This has nothing to do with my books, or indeed any of the subjects that most of you guys are interesting in hearing about, but I feel a need to vent.

About a month ago, I discovered to my puzzlement and annoyance that my account at PayPal had been locked. I had no idea why. I’ve had a PayPal account for years, and never had a problem. In all that time, I was only involved in one dispute, and that was a case where I was the one filing the complaint. Besides, that was three years ago, at least. I use PayPal mainly for buying toy knights on ebay (these days, many sellers will accept only PayPal, money orders, or cashier’s checks, and the latter two are just too much trouble), and for collecting payment when readers buy signed copies of my old books off my website. It’s a convenient service, well worth the fees, and I’ve never had a problem with it.

Till now.

This turned out to be a big problem, though. My account was locked, with no explanation. I can’t get into it, can’t use it to pay, can’t accept payments, can’t access the money I have in the account. Why? I emailed PayPal’s “Account Review Department,” as instructed, to find out what had happened and get the account unlocked. My first two emails went unanswered. The third time proved to be the charm, and finally got me a reply. It said, in part:

“PayPal is a regulated financial services company required under law to
assess its customers against certain lists of individuals and entities
which have had sanctions imposed against them. Where a potential match is
identified, PayPal’s policy is to lock the account and request further
identifying documentation. The decision to lock your account has been taken
solely by PayPal in line with its compliance policy.”

This made no bloody sense to me, so I decided to phone PayPal and try and talk to an actual human being. That’s not easy either, in this world we live in. I found the number, phoned, negotiated the usual infuriating Voice Mail maze of “press 1 for this, press 2 for that,” and finally reached a customer “service” representative. She, of course, was no help whatsoever. She looked up my account and told me the same stuff that was in the email I’d received. In fact, I think she was reading from the email. When I asked her questions, she had no answers. So finally I asked to speak to a supervisor.

He, at least, gave me some meaningful information. Despite the hokeydoke in the letter about “the decision… has been taken solely by PayPal,” the source of my trouble is actually the federal government. The reason my account was locked was because my name has turned up on a list out of the U.S. Treasury Department. Specifically, something called the “Office of Foreign Assets Control.”

Why the hell I would be on this list, I have no idea. I have no “foreign assets” that I know of, aside from a long-moribund bank account in Poland from the days before the Berlin Wall went down, when the Poles could only pay you in soft zlotys that you had to go to Poland to spend. Or maybe it’s because I have used PayPal to pay for toy soldiers from sellers in Germany, Australia, and the UK, or to accept payment for books from a dozen different foreign countries. Or… if you will allow me a moment of paranoia here… maybe someone in the Treasury Department didn’t like some of the political views I’ve posted here, or my opinions about the TSA and the War on Terror.

Whatever the reason, I’m on the OFAC list, and unlike Santa’s list, this one is just for the naughty, so PayPal has locked the accounts of everyone whose name appears there.

The most infuriating thing of all is that I have MONEY in that PayPal account. Money which PayPal flatly refuses to disburse to me.

“Can I close the account and withdraw my funds?” I asked them. “No,” the supervisor said, “the account is locked.” I accused him of stealing my funds, which he denied. They’re still my funds, he insisted. It’s just that they won’t let me withdraw them, or use them to pay anyone, because, after all, the account is “locked.” (How much you want to bet that after some period of “inactivity,” they will start taking fees out of the account?) I did luck out in one respect, I suppose. At the moment, there’s only about fifty bucks in that PayPal account. That hasn’t always been the case. There have been times in the past when I’ve had as much as thousand bucks floating in my PayPal account. Believe me, if you think I’m honked off now, imagine how pissed I’d be if they were robbing me of a thousand bucks instead of fifty.

How do unlock the account? All I have to do is furnish PayPal with several different proofs of my identity. They already have a credit card number and a bank account number, mind you, but that’s not sufficient, now they want copies of my passport, my birth certificate, and a utility bill.

A service like PayPal is supposed to make my life easier, to enable me to buy and sell with a click of my mouse, to spare me annoying trips to the bank to buy money orders and cashier’s checks, to allow me to receive small payments from readers abroad who want signed copies of my books. CONVENIENCE is the reason I use PayPal. I don’t have the time, the energy, or the inclination to jump through their hoops.

