I can relate to the following quotation from playwright Sam Shepard because I'm having a very difficult time getting back into writing after not doing much of it for a while.

"The work never gets easier. It gets harder and more provocative. And as it gets harder you are continually reminded there is more to accomplish. It's like digging for gold. And when you find the vein, you know there's a lot more where that came from."

Here's a great joke that my friend Erika sent to me:

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards. She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Christmas stamps?" The clerk says, "What denomination?" The woman says, "God help us. Has it come to this? Give me 6 Catholic, 12 Presbyterian, 10 Lutheran and 22 Baptists."

Poem: "Praise Song"
by Barbara Crooker

Reprinted with permission of the poet.

Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there's left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.

(from "The Writer's Almanac" on National Public Radio--NPR--in the U.S.)

Riders not 'bunch of gangsters,' GM says

Last Updated Nov. 3, 2005 10:57 AM CST CBC News

Saskatchewan Roughriders general manager Roy Shivers has waded into the Trevis Smith controversy, expressing concerns his team is getting a bad rap from the news media.
Saskatchewan Roughriders GM Roy Shivers talks with reporters Wednesday"

Saskatchewan Roughriders GM Roy Shivers talks with reporters WednesdayOn Wednesday, Smith, a 29-year-old linebacker with the Regina-based CFL team, appeared in a B.C. provincial court charged with the aggravated sexual assault of a B.C. woman.

The RCMP has revealed that Smith is HIV-positive. They allege Smith knowingly exposed the woman to the virus and did not tell her about his condition. Smith lawyer Paul Harasen said his client will plead not guilty. He was released Wednesday on $10,000 bail.

Commenting for the first time on the case Wednesday, Shivers told reporters he always warns players about their lifestyle choices but he can't watch them around the clock.

"I don't know if in your job if your boss follows you home at night and tries to find out who you're sleeping with or something like that – that's not our job," he said.

Shivers also expressed concerns at the way members of his team have been portrayed in the media. In recent years, there are been several team members appearing in court on assault charges and, in one case, a marijuana possession charge.

"It's been portrayed in the public and in the newspapers and in the media that we got a bunch of gangsters running around here and that's far, far from the truth," he said. "We don't have any crackhead quarterbacks around here. We don't have any drug dealers around here."

Shivers said when he found out last year that Smith had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, he told him to use protection.

For privacy reasons, the team couldn't reveal Smith's condition to his teammates, he said.
Shivers said he cares about this community and hopes there are no more HIV scares close to home.

"The only thing, you know, that you can do now is that hopefully this is not an epidemic … because somebody had to give it to him."

Smith is no longer on the Riders active roster, but if he's found innocent, he'll be welcomed back to the team, Shivers said.

It's the birthday of the humorist and cultural critic Joe Queenan, born in Philadelphia (1950). He's one of the angriest and funniest contemporary critics of popular culture. His working-class background inspired him to become a critic because, he said, "Blue collar people like me have zero tolerance level for the problems of celebrities."

He had been working a series of manual labor jobs, loading trucks and selling tennis racquets, when he decided to become a journalist. The first thing he published was an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal called "Ten Things I Hate about Public Relations." He has gone on to write a series of books criticizing various aspects of American culture, including Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle in America and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else (1992), and Balsamic Dreams: A Short but Selfish History of the Baby Boomer Generation (2001).

Joe Queenan's advice to aspiring writers is, "Don't write until you're 25. Don't write for the high school yearbook. Don't write for the college literary magazine. Don't write that stuff—you never had any experiences, you don't know anything, just shut up."

(from "The Writer's Almanac")

It's the birthday of the playwright Terrence McNally, born in St. Petersburg, Florida (1939). He's best known for his play "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune "(1987), about a romance between a middle-aged waitress and a short-order cook who work at a café together.

McNally started writing plays, but then put it off to take a job as a tutor for John Steinbeck's children. He thought maybe Steinbeck would give him some advice, but all Steinbeck told him was that playwriting was the worst existence in the world. McNally stuck with it though, and had a series of off-Broadway hits.

Then his career hit a slump. He stopped writing and supported himself working on radio shows. He said, "I guess it hadn't occurred to me that to be a playwright you had to write plays—I thought you could be a playwright and sulk."

