The Blog King, Yaro Starak, is a friendly but extremely professional presence in cyberspace, and a good writer to boot. He makes a point of answering every email with specific answers to your questions. Starak operates a network of blogs, as well as his e-commerce site. As you navigate, you receive information about drawing traffic that is useful enough in its own right; he doesn’t push you to buy anything in order to uncover some big secret.
To maintain individual contact with inquirers, he offers to email you a newsletter, a promise he keeps. The one he sent me this morning included reviews of blogging products and a warning not to SPLOG, a word coined to combine “spam” and “blog.”
“Splogs are set up to get traffic to other sites,” Starak writes. “They are automatically generated and the owners have no intention of producing a useful website — they just want to get traffic. Essentially, they are the SPAM of the blogging world.”
He goes on to say that not all blogging systems distinguish between splogging and niche blogging, where an operator might link all of his sites to one another. He sited a niche blogger whose sites disappeared, erasing all income from the display advertising on his sites, because his blogging system forbids what they consider splogging under any circumstances. Starak gives niche bloggers advice about how to avoid such a misfortune.
I believe you’ll enjoy The Blog King and his information-filled advice. His site address is:
http://www.blogtrafficking.com
Monday, April 24, 2006
Saturday, April 22, 2006
True Dog Story
A moment ago, a friend emailed me this story that she swears really happened:
A plane flying from Seattle to San Francisco stopped for a layover in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, the plane would re-board in one hour.
A passenger noticed that everyone was leaving the plane except for one man, who appeared to be blind because his seeing-eye dog lay quietly under the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight. He could also tell that the blind man had flown this flight before because the pilot approached him and, calling him by name, said, "Keith, we're in Sacramento for a while. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?"
The blind man replied, "No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."
The pilot put on his sunglasses and led the dog off the plane. When people at the gate saw the pilot wearing sunglasses leading a seeing-eye dog, they scattered, not only cancelling their reservations but changing airlines.
Things aren't always as they appear.
A plane flying from Seattle to San Francisco stopped for a layover in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, the plane would re-board in one hour.
A passenger noticed that everyone was leaving the plane except for one man, who appeared to be blind because his seeing-eye dog lay quietly under the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight. He could also tell that the blind man had flown this flight before because the pilot approached him and, calling him by name, said, "Keith, we're in Sacramento for a while. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?"
The blind man replied, "No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."
The pilot put on his sunglasses and led the dog off the plane. When people at the gate saw the pilot wearing sunglasses leading a seeing-eye dog, they scattered, not only cancelling their reservations but changing airlines.
Things aren't always as they appear.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Suze Orman's Will and Trust Kit, a User's Testimony
I did it and had fun doing it. After installing “Suze Orman’s Will and Trust Kit,” I filled its blanks with my information and then printed out four extremely clear, legal documents that reflected my financial situation: my Will, my Irrevocable Trust, my Advanced Directive and Durable Power of Attorney, and my Financial Power of Attorney.
No bank or attorney had addressed with me a tenth of what personal finance expert Suze Orman covers in her kit. Reading and listening to the audio by Orman and her personal trust attorney Janet Dobrovolny, I realized that I’d been singing in the dark, believing that I had an estate plan, when I had nothing that came close.
Besides the local hospital, who would know that I had a long-term care insurance policy? Her electronic guidebooks cover every aspect of a person’s financial life. In what she calls the protection portfolio, you include items in detail about all insurance policies, an inventory of belongings for your homeowner’s policy, and the list is exhaustive and comprehensive. Her custom-designed calculators help you assess everything from credit & dept to what you will need for retirement.
I’ll be hiring an attorney who specializes in estate planning. For our appointment, I’ll be fully armed, having done the kind of work I should have done long ago.
My only beef is that Suze Orman’s financial talk show (on CNBC) is on Saturday night, when it’s difficult to sit down and watch television. Entertaining and dramatically informative, she rescues people who have made, or are about to make, serious financial blunders.
Conducting a search of “Suze Orman”, you will find a wealth of sites devoted personal finance health. Her home site is: http://www.suzeorman.com
No bank or attorney had addressed with me a tenth of what personal finance expert Suze Orman covers in her kit. Reading and listening to the audio by Orman and her personal trust attorney Janet Dobrovolny, I realized that I’d been singing in the dark, believing that I had an estate plan, when I had nothing that came close.
Besides the local hospital, who would know that I had a long-term care insurance policy? Her electronic guidebooks cover every aspect of a person’s financial life. In what she calls the protection portfolio, you include items in detail about all insurance policies, an inventory of belongings for your homeowner’s policy, and the list is exhaustive and comprehensive. Her custom-designed calculators help you assess everything from credit & dept to what you will need for retirement.
I’ll be hiring an attorney who specializes in estate planning. For our appointment, I’ll be fully armed, having done the kind of work I should have done long ago.
My only beef is that Suze Orman’s financial talk show (on CNBC) is on Saturday night, when it’s difficult to sit down and watch television. Entertaining and dramatically informative, she rescues people who have made, or are about to make, serious financial blunders.
Conducting a search of “Suze Orman”, you will find a wealth of sites devoted personal finance health. Her home site is: http://www.suzeorman.com
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Friends of Basic Jokes
Cyber-laughter and Friends of Basic Jokes Online
Friends e-mail jokes. Lately I got a beaut (see below). When I read it, the bird-twitter outside my window suddenly became laughter. My solar plexus region, which had been feeling like a pair of wet socks forgotten on a closet floor, began to warm up, like you do when you lie in the sun after a long, cold swim. Nothing is more comforting to me than a good joke.
An email “thank you” for a good joke is limited to a few “ha ha ha’s” or “I’m keeping that one” or “you made my day.” If I were a genius, I’d invent the audio e-mail. Here, I could have transmitted a laugh, or better yet, one of a set of canned laughs provided by the software, my email document flashing to the beat of the laugh.
The joke:
A young boy had just gotten his driver's permit and inquired of his father, an evangelist, if they could discuss his use of the car. His father said, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut, and we'll talk about the car." Well, the boy thought about that for a moment, decided that he'd settle for the offer, and they agreed on it.
After about six weeks, they went into the study, where his father said, "Son, I've been real proud. You've brought your grades up, and I've observed that you have been studying your Bible, and participating a lot more in the Bible study groups. But, I'm still just a little bit disappointed, since you haven't gotten your hair cut."
The young man paused for a moment, and then said, "You know, Dad, I've been thinking about that, and I've noticed, in my studies of the Bible, that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair, and there is even a strong argument that Jesus had long hair."
To this his father replied, "Did you also notice that they all walked everywhere they went?"
*
The best thank you for a good joke is another good joke. I found a site that stockpiles hundreds of jokes:
http://www.basicjokes.com
or click link on the right to “Basic Jokes online.” Here’s one I found there:
Jesus and Satan
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of his computer. This had been going on for days and God, was tired of hearing all of the bickering.
God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."
So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused away. They did spreadsheets, they wrote reports, they sent faxes, they sent out e-mail, they sent out e-mail with attachments, they downloaded, they did some genealogy reports, they made cards, they did every known job. But just a few minutes before the two hours were up, a lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard. And of course the electricity went off.
Satan was upset. He fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. But after a bit, the rains stopped and the electricity came back on. Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"
Jesus just sat and smiled.
Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on the screen glowed and when he pushed "print it", it was all there. "How did he do it." Satan asked? God smiled and said, "Jesus Saves."
Friends e-mail jokes. Lately I got a beaut (see below). When I read it, the bird-twitter outside my window suddenly became laughter. My solar plexus region, which had been feeling like a pair of wet socks forgotten on a closet floor, began to warm up, like you do when you lie in the sun after a long, cold swim. Nothing is more comforting to me than a good joke.
An email “thank you” for a good joke is limited to a few “ha ha ha’s” or “I’m keeping that one” or “you made my day.” If I were a genius, I’d invent the audio e-mail. Here, I could have transmitted a laugh, or better yet, one of a set of canned laughs provided by the software, my email document flashing to the beat of the laugh.
The joke:
A young boy had just gotten his driver's permit and inquired of his father, an evangelist, if they could discuss his use of the car. His father said, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut, and we'll talk about the car." Well, the boy thought about that for a moment, decided that he'd settle for the offer, and they agreed on it.
After about six weeks, they went into the study, where his father said, "Son, I've been real proud. You've brought your grades up, and I've observed that you have been studying your Bible, and participating a lot more in the Bible study groups. But, I'm still just a little bit disappointed, since you haven't gotten your hair cut."
The young man paused for a moment, and then said, "You know, Dad, I've been thinking about that, and I've noticed, in my studies of the Bible, that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair, and there is even a strong argument that Jesus had long hair."
To this his father replied, "Did you also notice that they all walked everywhere they went?"
*
The best thank you for a good joke is another good joke. I found a site that stockpiles hundreds of jokes:
http://www.basicjokes.com
or click link on the right to “Basic Jokes online.” Here’s one I found there:
Jesus and Satan
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of his computer. This had been going on for days and God, was tired of hearing all of the bickering.
God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."
So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused away. They did spreadsheets, they wrote reports, they sent faxes, they sent out e-mail, they sent out e-mail with attachments, they downloaded, they did some genealogy reports, they made cards, they did every known job. But just a few minutes before the two hours were up, a lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard. And of course the electricity went off.
Satan was upset. He fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. But after a bit, the rains stopped and the electricity came back on. Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"
Jesus just sat and smiled.
Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on the screen glowed and when he pushed "print it", it was all there. "How did he do it." Satan asked? God smiled and said, "Jesus Saves."
Friday, April 14, 2006
cyberphobediaires.blogspot.com is now http://cyber-comfort.blogspot.com - Marian Trotter, aka Bonnie Trotter
Why I changed my blog’s name to Cyber-comfort (http://cyber-comfort.blogspot.com):
Cyber-comfort is a feeling of ease in the online world of computer networks; Cyber-phobe Diaries could deter you from taking the journey.
My U-turn was influenced by an Amazon Associates technician. To solve a problem I was having logging into my Associates account (which she did quickly), she viewed my blog, Cyber-phobe Diaries, and pointed out a black eye of an inconsistency.
How likely is it that a real cyberphobe (a person afraid of using computers and the Internet) would surf, let alone find a blog called Cyberphobe Diaries, let alone buy products advertised on the Internet with their credit cards, let alone with Pay Pal? With the Amazon banner, I’m trying to encourage Internet-leery visitors to order late model Apple computers, Canon 20D digital cameras, and other relatively advanced tech equipment.
She suggested a concept more consistent with helping to ease a visitor’s journey through cyber-space, a site where they could read about books like the Internet for Dummies series, user-friendly e-tools, and ecommerce resources helpful to me and to others I know.
On Cyber-comfort, I will try to ease your journey through cyberspace, rather than scare the wits out of you.
Re Amazon and me: my customer account and Amazon Associates account were booked as one. If, after exploring the Amazon Associates program, you decide to participate with a banner on your site, start an Associate’s account that is separate from your customer’s.
When I changed my email address to btrot60@gmail.com, I had to close my customer account and open a new one. Because my Associates account was booked in conjunction with my customer’s account, my Associates account was automatically closed too, but not automatically re-opened. While I talked with the tech, she opened a separate Associates account for me, where I now log on with a new password. From now on, what affects one account will not affect the other.
To reach tech support for your Amazon Associate’s account, call 701-787-9740 (Pacific Time). This department does not have a toll-free number.
Cyber-comfort is a feeling of ease in the online world of computer networks; Cyber-phobe Diaries could deter you from taking the journey.
My U-turn was influenced by an Amazon Associates technician. To solve a problem I was having logging into my Associates account (which she did quickly), she viewed my blog, Cyber-phobe Diaries, and pointed out a black eye of an inconsistency.
How likely is it that a real cyberphobe (a person afraid of using computers and the Internet) would surf, let alone find a blog called Cyberphobe Diaries, let alone buy products advertised on the Internet with their credit cards, let alone with Pay Pal? With the Amazon banner, I’m trying to encourage Internet-leery visitors to order late model Apple computers, Canon 20D digital cameras, and other relatively advanced tech equipment.
She suggested a concept more consistent with helping to ease a visitor’s journey through cyber-space, a site where they could read about books like the Internet for Dummies series, user-friendly e-tools, and ecommerce resources helpful to me and to others I know.
On Cyber-comfort, I will try to ease your journey through cyberspace, rather than scare the wits out of you.
Re Amazon and me: my customer account and Amazon Associates account were booked as one. If, after exploring the Amazon Associates program, you decide to participate with a banner on your site, start an Associate’s account that is separate from your customer’s.
When I changed my email address to btrot60@gmail.com, I had to close my customer account and open a new one. Because my Associates account was booked in conjunction with my customer’s account, my Associates account was automatically closed too, but not automatically re-opened. While I talked with the tech, she opened a separate Associates account for me, where I now log on with a new password. From now on, what affects one account will not affect the other.
To reach tech support for your Amazon Associate’s account, call 701-787-9740 (Pacific Time). This department does not have a toll-free number.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Is It Possible to Conduct a Background Check of an E-commerce Business?
This morning I started looking for and reading Weblogs that have appealing qualities I could use in this blog. The readers get more than the diary entries: business enhancement resources, tips for getting from square one to the finish line, or the type of lessons that they can apply immediately to their lives. As a reader of blogs, I also love jokes and cartoons, and plan to ask my tech trainer how best to upload them.
I read a blog this morning that I liked, a fairly straight-faced rendition of how to draw traffic to your blog, including an audio of a gentle but clear voice. Hoping to begin a correspondence, I subscribed to its free newsletter for new bloggers, and left a message asking permission to review the blog on my site.
Then I discovered the layers, embedded links that led to other blogs and then finally to a fairly straightforward business that catered to students. What student wouldn't benefit by its services?
