The Muse: When a Story Sings

As recently appointed, senior fantasy editor for Aberrant Dreams http://www.hd-image.com/fiction.htm I have the privilege to accept a few stories and the job of rejecting many. In truth, I have several slush pile readers who sift through the stories first. As well, I haven’t been senior editor long. This was in part to move the backlog along. The editor-in-chief, Joe Dickerson, also began publishing some novels. Between that and running the website and making final decisions, well, the webzine was grinding to a halt.

It’s still in the jerky throes of getting up to speed and I certainly can’t speak for the horror or SF editors but we’re now answering within the 5-month limit indicated at www.ralan.com  I haven’t yet seen my first picks go up and it could be a while to get through the accepted backlog, but hopefully we’ll see a bit more new work. Before that, I was a reader for about a year. I took on the job for several reasons. I have, in recent years, wanted to edit a magazine or anthology. If you don’t have your own wad of cash, then it’s working for another mag and the positions are few and far between.

I saw the ad for more editors and applied. My other reason was that by reading what other people are writing I might get a better idea of what the trends are, as well as why some of my own stories don’t sell. Becoming senior editor meant that I also would now choose which fantasy stories would be published.

With every story I’ve rejected I’ve tried to tell the writer why. It helps me concretize what is a good story, both for them and me. I also know that as a writer any constructive comment in a rejection is rare and writers really appreciate having an idea of what didn’t work besides the ubiquitous “it’s not right for us,” which can mean so many things. There have been a few stories I’ve had to reject because I have a quota. Those were the hardest and if several were of a similar theme (magical mystery, ghost, heroic, etc.) then I would narrow within that theme.

A story that I’m most likely to accept is one that sings. It’s how I describe it and what it means isn’t exactly exact. But to sing means it stands out above the rest, is somehow noteworthy and memorable so that I might be thinking of the story or characters weeks later. Some of those singing qualities can be a world/scenario so unique that no one has written on it before (either created completely by the author or a very new POV). It can be a voice (the style of the writing) so catching that you’re carried along by language and description. It can also be flow and conflict; a story so touching, terrifying, thought-provoking that you sit up and pay attention.

It’s a delicate mixutre and some people have a natural knack for it. Most of us mortals have to work at it and sometimes the story, the description, the language, the world, all come together to form the perfect piece. And then the story sings. I’ve learned a few things so far in editing for a magazine. Perhaps it will translate into one of my own stories and the muse will visit more often.

Politicians: Good or Evil?

My brother is in town visiting. We always get into interesting discussions about many things and often poltics. You see, he was a politician in Alberta for fifteen years. He told me that when he began they would spend at least 25% of their meetings looking at long-term solutions and problems. When he finished, no time was spent on the long term.

As a member of the population I often rale against the government for being so short sighted, not looking to our future and planning properly. Like many people, I have less faith in politicians. I don’t believe they’ll do what they say they will. I do believe that they will take on a cause, not for it being right, but because it will garner them votes.

My brother blames the media for the change; for making all politicians look corrupt, for changing the attitude of the population and therefore the government’s to short-term vision, for being biased. He does have a point. After all, most politicians are not caught in scandals; my brother wasn’t corrupt. But I believe the blame can be shared three ways: by the politicians, the media, the people.

The media is a very powerful tool. The best way to take over a country is to control the media. Writers/journalists get imprisoned all the time, proving that the pen is more feared than the sword to those in power. The media can make or break a career, a scandal, the outcome of an election. Over the years, we know, good news is no news. Much better to report on the disasters, the murders, the scandals. It won’t sell if it’s sweet and good and positive. No, we must always always delve to the deepest darkest depths of even the most innocuous thing.

What then happens is that an even is blown out of proportion. The molehill does become the mountain. M. Bernier leaves a dossier in his girlfrend’s place and no one knows till she seeks revenge after the break up. I’m no fan of the current Conservatives but in perspective, almost every single politician takes work home with them. Those that are married probably have it where their spouses, children or even friends of the family might happen upon it, especially if they want to. Those who have boyfriend/girlfriends have the same situation. Truly it’s done all the time.

My brother said that England has a closer check and balance. Politicians still take their work home but it’s delivered in a locked box and they must enter a code. It’s then returned the same way. But if a politician forgets something somewhere, hopefully it’s not of highest state security and most likely they made a mistake. They are human. But one hopes they’e not lackadaisical and not purposefully sabotaging their office or the people.

