Boxers don't whine. Neither should those who enter the debate ring.

by Angela K. Durden

The Most Brilliant Woman in the World

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

Besides being The Most Brilliant Woman in the World, I am also a Magnificently Methodical Southern Woman.

I do not apologize for being clear about my strengths and recognize that if it's a fact it ain't bragging.

I mention these two titles simply to say that what you will read next is only one more example of my brilliant methodicalness and if you have to put on sunglasses to protect your eyes as you read it, then you have been forewarned.

I am one member of a 42K+ Bacefook group built around Thomas Sowell. I happen to like Thomas Sowell. Have done since the first time I read his column in Forbes back when the Internet did not exist and the magazine came in the mail.

My father-in-law had a subscription. He kept a pile of the magazines next to his chair. When we'd visit for the weekend, my nose stayed in the magazines all weekend. Drove my (now ex) husband mad, but that's another story. Anyway, even my father-in-law got tired of me pawing his stack, so he bought me a subscription to Forbes and paid for it for over twenty years. He couldn't have given me any better gift.

I looked forward to two columns: Thomas Sowell and Joseph Garber. I ended up writing each. My letter to Sowell prompted him to ask if he could use my letter in his 2001 book "The Einstein Syndrome", which permission I gave and which was included. My letter to Garber got a response from him wherein we found we had a lot in common and wrote back and forth until he died. I've never met either, but I am a writer and so were they, so the written word was perfectly fine for us.

This Bacefook group is under fire for not toeing the party line and have started a backup group on MeWe should they be shutdown on Bacefook.

So there I am on a particularly fine morning, checking in with my Bacefook peeps, when what assails my eyes is this [you can see by the check mark which I chose]:

I was dismayed because for some time trolls joined the group whose sole purpose was to stir up trouble for trouble's sake. They had nothing of any intellectual honesty to add and delighted in doing nothing more than calling names and hurling other insults just to see who would respond with their reptilian brain thereby self-identifying as an easy victim. Henry Fu, the moderator, has had an almost full-time job refereeing them.

After I took the survey, I added my comment as to why I chose the option I did:

"The rules as they exist in this group are fine with me. They remind me of the ropes around a boxing ring, a ring in which boxers live by rules, and, when the mind gets too reptilian, a ref is called in to remind one of those rules.

"But the contenders in the ring don't whine. They know why they are there: To pummel! They know their goal is to represent.

"And in that ring, they know that at the end of the bout they will shake hands and go do the press conference wherein they praise the effort of the other and say how they look forward to their next fight. The loser may even say with a smile and not few words of smack, 'I will kick your boohiney next time, buddy, so just you watch out!'"

And those who simply comment "I agree", or who post a meme comment, or whatever, are the crowd letting the contender know they appreciate their effort or think they suck.

See? Boxers don't whine. And neither should those who enter the debate ring. So, if you don't like the sport, don't buy the ticket and put your butt in a ringside seat and then complain.*

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* Do you notice how I could've said "Put on your big-girl panties", but I chose not to?

O Garlic! How you linger.

Ode to Garlic 

In the morning, cold with dew,

there is nothing like the smell of you.

Freshly peeled and crushed just so,

in the morning how I love you so.

Garlic! Garlic! How you linger

in the air and on my fingers.

Holding court all the day

just so you can hear me say,

"O Garlic! Inside my breast your pungence swells

and lo, therein, does ring my bells."

Some say to Amaryllidaceae do you belong

with shallots, onions, chives, and leeks.

But these are merely posers, as to the

Allium longiscuspis you do keep.

In the wild the others grow, but 

you are carefully cultivated just so.

They lure cows to eat their tops

which makes their milk a great big flop.

For days upon end onion-flavored milk

assails noses of farmers who cry, "Oh, ick!"

But, Garlic, never do you wander.

Of yourself you never ponder.

Stay in your place, you faithfully do,

on meats and salads and in my stews. 

Your Magnificently Methodical
Southern Woman as she
contemplates her morning garlic.

by Angela K. Durden

The Most Brilliant Woman in the World

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

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The Simple Secret to Good Writing

by Angela K. Durden
The Most Brilliant Woman in the World

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

Imagine a fresh plate of steaming hot, crispy French Fries. The plate is set in front of you. Your taste buds are salivating eagerly and your fingers twitch with excitement. But before you can take one small morsel, the chef pulls out a box of salt and dumps half of it atop the potatoes.

What is your reaction?

Of course you recoil in horror. You yell, “Stop! Stop!”, but the chef says, “No. This is how I like to serve these. I don’t really care what you like,” and he continues to pour on the rest of the box of salt and soon you do not see the beautiful taters that you so looked forward to and that had been promised.

Sure, somewhere in that pile may be a fry or two that did not get any salt, but are you really going to go digging through it to find them?

Now imagine that same plate being set before you and the chef brings out a shaker and lightly dusts the potatoes with salt. Aha! You will hail the chef’s total genius in preparation and presentation and you will quickly dig in and enjoy.

Think of that plate of potatoes as your story and you are the chef. Are you “dumping a box of salt” atop your story so that the reader cannot see it?

Salt and interesting words/combinations in moderation make the taste of fries and stories pop. Too much of either ruins the very foundation of what the chef and writer serve to diners and readers.

Yet we find certain chefs and writers do not care what their diners and readers want — that is, something enjoyable — and insist on torturing the same. 

