Have you ever suspected that the family caregiver for your invalid parent or a dementia-ridden relative may be suffering mental health problems themselves? Experts at the Mayo Clinic estimate approximately “1 in 3 adults in the United States is an informal or family caregiver” whose value figures to over a trillion dollars annually. Perhaps because of the hidden nature of this unpaid compensation, its beneficiiaries fail to recognize, much less appreciate, the debilitating health care issues these unpaid workers experience.
Impact of Caregiving on Caregivers’ Health
The psychological toll on unpaid health care providers is enormous. The Family Care Alliance claims that “Higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression and other mental health effects are common among family members who care for an older relative or friend.” Moreover, some stress indicators are obvious; others are subtle. Manifestations of these health effects include:
Higher levels of depression
Emotional stress
Frustration over lack of progress
Loss of self-identity and esteem
Loss of control over their lives
Feelings of exhaustion
Cognitive decline
Sources of Stress for the Family Caregiver
Stressors beyond the lack of financial compensation can impact the health and performance of family caregivers. Canada’s in-home care provider The Key cites five factors that influence caregivers ‘ mental health:
Conflicting opinions regarding care–squabbles among siblings may necessitate consulting a health care professional
New routines–adjusting to the patient’s changing needs can promote caregiver stress
Juggling multiple roles–children, employees, and social groups also place demands on a caregiver’s time and emotional capacities
Health concerns–maintaining one’s health while giving care can add stress to one’s overall well-being
Lacking time to recharge–providing even a short respite from patient demands is essential to provide quality care and prevent provider burnout.
Stressed Caregiving Can Lead to Harmful Behavior
Without the safeguards mentioned above, the actions of the family caregiver can lapse into more dangerous behaviors to themselves and to their patients. Studies show caregivers are more prone to increased alcohol and substance abuse including psychotropic drugs. These studies also show that family caregivers tend to show more hostility than non-caregivers. Furthermore, family caregivers “who are at risk of clinical depression and are caring for a spouse with significant cognitive impairment and/or physical care needs are more likely to engage in harmful behavior toward their loved one.”
Family Caregiver Options
Nobody wants to entrust the well-being of a loved one to a potential Annie Wilkes. To avoid such a possibility, let’s celebrate , National Family Caregiveres Month this November in the same spirit we celebrated Black History Month this year. The Caregiver Action Network (CAN) offers the following advice to caregivers (if you are one) and their families (if you’re supporting one):
First of all, caregivers and family members must be specific about their help offers by stating explicity what task(s) they are willing to do. Identifying specific areas of responsibility lessens misunderstandings and conflict in the future.
Second, family members need to help the caregiver in performing the housekeeping chores necessary in the daily care of the patient.
Third, family members and friends must continue to invite them to family outings and special events. Even if the caregiver’s duties don’t allow them to participate, such invitations alleviate the caregiver’s sense of isolation and neglect.
And finally, family members should check in with the caregiver frequently. Many caregivers feel isolated and alone in discharging their duties.
In sum, money is not the sole compensation caregivers need for discharging family obligations. Love and loyalty deserve their own special recogntion. Thoughtful treatment and understanding among all involved parties can ameliorate the financial under-compensation, repressed resentment, and stress all family caregivers experience.
Former president Donald Trump says he wants to unite America but the rehetoric of his speeches reveals his underlying sinister and destructive intent. This is not a new revelation. Scads of his speeches and diatribes before, during, and after his presidency refer to murder, bombing, or the “taking out” of people and/or problems with which he disagrees. What is novel is how the figures of speech in his rhetoric has become routine in our country’s everyday political discourse–the “banality of evil” if you will.
But is it? Has Trump kindled a new ferocity or beastlness in our speech? Or has the blood-thirst always been there, waiting for someone or something to tap into and reignite it? Let’s find out which.
Rhetorical Classifications
People employ numerous forms of rhetorical devices to communicate with one another. Our daily conversations contain both literal and figurative language. The former denotes the exact meaning of the word or phrase, the latter promotes an intensified or persuasive effect. Few of us speak in a literal fashion all or even much of the time. Instead, most of us employ the tropes and schemes of figurative language to persuade or convince others to conform to their way of thinking or behaving. A fine example of this occurred during Ruben Gallego‘s address to the Democratic National Convention last month (See my August newsletter for more details).
Figures of Speech Examples
De Epending on the source, figures of speech can be broken into over 250 sub-categories. Of the two major categories cited above, tropes, words that carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify, are more commonly used in everday speech. Some of the most common are:
Allegory–a metaphoric narrative in which the literal elements indirectly reveal a parallel story of symbolic or abstract significance
Aphorism– briefly phrased, easily memorable statement of a truth or opinion, an adage.
Euphemism–substitution of a less offensive or more agreeable term for another
Hyperbole–use of exaggerated terms for emphasis.
Metaphor–an implied comparison between two things, attributing the properties of one thing to another that it does not literally possess.
Metonomy–a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept
Snowclone–alteration of a cliche or phrase pattern
Zeugma–use of a single verb to describe two or more actions (cf. my August newsletter for a fine example)
Trump’s Most Characteristic Figures of Speech
The examples identified above reflect most of the tropes contained in language Trump commonly uses in his speeches and online postings. Among these, three merit special mention: aphorism, euphemism and hyperbole. Trump’s use of aphorism appears ad nauseum in his phrase, “Make America Great Again.” He employs hyperbole every time he characterizes one of his actions or those taken in his behalf as “perfect.”
However, hIs employment of euphemism is particularly notable. A 2019 USA Today analysis of 64 of his rallies held between 2017 and 2019 revealed Trump used the word “invasion” nineteen times when discussing the topic of immigration. He employed the zoomorphic term “animals” in regards to the immigrants themselves. But among them all, “killer” proves to be Trump’s euphemism of choice. It appeared almost three dozen times in his speeches at those rallies.
Benefit of the Doubt
Some including myself back then dismissed such characterizations as political rhetoric designed and confined to appeal to the prejudice of his followers. And on one level, it is just that. Yet, on another, why does it appeal to them at all? Does his audience actually believe all, most, or even many of the people crossing our borders are cutthroats and murderers?
