Eva here: Marian gave me permission to re-post this from her Yahoo Group, Marian In China. (P.S. to Marian: Not all icky raw fish. He adored oysters on the half shell.)

The news is all complete now; I’ve recovered the last two news articles missing from this website. (Thanks guys!) Now to backup the site. (By the way, take it from me, the Wyndham Hotel on the Inner Harbor is just the worst hotel ever! I’m glad Balticon 40 and probably beyond is going to be in the Hunt Valley Inn out of Baltimore City.) We know of our new place now, and Mom and me are planning to visit the new townhouse tommorrow.

I’ve lost the recent news.htm file. What happened was that my old computer, (the one Dad made) it’s video card died (Yet another irony!!!) and Dave (my brother) wanted Dad’s old computer. While Dave’s operation to transfer his harddrives from the VAIO computer to Dad’s computer was a success, mine wasn’t, and even though I still have my C:\ files, documents, programs, My Expert PHP scripts, etc. It erased and recreated C:\WINDOWS so it doesn’t know that Adobe is on my computer and installed. Anyway, if anybody has the lost recent news.htm archived somewhere, or wants password to meteorologistlife.com, please send it to php coder at g mail dot com. (without spaces) Please do not send spam or viruses. GMail blocks out every bit of spam in my inbox and has a virus blocker updated every day.

We’re burying the ashes on Friday, at 2:30 P.M. It’s going to be a small, private ceremony. If you’re local to Baltimore, and want to come, send me an email. (Eva at evawhitley dot net)

For now, the ashes are going to be stored in Jack’s office, under the photo montage Dave and his Kinko cronies made for the funeral (which was just breathtaking). Dave did a fabulous job with the programs, and we may have some left over. If you’d like one, send an SASE to Box 1689, Westminster, MD 21158 and we’ll send you one.

Jack was sent to University Specialty Hospital at the beginning of this month but last month got moved back to the hospital (Bon Secours, not University of Maryland, which was on Red Alert and not accepting emergencies). The situation is not good for Jack, with very low blood pressure, some bleeding problems, and kidney failure. 

Jack has been in a vegetative state since late December. One nurse at UMD said he was responding to yes/no questions with head shakes and nods but we never saw that after late December. He has not been responding to requests to blink, squeeze hands, etc.

Dave and I went in today and told him we loved him. Tomorrow both boys and I will be going in.

UPDATE: Today has been flip-flopped. Dad went from UMD to University Specialty and then back to UMD again. Apparently dad had gone from the 4th Floor (Intensive Care Unit) to the 7th Floor (Which isn’t as intensive), transferred to Deaton, then developed a Fever, then went back to the 4th Floor. A later scan showed Dad had brain damage because not enough oxygen went into dad’s brain. So when dad’s fever goes down under 100�F, he will be transferred to Deaton again.

We’re planning on going back tomorrow morning, and maybe Monday. They plan to move him to the nursing home for vent weaning after that, and after that, who knows? We’d like him to come home, but that’s not going to happen if he stays in this state.

Jack has a Guest Book now at http://www2.caringbridge.org/md/jacklchalker/ if you want to leave a get well message. 

Oh, and the cardiologist who they consulted on Jack’s heart asked if he was the same Jack Chalker “who wrote all those books.” You never know when you’re going to find another fan!

I’ve also removed the live conditions thing because for the past 10 days now he has been Stable and looks like the rest of this month it will still be Stable. For all Dad’s update, please visit Jack Chalker’s Wife’s Blog or My blog. �Felices fiestas! (P.S. I did not take German [or… Latin?]. I got that line from Babel Fish.) 

We went in to visit Jack today and talk to the doctor about the trach. (This would be doctor number 4, in as many days.) This guy was very optimistic. Basically, if we agree to the trach, it would NOT be permanent, it could be pulled out when Jack was better, Jack might be transferred to a nursing home about 15 miles away but it would be a short-term thing and he’d be coming home. The gastric bypass surgery could wait until Jack is recovered and could give his consent and it would be his decision at that point. I am more wildly optimistic at this point than I have been in days, I feel like I have been given a great gift. We also had a consultation with the hospital social worker who had information for use on the choices in nursing homes for post-op trach weaning, a range of services for Jack (physical therapy, occupational therapy, maybe even counseling) to help him. There are risks to the surgery, but then I had similar risks when I had my hysterectomy last year and that went swimmingly. (In at 6 am Monday, out by 2 pm on Wednesday, I could have stayed another day but ugh! ick! hospitals!) 

