In the Wake of the Plague -- The Black Death and the World It Made

Photo: A Bubonic Plague map, from the Wikipedia page The Black Death in England.  This site quotes that up to half of England's population died of the plague in the Middle Ages, and another 20% later--and that doesn't count the last epidemic, the The Great Plague of 1666.


Fascinatingly in-depth, yet quick-to-read, take on everything Black Death.  This includes, but is not limited to:

--the biomedical facts of the Plague.  The memorable kicker here is that scientists have concluded, by digging up bodies of Plague victims in the frozen Arctic, that the Great Pestilence may have made about 10%-15% of today's descendants of Plague survivors immune to HIV, which causes AIDS.  This would've been certain by now, since the completion of the Human Genome Project, as this book was published in 2001.  The other memorable factoid is that anthrax was most likely killing off Europeans--especially the British--as the Plague was doing so as well, making London of the Middle Ages the worst place to be of all-time.  This explains why millions died in the winter--when rats and fleas are not abundant--and why millions died in the Frozen Arctic, where rats and fleas don't go at all.  Turns out, many of those people didn't die from the Plague--they died from anthrax.  And, why didn't many people have the tell-tale buboes and skin and blood lesions that Plague victims got?  And why did some people get struck by the virus one night and die before morning, which was unusual for Plague, which took days or weeks?  Answer, again: anthrax.

--social and economic aftereffects of the Plague.  In short, yeomen and women flourished, economically.  The Church was devastated and hired younger and more undereducated people, as the older but learned leaders died off. Serfdom ended. People questioned the infallibility of their monarchies (who were supposedly God-chosen and God-protected, but who during the Plague were God-forsaken) and of the Church, and of medicine.  After all, if the priests and friars and physicians couldn't save themselves, how could they save (spiritually and medically) anyone else?  And if they couldn't do that, what good were they at all?

--artistic expression.  Commonly thought to have become more morbid and pessimistic after the Plague, Cantor believes that art was going that way anyway, and that Renaissance art was less of a mirror of the Plague than previously thought.  I'm surprised by this, but Cantor is hugely respected, and he quotes many others, so I'll take his word for it.

--world government. The Plague spelled the end for the Plantagenets, which was a long-lasting monarchy and European power that you and I have never heard of. But they would've ruled England and Spain, and maybe, by default, France, at the time, which was a constant thought of every monarch for hundreds of years, but would've actually happened. But English Princess Joan, who was about to marry into the Spanish monarchy, died of the Plague (in France, at 15), and so that never happened. This led to the trials and tribulations of Edward II and III, and of Henry IV-VI, and, well, the rest is history.

--medical and scientific stagnation. These two things were just as much to blame as were the actual Plague and anthrax, as the vacuum of medical and scientific advancement in the Middle Ages (except in the field of optics) made these pandemics worse, and longer-lasting, than they necessarily had to be. Nobody knew or practiced anything that could've combated the Plague, so the main response was to pray, flee and blame--

--the Jews. The Plague wasn't the first time they were scapegoated, but perhaps this was the first European-wide excuse to massacre them, as entire villages, households and neighborhoods of Jews were set aflame and otherwise wiped out because the common man thought they were poisoning the wells, thereby creating and spreading the Plague. The first of many Jewish holocausts over the years.

In short, if you're interested at all in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, or in the Plague, this is necessary reading. An informative, well-written (and often sarcastic) account of the Plague, the people and the time.

New Disasters--The Black Death

Interesting little book--just 111 pages--about the Black Death of the Middle Ages, between 1347-1351.  I saw it in my local library while I was researching plagues and flus for my next novel.  Though I'm focusing more on the Great Plague of the 1660s in England, and not the Black Death of the Middle Ages (for they're not the same thing, and there are a great number of differences), I figured I could learn a little something from this.

It's broken up in sections: its arrival; recent scientific re-assessments (this was published in 2003, so it's still relatively recent); writings about the plague from the time; and the repercussions of the Black Death.

What I learned, in no particular order:

--It seems now rather certain that the Black Death wasn't just the Justinian Plague, carried by fleas on black rats.  Lots of evidence indicates that anthrax (the disease that killed cattle, not the powdery stuff used in germ warfare today) was also going around, either on its own or as a unique anthrax / plague strain.

--Part of the evidence for this was the unbelievable number of animals dying before the people started to die.  Also, the deaths did not abate much in the winter--odd for a plague dependent on fleas and rats to spread it.  (Neither survive or move around much in the winter.)  And people died with extreme rapidity from a third strain of the plague; it was said that they could go to bed feeling fine and be dead by morning.  (This does not seem to be an exaggeration.)

--The plague was said to come from vapors within the Earth, released during earthquakes.  It was believed that breathing man-made yuckiness--like from latrines--was beneficial, and would fight off the nastiness from within the Earth.  Planet alignments and other astrological things were also blamed.

--People died faster than they could be buried.  Putrefying bodies of people and animals would lie in the streets, and the stink was said to be incredible.

--Gravediggers, doctors and clergy died fastest, as they attended to the dead and dying.  Since nobody was left alive to bury the dead--and since those left alive didn't want to touch the dead or dying for fear of getting sick from their "humours" and "vapors"--a lot of money was paid to people who called themselves becchini.  These people would take the dead from their homes, from the streets, etc. and bury them.  But after awhile, nobody wanted to touch or associate themselves with these people, either, so the becchini became disgruntled and homeless, and often turned to crime.

--Those who couldn't afford to be cared for or buried simply weren't, and died alone in horrible conditions, and their bodies left to rot wherever they died.

