Category Archives: News

Good Writing, Weak Plot – Anonymous Sources, by Mary Louise Kelly

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Anonymous Sources - By Mary Louise Kelly

Gallery Books - Publication Date:  June 18, 2013

It is inconvenient to have mixed feelings about a book. It’s easier to review it when you love or hate it. I’m mired in ambivalence. Anonymous Sources is well-written and has oodles of potential. I enjoyed reading it yet I had real problems with it.

The main character, Alexandra James, is a newspaper reporter. As is the author. I’m married to a reporter, albeit television rather than print, so I’m familiar with the realities of the news business. Ms. Kelly is at home in that world and does a good job painting the landscape so that those unfamiliar with the news biz can relate to it.

Mary Louise Kelly, a veteran reporter who is the prototype for her fictional protagonist, brings a very impressive resume to this first novel. Her extensive experience in reporting the secret world of spies and security raised my expectations. Indeed, she has created a very attractive character in Alexandra James, the intrepid young reporter.

Although this is Ms. Kelly’s first novel, she is a writer. Her prose is elegant and smooth. She knows the places about which she writes and describes them with assurance and authority. We live in the Boston area where much of the action takes place; she never hits a false note — a refreshing change from many other books I’ve read. She captures dialogue well. Conversations sound natural. Her descriptive abilities extend to people. I feel I’d recognize her characters if I met them on the street. Her comfort with the tools of the trade, the techniques of her profession and the requirements of the job are spot on.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for plot and character development. I believed Alexandra James, the reporter. I didn’t believe Alexandra James, the person, the woman. Her motives seemed phony. They didn’t jibe with her credentials. How could she be so savvy and smart, but so naïve she couldn’t see a blatantly fake CIA shill when he was literally staring her in the face? The plot was driven by the central character’s ability to miss the obvious and do stupid stuff. Worse, she created the most blatant stereotyped Muslim extremists I’ve seen outside aTom Clancy novel — that’s not a compliment. Her upper class Brits are caricatures, an embarrassing collection of clichés. Considering her real world experience, I find this puzzling.

To move the plot forward, Ms. Kelly drops clues. Heavy, unsubtle clues, they land with a bang, not a whimper. Wham, here’s a clue for you. Did you get that? No? Well, here (crash!) is another, right on your instep so you can’t possibly miss it. Ouch.

If the quality of the plot was even close to the quality of prose, it would have been a great mystery (thriller?). As it was, it was readable and mediocre. The end was rushed, as if she’d hit a deadline and had to wrap it up before they wrenched the manuscript from her hands.

Featuring cardboard characters and a brilliant heroine too dumb to take minimal precautions when she knows her life is in danger, I didn’t buy it. I liked Alexandra and hoped through the entire book she would  become real to me. The potential was there. Protagonists with a secret, troubled past are de rigueur these days, but this protagonist’s dark secrets were contrived and rang false. It did nothing for the story or the character.

I hope Ms. Kelly steps back, does some thinking, and rebuilds her protagonist. Alexandra James could be a strong female character in a genre dominated by smart, macho guys, but dopey, troubled women. I’m rooting for the author and her protagonist. Mary Louise Kelly has the talent to do it right. Whether or not she will realize her potential we will have to wait and see.

If this is the first of a series — assuming the book sells well enough to generate interest in future books — Ms. Kelly needs to give us a story that keeps us guessing. Allows us to be surprised, maybe even shocked. Mysteries needs to be … well … mysterious. Thrillers should thrill us. Anonymous Sources was neither mysterious nor thrilling. The author needs to trust readers to follow clues and make discoveries without giving everything away up front.

The novel drops a lot of stitches. For example, her good (best?) friend Jess is introduced with considerable fanfare but plays no role in the story. There are no details of how the murders were carried out. What exactly happened? How did Thom Carlyle exit that window? It’s not easy to lift a full-grown man — dead weight — and push him through a small window single-handed. The bad guys are faceless and bodiless. Tall? Strong? Other than being Pakistani, you know close to nothing.

Who was behind the plot?  Merely naming the organization without populating it or really drawing us a picture of it isn’t enough. Scary bad guys are as important as heroes. The abrasive relationship between the protagonists and antagonists is critical. I wanted to know a lot more at the end than I did.

Mary Louise Kelly is talented. She writes great descriptions, excellent dialogue and is a fine storyteller. With a real plot and characters, she could produce great books. She surely has enough anecdotal material for dozens of books. Her skill with words is obvious. Here’s to her next — better –novel.

