Eagles Over the Kennebec

So, one of my favorite poems is the little story of the late-working scholar and his cat.  In its native Irish, it goes like this:

Messe [ocus] Pangur bán,
cechtar nathar fria saindán;
bith a menma-sam fri seilgg.
mu menma céin im saincheirdd

...which I have been told comes into English like this:

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at,
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

It's a pleasant poem, an amusing conceit, and supports the long shared history of writers and cats.  For a long time, I thought those four lines were the whole of the poem, said to have been written in the margin of whole 'nother manuscript.  Four lines seemed about right for margin doodling, and I never pursued it further.

It therefore was a pleasant surprise to learn just recently that there is more -- seven additional verses, in fact -- to this poem, which argues for really generous margins.

Here's the whole thing, translated from the Irish by Robin Flower.  You're welcome

The scholar and his cat, Pangur Bán

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

Ah, my dear friends, I have a terrible dilemma before me.  Both Olga and Natalia wish to be my wife; each has written several times to me of their passion. They are equally attractive; both are looking for love, but neither appears to be able to do laundry.

Well.  That's really not a dilemma at all, is it?

So, today was an odd day.  One of those days where Things Got Done, but they were Entirely the Wrong Things.  On the other hand, a day that includes a milkshake and an unexpected ride in the country can't be too far awry.

At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I did make it to gym and waked for miles.  My "gym book" this go is a Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal, and a buncha other awards, soon, I'm told to be  Major Motion Picture.  Again.

AWIT was published when I was 10 years old.  Despite this, I didn't read it (the first time) until I was an adult.  It was sitting on a table in EJ Korvette's in...damned if I remember -- Towson, probably.  Anyhow, remainder table, one among many of its own kind, and many others, not necessary of its kind.  I was waiting for my then-boyfriend to finish up doing something or another, and started to read AWIT, as the most interesting looking book on the table, and by the time he re-appeared, I'd tessered once already and wasn't about to miss the rest of the story.  It was a buck I never regretted spending.

I read AWIT a couple times since then, but not for 20 years or so -- found the sequels, but none of them held my interest beyond the first two pages. . .  So, yanno, life goes on; so many books, so little time; and all like that.

But AWIT is going to be coming out as a movie next year; this time, so the hype goes, done right, which means that lots of people who read it as kids, and who imprinted on it, are re-reading.  And some are being disappointed, and blogging about their disappointment (one more time from the choir: What an age we live in).  Now, by the time I'd read AWIT, I'd read. . .a buncha books, many of them science fiction/fantasy (Back when I started reading sf/f, you could easily read the monthly titles, and still have room left over for others kinds of books.  It just wasn't possible, if you were any shakes of a reader at all, to read only science fiction.).  I thought AWIT was a good enough book.  Certainly, the Mrs. Whatsit, Who, and Which have pleasantly improved my inner life.  Meg irritated me -- but Meg was supposed to irritate me.  Partly, after all, this was a story about Meg coming to terms with Meg, and if she could stand it, so could I.

I did have some reservations about the sudden appearance and utter acceptance of Calvin, especially the part where he liked Meg straight off.  Otherwise, he seemed like good enough kid.

Charles Wallace was being set up either as John the Baptist, or the new Christ figure, but I'd already read Perelandra, and Out of the Silent Planet and whassis -- That Hideous Strength.  Plus, I'd been raised Roman Catholic.  All of which meant I was pretty good at ignoring the God-stuff and following the story along.

So, anyhow.  I read it back then; liked it well enough.  Read it a couple times more and liked it on rereads.

This time, I'm still liking it.  Meg perhaps annoys me less, but, then I know how the story goes, more or less.  I find that I misplaced a couple things on the timeline, but no big surprises so far. . .The Happy Medium, surprisingly or not, irritates me more than Meg does this time.  Hmm.

One of the reviewers I read was saddened by the fact that AWIT didn't sing for them anymore, and blamed -- the 60s (given a 1962 pub date, and its long history of rejection, AWIT was probably written in the late 50s).  The 60s, said the reviewer are just too unbelievable to a person of modern sensibility, and the story therefore suffers from its setting.

