Time for a good book?

Thank heaven for small mercies, the election will soon be over. By the time you're reading this, it probably will be. So what to do now? Perhaps it's time to sit back and relax with a good read. Being a lifelong fan of fiction, and in the spirit that everyone could use a solid recommendation every now and then, I thought I'd post a very short list of recent personal favorites. Seven books that I found either immensely enjoyable or important in the way that great fiction is one of 'the great teachers'. (Sometimes the two are mutually exclusive.) Without further ado, here in no particular order are seven books I've read in the past few years that have stayed with me:

1) Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi

2) Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flannagan

3) A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

4) The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

5) American Pastoral by Philip Roth

6) Eating Stone by Ellen Meloy

7) What is the What by Dave Eggers

Honorable Mention: Here Comes the Sun by Joshua M. Greene

That's it. Hope you get a chance to pick up one or two of these. Please feel free to leave your own recommends as well.

The future won't be long now.

There are too many of us. It doesn't take rocket science to figure it out. The only trouble is, everyone who is of child-rearing age thinks they have a free pass. A get out of jail free card. It's easy to think about population growth and its effect on the planet in a macro sense. But as far as each of us goes, as individuals, the idea that maybe it's not such a great idea to bring other beings into this world is downright heretical. 

It's easy to understand. We are programmed to recreate. It's hard to point at a baby -- any particular baby -- and say 'there's the problem'. You'd be locked up. Spat upon. Worse. Everybody loves babies right? In my particular town of Mill Valley, California, babies are regarded in higher esteem than golden retrievers and 100 foot tall redwoods. They are a symbol of all that is supposed to be right. Love. Marriage. Responsibility. Parenthood. Lineage. 

During an average weekday, you'd think you were living in a time warp. Women with babies are everywhere. In strollers. In their laps. In the cafes. In freshly washed SUV's. Babies looking at other babies. Women without jobs lovingly gazing at their babies looking at dogs looking at other babies. Sometime I wonder, where the heck are all the fathers? Did all these women have children without any men involved? (A good trick, that.) Are they all in the city, locked inside tall buildings until it's time for the ceremony of the daily release and the commute back home? Time to say hello again to the wife and babies? It boggles the mind. 

As John McCain would say: my friends, it's true. But John wouldn't tell you that overpopulation -- that is to say too many babies -- is the cause of almost every global problem that we face. Because the thing that people tend to forget is that babies... turn into people. People who drive cars, eat food, drink bottled water, compete with other people for a decent job; people who want their own little patch of land carved out of whatever happens to be left, and of course create their own life-long carbon footprint. Not only that, but these babies quickly turn into adults who also create... more babies. And that my friends is why we're running out of oil, water, nutrients in the soil, fish in the ocean, honey bees, trees in the rainforest, parking spaces at the national park, and just about anything else you can think of. 

There are too many of us. But you can't convince anyone who wants to have a baby of that. Try bringing up the idea of adoption -- by far the 'greenest' solution for someone who wants to start a family. See how far you get. Every couple believes in their 'god given right' to procreate. It's unstoppable. Even among the truly educated. Imagine how it must be elsewhere. Kids and more kids. Until finally, everything that keeps us alive will be so substantially diminished that something will have to give. What will give is what sustains us. And that's the world we will be leaving to all of these children. It's going to get scary in less time than we can imagine. Not enough to go around. But we don't think about that. It's diamonds. And engagements. And marriage. And children. Look how cute. 

Freedom's not free, but maybe it should be.

From today's NY Times: 'Nearly a quarter-century ago, the mantra 'information wants to be free' heralded an era in which news, entertainment and personal communications would flow at no charge over the Internet. Now comes a rallying cry: software wants to be free. "If Microsoft had to start over today, it wouldn't even think about charging money for it's software," said Yun Kim, an industry analyst with Pacific Growth Equities. "Nobody in their right mind is developing a business in the consumer market to charge for software."

I admit I had to read these words twice, just to be sure I had it right. But what this says, unequivocally, is that it won't be all that long before 'all your softwares belong to us', which is a bit of shift from what we're used to. I mean even if you've been pirating music, dubbing movies from dvd's and ripping your favorite porn to your hard drive six times a day, everyone is used to paying for at least a few of the most substantial applications. My understanding is that a few hardy souls even pay for everything. I tend not to go out for drinks with these individuals.

However, I'm glad to hear the pay-as-you-go scenario is about to come to an end. Right on! I never liked paying for any of that stuff anyway. And in the spirit of Mr. Kim's business plan advice, I'd like to mention a few other things I'd like to start getting for free. The sooner the better, too.

First -- I'd like all my wine to be free. Especially the really good stuff that my friends show up with just to humiliate me that costs upward of $100 a bottle. I'd like a dozen cases or so of 2005 Chateauneuf du Pape, as well as a cellar full of vintage Willimatte Valley Pinot Noir, Australian Shiraz, German Reisling, Italian Barolo, and a few dozen of the Sommelier grade Reidel glasses on the side. All free. Thank you very much.

Next, well let's see, there are a number of countries I need to visit to round out my understanding of the world as it is, so I'd like to visit Greece, Italy, France, the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile, Bali, Maui, and Alaska. Just for starters. I'd like all my accommodations to be on the level, of say, the Ritz-Carlton, which seems fairly modest in this new era of free software, don't you think? Good.

Let's see, next, I'd like to be able to write film dialogue like this without having any understanding of the true nature of capitalism, or having read (or paid for) any substantial literature whatsoever:

"Are you an assassin?"
"No, I'm a soldier."
"You're neither. You're an errand boy sent by the grocer to collect the bill."

In addition, I'd like to be able to control the weather, at least where I live, for free. If it's astonishingly sunny outside, but I feel like the world needs to come to an end tomorrow, I want to be able to call up a class five hurricane, on demand, without seeing that appear on my Visa bill next month.

Oh, and then there's dating. Dating costs even more than software from Microsoft. So from now on, I'd like all my exploratory dinner dates to be arranged free of charge. The waiter doesn't even have to mention this. At the end of a rather lengthy meal, he could just present the bill to my table, and I could scribble a signature on something to indicate my tacit agreement not to pay a nickle for what might turn out to be a complete waste of time, or an evening that may proceed to go down in the pantheon of astral-plane carnal experiences. Either way, I think it would be best if the entire meal, including the tip, is free. I mean it's a roll of the dice, so free makes a lot of sense here.

Next. I'd like all my weed to be free. Humboldt county, outdoor grown, pesticide free, thank you very much. I remember when I used to get high (but not too frequently, just like Barrack) and listen to that Jefferson Starship album where Grace sings about 'free dope, free music' and that was certainly before the era of free software. So, please, I think the free dope part is wayyyy overdue. I mean seriously, does anyone have a problem with this? I thought not.

In addition, I have a question. Can I get out of this possession and status-obsessed nation which also happens to have one of the worst governments in the history of mankind and go live in some saner place like Costa Rica or maybe New Zealand -- for free? I realize this is a lot to ask for - maybe even more than some lame word processing software at no charge. So therefore, I might be willing to come up with a few bucks myself to make this happen. But since people are getting their software for free, I expect a bit of a discount. Regardless, I'm beginning to enjoy this new 'stuff for free' idea. Maybe the revolution is going to be phased in slowly, so none of the bastards at the top will even notice. After all, if we're not paying for anything, the robber-barons can't be any better off than the rest of us.