Not gonna, but yeh, sometimes I’d like to post signs like this. . . 😉
How Can Anyone Believe Any of This B.S.?
Especially someone who’s supposedly “educated.” (Ah, but it was a British “education,” possibly the only system that can beat an Ivy League “education” for for sheer empty-headed, contrafactual numb-skullery when it comes to Islam.) Read this in the prologue of a novel:
“Years later, working in an uneasy alliance with the House of Saud, the Wahhabists returned to Mecca, shattering years of history and destroying the remains of the core of debate, of intellect, that had lit the fuse of Islam. Since then, Islamic thought has declined into madness, falling ever further into an abyss that can only result in destruction.”
Oh, utter, complete and absolute bullshit. Islam has always been just as it was started by that mass-murdering, slaving, thieving, raping, illiterate bullshit artist, The Butcher of Medina. At least 20-25% of the Koran is utter nonsense, gibberish, and 75% — the 75% or so that abrogates the Koran’s so-called “peaceful verses — or so is raging hate, instructing faithful Muslims to oppress or kill “unbelievers.” I throw the bullshit flag on this entire premise. Any so-called “core of debate, of intellect” existed either as weak rationalization for practices that denied Mohamed’s teachings or as making nearly useless gobbledegook of the genuine intellectual advances made by people savage Muslims had conquered.
The moral is “Pay no attention to the Taqiyya spread by Muslims and their co-conspirators, enablers and fellow travellers.” Islam is and always has been nothing but a brutal hate cult, with an occasional, very phony, veneer of civilized behavior. Scratch a Muslim and get a Mohamed analog: brutal, nasty, hateful and utterly savage.
Typical Saturday @ TWC Central™
Read a book blurb. Aloud: “Highballs in the Hamptons? Not interested.”
My Wonder Woman: “You’re not interested in other people’s balls.”
Me: “You really lowballed that one.”
MWW: “If the cup fits. . . “
Addicted Much?
Worked on just one dysfunctional computer today. “Cleaned up” some others. Then, chores around twc central. And. . . sat down briefly at one computer (FarceBooking, web browsing, checking email, etc.). Went to “work” (network housekeeping) on another (in another room). Read through a tutorial on yet another (yet another room). Accessed another remotely. From each of the other three computers. Read a bit on my (newest) tablet. Considered booting another one and decided. . . nah. Looked at one that needs to be put on the network and. . . “OK, why not?”
I think maybe I ought to go on a “computer diet”.
Enough Already!
I found yet another writer to avoid. This one was too easy. Taught for taut, then for than, site for sight: enough! Now, such things are NOT “spelling errors.” No, they are word misuses caused by vocabularies that are too weak for any writer to have. I’ll not name and shame, here. That’s reserved for a future Amazon review (after my dizziness from all the head-shaking abates *heh*) titled, “Enough already! For the love of all that is decent, just stop writing!”
Some Days. . .
I’d just like to post a few of these. For real.
It’s. . . the little things
1981-1989 was consumed by work. I paid attention to “news” only whenever it had strictly local or serious national import, so I missed ALL details surrounding news of a serial killer’s apprehension in 1988–an event that might have been interesting to me. . . had I caught a few pieces of information–because it wasn’t of local or national importance. Yeh, yeh, it was news, but not really in any way important except to the community where it happened. (Network–and now cable–“news” manufactures national “importance” to local stories all the time, but it’s a fake “importance”.)
What was interesting to me, years later when I learned about details, is that the guy started his killing two years after I had moved from the area where he was operating. “The area”? I once lived four blocks from the house where the guy lived and killed, just barely out of the “good part of the ghetto” (as it was often referred to by its denizens). When we (my Wonder Woman, our daughter and I) moved from the area, we were living in the “good part of the ghetto,” five blocks away from the (future) “kill house” and working (my Wonder Woman and I; our daughter was not yet a year old *heh*) three blocks from where the guy ended up killing six men.
Missed it by that much.
