Hanging on Deck

Hanging on Deck
Originally uploaded by Terrablu.

flickr tags: April, 2005, Bernie, Pregnant, Belly, Deck, Terra

More Blessings & Animals

More Blessings & Animals
Originally uploaded by Terry Bain.

blessings [x] animals [x] blessingoftheanimals [x] StFrancis [x] StMarks [x] Lutheran [x] StMarksLutheranChurch [x] church [x] Spokane [x] turtle

Blessing of the Animals, Oct 2, 2005 I

Blessing of the Animals, Oct 2, 2005 I
Originally uploaded by Terry Bain.

blessing [x] blessingoftheanimals [x] stmarks [x] lutheran [x] church [x] animals [x] stfrancis [x] dog [x]

Lifehack / 50 Tools

Lifehack / 50 Tools
Originally uploaded by Terry Bain.

Lifehack has posted some handy tools for writers... these tools actually seem pretty handy, and maybe you already knew all or most of them, but I always think it's a good idea to see a tool written in a different way, from a different hand, because sometimes it just doesn't make any sense until we've seen and heard it twelve hundred times from twelve hundred people.

Blessings and luck on you writers out there.

tags // writer / writing / 50Tools / 50WritingTools / WritingTools / Writing / Tools / lifehack / life / hack / productivity / productive / blog

The Freedom to Read Act

The folks at True Majority have already said what needs to be said far better than I could say what needs to be said, so I'll quote them here and provide the appropriate links:

"If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch." - Justice Thurgood Marshall writing the majority opinion in STANLEY v. GEORGIA

When the "Patriot Act" was first passed just six weeks after the attacks of 9/11 it included several provisions that were, well, un-American. One of the worst allows the government to go before a secret court to get a secret subpoena to access just about any records they want from libraries and bookstores to find out who's reading what. Included in the subpoenas is a gag order for the librarians and booksellers that threatens them with jail time if they tell anyone (you, for example) about the search. And because of the secrecy and gag orders these subpoenas can never be challenged because the victims don't know about them and the librarians and booksellers can't talk about them. [1]

When they finally got around to actually reading the Patriot Act, many Members of Congress were concerned about this intrusion on our liberties. Rep. Bernie Sanders pulled together a coalition from the left and the right to overturn this madness and last year offered an amendment to the budget forbidding any money to be spent on these secret searches, essentially ending them. Miracle of miracles, despite strong pressure from the Republican leadership the amendment passed the House. Then, in another un-American - and unprecedented - move the Republican leadership said that the vote wasn't actually over and then spent hours twisting arms getting Republican legislators to change their votes. They kept this up until they had turned enough votes and then, BANG, voting was ended. Shocking. For those of you keeping score, that's parliamentary hijinks to overturn a majority vote so that secret courts and gag orders could be maintained.

Well, Rep. Sanders and his colleagues are going to try again this week and this time we think they might win. Please take a moment to join with the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association in telling your Congressmember to support the Freedom to Read Protection Act. Just click this link to send a message:

http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/Freedom_to_Read_Act

To hear a fascinating story about how the system is supposed to
work click here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4676707 and check out an NPR story about one library system that challenged a conventional subpoena and won. [2] The lesson here is that if the FBI had used the Patriot Act instead of traditional laws the librarians couldn't have appealed and the subpoena couldn't have been overturned.

Thanks for helping,

Andrew Greenblatt
Online Organizer

Act: Take Action: the Freedom to Read Act

tags // freedomtoread / patriot / patriotact / act / truemajority / takeaction / read / library / bookseller / books

Oriana Fallaci Faces Defamation Charges in Italy

Want freedom of speech? You got it. But don't publish your book in Italy:

Top News Article | Reuters.com: "A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.

...

Fallaci lives in New York and has regularly provoked the wrath of Muslims with her outspoken criticism of Islam following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities."

Technorati Tags: islam, defamation, italy, italian, OrianaFallaci

Ken Foster's Website Has Gone to the Dog Blogs

I can't really decide if this post belongs in the Literary Praxis or in the You Are a Dog blog, so I'll likely cross post. But Ken Foster (author of The Kind I'm Likely to Get and editor of The KGB Bar Reader and Dog Culture) has temporarily turned his website into a blog, and it features (of course) a lot of dog stuff. His memoir, The Dogs Who Found Me, will be published this year, and I'm looking forward to putting it on my wish list.

