Cody Lundin's Self Reliance Symposium

I just returned from a week in the Arizona desert at the Self Reliance Symposium, taught by badass survival guru Cody Lundin.  The course is based on Cody's superb book, "When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes."  (I also highly recommend Cody's excellent, "98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive.")  Cody's motto is, "The More You Know, The Less You Need."  He also likes to say, "Be prepared -- not scared."  Think about both and you'll find they're not just pithy -- they're profound.

Your humble correspondent, arriving at base camp.

It was pretty cool to be off the grid for a week.  I can't remember the last time I went that long without email, Internet, or phone access -- I think never.  It was a little surreal for a day or so, and then it was wonderful.  For a whole week, I didn't even think about (let alone discuss or write about) politics or publishing.  The experience made me aware of just how omnipresent communication has become in our mobile networked world.  The Information Age has its advantages, obviously, but my God, it was liberating and refreshing to get away from it for a while, too.  I think we pay a price for refusing to periodically hang a "Gone Fishin'" sign from our phones and laptops and letting the world do its thing without us until we're back.

Cody teaching in the "Ramada."  It was 101 degrees two days running (but a dry heat!), and the open roof, which let heat dissipate, was critical. By comparison, the space under a nearby tarp, which trapped the rising hot air, was stifling.

Typical lesson plan.

I took the course because I want to be more capable of handling a grid-down situation.  If you're suddenly deprived of electricity, heat, food, running water, and shelter, what do you do?  How do you prepare for such an eventuality, what decisions do you make, what actions do you take?  How do you deal with sanitation, how do you disinfect water, how do you thermoregulate, how do you keep your family and tribe functioning?  After a week of discussing, practicing, and living (albeit in a limited, controlled setting) all this and more, I feel much better prepared to deal with the real thing.  To find out more, read on...

My deluxe accommodations. Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2 -- awesome tent.  It was monsoon season, and in addition to the crushing heat, we also had torrential rain.  The Agnes stayed completely dry.

Sunset, day 1.

Cody has a knack for integrating theory and practice.  When the fourteen of us (twelve students plus Cody and his excellent teaching assistant, Mark Dorsten) arrived at the spot where we would set up our base camp, he noted that pretty soon, someone was going to need to take a shit.

The tribe.

As the fourteen of us were going to be there for a week, there would likely be others.  How should we handle that?  We thought and discussed and Cody pressure-checked our thinking as we went.  Now obviously, taking a shit in the woods is itself not rocket science.  But the subtleties weren't immediately obvious, at least not to me.  How do you design a spot that's comfortable, useable, and private?  If it's not all these things, people will hold it in, they'll get constipated, and then they'll get impacted -- and now you have crippled and ill tribe members on your hand, and no hospitals to go to for help.  And how do you keep the area sanitary and clean-smelling?  You don't want flies landing on shit and then finding their way over to the area where you'll be preparing food later.

Anyway, this is what we decided on and made -- known as a slit trench.  Ours was about a foot wide (wider than that and it becomes hard to squat over it); eighteen inches deep (deeper is fine, but at some point it becomes easier to dig a new one than to go deeper into the increasingly hard soil, and manual labor in the desert heat is something you want to be efficient about); and seven feet long (our estimate of how long it would need to be to last us all a week.  As it turned out, we were a little off and had to create a mini-version next to it on the next-to-last day).

Digging a slit trench. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

To use the trench, you make a deposit, so to speak, and cover it up with just enough loose dirt to keep the flies off it and prevent odors.  In this fashion, the trench is gradually (you might even say organically) filled in.  You want to stop six inches from the top and, when the trench has been used end to end, you pack the last six inches end-to-end down with the remainder of the dirt you removed digging the trench to begin with.

Jealous?

Probably needless to say, we chose a spot behind some bushes so everyone could enjoy (if that's the right word for shitting in a trench) privacy, and we kept a roll of toilet paper in a coffee can in a location visible to everyone.  If the coffee can was missing, you knew someone was using the trench.  If it was in place, you picked it up and went off to take care of business.  Simple but effective.

