Posts from J. Timothy King's Websites

A Message to Spammers

admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:48:39 -0700

Dear email spammers everywhere. For future reference:

I already have all the medications I need, and I sure as hell wouldn’t get them from Canada!?
I have already had all the news from CNN that I can stand.
I am currently satisfied with my sexual prowess. (Really, I am. Just ask my wife.)
If you really want me to […]

Check Your New RCN Bill for This Error

admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:41:45 -0700

I just got off the phone with RCN, because I got my new RCN bill, the first after they switched completely to digital. They’ve proven better at irking me than even Comcast was.
To review, about a month and a half ago, I got an oversized postcard in the mail from RCN. It said, “You’ll lose […]

Quote of the Day from the Police State of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas

admin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:05:05 -0700

(This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, “Update on Helena-West Helena Police State: They could be ripping off my book for their press releases.” Catch the whole true story from the beginning, starting here.)
Cited in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Northwest Edition yesterday, also found at ArkansasOnline and other sources:

“Under the old curfew, everyone was subject to some minimal intrusion,” [Mayor James] Valley said. “Now, if people are sitting out in their yard talking, it’s not going to be a big deal. But if they are out drinking or smoking a blunt, that’s going to be a problem.”
Valley and Scott said police officers will continue stopping and questioning people in the saturation zones, just as they did in the first curfew zone. As long as a person has a “legitimate reason” for moving through the saturation zone, Valley said, he’ll be allowed to pass.
“And a legitimate reason can be basic. They don’t have to have a great reason,” Valley said. “It can be as simple as ‘because I am going for a walk.’”
“The officers are going to use common sense and traditional police tactics,” Valley said.
Papers, please…
Meanwhile, the ACLU of Arkansas noted that it’s illegal for police to stop and question residents without probable cause and raised concern that any arrests made in the new saturation zones could be thrown out in court.
As reported by MyEyewitnessNews (of the ABC and CW affiliates in Memphis, TN), and by CNN (search for “Holly Dickson”):

Police Major Ronald Scotts says, “When you have a high crime area police have the right. We have a right to contact people in high crime areas.”
Holly Dickson with ACLU of Arkansas argues, “They feel they have a right. They do intend to continue to saturate and question everyone who happens to be in an area. But that is the unconstitutional nature of it.” She adds, “The fact they think they can stop everyone for no reason.” Dickson says, “these residents giving up their right to travel, giving up their 4th amendment rights it’s not making them safer.”
Mayor Valley says, “I understand her view and I appreciate it but it’s academic. It works in the law schools of the world but out here on the ground what we’re doing is perfectly legal. Nobody’s constitutional rights are being violated.”
Valley says the police crime fighting action plan will run on a trial basis for 30 days and at that point city council will assess its progress.
Back to ArkansasOnline: “The mayor also plans to ask the City Council to approve $5,000 more each month in overtime for the Police Department to staff the saturation zones. He also plans to ask for additional money for new surveillance equipment and to rent vehicles for undercover work.”
I don’t know about you, but I sure feel safer. (NOT!) But then I again, I read Wendy McElroy. Hey, maybe George Orwell was right.
I swear, whenever I need story ideas for The Conscience of Abe’s Turn, I need look no further than the newspaper. How many ways can a police department abuse its citizens, if it feels a need to? Enough to make for plentiful Abe’s Turn story ideas.
The challenge I always face is making those ideas plausible in the context of the story. It isn’t enough to say that the villain Chief Baedes is evil, because he isn’t; he’s just wrong. And it isn’t enough to say he’s on a power buzz (even though he is), because he has plenty of good-sounding reasons for everything he does. And it isn’t enough to say that the story is based on real life (even though it is) and that it actually happened (even though it did), because this is America, and things like that just don’t happen here.
Well, actually, they do.
-TimK

Another Reason to Sell Your Book Direct to Readers

admin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:17:21 -0700

A thread on the Self-Publishing mailing list a couple weeks ago impressed even more strongly on me how backwards the book industry is for minor authors, including self-published authors, and that we really should be doing things the opposite of how the big publishers do.
Case in point: Here’s how most book publishers sell their books. […]

