On his worst day, Biden is a thousand times better than Trump.
Bernie Sanders

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which, while some coveted after, they have … pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
St Paul

Like Scrooge McDuck, many of these wealthy people are simply addicts, constantly seeking the dopamine rush of another million or billion dollars added to their money bins. To keep that wealth growing, they make the most profitable investment available to truly rich Americans: they buy politicians who will cut their taxes and reduce regulatory costs for their companies.
Thom Hartmann

Bobbing Around

Volume Twenty-three, Number Eleven, May, 2024

Bob Rich’s rave

bobswriting.com anxietyanddepression-help.com/ mudsmith.net/ previous issues

*About Bobbing Around
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Bobbing Around is COPYRIGHTED. Actually, you may steal any of it, but only with permission from its author if that’s not me, and well, from me if I am the author.

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* From me to you
The handicap of spam
A way to avoid the tribulations of age
Health report
Monster!
Boy, what a bio!

	New content	Posts during the past month
ENVIRONMENT	What factors should be taken into consideration when deciding to move somewhere due to climate change?
INSPIRATION		Boy headed for greatness wants to be of service
PSYCHOLOGY		I agree with an old opponent about depression
DEEPER ISSUES	Cetaceans are people, too Issac’s business advisor is an ex-junkie	From murderer to best friend
HEALTH		Health without force (Link corrected)
WRITING		A question with a lot of senses: May, 2024 Round Robin Feedback please: puzzling, or perfectly plain?
ANNOUNCEMENTS	That Was Then by M.K. Tod	Launch of a deeply touching book
REVIEWS	Khafre, by Max Overton
FUN	Warning labels
POETRY	Trees, by Dawn Colclasure

From me to you

The handicap of spam
A way to avoid the tribulations of age
Health report
Monster!
Boy, what a bio!

The handicap of spam

We all hate the endless barrage of unsolicited emails, phone calls and text messages that spice modern life, right?

I have an extra reason to do so.

Businesses that provide people with internet facilities do their best to keep spam out, and there are now several specialist services to identify the source of such garbage messages. They use multiple criteria to do so, and good for them.

Only, never mind all the hype about AI, computers are superfast idiots. Any set of rules will yield false positives, and bobswriting.com, my domain, has been caught in them.

I’ve been sending monthly notification of Bobbing Around since mid-2000 to an increasing number of lovely people. It is an opt-in list: as I say, “Drop me a line and I’ll drop you from my list.” So, it is NOT spam.

The automatic filters trying to identify sneaky senders haven’t noticed this, and for months now, I I’ve been having terrible trouble. Gmail has banned any email ending with bobswriting.com, and the same is true for many other mobs.

Sigh.

Fortunately, my friends on the Bobbing Around list can help. If you are one of them, please go to my blog. On the right, you’ll see an invitation to enter your email address so you can receive notifications of each post. WordPress sends me an email
when you do, and I’ll then remove you from the list.

I know a few dear friends are both followers and subscribers. Please email me if you are one of them, then I can reduce my list by 1.

With a significantly shorter list of newsletter subscribers, I’ll be
able to use the free version of one of the bulk email services, and
escape unfair identification as spam artist.

Pretty please, with honey on top!

A way to avoid the tribulations of age

Simple. Die at 21.

I’ve decided not to do that. That wonderful person, Petrea King, has said, “Your body is a space suit for surviving on this planet.” She is right. My space suit is a little rusty, and dented from many a collision, but still serviceable, so I’ll wait with trading it in. (When I do, I want the new model a return to being a Space Flower.)

In the meantime, I am busy with my job of Professional Grandfather.

Thank you for being on my team.

Health report

I keep getting inquiries about the health of my family.

My daughter, Natalie, hasn’t looked this well in years, and I hope this indicates inside improvement. She has had a scan, and tomorrow is the day we find out what that says about the cancer.

She has had to cut back on work significantly, which is scary, not so much because of lower income, but because being of service through her profession is so important to her.

