Peter Hodges

I have a large body of shorter work that lends itself well to seven to ten minute podcasts.  Unfortunately for me, I am cursed with a nasal, tenor voice that just misses being unpleasant.  Kate, the long-time contributor on the site, has done professional voice-over work in the past and has volunteered to lend her considerable vocal talents to this enterprise.  Mixing dramatic reading with tasteful music choices, she makes the work I’ve done with the written word an order of magnitude better. 

I’ll be releasing one podcast per week on a trial basis to determine first of all if there is interest, and second of all, if my hosting costs are going to increase.  Based on the feedback I get from everyone that reads the site, I’ll choose the next step in this blog’s evolution.  (Subscriber-based podcasts are not out of the question.)

I’ve added a syndication tab to the upper right of the sidebar.  If you haven’t already subscribed to the RSS feed that this site generates, please do so in the blog/news reader of your choice.  I’ve tried to include support for the major ones, so if you use a reader that is not available in the pulldown menu, let me know and I’ll see if I can add it.

I can’t say enough how thankful I am for the loyal readership that I have.  I broke 100,000 hits in the month of March (104,255); I had nearly 60,000 hits in the month of April, and my unique page views continue to climb.  Your feedback is a continued measure of my success, so I’ll ask you to keep sending emails with comments, questions, and insults (yes, you can call me an idiot when you don’t agree with me).

The New York Times has an interesting summary of an article appearing in the March 20th issue of Current Biology.  Researchers in Italy tried to determine if the way in which a dog wagged its tail was dependent upon external stimuli.  In essence, if the tail wagged with bias to either the right or the left, then what did that say about the dog?

In a series of tests, scientists found that dogs generally wagged their tails with a bias to the right when met with positive stimuli and wagged their tails to the left when met with negative stimuli.  This is consistent with previous research that indicates that the left brain (which controls the right side of the body) is responsible for more positive emotions.

To test this notion, I tried a couple of simple things with our dog, Trapper.  The first thing that I did was to ask him if he wanted to go outside.  He absolutely loves being outside.  As near as I could tell, his tail wag was indeed biased to the right.  When it was time for his good night treat, I again watched the direction of his tail wag, and although it was less pronounced that earlier in the day it did still look to be biased to the right side.  To test the other aspect, I performed what I call the “good bye” ritual.  Whenever I leave the house, I’ll kneel beside him, rub his ears and tell him “I have to go, but you have to stay.”  His tail did wag (since I was talking to him), but it moved from just barely right of his center line all the way left.

This is hardly scientific, but it does indicate that there seems to be some validity to the study.  I’d like to see further refinment in the experiments; if I catch any news, I’ll post it here.  

Something special is coming on Tuesday.  You’ve been warned.

I had quite a few email respondents this week and this weekend.  Some of the best follow:

On alien life/extra-solar planets 

Anya C. writes:

The universe is too vast to believe there isn’t another species out there like us.  The real question is whether or not they’ve destroyed themselves.

E.Cal writes:

Area 51 is probably the only place we’ll have answers.  Why did we have such rapid progress in space travel to stall with near-earth stuff for the last thirty years?  I think we’ve been ordered by an alien group to stop our space program in exchange for under the table tech deliveries.

On Oil/Alternate Energy Sources

ExxonCanBiteMe writes:

Nice summary of the market, for all the help it does me.  What I’d like to see is some real dialogue on alternate energy sources and making your homes more green. 

Actually, I may have Jesse/Tasuja guest post on here about that.  He knows quite a bit and can frame his arguments very well. 

Tarna Mohindo writes:

This is the flaw with capitalism…resources are held in trust by people who don’t have the public interest at heart.  Transportation may not be a fundamental human right, but the ability to move about in society sure should be.

Uh…maybe this is a flaw with capitalism, but I’m not sure I like the wink at socialism.

