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