Life Without Newspapers

  

Every morning of my life arrived with a newspaper. My grand parents read the paper, my parents read the paper, my husband and I always read the daily paper. Then I started to notice that every once in a while, a journalist who was supposed to be presenting objective information, oh so subtly, with a little word choice here and there, slipped in what appeared to be a biased point of view. I noticed it, because these little slips of viewpoint steadily increased and made a big pile that left me feeling manipulated.

Of course, print media has been doing that for years, going back to the 18^th century with “broadsides” and pamphlets. And, to be fair, I can find print media that leans equally to the right or left. So I took my paper with a large dose of salt.

Everything came to a head when I, and other newspaper reporters, covered the same press conference. Now this was the 3^rd such press conference I had attended for this one agency, and it was usually pretty pleasant but bland. Not this time. I didn’t expect someone to actually pose a question, for Pete’s sake! Soon the speakers were off into a rather pointed dialogue about a political hot potato issue. WOW! Here’s news, I thought as I scribbled notes for all I was worth.

The next day, I voraciously read the local newspaper reporter’s article on the press conference and there was – nothing, except that the topic “was discussed.” Really, she could have phoned the thing in – it was that blah.

I was furious. How dare “they” withhold information from their readers? Who is it who decides what I will and will not know about my community? I couldn’t wait to write my article. It would swim in facts, nothing but the facts, so help me Hannah! And it did.

When we got the bill for the following month’s paper subscription (with a $4 increase) you bet we cancelled the thing.

“Why?” asked the nice lady in the paper’s subscription office.

“You’re biased,” I said “and report only what suits your agenda.  You weren’t worth the money even before you raised your rate. Nothing but ads, anyway.”

My husband said I was too nice.

We stuck to our guns even when they offered 3 months for less than half the rate, and later when they offered the paper for one dollar a month for 3 months.

By now, we were discovering of joys of life without the morning paper. Such as: I have time to read my magazines; the recycle bin is light as a feather without a weeks worth of old papers that blow around the neighborhood; I’m saving $360 a year to get the same  (subjective) information I can get on line.

Saa..weet!

Home Sweet Home

Well,maybe not THIS bad

I’ve decided writers’ homes reflect how well their writing projects are going at any one time. Except for cleaning the house because company is coming, my every day Martha Stewart barometer is more related to deadlines and writers’ block than to a mythical cleaning standard.

Our first home was a tidy little ranch on a street with identical ranches and split levels. It seemed my neighbors’ homes were always spotless. The ladies cleaned constantly, I noticed, to prevent dirt. I mean, if you vacuum and dust every day, how can you experience the “before” and “after” joy of homemaking? Since I never ascribed to prophylactic cleaning, my home is always a surprise – spotless one day, a disaster another. (Why is it no one drops by unexpectedly when the house is clean?)

After staring at the blank page on my monitor for five minutes, I decide I really should clean the fridge instead. One clean fridge later, the thought of drafting that article makes me decide to dust and remove my dog’s nose art from the lower part of the patio door. Perhaps I’ll figure out how to write that scene in my novel while I do the laundry. Anything but write. Result: spotless house but nothing written.

However, when the Muse parks herself in my brain, the house could fall apart and I wouldn’t notice. I’m in the zone. Words are flying. My character is off and doing stuff I never thought of. I’m going to make that deadline for sure.  

So what if I can write my first chapter in the dust on my dresser?  Why vacuum today and pick up a few specks here and there when I can vacuum up so much more tomorrow – after I’ve edited my article.

My advice to anyone considering marrying a writer: learn to ignore your environment or DIY.

No One Ever Mentions...

            In the health care debate, no one ever mentions needlessly inflated prices. Yes, people talk about the high  “cost of health care,” usually in relation to expensive hospitalizations, specialized tests and procedures and the growing number of people now being covered by insurance. We do make mention of the need for tort reform so doctors aren’t sued for bad outcomes rather than poor practice. We acknowledge the cost of malpractice insurance and maintaining an office that requires staff for nursing, reception, record keeping and accounting. Truly, it’s a far cry from “Doc” in Mayberry, making house calls for ten dollars or a chicken.

            My pet peeve is the inflated price of simple objects that require no research and development, that are simple in purpose and construction. But because these objects are used in a “medical” setting, they suddenly cost a fortune.