By the way, with fourteen people and seven days, we used just a tad over two rolls of paper.  It's amazing how much less you can get by with when you need to.  Rocks and juniper branches work well, too.

I know, I know… TMI, Barry!  But the way I look at it, we're animals.  We eat, we sleep, we shit.  And if you don't have the normal infrastructure we take for granted to handle these things, they require some planning and practice.  Better to be practical about it all than squeamish.  But hey, if you were squeamish, you wouldn't be reading this blog anyway… :)

Okay, enough about shit... what about water?

Cody provided the water -- he captures rain water and has plenty, and you need plenty if you're going to live and work outside in 100+ degree heat.  There are ways of capturing water, but we played with them mostly so we would understand that they don't work well, and that you'll use more water via sweat than you'll actually gather.

A plant still.  It works, but no one got more than about a teaspoon in a bag.  Not very practical -- and that was the point of the exercise.

I wouldn't say anyone much wanted a fire (at least during the initial 100+ degree days -- we had heavy rains the last couple days, and it was chilly), but fire's about as important a tool as there is (light, heat, cooking, disinfection... the list goes on), so we learned a variety of methods of building 'em and keeping 'em going.

With the right tinder, you can get by with just half a match.

Mark, with typical good cheer, demonstrating the proper use of a magnesium fire starter on a homemade tinder bundle.

Typical tinder bundle, made with ground-up Juniper and Cottonwood bark

Cody demonstrating proper technique for getting a fire started using a bow drill -- basically, rubbing two sticks together.  Don't think I could have managed this from the description alone; the hands-on instruction in making and using the tools was critical.

Bow drill hearth, multiple uses.

Getting my tinder bundle going after creating an ember with a bow drill, Cody alongside offering expert guidance and a helping hand.  Pretty cool to make fire with nothing but a knife, a length of paracord, and some sticks!

I'm blowing on it, not smoking it.  Really.

Looking good...

And... ignition!  Your basic super-match.  Blow it out and the embers stay hot and restartable for a long time.

A little woozy from blowing on that bad boy, teary eyed from the smoke, and with a few minor burns from flying sparks.  But feeling great!

Having successfully made a fire with no more than a knife, a length of paracord, and a few sticks I carved, I've concluded that if you don't include multiple modern means of fire-making in your bug-out kit (more on these below), you have seriously screwed up.  Making a fire with sticks is tiring, energy- and time-consuming, and uncertain.  It's good to know how as a form of absolute backup (all good defense is layered), but do yourself a favor and pack those lighters, wet-proof matches, and magnesium fire starters, too.

We also experimented with a variety of foods -- canned, freeze-dried, bulk (rice and beans, for example) -- discussing the relative merits and drawbacks of each (on this course, two meals a day are provided.  Cody teaches other courses on how to get your own).  We cooked using a propane stove, an open fire, and a solar oven (more on that below).

Making a meal with professional poker player and travelin' man Joe -- canned food and a propane stove.

Cooking over an open fire, with one field-expedient pot.

Making ash cakes on coals.  Some call them ass cakes, but if you're hungry enough, they taste great.

Just add hot sauce.

Again, not all of this is rocket science, but it was useful to live it.  And the details are important.  For example, how do you manage a field kitchen?  Do you let people serve themselves?  If so, you risk sanitation problems from multiple people handling the serving utensils.  You also risk fights over some people taking what are perceived as unfairly large portions.  Much better on all counts to have the designated cooks also do the serving.

Sunrise from my tent.

The solar oven was extremely cool.  Solar radiation is shortwave, while radiated heat is longwave.  Shortwave radiation penetrates glass, longwave doesn't -- this is why your car can get so explosively hot in the sun.  A solar oven operates on the same principle, with commercial models getting up to 400 degrees.  We made our own using a cardboard box, a mylar emergency blanket, duct tape, and glue.  Tragically, the day was mostly overcast, but we still got temperatures of about 150 degrees.  A little more sun that day and we easily could have baked a cake (the commercial model baked the cake just fine despite the lack of sun).

Building the oven.

Fruits of our labors.

Setting it up in the field.  The other team's model only went to 10, but ours goes to 11.

