Recent Reading: Storyteller

I've been reading Kate Wilhelm's Storyteller (Small Beer Press, 2005, $16.00 tpb), a combination memoir of the 27 years she and Damon Knight were guest writers/teachers at the Clarion workshops and a guide to writing well (in a both literary and professional manner).

Overall, this is a very nice book. It's short, less than 200 pages. The memoir portions are entertaining and historically informative. The suggestions and guidelines on writing are succinct and sensible.

A few things stuck out at me:

1) One of the writing exercises she suggests is to take a completed manuscript and cover up everything on a page except a single sentence, one sentence at a time, and examine the sentence in isolation, out of context with the rest of the manuscript. Does the sentence say exactly what you wanted it to say, does it say what it needs to say?

This is, literally, a way to line-edit a story. The thought struck me that it shouldn't be too difficult (he said, with the benefit of ignorance and inexperience) to develop a short program or wordprocessing macro that could extract one sentence at a time, display it in a separate window, allow it to be revised there, and then put back into the manuscript, replacing the original sentence.

2) Wilhelm says, at different points in the book, "Think of the worst incident in your life, and use it", and quotes Alfed North Whitehead: "Art is the imposition of pattern on experience." I think those two go together well. I've tried at various points to use real experiences in my life as the basis for stories. It's very difficult (and mostly unsuccessful); sometimes (usually) that "imposition of pattern" requires major revision and simplification of those messy, complex emotions and interactions to suit the purpose of writing a properly structured story.

And sometimes you find yourself writing about your life unconsciously, in a thematic rather than specific way, and only recognize the influences after the fact. There was a story I wrote about ten years ago, where I was going over the finished manuscript, and read over one character's physical description, and how that character acted in the story, and realized with a start, "Oh crap, it's Alan Bostick!" (I sold the story anyway.)

An Open Letter To "Bob Woodward"

Dear "Mr. Woodward",

Who are you, and what have you done with the real Bob Woodward?

Sincerely,
Bruce Arthurs

Link-Fest

Dr. William Frey, on republicansforhumility.com, has written "Confessions of A Repentant Republican", a long but thoroughly-reasoned essay on his disillusionment with the Bush/Republican administration and policies. Worth the reading time.

Hell has officially frozen over. Arizona Congressman and Bush-team-waterboy J.D. Hayworth stated on the Don Imus show that he would NOT want George Bush to campaign for him in a re-election campaign.

Weirdness. News article on "Rogue Taxidermy". And the website for the Minnesota Association for Rogue Taxidermy.

Our neighbor Anne, who writes online as "Talpianna", has started a blog of her own, Fluffy Cat Babylon, focusing on her cats. "Life In A Cat House" is particularly amusing. (Now if only she'd start a blog about books and writing....)

Several months ago, Molly of My Madeleine blog (about food, cooking,and her goal to work in the food industry) was struck by a car. Besides other injuries, she suffered a fractured skull and brain bruising that resulted in the loss of her senses of smell and taste. They've been slowly returning, and in her latest post, "Salsa, Rosemary, and James Bond", she writes evocatively of the sensation and feeling of regaining lost skills.

Update 11/13/05: Some non-working links fixed. (Thanks, Tal.)

Still Missed

In one of my filing cabinets is a file marked "Unpublished/Unpublishable". It contains material I've written over the years that, for one reason or another (too personal, too angry, too et cetera), I've chosen not to put in print.

What follows is something I wrote in November of 1980. At the time, I decided it was too personal, and that it probably said more about me than about the person I was writing about.

After twenty-five years, though... perhaps it's time:

Hilde, my wife, spoke the words to me when she came back from a shopping trip with Paul Schauble, who had spoken the words to her. These are the words that I heard:

"It's not Wednesday."

