Teaching again in March 2020

Instructor: Glenda Council Beall

Creative Writing: Perhaps you want to write about yourself or other people you know, places you have been or family history. Perhaps you have always had stories wandering around in your brain and you want to write fiction. Not sure? Your questions will be answered to help you discover your writing niche. This class is for aspiring writers or others who need some motivation to put words on paper.

Join this informative class and learn from Glenda Council Beall who lives in the mountains of western North Carolina and whose work has been widely published since 1996 in numerous journals, magazines and online reviews.  

Eight hours of instruction, Mondays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM at Tri-County Community College   $50.00

Register by calling or emailing Lisa T. Long, Director of community Outreach/Assistant Director of Foundation.   828.835.4241
Email: LLong@tricountycc.edu  

Glenda says:
I am happy to be returning to TCCC for a four week class in March, 2020.
Please help get the word out. The class has to meet the minimum in order to make.

Tuition to this class would make a wonderful Christmas present for the writer in your life.

Order: Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins by Glenda Beall and Estelle Rice now as an e-book on Kindle.  Order a Kindle edition at: https://tinyurl.com/yaer6vsd

What is deficit spending? What is the real problem with deficits?

Guest post by Roger Carlton:
Sorry to say that most of us are guilty of deficit spending. If you have a mortgage, car payments or credit card balances you are a deficit spender. If you borrow to go to college, you are a deficit spender. My liberal friends look at these "deficits" as investments. 

One of the key stories that got lost in the news regarding the impeachment process going on in the House of Representatives and the termination of the ISIS leader Baghdadi was the growth of the annual Federal deficit to nearly one trillion dollars.

It is important to understand that a trillion is a million-billion and a billion is a million-million. If that doesn't have you lost, assuming that you can afford a $50,000 F-150 pick-up, there are 20 of those in a million, 20 million of those in a billion and too many to contemplate in a trillion.

My conservative friends think negatively about deficits to the point that some are called deficit hawks. Sorry to say that most of us are guilty of deficit spending. If you have a mortgage, car payments or credit card balances, you are a deficit spender. If you borrow to go to college, you are a deficit spender.

My liberal friends look at these "deficits" as investments. Only time will tell if either view is correct. As George Will asks of conservatives, "What are you trying to conserve?"

The 2018 Federal deficit rose to $984 billion, which is a 26 percent increase over the previous year. 
The most amazing element of the deficit is the $380 billion that is spent on interest necessary to fund the borrowing cost of all previous deficits. In times of war, we need to deficit spend to protect ourselves. When the Great Depression and Great Recession happened, we needed to deficit spend to stimulate the economy by keeping critical companies and banks from failing. When the economy recovers those "loans" are usually repaid at a profit to the Treasury.

Politicians love to blame the deficits on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. These programs actually run a surplus and if the economy is growing and we are at full employment revenues are increasing. The law governing the situation requires that the dollars needed to fill the general fund deficit pot be funded in part by borrowing from the surplus in the entitlement pots. So, we are borrowing from ourselves.

The debt will eventually be repaid with interest...we hope. This political blame shedding is really a way to avoid alienating the recipients of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid by suggesting higher payroll deductions or heaven forbid lower benefits.

The real problem with deficits is Congress' inability to work out compromises on spending and revenue. Do we really need a multi-billion dollar wall? Should we increase the number of people eligible for Medicaid? Should we spend to harden our communities against the impacts of climate change? Should we subsidize charter schools? Did we really need a tax cut for the wealthy and corporations during very strong economic times just to name a few of the many demands on the Federal budget. Said another way, where is the line between needs and wants?

On the subject of deficits, perhaps Groucho Marx' comment on life says it all. "Whatever it is, I am against it."

Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star.

A place to submit your work

Check out Chattahoochee Review, published by Perimeter College at Georgia State University.
The poetry editor is Michael Diebert, a friend of Writers Circle around the Table.

The review publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and more. See their submission page for guidelines.
http://chattahoocheereview.gsu.edu/journal/submit/

http://chattahoocheereview.gsu.edu/what-inspires-you-onaiza/

Networking at a Writers' Conference

If writers don't attend the big writing conferences, they are cheating themselves of much that will improve their work and help them as writers and poets.

Over the past 25 years, I have attended several conferences held by North Carolina Writers' Network like the one to be held November 8-10, at the Doubletree by Hilton Asheville-Biltmore. I remember when locals complained that the conferences were all too far away from us so no one could go. At that time, one had to travel to Raleigh because all the conferences where held there.

But anyone can make the trip to Asheville (except me). Go for the day, attend the entire conference, Friday through Sunday, or just go and hang around, meeting agents, publishers, presenters and learning all you can about publishing. The cost to "hang out" is a smaller fee than attending the sessions. 

Every day I read about one or two of the presenters and long to sit in those classes. I can't go because of my health issues with fragrances, air fresheners, and chemicals I would run into in the hotel. I would pay if they could ever put those sessions online where I can learn right here at home.

I hope many of our members and local writers will take advantage of this event that comes here to the mountains every three years. How fortunate we are that the staff of NCWN can give us such a high quality three day conference. Some of my favorite memories of the conferences I have attended are the friends I made. Pat Davis, author from Brevard, and I met standing at the elevator in a hotel in Winston-Salem. She lived in Pennsylvania at the time, but we became good friends and are still friends today.

So many of the outstanding writers and poets I call friends today were presenters at conferences. And I am grateful for every one of them. 

