Where Did Our Curiosity Go?

     Were you alive back when President Kennedy ensured that the U.S.A. reached the moon before the U.S.S.R.?  I remember being in grade school and seeing news reports of a renewed emphasis on Science and Math in U.S. schools, and how the entire nation was gripped with excitement, breathlessly following the reports of trial and error so inherent to scientific exploration of the space beyond our own tiny ball of mud and water in space.  I remember thinking that if we could have astronauts walking on the moon and I was just a kid in elementary school, imagine where astronauts would be walking once I was an adult!
     So now, almost 50 years later, where are we walking?  Not on the moon anymore.  Not on any other planets.  And if you ask most people what's going on with NASA and the space exploration programs, you will get blank stares or heated lectures on how we need to stop funding such "nonsense" and instead put tax money to work solving the problems we've created for ourselves here on our home planet. "After all," the speaker will opine piously, "What benefits have we ever gotten from wasting all of that money on the space program?"
     Indeed.  Just thinking off the top of my head, I can name things we take for granted like Velcro, thin fabrics that hold heat in without bulk, disposable diapers, dehydrated foods, microwaves, and technology so small that the computers that used to fill entire rooms with punch-cards and moving dials, are now held in the palm of a hand while toddlers play endless on-line games to keep themselves amused while Mom and Dad ignore each other to text other people or surf the web while they wait for their fast food in the restaurant.
     In his book, The Demon-Haunted World, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_World, Carl Sagan talks about being a passenger in taxis all over the country, and invariably if the driver recognized him, he would be asked his opinion of the various "scientific" ideas the driver was interested in...things like, "Did aliens really land here in the 40s and their bodies and technology are being kept secret from us?", and "How can you say there's no such thing as magic and ESP?  I just read in (name any national tabloid) about someone who can..."
And Carl Sagan would sigh heavily, sometimes attempting to explain that these things are all the work of charlatans, and that if the person really is interested in science, they should try reading about what NASA is doing these days, about the exciting things being discovered through our participation on the International Space Station, or the miracles of modern medicine discoveries, etc.  At that point the driver would invariably get angry or quiet, upset that the famous Carl Sagan really didn't know anything about "science" after all...at least not about the stuff he was interested in.
     The statistics these days tell us that the U.S. is 14th in the world in student achievement in Science, and 18th in Math.  This, from a country that used to lead the world!  But I'll bet today's students can all identify "Honey Boo-Boo", and navigate quickly on their smart phones to the Twitter feed from the Kardashians, which they follow religiously.  Sigh.
     Years ago Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Simple minds talk about other people.  Average minds talk about events.  Great minds talk about ideas."  Yet here we are, in the western world, many of us taking for granted the knowledge of the whole of humanity available on the internet, and what is the primary use for this access?  Downloading extreme porn and chatting on social networks about other people.
     All of my observations here are to introduce the second of my Mayan Vampire novels, Mayan Prophecy Fulfilled.  What?  How can a fiction novel, an erotic vampire romance at that, have anything to do with such lofty ideas?  In my fictional world of these two novels, I present a reason that curiosity has faded in humanity, and why despite our inherent desire to learn, instead we wallow in the ordinary, celebrate the sub-human (hello, reality TV), and more people vote for American Idol than vote for the U.S. President.  In my books, the aliens that visited our planet before brought vampirism with them, along with directions: encourage humanity to propagate, but don't let it evolve so far that independent space travel is achieved.  Keep the masses well-fed but dumbed-down, so they won't present any problem when the aliens return in 5,000 years to take more humans back to their planet with them.
     The first book, Prophecy of the Undead, introduced my ideas.  The second book, Mayan Prophecy Fulfilled, ends with the aliens returning to find a world changed in ways they didn't expect.

 To learn more, please visit my website, www.fionamcgier.com.
Both books are available at the usual places, like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romances Ebooks.com., and Coffeetime Romance.com.  But the best price is usually at the publisher, and if you go to: www.eternalpress.biz, log-in to prove you are over 18, and use the code 289snake when you check out, you will save 28% off your purchase of my two eBooks.