In 1975, July, I was attending the Westercon in San Francisco. It was the first major convention I had been to since being discharged from the Army and returning home to the West from the East Coast. I was at a room party, sitting off on one corner of a bed, alone and feeling uncomfortable in a group of people most of whom I did not know or knew only through fanzines and did not know how to start a face-to-face conversation with.

A young lady entered the room, and spoke with some of the other people in the room. She sat down on the bed, read my nametag, and began talking to me about my fanzine.

She began talking to me. It was as if I was an interesting person, which I did not believe myself. I talked clumsily back, in my low, semi-audible voice, and she did not seem to be bored. She did not seem to be bored, and I found that hard to believe. It was not a long conversation by some people's standards, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, but by my own standards it was an immense stretch. We talked about my fanzine, how I felt about it, about what I had been doing since leaving the Army, about me. And she seemed to care, and she seemed to like me, and not once during that conversation did she glance around to look at anyone else's nametag, to find someone more interesting to talk with. (I broke the conversation off; as I said, by my standards, it was immensely long and I was suffering from... shock?... and I did not know how to cope with it at all.)

We never really saw each other very much. A few minutes talking at the Westercon two years later in Vancouver, some scatteed "Hi's" at another convention or two. We traded fanzines, though, and I felt I knew her from those. And I looked forward to each ccasional issue of her life, and I remembered the kindness she had shown to me at that Westercon in 1975, and I think I can say that I loved her.

It was not a mad, passionate type of love, although I suppose that if I had lived closer and seen her more often, I might have been goofy and foolish enough to succumb to that goofy and foolish madness. But it was more than what I felt towards most people in fandom, where the term "friend" is mistakenly applied to so many acquaintances. But she already had so many friends, who felt towards her as I did, and I never mentioned my feelings to her in the occasional letter I sent. And had I known that she would at last need a friend, any friend, I would have moved heaven and earth to have been there.

"It's not Wednesday."

Those are the words I heard Hilde speak. They were not the words she had said. Something, between my ear and my brain, had altered them, rejected the true words as unacceptable. Hilde repeated the words:

"Susan Wood is dead."

I wish it was Wednesday.

Tightwad-At-Large

I'm cheap. I like to save money. I like to get bargains.

I also like books. So does Hilde, but usually totally different books and writers than the ones I like. Which means we tend to buy lots of books. Lots and lots of books.

I've been a member of two book clubs for years: Science Fiction Book Club and Quality Paperback Book Club. I keep a wish list on each website, and try and wait for a special offer (like free shipping) before making an order.

The SFBC just offered such a special deal, buy 2 books and get a 3rd book free, said deal available for a limited time. Okay, I think, time to go through the wishlist and make an order.

But I decide to take a quick look at QPB's website first, and I realize something that should have been obvious a long time ago.

QPB has a standing deal, where you order your most expensive book at the full club price, and subsequent books cost 50% of the club price. (There's a limit -- ten books -- you can order at a time under this deal.) Buy one at full price, and up to nine books more at half price.

As it happens, both QPB and SFBC are the handsome children of the same parent (Doubleday), along with a few other book clubs. What this means is that most of the books for both clubs come out of the same warehouses.

And what that means is that if I order SFBC's offerings through the QPB website, I receive the same 50% discount as if they were part of QPB's regular selections. (The SFBC books don't earn the "bonus points" that you can accumulate on QPB offerings and occasionally trade in for free books, but that's not that big a deal.)

A substantially better deal than the "buy 2, get 1 free" offer. Which means that in a week or two, I'll be getting a big box of hardcovers and trade pbs at essentially paperback prices.

(Although... I must admit... I sort of feel like I just mugged Ellen Asher and swiped the SFBC payroll.)

This Explains A Lot. No, Really.

From The Guardian, an article on "Sick Worker Syndrome":

RSI may cause sick worker syndrome

Alok Jha, science correspondent
Wednesday October 26, 2005
The Guardian

...scientists say the nerve damage caused by repetitive motion could be a cause of "sick worker" syndrome and such symptoms as poor performance, fatigue and depression.

