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Archive for the Writing Category

A Decade Of Fun (January 5, 2015)

Posted in Blue States / Red States, Writing on January 5, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

S “Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. Guidance from the handbook for ham operators.”

J “Abstruse, Bloviated and Cryptic. . . . On occasion?”

S “Hamming it up. On more than one occasion.”

. . .

S “One week a law review, the next an economic journal, followed by a foreign policy tract and then a social discourse. And every week, ‘e-commentary’ aspired to be a weekly literary adventure.”

. . .

S “Tom Clancy observed that most military and defense secrets are publicly available in ‘Aviation Week & Space Technology’ magazine and other sources. He stirred plot and characterization into the mix to cook a potboiler with insight.”

J “An international thriller every few weeks this year? That should be thrilling.”

S “Every week is a thriller. First understand the ‘Box.’ Assemble all the available and inscrutable and obscure and arcane information in a pile. Connect two dots cautiously and carefully pencil in to craft the first line. Proceed with caution and care to connect a third dot and proffer a plane. Pen the right lines, erase connections between the wrong dots, and then distill, titrate and edit to craft a convincing and compelling production.”

. . .

S “If I could see the bar, I raised it. And then raised it again for good measure until it was out of sight. And measured twelve times, wrote once. The final product may be . . . measured and out of sight?”

. . .

S “After ten years of careful observation, ‘blue’ and ‘red’ not only cannot see eye-to-eye, they cannot see each other and cannot stand each other and cannot sit down together.”

J “They just do not play well with others.”

. . .

J “Forget it. ‘Conservatism-cum-a-four-digit-I-Q’ as a political, economic and social movement will never catch on. You only get one word.”

S “That gets one back to the fundamental challenge. Why even try? They say there is nothing that one can do. They are right. Yet I write. Is that absurd or insane?”

. . .

S “And a lot of fun.”

. . .

[See the discussion at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/arts/writers-say-they-feel-censored-by-surveillance.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news.%5D

[See the e-commentary at Writin’ (February 17, 2014) and So Many Words, So Few Ideas (Sept. 21, 2009).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

investigate, interpolate, extrapolate; titrate, distill, edit

Measure twelve times, write once

Peg it, and peg the fun meter.

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“Peak Advertising” (November 3, 2014)

Posted in Consumerism, Economics, Elections, Facebook, Football, Google, Minimum Wage, Occupy Movement, Peak Advertising, Politics, Press/Media, Social Media, Sports, Television, Voting, Wages, Writing on November 3, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1 “‘Mt. / Everest / Sherpas / Prefer / Burma / Shave.’”

2 “Turns out that some of the first ‘six-word memoirs’ were crafted by English majors laboring for BBDO.”

. . .

1 “‘Peak Advertising’ occurs when all of a person’s senses are assaulted all of the time with non-stop commercial advertising.”

2 “That is the collective business plan of all the social media platforms. They are premised on their presumed ability to bombard the right demographic with saturation advertising all the time.”

1 “At some time, the marginal utility of each additional fusillade will not provide any return because the consumer has nothing to spend and no source of additional debt. What if they don’t have any more money?”

2 “They have huge advertising budgets.”

. . .

2 “Well, right, those people may be out of money.”

. . .

1 “If the television is viewed as a mirror rather than a monitor, what should one make of a string of ads for fortified barley soda interspersed with those huckstering elixirs for erectile dysfunction.”

2 “Potents for potency. The medium is also a microscope into the ‘Land of Skinny People’ where the people have BMIs below 22 and definitely do not reflect their viewers. They hawk products that make a person fat ninety percent of the time and concoctions that purport to make a person skinny ten percent of the time.”

1 “When others talk about ‘thinking inside the box’ are they referring to the big flashing box in the home and the little flashing box in hand?”

2 “A wide body watches a wide out on a wide screen doing battle for his team and town. The viewer should go out and do.”

. . .

