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<p>For those of you puzzled by the Heinlein references in the bit:</p>
“Oh, yes, thank you, Daddy,”
Trisha gushed. “that makes complete sense in the Regency novel,
except my teacher
said my novel had to do with the Heinlein Act, which made no sense,
not that
I’m sure what the Heinlein Act is.” <br>
<br>
Abigail rolled her eyes. “The
Heinlein Act is that Navy monstrosity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>But you knew Heinlein, didn’t you, dear?” she asked Patrick.<br>
<br>
“Indeed I did,” Patrick answered.
“He was a fine Navy Admiral who’d won three skirmishes, officially
with
pirates, and retired with combat injuries.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>He wanted to become a writer, but needed to support his
family, so he’d
read law. A few years later, along came this young lady, about the
age of you
three, and about as bright, who wanted Heinlein to use bad wording
in a
California state law to divorce her parents.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Her name is under seal; her initials were P.W. Her parents,
it later
turned out, were truly terrible people. Her case reached the Supreme
Court.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Heinlein won his
case.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Congress codified, the
Heinlein Act, rules
letting adult-competent children divorce truly bad parents.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Heinlein then took up writing,
full-time, made a fortune, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.”
<br>
<br>
“Sorry your novel was so terrible,
Trisha,” a chastened Brian said. “But, you see, that novel was good
for
something.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You made the
sacrifice, you
read it, we all learned something from Dad, and it got me an A+.”<br>
<br>
“You talked about, yuck, romance
novels?” Janie asked. “That’s gross!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>What do they have to do with that stupid play about Italians
going into
suspended animation? You think I can get an A+ if I insert something
intelligent instead? I could talk about Chess or City of Steel or
outward
influence on my next English exam.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yes,
outward influence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Those
crazy dueling
families in Romeo and Juliet do things to get spread-out advantage
far away.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s outward
influence, just like in stones.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And
at the end of Hamlet everyone is in
zugzwang, and they all move anyhow, littering the stage with bodies.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s what I should have said,
they’re all
in zugzwang, and then for sure I would have had my A+.” Janie
decided not to
notice her parents shaking their heads.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><br>
<br>
“I lucked out,” Brian said. “I
guessed Romeo and Juliet had something to do with romance novels.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can’t tell what.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wasn’t really sure. But, Dad,
why is
fiction called ‘genre fiction’?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why
not
just ‘fiction’?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><br>
<br>
Patrick looked at his wife.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Yes,
I think they are old enough,” he
said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“We’ve had those
discussions,
after all.”<br>
<br>
“Very well.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Abigail looked
to have bitten into a
particularly bitter lemon.<br>
<br>
“There is also ‘literary
fiction’,” Patrick said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Most
people
don’t like it, so while real, meaning genre, fiction gets the Nobel
Prize for
Literature, ‘literary fiction’ readers have their own awards, such
as the Joyce
and Hemingway Prizes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Joyce
was famous
for slapping together incomprehensible strings of words and claiming
they were
novels.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was quite mad.
The ‘literary
novel’ you will all be stuck reading, in twelfth grade, is
Hawthorne’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Scarlet
Letter</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a truly
disgusting work, in which a
young woman becomes a fallen roundheel and ends up bearing a child,
when she is
not married. Instead of having the child taken away to be raised by
decent
people, as would happen in the real world, she is allowed to keep
the child,
and matters go downhill from there.” <<--IMPORTANT CLUE HERE<br>
<br>
“Yuck!” Janie said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Her
brother nodded in agreement.<br>
<br>
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mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">“I have to read that?” Trisha tried
to remember
alternatives to taking twelfth grade. Dad had mentioned that
Rogers Tech did
not care if students had a high school diploma or not. </span><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“The Heinlein Act.
I want out.” Trisha
was now entirely calm.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Heinlein
had been
a Navy Admiral turned divorce attorney and later Nobel laureate
writer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It would be
unusual for a girl as young as
Trisha to divorce her parents, but it had been done.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“Good,” Patrick
said. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Then our family
is no longer shamed.” <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His
wife nodded agreement. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Everyone
else in the room was shocked.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“You’re sure,
Trisha?” <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Morgan asked.
“It’s very final.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“Yes.” Trisha stood
up, backbone ramrod
straight. I felt in her the determination of the founders of
Massachusetts, people
not much older than Trisha, the people who two millennia ago
crossed the
continent from Washington to Massachusetts on horseback to
create America.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“So be it,” Morgan
answered.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">Speaker Ming turned
to Krystal
North. “Captain-General, will you please do the mentalic
validation?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“Under the Heinlein
Act,” Krystal
said, “Mentalic validation of the state of affairs is required.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Any party may decline, but
the worst possible
interpretation is then placed on their claims and positions.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Trisha, Patrick, Abigail, I
need your
permission to read your minds.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“I am an innocent
and virtuous
man,” Patrick Wells said. “Read away.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“I agree,” Abigail
said.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in">“Please?” Trisha
said.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><<i
style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Eclipse,> </i>Krystal said to me, <<i
style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">As champion, you get to watch over Trisha, represent
her side, and
validate my mentalic report.</i>><i
style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>I
nodded.</p>
</span><br>
<span
style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times
New Roman","serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">But how does an Admiral get wounded
in a skirmish? At the start, we had two Carrier Groups, and the
officially-not-Manjukuoans had six. At the end, we had two in
very serious need of yard time, and they had two, one of which
apparently went down in a north Pacific storm with all hands on
the way home.</span>
<pre><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"></span></pre>
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