A thought stopped me in my tracks. Before I recommend any e-commerce business, I need to figure out how I can do a background check. Is there an e-commerce equivalent to the US Chamber of Commerce? A Google search resulted in the USA Chamber of E-Commerce, which is open to international business as well. I subscribed to the newsletter and then emailed a message asking what kinds of systems they had to help members conduct background checks of e-commerce business whose products or services they’d like to buy.
In an article posted today, the Online Review Board recommends Net Detective and Web Detective as two of the top online investigative services, for which I need additional plug-ins. After consulting with my tech trainer, I may decide to purchase one or both of these services.
I read a blog this morning that I liked, a fairly straight-faced rendition of how to draw traffic to your blog, including an audio of a gentle but clear voice. Hoping to begin a correspondence, I subscribed to its free newsletter for new bloggers, and left a message asking permission to review the blog on my site.
Then I discovered the layers, embedded links that led to other blogs and then finally to a fairly straightforward business that catered to students. What student wouldn't benefit by its services?
A thought stopped me in my tracks. Before I recommend any e-commerce business, I need to figure out how I can do a background check. Is there an e-commerce equivalent to the US Chamber of Commerce? A Google search resulted in the USA Chamber of E-Commerce, which is open to international business as well. I subscribed to the newsletter and then emailed a message asking what kinds of systems they had to help members conduct background checks of e-commerce business whose products or services they’d like to buy.
In an article posted today, the Online Review Board recommends Net Detective and Web Detective as two of the top online investigative services, for which I need additional plug-ins. After consulting with my tech trainer, I may decide to purchase one or both of these services.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Getting Blog Traffic
On January 12, 2006, I launched this blog, with some apprehension because I knew nothing about the technology involved or about what it would be like to live in cyberspace. It’s taken until now to feel comfortable with the idea of posting diary entries about my experiences, all positive except for a few dings here and there.
I also feel safe. No one makes vicious comments. When I conduct Google searches on my name or on the name of this site, as I’ve mentioned, the results are professional and benign.
It’s as if I’d found a raft while swimming in the ocean and climbed aboard. Now, I’m warm, dry, and unscathed. But the seas are disturbingly calm. I’ve gotten only two comments, one from my tech trainer, and another that was auto-generated I think by a company whose ad appeared in my Adsense box.
The raft is anchored, and it will stay that way until I drag the anchor up, but I want to do more than just drift. Underneath I find oars and an outboard motor. After using the oars for a while, I graduate to the outboard. A month or so ago, I upgraded from dial-up to satellite Internet, which is wonderful because I am always “logged on”, in the ether, my signals instantaneously picked up and transmitted by a satellite orbiting the equator.
I’d like a navigational map, a chart to indicate the nearest landmass. A ship-to-shore two-way radio would help. Who else is out there? What do they do, and what would I do?
Conduct a Google search of “blog traffic” and you will find a lot of material about how to attract visitors and comments. Successful bloggers teach a popular subject (like how to attract visitors to your blog) or write controversial essays criticizing those in positions of authority. I have to ask, “Now that I’m here, what could I have to offer beyond my postings? Now that you are here reading my site, what would you like to take away that would enhance your life?”
I also feel safe. No one makes vicious comments. When I conduct Google searches on my name or on the name of this site, as I’ve mentioned, the results are professional and benign.
It’s as if I’d found a raft while swimming in the ocean and climbed aboard. Now, I’m warm, dry, and unscathed. But the seas are disturbingly calm. I’ve gotten only two comments, one from my tech trainer, and another that was auto-generated I think by a company whose ad appeared in my Adsense box.
The raft is anchored, and it will stay that way until I drag the anchor up, but I want to do more than just drift. Underneath I find oars and an outboard motor. After using the oars for a while, I graduate to the outboard. A month or so ago, I upgraded from dial-up to satellite Internet, which is wonderful because I am always “logged on”, in the ether, my signals instantaneously picked up and transmitted by a satellite orbiting the equator.
I’d like a navigational map, a chart to indicate the nearest landmass. A ship-to-shore two-way radio would help. Who else is out there? What do they do, and what would I do?
Conduct a Google search of “blog traffic” and you will find a lot of material about how to attract visitors and comments. Successful bloggers teach a popular subject (like how to attract visitors to your blog) or write controversial essays criticizing those in positions of authority. I have to ask, “Now that I’m here, what could I have to offer beyond my postings? Now that you are here reading my site, what would you like to take away that would enhance your life?”
Monday, March 20, 2006
Dings and Things Forever
I’m starting to worry less about dings in cyberspace and more about the quality of the things I want to share with you. I still have cyberphobia, but I’m no longer a case for emergency technology services. My tech trainer and I have returned to our twice-a-month schedule, when we’ll have plenty of time to work through dings as they happen. By now I’ve accepted that dings will always happen, regardless of how much you know.
My manic cyber-puttering is over. I didn’t call my trainer when I had difficulty uploading this Weblog to an appealing site, Dogpile Web Search (http://dogpile.com), maybe because the site couldn’t process my change of email address to btrot60@gmail.com from AOL’s.
Dogpile is an interesting site. On ABC News online, womens’ career specialist Tory Johnson recommends it as a comprehensive search engine that may be able to deliver more that a standard one delivers. On its site, Dogpile says that it compiles information from several major sites. Yes, I’d Ilke to be part of that site, but I’m no longer freaked out by every little glitch like this one.
Tory Johnson’s site has a wealth of information vital to career women: http://www.womenforhire.com
Reading Tory Johnson’s article, “Dusting Your Digital Dirt” (the one that mentions Dogpile), I can appreciate my cyber-phobia because it protects me from the kind of scenario she presents. If you are woman looking for work, Johnson advises you to conduct a search of your name on the Internet (via Dogpile) to seek out embarrassing stuff you may have written about yourself, and then get rid of it if possible.
If that isn’t possible, be prepared to handle it head-on during a job interview. Employers conduct searches of job candidates, and vice versa. Anybody can conduct a search of anybody and find more information than you can imagine. Her suggestion for a job seeker might be to write instead about subjects that have to do with work areas that interest her.
As a cyberphobic I’ve had a healthy respect for where you can end up in cyberspace. When I conduct a search of my name, the listings are benign and professional. Now I need to focus on being more interesting. On Amazon.com, I found a book, “Writing and Publishing Personal Essays” by author and creative writing professor Sheila Bender. Using her material, I’m writing my first essay, which I hope to post very soon.
My manic cyber-puttering is over. I didn’t call my trainer when I had difficulty uploading this Weblog to an appealing site, Dogpile Web Search (http://dogpile.com), maybe because the site couldn’t process my change of email address to btrot60@gmail.com from AOL’s.
Dogpile is an interesting site. On ABC News online, womens’ career specialist Tory Johnson recommends it as a comprehensive search engine that may be able to deliver more that a standard one delivers. On its site, Dogpile says that it compiles information from several major sites. Yes, I’d Ilke to be part of that site, but I’m no longer freaked out by every little glitch like this one.
Tory Johnson’s site has a wealth of information vital to career women: http://www.womenforhire.com
Reading Tory Johnson’s article, “Dusting Your Digital Dirt” (the one that mentions Dogpile), I can appreciate my cyber-phobia because it protects me from the kind of scenario she presents. If you are woman looking for work, Johnson advises you to conduct a search of your name on the Internet (via Dogpile) to seek out embarrassing stuff you may have written about yourself, and then get rid of it if possible.
If that isn’t possible, be prepared to handle it head-on during a job interview. Employers conduct searches of job candidates, and vice versa. Anybody can conduct a search of anybody and find more information than you can imagine. Her suggestion for a job seeker might be to write instead about subjects that have to do with work areas that interest her.
As a cyberphobic I’ve had a healthy respect for where you can end up in cyberspace. When I conduct a search of my name, the listings are benign and professional. Now I need to focus on being more interesting. On Amazon.com, I found a book, “Writing and Publishing Personal Essays” by author and creative writing professor Sheila Bender. Using her material, I’m writing my first essay, which I hope to post very soon.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Cyberspace Interrupted
Late at night, mid February, I find myself in the middle of the Arizona desert among friends. I rode down there with a lady who raises, trains, and shows performance horses, along with her three horses and dog. Taking my first steps on Arizona soil, I experience a swaying sensation, like you do after a long trip on an ocean liner.
Other than our three stationary trailer homes, a car, three trucks, and three horse haulers, there is nothing man-made except for distant lights and traffic hum from an unseen highway. Occupants of two of the trailers have been camped here for some time. When we get out, the others throw up a hearty welcome. But before we can do anything else, the horses are watered, fed, and put to bed. Pent up in the back seat of the truck for the two-day drive down from Montana, my driver’s dog runs, frolics, chases, and barks at dog ghosts.
I listen to horror stories of what coyotes do to domestic dogs: invite them to come along, and then rip them to shreds. We would not let the pets out of our sight.
I have lost all connection to cyberspace. I can’t even use my cell phone, even though a rep had sworn that I could call from anywhere to anywhere in the United States. My laptop is stored safely at home. Journal writing will be written by hand, but where did I leave my pens?
My hosts take me down to my very own trailer. Out of the darkness and freezing night, I enter a brightly lit place, already warmed by a propane heater. On the kitchen counter I find a pencil.
That night I dream about the tech trainer who has been helping me through my cyber-journeys. He was hauling horses through New York City, I beside him. We weren’t the only ones driving an enormous truck, large animals in a trailer behind. He pointed to a semi hauling a new species found in Africa, one-ton, snarling, teeth-baring carnivores. The beasts had burst free into what looked like a staging area draped with sheets.
We noticed that the load behind us had lightened dramatically. My tech trainer checked the horses. They were gone. We searched alleys for them, and I couldn’t read the language on neon signs. Although we could find no trace of our horses, my tech trainer was as giddy as a kid about this incredible, fascinating new world.
Here, I’m dead and in bed by nine, so am awake in the wee hours before a hint of daylight. Smoking inside my trailer is forbidden, so outside I go to sit on the stoop, bundled up for winter, with coffee, cigarettes, and my journal. In the darkness, I hear wings flutter.
A red smudge above the shoulders of mountains to the east expands to streaks of bright red-orange, pink, ochre, and finally bright gold, before the blinding crown of the sun appears to start the day. A horse whinnies.
We’re camped in a desert valley, mountains at the horizon on all sides. They look like mounds of clay puckered by erosion. Scrub covers the ground, which is littered with sharp lava and is unevenly corrugated with gullies and ravines, its wild paths forged by flash floods and coyotes.
I hear an intense hum of distant, unseen traffic, beeping, a siren, and then birdsong.
A desert wren adopts me. She appears early every morning, then circles at a hop around my trailer. I try feeding her moths that commit suicide the night before by dive-bombing into the propane heater. Back inside, I see the wren looking at me through the glass door, a moth in her beak.
Back outside, getting ready to join the others, two tiny desert finches land on my left forefinger. They are extraordinary, with their yellow faces, white breasts, a spot of red at the tip of each wing, and a body of three shades of gray.
During the day, temperatures reach the low seventies, which is why we’re here. If a hot fudge sundae were air, this would be it. Warm and cold currents flow together. One moment you’re as hot as on a summer day; the next, you need a jacket. At home in Montana temperatures are hovering at zero.
The lady who drove me here leaves for a two-week long hunter jumper show in Tucson, where she and her horses clear every fence and place well in the competitions.
My hosts have a horse for me to ride, a young buckskin paint. His muzzle is a big, wiggly, velvet muscle. His owner describes him as “push button”, which means that instead of kicking him, as in “giddy yap”, you squeeze gently with your lower legs. You ride with loose reins, signaling turns by neck-reining and with leg squeezes, slowing and stopping by sitting back in the saddle, and pulling slightly on the reins, rather than yanking back as in “Whoa, Dobbin.”
We ride into the hills until our camp in the distance looks about the size of an eye’s iris. Horses wear protective pads on their hoofs. We see varieties of cacti, my favorite the cholla, which is made up of glistening, translucent thorns. But you stay away from that one. Its punctures are painful and difficult to extract. They say, “a cholla can reach out and grab ya’.”
Our one stab at hiking lasts fifteen minutes. The path, although too grizzly for walking, is extraordinary, filled as it is with stones that match colors of the sunrise – the reds, oranges, golds, along with an occasional turquoise – and some fragments and rocks glitter and shine in the sunlight. I daydream that some of this is left over from the Big Bang.
Later I ask a neighbor if a three-minute walk from one trailer to another would count as exercise. “You’re darn tootin’,” she replies.
My hosts pick me up for trips to museums and to shop for bargains and oddities. They point to my roof, where a white roadrunner matching my white trailer skitters across. They say these birds don’t fly that high - a very unusual occurrence.
At a museum, I love best the contemporary Navaho blankets, their patterns similar to the old ones, but woven, within the last six years by descendents, with silk along with traditional materials. Flat reds and whites dance against mottled blue-greens that recede like skies.
A recovering hoarder, I buy nothing at the flea markets. I resist striking hand-wrought sculptures at galleries. Instead I take photographs. I try the glassware displayed on long folding tables, of the sun shining through the glass casting transparent shadows on wooden surfaces.
At the end of the day, we walk to one of the two other trailers for supper (not mine, because I’m not fully equipped. Instead, when they allow me to, I treat them to meals in town.) Their dogs bark to warn of approaching visitors. We have show-and-tells: a book of cartoons by a lady about her husband’s dog, drawings and story line professional and very funny.
She pulls out a deck of Medicine Cards, which are very similar to the Tarot. I volunteer. According to the deck’s book of interpretations, the cards I draw have this to say to me: avoid tunnel-vision pursuits. Whatever your project, nurture every part of yourself as you go along. Otherwise, your effort will be fruitless, like that of the musician who tries to play using only three notes.