Right now I’m trying to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, working on a breakdown of the contents and art required for THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE, editing the new Wild Cards book INSIDE STRAIGHT and writing my own story for same, beating out an outline for a comics project with John J. Miller, trying to stay on top of the various Ice & Fire spinoffs from Subterranean Press, Fantasy Flight Games, Testor’s, DBPro, Avatar Comics, and several other licenses, dealing with the aftermath of the Byron Preiss bankruptcy auction, trying to extricate my RPG rights from the collapse of Guardians of Order, living through major home renovations. I do NOT have the time to take on PayPal and the U.S. Treasury as well.

So there you go. For the foreseeable future, my PayPal account will remain locked, I’m afraid. If you want to buy a signed book, you’ll need to mail me a check or money order. And I guess I won’t be bidding on nearly as many knights on ebay, since so many sellers “prefer PayPal.”

If any of you are PayPal users, however, and are accustomed to allowing a significant amount of money to sit around in your account… take it out. Take it out NOW. Your name could turn up on a list as easily as mine did, and then, like me, you’ll find yourself cut off from your money with no right of appeal.

I say it’s spinach, and I say to hell with it.

End of rant.

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My last major trip of the year finally came to close yesterday, when Parris and I flew home from New York City. I’d spent almost a month on the road, partly for pleasure, partly for business, doing signings in five midwestern cities to help promote my YA book, THE ICE DRAGON, and the paperback release of A FEAST FOR CROWS.

Started out by flying into Chicago, where I attended the Old Toy Soldier Show in Schaumburg (the world’s best toy soldier show, and always great fun, when I can find the time to attend it) and spent way too much money on toy knights, picking up some beautiful old Courtenay, Ping, and Vertunni figures (if you don’t know what those are, you obviously haven’t been reading the Knights page of my website), some beautiful new miniatures by Brian Rodden, a great new siege tower from King & Country, and various other choice collectibles. I also signed and read at the Border’s down in Water Tower Place on the Magnificent Mile, and enjoyed dinner at the Greek Isles with some of the local members of the Brotherhood Without Banners. I never miss a chance to eat at the Greek Isles. Opaa! Opaa! (That’s Greek for “the cheese is on fire!”)

After the toy soldier show, it was off to Dubuque, Iowa for another ICE DRAGON signing and a couple of days visiting my old haunts. The original story that was the basis of the YA was written in Dubuque during the winter of 1978-79, so it seemed only proper to include the city on my tour. Given my feelings about the TSA and airport “security,” I decided to get a rental car and drive to the rest of my midwestern appearances. Not much slower than flying, given how short most of the hops were, and far more pleasant. The car had GPS and I had my ipod, so the short drive to Iowa was fast and fun. I had a nice signing at a small independent bookstore, the River Lights, and also had the time to poke around the city. It was the first time I had returned to Dubuque since moving away in 1979, and all in all the city had not changed nearly as much as I feared. My old house was still standing, as was the college (Clarke) where I once taught journalism, and the old Julien Hotel where my ex-wife and I once held Dubuqon, the city’s first (and last) SF convention. The pizza at Marco’s is still pretty good (for the midwest), and the Fenelon Place Elevator was still there, though now it only runs in summer. On the other hand, all the old movie theaters are gone, and there’s now an ugly four-lane highway cutting off downtown from the Mississippi, not to mention a huge and hideous fake “riverboat” casino. I did like the new river museum, however. Across the river, East Dubuque remains as sleazy as ever, but the chili at Mulgrew’s was not nearly as hot as I remembered… which may have more to do with me living in New Mexico for the last couple of decades than with the recipe.

