Jon Stewart Interview: Prez Clinton Talks Fixing Global Economy, New Book

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

From Denny:  President Bill Clinton sits down for in-depth interview with Jon Stewart on what it will take to revive the American economy and create jobs.  His new book, "Back To Work," (Why We Need Smart Government For A Strong Economy) lays out specific plans for doing just that, recommending several strategies to current President Barack Obama.

In fact, just recently the Obama political hacks, Axelrod and Plouffe, met with President Clinton in the hopes to help the 2012 campaign.  Yes, the same political hacks that have F'd up this economy by advising Obama to cater only to the Republicans and ignore Democratic principles to help the middle class.  Those same guys that the Democratic Party should throw from the train.

Apparently, Axelrod and Plouffe were rattled by the recent poll in New Hampshire - the state that has picked the presidential winner in the last four out of five elections - where Obama is 10 points down from Romney as the favored candidate for the 2012 election.  Axelrod and Plouffe peppered Clinton with questions about the Independents since Obama is clearly out of favor with that voting block.

Well, you can always tell when Team Obama is not listening to Smart.  Clinton always shows up on all the talk shows and writes a new book.  Clearly, they don't take his sage advice.  There is even a new poll out about how Obama should step down and Hillary should step up to run for 2012.  Obama is that out of favor with voters and his party.  Hillary is that IN favor with said folks, polling well with Independents.  Of course, it does look suspect that Bill Clinton probably had a friend commission that poll but hey, the numbers still tell the story.

Clinton's new book spends the first half discussing the three decades leading up to our economic crisis.  The second half gives several specific prescriptions to return the economy to health.

Jon Stewart Interviews Bill Clinton, Extended Unedited Interview

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

From Denny:  Check out the unedited version of the Clinton interview.  Bill is never at a loss for words - or facts or wisdom about how to solve a serious problem.

Jon Stewart Interview: How Your Employer Is Screwing Your Pension Fund

Image via Wikipedia

From Denny:  Ellen Schultz, an investigative reporter, discovered that Big Business has taken the private pension plans for millions of workers - to the tune of 44 million people - and, instead, "turned them into profit centers for their companies."  As a result, the plans are severely underfunded. 

Did you know that as recently as 10 years ago, these same retirement plans were so flush with cash that they   experienced a quarter of a trillion dollar surplus?  

Jon Stewart Interview: Condoleeza Rice Admits Bush Knew No Iraq Nukes

                         Image via Wikipedia

From Denny:  Jon Stewart discusses the marketing of the fairy tale ex-Bush administration officials consistently try to sell about the lead up to the Iraq War since they left office.  Condi Rice is no exception.

In a carefully crafted narrative she declared the necessity of going to war in Iraq.  She cited how Saddam Hussein was "a bad man" and had 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions passed against his regime just for starters.

Rice quoted President Clinton as sending a few friendly cruise missiles Saddam's way to discourage his nuclear interests back in 1998.  Of course, at the time, Republicans - and later Bush - ridiculed this "small bore" effort of containing Saddam Hussein but now they praise it.

She also failed to mention how the outgoing Clinton administration gave her loads of intelligence, warning against the 9/11 attack.  At the time she foolishly blew that off as a fairy tale and did not act on the intelligence.  That true story was conspicuously missing from her interview and book.

Then she quoted the Bible of 9/11, according to Republicans, of how the world would fall apart if they did not break it and attack Iraq.  Some of their logic leaves a lot to be desired.  Since it's fear-based programming, a lot of it does not properly connect the dots to make their case.

The Soul Calendar: Jon Stewart Interview: Why Fear Mongers Will Not Accept Science

Image via WikipediaThe Soul Calendar: Jon Stewart Interview: Why Fear Mongers Will Not Accept Science: From Denny: Stewart interviews author and physicist Lisa Randall, of the new book "Knocking On Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World."

Stewart asks, "Why do we fight so hard to be illuminated by it?" He is referencing the conservative political atmosphere that fears science unreasonably.

Randall offers up that perhaps the reason science is not so easily accepted is because "so many of the theories are far removed from what we see in our daily lives - and not necessarily the most intuitive."

She believes that if people would go beyond just human scale - where only technology can measure - that perhaps they will not be so afraid if they learn more about it and be more interested.

Stewart poses the question as to why are God and science incompatible? Clearly, that is what so many people fear - like science will be 100 percent provable and certain, eliminating room for God.

Jon Stewart Interviews Boomerang Author Michael Lewis About Global Big Banks Disaster

From Denny:  This author decided to go on a walkabout.  Actually, Michael Lewis went on a financial disaster tour of several European countries:  Iceland, Ireland, Greece and Germany.

He wanted to view the global financial disaster through the prism of each culture and what a view he got.  (He is also the author of Moneyball that was recently made into a movie.)

In Iceland he discovered that up until seven years ago the only way to make money in Iceland was fishing.  But, seven years ago," the men literally walked off the fishing boats and walked into the banks deciding to become currency traders in a matter of days."

Even their president went around the world crowing about how Icelanders were natural investment bankers.  Yeah?  Where had that talent been hiding for the past 1,000 years?  The country is only the size of Peoria, Illinois with a population of 300,000.

