Digital Deputies

In 2008, when terrorists attacked the hotels in Mumbai, technology was working for them and against the authorities. Those cretins had accomplices on the outside who used cell phones, video cameras and other tech to tell the bad guys, who were inside the hotel, where the cops were and what they were doing on the outside. This ‘real time intel’ allowed the killers more time to kill innocent people and thwart the efforts of authorities to mount a counter-attack. The terrorists could preemptively strike at places the observers on the outside told them the police were amassing. They could move away from places in the hotel where police were entering.

Last week in Boston, technology came over to our side. Citizens became the observers; crowd sourcing became the new law enforcement tool. Smart phones became the anti-terror weapon. The net effect was the people of Boston became Digital Deputies.

From a psychological perspective, no act of terror can now be contemplated without this new phalanx of smart eyes and smart ears, in the hands of the digitally deputized public, entering into the terrorist’s calculus. I hope that’s enough to tell these would-be murderers to go somewhere else, or better yet, forget doing anything at all.

We cherish our freedoms; our nation and the American culture founded around them and we have prospered by holding them above all else as sacrosanct. Running a marathon, attending a sporting event, or celebrating a holiday by parade or public gathering are basic expressions of those freedoms. Sadly, these events are also a magnet to those who would choose to make a political statement by committing violence. This time, as President Obama said, “they picked the wrong city.” The resilience and spirit of ‘Boston Strong’ proves that the terrorists not only picked the wrong city but the wrong country as well.

If you can, you can support the victims of the bombing, I found and donated to, The One Boston Fund, which helps the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013.

More Marginal Notes on Benghazi

On November 1st, 2012, I posted Marginal Notes on Benghazi.

Essentially it was a look back at an early, denoted manuscript of my book The Hammer Of God, in which – around the margins – I made notes about alternate plot lines.

The one which I wrote about saw the “bad guys” orchestrating the kidnapping of our ambassador in order to use him as a bargaining chip. Their goal was to free the blind sheikh (the first world trade center terrorist who tried to bring the towers down in 1993). The sheikh was supposed to be the prize in a high-level diplomatic exchange for the life of the ambassador.

In that instance, it was a case of “It’s an alternate fiction until it happens.” Well it’s happening.

On March 14th, though we just heard of it yesterday, “An al Qaeda terrorist stated…that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed by lethal injection after plans to kidnap him during the Sept. 11, 2012 terror attack in Benghazi went bad.”

So, suddenly, that wild-ass, out-of-the box dose of fiction, that even I rejected as a little “out there,” is now coming a little closer to “in here.”

If you read the previous blog then you know the triangulation of my supporting thesis, (purely a supposition and creative exercise), summarized here:

The dubiously elected President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, made a promise to free the blind sheikh from American custody at his inauguration – and set it as a primary goal of his (American-backed) administration.

Getting this erstwhile national hero of Egypt returned to his home sands in the Maghreb would surely help Morsi score political points with his people. So the US decided to help him by staging a little theatrical play titled – “Kidnap ours and we’ll trade ya for yours!”
Somewhere along the way, two ex-navy seals who either never heard, or disobeyed, the orders to stand down, went into this kabuki dance shooting real bullets, according to some accounts killing up to 60 of the enemy (sorry to all the men cast as ENEMY).

Those darn snipers ruined the whole performance. But the cover stories were set and the word went out that it was a YouTube video that caused the murderous attack.

Of course, even then I called the script above a fantasy oozing dramatic embellishments of actual events. Today, after the boastful “confession” of the al Qaeda guy, maybe not so much.

I’ve become that guy!

Last night, at a social function, I turned into that guy. I used to joke about being a “Hyphenate”, that is, a writer-producer-director-a**hole! Last night, I crossed the ‘rude-icon.’

Pontificating is best left to pontiffs, bloviating to the bloviators and pedantics to the, um, well,… the pedanta-philes, I guess. But there is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks, that I should have simultaneously, berated and regaled my dear friends with my extremely tedious treatise on the vicissitudes of the authoring process. Like a bowler leaning his body to karmically get the ball to curve into the 7-10 split, I bent the vernacular, twisted the point and generally put “the spin” on my English.

God! Look at what I just wrote, above!

Who am I? Who is this person I’ve become? I have a case of mothball smelling, patches on the sleeve, utteration-laden, over dramatic profundities capable, boring, old Professor’s Syndrome.