After three days in Iowa, it was off to Indianapolis and a signing at Barnes and Noble in Carmel. I did not want to have to contend with Chicago traffic again, so I headed south out of Dubuque and followed the river road down to I-74. That had to be the nicest drive of the trip. Autumn was just coming in, the days were warm and sunny, the trees were turning, and the little river towns along the banks of the Mississippi remained unchanged from the last time I passed this way, twenty-odd years ago. I had another good event in Indianapolis, reading from THE ICE DRAGON and signing a lot of books. My hotel was right across the street from the Hoosier Dome, and when I realized that the Colts were playing my Jets that very Sunday I had a brief moment of excitement, thinking I might be able to snag a ticket and see Chad take on Peyton… but alas, the game was being played in New Jersey, at the Meadowlands. I did, however, ride up to Auburn, Indiana with my friend C.D. Doyle to check out the Auburn/ Cord/ Duesenberg Museum there, which proved to be well worth the trip. Room after room after room of gorgeous vintage automobiles, each more impressive than the last. Most of them were Auburns, Cords, and Dueseys, of course, but they also have a ’55 T-bird, a Jaguar XKE, a gullwing Mercedes 300SL, a Shelby Cobra, a classic Ferrari, and a lot of other vehicles that made me drool. If you ever find yourself driving down the interstate past Auburn, take the time to pull off and have a look at the musuem, it’s well worth it. As for me, I think I want my next car to be a Cord.

After Indy, it was on to Cincinnati, where I did a reading and a signing at Joseph Beth. The good folks at Joe Beth always get a big turnout for their events, and this one was no exception. I spent a couple of extra days in Cincinnati, long enough to spend some time with Denise and Steve Leigh, catch the first day of the Tall Stacks riverboat festival (real boats, not tawdry jokes like the “riverboat” casinos you see permanently moored all up and down the river, most of them no more than concrete barges, lacking even an engine) and take a cruise, enjoy some ribs in Montgomery, visit with Bob Hornung and with Tom and Carin Meier, and see the latest batch of Night’s Watch figures that Tom is sculpting for the miniatures game forthcoming from Testor’s. Spectacular work, as always. Tom also has a terrific 54mm version of Loras Tyrell in the works.

Then it was back west again, to Archon in St. Louis… well, Collinsville, Illinois, actually, but close enough. I was Archon’s very first GOH back in 1977, and this year was the 30th Archon, so I had to be there. It has grown into quite a large con over the past thirty years, from 300 people in 1977 to about 2700 this year, and these days the con draws more costumers and gamers than it does readers, but the parties are always fun, and the St. Louis fans have always gone the extra mile to welcome guests and take good care of them. Unfortunately, the mood at the con turned somber on Friday when the word reached Collinsville that Wilson (Bob) Tucker had died. Tucker lived most of life in the area and had been a huge part of many of the past Archons, leading endless “smoooothes” and welcoming hundreds of newcomers to fandom. There was never a more friendly or accessible pro, or one more beloved in midwestern fandom, so his loss was deeply felt. Nor was Tucker the only ghost roaming the halls of the Holiday Inn this year. I also missed Dan Patterson, a good friend and talented artist who was a fixture at Archon until his death, and always threw the best party at the convention. We’ve lost too many good people of late, sad to say.

I did have a good signing, I’m pleased to say. Some of you may have heard the story of what happened at my last bookstore event in St. Louis back in 1996, during the GAME OF THRONES tour, when I was scheduled to sign in downtown St. Louis while Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen were signing in Collinsville, thirty minutes away. That one did not work out well, but I did much better this time in Brentwood… maybe because I wasn’t up against the Two Rays.

Parris was supposed to join me at Archon, flying in on Friday from New Mexico, but she sprained her ankle packing for the trip and postponed her departure a day… and then, on Saturday, she got a flat tire on the way to airport and missed her flight, so it was Sunday before she finally reached St. Louis, and by the time she reached the hotel the con was over and there was nothing for her to do but grab a burger and some shoestring fries at Steak ‘N Shake, crash, and fly out with me the next morning for New York City and the Quill Awards.

Having already lost the Hugo Award and the British Fantasy Award, A FEAST FOR CROWS made it three-for-three by losing the Quill. This time I was beaten by Diana Gabaldon and A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES. Ms. Gabaldon was gracious enough to say that FEAST should have won when she got up to accept her award, which was very kind of her. Despite losing, it was a swell evening. The event was black tie, held in the American Museum of Natural History, beneath a stupendous full-size blue whale, and Lewis Black opened the festivities that telling us all that we should enjoy the dinner before the awards, since most of us would be losers before the evening was out. (A man after my own heart, Lewis Black). Also, Parris looked especially gorgeous in her new dress. MSNBC will be telecasting an edited version of the awards later this month, which may or may not include a shot or two of me.

