Ailantha - Blog

The 2018 Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo

8/13/2018

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"It's Hallmark meets the Sopranos in this fun and engaging read."
"Lots of sass, drama and wicked humor."
"The characters were hilariously and perfectly flawed."
"Cleverly plotted and exceptionally well written... part drama and part slapstick comedy."
"Funny and thought provoking and entertaining!"
"A rollicking good yarn."
-Amazon reviews

The 2018 Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo

...Continued from yesterday:
Just as last year's Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo was my first book event (see yesterday's post), so it was also the maiden voyage of the event itself.

The Expo is the brainchild and labor of love of Columbus author Alicia Wiggins,

....who wanted to give independent and small press Midwestern authors a venue for showcasing their work as well as provide an opportunity for local readers to meet the authors and discover their work.

Last year the Expo was a rather small affair with about fifteen authors participating,

...though there was a pretty good visitor turnout all the same.

This year the Expo returned to the Vaughn E. Hairston YMCA in Urbancrest, Ohio,

...with double the number of authors,

...representing a variety of genres.

There were also hot dogs and chips available for the hungry,

...and some beautiful pieces of edible art for sale, courtesy of Carmy's Cakes.

Among the authors present was Mary Wineberg, 2008 Olympic gold medalist,

...and author of her memoir, "Unwavering Perseverance: an Olympic Gold Medalist Finds Peace."

Mary was among the half-dozen Expo authors I interviewed for yourbookmybook.com (see yesterday's post).

In her interview Mary spoke eloquently about her struggle to gain confidence in herself, her years of hard work and perseverance to become an Olympian, her post-Olympic career as a second-grade teacher, and her book, in which she chronicles her search for peace and resolution of inner conflicts that rose up in her adulthood from painful events in her childhood.
Here is the link to Mary's yourbookmybook.com interview:
https://www.facebook.com/yourbookmybook/videos/2147520085505546/

I also interviewed Daniel Miles, co-author of a series of graphic novels dealing with Japanese historical themes;

https://www.facebook.com/yourbookmybook/videos/2147556682168553/

...murder mystery writer Linda Lee Greene,

https://www.facebook.com/yourbookmybook/videos/2147577378833150/

...children's writer Angela Newman,

https://www.facebook.com/yourbookmybook/videos/2147598022164419/

...poet Leo Jones,

https://www.facebook.com/yourbookmybook/videos/2147612428829645/

...and delightful fantasy writer Brian K. Morris.

https://www.facebook.com/yourbookmybook/videos/2147627965494758/

After I'd finished all the interviews,

I joined the book-browsers,

...and ended up buying Dan's historical Japanese graphic novel,

...Mary's memoir,

...and some of Carmy's yummy cookies.

I hope to soon immerse myself in the books. I've already immersed myself in the cookies.

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Return To The Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo

8/12/2018

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Exactly one year from yesterday I, with a pile of copies of my newly published book in tow, attended my first author event, the Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo, which took place in the Columbus Suburb of Urbancrest,

...at the Vaughn E. Hairston YMCA.

Since this was my first event as a real, bonafide published author (that is to say, published book author - up until now I'd been a mere published short-story author,

...the book, in fact,

...being the expansion of one of my short stories published years ago in "First for Women"),

...I was soaring with enthusiasm.

I really put on the dog, as the saying goes, for the event,

...with balloons, pictures, sample pages,

...free bookmarks and cards,

...donuts in honor of chapter 5, and in honor of chapter 18 chocolate cupcakes,

...which I managed to drop on my white blouse and grey pants, but which I tried to be philosophical about, figuring it made me more like one of the characters in my book to whom embarrassing things are always happening.

(However I have since foregone offering messy foods at book-selling events, though I continue to offer the rest of the swag items, and have even added free refrigerator magnets and candies to the giveaways).
It was also at my first book event a year ago that I was interviewed for the first time,

...on the book podcast yourbookmybook.com,
which was at the event doing author interviews.

As it turned out, I hit it off that day with the yourbookmybook.com media coordinator, Miguel Lopez.

