Writer of Afghanistan 2011 Submission for Academy's Best Foreign Film Reflects on the Pleasures of Life, Work, Screenwriting and Hiding Out in Concord – Watch the trailer

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THIS FILM HERE

It’s not everyday you learn that the film you co-wrote made it on the submission list of the 2011 potential Academy nominations for Best Foreign Film.  For Concord resident and screenwriter/director David Michael O’Neill, the nomination for the film “The Black Tulip” came as icing on the cake of a thoroughly solid, heart wrenching and realistic portrayal of life in Afghanistan post Taliban rule seen through the eyes of its people seeking to express their freedom despite the costs.

In the October 2010 issue of The Concordian we wrote about the film and the critical successes it was enjoying in showings to local and global leaders, most notably in Afghanistan itself.

With a humility and generosity in exchanging information on his craft, O’Neill tackled some of our own questions, the most predominant being “How do you write a movie like that?”

“I build out a timeline initially,” O’Neill said, “and I make sure I have the thread of history accurately accounted for. I always find stuff you couldn't imagine; then work from that outward pressure working its way onto my characters.”

O’Neill gives his characters life through their actions. In this case, opening a restaurant and providing an open microphone for the people to express themselves through poetry and stories which in itself causes trouble from the remaining Taliban and the degree to which their power is still potent. So potent in fact that director Sonia Nassery Cole, the film’s producer had to become the lead actress after the abduction and disfigurement of her original lead.

“There are a lot of mechanics to [screenwriting] to make it work efficiently, correctly, seamlessly, so that it flows,” O’Neill said. “I liken the experience to someone coming in your house and telling you that you have structural problems. It's your house and there's a feeling of ownership to it and sometimes you become an annoyance to the home owner; but in two months time you know the foundation is going to go, the roof will be leaking and the pool needs to be drained because water is leaking under the house itself - I try to teach as I write and as a result put forward creative models before the producers at every turn to get them involved in the kind of thinking that's necessary to make things work.”

In fact there was such a fundamental difference from Coles’ original script vision, to the final version that the elements O’Neill brought in amplified the conflict and created the necessary tension to make it work.

“The Taliban were rooted out in late 2001 after they wouldn't hand over Osama Bin Laden,” O’Neill recounts. “I thought it interesting to put it in that time frame where there was a moment of freedom and create a story with the question ‘now that you're free, what are you going to do with it?’ I suggested we put a microphone with a stage in the middle of the restaurant and have an open invitation for those to read. Men, women, boys, girls all gave a voice to the voiceless. Then the factional Taliban elements would begin visiting and ultimately put their pressure on the family. With this one small idea the film lifted itself up into something very provocative.”

In giving the movie a voice, O’Neill had to construct the poetry read by the characters, no easy task for a Concord man sitting in his garage and slamming out the massive tensions and events that would grab audience members half a world away and hold them spell bound. “An old man gets up on stage and says that the Taliban are nothing but tired and fearful men, offering nothing to the Afghans but misery and a dark age mentality,”  O’Neill shares taking pause. “Now we have the Taliban actually in the restaurant as the old man reads. He is later killed by them as they shove a screwdriver into his heart and through the poem he read.”

Where the reality of the film and the reality of the writer diverge is in the construct itself. For O’Neill, having to go to Afghanistan and experience first hand that which he would impart to his characters, was not going to happen. 

“I'm brave enough to write it but I wasn't brave enough to go under those circumstances,” O’Neill explained. “I'm not one who would literally die for art's sake. Writing is a way for us to create the world we want to live in. At least for me anyway. And it still has to be personal.”

O’Neill recounts his experience on the movie “Cadence” directed by Martin Sheen who told him that ‘everything had to be personal’ in order to have value onscreen. With that advice O’Neill carefully finds the angles that make his projects personal.  He did not need to suffer in Afghanistan to recount the suffering. His experiences elsewhere, such as a trip to Nicaragua at the end of the Contra-Sandinista war, where the memories of living with the poor and rotating through different war ravaged villages helped cement that feeling of despair and the power of hope that he projected onto the characters of “The Black Tulip.”

The film shown Sept. 21 to Afghan President Karzai, and U.S. General Patreaus at the Arian Theatre in downtown Kabul, as well as to an audience of 300 at the U.S. Embassy, helmed by Ambassador Eikenberry received a tremendous response. Next month the results of the Academy submission will be cemented and O’Neill will learn whether the film made the final cut to be an actual nomination.

“It's weird, for a kid from Concord to have an opportunity like this one,” O’Neill shared. “I wrote it in my garage during the summer and to think a production was mounted and sent to the most dangerous place in the world, I'm still catching my breath.”