The rest of our stay in NYC was great as well. I got to eat real pizza several times, saw my agents and caught up, and had some very productive meetings with editors from Bantam, Tor/ Starscape, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Random House Comics. I did a drop-by signing at both of the Fifth Avenue B&Ns (if anyone there in the Apple is looking for a signed book, those two stores have plenty), saw my family in Jersey, and on Sunday, thanks to my brother-in-law Gerard, Parris and I got to attend the Jets game at the Meadowlands and chant J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS along with Fireman Ed as Chad tossed a couple of touchdown strikes to Laverneous and defeated the Dolphins (the defense did almost give the game away at the end, but never mind).

So… it was a long trip, but a good one. I covered a lot of miles, had a lot of fun, signed a lot of books, but I’m glad to be home. I’ve done an awful lot of travel since A FEAST FOR CROWS came out, and while I have enjoyed it, it does wear me out as well, and I have always found it impossible to get any writing down while on the road. There’s nothing else on my schedule until February, however, so for the rest of the year I will be right here, shackled to the computer and pounding the keys. I have half a dozen different projects on my plate, but the big one is A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, and I am going to be pushing hard on that in the weeks and months to come, in hopes of wrapping it up by the end of the year.

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My friend Janice Gelb sent me this great link from The Onion.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52915

Can this be Bizarro George?

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NFL football returns in a couple of hours, so life will have meaning again.

I will watch tonight’s game between the Steelers and Dolphins, of course, since it’s the season opener, but I really don’t have a horse in that contest. I’m saving my real energy for the weekend, when the Giants and the Jets take the field for the first time.

Big Blue and Gang Green are my guys. Yeah, both of them. Sometimes people ask me how I can possibly root for them both, since they’re rivals and all. All I can say is that I am very, very old. When I was growing up in Jersey, the G-Men were the only NYC team, so of course I cheered for them. Later, when the Jets came along, they were in an entirely different league and never played the Giants, so I started cheering for them too… especially after they got that Namath guy. I do have a crisis once every three years when they play each other, but I can deal with that. My dream is to live long enough to see a Subway Superbowl.

This year the Giants are expected to be a Superbowl contender, and the Jets are expected to vie for the first pick in next year’s draft. Two years ago the Jets were a Superbowl contender and the Giants were contending for the first pick in the draft. See, it’s good to have two teams. Every weekend, I have two chances at happiness. If both teams win, I’m thrilled. If one wins and one loses, I am heartened by the victory. It’s only when both of them lose that I tell Parris that life is meaningless and there is no joy in Mudville.

As for predicting what the season will be like… somehow I think the Jets are going to be better than anyone expects, but I’m not sure that the Giants are going to be as good. The Giants have always seemed to have their best seasons when everyone expects them to stink. When the experts pick them to win, somehow they usually tank.

But maybe not. So much depends on Eli. We’ll see how the first game goes, when they face the mighty Colts in the Manning Bowl.

Are you ready for some football?

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Worldcon is over, but I’m still here, logging on from the business center in the bowels of the Anaheim Hilton. I’m lingering for a few days post-con to Do Meetings with my film agents and other Hollywood folk.

It was a good con, and as usual the Brotherhood Without Banners had the best parties at the convention. The Human Chess Match was a hoot and a half as well, and Daniel had me really worried for a while there.

I did lose the Hugo, alas. Indeed, I finished an ignonimous fifth out of five. Win some, lose some and all that. The award went to SPIN by Robert Charles Wilson, a really terrific novel and a very worthy winner. Losing doesn’t sting nearly as much when you’re beaten by a book that good, so I am pretty philosophical about all this (unlike, say, Philadelphia in 2001). No need for condolences, folks, really.

I got to pass out plenty of Hugo Loser ribbons too. This year marked the 30th anniversary of the Hugo Losers Party, and we wanted to celebrate the occasion. The first one was held in my room at the 1976 worldcon in Kansas City, Big Mac… still the best and most innovative of modern worldcons.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with the Hugo results. It was particularly gratifying to see rockets go to Donato Giancola, David Hartwell, and Peter S. Beagle (though I would have loved to see Beagle tie with Howard Waldrop, since they both deserved Hugos).

Lots more to report on, but this business center time is expensive, so I’ll save all that until I get home.