            Years ago when I was working in a hospital unit, the nurse manager presented us with a medical supply catalog. She wanted us to select a sort of carry-all that would hold all we needed to start IVs at the patient’s bedside.  The prices were outrageous! Instead, we went to the local DYI store and purchased a tackle box for a song. It worked great.

            I was in a drug/medical supply store and noticed that the price of a disposable male urinal was almost $6. Good heavens! I checked the price on Amazon and found I could order a case of 48 for $19.98 plus shipping. A little math showed I would be purchasing each urinal for 58 cents each instead of almost $6.

            Make no mistake. These costs are passed along to the insurance companies, who should know better than to cover such outlandish expenses buried in hospital bills. We consumers should wise up when we must pay out of pocket for simple items that require no medical expertise. A minute of market research around those urinals would save a consumer $260. Caveat emptor.

Fragile Culture

             

            I once thought I’d like to become a musicologist. It’s a fascinating field that studies music, how music came to be, and how it interacts within culture over time. I think you have to be part musician, part historian and part anthropologist to be a good musicologist.

I remember reading an account of the adventures of a 20^th century musicologist that astounded me. Before World War I, this musicologist (I want to say his name was Green, but I’m really not sure) traveled to America’s Appalachian region to write down the songs that had been passed down among the Scotch Irish that had lived for  generations secluded in the region’s mountains and hollers. The music was not written down. People learned by listening and repeating - pretty much how freshmen learn their college songs and can still belt them out 50 years later at reunions.

Much of the music particular to Appalachia is based on the Dorian mode, an antique “scale” known to the early settlers hundreds of years ago. (Our major and minor scales are two of those antique modes.)  Because those tunes, sung for years in the Appalachian Mountains, have a sad or minor key sound, the Dorian mode is often called “mountain minor.”

            Enter the war and the young men of Appalachia exited their hills to become soldiers. When they returned home, they shared what they had seen, heard and experienced from the rest of America and the world.  After several years, “Mr. Green” returned and discovered people had forgotten those hand- me- down songs in that quaint mountain minor. He had to re-teach them their own songs.

            How fragile traditions are within a culture! Our Native American code talkers in World War II couldn’t have contributed as significantly as they did unless the generations preceding them had not valued and passed on their tribal languages. It’s a mistake to think that songs, dances, philosophies, customs, and language of the past are less valuable then what is currently popular in our melting pot American culture. I think it behooves all of us to value and pass on what went before us, even as we recreate culture for our own times.   

It's the Bees' Knees

            Bluebird Acres Farm in Friendship NY just acquired a bee hive. I guess my son and daughter in law decided their free range chickens needed company. “Biodiversity and pollination,” my son replied when his citified, garden-phobic mom asked him why they needed to expose themselves to multiple stingers. I was told they happily buzz around people in their search for nectar and really don’t pose a hazard. Deb said they were very polite as they kept her company when she harvested in one of their raised beds.

          Well, I’ll take their word for it since I really don’t need more to worry about.

But speaking of bees, I was reminded of the colony collapse disorder that’s been recently in the news, where bees are abandoning their hives in huge numbers. According to one resource, NRDC Natural Resources Defense Council, “nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the country have vanished.”  That means, without pollination compliments of bees, we can say good-bye to apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, carrots and more – about three fourths of our current vegetable diet. 

          One bee keeper quoted in our local newspaper said he would breathe easy when the dandelions come into bloom because then he knows the bees will have a good source of nectar.

          Last year I wrote about why I believed the lowly dandelion should acquire flower status. I pointed out they make a tasty salad as well as wine and the University of Rochester has claimed the dandelion as its own with such events as “Dandelion Days.” Now I have another reason to let my lawn run wild with that little yellow flower. I’m feeding bees which cross pollinate plants so we can enjoy a bountiful harvest of veggies. 

          Now Good Neighbor Dave has a fine garden and I’m sure he will appreciate  all that cross pollination compliments of bees dining on dandelions next door.

          I can’t wait to tell him the good news.

Birth of a Bookworm

            I admit it. I’m a bookworm. I like the feel of books, the way pages turn, even the smell of the paper and glue; and that’s not to mention the joy I get from reading anything – fiction or nonfiction.

