OP-ED: United Organs · 8:14pm March 20th
Now there’s a title that could mean a lot of things, couldn’t it? Don’t worry, the meaning will be clear soon enough. I had some thoughts I wanted to share, and an OP-ED piece felt like the best route.
But before I dive into that, a little news! After all, this Monday’s Being a Better Writer was written two weeks ago, or close to it. So there’s been nothing about what’s been going on in the writing scope.
Don’t worry though, the news is good. The second Alpha for Axtara 2 is flowing, and so well that all the Alpha 2 Readers have already finished their passes and with very good feedback. I’m currently going over those bits of feedback, but I can conclusively say that Axtara 2 is going to be ready for Beta! Perhaps even as quickly as the end of this week if I can get a good editing blitz in.
And if it’s going into Beta before the end of March … Then yes, I’m going to try and get it out in April sometime. It’s going to be tight, but I think I can make it work. Oh, and I might be changing the title. While Axtara – Magic and Mayhem really rolled off the tongue, a few expressed concern that the use of “Mayhem” in the title had led them to believe the book was not a cozy, but an action story, leading to constant rankling that what was in the pages was still indeed a cozy.
I can see it. So now I’m exploring alternate subtitles. Magic and Mishap? Magic and Mystery? I may need to grab a dictionary for this one.
Okay, enough news. Let’s get back to that OP-ED title: United Organs. Definitely an odd statement, especially if I expand it to its original length of thought, which was the United States of Organs.
Yeah, that’d be a really different map. Time for some context.
See, the other day I ran across a news headline for an article diving into which states in the US took the most and least federal funding as part of their operating budget. Yup, this one’s a political topic, but I don’t think it’s that bad. Well, maybe. The article itself was pretty benign and straightforward: Here are the five states that take the most federal money to operate, and here are the five states that take the least. Click the links for a full breakdown of all states, etc etc.
The comments, however … Well, you can probably guess. First, there was a lot of shouting and yelling that the results had to be false, rigged, conspiracy, etc, because the “wrong states” were in the “wrong spots” on the results, what was right or wrong determined by (as if you couldn’t guess) the political stance of the commentator. Basically, some people were really out of sorts that states trending toward one end of the political spectrum dominated one part of the results, while states trending the other way held the other end.
I won’t bother identifying which is which, because it isn’t that important to my thoughts on the matter. I’m just giving the context. You can look at the article if you’re interested in that.
The other chief complain amid the comments (at the time I read the piece, which was a few days ago), repeated often and the source of much argument, was anger that any state was taking federal funds. Indeed, according to many, if a state took any at all, it was a sign that the state wasn’t being properly fiscally run, as every state should be, according to these posters, completely financially and otherwise independent from each other state. To be otherwise, these posters claimed, was just proof of the death of America and the rise of socialism/communism or some other nonsense.
Wasn't expecting this from a writing blog, but I totally agree with your point.
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Yeah, occasionally I have something stick in my thoughts that I decide to write about. I could argue it's in the spirit of good worldbuilding, but ... It's more just to say something. I've had a variety of OP-EDs over the years.
The charts that show what Federal dollars flow to which states are universally wrong. There's an old saying about statistics "Figures lie and liars figure." In short, the charts show whatever the chart-makers want to show, left, right, center, or oblong. The only universal truth is the Feds take far too large a slice of revenue from everybody they lay hands on, and give it back in a highly inefficient way that (tragically) we can't find a good way to improve without breaking the system in another direction. There's another old saying: For every complicated problem, there is a solution that is simple, clean, and completely wrong. Politicians have been proving that in real life for centuries.