I fly back to New Mexico tomorrow, and it’s back to work the day after.

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It has been an interesting few days, to say the least. I never dreamed my posts here would get such an overwhelming response. Thanks for all the comments, pro and con. I appreciate the support, and even the thoughtful and reasoned responses from many who disagree with me. As for the handful who chose to chant cant or throw insults… you should be ashamed of yourselves.

No politics this time. I’m packing right now. Tomorrow morning I’m off, first to Albuquerque for Bubonicon, our friendly little local convention, and then on Monday to LA for worldcon. Let us all hope that no new crisis intervenes, so that I am allowed to board the airplane. I will try to resist the urge to go “baaaaa, baaaaaa, baaaaaa” as I pass through the metal detector.

I love worldcon, and this year should be a good one. Aside from being in Anaheim (not my favorite part of LA), the convention facility is a great one, really well set up for parties, and the Brotherhood Without Banners is promising to pull out all the stops this time around.

On other fronts, I should mention that we have just added a new stop to my ICE DRAGON promotional schedule. On Tuesday, September 26, I will be signing at the River Lights Bookstore in Dubuque, Iowa. Full details will soon be posted to the Appearances page on my website. I lived in Dubuque for three years (1976 – 1979)a long, long, long time ago, but have only been back there once in the last twenty-six years, and that only briefly, so I am looking forward to seeing my old haunts again. I hope the place hasn’t changed as much as my old neighborhood in Chicago had when I went back there in May.

And to appease all those who come to my site mainly for updates about A DANCE WITH DRAGONS… sorry, guys, you’re not going to like this news any more than I do, but the last month has been a washout as far as writing is concerned. My home renovations have been very distracting, all sorts of other things have been breaking or demanding my attention, there were tax records to prepare for my accountant (I had to take an extension last April), and it seems as if every day has been full of crises and interruptions. I do hope the worst is behind me, however, and that I can plunge back into the book when I get back from LA. I need to make certain that September is a more productive month than August.

I do intend to continue to speak out on political issues from time to time, but perhaps not at such length as I have these past few days. It has been fun, and invigorating, and even enlightening in parts, but it takes time and energy, and just now I need to save most of my time and energy for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and WILD CARDS and my myriad other publishing projects, old and new.

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I have been pleased and surprised by the vast outpouring of comments on my last two journal posts, and heartened by the overwhelming show of support for some of the things I said. Not that there hasn’t been a fair amount of disagreement as well, some of it considered and thoughtful, some… less so.

A few of the more recent posters wonder whether I will ever read their thoughts, given the sheer number of comments. Let me assure you that I am reading all the comments. I have even responded to a few, as you will see if you scroll through the pages. For obvious reasons, however, I cannot respond to all of them.

I would like to reply to a few of the things that have been said, however.

A couple of people have argued that flying is not a “fundamental right.” I am not really sure how a “fundamental right” differs from an ordinary right, but never mind. This is one we’ve been hearing since airport “security” was first created thirty years ago. I suspect the wording actually derives from some court decision, since those first security measures were tested in court way back when, and upheld. If so, I think it was a bad decision, and one that to my mind flies in the face of the plain words of the Constitution.

Of course “flying” is not a right. The Constitution predates the Wright Brothers by more than a century, so it is doubtful that its authors would have felt the need to include specific language as regards commercial aviation. What they did write is this:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

That’s the Fourth Amendment, part of what we now call the Bill of Rights. That’s the reason why the police need to get a search warrant before breaking into your house. That’s where the whole concept of “probable cause” comes from.

Note, however, that is it not limited to houses. The framers did not want the police stopping and searching people on the streets either. Besides houses, the Fourth Amendment also gives us the right to be secure in our PERSONS… not only in our homes, but also when we step outside to travel and conduct our business.

That’s the “fundamental right” at stake here. There is “right to fly,” but neither is there is a “right to ride a horse,” “right to travel by stagecoach,” or “right to walk down the street.” All those are implied by the plain and simple language that is there: our right to be secure in our persons, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Mind you, there is legitimate ground for argument here, and I acknowledge that. The key word is UNREASONABLE. One can argue, legitimately, that airport “security” searches are reasonable and necessary. I do not agree, but there at least there is legitimate ground for debate. There should be no debate on whether we all should have the right to travel as we wish without being stopped and searched, however, whether by trains, planes, automobiles, or our own two feet.

