Artur Meyster: How to Know if You and Your Career Aren’t Meant to Be

Photo: Tony Ward, Copyright 2020
 

Text by Artur Meyster, Copyright 2020

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How To Know If You And Your Career Aren’t Meant To Be

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Sometimes, job offers are way more attractive on paper than in real life. Nowadays, during interviews, employers are saying whatever crosses their minds to catch qualified aspirants’ attention. As a result, you may land a job that seems like your dream job, but it isn’t. Still, you don’t have to feel bad if your current career isn’t a good fit. What matters at the end of the day is identifying when it’s the right time to leave. If you’re wondering about quitting or making a career change, these signs will help you decide and move in the right direction.

Your Duties Make You Feel Frustrated

Sometimes, the job you have always wanted is not what you thought. For that reason, if your dream job makes you feel frustrated, don’t be of two minds about quitting. Doing the same tasks repeatedly without using your strengths is not good for your mental health or career. Look for a job that makes you feel motivated. Nowadays, companies are investing in new technologies like AI to help workers during repetitive processes.

Talking to your boss is always a good alternative to solve the problem. Ask them if you can collaborate on projects where you ca use your best skills. If you have machine learning skills, don’t hesitate to give an extra hand to data scientists or data analysts. This will help you to stay motivated and feel comfortable. However, if your boss disagrees, don’t stay in a place where your best skills aren’t appreciated. 

You Don’t Enjoy What You Do

Enjoying what you do is crucial to feel comfortable and achieve happiness in life. Hence, if you dislike what you do and you think you should look for another job, don’t let your fear of being jobless stop you. Embrace changes and start a new job searching path. 

In 2020, companies in the healthcare sector and the online retail industry are actively looking for new hirings. If making a career change is necessary to land a job you may like, don’t be afraid of making your decision. After all, most people spend between 40 and 50 hours per week at work, and enjoying what you do will be key to improving your wellbeing. 

Your Feel Overloaded

If your responsibilities make you feel you’re starting to crumble, you should ask for help. Talking to your boss may be a good option to fix the issue. But, if you receive no support, this is a big sign that quitting is the best decision you can make. Feeling overloaded is not healthy. Since overwork can have adverse effects on employees’ health, relaxing is a must. Don’t accept a job offer that makes your work-life balance awful. 

Developing Your Skills Is an Uphill Battle

In 2020, the competition is getting more challenging day after day. For that reason, you need a job that provides you with professional development opportunities. If developing your skills is an uphill battle at your current job, you should think about leaving. Having no professional development might take you out of the game and will make getting employed hard. Look for vacancies that provide you with tuition reimbursement benefits.

Top-notch companies like Netflix and Nintendo are concerned about skills training. Therefore, they provide employees with tuition reimbursement benefits to help them stay competitive. Many employees have enrolled in coding bootcamps to get equipped with in-demand programming tools. 

Coding Dojo, for example, offers online programs that allow students to become self-sufficient developers in a few weeks. Their programs cover in-demand tools like JavaScript, AWS, Python, and React. Coding Dojo also offers career services to help students achieve their short-term and long-term career goals. 

General Assembly, on the other hand, helps students to develop their skills with ease. By providing them with schedule flexibility, students can decide whether to take full- or part-time courses. And by allowing them to learn from experts in the field, students can stand out from the competition. 

In Summary

Never keep a job that affects your personality or causes you to be in a bad mood the whole day. To move forward, you must enjoy what you do. Keep in mind that when people feel motivated, they keep a positive attitude and find solutions instead of problems. If you recognize these signs at your current work, don’t be scared of leaving. To get a meaningful job, you may need to go out of your safe zone, but I can guarantee that you won’t regret it.

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Artur Meyster: Founder of Career Karma

About the Author: Artur Meyster is the founder of Career Karmahttps://careerkarma.com

Studio News: House of Antoinette 1950

House of Antonette 1950

House of Antoinette 1950

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House of Antoinette 1950 has been delivering sassy statement accessories since 2010. The products are a stylish alternative to mass production generic accessories. All items are limited edition or one of a kind. Our jewelry comes from Japan, China, Thailand, Russia and many more exotic places from around the globe. The accessories are top quality, durable and forever lasting.

The accessories have been featured at New York Fashion Week, special events like birthday parties, expos, and New Years Eve celebrations. House of Antoinette 1950 has been featured in media publications such as IndieFlava Magazine, World Fashion Media News, Philadelphia’s Main Line Today and a variety of fashion blogs. The accessories continue to delight clients from all over the world. The company founder, Antoinette Nassef is based in Philadelphia.  For inquiries to purchase her hand made works of Art, email:antoinettenaseef8@gmail.com.

