Looking at Rhode Island Employment:

Economics does not need to be complex for one to grasp a very basic "something is wrong here." I believe I've got an easy way to explain it using actual numbers and a tiny bit of work. The math adverse will still hate it but anyone with high school algebra can follow along.

Rhode Island is an easy state to review because the numbers are relatively small overall. If we go through a very basic exercise we will see the State is in quite a bit of trouble. First we look at Rhode Island's Census population estimate and work on the numbers. Here's the raw data. It's from the US Census and is about as accurate as we can get:

Population Estimate: 1,051,511
% of Population under 18: 20.6%
% of Population over 65: 15.1%
Private Nonfarm Employment: 406,222

We can then leverage other studies to determine the percentage of people living in the State who are 65 and over and are working. This gives us a margin for error, but it shouldn't be too high considering the data is from the American Community Survey a few years prior to the last Census. In this survey, we discover 6.3% of Rhode Island's population is 65 - 74 (with 23% of these individuals still working) and 7.6% is over 75 (with 5.8% of these individuals still working).

Now we need to take the population and remove all people who are not working due to being underage or over 65 (676,212) and then add in those people over 65 who are still working (4,635 who are over 75 and 15,236 who are between 65 and 74). This gives us a total of 696,083 people in the State who can work or are already working.

Let's subtract that from the employment number above and we have a final number of 289,861.

What this means is that every 1.4 working Rhode Islanders has to support 1 fellow Rhode Islander-- one who could work but isn't-- in some way.

Could be a non-working spouse.
Could be Unemployment.
Could be Housing.
Could be some other Government program.
Might be a State or Municipal employee (remember, the private workers have to pay State/Local salaries and benefits).

The big thing to remember here is that the working individual is not just supporting these other people. They also have to support themselves. No matter what the reason, that 1.4:1 is a huge ratio. And what makes it even more scary is that it doesn't even include the 216,611 children or the 138,907 people above 65 who are not working.

If we have another Recession (or, more accurately, fail to emerge from the one we have been in since 2007) States like Rhode Island are in deep trouble. Someone needs to take the lead and make some very difficult choices or who knows how bad things could get.

I wonder if we have the stomach for what that entails.

When opposites attack:

In the SF/F community there has been a high profile fight between a Tor.com blogger named Alex MacFarlane, Larry Correia, and Jim Hines over non-binary gender in science fiction.

Here are the stances, paraphrased:

Alex says, "I demand everyone write it, and I'm going to review books on the subject."
Larry says, "Write it if you feel like it, but it's probably not going to sell."
Jim says, "Larry is mean. I support Alex."

This has been going on for days across various mediums. I've read pretty much everything on the fight, but I think the reaction which most matched my own was John Brown's.

John basically says the best way to win over a group of readers when using unfamiliar characters is to write an awesome story. Story matters more than whether or not you use strange genders, strange powers, strange aliens, or anything else.

John is correct. Readers spawn writers, so it is imperative to reach the readers first. Without a can't miss story-- and sorry, if you are rehashing books that have failed commercially for decades you don't have a can't miss story-- focusing on the topic you want to see more of, you do not have the catalyst necessary for a sea change.

Speaking as a reader: Story is king and everything else is window dressing. I'll browse a book for window dressing but I buy for story. That's a big difference, and depending on your goals as a writer you may wish to take that into consideration when you are crafting your story.

For people who believe they are one of these various genders and want to find stories including people like themselves that might feel harsh. The truth often hurts. However, if you can't find a great story about the gender you are looking for... perhaps you should dig deep into yourself and tell the tale you wish you could read. The best fiction is born that way. Try it. You may be surprised with what you come up with and you may be pleasantly surprised by the reaction if it is truly that good. I guarantee a story wrenched from the soul is going to be a thousand times better than having someone else try to force it.

The goal shouldn't be "an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories". That's an authoritative "You will do this because I say so" attitude, and that will cause people to rebel. The goal should always be one thing and one thing only.

Great fiction.

A NaNo loss:

Well, I didn't win NaNo this year, but I did double the size of my work in progress while working full time and studying 30+ hours a week. So it's a loss I'm willing to take :)

On the bright side, school is winding down for the semester and that means I will soon have more time to read and write. I also just got back the covers for the two new ebooks I will be releasing this month, and they look fantastic. One will be up tomorrow or the next day, and I'll blog about it at that time.

The Obligatory Government Shutdown Post:

I feel the need to comment on this, mostly because I'm getting bombarded with messages telling me why one side is wonderful and blameless while the other side wants to kill orphans and kick little old ladies or other such nonsense. Since I'm an American and I have skin in the game, let me pin down how I see it:

First, understand that the various sides to this argument all have some measure of blame. No individual is a saint, let alone any particular group. Everyone contributed to at least some of the issues that lead to the shutdown. Who is at fault? Basically all of our elected officials and the Presidential appointees, both those currently serving and the ones who left during the first term. 

Second, can we agree that the main conservative/liberal parties have irreconcilable differences? I'm sure there is middle ground somewhere but the desire to find it is less than the desire to one up 'the other side' in soundbites. Are we all Americans in the end? At one time I thought so. Now it seems to me that we've devolved into bickering cliques who see no redeeming value in 'the other' who dares to have a different point of view. 

It's also important to note that these guys are all talking a completely different game behind the scenes. Reading books on contemporary politics written from a detached, moderate point of view (yes, there are a few) indicates there is a huge difference between the public persona and the behind closed doors men and women. Sort of like how WWE Superstars are not the same person as the character they portray in the ring. 

The difficulty here is that most ordinary people only listen to the soundbites or read blogs/watch news that portrays their particular ideological slant. The mobs of Rome have no idea what goes on in the Patriarch's home. They only hear rumors and innuendo, along with the flowery speeches in the Capital. 

The million dollar question is: How does this play out in the end? 

In my opinion, the shutdown will have far less impact than what will be reported. (Remember how the sequester cuts were going to destroy the economy? Yeah, not so much.) Will it hurt our credit rating or damage the stock market's run? Maybe. Does that matter? Your guess is as good as mine. 

I see some sort of face saving move in the coming days or weeks. One that would allow both sides to claim some sort of moral victory, but can be easily twisted by pundits on the wings. The President will be the savior who delivered the masses from the grip of the evil Republicans, while the Republicans will show the Despot in Chief and his cronies that the middle class is ready to fight the expanding Federal Government. All of which will be nothing more than theatre and ammo for the upcoming midterm elections. 

And none of which will actually solve a darned thing.