Messiah Chronicles

Let's face it. The New Testament is kind of boring, and it's filled with supernatural stuff, like raising the dead and walking on water. So where's the story? Seriously, Jesus was a man bent on reforming his religion, getting it back on track. He surrounded himself with a dozen guys who liked his message and decided to go with him to bring it to the people.
They had some adventures that later were perhaps hyped a bit too much, and they met some interesting people, such as a Roman centurion who, while being the opposite of Jesus, ended up becoming his friend.
In the end, it was a tragedy, but it was a true human interest story, a mixture of drama and comedy. That was what I was after when I wrote Messiah Chronicles: (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DI7OFE)
This book is now available at Amazon.com for your Kindle.

spinning real life

Spinning Real Life is a satirical novel. A young idealist drops out of college to live the writer's life and to write the great American novel. He ends up at Texas Jake's Trailer Park and Harley Repair, in the woods along the Smith River in NW Calif. He starts to meet the kinds of characters who might be found in a combination trailer park and bike repair shop. He also becomes involved in a series of romances, all destined to fail due to his cluelessness about relationships, women and himself. He also finds himself in the middle of a bizarre environmental war that has kamikaze logging activists and a government war with the forest. A bumper sticker artist/ sinister mastermind, a young girl who becomes a master Harley mechanic, an ex B movie actress destined to be the first woman president, some brawling hillbillies and a parade of strong and interesting women round out this commentary on modern life, environmentalism, politics, literature and youthful idealism. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DNWCZQ

Cosmic Coastal Chronicles

Here's another of my books, an older one from the mid 1990s. Cosmic Coastal Chronicles (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DI7IZ0)is a love affair with the west coast from Central Calif to British Columbia. It's one man's solitary exploration of the coast and of himself, with kayaking, surfing, hiking, camping and travel adventures. It is a giddy and exuberant outpouring of one person's soul. You can get it as a print book or for your Kindle (above). You can also search Amazon.com by typing in Meade Fischer.
If you're not sure you'll like it, respond to this post with your email, and I'll send you some reviews.

Shattering the Crystal Face of God

I'd like to introduce you to one of my books. Written in Y2K, Shattering the Crystal Face of God is a leap into a new millennium and a new way of exploring one's life and environment. From the first chapter, Lucidity, to the last, Delirium, the book passes through: Big Sur after El Nino, Dreary Days of Dark Despair, Patterns of Life, Creating Wilderness, Of Snails and Immortality, California Screamin', Up with the Trees, Selling the Cosmic Coast, The Unbearable Wonder of it all, The View from a Purple Kayak, Wild Among the Mildflowers, Big Daddy Religion, Behind the Crystal Face of God and In Praise and Defense of Earth. This is a romp, an adventure, an impressionistic philosophical rant, a celebration of the natural world and a few scenes that are hard to label. You may or may not agree with what I've written, but you won't be bored.
It's now available in both print and Kindle versions on Amazon.com. Search "Meade Fischer," or to go straight to the Kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DI7J0O

Eliminate Tenure and improve education

There seems to be a growing consensus about education reform in this country, at least a consensus about how we have a serious problem. Unfortunately, education is a complex affair, made up of many components. Many of the diverse small problems that make up the large one require leadership skills, buy-in from a diverse group of stakeholders and revised curriculums. There is, however, one area that isn't complex and would go a long way toward true reform, even though it would be hard to implement.

Tenure is a relic from long ago, perhaps a good idea 100 years ago, but a disaster now. Eliminate tenure and start improving education immediately.

What is gained with tenure. Excellent teachers aren't going to lose their jobs, and hiring new teachers to replace higher paid older teachers wouldn't even be an issue if teachers were paid for how well they teach, not for how many years they sat in a chair in front of a class.

In California we decided that we wouldn't even give our elected representatives a chance at tenure when we passed term limits. Do we really believe a group of people who sit around in eternal political gridlock are more deserving to be replace for poor performance than the people who make the difference between our children growing up to be successes or failures? And that is the issue, our children's futures.

Does anyone really believe that teachers are interchangeable, like those fast food workers that one day wait the counter, the next day work the fries? Do teachers who pass out work sheets deserve the same pay as someone who is actively teaching and continually checking for understanding? What about the teachers who opt for fun activities and cultural enrichment rather than teaching students to read and compute?

I have substituted in a number of classes over the years, and I can see a difference. In some classes, the teacher has provided a rich set of learning activities for the students, and the class understands the expectations. In classes like that, I've worked for my pay. I've babysat in other classes, with 1 hour, 45 minute blocks, where the assignment was a one page worksheet, something I could do in 20 minutes, the better students in 30 and the slackers in well under an hour. The rest of the interminably long block is spent chatting, texting, playing games on their phones or actually napping. These kids are bored, and it's no wonder many drop out, opting for a minimum wage job that at least give them a small monetary feedback.

