Teh Bewbies™
In our last episode:
I did my own first cover. It isn’t horrible, but it’s not good or representative of what’s in the book. I take comfort in what Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn said: “If you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late.”[6] I re-edited it and put out a second edition with a new cover (that someone else did).
[6] I wasn’t too embarrassed until a friend said, “I am amused by your creative use of verbs.” I dun fucked up.
I am amused by your creative use of verbs.
That hurt. That hurt in ways I cannot explain. Why? Because I knew I was doing it when I was doing it. I knew it was wrong. I knew it hurt the book, the pacing, the rhythm, and in some ways, the story itself. But I did it anyway because demz wuz da rulez.
Or so I thought.
Rules of writing. These are the rules that get passed from one aspiring writer to another like a game of telephone, treated like gospel in critique groups, ignoring historical writing models or actively trashing them as dated and sloppy, all gleaned from that one conference that one time when that one junior editor at that one publisher gave a workshop about what editors are looking for, said something in passing, and the veteran aspiring authors engraved these rulez on golden plates.
One of many of these nitpicky little shits was “don’t use ‘be’ verbs.” So like a dutiful little writer type, even though I knew it was wrong and bad and ugly, I did everything I could to use no “be” verbs in Teh Bewbies™. I twisted myself into linguistic pretzels to keep it from happening. There were so many unnecessary words added to get out of using a “be” verb.
What the rule intended was to eradicate passive voice. The heroine was plowed by the hero. No. The hero plowed the heroine.
It started in the early 90s and was the Big Deal for a long time. If my brief time in online writer circles (in 2007, when I got back into it) was anything to go by, it was still a Big Deal. “Don’t use ‘be’ verbs.”
Apparently no one, including I, got to the deeper issue of passive voice.
You know what? It’s totally possible to construct a passive-voice sentence using active verbs. I’ve seen it.
Now, I have only seen this nincompoopery passed around in genre fiction, not nonfiction or litrachoor. My friend who said this to me writes litrachoor and they not only fling “be” verbs around like parade candy, they construct passive sentences on purpose!
I knew it was wrong and bad and ugly when I did it and I did it anyway.
I dun fucked up.
BUT!
Because I self-published, I have all the control.
And when you self-publish and you have all the control, you’re never finished tweaking.
So I went about pulling that out of print, re-editing it, and releasing it again.
Were I with a publisher, I would never have been able to do that. Nora Roberts’s first book is, I’m told, something she would like to bury to the core of the planet. It fetches a mighty sum.
Awwwwwwww
Teh Bewbies™ is still out there floating around. People love it. They see the flaws but they don’t care. It’s still people’s favorite book of all time.
Doesn’t matter.
I am amused by your creative use of verbs.
I’m still embarrassed.
Passive voice was never something that bothered me.
The grammar checker in early word processors complaining about passive voice was more of a bother to me. So those green squiggles got turned off, along with the red.
^ this. Fuck Microsoft’s style guide. Not all sentences have to be active voice and no more than 3 clauses long.
You mean you were never bothered by passive voice?
¿Que?
dammit, I forgot a little mark above the e.
Quë?
He obviously means Quê
Qu€
In moderate usage, I agree. Overuse of it gives me agita.
*hands chip a bottle of antacid*
As an undergrad engineering student, I was taught to use passive voice in lab reports.
Science happens, who did it shouldnt matter. Outside of that, it mostly sucks.
The flask fractured violently. Shards were embedded in [Student]. The lab has banned [Student] from the facility.
The lab has banned [Student] from the facility.
Still too active. Should be “[Student] has been banned from the facility.”
Banning occurred.
Police reports also love themselves passive voice.
Yes they do, but it is wrong in that case.
Wot? No Alt text?
Waaah!
I wasn’t feeling particularly clever that day, sorry.
Ah, it’s not as if I’m actually bothered.
*knocks over chair*
WHAT DO WE PAY YOU FOR?
Romance novels? Because I don’t believe we paid for the article.
Put it on my annual performance review.
Examples please! I know it will induce pain…
I’d have to go back and look. I re-edited it 5 years ago.
She placed herself awkwardly by taking the rule against the verb to be too literally. Life would have been far better if she had merely been passive when appropriate .
Had to avoid 2nd person there. Must follow the rules.
¿Qué?
Was is das ‘rules’?
We don’t need no stinkin’ ‘rules’!
