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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:24:24 GMT -5
"So who are these 'people that matter'? ...and why are we powerless to change this?" I don't think there are any hidden power brokers. It's just people and votes. "We" aren't powerless. Biden was the consensus candidate, all things considered, even though (I would guess) most voters had a different preference. I'd have preferred Amy Klobuchar but I could live with Biden. I know a lot of people who would have preferred Bernie Sanders but they could live with Biden. It's all a big compromise. Maybe that's what it has to be. Then it isn't "people that matter", is it? If it as you suggested, it's just "the people", not "the people that matter", right?
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:17:54 GMT -5
President Trump is the only one I can think of who surrounded himself primarily with sycophants and expected absolute obedience. How do you know this? How would he compare in this regard to FDR who by all accounts was utterly authoritarian? (by the way, I do mostly agree with your post. I just don't accept that Trump was different. I do accept that he was reported as different. But I also don't agree that most people don't look at the president as a sovereign king. I think most people DO view him that way. And that's just one of the many things broken about our political life and our government.)
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:08:20 GMT -5
too few of the people that matter want anyone else. This is the weird one. Everyone we all know -- without exception -- wants someone else. Maybe that's an exaggeration. I doubt it. Do you really know anyone whose first choice is either Biden or Trump? I don't. And I didn't know anyone thus inclined in 2020. So who are these "people that matter"? ...and why are we powerless to change this?
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 9:16:00 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 6:36:12 GMT -5
45,000 rural carriers either didn't get paid or got partially paid this week. Apparently we have to "bargain" for our full pay.
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 5:45:35 GMT -5
I suppose John is trying to point out that both parties do this stuff Sort of, but not really. It bothers me that the assumption is that McConnell did something wrong in the 60s. The implication (proven out by subsequent comments here) that he was a draft dodger -- the implication that the sequence of events ending in him being diagnosed with something that ended what little military service he had was done fraudulently. And all THAT because he is a Republican. All three of my older brothers were drafted. Just like McConnell, they all "dodged" the draft too. They enlisted in the Air Force in hopes of diminishing the probability that they would end up in Vietnam, in the infantry, on the front lines. The dodge worked for two of them. Cheaters. The third ended up in Vietnam, in the radio corp, on the front lines. Beyond that, the thread's fascination with a doddering old man is just too rich for words. Doddering only matters when it's a Republican like McConnell or Reagan. And the comments are made with Biden in office. The hypocrisy is just too rich for words.
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Post by millring on Aug 30, 2023 18:29:16 GMT -5
Wouldn't be surprised if David McCarty had something to do with it.
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Post by millring on Aug 30, 2023 18:25:28 GMT -5
I only just now learned of his amazingly brief military "career." From Wiki: In March 1967, shortly before the expiration of his educational draft deferment upon graduation from law school, McConnell enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve as a private at Louisville, Kentucky. This was a coveted position because the Reserve units were mostly kept out of combat during the Vietnam War. His first day of training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, was July 9, 1967, two days after taking the bar exam, and his last day was August 15, 1967. Shortly after his arrival he was diagnosed with optic neuritis and deemed medically unfit for military service, and was honorably discharged. His brief time in service has repeatedly been put at issue by his political opponents during his electoral campaigns. Probably cheated to get the coveted position. Probably an unscrupulous doctor gave the fake diagnosis to get him out of service. Probably traded favors against his future power in politics. Politicians. Cheaters, every last Republican one of 'em.
