Jeffrey Alexander Martin

When I reached the top of Mt. Rainier it was odd. It was odd for a few reasons. First of all, I felt like I was drunk, never underestimate the power of elevation. But then there was this other thing, I wasn't sure what it was at first, it was kind of a letdown. I had been working at achieving this goal for around 6 months, now I was there, and it was a letdown. That confused me for awhile, and I realized that you always need to have a next step. I had nothing planned after that, nothing. That was a mistake. Today, I have a political meeting that I've been working towards for a couple of weeks. It could go well or it could not. It's important that I make sure I have other things going, other things in motion, always another thing. Thus, story ideas. Objective third person point of view is when you describe what people are doing, but you cannot know what anyone is thinking. What if I did that from the perspective of actual implements, like cameras? What if these were m...

I see a bright future for Dalton Township. There comes a day when the mettle of a community is tested. When hard times come, a question is asked, a question that reaches out to each citizen and wonders, "What will You do?" In that choice, in that decision, lies the entire future of the community. It's a decision that rests in the heart and soul of each individual. The community that comes together in a show of support is the community that has a bright future. The community where the citizens find courage and strength in each other, that is the community that has a bright future. I see hundreds of people coming together, connecting, sharing, supporting, and seeking for that brighter future. A future where the citizens participate in, and contribute to, the township's policies. A future where the citizens oversee and approve of the township's procedures. A future where the citizens of Dalton Township trust the officials of Dalton Township. That...

Why do some people feel that they can trample other people's rights and that's fine? This article will be fast and heavy. We are going to see the eight ways that people detach morality from their actions, why it's hard to tell when politicians are lying, a disturbing statistic related to the dark triad, two experiments that show the tendency of some people to abuse power and other people to follow bad orders, how stories reveal some of these processes, and the possibility for redemption. There are eight techniques that people use to make the bad things that they do seem okay. The psychologist Albert Bandura wrote the book "Moral Disengagement". He also has a five page paper by the same name. By knowing about these you can be more alert and aware of the various manipulation techniques that are used. This will be a short overview. They have semi-confusing names, so I'll break down what they really mean. Moral Justification This is simply doing bad things...

A couple of weeks ago I sent a simple breakdown of my speech plans for Potter in the Park. - - - - - - - This is a general overview. Let me know if you need anything more specific. Also, I'm revealing the creation process in a series of articles, so many details are included there if needed. http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/search/label/Harry%20Potter 4 speeches for 15 minutes each. If I get an intro I would like to use this background: Jeffrey Alexander Martin Visiting Lecturer - Sparta Institute for the Study of Muggles Current Assistant Professor of Muggle Studies - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Former Professor of Muggle Studies - Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Presenting the series: MUG 207 - Muggles in Real Life The four speeches are: Further Research on the Many Uses of the Rubber Duck Muggle Encounters with Dragons Through the Ages A Short History of Muggle Dueling The Great Gnome Conspiracy of the 18th and 19th Ce...

How do you stand up and talk in front of a crowd? Some people fear it more than death. It's okay to come to the Dalton Township meeting and not stand up, but if you want to stand up and say something then this article will help you. First, some inspiration. Then we'll dive into specific options. One of the most important things to realize about a local government meeting like this is that you are not making a presentation. You won't be graded. You are there to say what you have to say. I'm going to put a few of my speeches from the last couple of months here. You do not have to stand up and speak like this. To a large extent you can't. You will only have three minutes during the public comment section. (Notice though, that even these speeches are only about 5 minutes long.) A couple of weeks ago I requested a 5 to 10 minute spot on the schedule and the township would not give it to me. That's because they don't want to hear what we have to say. That...

The prompt for today was dialogue. The story could be anything the kids wanted, it just had to include dialogue, or people talking. Some stories are all dialogue, some stories have no dialogue, most fiction writing is a mix. No matter what kind of writing you do, it's good to play with dialogue. I find these types of writing exercises interesting. I usually have no idea what I'm going to do. If I do have an idea about what I'm going to do it always comes out completely different, nothing like I had imagined. We talked about dialogue a little bit. I went over the idea of interstitial sentences because I thought Lexi, the 14 year old, would be interested in that. An interstitial sentence is when there is one sentence that starts with someone talking, then in the middle there's some description, and then the person is talking again. For instance, if a woman is standing at the fridge it might be like this: "John! I thought you said you were going to," she t...

I've been trying to become more focused for the last decade. It hasn't worked. That's one of the good things about being way overwhelmed at the moment, it's made me start to think about the structure of my ambitions more. The areas that I want to focus on are: art, business, philosophy, health, romance, adventure, politics, and religion. Eight areas of focus isn't focus at all. All of these areas aren't as important as each other though, especially at any given time. So, I think I might have found an organizational structure that allows me to hold them in my head in a reasonable way, so that I can assess if I'm applying the appropriate amount of attention, energy, and effort to the correct things. A three-tier system. I tried to arrange these in a strict ordinal system, one to eight, a number of times. I've tried something like that many times over my life, but it's never worked. My priorities and values just move around too much. But, with ...

