My Commencement Address To The Class of 2013

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This month, many of our country's youth will be experiencing one of the great rites of passage: college graduation.

All across our great land, young men and women, many of them hung over in conditions ranging from "Y'know, I could use another hour or so of sleep" to "Dear God, if you are a God of mercy, please kill me now," are gathering in college stadiums and auditoriums to receive their degrees.

But first, they have to sit through another hallowed tradition: the commencement address. Writers, poets, politicians, celebrities and other luminaries will stand before a sea of fresh, eager young faces and impart the wisdom they've learned over the years (or, in the case of some of the celebrities, in rehab).

And, once again, I'm not there.

Astonishing, I know. After all these years, no one has asked your Humble Columnist to deliver a commencement speech. As I pointed out the first time I made note of it in these very pages in 2000, there may be greater injustices in this world, but I can't think of any right now. I had a speech all ready, back then, and I've been working on it over the years. So, without further ado, here's my updated commencement speech for the class of 2013:

"Students and faculty of Ottsamata University, parents, friends, homeboys, besties, entourages, baby-mamas and assorted hangers-on, welcome. It's truly an honor to be invited to give the commencement speech here at good old Ottsamata U.

I know some of you out there in the crowd have big dreams. Congratulations. Dreams are good. But here's the bad news: Big dreams don't make you special. Everybody's got dreams. You need to actually do something to make them happen. Dream, then plan, then carry out the plan. Whatever you're doing in the meantime to put food on the table and a roof over your head, do at least two concrete things every single day to work that plan and bring you closer to your dream.

Will that guarantee that your dreams come true? No. Nothing will. What makes dreams come true is a combination of hard work and dumb luck. You can only control one of those. What all that effort will guarantee is that you don't end your life regretting that you never even tried.

You get better at anything by doing it with people who are much better at it than you are. This applies to most human endeavors: music, sports, writing, sex. The only exception I can think of is gunfighting.

In a world of more than 7 billion people, a certain percentage are going to be jerks. You cannot change that. You cannot change them. Don't try. As a wise person once wrote on the Internet, you are not the Jerk Whisperer.

Always remember: Freedom and democracy are not for the wimpy, faint of heart, or thin-skinned. Your right to freedom of speech is not being denied if someone calls your ideas (or you) chuckle-headed. Especially if they (or you) are.

Smart people know how much they don't know. Absolute certainty, without even that tiny seed of doubt that causes someone to search out evidence or proof, is one of the hallmarks of the complete blockhead.

Don't listen to people who tell you not to be angry. There are things worth being angry about. Ignorance, injustice, oppression - these things deserve your anger. But anger is like fire: It needs to be harnessed and directed. Fire in a boiler drives an engine or heats a building. Fire left undirected and uncontrolled will burn the place down. Direct your anger like a blowtorch. And, like any tool, put it down when you're not working.

You want to find love? Don't look for it. Don't even think about looking for it. Need is not an aphrodisiac. Work on being awesome. Do something or learn something that makes you light up inside. That light will draw people, and love will find you. And if it doesn't ... you still end up being awesome.

In conclusion, always remember that just because I don't always follow my own advice doesn't mean it's not good.

May you all find love, and may you all be awesome. Good luck."

Terrible Minds, Great Questions

I'm answering Ten Questions About Broken Shield  over at Chuck Wendig's blog terribleminds. Check it out!

The Thin Red Line

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These days, it seems like the only thing more incoherent than President Obama’s policy on Syria is the response of congressional Republicans to it.

Last year, as you may remember, the president announced that the use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al-Assad regime against the Syrian rebel forces would cross a “red line.”

Strong words, those, and, like most such tough talk about “red lines,” ill-advised. Because once it appears that there was evidence of rebels being killed or injured by sarin gas, suddenly they’re all, “Well, wait, let’s not be too hasty.” According to the president, “we don’t know what happened, or who did what to who.”


Not that I think haste is a good thing, mind you, especially when we’re talking about possible U.S. military intervention. But in drawing a “red line” and talking about “game changers,” Obama fell into one of the traps that always make me shake my head at the way some Democrats act whenever foreign or military policy comes up: They feel like they need to look tough so the Republicans don’t call them “weak on security,” so they forget to think before they speak.

The mistake is not being cautious now; the mistake was talking about “red lines” in the first place in any situation where our direct national security is not involved. Because here’s the thing: Trying to talk tough because you’re afraid the GOP is going to call you weak is a sucker’s game. They’re going to call a Democratic president weak whatever he does — unless it’s a strong military response, in which case they’ll call him reckless. I mean, have they learned nothing from the Clinton years?

I remember 1991, when there was a military coup in which Gen. Raoul Cédras ousted the elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The U.S. tried to get Cédras to step aside. He didn’t. The Clinton administration tried various scenarios, every one of which was slammed by congressional Republicans.

We tried economic sanctions. Republican response: “You can’t use sanctions! Those only hurt the Haitian people!”

We tried diplomatic pressure. Republican response: “Diplomatic pressure’s not going to work! This president is weak!”

