Take Back Your Life!

Men write 75% of op-ed columns. For some reason, women have not broken through this journalistic glass ceiling. Op-eds require a strong writing voice. That may scare or turn some women off. It also requires a tough skin. Op-ed writers can get hammered by readers in the comment sections. Negative comments tend to be more forthcoming than positive ones.

I’ve learned to let these comments fuel my passion to write even more wild and disobedient op-eds.

Honestly, it’s my favorite type of writing. I get to unleash my voice. I get to be bold. I get to be sassy. I get to use my Nancy Drew investigative skills. I get to pull disparate thoughts together into something new. To me, it’s a labor of creative love.

On February 25, 2012, I’m taking a seminar in Boston through the Op-Ed Project. This group has been going around the country trying to encourage women to share their voices in op-ed columns. I want to get my voice into the biggest, loudest, baddest op-ed venues I can. And soon, I’m going to offer an op-ed writing class on-line and in-person.

The world needs women to share their voices. It may be the missing link to a world that lessens suffering and promotes beauty.

Here’s my latest piece in The MetroWest Daily News: Keystone PipeLine: A Bad Idea.  You’ll see what I mean about unpleasant comments. Some of them were left by oil-industry folks. It’s their job to discredit anyone who disagrees with the powerful. It’s a compliment that they found my op-ed and ripped it to shreds!

For those of you interested in how I got my start in op-ed writing. I began writing letters to the editor, then free guest columns and now paid columns. I tend to write complex pieces that require quite a bit of research and the connecting of dots not previously connected.

Do any of you men or women write op-ed pieces or want to? How do you feel about unleashing your strongest voice to the public?

Thanks! G.

I enjoy reading the blogs of others. Gives me great ideas for posts, essays, programs, life adventures. Yesterday, I visited Judy Clement Wall’s newest site, “It’s A Human Thing,” where she continues her love affair with showing love, especially in her writing. It always feels like she’s hugging the reader with her beautiful words.

J, as she likes to be called, has written a new love manifesto/poem that encourages her readers to choose love. Here are the first four lines:

Choose love.

In your relationships,
in the art you create,
the words you let loose,
the causes you take up, (more…)

A friend suggested I watch Enlightened, an HBO series starring Laura Dern. She thought the half hour format and Laura’s character Amy would be right up my activist ally.

I’d never watched an HBO Series and didn’t know what to expect. Regular TV series all seem to be about folks working like dogs or folks solving murders or folks getting horrible surgeries or folks doing forgettable things. I’ve often said to others, “Why do most TV characters work and not do anything else?” Sends a weird message. (more…)

Hello readers,

As the holiday to give thanks approaches, it reminds me how fortunate my life has been and how difficult others’ lives have been. I wonder why does it have to be that way? Why can’t we all live fortunate lives?

I’ve been distressed about the young women and children forced into sex slavery. Big subjects speak to me. I don’t care about some jacket going on sale at The Mall, I care about humans made to do horrible things against their will. It’s a growing, very profitable “industry.”

It took me a good year of reading books, watching movies, reading articles, but I finally had my newspaper column published, The Sex Slave Next Door. Please consider checking it out. Some folks won’t read it because they say it’s too hard to read. (more…)

So many of us feel powerless over the economy because we’ve given that power away without fully realizing it. Without a Main Street economy we become the pawns of giant corporations and the governments that make them possible.

The start of the economic demise appears to have started back in the late 70′s with the advent of discount stores. Prior to that, they were few and far between. My mother refused to set foot in those stores. Then we got suckered into buying things for less and it became a part of our societal makeup. (I know folks that drive two hours to NH to save $10.)  (more…)

I rewatched the cult classic Billy Jack (1971) about a month ago and it’s been on my mind ever since. Billy Jack, a former Vietnam Vet Green Beret and half Cherokee, returns to the Indian reservation for some quiet. Unfortunately, he finds the opposite.

In the first scene, he stops the illegal rounding up and shooting of a band of beautiful wild horses. I fall in love with him right there. The roundup of horses continues today. Here we’ve got these iconic creatures, the only truly wild and free things without a master left in our country, and we destroy them to put in dog food. They’re also being rounded up because they’re in the way of the various gas and oil pipelines scarring the wild, wild west. (more…)

The idea for this article came from one of my regular commenters, J.D. Meier at Sources of Insight. He always writes something short but status quo challenging. Recently, he said on my blog, “I think one of the greatest challenges more folks will have to face is finding their intrinsic happiness and what makes their souls sing.”

His words mesh nicely with the Thoreau quote on the front of my direct mail piece, “Most people live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” (more…)

Always fascinating how column/blog topics enter the psyche.

Was listening to one of my singing idols — Julie London — do her sultry rendition of The Door’s Light My Fire. It’s terrific. Listen to it here on You Tube.

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire

(Lyrics to live by.)

Just my kind of karaoke song. Unfortunately for my higher vocal range, they only seem to offer the original by The Doors. So, I re-listened to The Door’s version and learned from the CD jacket how the band got its name. (more…)

Hey rebellious friends,

I bought a bargain book about a month ago. Something about the title, “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart” prompted me to pick it up and thumb through it. I share most of author Gordon Livingstone’s philosophy on life and have blogged often about similar topics. I love all his chapter titles, especially the one I borrowed for today’s post: We Are Afraid of The Wrong Things. (more…)

I have a tendency to lean towards the hysterical, the passionate, the out-of-control. It took me many decades to get there and I’m proud of it.

Why?

Because I feel alive. (more…)