Apples And Oranges Ideas*

"This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemmingway, who lives in Paris, (an American) writes for the transatlantic Review + has a brilliant future....I'd look him up right away. He's the real thing."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, 10 October 1924

As the rumour goes, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were literary rivals of sorts. Though both men were disciples of literary realism, their methods were startingly different. Hemingway was the man's man of a writer, who wrote of war, whales, and whetting one's appetite for adventure. In contrast, Fitzgerald seemed to be all glitz and gratuitous glamour, though the starkness with which he described his character's inner thoughts matched the outward portrayal of Hemingway's heroes. Through their apparent differences, they did indeed support each other and bolster each other's reputation in the literary sphere.

The ladies of The Cotillion pursue a similar objective, and once again, Fistful Of Fortnights has the distinct honour of co-hosting the Cotillion Ball, along with three other thinking women: Crystal Clear, Soldier's Angel, and Knowledge Is Power. Let's get started, shall we?

"The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration." - Pearl S. Buck

Inspiration most definitely will be found in several of our debutantes' writings. A Mom And Her Blog speaks of the Devastation wrought by Hurricane Charley and how watching friends and coworkers lose their homes now prompts her to donate clothes (and coffee!) to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Annika thinks she hasn't written anything worth linking. HAha. This is definitely worth linking - Annika's readers have donated $2,150 for hurricane relief. Woohoo! Janette at Common Sense Runs Wild tells us how to donate relief to the Hurricane Katrina Animal Rescue Fund, in order to aid the shelters who provided temporary shelters to animals. Obviously, the temporary nature has become semi-permanent, and the shelters find themselves without the supplies needed. Finally, Are You Conservative? preemptively predicts one of the most elevated accomplishments of George W. Bush's presidency.

Need some inspiration to rid yourself of a vice? Cake Eater Chronicles is home to the Goddess of Snark, and she directs her snarkometer towards the bureaucratic incompetence of a Quit Smoking program, of which she is an oh-so-perky participant. Apparently, there really is a "send patches" button, and not surprisingly, the rhetoric distracts the program's workers from this giant, flashing button. (Word just came in that she did indeed receive her package on time.) Now that one vice has been booted, let's replace it with a phobia, shall we? Absinthe & Cookies brings us the Scary News For The Day, and in doing so, she reveals the inner workings of her brain when pondering the possiblity of an Avian Flu pandemic. Indeed, these questions are some that worry obsessive-compulsive types...uh...excuse me, I need to go wash my hands now.

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." - George Bernard Shaw

Dissemination of information is the name of our game, as the rest of our debutantes aim to communicate the distinctions between truths and untruths. Raven at And Rightly So! talks of CAIR's terrorist ties and the idiocy surrounding the "broken circle" design for the Flight 93 Memorial. Armies of Liberation's Jane is on the case of missing gaps left by the 9/11 Commission concerning Able Danger's identification of Atta and the its warning three weeks prior to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. In addition, Jane questions the Yemeni government's sincerity in fighting terrorism, ending with an inquiry:

I wonder if the Yemeni goverment has shut down those 143 terrorist affiliated bank accounts yet?

You know what? That is a very good question, indeed.

Meanwhile, Pamela at Atlas Shrugs witnesses madness firsthand when she attends the Hitchens vs. Galloway political debate. Our resident saucy politico stresses Hitchen's numerous mentions of his support for the Kurdish people. Juliette of Baldilocks writes of the MSM's portrayal of the The Evacuees. She speaks on the media's sensational focus, which translates into more media coverage of the refugees who see themselves as slaves. Juliette's final point is spot on: "[G]ratitude is boring and pontification about being a slave engenders outrage--and ratings."

Finally, our intellectual voyage is winding to an end, and one journey remains on this tour. Oddybobbo of Bobo Blogger tells a heartbreaking story about two Korean sisters who defeated almost insurmountable odds against survival together, only to lose contact with each other as adults. After a number of decades, they reunite and embrace their connection again, but that doesn't even touch the depth of the story. As you leave another week's Cotillion Ball, go read the entirety of Going Home Again.

* More heads are better than one, no?