I have come to know a number refugees from a nation under the severe rule of a larger, more powerful neighbor. (To protect the safety of the families the refugees left behind, I will not name either country.) Every one of them—most as children—escaped by walking over staggeringly tall, snow-capped mountains. Finding temporary refuge, they worked, scrimped, struggled with a new language, and eventually crossed the ocean to the U.S.

A cardinal rule while crossing the mountains, they tell me, is to keep moving. The area is heavily patrolled. Should a member of your group break a limb, fall into a river, or what-have-you, you move on. To stop to help is to expose all to risk of capture.

They describe terrible conditions in their homeland. One man, now in his early 40s, was severely beaten by police for hoisting his country’s flag over his school. He was 14 and departed soon after. For their own safety, his parents explained his disappearance by telling authorities he had died. Others tell me of jail time, fines, and beatings for displaying the “wrong” religious symbols in their homes. When my refugee friends video conference with family in their homeland, knowing the calls are monitored, they take care not to identify themselves by name and not to display flags or religious symbols lest they expose their families to risk of beatings, fines, and jail.

Their gratitude and relief for being in the U.S. is immeasurable. One 30-ish man--who trekked across the mountains at age seven!—told me, “I understand your criticism of U.S. politics. But I have to tell you, this is like heaven to us.”

I saw his point and let it rest. This was a time for listening and empathizing, not for pointing out that “things could be worse” is no argument for complacency, for the need for vigilance lest the worse that things could be become reality.

I’m pointing it out here, to the rest of us, instead.

To create art is to risk.

In writing, passive voice is to be avoided.

Resolved: Henceforth, any mystery writer who puts “There’s still one thing I don’t understand“ in the mouth of a character at the wrap-up of the denouement shall be subject to a sound slap, a wagging in finger in the face, and a thorough scolding.

There should be mandatory jail time for writers who pen “with every fiber of [possessive pronoun] being.”

Authors who write “it is what it is” should sit in a corner and not be permitted to speak or write for 90 days while they ponder the seriousness of their crime.

If I berate you for not knowing that vault has two different meanings, is it an ad homonym attack? If I berate you for using there for their, is it an ad homophone attack?

Novelists who switch between first and third person voice from one chapter to the next should not be permitted to live.

Sometimes alliteration marks good writing. More often, it’s a simple show of sophomoric syntactical silliness.

More people should write, but fewer people should publish.

Robert Louis Stevenson has a nightmare about Jeckyll and Hyde and writes a bestseller. I had a nightmare about weak coffee. What I am supposed to do with that?

I like picking up a new word here or there, so I don’t mind an author who on occasion sends me to the dictionary. But the fellow who penned “absquatulated” where “fled” would have sufficed deserves a slap.

I’m unimpressed when people say, “I just finished my first novel.” Unless they mean writing, not reading.

Proposed: That the next screenwriter who places “This isn’t over yet” in the hero’s mouth be subject to administrative leave without pay and not less than 120 hours of community service. No real hero would say that. Besides, unless the end credits are rolling, it’s implicit.
 
Thanks to movies, I'm not afraid of being held against my will. I know that in every secure facility is a ventilator shaft big enough for an adult to crawl through.

I look forward to the day I see a novel advertised, “Now a minor motion picture.”

THE PORTLAND (OREGON) CITY COUNCIL just passed a new suite of Go Be Homeless Someplace Else laws.

Now, when the unhoused camp overnight on public lands, they must pack up and leave by 8 each morning.

Also, according to The Oregonian, the unhoused may no longer camp near “pedestrian plazas, shelter and construction sites, high-speed roads, parks, greenways and numerous other locations.”

Great. Let’s make their life harder. Let’s heap upon them further inconvenience—and further humiliation—by treating them as a blight to be removed rather than as human beings in crisis. And let’s limit where they can sleep to anywhere that isn’t somewhere. That’ll sure learn ’em not to have fallen victim to whatever convergence of misfortune left them unhoused in the first place.

Despite what you may hear from the uninformed and the empathy-deprived, homelessness is not the first resort of the Too Lazy to Work. In fact, homelessness is rarely if ever voluntary. That’s why vagrancy and Go Be Homeless Someplace Else laws don’t make a dent. What they do, and not well, is spare the rest of us from having to look at and reconcile our consciences to a human tragedy that we have the means but, it would seem, not the will to mitigate.