1 “Seventy percent of the economy is attributed to consumer spending. The total amount and the percentage of consumer spending in the next few years will be revealing.”

2 “Hard to spend if you have no money and no one will provide any more credit.”

. . .

1 “One thought might be to have parents lease a newborn’s forehead to tattoo an advertisement. You can’t let an unbleached beachhead canvas go untrammeled.”

2 “Start young. The kid surely would develop an affinity for the product or service.”

. . .

1 “Anyone in a political battleground state has been subject to ceaseless fusillades of hate and fear from all quarters for months. In interviews, voters criticize the negative campaigning and yet in the voting booth vote in favor of those behind the vicious attacks. The candidates provide what the public really wants. Each political battle is part of the ceaseless war in American politics to own the government with its ability to plunder from the populace.”

2 “I vote to be a non-combatant.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Mt. / Everest / Sherpas / Prefer / Living / Wage

Occupy Namche Bazaar

Namaste

Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Land, Peak Advertising, Peak Peaks

“Don’t mind your make-up, you’d better make your mind up.” Frank Zappa

“If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” Mark Twain

A ‘tax and spend’ Democrat versus a ‘no tax and spend’ Republican.

Vote

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Writin’ (February 17, 2014)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Book Reference, Plastic, Slavery, Writing on February 17, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

W1 “Read and write and read and write and read and write and read and write and rinse and repeat.”

W2 “Learn to juggle all the words in the English language and a few other languages behind your back in the dark with ease.”

W1 “And recognize the nuances of education, location, geography, employment, religion, politics, race and class.”

W2 “Develop an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue.”

W1 “Subtly appreciate and acknowledge the true nature and flow of actual daily discourse and conversation.”

W2 “And understand and capture the smell and feel and taste of a person, place and thing.”

W1 “Write what you know. And know much.”

W2 “Go beyond knowing and write what you understand.”

W1 “And understand much.”

W2 “Go beyond understanding and write about and with wisdom.”

W1 “Then write what terrifies you and satisfies you and mystifies you and pacifies you.”

W2 “Show. Do not tell.”

W1 “Tell a great story by showing a great story.”

W2 “Show and tell may be the most revealing show and tell.”

W1 “It is often easier done than said.”

W2 “It is only said if it is done.”

W1 “It is only done if it is done.”

. . .

W2 “Celebrating one’s love for language is another way to celebrate the day.”

. . .

W1 “Are ‘Doonesbury’ and ‘Prairie Home Companion’ the Great American Novels?”

W2 “A novel notion. The Great American Novel is not a novel after all but rather a visual depiction in “Doonesbury” and an oral transmission in “Prairie Home Companion” depicted and transmitted in dollops over the decades. They reward those with an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue.”

W1 “Devoid of all the insecure male posturing that seems to be deemed the sine qua non of the GAN.”

. . .

[See the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/nyregion/ban-sought-on-microbeads-in-beauty-items.html?hp&_r=0 seeking to address microscopic beads that get into the water supply. See the “e-ssays” under https://e-commentary.org/category/plastic/ that are part of “Project Plastic.”]

[From the New Confederacy in Utah and Oklahoma to the Old South in Virginia, hate is on the run, on the retreat, and on the retrograde. See the e-ssay” titled The Sea Change Is Now A Tsunami (March 11, 2013). For those who are troubled by slavery in all its forms and permutations, the vote in Tennessee, a charter member of the Old South, on unionization at the Volkswagen plant is disappointing.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Observe, Listen, (smell, feel, taste), Question, Comment

Art for art’s sake is somewhat uninspired and uninspiring. Exquisitely superb art that promotes positive political, economic and social purposes is the most inspired art.

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Commenting On Legal Commentators (November 4, 2013)

Posted in Book Reference, Courts, Education, Law, Law School, Schooling, Writing on November 4, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L1 “Did Ronald Dworkin ever practice law?”

L2 “Doesn’t seem so.”

