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Post by lieden on Sept 14, 2010 15:20:47 GMT 1
It's a very interesting article. On the whole I favour opinions that promote understanding (as best as we can grasp it) rather than polemic of any sort.
Considering equal pay for less work: yes, that is a bit far-fetched. But women -- women with kids especially -- have it hard when they work full time; also, let's face it, they spend more time doing housework and attending to their kids than men do. So I feel (and I think I would feel the same were I a man) that there ought to be some kind of compensation; whether that's monetary or of some other kind, I don't know, to be honest.
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Post by jklinders on Sept 14, 2010 15:58:13 GMT 1
Too much room and opportunity for abuse. As much as I enjoy the pleasant fantasy of any socialized solution be it government or industry there is much abuse to be had when you allow for the idea that someone can work less than someone else and get paid the same.
Already I am treading on thin ice here so up front I am not some troglodyte knuckle dragger of a man. Fact is, if I ever get off my ass and decide to find the lady who "makes me complete"(as if being single makes me defective) I will likely be the cook.
Problem is that society is set up these days for people in the western world to want many things. Cable TV, high speed internet, hot water, a car for each adult household member, a garage big enough for all the cars ect ect. Well all this stuff comes at a cost. For the first time in human history and only in the last century both parents need to "get a job". Both parent had jobs. Both had damn important jobs, one secured an income of whether it was meat and raw hides back in neolithic times. The other raised and protected children while curing the hides and supplemented income through foraging. No nickle for those guess which gender did which.
Until the industrial age and the modernization of the food system it was impossible to feed a family as anything less than a full time unpaid endeavor by one parent. Nearly all bread was homemade in the day, many people made their own clothes and laundry was only rarely done because it was a hellish grand lot of work. Rightly or wrongly that parent was always female. Men either through farming or working the mines and factories brought in the money.
The financial system cannot and will not allow for a financial allowance for child rearing to the point where the parent(male or female) that takes care of the kids will make the same as the parent who works full time. This is why birth rates are down in western countries. We want all the luxuries but unless you are in the top 10% earners you cannot have them while having kids, then at least one parent needs to take a back seat. Is this fair? No, but if you want kids there is a price to be paid and you, not society should pay it. Equality means accepting without reservation the consequences of your actions. Homemaking is not a paid job, never was and never should be.
Case in point, my brother and sister in-law. Shes a nurse, he's barely employed. Guess who brings in most of the money and who raises my niece
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Post by lieden on Nov 22, 2010 12:45:48 GMT 1
www.johnpilger.com/filmographyWatched The Quiet Mutiny (1970) and Do You Remember Vietnam? (1978) last night. Heart-rending, and yet another reminder of how devastating war is for everyone involved but the higher-ups (and eventually those who profit from it).
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Post by lieden on Nov 30, 2010 11:15:37 GMT 1
A bit harsh on Wrimos, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless! Terence Blacker: Why writers are mugging one another www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-why-writers-are-mugging-one-another-2147030.html However, I think he overlooks the fact that NaNo can be really beneficial to people who have ideas and concepts but have trouble writing them down without continuously hitting the backspace button. Also, I don't think the idea is to produce a finished novel within a month: just to get the main body of it down. Editing might take longer, but it's easier to do when you have the text!
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Post by Battlechantress on Nov 30, 2010 17:25:06 GMT 1
Yeah, that's usually the point that the anti- WriMos miss. We *aren't* supposed to come up with a publishable book in 30 days, not by a long shot. We're smart enough to know that we are going to spend a long, long time revising it afterwards.
For a lot of people, NaNo is the only way they'll ever get "write a book before I die" checked off their list. Most of them don't even try to publish what they wrote. It's more about just writing and doing something that's frankly more than a little batshit crazy (considering the time constraints and all).
I also laugh at the anti- WriMos who say that NaNo is going to cause publishing houses to be flooded with bad novels. That hasn't happened at all (and let's face it, a lot of bad books have already been published that were NEVER written during NaNo).