The surgery is tomorrow morning at 11AM so keep your prayers/good wishes/thoughts coming!

     Those who know me and those who have followed my comments here and elsewhere probably know that I’d love to spend some time here commenting on politics, but until I get ahead on my other writing there’s only a little that I can spare the time to cover. I do note that I was pretty well right on Iraq, and I have no idea how the heck the folks in Washington are going to get us out now that they’ve gotten us in and used up the entire army (I sure hope we don’t need them elsewhere), blown up the place, caused over 900 casualties of some of our best and brightest young people and permanently crippled over 3000 more with no end in sight (and let’s not even discuss how many “liberated” Iraqis are going) while making us hated and reviled even in countries that are our theoretical friends. I can understand attacking those who attack you, but we get created by folks in Afghanistan and we respond by declaring war on Iraq? Sure, Saddam was a Hitler-like scuzzball, but I’m afraid he wasn’t alone in this and in fact he was a good buddy of Bush Sr. and Dick Cheney until he misunderstood some signals and attacked oil supplies in Kuwait. And Osama was a good guy to the Reaganites so long as our mutual enemy was the USSR. So while Iraq is a crippled hole, Iran is building nuclear bombs, North Korea has both the bombs and the missles, and we’re slammed by the Wassabis in exile in Afghanistan and so we attack Iraq? Uh huh. All because the neocons in Washington have this weird theory of how to make the world in our image in a view as rigid and as wrong as the old communists. In fact, they remind me of that mind-set; every time the world view is proven wrong, you just come up with an alternate universe that says it’s not really wrong. In the meantime, it’s not their kids who die. Like Cheney in the Vietnam era, they have “better things to do.” Those who have followed me all these years know I can respect conservatives, liberals, you name it, but I can’t abide hypocrites.

     So, see why I haven’t done much here with this? Remember, I had a heart attack last year. I need to keep things from blowing up inside.

     But I have a prediction. We are not only not safer than we were before this war, we’re in a much more dangerous position. We are already giving up our liberties in the name of security, and we’ll have neither. And, at this point, it won’t matter who wins in November….

      And the worst part is, I haven’t been wrong on this stuff yet.

      See you in Boston, or here when something awful happens or the book is done.

     And yet between the previous entry here and this one I have gone to several conventions, including one in Burbank, California, have, alas, gone to at least one major funeral of an old friend of many decades, playing computer mechanic, internet guru, and Dad to not only Steve, my youngest son, but also Dave again, who is back from Ohio and again living in house while trying to work off his bills and get finished with college while Eva is full time with Lockheed Martin, if not quite Rosie the Riveter but at least Rosie the Microsoft Office guru for those folks who do the Medicare and Medicaid stuff for your federal government. She is also vice chair of this year’s Balticon, the Baltimore SF Convention over Memorial Day weekend, which also makes her the chair of said con in 2005.

     I think I’m finally at the point where, if nothing else goes wrong, I may actually be able to finish Chemeleon in April and start on one or two other projects as well. At this point, the writing comes first. I need to refill the money coffers bad.

     Locally, our little Pekingese who inexplicably ran away in September is vanished for good, and Steve insisted on getting a new dog for him. He picked one, all right, and it really is his dog, but it’s a hound, much larger than any dog we’ve had here and larger than any dog I’ve ever had except my first one when I was a kid, which takes some getting used to. As to what kind it is, well, it’s a hound and I mean all hound, although probably of several types in one. He looks pretty much like a cross between a beagle and a foxhound, and he has a fear of being left alone and insists on being around one or another of us. He came from a rescue shelter so he already had a name we’re saddled with because he knows and answers to it. So, we have a dog named Boomer. The tomcat, by the way, has already taught Boomer who’s boss here. And I guess I must mention Ixty, the third pet, which is Dave’s—and, from the name, you might guess that it’s a very large female iguana. It’s in a huge terraformed cage, which protects her from the cat, but I do think Ixty is lonely and always planning for a breakout. We’ll see.

