Writing
And counting. A short short story (Ten seconds short)
T-minus ten and counting. A spectrum – red, yellow and green – illuminates. A traffic rainbow that means turbines are operational. A buzzer squeals overhead: propulsion jets are ignited, pushing 100,000 pounds per square inch against the launch pad. A faint, buffered...
Neptune’s Rain Cuts Like Diamonds
(A story for Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction contest, based on a randomly selected title, first line, and last lines.) Three days without sleep was the least of my worries. Charlene was out there, slouched in an alley or a flophouse, a needle dangling from a vein,...
¡Gran Estreno! Grand Premiere!
ENGLISH ESPAÑOL Last night in Madrid I had my Grand Premiere as an actor. Six women, four different accents in Spanish (Italian, French, Irish and American) and an audience of all our Spanish boyfriends and a couple of weirdos who must have had nothing better to do....
Do what you like
Do what you like When I told my parents I wanted a job where I could do what I like, as a young college graduate with a sociology degree (!), you'd have thought I said I wanted to juggle babies for a living. But they came around, about the time I found a job I liked....
Writer in exile: 101st blog post
“‘A writer is always in exile,’ she said, this is what pushes him or her to write. ‘It doesn’t have to be geographical.’” From Journalist Olivia Snaije’s interview with three Syrian and Iraqi women writers living in exile: Samar Yazbek, Inaam Kachachi, and Rosa Yassin...
Is it a Muslim ban, or isn’t it?
Let's go to the who, what, when, where, why and how of the Executive Order (EO). No, I'm not a journalist, but rather a social scientist, which Trump would probably still find Bad. Or Sad. Or whatever it is he says. Anyway: WHAT: Temporary ban, with leeway to expand...
Sometimes the path forward is clear
UPDATE: Here's a petition to tell the media exactly what we want: an end to free publicity for the Big Moron: Petition We need to enlist the media to make an important change. It's time to stop treating this maniacal Moron in Chief as if he were like other presidents....
Things in the think-pot today
Things I’ve thought about today while walking around Madrid, going to the gym, getting lunch, and then watching as my country woke up, put on its marching shoes, and hit the streets. I might add to this list but for now this will do... What I like Dogs that walk...
News, fake news, and an uneven spectrum
UPDATES: Two big updates to this story, stronger evidence than I could ever write. First, this graphic showed up a few weeks ago. It's a clear way to see where the partisan bias actually resides, and its gradient. I can't find the source to cite it, but if you take...