Anonymous Sources is available from Amazon and other sellers as a hardcover and in Kindle format.

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Daily Prompt: Ripped Into the Headline — I have misplaced my outrage …

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Not everyone gets my sense of humor. Despite that, I persist in being myself. I realize irony is wasted on a lot of folks and allusions to movies, books, and history merely annoy them. I just can’t help it. I gotta be me, even if it confuses and aggravates a big slice of the population. I’m just not everybody’s cuppa tea.

Right now, I’m walking around laughing, sometimes hysterically, at the gigantic fuss, furor, and scandal over NSA listening to our phone calls.

So last night, when we were nicely tucked into the most comfortable bed in the world, I said to Garry:

“Can you think of any government anywhere, or any time in the history of humankind, during which governments have not spied on their citizens or subjects?”

He honored me with a thoughtful few seconds before answering … or maybe he was just twiddling with the remote control.

“Nope.”

“I think the way it works is this. First, we invent heads of state. Kings, presidents, emperors, whatever. Next, they invent a secret police so they can keep on being the head of state. The only thing that seems to change is the technology. And the quality of the dungeons.”

“Yup.”

“I think it’s a mistake to try and monitor all those telephone calls. I mean, they are just going to be buried under more data than they handle, so instead of getting more information about real problems, they are just going to get lots of jabbering kids yakking with their friends, people arguing with customer support, and boring conversations by people like us. We never say anything interesting on the phone. We hardly talk on the phone at all.

“Yup.”

Our conversation has continued into today as Garry has pointed out that he is positively shocked to hear that the NSA is listening to our phone calls. SHOCKED!

I said I would have to compose a strongly worded letter and send it to someone, although I’m not sure who.

office with nan

Americans seem to have a national need to be outraged about something or other. We apparently require a level of constant civic hysteria, maybe to keep the news from being boring. Scandal keeps ratings up and gives talk show hosts something to rant about. It gives both liberals and conservatives something to accuse each other of doing, even though every administration has done pretty much the same stuff and always will. They did it in ancient Rome and Greece. Egypt, too. Governments spy on their citizens. The more prominent you are, the more dangerous you are perceived to be, so the more attention is likely to be paid to you.

I’m wondering how long this is going to stay on top of the news. Because nothing is going to change. Ever. Governments will spy on their citizens. Citizens will be outraged. The outrage will be ignored. Eventually, everyone will move on to the next big thing.

I actually think our security moguls are shooting themselves in the foot trying to monitor so many people. At a certain point, everything and nothing are identical. If you try to collect every conversation, you wind up knowing less than you did when you targeted actual likely evil-doers. But hey, what do I know, right?

I’m having trouble getting myself worked up over this.

You see, I remember Richard Nixon. I even remember the end of the J. Edgar Hoover era. I’ve read history. Unlike some people, who apparently actually believe that all those traffic cameras have been installed to monitor traffic, I know they are there to keep track of us. You. Me. All of us. Is someone monitoring them all the time? Hardly likely. But if anyone is looking for me — or you — well, I’m sure they will have no trouble finding us.

Did I know the NSA was monitoring phone conversations? Not specifically, but it’s hardly a revelation. Do I believe that if we form protest groups, write letters to congress, they will stop watching and listening? Are you kidding? They aren’t going to stop and making a fuss about it is likely to make them take a long hard look at me. I would prefer to skip that.

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My government spies on me. And you. And everyone else. They were spying on us during the 1960s. They were spying on my parents and their friends in the 1950s and 1940s. What’s your point? Obama didn’t start this. Bush didn’t start it. FDR didn’t start it. Abraham Lincoln didn’t start it. It’s been going on as long as there have been governments and it will never end. Nobody asked my permission and my objections will accomplish nothing. Privacy is an illusion and if we ever had any, we lost it a long time ago.

I know I should be appalled, angry, enraged at the intrusion into my private space, but instead I keep laughing. I am incapable of being appalled. I have completely run out of outrage. Our dogs remain undisturbed and my husband amused. This particular crisis will have to go on without us.

Someone else will have to be outraged on our behalf. Please, whoever you are, don’t forget to send that strongly worded letter. Send me a copy. For my records.

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Waiting for Dystopia

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I’m bemused and a bit bewildered at the furor over how the NSA is spying on American citizens. As a long-time faithful fan of NCIS, Law & Order and so many other cop shows, I’ve become familiar with how easy it is for government agents to get our phone and computer records. Our photos are easy to find on traffic cameras and security footage. It’s the meat and potatoes of television crime shows, so I can’t believe there’s anyone over the age of 5 who doesn’t know when someone is compromising evidence or has forgotten to wear his or her gloves at the crime scene.