Then, one day, someone recognized his voice, and asked him if he was that guy on the radio. He realized that if he didn't keep writing plays, he'd be remembered as some radio personality. So he got back to work and produced Frankie and Johnny, which became his first big hit and was made into a movie.

(from "The Writer's Almanac" on National Public Radio in the U.S.)

Jack Layton’s Statement on Gomery

(from www.ndp.ca )

"Judge Gomery’s report confirms the facts we heard in testimony: A scheme, run by well-connected Liberals that used tax dollars for their own benefit and the benefit of the Liberal Party..."

Full Statement
NDP’s Ethics Package (Summary)
NDP’s Ethics Package (Full in pdf)

Liberals by the Numbers

78% of current Liberal MPs were members of the former Liberal government, including Paul Martin.

15 members of the current Cabinet were Cabinet ministers in the former Liberal government, including Paul Martin.


Paul Martin's Record:

September 14, 2004: Paul Martin appointed his Director of Communications, Mario Laguë as Ambassador to Costa Rica.

March 24, 2005: though forced to resign from Cabinet for giving contracts to a girlfriend, former Liberal MP Art Eggleton is appointed to the Senate until 2018.

March 24, 2005: Paul Martin appointed former Alberta Liberal Party Leader Grant Mitchell to the Senate, while his son Lucas works in the PMO.

August 2, 2005: Paul Martin appointed defeated Liberal MP Stan Keyes as Canada’s Consul General to Boston.

August 2, 2005: Paul Martin appointed close friend and organizer of his 2003 leadership bid, former Liberal MP Dennis Dawson to the Senate until 2024.

August 2, 2005: Paul Martin appointed the head of the Liberal Party’s elite donor club Rod Zimmer to the Senate until 2017.

August 29, 2005: Paul Martin appointed his Principal Secretary, Francis Fox, to the Senate.


Final Words from the Gomery Report

Liberals “were directly involved in illegal campaign financing”(pg. 78, Summary Report)
Liberals “disregarded the relevant laws governing donations to political parties”(pg. 435, Fact Finding Report)

The Liberal Party “cannot escape responsibility for the misconduct of its officers and representatives”(pg. 78, Summary Report)

“clear evidence of political involvement”(pg. 5, Summary Report)

Liberal operatives acted with “greed and venality.”(pg. 438, Fact Finding Report)

“a culture of entitlement”(pg. 7, Summary Report)

Wal-Mart in duel with damning documentary

Tues., Nov. 1, 2005 CBC Arts

Wal-Mart has made a documentary extolling its own virtues in an effort to counter a damning Robert Greenwald film.

Greenwald's "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" was released Tuesday, and opens in cinemas in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 4.

Made on a shoestring budget of $1.8 million, it will get limited release in theatres, but in the current age of popular documentaries, Greenwald hopes it will become a cult hit like Michael Moore's critique of General Motors, "Roger and Me".

In"The High Cost of Low Price" Greenwald talked to Wal-Mart employees, who complained about being cheated out of overtime and being unable to afford the company's health insurance.

The film looks at Wal-Mart's development practices, building large stores on the outskirts of towns and sucking the life out of many small communities.

Current and former employees describe the company's inner workings and community leaders and poets from throughout the U.S. describe its practices as "an assault on families and American values," Greenwald says.

Wal-Mart, known for eschewing public relations under founder Sam Walton, has hired prominent public relations firm Edelman to bolster its image against the perceived threat from the documentary and from other activists who have criticized its practices.

Wal-Mart fears it will lose the support of middle-class consumers. Earlier this year unions organized a boycott of the retailer by teachers buying school supplies.

Among those coordinating the campaign against Greenwald's documentary is Michael Deaver, one of Bill Clinton's media strategists, according to the New York Times.

Wal-Mart has hired Ron Galloway to make a film called "Why Wal-Mart Works and Why That Makes Some People Crazy".

While Wal-Mart executives would not agree to be interviewed for Greenwald's film, they have made themselves very available for the Galloway counter-offensive.

In advance of Greenwald's movie release, they accused the filmmaker of getting his facts wrong. And now they are challenging Greenwald to show the two films side by side.
On his website, Greenwald urges faith groups, community activists and schools to host a screening of his documentary. The filmmaker says he plans 3,000 such screenings in the week of Nov. 13-19, describing this as a worldwide grassroots premiere.