As for “reasonable,” well, read the news, read some of the other comments, take a look around the next time you go to the airport. If you think frisking an eleven-year-old girl or an old woman in a wheelchair is reasonable, I’m afraid we have to disagree. If you think that stopping thousands of law-abiding citizens, searching their effects, and seizing their bottles of Evian and tubes of Crest is reasonable, I am at a loss at to what to say to you. We obviously live on different planets. (And one more aside. Not only does airport “security” infringe on the Fourth Amendment, but it also limits the First, the right of free speech that I think all of you would agree IS a “fundamental right.” I am talking about those signs you see at every airport warning passengers not to make jokes about bombs and guns. Where else can one be detained and interrogated for MAKING A JOKE, but at an airport? And do please note, I am not saying that joking around at the metal detector is a good idea. It’s a stupid thing to do, in fact… but you know, free speech includes the right to say stupid things. And just to forestall the inevitable response, please don’t come back to me with the hoary old “fire in a crowded theater” argument. I’ve heard good ol’ boys in security queues saying stuff like, “Hey, better search grandma there, I think she’s got an A bomb in her purse,” and it is not remotely similar to shouting fire in a crowded theater).

While we are on the subject of rights, one poster argued that our only rights are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Uh, no… actually, those words are from the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration, while a splendid and inspirational document, has no standing in American law. You need to read the Constitution, and especially the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. You won’t find pursuit of happiness there, but you will find a list of the actual rights that the framers thought were worth protecting.

A couple of posters have asked me for a “solution” to the problem of terrorism. No small order there. Obviously, I don’t have a solution. I don’t think anyone does. I did, however, put forth one suggestion for a PARTIAL (please note that word) solution, albeit a long-term one. You will find it in my reply to the third comment on the first page. I won’t repeat it here, but go and take a look at that if you’re interested.

Finally, there is the argument, put forward many times in the comments, that airport “security” is a “small inconvenience” and much preferable to being blown up by terrorists.

The fact that so many people will actually advance this argument with a straight face really does suggest that the terrorists are winning.

Why do you think they call it TERRORISM, folks? The point of terrorism is not to kill us, but to MAKE US AFRAID. And comments like those show that it is working. No one was killed by last week’s plot, so in that sense it was a failure… but in the broader sense, the terrorists scored a huge success, since millions of us are now a lot more fearful than we were a week ago.

The truth is that it is VERY unlikely that any of us will die at the hands of terrorists. We stand a better chance of being killed by lightning, and we stand a MUCH better chance of slipping in the shower and cracking our skulls on the tub. Overall, an airplane in flight is a much safer place than the average American bathroom. Shampoo is dangerous stuff, all right… but more so when we use it than when it’s packed away in our carry on.

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Yesterday’s post seems to have triggered a huge outpouring of comments, and I see the same issues being discussed all over the internet, in a hundred different places. Needless to say, there’s a huge range of opinions, but some of the polls I’ve looked at suggest the majority of Americans are okay with these new TSA “security” measures because, after all, they are “for our safety.”

Sigh.

Can we really have turned into such a nation of compliant sheep? Or maybe it’s a question of age. I have a feeling that the people who are most outraged by the TSA and its counterparts around the world are my age or older (I am 57, for a point of reference), because we’re the only ones who still remember what it was like to live in a free country.

This erosion of freedom has been going on all my life. It did not happen all at once on a Tuesday, when some fascist government came to power; it happened in dribs and drabs, so gradually that we hardly noticed it, with a law here and a rule there and a little tightening of security over there, and always for our own good, to keep us safe, to protect us.

I am not just talking about air travel either, though airport “security” is perhaps the most egregious and in-you-face example. Our “protectors” have touched almost every facet of modern American life… and I get the feeling there are a lot of people in their twenties and thirties who think that things were always like this.

They weren’t.

A few examples.

When I first started selling stories in the early 70s and went to New York City to see my editors, I would walk into the building, check what floor they were on, ride up in an elevator, and tell a receptionist I was there to see Mr. Smith. Now, when I visit my editors, I have to check in with uniformed security guards in the lobby, present a picture ID, clip a badge to my jacket. In some buildings I have to pass through a metal detector, just like in an airport.