Update on Helena-West Helena Police State: They could be ripping off my book for their press releases

admin — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:36:38 -0700

As reported by KARK (channel 4 in Little Rock, the NBC affiliate), Helena-West Helena politicians have come up with an alternate plan, after the ACLU lambasted the mayor for imprisoning citizens—both innocent and guilty—in their own homes since last Thursday.
(I’m actually not clear on whether the whole neighborhood has been under blanket, continual curfew, or whether it’s only part of the neighborhood. What I had read last week led me to understand it was the whole neighborhood. Now, I’m seeing some reports like that of KARK, which says “Second Street and the surrounding blocks.” Others, however, still talk only about the whole neighborhood. Blog posts I’ve been able to find have been no more helpful. But I’ll keep an eye out for an eyewitness with a blog. If you know of a local with a blog posting about this story, please leave a link in the comments!)
The alternative, as KARK reports it, is what I would call the “Can I see your papers?” plan.
Anyone under 18 is still confined to quarters. But now, adults are “allowed out,” but only “if they can answer questions about their need to be outside their homes.”
How’s this for an answer? — I gotta get as far from this fucking place as I possibly can, as fast as I possibly can!
Of course, from the sound of it, anyone with the means and any sense has probably long gone. The crime that the Helena-West Helena government is so desperate to stop is due to a drug turf war. I personally would probably have been out of there after the second shooting. I have family that could put us up in a pinch, until the insanity subsided or we found a new place.
(I guess it doesn’t occur to the Helena-West Helena city council members to prevent drug turf wars by changing the way they respond to drugs, any more than it occurs to the feds to prevent forest fires by changing the way they mismanage our forests.)
I recently watched The Hunt for Red October again. With each viewing it becomes more of a favorite of mine. As you probably remember, this film revolves around a fictional USSR submarine, the Red October, during the height of the cold war. This sub uses cutting-edge stealth technology, and as the story goes, its senior officers hatch a plan to defect to the United States, taking the sub with them. This viewing, for some reason, I remember one particular scene, a conversation between Captain Ramius (of the Red October) and his second, Captain Vasily Borodin.
“I will live in Montana,” Borodin says. “And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck, maybe even a recreational vehicle. And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?”
“I suppose,” replies Ramius.
“No papers?” he asks.
“No papers,” Ramius says, “state to state.”
“Well then, in winter I will live in Arizona.”
Fine, just stay out of Arkansas.

Meanwhile, the Pine Bluff Commercial Online Edition reports, “The Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 Tuesday to allow police to expand the program into any area of the city. The council said those living in the city want random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.”
Uncanny. They could have ripped that right from the back-cover copy of The Conscience of Abe’s Turn: “For Baedes’s sole ambition is to ’protect’ the town of Abe’s Turn, at all costs…” (I have proof that I wrote mine first. It’s on The Conscience of Abe’s Turn “about” page, and I have revision records for changes to that page.)
Don’t tell that to a magic genie like the government. It’s like wishing for “world peace,” as Mulder did in The X-Files. His genie granted him “world peace” by disappearing every human being on Earth, and the world was finally at peace. Funny, that wasn’t what Mulder had in mind. (Well, then, what the hell did you mean by “no matter what the cost”?)
I haven’t talked about it much in Abe’s Turn, because it hasn’t come up in the story yet, but (in the back-story) Baedes and the Abe’s Turn town council have exactly this kind of sympathetic relationship. Baedes was not elected by popular vote. He was hired to his current post. And the town council has the authority to fire him and to reward him, and they consistently choose the latter. They say, people want to feel safe, and with each passing year, Baedes does more and more to make Abe’s Turn a safe place to live.
Of course, that isn’t true… But I don’t want to give away the end of the story.
-TimK

If You Thought It Couldn't Happen Here: A Real-life Police State in the Real, Live U.S. of A.

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:27:13 -0700

Buried in a Zogby poll about the right of secession—35% of those under age 30 would support their state if it decided to secede from the US!— Buried at the bottom is a separate question, “I believe the United States’ system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections.” 44% of respondents agreed with that statement, that the US political system is broken.
Little wonder, considering the growing dissatisfaction with the political process and the general feeling of helplessness when one looks at the choices we’re given by the ruling elite. Or maybe I’m just projecting.
In any case, I then ran across this tidbit, which I’ll have to work into Abe’s Turn at some point. This is just so Sam Baedes. (Thanks to Chris Brunner from The LRC Blog for posting a link to this story.) As reported by KTHV, the CBS affiliate in Little Rock, AK, Mayor James Valley last Thursday confined everyone who lives in Helena-West Helena (a neighborhood on the Westside of Helena) to their homes, in a non-stop curfew that “could last for days.” (As of now, Monday night, August 11, I’ve been able to find no word that martial law.. er, I mean, the curfew has been lifted.)
The justification? Fighting crime. Yes, you read that right. This dickwad has apparently made everyone, innocent and guilty, a prisoner in his own home, because he wants to curb the actions of a few criminals.
Get these quotes:

