The SoapBoxers

Another Easter has come and gone. For Christians, this is an especially important holiday. It is the culmination of all of the teachings of the Christian churches. As a Roman Catholic and as a Boy Scout leader, Easter has significance that many may not know or understand. You may think, what has Boy Scouts got to do with Easter? That is actually the simplest question to answer. Boy Scout troops are under an obligation to assist and participate in sponsoring organization activities. If a troop is sponsored by a VFW , they are expected to assist in the placement of flags on the graves of veterans on Memorial day, Flag day, and Veteran’s day and participate in activities for the various services’ birthdays / anniversaries, Armed Forces Day and Patriot day. The troop which I serve is sponsored by the School attached to my church, a Roman Catholic Church. We support the church carnival, fall clean up, spring spruce up, decorating for holidays and supporting the Easter service.

What is involved in the Easter service at our church is slightly more difficult to explain. In the Catholic Church, any items bless for the use in any or our rites must be disposed of properly. Liquids such as holy water should not be put down the drain to be mixed with common waste, instead it should be spread in a garden or poured on a plant. The Catholic Church as many rites, and many items used to perform those rites. Some of these items are as common as prayer slips (little slips of paper people write names on for private prays) or more specialized like the chrism (anointing oil) which is used for Baptism, anointing of the sick and other activities.

On the Easter Vigil (Saturday night before Easter from sun down to midnight in some parishes), the items that can be burned are consumed in what is called a new fire. This is a fire build not by using a flame from the existing flame (a candle that is kept continuously burning from Easter to the following Easter Vigil, but made from a new fire. The Boy Scout troop at our church is responsible for building that fire and keeping vigil until the Priest burns the left over oil (it is olive oil, so you can’t really keep it more that a year even if it is blessed), the cotton balls used to anoint, the prayer slip and anything else he has to burn.

This fire is quite dramatic. The boys have a good fire going before the Priest arrives, then he throws oil on it! From that fire, a new Easter Candle is lit, an incense coal is started and the parishioners head into the church for three hours of readings, prayer and song. The boys stand by the fire until it has burned down, quench the flames with water and gather the ashes to spread in the forest behind the church on Monday night.

Not all churches have this participation service, but all Catholic Churches dispose of certain items in the flames. Our church does not have a permanent fire pit, the boys construct one in the hours that lead up to the ceremony, and tear it down when they are done. When they leave, there is no evidence a fire was ever there. For the engineers and boy scouts in our audience, this fire pit is built in the following way: 4×4 piece of plywood laid on the ground, 16 paver ties on top of the plywood, 120 paver stones in a stacked circle about 3 feet high, 3-5 gallon buckets of sand poured in as a base. The sand and ashes are gathered in 5-5 gallon bucket which are filled with water as well to make sure the fire is completely out, and we wait until Monday to spread them in the forest for additional safety.

Easter is really one of the nicer holidays. Sure there is a lot of hype, and other holidays are nice too. I am partial to Easter because it marks the true beginning of spring. I hope that all of you had a good Easter, and for those who are not Christians, I hope that you are having a great spring.

Living With Balls.  John agreed to write this article for publication on The Soap Boxers and I wrote an opposing article – Why I Hate the Yankees on Living With Balls.

In an ever-changing world, the Yankees are the one constant in my life.  While my other teams (Jets and Knicks) continue to disappoint on an annual basis, the Yankees are always there to pick me up around October and remind me why I watch sports in the first place. 

With an endless stream of money and an ownership dedicated to winning, the Yankees will always be in the mix for a World Series title.  Sure the Yankees have had some heartbreaking losses and disappointing seasons in my lifetime (not too many though) but for the most part, the Yankees will make things exciting for the city of New York.

Now let’s get one thing clear: I am NOT a frontrunner (as evidenced by the other two teams I root for).  I was born into Yankees royalty.  My father grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn, only a few minutes from Ebbets Field— but he was raised a Yankees fan because his father, idolized fellow Italian-American and Yankees icon Joe DiMaggio.

