Category Archives: Uncategorized
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Uncategorized
- Saturday, 04 April 2009 11:47
Hi Everybody,
Well, today we planted the garden–even though it’s snowing lightly. Planting this early in northern Wyoming is either very brave or not very bright, but we’re starting with seeds rather than plants, so we’re hoping they won’t dare to sprout until the middle or end of April. We’re planting jalapeno and serrano peppers, tomatillos, grape tomatoes, corn, snow peas, and taking a chance on some Mandan beans recovered from an archaeological site in North Dakota. We’ve tried Anasazi beans, but they scream and perish come the first snow in September. We obviously don’t have a long enough growing season for them. We have the same problem with squash. We get to eat lots of blossoms in September, but never a single squash. We’ll also be planting a border of Datura around the garden. Datura, which is toxic, has large white trumpet flowers, and seems to discourage the chipmunks, cottontails, deer, and packrats from entering the garden. Those of you who’ve read our books also know that Datura was used for supernatural purposes by the native peoples–particularly vision quests. The problem with Sister Datura is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, she can kill you. Keep that in mind. She’s a Power plant. If you decide to plant Datura, don’t touch the seeds with your bare hands, and if you do, wash them thoroughly and immediately afterward. But she has a spectacular garden presence.
Cheers,
Mike and Kathy
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Uncategorized
- Thursday, 02 April 2009 13:21
Dear Readers,
As many of you are aware, President Hamid Karzai just signed a new Afghan law that appears to legalize the rape of a wife by her husband. This is an interesting law because it does not apply to Sunnis, only to Shiites. The Shiite lawmaker who drafted the law, Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, defended the legislation by saying that the law his been misunderstood, that it actually gives “more rights to women than even Britain or the United States does. ” In a nutshell, the law says that a “woman is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires…and bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband,” unless she is ill.
What do you think about this? Every culture around the world has a different definition of what constitutes “rape.” Is it all right for one culture to define it differently than another? Where’s the line when it comes to civil rights? Is it related to harm? Should we as Americans, or anyone for that matter, have the right to tell other cultures how they should or should not define culturally sensitive terms like “rape?” Why? What does or does not give us the right?
Thanks for thinking about this.
Mike and Kathy
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Uncategorized
- Tuesday, 17 March 2009 10:00
Hi Everybody,
As archaeologists, we’re fascinated by the “nature” vs. “nurture” question. Is our nature (our soul, our genes) more important to who we are, and especially to who we become, or is our environment and the way we’re raised (nurture) more important? Is a child a “tabula rasa? A recent study by the University of California at Berkeley provides food for thought.
Here’s the issue: The study found that the actual structure of the brain is different in children from poor families. The prefrontal cortex which controls reasoning skills does not function as efficiently. Why?
Dr. Robert Knight, UC Berkeley professor of psychology, says that, “Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult.”
Do you think the stressful environment and the nutritional deficiencies endured by impoverished children around the world might be responsible for this physiological phenomenon? Or is being impoverished the price of this physiological phenomenon?
You might to read this entire article before you respond. It’s an interesting read: berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/12/02_cortex.shtml.
For those of you with a scientific background, do you think the study adequately took into account all the possible contributing factors?
Regards,
Kathleen and Michael
As
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Uncategorized
- Monday, 16 March 2009 09:31
Greetings! I am Green Snake, of the Chief Clan, of the Sky Hand People. To most people I am simply known as Trader. Many of you have read PEOPLE OF THE WEEPING EYE and PEOPLE OF THE THUNDER, so you know my story.
Here’s what you don’t know: I’m not in any of the later books.
Perhaps you wonder what happens to a character when the novel is finished? For a fact I can tell you that things just get downright boring. Now, after everything those Gears put me though in the above mentioned novels, I can tell you, bored can look pretty good. It really beats worrying about some Yuchi holy man tying me up in a square and gouging my eyes out.
Having nothing to do but reread Gear novels, I started bothering Mike and Kathy about this blog site. According to the rules, it should be updated every so often for the sake of the fans. Kathy just gave me that irritated look, the one she does over her reading glasses that says “If you don’t go away and leave me along right now, I’m going to rewrite that scene to that you actually get hung in a Yuchi square and have your eyes gouged out.”
Having survived as a Trader all these years, I’m nothing if not perceptive. I gave Kathy one of those weak, innoffensive smiles, and let her get back to Koracoo, Gonda, and Ganajero. They are characters in PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE. I read some of the story over her shoulder. Wow! And I thought Old White and I had enough trouble on the river with crazy old Two Petals? That Ganajero is just plain wicked and scary. I’ll take Smoke Shield over her any day of the week. The good news is that as you read this, PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE is finished and being submitted to Susan Change at Tor/Forge.
I thought Kathy would be free to do the blog post, but she immediately started the sequel to PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE, and gave me that “I’m going to hang you in a square” look. For a Trader, I’m really smart; I sneaked downstairs to where Mike was running PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE through his computer one last time. I started bugging him about updating the blog. He asked me if I’d like to have de Soto clamp a slave collar around my neck and be worked to death in the second CONTACT novel. Characters, you see, can appear in more than one book. If you are a character, rule number one is: Don’t piss of the author.
I meekly reminded him that he’d been really busy, what with Pocket Books changing the title of the first CONTACT book to THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA: THE COMING STORM. I knew that he liked that better than PEOPLE OF THE SWORD, and maybe he’d forget about letting de Soto work me to death in book two of that series. He had already drafted out about fifty pages of the second de Soto book before Kathy handed him the LONGHOUSE disc, and by the time he finishes that, Jennifer Heddle will be sending revisions for COMING STORM. Mike always gets that harried look when he gets reminded of how much work he has to do. That’s when he told me that if I was so worried about the blog post, I ought to just do it myself.
Which, when you think about it, is what I’ve just done.
What happens to characters after their book is finished? I guess that these days, we’ve got super new futures as bloggers. May Horned Serpent gaze fondly on the Internet with his crystalline eyes. And me, I’m going to sneak down and read the ending of THE COMING STORM. I was busy watching over Kathy’s shoulder so I didn’t see what happened to Black Shell and Pearl Hand at the battle of Napetuca.
And that de Soto?
One bad dude. I’d rather face a Yuchi square any day.
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Uncategorized
- Friday, 20 February 2009 14:11
Hi Everyone,
It’s snowing today, frosting the red cliffs behind our house, and turning the buffalo into walking icebergs–though the cold doesn’t seem to bother them all. But they’ve spent 300,000 years evolving with the plants, animals, and weather in North America. They are a lot better suited for it than we are. It’s fun to watch them. When the drifts get deep, they swing their heads to clear the snow from the grass so they can graze. Every other animals benefits from their efforts. They create trails that make it easier for the deer, antelope and big horn sheep to travel and survive.
We returned ten days ago from the Dakota Territory Buffalo show where we had a great time. For those who’ve asked, “Folsom,” our yearling bull, won Grand Champion Male. We’re so proud of him, as we are all of our buffalo. They are amazing animals and so enrich our lives.
The title of our De Soto book has been changed from People of La Florida, to People of the Sword. As you will discover, Black Shell acquires a very important sword in the story, so the change seemed to fit. And we’ve just started the second book in our BATTLE FOR AMERICA series. The saga of Black Shell and Pearl Hand continues…
In the meantime, we are almost finished with People of the Longhouse. A couple more weeks of revisions and we’ll send it off to New York to our fabulous new editor, Susan Chang, at Tor Books. This is a fascinating period in northeastern American archaeology. The Iroquois were building longhouses 400 feet long and surrounding them with log palisades to keep their villages safe. The warfare was intense, but it produced some legendary heroes. We hope you enjoy watching them grow up, fight their battles, and turn their entire world on end by founding the first peace alliance in the history of America…at least the first we can definitely identify as archaeologists and historians.
May the Great Mystery keep you all safe.
Regards,
Michael and Kathleen