Posts Written By L Parker Brown

Bidding on the Price of Life

Life lines“No money. No cell phone. No technology.” Those were the words that a survivor in the Philippines said to a TV news reporter in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. According to one report 600,000 people lost everything in that storm. The distressed woman’s words bothered me, because  she only mentioned the loss of material things. My first thought was — at least you are alive, which is easy to say when the bad thing is happening to someone else. Then I asked myself this question. “When all you have is life — is it enough?”

Many of us have never lived through the unimaginable horrors of a typhoon, a Tsunami, or a Hurricane Katrina, but we may know someone who did. Perhaps we know a soldier who returned from war after losing one or more limbs, or maybe we have a relative or close friend who suffered an incapacitating stroke, was paralyzed in a car accident, or is enduring terminal cancer. Any of those things can change a person’s perspective on life.

More than a few people have told me that if they ever become physically incapacitated to the point that they are completely reliant upon a caregiver to do everything from feed and bath them to assist with their toileting needs – or if they are hospitalized and on a life support machine — they’d rather be dead. “I want someone to pull the switch. I do not want to live like that,” they say. I’ve even read stories about people who are so determined not to let declining mental or physical health diminish their quality of life that they have their body tattooed with the letters DNR —Do Not Resuscitate.

Life is an indeterminable roller coaster of hills and valleys. Sometimes we cruise peacefully for days, months, or years on an unobstructed theoretical highway, then without warning a sharp curve appears. It is often those blind siding crises that force us to confront our own mortality and realize that while we are here one moment we could suddenly be gone the next.

A Connecticut woman, Madonna Badger, contemplated suicide and was briefly committed to a psychiatric hospital after losing all three of her children and her parents in a Christmas Day fire in 2011. With the help and support of loving friends she managed to pull herself back from the brink of despair.

Janet Adkins, a 54 year old woman who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1989, apparently, feeling that she had nothing left to live for, became the first public suicide of Jack Kevorkian, nicknamed Dr. Death, a pathologist who believed in and practiced physician-assisted suicide.

One woman fought back, another surrendered, and a Philippine typhoon victim threw up her hands in a gesture of hopelessness as if to say, “What’s left to live for?”

Have you ever felt like you are trapped in a financial rut, living pay-check-to-paycheck, and struggling to survive? That is a common problem for many people. If you are an optimist you believe that in time – and with a bit of luck – you will dig yourself out of the rut. But what if one day your life changes drastically – you succumb to a sudden illness and can no longer work. Or your home is destroyed by a fire or a tornado. Could you handle it?

Sometimes we don’t know how much we truly appreciate something until it has been taken away from us. While you are sitting there at your computer in your cozy home or at your workplace, and feeling comfortable in the fact that you can put food on the table, go shopping for new clothes whenever you feel like it, and perhaps you have a wonderful spouse and children, imagine that suddenly it is all gone.  Consider your current age, your income – consider everything that today – at this moment – makes you feel secure. Then imagine that you not only lose all of your worldly possessions, but you lose your entire family too. Be honest with yourself, do you think that you would be strong enough to recover or would you simply decide that there is nothing left to live for? That brings me full circle to the thought provoking question:  When all you have is life, is it enough?”

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So You Want to be a Writer

Publishing-Contract-30036044If you are looking for advice from an expert who has spent years studying and teaching writing you’re on the wrong blog. I am no expert. I am a freelance writer. In the ocean of prominent authors, I am a minnow. But while the big fish swim circles around me, I don’t cringe.

Writing is my passion and words are my pearls. Apparently, I string them together adequately — most of the time, because over the years I have been fortunate enough to have had articles printed in various publications including The Washington Post. In addition to my essays, I’ve had enough Letters to the Editor and opinion pieces in print to paper at least one wall in my den. Rejection slips from my perceived prize winning compositions could cover the opposite wall. Aside from college English and writing courses, I’ve had no formal training, but I’ve had excellent mentors including my friends Walter Kiplinger and Alex Lajoux. For the past four years, I’ve been happily blogging on my own websites. Hopefully, I have eliminated any pretentiousness, and I will now tell you what I know about writing and how I do it.

Writing well requires practice. Decide for yourself whether you want to write news articles, fiction, poetry, speeches, or whatever. The field is wide open. Just write. Write. Write. And write often. That practice makes perfect is no lie. I write on a variety of subjects and get ideas at any time or place; so much so that I keep a small notebook and pen handy to jot down things to write about as they occur to me.

As you write, keep in mind that your composition may require that you validate details. When I write, I fact check like a research junkie.  I also take pains to ensure the accuracy of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. After I’ve finished my final draft, I proofread it multiple times, and when necessary I cut wordiness like a pathologist dissecting a multilated corpse. Okay, perhaps that description was a bit melodramatic, but I enjoy spicing my writing with a bit of color and humor.

