Friday, April 16, 2010

My report on current events

I am trying to find a fall-back position.  Something I can write about even when I don't feel overly inspired.

I actually write every day.  There is a contest I enter on www.writing.com.  It is called The Daily Flash Fiction Challenge.  In this contest, you are given a prompt and must write a story that includes the prompt but is no longer than 300 words.

Today's prompt is that the story must include the words: bridge, cloud and flower.  So far, I have written the first line - "Of course the bridge was the first thing to go."  I don't know what will happen next.  It comes to me in bits and pieces.  I never know what will happen until I write it.  I suppose this will be about war or something.  We'll see.

On to current events.  I flew to Budapest yesterday from Kentucky.  I stopped in Paris along the way.  Budapest is a surprisingly small airport.  There are no direct flights to here from anywhere.  Anyway, I am watching CNN Europe, one of the only English speaking channels here, and I see that the Paris airport is closed.  A volcano in Iceland is the culprit.  Apparently, jet engines don't operate well in dense clouds of ash.  Imagine that.  I am lucky that I made it through.  I had no idea at the time that a cloud was chasing me.

I saw that Obama and friends have decided to collect all nuclear material and put it in a safe place.  This will keep terrorists from using it, unless they find a way to make their own (i.e. Iran's department of nuclear proliferation).  Here is the thing.  This group has given themselves 4 years to collect all of this stuff.  It kind of feels like it must be littering the landscape everywhere.  I half expect to see a barrel labeled Uranium 238 sitting out behind a gas station or something.  Before this announcement, I would have thought collecting all of this together would have taken a phone call and about an hour to load it onto the truck.  Now, it feels like they said to each other, "That sounds like a good idea.  Let's see if anyone knows where we left that stuff."

Onward.

The Catholic Church (don't wish to offend you Catholics but this is too big a target to miss), has announced new tighter rules for pedophiles.  They are going to use extreme measures from now on.  If a priest gets caught, the new policy is to turn him into the police.  This is a big change in direction from the old policy of wagging a finger in his direction, often with a disapproving scowl.

Is it just me or is the world coming to an end?  For the last year, I have scoffed at my mom's insistence that 2012 means more than, I turn 54 that year.  She has been predicting earthquakes and such and now it all seems to be happening.  What surprises me is that I am finding this...interesting.  I am not afraid of an 8.0+ earthquake.  Why should I be?  Those things always happen somewhere else.  It's just that when nature demonstrates its power, I get excited.  I don't like it when it rains, generally.  But I love it when it storms.

Hockey and basketball are starting their playoffs.  I only mention that in case no one else noticed.


Time for me to get back to my story.  I want to see where that bridge went.


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j