Sandwich Smash

Author Aminka Ozmun is passionate about BWAM romance novels — and for that reason, she is determined to make them different.  ”They have to be different,” she says, “or else it wouldn’t make any sense.  I don’t think readers want a typical romance, only with slightly ethnic characters.  By the same token, these are romances, not sociological studies or political tracts.  So they ‘re going to be a different kind of romance than anything the industry has ever seen — and that’s a good thing for black women interested in relationships Asian men.”

I began to think about writing my own romance novels in response to the lack of BWAM representation in this business.  Granted, black folk constitute a minority of the general population in the United States and there are even fewer Americans that are of Asian heritage, but the near absolute dearth of romantic fiction involving BWAM couples literally forced my hand!  In a situation recalling the old advice “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” I decided that if I couldn’t find any such stories I’d write my own to share with others like myself.

Happily, some titles dealing with BWAM protagonists do exist in the category of what’s usually called literary fiction in the trade but these aren’t generally romance novels per se.  But as I started writing I came upon a challenge that may have bedeviled others before me: romantic relationships between black women and Asian men are, it seems, necessarily special — and thus subject to different reader expectations, which means a different treatment.  You see, I couldn’t just write the typical “boddice-ripper” because of the reality of race relations in this country, past and present, even if the genre is all about fantasy.

So it’s a delicate performance a BWAM storyteller must put in, to entertain while also exploring new territory.  And because it’s new territory, a BWAM romance is going to be, by definition, something different.  All the hot and heavy sensuality, if not outright sex, is still going to be there, but the backdrop can’t be simply taken for granted.  The interracial angle has to play a part.  But what, exactly?

That’s the challenge.  And with a handful of titles under my belt now, I can say that the solution for me is to trust each and every story, and its characters, to take things where they may, to let matters develop “organically.”  This isn’t something that can be outlined, exactly.  Such issues require sensitivity above all: an ear for what works, for what is seemly.  I have not received any negative reader feedback so far about possibly overplaying the “race card,” and that is encouraging.

It’s tough to be different.  It’s a lot of work.  But I feel like this is also a lot of fun, exploring what it means — if anything! — to be a BWAM couple, even in the fantasy world of romantic novels.  And my feminine intuition tells me that the black women who are interested in Asian men are different themselves, and would not want to read regurgitated woman-meets-man stories dressed up in yellow and blackface!

It’s 2012.  Even if the world doesn’t end this year, are SEO copywriting services still necessary for your website to rank highly?  This may seem like a nonsensical question but given how tight money continues to be due to the economy, it makes sense to go over every line item of your balance sheet and scrutinize the hell out of every expense listed!

But you probably know all that.  As a businessman or woman, your first instinct is to cut, cut, cut — and like most businesspeople, advertising and marketing will present the most obvious first choice.  So is all that professional SEO copywriting truly needed, or can you just hire some “keyboard monkey” to “spin” private-label articles ad infinitum using software algorithms?  (Is that, in fact, what you have been doing all along, even??)

Well, let me argue against that keyboard-monkey spinning method of online promotions.  Being in business myself — full disclosure: I run the website the hyperlinks in this article refer to, where expert copywriting services from someone actually in the industry are offered — I know how tempting it is to focus on sales and, even, customer service before spending a dime on marketing and promotion.  But if you’re first and foremost an online business, you absolutely need SEO copywriting no matter what — it’s the lifeblood of e-commerce today, for there is almost no other way for customers to find you.  Unlike a traditional brick-and-mortar storefront offline, people won’t simply happen to notice your store on their way to work or school.  On the worldwide web, it’s all about the search engines!  And search engines are about text.  Relevant copy.  SEO-written by an industry professional.

Not keyboard monkeys, some student making bong-party money by regurgitating stuff already online, only spinning it every which way so it appears “unique” to the search engines — which, being but software running on the same algorithms, are easily fooled.  But is that truly how you want to represent your business?  Let’s take this article for an example.  As mentioned, the hyperlinks here refer to my own professional copywriting services business.  Now I could have grabbed some text off the web, too, and feed it through spinner software that will produce very vaguely English sentences and paragraphs that, while nonsensical, look good enough to a search engine’s website indexing software.  It would have saved me a lot of time writing this article.  But would it have helped you in learning about how important proper marketing is?

If you use doctored copy like that, just imagine the negative impression of your business that’s created when an actual person happens upon such a piece of non-writing!  What would you have thought about my business had this article been similar gobbledygook?

