Friday’s Odds and Ends

Trump’s cabinet picks, as well as some of his closest advisers, continue to come under scrutiny. Here are a few of the reactions after Rex Tillerson, former CEO Of Exxon Mobil, was sworn in as Secretary of State. This was taken from CNN News:

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, opposed Tillerson’s nomination, questioning whether the Texan’s close business dealings with Moscow would impact his response to any Russian aggression and arguing that “it is not the same thing to run a global business and run the State Department.”

“We have reason to fear that Mr. Tillerson would run the State Department like he ran Exxon, where he repeatedly worked against US national interests,” Murphy said Tuesday.

He noted that Tillerson opposed sanctions against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and “was awarded the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin,” Murphy said on the Senate floor. “We have a President who has openly mocked human rights, who has supported vicious dictators, and a secretary of state who has made a career of doing business with some of the worst human rights violators in the world.”

The day before the confirmation of Tillerson, the European Union president said that the Trump administration poses a “threat” after Trump said that NATO is “obsolete.

On Wednesday, former CIA Director David Petraeus hammered home the message that the US’ alliances are a crucial part of its national security.

“Americans should not take the current international order for granted,” Petraeus told the House Armed Services Committee. “It did not will itself into existence. We created it. Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have sustained it. If we stop doing so, it will fray and, eventually collapse. This is precisely what some of our adversaries seek to encourage,” he said, mentioning Russia in particular.

These quips were borrowed, with permission, from a new Twitter friend, Beth Drennan Jokes, who writes humor for anyone who wants to pay her a buck for a joke. She can be pretty funny, while others just make you think with a smile on your face.

If I were paranoid, I would hate being on Twitter. I would constantly have the feeling that people were following me.

Human speech makes us dominant over the plant & animal kingdoms.But if you’re facing sharks, bears or poison ivy, speech don’t do shit.

New kind of dog training called Kwik Train. Your dog is vicious? Hire a Kwik Trainer. He puts the dog on a train,1-way ticket. Problem solved.

Don’t be afraid to rewrite. Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities started out as Tale of Ten Cities, then Nine Cities, then Eight, Seven, Six…

Child Believes He is World Traveller. Father Drives Him Two Hours From Home, Stops Car, and Tells Him “Look! We’re in Europe!”

As a child, I learned about sex. So in church I’d look at the church ladies and couldn’t believe they got naked and did the wild thing.

That news was sobering. But I was already sober. So I had to get drunk.

If it weren’t for combustion engines, we’d be dragging our cars behind us everywhere we went!

This bit of advice about writing the back-cover copy for books was written by Sophie Masson at Writer Unboxed. There was also great advice in the comments by a professional copywriter, so I urge you to hop over and read the whole article and the comments.

“What exactly are the elements of a good book blurb? Speaking both as a reader and a writer, for me a good back cover blurb includes:

• A mention of setting and time period of the story
• A mention of the main character
• An intriguing glimpse of the plot, but with no reveals
• A question, or hook, at the end

 I checked some of my book blurbs after reading Sophie’s article. I was pleased that most of them met these criteria. What do yo think makes a good back cover blurb? Do you struggle like so many of us with writing those?