Please pray for a miracle.

My wife, Jolanda, has started a supervised exercise program, so
hopefully this is the first step in the long climb back to her previous level of strength and energy. But it is a LONG climb.

Monster!

Caitlin Jans is one of my young teachers, in her case about the publishing world. She regularly sends out lists of publishers that accept unagented submissions, and some time ago Berkley, a Penguin-Random House imprint, was on the list.

They have a tricky system: will accept the first 1000 submissions that qualify, so the thing is to be on the starting blocks, ready to SEND at the right moment.

Only, when I accessed the page, I found “Due to technical difficulties, the submission date has had to be deferred. We will notify you when it has been rescheduled” or something to that effect. Actually, the technical difficulties affected the whole Berkley website, and lasted weeks. As you can imagine, I got addicted to refreshing the page.

In the meantime, this was an opportunity to improve my material. They wanted a one-page bio, a synopsis, a query letter, and the first 10 pages.

Several kind people gave me feedback that hugely improved what I’d
prepared. Michael Amos, publisher at Sleepy Lion Publishing, took time out from his busy schedule and gave incredibly helpful advice.

He even approved of my out-of-the-box, deliberately humorous bio, which I have reproduced below for your amusement. You don’t find it funny? What’s wrong with you?

I also exchanged beta reads with several people, so those 10 pages are a little better than I could make them, but one problem emerged. While some readers perfectly understood the nature and appearance of my villain in his natural form, others had a HUH? reaction.

My brilliant solution? I’d submit to Berkley with a cover, depicting the monster. You know, one word is worth a thousand pictures… um…

While no one ever sends a cover as part of a query, there was nothing in the guidelines forbidding it.

So, I sought an artist to convert my words to a pic.

Then, BOOM! Next time I checked, Berkley was ready for submissions, and yes, I made it as one of the thousand.

The sub is in, without a cover pic.

Oh well.

If you are an artist competent at depicting a 12-legged person with a very different head from humans, and looking fierce and dangerous, please contact me. I’d still love to have Bdud’s portrait.

Boy, what a bio!

Dr. Bob Rich is currently the author of 19 published books. Six of them, and over 40 short stories, have won awards.

He is an Australian storyteller who started writing in 1980 because a bunch of teenagers kidnapped him. He was making adobe bricks for the house he was building when they descended on him, because they needed one more male for a boys vs. girls soccer game. Who was he to disobey? Naturally, he soon slipped on the mud he’d carried with him, and ended up in hospital with a torn cartilage in his knee. His advice: don’t tear the cartilage in your knee!

Bored out of his mind, he borrowed the office typewriter (remember
those?) and wrote his first article on building, something he was an
expert on, given his Ph.D. in psychology. His words took flight, and his book on how to build your house, “The Earth Garden Building Book,” published by Penguin Australia, sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It went through 4 editions between 1986 and 2018.

Later, he trained as a nurse, which toughened him enough to be able to transition into psychotherapy despite his all-too-overdeveloped empathy. The first lesson of nursing is, “It’s not your pain. You are not there to share it, but to relieve it.” Therapy is even better: you’re there to empower your client to relieve it.

However, while in nursing school, he was surrounded by gorgeous
18-year-olds, and had the choice of making a fool of himself or doing something creative. So, he wrote short stories. The first one he submitted to a contest won a prize, and he was hooked.

All his life, Bob has been a secular Buddhist. He discovered this when wanting to get married. The girl asked to marry in her church, and the minister interviewed Bob to see if he would admit a nonbeliever into the hallowed precincts. After hours of chatting, he said, “You’re a Buddhist, did you know that? Now, let’s set the date.”

Given the handicap of a scientific training, Bob doesn’t believe
anything but goes with the evidence. To check on this claim, he needed to spend a day at the University library, not having a time machine to access the internet. He found his belief system there, and since then has considered Siddhartha Gautama his favorite teacher, though there are many others, including a Jewish carpenter.

