The British novelist Graham Greene called the necessary distance a writer must have from his or her material "a sliver of ice in the heart of the writer."
T oday, someone like you can tell the truth that you know, with the click of a button. The hyperlocal blog presents a unique opportunity to highlight serious local concerns, but what place does muckraking have in this new world? Imagine being the reporter from Anniston, Alabama who realized that a local chemical plant was pouring chemicals into your town's water source, creating a rash of cancer, deaths and eventually, a ghost town. How would you report on something like that? Obviously, my hope is that your town isn't facing something as tragic as this, but when you start digging into local issues anywhere, you are almost guaranteed to start turning up some very dirty stuff and some very unhappy local people. It's going to take a special blogger to cover this type of story with a cool head, a keen mind and a powerful voice. Is it a good idea or not to have a powerful voice?
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way Why you think you have nothing to say
E very Tom Russell song has something to say about the human heart. In each voice he invokes there are universal echoes of love, doubt, weakness, fear, restlessness and faith.
Here is what I like to think happens when we die: first, we float. Alone in boundless blackness, we are conscious only of absence. Then, all around us, faint pinpoints of light brighten slowly, imperceptibly, so we don’t notice until we’re surrounded. A luminous map of stars pulses into focus, accompanied by a swelling of strings from an invisible orchestra. We can make out far-off planets and hula hoops of debris around them. Purplish clouds of galactic dust yawn in the distance. Then, all at once, we’re flying, everything a blur of blue and orange and black, and the brass section kicks in with spirit, crescendoes, louder, more trumpet there, and we are hurtling through space faster and faster, and then, then, just when our teeth begin to grind with anxiety, an Earth-like oversized marble of a planet grows huge in front of us, and with a jolt we stop.
• Politics, love, doubt, weakness, fear, restlessness and faith [The reason telling someone to “think out of the box” is so stupid is because it really means “I hate all your ideas” or “I can’t think out of the box myself, so I need you to.” In any case, it’s lame to say. We are all creative. The only thing we really have in this world is the ability to craft a life. One day your life will be over, and we are largely unsure what happens next, but during the time we’re alive, we get to choose what we do. We create a life. We are all creative. ; Soon after Barack Obama was elected president, we started to see racist comments posted on our website that included the "N word." It wasn't just us; online news sites had to scramble to keep ahead of the racist posters by deleting and blocking their comments. We still occasionally get some, but have a better system of notification, so they are removed quickly. Some news sites, though, gave up and stopped allowing comments altogether. Twain's use of 'N word' doesn't justify journalists using it today]
• · You may have known him as “that guy,” or “Kobayashi,” or “Father Laurence,” but you almost certainly recognize his face. Pete Postlethwaite, whose rugged features and bright, preternaturally piercing eyes made his face unforgettable, has died at 64 after a long battle with cancer. The prolific actor made three films last year (including potential Oscar nominees The Town and Inception) and will have one postmortem release in 2011. He had a sense that acting was a vocation 。。。
Five years ago I googled the words "Pete Postlethwaite" in search of a best actor for my daughter's Gabriella's work assignment for the Scarbough Redcliffe school in Brissie, where, believe it or not, our place was built on flood plains. Gabriella was able to quote the fact that filmmaker Steven Spielberg once described Pete Postlethwaite, as "the best actor in the world”. He looked indestructible. Tough as hell. I hope Gabbie will be like him. Postlethwaite will be missed by all who knew him, and by all who have loved British and American movies in the last thirty-five years. As the newspaper editor in “The Shipping News." I will never forget the line:
“If I had wanted War and Peace, I would have hired William Bloody Shakespeare!” ; Back then in Brissie Media Dragon was literary produced daily as daily dust Memoir entitled A Spectacle of Dust submitted before the actor's death earlier this month
• · · JOHN HATTON, the former independent MP who campaigned for establishment of the royal commission into corruption in NSW Police, is on the campaign trail again. On the road again ; A finger-pointing row erupted last night between former independent state MP
John Hatton and Newcastle lord mayor John Tate. John Tate ; Winners and Losers: Honest v corrupt WinTV
• · · · "I would support three-year fixed terms, yes," Hatton, who is heading up an independents' Upper House ticket in March, said this week."I was one of the architects of the four-year term because what was happening in NSW [was] they were running to the polls on average every 2 1/2 years." Fixed Democracy? ; Standing for Integrity ; I am standing for the seat of Heathcote at the March 2011 NSW State election as an Independent with the support of former South Coast parliamentarian and legendary corruption fighter, John Hatton. Heathcote and Transport - Greg Petty for a BIG difference!; Transportation
• · · · · Illawarra; Former Independent MP John Hatton, the politician responsible for launching the 1990s royal commission into corruption in the NSW police, toured the Tweed Shire last week to relaunch his political career in the Upper - Case - House
• · · · · · John Hatton in action; Hohn Hatton speaking