I will go on record here as saying that the 60s setting doesn't detract from the story  at all, for this reviewer.  OTOH, I lived through the 60s.

So, that.

After gym, I ran the rest of the errands on my list -- sadly, neither CVS nor Agway had any of the bug repellents I had pinned my hopes upon, so I wound up ordering from the internet, rather than shopping locally.

Agway did provide me with a ginormous lacy yellow day lily, a hug pot of bee balm and a Jimmy hosta with white bells (the hosta on the other end of the property have blue/purple bells).  I have probably under-bought, but the wallet gets a vote, and this will at least start a Cat Garden Renaissance.

For those keeping score at home, I remain Utterly Delighted with my new fountain pen, which has scarcely been out of my hand since I bought it.  So delighted am I, that I have purchased another Pilot Metropolitan, this is the formal White Tiger color scheme, and blue ink, so I will have a fine signing pen at Confluence.

And that?  Really is all the news that's fit to print.

Everybody stay cool, or warm, as appropriate.

As advertised, Steve and I are reading A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny one chapter a night, starting on September 30, and ending on Halloween (some folks have reported being able to download this as an ebook; I can't find it myself, so if anyone can give a tip to those still looking, it would be appreciated).

So far, on our journey, we've met Snuff, our narrator; Jack; the graveyard dog; Greymalk; Cheeter; Needle -- and heard news of Nightwind; Morris and McCab; the Great Detective and his companion; Crazy Jill; the Mad Monk Rastoff; Quicklime; the Count; and the kindly Druid.  And let us not forget that curious  paw print in the yard...

Mysteries are starting to pile up, and there turns up a curious question -- Are you an opener?  or a closer?#

# # #

Yesterday, the coon cats and I spent many hours on the sofa, mapping out the Rest of the Story.  We decided to cut out one narrative line for lack of space, and package it as a short story; and I think have a working strategy for getting everyone at the corner of Elm and 10th Street at the same hour on the date appointed.  I have pointed the Auctorial Finger of Doom at several characters.  We'll see how well I do this time.

The whole stream of consciousness doc has gone to Steve for review.  There is a brainstorming session in our very near future.

# # #

Let's see, what else?

Steve and I have been making an effort to bring more light into the house -- this is in literal, rather than the metaphorical, sense.  To that end, we have acquired an LED arc lamp to illuminate the living room.  Steve has replaced his ancient (WWII vintage) desk lamp with a jazzy new LED lamp; I have a reading lamp in my upgraded reading corner, and we have placed a torche-thingy in the bedroom, which we've angle at the ceiling, and which illuminates the whole room.

What a difference a few lamps makes.

On that theme, my desk lamp (with full spectrum light tubes) blew out on Saturday.  I've ordered in a replacement bulb, which will be here, it says here, on Friday.  And not a moment too soon.

We still need to do something better about illuminating the bathroom and the kitchen.  I'm thinking we should look into LED bulbs to replace the big globe- lights-onna-bar that were fashionable a while back, since we're working with what we've got as much as possible. The kitchen. . .

The kitchen will require Creative Thinking.

# # #

So, it's Wednesday, and I'm for the volunteer gig in a little while.  While I'm gone, you can read the Spotlight interview from Locus, here (please note that this is a pdf file):    lee-miller-locus-oct-2016

I hope everybody has a pleasant day.

Usually, I write a blog post here, and give the folks on Twitter and Facebook a link.

Today -- just to keep y'all on your toes -- I'm doing it backwards.

Posted at Facebook at 11:00 am on Sunday, September 25, 2016:

So, yesterday was a work day, and today will be another like it. I have to pay bills first, and straighten out the mess that I have allowed the checkbook to become, then rewrite the scene I wrote last night, using the Proper Viewpoint (you'd think I'd get these things right the first time at this point in the game, wouldn't you?), and move on with the next scene.

Crisp and cool this morning; sunny, with a persistent breeze. Over breakfast, Steve and I discussed the Vital Matter of Turning On the Heat, and decided it's time to bring the basement thermostat on-line, to warm the floors, and calibrate as necessary from there.

