Story idea

 Given the synchronistic recent (ish) events of Daniel Craig leaving the role of 007 and the beginning of the 3rd rendition of the British Carolingian Age, is it too soon to hope that a reboot of James Bond might be in the near-term cinematic cards? Visualize this; the pre-credits opening scene introducing Idris Elbe being promoted by "M" to the traditionally vacated position of James Bond, "On His Majesty's Secret Service", cue the rising strains of the classic theme song. With Guy Ritchie in the director's chair and co-writer of the script.

F a bunch of mermaids, whatever their colo(u)r; the final opening dialogue being a voice-over of Charles III's voice saying, "Hands off the ginger 007; he's mine." and the new story begins from a clean page of paper.

A Considered Response to the Viral Circumstance of the Day

Submitted without additional comment:

The Chyna Swing

A Good Day

So, a couple days ago the John Sanford novel "Holy Ghost (A Virgil Flowers Novel)" came available on Amazon, which means my copy arrived yesterday. I started reading it about 3 pm and finished around 11 pm (there was a trip to the Walmart and dinner to cook in there too). Virgil finds himself assigned to look into a shooting in a small town that might - or might not - be related to a recent religious "miracle". Events cascade one onto another, with seeming solutions to the case(s) dying faster than the victims.

What a wonderful way to end the long dry spell of pleasure reading this summer has been.

Do recommend.

And, there will be a new Lucas Davenport novel ("Neon Prey") releasing next April 23 to look forward to over the winter.

I think I can set things up so I can re-read all of the Prey novels in succession - maybe starting next March - so that I finish the most recent book ("Twisted Prey") the day before the new one arrives. There are 28 novels in the series so far; managing to keep myself to a rate of only 4 books a week should fill the bill nicely.

John Ringo's next Black Tide Rising novel "The Valley of Shadows" is scheduled for release on Nov 6, with S. M. Stirling's (reportedly) last book in the Change series "The Sky Blue Wolves" coming on Nov 13 ought to take care of the reading Jones for that month.

WEB Griffin's latest in the Clandestine Operations series "The Enemy Of My Enemy" comes out Dec 11, and David Weber's next Safehold novel "Through Fiery Trials" arrives Jan 8, followed by book 2 in Larry Correia's Saga Of The Forgotten Warrior series "House Of Assassins" on Feb 5.

Mar 5 brings us to book 2 in the John Ringo/Gary Poole Black Tide Rising anthology "Voices of the Fall", with May 7 bringing us S. M. Stirling's second title "Theater of Spies" in his new Alternate World War series.

These next 7 months or so offer so much to look forward to.

Have You Ever Heard The Phrase "Tit For Tat"?

From Peter over at Bayou Renaissance Man comes notice of the latest display of terminal stupidity by the 21st century's version of The New Soviet Man (that would be the clown posse styling themselves as Antifa). Not content to swan about in black gym clothes with diapers over their faces, now they've gone and challenged the denizens of 4chan directly.

As ought to have been predicted by even this collective of dubious intellects, 4chan immediately demonstrated their willingness to bring all of the Tat in response to Antifa's latest display of Tit. If you have ever wondered about whether or not someone of your acquaintance (heaven forfend you might actually share DNA) really is as stupid as you've long thought, now you can look up his/her/zir name. Helpfully listed in alphabetical order.

I suppose it would be too much to ask for the nice people at 8chan to reorganize the list by locality?

Do go read Peter's post and follow the links he provides. How does that saying go; "When your enemies are making a mistake, never get in their way"? Well played, 4chan, well played indeed.

13 Hours

Went to see the film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi in the cinema Sunday afternoon; definitely worth the price of admission just for the cinematography and Special Effects.  No spoilers, but like virtually every other "based on historical events" (and in this case specifically "This is a true story") movie, there are gaping holes in the historical record as it is portrayed on film.  I'm not going to go into a long dissertation about the differences between written story and film story; leave it as stipulated that the two formats have mutually opposing criteria and thus there will always be a need to adapt a written record into the more compressed film format, and that that compression often is achieved by illustrating a condition with a fictionalized example that evokes the impact of the more complex actual events to a viewing audience in a reasonable period of viewing time.

Also, it is the height of stupidity to bring your personal ideology with you to any movie.  Enjoy the show for what it is, then have fun dissecting it with your friends and commentariat afterwards.  I guarantee you will have plenty of opportunity to rip it to pieces no matter who wrote, directed, or starred in it.

Ok, one tiny spoiler (paraphrased):  "Shorts to a gunfight?  That's a bold statement, brother."

Go see the movie in the theater if you possibly can.  This is one of those films that really benefits from the big screen viewing environment.

It's Amazon Pilot Season

Periodically, the good folks at Amazon.com present a selection of new TV series developed by people like you and me (well, me anyway; your fantasy life is your own) at Amazon Studios for Amazon customers to rate and review.  I want to recommend one particular program currently up for audience review, Cocked.

Brian Dennehy plays the family patriarch and gun business founder Wade Paxson.  Jason Lee plays the elder son, heir apparent and perennial ne're-do-well Grady.  Sam Trammell plays his younger brother Richard, who has made a life and career outside the family business and industry.

Wade Paxson has built a solid business catering to the traditional "Fudd" segment of the gun buying market; rifles and shotguns for hunting and target shooters.  Grady Paxson has spent all the family's available cash designing and manufacturing a new product line for the company, a "semi-automatic revolver".  Revealing further depth to the Paxson family structure, Wade's brother Rayburn has his own gun company, and apparently has Wade's shop thoroughly penetrated with his own people, as he also brings a "semi-auto revolver" to market - at considerably less cost.  Desperate to save the company he spent his life building, Wade begs (and otherwise coerces) his younger son to help stave off the pending disaster.  High-larity, as they say, not to mention drama and more than a little comedy, follows.

Cocked airs most of the usual memes and catch phrases anyone familiar with guns (or just gun debates) is familiar with - but does so in a reasonably neutral fashion, and occasionally quite indirectly.  As example, the commonplace pro gun ownership expression "when seconds count, a cop is only minutes away" isn't spoken in dialogue, but following a violent attack on Richard, the responding cop notes there isn't much he can do to catch the attacker or prevent another attack.  In another scene, Richard's wife accuses the family of "selling fear", to which Wade responds that guns are "just tools".  In none of this drama does anyone come off as morally superior, nor does anyone get spared from a sometimes too-revealing look.

I hope Amazon produces this series, and you can help convince Jeff Bezos and the boys and girls at Amazon Studios to do just that.  Follow the link above, watch the pilot episode, then click on the little blue Find out more link, and Take the survey.  You don't have to be an Amazon Prime member, but I expect no one there would outright object if you did join up.  Also, the show is rated TV-MA because, titties, violence and grown people doing some fairly tedious stupid behavior in somewhat explicit fashion.  Nothing too outrageous (which may be more revealing of my standards than anything else), but expect to have to field some awkward questions from the younger set if you let them watch with you.

Finally, there are 12 other pilot shows up for audience review at Amazon right now; I also recommend Mad Dogs and The Man in the High Castle as being worth your interest, pretty much in that order of preference too (tastes vary; get your own).  There are some kid-oriented shows too, but mine are raising there own kids these days, so I don't have to develop an opinion you would want to read about any of that category of programming.

No Amazonians or actual pilots were harmed in the production of this post.

I'll Go There

In the on-going saga of who has the worse approach to discussion of racial topics on TV, the serially interchangeable title holders Plump and Plumper from The View apparently bounced their different View-points off each other off-camera recently.

Pity.  Three distinct responses to the two points-of-view expressed.  Typical progressive "thinking", sadly not on display for our View-related pleasure.  Here's a suggestion for the rest of The View backstage staff: Go Pro.

Setting The Olympic Bar As Low As It'll Go

So, it seems Putin-on-the-Olympic Games in So-Shit Russia may be best remembered for the examples of people backing away from taking any of the "glory".

And these are the people we spent 70 years being told were going to bury us.

Making Work = Job: The Sequel

Thanks to the resounding response (for a given value of response) to my initial post, I'm writing this follow-up post anyway.  Also, to whoever it is that owns the url storyteller.com congratulations, best wishes and etc; I own the url www.storytellerworld.com and will be pursueing developing this idea there (eventually).

