Beating of Young Girl on the Street

We have seen the video of the young girl being beaten on the sidewalk by another young girl while the security guards and citizens watched. It makes you grit your teeth. Of course, we do not know the history behind it but that is beside the point for this discussion. The fact is, this was in America where we look in dismay at other countries where innocent people are beaten in the streets. This is no different, it is a terrorist attack.

Upon seeing the video several times, I finally picked out what appears to be an adult directing the young girl who was doing the beating. That woman should be arrested and questioned by police.

It is a shame that we have streets in our nation where people have to fear for their lives. Police should not be allowed to avoid such streets simply because they have a history of problems. It is the city leadership’s responsibility to not let gangs rule any part of their city. Citizens expect it.

As for the security guards, what they did was within the rules for security guards but not within the rules of being human. Security guards are nothing more than private citizens who are employed to protect private property through deterrence. They have no police authority and can be sued just like any other citizen who over steps the law. It is an awkward job. At the same time, they do have the same rights as a private citizen. They can engage in self-defense which includes the application of force to protect themselves and others.

We keep seeing these type of things and it is heartbreaking. Bullies are alive and well. I experienced it in school. My children experienced it. It is still a major problem in schools and on the streets. Some children are blessed with more strength than others, it is sad that they use that superior strength to bully instead of protect the weaker. They learn from adults.

Voyage to the City of the Dead-Alan Dean Foster

Voyage to the City of the Dead by Alan Dean Foster. Del Rey, 243 pages, fiction, novel, science fiction. 1984

Book Review.  Mister Foster did weave a fine tale of another world.  It has a surprise at the end so don’t read ahead.  It is a study in human nature as well as that of other species.  The adventure in the book would make a great movie as would the various alien beings.

The goal is the top of the world, not ours, theirs.  There are stories of demons beyond a certain point which happens to be about half way to their destination.  The two stars are conflicted toward each other until final events stir their love to life again.

It is a clean read and there are words I will never be able to pronounce but it is a good story that will be remembered. I’m glad for the gift of this book.

Eating on the Sharecropper Farm

When the garden was coming in, we had quite a bit of variety.  There is nothing like a biscuit and a fresh onion from the garden.  You’d grab the biscuit and take off to the garden.  You find an onion that has a little white showing and pull it up, wipe the dirt off on your pants leg, peel off the first layer and use your finger nails to pinch off the end.  It was good eating after that.

Tomatoes worked well with a biscuit too.  If you happened to remember to get a little salt it was better but fresh off the vine was fine.  You got to remember to wipe it off good on your pants, shirttail or dress tail, if you’re a girl.  Lean over a little when you first bite into it because you will get a squirt of juice that usually misses your mouth.  After the first bite, you can just takes turns with the tomato and the biscuit.  It is always a sad moment when they are gone.  It’s best you not go for another biscuit right now, Mom is probably wondering where the other one went to.

Well, that was the fun part.  There are other times when things are not so rosy.  The weather had a lot to do with farming.  No good weather, no good crops.  We couldn’t afford canning jars, most of the time, so we had little put up for winter.  Sometimes we’d manage to can some beans.  But when it was really bad, it was back to the beans and cornbread.  If we had potatoes, it was a feast.  You just can’t beat a plate of beans on cornbread with fried potatoes and a little pepper juice to pour on it. 

Breakfast was a little different.  Sometimes, in the hard times, we would carry supper over into breakfast.  Cornbread and butter or sugar syrup worked pretty good.  Eggs would have been nice and we had them some before we ate the chickens. 

Then there was hog killing times.  We’d have some meat smoking in the house then.  We could build a rabbit box or two and help out and there was the river for fish and the woods for squirrels.

All in all we did okay.  Back then kids would laugh at you if you took an ear of boiled corn and a sausage biscuit to school.  It was good eating though.  I’d walk in the woods at school sometimes to avoid the laughing of the ‘rich’ kids who got to eat in the lunch room.  I never ate in the school cafeteria.  It looked pretty complicated standing in line and telling the woman in white what to put on the plate and then sitting with a hundred others to eat. I didn’t know how to eat some of that stuff if I got a chance.

I would not swap the upbringing I had for the rich life of the factory workers.  We had our rough spots but we had a big yard and the river banks.  You don’t have those in the city.

Fonts and Such

I have found that Times New Roman works well and converts to PDF well.  As for size, I use 11 and 1&1/2 on the line spacing.  I was using 12 and a single line spacing but the print looks large on the finished product and a single space gives it a crowded look when in book form. 

There are some beautiful fonts that I would like to use in my books.  The problem comes in converting them to PDF.  It can turn into a mess.  I am sure there are ways to avoid this but I have not found them yet.  I am not very good at going into the advanced stuff to do things like embed fonts and, quite frankly, do not know what it means. 

I am still wishing for one of those programs that take away all the questions and just let me tell my story.  Any suggestions?

Page Breaks

I use page breaks to keep my chapters from jumping when a document is converted to PDF.  Sometimes, however, I need to delete those page breaks.  I figured out if I arrow down the blank part of the page the page break will appear as a 1/2 size cursor.   You got to remember those page breaks when editing, i.e. adding or deleting text.  It will move them around. Just thought I’d mention it in case someone besides me is still using Microsoft Works.  Oh, to be able to afford a higher version.

Book Review-chindi by Jack McDevitt

chindi by Jack McDevitt, Ace Books, 511 pages, fiction, novel, space, 2002

Chindi is my kind of book. McDevitt is my kind of author.   

If you like stories about space travel, you will love this book.  I know I’m late getting to it but it was still rich with adventure.  I spent the better part of today finishing it. 

An unlikely heroine, Hutch, takes her passengers on a regular trip so they can get the feel for space and investigate a signal from ‘somewhere’.  They are not professionals but they got the money and the academy needs the new ship they are offering.  The signal leads them on a mission beyond the boundaries of known territory. 

I can’t tell you more without ruining the story but it is well worth the read.  He makes it so it is more like a chronicle of what really happened.