You're Welcome

I like to think this is because I post much about Rachel Maddow . . . oh wait shit I post about Fresh Air a lot. hmm . . will have to recalculate my influence over the world.

Don't Forget . .

I have a new blog!

For the Love Of Politics, Coffee and Louisiana. Check it out

Just a Dream

" Everyone was treated on an equal basis
No matter what color, religion or races
We weren't afraid to show our faces
It was cool to chill in foreign places"

I love Run DMC

So  . . . there's a Presidential election in just a couple weeks. And I love it! I always forget how much I really really love elections. I hate it as much as I love it but at the same time it's just society. This is actually how people behave. If it wasn't, this shit we get to see wouldn't happen.

I love that Biden says ridiculous things. I love that Ryan looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch cashier. I love that Reid is like fuck you you stupid bitch, I may be a really old boxer from a small western town, but I'll throw down in my quiet steady as stream voice. I love that Trump is making a big annoucement at the convention (you're fired Obama!). I love that Romney describes Obama, of the Hope-fame, as full of division, anger and hate because if you say black man and angry in the same sentence if front of an all white people backdrop than everyone that is secretly still scared of black people are like 'yeah you right'. I love that Donna Brazil once told me in a hotel room at the first Democratic presidential debate in 2002 in Washington DC to shut The Wire off because there were too many curse words. (I put it on mute I'm not gonna lie) I love that two women are hosting two of the debates this year after twenty years after the only other woman hosted a debate.

Wait, no . . ..   actually it makes me sick to my stomach that I am in fact happy there has only been one woman to host a debate. And though I don't work on women's issues like I use to, I am unbelievably disgusted that women are getting thrown against the wall and beaten down in the name of small government ( by the way of more government spending up your uterus) this year. I don't know if you've ever had a very large piece of plastic forced up your body in the name of finding out what is going on in your uterus while your legs shake with pain to find out you're totally ok and that experience was completely unnecessary (because I have), not to mention if you're pregnant and trying to exercise your constitutionally legal right to an abortion,  because that is also part of this election cycle. People (men of GOP persuasion) forcing women (and others like the elderly) to jump through hoops to exercise long fought and won rights (as in voting) makes this election important. It makes paying attention to a president that may not have fought all the battles in the way you wish he would have important and knowing the difference between being perfect and being human worth it.

But I say all this, with the understanding that this is how elections work in the United States. This is the way it goes and the drama makes me laugh otherwise i would cry.  The older I get the more I understand the ingrained need for debate and argument in this country. Because if we didn't have these fights, we would probably have Pussy Riot judgement way too regularly. Let's be honest, I too would probably be in jail for hooliganism myself. oh wait.

There is real enjoyment in this election season. And you should vote. . . .  and pay attention to both sides because you're probably missing something if you don't.

Renee

And That's the Way We Do It

Thanks EC!

besides the obvious, my favorite is the "please, no phone calls about this job" after putting their phone number as one of the first things in the post. 

DOWN SOUTH PARANORMAL RESEARCH (LOUISIANA)

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Date: 2012-07-29, 9:14AM CDT
Reply to: g8sqr-3170234433@job.craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

Need An Investigation Done? We Investigate Residential/Commerical. 504-327-7314

Company Overview

We are a local Paranormal team based in New Orleans Louisiana. We investigate residential and business locations, as well as other reported haunted locations. You can also checkout our facebook page here: www.facebook/504.PARANORMAL . All of our investigations are free of charge.
If you would like our help. Have any Questions? Or would like to learn more about us. Please contact us on Facebook or our website http://downsouthparanormal.net46.net/
..... Thanks ~ D.S.P.R.

• Location: LOUISIANA
• Compensation: We do not charge for our investigations. However donations are accepted.
• This is at a non-profit organization.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

They're Hubig to Fail

"One of the firemen said we put the fire out with our tears."

