LETTERS: 2004: 1
HC
61, Box 408
Glenwood,
NM 88039
U.S.A.
June
4, 2004
Dear R K,
Thanks for your e-mail of April 20.
I will be interested to learn if your
friend does indeed include my little article about your work in the book. In any event, I hope that the publication of
the book will go well for you. If my
article is used, and if it is affordable to do so, I would love to have a copy,
and in any case hope that you will send me publication information for my
records if the article is used.
Thank you, too, for planning to send
a photocopy of relevant pages when your critique of my Prometheus appears. And thank you again for that effort.
My current project is a complete
read-through, with minor corrections, of my enormous novel, Ever Broten. I had said, last time I
went through it, that I would not do so again until and unless I found a
publisher. Now a small publisher has said he wants to publish it. Huge as it
is, and economics of all publishing being what they are, we’ll see. But this publisher has followed through on
several of my shorter works in the magazines he also publishes. So I am hopeful. That he also publishes magazines has the
added advantage over many small publishers of being an in-house means to
promote the book. I now am almost
through with the read-through.
I am planning another trip into
Silver City, in about a week and a half, for about a week I think, and am
hoping to be able to put together an informal reading of the play I wrote this
winter at that time. Another writer
friend who recently has settled there and is interested to participate also
just told me that Summer also is interested.
That sort of thing always pleases me, that she would be interested, but
equally that she is feeling well enough physically.
The state of the world, and of my
country’s rulers in addressing it, remains appalling. What to say?
One thing I will say is the reason
why I am sending this letter by post rather than by email. I have run into a bit of what amounts to
censorship of my email. I do not believe
this was intentional, nor that it was directed at me specifically. But it is
disconcerting… and leaves me wondering what was intended, of which I have run
into this evidence. I am enclosing a copy of the instances I have found.
All of the censorship occurred at one
place: the Glenwood Community Library, which is unfortunate as that is the
handiest place for me to get online when here at my current home base. I do not believe it was supposed to happen,
but rather that it did happen because of a malfunction or missetting of a
Security program intended to do something else. What I think caused the problem
is that there now is a low in the United States which mandates a Security
program on all computers with Internet access in public places that accept
Federal funding (which most do) supposedly to keep children from accessing
pornography. Many of the computers
supplied to libraries have this Security program preinstalled. However,
the Glenwood Library bought new computers this past winter which did
not, and therefore had to install it. I
believe what I have run into happened because it either was not installed
correctly or some other error.
The reason I noticed what was
happening is because of how I customarily do a lot of my email. Not having my own access and having limited
time at any access, I commonly write letters on my computer, copy them to disk,
then copy them to whatever system I can use to get to my email to send
them. Then, I recopy them from the
“Sent” folder in the email, back to my disk and thence to my computer, largely
to have a record of when I sent them. I
do not usually read them at all these copyings.
But I just happened to notice, on a couple of occasions, that something
didn’t look right. So I checked, and
thanks to the recopyings, I had a record so I could check. Sure enough, words were missing. I then
checked further, and found that when I copied from disk to the email “Compose”
function, or wrote directly in that function, what appeared was as I wrote it.
So if I proofread what I was going to send, it looked right. The changes occurred when I sent the emails!
And I have confirmed since that it is the changed versions that people received.
It is entirely possible that what
caused the problem was just a poorly written program, shabby work sold to the
public, created because the law created
a market for such programs.
Unfortunately, exactly that sort of thing has become more and more common
in recent years, as a once-robust and practical American economy and technology
has, more and more been consumed by mindless regulation and endless hype.
However, I find it equally plausible
that what I saw was a malfunction of something else that was intended.
Considering what words were deleted from my emails (with no regard at all for
context) I have difficulty seeing how this program would effectively serve its
ostensible purpose of keeping children out of pornography. The cuts are too arbitrary…. And, frankly, a
lot of young people are far too ingenious to be stopped by such things, knowing
how to do things with computers that I can’t even imagine. However, what if the program, and the law
mandating it really was sold, fraudulently, to a public susceptible to fears
about children and pornography, but actually is intended for a different
purpose entirely? As a flagging system,
that would send flagged words and phrases to some central government computer
system, which in turn would record them, and if a high enough level of flagging
occurred inform someone to take a look, I think the pattern I saw would be
quite useful…if, of course, no one noticed it, as I believe no one was supposed
to. As a Security measure, to trace
pornographers, drug dealers, terrorists…or any dissidents getting too uppity, I
think such a system would be a useful addition to the authorities’ repertoire. Considering that it came into play just when
I sent my emails, and that I have seen no suspicious lacunae in incoming
emails, I think just such a purpose is all too plausible.
Of course, I do not think it was
supposed to do anything that anyone would see. I think that the deletions, the
censorship as I am calling it, really was a malfunction. I think it was
supposed to be a flagging system, that was not meant to leave any visible
trace. But it is just because it
accidently did so that I did see it, to note the pattern by which it
operates…for whatever purpose it really is intended to serve.
