Rodger That: A Greater Power

I’m a Christian. Not a big believer in organized religion, just someone who believes that there is a greater power. By not a fan of organized religion, I mean that I have never been in a church that gave me anywhere close to the belief in a higher power than what I experience sitting on a rock watching a river run through unblemished mountains. I also struggle with how so many leaders in organized faith turn a blind eye, even cover up, excesses and abuses done in the name of their church. I sometimes wonder what regular church goers get from their attendance. 

I recently attended a prayer breakfast for the governor of my state. That event gave me an answer to that question. The keynote speaker was Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the person who will forever be known as Napalm Girl. Her picture, nude, terribly burned, running from her Vietnamese village after a napalm strike will always be with me. Not only did she have to deal with years of surgery, but she ran headlong into the Communist government of her country who was determined to redirect her dreams of being a doctor into being a anti-US propagandist for the regime. That is, until she picked up a Bible and read it for the first time. It changed her life.

Her anger and bitterness, her constant thoughts about how unfair life was, her desire to avenge the damage inflicted upon her took over her life until she accepted Jesus and his teachings of forgiveness. It’s freed Kim to have a family; to finally defect from where her minders demanded she live, Vietnam, then Russia, then Cuba. She founded a nonprofit that helps child victims of war from all over the world. She was one of the most joyous and inspirational people I’ve ever been around. She lit up the room with her faith. 

The more I listened to her, the more I observed the rest of the room. Every hymn sung was part of so many people’s lives. I watched them close their eyes, throw their hands into the air and sing from someplace deep inside of them. They weren’t there to proselytize, they were there simply to rejoice in their faith. They believe as I do that our lives are guided by a higher power, but their church experiences gave them a way to express it that was beautiful and powerful.

Which brings me to another question I have about faith. I cannot understand how so many non-believers castigate those who do believe; how they renounce people for their faith. The people at that breakfast are better people because of that faith, they lead better lives, they have less fear and anger. I struggle to understand how that is a bad thing.

Rodger Recommends: DogBook And Whimper

As a writer who studies media and social media posts, to find inspiration for new stories, I find it harder and harder to stare at the ugly content we see today. History is no longer history, not something we learn from, rather it is now testimony to the avarice of man and it must be wiped away. Policy debate has degenerated from discussion of merit to how ugly a candidate’s parents were, or how screwed up their kids are. Past foibles and mistakes can never be forgotten or forgiven. Stumble climbing stairs proves that you are decrepit. Praising the joy of American life means that you don’t see or don’t care about the problems. The founding fathers, all old white slave holders, wrote a document that doesn’t apply today. If you are poor, you must be lazy. I miss good old debate and discussion, the kind that might let us agree on something as simple as when life begins. Like most people, I skip about eighty percent of the posts that I scowl through. 

With that said, I began to wonder what social media might look like for other creatures. For example, it could be a lot of fun to take in DogBook, or Whimper. I can see the posts now.

“He can’t be a real lab, he’s not black.” “I’ve about had it with border collies, they think they are smarter than everyone else.” “She was born in a puppy mill; she’ll never amount to anything.”

“Setter supremacy, papers, retriever school, owner paid field trips.” “Born a pit bull, born a bully.”

“Karen Collie is just famous because Lassie was her grandmother.” “German Shepherds, French Bulldogs, Irish Setters, Russian Wolfhounds, all over here eating our dog food.” “Fetching slippers, he’s just a slave of the man.” “If she doesn’t chase the ball, she can’t be a real dog.” “Poor victim huskies, tied to a gang line, pulling a sled.” “A spaniel with a duck in its mouth, accomplice to murder.” “He was once in the pound, don’t trust him.”