Greenwald is the director of the 2004 movie "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and TV movies and miniseries including "The Book of Ruth" and "The Burning Bed". The Wal-Mart movie is being backed by his own production house, Best Films.

Conservative Anglicans Move Closer To Schism Over Gays

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: October 31, 2005 1:00 pm ET

(Alexandria, Egypt) Anglican primates from throughout the developing world ended a six-day conference in Alexandria Egypt on Monday by issuing a strongly worded threat to the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada.

In a closing statement the bishops, who represent about half of the world's 77-million Anglicans, accused the churches in the US and Canada of tearing the denomination apart and said that liberals in the West have introduced unacceptable "innovations" into biblical teaching - a direct reference to the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire and same-sex blessing services in British Columbia.

The statement said that church traditionalists have seen no sign that the North American churches were about to "repent" for their actions. The statement demanded that they change their ways urgently.

"We recognize with regret the growing evidence that the provinces, which have taken action creating the current crisis in the (Anglican) communion, continue moving in a direction that will result in their walking apart," the group said in a communique issued on Monday after a six-day meeting in Egypt.

Although the document made no specific mention of a schism the threat was evident church observers say.

On the weekend, New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay man at the center of the controversy, was in San Francisco where told LGBT Episcopalians that eventually gays will win the battle within the worldwide church. (story)

"When the dust finally settles, lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people will be fully included at every level of our church," Robinson said.

Bishop Robinson came to the Bay Area to assist California Bishop William Swing celebrate ten years of ministry by Oasis - the LGBT Ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of California. Bishop Swing presided at the special service in Grace Cathedral.

© www.365Gay.com 2005

Today is Halloween, one of the oldest holidays in the Western European tradition.

(from "The Writer's Almanac", National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S.)

Today, 70 percent of American households will open their doors and offer candy to strangers, most of them children; 50 percent of Americans will take photographs of family or friends in costume; and the nation as a whole will spend more than six billion dollars. In terms of dollars spent, it is the second most popular holiday of the year in this country, after Christmas.

For the Celtic people of Northeastern Europe, November 1st was New Year's Day, and October 31 was the last night of the year. Celts believed it was the night that spirits, ghosts, fairies and goblins freely walked the earth. Archaeologists aren't entirely sure what all the traditions were, but they believe the holiday involved bonfires, dressing up in costumes to scare away evil spirits, and offering food and drink to the spirits of family members who had come back to visit the home.

It was Pope Gregory III in the eighth century A.D. who tried to turn Halloween into a Christian holiday to divert Northern Europeans from celebrating an old pagan ritual. He made November 1st All Saints Day, and October 31 became All Hallows Eve. Instead of providing food and drink to the spirits, Christians were encouraged to provide food and drink to the poor. And instead of dressing up like animals and ghosts, Christians were encouraged to dress up like their favorite saints.

In the United States, Puritans tried to outlaw Halloween, in part because of its association with Catholicism. So it was the Irish Catholics who brought Halloween to this country, when they immigrated here in great numbers after the potato famine in the 1840's. Since the Irish were largely poor and oppressed, Halloween became a holiday for them to let off steam by pulling pranks, hoisting wagons onto barn roofs, releasing cows from their pastures, and committing all kinds of mischief involving outhouses. Treats evolved as a way to bribe the vandals and protect homes.

But by the late 1800's, Victorian women's magazines began to offer suggestions for celebrating Halloween in wholesome ways, with barn dancing and apple bobbing. And by the early 20th Century, it became a holiday for children more than adults. In 1920, the Ladies' Home Journal made the first known reference to children going door to door for candy, and by the 1950's it was a universal practice in this country. By 1999, 92 percent of America's children were trick-or-treating.

What's interesting about Halloween is that it has no real connection to the majority religion of this country, it does not celebrate an event in our nation's past, it does not involve traveling to visit family, and it doesn't even give us a day off work. But it gives us the chance to try out other identities. For one day, people can feel free to dress as the opposite gender, as criminals, as superheroes, celebrities, animals, or even inanimate objects. But Halloween retailers report that the most popular costumes remain some variation on witches, ghosts, and devils.

Playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan said, "The question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is: Don't we all anyway? Might as well get paid for it."