To everyone's disbelief Hubig's pies burned to the ground this morning. Every last pie is already off the shelves and we are waiting for the day they are back. Owners said they will rebuild and I don't doubt for a second everyone is this city will help them do so. 

No White Flags!

'Rebirth' was unveiled today at the Superdome. A statue representing one of the best plays in Saints history executed by Steve Gleason of the New Orleans Saints against the Atlanta Falcons (boom!) on September 25, 2006. It was the first game the Saints played in the Superdome following Hurricane Katrina and over a year on the road.

Here is the team photo from today. All good things are bittersweet in this state, you might notice that Coach Payton isn't there. Free Sean Payton!

And in case you want to remember what the feeling was in 2006 in Central City that night. The Falcons' coach even said, "As hard as it is to lose this game, I'd be lying if I didn't say there was a little, little piece of me that really appreciated what this game meant to this city," said Falcons coach Jim Mora Jr., whose father coached the Saints for more than a decade" 

Can't wait for the new season! I will be in my usual seat at Pal's next Sunday with a Blood Orange vodka and soda in hand! My official Saints season drink.

Who Dat or go home! 

 Reneé

"Only Bad Writers Think Their Writing is Good"

An amazing list of lists of advice from writers on writing.

reminder: this blog is now only for crap like the above and below and for links to web pages I like but won't ever remember I like unless I put them somewhere like for instance here on this blog not the other blog, but for something a bit more thoughtful check out For the Love of Coffee, Politics and Louisiana.

More Fresh Air

If you are part of the Cabrini Breakfast Club, you hear me say this every morning. I'm getting rid of my smartphone! My brain feels overwhelmed with technology and people and things talking to me. I need a break. So I'm doing two things, going to cafes at night sans smartphone and laptop to read and write (no I can't do that home because I will watch Pretty Little Liars instead) and two taking a kayak long weekend trip somewhere, possibility Alabama in the next couple of weeks. Just need to find a kayak to borrow.

Anyways, on my way home from walking the dogs at the lake last night, I was listening to Terry Gross interview Aaron Sorkin, the writer of A Few Good Men, West Wing, and Newsroom. He was talking about how smart his family is, both parents are lawyers and they always debated all sides of issues at home. He said he didn't have the stuff to participate in those discussions, but he has a good ear and he picked the phonics of those conversations. The actual movement of sound and words, which he believes led him to be able to write tv shows like West Wing, without ever being able to actually have those intellectual conversations himself. I find this fascinating. It's hard to tell sometimes what writers really mean when they degrade themselves, because that is a hard and fast fact about the trade. Writers are the first to explain they are dumb and lazy and only write because they can't do anything else. You see it over and over and over again.


Take a listen if you didn't catch last night's episode of Fresh Air.

Renee

ps. I feel like I should contact Terry Gross and ask if I can be her blogger. I write about her nearly everyday anyway.

Sing It!

"You can't be an anti-immigrant bigot and love this country. The statue of liberty won't let you"

Sing it!

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Its a good weekend to end a bad week

I don't know what went on last week but it was rough. The heat, the grumpiness, the shootings, the rapes, the robberies, the beatings, the bad coffee. I felt like everyone was having a bad week. Thank goodness for the weekend! And a great one.

Breesus is back!

I got a new rug!

I think I found a new couch I love that can still be used as a guest bed!

Yesterday was spent finding a great new bookcase, buying a great new rug, taking a wonderful nap, getting a super sketchy massage, having a couple of really good cocktails while listening to James Singleton strum a beautiful upright bass which is totally my favorite instrument ever, drinking a great rosé at Bacchanal, deciding to finally let go of someone I should have let go of a long time ago, drinking more cocktails at Mimis with my favorite New Orleans friend, and then wondering to Markey's for more cocktails and bumping into other good friends.

I watched Beau roll around in a ginormous mud puddle at the lake where he dipped his head straight into the puddle with a kind of glee I've never seen before.

My friend Andrew is writing one sentence a day in honor of Hemmingway's search for the perfect sentence and they are great!