You might not equate Concord as a screenwriter’s Mecca, but for that to make any sense you would have to understand the process that screenwriters follow; vast internalizations tied into life experiences.

O’Neill grew up in Concord, a graduate of Clayton Valley High School and with friends and family still in Concord, has made it his base despite an entrenchment with Hollywood. “I did live in Hollywood for 18 years or so,” he will tell you. “I'm very acquainted with it.” The truth of the movie business is that with Internet and cell service you can be anywhere and still remain connected.

And life is good. With a script titled “Threat” at Chernin Entertainment, a novel he has optioned from Pulitzer nominated author Richard Jessup for which he is penning the script and another titled “The Happy Man,” a favorite of his, O’Neill is a busy man; the best way for a writer to be. “I also have a golf comedy called “Gentlemen Only; Ladies Forbidden” that will star “Happy Gillmore's” Christopher McDonald as The Great Mighty Puddy.  I'm also working with Tom Jacobson's company on a book I have about the serial killing team of Gerald and Charlene Gallegos. They were tried for the murders of twelve young co-eds near Sacramento.” The book was written by homicide Detective Ray Biondi. The last one I've been contracted to write is “The MTV Story.” I'm working with John Lack who was the founder of MTV and we're crafting a script on that one right now.” 

And for O’Neill being busy is the best way to be and one of the reasons he enjoys being in Concord with no distractions to detract from the business he loves.

Meanwhile, on January 25, O’Neill will learn whether “The Black Tulip” made it on the official list of nominated films for the 2011 Academy Awards. Cross your fingers...

                        -Story by Andre' Gensburger
                         -Photo by Kathy Weires

READ THE NEW ISSUE OF THE CONCORDIAN ONLINE - HERE

YOUNG SINGER’S NEW HEIGHTS – HOLIDAY CD DUE OUT – LISTEN HERE

Click HERE to listen to a track from Charlie's new album or click the image above to read more…

TAKING A LEAK THE WIKI WAY: SECRETS OR LIES THAT SHOULD BE REVEALED? – Update 12/1– Censorship in Action; WikiLeaks Cut by Amazon

A huge stink about WikiLeaks. And more stinkers to come both in the information leaked as well as the argument whether it should be leaked. You can read a very good article HERE that covers the key points; but it seems that the real question is – while you agree that items of national security should most likely be kept private, if you learn through the leaks about deception, greed and corruption on a national level, wouldn’t you want the truth revealed?

That is the assertion that is made in the same vein as items of local corruption we hear about endlessly on blogs, news headlines and talk shows. So who has the right to know?

I know that I am tired of hearing how useless we are in certain things.  The assertion leaked that aid money is mostly unaccounted for is hardly a secret given past news headlines to the same effect.  “The money‑wasting is staggering. Aid payments are never followed, never audited, never evaluated,” the article HERE asserts. So why are we not seeing mobs of angry Americans storming the street in protest? After all never outside of the Great Depression have we been so poor, so downtrodden and so thinly spread with unimaginable numbers for foreclosed and displaced citizenry.

But no rioting?

Worse still is the lack of journalistic coverage, or should I say lack of journalistic funding to uncover the truths that in the past was planted squarely at the feet of respectable journalists to uncover; those media icons with whom the buck stopped by removing any shielding the guilty had. With the decimation of the print journalistic standard and the blatant commercialization of the tabloid broadcast media attitudes where you are only as good as the last fluff piece you pop out, the crusaders of the truth are strangely absent.

So should there be a WikiLeak?  Should secrets remain secret or corruptions exposed, regardless the cost? Does America come across as a foolish nation, blinded by Black Friday Specials at the cost of personal freedom, truth and justice? Or have we raised a generation that don’t care so long as the Wii or the iPod, iTouch, iPhone works well with the Apple iTunes store?  Mostly we never raise our eyes away from the devices to see the world around us or the people in it. If a terrorist in full stereotypical garb walked by wearing earplugs and pecking at a touch screen no one would think twice.

Or is it that so few are aware and informed and even interested in the ongoing safety of this country that those in the power take full opportunity to further their causes, knowing full well that left to the public decisions become endless committee debates with everyone getting to dilute the effectiveness of any choice based on their personal agendas and beliefs because all must be accommodated before anything happens – which is why NOTHING EVER HAPPENS - “You could probably tell the American people a very, very sanitized cleaned up overly positive version, but you could not tell them the truth.”

[Update: 11/29/2010 – WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange has a big expose planned about a major bank – read more from Forbes HERE ]

[Update: 12/1/2010 – WikiLeaks servers cut by Amazon.com bowing to pressure. Read that HERE and follow WikiLeaks on Twitter HERE. Now where is that freedom of speech being violated?]

