Author Archives: VN Alexander

Alternative to Winner-Take-All Elections

The Winner-Take-All election system we currently have in the USA discourages third-party votes. It also tends to elect an individual for whom most people would not have voted if other choices were available. Winner-Take-All is inherently undemocratic. Approval voting is a more democratic form of voting insofar as a voter’s second and third choices are also relevant.  Fourth and fifth choices have less relevancy.  Not voting for a candidate has as much relevancy as voting for one does.  Note the order presented in this poll is randomized, i.e. every viewer sees a different order.  Take the poll to see who might have been our next president.

[polldaddy poll=2804165]

p.s. I interviewed former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and two-term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and have written about Dr. Jill Stein.

Are Democrats to Charities what Walmart is to Small Business?

My fellow Democrats (or I should say, former fellows, as I’ve left the party), our good intentions have paved the smooth road ahead of us.  We can practically coast on in from this point.  Although we meant well when we voted to let the government take care of the poor and disadvantaged, they haven’t really benefited from this arrangement. Most of us (or rather, most of you) will say that it’s the Republicans’ fault and the system just needs to be fixed, not abolished.   Sure, those Republicans are all selfish greedy fat white bastards, we all know that, but even if we had had everything our way, the plan was inherently flawed from the start.

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Gillibrand makes pathetic excuses for her support of the NDAA

Photo courtesy Vogue.com

I wrote to my senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, criticizing her yes vote in support of the NDAA, the new piece of legislation that allows the federal government to imprison any US citizen without trial or evidence. Gillibrand’s office responded with a poor excuse  for what is effectively an act of treason. Her office explains that, after voting “yes” to the destruction of our most basic rights,

“Senator Gillibrand voted for an amendment by Senator Udall to strike the detainee language in the bill. When that effort failed, she supported another effort by Senator Feinstein to curb this provision. While the conference committee has produced a better result, it is not ideal and she will continue to work with her colleagues for a better solution. Last week, she co-sponsored new follow-up legislation by Sen. Feinstein to immediately establish a ‘clear statement rule’ that requires Congress to expressly authorize detention authority when it comes to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents for all military authorizations and similar authorities.”

That’s right, Senator, doing away with habeas corpus is not “ideal” and the “better solution” you are seeking is the one in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th amendments to the Constitution, which you just trampled on. It should be pointed out too, that the US considers it a violation of human rights when a country like Iran holds prisoners without trial or evidence.  If we are committed to justice, we should never take away this right from anyone, even, or especially, from suspected Continue reading →

Strange Bedfellows: Ron Paul and his racist newsletters

According to the Libertarian ideal everybody has a right to his/her own beliefs and government should not interfere.  Accordingly, Ron Paul doesn’t seem to be too particular about some of the people he associates with.

Paul may stick to his Libertarian beliefs, but  this is not to say that he can’t be pragmatic at times.  He wants to end the Fed, eventually, but he would audit it first and then try to phase in sound money slowly.  He doesn’t like social security, but he would keep what we have and allow people of a certain age to opt out. He doesn’t like welfare, but he would cut spending on warfare first in order to keep the programs so many have come to depend on. Continue reading →

Atheists sue over WTC cross

Statues of mythological and/or fictional characters and themes can be found in state and federal parks all over the country, like this statue of Neptune at a city park in Virginia Beach.  As far as I know atheists don’t try to get these removed. The American Atheist Organization is suing to remove a cross from the WTC memorial.  The “cross” is actually a section of welded I-beam that was found sticking up from the rubble after 9/11.  Witnesses found the coincidental resemblance to Christ’s cross significant. While I don’t agree that such coincidences are supernaturally caused, I think they are interesting. Significant coincidences are at the heart of all “chance” phenomena which lead to the emergence of life, language, and art. (That’s my natural philosophy in a nutshell.) I could no more reject public tributes to Christianity than I could to any great work of fiction. Somehow it just doesn’t piss me off.  I understand it as art. It doesn’t bother me that others take it differently.  (I even have a portrait of a black Madonna hanging in my home.  It’s a really cool painting that my great-grandmother brought over from Poland.)  That’s why I think there is something up with AAO’s president David Silverman who isn’t able to detach himself emotionally from the power of religious symbolism.  He released this statement about the WTC cross Continue reading →

