How much longer will it be before the Republican leadership in Congress draws straws and picks the messenger to trudge to the White House and tell President George Bush that it’s over, he’s done; it’s time to start your memoirs? Robert Novak, in his Washington Post column this morning says of the entrenched president:

In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress — not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.

Nixon had his John Mitchell and Spiro Agnew; both had to exit before Republicans handed the president walking papers. I wonder on whose desk the bundle of straws is resting on.

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 The Story of O by Dominique Aury writing as Pauline Réage.

I seem to be saying fearful things. Perhaps I am, but in that case terror is our daily bread – and perhaps dangerous books are those which restore us to our natural state of danger. p. xxviii

Today, between students, I’ve been working on identifying what Writer’s Market tags as top markets for consumer (newsstand) magazines. There are quite a few magazines on the list that I’m not familiar with and I was surprised to see both Northern Ohio Live and Cleveland Magazine listed in the moderate-and-up pay category.

Since I know what they pay, their presence on the list does not bode well.

I’ve created a page of the listings so that anyone who is interested can take a peek. The magazines that are flush left are the top markets. Those indented by ellipses are in the moderate category.

As this project moves forward, I expect that I’ll be adding more pages to the section.

In the end I expect selling Writing A Car to the likes of Writer, Writer’s Digest or one of the other writing magazines may very well be the cherry on the top.

Butt… Chair… Write…

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.

1724 Books That May Warrant Some Further Scrutiny

2056 “Another trip to Home Deephole

1658 Son of Schlafly launches conservapedia…

and every now and then it’s really
lovely, one of those kindnesses
nobody understands.

From Blue by Ron Koertge.

On this day two hundred years ago Great Britain abolished slavery. Not only did it end the vile practice on its own lands, but it took the then extraordinary step of devoting its greatest asset, the Royal Navy, to interdicting the slave trade. British men-of-war patrolled the coasts of Africa, blockading, boarding and seizing slave ships.

As I’ve read and watched the spread of conflict around the World in the last quarter century I’ve often pondered to what extent modern military technology is culpable in the current level of violence.

Yes, I know that people will use sticks to kill each other if that is all they have available, but there is a tipping point that occurs when you can use assault rifles, landmines and attack helicopters to slaughter your enemy.

Take the case of Ishmael Beah, author of Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.. Conscripted at 12 to fight for the army of his native Sierra Leone, Beah would not have been nearly as imposing waving a stick as he was wielding an AK-47.

Imagine the world in even five years if the United States not only stopped all of it’s new arms sales (existing contracts would be honored and repair parts supplied but no new contracts signed) to the rest of the world and then took the extraordinary step to forge agreements with the rest of the Industrialized nations that no one would export arms or military supplies of any type.

Countries would be free to develop technology for their own use, but nothing would cross any borders.

What would happen when the bullets ran out? How many would live when the helicopter gunships were grounded?

Are the holes in the proposal? Of course; some of them big enough to drive an M1A2 Abrams through.

Arms merchants would scream bloody murder. Freedom fighters and terrorists alike would suffer. Smugglers and crime syndicates would leap into the breach to serve a vastly expanded black market.

But 200 years ago I’m sure that there were those who presented similar arguments concerning the futility of abolishing slavery.

But it was the right idea then.

This is a right idea now.

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 Icebreakers To Use The First Day Of Class.

1SG Troy Steward: This is a time of reflection. Four years ago the war in Iraq began, and it has had a profound impact on many of us. I had just flown back from Hawaii, spent six hours packing my stuff at home and flew to NYC. We settled in at LaGuardia airport and worked out of there for the next 30 days supplementing security there, at JFK and on the…

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.

When he came
home he poured
salted peanuts
into a Co-Cola
and prepared
for life
with folks
who could
never know
some things
as long
as they lived.

From Some in Pieces by Darnell Arnoult.

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 The Story of O by Dominique Aury writing as Pauline Réage.

…what if the role of the erotic (or of dangerous books, if you prefer) is to inform and instruct us? To reassure us on the subject, the way the father confessor does? p. xxvii

I made a start today. It’s been a very long time (more than 10 years) since I’ve seriously looked at freelance magazine markets. I remember thinking in the early ’90s that Writer’s Market needed to trash the printed edition and just get online. Now it is and I’ve downloaded the 366 highest paying consumer and trade magazine listings.

Of those, 139 of the consumer and 23 of the trade magazines rank as Top markets.

Those will be where I focus my immediate attention. While I’d love to crack Esquire, Playboy or The New York Times Magazine, I’m practical enough to know that I have to broaden my target beyond those stratospheric publications.

The goal for tomorrow is to identify 20 magazines for which I think I can craft compelling story ideas.

Butt… Chair… Write…

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 Goal Setting Toolkit.

Paul McCartney once said of his days of writing songs with John Lennon that they were blatantly materialistic about what they were doing. In 1984, in a Playboy interview, this exchange occurred. PLAYBOY: Paul, when you and John were still hungry, you’d say to yourselves before composing a song, “Let’s write a car. Let’s write a house.”

PAUL: Yeah. “Let’s write a swimming pool.”

Well, I find myself in much the same place. My tutoring does a fine job of paying the month-to-month bills, but my 1990 Toyota Camry will roll over 200,000 miles in about a month and it’s reached the point that very soon the Northeastern Ohio rust will make it no longer economical to repair.

I need to write myself a car.

Nothing fancy. A used Corolla or similar car with about one-fourth the mileage and years on it would do very nicely, thank you very much, but I figure I need to increase my before-tax income for 2007 by about $10,000.

I have a very good friend who constantly tells me that you have to ask the Universe for what you want, so I’m tossing my bottled message out onto the Internet ocean.

What I’m looking for are non-fiction writing jobs — the kind of assignments I trained for and produced for more than 10 years — that I can do without disrupting my students. I’ll have much more free time in June, July and August to work on them, but I need to get things rolling now.

My intent is two-fold. First, I’m spending most of the rest of the day laying out my battle plan. Second, I’m going to start a daily blog post just to keep myself honest and to let readers know what’s happening.

The down-side of this, for some, will be that my blogging, and blog reading, is going to be greatly reduced. What I’m thinking right now is that I’ll continue my regular posts — From My Chapbook; From My Dad; From The Sandbox; Mucking Out The Blogpile; and Wal-Mart Wednesday, since I can essentially write and post those once a week — and then write no more than three original posts every day: Writing A Car, a post for The Writing On The Wal and one item for Have Coffee Will Write about something that has struck my fancy.

There it is. Now…

Butt… Chair… Write…

CAPT Doug Traversa: In ongoing conversations with my translator Hamid I continue to learn more and more, not all of it good. Despite this, Hamid is my friend. His world is stunningly different from mine, and sometimes the realization is jarring. If you”ve read the comments on my previous post, “Children”, you”ll see that some people are wondering why…

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 The Story of O by Dominique Aury writing as Pauline Réage.

…to surrender oneself to the will of others (as often happens with lovers and mystics) and so find oneself at last rid of selfish pleasures, interests and personal complexes, is in no wise a joyless act, nor one lacking in grandeur. p. xxiii

I understand how the National Security Letters work. I even understand the rationale behind preventing the recipient from telling the target of the investigation that they’re being investigated. But how in the world have we allowed a law- abiding citizen to be placed under a gag order to stop them from speaking out against abusive police powers?

Any JD’s out there want to explain this to me?

Three years ago, I received a national security letter in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case — including the mere fact that I received an NSL — from my colleagues, my family and my friends.

Is this what Republicans mean by less government?

(Hat tip to she who Sees Invisible People.

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 Goal Setting Toolkit.