Thoughts About Writing

I am reading a book about humor writing and the book seems to have some wise advice about writing. The book is by Patrick McManus and it's called, The Deer on a Bicycle: Excursions into the Writing of Humor.

One line that struck me was this one: "I've known some wonderfully talented writers over the years who could not overcome their fear [the fear of writing], and therefore never submitted their work to publishers. Their work was never quite 'ready,' they'd say. They suffered from the fear of failure."

I've heard material like that before. But as I get older, it seems more and more true.

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Possible Change

I was reading in The New York Times about the president's recent shock at seeing the numerous empty seats at his Tulsa rally. It brought a smile to my face.

I guess I'll just say what's on my mind here.

His presidency has been a joke from the start. And by "joke," I'm not denying all recent presidents have probably put ratings data ahead of what they thought was right. But Trump took it to a new level. He did everything in his power to make sure he would look good, no matter if he or his team of henchmen were proactively lying. No masquerade or cover-up was too outlandish if it kept his supporters happy.

Maybe the Fates have had enough. No doubt most of America has.

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The Gig Economy

I have been reading about the "Gig Economy." I've become interested in it because I'm part of it, and because I believe it's eating away at people's idea of the American Dream. We've no doubt as a society been moving in this direction for a number of years--one could say the gateway drug for owners has been temp services, thereby cutting their costs substantially. And I think it's going to spread much more widely in our economy.

I know I'll write more about the gig economy in future posts, but here's one fact that I found shocking. It was found in one recent analysis that the average DoorDash worker makes just $1.45 an hour after mileage and taxes.

Amazing. Utterly amazing.

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Justice and Life

Sometimes I do wonder about theodicy, which is the explanation of why a good God would permit evil. Well, really more about the practical aspect of it. In the US we have a leader that is causing much harm to many.

One might ask, where is a good, all-knowing God in the midst of Trump's actions? Yet, of course, it's always been this way, just to different degrees.

Being brutally honest, all I can make of it is like the philospher John Hick talked about. That this world/life is a soul-making entity. Somehow, possibly, most pain is transmuted.

I just don't know.

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Police Brutality

The news lately has been dealing with the police killing of the African American man, George Floyd. It's amazing, the video. The police officer had his knee on the man's neck for about eight minutes. The independent autopsy has listed the cause of death as asphyxiation.

No doubt that without the video, the officer would not have been fired, and he surely would not have been charged with third degree murder. Yet, the story is not over. As people found out in the Rodney King incident, even with a video that seems to seal the deal on a guilty verdict, there is a lot more to come once the defense lawyers dig into the case.

But I think the defense attorneys will have a tougher time than in the King case because the prosecutors now are more savvy to what is needed. The verdict will hopefully change some long-standing patterns of police departments.

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