*Magnify*
SPONSORED LINKS
BY ONLINE AUTHORS
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/luminementis/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/21
Review Requests: ON
2,324 Public Reviews Given
2,324 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
I try to be honest and positive. My Christian faith is an important background factor. I hate rating low but have a system that determines how I grade.
 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind
I'm good at...
More interested in the content of what you write than the style. Theological, political, historical, scientific, or experiential, or indeed anything that paints a vision of the future. A good grammar checker will tell you about spelling and commas.
Favorite Genres
Not entirely sure as I like most stuff. I prefer something with a soul rather than purely secular. But I like Sci-Fi, anything Christian, and also 'What-if' type speculations with plausible plots.
Least Favorite Genres
Anything that fails to look for a way out of the darkness. You can be dark, just don't wallow in it. Generally, I try to steer clear of Fantasy, and most Dark or Horror stories just make me laugh or grimace due to their ignorance of the dark side.
Favorite Item Types
I have really liked some of the heartwarming dramas I have read here particularly personal stories. Thought-provoking poems or stories are cool also though I am no expert on poetical forms.
Least Favorite Item Types
Anything that is just an affirmation of the dark side. I hate empty words. I always look for human intelligence. I try and avoid Fantasy and Horror where there is no metaphorical resonance or connection with real-world truth.
I will not review...
I mainly review at random and just see what grabs my attention. I will usually skip stuff I do not like unless it gets me riled or if it is interesting for other reasons.
Public Reviews
Previous ... 17 18 19 20 -21- 22 23 24 25 26 ... Next
501
501
Review of The Family Bible  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Hello, 🌕 HuntersMoon . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "The Family Bible"  fits the Raid Review Comedy theme for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A family bible includes the birth and death date information of the family going back generations. But little Tommy discovers something altogether more ancient and important still.

*Quill*Commentary

I have always wondered how this sort of thing worked. I have a large family and have worked out the genealogy going back three centuries. My family consistently had loads of kids. So who got the ancient bible? Moreover, they were always moving around, country to country and so it could really be anywhere. Unless that it is it followed the principle of primogeniture and is, therefore, the heirloom of some gentleman farmer in Shakespeare country near Stratford on Avon. I wonder if there is a leaf in those pages?

Anyway, I digress. This was brilliant. The punch line would have made me spill my coffee if I had not already finished it.

I really could not fault this in any way - so five stars.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

None


Thanks for sharing.

SuperPower Raid Sig - Balloon Cat

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
502
502
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello, rhymereisen. This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Interview with LeeLoo"  fits the Raid Review Comedy theme for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Famed international reporter Rhymer Reisen (or is it Mike Addisphon (rhymes with my cat is fun)) interviews
his bambino hairless kitten, LeeLoo. It is hard to tell who is running the interview - the cat or the reporter.

*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

You did this in the style of an interview with some celebrity. But this was not fluff and glitz but rather ended up a painful experience for the reporter.

So we have two characters here Rhymer Reisen who wrote the story for Purry Lit and is now following up with an interview with the cat in the story which apparently just so happens to be his own cat. Then we have LeeLoo who is in no mood to flatter anyone but herself.

LeeLoo has all the personality of a cat and is in no mood to pamper anyone's ego but her own. She wants the best food, constant attention plays tricks on her owner whose name she continually gets wrong. Though to be fair he did pretend to be someone else in the story that got published about her. She also seems a little peeved at having been dressed up in a Lamby Lamb costume.

Important revelations from the interview included the ability of cats to manipulate government documents and the degree of control they exercise over international trade routes ie the recent blockage of the Suez canal.

The interview roams around all the themes of a cat's life including dietary preferences and inappropriate cleaning habits. He plans to use her story for a movie called fifty shades of LeeLoo.

Very funny and creative.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing worth mentioning.


Thanks for sharing.

SuperPower Raid Sig - Balloon Cat

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
503
503
Review of Naked Santa  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, Steev the Friction Wizurd . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Naked Santa"  fits the Raid Review Comedy theme for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Funny description of a naked Santa, robbed by his gang and abandoned. He tries to bribe some kids to help him...

*Quill*Commentary

This was well written and very funny.

It is also an interesting commentary on the play between greed and scruples. The boys would have taken Santa's presents but even their greed was not enough to make them refuse the money he had hidden where the sun doesn't shine.

Santa is white though apparently, he used to benevolently give presents to black kids also.

I wonder what help the kids would have been able to provide him anyway.