At night my hosts walk me back to my trailer. I didn’t think to bring a flashlight. Outside, the constellations Big Dipper and Orion look larger and closer. We hear the eerie, high-pitched shriek of a coyote, and then a response from another further away.
As I drift off to sleep, a moth tickles my leg under the bedclothes.
Other than our three stationary trailer homes, a car, three trucks, and three horse haulers, there is nothing man-made except for distant lights and traffic hum from an unseen highway. Occupants of two of the trailers have been camped here for some time. When we get out, the others throw up a hearty welcome. But before we can do anything else, the horses are watered, fed, and put to bed. Pent up in the back seat of the truck for the two-day drive down from Montana, my driver’s dog runs, frolics, chases, and barks at dog ghosts.
I listen to horror stories of what coyotes do to domestic dogs: invite them to come along, and then rip them to shreds. We would not let the pets out of our sight.
I have lost all connection to cyberspace. I can’t even use my cell phone, even though a rep had sworn that I could call from anywhere to anywhere in the United States. My laptop is stored safely at home. Journal writing will be written by hand, but where did I leave my pens?
My hosts take me down to my very own trailer. Out of the darkness and freezing night, I enter a brightly lit place, already warmed by a propane heater. On the kitchen counter I find a pencil.
That night I dream about the tech trainer who has been helping me through my cyber-journeys. He was hauling horses through New York City, I beside him. We weren’t the only ones driving an enormous truck, large animals in a trailer behind. He pointed to a semi hauling a new species found in Africa, one-ton, snarling, teeth-baring carnivores. The beasts had burst free into what looked like a staging area draped with sheets.
We noticed that the load behind us had lightened dramatically. My tech trainer checked the horses. They were gone. We searched alleys for them, and I couldn’t read the language on neon signs. Although we could find no trace of our horses, my tech trainer was as giddy as a kid about this incredible, fascinating new world.
Here, I’m dead and in bed by nine, so am awake in the wee hours before a hint of daylight. Smoking inside my trailer is forbidden, so outside I go to sit on the stoop, bundled up for winter, with coffee, cigarettes, and my journal. In the darkness, I hear wings flutter.
A red smudge above the shoulders of mountains to the east expands to streaks of bright red-orange, pink, ochre, and finally bright gold, before the blinding crown of the sun appears to start the day. A horse whinnies.
We’re camped in a desert valley, mountains at the horizon on all sides. They look like mounds of clay puckered by erosion. Scrub covers the ground, which is littered with sharp lava and is unevenly corrugated with gullies and ravines, its wild paths forged by flash floods and coyotes.
I hear an intense hum of distant, unseen traffic, beeping, a siren, and then birdsong.
A desert wren adopts me. She appears early every morning, then circles at a hop around my trailer. I try feeding her moths that commit suicide the night before by dive-bombing into the propane heater. Back inside, I see the wren looking at me through the glass door, a moth in her beak.
Back outside, getting ready to join the others, two tiny desert finches land on my left forefinger. They are extraordinary, with their yellow faces, white breasts, a spot of red at the tip of each wing, and a body of three shades of gray.
During the day, temperatures reach the low seventies, which is why we’re here. If a hot fudge sundae were air, this would be it. Warm and cold currents flow together. One moment you’re as hot as on a summer day; the next, you need a jacket. At home in Montana temperatures are hovering at zero.
The lady who drove me here leaves for a two-week long hunter jumper show in Tucson, where she and her horses clear every fence and place well in the competitions.
My hosts have a horse for me to ride, a young buckskin paint. His muzzle is a big, wiggly, velvet muscle. His owner describes him as “push button”, which means that instead of kicking him, as in “giddy yap”, you squeeze gently with your lower legs. You ride with loose reins, signaling turns by neck-reining and with leg squeezes, slowing and stopping by sitting back in the saddle, and pulling slightly on the reins, rather than yanking back as in “Whoa, Dobbin.”
We ride into the hills until our camp in the distance looks about the size of an eye’s iris. Horses wear protective pads on their hoofs. We see varieties of cacti, my favorite the cholla, which is made up of glistening, translucent thorns. But you stay away from that one. Its punctures are painful and difficult to extract. They say, “a cholla can reach out and grab ya’.”
Our one stab at hiking lasts fifteen minutes. The path, although too grizzly for walking, is extraordinary, filled as it is with stones that match colors of the sunrise – the reds, oranges, golds, along with an occasional turquoise – and some fragments and rocks glitter and shine in the sunlight. I daydream that some of this is left over from the Big Bang.
Later I ask a neighbor if a three-minute walk from one trailer to another would count as exercise. “You’re darn tootin’,” she replies.
My hosts pick me up for trips to museums and to shop for bargains and oddities. They point to my roof, where a white roadrunner matching my white trailer skitters across. They say these birds don’t fly that high - a very unusual occurrence.
At a museum, I love best the contemporary Navaho blankets, their patterns similar to the old ones, but woven, within the last six years by descendents, with silk along with traditional materials. Flat reds and whites dance against mottled blue-greens that recede like skies.
A recovering hoarder, I buy nothing at the flea markets. I resist striking hand-wrought sculptures at galleries. Instead I take photographs. I try the glassware displayed on long folding tables, of the sun shining through the glass casting transparent shadows on wooden surfaces.
At the end of the day, we walk to one of the two other trailers for supper (not mine, because I’m not fully equipped. Instead, when they allow me to, I treat them to meals in town.) Their dogs bark to warn of approaching visitors. We have show-and-tells: a book of cartoons by a lady about her husband’s dog, drawings and story line professional and very funny.
She pulls out a deck of Medicine Cards, which are very similar to the Tarot. I volunteer. According to the deck’s book of interpretations, the cards I draw have this to say to me: avoid tunnel-vision pursuits. Whatever your project, nurture every part of yourself as you go along. Otherwise, your effort will be fruitless, like that of the musician who tries to play using only three notes.
At night my hosts walk me back to my trailer. I didn’t think to bring a flashlight. Outside, the constellations Big Dipper and Orion look larger and closer. We hear the eerie, high-pitched shriek of a coyote, and then a response from another further away.
As I drift off to sleep, a moth tickles my leg under the bedclothes.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
I've Been Away
For the past two and a half weeks, I've been camped with friends in the Arizona Desert, a wonderful and amazing experience. While writing a detailed post about it, my computer crashed. The pointer is a spinning beachball, until I can get the problem solved.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Liability Insurance for Blogging?
My insurance broker told me yesterday that my blog is covered by my homeowner’s policy, but he asked me not to present this as an across-the-board fact. Each case like mine would have to be handled on an individual basis.
I had to work hard to arrive at that definitive “yes.” First I asked Google by email about our business liability as Ad Sense Participants. Here’s what I got back:
“Google does not give out legal advice and if you would like to get an answer to your question, I recommend that you contact an attorney who specializes in this field.”
My attorney said that, as far as he knew, I would not. He’d never heard of a blogger being sued. The key phrase, “as far as he knew”, meant that I had to keep looking for a definitive answer.
Conducting Google searches for blog liability insurance, I came across someone else asking the same question about corporate blog liability.
Suzanna Gardner, author of “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, wrote:
Subject: Liability Insurance for Blogging?
“I spoke with a reporter today whose editor has asked for a story on liability insurance for corporate blogs—what companies offer it, what companies are buying it, and what it covers.
It’s a fascinating question—and one I haven’t been asked before (I love those). Unfortunately, it’s the first time it’s come up, at least for me, so I’m looking for anyone out there who has maybe thought about, looked at, or heard anything about blog liability insurance. The article could go a couple of directions, but certainly the obvious questions are, do you need liability insurance for a corporate blog, and do you need coverage when you encourage your employees to blog about their work experiences. So how about it, folks? Anyone know anything about blog liability insurance? You’ll likely get quoted for the article if you do!”
Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/08 at 07:30 PM • Blogs and Business -- Law and Ethics.
Gardner welcomes any information and insight you might have. Log on to: Susannah Gardner's Website
When I first asked my insurance broker if he ever issued business liability policies to bloggers, he said he had not. After he hung up, he asked the company that issues my homeowner’s policy for a crash course on blogging. Then he asked for a crash course from me. When I described this blog site to him, he took extensive notes. Then he examined my site, along with the ads, until he got the gist of its intent.
The insurance company also looked at my blog, and from there the rep decided that, yes, my homeowner’s policy would cover my site at no additional charge. My broker said that when my blog earned $600.00 or more per year, I might need additional coverage.
So far, my site has earned a grand total of $2.33.
I had to work hard to arrive at that definitive “yes.” First I asked Google by email about our business liability as Ad Sense Participants. Here’s what I got back:
“Google does not give out legal advice and if you would like to get an answer to your question, I recommend that you contact an attorney who specializes in this field.”
My attorney said that, as far as he knew, I would not. He’d never heard of a blogger being sued. The key phrase, “as far as he knew”, meant that I had to keep looking for a definitive answer.
Conducting Google searches for blog liability insurance, I came across someone else asking the same question about corporate blog liability.
Suzanna Gardner, author of “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, wrote:
Subject: Liability Insurance for Blogging?
“I spoke with a reporter today whose editor has asked for a story on liability insurance for corporate blogs—what companies offer it, what companies are buying it, and what it covers.
It’s a fascinating question—and one I haven’t been asked before (I love those). Unfortunately, it’s the first time it’s come up, at least for me, so I’m looking for anyone out there who has maybe thought about, looked at, or heard anything about blog liability insurance. The article could go a couple of directions, but certainly the obvious questions are, do you need liability insurance for a corporate blog, and do you need coverage when you encourage your employees to blog about their work experiences. So how about it, folks? Anyone know anything about blog liability insurance? You’ll likely get quoted for the article if you do!”
Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/08 at 07:30 PM • Blogs and Business -- Law and Ethics.
Gardner welcomes any information and insight you might have. Log on to: Susannah Gardner's Website
When I first asked my insurance broker if he ever issued business liability policies to bloggers, he said he had not. After he hung up, he asked the company that issues my homeowner’s policy for a crash course on blogging. Then he asked for a crash course from me. When I described this blog site to him, he took extensive notes. Then he examined my site, along with the ads, until he got the gist of its intent.
The insurance company also looked at my blog, and from there the rep decided that, yes, my homeowner’s policy would cover my site at no additional charge. My broker said that when my blog earned $600.00 or more per year, I might need additional coverage.
So far, my site has earned a grand total of $2.33.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Review of "Publishing A Blog with Blogger," by Elizabeth Castro
This book is like an instruction manual that comes with a new camera, but much better. Large color photographs of Blogger.com’s pages, along with clear instructions, helped me navigate the high seas of blogging. It is available at Amazon.com.
Castro shows you every aspect of your blog— launching, posting, digital imagery, editing, and advertising. I examined each feature, opened and closed each until they became as familiar to me as my stove and car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my tech trainer had created.
She wrote the book for both Mac and PC users and carefully deals with compatibility issues by warning that some of the book’s illustrations might not match what you see on your screen. She then guides you along alternative routes.
Taking a few hours to study Castro’s crash-course manual saved me days of trial and error. I recommend it to all bloggers with Blogger.com.
Castro shows you every aspect of your blog— launching, posting, digital imagery, editing, and advertising. I examined each feature, opened and closed each until they became as familiar to me as my stove and car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my tech trainer had created.
She wrote the book for both Mac and PC users and carefully deals with compatibility issues by warning that some of the book’s illustrations might not match what you see on your screen. She then guides you along alternative routes.
Taking a few hours to study Castro’s crash-course manual saved me days of trial and error. I recommend it to all bloggers with Blogger.com.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
What is Good Blog Writing?
Here it is for the umpteenth time: revise until spelling, grammar, and syntax are ready for public view, in other words, absolutely correct. I do my best, which doesn’t mean perfect. I’ve found myself revising posts.
My favorite non-fiction writing centers on emotions felt by the characters, whose feelings trigger actions that evolve into anecdotes or stories. Both story and anecdote have a beginning, middle, and end. I’m working on my posts until they look a little more like that. I believe a good nonfiction writer takes you by the hand and leads you through the door and into a setting. But too often, the start of a typical post of mine would begin with me at my computer, staring out of the window, trying to decide what to write.
Right now I can imagine an alternative beginning for a future post, wrangling with my satellite Internet installers. During the satellite service installation, I’m imagining the installers asking questions I can’t answer. I’m imagining that those trees to the south, which they had said earlier would not interfere with reception from the equator-hovering satellite itself, actually do pose interference, but it’s too late to get a refund for the equipment.
Nonfiction story writing experts suggest escalating conflict until there is a declared winner, or loser. In that post, I would include installers’ frantic cell phone calls to headquarters, their facial expressions, body language, and anything else that would help my reader get a picture of what’s going on. Basically, I’d try to include all sensual input, what I see, smell, hear, touch, or taste.
At the end of that post, I deeply hope that I can declare myself a winner, that I’d have a high speed service, a clearer path to a wider variety in cyberspace, and that I will be able to offer you all the how’s, the what’s, the who’s, the where’s, and the why’s.
On “Online Journalism Review”, its article, “How to Write for The Web,” offers some good tips. Log onto:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/wiki/Writing/
My favorite non-fiction writing centers on emotions felt by the characters, whose feelings trigger actions that evolve into anecdotes or stories. Both story and anecdote have a beginning, middle, and end. I’m working on my posts until they look a little more like that. I believe a good nonfiction writer takes you by the hand and leads you through the door and into a setting. But too often, the start of a typical post of mine would begin with me at my computer, staring out of the window, trying to decide what to write.
Right now I can imagine an alternative beginning for a future post, wrangling with my satellite Internet installers. During the satellite service installation, I’m imagining the installers asking questions I can’t answer. I’m imagining that those trees to the south, which they had said earlier would not interfere with reception from the equator-hovering satellite itself, actually do pose interference, but it’s too late to get a refund for the equipment.