            It must have been before I was three because we were living in the city at the time when the first library I entered was in an old, dark building with a side entrance.  Many of the books on the lower two shelves (that I could reach) had little gold stars stuck on their binders. I have no idea why those stars were there or why I decided to remove as many as I could while my mother browsed.  I recall we made a fast exit.

            Shortly after that we migrated with the other post war families to the ‘burbs and it soon became apparent a local library was needed.  As an interim measure, the town set up a “library” of sorts in the back room of a department store anchored in one of those new fangled shopping centers. B.Forman Company was an upscale store that specialized in more fashionable clothing lines and right past the shoe department was that magical room.

            It was large enough to house only 5 rows of books, one small table with chairs and one checkout desk. But to me, it was a room full of reading adventures. It was small, cozy and the library lady was very nice as she used a pencil to check out my books. I could stop in any time because it was on the route I walked daily to my school. (Which may I point out, was about a mile away from my home and we were NOT bussed – not even when I was in kindergarten. We walked in bunches and there was one crossing lady. Period.)

            Anyway, now I live in a much larger town and our huge library is one of my favorite places BUT it can’t give the sense of anticipation the back room of the B.Forman Company gave the littlest bookworm.  

Sinkhole Buries Corvettes

Images of Corvettes, looking like a bratty kid had tossed them into a big hole, filled my mailbox. Indeed, the sinkhole in Bowling Green, Kentucky ate the floor of the National Corvette Museum and digested 8 of those classic American cars. Here’s a link to photos and video. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/massive-sinkhole-swallows-vintage-corvettes-n28416

       Hubby was especially shocked because over 50 years ago he and his friend Al Frederick founded the Rochester Corvette Club. I wasn’t married to him at the time, but I’ve heard stories about those grand old days when a handful of die-hard ‘Vette enthusiasts put on rallys, car shows, and rode in parades for the first time.

    Fast forward to today and the once fledgling club now has over 400 members who race, rally, judge, run car shows, picnic and otherwise know how to have a great time with their Corvettes. Most are hard working middle class folks who enjoy each other’s company as much as the low growl of their engines. They work hard, get their hands dirty and know how to celebrate life too.

 

Above all, I find their generosity endearing. They annually select a charity that will get a 4 figure check after all the fun has been had for the year. Additionally, every Christmas party brings members bearing gifts for battered and abused women and their children. 

 

This is a club with a heart as big as their collective engine displacements. They may treasure their hard earned cars but these people value people as well. A big sinkhole can destroy metal and leather, but that’s not what’s really precious – Corvette owners who treasure others while they enjoy their iconic slices of Americana.

 

Groundhog Day

            We’re coming up on my favorite holiday – Groundhog Day.  I like it because it’s not commercialized. I don’t see many Groundhog Day cards and there’s no official menu (like an Easter ham or Thanksgiving turkey) so we can chow down on comfort food because it’s still cold, snowy and windy and we need a little extra pizza, cake, popcorn, wine or cheesecake to chase away the doldrums.

            Besides, I like the little varmint. We had a resident groundhog that lived under the trees and amid  the bushes and brush at the far end of our backyard. He was chunky with a large behind and we enjoyed watching him waddle quickly along the perimeter. We named him Wally. After a while we noticed another groundhog and we figured found a mate - “Walletta.” They made a cute pair but Good Neighbor Dave didn’t agree. It seems they decided their growing family needed more shelter and they found it under his shed.

            Nevertheless, I get a kick out of Puxatony Phil every year.  Whether he sees his shadow or not, I know winter is half over. There’s something corny and homey about the good people of Puxatony, PA as they gather around the gentleman dressed in top hat and old time suit as he holds up the furry critter. Where else is nonsense celebrated so well?

Some people rent the movie Groundhog Day for February 2^nd. Not a bad idea; it is one of those heartwarming movies that stays in your mind for years.

            Have a happy Groundhog Day and remember this winter WILL end.

 

Three Cheers for Cheerios Cereal

            There’s a huge war going on in state legislatures across America over making producers of the food we eat put the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on their food labels. Big agribusiness is spending mucho bucks to block this initiative yet millions of Americans are speaking up. You would think this is a David and Goliath story with Goliath about to take home all the marbles.