Mohamed Osman Mohamud Arrested In Portland Car Bomb Plot

Two things and a note: #1 Kudos to the FBI - there is nothing like strategic planning and a fake bomb.



#2: "a naturalized U.S. citizen" Someone at INS was not doing their job.



Imagine the aftermath had it been a real bomb and this fanatic gone undetected?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND A HEADS UP

Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving complete with the overindulgences that make it worthwhile in hindsight. This day of reflection is solid in history and tradition, replete with philosophical analysis and a great reason to just hang with family and friends. In short, stop reading blogs and enjoy the special day.

Coming up I will be tackling some other topics such as:

What happens when you don’t want to be circumcised anymore?  Isn’t that a fresh angle?

How a town decided to keep the Westboro gang away from a soldier’s funeral and why that is a great example of activism.

Understanding why so many Americans are barely scraping by while the goons in public office draw a fat paycheck for screwing up the country.

Why Mark Chapman’s signed by John Lennon Double Fantasy album a mere few hours before Chapman murdered Lennon should not be selling. Who buys those gruesome things anyway and why don’t I earn that kind of money?

Why California will never fall into the ocean but may become an island.

Dr. Michio Kaku. Did he take over where Carl Sagan left off or has celebrity and overexposure ruined his credibility?

Why are there five aisles of books devoted to “How to” topics? Are we really that stupid?

Why do media events require 100 reporters all jabbing their microphones at the subject so as to record the exact same thing? Why don’t they just have one microphone and save all that waste money floating around on those mobile uplink vans?  I’ll check in with some reporter friends and ask them.

What’s the difference between celebrity and human? Well if you know where they live there is a huge difference from their perspective. Would you want to be a celebrity?

Michael Douglas accepting the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award announced that American movies were the best ambassador of who we are as a nation and culturally. When you look at the crap that Hollywood is churning out, do you think that reflects well of our culture? Or has the entertainment industry become one big global drug pusher pandering to the need for thrills in every culture?

Einstein. Newton. Galileo. These and many other major shapers of science used little more than their imagination to discern complex mysteries of science. How come I can’t just sit under an apple tree and divine something magnificent? Have all the easily discerned discoveries been found? If so, did that make Einstein a lucky simpleton?

Oil and gas. You mean to tell me we can’t solve that problem? Perhaps if large corporations had to actually shell out large taxes for their large profits we might have a more robust economy. But then again we keep dumbing down education, don’t we?

Can’t we just clone a great president for this country? Can’t we take genetic bits from a variety of presidents and develop our own Franken-President?  Why do we have this 4-year crap shoot based on nothing but talk-talk-talk?

And I would like to hear from you. My opinion is worth ….nothing. Feel free to offer yours; I will post it, unless you are an illiterate buffoon. Honest. Really!  What makes a blog great is a range of responses that often contradict the host’s perceptions. So let me make it easier for you. If I was so damned good, I’d be filthy rich, powerful and would not be writing a blog, now would I? There, do you feel better now?

Keep reading – I’m only getting warmed up. Happy Thanksgiving and remember… MisterWriter Lives!

VATICAN CONDOMINTS FOR ALL: WHAT A GOOD IDEA

I can’t help it. It is just too good. The Pope, staunch advocate against birth control of any form – as is the good Catholic position, now finding circumstances where a condom is a good thing to use, especially when curbing the spread of AIDS.

So let me see if I am clear. For a gay man, IV drug user, a condom will curtail the spread of AIDS and is thus okay in the eyes of God, even though said God decries homosexuality and, most certainly, drug use.

Conservative Catholic writer, George Weigel then explained that the Vatican was by no means endorsing condom use as a method of contraception or a means of AIDS prevention, but rather, “that (if) someone (was)  determined to do something wrong (they) may be showing a glimmer of moral common sense by not doing that wrong thing in the worst possible way – which is not an endorsement of anything," he told the Associated Press.

Okay, now I am confused. So if I was going to do something wrong and this made the wrong lesser in evil by the fact that I did not die from it or cause the death of another sinner, it is okay in the eyes of the Pope, God and the Catholic Church although they are not okay with it at all?

The article goes on to say that in the book, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times," Benedict was quoted as saying that condom use by people such as male prostitutes indicated they were moving toward a more moral and responsible sexuality by aiming to protect their partner from a deadly infection. 

So male prostitutes are being more morally responsible by using condoms not because homosexuality was okay, but because they now did not infect their partner in gay sex who would be condemned to Hell anyway?  I am really confused.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters,  "This is if you're a man, a woman, or a transsexual. ... The point is it's a first step of taking responsibility, of avoiding passing a grave risk onto another.”

