Search the Community

Well, I cast my first vote in an election yesterday, and I'm happy to say that almost all of the people I voted for won here in Virginia. The moderate Bob McDonnell trashed the extremist Creigh Deeds, the left of center candidate for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli easily defeated the radical Steve Shannon and a bunch of local republicans won here as well. The only candidate that I voted for who didn't win was Jody Wagner, but I don't really think this was a good year for her to run. She was a great candidate, but she got stuck on a losing ticket with a group of left wing racists here in Virginia and the people went another way. Unfortunately, the democrats in Maine have voted against gay marriage. But on the plus side, New Jersey has a new, though morbidly obese, republican governor elect. Hopefully he'll trim more fat from the budget than he has from his diet. Hopefully, the republican fools don't get too overconfident about what happened yesterday and start to think that they can cruise to victory next year in the mid-term elections. And hopefully for the democrats, they'll realize that Tim Kaine is an inept party leader and that when they snubbed Howard Dean, they screwed themselves over. Because the truth is, before Dean was chairing the DNC, they had nothing. Under Dean, they regained complete control of the house, the senate and the white house. Not to mention the fact that they won an overwhelming majority of the governorships in the nation. They should probably give him a call and beg him to come back.

Fascinating article about an author rewriting her first book after a barrage of negative Tweets. The over-the-top reactions by some of her fans don't surprise me. An idiot on GA lambasted me when I had the chutzpah to call out an author he liked. He claimed she was trying. Well, if she was trying then she would have appreciated my telling her what she wrote was crap. She did. And she earned my respect by acknowledging she didn't have any knowledge of what she was writing about and asking for help. I'm a firm believer in honesty when reviewing. There are a handful of GA authors I don't bother with because they seem to whine whenever anyone says anything about their work that isn't absolute praise. Keira Drake seems to be the type to pay attention to what readers say even if it's not laudatory. Unless as authors we're willing to listen to what others find wrong with our work, we'll never improve. Maybe I'm weird, but I'd rather hear how something I wrote doesn't make sense so I can improve. So, what do y'all think? http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/keira-drake-the-continent.html

I am embarrassed and ashamed. I hoped that people in my country would never say things like ’Fucking niggers! Let them drown. We should burn them.’ ever again. But they do. Out in the open, not hidden anymore in some back room. And they do more. They burn down refugee homes, they organize torch parades, they post hate speeches on facebook and other the social medias. We are a democracy. They are allowed to do at least some of this. But I say No! Loud and clear. I neither tolerate nor accept racists. You may ask why I’m doing this here. I saw a comment by Anja Reschke yesterday. She asked us to say no and that is what I do. For those who speak German, here is what she said.

Canada Day, July 1st. A National Holiday in Canada, but what is Canada Day? Well, to lots of us it's a day off work. To me, it is just that normally. But since I'm writing this blog, this year it's been on my mind a bit more. The Government of Canada website says this: It's the Day Canadians across the country and around the world show their pride in their history, culture and achievements. It's been a day of celebration, where many festivities are held across the country, since 1868. But with what's been happening in connection with racism, and other prejudices, the horrors of Residential Schools and the discoveries of so many unmarked graves, there's been calls to cancel it. Here's one woman's take on it: "I don't think it should be cancelled. I realize we've had some very troubling revelations, but the way forward is not to stop aspiring to be a better country, and it's not to try and erase the existence of a country or erase history. It's about acknowledging it and and trying to do something better. "While acknowledging the pain of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, there's lots of suffering throughout Canada's history and even today. I'm a Muslim woman, I'm a racialized person. We have our places of worship burned down, vandalized with swastikas. I've been driven out of the first home I bought, which was in a small town in Canada, because the racist locals made my life so unbearable, I had to flee. "There's a lot for me personally to be upset about when it comes to our country, our history and fellow Canadians. But I still want to look forward. I still want to be positive.... Life here can't just be suffering. It's also a little bit of community and fellowship and joy. That's worth celebrating to me." - Aziza Mohammed I agree with her myself. I think the date should be important, but why we celebrate should change. It should be a day to remember the bad and think of how far we've come, what we need to do and celebrate all our cultures. I want to look forward with people like Aziza Mohammed. We cannot make Canada a better place unless we work together, learn about and support each other and stand together and say no to hate.