Then I look down at our dog, Weatherby (Web) who sleeps at my feet hours every day, waiting for me to hit save on my computer. His posts would be more like, “OKAY, IT’S WALK TIME,” or “throw the ball,” or “just one bite of your steak…PLEASE.” He’d struggle with how difficult it has become for humans to communicate, to share our needs with others, and their struggle to help. He doesn’t even need social media to communicate, one yelp to go out, one bark to come in. Simple, instead of trying to force feed me what he believes, he cares about me and helps me care about him.

With the exception of good friends, and the readers of Rodger Carlyle books, I kind of wish the rest of you on social media were dogs. I suspect it would be mostly like what I suppose Web would post. We might just be nicer. We might post to help one another. Now if I can just teach Web how to type. 

Rodger’s Two Cents: Personal Attacks Instead Of Philosophies

In my book Still Common Sense, and in my thriller Team Walker series and historical fiction Gritt Family series, I regularly reference the political system of what I call the “imperfect but extraordinary America.” My upcoming novel, Tempest North contrasts citizens from the new United States with those of four other nations and systems. 

The foundation of our nation and government is our unique structure. We are a republic. In pure democracy the people meet and exercise their government in person. In a republic, they assemble and administer through representatives elected using democratic means. Pure democracies must remain small so that everyone can participate while a republic can extend over a large region. In the United States, the rule book for the process is our Constitution.

This representative process is its strength, but also a weakness that can lead to chaos. This is especially true in a world where independent journalism is replaced for many by opinion as expressed on social media. We now struggle with any form of agreement, even on facts or truths. For example, we cannot agree on when life begins. Was January 6 a raucous demonstration that spun out of hand, or an attempt to overthrow the government? We should follow the science, but science told us that the seas would be free of ice by 1990, grilled meat would kill us, and if it didn’t, eating eggs would. Science once told us that Europeans were superior to all other races. 

Even facts might not be facts. For example, science once taught that the atom was the smallest component of the universe. We now know that the atom contains three smaller particles: protons, electrons, and neutrons. Maybe gravity is a fact, maybe. 

So how does this affect our democratic process? It has driven us to discard debate between competing ideals and replace it with personal attacks instead of philosophies. What we now call debate over contentious issues is now reduced to name calling because the other side simply doesn’t understand the truth I understand or the facts I believe.

We no longer want simple representation, we now want government by the knowledgeable; that is by representatives who refuse to consider anything but what we believe. That system might be a little less fair, at least to the unknowledgeable, but it makes better decisions because we agree with them. Or, if you are on the losing end, it reeks of totalitarianism. 

Majority democracy is not stable, it is messy with shifts in direction. For four decades this country has become more progressive. Now it’s becoming more conservative which has shocked a lot of people. It’s all right, we’re all right. Our Constitution gives us hard rules that govern how we change. That document exists partially to protect us from the excesses of democracy. After all, it delineates inalienable rights, including the Bill of Rights, but they aren’t really rights if 51% of our neighbors can vote them out of existence.

Our form of democracy, as Winston Churchill once wrote, “is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” It’s not pretty, but it keeps the elites, those who know best from running our lives.

Rodger's Top 5: Forgiveness Stories (among many)

In the last week, I’ve had two experiences that reminded me of the POWER OF FORGIVENESS. It would be improper to call these examples my top-five forgiveness stories, because they are only a few of many, but I love these.

AD 29, Nailed to a cross, his abdomen torn by spear thrusts administered by Roman soldiers who were commanded to stay with him until he died, Christ not only forgave them, he called out to God saying “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

In 1945, at the end of WWII, Douglas MacArthur, commander of American forces occupying Japan conducted an investigation of Hirohito, Emperor of Japan. He wanted to know if the Emperor had ordered the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or any of the dozens of other atrocities committed by Japanese forces in the war. Investigators found no hard evidence of Hirohito’s order, but did find evidence that he put his life at risk to end the war. When MacArthur and the Emperor finally met, the Emperor begged MacArthur to punish only him for the crimes and spare his people. MacArthur responded that their meeting was not to discuss punishment, but to begin the rebuilding of Japan and that they would do it together.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II was badly wounded by a would-be assassin. Shot four times, he underwent repeated surgery and an extended convalescence. After recovery, he visited the shooter at his prison cell. The prisoner looked to the Pope for forgiveness, to which the Pope responded that the shooter was his brother and that he was already forgiven.

