This and That

The U.S. has a history of supporting dictators and unpopular leaders, who always fall. Why the heck don't we support the leaders who are popular with their own people for a change?

Some have said that Islam shouldn't be afforded the same freedom as other religions. Their reasoning is that Islam is a political movement disguised as a religion. Others don't buy that. I don't know. Maybe it's food for thought.

Why hasn't Obama exploited the most glaring weakness of McCain? It's on record that as a POW McCain readily gave the enemy military classified information and made propaganda broadcasts for them. He did this to make a deal to get medical treatment from the enemy. This was in violation of the Military Code of Conduct.

Russia, or any other country for that matter, can thumb their nose at us and invade who they please. We can't do a damn thing about it because George W Bush has weakened our military in Iraq to the point that we couldn't defend ourselves against the likes of Russia or China. And they know it.

We need a great president to get us out of the mess we're in. Does either Obama or McCain strike you as great?

Let's hope that the next president immediately rebuilds our military and focuses on getting our real enemy--Osama Bin Ladin, perpetrator of 9-11.

Book Release

I've been getting lots of questions about my new book (first book, actually). Well, I've finally finished it and it's published. (That's why I've been scarce lately.) It's a science fiction novella called THE PSIONIC MAN. Here's a very brief synopsis:

Al Rice, an HIV positive hemophiliac, awakens one morning completely healed of all afflictions--plus he has psychic powers. He later learns from a mysterious caller that all this was brought about by beings in a UFO. He also learns that he is in grave danger because of his encounter with the alien beings. This leads Al into an entanglement with several different groups of aliens. All the groups except one are hostile to Al, and the friendly group is prevented by their own nonintervention laws from helping the Earth man.

At present, the book is available to order online only, at Lulu Publishing.

Lulu gave me a "storefront" on their site, as it does all its authors. For all who are interested, THE PSIONIC MAN is $8.39 plus shipping (depending on the type of shipping you choose.)

Passing Thoughts.

Florida's swamps and waterways have become overpopulated with gators. Maybe we should move some of them to the Rio Grande. Betcha that would make the Mexicans think twice about swimming across…

Am I the only one who remembers that we invaded Iraq for only one reason? We were supposed to find and destroy Saddam's WMD. That was all. No other reason.

The asinine things that George W Bush says are comical (just Google "Bushisms.") You want to laugh, until you realize that this is the man running our country.

We need a strong man in Iraq who is capable of terrorizing the terrorists and neutralizing Iran. Unfortunately, we hung that man…

Of all the candidates running for president, republican and democrat, I think that all are better than the guy in the White House. However, Mickey Mouse is better than the lot of them.

How many remember that most of the people of Muslim countries rejoiced and danced in the streets after 911, including our so-called allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan?

And how many remember that we invaded Afghanistan to wipe out the Taliban and eliminate a safe haven for Bin Laden? We were making huge successes there until we lost focus and started concentrating on Iraq and Saddam--who, as it's been proven, had nothing to do with 911.

Mark Twain's Rules For Writing

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.

8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

The author should:

Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

Use the right word, not its second cousin.

Eschew surplusage.

Not omit necessary details.

Avoid slovenliness of form.

Use good grammar.

Employ a simple, straightforward style।

Sullivan's Short Stories