When the idea of invasion came up, the Republican response was: “Invade?! You can’t invade! This isn’t worth losing American lives!”

So what did they want the president to do? “He should … uh … show leadership! Yeah, that sounds good. Leadership!”

This went on until 1994, when President Clinton did put the 82nd Airborne on planes and send them Haiti-wards while simultaneously sending Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn to let Cédras know it was his last chance. Cédras caved and left — after which Rush Limbaugh declared that Clinton had sent the troops into combat with only 14 rounds of ammo apiece. (That report was beautifully smacked down, on air, by a spokesman for the 82nd, who tore Rush a new one. Best 15 minutes of radio I ever heard.)

Depressingly, then as now, the only principle that the congressional Republicans seem to embrace is, “Everything the Democratic president does, proposes, or might possibly consider is wrong.”

We shouldn’t arm the rebels, insists Sen. Lindsey Graham, unless we can make sure the arms go to the “right people.” Yeah. That’ll work. We did so well with that in Afghanistan.

Well, how about putting in American troops? Both Graham and John McCain are “completely opposed to putting boots on the ground.” McCain and Graham have both expressed some support of a “no-fly zone” over Syria to keep the Syrian air force off the rebels’ backs, but let the first plane get shot down by a Syrian missile, with an American pilot killed or captured, and see how quickly they sing a different tune.
It must be powerfully tempting for the president, as chief executive of the last superpower, to draw “red lines” for other countries. It’s practically a conditioned reflex for the opposition party to, well, oppose. But neither one seems to have thought beyond that.

President Obama apparently had no idea what to do when his “red line” was crossed. But, apparently, neither does the GOP.

Broken Shield Is LIVE!

 If you're one of the few people I know who hasn't heard this announcement already, BROKEN SHIELD, my new e-book for Kindle, is now available. More formats, including print, will be forthcoming.

Cool cover, no? It's by my friend Robert Gregory Browne.

Here's the description:

Chief Deputy Tim Buckthorn takes center stage in this scorching sequel to the bestselling BREAKING COVER.

Buckthorn and his beloved hometown of Pine Lake thought they'd seen the last of FBI agent Tony Wolf. But when evidence of a kidnapping literally falls from the sky, Wolf returns to assist in the search for an abducted young girl.

Buckthorn, Wolf, and brilliant FBI prodigy Leila Dushane race against the clock to piece the clues together. When the evil they find follows them home, Pine Lake once again suffers terrible tragedy at the hands of violent and lawless men. Tim Buckthorn, who's lived his life as a sworn officer of the law, will have to cross every line he ever knew on a quest to protect the people and the place he loves.

"I loved this emotionally riveting collision of good and evil in a small Southern town. Rhoades always melds action, character and suspense into a seamless and unforgettable ride."-Alexandra Sokoloff, award-winning author of THE HARROWING and the Huntress Series

“A blistering follow-up to BREAKING COVER. The prose is fast and smart, the pace frantic and the characters driven, dangerous and yet full of heart. BROKEN SHIELD reaffirms JD Rhoades’ position as the king of redneck noir.” -Zoë Sharp, author of the Charlie Fox crime thriller series

"J.D. Rhoades introduced Tim Buckthorn in Breaking Cover. Now, in the searing prose of Broken Shield, Rhoades shows us he has created a character who can stand tall alongside Jack Reacher and Harry Bosch."-Keith Raffel, bestselling author of DOT DEAD, DROP BY DROP, and A FINE AND DANGEROUS SEASON

Bearing False Twitness

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Steve Bouser's columns don't usually cause me alarm, but the one he wrote for this past Wednesday's paper, about the number of people getting more and more of their news from social media, certainly did.

This is not because I dislike or fear Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the like. Truth be told, I probably spend a lot more time on those things than I should.

(In my defense, I first got on Facebook because my literary agent at the time told me all the other writers were doing it, and it was a cheap and easy way to present myself to my audience. So now, a few years and 5,000 Facebook friends later, I justify the time wasted - sorry, spent - by claiming I'm marketing. A flimsy rationalization, but it's the only one I have.)

No, it's not an aversion to social media that alarms me when I hear that 19 percent of all Americans, and a whopping 33 percent of those under 30, get some or all of their news from social networks like Facebook or Twitter. I'm alarmed because I know those networks so well. I know them well enough not to trust them.

Twitter in particular is a classic example of the old maxim that you can determine the collective IQ of a group by taking the IQ of the dumbest person in it, and dividing it by the number of people in the group.

Not that there aren't some bright and fascinating people on Twitter. I "follow" very smart folks like astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, talented ones like writers John Scalzi and Neil Gaiman, and entertaining ones like actress and geek-goddess Felicia Day. A lot of my far-flung cadre of friends in the writing business are on Twitter, and an evening spent tweeting back and forth with them is like being present at a great literary cocktail party. Except at a cocktail party, I'm usually dressed. Usually. There was that time in Milwaukee ... never mind.

But Twitter is also full of idiots, crackpots and the chronically ignorant. Twitter is the place where, after it was revealed that the Boston Marathon bombers were from Chechnya, thousands of calls went up for the U.S. to start bombing ... the Czech Republic.

So many, in fact, that the Czech ambassador actually had to issue a statement on the embassy website, noting "in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding" and reminding Americans that "the Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation."

He did not add "you freaking imbeciles," which is what I would have done. This is probably why I'm not an ambassador.

By the way, other tweets and Facebook posts claiming that failed VP candidate and reality TV star Sarah Palin was one of those calling for an invasion of the Czech Republic and "other Arab countries" turned out to be untrue was well. Those tweets linked to a joke "story" in the online satirical newspaper The Daily Currant.

Perhaps more ominously, Twitter in particular has shown itself to be highly vulnerable to hacking and the hijacking of supposedly reliable news sources to spread misinformation by pranksters or more serious political dirty tricksters.

Just last week, the Associated Press Twitter account was taken over by hackers who posted that a bomb had gone off at the White House and that President Obama had been injured. Some tweeters immediately cried "shenanigans,", and AP took the account down quickly, but not before the Dow Jones Industrial average plunged 140 points in the space of a few minutes.

A group calling itself the "Syrian Electronic Army" claimed responsibility for the hack, but one can't help but wonder if perhaps some clever stock speculator was doing some short selling before having a hacker buddy send the Dow into a spin. But that's just the way my mind works after years of reading conspiracy thrillers.

As we discussed last week, you can't always trust the TV news to bring you the latest facts, since they've now collectively decided that passing on unconfirmed and often anonymous "reports" (aka rumors, conjectures and general BS) is a substitute for actual journalism. But trusting social media is even riskier.

So what are we to do? Well, my advice is to look at a lot of different sources. Also, never believe the first thing you read or hear. Skepticism isn't a perfect system, but it'll have to do.

Get It Now, Get It First, Get It Wrong, Redux

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One of the most aggravating features of our multi-network, Twitter-driven, twenty-four-hour news cycle is something that invariably happens in the wake of a horrible event like last week’s bombing at the Boston Marathon: driven to get something, anything, out there, the cable news channels, the airwaves, and the Twitterverse became veritable fountains of misinformation. Apparently, the old journalistic principle that you didn’t go live with something unless you’d verified it with at least two sources is as dead as Walter Cronkite. Now what they report on is what’s been “reported,” whether or not said “report” is actually true or even from a credible source. Hey, they’re not lying. All they’re saying is that someone else said it. Such is the sorry state of “journalism” today. 

So in the aftermath of the carnage, unsubstantiated rumors and gossip became “reports”, which were breathlessly passed on but which quickly became discarded as new and more lurid rumors took center stage. The device was a pipe bomb. There were two other devices found that hadn’t exploded. No, three. Twelve people were dead, among them an eight year old girl who’d come to see her Daddy run the marathon. A Saudi national had been arrested running from the scene. And, of course, before the echoes of the blasts had died down and the wounded were still bleeding in the streets of Boston, conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones of the online nuthouse Infowars were proclaiming that the whole thing was a government conspiracy. (When an Infowars “reporter” asked if the bombing was a “false flag operation to take away our civil liberties,” Governor Deval Patrick’s three-word response was a lesson in how to handle stupid questions: “No. Next question.”)

The wave of BS reached a crescendo on Wednesday when CNN said there were “reports” that a suspect had been identified. Then there were “reports” that there was a suspect in custody. Then there were “reports” that there wasn’t. Finally, the Boston FBI office released a statement refuting the story: “Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack.” Once can almost hear the exasperation as the release goes on to say: “Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.” 

Yeah, good luck with that. 

The part about “unintended consequences” brings to mind one of the most pernicious effects of misinformation: if you say one thing today, and say something different tomorrow, there are thousands of the above-mentioned conspiracy theorists out there who’ll insist that the correction was not an attempt to set the record straight, but is part of a cover-up. For example, after the Newtown massacre, one incorrect MSNBC report that killer Adam Lanza (originally misidentified as his brother Ryan) had left his Bushmaster semi-automatic mass murder weapon in his car is still being seized on to this day by callous gun nuts to “prove” that the government is lying about assault weapons to promote the “gun control agenda.” Of course, these are the same people who won’t believe anything else ever reported on MSNBC, but you can’t expect consistency from crazy people. 

Sure enough, as soon as it was revealed that the “Saudi national” who was supposedly taken into custody was being questioned as a witness, not a suspect, commenters at the right wing website “the Blaze” were proclaiming that the President was “protecting his Muslim brothers.” 

I know we can’t forbid news organizations from spreading misinformation (darn that pesky First Amendment!). But there ought to be some kind of required warning label on all the crap the news media spreads in the immediate aftermath of a horrible crisis. Something like a disclaimer in the ubiquitous “crawl” running across the bottom of the screen: “Warning: thanks to the near-total erosion of journalistic standards, the so-called ‘information’ you are receiving in this broadcast may be based on rumor, half-truth, prejudice, completely unfounded speculation, or the person on-screen just pulling allegations out of their rear end because they have nothing solid to report but don’t want to just stand there looking like a goober.” If we’re going to be so consistently misinformed by our media, we should at least be informed of that fact.

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage.