Cooperate to Resist

The monstrous rain from Hurricane Harvey that has immobilized Houston and adjacent parts of Texas and Louisiana has been predicted in many climate studies—hurricanes and other storms are expected to become more frequent, and more severe. Whether or not Houstonians or other Texans believe in climate change is immaterial at the moment; thousands of people need immediate help and thousands of other people are doing their best to provide it, despite the fact that many streets and highways are underwater. It is the kind of selfless community effort that has been in extremely short supply lately, and it represents the sort of empathetic teamwork and can-do cooperation that America was once known for.

Top: blue and red states, Wikipedia. Bottom: Houston flooding, Richard Carson/Reuters.
Top: Wikipedia, By Angr – self-made; base map is Image:Blank US Map.svg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3532565. Bottom: Richard Carson/Reuters.

Another kind of cooperation is represented by the nine Northeastern states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that have teamed up to implement a far-reaching cap-and-trade program to improve the environment and deliver more efficient energy to the region. Not surprisingly, California has implemented a similar effort, and it would represent a great step forward if the people involved in these efforts on both coasts would decide to combine their efforts. Adding Oregon and Washington State, along with traditionally blue states in the Upper Midwest and the holdout states in the Northeast (Chris Christie’s New Jersey, plus Pennsylvania), would be a bolder move still.

The two instances of citizen and governmental cooperation cited above are very different: one has arisen in response to a grave natural disaster, and it has brought out the best qualities of the many people serving as rescuers and volunteers. The coastal environmental programs are a more considered and more thoughtfully planned effort to head off the sort of catastrophes afflicting Texas and Louisiana at this very moment, or at least reduce their frequency and impact. Both efforts have one very important factor in common, though: they run counter to current Trump administration policies aimed at stripping government power from every area of public life.

Trump, who pardoned racist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio as Hurricane Harvey made landfall because he thought media ratings “would be far higher than they were normally,” plans a visit to Houston today. The city is not really equipped to receive a presidential visit during this emergency, and it’s hard to imagine Trump touring the city by boat. He would serve the area best by staying away.

So far, the dysfunction at every governmental level that was evident from the beginning during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 seems missing—the Harvey rescue efforts appear to be working for the moment. But massive, years-long rebuilding efforts are forecast, and it remains to be seen how helpful Trump and whoever remains in his administration will be in delivering the needed assistance for those efforts.

Citizens working together to help one another in Houston are a refreshing counterpoint to the multiple Trump rallies at which everyone outside his base is excoriated. And the “blue” state governments that have decided to take on the environmental work the Federal government has turned its back on may yet help save the country from even worse weather-related events. In both cases, local citizens and governments are cooperating with each other in order to resist the destructive dismantling of government in Washington. (The selfless Texas rescuers may not think of it this way, but that is what they are doing nonetheless.) Both examples are essential and heartening, and we need to see more on both fronts.

Ulysses Runs Aground

One of my first posts on this site was in praise of Ulysses, the very stylish and capable writers’ text editor I used to write my 50,000-word novella during last fall’s NaNoWriMo. I continue to admire and enjoy this software but I’m about to stop using it. The reason? Ulysses is switching to a subscription-only model.

I oppose such a model on philosophical grounds, which I’ll try to outline below. I also think this switch will prove to be a failing business model for Ulysses, unless there are more dilettante/hobbyist writers out there than anyone previously realized. In fact I hope this model does fail, and Ulysses returns to the standard software practice of buy once, then pay for occasional significant updates.

Ulysses is moving in the wrong direction.
Ulysses is moving in the wrong direction. Icon © Ulysses GmbH & Co.

Adobe was the conspicuous pioneer in subscription software and the model has apparently worked for them. The big difference here, though, is that Adobe is the industry standard for designers everywhere. (Since I’m not a designer, I promptly stopped using Photoshop and other Adobe products and was able to replace the functionality I needed with no difficulty.) The equivalent standard for writers, at least where submission for publication is concerned, is Microsoft Word. And Word still offers the ability to purchase the software, instead of subscribing to it. There is no standard software for the process of writing. If there were to be such software, Scrivener would probably be the most likely candidate.