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Post by jklinders on Nov 30, 2010 18:45:06 GMT 1
Anyone else catch the irony in a editorial rant against bad writing being posted being so lacking in focus and poorly organized that it took a second read for me to determine that he even was trying to make some kind of point? Christ if you are only going to commit 300 words to a posting then get to the point and stay on one topic at a time. How he got from WriMos to publisher review scams is a mystery to me.
Maybe if I can manage to get past what an elitist prick he came off as in the first 4 "paragraphs" I might work out what the hell he was saying. All l got as things stand is "amateurs suck, why should they bother trying to be good?" and "pros are pros, I don't really know where they came from but I am pretty sure they never wrote anything bad before they became pros."
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Post by Battlechantress on Nov 30, 2010 19:02:04 GMT 1
He's probably one of those who think that good/ great writers are "born" and not "made" through years of hard work. Most professional writers would probably point out that he's very wrong.
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Post by jklinders on Nov 30, 2010 19:37:05 GMT 1
He's probably one of those who think that good/ great writers are "born" and not "made" through years of hard work. Most professional writers would probably point out that he's very wrong. That's just my point though. From his unfocused topic less ranting it is obvious that even if he is getting paid to write he is no where near "professional" grade in ability. Looking him up I see he is published. Good for him, he wrote a bunch of kids books and got lucky. Hmm, almost like an English male version of Stephanie Meyer. Alright alright, maybe that was a morsel too far, I take that last bit back.
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Post by Mister Buch on Dec 1, 2010 18:17:00 GMT 1
Interesting... the bloke is unnecessarily cruel to NaNo writers, and as was said doesn't seem as interested in understanding them or the site as he is in excitedly yelling at people.
I do have doubts about NaNo myself - seems like a novel shouldn't be rushed. But I suppose it does serve to motivate...
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Post by Battlechantress on Dec 1, 2010 18:35:40 GMT 1
There is a writing instructor who noted something interesting on her blog recently: she had a group of writers write a novel in a month a few months ago, and has just finished up with a group who were to write a novel in a quarter (four months). Guess which group had the higher finishing rate? I'll give you a hint: it completely surprised her and it flies in the face of conventional thinking.
I was initially skeptical of NaNo too, but I jumped in anyway just to see if I could do it. I can't lie: it's not for everyone, but it is doable and even fun, provided you tie the Inner Editor up and stuff it in a corner for a few weeks. If you have a project that requires a lot of research, then NaNo may not be the right time to do it. Then again, given what the instructor recently learned, maybe it is after all. "Your mileage may vary."
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Post by jklinders on Dec 1, 2010 19:08:21 GMT 1
Probably not for the complete novice though. The main reason I am so held up with my own project is because I have little patience for the ground work needed to put together a coherent scene. Maybe you can get away with it for a short scene that has little dialogue but the more complex the scene and dialogue and characters the more prep you have to put in to make it make sense. Bah, I'll have to just put some music on and scratch some notes together so I can finish No Time- before ME 3 comes out and completely invalidates it.
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Post by Battlechantress on Dec 1, 2010 19:19:16 GMT 1
My group had a few novices this year, and they managed to do it. Mercedes Lackey was one of the authors "hired" to write up pep talkes for WriMos this year, and she suggested that the best NaNo project for a novice was... fanfiction. That does make sense. You don't have to world build, you already (should) know the characters, and the pressure is off when it comes to thinking if it will be good enough for publication (since it can't be published anyway). I still have to finish "Lies" before the end of the year and hopefully "Doubt" as well. My brain is still a tad crispy from the past month, but I think I can pull it off now. It's not supposed to be a novel, so I have that in my favor.
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Post by jklinders on Dec 1, 2010 19:29:08 GMT 1
Looking forward to the next chapters of "lies" and "doubt". I've been feeling a morsel deprived.
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Post by Mr. Glow on Jan 1, 2011 22:44:29 GMT 1
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Post by lieden on Jan 5, 2011 17:13:00 GMT 1
Came across this one today and I really liked it: How Islamic inventors changed the world"From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them."
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