This reads a little like a night on the town gone horribly wrong. The man abandoned, for a prank by his "mates," in the middle of the roundabout tries to run home but the policeman gets to him before that happens. The man on his stag night is tied to a bridge naked and is there in the morning when the rush hour begins and the motorists honk him.

Anyway thanks for a good read that made me smile.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing uncontroversial.


Thanks for sharing.

SuperPower Raid Sig - Balloon Cat

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
504
504
Review of Recipe  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, Doe Hart . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Recipe"  fits the Raid Review Comedy theme for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A strange recipe for a little sister's birthday cake.

*Quill*Commentary

Very funny. But I could not work out if you actually liked your little sister or not?

The result of this would be dirty water that would never set into a cake but would include floating bogies, sinking belly buttons, sand, and the optional slice of meat.

You combined the sacred (Holy water from the Pope) and the profane (what you picked out of your nose) here in your relationship with your little sister.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

You kept the rhyme with no obvious mechanical issues.


Thanks for sharing.

SuperPower Raid Sig - Balloon Cat

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
505
505
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, wdwilcox. This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Roy Mayo And Julietta"  via the Raid Review list. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The Hickville Players Present Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to a backward country town. Ms. Jones aims to educate them and introduce some culture. The performance might have gone better...

*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

This was deeply funny from start to finish and was high-quality writing also. You employed your extensive vocabulary to great effect introducing me to words like "muumuu."

There were no straight lines in the pathway to Hank's red barn. Everything had the chaotic and unfinished feel of nature gone wild.

The choice of the plump Henrietta and the scruffy Roy for the parts were hilarious, though I guess Ms. Jones was hardly spoilt for choice. The farcical reinterpretations of a language, the country folk had no connection to, completely destroyed the meaning of the play but added to its comedic value.

They turned one of Shakespeare's plays from a tragedy into a comedy. Some have suggested that was Shakespeare's original intent given how the first two acts are structured but the dumb country folk were perhaps not doing this for that reason.

You had me laughing from start to finish but then having lived in both country and city another thought occurred to me as I reflected on this piece. You write Ms. titles rather than Mrs and could come across as full of metropolitan snobbery and schadenfreude at the ineptitude of dumb country folk with their rotten teeth, unpleasant smells, and ill-fitting clothes. You have us all laughing at these small-town hicks because their chaos and stupidity do not fit into our neatly planned city architectures with their geometric patterns and straight edges.

This piece is a clash of world views between a teacher, with big plans to drag her locale into the mainstream culture, and her country town. But unlike Shakespeare who matched his language to his audience, her dream of enlightenment does not fit the people she works with. This is what makes it so funny but perhaps also this is what also restores the play to be a tragedy. Can these two worlds coexist without the straight, precise lines inside the teacher's head bending a little, even breaking a little into the chaos of where she lives and which you described so exquisitely?

You ended the play after only one scene. Since the audience was in the hay by then and Shakespeare's play thrown out the window perhaps it was just as well.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

None.


Thanks for sharing.

Summer Fun shared image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
506
506
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, Graywriter . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Amazing Amazon Birthday"  via the Raid Review Comedy Theme. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Dog's paws and noses are not ideally adapted to keyboards. So ordering on Amazon might be difficult for the family dog...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

So the star is the old dog who somehow figures out the English language, that computers are an ordering system and the specific wishes of its owner's son. This is a comedy so the implausibility factor is suspended.

My own pet died last year and I understand how we all end up anthropomorphizing our pets and attributing intelligence to them they definitely lack. But I might add I write this review as a cat person. I will try not to let my bias tell.

Leaving one's computer unlocked like this was probably a recipe for disaster with such a dog around.

I found this mildly amusing but not hilarious. It made me smile not spill my coffee.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

In the piece, the dog is clearly old but in the description, you describe him as a pup.

My Grammar Checker picked up on a few missing commas.

I get to sit in Daddy's lap - on Daddy's lap


Thanks for sharing.

SuperPower Raid Sig - Balloon Cat

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
507
507
Review of Glad To See You  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Hello, Fivesixer . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Glad To See You"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The author would be glad to see someone again but will not feel compelled to see them.


*Quill*Commentary

The poem implies that there was a sense of compulsion or bullying in the previous relationship. That the person being referred to felt entitled to the author's presence at their command.

The author is now more assertive. Though glad to see this person again, they will not be compelled into that meeting.

You actually said quite a lot and raised a lot of questions in three short lines.