My father has seen every major Yankees game in the last 50 years, both good and bad: from Mickey Mantle’s Triple-Crown season in 1956, to Bill Mazerozki’s series-winning home run over the Yanks in the 1960 series, to Reggie Jackson’s three homers in the 1977 Fall Classic, all the way to last year’s win over the Philadelphia Phillies.  He’s witnessed the Yankees go from a dynasty in the 50’s, to a laughing stock in the 60’s. He cheered the back-to-back titles in the 70’s and suffered through the embarrassment of the 1980’s. Things then came full circle for him as he saw the Yankees become a dynasty once again in the 90’s.

So it only made sense that he would raise his two sons to be Yankees fans as well. I was a Yankees fan before I even knew what baseball was.  My father taught me everything I know about baseball and everything I know about the Yankees.  He introduced me to the game I love but never forced it upon me.  Some of my fondest boyhood memories are having a catch with my father in the park or going to Yankee Stadium with him to see Don Mattingly play first base.

Now I’m all grown up and out of the house but I’ll always pick up the phone and call my Dad after a big Yankees win.  I still make it a point to go home and watch almost every big playoff game with him.  We watched together when Jim Leyritz hit a three-run homer off Mark Wohlers in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series, catapulting the Yankees to an upset win over the Braves.  We watched the nerve-wracking game 7 of the 2003 ALCS together, when Aaron Boone finally delivered a walk-off home run to give the Yankees the pennant. We even watched together when the Yankees choked away a 3-0 lead over the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS.  Win or lose, a Yankees playoff game just isn’t the same if I’m not watching it with my father.

The Yankees have helped my father and I bond throughout the years.  If there’s one subject we can always take about, it’s the Yankees.  My father recently suffered a heart-attack, but thankfully he is doing well now.  His health problems have only made me appreciate these moments more. 

I am not a father yet but I will be getting married in the coming months.  I hope to have a son one day and that three generations of Yankees fans will be able to walk into the new Yankee Stadium and witness great moments together.

Having the Yankees win every year is certainly enjoyable from a fan’s perspective. But to me, the Yankees mean a whole lot more.

Living with Balls is your place for testosterone-induced humor.  A humor blog for men, Living with Balls takes a lighter view of life from a man’s perspective.  John S., the founder and editor, can be contacted at johns@livingwithballs.com.  Follow LWB on twitter as well.

In what I can only classify as a comedy of political missteps it appears that all within a month the Israeli and the American governments have managed to offend each other only to the delight of the terrorist world. The first offense came during Joe Biden’s visit a few weeks back when unfortunately just as he came to press for peace the Israeli government announced the approval for building of more settlements in East Jerusalem. As the US has shamefully given into the Arab demand that no negotiations will take place till the settlements are frozen this was a big slap in the face for Biden. It forced him to denounce the new settlements and off course provided a big “you see” moment for the Arabs.

Even being a pro Israel blogger I have to say that this move on the part of the Israeli government was anything but graceful. I don’t actually disagree with the move itself as I don’t see any reason that Israel should stop building settlements in Jerusalem but the timing of the announcement was terrible. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Biden that he was not aware of the announcement as it came from a district committee that makes these decisions. However, in my view this is an unacceptable answer as Israel is not so big that the Prime Minister should not be aware of an announcement that from a foreign relations standpoint would create this big of a reaction.

I will save my rant on why Israel should continue to build settlements but in general I don’t think due to its proximity to Jewish inhabitants and the utter craziness of splitting a city in half East Jerusalem will ever be the Palestinian capital as currently proposed. So I see no harm in building settlements there as Israel will never accept any two state solution where Jerusalem is not 100% under Israeli control.

In return for this insult, Joe called on his big brother, Obama, to ensure that next visit from Netanyahu would end in similar humiliation. The news I am reading and hearing is a bit fuzzy on the details but sounds like not only did Obama not arrange for the normal photo session that he has when meeting with a head of state but also he walked out of a meeting to go have dinner with his family. Not sure how much truth is in the story but the bottom line seems to be that Obama has no clue how to behave himself. Sticking up for Biden is one thing but even as president of the most powerful country you have to know how to act when you have guests.

I think both unfortunate incidents were probably blown out of proportion by the media and both only served to advance one cause which is the continued delay of any real peace talks. Not that I am convinced that peace talks would bring any real change but a public pissing contest to see who can out insult the other definitely brings no positive change. Don’t think I have ever written an article where the Arabs win at the end but in this case they were the only ones to benefit from this month’s political mishaps.

