Dare to Be Stupid

Further to Gosnell: why seek unsafe abortion care?

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:09:30 GMT

On the previous thread, mundungus42 pointed me to this article about why women in Philadelphia and elsewhere might seek illegal and unsafe abortions from people like Barron Gosnell (he never used his first name that I knew of). It's worth reading, in part because there are measures enacted here that affect women in other countries that we might lobby against, and because legal abortion clinics are being closed down all over the country. How long will it be until one of us is driven to an illegal provider in desperation, all because primarily male officials legislated care for our bodies?

In another story mentioned by wild_patience, a Planned Parenthood in Delaware has been closed pending investigation for unsafe conditions during abortions, making Delaware the first state with no abortion providers. Stories are flying thick and fast, with the most credible reports of unclean conditions coming from two registered nurses who quit their jobs after reporting the conditions got no response.

And the enemies of abortion coverage are having a heyday. I had to sort through their commentary on Delaware to find one article from a news organization I could expect to pretend to be objective. What have these people claiming to be "pro-life" got against women, that they would rather see them driven to abort themselves or go to someone like Gosnell than have access to clean, safe, properly regulated abortions? And shame on you, Planned Parenthood, for not keeping a sharper eye on your clinics!

Possible trigger for violence, abortions

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:05:58 GMT

In 1974, when I was between my sophomore and junior years in college, I found myself needing a gynecologist. Student health at the university was closed; I was working a full-time job, so by a process I don't quite remember, I ended up at the Women's Medical Center on Walnut or Chestnut Street, I think it was. As much as anyone could fall in love with a gynecologist--and a man, too, not my first choice even in those days, when I was a milder feminist than I am now--I fell in love with this one, a tall, light-skinned black man with freckles and a beautiful, deep voice. He warmed the speculum in his hands. He had art work placed on the ceiling so you had something to look at while objects wiggled around your insides, a process I hate. He told jokes.

I kept going back. When I got medical assistance I started seeing him for everything, as he moved in an associate for non-gynecological problems. I developed pain in my arms and knees; they introduced me to acupuncture. With the many gynecological issues that can come up with someone on the Pill, with migraines, and an active sexual life, I saw my doctors a lot. I even introduced my other female housemate to the practice. Then I finished school, said my goodbyes, and moved away. Whenever I had a good gynecological experience, or a not-so-good one, I thought of my old Penn doctor.

His name is Kermit Barron Gosnell.

Do any of you recognize the name? Have you been following the case? I saw the name, thrown at this LJ during a discussion of abortion clinics last year by some conservative who said they were all like those run by Gosnell in Philadelphia. The name just isn't that common. I searched it. And there was my old friend's face. The charges and the information were sickening. The discovery that none of his staff were qualified to carry out their duties was horrifying. The scale--two clinics and years of operations--makes my head spin.

I thought we--the clinic, my feminist friend and I--were all on one side. I knew the clinic performed abortions; it's one of the reasons I chose it. (Hey--you never know.) I believe, I thought Gosnell believed, that women had a right to safe abortions performed by trained professionals in a clean setting. What I read made me sick. It should have made me sick. And now that the verdict is in, I know that it's true. A woman died of bad care. Viable babies were killed. Instruments and the setting were not clean; disposal was not respectful or sanitary; workers were not trained. It is our nightmare of pre-Roe v. Wade abortions, except this was supposed to have been legal. Gosnell had made enough from his operations, and his dealings in painkillers, to run two such clinics. This whole rats' nest was exposed by Feds tracking down the drug selling operation. They get their whack at him this fall--his time on trial isn't over.

I kept wanting to post about this here, but I couldn't think of what to say. I keep wondering if I ought to reach out to my old friends from that time and ask if they know and what they think, but I can't. That place, those people, were so good. I thought something positive was beginning there, not so much for university girls deprived of student health, but for the population of West Philadelphia. I had never had a comfortable relationship with doctors before. They were always hostile authority figures who despised my family because we were on welfare, even us kids. Gosnell and his people made medical care something relaxed.

Why didn't I see any potential for this? Why did I not guess or suspect anything? It could have begun long after the 70s. Maybe Gosnell scrambled one too many times for funds, when he knew there were easier ways to make serious money. I've run into real sociopaths before, and they can be so plausible. Gosnell's differences are scale and indifference to life, and the other sociopaths I've known never got the opportunity to gain by allowing a life to pass through their gloved and slippery hands. And there is one more thing, the thing I hate to think more than any other.

Gosnell's victims were all women of color. My roommate, and I? We're white. Is it possible Gosnell, a man of mixed race, felt less attention would be paid to the travails of women of color? Did he have issues there? I don't suppose we'll ever know. Probably it was just that we knew him before he thought of ways to get rich, and didn't really think all those wombs matters.

Others are culpable. The state and city inspectors have a lot to answer for, because they went for years, rubber-stamping their OK's on this outfit and its facilities without really inspecting. They owe something to the dead woman's family and to the other women who were damaged by Gosnell and the people who worked for him. I hope there is a big shakeup going on in those organizations, because they allowed this to continue. It doesn't take blame away from any of the people who worked for Gosnell or from Gosnell himself. It just means there's more blame that has to be cleaned up with the rest of the stinking, rotting mess.

edited to add:
I should have said, please don't feel sorry for me. My hurt is psychic only, and I can bear this one and work through it--I've had and will have worse. Our pity and heartbreak belongs to the women Gosnell and his cohorts abused for so many years. None of them sucked up the knowledge that they would go to jail and reported this. None of them. They let it go on for years. The victims are the ones who deserve our better feelings, and those who took part deserve whatever they get.

And in the too, too cool category

Thu, 09 May 2013 16:53:47 GMT

Programmer girl Jen Lamere comes up with a TV-spoiler-busting Twitter program, thereby winning her subcategory and the main prize in the TVnext Hack Event, the only girl to do so (the only girl competing, people say). 8-(

The program allows you to block potentially spoilery things about your favorite shows for a set period of time, after which the twitters about your shows are revealed in full again. Is this cool or what? (It isn't generally available yet, though).

Guess what Jen plans to go to college for? Go on. You don't even have to close your eyes to guess!

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:38:52 GMT

The amazing Maureen Johnson took on the gendering of book covers in the Huffington Post this week: the article is a cutting way to point out to the clueless how women's books are softened and made non-threatening and less important in publishing. Check it out, but have your favorite heartburn tablets on hand. Maureen is someone to follow, not just in her fiction: she is one of our best activists.

I also recommend this very thought-provoking article of hers, The Gender Cover-Up. What can I say, except "she's right." If you need confirmation, you only have to look at the 2012 "Best of" lists published by the prestige outfits like the New York Times, the LA Times, and the New York Review of Books, among others. The majority of writers on those lists is men (majority ... is, not are--yep, that's right). The same is true for the British lists, except for the one that is dedicated to women because the principal list continually chose only male writers.

Maureen is a delight to read. She is crystal clear in her thinking and prose, and she doesn't mess around. Check her out. Discuss freely. Enjoy!

Bealtaine and jewelry!

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:46:48 GMT

Goddess and Green Man bless you all on this Bealtaine, and may any good crop you this summer return full bounty to you! It may be plants, it may be ideas, it may be work--summer is the time for growth and laying up good stuff against the winter months to come.

And in case you were thinking of laying up holiday and birthday gifts or giving yourself a little something, the lovely Adelheide has refurbished her own jewelry lines. You may recall she is VERY affordable, and she could use a little extra cash right now. Take a look--I have. (Actually, I'm doing more than looking!)

E. L. Konigsberg

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:00:40 GMT

In all the madness and sadness of the week, it's easy to miss the passing of one of our greats: E. L. Konigsberg, author of the classics FROM THE CRAZY MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER, THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY, A PROUD TASTE FOR SCARLET AND MINIVER, THE OUTCASTS OF 19 SCHUYLER PLACE, and so many more. She published two books at the very start of her career, one of which was a Newbery Honor winner and one a Newbery Award winner. (I'm so glad I didn't find this out until yesterday, or I might never have had the courage to try the marketplace.)(Nah, I woulda gone for it anyway.)

She was an author-illustrator, a science teacher, a mother, a painter, and one of those long term facets of anyone who lived part of their lives in school libraries. She was 83 years old.

Ms. Konigsberg, I hope you and Eleanor of Aquitaine are finally getting to have a nice long chat.

North Korea

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:58:37 GMT

I don't know if any of you have been paying any attention to the Koreas while we wait for the next chapter in the Steubenville story. I have, because I am used to thinking of North Korean military posturing as silly, my father was a veteran of what was called "a police action," in Korea, and what most people called the Korean War.