L1 “Did H.L.A. Hart ever practice law?”

L2 “Seems that he may have handled a few traffic violations. Some of them moving.”

L1 “Now I admit that they spouted some pretty city talk and a few inspiring aspirations, but do they have a clue.”

L2 “Does having a clue matter? Two branches of the ‘Quaint Theory’ of the practice of law. The say what others want to hear.”

. . .

L1 “Now Benjamin Cordoza did play the game, but he missed the boat.”

L2 “Accord. The Nature of the Judicial Process should be filed under ‘F’ for ‘Fiction’ or for ‘Fairy Tale.’”

L1 “And given an ‘F’ for failing candidly to explicate the American legal game.”

L2 “He failed in describing how the legal game works, but he succeeded in trying to make the legal system work.”

. . .

L1 “Academic law is more closed and cloistered than any other area of academic pursuit in America.”

L2 “Except a few other areas of academic pursuit in America.”

L1 “Many of the failures of the legal system find their genesis in America’s legal schooling industrial complex.”

. . .

L1 “Did Fred Rodell ever practice law?”

L2 “He did not need to play the game. He got it. And got out of the game before ever entering the game. That takes finesse.”

L1 “Lucky guy. But he is an anomaly. The legal schooling complex today would not allow a young Fred Rodell even to labor as an adjunct professor at a night law school.”

L2 “If they would even admit him as a law student.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssay” titled Playin’ The Legal Game (March 28, 2011).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content. That, I think, about covers the ground.” Fred Rodell

I entered law school already knowing how ‘to think like a lawyer’ and exited law school still knowing how to think like a human being.

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Artistes And Integrity (July 29, 2013)

Posted in On [Traits/Characteristics], Perjury/Dishonesty, Writing on July 29, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A “At first, I assumed and hoped that he had been misquoted. But if the quotation is correct, he is admitting that he devised his writing to satiate his audience and make a buck. Leaves you wondering if everything he wrote is a sham or just a by-product of a focus group.”

. . .

B “Written interviews are sketchy at best. The interviewer is too much of a gatekeeper. A filmed interview of a person reveals tone, pacing, inflection, visual cues, and other information and insight.”

. . .

A “I saw it too and wondered if he dismissed the earlier song as too maudlin or unhip, yet he discounted it as pandering at the time. Perhaps he was candid. He could have said that he has grown.”

B “More cynical? Leaves you wondering if he even really knows what he really thinks.”

. . .

A “He was not misquoted and does not seem to care.”

B “I doubt that he will give refunds to those who feel deceived.”

. . .

A “Every aspiring author seeks to secure that elusive book contract, yet a book contract is essentially a contract for indentured servitude. The book company owns the author.”

. . .

A “An enchanting song is a poem that has taken flight. I am somewhat indifferent to his songs but impressed that everyone who commented about the concert last month was delighted that he gave everything to his audience. That is commendable and worth commendation.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

Ars longa, vita brevis

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All Gave Some ; Some Gave All (April 1, 2013)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Bernanke, Gay Politics, Iraq, Society, Vietnam, Writing on April 1, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1 “It expresses a universal and timeless truth. It is a precisely balanced six-word memoir. It is a pleasant and pleasing palindrome. It is the perfect poem. It is It.”

. . .

1 “No joke.”

2 “No, joke.”

1 “No joke.”

. . .

[See the article at http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html dated today. No joke. See also http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-treason-of-the-intellectuals/.]

April – National Poetry Month

Bumper stickers of the week:

There are no unwounded soldiers.

Show or tell? Show, don’t tell.

Get it right, Write it right.

Cure writer’s block – Exercise, listen, think; Exercise, listen, think – Writer’s block cured.

Character is fate; Fates shape character.

Republicans like GLBA; Democrats like LGBT.

Addiction is too consuming; Destitution is too constricting; Dissolution is too confining; Might as well live. (With a nod to Dorothy Parker).

