I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.
Adrian B.: Mountain peak ceiling
Blocks the sky, jagged gray clouds
Raining rockets west. And:
Dry, mud-caked rubble
Three jagged walls sag inward
Where do the men sleep?
What we read, what we read again and again, can tell others more about us than any documentary or biography. Since the ’80s, Tom Peters has been one of my personal heroes. He’s posted a Power Point presentation of what he calls his Iconic Books. I confess that I don’t know much about the books on the list, but I intend to learn more.
Our teacher’s teachers can be our own, if we take the time to know who they are.
At least that is the what the administration of President George Bush would have us believe. Only a few months ago we were taken by the horrible story told in Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. This week we have the tale of another boy soldier: Omar Ahmed Khadr.
This is what The New York Times had to say about Khadr on Sunday:
To American military prosecutors, Mr. Khadr is a committed Al Qaeda operative, spy and killer who must be held accountable for killing Sergeant Speer in 2002 and for other bloody acts he committed in Afghanistan.
But there is one fact that may not fit easily into the government”s portrait of Mr. Khadr: He was 15 at the time.
His age is at the center of a legal battle that is to begin tomorrow with an arraignment by a military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of Mr. Khadr, whom a range of legal experts describe as the first child fighter in decades to face war-crimes charges. It is a battle with implications as large as the growing ranks of child fighters around the world.
Yesterday, the charges against Khadr and one other enemy combatant detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were dropped.
From The Washington Post:
Two military judges on Monday dismissed charges against a Canadian and a Yemeni detained at Guantanamo Bay, ruling that their war-crimes trials cannot move forward under the current military commissions law, a decision that could delay future legal proceedings at the U.S. detention facility.
Army Col. Peter Brownback’s decision suspended the case against Omar Khadr, a 20-year-old detainee who allegedly killed a U.S. serviceman during fighting in Afghanistan in 2002. Khadr, whom the military has labeled an “enemy combatant,” was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday in what was to be the second case to go before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay.
But Brownback decided that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which sets the rules for trying detainees at Guantanamo Bay, limits such commissions to “unlawful enemy combatants” and concluded that the military has never classified Khadr as “unlawful.”
Lots of people are already screaming technicality, but that one word contains a whole other world. We have a clearly defined set of rules for enemy combatants, they’re called the Geneva Conventions. And if they apply, then they ought to be enforced.
But Khadr has spent twenty-five percent of his young life — from ages 15 to 20 — in a prison cell awaiting justice.
Are there good boy soldiers and bad boy soldiers? Can a 15-year-old kill? Of course. We have sickening examples of that on the streets of Cleveland. Do we lock 15-year-olds up for five years without a trial? No.
A civilization must be judged by the way it treats its enemies.
History will not look kindly on our behavior at the start of the 21st century.
Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.
0837 Oh, foot!
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.
MY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008
Here we are already discussing the future President of the United States in the Year 2008.
Well, I have my own candidate and I’m sure that once you know who I’m voting for, you will also agree.
For those of you who would like another choice for President, I have the best solution: It is probably time we have a woman as President. My choice, and I hope yours as well, is a very special lady who has all the answers to our problems.
Please give it a thought when you have a moment: Maxine For President.
Maxine on driver safety: “I can’t use the cell phone in the car. I have to keep my hands free for making gestures.”
Maxine on housework: “I do my housework in the nude. It gives me an incentive to clean the mirrors as quickly as possible.”
Maxine on lawn care: “The key to a nice-looking lawn is a good mower. I recommend one who is muscular and shirtless.”
Maxine on the perfect man: “All I’m looking for is a guy who’ll do what I want, when I want, for as long as I want, and then go away. Or wait nearby, like a Dust Buster, charged up and ready when needed.”
Maxine on the technology revolution: “My idea of rebooting is kicking somebody in the butt twice.”
And Maxine on aging:
“Take every birthday with a grain of salt. This works much better if the salt accompanies a Margarita.”
“The only two things we do with greater frequency in middle age are urinate and attend funerals.”
“The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.”
“To err is human, to forgive — highly unlikely.”
“Do you realize that in about 40 years, we’ll have millions of old ladies running around with multiple tattoos and pierced navels?”
“Money can’t buy happiness — but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.”
“After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching somewhere, you may be dead.”
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
A story is not an accumulation of information strung into a narrative, but a design of events to carry us to a meaningful climax.
A new speaker Pelosi said
“elections have consequences.”