Ann Barr and Mary Barbe of the College of Health Professions at Temple University in Philadelphia studied the early changes in nerves caused by repetitive activities. They found the injuries are caused by the action of proteins called cytokines, which help start the inflammation. The proteins appeared in rat models of RSI within three weeks.

As the injury progressed, more cytokines were produced at the inflammation site. The researchers found unexpected links between the production of cytokines and the rats' psychosocial responses. "At three weeks, even before the rats experienced pain from their wrist injuries, we watched them self-regulate their work behaviour," Dr Barr said. "With inflammatory proteins in the bloodstream, they began to slack off." After five to eight weeks, many of the rats curled up and slept between tasks.

The researchers said people who took days off work owing to undefined symptoms or slowed down their work rate may be suffering from the effects of the raised cytokine levels. A low-grade depression may also set in. As the proteins appear soon after nerve damage first happens, when actual pain is rare, many people might not make the connection between the "off" feeling and possible RSI. It could take months before the nerve damage is bad enough to be noticed.

Dr Barbe said: "Cytokines are self-protective. This undefined feeling of malaise may be telling the body to take some time off to heal, before things get worse."

As I've mentioned before, my job with the Postal Service has in recent months entailed a lot of overtime work. A lot. One of the reasons for this is that the current bosses in charge seem to be of the school of management that it's cheaper to work current employees longer hours at overtime rates than it is to hire new employees and pay them regular rates plus benefits. (Yes, working for USPS still has benefits like retirement and health isurance, much as the idea makes upper management gnash their teeth and rend their sackcloth.)

The overtime has been across the board, affecting almost all employees. (There are some who are on restricted hours/duties because of previous injuries or health problems.)

What has also happened across the board has been an increase in the number of sick calls, of people begging off work. Before all the overtime started, out of a workforce of approximately a hundred carriers at the station, there'd usually be three, four, maybe five people calling in sick. Since the overtime has grown by leaps and bounds in recent months, the sick calls have grown apace; it's not unusual anymore to have eight or nine people (once, thirteen) call in sick.

With more sick calls, the overtime problem grows even worse. With that many more delivery routes not manned, the people who have shown up for work have to work even longer hours. Management doesn't like paying time-and-a-half for overtime, even if they think it's cheaper in the long run than hiring more employees. They like it even less when employees work past ten hours in a day; after that point, employees start earning double-pay. And a lot of carriers have been working past the ten-hour mark.

And delivering the mail entails a lot of repetitive work: Sorting mail in the mornings, and delivering it the rest of the day.

The cytokine findings in the study noted above certainly seem to explain a lot of the increase in sick calls. Long hours, much of it in repetitive tasks, for days on end, and surprise, a lot of the workers feel like crap. And some of them finally call in sick, because they feel just plain friggin' worn out. (While a lot of others -- like, say, me -- will continue to report to work, and drag themselves through each day, even when they feel like crap too.)

The obvious solution would seem, duh, to hire more employees to try to eliminate/minimize overtime and the excessive sick calls that seem to result. But, as noted, this is a solution upper management doesn't seem willing to entertain at this time.

(And a lot of employees appreciate the overtime money. As I noted in an earlier post, my overtime money is largely going for debt reduction purposes, and should leave me debt-and-mortgage-free and able to retire in about four years. Without the overtime, I'd probably have to continue working several additional years before I could retire. But those extra hours spent working are hours that can't be spent with your home, your family, your life. And that gets to be a major, major drag sometimes.)

Recent Reading: Playboy 50 Years The Cartoons

Playboy 50 Years The Cartoons, intro by Hugh Hefner, Chronicle Books, 2004

I just read it for the captions, honest.

Like science fiction, the Golden Age of PLAYBOY is, I think, thirteen. That was about the age at which I started sneaking looks at the issues in the house.