Some of you attended our Day for Writers in August in Sylva, NC. Some told me they had never been to a conference and were delighted to know that the fall conference would be in Asheville.

I invite anyone who attends the NCWN Fall Conference to contact me if they would be interested in writing a post for our blog. Those who don't get to go would find it interesting to hear what is done, what attendees liked and the benefit gained from going to the conference. What connections did you make at the conference?

The article below gives you excellent ideas of what to do to make your time worthwhile. Read it carefully and need the advice.

https://www.writersdigest.com/publishing-insights/10-tips-for-effective-networking-at-a-writers-conference

Last WNO for 2019 November 8

I missed Writers' Night Out for October, but I surely hope to attend on November 8 when Rosemary Royston and Diana Anhalt will be featured. Check out their online information.

After the planned program, the floor is open to writers who want to share a poem or short prose piece. Those reading at Open Mic sign up when they arrive and this is always an interesting part of WNO.

This is the last one of this year. From December through March, we take a break due to the weather here in the mountains. 

I hope all our local friends will come out on Friday night, November 8, 7:00 PM.  If our sponsored events are not well attended, we might lose them for good.

Appearing Thursday evening, Glenda Beall, Michelle Keller and Jim Davis at JCCFS

I will be performing with my friend, Mary Michelle Keller  this Thursday, October 17, 7:00 PM at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

We would love to see our friends in the audience at the Keith House, Community Room.

Mary Mike and I have prepared a program of poems on similar themes and we will take turns reading instead of one person reading for twenty minutes and the other person reading for an allotted time.

Jim Davis is also on the program that evening. Jim writes true stories about his eventful life.

The folk school students often turn out for our programs, and I hope they are present this week.

The Literary Hour, our monthly event at the folk school, has been ongoing for over twenty years. 

To read about me and the others on the program, click on this link:  https://netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-literary-hour-readings-this.html

Impeachment Is A Complex Process

Many thanks to Roger Carlton, columnist for the Graham Starr Newspaper for another post this week. He gives us a clear picture of what is ahead. Roger lives in Robbinsville, NC.

Roger Carlton, guest writer

Whether you are an R, D or an I is unimportant. 
Whether you lean left or right or are in the middle of the political spectrum is unimportant. Whether you are for or against the wedge issues of today like gun control or right to life is unimportant. What is important is that our democracy is about to go through the torture of an impeachment process for President Trump.

This column is about the process of impeachment and draws no conclusions about the allegations made by a whistle blower regarding the President's conversation with his counterpart in the Ukraine. You will be able to decide for yourself as the process unfolds over the next few months.

Impeachment means that the President and other high federal officials may be removed from office as defined in Article 2 Section 4 of the Constitution for Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

What this phrase means is that the incumbent has abused the power of the office. The allegations made by the whistle blower and the transcript of a telephone conversation, which included the American and Ukrainian presidents, have caused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi  to end her recalcitrance and authorize the House Judiciary Committee to investigate. They can draw up Articles of Impeachment should the Committee so determine.

These charges must be crystal clear as to what laws are violated and must be written so that the American public understands what the alleged infractions are. There should be no hemming and hawing as happened when Robert Mueller testified regarding his probe into Russian interference in our election process.

The House of Representatives receives the Articles of Impeachment and then votes with majority rule to forward the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate which acts as judge and jury except in cases of presidential impeachment when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides.

A two-thirds majority of the Senate is necessary to convict. The President is then removed and the Vice President takes the office. The new President then picks a Vice President who must be confirmed by both the House and the Senate. The new President and Vice President serve until the next general election which is in November 2020.

The American public is tired of all this partisan activity and now we will be confronted with a whole heap more of tired. Keep in mind that impeachment has been tried before. Eight Presidents have been threatened with impeachment and only two have made it to trial before the Senate.

Andrew Johnson, who became President after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, was impeached over his attempts to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. President Johnson failed to force the post Civil War southern states to allow former slaves to vote and other rights granted by the Thirteenth Amendment. Stanton openly argued with President Johnson. Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act to protect Stanton. The fight continued until Johnson's impeachment passed the House of Representatives and eventually failed in the Senate. Stanton resigned and the next President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Stanton to the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by the Senate but died four days later at the age of 55. Talk about irony.

President Nixon would have been impeached over the Watergate affair but had the good grace to resign prior to putting the country through the trauma. It has been alleged that Henry Kissinger brokered a deal that incoming President Ford would pardon Nixon if charges were brought and he was convicted as a civilian. President Ford did pardon Nixon for any crimes he might have committed. It cost Ford his re-election bid. 

 President Clinton's Impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair passed the House but failed in the Senate. So no President has ever been booted from office by the impeachment process.

One thing is for sure. This process will be ultra-political and the evidence and testimony presented will have only marginal impact on the ultimate decisions by both sides of Congress.

Educator Laurence J. Peter summed it up when he said, "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them."

Let's  be both informed and patient as this nasty business unfolds the way the Framers wanted when they established the process more than 200 years ago.

Headliners for WNO - Jones and Cone in Blairsville, GA October 11

For my readers who live near Blairsville, Georgia, you would enjoy the program for Writers Night Out on October 11. Karen Holmes, host, has planned an excellent evening with Linda Jones, poet and Alan Cone, author. They will entertain you, make you laugh, and make you think. You will enjoy them both.

Click here to read more about these two excellent writers.