Respect for Stormy Daniels

politics, rhetoric, sex Leave a comment

Adult Film Workers Call Rudy Giuliani’s Attack on Stormy Daniels’ Credibility ‘Dangerous and Dehumanizing’ (Time) One of the few times I’ve made money as a photographer was when I was helping a friend of mine document her performances at a weekly gathering of artists in Bowling Green, just south of Toledo. The pay was minimal, and under normal circumstances I would’ve happily done the photography for free, but I wasn’t doing any teaching work at that moment and I kind of needed the money. I’ve…

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Monopolizing Happiness (and Everything Else)

politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

How Apple and Other Big Companies Are Really Using Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts (cheatsheet.com) Trump’s ‘tragic’ policies likely to make child poverty much worse, says UN (The Guardian via MSN) In my favourite anime/manga of all time, Oh My Goddess! (or Ah! My Goddess, if you prefer), there is a demon named Senbei whose modus operandi is to cause suffering and misfortune to others. Senbei does this because he believes that there is only a finite amount of happiness in the universe, and so the more pain he…

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The New P-Word

arts, books, politics, sex, work, writing 1 Comment

A little over a week ago, I received one of the best pieces of news I’ve gotten in several months. Kirkus Reviews, a very prominent book review magazine, posted an online review of my first novel, The Prostitutes of Lake Wiishkoban, that was highly complimentary of my work (to say the least). Quotes like “Shannon’s … fiction debut is an entertaining, provocative bildungsroman that successfully turns an unconventional premise into a thoughtful exploration of freedom and identity” are the kind of thing that authors like me dream…

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Brainwashing with a Smile

politics, rhetoric, teaching Leave a comment

Students required to smile at Pennsylvania school — or get sent to the office (New York Daily News) I was not in the target demographic for Bill Nye the Science Guy when it first started airing in 1993, and even if I had been, I still wasn’t in the mood to hear anything about science while I was in the middle of a string of science teachers who could most charitably be described as megalomaniacal assholes. More to the point, having grown up in that era of…

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The Toner Prices Are Too Damn High

mom, personal, shopping Leave a comment

Although I try to write as much as I can every day, some days, and some years, just turn out better for me in that regard. At the beginning of 2010, when I was in the middle of a period of peak productivity (including writing the short story that would eventually become my first novel, The Prostitutes of Lake Wiishkoban), I quickly realized that my old inkjet printer was costing me a mint as I kept replacing ink cartridge after ink cartridge when they ran out.…

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