Nonfiction story writing experts suggest escalating conflict until there is a declared winner, or loser. In that post, I would include installers’ frantic cell phone calls to headquarters, their facial expressions, body language, and anything else that would help my reader get a picture of what’s going on. Basically, I’d try to include all sensual input, what I see, smell, hear, touch, or taste.
At the end of that post, I deeply hope that I can declare myself a winner, that I’d have a high speed service, a clearer path to a wider variety in cyberspace, and that I will be able to offer you all the how’s, the what’s, the who’s, the where’s, and the why’s.
On “Online Journalism Review”, its article, “How to Write for The Web,” offers some good tips. Log onto:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/wiki/Writing/
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
We Don't Have to Wash Out of Cyberspace
When I first viewed a line of “html” a while back, I blinked, froze, and asked my tech trainer to handle it. I’d hired him to design my website, a portfolio of my artwork. That’s why he’s here, right? Creating my artworks kept me busy enough, right?
But blinking, freezing, and passing it on keeps threatening to wash me out of cyberspace. Techniques to combat these behaviors: Breathe deeply until very still inside. Understand exactly why I need all this kind of stuff: to get out of my back yard. Blow off embarrassment about not getting it immediately. After the last session with my tech trainer, I gave myself a homework assignment to create links on this blog.
I’ll stop a second here to tell you that I’d been reading Elizabeth Castro’s book “Publishing a Blog with Blogger”, which I’d ordered through Amazon.com. I examined each feature of Blogger, opened and closed them again and again over and over, until they became as familiar to me as my stove or my car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my trainer had created.
From the Template feature, Edit Current, I copied one of my trainer’s lines for a link, pasted it onto a Word document. You might wonder why I included the Word document in this procedure. Well, on the Word document, I could scrutinize the line, making sure every word and symbol were correct before moving on to Blogger’s Template, Edit Current.
On the Word document, I erased the address and title in that line and replaced them with the address and title of the new link that I wanted to create. Then I copied the revised line into the Template, Edit Current. Instructions for saving and republishing are clear. So far, so good.
The title of the link appeared on my blog. Fine. But when I clicked on the link, I got an error sign. When a hidden ding compels you to throw your computer against the wall, repeat the above exercises. When my trainer showed up, we got to work on this ding immediately. Almost by accident, he’d found out earlier that you couldn’t paste an “html” line copied from Word onto Template, Edit Current. Using TextWrangler, we could.
By the time of this post, I had hoped to find out what if any business insurance policy you would need for an advertising blog. I have found out nothing. If you find your way here and have any information about this subject, I would deeply appreciate your input.
Next leg: I’ll read Elizabeth Castro’s book, “HTML for The World Wide Web.” Castro’s books are excellent training manuals. In "Publishing a Blog with Blogger," large full color illustrations, with clear labeling, draw you in and keep you reading and puttering page after page.
But blinking, freezing, and passing it on keeps threatening to wash me out of cyberspace. Techniques to combat these behaviors: Breathe deeply until very still inside. Understand exactly why I need all this kind of stuff: to get out of my back yard. Blow off embarrassment about not getting it immediately. After the last session with my tech trainer, I gave myself a homework assignment to create links on this blog.
I’ll stop a second here to tell you that I’d been reading Elizabeth Castro’s book “Publishing a Blog with Blogger”, which I’d ordered through Amazon.com. I examined each feature of Blogger, opened and closed them again and again over and over, until they became as familiar to me as my stove or my car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my trainer had created.
From the Template feature, Edit Current, I copied one of my trainer’s lines for a link, pasted it onto a Word document. You might wonder why I included the Word document in this procedure. Well, on the Word document, I could scrutinize the line, making sure every word and symbol were correct before moving on to Blogger’s Template, Edit Current.
On the Word document, I erased the address and title in that line and replaced them with the address and title of the new link that I wanted to create. Then I copied the revised line into the Template, Edit Current. Instructions for saving and republishing are clear. So far, so good.
The title of the link appeared on my blog. Fine. But when I clicked on the link, I got an error sign. When a hidden ding compels you to throw your computer against the wall, repeat the above exercises. When my trainer showed up, we got to work on this ding immediately. Almost by accident, he’d found out earlier that you couldn’t paste an “html” line copied from Word onto Template, Edit Current. Using TextWrangler, we could.
By the time of this post, I had hoped to find out what if any business insurance policy you would need for an advertising blog. I have found out nothing. If you find your way here and have any information about this subject, I would deeply appreciate your input.
Next leg: I’ll read Elizabeth Castro’s book, “HTML for The World Wide Web.” Castro’s books are excellent training manuals. In "Publishing a Blog with Blogger," large full color illustrations, with clear labeling, draw you in and keep you reading and puttering page after page.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Ad Sense Zeroes in on What I Really Am
As I set out to conquer cyber-phobia, I’m learning to keep an eye out for the kinds of preconceptions about cyberspace that scare the wits out of me in the first place.
First, what would I advertise on my blog and how? I imagined working as a blog broker for companies whose products I use because they make my life on cyberspace easy and enjoyable. I was thinking about Microsoft (Mac OS), Canon (printers and cameras), Apple computers (notebooks), and Adobe. But what if a flaky customer, who had logged onto my site, clicked an advertisement for one of those companies, ordered through me, and then stiffed the company? Would I get sued? I’ll need to ask my insurance agent what kind of business liability insurance policy I need.
At our last meeting, my tech trainer helped me complete my Ad Sense application. Ad Sense, owned by Google, serves subscribing companies by inserting their ads on appropriate blogs on Blogger.com. Google also owns Blogger.com. Ad Sense selects ads for the blogger. I don’t choose my ads, Ad Sense does.
How does Ad Sense select appropriate ads for a new participant? The devises they use are called spiders. Spiders scan your content and select ads that reflect your blog’s message. I worried that the spiders would find nothing. “Wait,” I said to my trainer. “I’ll need to post material that mentions computers, photo printers, digital image processing, and browsers.”
Then I decided to let the spiders do their work without interference. Let me be surprised. I was. Ad Sense zeroed in on exactly what I was — a PHOBE. I am not a nonfiction writer. I’m not a blog broker of top-rated tech equipment. To the Ad Sense spiders, I am first and foremost a person with phobia.
Delicately, Ad Sense sprinkled ads offering healing resources. Speak to an audience without fear. Fly in an airplane without fear. During all my surfing, I’d never thought once to look for blogs or sites about phobias. Next leg: Google "phobias"
First, what would I advertise on my blog and how? I imagined working as a blog broker for companies whose products I use because they make my life on cyberspace easy and enjoyable. I was thinking about Microsoft (Mac OS), Canon (printers and cameras), Apple computers (notebooks), and Adobe. But what if a flaky customer, who had logged onto my site, clicked an advertisement for one of those companies, ordered through me, and then stiffed the company? Would I get sued? I’ll need to ask my insurance agent what kind of business liability insurance policy I need.
At our last meeting, my tech trainer helped me complete my Ad Sense application. Ad Sense, owned by Google, serves subscribing companies by inserting their ads on appropriate blogs on Blogger.com. Google also owns Blogger.com. Ad Sense selects ads for the blogger. I don’t choose my ads, Ad Sense does.
How does Ad Sense select appropriate ads for a new participant? The devises they use are called spiders. Spiders scan your content and select ads that reflect your blog’s message. I worried that the spiders would find nothing. “Wait,” I said to my trainer. “I’ll need to post material that mentions computers, photo printers, digital image processing, and browsers.”
Then I decided to let the spiders do their work without interference. Let me be surprised. I was. Ad Sense zeroed in on exactly what I was — a PHOBE. I am not a nonfiction writer. I’m not a blog broker of top-rated tech equipment. To the Ad Sense spiders, I am first and foremost a person with phobia.
Delicately, Ad Sense sprinkled ads offering healing resources. Speak to an audience without fear. Fly in an airplane without fear. During all my surfing, I’d never thought once to look for blogs or sites about phobias. Next leg: Google "phobias"
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Blog Naming
My subconscious never runs out of ways that I can hide. A large part of my cyber-phobia is stage fright. After blindfolding myself, I have set out to speak to an audience that extends to infinity on all sides.
The first name I chose for this site was “humchum”, which, after a while, started to suggest to me background nonsense noise or flan pudding. Was this to keep people from finding me?
I logged on to two of my favorite sites, Smoking Gun (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) and the Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com). Both have edgy names, and each has a mission. Missions aim to address issues and solve problems. Missions are born as obsessions.
What is your obsession? I believe you won’t have to look far. What do you think about most of the time, when there are all kinds of other activities you’d rather put your heart into?
For me, one of the most difficult things about solving a problem is to define it and put it into words. I’d been describing myself as a techno-retard, a chortle thrown in to soften the remark.
But inside I was not laughing. When did that technological-revolution bus take off? Why did I miss it? I hired my tech tutor, and we started with what I considered essentials. By the time I decided to launch a blog, I considered myself fairly competent when using the computer technology that I needed: laptop, word processing, and digital visuals.
So right now my problem isn’t fear of computer technology in general, but rather of cyberspace in particular — of glitches, of crashes, of committing an unforgettable, unpardonable breach of cyber-etiquette, and of identity theft.
So I changed my blog’s name from “Humchum” to “Cyber-phobe Diaries.” (My tech tutor suggested that I hypenate "cyberphobe" so that it would be easier to read.) My blog's mission is to share my journey into cyberspace and, I hope, to unravel a few of the Internet’s mysteries.
The first name I chose for this site was “humchum”, which, after a while, started to suggest to me background nonsense noise or flan pudding. Was this to keep people from finding me?
I logged on to two of my favorite sites, Smoking Gun (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) and the Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com). Both have edgy names, and each has a mission. Missions aim to address issues and solve problems. Missions are born as obsessions.
What is your obsession? I believe you won’t have to look far. What do you think about most of the time, when there are all kinds of other activities you’d rather put your heart into?
For me, one of the most difficult things about solving a problem is to define it and put it into words. I’d been describing myself as a techno-retard, a chortle thrown in to soften the remark.
But inside I was not laughing. When did that technological-revolution bus take off? Why did I miss it? I hired my tech tutor, and we started with what I considered essentials. By the time I decided to launch a blog, I considered myself fairly competent when using the computer technology that I needed: laptop, word processing, and digital visuals.
So right now my problem isn’t fear of computer technology in general, but rather of cyberspace in particular — of glitches, of crashes, of committing an unforgettable, unpardonable breach of cyber-etiquette, and of identity theft.
So I changed my blog’s name from “Humchum” to “Cyber-phobe Diaries.” (My tech tutor suggested that I hypenate "cyberphobe" so that it would be easier to read.) My blog's mission is to share my journey into cyberspace and, I hope, to unravel a few of the Internet’s mysteries.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Me, a Cyberphobe
I’m a cyberphobe.
From webmaster@cyberphobia.net: a cyberphobe is a person who has an irrational fear of or aversion to computers, specifically, the fear and/or the inability to learn new technologies.
I love new computer technologies, but fear cyberspace, especially scams and glitches. For my condition, I don’t need medication or exposure therapy. I’m getting appropriate help, from my tech tutor. Gently, he suggests possible symptoms I might have: he asked me why I gave the top ranking to all of the books I reviewed for Amazon.com. My answer: because I won’t review a book unless I feel it is excellent — the truth, but a non-answer.
I’ve never written a book. Who am I to badmouth a book that an author has labored over for years? I’ll only review what I think are the best.
If you read this site, I’d welcome what you have to say about cyberphobia. If you suffer from it, what brought it on? How did you overcome it?
Friday the Thirteenth, January 2006, 3:00 p.m. sharp: my tutor arrived. He is not superstitious, and neither am I. We’ll have to see. When we got down to work after my four-week binge of rabid surfing, I felt like an undiagnosed myopic donning corrective lenses for the first time.
By now I was in such despair that I was considering online market research — ten bucks per questionnaire submitted. My tutor hasn’t heard good things about these kinds of opportunities. Sign up for “free”, but then you’re asked to purchase some kind of kit or package for three or four hundred dollars.
For a clear view of cyberspace, you need a lens, and the best lens is your intention. Once again, what would I do on cyberspace? Ask daily.
My tutor didn’t think it would be too bigheaded of me to consider using a blog as a portfolio of writing samples to show to interested online publications. I enjoy writing nonfiction, but I haven’t done much recently. Twenty years ago, I worked as a reporter/photojournalist for a neighborhood paper in southern California. I wrote a profile of a light-and-earth artist/sculpture for an in-flight magazine, and also two catalogs for a vocational rehabilitation network.
Last fall, when the urge to write again hit me, I joined a local writers’ group, which led to an article about the local Quilters’ Guild in the local paper. I “practiced” cyberspace writing on Amazon.
My tutor and I logged on to two blog hosting sites and selected the free one, Blogger.com. Instructions were simple. I selected a template for my site, gave it a name, and pasted my first few paragraphs (“Daydreams for Cyberspace”). What a beautiful blog after so little effort!
In boring earnestness, during my surfing binge, I’d brainstormed for names, coming up with “dreamstoker”, “minderskeepers,” “storystork”, etc. My mind, wanting me to lighten up, offered up “humchum”. Yeah!
Humchum doesn’t mean anything, yet. My tutor likes it. We got silly toward the end of our meeting. His blog portrait is a photo of a baby’s face blocking is own. Could I use my dog’s?
From webmaster@cyberphobia.net: a cyberphobe is a person who has an irrational fear of or aversion to computers, specifically, the fear and/or the inability to learn new technologies.
I love new computer technologies, but fear cyberspace, especially scams and glitches. For my condition, I don’t need medication or exposure therapy. I’m getting appropriate help, from my tech tutor. Gently, he suggests possible symptoms I might have: he asked me why I gave the top ranking to all of the books I reviewed for Amazon.com. My answer: because I won’t review a book unless I feel it is excellent — the truth, but a non-answer.