Dalton Township has a need for change. We need a change in our policies and procedures. That change has to be slow, steady, consistent, and reasonable. It has to be done in a transparent way that the citizens can trust, and there has to be the opportunity for participation and contribution. But there is a change that needs to happen before all of that, and that's a personnel change. I will be writing a list of grievances here. I will be presenting this list of grievances at the Dalton Township Board Meeting on June 10th. Let's see what this list might look like. (It might take a couple of tries.) - - - - - - - We, the citizens of Dalton Township, have found a disparity between the legal and moral conduct that we expect from our representative government officials, and what has been delivered. These violations of trust include, but are not limited to: Item 1 - Not pursuing just means of mediation between citizens of the community. Item 2 - Using immoral and illegal...

I taught seven students yesterday morning, then I watched the movie "The Professor" starring Johnny Depp, I went for a couple hour motorcycle ride, took a nap, wrote a political article including a resolution of support, wrote an article with a poem, and read a chapter from Anne Rice's "Sleeping Beauty". Somewhere in there I also skimmed through Jack Welch's entire book "Winning". Jack Welch was the CEO of GE for many years. He worked his way up through the company. So, his skillset is not starting companies, or running small companies, it's how to operate in large companies. I wrote down exactly 42 words of notes as I was going through it. (42 is also the answer to the ultimate question of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", it's serendipitous that the numbers align here.) - - - - - - - win candor cut your losses confident vision courage transparency gi...

My cousin April let me take her motorcycle for a couple hour test ride today as an experiment to see if my spinal deformities would allow me such an endeavor. The occasion seems to call for a poem. I think this might come out as some sort of fairy-tale mixed with "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennyson. My point is, it might get crazy. Maybe there will be a little influence from the song "American Pie". Alright, I have no idea what's going to happen. - - - - - - - Through the woods and across the township line, toward grandmother's house he rolled, past a humble abode, rode the one-hundred less than one-hundred and one. North by west, across the flowing waters and above the single person ships, past the tree unsold, rode the one-hundred less than one-hundred and one. By the graves of the dead, and the graves of the dying, and the graves of the living, rode the one-hundred less than one-hundred and one. To the water's edge, ...

The actions that Dalton Township officials have taken against local farms, such as Hidden Creek Farm, that involve intimidation and lying are ethical and legal breaches of conduct that violate the trust of the citizens and the duties of office. The only people that can truly correct a situation like this are the citizens of Dalton Township. They must choose to act, they must decide to make a change. But, that doesn't mean there aren't others that are willing and able to help. I loathe the politicians that seek to tear the will of the people apart. That seek to divide them into political camps for their own ends. That seek to manipulate every event to their own devices. For instance, the day after state representative Greg VanWoerkom issued a release stating that he was looking into the Hidden Creek Farm case to make sure that they are being treated fairly, the person that he defeated for that position, Tanya Cabala, started trolling the online posts about the grassroots ...

Challenges. In life you choose challenges, or they will be chosen for you. I may have made some significant strategic errors in life recently. I had a writing group scheduled for today. It was what I was looking forward to most. It was canceled. If I really pursue leading writing groups for homeschoolers as an avenue of revenue I wonder how often that would happen? I don't really feel like taking the initiative to drive the process forward at the moment, although I've had interest from at least three other mothers. The illustrator that I'm writing the comic book with is having health issues. I don't know what's happening with that project. I have to have the initiative for this project, and I'm not feeling it right now. I only have two students to teach this morning. Which is not enough to make enough money for me to live. I also had to cancel classes with the very first student I ever had, from a few years ago, Parker. Everything was great. I had Parke...

Here we go again. I just might complete the list in this post. What if I included an entire public domain book inside of my book? I could do a frame story. A parent reading a book to a child maybe. Maybe a teacher or author reading a book to a group of students. Discussion of the book would be included. The book within the book could be fiction or non-fiction. Ooh, I like this idea. The bedtime story frame would work. Also, R. L. Stine, the horror book author, likes to do readings of his books at libraries for kids, so there's precedent for it. DARPA has developed a psychopath hat. When you put it on it sends electrical signals through your brain and turns you into a temporary psychopath. It's based on the work of Chi and Snyder on brain stimulation. I heard about it from psychologist John Vervaeke. It's made for soldiers, obviously. It just sounds like something Philip K. Dick would write about in a dystopic science fiction story, but it's real. Could I make h...

Ideas for narratives are always coming to me. Stories are the underlying structure of our psychologies and our societies. Sometimes I write these ideas down. Here are a few. (Get ready, it will seem fast and chaotic.) I like the idea of human clay. I like the Creed songs about human clay, I like the myth of the golem formed from clay as presented in Terry Pratchett's book series "Discworld", I like the story of Prometheus forming man from clay. I think it could be tied into the Adam, Eve, and Lilith story too. I like when they used the idea in the tv show "Warehouse 13". It just seems like more could be done with it. I like the idea of the sands of time. What if there was an epic quest or battle for the sands of time, but then the sands of time did nothing? That happens with goals and attainments a lot, they are hard to achieve and then they're a let down once achieved. I had that experience with mountain climbing years ago. Now, I always have some va...