To re-cap; Story Teller World is intended to provide anyone with a story idea (fictional, instructional, whatever really) with the support and development tools established writers receive from their publishing house or film production company (or have to develop for themselves as they go).  In addition to that, STW will offer digital story development software tool(s) specifically designed for novice writers using much the same process as that used by the Turbo Tax income tax software (fill in the basic info, then answer questions to further develop the idea in a structured and interconnected format).

Having had a period of time in digital solitude in which to do what I like to call "thinking", I have come up with what I hope will prove to be improvements to my original concept.

1.)  Tax and contract legal advice.  I'm going to have to acquire some money to pay someone that actually knows something about the topic, so back burner still.

2.)  Reference links.  I believe Ref Desk is an even better choice than I originally considered.  Being financially supported by contributors, STW will arrange to provide sufficient financial support to Ref Desk so as to receive a dedicated portal through which all member writers story research must be directed.  Ref Desk provides links to all major reference sources online and can no doubt be convinced to add any specialty links as might be desired (and legal - erotic stories are not excluded from STW, but there are still legal boundaries to be taken into account).  This arrangement makes possible an anti-plagiarism mechanism along with a credit-sharing mechanism for shared projects.  More on this below (see: 6.).

3.)  Editorial support.  Back burner.

4.)   Co-Author job posting requests.  Some on this below too.  Back burner the rest.

Gods Above (and other archaic-sounding expletives) this item-by-item narrative format is really tedious; I won't be doing it again, that's certain.

5.)  Marketing.  I'm sure I have more thoughts on this, but only one comes to mind just now.  I am strongly inclined to publish all stories written on STW through Smashwords and let the individual buyer select which eBook format fits his/her reader technology.

The back of the stove is getting crowded, too.

6.)  Back-story Development.  Finally.  STW will provide an individual page for each member linked from the site Home page as part of the membership fee.  Each project a member wishes to develop will receive its own separate page accessible only through the members personal page (for a minor one-time additional fee) and accessible by others only by the members arrangement.  All research done in development of a story must be through the Ref Desk link by way of the members personal page, thereby documenting when/where every aspect of the story came from - either document-ably through Ref Desk or directly through the writers head (still thinking about scanning data not otherwise available online - fixable but not decided yet).  In the event two or more members (not all of whom are necessarily writers themselves) choose to develop a project jointly, their individual development page will link to a joint-development secondary page (for, you guessed it, yet another additional one-time minor fee) for that story only.  All individual contributions to the final story are each made through the individual member's personal page, thus allowing for a reasonably precise accounting of just who contributed how much to the published product, thereby also allowing for a fair distribution of proceeds should there ever be a dispute.

7.)  Story Teller must be at minimum a two-tiered structure.  I have changed my pricing model considerably (see 6. above for example).  I still want there to be a free page available for anyone to work from (for members to research for project collaboration and individuals to advertise for co-authorship's or other development opportunities) (all such arrangements paying a fee or percentage to STW btw), but that membership should be a mostly nominal US$30/year.  Each additional project page a member starts (and owns for life of the membership and/or copyright as appropriate) costs an additional US$10 initiation fee, with joint project pages sharing an additional US$10 initiation fee between all contributors by whatever division they arrange between themselves (so long as content ownership is stipulated by the developing members to be on either a stipulated division of shares basis or percentage of contribution as measured by the STW site software through each members personal page).

8.)  The STW writing software needs to be written in such a fashion that it can be readily adapted to other applications of a generally similar, but discrete, market (story written for print, to be adapted for film/video, to be further adapted for video game, etc).  I know what follows was originally part of  #6 in the original; what's your point?  I am more convinced than ever that STW must be built around original software purpose written for this application.  There will no doubt be much content that is licensed from others, and mostly expected to be accessed through a hyperlink, but I strongly believe an open source based purpose-built software program that is designed from the outset for ease of member usage and adaptation to as broad a spectrum of potential applications as possible (but without the need for writers to also be knowledgable coders too) is still the best marketing tool STW can ever offer to people.  One of the more time consuming distractions and expenses writers have is the spelling and what I think of as the there/their/they're problem, so one of the features I want the STW software to offer is a variety of check programs that the writer can run repeatedly to check work prior to engaging in the expense of a reader or editor (all of which will still be necessary, but hopefully more individually affordable as a result).