“Nobody can walk down the street and be safe, that is, be free from police interference,” says Valley.
They know exactly who’s doing the shooting, the robbery, but it seems like we’re never going to get any justice around here,” says [neighborhood resident Mary] Stevens.
Assistant Police Chief Ronald Scott says since the curfew was implemented late Thursday afternoon, people are sleeping better. “We’ve taken some drugs off people, a couple of guns off people,” says Scott.
OMG! I definitely have to steal some of this stuff. This is too sick and demented for even me to make up.
I wonder what all the people are going to do when they run out of food. They can’t go to the grocery store, because that violates Stalin’s order— er, I mean, Valley’s order.
The ACLU quickly faxed Valley an open letter, informing him that this Stalin-esque order is “blatantly unconstitutional on numerous grounds,” and then they set to lay out what those grounds are, saying that he has put innocent residents under “house arrest” and that by his order “the Fourth Amendment is waived for all persons, including those suspected of no criminal activity.” (And I swear I wrote my own comments above even before I read the ACLU letter.)
The ACLU’s summary begins:

Notwithstanding the City Code and Curfew Order, the residents of Helena-West Helena have the right to sit under shade trees in their front yard, to ride their bicycles along the streets, protest this policy, and drive around the city with the full protections of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Citizens, including those expressing opposition to the curfew order, should be subject to no special scrutiny by law enforcement unless they are suspected of some criminal activity.
Hmm. I wonder how the Conscience would handle this…
-TimK

Political Bytes from the Blogosphere

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:06:21 -0700

First, shameless self-promotion: If you haven’t already, click here and sign up for a chance to get a free copy of my upcoming book.
Some interesting, angering, and inspiring tidbits I ran across this weekend:
Do you think that Sunni and Shi’a fight, have fought since forever, can do nothing except fight? Think again! Guest blogger at […]

Editing Your First Novel: 7 Things You Must Know

admin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:12:11 -0700

I had written and completed numerous shorter works over the years, but The Conscience of Abe’s Turn: Season 1 Episodes 1-4 is the first full novel-length work I had ever written and edited to completion. The experience taught me a whole new set of lessons.
Some of these lessons I learned from my own editing experience. […]

Why I Miss Bill Clinton (Friday Snippet)

admin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:31:16 -0700

Here’s a Friday Snippet from one of the bonus extras included in the upcoming, first volume of The Conscience of Abe’s Turn, a retrospective essay entitled “Whatever Happened to Zorro?” about what inspired and motivated me to write Abe’s Turn.
Note that I’m going to be giving away a limited number of copies of the book. […]

Book Give-away: Pre-register NOW

admin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:10:23 -0700

I’m busy at work, finishing up the extra chapters of the first volume of The Conscience of Abe’s Turn. And when that’s done, it’ll take a few weeks to get the first real copies. I’m going to be giving away a limited number of these very first copies. (I don’t know how many yet.)
Here’s the thing: I’m only giving away these free books to people who pre-register by signing up for the “Abe’s Turn Premium Content” email list. This is a low-volume email list that will include announcements of contests and giveaways, new Abe’s Turn products, and links to stories and essays not published on the website.
Also, I ask that if you enter the giveaway (when the time comes) that you be willing to give me a short testimonial. Just a quick, one-line review (positive or negative). Or that you post (and email me the link) a review on your blog, or on a third-party article site, or somewhere else on the Internet. The review can be positive or negative. (“Love me. Hate me. Just please don’t ignore me,” as they say.)
If you don’t know whether you’ll want to enter this giveaway, start by reading why you might hate The Conscience of Abe’s Turn and preview the text of the story online.
To Become Eligible for the Giveaway…
So if you want to be eligible for the upcoming book giveaway—Or even just to find out the details (when the time comes)—use the form below to sign up for the “Abe’s Turn Premium Content” email list:

Your name:Your email address:

Risk-free Guaranteed
I use AWeber, a professional email service to send out the Abe’s Turn Premium emails. I pay for this service, because AWeber has strong policies and systems to prevent spam, so you can be sure that what you get from me is information you actually want. And AWeber includes a link in each and every email to let you to unsubscribe. With literally a few clicks of your mouse, you can change your mind and never get these emails again. It’s easier to unsubscribe than it is to subscribe.
-TimK