A Call a Day Keeps Trump Away

Michael Moore is not only creating hilarious and mindful documentaries, he also gives tips in a Huffington Post article:

10-POINT ACTION PLAN TO STOP TRUMP

1. THE DAILY CALL: You must call Congress every day. Yes - YOU! 202-225-3121. It will take just TWO MINUTES! Make it part of your daily routine, one of those five things you do every morning without even thinking about it:

1. Wake up. 
2. Brush teeth. 
3. Walk dog (or stare at cat). 
4. Make coffee. 
5. Call Congress.

It is impossible to overstate just how much power you have by making this simple, quick DAILY CALL. I know from firsthand experience the impact it has. These politicians freak out if they get just 10 calls on an issue. Imagine them getting 10,000! Holy crap - the dome will pop off that building!

NOTE: if you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t need to call because my rep is a Democrat!” ― that is NOT true. They need to hear from you. They need to know they have your support. Don’t believe it? Our beloved Sen. Elizabeth Warren voted in favor of Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development! I’m sure no one in Massachusetts thought they had to call her. YOU DO! She and the other Dems need to hear from the boss ― YOU! They work for us ― and what boss doesn’t have daily contact with his or her employees?

It’s easy to make The Daily Call. To call your U.S. member of Congress or Senators in D.C., dial 202-225-3121 (or 202-224-3121 if busy). It’s even better to call their direct line. For Senators, find each of their numbers here. For the direct line to your member in the House of Representatives, here.

Here’s some great news: Someone has created an app to make this very easy: Go to the App Store and get “5 Calls.” The app will dial the friggin’ phone for you and give you talking points for when you speak to your reps!

Here’s what a sample week of your DAILY CALL can look like:

On Monday, call your Congressman/woman and tell them you do not want them to repeal Obamacare. In fact, you want them to improve it so that we have single-payer universal health care like all other “civilized” countries.

On Tuesday, call the first of your two U.S. Senators and tell him to vote NO on Rick Perry for Secretary of Energy. He couldn’t even remember there was a Department of Energy - or what it did!

On Wednesday, call your other U.S. Senator. Demand she do everything in her power to block the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Thursday, call your local State House/Assembly representative in your state capital. Tell her you want the House to vote for legislation that prohibits the incarceration of nonviolent drug users.

On Friday, call your State Senator. Tell him you want him to support all efforts to reduce those activities which cause climate change.

If you’d rather prefer to write to your reps, you can find the best way to do that for each of them here by typing in your address on: democracy.io.

All his social media sites are at my website www.michaelmoore.com

Please read the other 9 tips here: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/do-these-10-things-and-trump-will-be-toast_us_58ac605ae4b07028b704264a

Remember ― A call a day keeps the Trump away.

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Trump Refuses to Help - Please Donate for Syrian War Refugee Families

Canadian volunteer Charmaine Craig who is now helping families for over two months in a war refugee camp in Lebanon, near the Syrian border, wrote an update about her humanitarian efforts during one of the worst winter conditions in years.  

Please see also her ebook HELPING WAR REFUGEES, 

which covers her time as a volunteer in Greece 2015/16 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MUA95AL/

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It's only $2.99 and revenue goes 100% to feed people whose homes are bombed, who have no job, lost everything... and help them to heat their tents.

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Charmaine writes: "I just realized that I haven't done an update on here in awhile. Since the last update, I sponsored a food and fuel distribution to 55 families in honor of my granddaughter Hailey's birthday. Each family received enough rice, chickpeas, lentils, bulgar, pinto beans, sugar, salt, tea and cooking oil for one month.  In addition, each family received 20 litres/5Gal of fuel to help keep warm.  And trust me they needed it - that day a major storm front came in. .

Recently I co-sponsored a blanket and heating fuel distribution to a small settlement camp of 46 families 

that had not received any aid at all in over a year!

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"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your donations.  All distributions at SalamLADC are funded by volunteers and their generous supporters--without you this would not be possible.   Donations can save lives - and they give hope to those who had none."