Probably not. Certainly, many Americans customarily employ the term “killer” in their daily conversations. How often have you heard “[Name of your favorite sports team] really killed them in the fourth quarter.” Or, “I really killed [Name of my opponent] at [card game, sports activity]today].” Examples of hyperbole, sure, but they also express the speakers’ emotional attitude, their satisfaction in annihilating their opponents to the extent they had no recourse left. In short, they lost.
On a personal note, I grew up in Wisconsin, a place where following the Green Bay Packers is, if not a religion, a certain conversation starter. Among all their great players and coaches over the years, the one who most stands out, who headed them during their glory years was Vince Lombardi. His motto: “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
So What?
My father preached Lombardi’s aphorism like a mantra to me and my brother during our teenage years. Certainly, fathers in dozens of Wisconsin households and all across the country advocated the same to their families. Yet, as important as the content of the expression is the brevity of the idea it expresses. Those same people would shy away from endorsing a concept like winning at all costs is an acceptable form of moral behavior. However, embedding the idea within a witty turn of phrase renders it more supportable and justifiable, ennobles it, in fact.
The same logic applies to winning football, or any endeavor for that matter. If sports aphorisms serve as a metaphor for our daily lives, then the amassing of yardage, the imposition of will becomes a justifiable, even honorable pursuit. Better yet, beating our opponents and by extension, those who disagree with us, into submission becomes a laudatory pursuit. To do so, such that these others, the opponents, have no recourse, no means of fighting back thus becomes an enviable goal in itself.
Connection to Trump’s Figures of Speech
But, one might say, that’s just Trump being Trump. What impact can his language have over the rest of American society?
Plenty. His role as a former president and current Republicqn nominee gives his language an outsized status and power few other individuals possess. His customary hyperbole kicks up a duststorm of obfuscatory ideas, some contradictory, others unrelated, from which he can shield the identity of his true intentions. In short, the quality of his rhetoric transforms him into a figurative Loki of ideas, a veritable shapeshifter in expressing his ideas and opinions.
Moreover, the amorphous quality of his language resonates with others to do the same. Case in point: Mark Robinson, current Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina. At a July church gathering, Robinson declared during his address that “some folks need killing.” Spoke in the context of dealing with “evil people,” his target of such violence remained unclear. What was clear, however, was the absolutist nature of his solution–the total annihilation, the killing of the other–applicable to anyone different from him and his beliefs.
The Upshot of Trump’s Figure Language
Robinson exemplifies the “banality of evil” mentioned above and cited so often by mainstream media. The ordinary quality of his speech combined with the hyperbole contained within it reflect the absolutist, right vs. wrong quality of his thinking. For him and for Trump, the world is a battleground between good and evil. In such a dystopian worldview, there can only be winners and losers because the only ones fit to live are those who possess the correct qualities that merit living. What those qualities might be are reserved to the individual who defines them.
That condemns everyone to the fate of isolation from everyone else–alone to fight with whatever powers one has. That is a fine working scenario if one believes in a merciful god willing to provide assistance, but what about those who don’t believe in such a deity? Or those who believe in a deity that differs from the one the first person has chosen? Or those who believe in none at all?
Based on the evidence, an alternative solution may be to resonate with those individuals whose language patterns contain figures of speech which acknowledge the uncertainty of human existence and which accept the inclusion of new ideas, beliefs, and life styles.
However, embedding these figures in the everday speech of our leaders is not enough. Perhaps the best way to dampen the evil that pervades the human spark of life is to counter it with a backfire flame of compassion, unity and tolerance. It might not extinguish the evil that exists within us, but it may help in recogizing and accepting its existance in all of us while nurturing the good impulses within ourselves as well.
OH, NO! Not ANOTHER list! On cyber security thrillers, yet. Aren’t there enough esoteric lists already?
Actually, no. At least, not of this type. When super reader Ben Fox of Shepherd.com approached me to compile a list of five notable books on a topic of my choice, I, too, was skeptical. My “To-Do” list immediately popped into mind (if you operate an online business, you know what I mean). If not that, doesn’t everyone have a list of usernames and passwords (mine’s over 50) they’ve squirreled away so well they can’t remember where it’s hidden? Outside of supplying a topic for my blog, why does the public need another recommendation list?
Raison d’etre for Cyber Security Thrillers List
First of all, there’s familiarity. Everyone who consults Amazon’s book list or pores through Goodreads or BookBub knows the format. All three of these sites and many others provide curated lists of recommended reading material. Their recommendations may be based on reader comments or ranked by sales figures, but they do separate the worthwhile reads from those that help pass the time. Author disclaimer: among time-wasters, reading rates as one of the best.
Second, there’s the pragmatism factor. Lists help us get through the welter of distraction, routine, and stress that constitutes daily living. As David Wallechinsky, co-author of The Book of LIsts, explained, “because we live in an era of overstimulation, especially in terms of information, . . . lists help us in organizing what is otherwise overwhelming.”
Third, lists have a rich and prodigious heritage. Aside from the Wallechinsky series mentioned above, Wikipedia devotes an entire article titled “List of Lists of Lists” which identifies all the articles within its pages that list other list articles. Furthermore, each of those pages provides links to other lists devoted to a particular topic.
Nor is this heritage limited to size and scope alone. Author Umberto Eco wrote a book in collaboration with the Louvre entitled The Infinity of Lists describing lists that appear in many major literary works. The topics explored range from Hesiod‘s list of the progeny of gods to Rabelais‘s list of bottom wipes.
Why My Cyber Security Thrillers List Is Different
Rationale
People make up lists for a variety of reasons and purposes. Some, as alluded above, help us organize our day. Others enable us to remember the details of our lives that have no other integral relationship other than appearing on that list. Still others enable evaluation by placing more noteworthy or valluable items ahead of others based on some arbitrary or objective scale. This latter form of listing is called ranking.
Educational Value
My book list differs from other book lists in Ben Fox’s site because it identifies what are the best technothrillers that employ metadata as a major plot point. Readers claim to be familiar with the concept, but few thrillers depict applying it in a significant way. My research revealed fewer than ten books utilized the concept of metadata in their plots. Of these, only five contained principal characters who manipulated metadata for their livelihood . In most cases, the villains used metadata to further their ends.