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Post by millring on Aug 29, 2023 20:01:27 GMT -5
Every time I see what Rick has done and the writing he's always up to, I admire him. At the same time, his ambition shames me at my lack of trying. Same thing with Marshall and his tenacious songwriting. Epaul said it. I've said it so many times too. Writers write. If it's something you want to do, you need to be doing it. You don't need to be selling it or sharing it or publishing it or anything else, but you do need to be doing it. And I do. I mean, I write all the time. I've had to think through -- maybe justify for myself -- why I like to write. It is first and foremost the way I think through things -- issues, problems, beauty. Second, I simply like words. From word games to word play to reading to hearing, I like words. I like the rhythm and sound of the written word. Beyond those two things, I use words to connect socially. I like communication. In the right mood, I'm talkative. And in the same right mood -- one that I haven't felt in quite a while -- I like to write to convey ideas -- to share our common humanity -- the things we experience and how we feel about them. I've had an idea for a story for well over three years now. In my mind are the parts of the story. And maybe (probably?) I'll just continue to write it in my mind. So far, though I think the idea of the story is a good one, I can't figure out how to start it ... and part of that puzzle is what person it should be in. I don't know if it would convey the common human interest best if I were to tell the story about someone, or if I should be the someone telling my story. It's fiction. So either way, my first or my third person is just making it up. I think that first person would be easier (for one thing, the main character is a potter ) because I think I could make the dialogue work better (though I'm not at all sure I'm up to the task of writing in other voices than my own). I also think that third person sounds like a plodding arrangement of he said/he said, he went, he did. But that hasn't seemed to bother good writers, right?
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Post by millring on Aug 29, 2023 19:36:55 GMT -5
Funny, but even though I know he's playing some of the right chords and he's not wrong... ...he actually doesn't sound much like James Taylor.
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Post by millring on Aug 29, 2023 10:55:43 GMT -5
It's probably been 50 years since I laughed at something so Jr high, but I just delivered mail to Amy Stitt.
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 21:18:37 GMT -5
I saw that archtop on Facebook a few days ago and thought it was the prettiest thing I've seen in a long time.
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 20:38:11 GMT -5
Newman's "Marie" is a sweeet song. I had not heard it before. Thanks, John. I wish "Marie" rhymed with "Susan," so that I could sing it for my wife. The version that I heard on Youtube sounds much like a song created for a Broadway Musical. Oddly enough, the first person I ever heard play it was Livingston Taylor when he was on Mountain Stage. And since back then I used to record every Mountain Stage and every Prairie Home Companion, I had a recording to listen to over and over. But it was before the internet and useful search engines and the like, and I wasn't til much later that I discovered who wrote it. My favorite version by far is Glen Campbell's from a very old recording.
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 20:06:07 GMT -5
I've love to tackle is Newman's "Marie." I LOVE playing that song and every time I do it breaks my heart just a little that I cannot manage the vocal range regardless of key.
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 20:03:57 GMT -5
Last year I wanted to convey a thought that I sensed that if I had written it in the first person would have made the readers miss the point of the story in the first place. Sensing that, I came up with the idea of writing it as a letter from someone else to me (honestly, I probably got the idea from Garrison Keillor's "Letter From Jim"). For me it really worked. I was taken out of the picture except as someone sharing this letter, so if anyone thought well of the writer, it wasn't me they thought well of -- it was the letter writer.
I know I didn't make that very clear. But I've often thought about the point of view from which a story is told and what a difference it can make in the telling and the receiving.
It seems that third person writing allows the writer to be omniscient -- to tell what anyone in the story is doing AND thinking. First person can tell you what anyone was saying, and I suppose a clever enough writer can simply use dialogue to manipulate the reader into a logical conclusion about the character without telling you up front how that character might be motivated.
But I wonder which is easier when writing dialogue (and I wonder how necessary it is to always include the "I said" and "He said" in every single exchange. Do you get confused if it's omitted?)
I have to admit that it seems to matter so little that I can't even tell you which person most of the books I've read are written in. Are the Michael Connolly novels written in first person? ...I can't even remember.
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 17:11:20 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 11:43:08 GMT -5
Laughed til my eyes leaked at this:
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 10:00:29 GMT -5
As a reader or writer of songs, letters, or stories, help me think through the relative strengths and weaknesses of writing in the first or third person.
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Post by millring on Aug 27, 2023 7:58:21 GMT -5
I was playing along with Old Tennessee (Dan Fogelberg and Alexa) and then I went to youtube to watch him play it and decided I wasn't doing it right. Off to the Amazon.
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Post by millring on Aug 25, 2023 6:17:48 GMT -5
I got my LLV up to 44 mph on highway 30 yesterday. It felt reckless but exhilarating. I guess I'll never grow up.
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