James M. Jackson's Blog, page 25

Morgan le Fay (5/5/2000 – 3/18/2013)

Prior to receiving this dog into our family, I had named my
animal companions after gods and goddesses. My cats had names like Aphrodite,
Artemis, Diana and a brother and sister pair we named Electra and Orestes.
Before we got her at nine months, the dog’s name was Winnie. (Welsh for a fair
one, white and smooth, fair and pure.) It was a good name, but the dog had not
been trained and was out-of-control, which was why we needed to “rescue” her.
For a new life, she needed a new name. I sea...

Reclaiming an Avocation

In college I wanted to be a math teacher. I majored in math and earned minors in psychology and education. New York State issued me a provisional teaching certificate to allow me to teach grades 7-12.







Fortunately, I graduated in December 1971 in the midst of a recession and couldn’t find a job as a math teacher. I say “fortunately” because I would have been an abysmal high school math teacher. I do not have the patience for teaching people who do not want to learn and let’s face it, mos...

Eliminating the Debt Ceiling

There are many problems caused by the so-called U.S. “Debt
Ceiling” negotiations, but I’ve decided one solution is to change the incorrect
framing of the issues. Just as anti-abortion advocates recast the conversation
after Rowe vs. Wade by calling themselves “Right-to-Life” advocates, we need to
reframe this conversation about the issue of our Federal debt.




Debt Ceiling is a misnomer.
The only ceiling to the debt is whatever mathematical limit Congress implicitly
authorizes with its tax...

Republicans Blink

The deal hammered out in the U.S. Senate and reluctantly
approved by the House this week was massively flawed; however it did call the
Republicans’ bluff on no tax increases. Technically they might be able to hang
their hats on the proposition that since they did not vote until January 1,
they were actually voting for a decrease in taxes because the so-called Bush
tax cuts had expired. The only people who might buy that are the politicians
themselves.




Lots of people will focus on the man...

Of Death and Taxes

As 2012 draws its last breath, my thoughts have been on
death and taxes. Those anticipating the world’s end based on misinterpreting
the Mayan calendar have gone back into their holes. I’m sure they are busily
inventing some other catastrophe to cheer for.




The rest of us watch the slow moving catastrophe we call the
United States Congress as it deals, or does not deal, with death and taxes.




Death




With the passing of Daniel Inouye, Congress lost one of its
true heroes. If you aren’t...

Fixing the Fiscal Cliff

Unfortunately the moniker “Fiscal Cliff” itself projects
visions of the U.S. as Wile E. Coyote discovering on January 1, 2013 that the
ground is no longer beneath his fast-spinning feet. Cut the camera shot to his
crumpled mess lying on a much lower level than where he started.

Not solving the economic mess encompassed by the fiscal
cliff (automatic tax hikes and across-the-board cuts) won’t be that quick, and
it won’t be that disastrous. But it won’t be good. Unlike Wile E. who is A-OK
af...

Camping with Dad

My father passed away on Thursday. He was 87, lived a good life and, as deaths go, his wasn’t too bad. Regardless of your beliefs in an afterlife, of this I am sure you will agree: as we remember our ancestors in stories, they yet live with us. So here is a story of Dad and me.



I was a boy scout and I belonged to a camping troop. We camped one weekend every month of the year except during the summer when we spent two weeks at Camp Massawepie in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. I liked camp...

The Inconvenient Truths about Jobs

For the Democrats a major inconvenient truth about their economic policy is found in the nationwide unemployment rate. At 8.3% for July 2012, almost one in twelve people who want to work can’t. That statistic does not reflect those who have “dropped out” of the labor force; nor does it include those who have jobs that underutilize their skills.



Worse that the bald statistics, the Democrats have not presented a clear, cogent strategy for generating new jobs in the economy. The best they can s...

Beta Readers

My novel Cabin Fever is currently out to several beta readers. After an internet search on the term “beta reader,” I realized people use the term to describe a wide range of functions. I’ll describe my writing process, which leads to my definition of beta reader.



Before anyone reads one of my manuscripts, I will have written several drafts. The first draft is to get the story down. I am a pantster rather than a strict plotter, so my story changes as I write. The second draft aligns the fir...

Sowing’s Harvest

Originally Posted on Writers Who Kill on 12 August 2012







When we built our Michigan house in 2005 we had to decide what to plant over the septic field. Grass is the traditional answer; its roots pull some of the moisture from the leach field to let it evaporate, while the rest of the water percolates through the soil. We chose wildflowers. We liberated plants from the surrounding woods and trails and transplanted them.




Lesson 1: Invasive species grow best. Well duh! Since I am not...