Day: January 27, 2021

Vampires On Air

Fandango9 Comments

“This a joke, right?” Brad asked his best friend Tony.

“No, I’m very serious,” Tony said. “Do you have an issue with it?”

“Look, I know you yearn to have your podcast go viral, but are you sure you want to focus it on vampires?” Brad asked. “That seems to be a rather obscure niche.”

“Are you kidding me, Brad?” Tony said. “Vampires are lightning hot these days. Books, movies, TV shows. This is going to be a rocket to stardom for us.”

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (joke), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (issue), Your Daily Word Prompt (yearn), MMA Storytime (podcast), Just Jot it January (vampires), Word of the Day Challenge (obscure), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (lightning). Illustration crédit: The Daily Beast

A Bumpy Ride

Fandango18 Comments

This showed up on my newsfeed a little while ago.The Times article references a terrorism bulletin from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning all Americans that:

“Information suggests that some ideologically motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.”

Here is a copy of that DHS terrorism bulletin. Released today, the bulletin remains in effect through April 30th.

This situation is due to the crazy rhetoric of former-president Donald Trump, as well as his sycophants in the media as well as the GOP members of Congress who keep repeating the BIG LIE that Trump actually won the election in a landslide and that due to widespread voter fraud, Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump, the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.

But here are the facts

  • Trump did not win
  • There was no widespread voter fraud
  • Joe Biden did not steal the election
  • Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, is the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election

And yet most Republicans in both the House and the Senate refuse to refute the BIG LIE. They refuse to tell their constituents, in no uncertain terms, that Joe Biden won a free and fair election. They refuse to take any steps that could help to defuse these potentially dangerous threats from Trump’s army of MAGA-maniacs. And some GOP members of Congress continue to reinforce the BIG LIE.

And as Trump is about to face an impeachment trial in the Senate, most Republican senators will vote against conviction, an action that gives further credence to the BIG LIE and further incites Trump’s MAGA-maniacs to violence.

How do they live with themselves?

One-Liner Wednesday — A Helping Hand

Fandango8 Comments

“There are some days when we need a hand; there are other days when we’re called on to lend one. That is how we must be with one another.”

Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States from his Inaugural Day speech.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #106

Fandango27 Comments

FPQWelcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

Blogging is a medium of words. All of us who blog are wordsmiths. We use words almost exclusively to express ourselves, to tell our stories, to weave our tales, to write our poems, to help others to understand and possibly even appreciate our perspectives.

In the real world, words can take on different meanings depending on context, inflection, facial expressions, body language, and other countless factors. But in blogging, such visual cues are, for the most part, absent. Thus, the challenge of conveying your intended tone and the underlying meaning of what you write can be daunting. It gets down to the age old writer’s dilemma. Is the content what matters, or how the content is portrayed or presented?

So, as we are all writers who use words to paint pictures, my provocative question is simply this:

In the context of blogging and writing, what do you think is more important: what you say or how you say it?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Issue

Fandango30 Comments

FOWCWelcome to January 27, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “issue.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.