Life would have beenLife proved itself untenable
That’s more awkward than word-adding, but you get the drift.
Ah – got it.
I don’t. I’m still confused. What do people have against ‘to be’ and why are they urging avoidance?
Nobody has a lame Shakespeare joke?
Naw, I left my Iambic Pentameter at home.
[Gets up and goes to the dressing room of the actress playing Queen Gertrude]
Personally, I’d rather post nude photos of myself than share examples of my writing that I’ve realized are bad.
And I’m not going to post nude photos of myself.
If Mojeaux shares her mistakes, she’s much braver than I am.
If I can come up with something before the thread dies, I’ll post it.
Nude pictures, or examples of bad syntax? 😉
Heh. Bad syntax. I already published bad syntax and embarrassed myself. Nude pictures…no way.
Well, somebody ’round here needs to get nekkid. This party is windin’ down……
OK ladies…. Bask in the glory!
Oh, wait… how do you post?? …
Hold on….
Oh…. here….
No…. that ain’t it….
Hang on….
Awe, dang it….. Never mind.
“What the rule intended was to eradicate passive voice”
I dunno, I like to be active when plowing the heroine.
But isn’t Heroin a downer?
Depends where you are currently.
love that song
But the target audience is female, and oft times interested in being swept away more than sweeping.
I had an excellent Grammar & Composition teacher who drilled us with the rule about using passive voice only intentionally.
I had public school teachers. I learned of the existance of such a form of composition from word processors telling me I was being bad.
“using passive voice only intentionally”
Hmm, that’s an interesting way to look at it. For history writing, passive voice is usually frowned upon. I discourage my students from using passive because they seem to do so unintentionally and it’s often very hard to know who is doing what to whom (yeah, phrasing). Of course, students who use passive voice usually make it worse with their (mis)use of pronouns.
For history writing, I would say that what is left out is more important than how what is presented is presented.
I am of the same experience. Unfortunately, attention was not paid to it by me.
Passive voice, like ambiguity, should be used strategically and tactically, but never accidentally.
Cry “Capitalist!” And let slip the lattes of soy.
Joyce didn’t get that particular set of memos.
Cormac McCarthy used them to start a campfire.
Hah. I was just thinking the same thing.
Thanks for posting these, Mojeaux! I meant to comment on the last one but was too busy at work that day.
I think a lot of these rules about avoiding passive or using “he said, she said” in dialogue tags or whatever are meant for newer writers or those who don’t have a good ear. Somebody in some creative writing class (or some agent or editor) just got tired of reading novice authors who overuse passive voice and said “it’s the rule not to do this.”
Writers who know what they’re doing should go ahead and do it.
Most people who think they know what they’re doing don’t.
Yes… one agent’s description of the contents of her slushpile.
I think my favorite is #4:
“Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare’s breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.”
Hey! “Ex-patriot Englishmen” is a perfectly valid type of character. They probably got jobs in the EU bureaucracy.
And I love the idea of Empirical Storm Troopers. They hate the theoretical.
Sure, the authors should’ve just run with their grammar mistakes. You could make a pretty good villain out of somebody who reeks havoc.
“How could you have possibly defeated me?”
“I have a cold, my sense of smell and taste are gone.”
I take umbrage at #10.
Of course everyone’s already read that plot. If you listen to some experts, there is only one.
Mark Twain’s critique of Fenimore Cooper is a classic.
Savage.
Thanks, Raven. I had never read this in its entirety. Fucking brutal.
That’s called a bronze medal.
Works when you’re laying cable.
Agricultural techniques to avoid crows feasting on seedcorn
The villainous hordes in woke LGBTetc lit.
Poor girl, impaled on window dressing.
the most famous short modern poem in American literature?
Ummm…no?
I would go with Reflections on Ice-Breaking.
As a non-literature person, I think I have a better feel for most famous than a person in the field does.
If it’s so famous why haven’t I heard of it?
I am pretty sure you have, just not by that title. I had to look up the title myself.
But I could recite the entire poem.
Also, what’s the definition of “short” and “modern” used in this debate? Because so far the only two american poems that came to mind were The Raven and The Night Before Christmas.
7 words
Poem? Or short story?
English’s shortest short story:
For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.
Hemingway.
Second of course to that limerick about the man from Nantucket
I thought the most famous short poem in American literature began with “There was an old man from Nantucket”.