Every great homemade solar oven needs a name -- this design courtesy of Brando, our resident awesome tattoo artist.

The sun has uses beyond cooking a cake, of course.  Did you know the sun alone can disinfect your water?  (We also learned a variety of other disinfection techniques -- boiling, iodine, bleach, filters, UV sterilization.  Obviously, potable water is critical to survival).  

The sun also makes a great dishwasher.

Setting our bowls out to be disinfected by solar radiation.

Oh, and the sun is a great washing machine, too.  We only had two sets of clothing with us, and it doesn't take long living and working outdoors in the desert for your clothes to start smelling pretty gamey.  Here's how to get them clean:  first, you shake out all the dead skins cells that have accumulated (which, in addition to making the clothes feel dirty, clogs the dead air spaces in the fabric and thereby reduces the clothes' ability to provide insulation).  Next, you just set them out in the sunlight.  I was amazed at how a shirt could stink of sweat in the morning and smell completely clean at night -- the sun just wipes out the bacteria that cause the odors.  Now, this is important for obvious reasons of hygiene, of course, but anything that makes you more comfortable in a grid-down situation will also be good for your morale.  As Cody is fond of pointing out, 90% of survival is psychological (and we spent a lot of time discussing and living psychology and group dynamics), and morale alone can be the difference between success or failure in the field.  If you don't believe me, ask a soldier.

We also had some instruction in solar home design and other ways of making your home more energy- and self-sufficient.

Cody's house.  No heat or air conditioning.  It was 100 degrees outside; the interior was a blessedly cool 75 degrees.

Pretty cozy, huh?  And totally off the grid.  Passive solar- and photovoltaic-powered, rain water collection system.  Amazing how much can be done with so little.

We spent a fair amount of time planning bug-out kits (AKA, go-kits).  If you had to leave the house in a hurry and for an uncertain duration because of approaching hurricane, floods, fallout, and/or zombies, and could carry only ten items on your back, what would those items be (your pack can count as #11)?

Brainstorming a limited bug-out kit.

What items would you need in your house if the grid were to go down for a day?  A week?  A month?  How about your office?  Your car?  And what do you want to have on your person at all times, to help you get from A to B if the shit hits the fan in-between?

On the last day, we visited Yavapai College, where they're doing amazing work on self-sustaining systems -- rain water collection, passive solar design, integrated hydroponics and fish farming.  It was thought-provoking and inspirational.  Our society wastes so much and it wouldn't be hard to make things more efficient -- and efficient is beautiful, too, no?

The hydroponics lab at Yavapai.

Corridor at the college, which is a converted barn.  Passive solar and photovoltaic.  Delightfully cool and beautiful, too.

The school's fish farm.  No sharks with lasers, alas.  If I ever have a fish farm, I'm getting friggin' sharks with friggin' lasers.

Some final thoughts.

First, and I think this should go without saying, I'm really just scratching the surface of what we covered in the course.  If you want greater breadth and depth, I highly recommend Cody's excellent books -- again, "When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes" and "98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive.")  And as good as the books are, they work better if you practice what's in them.

Second, on teachers.  Cody and Mark were superb, and I spent a little time considering what made them so.  Yes, they know their material cold because they live it.  But subject matter mastery is only necessary for being a great teacher; it isn't sufficient.  Cody and Mark had at least three other qualities (besides the obvious ones like enthusiasm and an ability to explain complex subjects to beginners) that I think are common to great teachers.  For people presuming to teach you a new skill -- particularly one that your life might depend on -- it might be worth asking whether they have these:

1.  They don't claim to have invented everything they know.  In fact, they freely share the sources of their knowledge -- "I learned this from Badass Bill, a mountain man from the Canadian Rockies...".  But they also always let you know what they've personally experienced.

2.  When they don't know something, they say so.  This demonstrates both confidence (they know so much they don't have to pretend to know everything) and integrity (pretending, and being wrong, could pass along misinformation that could get you killed).

