Posts by Jonah

Okay, so I’ve been tagged in what is apparently a game of blog tag by my friend Cara. Hooray for RSS feeds. I have to answer the question

A Novel Idea:
If I could write a novel about any subject, what would it be?

I also have to tag several people to answer the same question on their blogs (and trackback here). If they don’t do so, that means they don’t love me enough to read my blog. I hereby tag Nathan, Ben, Berck, Sydney, and Mom. I would tag other people to whom I’m not related, but then I could hope to only get a response within several months. All of the above mentioned have to tag 5 other people… or… you’ll catch athlete’s foot the next time you use a public restroom.

So. What would I write a novel about? I’ve never understood how someone writes fiction. I love to write… but only about capturing slices of reality. I wouldn’t know what to do creating a world that doesn’t exist.

That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy reading fiction. I especially love science fiction, where EVERYTHING… setting, species, constellations… are created out of thin air. But I think I lack the ability to lie that easily. I can paint a watercolor of a landscape out my window; I might even be able to paint it from memory. But to just come up with it out of my head? Not so easy.

I’ve tossed around the idea of writing a political thriller about the real power bosses in government. But I’d have to be making all sorts of stuff up, because I haven’t got a clue. I’ve also thought about writing science fiction short stories. (I come up with great ideas all the time, like what really causes Alzheimer’s isn’t a wasting degeneration of brain tissue but a temporal shift. But then I’d have to flesh the idea out with, like, characters and settings and stuff. Sigh.) Dang, I could make a bundle if I churned out cheap romance novels. And most literary intellectuals of the 20th century made their living writing mysteries (minus Lewis and Tolkien, who had the ability to write fantasy).

So I settled on a novel about a non-traditional relationship between a 21 year old and a 14 year old who fall in love but must wait 8 years to get married.

Well, the campaign has ended, and as you probably know, we didn’t win. What you might not know is that we actually did quite well, though not for our campaign.

The election results were right on target with the two polls I conducted, except for one thing: Bentley Rayburn and Duncan Bremer’s percentages were reversed. (For instance, everyone seemed to think that Mayor Rivera had a very good chance of winning, but my polling showed him about where he ended up. See http://coloradopols.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1542.)

So what happened? Well, we had run a very positive campaign since February. We’d been out on the street smiling and waving almost every day for about a month prior to the primary. And so when people started thinking about voting, they thought about that positive candidate… what was his name again?

And right before the election, Bentley Rayburn’s campaign unleashed a huge media blitz, talking about integrity and how he was the positive candidate. And he had money raised from all over the country to outspend us 10 to 1 those final two weeks. Everyone, even his own campaign, was surprised that he came in third. It was a brilliant move on his campaign to be able to piggyback on what we’d been working toward for months. Congrats, General Rayburn, on running such a successful campaign… we wish you the very best in your next endeavor! (It wouldn’t have mattered if we had all of his votes and all of ours… we still wouldn’t have won.)

So we may not have won the race, but we did make a difference in it. Duncan always brought the debate back to issues instead of slogans. He stressed the utmost importance of integrity in a race that got down and dirty. And most of the other campaigns went out of their way to compliment us on running our campaign with honor and integrity. I hope we made a difference in politics in this part of Colorado for years to come.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072801617.html

KittenWar is a great way to unwind, to thoughtlessly make consequetial decisions that cost you next to no effort.

But after careful observation, there is actually a fairly simple method of discovering which kittens will win. It has nothing to do with coloring and little to do with actual appearance.

1. The photography has to be decent, not blurry, no red-eye (or in kittens’ case, glowing white eyes). This doesn’t seem like it should matter when determining cuteness, but it does.

2. Multiple kittens are cuter than individual kittens.

3. Kittens’ bellies are their cutest part. A kitten standing up on its hind legs or a kitten lying on its back is cuter than a kitten right side up. Dangling a paw in the air is even cuter.

4. A kitten with his paw over his face is cuter.

5. Kittens in something are cuter, be it fish bowls, cereal boxes, or flower pots.

6. Kittens hanging from something or else engaged in another activity are cuter than those standing still.

7. The younger a kitten is, the cuter.

With this in mind, I think I have the makings of the perfect KittenWar champion. The Bremers’ cats just had kittens (it was a group effort among the fathers Scotch and Bear and the mother Mincemeat). I’ll take the litter of four, put tape on their noses, place them upside down in something, and snap a photo as one of them tries to climb out.

I just have to make sure it’s in focus.

A Prophecy About Tyre

1 An oracle concerning Tyre:
Wail, O ships of Tarshish!
For Tyre is destroyed
and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
word has come to them.

2 Be silent, you people of the island
and you merchants of Sidon,
whom the seafarers have enriched.

3 On the great waters
came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre,
and she became the marketplace of the nations.

4 Be ashamed, O Sidon, and you, O fortress of the sea,
for the sea has spoken:
“I have neither been in labor nor given birth;
I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”

5 When word comes to Egypt,
they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

6 Cross over to Tarshish;
wail, you people of the island.

7 Is this your city of revelry,
the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
to settle in far-off lands?

8 Who planned this against Tyre,
the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
whose traders are renowned in the earth?

9 The LORD Almighty planned it,
to bring low the pride of all glory
and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

10 Till your land as along the Nile,
O Daughter of Tarshish,
for you no longer have a harbor.

11 The LORD has stretched out his hand over the sea
and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
that her fortresses be destroyed.

12 He said, “No more of your reveling,
O Virgin Daughter of Sidon, now crushed!
“Up, cross over to Cyprus;
even there you will find no rest.”

13 Look at the land of the Babylonians,
this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
they stripped its fortresses bare
and turned it into a ruin.

14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
your fortress is destroyed!

15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

16 “Take up a harp, walk through the city,
O prostitute forgotten;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
so that you will be remembered.”

17 At the end of seventy years, the LORD will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. 18 Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the LORD; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothes.