Tuesday, February 24
I seem to have been collecting links for a while, so let's get some of them out of the way:
In the writing front, Making Light has been posting some excellent stuff for writers recently. There's an article called Slushkiller describing why not to take rejections personally, in some detail. As a tangent the best checklist of why manuscripts get rejected that I've ever seen is provided. A bit later Teresa also posted On Getting An Agent, a succinct summary of the reasons and the pitfalls involved in agent-hunting.
On the more political front, Making Light also linked to this article where the Secretary of Education calls the NEA a "terrorist organization". That would be... the National Education Association. Yup, the teacher's union.
The state governors the Secretary was addressing were said to be "startled" by this, just going to show, I guess, that even politicians are a bit startled when a member of the president's cabinet reveals that he has gone completely around the bend and will now be spending the rest of his days in Happy La-La Land. But it seems the remark was not quite as insane as it first appeared:
You know, we loopy leftist liberals have been saying for years now that the War On Terror was going to be used as an excuse for persecuting anyone who didn't agree with the government, and people called us paranoid. It's awful nice of the administration to go proving us right.
In other "our government is whacked" news, A Violently Excuted Blog some time ago linked to an article describing how The Army tried to confiscate the attendance list of a UT conference on Islam. That's right, our beloved military sent agents around to bully a couple of law students out of a (nonexistant) attendance list to a "basically bland" conference on Islamic law and sexism. Brilliant, guys. My tax dollars at work!
And, in a final installment of politics, Ralph Nader has announced he's running for president, provoking screams of outrage from the Democratic Party as a whole. Oh, come on, guys, you're the side of the angels for at least this year and it's embarrassing to see you make such pansies of yourselves. As The Ferrett points out, far better than I could, Nader did not loose Gore the bloody election. Gore lost the bloody election all on his own, by being such a Republocrat that most people genuinely couldn't see a difference between him and Bush - not that Bush was all that outstanding either. As my political science professor put it, "the difference between Bush and Gore is that Gore is going to stab you in the back, and Bush is going to just stab you." 2000 may well get the award for "most apathic election year ever." And the votes that Nader "stole" from Gore aren't going to be "stolen" from Kerry, if he ends up being the Democratic candidate, because Kerry's succeeded in distinguishing himself from Bush. If the Democratic race was still in the same state it was last fall, sure, there'd be a problem, because at that time the Democrats were still being meek little mice and believing the polls and not daring to say anything against the war because they thought it would alienate people. I credit Howard Dean with saving the party from that. He came along and made noise and suddenly the other candidates caught on to that age-old fact: statistics lie. Polls lie like hell. And people, rather than being alienated by Dean's railing on the war, were flocking to his banner in droves.
Of course, Dean was later to find out for himself that polls lie, which is probably all to the good; he had more noise than planning in him, and I doubt he'd have made a good presidential candidate. But credit where credit is due, he made noise, and for once the Democrats don't need to worry about a hellraiser like Nader coming along and showing them up, because they've actually got a platform for once.
It took someone like Howard Dean coming along to shake the Democrats out of their four-year stint as cringing cowards and yes-men, and now they're running away from Nader. *sigh* makes you wonder why you vote at all, really.
(Those of you who don't live in America are probably bored stiff by all this ranting, but hey, it's election year. Look on it as a free circus and bring your own popcorn....)
In the writing front, Making Light has been posting some excellent stuff for writers recently. There's an article called Slushkiller describing why not to take rejections personally, in some detail. As a tangent the best checklist of why manuscripts get rejected that I've ever seen is provided. A bit later Teresa also posted On Getting An Agent, a succinct summary of the reasons and the pitfalls involved in agent-hunting.
On the more political front, Making Light also linked to this article where the Secretary of Education calls the NEA a "terrorist organization". That would be... the National Education Association. Yup, the teacher's union.
The state governors the Secretary was addressing were said to be "startled" by this, just going to show, I guess, that even politicians are a bit startled when a member of the president's cabinet reveals that he has gone completely around the bend and will now be spending the rest of his days in Happy La-La Land. But it seems the remark was not quite as insane as it first appeared:
"He is, I guess, very concerned about anybody that questions what the president is doing," [Missouri governor] Holden said.
"He was implying that the NEA has not been one of the organizations that has been working with the administration to try to solve 'No Child Left Behind,"' he said.
You know, we loopy leftist liberals have been saying for years now that the War On Terror was going to be used as an excuse for persecuting anyone who didn't agree with the government, and people called us paranoid. It's awful nice of the administration to go proving us right.
In other "our government is whacked" news, A Violently Excuted Blog some time ago linked to an article describing how The Army tried to confiscate the attendance list of a UT conference on Islam. That's right, our beloved military sent agents around to bully a couple of law students out of a (nonexistant) attendance list to a "basically bland" conference on Islamic law and sexism. Brilliant, guys. My tax dollars at work!
