Facebook and the Regulan Plan

Regulans are new to US politics.  

In fact, on their planet they don't have politicians.  Quintelex, having just thrown his hat in the ring for the 2012 presidential race, is anxious to be just like any other earth candidate.  So he brought his three key advisers (pictured above) from his home planet of Regula to help get his campaign off the ground.

Their first task was to hire Democratic and Republican operatives to teach Quintelex how to be sarcastic, angry, condescending, and, most important, to lie.

Unfortunately, Regulans are genetically incapable of lying.  President Obama and contender Mitt Romney will be forced to carry that burden alone.  Both seem up to the job, according to the most recent computer analysis conducted by a team of Regulan Tarot Readers.

Since training Quintelex in lying and smear campaigns was ruled out of the question, this allowed Candidate Quintelex's three advisers to concentrate on developing a plan to save the US economy (which will soon have a credit rating lower than most lemonade stands) and restore a sense of fairness and understanding to the American people.  Quintelex was clear in his telepathic instructions- do not develop a plan like either the Democrats or the Republicans.  Neither of these parties is much to write home about- particularly when you live 135 million light years away.

Instead, Quintelex demanded a scientific plan based around what Americans actually do.  Once the Regulan computers figured out what Americans actually do versus what they say they'll do, Quintelex felt discovering a realistic solution would be simple.

And it was.

Today he unveiled the new Regulan Facebook Plan.

If elected president of the United States this year, he will immediately implement this comprehensive plan.  Congressional approval will not be necessary since they will be replaced with Facebook Likes and the new Facebook Don't Likes.

Yes, under the Regulan Plan, Facebook will replace American politics.

No longer will there be such a thing as illegal immigration or legal residency.  Only those people with a sufficient number of likes will be allowed to stay in the country and this could change at any moment based on their Facebook status.

Income will be completely fluid as well, and will be distributed according to the number of Facebook likes an individual has achieved.  Poor people could become wealthy overnight if enough people like them.  Wealthy people could become overnight paupers seeing their income distributed to more popular individuals.

Justin Bieber will, of course, be excluded.


A peculiar aspect of the Regulan Facebook Plan is that plants, animals and imaginary characters would have the same rights as people if they received enough Facebook likes.  The reasoning behind this aspect of the plan was really a nod to American culture.  Quintelex felt that if corporations are considered citizens, trees should be, too.


Some in the media protested that trees should not have citizenship and due process- they're not human.  Then again, neither is Quintelex.

Initial reaction to the Regulan plan was mixed.

Most of his audience were too busy texting to hear him anyway.

Third Party Candidate Enters Presidential Race

Finally a candidate has come forward who can deal with the illegal alien issue.  

More than that, Quintelex (which is only a facsimile pronunciation of his name) is variable bi-gender, thus allowing this new entrant to help the American people to at last rise above gender issues.  On his home planet (somewhere in the fourth knot of string theory)  neither same sex nor opposite sex marriage is possible for obvious reasons.

As a writer, I find Quintelex and his candidacy very interesting.

Unfortunately, the "birther" issue has raised its ugly head.  Quintelex was born during an overnight stop in Kansas in 1892 during the Crop Circle Festival.  No state in the Union knows how to celebrate crop circles like Kansas.  As Donald Trump pointed out yesterday, "Where's the proof?  If he/she is from Regula or Hawaii, it's no matter to me, but he can't run without proof of citizenship."  Mitt Romney has already called for Quintelex to "self-deport" and Barack Obama drove home the point that "You can't keep people out with a border fence when they come from the sky."

Trump hammered home his case.  "If he/she is a legal citizen, where's his/her Facebook page?"

As I writer, I find this really interesting.

Quintelex has a real chance of getting on the ballots come November if the age issue doesn't sink the feisty Regulan's candidacy.  At age 120 earth years, Quintelex would be the oldest US president in the history of the United States.  Efforts by the candidate to date  to explain that 120 years is the Regulan equivalent of 18, have not been able to quiet voter concerns, particularly since Miley Cyrus announced her support of the candidate.

But this newest entrant into the US political fray has one thing going for him that beats Mitt Romney's hair and Barack Obama's singing voice- he can't speak.

Regulans have no vocal cords whatsoever.

Think of it.

A presidential candidate who can't talk.  A presidential candidate we won't have to listen to.

Wow.

This reporter is impressed.

The Witch's Brew- Writers and Politics, Part One of Four

It's hard to write good fiction.


Very few of us write great fiction.

Fewer still write great fiction capable of truly transforming reader's hearts and minds.  We're afraid to try, and, really, we don't think we're up to the noble task.  So mostly we join writer's groups, live in fear of critiques and workshop, workshop, workshop.

Instead of exploring the world around us, dissecting it and imagining how to put it together again in a better way, we network with other writers, agents, editors and publishers.

We measure our success or lack thereof in number of positive Tweets, number of likes and/or comments on our Facebook page, or number of blog visitors measured by the great Bean Counter of the Internet- Google Analytics.

The thrill and exaltation of writing our first novel fades when no one much pays attention.  It turns to mortified rejection when it's first rejected by an agent.  By the sixth or seventh rejection, our writing life may be measured in terms of how many milligrams of Valium the doctor prescribes or how many glasses of wine we imbibe on any given day.

In between this Dark Night of the Soul and our first real success, many writers develop the Lemming Syndrome.  If there's an emotional cliff anywhere within miles of where they live, they feel compelled to do the Zombie Walk to it and jump off, making sure their reputations crash to the bottom with them.

The Lemming Syndrome occurs mostly when we know that we want to write, but realize we really aren't good enough yet to write something of lasting value.  That's when we commit the terrible sin of trying to teach others to write.

When as writers we have done this to the point that we realize we are as welcome in writing circles as relatives who belch fire, we panic and commit the most heinous of writing sins: we begin to blather away in public about politics.  We have drunk from the Witches' Brew.  We post political materials on Facebook.  We are enraged by the "Opposition Party."  We make fun of their candidates, deride them as "small-minded" or "dangerous" or "out of touch."  We scream slogans we'd be ashamed to hear other primates promoting.  We Twitter like there's no tomorrow.  Each election is the most "...important of our lifetime."  We not only agree, we shout it from the rooftops.  It's safer than taking a risk with our writing.

We do this because we're too lazy to write novels that will change the hearts of minds of others.  We're afraid.  It takes too much work.  It's risky.  We are not, after all, Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe or John Steinbeck.  What if nobody likes our serious writing?  What if it's politically unpopular?  Better stick with genre.

The same writers who are proud to the point of stridency about hyperactive addiction to discussing endlessly the political evils of our world, do very little in the way of creating powerful fiction.  Talk is cheap.  The cost of great fiction is your heart, your soul and your mind.  You must invest everything into it.

"The Grapes of Wrath" took a toll on Steinbeck.

Are you wasting your time writing ubiquitous fiction? Is it because you no longer believe in the power of fiction to change hearts and minds?  Or is it just your own fiction you doubt?  Leave the socially powerful writing to the very talented few, you say.  Leave the heavy lifting to the strong writers.

Someday, you say, you will write a "social novel."  One that will change the world.  Or maybe just not embarrass you.

But it has to be later, you say.  It's 2012 and we have to discuss politics and talk and talk and talk.

Why not write?


What will that change?  you ask.  

If you aim low, you can never fall too far.

And you've forgotten why you write.  That's what happens when you drink the witch's brew.  You quit believing in yourself and the muscular power of the written word.

Cheer up.

There's an antidote.