Women in Dangerous Jobs.

That was our theme at Saguaro Romance Writers last Saturday.  We had a toxicologist from the crime lab,  an A-10 pilot from Davis Monthan, who flew missions over Afghanistan and a detective in sex crimes with the Tucson Police Department.

Interesting stuff about how they dealt with male colleagues risks in flying and risks on the street.  For people who want to write about them, it was great.

 

Yerbie’s Date with Destiny.

No, he has already has that organ clipped.  He went to the groomer.  She made him look like a lion.  He only LOOKS like a lion.

Russian Oligarchs, The New Jersey Nets and Downtown Brooklyn.

This story was in Forbes on Wednesday.  (At least that is when I saw it, and since this is my blog, my seeing it is what counts)!

A Russian oligarch worth 9 billion dollars (he can buy New York City and Mayor Bloomberg), wants to buy controlling interest in the New Jersey Nets and move them to Downtown Brooklyn.

I grew up close enough to the Atlantic Yards to walk to them.    The site was thought of fifty years ago as a new place for the Dodgers to play (until Walter O’Malley took them away.  Highway builder Robert Moses did not want a stadium there, but that is another New York regional tale).

The Atlantic Yards are the Long Island Rail Road yards there, next to the Brooklyn terminal.

The proposed Barclays Center Arena would seat 32,000, large for basketball.  It would give new meaning to nosebleed seats but the players are so tall, you will still see them.

The potential buyer is so wealthy, he could have super cheap seats.  It would give new meaning to nosebleed seats.  Charge $5 and maybe the kids, who play basketball in Brooklyn gyms and playgrounds will actually be able to attend an NBA game, without sacrificing their first born.

Is this a good idea, though?   You want to encourage public transit use and economic benefit, but the crowds, etc.  Housing is supposed to be built as part of the site as well.

If this goes through, it would be the first American sports team to be majority owned by a foreign national.  (A Chinese conglomerate has minority interest in the Cleveland Caveliers and they may be losing LeBron James to the Knicks).

Not sure I like the idea of a Russian doing this.  I have my reasons as irrational as they may be.

G20

It used to be the G7.  Something like 80% of the world’s population is in the 20 countries belonging to this group.

The conference was supposed to be in New York, but with the U.N. session, it would be too much, plus, Pittsburgh is considered a modernizing city being reborn.

I wish Jack were alive to bounce this off.  People I know from Pittsburgh say many of the long term residents have not benefited from said boom.

Americans normally do not think of Pittsburgh being a city to host that sort of thing.  In the U.K. it would have been held in Birmingham, I reckon.

I watched the tape of the protesters.  What are they protesting for?  They are not going to be able to get what they want.  As we grew up saying in Brooklyn, the fix is in.  It is going to happen.  Deal with it.  How do we expect to change this?

Pittsburgh’s Mayor must have loved the attention and money coming in.  Pittsburgh’s Police Chief probably silently took some aspirin and Tums and got to work on how, the leaders would be protected and demonstrators could protest legally.  As if the Police Chief was going to tell the Mayor, Mr. Mayor, this is a very stupid idea.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, Update.

I did the speech again for TV Toastmasters last night.  Marcia, our camera person and Division Governor thinks I should do it for the Intl Speech Contest in the Spring.

Much of what I learned is from a great book by Arthur Herman called How the Scots Invented the Modern World.  The prince landed  July 23rd, 1745 on the Herbrides island of Eriskay.

The first person to greet them was a man named Alexander MacDonald, who said, “Go back from whence you came.  The country will not rise with you.”

There were only seven landed by the French ship with no supporting French army.  An intelligent person would have departed at once.  While Bonnie Prince Charlie was charismatic, intelligence was not one of his strong points.

He managed to get a Jacobite uprising going, get his invasion as far South as Derby, England until his generals realized the rebels could be cut off and brought them back to Scotland.

