Dear Bloomsbury Academic:
I have three things to say to you:
1. You haven’t paid me in about two years for my book Blake and Kierkegaard: Creation and Anxiety (2010). It has sold about 300-400 copies during that period (I know, I’ve been checking Worldcat — it’s in 777 libraries as of today and was in about 300 in 2013), and my contract stipulates annual payments. These payments, such as they are (enough to buy a tank of gas and take my wife out on a date), have been coming around June. The book has obviously done well, as Continuum released it in paperback in 2011.
2. You haven’t responded to any of my emails over the last year. That’s what really annoys me.
3. So, you are in breach of contract.
I am letting all of my academic friends know and warning them away from...
Lifestyle
Dear Doctors:
I am a female. I have an illness. Because of many of your biases towards young women, women in general, and POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) sufferers, my illness was blamed on anxiety for many years. This not only happens with my particular illness, but with many lesser known and rare illnesses. I am not only speaking to you male doctors who are guilty of this, but the female doctors as well - who have been just as condescending and dismissive as their male counterparts.
My illness is categorized as a dysautonomia. My form of dysautonomia includes POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), and a few others that I am now finally being tested and treated for. It has been an almost decade long journey, and because of this "anxiety bias", I am...
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Dear Everyone Who Knows Me,
I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot at some stage, if I came across as rude or unsociable. I'm not actually like that, its just I often feel quite anxious and panicky in social situations out of my comfort zone.
When I feel like this, its quite overwhelming and I have to fight hard to stop it taking control of me. Its not that I don't want to talk to you or I don't have anything interesting to say, its just that I'm putting all my energy into staying in the room and its the most I can really manage.
And you know, its not that I don't want to eat your food or have a cup of tea, I can see that you went to a lot of trouble and I appreciate it. Its just that I feel so sick, my heart is racing, my mouth is dry and the idea of eating is completely...
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Dear you,
I deal with anxiety every single day. It follows me around like a shadow everywhere I go. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t deal with this problem and how some days is a complete uphill battle. But I want to be fair to you and I owe an explanation to everyone my anxiety affects. Some days it literally feels like I am drowning and everything is a fight. I am sorry because sometimes I ignore your texts or messages because finding the right words in certain situations is not something I can always find and then I panic not knowing what to do. I am sorry sometimes I bail last minute from plans. I sat too long thinking and re-thinking of everything that could go wrong. I am sorry that sometimes I seem really, really busy. I probably have nothing to do that day but I just...
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I was in seventh grade when I almost drowned in Florida. I’ll never forget the feeling of being stuck under water, seeing the sunlight above me, but not being able to reach the surface to get air. My world was caving in around me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I eventually broke the surface, as I gasped for all the air that my lungs could contain. This is a feeling I will never, ever forget. Mainly, because I still experience that exact feeling every single day of my life. However, I am not in a pool. I am not under water. I am constantly drowning in my own life. I get this feeling every single day; and this is the best way I can describe my anxiety to someone else.
I have always suffered from anxious feelings. However, it wasn’t until this summer where I felt...
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Dearest Anti-Feminists,
I’d like to directly start by asking why you’ve chosen to identify as an “anti-feminist.” Surely, you didn’t just wake up one day and decide you were against feminists and feminism, so what led to this? Was it because of the way it is perceived as just trying to get women “on top”? Feminism is equality of genders, and right now that means making others aware of women’s issues, unjust inferiority, and how powerful they are. I don’t understand why you’re not okay with changing things from the way they’ve always been if it’s not all okay. Currently, women are only 18.5% of Congress, yet every law applies to them too, so why is there such an unequalized balance? Women make up less than a quarter of the people working in STEAM careers, but they are just as capable...
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In the old days, she would be propped up on a comfy pillow, in fresh cleaned sheets under the corner window where she would in days gone past watch her children play. Soup would boil on the stove just in case she felt like a sip or two. Perhaps the radio softly played Al Jolson or Glenn Miller, flowers sat on the nightstand, and family quietly came and went. These were her last days. Spent with familiar sounds, in a familiar room, with familiar smells that gave her a final chance to summon memories that will help carry her away. She might have offered a hint of a smile or a soft squeeze of the hand but it was all right if she didn’t. She lost her own words to tell us that it’s OK to just let her die, but she trusted us to be her voice and we took that trust to heart.
You see, that’s...
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Dear Joe:
Our library finally got a copy of your book [Transformed by Truth] in so I started reading it the other day and surprisingly, I found it a pretty easy read and was able to finish it in one day. Although I am one of the "40,000 people" who "sit at home, confused, frustrated, and not knowing what to do or what to believe", I do feel the need to comment on some of it, since you seemed to have left out some pretty important points.
I must say that I enjoyed the story about your first meeting with James Kennedy.1 It brought to mind flashbacks of Basil Wolverton's drawings for the Bible Story Book Series2, where I could see this stern judge sitting at his desk with robe and gavel, and then in the next picture he is looking surprised, and then jumping out of his chair and...
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Dear PhD Prospective (with kids or thinking about kids),
Thanks for contacting me. It sounds like you missed Steve Saideman’s sage advice and are actually going to be trying to get a PhD in political science. Many top people in the discipline will keep working to discourage you from attending – with your best interest at heart – but it sounds like you aren’t going to take their advice to avoid a PhD altogether.[1] So, welcome aboard! It’s a fun profession and you’re just at the starting line.
It also appears that you are either (a) a parent already or (b) thinking about becoming a parent sometime during your PhD. This isn’t surprising – a typical PhD path overlaps with a good chunk of a person’s child-bearing years. There has already been a lot written on how difficult it is...
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Hello there,
Thought I would use my own forum to address the group, which I excused myself from this afternoon after some members became embroiled over the fact that I did not serve in the navy during the 1960s (I wasn't even alive) and that I had no right to dispute information one member was stating as a fact. This, only because he was in the navy in the 1960s and served under one command that looked into the Evans collision. I then saw another member say that I was promoting a book I wrote using information obtained on Google. Incorrect my friend.
At issue is whether the 74 men killed on the USS Frank E. Evans belong on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. One gentleman said they don't belong there and gave a reason why, a reason based on his own assignment in 1969--without any...
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