In 2009 the same Pope told reporters that the AIDS epidemic in Africa could not be resolved through the use of condoms. Now, however the act of sin is lessened by the use of condoms in the prevention of the taking of another life.

Gay men, transsexuals and confused Catholics everywhere are still deciphering this great mystery.  Perhaps pedophilic priests should be included in this list.

45 MILLION TURKEYS IS A STRANGE WAY TO SAY THANKS

That is how many turkeys make the ultimate American sacrifice each November, according to the USDA, more than the 2,242,000 Americans who die each year, but less than the 115 million households in the US, which only goes to show that 40% of the country is eating turkey while 2% don’t get to live to enjoy one.

So how intelligent is the turkey? Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the national bird. Considered shrewd, it was capable of climbing trees. He even compared it to early Americans, which could be considered both a compliment and an insult at the same time.  By animal standards, the domesticated turkey is dumb as a stump, unlike the other holiday favorite food – the pig – which is considered quite intelligent. Pigs are problem solvers, unlike the pigs at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Considering the manner we  raise, slaughter and sell our food items, I vote that humans are dumber than turkeys and less worthy than pigs. I wish I could say I was a vegetarian after reading things like THIS, but I am not. Still, I have reduced my consumption of meat and intend to continue to do so. 

Cephalopods belong to the same lineage that produced snails, clams, and other mollusks. A typical mollusk might have 20,000 neurons arranged in a diffuse net. The octopus has half a billion neurons.* The neurons in its head are massed into complex lobes, much the way our own brains are. In comparison with their body weight, octopuses have the biggest brains of all invertebrates. They're even bigger than the brains of fish and amphibians, putting them on par with those of birds and mammals. Read more HERE.  It only goes to show you that we are not so special.

So I watch Dr. Michio Kaku who, these days, is appearing everywhere but on a Kellogg's Corn Flakes box, and I take from the science overload, multi-dimensional realities, multiverse, subjectively relational time paradox theories that I am a blip in a vastness of endless blips and really there is only one thing I should be grateful for; that I am not a turkey.

Or am I?

SOCIAL MEDIA GONE BAD – IDIOT NATION AT HAND IN THE QUEST FOR YOUR VOTE TO ABORT A BABY

Claiming it to be an “exercise in democracy” a couple of social media butterflies have decided to ask their loyal fans whether or not they should abort a pregnancy. Minnesota couple Pete and Alisha Arnold, with a baby 17 weeks in the making, have put this on a website called Birth or Not (birthornot.com).

While the results to date show about 80% in favor of birth, the real question should be why the anonymous public should even be subjected to a couple making this kind of choice.  Perhaps a better question is whether both should be immediately subjected to a psychological profile as to their sanity and fitness to be parents.

I realize that those multitudes of social butterflies/Twitterers/In your Facebookers and so on will find this less objectionable, especially in light of the sheer number of people who live their lives online, in full view of everyone they do not know as well as those that they do.  There are whole families who ogle each other as though in the same room, and absolutely no shortage of opinions (including my own) that in the end have little bearing upon reality other than the sheer weight of the numbers of people venting their life frustrations for all to see.

Celebrity friends are the absolute worst. The celeb gets a Facebook or a Twitter account and when you read the mass of replies to them, all written in a tone as though celeb and anonymous online stranger were the best of friends, you see how sad our level of disconnect has become, despite our protestations about how the Internet has brought us closer.

So here we have life and death of a baby in the hands of whomever has tuned in. The anti-abortion zealots. The pro-life zealots. The strange and the weird Internet trolls. No doubt some lawyers looking for a potential case, some government bureaucrat or politat looking for a platform in the next election, someone from the IRS looking for a way to tax the volume of people as a revenue source. The boss looking for grounds to fire the idiots working for him/her now casting a shadow on the reputation of the firm. The other employees of the firm all eager to see what happens next, looking to replace other life-sucking experiences like 6 years of the TV show 'Lost' catering to people who were.

Be objective for a moment. Would you wish your child to be putting your grandchild's existence up for public debate? Why not go knock on all the doors in your neighborhood and ask their opinion. "Hi, should I have an abortion or let my baby live?"

What scares me more than this, and without taking a stance on the whole abortion debate, is the fact that our collective level of stupidity keeps finding newer ways to lower the bar.  From couples raising funds to lose their virginity online, to pedophiles taking normal pictures of normal kids for the thrill of the imagination when they post them online, what scares me the most is that freedom, while essential to democracy, has included in vast proportions the right to be stupid and to accept that stupidity as the new standard of the nation.

Gone are the challenges to be better, brighter, more innovative. Gone are the sites that appreciate the hard work and great choices of people struggling against all odds. Instead we keep sucking up crap and calling it mainstream; accepting the lie and pretending that it is all right in the name of freedom and democracy, while still calling upon a deity to bless us.