Portrait of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. (no ...

Feared FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover – Rumor has it he wore a dress when he wasn’t accusing Americans of being Communists.

We know there are cameras trained on us everywhere we go. It’s even more intense in Great Britain and most parts of Europe, so this isn’t just an American aberration. It’s everywhere.

It must have been 20 years since we first learned about the trap door in Windows. You remember. That’s the security hole designed to let the government peek into our computers. All operating systems have holes in them. Any 14-year old hacker can find them, so surely the FBI can do almost as well. Did anyone think that the holes in our operating systems have gone away? Been patched up? Really?

Blaming one political party or the other, one president or another for extending and expanding the surveillance that’s been ongoing  for decades is pointless. It’s not going to stop no matter what they say or who is in the White House. The agencies that run the surveillance will merely improve their ability to camouflage their activities. Our governments are not going to stop monitoring our computers, telephones, bank accounts, or anything else. We can’t even stop Google and Facebook from having their way with us, so what makes you think we can stop the FBI or Scotland Yard?

It is wrong that governments spy on their citizens? Isn’t that a gross violation of our privacy? In theory I agree. They shouldn’t listen to our boring phone calls. I think it’s possible the cruelest punishment of all would be monitoring the phone calls of adolescent girls, but I digress.

My opinion is (a) it’s not up to me or you, and (b) we can’t have it both ways. We can’t demand more and better security yet expect the government to accomplish it without compromising our privacy.

So, we are faced with a theoretical (but not real) choice. Do we want security or privacy? As for the theoretical but not real aspect of the choice: it’s not up to us. In the United States, agencies of the government are in charge of national security. It’s their job. This didn’t start with Obama , Bush or even Regan. It goes back a long way, at least as far back as when J. Edgar Hoover was The Man and probably long before that too.

This is not an area on which we get to vote. It has been this way since before any of us were born and will continue to be this way after all of us are dead and gone.

Continuing to whine and bitch about it isn’t going to change anything. If you don’t want to be monitored, stop using the Internet. Give up your cell phones. Keep your money under the mattress. Live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Grow your own food and generate your own electricity. Don’t have a mortgage. Pay all your bills in cash. Better yet, don’t have bills.

Don’t work a regular job and move frequently. Don’t collect social security, Medicare or for that matter, file an income tax return. Don’t register a car and don’t vote. Should you have kids, home school them. Even if you do all these things, if THEY want to find you, they will. Because sooner or later you have to interact with other people and people talk.

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I have friends who are awaiting the end the civilization, if not the world. They are planning against the day when they will live in the Dystopia of their nightmares. They want to make sure they have enough guns.

Personally, I think lots of bottled water and canned goods would be more useful. And blankets, first aid supplies, and warm clothing. But I’m not expecting the world to end, and if it does, I figure it will just wither away. Not with a bang, nope, uh-uh. I’m leaning toward the long, tired whimper.

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Daily Prompt: Do Not Disturb — Through A Prism

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Author John Scalzi in his blog Whatever posted what I think is a sane, intelligent answer to the uproar and outrage over “discovering” that the government is spying on us. The article is titled Hey Scalzi, Don’t You Have Anything Angry to Say About That PRISM Thing? He points out that we all know the government is spying on us. We certainly have to know that Google and Facebook are spying on us. Microsoft has been spying on us for years as has Apple and Amazon. Depending on the security level of your home network, your entire neighborhood could by spying on you. There’s nothing new about this and if you had for some weird reason assumed your government which has been ramping up surveillance activities for more than a decade is not spying on all of us, it leaves only one question: How naïve are you?

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Living where I live and doing what I do, I recognized long ago there is no “off the grid” for me. Unless we were to go live in a cave in the far northern reaches of somewhere or other — if you know Garry and I,  that’s about as unlikely a scenario as anyone could create — I’m no cave dweller. The idea of living anywhere without a high-speed Internet connection gives me the willies.

That the government is using its capabilities to keep an ear and an eye on our transmissions, just in case something sounds suspicious and/or terroristic not only doesn’t surprise me, it would surprise me if they weren’t doing it. Land’s End monitors my purchases and browsing to create advertisements likely to lure me to buy from them. So does L.L. Bean, Dell, Amazon and everyone else from whom I shop. Google probably knows what color underwear I put on this morning. They’ve got my email and every photograph I’ve ever posted. Moreover, like most of the rest of you, I have a blog. Everything I write, every picture I publish goes off into cyberspace where it lives forever. If I Google myself, I find that like a mosquito captured in amber, my previous identities are still floating around out there, unchanged by time.

