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Standing Up ‘For The Greater Good’: Kit Will Report From Green Party Convention
In this Sept.17, 2012 photograph, Dr. Jill Stein speaks during a demonstration on Bowling Green, New York City, at the 1 year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. (Flickr / Paul Stein)
August 6, 2016
Kit
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Standing Up ‘For The Greater Good’: Kit Will Report From Green Party Convention

Posted in Journalism, Life, and MintPress News

As the Green Party’s Presidential Nominating Convention convenes in Houston, there’s renewed attention on the party’s presumptive nominee, Dr. Jill Stein, and increased interest in third-party alternatives to the American two-party duopoly.

On Saturday, MintPress News will be at the University of Houston, where Stein and her running mate, human rights scholar and activist Ajamu Baraka, are expected to accept the Green Party’s nomination for president and vice president.

Polls consistently show that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the political status quo. Just 9 percent of U.S. residents voted for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the primaries, according to The New York Times. In a poll conducted in May by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, some 90 percent of voters expressed a lack of confidence in the American political system, while 40 percent said that the two-party system is “seriously broken.”

Read moreStanding Up ‘For The Greater Good’: Kit Will Report From Green Party Convention
See You In Philly: Kit Will Report Live From DNC 2016 Protests
July 20, 2016. A protester with his face covered helps another activist their bandanna, near the Quicken Loans Arena, site of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. (MintPress News / Desiree Kane)
July 23, 2016
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See You In Philly: Kit Will Report Live From DNC 2016 Protests

Posted in Journalism, Life, and MintPress News

While delegates rally and Hillary Clinton turns on the charm at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the streets will be full of activists demanding justice.

MintPress News reporter Kit O’Connell will be there as supporters of Green Party candidate Jill Stein demand that she have access to the voting ballots and the debates. He’ll be at a march to end the war on cannabis users and growers. And he’ll talk to other activists representing diverse causes as they protest, march and rally outside the Wells Fargo Center from July 25 to 28.

Read moreSee You In Philly: Kit Will Report Live From DNC 2016 Protests
A New Look For Approx. 8,000 Words
Tthe sun rises over the Colorado River as seen from Longhorn Dam in Austin, Texas, in this October 11, 2011 photograph. (Flickr / Marcus Calderon)
February 12, 2016
Kit
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A New Look For Approx. 8,000 Words

Posted in Journalism, Life, and Website

If this isn’t your first visit, you may notice that my website changed in the past month.

I created this website when I finally got tired of keeping a LiveJournal and decided it was time to launch a real online identity. I’ve been a writer in various genres since my teens, but 8 years ago I was mostly focused on writing fiction. In 2008, I designed Approximately 8,000 Words to look like an old-fashioned manuscript format submission that a writer might send to an editor.

It’s halfway through a new decade, and I’m now working full time as a journalist. My homepage was overdue for a new look. I’m still fine-tuning things, and slowly crossposting most of my reports for MintPress News and other sites, but I hope you enjoy what you see.

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My First Tattoo: A SemicolonKit in a yellow shirt sitting in a chair while James works on his arm with the tattoo machine.
September 25, 2014
Kit
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My First Tattoo: A Semicolon

Posted in Austin, Life, Other Writing, and Polyamory

A semicolon tattoo on Kit's bicep. A yellow shirt can also be seen.
; is the pause that refreshes.

Today I got my first tattoo.

Why did I select a semicolon for my first tattoo? They’ve always been my favorite punctuation, ever since an English teacher showed me how to use them properly. It felt like esoteric knowledge. It felt like being let into a secret club of writers and I’ve never really stopped writing.

My writer friend Steven Brust also has a semi-colon tattoo, and after all we shared together it felt fitting to have matching body art. I look forward to getting a photo of both our semicolons next time he visits Austin.

Kit in a yellow shirt sitting in a chair while James works on his arm with the tattoo machine.
James Hill, of Shaman Modifications, modifying Kit.

Symbolically, I also like the what the semicolon represents — bringing two sentences together or joining disparate ideas. It might be the least used and most misunderstood of the common punctuation marks too, and I also like that. The same teacher who told me about how to use them also quipped that people are so afraid of the semicolon that you could use one to fend off muggers.

Since deciding that this would be my first tattoo, I also learned about The Semicolon Project. Though I’ve never been suicidal, I’ve dealt with debilitating depression and helped loved ones and family through their own suicide attempts. It’s not why I got this tattoo, but I am happy to display the project’s symbol.

And as if that weren’t enough, it turns out that today is coincidentally National Punctuation Day. I’d link you to the official homepage for the day, but people apparently love punctuation too much and it’s crashed.

Thanks James Hall at Shaman Modifications so easy, relatively painless and beautiful!

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Cartoon Friday: Count DuckulaA vampire rubber duck.
September 20, 2014
Kit
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Cartoon Friday: Count Duckula

Posted in Firedoglake, Life, Media, and Other Writing

I may not be working for Firedoglake anymore but … It’s STILL Cartoon Friday!

During my two years at Firedoglake I turned the Watercooler — MyFDL’s end of the night wrap up post — into something I looked forward to assembling every night. Partway through that process, I realized I could do almost anything I wanted with the feature. And between that and my love of cartoons, Cartoon Friday was born.

Now that I won’t be blogging at FDL as much anymore it seems only fitting to bring this “tradition” to my blog, Approximately 8,000 Words.

If you’re new or want to review past installments, here’s a retrospective of Cartoon Friday 2013 and a bunch of more recent installments.

Tonight’s selection is the Count Duckula episode, “There are Werewolves at the Bottom of our Garden.” It originally aired in November of 1990.

Duckula is a British cartoon which spun off from another popular series that also saw syndication in the United States, Danger Mouse. In the original series, Duckula was a fearsome villain — at least relatively speaking when you remember the main characters of the original series were a mouse and a mole.

For his feature series, he was reimagined as something far less fierce.

A vampire rubber duck.
OK, a bit more fierce than that.

Perhaps because Danger Mouse dispatched Duckula in the original, Duckula finds himself revived through an ancient and mystic rite — only Nanny, a clumsy hen and one of the vampire duck’s closest allies, substitutes ketchup for blood. Now the mighty warrior is much closer to an Inspector Gadget-like figure: he becomes a hapless vegetarian that survives primarily through the aid of his friends and servants like the tireless but cynical butler, Igor.

So curl up with a favorite libation and get ready to get silly — from the very first moments. Oh, they don’t make theme songs like that anymore.

Thank God.

Seen any good cartoons lately?

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