Things have been getting tense as North Korea shuts down ties to South Korea, our ally, and South Korea has made responses they hope will show that they are determined not to be pushed around.

Yesterday was a little different. North Korea claimed it had put a missile emplacement on its east coast that could fire a missile that would reach American territory. They claim, and American Defense Secretary Hagel seems to believe, that territory is our territory of Guam, with its bases there. Mr. Hagel is now sending advanced weaponry to Guam.

When I was a kid, we learned about this thing called "escalation," which was the name of the tune that everyone danced to during the Cold War. You move your big weapon into your ally's country, we move our bigger weapon into our ally's country. Or our country. Or you build bigger weapons in your country, and we move bigger countering weapons into our allies' countries, and everyone hopes and prays that nobody, NOBODY gets trigger happy.

Then the Berlin Wall came down and Soviet Russia went to pieces. Suddenly there was no more evil empire for us to play nuclear chess with. (If you want to know how bad it could get, look up the American War in Vietnam and/or the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were all such idiots.) Everyone decided to take our big missile bases down, and monitored the other guys as they did the same. We hoped the countries coming of technological age would learn from how close we came to blowing up everything.

And yet I sat at my screen, my belly and tripes all done up in knots, my memory in full Defcon 3. North Korea hasn't been funny for me for a month. And today's news? I've seen it before.

Pray, okay? I'm going to. Pray that it stops right here. Pray that the latest Kim says it was all a joke, and we're such silly Americans for taking a nuclear threat seriously. Because the only other direction from today's news is really, really bad.

edited to add after midnight on April 4th:

And since I'm not an expert in the region or in the thinking of North Korea's neighbor's, here's a well-thought-out, not-alarmist piece from today's L.A. Times which I think gives a pretty decent look at what's going on.

Happy Birthday

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:27:44 GMT

LUCY LAWLESS!

In which victims are shown to be survivors

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:35:09 GMT

Thanks to liadan_m, I read this amazing post (TRIGGERs for rape and abuse) started and moderated by my friend, writer Elizabeth Bear. Just for the record, I already thought Bear is a goddess. Not only is she an amazing writer, but she is a warrior for Good on LGBTQ issues.

She has a thing to say about the Steubenville girl and others like her, that they are not "victims," but "survivors." She explains this. And others come in to share their own experiences, as she does. This is a hard post to read, but the writers know what they are talking about. They are survivors. What they have to say is worth reading and worth serious thought. If you already know what they are talking about, it may help to know you aren't alone.

Because the bigots are everywhere

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:51:18 GMT

Update, March 25, 2013:

Within two days of my posting this, the gang at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, despite Fox's salacious reportage, Senator Campfield's posturing, and the university's cowardice, Sex Week and its broad program of education on all different kinds of issues with sexual themes raised the same income that had been promised to them by the university in funds for the original Sex Week. Hurray and thank you to all those who realized that the cause is a good one, and that people who don't even understand what Sex Week is about shouldn't be allowed to end it! This is a win for the good folks!

Today I got the following e-mail from a fan that made my blood boil. I'm asking you to help if you can and definitely, definitely boost the signal so we can lobby the school and call the cowards out. (And yes, I have Kata's permission to quote her mail in full!) Remember, when it comes to donations, even $5.00 is $5.00 more than they had, and signatures and signal boosts are just as powerful. Thanks, folks.
------------------------------------------------
With all the news recently about the rapes in Steubenville, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do as a society to try to attempt to stop things like this from happening again. One thing that I feel is needed is sex education for all.

Unfortunately, something has happened recently that is preventing me and many of those around me from receiving this education. I am a freshman at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and until recently, we were planning a school-wide “Sex Week” funded by the University on a combination of money from tuition and state taxes. This week would be a week on campus dedicated to providing sex education of all types to the students on campus.