Someone has worked on the computers at
the Glenwood Library since I called this problem to their attention. I have not
noted any further deletions in my emails since, though I really do need to
check further to be sure. I have not
noted anything of the sort anyplace else, and have checked on at least one
other system in a public place: the University library in Silver City. So I think the emails are going through
intact (except a few that always get lost, but that really is as much as
anything just a normal flaw in a huge and complicated medium). However, what I have encountered leaves me
with two troubling concerns.
One is that, over a period of months,
I was the only person to notice what was happening at the Glenwood Library, and
it was only because of all my copyings that I had a record to check it. Very
few children use that library. But quite
a few older people use it, and some of them use it for such purposes as
emailing medical records. Considering
the words that were deleted from my emails, I think such things could do very
serious harm. I wonder how many other small libraries run
by volunteers, as the Glenwood Library is, have encountered similar situations,
and no one has noticed.
The other concern, of course, is to
wonder what really is going on with this supposed Security program. I do not believe it was intended to cut any words out of anyone’s email as it
did to me. But I do believe that, in it
doing what it did, I saw the pattern by which it does whatever it is supposed to do. What might that
be? And who is supposed to see the
result, for what purpose? I don’t know. But, in hope that the post is at least
somewhat less susceptible to tampering. I
am using this method, rather than any email, to tell people about it.
Hot here now. In fact, this trailer
gets so hot, in the sun, that I don’t try to work inside at all in afternoons. It is even causing a problem with
deterioration of the disks I use for backup copies of my work. Though in many ways, my situation is
congenial here, I do hope that sometime soon…after my trip east later this
summer perhaps, I can find a different living situation.
In the meantime, I should have a
couple of more stories coming out before that trip, and just wrote a new one a
couple days ago, the first new one since the play this winter. That felt good, as the original writing
always does.
Fruit trees have fruit on them,
getting big. This is a major event, as
it usually gets warm too early and then freezes late here, nipping the
buds. But this year, trees that have not
set in a decade have fruit on them, including a peach tree right behind me,
which I hope really will ripen peaches this year, and will do so in time for me
to eat some before my trip.
I hope this finds you well. All best.
River
LETTER: 2005: 1
Uncle River
HC 61, Box 408
Glenwood, NM 88039
USA
uncleriver8@yahoo.com
Aug.
25, 2005
Dear R.K.,
Most sorry to hear you are
ailing. Perhaps I know what is wrong… if
not just projecting from my own life. And
I certainly don’t know what, effectively, to do about it.
I think the source of your ailment is
that you are living in a way that is poison to your soul. Eventually, this bleeds through to the body,
one way or another.
All cultures have traditions which
answer this condition. And on the whole, I think India has done better, longer, in this realm, than
the West. But the density of the times
has blotted up too much of every path, turned
spiritual liberation to an advertizing jingle,
exalted infinite material paraphernalia and noise at the expense of life
and love, and made fulfillment of responsibility, always an effort, now an
endless irritating frustration.
Don’t know what to say. For myself, I’ve
about choked on a largely futile effort even just to get by. I think the world has to stop running at such
a frenzy, but I don’t think it has any even acceptable way to do so. So what is any individual to do, living day
to day as long as we do?
Best,
River
LETTER: 2008: 1
22/11/2008
Dear
R. K.,
Good
to hear from you. Though I had been concerned, and I am sorry to hear
that my concern was justified.
I
hope that all of the stresses and health problems will improve, for you and all
of your family, and that you can enjoy having a healthy grandson.
At
present, I find myself in a somewhat anomalous position. The U. S.
economy is in great turmoil, with many people in unaccustomed difficulty, some
altogether displaced. But, after my many years of extreme
marginalization, I actually am a little better off than I am used to.
Still living on what most Americans would consider a fraction of enough to meet
minimal needs. But, at least partly because of where I live, as well as
how, I have been able to live pretty well, by my own standards, and am doing so
with less stress about being able to than much of my adult life, at the very
time when so many others are experiencing a financial crisis.
Well,
life takes many odd turns.
I
currently am writing this to you from the Western New Mexico University
library, during a visit to Silver City of most of a month, my first time here
since January. (Since my move to Pie Town, 175 miles away, I can
afford to make the trip to Silver City less often than when closer, but stay
longer than I usually have when I came more often.) I also made a trip a
bit farther, from here, to Las Cruces, where I attended an EMS (Emergency
Medical Services) conference, and also had a visit and did a signing with my Mogollon
News editor, who lives in Las Cruces.
Volunteering
with the Pie Town ambulance, as well as Fire Department, has been another new
development in my life, if not what I would have expected to be doing at
60. But with a lot of the population of that rural area, far from most
jobs and facilities, my age or older, that I am physically able to help, as
well as having a flexible schedule to be available, makes it a community
service that I am glad to be able to offer at this time in my life.
I
have seen Summer twice since being in Silver City, and hope to see her once or
twice more while here. She continues to be more physically limited.