In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years in prison. Born into a royal family in 1918, he studied law which took him into politics and the anti-apartheid human rights movement in South Africa. Years of inhumane treatment in brutal conditions followed. But in 1990, he was released and became the first president of a multiracial nation. Instead of revenge, he set out to rebuild the nation based on equality and reconciliation. He said, “I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

Phan Thi Kim Phuc is one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever listened to. I was at a breakfast just a week ago where she was the keynote speaker. Most do not know her name, but they know her picture. In 1972 she was the young girl running naked and badly burned from her village just decimated by a napalm bomb strike during the Vietnam War. She was not expected to live. After she was stabilized, she underwent years of surgery. Horribly disfigured she believed she would never marry or have children. To compensate, she set out to become a doctor, but the Communist government of Viet Nam had other ideas. She was to become an anti-American spokesperson. Eventually she was allowed to study in The Soviet Union, where she met another Vietnamese student. Then the couple was allowed to immigrate to Cuba where they married. But along the way Kim picked up a Bible and became a Christian. On a refueling stop between Russia and Cuba, in Canada, she and her husband defected. Among her first acts was to forgive the Vietnamese, the Americans and especially the American officer who ordered the strike. She now campaigns to help children who are victims of war. Like MacArthur, John Paul, and Mandela, Phan Thi Kim Phuc’s Christian faith led her to forgiveness.

Rodger That: Personality Or Policy?

I don’t do much political writing anymore, but a fascination with both American and world politics demands that I pay attention. Like most of us, I discuss what is going on with friends and others including people with like and opposing viewpoints.

One of the questions I hear often is, “How can anyone support Donald Trump?”

As a political scientist, I follow two types of voters in the United States, and from my personal experience, one type votes on personality. They will support people they like, and people who do not challenge their views. If they would not choose a candidate as a friend, the odds are that they will not support them. To many, Trump is hard to like.

The other type of voter supports, not people, but policies. They support candidates who promote policies that they agree with, especially policies that they believe will make their household safer or better off. Donald Trump is a hard-assed New York businessman who can be a first-class jerk. But his policies appeal to a lot of people.

The follow up question I often hear is, “How can people of faith support someone with Trump’s baggage?”

What I truly respect in the many who live their faith, is that they recognize that we all have baggage, we all have ugly in our past. They also recognize that a checkered temperament does not mean that we cannot do more good than bad. And people of faith believe in forgiveness.

The electorate seems to be equally divided between those who choose candidates they like and are passionate about remedying perceived injustice and those who pragmatically support policies that they feel help their household and make them safer. Each group represents approximately 30% of the voters. In between is a larger block of voters who, when things are going well for themselves and, in their perception, the country, will vote personality. When these same voters are hurting or just uncomfortable they almost always focus more on policy.

For both, I want to quote from my earlier political writing. America is imperfect, but exceptional. People from Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela and dozens of other countries would love the opportunity to vote for anyone that the elites feel threatened by.  

Rodger Recommends: Historical Non-Fiction vs. Historical Fiction

I write thrillers. My plots are taken from the headlines, usually international conflicts that are left unresolved. Conflicts like the US and China battles over espionage especially in high tech. Conflicts like US and Iranian differences that have festered for decades. My Team Walker book due out in November follows that pattern but is set a little closer to home. 

I also write Historical Adventure Fiction. My plots for these stories are drawn from my constant fascination with events, not in headlines, but in history, events that warrant a book of their own, but were relegated to some footnote or worse, covered up by the powerful when a plan or policy went completely to hell. Tempest North, (Available July 16) explores superpower conflicts between Spain, England, Russia and the United States, and Native Americans on the North Pacific Coast of the American continent at the moment European power began to crumble. 

Among the 25 to 30 books that I read every year, are four or five of a genre called Historical Nonfiction. Among my favorite authors in this genre is David Grann. I loved his Lost City Of Z.  Killers of the Flower Moon is a story that needed to be told. His latest book, The Wager, like my work, takes a little-known event and through meticulous research tells a story that few ever heard of. Authors of Historical Nonfiction often work from copious notes and literally piles of minutia about an event. They find journals of participants, and logbooks, and government reports, but when they sit down to write, they find that they have little real knowledge of the characters, how they felt, how they coped. To make the books real to the readers, they often include almost excruciating particulars. For example, in The Wager, before things come undone and the adventure begins, we learn about how a 1700s sailing ship is rigged, how it is supplied, how the crew is assembled, who hangs their hammocks where, the ages of the participants, the difficulties in navigation, and other descriptive facts. I suspect that part of the reason for this is that authors have little hard documentation on the characters other than they participated in the event. Grann turns journals into language.

Their work beats the hell out of most history books in supplying that detail. If you want to learn about these little-known events, Historical Nonfiction is a lot more fun than academic history. I love Grann’s books, but it can take me days to finish one.

Characters are not a sum of the details around them. They are flesh and blood, with emotions and souls, and like most of the rest of us, a mixture of devil and saint. The joy of writing Historical Fiction is that I don’t have to bury the reader in details, in fact too much minutia just slows down the story. I can use my imagination to figure out what each character might be thinking when faced with a crisis. As I write, the characters become real, and more interesting. Disagreement and arguments flesh in how the story develops and why. Often the only decision is a bad one. Tempest North is a story of terrible decision making in history that few people know about.

I write about moments and situations. In Two Civil Wars, I write about Lincoln’s meddling in the Mexican Civil War. In Enemy Patriots, I write about how America interred its Japanese American Citizens during WWII because they thought some were spies. Some were, but for which side? I want the reader to join the character in the adventure, to be part of surviving. I want them to feel it in their stomach, in their heart; in a way that might just open an understanding of why the event was covered up in the first place; how humans survived and why that is important to us even today. That works best if the reader has a great time being part of the story. Join the characters of Tempest North, in a little known, dangerous, and wildly beautiful place. 

Rodger's Top 5: Quotes On Success In Politics

As this country and over half the world enter into an election year, I thought I would share five of my favorite quotations on success in politics.

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
- Ghandi

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it.”
- H.L. Mencken

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
- Mark Twain

“Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites, experts often possess more data than judgment.”
- Colin Powell

“Let us not seek to fix blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
- J.F. Kennedy

Rodger That: Catch And Release Dog

I’m not a purist fly fisherman. I love almost any kind of fishing experience, lakes, rivers, and saltwater, (both for the grill and catch and release billfish.) But I admit that alone or with a few friends on a crystal stream, catch and release fly fishing is my favorite. Because we fish on streams where brown bears are fattening up on salmon, one of my most important friends is always a dog. I love the beauty of a char, cutthroat or rainbow trout going airborne. I assume that if they knew that I was planning on releasing them, they might not fight so hard and put on an aerial display. But I’m not going to ruin the experience for all of us by telling them.

Which gets me to the story of one brilliant afternoon on our favorite river in Alaska. Carmen and I were fishing with another couple who had flown in to join us at our remote cabin. It was early fall, and the arctic char and rainbow trout were fat from feasting on millions of salmon eggs deposited by spawning sockeye salmon. An eighteen-inch fish might way more than three pounds and we had already hooked fish that were two and three times that size. 

My friend Chris had matched the color of the salmon eggs with a fly and then shared it with the rest of us. The match was so accurate that we were hooking trout about every four or five casts. Often two or three of us would have fish on at the same time. Sometimes I was so busy unhooking fish and releasing them back into a deep pool that I would go a half hour or more without personally making a cast. 