And to answer my question about Curiosity, that's the name of the space exploration vehicle currently sending back spectacular data from Mars.  Go to this site to watch some interesting short videos explaining various issues about space travel.  The one I've linked to is the one from NASA telling us why the planet didn't end on December 21, 2012, at the end of the Mayan long-count calendar's 13th Baktun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY_Gc1bF8ds.

I love dandelions

There, I said it. Now every lawn fanatic out there is going to get their knickers in a knot. Especially when I tell them that their obsessive quest for the perfect lawn needs to be stopped. Why?

Lawns use three times more water than corn does in America.

They require constant mowing, which uses gas or hydro

We poison our community with pesticides used to kill off insects, good and bad ones

We poison our community with herbicides to kill off everything but a single breed of cultivated grass.

We further pollute our already unclean water with fertilizers, artificial or natural it all runs off.

And why? So we can have a green carpet when you just as easily Astroturf it. You might as well, since that's what it looks like.

The biggest crime is this goes on even in parts of the country where water is always in short supply. But all that aside, why are people so obsessed with having a perfect, sterile mono-culture mat growing on their property? It supports no life, and what it does support, lawn owners spend millions of dollars killing it, along with any other insect, even the valuable ones. Pesticide makes no distinction. Don't people stop and think about what they are doing when they have to post signs all over their lawn to stay off it, it's toxic? Doesn't that ring any alarm bells?

Why can't we learn to love a rich, multi flora lawn filled with ground cover? I've seen spreads of small lavender flower as well as white, that would be lovely to look at, require minimal care and more than likely would take next to no water to survive. And dandelions. I defy anyone to look at a field filled with dandelions no to see how beautiful it is. There aren't many cultured plants that have that brilliant a shade of yellow. And if we did more of that sort of planting – really just encouraging them to grow – everybody would have a unique yard, that would also be home for other living things. There'd be no more daily watering needed, no using gas or electricity to mow everything to a uniform 2 inches of green desert. There'd also be no expense in buying seed, fertilizer or pesticides. Your kids could roll around on the lawn with no threat of being exposed to toxins of one kind or another. Ditto your pets.

On top of all that, you can eat them. I've seen dandelion leaves sold at the supermarket. They're great in salads, the flowers are sweet, you can make wine out of them too. And if you have pets like rabbits or other plants eaters, they'll consider them a delicacy. My rabbits loved dandelions and clover—another colorful lawn covering.

Pat Brown pens M/M crime fiction. Her L.A. series, featuring LAPD homicide detective David Eric Laine and his lover Christopher Bellamere, is currently undergoing major revisions which will come out over the next few months. Her frolicking gay romance MAN'S BEST FRIENDS will be out soon. Her other series with Santa Barbara Detective Alexander Spider and his lover Jason Zachary was recently re-released with new covers and revised content.

She is also the author of stand alone novels MEMORY OF DARKNESS, LYNX WOODS, FALL INTO THE NIGHT, and shorter pieces THE BEAR and PLACING OUT.

Her latest novel, LATIN BOYZ was recently released by AmberQuill Press. This novel represents the years I lived in Los Angeles and the years since in the path I've taken since leaving L.A. It's dark and tragic, but it's also filled with love and faith. It is by no means a standard romance novel. Rather, it deals with strong characters who have to fight to find both safety and love that some call wrong. Come and see for yourself

... beautifully written, a solid, well-crafted story given life with all your LA street and police smarts, and an incredibly satisfying

read. I can't say how, but I think your writing got deeper emotionally in this book...  this book was a feast -- Lloyd Meeker

This is my newest and possibly darkest novel. if you like your romance with a dark edge, then LATIN BOYZ is just the fix you need.  Pushing the envelope on romance. Enter a world of violence where the only thing worth holding onto is your family.

BLURB

Twenty-one year old Gabe will do anything to keep his family safe from the Locusts XIII Crew, a Cypress Park gang, especially his 14-year-old sister Nattie. In Gabe's struggle to keep his small, fragile family safe, he meets LAPD patrol officer Alejandro Cerveras and must come to terms with his attraction to him--and decide whether to believe his Church’s teachings or what his heart tells him. Then tragedy strikes, fueling his rage. As the need for vengeance drives him past all reason, violence and hatred erupt between Gabe and the gangbangers, spiraling out of control, leading to tragedy and the greatest loss of all.

