Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI’m not sure if this should be a post, but since it’s Saturday night and things are quiet here, I’ll put it up in the spirit of the old Plum Line At Night segments that BGinChi used to host, often about books. (And BG’s planning to stop in here when he has time, which is nice news.)
Some of you may have checked out my publishing website, which is linked to at my profile. I’ve just posted an interview question Bernie asked me to answer about the sensory experience of writing fiction. If you’re interested in how writing fiction gets done, you might want to look.
At the Plum Line, I’ve occasionally commented about things Wisconsin since I lived there for over two decades. As a political junkie, I’ve thought a lot about what’s going on there–that persistent divide that gave the country both the Progressive tradition and Joe McCarthy. During my Wisconsin years, particularly when I lived in the country, I was very aware of the outlook of many of neighbors and how that played out in politics. I wrote a lot of short stories that were informed by my affection for those neighbors and my interest in their attitudes.
For those of you who’re curious about what the real Wisconsin is, those stories are collected in In the Land of the Dinosaur: Ten Stories and a Novella. There’s info on it (including excerpts and music links) and other titles, including my Civil War War novel, Suite Harmonic, on the site. There’s also a related interview question from David Douglas (not somebody from the Plum Line) about the isolation of living in the country in Wisconsin. You’ll want emilymeier dot com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: NEW POST |
All Things in Moderation 
Hi ABC (Emily). I'm anxious to read all your books and have added Suite Harmonic to my Christmas wish list. It looks like it was pretty slow around here today but it's nice to see everyone enjoying their weekend and probably watching football. We took off for Julian today to pick apples and wander the town. It's a little "country store" type of town in the mountains of San Diego County, famous for all things apple. I skipped the apple pie since it's only the two of us here but it was tough to resist. I did splurge on some apple butter though. We're trying to get into the swing of the fall season now that the days are getting shorter. Yes, we do have seasons in CA, they're just not as dramatic as for the rest of you.I hope to talk to everyone tomorrow and will read the interviews and what not then. It must be a fantastic feeling being an author.I'll see y'all manana.
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Morning all. Speaking of all things political…. the WaPo had this up yesterday. It looks like the quote that's attracting all the attention in a rather long piece on Obama's campaign strategy is this;Addressing the caucus’s annual dinner Saturday night, Obama reeled off more statistics showing how he said his jobs bill would help millions of black Americans. He lamented the community’s steep economic troubles, telling cheering audience members that he needs their help, despite any discouragement they have felt.“I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain,” he said. “I am going to press on. I expect all of you to march with me. . . . Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on.”
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I remember last week MsJS posted the interesting idea that we're lucky to live here compared to other countries. I wouldn't want to be living in Greece right now.Now they're adding a property tax. From the piece in the NYTimes it sounds like a powder keg to me. People can only take so much.While banks and European leaders hold abstract talks in foreign capitals about the impact of a potential Greek default on the euro and the world economy, something frighteningly concrete is under way in Greece: the dismantling of a middle-class welfare state in real time — with nothing to replace it.Since 2010, the government has raised taxes and slashed pensions and state salaries across the board, in an effort to rein in the bloated public sector that today employs one in five Greeks. Last week, the government announced it would put 30,000 workers on reduced pay as a precursor to possible termination and would cut pensions again for nearly half a million public-sector retirees. There is a lot for Greeks to swallow. Beyond the public-sector wage cuts, in recent months the government has also imposed a “solidarity tax” ranging from 1 to 4 percent of income on all workers and an additional tax on self-employed workers, who make up the bulk of the economy. It has also raised its value-added tax on many goods and services, including food, to 23 percent from 13 percent.The economy is flagging, and it is not uncommon for even private-sector workers to see pay cuts of 30 percent or more, sometimes in exchange for a reduction in working hours.
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Since I'm not that excited to talk to myself, lol, I'll check back in later. Happy Sunday.
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Good morning. Thanks, ABC/Emily, for the link – and I will try to get to it. Lulu, I have been in my shop for an hour [honeydo list] and then I ate breakfast. But I only have time for a "howdy" and then back to work before the heat sets in. I'm not gonna get that labor and employment case review thingie up.QB – just a quickie for you – from my perspective, reinforcing the standard defenses [e.g."we have ample evidence that we fired her because she repeatedly caused a safety risk in the workplace, NOT because she was Muslim"] was very important and very welcome. Class action cases were not intended as a vehicle to obliterate actual individual defenses.
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[QB – that was a reference to WM v. Dukes]
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I'll join the quiet chamber, too. While I'll turn my attention to the Greeks soon and still want to reread QB's legal post, in the meantime, if anybody does stop in at my website, there are things of possible political interest. Greg asked a question related to political blogs that's in the Interview section On Writing in the Digital Age. Josh Marshall has a question On Being a Writer that, I think, illustrates that, for him, politics is generally part of a bigger picture.In addition, and particularly for people who don't think the government should spend money on much of anything, there's a question from Dana Gioia, former head of the NEA about the impact of NEA fellowships. That's also in On Being a Writer. There's an interesting question on writing and gender (the kind that has come up on the Plum Line) from Mary Michaels, a London poet, and a question from Rosemary James of the Faulkner Society in New Orleans that addresses new opportunities in publishing in the digital age–ones I think are analagous to what has happened in journalism with the arrival of blogs.Enough personal touting. I'm hoping somebody posts some pizza recipes from Herman Cain. I'd also be glad if anybody could reassure me that if you edit a post and then publish it, it won't show up twice.