On the Virginia Tech Memorial

Michael the Left Wing Angel writes:

Pete,

People like you are the problem with this country.  Don’t think of yourself as a sheepdog keeping the wolves at bay (as Meat Wagon said).  Instead understand that you are the root of the problem…Violence begets violence.  Peace begets peace.

Michael, it’s really hard to argue with your point.  Peace does beget peace.  However, there are always going to be people who are not and will never be interested in peace.  They require people (like me, I hope) to stand up for them, to protect them, or at least to speak for them when they can’t speak for themselves.  This may be a bit outdated…it may seem to be a bit too masculine for our modern-day culture, but there it is.  I was raised to believe that I have a duty and a responsibility to help those that I can, and to protect those that can’t protect themselves.  I will generally try a peaceful solution first, but I remain vigilant to the day when I must resort to force and/or violence to protect me, my family, or my fellow man.  I have been forced to act exactly once in my life; I pray that I am not called to do so again.  To say that my willingness to protect others stimulates violence is ludicrous.  I would invite you to amplify your point, and should you ask me to keep that conversation private, I will honor your request.  Otherwise, post in the original thread.

Jenny Gordon writes:

Pete, you are out of touch with the students on modern campuses.  We value forgiveness and altruism and detest the culture of materialism and warmongering.  We have it within our capacity to forgive even Cho Seung-Hui for his crimes.  For healing to begin, we must have forgiveness.

I might have it a little backwards, but for forgiveness to truly occur, don’t you have to have a confession of wrong-doing, followed by repentance?  Since neither of these last things have transpired, I will remain aloof.  Ask the families of the slain how easy they’re finding it to forgive.  I bet you won’t find too many who are in that mode right now.  And unless I was mistaken, I thought the students on modern campuses valued hedonism and apathy over forgiveness and altruism.  (If two wrongs don’t make a right, do two stereotypes?)

Andrew writes:

We may find ourselves in the minority, Pete.  Thanks for taking a stand on this.  It’s easy to see the media blowing this completely out of proportion after first glorifying, then villifying this asshole.  If we don’t speak for the victims, who will? 

I wouldn’t say we’re in the minority of the people reading this site; 68% of the emails I received regarding this were positive, but you have to admit that the readership here is beginning to be skewed toward a Libertarian viewpoint. 

 Thanks for all the emails this past weekend, folks.  Over the course of a week, I’m averaging around 100 emails.  Keep ‘em coming, and if I don’t respond or if you don’t make the weekend mailbag, it’s certainly not a slight against you.  I would, however, encourage more of you to post.  You no longer have to register, you just have to have a valid email address that I do NOTHING with, aside from assure Wordpress (my content management system) that you are a legit poster and not a spammer.  That being said, if you email me, and you would like to NOT be featured in the weekend mailbag, just include that in your email and I’ll abide by your request.  Thanks again!

We’ve crossed the six week threshhold.  Whew!  The baby is starting to adhere to a real schedule (thank goodness) with a nap in the afternoon, a rather long sleep period from late evening to early morning, and then a cluster feed in late afternoon.  I can’t say how relieved I am that this is finally occurring.

I’m about finished with the Eric Flint book and the second Wild Cards book.  The Flint book is much better than I expected.  His writing style used to annoy me, but I always read a great deal of his stuff due to the fantastic plots and characters that he managed to put together.  In this last book, he has matured enough as a writer (or changed his voice enough) that I actually find his style more readable.  The second Wild Cards book is a bit of a disappointment.  While I enjoy the continuation of the characters created in the first book, the second one uses an inane plot device about alien invasion that sapped my patience.  The bright spots in the book are the Melinda Snodgrass story featuring Dr. Tachyon and the Martin story featuring The All Powerful Turtle.  Unfortunately, Vellum is still sitting with a bookmark in it beside my easy chair.  Could Hal Brooks at least try to be a little more comprehensible?