My black setter, Winchester, would race up and down the bank, wading into the water to watch the fight as each of us hooked fish. As I carefully removed the hook from a fish, he’d bark excitedly and then chase the freed fish back into deeper water. He loved the game and seemed most excited when I released the fish.

Occasionally one of us would wander back to the jetboat and retrieve a cold beer from the mesh bag dangling in the cold clear water. Winchester would wander the gravel bar, sometimes barking wildly as a bear in the woods behind us got too close. After several hours of great fishing, the four of us found ourselves sitting on a log, beer in hand, just talking and watching two eagles in a cottonwood tree who hadn’t moved since we’d arrived. 

“They’re waiting for us to leave,” said Carmen, “then they’ll come down for a fish dinner.” The three of us looked over at her and Chris said what we were all thinking. “Why not catch a rainbow for the grill tonight?” A four-pound rainbow, filleted, would feed all of us. If we caught one in the next hour, we’d granted ourselves to fish, the menu was set.

We went back to fishing and ten minutes later I landed a perfect dinner fish. Winchester looked incredulously at me as I pulled it up on the bank and smacked it on the head. He walked up and sat next to the fish as I went back to fishing. A moment later I felt him bump my leg. I looked down and he stood up to his belly in water, the dinner rainbow in his mouth. His eyes smiled and then he walked a bit further into the river, dropped the fish and danced as the current pushed it into deep water. He then turned and gave me a look that said plainly, “Don’t worry about that mistake, I’ve got your back.”

Rodger’s Two Cents: IF— By Rudyard Kipling

As a small boy, being raised by a single mother, I was fortunate to have a mentor who cherished literature. My mom introduced me to authors from around the world and across the ages. She taught me that writers were like mirrors, creating opportunities to see yourself. I remember when she gave me this poem and probably should have passed it on years ago.

If— by Rudyard Kipling  (‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rodger's Top 5: Aspects Of Winter In Alaska

As I write this, it is nine below zero and we have more than 50 inches of snow on the ground. I admit with today’s bitter cold I will only partake of only one of my five favorite winter activities. I’m sure all of my readers will figure out which one after you see the list.

Hiking…Living in Anchorage we are blessed with both urban and forest trail systems totaling hundreds of miles. Even in winter, most are packed snow allowing you to hike in regular boots or even tennis shoes. The trees are alive with dozens of species of birds that overwinter in the north. Meeting up on the trail with others trying to identify a bird’s species is a blast.

Cross Country Skiing…Pushing myself on skis is not my cup of tea, but the floatation of skis on snow allows me to go deeper into the back country, where there is more solitude and occasionally a lynx or fox. I really love this after a couple of days of rewriting a story which includes deleting paragraphs and sometimes entire chapters that I worked hard to craft.

Snowshoeing…There are times, right after a new deep snow or when I need even more solitude, I strap on a pair of snowshoes and head off the trails. Sometimes I’ll bump into a stubborn old moose, or coyote or even a wolf. I swear they will look at me and know that I’ve just spent hours doing my least favorite task as a writer, editing.

Warm Fire, Good Book…I no longer appreciate earning hard man points. When the thermometer reads below zero, and when I have a break in my disciplined writing schedule, a crackling fire and a good book are perfect. During the day, coffee or tea will be close at hand. In the evenings, there might be a Jack & water. I read more than fifty books every year, and I save the best of my friends’ books for these times.

Get the Hell out of Dodge…Winter is beautiful in Alaska. Everything is covered in clean white snow, the air is crisp, and the stars and northern lights add spice to one’s life. But it is also damned cold sometimes and seems especially so early in the season. One of my favorite winter activities is wandering the beach, swimming for hours, and greeting old friends in Zihuantanejo, Mexico, where we’ve been fighting off the other activities of winter for decades.