I’ve never written a book. Who am I to badmouth a book that an author has labored over for years? I’ll only review what I think are the best.
If you read this site, I’d welcome what you have to say about cyberphobia. If you suffer from it, what brought it on? How did you overcome it?
Friday the Thirteenth, January 2006, 3:00 p.m. sharp: my tutor arrived. He is not superstitious, and neither am I. We’ll have to see. When we got down to work after my four-week binge of rabid surfing, I felt like an undiagnosed myopic donning corrective lenses for the first time.
By now I was in such despair that I was considering online market research — ten bucks per questionnaire submitted. My tutor hasn’t heard good things about these kinds of opportunities. Sign up for “free”, but then you’re asked to purchase some kind of kit or package for three or four hundred dollars.
For a clear view of cyberspace, you need a lens, and the best lens is your intention. Once again, what would I do on cyberspace? Ask daily.
My tutor didn’t think it would be too bigheaded of me to consider using a blog as a portfolio of writing samples to show to interested online publications. I enjoy writing nonfiction, but I haven’t done much recently. Twenty years ago, I worked as a reporter/photojournalist for a neighborhood paper in southern California. I wrote a profile of a light-and-earth artist/sculpture for an in-flight magazine, and also two catalogs for a vocational rehabilitation network.
Last fall, when the urge to write again hit me, I joined a local writers’ group, which led to an article about the local Quilters’ Guild in the local paper. I “practiced” cyberspace writing on Amazon.
My tutor and I logged on to two blog hosting sites and selected the free one, Blogger.com. Instructions were simple. I selected a template for my site, gave it a name, and pasted my first few paragraphs (“Daydreams for Cyberspace”). What a beautiful blog after so little effort!
In boring earnestness, during my surfing binge, I’d brainstormed for names, coming up with “dreamstoker”, “minderskeepers,” “storystork”, etc. My mind, wanting me to lighten up, offered up “humchum”. Yeah!
Humchum doesn’t mean anything, yet. My tutor likes it. We got silly toward the end of our meeting. His blog portrait is a photo of a baby’s face blocking is own. Could I use my dog’s?
Article for Local Newspaper, December, 2005
As seen in the Ravalli Republic, the Entertainment Connection, issue of Friday, December 16, 2005
"The Bitterroot Quilters: An Opportunity for the Visual Artist in You,"
By Bonnie Trotter (a.k.a. Marian W. Trotter)
A festive group filled the well-lit, spacious Woodside Grange community hall as the Bitterroot Quilters’ met in October.
Strangers (like me) and beginners were welcomed as the quilters cheerfully answered questions and explained the basics of their organization. They meet once a month, all year around.
Eighty-five ladies showed up that night, chatted, and laughed with one another before settling down for the evening’s presentations.
Before us, a series of blocks or panels, 12-inch quilted squares, honored the season of autumn. Each panel was created by a different artist. We saw a variety of interpretations; all of them depicted with fabrics of solid colors and prints cut and skillfully stitched together.
Artist-quilters had carefully selected subtly striking hues found throughout the fall spectrum - brick, eggshell, sienna, olive, muted powdered turquoise, pumpernickel, ivory, umber, ochre, and black and bright white for dimension. Prints commemorating autumn revealed pumpkins, corn, berries, fruit, water, paisley, and plaid. A moderator raffled off the entire collection. Unless you had produced one of those squares, you couldn’t enter.
I’d come to the meeting because I want to explore and write about exceptional creative outlets in the Bitterroot Valley. Impressed by the Bitterroot Quilters Guild’s high morale and healthy attendance, I wondered what made this group so strong, while others with similar hopes shrink and eventually die.
Underscoring the Guild’s success is the pride these artists take in their accomplishments and in cultivating a large, active membership.
The support that the participants give one another eliminates that pest known as performance anxiety.
At the meeting, ladies displaying their works-in-progress enjoyed a full house of attentive viewers, who were absolutely delighted by what we saw.
Squares, like those raffled off at the meeting, were stitched together to form quilts velvety and cool to the touch, but cozy for cold winter nights. Quilts like these typically incorporate vaguely kaleidoscopic patterns of geometric squares, rectangles, and triangles that mirror one another. Designs represent motifs of migrating birds, stars, leaves, mountains, the sun, the moon, abstracts, portraits, or landscapes. Artists tell you to compare a quilt to a sandwich. Material called batting lies between two sides. Sewing batting and sides together requires careful integration into the quilt’s look.
One artist displayed her quilt that she’d designed to look like a wall of framed photographs. She used real snapshots captured on pieces of fabric.
Another quilt portrayed a picture gallery. We saw what’s called the “Card Trick,” the eight-pointed star — overlapping squares, one corner of each meeting at the center.
We saw thread embossments, ruffles, lace, beads, and fabric sculpture. An abundance of meaningful activities also ensures the success of a group like the Guild. In addition to designing and making quilted products, members go on retreats and tackle projects, like fundraisers, charity undertakings, and exhibitions for the public.
Over time, participants develop long-term friendships. At annual retreats, this year’s held in March at Seeley Lake, quilters stitch their quilts, check out each other’s progress, exchange ideas, and invent new designs.
Their successful fundraisers — including membership drives and quilt raffles at biennial exhibitions held at Corvallis High School — pay for top ranked professionals to share their techniques.
October’s meeting featured a beading expert, who showed the group how to incorporate beads into a quilt’s design. Suddenly an exquisite jewel of a doll appeared in my hands, passed to me down the line. It was covered with beads of various sizes, shapes, and autumn colors. One of the beading expert’s students had made it, a delicate treasure that you can hold snugly in one hand.
Bitterroot Quilters make and donate quilts for local children at risk (Quilts for Kids) and comforters for hospice, chemotherapy, and dialysis patients. Volunteers ship quilts to victims of natural disasters, this year to military families who live in the wake of Katrina. The ladies enjoy meeting together to sew these quilts, assembly-line fashion.
You can’t learn how to make a quilt at Guild meetings, but you can at local fabric shops or through adult education offered by Corvallis Schools. In addition to quilts, you could make tote bags, sofa throws, table covers, pillows, and items entirely new under the sun. As with clothing patterns, some quilts come with blueprints, but as one participant says, the result is entirely yours. You choose your own fabrics, your own colors, and your own embellishments.
For inspiration, visit the Guild’s annual exhibition mounted at the Ravalli County Fair. Watch the Ravalli Republic events calendar for news of other exhibits, specifically those held at Corvallis High School every other year. If you can’t wait, search the Internet for “quilts” at Google.com.
Here, among the Bitterroot Quilters, you can meet the artist that lives inside you and others, make good friends, cultivate leadership and fundraising know-how, and just possibly earn some money.
* * *
"The Bitterroot Quilters: An Opportunity for the Visual Artist in You,"
By Bonnie Trotter (a.k.a. Marian W. Trotter)
A festive group filled the well-lit, spacious Woodside Grange community hall as the Bitterroot Quilters’ met in October.
Strangers (like me) and beginners were welcomed as the quilters cheerfully answered questions and explained the basics of their organization. They meet once a month, all year around.
Eighty-five ladies showed up that night, chatted, and laughed with one another before settling down for the evening’s presentations.
Before us, a series of blocks or panels, 12-inch quilted squares, honored the season of autumn. Each panel was created by a different artist. We saw a variety of interpretations; all of them depicted with fabrics of solid colors and prints cut and skillfully stitched together.
Artist-quilters had carefully selected subtly striking hues found throughout the fall spectrum - brick, eggshell, sienna, olive, muted powdered turquoise, pumpernickel, ivory, umber, ochre, and black and bright white for dimension. Prints commemorating autumn revealed pumpkins, corn, berries, fruit, water, paisley, and plaid. A moderator raffled off the entire collection. Unless you had produced one of those squares, you couldn’t enter.
I’d come to the meeting because I want to explore and write about exceptional creative outlets in the Bitterroot Valley. Impressed by the Bitterroot Quilters Guild’s high morale and healthy attendance, I wondered what made this group so strong, while others with similar hopes shrink and eventually die.
Underscoring the Guild’s success is the pride these artists take in their accomplishments and in cultivating a large, active membership.
The support that the participants give one another eliminates that pest known as performance anxiety.
At the meeting, ladies displaying their works-in-progress enjoyed a full house of attentive viewers, who were absolutely delighted by what we saw.
Squares, like those raffled off at the meeting, were stitched together to form quilts velvety and cool to the touch, but cozy for cold winter nights. Quilts like these typically incorporate vaguely kaleidoscopic patterns of geometric squares, rectangles, and triangles that mirror one another. Designs represent motifs of migrating birds, stars, leaves, mountains, the sun, the moon, abstracts, portraits, or landscapes. Artists tell you to compare a quilt to a sandwich. Material called batting lies between two sides. Sewing batting and sides together requires careful integration into the quilt’s look.
One artist displayed her quilt that she’d designed to look like a wall of framed photographs. She used real snapshots captured on pieces of fabric.
Another quilt portrayed a picture gallery. We saw what’s called the “Card Trick,” the eight-pointed star — overlapping squares, one corner of each meeting at the center.
We saw thread embossments, ruffles, lace, beads, and fabric sculpture. An abundance of meaningful activities also ensures the success of a group like the Guild. In addition to designing and making quilted products, members go on retreats and tackle projects, like fundraisers, charity undertakings, and exhibitions for the public.
Over time, participants develop long-term friendships. At annual retreats, this year’s held in March at Seeley Lake, quilters stitch their quilts, check out each other’s progress, exchange ideas, and invent new designs.
Their successful fundraisers — including membership drives and quilt raffles at biennial exhibitions held at Corvallis High School — pay for top ranked professionals to share their techniques.
October’s meeting featured a beading expert, who showed the group how to incorporate beads into a quilt’s design. Suddenly an exquisite jewel of a doll appeared in my hands, passed to me down the line. It was covered with beads of various sizes, shapes, and autumn colors. One of the beading expert’s students had made it, a delicate treasure that you can hold snugly in one hand.
Bitterroot Quilters make and donate quilts for local children at risk (Quilts for Kids) and comforters for hospice, chemotherapy, and dialysis patients. Volunteers ship quilts to victims of natural disasters, this year to military families who live in the wake of Katrina. The ladies enjoy meeting together to sew these quilts, assembly-line fashion.
You can’t learn how to make a quilt at Guild meetings, but you can at local fabric shops or through adult education offered by Corvallis Schools. In addition to quilts, you could make tote bags, sofa throws, table covers, pillows, and items entirely new under the sun. As with clothing patterns, some quilts come with blueprints, but as one participant says, the result is entirely yours. You choose your own fabrics, your own colors, and your own embellishments.
For inspiration, visit the Guild’s annual exhibition mounted at the Ravalli County Fair. Watch the Ravalli Republic events calendar for news of other exhibits, specifically those held at Corvallis High School every other year. If you can’t wait, search the Internet for “quilts” at Google.com.
Here, among the Bitterroot Quilters, you can meet the artist that lives inside you and others, make good friends, cultivate leadership and fundraising know-how, and just possibly earn some money.
* * *
Book Reviews for Amazon.com, December '05 and January '06
Public Reviews written by Marian W. Trotter (Bonnie) for Amazon.com
Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, by Don Oberdorfer
“Firm and Brilliant,” January 11, 2006
Michael Joseph (Mike) Mansfield's approach to Congress could instruct many of the politicians in power today. Unlike his bombastic, controlling predecessor, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, Mansfield, as Senate Majority Leader, retreated from the glare of publicity so that his fellow senators, from both parties, could take pride in successful legislation that they initiated, all the while guiding that body with a steady hand.
Because of the statesman's honesty, his intellectual capacity, his ability to connect immediately with people, no matter their views, and his brilliance as a public servant, his home state Montana kept him in Congress from the year they first elected him in 1942 to 1977, when he retired from the Senate. They loved him because he put their interests first, regardless of what was occurring on the world's stage.
When Mansfield retired from the Senate, he expected to "loaf, read, and think," but the government couldn't let go and sent him to Japan where he served as Ambassador, a position from which he retired in his mid-eighties. After that, Goldman Sachs hired him to be its East Asian Advisor.
Above all else, human relationships ranked highest in importance for Mansfield. When his wife died, he said during her eulogy that without her he would have been nothing. Early in their marriage she urged him to leave his work as miner and mining engineer to pursue and complete his education.
I recommend Don Oberdorfer's "Senator Mansfield" to readers interested in a look into the bowels of politics, particularly during the Vietnam War era and its aftermath. I felt as if I were hiding under a desk eavesdropping. Reading parts of the tapes that Nixon made of himself, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or weep.
* * *
In the Mind's Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity, by Thomas G. West
“Computer Graphics and Gifted Dyslexics,” January 6, 2006
In the Mind's Eye is the most interesting book I've ever read. Author Thomas G. West shows how advanced computer graphic technology is starting to provide an educational and professional home for the dyslexic visual thinker. In delightful and precise language, he illustrates why this new world of processing requires a global perspective, or the ability to see the whole of a phenomenon, as opposed to the blinkered view of an isolated part, and thereby to recognize patterns and quickly identify irregularities and problems. A three-dimensional view of each trader's performance could have saved Baron's Bank from the rogue trader who destroyed it.
The brain design that enables the visual thinker to grasp vast amounts of data by seeing it from a global perspective often comes with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. For these people, the traditional classroom and bureaucratic organization are nightmares. Schools, universities, and corporations flush out many dyslexic visual thinkers at great cost to the progress of civilization.
Nowadays computers eliminate what in earlier systems caused problems. They handle spelling and calculations easily. Another kind of student and professional is needed, an individual who is talented at manipulating images, rather than those facile with arithmetic and able to recite on demand memorized passages assigned by a teacher.
