Cole Parker
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Posts posted by Cole Parker
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And more to the point, where's the sign up list posted?
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I basically agree with you, Pecman. I was really making a different point. Yes, if you ignore rules of grammar and voice and continuity and basic stuff like that, you can end up with such a mish-mash that no one will like it.
I guess I didn't make myself clear enough, because what I meant was, you can't let yourself get bogged down by trying to comply with all the rules that have been floating around here the past few days. I expect the writers here to know and follow the basic rules of writing in Engish. They do, or they wouldn't be posting here. That wasn't what I was saying, though I probably didn't emphasize it. I was more talking about the rules regarding cliches, or writing a gay story.
You have to be a terribly good writer to break the basic rules. I can think of one book that sticks in my mind as an example of that being successfully done. Joseph Heller, in Catch-22, broke any and all existing rules about time-line writing. That book seemed to have been written as a normal story, and then he dropped the chapters while walking down stairs, picked them up entirely unsorted and shipped them off to the publsiher. So there was no time continuity at all, and yet the story worked. Riotously funny, too.
I don't think many people could get away with that.
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Okay, guys and gals, I've just been clowning around with this, as I'm pretty sure you know. I just wanted to point out that rules, if followed blindly, can lead to severe 'issues', as can completely ignoring them. It is how you deal with them creatively that is the essence of good writing.
I'm so glad to see you say that, Trab. We keep seeing threads here dealing with the rules that have to be followed to write anything that's good. They seem to focus on don'ts rather than do's, and if we were to allow them great moment, I think what they'd basically do is stymie our creativity.
Your brief stab at following the rules is excellent in showing the effect of writing by the rules. It was a terrible piece of wriitng. It had nothing in it to engage the reader. We didn't care about this boy, or the events, and weren't in the least affected by his demise. The story was nothing. And as you say, it followed the rules.
I don't think creativity, I don't think great writing, is about following rules. I think they can get in the way of writing an arresting, a gripping story. If we write trying to following them, if we check every sentence as we write it to see that we're not breaking some rule, I can't imagine ever getting anything down on paper. And if we do, it may very well read like the drab piece of boring tripe that inspired this.
And before everyone jumps down my throat--Pec, are you out there?--I realize that certain conventions should in the main be followed, that there are indeed don'ts that are appropriate to follow and do's that improve ones writing. But I also don't think we can concentrate on these things while trying to create a story. I think doing so limits our creativity. Editing, rehashing, reviewing, critiquing, those are the places to discover if some rule was broken that shouldnt' have been, that something has to be fixed, and in fixing it, you just happen to be find you're now in compliance with some rule. But, even then, if the story works better leaving the rule broken, then I say, leave it broken.
At the very least you'll be doing it consciously, and it'll be your decision.
Cole
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Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I thought the California Supreme Court made a legal ruling, not a popular judgment. They ruled that their interprataton of the state's constitution was the equal protection clause would be violated by not allowing gays to marry. This seems to be something that other states cannot effect. It has nothing to do with them, from the standpoint of what is legal in California. So staying this decision makes no sense in that context.
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Trab, I like what you say, but feel some pessimism that it will occur. Pulling together for common goals is obviously a good thing. Where we have a problem is defining common goals. We have such divisive issues today that consensus, or even compromise, seems impossible.
Look at what faces us as a nation (and you too, up in the wilds of Canada.) How does one compromise on abortion? You vote to abolish it, or condone it, and there doesn't seem to be much middle ground available, no common goal that both sides will accept. Here, many voices say our borders should be closed entirely; only a few should be able to get in, they should be rigorously screeened, and we should deny entry for the masses even if there is a need for their work. Others say we need these workers to harvest our crops; without them, tons of food rots in the fields. We have a faction that passionately proclaims that our right to have guns is a necessary element of protecting our freedoms, while just as vociferous a group says crime and domestic terrorism from street gangs would be significantly quieted by eliminating guns in the population. Again, compromise doesn't interest either side in the debate. Many people feel national health care programs are socialistic, and socialism has proved to be a flawed system and has failed wherever it's been tried, and it shouldn't be started here even for this purpose; the advocates of universal heath care scream that you're throwing away people if you fail to allow them and their kids access to heath care whether or not they can pay for it, and how can we call ourselves a civilized country if we do that? Again, neither side wants to seek compromise.
Yes, we all pulled together to defeat the Nazis. Maybe that's what it takes, an issue so major that we don't think about these other things, but concentrate on the one major goal ahead of us. That does leave the other problems lingering, however. We haven't solved them, just set them aside from when we can get back to them.
