rjnello

[rjnello]

Fox "News" Supports "Taking Greenland"

Hello fellow “Resistant”: A quick response to your email. Every day, we know, it is something else. Thank you for sending me this screen capture from last night in the U.S.: [Screen capture from Mediaite, January 30, 2025.] It’s good you watch that stuff even in Vermont and pass it along now and then. We outside the U.S. need to know what they are thinking. If “thinking” is the right…

[rjnello]

Is "No Politics" Art Really Possible?

If you are him, or want to be, well, of course you can try to avert your eyes… [From Bluesky.] We understand what he means. He probably simply does not want partisan arguments he does not like and troubling issues raised before him that aggravate him to take him away from what he really wants to see. That is entirely his right to wish to attempt to craft his “social” media in that way. I do…

[rjnello]

"All persons born or naturalized..."

This is much now in the news. Because, of course, Trump. It is a complicated matter and may need some explaining not only to non-Americans… but it appears to quite a few Americans, too: View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Associated Press (AP) (@apnews) This is a blog post, not a doctoral dissertation, but I will try to sum things up in basic terms. If you are unfamiliar with it,…

[rjnello]

Ignoramus-in-Chief

I will always remember, back in graduate school, in History, an elderly professor (now long dead), the first day in our seminar of about ten or so, telling us as we sat around the large conference table that he knew we were sitting there all worried about what we did NOT know. However, that, he also said, was fine: Our admitting we did NOT know lots was not an indication of ignorance, but rather…

[rjnello]

Where My Readers Are, Is Where I Stay

There has been lots of this on Bluesky (where I just joined!) in the last few days – about people declaring they are DONE with Meta, the corporate entity owning Facebook and Instagram, because of its “Trumper” turn: [From Bluesky.] Here’s just one example: [From Bluesky.] Which is entirely his – anyone’s – right to do, of course. It is also anyone else’s right to say… uh, not so…

[rjnello]

Bluesky, Smilin' At Me

I was awake earlier than usual this morning… and while being awake so early I decided to post this to my Instagram Stories… [Dartmouth, Devon, January 15, 2025. Photo by me. From my Instagram.] I also did more revising and working on the manuscript, which, as I said in my previous post, is basically “finished,” but I am cleaning up. I went into my garden office, opened Adobe Reader and listened…

[rjnello]

"So, how's the writing coming along?"

We were out with another couple on Saturday. The man half of it asked me – unexpectedly from my perspective – at one point as we walked along: “So, how’s the writing coming along?”  [Babbacombe, Torquay, Devon. Photo by me, January 2025.] I am not easily caught out by that question coming at me out of the blue. I was there. My answer was simply a reflexive “Fine.” Continue reading “So, how’s…

[rjnello]

This New “Gilded Age”

If you will allow me to put on my former academic’s cap again for a post. Historians know that history does not “repeat” itself. After all, no two situations are ever precisely the same. However, humans being humans, human behavior can certainly “rhyme” with much that has occurred before… creating the impression of “repetition.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Voice of America…

[rjnello]

Above The Coves

The forecast was for a rainy weekend… and that turned out to be correct… [Waiting for the Higher Ferry, Dartmouth, Devon. Photo by me, January 5, 2025.] …so I was pleased I took the opportunity back on Friday in the then sunshine to have a walk along the coast, southwest of, and high above, Dartmouth. I find walking helps me think… which is especially useful in trying to finish a book (as I am…

[rjnello]

What Books Did You Receive?

Hope you had a pleasant Christmas. The English weather has not been great for outdoor activities. Often we have had a tough time seeing more than a short distance… [Dartmouth, Devon. Photo by me. December 2024.] So having luckily been gifted some books, staying inside has not always been so bad. One I had wanted for a while. President John F. Kennedy had said this was one of his favorite…

[rjnello]

Christmas, Devon

Merry Christmas, and all the best… Continue reading Christmas, Devon

[rjnello]

If You Want To Give Baddies Your Keys…

In the mornings, when actively writing a new novel, as I am now, I have developed an inadvertent routine over the years. With here being “The center (centre) of my authoring universe,” I like to have “two” posts a week up, minimum, if possible, so I may do a new blog post here on whatever subject I think might be interesting to bring up. Even before doing one of those, I tend first thing to mess…

[rjnello]

16 December 1775

It is one of literature’s most remarkable life stories. A woman born in and who would live her whole life in England, and although she would have little formal schooling (as we understand it) and would never marry, would write books mostly in her 20s and 30s that focused largely on the inferior and vulnerable position of women and of their need to marry because they were permitted few prospects…

[rjnello]

The Acrobat

If you write too, you have likely seen lots of online opinions on the timeless (no pun intended) issue of how quickly an author “should” write a book. One suggestion we see is hurry, hurry, hurry in frantically scribbling typing out the first full draft as quickly as possible regardless of its sloppiness and errors. After all, the argument goes, all of the mistakes can and will be corrected…

[rjnello]

“Travel Influencers”: Rick Steves Most Ain’t

If you are an American (especially of an increasingly, uh, maybe “certain age”) and like to travel, or even just watch well made travel programs, you may have heard of travel writer and television host, Rick Steves. As I recall, he first became prominent in the early 2000s for his informative and entertaining PBS program featuring him traveling around Europe. He is still making programming like…

[rjnello]

Health Insurance Is NOT About "Health"

It is forever hard to understand this. Millions of Americans who are utter skeptics about car and home insurance companies, who would not trust those companies as far as they could throw them, seem to have some weird “faith” in health insurers as different in “providing healthcare.” Yet as car insurers are not in existence to give you a new car and as home insurers are not in existence to give…

[rjnello]

How We "Identify" Ourselves

Saw this the other day and thought it worth mentioning here. This has always been something Europeans (and other non-Americans) may not understand about Americans. And it is possible to have fun with it as she does below: [From Instagram.] To be serious, though, it has not been my experience that Americans usually identify themselves to a foreigner in the same way they would to another…