Some Election Day Thoughts

"Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belongs wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him." --Daniel 2:21-23

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgement." --Romans 13:1-2

        Elections always conjure up the best in people and countries and the worst in both people and countries. I will not attempt to add to this year's election doublespeak, but simply want to say what appears in the Bible over 100 times and that is: DO NOT FEAR. I think we as Christians can take great comfort that each of the above verses where written by men who lived under governments (the Babylonians and the Roman Empire) that make anything that the American government has done look like we have a Theocracy in comparison. I have felt for a very long time that whether you are a conservative or a liberal, you deal heavily in fear. We quickly forget the history that has preceded us or the fact that our country has endured much harder times or much more trying issues than now or at least as tough as now. We must not speak, think, or live in a constant state of historical snobbery. We are not the first to feel the weight of trying to do good in a world that is evil. We are not the first to wish for truth to triumph over lies. We are not the first to wish for freedom over tyranny. We must not fear. We must not coware. We must not shy away. We must not attempt to defend what is right or attempt to define what is right. God needs no defender. God needs no counselor. He is not scared of or unprepared for the future. He will not be surprised about the election results. He is simply not surprised. I would say this is a great comfort and an even greater peace. 

    I would also caution against thinking that this election is the, "most important election in your lifetime", or "that all politics is about hate and fear mongering nowadays". We must not forget that the campaigns of the early 1800's used much of the rhetoric that is used today and called divisive. Politics are competitions and in every competitions there are winners, losers, and sides to be taken, opinions to be had, and lines drawn in proverbial sands. We must also not forget that we are not too far removed from senators beating each other to death inside the hallowed, ruling chambers or challenging each other to duels where one of the members actually died. So...a few lies being aired on nightly television may not be right or may be a little or very unsettling for either side, but it is nothing new. And the topics are always the same. We have been griping or fighting taxes since before the country began. There has always been a country trying to knock us over or squash our power or make us frightful. Are we so removed from our fear of the USSR, or Vietnam, or from Germany, or from Japan, or from England chasing our soldiers down and burning our capital? I don't feel like we are. There will always be a country that is gunning for us. Isn't that how all of life works? You acquire a target on your back the minute you become a leader. Have we not been trying to define terms like marriage and family since the 1950's or really before? Have we not been holding onto and fighting for the values, rights, and laws contained in the Bill of Rights, since they were signed in 1792? Haven't we been arguing on being in debt since we borrowed the money from France to begin this great experiment called America? Do we not remember that the it was just 50 years ago that many in this country were trying to say that one color was more important or their lives where more or less valuable than others? Is that so different from our fight for all life? I would feel very comfortable in saying that there isn't one topic that is being argued during the current election that has not been, in its most basic sense, argued and fought over in every election we've ever had. 

    I would say every election is important. We are a relatively young country and to me, it seems we are still trying to say what we are. We are a country like no other one in the world. We are not a monarchy, an oligarchy, a theocracy, or an aristocracy. We are a representative republic that is represented by our own people. If you really think about it. That is the most crazy idea of all. We let our own everyday people rule us and that is decided by our own everyday people. We are the great experiment and what we are studying is being tried everyday. Some days it works like nothing has ever worked or will ever work again. Some days it doesn't work and fails us and the world around us, but there is nothing better. Yes, today's election is very important, but it is no more important than the last 43 presidential elections. And the outcome should not make us wonder either. Are we not voting for someone who is a mirror image of what our country is into office? Is it really surprising to anyone that the same people who have chosen to be blind and irresponsible consumers and users of almost every thing else in their lives have also become blind and irresponsible consumers of politics and their own freedoms? 

“I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe . . . Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.” ― Daniel Webster

“Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” 
― John Adams

“The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil. ” 
― Daniel Webster

Do not fear and do not give up the ship,

  David

Wednesday's Wisdom for Writing

   I don't know how much you, the reader, are enjoying these posts. I will say that going through Steinbeck's book, Journal of a Novel, has allowed me to revisit much of what I had gathered when I was reading through it the first time and I have even noticed other passages that I have gleaned a lot from. I would suggest reading each excerpt slowly and really thinking about each one. I believe there are multiple items one can learn from in almost each of the excerpts. Well, let's get to Steinbeck and away from Dark. 

"Now the innocent sound and the slight concealment are not done as tricks but simply so that a man can take from this book as much as he can bring to it." --pg. 16&17

"Now that I am in it (the writing of East of Eden) I cannot see beyond it and increasingly it becomes difficult for me to see out of it." --pg. 19

"I don't suppose writing consists in anything more than doing it." --pg. 19

"I don't understand why some days (in writing) are wide open and others closed off, some days smile and others have thin slitted eyes and others still are days which worry." --pg. 19

"It is always amazing to me how we forget our failures. I guess if we didn't, we could not survive."-- pg. 22

"And as I have mentioned before and again and again--a story has a life of its own. It must be allowed to takes its own pace. It can't be pushed too much. If it is, the warp shows through and the story is unnatural and unsafe."--pg. 23

"There are few enough true things in the world. It would be a kind of sin to conceal any of them or to hide their little heads in technique as the squeamishness of not appearing in one's own book. For many years, it did not occur in my writing. But this was only apparently true--I was in them every minute. I just didn't seem to be." --pg. 24

"A chapter should be a perfect cell in the whole book and should almost be able to stand alone. If this is done then the breaks we call chapters are not arbitrary but rather articulations which allow the free movement of the story." --pg 25

"Things do happen and continue to happen on the outside. Isn't it odd that I now regard the book as the inside and the world as the outside. And just as long as that is so the book is firm and the outside cannot hurt it or stop it. And I must be sure that it remains that way by never letting time go by without working on it. For it is one thing to have in one's mind that the book will never be done and quite another to let it stop moving." --pg. 27

"And the book does move along little by little....It lacks tension and that is just exactly what I want and intend it to do. But it may cause trouble to you as a publisher because people have grown to expect tautness and constant action. It's like in present-day theatre. If there isn't shouting and jumping around, it isn't liked. For people seem to have lost the gift of listening. Maybe they never had it." --pg. 29

"The fact of the matter is that you just cannot tell how anything is going to work or how hard or easy it will be. It always fools you." --pg. 35

(I hope the ghost of John Steinbeck doesn't read this blog after reading this!) 

"But God save me from amateurs. They don't know what they are but it is more serious than that. They immediately start rewriting. I never knew this to fail. It is invariable. For that matter, I think I dislike amateurs in any field. They have the authority of ignorance and that is something you simply cannot combat." --pg. 36

"Aren't they really living people? This is the time when I am glad I am or try to be a writer--the growth and flowering of something I seem only to plant and nurture for a while." --pg. 39

"And I think I want to make it clear that true things quite often do not sound true unless they are made to." --pg. 48

"I am not writing for money any more now than I ever did. If money comes that is fine, but if I knew right now that this book would not sell a thousand copies, I would still write it." --pg. 55

Happy Reading and thanks for stopping by,

   David

An Endorsement of TED.com

   It is the season for endorsements and so the folks here at HTH have put together a few posts of things we put our full weight behind. One of the items we put a lot of stock in is TED. TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Each year, in Long Beach, California or Palm Springs, Arizona and Edinburgh, Scotland, the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers come together and are challenged to give the, "talk of their lives", in a time limit of 18 minutes. You can listen to talks on a variety of topics ranging from technology, of course, to science, to music, to medicine. Most of the talks are really quite interesting and the good part is that each talk is of such a limited amount of time that you don't have to invest a lot of your day into listening/watching each talk.

    TED was begun in 1986 as a nonprofit organization with the sole goal of bringing together the brightest and most talented people on the planet and beginning a dialogue amongst them in an attempt to learn from each other and from them and to solve the problems and crises that our modern world presents to us. Since then, over 1200 talks have been given and most of those can be found on their website. (HINT. HINT. Click on the word, website.) The website was begun in 2007 and is one that I use each year in the subjects that I teach (Physical Science, Earth Science, Biology, and Anatomy & Physiology). And most recently, Mel and I discovered a TED channel that we could subscribe to (for free) through the use of our Roku box. I would encourage you to check out the website. They add new talks to the site each month, so one can always find something to watch. To end this post, I will post my three favorite TED talks. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to peruse the site and send me your favorites.












Happy watching and thanks for stopping by,

   David

Wednesday's Wisdom for Writing

  As I mentioned, the good folks here at HTH  will be enlightening your Wednesdays from now on with some wisdom and knowledge that we have gained from some of the finest writers of the past hundred years. We do this in an attempt to share what we have learned in hopes it will enrich both of our lives and our writing. An item that I also really found very cool about Steinbeck's, Journal of a Novel, but failed to mention in the original blog post is that each letter is dated with the day on which Steinbeck wrote it and the days and their numbers correspond to the year 2012. It added to the book for me because it was as if I were reading it on the same day that Steinbeck wrote it. I know that is somewhat delusional, but it still felt neat to me. Well, without further adieu  here are some more great quotes from the book: 

 "A good writer always works at the impossible. There is another kind who pulls in his horizons, drops his mind as one lowers rifle sights. And giving up the impossible, he gives up writing." pg. 4

   "And so I start my book addressed to my boys. I think perhaps, it is the only book I have ever written. I think there is only one book to a man. It is true that a man may change or be so warped that he becomes another man and has another book but I don't think that is so with me."  (Steinbeck has previously published 22 books including, Of Mice and Men, and, The Grapes of Wrath) pg. 5


   "Surely I feel humble in the face of this work." pg. 5

   "But I want to write this one as though it were my last book. Maybe I believe that every book should be written that way." pg. 8


"My choice of pencils lies now between the black Calculator stolen from Fox Films and this Mongol 2 3/8F which is quite black and holds its point well--much better in fact that the Fox pencils. I will get six more or maybe four more dozens of them for my pencil tray. and this is all I am going to do on this my first day of work." pg. 9


"I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one. It is as though the words were not only indelible, but that they spread out like dye in water and color everything around them. A strange and mystic business, writing. Almost no progress has taken place since it was invented. The Book of the Dead is as good and as highly developed as anything in the 20th century and much better than most. And yet in spite of this lack of continuing excellence, hundreds of thousands of people are in my shoes--praying feverishly for relief from their word pangs" pg.9

"The pipes are tasting very good. I have a feeling to buy a meerschaum and start coloring it as I do this book. Maybe I will do that. By the time the pipe is brown the book should be done. More magics. I think tomorrow I will look for a meerschaum, a small light one. Saw one in a window the other day, but I forgot where..." pg.13

"You know I always smoke a pipe when I work--at least I used to and now I have taken it up again. It is strange--as soon as a pipe begins to taste good, cigarettes become tasteless..." pg.17

"Of course I feel that any imposed institution, even conditioned, is bad and not conductive to the development of the two great foundations of art and science: curiosity and criticism." pg. 15


Happy Reading and Writing,

    David

Calico Joe--A Book Review

   I have never read a John Grisham book. Gasp! Sigh! There...I said it. I even have a paperback copy of Grisham's novel, "A Time to Kill", that was given to me by a former student that has been sitting in my attic waiting to be read since 2006. I don't know what it is. I find myself looking at the book sometimes telling it that, "Its me, not you." Its not that I'm afraid of Grisham or that he writes about things I'm not interested in. I guess it was the ever-present "New York Times Best-Selling Author" title that accompanies his name that makes me so nervous or self-conscious. I just had this vision of me picking up a book of his and Flannery O'Connor watching me do so from a chair in the corner and then shaking her head at me. However, several weeks ago, my mom mailed us a package of goody's and in the package was this book with a note that said, "I know you don't have time to read, but when you do, read this."And I decided to flub my nose at Miss O'Connor and my pride and settle down each evening to the words of Mr. Grisham, a "New York Times Best-Selling Author". My mother after all is the one who retaught me to read and then introduced me to the difference between just reading and reading good books. And there is a difference. It is akin to the difference of watching someone kiss in a movie and actually kissing or looking at a picture of a sunset and seeing one from the top of a lone mountain ridge and feeling as if you are the last human among a planet older and larger than life itself.

  It is odd how subjects move in cycles for me. Several years ago, it seemed like everything that made its way to me had something to do with cycling. Last year, it seemed like everything was about gardening and composting. But this year, it has been baseball. We have been to some games, we took Ford to his first game, the Braves made it to the post season, Ford and I have been making our way slowly through the Ken Burns documentary about baseball, and then my mom mailed me the book, Calico Joe, which was and is about baseball. So, 2012 may be an election year, but for me, it has been the year of baseball.

  I will make two good observations and one bad observation about the book. We will start with the good. Calico Joe, is a very easy read and this was a nice change of pace for me since the only time I really get to read is right before I fall asleep and if you ask Mel, I am getting better and better at that. (This may NOT be a good thing.) Several years ago, I used to think that books that were "easy" to read were easy to write and thus made the author either lazy or not very-talented, but I think very differently about this now. I have seen many authors ranging from Steinbeck to Twain and many others who say that if it reads easy, it was very hard to write. And I guess that is true in most anything else. When you watch a professional anyone or anything, they make whatever they are doing look easy. If you took any time to watch the Olympic Games, you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't catch them, go to the Food Network, watch one episode of the Barefoot Contessa, then find that same recipe and try it at home. You will then understand. Or go find a poem written by John Keats or Emily Dickinson, read it several times, then go try to write a poem about the same subject and try to fit all that he or she does into the same amount of lines. I'd suggest starting with Keat's, Ode to a Nightingale. Calico Joe, is both an easy read and it is also an enjoyable read. There are times when you feel the book and the characters in the book are real because Grisham does such a fine job weaving real events that occurred in baseball's long and storied history with events that he made up. I enjoyed this facet of the book very much and am so glad I got to read this book. And if you like baseball, I would suggest this book. It makes you want to visit a ballpark or at least go pick up your glove and get in some throws before you go eat some Stove Top from Johnny's house.

  Now for the bad...I really didn't care for most of the dialogue that was in this book. Each time it surfaced, for the most part, it felt contrived and forced. And please know I do not in any way think I know much of anything about writing in general or about writing dialogue. I do know that writing dialogue is exhausting and when you read it back to yourself, it all feels contrived, silly, and very forced. Many times, I would catch myself reading through the dialogue and asking myself if someone would really say that and I was left saying, "no". I wish that this wouldn't have been so because the dialogue really took away from the story rather than adding to it. All the people in the book spoke as you expected them to speak or spoke like characters in movies speak, not like people who breathe real air and interact with real, non-virtual people speak.

  After reading this, I would say that I enjoyed the book. I would suggest the book. I would even go as far as to say that I might climb into my attic now that its not 150 degrees in the shade in middle Georgia now and get the Grisham book that I've kept locked away and place my beloved Indigo Bunting bookmark that I bought for $1 from the Birmingham Audubon Society seven years ago within its worn pages. Something I would suggest is reading Bernard Malamud's novel, The Natural, before or after this book and then comparing and contrasting the two. And I believe the teacher in me just came out, so I'd better finish off this post.

Happy Reading,

   David