Stop Saudi Executions!

This is outrageous.  Saudi Arabia, an economic ally of the United States, is prepared to execute 14 men for the crime of  what we in America would think of as a simple exercise of free speech.  Five years ago, they were convicted for attending a pro-democracy protest.  Another man on Saudi death row was convicted of inviting people to the protest, and administering first aid to demonstrators at the event.  (This story does not make clear why demonstrators needed first aid.  In all likelihood, Saudi police were involved.)  These men were convicted of simply exercising the freedoms of thought, speech, and to organize.  Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States, but they do not share our values.  We support freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.  Saudi Arabia uses Islam to brutally control the masses within their domain.  They are in many ways, the antithesis of America.  Their government is founded on an irrational set of beliefs.  It stands for immoral positions.

Enough is enough!  As an American, I am compelled to oppose the execution of all political prisoners in Saudi Arabia.  Anyone who supports democracy is our friend.  Anyone who opposes democracy is our enemy.   Saudi Arabia must make a choice.  These men facing execution are allies to our values.  The Saudi Government wants them dead.  We cannot allow this to happen.  If they want to be our partners, they must embrace our values.  If they cannot embrace human rights, the people of the United States should demand that our government force the Saudis to stop.  As nations, we should either go our separate ways, our we should work to separate Islam from government within Saudi Arabia.

To stop these executions, please reach out to your congressmen and congresswomen.  Please call or write the White House.  Demand that the United States Government take a firm an unequivocal stand against Saudi human rights abuses.

The UK based legal charity, Reprieve, is spearheading the fight for the lives of these 14 men.

 

 

Sometimes

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In the middle of a creative burst it would be disruptive to step back and try to describe what I am doing.  That is the only explanation I can offer for not posting to this blog the past two or three weeks.  Every week I made an effort to write.  Each week the nature of the challenge shifted.  But it was largely one of not being able to describe my methods.  Writing requires from me a certain mindset, difficult to achieve and maintain on any consistent basis.  From here on out, until I finish this manuscript, if I have nothing to say, or if I can’t say it, I will post photos.

A Creative Grind

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Last week I didn’t post anything. I was too close to a creative moment, and I was too distracted channeling the creative vision to break out of that and try to describe it to others. Does this make any sense?

Last Wednesday began with journaling. I wound up making a lot of notes. These notes helped me see something within my narrative. Some potential.  After writing those notes, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.  Later that day I tried to post something here on this blog. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the morning’s notes.   The blog had to take a back seat.  By Thursday, I had missed a self-imposed deadline. I decided not to beat myself up about it. I would just move forward. I still had those notes on my mind.  I got back to work and expanded on what I had written the day before.

Those notes then went into the model of the book I am building. In my last post, I mentioned using mind-mapping software to build out models for this book. I have created a number of models over the past few years. Each one getting closer to my vision. As I worked with the current model, began to feel that the moment was at hand. I have been building these models to help me think about what I have said, and what needs to be said, as I write. Without the models I’m writing into a void. I can’t just wing this narrative without some structure.  This is too complicated for a seat-of-the-pants approach.

I need to see all of the talking points and where the statements have to be made within the narrative in order to keep the suspense, while still informing the reader. I began building these models with the conviction that at some point writing the book would become fairly easy.  At some point, with enough development, I anticipated that the model would trigger the narrative with a mere gaze.  Working with the mind-map this week,  I began responding to the model in just this way.  Two days ago I began a new Scrivener project.  I needed a fresh blank slate for this draft. Yesterday I began composing.  Today the opening began to expand.

Breakthrough

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This week was fortuitous.  While studying the Quran, I found what I was looking for.  Something fell into place for me.  The next day I began writing the latest opening to my book.  For over a year, I have been honing the opening, over and over, circling around a correct thesis, without seeing it.

I could not write a book without a one-sentence summary.  What would I say without a thesis?  Each of the previous openings was built around a sentence that never could get me quite to the end of the book.  These statements couldn’t take my narrative to where I wanted it to go.  This week this changed.  Such a simple thesis, and I could not see it until now.

The day after this realization, I began building out the latest model of my book.  For the past two years, I have been using an application called FreeMind.  It is open-source mind-mapping software.  It works well.  But it is not ideal.  During the past couple of years, I have sketched out quite a few models.  During the past few days, I had been thinking hard on my book.  The morning after, I built the best model yet of the vision that has guided me in this project.

The day after that, I began writing.  My mind maps tend to resemble trees with branches. This is fortunately or not due to the design of the software.  Since I began using FreeMind to help me write, I envisioned the full draft as a process of filling out the leaves on each branch.  That is where I am at right now.  The sled is moving again, and picking up steam.

Progress in Three Paragraphs

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When free versions are available, why did I pay good money for this translation of the Quran?  Some of the value is in the English-language translation itself.  But much of the book is commentary from experts on Islam.  I paid for that.  Initially, I made a good faith effort to read the entire book, page by page.  But by the time I made it through the introduction, through the first surah and into the second, I realized that the commentary was bogging me down.  Most of this book consists of commentary.  For now, it distracts me from my purpose.

So I have spent the week reading the Quran, but focusing on Mohammed’s words exclusively.  It is slow but rewarding work.  I take the time to copy passages into my journal so that I can better argue with the ideas themselves.  When I read, I argue.  If I don’t argue, I am not engaged.  The fact that I am arguing much with the Quran means that I am very engaged by what it says.  When I get to the end of the 114th surah, I will have the basis for my for the article I am writing.  I won’t be done.  But I will be on my way.