It seems that I am the only one of a very few who did not pick up Lord of the Rings: Online.  It’s interesting to be in a self-imposed exile, but I have to admit to a certain sense of satisfaction in knowing that I remain above the lure of an escapist game and the peer-pressure that comes along with it.  In the meantime, I’ll wrap up Titan Quest, finish the GDI and Scrin campaigns for Command and Conquer 3, and enjoy my return to the writing scene.

Speaking of writing, I can now resolve a mystery that has been plaguing some of you (thanks to all who have sent inquiries).  I stopped posting Loss of Innocence after the end of the third chapter because I suddenly had interest from a publisher.  I went as far as the “option” stage, but was rejected before I received an advance.  I’m not going to disclose the publisher or the details of the deal, but I have to say that even though I was disappointed with the outcome, the process as a whole was very positive.  I hope to place another project with the same publisher some time within the next year, and I will continue to shop Loss around.  I’m debating about whether to continue serializing Loss in its entirety.  There are six more chapters that I could post, but if I do that, what’s the incentive to actually buy the book?  (Mercenary of me, I know.)  Besides, now that the site has finally evolved a “voice” of its own, it feels like cheating to just post a section of a chapter as a blog entry.  What do you guys think?  Respond in the comments section below.

The voice of the site has been a little heavy lately, with topics running the gamut of current events.  I aim to lighten it for a while with some more writing samples, more satire, and more straight science posts.  In the meantime, I’m off to play Daddy.

ABC News, among other news outlets, is reporting that a stone for Virgina Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui has been placed in a memorial for the recently slain men and women.

The memorial consists of thirty-two stones made from the local limestone, one stone for each of the people killed.  Early Thursday morning (April 19), a thirty-third stone appeared, representing the perpetrator of the worst shooting in U.S. history.  The student responsible for the stone’s placement, a Psychology/Sociology major named Katelynn Johnson, initially placed the stone in secrecy. She later came foward in a letter to the Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech’s Newspaper:

“My family did not raise me to do what is popular.  They raised me to do what is morally right. We did not lose only 32 students and faculty members that day; we lost 33 lives.”

The stone was briefly removed before being replaced early on Wednesday morning, slightly apart from the others.  It is decorated with signs of tribute similar to those that adorned the stones representing the dead students and faculty.

I’m going to give everyone a few moments to get over their stunned sense of disbelief.

Are we settled now?  I certainly hope so, because anyone…anyone with a sense of justice or morality should realize that this act, coupled with the above statement is a complete and utter crock of shit.

I don’t often use profanity on this site, but nothing else can express my complete and utter disgust for the blatant disregard for the purpose(s) of this memorial.  I don’t care how many mush-headed, life-is-sacred whinebags write in to far-left touchy-feely newspapers across the nation supporting this misguided, oblivious girl…what she has done is tantamount to pissing on the graves of the slain.  Giving the killer the same kind of honor as his victims is completely unfathomable to me.  I can’t even construct a rational argument against this because it seems so obvious to me that this is wrong.

Following this logic, we might as well put a statue of an Al-Qaeda member humping a Boeing 737 at the base of the World Trade Center site. (*Yee-haw!*)  How about we put a bronzed Ryder truck with a bust of Timothy McVeigh in downtown Oklahoma City?  Even better, how about we put a statue of Janet Reno on the grounds of the former Branch Dividian complex in Waco, TX?

Yes, it is a tragedy that this kid had mental problems.  Yes, it is a tragedy that he did not seek treatment.  Yes, it is terrible that the mental health databases aren’t linked with the ATF database that controls whether or not you can buy handguns.   But none of this changes the fact that he brutally murdered thirty-two people.  My biggest regret about this whole case is that he didn’t decide to sit in his room and shoot himself first.  The only comfort that I can take from this whole ordeal is that he won’t murder anyone else.  That, at least, provides enough closure for me to feel a tiny bit of peace in the midst of the turmoil.