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House of Antoinette 1950
House of Antoinette 1950
House of Antoinette 1950
House of Antoinette 1950
House of Antoinette 1950
House of Antoinette 1950
House of Antoinette 1950

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Portrait of Antoinette Nassef

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Bob Shell: Jailhouse Nicknames

Jailhouse Nicknames by Bob Shell
 

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Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2020

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Jailhouse Nicknames

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Almost everyone in prison uses a jailhouse nickname rather than their real name. I’ve known two men called Mouse and one called Groundhog. The first Mouse was a thin little man who claimed he’d been a bouncer at a local strip club. I didn’t see how, but didn’t question the story. Groundhog was a short, stocky man who did look just like a groundhog. Right now I know a Squirrel, a Bird and a Flea. Then there was Horse Man. He didn’t look like a horse but sounded like one. He’d get outside and let out a neigh and snort that you could hear from one end of the camp to the other. One of my friends is called Chicken Man, or just Chicken for short. He’s called that because he knows all there is to know about raising chickens, which he did on the outside. Then there’s Coal Bucket, who used to be a coal miner. We have a Batman, no idea why he’s called that, also a Spiderman, so called because the entire top of his shaved head is covered by a spider web tattoo, with a big spider in the middle on the crown of his head. I’ve also known a Sleet, and a Smoke, but have no idea how they came by those names, and a Moon. My best friend at Pocahontas was Buzz. He couldn’t remember how he got that name when I asked him, just that people in prison just started calling him that. He’s out now, released early this year. Probably the smartest person I’ve known, inside or out. He told me he’d never been inside a public school, completely home schooled, which says something about public education in western Virginia.

Some take their names from where they’re from, like Bama from Alabama, and some called me Roanoke, or just Noke, because that’s where I’m originally from. At Pocahontas someone started calling me The Notorious B – O – B, and it stuck. Pretty soon all most everyone called me that. After a while it got shortened to just B – O – B, and I was known by that name throughout the camp. I didn’t mind.

Some here call me Albert, after Einstein, because when I come out of the shower and towel dry my hair, it goes crazy like his until I comb it into submission. A few at Pocahontas called me Colonel, because since my hair turned white I look somewhat like the old Kentucky chicken plucker. Somewhere there’s a photo showing me standing by a life sized statue of Colonel Sanders in front of a Tokyo KFC, two peas in a pod. (When I worked in TV in the early 70s I met the real Colonel Sanders when he came to our station to shoot some local commercials. But my hair was still brown in those days, so we didn’t look so much alike.,)

Here at River North the younger guys have started calling me “Uncle Bob,” which is a sign of respect, and appreciated. I like it better than the other names I’ve been called.

There was a fellow at Pocahontas called Fishbone. I asked him why and he said it was what his sister called him as a kid. There are also those who take their names from cars. I’ve known a Cadillac and a Maserati. I assume those names are for vehicles they dream of owning. If I took my name from a vehicle, I’d be Land Rover! Always wanted one. In the 70s I owned a couple of Toyota FJ-40 Land Cruisers, but never a Rover.

I’ve had some strange/interesting cellmates in my ten plus years in prison. One was a Spanish-speaking Muslim from Guatemala named Vladimir! I’ve had several Islamic cellmates, one Rastafarian, and a smattering of other faiths. My current cellmate follows the Asatru religion, the old Norse faith.

Back to names; double names are also used. At Pocahontas I knew a man called Bam Bam, and later a Woo Woo and a Don Don. Of course, here in the South double names using the person’s first and middle names are common. The mechanic who used to work on my cars was Willy Wayne, and one of my cousins was Randy Ray. If my parents had followed that tradition, I’d have been called Bobby Ed! There was a songwriter some years back called Billy Ed Wheeler, perhaps best known for his song “The Interstate is comin’ through my outhouse.”

On another topic, I’m one of the few men here not heavily tattooed. Most are prison tattoos, frequently very amateurish in execution and always in black ink (made by burning plastic articles and collecting the carbon black). A few have professional multicolored tattoos done prior to prison, some quite striking. Back before my legal troubles I was going to work on a project to photograph tattooed women. A very fine tattoo artist was going to arrange for the women he’d worked on to come in for shoots. The project never happened because of my arrest. This whole ridiculous legal mess brought many proposed projects to a halt. Maybe one day I will be able to pick up where I left off. I’ve still got lots of picture ideas, and more come to me all the time. It’s very frustrating to be stuck here without access to my photography.