The teachers who will yell the loudest about this suggestion aren't the ones who would be retained and earn a higher wage. Rather it will be the people who, without tenure to protect them, would be out on the street, looking for another job.

Eliminate poorly performing teachers, pay the good ones more money, hire support staff to do the non teaching, routine paper and phone work, and we will start turning out graduates ready to take on the demanding work of the 21st century. The alternative is stagnation.

Today's idiotic news

Sometimes I really love the news. Today, Nov. 19 is a wonderful day for the absurd. First, the survivors of Jonestown want to build a memorial to the 900 people who died there 32 years ago. This will be, I assume, a memorial to the gullible nature of humans. Most of those folks willing went with a nut case to a compound in South America and willingly drank the poison drink. What the survivors should have done at the time was to get their friends and family out of there.

Next, students are protesting fee hikes at California's university system. That what they do, drink beer at night, protest by day. The folks who run the university are saying the state isn't giving them the support, which appears to be true. Students should work to change the reality on the ground, rather than protest it. Don't they realize that the same cutting of resources at the university level is also happening at K-12.

Maybe, rather than choke off our educational system gradually, we should cut to the chase and close all schools, higher and lower education, thus turning our gradual decline to a third world country into a freefall.

And when some idiot says we can't raise taxes to pay for education because it's a job killer, first spit in his eye and then explain that there's no worse job killer than an illiterate, uneducated population. Perhaps, before long I'll be able to command a six figure income simply because I'll be one of the few left who can read and write.

All that great stuff in the paper, and I didn't even get to the section with the celebrities and all of their romantic and addiction problems.

Committee finds ways to cut budget

The bipartisan commission on the budget finally reached an agreement on what can be cut to balance the budget. Many items have proved contentious, so agreement has been difficult to reach.

Democrats and union leaders objected to any cuts in Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans dismissed any idea of new taxes. There has also been a tug of war over items like the child tax credit and deductions for mortgage payments. Farm subsidies are another area so entrenched that eliminating them is a hopeless endeavor.

Every senator and representative agreed that earmarks need to be abolished, that is, except for their earmarks, which were obviously essential.

Finally, after sifting through 843,219 government programs, the committee has found something they can cut with minimal objection. So, they believe they can soon start cutting our massive deficit.

However, unwed mother, Polish immigrants will no longer get subsidized polka lessons.
Let the austerity begin.

US makes major changes to war plans

After the announcement that the US would stay in Afghanistan until 2014, the Afghans protested with a collective, "Why me?" Much of the same sentiment was heard in Iraq. As a result, the United States is planning to change its war strategy.

Starting next year, we will go on a rotating war plan. The way this works is that we acknowledge that invading, bombing and killing one group of people for over a decade could be construed as cruel, and we're not a cruel nation. Instead, we will go on a rotating war deployment.

This is how it will work. Every two years we will pull out of wherever we are waging war and move to another third world or emerging nation. To make this fair, we'll use a lottery system, and the countries we will invade will be chosen at random.

An unnamed spokesman for the government of Uruguay applauded this move, saying that his country had less than a one in thirty chance of being attacked in the next decade.

Our military personnel also received the news optimistically. Sgt. Ben Dover said he was sick of fighting in deserts and barren mountains and was looking forward to some warfare in a tropical wetland or a grassy valley.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jonathon Ahab said that the new policy will not dilute our commitment to furthering our goals. "We will pursue the illusive vision of American style democracy across the seven seas."

freedom of speech and responsibilities

Freedom of speech is a bedrock principle of a free people. To suppress a book, article or speech on any subject, is to potentially suppress everyone. Certain social, political and religious subjects inspire passion, often to the exclusion of reason, and these can make freedom of speech an intellectual mine field.
You have the right to stand up in front of a group and deliver a speech on any topic you like. However, I do not have the right to shout you down and drive you from the podium, no matter how passionately I disagree. That would be my free speech negating yours. I do, however, have the right to wait my turn and then offer a rebuttal to everything you've said. That's how freedom of speech should work, and I'm fairly certain it is how our country's founders meant it to work.
Also, when we move into the stormy seas of personal attack, we test the limits of free speech. If I don't have a cogent argument against your position and thus decide to attack you as a person, what are my limits? I can certainly point out your past support of organizations that oppose my position, you prior remarks denigrating my position or your past actions that might reflect on your credibility. That, however, does not give me the right to lie about you or insinuate things about your character and behavior that is speculative. This last has become an issue within the social networking sites.
In the end, all rights come with responsibilities. Civilized debate is essential to a civilized society, and a verbal mob is no different in essence that a physical mob. Freedom is a high concept, one we must continual rise to meet.