Cut out the metaphors and similes. In my first book I promised myself I wouldn’t use any and I slipped up during a sunset in chapter 11. I still blush when I come across it. Esther Freud
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
The newly numerous political parties in Myanmar appear nearly, if not actually, unanimous in their opinion that sanctions by the United States are little more than window dressing. I share their opinion and can’t think of a single instance in International diplomacy where sanctions have resulted in the desired change. Can you?
From the Democratic Voice Of Burma:
A number of political parties running in Burma’s elections this year have said that extended US sanctions will do little to affect the polls.
Observers, including US and EU governments, have decried the country’s first elections in two decades as a sham aimed at cementing military rule in Burma. Some 38 parties have registered for the polls, but only one can seriously be considered part of the opposition, following the dissolution of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
Khin Maung Swe, spokesperson for the National Democratic Force (NDF), which was formed from the ashes of the NLD, said that the sanctions will not force a change of the repressive laws that govern how parties campaign, and which can participate in the elections.
“I think it would be more beneficial for Burma if the international community pushes for a revision of the unfair laws, help to find a solution to make the elections free for everyone and [push for] the release of all political prisoners and allow them to join the elections,” he said.
The ban on imports of Burmese produce to the US was last week extended for another year after the Senate voted 99 to 1 in favour. Washington’s sanctions regime on Burma harks back to 2003 when former president George Bush enacted the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act.
The world needs Silent Thunder.
Finding How To Be Alone upon returning online is just too perfect.
This is a delicate matter. I can already hear some readers turning the page (perhaps a Kindle “page”), muttering that only an elitist jerk picks friends or lovers based on what they can be seen reading. Well, maybe. This essay is for the rest of you, the ones who freely admit to having been seduced by a serendipitous volume of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John glimpsed on a potential girlfriend’s living-room shelf or by a spine-broken copy of Robert Lowell sitting atop that boy’s nightstand. Maybe that was your first time in the apartment, you had been reluctant to go, and now you wanted to linger a while…
From 1730 today until 1830 tomorrow, I will be off-line. There will be no new posts during this time, nor will I be checking email. Go for a walk. Have coffee with a friend. Read a book.
I’m making the list and checking it thrice. Between now and primary day I’ll be hitting coffee houses throughout Cuyahoga County District 7 to answer the question: Why Vote Russo?
Do you have a spot I absolutely must not miss? Want to meet me for coffee? Leave a comment and we’ll talk Tim Russo for Cuyahoga County District 7 face-to-face.
(Laptop artwork by the very talented Adam Harvey.)
After Anne Rice lost her husband and moved from New Orleans to La Jolla California, her writing changed. She began to write a fictionalized biographical series based on the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Because she is a writer I’ve long admired, I read the first book. It was horrible. The one none-christ book written since the change was barely readable.
Yesterday Rice posted these messages to her Facebook page.
For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
As I said above, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” Gospel of Matthew.
“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ” Gospel of Matthew.
“If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians. St. Paul).
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[a] it.” (The Gospel of John)
My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.
Now, if she’s gotten that out of her system, perhaps she can go back to being a great writer.
“I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that “I do” is the longest sentence?
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator. Jonathan Franzen
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
While I sit comfortably behind my computer in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, real people take real action to lessen real suffering amongst real displaced persons in real refugee camps. They toil in silent obscurity and only occasionally come to light in our celebrity obsessed culture. Take Dr. Cynthia Maung for instance.
From Huffington Post:
Having been repeatedly denied a working visa to provide direct aid to Burma (aka Myanmar) as an international relief group (whose name, Operation USA, leaves the tragi-comical government of Burma unenthusiastic about my prowling about their beautiful country looking for health care projects in need of assistance), I travel instead to Mae Sot on the Thailand-Burma border. There, one of the great grassroots success stories, Dr. Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao Clinic, has for 21 years managed to care for over 250,000 semi-permanent refugees while also providing quiet cross-border assistance to those who need it.
Dr. Cynthia, as she is commonly known, is a major humanitarian figure — there’s usually at least one such person in every country, often a physician, whom those of us who walk the earth consumed with aid and development rely on for guidance,cultural awareness and an honest partner — who has amassed an under-funded empire of basic medical services, emergency care, violence prevention and treatment and a panoply of social services.