And, in a final installment of politics, Ralph Nader has announced he's running for president, provoking screams of outrage from the Democratic Party as a whole. Oh, come on, guys, you're the side of the angels for at least this year and it's embarrassing to see you make such pansies of yourselves. As The Ferrett points out, far better than I could, Nader did not loose Gore the bloody election. Gore lost the bloody election all on his own, by being such a Republocrat that most people genuinely couldn't see a difference between him and Bush - not that Bush was all that outstanding either. As my political science professor put it, "the difference between Bush and Gore is that Gore is going to stab you in the back, and Bush is going to just stab you." 2000 may well get the award for "most apathic election year ever." And the votes that Nader "stole" from Gore aren't going to be "stolen" from Kerry, if he ends up being the Democratic candidate, because Kerry's succeeded in distinguishing himself from Bush. If the Democratic race was still in the same state it was last fall, sure, there'd be a problem, because at that time the Democrats were still being meek little mice and believing the polls and not daring to say anything against the war because they thought it would alienate people. I credit Howard Dean with saving the party from that. He came along and made noise and suddenly the other candidates caught on to that age-old fact: statistics lie. Polls lie like hell. And people, rather than being alienated by Dean's railing on the war, were flocking to his banner in droves.
Of course, Dean was later to find out for himself that polls lie, which is probably all to the good; he had more noise than planning in him, and I doubt he'd have made a good presidential candidate. But credit where credit is due, he made noise, and for once the Democrats don't need to worry about a hellraiser like Nader coming along and showing them up, because they've actually got a platform for once.
It took someone like Howard Dean coming along to shake the Democrats out of their four-year stint as cringing cowards and yes-men, and now they're running away from Nader. *sigh* makes you wonder why you vote at all, really.
(Those of you who don't live in America are probably bored stiff by all this ranting, but hey, it's election year. Look on it as a free circus and bring your own popcorn....)
Sunday, February 01
This year for Christmas I got my father a subscription to World Press Review, on the grounds that, as long as he was going to rant about politics, he might as well rant with his facts straight; and also on the grounds that any "slanted" news publication - which is to say, all of them - would cause him to foam at the mouth. World Press makes a real effort to be objective, and they publish news articles from newspapers all over the world. It seemed a good bet.
I've had myriad subscription problems with them (note to self: call about that double-charging thing) but the first issue arrived on Friday, and Dad likes it a lot. As do I. But it's frightening. The cover story this issue was on Saudi Arabia and contained this article, published in a London newspaper. The writer sums up the problem in five points:
I find this - to say the least - disturbing. My future health and security - the health and security of all Americans - depends on the ability of a corrupt monarchy which commits regular atrocities and bans women from driving cars, conducting business save with a male proxy, or appearing in public with any flesh showing, and which is being run by a stroke victim, to maintain itself in power.
In the meantime, my government is bashing the crap out of a petty little dictator with half the crimes and a tenth the power to make me "safe". Somehow I don't feel very safe.
Why did I ever think keeping up with the news was a good idea? I'm going back to hiding under the bed for a decade or three. Come get me out when the spaceship for Mars is ready to leave.
I've had myriad subscription problems with them (note to self: call about that double-charging thing) but the first issue arrived on Friday, and Dad likes it a lot. As do I. But it's frightening. The cover story this issue was on Saudi Arabia and contained this article, published in a London newspaper. The writer sums up the problem in five points:
One, that Saudi Arabia commands the greatest share of the world’s oil and plays a role "controlling market fluctuations" in production levels.
Two, there isn’t a nation that consumes or is more reliant on Saudi oil than the United States.
Three, the United States and most of the industrialized world are in a situation of absolute dependence on Saudi oil, with this being the case for many years to come.
Four, if it were to come to pass that the Saudi oil rigs were shut down, whether as a result of a terrorist act or political revolution, the effect on the global economy (especially the U.S. economy) would be paralyzing and devastating.
Five, control over Saudi oil is maintained by a ruling family that is increasingly demonstrating manifestations of its corruption, weakness, disintegration, and isolation from reality and modernity - and that is spurned by both its people and neighbors.
I find this - to say the least - disturbing. My future health and security - the health and security of all Americans - depends on the ability of a corrupt monarchy which commits regular atrocities and bans women from driving cars, conducting business save with a male proxy, or appearing in public with any flesh showing, and which is being run by a stroke victim, to maintain itself in power.
In the meantime, my government is bashing the crap out of a petty little dictator with half the crimes and a tenth the power to make me "safe". Somehow I don't feel very safe.
Why did I ever think keeping up with the news was a good idea? I'm going back to hiding under the bed for a decade or three. Come get me out when the spaceship for Mars is ready to leave.
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