What was once a nation of survivors forging something from nothing, we are now a nation that has, like locusts, turned something into a wasteland of nothing. Values gone, pride in drivel, and the equality to be whatever little fantasy pops into your head because you are "special" and "God loves" you.

Well back to the Arnolds; with parents like that you have to wonder what the correct answer to their question really is. I just hope, assuming that the majority vote prevails, that someone will be sure to tell the kid in a handful of years how mommy and daddy wanted strangers to answer what they seemingly could not. And that is a legacy, like everything else on the Internet, that will never go away.

THE RAPE OF THE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT – SLICK WILLY AT WORK

It's Slick!  Your high school senior comes home with news of a recruiter from ABC Technical School where he can learn a technical skill, or trade and, the recruiter assures him, a higher placement upon graduation. You're told that the recruiter will stop by the house later in the day and show a presentation about what the ABC Technical School has to offer. It sounds great.

 

When the recruiter arrives the information and video presented are Slick; a program designed to save you money by eliminating the core classes of English and Math that mid-range academic students detest, and accelerating the two year Associates Degree into 18 months by going year round. In the process the student gets placed in a job to help pay accommodations, one of the lowest rates around, their sundries, and Federal Student Aid in its various forms will pay the tuition, pricey to say the least, but not a figure you get until you swallow the rest of the edu-pills designed to enlighten you.

First comes a question/survey of the student and the parents, designed, you are told, to weed out the students not serious. "Are you committed to your education," the student and parents are asked?

 

The recruiter explains what a joy his job is, and how the high level of the school makes him glad that he can help. After the Slick Willy preso, he tells you that spaces go fast and grants available for local students even faster. To sweeten the pot, the school offers a first-in bonus to the first kid from each high school that is accepted, another scholarship that can award a few thousand toward the tuition, and then there is the full ride scholarship that select few will actually get.

 

For the rest the Federal Student grants, and loans have the potential to stop gap some of the cost and there may be a "small" balance after all that which the student will have to bear, but not without the help of ABC that will front the loan, repayable at a modest rate. "It might be around $5000," the student is told, and repayment will be as low as "$250 a month."

 

It is only when you do the math that you calculate the cost of the two years exceeds $31,000 and that the balance the student may actually owe could well top $10,000 after all the grants and loans and gifting and scholarship. And that is not including the accommodations, books and food, and gas.

 

What the recruiter wants; his moment of decision as to how well he has sold the program, is the little application that he urges be completed with his help that day. After all, the fee is only $25 and you can always cancel it, so better to have started it and secured the chance for all that free money he was prattling on about.

 

What that does, that little application, is to begin the process where the school, the financial aid department, the housing department, the curriculum team, the advisor all cement the goodwill started by the recruiter, further drawing the student into the fold and the start of the FAFSA application, also known as "the school's paycheck" that your student will be repaying for many, many years to come.

 

Why go there at all? A local community college will cost a tenth of that and offer the same level of education. Well, the Slick Willy ABC school is a for-profit school, running on the goodwill of the many forms of post secondary education money floating out there, more so now with all that stimulus money that including a chunk for just this kind of schooling.

But for students who may only be average, who know that they will not get to Harvard or some other higher end school, this glitzy sales job offers that chance to go to the best of the best.

 

And so it was for our household recently, as we listened to the whole spiel and as the hairs on the back of my neck twitched, and as I punched numbers in my head as the Slickness of Willy tried to gloss over the imagery of a great school dancing in the mind of my son.

 

And then I checked out the school and found it to be a publicly traded company with some questionable practices to enough of an extent that a shareholder was investigating the practice of fiddling with financial aid applications, the SEC was investigating and a lawsuit was pending, all not good signs that this puppymill of for profit higher learning was anything more than yet another crooked business in America designed to rape the student and the government together.

 

It also turns out that while regionally accredited, the credits gained at this school (and others like it) are non-transferrable to a four year school.  ABC offered a four year program as well - just to cover that little problem.

 

Further research showed that many private for profit trade schools work the same way, some big names that are advertised extensively online and at high shcool college fairs throughout the county. ABC was a big name with a long history, not because of its academic prowess, but for the fact that the corporation bought out smaller regional schools with accreditation in order to push the notion of both legitimacy and history.

It seems that this is nothing new. It seems that as recently as this month a Senate investigation into the corruption at these places of raping - I mean for profit learning - has been continuing. It is just amazing how little is being done about it.

 

 

 

 

“The next bubble to burst will be the education bubble. Make no mistake about it, education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble,” wrote Mark Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia University, in a New York Times editorial response HERE. “Colleges are on the prowl for new sources of income. And one place they invariably turn is to new customers, i.e., students,” Taylor added.

 

“They tell people, ‘If you don’t have a college degree, you won’t be able to get a job,’ ” said Amanda Wallace, who worked in the financial aid and admissions offices at the Knoxville, Tenn., branch of ITT Technical Institute, a chain of schools that charge roughly $40,000 for two-year associate degrees in computers and electronics. “They tell them, ‘You’ll be making beaucoup dollars afterward, and you’ll get all your financial aid covered.’ ” You can read this New York Times article HERE. The stakes are enormous: For-profit schools have long derived the bulk of their revenue from federal loans and grants, and the percentages have been climbing sharply.

And if you are wondering what kind of money is involved…one publicly traded giant, the New York Times reported, Career Education Corporation,  had revenue of $1.84 billion with 80% coming from federal loans and grants.

 

The same article goes on to report…

“Jeffrey West was working at a pet store near Philadelphia, earning about $8 an hour, when he saw advertisements for training programs offered by WyoTech, a chain of trade schools owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc., a publicly traded company that last year reported revenue of $1.3 billion.

After Mr. West called the school, an admissions representative drove to his house to sell him on classes in auto body refinishing and upholstering technology, a nine-month program that cost about $30,000.

Mr. West blanched at the tuition, he recalled, but the representative assured him the program amounted to an antidote to hard economic times.

“They said they had a very high placement rate, somewhere around 90 percent,” he said. “That was one of the key factors that caused me to go there. They said I would be earning $50,000 to $70,000 a year.”

Some 14 months after he completed the program, Mr. West, 21, has failed to find an automotive job. He is working for $12 an hour weatherizing foreclosed houses.

With loan payments reaching $600 a month, he is working six and seven days a week to keep up.

“I’ve got $30,000 in student loans, and I really don’t have much to show for it,” he said. “It’s really frustrating when you’re trying to better yourself and you wind up back at Square One.” You can read this New York Times article HERE

 

So parents, if your child is not going to a brand name four-year college with impeccable rankings and history, and is instead opting for a two year for profit trade school, I suggest you look very carefully online, under the many name choices that the school may have had dodging litigious bullets, and instead go for the community college near home, a place where, if your child applies himself/herself, can open the doors to finish out at a four year college along with that institution's degree award.

 

I have long been opposed to high schoolers getting recruitment offers from colleges or the military without the parent at hand, not after the sales job has been done when the parent becomes the bad guy for saying no or questioning the game plan. Teen students, as Bill Cosby would say, are "brain-damaged" and have not yet formulated enough life experience to filter out bullshit when they hear it. Because if you think that there is not a Slick Willy at your kid's school, you are just fooling yourself.

 

You can Google your potential school and add the word "fraud" at the end and see what you get. Or check out RipOff Report or other consumer sites. If you go to the for profit school's website you will get a list of places they operate out of. And if they are publicly traded, pull up their SEC filings for the scoop on how they operate.

 

As we approach the time of year where future options are being explored for seniors, take the time to look deeply into how this legally crooked system works and the effect it will have on you.

TUESDAY THOUGHTS – MUM SAYS THE WORLD WILL DEFINITELY END IN 2012 SO IT MUST BE TRUE

 

I never believed her when she told me that I would catch a cold if I went out in the cold, or that I should wait an hour after eating before swimming lest I get a cramp and drown. I also had trouble with the one about never tooting your own horn when you do something good; mum always said that good deeds get noticed, which I have found to be totally false unless someone else toots your horn; generally one should not expect recognition since the satisfaction of the deed is reward enough.

 

My mother’s a clever woman with a long history of creating new skills and talents that have served her well. The fact that we have a strong Asian streak helps a lot in the “thinking on your feet category” and has influenced us in our world views as well.

 

So when my mother announced to me that she expects it all to come to an end in 2012 because the Mayans, the Indians and the Chinese apparently all believe it to be so be, I had to strut my usual oppositionally defiant child posture and defend the continued existence of mankind’s putrid ways to further establish our mark upon the cosmos.

 

Besides what did Nostradamus know? The man wrote in riddles to such an extent that interpretations were more far reaching than one gets from a Bible. And the Mayans; the only reason the calendar stopped was because they died out. And the Chinese will never die out; they’re just too darn clever first buying up the United States and now getting the space program on track. In fact if you are not learning the language now it may be too late for you to get that job at the Beijing McDonalds. Have you ever seen an Asian McDonalds?  They’re like restaurants – and Ronald, well natives will argue that the first Ronald was Chinese.

 

 

So back to mum who has for years decried the state of the world and how we really have become backwards and uncivilized in so many ways. Just read the news headlines to see the extent of our insanity. The decent folk are lost in the rights assigned to the criminals and those with handy dandy lawyers ready to sue at a moment’s notice.

