updating

I am trying to update this blog and although I'm perfectly capable of reading directions, I'm stumped. Guess I'll have to call on friends to help. In the meantime, bear with me.

window shot

That's Max reclining and Jenny stretching in my photo. That's the favorite cat window. I need to tree the tree. It's a volunteer box elder and I love the way it makes the air green coming through the window. It also tends to block my satellite dishes, so it gets trimmed in a rather inartistic and haphazard way.

That tree makes my living room seem peaceful. Trees do that.

EIther/Or on the Mosque

Anent, and yes it's archaic but a good word -- about the Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero... The US of A either supports, encourages and practices freedom of religion or it doesn't. There's no in-between.

It's disheartening to see the ooze that's going on. Such things just make it easier for Big Government to lap away at our basic freedoms. It has already become dicey to stage non-violent protests, even silent ones.

We must have the freedom to protest. So let the anti-mosquers protest all they want. They are just showing the world what bigots they are and how cowardly they are.

The extreme right wins when they scare people into such actions. Glennie Beckster and Rusho Limbo laugh all the way to the bank.

Disgusting.

The non-newshour

An Hour’s Worth of Non-News
This is unscientific, of course, but eye-opening. Just what is the local news telling us? Not much, if you break it down.I kept a tally on Monday night’s 5:00-6:00 local news on WCVB, the ABC affiliate in Boston.

During that hour, they covered 35 news and general interest stories. Wow, you say? But wait, they also aired 10 “teasers” (the topic of news they are going to cover in a minute or so), 24 commercials, and 25 promo ads for local and network programs to be aired later.

The local weather was covered in four different slots, sports in two. Stories about celebrities got two stories. There were four crime stories, two involving Hispanic men, and two implicating teenagers. Nine stories required talking head “experts.” Six of those were white men, three were women. The women experts appeared on national news stories, and were government spokes.
There were no stories about the environment, unless you count three “general interest” ones: great white sharks off Cape Cod beaches, felling of the tree Anne Frank wrote about, and a follow-up on the Sea World killer whale that drowned its trainer earlier this year.

Five other reports were about fires, car accidents, a sleep study (not local), and salmonella in eggs.WCVB has a lot of reporters, and they are racially and ethnically diverse, but except for a couple of them, it’s difficult to know just what their “beat” is, in journalist terms.

Do you wonder why we’re so dumbed-down? None of the stories had a context, or background information.

Readercon

Readercon this year seems a little smaller.

Pirates

Am I dense or is there something I don't understand? Piracy is unacceptable behavior, is it not? The longer this stand-off goes on, the more they celebrate in Somalia. I seem to recall some old-fashioned virtues, such as honor, courage. Certainly the Captain shows those virtues... are these renegades going to walk (or swim) away from this? And when do civilized, and I use the word rather loosely, people and governments shut down the pirates?

Crazy-making.

Update on JEMMA7729

Now that JEMMA7729 has been out a year and is still selling steadily, time to do something else. I get lots of feedback on the novel. What? What'd you say? You haven't read it yet? Well, think about it.

Feedback -- The first question I'm asked is: when is the sequel coming out? That's a good question. There is one. It's still in a file on my desktop. Nearly nearly finished, just smoothing out and plumping up. Actually, it's been in draft a long time. I wrote it right after I finished Jemma. I'm glad I did that, because it has the same rage at its heart that made me write the first book.

JEMMA7729 was written in 2003-2004. (Takes a loooong time to get a book out!) Remember back then? I was outraged that my government was going into Iraq (still am, for that matter), and about the fear=mongering that was going on, the angst of Americans and the lies of the administration. That is still bubbling in JAY2. There's no lapse of time between the novels. JAY2 picks up where JEMMA7729 left off.

But Jay is not Jemma. Totally different critter. She looks like Jemma, sounds like Jemma, and there are personality similarities, but Jay has no life experience, no highs and lows. And not much moral compass, either.

She's fun to write.

One more thing -- I've taken some hits from people who hate the cover. I love the cover. Yes, it's pulpy. So what? Besides that, the artist, David Willicome, has been nominated for the Aurora Award for best cover. We'll find out at WorldCon if he won.