Was this an ex-lover, an ex-boss, an ex-teacher, or just a demanding friend or relative?


*Quill*Mechanical issues

You use punctuation for the last two lines but not the first one. This seems inconsistent. So, add a comma to the first line or remove all punctuation.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
508
508
Review of Aging Cat  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello, Prosperous Snow celebrating . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Aging Cat"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Vastie is getting old. Her black fur is still the same but her whiskers are going gray.

*Quill*Commentary

Interesting choice of name for a cat. Vashti was the selfish and vain first wife in the Bible book of Esther. She refused to appear naked for the king and his guest's amusement. She was fired as the first wife and the spot was open for Esther.

Our cat of eighteen years died last year. She was white-furred and so if she went gray we did not notice. She just got slower and slower and more and more things no longer worked until the end when she was in some pain and it was over. The selfish vain imperial demeanor fits the cat's personality very well though. She would expect to be served not humiliated for her owners amusement. A great many people interpret Vashti as an archetypal feminist.

Your poem implies attentiveness to your cat, memory of how she was, and vision as to how she looks now. There is a sense of inevitability about the gentle decline into old age.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
509
509
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Hello, Davy Kraken I found "From Lances to Light Sabers"  when searching through your collection of informative essays. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

We write in order to escape. So all writing is a form of fantasy and sci-fi a sub-genre of that. Sci-Fi can generally be written with a present-future focus, explore ethical issues relating to scientific discovery, utopian and dystopian visions of the future. As with Gullivers travels Sci-Fi could be a satire in our times. It may well draw elements from history to inform its imagery as with the similarity between Jedi wielding lightsabers and honorable knights with swords. Science fiction has no limit.

*Quill*Commentary

Sci-Fi is a sub-genre of fantasy in much the same way as mathematics is a sub-genre of philosophy. Maybe there was a loose connection at the beginning but a comparison of the two yields completely different subjects now - to the point in fact where the comparison is no longer relevant. Unexplained magical powers versus scientific laws are the underlying dynamics of the two brands of literature.

You assert that writing is a form of escapism, which I guess it may well be for some people. For others it is a calling, a means of expression denied them in the wider world, or a means of articulating the discovery and desire for truth in all its forms. Writing can be a religious call.

That we exclude certain elements of a character's actual life is hardly unique to storytelling. When was the last time you gave work colleagues a long account of your research in the library or time on the loo? This is just the way that people talk to each other. But it is also the case that authors can have focused purposes for writing as they do.

To call Sci-Fi Fantasy is to demean it and to erode its credibility as a genre. Fantasy is generally impossible, implausible escapism, while Sci-Fi explores the possible whether feared or hoped for and requires a scientific rationale of some sort.

Good literature may well serve a secondary purpose as insightful commentary or satire on the modern world. It may draw from the rich imagery of our historical memory to ascribe honor and gravitas to some characters and to demonstrate the wickedness of others.

But good Sci-Fi does have limits. Personally, I hate it when Sci-Fi strays into Fantasy as it undermines the power of the story for me. But add a supernatural element with a plausible religious rationale, or park it in the middle of key historical events and then that becomes a matter of burning interest and relevance.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

If our stories takes place in a fictional world - double plural - so story takes or stories take


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
510
510
Review of Reclamation  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, {user:tattsnteeth2. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Reclamation"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The natural rhythms and the call of New Orleans are explored here. The poem is immersed in the life of the city: the crime, the weather, the cafe culture, the mosquitoes, alligators, birds, frogs, and giant blue herons. Then they are Mr and Mrs discussing a future living in New Orleans and the city is set to reclaim them also.


*Quill*Commentary

This was beautifully written and really made me feel New Orleans. We all saw the pictures of what Katrina did to the place but then out come the hammers and saws and the place is rebuilt. I liked the way you wove the call of the city and nature into a cycle. In the end, the city appears to be back in the vision of the newlyweds concerning their future. Not even the memory of recent hurricanes could keep them away.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Usage of commas is sporadic and not consistent. It might be better to just leave them out completely.

Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
511
511
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hello, JCosmos . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Sam Adams Last Drink"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Sam Adams went out on New Year's Eve to the Cosmos Bar in Bangkok. He got plastered and then on leaving got run over by a bus. The regular alcoholics at the bar take it as another good reason to have a drink.

*Quill*Commentary

Those of us with memories of misspent youth may well wonder how we survived various dangerous places, where we drank too much and took too many risks. Sam Adams never got to make it to that other side of sober reflection and to a place where perhaps he could have found a new determination to pull his life around.

