Helping, And Not Helping

As bad as the news is from the Philippines, I hear the real situation is actually worse–that news agencies cannot confirm the worst of the stories because the normal communication channels that would allow confirmation are gone.

I hear that what is needed is not shoes, not canned goods, not blankets… but money. Which is convenient, as it is by far the easiest thing to give (if you are giving for the sake of giving; if you are giving to get rid of that old pair of jeans, you are not helping).

And I hear (seriously) that they have plenty of bibles already. Which reminded me of this old verse (that’s right, I am giving you the hand-me-down verses) from the earthquake in Haiti. (BTW, the audio bibles people actually read the verse and offered an interesting look at some of the constraints of giving, which makes it all the more important that you give money, and with no strings attached, to the groups that are able to get things done. FWIW, the Foundation Beyond Belief did their own checking and has decided to funnel money to the Citizens Disaster Response Center, if you want the name of a group that is able to get things done.)

Oh, yeah, the verse…

They were starving; they were homeless; they were dying; they were dead.
There were bodies to be buried; there were children to be fed.
There were broken heaps of rubble where the houses used to stand
There was utter devastation; there was chaos in the land.
There were frantic cries for rescue; there were howls of fear and pain
There were heroes risking life and limb, with much to lose or gain.
There were millions in donations—drinking water, food to cook—
And the most important gift of all… The Christian Holy Book.

While it cannot stave off hunger, and it cannot slake your thirst,
It’s the most important item, when your life is at its worst;
No, it cannot heal a broken bone; it cannot make you whole,
But a Bible, in your time of need, could save your mortal soul!
It’s the timeless sacred message from the Bearded Guy Upstairs,
And it speaks of His omnipotence, and tells you that He cares.
When your world is torn asunder, as your very country bleeds,
Who could doubt, the Holy Bible is the thing that Haiti needs?

It’s the latest, greatest model; it’s a solar powered job!
It can shout the Holy Scripture out, in Creole, to the mob
That has gathered there, expectant, in the hopes of some supplies—
When instead they hear the Word Of God, imagine their surprise!
We are sending them six hundred, and that takes a lot of space,
So we bumped some crates of water, and put Bibles in their place;
Planes will bring the Holy Bibles in, like manna from above…
Cos it’s Bibles, and not medicine, that shows True Christian Love.

Christmas For Sarah, And A Cookie For You

Jolly old Saint Nicholas
Lean your ear this way
Sarah has a book to sell
Coming out today!

Christmas eve is coming soon
Under grave attack!
Baby Jesus, do not cry—
Sarah’s got Your back!

Sarah takes on atheists;
Shows them who is boss
Good-bye “Happy Holidays”
Hello, public cross!

Sarah will remind us all
What Christmastime is for:
Peace, and Love, and Brotherhood…
And manufactured war!

Santa is the enemy
Jesus is the lord
Sarah’s book is fifteen bucks—
Easy to afford

Christmas is commercialized
Everywhere you look—
Sarah is the antidote…
Better buy the book!

[Read more…]

“The Sex Toys In The Attic”

There’s a suitcase in the bedroom
Tucked away behind some shoes
And I need it taken care of
If I fight the fight… and lose

If this rattle in my bronchi
Turns out more than merely noise
Is there someone I can count on
Who can disappear my toys?

There are several shapes and sizes
And there’s many different hues
Some use cords, and some use batteries—
(There’s one that’s blown a fuse)

There are some still wrapped in plastic—
They looked better on the shelf—
There are some that need a partner
And there’s some for just myself

If I find that I am dying
(Because everybody does)
I don’t want my kids inheriting
A box of… things that buzz

So I need a trusted confidant
To do some cleaning first
So my mostly mourning relatives
Won’t get to see the worst…

Then again… you know… forget it—
They’ll discover what they will—
They can find out I was human,
That I hadn’t gone downhill

If the worst they can discover
If I die beneath the knife
Is a suitcase full of sex toys…
Hell, I lived an awesome life.

According to Twitter, this verse took half an hour; I read this wonderful opinion piece in the NY Times, tweeted something about it, and thought “there’s a verse there somewhere.”.

But disposing of sex paraphernalia — actually all those embarrassing items you have stashed around the house — is something every boomer should be concerned about. The days are dwindling down to a precious few and some of you have a nasty cough. Do you want the people clearing out your house, particularly your children, to find those feathery, metallic, rubbery, polymer blend items you ordered one drunken night a few months after you’d been forced to take early retirement? Do you want them to know their big, tough construction worker dad liked to dress up in heels and a boa and sing “La La La” from “No Strings,” one of Richard Rodgers’s weaker efforts?

You may be thinking, “What do I care what my friends or children find in the house? I will be beyond embarrassment, I will be dead.” But you are wrong. Doctors now know that the human sense of embarrassment can last up to two weeks after the heart stops beating. Consider this statement from a boomer named Stanley: “I was lying on the operating table, then I had a feeling of leaving my body and looking down at myself and all I could think was, ‘Is my gut really that big?’ ” Look it up on the web.

The funny thing is… the thing that people would find out about me, eventually, is that I wrote doggerel on the internet, and nobody knew.

Sounds pretty boring, actually. Maybe I should hide a box of sex toys.

*****

Hey–you’ve read this far, now something serious. There may be 10,000 or more dead because of Typhoon Haiyan. There is an immense need of help, and the Foundation Beyond Belief is one way you can help. Details are here–if we can’t count on the people who know God won’t help, who can we count on?

Ink

So I (think I) finished all the various little “jump through this hoop!” tasks involved in publishing. I see now why publishers exist–that’s a lot of crap to wade through. But since no publisher came begging…

I just ordered the very first copy of “Ink”, to see if it is worth offering to the rest of you. (I’m also working on an E-edition, but strangely, right now the cover art is what’s getting in the way. I expect progress soon… within this lifetime.)