That’s why I took the time to write, and that’s why you should avail yourself of copywriting services like what I provide.  First impressions are lasting impressions – don’t ruin your chance at increased sales and profits by using anyone other than a real copywriter!  In my case, I’m a professional with years and years of experience working on behalf of companies that run the gamut from small neighborhood mom-and-pop operations to international concerns with half a billion dollars in annual revenue.  And with this economy being what it continues to be, my prices are incredibly low.  Hire me and you’ll get Madison Avenue quality at Main Street prices!  But whatever you do, do it with a professional — for the sake of your business, for the sake of your success.  Don’t skimp on “the message.”  Tell the world about your business the right way!

I’ve been fascinated by first aid kits ever since a kid.  They seem to hold some kind of importance beyond the simple fact that they heal simple wounds.  And it’s not just that they look so official, either, what with their big red crosses; the very volume of items contained seem to appeal to a kid’s imagination, a kid’s sense of discovery.  They are fascinating for the same reason Batman’s utility belt is so, with a solution for every crisis handy.

Go ahead and show a kid a first aid kit for the very first time and gauge his or her reactions.  It’s always one of intense interest if for the very first time.  Of course, children are easily fascinated by just about anything new, but the point is that these kits are even more readily appealing by virtue of their very nature, how they seem so neat and tidy despite the plethora of exotica within.  It’s almost like an echo of peek-a-boo, where so much can be hidden, how so much can be tucked away and made one.

And then there is the power to heal that each of these items are said to possess.  But where is the first aid for the less pleasant memories of childhood?  The wounds of childhood may be assumed merely physical, but in fact they run deep inside, whereas adults, for all their psycho-babbling books and advice columns, occasion only physical wounds once mature — experience has basically inured them to emotional turmoil within; experience, and a more fully formed capacity for logic.

Not so with the child, whose world is almost purely one of passion, not only founded up sentiment but just about entirely composed of it.  Hence the need for a kit of emergency aid for the emotional wounds of children, which can fester and leave scars the same as any other.  But the world does not consider the needs of children, much as it professes to by way of mere lip service.  It is why education is not simply underfunded but taken for granted in the worst way possible — that education is merely indoctrination, a matter of passing on facts, relevant to making a living, as an emotionally scarred adult.

Nothing is more indicative of a person than his or her tastes. Agreed? The person who will absolutely never eat vegetables. The one who will absolute not eat anything else than what he or she knows from home. The person who keeps strictly kosher, as compared to the one who only observes the major aspects of kashrut.

Consider, then, not an individual person but a whole people. Consider, indeed, whole peoples, plural, whole cultures as compared against one another. The Chinese are infamous for eating just about anything that can be eaten. (Amongst themselves they say of Southerners that they eat everything with four legs except tables and chairs!) And indeed cannibalism has even been officially sanctioned, such as when State of Qin ruler Fu Deng ordered his troops to feed upon their slaughtered enemies due to the surrounding region undergoing famine and drought – at the time, armies routinely lived off the countryside.

So a resourceful people, then, a hardy people who will shirk from no misery, one which misfortune cannot keep from the will to live, by any means necessary. Is it any surprise that such a civilization should have produced one of the greatest cuisines in the world, widely recognized for both ingenuity and variety of taste?

On the other hand, Europeans have traditionally been more adept at creating new varieties of alcoholic beverages than food. What to deduce of such a culture, one that is not only given over to routine intoxication but which even celebrates it – often, even daily?

Idle sophistry and speculation, yes, but the sort of conversation that comes from having wine racks. For in enjoying a drink one comes upon the most marvelous fancies and trains of thought! And the more outrageous the wine racks the better; imaginative designs stir the imagination all the more. No one thinks of wine racks as conversational pieces, as conversation-starters, but with enough wine and a creative enough design there is no telling where good friends may wind up!

It’s amazing. Turns out that the most wanted man of the decade wasn’t living in some cave or camping tent at all. Osama bin Laden was living in relative comfort almost right next to the Pakistani equivalent of our West Point! In a compound in Abottabad, a garrison town that also happens to house many military retirees, the Al Qaeda chief spent the past five years hiding out and still directing his network as much as possible.

Probably would have been better living in a camping tent after all, no! Now here’s a thought-experiment of sorts – nothing to do with quantum physics, but interesting speculation all the same – what would you have done if you had to escape the tentacles of the multi-billion-dollar United States National Security apparatus, a collection of agencies all devoted to your capture?