I found this archived list of articles by writers on writing from the NYTimes.

There is a bbq in the french quarter with a pool later this afternoon!

And now I'm going Kayaking, though it kind of looks like it might rain. Scratch that it is raining. oh well. Beau needs several more baths to wash that nasty mud puddle smell away anyway. 

When Did I Become the Oldest in the Room

I remember when I was by far the youngest person at work, not just because my mom had me in the office after every school day, holiday and in the summer from when I was in diapers, but even at restaurants. I recently picked up one shift in a friends cafe to start learning the business side of running a cafe, but first I'm spending a month in the front of the house finding out how the operation runs. Yesterday, I learned I was the oldest person in the cafe. Though they all agreed I looked 25! (liars)

If that realization wasn't enough, I woke up this morning barely able to walk because my joints hurt so much. I couldn't do my workout at full speed, cut half my lunges and all the jumping lunges out including my full yoga session. Whatthefuck?

And By Week I Mean Day

Let me know what you think.

I've moved my blog over to Wordpress, see post below for the details, but click above to start reading.

New Website on the Way

I've been at this same little blogspot for almost five years, but I'm in the process of expanding what I'm doing here and will be moving to Wordpress shortly. I have a couple reasons for this:

1.  I want to get spiffy. I want a new look that Blogger isn't providing. Something more magazine layout style. I think I've found a good template that you will be happy with.
2. I want to expand my writing. Though I'll probably keep the more personal ranting over here (I know you love my trash talking and terrible language), I feel that I've really expanded as a writer in the past couple years. (Don't feel the need to tell me if you disagree, please.)  I am interested in pushing this even further.  Maybe I'm a writer and not a campaigner after all. Maybe I'm not even a writer or a campaigner. Maybe I'm something entirely different. Who knows. But I'd like to see where it goes. The new website will contain more feature like articles and I will be challenging my style a bit more to see where I can push myself. If I can push myself beyond the style you have been reading for all these years. My fiction writing as well has turned a page recently, that writing I will not be sharing with you on this or the new website unfortunately. You'll just have to wait for my first book! 
3. I'm interested in exploring things beyond politics, nonprofits, and my puppies, though we all know those things will still play a prominent focus. I guess when it comes down to it, while this started as a way to reach out to my family and friends on the issues (like PVC and brominated flame retardants) I work on in a way that makes sense and more specifically to breakdown stereotypes that liberals care about one thing while conservatives care about another when in reality humans care about protecting their families and their communities just the same. But I think ultimately what all this writing and reading has allowed me to do is bring out a piece of my personality I might not have otherwise developed. Your years long stream of words telling me to keep writing and sending me emails and skype messages and making jokes about the stuff that I write has indeed encouraged me, so thanks for helping me to be a better writer. (Don't feel the need to tell me you do not think I'm a better writer or a good writer or a writer, please.)

So as soon as I choose a new blog title and learn all the new things on Wordpress, I'll be up and running. I'm guessing another week or so. I'll probably repost some of the posts here that have the largest hits to get started and add new content weekly.

Ciao,
Reneé Claire 

Friday Morning Listening

Thank you Joss Stone Pandora station.

Ain't No Sunshine - Buddy Guy and Tracy Chapman

These Arms of Mine - Ottis Redding

The House of the Rising Sun - Tracy Chapman

Right to be Wrong - Joss Stone

Try a Little Tenderness - Ottis Redding
 
Summertime - Joss Stone and LeAnn Rhimes (because its become difficult to remember that LeAnn Rhimes is actually an incredible singer, remember Blue? The song was originally written for Patsy Cline. The video is amazing!)

Fell in a Boy - Joss Stone

There's Hope - India Arie

Easy Like Sunday Morning - Lionel Richie and Westlife (no idea who Westlife is, but they look like an Insync type of group with maybe a little soul) This is a much better version.

