two haiku
1.
restless in comfort
he capers around the world
now no longer bored
2.
a lesson for you
in haiku: do what you love
and love what you do
“When associating with scholars and artists we easily miscalculate in opposite directions: behind a remarkable scholar one finds, not infrequently, a mediocre man, and behind a mediocre artist quite often—a very remarkable man.”
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann transl.)
What Is A Book? Good question. Thanks, GOOD.
Finally a Progressive Budget
“President Obama’s new budget is, well, audacious — not just because it includes several big, audacious initiatives (universally affordable health care, and a cap-and-trade system for coping with global warming, for starters) but also because it represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years.”
Everything Causes Cancer
I’m tired of hearing about this. Cigarettes cause cancer, cell phones cause cancer, microwaves, plastic bottles, apparently coffee is a carcinogen too. The sun can kill you, sex can kill you. Am I supposed to live in a bubble now? Sustain my health intravenously?
If life causes cancer, so be it. I’ll take life, thanks. I’ve always been in favor of a burn bright and die early approach. I refuse to be sidelined because the new poisonous world is too dangerous for me to live in.
Seems like we’re just gettin’ soft. What did people do before modern medicine? Without healthcare? Without a car?! They walked, thats what they did. And if some shit went down they accepted it as it came, and they invented fate to help them cope.
So don’t hide from life in your plastic bubble. Life was far more dangerous before we had all these security measures and safety nets. Count yourself as lucky. Go outside. Do something that will hurt you. Live.
“Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.”
Susan Sontag
GOOD » The creamy design and steady flow of excellent reading material (better than any newspaper!) are just two reasons to love this website. They also have a magazine and a massive community. Check it out. (thanks c.m. for sharing)
Manifesto
Let’s start off on the right foot: this is not a ‘blog’. I propose that we simply do away with that clumsy moniker because it has no discretion. It is applied too liberally: NY Times Blogs alongside the daily edition of “What I Had For Lunch”. To avoid confusion, let’s call this website an Editorial. Of course, my cry for distinction will probably fall on deaf ears for its youth. This room is very crowded and the chatter is relentless. Still, I reserve the right to my voice even if I make myself hoarse from screaming. Perhaps one day I will be able to salvage the last shred of dignity I abandoned when, as an unknown writer, I chose to publish on the web.
Why publish online? Because I need practice writing as bad as the web needs more good writers. And the convenience of it cannot be overlooked. Publishing online is free and it offers the potential for a fairly large, intelligent audience. Besides, a little man on my shoulder told me in a heavy southern accent that I would be a “damned fool” not to take advantage of the situation. I had no choice but to comply.
As you know, readers, there is no website without an audience. The internet is a creative tool as well as a communicative tool. There’s gotta be give and take on both sides, as creator and as consumer. I understand that my job, as a writer, is to supply the entertainment: to make you laugh; to make you cry; to make you angry; to inspire you. In return, I ask only that you keep me honest. With that, I give myself to you, dear readers. Tear me to pieces.