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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/05/91 -- Vol. 9, No. 40
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
04/24 LZ: KNIGHT OF DELUSIONS by Keith Laumer (The Nature of Reality)
05/15 LZ: THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis (Getting to Hell)
06/05 LZ: UBIK by Phillip K. Dick (Death and Hell)
06/26 LZ: ALTERNATE WORLDS by Robert Adams ("What If Things Were Different?")
_D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C.
04/10 **HUGO NOMINATION DEADLINE**
04/13 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
04/20 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3B-301 949-4488 hotsc!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 mtunq!lfl
MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. Yes, it is that lovely time of year again. Everybody likes the
spring, I guess, even when I lived in California where the weather
is so nice that if it ever gets down to freezing in winter it is a
disaster long remembered. I mean, there are farmers in the Salinas
Valley who sit around the cracker barrel and listen to the old
codgers talk about how it actually snowed in nineteen-aught-six--or
was it nineteen-aught-seven?--and all morning the ground looked
white. And over in the corner a kid in overalls with wide eyes
says, "White? You mean _a_l_l _o_v_e_r? Wow!" And even there people
think spring is best. I mean, lots of people say they like the
change of the seasons, but even they are happy to be rid of winter.
I have people say they like winter, but these are mostly all skiers
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who wait for the coldest season, go up to high elevations where it
is colder still, and then shoot downhill at high speed so they can
get all this cold air blowing right past them. They only do this
because similar pursuits such as self-flagellation have gone out of
style.
But anyone whose balance is not over a pair of skis is happy to see
winter end and spring come. It is sort of an emotional windfall.
And naturally, rare is the windfall--emotional or financial--that
the United States government doesn't try to diminish. So naturally
this is the time of year they have you fill out your income tax.
After all, why go outside and hear birds singing when you can be
filling numbers in on hopelessly complex forms? Just when you'd
like to take out a book and sit under a tree, you are reading some
bureaucrat's explanation of which schedule you should be pulling
some number off of.
And even that I could understand, but also every company I own
stock in--people who were content to leave me alone when I wanted a
distraction from mowing the lawn or raking leaves or shoveling
snow--suddenly decides in the spring they want to impress me with
how well the company is doing. They send me these big thick annual
reports. The first thing they want to convince you is that the
beautiful people use their products. I mean, these things are
chock full of pictures of people using their products and in twenty
years of seeing these things I haven't seen one pimple, not one
mole. Very occasionally you see a scientist whose hair isn't
combed. If they want to represent someone as "jes' plain folks,"
they put a pair of glasses on them. I feel like asking them,
"Doesn't anyone who looks like me ever use your products? Guys
like me could be a whole untapped market." Sometimes these reports
show you the president of the company or the CEO, but only if he--
and it seems always to be a he--can be made up to look like one of
the other mindless mannequins that show up in the pictures. This
guy--usually on the board of directors-grins at the readers as if
to say, "We jes' _l_o_v_e our stockholders." That way you are just so
bubbling over with good will towards the directors you don't bother
reading the pages and pages of tables of tiny numbers toward the
back. Besides, if you wanted to read tiny numbers, you'd be doing
your taxes.
But then, when you see what came with the annual report, the
honeymoon is over. There is this ballot with some questions on it
for you to vote on. And they give you clear instructions on how to
vote and what the directors recommend that you vote. Yup, right
there on the ballot they are telling you how they want you to vote.
And these are the guys who can wreck the company and make your
stock worthless if you make them mad. How'd you like to be voting
for President and see a little sign in the voting booth saying,
"Sheriff Scruggs, his eight deputies, and his six growling police
dogs all recommend you vote for...."
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Then you see the directors' proposals. These are all things like
elect all the current directors and approve a new stock plan where
whole bunches of new shares of stock will be issued and given to
the directors as gifts. Now they know no stockholder in his right
mind would do something so stupid as vote for something like this.
So if you read the description of the proposal in the little book
you will find it couched in phrases such as, "Pursuant to
facilitating with dispatch the extromission of the stockholding
populace, many of whom are endued with a propensity to
vitilitigate...." Of course, in these guys' notes to one another
they often confuse "to," "too," and "two." On all of these the
directors tell you they recommend you vote "yes."
Next you come to the shareholder proposals and the whole "we jes'
_l_o_v_e our stockholders" attitude goes down the porcelain receptacle.
Now I have been reading these ballots since I was a teenager and in
all that time, to hear the directors tell it, _n_o_t _o_n_e _s_t_o_c_k_h_o_l_d_e_r
_h_a_s _e_v_e_r _h_a_d _a _g_o_o_d _i_d_e_a. They always recommend you vote "no." I
don't care what the stockholder is proposing, the directors assume
anyone who owns shares is a nitwit. If they weren't nitwits they
would have voted the directors out years before. They figure if
the idea didn't come from them, it cannot possibly be any good. I
have seen cases where one proposal says the company should do X and
the next is that it should not do X, and the directors will
recommend you vote against both! Those poor East Berliners don't
know what they've let themselves in for.
2. Members of Chicon V should be reminded that the deadline for
Hugo nominations is April 10--that's less than a week away! [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
The public is wonderfully tolerant. They forgive everything
but genius.
-- Oscar Wilde
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