This extended essay would interest the general reader as much as it would the visual thinker. West exposes you to a careful look at gifted, dyslexic visual thinkers who made extraordinary contributions to civilization. You will read about how these giants refused to buy into the dominant clerically oriented educational and professional systems and forged ahead to devise original ways to build on their strengths.
I was particularly interested that for these profiled individuals, what they had on hand was enough for their pursuits - the expertise and material available to them through their studies, work, or personal interests. They were able to shrug off professional, family, or societal expectations, giving themselves plenty of time to think quietly. Their passions lay in engagement rather than whether their inventions or discoveries would work or would sell. Their ideas and activities will trigger pyrotechnics of thought and, possibly, a myriad of ideas for projects to pursue in your free time.
* * *
Rebuilding the Indian, by Fred Haefele
“Craving Variety and Adventure,” December 22, 2005
Fred Haefele, in his 2005 memoir Rebuilding the Indian, will inspire anyone who has sworn off the cubicles, the clock punching, and bureaucracy of conventional working life. An individual who craves variety and adventure, he beckons you away from the staid and the insipid.
At age 51, the author started rebuilding a vintage motorcycle from a pile of scrap. As the parts of the Indian Chief gradually and arduously came together, so did other dreams: to start a second family; to build enduring relationships with his adult daughter and son from a previous marriage; and to get his novel published. Throughout his life, Haefele paid attention to inclinations toward exciting activity and a recurring boyhood dream: In full control, he floats quickly just above the ground waiting for flight. In 1969, he bought a motorcycle, a shield against the stifling bourgeois lifestyle.
After he graduated from college, he took up tree surgery, another shield, this one against the politics so chaotic in the late 1960's. Rather than build a nest egg, he developed courage, physical strength, and the alertness and agility necessary to avoid catastrophic accidents. Until he sold his tree surgery business recently, it supported him and his family -- and the Indian Chief -- continuously, in sharp contrast to some conventional jobs that have become obsolete, leaving workers to face new bouts of long and expensive training.
His descriptions of migrating birds of all sizes and types, frost on land "jewel-like in the moonlight", and steam hovering over water in the process of freezing just may inspire you to go on out there and pick up a long-ago dream just to see what might happen.
* * *
The Macmillan Visual Dictionary : 3,500 Color Illustrations, 25,000 Terms, 600 Subjects, by Jean-Claude Corbeil
“Inspiration Found in a Dictionary,” December 19, 2005
For thirteen years, I've been consulting my 1992 edition of The Macmillan Visual Dictionary. Searching its publisher's web site for a newer edition, I got 0 results. If I ran the world, this fine work would be on the Internet, its entries updated daily.
To artists and writers: it's such a classic, I don't really miss the would-be updates. Using computer technology, the authors use vivid descriptive color, each component delicately outlined. You start by finding the term you're looking for within one of the general categories, each color tabbed for clarity. Or you may find the page numbers for it in the index. What is a fetlock? Within the animal kingdom, you will find two double-page spreads of the horse, its exterior and its skeleton. Or look for your term in the index: curb bit, page 649, how it fits in the horse's mouth, and page 650, pictures of nine types of bits.
Let's say you have a picture of a thing in your mind, but you don't know its name. Find this image in one of the 28 color tabbed categories.
For artists, this visual dictionary is loaded with sources for inspiration. Take gems alone. Sketching facets, I want to compare my imaginary world found in the facets of a sapphire to that found in those of an emerald. What medium would best represent your idea? Photography? What kind? Here you will find cameras and accessories, for both still and video. For writers, specific terms along with clear pictures of what you are writing about increase accuracy and help bring your poetry and prose to life.
* * *
The Elements of Style Illustrated, by William Strunk Jr.
“Somebody Else's Umbrella,” December 18, 2005
For forty years, writers have been consulting this handy bible to clear away verbiage fog. Look for the name of your problem in the index, and you'll find the number of the page where the distinction between "tortuous" and "torturous" is made in a little over two lines. Lend is the verb, loan the noun.
This edition is different from the others. It's illustrated, by artist Maira Kalman, whose dreamlike, impressionistic images reminded me how important a mental picture is to remembering a scene in history, the location of a business, or even a person's name. Her pictures capture what you might see with your mind's eye, or at a passing glance.
To depict the construction design necessary for a solid piece of composition, Kalman paints an interior corner covered by door-shaped, geometric outlines. For the possessive indefinite pronoun, use an apostrophe: "Somebody else's umbrella." Kalman's female character, dressed in yellow and standing in front of a dark blue background, turns away from a cherry red umbrella.
What I believe you might find particularly helpful are the verbal illustrations and examples. Throughout, the authors use columns: On the left side is what looks like a first stab at a phrase or sentence, loaded with unnecessary words that render it tame and dull. On the right all superfluous words are gone, the result brief and sharp.
Left column: Owing to the fact that
Right: Since (because)
In only 153 pages, "The Elements of Style" gives you immediate access to common usage problems and ways to correct them. I don't see how a writer could work without it.
* * *
Burning Fence : A Western Memoir of Fatherhood, by Craig Lesley
“Riveting Tale of Two Fatherhoods,” December 14, 2005
When Rudell Lesley told his wife Hazel he had to go out for a while to look for a lost flashlight, he never returned, leaving her to raise their eight-month old son alone. The baby, christened Martin Craig Lesley, emerged with remarkable academic ability that came with a talent for remembering and processing every experience on an unusually deep level.
As I read, I marveled that the child didn't suffer a nervous breakdown or withdraw completely into fantasy. Relatives made vague, brief, derogatory comments about his father. Hazel said, "He just didn't give the slightest damn about anything." Rudell was shell-shocked from his fighting in the war. He was a backslider who poached. Trying to three-dimensionalize his father using this information began the stirrings of rage. Also Craig needed a target for his anger because his stepfather Vern was too terrifying to defy openly.
Badly injured in an accident at fifteen, Craig finally drew his father's attention. Rudell appeared with his young wife and four half-siblings. From that time until his father's death, Craig takes a spellbinding journey into the lives of his father's family and associates.
Rudell, with all his entertaining stories ("stretchers"), fails to say what would have meaning for Craig: why Rudell left, and whether he thought he made the right decision. With all of his hard physical labor as a fence builder, Rudell keeps himself and his family in squalor. Mixed into all this is Craig's adopted handicapped son Wade who burns Rudell's stack of freshly cut fence posts, believing that he's scaring off Big Foot.
If you would like to live inside the mind of a man who overcame a harrowing childhood to become a successful writer and university professor, this memoir is for you.
* * *
American Prometheus : The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
“Martyr for the Sake of Many,” December 3, 2005
Who or what has protected us against an atomic bomb attack? Surely not the designers and manufacturers of the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
I was wrong. Reading American Prometheus (the name of the Greek god who took fire from Zeus and gave it to humans)," I learned that the director of the atomic bomb's development, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), spearheaded the movement to contain this dangerous weapon after it was used successfully against Japan. Before Presidents, Generals, and Atomic Energy officials, he argued for the weapon's containment and control, proposing a coordinated effort by all powerful nations, in the end martyring his career as a prominent member of the government's scientific community.
The authors describe Oppenheimer as naïve, as if they are surprised in the light of his scientific genius. To me he seems naïve in his dealings with government interrogators, but only from the standpoint of someone whose main interest is protecting his job. I don't believe the physicist was naïve. Knowing the dangers of the new nuclear war technology, Oppenheimer was most interested in protecting humankind, not his own back. He believed that, inside the system, he could most effectively wage his campaign to contain and control the technology, even at the expense of his career. He clung like a barnacle to high-level government positions until the Atomic Energy Commission expunged him from government service in 1954 by not renewing his security clearance.
J. Robert Oppenheimer's story is frightening. President Truman and Eisenhower, Generals, politicians, and specifically high-ranking officials serving on the Atomic Energy Commission showed the same blind pig-headedness that we see today in the mishandling of Iraq. One of the only bright spots these days is independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, the kind of lawyer that Oppenheimer badly needed.
I recommend this book for the general reader as well as for the historian. The authors weave facts and dates into the narrative without interrupting the flow. Reading about Oppenheimer, you learn what it is like to choose between obeying the dictates of those in power, with possibly disastrous consequences for the many, and protesting their decisions, risking the loss of your job. The book will give courage to anyone facing such a decision.
* * *
Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy, by Kent Nerburn
“Chief Joseph's True Greatness,” December 3, 2005, December 3, 2005
I loved this book. In vivid detail, Kent Nerburn, in his "Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce," fulfills his promise to show Chief Joseph's true greatness, which myth has obscured, eventually rendering the great man what the author aptly describes as a kind of "hood ornament."
When the U.S. military captured the Nez Perce, other chiefs fled. Joseph stayed with and cared for his bands during their circuitous, grueling travels as prisoners of the U.S. government, while the President and military officials decided how inexpensively they could house the Nez Perce from then on.
Joseph, already a myth in the eyes of the U.S. populace as the leader of the Nez Perce tribe's masterly escape from the "best that the U.S. military had to offer," used his fame to advocate for his bands before Presidents and Congress. Although feted and celebrated, he failed to get adequate results. He was unaware that Indian genocide was being considered.
This is the most horrific account of displacement I have ever encountered. A huge number of Nez Perce died on route, particularly the elderly and the very young, sickened by starvation and killed by white diseases to which they had no immunity.
"Chief Joseph" took place during Reconstruction following the Civil War, a time when government resources were lacking and nerves worn. Soldiers and officers assigned to the Indian front typically lacked basic military skills and the experience necessary to handle Indians with sensitivity and tact.
I recommend this book to people who like history that is presented as narrative, offering the kind of momentum and characterization that you find in novels.
* * *
Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, by Don Oberdorfer
“Firm and Brilliant,” January 11, 2006
Michael Joseph (Mike) Mansfield's approach to Congress could instruct many of the politicians in power today. Unlike his bombastic, controlling predecessor, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, Mansfield, as Senate Majority Leader, retreated from the glare of publicity so that his fellow senators, from both parties, could take pride in successful legislation that they initiated, all the while guiding that body with a steady hand.
Because of the statesman's honesty, his intellectual capacity, his ability to connect immediately with people, no matter their views, and his brilliance as a public servant, his home state Montana kept him in Congress from the year they first elected him in 1942 to 1977, when he retired from the Senate. They loved him because he put their interests first, regardless of what was occurring on the world's stage.
When Mansfield retired from the Senate, he expected to "loaf, read, and think," but the government couldn't let go and sent him to Japan where he served as Ambassador, a position from which he retired in his mid-eighties. After that, Goldman Sachs hired him to be its East Asian Advisor.
Above all else, human relationships ranked highest in importance for Mansfield. When his wife died, he said during her eulogy that without her he would have been nothing. Early in their marriage she urged him to leave his work as miner and mining engineer to pursue and complete his education.
I recommend Don Oberdorfer's "Senator Mansfield" to readers interested in a look into the bowels of politics, particularly during the Vietnam War era and its aftermath. I felt as if I were hiding under a desk eavesdropping. Reading parts of the tapes that Nixon made of himself, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or weep.
* * *
In the Mind's Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity, by Thomas G. West
“Computer Graphics and Gifted Dyslexics,” January 6, 2006
In the Mind's Eye is the most interesting book I've ever read. Author Thomas G. West shows how advanced computer graphic technology is starting to provide an educational and professional home for the dyslexic visual thinker. In delightful and precise language, he illustrates why this new world of processing requires a global perspective, or the ability to see the whole of a phenomenon, as opposed to the blinkered view of an isolated part, and thereby to recognize patterns and quickly identify irregularities and problems. A three-dimensional view of each trader's performance could have saved Baron's Bank from the rogue trader who destroyed it.
The brain design that enables the visual thinker to grasp vast amounts of data by seeing it from a global perspective often comes with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. For these people, the traditional classroom and bureaucratic organization are nightmares. Schools, universities, and corporations flush out many dyslexic visual thinkers at great cost to the progress of civilization.
Nowadays computers eliminate what in earlier systems caused problems. They handle spelling and calculations easily. Another kind of student and professional is needed, an individual who is talented at manipulating images, rather than those facile with arithmetic and able to recite on demand memorized passages assigned by a teacher.
This extended essay would interest the general reader as much as it would the visual thinker. West exposes you to a careful look at gifted, dyslexic visual thinkers who made extraordinary contributions to civilization. You will read about how these giants refused to buy into the dominant clerically oriented educational and professional systems and forged ahead to devise original ways to build on their strengths.
I was particularly interested that for these profiled individuals, what they had on hand was enough for their pursuits - the expertise and material available to them through their studies, work, or personal interests. They were able to shrug off professional, family, or societal expectations, giving themselves plenty of time to think quietly. Their passions lay in engagement rather than whether their inventions or discoveries would work or would sell. Their ideas and activities will trigger pyrotechnics of thought and, possibly, a myriad of ideas for projects to pursue in your free time.
* * *
Rebuilding the Indian, by Fred Haefele
“Craving Variety and Adventure,” December 22, 2005
Fred Haefele, in his 2005 memoir Rebuilding the Indian, will inspire anyone who has sworn off the cubicles, the clock punching, and bureaucracy of conventional working life. An individual who craves variety and adventure, he beckons you away from the staid and the insipid.
At age 51, the author started rebuilding a vintage motorcycle from a pile of scrap. As the parts of the Indian Chief gradually and arduously came together, so did other dreams: to start a second family; to build enduring relationships with his adult daughter and son from a previous marriage; and to get his novel published. Throughout his life, Haefele paid attention to inclinations toward exciting activity and a recurring boyhood dream: In full control, he floats quickly just above the ground waiting for flight. In 1969, he bought a motorcycle, a shield against the stifling bourgeois lifestyle.