The van screeched to a halt.  The rear doors flew open, and a half dozen girls jumped out.  They quickly seized their prey, carried him back to the van, and threw him inside.  A moment later, the nondescript white van raced off.

Chip Morgan was laying in the back on the van, in complete shock.  A moment later, he had been jogging around the lake, listening to some tunes on his iPod.  He couldn’t begin to fathom why he had been abducted.  Chip wondered if it was really such a bad thing to be kidnapped by a gang of attractive girls.

Chip entertained that thought for about a half second.  One of the girls flipped him roughly onto his back.  Another shoved her knee into his back, causing enough pain to subdue him while other girls securely tied his hands behind him.  His ankles were bound to each other to complete the job.

At this point, Chip began to realize that this probably wasn’t just a harmless sorority prank. 

Several minutes later, the van turned off the highway onto a gravel road.  Chip bounced around in the back of the van, and he was able to feel every bump in the road. The interior of the van was complete silence – not a word had been uttered since he had been abducted.

After his body has endured much abuse, the van pulled to a stop.  Chip was yanked roughly out of the van and forced to march forward.  In his hobbled state, Chip was unable to move very quickly, and his captors were quite impatient.  Chip fell onto his face twice as the girls urged him to move faster.

When he was finally told to stop, Chip took a moment to absorb his surroundings.  There were perhaps two hundred girls in a circle around him, each wielding a flaming torch which allowed the empty field to be bathed in light.  Ahead of him was small wooden stage, and in the middle of the stage was a low table.

The girl on the stage made a motion with her hand, and the dull roar of the crowd dissipated into complete silence.

“He has arrived.  It is time for the ceremony to begin.  Bring forth the man.”

Chip was forced to ascend the stairs.  When he arrived on the stage, his binds were removed for a moment.  Then the girls fastened him securely to the table at the center of the stage.

When Chip was secured, the leader of the group approached him and spoke loudly, so that the entire crowd could hear her.

“For thousands of years, men have viewed women as mere sex objects.  Today is the day of reckoning for men.  Man, I give you the kiss of death.”

At this, she moved very close to Chip and kissed him firmly on the mouth.  An increasingly confused Chip allowed himself to enjoy the pleasure of the moment.  When she pulled away, Chip was shocked to realize that he was bleeding. 

Before he could make any sense of the proceedings, the next girl approached him and gave him the kiss of death – making a quick slice with a scalpel as she kissed him.  Then the next girl, and another, and another.  Chip quickly realized that the kisses were intended as a mockery of men’s treatment of women as sex objects.

After the final girl made her cut, she followed the others in procession out of the field.  Chip was left alone with his thoughts, dripping from the hundreds of cuts on his body.

After the girls had left, the location once again reverted to nature.  A short while later, the wolves began to approach and the buzzards circled overhead.

Less than a year after media magnate Sam Zell sold the Chicago Cubs to the Ricketts family, the lovable losers are reported to be on the block again.  This according to a source close to the family.  The Soap Boxers made a call to Ricketts family spokesperson April Sloof.  When Sloof finally returned our call, she said that she could neither confirm nor deny the rumor.

Our anonymous source, however, was quite willing to spill the beans.  It seems that there was a great deal of buyer’s remorse after the sale was finalized.

The Ricketts era got off to a rough start when the family discovered that the Zell group had stripped the facilities of all tangible assets.  Uniforms, bats, balls, and gloves had all been packed into boxes and removed from Wrigley Field before the sale was completed – likely headed to eBay for sale to collectors.  The theft was not limited to baseball equipment, however.  Office chairs were removed, carpets ripped up, copper wire stolen, and light bulbs taken from the outlets.  Tom Ricketts expressed great dismay:

“When you spend nearly a billion dollars on a team, you expect to buy it lock, stock, and barrel.  This isn’t like buying a house, in that you need to buy the stove and refrigerator.  When you buy a baseball team, you should be able to step in on day one and continue operations without interruption.  It’s completely ridiculous to send the general manager to Home Depot in search of compact flourescent bulbs.”

The Ricketts family also suggested that false statements were made about the recent history of the Cubs.  Tom Ricketts has accused Sam Zell of showing him an altered version of the Cubs’ 1907 World Series trophy.  Our inside source says that Zell hired an engraver to change the inscription from “1907” to “2007”.  Ricketts was reported to be “livid” when he discovered the deceit.