Cyber Security Thrillers Methodology
As a result, my emphasis shifted from the conceptual to the pragmatic. Who would be more likely to use metadata to repulse miscreants using it for their nefarious schemes: cyber experts. More particularly, that meant protectors of computer information and technology, i.e. cyber security experts. My leisure reading produced several candidates; my research identified several more. Among these candidates, only five thrillers contained protagonists who used metadata in a significant way to do their jobs and protect their communities.
Cyber Security Thrillers Outcomes
Accordingly, I ranked these five thrillers on the basis of how prominently metadata appears in the storyline with this caveat. Little is more boring than reading about the hero applying hypertest (HTML) or Java script to foil crime. Along with character arc, rising action, and vivid description, the author also should display some familiarity with the intricacies of metadata to thwart criminals. By that reasoning, the best thrillers should suggest how the cyber hero or heroine’s cyber knowledge defeated the villain(s). It was on that basis I ranked the five titles chosen.
Wrap Up and Send Off
This Cyber Security Thrillers list doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive. Others may choose or recommend different titles than those selected. Yet, these titles represent the best integration of concept and narrative that I have read or listened to. In the course of compiling this list, one thing surprised me. Though Metadata Murders was written over twenty years ago and readers are more comfortable with the concept, its practitioners aren’t more prominently featured in techno- or cyber-thrillers. Regardless how you view that fact, this link will take you to my list of the five best cyber thrillers written over the past two decades.
My list will be published Monday, August 5th. Click on this link to the Shepherd recommendations site:
Readers, critics in particular, often classify fantasy literature into many different types. In Wikipedia Fantastique is just one of over two dozen categories and subgenres. The distinctions sometimes seem arbitrary and overlap with obvious and more developed categorizations such as science fiction/speculative fiction, and horror.
Despite their importance for sellers and bookstores, these distinctions seldom matter to authors who write in the fantasy genre. After all, would William Shakespeare, care whether The Tempest fell into the romantic fantasy or paranormal fantasy camps? Or whether Prospero’s application of the supernatural seemed internally consistent or not? The important thing was that Prospero’s supernatural talents captured the audience’s attention then and captivate our amazement four centuries later.
So, how does the above correlate with the subject of this article’s title? Until I identified the five titles that influenced my decision to become an author, their subject matter never seemed coherent nor affected my arc as a professional writer. But before exploring how this exercise impacted my writing career, however, let’s examine what is meant by the term, Fantastique.
Definition of Fantastique
Fantastique is a French literary term that falls under the larger category of Fantasy fiction. LIke other forms of fantasy, fantastique stories contain supernatural elements in their narratives. Unlike other subgenres such as fable, high/low, or sword and sorcery, however, fantastique tales insert the supernatural into an otherwise realistic narrative framework. And unlike dark fantasy or magic realism stories, fantastique stories portray an element of doubt about the existence of the supernatural.
According to the Bulgarian critic, Tzvetan Todorov, this element of uncertainty distinguishes it from the marvelous contained withn the English conception of Fantasy fiction. This narrative tension between the supernatural and the natural, the possible and the impossible, the logical and the illogical separates such stories from what Todorov characterizes as marvelous or conventional fantasy in which magical or supernatural elements and events occur in a normal or familiar way.
The injection of the supernatural into an otherwise realitic portrayal of events places fantastique stories between the uncanny and the marvelous. Uncanny stories push reality to its limits as in Edgar Alan Poe‘s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” On the other hand, the characters in marvelous stories regard supernatural elements as being quite normal. J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series is a prime example.
Fantastique’s Literary Heritage
Defined this way, fantastique literature contains many significant works in its canon. Identifying a few of the better-known titles includes:
Other eminent contributors to the genre include H.P. Lovecraft, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Matheson, Steven King, and Clive Barker.
Why the Fantastique Designation Matters
On the Macro Level:
It matters because so many talented writers’ works can be identified as belonging within this particular subgenre. Their inclusion goes beyond literary pigeon-holing or reevaluation of individual author’s neglected works, however. Many of the works listed above achieved distinction before Tudorov consigned them into this particular genre. Rather, their inclusion reflects the authors’ appreciation and apprehension regarding the amazing, the phenomenal, and the absurd.
Authors ranging in temperament from Sartre to Lovecraft acknowledge the power of the supernatural yet remain hesitant regarding its actuality. As playwright John Van Druten laments in his play Bell, Book, and Candle, “There’s always a rational explanation for everything if you look for it.”
On the Micro (Personal) Level:
It matters because placing my recent series Escape the New Immortals within Todorov’s classification explains my career arc as an author. My first published novel, Penal Fires, was an initial stab at the psychological thriller, little more. My second, Metadata Murders, was also a thriller, but this time along technological lines. The main plot device–the Internet–revealed the promises and pitfalls of that recent invention. The crux of its storyline involved the preposterous, almost supernatural, potential for identify theft and murder via the dark Web.
Consequently, creating a narrative involving a conflict between a psychologist-turned- shaman and a band of psychic vampires from the collective unconscious doesn’t seem such a surprise, In retrospect, it seems a rational if excessive thematic development in my growth as a writer.
A Fantastique Summation
In Escape the New Immortals
My personal commitment to the Fantastiqu concept appears most strongly in the first two novels of my Escape the New Immortals series. In an otherwise ordinary and rational world, each of the protagonists encounters a supernatural entity in unconscious reality from which they must escape. Each of them, Victor, Miriam, and Todd at times doubt the veracity of that experience. Their individual story arcs reflect the internal conflict of coming terms and ultimatelly vanquishing those supernatural beings whose existence defies rational explanation. In short, their acceptance of supernatural reality ultimately enables them to vanquish their foes in the rational world.
From Five Books Transformed My Life
It is said the strongest believers in heaven and a deity are those who fought hardest against it. Saul of Tarsus before he became St. Paul comes to mind. Two examples from more recent literature appear as the top two in my most recent blog post, Marcel (Remembrance of Things Past) and Lawrence Darrell (The Razor’s Edge) seek something not of this world. For Marcel it is what’s often mislabeled as deja vu–the recreated sensory experience. His tasting of the madeleine cookie he remembered as a child provides the reader with a supernatural depiction of primitive time travel.