This morning on Facebook, I unfriended someone for being so ill-advised as to "poke" me. This is policy, folks: "poke" me and be cast into the outer darkness.

I wrote a blog post yesterday -- here's the pointer, for them what's interested in the trials and tribulations of raisin bread.

Also, I am reading a book. I am not happy with this book, *at all* (no, I'm not going to tell you which book). The plot, at about 2/3s of the way through Makes No Sense; the "romance" is making me crazy (they hate each other, but they can't keep their hands off each other. Please. Just...please); another plot-point has Just Now been introduced that only promises to make things more confusing, rather than more exciting. . .but, worst of all, the heroine is Too Stupid to Live. Unfortunately, it looks like she's going to make it to the sequel. At this point, I'm reading on to see if the author can actually pull it out; if they do, I'll have learned something.

What else? Oh. Steve is making spaghetti and meat sauce for supper. It's a good day for spaghetti.

What're y'all doing today?

"Wise Child," a Liaden novelette by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is now live. It starts on the Baen.com front page, or you can read the whole thing here: http://www.baen.com/wisechild.

Please take a moment to like it on FB or tweet about it (buttons at the bottom of the story) so the boss knows people care. Thanks.

The Big News from Cat Farm and Confusion Factory Management on this January Saturday is the fact that the power went out at 5:01 am, waking Management from a sound sleep.  The house makes several Complaining Noises when the power goes, which are quite plaintive in the Overall Unnatural Silence, thus, Management was awakened.

At 5:02 am, the generator rumbled to life, and moments after, the house came back on-line.

What an incredible feeling of relief.

Management would like to thank everyone who participated in the Great Generator Caper of 2015.  Without your encouragement and active support, we would not have taken on the expense of installation.  You made us believe that it was not only possible, but that we would be able to pay off the debt.

So, yes -- thank you! For that feeling of relief, for the warmth and the food that wasn't lost, and for those extra three hours of sleep, after the house cried out in its distress.

. . .In other news, I own a skirt -- an ankle-length black skirt that I've had for a while now, and which I on several occasions wished to wear, except that?  I couldn't find a slip.  It's been. . .Rather a While since I've owned a skirt, or a dress, and the slips that went with them were long-ago donated to Goodwill.

Do you know how hard it is to find slips, anymore?  I finally bought one at Amazon, having exhausted all my other, usual vendors.  I mean, c'mon, KMart used to sell slips!  But not anymore.  Or, at least, not anymore in my part of Maine.

So, that mission accomplished, and I also bought a couple books, while I was there and all.  Note to self:  stop buying books.  No, really.

Yeah, that's gonna work.

But!  What's notable about these expenditures is that, having purchased, let it be clear, an ankle-length slip, and two books -- a biography of Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, and a graphic novel entitled The Sculptor -- I received in my inbox, a Special! One! Time! Offer! of a Free Gift! from Amazon, which was --

A digital copy of Kung Fu Panda.

Seriously, Amazon?

I mean, my deeply negative feelings for Jack Black aside, what, exactly, in that purchase persuaded your algorithms that I would in any way be receptive to receiving a copy of Kung Fu Panda?

I respectfully submit that you need to do a little work behind the nose.

And don't you dare send a copy of Kung Fu Panda to any of my devices.  Things will get Very Ugly if you try.  Thank you.

And, now, having washed the dishes and doodled around on the web, it's time to deploy the Cat Eating Machine.  Poor cats; they were being so comfy together in the living room.

Well.

Needs must.

Hope your Saturday is both comfortable and productive.

Here, have a picture of the Lights in early evening at the Maine Botanical Gardens:

Back -- 'way, 'way back, when I was a kid and the great sabertooth stalked its prey up and down the trolley-car lines in the darkling city of Baltimore. . .

Yeah, 'waaaaaay back there.

. . .I used to read ghost stories -- which I was able to do not only because there was a backlist of really great, old ghost stories to provide me with nourishment, but because contemporary publishers were not shy about publishing new ones.

Sometime between Then and Now, though, publishers stopped publishing -- and writers therefore stopped writing -- ghost stories.