 

I pondered mum’s words while sharing a meal at Panda Express with my son. My fortune cookie said I would make new friends, but I knew that to be untrue since I do not play well with other children. And as an aside – what exactly did the Panda express?  That’s kind of like David Letterman’s “If there was a part of a chicken called a nugget, would you eat it?”

 

So we come all this way from the primordial ooze – or Adam and Eve depending on your persuasions, through cultural shifting, continental fractures, nomadic conquests, crusades, regional and global wars, political wars, financial crisis, and totally getting screwed every which way from Sunday only to see the final episode of life in 2012 when Bobby Ewing steps out of a shower and we realize it was just a cheesy dream all along? Like Lost for those of you too young to remember Dallas, where you wasted six years of your life to find out they were all dead anyway… anyway you get the point.

 

It’s Tuesday. 2010 is winding down. The economy is in the shitter…still. The first black President has not managed to improve race relations, or economic prosperity, Sarah Palin still thinks she’s smarter than a fifth grader and George W is peddling the book that he has apparently  “written” with large parts allegedly lifted from other sources. The Middle East is still the mess it always will be; like two brothers they will fight until the very end which, if mum is right, won’t be much longer.

BOTTOM LINE: TOO MANY LAWYERS

Just When You Thought You Knew Something About Mortgage Securitizations

You gotta read this one...

Super Efficient Crew Builds 15-Story Chinese Hotel In Just SIX DAYS (VIDEO)

Considering you never hear of buildings collapsing in China - perhaps this might provide some impetus for the decades long BAY BRIDGE, CA. project to actually finish? China is not bogged down by excessive regulation, unions, and the uniquely American need to have a committee for everything ever thought, planned or done, not to mention endless oversight committees, inspections, strikes, negotiations and then the end result found to be defective because someone cut corners in order to maximize their profits followed by years-long lawsuits, class action lawsuits, endless robo-calls that ask "if you ever walked into that building and sprained your ankle you may be entitled to damages," and so on. And we wonder why we are failing in the global marketplace! On the other hand I'm sure someone will cite human rights issues in China. That said I remind everyone that they are quickly owning the USA through our debt. And if we don't fix education we will all be working at Wal-Mart.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DO VETERAN’S DESERVE MUCH MUCH MORE? A VETERAN’S DAY VIEWPOINT

If you ponder just what it means to be a veteran you might imagine a survivor of a war and you would be right. And yet the meaning of being a veteran is far greater; this is someone who has risked their life in the service of country, and, despite the great military minds planning their movements, managed to survive anyway, to return, at times, to an ungrateful nation, a bewildered nation, a sympathetic nation, and still a nation that is not sure what to do with the veterans it contains.

 

I won’t dissect the righteousness or the fallacy of any war that we are engaged in; that is a job for others. What I will dissect is the manner that these people who are sent to war are treated upon their return and scandals that follow. Or the suicides.

 

So here are my questions: For risking their lives, should a veteran who has been been in battle receive FREE health insurance? A FREE college education instead of a loan? Should the families of dead soldiers receive at least a life without struggle? Should the children of dead soldiers receive a FREE college education to make up for the loss of their parent?  Should veterans receive FREE housing if they are unable to do pay for their own?  Should veteran’s be GUARANTEED a job placement upon their return?

 

I ask this because at a military funeral, the family is given a flag and are told “On behalf of the President of the United States and the people of a grateful nation, may I present this flag as a token of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service your loved one rendered this nation.” Or a variation of this.  Is that flag merely the token of appreciation that should be afforded by the grateful nation, or truly representative of the service and sacrifice made and backed by more concrete tangibles? 

 

You might argue that the cost of providing all the free services I mentioned would render the country bankrupt, to which I would counter that compared to the cost of wars, the cost of waste, bureaucracy that never ends, legislation designed to perplex and confuse, the bailouts of greedy corporations many of whom pay little tax, and  the salaries of government leadership which, in the sight of “public service” seems unreasonable, regardless of position while all around decent, hardworking Americans are losing their jobs, their homes and their health – compared to all these things the price of FREE from a grateful nation should be doable, don’t you think?

 

One thing we all agree on is that veterans deserve our respect, regardless of our views on wars or deployment. So on this Veteran’s Day, I thank you for your service and your loyalty to defend those of us who have not. 

A SIMPLER TIME – OR WAS IT JUST TOO SOON TO BE CORRUPTED, POLLUTED AND FAILING? STAMP THAT!

There are no shortage of statistics that show how badly off we are. Just today I was reading how 60 million Americans have no health insurance, how one in five Americans struggle to put food on the table. I’ve seen friends on the edge of homelessness, once secure families now foreclosed, unable to get jobs, watching the “American Dream” unravel, seemingly out of control. Everywhere you look cities are broke, leaders unable to balance budgets and trying to palm off the cuts further down the food chain.