3.  They don't just teach -- they seek to learn from their students.  We had a pretty eclectic group of students in the course -- a former Navy nuclear technician; a dealer in wild grass seeds; a professional poker player adept at reading people; a former army guy who was one of the first on the ground in the second Iraq war; a wine wholesaler; and some other people quite knowledgeable in their fields -- and Mark and Cody took full advantage, going deeper on certain subjects, pressure checking their own knowledge on others, always seeing what the students could add to the discussion based on their own diverse life experience.

Third, on survival situations generally.  It occurs to me that a common element among military/intelligence operations, criminal acts, and survival situations is the lack of do-overs (absent a lot of luck, anyway).  If you screw something up in ordinary circumstances, you can have another go at it.  Or call in backup.  If I'm hungry, I check the fridge.  Nothing to eat?  No problem, go to the supermarket.  Supermarket's closed?  On to an all-night 7/11.  If I get hurt, I can go to the doctor.  Or the emergency room.  If it's bad, I might get Medivaced to a specialty center.  When the grid is down... not so much.

Forgot to pack sunscreen on your trip to Bora Bora?  Buy some at the hotel.  Forgot to pack it in your bug-out kit, and now you're in the desert and it's 101 degrees?  That's a whole different level of problem.  The difference is roughly the difference between rock-climing belayed and free climbing, or between a trapeze act with or without a safety net.  The latter circumstances require a much less casual mindset and a much more squared-away attitude.  The week I spent at the Self-Reliance Symposium went a long way to helping me improve both.

A little graduation ceremony back at Cody's house in Prescott.

Not that the grid could ever go down, mind you.  Or, if it did, I'm sure the politicians would be all over it, like they were in New Orleans.  I mean, if you can't rely on the government, who can you rely on?

Two exceptional teachers -- it was a privilege to train with them.

Next up?  Maybe the Desert Drifter?  Or the Ultimate Abo…?

:)

The "Authors Guild" Jumps The Shark

Here's David Gaughran's takedown of the AG's latest, in which the AG gets that old-fashioned PublishAmerica religion.  It would be funny, but there are still writers who take the AG seriously.  The "Authors Guild"... it's amazing how much mischief you can cause when you get to choose your own name.

The whole thing puts me in mind of "Dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"  Over to you, Bill Murray...

Today's the day -- the new Dox short story, THE KHMER KILL, is available now!

For former Marine sniper Dox, a long-range hit in Cambodia was supposed to be just business as usual.  But when you find yourself mixed up with rogue intelligence operations, gorgeous bar girls, and the world's worst human-trafficking heart of darkness, business is anything but usual.  And making it personal is the most dangerous business of all.

THE KHMER KILL is published by Thomas & Mercer, the good people who brought you THE DETACHMENT, and so will be available exclusively through the Kindle Store.  It's not DRM encumbered, so owners of Nooks and other non-Kindle digital readers, fear not -- you can read it on your device of choice.

Sadly, there won't be a paper version (at least until I've written enough short stories to do an anthology) because there's no cost-effective way to distribute a short story in paper.

And here are some photos of locations in the novel taken by your intrepid correspondent.

Enjoy -- and thanks for reading the stories.

The Khmer Kill

Hi all, I have some exciting news about the new Dox short story, The Khmer Kill.  The good people of Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint (publishers of my novel The Detachment) read TKK, loved it, and want to publish it.  Hence the slight delay in its appearance -- I had hoped to have it up earlier this week, but now there's a bit of paperwork that needs to be sorted out, so the story won't be available until a week from today -- Thursday, May 31.  But that's not too far off, and worth the wait because as T&M demonstrated with their marketing efforts for The Detachment, they can help my stories reach a far larger audience than I could reach on my own.

The Khmer Kill won't be available in paper because alas, there's no cost-effective way to distribute a short story in paper.  And although it will be a Kindle Store exclusive, it won't be DRM encumbered, so owners of Nooks and other non-Kindle digital readers, fear not -- you'll be able to read it on your device of choice.  More information on such matters here.

Thanks for your patience and I hope when you see Dox in action in Cambodia you'll agree it was worth the wait!