--The Black Death may have some DNA in common with the HIV / AIDS virus.  Recent evidence suggests that 12%-15% of those with European descent--and an ancestor who contracted the plague and survived it--may be immune to the HIV / AIDS virus as well as the Black Death.

--The same plague from the Middle Ages is alive and well in a few spots, including the Midwestern U.S.  Some cases have cropped up in Colorado recently.

--A strain of the Plague--as well as strains of other viruses--are immune to today's strongest antibiotics.  A cocktail of super-antibiotics is used to fight these resistant viruses now.  Once the viruses become immune to these cocktails--which is very soon--there won't be anything left to stop them.

--God, then like today, was thought to be punishing the bad people.  [See: AIDS in the 80s.]  But then everyone, of every stripe, class, age and religion, started dying, so that theory was dashed by everyone--except the living, of course, whose every breath proved their moral superiority.

--A common "cure" was to bleed and purge the victim.  This led to an even more rapid death due to blood loss, exhaustion, dehydration, and a weakened immune system.  Those who came in contact with the blood or feces of the victim could contract the illness as well, so that the "cure" killed them, too.

--Mercury was often recommended, which made plague victims die of the plague and of mercury poisoning.  Several learned people complained that their doctors were killing them quicker than the pestilence was.  (BTW, the plague was never called the plague at the time.  It was called a "pestilence" or "the Great Pestilence.")

--The most common thing doctors did for the victim?  Study their urine.

--In some towns, when one member of a family got sick, the entire family was sealed inside the home, so that everyone--the healthy and the sick--died.

--Before everyone died of the plague, those blamed for it the most were the Jews and the undesirables of society.  [See: World War II.]  It was commonly believed that Jews were poisoning the wells, and tens of thousands of Jews across Europe were hunted down because of this belief, including entire communities.

Anyway, a little book that, in these virus-ravaged days, makes for some eye-opening, if not chilling, reading.  With the Earth long overdue for a pandemic like the 1918 super-flu, and with our current attitudes about change and blame, this book made for some quick, interesting and thought-provoking reading.

The more things change, it seems, the more things stay the same.

Ebola, Panic, Politics and Meet the Press

Some guests from October 5th's Meet the Press, and the show's moderator, have agreed to step into my blog and say exactly, verbatim, from the show's transcript, the same things they said on that show. You can read along with them via the transcript, found at the show's website. 

Welcome everyone!

GWEN IFILL:

Let me just, let's test one thing. One case of Ebola in the United States, right? One. 3,000 people dead in West Africa, which we weren't talking about last week. So all of a sudden, we are panicked. 

[BELANGER]: Right on, Gwen.  And the one case of Ebola is a guy who came from West Africa.  Not one transmitted case here, and yet we're panicked?  [Edit from Oct. 19, 2014--Two nurses treating this patient in Texas had Ebola transmitted to them from this man, probably from a breakdown in procedure and protocol when they removed their medical suits and gloves.  They are the first two, and so far the only, people to be transmitted Ebola while in America.  Reports indicate the second nurse was not showing symptoms--and was therefore not infectious--while she flew on a commercial flight to Ohio.]  What about the tens of thousands who've died of Ebola in Africa over the last few decades? Why haven't the American masses panicked for them?  Who worries for them?  Thanks for starting off our discussion with some logic and some facts.

REINCE PRIEBUS:

I think you guys spelled it out pretty well when you had Mr. Pfeiffer on. From the real unemployment rate, for the how many people are out of work, the labor participation rate is at record lows. People today don't feel better off than they were five years ago. And obviously, whether it's the GSA, the IRS, Syria, Ebola, the Secret Service, I mean, what's going well in regard to this administration and those senators that have followed this president lockstep? 

[BELANGER]: So now Obama is to blame for Ebola?  And ISIS?  Those two things are in no way related to the American unemployment rate or to the Obama Administration or to any senator.  You're an idiot.  Get off my blog.

JOE SCARBOROUGH:

No, I don't feel better. And I don't think most Americans feel better. You have everybody saying, "Hey, let's stay calm." That's what the World Health Organization said back in the spring when this broke out. And then they said, "Let's stay calm," when the head of Doctors without Borders, as The Washington Post reported this morning, went to them in late July and said, "This is a crisis." They said, "You're panicking, you're panicking."

And we're hearing the same thing now. Let's look at it. The World Health Organization has been dismal. They've ignored all of the warning signs. And then the African countries, the governments there have failed miserably. And right now, a lot of Americans are seeing what happened in Dallas and looking at your laundry list, what happened with the secret service, what happened with the IRS, what happened with the VA, what happened with ISIS being a JV team. So when anybody, any member of the government says, "Hey, just relax, everything's going to be okay," Americans don't believe that. 

[BELANGER]: Just because you're clearly panicking, Joe, that doesn't mean that all Americans are panicking.  Nor does it mean that there's something to panic about at this exact moment.  Let's break it down.  The World Health Organization said that Ebola was a crisis in Africa at that time, which is still where the Ebola crisis is, at this moment.  So don't take a serious thing like Ebola and purposely misrepresent it for your political gain.  Second: The African countries have indeed failed with the treatment and containment of Ebola, noticeably because of ignorance of how the disease is spread; ignorance of basic procedures (such as burning the dead Ebola victims rather than burying them with unprotected hands) and basic medical care (the world's doctors are there to help them, not to hurt them); ignorance of religion versus fact (it is perhaps NOT true that God is killing sinners with Ebola), and so on.  These are the same exact things that help to spread HIV / AIDS in that continent as well.  BUT...the failures of these African governments have zero to do with the American government.  Just because those governments have failed miserably, that doesn't mean that this government is failing miserably, especially in terms of Ebola.  Again, do not skewer the facts for your political gain, sir.  Lastly, Ebola and ISIS do not exist because of the Obama administration or because of WHO.

