Save our wild horses!

Sorry to go off topic on this post, but this issue is very near and dear to my heart. The info below is from The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign :

In 1971, an unprecedented public outcry moved Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, granting federal protection to America's wild horses and burros as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West […] that […] contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.”

An aggressive wild horse removal campaign is currently under way by the U.S. government, at the cost of millions of tax-dollars. The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) removal policy is contrary to the spirit of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. The Act was the result of an unprecedented public outcry and effected the will of the American people; its intent was to preserve wild horses and burros as part of our national heritage.

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My thoughts:

The Bureau of Land management has rounded up thousands of OUR wild horses and burros to make room for cattle and sheep to graze on OUR public land, and now they have scheduled the execution, the "euthanasia", the SLAUGHTER of thousands of these animals for the benefit of a few ranchers who pay the government for the privilege of turning their sheep and cattle loose on public land, at a much lower cost than maintaining their own private pastures.

The ranchers get cheap grazing, and the government gets some money, but what do we get? OUR public lands get destroyed by sheep and cattle, and our wild horses and burros die for the almighty dollar!

Please write to your politicians (President, President elect, Senate and Congress) and demand that the Bureau of Land Management stop murdering our wild animals and raping our public lands!

~~ Tessa B. Dick
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Ray Nelson likes Origins!

Ray Nelson, who collaborated with Philip K. Dick on The Ganymede Takeover, likes my novel Origins!

Here's what he said after I sent him a copy:

""Origins" is good stuff, real science fiction, unlike most of the bogus SF on the current market. Thank you for thinking of me. I would say you not only have an alternate universe good for a sequel or two, but for a long series of novels and short stories. Many a Grand Master has based a whole career on one or two private universes."

~~ Ray Nelson

YIPPEE!

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Windy Days

It's the third day in a row with cold Santana winds roaring through these mountains. So what am I doing? Writing poems about the wind. The devil wind, cold and dry, brings freezing temperatures and red flag alerts. The fire danger is very high, but so far, the only major fire is in an area northeast of Los Angeles, some 50 miles from here.

Last October we got evacuated for a major forest fire. In 2003 we lost thousands of trees and hundreds of homes to the Old Fire. So I keep praying, while shivering in this drafty little mountain cabin, that the evil wind will die down and the destructive fires stay far away from here.

Another blast slashes through the trees and shakes pine cones down onto my roof.

The cats huddle on my bed, daring me to TRY to get under the covers. Unmovable, with glaring eyes, they stare me down. I go back to my desk and write another poem, then kill it with the mighty DELETE key.

I'm bundled up in three sweaters, yet still shivering with cold, especially when another blast of wind finds its way in through the cracks and chinks of my drafty mountain cabin.

Yet I love this place, these mountains, this forest, and even my drafty little cabin.

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Is reality really real?

If there is one thing that I have learned in 54 years on this planet, it is that this world is not what it appears to be.

Back in the 1990s, I heard a caller to a talk radio program (Art Bell) saying that he was taking a history course at a local college, and the textbook said that the Old West outlaw Billy the Kid had died in prison, but he remembered learning years before that a sheriff named Pat Garrett had shot Billy the Kid in the back and killed him. I checked it out, and sure enough, Billy the Kid had died in prison, even though I thought that I remembered the story that Pat Garrett had killed him.

Not long after that, I was telling my older and smarter brother about it, and he said that Pat Garrett shot Billy the Kid. So I checked it out, and sure enough, the history books had changed again, to say that Pat Garrett shot him during a jail break, killing him, so Billy the Kid did not die in prison. However, I thought that the original story was not about a jail break, but simply about Pat Garrett tracking him down on the road and ambushing him.

Other anomalies have popped up in a similar manner. For example, my older and smarter brother and I distinctly remember hearing news reports that Nelson Mandela had died in prison, yet he was elected President of South Africa when Apartheid ended.

Go figure.

Is somebody changing history, or do we have extremely faulty memories?

I prefer to believe that this world is more like a computer simulation than s solid reality.

What do you think?

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Content is everything

If you've been creating the most polished manuscripts with loving care, paying attention to every detail of format, grammar and spelling, yet all you get back are form letters rejecting your work, you must be banging your head against the wall and asking, "Why?"

You probably know of at least one author who has turned in a mess of bad format on age-yellowed paper with coffee spills and shredded edges, yet that manuscript got accepted and . . . published! You must be banging your head against the wall and asking, "Why?"

Answer: Content is everything.

Yes, editors do prefer neat, clean manuscripts with the correct format, grammar and spelling. On the other hand, they buy content.

Make sure that you are telling a good story, or if you write nonfiction, that you inform readers about something that interests them, and you do it in an interesting way.

Content is everything.

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