(Now where did those issues come from? Did my Dad have a subscription? I suppose he must have, but I don't remember him ever looking at them. Perhaps the Naked Women Fairy snuck into the house at night and left copies in the bathroom. The Naked Women Fairy must have been kept very busy, because back them it seemed like everyone's bathroom had an issue or several of PLAYBOY. So busy, in fact, that it was years, dammit, before he got around to leaving an actual naked woman in my bed.)

Of course I looked at the centerfolds and other photos. (And yeah, I actually read some of the articles and fiction they printed too. Ian Fleming, Jean Shepherd, Damon Knight; they published some damn good writers.) And I looked at the cartoons.

Some of the cartoons in this collection are ones I remember seeing back in the 60's. The collection reprints a selection from the 50's to the 00's.

From the perspective of forty years later, I'm struck by the similarity in reaction to the cartoons between my thirteen year-old self and my current self. And that reaction is...

...that the cartoons are curiously sexless.

When I was thirteen, with the first stirrings of sexual curiousity, it was largely a matter of not having a context to judge or react to the cartoons. I was so ignorant about sex, women, men & women, social interactions, and the whole game of people that many of the situations depicted in the cartons might as well have been in heiroglyphics. I had a curiousity, and a certainty that there was something being referred to, but it was something that, at that age, I didn't understand.

(It's difficult to communicate, today, in an age where so much information is so available at such an earlier age about sex and sexuality, just how deprived the information-environment about sex was back in the 1960's for young people. Trying to figure out what sex is about, and how it's done, from centerfolds and cartoons -- trust me on this -- is not a great learning method. One usually didn't start to get a handle on the subject until you were old enough to start actually dating and funbling around in the back seats of cars.)

("Well, that explains a lot, Bruce.") (Yes, it does.)

Forty-plus years later, with a bit of experience and some understanding of how the game of people works, I look at the cartoons and find them... innocent. Particularly from the earlier years, they're sorta... goofy, with odd underlying assumptions that it's difficult to fully accept anymore. (The sight of a naked breast will throw men into a state of fascinated paralysis, all social situations have seduction as their end goal, etc.)

I find myself amused by a number of them. Some because they're still funny, others because they've become old-fashioned and quaint. Others leave me without reaction. A few... surprisingly few... strike me as puerile and annoying.

I don't think I can recommend this purely as a cartoon collection. But as a historical document, flashes into the evolution of an important magazine and the changes in social mores and attitudes, it's pretty interesting.

(I've been referring here to the sexually-themed cartoons in the collection. There are a number of non-sexual cartoons as well, by Gahan Wilson and others, which overall stand up much better to age.) (Except for the politcal cartoons, which haven't aged all that well, I thought.)

End The Slump? End The Shame!

The US Army has announced some plans to try and increase recruitment. This comes about because of a continued failure to meet recruiting goals.

Methods include: Increase enlistment bonuses. Increase the number of recruiters. Target people who've already begun college, but might "want a break" from schooling. Target high-school age kids who are being home-schooled.

This sounds to me like deep denial. It sounds to me like the military still doesn't want to admit (or isn't being allowed to admit) the root causes for the slump in recruitment.

Some people join the military becauses of bonuses, training and such, yeh. But a lot of -- I think most -- recruits join the military because they really do want to contribute to their country, they really do want to be one of the "Good Guys" helping defend their own country and going after Bad Guys in other countries.

When I joined the Army in 1972, some of my reasons were personal. (Yeh, I really did want a break from college, because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do there anymore; and I wanted to get out on my own, away from my parents, as well; it was also the tail-end of the American involvement in Vietnam, and while I never sought out duty there, my enlisting was also partially a test of my own courage, and whether I was man enough to endure danger [as it turned out, I spent my entire enlistment Stateside, probably a good thing; in retrospect, I would probably have sucked in a combat role])

But I also joined because I wanted to be a good citizen, because I thought the USA was a great nation, because I wanted to contribute to continuing that greatness. And serving in the military was a traditional and honorable way to serve.