The straw that might break the camel’s back, however, are the zoning restrictions of Wrigley Field.  Ricketts, a devoted environmentalist, had planned to turn the field into a common grazing area for goats during Cubs road trips.  However, the area surrounding Wrigley Field is zoned in a manner that precludes it from being used for agricultural purposes.

If the Cubs are to be sold, who will be the next buyer?  There are rumblings that Portland Trailblazers owner Paul Allen is forming an ownership group.  It is believed that Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, and Beaverton sports apparel company Nike would be the largest investors in the group.  Allen has long been connected to proposals to bring Major League Baseball to Oregon.  Allen is reported to favor a stadium in suburban Tigard because of its closeness to Interstate 5.

We will continue to follow this story as it develops.

Image via Wikipedia

This is not going to discuss energy savings, shutting down oil refineries or offshore drilling.  In this case, Going Green is referring to Cannabis Sativa, Mary Jane, Blunts, Roaches, Joints, Spliffs, Bongs, THC, Bob Marley, yes….marijuana.

California has captivated headlines by saying that they’re going to place an initiative on their ballot to legalize marijuana.  This is happening even as numerous states are running into numerous problems with their Medical Marijuana laws.

Some of you know that I live in Colorado.  Colorado has a Medical Marijuana law and it has exploded in use over the last couple of years.  There are currently more marijuana dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbucks and they continue to pop up.  Each night on the news I hear stories about another robbery or burglary happening at another marijuana dispensary.  Cities across the state are now scrambling for ways to better regulate these facilities.

A very basic question that I have is this.  THC, the ingredient in marijuana that people are smoking it for, is available in pill form already.  Why then do we need to have smoked marijuana available with all the problems that it brings?  Marinol is a prescription medicine that can be prescribed by a doctor and dispensed from a controlled pharmacy.  http://www.rxlist.com/marinol-drug.htm

I live in a suburban neighborhood in Fort Collins, CO that is filled with middle to upper middle income families.  Crime is essentially non-existent and the homes are all single family dwellings filled with families that have roughly 2.54 kids each.  The only crime other than an occasional vehicle break-in was an armed Home Invasion Robbery.  What prompted this to happen?  The two residents of the home are medical marijuana patients.  When the masked gunmen forced their way into the home they asked for one thing:  marijuana.  They didn’t want money or electronics…just the drugs.

1. More stringent guidelines to obtain a medical marijuana card.
   • Conditions like ear aches should not be included
   • If they aren’t going to be more specific, then legalize marijuana so we can hopefully get past the crime that has come with the law
2. Better zoning regulations so we don’t have dispensaries set up next to each other, located in residential areas or near schools.
3. Mandatory security in these dispensaries to reduce violent robberies and burglaries.
4. Better definitions of a caregiver and restrictions on growing quantities.  This too is turning residential neighborhoods into marijuana farms.
5. Dispensing marijuana should be done through a controlled environment like a pharmacy, not the corner house where Guido is set up.
6. Better education of patients
   • This does not give them the right to smoke and drive
   • This does not give them the right to smoke then go to work and operate a forklift
7. The granting of a medical marijuana card should require the prescribing doctor to visit with the patient’s Primary Care Physician and thoroughly review the patient’s medical history.  Is there a history of drug abuse?  Is this appropriate therapy for the combination of their conditions?

Following the passing of the new healthcare system, it will be interesting to see if we will now begin covering the cost of medical marijuana.  Will Little Johnny down the street be able to walk into the local dispensary, choose from Raspberry flavored marijuana and have us pick up the tab?

Squeaky…

Two young pitchers signed big deals last year. The Nationals signed highly touted Stephen Strasburg to a deal that will pay $15.1 million between 2009 and 2012. The Reds signed Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman to a six year deal worth at least $30.25 million (if Chapman is arbitration-eligible after the 2012 or 2013 seasons, he can convert subsequent salary amounts into bonus and go through arbitration – a great deal for him).

The Reds are seriously considering bring Chapman to Cincinnati with them to start the season (although it has become increasingly likely that Chappy will also start the season in the minors). The Nationals are sending Strasburg to AA Harrisburg to start the season (not even AAA, but AA!). Does this mean that Chapman is better than Strasburg?