I write these posts on a little mini-tablet sold to us by JPay. It has a 3 1/4 inch screen, so the keyboard is tiny, which accounts for the typos that sometimes appear in my posts. Also, this email app tries to think for me. Whenever I try to write my website URL it changes bobshell to bombshell if I don’t go back and override it. Oh, to have a real computer!!

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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models.  He is serving the 13th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read Bob Shell’s, first essay on civil war, click here: https://tonyward.com/bob-shell-the-60s/

Editor’s Note: If you like Bob Shell’s blog posts, you’re sure to like his new book, COSMIC DANCE by Bob Shell (ISBN: 9781799224747, $ 12.95 book, $ 5.99 eBook) available now on Amazon.com . The book, his 26th, is a collection of essays written over the last twelve years in prison, none published anywhere before. It is subtitled, “A biologist’s reflections on space, time, reality, evolution, and the nature of consciousness,” which describes it pretty well. You can read a sample section and reviews on Amazon.com.

Katie Kerl: Thriving Through Anarchy

Artwork by Blur, Copyright 2020
 

Text by Katie Kerl, Copyright 2020

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Thriving Through Anarchy

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October 1st, 2020. I have been in Corona Virus lockdown since March 16th. Although, our government only shut down selected states as a deadly airborne virus plagued our nation. To this day with nothing changed only isolation ended, we are willingly or forcibly being exposed. Crippling small business and giving me a level of stress, I did not know existed. Currently Philadelphia has the tightest restriction in this pandemic. I have not seen the inside of my place since the end of August. This is the 199th day for me. Trump putting all the responsibility onto states that they were not equipped to handle world outbreak, was the move of a coward afraid to make decisions. In turn leaving him to say what a disgrace the way every state is handling it. He would rather murder people, sit back, and point fingers when it goes to shit. Rather than do his job as an AMERICAN PRESIDENT.

If that is not the current theme in the United States today, I am not sure what is. There is no empathy, guidance, relief, or form of substance deeper than bailing out large corporations so they can re-invest in the market to make it seem like our economy is recovering. Many of these large companies contributing to the decline of mental health in adults, but also in children. There are no regulations on fake news across social media platforms. So that click you just made is going to algorithm you into more and more misinformation. I will get to all of this in a later post. I have decided to break this up into pieces being there is so many working/devastating parts to all of this.

I am collecting unemployment for the first time in my adult life. Let me tell you what shitty feeling that is when you were gainfully employed, and happy right when this happened. I have been writing this whole time. I never know where to stop because the severity of this situation keeps getting worse, and this has changed our lives forever. I have about forty thousand words written though the process. For those that are new to reading my lifestyle pieces, thank you for taking the time to HEAR me.

Having a VOICE right now is especially important for a woman. Everyone that is having a hard time right now I hope you find what gives you clarity and new purpose. I have been personally attacked in public for wearing my masks to shield germs from not only me, but my immune compromised parents. We stopped believing in SCIENCE in the United States which totally baffles my mind. The Chinese cover their faces when sick for as long as I can remember. They do not do that for no reason folks.

I have had more middle aged racist white men try to tear me down because my words do carry to people. I do not say things without looking them up, speak straight with conviction, and know the level of integrity you display during this time. I most certainly am not letting any middle school dropout racist try to tear me down for being a woman in 2020!!!

How the hell did we end up here?

On this day in 2017, I wrote my first article with some revealing photos Tony had taken.

I said it last year and I will say it again.

Whoever told you taking your clothes off got you nowhere LIED to YOU.

That sparked a slew of other published pieces. My advice? Use what you were blessed with to get where you want to be. Hard work and studying also pay off, but have you ever met someone interesting that led a traditional life? I personally have not. Complacency is suicide, and we are currently watching that play out here as everyone is sitting around waiting for things to change. We collectively as a population put forth the effort to get results needed to live freely again. The gas was already poured here Trump just lit the match and danced around the blaze as we continue to burn. Until you start looking at yourself and how you can make a difference. We are still totally fucked. You can mandate anything as president, compliance is the issue here. Which he nor most of the general public seem to grasp.

What means the most to me in all of that; I can promote speaking up and fighting for the SEVEN MONTHS we have lost of our LIVES.

Let me tell you how many people think I am dumb until they start speaking to me. They will either immediately engage or be so put off by my sense of self; they try to silence my views.