Also, some great quotes on why writers write by famous authors including Georgia Orwell saying "I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”

Social Entrepreneurship

Business is often thought of, in the United States anyway, as a clear path to putting money in your pocket or the pockets of whoever is in charge of said business. And it is, but I believe we have forgotten as a country the other benefits of entrepreneuralism outside of profit making, such as providing jobs, enabling infrastructure growth, and providing access to health care in the form of the benefits it offers employees so that its employees are healthy enough to keep the business operating. All these things help both the community at large and the business owners and the employees. So in reality business isn't just about making money, its also about creating a healthy and functioning community. Money is just one mechanism that enables an entire ecosystem to be successful. That ecosystem is our community and in a broad view, our nation.

New Orleans and its surrounding towns is an area often abandoned by not only the federal government but also the state. The state of Louisiana notoriously allows large corporations to use and abuse and throw away its people. Why else would oil companies be allowed to forget about the thousands of miles of unused and abandoned oil canals of the oil companies making? The result of these canals is our entire state eroding into the ocean, in fact a football field of Louisiana land disappears into open water every 38 minutes. In addition to the impacts of the oil canals is mans attempts to control the wild Mississippi River, preventing the soil build up that has given our state its land mass for centuries. By ignoring the impacts of oil canals, we are prioritizing corporate profits over peoples lives in Louisiana and calling it a free market. In place of the state, is a rising tide of ordinary folks taking things into their own hands. They are losing this battle everyday and are in desperate need of government help and there will be a day where folks on the Gulf Coast will be either swept into the Gulf or forced to evacuate, but they do it nonetheless.  This is exactly why governments exist, to wield a larger hand when individuals aren't able to do so for themselves.

As the business community (and those in political office and trade associations that represent the business community) in the United States continues to move away from this understanding leaving its employees and patrons struggling to successfully access and utilize healthcare, the financial system, and struggle with decaying infrastructure, while bringing in record profits resulting in a collapsing economy except for the very very rich, community members are rising up to find solutions. The long term result of this shift of responsibility for uplifting a community away from business towards social justice organizations is that our businesses will  eventually be run by people who are better able to be productive members of the community. Business will once again regain a sense of respect for the community that allows it to exist. One such solution is social entrepreneurship.

What do I mean by social entrepreneurship?

"Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change." - Ashoka

Social entrepreneurship is the recognition of a social problem and the uses of entrepreneurial principles to organisze, create and manage a social venture to achieve a desired social change.  - wikipedia

I also see social entrepreneurship in the work of very large companies such as Toms and Seventh Generation. These companies make a profit but part of the way in which it does is by doing good for the communities that need it. These models are slightly more traditional business than say Kiva, which is a non-profit that lends out micro-loans to small business people.

I am more and more attracted to the social entrepreneurs who are challenging the status quo of both business and government. I no doubt will run my own business one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, and do not see my role as solely making money. I firmly believe that profits over people is not sustainable and we only have to look at our world's current financial problems for proof. That was never business's sole purpose and it shouldn't be now.

Update June 30:

I just found this article that says New Orleans is seeing an entrepreneurial rate 40% higher than the national average.

Language is Yours for the Making

Just found this amazing letter from C.S. Lewis to a child fan who wrote him a letter asking for writing advice. It's like he is reading all those long winded, whiny, nonprofit emails demanding we strongly care about their issues while excluding the many everyday people perspectives and instead choosing to speak like a hostage in a political science office of a higher education institution with me!

Writing advice from C.S. Lewis to a young American fan named Joan Lancaster:
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
26 June 1956
Dear Joan–

Thanks for your letter of the 3rd. You describe your Wonderful Night v. well. That is, you describe the place and the people and the night and the feeling of it all, very well — but not the thing itself — the setting but not the jewel. And no wonder! Wordsworth often does just the same.