First of all, why is Strasburg being sent to AA instead of AAA? One reason is that Harrisburg’s average April temperatures (average high 61; average low 41) are a bit higher than those of Syracuse (high 56, low 35). Low temperatures can contribute to injuries.

The bigger question you may be asking is this – why send Strasburg to the minor leagues at all? Why not have him start the season with the Nationals?

As with many things in life, the short answer is easy: money.

Baseball players become eligible for free agency when they have accumulated 6.00 or more years of Major League service with a team. This is based on the number of days on the major league roster (or disabled list). You can accumulate six years of service in a six years span, or you can bounce up and down for twenty years and never reach this threshold.

There is one wrinkle to this – if you send a player to the minor for less than 20 days, he still gets credit for the entire season. Send him to the minors for 21 days, and he gets credit only for his actual time served.

If you aren’t grasping the significance yet, it’s this: if you can keep a guy’s service time at 5.9 years instead of 6.0 years, you delay his free agency by a year – saving quite a bit of money on the 7th year.

The point of having Strasburg start the season in the minors, then, is to delay his free agency eligibility until after the 2016 season.

A smaller issue is whether the Nationals can delay Strasburg’s arbitration eligibility. All players are eligible for binding salary arbitration after they have 3.00 or more years of service. Additionally, amongst players with more than 2 but less than 3 years of service, the top 17% (in terms of service time) are also eligible for arbitration. These players are referred to as “Super Twos”. The cutoff for Super Twos has historically been between 2 years, 128 days and 2 years, 140 days (but it’s a moving target, since it’s based on the current year’s group of players). In recent years, many teams attempt to game the system by giving a player slightly less than 128 days of service their rookie year, in an effort to have them fall short of Super Two status. If the Nationals can manage to do this, this would make Strasburg arbitration eligible after the 2013 season instead of after the 2012 season.

So, what does this all mean for Strasburg’s salary?

Note: Strasburg also got a $7.5 million signing bonus.

• 2010: $2M (per contract)
• 2011: $2.5M (per contract)
• 2012: $3M (per contract)
• 2013: If a Super Two, salary determined by arbitration. If not, the team can impose a salary (must be at least 80% of the previous year’s salary).
• 2014: Salary determined by arbitration
• 2015: Salary determined by arbitration
• 2016: If Strasburg has six years of service, he becomes a free agent following the 2015 season. If he has less than six years of service, his salary is determined by arbitration.

At any point in this path, Strasburg and the Nationals can sign a new contract that would remove him from the arbitration process. This is quite likely, since arbitration can be quite adversarial and tends to hurt some feelings. However, if Strasburg’s arbitration year is pushed back to 2014 and his free agency pushed back until after the 2016 season, these years are worth less money, and this will be reflected in any long term contract offered by the Nationals.

Over the last few weeks, I have written several articles about dealing with everyday problems, from dealing with aging parents to dealing with aging yourself. This week I will discuss dealing with college students. My eldest son is a freshman in college, therefore he knows everything about everything. His biggest desire right now is to NOT live in the dormitory next year. The primary reason for this is the lack of privacy. Sharing a bathroom is bad enough, but having a common hall with people who are not quite as interested in study or sleep as he is, has caused him much distress.

He has been hunting for apartments to move into with his current roommate, a friend from high school. Although we support this effort (the proposed drop in food costs alone is encouraging), he, being the all knowing college student, has refused to listen to any sage advice from his parents. We must remember that from a college student’s point of view, no one has ever thought of anything before. No one has ever had the great idea of finding his own apartment, no one has every figured out all of the problems of the world, and most importantly, no one has ever discovered sex.

Luckily, he is only telling me about the apartment. The apartment search has revealed several very interesting misunderstandings, the most exciting of which was the idea that if you roommate decides to scamper, the landlord will find you a new roommate. It took quite a while to make him understand that the landlord does not care about your problems, pay the rent or get out. He was also unaware that some of the apartments are in no way associated with the university. This little tidbit was a shocking revelation, that a landlord could care less about your career at college, again pay your rent or get out.

The cost of an apartment was also a revelation, to think that the Neanderthals that are your parents might have known something about that, to bad they didn’t tell you before you went looking. Their plaintive comments that they had told you are just attempts to hide how backward they are. Parents also seem to think that just because they went to college, they might know some of the problems the new college student is facing. How could that possibly be true, no one has ever experienced this before.