Stop trying to cause panic and have it directed at Obama.  You're an idiot.  Get off my blog.

SEN. RAND PAUL (ON TAPE): 

You also have to be concerned about 3,000 soldiers getting back on a ship. Where is disease most transmittable? When you're in very close confines on a ship. We all know about cruises and how they get these diarrhea viruses that are transmitted very easily and the whole ship gets sick. Can you imagine if a whole ship full of our soldiers catch Ebola?

[BELANGER]: You're misunderstanding how viruses work--though your phrase "diarrhea viruses" is misleadingly amusing.  But one does not "catch" Ebola as one would "catch" a cold.  There are many different kinds of viruses.  The viruses you speak of, these diarrhea-viruses, are more of an airborne / touch virus, like the common cold, which is also a virus.  But HIV / AIDS is also a virus, and you can't catch it like you'd catch a cold.  Chances are, if you're not getting infected blood from a transfusion during an operation, and if you're not sharing needles with an infected person, and if you're not having carnal relations with an infected person, then you cannot--repeat, cannot--get HIV / AIDS.  (However, reader, I'm a blogger, not a medical professional, so you should not be seeking medical information from me.)  Anyway, that's the key here: How is the virus transmitted?  You, Senator, are perhaps thinking of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, but of course Ebola is not the flu, and it cannot be transmitted in the same way.  Furthermore, the U.S. soldiers, of course, won't have Ebola when they're shipped over there, so they won't "catch" Ebola on the way there.  And one would have to assume--unless one thinks that everyone is a complete idiot, which even I don't--that each soldier will be tested for Ebola before they're shipped back.  Plus, we know more about viruses and virus transmission, and containment, and treatment, now than we did in 1918.  

You've been a speak-first, think-later-if-at-all guy for a long time now, Rand.  You're an idiot.  Get off my blog.

CHUCK TODD:

Why though, I guess go back to the question. I understand about the outbreak, but are you going to try to do more measures? I think this is a public that is very fearful right now, because you say one thing here, and then all of a sudden, Ebola walked into a Dallas hospital. 

[BELANGER]  Sounds like you just finished Stephen King's The Stand, Chuck.  Rather than cause panic and sensationalize Ebola, wouldn't it have been better if you'd made this point: Over 75% of all people coming into America from West Africa do so via four or five different American airports, including the one you mentioned in Dallas.  So wouldn't it make sense to have medical personnel at these airports to screen these people?  Also, this is the upteenth time this episode, Chuck, that you have said that the American public is "very fearful."  Just because you repeat phrases like that, and words like panic and worry, that doesn't mean that the average American is in fact panicked or worrying about Ebola at this point.  Saying something over and over doesn't make it so.  Or--at least, it shouldn't.  But I've read Animal Farm.  Perhaps you have, as well.  Or, your bosses have.  A real newsman informs, Chuck.  He doesn't incite misleadingly-educated riots.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, let me ask you very quickly though. We've got flu seasons going to be coming up. Can the U.S. healthcare system handle the incoming that if you mix sort of fear about Ebola with your typical flu season, and people feeling sort of similar issues, fever, stuff like that, are you worried about a crush of the American healthcare system because of the Ebola fear mixed in during flu season? 

[BELANGER]: I repeat:  A real newsman informs, Chuck.  He doesn't incite misleadingly-educated riots. 

People will not typically "mix sort of fear about Ebola with your typical flu," but they may as long as ratings-minded and panic-causing people as yourself, Chuck, keep telling them to.  But, since you're a newsman, and since it's your job to just say and report the news, and not to sensationalize, misreport, or purposely mislead people with the news, then that's not going to happen, right? If you, as a responsible and professional news expert, inform the American public about the difference between the flu and Ebola, and insist that they not panic, then your question has no merit, does it?

CHUCK TODD:

There's a litany of problems that the government and the American public are having to worry about. The first case of Ebola in the United States...

[BELANGER]: Again, Chuck, just because you tell us that the American public has to worry about Ebola, that doesn't mean that we really do.  And it also doesn't mean that many people actually are.  And, by the way, this is NOT the first case of Ebola ever in the U.S.  What about Ebola Reston?  Ever read The Hot Zone, Chuck?  By Richard Preston?  About a (very luckily) non-lethal form of Ebola that made it to Reston, Virginia?  Now that was actually the first--

 CHUCK TODD:

America is on edge. Ebola's been diagnosed on U.S. soil for the first time...

[BELANGER] Dammit, Chuck, have you been listening to a damn word I just--

CHUCK TODD (V/O):

This outbreak is the largest in history, causing the president to send U.S. military personnel in an attempt to control the spread of the virus. 

[BELANGER]: Yes, Chuck, I know, but shouldn't you also say that this is still in Africa?  That the U.S. military personnel has been sent to Africa?  And that--

BRIAN WILLIAMS:

The highest alert. The CDC has now increased the emergency response to the Ebola epidemic.

[BELANGER]: Y tu, Brian?  Shouldn't you also say that this emergency response is to the Ebola epidemic in Africa?  Dammit.  I can't believe this is all from the same one episode of this show--

CHUCK TODD (V/O):

Ebola. Just one of the frightening but true stories that have been seen on TV, newspapers and the internet. 

[BELANGER]: That's it, Chuck.  I've had it with you.  You're purposely inciting and misleading the American public.  Get off my blog!