After he graduated from college, he took up tree surgery, another shield, this one against the politics so chaotic in the late 1960's. Rather than build a nest egg, he developed courage, physical strength, and the alertness and agility necessary to avoid catastrophic accidents. Until he sold his tree surgery business recently, it supported him and his family -- and the Indian Chief -- continuously, in sharp contrast to some conventional jobs that have become obsolete, leaving workers to face new bouts of long and expensive training.
His descriptions of migrating birds of all sizes and types, frost on land "jewel-like in the moonlight", and steam hovering over water in the process of freezing just may inspire you to go on out there and pick up a long-ago dream just to see what might happen.
* * *
The Macmillan Visual Dictionary : 3,500 Color Illustrations, 25,000 Terms, 600 Subjects, by Jean-Claude Corbeil
“Inspiration Found in a Dictionary,” December 19, 2005
For thirteen years, I've been consulting my 1992 edition of The Macmillan Visual Dictionary. Searching its publisher's web site for a newer edition, I got 0 results. If I ran the world, this fine work would be on the Internet, its entries updated daily.
To artists and writers: it's such a classic, I don't really miss the would-be updates. Using computer technology, the authors use vivid descriptive color, each component delicately outlined. You start by finding the term you're looking for within one of the general categories, each color tabbed for clarity. Or you may find the page numbers for it in the index. What is a fetlock? Within the animal kingdom, you will find two double-page spreads of the horse, its exterior and its skeleton. Or look for your term in the index: curb bit, page 649, how it fits in the horse's mouth, and page 650, pictures of nine types of bits.
Let's say you have a picture of a thing in your mind, but you don't know its name. Find this image in one of the 28 color tabbed categories.
For artists, this visual dictionary is loaded with sources for inspiration. Take gems alone. Sketching facets, I want to compare my imaginary world found in the facets of a sapphire to that found in those of an emerald. What medium would best represent your idea? Photography? What kind? Here you will find cameras and accessories, for both still and video. For writers, specific terms along with clear pictures of what you are writing about increase accuracy and help bring your poetry and prose to life.
* * *
The Elements of Style Illustrated, by William Strunk Jr.
“Somebody Else's Umbrella,” December 18, 2005
For forty years, writers have been consulting this handy bible to clear away verbiage fog. Look for the name of your problem in the index, and you'll find the number of the page where the distinction between "tortuous" and "torturous" is made in a little over two lines. Lend is the verb, loan the noun.
This edition is different from the others. It's illustrated, by artist Maira Kalman, whose dreamlike, impressionistic images reminded me how important a mental picture is to remembering a scene in history, the location of a business, or even a person's name. Her pictures capture what you might see with your mind's eye, or at a passing glance.
To depict the construction design necessary for a solid piece of composition, Kalman paints an interior corner covered by door-shaped, geometric outlines. For the possessive indefinite pronoun, use an apostrophe: "Somebody else's umbrella." Kalman's female character, dressed in yellow and standing in front of a dark blue background, turns away from a cherry red umbrella.
What I believe you might find particularly helpful are the verbal illustrations and examples. Throughout, the authors use columns: On the left side is what looks like a first stab at a phrase or sentence, loaded with unnecessary words that render it tame and dull. On the right all superfluous words are gone, the result brief and sharp.
Left column: Owing to the fact that
Right: Since (because)
In only 153 pages, "The Elements of Style" gives you immediate access to common usage problems and ways to correct them. I don't see how a writer could work without it.
* * *
Burning Fence : A Western Memoir of Fatherhood, by Craig Lesley
“Riveting Tale of Two Fatherhoods,” December 14, 2005
When Rudell Lesley told his wife Hazel he had to go out for a while to look for a lost flashlight, he never returned, leaving her to raise their eight-month old son alone. The baby, christened Martin Craig Lesley, emerged with remarkable academic ability that came with a talent for remembering and processing every experience on an unusually deep level.
As I read, I marveled that the child didn't suffer a nervous breakdown or withdraw completely into fantasy. Relatives made vague, brief, derogatory comments about his father. Hazel said, "He just didn't give the slightest damn about anything." Rudell was shell-shocked from his fighting in the war. He was a backslider who poached. Trying to three-dimensionalize his father using this information began the stirrings of rage. Also Craig needed a target for his anger because his stepfather Vern was too terrifying to defy openly.
Badly injured in an accident at fifteen, Craig finally drew his father's attention. Rudell appeared with his young wife and four half-siblings. From that time until his father's death, Craig takes a spellbinding journey into the lives of his father's family and associates.
Rudell, with all his entertaining stories ("stretchers"), fails to say what would have meaning for Craig: why Rudell left, and whether he thought he made the right decision. With all of his hard physical labor as a fence builder, Rudell keeps himself and his family in squalor. Mixed into all this is Craig's adopted handicapped son Wade who burns Rudell's stack of freshly cut fence posts, believing that he's scaring off Big Foot.
If you would like to live inside the mind of a man who overcame a harrowing childhood to become a successful writer and university professor, this memoir is for you.
* * *
American Prometheus : The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
“Martyr for the Sake of Many,” December 3, 2005
Who or what has protected us against an atomic bomb attack? Surely not the designers and manufacturers of the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
I was wrong. Reading American Prometheus (the name of the Greek god who took fire from Zeus and gave it to humans)," I learned that the director of the atomic bomb's development, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), spearheaded the movement to contain this dangerous weapon after it was used successfully against Japan. Before Presidents, Generals, and Atomic Energy officials, he argued for the weapon's containment and control, proposing a coordinated effort by all powerful nations, in the end martyring his career as a prominent member of the government's scientific community.
The authors describe Oppenheimer as naïve, as if they are surprised in the light of his scientific genius. To me he seems naïve in his dealings with government interrogators, but only from the standpoint of someone whose main interest is protecting his job. I don't believe the physicist was naïve. Knowing the dangers of the new nuclear war technology, Oppenheimer was most interested in protecting humankind, not his own back. He believed that, inside the system, he could most effectively wage his campaign to contain and control the technology, even at the expense of his career. He clung like a barnacle to high-level government positions until the Atomic Energy Commission expunged him from government service in 1954 by not renewing his security clearance.
J. Robert Oppenheimer's story is frightening. President Truman and Eisenhower, Generals, politicians, and specifically high-ranking officials serving on the Atomic Energy Commission showed the same blind pig-headedness that we see today in the mishandling of Iraq. One of the only bright spots these days is independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, the kind of lawyer that Oppenheimer badly needed.
I recommend this book for the general reader as well as for the historian. The authors weave facts and dates into the narrative without interrupting the flow. Reading about Oppenheimer, you learn what it is like to choose between obeying the dictates of those in power, with possibly disastrous consequences for the many, and protesting their decisions, risking the loss of your job. The book will give courage to anyone facing such a decision.
* * *
Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy, by Kent Nerburn
“Chief Joseph's True Greatness,” December 3, 2005, December 3, 2005
I loved this book. In vivid detail, Kent Nerburn, in his "Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce," fulfills his promise to show Chief Joseph's true greatness, which myth has obscured, eventually rendering the great man what the author aptly describes as a kind of "hood ornament."
When the U.S. military captured the Nez Perce, other chiefs fled. Joseph stayed with and cared for his bands during their circuitous, grueling travels as prisoners of the U.S. government, while the President and military officials decided how inexpensively they could house the Nez Perce from then on.
Joseph, already a myth in the eyes of the U.S. populace as the leader of the Nez Perce tribe's masterly escape from the "best that the U.S. military had to offer," used his fame to advocate for his bands before Presidents and Congress. Although feted and celebrated, he failed to get adequate results. He was unaware that Indian genocide was being considered.
This is the most horrific account of displacement I have ever encountered. A huge number of Nez Perce died on route, particularly the elderly and the very young, sickened by starvation and killed by white diseases to which they had no immunity.
"Chief Joseph" took place during Reconstruction following the Civil War, a time when government resources were lacking and nerves worn. Soldiers and officers assigned to the Indian front typically lacked basic military skills and the experience necessary to handle Indians with sensitivity and tact.
I recommend this book to people who like history that is presented as narrative, offering the kind of momentum and characterization that you find in novels.
* * *
MBR's Reviewers' Choice
Midwest Book Review’s “Reviewers’ Choice” for January, 2006.
Website Address: http://www.midwestbookreview.com
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Alfred A. Knopf
www.aaknopf.com
ISBN: 0375412026, $35.00 US $47.00 CAN, 721 pp.
Bonnie Trotter (aka Marian W. Trotter)
Reviewer
In 1951, our elementary school, located in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., conducted air raid drills to prepare us for the possibility of an atomic bomb attack. While our teacher led us single file across the entire campus, I worried that an atomic bomb would certainly not wait for us to reach a safe place. Once the student body assembled in the cafeteria, each of us crawled under a desk, pulled our legs up under us, and covered our eyes by burying them in the crook of an arm.
That bomb never did drop. I kept waiting for it. When I was in high school, my heart still thundered at the sound of any kind of whistling or whining from the skies above. As of now, 2005, it still hasn't dropped. Who and what protected us? Surely not the designers and manufacturers of the first atomic bombs, the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, ending WWII when Japan surrendered a few days later.
I was wrong. Reading American Prometheus (the name of the Greek god who took fire from Zeus and gave it to humans), I learned that the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967), spearheaded the movement to contain this dangerous weapon after it was successfully used on Japan.
When a riveting and highly-acclaimed biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer reached the shelves, I bought it, read it, and chose to review it because I want to know happened behind the closed doors of government during the era of the gestation and birth of nuclear war technology.
American Prometheus greatly intrigued me by its tale of how Oppenheimer, during the aftermath of its use against Japan, advocated before Presidents and generals its control and containment through coordinated effort by all nations, in the end martyring his career as a prominent member of the government's scientific community.
Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer, this brilliant man of such stark contradictions? The authors paint a vivid portrait: rail thin, penetrating blue eyes, dark hair. He wore a porkpie hat. After he bummed a cigarette from a friend while a youth, he chained smoked for the rest of his life. To direct the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, even though he failed the phyical because he was 27 pounds underweight.
His strength and stamina, however, showed that he was no weakling. He thrived on long, arduous workdays at Los Alamos, extended horseback rides on a horse named "Crisis" that only Oppenheimer could ride, and reckless sailboat excursions through tempestuous waters.
Surviving a painful, prolonged adolescence, the shy and awkward young man matured to become a captivating lecturer and conversationalist, his verbal generosity warm and sprinkled with dry wit, particularly at social gatherings where friends and colleagues considered him a marvelous entertainer.
At 36 years of age, he married Katherine Peuning Harrison, "Kitty", and they stayed married until the end of his life. Kitty, although plagued by emotional illness and alcoholism, stepped forward to help her husband very effectively through excruciating ordeals, particularly the Atomic Energy Commission's hearing in 1954 to determine whether or not the physicist's top security clearance should be extended. It was not. Her testimony during this hearing was truthful and articulate, while still shedding the best possible light on her husband.
Robert Oppenheimer enjoyed a close relationship with his younger brother Frank, an experimental physicist. The authors describe how Robert detested and avoided experimental physics, an area in which Frank excelled. Unlike Robert, Frank joined the Communist Party and admitted this later on to the government interrogators, getting himself blackballed from teaching and research positions. Frank became a cattle rancher.
For many years he and Frank leased the "Perro Caliente", a ranch in New Mexico, to use as a getaway for themselves and their friends and colleagues. It was here that Robert "adopted" the cantankerous horse, "Crisis", that he rode for days through treacherous mountainous terrain.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, brilliant and creative theoretical physicist, embraced two diametrically opposed sides to his personality, an inner conflict that could have splintered the average person. On the one hand, he was the scientist assigned by the government to direct the development of a combat weapon that would dwarf all others.
The other side of his personality revealed his strong sense of ethics ingrained in him as a youngster at the Ethical Culture School. When the Nazi government persecuted and slaughtered Jews, Robert arranged and paid for his parents' escape to the United States, as well as that for Jewish physicist friends and colleagues. These experiences made him despise fascist governments like Hitler's, compelling him to support left causes, all of which were being hijacked by the American Communist Party. These kinds of involvements would get him into trouble with government interrogators years later.
The physicist's love for and dedication to humankind extended to the literary arts. As a linguist he was fluent in several languages. He was an accomplished writer who immersed himself in such giants as Marcel Proust, Henry James, and Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, eventually quoting it after the birth of his atomic bomb, "Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds."
The authors describe Oppenheimer as naive, as if they are surprised in the light of his scientific genius. To me he seems naive in his dealings with government interrogators, but only from the standpoint of someone whose main interest is protecting his job. Knowing the dangers of the new nuclear war technology, Oppenheimer was most interested in protecting humankind, so he clung like a barnacle to high-level government positions as long as he could. From that standpoint, he was not in the least naive. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. He believed that, inside the system, he could most effectively wage his campaign to contain and control the technology, even at the expense of his career.
I feel that his work during this tenure halted the government's headlong thrust toward what he considered catastrophic destruction, ultimately helping to protect us from that bomb that I kept waiting for. Over time, even after Oppenheimer was banned from government employment, military officials, and Presidents, began to pay attention.
The authors give each of the many secondary characters a dimension you don't normally see in the minor figures of a story. President Harry Truman "wrote to (Dean) Acheson and described Oppenheimer as a 'cry-baby scientist' who had come to his office 'some five or six months ago and spent most of his time wringing his hands and telling me they had blood on them because of the discovery of atomic energy.'"
During the Atomic Energy Commission's hearings on whether or not to renew Oppenheimer's security clearance, its chairmen Lewis Strauss sent President Eisenhower progress reports. "Ike cabled him in a reply from his Augusta, Georgia retreat, thanking him for his 'interim report'. He also informed Strauss that he burned his interim report, apparently not wanting to leave any evidence that he or Strauss was inappropriately monitoring the security hearing."