Well, that is enough mocking for one night. He is listening, albeit late. He will continue searching, and with luck, he will not sign anything until his mother or I get there to read the fine print. Good luck with your own children as you try to send them off into the world

Usually at the end of my post each month I list the three “bad nuts” of the month.  This month’s posting will basically be nothing but the bad nuts of the past few days.

Health Care reform has now become law of the land and despite my own questions on whether it is actually enough done, it is a big effing deal to quote the Vice President, and a step in the right direction for the country that has been a long time coming.  However, it is now abundantly clear if it was not before that conservatives completely lack any sense of dignity, humanity or civility within their course of actions and the words they use. There will be many examples I leave out, as there are far too many to put into the space I really want to take up here.

Tea Party protesters on Capitol Hill last weekend repeatedly shout the n word at members of the Black Caucus as they walked by the protest and shouted other obscenity laced rants as well.  They also threw out homophobic slurs at openly gay congressman Barney Frank. This is the least threatening example of the loss of control the right has made a turn towards in the final days and aftermath of healthcare reform, but is still a shiny example of the ignorance and intolerance on the right.

At a Rochester, NY Democratic Party office a brick with a note with this quote attached, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,”  was thrown through a window. No one was harmed other than the window in this instance, but it is another quite fitting example of what conservatives really are looking for these days as many other offices across the state of New York and around the county have had bricks with such revolution inciting quotes attached to them.

While House Republican leader “Hell No You Can’t” John Boehner passively spoke out that the climate needs to change to a positive to get his party back in power as that will get the real job they want done. It’s is a little too late for his change of heart over the flames he and his party has stoked for well over a year now. In the past few days he has also made countless references to many Representatives in congress who have been getting death threats as being a dead man for how they voted. More than likely he was hopefully meaning politically speaking, but it is the passive aggressive stoking the flames of hate in his masses to get them to seek violent action over civil discourse over issues. So in reality his actions in the recent pass fully outweigh the passive rebuking of threats of violence in the aftermath of the bill passing.

Congressman Bart Stupak hasn’t just had to deal with Congressman Randy Neugebauer shouting “baby killer” as he spoke on the house floor, but has become the poster child for the right wing nuttery’s rage. Here’s a sampling of what he has had to go through. Endless voicemail messages to his office and home many simply stating, “I hope you die.” others with a more prophetic viewpoint. “There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill and all of those thoughts projected on you will materialize into something that’s not very good for you.” 

Also his office received a fax depicting him on a noose with the caption “All Baby Killers come to unseemly ends either by the hand of man or by the hand of God.”  All this for deciding to vote for healthcare because he got his exact wording put through in an executive order instead of holding up the process any further by having it inserted into the text of the bill. Despite the fact that in reality the wording did not need to be there in the first place because well it was already law and nothing done was changing that anyways, but I digress.

Never to be absent from stoking the flames of anger, the queen of the nutjob right, Sarah Palin, continues to be her usual self. The two main instances of note of the past few days have been commenting that Republicans don’t need to regroup after healthcare had passed, but need to reload the gun and take more shots at Democrats. There must be some continual obsession with guns for Sister Sarah as she also depicted the pictures of 20 House Democrats and the states they represent with crosshairs of a gun and mentioned that these seats in states won by her (i guess she forgets that McCain was the head of the ticket) as targets to dispose of in the next election. I get the cute play with guns and everything, but when your supporters obviously aren’t playing with a full deck then you probably do not need to continue to put this kind of imagery.

Even though his network now only allows about two minutes a day of actual coverage of the passing of the healthcare reform bill, Glenn Beck has not been absent from the fanning the flames on the right. He has now referred to the passing of healthcare reform as a mother spanking a child. And now our decision as a is whether we love our mother and want to hug them or to we want to pick up guns against them. Beck was more for the guns approach to getting back at “mother” approach. So if you hear any news of tea party people shooting their mothers in the next week or so you know who to blame on that one.

Like I said before there are too many examples as of late of incivility from conservatives, leaders and followers to list here. It is clear that the Republican Party has reaped what they have sown over the past year in these past few days as the climate has boiled over even more. They may shy away from it in public light passively now, but in reality it is what they have wanted all along. In the end it is clear that one thing for conservatives is, that civility has been lost and I don’t think they’ll find their way back to it any time soon.

