Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 158
January 6, 2015
2014 postmortem…
We’re into 2015 a few days now, so two questions come to mind: Will you look back on 2014 positively? Will you look forward to 2015? Depending on your political proclivities, you’ll believe Congress will be worse, stepping up its war against the middle class and poor, now that the GOP controls both Houses; Obama and the rest of the executive branch will muddle along and maybe the economy will improve in spite of what anyone does; and the Supreme Court will continue to wage class warfare too b...
January 2, 2015
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #78…
Item: ny times attacking Amazon. I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to start writing “ny times” without caps, because they’re continually showing their small-mindedness. I’ve already stopped reading their Sunday Book Review—their bestseller lists are completely meaningless and should be ignored for multiple reasons. When Hachette caved to Amazon, the newspaper lost a cause they’d been hammering, so now they’ve come out against Amazon by declaring that they aren’t needed by online buyers in a r...
January 1, 2015
Pseudonyms…
Early on in the writing business, say circa 2002, I made a mistake. I didn’t use a pen name or pseudonym and I should have (more on this later). Many authors do. There are pros and cons. I’ll analyze some of them here. First, let me say that while “pseudonym” is used more in the writing business, pseudonyms go beyond writing. The email address corresponding to my contact page, steve@stevenmmoore.com, is an alias, a type of pseudonym that points to my private email—yes, I have just the one acc...
December 30, 2014
Irish Stew #35…
Item: What’s Obama done for you? I’ve said some nasty things about Pres. Obama. The man can be irksome, too cerebral, and a poor manager. He can be arrogant and aloof. But, in his six years in office, he has generally done well relative to his GOP predecessor. Let’s sum it up on the home front: In January 2009, the Dow was at 7,949, unemployment 7.8%, GDP growth -5.4%, deficit GDP 9.8%, and consumer confidence 37.3%. Today (DCCC stats as of 12/20/2014), the Dow is 17,804, unemployment 5.8%, G...
December 19, 2014
Movie Reviews #9…
[Disclaimer: I’m not paid to see these movies, and I’m not paid for these reviews. They only represent my opinion about what I’ve seen on the silver screen. Use these reviews as an independent and objective source for your movie-viewing activities. You might disagree with me—if so, comment.]
Birdman. From what I’ve read and heard outside the theater, people either love this movie or hate it. I’m in the second camp. It’s an awful movie where talented people overact, both in the play within the...
December 18, 2014
Formula for a bestselling novel…
I wish there was one, a turn-the-crank algorithm that allows me to produce one every time I write. I, of course, can’t claim to have written one, no matter what definition you use. Why am I qualified to write this then? Because I read a lot, even books considered “bestsellers” (Flash Boys was the last one, but that’s non-fiction.) I can’t discover a formula. Take the genres I write in. I’ve read much better mysteries than Gone Girl, for example. What made that a “bestseller”? Hype maybe, but...
December 16, 2014
The unbearable lightness of your wallet…
Is it a move to keep protesters and other riffraff out of Manhattan? Do the MTA fat cats want only Mercedes, Lexus, BMW and other one-percenter autos on the streets of the City that Never Sleeps? Is Mayor De Blasio working with Wall Street to punish the poor and middle classes?
In case you didn’t know it, Manhattan is an island. Every workday millions of commuters swell the ranks of working stiffs there, commuting via private cars and public transportation from the other four boroughs and the...
December 12, 2014
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #77…
[Note from Steve: This is my “official newsletter” that appears most Fridays. It often contains acerbic comments about reading, writing, and the writing business, as well as some self-promotion—why not? As always, read at your own risk…and comment when you feel like it.]
Item: Those clever devils! In my last newsletter, I mentioned Michael Connelly’s book The Burning Room (a Harry Bosch novel). I confirmed I paid $3.99 for it, although at the time of the newsletter it was up to $4.99. It’s bac...
December 11, 2014
What’s really behind De Blasio’s campaign against carriage horses?
Tourists come to New York City to enjoy many things—opera, Broadway, museums, muggings, protests, traffic, insults, academic life, and so forth—Manhattan’s ambiance is unique. It’s more the City of Light than Paris, it’s less snobbish than London, and it has more bridges than San Francisco. But do you want to come to the Big Apple for a romantic ride around Central Park…in a green taxi? The height-challenged mayor made a campaign promise to get rid of carriage horses. With all the problems th...
December 9, 2014
The inexorable march of evolution…
Darwin’s theory has its limitations. It can’t explain the retrograde march of evolution in human behavior—the increasing numbers of sociopathic fanatics and brainwashed ideologues out to destroy human society. It can’t explain the plight of the honeybee either. The original theory works best for a closed, self-contained system, like the original studies about the Galapagos Islands. Crazy human behavior and honeybee death tolls are both examples of open systems where evolutionary events also o...