To reduce homelessness, we must address economic factors that converge in bringing it about: a ridiculously low minimum wage, a broken healthcare system, systemic racism and sexism, mindless persecutions heaped upon the LGBTQ+ community, a punishing welfare system, out-of-control housing costs, and mental health issues*, to name a few.

We haven’t a homelessness problem. We have a broken economy problem, an empathy problem, and a NIMBY problem.

*Beware the too-easy out of invoking mental health as the cause of homelessness. It can equally or perhaps more so result from it, as well as from the cited economic factors.

I WAS well overdue for a new toaster. Nothing fancy. Just one of those basic thingies with two slots, a slider, and a lightness-darkness knob.

​Off to the store I went.

Not so fast! As I surveyed the shelf of toasters at my friendly neighborhood Target, it became clear that the age of smart devices had caught up to the noble toaster. Today’s toasters come with at least 47 LED buttons for producing perfect bagels, English muffins, pop tarts, frozen pizza, dating advice, movie reviews, directions to the nearest public restroom, ED pills, dad jokes, curling irons, stock market tips, and more.

Oh, and if you absolutely must, they can make plain-old, everyday toast. ​

Some models have touch screens. And one, according to the box, even has “advanced toast tech.” What a relief. The last thing I want is a slice of toast made with outdated tech.

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In 2021, a few months before the publication of my book about prostitution in Mormon Utah, I published a short book about the Mormon Church’s Articles of Faith.

Although I hadn’t been shy in writing about the Mormon Church, this effort lands more of a direct hit than my articles and other books. Finding it therefore a bit off-brand for me, I issued it under the pseudonym O. B. Sirius. “O. B.” is short for Obadiah Bogderry, a spooneristic play on Obadiah Dogberry, a pseudonym from Mormon history.

But then I got to thinking. I said to myself, What brand? Who do you think you are?

So, last week, I re-issued the book under my name. (Sorry about that, O. B.) It’s called Honest Chaste True Benevolent Yada Yada Yada: Wackadoodle beliefs the Mormon Church’s Articles of Faith are meant to hide. It’s funny and readable, but accurate. I painstakingly footnoted it for the benefit of any who might wonder if I was inventing or exaggerating Mormon doctrine and history.

Both O. B. and I would be grateful if you’d read it and leave a review. Available on Amazon* by clicking here or on the image above.
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*If you have reservations about Amazon, I hear you. It’s what I have to work with.

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Bit of advice to copywriters:

The adage that “people buy benefits, not features” is true. So if you want to persuade, don’t make your case solely on what your product is, aka, its features, but on what it does for your reader.

The usual accompanying adage, “people don’t buy quarter-inch drill bits, they buy quarter-inch holes” is just plain wrong. Like a drill bit, a hole is an is, not a benefit.

Here is what holes do: let you sink screws; drain water; create air flow; feed pipes, tubes, or wires; see what’s behind a wall; and more.

To find the benefit behind a feature, try appending the words “so you”: This bag has an easy-open tab [feature], so you [possible benefits:] won’t break a nail / won’t have to strain /  won’t spill / won’t have to use scissors or pliers / won’t have your kids overhear you using words you’d ground them for using.

Sooner or later comes this flash of would-be brilliance about your service: It saves time!

Guess what. Most services save time. It is the default benefit. It sets no one apart. If “saves you time” is where you’re headed with your copy, stop and think harder.

IT’S REMARKABLE, the assertions we grow up accepting that turn out not be true. (Go ahead and buy that red car. No, you won’t get more tickets.)

I stumbled upon taking an evidence-based approach to claims, and the importance of avoiding common thinking errors, some years ago. At the time, it was for me little more than intellectual entertainment. I mean, so what if people believed Bigfoot was real, the lunar landing was faked, or dogs predict earthquakes?

It has, in fact, become downright deadly.

Misinformation dehumanizes innocent people, sends gunmen into pizza parlors, scares people from life-saving vaccines, convinces people that windmills cause cancer, sends a mob to overthrow the government, convinces people that an electrical pulse is a heartbeat, lures the sick into trading proven medical treatments for quackery, and more.

I wrote a column for The Salt Lake Tribune outlining basic steps for evaluating claims. It’s short, and you can read it on this website by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy it. Better yet, I hope someone applies it.