I want to explain why I cannot embrace Islam.  Idealogical differences motivate me.  More than a quarter century ago, I left the Catholic church.  My reasons for rejecting Christianity were just as valid then as they are now.  But they apply equally well to Islam.  I am convinced more than ever that religion misrepresents God.

The Next Step

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Religion is my endless fascination.  I have studied it throughout my life.  I am convinced  that God is not what religion teaches us He is.  This is why I have decided to write.  God is something other than how we have traditionally imagined him.

My evidence lies in an argument I am composing.  I am analyzing Christian and Islamic theology within the context of logic.  The Christian half  of my analysis is completed.  But because I am not Muslim, I needed better knowledge of the subject of Islam.  So I bought the Kindle version of The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Caner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Joseph E.B. Lumbard, and Mohammed Rustom.

I have been taking notes as I read the book. My argument develops out of this exercise.  Work this week has been good.

Begon

I have been suffering writer’s block.  All kinds of false starts as I attempt to write for my blog.  However, I can defeat it by lowering my standards.  So here goes.

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I have no problem with the act of writing itself.  Every day I sit down with my journal and fill it with words.  But when I write for my blog, my creativity is stifled.  So, as a solution I have bound and gagged my internal editor and stuck him in another room.

I have also defined a very limited scope for my blog.  It removes all of the stress over what to say.  This should be so simple.  Each week, I have to do something to get published, or I have to explain my failure to do some thing.  Each week going forward, blogging should now be an act of stating the obvious.

So today, I will bring everyone up to date.  This past summer I went to a writing conference in Tucson.  It was my fourth conference in about seven years.  But it was the first in which I submitted a manuscript to be read by an agent.  The agent gave me some excellent feedback.

First, he told me there was absolutely no chance he would represent me.  He laid out the type of work he is looking for, and I definitely do not fit his niche.  Hearing that was reassuring.  Because I went in with the idea that an agent would tell me some ugly truths I needed to hear.  So this meeting turned out to be very productive.

The agent pointed out that my manuscript was non-fiction.  He said that anyone can get published if they can write fiction well.  But in non-fiction, publishers want credentialed writers.  He suggested that a resume of magazine and journal articles would greatly help my cause.  He also suggested that the first chapter of my manuscript would stand well on its own as a magazine piece.

So my goal this year is to begin publishing articles.  My first goal is to complete a companion piece for an article based on my first chapter. Then, to re-write the original article to support this second piece.  Then, to find a home for these two essays.

Hitting a wall

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I spoke about patterns in my last post, before sharing some resolutions for the new year.  I am the type of person who notices patterns.  I have a mathematical mind.  I analyze things.  Today I would like to analyze the physical collapse I managed to survive in the past few years.  I have rebounded enough to begin putting things into perspective.

Myotonic dystrophy is a slow progressing disease.  I noticed my first symptom 26 years ago.  But only in 2011 did I finally tell my doctor that I thought something was wrong with me.  Each year for more than a quarter century I lost a percentage of my strength.  But I had to reach the point of collapse before I cried for help.  Looking back, I can see the role that nutrition and diet played in hastening my collapse, and magnifying the entire ordeal for me.

I aspire to eat healthy.  So those periods where I did not eat healthy stand in stark contrast in my mind.  Looking back, I have to wonder, what was I thinking?  What the hell was I thinking when I began eating at McDonalds?  (True.  The first time, back in the 1960’s, it was a treat.  Probably more for my mom, who didn’t need to cook that meal.  She prepared all the others.  I can’t blame her for allowing it to become something of a habit.  I let that happen.)

When I was in my 30s, I abused fast food.  I allowed it to become a routine part of my diet.  I allowed it to become normal.  (What the hell was I thinking?)  Back then, it seemed at times I was too busy to bother with trying to eat healthy.  Sometimes, just trying to eat and keep my pace up was all I could do.  I had too much on my plate to leave room for healthy food.  I was very driven.  (Still am.)

Because I could burn through calories so easily in my youth, the first effects of this period of unhealthy eating did not show right away.   And so, the habit unwittingly became ingrained in my repertoire of coping and survival behaviors.  However.  One cannot forever ignore the consequences of poor nutrition.  They show up sooner or later.

A few years later, my weight ballooned.  I am a shade under 5’10”.  When I eat healthy, my weight stays around 140 now, less in my youth.  As fast food crept into my diet, my weight began climbing.  Imperceptibly at first.  My low point came in my mid-30s when I reached 195.  On some people of my height, 195 doesn’t look bad.  On me, it went disproportionately to my gut.  I resembled my junior high track coach.  A man – pregnant with basketball.  (I hope he rediscovered healthy food before I did.)  Thus began my battle with weight.

My 40s was a decade of marriage.  A am grateful to my  ex for all her wonderful meals.  She knew more about nutrition than I did.  She prepared healthy food.  But by this point, I was addicted to the flavors of fast and junk.  My problem wasn’t her meals.  My problem were the choices I made when eating meals on my own, and snacking.

We separated in 2010.  On my own again, I knew I had to eat better.  And this is where I will leave the tale for today.  One year before telling my doctor I knew something was wrong with my health.