 But no. Despite the money and rhetoric flooding the legislatures, there is one card we consumers hold and that is our purchasing power. I’ve noticed our grocery stores are offering more and more organic choices and people are willing to pay a little more to avoid chemicals with every bite. General Mills got an earful when it claimed Cheerios was healthy and we said, in essence, not if it contains GMOs.

            Now General Mills is bringing out non GMO Cheerios – only the original formula, mind you. You know - the stuff we ate in the 50’s. Yum. Yum. Now we need to literally put our money where our mouth is.

            Personally, I say even if you HATE Cheerios buy a box of non GMO Cheerios anyway, even if you feed it to the birds.  If grocers can’t keep the stuff on the shelves, we consumers will have won a battle that no amount of agri- bucks could have purchased.

            It’s all about truth in labeling. Now, get out your cereal bowl and milk and eat your darn Cheerios.  This time they’re better for you than you think!

The Duck Dynasty Series

                I must confess I’m hooked on the reality show Duck Dynasty. I accidently discovered it because I collect wooden ducks, both decoys and decoratively hand carved specimens, so the title jumped out at me one evening when I was scanning the TV listings. I had to check it out.  

                There’s this family of Louisiana rednecks who became fabulously wealthy by making those gizmos hunters blow into to mimic a duck’s call. I read that the father of the Robertson clan, Phillip, used his product while hunting one day and his friend exclaimed, “You didn’t call that duck. You commanded it!” And so they named their company “Duck Commander.”

                Three bearded, long haired sons with gorgeous blonde wives, a crazy like a fox uncle, Dad (Phillip) and Mom (Miss Kay), plus a few interesting employees as well as a passel of grandchildren and pets, make up the cast of characters.  The family owns acres upon acres of land, on which they work, live and play.  

                Like when Phil decided an old trailer would make a great deer stand once his sons and Duck Commander employees got it hoisted and camouflaged high up into some trees. It did look inviting and far more comfortable than freezing on a few elevated two by fours while waiting for Bambi to saunter by.

                Besides the interplay and the running comments family members make about each other, I find the Southern redneck culture the Robertson family celebrates charming. This is regional America at its best. It doesn’t take long to realize this family, is neither stupid nor uneducated.

 Son Willie runs the company with skills he acquired from his business degree. Grandfather Phil, bearded like all the Robertson men, summons his grandchildren to his home and teaches them life skills while he gets “free labor” from them. Clearly the teens do not appreciate the tasks Phil assigns but they are respectful and do his bidding. (Phil may have crossed the line on career day when he taught a classroom of 8^th graders  how to eviscerate a duck…..but with our current Congress, hey, you never know when that  may come in handy.)

This series is about a family, once poor and now wealthy because they embraced the American values of belief in God, family, and hard work. Every segment ends with family prayer before a meal and a comment on loving each other.

I have come to appreciate the special view Duck Dynasty offers into a culture that has endured for years and, judging by its popularity, America is learning to appreciate as well.

 

Trust Your Instincts

                Vincent VanGough wrote to his brother Theo and mentioned he had painted “Sunset at Montmajour” on July 4, 1888. Apparently he wasn’t too pleased with the result. According to an article by Toby Sterling (Associated Press), the artist shipped the painting to his brother and in 1908 it found its way to a neophyte art collector. Unfortunately the Norwegian industrialist/collector was told by a so-called expert that the painting was a fake and so it languished in the collector’s attic until it was discovered as part of his estate in 1970. It was then determined that the painting was an original VanGough after all.

                There’s a lesson there for me in that sad story. If the collector had valued the painting because it spoke to him in some way, if the brush strokes captured his imagination, or simply made him feel good, perhaps he would have ignored the erroneous appraisal and hung the painting where he could enjoy it. Something must have caught his eye for him to have purchased it in the first place. But because someone else denigrated it as a mere copy, the work of art was relegated to obscurity and the owner lost almost 70 years of pleasure. How sad. For that collector, its value lay only in its provenance and not its intrinsic beauty. A rather shallow assessment if you ask me.

                Here’s to the “stuff” we love! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and “worth” has many levels, money being sometimes the lowest for those who trust and value their personal preferences over cash. 

               

Good As New (Almost)

                My arm was immobilized for only about a month after my wrist encountered the sidewalk in a most unfortunate manner. The Colles fracture required surgery and then physiotherapy. I had no idea my fingers could become contracted so quickly! I told my digits to stand up straight, darn it! but they were having none of it. My arm was so weak I couldn’t hold a plate or use a knife to cut my food. And this was only four weeks after the break. I was amazed.  