My Parents Went to Occupy Wall Street, and all I got was this lousy sign

Last night my husband and I were in the city for an art opening, and we decided to head down to Wall Street to check out the occupation.  Zuccotti Park was much smaller than we had imagined it to be. Tucked-in amid blocks of buildings, the peaceful little gathering huddled in the shadows.  Meanwhile across the street, the extravagant, garish, brightly-lit construction of the ballsy “freedom” tower dominated OWS. Tourists lingered in awe at the gripping symbol of the fear that dictates our foreign policy and federal spending.  Several unabashed “Silverstein Properties” signs hung along the fencing. In the cool autumn air, we were feeling unusually happy and carefree, like a couple of rebellious teens, and my husband tried to write “pull it” on one of the signs, but the Sharpie ink magically evaporated on the weirdly smooth surface. Creepy.

In comparison, the sleepy little OWS group seemed pretty ineffective. We came away from the evening convinced of the futility of any movement against such a powerful and complete mechanism as the Military-Banking-Insurance Industry-run government that, like an abusive spouse, gets the best excuses from the very people it victimizes. It was late-ish, around 10PM, and most of the protesters were already abed. In the Continue reading →

The Biologist’s Mistress

My new non-fiction title, The Biologist’s Mistress: Rethinking Self-Organization in Literature, Art, and Nature, has been released by Emergent Publications. Last year, I tried to distinguish myself from popular Harlequin Romance writer Victoria Alexander by changing my novel-writing pen name to Tori Alexander.  But I kept Victoria N. Alexander for my philosophy of science work, assuming that I ran no risk of being confused with Victoria Alexander on that front. A couple of months ago, I wrote to a colleague in Denmark telling him that my new book, Biologist’s Mistress, would be released soon.  He wrote back quickly saying that he had ordered my book from Amazon, but strangely the title (by Victoria Alexander) in Denmark had been translated into the “Perfect Mistress.”

I suppose there’s no avoiding one’s Doppelgänger.

My title, by the way, references a quote attributed to 20th C geneticist J. B. S. Haldane, “Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.”

Please take a look at the book’s website www.biologistsmistress.com, and get a copy too!

Jack Kevorkian dies at 83

Kevorkian was ridiculed while he fought to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The media, stooping as it usually does to name-calling, fixed a particularly offensive label to Dr Kevorkian, which effectively obscured the importance, sanity, mercy, and compassion behind his cause. I won’t repeat the name here because it does harm every time it’s used, and even sympathetic writers and reporters seem unable to resist the impulse to mention it.

I admire Dr Kevorkian for standing up for what he believed in.  Judge Jessica Cooper’s decision to send him to jail was a travesty of justice. She claimed that the court is not the place to test a law.

We have the means and the methods to protest the laws with which we disagree. You can criticize the law, you can write or lecture about the law, you can speak to the media or petition the voters. But you cannot break the law.

Tell that to Rosa Parks, Judge Cooper.

(See more about euthanasia at Naked Singularity.)

Naked Singularity now on Kindle

My second novel may not get quite as much attention as my other two novels (with pretty females on their covers), but Naked Singularity is my personal favorite and I’m happy to announce that it’s finally available on Kindle.  The subject is dark — euthanasia — but heavy as it is, it’s also darkly comic. Here’s a thoughtful review from poet Gerrit Henry published when the novel first appeared in 2003.

Alexander, Victoria N. Naked Singularity.The Permanent Press, 2003, Sag Harbor. 189 pp. One of the many dark beauties of Victoria N. Alexander’s new novel is that, not only is it the proverbial good read, it is also a proverbially brilliant one. Alexander–holder of a PhD–has dished up a heart-stoppingly beautiful heroine who holds similar degrees in teleology (the study of why) and she thinks, and writes, like a dream. Witness this sample from a soliloquy by Hali on death: “You had thought death would at least be romantic, but now you realize there is nothing to be thankful for–how vacuous, how colorless, how without pity, how without regard for your intentions . . . . ” This, from a piece of popular fiction, is almost asking too much in the matter of sheer, unabused style. Continue reading →