Sure. Democrats hold hearings,
but they don”t listen.
The public wants out of Iraq,
but their representatives insist
they must “fund the troops.”
Most of us want wage-depressing
immigration to end, but Democrats,
beholden to business like Republicans,
just want to make it legal.
Democrats campaigned against
Republican corruption, but in that case
they meant what they said ― exactly.
So far Nancy, your consequences
are inconsequential.
From Ken Duncan.
SPC Freeman: Somewhere south of Baghdad, en route to As-Suwayrah, Iraq. It’s a balmy morning in southern Iraq, and I’m weighed down by sixty pounds of gear and ammo, getting ready for my first mission as part of Recon. The farmers’ fields are shrouded in fog, and a hundred feet below me the countryside whips past the viewports. We’re riding in a Polish…
This morning I called in to WCPN’s The Sound Of Ideas and discovered that — at least for this morning — the only ideas the show’s producer was interested in were positive ones. My mistake? Thinking that the show was burning a precious hour of air time pretending to be a sports talk radio program.
When I called in to make a comment, essentially the comment I’ll make below, I was told by the production assistant that the producer of the show wanted only positive comments on today’s show. And that if I wanted to leave a comment I could do so on the final say section; the old media version of write a letter to the editor.
Except I have this blog, so I don’t have to wait. Maybe I’m ranting into the void, but this feels better than letting someone else control my message.
I’m sure that if I tuned into any of the other stations in town I would have heard the same program: the Cav’s beat Detroit, we’re going to the championship, Cleveland is different this morning.
Except it isn’t.
This morning we all woke up in the same Cleveland, the same Northeastern Ohio, that was here last Friday.
What made WCPN’s choice of topics this morning all the more disgraceful is that The Sound Of Ideas came off of one of its finest series of programs last week. Take a look:
Monday: Ken Burns’ latest documentary The War;
Tuesday: The incredible shrinking city;
Wednesday: Housing the homeless;
Thursday: The regional roundup with a focus on education;
Friday: Protecting the mentally ill.
All fantastic shows.
And then this morning we get:
Slam Dunk! History was made in Cleveland Saturday night. Not even a malfunctioning scoreboard and game delays could stop Lebron James and Daniel Gibson from bringing the Cleveland Cavaliers their first Eastern Conference Championship win in franchise history.
Monday morning on The Sound of Ideas, join the celebration as Dan Moulthrop takes your calls and talks with top sports journalists. We’ll relive the game, the celebration, asses [sic] the Cavs chances in the NBA finals and consider what this means for long-suffering Cleveland sports fans.
Long suffering? You want suffering, talk to the men and women who’ve been downsized, outsourced and sent to work for Wal-Mart. Talk to the kids on the corner of 55th and Woodland about how they’re spending their day. Talk to the students who continue to struggle against the odds to graduate and escape Cleveland.
Feck, just go back and talk to the people you talked to last week.
The Cavaliers are, of course, a fine example of American Sports Entertainment. They are good at what they do. But they are entertainers. And we have subsidized, and continue to subsidize their ability to entertain a portion of Cleveland, while making them and their owners very wealthy people.
In Rome they got bread with their circuses. In Cleveland we just get the circus.
This was nothing more than herd journalism. I expect greater things from the Ideastream.
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.
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
The “virgin birth” is a charming self-deception writers love to indulge in, but the sudden impression that the story is writing itself simply marks the moment when a writer”s knowledge of the subject has reached the saturation point.
Democrats favor amnesty ―
they respect humanity.
Republicans oppose it ―
they respect the rule of law.
The fact is, they both believe
new voters would be Democrats.
Bush and business side with Dems:
the country needs immigrants
to do jobs Americans won”t.
The public sides with Republicans:
cheap labor depresses wages.
Business really thinks immigrants
work harder than Americans at any wage.
The public does too, and they don”t
want that kind of competition.
Talk of walls, and penalizing employers,
generates smoke to make Lou Dobbs choke
before he notices Republicans joining
the business side of the argument.
Standing on principle never helps
politicians who are broke.
From Ken Duncan.
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.
Too often, we lose sight of life”s simply pleasures. Remember, When someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles to frown.
But it only takes four muscles to extend your arm and slap the &(%^#$$&#*#$ upside the head .
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
Talent must be stimulated by facts and ideas. Do Research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliché, it”s the key to victory over fear and its cousin, depression.