 

So when I opened up a childhood stamp album and found a series of stamps that displayed a simpler time it made me realize that things were simpler then, or just not having had the openness to allow greed and corruption to become the mainstay.

 

And as much as the older generation were “old fashioned” and “square” and “out of touch” and as much as they chain smoked, boozed it up and died young; so too did they exhibit style and some grace in the simplicity of their lives. I mean, how do you do better than a 1905 Rolls Royce? Enjoy.

  

 

 

 

 

Ire fortiter quo nemo ante iit: It turns out that it may all just be my reality after all. I am a writer.

We question the meaning of life; each purpose sequestered by any and all means whether tied to a supernatural being, God, destiny, faith, hope or blind, stinking luck. And we want those answers so badly to justify what we are; these carbon bits that assembled somehow create a face, a thought, a psyche or a soul, some seemingly pure and other seemingly sinister.

 

The universe, our catch all container of life; celestial ceramic bowl in which the soup of existence steams between sips, as though knowing there is a universe somehow makes it all better, like knowing the address to your house, or your phone number; purpose through familiarity and pattern. And yet science is starting to prove that it is not one universe; that the multitude of universes exist to defy the concept of time which some propose does not exist. That’s right – no time, just here and now, always, separated by motion, like the frames of an old 8mm video camera film strip, each square representing a now that exists all the time.

 

And every thought, action, deed, choice, potential, all available as an option in this cacophony of existence because each speck is as valid as the next. And yet, it all comes down to perception which boils down to perspective, which boils down to the subjective observer – you…or in this case…me.

 

So you see, if the tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it really fall gives an answer of neither yes, or no; but rather, who gives a damn if it did. If this is my reality and I am not there to see the tree fall, who cares if it did or not; it does not affect my world one bit.

 

But this also means that I make my own reality. It also means that morbidly anxious realm of self-pity that I allow myself to pass through from time to time is my own doing. Warts and all, I am the master of my domain – both Seinfelding and metaphorically. And perhaps that is the ultimate determination of choice and free will; not that I can do something but that like changing television channels, the choice only affects that station without prejudice – unless I have injected that into my reality.

 

I am a writer.  Two months ago I stopped my blog because it had become redundant. The topics that I wrote of had been written about endlessly, both in my postings and those of other bloggers.

 

I am a writer. Five months ago I left California and moved to Idaho with the goal of finding a wholesome place to raise my youngest children (ages 3 and 5) while also being wholesome for the future of two of my three older children (ages 17 and 19). 

 

I am a writer and from the time I moved, stopped my blog and now have considered only one question; what the hell am I doing?  I own a newspaper (in California) that I do run, have staff, make trips etc. It is a good newspaper and I am proud of what we have achieved. I have some good people working it with me.  But I am a writer, not a publisher. I am a writer and I am no longer a teacher (even though former students keep hunting me down on Facebook.) 

 

For the last 30 years I have lived in California. I know California like the back of my hand. To uproot, move 623 miles away to a place most people seem puzzled as to why I would choose it, and redefine my life is no easy feat. I did not comment on the last election, other than to endorse one candidate. I read the blogs and see all the millions of viewpoints, each one certain that theirs is the right one.  Angry white people. Angry Black people. Angry foreigners. Angry Republicans and angry Democrats.  Someone threw the old chicken bone in the pit and we are all fighting over it. What is that about?

 

I am a writer. That means I only do two things really well in my life; I observe and I write. Interestingly it took three months to distill that down to one thought. I no longer wish to do anything but observe and write.  Not report…write. Create. Devise. Concoct. Explore.  To boldly go yadayadayada (which is what the Latin title translates to, if you wondered.)

 

I wasn’t going to start the blog again. It’s been 2 months to the day that I stopped. Seems longer. I wasn’t going to say that I love my new home, that the schools are good, the streets safe and the houses affordable. I wasn’t going to say that even though I still work my rear off, I feel like I am on a vacation – stranger in a strange land, in a world where people remind me of Australians I left over thirty years ago; friendly and natural.

 

I am a writer and this is my world. I am making the reality I want and the future that goes with it.  I don’t know if this is my own private little reality or not, but the thoughts that science puts out are fascinating.  The options are unlimited. And if I do not have to fear death; then my life is unfolding as it should, as it needs to. And I am listening for that tree to fall because that is why I am here.

 

Someone once said that we live forever in the memories of those we leave behind. And in the photographs that adorn a family book, and the scraps of handwriting samples that serve to prove we were here. I think; therefore I am. And I am back.