A site called “The Invisible American” contains links to four disturbing slideshows (about 8 to 10 minutes long each) documenting “the other side of the American Military in Iraq.” As indicated by The Invisible American, these images tell a dark and troubling story. I sat down to watch one of…
Sullivan is a terrific writer who happens to be gay, Republican and a former supporter of Bush’s military adventure in Iraq. He was interviewed by Salon.com with regard to his new book, The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get it Back. Sullivan’s blog, "The Daily Dish," can be found…
Here are two disturbing pieces from DemocracyNow.org: The Co-Author of a Medical Study is estimating that 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. The study was conducted by American and Iraqi researchers and published in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. This link goes to an…
Having good ideas is a quest with which all writers struggle. And all non-writers too.
How does one develop good ideas? Have them, recognize them and hone them, it would seem. But only the first of these three tasks (having raw ideas pop into one’s head) is easy. For the most part, good ideas are developed (not found) and this requires hard work. Developing good ideas is rarely like it is portrayed on television, where fully formed ideas drop down from the sky with little effort.
I am not suggesting (by writing this post) that I have more original ideas than the average person. I plainly admit that almost every worthy idea I’ve ever expressed was not original to me. In fact, I’d be surprised if I had more than a couple dozen original, substantial and worthy ideas in my entire life. I assume that most of my ideas have been plagiarized (though usually not intentionally) or that they were simply a modified versions of someone elses’ ideas (modified by stretching them, inverting them or combining them with other borrowed ideas).
How does one have good new ideas? When Linus Pauling was asked how he was able to make so many discoveries, he replied: “You must have lots of ideas and just throw away the bad ones.”
Those who don’t have many ideas of their own (for instance, those who watch lots of mind-numbing television) don’t have many good ideas of their own. For most of my life, I have …
The NYT reports today on the violence that permeates middle class Iraq: Three and a half years after the American invasion, the relentless violence that has disfigured much of Iraqi society is hitting young Iraqis in new ways. Young people from five Baghdad neighborhoods say that their lives have shrunk to…