Thank you!
Love Charmaine

Please help Charmaine to feed and buy heating material for people who have to live during this harsh winter.  Read her book where she explains the refugee situation and that the large organizations and many governments NOT helping at all...   Americans, Russians and several others have billions for bombs and airplanes, but don't care or give any food to the victims of this horrible 6-year war!!! 

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FREE Writer's Residencies and Fellowships

The dream of each writer: a peaceful period of uninterrupted time, dedicated only to create the next novel, a room of one’s own, with maybe some meals thrown in and some pocket money.  Or even just a quiet room. So, what about a writer's residency? It is not impossible to get one of these rent-free, beautiful places in tranquil surroundings, just fill out their applications - and with a bit luck, you might be the winner of such a lovely spot.  After all: One proposal in three is typically funded!
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Can Serrat Residency 
A residency near Barcelona that is offering one writer a two-month residency including accommodation, workshop space, and food. The residency is open to all writers regardless of nationality or age. Applications: February 1 - March 1.
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Hosking Houses Trust
Located in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, Hosking Houses Trust residency program seeks to appoint women over the age of 40 who need time in which to start, continue or complete interesting or innovative work in English, dealing with any subject. Private accommodation is provided in Church Cottage and includes a bursary of up to £1000 per calendar month.
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Jack Kerouac Writer in Residence Project
The Kerouac Project provides four residencies a year to writers living anywhere in the world. Each residency consists of approximately a three-month stay in Orlando, Florida, in the cottage where Jack Kerouac wrote his novel Dharma Bums. Utilities and a food stipend of US$800 are included. The Project also offers opportunities for residents to participate in readings, workshops and to interact with the central Florida writing community. Applications close on 12 March and results will be announced in May.
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Hugo House
Seattle’s Hugo House aims to provide an inspiring and creative place where writers and readers of all levels share an appreciation for well-written words. Its writer-in-residence program offers private writing offices and a monthly stipend for a period of nine months. Applicants should have a specific artistic project they are working on during their residency (e.g., developing a manuscript for publication) and should have a special interest in helping writers become better writers and fostering an appreciation of the craft. Applications close March 31.
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Associates of the Boston Public Library’s Children’s Writer in Residence Fellowship
Boston Public Library was established in 1848 and is the oldest large municipal library in the United States. The Library’s Children’s Writer in Residence Program provides an emerging children’s writer with the financial support and space needed to complete one literary work for children or young adults. The writer in residence receives a $20,000 stipend and a private office in the Central Library. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry and script projects are all eligible. Applicants cannot have published more than three books to date. Applications are expected to open in March.
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Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony
The Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony offers Summer Fellowships for fiction, nonfiction and poetry writers at the Ucross Foundation located on a 20,000-acre ranch in northeastern Wyoming. Eleven applicants will be chosen and receive full tuition and housing for the entire three-week period of their stay. Applications are expected to close in April.
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Gladstone’s Library Writers in Residence
Built in 1902, Gladstone’s Library is the UK’s only residential library. The Library’s Writers in Residence program began in 2011. Four residencies are offered each year with each writer staying at the Library for a month. The Writers in Residence are asked to keep a blog about their stay, as well as running a creative writing workshop. Residents receive full room and board, reimbursement for travel expenses and a small stipend of £100 per week. Applications close on 31 May.
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New York Public Library’s Cullman Center Fellowships
The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers is an international fellowship program open to people whose work will benefit from access to the New York Public Library’s collections housed at its main branch on Fifth Avenue. Novelists, playwrights, and poets are invited to apply, along with academics and independent researchers. Fellows can be from anywhere in the world. A stipend of up to $70,000 is granted to each fellow, along with an office, a computer and full access to the Library’s physical and electronic resources. Applications for 2017/18 fellowships will open in June.
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Writers Omi at Ledig House
Since it was founded in 1992 it has hosted hundreds of authors and translators, representing more than fifty countries, including Gary Shteyngart, Kiran Desai and Colum McCann. Ledig House located in Ghent, New York, two and a half hours from New York City and guests may select a residency of one week to two months. Application information for 2018 will be published on 15 August.
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More links to Writer’s Residencies in our upcoming book:
111 Tips on How to Make Money with Writing

or at this website, from which we showed random examples in today's article 
http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2017/01/05/residencies-for-writers-2017/

