Perseus, Hercules, and the Nip-Slip

Perseus rescues Andromeda.

by Catherine Giordano

 

I have been doing posts for HubPages. They have some strange rules that can trip a writer up. You only learn what the rules are when you violate them. 

I did a couple of great hubs (as posts are called on HubPages), about dragon encounters in the myths about Perseus and Hercules.  I wanted to illustrate these hubs with classical art from Museums. I thought it added just the right feeling to the hubs.  

CLICK HERE

For the hub on Perseus, I told the story of Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda from a dragon named Cetus. I found a great picture. Only thing—Andromeda is naked. The story specifically describes her as naked, so practically every picture of Andromeda shows her naked. You can see the picture I choose at the top of this post. 

HubPages scores every hub and this one got the highest rating ever for me—a 96.  Then a few days later, I got an email saying that ads on my hub are being blocked because of a content violation.  Naked ladies are not allowed.  Ads are how a writer makes money on HubPages so I changed the picture. 

Ironically, one of the ads was for a statuette being sold on amazon.com of Perseus, naked, full-frontal nudity.  
 

Hercules with the Hesperides

After that I did a hub about Hercules.  Hercules goes to the Garden of the Hesperides to slay the dragon Ladon and obtain three golden apples. (It’s his 11^th of his “12 Labors.”) Again I wanted to use museum pictures. Again all the ladies had a bit too much décolleté.   

This time I imported the picture into Microsoft Paint, and painted a bodice over The naughty bits. I’m not much of an artist—I should have put in some shading—but I’m hoping no one will notice.    



CLICK HERE

Read the stories and see the replacement photos:  Perseus  Hercules 

I also earn money from views. So please click the above links. You will enjoy the stories. I tell them with humor. If you go to the hub, please do the polls and leave a comment.

Is it Drug or Dragged?

by Catherine Giordano

What is the past tense of "drag"?

I’ve been doing these humorous grammar posts using the persona of “Miss Grammers, The Naughty Grammarian. Last night I finished the post, The Naughty Grammarian: Is it Drug or Dragged?

My work done for the day, I went to watch TV. I was watching Rachel Maddow and she did a story about Ray Rice punching a woman in an elevator. She said the video clip shows “a woman on the ground being roughly drug out of the elevator.” 

“Drug” is NOT the past tense of “drag.” “Dragged” is the past tense of “drag.” 

I think Rachel Maddow is the smartest news anchor on TV. If even she got it wrong, I despair for the English language. Little did I know when I wrote that post how much it was needed.

Please read it and share it so we can get the English-speaking world speaking English.

You may also enjoy these other posts from The Naughty Grammarian.   

CLICK HERE

The Naughty Grammarian: "Affect" or "Effect"?

 The Naughty Grammarian: Is it Fewer or Less?

The Naughty Grammarian: Are “Titled” and “Untitled” Synonyms?

The Naughty Grammarian: Literally Awesome Hyperbole

The Naughty Grammarian: To Spell or Not Spell Numbers

The Naughty Grammarian: Lie, Lay, or Laid

The Naughty Grammarian: Could or Couldn’t Care Less

 

The Naughty Librarian: How to Use Apostrophes

 

Progress?

Will a lipogram mean progress for me?

I just hit 2000.

2000 views for my "hubs" in HubPages.

I wrote my first hub (a hub is like a magazine article only it is online) for HubPages on June 17, 2014. It took me 6 1/2 weeks to get 1000 views.

Yesterday, September 4th, I wrote my 27th hub. That's an average of 2 1/2 hubs per week since I first started 11 weeks ago.

It took only 41/2 weeks to reach 2000 views. That's progress? Right?

I hoping my latest hub, What is a Lipogram, is a winner for me.  My problem with getting views for my well-written, well-researched, and beautiful looking hubs is that I am writing on topics that are "saturated." This means there are tons of articles on the topic, and I'm at the bottom of the list with thousands ahead of me.

But, there are only a few hits for the phrase "What is a lipogram?" Halfway down the first page, the titles switch from lipogram to liposuction.

Now my only problem is how many people are searching for "lipogram." I had never heard of it before this week. I bet hardly anyone else has either. Even spellcheck doesn't know it is an actual word.

Now that you have heard of it, don't you want to know what it is? Hint: It has nothing to do with liposuction. Click the title below to read it and get me that much closer to 3000 views.

