No, it's not Prohibition

California has, among other things, a law which requires high schools to phase out the selling of soda on school property by 2007. And predictably, someone (a high school student) is trying to get an initiative on the ballot to repeal the law, because "it's like the Prohibition movement, and we all saw what happened with that." Except that, of course, during Prohibition the only way to get alcohol was to buy it illegally; with the ban on selling soda in the schools, you have to wait until 3:30 to buy a Sprite, and there are no legal consequences (Hell, if you bring a can of soda with your home-packed lunch, no one's going to wrestle you down to the ground to take it away from you). The student, Rocky Slaughter, wants to have vending machines filled half-and-half, soda and drinks labeled "healthy choices." And it's possible that the majority of students will go for water or juice or sports drinks (me, I think chugging 16 oz. of juice or Gatorade is just as fattening as 16 oz. of Coke, although juice or sports drinks may have some nutritional benefit that Coke doesn't) over soda. Or maybe not. Slaughter argues that teenagers should be permitted to make the choice themselves, given adequate information about the nutritional costs and benefits. But I don't think that's the point of the law. The point of the law is that the SFUSD should not be in the business of providing food it knows to be unhealthy to high school students; kids have adequate opportunity to tank up on Pepsi elsewhere, after school. This is no more constitutes Prohibition than a magazine's unwillingness to buy a story of mine constitutes censorship.

The Ten Things Meme

About Writing

* It is not glamorous.

* First drafts are, for me at least, often notes to myself about how the story is supposed to go. Re-reading, I have to work hard with both hands not to run screaming in despair, but simply take the notes and flesh them out.

* The right word can change the weight and texture of a sentence or a scene.

* On the other hand, getting too wacky creative with language just gets, um, wacky

* I don't like reading books on writing. I don't like reading books about other writers' experience of writing. I suspect this is because even when such a book is not prescriptive, it feels so to me, and I wind up feeling preached at and irritated. Life too short. On the other hand, I very much enjoy the sort of discussion on writing that goes on face-to-face or on LJ or elsewhere on line, and I rarely feel preached at there.

* When it's going well, it's more fun than anything. Yes, including sex and champagne. It's gorgeous.

* When it's going badly, it's like wading through room temperature oatmeal or library paste. See above about glamor.

* There is no one right way to write. What's more, for me each story or book has its own way, not necessarily the way I wrote the last one. An enormous amount of energy goes into deciperhing what that way is for a particular project, and sometimes inventing a new way to go with the project. Infuriating.

* You can't love your characters more than God would; that way lies Mary Sue. You also can't pile more shit on your characters than fortune would. It takes a real balancing act, deciding how much trouble to give a character. Because while a reader may relate to it's all too much to bear if you torture a character too much it can merely piss off the reader.

* 95% of all research should be in your head and not on the page. Even with wholly constructed worlds. If I'm writing a story set in 2006, I don't have to explain what Coca Cola is; if I stop things by explaining that it's a brown, sugary carbonated drink, it stops things. Define by context: if I drink a cup of Bohea, the reader may not be dead certain that Bohea is black China tea, but the reader does know it's a beverage, and that's all it needs.

Kneejerk. Or just Jerk.

I have mostly been pleased with Mark Leno, California State Assemblyman for the SF area. Until last week, that is, when Battle Cry, a modern-day chattaqua rally for Christian teens, came to town. Leno not only deplored their message, but got the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to issue a proclamation that the rally was "an act of provocation" that could "negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city." At a counter-rally he proclaimed that the Christians were "loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco."

Puh-leeze.

My experience in this city is that it has pockets of highly religious, kneejerk conservatism side by side with the kneejerk liberalism. And while I might not want to saunter down to SBC Park (no, wait, ATT Park! Can't keep up with the corporate mergers!) for the rally, and while some parts of the evangelical Christian agenda enrage me, I'm glad that these kids had an opportunity to join together and celebrate their faith. The fact that I (as a UU of Jewish heritage with a firm lefty slant and an investment in pop culture) might not be a person they want to associate with is likewise beside the point.

Say it with me: freedom of speech means that I don't just tolerate, but guard the right of my neighbor to say something I find reprehensible.