“Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.” I must have sang “Yankee Doodle” at least a thousand times over the past 45 years and never really gave  a second thought to its meaning. Today, while attending a second grade social studies presentation about the beginnings of our wonderful country, we learned the true meaning of this song. You see, it was written by the British in order to cast Americans in a negative light. The British soldiers sang “Yankee Doodle” to boost morale and feel superior towards “the [Read more…]

Overheard at the supermarket: “I don’t like the way they do things over there. I’m going to give them a piece of my mind. There’s going to be a confrontation.” To be fair, I don’t know what prompted the above-referenced quote. It stuck in my mind for a variety of reasons, the first is that I’m not confrontational and avoid heated confrontation at all cost. The second is that I wonder if the woman above, who was clearly on the defensive, took some time out to ask questions and discuss whatever set her off before deciding on her confrontational course [Read more…]

In the past few weeks I’ve received a flurry, no a barrage, of angry emails asking why I’m qualified to be a freelance writing blogger. Though I don’t quite get the anger, I’m happy to receive these questions because it means writers and aspiring writers are thinking about who to trust and that’s always a good thing. There’s too much blind faith in the Internet world and we need to spend more time questioning the credentials of those who claim to be authorities. We’ve discussed my background and qualifications many times before, I’m really not going to get into that [Read more…]

My Dad was a librarian. As you could imagine, our house was filled with books. I mean, floor to ceiling books. Our living room contained non-fiction and the more formal library was filled with fiction, including many first edition literary works. Upstairs in Dad’s office were the “stacks,” where he kept the periodicals. All of these were arranged by Dewey Decimal System. It was a given that wherever Dad was, a book or two was close by. He passed that love on to all six of his kids as well.  Every year at Christmas Dad went to the bookstores to [Read more…]

I’m noticing something interesting lately and I’m not bringing it up to point fingers or start arguments, but only because it’s interesting and perhaps even discussion-worthy. As most of you know, my decision to partner with a well known content site led to a bit of an uproar, especially among journalists who don’t agree with said site’s model and payment structure. It created many heated web discussions and debates, but the reaction wasn’t unexpected. I wonder if many of the same journalists and freelance writing bloggers realize they’re also profiting from this content site and others? Double Standards? I thought [Read more…]