For Lawrence Darrell, the fantastique aids him in finding the meaning to man’s existence. He never finds the answers he seeks, but he always continues the search. His healing trick for his stressed-out friend involves no more than his trying to hold onto a coin. His inability to do so demonstrates that the supernatural power for healing our tormented souls lies not in the power of others but within ourselves.
Little from these examples is rational; none of it seems real or true. Yet these occurrences continue pervade ordinary reality every day, doubtful as that may seem. That is why they and my novels fall under the label of the fantastique.
What do you think? Give your opinion in the Leave a Reply section below.
It’s almost June–that summer time of year when authors, writers, and readers convene to discuss the intricacies of writing. At such events, attendees often ask which books influenced the guest authors the most. Asked another way: which books are their favorites? It seems a facile question, but a difficult one. How do you identify the most influential books when you’ve read so many? How do you whittle the influencers to a manageable number–say five book? Every author impacts your artistic sensibility in some way, big and small, positive or negative.
After mulling this over, it became clear there was no objective criterion to rate those books that influenced me. Gut instinct ruled my decisions instead. Rather than overthink it, the following five titles became those which first entered my mind. Like the five poems previously identified for last year’s Valentine’s Day, Here are the top five books ranked in revers order that influenced me as an author.
5. The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
This wasn’t the first novel I read as a kid. Farley’s The Island Stallion holds that distinction based on our local public librarian’s recommendation. But Farley’s depiction of the bond formed between a boy and a wild male horse while trapped on a desert island transfixed me with its exoticism and sense of adventure.
Subsequent volumes in both series fascinated me to the point of imitation. In fact, my first novel attempt was entitled Black Phanton. Unfortunately, it only remained an attempt. I never wrote the text, only designed the cover. The books gave me a lifelong fascination with the sport of kings and its lore, but I never owned a horse nor learned the practical aspects of caring for one. That experience provided my first lesson about writing, though: know your subject.
4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
After my debacle with the Black Stallion imitation, my reading tastes changed. This occurred during the time of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin and Laika (first dog into space). Consequently, I became interested in all topics involving the heavens and supporting sciences. My reading tastes changed too. I read the novels and short stories of the many authors who appeared in the compendium called A Treasury of A Science Fiction. Thrilling stories by Heinlein, Van Vogt, Sturgeon, and Pohl were just a few of the writers inhabiting its pages.
Above them all stood Isaac Asimovwhose collection of short stories chronicled the evollution of man’s relationship with the creation in his own image. Asimov’s stories were subtle; his ideas complex, yet told in a direct, never condescendingway that made the most complicated concepts accessible and understandable. This style he carried over into his nonfiction works as well. His work on the elements in the periodic table became a special favorite.
3. One, Two, Three . . . Infinity! by George Gamow
By the time I was reading Asimov’s explanation of the elements, it seemed clear to me I was headed toward a scientific career of some kind. All of my high school classes were college-preparatory with as much a scientific emphasis as I could muster. Thus, it surprised me when my senior English teacher, Mrs. Greene, presented me with a copy of the above volume a week before my graduation.
One, Two, Three . . . Infinity! introduced me to the then novel concepts of the Moebius strip and Einstein’s space-time continuum. However, the content, did not surprise me so much as the fact that this flinty, sharp-tongued high school teacher, feared by many, should honor my graduation with a copy of one of her husband’s (local newspaper editor) favorite books. Perhaps she thought one day I might write one of my own. Certainly, I remembered her gift when I changed my college major from chemistry to English.
2. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
Up to now, my choices follow each other in chronological order. But, at this point, I must skip ahead to my life in the army after graduating from college. Rocked by the cataclysmic social and personal unrest caused by my induction into military service during the vietnam War, I took refuge in reading novels, sometimes as many as four or five a week.
These books were more than mere escape, however. Reading them completed the education I never received in college. They taught me the value of the hook to lure the reader in, the pacing to keep him/her turning pages, and how to bring a story to its climax and suitable ending. This choice, however, did more than that. Reading it showed me how an author could bring to life a distant period in time and space as seen through the focal point of a young boy reliving the taste of a madeleine upon his tongue. It also taught me about love, obsession, and perversion–all motives never expounded upon in my college texts.
Honorable Mentions
Before naming my number one literary influence, it is the custom of such lists to mention items which didn’t make the cut. There are two in my case. The first is the Scrooge McDuck comic book character who appeared in a series first created by Carl Barks. Not only does he provide the financial means for his adventures (important groundwork for any story), but as a protagonist Scrooge provides insight into a nuber of myths and legends. One story in particular, Barks’ “The Seven Cities of Cibola” inspired movie directors George Lucas and Steven Spielburg’s film Raiders of the Lost Ark. A great endorsement indeed, though Barks’ story needs no such endorsement.
My second honorable mention belongs to the ouevre of Raymond Chandler, particularly his The Big Sleep. His sardonic take on the private eye tale through his avatar, Phiip Marlowe, is entertaining and insightful of 1930 and 1940s Los Angeles. My own authorial voice would never contain such smart-aleck delivery, but that didn’t stop me from reading Chandler’s entire output in one week.
1. The Razor’s Edge by William Somerset Maugham
This book most inflluenced me to write. Its protagonist, Larry Darrell, asks the same questions I’d been asking ever since my mid-teens. What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? And since we are, what should we do with our lives? Like the others cited above, it contains more exotic locales with a variety of intriguing, sometimes off-beat characters. It also contains its fair share of soul-searching. Darrow doesn’t achieve his goal, but unlike the protagonists of Sartre and Camus, he finds solace in striving toward that goal of self-knowledge and understanding. That message is what makes me return to it time and again–a mental reset as it were.
Denouement
There are my top five. You may not like their style or agree with the the philosophies contained in them. Discovered during my formative years, they come from a different era which draws further away with every passing year. However, the themes they address are timeless. The answers they seek may be out there. Or they may reside inside in each of us.
It’s up to each of us to continue the search and tell our own narratives about our philosophical expeditions. In the meantime, read. Read all you can this summer–and beyond. Maybe you, too, will find that book that sets you off on your first great adventure, imaginary or real. Reading one or all of my influences might help put you on that quest!