The authors show a remarkable ability to incorporate facts and dates without interrupting the flow of the narrative, enriching for the general reader as well as the scholar. Reading about Oppenheimer, you learn what it is like to choose between obeying the dictates of those in power, with possibly disastrous consequences for the many, and protesting their decisions, risking your loss of position and reputation. You never know when you will be forced to make such a choice. Oppenheimer's experience can give you the courage to make the right one.
The author Martin J. Sherwin, who lives in Washington, D.C., began his research of Oppenheimer twenty-five years ago. Sherwin, the Walter S. Dickson Professor of English and American History at Tufts University, also wrote A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies, which won the Stuart L. Bernath Prize and the American History Book Prize.
Co-author Kae Bird, also a resident of Washington, D.C., wrote The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment and The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms, and he co-edited with Lawrence Lifschultz Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy. Bird is a contributing editor of The Nation.
Website Address: http://www.midwestbookreview.com
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Alfred A. Knopf
www.aaknopf.com
ISBN: 0375412026, $35.00 US $47.00 CAN, 721 pp.
Bonnie Trotter (aka Marian W. Trotter)
Reviewer
In 1951, our elementary school, located in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., conducted air raid drills to prepare us for the possibility of an atomic bomb attack. While our teacher led us single file across the entire campus, I worried that an atomic bomb would certainly not wait for us to reach a safe place. Once the student body assembled in the cafeteria, each of us crawled under a desk, pulled our legs up under us, and covered our eyes by burying them in the crook of an arm.
That bomb never did drop. I kept waiting for it. When I was in high school, my heart still thundered at the sound of any kind of whistling or whining from the skies above. As of now, 2005, it still hasn't dropped. Who and what protected us? Surely not the designers and manufacturers of the first atomic bombs, the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, ending WWII when Japan surrendered a few days later.
I was wrong. Reading American Prometheus (the name of the Greek god who took fire from Zeus and gave it to humans), I learned that the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967), spearheaded the movement to contain this dangerous weapon after it was successfully used on Japan.
When a riveting and highly-acclaimed biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer reached the shelves, I bought it, read it, and chose to review it because I want to know happened behind the closed doors of government during the era of the gestation and birth of nuclear war technology.
American Prometheus greatly intrigued me by its tale of how Oppenheimer, during the aftermath of its use against Japan, advocated before Presidents and generals its control and containment through coordinated effort by all nations, in the end martyring his career as a prominent member of the government's scientific community.
Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer, this brilliant man of such stark contradictions? The authors paint a vivid portrait: rail thin, penetrating blue eyes, dark hair. He wore a porkpie hat. After he bummed a cigarette from a friend while a youth, he chained smoked for the rest of his life. To direct the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, even though he failed the phyical because he was 27 pounds underweight.
His strength and stamina, however, showed that he was no weakling. He thrived on long, arduous workdays at Los Alamos, extended horseback rides on a horse named "Crisis" that only Oppenheimer could ride, and reckless sailboat excursions through tempestuous waters.
Surviving a painful, prolonged adolescence, the shy and awkward young man matured to become a captivating lecturer and conversationalist, his verbal generosity warm and sprinkled with dry wit, particularly at social gatherings where friends and colleagues considered him a marvelous entertainer.
At 36 years of age, he married Katherine Peuning Harrison, "Kitty", and they stayed married until the end of his life. Kitty, although plagued by emotional illness and alcoholism, stepped forward to help her husband very effectively through excruciating ordeals, particularly the Atomic Energy Commission's hearing in 1954 to determine whether or not the physicist's top security clearance should be extended. It was not. Her testimony during this hearing was truthful and articulate, while still shedding the best possible light on her husband.
Robert Oppenheimer enjoyed a close relationship with his younger brother Frank, an experimental physicist. The authors describe how Robert detested and avoided experimental physics, an area in which Frank excelled. Unlike Robert, Frank joined the Communist Party and admitted this later on to the government interrogators, getting himself blackballed from teaching and research positions. Frank became a cattle rancher.
For many years he and Frank leased the "Perro Caliente", a ranch in New Mexico, to use as a getaway for themselves and their friends and colleagues. It was here that Robert "adopted" the cantankerous horse, "Crisis", that he rode for days through treacherous mountainous terrain.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, brilliant and creative theoretical physicist, embraced two diametrically opposed sides to his personality, an inner conflict that could have splintered the average person. On the one hand, he was the scientist assigned by the government to direct the development of a combat weapon that would dwarf all others.
The other side of his personality revealed his strong sense of ethics ingrained in him as a youngster at the Ethical Culture School. When the Nazi government persecuted and slaughtered Jews, Robert arranged and paid for his parents' escape to the United States, as well as that for Jewish physicist friends and colleagues. These experiences made him despise fascist governments like Hitler's, compelling him to support left causes, all of which were being hijacked by the American Communist Party. These kinds of involvements would get him into trouble with government interrogators years later.
The physicist's love for and dedication to humankind extended to the literary arts. As a linguist he was fluent in several languages. He was an accomplished writer who immersed himself in such giants as Marcel Proust, Henry James, and Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, eventually quoting it after the birth of his atomic bomb, "Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds."
The authors describe Oppenheimer as naive, as if they are surprised in the light of his scientific genius. To me he seems naive in his dealings with government interrogators, but only from the standpoint of someone whose main interest is protecting his job. Knowing the dangers of the new nuclear war technology, Oppenheimer was most interested in protecting humankind, so he clung like a barnacle to high-level government positions as long as he could. From that standpoint, he was not in the least naive. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. He believed that, inside the system, he could most effectively wage his campaign to contain and control the technology, even at the expense of his career.
I feel that his work during this tenure halted the government's headlong thrust toward what he considered catastrophic destruction, ultimately helping to protect us from that bomb that I kept waiting for. Over time, even after Oppenheimer was banned from government employment, military officials, and Presidents, began to pay attention.
The authors give each of the many secondary characters a dimension you don't normally see in the minor figures of a story. President Harry Truman "wrote to (Dean) Acheson and described Oppenheimer as a 'cry-baby scientist' who had come to his office 'some five or six months ago and spent most of his time wringing his hands and telling me they had blood on them because of the discovery of atomic energy.'"
During the Atomic Energy Commission's hearings on whether or not to renew Oppenheimer's security clearance, its chairmen Lewis Strauss sent President Eisenhower progress reports. "Ike cabled him in a reply from his Augusta, Georgia retreat, thanking him for his 'interim report'. He also informed Strauss that he burned his interim report, apparently not wanting to leave any evidence that he or Strauss was inappropriately monitoring the security hearing."
The authors show a remarkable ability to incorporate facts and dates without interrupting the flow of the narrative, enriching for the general reader as well as the scholar. Reading about Oppenheimer, you learn what it is like to choose between obeying the dictates of those in power, with possibly disastrous consequences for the many, and protesting their decisions, risking your loss of position and reputation. You never know when you will be forced to make such a choice. Oppenheimer's experience can give you the courage to make the right one.
The author Martin J. Sherwin, who lives in Washington, D.C., began his research of Oppenheimer twenty-five years ago. Sherwin, the Walter S. Dickson Professor of English and American History at Tufts University, also wrote A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies, which won the Stuart L. Bernath Prize and the American History Book Prize.
Co-author Kae Bird, also a resident of Washington, D.C., wrote The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment and The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms, and he co-edited with Lawrence Lifschultz Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy. Bird is a contributing editor of The Nation.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Daydreams for Cyberspace
An artist and writer of a certain age, I still daydream about creating that perfect business that will enhance peoples’ lives and, at the same time, bring in some money. The ecommerce rage swept me off my feet like a new lover. How simple it would be to sell a product or service on the Internet! I felt like a child let out of school for the summer.
Why not sell friends’ and relatives’ handcrafted items on eBay? Like our universe, eBay is endless. All the books written about this eBay phenomenon fail to encompass it, because with each passing year its technology advances to include an ever-widening range of products and services. My first product was a sofa pillow crocheted by my sister-in-law, an exquisite piece of art, a rendering of a variety of abstract motifs, all details sewn with great care. Dead sure that the pillow would sell for three or four hundred dollars, I took it to an eBay agent who looked up what crocheted pillows were going for. The answer: the average price, eighteen dollars!
The ecommerce world began to overwhelm me. I hired a tech tutor, the only Macintosh expert I could find in the area that encompassed my county and the one north of it. Everybody around here prefers IBM-compatible. Twenty-three years ago, I chose the more art-oriented Mac. To transfer at this stage in my life to the IBM-compatible would throw me back to the Stone Age.
Every other Friday afternoon, in my home office, before my Macintosh PowerBook G4, the young teaches the old. My tutor is thirty. I’m sixty three. In high school I wrote papers and essays long hand. My hi-tech was a manual typewriter. Eventually, my tutor and I progressed to the idea of a website, an online gallery where people could view my art and buy it. In daydreams, I worried that I’d get so many orders I wouldn’t be able to keep up. The site that he designed and launched, lovely and user-friendly, did not get a single hit in over a year. I killed it.
Would my tutor quit, frustrated because I couldn’t seem to get a grip? He is good, and I’m imagining him seeking other clients whose results would be more satisfying for him. He suggested a blog with ads.
I thought I’d launch a blog with photos and illustrations. What would I write about? What would I draw or paint? What would I photograph? Reading my tutor’s favorite blogs, I’m awed by what goes on there: I’m seeing the flush of life, active careers in exploration using a variety of media, and watchdogs analyzing Internet fraud. Products they advertise on their sites are there to augment their interests and what they stand for.
After reading those excellent blogs, I looked at my daily journals, which depict a loner’s navigation through daily life: “Me, the one and only psychiatric anthropologist: It won’t help me one bit to try to examine others’ paths of self-destruction in order to avoid looking at my own.” Who would care about a blog like that? I wouldn’t.
What do I really do with my time? Winters here in Montana are long and unbearably cold. For exercise, I work out in a gym. I read. I watch television documentaries, pay per view movies, and good scripted programs like the Law and Order shows.
Read? My tutor logged us on to Amazon.com to read book reviews. Here I could practice writing in cyberspace, gauge my skill by comparing it to others’, and see what kind of response I get from voters. I wrote several, which garnered an acceptable level of response, but no rocket to the moon. And, how can you profess to run a book blog without buying, reading, and reviewing every book on your site? The costs of the books I reviewed would exceed whatever I could earn selling them.
A blog that is rocket to the moon? When have I ever been a rocket to the moon? So, cyberspace really is no different from feet-on-the-ground life! Even a blog has to be based on a concept no one else has thought of. I surfed for ideas, using Google to cough up results from every search word or phrase I could think of, which suggested other search words or phrases. I spent entire days, like an addict. After hours straight, my exhausted imagination had me suspended in the air, stuff I couldn’t identify clinging to me as if I were a life raft, while back on the ground I chase unrealized dreams unto death.
Why not sell friends’ and relatives’ handcrafted items on eBay? Like our universe, eBay is endless. All the books written about this eBay phenomenon fail to encompass it, because with each passing year its technology advances to include an ever-widening range of products and services. My first product was a sofa pillow crocheted by my sister-in-law, an exquisite piece of art, a rendering of a variety of abstract motifs, all details sewn with great care. Dead sure that the pillow would sell for three or four hundred dollars, I took it to an eBay agent who looked up what crocheted pillows were going for. The answer: the average price, eighteen dollars!
The ecommerce world began to overwhelm me. I hired a tech tutor, the only Macintosh expert I could find in the area that encompassed my county and the one north of it. Everybody around here prefers IBM-compatible. Twenty-three years ago, I chose the more art-oriented Mac. To transfer at this stage in my life to the IBM-compatible would throw me back to the Stone Age.
Every other Friday afternoon, in my home office, before my Macintosh PowerBook G4, the young teaches the old. My tutor is thirty. I’m sixty three. In high school I wrote papers and essays long hand. My hi-tech was a manual typewriter. Eventually, my tutor and I progressed to the idea of a website, an online gallery where people could view my art and buy it. In daydreams, I worried that I’d get so many orders I wouldn’t be able to keep up. The site that he designed and launched, lovely and user-friendly, did not get a single hit in over a year. I killed it.
Would my tutor quit, frustrated because I couldn’t seem to get a grip? He is good, and I’m imagining him seeking other clients whose results would be more satisfying for him. He suggested a blog with ads.
I thought I’d launch a blog with photos and illustrations. What would I write about? What would I draw or paint? What would I photograph? Reading my tutor’s favorite blogs, I’m awed by what goes on there: I’m seeing the flush of life, active careers in exploration using a variety of media, and watchdogs analyzing Internet fraud. Products they advertise on their sites are there to augment their interests and what they stand for.
After reading those excellent blogs, I looked at my daily journals, which depict a loner’s navigation through daily life: “Me, the one and only psychiatric anthropologist: It won’t help me one bit to try to examine others’ paths of self-destruction in order to avoid looking at my own.” Who would care about a blog like that? I wouldn’t.
What do I really do with my time? Winters here in Montana are long and unbearably cold. For exercise, I work out in a gym. I read. I watch television documentaries, pay per view movies, and good scripted programs like the Law and Order shows.
Read? My tutor logged us on to Amazon.com to read book reviews. Here I could practice writing in cyberspace, gauge my skill by comparing it to others’, and see what kind of response I get from voters. I wrote several, which garnered an acceptable level of response, but no rocket to the moon. And, how can you profess to run a book blog without buying, reading, and reviewing every book on your site? The costs of the books I reviewed would exceed whatever I could earn selling them.
A blog that is rocket to the moon? When have I ever been a rocket to the moon? So, cyberspace really is no different from feet-on-the-ground life! Even a blog has to be based on a concept no one else has thought of. I surfed for ideas, using Google to cough up results from every search word or phrase I could think of, which suggested other search words or phrases. I spent entire days, like an addict. After hours straight, my exhausted imagination had me suspended in the air, stuff I couldn’t identify clinging to me as if I were a life raft, while back on the ground I chase unrealized dreams unto death.
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