Bob’s major passion is being a Professional Grandfather. He has hundreds of grandkids all around Earth (none in Antarctica presently). They track him down with emails of despair, and having the gift of healing words, he almost invariably leads them to a good life. Some cease contact once they are OK. Others stay in touch for years from friendship, from having joined his team and needing advice on how to help others, and often for needing their hand held after a backslide.

There is no greater joy than being of service, so despite his busy schedule, mentoring and supporting them is top priority.

Everything he does, including his writing, has the aim of working for a tomorrow for today’s kids, and a tomorrow worth surviving in. The second is equally important, and implies a world of decency, cooperation, long-term thinking. Everything he does, including his science fiction, is in the service of this aim.

What factors should be taken into consideration when deciding to move somewhere due to climate change?

This was a question on Quora. For some reason I was unable to post my answer, but I don’t see why I should waste the work I’d put into it, so read on:

Well, Elon Musk is obviously hoping to move to Mars, after his rocket-launching activities have contributed to wrecking this planet.

Sea level rise will destroy the homes of billions of people because most cities are on or close to the shore, or up shallow rivers (For example, Paris isn’t safe).

Areas that depend on glaciers for water supply are already severely
affected, both by water shortages and by land movements and dam
failures.

The global ocean circulation is failing, due to the huge amount of
freshwater coming off Greenland, and the changes in the seas around the Antarctic. When the Gulf Stream stops or significantly changes course, which is now “99% certain,” Western Europe will be hugely colder. See this for example.

One consequence of increased heat energy in the atmosphere is that it holds more water vapour. So, wherever floods are possible, they are already catastrophically worse, and this will increase.

Places with drought, which are in some cases the same areas, have longer and more severe drought.

Cyclonic storms (hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones) are penetrating further from the equator, and are more severe and more frequent. Inland, tornadoes are also increasing in frequency and severity, even in places where historically they have never occurred.

Tropical regions, and even some monsoonal areas, are moving toward
temperatures at which humans cannot survive.

Add all this and a few more considerations up, and you need to put 8
billion people in perhaps one-third of habitable land. This implies
inevitable war and conflict.

So, the brief answer to your question is: NOWHERE.

If you find this distressing, please read how I cope with it myself, and advise others to.

Deeper Issues

Cetaceans are people, too

They have a complex social organisation, use language to speak to each other, often act with altruism even across species, and I doubt a human would do very well on an IQ test designed by a humpack or an orca or a dolphin.

Indigenours leaders in New Zealand and a number of Polynesian countries have declared them to be people, with the same rights.

You can join me in signing a petition to support them.

Issac’s business advisor is an ex-junkie

What if I told you two of my closest friends used to be drug-addicted and homeless? Would you find that strange? Would you think maybe I fell in with the “wrong crowd?”

Well, these actually are some of my closest friends.

And of course, they’re not the wrong crowd at all. Any friend I have is surely in the “right crowd.”

But let’s bring this back to you…

When you meet people who are in a rougher life or mental space than you, how do you react? Is it with judgment and fear, or love and a
willingness to offer help? Would you try to understand their unique
background and thought processes, or just avoid them altogether?

This matters, because now, when you have the opportunity to learn from not one, but TWO people who turned their lives around from some very dark places, from as close to rock-bottom as possible… do you shy away and say it’s not relevant to your life?

Maybe you’re even scared of what they may reveal… and the feelings that may arise in you?

OR…

Do you take the opportunity to learn from those who’ve lived a life much different than your own? Do you open yourself to new possibilities?

After all, it’s rare to have the chance to learn from people who have been tested to the point where their life was actually on the line.

And please understand, these friends are some of the most insightful, uplifting, and helpful people that I’ve ever met. They inspire me… as they are shining examples of how any of us can overcome life’s situations.

I’ve learned quite a lot from them… continuing to grow in my thinking, personal growth, and ability to help you… And I’d like to introduce them to you.

They’re J-Ryze (or J) and Cynshine (or Cyn).