In some ways it would have made sense to live out of a camping tent, to stay on the move, and to travel light. But in many other ways, such a decision would have been foolhardy indeed, for the more you move the more people you’ll have to come into contact with, and even if it’s just your entourage that does all “socializing” you’d inevitably wind up creating a decent enough trail for the bloodhounds.

No, as every outlaw knows, it’s best to disappear completely – and what better way to do that than hiding where your trackers would least expect it! Such was the case with Bin Laden’s decision to settle in Abottabad, less than an hour’s drive outside the capital city of Islamabad. Talk about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer! For it’s almost certain that while Bin Laden had some friends in the Pakistani security services it’s also most certain that as organizations they are interested in his capture. And so, to the last, the Al Qaeda leader continues to surprise.

Editor’s Note: The following article was originally written by ProCopywriterOnline.com and is now brought to you as an example of its affordable article marketing and all-round SEO copywriting services.  Contact ProCopywriterOnline.com for a 10% discount on your first order with the coupon code “SANDWICH” today!

The Burmese democracy activist Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was recently released from seven years of [house arrest], her latest stint in a career that has seen her spend fifteen of the past twenty-one years in such detention. She is now sixty-five years old but perhaps no less a thorn in the side of the military dictatorship that still runs the country, seeing how two previous periods of prolonged confinement did not dampen her democratic ardor.

Of additional interest to some, however, may be the fact that what is regarded by the West as one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes has only chosen [home incarceration] for her as a punishment, despite the fact that no one is more outspoken than Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and no one more popular at home or more respected abroad. Of course, even generals who rule by force must accommodate popular sentiment and international opinion at times, and it may be that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is something of a bargaining chip for the military junta in addition to being a political prisoner. But authoritarianism may not be what it once was if the preferred choice of punishment is [house arrest] over anything much harsher.

Indeed, the practice was first dreamed up by the democracies around a hundred years ago as a more humane way of sanctioning individuals whose behavior warranted some action by the state but did not arise to the level of criminality per se. Home confinement was also used out of leniency, from a consideration of the convicted person’s age or health, for example. But it did not become widespread until the availability of relatively inexpensive technology made it much more cost-effective, for the expense of posting guards around the clock to enforce any confinement was almost always prohibitive.

DC electric motor repair typically involves big engines (another word for motors) such as those found on ships or industrial equipment. But the fact is that even our homes abound with eletric motors, whether running on AC (alternating current) or DC (direct current) power. Yet when things break around the house or apartment we don’t normally call in for anything like DC electric motor repair! However, the most basic concepts involved are not hard to follow, and understanding how these engines work will teach you a lot about electromagnetism in general, a still-mysterious subject despite human civilization’s near mastery of it these past one hundred years.

The main idea has been understood since the late nineteenth century but even now in the twenty-first we are still finding new ways to exploit such knowledge. Electric motors depend on the fact that magnetic opposites attract while magnetic likes repel. These forces of attraction and repulsion generate the rotational motion that makes motors useful. Exploiting such facts of physics is how things are made to turn, from the propellars of an airplane to the tiniest dime-sized toy!

Indeed, as noted at the outset, motors are everywhere. Basically, if it moves, there’s an electric motor in there!

Of course, when it comes to repairing these motors, it’s usually only the big-boy stuff that people bother with, things that output several thousands of horsepower in force. Servicing these machines requires more than just a layman’s understanding of basic electrical concepts! Old motor windings need to be stripped in a temperature controlled burnout oven. Shafts, bearing journals, end bells, and other parts need to be carefully disassembled for detailed inspections to identify damage. Oftentimes, these motors are rebuilt using quality wire, insulation, and varnish to withstand the most demanding of industrial environments.

That’s real DC electric motor repair there: expert and professional and fully guaranteed.

The law’s changed, hasn’t it?  A couple of years or so ago, some effort was finally made to address all those nagging and oftentimes downright dirty nasty phone calls from folks looking for your money (or, as they put it, their money!).  That should mean that it should be easier than ever before to put an end to such evil (okay, inconveniences, usually), right?

Unfortunately, you may still need a lawyer to fully stop debt harassment phone calls — fight fire with fight, use a thief to catch a thief….

That’s because many collection agencies are counting on your ignorance of the law, your lack of resources to adequately pursue the matter on your own, and, what’s more, your own fear of their lawyers!

