Brief Reflections on Patriotism and Christian Faith

As I write this, it is already 04 July 2009. It’s Independence Day, the anniversary of the day (04 July 1776) when American colonists declared their independence from the U.K. It’s the birthday of this republic, the United States of America, although our current form of government did not set until 1790.  Throughout this land on Sunday, churches will be filled with pastors giving sermons on freedom or on “God and country,” etc. Most of them will be pretty bad. Some of them will be positively idolatrous–reducing the God of all creation to a tribal deity that somehow cares more for this nation than others–a truly blasphemous idea.

Some preachers will do better. My brother-in-law, Rev. Bill Westmoreland, a Presbyterian minister in Cincinnatti, OH, will be preaching on the differences between freedom in Christ (e.g., Gal. 5) and the individualistic, consumerist versions of “freedom” that most of the nation will celebrate this weekend.

But let’s skip the idolatrous perversions.  What of patriotism itself? Can Christians be patriots?  Some would be highly skeptical of the idea.  The great Pascal said that patriotism as love of country is a great idea but why should my love stop at an artificial border? Good question, Blaise.  Others have noted that patriotism is the last refuge (or excuse) of the scoundrel. (I am reminded of the scene from the hilarious  play and film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas where a TX Sen. was caught at the brothel–and immediately claimed that he had been drugged and kidnapped and taken there against his will by his enemies–all because they KNEW he was the fiercest anti-Communist in the Senate. Yeah, right.) Huge evil has been done in the name of patriotism–by the patriots of many nations.  Can a Christian, who believes that the saints are called out from among all nations, really be a patriot?

I think so if we define “patriotism” differently than “nationalism” or “militarism.”  Love of one’s native land is natural,  like love of one’s family.  It doesn’t have to mean hatred or contempt for others’ nations anymore than quiet pride in one’s family means the hatred of other families.  The Apostle Paul, with dual citizenship,  both bragged on his heritage as a “Hebrew of Hebrews” and on his Roman citizenship–though he knew the shortcomings of both.  The Sanhedrin would eventually arrest Paul and turn him over to Rome–where tradition says he was martyred.  So, Paul had to have a critical love of country.  It could not be the kind of blind patriotism which ignores the faults of one’s nation. It had to  point out those faults and seek to correct them.

The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was involved in a plot to overthrow Hitler–which led to his arrest by the Gestapo and eventual execution by the Nazis.  Bonhoeffer was partially motivated by his ecumenical commitments to the church universal.  But I would contend that Bonhoeffer was a greater patriot than those “German Christians” who lavished praise on Hitler, flew Swastikas in their sanctuaries,  and supported the Third Reich’s agenda.

I would similarly claim that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.–who once called the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” to be a better patriot than the “God and country” Jerry Falwell types.  I would say that Rev. William Sloan Coffin, or Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J., who were leading resisters to the Vietnam War were also patriotic Americans–genuinely so.

A Christian patriotism must be an “eyes wide open” critical patriotism that is always calling for repentence and reform. Because Christians can never forget that no nation, no government, is anywhere close to the standards of the Rule of God. Our first loyalty is to that other “kingdom” (forgive the patriarchal language,  the political meaning comes through better) which is not from this world–but which will overthrow the Powers and Authorities  of this world.  We are loyal first to the “God Revolution,” and second to the global church (the scattered People of God) and third to the whole world, in and out of the church, as God’s beloved creation. Only after that, as a lesser loyalty, can we be lovers of our own nation and government.

Nationalists and jingoists, therefore, will always find Christians to be suspect. We will not appear patriotic enough for them.  Too bad.

On a more secular note, I link to this great forum on patriotism by the online version of The Nation.

My Top 25 Favorite Fictional Detectives

Another purely subjective list.  As mentioned before on this blog, I love detective fiction. I think it hones the mind and is also entertaining.

