Richard V. Rupp

September 27, 2021

Good Monday morning. I'm author Richard V. Rupp, writing from Burbank, California. Welcome to RUPP'S NOTES/FBI SPECIAL AGENT HARTMAN SERIES posts.

 

It feels like fall this morning. A nice brisk morning, with the high today estimated at 75 degrees. This should be a good writing day. I seem to write better when the weather is cooler. I know 75 does not seem that cool to many of you, but hey, I live in Southern California.

 

Sorry, USC fans. The old-time college football powerhouse looks terrible this season. I'm going to pass on their games for a while. Both UCLA and the RAMS look great. The BOLTS squeaked through, which is a change for them. In previous years they would lose at the last minute.

 

To gain insight into China for the manuscript I'm working on, SKYWARD, I am reading RED ROULETTE - An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China, written by Desmond Shum. A significant part of the book is about the authors' wife, Whitney Duan. This is from a September 18, 2021, NEW YORK POST article about her and the book –

 

* * *

 

China's richest woman, who ran afoul of Communist Party politics and disappeared in 2017, resurfaced briefly on September 4 in a phone call to her ex-husband, according to a new report.

 

Whitney Duan, 50, warned Desmond Shum in a phone call seemingly monitored by her handlers that he should not publish his new book about life among China's treacherous business elite, Shum told the Sunday Times of London.

 

Shum, whose book, RED ROULETTE (Scribner), has just come out, told the Times that he got the call from Duan, his ex-wife, and former high-powered business partner Whitney Duan, 50, while asleep at home in Oxford where he now lives.

 

Duan hadn't been heard from since she vanished from her office in Beijing in 2017. Shum told the Times that he and Whitney's 12-year-old son longed to hear from but said her phone call was clearly being monitored by officials, and she was saying what she was told to say.

 

* * *

 

Here's the beginning of Chapter 16 of my novel SKYWARD –

 

Bik sat with his father Chen Wang and several of his fathers' Communist Party cronies watching a recording of the American President Varva giving a statement to the press.

 

President Varva concluded his speech with, ". . .our country has grown great through the combination of the private capitalist system, supported by the public sector. The "Skyward Project" will utilize this same proven system to expand into the space frontier. First, we will establish a robust presence on the Moon, a steppingstone to conduct a historic human mission to establish a colony on Mars. We will be fully transparent to the world in developing facilities for commercial activities in space for all humanity to enjoy. Our access to extraterrestrial resources will spark a space-based industrial revolution that will enrich our Earth in ways beyond evaluation. God bless America."

 

"The American timing is interesting," said Chen. Why now?"

 

"I suspect their CIA figured out what we are doing?"

 

"How?"

 

"Their first clue was probably the number of unusual satellites we have in orbit at the moment. They are much bigger than communication satellites, and their orbit is not a usual one," said Bik.

 

"We should have anticipated that."

 

* * *

 

You know me and words. My state's Governor Gavin Newsom has brought the word 'alien' to my attention. On Friday, he signed a bill striking the word 'alien' for all California laws. Somehow, I had missed that President Biden has indicated he planned on doing the same as respects federal laws and replace the word with 'noncitizen.' The Biden administration says replacing the word recognizes the country as "a nation of immigrants."

 

California Democratic Assemblywoman Luz Rivas indicated that "For decades, the term 'alien' has become weaponized and has been used in place of explicitly racial slurs to dehumanize immigrants. The words we say and the language we adopt in our laws matter.   . . .today marks a huge step forward in the fight to dismantle institutional racism targeted specifically towards our immigrant communities."

 

In looking up the word in my WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD COLLEGE DICTIONARY, I find it has many negative connotations. While the first definition is "belonging to another country or people." Immediately following is this definition, "strange," and following that is "opposed or repugnant."

 

Interestingly, the dictionary includes a highlighted section which indicates "alien is applied to a resident who bears political allegiance to another country. . ." And that section also includes the following as respects an immigrant "a person who comes to another country to settle." This leads me to believe the use of this term has been questioned for years. I'm using a 2000 copy of the dictionary.

 

But for me, in writing my SKYWARD manuscript, I like this definition, "in science fiction, a being in or from outer space and not native to Earth." Until my aliens develop a formidable political lobbying group here on Earth, I think I'm safe.

 

Have a great week!

 

Cheers,

 

Richard V. Rupp, Author

Website – www.richardvrupp.com

Email – rupprisk@gmail.com

Copyright©2021 by Richard V. Rupp