Modern. That dates to 1902 so may or may not qualify. Anything before WW1 doesnt count, IMO.
I was rethinking a character concept and the internal conflict about the use of their transformation trinket and using the powers it grants. I’m trying to weave a rational conflict wherein something that would be a positive for most people is a detriment for the individual, ie, the transformation purges poisons from their system, including the medicine used to treat some ailment, or it screws with their metabolism and the person already has an eating disorder.
The goal being to set up a situation where being a hero with the transformation trinket is detrimental to their well-being, and they have to decide whether to keep going and burn out, or give it away and find another path.
Maybe something where somebody has achieved success by having a personality that’s not quite normal–perhaps they notice every detail, allowing them to be a great detective. But turn that up, and they become paralyzed with detail.
I’m looking for something where they’re still effective with the trinket, but the detrimental side effects are hurting them. If they’re paralyzed with detail, it’s easy to point out that they’re no longer doing any good. It’s more difficult when it’s a case of “I am doing good, it’s just a little personal sacrifice to keep using the trinket”
Traditional ones are the trinket enhances negative personality traits, increases violence, has an addictive quality, slowly weakens the user over time (when not using it), or the effects get weaker and weaker the more it’s used.
While I love dancing with tropes, I’m also looking for one that would be interesting to write. I’m looking for one where other people have been able to use it without issue, but it’s a problem for this character because – complication. Just to twist the knife a bit on the internal struggle.
M.A.N.T.I.S.?
The character has a weak heart, and the trinket gives you tremendous strength/power/speed for a limited period of time, but each time character uses it they increase the chance that this will be the occasion when their heart finally goes.
Oh dear, this poor girl.
The initial character concept was to create a character whose elevator pitch description sounded like a SJW fever dream but which ignored their conventions and was an actual human being with all the flaws instead of a cardboard cutout. While a genuinely good person inside, she resides in an unhealthy mental environment. Her main avenue of relief comes in helping people as a licensed hero, but hides from her parental figure the fact that her powers come from a trinket that also makes her look like a dude (causing more mental problems for her). And now I’ve come up with another hurdle. After facing the physiological issues that make her give up the trinket, she finds herself in ‘withdrawl’ from the endorphin rush oif saving people. So I figue she’d start to take Lucid Blue to regain powers to be able to render aid in the manner she’s accustomed. Which only leads to more addiction issues since that stuff is also prone to dependency (not sure if chemical or psychological)
When will I stop tormenting this poor thing?
What if it’s a ring that gives you thaw ability to be invisible and exert your will over others, but corrupts your soul and slowly turns you into a wraith or ferral creature?
Nah, How about a ring that gives you invisibility but is forged by a dwarf who has forsworn love and placed a curse on it.
I think I’ve seen that one. Was there a sled involved?
You’d have an endless supply of ghost fetishists to nail.
I think The Simpsons already did that.
Oh, that’s the one I proposed to my wife with.
ferral creature
Wild, or made of iron?
I don’t know if this will help, but it’s the first thing I thought of when I read your comment.
Okay, between the Hemingway and that, you are being a complete bummer. I am now depressed.
Fiction, dude. Fiction.
Considering what you write, you ought to know that fiction creates an emotional connection. That is why it works. We “believe” the characters are real on one side of our brain, while knowing they aren’t on the other side.
I know! I know! I was trying to slide out from under your depression. I got stuck.
*hangs head in shame*
Speaking of stuck, I am in New Jersey until tomorrow night. ugh.
Thanks, MO! I hate rulez. And nothing is more boring to me than technically astute writers who can’t tell a fucking story.
I started your book last night, btw. I dig your style and am looking forward to seeing how Trey does.
Yes. I can make a storyteller into a technically decent writer. I cannot make a technically astute writer into a storyteller.
I hope you like Trey and Marina! That was the most difficult book I have ever written, mostly because I had to make a 16-year-old with no life experience interesting.
Tell me an interesting story. Make sure the characters behave and talk according to their character. I don’t care whether its Shakespeare or a graphic novel — that’s just style, not quality.
“Verily, I go forth to attack the day with vim.”
“Oh, will you shut up already?!”
That has a lot of potential.
Of course, I think they called that “Thor” or something like that.
I spent less than two minutes coming up with it. I’m not surprised it looks a lot like something else.
My immediate thought was that I like it.
So I posted.
And then a moment later I had flash of the grinning idiot known as Chris Hemsworth pass through my mind.