And yesterday when I returned to Urbancrest exactly one year later for this year's Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo,

...I wasn't there to sell my book,

...but to interview other authors who were there selling their books.

Funny how one thing leads to another.

To be continued...

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Each Other's Keepers

8/9/2018

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,...Continued from yesterday:
   A man in a management position knows that the wife of one of his subordinates called the police on his subordinate for domestic assault but no charges were brought. The manager knows that his subordinate's wife has complained of abuse from her husband in the past. Then the subordinate and his wife divorce. Over the years the subordinate and his ex-wife continue to have a turbulent relationship, and on a couple of subsequent occasions the ex-wife calls the police on the subordinate.
    The subordinate is good at what he does on the job and his personal life has never interfered with his work life.
     Should the manager have fired his subordinate for assaulting his wife?
     Is a boss responsible for the behavior of his workers when they're at home?
       That's been under deliberation for the past week here in Columbus, Ohio, not only among the sizeable portion of the population known as Buckeye Nation, but among the Columbus community in general,

...since Ohio State University football Coach Urban Meyer

...was put on administrative leave while an independent board investigates how much Meyer knew about allegations of domestic abuse against his wide receivers coach,

...Zach Smith (See posts from 8/6/2018 and 8/8/2018).

     In truth, among Buckeyes fans the prevailing sentiment - shared on local talk radio shows, in letters to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch and in conversation - seems to be that Urban Meyer's job is to coach the Ohio State Buckeyes to win at football - a job he does spectacularly well - and that he should not be held responsible for what one of his coaches did off the field.
     And yet Urban Meyer is being held responsible, if not for Zach Smith's private behavior, for what he, Meyer, did or didn't do about Smith's behavior.
       But for Urban Meyer, taking action against his young wide receivers coach may well have posed a knottier problem than it would have had the case involved a different assistant coach.

Zach Smith is the grandson of legendary Ohio State football coach Earle Bruce.

It was Earle Bruce who gave Urban Meyer his first assistant coaching job at Ohio State in 1986.

     Earle Bruce continued to be a mentor to Urban Meyer throughout Meyer's career, and the two shared a mutual respect and a close friendship.
       Zach Smith has known Urban Meyer his whole life. When Urban Meyer was coach at Bowling Green Zach turned down scholarships at other colleges to be a walk-on player on Meyer's Bowling Green team. After Zach Smith graduated from college Urban Meyer took him on as a graduate-assistant coach at the University of Florida where Meyer was then coach.
      And in 2009 when Zach Smith was arrested and charged with aggravated battery after, in a fit of rage, picking up his pregnant wife Courtney by her tee shirt and throwing her against the bedroom wall,

...it was Urban Meyer and his wife Shelley who recommended to the couple that they get counseling.

   And, according to Courtney Smith, it was Earle Bruce, accompanied by a lawyer, who pressed Courtney to drop the assault charge against his grandson, which she did.
      In 2011 when Urban Meyer was hired to coach at Ohio State he brought Zach Smith with him as his wide receivers coach, offering Smith the job in a touching moment at the wake of his grandmother, Earle Bruce's wife.
     Now, when I started writing this post I was intending to wrap it up around this point with the idea that there is an underlying ideal in our society that we are all each other's keepers - hence this post's title - and, according to this ideal, if a person knows someone who is doing harm to another, the person has a moral obligation to stand up for the one who is being harmed.
      But just now I clicked back to the internet to do a quick last-minute fact double-check, and apparently this story has within the past few minutes taken a sudden strange new turn: Both Zach Smith's mother and Courtney Smith's mother claim that Zach Smith never abused his wife, but that all the abuse allegations are part of a revenge plot 5 years in the planning by Courtney Smith to bring down her cheating husband and Urban Meyer with him.
   Here's the link to one of several sports sites reporting this new twist to the story:
https://sports.yahoo.com/report-mother-zach-courtney-smith-claim-ex-ohio-state-assistant-victim-retaliatory-plot-ex-wife-223132593.html
     I believe I'll end this post here and, like everyone else in Columbus, just continue following the story as it plays out. It hasn't been pretty so far and promises to become less so.
       I feel for Courtney Smith.