That honor isn't there anymore.

People can still argue that invading Iraq was worthwhile. They can still argue that progress of some kind is being made there. I think they're wrong, but the argument can be conducted, even if not concluded.

But the torture... the torture is indefensible.

And the military has acquiesced to the Bush administration's approval of, endorsement of, encouragement of, torture. They enable it, they commit it, they fail to object to it.

The American military has lost its honor. The American military has shamed itself.

As long as the United States government acts like a rogue state, holding prisoners without charges or trial, and committing torture on those prisoners, with the military's acquiescence and assistance, serving in the military cannot be a source of pride, but only a source of shame.

I think it's as simple as this: Stop the torture, stop the slump.

Bardic Funeral

Hilde and I went to Barry Bard's funeral this morning.

Barry'd been a friend of ours, and of hundreds of other people, for thirty years. He was one of the most well-known, and well-liked, people in local Phoenix' sf and SCA fandoms. He was also well known and appreciated at other Southwestern conventions, particularly Comic-Con, where he was given the Inkblot Award earlier this year.

He could be a grump and a kvetch, but he could also be charming and generous. He was a raconteur who knew everyone, and had stories about most of them.

He was the source for providing most of the posters, cards and buttons on the freebie tables at local conventions. He presented the popular "Barry Bard's Movie Previews" at many conventions, screening trailers and promos for forthcoming films, with commentary that was sometimes as, umm, respectful as the films deserved.

And he was a bookseller. At conventions and SCA events, he'd unload a grey station wagon filled floor to ceiling and side to side with boxes of books, and set up his bookselling tables. And what books! "Eclectic" barely touches the variety of volumes he could display in a limited space. Fiction and non-fiction, books on history, art, crafts of all types, cooking, fashions and costumes, literature, the list went on and on. I probably shopped at Barry's tables close to a hundred times through the years, and I could count the number of times I went away empty-handed on the fingers of one hand. (And usually because of being flat dead broke at those particular times.) And sometimes he'd show up at a party or other social function and say, "Hey, I've got a book here I thought you'd be interested in," and he was usually right.

Barry never had children. (He was married once, but it broke up after a few years.) But I figure that over the years, he probably sold at least a couple of hundred thousand books to people, even though he never had a full-time bookstore or website. To have spread that much knowledge and enjoyment, to so many people, is still a pretty damn good legacy.

A Videogame Question

This is a question that came to mind earlier today:

In the notoriously violent and amoral Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, is it possible for a player to get a job, save money, go to a used car lot, and BUY a car?

Spammers. Why Des It Have To Be Spammers?

*sigh* It looks like the comment spammers have found UNDULANT FEVER. In the last few days, I've had about a half dozen comment spams posted here. (Mostly linking back to weight loss sites, but one referring back to swimming pool chemicals. WTF?)

I've turned on the "word verification" setting to try and keep out the automated spams. This means anyone making a real comment will have to go thru an extra step. Sorry.

Well, it made ME Laugh!

Regular readers of UF may have noticed that from time to time I display a weakness, a slight weakness, for low-brow toilet humor. Sometimes literally.

So: Urinals of Middle-Earth.

You were warned.

Four Gunfights And A Funeral

When most of the household (Hilde, me, Michelle and Caty) went to the Scottsdale Fashion Square mall where the early screening of Serenity was being held, we got there a bit over an hour before the 7:00 PM showing. SFS is a pretty big enclosed shopping mall, and we found that the line of other people who'd gotten passes to the screening went from the top of the escalator just above the theatre entrance over to the side of the mall, all-l-l-l the way down the long side of the mall, back across to the other side of the mall, and halfway back down the other long side.

The chances of getting into the screening looked iffy. And it turned out that the line was cut off about a dozen people short of where Michelle and Caty were. But since Hilde was in her wheelchair, she and I got to go to the head of the line and were actually the first people into the theatre. (Michelle and Caty took the disappointment, and having to wait around for two hours until we came out, with grace and good nature. True, I could have stuffed Michelle's ears with rice and steamed it, but...)