Yuck! Me? I used to be soooo cool. Now, I am a walking, comedic character from a ‘coming of age’ college kid movie spewing dialog lines like; “Er… not really!” an ambushing, “However, in reality…” a ticking, “Well, here’s an interesting fact.”. I hope I get over myself in time for my next blog.

Wait, ‘utteration’ isn’t even a word! See what I mean!

The God Particle Versus The Pope

god_particle, higgs boson, big bang, science, cern, lhc,

Have you read the papers, heard the news, know what is happening?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, then you’ll know why I feel like I just missed The last copter out of Hanoi, The last train from Gunhill, The last song I’ll ever write for you, The last chance to save and save like never before!

Both Science and Religion had BIG NEWS this week. The God Particle was found within hours of a new Pope being found. Here are two news stories, one each from traditionally opposing forces existing in the same moment of time. Science had maybe a tad more edge on the angle because, although the new Pope is a huge story, and an issue that has impact on 1 billion or so Catholics around the world, the Church has had 226 Popes throughout history. But there is only once, so far this mankind, that Science has found the God Particle.

Now many people find God, but not so much with the science crowd. So their acknowledgement (at least casually) of anything ‘God’ connected to science is, in and of itself, a first. And… we are not just talking of some token attribution; we are talking the center of science here, the key to everything, the point of origin for all existence, the glue that holds all of creation together. Imagine that which is no longer an elusive bit of theory, but the first, smallest piece of reality, has been hailed as a Particle of God.

Well, actually, any real physicist will deny they found the God Particle, they will however, cop to the more secular moniker, “Higgs-Boson.” But nobody swears to Higgs-Boson, prays to Higgs-Boson in foxholes or screams that name during sex, so…

If you are still reading this, and not bored out of your skull, let me tell you what was NOT discovered this week.

The God Particle. No that’s not a typo I am referring to my book, entitled, The God Particle. It has science and religion going at it pretty good. It has Popes vs. Scientists vs. Politicians, all swinging for the seats. It has drama treachery, love, geeks and kidnapping and murder. (hmmm a ‘Geek Tragedy’??? Better save that one.)

It also has missed the bus, missed the perfect storm of events, the once in a lifetime (of a universe) convergence of a new Pope and the discovery of the ‘Particle’ his boss created 6-billion years ago in the first instance of existence.

How great would it have been if somewhere in New Hollywood York City, some gruff, fire and brimstone emitting head of a house, a salt and peppered icon in Publishing, Movies or Television, were to do a spit take of his Soy Mocha latte Machiato, with a shot of wheat grass, all over the New York Times piece reporting on the discovery of the God Particle. Yelling clear down the hallway, reverberating off every cubicle wall plastered with pictures of kids and company softball picnics,

“Somebody get me that manuscript that was here the other day, the God thing! The God Principle??? The God Particible??? Damn, just somebody get me that, right now! Found out who wrote it and get him in here 5 minutes ago.”

Of course, if Justin Bieber, or Lindsay Lohan had found the God Particle, the story would live for 100 news-cycles. But alas, since the Eureka moment of all time (literally of all – Time) was brought to us by Technosapiens, not Thespians, it will quickly recede, like the background radiation noise of the Big Bang, to somewhere far out beyond the galaxy of news. In two weeks, the TMG list of things people really care about will have the item ‘God something or other’ down around 126,234th on their list. And my book, The God Particle, will not be the beneficiary of any lift from the news.

Unless of course they find a way to make the God Particle enhance your sex life, make you feel younger, re-grow hair and make aches and pains, and that annoying belly fat, disappear. Then maybe I’ll get another shot.

Psst… Scientists! The God Particle’s Right Here — On My Desk

There was a time when you were guaranteed to find yourself all alone in the corner of a cocktail party, with no one violating an eleven foot perimeter (so that not even the ten foot poles can touch you) as an immediate result of just uttering the words, “The God Particle.” Or worse yet, “Higgs Boson.” This immediate classification of social pariah was due, in large part, to the fact that the search for the glue that holds everything together had always been a small video game – played by the .0001% of the 1% of the top scientists who ever existed on earth.

So, naturally, I based the third book of my “thrillogy” on The God Particle.

Furthering my streak of brilliant decisions, I decided to give my book one final once over, instead of releasing it as a summer book.

BUZZZ! Wrong decision.

Because on July 4, you couldn’t turn on a radio, look at a website, or see the front page of a newspaper that didn’t have the name of my book, The God Particle, sprawled across it – in 200 point Impact font. Of course my name, Tom Avitabile, and my quest to get my book of the same name, The God Particle, to a copyeditor was not mentioned in any of these stories.