Some also rans and honorable mentions:

• Thomas Magnum from Magnum, P.I. TV series of the ’80s. Lousy detective who solved everything by sheer luck, but a fun show.  A kind of “Peter Pan” Boy Who Never Grew Up,  Magnum had a great gig: Live in a beautiful Hawai’ian mansion owned by a never-present novelist rent-free; drive absent novelist-friend’s hot car; spend much time at beach around beautiful women; get friends Rick and TC to do most of your leg work.
• Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote. I really don’t like this “Miss Jane Marple” style of female detective. But it was hilarious to see how many murders one small New England town could have. Cabot Cove, ME had a higher crime rate than New York,  London, or Tokyo!
• Crockett and Tubbs of Miami Vice.  This show was not really about serious crime fiction. It was about fast cars, cool clothes, great music in the background, and beautiful women. You have a problem with that?
• The Scooby Gang from the Scooby Doo cartoons.
• The Three Investigators–I never got into The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew (though both my wife and daughters like Nancy) but this trio of adolescent boys from Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators helped launch my love for the genre as a young boy.
• Brother William of Baskerville, 11th  C. Franciscan monk (formerly a Dominican and a part of the Inquisition) who solves the murders in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Only in one novel/movie, but makes a lasting impression.
• Adrian Monk from the TV series Monk. The “Defective Detective” has far too many neuroses to be believable as a functioning human being, never mind detective, but the show is quite fun and Tony Shalaub is hilarious.
• Inspector Clouseau–just because the Pink Panther movies (the originals, not the remakes) were so funny.

 

