Terran Franklin

As some of you notice, while I have a pro-American stance, especially with Blood&Metal, I don’t show any preference in any ideology; politically I’m a free thinker.  I could go either or, but rarely an extremist view.  There are times I even side with Obama, which I list here on this blog.

It was only a matter of time before I find something I differ from Glenn Beck, and I found it in this concept.  If you only heard of Net Neutrality from that show, you don’t know all of it.

Net Neutrality has been going on for quite some time, probably since it’s been popularly used by millions like we do now.  I’ve been watching this topic for some time now, and I have a politically neutral stance on it. In a nutshell, the ‘Neutrality’ in Net Neutrality has to do with the kind of internet you get from a particular service.  Meaning, you get to the same Internet from Comcast as you get from AT&T or from a local ISP.  While they have some controls on speed and can even make separate venues between web page download and torrent use, but they cannot restrict parts of the Internet because it’s part of another company’s services.  Any use online, be it an IM chat, an E-Mail, a large download, et al, can not be legally blocked under Net Neutrality.  This principle promotes standards in file formats and open source systems, as well as innovation and easy competition, things I’ve always supported.  Any anyone who knows when there was an IBM system, an Apple system, a Commodore system, an Atari system, and so on and so on and never two of them shall meet.

By now the extremes of the Net Neutrality debate are presenting themselves, and they basically look the same IMHO:  Pro-Neutrality zealots claim that companies like Comcast, AT&T, Charter and the other providers want the internet divided into sections that cannot be crossed over; you can get to Comcast’s Internet but not AT&T’s, making the Net into an assortment of Bulletin Board Systems.  (AOL vs CompuServe, anyone?) Glenn Beck is telling of a similar circumstance but under control by Barack…or rather, a cabal of extremist liberals who would throttle any kind of information that they don’t agree with.  Either side, of course, is an oppressive environment, and probably wouldn’t stand by the general public.  Both extremes, of course, are also going at each other throats and endangering the very thing that they are fighting over.

Basically an Internet that is pretty much Neutral, right now.  Granted, some companies might want to have a bandwidth cap on torrents and porn so that they’ll have room for professional business transactions and educational research, and more power to them, but they won’t go, “Okay, you reached your daily limit of use on Fox News, here is your daily requirement of Pr0n.  Stop being butthurt, fagtard, hurr hurr hurr.”  No Internet Provider would remain in business if they do shit like that.

Nor will a political party in control of almost all of Washington stay in office if they do the same.  Not even pulling a Chavez and writing off term limits and elections will save them in a country where not everyone has given up their guns.

I believe that there can be an answer that is in the middle of this spectrum, where everyone can be happy with the Net Use.  This will require cooler heads, honest debate without ripping into each other, and a middle ground that everyone can settle for.  And especially to leave alone the parts of the internet makeup that pretty much has Net Neutrality.  If something isn’t broke, do not fuck with it.

If you wanted me to tell you what is wrong with America today, I usually point to the elderly Connecticut man who was flipped over by a speeding hit and run driver, and was left there to die while everyone who passed him basically had a good lul over the poor soul.  Nobody bothered to help.  Nobody even called 911 or blocked traffic.  He was nearly run over by a cop who just happened to be around and would have been arrested for jaywalking.  We know of it only because someone hacked into a security camera and posted the video of the event on You Tube.

I show it because in my mind, it is the result of the extreme partisan bickering that existed from 2002 to today, where the connectedness that existed after the 9-11 attacks was routinely shredded by the media and the political fringe at both ends.  It showed a dynamic that is more prevalent than racism but must be fought just as extremely; the general detachment people feel toward their fellow man.  It’s when people are so focused on their own person because of the lack of any higher goal, that they wouldn’t even think of another person as, well, a person.  Or if they did they’ve probably think of that person as if he was Chris-chan.

“This isn’t the kind of America the Founding Fathers thought of,” I’ve written in the liner notes of BAM 01 when I mentioned the event, “And it certainly is not the America I want to live in.”

I found another example of this recently:  Vicious Homecoming Dance Gang Rape May Have Been Videotaped, Watched by Dozens

A fifteen year old girl was walking home from a Homecoming Dance, where she turned the wrong corner and ran into almost a dozen gang members who summarily gang raped her.

