The first two stories this week have brief summaries of two different court orders: you might utter a distressed “You can’t be serious!” on one. The other could be described with the same words, but with an opposite emotion.
Guest Post
When Scams Become Deadly
by Paul Myers
©2022 by Paul Myers, excerpted with permission from his Talkbiz News newsletter.
Badge of Honor, Tarnished
Guest Post by True Contributor Mike Straw
Every Sunday morning it’s a highlight of my week as I get to digest interesting and unusual news stories down to 100–200 words, then give it a slug at the top and a creative tagline at the end.
Black Crayons
I got this in 1997 from a friend. It was written by Deirdre Sholto-Douglas*. I’ve discussed it with her and she assures me it’s a true story, and gave her permission to publish it. I originally ran it on December 9, 2000, when Randy’s Random was a long-form joke email publication; she originally posted it in the Usenet newsgroup alt.peeves in 1994.
She did a very good thing for her daughter.
What’s Good for the Goose
It’s rare that I run a guest post here, but a post I spotted on Facebook this morning written by a friend is so concise and thought-provoking, I thought it deserved a wider audience. The title was suggested by the author.
A Just War
A story by True contributor Mike Straw this week uses a powerful quote as a tagline. Mike, a retired career U.S. Air Force officer, posted a Twitter thread about his research for the tagline, and it was so good I thought I’d have him expand his introduction just a bit so it can be posted here. First, the story from True’s 10 May 2020 issue:
Every Day is International Women’s Day
No, this isn’t a trendy “International Women’s Day” post (but I love one tweet I saw: “There is absolutely no symbolism more perfect than International Women’s Day being 23 hours long.” —Elaine Filadelfo. Thanks, Daylight Saving Time!)
When an idea needs a special “day” to recognize it, and otherwise the topic is essentially ignored, then a “day” isn’t enough. For me, every day is International Women’s Day.
The Won’t of the People
I Think the Concept of a recalled mayor immediately winning election to the same seat he had just lost was awfully interesting, and Alexander’s tag about it pretty thought-provoking. He decided to expound on it a bit. But first, let’s start with the story, from True’s 17 March 2019 issue:
Crazy Tax Court Cases
After I finish writing the stories (and editing the contributions) each Sunday evening, I send them to a group of volunteer editors so they can check them that evening, or Monday morning (well before the newsletter comes out). They catch a lot of the typos, poor construction, and other goobers. (They only read the stories, not the Comments section or Honorary Unsubscribe, since there isn’t time to send that text to them before publication.)
Knowing Is Half the Battle
True contributor Mike Straw, who as you might remember is a fairly recently retired career U.S. Air Force officer, had more to say about one of the stories he wrote this week. We’ll start first with the story, from the 7 August 2016 issue:
Memorial Day: “Thank You For Your Service”
I don’t very often have guest posts on my blog, but this short essay from an old friend is worth the space here, and the small amount of your time it will take to read it.
The Return of Paul Myers
OK, my old buddy Paul hasn’t gone anywhere, but I’ve talked about him before on this blog, and it’s time I talked about him again. He’s the type of friend that if I make a quick phone call to him (as I did today, to catch up), we end up gabbing for over an hour. Sometimes three.
TANSTAAFL, Baby
Very often readers ask me for advice about starting an online business — when I started in 1994, there wasn’t anyone to ask, and I’ve learned a lot in the nearly 15 years since. Obviously one can learn some things by watching what I do, but there are others who are in the business of teaching such things, and that’s faster (and more generic).
Interview with Brutarian
This is the favorite interview I’ve ever done, for a now-defunct pop-culture magazine. To keep it available, the author gave me permission to post it here. -rc
No Really: I Want the Leather
In 1999, after I had been working full-time on True for awhile, I found I really missed having peers to chat with, as I did when I had a Day Job. So I started a little group of online entrepreneurs to network with.
Fork U!
I was apparently the first “Guest Columnist” on the interesting web-site-quality-really-needs-improvement site, “Fork in the Head” (“Because flawed web sites deserve a fork in the head”), which offers lessons in improvement called, yep, “Fork University”. I (let’s hope) supplied some words of wisdom about appealing to a wide audience.