What is a Lipogram

Oh Happy HoneyBee

by Catherine Giordano

As I did research for my article about bees, it gradually began to dawn on me that bees are the most amazing creatures on earth. Read Inside the Bee Hive: How Bees Make Honey and see if you don’t agree.

Also I wrote a little poem about honeybees.  I don’t know if honeybees are happy or not, but there is a lot to admire about their lives.

If you like the honeybee teapot below, you might like to read my article about collecting teapots:

Seven Adorable Animal-Themed Collectable Teapots

doe poems about bees:  

CLICK HERE

Ode to a Honey Bee and Other Poems

CLICK HERE

 

 

.

 


 

 



 

Wicked Witches Wickedly Funny

by Catherine Giordano


I wrote an article for the web:


How to Win a Slam Poetry Contest:Old Witches Never Die

I think the title is a little misleading.  I read a poem titled, "Old Witches Never Die" at a slam poetry contest and that poem helped me win--third place but still a win.

The article is not really about how to win a slam poetry contest.  It is the story of how I won and the "how I won" part is just an intro to the poem. The poem uses witches as a metaphor for negative emotions like hate, envy, and shame. It's a really good light-verse poem.

Read it and banish the witches.

Click the link, read the poem, and don't forget to vote in the slamming poll. Thanks.

My Apologies… and My Forgiveness

Apologies and forgiveness are important.

by Catherine Giordano

If you have noticed that I haven’t been showing up at meetings or social events, my apologies for dropping out. I’ve been busy writing. I’ve been obsessed with writing.  I write one article and I have six ideas for new articles. The ideas demand to be written down. Right now! 

This week I did three pieces on the subject of apologies and forgiveness.  

 

Thank you for liking, sharing, and tweeting. 

The first is

How to Apologize: Use the 3 R’s to Say “I’m Sorry”.

It explains the  importance of apologies and provides guidelines for how to apologize. 

The second is

How to Forgive: A Guide to Letting Go of Anger and Grief.

It explains why forgiveness is important for the person doing the forgiving. (The offender may benefit also, but that is not the focus of the article.) It gives guidance about how to forgive.  If you are angry at someone (living or dead), especially if you have held on to this anger for years, please read this article.    

CLICK HERE

After those two articles, it was time to lighten up. My third piece is The Apology Poem.
It will make you laugh. 

I hope you enjoy these pieces. I’d love to see your comments and our answers to the poll questions included in the articles.

If you would like to do further reading, here are some recommendations.


CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE



Collecting My Thoughts

CLICK HERE

by Catherine Giordano

I’ve been writing web articles and sometimes it just takes over my life. I began by writing an article about why people collect stuff and why and how people could  start a collection.

Why People Collect Stuff and How You Can Collect Too

I thought it would be fun to write about my collection of teapots that are in the shape of other things.  I’d focus on teapots in the shape of other things. All I would need to do is write a paragraph or two on collecting teapots and then grab some pictures of animal-shaped teapots. Easy Peasy? Two hours tops?  No! It took sixteen hours.

 

On Tuesday, I started around 2pm intending to finish before dinner. At 8pm, I stopped because it just wasn’t coming together. I wasn’t happy with what I had written and I didn’t know what to do t fix it. 

CLICK HERE
for more info on this teapot

The next morning at 9am, the problem became apparent to me. I really had two separate articles that I was trying to smuush together. One was about the joys, motivations and satisfactions of collecting with tips for what and how to collect. And the second was about collecting teapots. All I had to d was separate them. Easy Peasy? Two hours tops? No!  I spent eight more hours on it.  

On Wednesday at 6pm, I finally clicked "publish" on both of them. Two great articles with lots of pictures, some of which I had photographed myself.   

Why People Collect Stuff and How You Can Collect Too

 

Seven Adorable Animal-Themed Collectable Teapots



CLICK HERE

 

8/31/14 Update: A few days later I did another post about collecting

Five Fabulous Flamingos for Your Collection

I’m proud of these articles and I hope you will take a moment to read them.  Also take another few seconds to do one or more of the following: like, share, vote in the poll in the article, leave a comment. I appreciate your support.  

And if you are so inclined, I’m hoping you would like to use my link to buy a teapot or anything else you might want or need. If you know someone who has a collection, the perfect gift for people who collect is something for their collection.

P.S. Do you like cats? Here is a cat teapot for you. 

CLICK HERE