BRIAN WILLIAMS:

Ebola in the U.S. 

[BELANGER]: Yes, Brian, I know.  But, again.  They came home from Africa to get treatment here.  They got it in Africa.  So help me, Brian, if Alison wasn't so beautiful I'd kick you off this blog right--

DAVID MUIR:

The first confirmed case of Ebola. 

[BELANGER]: No, it's not.  We just went over that.  Wait--Who the hell are you?  Get off my blog.

SCOTT PELLEY:

A man in Texas has just been diagnosed with Ebola.

[BELANGER]: Yes, I know, the guy from Dallas.  But, although he was diagnosed with it here, he actually got it in Africa.  We've been over this.  Why are you guys trying to create panic?  So all the panic-stricken will watch your show?  And are we still in the same one episode?  We are?  I don't believe this.  By the way, Scott, get off my blog.

CHUCK TODD (V/O):

Because Ebola has left Africa and walked into a Dallas hospital. 

[BELANGER]: I thought I told you to stop this misrepresentation and get off my blog?

Isn't anyone listening?

  

  

Gone Girl

 Photo: Gone Girl's movie poster, from its Wikipedia site

I'd been looking forward to this one for a long time.  Gillian Flynn writes dark, edgy things, and I like reading dark, edgy things.  (I write those, too, especially my novels.)  And David Fincher directed it, and he's a very dark, edgy guy who makes very, very dark, edgy movies.

And Gone Girl did not disappoint.  It is very dark, very edgy, very well-acted and very well-directed.

What else can you ask for?

I haven't read the book, but being a cynic and pessimist, I was right there with the movie until about 90% of the way through.  If you're as much of a cynic as I am, not much of what actually happens here will surprise you, though how it's shown will impress you.  The horrific nature of some people, and of the media, and of the guy's neighbors, etc. will also not surprise you, though you may, like I did, be surprised at how well it's shown.

Neighbors will smile and wave, then want to shoot you, then smile and wave at you again.  Check.  (Though, seriously, my actual neighbors are wonderful.)

The media will crucify you, then show the truth--if you're lucky enough to be vindicated by it.  And then the media will put you in front of a camera and ask, "How are you feeling now that..."  Check.

Everyone in the known universe will use your image, and your tragedy, to make a buck for themselves.  This includes your in-laws, your family, your friends and neighbors.  Check.

The real purpose of this movie was to thrill and surprise, of course.  But, like the book, it is not satisfied to do just that.  It shoots arrows (and hits the targets) at the media, at the masses as herd mentality, and at the fickle nature of people in general--though I feel this has a particular target setting on the American media, and of the American masses.

And it succeeds at doing this as well.  I was reminded of this today while watching Meet the Press. (Cuz I'm super-exciting and super-awesome like that.)  The news guy kept asking questions like, "Is America ready for this Ebola outbreak?" though, of course, there has yet to be an Ebola outbreak in America.  Luckily, the guy from the CDC stood his ground, did not give in to this gambit that was tried on him at least three times, and maintained that--although there have been a few Americans currently in American hospitals with Ebola--the American victims contracted the virus in Africa.  As of this typing, they have not transmitted it to anyone else in America after they got here.

This Meet the Press guy, who knows better but who is clearly trying to make a name for himself (and who perhaps wants to marry his brand-new set), then asked if America has the resources to battle a flu epidemic and an Ebola epidemic.  The CDC guy reminded him again that there is not an Ebola epidemic in this country, but that, yes, America is ready for such an epidemic, if it hits.  He stressed that he didn't think one would, especially not as seen in Africa right now.  He did not, but probably should have, pointed out that the flu virus and the Ebola virus are, of course, two completely different things, and would therefore have two different responses.  One gives you a fever and a couple of days of aches and pains, while the other gives you a fever in the middle triple-digits, and then makes you bleed out of your pores and crash and burn, and it may also liquify your organs if left totally untreated.  So, yes, these are two completely different viruses, as different as, say, the common cold, which is a virus, and HIV / AIDS, which is also a virus.  Read the show's transcript here.  The Ebola part happens first, so you won't have to read the whole thing.

:::Slight digression:::  People need to now be aware of what viruses are.  And they need to learn this on their own, or from medical experts, and NOT---I REPEAT, NOT--from the media.  Because the media doesn't know, or really care, what it is.  My biggest fear now is that the masses will be herding in a panic to their nearest hospitals when they get any kind of cold, or flu, or sinus infection, or headache, or whatever, and this actually will exhaust the resources of our medical professionals so that they can't treat any take-care-of-it-now Ebola case that may come along.  And then--boom--contagion.  And spread.  It's like how people flood the 911 lines because their Big Macs are cold, and so the person calling because he's having a heart attack can't get through.  (Yes, this actually happens all the time.)

The Meet the Press guy was clearly trying to hit the panic button, purposely exaggerating and deliberately misreporting the news, and for what?  Ratings, of course.  And some popularity for himself.  Too many "news" channels and "news" programs these days.

But I digress.  Or do I?  Because that's what Gone Girl shows: the sensationalistic American (and worldwide?) media today.  It outrages and it misreports and it misleads, and does so purposely, for ratings.  But this wouldn't be possible if the American (worldwide?) masses didn't fall for it each and every damned time, like the mindless masses and herd mentality experts that we are.  Like, there were no WMDs in Iraq, and the mission has not, in fact, been accomplished.

Gone Girl shows all of this as well.  It may seem like it's digressing from its main plot of a marriage gone bad, or of a woman who may have been kidnapped and / or murdered, but stay the course, because it's all part of the same rollercoaster ride, with all its loops and turns.