Yet polliticians will pick up a cause when it’s newsworthy and will keep them in the best light. Look at Tony Blair announcing that the environment was in dire trouble from pollution. Duh! I knew this when I was 18 but the government of Canada suddenly jumps on the bandwagon that Blair provided and makes it sound like they’re the first to notice and that they will be innovative in what they’re fixing. (Let’s not mention the rebate that they’re getting rid of this year for buying smaller, gas-efficient cars).

So, they make a big hullabaloo and everyone goes, oh aren’t they wonderful. And in the meantime, everyone forgets that the government is running slipshod over the medical system, because the media is waving the flags and the government is singing the party line and the shortsighted population only thinks for the moment.

Worst of all is that politicians say what they think people want them to hear. They do their dire worst in the first two years of their governing, then pull out the cake and champagne and the fickle voters forget everything. I still remember Bill VanderZalm, premier of BC, offering to lower the price of beer because it was a working man’s drink and they needed to be able to buy it. Of course he never did lower the price. It wasn’t really his jurisdiction and who remembered?

So, are politicians good or evil? Considering that most do try to do their best, aren’t corrupt and are human, able to make mistakes and great strides, most aren’t evil. Some are definitely self-serving. Others are two-faced. David Emerson stands out in that crowd. But politics is not pretty, by its very nature.

The voters, they’re not good or evil either, but they are fickle and shortsighted so the politicians cater to that. The media, well, it might be the most insidious evil or the greatest good. The media can certainly develop a hive mentality and chew something past the marrow in the bone.

And of course, nothing is absolute. Not all of any of these groups is one thing. There are those of us who work for the benefit of others, and those who do for themselves. There is good, evil, mismanagement and ineptitude. There is the flow of favoritism. I like to think that I want a long-sighted government that doesn’t ignore the short-term needs. Perhaps one day everything will swing back again. After all, the government even acknowledging that the environment is in danger speaks of looking to the future. Now if they would only come up with some real long-range solutions.

Musings on the Muse: Early Inspirations

I always knew I wanted to be an artist (after brief thoughts of being a doctor, a nurse and police woman) from the age of six. At that time it was drawing. But the earliest influence on my mind and expanding my worlds was in reading.

I’ve already talked a bit about some of those books in Worlds of What-if. There were Aesop’s Fables, Br’er Bear and Br’er Rabbit, various fairy tales and myths such as the Norse tales. I began writing around the age of twelve, for myself, and like every teenager, some was emotional, angst-ridden. I still have some of these poems and it was only a small number like that. Many were exploring philosophies; time, infinity, death, birth.

 In grade 9 I took a creative writing class instead of regular English. My spelling and writing were good enough that I could miss it. I think the class was actually called Communications. At that point, I began working on writing a book. It was handwritten and I managed fifty pages of single-spaced text. I still have that partial book somewhere at home. I think at some point in the past I actually typed it up but I don’t think it’s on the computer. I don’t remember a ton about it but the character, Carla Adamson, was in the desert and her husband (ex-husband?) was trying to kill her. But…I think there was going to be an alien intervention.

I was influenced by the fantastic from the beginning. Besides the articles in the newpaper of the future in grade 7, this was probably one of my first fiction scribblings. I continued to write poetry, which was less fantastical and just more straightforward. Then I got a job in a book store; comics, fantasy and SF. Ordering the books, reading the tales every day, cemented the genre in my head. It was then that I started to write a few stories.

I took a writing course at UBC. Then, I applied to the Clarion Writers workshop in Seattle in 1987 and was accepted. That was the true beginning of me taking my writing seriously. I began to send it out then. I’m still not sure it was the right thing, to take it seriously, but here I am, writing writing writing.

Health Care: Canada & the US

One great difference between the US and Canada is the litigiousness of the US. Americans seem to sue over a pinprick, a spilled coffee, personal stupidity. I remember a friend who does some sailing sending me an article at one point from one of his sailing magazines.

It was about a man trying to sue his sailboat insurance company because his ex-girlfriend was suing him for giving her genital herpes. His case against his insurance company had been dismissed with the following (paraphrased) statement: Unless the boat veered suddenly and Mr. Jones fell with his open mouth upon his girlfriend’s naked vagina, it is impossible to list this as the insurance company’s fault.