When I first started staying at hotels, I would give my name to a desk clerk, who would check my reservation, and then present me with a card to fill out, or a register to sign. No one ever asked to see my identification. No one ever asked to take a credit card imprint. It was understood that you would settle your bill when you checked out, either by credit card, cash, or check. (Yes, I paid by check a lot back then, even in distant cities). You were assumed to be who you said you were… and if you wanted to give a fake name (I didn’t, but there were those who did), that was your business too, so long as you paid your bill.

When I was a kid, we always felt free and superior watching World War II movies, where those evil Nazis were forever stopping the heroes and demanding to see “their papers.” That would never happen to US, we knew. We were Americans. We did not have to carry “papers.” Yet now there’s talk of a national ID card, and the driver’s license has become almost that by default. A driver’s license was intended to prove that you were licensed to operate an automobile, yet now all sorts of people demand to see it for all sorts of things. At the bank, at the grocery store, in the airport, in a thousand other places, you have people refusing to allow you to do your business unless you first show your “papers.” We have become the very thing that we once despised.

These are just a few instances. I could cite a hundred more, if I did not have a book to write. Security codes and security guards have become so ubiquitous in this society that we hardly notice them any longer (when I was kid, you only saw guards in banks). More and more jobs and professions require licenses and fees before we are allowed to practice them. Zoning laws and building regulations grow ever more complex and stringent all over the country, so our neighbors and local governments can tell us what we can and cannot do with our own property. And those friendly feds are always there, keeping track of what we read and who we email and listening in on our phone calls. The Bush administration has been the worst offender in this regard, but they are by no means the first.

And it is all to “protect” us.

From who, I wonder?

I don’t feel safer than I did when I was twenty. Far from it. I do feel less free. We live in an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust and fear, and when we dare to raise our voices in protest, there is always some yahoo ready to tell us to shut up and leave these matters to the proper authorities, that it is all to keep us safe. And it seems there will always be a large sheepish majority ready to accept whatever new rule or regulation is being promulgated. “Baaa, baaa, it’s to keep us safe, baaa, baaa, it’s for our own good, baaa, baaa, it’s just a little thing, nothing important, only an inconvenience, why do you want privacy if you don’t have something to hide, baaa, baaa, baaa.”

These people have forgotten what it was like to be free. Maybe they never knew.

What is “freedom,” anyway? We could debate that for hundreds of posts, I’m sure, and maybe we will. The way I see it, however, it has got to mean more than just being able to choose between a Republican and a Democrat every few years. I want all the rights and freedoms guaranteed me in the Bill of Rights, certainly… including the one protecting me against unreasonable searches and seizures that we have abrogated in the name of safety and airport “security.” But the Bill of Rights should not be the end of it. The right to privacy may have been invented by the Supreme Court rather than the Founding Fathers, you can argue that as you will, but however it came about, it’s a pretty nifty right and I’d like to hang on to it. I want the right to do stupid, hazardous, self-destructive stuff as well; to drink absinthe, smoke pot, smoke tobacco, drive my car without the seatbelt, bungee jump off bridges, watch porn, order my eggs sunny-side up and my hamburgers rare, have unprotected sex, drink unpasteurized milk. I have only done a few of those things, actually (I will leave it to you to figure out which ones), and most I would never consider — but I SHOULD have the right to do all of them. The choice should be mine, not yours, and not the government’s. Giving individuals a CHOICE in how we live is our lives is the essence of freedom, I think.

And shouldn’t ordinary law-abiding people have the basic, fundamental right not to be treated like goddamned criminals everywhere they go?

The world is a hazardous place, certainly… but you know, the world has always been a hazardous place (in the cosmic scheme of things, it was not so long ago that we were building walls around our towns and cities), yet in the end, all men must die. The important thing is how we live while we’re still here, and I would sooner live free, even if that means more risk. A police state is always safer than a free country, so long as you stay on the right side of those police, but I’d rather not live in one all the same.

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The news coming out of England this morning is depressing, and the reactions to it scary. I am glad that Parris returned home from Ireland on Monday, else she might be caught up in the madness at Heathrow. I am of course pleased that the British caught a bunch of terrorists, and look forward to seeing them tried, and the evidence of their plots (these liquid explosives and electronic triggers) brought forward in a court of law, but I am aghast at the “security” measures that are now being taken in the wake of those arrests.