The age old saying, “If you are the smartest in the room, you’re in the wrong room,” has never been truer as we are fighting for our lives. Do you really want to associate with people who do not help you progress in life and believe in you?

Is that vein to say? Absolutely, but it is one hundred percent true. Pretty, smart, and finds ways when there are none. Be an unstoppable force people will have to reckon with if they cross you. Let me be clear when I say reckon with, I do not mean in a scare tactic, or fear. I mean educating the ignorant there is a difference. Reconditioning is exactly what our nation needs now in recovery. Recovery from isolation, PTSD, lost homes, jobs, businesses, and 200,000 lost lives. To the people who lost loved ones, and did not get to say goodbye, I am so sorry. I experienced that myself in this as a dear family friend passed away.

Letting people know it is ok to feel however you do about this situation is the goal. No matter the route you choose dig yourself out of this black Trump hole; it is going to require 130% of your effort. Reason being? He gave up on his own country and led us here scrambling fighting for our lives.

Believe me, I have worked harder in isolation than I have in my life. We are in devastating times. You are not alone. If anyone wants to talk or share your experiences with me, please direct message my Instagram or E-mail provided below.

I am going to begin back peddling a bit. My last Piece was on my father’s recent cancer diagnosis. It took me seven months to be able to sit at my laptop and write something meaningful. I had the words, but my own brain fog was just too heavy. We were shut down March 16th. His biopsy was the next morning. Which I was terrified of him being in the hospital in a new global outbreak. The biopsy tests were so delayed. It took about 8 weeks to finally get him into treatment with stage 4 throat cancer. Throat cancer is also one of the most progressive cancers and his tumor was already huge. The doctors were not overly optimistic.

We were looking at possible voice box removal if they could shrink the tumor enough to proceed safely. Even then they guaranteed us nothing. I was convinced I was losing my dad in a global pandemic. Even with best insurance you are still just a number on a paper. Your cancer patient CAN NOT do this alone. They need advocates for their care, and someone in the home who can make sure they are getting the medicine, nutrition, and support they need. 

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David Kerl receiving cancer treatment at home

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I was in no way ready to face this I had just filed for unemployment and had my job halted, but you HAVE TO take care of the people that have given you everything. After the biopsy came teeth removal, hospital stay for a chemo port, two hospital stays for complications, then chemo and radiation. I have never been more scared in my entire life of losing my best friend. No heart break, or someone’s dusty son can compare to this trust me.

My heart is now unbreakable.

Speaking of crusty sons, when your ex pops up and tells you he still loves you in an outbreak. He is lying, he just does not want to be alone. If a grown man cannot tell you why they love you RUN. That was enough for me. Everything I fought so hard for in that time in my life was true. He made the giant mistake. While that man is in the same place as he was a year ago. Letting people walk all over him.

Katie Kerl died and resurrected a whole new human. This is the time to change your life. What your body goes through doing these poison cancer treatments is one of the most heartbreaking to watch.

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Liquid nutrition during cancer treatment

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My fathers throat was so burnt from radiation he could not eat, or drink water for three months. They inserted a feeding tube, and we used formula boxes so he would get the nutrition to fight. Now if only Emily from the home care company did her job right, and sent us the supplies we requested from three different doctors, nurses, and receptionists we wouldn’t have had such a hard time with the food. I am not going to make light of cancer and what it does to people, or the lack or competency in some of the employees I have had to deal with.

There was a good month or more where I would get up at 2 am & 6 am to make sure he got meds in time to not get sick, and even down to sleeping on the floor of his room. When you cannot communicate verbally you need someone near you. Now, when I was a kid my dad used to lay on the floor at the foot of my bed when I could not sleep. That is exactly what I did for him in return. Being scared when you are sick and not knowing what the outcome will be while you are fighting for your life is so overwhelming. People that told me I was doing too much I have something to say to you.

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Prescriptions to treat cancer

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YOU ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH

Being sleepless is nothing to me, having gone through all kinds of trauma that I guess in turn prepared me for this. Did I have a ton of meltdowns?  Absolutely, and I am sure there will be more. Imagine going to pick up meds at the drug store and having the pharmacist give you a hard time for trying to pick up the lifesaving drugs to keep my dad out of pain and not to vomit. It is infuriating certain aspects of medical care is so disorganized and not patient first. They are $ MONEY $ first.