References:
http://www.dispatch.com/sports/20180805/urban-meyers-close-relationship-with-earle-bruce-zach-smith-reaches-far-into-past

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24265385/ohio-state-faq-know-urban-meyer-zach-smith-investigation

https://www.thelantern.com/2018/08/football-police-reports-depict-pattern-of-domestic-cases-against-zach-smith/

https://sports.yahoo.com/report-mother-zach-courtney-smith-claim-ex-ohio-state-assistant-victim-retaliatory-plot-ex-wife-223132593.html

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The Question Of Urban Meyer

8/8/2018

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ONLY $3.99 ON KINDLE

Buy it on Amazon
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
or
Barnes & Noble.com

"Lots of sass, drama and wicked humor."
- Amazon Review

The Question Of Urban Meyer

...Continued from yesterday:

There's been no joy in Buckeye Nation since last week when Ohio State University Football Coach Urban Meyer - well loved, well respected, and OSU's winingest coach in forty years - was suspended over the Zach Smith domestic abuse scandal (See yesterday's post).

Here in Central Ohio the story continues to dominate the news, local radio talk shows, and conversation among the citizenry, many of whom are still in shock over the chain of events that continues to unwind.

Here's a much-condensed synopsis of the convoluted case:

In 2015 Courtney Smith, soon-to-be divorced wife of Ohio Sate wide receivers coach Zach Smith,

...here with Smith during happier times,

...called the police on her estranged husband for assault and harassment and told the responding officers that her husband had abused her on multiple occasions. No charges were filed; however several weeks later Courtney Smith again called the police on her husband, at which time Smith was issued a restraining order.
       In 2017 Courtney Smith called the police on her ex-husband, at which time the police issued Zach Smith a warning for criminal trespass; again,no charges were brought against Smith.
      In May of 2018 Zach Smith was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass against his ex-wife.
          On July 20 Courtney Smith was granted an order of protection against Zach Smith.

On July 23 ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy dropped the bombshell story in which Courtney Smith talked about being abused by her ex-husband.

Later that afternoon Zach Smith was fired by Urban Meyer, who publicly offered no reason why he'd fired his wide receivers coach.
On July 24 Urban Meyer denied to the press any knowledge of the 2015 accusation of domestic abuse against Zach Smith. Meyer expressed puzzlement that anyone would make up such a story.
On August 1 Courtney Smith told Brett McMurphy

that in 2015 she'd told Urban Meyer's wife, Shelley, that Zach had assaulted her and that Shelley had assured Courtney that she'd tell her husband, Urban.

        Later that day Urban Meyer was suspended with pay.
         On August 3 Urban Meyer confessed that he had, in fact known about the 2015 domestic abuse against Zach Smith and that, while he didn't fire Zach Smith at that time, he followed the correct procedure for reporting such an incident to the proper Ohio State University authorities.
         Urban Meyer is now under investigation by Ohio State University. The university has hired an outside independent panel of investigators,

...led by high-powered former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White,

...to determine what Urban Meyer actually knew, when he knew, and what he did about the 2015 abuse allegation against Zach Smith.
And so the person on trial in this story of domestic assault is not the perpetrator, Zach Smith,

...who, at this point, is little more than a secondary character on the periphery of the story line,

...but Urban Meyer, who, though up until now has been considered the best of coaches and best of men, may well lose his job and his legacy over the private misdeeds of a 33-year-old underling.
         Is that fair?
     That is the question that continues to be begged, discussed, and pondered, sorrowfully, here in Buckeye Nation.
         To be continued...

