Now this is truly a topic I can get behind, support, and rave about. I had no idea the raptor sanctuary at Hawk Mountain PA existed, but now that I have found it thanks to this prompt provided by Wise Leader FICTION!! FANDANGO!! I will be praying night and day to find a way to visit it.
Hawks are for me such a symbol of freedom, grace, and ability to soar above and to transcend "reality," the ugliness that life so often provides. Whenever I see one overhead, I will stop in my tracks, literally, standing and staring till he or she passes out of sight. I'm sure I look quite the dunce, but I'm even more certain I do not care. I absolutely love and admire these gorgeous birds.

I was so anxious before I researched the prompt that it would refer to one of those horrible, upscale, land-destroying, vastly expensive, mountain developments so common in Appalachia. The relief to discover that this is a 75-year-old wild bird sanctuary is enough to make me faint with relief! Even more relieved to discover that this was actually a "citizen endeavour," and not an act of FDR-never my favorite President.

Please, y'all, go look at this site, read its history, become a fan of Hawk Mountain on Facebook (you know I did!)

http://www.hawkmountain.org/History.php
http://www.hawkmountain.org/History.php
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Hawk-Mountain-Sanctuary-Association/1105...
http://twitter.com/Hawk_Mountain
 

Blog about my favourite authors? That might require a succession of volumes akin to Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Seriously, today I'll just mention three authors whose ability has changed my viewpoint on writing, authors whose work I admire so much-as authorship-that I wish only to grow up and write that well! (half that well, a quarter as well ).

Authors whom I admire greatly but even more so for particular books:

Terry Goodkind, author of the fantastic and extensive The Sword of Truth Series, at 11 volumes, has this year published the first novel in a completely new series. Moving from epic fantasy to contemporary urban fantasy, his newest, The Law of Nines, is a heart-stopping, jaw-dropping thrill-a-minute. I read it literally in awe of Mr. Goodkind's immense writing talent.

Then we have the immensely prolific Stephen King, who of course is noted for so very many novels, short stories, and screenplays, as well as other creative endeavours. However, for me Mr. King's best is encapsulated in these three novels:

Duma Key,

Lisey's Story,

Bag of Bones.

To my perspective these are what I call “the literary Stephen King,” books which I reread periodically for the simple glorious pleasure of Mr. King's total command of the language, of character delineation, of plotting and suspense. Stephen King rocks!

Lastly, but far from least and ranking right up there in the pantheon of the greatest, is a lesser-known but equally valuable fantasy author, P. C. Hodgell. Author of the incredibly rich world-building of the fantasy series The Godstalk Chronicles, this author leaves me speechless at the magnitude of her skill. If you want to know how to write fantasy-or science fiction-or historical fiction-or any kind of “speculative” fiction which involves extensive world-building in a fashion which immediately captivates, and keeps, readers' attention, never beleaguering and never boring, then run-do not stroll-to your nearest bookselling outlet and grab up all her books!

Links of Use:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/terry-goodkind/
http://www.terrygoodkind.com/

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/stephen-king/
http://www.stephenking.com/index.html

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/p-c-hodgell/
http://www.pchodgell.com/site/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=1...
 

DEC 29 PROMPT:

“Your take on saving money on staples/ rising prices (etc.)”


I don't have any personal direct take on rising prices, since I am a family caregiver for room and board with no direct income and no direct expenditures. I hear from the household's adults much about “the economy,” “the poor economy,” “nobody has money, everybody's hurtin',” but directly-I have no exposure. So let's talk about what I do know, from personal experience, and lucky me, I can connect this right back to the topic of Dec. 27's entry: Mountaintop Removal.

I sure don't wish to seem that I am in the midst of a week of Kentucky bashing-yes, I railed against certain historical facts about Pikeville, Kentucky on Dec. 27-and today I'm going to rail again, but specifically directed at COAL MINING. Now-back in the latter half of the 1990's, as I said earlier, I spent quite a bit of time travelling around Kentucky and West Virginia and Southwest Virginia, studying the mountain scenery and Southern Appalachian culture. I went everywhere I could possibly manage to drive my “lil white speedboat” in the time frame allowed, and I saw quite a few towns, villages, cities, nuclear power plants, coal mine operations, and economic distress. And that's what I want to rant on today:

I wrote:

Prompt: You've a big date for New Year's Eve with a celebrity. (Who?) He or she cancels. Now what?

Washington, District of Columbia-
Dec. 31, 1872

I tapped the toes of my highly-polished spats impatiently against the lobby's parquet floor and brushed back my oiled brown hair. Waiting, always waiting: whenever I wanted to see Miz Victoria, it was I who would be left waiting. The woman was a whirlwind, never still. I doubt she ever rested. Sincerely I had believed that after the collapse of her Presidential campaign earlier this year, she would have seen the Light and given up her political aspirations. If she would only listen!

I would give Miz Victoria Claflin Woodhull all that she ever asked, dreamed, and desired-with the exception of course, of the Presidency of this Union, of suffrage for women (bah! Silly sentimental concept!), and of freewheeling affairs-no, when we marry that will have to cease! But all of that is just Vickie playing at politics, playing at love, playing at upending social mores. When we are married she will settle down and raise her children and ours, a dutiful little haus frau indeed. When we are married--

But oh, wherever is she now?