It was hilariously ludicrous that the guy would even try but through the years of talking to my many friends over the border I’ve come to understand some of the litigious nature. It boils down to the difference between our universal medicare program and the “everyone for themselves” system of the US.

True, many companies (most?) offer healthcare benefits in the US because people can’t otherwise afford to have themselves covered, but there are horrendous gaps. I know a couple with two kids who can only insure their children under their work insurance but can’t afford to cover the whole family. I have a friend who is diabetic and, years ago, was paying $800/month for health care insurance. Another friend would have to drive over an hour to a practitioner covered by her insurance plan. And, unbelievable to anyone in Canada where we have a shortage of practitioners, I know a doctor who couldn’t get a job because of how the insurance companies worked. Not to mention all those people with low-paying jobs and no insurance. How do you get it? Join the navy, army or air force.

Still, in Canada, you might wait months to see a specialist, to even get a doctor, for an operation and die in the process. But if you have a baby, break a leg or need emergency surgery, the cost to you is covered. You don’t come out of the hospital and suffer a coronary because you’re in debt for life. It’s not a perfect system and it’s being mismanaged but it’s better than nothing.

How does this relate to the litigious nature of the US? Simple. Any time a person is injured or needs medical treatment they end up paying astronomical medical bills. Weighing the price of a lawyer against the rising medical costs leaves most people with one option: sue to cover the bills.

The US is a much more populated place than Canada. This works better for many businesses; costs for production are similar in both countries but if 10% of the population buys the item, well, that’s a big difference between the two. Could universal medicare work in the US? Since Canadian medicare comes from taxes, I bet it could. But I’m no expert or analyst. However, if one looks at the cost of suing people, of tying up the courts with medical lawsuits vs freeing them up to deal with crime, it might be that it’s cheaper all around to give some modicum of healthcare to everyone.

Sex: Pucker Power

Today I’m cheating. One, I’m trying to apply for another grant and have to get it done this week. And two, I’m curious as to why this post never got many hits. It had that all powerful word “sex” in it but that didn’t seem to work. Maybe it’s because it was only about kissing. Maybe it’s because my blog was new at that point.

Baby kisses are best from babies. Creative Commons: chippenziedeutch, flickr

Over the years I’ve had the pleasure and sometimes unfortunately, revulsion, of kissing a fair number of men. I once, long ago, agreed to be a kissing judge in the SCA. I believe they placed an air mattress in the middle of the field and the guys came and kissed one by one. The same was set up for the male judge. It was an enlightening and mostly grueling experience. Young gamer, SCA geeks were the ones that signed up. In the end I believe the judges found each other to be the best kissers. 😀

A kiss can be a great turn-on and the beginning of good foreplay. It’s an essential part of dating, of sex and really, of any relationship. There are some people who don’t like to kiss. I can understand that if a person has bad teeth/breath but it’s such a part of turning a person on that without it, one has to work a lot harder in all the other areas.

A bad kiss can be a turn-off to the rest of a sexual experience. If I find someone a repulsive kisser, I’m going to be hesitant to go farther than kissing them. So, as to men, they can pretty much be put into categories. (I’m sure women can be too.) Kisses really should vary and some of the below moves in small dosages can work well. An overwhelming preponderance for one style, or lack of variety makes some of these kisses truly disgusting, and many boring.

THE VACUUM
This usually involves the man clamping his lips to yours, lamprey style. He then tries to suction your tongue out of your body. Sometimes he won’t get as far as the tongue but will suction your lips off. You’re lucky to get away with light bruising and not look like a victim of zombiehood.

THE SLUG
I would prefer the Vacuum over the Slug. This one will either kiss by squishing his face into yours or tossing his tongue into your mouth. I say face, because for all intents and purposes the lips are not alive. You have to do all the work. Should the slug let the slimy protuberance of his tongue into your mouth it will lay there like a slug, wet and …oh sorry. Slugs are more animated but kinda slimy and disgusting no matter what.

THE SLOBBERER

Maybe it’s best to leave the slobbery kisses to the dogs. Creative Commons: jsrcyclist, flickr

This one is evident and can sometimes be combined with the Slug that lies in your mouth. Usually the lips are animated but the aim is bad and the tongue is of an overly moist humor. You’ll end up with drool sliding down your chin, over cheeks and up your nose. Sloppy kisses can be fun from time to time but you shouldn’t have to worry that you’re going to drown.