Ben Affleck, who knows some things about media-gone-crazy, and Rosamund Pike (who I've very quietly loved since her James Bond film, and who turns in a career-defining performance here) excel in their roles.  They are brave casting choices, which Fincher excels at--see: Rooney Mara--but they are also good choices.  Affleck really has been through this all before, and in this movie, he looks it.  Rosamund Pike hasn't, but she does have the icy steel, the frozen beauty and intelligence, that her role desperately needs.  Tyler Perry out-Cochranes Johnny Cochrane, and Carrie Coon may steal the show as Affleck's sister, the one and only rock in his life.

So, yeah, go see this.  Even if you're married.  And, afterwards, you may want to think twice before you intentionally piss off your spouse.  (Not that anyone would actually do that.)

And you might want to question the American press and the rumor-mongerers as well.

Have you seen the movie or read the book (or both)?  What'd you think?

When Plague Strikes: Blame and Bias

 

Photos: Pieter Bruegel's "The Triumph of Death," and an AIDS victim, from this link: http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/photos/plague/#/plague-painting_3338_600x450.jpg

This book is an excellent primer for anyone interested in plagues.  I read this to research The Gravediggers, and while it didn't teach me anything new (except exact names and dates), it does put many of my novel's themes in the same place for ease when I'm writing.

Essentially it focuses on the social, political and historical aftermath of the plague outbreaks.  I like that it groups AIDS together with the Black Death, as my novel does, and that it connects the social biases at the times as well.  My novel does that, too, but it's nice to get reinforcement of your ideas.

When the plagues hit, nobody understood them, and so many prevailed upon the bias of the time to find scapegoats.  But, really, if allowed to hate and maim, certain people will be happy to do so, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their actions.  And so:

From the chapter "Looking for Scapegoats" re: the Black Death:

"In 1213, Pope Innocent III decreed that both sexes, from age seven or eight, had to wear circular badges of yellow felt that identified them as Jews..."  The book then draws the parallel between those badges and the ones forced upon the Jews by the Nazis almost 600 years later.

"According to the rumors, the Jews were polluting the wells in the Christian communities with poisons imported from Moorish Spain and the Far East.  If Christians drank water from the wells...they would be infected with the plague and die..."

"...the rumors led to eleven Jews being put on trial in September 1348.  They were charged with having poisoned the wells in a small south German town.  After hours of painful torture, the eleven confessed to the deed and said they had received the poison from a rabbi in Spain...

"...In January 1349, the two hundred Jewish residents of Basel, Switzerland, were herded into a wooden building on an island in the Rhine River and burned alive..." (Giblin 36-7).

There's much more, but you get the idea.  (I don't know why I was surprised by Switzerland's involvement, considering its history of neutrality, but I was.)

Though the Native Americans were not blamed for causing smallpox, colonists and Europeans were quick to use it against them.  The most infamous was Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, who was unwise enough to put it in writing.  This was sent to a colonel:

"Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox among these...tribes of Indians?  We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them."  The colonel's response: "I will try to [infect] the Indians with some blankets that may fall in their hands..."  Amherst's enthusiastic response: "You will do well to try to infect the Indians by means of blankets...as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race" (Giblin 86-7).

The British and the colonists were so happy with the results that Amherst, Massachusetts was named in his honor.

Those of my generation remember the bias against homosexuals when AIDS made its appearance here in the early-to-mid-80s.  I do specifically remember (unfortunately) some diatribes by Pat Buchanan and Jerry Falwell.  So, too, apparently, did this book's author:

"The conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan wrote, 'The poor homosexuals--they have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution.'...

"In a statement that sounded remarkably similar to some made by clergymen at the time of the Black Death and during early smallpox epidemics, the Rev. Jerry Falwell said: 'When you violate moral, health, and hygiene laws, you reap the whirlwind.  You cannot shake your fist in God's face and get away with it."

And it hasn't always been just the clergy, or the conservative.  Haters will hate, if just given a cause to hate about:

"Wielding baseball bats, the youths rampaged through a public park frequented by gays.  They shouted 'diseased queers' and 'plague-carrying faggots' as they beat up every man unlucky enough to be in their path.  After his arrest, one of the attackers tried to defend his actions.  'If we don't kill these fags, they'll kill us with their f---[ing] AIDS disease,' he said" (Giblin 135-6).

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

What will the next plague be?  And who'll be blamed and persecuted for it then?

My guess: Ebola.  Who'll be prejudiced against for it?  We'll see.  Hopefully not brown-eyed little Frenchmen, but who knows?

Perfect Murder, Perfect Town by Lawrence Schiller--Book Review

Photo: Paperback cover of the book (I read the First Edition hardcover) from harpercollins.com

Incredibly dense and thorough chronicle of the JonBenet Ramsey investigation, from the POV of almost everyone involved, from reporters to DAs to police detectives--and everybody in between.  If you're interested in what happened to that little girl on December 26th, 1996 (Could it have been that long ago?!?) then this is mandatory reading for you.

Like the case itself, it is a complicated maze to read, and you may, like me, forget momentarily who somebody is.  There's a character page in the back to help you with this problem.

Schiller doesn't pull any punches and immerses you in everything for the sole purpose, as he says, to chronicle what happened for anyone interested in the case.  It reads like a 579-page report.  There are no writers' tricks here, and no embellishments.  Schiller does an amazing job of organizing all of this stuff into one (mostly) seamless flow.