Years ago I accepted reality. If I want to belong to the world, I’m will be exposed to and by it. If you think otherwise, you are in denial.

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

All of those agreements we sign because if we don’t, we can’t use the software or that website, explicitly say we are granting permission to collect information, read our posts, access our applications and mine our data. I am mindful of what I post on the Internet. I write a lot, but I never post anything online that would embarrass me if someone announced it from the pulpit in church. If I have secrets, they stay secrets by the simple, primitive expedient of keeping my mouth shut.

Living out here in the middle of nowhere, we are less invaded by cameras and spy satellites than more heavily populated areas. It’s not because we aren’t as likely as anywhere else to be engaged in some kind of nefarious activity. It’s simply a matter of using available resources. There are only so many cameras and people to monitor them. We just aren’t worth the effort. Besides, if you want to know everything that is going on in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, drop by. Hang around the grocery store for a couple of hours. You’ll know everything and everybody in very short order.

The truth is that I don’t have much to hide. There’s stuff I did in my past that could potentially embarrass me, but it wouldn’t land me in jail. Probably my husband knows more interesting stuff than I do, but he was a reporter for a long time. And he isn’t talking. Not to me, not to anyone. He subscribes to the belief that a secret is something you don’t tell anybody. I’ve been trying to worm information out of him for more than 40 years. He just smiles and keeps watching whatever show is on TV. You have no idea how frustrating I find it, but comforting too. Because he’s not telling anyone my secrets either.

English: The logo of the blogging software Wor...

The government isn’t looking for me. I’m not buying guns, building bombs or selling drugs. I’m not traveling anywhere much, unless you count the occasional friend and doctor’s appointment. You could monitor my telephone traffic 24/7 and learn absolutely nothing because I don’t spend any time on the phone except when arguing with customer service reps, usually the cable company. And while it might be entertaining, it isn’t likely to be particularly exciting or enlightening. It certainly has nothing to do with anybody’s security, not even mine.

Spying? I’m more worried about Facebook and Google, WordPress and Amazon. They really do want to know what I’m doing so they can sell me stuff. They are very good at doing it, too. If the government were to question them, I guess the entire U.S. Government infrastructure would know my shoe size, what software I use to edit photographs and write, and that I still dress in essentially the same styles I was wearing 40 years ago. They’d know what dogs I’ve got, what food they eat. What food we eat, for that matter and probably what medications we take. I cannot imagine what use they might find this information. It doesn’t even interest me much.

This is the world we have chosen, designed and bought into. We have GPS units that broadcast our location to anyone who wants to find us. Virtually all of us have cell phones that are easily tapped and tracked. All of our bank transactions can be accessed by Lord knows how many people. If we are on Social Security and Medicare, the entire government is aware of our income, medical issues and who knows how much more. That would be assuming they are actually interested enough to look, which frankly, I doubt.

My office by window light

My government is not hunting for me. If they were, all they have to do is give me a call or drop by the house. They know where to find me. They know where to find you, too. That they can collect mountains of data is one thing. I very much doubt they have sufficient personnel to sift through more than an infinitesimal percentage of it. And if they are as efficient at mining data as they are at everything else, your guilty secrets are safer with the government than with your best friend.

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Condemned to Death

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It’s the policy everywhere to put to death dogs who bite. It doesn’t matter why. You can beat your dog, torture him, tie him up, starve him, let kids tease him without mercy from puppy-hood through the remainder of his life. No dog is ever – no matter how severe the provocation – allowed to fight back. Usually, the dog can’t even run away. For reasons I don’t understand, the courts don’t find anything wrong with this picture.

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When my granddaughter was 5 or so, it was Thanksgiving dinner and she was on the floor playing with our beloved (adored, maybe even worshiped) Norwich Terrier champion (yes she was, really). Divot was retired from the show ring, but she was Garry’s champion of the heart. The two of them had a serious thing going. He was her devoted love slave. I’m glad he never had to choose between us because I know I’d have lost the toss.

As the gathering concentrated on passing the turkey and cranberry sauce, a shriek loud enough to breathe life into the dead bird arose from under the table. Divot had bitten Kaity. No blood. Some red indentations. And Divot had not bothered to run away or hide. She was still sitting next to Kaity, calmly and quietly. Whatever had happened, the drama was all coming from Kaity’s side.

“She BIT me,” wailed my granddaughter.

“And what,” asked her father, “did YOU do?”