1. Sherlock Holmes the first “consulting detective” as created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Edgar Allen Poe created the modern detective story (there were forerunners in both ancient Chinese and medieval Arabic fiction) with C. August Dupin of Murders in the Rue Morgue, but Holmes was the classic and, in my opinion, still the best. No one was more brilliant than the flawed Victorian who continually showed up Scotland Yard.
2. Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s idiosyncratic Belgian police inspector turned London private investigator. Murder on the Orient Express rivals Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles for greatest detective novel of all time.
3. Sister Fidelma Peter Tremayne’s Catholic nun who solves mysteries  in 7th C. Ireland.  I rank Sister Fidelma so highly not only because of the careful historical research, but because she has to  solve these mysteries without the advantage of modern forensic science–while even Holmes benefitted from the early days of the science.
4. Batman—okay, those who only know the movies and ’60s TV show are howling right now.  But Batman was never just a costumed crimefighter. From the beginning, he was also a detective  who combined the inductive reasoning (Doyle was wrong to call it “deductive,” a mistake Holmes himself would never have made) of Sherlock Holmes with the extra-legal cat burglar techniques of Maurce LeBlanc’s Gentleman thief, Arsene Lupin. Batman first appeared, after all, in Detective Comics Magazine and didn’t get his own title for a year.
5. Columbo is  my personal favorite and played brilliantly by Peter Falk.  My tribute to Columbo on this blog is found here.
6. Nero Wolfe the brilliant creation of Rex Stout.  An immigrant  to the U.S. from the Balkans, Wolfe gives up the active life of his adventurous youth (of which we just get, sometimes contradictory, hints) for that of a wealthy, lazy, gourmet and recluse.  But to finance this idiosyncratic lifestyle, he is a high paid private investigator. Since he seldom (and only reluctantly) leaves his house, his leg work has to be done by the narrator, his live-in assistant, Archie Goodwin. (Incidentally, 3 life-long bachelors–the great chef, Fritz, included–living without women, would today raise huge questions, although Archie dated frequently. But when Stout was writing, a female in the house would have been more scandalous. If Archie and Wolfe loved one another, it was purely platonic–Wolfe’s incredible obesity would have turned off  Archie even if he had been gay.)
7. V. I. Warshawski–Sara Paretsky’s hard-drinking, hard loving female private investigator (Victoria Iphrigenia Warshawski) is in the hard-bitten, tough “Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer” tradition.  But while Vic is as tough as the boys who pioneered this sub-genre, she is MUCH smarter and more believable.
8. Rabbi David Small, the brilliant creation of Harry Kemelman.  Rabbi Small is in the tradition of fictional clergy detectives that began with Chesterton’s Father Brown.  I love the way he uses his training in Talmudic reasoning to solve crimes.
9. Chen Cao, the Chinese detective creation of Qiu Xialong set in the China of the 1990s.  This is the first Chinese detective I ever encountered actually written by a person of Chinese ethnicity.  Thus, Cao does not fit the terrible “Charlie Chan” stereotypes.  And the novels also tell much of modern China. Good stuff.
10. Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson of the great TNT series, The Closer.  See my tribute here.
11. Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard by the great P.D. James.  “Inspector Morse” is a cheap  imitation.  a clone, “modeled” on Dalgliesh. No matter how I word this, my friend,  Kevin Borders, will be p.o.’d. Sorry, Kev, we’ll have to agree to disagree here. 
12. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, one of the first successful African-American fictional private investigators and written by an African-American, Walter Mosely.  One of the Easy Rawlins novels, Devil in a Blue Dress was made into a feature film in 1995 with Denzel Washington playing Easy Rawlins.  I hope other adaptations follow.
13. Alex Cross is another African-American fictional detective–a forensic psychologist who first works for the D.C. police in homicide and later joins the F.B.I.  Dr. Cross has been played by Morgan Freeman in 2 film adaptations of James Patterson’s novels.
14. Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan, forensic anthropologist and sleuthing hero of Kathy Reich’s novels and the TV series “Bones.”  Forget Gil Grissom and all his CSI colleagues.  For a forensic scientist sleuth, I ‘ll take Dr. Brennan any day.
15. Father (later Bishop) “Blackie” Ryan, the clergy detective hero of Andrew Greeley’s novels–given more realism than most similar creations because Greeley is himself a priest and theologian. Yes, Ryan is an alter-ego, but Greeley, a liberal product of Vatican II, freely admits that Blackie Ryan gets along with the Catholic heirarchy much better than he does.
16. Jim Rockford of the 1970s TV series, The Rockford Files.  An ex-con who works as a private investigator just to earn enough money to keep his beachfront trailer. 
17. Veronica Mars of the TV series of the same name which ran on UPN  and CW from 2004 to 2007. Here was a teenaged girl detective cut from a tougher mold than Nancy Drew.  When the series opens, Veronica is a 17 year old  high school student–lower middle class in a very rich neighborhood. Her widowed father, Keith Mars,  has been fired as sheriff for refusing to go along with the official version of a high profile murder. He is forced to become a private investigator and Veronica has an after school job as his secretary–which leads to her own sleuthing.  She has a motive other than love for her father–trying to solve her own date rape at 16. (We don’t know if her father knows. They never discuss it and the other kids at school think it was consensual sex–drunken and anonymous.  This has given her an undeserved “slut” reputation at this nasty elitist school.) The series lasts long enough to get Veronica into university (where she studies criminology and sociology and passes her own private investigator’s licensing test with a 95%).
18. Spenser (first name never revealed), the hero of Robert B. Parker’s novels set in Chicago (though Spenser was originally from Wyoming) and of the TV series, Spenser, for Hire.  I found it ironic that no-first-name Spenser hung around with an African-American hit man named “Hawk” with no last name. (I also kept wondering what would happen if Hawk was given a contract on Spenser.)
19. Perry Mason, Earl Stanley Gardner’s  super-sleuthing criminal defense lawyer.  The novels are even better than the TV show starring Raymund Burr. This was the original courtroom drama. Of course, it was unbelievable that a defense lawyer (whose job is merely to raise reasonable doubt in a jury’s mind about his/her client’s guilt of accused crimes) would constantly be able to get the real criminal to confess on the witness stand–but it was fun watching.  Because I once worked as a bailiff in a felony (circuit) court in Jacksonville, FL, I could never handle the other TV lawyer-detective “Matlock.” Matlock constantly broke courtroom procedure. No judge would let him get away with that stuff.
20. Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw the futuristic cop and robot partner created by Isaac Asimov. Asimov wanted to prove that one could write a detective novel set in the future without having futuristic gadgets solve everything. He did so brilliantly in 3 novels.
21. Jesse Stone, ex-L.A. cop turned police chief of the small Massachussetts town of Paradise.  This is Robert Parker’s far more realistic alternative to Spenser.  Stone is dealing with alcoholism, divorce (and his wife won’t let him move on), and small town politics while solving murders with no budget, lab, etc.  A series of TV movies have adapted these novels with Tom Selleck playing Jesse Stone–showing far more acting talent than when Selleck played “Magnum.”
22. Harry Dresden of Jim Butcher’s “urban fantasy” novels about the only wizard listed in the Chicago phone book as such.  The Sci-Fi channel unsuccessfully tried to adapt these into a series known as The Dresden Files.
23. Ellah Clah, the Navajo female detective of spousal  writing team David and Aimee Thurlo.  She left the reservation to join the FBI, but returns to solve her father’s murde r and ends up joining the tribal police and continuing on The Rez. Great stories and you learn much about Navajo culture, too.
24. Elizabeth Elliott, the clerk of a Quaker Meeting in Cambridge, MA in a series of novels written by Irene Allen.
25. Kinsey Milhone from Sue Grafton’s “ABC Murders.” Kevin Borders will be arguing that I should rank her higher, but she made the cut.

