Political definitions

I know that my blog is supposed to be about writing and this one isn’t.  But it is about words.  And I did say in my first one that I might just want to rant.  So I am ranting. 

            One of the main principles of communication as I remember it is that in order to have a complete communication there must be a sender, a person speaking, and a receiver, a person listening.  Over this past week I have watched Republicans speak out and Democrats speak out but it is not clear to me if either of these communications had a receiver.  So, per the principle stated above, there has been no communication.   

            If President Obama were to give his most eloquent speech yet to a group of French citizens who do not speak English would the speech be a complete communication?  No it would not.  How then is it possible for him to speak to a group of Republicans who do not want to hear him?  On the other side of that coin if the Republican minority in the house and senate have a valid point to be presented to the congress and the Democratic majority do not want to hear them what is the chance that they will be heard.

            When people speak the same language the communication may be incomplete for a number of reasons.  For instance, A Catholic speaking to a Muslim, A man speaking to a woman, a republican speaking to a democrat. 

            Even when we speak to each other we do not communicate our point if the person who we are speaking to does not hear or want to hear what we have to say.  And to make things even more complicated what if we do have something to say but we use the wrong words.   Let us start with the definition of what a Democrat and a Republican is.  Webster says that a Democrat is a supporter of democracy:  somebody who believes in or supports democracy or the democratic system of government.  Does this definition fit a person of the Democratic Party?  No it does not.  The United States, often referred to as a democracy, is actually a representative republic.  So what are Democrats doing in congress?  Republicans on the other hand are by definition supporters of a republic as government:  somebody who believes that the best government is one in which supreme power is vested in an electorate. So shouldn’t we all be Republicans?  I know they are just the names that are given to the two major parties but isn’t it confusing when we think about it that way?  And what would we stand for if we still called them Whigs? 

            So on to the next confusing category, conservatives and liberals.  A conservative is a person reluctant to accept change: in favor of preserving the status quo and traditional values and customs, and against abrupt change.  Now if we follow this definition, and per our language we must because that is what it means, then when Clinton left office and Bush came into office were the conservatives not the Democrats?  And when our country is in dire straits as it is now isn’t conservatism a self destructive position to take? 

            The definition of a liberal is; broad-minded: tolerant of different views and standards of behavior in others.  Well now as a righteous Republican I can see why my party is so upset with President Obama.  Wait, isn’t that a good thing?  Oh there is a second part to that as it relates to politics and it says; progressive politically or socially: favoring gradual reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual.  Oh boy now I am rally confused because I don’t think that part fits either one of them.  It does however seem to fit President Obama.  Wasn’t he accused of wanting to spread the wealth?  Well as a Democrat that is exactly what he is supposed to do. 

            OK so now I have decided that the thing to do to solve these political squabbles is to simply throw out the whole mess of them and get a new batch.  Well that has been tried before and only works on a limited basis so here is my plan.  We should pay them each one million dollars a year.  They will not need to pay their own staff.  The staff will be paid as permanent government employees.  Sort of like the post office.  That way they won’t be able to hire their unqualified brother in law and pay them a huge salary.  Now the cost is really not too significant if you think about it.  Four hundred thirty five congressmen and one hundred senators, total annual cost $535,000,000.  They spent that yesterday.  So how will that help you say?  Well at a million a year there are many midlevel managers in the private sector who are actually qualified to conduct the business of running the country who would now run for office.  So, by my estimate, in the next two elections cycles we would have replaced all of our petty, bickering, whiney representatives with qualified people who will behave themselves lest they lose their million dollars a year job.  Oh and they cannot earn any outside income from any source.  That should shut off the lobbyists influence on them.  

Golden Goose

Golden Geese Discovered in Wyoming.

 

 

Feb 15^th           The department of paleontology at the University of Wyoming has issued a report on the findings at one of their privately funded digs in Northwest Wyoming. The report, which was originally written by students working on the dig, reports that an extremely large nest of ancient geese was found just east of the Mammoth spring’s area of Yellowstone Park.  The nest appears to be that of the mythological Golden Goose and the fossilized eggs are indeed made of pure gold.  Each Egg is approximately one troy pound in weight and at today’s market value makes each egg worth approximately $10,000.  It is estimated that the size of the nest is large enough to contain approximately 330 million eggs. 

