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| HarryG's blog |
| My wife Linda & I are spending the week with our daughter in Dallas. (Actually the suburb community of Allen.) I went to Target yesterday late afternoon, and it was HOT outside. I wrote a poem about it today. If interested in reading it, it is new in my portfolio. This summer is going to be miserably hot, folks! It was 93 degrees on 22 April.... Cheers! Harry |
| What with my Aunt Margie's funeral last Tuesday, I have been pondering over life and death lately and how one best explains death to young children such as some at Margie's funeral. The following poem is the result of my pondering this weighty issue: Why Did My Grandmother Have To Die? Check it out either in my portfolio here at Writing.com OR at my other blog: http://harrygillelandwrites.blogspot.com/ |
| My wife's Aunt Margie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August, 2007. The doctor told her he'd suggest chemotherapy, but he warned the average survival after this diagnosis was in the three to six month range. Margie put up a heroic fight, finally dying on April 11, 2009, some twenty months after her diagnosis. Her funeral was held yesterday. I was one of her pallbearers. Today I wrote this poem: April 14, 2009 Get out my dark blue suit and extra-long tie. I hate dressing up and therefore do it so seldom, but today it’s warranted. Drive to the biggest Baptist church in Ruston. Wow, this sanctuary is huge, with video screens and an enormous pipe organ – a truly fancy town church. The casket sits at the front surrounded by spray after spray of gorgeous flower arrangements. I breathe in the smell of roses. The casket is covered with a blanket of red roses, with more red roses standing at each end. She did love red roses. Family and friends fill the room, a sea of sad faces and wet eyes. Three hymns and two preachers later, those assembled now file by the open casket to pay respect, followed by her family members. Many of the women break down into crying, as the men fight hard to maintain their composure. Husband Travis stops and sobs. Travis now ready, we pallbearers carry the casket out the front door to the hearse, waiting with back standing open to swallow the casket. A procession many, many cars long snakes its way slowly along back country roads, finally arriving at St. Rest Church’s Cemetery on White Lightning Road. Her and Travis’s small country church sits watching from across the road. We carry the blue casket up the rise to the tent-covered, prepared gravesite. Only the presence of graves with their monuments distinguishes this country cemetery from adjacent cow pastures. Family sit; friends stand; the two preachers say some final words. Services done, we pallbearers file past, laying our rose boutonnieres atop the casket and comforting poor Travis. The mourners all walk across the road to the church, where the good ladies of the congregation have laid out tables of ample country-style eats to feed the entire assemblage. After second helpings of fried chicken, deviled eggs, creamed corn, baked beans, assorted dips, fruit salads, and three desserts, I drive home to Shreveport with a heavy heart. Goodbye, Aunt Margie. You were well-respected and loved by all who had the pleasure to know you. I am glad I was among those so fortunate. You were a great country lady. Margie Lea Doss Hood March 10, 1933 – April 11, 2009 |
| The April 6, 2009 issue of The Nation on page 5 has some interesting statistics about Iraq six years after we invaded: Cost to U.S. of war = $656 billion in funds allocated. Documented civilian deaths = between 91,121 and 99,500 Estimated Iraqi deaths due to U.S. invasion = 1,320,110 Iraqi civilians killed in Feburary, 2009 = 346 (including 11 children) U.S. casualties to date = 4,259 deaths and 31,131 wounded in action U.S. troops deployed in Iraq since 2003 = 513,000, with 197,000 deployed more than once, and 53,000 deployed three or more times U.S. soldiers who committed suicide in January, 2009 = as many as 24, the highest monthly total since the Army began keeping those stats in 1980 Iraqi unemployment rate = 18 percent overall, with 28 percent unemployment for men ages 15 to 29 Iraqi female labor force participation = 17 percent Journalists killed in Iraq = 138 Estimated number of Iraqis displaced since 2003 = 5 million, which is nearly 20 percent of Iraq's total population Iraqi prison population = 15,100 held in U.S. custody; 35,000 held in Iraqi custody Average hours of electricity per day in Iraq = 13.3 hours Some eye-popping numbers here.... Cheers! Harry |
| http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009903180314 The Shreveport Times' Wednesday magazine supplement which is distributed throughout the neighborhoods located in the southeastern area of Shreveport, LA, (my hometown) is called Southeast Voices. It reaches about 40,000 readers out of Shreveport-Bossier City's total population of about 240,000. Today it has a feature article about me and my poetry. (link above) |
