REGARDING POPULATION AND OVERSIZE POLITICAL SWAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Those suspicious of small-state influence in the early stages of the American presidential race should also be alarmed by the disproportionate clout of the biggest states in the final count. I’m talking about the Electoral College, which has – even in modern times – given the presidency to the second-place winner in the popular vote, possibly even played into fraudulent results. Think of the George W. Bush “victories,” for starters.

For a starker perspective, consider that it’s theoretically possible for a tad over 25 percent of the American voters to elect a president. All it takes is 50 percent of the ballots, plus one vote, in each of the 11 states that hold 50 percent of the Electoral Votes. Yes, that’s 11 states in total: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Jersey.

The only thing that’s spared us so far is that these states haven’t lined up together and seem unlikely to so in the near future. But I still find the possibility scary.

A MILL RACE FOR SURVIVAL OR ELSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Water-powered mills, once the backbone of American industrial might, run as an emblem throughout Big Inca versus a New Pony Express Rider. The novel overlaps layers of history and ambition, geography and resettled ethnicity, growth and decay as they center in the once bustling town of yrubBury, where Bill is dispatched fresh out of college.

His mission is vague, misty, constantly shifting – and highly lucrative – even when he has no clue where it’s going. His coded messages to and from his boss in corporate HQ are his lifeline to the outside world.

It’s exciting, of course, to see preservation take shape. As what’s old becomes new again when his international conglomerate starts recasting a backwater town for its own ends, however clandestine. As we discover, behind the renovation of the decaying mills is a design for an isolated facility for a military-industrial behemoth.

At the heart of it all, Bill’s a solitary innocent puppet at the bidding of a distant boss pulling the strings from afar – a station agent out on the frontier. And then, running frantically along it.

Will he survive? And what of the mills?

Everything depends on the confrontation with the rival Big Inca.

Inca 1

~*~

The novel is available here.

A DANDY TEST MARKET

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to launching a product, smart companies have long relied on test markets – small metropolitan areas where they can experiment with their advertising and sample consumer response before taking their new line national or global. They’ve learned it’s better than risking everything only to fall flat at the end of years of research and development.

In the political arena, New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary comes as close as we can to a test market for the candidates. Regardless of the state’s demographics, the reality remains: if you can’t win here – or finish toward the top – you’re not going to win much of the rest of the country. It’s the values that resonate.

The state is small enough the candidates can get out and meet people without having to have an enormous treasury. An advertising budget can be focused on a relative handful of newspapers and broadcasters, plus all the yard signs and buttons.

South Carolina, while small, is also nasty – and falls far to the right of the rest of the nation. Iowa, another early contender, is huge by comparison and requires much more media investment. Delaware is simply too small and unrepresentative. Any other other nicely contained possibilities? I’d like to know.

The other part of the New Hampshire tradition that’s often overlooked is that the election has legs – it originated as part of the annual town meeting day in March. As long as folks were out to do their exercise in democracy, they could also cast their votes for their party’s nominee. Besides, we didn’t have to pay to heat the town hall again. (You know that penny-pinching characteristic of our state.)

Too bad we can’t hold it all back to March, though. Christmas is way too early for this decision.

ADULTS-ONLY DISHES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 7 Comments

Think of a food a child in your life refuses to eat. Or glance back to your own childhood. Something you, as an adult, now find heavenly as you anticipate that first bite.

I’ve long held a theory that there are certain items that should be made adults-only, you kiddies keep your hands away.

We could begin with asparagus, Brussels sprouts, clams and mussels. Coffee, beer, and wine are no-brainers. Maybe even lobster or lamb or Swiss cheese or spinach or salmon.

What would you add to that list?

EVERYDAY BEAUTIES, IN RETROSPECT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

After recently coming across some now-historic Playboy centerfold playmates online – models we adolescent boys worshiped – I was struck by how average they were in retrospect. Not surgically enhanced nor abnormally thin waists nor even fashionably tall, as we’ve come to expect. Even their hair looked like the girls we knew – or dreamed of knowing.

Looking back, let me say it was the smile, more than anything, that got us.

And then, in the midst of the sexual revolution of the hippie era came a feminist rejection of Hugh Hefner’s free-love philosophy, even as events pushed far beyond his now pathetically comic hedonism. Quite simply, he went one way and we went another.

Yes, the glossy periodical was a rich patron for short-story writers and novelists, interviewers, and cartoonists, no matter the reality they were window dressing all along. Still, in many ways, Playboy appeared as a hip rival to the more staid New Yorker. For a while, it was even Chicago versus Manhattan in the realm of publishing.

And then Penthouse and Hustler attacked Hefner’s little empire from the other side of the respectability divide.

Oh, how long ago that all seems!

These days I’m reflecting on the magazine’s admission it can no longer compete with the nudity that’s readily available online for free and its decision to go more respectable, as Esquire did decades earlier. No more centerfold? Wasn’t that the magazine’s identity? What else has been stripped away?

In light of today’s world of publishing, let me say, Best wishes!

Especially considering Tinder and the rest of the new social-media lifestyle.