I noticed it, and was a sad, because, in my not very humble at all opinion, nothing beats a good ghost story.

Which is why, when I first heard of Delia's Shadow, by Jaime Lee Moyers, I immediately got myself a copy.  Not only is it a good historical novel -- set in San Francisco in the early 1900s -- with strong characters, and a fine mystery, but also?

It's a ghost story.

I really liked this novel, just so you know, and if you like ghost stories, or mysteries, or period novels -- I recommend this book to you.

Now, Delia's Shadow came out in 2013, and I know that a lot of y'all read it then, and the second book in the trilogy, A Barricade in Hell, which came out the following year.

What you might not know is that the third book in the trilogy, Against a Brightening Sky, is coming out in October.

If you're familiar with the first two books, I've said enough; you're already on the way to your favorite bookstore to pre-order this.

But! If you missed these quiet gems in the monthly rush of Hot! New! Books!, I commend them now to your attention.

This is a longish post mostly about (my) health, which I concede is a fairly boring topic.  There is, however, something of Actual Interest starting about half-way down.  Your search-phrase is Speaking of wicked.

So, just about caught up with housekeeping, bill-paying, and laundry.  The cats are being a little clingy still, despite having had Mary's undivided attention.  Next time we go on tour, I guess we'll just have to bring them along.

Or not.

Frequent auditors of this blog will recall that, right before we went on tour, I had a visit with the vampires.  The panel of tests came back with good results, except that pituitary function was up, which was considered a sign that it was pushing the thyroid to work harder, which meant that (maybe) the dosage of my meds needed to be increased.  The bitter irony here being that, though I had been pulling the falling-asleep-between-sentences thing throughout the writing of Alliance of Equals, I didn't even mention it during the annual examination immediately prior to the blood test, because it seemed pointless.  Not that my doctor doesn't listen to me, but she listens to the test results harder, and we've been down that road too many times.

Happily, this time the test results took up the slack.

Long story short, we're three weeks into the slightly higher dose of meds, with a book tour taking up a week of that (maybe not the best timing, there), and I'm noticing a definite decrease in the fall-asleep-snap-awake thing (which is actually A Rather Unpleasant Sensation, not to mention the hash it makes of productivity, and the potential for producing Real Mayhem, should I fall asleep while driving), so, hoping the six-week blood test will be such that I'm allowed to keep the higher dosage.

But!  This little skit demonstrates a flaw in my otherwise perfectly agreeable personality (ahem), which I'm going to have to address.

I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and make the crazy assumption that health professionals are going to be playing a larger role in my life as I meander down my timeline.  Health professionals being human, they come with their own set of assumptions and experiences, particularly with regard to grey-haired women.  That's fine, but here's the thing.  I get bored.  Particularly, I get bored when I have stated a fact regarding my health which the tests then fail to support -- or don't support definitively.  After the third time, I figure there's no point to repeating myself, and I stop, even if I feel that there's still a problem.

Clearly, I'm going to have to Get Tough about repeating myself and pushing for solutions.

I'm also going to have to get back with doing yoga, which got kicked off-track after PhilCon, and, with one thing and another, never got back into the schedule.

Boy, that's a lot of virtue in my future.  I'll have to adopt a wicked new hobby somewhere along the way, so as not to become unbalanced.

Speaking of wicked -- While we were on-tour, we received a head's up from Bookseller Kate Reynolds that A Night in the Lonesome October (written by Roger Zelazny; illustrated by Gahan Wilson) has been reprinted in trade paper by the Chicago Review Press, in their Rediscovered Classics line (which seems to also include Mary Stewart's Entire Ouvre; as well as Gwen Bistrow, Anya Seton, Rosemary Sutcliff, and, like, a dozen other authors/books I read in my now far-distant youth.  BN will give you a list of the titles in the Rediscovered Classics line; Amazon is not so courteous).

For those who may be new reading here, A Night in the Lonesome October is. . .it's an advent calendar for Halloween.  Each of the chapters is dated, starting on September 30, and it is meant to be read one chapter a night, through Halloween.  Steve and I read it to each other every year, and our copy is starting to show the results of our dedication, so we're happy to be able to purchase a back-up copy.

