:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Saturday, May 15, 2004 ::

American Prospect Online - ViewWeb:

"The deficits are now projected at $400 billion this year and at comparably destructive levels for the indefinite future. The tax cuts are responsible for more than $3 trillion in long-term revenue losses over 10 years. And Greenspan hasn't even spoken out against the president's campaign to make the cuts permanent.

Just imagine the outcry from Greenspan, Wall Street, and the Republican Party if these deficits had been the result of social spending rather than tax cuts for America's wealthiest. For half of the cost of the projected deficits - $200 billion a year - we could have universal, high-quality child care and health insurance for all Americans. Think of that."

:: Jim Nichols 5/15/2004 10:59:00 AM [+] ::
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Rise of an 'Iraq generation' in Europe? | csmonitor.com:

"While America's enemies flaunt photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib as evidence of US iniquity, her friends are expressing disbelief and disappointment. They are also wondering how far the images may loosen Washington's grip on its claim to global moral leadership. "

:: Jim Nichols 5/14/2004 07:53:00 PM [+] ::
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Writing is about being human. Writers listen, they learn, they pay attention to the little details of life that float to the bottom settling like silt in a river. Its the writers job to excavate.

:: Jim Nichols 5/13/2004 05:50:00 PM [+] ::
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The wind had died down. It had been windy all day, the kind of wind that reminds you how alive the world is. Ladies in short skirts kind of windy. Now he sat in his room, the window half cracked open, waiting, listening. He didn't know what he was waiting for, or what he was listening for, he just was. He was learning how to just live. He wanted to learn how to make all the little things in his life fade away, shrink down to picture book size. He wanted to learn to write, but first he would have to learn to live. Every writer has a story they take with them, scene or character that they live out in their day to day life. His story wasn't good enough yet. Black eyes, blue balls, descriptive words, descriptive life. Somebody would need to write something quickly. The stories we tell ourselves, they have to improve. You have to get better at telling your own life story. If you don't then what is the point of living. You live until you die so all the in between better start getting wittier, funnier, smarter, you have to fill up your life with lots of truth.

:: Jim Nichols 5/13/2004 05:18:00 PM [+] ::
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By 3:30 everyone had fallen in the water at least once. Carl had already fallen in 5 times. You might ask what we're doing. What we'll say is that we're shootin' fish with high powered rifles. The correct answer is that we're bonding. When you go shooting fish the point isn't to actually hit the fish, all you get with that are fish guts everywhere. The idea is to hit just in front of the fish, just in front of the nose the bullet bolts to the bottom of the lake and its the concussion that kills the fish, it breaks the fish's air bladder and the fish floats up to the top. If you hit a female thats spawning you can sometimes get six or seven male fish. The fish are just lookin to score. They aren't expecting a bullet to come crashing in on them. Think of it as a sneak attack. Really what it is is five guys with nothing better to do on a spring day.

:: Jim Nichols 5/13/2004 05:06:00 PM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Bush approval rating hits lowest point:

"For an incumbent to be at 46% job approval at this point in an election year has historically always spelled defeat' for presidents since 1950, says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. "

:: Jim Nichols 5/11/2004 10:26:00 PM [+] ::
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The New York Times > National > How to Catch Fish in Vermont: No Bait, No Tackle, Just Bullets:

"It is a controversial pastime, and Vermont's fish and wildlife regulators have repeatedly tried to ban it. They call it unsportsmanlike and dangerous, warning that a bullet striking water can ricochet across the water like a skipping stone.
But fish shooting has survived, a cherished tradition for some Vermont families and a novelty to some teenagers and twenty-somethings. "

:: Jim Nichols 5/11/2004 09:39:00 PM [+] ::
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I've taken to watching fight club in Spanish. I've become infatuated with making myself into a chuck palahniuk cut out. I've taken to him the way a person obsesses over Russian Nihilists. This is my life and I can't even be creative enough to do my own thing. On the down side this kind of thing doesn't pay well... on the up side i'm learning to laugh again. That was one thing you taught me to do, laugh. My professor in my class asked me a question, I knew the answer but told him I have no clue. Somehow this is me gaining control over my life. Go to school forever, write cookie cutter novels, play in a band that doesn't exist... this is my life...

:: Jim Nichols 5/11/2004 06:50:00 PM [+] ::
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Darwin's natural heir :

"Hailed as a genius of modern science, he's also been accused of racism in a vicious debate over evolution. Ed Douglas on the former Southern Baptist who found clues to human behaviour in the ways of the humble ant and is now focusing on the battle to save the planet "

:: Jim Nichols 5/09/2004 08:07:00 PM [+] ::
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