     Well, it’s spring, everybody’s home and reasonably healthy, the weather’s breaking and I’m back at work, so maybe, just maybe, we can get a break. Don’t expect me to update too frequently, but I’m going to try and get back at least to my habit of appending things here once a month whether there’s anything to say or not, and at any time when there’s breaking news. Until I write more and catch up, though, that news is going to be more folksy than professional unless Hollywood finally decides to make one of those movies. –jlc

     Through August, 2003, things were pretty normal, if hectic. Eva had a serious operation and had to take off work for a long recovery, but somehow Lockheed Martin still launched everybody’s Medicare and Medicaid so the world was safe, even though it meant I was basically doing all the housework as well as trying to work as much as possible. Mark Owings and I managed to get over to Horrorfind and talk with the horror small press folks, but otherwise it was a hot and wet but routine August. At the end of it, Eva, Steve, and I packed into the car and drove north to Toronto for the World Science Fiction Convention. It was a typical worldcon, the 38th that I’ve attended, and it was great talking with readers, fans, and old friends and colleagues. During this time, however, my long term physical problems with breathing and energy had been increasing, but one of those rent a scooters gave me full freedom. I’d been trying to find the cause of the problems for a year and a half and had been in and out of outpatient testing trying to find the cause and get help, but up to that point nobody had found any cause that showed up long enough to say, “Aha! That’s it!” I was beginning to think that I was just going to have to learn to live with it.

     We also had a bizarre return. Our little dog, Mavra Chang, was picked up at the kennel but when brought home she ran off into the farms beyond like a shot. It was the last time we saw here after 15+ years and cast a real pall on the homecoming. She certainly wouldn’t have lived too much longer, but this remains a shock and inexplicable.

     By early September Steve was back in school, Eva was back at work, and I was back working on Chemeleon, but that wasn’t to last. I was still drained in energy. In mid-September one of the nastiest hurricanes in recent decades roared up the boast, and we began to board up the place and hold tight. They almost always miss us, but every once in a while they don’t, and this one was to be one of the worst. This one was so mean that, for the only time in my memory, they announced that schools would close early the day it was due in order to insure that everybody could get home.

     That morning, I woke up to go to the bathroom, went into the bath off the bedroom, and the next thing I knew I was lying on the bathroom floor, unable to get up, my speech slurred, totally confused and with hallucinogenic flashes. After all sorts of attempts at getting anywhere, even sitting up, I knew I just had to hold on. Steve was due in early from school, and although I had no idea what time it was I knew it was in the morning and that meant he’d have to arrive soon. Eva was at work and I had no way to communicate with anybody. It was certainly a shock for a 12 year old to come home and find his father in such a condition, but Steve called 911 and then his mother, and within several minutes I was being loaded into an ambulance. Whatever they did brought back feelings of normalcy and control and the ability to speak clearly, and soon I was being wheeled directly into Emergency. The ER physician on duty happened to be one who knew me (he had been in Seattle SF fandom while growing up) and I was in the hands of experts poking, probing, analyzing, etc. very quickly. He also called in a top cardiologist who in turn called in a lung man just on his way out to beat the hurricaine. Together they were able to establish that I had suffered a heart attack with blockages in three of the four main passages. The cardiology OR at the county hospital was shut down–not enough experts with the storm coming–so they transferred me to Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, which is next to Pimlico race track and not far from where I grew up, and by late night I was having two primary stints installed and a third cleaned out. It was now clear to one and all that I had actually had a small attack almost two years earlier and that this was the cause of my earlier problems; this one was considerably meaner. The burden lifted off me by the heart surgery is dramatic, although getting some energy back is slow and must be done carefully. I am also currently on 15 pills a day (no kidding) and carry nitro with me at all times. Recovery is noticeable but very slow, so if you see me at a con and I’m tired out, you know why. Still, I made it to World Fantasy Con and will hopefully make it to Loscon if they get me plane tickets, and I’m due for a couple more yet (see Conventions) so we’ll see. In the meantime, bear with these pages if they are not updated quickly or completely. Lots of work, so little energy and no time to make up the losses….

     So, that’s why I’ve been way behind (2004 may be the first year since 1981 with no new book, but I am back working) and why even the internet pages haven’t been updated. At the moment, if all goes well, I still intend to be at Conclave in DC in mid-November at least for a day or so, Loscon in LA around Thansgiving weekend, as well as Philcon, and I’ll also be in Indianapolis for a new con in mid-January 2004, but cross your fingers. Once you’ve had an attack like this, nothing’s ever confident again…. jlc

      Okasy, so that’s it for now. Let me wrap Kaspar and then I’m going to Disney World…. jlc

