My Dear Cousin - My Novel

  

                                                          16^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

In my previous letters I covered the falling out between my family, and I and my refusal to attend my sister’s wedding. I believe the next point to be noted is an incident between Uncle Allen and I.

 

For all my life I wanted to be a writer and, well, the major obstacle in that department happens to be nerve damage I received, most likely, at the hands of (Pickle) and (Pony Girl). They had a game when we were children where they would pull me off the couch and make my head hit the floor.

 

This happened over and over and over again until I started having headaches and such. Well, mom couldn’t afford a sitter and it wasn’t like my old man wanted to look after his children. This left me with difficulty reading and interpreting letters.

 

Around two thousand and nine I wrote a novel about a society fighting off an alien invasion on a world neither of them belonged to. Allen volunteered to read it for me and help with editing but, well, for one his feedback was full of insults, and for another he had trouble understanding that I have nerve damage.

 

Part of me wants to believe that old Allen was a fool, part of me thinks that he was intentionally sabotaging my writing so that I would need to spend the rest of my life dealing with my mentally ill brother. Allen said he had just been joking, but I don’t know. Insults tend to be malicious.

 

I guess it doesn’t matter. I didn’t get help with my novel, and I was plenty angry at Uncle Allen, but that’s water under the bridge now. Family was never of any use to me before, and it was still rather useless.

 

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

 

Kamala Harris’ Debate

 

On the 8^th of October I ran into a post on FaceBook by LATIMES.com about the vise presidential debate that read “Kamala Harris’ Debate was for every woman who’s been talked over by a man.” I honestly feel that Harris is a person like any other and that gender should have been left out of the debate. Think of it this way, it would be rude to go up to a woman firefighter and say “you’ve done well for a girl”. She has done well regardless of gender. I expressed my opinion and the following is a copy of that post

 

Richard Leland Neal: “Kamala Harris' debate was for every American, and every citizen of the free world.”

Barry Hebb: “Richard Leland Neal, hardly”

Richard Leland Neal: “Barry Hebb, Wipe the orange off your mouth when you say that!” 

Barry Hebb: “Richard Leland Neal, resorting to hurling insults does not strengthen your case.”

Richard Leland Neal: “Barry Hebb, Not making a case to start with just makes you rude to start with. Do you have a point to make?” 

Barry Hebb: “Richard Leland Neal, I already made it. Pence shut her down. That's why you directed your comments towards me. You have no good rebuttal.  

Richard Leland Neal: “Barry Hebb: Permit me to express myself neatly, if you say “Trump is a good president,” and I say “Hardly” I am being rude and regardless of any other fact an insult is the correct social response. However, if I say “worst economy since the great depression, 200,000 Americans dead” I have then engaged you in a debate. It would be your opportunity to refute me. 

“Now let us examine the Pence/Harris debate. As you put it “Pence shut Harris down”. This is objectively wrong; Pence interrupted Harris, because he could not win on talking points. In any college or high school debate class Pence would have failed because he refused to obey the rules. Now if you’re going to say ‘this isn’t a college class’ I would say ‘you’re right, this should be held to higher scrutiny’.

“To win a debate one must defeat an opponent’s argument. To defeat an opponent’s argument they must make that argument. You may be siding with Pence, because you agree with him but the truth is that he lost the debate.”