A Reader’s POV
I read a lot of books, by most folks’ measures. In the last few years, the mix has skewed more strongly toward fiction, partly as a result of reading so many articles and blog posts online–a real mixed bag of (mostly) non-fiction. I do still read non-fiction books, though, although the mix there is tending more toward DIY books of various kinds, now, with fewer and fewer sci-tech, philosophy, history, and suchlike.
How many is “a lot”? Generally more than one/day, a little more than twice as many as the average American reads each year,* according to some, but nothing to brag about. The only reason I say as much is that I think–perhaps–I have some sort of feel about what’s being published nowadays, both from “traditional” publishing and “indie” publishing, and I have to say, it’s mostly crap.
You read that right. I read more than a book a day, but I start and “circular file” at least 2 more that aren’t worth my time. And what makes them not worth my time?
- jejune plots, characters, dialog, and narration that could be better done by the average lobotomized fifth grader
- execrable English: everything from words misused (MANY of them!) to grammar apparently straight from a reference titled, “Stupid English for Stupid People”
- an insulting lack of homework/research done and overall dumbfounding ignorance about topics keyed to plot or characterization (example: when a writer doesn’t know the difference between a semi-automatic firearm and a revolver but is writing a character whose weapons proficiency is key, it’s insulting)
- baffling, completely, totally and absolutely stupid lack of internal agreement: Hey! That truck the character is now driving was a mini-van on the previous page!
And that’s just considering the fiction. On non-fiction, consider instructions in a DIY book to do things on a project in a way that WILL NOT WORK, CANNOT WORK, ARE COMPLETELY STUPID. Insulting the reader or targeting stupid people as the writer’s intended market? Either way, crap.
And no, let me repeat: these issues are not limited to “indie” books. The standards for both text and editing in books being published–by whatever means–is in the toilet nowadays.
But. . . of the books I give a shot at my eye time, one in three is still worth reading, so there’s that. *sigh*
Still, that’s slightly better than the one in five or six links to new (to me) voices on the Internet that are worth reading. That’s ~16%-20% of the links I follow from articles, searches, etc. Not bad, really, when talking about the interwebs. So, why I expect better from published (by whatever means) books? Because these writers expect to be paid for their writing. If they’re going to be paid, they ought to make sure they have the chops to write well and they ought to do their homework and PAY FOR LITERATE copy editing and line editing, since few writers are capable of performing those tasks themselves. (I have read advance reader copies–pre-editing–from a few writers that are remarkably clean, well-edited already by the writers, but such writers are few and far between.)
Note to writers: LEARN how to write. If you want to write in English, LEARN THE LANGUAGE. No, growing up speaking it doesn’t count. READ a LOT of well-written text. Concentrate on writers who can really write. No, not writers who write like you do. (In another recent post, I suggested a couple of writers whose command of English exceeded that of 99% of writers today. That sort of writer.) From there, proceed to writer who really challenge you, but STAY AWAY FROM SUCKITUDINOUS FICTION! After a few years focused on well-written text, then try writing again. Next: Find editors/proofreaders outside your circle of friends and acquaintances, editors/proofreaders who are more literate, better-read than you are. Pay them what they’re worth to fix your crap.
That might make an otherwise bad piece of dreck worth reading, IF you do the rest of your homework and either have an interesting story to tell or a useful skill to impart.
Maybe.
One of the funniest/stupidest things I’ve seen in a recent “slush pile reject” was a repeated misuse of “ridden,” as in “the bullet-ridden car” referring to a car that had been thoroughly riddled with bullets. A sure sign of an a-literate writer whose exceptionally weak verbal vocabulary exceeds that of his reading vocabulary. The rest of the thing wasn’t any better, but I did waste 20 minutes on it, just to be as fair as possible.
*Excluding those who claim to have read no books, the average read (by those who have read any books at all) is generally reported as ~7. Oh, no reference/link? Use your search-fu, Grasshopper. 😉
Parthian Shot
Most folks who object to what they say is “name calling” really seem to be objecting to accurate labeling.
Thatisall.
Color me *meh*
I know, it’s probably just me, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea of “anniversary visits” to a loved one’s grave site. *shrugs* I just don’t get it.