Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 125
July 7, 2016
When will the world become colorblind?
I’m a child of the sixties, and I shared MLK’s dream. I believe he saw racism and tribalism as a more generic and endemic problem in human society, though. At least I interpreted him that way, and I still worry about America and the world not being colorblind. That concept is more generic too. Race and ethnicity go far beyond the color of our skins. Differences in religious beliefs and sexual orientation creep in too. After all, colorblindness is seeing the world in a neutral, non-judgmental...
July 6, 2016
Steve’s shorts: Your Past Will Find You, Part One of Three…
[This short story is a bit different than my usual—call it a bit of mystery (but not a cozy) and a bit of romance (but not erotic) and a bit of a bow to the great Midwest. Enjoy.]
Your Past Will Find You
Copyright 2016, Steven M Moore
Part One
Will Richardson spotted the woman across the street before he had to close his eyes.
“Who’s the newcomer?” he said to his barber, Leroy, who was trimming his eyebrows.
“Rena Edmunds,” said Leroy. “She bought the old Sullivan place. Know where that is?”
...July 5, 2016
Clinton and Warren?
Sure, why not? Two flawed candidates instead of one! Let’s give Trump the 2016 election. Hillary’s flaws are legion, but let’s take Benghazi, the true story, not what’s in the reports from those congressional task forces. All the president’s men and women, including SecState and SecDef, sold out those three guys at the consulate and the other guys sent to protect the CIA’s illegal field office in a desperate attempt to keep the latter out of the news. They couldn’t, but they put the squeeze o...
July 4, 2016
Movie Reviews #31…
Legend of Tarzan. David Yates, dir. Wow, did the reviewers ever get this one wrong! This is the best Tarzan ever. I went in with few expectations, generated by the negative reviews, but the film was astonishing and entertaining. (Unlike book reviewers, you can’t use the “peek inside” to prove them wrong—movie trailers are so misleading.) The origins of Tarzan AKA John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke, well played by Alexander Skarsgård, are handled by easily understood flashbacks (I guess the revi...
Monday words of wisdom…
When ad people make their spins, truth is lost and deception wins.
[Note: If no source is indicated for these pithy pieces of advice, I am the source. I particularly liked this one. It applies to political ads as well, of course.]
Happy 4th of July! Please celebrate safely the birth of the nation. Make wise choices about drinking, traveling, and fireworks. Your family and friends need you.
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At the risk of seeming to be like a 4th of July car ad, the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” are on sale...
July 1, 2016
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #125…
Not a bad list. Ann Patchett runs a bookstore in Nashville with Karen Hayes, presumably to promote her own books (maybe she doesn’t like them removed from the shelf at B&N either). The author of The Magician’s Assistant compiled a list of the “best books”—75 books from the last 75 years. I initially raised my eyebrows and shook my head, but, after perusing the list, I decided it’s not bad. Asimov (Foundation—but why not the trilogy?), Ellison (The Invisible Man), and Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)...
June 30, 2016
People will be “feeling the Bern” for some time to come…
Bernie’s grassroots campaign shook up the Dem establishment. While the old guard, especially older establishment blacks, don’t want any changes in the organization of Dem primaries, younger voters—and by that I mean many people forty-years-old or less—are demanding a change to a more democratic selection of the Dem nominee. But that’s not all! Those same people want nothing to do with the Clinton dynasty.
Even Wall Street is thinking twice about Mrs. Bill Clinton because “Pocahontas” Warren i...
June 29, 2016
Genre and all that…
As a reader, do you pay attention to genre? Same question to you if you’re an author. “Genre fiction” is often a snooty put-down, but bookstores invented genres long ago as a means to order their bookshelves, and they’ve hung on, even though cross-genre books abound and one can now argue against the need for them. As a reader, I don’t pay much attention to genre—maybe more so than Amazon’s star ranking, though—I’ll read almost anything if it piques my interest. I determine that from the book...
June 28, 2016
BREXIT, isolationism, and tribalism…
BREXIT passed and Trump extolled it; SCOTUS’s 4-4 decision (i.e. no decision) left a lower court’s rollback of Obama’s exec orders about immigration in place; radical Islam’s homophobia in Orlando is echoed by America’s religious leaders; and Islamophobia and xenophobia are part of America’s 2016 electoral debate—all this is evidence of old bigotry and new isolationism in America and the world. BREXIT supporters, who maybe had a dream of being the next Switzerland (not going to happen!), or w...
June 27, 2016
Movie Reviews #30…
Independence Day. Resurgence. Roland Emmerich, dir. Great special effects, driving score, but sloppy screenplay. Theme: The older generation passes the baton to the younger. Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth) is the cocky, arrogant main character—hard to figure out whose son he is, but I’m guessing he’s the son of the alcoholic UFO nut in #1. His main squeeze, Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), is the daughter of ex-Pres Whitmore (Bill Pullman), who helped save the world in #1—a repeat performance...