What does it show?  Oh my goodness, it shows how very thoroughly and completely the D.A.'s office, the Boulder Police Department, the witnesses, the suspects, and the media all worked together to screw up this case beyond repair.  Like the research into AIDS in the early-80s, when American and French scientists fought each other over copyrights and egos and countless people died, so too did the Boulder PD and the D.A. office fight each other over supremacy, evidence and theories.

And we know what happened.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.  A grand jury failed to indict anybody in 1997, and here afterwards have we sat. (Though to be more concise, the grand jury found that there was enough evidence to proceed to trial, but the D.A. did not proceed.  He refuses to this day to give his reasons.)

As detailed in this book, this case never had a chance.  Evidence was immediately trampled upon.  Both Ramseys, and their son, Burke, took leave of the police for a very long time upon the arrival of the first cops.  The crime scene was not controlled and it became very, very compromised.  And the Ramseys somehow were allowed to not be thoroughly interviewed until four months after the killing.

And the police bungled evidence and interviews that anyone who's ever seen an episode of Law & Order could have done better.  The D.A. turned down help from the FBI, whose officers had investigated and tried tons of murder cases against children.  How many had the current D.A.'s office tried?  Zero.

You may imagine yourself, as I did, screaming at, and shaking, some of the well-intentioned but hopelessly inept people involved in this case.

And that's just the beginning.

But, sadly, there's nothing much to add since.

Patsy Ramsey has died.  Nobody's ever been brought to trial.  It may seem there's nothing more to say.

But there is.  Schiller takes pains to try to remain unbiased with his book, and largely he succeeds.  But his one-page epilogue gives him away a little bit, as does the preponderance of the evidence he allows the real people to supply here.

Ultimately the reader has to make his own decision about who did it.  Was it the Ramseys?  Any of them, in the murder and / or in a cover-up?  Was it an intruder?

You'll have to decide.  I have, I think, for the most part.  Maybe I'll write about it in my blog one day--keeping in mind, of course, that many of the people are still alive.  And able to file lawsuits for slander.

But still a riveting read.  If this case interests you, read it.

Blog Tour--My Writing Process

Thanks to my friend Jane Wilson, I am participating in the Blog Tour, in which authors write about their writing process, and their writing, by answering the same four questions. Jane posted hers last week, March 3rd, at http://redroom.com/member/jane-wilson. Go check it out. And thanks, Jane, for asking me to blog my two cents' worth.

So, if you're silly curious enough to read four questions and answers about my writing process and my writing, here you go:

1. What am I working on?

My goodness, what am I not working on? I'm always working on multiple projects, which I used to think meant that I was super-creative. But now I think it means I'm not as focused and organized with my time and with my projects as I should be. I'd get more writing finished if I did one thing at a time. For the record, I do not encourage the multiple-project method, unless you are much more organized than I am, and you tend to finish a piece after a decent length of time.

Anyway, I'm finishing a thriller / mystery, titled (maybe), Mattress Girl, though I may stick with its (too) old title, Cursing the Darkness. (I'm sort of sick of that title now, but it fits the work very, very well. And Mattress Girl is not the main character.) Feel free to comment on which title you think sounds more interesting. This is maybe 80% done. A sequel (or prequel) is in minor stages as well. 

I'm also writing a short story, "Cribbage," about a father / son bonding memory, considered by the narrator after his father has passed. This has proven to be a little too close to home, and difficult to finish. 

I'm also working on a historical horror novel about a nasty, evil creature that took part in the plague in Rome and the Great Fire; in The Black Plague that killed a third of Europe (though I focus on the village of Eyam, England, which quarantined itself during the Plague and lost about 80% of its people); in the TB epidemic in New England from 1880-1895; and possibly in the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 and, if I'm really gutsy, in the AIDS Epidemic, circa early-to-mid 1980s. (Because that's what it was, and is, and I'm not sure, even 34 years later, that we've totally realized that as a society.) I'm actually about a third through this one, though it's in fragments. I speak of Book 1 of this project, which I expect to be a trilogy, at least. 

And did I mention I was drafting a novel told from the POV of the maid (who really existed) or of a servant (who really didn't) of Lizzie Borden, in 1892? And two memoirs?

I also write book reviews for an online mystery magazine. You can see why I do not suggest this juggling-writing method.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I try to turn each genre on its head, or to at least introduce something new to it. I'm writing Cursing the Darkness because I've been reading mystery, and noir, and detective novels, and combinations of those, since my early teens. The darkness, the loneliness, the lone man standing on his own (but not being as alone as he thinks he is) against the evils and ills of his society, of his world--all of that resonates with me. I feel I often do much the same thing, though I'm not a detective. I suspect, though, that I could be a good one, but I wouldn't be able to work in a constrictive environment, like a police force. I wouldn't be able to stand the politics, the red tape, looking in the faces of murderers and abusers and rapists and not being able to beat the hell out of them, the frustration of having to let go of an unsolved case because of the next case...

The memoirs I write because I have something very specific to say in them; to be honest, they're in such an infancy that I don't know how they'll be different yet. Except for its main subject, of course...

The short story in general is a form I like a lot. It's immediately gratifying for the author, in the sense that they're finished faster than a novel, and the editor's Yes or No comes back quicker than an agent's or publisher's does. Mine are different, I think, because I focus on an aspect of the story's genre, or themes, that are not as tread upon as are others. "Hide the Weird," for example, differed because it focused on the minute details of one potential death, one incident, and it ended with a "knowing" detail that was a little different, a little quirky. I like that about short stories, that you can focus on one thing, and turn it around, or amplify it...