Just as diners don't want to — nay, will not! —  dig through a pile of salt-covered potatoes to find one they can eat and that might fill their tummy, readers do not want to — nay, readers will not! — search through thousands upon thousands of words to find the few that carry the story.

Allow your readers opportunity to hail your writing by employing this one simple secret to good writing: Go easy on the salt.

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Want to know how to be a better white person?

At it again...all for you.

by Angela K. Durden
The Most Brilliant Woman in the World

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

Don't worry. I, your Citizen Journalist, has scoured these Internets to find the one and only world-renowned wypipologist to tell you how. You will shortly hear from Mr. Michael Harriot who is, according to his Twitter page, "Sr. Writer at TheRoot.com, board-certified* Wypipologist, master race-baiter. His pen is mightier than your sword. Warning: Has been known to 'Jeer at whites'."

What is a wypipologist? Well, it is a new code word thunked up to describe a black person who can explain white people and explain the Black Experience to white people. "Wypipo" means white people. Ologist...well, you know that is.

Mr. Harriot wrote How to Be a Better White Person wherein he outlined six key factors, the first of which is so brilliant that I was not simply merely stunned, I was beside myself in another dimension called The No-Racism/Yes-Racism Zone. 

The first thing he said I have to do is realize I am white. I kid you not. That is step one. Somehow or another — you can click the link to the article above if you want all his wisdom in all its glory — but...somehow or another, when a black person tells me I am white, I am not supposed to get mad about being told I'm white. 

I know. The logic is overpowering. 

Step two: Recognize I have privilege. What does that mean? Harriot says it means, his words mind you, "White Privilege is the absence of racism....But in America, only white people get to do this." 

Step three: Know things and, this is important, don't come to a different conclusion than he does or else I will be...what, boys and girls? That's right. A privileged racist claiming not to be white and not to see color.

Step four: Talk to other white people about how racist they are and try to change them. He thinks he quoted MLK, Jr. He's not sure he did. His own words. See? Right here. "I think it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said: 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'
But if a white person is involved, the universe’s moral arc can turn on a dime."

One would think he'd confirm where the quote came from unless he's hoping for some sort of from-the-grave stamp of approval of his logic. But no matter where that quote came from, it is correct. Put another way, "The mills of the gods grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small." [Direct quote from the poem "The Mills of the Gods" by Charlie Wagg who used the quote thunked up by some guy named Plutarch.]

Step five: Talk to black people...but you got to listen. Why do I have to listen? Because not all black people think alike. And here all these years I thought they did. Duh! Doh! See my white privilege a-bustin' out all over? 

Step six: Think. Yes, know the history of slavery then ask myself what I am doing to stop it. Hang on, let me reread that again...yep, that pretty much sums it up. 

In any case, Mr. Harriot, the man who claims not all black people think alike and we shouldn't assume they do, assumes all wypipo do think and act alike, then proceeds to admonish all white people for thinking alike and pointing his pen at them for never doing anything about it. 

Oh, Mr. Harriot, bless your little ol' heart. It must be nice to have such a simple narrative to focus on.  

* Methinks Harriot's just having a joke on folks and waiting to see who actually believes him. In any case... 

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The Elephant In The Room — Harry: the Faux Royal.

At it again...all for you.

by Angela K. Durden
The Most Brilliant Woman in the World

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

Harry and Meghan are leading the pack of liberal wokeness these days and aren't we all just the better for it? Of course we are...if we believe them. I wish I could be as woke. Sure I do. Then maybe Elton John and George Clooney and Justin Trudeau would jet me around the world from one climate change diatribe to another where I could lecture the huddled masses on how racist they are for not liking me. 

Hang on. That won't work because I'm white and racism is only a one way street, right? Anyway. Moving on. 

Everybody is missing the elephant in the room. Everybody is whining that Harry is treating Grandma so badly when The Queen is not his grandmother...not by blood, anyway. Do you not remember that Diana uploaded Harry the good old-fashioned way — on the other side of the sheets? Harry is no more of the royal line than I am. He simply had the good fortune to have a mother who was married to a royal when she got knocked up by a hottie servant. 

Loike millions 'round the world, I watched Diana marry Charles. I didn't Kettle and Hob the bloomin' weddin' 'cause I was dreamin' that wahn day I too might marry meself a prince. Nah sir. I watched ter clock the bloomin' pomp.

And what a show it was. Then Diana proceeded to become The People's Princess and air private laundry to make a name for herself. Harry is the bleedin' nut that didn't fall far from that tree. He fit right in with the royals until he met one of his own kind and then it was all over except the privileged lecturing.

Sumantra Maitra nailed it when he said about Harry:  "Due to its symbolic and apolitical nature, British aristocracy are not supposed to publicly espouse political opinions, much less actively lecture people about mental health, toxic masculinity, or climate change. They are supposed to go to war, open hospitals, and silently take part in charitable causes. Duty, stoicism, propriety, and patriotism are supposed to be the four cornerstones of nobility. Unfortunately, Harry has too much of Princess Diana in him..."

Piers Morgan was brilliantly scalding when he said about Harry and Meghan: "By crying ‘RACISTS!’ in the face of perfectly legitimate criticism, this petulant duo has made a mockery of true victims of racism. Shame on them, and all those who promote this grotesquely false smear."

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