We are very doggy around here. We all knew Divot (aka Her Majesty). And we knew Kaity (aka Drama Queen). Divot wouldn’t bite for no reason and if she intended harm, even at her advanced age, she would have done more damage than that.

It turned out Kaity had been teasing Divot, offering her pieces of turkey, then pulling them away. She’d been playing the game for a while. How long? Five-year olds are not good about time and Divot wasn’t saying. Whatever time had passed, it proved long enough to convince Divot this pup (Kaity) needed to learn some manners. So she bit Kaity. She didn’t savage her, tear her to pieces. It would have been hard for an 11-pound terrier to wreak life-threatening havoc on any human. The bite was a statement, not an attack. Divot just wanted to make a point. She couldn’t give Kaity a time out or have long talk. So — she used her jaws.

The outcome for Kaity was a rebuke for teasing Divot — rather redundant since Divot had made her point. Kaity never teased Divot again, though she was caught teasing other dogs. Now, at 16, she’d be humiliated to admit teasing a dog, but kids tease animals. Even good kids who love animals. They tease each other too and occasionally bite although I’ve never heard anyone suggest we kill a kid for biting another kid. Nor do we murder cats for scratching.

How come we kill dogs so swiftly and mercilessly? If we had foolishly taken Kaitlin to the emergency room, the incident would have been reported. They’d have taken Divot from us and killed her and done it without a second thought. Rules are rules after all. A dog bites, a dog dies.75-KKandTinker The legal definition for “vicious dog” is:

1 – The dog bit? Yes?

2 – The dog is vicious.

3 – Kill the dog.

A bit simplistic? You think? It’s a legal relic. It comes from back when the term “mad dog” terrified everyone. Mad dogs bite; kill them.

In our modern society, “vicious dogs” are usually frightened dogs. Abused and mistreated dogs. Dogs that have been trained to attack because someone finds it funny — or is trying to protect a stash of illegal whatever. A few dogs are genuinely bad seeds, but it’s rare. Some dogs get nervous around children or noise or just too many people. These dogs should live in homes that don’t have children, a lot of noise or many people. Duh.

The long incarceration and brief trial of Phineas, the yellow Labrador Retriever

In the news right now is the story of Phineas, a yellow Labrador retriever. He has been locked up in his home town of Salem, Missouri for a year. Last June, he bit a 7-year-old girl. The bite wasn’t severe but it drew blood. The mayor ruled the dog was vicious and ordered him put down. Exactly how the incident unfolded has yet to be clearly determined. Probably because Phineas has been strangely silent in his own defense and as far as I can tell, most of the people around him are none too bright.

Phineas is (was?) owned by Patrick and Amber Sanders. They got two pups from a friend in 2010. The kids named them after cartoon characters Phineas and Ferb. Ferb went to live with an uncle. Phineas stayed . He was kept on a long lead in the fenced-in backyard and played with the kids. A family dog.

The Sanders’ had no particular trouble with Phineas. Police had no reports of problems. On June 22, the dog bit a friend of one of the Sanders children as they played in the yard. She went to the hospital for treatment. Police were called. They issued a report that indicates the girl’s mom didn’t want to press charges. She just wanted to be sure the dog was healthy. The town’s animal control and nuisance officer took Phineas for a 10-day hold in quarantine. No rabies. Patrick Sanders was cited by police for his failing to keep Phineas’ rabies shots up to date. He paid an $86 fine.

A couple of weeks later, the town’s mayor held a brief hearing to determine Phineas’ fate. He looked at photos, read the report. By now, the report had expanded to include two previously unreported dog bites by Phineas, one involving the same 7-year-old girl and an incident involving the same girl’s older sister. No one had mentioned either incident to the police until after the June 22 bite.

Objection! The defense never heard about these incidents during discovery!

It goes to motive, your honor.

Mayor Brown sentenced the dog to death.

The fight to save Phineas became a local and then a national cause célèbre. Maybe, with all the publicity, the pooch will win a pass. Maybe not. Most of the time, the dog loses no matter how much effort is put into saving him or her.

Would I keep Phineas if I had children and knew the dog snapped or bit sometimes? No. I would have re-homed Phineas to a child free environment or one with older children who knew how to behave with dogs. I would also never keep my dog tied. That’s asking for trouble. Big dogs who nip shouldn’t be with children, certainly not unsupervised. Any dog bite from a 100 pound retriever could be serious. There’s a lot of power in those jaws. Obviously Phineas’ owners were clueless about proper care and training for a large breed pup. But hey, this is America. We sell guns to people who are even more irresponsible. Why not let them have big dogs too? You mean it’s not in the Bill of Rights? Of course, dogs have no rights, so if anything goes wrong, we just kill them.

