TOP DRAWER INK NEWSLETTER

 

Here's the latest issue of Top Drawer Ink, the newsletter written by author HL Carpenter that's chock full of humor and common sense information.

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May 20, 2006
Volume 4, Number 10
ISSN 1554-6330

In this issue:

1. Carpenter Country
2. Top Drawer Article
3. Top Drawer Tips
4. Top Drawer Book Review
5. Top Drawer Satire

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CARPENTER COUNTRY
What's Happening in Our Neck of the Human Experience

 

Does anyone remember when kids traded cards? Not baseball cards, regular playing cards with beautiful pictures on the back.

Here in Carpenter Country we found a small deck of ten trading cards in our memorabilia pile and it transported us back to elementary school.

Our cards were illustrated with many different pictures, but a Persian cat on a blue background and a golden retriever on a red background stand out. In our youth, those two paired were worth four cards if anyone wanted to trade.

Brand new cards with all different kinds of pictures could be ordered from a company in New York City. We seemed to collect dogs; cats were a second choice, horses a third.

What fun!

But now we’ve learned that during those WWII years playing cards were used for more than entertainment.

It seems some cards carried a concealed map to help soldiers find a safe escape route from POW camps. All that was needed to reveal the map was a bit of water or saliva.

Other decks portrayed detailed shapes of US and allied armored combat weapons to aid in identifying our armament from the enemies.

Years later in Vietnam, GI’s used the Ace of Spades to scare superstitious Viet Cong.

And playing cards are still doing double duty in the fight against Al Qaeda by depicting pictures of the most sought after terrorists.

We’re guessing trading cards will never make a comeback. But there are plenty of other fun things to do with cards - like telling fortunes.

Or playing Bridge, Rummy, Spite and Malice …

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TOP DRAWER ARTICLE

Bird Flu
by
HL Carpenter

 

Is your business ready for the flu?

The latest news reports indicate bird flu, while still a threat in some parts of the world, has become less of a worry in the countries that experienced the worst outbreaks. Still, governments around the world are continuing to plan for a global pandemic – which means you probably should, too.

Read the entire article here

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TOP DRAWER TIPS
Topics and Tidbits

 

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TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW

by
HL Carpenter

 

Launch It!
by Molly Miller-Davidson,
Joann Stone-Geier, and Michael Levinson
ISBN 0-06-081924-3
272 pages; hardcover; $21.95
HarperCollins, New York, 2005

And this little idea went to market.

How do you get your great idea converted into a great product and then start selling the product and making money? Launch It! tries to take you through the steps, starting with identifying customers, getting funds and marketing.

Read the entire review here

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TOP DRAWER SATIRE

Fighting Reality
by
HL Carpenter

 

It’s been a relatively rare affliction, but incidents of reality have been cropping up in unexpected regions of the US.

The National Illusion Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, is concerned enough to begin a study to determine whether the outbreak is authentic.

Read the rest here