I’m sorry I inflicted that upon you.
… but I also never watched the movies. Is the dialog really down at the level that takes me all of two minutes to concoct?
Is the dialog really down at the level that takes me all of two minutes to concoct?
Yes.
It’s a live action comic book. They spent their money on utterly confusing CGI battle scenes.
The Thor movies actually managed to make Anthony Hopkins cringe worthy.
Yes. This is why Twilight was so “good.” It may not have been the best story ever told, but it was told compellingly (to a large part of the reading public).
I watched the movie first.
Apparently a big mistake. Because… damn! That thing was a dud!
So now I’m never going to find out how wonderful that series was. Well, unless spud #3 goes for it. Then I’ll have to read it with her.
She’s the type. She’s 7 and has the feminine and the drama attributes both turned up to 11. Her sister is half a dude. She’d cut off an arm before she’d read that girly crap. (when playing baseball with the boys this year, she asked me “Dad, can girls play rugby?” So now I gotta find a kid’s rugby league) If she reads a romance fantasy, it will be one where she storms the village and rescues the dude. And there will probably be zombies for her to kill.
Did he run out of ammo? Why wasn’t he able to kill his way past the zombies?
“Dad, can girls play rugby?”
My diminutive cousin played in a chick league. She was a holy terror. I hope your kid goes for it!
A romance fantasy would be labeled fantasy because it’s all about the heroine. The hero is secondary to her journey.
In a great lot of romance, the heroine DOES save the hero, but it’s emotional rescue, PTSD, physical injuries, trust issues, never been loved, stuff like that. A wounded alpha is catnip.
In romance, women don’t like it when the men can’t protect their women. If the heroine physically rescues the man, it’s unsatisfactory. That’s what happened with one of my books that got thisclose to publishing. The heroine had rescued the hero. It would have wrecked the story to change the end.
Anyhoo. A woman CAN be an equal partner with the hero in a scheme (e.g., my privateer heroine helps my pirate hero fake his death–but it was very dangerous and he was severely injured–but in the end, the hero saves the heroine’s life when her ship gets cracked open by a storm).
So what about the zombie apocalypse situation where he’s gone and run out of ammo and stuck in a barricaded building. Would it go over better if she brought in ammo and they fought their way out together?
Just brainstorming, so unsure.
Fighting their way out together is fine.
You will be mine, you will be mine all mine
It happens a lot in real life, too.
“Oh, I can save him.”
“Oh, he didn’t mean it.”
“Oh, he promised he’d never do it again.”
“Oh, he loves me so much.”
In romance, women don’t like it when the men can’t protect their women.
Is the qualifier actually necessary? Men don’t like harridans, women don’t like wimps, because biology.
He referenced a “romance fantasy” in which the heroine rescued the hero. Since we were speaking in terms of genre fiction, yes, the qualifier was necessary because it wouldn’t work there. It WOULD work in fantasy.
But your point is taken. “Because biology.” Yes.
Yes. I can make a storyteller into a technically decent writer. I cannot make a technically astute writer into a storyteller.
Alas, that was my fate. I am a fairly technically proficient writer but, when I tried to write fiction in my younger days, I discovered that I have no ability to carry a story along. Every single short story I began ended up going in circles by page 3 or 4.
That could still work. Write it ala Rashomon or Groundhog’s Day.
Well, yes, this should be the takeaway, but I knew I was not working in the best interest of the story and characters when I did it, and I did it anyway. That’s the problem.
Those are the best mistakes…. the ones that you make “eyes wide open” and just can’t help yourself. It really engenders a nice sense of fatalism and hopelessness.
My trustiest, most faithful emotional companions.
SUBMIT TO TREATMENT OR YOUR CHILD WILL KILL HIMSELF
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/01/27/Suppressing-puberty-safe-for-child-questioning-gender-study-says/9121580164200/
“treatment is reversible and relatively safe[…]The most notable long-term health risks associated with puberty suppression are impaired future fertility and low bone density that could slightly increase risk of broken bones”
That doesn’t sound reversible or safe.
No, Fuck No, and Go Fuck Yourself
What about the mental damage you cause?
Impaired future fertility….. well, that’s about as far up the damage scale as you can go. No way a 9 year old kid can make a life-long decision about whether or not Xe wants to have kids in the future.