THE BABY
You know how cute babies are when they’re suckling and if they’re hungry their little open mouths seem to blindly search for something to suckle? (Maybe I should call this the sandworm.) Well it’s not so cute with men. You see this huge gaping maw coming your way and you’re not sure you’ll get out alive. The mouth will usually encompass yours and your lips too. It may just lay there like a black hole. I’m inclined to yodel to see if I can get echoes.

THE BOARD
These guys think that kissing involves keeping their lips in a tight rictus over their teeth. Again, there will be little true interaction with your lips. They kiss by opening and closing their mouths because their lips rarely move. You’ll have to do all the work with these mannequins.

THE PROBER
Some men think their tongues are penises. They’ll ram that stiff sucker into your mouth and keep jamming it back and forth. There will be little to no exploration of the teeth and sometimes these guys combine with the Baby. You’re lucky if you get a kiss on the lips to begin with and you’ll rarely get a chance to give a reciprocal kiss unless you forcefully push the probe back out.

THE PUDDING
Puddin’ lips can be kinda nice. They may have skills with the tongue but the lips (and sometimes the tongue), although animated, may lack any muscle. When you kiss them you might sink into them. They’re not all bad and depends if they combine with other good types.

THE CHOMPER
Teeth is what the Chomper is all about, which, as we know, is not all bad. Unless it’s all teeth. Biting the lips (gently) can be fun but slamming one’s teeth into lips that have teeth on the other side is painful and cutting. Something soft between two hard surfaces usually gets squished.

THE MUSCLE
These guys put muscle into their kisses. Their lips and tongues are animated and alive and have some resistance. Too much muscle however, can become a workout and hard to give any reciprocal kisses.

As in all these styles, the best one is a versatile one, where both kissers have a chance to explore. Your mileage may vary. Some people might prefer a particular style only and that’s fine. Kisses can be sweet, they can be sexy and they can be downright hot. And remember, when you’re kissing, don’t forget that the whole body is ripe for the puckering.

What’s the Difference?

A friend sent me the following joke:

A Jew and a Chinese man were seated next to each other at a bar when suddenly the Jew punched the Chinese man hard on the shoulder.

“Ouch,” said the Chinese man: “Why’d you do that?”

The Jew answered: “I just remembered, today’s the day Pearl Harbour was attacked.”

“But that was the Japanese,” said the Chinese man.

“Chinese, Japanese – what’s the difference?” the Jew asked, whereupon the Chinese man punched him.

“Hey, what was that for?” the Jew asked.

“That was for the sinking of the Titanic,” said the Chinese man.

“But it was sunk when it ran into an iceberg,” said the Jew.

“Iceberg, Goldberg – what’s the difference?” said the Chinese man.

When I was in college I took off for parts known. I went to England and Scotland. My friend Lyn French and I traveled for one week to the west of England and one week to Scotland. The last week I spent in London bopping about.

We stayed in hostels and went to pubs and met many people. We were invited to a few parties and were at one too late to get back to the hostel. This guy, trusting two unknown Canadian girls, gave us the keys to his flat and said we could stay there as he was staying at his girlfriend’s. We spent a night freezing with no blankets and no heat in a typical cold and wet April.

It might have been that party or another one, where the following conversation relates to the joke above. In Scotland we were at this party and of course people asked us where we were from. From Canada, we said. “Oh, hey I have a friend/relative in Toronto. Jimmy, do you know him?”

I would pull out a map and say, “Here’s is Canada, and this is Alberta, one province. It’s the same size of all of Great Britain.”

Then this one guy kept saying I was American and I said, no, I’m Canadian. “What’s the difference?” he asked.

So I put it in words he could understand. I said, “Okay, you’re Irish.” I didn’t have to say it too many times before he started calling me Canadian.

More Musings on the Muse

From: 94stranger
http://94stranger.wordpress.com

CAMELOT

I shall ride high to meet
the lords of barley;
I shall ride by and parley
with the lords of wheat
and where the brook runs down
to Camelot, I shall dismount and drink –
ere there is blood in the water, and the mighty sink;
beneath the patient oak where in the shallows wink
the pieces of the crown.

This is the full text of the poem.

I’m going to write an extended post on this on my blog, under the title ‘exploring Camelot’, so anyone interested should be able to find it there shortly. However, as a kind of preview, I’ll run through the production of the above.

Sometimes, I find myself with a kind of ‘inner itch’ and then out pops – something. In this case, it was the first two lines, exactly as above. ‘What rhymes with barley? I asked myself, ‘parley’ came straight back, ‘and wheat rhymes with meet’ – then I had, almost immediately, lines three and four. The emotional impetus of this carried me forward, and lines five and six, which are the core of the poem, and told me sort of what it was about, came also almost at once. Then the flow dried up, and the rest was blood, sweat and tears – and the result (those last three lines) is far from really pleasing me, I have to say.
More later on my own blog, including further musings on your musings, Colleen

To me the core of your poem is the last three lines. I find that they give a depth and history of the image made by the first six lines. I think the semi-colon confuses the meaning. It could read (without it) as “and the mighty sink beneath the patient oak” which then adds to the image of blood in the water and bodies sinking into the ground. To me, if the poem ended at the sixth line, it would be a nice image but would have no further context. Leaving off the last line (with some tinkering) would still give a story, a history to this image of Camelot, but the last three lines bespeak a time of glory and a time of turmoil, the future falling of Arthur and Camelot, where even the trappings of splendor come to naught and all that is left is the natural world: the oak, the water, the lords of wheat and barley.

I actually like those last three lines best of all. But again, by themselves they would not give a complete picture.

As with most musings with the muse, sometimes it is the picture or the line you are given and then you’re left with what to do with that and how to use it.

Back in the USSR

In high school our gang of girls that would hang around together, spend time at each other’s homes watching TV and discussing boys. Common wardrobe of the era and in Calgary was jeans, T-shirts and those lumberjack shirts worn as jackets, or jean jackets. Marie, Debbie, Kathy, Cathy, Robyn, Leslie, Joanne, Heather and Joyce made up the main group of girls. The guys varied; some were friends and some boyfriends. We would get together at someone’s house and the guys who played guitars would twang away, half-heartedly working on something while the girls tried to come up with band names.

None of us sang. None of us played instruments so we dreamt of our stage careers and how we could play tambourines or rattles while the guys played. It never amounted to much but jamming musically and verbally. I think my boyfriend, Randy, may have been one of the players but mostly we just had a place to hang. There was the guy with the black Beatles style haircut and the somewhat hawkish nose. There was Gordon Amsterdam who had a penchant in school for eating chocolate spread and candy sprinkle sandwiches. Gordon was blond and slim so this nutritious diet didn’t seem to do much damage to his weight. There was Lorne and…I remember so few of the boy’s names but Gordon’s always had that mysterious espionage-spy sound to it. James Bond meet Gordon Amsterdam.

One of the houses we often went to was Ollie’s. Ollie was pronounced like the “O”in Olaf not the “O” in Oliver. Where we knew Ollie from I’m not sure as he was slightly older than our high school going selves and he didn’t seem to be in school. But then my boyfriend was two years older than me, a world of difference in those days. He graduated and worked in a bar. I looked older than I was and would often get into the bar, especially if he was along.

So perhaps Ollie was Randy’s friend. Ollie was quiet, shy really. Most of our boyfriends still fit the gangly filling-out stage but Ollie was solid and muscular, well-formed, dark haired, tall and probably could have had any girlfriend if he had ever noticed them. He didn’t. Even when we were at his place (it might have been his parents’) he seemed oblivious. What mattered to Ollie, the only girl he seemed to care about, was his car. He spent loving hours on it, his head under the hood. I’m sure it was a classic but I can’t remember what it was. Still, Ollie cherished it.

In truth, while we daydreamed about being a band, hanging in Ollie’s basement on old couches and mattresses, taking illicit substances (at least for the age we were) all we really wanted was a place to be. Most of us couldn’t hang out at our parent’s without them checking in. Malls were the only option and got boring pretty quickly. We could smoke, drink, just chat and maybe neck with our boyfriends. And there was Ollie, the quiet one, the guy from Russia, who worked on his car and obsessively played the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR.”

I can’t remember or even picture most of those guys now, but Ollie was a vignette, who rarely participated in a conversation, yet still memorable as a guy out of place and time even then.

Addendum to Racist Rage

The same day as I posted my piece on Mr. Belligerent, I had the following experience.