Like typical men they told the women they knew what they were doing and not to question them.  Who needs directions, right?  They took three small Icelandic banks and morphed them into global banks inside five short years.  They amassed $140 billion.  Looked good, right?

Dennys: News Politics Comedy Science Arts & Food: Funny Colbert Interviews Ancient Deal Maker Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, long time member of secret World Order Bilderberg Group

Dennys: News Politics Comedy Science Arts & Food: Funny Colbert Interviews Ancient Deal Maker Henry Kissinger: "From Denny: Nixon's point man to open Communist China to the world, and the early stages of free trade, was former GOP Sec.of State Henry Kissinger. Yes, blame him for losing your job and getting crappy quality imports.

Kissinger, 88-years-old, is hawking his new book 'On China.' Well, at least he didn't bore us with a long title. (Check out the link on Amazon.)

Kissinger did manage to hold his own with the crazy antics of Colbert. In fact, the old guy was good humored and rolled with the punches. He was Colbert's straight man every stand-up comic adores to use on stage."

Funny Colbert Interviews Janny Scott About Obamas Mother

A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack  Obama's Mother

From Denny: Colbert tries to nail down the mysterious  person of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, since the President has so far been unwilling to talk about her. It sounds like he had, perhaps still has, mixed feelings about his relationship with her.

A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother


Apparently, she met and married Obama's father in Hawaii when she was only seventeen years old. Hawaii is a multi-cultural state where interracial relationships are not the scandal as on the mainland. Though even back in the 1960's it raised some disapproving eyebrows. But she was a trail blazer.

Funny Quotes About Reading Habits - Cheeky Quote Day! 18 Nov 2009

Reading Upside Down Photo by garryknight @ flickr

From Denny: When someone like me goes hunting for quotes you just never know what odd cache you might find. Well, this time I ran across a huge amount of quotes about the subject of reading. Some are quite cheeky and many are serious thought about the concept of how reading is beneficial to humanity.

I was surprised just how much thought many writers and philosophers gave to the subject - as these kinds of quotes are rarely discussed. I'll start with the funniest ones first. Of course, by now, you have guessed that notables like author Mark Twain had a thing or two to say. He was known for a reputation of speaking as an irreverant being - and still managed to be well loved by all... :)

Quotes

Classic. A book which people praise and don't read.
~ Mark Twain ~

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read
and nobody wants to read.
~ Mark Twain ~

My books are water;
those of the great geniuses are wine -
everybody drinks water.
~ Mark Twain ~

The man who doesn't read good books
has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
~ Mark Twain ~



After school plan: get in bed, read fairy tales, two swords under pillow just in case photo by Liz Henry @ flickr

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in
nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get
through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by
what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them;
the only books I have in my library are books
that other folks have left me.
~ Anatole France ~

I read the newspaper avidly.
It is my one form of continuous fiction.
~ Aneurin Bevan ~

Beware of the man of one book.
~ Thomas Aquinas ~

Good children's literature appeals not only to
the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.
~ Anonymous ~

By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing
or at least tickle your thinking.
~ William Safire ~

The printing press is either the greatest blessing
or the greatest curse of modern times,
sometimes one forgets which it is.
~ Sir James M. Barrie ~

The world may be full of fourth-rate writers
but it's also full of fourth-rate readers.
~ Stan Barstow ~

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~

A library is a hospital for the mind.
~ Anonymous ~

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.
~ Robert Chambers ~

The flood of print has turned reading into a process
of gulping rather than savoring.
~ Warren Chappell ~

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
~ Lord Chesterfield ~

The great American novel has not only already been written,
it has already been rejected.
~ Frank Dane ~

Never judge a book by its movie.
~ J. W. Eagan ~

MY BOOK!
I did it!
I did it!
Come and look
At what I’ve done!
I read a book!
When someone wrote it
Long ago
For me to read,
How did he know
That this was the book
I’d take from the shelf
And lie on the floor
And read by myself?
I really read it!
Just like that!
Word by word,
From first to last!
I’m sleeping with
This book in bed,
This first FIRST book
I’ve ever read!
~ David L. Harrison ~

The libraries have become my candy store.
~ Juliana Kimball ~



Read and take off photo by library_mistress @ flickr

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
~ Anonymous Teacher ~

I've traveled the world twice over,
Met the famous; saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I've been where no-one's been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books.
~ Anonymous ~

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
~ Isaac Asimov ~

Read not to contradict and confute;
nor to believe and take for granted;
nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested:
that is, some books are to be read only in parts,
others to be read, but not curiously, and some few
to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
~ Francis Bacon ~

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man,
and writing an exact man.
~ Francis Bacon ~

Books are men of higher stature;
the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.
~ E.S. Barrett ~

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.
~ Stephen Vincent Benet ~

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges

It is well to read everything of something,
and something of everything.
~ Lord Henry P. Brougham ~

I must say that I find television very educational.
The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.
~ Groucho Marx ~

Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
~ Groucho Marx ~

Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded
by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature.
~ Fran Lebowitz ~