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Excellence In Journalism? Time For A True Trophy (September 24, 2012)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, English Language, Facebook, Google, Journalism, Language, Newspapers, Press/Media, Writing on September 27, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J1 “Awards shape behavior.”

J2 “The palette of Pulitzers runs the spectrum from purple prose to yellow journalism.”

J1 “And the Pulitzers for black and white journalism run the route from The New York Times group of writers to The Washington Post Writers Group, with a few side shows. The trophy could be transported on the Eastern Airlines shuttle between the New York and Washington airports named for political types, with a few side trips.”

J2 “I concede that the Pulitzers generally reward solid work, yet they only consider conventional and narrowly defined writing drawn from an exclusive clique of writers.”

J1 “They are an exclusive group because they exclude not because of excellence. Then the Online News Association Awards emerged to emphasize ‘high-tech bells and whistles’ rather than quality and integrity. The corporate sponsors call the shots. The Googles and the Facebooks buy the beer and balloons and make the party possible. Gobs of gaudy high-tech gadgets on a screen define journalism.”

J2 “But in the end that is what the readership wants. Journalists cannot lose sight of the legitimate needs and concerns of the reader. We need to sell the product without selling out.”

J1 “Journalism needs a new way of thinking and a new award. Awards shape behavior.”

. . .

[J1 = Journalist 1; J2 = . . . ]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Here today, gone today

Where’s the tofu?

Too much sizzle, not enough tofu

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Le Poem (April 2, 2012)

Posted in Writing on April 2, 2012 by e-commentary.org

Each vowel grips the laboring oar with two hands; Each consonant shoulders two buckets of water.

No word can be added; No word can be subtracted; No word can be changed.

No word to add; “ “ “ subtract; “ “ “ change.

Add no word; Subtract “ “ ; Change “ “ .

[See the “e-ssay” titled ”Peak Land”: The Exodus Toward The Equator . . . or the North Pole? (April 4, 2011)” that includes among the “Bumper stickers of the week”:

A half dozen six-word memoirs in an “e-poem” titled “Take only pictures; Leave only footprints.”

Many live humans; Few dead dinosaurs.

Disregard the e-con-omists; Regard the physicists.

Change your attitude; Range the latitudes.

Pay old bills*; Develop new skills.

Consume less junk; Savor more beauty.

So many challenges; So little time.

* Craft your own financial game plan. With hyperinflation on the way, purposefully delaying the payment of bills allows one to pay obligations with significantly devalued dollars. That is the strategy being pursued by the governments.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

April – National Poetry Month

Be curious; Ask questions; Stay young.

Isabella Rossellini – a two word poem (in Italian)

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Writing The Long Song (September 26, 2011)

Posted in Journalism, Language, Society, Writing on September 26, 2011 by e-commentary.org

. . .

2 “So you’re suggesting that Bill Shakespeare is sleeping off a bender on someone’s davenport. We just need to give him a few more hours to resurface.”

1 “Bill is dead. And alive. In a way. Mortal and immortal. Not breathing but still singing.”

. . .

2 “So you say that a jour-nalist doesn’t quite achieve immortality, yet a jour-nalist adds, like, seven years to the actuarials.”

1 “As long as they don’t drink and smoke. Jour-nalists contribute too.”

2 “Could they just drink or just smoke? They are jour-nalists, they do need a smoke or an adult beverage or two. Or at least a bad habit or two.”

. . .

2 “What if you write for a weekly or a monthly? What if you are more than a jour-nalist yet less that a novelist?”

. . .

1 “The grim reaper has been on the back swing since we skidded across the maternity room floor. Yet, the good song can reverberate long after we sign off and move on.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

“After publication of [Magnum Opus], [Celebrated Writer] achieved immortality for all time and died seventeen years later.”

“Unknown during his life, [Writer’s] three unpublished manuscripts found among his papers three years after his death establish his immortality among his peers.”

Mortality does stink; immortality would stink.

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