Topics for the week included virginity, sex and religion, homosexuality, safe sex, healthy relationships, and countless other topics that young people need to know about. Unfortunately, about a week ago, Fox News published a misleading article severely misconstruing what was planned for the week. This caused a major uproar on and off campus. On campus, students were criticizing the bigotry found in the article, and making well-formed arguments against this attack on an educational, university-approved activity. Off campus, however, Tennessee Senator Stacey Campfield decided to use this publicity to attempt to stop this event from happening by threatening the funding that was to be used to support Sex Week. (You may remember him as the man who caused an uproar with his attempts at “anti-gay” measures in schools)

Apparently his threats, even though the budget had already been approved, managed to cow the members of our administration, because Chancellor Jimmy Cheek announced today that all funding from state taxes was to be cut—$11,145 dollars, leaving the organizers of the program with just $6,700 where there used to be $17,845.

Sex Week will continue as planned, but a lot of funding will have to come from donations. I’m not here asking you to donate, but I was hoping that you could use your influence as a respected woman with strong personal beliefs to make more people aware of what is going on. This is something that is very important to me, and I hope that you find it to be important as well. Even sharing our story on Facebook would mean the world to me.

I also hoped to take this moment to thank you for being such a positive influence in my life. Your books, with their strong women and practical lessons, have shaped me into the person I am today. I know that without you, my life would be completely different. I would never have had the courage to get myself out of a situation where I was bullied, I would not be so confident in myself, and I would definitely not have had the courage to write this letter if not for you. So thank you.

Yours Sincerely,

Kata
Freshman

Aforementioned articles:

The Fox article that sparked this mess

Things Senator Stacey Campfield has done

Today’s disappointing announcement

Donation page for Sex Week UTK

Petition to Chancellor Jimmy Cheek asking to approve the funding again
------------------------------------------------------------

Something better

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:31:58 GMT

BATTLE MAGIC, second draft--well, third draft--done.

for the rest, behold:
Tammy’s Favorite Young Adult/Teen – Kids’ Books 2012
Abbreviations:
2nd read = the second time I’ve read it, 3rd, xth, etc.
alt hi = alternate history
anthology = stories/articles by different authors
b = boy hero, will appeal to boys
c = current period in time
collection = all stories by one author
dys = dystopia
ed(s). = editor(s)
f = fantasy
gn = graphic novel
h = horror
hi = historical
nf = nonfiction
p = paranormal
sf = science fiction
syn. = synonym
v = novel in verse
YA = Young Adult/Teen
YR = Young Reader/Intermediate/Tween

Mainstream

Bruce Coville--(all picture books): HANS BRINKER AND THE SILVER SKATES; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET (warning! This is part of Bruce’s insidious plot to indoctrinate kids to like Shakespeare by starting them on it young! Don’t be fooled! You’ve been warned!)
Ingi & Edgar Parin D’Aulaire--LEIF THE LUCKY (picture)
Dayna Lorentz--NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS (thr)
Walter Dean Myers--SHOOTER (thr, b, 3rd read)
Patrick O’Brien--THE MAKING OF A KNIGHT (picture)
R. J. Palacio--WONDER (c)
Betty Smith--A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (hi, 2nd read)
Sherri L. Smith--FLYGIRL (hi)
Ellen Emerson White--THE ROAD HOME (hi, Vietnam War)

Fantasy/SF

Libba Bray--THE DIVINERS (hi f)
Sharon Cameron--THE DARK UNWINDING
Rae Carson--THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS (f, 2nd reading), THE CROWN OF EMBERS (f, sequel)
Cassandra R. Clarke--THE ASSASSIN’S CURSE (hi f)

Bruce Coville--ALWAYS OCTOBER (f, YR)
Sarah Beth Durst--VESSEL (f)
Sara Wilson Etienne--HARBRINGER (sf/f)
Rachel & Michael Grinti--CLAWS (f, 3rd read)
Mary Downing Hahn--MR. DEATH’S BLUE-EYED GIRLS (2nd read, f)
Shannon Hale--PRINCESS ACADEMY: PALACE OF STONE
Kim Harrington—CLARITY (f)
Mette Ivie Harrison--THE ROSE THRONE (f)
Rachel Hartman--SERAPHINA (3rd read)
Cat Helissen--WHEN THE SEA IS RISING RED (f)
Alaya Dawn Johnson--THE SUMMER PRINCE (SF)
Jackie Morse Kessler—LOSS (f)
Morgan Keyes--DARKBEAST (f)
Patrice Kindl--KEEPING THE CASTLE (f)
Catherine Knutsson--SHADOWS CAST BY STARS (sf dys)
Nancy Kress--FLASH POINT (sf dys)
Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill--LEGACIES (c f)
Seanan McGuire--VELVETEEN VS. THE JUNIOR SUPER PATRIOTS (c, superhero)
Marissa Meyer--CINDER (sf)
Lauren McLaughlin--SCORED (sf)
Kate Milford--BONESHAKER (alt hi 1914 f); THE BROKEN LANDS (alt hi 1877 f)
Nnedi Okorafor--AKATA WITCH (f); As Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, THE SHADOW SPEAKER (sf)
Kimberly Pauley--CAT GIRL’S DAY OFF (c f)
Terry Pratchett--DODGER (f, b)
Lindsay Ribar--THE ART OF WISHING (f)
Lois Ruby--THE SECRET OF LAUREL OAKS (ghost, YR)
Peter Adam Salomon--HENRY FRANKS (f, b)
Neal Shusterman-- UNWIND(2nd read, sf), UNWHOLLY (sequel, sf)
Maggie Stiefvater--THE RAVEN BOYS (sf)
James Thurber--MANY MOONS (picture)

