Thank you and your families for your service.

Yet another author I admire has passed.

Louise Cooper: May 29, 1952 - October 21, 2009

"It is with great sadness that we have to inform you that on October 29th 2009 Louise passed away suddenly after she suffered an aneurysm." - http://www.louisecooper.com/

"She began writing stories when she was at school to entertain her friends. She continued to write and her first full-length novel was published at the age of twenty. She moved to London in 1975 and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1977. Since then she has become a prolific writer of fantasy, renowned for her bestselling Time Master Trilogy. She has published more than eighty fantasy and supernatural novels, both for adults and children." - Wikipedia: Louise Cooper

"...Cooper wrote over 80 books for adults and children and was best known for her Time Master trilogy Indigo Saga series." - SF Signal

Ms. Cooper's Time Master Trilogy and Chaos Gate Trilogy, along with the Indigo Saga are beloved works in my heart to this day and sources of inspiration. I read them young and she inspired me. Ms. Cooper was a world builder, gave evocative description, created entertaining twisting stories and plots. What I really love about her works is how she could make connections, bring out emotions even negative ones and not alienate the reader you felt them with the character. You took the ride with the characters and her imagination. How fortunate that most of her ride was shared with her artist husband Cas.

The stories yet untold from Ms. Cooper will be missed. I'm grateful for those she shared.

Hope it's a blast!

After the anger of my last post, humor is in order. This is pretty funny. And this cat is pretty pissed off...









Original non-captioned vid is here: http://www.youtube.com/mkass84#p/a/u/0/jbEXr9-5UjI

This may be a disturbing post. I hope you read it anyway.

You may or may not be familiar with the story of Kitty Genovese who was born in 1935 and died in Queens New York in 1964. There were at least 38 people were aware of her jeopardy when she screamed for help and told anyone who would listen her attacker had stabbed her.

And they did nothing. Even after a "reprieve" where she dragged herself to a hall, no one seemed to go to help her or look. The attacker returned disguised, found her bleeding and weak in a hallway that was obscured from most eyes and stabbed her repetitively, then according to other reports raped or attempted to rape her.

I learned about Kitty in psychology and again in one of my basic communication classes. In the former class, her story was an example of "bystander effect." I've heard it called "apathy effect," "Genovese Syndrome," and a few other terms. Research says a group of people see something awful going down and do nothing because they think someone else will know how to handle it better, or are freaked out about someone watching as they help. Wikipedia has a fairly accurate article overview about all of this.

I remember being so shocked to see that some people wouldn't help, wouldn't at least go call the cops. I understand paralyzing fear I do and the world is crazy sometimes but if someone is in trouble and begs for help or you see someone is in trouble isn't it the humane thing to do to help them in the best capacity you can? Maybe you won't physically put yourself in harm's way but you can call the cops, you can make noise, blow on a horn something? How do you live with knowing your choice to do nothing contributed to a human being's death?

Why am I bringing up this disturbing stuff? Because a 15 year old girl in a town not too far from where I grew up was at a Homecoming dance Saturday (SF Gate article). She went outside intending to call her dad to come pick her up, when a group of kids called her over and invited her to drink with them. One of them was a boy she knew and he escorted her to the group. They shared alcohol and se got drunk pretty fast. Once she was drunk, someone dragged her to a bench, where several people stripped her, beat her, stole her jewelry and other belongings, and raped her.

The sexual assault continued for about two hours, detectives estimate, with several young men and boys taking part, possibly including some who arrived after the attack began, as word spread (Mercury News article).

And some took video. Or took pictures. Or laughed while she was assaulted. And some people (maybe kids at the dance or others) walked by or passed as this happened and did nothing. Didn't respond. Nothing.

News of the ongoing rape eventually reached Raul Rubio from passers-by, as he stood on a corner with friends about a block from campus. After verifying the claim, he went to his girlfriend's nearby home (from other reports seven blocks away), and she called 911. When the cops arrived the girl was alone, obviously traumatized, semiconscious and under a picnic table. She was airlifted to a hospital.

I don't care that she was drunk (well she's underage so I do care...but I digress). What I mean is, people are inebriated everyday of all ages in all sorts of situations male or female. Does that mean they are asking to be abused? No. And no means no.

I won't belabor the disgust, anger and frustration this makes me feel. I will say some days the people of the world make the optimist in me die, just a little bit. That girl will hopefully survive this to live a full and rich life but how can you have healthy relationships, how do you grow and meet a nice boy and have healthy sexual expression after at least 10 bullies have taken something that should be at minimum fun and at it's deepest realization sacred and turned it into something degrading, humiliating and cruel?

I hope should I find myself a bystander to such horror that even if fear and confusion paralyze me a moment I can behave to do the humane thing. I can say I would right now because I believe that of myself but I have also witnessed that saying and doing are different when you are actually in a situation. That said, I feel strongly one way or another - I would do something to help the victim.

I mean hell, even though I think it would be unlikely...what if that was my niece? My sister? My daughter? My mom? My nephew? My brother? My son? (I have no kids yet...but you get the point). Guys get attacked too, you know.

What if it was yours?

Wouldn't you want someone to do something?

What if it was you?