rjnello

[rjnello]

Life Goes On

Dear Drunk: You are still upset, I see. I’m sure you Vermonters are crazed. Being at a distance, I am most immediately concerned about Trump’s disdain for our allies and that he doesn’t care if our friends here in Europe are invaded and slaughtered: In taking that anti-NATO position, which no president has ever since NATO’s creation in 1949, Trump is plainly either a Putin stooge or simply too…

[rjnello]

"Rice Krispies" Is Fine Now And Then, But...

Back in the 1990s (LOL!), when I was in my young 20s, after watching a French-made film with a French girlfriend, she suggested what was then new to me, but which has by now become a cliché. Americans, she had laughed, are happy to watch people slaughtered en masse on screen and few honestly seem really to care. In comparison, she went on, portraying on screen a man and a woman merely having…

[rjnello]

When "Home" Is Lost

Been spending lots of time on the (almost finished) novel. So no wordy blog post today. (LOL!) Just a return to about 240 years ago… [1780s American farmhouse. By AI.] …and a period of early U.S. history… Continue reading When “Home” Is Lost

[rjnello]

Our New "Confederacy"

Dear Drunk: Just because I’m not in Vermont doesn’t mean I am any happier than you are that a slim majority of our fellow Americans who bothered to vote think that that stupid, corrupt, immoral, fascist sh-thead should sit in the White House AGAIN. To me, as a historian, January 20, 2025 will mark the lowest point in U.S. presidential history: A convicted felon will take the oath of office, thus…

[rjnello]

Truly Dreadful “Friends”

A decade ago, the late-1990s/early-2000s sitcom Friends was big viewing among some younger people who did not see it the first time around. (My then teen niece, who is now in her later-20s, here in England had the series on DVD.) It is now standard fare on streaming services, with Matthew Perry’s tragic early death renewing interest even more. It continually attracts first-time viewers mostly for…

[rjnello]

The First Felon

So, some five million more U.S. voters have chosen Donald J. Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris to be the next president. Such is how things have been done since 1789, when one George Washington was first elected. And, indeed, let us hope it will be done again in 2028 in much the same way. Because Trump will be the first criminally-convicted (and by a jury) felon and the first publicly…

[rjnello]

My Last Word (On This)

Speaking at a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere on April 29, 1962, President John F. Kennedy said: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” No one will ever make such a quip about one Donald J. Trump as…

[rjnello]

It "Starts"... In A New York Forest

I had written here recently that to make up for fewer “sneak peeks” than I had used previously for coming novels, that I would share a few even with this latest novel now nearly finished. First, here, I thought for this one, I would try a little illustrating AI using the WordPress AI art generator. Messing around with it can be fun: More importantly, it struck me that this might be an especially…

[rjnello]

Overseas Americans' Right To Vote Threatened

If you are a registered Democrat planning to vote for Harris/Walz, vote now if you can. Voting early takes you off of the party’s radar. If you vote even today, rather than on November 5 on Election Day, that means the party campaign can then spend the remaining nearly a week trying to get out last minute OTHER voters and not be wasting resources to chase you to get out to vote when you are going…

[rjnello]

Never The Unreal

Last night, we watched Lonely Planet on Netflix. It was a decent film for the subject matter. While it gets only a 5.7 on IMDB, I do feel I have seen a LOT worse recently that had higher numbers. I would suggest, and this may impact that number, that it seems aimed at a slightly older audience (meaning over “age 45”). I guess, meaning, people like my wife and me. I say that because we watched it…

[rjnello]

He Can’t Just Keep It To Andrew Jackson

It is somehow nearly always a foreigner of unchecked power, or of nearly unchecked power, or one seeking unchecked power, who attracts one Donald J. Trump’s most fervent voiced admiration. For example, it is the historical Kaiser’s Imperial Germany (from where, interestingly, his grandfather fled conscription in the late 1800s, in “migrating” to the U.S.). Or it is present day communist China’s…

[rjnello]

It Is The United States, Not “The Papal States”

Recently, I dealt with the issue of Italian-Americans, fascism, and Trump. Now, it is time for the issue that seems in a way overlapping: Roman Catholics, theocracy (essentially meaning, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, rule by the clergy), and Trump. At its founding in 1776, being populated mostly by Protestants of British origin, the mass of Americans tended to hold anti-“papist” views…

[rjnello]

Approaching "Finish" Point

I just wrote what I think will be my current manuscript’s concluding couple of paragraphs, including the final sentence. Doing that, I recalled how I have encountered lots of people – both in person, but mostly online – who say they read a novel’s last page to see how it ends before they buy it. DO NOT TELL ME YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE! LOL! [Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com.] This new novel…

[rjnello]

Italian-Americans, Fascism… And Trump

I have not raised this directly before. It is, I feel, time. I do not believe we should turn a blind eye to it any longer. In my previous post, I mentioned how my first three novels were rooted in fact. I took quite a few family recollections and fictionalized them. Here is one: [From Distances. On Kindle for iPhone/iPad. Click to expand.] As that excerpt conveys, one of my grandfathers (my…

[rjnello]

How You Know Me

The other day, author Delphine Woods (of whom I am a fan) in her Instagram stories, asked us followers to help her make a decision about her pen name. She is looking to move away from her current rather “dark” and Victorian-era novels she has written for years. She was wondering about a new name to write something “lighter” in the modern “rom-com” sense: [From author Delphine Woods’s Instagram,…

[rjnello]

Only The Young

Listening to some music on my iPhone as I was writing the other day, it dawned on me quite a few of those I am now listening to are… well, seriously old and even dead. And I am not talking about, say, just Frank Sinatra. I mean 1980s/1990s, and even early 2000s, artists. (Ugh!) I realized as well that I had probably not bought any music by any artist YOUNGER than “age 30” in some years. The last…

[rjnello]

These "Little Women"

I admitted in 2021 that I had “never gotten through” Louisa May Alcott’s late-1860s, now classic, Little Women. I resolved recently to try again. Having been gifted for my birthday the Library of America version, this time I am more than getting through it and I am enjoying it. [Louisa May Alcott, The Library of America: Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys. Photo by me, Dartmouth, Devon, October…