It was a super hot day. I was coming home from work, still mostly bleary eyed from my surgery. As i walked past Britannia School I noticed that they were parking many cars in the field. This other fellow was walking in front of me. I could see he was carrying a bottle of cider (hard) and beer and had just come from the liquor store. I though, ahh, just my kind of guy. He has grapefruit cider (though really I prefer the English style first over the fruity ones).

He turned and asked me if I knew what was going on and I said, maybe it’s their grad but it’s early in the day and no one looks dressed right. So he asked the guys directing the traffic. It turns out it was the 100th anniversary of Britannia School. I said, I bet they have everyone gathering from all the graduates of every year.

Something else was said between us but he said, I don’t have a mean though about anyone. I used to be like that but I feel much better now. I’m paraphrasing but this guy just had this great smile and a real peaceful way about him. I commented that it was just too nice a day to let anything get to you. We said a few more words before our paths diverged and wished each other a great day.

It really balanced out the man full of anger from the morning and kinda renewed my faith. I forget that sometimes it’s just these little mundane snatches of conversation that we have with total strangers that can make us feel good. So here is to sunshine and flowers and growth and healing. It was a perfectly wonderfully sunny weekend, even if it did rain today.

Racist Rage

I had to take the bus downtown today since I had laser eye surgery yesterday and had a checkup appointment. Rarely do I take the bus but I had no choice as my eyes aren’t clear enough yet to drive. Morning traffic, students, shoppers, people going to work. It’s a sunny day, the first warm one we’ve had in a while. The bus from my eastside place passes through Chinatown; not as big as San Francisco’s but  the second largest in North America. Many people hop on and off the bus to shop in Chinatown.

Vancouver is fairly multi-ethnic and there has always been a substantial Asian population (Chinese, Indian, Japanese, etc.). The bus was full of people. My eyes were a bit blurry so details were fuzzy but there was at least one black woman, quite a few Chinese, a bunch of whites and this guy who could have been First Nations, maybe Mexican.

He’d had some issue with his bag. Maybe it had spilled, maybe he dropped something. I could quite tell. He had been standing but at some point he gathered up his jacket and other bits and found a seat by moving against those trying to get off the bus, where he swore at the “chink” and “yellow bastard” saying don’t push me. I looked at him (in my giant super dark sunglasses) and several people heard this. After he sat down on a seat that faces the aisle, in front of a seat that faces the front, he proceeded to fiddle with stuff and had his shoe in his hand.

Then he started to swear again, in the same vein at the people sitting beside him. I missed some of it but the guy sitting near to where I was standing said, “You can’t talk to people like that,” very emphatically. Then the guy turned on him to a chorus of fuck offs back and forth where Mr. Belligerent then threatened to “take care” of this other guy at the next stop. At this point I kept an eye on him in case he pulled a knife.

In the meantime, this guy is working at tying a dreamcatcher together, one of the ones that looks fairly prefabricated, but large, about 8-10 inches across, dark brown suede with white feathers and an eagle on it. It was ironic that this guy is working on what is in essence a First Nations spiritual tool while he cursed and threatened. I also told him that he should try being polite to people. The bus driver yelled out that if he swore again he’d be kicked off.

I then found a seat behind the guy who had told off Mr. Belligerent. Mr. B was putting his shoe back on, then again said to the other guy, “Come on, off the bus here and we’ll settle this.” The other guy said, “I don’t want to fight you.” As Mr. B got up to get off the bus, he whacked the cap off the guy’s head in front of me and scuttled away. I gave the guy back his hat.

I used to think racism was only something that white people did to others but here was an example again of how it can hit any person. Mostly this guy seemed mad at the world, belligerent and maybe in need of medication. And spouting things like “yellow bastard” just made it sound like he was regurgitating something he’s heard and taken as the local vernacular in swears. If we all started saying “frak” as they do on Battlestar Galactica it would replace “fuck” but still carry the same weight and be the next banned word from polite society.

Still, the overt racism this guy exhibited was sad and shocking and, I’m happy to say, didn’t sit well with most of the people on the bus. He obviously had other issues, such as anger, but lashing out didn’t serve a lot. I always presumed that a group of people who have had racism perpetuated upon them might be less likely to perpetrate the model. And that’s probably true in most cases but there are always exceptions. Hopefully that guy can find some peace before he does himself and others damage.