Finding a reliable e-commerce solution is the first task for anyone looking to make money on the web today.  That’s why it pays to read your WordPress shopping cart reviews carefully — and frequently! — if you’ve decided to use America’s favorite website builder for your online business.  Almost a quarter of all new domains registered in the United States this year have the popular blogging platform installed, and not all of them are simply personal hobby sites, either!

For all that, however, it’s puzzling (and, for business-minded WordPress fans, extremely distressing) that there’s been a dearth of heavy-duty shopping cart systems for WordPress.  To be sure, a plethora of plugins exist that seek to address this matter, but none have proven to be industrial strength, if all the WordPress shopping cart reviews are to be believed.  Not that they are bad, necessarily; it’s just that none have been found by the mass of end-users clamoring for a viable solution to be that be-all/end-all solution.

In some cases, it’s theme integration and how well the software plays with a custom WordPress theme.  In other situations, it’s the taxes, the tax tables and how rates are calculated.  Still others will find fault with discount promotions such as coupons and codes.  Usually, it’s the shpping, regarded to be the single most difficult aspect of any shopping cart system, given the wide variety possibly needed.

If ease-of-placement is valued, then one of the best available is Cart66, a plugin which works in a very obvious intuitive way where design and layout is concerned.  Want an add-to-cart button just so, just there?  Simple: Just apply the shortcode right there, through your WordPress Page or Post’s WYSIWYG editor.  Many other plugins force a certain layout due to the way the programmers structured the shopping cart system (for example, buy-now buttons can only be in the lower right-hand corner, or product images can only be on the left-hand side of the page), but this one lets you put things exactly where you want them.

Thus theme integration is not a problem using this plugin, and for those with relatively simple stores such as a rock band offering digital downloads of their music it will more than satisfy the designers among them.  For most other businesses, it should suffice quite nicely, too.  But again, this is WordPress e-comm we’re talking about here, and there doesn’t yet seem to exist any one single solution by which a majority of users would swear their profits…yet!

It sounds mundane, but within the WordPress community it’s almost the height for excitement this year: The tension between Jigoshop and WooCommerce, two competing shopping cart solutions for the venerable platform that’s got people all fired up — and not just over the feature-set.

What happened was, Jigoshop and WooThemes (the famous custom theme maker behind WooCommerce) were both working on that holy grail of WordPress plugins, a robust eCommerce system comparable to industry standards like Zen Cart and Magento, when WooThemes decided to “fork” Jigoshop’s project.  That means WooThemes basically took Jigoshop’s creation and modified it, releasing it as their own creation.  Sounds bad?  Well, actually, such forking is entirely the whole point of being open source.

You see, WordPress has to be open source.  You can’t legally make software for WordPress without making the source code visible for one and all — both to see for inspiration and to use in any which way whatsoever.  The point of such an arrangement is to benefit the end-user, valuing user rights over that of the creators, in complete contradiction to the motivation behind copyright laws (hence the term “copyleft” in the open-source community).  Instead of trade secrets, best practices are freely aired for the greater good of all.  WordPress itself operates on such premises, which is why it’s so powerful, having attracted the volunteerism of many a talented programmer worldwide through the years, attracted by its open nature to improve not for the sake of money and market share but simply because.

You see, the more competition there is when it comes to ideas, the more people in general tend to benefit.  Thus, a great idea — a great way of achieving something in code — will proliferate, leading to better software standards.  And so WooThemes was able to take Jigoshop’s code and use it to craft their own vision of what a WordPress shopping cart ought to look like, how it ought to function.

But as that vision is quite similar to Jigoshop’s, there’s been a lot of soreness in the WordPress community.  In fact, WooThemes even managed to hire two leading developers of Jigshop away!

That’s why reviewing WordPress shopping cart solutions today is so interesting.  There’s a lot of foment in the community (a lot froth, too — often at the mouth!), and this is a good thing since great things are afoot at last where eCommerce is concerned.  WooCommerce and, by extension, Jigoshop, has the potential to be a real game-changer.  By all initial accounts the two plugins are quite robust, with the power to one day serve at an enterprise-level of online retailing.  Yet there is also the probability that forking will split the development community, resulting in duplicated effort and, even, abandonware in the end.