There is a finality and unfortunately a plausibility about this story that fits the dark, death genre.

I do not like the genre but you made your point.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

How could the regulars toast him if 'last orders' was already over and the people were already leaving the bar?

This read more like prose than poetry with variable length stanzas, no rhyme or poetic structure.

I did not really understand your commas and periods system. Some stanzas end with a period, some lines with a comma, but there is no consistent scheme.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
512
512
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, Christopher Eastman-Nagle . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received {item:2205477
How indulgence has become both a pathological} via random searching. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A Marxist- Marcusian analysis of the modern crisis of capitalism and how it mirrors the crisis of the church in the feudal era on the issue of indulgences and delusion.


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Luther's doctrine of justification by faith militates against the notion of an existential software account topped up by our good deeds and emptied by our bad ones.

Reminded me of a Marcusian diagnosis of One Dimensional Society. Taking a Marxist- Freudian angle on the last efforts of capitalism to legitimate itself in the face of the overwhelming tide of history. Your third phase of capitalism is portrayed as a totalitarian culture of fantasy-driven production. But this era has produced useful gadgets like my PC, smartphone, and a coffee mat that automatically heats my coffee while discussing new ideas and truths in the intellectual forums of our age online. These innovations have considerably enhanced global awareness, quality of life and brought know-how to remote Africa villages for instance.

But has capitalism really undermined consciousness? With the internet, sites like this, and forums all over the place, the freedom to discuss and learn has never been greater, and not a few people have taken advantage of that. That the vast majority belong to an unthinking herd swept along by the arch manipulators of their age is nothing new, it has always been that way and is therefore not a new insight or one that develops from the natural progression of a communist worldview, however much the Chinese would like to suggest that the capitalist west is choking on its last indulgences.

Clearly, some people cannot handle this new world and they lack the discipline to function in it, spending more than they earn and clueless as to their identity or purpose in an artificial and fabricated reality. Others do continue to live transcendent lifestyles informed for example by religious values that allow them to pick and choose the best of this capitalist society and reject the worst. They are confused by the moral relativism of either the masses or the systems and corporations that manipulate them. The strength to stand apart while still engaging with the world as it is coming from a religious perspective and empowerment.

You never use the words freedom here though the trend to social and economic liberalism is the more conventional way to define your indulgence culture.

Regarding the environment and the apparent inability of the system to adjust for the need for green actions before it is too late, that is not the case in Western Europe where Germany for example recently elected a government including the green party. They have a very clear Green agenda and various decisions made recently have no capitalist logic to them at all e.g. the premature closure of nuclear power stations in Germany and the rapid, planned phase-out of coal power.

I was interested in the view of feminism expressed here. That, in a sense, its liberation agenda had achieved the opposite and led to the demeaning of women and the removal of tried and tested structures supporting their dignity. I would agree with this as a symptom of a society falling away from God rather than a capitalist consumer indulgence/delusion agenda. The individualism of the modern age and its essential narcissistic selfishness has more to do with sin than the inevitable logic of a capitalist system. Also, the whole transgender delusion does seem to be a product of unhinged moral relativism and a loss of clarity on truth It is more mental illness than a legitimate psychological choice to choose one's gender over and against biological realities.

I strongly disagree that religious constituencies do not have modern credentials. Rather they are persistently underestimated by every ideology and age and yet outlast them. Well at the least in the case of true religion. If you were Mithraist you were batting for the wrong team.

It is a Marxist analysis of history that we are coming to a crisis moment. It is a moment that always seems to shift forwards in time and when crises come, like this Pandemic, or the Climate change issue they have little to do with dialectical materialism and the inevitability of history than they do with poor choices. We live in a world where some countries e.g. Germany strive for a balance between the social and the economic. They look for social awareness and cohesion that you think capitalism has been dissolving with its culture of indulgence and delusion. Also, the rising power of our age, China, stresses, social cohesion over individual choices and despite its rampant materialism maintains a critical restraining influence over the worst excesses of capitalism. Maybe this analysis is too heavily influenced by an experience of American capitalism and indeed the recent experience of Trumpian notions of truth and narcissistic self-service.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Your sentences are too long and you always choose alternate ways of explaining things when simpler cliches would suffice. This makes what you right less accessible without necessarily adding depth or insight.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
513
513
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Hello, Lou-Here By His Grace . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Death in a Metro Bar"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Writing in 2006 the author worries about rising crime statistics and highlights a bizarre and illustrative incident. Two barmaids were able to overpower a man with a samurai sword, three pistols, kerosene, propane, and plastic handcuffs. She asks how the guy got to the bar so heavily armed without someone noticing or confronting him earlier. What is wrong with a country where these sorts of things occur? Will the guy get let off because he was deranged?

*Quill*Commentary

This commentary comes fourteen years later on. Have things gotten worse or better?

It seems initially things got better but have been rising since the middle of the last decade. Last year homicides rose nearly 30% in the USA.

The rate in your country has always been much higher than my countries of the UK and Germany and is currently 5-6 times higher. In fact, the UK and the USA have a hundred years of stats now and the USA is always 5 to 9 times higher than the UK. The USA is not as high as some lawless Latin American or African countries but is considerably out of step with the developed world and really always has been.

Also, the number of bizarre incidents continues to puzzle: Mass shootings at cinemas and nightclubs, Dismemberments that were filmed and the parts mailed across the country, a man killing his kids to be free to be with his mistress, school shootings... to name but a few.

I remember going for a jog once late at night. There was a man patting a baseball bat walking towards me. I ran straight at him staring him in the eyes and nothing happened. I checked the papers for murders etc the following day and nothing. But reading your account it struck me that in the USA that could well have been a gun in his hand or indeed a samurai sword and someone would have been dead. It never occurred to me though to ask the man why are you carrying a baseball bat with a menacing expression on your face so near to midnight. My main concern was getting past the guy without being walloped. On reflection, decades later, maybe I should have reported him, but what could I have said? I did not have a mobile with me to make the report immediately and had no idea who he was.

Thanks for the thought-provoking piece from all those years ago.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
514
514
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Hello, NightShift . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Untitled Collaborative Work #3"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A poem about someone who feels alone and conflicted. She runs from the truth to avoid confronting despair. But despite all her efforts:
Screams echo all around her;
no one’s there.


*Quill*Commentary

This poem was an expression of conflicting feelings but dominated by an underlying desire to escape the despair of loneliness.

She reads life and strife together interpreting them as bringing heartache. She is alone in the darkness. But she urges life to come to her, to race towards her as if towards the dream and away from the nightmare. The truth comes in with the snow every night like an icy Winter wind she wants to escape from. This is not a life that comes to her but just a cold sterile pointed finger. She imagines herself clinging to something flying, holding on for dear life. If she falls she fears she will never land or worse will wake up to her underlying despair. She only hears the anguish of the world, its screams, and tears. She is alone.

This is actually deeply sad, though powerfully expressed. She could see quite clearly what seems to have been a desperately painful situation for herself.

I find the poem unreal because it does not even hint at hope or the love of others around her. If her child cares enough to share her poems after she is gone it seems safe to assume that they also cared for her when she was alive. So is the poem an expression of a moment of aloneness that even a child could not fill or a kind of insanity that could not even register the good things in her life and willfully painted all things black, and then ran away from them?

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Was not sure about the periods and commas and the way they broke the sentences. Come life, come strife is ended with a period but logically the next line is a part of that theme for instance. The period after run faster also seemed artificial as it could logically be paired with You're free as the explanation of why you should run faster. This kind of artificial breaking of the poem's rhythm and themes seems to be a feature throughout the poem.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
515
515
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, Richard ~ Shenanigans INC. . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Horatio Snowblower's Lament "  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

It has been snowing a lot this winter and it is a continual struggle to remove the snow. In this limerick, the author longs for Spring.

*Quill*Commentary

A colleague of mine said he could not come to work one day because it had snowed seven feet last night, which I thought was a reasonable excuse.

I remember a winter like the one you describe when the snows came in mid-November and persisted until the end of March. The lakes froze, the roads were ice rinks and each day was a battle to clear paths and drives. The continual ice-thaw cycle seriously damaged our driveway that winter but the kids had a snowman that lasted long enough to grow a personality and to be missed when 'Frosty' finally melted.

Right now I have my snow shovel and broom outside the door. But the snow only came once around Christmas time and then melted again.

Your poem expressed a feeling of being fed up with the snow and the grind of shoveling it. But my reaction was more to miss it.


*Quill*Mechanical issues


This year its been snowing 'most daily, - it has - so ---> it's


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
516
516
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, QueenNormaJeanGreeneggs&vegham . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Problem Solving "  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Marcie is struggling with her Algebra homework. Along comes Julie a gifted eight-year-old already in university. She takes the time to explain to Marcie how to resolve the problem. She claims the roots of Algebra are in the Arabic world of medieval Islam.