His Prelude (you’re bound to read it about 10 years hence. Don’t try it now, or you’ll only spoil it for later reading) is full of moments in which everything except the thing itself is described. If you become a writer you’ll be trying to describe the thing all your life: and lucky if, out of dozens of books, one or two sentences, just for a moment, come near to getting it across.

About amn’t I, aren’t I and am I not, of course there are no right or wrong answers about language in the sense in which there are right and wrong answers in Arithmetic. “Good English” is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another. Amn’t I was good 50 years ago in the North of Ireland where I was brought up, but bad in Southern England. Aren’t I would have been hideously bad in Ireland but very good in England. And of course I just don’t know which (if either) is good in modern Florida. Don’t take any notice of teachers and textbooks in such matters. Nor of logic. It is good to say “more than one passenger was hurt,” although more than one equals at least two and therefore logically the verb ought to be plural were not singular was!

What really matters is:–

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’timplement promises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
Thanks for the photos. You and Aslan both look v. well. I hope you’ll like your new home.

With love
yours
C.S. Lewis

Fresh Air

I love Fresh Air with Terri Gross as you already know since I often link back to interviews of hers. Here is another one with Louis C.K. I know very little about him and after listening to this interview tried to watch his show, which I got maybe 3 minutes into and turned it off. But nonetheless this is a great interview. He talks about writing about serious issues, in particular a suicide moment where he is put into a situation to help prevent someone from killing themselves only to realize that writing such a moment is made up of pure ego where he gets to be the hero. Then have one of his best friends kill himself in real life a few years after writing this episode.

Worth the listen. 

Also as the Olympics are getting ready to start let's remember 1968. I loved the Olympnics when I was younger, yes, I spelled that correctly. Here is a good video (even if it is CNN) about how every moment is an opportunity to seek justice if only we would let it be.

Renee

Protest Comes in Many Forms

I just found this amazing website targeting the Prime Minister of Canada. Every two weeks (on Monday) a writer sends a letter to the Prime Minister suggesting a book that he should be reading. Here is an excerpt about why . . .

"I was thinking about that, about stillness, and I was also thinking, more prosaically, about arts funding, not surprising since we fifty artists were there in the House to help celebrate the fifty years of the Canada Council for the Arts, that towering institution that has done so much to foster the identity of Canadians. I was thinking that to have a bare-bones approach to arts funding, as the present Conservative government has, to think of the arts as mere entertainment to be indulged in after the serious business of life, that—in conjunction with retooling education so that it centres on the teaching of employable skills rather than the creating of thinking citizens—is to engineer souls that are post-historical, post-literate and pre-robotic; that is, blank souls wired to be unfulfilled and susceptible to conformism at its worst—intolerance and totalitarianism—because incapable of thinking for themselves and vowed to a life of frustrated serfdom at the service of the feudal lords of profit."

So What If I'm Suppose to Be Working

 . . . its national Bourbon Day!!!

I can drink Bourbon and get a whole bunch of writing done. Actually, no I can't, but I can dream about drinking bourbon while I get a whole bunch of writing done today.

Also, I made awesome sangria yesterday with Frangelico and Grand Marnier, strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, and peaches along with Barefoot Savignon Blanc and Moscoto white wine. Wow. . . I think that's the only real indicator that my life has actually progressed. My sangria has more expensive ingredients.  I've been making my own sangria for almost 10 years, but in 2005 I was living in Brooklyn chain smoking Newport Lights and making home made sangria with a gallon of Carlo Rossi, cheap fifth of Peach Snapps, and frozen fruit.

And There Goes the Reporters

Just wanted to share with you an interesting article in the Atlantic about the dismantling of New Orleans' paper Times Picayune, which is a damn good paper and not just by Louisiana standards. Its competitive to almost any other major city paper on content, but looks at what it gets to report on. Highest murder rate in the country, highest prisoner rate in the world, best artists, biggest fuck ups (education, environmental protection, letting the city drown, etc). It also has one of the highest percentages of community people that actually read the paper in the nation. And exactly how  do people read an online newspaper when they have no internet connection?