References:
http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/zach-smith-urban-meyer-timeline-domestic-violence-allegations-ohio-state-florida-courtney-smith-ex-wife/qdgwf1d3j9n41skbguxgqsql0

https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/08/03/urban-meyer-statement-tweet-zach-smith-interview-media-days

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180806/woman-leading-investigation-into-ohio-states-urban-meyer-is-familiar-with-high-profile-cases

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24265385/ohio-state-faq-know-urban-meyer-zach-smith-investigation

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A Private Matter

8/6/2018

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Buy it on Amazon
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
or
Barnes & Noble.com

"It's Hallmark meets the Sopranos in this fun and engaging read."
"Lots of sass, drama and wicked humor."
"The characters were hilariously and perfectly flawed."
"Cleverly plotted and exceptionally well written... part drama and part slapstick comedy."
"Funny and thought provoking and entertaining!"
"A rollicking good yarn."
-Amazon reviews

A Private Matter

       You cannot put a fire out;
A thing that can ignite
       Can go, itself, without a fan
   Upon the slowest night.
        You cannot fold a flood
And put it in a drawer,
         Because the winds would find it out,
         And tell your cedar floor.
-Emily Dickinson

Ohio State Buckeyes wide receivers coach Zach Smith assaulted his wife, Courtney Smith.

   Or else Zach Smith, by his own account, didn't technically assault his wife but rather, in his own words, "things got out of hand and I had to defensively kind of restrain her," although, "I’m not saying she didn’t get a bruise or a mark.”
      In any case, Zach Smith contends that what happened between himself and his wife was "a private matter" that should have stayed "behind closed doors."
       But it didn't. And it's ponder-worthy that the violence inflicted behind close doors in private moments between a man and his wife has had so many far-reaching reverberations, like the outward ripples from a stone suddenly hitting still waters.
       It was because of what happened in private moments that Zach Smith lost his marriage and a job that paid him, at 33 years old, $340,000 a year and accorded him great honor, status and prestige in the world of college sports. He lost the means to support his children, who will soon be old enough to understand what their father did.

Because of the those private moments of one of his assistant coaches, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer,

...the indomitable ruler of a winning college football empire, loved and respected by team members and fans alike, a man who walked on water in Columbus, Ohio and who'd built a career on his flawless reputation as an honorable, admirable man, has lost that reputation over a lie he told to cover for Zach Smith and possibly his own inaction when he learned of his young assistant's behavior.
Urban Meyer has been suspended with pay from his job and will likely lose that $7.9 million-a-year job along with his good name.

Bob Evans Restaurant, which was about to begin a new cleverly-conceived marketing campaign featuring Coach Meyer as Breakfast Coach, has had to jettison the campaign.

The Ohio State football team members have had to face the first practices of the season without Coach Meyer or Coach Smith, unsure of what's in store for themselves as a team, knowing only that they've been put under a media blackout.

It's come out that Zach Smith is the grandson of the late Earle Bruce, the legendary former Ohio State coach whose memory as a man of character is revered among Buckeyes fans.

But it has also come out that when Zach Smith was arrested in 2009 for assaulting his then-pregnant wife, Earle Bruce compelled Courtney not to press charges against his grandson. Lynn Bruce, who is Earle Bruce's daughter and Zach Smith's mother, also pressed Courtney to keep silent about the matter.

Now Lynn Bruce, a fund-raiser for charitable causes in honor of her father, is in the midst of planning an Alzheimer's fundraiser to be held next week.

But this morning, while making an appearance as a guest on a local radio talk show to promote her upcoming fund-raiser, Lynn Bruce was put in the position of having to defend her son to the radio audience,

...because the Zach Smith/Urban Meyer/Ohio State Football scandal dominates all media in Columbus, Ohio, day after day.

    It's' been hinted by some commentators that, depending on the results of the investigation that's been opened into the Zach Smith abuse scandal,   the whole Ohio State football department may have to be fired, maybe the director of the entire athletic department as well. It's been suggested that the fallout from the investigation could potentially take out the president of the university.
   And the football-loving populace of Columbus Ohio who refer to themselves as Buckeye Nation are bewildered and heart-broken over the of downfall of their beloved Coach Meyer.
     All over what a naive, heavy-handed young man thought was a private matter.

References:

https://sports.yahoo.com/ex-osu-coach-zach-smith-found-investigated-abuse-ohio-state-ad-220120736.html
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180803/powell-police-refuse-to-release-report-involving-zach-smith

http://www.buckeyextra.com/news/20180803/urban-meyer-says-he-reported-allegation-regarding-zach-smith

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/heat-ratchets-up-as-urban-meyer-zach-smith-try-to-pass-the-buck-in-confounding-media-tour/

http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/zach-smith-urban-meyer-timeline-domestic-violence-allegations-ohio-state-florida-courtney-smith-ex-wife/qdgwf1d3j9n41skbguxgqsql0

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/76-Joel-Riley-28190899/episode/lynn-bruce-the-fedora-ball-is-29675149/?campid=homepage_featured_shows&pname=0&cid=%2F&autoplay=true

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Earth To TSA

8/2/2018

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     The Transportation Security Administration is considering eliminating security screening at 150 small to medium-sized airports around the country that serve planes with 60 or fewer seats.
       According to the TSA study group that came up with the idea, cutting out screening at these smaller airports would mean a "small (non-zero) undesirable increase in risk related to additional adversary opportunity."
       I, for one, do not like the TSA's language in the above statement. I don't like the (non-zero) appositional. It's confusing: at first glance (non-zero) appears to mean (less than zero), as in there's a less than zero increase in risk. One has to think a minute before realizing that a non-zero increase risk actually means a not zero increase in risk. Not zero means anywhere from one to one hundred percent increase in risk. Right?
         So why did they even add the (non-zero) in that phrase? To confuse people, of course, make us think the risk was no big deal, less than zero.
       And look at the rest of the phrase: What is additional adversary opportunity other than a soft, squishy euphemism for more terrorist attacks?
     So why is the TSA considering putting our country at more risk for terrorist attacks from the sky?
     Because this move would save the federal government $115 million dollars annually.
      I'm serious.
     Apparently it's been determined that security at America's larger airports needs beefing up. Now, Congress just gave a sweet tax break to the rich that's going to pile another trillion dollars on top of the national debt. Hence agencies now have to be looking in drawers and under couch cushions and cutting corners for operational funds. The TSA came up with the idea of shutting down security at small airports and using the $115 million saved in loose change on more security at the bigger airports.

Meanwhile Donald Trump wants anywhere from $12 billion to $70 billion for his see-thru border wall, which will cost $150 million a year to maintain. This expenditure, claims Trump, is necessary for our national security.

He also deems necessary a military parade in his honor this fall that will cost between $10 million and $30 million

And every golf trip Donald Trump takes to Mar-a-Lago depletes the U.S. Treasury by $3.6 million. Not to mention the $20 million his Mar-a-Lago vacations have cost the Coast Guard so far.

     But apparently funding for airport screening is not necessarily necessary for our national security.
     The rationale put forth by the TSA study group in their proposal is that terrorists aren't that interested in launching attacks against the United States with small planes because the payoff is too low. Terrorists, says the TSA study group, are only interested in using big planes for attacks.
          I'm serious.
          However the study group did not address mentally deranged shooters who'd now have the added option of smuggling guns on board small planes.
       Commented a TSA field leader at a large airport who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, "This is so dangerous."
         Uh, yeah.

References:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/01/politics/tsa-considering-eliminating-screening-at-smaller-airports/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/us/politics/senate-democrats-border-wall-cost-trump.html

https://www.newsweek.com/how-much-will-trumps-military-parade-cost-some-estimates-say-millions-1031960

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/18/center-american-progress-action-fund/how-much-do-donald-trumps-trips-mar-lago-cost/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/20/trump-visits-mar-lago-cost-coast-guard-nearly-20-million/715905002/

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Ghost Guns

7/31/2018

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Starting tomorrow, August 1, 2018, it will be legal in this country to download the instructions for printing guns in your own home on a 3D printer.
The blueprints will be available online and need only be downloaded to one's computer; then add the "ink" - a liquid plastic mixture - to the printer, mouse-click to "print" and, voilà ,

...you'll soon have the snap-together components of this snappy, minimalist little number known as The Liberator,

...or if you'd prefer a more embellished model you could print yourself a Baretta M9,