It’s just the end of April and fans already are lamenting the injuries to pitchers in the major leagues. Sports pundits like Michael Wilbon reported five starting pitchers have gone onto the injured reserve list from one team alone. He attributes these injuries to high school coaches emphasizing their teenage ptichers throw hard in every game. However, that symptom reflects an underlying truth. The actual reason these young pitchers throw hard is because that’s the only way to catch the attention of MLB scouts. And why do they want to reach the major leagues? Because that’s where the big money lies. And what determines who gets that big money? Moneyball!
What Is Moneyball?
The term originated in a 2003 book by Michael Lewis entitled, Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game. In it, the author propounds his thesis that the traditional guideposts used to evaluate a player’s value are outdated, subjective, and flawed. Examples of such outmoded measures for hitters are batting average and runs batted in. For pitchers, such measures include complete games and earned run average.
Instead, Lewis advocated the use of sabermetrics, an empirical, detailed, and objective analysis of player performance. Judged by these criteria, a player’s on-base percentage and his slugging percentage provide superior indicators of a his value to his team.
For pitchers, concepts such as WHIP (Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched) and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching statistics) replace earned run average (ERA) and strikeouts. Though these measures seem arcane, their objective remains the same. That means providing an objective determination of a pitcher’s effectiveness in mastering aspects over which he has complete control, i.e. strikeouts, home runs, hit batters, etc.
A refinement of this latter statistic is DIPS (Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics) developed by Voros McCracken. Using this method, Voros showed that w that there is little to no difference between pitchers in the number of hits they allow or balls put into play—regardless of their individual skill levels. Such a metric quantifies the independent value of each player. However, it also exposes their vulnerability. In short, they’re interchangeable. And expendable.
Why Moneyball Matters
At this point some readers might wonder what any of these metrics have to do with pitchers’ arm injuries. The key lies in the book’s subtitle: Winning an Unfair Game. Ever since the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in 1922 that baseball was an entertainment rather than a sport, the game was not subject to anti-trust constraints. Unlike other professional sport activities, teams based in large metropolitan areas, have enjoyed an unfair advantage in revenue and income. In light of this asymmetric competitive structure, teams based in smaller markets sought ways to erode the more populous’based teams’ competitive advantage.
Ways and Means
One way involves moving to cities and metropolitan areas willing to offer generous terms on stadiums, concessions, and the like. An alternative approach requires reducing overhead, more specifically, player-development. Rather than spend money on scouts and minor league farm systems, sabermetrics makes a convincing case for drafting players out of college. As professional football and basketball realized, college players developed the skills and maturity necessary to compete at the professional level with little cost to the teams that draft them.
Consequences
This development may seem a callous and self-serving way of controlling costs, and it is. But it also provides a way to level the economic playing field between the wealthier and poorer (comparatively) teams. It also factors into why the number of minor league divisions have dwindled from four (A,B, C, & D) to one: A.
Another consequence is fan support. Besides eroding baseball’s wellsprings for players and local fan involvement, it reduces the value of the individual performer. In seeking out those players that “are undervalued in the market,” the Oakland Athletics became baseball’s first team to embody what Lewis characterizes as “the ruthless drive for efficiency that capitalism demands.”
Costs
But at what price? If everyday players are measured by their power figures alone, it’s little wonder they strive only to hit homeruns regardless of their strength, size, or hitting ability. In regards to pitchers, it’s little wonder that they learn to throw as hard as they can for as long as they can. Why? Because another pitcher can be called in to replace him with the same effectiveness. If such is the case, how does management’s attitude toward its performers affect their morale and willingness to play?
What Can Be Done?
It’s been over twenty years since Moneyball hit the market. In that time, numerous baseball general managers incorportated it into their operations with varying degrees of success. While it did enable the Oakland As to identify the value of players other teams overlooked, the impact of sabermetrics reduced performance quality and thus fan enjoyment. Teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and the Miami Marlins did break through to the World Series, but sold off their best players when they renegotiated their contracts for more money.
Recent Approaches
Rob Manfred, the current commissioner of major league baseball, implemented several proposals to upgrade the game’s quality. Most are cosmetic. The most effective of these, reducing the time between pitches, speeded up the game and reduced its duration overall. However, baseball with its defined innings and at bats was never a dynamic ebb-and-flo game like soccer.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred
Another factor is fan sophistication. Being around for as long as it has, hardcore baseball fans appreciate nuances like the sacrifice bunt or the inning-ending double-play. Such accomplishments require skill, self-sacrifice, and team spirit. Suck emotional and subjective qualities seem lacking in today’s ballplayer. And which are not encouraged by team management.
The best way to rectify the situation may require reemphasizing these finer points of the game. Measure player effectiveness in bunting situations to advance the runner, for example, and reward those sacrifices accordingly in player contracts.
As for pitchers, put an upper limit on the number a squad can carry at any one time. Ten seems a good cutoff figure. Then, reward those pitchers for their efforts to stay in games longer and pacing themselves. If manaagement encourages pitchers to pitch more innings, complete games may again be a useful meaure of a pitcher’s contribution to his team.
Moneyball’s Tenth Inning
In summary, Moneyball wielded a profound impact on major league baseball by providing the means to discover a few hidden or overlooked gems on the playing field. Its truly incisive metrics provided the objective means to value ballplayers by their individual capabilities alone. However, this viewpoint also proved pernicious. Pitchers in particular, suffered. Their careers shortened in many instances because of their combat with hitters striving to make that extra-base hit. Consequently, pitchers learned to throw faster and harder to get these hitters out. This effort put more strain on their arms which resulted in more injuries, removed them from participating, and reduced their value to the team that hired them.
Because pitchers are already in more danger of burnout or arm injury, each team needs more of them. However, more pitchers reduces the relative value of each one, particularly if each pitches fewer innings each season. Already devalued in baseball’s salary structure for not being everyday players, pitchers seen through the Moneyball lens tend to be the units that allow general managers to reduce a team’s salary structure overall. Unlike Filk music musicians of varying abiilities who are allowed to participate for the sheer joy in performing, Moneyball’s metrics provide the means for baseball’s general managers to weaponize sabremetrics for the reduction or elimination of players’ livelihoods. Accepting that fact is what professionalism has come to stand for in the twenty-first century.