We are also lucky enough to have Dr. Nick & Dr. Rubin of Rittenhouse Oncology attacking this in a way I was not sure of at first. As time went on, I could not do it alone anymore. My mom was being heavily affected by the virus as well. She could not work being immune compromised either. So, we moved her in so we both could help my dad. For the first time since I was twelve years old, we are under the same roof. I’m not going to say that transition was an easy one, but we have found a way to make it work and save a life. 

That is right!!

SAVED A LIFE, and have a whole new skill set as a caretaker. Yesterday the doctors said my dad would be on his last chemo treatment, and then it is just maintenance after the feeding tube is taken out.

THE CANCER IS GONE

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David Kerl on the mend at home

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I am not so sure if you know the statistics on stage 4 throat cancer survival; let me tell you it was grim at best. My father’s brother died from it. The day they said the tumor was GONE it took a few days for all of us to really comprehend that all our hard work was not for nothing. No surgery and he will get to keep his voice box. If you know my dad, the Kerl gift of gab is not something we can have taken away from us and expected to carry on with life. His voice is slowly coming back, and he is gaining weight weekly. If I can protect him from infection, and the ignorant people who refuse to wear a mask in COVID I will do what I need to so to keep my family SAFE.

Having the largest overflowing plate of life issues was not something I could ignore either. On about my 50th meltdown at five in the morning, I was watching the news and saw all the biotech stocks for the COVID vaccines starting to be publicized. I helped my dad then I opened the Robinhood app that I had downloaded to give a friend credits who invested a stock years ago.

Never having gone back to it, I did that day.

Each morning I get up read all the business news, The Journal, NY times, Stocktwits, Market Watch, Barron’s, and Zacks. I research companies before I buy them and look at their earnings. I picked a few and dove in. That month was a catalyst to me realizing that; I in fact can make the most out of every bad situation. My biggest fear was to lose him in this. That everything I worked for personally would be gone. I started out with about $750 and turned it into about $6k now. That is even taking a loss, I am not lighting the world on fire, but for just starting out people were asking me what I was buying in the financial field. Which again I find amazing.

I thought about giving it up at one point after things tanked to be safe, but that is also the name of the game. I just recovered that money this week in September IPO’s. I was also in for the Apple split and got to see how that works in the stock market. I have to say; I get why people think it is exciting. You get the firsthand knowledge before it hits the censored news, and the money for just reading and being intuitive. Id say that is pretty rewarding being I am still at home, not seeing my friends, family, and waiting to hear about work. Play their game and stop buying useless shit with your unemployment!

Also, the Kodak insider trading incident. The Trump Administration set up the loan to have them use their chemicals to make generic drugs after cutting ties with china. Now, I know some republicans in higher places that were privy to that info and profited in the millions the day before it was released. Damaging a family film company is disgusting.

Now what to invest in?  COVID vaccines are in human trials which I find very risky phase one and two were much more profitable for me. I also do not want to invest in human trials that could potentially make someone sick. Volunteered or not, these are rushed vaccines going against science. There will be consequences to that. Other sectors that I believe in now are the antibody tests, plasma companies, home learning tools, cloud computing, 5g, green technology, & alternative energies.

Overall, I get to see where the 2% are dumping their money in a volatile market. You can watch the fake news all you want. If you want real information, follow the money and play their own game.

I just remember crying in the middle of the night in my kitchen talking to every dead family member, and god to give me some sort of direction in this because I felt like I was literally losing my mind and my dad. If by accident,  or a prayer was answered I have new life meaning, my father gets to recover, and live the rest of his days however he wants to.

That was my mission in COVID. Your parents protect you and watch you grow into an adult they can respect. Respect does not come with a dollar sign. It comes with character, effort, and respect.

The next few pieces I will be touching on wellness in COVID , Trauma Survivors Hospital Hero’s Drive, Philadelphia Riots, beauty recommendations with mask irritation,  home renovations, reopening of Philadelphia, and real citizens experiences.

Including a second piece on Derek Bailey as he gets ready to open his Derek Automotive Lifestyle dealership in Florida. Look out for that soon.

Thank you everyone that called and prayed for my family. I now get to spend time with both of my parents in the same house and make new memories.

For that I am forever grateful and can guarantee am going to make the most of this time.

I hope everyone stays safe and healthy!!

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Katie and David Kerl

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Katie Kerl was raised in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. She is currently living  in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia. Katie has a background in Psychology from Drexel University. She is a manager in the commercial/residential design field . Katie can be reached  on Instagram @kerlupwithkate 

For collaboration e-mail: Kate.kerl32@gmail.com

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To access additional article by Katie Kerl, click herehttps://tonywardstudio.com/blog/odds/

 

Bob Shell: Jargon Overload

Artwork: Milt Ward. The Alphabet Series, Copyright 2020
 

Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2020

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Jargon Overload

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George Orwell wrote, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”

To which I’ll add my own statement. ‘Nowhere in the US Constitution is there a right to not be offended.’