Reading in Cadiz, Spain photo by Kamil Porembinski @ flickr

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky.
My pile of books
Are a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard
By the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel ~

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
~ Hugh Maclennan ~

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
~ Bertrand Russell ~

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
~ Anna Quindlen ~

A library is thought in cold storage.
~ Herbert Samuel ~

Very young children eat their books, literally devouring their contents. This is one reason for the scarcity of first editions of Alice in Wonderland and other favorites of the nursery.
~ A. S. W. Rosenbach ~



Reading on the platform photo by moriza @ flickr

Books, books, books had found the secret of a garret-room piled high with cases in my father's name; piled high, packed large - where, creeping in and out among the giant fossils of my past, like some small nimble mouse between the ribs of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there at this or that box, pulling through the gap, in heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, the first book first. And how I felt it beat under my pillow, in the morning's dark. An hour before the sun would let me read! My books!
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning ~

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
~ Edmund Burke ~

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
~ Samuel Butler ~

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.
~ Albert Camus ~

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
~ Chinese proverb ~

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
~ Marcus T. Cicero ~

I often feel sorry for people who don't read good books;
they are missing a chance to lead an extra life.
~ Scott Corbett ~

A truly great book should be read in youth,
again in maturity and once more in old age,
as a fine building should be seen by morning light,
at noon and by moonlight.
~ Robertson Davies ~

I heard his library burned down and both books were destroyed -
and one of them hadn't even been colored in yet.
~ John Dawkins ~



Please read instructions fully before opening photo by foxypar4 @ flickr

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

To read is to empower
To empower is to write
To write is to influence
To Influence is to change
To change is to live.
~ Jane Evershed ~
More than a Tea Party

Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare.
~ Harriet Martineau ~

What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while...
What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.
~ J. D. Salinger ~

Books: the children of the brain.
~ Jonathan Swift ~

And from the cheekiest guy around:

The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go.
~ Dr. Seuss ~

*** Awesome fun photos from the folks over a flickr. Thanks for visiting and come back often! Have a great work week! :)

How the Romantics Understood Poetic Individualism and Universal Human Experience

Photo of John Keats

How the Romantics Understood Poetic Individualism and Universal Human Experience: "Poetry cannot escape the poet. No art evades its artist for the two are forever joined; art is the subjective response of its creator. The beauty of this individualism releases the author to fashion his uniqueness on an empty canvas. The Romantics emphasized a similar kind of poetic individualism, an individualism that formed the foundation of their expression."



Photo of William Wordsworth

By elliot.dunn @ HubPages, a new friend and college student who writes well. Take a look at his excellent article, a pleasure to read! Just click on the title link to take you to his article.

Does Your Poetry Come From Your Soul?

"Poetry is the doorway to the soul." - Floria

For a few months now I've been planting the majority of my favorite quotes over on yet another blog: Beautiful Illustrated Quotations. In the early weeks of The Social Poets I did a lot of art photo illustrated quotations and soon realized it required a separate blog of its own.

Quotations are what I consider the ultimate writing prompt! You can always get a good 500 to 2,000 word essay out of a really good quote, especially if said by an historical person with a great biography people will find interesting.

Hike on over to my quotes blog for a dose of creative writing inspiration for yourself! Know that blog is always available to you as a writing resource.

Photo by alicepopkorn @ flickr

Below are some useful links, especially of the cranky assistant in the publishing business explaining why 95% of your query letters get rejected when you want to publish.

The more pleasant links are fun like the poetry 4 kids and informative and descriptive about writing like the gointothestory blog from a screenwriter who now teaches at a college.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Let poetry feed your soul (gointothestory.com)
• My Chicken's On the Internet at Gottabook (poetry4kids.com)
• Poetry of Comedy (seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com)
• Poetry Credits (rejecter.blogspot.com)

Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, character or plot? That is the question.

Image by Daniel F. Pigatto via Flickr

Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, character or plot? That is the question.: "Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, character or plot? That is the question.

From Denny: From a published British author currently retired in Spain comes some great advice for novel writing for aspiring writers! (He's also a really humble and great guy who is kind with others.)

By ajbarnett @ HubPages

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF

"The principal ingredient, the one component that is absolutely critical in mainstream novels is the central character(s). The plot is important of course, but unless you can create a rapport between your readers and characters, the plot means nothing."

Creative Inspiration for Writers and Artists

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Creative Inspiration for Writers and Artists:

Photo of college students circling a large scale reproduction painting by Titian

"Where do you find your energy? Is it from nature, work, friends, prayer, routine, discord, arguments, love, money? Where is your joy? If you feel stuck in a dead-end job or a dead-end relationship, look beyond.

Our lives are lived for tiny moments of recognition. We may recognize the story of our life from a photograph, a movie, a novel, a poem, a song, a symphony, a painting, or a child. Allow this recognition to connect you for a short time to your story on this blue and green rock.

We will not make an impression beyond our small window of existence. We will not change the relentless path of destruction and creation that is our nature. We will not see the far corners of our rock beyond our cubicle and kitchen. Our story will remain."

By Cailin Gallagher @ HubPages