| Greetings, Published authors ~ Increase your book's visibility with the Yahoo group "Virtual Book Tours – the Ongoing Tour". We are a group of authors, each of whom hosts one other member at our tour blog on the first of each month. We use other promotional strategies also. To find out more, contact Karen at: karenrcfv@ yahoo.com (no space). Please put VBT-HEG in subject box. The group has twenty active members at present and can only expand to about double that conveniently. So, if interested, please contact Karen (group leader of VBT) without delay. Several of us here at Writing.com are already members. Self-published and POD authors are welcomed. My VBT blog is: Harry Gilleland Writes on blogspot at http://harrygillelandwrites.blogspot.com/ . Each month I feature another member, usually posting their picture, a picture of their book cover, their bio, a synopsis of their book, a few Q&A's, information about buying their book, and any other details as appropriate. Come check out the VBT group! All members' VBT blogs link to all other members' blogs in the group. This helps tremendously in getting your material picked up by search engines like Google. Cheers! Harry Published 2008: "Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man". A collection of my poetry. Lulu Press. 2008 Reader Views Literary Award winner - Honorable Mention in Fiction, Poetry category |
My poetry book, "Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man" won Honorable Mention in the Fiction, Poetry category in the 2008 Reader Views Literary Awards announced today .  Cheers! Harry |
| The Truth About The Republican Party This is long, but I hope well worth the read: I just finished watching Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, avoid directly answering questions on The Today Show about his having to apologize for calling Rush Limbaugh what he really is – a radio show performer who draws an audience by making outrageous and inflammatory statements. (Good old Rush long ago established his level of credibility when taking a very tough anti-drug stance on the air while he himself was hooked on prescription drugs, i.e. a drug addict. Quite the hypocrite! Seems to be a trait of Republicans, like La’s Senator Vitter who campaigned on family values and Christian virtues, all the while frequenting whores in N.O. and Washington…and he is still our Senator!) I guess it is obvious how much power Rush wields in the Republican Party these days. He is their new leader. Steele was forced to apologize the next day! The Republican Party well deserves to have its approval level of 26 % among Americans these days. They are a circus. La Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal is trying to recover from his disastrous national TV response speech following President Obama’s speech. He has one huge problem. The Republican Party has nothing left to offer. The Bush/Cheney/Rove Imperial Presidency showed what happens when the Republican Party has its way – national catastrophe! The eight years of Republican rule, controlling Congress for six of the eight years as well as the White House, reveals where Republican policies carry the nation. Bush inherited a surplus, which he turned into a trillion $$ annual deficit if you include the costs of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which their administration didn’t include in the official budget), raising our national debt from 5 trillion when he took office to over 10 trillion before he left office. So much for Republicans being “the party of fiscal responsibility” as opposed to those “money-wasting, tax-and-spend liberal Democrats” they warn us about all the time. (Next time a Republican tells you how the Republican Party stands for fiscal responsibility, go ahead and laugh in his/her face!) During these past eight Republican years, we got what Republicans say they stand for – little to no government interference, i.e. regulation and oversight, of Big Business. They let the free market work. And work it did. It speculated wildly by combining banking, insurance, and mortgages into one package to be sold and re-sold, making huge profits for the financial institutions and especially their executives. I read somewhere that of the hundreds and hundreds of billions $$$ created during the last Bush term 80 % of it all went to the top 2 % of Americans – the rich elite got fabulously wealthier. How much trickled down to you? Due to unbridled arrogance, greed, and corruption, these financial executives created a tremendous deficit in the financial markets – some say in the range of 40 to 50 trillion $$$ worth of bad debt/losses. The housing bubble