Bishop

Any dog will bite if tormented enough. Some will bite when startled or frightened. Abused dogs sometimes try to fight back against their tormentors. We kill them too. The dog is always wrong.

Intentional bites by otherwise good canine citizen are usually gentle, a reproof. Puppies nip all the time when they play. They nip each other, their owners and their moms. She bites them back to remind them to keep their teeth to themselves. It’s the obligation of puppy owners to teach their pets to not bite, even in fun. Many owners don’t seem to get the connection between letting them bite when they are little and the dog thinking biting is okay when they grow up.

Small dogs bite more often big breeds, but people don’t report being savaged by a Chihuahua. Little dogs are less patient and protective of children than big dogs. Maybe they are aware of their own vulnerability. Over all, a family dog will opt to protect the kids. It’s DNA, their job. Hard-wired into the system. When something else happens, there’s a reason. Personally, I’m inclined to presume the dog is innocent until proven very guilty.

Summer Memories: Divot at Riverbend

Summer Memories: Divot at River Bend

And now, for my final anecdote

I was raised with Doberman Pinschers, wonderful smart dogs who get a bad rap in popular media. One day, my mother was yelling at my sister. The dog — never trained as a guard dog — was sometimes over-protective of we kids. She was very protective of the family as a whole, but where me and my siblings were concerned, she was hyper-vigilant. At that particular moment, her judgment was tested. From her doggish point of view, my mother was threatening my sister. Poor Rusty had to make a choice and she nipped my mother.

Considering how powerful a Dobie’s bite can be, it wasn’t much of a bite. I do far worse things to my hands cutting veggies in the kitchen. No one punished Rusty, though she slunk around looking guilty for days. But we understood: she had felt she needed to protect the younger, weaker child from the big strong mommy. She was just a dog and her ability to figure out the situation was limited.

Should we have had our dog put down? Of course not. It was our fault. My mother learned a lesson: don’t yell at the kids in front of the dog. It upsets the dog. Rusty was miserable at having hurt one of her charges.

People will continue to buy dogs and mistreat them, sometimes with malice or cruelty, often through ignorance and stupidity. People will buy the wrong breeds, will fail to provide ample training, socialization, exercise, or even a reasonable degree of supervision. Dogs will continue to pay with their lives for their owners’ ignorance and errors and the bad things done to them.

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Watch out! Weather coming!

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I live in the forgotten country — the lost land of the Blackstone Valley — where no one tells you nothing. When weather people stand in the studio and do their predicting, they always position themselves so you can see the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts except where we live because that is where they always stand. If they give a passing mention to the valley, that’s a lot. I have learned to read weather maps because I’m not going to get any information any other way.

Dinosaurs could be roaming the Valley and no one would notice unless one of them ate a tourist.

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We’re turning the corner into summer, usually a relatively quiet weather period. Except for the massive tornado in Oklahoma and the violent storms here today, part of the same huge weather system that’s affecting almost the entire country from the west to New England. Last year we had Sandy the super-storm, a weather system so extensive the entire east coast and many places inland were sucked into the vortex.

The coming of Sandy the monster storm was announced with the usual hysteria. In the end, it missed us, though not by much. It devastated areas all around us, but we slipped through a little bubble between pieces of storm. I saw it on the weather map, but it was such a little bubble, if the storm’s path had altered even the tiniest bit, we would have been engulfed. Sandy was a huge, evil storm. The thing is, with all the over-the-top hype, I paid very little attention to it because I’m so used to the weather folks making everything sound like the end of the world is coming. So I didn’t make even the smallest preparations until the last possible moment, by which time no even had bottled water to buy. I’d been so numbed by all the hyperbole about previous storms that never materialized, it became meaningless noise.

That’s what’s wrong with the all-frenzy-all-the-time approach to weather forecasting. It’s become the standard all over the place.

In this neck of the woods, we got a lot of weather. A local running joke is “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” We tend to be glum  and resigned about snow because most winters, we get a lot of it. Sometimes so much we wonder if the roof will cave in under the weight. Roofs actually do collapse, so it isn’t entirely unrealistic to worry about it.

Blizzards, tropical rains and hurricanes, hail, sleet, ice storms, powerful thunder squalls (we’re having one right now) that down trees and power lines and occasionally become tornadoes … we get it all. Not the gigantic twisters, but pretty much everything else. Everything is normal here. That’s just the way it is in New England and always has been, far as I know.

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This is a river valley and a watershed. Rivers overflow. When they do, you can row, row, row your boat down the Main Street of any town in the valley, all of which are built along the banks of the Blackstone or one of its many tributaries. Some lucky villages, like Uxbridge, have both the Blackstone and a major tributary (the Mumford) running through the middle of town.

It produces beautiful autumn foliage pictures, but autumn can also be pretty sodden. When hurricanes are active, we may not get most of the wind, but we get shockingly heavy rains. To put things in perspective, the Blackstone isn’t the Mississippi. Our towns don’t wash away. It may take a few days for flood water to recede, but that’s as far as it goes. Basements get flooded, trees come down, but it isn’t the end of the world, just a pain in the butt. And sometimes expensive.

We are hardly the only area with rapidly changing, unpredictable, and sometimes bizarre weather, but we do get more hysterical about it than they do in many other places. Our TV meteorologists become crazed as weather systems approach. You’d think they’d never seen a snowstorm before as they predict blizzards to rival or exceed the big one in 1978. The blizzard of ’78 was in fact a monumental storm and has become The Storm against which all others are measured. It was a killer and only a handful of meteorologists predicted it correctly. Sometimes, the weather actually exceeds the hype. Many of our worst storms are under predicted. The bigger the hoopla, the more likely it is to fizzle.

Wherein lies the problem.

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Why get upset about the frenzy? It’s harmless, isn’t it? Weather sells. When big weather systems, like hurricanes or blizzards threaten, people who normally don’t watch the news tune in. Higher ratings, lots of teasers (“Seven feet of snow on the way!! Will you be buried tomorrow? Story at 11!”), and excited meteorologists. It’s money in the bank. Doom is a perennial best-seller.

I understand why TV station love to whip everyone into a frenzy. For them, it’s just business. Weather prediction doesn’t carry with it the usual issues of journalistic responsibility. No one can call you to task for being wrong because, after all, it’s the weather.

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I don’t get why people who live here get so lathered up. My neighbors know it’s going to snow in the winter. They know it’s going to rain in the spring. We all know it’s likely to flood at some point. You hope it won’t be your basement. Almost everyone has a sump, a pump, drains and ditches to deal with spring flooding. It’s messy and inconvenient, but hardly unexpected. So why do they buy into the frenzy? They ought — logically — to know better, wouldn’t you think?

The frenzy is not harmless.

Because the media treats every weather event like the end of the world, it makes it impossible to figure out if this next thing is serious or just more of the same. Should we lay in supplies? Ignore it? Plan to evacuate? Fill all the water containers? Cancel travel plans? Make travel plans? Head for the shelters?

Hurricane outside

Hysteria is exhausting and worse, it is numbing. Some of us actually worry when confronted with the possibility of weeks without electricity, wondering where we could go with our family and dogs — only to realize we have nowhere to go.  Telling us our world is ending is upsetting if you believe it, dangerous if it’s serious and we don’t believe it.

And who believes those guys any more? They really shouldn’t say that stuff unless it’s true. Or at least might be true. And they actually believe it’s true.

I’m assuming in areas like Oklahoma weather forecasters hold themselves to a higher standard so people won’t die because they have no faith in their meteorologists. I sure hope so.

As for me, if I can’t see the danger on a weather map, I don’t believe it. None of it.

It’s rude to scare us to death, then say “Sorry folks, forget I said that.” We don’t forget. It’s like telling the jury to ignore the testimony. You can’t unring the bell. Meteorologists are becoming bad boys who cry wolf. When the real deal occurs — and periodically, it does — will we believe them? I probably won’t and maybe that will be a dangerous mistake.

They may not be legally required to adhere to any journalistic standards, but maintaining some credibility might be a good idea.

I’m just saying, you know?

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With Windows Blue, Microsoft may (finally) do the right thing | ZDNet

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See on Scoop.it – In and About the News

Over the past week, I’ve been surprised how many armchair pundits have lambasted Microsoft forits still not officially-admitted but largely expected decisions to add an optional Start Button and boot-to-desktop capability to Windows Blue.

There’ve been reports claiming everything from Microsoft is doing a 180-degree reversal with Windows Blue, to others advising the Redmondians to dig in their heels and stay the current UI course with its coming Blue update.

Windows Blue, from all leaks and tips I’ve received, is not a do-over. (If it were, it would take Microsoft a lot longer than nine or ten months to deliver it.) And ignoring customer confusion isn’t a virtue; it’s stupidity.

This armchair pundit finds it refreshing to hear Windows honchos admit that Windows 8 isn’t selling as well as they hoped and that they want to make its successor more comfortable, familiar and usable for the Windows installed base.

In addition to the optional Start Button and boot-to-desktop options, there may be other interface adjustments in the works, according to one of my Blue tipsters. I hear the Windows team may also be tweaking the Charms to make them a bit easier to use with a mouse. There might be new built-in tutorials and in-context help coming to Blue. And word is there may be adjustments to the Start Screen designed to make Blue easier to use for Desktop users. One of my sources said some of these tweaks may not be in the Windows Blue preview release coming at the end of June, but that they still could make it into the final product.

If any or all of these tweaks make it into the final version of Blue, it’s nothing but goodness. If you’re a user who likes Windows 8 already, great. Just ignore new options and keep on keepin’ on. If you’re someone like me — who is still running Windows 7 on two of my three Windows devices (with Windows RT running on my Surface RT) — maybe Blue will make you reconsider whether you might find the new Metro-centric Windows a little more palatable because of these changes.

Last summer, before Windows 8 launched, I said I thought the operating system would face a rough road. My reasoning at the time was there were few PCs or tablets that made Windows 8 usable. And for those of us who might be interested in putting Windows 8 on existing non-touch hardware, the usability was questionable. Now that Windows 8′s been out for about six months, I feel like my early inklings were true. I wouldn’t call Windows 8 a disaster (with 100 million licenses sold), but I also wouldn’t call it a barn-burner success.

My biggest criticism for Microsoft in all this isn’t that the company is trying to make some adjustments to improve usability with Blue. Instead, I can’t but help wonder why Microsoft — with all its telemetry information, customer satisfaction data, and beta-testing input — still went ahead with what its Windows execs must have known full well would be a confusing and less-than-optimal experience for many Windows users.

It’s possible to project a bit by reading one of the recent blog posts of former Windows President Steven Sinofsky, who spearheaded Windows 8′s development, for some insights into that question. In a May 8 post (a day after Microsoft’s latest Blue disclosures), Sinofsky blogged about the damned-if-they-do/damned-if-they-don’t choice that companies face when launching a disruptive technology:

“If you listen to customers (and vector back to the previous path in some way: undo, product modes, multiple products/SKUs, etc.) you will probably cede the market to the new entrants or at least give them more precious time. If technology product history is any guide, pundits will declare you will be roadkill in fairly short order as you lack a strategic response. There’s a good chance your influential customers will rejoice as they can go back and do what they always did. You will then be left without an answer for what comes next for your declining usage patterns.

“If you don’t listen to customers (and stick to your guns) you are going to ‘alienate’ folks and cede the market to someone who listens. If technology product history is any guide, pundits will declare that your new product is not resonating with the core audience. Pundits will also declare that you are stubborn and not listening to customers.”

The Windows organization that Sinofsky left behind in November is facing this very choice right now, and seems to be heading toward Option A (after already trying Option B under Sinofsky).

Given Microsoft’s installed base of 1.4 billion and the reticence of some of its key partners to back Microsoft’s claim that the whole device world is going touch (something else I have to say I’m relieved to hear), I am liking Microsoft’s new direction here.

I believe Microsoft can stay its Metro-centric, touch-centric course with Windows Blue, while still making some changes that will make the OS more usable and comfortable for a bigger pool of users. While it would have been great if Windows 8 debuted this way last October, I say better late than never.

Marilyn Armstrong‘s insight:

And about time, wouldn’t you say?

See on www.zdnet.com

 

A strange week ended as the flag rose high

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I was, unexpectedly, at the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Worcester. We had finally … and I do mean finally … finished our little bit of business and I thought I should take a few pictures because I was there, I had a camera and the flags, flying at half mast, were snapping in the wind.

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There were three flags flying: the flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the American flag and the MIA-POW flag. As I shot, the flags started to move up their poles.

Mourning was over and as I took pictures, the flags were raised. First the American flag was raised to her full height, then the Massachusetts flag and finally the MIA-POW flag.

It was an important moment and later I saw on the news that in Boston as they had raised the flag, the entire city fell into a complete silence. I think my husband and I were the only people in Worcester who noticed, except for the man who was raising them. He came over afterwards to apologize for ruining my shot. I assured him he had not ruined anything and that I was proud and pleased to have caught that particular moment.

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And so the nightmare that started one week ago at the Boston Marathon officially ended this afternoon. In Boston, the raising of the flag was accompanied by a respectful silence. In  Worcester, only Garry and I and the man raising the flags bore witness. A strange world in which we live.

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