Category: Uncategorized
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Psychopaths at the Top
I regard Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu as psychopaths. Being a psychopath is not being psychotic. It is a personality disorder. By comparison, when a person is bipolar, it can have a psychotic component or not. It can be on the level of a personality disorder, or it can go beyond that. Psychopathy,…
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My AI Voice Clone, reading from Overone
This is my favorite passage from my novella/stage play titled Overone, which is available in a new edition—look for the solid blue cover—on my Amazon book site: https://a.co/d/11LAhhU This is roughly the passage being read here: The start and the end are added here to establish context—the recorded passage is shorter. This is a conversation…
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Overone
Forward Let’s get a few things straight about being an author. One: Literature has only one theme: Death. Two: Teach in such a way that no one can object. Three: A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown. Even if you did not pay attention in class because you were a distracted artist,…
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My Haiku
I read an important little book written by a nun when I lived in Nagoya, Japan. I guess I was thirty-two or thirty-three years old. I got the little book, small in trim size and under sixty pages in length, at the international book store two floors below my office. We were on the fifth…
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What is Wrong with Donald Trump?
I see it in businesses all the time. A corporation or a person or a group of friends think they have the right obsessions, and they start a business: Man, do we know how to make gluten-free food! We have it nailed! Not a drop of gluten will get by the door! Do you see…
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You Stormed the Palace
You stormed the palace of freedom and democracy. Who will storm the palace of hypocrisy? We will. When we storm the palace we are wresting power from the few and privileged. You are the few and privileged: We will wrest power from you. We will storm the palace of hypocrisy! We will send no one…
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Gay People: Not Naughty, Usually Nice
I am not naughty. I am not risqué. I am not on the lowdown. I am not closeted. I am not confused about how to be in the world. I do not need a personal crisis to deal with my attraction to someone. I do not need to challenge the world order and curse and…
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What it Means to be an American: Alone with a Great Idea
Think of yourself alone with a great idea, the great idea of our founding, America’s founding. There is no noise. You are out on the plains of North America. It is quiet, and you have an idea of what America is. You have an idea of our place in the world; you are proud that…
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I learned to Write Like Herb Caen
You might think that I learned from a very good teacher in one of the schools I attended. I learned some things in school; however, I learned writing from Herb Caen. He wrote a society column for the San Francisco Chronicle for sixty years. He died in the late 1990s. If I were on a…
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The Mechanics of Writing: Getting Good at It
Here is an example. Place the the word only near the noun. Write: I have only twenty dollars. Don’t write: I only have twenty dollars. If you are having a casual conversation, say whatever comes to mind. It makes little difference. Here is another example: different. The weather at the oceanfront is different from the…
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