Just a few quick notes to update you. I’ll do more when I finish the projects on hand. Big news is that (finally!) Kaspar’s Box is wrapping up, and on schedule, and I now have copies of the new Bzen edition of Midnight at the Well of Souls on hand, so it should be in stores any time now. Also, if you didn’t notice, Martin Harry Greenberg’s doing a series of hardcover collections of single author shorter fiction collections, and one of these will be mine. I don’t have a date or price yet, but it will include no nonfiction but all the fiction from Dance Band on the Titanic, the alternate history story from Alternate Presidents, and the complete text of the long out of print short novel Dancers in the Afterglow. The story Dance Band is in a Harry Turtledove-Martin H. Greenberg alternate history anthology currently in print and available from both Del Rey and the SF Book Club, The Best Alternate History Stories of the Twentieth Century.

     Take (1). Let’s not argue over whether we provoked anything and just stick to the core of the argument. You are saying that all those people in those airplanes and in those buildings deserved to die because of some long-standing American policy that you believe is wrong. This is certainly a justification for the Taliban, but it’s also a justification for us, since there is no logical reason to assume that our sense of morality is of any less value than theirs. If you want to completely throw out history, you’re saying that the west deserved Hitler and that it was the U.S. fault that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor without warning. I’m sorry, this is simply so intellectually dumb it’s hardly worth refuting, but it does say an awful lot about your own sense of self if you believe this because it says that you, and those who agree with you and your values, are absolutely correct and everybody who doesn’t agree with them deserves to die. That’s not just weird, it’s scary.

     Now there’s (2), best exemplified by the comment that more Afghans died in overthrowing the Taliban than Americans died on 9/11. First of all, civilians die in wars. They always have. War is messy, dirty, unglamorous business. However, I would like to see your source for those numbers. This claim and body count has been made only in the radical Islamic press, the kind of folks who support Bin Laden down the line. There is no such count from the current Afghans. Even if it were true, however, it’s irrelevant. Our government did not launch a preemptive attack against their civilians and cities. By Mullah Omar’s own admission, the Taliban government was 100% complicit in the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I find your moral compass flawed. It should be noted that the ordinary Afghanis in general consider themselves liberated from the Taliban, who, by their estimate, murdered more of their own people in one single soccer stadium than were in either tower of the WTC. Under the morality this position posits, it was wrong to go to war with Hitler or with the Japanese in 1941. Evil must be allowed to go unchecked because anything else is immoral. Obviously we shouldn’t enforce laws against rape, murder, incest, robbery and the like, either. To do so is to lower ourselves to their standard? It must also be noted that even after Al Qaeda killed our people in various spots around the world including unprovoked attacks on embassies, we did not attack. We were, in fact, the soul of forebearance on this until, by not attacking, we were attacked as weak. Sorry, this doesn’t hold water.

     And the most dishonest of all is (3) because it posits a position that the other side rejected out of hand. First, it presupposes a government to negotiate with. Not that this really matters—Russia negotiated with and solved its worries with Nazi Germany by diplomacy and treaty until, of course, the Nazis attacked. In this case we do not even have a single government to deal with. We do have a mimimum list of Bin Laden objectives, though, straight from him. In brief, we are to withdraw to our national borders, disband the United Nations and all alliances with other powers, support the overthrow of the Saudi and Egyptian regimes, and insure that Israel got no aid or support so that it was completely annihilated, not merely as a state but also every man, woman, and child in it. Israel’s destruction, it must be noted, was a major objective of Bin Laden’s father and family but never seems to have concerned him all that much. His is a mission from God to purify all lands that are or ever were Islamic of all nonbelievers and impose a single state under his brand of Islamic law. Those who make this diplomacy argument almost always are using their “negotiations” as a euphimism for Israel and the Jews. First, there can be no compromise with the Al Queda brand of Islam so what you are really saying is that we should simply trade Jews for peace like so many Europeans did in the past. This is a myopic view of radical Islam and it also puts you right there in the company of the commandant of Dachau. If you advocate this and feel comfortable with Himmler, fine, but have the honesty to say so. Then we can have an honest debate.

     Oh—while we’re at it, the fact that Bill Maher is entitled to proclaim his position is not at issue. I am an absolutist on freedom of speech, and the only definition of freedom that makes sense is that freedom is the right to be wrong. Everybody can agree with the government or masses or whatever; it’s being “wrong” that makes free speech free. But he no more has the right to a network television show than I have an absolute right to be published by, say, Random House, nor is he insulated from the wrath of sponsors and consumers who don’t see why they have some obligation to pay for his hall. Two different questions. As to his remarks, Dennis Miller’s comments on it should suffice: “It isn’t whether Bill’s right or wrong on the issue, it’s the fact that there’s a proper way to disagree and then there’s dancing and shitting on the deceased grave at the funeral in fron of all his loved ones. Timing in any business is everything.”