burst first, followed by Wall Street financial firms failing, credit markets collapsing, banks closings, Stock Market decline (like a stone!) ... recession, now depression. Millions of Americans lost billions of $$ -- their life savings, their retirement funds, etc. Do you think that top 2 % of Americans are worried about being able to stay in their houses, buy a new car, send their kids to college? No, they are insulated from the financial hell they wrought. Now as I recall, before leaving office, Bush demanded and got a billion $$ bailout of Wall Street. The Republican Party went along. Therefore, to get history straight, Bush started the nation down the path of government investing in banking institutions, i.e. nationalization of banking or socialism in America. Bush of the Republican Party. Now that President Obama and the Democrats are having to try with more bailouts to save the country’s economy from the disaster created by Bush and The Republican Party, why is it that all Republicans vote NO, claiming it is socialism and on the road to nationalization of banks and Big Business in America?? Are they THAT forgetful of what Bush did? Can’t they see what hypocrites they are being? They are circus clowns! Or maybe it is because the Bush bailout went to financial institutions so their executives could give out billions in executive bonuses, do million-dollar office remodels, take expensive trips, etc, whereas President Obama wants to fund fixing America’s roads and bridges, stop home foreclosures, extend unemployment benefits, and help lower and middle class Americans. There is nothing there for those rich Republicans; why not all vote NO? The only way the Republican Party can regain any semblance of credibility would be to totally repudiate Bush/Cheney/Rove’s years of power, to state that they had gone totally astray and were not anything at all what the Republican Party wanted. Otherwise, what the Republicans have to offer is what the nation just got through enduring for the past eight years…and who in their right mind would want a return of that! When they put forth their plans for America in opposition to Obama’s plans, simply ask do you want a return to the Bush years and the economic and war disasters they brought. One final comment. Rush Limbaugh is totally honest when he says he wants Obama’s efforts to save America’s economy to fail. Of course he does. That is the only way the Republican Party has any hopes of returning itself to power in America. Besides, good old Rush with his multi-million $$$ salary won’t suffer any if the economy totally collapses bringing back the Great Depression days to America. Neither will the true Republicans, those wealthy, elite 2 % who control the Republican Party. The Republican Party has always been for Big Business and for wealthy people. If you cannot do well if Obama’s efforts fail, then what are you doing as part of the Republican circus? The Republican Party is bankrupt of workable ideas for governing America. Its policies have been tried under Bush/Cheney/Rove and proved to be a national calamity. The true wonder is why do 26 % of Americans still approve of them? Cheers! Harry Published 2008: "Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man". A collection of my poetry. Lulu Press. |
| I am truly worried about the next couple of years' U.S. economy. I watched The Bill Maher Show on HBO Friday night, and two U.S. Representatives said on national TV that most Americans do not realize just how close to national bankrupty our national economy is, that it is very "fragile" at present. I also read that several of our country's largest financial institutions/banks were insolvent, according to the NY Times. They will either have to declare bankrupty or be nationalized by the federal government. Then just today I read where Citibank is trying to negotiate for the federal government to become 40 % owners. Wall Street investors are bailing out of the market, according to the headlines, causing it to fall to its lowest point since 1997. The government acts like they are surprised that investors have not responded better to the recent bailout. Well, from what I read and have heard on 60 Minutes, the bankers do not even know for certain just how big a deficit/loss is involved with the big banks because no regulation means they never have had to report their exact deficit figures to any government agency and even the banks have no clear idea of the total figure. Some estimates are upwards of forty to fifty trillion $$. Insiders have no confidence that the bailouts can save many institutions because $1+ trillion from the government to these banks is a mere drop in their deficit bucket, and the government cannot possibly afford to give them 40 trillion $$$. Plus there will still be hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the