Cheers,

Barry

Battling Child Sex Slavery

A few years back, I started donating my speaking honoraria to organizations I support -- the ACLU, various independent news groups, the Occupy Movement. I just gave my latest, $2000, to the Somaly Mam Foundation, dedicated to rescuing children from sexual slavery.  Please do what you can to support this vital organization, and I recommend Somaly's heart-wrenching book, too, The Road of Lost Innocence.

Interrogators Speak Out: Why Not a Torture Turing Test?

I'm proud to be part of a series of articles by intelligence and military interrogators denouncing torture this week at the Huff Post.  Here's my entry.

When I wrote my eighth thriller, Inside Out, in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners.  The plot was of course based on actual events, and I considered naming one of the characters Jose Rodriguez, the Director of the National Clandestine Service at the time the actual tapes were destroyed.  In the end I decided against real names, though, because, after all, the characters in the book were committing terrible crimes, and to name them after real people seemed a recipe for a libel suit.

I needn't have worried.  Since Inside Out was published, former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney have confessed to ordering waterboarding in their respective memoirs, with no repercussions, legal or otherwise.  And now former Director Rodgriguez, in his own memoir, has himself confessed to ordering the destruction of the videotapes that were the basis for the plot of my novel.  He understands -- correctly, I'm sure -- that he will face no more legal action or damage to his reputation than did the president or vice president.  Such are the times we live in.  After all, President Obama disavowed torture on his second day in office.  No, this was not good news.  It merely ratified the idea that torture, illegal by treaty and US law, is not in fact a crime, but rather merely a policy, which some presidents will permit and others prohibit, entirely at their discretion.  And indeed, although Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged during his confirmation hearings what everyone already knew -- that waterboarding always has been and always will be torture -- no one has since been charged or prosecuted for ordering it or carrying it out.

Is waterboarding torture?  The Spanish Inquisition, the Nazi Gestapo, and the Khmer Rouge all used it.  And previous US cases have all ruled that waterboarding is inarguably torture.  And it's hard to imagine that any American, Rodriguez included, would argue waterboarding isn't torture if the tapes in question depicted Iranian or Chinese agents waterboarding captured American pilots.  Just a dunk in the water?  A little discomfort, no big deal, all's fair?

But Rodriguez says waterboarding isn't torture, at least when it's Americans doing it, that it merely makes victims "uncomfortable."  He also says it's vital for US national security that we continue to waterboard terror suspects.  So: why not a torture Turing Test?  If Rodriguez can continue to maintain that waterboarding isn't torture even while being waterboarded, he would be infinitely more persuasive.  I wonder why Rodriguez, and so many other apologists with so much on the line, refuse to make this extremely persuasive point?  After all, they say waterboarding causes no permanent harm.  It's just a dunk in the water, a no brainer, merely uncomfortable, no big deal at all.  Are these people not patriots?  Why won't they submit to an easy dunk and demonstrate powerfully and persuasively and once and for all for everyone to see that waterboarding isn't torture, and thereby make a more powerful case that America should continue doing it?  You know, like rightwing talk show host Mancow did.

It's bad enough high government officials like Rodrigez get away with murder, sometimes literally.  It becomes even more galling when they justify their self-interested destruction of evidence of their crimes by claiming the destruction was necessary to protect America.  Remember the English lord in the film Braveheart, showing up with men-at-arms to rape the bride at a Scottish wedding, and describing the act as a way to "bless this marriage"?

I don't know which bodes worse for the future of the republic.  That officials like Rodriguez can claim such stunningly self-interested reasons for having destroyed the evidence of their crimes.  Or that the public is credulous enough to believe them.

We Don't Want You To Get Robbed, So We'll Just Take Your Wallet Now

Traveling to the Bainbridge Writer's Conference near Seattle this weekend to give the keynote.  I'll be talking about some of the issues I discuss in this Guardian piece on the battle between Amazon and legacy publishers.  The battle fascinates me not just because I write books for a living, but also because it involves some of the topics I find most engaging:  political use of language; the establishment mentality and mindset; the struggle between the forces of control and the forces of democratization.  Enjoy.