Down the right-hand column of this piece I read the following teases: Angelina Jolie’s Provocative Premiere Dress (PHOTOS); Ex-Teacher Pleads GUILTY To Sexting Nude Photos To Student; Angelina Jolie In Graphic Pics Unearthed By Star Magazine.
Maybe if Playboy did a feature on Hot Docs In Refugee Camps?
Why isn’t the number 11 pronounced tenty one?
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea. Richard Ford
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
WHERE LOW-WAGE CAPITALISM GOES… At one level, I do appreciate how spending time home with your children doing craft projects is better than a trip to Disney World, but the reality is that when both parents work, this just isn’t going to happen. That is the dark side of Walmart’s choice of video. Keep reading…
DO YOU MAKE MORE THAN $250,000 A YEAR…? If you do, you’re part of the problem and not part of the solution. When I first say the above graph I was going to link it to my staycation post, but after consideration, I realized that the chart and Lane Kenworty’s post demanded separate treatment. Keep reading…
AND THE UNEMPLOYED IN AMERICA GET..? Mark Perry is all over a post by Vikas Bajaja on the New York Times Economic Blog titled Garment Factories, Changing Women’s Roles in Poor Countries. Not surprisingly, Vikas doesn’t mention Walmart. Keep reading…
WALMART DIVIDES AND CONQUERS IN CHICAGO… Leslie Patton and Matthew Boyl at Bloomberg nail the story on Walmart’s breach in the urban wall protecting workers from race-to-the-bottom wages in Chicago. The head on their story reads: Wal-Mart Cracks Chicago by Splitting Union, Non-Union Workers. That says it all. Keep reading…
LITERALLY NOT IN OUR BACK YARDS… We have one Walmart in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and it’s the eastern anchor of a strip mall at Severance Center. But that is not where Walmart really wanted to build. It wanted a main thoroughfare location where the Oakwood golf course now sits. Keep reading…
URBANITES GET A HEADS UP… Now that the Wall Street engineered recession has workers panicked, Walmart is pushing harder to storm the barricades of urban workers. Washington, D.C. and Baltimore are likely targets, but residents are learning some of the tricks. Keep reading…
50,000 CHICKEN NUGGET PACKS RECALLED… Have you ever wondered what’s in a chicken nugget? Even if you’re not eating a chicken nugget from Walmart — now new and improved with blue plastic — you might find this cooking demonstration from Jamie Oliver instructive. Keep reading…
WALMART BUYS A GOVENOR… Rightly or wrongly, Illinois and Louisiana are always serious contenders for the top slot in the Best Bought Politicians race, but Illinois GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady has given his state an edge thanks to the good citizens of Walmart. Keep reading…
A WALMART OMNIBUS… While I was away in the mountains of North Carolina, the Walmart news never stopped just because I wasn’t reading it. One interesting note, locals refer to the Walmart in Spruce Pine (No. 2749) as the Macy’s of the Blue Ridge Parkway; it is that nice. Keep reading…
NOW RECEIPTS ARE DANGEROUS…? Strictly speaking, this is not a Walmart story but, because of Walmart’s ubiquitous place in retailing, I have to think that Walmart produces more of this particular health hazard than a large number of the others guilty of ignorance. Keep reading…
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
The first 12 years are the worst. Anne Enright
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
Time to get a couple things off the chest again.
Gerry McFaul. You have to give Mark Puente credit for bringing down the former Cuyahoga County Sheriff by following up on tips.
McFaul angered some of the wrong people on his staff and they began to talk.
Often this happens but the follow-up by the news media isn’t as powerful as Puente’s has been. I don’t discount the fact that the Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg allowed the expose campaign to continue. Editors often kill or dilute important public information. (I will say that the PD needs this kind of story these days to attract newspaper readers. It might just be that the financial troubles of local newspaper might give them a previously absent backbone.)
It’s very important that reporters be allowed to pursue where there is smoke and find if there’s fire there, too. Puente did that doggedly.
However, what’s disturbing – and Puente rightly revealed this in today’s story about McFaul getting softer treatment because of his health (You have to wonder if he wasn’t doing a bit of play-acting) – is that McFaul has been a crude character for a long time and reporters and editors knew this.
“The Plain Dealer,” Puente reported, “endorsed McFaul eight times during elections and even called him a legendary lawman in an editorial,” Climaco said. John Climaco – long-time politically connected lawyer – served as McFaul’s counsel.
Eight times at four years a time! Continue Reading »
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