And that?  Is all I've got.

No, wait; it's not.

I also have a picture of Trooper:

Today's blog title brought to you by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, "Endicott."  Here's your link.

AsyouknowBob, Steve and I write Space Opera, starting when it was neither popular nor profitable, and continuing to, oh, Right Now.  Along the way, we've heard our novels described as "Military SF*," which is where Space Opera goes to take cover when it's out of fashion; "Adventure SF;" "Romantic SF;" "SF Romance;" "SF Lite;" and "What Do You Call This, Because it's Not SF, Really, Is It?"

Happily, Space Opera has come 'round again on the guitar as being a recognized, if not exactly lauded, sub-genre of SF.  Unhappily, there are a lot of odd ideas about what Space Opera is, which do seem to arise whenever it surfaces again as a sub-genre.

I recall, for instance, when Mr. Feintuch was still with us and writing his version of Space Opera, which was Very Bleak, and some readers (and editors, too) wouldn't touch any thing calling itself Space Opera, because Enough With the Bleak, Already.

My personal definition of Space Opera has always been that, on some level -- though, yes, we are Saving the Universe and All Like That -- at some level, I say, Space Opera needs to be fun.

And, yanno, just like Real Operas, Space Opera is a place where any old unlikely thing can happen (so long as the authors make it believable, which, to be fair, isn't always the case with Real Opera), including telepathy and all the other Psi skills, if you want them; Giant Turtles; FTL drives; Deathless Wanderers of the Star Lanes; True Love, and whatever yer havin' yerself.

So, anyway. . .in another part of the InterTubes, someone has put forth the observation that Space Opera has drifted away from including aliens, in order to focus of the diversity of human cultures.  It's an interesting observation, and certainly we here in the Liaden Universe® celebrate the richness of human cultures.  But we also celebrate the strangeness of Clutch Turtles, and of Korval's Damned Meddling Tree.  And while we didn't exactly celebrate them, the Iloheen were certainly aliens.

However, as mentioned above, we started down this path more than a quarter-century ago.

What about newer Space Operas?  Have we moved away from aliens, in favor of more human-centric stories?  Or is it all in what you're reading?  And, if that's the case, what are you reading?

Have at it.

_______

*I had the. . .surreal. . .experience of standing in an elevator with two young men at the Chicago WorldCon-but-one.  And the first young man was describing this Really Cool Military SF Book he had just read.  The plot, as he short-formed it, sounded Awfully Familiar, and just before they got off at their floor, the second young man asked after the title, and the first young man said, "Conflict of Honors."

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer yesterday's Idle Question.

From the Idle Question came two Rebound Questions, one having to do with the importance of blogging to a writer's career (this was more of an assumption than a question, but I'm making it a question because I want to Say Something About That), and one asking what the blogger gets from blogging.

So, the assumption that one must blog or do some other sort of social media in order to be a writer is...a perception born of the frenetic age we live in, and the lack of willingness to accept that, in O So Very Many Ways, success as a writer is a crap shoot.

The Number One Thing that you need to do if you want to be in future, or are now, a writer is -- WRITE.  Write, send out what you write, pay attention to your craft, write, study the markets sufficiently to insure that you don't get cheated, write, and, ohbytheway, WRITE.

Everything else -- everything else -- is an extra.  You do not have to have -- what was the magic number? -- 1500? Facebook friends before you start in writing your novel.  You don't need to set up Whatever or Boing-Boing and tend it for a decade before you write your novel.  All you  have to do is open up your word processor, turn to a clean sheet in your notebook, go outside with a nice thick chunk of tailor's chalk in hand,  find a clean place on the sidewalk, or whatever else rings your bell -- and start writing.

That's it.  Personally, I think that starting a writing career by writing seriously (by which I mean with serious purpose and a goal) every day is hard enough without putting the burden of an active blog on the list, too.

Now, if you're a sociable sort of person and you like to blog -- then by all means go for it.  In fact, if you're the sort of person who likes to blog, you're probably doing it already.

Pro Tip: People can tell if you like doing something.  If you like to blog -- if it's fun for you, regardless of any other input -- then folks will read your blog and they'll comment and feel comfy with you, and cheer you on in your endeavors.