Establishment Publishing Kabuki

Today I learned via a mass email from Michael Pietsch, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Little, Brown, that Authors Guild President Scott Turow has an op-ed in Bloomberg on Amazon and the legacy publishing industry. The op-ed is mostly a cut and paste of an open letter Turow posted earlier on the Authors Guild website, and because Joe Konrath and I have already fisked the letter, I won't repeat our arguments here (David Gaughran also had a typically excellent response). Instead, I'd like to point out just one thing I think will be of particular interest to readers of HOTM.

At one point Turow writes, "It may seem strange to hear the president of the Authors Guild expressing sympathy for the plight of American publishers." Well, Turow is expressing more than just sympathy; he's adopting and advocating establishment publishing's philosophy and business practices in a manner indistinguishable from the manner in which establishment publishing executives themselves so advocate (indeed, as I note above, the EVP and Publisher of Little, Brown heartily endorsed Turow's op-ed in a mass email earlier today). But yes, Turow is fundamentally correct: it's as unseemly for the head of an author's guild to defend legacy publishers as it would be for the head of, say, the Pilot's Union to defend United. And Turow is apparently sufficiently aware of, and concerned about, the appearance of his questionable role as legacy publishing spokesperson to call it out.

But here's the reason Turow says you should not only accept his unlikely role as legacy publishing flack, but should in fact find it desirable: you see, the Authors Guild and legacy publishers "have been at each other’s throats since the guild came into being a century ago, and we still have serious differences."

This dodge -- the pretense of a real divergence of interests -- is so significant and widespread I wanted to call it out here.

No establishment wants to present itself to the public accurately -- that is to say, as a monolith. If it did so, people would correctly understand that the utterances of every part of the establishment are merely self-serving, and would discount them accordingly. So what establishments work hard to do instead is to create the appearance of conflict, competition, and a divergence of interests. In this way, for example, The New Republic can be used by conservatives, as in, "Even the liberal New Republic says…". Similarly, Blue Dog and other corporate-serving Democrats can be cited by Republicans as "Even Democrats acknowledge that…". And now, as we see, the Publisher of Little Brown gets to say, "Even Authors Guild President Scott Turow says…".

I've written about this phenomenon before as it exists in the establishment media. The apparent divergence of views among NPR and other such "leftwing" media, on the one hand, and the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and other such "rightwing" media, on the other, is intended to distract from the much more important commonality of interests among these establishment media outlets (and here's Glenn Greenwald with a recent piece on what these interests are). I call this kind of competition Kabuki Competition, and not coincidentally, it's the same kind of "competition" that exists among legacy publishers. Yes, they battle over author and employee talent, but these battles are vastly outweighed by the areas in which they cooperate: author royalties, means of distribution, and all the other fundamentals of maintaining their privileged station in the world of books. Remember, Europe's royal clans once fought real battles, too, but what they agreed on was much more important than what they fought over. And what they agreed on was the entire feudal system that was the basis for their profits, their position, and their power. They agreed on their place, and the place of the peasants, and all their battles were fought within those bounds.

So don't be misled: despite what they would have you believe, players like Turow and Pietsch are not fundamentally adversarial. They may differ, and they might actually fight, over how the system's spoils should be properly divided. But on the preservation of that system itself, they are of entirely the same mind and have entirely the same interests.

P.S. Michael, in your mass email praising Scott's latest, you said, "These are interesting times for all of us and I welcome your questions and thoughts about the issues facing our industry. I hope you agree that our open exchange of ideas is critical for continued success." I do! Which is why I've taken the trouble to respond to Scott and now to you, too. Won't you do the same? If not, then particularly given Scott's failure to address any of the numerous thorough and cogent responses to his arguments, which you have now publicly endorsed, people might start to feel that what interests you isn't in fact an open exchange of ideas, but instead a one-sided coordinated campaign of self-serving propaganda.

Scott Turow, Servant of Establishment Publishing

Scott Turow is the president of the Authors Guild, yet his real concern seems to be protecting legacy publishers at the expense of the authors whose interests he claims to represent. Today Joe Konrath and I fisked Turow's defense of legacy publishing price collusion, currently the subject of a Justice Department investigation. We weren't gentle, but when someone pisses down your back and tells you it's raining, you have to call 'em on it. Here's your link.

Publishing, Politics, and Persuasion

Today I did a long interview with the awesome Catherine Ryan Hide, author of eighteen award-winning novels including Pay It Forward. Catherine asked me some great questions, and I talk about publishing; establishments; how the one percent couldn't exist without the support and reverence of substantial parts of the 99%; false-binary thinking; why nothing, not even the Holocaust or child-molestation, should be off-limits to humor; what motivates dudgeon demons and mobs; the Amazon bogeyman; what makes an effective or ineffective book cover; what the publishing industry will look like in ten years; Chihuahuas; and lots more.

Read the whole thing on Catherine's blog. And be careful! Some of it might offend you, after which, you could suffer from feelings of being offended, which many people find troubling.

A Few Book Recommendations

Whenever I read a good book, I try to post an Amazon and Goodreads review, and it occurred to me that I ought to be doing so here, too. So here are three recent ones I thought were outstanding:

Glenn Greenwald, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

This superb book is a powerful indictment of America's two-tiered system of "justice" and the perversion of American ideals by the American establishment (better understood as an oligarchy). It could serve as a manifesto of the Occupy movement, which, contrary to variously naive and opportunistic mischaracterizations, has no problem with people winning, and is opposed instead to systemic, institutionalized cheating.

If you think certain classes of people should be above the law, or that the law (including the Constitution) should be treated more as a kind of guideline, suggestion, or recommendation than as a binding authority equally applicable to all, you won't agree with the book's clear argument and you'll find a way to ignore its overwhelming evidence. But if you recognize that, as Thomas Paine said, in America it is the law that is king, you'll be grateful that Greenwald has written such a cogent appeal for Americans to live up to our ideals.



Michael Hastings, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan

The Operators covers, in excellent prose and with perfect pacing, three broad topics. First, the insanity and futility of America's war in Afghanistan. Second, the way decisions are made in Washington and at the Pentagon -- the bureaucratic battles, the petty resentments and one-upmanship, the alliances and betrayals. And third, the realities of journalism -- the tradeoffs journalists engage in between access and honesty, the way journalists allow themselves to be seduced and suborned by the powerful figures they purport to hold to account.

For nonfiction, the book was an unusually gripping read (I listened to the audio version in my car, and many evenings sat in the driveway after getting home, unable to turn it off). Hastings turns this trick by avoiding preaching, and instead illuminating his broad themes through a specific focus. The insanity and futility of the war are represented by the heart-aching death of Army Corporal Mike Ingram. The White House and Pentagon turmoil is told via the story of the rise and fall of General Stanley McChrystal, America's commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. And the realities of journalism are presented through Hastings' account of his own decision-making process; of the temptations he felt (and, to his credit, resisted); and of the reactions of other journalists to his coverage of McChrystal and the war.

The subtitle is spot-on: this really is a wild and terrifying inside account, and a deeply affecting one, too. I highly recommend it.


Writers Anonymous, Seven At The Sevens: A Collection of Seven-Word Stories, Memoirs and Poems

I completely enjoyed this eclectic and wonderful book, which the authors were kind enough to give me when I spoke at Grub Street Writers in Boston this past November. I wouldn't have thought a book grouped around the concept of seven-word observations, poems, stories, and aphorisms would be so engaging, but I would have been wrong about that (and I should have known better, as I suppose you could say the same thing about haiku).

If you love writing, this book will make you feel connected with a passionate and funny (and anonymous, though their bios provide delightful glimpses) group of people who share your love. The illustrations are memorable, and sometimes haunting. The quotes from Steve Jobs, Hemingway, and others will inspire you. I'm indebted to the authors for introducing me to the work of Katherine Mansfield -- her short story The Fly is a magic act. Magic.

A particularly fine read in a favorite coffee shop (mine is Hatou in Tokyo). Also goes with Charlie Haden's American Dream. I hope you'll have as much fun with this slim volume as I did.

Hachette: We Are Still Relevant!

This time I remembered to link to where I'm guest blogging.

Today, there was a leak of an internal Hachette memo on why Hachette (and, by extension, legacy publishing generally) is still relevant. I fisk it with Joe Konrath over at Joe's blog. It's pretty bad... but see for yourself.

Leon Panetta is Full of Shit

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants you to be scared.

In a letter to Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, Panetta warned that after possible cuts in the military budget, "we would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history."

Which would be pretty damn bad… if we wound up having to go to war with America's 1940 army, 1915 navy, or some historical version of America's Air Force. If we're lucky, though, and don't have to go to war with past incarnations of our military, Panetta's comparison is logically nearly irrelevant. In fact, even the most massive cuts currently under consideration would return American military spending only to 2007 levels. So as long as we don't have to go to war with our 2007 military, we should be okay.

If Panetta had been interested in logical relevance, though, he wouldn't have referred to the past at all. He would have focused on the present, and in the present, we spend more on our military than the rest of the world spends combined. And we spend more than five times more on our military than the second biggest military spender, which is China (numbers 3 and 4 are France and the UK, American allies).

But Panetta doesn't want you to know these numbers. If you did, you might laugh at him when he describes military cuts as meaning "doomsday" for America.

That's right. According to Panetta, returning to 2007 military spending levels, and still spending about as much as the rest of the world combined -- means doomsday for America. Shit, I'm laughing at him right now.

The rest of Panetta's Very Scary Letter is equally misleading. "You cannot buy three quarters of a ship or a building," he warns. Well, true, three quarters of a ship wouldn't be very useful. I mean, it would be like three quarters of a bullet, or something! But you could settle for, I don't know, say, nine out of the twelve new ships you wanted -- three quarters overall. Either Panetta is too stupid to know this, or he's hoping the public is too stupid to notice it for him.

The closest Panetta comes to anything specific about America's defense needs is to note that cuts would be bad for contractors. At which point, you start to get a feel for what really drives him and who he really represents.

When a spokesperson for a cause invents arguments as irrelevant and scaremongering as Panetta's, while ignoring relevant data and reasoned argument, you can safely conclude you are being bullshitted. It's long past time that Americans understood the military is, among other things, a special interest, and reacted to its lobbyists' Be Afraid! screeching accordingly.

UPDATE: Here's a tweet in response, from George Little, Secretary Panetta's spokesperson at the Pentagon:

@barryeisler Calling the US mil a special interest is insulting to those who risk their lives to protect your freedom to call them that.

Well, I could be wrong in suspecting an organization -- any organization -- with a trillion-dollar budget might have a few interests not necessarily consonant with those of the nation at large, but maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe the Pentagon is in fact composed of and run by men so selfless that they defy all rules of human nature and bureaucratic dynamics. Maybe criticizing the trillion-dollar military bureaucracy is the same as insulting individual soldiers. If so, criticizing the Pentagon would be bad form, and maybe even unpatriotic!

Or maybe Mr. Little came up with his clever little "how dare you insult the troops" dodge because he doesn't have the wherewithal to respond to any of my substantive arguments. In which case, Mr. Little, I must regretfully conclude that you're just as full of shit as your boss. I'm sure being the Pentagon Press Secretary and SecDef Spokesman has its perks, but wouldn't you rather have some integrity?

Guest Blogging

I need to get better about linking here when I'm blogging elsewhere. Here are a few recent guest posts:

First, on novelist J.A. Konrath's blog, on how to decide between a legacy publishing contract and self-publishing.

Next, at Writer Unboxed, on The Critical Aspects of Digital Publishing. [link fixed]

And today on Techdirt, I'm interviewed by Mike Masnick on Copyright, Piracy And Why SOPA/PIPA Are "Extremely Disturbing"

I should mention too that I'll be doing the keynote at the annual Writers Digest Conference in New York, January 20-22.

Finally, here are some of the highlights of my recent talk at Grub Street Writers in Boston, all about the digital revolution in publishing.

Barry Eisler, Publish It Forward Lecture Part 1 from Grub Street on Vimeo.

Barry Eisler, Publish It Forward Part 2 (Q&A) from Grub Street on Vimeo.

Barry Eisler, Publish It Forward Part 3 (Q&A) from Grub Street on Vimeo.