J has actually become my go-to personal and business advisor, available to tackle a wide variety of questions and challenges, which is priceless!

Cyn is on a unique journey, having moved to another country to learn
from J, and it’s been wonderful to see her continue to grow and apply the lessons she learns.

Together, they host my favorite podcast, Eyes Wide Open, where Cyn asks brilliant questions and J offers practical solutions and raw truths that open you to new ways of thinking and being. His tips have made me calmer under stress, wiser about relationships, and helped me bump up my sales!

Whether you want mental healing or to jumpstart your business, you’ll find something that shifts your perspective so you can triumph through the challenge of the day.

This episode is a great introduction to them, as they talk about their path out of drug addiction, homelessness, being suicidal, and much more. Here, you learn about their struggles and how they overcame them. (Fair warning – some dark or potentially triggering topics are discussed, so feel free to skip this if that concerns you.)

At this point, they have 500+ videos, and I want to take a moment to
highlight a few that helped me make real improvements in my life, and that will help elevate major aspects of your life.

21 Harsh TRUTHS to Live Free – for anyone interested in Truth or Reality, don’t miss this.

Why FOCUS Heals Your Mental Health –- this episode was a true eye-opener, and I reflect on this often…

GRATITUDE = Yoga pants for your mind – just one tip about luck in this episode is changing my life.

Prefer to read rather than watch videos? Then check out their free book.

I deeply believe if you have a problem in your life or business right now, you’ll find the solution if you take the time to explore Eyes Wide Open.

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

(P.S. Seriously, I’m eager to hear YOUR thoughts and input when you
can.)

Wishing you the best,

Issac “I. C.” Robledo

I approve of these announcements

That Was Then, by M.K. Tod

“A page-turning tale filled with rich characters, family secrets, love, politics, ambition, and risky journalistic pursuits.” Lisa Barr, New York Times bestselling author of Woman on Fire.

When journalist Andrea Larson learns that the man who raped her is running for Governor of Massachusetts, she is driven to expose him.With the help of her identical twin, Andrea disguises herself to secure a job on Brad Greiner’s campaign. Soon, people who hide in the shadows begin to threaten both women.

Brad Greiner lives in the rarefied world of wealth and high-powered business elites. Determined that nothing from his past will derail his political ambitions, he unleashes a trusted friend to eliminate any threats. The stakes get even higher when a group intent on controlling American democracy becomes involved.

Someone knows what the twins are up to. And they’re closing in.

Reviews

Khafre, by Max Overton

Who built the pyramids?

People.

They were people like you and me, with the same feelings of love and
hate, fear and greed and jealousy, and also gratitude and compassion and loyalty. The culture that shaped them, however, was very different, and one that has fascinated many people.

Max Overton has been writing about ancient Egypt for years. Khafre is the eighth volume in his series about the pyramid builders, and given the amount and depth of his research about ancient Egypt, he could be an Egyptologist.

I have read some of his earlier books about Egypt, so when Sandy
Cummins, Publisher of Writers Exchange E-Publishing, announced the release of this newest addition, I eagerly requested that she email me a review copy.

If the times of the pyramid builders interests you, go to the publisher’s page for the book, and see what you can see. If you are not yet a Max Overton fan, you might want to start with the first volume.

Fun

Warning labels

I am no great fan of Readers Digest, but they keep sending me their
circulars. Since there is an occasional item I enjoy, I haven’t bothered to unsubscribe.

And why does everything need to be numbered?

This list, though, will give you a laugh.

Poetry

Trees, by Dawn Colclasure

Trees are not just a source of shade or food;
they are vital to our environment.
Yet we continue to cut our trees down.

Some trees do need to be cut down,
such as when they are old, sick or infested.
Or if a tree is a danger to someone’s safety.

Will Mother Earth forgive us for taking her healthy trees?
Will we one day live on a treeless planet?
For every tree taken down, we should plant another.

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Bobbing Around Volume 23 Number 11

Bobbing Around