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Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.
-- William Ralph Inge
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Do You Believe in Community? |
If you believe passionately in strengthening our community and in simplifying the process of giving, of making each contribution the most meaningful it can be, then join us. We need your help to build the concept of LocalsGive into a viral and vibrant tool for connection and charity. Strengthen community. Simplify giving. Hat tip to Jeff :) ETC: I believe in voluntary contribution, not involuntary. There's absolutely nothing wrong with creating a smoother and more efficient means of giving. The American people are the most generous on the planet, and our communities will be stronger if we can improve the voluntary means for contribution. |
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A while back, I created the ability to privatize the posts here at beatcanvas. I also created the ability for others to post. When I first started this web site, since I wrote the entire thing from scratch myself, I also gave it the ability to manage multiple blogs. At least within the database, I did. I recently mentioned AchieversMovement. You can go there, if you like. From here forward, my political leanings will occur there. Tomorrow, I'll post something on the subject of productivity. I might even move all of my political content there. Haven't decided yet. It'll start out as a private forum, with some public posts, and with the ability for multiple contributors. Will I get multiple contributors? I don't know. Maybe. It will also feature, sometime in the next month, the ability for people to register themselves and their zip code in an anonymous way. While maintaining that anonymity, it will allow others to request the help of those registered and local to them who choose to help with the effort. That might attract people. And so, beatcanvas becomes a duplex: political me moves next door, and artist and personal me stays here. I'll post at both blogs. For those of you who have commented on my political posts, tomorrow you'll get access automatically to that side of the duplex - no need for you to re-register. And you'll be able to post and comment, just as you do here. (By the way, not everything is functional yet, but should be within the next week...) |
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Welcome aboard and thanks for signing up. All of the posts on the web site are private to members, so go for it. If you have enhancement requests or find any bugs, let me know. |
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AchieversMovement - Work In Progress |
Thanks for stopping by. Request Access at the link above. |
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Earlier today, a new friend emailed me this from Claudia Rosett. She makes the argument for selling people on that old-fasioned idea of liberty. McCain's message was more muddled than Joe [the Plumber]'s. McCain spent more time promising to "fight" than he did explaining and championing the freedoms for which he himself once literally fought. Toward the end, it was a race in which both candidates were mainly hawking "change." On those vague and utopian terms, Obama had a hands-down lead.Time was when America's creed could be summed up pretty well by the words of the 18th-century revolutionary Patrick Henry, whose reply in 1775 to the oppressive ways of British colonial rule was: "Give me liberty, or give me death." If America is to remain a great nation, what must somehow be restored as the centerpiece of the nation's goals is not collective "change," but individual liberty. Claudia asks, "What were McCain's voters voting for?" And if that doesn't nail it, I don't know what does. Personally, I wasn't voting for McCain, or McCain's stances. My cartoons and posts in the run-up to the election didn't sell McCain or McCain's positions. I didn't want Obama's mega spending proposals to come to pass via his election. I don't believe in a compulsory "spread the wealth" initiative led by the government.Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's new chief of staff, wrote a book entitled, "The Plan," in which he outlines a "mandatory service" to the community that citizens must do. Got that? It's forced volunteerism. How's that for an oxymoron? I don't think the high schoolers and college students who voted for Obama voted for that. Most parents can't even get them to do forced volunteerism in their own home. Know what I mean? But that's the plan. Check it out for yourself at Obama's new presidential-elect web site: Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Did you see the word require? Forced volunteerism. Do you want that?I believe that America is a place where you get to decide how to spend your time. Freedom. Liberty. Which leads me to a phrase I've gotten quite fond of and will work heavily to promote: Self-DeterminationYou decide for yourself who you are and what you do with your time. I don't care what age you are or what you do in your profession, the human desire for self-determination is universal. Now let me say this: I love the idea of volunteering. I've done Habitat for Humanity. I've filled sandbags when the floods arrived. I've sheltered kids without a home and given money and time to people who needed it when I felt moved to do so. But it was my choice. The only people I know who are compelled to do community service are criminals on probation. Welcome to the new America, Land of the, well... almost Free. Me, I'm for self-determination. How about you? ETC: Evidently, Obama's new administration got wind of the criticism his plan brought to him, so he's changed the wording on his web site to this: Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. You can compare that to my screenshot of his prior wording: But let's go with his new wording. In 2006, according to the US Census Bureau, there were 20.5 million people enrolled in college. $4,000 x 20,500,000 = $82,000,000,000 (82 billion dollars) Welcome to America - the Land of Magic Money! And by the way, as Bella points out, what college student wouldn't want $40 an hour? That's comparable to an $80K a year salary. Do you get the feeling, like I do, that Obama just pulled these numbers out of thin air? What kind of expectations are you setting for college students to make $40 per hour doing government-sponsored "volunteerism?" Think those college students might miss the point of the joy of true volunteering, where you get nothing but a smile and a handshake in return? And what about the other work that they do to earn a living while enrolled? Kinda makes their $8.00 an hour at Starbucks look dumb by comparison. I have a word to describe all of this: haphazard. MORE ETC: By the way, I forgot to mention the alternative to this plan. College students do what they have always done and what they do today: they work their way through school. Their parents help them out. If they qualify for assistance, they get it. That system seems to work pretty well. Why fix what isn't broken? Based on what I see so far, I don't think Obama understands productivity, or what fosters productivity. An efficient economy is not an economy where money is just, you know, spent. Money spent is not the same as other money spent. |
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Working statement: AchieversMovement is a hub for people who want to promote the universal appeal of liberty and self-determination, and seek to locally connect with others to maximize their influence. ETC: Slightly reworked: AchieversMovement is a hub for people who promote the universal appeal of liberty and self-determination, and connect with others to maximize their influence, locally and nationally. As Yoda wisely said, "Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'" Ditto - there is no 'want' or 'seek.' I'm taking the night to work on something I'll likely reveal on Monday. After my work tonight, I'll have a post about something I'm feeling quite strongly. Kudos to Janet for being sharp, as always. |
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When I was an English major at Iowa State, a professor told me this nugget: Show, don't tell. Let the reader live the story through your characters' actions and words, not through exposed inner thoughts and only-God-could-know-that description. Which of these makes for a stronger story?- Jen pulled her face into a pinch and jerked backward, her arm recoiling from Brendan's outstretched hand.
- Jen saw Brendan reach for her, and could think only of how he repulsed her. She leaned back away from him immediately.
The former engages you to decipher Jen's body language and facial expression and come to your own conclusions. Jen is a puzzle to be solved, and you are drawn in, watching her as though in front of you.In the latter, you magically read her thoughts. The scene loses intensity. It's a lazier way to write. This lesson is stuck in my head tonight, and I'm not sure why, so I'm bookmarking it in the blog here to come back to it later. |
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Drawn on my Verizon LG Dare Drawing Pad:  (You can sign up to have a new drawing sent to you daily by picture message.) |
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The Great Experiment Begins |
At this point, it appears Obama has a lock on the election. Fair enough, congratulations. Was this a blow-out? Nope Yep. But it allows the Democrats an opportunity to show the country how they can manage this great country of ours. Will the journalists who aim to inform us hold them accountable? Not likely. They didn't do that in this election, and I doubt that they'll start now. McCain went wrong by sneaking through the primary as the "none-of-the-above" candidate. No one was clearly the right candidate for the Republicans. McCain criticized his base constantly and took pride in it. I've never been a McCain fan. In fact, the only person who sold me on McCain at all in this election was Sarah Palin, who could sell snow to an Eskimo. Palin was the best move McCain made. Now, McCain moves on to Bob Dole territory, with Pepsi waiting in the wings. He's got a sense of humor, like Dole. That'll work for him. Thanks for loving your country, sir. Palin will take some time out. She should. She got a hell of a wake-up call. So did Joe the Plumber. And the rest of us entrepreneurs and hard-working people who pay our bills and take responsibility for ourselves and our families. Obama has given me no faith whatsoever that he will work to do anything except take money from the productive and give their property to others. I find that immoral and irresponsible. And un-American. So, what this says to me is that it's up to us, the people, to prevent those in Washington from grabbing more power for themselves. As I've written lately, we have to figure out how to have influence to achieve this. We can't rely on others who "represent" us any longer. What a big challenge it is. |
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The Iowa GOP Needs Serious Help |
I am, as anybody who reads my blog knows, pretty political. I'm informed. I keep up with it. I have a passion for politics. Today, for the first time in this election, I learned the name of the Republican who is running against our good state's perennial embarrassment in the US Senate, Tom Harkin. Here is Christopher Reed's campaign web site. Oh. My. God. That's the best the Iowa GOP can do for Tom Harkin's rival? Because it looks like the students in his local fifth grade built that for him as a class project. I realize that he probably didn't have much money, but buddy, you're running for the US Senate. You're running against Tom Harkin, a well-moneyed and very slick politician. That's it? If so, why bother? |
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