So how was the movie? Slam-bang action, a good story, with amusing/intriguing characters. The "science" of Whedon's frontier planetary system is actually science-fantasy, and takes a deliberate effort for suspending disbelief. Once over that hump, though, it's a heck of a ride.

Pretty impressive, considering that Whedon had to try and achieve four things in writing the script: 1) Continue the story of Mal and the rest of the Serenity crew, to the satisfaction of people who've seen the original series, 2) Make the story self-sufficent and stand-alone enough to satisfy people who've never seen the show or characters before, 3) add new developments that will leave room for future stories in the Serenity universe, if the current movie proves popular enough to call for sequels, and 4) tie up the main plot threads securely enough that if the movie doesn't have further sequels, it will be able to stand as a fitting coda to the Serenity saga.

I thought Whedon did pretty well on three out of the four. Trying to look at the movie as if I'd never seen the series, some of the relationships seem a little vague. This doesn't hurt that much in regard to Shepherd Book, who's always been rather a mystery man, but the relationship and feelings between Mal and Inara felt as if they needed a bit more backstory; I didn't feel that a newcomer to this universe would get a real feel for why Mal and Inara have such an... odd, and mostly unsaid... relationship.

As for the new developments... well, I'm trying to avoid any major spoilers...




...but remember that Whedon's universe is a rough and dangerous place. Things happen in the film that are going to make a lot of the series' fans very unhappy. (On our way out of the theatre, Hilde and I passed by a young man who'd had to sit down on a bench while he cried himself out.)

Oh, and I will mention that we finally get an explanation of why the Reavers have that little attitude problem. (It's not hemmorhoids, after all.)

What NOT To Do (for writers and others)

From 52 Projects, a list of things NOT to do while trying to work on a project.

One of the items listed is "Do not post to your blog." Duhhhhh...

If you're anything like me, reading the list will make you feel s-o-o-o-o guilty...

Recent Reading

Singer of Souls by Adam Stemple, Tor Books, 2005, $22.95

Reformed (but still tempted) heroin-addict Douglas flees Minneapolis, and his still-addicted fellow junkies, to his grandmother's home in Edinburgh, Scotland. His skills as a street musician serve him well during Edinburgh's annual Fringe Festival. Until he encounters a mysterious woman who leaves him with a dubious gift: the Sight, the power to see the fairies, elves, trolls, bogies and other creatures of Faerie whose own Festival overlaps, unseen, with ours. And these Fair Folk are very, very dangerous.

There's a fairly standard plot progression for stories where a young protagonist discovers a secret world behind our own, whether it be aliens, fairies, or Illuminati: Protagonist discovers secret world. Adventures and danger ensues as the protagonist tries to learn more, and he gains both enemies and allies. As the story progresses, the protagonist begins to guide and influence events, rather than reacting to the actions of others. By story's end, the protagonist has gained skills that enable him to take control of the story's situation. Villains are vanquished, wrongs are avenged, happiness ensues.

At first, I thought Stemple was following this plot-path in Douglas' story. But then things began to turn very dark and grim. Douglas' grandmother tells him:

"There's not a Scottish fairy tale that doesn't end without someone getting hanged or burned at the stake or thrown down a well. And the faeries themselves? They're all the wandering spirits of unbaptised children or murdered relatives, and even the good ones will turn on you in a second if you break one of their unwritten rules."

I think that's called foreshadowing. Brutal and explicit violence takes place, sympathetic characters die, and apparent friends prove false.

But still the reader hopes that the villains will be vanquished, wrongs avenged, and happiness achieved.

And villains are vanquished. Wrongs are avenged. The story's protagonist discovers his unsuspected strength and power.