Her emphysema has her on oxygen most of the time, and general weakness from the
breathing difficulty and being unable to exercise progresses. Yet there
is a way that her energy has responded to the physical decline by becoming more
clear, releasing emotional baggage, so that she can continue her creative work
and enjoy people who come to see her all the more, with what energy she does
have left. After quite a few years of publishing only online, which she
continues with her www.motherbird.com
Web site, she has published several new print books this year. And there
will be a signing, tomorrow, for two children's books she published for two
friends: Finder who wrote them, and Jodey Bateman who translated them from
English to Spanish, with publication in both languages. Summer is not
sure if she will be able to go to the signing herself, at the Public Library,
but will if she feels up to it. And both authors and other friends will
be there.
Wishing
you all best,
Uncle
River
P.
O. Box 747
Pie
Town, NM 87827
U.
S. A.
LETTER: 2009: 1
Jan.
8, 2009
Dear
R. K.,
The
world continues to struggle. And at dusk, just a little while ago, I
watched a herd of deer that has been passing through often lately. Some
of them were playing, chasing each other around some trees.
I
suspect, though with some embarrassment, that the whole world is waiting for
Jan. 20, to see if a saner president of the world’s richest, most powerful
nation either will or can improve policies, economic, diplomatic, enough to
make a significant difference.
You
say that the only reason India’s economy has not collapsed is an economist
premier. I long believed that the only thing that kept America’s economy
appearing as stable as so many people wrongly believed it to be was Alan
Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve micromanaging each successive
imbalance, but in the process making continued stability more and more
dependent on himself, a position which, no matter how well and how long it
worked, had in intrinsic limitation. Greenspan himself now acts shocked
at how badly things have fallen apart. Perhaps his surprise is genuine,
even if my opinion was correct. Perhaps he only could make stability so
dependent on himself by failing to realize that was what he was doing.
I’m
not sure what economic collapse would mean, for India or for the United
States. Disruptions be what they may, the U. S. economy thus far
certainly has not collapsed. Compared, say, to Zimbabwe or Somalia, or
even some earlier American economic crises. The worldwide Depression of
the 30s, most notably. But I also think of a saying from the time of the
American War of Independence: “Worthless as a Continental” The
Continental was the paper currency that the then Continental Congress printed.
Despite present stupendous debt, and expectation of more, that has not yet
happened to contemporary American money, most of which is just electronic
numbers these days, not even paper. We’ll see what we see. I hope
not too much in that direction. It would not be good for anyone. At
least in the 1770s, the value, or lack thereof, of American money did not
seriously affect much of the rest of the world.
My
own circumstances, in the meantime, living on about 20 percent of what is
called poverty level in the United States, continue relatively comfortable, by
my standards, and by comparison to quite a few previous years of my adult
life. I have a place to live, plenty of food including carrots, turnips,
parsnips and beets still in the garden under a foot of straw mulch and patches
of snow, which I harvest as wanted, good water, plenty of firewood and the
health to chop it. By contemporary American standards, I am very
marginal. By contemporary world standards and most of human history, I
can only wonder at my own society’s assumptions, and consequences when so many,
mostly well-intended people have such assumptions.
Summer’s
health…It was good to see her while I was in Silver City. And her health
is relatively stable. But she was not having a health crisis. She
has emphysema, a chronic deterioration of the lungs. She may be with us
some substantial time longer; I hope so. One never knows for any of
us. But it is not a question of an acute illness and recovery. She
is quite physically limited now, needing to be on oxygen a lot of the time, and
also weakened just by not being able to do more. Yet her creative spark
certainly does continue and continue to grow.
And
I am sorry to hear of your father’s health problem.
I
hope you and your wife had a very fine visit with your son and indeed did get
to hold your grandson in your arms and feel his breath, and that your daughter
was able to join you for your birthday on Dec. 31, and a visit.
I
had a birthday in December too, on the 12th. My 61st,
by American reckoning. I was born Dec. 12, 1947. Am I correct that
it is customary in India to account one’s birth as the first birthday? In
the U. S., and the West generally so far as I know, the birthday at the end of
one’s first year of life is called the first, when one is a year old.
Thus, if I do correctly understand the Indian method of counting, there is a
year difference in ages of people calling themselves the same age in India and
the West.
I
think my novella: Camp Desolation And An Eschatology of Salt, is nearly
ready to go to press. And the story collection: Counting Tadpoles,
is supposed to come out just a few months later.
I
seem to be writing a new story. If so, it will be my first in a
year. It has been so long that I feel unsure. Also the material
itself is on a subject that tends to pull apart. People making
assumptions, jumping to conclusions, acting without sensible
consideration. All too common human behavior, and I think that current
tensions and the pace and distraction, notably including electronic media, of
contemporary life only increases the tendency. Which is a lot of why I
feel inclined to portray it. But we’ll see if I can do so and hold the
story itself together. It has been coming daily lately thus far.
My
involvement with the volunteer fire and ambulance services continues. But
we have had mercifully few calls since my return from Silver City. It is
a service I am pleased to be able to offer though, at this time in my life and
while and to the degree that I can.
A
quiet evening now. By comparison to the environment of much of the
world’s population, I suspect extraordinarily quiet, for which I am
grateful. I see Venus out my window, with full dark, higher than I
realized Venus could be; I mistook it for Jupiter the first few nights I saw it
so high.
I
hope this finds you and yours well.
All
best,
River
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