[FRIAM] Guns, Police abuses and Foodstuffs in 'Murrica today.

[Steve Smith]

J-

I definitely agree we have a gun problem... and the recent reports of 
"travel warnings" to some of our states (Red ones in particular) 
emphasizes that.   Many of us are somewhat innured to the presence of 
guns and have a fair to good sense of when/where/how they are a bigger 
problem than not, but that said, we do have a gun/bullet/shooter problem 
and I don't mind acknowledging that anyone not already used to our 
nonsense in this regard is wise to avoid us.  I doubt anyone has a worse 
record of shooting ourselves and one another up than we do... though 
each demographic and region has a different way of doing it.  Mary and I 
each grew up with at least one person known to have been involved 
(victim or perpetrator) in a family murder-suicide (rejected husband 
shoots wife, kids, self) so yeh... we are deplorable and we use guns to 
demonstrate it.  Maybe Russia or other eastern-block countries suck like 
we do too?  I don't know.. the relative poverty probably keeps the 
number of guns and volumes of ammunition down?  Our "gun shows" are 
extravagant/opulent affairs with parking lots full of $60k 4x4 diesel 
crew-cab trucks even if the bumper stickers and casual conversations 
overheard would have you thinking the folks there buying/selling were 
suffering some kind of harsh recession...

And police abuse of power (including fatal encounters) is it's own 
problem somewhat orthogonal (but not entirely) to our gun violence 
problem.   I prefer/enjoy European detective shows because for the most 
part even when police are armed their first instinct/action is NOT to 
pull a gun and threaten/shoot first. Ohio is on the red side of purple 
but not deep red like many of our Western and Southern states.  And 
major metropolitan areas (red and blue) have gang violence which almost 
by definition includes guns.

I agree that our "average" (restaurant) food is in fact pretty 
weak...without even mentioning "fast food".  We have plenty of 
healthy/good food options IMO but it requires some work to find and 
usually comes at a premium.  The areas we recently traveled through were 
definitely a "food desert/swamp" for the most part. I appreciated the 
food we experienced in France and Belgium and Germany and Netherlands 
(not so much England/Ireland) and suspect that the "average" food was 
maybe healthier than our "average" but I didn't feel that there was that 
big of a difference, but then we eat vegetarian and fresh food where 
possible so maybe there is less difference there?  Or maybe I just don't 
know "really good food".  When eating out we lean toward Indian and Thai 
and Vietnamese but I wouldn't know authentic from otherwise there... My 
daughter is a fitness/nutritionist coach in Denver and has some pretty 
strict ideas of what "healthy" food is (they are carnivores so that 
expands the range of issues and options)...  I do get the feeling that 
European food regulations are much stricter (or more clear, less muddled 
by industry lobbies?) and I for one am thankful for your leadership in 
that area.  I suspect that 99% of the vast swaths of agriculture I just 
drove through is heavily GMO and heavily chemically managed...  I'll add 
a footnote that despite collecting a LOT of bugs on the hood and mirrors 
of our vehicle it was a fraction of what I remember from the "old days" 
We are very much in new "silent spring", though I felt the same was 
afoot in Northern Europe when we were there in 2022... not nearly as 
many birds and insects as I'd expect?

When I was in NZ in 2000 they had just transitioned from "virtually 
nothing but boiled meat with boiled starch" options to a range of "asian 
fusion" options which I really enjoyed.... but was quite excited to have 
some good New Mexico Green Chile when we returned after a month!  We 
felt the same returning from EU in 2022 and the midwest just now...  but 
it is generally agreed that Green Chile is addictive (in the same ways 
as many chile/curries might be in Asian cuisine?)