This really is a horrific problem. Forget accurately identifying the correct patient as having permanent gender dysphoria…. even if you did manage to get that part right, none of the treatment options seem adequate. Probably the only real answer is one that would be the most violently opposed – finding a way to “correct” the brain instead of “correcting” the body. The odds of that ever happening are slim – at least for many decades to come, but even then, I doubt you’d get a receptive audience. Changing your brain to be a different person seems like a hard no for most people.
There was the story about the guy who was a devout christian, dad and husband. One day, he starts picking up gay dudes and having a wild gay party life. Leaves his family behind. Wife convinces him to see a doctor… Brain Tumor. They take the tumor out, and he goes back to normal. Heterosexual husband, dad, christian. A couple of years later…. he starts being all flamboyant again and going out to pick up guys. Back to the doctor….. Tumor is back.
He decides against treatment. He likes who he is with the tumor. Parties until he dies a few months later.
Your identity is your identity… it is all in the brain. So if you change the brain, you change who you are. Very bizarre to think about. And something most people will combat at all costs, even if they would be a better version of themselves. Or in this case, a version that matched their physical body.
I’m sure that even talking about it like that is super offensive to the folks going through it….. so it ain’t likely to ever get fixed at the source.
There’s an entire industry of pharmaceuticals dedicated to just that.
Enh what’s a broken bone or two and dead swimmers.
I suppose it’s better than cutting their Wang off though.
Fake News You Can Use:
“Trump Poll Numbers Improve After Campaign Rebrands Slogan to ‘Because F*ck Them Again’”
FTA:
TULSA, OK- In a startling move that has garnered attention among pollsters, support for President Trump’s re-election has increased by nearly ten points after the campaign made the controversial decision to change its re-election slogan from “Keep America Great Again” to “Because F*ck Them Again”.
“I’ve never seen such an increase in an incumbent’s support [based] off of nothing more than changing a slogan.” Said Luke Hemings with Cook Political Report. “For whatever reason, this new slogan has really resonated with voters.”
The expletive laced slogan was immediately criticized by media pundits from the New York Times to the Washington Post and cable news, however when informed of this criticism, voters interviewed seemed to be even more enthusiastic in their support of the president.
“Hell yeah,” Mitch Songarten responded when we told him that the New York Times had printed a front-page editorial denouncing the new slogan. “If it makes people at the New York Times cry then I’m all for it. Because f*ck them again.”
Songarten admitted that he had been unsure on whether he’d vote to re-elect the president before the new slogan but has since decided that no matter whom the Democrats nominate, he will be voting for President Trump.
“I love it.” Songarten told us. “I love the fact that it pisses you all off. I love the fact that you all have to come down to Tulsa on safari and cry about how much the president hurts your feelings. Because f*ck you all.”
Others in Tulsa were not as enthusiastic with the tone of the campaign. Professor Emma Bish at Oklahoma State University said that the new slogan highlighted the authoritarian character of President Trump.
“This is a dog whistle,” Bish said. “I mean ‘f*ck them again’ is just so mean spirited and really underscores how dangerous of a man [President] Trump is. And the fact that this is resonating with voters shows us that we need to prevent these voters from having a say in our democracy.”
On a similar front….. Bloomberg is spending big in Florida right now. Ads are virulently anti-Trump and very far into “fake news” territory, both on the Anti-Trump side and on the Pro-Bloomberg side. Haven’t seen snopes fact-checking him into oblivion though……
“Trump Poll Numbers Improve After Campaign Rebrands Slogan to ‘Because F*ck Them Again’”
Trump hires STEVE SMITH as campaign manager, wins all woodland states.
Even religious fanatics eventually get bored.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/impeachment-killing-trump-derangement-syndrome-daniel-greenfield/
There is something very strange afoot.
The media is trying to create momentum – GOP wavering on witnesses, etc. But it isn’t catching. But they are also pushing lots of polls showing just how much everyone hates Trump and wants him gone. Poll after poll they claim that more than half want him removed.
But recent polling by ABC and CNN (proudly displayed) shows various people in the Dem primary essentially tied with Trump, usually leading by a point or two at 49-48 or 48-46.
And that is with a non-stop, 3 year negative propaganda campaign and no push from Trump yet.
Yet other numbers seem even odder. Trump’s support is up among women, hispanics, blacks, etc. So how is the Democrat candidate staying ahead? Take away a chunk of the minority vote and it should be over and done…. shouldn’t it.