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And thanks, Mark and lmsinca.
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Lms, the Greeks are going to face unprecedented taxation with or without a bailout. If they default, no more loan money and more cutbacks and higher taxes. If they keep getting bailed out, the conditions will be,… More cutbacks and higher taxes.Might as well default and clear the debt.
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ABC, I haven't had any trouble with double posts after editing. It should be fine. Herman Cain's pizza, haaaaahaaaaa. I was thinking of jotting down my recipe for tortilla soup, how's that?Mark, It's cool, damp and foggy here, very weird for So. Cal this time of year. I keep trying to send our weather your way but apparently it's not working. I know what you mean though, we're sometimes working in our warehouse before the sun comes up during the summer. Steel buildings tend to get pretty hot when it's 100 degrees out.
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McWing, I agree re the default, it's going to happen anyway. What a mess. Did you read the piece I linked, the regular guy over there is really suffering through the madness. I just don't know how much austerity people can take before they really erupt.
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Don't have the the time, but re: Greek default, and our own economic doldrums, at some point I'm going to post pondering in regards to fiat money. That is, money is basically a translation media for productivity, or productive output into other forms of productivity or productive output. Money itself is just bits in a computer or printed pieces of paper (or minted coins)–it's just an efficient way to barter productive output, because you don't have to want my database skills if I want your lawyerin' skills, if I can trade my databasing skills to a 3rd party for money, which I then, in turn, trade to you for your lawerin'). As such, economic failures, recessions and depressions have to be a matter of a few things: to little or no productive activity, too much activity with no economic or productive output, or too much corruption in the system–to much gaming to the system to accumulate the trade medium for economic output (money) without actually producing a valuable good or service.So it always makes me wonder, if we could provide real, broad incentives to productive output, and get everybody doing *something*, preferably something productive (and repairing houses in the neighborhood and clearing lots of a picking up trash in the street, all these things could be productive) if economic dips wouldn't fix themselves. How this would happen, I have no idea, but . . . I just keep thinking about it. Money (and even when it was gold, it wasn't about rarity, it was about market value of productive output) is about productivity.If we were all doing something productive, if the incentives were there, you could get out of any recession, any depression. But certain levels of productive output require education, economic and technical innovation, regulation (but not the kind that oppresses economic output pointlessly), etc. If everybody in an economic system is trying to get out and do something, to sell something, to invent something, to make a better mousetrap or improve a process, to find a new way . . . I dunno. That's why this isn't a post. I've only been mulling it over for 20 years, but apparently I'm still nowhere near done. I guess if we had a bias towards productive output, everybody, we'd be better off. As it is, a lot of economic activity is devoted to gaming the system (legally or illegally), rather than coming up with productive economic output (maybe loosely defined as output that has value to more people than the producer, and that is exchanged with honest communication about the content of the output). Speaking of which, I must go make output. Later!
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I did a post of links of stuff I was reading the other day. I'm going to occasionally repost old blog posts I did years ago here, as a conversation starter (maybe). I've got one in the queue. Later! But, new post:http://www.all-things-in-moderation.com/2011/09/links-from.html
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Hi Gang.I'll be posting here as soon as I can get some wiggle into my schedule.I have fond memories of Plum Line After Dark (I think that's what I called it…though I might have had a few drinks on some of those nights). Looking forward to renewing the connection.The site looks great and I'm impressed as hell at the effort that's going into this.a presto
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Hi BGI'm glad you found us. We're trying. There are really a lot of interesting people here with differing views on politics but common views on many other subjects, thank God.For instance, I've discovered that both qb and scott loved "The Thing", me too. And I'm hoping you and ABC can help us with reading recommendations of course. Not that my list isn't about a mile long already. I'm just finishing up "Angle of Repose" and really enjoyed the read. All my family on my Dad's side were Western pioneers of German decent so it was like a day in the life story for me.Anyway, check in when you can, we're a busy group of people so we're all pitching in the best we can. Once you get your feet wet and have more time, you can author your own post and it's not mandatory to politics, thank goodness.
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BTW, my son-in-law has published his first novel, which I think is whizbang. I already bought and sent copies to 12bb, bsimon, bb, and cef, so if they have read it they can report a little more objectively. Andrei Codrescu and Julie Powell wrote the cover blurbs.http://www.amazon.com/I-Judas-Novel-James-Reich/dp/1593764219/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316989777&sr=1-1
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Mark, I'll add that to my list also. My kids are always looking for books to buy me and a wish list on Amazon is just the thing. A girl can only wear so many pairs of slippers or earrings.
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Mark, that link didn't work for me but I found it on Amazon and added it along with "Suite Harmonic". I'm still waiting for BG's novel. Do you remember wbgonne from the Plumline? He had a terrific novel also which I read. Sort of a crime/mob boss story set in Boston that I really enjoyed called The Bitter End.
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Thanks, LMS! I do recall wbegonne from "The Fix", first, I think. I will look for that as well.
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I'll take a look, Mark, and BG, if we call this ATM After Dark, won't that sound possibly nefarious?
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Cinemax After Dark was always my favorite Cinemax. Ah, Emannuelle in Bangcock. A fine film.
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ATM After Dark.I love it.
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Hi BG, let us know when you want access to the admin/author side so you can create ATM After Dark. All I need is an email address you'd like to use here. I'm not pressuring you though……..really I'm not.
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