I have always hated airline “security.” Step by step, year by year, the TSA and its predecessors have taken away more and more of our freedoms, subjecting millions of perfectly innocent travellers to searches and interrogations and other hassles in the vague hopes of catching hijackers (in the old days) and terrorists (these days). Even if it worked, the price would be too high, but of course it does not work. It has never worked. All of the 9/11 killers strolled through airport “security” without a problem, yet little old ladies in wheelchairs are pulled from line and patted down, people who have never committed a crime in their life are being forced to remove their shoes and belts and empty their pockets, and cigarette lighters and toy guns and Swiss army knives are being confiscated and sold (yes, that’s what they do with those lighters they take from people, they SELL them and keep the bucks).

And now, in the wake of the arrests in England, a new wave of rules and prohibitions are about to be foisted on us by TSA — no liquids or gels in carry on, no electronic devices of any kind, no ipods, no cell-phones, no cameras (some reports are even claiming that books are being banned, though that makes no sense whatsoever to me). You are supposed to put your electronics in your checked baggage, they say. Your UNLOCKED checked baggage, another infuriating rule foisted on us by the TSA. And of course what happens if your electronics are damaged and stolen en route? Why, nothing… the airlines take no responsibility, and TSA won’t either. Will TSA start confiscating iPods and cellphones and laptops at the security gates now? Hey, those will certainly bring in a lot more dosh than lighters when they’re sold.

I wonder how long this prohibition on electronics will last, and how far it will extend? If this truly includes ALL electronics, it will effectively end my own ability to travel by air. Forget about book tours in the future, forget about seeing me at any con that I cannot drive to. Right now, I am even worried about how I am going to get to worldcon… though LA is close enough so that, if worse comes to worst, I will be able to drive. Obviously, that won’t apply next year for Yokahama, if these new rules become permanent.

What’s next, I wonder? Anal probes, x-rays, body cavity searches? Have we become such a nation of sheep that we will line up and swallow all this meekly? If so, let’s change the words in our national anthem. Instead of “land of the free and home of the brave,” maybe “land of the safe and home of the scared” would do.

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This will no doubt upset all those readers who want me to stay home and write, write, write, but it looks as though I will be taking to the road again in the fall.

If you’ve ever looked at the Knights page of my website, you’ll know about my passion for collecting 54mm toy knights and medieval miniatures. The “worldcon” for toy soldier collectors is the Old Toy Soldier Show, held every September at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Schaumberg, Illinois, outside of Chicago. I have had to miss the last couple of OTS shows, but I’m returning this year.

And then there’s Archon, the regional in St. Louis, which I’ve been attending since 1977. I have missed a couple of those in recent years as well, but once again I mean to return this year.

Usually the Old Toy Soldier Show and Archon are only one week apart, so I fly into Chicago, do the show, rent a car, make a leisurely drive down to St. Louis, and fly home from there. This year, however, the events are TWO weeks apart, so I had to determine whether I’d make two trips, or just linger in the midwest a little longer than usual.

I decided on the former, since it gives me the chance to visit a few other cities, and see some fannish friends that I don’t see often enough. So after Chicago, I am going to visit Indianapolis and Cincinnati (where I’ll catch the first day of the fabulous Tall Stacks steamboat festival, a fun event that never fails to awaken memories of FEVRE DREAM for me), and only then turn toward St. Louis.

And as it happens, this is just about the time that Starscape Books will be releasing its illustrated hardcover edition of THE ICE DRAGON, with the lovely Yvonne Gilbert artwork, so I am going to combine some business with my pleasure and do a few bookstore appearances as well. I will be signing at a Border’s in Chicago, at a Barnes & Noble in Indianapolis, at Joe Beth in Cincinnati, and at Border’s in St. Louis (must admit to having some trepidations about the last, given what happened the last time I signed at a bookstore in St. Louis while Archon was going on thirty miles away in Collinsville, Illinois, but maybe this time will turn out better). Details of times and places will be posted on my Appearances page.

If you missed me on my last swing on the midwest, here’s your chance.

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