It's very difficult these days for a large majority of our people to agree on much, and certainly not on issues that involve religion or politics or even race and money. Finding a charismatic politician who can lead us to solutions to these problems that will be accepted by most of the citizenry seems terribly unlikely to me. Which of course is very unfortunate.
But I understand your disgust with politicians. Here, they say what they say more to appeal to the crowd they're talking to than to express what they really feel. They're afraid to do that because it will turn off some people who might vote for them otherwise. Their campaign promises are to curry votes, not to provide truth. And that's where they shame themselves, and us for believing them.
Sorry. Guess I'm in a pessimistic mood today.
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Damn! You guys just shot down all the plot lines I was considering.
Well, maybe not.
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. . .one would expect there to be some level of English based activities.
I realize it may appear racist, but I don't think it is.
Did you intended to say 'NATIONALISTIC' rather than racist?
But I certailny agree with your point. And Trab's. If I were to book a vacation in, say, Romainia, I'd be sure to check that English was spoken by the staff, and my English wouldn't prevent me from enjoying the facility and activies. But if I booked through an agency, the literature they provided was in English, and they were recommending the site, I might even forget to check on those things; that's sort of the agency's job, I would suppose.
I guess the court so supposed, too.
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I just read both The Farmhand and Redemption. Abslutely fantastic writing, especially The Farmhand. That was an incredible piece of work. Luminous, even.
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I think it would be easy for this discussion to escalate into something no one wants. Maybe we've exhausted the intellectual rhetoric and should move on. The impassioned rhetoric can quickly become spiteful. That's not what we're here for.
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Damn, Nicholas, you're one of the youngest ones here, and I'm one of the oldest, and you make more sense that most of these guys. I have trouble finding fault with almost anything you're saying. Right on!
No one's brought it up, so I'll throw my oar in on an issue that's part and parcel of this. It was absolutely nuts to go into Iraq with the stated purpose of forming a democracy there. You cannot force a goverment on a people, or a governing plhilosophy. They have to elect it for themselves. Iraq is still, like Afganistan, basically a tribal nation. That's what they understand and support. They are a bit advanced beyond Afganistan in how they treat Iraqi women, but are still far behind where much of the modern world is even on that issue. We cannot foist a democracy on such a nation. It isn't ready for it.
So fighting a war there for that purpose is senseless. And we should have known that going in. My view is that Bush's main objective was to take Sadaam our because he had the temerity to insult his father. Not oil, not balance of power in the region, not WMDs, family insult. And he's reduced this nation dramatically because of that hubris.
We shouldn't have gone in, we shouldn't have stayed, and we're paying the price with young American lives.
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It's discussions like this, presenting us with well-spoken but different sides of an argument, cogently presented, than make this forum such a compellng place to vist..
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Wow! I've never seen anything like that in my life!
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Of course the man was morally consistent, and yes, he did show some character by not fighting a battle he wouldn't have won and in so doing wasted funds better spent on education in his district. Most people in his position aren't quite as honorable as he was in resigning the way he did, and with stating his reasons for the world to see.
The problem I have with him is he showded something that is galling in an educator. He showed personal biases that distorted his view of the world, and then was entirely intransigent about them. He made the decision that allowing a club that would support alternate lifesyle children would lead to them having sex with each other, and as he was for abstinence, that was against his principles. So he quit.
Does anyone else have a problem with this position? Does he really think teens in his school are not having sex with each other, no matter what emphasis his sex education classes have? If his reason for quitting is really that he doesn't want to be part of anything that encourages teens to have sex, then a GSA is a strange thing to pick on. School dances are much more likely to be the font of frisky behavior than any school club.
The purpose of this club was not to encourage its members to go out and have sex with each other. It was to let them get together and share experiences and find fellows walking the same path as each other were, to find they were not alone, something very important to teens. If by meeting other kids who had common problems or attitudes or feelings that means they'll have sex with each other, this convoluted thinking should also be cause to cancel the chess club or the photography club, shouldn't it? Those clubs promote their memebers having sex together, don't they? Well, neither does the GSA.
Yes, the man did the honorable thing by quitting. His letter showed he was unfit to be a high school principal. What I would have preferred him doing rather than praying and quitting, however, was to give the matter some thought, talk to some other principals who have these clubs in their schools, realize his beliefs were different from those of other educators in many regards and posssibly not best for a mixed group of youngsters, and perhaps learn (what a word for an educator) that his religious views shouldn't affect how he does his job, that religion and school shouldn't be mixed, and that his very narrowly proscribed world-view can be the cause of problems and certainly doesn't help, and in fact did a disservice to, the kids who were in his care.