*spoiler warning*

But at a cost. Because Douglas' choices, though they vanquish villains and avenge wrongs, are the wrong choices. He yields to his inner weaknesses, and at story's end he is addicted again. Not to heroin, but to something even worse.

Thinking about the book's ending, I realized that Stemple never intended to write a standard adventure fantasy. What he has written is a genuine tragedy.

Stemple's prose flows smoothly and colorfully. And there is a lovely (of course) cover by Charles Vess.

Various Links

Some stuff I've been meaning to post links to:

For the SCA family that has everything else: The Gothic Commode Seat

From Edmund Scientifics' website, the world's coolest ant farm

The Graceful Envelope Contest is a yearly joint project between the National Association of Letter Carriers and the Calligraphers Guild of Washington DC. Entrants decorate an envelope with illustrations and artwork around the year's theme (the letter "P" for 2005). The decorated envelopes are then sent "as is" through the mail to the Calligraphers Guild. Some of the entries are absolutely lovely. Here is the link for the 2005 Graceful Envelope Contest Winners.

And, if you haven't read it already, John Scalzi's "Being Poor" essay should be required reading. I'd like to see this made into a wall poster, and posted in every office of everyone who deals with the underprivileged.

Quote of the Day

From Avedon Carol:

"The fact is that, for whatever reason, Fidel Castro was more ready to save American lives than George Bush was."

History Via The Blues

From papersky (with thanks to Making Light for the link), Jo Walton provides:

New Orleans Talking Blues

When levees are flooded and hurricanes roar,
When the waters start seeping up under the door,
You'd expect the escape plans to include the poor
But this isn't that kind of song.

(click the link for the rest...)

A Damn Good Photo

Resourceful 

From a purely photographic viewpoint, this is one of the best I've seen coming out of New Orleans.

The composition is excellent. The horse and rider form the traditional pyramid shape, drawing attention to the flooded fancy car in the upper photo.

It's also a study in contrasts. Horse and rider, coping with the high water, while the fancy car sits useless. The rider's modern-day clothing, particularly the reversed cap, compared to his 19th-Century transportion.

I'm also very struck by the rider's expression: The slow-burning anger on his face. One feels that this anger will be there for a very, very long time.

(Off the topic of photography: I think it's possible that new leaders of Black America may eventually arise from the ruins of New Orleans. And such leaders will probably be angry leaders, who refuse to forget or forgive the indifference shown to them by America's current power structure. A new Malcolm X, perhaps?)

500 Eggs For 60 Guys

From the Times-Picayne website at nola.com:

500 eggs, 60 men in blue

Thursday, 4:25 p.m.

By Eva Jacob Barkoff
Staff writer

NEW IBERIA -- Around 5 a.m. today, Mary Tripeaux received a call that members of a search-and rescue-team from Phoenix, Ariz., were on their way for breakfast at Victor's Cafeteria on Main Street. Soon the crew arrived and filled themselves with coffee, grits, biscuits, bacon, potatoes and sausage -- and more than 500 eggs.

"There are 180 eggs in one case and we went through at least three cases," Tripeaux said. "And by around 9 a.m., we had run out of sausage. They had eaten it all."

After breakfast, about 60 men in blue uniforms from Phoenix's Urban Search and Rescue Team held a meeting under a gazebo across from Victor's to go over final details of their mission. They wouldn't discuss details with a reporter.

The men had arrived in several trucks and two 18-wheelers filled with equipment. Also along were three Labrador retrievers.

"We have a lot of equipment here to try and do what we can to help," one of the men said.

Before leaving for New Orleans, he reflected on breakfast at Victor's and concluded: "That was the best meal we have had in 48 hours."

That's over eight friggin' eggs per man.

Didn't these guys think to, oh, you know, bring their own food and water with them?!! And maybe some extra for the hungry, thirsty refugees in New Orleans?

Five hundred eggs, plus side dishes. Kee-rist, that could have been a decent meal for at least 250 refugees.