Something really odd is going on with the polling on this.
What was the sample for those polls? Adults? Registered voters? Or likely voters?
CNN Viewers.
Aka people stuck at airports
Hot take: Trying to be a good Dad cost Kobe his life
Hot Take: “Rich VIP pressures hired help into making fatal mistake. We should all live up to this standard.”
Fuck whoever wrote that shit (I didn’t bother to click through).
Moral of the Story: Don’t be a good dad
Just change helicopter to car and car to bus. The fact was that he could have a helicopter and was happy to give friends who didn’t a ride in it. It was a stupid tragedy and I do blame the pilot for not telling Kobe that this trip wasn’t happening due to weather. But it was in the end a tragedy that happens when trying to get from point a to point b in a powerful machine Just as true for the peons and the rich and powerful.
You know what a lot of these wealthy-celebrities-find-themselves-in-fatal-plane crashes tragedies have in common?
Getthereitis. A pilot who decides to attempt a flight in marginal conditions that all aviators should reject out of hand. This is usually due to a bunch of reasons, with a near universal case that they fear flying in bad weather less than they fear a furious dressing down from the celebrity.
In Kobe’s crash, the reason why the helicopter was flying so low is that it was trying to fly below the clouds to keep flying in accordance with visual flight rules (VFR). For whatever reason, they didn’t want to file an IFR plan. They also were trying to stay out of CLass C airspace which limited their altitude to 2500 feet ASL. There were almost no helicopters flying because the weather was so bad that they couldn’t do their jobs (watching for traffic, providing top cover for police on the ground, etc. I’m sure that the pilot thought the weather was pretty shitty.
I expect that fear of his boss’ displeasure far outweighed his fear of crashing. I would be very surprised if Kobe didn’t play a huge role in creating that value judgement in his pilot’s mind.
Yep
Hard to say. Maybe Kobe was an ass about it, maybe the pilot was just overconfident. What really bugs me is that there were kids on board. That should have made this level of risk unacceptable, even if the adults were OK with it.
You know what’s nice about helicopters?
You can land them in all sorts of places when the situation demands it.
By gliding in, yes?
I hate helicopters, and I never want to get on one again.
Seems to be a common sentiment to everyone but Ozy.
My neighbor was a VN-era pilot. He takes great pride in never setting foot in one after he left the AF.
*waiting 10 seconds for someone to bring up auto-rotation…
Because a highly skilled maneuver that requires calmly monitoring several finicky details in order to pick the precise moment, while falling to your death, is the same as adjusting flaps and gliding.
For whatever reason, they didn’t want to file an IFR plan.
This is what confuses me. That can be done on the fly (so to speak), no?
A “pop-up” IFR clearance can be requested. And it can be denied.
I landed in LAX very late Friday night. It was extremely foggy, more than I’d ever seen before. However, once I crossed the Sepulveda pass the air in the valley was clear. Sure, that was more than 30 hours before the crash. But the contrast in fog conditions south and north of the Santa Monica mountains was huge. The copter crashed on the valley side of the mountains.
“You know what a lot of these wealthy-celebrities-find-themselves-in-fatal-plane crashes tragedies have in common? Getthereitis.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Avjet_Aspen_crash
“According to witnesses, the charter customer, upon learning that the flight might have to be diverted to an alternate airport due to the night landing restriction, had his business assistant call Avjet management, to “let them know that the airplane was not going to be redirected”. In addition, witnesses claimed that when the charter customer learned that the captain had discussed the possible diversion with some of the passengers waiting for the late arrivals, he had his assistant call Avjet to instruct the captain to “keep his comments to himself”. The Avjet charter department scheduler subsequently testified that “the captain felt that it was important to land at [Aspen] because of the substantial amount of money that the [charter] customer spent for a dinner party”.
No shit. What a stupid response.
I’ve already given my “hot take” on helo pilots and crashes; I could filibuster about the subject for a month, easy.
Helo crashes are weird and tragic because it (crashing) is endemic to the undertaking for a LOT of reasons: some are pilot-generated, some are a byproduct of the nature of helicopter flight, and some are a byproduct of rules that encourage the frog to boil itself slowly (I’m thinking of Special VFR rules for helos in Class D airspace, as one example).