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That principal shows why high schools have been legally enjoined from having religious overtones or ties or programs. I can imagine a kid who wasn't a Christian trying to survive in that school.
Well, it may not have been that difficult. The principal would probably have prayed for him.
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Here is a link to an interesting article in the LA Times today.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ch...0,5914255.story
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My opinion, for what it's worth, is that everyone was mixing this request for info with Ian's (yes, I went back and looked!) Ian wanted raunch, this request was for good stories that had an outdoors component to them.
I think we've given him some good leads.
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I may be wrong--something that occurs way too often--but I don't see where this request for references to good stories has mentioned the word 'sex-filled.' Didn't we have two requests like this? One asked for the stories to be full of randy, raunchy sex, and this one didn't say that at all. What I don't know is if this is the same person, simply asking the same question again, or were there two people asking for sort of the same information.
If it's the latter, and this person is simply asking for well-written stories containing outdoor scenes, then we owe him an apology.
If both these requests are from the same person, then, that's different.
Anyway, here's a link to a fine story, and much of it occurs outdoors:
http://www.iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/feangol/
Cole
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Uh, just how carnel and steamy can 13-year-olds be? How much staying power does a kid of that age have for it to become awesome sex?
But that's frivolous of me. I apologize. I can't help you in your search either, unfortuantely. I've never read a story like that.
It sounds like Nifty is the place to look, however.
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No matter what I read, and how much of it, I just cannot get my head around what it is that 'everyone' will lose by having gay 'marriage'. Surely the whole thing comes down to trying to prevent the evolution of a word from one meaning to something slightly different. In particular, those who say civil unions with all the benefits and responsibilities of marriage are 'okay' but those unions should never be called 'marriage', boggle my mind. At least the people opposed to any union at all for same sex people have some semblance of logic behind them, even if they are 'wrong'.
Trab, I couldn't agree with you more. People complaining about gay marriage don't have much logic behind them or their arguments. I think their position can be summed up as they think gays are sinful, anything to do with being gay is sinful and should be abolished, and anything done legally to shore up gay rights should be fought. They see this as their calling, as it makes them more righteous. But trying to find logic in their positions will just screw up your head. Stop looking for it is my advice. These are people on the margins of society. The majority seem to be moving forward into broad acceptance.
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P.S. anything that doesn't make sense or whatever, you will half to overlook. I just finished finals and I have been pretty much intoxicated for the last...well, I don't exactly know how long.
I guess that explains why you're suddenly talking like a vampire. Either your protective coloration as a mild-mannered college student slipped for a moment, or you were three sheets to the wind. I accept that latter explanation. I guess I half to.<c>
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Leave it to the coon to mention a pejorative, evil icon of the younger generation as a counterbalance to Colin's joy. Fie on you, Coon, fie, I say!
What does that mean, anyway. Fie? Isn't that something Jack's giant said, along with something about making bread of bonemeal? None of that ever did make much sense. Where does one buy bonemeal, for god's sake? I didn't find it at either Kroger's or Safeway the last time I asked. By the way, try not to do that if the manager is bigger than you are. And why not use one of the traditional flours, which are plentiful and cheap and tasty? And what does it have to do with fieing all over the place?
But the point is, let the youngsters have their moment, you old fogey. Yeah, I think that was the point. Don't ruin it with reminders of backstabbing psychos. Sideshow Bob. Jeeze!
And by the way, did anyone notice that Arnold said he wasn't going to interfere? Nice to have him on our side for once.
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That school is a law suit waiting to happen.
The kid's cute, though.
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Our coon is famous, as are his proclivities. This from Sports Illustrted:
On the 1st hole I park my drive in the right rough. There I find my stance impeded by a formidable deposit of racoon s---. I'm certain of its provenance because, unlike the average golfer, I have raised raccoons and cleaned up after them.
What's the official ruling here--do I get a free drop from animal droppings? Perhaps it depends on the species of critter: no relief from rabbit pellets; two club lengths from a bear pile. I'm guessing that the issue seldom arises at Agusta. After a short deliberation, I briskly disperse the coon doo with my seven-iron.
Now we know: Wibby lives by a golf course.
And is up to his usual misbehavior.
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I thought I was the only one who couldn't abide either of those two actors!
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Junk Science on Stage
in News & Views
Posted
And 'wellbeing' is so, so subjective. Many on the edges of rationality would only to grant that blessing to people whose views of a happy life run parallel to their own. Put in the words of an earlier generation, those whose views are in lockstep with their own.
One of the issues that takes so much thought today, now that we are gaining medical capabilities we've never had before, is to decide how to use them. Like so many other issues today, there will be wide divergence on the answers. We're already seeing that with stem cell research.
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