Where is the software for making novels?

When I saw the uproar over Apple iBooks Author, I was all ready to get pissed off. Then I looked at the product page in the App store, and saw it was free. I looked some more, and realized that it wasn’t an app that I could realistically use, anyway.

Here is where I am left cold: since it is a free app, I am neither surprised nor especially dismayed that Apple will not allow its product to be sold outside of iBooks. The program reminds me of Booksmart by Blurb, which kindly gives us a handy free program for arranging our books…and then tells us to upload it straight to Booksmart and nowhere else.

There are, in fact, some religious leaders in RI who behave like grown-ups.

Good. Let’s have more of this and less of this.

Via WPRO, we have religious leaders from around RI who are setting a good example and showing some backbone:

“Crucify her, crucify her, cry those who fear the future, and hold on to the past,” said Rev. Betsy Garland, President of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches and interim pastor of the Riverside Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. “Today, we are all Jessica Ahlquist.”

“It is Jessica today,” said Rev. Kai, “it could be me tomorrow.”

This is a good thing. This is what leadership looks like.

 

Oh no he didn’t! He totally did.

I am 2/3 through the Millennium trilogy.

The bad: Stieg Larsson was a sneaky bastard who very rudely ended the second book on an infuriating cliffhanger.

The good: Since I am a Kindle-user, I can start reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest on my commute home this evening.

The bad: The third book costs $12.99.

The good: I got lots of Amazon gift cards for Christmas, so whatevs.

 

Today’s Metro Etiquette

For the love of Pete, please, people, do NOT stand still, or stop short, just in front of the foot of an escalator. Even if it’s going up. That’s only mildly less offensive than blocking up the foot of an escalator moving down. Get your directions straightened out with your friend BEFORE either of you get on. Otherwise, you are standing in the way of people who are trying to get home from work, and there is just no upside to that.

Sunday Storytime: “You love the ladies, and they love you!”

This week, I’m going to show you another sample from Charlinder’s Walk. This one is not shown on the website and has not been previously posted at this blog. I shared it with the ladies at the meetup at Teaism (thanks, Ananda!) and they enjoyed it, so today I’m posting it here.

The context is that Charlinder is going to leave on his journey within the next few weeks. All the village know he’s leaving, and they’re going to miss him, so his gal-pals are taking turns saying good-bye to him. As a result, he’s having sex a lot more often than usual, and his uncle is not oblivious. Therefore, Roy is going to tease him a bit. The village does communal meals in the main square, thus the “coming in from dinner” bit.

Also below the jump is a tidbit from my fourth novel, which is currently in the planning stage.

I would like to see some Christians defending Jessica Ahlquist.

We have an overall summary of the case brought to our attention by 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist via Friendly Atheist. With me so far? Church/state separation issue, prayer banner displayed in public school, clearly unconstitutional, no surprise that the judge ruled against the school? Right? Right, so, THAT happened, and now that the case has been decided, a lot of people in Cranston, RI are not happy with Jessica. In fact, they are extremely upset with her, and they’re making sure she knows it.

Greta Christina gives her analysis of the backlash at Alternet. She draws from these two basic observations: 1) this was a clear, simple question of church/state separation from the beginning, and no one should be surprised that the judge ruled against the school, and 2) and yet people are totally enraged at Jessica for her role in this case.

Some edited highlights are below the jump. This shit ain’t pretty, folks.

Sunday Storytime: “Getting yourself attacked is a public service?”

This is a snippet from my dystopian WIP, Fait Accompli. The situation is that, for reasons that would take some time to explain, there is an American generation with a severe shortage of women. With that in mind, Extra is a derogatory term for a heterosexual man with, shall we say, too much time on his hands. DO, acronym for Dual Opportunities, is shorthand for an immigrant young woman. Our protagonist, Claudia Bowen, had a little incident in her apartment last night, and she came out of it just fine but her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Epstein, is not amused. Mrs. Epstein lives downstairs with her husband, and they’re like grandparents to Claudia. Kihap is a Tae Kwon Do term.

Arizona, please tell me you’re joking!

Tucson, what is that I don’t even.