Even though I had had professional discussions with physical therapists regarding my patients over the years, actually receiving therapy myself was scary. I had a mental image of enduring excruciating exercises while a therapist shouts brutal encouragement. I didn’t know what to expect on my first visit but I was pretty sure it would involve pain, and lots of it.

                September 8^th was National Physical Therapy Day and I’m writing this blog as a huge thank you to my physical therapist. There was no pain, but a lot of gain. I dutifully did my daily exercises at home and during my sessions  was amazed at the weekly, sometimes even daily, improvement. My therapist never shouted; he gently pushed the envelope and voila! I’ m almost as good as new. 

                Although everyone on the health care team contributes to returning a person to wellness, it’s the physical therapist, often the last in the treatment line, who provides the crucial final steps that help people resume their lives.

                 So here's to physical therapists everywhere. It would literally be a broken world without them.

 

 

Doggie Comfort

             

 

   Cody, my cocky Cocker, does three things when he steps out of his crate in the morning. The first is when he shakes his body so fast side to side it looks like he has only one eye. Doggie stretch follows the shake, first the front legs and paws, then the back ones. I love his third move most of all. He comes over to me and nuzzles my legs, rubbing his little self against me.

                No matter how poorly I may have slept the night before or how my day may loom like a mountain to be climbed, his morning greeting comforts me.  Dogs do that and that’s why they are welcome in hospitals, nursing homes and other places where humans stress out.

                I recently read a newspaper article by Haley Vaccaro (Albany Bureau) about comfort dogs working the courtrooms, of all places. There, “facility” dogs have a way of helping witnesses testify with less anxiety and more accuracy. In fact, according to the article, Senator Terry Gipson of Dutchess County N.Y. introduced a law that would allow these dogs in the courtrooms to offer comfort to victims and witnesses. The potential law is named after the dog “Rosie” who helped a terrified teen who was on the witness stand. The girl froze when asked to point out her assailant. When Rosie gently nudged the girl’s arm with her snout, she was able to point to her father.

                What a great way for dogs to add even more comfort to peoples’ lives than they already do. They warn us when strangers approach, somehow know when we need a nuzzle; they fetch, herd, protect and generally adopt their people pack with more loyalty and love than I think we sometimes deserve.

                I think we would be amazed at what goes on between those pointy or floppity ears.

The Good Old Days

                If you’re looking for a great non-fiction easy summer read, I suggest The Good Old Days-They Were Terrible! by Otto L. Bettmann.  Each glimpse into some aspect of the 19^th century covers only two pages, so it’s a book you can grab and put down throughout the day – or get lost in for a few hours.

                The entry about summer makes one appreciate the invention of the window screen in the 1880’s. Imagine flies and mosquitoes all over your food, nesting on you and your bedding at night, getting into your food and drink! Children were given leafy branches to shoo them away while family members tried to eat a meal in peace and without bug garnishes.

                Bettmann quotes Russel Lynes who said screens were, “the most humane contribution the 19th century made to the preservation of sanity and good temper.”

                And then there were the electric trolleys. I’ve been on delightful trolley rides but my experiences are a far cry from the 19^th century trolleys which at best, reached a max of 25 miles per hour. Not even considering the spaghetti of overhead wires, the trolleys made little progress through the busy streets because they followed horse drawn vehicles or waited while they clopped across the rail. A photo of a Chicago intersection showed a pile up of huge proportion with trolleys, trucks, people and horses milling in the road. H.G Wells called the Chicago streets “one horse cry for discipline.”

                Other topics in the book include housing, air, work, crime, food and drink, health, etc. Being your full service blogger, I checked and it is available at Amazon and Amazon Prime as well as in our area libraries for local readers.

Enjoy!

Prim

                I like country style décor with the cozy, comfy look old things like quilts, candles, and firkins give a room. My favorite magazine features several homes in country style and is full of ways to get what they call “the look.”