Having no idea what esr and his cohorts charge for their professional attention (and wanting more than the sound of the hair growing in my ears for resources, and isn't that a mental image to attract an investor with?) I'm hesitant to ask.  That said, I recognize that people need some sort of (at least seemingly plausible) guesstimate of funding requirements desired, so I hope to attract US$2,000,000 to fully fund the initial 5 years of development and operation, along with anticipated expenses to expand into other languages than English during the 4th or 5th year.  This amount will pay my salary for 5 years, fund work space and equipment for same, transportation, development and promotional expenses (which are expected to require my personal involvement on-scene) and funds for contingent opportunities (partnership contracts with other businesses being a prominent example), especially in the final two years of initial development.  This also assumes having to pay for all the ancillary expenses that might otherwise be met through a partnership with Jobster or Baen as mentioned in the first posting.  In return, at the end of the 5 year initial term, the goal is to have 10,000 individual annual paying members, each of whom has initiated on average two development projects during that same period; this results in approximately US$500,000 in paid fees plus whatever the published stories have earned (remember, STW is in for 20% of all royalties each story earns, too) by that time.  Those benchmarks can reasonably be expected to produce US$240,000/year in paid fees alone thereafter, with expenses being approximately 60% of that amount all else remaining the same.

The Story Teller World financial model is: individual member annual fee of US $30, individual story development page of a one-time US $10, assignment of 20% of all sales royalties to Story Teller World for a stipulated (but negotiable - at least a 10 years minimum though) period of time, 20% of all royalties divided between the story developers (shared between the original creator(s) and any adaptation creators) and 60% of all royalties apportioned as negotiated between all contributors to a story's final published form.

Some business development methods I especially plan to employ are:

A.)  As soon as possible after the software is basically written, I wish to tour around the country hosting local events with certain bloggers known to me to be accomplished writers in their own right.  STW will pay them a stipulated amount to write as beta developers in their area of expertise (for which they have an established audience).  This and their individual experience of the STW writing process will be published through the STW site and their personal blogs simultaneously.  This should take no more than 3 months, so by code writing + 3 months after funding has STW well known on all internet social media platforms.

    A. (1):  As part of the software writing development process, I will be working with selected (and compensated) other writers to put together a book that creates a story line for other writers to work in as part of a "how to" book explaining the STW writing process and software tools for publication at the time of public announcement of the business.  This will serve as a quality check of the software writing development process and expressly included in the code writers contract.

B.)  The online charity Kilted To Kick Cancer will become a sponsored charity of STW.  This includes a company cash donation directly, solicitation of donations from the membership and more generally online and an annual writing contest that directs some of the publication proceeds to the charity as well (at least from the STW royalties share - individual writers generosity is up to them).  This will require my personal involvement in various KTKC events during the month of September each year and hopefully sponsorship of an event as well.

C.)  Effectively simultaneous with A. above, certain established writers will be approached in an effort to arrange for them to develop a writers guide book (often referred to as a "universe or story bible") for other writers to work in established story lines he/she/they are no longer actively writing in.  STW will compensate these authors for their development costs (including their writing fee) and pay them for their written evaluation of the writing process experience offered by STW.  This will be intended for publication over the code writing + 6 to 12 months period (allowing for a non-overlap with the KTKC effort and some allowance for competing demands on the author's time).

I wish to make clear that, if developed and managed correctly, Story Teller World is designed to permit its management ample opportunity to be directly involved in the writing process personally (and under the identical terms and conditions of any other member too).  This allows for a real-time quality check of the process as well as potential for reducing the financial demands an otherwise full time manager might be expected to charge.

With any luck (mine, not so much yours), there will be more to follow.

Making Work = Job

There is an on-going lament about "Where have all the jobs gone?" or variations on that theme.  The single most common aspect of the question seemingly being that "job" is a tangible item which some diffuse other retains control over and to whom you must apply in order to be paid for work performed.

In the now-past Industrial Revolution there was a quite deliberate truth behind that belief.  Welcome to the 21st century.

One of the most widely occurring and historically repeated models of attaining economic self reliance is that of the story teller.  In the modern world, this most often takes the form of being a writer of some niche application or expertise; technical manuals or instructions, computer code, science fiction (some overlap in those three, I think), poetry, screenplay, music and on and on.  This post is about making that sort of work into an income producing job for far more of us than is ordinarily believed possible, and Jobster is its name-o.