Outrage was the response on Saturday to the news that Tucson schools banned books by the nation’s award winning Chicano, Latino and Native American authors.

What the? Do you need to have an Anglo surname and pale face to have your books allowed in the school system now?

But wait, it’s not just Tucson:

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to surrender to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state’s threat to extract millions of education dollars from Tucson schools if it continues ethnic studies.

The state of Arizona is threatening to pull education funds from school districts that continue ethnic studies? Why is it that I am appalled and yet no longer surprised?

This is cited from a Salon article by Jeff Biggers:

Other banned books include “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by famed Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often singled out by Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal, who campaigned in 2010 on the promise to “stop la raza.” Huppenthal, who once lectured state educators that he based his own school principles for children on corporate management schemes of the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.

When you have elected as your state superintendent a guy who loses the argument via Godwin’s Law, Arizona, something has gone seriously wrong in your state’s cultural discourse.

 

I suppose Caitlin Flanagan might like some aloe for that BURN.

Folks, this is not a vicious negative review. Blogger Allison Dayle is gentle as a pussycat compared to Irin Carmon at Slate, reviewing Girl Land by Caitlin Flanagan:

Of the many questions formed while reading Caitlin Flanagan’s “Girl Land,” most pressing is why it was written at all.

That’s just the very beginning.

But this is not a memoir, or it rarely is, and it’s not clear why. After all, a memoir might conveniently free Flanagan from one of her fiercest hostilities — her resistance to empirical data or any evidence at all.

Fellow writers, THAT is what it looks like when a reviewer trashes your work. Granted, Carmon is reviewing non-fiction, which makes her criticism quite a different animal from Dayle’s unimpressed reaction to Halpern’s book. But still. You want to talk about “DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM READING” a given book? Carmon will show you how it’s done.

Puah Institute, what is that I don’t even.

You may have heard about the medical conference in Israel that’s banning women from speaking at the event? Specifically, the gynecology-focused conference where women aren’t allowed to speak on stage?

The annual Innovations in Gynecology and Halacha conference of the Puah Institute for Medicine and Halacha is scheduled for Wednesday. Some 1,000 men and women are expected to attend the conference, which is geared to the Modern Orthodox and haredi Orthodox communities. Male and female participants are separated by dividers in the conference hall.

The conference has been held for the last 12 years, but this marks the first time that the absence of female speakers has become an issue. Women do not serve as speakers, according to the organization, in order to insure the participation of the haredi Orthodox, who are generally wary of medical advancements in fertility treatments.

Their rationale is this:

1. Haredi don’t like to see women speak to male audiences.

2. Haredi are ambivalent about fertility treatments.

3. The Puah Institute wants Haredi doctors to attend this conference and learn about advancements in fertility treatments, therefore,

4. Women must be strictly separated from men at the Gynecology & Halacha Conference.

Notice that no one is trying to keep women from seeing men speak on stage. It’s fine for female doctors to sit in the audience while men make presentations. It’s the question of male doctors watching presentations by female doctors on stage that’s a problem.

Am I missing something here? If letting women show themselves in public is such a problem for Haredi men, then…maybe, Haredi men should not be gynecologists? Think about this for a second: if it’s “immodest” for a man to see a woman speaking on stage about medical advancements, then how is it the least bit acceptable for a man to put his hands on the private parts of a woman whom he may have just met that day?

It occurs to me that if Haredi men followed through on their “modesty” requirements and just left gynecology to female doctors, this conference wouldn’t be an issue.

(Yes, I know: when they talk about “modesty,” they’re really talking about keeping women in the kitchen, which means female doctors are only tolerated because of secular pressures.)

All that said, though, the controversy is totally worth the trouble, owing to this hilarious fauxpology from Puah:

“We are sorry that instead of appreciating the great advances we have merited to see in women’s health in general, and in particular within the religious sector, as a result of our conferences, there are cynical, aggressive elements who try to block us by using the prevailing public ambience,” the organization said on its website. “These elements are riding on the back of the Puah Institute in order to advance their personal agenda.”

Shorter version: “You bitches are just JEALOUS! Waaaaah!”