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"Instead of adjectives, great writers often use verbs. Their characters do, and they are always doing."
[…]
"Frank McCourt spends little time worrying about it. He trusts the readers mind to imagine details. Instead, he captivates his audience with action. If people are moving and doing, it’s hard to look away."
[…]
"So, if you’re working on a writing project, do readers a favor and cut out the “white as snow” and “cold as a meat locker” and tell us what your characters are doing."
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"There are many Made in the USA lists throughout the internet, nearly all of them tacky and in poor taste. These awful websites have led me to compile a list of stylish and cool brands that make their goods in America. One of my goals with this is to make it easier to locate and buy domestically produced apparel products. Another motivating factor is my desire for things Made in the USA to be embraced by a younger, more stylish consumer."
Personally, I own several t-shirts printed on American Apparel shirts, New Balance sneakers, a Buck knife, a Fisher Space Pen, Field Notes notebooks, a Leatherman multi-tool, a Mag Lite flashlight, and a Vornado fan. I would recommend any one of these items.
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"Family safe YouTube". A simple web browser player of YouTube content aimed at kids. Hit the space bar to go to the next clip. There is no search function.
Month: March 2009
Tony Woodlief (yes, again):
Isaiah loves books. He loves to read them, loves it when people read them to him, loves to hit his brother Isaac upside the head with them. The boy hearts books. I hope he never stops loving them, even as the world around him transitions into a post-modern funk of hyper-links and text messages and overstimulating audio-visual mind sludge. Then one day he can visit me wherever he and his brothers have finally put me out to pasture, and maybe read to me there.
Davis is getting to this point, too. At times he will decide that he’s had enough playing with his Star Wars Galactic Heroes™ figures, or pretending to duel a dragon, or building with Lincoln Logs™ or LEGO™ pieces, and he’ll plop down in the play room and “read”.
My parents instilled a deep love of reading in my sister and I when we were growing up. Weekly visits to the local library (which was about as big as the downstairs area of our current home, minus the garage) were the norm. While we’re not going weekly, Kelly and I have both taken Davis to our local library (which is larger than the downstairs area of our house, including the garage), and he loves it.
Davis will often ask for a second or even third book to be read before going to bed, although I suspect this is as much about staying up as late as possible as it is about loving books.
I’d hoped to pass on this love of reading to both our boys, and so far, it’s looking pretty good.
I spent a good portion of my time in a small chapel, learning prayers that preceded the Roman Catholic Church. I came with a great weight on my bones, a weight that overwhelmed me in that tiny chapel. I fell to my knees there, and prayed with quivering shoulders and trembling hands, done in by grief over the past, fear of the future, the knowing that this present ground is sand, that my feet must soon move forward or backward. Each way bears a cost; one of the great lies of men is that the path can be traveled without suffering. Another great lie is that we can stand still and read books and let our paltry knowledge carry us into the arms of God. We have to walk, with heavy, stumbling feet.
[…]
It’s easy to see why so many of us — Christians and pagans alike — spend lifetimes running from the living God, our hands stopping our ears, our mouths babbling prayers or blasphemies, all in an effort to avoid the great silence where God speaks to man. That silence is a fearful place, but there is love there, the great love of a parent. There is mercy too, and strength for the uncompleted race.
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If the world wasn't insane enough already, surely now we've gone stark raving mad.
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If nothing else, this gets you thinking.
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Just a word of warning that you might feel a little ill after seeing this nice visualization of what our government is flushing down the toilet.
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I'm guilty of six of the ten. (Maybe seven if you count the pun one, but I'm not that punny that often. I do enjoy puns, though.) Those who know me can probably figure out which six they are.
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"Designed and run by vets, Vet Help Direct's interactive questions direct you to personalised first aid advice and clear guidelines about when to contact the vet. Easy and fun to use, Vet Help Direct is the online source of reliable advice for concerned pet-owners."
Think of it as something like WebMD for your dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, reptiles, and birds.
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"Wooden Laptop Case with leather lining and magnetic closing device for Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro 15inch."
Beautiful work, but not something I would personally use/carry.
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"The Founding Fathers, guarding against sectionalism and factions, among other things, sought to combine both direct representation of the people and representation of the states. The House of Representatives reflected the will of the People, while the Senate reflected the will of the states. This concept sprang out of the Great Compromise, which established the groundwork for a bicameral legislature."
[…]
"The Constitution establishes these United States as a republican form of government. No matter how many times people toss around the word 'democracy,' this form of government will never be 'democratic' in its truest sense.
"Bearing that in mind, the same Founding Fathers who outlined this form of government in the Constitution expressed reservations about allowing the uneducated masses the privilege of directly electing their Chief Executive."
“[C]ommercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic. …[I]f industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out.”
–James Madison, speech to Congress, 9 April 1789
It never fails to amaze me how prescient the Founders were.
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Brother Maynard shares a story of St. Ben's use of nothing but Bob Dylan songs for the liturgy at one of its services.
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It's a rather sad state of affairs that a list like this has to even exist.
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“Can you imagine the disparaging comments that would be made against George Bush’s intellect if he couldn’t make a simple six minute announcement without a TelePrompter….”
Quite.
“The economic ills we suffer … will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
[…]
“Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”
–Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, 1981
[Emphasis in second paragraph added. –R]