            There is a country style called “primitive” or just “prim” for short and it’s what I would call hard core country style. You couldn’t find an upholstered chair or a cabinet that didn’t look like someone took chains to it, to save your life. The more beat up, rusted, many paint layered, the furnishings are, the better. The home owners tell of buying, say, a 20^th century ranch home and removing the carpeting and wall paper. They cover refrigerators with barn wood and take down the matching cabinets in the kitchen to replace them with odd cupboards or a wooden box, its bottom nailed to the wall, to house ancient crockery. With a lot of hard work, historical study, and dedicated salvaging, they create a home worthy of the 19^th century’s best from the hollers of Appalachia.

            I was discussing this primitive style with a friend who was born and raised in Appalachia.  She became a nurse and settled here in upstate New York. In a soft voice that still harbored a hint of a southern accent, she chuckled and said, “I worked very hard to get away from that look.”

            For her, that was all her family could afford. For others, it’s the height of period correct décor and worth every penny invested.

Our personal spaces are as unique as we are, aren’t they?

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Melborp

                Parents and students are stocking up on note paper, notebooks, glitter, glue and goodness knows what else in preparation for the start of a new school year next month. I don’t recall such a mass purchase-a-thon when I was a kid. Back in the dark ages all we had to buy was notebooks, paper and a few pens. Looking back and comparing all the extras kids in even the most fiscally strapped schools today have with what I had, one can only wonder how I learned anything at all.

                Here was my school day for eight years. Lining up in silence outside and entering the school in subdued rows (kind of like prisoners going to the chain gang.) Lessons in one classroom with one teacher until lunch – which we brown bagged and ate at our desks. That’s right – no cafeteria. No library for that matter, unless you called the bookcases in some of the classrooms a library. Then we ran around outside on the theory we needed exercise. You guessed it – no gym either. Back to more classes in the same room with the same teacher, followed by about three hours of homework it was worth your life not to complete. Eight years of that. Kind of builds up a high level of tolerance in a person, doesn’t it? 

                That would constitute an academic problem of giant proportion today but a funny thing happened on the way to blessed release, uhmm, “graduation.”

 I learned to learn. How to teach myself was a life lesson I figured out pretty much on my own because no teacher ever attempted to make learning fun or interesting. They just scared me to death and piled on the assignments. So maybe that eight year sentence to academic hell wasn’t a problem after all but a non-problem, a “melborp” (problem spelled backward), because a surprisingly good outcome came from a bad situation.

 

What a Name!

                In one of the Big Bang episodes, Sheldon Cooper acquired a bunch of cats when what passes for his love life hit a bump in the road.  As he explained to his flabbergasted mother, the “bunch” of cats is more correctly called a “Clowder” or a “Glare.”

                 Who knew?

                That got me wondering what other strange names we attach to animals based on their species, age or sex. Turning to the internet, here’s a sampling of some of the really weird attributions.

A congregation of alligators

A raft of Auks

A cete of badgers

A cloud of bats

A sleuth of bears

A sute of bloodhounds

A wake of Buzzards

A peep of chickens

A lap of Cod

 A bed of clams

A quiver of cobras

A bask of crocodiles

A convocation or aerie of eagles

A leash of fox

A tower of giraffes

A cackle of hyenas

A crash of rhinos

Just to name a few, but my favorite is:  a  Murder of Crows  - It makes me think of  Edgar Allan Poe.

Three Muskateers of Medicine



                This bad boy is called a Kelly Clamp and I encountered it for the first time during my operating room rotation as a student nurse. It’s one of many instruments used during surgery, especially useful for using or removing sponges from ...well, never mind.  Imagine my surprise when, following Hubby as he scoured every corner of his favorite tool and hardware store one day, I saw old Kelly sitting on a shelf with a price tag of only a few dollars. How did he escape the operating room? I nabbed him right away.

                So far, he’s proved terrific for digging out the lint that hides deep in the filter area of my dryer. Clamp a cloth or sponge in his long teeth and you can reach just about anything that needs cleaning. He’s even recently proved useful for getting socks on when one can’t reach their toes because of injury.

                There are other medical items or terms that have particular surnames as well as Kelly clamp. There’s the Foley catheter designed to remain in the bladder for more than a day. Lest we leap to the conclusion the Irish (Kelly and Foley) have a lock on medical engineering, there’s a position named Trendelenburg in which the patient’s head is lowered and the feet are raised. It is used to prevent shock by keeping blood flowing to the brain while blood pressure drops due to hemorrhage.  I heard a physician remark that whoever Trendelenburg was, he gets more famous every time a doctor shouts “Trendelenburg position!” He sounded almost jealous.

                So there’s the Three Musketeers of the medical world. Remember Trenedlenburg in case you need to use it, grab Kelly if you can and I hope you don’t need Foley.

               





Open Mouth Insert Foot

                It seems Paula Deen reaped the whirlwind with one powerful word uttered years ago. Let’s be honest. How many times have you wished you could grab words that flew out of your mouth and stuff them back, way down inside, never to see the light of day? As Paula has spoken tearfully about her moment of folly, people who must be perfectly insightful saints have said Paula “just doesn’t get it.”

                What’s not to get? Words can hurt as well as soothe, incite as well as quell, express love or shower hate. We even have laws against hate speech, but be careful of your definition of hate speech. Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric would fall under that definition but would you believe a lower court decided the verses someone quoted from the Bible was hate speech because the verses spoke against the activities of a group of people?

                Supposedly we have freedom of speech in America. They can’t throw you in jail for saying something against the latest zeitgeist, against the latest politically correct flavor of the month. But people and businesses can shun you, fire you, or cancel contracts with you. This is not freedom of speech! The government does not have to squash us; we the people, influenced by the government, will do it instead. 

               What is lost when a man or woman becomes persona non grata because they uttered something another finds offensive? We lose the grace as a people to acknowledge that we’ve all been there, perhaps not so egregiously, but been there never the less. We lose the ability to forgive even when we are hurting. And sometimes we need to acknowledge the fact that somewhere, sometime, someone will say something that deeply offends us. That’s the price of living in a free society.

What happens when we are so fearful of offending anyone that we bury our thoughts, insights and discoveries? We will eventually be afraid to speak the truth with love, to speak against the majority (IRS investigation, anyone?) and declare the Emperor has no clothes and is stark naked.

Personally, I think the old boy is “starkers” now.  So sue me. 

 

Indie Ink

                The first short story I sold was to Green’s Fiction for the Family magazine back in the mid 70’s. It was a story about a boy with a stuttering problem trying to fit into his new school and it was told through the point of view of a girl in his parochial classroom. I found the editor’s comment interesting. “You have the nun talking in clichés, but then that’s the way they do talk. Consider Jack Frost sold.”

            Nothing like editorial comments and suggestions! Authors commonly rewrite entire novels at the direction of the editor of the publishing house opting to purchase their work – and that’s after they’ve rewritten huge sections on their own before submission. I will take a hardnosed stance and say if you’re not willing to edit and rewrite, take up something else.

            The hardest part of being a serious writer is getting your work published. Gone with the Wind was rejected 25 times before it was sold! Now you could write the equivalent of that American classic and be rejected by a publishing house because you don’t have a large enough platform. The name of the game is selling books and if the author does not already have a following through social media, teaching, previous sales, public speaking (all of that is the platform), chances are his or her tour de force will languish in the slush pile of rejected manuscripts.

            Enter the brave new world of indie publishing. Writers can independently upload their books into e-books or arrange for publishing at point to sale so the actual book is created upon purchase and then sent to the buyer. Indie authors get to keep much more from each sale as well. There are many excellent indie books out there and even the big names in the literary world use indie as well as traditional publishing now.

            This gives us readers many more books at much lower cost, such as free to 99 cents. On the down side, there’s a lot of poor writing being uploaded and even the reviews are slanted. I wrote a review for a friend but admitted in my first sentence that she was a fellow writer. I did feel comfortable giving her a good review because it was really an excellent book, but some reviewers are trying to do a friend a favor without being honest about the book. I do have hopes that good books will rise to the top of reading lists and the lousy ones will sink into the oblivion they deserve.              

            Still the publishing houses need to sit up and smell the coffee. They need to give the new, promising authors more promotion if they don’t want to become an anachronism. For starters, “platform” should not be a factor in selecting manuscripts, but rather, quality writing. The fact is the traditional publishing houses are now in competition with the very people who used to be their clients – not a winning market position to be sure. Many are developing an independent publishing arm to assist writers who want to self publish quality work.

            Publishing is in flux and that’s not even looking at e-magazines and writing content for the internet! Johannes Gutenberg would be flabbergasted.