My books

 Here they are, an even dozen. 

Cat Came Back and Other Stories: short stories and a short novel.

Two Trains Running: novel set in the US and in South Africa.

Stockboy: collection of short stories with a through line and novelistic thematic connections.

God Awful Acres: novel set in South Africa.

The Meeting: novel about love connections.

No One to Blame: collection of short stories and poems.

Neighbors: vignettes about a neighborhood, and three story/essays.

Cycads, Weevils and Africa: non-fiction about research in entomology and evolution on the title subjects in Africa.

Bits off Burning Bridges: short, short pieces that are not quite poetry.

Bits Too: more short, short pieces that are not quite poetry.

Diminuendo: novel of family, murder, and escape.

Off Minor: short novel of bank robberies, fugitive life, and love.

Buy here:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/dadownie1

also at Amazon et al.

 

Prop 50

 

On California Prop 50: It stinks. It reeks of all that I hate about how people distort, twist, and manipulate facts all the while claiming to be promoting democracy. Anyone—anyone—who hopes for a more robust and functioning democracy, not to mention a more perfect union, will cringe at the thought of this miserable proposition.

Gerrymandering—along with the Electoral College, the dominance of big money, propaganda and disinformation in the media, the distorted structure of the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the piss-poor civic education of our children—is one of the major assaults on the basic tenets of democracy, republican or otherwise.

But of course, a functioning democracy is also one where citizens use the little power they have in a strategic fashion. One must hold one’s nose for a little while in order to get a little bit of what one wants.

In this case, we have the absolutely genuine threat of the anti-democratic power mongers having no compunction about rigging the system in order to impose their vision on the population—like it or not. We must do the same, or they win. It’s compelling.

It can become an endless regress though, failing to return to the promised outcome. Without the people…the citizens…supporting the more democratic option on their own, rejecting the pressure of their braying leaders, regardless of political party, there is little hope for much that’s worth while in any case.

So I’m sitting this one out. That’s my vote.

 I've published another novel, the second this year. It's short at 130 pages. The snoots might call it a novella, or worse, a novelette. It's just a short novel. It'll be on Amazon et al. in a couple months. Meanwhile: https://www.lulu.com/.../paperback/product-kvdz9wk.html...