The historical horror novel will be different because it takes a bit of the vampire trope (though it's not exactly a vampire, per se) and focuses more on the European vampire myths rather than the American neck-biter. (There's no neck-biting, for example.) These bad dudes are quite nasty because they're more life-drainers and spirit-suckers, like the original European and Asian ones were. They are not Victorian blood-sucking stand-ins for repressed sexual urges--if I can be so bold. And these are not things you'd want to have a romance with! No one gets lovey-dovey about these guys. It's not even an option. These are things you want to run away from, fast--if you can. That's difficult because they tend to hide in the footsteps of bigger catastrophes--like fires, and plagues, and viruses. But they also hide in the biases of the society's reaction towards these catastrophes--and that's another way this trilogy is different. How can you run from such a thing in Eyam, England, during the Plague, when the town's already quarantined? While people in New England in the 1880s and 1890s, for example, were dropping from consumption, a few unfortunate folks were succumbing to this demonic thing--which hid in the footsteps of the TB, and its way to kill even mirrored TB's symptoms. So that's different, too.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Whoops--I kind of answered that in the paragraph above. Though, actually, the real answer for this is because it interests me. A lot. I've got something to say, something to show, and I know I can do so in a different way than what's already been done--at all, or recently, or both. My characters tend to surprise me, which is always good, and I tend to surprise myself. I write some things and I think--Wow! I didn't know I was going to go there! I'm rarely in love with what I write, but it's a blessing when something comes out just right, and a little bit different. "So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season" worked like that. Didn't even know it was going to come out that way, and say what it said, until it did. "Hide the Weird" was a little more planned in my head, but the ending was still a nice little twist / surprise for me. And so that's why I write what I do as well--to surprise myself, to complete something of my own unique creation that really works. It's like a mechanic making his own engine and liking how it purrs. It's rare for me, but it's blissful when it happens.

4. How does your writing process work?

Oh, Lord. Well, here's the nasty, evil truth, and I'm very ashamed to admit this, but...I don't have a writing process. At all. I don't write the same thing every day, or even consistently. I don't write at the same time every day, or even (what I feel is) consistently. I don't outline. I do listen to music, and I do draft. A lot. When I can. Whenever my job doesn't consume me; whenever I conquer my own fear, or frustration, or lack of focus, or whatever it is (Steven Pressfield calls it Resistance, which is as good a name for it as any) that prohibits me from sitting my butt down and working on one project consistently, at the same time every day, until it's done. This is maddening beyond belief; I would literally tear my hair out if I thought I could afford to lose any more of it. I do not advise my working method, if I can even call it that, for anybody. Sit your butt down and work on one thing (or one big thing and one smaller thing) at one time. Otherwise it'll all paralyze you like it often does me. It is a minor miracle that I've gotten as many projects done as I have, and that I've been published as often as I have. Every finished piece is a miracle baby--even the ones that don't sell. I'm proud of them all, in some way. They're all a piece of me, and they all came out hard.

Well, that's it. Thanks for stopping by! Next week, please check out the writing processes of these three good writers:

Gravediggers: Respecting Death, Part 2

Photo 1: Elmsgrove Cemetery, NH.  Notice the doorknob on the upper left.  And think: What if something were to suddenly peer at you from the hole?
Photo 2: Weeping willow, or tree, or fountain design.  Cemetery in the middle of a gravel road in the mountains of NH. 
Photo 3: Tree and urn design.  Very common.  Sometimes just tree; sometimes just urn.  Sometimes tree and urn.  In Sharon, MA.
Photo 4: Sometimes a grinning skull with wings design.  Billings Cemetery, Sharon, MA.
Photo 5: And sometimes nothing at all, especially if you're poor.  A crude and uneven cut that you can tell someone did his best with.  (Notice the equidistant measuring line down the middle.) In NH.
Photo 6: And sometimes you get a stone that's isolated and forgotten about forever.  (Stone's buried in greenage just to the left of dead center.  Sorry.)  Upon closer inspection, this was of an Abigail A.  Up the street from #2, one gravestone by itself in the woods.  Makes you wonder.

(cont'd from previous entry)

It wasn't always that way.  People used to die in their homes all the time--i.e. Romeo and Juliet and The Last Days of Dogtown, among many other works.  This was up until the early 20th century.  During plague and flu epidemics, people had wakes in their living rooms on a weekly basis, if not daily.  And elderly and/or dying people weren't shipped away to die, either--they stayed home and died in front of everyone, slowly and often painfully, and not without a little bit of smell.  They were there, always in the mind's eye--and the center of the living room, if not in their own little room, hidden away upstairs.  But this was why Death was more of an actual character in fiction and poetry then--like in many of Chaucer's, Caravaggio's and Poe's tales.  Death was always there, a part of daily, accepted life.  Gravestones show this (see last post)--as Death predominated, so it did on headstones, often dancing and smiling.  Later, as it ebbed somewhat from daily occurrence and acceptance--as medicine improved and facilities and hospitals flourished--angels and fountains replaced skeletons and grinning skulls on tombstones.  Life got easier--or at least we made it seem that way.  Today, if you've noticed, the faces of the dead people themselves are frequently on their own gravestones, as the focus has shifted completely from Death to ourselves.  Or we make it seem that way.  I can't tell which is creepier--the grinning skulls or the grinning, life-like, dead people.  I think I'd take the skulls.

Or maybe Death just used to be handled more immediately, more respectfully.  Not as something to be dismissed and shunted aside--like we do when we banish the dying or elderly to facilities--but as something instead that must be DEALT WITH.