My Second Time Shooting IDPA

Lock & Load (under "Where I Shoot" over on the right there) sponsors an IDPA club and held a rare Sunday afternoon match today.  Even though I'm not properly a member (the whole works second shift thing gets in the way), this is my second try at it.  I don't try for "fast", but focus on accurate - and abiding by the competition rules (which seem about evenly divided between straightforward safety and trying to dull Occam's razor).  Let's just say, if the shooting stage requires you to shoot from behind cover, they mean behind.  You can expose your gun and as much of your head and hands to the target as is putatively necessary to shoot the target - and I fully understand the reasoning - but it is truly not a shooting stance most ranges will be happy to see you trying in the ordinary course of a casual range date.

As I said, I don't get the opportunity often, and I really appreciate the actual club members acknowledging my entirely accidental Mozambique shooting weak-hand at a rocker target (pivots back-and-forth across the shooter's field of view), but the IDPA claim that physical fitness isn't a requirement must pertain to membership eligibility only - you don't have to be a Conan body-type, but us Louie Anderson body types bring our own unscored level of difficulty to the thing let me tell you.

It was great fun and I look forward to having another go at it someday again.  If you like shooting, give IDPA a try.

UPDATE 2/19/13:

  Sunday17Match/Feb

February 17, 2013

Most Accurate: William Brown SSP - Unclassified 124.68 (13)

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5

Match Score

--Penalties--
PD NT PE FN

CDP - Sharpshooter
1 Bohman, John 87.58 27 0 0 0 14.28 (7) 30.52 (7) 10.29(0) 19.67 (6) 12.82 (7)

ESP - Expert
1 Walker, Jim 68.52 21 0 0 0 9.76(3) 22.61(6) 10.72 (3) 13.06(4) 12.37 (5)

ESP - Sharpshooter
1 Prater, Steve 84.44 36 1 0 0 12.56 (5) 23.28 (8) 13.92 (11) 20.99 (5) 13.69 (7)

ESP - Marksman
1 Prater, Jackson 95.78 36 0 0 0 12.38 (0) 35.40 (8) 17.83 (16) 14.34 (0) 15.83 (12)

SSP - Sharpshooter
1 Sanchez, Bob 83.67 24 1 0 0 11.05 (2) 30.06 (14) 12.30 (5) 19.37 (0) 10.89(3)
2 Quates, Robert 84.07 18 0 0 0 10.27 (2) 25.70 (0) 13.30 (14) 17.20 (1) 17.60 (1)

SSP - Marksman
1 Cundieff, David 104.91 50 0 0 0 13.71 (4) 33.33 (19) 15.63 (11) 23.95 (7) 18.29 (9)
2 Endres, Jack* 122.81 21 0 1 0 17.29 (0) 43.54 (5) 17.88 (10) 24.15 (0) 19.95 (6)
3 Trimble, W.P. (Mose) 133.30 48 1 0 1 16.51 (4) 37.76 (6) 16.35 (13) 39.84 (15) 22.84 (10)

SSP - Unclassified
1 Brown, William 124.68 13 1 2 0 19.46 (0) 41.69 (1) 14.14 (8) 29.63 (0) 19.76 (4)
2 Barton, Neal 165.78 72 0 3 2 23.95 (6) 52.98 (22) 13.98 (10) 47.66 (12) 27.21 (22)

Key to Penalties:
PD =
NT =
PE = Procedural Error. Each adds 3 seconds to your score.
FN = Failure to Neutralize (no hits in the 0 or -1 zone) Each adds 5 seconds to your score.
Hit on Non Threat target. Each HNT adds 5 seconds to your score.
Target Points Down. Each point down adds 1/2 second to your score.

Key to Abbreviations:
CDP = Custom Defensive Pistol, such as 1911. Must be .45 ACP with maximum magazine load of 8 rounds
ESP = Enhanced Service Pistol, single action or SA/DA such as H&K P7 or CZ-75 or Springfield XD
SSP = Stock Service Pistol, double action or 'Safe Action' such as Glock or SIG
ESR = Enhanced Service Revolver, rimmed or rimless ammo, full moon clip, power factor of 165,000
SSR = Stock Service Revolver, rimmed case ammo, no full moon clips

 I had no idea ...