After you write your manuscript and submit it for publication, you can bet your binky that it will be critiqued with an eagle eye. Any piece that is fraught with grammatical errors, misspelled words and obvious impractical facts will go directly into the recycle bin. But if it is acceptable, someone from the editorial staff will likely contact you and ask you to swear on a stack of emails that what you wrote is your own creation and was not plagiarized nor published elsewhere at any time. If you truthfully answer yes, then voila!

The subject of writing well requires many more words than I can squeeze into a single post. So look for me to expand on this subject in the future. My bottom line, humble advice, is this:  make sure that what you write is original, error free, and accurate – your integrity is on the line.

Oh, one last tip – if you want to learn to write well, it helps to be an avid reader.

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Exposing the Faces on Facebook

Like and UnLike Thumbs -31207040When I joined Facebook a couple of years ago, it was for a one year research project on which I was collaborating with another writer friend. Nearly three years later, I am still on FB – because I am hooked – in spite of the fact that our study somewhat validates what my anti-Facebook friend often says, “Overall, FB is a platform for narcissists and cowards.”

The premise of our project was to determine whether FB feeds the ego of narcissists and mean-spirited people. Although I documented various examples of subtle disrespect and innuendos among (ahem!) friends, my data reveals that there is much more positive information being shared on that site than negative. However, despite its usefulness in providing a medium for worthwhile information, Facebook does appear to be, figuratively speaking, an online Jumbotron for narcissists – who post pictures of themselves, weekly and sometimes daily; and lessor for killjoys, who enjoy putting others down. Both have an insatiable hunger for attention.

What some FB users fail to realize is that many FB lovers post information

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They Don’t All Get Away

Pistol on flagThe jury’s decision, on the Trayvon Martin case this past weekend is having a prolonged effect on me. The popping sounds of gunshots often reverberate in my dreams, turning them into nightmares. Pop! I see the smiling face of my best friend’s son; shot dead in August 1992. Pop! I am sitting in church attending the funeral of my cousin’s son; shot dead in January 2006. Pop! Thanks to pictures published by the media, I am haunted by numerous photos of the unsuspecting face of Trayvon Martin; shot dead in February 2012.  All young black men all senselessly murdered by other men; callous men, who disregarded the God-given lives of Kenneth, Ray, and Trayvon, in order to pursue their own personal agenda and murder their victims.

George Zimmerman, killer of Trayvon Martin even had the nerve to say on the Hannity talk show that “it was all God’s plan” for him to kill Trayvon.  HOW DARE HE! It is the peak of pomposity and arrogance for Zimmerman to say that God sent him to murder that teen.  No one should blame God for their own irresponsible actions.

Having now publicly vented my anger, perhaps I will be able to sleep through the night without hearing phantom gunshots, envisioning young black men being senselessly murdered, and waking up with tears in my eyes.

This post is purposely shorter than those I normally write; short like the lives of the three previously mentioned young black men who now sleep eternally.

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Truth and Consequences

This commentary was co-written with a gentleman who chooses to remain anonymous.

N-word--15952934Truthfulness, sincerity, and honesty are qualities to which conscientious people aspire. In fact, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution affords us the right to speak the truth; and a court deposition – like that which brought an outcry of “foul” to Paula Deen –requires an oath or affirmation of truth.

Deen is paying the price for her decision to be truthful about her past use of the “N Word.” She has been dropped by the Food Network and will likely lose other endorsements, because big businesses do not always appreciate honesty and loyalty from its promoters or consumers. Many organizations perceive their employees as mere pawns used to generate profits, and those pawns are quickly disposed of when their words or actions threaten a potential loss of profits.

Deen chose to be truthful about something that occurred in her distant past and — just like that — the very industry that celebrated her dropped her like a hot potato in order to distance itself and avoid financial repercussions. I commend Deen for speaking the truth, but shake my head at her naivety in trusting an intolerable and hoggish capitalized society.

Sides are being taken on the issue of Paula Deen’s use of the “N Word.” If truth be told there are numerous Caucasians in all walks of life who use that word in the privacy of their home or among their close friends and trusted co-workers. Deen admitted to using the word, and for being truthful she faces the consequences. We live in a hypocritical society, where pretence brings more rewards than honesty and truth; and where it is better to pretend to go along for the sake of getting along, then to risk being ostracized and penalized by a public where political correctness is the rule of the day and the so-called “new norm” sets the standard.

What is very troubling about this matter is the fact that it is acceptable for some people to indiscriminately use the “N word” while others are ostracized for it. Is the use of the word “Reserved” for use only by a select group?

Do I think Deen should have been fired from the Food Network and then figuratively stoned? No.  Do I dislike hearing that word with all of its negative connotations being used at all? Yes.

Paula Deen will not sink into poverty because she loses a few endorsements, but she may be distraught because she told the truth. Any white people who may decide in the future to admit to using the word consider this (and I am paraphrasing an old cliché): “It is better to be thought to be a racist, than to open your mouth and be accused of being one.”

 

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