Against better advice, he chose a terrible place to fight.  Culloden.  Wide open.  Only when he saw the Redcoats, did it finally dawn on him, just HOW MUCH trouble he was in.

And so ended the Forty Five.

Health Care Debate, The Silly Take.

We don’t need a health care system.  You aren’t supposed to get sick in our great country.  If you get sick, you are not being productive for our nation.  You can’t get sick.  Sick days?  Not being productive?  It is not the American way.

If you aren’t productive enough in old age, there is the ice floe, that invention from the Inuit.  We’re Americans, we don’t get sicl.

Health Care Debate.

Something needs to be done.  No question there.  How are we going to pay for all this?  That is another question.

In European nations, yes, you do get government health care, but it is not as though you are not paying for it.  In exchange your taxed at a much higher rate.

Where then, is the balance?  People who contribute to our society should be taken care of medically, so they can keep contributing.

I don’t really know what will work best, this is just how I see it.

1st Turning Point.

Great online resource.  They published an essay of mine called Public Speaking for Shy Writers. The link is for my essay, but please be sure to read the other excellent writers who have posted.

Bisbee Arizona

Our writers chapter went there to have a retreat.  We stayed at the Gym Club and Suites, up the street from the Copper Queen Hotel and the Museum.    (Use the Gym Club Link for links to Bisbee landmarks and activities).

Some of us were there just for a quiet place to write.  Others were looking to brainstorm ideas.

This is not unique.  If you read Robert Massie’s biography of Peter the Great, when Peter visited the London of 1698, it was full of coffeehouses.  Lloyds of London, for example, began in a coffee house where Maritime Insurance was discussed.  In other coffeehouses writers worked out plots and dilemmas, which is what we were doing.

Bisbee is fun and quirky.   Differences are tolerated.  It is a 100 minute drive from my home in Central Tucson.    It is a half hour South of  Tombstone.  I would not want to live there.  Too far from what I do.

Lunch Friday was @ the Copper Queen Hotel, according to Google Maps, 242 feet from our hotel, downhill.  We passed the 105 year old Presbyterian church which on its sign had a great phrase.  “Visitors Expected.”

Dinner was for fourteen of us farther down the street at a Mexican restaurant called Santiago’s  The food is great, but next year, we will make sure to make reservations.  According to Google, Santiago’s is 217 feet from the hotel.

Durning the day, waked Main Street, the Honey Store is an interesting place with a chatty, funny owner.  The library is above the post office.  The hills surrounding the town have some unique houses on them, and some of the Linden trees growing there give a feeling of Tuscany.

Definitely plan to return.

Kicking Pigeons

Growing up in Brooklyn, pigeons were a constant nuisance.  Getting birded is not fun and had happened to me.  We grew up with a little ditty.

Pigeon, pigeon in the sky,

Dropped a whitewash in my eye,

I wont care, I wont cry,

I’m just glad that cows don’t fly!

There is always the Tom Lehrer song, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.  Well it is almost impossible to kick a pigeon, but one day as a thirteen year old walking up Montague Street (The main street of Brooklyn Heights), I successfully kicked a pigeon in the butt.  It flew ahead like a football being kicked through the uprights.  And the kick…Is good!

All on the street laughed, some clapped.  Except for one elderly lady who came up to be and said, “Young man, that was a terrible thing to do.

Others in the street scattered.  Then she saw a police officer.  “Officer I want that young man arrested for animal cruelty!”

I am incredulous, wondering can something really come of this.  The police officer ordered me to stand still and motioned the lady over so he could speak with her.  He nodded gravely and then came over to me.  He was smiling and said, I will pretend to give you a stern talking to.  He punctuated the points and the woman kept wanting to come over and here what was said.  He took out a piece of paper, pretending to give me a summons and told me to get lost.

The elderly lady was enraged.  “Officer, you aren’t going to arrest that young man?”

I did not hang around.  I ran.  Luckily, I never saw her again.  Wonder how THAT would have gone.