We, as Americans are addicted to sensationalist media. We have developed too much of an appetite for the suffering of our fellow man. Our tolerance of criminality is tacit in our attitudes toward criminals–we make them heroes, lionizing them for days on news networks, in newspapers, and online.  We condemn their actions openly around the water cooler and in Starbuck’s while we hide our secret glee at their exploits. 

When we place a brutal murderer on the same level as the people he killed, something is wrong with us as a people and us as a society.  That anyone can feel sympathy for Cho Seoung-Hui beyond the fact that he was a troubled invidual is ludicrous.  Mental illness does not excuse the slaying of thirty-two people.  It also doesn’t earn you the right to be mourned by a society that claims justice and morality as two of its highest virtues.

Forbes is reporting that Exxon-Mobil is posting a record-breaking first quarter profit–a 10% rise over profits in the previous quarter.

I put gas in my 2007, extended cab Chevy Silverado yesterday and paid $60.00. 

Does anyone NOT understand why I am alarmed? 

Here’s how it’s supposed to break down.  We have political upset in Venezuela, Nigeria, or the Middle East.  The market reacts by organizations trying to buy as much crude oil as they can; since the demand went up, those selling the oil charge more for it.  Still more organizations are buying, and the price spikes, even more organizations try to get in while the oil is “cheap.”  By the end of a trading day, crude oil has risen by sometimes dollars per barrel.  This is then passed on to us, the consumer…but not at the same rate as the crude oil market fluctations.

The problem with this is that while crude oil can be considered a commodity, i.e. it doesn’t matter where you get it because all of the products are essentially the same, it is the lifeblood of a good portion of the West.  There is no question that this is a product that all consumers, commerical, governmental, and private, must have.  Couple this with the fact that most of the world’s oil prices are set by a cartel called OPEC, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore, there is the refining process which is controlled by several multi-national companies.  These companies, like Exxon-Mobil, act as a gate keeper to consumers.  They take the raw material that we can’t directly use and turn it into a product that we can use, attaching to it all of the costs associated with the conversion, plus a mark-up to ensure profitability. 

Our expectation, as Americans, is that these companies will maintain a consistent mark-up, based rationally on a percentage of raw material cost or operating capital.  However, oil companies have realized that they need not do this.  We must have this product, therefore we will pay for it.  Never mind that rising transportation costs drive inflation; never mind that lining the pockets of a large corporation lowers that standard of living of the lowest socio-economic elements of our population.

Is this act wrong?  It depends on your perspective, I suppose.  When I’m filling my truck at the gas station, I certainly feel free to complain about it.  I can shake my internal fist and damn all profiteers to the fiery hell of bankruptcy, but when I do so, I am kidding myself with a double standard.

For better or worse, a free market economy has arisen in the last two hundred years.  There are trends in the market the control what price a given item, commodity or not, will go for.  When the price of raw material is controlled by a cartel, and when a few, very similar gate-keeper corporations control the flow of finished goods, the situation is ripe for big profits.

Exxon-Mobil is cashing in on this as we speak.

And can we blame them, really?  They have a duty to justify their expenditures, prices, etc. to stock holders.  We may think we have a God-given constitutional right to low-cost gasoline in America, but the sad fact is that we also have a need for the same product.  Profiteering is never right, but do we want to open the Pandora’s box of setting price controls over a commodity, necessary or not?  Down that path is socialism.

The way to lower prices is to increase supply or lower demand.  There is no incentive for OPEC to increase supply, because they get fewer dollars (or camels, since I think that’s the Saudi Arabian currency) per barrel of oil.  There is no way for consumers to lower their demand, so we’re stuck with prices that are high.

The answer to this is a cheap energy source that is independent of government and commerical control.  This is a favorite “green” dream of environmentalists, and while no one can dispute that it would be wonderful, I think this dream will remain unrealized for the foreseeable future.

Our dependence on oil will only make the rich, richer; it will cause us to protect “national interests” in areas that are only good for scorpions and barbaric people. Until we break the habit, we are doomed to repeat this cycle.