More than twenty people just watched.  Some of them even published it on You Tube, and probably it’s on Encyclopedia Dramatica with “I DID IT 4 TEH LULZ!!!111!!” emblazoned on the pics.

I don’t know which is worse, the gang raping or the people watching it as if it were porno.

What can I say about this what probably hasn’t been said in Fox News, Fox News Radio, or The Fox Nation.  Or if I hope right, any other news channel or even the occasional picket fence.

All I can say is this:

“This is not the kind of America the Founders wanted to make.  And this is not the kind of America I want to live in.”

That’s why I’m writing Blood&Metal.  And why I’m a 9-12er.  I wanted to live in an America that crap like this isn’t accepted.

see more Political Pictures

Eric:  So Drink up, Dude!

Last evening, I’ve been to the first informational meet-up for the year over at Wise Choice Coffee in Edwardsville.  And while I was there I typed up some of BAM 02 before and after the meeting.  Someone had a camera and had pictures saved on the group’s Flickr Account: (Note:  All pictures are taken from said account.  Hope nobody minded.)

I wasn’t always in the back.  I sat up front for a but until the fashionably late people showed up.  And someone needed a chair so I faded back to my machine.  I also showed my proof copy of BAM 01 (which was the 2008 NaNoWriMo project) to show my progress, as well as some others who did the same.

Man, some people here can be more shy than me.  Come on, at least I have Aspergers to blame; what’s your lame excuse.

I was the shmuck in the back with the glaring yellow 9-12 t-shirt here.  And it got some play when I was describing the path I’m taking BAM.  I also said my favorite Glenn Beck cracks.  (My biggest fear?  Bees, Peanut Butter, and uncooked cookie dough.)  When I get on the Glenn Beck show, I’m going to cram a whole bag of Chip’s Ahoy down his throat, I swear.

When I get into my serious typing mood, I do not feel that the compact keyboard on the Lenovo as enough.  And that thumbpad is not in the best place to boot (my thumb knuckles always end up resting on it and it screws up the pointer.)  No, for serious writing, only the ergonomic keyboard and mouse can do.  I also had the forethought of bringing along the coolpad to rest the precious machine on.  I do not mess around when I type.  And fsk Wordpad; I got into the Microsoft Word 2010 preview just for bookwriting, and by Chutulu, it’s going to be used on Scarlet Origin 01!

The guy on the high chair really kept looking over how I type.  (Especially how I put HTML style formatting codes into the first draft.)

Chris Batty:  Where’s my flying monkeys?

Fuck you!  I hand code web pages in my spare time, it’s how my brain got wired.

And ugh. they’re right about the camera adding fifteen pounds or so.  Or maybe it’s the General Tso’s Chicken I had before I came in here.  No, it’s the camera.  It also broke when the owner tried to take a picture of himself.

Oh, along the way, someone brought up a misconception about NaNoWriMo.  Somebody in this group said that they were typing at their book and got about a K of words already and someone called them on it.  (<Starter Gun>  <Second Starter Gun> Beep Beep Beep Beep <Konami>FAULT!</Konami>)  That is purely a misconception, which goes along the line of having to start blind with a virgin WordPad file.  (If you have to plan, for God’s sakes, make one.  That’s what I do.)  The idea is to go from zero to 50K in the month of November.  It doesn’t say that you have to start with that virgin WordPad file, does it?  Of course, you have to subtract the word count you made when you jumped the gun from your total word count if you want to be official.  (Or do what I do and break up the first draft into multiple files) But if you need a set up to get started, feel free.

I have to confess that I tend to False Start as well.  BAM 01 started late in the evening on Halloween.  I just went, “Aw hell, it’s smucking Midnight somewhere,” and started typing.  It might happen again; Halloween falls on a Saturday, and I don’t know if I’m working on Sunday or not.  I usually do, and I don’t really feel like wanting to take over the keyboard when I drag that overweight carcass back to the apartment.

And note that I said Overweight.  Not Obese.  Never mind what the BMI says; I don’t need a forklift, a mobility device, or a sledgehammer to get to my upper floor living room to pull me out.  I have no rolls of fat for dead animals to hide in, nor do I need to call up NASA to go to the john.  I’m nowhere NEAR Obese yet.  I’m rambling.  I should shut up now.