Tiffany Trent--THE UNNATURALISTS (8/4/12, steampunk)
Paul O. Zelinsky--RAPUNZEL (picture)
Sarah Zettel--DUST GIRL (2nd read, hi f)

Let me know what you think; what you like, where you think I have my head up and locked. Last year I got little feedback, which was frustrating!

And I'll wait a little while to do the adult list, since I have other posts to write first.

Steubenville

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:26:43 GMT

I don't know if you've been waiting for me to write about Steubenville here or no. I'm going to, but I haven't had the time this week, and I've been doing a lot of thinking, what with the verdict and the follow-up articles. I need to think about it some more, and I'll be at Vericon at Harvard in Cambridge, MA this Saturday, ConBust in Northampton, MA next weekend, and Edina, MN the Saturday after that. So be patient with me. There's so much to address: too many voices in the media talking about "those poor boys and their ruined lives," not "that poor girl ~~and her ruined life~~,"* the judge's plan to arrest some of those who got away without being charged, the two girls arrested for threatening the girl who was attacked, and another case, that of a 13-year-old girl whose accused attackers are two 18-year-old football players in Torrington CT.

Yeah. Sometimes the shit gets so deep you feel you're going to drown.

So you see why I can't just dash something off. I'll try to find something good to help you and me catch our breaths, and then we'll all talk about this stuff, because I don't know about you, but if I don't talk about it, I'll start throwing rocks. Big ones.

*edited to strike out after reading Elizabeth Bear on survivors, not victims. 3/26/13

Update: Malala Yousafzai

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:44:25 GMT

is one of a record number of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize!

I guess all those petitions to the Nobel Academy worked.

As you can see from the article, there's a lot of competition, including controversial U.S. military whistle-blower Bradley Manning, so we'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, Malala had her surgery to place bone in a damaged part of her skull and a cochlear implant to restore the hearing she lost in one ear, and was discharged from the hospital after both surgeries went well. She tells us she's going to keep fighting for girls' and women's education.

And you know what? I believe her.

The many real faces of Rosie the Riveter

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:38:19 GMT

Check out these cool pictures of the women who took up factory work in WW II, doing men's jobs to free men to fight. Nobody said then that women couldn't handle the work!

One of those genre questions that's been bugging me

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:18:06 GMT

I just finished reading a pretty decent fantasy novel, but it had one thing that gave me the puzzlements. Since there it was in a book, and I remember all the grumping I got when my girl heroes fell out of love, I thought I would throw this one open for discussion, because maybe I'm just strange. Here it is:

The high schooler in this book (no, I won't tell you what it was) says she loved this guy for years (unrequited)(maybe it's different if you've been dating steady since 9th grade; I don't know).

When I went to summer school between sixth grade and seventh, I fell really, really hard for an "older man" (7th-going-into-8th). I dreamed about this guy. Comes the first day at the new middle school, and there is the object of my passion, and . . . he's just . . . a boy. There are other boys around, and he's one of them. No swoony quality, no golden glow (yeah, I used it for Kel). Passion done. Within a month I had a new object of passion. Thinking back, I realized this had happened to me before; I simply hadn't stopped to wonder where the thrill had gone.

Am I the only one who came back after summer to the ashes of last year's passion? Is the thought of nurturing an unfulfilled love over years as a pre-20-something unfamiliar only to me? Do these books (and I know there's more than just one) know something I don't?