...or even an AR-15,

...or any of a number of hand guns and rifles, the schematics for which will be available tomorrow for free on the website for Defense Distributed,

...whose founder, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed gun-rights anarchist named Cody Wilson,

...recently posted on Twitter this photo of a grave,

...the significance of which being that acquiring plastic 3-D printed guns requires no background check and the guns are "untraceable, unregulated and unregistered." (1)
And hence, uncontrollable.
"Ghost guns," they're called. Anyone will be able to make one. Any criminal, any would-be mass-murderer, any gang in any country, any terrorist or terrorist group. Anyone who, for any reason, wants to be able put a bullet into another person or themselves.

This is thanks to Cody Wilson, a young man of quite considerable intelligence and ability,

...who has opted to use his God-given gifts to teach the world how to fabricate plastic guns that metal detectors won’t spot and "can be easily broken apart, reassembled, and smuggled onto mass transportation." (2)

Apparently Donald Trump just found out about the issue of DIY printable ghost guns and has tweeted that he'll look into it,

...although, as usual, he he doesn't have the details right.

Earth to Donald Trump: It was your administration that last month legalized the online posting of printable gun instructions. Here's he back story:
Back in 2013 Cody Wilson, then a 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas, started a non-profit company he called Defense Distributed, the purpose of which was to develop digital firearms files, which he did, then posted online his file containing the software for making the Liberator,

...the printable hand gun he designed.

      Within a few days the U.S. State Department ordered Cody Wilson to remove the file, which he did, but in the course of the few days it was up the software for making The Liberator was downloaded over 100,000 times.
       Two years later Defense Distributed filed a lawsuit against the State Department. The U.S. State Department under Barack Obama held that the gun instructions could not be posted online as they they posed a national security risk and violated international regulations concerning arms trafficking.
          However Wilson kept up the litigation for years, arguing that his rights to free speech and to bear arms were being violated.
          And though the federal government had been winning the litigation every step of the way, though there was no way the courts were poised to ultimately rule in favor of Defense Distributed, this past June Donald Trump's State Department under Mike Pompeo did an about face and settled with Cody Wilson, not only allowing him to publish his gun blueprints online, but agreeing to pay his $40,000 in legal fees.
            I repeat: The U.S. State Department paid Cody Wilson's $40,000 legal fees for the lawsuit brought by Cody Wilson against the U.S. State Department.
        Yesterday eight states sued the Trump administration for an emergency ban on Defense Distributed posting its the 3-D gun instructions.
            The attorneys general of twenty states have appealed to Secretary of State Pompeo to block the gun plans from appearing online.
            The only response so far has been Donald Trump's tweet:

He's looking into plastic guns being sold to the public. He already spoke to the NRA about it.
Figures.

References
(1) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/3d-printed-guns-could-soon-pose-challenge-to-regulators

(2) https://gizmodo.com/bad-news-tsa-found-a-3d-printed-gun-in-a-carry-on-1785040682

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/i-made-an-untraceable-ar-15-ghost-gun/

https://www.cnet.com/news/3d-printed-guns-8-states-sue-trump-administration-for-an-emergency-ban/

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/31/us/3d-printed-plastic-guns/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/30/us/pennsylvania-3d-guns-trnd/index.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/07/23/3-d-printing-guns-downloadable-gun-legal-august-1/820032002/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Distributed

"Equal and Opposite Reactions"
By Patti Liszkay
Only $3.99 on Kindle
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

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What's Right With America? Walmart.

7/28/2018

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Like the blog?

You'll like the book!
"Equal and Opposite Reactions"
By Patti Liszkay
Only $3.99 on Kindle
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

What's Right With America? Walmart.

Yesterday I was at the Walmart Vision Center picking up my new glasses.

Me looking good - I mean, seeing good - in my new glasses.

After procuring my glasses I grabbed myself a cart and roamed the store, contemplating, as I occasionally do while shopping at Walmart, the commonplace - yet marvelous, when one stops to think about it - phenomenon of being able to buy glasses, groceries, medications, clothes, shoes, toys, household items, gardening supplies, haircuts, really almost anything one would need,

...including a delicious hot pretzel,

...all in the same store,

...at prices that almost everyone in this country can afford.