Conversely, if you hate blogging and only force yourself to do in order to Build Your Brand?  People will pick up on that, too.

The same principle applies to doing book signings and going to conventions; tweeting and facebooking.  Do what you like, and what makes you happy; don't do what you don't like.  And for ghod's sake, don't just do things in order to Sell Books; that's lame.  And pretty often it doesn't work.

Second question!  Why do I blog; aka What's In It For Me?

That's easy; I'm a writer, and I like to tell stories.  I'm an introvert, but I like to interact with people.  Blogging lets me do both things -- tell stories, and benefit from human interactions -- without exhausting myself by having to physically be in a roomful of people, read all that body language, and protect myself.  Blogging lets me limit interaction, when I need to focus elsewhere; I can read and answer comments in my own good time.  For me, blogging is dern near the perfect medium of communication.

* * *

In other news -- this is a long blog because you're going to have to do without for a couple days; we have a buncha stuff on this week's schedule -- a while ago, I got interested in Doc Holliday, and ordered in a well-regarded biography (Doc Holliday, by Gary L. Roberts).  Now, I like biographies -- they're my Reading Matter of Choice when I'm actively writing fiction -- and I've read a bunch of them, but I've gotta tell you -- I'm going to give up on Doc's book, here.

See, the primary reason I read biographies is to learn about people; their motivations; their movements; how they conformed to, or failed to conform to, the mores of their time -- and I'm getting none of that with this book.  What I'm getting is the author's speculation, a bunch of facts supported by newspaper reports and filed legal papers, and a review of the Civil War, as seen from Georgia and the Deep South.

Now, the author does say in his introduction that Doc left virtually no papers.  He had a lifelong correspondence with his first cousin, who had entered a convent, apparently because her religion had led her to refuse Doc's hand in marriage (they were first cousins).  The cousin had saved the letters, but upon her death, a family member took it upon himself (I assume the masculine pronoun here) to burn them (pause for a group banging of heads on desks).  I can understand that it would therefore be difficult to piece together much about Doc's private life.

While I applaud the author for getting a 400-plus-page book out of such flimsy stuff, that isn't what I read biography for; if I want speculation, I read fiction.  So, Doc's book goes back on the shelf.  Maybe I'll find more patience with it, later.

* * *

Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I have some. . .Interesting Cognitive Quirks apparently brought into my life when the Good Sisters switched my primary hand from Left to Right.  In order, so my grandmother told me, to make my life easier.

I've been living with the effects of this for quite a number of years, naturally, and I thought I knew all the Funny Places, but yesterday I discovered another one.

Compass.

Have you ever seen one of these things?  A dial marked N-E-S-W with degrees between, and a needle in the middle, the red end magnetized so it will always point more-or-less North, no matter how you turn the dial?  Yes?  Holy bananas, what a brain-bender!

No, seriously.  You hold the thing in your hand so that the red pointer points North, and then, if you want to go, say, East, you squint along the dial and pick out a tree or a mailbox or something along that line and you walk to it?  This is how its supposed to work?  Phew.  Steve spent an hour, maybe more, but it's not looking like a skill I'll be -- forget mastering -- understanding any time soon.  I hope to Ghu I'm never lost on a mountain in Maine.

Or anywhere else where there aren't street signs.

* * *

Y'all have a good Beginning Of A New Week.

* * *

Progress on One of Five
8,062/100,000 OR .81% complete

"Have I finally reached the captain of the pirate vessel Dutiful Passage?" The voice was high-pitched and clealy angry. Priscilla felt a jolt of her own anger.

"This is Captain Mendoza of the trade ship Dutiful Passage out of Surebleak," she said coolly. "To whom am I speaking?"

"Retribution Officer Blix," the angry voice snapped; "Law and Decency. In accordance with Chesselport Regulations 928A through 977M, pertaining to known pirates on-port, your vessel and its cargo are forfeit to this office; your officers and crew will be interrogated by this office, and those who are found guilty of piracy and related crimes will be placed in appropriate labor programs."

#SFWAPro