            The students who discovered the nest are scheduled to be interviewed by the press on Monday the 9^th of March.  However, since the nest is entirely within the boundaries of Yellowstone park the National Park Service has asked that the eggs be secured by the United states Army until it can be decided what to do with them.  The U.S. congressional committee responsible for the park system has issued an order that no further excavations be completed until a study can be funded to determine its total value estimated to be more than two hundred zillion dollars.  Also the U.S. congressional committee on finance wants to commission a study to see what benefit the value might have relating to the national debt and the current financial crises that we are in. This same committee drafted a bill that would increase the salaries for congress by 34%. 

           

Feb 16^th           The Canadian Paleontology society, the privately funded research group that funded the dig, has filed suit in U.S. district court claiming the eggs belong to them since it was their funding of the project that caused the discovery.  At the same time that this lawsuit was filed the Society for preservation of antiquities has filed suit claiming that disturbing this site in any form would constitute a violation of the federal Antiquities Act that has yet to be enacted and is asking for a restraining order prohibiting any removal from the site until such time as the aforementioned law can be enacted.  

 

Feb 17th          A private group calling themselves the citizens for equitable distribution has estimated that there is approximately one egg for every man woman and child in the United States and that the eggs should be distributed to the citizens of the country accordingly.  A newly formed group called the Citizens against anything socialistic has filed suit against the former group alleging that the distribution to each citizen would constitute a “spreading of the wealth” and since this is a capitalistic society would be illegal.  This second group is not able to site any rule of law relating to their assertion.

           

Feb 18^th           meanwhile the society for the ethical treatment of animals dead or alive has alleged that the removal of the eggs from the nest would constitute a violation of the rights of the extinct goose and should not be undertaken under any circumstances. 

 

Feb 19^th           The Sioux nation today filed suit in district court claiming the Yellowstone site is a sacred burial ground for the now extinct but still revered golden goose.  The representative for the Nation has stated off the record that they would be willing to exchange the Black Hills region of North Dakota, a region that has been determined to have been taken from them illegally by the Supreme Court of the United States, for the much smaller area of Yellowstone Park where the nest is located.  Since they have not taken any of the six hundred million dollars that were offered for the Black Hills in lieu of actually receiving their land back they believe that this would be a much easier solution than the one they originally wanted, that being the removal of all white eyes living in or near the Black hills.  They also assert that since that portion of Yellowstone Park had not been used for more than a decade it should be considered abandoned and according to the treaty of 1885 that they have a legal right to claim it.

Feb 20th The National Parks manager responsible for Yellowstone Park today was asked what position he has taken in regard to the future developments.  His response was "We intend to let it burn."  When reminded that the great fire was nearly twenty years ago he said. "Oh."  

           

Feb 22^nd           The Chinese government today has declared their note for the national debt due and payable.  All sums now owing by the United States are to be paid forthwith.  However a spokesman for the Agricultural Bank of China has stated that they would be willing to take the Golden Goose Site in Wyoming as payment for the debt. 

 

Feb 25th          Today the Governor of Wyoming declared an emergency for the area now known as the Golden Goose site and is reclaiming it as state territory.  He has ordered the activation of the Wyoming National guard and has sent two battalions of troops to retake the disputed area under State control.  In the meantime of course the U.S. Army has already taken up positions around the site and is prepared to defend it against the National Guard.  

 

Feb 26^th           Four University of Wyoming students were arrested today while trying to enter the Golden Goose site with bulldozers.  It seems that these students are part of the original archaeological team who made the discovery.  When asked what they were doing they replied that they were trying to cover up their mess. 

 

Feb 27^th           Today General Paetreus ordered Nuclear weapons sent to the newly constructed garrison at the Golden Goose site to be used in the event of an attack by any government foreign or domestic that might try to seize it. 

           

Feb 28^th           This is the last report that will be filed by this reporter from the Golden Goose site.  Upon hearing this latest development I have abandoned any hope of ever receiving a Pulitzer prize for this story other than posthumously and I am in the process of getting the **** out of here. 

 

Until next time.    

First Amendment Rights

 

            This has been a very hot and much used topic in the United States for many years.  It is also a topic that is used when comparing the freedom of speech in the US to countries like China.  And when you talk about extremes the less restrictive laws of the US are well above those of China.  Of course those of us in the US think that we are the least restrictive but Canada actually is even less so. 

            The reason that I have chosen to talk about this now is that it fits nicely behind my last blog about fibbing.  Now a storyteller who is writing fiction is allowed to stretch the truth.  They are, as a matter of fact, expected to.  But what of the press in the US today, are they allowed to stretch it?    It seems to me that with freedoms come responsibility.  A rule of law states that you have the right to scream your head off about pretty much anything that you want, but you are not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theatre.   Therein lays the responsibility.  But how is it that the press has come to a point that allows them to incite the public and to mislead them for the sake of garnering readership.  Is it not their job to report a story and not to create it? 

            The story that has my ire up is one written on one of the internet news pages that came from a television story.  The headline read; “Funeral director revives man.”  Now when I read that I got a picture in my mind of an undertaker discovering that a man in his parlor was not dead and that the funeral director revived him.  The truth is that a man who happened to be a funeral director was the first on the scene of an automobile pedestrian accident.  The pedestrian appeared to have been killed.  The man saw a passing ambulance and flagged it down and the ambulance crew, using a defibrillator, revived the pedestrian.  The only thing that the funeral director did was to flag down the ambulance.  He did not by any stretch of the imagination revive the man and the fact that he happened to be a funeral director was absolutely immaterial.  So someone needs to explain to me how the story submitted by this irresponsible reporter is any different than any fiction writer who uses an actual event to structure his story around.  The answer is NONE. 

            I for one think that there needs to be some movement on the part of the press to reign in these over zealous reporters before the government decides that it too needs to be regulated in much the same way as the irresponsible CEO’s of the banks are about to be.  When we ask the government in China to relax their laws regarding freedom of speech the request would carry a lot more weight if we could show that our freedoms are not disruptive.  After all they are a country of over a billion people and we only have a little over three hundred million.  Too many people with too much freedom can become chaotic without the element of responsibility. 

            I welcome comments on this as I know that there may be many who will have opposing viewpoints.   

Fibbing for fun and profit

        We have all had experiences that we have told others about and most of us (probably all of us but I wanted to leave you an out) have embellished it to some extent on the retelling.  Every once in a while a person finds that they have a talent for telling stories.  I don’t know where mine came from but it was probably a defense mechanism that I developed for dealing with my father.  Well you know when you get a D on the report card you have to have something to say or you are stuck at home for the next semester.  I must also tell you that my father was a stickler for the truth so I also developed a sense for how far I could stretch a truth.  It doesn’t stretch very far.   So at some point in my life I learned that telling a story just for the fun of it was not only entertaining for me but others seemed to like it as well. But that truthful person that my father pounded into me caused me to develop a caveat.  When I find that I have convincingly told a tale to someone I have to find a cool way of letting them know that they have been had.  You usually know that this has occurred when I ask you if you would now like to buy a bridge.  Oh and the sneaky smile that comes across my face is a clue also. 

            Once when a friend of mine, Jim Bowman, and I were sitting in the seaman’s club at the Indian Head Propellant plants Explosive Ordnance Disposal School two young seamen came to our table to ask if we were in EOD.  Bowman being the story teller that he was admitted that we were.  The tale was that we were in the school and not yet graduated.  They wanted to hear about it so we invited them to sit and of course there was the obligatory beer that they provided while we spun the tale.  Bowman started it by telling the lads that we had just returned from an inspection of the South Vietnamese Army and had learned of a new weapon that the Viet Cong were using against our aircraft.  He then turned to me and asked me to describe it to them.  I quickly related to them how this was a new development on an old system and it was effective because it was not radar guided and so not detectable and that it was silent because it had no propulsion system.  Bowman then came back in and described an over sized arrow.  Due to its size of course it took much more than a man to launch it so they had trained elephants to do that.  It was at that point that one of the young men decided that we had conned them out of the beer. But we did still have his friend.  It took a few well placed looks and words for him to get the point across to his friend and they left.  This story is true although the story that we told the young men was obviously concocted.  But you see how the mind of a true fibber works and that one must be skilled in the art of fibbing if one is to write fiction.  Oh I did mention that my book is fiction didn’t I, wink, wink. 

            Now that I have retired and have taken up the pursuit of writing as a third career I am telling stories and putting them on paper.  I find that this part of the task is pretty simple for me but the profit portion so far has eluded me.  I thought that you wrote the great American novel and then just waited for a publisher to come frothing at the bit to negotiate with me for the rights to publish it and that I would have a movie producer waiting in the wings to make it into a movie.  I have not found it too difficult to distribute my books but I have found that the getting paid part is not that easy.  Well when I say distribute I did not mean to imply that my book is in distribution at book stores and libraries even though it is on Amazon and in a few public libraries.  Of course I had to list it on Amazon myself and donate them to the libraries.  Now let me explain that profit is defined as monies being made in excess of expenses. I know that you already knew that but it is important for the purpose of this article to re-state it because I think that many of us who publish our own material lose site of that definition.   That being said I must disclaim anything that I might have said to imply that I have yet made a profit. 

            But I have a solution to the profit part.  I am going to write another book and spend a lot of money getting it edited, printed, published and distributed.  And I am going to keep doing it until the publishers and movie guys get it through their heads that I am serious. 

 

Until next time.  

On being an author

I have changed my blogspot address to be more compatible with my website and therefor more compatible with my writing in general rather than with just my current book. 

I began writing over twenty years ago while taking college classes.  All degrees require English courses and there are many available.  The one that intrigued me the most was called creative writing.  Well being a government employee at the time who was required to write justifications for positions and equipment allocations I was already doing that to some extent.  Now I will come some short of saying that those writings were untruthful but if they had been investigated to any great extent my section would not have received some of the equipment that we did.  So I enrolled in the creative writing class.  My professor's name was Sarah Gogle.  I say this for two reasons, one I am amazed that I remember her name at all and two that I now blog on Google.Well maybe it wasn't that interesting after all.   

Anyway one of my first assignments in this class was to write a one page story describing a conflict.  I thought and thought and could not think of a suitable conflict that I could describe in only one page.  Then while watching a baseball game on television it came to me.  So I wrote the short story that is now one of many on my web site's free ebook collections of short stories.  These stories can be downloaded for free by going to www.everettede.com and clicking on the link for short stories.  The story that I wrote was titled fastball and was nothing more than a five pitch confrontation between a pitcher and a batter.  The lesson here is that there is conflict in our lives each and everyday and each conflict is worthy of the written word.    

The next thing that I learned in this class had more to do with learning about myself than about writing itself. For the next assignment the class was asked to write a short story and each person would bring enough copies of each story for each of the other class members.  The average length of the stories provided by other class members was four.  My story was seventeen pages long.  It seems that my gift of gab translates well to paper as well.  Oh and I type nearly as fast as I speak so I can simply sit at the computer and have a conversation with myself or, as in this case I just ramble on.  This is actually really cool because no one can get up a walk out on me.  If they don't like what I am writing they simply delete it but I will never know that they did that so my ego remains intact. 

At any rate today I had a conversation with my friend Cliff and he had the courtesy to tell me that he enjoyed my writing and that he read my blogs.  So I was encouraged to start this up again.  I will try to write something at least once each month and most of what I write will be about writing or publishing, however I will no doubt throw a tantrum occasionally over something that I read or see on the Internet. 

I will close this with the same closing that I used when I wrote the articles on communication between men and women for single vision magazine.  

Have a good understanding.