(In truth I'm not so sure that an item sold at Walmart,

...and a comparable item found at twice the price in a more upscale establishment aren't both made at the same factory in China).
Walmart is a place where everyone shops now and then, some of us more frequently than others, which we can now do with a better conscience since several years ago the company instituted considerable improvements in pay, benefits, and opportunities for advancement for its employees - which subsequently ended up boosting Walmart's sales as the more satisfied workers became more conscientious workers, which led to higher rate of customer satisfaction, which led to more customers shopping more often at Walmart.
As for me, I buy my jeans exclusively from Walmart,

...and the only sandals I wear are Walmart's Earth Spirit brand.

If I'm going to sew I buy my material from Walmart,

...as I did to make the shimmery dress I wore to my nephew's wedding last month (see post from 6/29/2018),

...and this is the very Walmart fabric I bought to make slip covers for my son's dining room chairs.

But there's something else about Walmart - at least the Walmart in my neck of Columbus, Ohio - that I find appealing aside from the low-priced availability of so many of life's necessities and little pleasures: the diversity of the shopping populace,

...all of us peacefully and politely coexisting,

...and sharing space,

...as we go about our individual errands.

Walmart has been criticized for killing small businesses and locally owned stores, especially in small towns. True, and that has been an unfortunate outcome for some small business owners.
But on the other hand, anyone can walk up to the bakery at Walmart and order a cake for any occasion they wish; nobody will be refused service at the pretzel counter; everyone can use the bathrooms.

I guess it would be a stretch to say that my Columbus, Ohio Walmart is America at it's best.
But being there is for me a reminder of what actually makes America great.

References:
http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/walmart-employees-pay-raise/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/upshot/how-did-walmart-get-cleaner-stores-and-higher-sales-it-paid-its-people-more.html

http://www.hrc.org/resources/best-places-to-work-2017

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"Sorry To Bother You"

7/24/2018

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What happens when a struggling single mother, a heart-broken plumber and 32 desperate undocumented immigrants run into each other in a Northeast Philadelphia condo complex?

"Equal and Opposite Reactions"
By Patti Liszkay
Buy it on Amazon
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

"A Rollicking good yarn."
-R.Bruce Logan, "The Narrative Arc"

"Sorry To Bother You"

Movies, movies, everywhere, but not a one that I felt like seeing.
Still, it was Friday night, go-out-to-the-movies-night for cinephiles such as myself, as is Saturday night, too, and sometimes even Wednesday or Thursday night in the rare week when the local cinematic pickings happen to be good and plentiful, as they were not particularly this past week.
But before giving up and surrendering to the idea of spending Friday night going for a walk or reading a book, or scrounging through Netflix or conversing with my mate,

...who is, nonetheless, a good conversationalist and current on everything,

... I scraped and scrolled one last time through all the local theater listings,

...and opted to try a movie called "Sorry to Bother You" that I hadn't paid much attention to when it came out last week because it looked to me at first glance like a stock mainstream comedy.

    Boy, is this movie not a stock mainstream comedy.
    "Sorry to Bother You" is more of a...well, I don't know exactly how to describe it...maybe a brilliant, hilarious, horrifying, metaphorical, metaphysical, realistic, thought-provoking, cautionary comedy that's really only half cautionary, the other half depicting what's already happening in our country.
    "Sorry to Bother You" is in truth pretty entertaining. And pretty terrifying.
     Or, as Tom said walking out of the theater, "That was a really good movie. I wish I could unsee it."
    The story line - or story zigzag would be more accurate - revolves (and revolves and revolves) around a young man named Cassius Green, Cash for short (one of the film's numerous metaphores),

...masterfully played by Lakeith Stanfield, behind whose deep, soulful eyes appears to abide all the world's travails.

