Friday's Odds and Ends

So Santorum won three states this past week and now his campaign has new life. Does that mean that Mitt and Newt will stop throwing barbs at each other and throw some at Santorum? Oh, wait, they already did. Shortly after Santorum's three-state win, Mitt said "Republicans spent too much money, borrowed too much money, earmarked too much, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have to be held accountable."

 A $26 billion mortgage settlement agreement was announced on Thursday that would bring relief to millions of homeowners who are struggling to hang on to homes that have lost value. Homes that are no longer valued at the mortgage price are termed "underwater".  According to mortgage bankers there are an estimated 11 million underwater homeowners and nearly 3.5 million homeowners who are either 90 days or more late in making payments or are in foreclosure. As a result of the settlement, up to 1 million homeowners could see their principle reduced, while another 750,000 could refinance.

It's about time the focus of recovery was on the homeowners and not the financial institutions. What do you think? Was this a good move?

Taking a different approach, banks in  New York are paying some struggling homeowners as much as $35,000 to sell their homes before they end up in foreclosure. The deals are aimed at giving and incentive to homeowners who owe more on their home than it is worth and who are seriously delinquent on their payments to sell their homes in a short sale. Full story HERE 

I'm not sure I like this one, but maybe I would think differently if I was facing foreclosure. Opinions can change drastically when one is in the midst of financial difficulties.

Cars of the future are going to be considerably different. Several automakers are moving toward small, shared electric cars that will radically change the way people drive in big cities. Full story HERE

The idea of sharing a car with a neighbor has some appeal if one is in the city with the neighbor right next door. But out here in the country, we have to drive to our neighbor's house. That would seriously impact our ability to share a car, unless we all saddled up our horses.

For those who like short stories, my publisher is offering my collection,  The Wisdom of Ages,  for free today. It is only the e-book version that is free today, but it is also available in paper for those who prefer that.  http://tiny.cc/qmigv

Friday's Odds and Ends

Most of us know that former senator Rick Santorum is against legalizing gay marriage, and he has been known to make some inflammatory remarks about homosexuality. More recently he told students at a college in New England that having gay parents is worse than having parents who are convicts.  His rationale is that a father in prison is better than having no father.

Hmmmm... I wonder if he has ever checked the statistics that show that young people are more prone to crime and violence if their father is or was in prison? That is a fact I discovered when doing research for my book on violence in schools, Coping With Weapons and Violence in School and on Your Streets.

If you'd like to read more about what he said, here is an article  that has more details. In researching this topic, I also found this comment on a forum that offers another viewpoint. "As the daughter of two lesbian moms, I'm disgusted and offended by the "family values" crowd claiming to want to protect children like me. Note to Rick and his ilk: you're not helping us. You're hurting us by making sure that our families are stigmatized and unprotected."

Whatever your views are on the subject, if we are truly to have separation of church and state, doesn't it stand to reason that a person's religious view of homosexuality should not influence legislation?

On another note, I found this quote on a blog titled terribleminds which is written by Chuck Wendig. I liked it enough I thought I would share it. "The writer’s voice is the thing that marks the work as a creation of that writer and that writer only. You read a thing and you say, 'This could not have been written by anybody else.' That is voice."   

Who are some authors you have read that have a distinctive voice? If you are an author, do you consider your voice as uniquely yours?

Here is an example of what I mean when I encourage clients to escape the ordinary in their writing. This is from Louise Penny's latest book A Trick of the Light. Instead of writing "Clara's heart beat faster." Or, "Clara's heart thumped in her chest." Both descriptions which I have read numerous times, she wrote, "Clara's heart threw itself against her ribs like something caged and terrified and desperate to escape."

It would be interesting to know how easily this comes to a writer like her. It reads effortless, but for me it takes time to move from the ordinary to the not so ordinary. That is why it takes me a long time to write a book. How about you?

It's Friday the 13th. A superstition says that if a black cat crosses your path on Friday the 13th, you will have bad luck all year. I'd better stay away from our new kitties.