Truth be told (and science is all about truth) they didn’t so much find the God Particle as find the plasma fossil-like footprint where something, probably the God Particle, had been. In marked contrast, there was found 437 double spaced, neatly typed pages of a manuscript rapidly becoming a fossil on my desk.

Oh, what a hit I’d have been at the cocktail party, if my book had timed out with a big bang on July 4th.

Argo, the True COVER Story…

I am constantly amazed at how people connect things. In this case, my fans and specifically the realization for many of them of the resonance between Argo, the movie and The Hammer of God, my novel. In response to the many e-mails and comments linking the two, I decided to see Argo. (I had already read my book)

Good movie, solidly crafted, good story, well told. Affleck did a great job, which he now knows having won a Golden Globe, but I am sure he appreciates my opinion anyway. So, yeah… I guess there is some relationship but it’s as thin as Lindsey Lohan’s future prospects as a Nuclear Scientist at Brookhaven Laboratory. (Radio-isotropic co-generation of mononuclidic elements? WHAT-Ever!)

The commonality lies in that both stories highlight the universal power of movies. In fact, here’s an early set of cover designs for Hammer (by Lorenzo Concepcion), which were being considered right up to publication. The log line on this set of covers is a quote from one of the characters in the book,

“Movies… They’ll be the death of western culture!”

As you can see the movie industry played big in the cover sell. That’s because unlike Argo, where the U.S. used a fictitious movie production as a cover story to free Iranian hostages, in Hammer an Iranian movie company is using the power of Filmmaking permits and the general awe most municipalities treat movie companies with, to actually execute a devastating attack on New York.

Despite the few similarities, the stories are divergently different. However, I certainly wouldn’t mind if Ben Affleck were so moved to make a film of The Hammer of God.

Free Press in China?

I once recommended to an economic expert on China a trailer for an upcoming book. My vision was to have the economist standing on the Great Wall of China, explaining to the camera that seven centuries ago this was the technological achievement of mankind.

Then the economist holds up an iPad, explaining that this is the current technological achievement of mankind. Both from China. Interesting, I thought, that the technological impetus has come around full circle from the Great Wall to the Great iPad.

But when you look deeper, look at all the things they missed.

For example, we have the Bill of Rights. All the greatest (and wealthiest) men of the day had the notion that it was necessary to specifically enumerate the rights that were at the heart of the conflict of England and the Revolution, and they eventually got it down to 10.

Extra credit reading: Look up the original Bill of Rights.

If you go to the National Archives in Washington, DC you can see that there were actually 12 amendments in the original Bill of Rights.

The original 1st amendment set out rules for districting the House of Representatives – a scheme that would have made today’s Congress 6,000+ members strong.
The original 2nd amendment stated that Congress cannot ratify its own proposed pay raises until after the next Congressional election. This would eventually become the 27th amendment, ratified in 1992.

The elimination of these two amendments cleared the way so that right up there at number one, which the Chinese never considered, was a nasty little thing called Freedom of the Press. (Now as a writer, I think it’s inherently unfair to reveal the Founder’s early draft, after all, they didn’t publish until they had the 10 and if you saw any of my earlier drafts I’d dig a hole and hide.)

Freedom of the Press (along with Speech and Religion) was a founding part of this nation’s psyche, government and culture. Last month that little notion of freedom arose again in a small revolution in South China. Not exactly the Redcoats against the farmers, but a small local newspaper dared to print something close to the truth. This brought upon it a hefty dose of scorn and consternation from the old party apparatchiks of the ruling elite in Beijing.

But then, with the internet and with the world going the way it is, those old Chinese guys in the Politburo must have said to themselves “Hey wait, what’s so bad about this?” or “Hey, maybe if we give them just a little, we can keep a lid on this thing.”

Perhaps they had this old Chinese proverb in mind when they decided to loosen up a bit:

That which doesn’t bend, breaks.

So they bent a little. A seemingly tacit allowance of what would, five years ago, buy you a ticket to the reeducation camp or a bullet in the brain – a bullet your own family would be billed for after your death – Communist Party family values being what they are.

But here is the most tantalizing question of all, if the Chinese Communists were to suffer a come to Jefferson moment and, more unbelievably, grant a Bill of Rights to their billions of subjects which of our 10 would never see the light of a Chinese day?

Send me your answer vis-a-vis the comment section. I’ll give you my ‘forbidden amendment’ next time.

Tom Avitabile
Tom@TomAvitabile.com

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