How to Get Your Guest Post Submission Accepted

Over the course of the past few months, I have had guest articles on six different blogs.  The blogs have been in the fields of personal finance (Lazy Man and Money and The Digerati Life), technology (40 Tech), blogging (ProBlogger) and blogs that defy categorization (Life, Laughs, and Lemmings and World’s Strongest Librarian).  I suspect that I will be the only person to land articles on this specific mix of blogs.  Interestingly, despite being first and foremost a fiction writer, I haven’t been a guest author on any fiction-oriented blogs.

My recent guest article on ProBlogger was related to the multi-author aspect of The Soap Boxers.  Not surprisingly, this spurred many comments related to guest posting.  Some of the commenters were frustrated at their lack of success in landing guest spots.

I’m hardly the most successful guest poster in the history of the blogosphere, but I may have a few tips for those who are in the beginning stages of trying to build their brand.

Build relationships

I’d like to say that everyone submitting a guest article has an equal chance of being accepted.  In reality, this isn’t the case.  If a blogger is comparing two articles of similar quality, it’s only natural they lean toward someone they know.  I’ve known Lazy Man for several years.  On the other side of the spectrum, I was less familiar with Josh at World’s Strongest Librarian, but had commented on an article of his at ProBlogger.  The other sites are ones where I had established myself as a frequent commenter.

This doesn’t mean that you need to stalk your favorite bloggers as a way to get to know them better.  Please, don’t.  Many of us carry pepper spray.  However, do take the time to comment on other people’s articles – the comments that are relevant and insightful.  This will raise your profile a bit.

Try, try again

You’re not going to get every article accepted.  Rejection is part of the process of being a writer.  In addition to the articles I had published, I had many others rejected.

Just because one site isn’t interested in a particular article doesn’t mean that it’s dead.  A couple of articles that landed as guest posts on one blog had been previously rejected by another site.  Do some blogs have high standards than others?  That’s possible – the New York Times probably has higher standards for submissions than the Hometown News.

Equally possible is the fact that each blogger just has a different taste.  Quite often, when a blogger rejects your submission, they will give you feedback on WHY they rejected it.  A few weeks ago, I was trying to peddle some fiction stories based on the theme of personal finance to blogs that specialized in personal finance.  This is admittedly a bit of a square peg/round hole situation – these blogs didn’t usually run fiction pieces.  The response from The Digerati Life was that she simply wasn’t interested in fiction – but would be interested in a non-fiction piece.  A short time later, I had an article on the etiquette of tipping (waiters, not cows) on her site.

Always be respectful during the process.  Never go down the road of “You’ll regret it when this article appears on your competitor’s site!”  You can spend years building a bridge and just a moment burning it.

Give them a quality, finished product

First of all, give away your top shelf work.  Don’t use your guest articles as a dumping ground for substandard work.  Darren @ ProBlogger made reference to this in one of his articles.  This seems completely counter-intuitive to me.  You’re introducing yourself to a room full of strangers – put your best foot forward!

Make sure that your article fits into their niche, if the blog is a niche blog.  If it’s a baseball blog, don’t submit an article about football.  I’ve bent this rule on occasion with some things that were a bit outside the box.  However, I knew that this could work against me.  Even in those cases, the articles were a half twist away from the true focus of the target blogs.  Sure, I was pitching fiction to personal finance bloggers – but finance played a significant role in those stories.

Give them a finished, polished product.  A blogger wants to be able to turn your content into an article quickly, with minimal fuss.  Proofread your article carefully.  Nobody wants to spend time cleaning up typos.  Even worse, poor grammar reflects poorly on the blog.

Add a short biography for inclusion in the article.  This avoids having the blogger contact your for additional details.  I have developed a standard short bio for myself that will now be appearing wherever my guest articles appear.  The consistency may also help trigger familiarity amongst readers who stumble across your articles on several different blogs.

Most sites are going to want exclusive use of the article you submit.  If you truly value the experience of being a guest on that blog, give them the exclusivity.

Last, but not least, include a link to your blog – you want to make sure to reap the benefits of your work!

OK, I surely missed some good tips.  For those of you who have landed guest posts – what are some of your secrets?