In 5-15 days, I’ll get that copy, and if all is well with it (hell, if all is even remotely close to well), it will be made available to both of you all of you.

It’s really strange–I swing back and forth from being incredibly proud of these verses, to being utterly ashamed of them; from delight that I wrote this or that turn of phrase, to guilt that I would dare expect anyone to pay for this tripe. I wonder if such feelings are shared by people who have publishing companies behind them.

But having just spent a couple of hours reading my own verses aloud (and enjoying it immensely), I am currently eager to see what the actual physical book looks like. And, assuming that I can figure out the problem, the E-book version should be out about the time I get (and, I hope, approve of) the dead tree version. (right now, the e-version is clipping about a fifth of my sigil off of the cover–I have no idea why.)

Funny. At one point, I thought I’d have a book out last year at this time. Silly me. But it really looks like there will be one this year. In just a week or so.

I hope.

Leftovers

If I chance to bake a cheesecake
Half the neighborhood appears
All concerned it looks like too much food for one
Every neighbor wants a nibble—
There’s no lack of volunteers—
And I go from too much cheesecake down to none

But this week I did some cooking—
And it really turned out well—
But it doesn’t meet the neighborhood’s demands
Cos I didn’t bake a cheesecake
And the neighborhood can tell
So I’m left with too much haggis on my hands

Now for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
I’ve got haggis on my plate—
I’ve got more than I can handle, you can see
But my cheesecake-eating neighbors
Are indifferent to my fate…
And nobody’s eating my leftover haggis but me

I wrote this while eating a plate of haggis and eggs for breakfast. It was delicious, but yeah, the problem with haggis (this was my first homemade haggis–not the “presentation haggis” in a stomach, but just a regular recipe) is that there really is no way to make a small batch. You boil up the liver, heart, and lungs, and it’s not like you can say to a sheep “could you maybe have a smaller liver?”. So I made a regular recipe, and it yielded enough for a large family of hungry Scots, and there were just me and Cuttleson home at the time. He won’t touch it, so I’ve had haggis quite a bit over the past few days.

The dogs, though, are eager volunteers; I think next cheesecake, I’ll let the dogs lick the plates, right in front of the neighbors.

time to eat the dog by digital cuttlefish analysis

That was the search term that led to my site today… and which, along with similar searches, has led to my site many times over the past few years, since “Time To Eat The Dog?” was included in a textbook in India.

So I googled the phrase, myself, and found… A Paper That Is Full Of Rubbish. No, really, that’s its title. Of course, all of it that I can read without paying is stuff that I wrote, myself. My post continues, for some 830 words, and the buyable paper claims to be 869 words, so maybe it’s just my post and the concluding remarks “This paper is full of rubbish!”

But hey, it got 4 1/2 stars, on 86 school views. I hope the author, Radha Acharya, is proud.

Hey, students… do your own work!

Dumb Question For You

Does anyone know what font it is that my banner is in? The “The Digital Cuttlefish” part, not the verse. It is not one I have seen anywhere but here, and I’m not the one who put my banner together, either here or at the old place.

It is not in any way an urgent question; I’m not planning to use it on anything. I’m just curious, and have wondered, off and on, for years.

It’s Christmas. Officially. Already. (No, Really; I’m Not Making This Up.)

There once was a time, so the old fogeys say
There was no “Christmas Season”, just one Christmas day
There are history books into which we could delve
That say Christmas expanded—its days numbered twelve
It doesn’t seem strange now, to most of us living,
But Christmas, for some, begins right at Thanksgiving,
And the very next day is the day to start shopping,
For over a month, if you can, without stopping

This year, Venezuela, for best or for worst,
Declared Christmas began this past Friday, the first.
It’s officially Christmas—start decking the halls,
Make some punch and some fruitcake, and head for the malls
Where you’ll get Silent Night and Away in the Mangered,
Because everyone knows Christmastime is endangered…
When “The War Against Christmas” gets bloody and hot,
Just remember, this year, which side fired the first shot.

Via NPR (at above link):

Perhaps Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is taking a hint from big U.S. retailers: For the sake of happiness, Maduro said, he declared an early beginning to the Christmas season.

“Today, on this first day of November, we decided to declare the arrival of Christmas, because we want happiness for all people,” Maduro said.

Now, I forget–will Fox approve because Yay, more Christmas!? Or is this part of the commercialization of, secularization of, and thus destruction of Real Christmas? It’s getting hard to tell these days–like the Civil War, it’s brother against brother, Santa against Jesus, Three French Hens against Three Wise Men, redeeming mankind and saving souls against redeeming coupons and saving money.

All I know is, if I can get my damned cover art to work, this blog will be your one stop for all your Christmas and Cephalopodmas shopping needs.

See, This Is Why You Pay Professionals

…cos when you try to do it yourself, you get stuck.

I’m actually happy with my cover (don’t judge me!). But I can’t, yet, export it in 300 dpi so I can use it at Lulu.

It’s ok–this is only day two and a half of knowing of GIMP’s existence. I’m just frustrated that something that I know my nephew could do in his sleep is taking me so long. Screen shot 2013-11-04 at 9.57.58 PM
It will be done. In time for the cephalopodmas shopping rush.

I hope.

(yes, there is a back cover, too, with the cuttlefish sigil in black, facing the other direction, at the top of the page–there is room for a blurb or author’s description or whatever at the bottom, along with the required barcode. Oh, and “ink” was the working title until I found a better one. So if you have a better one, speak up.)

(I love the fact that it is a visual illusion–“The Digital Cuttlefish” looks like it is in a lighter gray than “ink”, but that’s all because the background is different. Yes, I’m a bit of a geek.)