So, anyway, Gravediggers does that.  Death is IN YOUR FACE on every page--because, man, that's the way it used to be.  That's the way it was before we got so scared that we SANITIZED everything.  Gravediggers has an incubus (or is it a succubus?) and flus, and plagues and AIDS and a future filovirus so that there'll be no one to sanitize death anymore--it'll be a dead body in every room in every house, or in every backyard, basement or attic, every crypt, every church--it'll be everywhere, felt by everyone, so that there'll be no one left to even bury the gravediggers.

One-Sentence Summaries

To further become focused on my writing, it made sense to me this morning (after reading an article in Writer's Digest's "Write Your Novel in Thirty Days issue) to type up one-sentence summaries of the novel I'm currently working on.  Then, while I was at it, I wrote one-sentence summaries for a few other novels currently gestating in the ole noggin as well.  This is more challenging than you might think, but ultimately it's necessary.  Think of it as a thesis statement for an essay or paper: If you don't know what you're writing toward--or even what you're writing about--how can you expect yourself to write it?  You have to know what you're doing; to an extent, you have to also know where you're going.

So, though they may not be perfectly formed yet, here are my one-sentence summaries for a few novels.  Brief notes or explanations may follow each one.  Please feel free to post a comment or send me an email about any thoughts you may have about any of these.  I look forward to your ideas!  And while you're at it, why not do the same for your own writing?  (This would work for any type of writing, and for any length.)

One sentence summary:

The Gravediggers

Fears and bias surrounding an outbreak of TB in 1890s Exeter, Rhode Island, hide the scourge of a true vampire in the town and surrounding area.  [May be combined with the Plague in 1665-6 Eyam, England and AIDS in early 1980s America, and a small RI town today.]  This could be a series, as each of those ideas could be separate novels.

One sentence summary:

Untitled Concentration Camp Novel

A young boy with no artistic talent must either learn one or successfully fake it in order to survive his internment in a Nazi concentration camp whose purpose is to show the world how “well” Germany treats its Jews.

One sentence summary:

Apocalypse

Small groups of people in Kansas City, MO, Warwick, RI, and other major cities throughout the world must survive wars and natural disasters as they attempt to completely revamp what they thought was their “society.”  This includes attitudes about patriotism, religion, and the Bible itself.  This could be a series as well, as each of the last three things could constitute its own novel.

One sentence summary:

The Observer

After a breakdown nobody knew he had, one man must suppress the beliefs of his existence that held him together in order to re-establish himself in the mundane process of everyday American living.

HIV/AIDS, My "Virus Novel" and Oldstone's Virus, Plagues & History

Photo #1: AIDS Research, photo by Karen Kasmanski, from nationalgeographic.com: A scientist in Franceville, Gabon, removes hair and blood samples from a cooperative chimpanzee. Researchers believe that an evolving AIDS virus first spread to humans from wild African chimpanzees, which suffer from a similar virus called SIV.

Photo #2: AIDS Patient, photo by Gideon Mendel from nationalgeographic.com: A doctor examines an emaciated AIDS patient in Lusikisiki, South Africa. Ninety-four out of every hundred HIV-infected people live in developing nations, where currently available drug therapies are largely unaffordable.

I'm doing research for my "virus novel"--See #1 of "On the Fire" from Nov. 4th--at Borders, because they have more up-to-date books than the library, and I got help from employees who went to the medical section, the history section, etc. while in the library you'd have to wait forever to get one librarian's help.  I took 8 books to the cafe, where after a few hours, a woman sat next to me and began talking out loud to herself and weeping to herself; she got up, walked around in a distracted state, leaving her bag on the chair next to me, and then came back and asked if she could sit with me, apparently forgetting where she'd been.  I DO attract those, I'm like flypaper for them.

In all that time, I only researched one book, Virus, Plagues & History, by Michael B. A. Oldstone.  This book was so (horrifyingly) fascinating and informative that I spent three hours just with that one.  Incredible stuff about Ebola, SARS, West Nile, polio, Yellow Fever and smallpox, but there was some truly eye-popping things about HIV/AIDS.  A few of its sobering facts (as of 2008):

HIV--"A plague as horrifying as any ever known now afflicts us, and the cause is a virus, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).  In the twenty-five years (1983-2008) since the initial case report of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), this disease caused by HIV has afflicted over 60 million people, and nearly one half of them have died." pg. 251.

Drug therapy has reduced by 2/3 the death rate in the US compared to the 1990s, but worldwide, for every 4 newly infected people, just 1 receives therapy.

"...no vaccine is on the horizon for preventing this medical catastrophe." 

UN estimates that 34 million have HIV, but author suspects 39 million.

In Africa, 3% of entire population is afflicted. 

CDC believes 40,000 in the U.S. are newly infected every year and that over 250,000 have it and don't know it. 

CDC recommends all people ages 13 to 64 in the US have tests to detect HIV as part of routine medical care or emergency room visits. 

Author says 25-50% of newly infected people don't know they are. 

By 1995, 14 years after original patient report, CDC and WHO estimated 1 in 70 males in US and 1 in 700 females had it. 

As of Oct. 31, 1995, 501,310 Americans with AIDS reported to CDC; 311,381 (62%) had died. 

From 1993 to present, among men 25-44, AIDS is the leading cause of death; for women, 3rd leading cause.  These numbers are an underestimate in the US. 

In Africa, over 1 in 40 men and women are infected.

People either die from it or become lifetime infected.  

"HIV is poorly transmitted; fewer than 5% of exposed humans are estimated to develop the infection." pg. 269.

(I'm back.)

So: Why do you think HIV/AIDS isn't as much a part of the national discussion as it used to be in the 80s and 90s, especially since more people, in Africa and in the world, are afflicted with it than ever before?  Why do you think it isn't still news?  Because it's not on the American political agenda?