*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Two girls are brought together by maths equations. Guess it beats Tik Tok, What's App, and Instagram as a meeting place!

Gifted children like Julie are easy to like when they use what they have to build up others and we have all been where Marcie was, staring at the page, wondering what all the squiggles mean.

Julie was wrong about the Arabs inventing Algebra even if we use their word for it now. The Greek Diophantus was probably the first. Though the Algebraic method you describe in your story with the subtraction, reduction, and balancing of values was pioneered by the Persian Al-Khwarizmi much later.

I could see the value of this story as an educational piece. The juxtaposition of uncomprehending Marcie and clever Julie being the experience of most people solving maths problems, it is easy when you know how, terrifying or confusing when you do not.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Capitalization of nationalities: greek

Ararbic - Arabic


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
517
517
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, Milgak . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Is it even tough love?"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A tough childhood tried to teach a kid that all emotions would be met with anger. Instead, she remained authentic and intentionally soft for those who did not live by the principle of fear. So when someone calls her to show tough love she ignores them. There is enough "tough love" in this world and is this even love anyway?

*Quill*Commentary

There are those who call hate love and darkness light. But your piece reminded me of a bible verse also:

For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child. - Hebrews 12:6

Having kids, imposing discipline has always been a difficult albeit sometimes necessary feature of being a parent. It always feels like acting when I tell my son off. Now he is 6 foot five and he was being a little rude to his mum. I told him to go to his room and pushed him in that direction. I was met with a solid wall of muscle but he went and world war three was averted.

The world is normally enough of a reality check to people's behavior but to a sheltered child, it can come as a rude shock. As a parent, you can only hope you have prepared your child sufficiently to meet that challenge when the time comes.

I liked the sentiments expressed here, about how you did not let the cruelty of a mother warp you but remained open to emotion and honest authentic feeling. But there is still a place for discipline motivated by love.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
518
518
Review of Glass Heart  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Hello, Cass--Spring Spirit . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Glass Heart"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A fragile glass heart lies in the dark of a black velvet box. A Treasure hunter, motivated by greed, finds it and opens the lid. The glass heart warms in his hand as he grows to love it.


*Quill*Commentary

This was well-written, error-free, powerful stuff.

But the imagery of greed and then love sit oddly together.

Assuming that this was not just about a treasure but rather a metaphor for romance as the genre choices suggest I have the following to say.

I guess a great many romances might be motivated by the wrong things at first and then grow into something else. But the image of a gold digger who then falls in love with the treasure he finds seems very convenient and slightly self-serving.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found.

Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
519
519
Review of The Bilderbergs  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hello, bob county . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "The Bilderbergs"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

While right-wing conservatives talk of global conspiracies inspired by the Bilderberg group the author reminds us that one of them, William F. Buckley, invented UNICEF.

Caring for the poor may sound socialistic and unAmerican to the likes of Glen Beck but it is one answer to the crisis that is coming when there is not enough oil, food, and water for all. Another is a controlled third world war and mass genocide - is that a Glen Beck idea?

*Quill*Commentary

My first reaction was great I get to read something about the Bilderbergs, the supposed kingmakers of our time in charge of the great reset, etc.

Many of their members are of course people who have received major international recognition as leaders in our time. Ex-presidents and prime ministers are on their lists. They seem to be a worthy discussion group talking about the important issues of our time. They may even have an influence on government agendas.

Glen Beck and his ilk are a distinctively American reaction to the group and appear fearful of changes that might increase their taxes and introduce new responsibilities like caring for sick and poor people for instance whom he thinks often do not deserve that. At the same time, as you say, he sees a big conspiracy in the rich elite even when they propose compassion for the poor.

Things like this pandemic show that we increasingly face global issues which require global solutions and an America-First response to that might make the nationalists part of the problem rather than the solution. For instance, health costs could be reduced rather than raised in a properly managed comprehensive health care system. Compassionate rich people who understand that are actually being sensible in proposing solutions that involve a measure of social concern and redistributive taxation. Glen Becks fears that these taxes are proposed to fall on the stressed-out middle classes rather than the super-rich have some validity.

But compassionate conservativism does work here in Germany. Western Europeans only pay half what Americans pay for health care and have better health outcomes.