Right now everything’s too much in flux to discern where it’s all heading.  Suffice it to say, however, next year looks set up to be quite interesting!  For one thing, the entrance of WooCommerce/Jigoshop into the under-served WordPress eCommerce market is likely to cause a flurry of development among the established shopping cart providers, and the community is almost certain to see a lot of creativity and movement once more.

Many people aspire to a career in the law – and many finally got their wish, finding employment in some capacity in the law. That’s when the real world hits ’em, presenting a very different picture of the occupation than what they’d come to expect from their studies. In the real world, lawyers spend less time arguing over morality than determining legality. But since the laws are constantly being updated, legal professionals need online CPE courses to remain relevant. And so there will never be, as the old saying goes, rest for the guilty!

Indeed, on-going schoolin’ (the “CPE” in “online CPE courses” is an acronym that means “continuing professional education”) is necessary for the vast majority of professions that require state licensing. In addition to lawyers, doctors, and accountants, those who work with them may also be subject to some kind of on-going education, whether by the state or by professional associations that govern the field.

Such training, as the phrase “online CPE courses” means, is something pursued on one’s own time at one’s own pace. Specific cases vary, but generally there are not that many set rules beyond something like a generous two-year deadline for a courseload involving all of a handful of continuing education credits. Thus, a requirement may be for a professional to have earned three credits within two years, with those three credits being fulfilled by any number of course offerings. In the case of a lawyer, for example, he or she may elect to study tax law or housing law for two credits and one credit, respectively.

For those that aspire to the professions, continuing education will be just another fact of life, thanks to the ever increasing level of complexity that new developments bring to bear on the field. Luckily, an “antidote” is available in the form of easy and convenient low-cost online courses!

A lot of folks out there want to be attorneys – and many finally got their wish, finding employment in some capacity in the law. Many then find that there isn’t anything philosophically glamorous about legal affairs. No heady debates over ethics and philosophy; just a matter of using the right rules. But since the laws are constantly being updated, legal professionals need online CPE courses to keep up-to-date. This means, in effect, going to school for the rest of one’s life!

In fact, such continuing education (the “CPE” in “online CPE courses” is an acronym that means “continuing professional education”) is required for those who wish to stay in medicine, accounting, or the law. In addition to lawyers, doctors, accountants, even those who work with them may be subject to some kind of on-going education, whether by the state or by professional associations that govern the field.

Such education, as the label of “online CPE courses” would suggest, is mostly pursued through the worldwide web and is mostly self-paced. Other than completing a small amount of coursework within a large amount of time, it’s a veritable free-for-all. Generally one would have two to three years or so to earn around three credits towards maintaining one’s professional license to practice. In the case of a lawyer, for example, he or she may elect to study tax law or housing law for two credits and one credit, respectively.

For those that aspire to the professions, continuing education will be just another fact of life, thanks to the ever increasing level of complexity that new developments bring to bear on the field. Thankfully, it’s all available online now, making for unprecedented convenience!

It’s like something out of the latest spy thriller, but it’s entirely true: some technical thinggy called “laser vibration analysis” was used to help ascertain OBL’s 20!

“20″ is security-speak for “location” and “OBL” is none other than the Al Qaeda mastermind himself.  Laser vibration analysis, on the other hand, is a method used by industry to diagnose engines and other critical equipment.  Lasers are highly concentrated beams of light, and it’s now possible to deploy them such that they can measure the most minute of sound waves — that is, the slowest of frequencies.

Such is what happened at the infamous safehouse in Pakistan where the terror chief finally met his end at the hands of U.S. forces — thanks in no small part to vibrational analyeses performed with lasers.  By measuring the sound waves bouncing off the window panes at the compound and cross-referencing the resulting data with human observations of comings and goings there, it was determined that someone was hiding inside, someone who never stepped out, not in all the five years the location had been under surveillance…someone who really wanted to stay hidden!  And that could be no one else but the Most Wanted Man of the Decade….

Them Proflex back supports are great for more than just wearin’ at the ol’ warehouse, you know.  No one but no one can tell me that those rigs ain’t good for some heavy-duty weight-liftin’ too — at the gym, I mean!  After all, lifting’s lifting, ain’t it; same principles, same principles of physics involved, don’t you know.

Take it from me; it’s been a while since I stopped blowin’ out birthday candles ’cause there were so many and I was so short of breath, but suffice it to say I know whereof I speak I do, and I tell you that you get a Proflex belt and webbing if what you want is solid support for your achin’ back!  (Or prevent one from developing, which is better yet it is; now don’t get me started on that one now….)