     Next question?

     I almost wrote that I “celebrated” my birthday day before yesterday, but at my age now what you’re celebrating is that you have birthdays, not the alternative. My oldest son will turn 20 today, and plans to celebrate it by having his gaming group take him out to see the premiere of Lord of the Rings. I’ll wait until next week, when the crowds are down. I hear surprisingly good things about the film, but, then again, I was one of the half dozen who liked The Frighteners. I also liked the first Harry Potter movie. I’m getting a kick out of those folks parroting the art film critics about “slavishly following the book” when (A) I’m an author. I like films that follow books, and (B) it’s so word for word that it’s very clear that those folks never saw the film nor, in fact, read the book(s). With technology finally up to it, it’s a shame we can’t get somebody out there to do Midnight at the Well of Souls. It almost happened once, but after months of tough negotiation they tried to slip in the clause that basically reserved all the uranium to them and the shaft to me and I wouldn’t be so goshwow blinded by Hollywood glamour to tell my Hollywood agent to sign it anyway. Too bad, though. Rights still available.

     Well, I hope I’m wrong, but at the moment it looks like a second Bush administration is about to declare victory and lose another Asian war. Think not? What was our objective? To overthrow a bad government and install a possibly better one in Afghanistan? Nope. That was just a means to an end. The objective was to destroy the Al Qaeda infrastructure and kill or capture their leaders. Osama is as dead and gone as, well, Saddam Hussein. We’ve got no money men, no computerized records, no bank accounts or financeers, and just about none of the top leadership. We didn’t even get the top of the Taliban. The poor brainwashed grunts of theirs we did catch look very much like, well, the Iraqi soldiers we captured or killed a decade ago. Well, as usual, not many of our professional military got hurt. Only our civilians….

     Happy holidays, folks! jlc

     I’ve also received a number of emails from readers who generally liked my comments on September 11 but who were appalled that a writer would attack the “right” of Bill Maher and the like to say what they said. I’m a bit surprised, since I said no such thing. I am an absolutist on the First Ammendment and on freedom of speech and press. However, as much as I’ve looked at that ammendment, I’ll be damned if I can find the right to have your own television show, or the right to collect pay for said show by sponsors who think you’re an asshole who shocked them with your comments. If one is there, then I want to invoke my right to be paid the highest rates by Random House and Penguin Putnam and St. Martins. The right to say or write things is not the same as the right to be published or broadcast, nor does it say that even such freedoms can always be exercised without consequences. Few people today believe that actions might have consequences that are not in their favor. Maher, when faced with the possibility of losing his show, went on everybody who’d have him from Tonight to the morning farm report to say how sorry he was, and he’s still got his job. I’d have had much more respect for him if he’d stood by his word. The same goes for Av Westin, President of ABC News, who, when asked by a journalism student forum if he felt the Pentagon was a legitimate target for attack repleid glibly that he had “no particular feelings one way or the other about that.” I guess he doesn’t also have much feeling about the poor folks, men, women, and children, who were on the plane used as the bomb, or the bureaucrats who happened to be assigned there or people just there checking on relatives or pensions or whatever. He was certainly saying he had no particular feeling about being a citizen of the U.S. Only when it was broadcast on CSPAN and generated a storm did he “issue a statement” that he was “wrong” and “that wasn’t what I meant.” He didn’t even have the guts to face his fellow reporters and answer questions on it. Would this sort of thing compromise journalistic integrity? Being an American and proud of it didn’t seem to bother nor call motives into question when it was Ed Morrow on the rooftops of London reporting the Blitz in World War II, or the others he hired, like Charles Collingwood, William L. Shirer, Walter Cronkite, and many others who are held up as the models of what great reporters should be. That’s the sort of thing I have contempt for. I think I have a responsibility to my readers every time I write a book and it’s published and distributed, and you may disagree with the themes and messages but you will not find someone here who will run from them.

     I need a vacation (and a convention, maybe) to sit around and talk with folks and touch base. Alas, this Winter there are very few of them. Oh, well, I guess I’ll have to get back to writing…. jlc