It's time, right?

Let us review. We've had a "terrorist" attack. We've seen inane and endless coverage of said attack. We closed down a whole city, populated it with SWAT officers and shot the hell out of a couple of guys. And all the while, we watched it live on the teevee. There have been conspiracy theories galore. (Here's one link among many.) And now we're playing the "shall we torture him" and the "where shall we try him" games -- both hugely popular. (Note: I wrote this yesterday. Since then, the gov't has charged him.)

Heck, there are even a couple of ricin letters in the mix. Bonus -- the letters were allegedly sent by an Elvis impersonator. (Ah, America. You have to love the addition of the Elvis impersonator element. Such a thing could only happen here.) And as all this occurs, a report comes out confirming that the United States engaged in torture after 9/11 -- torture that was approved by Bush et al. To be clear, torture is an internationally recognized war crime that requires prosecution.

The only thing missing from the American drama right now is an attack on the wrong country. It's coming, right? I mean, we've seen this show; we know the story line. It's time to launch the next war. USA! USA! USA!

The only question is which wrong country to attack. It's a target-rich smorgasbord out there!

OD'ing on the Boston Marathon coverage

Big events drive me underground. I find it painful to watch our country's chicken-without-a-head media do its thing. Better to slip under and resurface later on. I peeked out today to see what's up. Sigh. Same thing.

Luckily, I can write fiction to keep me occupied. Dang, but it's a great hobby. You can even do it in prison! As long as you can get your hands on paper and a pen, you're good to go.

This week I've been working on a new short story. (Still haven't gone back to writing the novel; soon, very soon.) The focus of the new story is the hive mind. It's an impressive structure, even if we can't see it or understand it.

There was a short-lived series on the Science Channel that featured mathematics. One of the things they focused on was the hive mind. They asked a couple of hundred people (I'm not sure how many; a big bunch) how many beans there were in a jar, and recorded all their answers. When they totaled all the answers and averaged them, the result was something like ten beans away from the correct answer.

There's something there, something awesomely powerful that can do things our individual minds can't. It's the hive mind. Well, I've come up with a great story idea based on this concept. And writing that story is how I've survived this bombing episode.

How did you get through the week?