Loose Ends

• The butler did it.
• I've been following another kerfuffle for the last week or so, which has eaten considerable time and necessitated Fleetwood Mac and Billie Holliday vids, with occasional Robin Williams.  Since I have no intention of writing about it directly (cue gagging), let me just repeat (from almost exactly 6 years ago!) that thing of Theodore Sturgeon's from the introduction to The Stars Are the Styx:

  "He [Horace Gold, editor of Galaxy] said, 'Well, I'll tell you what to do. Write me a story about a guy who goes to the bus station to pick up his wife; she's been away for the weekend. And the bus comes in and the place is suddenly full of people. And across the crowd he sees his wife, talking avidly to a young man. ... She walks across, meets her husband, gives him a kiss hello.
  
  'Write me that, Sturgeon, and everybody in the country will know how you feel about that meathead senator!'
  
  ... It was this: that if you have real convictions...it's going to come through, no matter what you're writing about."

  This is where I have to explain that I don't look for political messages in my fiction and consequently only notice them when they're fairly blatant.  And blatant political messages in my fiction mean the fiction gets disregarded and probably disposed of, unless I got it from a library.
  
• Medical marijuana is effective against certain brain tumors, but the Feds will still bust you.
• Annual (somewhat) comment policy declaration:  After about ten days, comments go to moderation.  I do check once or twice a day, which is how I found 5 (!) spam messages in one day.  Spam and trolls will be raygunned.