Immigration is at root a consequence of both violence and oppression and also poverty as people seek better lives for their children in lands with their heads still above the mud.

Regarding your question about oil, water, and food. With alternate energy supplies, desalination, and vertical greenhouses we are not going to run out anytime soon but getting it to the people who need it is a greater problem. The cake is not finite and especially if we become a spacefaring civilization with the well nigh unlimited energy and mineral resources of the solar system at our disposal. Or indeed if we crack fusion power.

A major cull of the world's population may well be coming such as with the Black Death and Mongol genocides. It might come as a war or a great plague. But we often underestimate the capacity of this planet to support life and our ingenuity at solving the problems that come our way.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Creative usage of full stops:

Bliderbergs. .
Unicef .

I don't know if Glen Beck has
consider communism as the new capitalism - I don't know if Glen Beck has considered communism as the new capitalism




Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
520
520
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Hello, Words Whirling 'Round . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Tangled Tango of Fate"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

When death comes does it come like a black-cloaked man with a scythe or a slender erotic woman with a knife? Her "sharp-edged kiss his last good-bye.


*Quill*Commentary

The picture and the poem here paint a haunting vision of what our last moments might look like, when our eyes open to another dimension and see at that moment the finality of death.

Apparently, the macho image of the Grim Reaper appeared only in the 14th century, in Europe, at around the time of the Black death. It is an image of European cultural dominance as much as of male sexual supremacy. Your image replaces this priestly dark-cloaked man with a Caucasian female who looks like a nineteenth-century American prostitute from a wild west brothel. The words seem choreographed to the image. Maybe that is more in tune with the times but it is still Western-centric in its outlook.

Think men still peddle death more than women unless you factor in things like abortion. But in that case, it is not a full-grown man kneeling before a predatory woman. Do modern feminists really want to own death and look like a whore in a man's last moments.

So this poem is in essence a play on cultural stereotypes rather than an engagement with the reality of death. But what is that? Even in the Christian world with its crosses in cemeteries, some say death is a sleep until the resurrection and others that the spirit goes immediately to be with God or the Fallen ones. Muslims have a similar discussion while Hindus speak in terms of reincarnation. None have the major religions have a whore with a knife in these last moments.

Still, this was well-written provocative, and haunting imagery even if implausible in concept.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
521
521
Review of Musical Frisson  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, LeJenD' . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Musical Frisson"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

An experience of a pop song shared through a medium requiring electricity inspires dance and physical response. Music reaches the heart of the matter.

*Quill*Commentary

When I listen to someone physically playing a church organ or a piano as I do every week in church the acoustics of the church and the silence of those gathered complements what is usually religiously themed music. That can be intensely moving or alternately have me checking my emails on my mobile while I wait for it to end. I rarely listen to a stereo or play Spotify music collections through earbuds. I have always preferred live music from real people. I have always admired their talent and skill and watching them perform is part of the musical experience for me. To detach the experience from the artist is quite artificial in fact. I did sport as a kid but learning an instrument might have given me a different way of expressing myself that I regret not having I suppose.

Your poem implies a beat and an electric medium which is how most people experience music today. Alone and in their own bubble of sound. It is not a shared communal experience as with a hymn or recital but rather a private consumption of an artist's talent.

That said if people are being loud around me and I want to read I have found that Mozart, through earbuds, drowns them out and does not distract me from the reading of my book.

If the kind of music you describe in your poem is the heart of your existence then it is more sensual and stimulating than the spiritual classics performed in grand music halls, churches, and opera houses.

This poem did not describe my experience of music and seemed too trapped and caged in a certain way of doing music for me.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
522
522
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, babo4 . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Nothing, Everything"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The author is just a worm, an insect, or indeed a mere bug. He is just meaningless flesh plastered against a tortured mind squirming in a gigantic universe. What he says does not matter. But in his own bubble of existence, his voice is everything and his words eternal. Though he is a little confused and possibly deluded his vision is that of a deep ocean.

*Quill*Commentary

This reads a little like. I am pathetic, I am everything. I am small, I am big. Objectively I do not matter, subjectively I matter to myself.

If you and the universe were the only actors worth considering I might agree with this poem. In that case, we are all nothing but stardust floating on cosmic currents. But the universe is crowded with life, with an Omnipotent and readily accessible Creator God and his angels, with other human beings who can lend perspective to our thoughts and feelings. Indeed also with an intelligible physical existence that can be read with science.