---written by a fictional suitor about Victoria Claflin Woodhull, Stockbroker, Newspaper Owner, Women's Suffrage Advocate, and 1872 Presidential Candidate (with Frederick Douglass as Vice Presidential Candidate)
 

"Mountaintop Removal"! What is it?
I direct you, for example, to
http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/stop-mountaintop-removal.html
http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/
http://www.ilovemountains.org/

When I lived in Southern Appalachia, from mid-1993 to mid-1999, and again from summer 2004-March 2006, I was very aware of this subject. In fact during 1996-mid-1999, I spent many days driving throughout the mountains. One of the sites I regularly visited was a town called Pikeville, KY. Pineville's claim to fame (their claim, not mine) is that in the latter half of the 20th century, the city arranged to move:
a highway
a railroad
a mountain.
All this: in the name of Progress.
Pikeville bills itself online as
"the city that moves mountains"

Pikeville offers a free DVD titled, "Then and Now." I can just imagine--

I just checked out my zip code on www.ilovemountains.org, to see what connection my locale has to Mountaintop Removal. Now, I live in Georgia, west central to be exact. Here is the result for my locale:

Blogging Contest Prompt:

"Birdsboro, PA receives one resident's complaint to change the name of their "Christmas in Birdsboro" event, citing "it's an endorsement of Christianity to the exclusion of other religious holidays," according to The Reading Eagle -- Nov 23. 2009

Your take on the "political correctness" of using the term "Christmas."



I've already posted on my reaction to the holiday, which is completely divergent, I must express, from the religious nature of the celebration. What I object to is the gift-giving portion, and that is based on
a) personal history
b) commercialization
c) my dismay that the Joys of the Season never manage to extend beyond Dec. 26, nor to begin before, say Oct. 31 of the following year.

All that stated, my personal take on the above is:

This is so wrong. How is "Christmas in -XYZ" violating the religious and or sociocultural holiday commemmorations of any other ethnicity/nationality/race/species/culture/planet? Well, it's not. My personal ideas on Christmas don't affect others who love gift-giving (except when I holler too loudly, "Bah! HUMBUG!) and anyone who embraces multicultural diversity (as do I) ought to be able to handle "Christmas" as well as any other holiday/commemmoration/celebration.

"Christmas in-XYZ Community" should not violate anyone else's sensibilities or civil rights or sociocultural diversity any more than "Fourth of July Celebrations" ought to violate the personal / nationalistic sensibilities of Canadian or British visitors. Please! There is a continuum of political correctness. Let us-correctly-not violate either extreme. Moderation in all things, indeed.
 

Happy Holidays, and break out the roses!
I just completed the planned expansion on the 2009 NaNoWriMo Project, so now that novel is complete!

(to be sung to the tune of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”)

Grandma had a near miss with a Reindeer
He tried to take my Internet away
Reindeer got distracted by the Subway
And sandwich-hungry, he ran off that way

Grandma had a near miss with a Reindeer
He brought me early Christmas gifts-today!
I couldn't wait a year this time to open
No, I had to open all today

Grandma had a near miss with a Reindeer
A hoofprint on my forehead's all I saw
A snow angel shape in a snowdrift
Wearin' antler tracks instead of wings

 

Entry 12/23:

Dear Constant Readers:

Please read all of this entry before screaming:
“Off with her head!”

First composed for Christmastide 2007:

Let me specify first of all that I do NOT do Christmas-not since childhood. Halloween is my favorite holiday and that is because a] it’s spooky and b] it doesn’t invoke family spirit. I don’t do Thanksgiving either. When my children were small I tolerated the gift giving for their sake. When I’ve lived with family members, I’ve had to tolerate Christmas [and Thanksgiving] because of the children. However, I do it grumbling “Bah humbug!” [literally]

Christmas 2006 ranks as one of the worst since my married days [1974-1984]. My ex showed with his current wife [they married in November 1985, but he left her in the early spring of 2006, to take up with his current girlfriend, although he and the Wife continued to “see” each other until she moved out of state. Rather than bringing the girlfriend for the grandkids’ Christmas celebration, he brought the Wife [who is stepgrandmother, not genetic grandmother].

At that time my PC was still in the living room with daughter’s PC and son-in-law’s PC. The smaller couch had been positioned in the middle of the room facing the TV, with the three PC’s on the window wall behind it. So ex and Wife faced the TV and the three grandkids opening presents. The 3.5 year-old cried through the entire event; and Grandma, who had no income and neither gave nor received, watched “Black Christmas” on the PC and found it certainly did not live up to its horrifying billing.

Revision composed 12/22/09:

December has many holidays, all of which have worthwhile and significant value to believers in many different religions and cultures. To the best of my knowledge, Christmas is the only one that has been so extraordinarily commercialized. I sometimes feel that only rarely, through the shouts of Madison Avenue barkers, can I occasionally hear one or two still, small, voices, crying out in the wildnerness, their words and meaning drifting away on a desert wind:

“Put the Meaning back in Christmas! Remember the Reason for the Season! Give us back True Christmas!”{/c:green}