One of my favorite magazines is Poets & Writers, a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to be a wordsmith.

But the September/October issue made me feel let down. I read an essay titled ‘Return to the MFA’ by Namrata Poddor, MFA being, of course, the Master of Fine Arts degree that many consider essential for a successful writing career (I don’t believe that and don’t have one, but that’s another story).

As I was reading this otherwise thoughtful essay, I tripped over a linguistic hurdle. I consider myself pretty up to date on jargon, but it threw me when she talked of ‘LGBTQIA+,’ which I’d never heard of.

Back when I was first studying to be a writer, I was taught that the first time you introduce a term that might be unfamiliar to your readers, define it. I always tried to do that in my writing whenever I used technical terms, and I know my readers appreciated it.

I knew, of course, what ‘LGBTQ+’ stood for, but ‘IA’? I had no clue, so I asked a good friend on the outside who puts up with my questions. She didn’t know either, so she researched it for me. Turns out the ‘I’ stands for ‘intersex,’ for which she could find no definition. I have no clue, still, what that’s supposed to be.

The ‘A’ stands for ‘asexual,’ persons with no interest in sex. Personally, I doubt such creatures exist. For hundreds of years we were told that Catholic clergy were asexual, but we saw how that turned out!

Besides, wasn’t the ‘+’ in LGBTQ+ supposed to make it all-inclusive? Keep adding letters and symbols and pretty soon it will take a whole paragraph just for the abbreviation!

Further along, Ms Poddor says that ‘BIPOC’ is an “important revision’ of POC. Huh? Bisexual? I was lost in undefined jargon land again.

Turns out this means ‘Black Indigenous People of Color.’. Does POC not already include Black? I thought POC was just an updated version of ‘CP,’ as in NAACP. This latest revision does not strike me as ‘important.’ It strikes me as profoundly silly. Would my Cherokee ancestors want to be called BIPOC? I’m sure they would not.

Later, reading my latest issue of THE WEEK, my favorite news magazine, I came across a story reporting that ‘Generation X,’ those twenty to thirty year olds, feel that putting periods at the ends of sentences is “hostile.” I’m not joking, the article really says that!

One of the problems for those who venture to translate ancient languages is that they hadn’t invented punctuation yet. Readers just had to intuit where one sentence ended and the next one began. Punctuation was a major step forward in human communications. Do we really want to go back to the way things were before its invention?

The purpose of language is communication, the transfer of complex ideas from one mind to another. On this planet, only humans do it at the level we’ve achieved. Without language, we’d still be at the level of apes living in trees.

Until recently, the only thing BLM meant to me was Bureau of Land Management, that overblown federal agency that controls most of the empty land in the American Southwest, whose pistol-packing agents used to regularly hassle me when I was doing photography on ‘their’ land, even though I wasn’t breaking any laws or rules, and the land belongs to all Americans. (One officious idiot even argued that the ‘no shooting’ rule on sections of BLM land included ‘shooting’ photographs!)

So now it’s ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Well, of course Black lives matter! So do lives of every other color. ALL lives matter, and I’d venture to amend that to ‘ALL LIVES MATTER EQUALLY.’ Isn’t equality what everyone professes to want? Yet, I’ve read that wearing ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’ is racist. Huh? That’s racist how?

Like almost all Americans, I’m a ‘purebred mongrel,’ a mix of multiple lineages. The ancestry I know about includes Irish, Scot, German, and Cherokee, but I’m sure there are others. Should I have T-shirts printed saying ‘MONGREL LIVES MATTER?’ Maybe we should all just, regardless of ethnicity, wear T-shirts reading ‘MY LIFE MATTERS.’

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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models.  He is serving the 13th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read Bob Shell’s, first essay on civil war, click here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/culture-war/

Editor’s Note: If you like Bob Shell’s blog posts, you’re sure to like his new book, COSMIC DANCE by Bob Shell (ISBN: 9781799224747, $ 12.95 book, $ 5.99 eBook) available now on Amazon.com . The book, his 26th, is a collection of essays written over the last twelve years in prison, none published anywhere before. It is subtitled, “A biologist’s reflections on space, time, reality, evolution, and the nature of consciousness,” which describes it pretty well. You can read a sample section and reviews on Amazon.com.