Once we’ve succesfully outlawed guns and knives we’re going to have to figure out how to keep sticks and stones out of the hands of lawabiding citizens; if there are any left alive. I got my first knife when I was seven, who knew the Cub Scouts were setting me on the path to become a mass murderer.
From the Associated Press:
A man armed with a 21-inch-long knife killed nine people, including six children, and wounded 17 others in a rampage early Saturday in a central Philippine province, police said.
The man first attacked and wounded five members of his cousin’s family with whom he lived in a remote village outside Calbayog city in central Samar province at around 2 a.m. local time, said Senior Police Officer Jessie Gianan, desk officer at the Calbayog police station. One of the cousin’s sons, aged 7, died later in a hospital, police said, correcting an earlier report that two sons had died.
Will mudslinging be the only thing left?
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.
My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God, and I didn’t.
***
Marriage is a three-ring circus: Engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.
***
For Sale: Wedding dress, size 8. Worn once by mistake.
***
There are two times when a man doesn’t understand a woman: before marriage and after marriage.
***
Why were hurricanes usually named after women? Because when they arrive, they’re wet and wild, but when they go, they take your house and car.
***
The woman applying for a job in a Florida lemon grove seemed way too qualified for the job. “Look Miss,” said the foreman, “have you any actual experience in picking lemons?” “Well, as a matter if fact, yes!” she replied. “I’ve been divorced three times.”
***
An old man goes to the Wizard to ask him if he can remove a curse he has been living with for the last 40 years. The Wizard says, “Maybe, but you will have to tell me the exact words that were used to put the curse on you.” The old man says without hesitation, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
***
The old man lay dying on his death bed. He asked his wife to summon his lawyer and his tax accountant to his side. They both came, and asked why they had been asked to be there. The old man took them both by the hand, and gasped, “Jesus Christ died between two crooks, and I didn’t want to seem any to be better than He was.”
***
Reason why It’s so hard to solve a murder in West Virginia: All the DNA is the same.
***
I was in the express lane at the store quietly fuming. Completely ignoring the sign, the woman ahead of me had slipped into the check-out line pushing a cart piled high with groceries. Imagine my delight when the cashier beckoned the woman to come forward, looked into the cart and asked sweetly, “So which six items would you like to buy?”
***
Because they had no reservations at a busy restaurant, an elderly man and his wife were told there would be a 45-minute wait for a table. “Young man, we’re both 90 years old,” the husband said. “We may not have 45 minutes.” They were seated immediately.
***
The reason congressmen try so hard to get re-elected is that they would hate to have to make a living under the laws they’ve passed.
***
All eyes were on the radiant bride as her father escorted her down the aisle. They reached the altar and the waiting groom; the bride kissed her father and placed something in his hand. The guests in the front pews responded with ripples of laughter. Even the priest smiled broadly. As her father gave her away in marriage, the bride gave him back his credit card.
***
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
***
Three friends from the local congregation were asked, “When you’re in your casket, and friends and congregation members are mourning over you, what would you like them to say?”
The first young man said: “I would like them to say I was a wonderful husband, a fine, spiritual leader, and a great family man.”
The second commented: ” I would like them to say I was a wonderful teacher and servant of God who made a huge difference in people’s lives.”
The third man said: “I’d like them to say, ‘Look! He’s moving!'”
***
Smith climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God. Looking up, he asks the Lord, “God, what does a million years mean to you?” The Lord replies, “A minute.” Smith asks, “And what does a million dollars mean to you?” The Lord replies, “A penny.” Smith asks, “Can I have a penny?” The Lord replies, “In a minute.”
***
John was on his deathbed and gasped pitifully. “Give me one last request, dear,” he said. “Of course, John,” his wife said softly. “Six months after I die,” he said, “I want you to marry Bob.” “But I thought you hated Bob,” she said. With his last breath John said, “I do!”
***
A man goes to see the Rabbi. “Rabbi, something terrible is happening and I have to talk to you about it.” The Rabbi asked “What’s wrong?” The man replied, “My wife is poisoning me.” The Rabbi, very surprised by this, asks “How can that be?”
The man then pleads, “I’m telling you, I’m certain she is poisoning me, what should I do?” The Rabbi then offers, “Tell you what. Let me talk to her, I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll let you know.”
A week later the Rabbi calls the man and says, “Well, I spoke to your wife. I spoke to her on the phone for three hours. You want my advice?” The man said “Yes.” and the Rabbi! replied, “Take the poison.”
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