Blessings on Ken, and good luck finding a decent server. And thanks to Beatrice for noticing this: ken-foster.com.

Technorati Tags: KenFoster, dog, blog, dogblog, dogwriter, writer, author, KGB, editor

LitBlog Co-Op

The Lit-Blog Co-Op has chosen Case Histories by Kate Atkinson as its first "Read This!" pick/recommendation. There's not much more I have to say about it because I haven't read it. I've looked at it a half a dozen times in the bookstore, but I haven't yet pulled the trigger. Maybe the recommendation will get me to do so.

Then again, maybe not. Visit the LitBlog Co-Op blog (linked above) for more information...

Technorati Tags: litblogcoop, litblog, coop, casehistories, book, blog, co-op, lit, literary, readthis, recommendation

A La Diablo and Back / Libby Wagner

My lovely friend Libby Wagner has a lovely travel piece over at blueroadrunner.com: A La Diablo and Back by Libby Wagner.

We ride along until we stop at some fork with a sign I can't begin to translate-half the letters are transposed and it doesn't make much sense. I think it says "Be careful of livestock crossing" or something like that, and later George will tell us that good racer etiquette includes searching out a rancher and paying him if you've killed one of his cows during the race.

I was going to try not to use the word "lovely" again in this post, but then I decided that it would be necessary if I was going to mention her lovely book, Like This, Like That.

Technorati Tags: ladiablo, diablo, libbywagner, libby, wagner, travel, race, poet

SnarkSpot Peeps

A person should always pay careful attention to the needs of their two-year old peeps:

SnarkSpot: "'No, no, get out! Get out and sit in chair! Sit in chair and look at peoples!'"

Technorati Tags: peoples, two, twoyearolds, peeps, children, books, blog, snarkspot

Swiper Sleeps with Gods in Alabama

Swiper Sleeps with Gods in Alabama
Originally uploaded by Terry Bain.

I've only read the first few pages of Gods in Alabama, but if the first two pages are any indication of a worthy novel (and sometimes they are), I'm looking forward to this one (of course the book was a gift to my wife, so I should wait for her to read it... and now it looks as if I'm going to have to wait for the cat to finish it too).

You might also want to go listen in at Joshilyn Jackson's blog, because she's just a damn good writer and worth reading every day she writes something.

Technorati Tags: joshilynjackson, godsinalabama, alabama, gods, cat, swiper, read, reading, book, litblog, literary, literature, fiction, novel

Such a Lonely Word

I'm intrigued by This Post at THE LITBLOG CO-OP: Such a Lonely Word.

"Art is about shaping things, it's about craft and deliberation, skill and surprise. It's not a therapy session. I'm so tired of poets who say, 'Here is my heart on a platter -- eat it, for it is a poem, and should be savored, because it is honest!' Such people should be tossed out windows and mocked viciously!"

I remember once when a friend of mine said that art should reflect reality. Like a mirror. I think she used the word mirror. And I said something back with enough force that she was pretty sure I was angry with her. I didn't slam my fist down, but I did want to make sure she knew where I stood on the issue.

Because art doesn't reflect the world. You can't hold up a piece of art and say, "this is the way the world is." What you can do is hold up a piece of art and say, "this is the way a world is." It's the world shown in that piece of art. That poem. That novel. That painting.

Even art that looks very much like a report of events is not reflecting the "real" world (whatever that is). It's making it's own world. I don't read The Things They Carried because it's going to look like the Vietnam war. I read it because it creates a remarkable world. Everything in that book is real. It's a real world. It has walls and guns and people and dying animals. But it isn't this world. It isn't the world I see in a mirror.

Hell, I don't trust a mirror anyway. What I see in the mirror is just reflected light. No emotions. No magic. No motive. No life. Just light. Turn off the light, it disappears.

Turn off the light and art still exists. It exists inside you. And that's important. And that's the difference.

Technorati Tags: poetry, poem, art, judge, litblog, litblogcoop, coop, literary, blog, TimOBrien, novel, writing, art, mirror