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Most of us enjoy repeating pleasurable experiences. Whether they involve fishing in a favorite trout stream or reenacting a scene from a memortable movie, people enjoy imagining how they would act if they could single-handely land a giant tarpon or bring the fiendish Professor Moriarity to justice. Escape rooms offer a chance for engaging in such fantasies. At least, that’s what we thought when we signed up for one to celebrate my wife’s birthday. However, we discovered not everyone is comfortable with having the fantasticl come to life.
What Are Escape Rooms?
Before discussing our escape room experience, let’s examine the concept. Escape rooms are one or more rooms in which players engage in “live-action, team-based games [in which they] discover clues, solve puzles, and accomplish taskes.” Most often, the goal is, as the name implies, to escape the game site within a given time frame.
The themes of these games originate from popular culture such as the exploits of Sherlock Holmes or the writings of Edgar Alan Poe. These two luminaries formed two of the offerings in the escape room we contacted. However, because of my wife’s interests in medicinal herbs and J.R.R. Tolkien, we chose to escape from a magic apothecary’s shop, perhaps echoing the tribulations suffered by Charles Dickens‘ heroine Nell Trent in The Old Curiosity Shop.
History of Escape Rooms
Origins
Although escape rooms seem a relatively new concept, the idea of escaping from a room or situation occurred as early as the 1970s. The advent of point-and-click adventure games led to the development of interactive in-game objects. The earliest of these, Planet Mephius, came out in Japan in 1983. Its popularity led to the first interactive trapped-in-a-room scenario with John Wilson’s Behind Closed Doors in 1988.
From Video Game to Physical Reality
These and other virtual reality games prompted Takao Kato to wonder in 2007 “why interesting things didn’t happen in my life, like they do in books.” The result: the Real Escape Game, the first experiential entertaintment game created in 2007. From there, the number of real life escape rooms proliferated throughout Asia and Europe, reaching the United States in 2014. As of 2022, gaming experts estimate escape rooms number over 600 sites in the U.S. alone.
Escape Room Overview
As the name implies, the “rules” are (deceptively) simple. Find clues leading to escaping the room within the allotted time, usually 45-60 minutes. Anywhere from two to ten players participate at any one time, and the challenges are usually more mental than physical. Depending on the theme, different games require different skill sets although expert knowledge in any field is not required. Any information required to solve a puzzle should be provided within the room’s contents.
Since the overall goal of the experience is entertainment, well-designed rooms contain provisions to insure a successful escape. Hints in the form of written notes, audio clues, and video instructions help players along in their pursuit of escape. In our game, the gamemaster provided helpful suggestions through messages that appeared in a “magic mirror.” As our allotted time dwindled, these hints grew more and more direct. Fortunately, we managed to escape and win the game with a little under three minutes to spare.
Escape Room Strategies
Exiting an escape room requires the employment of several basic skills. problem-solving, lateral thinking (thinking outside the box), and teamwork. The group must direct its efforts to solve a sequence of challenges or puzzles to unlock the door and leave the room within the allotted time. Puzzles may include word games, cyphers, riddles, and basic mathematical problems. Physical activity may include searching for physical objects, navigating mazes, or assembling clues.
Escaping our room involved all of these skills and activities. The six adults broke up into pairs. One pair investigated and activated the alchemical and pharmaceutical equipment in the room, another pair assembled and interpreted clues, while a third monitored the time limit and hints provided by the dungeon master. None of this activity was planned or formally agreed upon beforehand; to our our relief and surpose it just happened.
Escaping our room involved all of these skills and activities. The six adults broke up into pairs. One pair investigated and activated the alchemical and pharmaceutical equipment in the room, another pair assembled and interpreted clues, while a third monitored the time limit and hints provided by the dungeon master. None of this activity was planned or formally agreed upon beforehand; to our our relief and surpose it just happened.
Cautions and Controversies
Adult Impressions
Our reactions seemed to typify those following the adult escape room experience. No one coordinated our activities, but we surmounted the challenges and obstacles within the room and escaped. Despite the lack of direction and low-level anxiety, the adults employed teamwork and crisis management to solve the puzzles.
Reservations
Though the adults said they had fun and enjoyed the experience, some expressed qualms about deriving enjoyment from artificial entrapment. Granted our confinement was voluntary, but what if we had failed? In all likelihood, the gamemaster would have granted us extra time. But what if we were actually trapped? What if the door remained closed, the gamemaster had a stroke, and we remained sealed in the room like Boris Karlov in The Mummy?
Empathy
My August 2022 post on reading to one another seems relevant here. It mentions Neil Postman‘s 1984 prediction from his book Amusing Ourselves to Death. There he discusses how television’s sacrifice of quality information for corporate profit could become boring reality. Moreover, such entertainment desensitizes those who watch it. Similarly, interactive real-life games advances people’s detachment from the emotional information in physical reality one step further. If they derive enjoyment from physical entrapment, does escaping that reality desentitize them from the plights of people trapped in real-world predicaments? How empathetic can we be to the victims of human trafficking or enslavement, for example, when our escape is just minutes or a safeword away ?
One might argue that voluntary participation makes all the difference. Choosing one’s entrapment negates any guilt that might accrie about people stuck in real-life situations not of their choosing. However, the thrill one feels about being trapped in a situation seems cheap knowing one can escape at any time. Just say the safe word, and the catharsis derivied from achieving that objective diminishes as well.
Children’s Response
My grandsons’ reactions to the escape room experience seem instructive at this point. Aged seven and four, both boys went willingly into the apothecary room and explored the phials, bottles, and rudimentary pharmacy equipment within. But when the youngest spotted a small, hissing dragon painted in a corner of the room, he retreated to his mother’s arms for the rest of the hour. The older boy coped by hunching down in an out-of-way corner and played Mario Cart on his cellphone. After our escape, neither boy expressed enjoyment of the experience until the astute gamemaster rewarded with magic wands for their courage and perseverance.