coming year, maybe more if several national banks and the Big-3 car manufacturers go bankrupt. Then there is still the housing crisis, with millions of foreclosures impending. Plus the health care costs for those now unemployed and uninsured. On and on, the economic picture for 2009 is dismal at best. And what if China and other foreign countries that have been allowed to buy up America suddenly demand payment on all the loans given to U.S. companies, etc. The U.S. dollar would become virtually worthless in international trading. Heaven help the U.S.A.! I don't think the average American has yet realized how dire the current economic crisis truly is. I will quite interested to see what President Obama has to say in his national TV address tonight. I hope he tells it like it is. The Republican rebuttal will be given by Piyush Jindal, who calls himself "Bobby", the current governor of Louisiana. Jindal is so busy running for President in 2012 that he seems to be out of state more than in-state. He is the Republican heir-apparent, so designated by the true Republican Party leader Rush Limbaugh, that ex-druggy hypocrit. Jindal is pure ambition; he will do or say anything the party leaders want him to since he is trying so hard to win the presidential nomination. Watch his mouth move with the Republican leaderships' hands up his back. I truly do not understand the Republican Party. First Bush ruins the economy and has the first huge multi-billion $$$ bailout for the bankers, who then turn around and give billions of $$ in bonuses to bank company executives, remodel offices, take lavish trips, etc. since no accounting or regulations were included on how the money must be spent. Bush's bailout was certainly the first step toward nationalizing the banks and toward going down the road to socialism. But now, the Republicans are acting like they did not cause this economic disaster but somehow it belongs solely to Obama and the Democrats. What short and selective memories these Republicans have! Rather than try to help save millions of jobs, prevent home foreclosures, and rebuild America's failing infrastructure with the Obama bailout, all the Republicans in Congress save three Representatives from the Northeastern states voted NO, trying to block it. I guess it is okay with Republicans to bail out bank executives but to hell with working people across America. A good Republican should be rich enough not to need government help, I guess...unless he is a multi-millionaire banker. The Rupublican Party cares not one whit about this great country of ours. All they care about is hoping Obama's efforts fail so they will have a stronger campaign issue come the 2010 Congressional elections and then the 2012 Presidentail election. They are willing for America to suffer, maybe collapse economically, just so they can get returned to power. All I have to say is "Shame on the Republican Party!" I hope most Americans see them and what they are doing for what it is. They spit on Obama's gallant efforts at bi-partisanship. They are willing to spit on the American working class. Wake up, America! Don't let those..uh, gentlemen, get away with turning their backs on bailing out jobs, homes, roads & bridges, etc. Remember their votes and actions well this next year while America's economy suffers and falters. They will be smiling in glee watching it. Remember them in the coming 2010 & 2012 elections. It will be your turn to vote NO on them. I hope everyone watches President Obama's speech tonight! |
| Yesterday I emailed an entry to the Winning Writers 2009 War Poetry Contest. The entry fee for this contest is only $15, which is quite cheap as far as many international contests go. I have written a number of war poems over the years; however, poems for this contest must be unpublished, even on-line. So, I had to write two new poems in order to enter. Finished tweaking them yesterday and entered. I have entered my latest poetry book, Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man, in three book contests: Reader Views Annual Literary Awards 2009, 2009 National Indie Excellence Awards, and 17th Annual Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Awards (actually will mail this entry Monday). I'm hopeful .... cautiously optimistic, as they say. I think it is my best poetry book yet. I entered Bob (actually the first chapter of my book Bob the Dragon Slayer) into the 2009 Tom Howard Prose Contest. Lastly, I still have not heard about my chapbook entitled What War Is, which I entered awhile back into the Slipstream Poetry Contest for chapbooks. (I'm not too hopeful about this one winning.) I'll be hearing the results of contests I entered for the remainder of this year, from March until mid-November. This may be a humbling year! Cheers! Harry |
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