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EXCERPT

Thanksgiving, Cypress Park, South-Central Los Angeles

P-Bull swung the thugged-out Buick onto Merced Street.

Sadboy shoved the barrel of his gun out the car window. "Gonna get us a piece of White Fence ass," he screamed. "Bang, bang. Fucking lame-ass chuntaros!"

"I'm down with it." P-Bull jacked a load into his Raven and checked the sight. Beside him Sadboy rocked and grinned and waved the chrome around. Happy as a shitbird. "Don't go shooting your ass off, mijo." 

P-Bull knew this street. He grew up here. He rolled past yards he'd spilled blood in years ago, before the Locusts jumped him in. Down the street little kids played some little kid game, making noise. Old chocho pushed a lawn mower and spit grass all over his skinny legs. The puta, Gabe's mother, and his sister, Nattie, came out of the house beside the White Fence crib. That little girl gettin' all grown up. Gonna have to pay her a visit soon. That sweet little fox about ready to meet a real man.

"There he is!" Sadboy shouted when a scrawny boy P-Bull recognized as Ruiz, the new White Fence banger, came out of the house. Sadboy bounced on the Buick's seat, waving his chrome around. P-Bull was gonna tell him to cool it when the fool opened fire. He yipped and hollered while he sprayed the front of the houses with brass. "The White Fence pussy ocho make a run for it."

P-Bull lit in a second later, blowing the running man down. Gabe's mother ducked. Her and Gabe's sister went down in a tangle, the girl's fine strong legs in the air for everyone to see. Man, he had to get a taste of that.

"Where you from now!" Sadboy screamed. He punched P-Bull's shoulder. "Lay it down."

P-Bull stared at the front yard where the old woman and daughter lay sprawled on the ground. "Later, Sancha." 

Gabe flew down the stairs. From half a block away, P-Bull laughed. When the man who had once been his best friend screamed and fell to his knees beside his mother, P-Bull's lip curled.

"Balless coward, should go back and cap your ass." Before he could act on the thought and throw the Buick into reverse, a black and white, followed by another, screamed around the corner. P-Bull slipped the Raven under his belt.

Sadboy grew so excited, P-Bull thought sure he'd start firing out the car window again like Clint Eastwood as some baddass cop. P-Bull reached over and clipped the back of Sadboy's head.

"Idiot, you lookin' to get 5-0 after us? Put that away."

Sadboy sullenly did, glowering at the dashboard.

P-Bull slipped the car into first, driving slowly, to avert 5-0's attention.

He cranked the music up, rocking to words about killing cops and banging whores. His hand slapped against the car door in beat to the rap; his shaved head bobbed.

All the time he watched the activity behind him.

The cops swarmed out of their cars. One checked Ruiz, then spoke into his shoulder mic. The others approached Gabe, guns coming out when Gabe stared at them blankly, not reacting to to them and what they were probably telling him to do. 

P-Bull couldn't hear the words but he knew what was coming. Gabe ignored 5-0 and crawled over to his sister, cradling her in his arms. P-Bull watched to see if she was alive. Be a pity if she died before she got to meet him. 

Both cops screamed and drew closer to the kneeling man.

Even from the slowly moving car, P-Bull could see the blood on both Gabe and his sister. He howled with laughter when one cop, female, finally proned Gabe out, yanked his hands behind his back. She hauled him, his face and T-Shirt soaked in crimson, to the curb and stuffed him in the back of a cruiser.

"Don't need to cap his ass." P-Bull threw his head back and laughed. "5-0 do it for us." 

With the cops; attention somewhere else, he turned the car down a narrow alley to Pepper Street, getting clear of the streets before 5-0 started looking around for suspects. Not that they'd look too hard. It was just brown barrio chollos lying on the ground.

Once on Cypress, P-Bull laughed and punched down on the gas, spewing oily smoke and burnt rubber when they left Pepper. They circled back, passing Merced where cops and ambulances turned the street into a carnival of lights.

P-Bull didn't hear any sirens following them while they fled to Eagle Rock, looking to chase some dragon.

""Takin' care of business," he said and knuckled Sadboy. "Right on. Locusts rule!"

"Fuckin' A." Sadboy giggled. "You see that cabrão go down? Fuck White Fence."

"Fuck 'em all."

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