A World Transformative Opportunity

Confused by the plethora of technology choices you daily find yourself confronted with?  Want an easy-to-learn technique to help you answer all your questions?  Can't help you.  However, if you have the least interest in taking advantage of the near-endless opportunities our steadily (and increasingly) changing world offers, you should be listening to tonight's edition of The World Transformed, 10pm Eastern, 7pm Pacific.

Oh yeah, Phil and Stephen try to make sense of some guy ratcheting on about strategy, too.

Act Of Valor

Went to see the movie Act Of Valor today; I encourage all to see this film in a cinema if at all possible.

A reasonably straightforward telling of an entirely plausible-seeming (to me, at least) threat with all of the to-be-expected combat action people have come to associate with SEALS and Special Forces generally. HALO jumps, air insertion of SEAL Tactical Assault Boats, the STAB boats in riverine action, it's all included and beautifully filmed to convey both an accurate image as well as the impact caused. I found the commo discipline as well as the shooting under stress and movement (specifically, the reloading and communicating between fellow teammates) to add an additional layer of suspension of disbelief.

I suppose that the predictable-seeming plot point that occurs towards the end of the film (no spoilers here - spend the money for this one, it's worth it) is more than justified by the final on-screen scene. It stops being a screen writers dodge when you start to count up all the names of those who actually did just that sort of thing at some point during these last ten years of war.

Go see this movie; buy a copy when it becomes available on DVD, you will want to watch it more than once, I promise. And if you don't have to hold back the tears just a little at the end, I don't want to know you.


Update: Via Glen Reynolds, this is no surprise.

Now That Would Be Entertainment! :)

Strategic principle is often put into practice by arranging an alliance between two or more seemingly unlikely positions to the mutual benefit and advancement of all concerned. A "strategic visionary" is frequently little more than someone who has made the effort to grasp the basic concepts involved and recognised a nascent juxtaposition before anyone else.

Eric S. Raymond wrote a compelling essay a couple years ago about the important role firearms historically played in the development of responsible people and competent citizens. Mr. Raymond relates the convergence of personal responsibility that conscientious gun users develop and practice to the equivalent public duties and character that good citizenship demands. While recognising that this personal development mechanism has fallen into dis-favor in recent national history, Mr. Raymond declines to go into specific examples as to how this circumstance might be rectified.

As a matter of personal conviction, I consider the actress Denise Richards to be one of the most physically arousing women alive. Now, I recognise that her genetic inheritance isn't an accomplishment she can lay especial claim to and that her professional training and experience makes passing judgement on her character based upon her occupational efforts more than a little mis-leading too, but her personal and professional circumstance positions her to take the public stage in a manner not often permitted those in her chosen trade, I believe (and yes, I read this too).

One of the problems shared by historical re-creation and "Reality TV" is the obvious contrived nature of their public presentation. US Civil and Revolutionary War re-enactors overcome this by totally immersing themselves in the character minutia and historical circumstance such that their actual personality becomes submerged - very like the process followed by traditional stage and screen actors, I imagine. Audiences to their "performances" are generally understanding of the amatuer theatrics involved and that the action being portrayed is the feature, not the actors theatric accomplishments. Reality TV programs, on the other hand, are premised on the personality of the featured celebrity and the circumstance de jure being supposed to offer some measure of drama or humor. The participants are measured against the same standards by which any other public performance might be - however "unscripted" they're purported to be. Let's face it, drama in our personal lives rarely turns out happily and isn't something we can schedule at all reliably.

In Ms. Richards' recent on-screen effort, she explicitly avoids resorting to the single most universal circumstance she shares with her potential audience - her ex-husband. Despite the all-too-public nature of their relationship (not to mention its demise), her publicly expressed desire not to damage his relationship with their children speaks well of her as a parent, but denies this legitimately expected programming content that a reality-based presentation such as hers requires. What makes this decision on her part even more pronounced is her decision to include her two daughters in the on-screen presentation and the court proceedings she found necessary to over-ride their father's objections. Her deliberate on-camera confrontation with a magazine editor over the nature of the coverage she recieved was also damaging. Not to make too much of the issue, but someone who spends her working day in front of a camera with the intent of publicly broadcasting the result comes off as somewhat less than genuine for objecting to someone else doing the same thing. The result was to disappoint the most salacious of the potential audience while de-meaning her own public personae to her critical (or only spiteful) observers. In any case, the program suffered and failed to achieve or hold sufficient audience to justify its continuation apparently.