I await your interaction–additions, subtractions, different rankings, etc.

Happy Birthday Canada!

Today marks the 142nd year of Canada’s existence as an independent country.  Our good neighbor to the north became independent without a war, abolished slavery earlier (and bloodlessly) than the U.S. and has had SOMEWHAT better relations with its First Nations peoples.  And they have universal healthcare and even their Conservatives love it.

So, here’s a Moosehead brew and a round of “O Canada!” for all my Canadian friends.

Congratulations, Senator-Elect Franken! (D-MN)

Well, I just won $10. I bet a friend at work that Al Franken would be seated in the U.S. Senate before Sonia Sotomayor would be sworn in at the Supreme Court of the U.S.  Today, MONTHS after November’s close election and the recount, Minnesota’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that former comedian, writer, and political commentator (for Air America’s The Al Franken Show) won the election by 312 votes.  After vowing for months to take this to the Supreme Court of the U.S., former Sen. Norm Coleman conceded today and Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) signed the certificate of  election.

 

Congratulations to Sen.-Elect Franken and to his wife, Franni.  Also, congratulations to the overworked staff of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who  will finally stop having to do the job of two senate staffs.  Congratulations to the people of Minnesota who now have TWO senators working for them.

Now that Democrats will have 60 senators, a theoretically filibuster proof majority, if we don’t get universal healthcare and many other pieces of progressive legislation, Democrats deserve ALL the blame–because they don’t need any GOP votes to get it done.  So, Dems, you’re on notice.

And the inevitable Saturday Night Live reference:  Now, the Al Franken Decade can finally begin!

End Torture and Free the Innocent NOW

Bob Herbert’s column MUST be read.  The U.S. government (and, thus, all of us who are citizens), “detained” a teenaged boy years ago, tortured him, and kept him in various semi-legal prison.  HOW LONG  before he is freed? How long before we free all the innocent and try those who should be tried? When do we STOP the torture and the indefinite imprisonment?  How long will we allow the 3,000 innocent deaths at 9/11 be used to keep justifying things are NEVER justifiable?  When will we realize that WE ARE BRINGING SHAME TO THE MEMORIES OF THE 9/11 VICTIMS??

STOP. NOW.  It has to end.

Big Oil/Big Coal Snuck in Disastrous Provisions in Cap & Trade Bill

Well,  I had a weekend to be thrilled that the Waxman-Markey cap-&-trade bill had passed the House.  Now it seems that Big  Coal and Big Oil had snuck in horrible provisions at the last moment.  If the current version were to pass the Senate and then be signed into law, it would repeal a key provision of the Clean Air Act  and it would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the ability to fight global warming by regulating greenhouse gas emissions!  So, now we have not only to fight for passage in the Senate (which would already be difficult), but must fix the bill, too. Otherwise we have to fight to kill the bill–because this form of cap & trade would be worse than nothing–it would end up with us burning more coal  a decade from now than now. (And there is no such thing as “clean coal.”) These nasty last-minute provisions turn an otherwise good bill into a disaster: we’d be better with no cap & trade and let the EPA regulate greenhouse gasses directly.