Escape Room Takeaways
Caregiver Options
Critics might say the boys’ uneasiness could have been avoided if the adults had practiced due diligence in choosing the theme. Child-oriented versions of escape rooms do exist. However, the magic apothecary theme seemed least threatening among the choices available at this particular escape room.Other options include disignating one of the adults to stay with the boys, leaving them with a sitter, or having them stay home altogether. But since they too wanted to engage in their grandmother’s birthday celebration, that didn’t seem a viable alternative.
Silver Linings
On the other hand, the boys’ witnessed trusted adults coping as best they could in a mad scramble for clues to free themselves. They could regard this in years to come as a learning experience, enlightening if not enriching. Perhaps if more precautions had been taken, the youngsters’ apprehensions would have diminished. At the same time, it’s also true that their fears were more genuine than the adults’ satisfaction in achieving their make-believe goal. Given the proliferation of these establishments throughout the United States, caring parents and grandparents should review these establishments beforehand and ask questions. Some horror-themed escape rooms, for example, employ escaping from physical restraints like handcuffs or zip ties, so be careful. Make certain to keep the mental and emotional demands of the escape room experience age-appropriate. That applies to kids and adults alike.
Empathy
Regarding the desensitization aspect, how many kidnap victims seek to relive their experiences watching movies like Saw? Time and distance may lessen the psychological impact of what they felt, but reliving the experience, even in make-believe, dulls the emotional sensitivities of those who play such games and disrespects the legacies of those who endured, suffered, or died in real-life bondage.
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One of the most enjoyable aspects of attending a professional convention is discovering a new fact, idea, or way of thinking. Waiting to do an author reading at the Boskone 61 convention (where I’d power-performed twice already as a panelist), I decided to attend the {Song Circle) Celestial Bodies concert. After all, I reasoned, wouldn’t hearing some classical music, say Gustav Holst‘s The Planets, ease my performance anxieties?
Little did I suspect that this decision would provide my first encounter with a different form of geekdom–filk music. Everyone knows (or thinks they do) what a geek is–an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. However, how many know what a filk enthusiast is? I was about to find out.
History and Etymology of Filk Music
Part of my surprise about filk music stemmed from the uncertainty of what it is. The primary definition for Filk comes from aeroscientist Jordan Kare’s article in Sing Out magazine where he quotes musician Nick Smith of the Los Angeles Filkharmonics describing filk as “a mixture of song parodies and original music, humorous and serious, about subjects like science fiction, fantasy, computers, cats, politics, [etc.}” with the conclusion “almost anything goes at a Filksing.”
On the other hand, critics such as Jeff Suwak in Rawckus magazine credit filk as being more than a muscial genre but as a bona fide subculture. Like a band of ragtag heroes in a fantasy novel, Filkers challenge the suppression of the human creaative impulse. They may dress up as wookies and pirates to sing about their favorite sci-fi and fantasy films, but “Breaking the restraints of the imagination and embracing one’s true self, no matter how silly or socially-questionable that self may be, is the whole point.”
Given this lack of precision, it’s unsurprising that the term originated as a misprint in Lee Jacobs‘ essay “”The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music.” Cited repeatedly for amusement by the editor of the Amateur Press Society, the term became associated with the genre while still an informal occurrence at sci-fi and fantasy conventions. Only when writer Karen Anderson used it to describe a song written by her husband, sci-fi novelist Poul Anderson, did the term become formally recognized.
Leonard Nimoy–an honorary filker
Filk Music Structure and Types
From those humble beginnings, filk music evolved into the more formal and systematic performances I witnessed at the Boskone convention on Sunday. Rather than impromptu sessions on hotel stairwells or out-of-the way nooks, filk music now serves as a designated feature in conention schedules. Its musicians play a variety of insturments, the acoustic guitar and keyboard predominating, and they perform in filk circles. Though loosely organized, this arrangement permits egalitarian access with each performer politely awaiting his or her turn to perform.
The most common types of performance are these three: Bardic, Chaos, and Token Bardic. Bardic structure permits each participant to perform in turn around the circle. Chaos provides no sequential structure; performers shout out to play after the previous perfromer has finished. Token Bardic combines the previous two by doling out poker chips to the performers which they can toss into the center of the circle to claim the next turn.
Regardless of structure, filk music emphasizes respect for all music and all performers, whatever their expertise or proficiency. Everyone can participate; tips and suggestions are the only criticism.
Cultural Impact of Filk Music
Over the years, filk has matured from ad hoc performances played and enjoyed by sci-fi fans to a distinctive genre with its own jargon (filkspeak, a subcategory of fanspeak) and subgenres. Some examples are hymnal speak (group singing from a hymnal), filkhogs (performers who sing more than their fair share of songs), and found filk (songs not written as filk but show a folkish love of incongruities). Filkers even have an award for the best example of their music–the Pegasus Award–given annually at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest.
Despite all the above, filk’s sense of ingenuousness and gentle satire remains. Amy Kucharik, the moderator of the song circle I attended, stated during our Messenger dialog that she remained “uncertain whether my music qualifies as ‘filk’ per se (vs music with nerdy concepts and pop culture references) but it was so much fun to be at Boskone.” Performers and listeners still do it for the enjoyment of the music and the rebelliousness of their self-expression. As ethnomusicologist Sally Childs-Helton puts it, “We have taken our right to be creative and to literally ‘play’ in the best sense of that word.” Given the recent political and sociological excesses attributed to overzealous fans, aren’t the orderly and egalitarian actions of devoted musical geeks something to celebrate?
What do you think? Write a comment in the Leave a Reply box beowl.
Some days are so significant they are remembered despite the fact they are not celebrated nationally, unlike Christmas or the Fourth of July. Nor are such days designated to provide secular alternatives to holidays most people celebrate such as Festivus. The days in question are those where people recall exactly what we were doing on the date the days occurred. Based on the discussion on my Facebook feed, January 6th, 2021, the date of the insurrection against the peaceful transfer of power in the federal government, constitutes one of those memorable days.
Yet, however significant the events that occurred on that particular day may be, today’s discussion focuses on what you were doing or feeling when you heard or saw the event. How did learning the news make you feel? Angry? Elated? Disheartened? All three?
All of those emotions surged through me on January 6th. And they still do three years later. But it wasn’t the first time I felt those emotions. Reflecting back on my experiences, there have been a number of times events beyond my control made me remember exactly where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt on those fateful days.