A successful strategy advances the disparate positions of its constituents. For Denise Richards to achieve such positional advancement herself, she must ally herself with others so as to reinforce their individual actions.

Ms. Richards needs continuing occupation that doesn't intrude excessively on her parental responsibilities. Mr. Sheen needs to maintain active contact with his daughters and a viable cooperation with his former wife. Not to be discounted, the two young Miss Sheen each has needs to be accounted for as well; a stable home life with two parents guidance and comfort combined with an opportunity to grow into adulthood as functional contributing citizens of the Republic. Mr. Raymond's essay offers a potential framework into which all of these considerations can be structured to advance each, both separately and in concert.

Presuming Ms. Richards can arrange for further filming of her program at all, a change of venue and a structural re-format would extend the potential audience and remove certain distractions from the production.

One of the principle distractions Its Complicated suffers from is the legitimate concern Mr. Sheen has for daughters Sam J. and Lola Rose's welfare. I'm willing to stipulate that Ms. Richards seeks to involve them in the production as a mechanism to further their financial benefit. By moving the program venue to this portion of Texas, she and their father can jointly purchase some property (I would suggest 20+ acres of undeveloped land) and vest ownership jointly in the two girl's names while arranging for the property to be managed as a blind trust over which neither parent has direct influence. The TV shows premise would shift to Ms. Richards working to build a home for her daughters while she home-schooled them. Given the generally universal love young girls have for horses, it seems reasonable to plan for a non-commercial horse ranch environment that would also accommodate Ms. Richards' love of animals as an initial construction objective.

Mr. Raymond begins his essay thus:

There is nothing like having your finger on the trigger of a gun to reveal who you really are. Life or death in one twitch — ultimate decision, with the ultimate price for carelessness or bad choices.

It is a kind of acid test, an initiation, to know that there is lethal force in your hand and all the complexities and ambiguities of moral choice have fined down to a single action: fire or not?

In truth, we are called upon to make life-or-death choices more often than we generally realize. Every political choice ultimately reduces to a choice about when and how to use lethal force, because the threat of lethal force is what makes politics and law more than a game out of which anyone could opt at any time.

But most of our life-and-death choices are abstract; their costs are diffused and distant. We are insulated from those costs by layers of institutions we have created to specialize in controlled violence (police, prisons, armies) and to direct that violence (legislatures, courts). As such, the lessons those choices teach seldom become personal to most of us.

Nothing most of us will ever do combines the moral weight of life-or-death choice with the concrete immediacy of the moment as thoroughly as the conscious handling of instruments deliberately designed to kill. As such, there are lessons both merciless and priceless to be learned from bearing arms — lessons which are not merely instructive to the intellect but transformative of one's whole emotional, reflexive, and moral character.

I don't know that he was thinking of pre-school little girls and Hollywood starlets when he wrote those words, but they apply all the same. America is a nation of gun users because we were founded as a country on the principle of personal responsibility for the life-and-death nature of our individual liberty. Mr. Raymond further points out:

The Founding Fathers of the United States believed, and wrote, that the bearing of arms was essential to the character and dignity of a free people. For this reason, they wrote a Second Amendment in the Bill Of Rights which reads the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, the Second Amendment is usually interpreted in these latter days as an axiom of and about political character — an expression of republican political thought, a prescription for a equilibrium of power in which the armed people are at least equal in might to the organized forces of government.

It is all these things. But it is something more, because the Founders regarded political character and individual ethical character as inseparable. They had a clear notion of the individual virtues necessary collectively to a free people. They did not merely regard the habit of bearing arms as a political virtue, but as a direct promoter of personal virtue.

The Founders had been successful armed revolutionaries. Every one of them had had repeated confrontation with life-or-death choices, in grave knowledge of the consequences of failure. They desired that the people of their infant nation should always cultivate that kind of ethical maturity, the keen sense of individual moral responsibility that they had personally learned from using lethal force in defense of their liberty.

Accordingly, firearms were prohibited only to those intended to be kept powerless and infantilized. American gun prohibitions have their origins in racist legislation designed to disarm slaves and black freedmen. The wording of that legislation repays study; it was designed not merely to deny blacks the political power of arms but to prevent them from aspiring to the dignity of free men.