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How Silicon Valley Could Take Down Trump

Tech leaders in Silicon Valley know from personal experience how damaging Donald Trump’s immigration ban is for the United States because many of them were born somewhere else themselves. A 2016 study found that 51 percent of billion-dollar U.S. tech start-ups were founded by immigrants. Here are 11 chief executives and founders of tech companies who immigrated to the United States. See them all:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2017/02/12-immigrants-behind-some-of-silicon-valleys-biggest-companies

What exactly could these companies do? The better question is: What couldn’t they? Google could ensure that search results around important topics, like immigration and the environment, point to the work of factual nonpartisan groups, not the nonsense from "fake-news" Web sites, or even messaging from the White House. For example, when people search “Is crime at an all-time high,” which Trump has falsely asserted, Google could ensure it sends users to F.B.I. data that shows that crime, in fact, has fallen steadily for decades.
Apple, likewise, could push an update out to Americans’ iPhones giving them an option to add contact information for their local and state officials. When you open Twitter in the morning, the social network could figure out how to marry contentious tweets with corresponding viewpoints. Amazon could mail everyone a copy of the U.S. Constitution. (At the very least, they could send a couple of copies to the White House.)

These are not partisan issues, but democratic ones. And modern brands, which purportedly stand for things, should be allowed to express a viewpoint in our post–Citizens United world—and they should also have the courage to do so confidently without fearing reprisals from investors on Wall Street.

For some tech companies, even the biggest ones, going up against the Trump administration is probably a little daunting. Take, for example, Trump’s taunts toward Amazon and Jeff Bezos.  “Believe me,” Trump said about Amazon during one of his public fulminations last year, “if I become president, oh, do they have problems; they’re going to have such problems.”

With Jeff Sessions as the attorney general and his alleged history of unethical statements and actions, you could easily imagine anti-trust threats being used to fend off a tech giant like Amazon. But at the end of the day, Trump isn’t going to want to do anything that could hinder his job growth. 

And going after a company that employs more than 268,000 people won’t be a smart move.

Read the whole article at Vanity Fair:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/how-silicon-valley-can-take-down-trump

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Writing Contests and Writing Awards

Deadline March 1:  Neutral free contest from New Welsh Review awards top prize of  £1,000 = US $1,250, e-book publication, and other networking/promotional opportunities for previously unpublished, English-language prose written for an adult audience by authors age 18+. 

For 2017, there are two categories: memoirs (5,000-30,000 words) and novellas (8,000-30,000 words). Both categories are open to all residents of the UK and Ireland, plus those who have been educated in Wales for at least six months; the Novella Prize is also open to writers based in the US and Canada. 

Works may be a single, long-form piece or a book divided or structured as the author sees fit. No simultaneous submissions. No limit to the number of entries submitted by one author, although only one work may win. An author may enter both categories. Enter using sponsor's online submissions portal.http://www.newwelshwritingawards.com/terms-conditions-2017/

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More Writing Contests Ending Soon:

Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing - The winner receives a US$10,000 advance. Deadline is Feb 28
http://www.restlessbooks.com/prize-for-new-immigrant-writing/
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CBC Creative Nonfiction Competition - First Prize CAD6,000 - Deadline Feb is 28
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/01/cbc-creative-nonfiction-prize-is-now-open.html
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American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship
Is open to writers worldwide. Fellows receive a stipend of US$5000 to assist with travel and housing costs. Applications close Feb 14.
http://americanlibraryinparis.org/events-programs/visiting-fellowship.html

.The James Jones Fellowship Contest awards $10,000 to an American writer with a first fiction novel in progress in 2017. Two runners-up will each receive $1000.
http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2017/02/02/james-jones-fellowship-contest-2017/

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Dictator Elected?

A Famous German Journalist Jacob Augstein:

"Nach zwei Wochen im Amt ist klar: Donald Trump hat damit begonnen, die amerikanische Demokratie in eine Diktatur zu verwandeln. Wann ist der Punkt ohne Wiederkehr erreicht?

Donald Trump hat damit begonnen, die amerikanische Demokratie in eine Diktatur zu verwandeln. Man kennt das Verfahren aus anderen Ländern: Ungarn, Türkei, Russland. Jetzt die USA. Der Prozess ist schleichend.

Die Demokratie stirbt leise, sie macht kein Geräusch. Ein berühmtes Gedicht von T.S. Eliot trägt den Namen: "The Hollow Men - Die hohlen Männer". Es endet mit den berühmten Zeilen: So geht die Welt zugrunde / Nicht mit einem Knall: mit Gewimmer. Es ist unsere Welt, von der da die Rede ist. Es ist unsere Demokratie, die nicht mit einem Knall untergeht - sondern mit einem Wimmern.

Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika waren die führende Nation der westlichen Welt. Sie brachten den Deutschen einmal Frieden und die Demokratie. Jetzt wurde dort ein fünfjähriger Junge festgenommen. Oder verhaftet. Oder festgesetzt. Es gibt sicher einen juristischen Terminus, der korrekt beschreibt, was die amerikanischen Sicherheitsbehörden mit diesem Jungen angestellt haben. Fünf Stunden lang hielten sie ihn ohne seine Eltern an einem Flughafen fest. Er ist amerikanischer Staatsbürger, aber aus dem Iran eingereist.

Und der Iran steht auf der Liste jener Länder, aus denen nach einem Federstrich des amerikanischen Präsidenten Besucher aller Art unerwünscht sind. Ein Federstrich der vollkommenen Willkür. Und der Grausamkeit. 

Der Sprecher dieses Präsidenten sagte nachher, es wäre ein Fehler, nur aufgrund von Alter und Geschlecht den Schluss zu ziehen, dass ein Mensch keine Bedrohung darstelle.

Willkür und Grausamkeit - sind das nicht die Merkmale der Diktatur?

Die Demokratie schafft sich selber ab

Diktatur ist ein ernstes Wort. Wir haben Vorstellungen davon, was eine Diktatur ist. Schwere Tritte im Treppenhaus morgens um halb fünf. Verhaftungen. Vermisste. Willkür. Mit solchen Diktaturen kennen gerade wir Deutschen uns aus. Und die schwer bewaffneten Polizisten, die an den Flughäfen den wahnwitzigen Einreiseerlass des Präsidenten durchsetzen, sie ähneln noch unserem Bild von Diktatur. Aber das ist nur die Oberfläche. Das wahre Gesicht der Diktatur sieht heute anders aus.

Die Demokratie stirbt nicht an einem Tag. Sie schafft sich langsam selber ab. Trump wurde gewählt. Orbán wurde gewählt. Erdogan auch. Das Muster ist ähnlich. Ein Populist lügt sich an die Macht. Er installiert seine Verbündeten an den Schaltstellen des Systems, vor allem in der Justiz, im Sicherheitsapparat. Und er neutralisiert die Medien.

In einem bemerkenswerten Aufsatz über die Zerbrechlichkeit der modernen Demokratien, der jetzt im amerikanischen Magazin "Atlantic Monthly" erschien, heißt es: "Der Vorteil, einen modernen Staat zu kontrollieren, liegt weniger darin, die Unschuldigen verfolgen als die Schuldigen verschonen zu können." Ein kluger Satz. Denn obwohl es die klassischen Mechanismen der Diktatur noch gibt - in Russland und in der Türkei - hat sich eine moderne Form von Diktatur entwickelt.

Regeln werden gebeugt, Nachrichten manipuliert

Die Wahlen sind frei. Es wird niemand auf offener Straße erschossen. Und wer unzufrieden ist, darf jederzeit das Land verlassen. Aber die Justiz urteilt nicht mehr unabhängig. Die Medien berichten immer seltener aufrichtig. Öffentliche Aufträge werden nach politischer Freundschaft vergeben. Die Steuerbehörden prüfen gehäuft die Kritiker des Systems. Korruption wird zur Normalität. Die Regeln werden gebeugt, die Nachrichten werden manipuliert, und ein Teil der Elite wird in Mittäterschaft verstrickt."