Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 85

New Consciousness Review

Yesterday I did a skype interview with Miriam Knight, the genius of NCR, on Princes, Frogs and Ugly Sisters. Miriam is such a delightful person that it wasn't difficult to fill up the time, that's for sure. The video'll be up as soon as she's processed it.

It struck me, though, that pretty soon we may not have books at all. Now that so many people are using Kindles and Nooks and ipads, the next logical step is not more books, but rather to have authors present their ideas in lecturettes....

Possession

A BBC news report today informed me that young women are routinely kidnapped off the streets of Chechnya, forced to marry men they have never met, and then succumb to mental breakdowns in large numbers. They are then taken to Mullahs who perform exorcisms.

It certainly is a case of 'possession'; but not, perhaps, what the mullahs think.

What sort of people could ever believe that kidnapping and rape could be a basis for a happy marriage? What sort of mother will such a person be, really? What l...

Iraq Withdrawal

Last night, watching the news, I saw footage of 'the last US combat troops' pulling out of Iraq, two weeks early. They were withdrawing to Kuwait. They leave about 56,000 other troops in support and advisory roles, though, so they're not exactly evacuating, or even all done.

I was very excited. So I put a post on Facebook.

This morning I had but one response to my posting, and no where else amid my FB friends did I see any reference to the event.

This tells me something, and it's not said in...

Princes, Frogs, and Ugly Sisters….

One of the things about writing a book is that after it appears people send you all sorts of great observations that would have been wonderful additions to the text. Of course, many of those readers were totally unknown to me at the time, so the thoughts couldn't have been included. And it's not really possible to re-write a book later, with a few 'refinements'. No publisher would go for that.

The great thing, though, is that a book is not to be seen as a monolithic 'thing', something that...

Self Promotional Plug

Yes, I know - shameless isn't it?

But I'm excited because The Sunday Express, in England, will be printing a story about 'Princes Frogs and Ugly Sisters' this Sunday, August 15th. It should be available on-line if you go to www.express.co.uk and then look for the Sunday listing.

The Sunday Express reaches a pretty large audience, and so that means there's the chance that people will get to read the article and then explore Grimm's Fairy tales for themselves. And that's what I want. There's ...

Is it really this simple?

So, now - here's what seems to be going on. The Republican Party will let you keep your guns, but not your job, which they'll willingly outsource. They'll reduce your taxes and then allow Wall Street bandits to take your hard earned dollars that you've invested, and run away with them. They want you to be free to choose your health care, so they're refusing to pay for any of it, in case that reduces your freedom of choice.

This is a pretty impressive sort of false logic, but it seems to work ...

Some thoughts on Media

I know — everyone (who is 'everyone'?) says that in order to get word out about what one is doing then one has to post blogs, write on various sites, and Tweet like a stricken partridge.

I happen to think my books have some good things in them, things the larger world needs to know about, so that means I have to blog, tweet, facebook, post to Intent.com, New Consciousness Review, and and….

I've nothing against this. The slight drawback is that it gets in the way of developing the new ideas I'm ...

Soul's Journey Radio

Good conversations are immensely satisfying to all concerned, and yesterday I was fortunate enough to share one of these with Maggie on Soul's Journey Radio (www.soulsjourneyradio.com).

Maggie - the host of 'Manifesting With Maggie' - is such an intelligent and loving presence that it would be almost impossible not to have a wonderful conversation with her, and we were lucky enough to share the airwaves with various callers, too. I am deeply grateful to all of you for such a magical evening.

W...

Bull Fighting

Catalonia, a large administrative area of Spain, has banned bull fighting. The rest of Spain continues the activity, and so does a large segment of South America.

Bull fighting is an ancient activity in which a very large animal is outwitted by humans and finally rendered into food. The bull-riders depicted at Knossos in Crete are seen celebrating a similar activity that was a regular feature of life about 3000 years ago. It was an important ritual then because it showed that the largest and ...

Solipsism

Solipsism is the all-too-human desire to look past difficult things and pretend they aren't there.

I like this decorated cow image, because it reminds us, perhaps, about agriculture, animals, and our rooted-ness in this earth we ignore so readily.

We could just as easily say it's a metaphor for the balance necessary in the Arts. We can get lost in colorizing an image, playing with it, and forget that there is a real world with real demands. The existence of beauty does not, alas, remove...