Oh, and am I the only one who's tired of fantasy with pouty-mouthed girls with floaty facial things or floaty garments on the covers? Or headless half-naked muscle guys?

Wail--"Girls"/Lena Dunham

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 15:40:34 GMT

Let me be honest. I don't watch "Girls." It's not my kind of show: i.e., a sitcom. A sitcom about 20-somethings. A sitcom about 20-somethings with no fantasy or mystery. A sitcom about 20-somethings that's all about white people. It could be the greatest show on earth, and I wouldn't watch it because, oh, hell, since I'm being honest, I LOATHE sitcoms. Haven't watched any since the 80s, so no matter how people I love and respect present wonderful reasons to watch "Third Rock Around the Sun," "Parks and Recreation," "Big Bang Theory," I can only manage 5 minutes and then I pick up a book or change the channel.

And there's the other thing, that I only have three hours of viewing time at night at best, and I watch things that feed my brain. Those of you who know me very well have some idea of how many characters and ideas I pull from the shows and movies I watch on television.

Okay.

Can the media PLEASE SHUT UP about "Girls" and Lena Dunham? Please? Every time I turn around I see a magazine with an article about them or an entertainment show talking about them or my newsy sites writing about them and really how much material can you get out of a sitcom about white people having sex and obsessing about their lives? (I can get that much about the show from being bombarded by coverage.) Let people watch it and find out if it's good or bad for themselves and let the media gerbils shut UP.

There are a billion shows in the TV wasteland, not to mention movies, and there are good ones that aren't getting coverage. There are even bad ones that aren't getting coverage. You don't give the awards this kind of coverage. You don't give charity stuff this kind of coverage, and Jim Hines and John Scalzi are rewriting how money can be collected for a good cause Go write about them. I don't care if Lena Dunham is the second coming of Orson Welles. Let her go come up with a show that doesn't reflect what's in the mirror and then I'll believe it, because geniuses are versatile.

But whatever you do, media, please, GO FIND ANOTHER BALL TO CHASE. You're driving me crazy.

Malala Yousafzai: Still in the Fight!

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:05:30 GMT

It's her first video statement since she was shot. She's been recovering from surgery to place a metal plate in the gap in her skull left by the bullet's destruction, and another surgery the same day to place a cochlear implant where the eardrum was destroyed.

She just leaves me breathless.

Margaret A. Edwards Award

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:52:53 GMT

Color me surprised! This weekend I got one of those phone calls we hope for but never expect. It came from the committee of the Young Adult Services of the American Library Association (now there's a mouthful!), to tell me that it would be announced this morning (Monday, January 28, 2013) that I was this year's winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement. This morning I learned the books they particularly singled out in giving this award to me: The Song of the Lioness quartet and The Protector of the Small quartet.

I have never won one of the industry's Big Awards before. I know my books are loved by extremely cool fans of all ages (some of them--many of them!--were screaming when they announced the award), which has always made me happy and more than a little smug when people meet my fans and realize I wasn't storying them about how cool my fans are. But a Big Award is something you can show your parents and relatives that they will recognize as being a Big Deal; you are a success in your field and not doing this just because you can't hold down a real job. (Family. What can you do?) It's something that means when you have to go to industry dinners and cocktail parties the people you're introduced to (not your friends, obviously) don't start looking around immediately for someone important to talk to. It means that all those wonderful people who thrust your books on total strangers are now vindicated, and people will applaud their judgment.

And it means I can thank again the people without whom Alanna and Kel's books in particular would not have achieved the shapes that give them their unique impact: Claire Smith, my first agent, who said "Break it into four books for teenagers," and Jean Karl, my first editor, a legendary editor who showed me how to tell a story without beating it to death, who saw Alanna and Daine both to completion; Mallory Loehr, who suggested that Kel be a commander, and Craig Tenney, my current agent, who in his bemused and funny way steers me clear of trouble. There are so many more, but I am on killer deadline with BATTLE MAGIC and need to get back to work (what? you thought I could take a cruise and relax?). ;-)

Thank you. Because you brought me here, too, those of you who read my books and bugged librarians for them. I've heard about you, from the librarians and from you yourselves. I love you.

Lively, lovely Syracuse, NY cat needs new home

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:47:23 GMT

(humongous picture fixed thanks to glaurung_quena!)