Down on his luck and his options and living in his uncle's garage with his performance-artist girlfriend, Detroit,

...also masterfully played by Tessa Thompson,

...Cassius Green snags a job as a telemarketer, discovers he has a gift for trompe l'oreille -

or, fooling the ear -

...leading to his promotion to the position of power caller, which involves moving from his depressing cubicle in the basement to a luxurious space upstairs,

...from which he is required to push commodities of quite a different nature from the mundane items he'd been hawking below.

And so the pilgrim Cassius Green progresses through the twists and turns of the plot while we the audience learn, twist by turn, what this film is about: race, racism, corporate greed, humanity's propensity for falling for seduction by dream and glittery promise, and the ability of cash to buy anything from people's souls to their bodies, from our government leaders to our justice system.
"Sorry to Bother You," though engagingly funny, is without a doubt disturbing. But in our country today mayhaps it's one's civic duty to be disturbed.

Back in late summer of 2008 I saw a movie called "The Lives of Others" about the activities of the East German secret police in the 1980's before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

That movie so rattled me that I decided I had to become politically involved in my own country,

...and soon after I began working for Obama's presidential campaign.

Ten years later "Sorry to Bother You" has had the same effect on me.
So go see this movie. In a least-case scenario it'll entertain you. In a best-case scenario it'll compel you to at least get out and vote.

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"The Long Road"

7/19/2018

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    I just finished reading "The Long Road," a novel by Daniel Oliver chronicling a bright, ambitious young man's struggle with mental illness.
    This book is good, it's powerful, a page-turner. And yet what makes the novel so compelling is the eloquent yet matter-of-fact style in which it's told, its lack of unnecessary flourish, the seeming normalness of the main character's life, a life lived as much on the surface of daily events as everyone else's until suddenly one day it isn't.
     The story is realistically narrated in the first person by the protagonist, a hard-working engineering student named Hank Galloway who is back in school in his mid-20's after leaving a budding finance career in Charlottesville, North Carolina and moving to California with aspirations of working for NASA after he finishes his studies. The opening scene of the book finds Hank speeding down the California freeway in the middle of the night, breathless with anxiety and mental confusion that land him, against his will, in a psychiatric ward.
    The reader then follows the journey that began that night on a dark highway as Hank attempts to carry on with his life and achieve his goals burdened with a mental illness that his doctors and therapists seem unable to diagnose and that Hank tries to deny and ignore as it lies dormant until it attacks suddenly, wreaks havoc on his studies and relationships and pulls his goals further from his reach.
       The character's road to recovery will be indeed a long one requiring, among other things, learning to accept that his chronic illness, though one of the mind, is an illness all the same that needs to be acknowledged, accepted and attended to with the same vigilance and care as would a chronic physical ailment. Hank also realizes that he must scratch the surface of his relationship with his controlling, abusive father and his submissive mother in order to come to terms with his illness.
       The story likewise delves into the phenomenon that even abused children usually nevertheless retain their relationship with their parents as adults, not psychologically separating their desire for their parents' love and acceptance from the abuse they suffered during their childhood at their parents' hands.
       “The Long Road” gets into the weeds and details of living with a mental illness, of psychiatric treatment in a hospital ward and long term treatment with medication and therapy. The author, who drew his inspiration for his novel from his experience as a physician assistant in a psychiatric ward and his own struggles with mental illness, knows his subject well.
          In truth we all live in our minds and ultimately we all see and hear not what our eyes and ears tell us, but what our minds tell us. And so an unwell mind can twist and skew one's thinking, one's perception of reality and relationships of all kinds: physical and spacial, societal and personal.
     "The Long Road" is not one young man's story; rather it is the story of many millions, and well-told. With mental illness so prevalent – yet often misunderstood - among the population I would recommend this book as required reading for everybody.

        "The Long Road"
           By Daniel Oliver
      is available on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Road-Daniel-B-Oliver-ebook/dp/B079V5STM9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532029125&sr=8-1&keywords=the+long+road+daniel+oliver

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The 2018 Mid-Ohio Indie Author Book Expo

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"Sorry To Bother You"

"Sorry To Bother You"

"The Long Road"

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