Sometimes it takes more spark than you think to make it all work.
cARtOONSDAY: “lIGHT uP”
Sometimes it takes more spark than you think to make it all work.
Filed under cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Monday morning writing joke: “second opinion”
Sometimes, it’s harder to catch a break form a doctor than to catch a cold.
I went to see my doctor the other day and he said he had bad news.
I said, “What, doctor? Are you moving away?”
He said, “No. But you only have six months to live.”
I said, “Doctor, I want a second opinion.”
He said, “Okay. Your writing won’t outlive you.”
Filed under Monday morning writing joke, no respect
Ten Examples of Welfare for Corporations and the Ultra-Rich | News & Notes, We’re Not Making This Up!, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com
No wonder the rich get richer. They get government handouts.
Sample of the text:
There are thousands of tax breaks and subsidies for the rich and corporations provided by federal, state and local governments, but these 10 will give a taste.
1. State and local subsidies to corporations: An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest, at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states, but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over $1 billion each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.
2. Direct federal subsidies to corporations: The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations cost taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.
3. Federal tax breaks for corporations: The tax code gives corporations special tax breaks that have reduced what is supposed to be a 35-percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually, according to the US Government Accountability Office.
4. Federal tax breaks for wealthy hedge fund managers: Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only a 15-percent rate while the people they earned the money for usually pay a 35-percent rate. This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary. The National Priorities Project estimates this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually, and 68 percent of those who receive this special tax break earn more than $462,500 per year (the top 1 percent of earners).
Filed under Uncategorized
Photo finish Friday: “Yo, yo”
Yo, dig my shades?
Yo, yo, I don’t know
but I’ve been told
mean ol’ homework
will rot my soul.
Yo, yo, I don’t know
but I’ve been told
mean ol’ chores
are an empty bowl.
Yo, yo, I don’t know
but I’ve been told
walkin’ to school
is hard on the sole.
Yo, yo, I don’t know
but so it goes
I done counted
and I have ten toes.
Yo, yo, I don’t know
and may never be told
when this silly rhyme
starts to get old.
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday, poetry by author
Haiku to you Thursday: “Rack”
Young woman’s torn face /
droops from the magazine /
model off the rack.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Monday (morning) writing joke: “Period piece”
First author looking at a novel by a third author, turns to the second author and asks: “Did you read this latest novel? She says it’s a period piece.”
Second author grimaces. “Yes. It. Is. And. I. Read. Every. Period. In. The. Piece.”
Filed under Monday morning writing joke
Writer makes it big … elsewhere
BIG IN JAPAN
by David Gordon
You might not know me, but I’m famous. Don’t feel bad. Until recently, I didn’t know I was famous either, and most days, even now, it’s hard to tell.
In 2010 I published a novel, “The Serialist.” It did fine for a debut, which is to say well enough to warrant a second, but my daily life didn’t change much: I wrote, I ran, I hung out with my friends. Then a Japanese translation came out, and things got strange. My book won a major Japanese literary contest, which was nice. Then it won another. Then another. Apparently this was extraordinary: No one had ever won all three before. I received copies of articles, which were totally incomprehensible to me except for the picture of my face and a big No. 1. I tried Google Translate, which rendered it all into tantalizing gibberish. My book was not even called “The Serialist” in Japan: The character is a pulp writer, so they used the title “Niryuu Shousetsuka,” which translates back into English as “Second-Rate Novelist.” That was me!
The odd, or oddest, part, was that I had always been a fan of Japanese culture, its films, books and art, though I had never studied it, and it played no role in my books. It was like having a distant teenage crush on someone who suddenly wrote and said, “I like you, too.”
The culmination of this peculiar adventure, which I had observed only from afar, occurred when Toei Studio made “Niryuu Shousetsuka: Serialist,” a film based on my book. That is to say, a Japanese movie set in Tokyo, with Japanese actors speaking Japanese, rather than my version, which features non-Japanese people and takes place mostly in Queens.
They made the movie very fast, in about six months, and invited me to the premiere in June 2013. My Japanese publishers had contrived to release my new book, “Mystery Girl,” at the same time. The novel wouldn’t even be published in English until July. Maybe it had something to do with the international date line, the way emails from East Asia seem to come from tomorrow, but my Japanese life was clearly way ahead of my American life. So I went.
Rest of the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/magazine/big-in-japan.html?ref=lives&_r=1
[Editor’s note: thanks to Ashlie for sending this my way.]
The Devil’s Dictionary: “Academe, Academy, University”
A young Ambrose Bierce
For example, here are definitions for Academe and Academy. The Old definitions are Bierce’s. The New definitions are mine or somebody else contemporary. The new definitions can also be simply examples of The Devil’s Dictionary definitions. From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today. Click on Devil’s Dictionary in the tags below to bring up the other entries.
OLD DEFINITIONS:
ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
ACADEMY, n. (from academe). A modern school where football is taught.
NEW DEFINITIONS:
ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. (No such place exists in America today.)
ACADEMY, n. (from academe). A modern school where football is taught.
UNIVERSITY, n. A very modern school where only football is taught. It is also often the moral and philosophical code of many of the students, alumni, and politicians of such institutions. Such universities belong to aggregations that go by acronyms such as SEC, Big Ten, ACC, etc. Such Universities also serve the One True Higher Authority: the ABS — the Almighty Buck Speaks. Like any true higher authority, often times what is enunciated by the ABS and what is heard by the Students, Alumni, and Politicians (SAPs) are a Babel of pontifications.
[Editor’s note: Bierce did not have a definition for University, such has football grown since his time. Also note, there are some Universities where basketball is substituted for football. ]
Filed under Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary
Haiku to you Thursday: “Water snake”
Water snakes through grass /
seeps in messages of green /
tempts Winter’s long kiss.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
The 16 Habits of Exuberant Human Beings, by Kate Bratskeir
The 16 Habits of Exuberant Human Beings, by Kate Bratskeir.
Sample of article:
Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, theorizes that while 60 percent of happiness is determined by our genetics and environment, the remaining 40 percent is up to us.
In his 2004 Ted Talk, Seligman describes three different kinds of happy lives: The pleasant life, in which you fill your life with as many pleasures as you can, the life of engagement, where you find a life in your work, parenting, love and leisure and the meaningful life, which “consists of knowing what your highest strengths are, and using them to belong to and in the service of something larger than you are.”
After exploring what accounts for ultimate satisfaction, Seligman says he was surprised. The pursuit of pleasure, research determined, has hardly any contribution to a lasting fulfillment. Instead, pleasure is “the whipped cream and the cherry” that adds a certain sweetness to satisfactory lives founded by the simultaneous pursuit of meaning and engagement.
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While not directly a writing tip, a more positive frame of mind might just help with writing, especially when few others seem interested in what you are doing.
Filed under Writing Tip Wednesday