The dignity of free men (and, as we would properly add today, free women). That is a phrase that bears thinking on. As the twentieth century draws to a close, it sounds archaic. Our discourse has nearly lost the concept that the health of the res publica is founded on private virtue.

As knowledgeable hunters and shooters around the world can attest, the moral and ethical lessons that provide the foundation for civic virtue and personal integrity that gun usage can provide don't actually require they be used to their full design potential - it isn't necessary to actually kill with one to learn the lessons it can teach. With that in mind, Ms. Richards should explicitly include a family known-distance shooting range on the property and arrange for regular lessons and practice for herself and the girls. Since instruction is the intent rather than competition, a distance of 100' (200' max) ought to suffice. A decent backstop berm or other terrain feature to shoot against at one end and a simple concrete slab with awning and a couple benches or tables behind the firing line at the other would be ample. While pre-schoolers are more likely to better accomidate air rifles then .22's as a general rule, the purpose is to begin their introduction to the moral and other lessons that responsible gun usage ought to impart and to bolster their self-reliance by watching their mother doing the same thing.

It's commonly estimated that there are something in the neighborhood of 100 million gun owners in the US alone; if even 1 percent of them watch the show that's 1 million viewers tuning in to see their personal interest being shared in a responsible and entertaining fashion on TV. Not to mention three ladies of varying age helping to pass on one of life's most crucial lessons to each other and anybody else who happens to vicariously join them each episode.

Since no TV show can survive without advertising sponsors (well, they can I suppose, but having some certainly must make production more assured), I think Denise (and the girls to the extent they are able) doing the P90X exercise program would be an entertaining and physically beneficial regular segment of the show. [Trust me, despite my current dimensions, as a former gym-rat I can assure you that there is very little more entertaining on this Earth than watching someone shapely bend, twist and sweat copiously on her way to physical collapse. And very little will build respect faster than watching her succeed in overcoming the physical challenge.] Additionally, the Nutra System nutrition program would make another excellent sponsor for the show as Ms. Richards and the girls make at least one meal each episode on-camera from their menu. The advantages of home delivery and storage the food offers is a legitimate point to bring up as is the dietary considerations a professional actor shares with pretty much anyone else to some degree.

By moving the show away from its present environment Ms. Richards can spend some portion of each episode working on some aspect of the property in addition to filming some regional activity or attraction whether or not she or the girls actually takes part on camera. 3 or 4 minutes of each episode of her doing voice-over for a segment showing some aspect on non-Hollywood life would be an excellent opportunity for other celebrities to have cameo appearances on the show if such could be arranged.

I don't ordinarily insert myself so directly into these strategic examinations, but in this case I can't resist. Ms. Richards is going to need the active assistance of someone who has the basic skills needed to carry all of this off. Now, admittedly much of the major work of building the property will be performed by professionals hired for the purpose. The premise requires that she and the girls at least try to do some of all of it though and a male helper who has some expertise would not seem unlikely under the circumstances. It doesn't really matter what the job title ends up being, there are really only two primary considerations involved; he will work for Ms. Richards (this is a job application, not a proposal for matrimonial dependency) and he shouldn't be an experienced acting professional himself. Ms. Richards will need some area of superior expertise not only for her own continued good mental health but also to bolster her starring role in the program format. Having to help a non-professional work reasonably well before the camera ought to fill both needs admirably. I will confess to tailoring the specifics of all this to permit my own participation to be at least possible. [I will also confess to having to step out onto the front porch and letting my periodic flights of fancy take wing for a bit just to get them out of the way of writing this down.] I presume by this point in her acting career the lady has become reasonably accomplished in helping men technically old enough to be her father through their initial urge to act like a 12 year old upon first meeting her. That being so, whether or not she might consider me personally for the job, someone to meet that need would benefit the program and improve the girl's potential property value by providing a maintenance staff candidate post-production.

By taking the show away from the obviously contrived (or just unseemly) situations it has revolved around over the course of the first season, Ms. Richards presents herself as someone with whom many more people can positively identify then has so far been the case. She will participate in and de-mystify a variety of behaviors that often receive short shrift from her industry and develop an inheritance (with the active participation of their father) for her two children, all while continuing to earn a living in her chosen profession.

Yeah, it's complicated, but like all good strategy it's quite do-able.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link to Eric Raymond's original post.