- S

On 9/3/23 4:14 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> Well, I still believe there is a gun problem in the United States, 
> yes. Definitely. Just recently a police officer fatally shot a 
> pregnant Black woman in the parking lot of a grocery store in Ohio 
> after she refused to exit her car. And Ohio is not even a red state, 
> right? It is also well known that the US has substantially more mass 
> shootings than other countries. This is one reason why I do not want 
> to travel to the USA at the moment - South Africa also does not feel 
> safe to me after various reports in the last months about missing 
> tourists.
>
> The other is the lack of good food. In Europe and Asia there is such a 
> variety of good restaurants and healthy food. In Germany and Great 
> Britain not so much, except in the larger cities, but in the 
> Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy, Greece and Israel the food 
> is awesome. In South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan as well.
>
> -J.
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
> Date: 9/3/23 8:59 PM (GMT+01:00)
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Science Fiction Books
>
> Jochen -
>
> I thought of you more than few times on my long walkabout through 
> Red/Purple-state 'murrica...  mostly your concerns a year or two ago 
> about traveling to the US "because gun violence".   I was in the heart 
> of "gun country" through this trip and saw a few artifacts of that 
> which would naturally be *very* disturbing (methinks) to someone not 
> already innured to it... but not nearly as many as you might expect.  
> On the other hand I just saw a news item that Canada and many other 
> first-world countries have in place "travel warnings" for not the US 
> proper, but many of the more egregious "red states".   I believe you 
> may have already made your 'murrican sojourn so the point may be 
> moot... but I couldn't help thinking "how would Jochen see this?" as I 
> stumbled through a landscape of bison, hay bales, corn fields, 
> motorcycles, strip malls, and gun shows.
>
>> I have read "Highway of Eternity" from Clifford D. Simak this 
>> weekend, one of the books from the golden age of science fiction 
>> which is comparable to "The city and the Stars" from Arthur C. Clarke 
>> and "The end of eternity" from Isaac Asimov. Both belong to my 
>> favorite books. Modern authors don't write like this anymore. Their 
>> books are often gloomy and depressive, and do not span millions of 
>> years. What is your favorite science fiction book? Will the AI 
>> breakthrough in large language models lead to more optimistic science 
>> fiction books again?
>
> Back on topic:  I grew up on a lot of "Golden Age" works/authors which 
> includes Simak/Clarke/Asimov of course.   I would claim that this time 
> was naturally one of "Utopianism" that came with the rapid development 
> of industry/technology/science.  I think the Dystopianism ramped up 
> with PostModernism and Cyberpunk.   I'm a big fan of Cyberpunk (esp.. 
> Gibson/Sterling/Stephenson/Cadigan/etc.) and *some* post-Apocalyptic 
> works... now almost exclusively "CliFi" (Climate Fiction), but I get 
> your yearning for "the good ole days".   I'd say Elon Musk grew up on 
> "too much Utopian SF" as well and (unlike me) hasn't outgrown it?
>
> My *favorite* golden-age author is Jack Williamson 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Williamson> who I've mentioned 
> here before and had the distinction of being somewhat elder when he 
> published his first work at age 20 (1928) in Hugo Gernsback's 
> first-of-kind Amazing Stories (1926).   I feel like he hit his stride 
> after WWII where he had been a (civilian, not military due to age) 
> Weatherman in the Pacific and reacted to a dawning self-awareness of 
> the flip side of techno-Utopianism (exemplified by 
> Hiroshima/Nagasaki)...   His (re)entry into publication after a long 
> hiatus (during/after WWII) was With Folded Hands 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands>, a reflective 
> dystopian view of techno-utopianism as well as work presaging Asimov's 
> Robot series as well as a plethora of concepts like 
> Borg/Cylon/Replicant/Terminators/Cybermen/Sentinels, etc... and of 
> course all of this was preceded by Lem's Trurl and Klapaucius 
> (wizard-robot constructors) and the Hebrew Golem (and Frankenstein's 
> Monster and... and and.)  He wrote over 50 novels ultimately in his 98 
> year long life as well as myriad short stories, novellas and a 3 year 
> run of a comic strip (early 50s)... He also penned a reflective 
> autobiography late in life (70s) but with nearly 20 years worth of 
> career following that!  He taught writing at Eastern NM University 
> well into his 90s as well.
>
> For the most part I'm thankful to be beyond the flat-character 
> cardboard-cutout, misogynistic, stoicly independent/capable 
> (white-male) hero-worship classic SF tropes but I hear your interest 
> in more positive grand narratives that the Golden Age also carried.  
> For the seminal Epoch-spanning humanity I offer Olaf Stapledon's "Last 
> and First Men" (1930) and "Starmaker" (1933).  The former spans 2 
> billion years and 18 human species...
>
> Robert Heinlein is the avowed Master of Human Chauvanistic 
> technoUtopian/Libertarian fantasies which even satisfies some of us 
> reformed/anti-Libertarians sometimes.   Many of his more minor novels 
> are a fun romp in near-future techno-utopianism (e.g. Moon is a Harsh 
> Mistress) as well as epoch and dimensional spanning works such as 
> /Time Enough for Love /and /Job/ (respectively). /Stranger in a 
> Strange Land/ stood up well next to Herbert's /Dune/ in the 60s to 
> satisfy Hippies and non-Hippies alike.
>
> Larry Niven's /Ringworld /series are pretty 
> far-flung/futuristic/optimistic epochal.  He does post-Apocalyptic 
> well too (e.g. /FootFall/, /Mote in God's Eye/)
>
> I did enjoy Simak's work "back in the day" and his 1968 "So Bright the 
> Vision" gestured toward what ChatGPT is today.
>
> A.E. Van Vogt offers some great classics as well... /The Worlds of 
> Null A /and /Weapons Shops of Isher/ stand out.
>
> Poul Anderson simultaneously created/celebrated and lampooned the 
> canonical pulp hero with his Nicholas van Rijn characters in a series 
> of works and his /PsychoTechnic League/ is a Future History to rival 
> Asimov's /Foundation/ series.
>
> I know you asked for "_*A*_ favorite" but I'm not so good at narrowing 
> such things down...  hope you made it through my romp of 
> recommendations and at least one is useful!   If you lived closer 
> (same continent?) I would bequeath you a few boxes of pulp from that 
> era <grin>...
>
> - Steve
>
>
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