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Update on ‘Confessions of a CIA Spy’
I am now in the editing phase, correcting typos and verifying facts. It’s fun relating all the parties I had with friendly Russians and their ever-present vodka even if some portions of my journal aren’t as sharp in my memory as I would like. The journal has much detail so luckily I don’t have to rely much on my memory. Some scenes, of course, stand out clearly even after 33 years. I relate much about what it was like to actually live in a Communist society. I tried to blend in as a common Soviet citizen as much as I could...
read moreMore Peculiar English Etc
Perhaps the most puzzling to foreigners is ‘ou’. While spelled similarly, pronunciation varies wildly. ‘Though’ is pronounced ‘long O’, as ‘throw’. ‘Through’ however is pronounced ‘u’ as in ‘you’. ‘Could’ is like ‘good’. ‘Thought’ is like ‘awful’. ‘Thorough’ is like ‘throw’ again. ‘Ouch’ and ‘couch’ are pronounced like ‘cow’. ‘Tough’ and...
read moreNo ChatGPT here!
ChatGPT is the latest proof of the collapse in public literacy. The proof is that some so-called “publishers” are using ChatGPT to write “books” and the public is buying them. ChatGPT can never write original quality literary fiction. I offer $1,000 to anyone who can prove that any AI program at all has written a novel of fiction equivalent in quality to mine including original plot and characters and in my writing style. Will never happen.
read moreLanguage Lovers
I am giving a new byline to Equus: “Books for Language Lovers” since that is more in tune with the real substance of the books that I write and my writing style. My books are about language, its beauty and its poetry and are not really aimed at a particular audience. As I often say, my books should be read aloud since the sound and meter of the language is part of the message. If one is reading rapidly then s/he is missing much of the book. Unlike most people today, I am not focused on the image of the moment, or videos, or media,...
read moreThe Thing with Slogans
I am constantly amazed at how Americans seem to judge everything by first impressions. On occasion I hear people comment about clothing, for instance someone might see a T-Shirt that says Astros and they immediately assume that one supports the Astros. Or they see a hat with a big A on it and assume one supports the Atlanta Braves. I have zero interest in organized sports and I was only barely aware that the Astros were a baseball team or that an A signifies the Atlanta Braves or that the Braves have anything to do with baseball until people...
read moreUpdate on Confessions
I have finished the section on Central Asia. Some events I recall clearly even after 33 years. Many I have completely forgotten. I rely on my journal to describe those events. Many more events coming up, including a train trip across Ukraine which, like my entire trip, I undertook alone.
read moreUpdates on ‘Confessions of a CIA Spy’
My stay in the Soviet Union was back in 1990. I had just finished a Master’s degree at an Ivy League University in Russian-Muslim relations and I was in a hurry to expand my Russian language and go to the Soviet Union since it was clear to me that it was on the verge of collapse, contrary to what my academic advisors thought. My chief advisor, now long dead, told me that the SU would last centuries, slowly declining like the Ottoman Empire. I could not persuade him otherwise. This was probably because he was a devout class-war Marxist...
read moreMore Bad English
Instructional and some pet peeves. There are many subtle differences in English, both as written and when spoken, which not only foreigners don’t know but many native English speakers get wrong. For instance, lay versus lie: one lies down but one lays an egg. Yesterday I lay down while my chicken lay an egg. Both are correct. Foreigners often confuse “mean”. For example, “I think you mean to say” intends to say “I think you intend to say”, but “I think you are mean” changes the meaning...
read moreBad Remakes
Most young people today do not realize that much, or most, of what they see in the form of music and movies is in fact remakes of earlier–and better–versions. What happens is that a very good movie comes out and makes a lot of money and is popular. Then a few years later a remake is issued to try to connect to the same audience and extract more money. . .only it turns out that the new movie is nothing than a poorly made remake. But a new generation is unaware that a better version exists, a version that gets dumped into the memory...
read moreTHE SAGA OF JIHAD BUBBA
Jihad Bubba has finally been published by Equus Publishing on Amazon. It has been a long struggle. See below for a series of updates. NEWS ON EVADING THE CENSORS: After two years of attempting to find some way of evading the censorship imposed by outside organizations, the prior publisher Arktos, after purchasing the rights to JIHAD BUBBA, editing the manuscript, commissioning original artwork for the cover, and after being subjected to still more pressure to censor the book by Ingram, a giant of the publishing industry — reluctantly...
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