MoveOn.org and others are campaigning to fix the bill.  But it shows how truly evil the coal/oil lobbies are to sneakily turn a bill that would greatly reduce greenhouse gasses and turn it into permission to keep doing what they are doing and weaken both the Clean Air Act and the EPA.  If hell exists, it has a major place reserved for lobbyists.

My Top 20 Science Fiction Novels

In an earlier post, I listed my (purely subjective) list of the top fantasy novels/series.   Here I will attempt a similar post with the related genre of science fiction. 

1. Isaac Asimov,  I, Robot (1950).  Not really a novel, but a collection of connected short stories that introduced Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics.”  It should be read as the necessary prequel to the three (3) “Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw” novels:  The Caves of Steel ; The Naked Sun; The Robots of Dawn.  The film starring Will Smith was only loosely based on Asimov’s work–combining some of the “Susan Calvin” stories in I, Robot with The Caves of Steel.
2. Robert A.  Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966).  Many of Heinlein’s novels (e.g., Starship Troopers) are vehicles for him to preach his libertarian economics and militaristic view of the world. But he is a superb storyteller and his engineering background (like Asimov’s background in physics) enables him to write very convincing “hard science” fiction.  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is Heinlein’s ode to the American revolution, projecting a future in which Earth’s moon has become an international penal colony (a hat-tip to Australia) and, with the aid of a self-aware supercomputer named Mike, revolts from Earth and becomes Luna Free State.
3. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1984).  A feminist novel of a dystopic future in which an increase in infertility combines with the takeover of the U.S. (now become the Republic of Gilead) by a militaristic and patriarchal religious  fundamentalism to create a nightmare society for women–especially those few who are still fertile and  are forced to become “handmaids.”
4. Octavia E. Butler, The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents.  The late Octavia Butler was one of the few African-American women to write comercially successful science fiction.  Here she projects a dystopic near future where gang crime leads to the breakdown of U.S. society and of the ability of a young woman to forge a new society out of this disaster that can reach the stars–an achievement that partly depends on the spread of a new religion, “Earthseed.”  Butler also shows how the kind of driven personalities that can fundamentally change history are often poor at interpersonal relationships–since the second novel is told through the eyes of the estranged daughter of the heroine of the first.
5. Frank Herbert, Dune (1965).  The sequels are not as good, but still worth reading.  This is a “space opera” and science fantasy of a far future where humanity has become a galactic empire that has become decadent and feudal. It also projects salvation through a messiah who is a result of a breeding program and genetic manipulation, played out on the desert planet of Arakis (Dune).  The film wasn’t so hot, despite roles by Patrick Stewart (later Capt. Picard and Prof. X), Dean Jones, and Sting.
6. Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End (1954).  Benign alien visitors who look strangely like the devils of earthly legend (giant, red, horns,  tail, wings) help earth people leave the species’ childhood and prepare for the next stage of evolution–a stage that  these aliens cannot themselves achieve.
7. Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (1974).  If Heinlein’s Starship Troopers glorifies war, Haldeman’s novel is the rebuttal.  Published at the end of the Vietnam War (and with that clearly in mind), Haldeman projects a future war between earth and an alien species that, because of the time distortions near the speed of light, goes on for centuries–and is all based on miscommunication between the two species.  Haldeman’s Forever Peace is not connected.  Another great Haldeman classic is All My Sins Remembered which Haldeman wrote in reply to the super-spy novels and species which show such work taking no toll on the spies.  Haldeman’s spy is an Anglo-Buddhist recruited precisely FOR his strong moral code–which then haunts him more and more in his career as a super-spy.
8. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1954).  In a dystopic future, an oppressive government stays in power by suppressing books and reading.  Education is by rote memorization giant televisions combine with recreational drugs to keep everyone “happy” suburbanites.  All houses are fireproof (and believed to have always been so) and “firemen” do not put out fires, but find and burn hidden caches of books (while those who hide books are sent to reeducation camps).  “Fahrenheit 451″ is the temperature at which book paper burns.  A resistance gathers in small groups away from populated areas with the task of each person so memorizing one book completely that s/he becomes that book, preserving learning and literature until the current dark age is over.  This is Bradbury’s warning against the dangers of McCarthyism—but it works equally well for similar movements since the mid-50s.
9. Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars; Blue Mars; Green Mars.  A trilogy concerning the colonization and terraforming of Mars.  Very realistic science combines with a strong story concerning the likely problems of colonists, personal and cultural clashes, and major ecological concerns to form 3 really strong books.  I promised myself that I would only include one entry about Mars, though I have been fascinated by it since my childhood. 
10. Anne McAffrey, “Dragonriders of Pern” series.  Science fiction with fantasy trappings:  A colonized planet is cut off from contact with Earth civilization and because of a unique threat (spores from a nearby planet called “Thread”) devolves into a low-tech, feudal civilization.  An indigenous lifeform (”fire lizards”) so resemble the dragons of earth mythology (except for size), that they are genetically engineered to be larger and to breath fire–and to use telepathic and teleportational abilities to help ESP-gifted humans fight this threat as “dragonriders.”  McAffrey wrote numerous works of science fiction, but it is the Pern books for which the “dragonlady” will always be known best.
11. Carl Sagan, Contact (1985).  Astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan wrote the definitive novel of first contact between earth and an alien species.
12. Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park (1990).  Highly entertaining cautionary tale about the headlong rush of genetic engineering (going on at breakneck speed in the food industry).
13. Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Liebowitz (1959).  A brilliant novel about a cyclic view of history (scientific advance followed by destruction, a new dark ages, a slow climb out and the whole cycle repeats), clashes of religion and government, and the dangers of global nuclear war.
14. David Brin, Earth (1990).  An ecological cautionary tale of the near future.  This is a murder mystery set in 2038 in which the attempted victim is Gaia, the earth itself.  Technology is both blessing (it allows truly global village networking that helps find clues and mobilize responses) and bane (it is responsible for the ecological abuse of the planet).
15. Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). Tale of an encounter between an emissary of a “normal” society and a society of gender-benders. 
16. David Brin, Glory Season (1993).  Excellent tale of a world settled by radical feminist separatists who have the genetic know-how to create a rural utopia where women dominate and men are only needed tangentially and mostly live apart from women.  This is a kind of counter-Handmaid’s Tale in which Brin argues for sexual equality and for societies in which men and women need each other. He demonstrates that it is not only male-dominated societies which can go deeply wrong.
17. Pat Frank, Alas Babylon (1959).  An early cautionary tale of nuclear war.  One of the first to question the 1950s propaganda that nuclear war would be easily survivable and winnable.
18. Octavia E. Butler, Kindred is a time-travel story that includes painfully realistic descriptions of slavery in antebellum 19th C. America.
19. Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain (1993). A novel of genetic manipulation to create children who don’t need to sleep.  In a recession, they are blamed for everything wrong and need to find a sanctuary colony.
20. Gordon R. Dickson’s Dorsai novels.  They were eventually supposed to form a complete Childe Cycle, but I think Dickson died before the historical prequels could be written.  This is a saga of human evolution.  The advent of star travel and  colonization splits humanity into sub-species:  the pure scientists; the people of (fanatical) faith (the “Friendlies”); the mystics and philosophers; and the ultimate soldiers (the Dorsai who, like the ancient Swiss, live on a planet of such barren resources that they are forced to send their sons and daughters out as high-paid mercenaries in the  wars of other planets). Eventually, the scattered fragments of humanity must reunite with the fragments having been greatly enhanced.  Whether or not one like’s Dickson’s overall saga, his Dorsai novels  are really good reads–and he even includes one, Lost Dorsai, about a Dorsai who becomes a pacifist yet still embodies the fierce courage and strength of will of the Dorsai soldiers.  It is only now, after Dickson’s death, that we can view the (incomplete) series as a whole.  He did not write the novels and short stories in order and was supposed to write a series of historical novels beginning with the 14th C. to go with the science fiction ones.

What have I overlooked? What have I rated too high? What have I not valued enough?

Dr. Lillian Lim Dies

Dr. Lillian Lim, first woman to be president of the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary,  died of Marzan’s disease. I am grieving since I knew Lillian from our Ph.D. days.

Here is the link to the APB story: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=93461321667&h=4QOLF&u=nL_Nb&ref=nf