If you are made in God's image, as I believe you are, then that sense of eternity and universal perspective and indeed the possibility of objectivity is not insane or indeed a delusion. In that sense, no life is pathetic and small and inconsequential as all carry the mark of their Creator in it and are an echo or indeed glimpse of eternity.

It is a little deluded to suggest that the parallel universe we create inside ourselves matters more than our actual state and connection with the real universe outside and within ourselves and with the God that made it all. Even our dreams can be tested and animated and indeed inspired by the status that we enjoy as those who reflect the divine in our own little corner of everything.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

None found


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
523
523
Review of Strong Woman  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, Micah . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Strong Woman"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A woman with a weak, narcissistic mother became a strong woman by overcoming her mother's faults. She had a good biological father but her step dad was abusive and her mum prone to fits of rage. Her mother has moved on to a better man now.

*Quill*Commentary

From your description, this sounds biographical. It sounds like you have had to overcome a lot: Broken home; abusive stepdad; the mother's fits of rage. There is emotional power in such a personal revelation. I can read pain, anger, and indeed relief and triumph in the tone of the text.

The text reads as if three men married your mother: the original biological father, the abusive father, and then the guy that kisses your mother's wounds away. But they seem to blur together in the reading of the text.

For example, the subject of this sentence is your dad but I think "his" refers to the stepdad:

My father was a good man, my mom just made bad decisions that pushed him away, causing her to fall into his grasp.


Similarly, the transition to the "kissing man" is not that clear as the "wretched man" is the one initially referred to and then suddenly a "true gentleman." The reader has to work it out that you cannot possibly be referring to the stepdad so you must mean a new guy.

My mother dealt with that wretched man for eighteen years out of love. Love she has found in a true gentleman. A man that kisses her damage away with gentle lips.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

The first paragraph in a text or section does not need to be indented.


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
524
524
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (3.5)
Hello, vapid . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "profligate preacher"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A glimpse of a tormented childhood in which isolation was sought within makeshift borders of books and taxidermy. Suicidal thoughts were survived. Frustrated and poisoned thoughts were translated into actions. Demons plant the seeds and what you hate matters more than what you love.


*Quill*Commentary

There was a rhyming structure with long variable-length lines. The impressive vocabulary and descriptive phrases made this work. It was a little dark for my taste.

This is a poem engorged with dark and toxic emotions. A world governed by fear and hate, surrounded by scowls and rottenness. All the wrong answers are found not least that hate makes the world go around rather than love. This reads like a downward spiral to a very dark place. It is bitter, angry, resentful, and frustrated. Beauty and beautiful dreams are displaced by nightmares, rottenness, devouring mouths, and cages.

Since you are still alive to write this poem I am hopeful that you found a way out of this dark space. But in this poem, you return to it as if there were no out.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

trapping other’s in the treasure cove - trapping others in the treasure cove


Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
525
525
Review of Future Robots  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Hello, BrokenPen . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I saw "Future Robots"  on the list of Sci-Fi Contest entries for last month. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

In the future, AIs have developed from their single purpose focus on things like chess or driverless cars. Now artificial minds have been created like the Russian Grigori and the Canadian Puck. But an application of the Turing Test reveals that Grigori is far ahead of Puck and the Canadian researchers are keen to find out why. Their quest for answers takes them to the Schvets Laboratory in Yakutsk, Russia. What they find is a completely different approach to AI and robotics...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

The big idea here is that even after a few more hundred years of development AIs will struggle to compete with the full range of possibilities and competencies of the human brain. But also that a Cyborg type approach of combining a human brain with a sophisticated AI might indeed allow a new superintelligence.

Puck seems dull, stupid, and stilted compared to Grigori. Grigori finds him boring and is soon bossing him about.

I thought this was well written, deserved the victory this time round in the contest, and offered a plausible root forward for AI beyond its already apparent limitations.

That said the ability to be human also requires a body with senses and a degree of autonomous movement. They keep Grigori in a cage in Siberia. He appears more human but lacks the basic attributes of a free human being and as such is quite vulnerable. The socialization of a caged Cyborg and its self-awareness would be tainted and limited by not being able to comprehend the world through its own filters.

Also, the mechanics of maintaining the blood and sir supplies of a human brain inside a machine would be quite demanding I think.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

through a series of heavy secure doors. - through a series of heavy security doors.

Thanks for sharing.

Shared Power Group Image

 
STATIC
My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
1,312 Reviews · *Magnify*
Page of 53 · 25 per page   < >
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/luminementis/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/21