The List
December 6, 1941
Well before my birthday, but this is the date that launched the paradigm. Everyone alive then says they know exactly where they were when they heard the Japanese military had bombed Pearl Harbor. The date is not celebrated formally, but everyone recognizes it as the original Day of Infamy.
August 6, 1945
This date marks the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. A second bomb destroyed Nagasaki three days later, and the Japanese government surrendered several weeks after that. Neither bombing marks the official end of World War II, but their consequent impact on world events never has been more significant.
February 3, 1945
The Day the Music Died according to singer Don McLean had significant impact for a generation including many of my older friends. For me this time marked the verge of my teenage years which included listening to rock and roll on the radio. Iowa is close to my home state of Wisconsin, and I remember how cold and snowy it was that night as it was during most winters back then. The-conditions were so terrible that Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens should never have climbed into that small aircraft which they plummeted them to their deaths.
November 22, 1963
The news of Kennedy’s assassination dumbfounded me. How was it possible? Who did it? A million more questions popped into my head when the news of the shooting came over the school loudspeakers. Neither the frog I was dissecting in my introductory biology class nor not much else got done the rest of that day. Our last classes ended a few minutes early–small consolation for dealing with such an earth-shattering news.
November 15, 1969
the largest anti-war protest march in our nation’s history occurred on this date. Over a half-million protesters filled the Wasington Mall to demand an end to the Vietnam War. I and three of my college dormitory friends took turns driving across the country to participate in the march and its ceremonies. Proud, exultant, and inspired as all of us felt then, it still seems impossible that it could take six more years before the war ended and I’d get drafted in the process.
August 9, 1974
Not only was this the day President Richard Nixon resigned from office, but it also marks the day of our wedding anniversary. Living in Boston at the time, it was tempting to think all the cheering everywhere was for our nuptials. In truth, however, it expressed how grateful the people of the only state who voted for Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, were for Nixon leaving office.
September 11, 2001
The collapse of the World Trade Center is not a day most New Yorkers are likely to forget. At the time, my wife and I lived in Minneapolis and I had surgery the previous day to repair a torn cruciate cartilege in my left knee. Confinement to the davenport forced me to witness the nightmarish repetition of the two planes crashing into the buildings and their horrifying collapse.
Conclusion
The above entries identify some of the events that changed my life during the past seventy years. You may quibble over the stature of some of the entries or point out others that I have omitted. You may even wonder as I did about the twenty-year gap between the last entry and January 6, 2021. It’s not that few significant events occurred during that time; rather, many of those peak events like the Wall Street collapse or the Crimean invasion served as precursors to the insurrection three years ago. Consequently, many of us feel an ongoing anguish in its aftermath and for our prospects in the days ahead. But what I’ve learned over that time tells me that such feelings never last. And if that assessment is not significant or memorable, little else is.
What do you think? Click on the Leave a Comment link above to leave your reply.
The holiday season can be stressful, and holiday blues are not imaginary. While the connection between holilday celebrations and suicide rate increases has been debunked as myth, a survey by the American Psychological Association found that “38% of people felt their stress levels increased during the holiday season.” Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a form of clinical depression known to increase during the winter months in the Northern hemisphere due to changes in the duration of sunlight. These changes affect our body rhythms, neurochemical balance, and mental outlook when darkness lasts longer and cold weather keeps us cooped up indoors.
Many factors contribute to our mental outlook during the holidays, isolation being one of them. Another can be the perceived discrepancy between the joy celebrating the holidays is supposed to bring and the reality of our personal and political lives. If the joy and peace on earth celebrating a deity’s alleged date of birth seem lacking, where does one turn to receive such comfort during the long, dreary, lonely days of winter? Other orgranized religious holidays such as Kwanasaa and Hanukkah are peculiar to the ethnic groups in which they originated. And, similar to the pagan holidays of Saturnalia and St. Lucy’s Day, they serve as calendrial placeholders in substiituting winter solstice celebrations for the Christmas holiday.
Atheists, agnostics, and undecideds should have some means of expressing and expunging their hopes and fears during the holidays. To meet that need, let’s go beyond the evolution of Father Christmas by identifying three unusual secular celebrations to beat those holiday blues:
Burning the Clocks
An “antidote to the commercializaation of Christmas,” the Burning of Clocks event parades willow-made clocks and lanterns through the streets of Brighton England down to the beach. Upon their arrival, a raging bonfire consumes them to the accompaniment of fireworks. Regarded as an investment of the participants’ “wishes, hopes and fears,” the festive burning of these symbols signals the passage of time and spiritual rejuvenation for the upcoming year.
Festivus
Arising from an episode of the Seinfeld TV sitcom, Festivus has grown into a secular holiday observed all across the nation. Celebrated on December 23rd as an “alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season,” it spoofs traditional ceremonies with its bare aluminum pole stuck in a living room corner, wrestling competitions among household members and guests, a joyous feast, and “an airing of grievances” about disappointments suffered throughout the year. Building on its initial popularity, notables such as former Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle have helped promote its rituals and pageantry to such an extent that it has been recommended to become a formally-recognized national holiday.
HumanLight
HumanLight is a humanist holiday also celebrated on the 23rd of December. The New Jersey Humanist Network founded the day in 2001 to commemorate the holiday season without encroaching upon other religious and secular events occuring during the same timeframe. Its goal is to promote “positive, secular human values of reason, compassion, humanity and hope” Aside from the injunction not to use the event to criticise religion, celebrations can be as individual as its sponsors choose to make them.
Summation
More such secular celebrations of the December holidays exist. In fact, Midwinter Day destroys the confines of time and space by celebrating the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration during the continent’s southern winter solstice in July. But going to such extremes isn’t necessary. The examples above show that the spirit of winter solstice celebrations is not confined to religious spectacles alone. Atheists and agnostics need not feel isolated and depressed. They, too, can celebrate the holiday season in a way appropriate to their belief systems. And isn’t the human spirit that motivates all these festivals, secular and spiritual alike, the value most worth celebrating and sharing?
If you care to add to this list or feel differently about such events, tell us by clicking on the Leave a Comment link above to leave your reply.
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