Ulysses actually suits the way I write better than Scrivener does, but so do many of its rivals, some of which also offer cross-platform capability (Ulysses is Apple only). And Scrivener itself can be a marvelous writing tool when pared down to its composition mode. The program is not as “pretty” as Ulysses but it does far more. Scrivener is essential for its excellent templates and for its comprehensive export capabilities. You can use it to write fluidly, reorganize and revise in fine detail, and then prepare a flawless manuscript for submission. No other software, including Ulysses, can do all of that nearly so well.

iA Writer, Sublime Text (properly configured) and the up-and-coming Write! all provide attractive, customizable writing environments with a left-hand sidebar for project navigation and organization (Write! just recently introduced a local sidebar and is already working to improve it). Update, 4/9/18: I no longer use Write! software and can’t recommend it. See this article for more information. Any of these programs can substitute for Ulysses during the first draft process, with Scrivener coming into play after the first draft is complete. (The software I’m using to write this post, Byword, would also qualify if it would just add a navigational sidebar.) What’s more, all of these programs employ traditional files and folders to organize your work. Ulysses, in contrast, hides your work deep in a largely inaccessible database, though you can deliberately create external files and folders if you wish. Some people think this system provides advantages; I don’t.

Here are a few reasons why a I think a subscription model for Ulysses is a really bad idea:

  • The cost for the end user becomes disproportionate. Let’s say you paid $45 to purchase Ulysses. Suddenly, you’re asked to pay $40 per year to continue using it. (Granted, existing users pay “only” $30 per year.) Now, this isn’t cost-prohibitive per se. Ulysses is excellent software and many people would argue it’s worth the added cost. But suppose you also buy Scrivener for $45 and then pay for two upgrades at $30 each over a 10-year period. That’s $105 over 10 years for what is arguably the one truly indispensable writers’ program, vs $300-$400 for Ulysses. Ulysses is not worth that cost differential; I think its developers are being a bit greedy here.
  • Suppose every bit of software you use regularly suddenly demanded that you subscribe in order to continue using it. Apart from the significant added cost, it would drive you crazy to keep track of all the required payments. The historical purchase-once, pay-to-upgrade model for software makes far more sense.
  • Ulysses is writing software. Its developers argue they need the extra subscription money in order to deliver “continuous improvements”. Writing software does not need continuous improvements—indeed, constant change for the sake of some supposed “improvement” would actually be detrimental. Once a writing program offers a flexible and pleasing interface, basic editing features and word count and the ability to navigate and modify project file structures, anything beyond is extraneous at best. I don’t use many of the extra features Ulysses already offers.

So, unless or until Ulysses comes to its senses, I’ll be using iA Writer and Sublime Text, among other programs, for short fiction and poetry and Scrivener for long-form work and revisions.

Do Something!

I had actually planned to write a mild, informative post on recent developments in software for writers. Instead, unfolding events compel a look at some atrocious happenings in the world and our so-called United States.

Which to address: the looming, horrific use of nuclear weapons or the flagrant resurgence of right-wing ignorance and violence throughout this country? I’m going to opt for the latter, on the grounds that once nuclear weapons are flying again, blog posts, Facebook, Medium et al. will all become instantly irrelevant. Trump’s Twitter as well. You could argue they are already irrelevant, of course. But while there is still some degree of social structure and control in place, social media may have some role to play. Bear in mind, though, that both sides believe this. Hence the heading for this post—it’s not sufficient to opine or respond on social media alone. If you want to protect what’s good in our society, genuine action is required.

Murderous moron: James Alex Fields Jr. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department, via Reuters.
Murderous moron: James Alex Fields Jr. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department, via Reuters.

