Mark W Tiedemann

Month: February 2009

Anniversary…of sorts

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I dug up an old diary a few months ago.  From time to time I’ve tried to keep one of these, sometimes going so far as to try for journal status, but I just can’t seem to sustain it.  So there are these relics lying about that occasionally unearth that give me a glimpse into what daily weirdness I was into back in 19—

The 20th Century.   That’s when I did a great deal of this sort of thing.  I suppose ultimately that my own life bores me while I’m living it.  Or maybe I’m too busy living it to record it. …

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New Words

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I’ve been working on a novella lately and this past week I found myself fully immersed in it.  I found the groove, so to speak, and have been barreling ahead with considerable glee.  It’s the thing about writing I most love and the thing that hasn’t been there for several months, not since I finished my historical and mailed it off in May.  Even before that it was sporadic.

But I’ve slipped into the stream on this one and I owe it to a couple of perceptive editorial remarks from the people to whom I’d like to sell it.  That part I haven’t had for years now. …

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No, um, well, You Know What Over 18!!

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I have said for years that the convulsions of the Religious Right over abortion has less to do with fetuses than with sex.  Now that we have proof over time that Abstinence Only education DOES NOT WORK, these folks have decided that rather than recant they will go on an even wilder offensive by attacking university level programs.

All I can do anymore is shake my head and wonder  “Just what is it with these people?”

But what really annoys me are the many politicoes who go along with this nonsense and can’t seem to muster the nerve to tell them to, well, fuck off. …

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Reading On The Rise

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

According to this report, reading is on the rise in America for the first time in a quarter century.  It’s difficult for me to express how pleased this makes me.

Civilization and its discontents have been in the back of my mind since I became aware of how little reading most people do.  To go into a house—a nice house,well-furnished, a place of some affluence—and see no books at all has always given me a chill, espeically if there are children in the house.  Over the last 30 years, since I’ve been paying attention to the issue, I’ve found a bewildering array of excuses among people across all walks of life as to why they never read. …

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The Future On The Chopping Block…Again

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I should state up front here that I really don’t have a problem ideologically with Federal Spending.  That great boogieman of right vs. left.  I pay taxes, I want things for it.  And I frankly like most of what I end up paying for.  I’d like to see priorities shift, but I don’t believe cutting the budget will accomplish that.  I’d like to see an expand space program.  I would like to see an expanding educational budget.  I would love a sensible national health care program.  I would like to see less spending on weapons systems that never get out of planning or away from prototype and I would certainly like to see less government subsidy of pointless corporate programs that would best be served by shareholders telling their boards of directors what to do with company money. …

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Attic Thoughts

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Doing the Shelfari thing has been both fun and frustrating.  I always prided myself on my memory, but it amazes me to discover just how porous it really is.  Titles keep occurring to me at odd moments now that I’ve got my hard drive working on all this recall.  Plus the annoyance of remembering titles but being unable to recall having actually read the book.

For instance, there is a host of books which were required reading in high school that I may well have gotten out of reading because I had read so much other material that the extra credit book reports forgave my lapses re the syllabus. …

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