HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ONE AND ALL!

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"Any more eel anyone?

Department of Conflicted Bloggers

Thanks to reading the blogs of a number of extremely talented bloggers – as part of endeavoring to master this curious activity – I now know that blogs, and the paragraphs and sentences contained therein, should be short, content filled, entertaining; and punchy. Nonetheless, I violated the ‘short’ rule with a vengeance this week to write a veritable essay on the U.S. economy which you can read on my companion blog at http://vortitanicnation.blogspot.com  Essentially, it is a 22 point critique of the current predatory, and valueless, American Business Model, which seems to be very good at making the Super Rich richer but very bad at raising the living standards of the U.S. population as a whole. In fact, they are in decline.

In truth, I do think blogs – generally speaking - should be short, and as described, but I do feel there is a need for longer pieces on occasions, and I am somewhat conflicted as to where to put such essays. There are plenty of possible locations – online storage is booming – but not so many where such thought pieces are likely to be read. Currently Scribd www.scribd.com seems the best option, but I’m open to suggestions.

Department of Thanksgiving and Eels

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. Though I have had my ups and downs since arriving in the U.S. in 2001 – just in time for 9/11 – I cannot think of a more fascinating time to be alive and writing; so I count myself a very lucky man indeed.

There is a nice piece about eels in the New York Times today. It posits that eels played a significant role in ensuring the survival of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and suggests that eel rather than turkey should be the “symbol of colonial resilience and gratitude.” In short it implies we should be eating eel today instead of turkey. Now there’s a thought to chew on.

Writers tend to do strange things so I had better confess here that I was once briefly in the eel business under decidedly bizarre circumstances. You can read all about it, and other many other adventures, when MY COTTAGE IN IRELAND appears very shortly.

Enjoy the day.