Trump has encouraged, and thereby unleashed, a kind of hillbilly fascism at the grassroots level. We saw the most recent results in Charlottesville, VA this weekend: helmet-wearing thugs wielding various weapons to protest the removal of a statue honoring a 19th century racist and Civil War relic. Confederate flags and Nazi slogans were there in abundance, along with plenty of “Make America Great Again” merchandise. David Duke said “We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” in order to “take our country back.” And Trump responded to the violence by decrying hatred on “many sides” (certainly his supporters cannot be asked to bear the blame alone).

Apart from the particulars, though, none of this is really new. Trump is an especially crude and vulgar exemplar of America’s worst tendencies, but he is hardly the first president whose statements and actions belie the nation’s stated principles and laws. Be honest and admit it: the highest ideals of America have always been an alluring lie. Yes, many admirable and dedicated people have sacrificed greatly to try to bring those ideals to life. But a great many other people in this country are either indifferent, or closer in spirit and sympathy to the idiots who gathered in Charlottesville to “Unite the Right.”

So what action can be taken in response, by those of us who would prefer to live in a country that actually adheres to its stated ideals? Here are some quick thoughts:

  • Band together. Not in small, local groups ringing doorbells but across states and regions. Progressive people must stand together regardless of location, and do so in big numbers.
  • Push to form regional alliances: California, New York, New England, for example. These areas already cooperate closely on issues like the environment. Let’s push for cooperation on other major issues that cry out to be addressed.
  • Urge the adoption of state-level legislation to form legally binding ties among these regional partners. If the South wants to secede again (and I say, let them), then progressives can respond by forming a sort of country within a country as a preliminary step toward building a new, blue America. The U.S. has never been truly united and it never will be. It’s time to acknowledge this.
  • BTW, the newblueamerica.org domain is available and I’m available to help build a site there if others want to pitch in with money, resources and political connections in progressive states.

It’s time to Think Different, as the late Steve Jobs once said about something much less important. Very little is working today, a great deal is broken. Catastrophe is barreling toward us on multiple fronts. Keeping one’s head down and going with the flow is only inviting disaster. We need to start thinking about big, unconventional change outside the normal political boundaries, and working to achieve it, before it’s too late.

Everything Now

Arcade Fire’s fifth studio album was released on July 28 to mixed reviews. Really mixed reviews—critics seemed to either love or hate the album. Its Metacritic average score of 66 translates to “generally favorable” reviews, but this is simply due to the averaging of far ends of the critical spectrum.

Arcade Fire's fifth studio album. Cover: Wikipedia.
Arcade Fire’s fifth studio album. Cover: Wikipedia.

The Times and the Guardian are exceptions to the “love it or hate it” rule; both provided genuinely mixed reviews. The Guardian wrote that the desire “to experiment musically isn’t enough to make Everything Now a bad album – there are songs worth hearing and genuinely thrilling music here – but rather a flawed one.” The Times said “The title song finds a breezy balance between earnestness and exhilaration. Elsewhere, that balance falters, and Everything Now becomes a slighter album than its predecessors.”

I’ve been a fan of the Canadian band from the beginning and my own view of Everything Now more or less echoes that of the Times and the Guardian, but with a bias toward the positive. There are some marvelous earworms here, and Arcade Fire’s perceptive critiques of modern society remain (though the perspectives have shifted somewhat). This time the targets are extreme consumerism (“Everything Now”) and media proliferation (“Infinite Content”). The concomitants to these, depression and suicide, are also present.

These targets remain timely—the lyric “every room in my house is filled with shit I couldn’t live without” certainly resonates with me. And the relevance of “Infinite Content” is borne out by, among other things, the Times’s new “What to Watch” columns, which run several times a week and which imply all we have to do is work and watch TV.

Some have said (and I agree) that Arcade Fire’s music “grows on you,” and this album certainly does. If you like the band’s earlier albums you’ll most likely enjoy this one as well. It’s a bit different, but that only serves to expand the group’s horizons. And those tunes will draw you in.