I miss flying them, but I never pursued flying jobs for two reasons: (1) I didn’t have enough hours to be competitive in the marketplace with Army (and more senior) pilots; (2) After operating what amounts to a flying Corvette with rockets and guns, the news helo gig seemed pretty fucking lame unless they were going to let me shoot at drivers on the I-5.
The pilot fucked this up. We’ll never know if it was because of actual pressure from his client or the pressure in the pilot’s head, but a series of bad decisions (like in every fucking mishap EVAH!!) led to them all paying ‘full price’ for that ride.
That kinda turns me on.
OT: Trump goes big, again.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed creation of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, dependent on Palestinians taking steps to become self-governing, in an attempt to achieve a peace breakthrough in their decades of conflict with Israel.
He does like to shake the box and see what falls out. You do have to do that sometimes or you run into the problem of doing things because you’ve always done them like that.
Isn’t that what Bush proposed a couple of decades ago?
A lot of people proposed a lot of things over the years. And it’s always rejected by the Palestinians in the form of violence. They’ve already decided to reject a Trump plan sight unseen. It’s almost like some people benefit from a perpetual state of conflict.
Of course the Palestinians reject these plans. Would you ever expect (((them))) to keep their word? / anti-semites of all stripes.
If he gets those clowns to agree to anything, will the establishment commit a mass suicide?
They won’t.
Which will give Trump reason to give Israel even more room to do as they see fit.
Of course. I’m just fantasizing about thousands of bureaucrats drinking Kool-Aid for some reason.
It won’t happen. There will be bickering about flavoring and reasonable accommodation in choice of sweeteners, and to whose budget the whole thing should be charged…
It was flavor-aid. And you filled out the forms incorrectly for this.
Of course I did. I’m trying to get it pushed past my retirement date.
“Don’t lecture me about the flavor policy. I was the chair on the committee that determined the flavor corresponds to the its natural color.
…Consequently, we kept the flavor gray.”
Sorry, I was on the working group that evaluated the committee’s recommendations. We rejected the report in its entirety and switched to lingonberry.
I see this needs to be escalated up to central office for final adjudication. I will CC you to the NASTYGRAM.
No, cognitive dissonance is powerful with these people. They’ll complain that Trump made the situation worse by creating peace and he was doing it to benefit himself in the next election which he could never win on his own.
I have to say, this has been a series I have enjoyed Mojeaux.
Oh thank you! I’m happy to pour my thoughts to an appreciative crowd.
A most interesting euphemism.
I do my best to pack as much salaciousness I can into every sentence I utter.
? What he said.
Thanks! 😀
This has been an interesting series. Thanks.
Rules of writing.
IMO rules of writing are like training wheels. Helpful to start with, but after a certain point they’re just holding you back.
And when you self-publish and you have all the control, you’re never finished tweaking.
Just don’t go all George Lucas on it.
I did retcon a few details but I’m not sure even my most ardent fans noticed. They did appreciate the expanded explanations. Sometimes I am too “show-y” and not “tell-y” enough.
https://babylonbee.com/news/threat-bolton-wakes-up-next-to-his-dead-mustache
somebody at the Bee reads HnH!
No question in my mind at this point. Good to know we have fellow travelers out there!
Regardless of whether or not he wins, Trumpism ain’t going away.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-line-for-trump-rally-on-jersey-shore-is-insane-100000-seeking-tickets/
Landslide.
Even when Trump is out of office, I doubt he’s going to go away. Too big an ego. I wonder if he’ll continue doing rallies as an ex-president. I wonder if he’ll run for some other office, just so he can keep the spotlight.
And yes, the voters are most certainly not going away, so the never-Trumpers are never going to get a world where they can pretend this whole thing never happened.
Taft ended up as Chief Justice.
Quincy Adams ended up as a Congressman.
I think Trump will do something else.
Here’s the thing; he wants to fundamentally transform the U.S. government to protect the little guy. So far he’s sacrificed a lot for it. I don’t think it’s an ego thing. I think he genuinely is trying to do good.
I think like Obama, he’s going to go into the foundation business. But unlike Obama’s Netflix projects, whatever Trump does will be surprising, entertaining, and have great traction with the public.
No I can’t predict it.
Well, yeah. Hating the other tribe is kind of universal.
Way to preach hate you hater! God, I hate haters. They should all just die!
You look hot on the cover.
*sigh* If that were only me…
Seriously. If I looked like that, I would’ve done it. It’s why I am only an ASPIRING odalisque.
Thanks for another entry in a great series.