Folks, meet Theodore, one of our cats:

Despite her name, she is female, fixed, microchipped, and in excellent health. She is one of the six lovely daughters born to our feral cat Brulée four years ago this spring. For a couple of years she did well among our house, but over the last year she has been acting out like crazy, starting fights first with one particular cat, then another. Now she picks fights with everybody. We've tried getting her to go out (she doesn't stay out) and we've tried drugs (she fought the drugging process, until she just hid from us rather than get the pill). She's only gotten worse. She's taken to damaging property, too. It's clear to us and to our vet that she needs a home in which she is the only cat.

That can't happen here. Her mother wasn't our first rescue or our last, and even if we find a home for a rescue, sometimes we need to release a rescue into the house to see how s/he gets on with other cats. Theo just can't cope.

Are you a one-cat home, or do you know someone who needs one cat and is willing to put up with a lot of aggravating behaviors until this beautiful, playful, loving cat calms down? She curls up in my lap in the evening, and winds around me during the day. It's breaking my heart to give her up, but she's miserable. That's no way for her to live.

Steubenville and Anonymous/LocalLeaks

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:01:15 GMT

Something I want to ask: what do you think of LocalLeaks/Anonymous publishing so much about this case online? People are making the point that they aren't (as far as anyone knows) journalists or affiliated with any legitimate newsgathering organization. They are publishing addresses and phone numbers for people who would prefer these things remained private, and they are making accusations that have not been proven in a court of law. In fact, any defense attorney could make the case, if any of these young men ended up in an adult court, that the jury pool has been unutterably biased by all of the information that Anonymous/LocalLeaks has put out on the Internet and made available for people to talk about.

In this case, I'm not sure what to think. To me it looks like the Weirton girl's violation had been buried by Steubenville's authorities; that she was going to get no justice whatsoever before blogger Alexandria Goddard on Prinnified.com (I have yet to get a link to this site to work) started to make a stink and kept making a stink until other bloggers and media outlets picked it up. This unnamed girl who, it seems now, went to a volleyball team party, got talked into going into another party, and was roofied on the way there, would have been forced to live with jokes, sneers, trash talk, trash tweets, and all the ways small towns can torture a girl until she somehow managed to get away, if she could. If she didn't try a more drastic kind of escape. And these guys would have gone on to another girl, and the guys who followed them would have picked up where they left off. I am finding it very hard to give Anonymous/LiveLeaks the nanny booboo finger over this.

And that's their genius. When they target people who many of us would love to hate, then what they do--breaking into computers and e-mail, all the other breaches of privacy they commit, crashing the systems of big companies that run areas of countries we don't like--we're ready to cheer for them.

But what, say, if they crashed the Social Security system to make a point? How many retirees do you know are on Social Security as all or part of their income? What if they took down an entire airport, or a nuclear power plant (there are movies about the results of capers like those)? What if they decided a certain bank had evil credit and loan practices, and wiped its files, with your records of payments?

Robin Hood or Robber? Which are they? I am damned if I know. What about you? What do you think?

the vileness that is the Steubenville rape case

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:04:42 GMT

There's a lot of rape going around--in India, in a fatwa ordered by a Saudi cleric on the women and girls of Syria--which I haven't posted about here because things have been looney over the holidaze.

And there has been the Steubenville rape case, in which a girl from Weirton, WV, attended a party in Steubenville, OH, got drunk, passed out, and was raped and molested by several high school athletes. lostinhersong asked me if I would address it. I didn't answer or do so right away partly because it was the holidays; partly because I had a cold; and partly because we were away. Also, lostinhersong, I hope you forgive me, but I was hoping greater people than me would take it on and I could just link to them, because this whole case, on top of the news from India that was just breaking at the time, was making me sick. I don't know these boys, but four decades ago I knew their grandfathers: I went to high schools not far from Weirton and Steubenville. I lived in small towns where high school athletics was valued more than something that is done with muscles and reflexes and a talent for remembering plays should be. I was bullied by male athletes and I have never forgotten. I have also been treated well by male and female athletes, and wondered why they put up with the others.
So this comes too close. Today, though, the hacker group Anonymous posted a video that supposedly features athletes from Steubenville making truly ugly remarks about the rape. I'm not re-posting it here because in the amount I could stand to watch, no one admitted to taking part (Anonymous claimed they were going to expose the athletes who took part and weren't charged, but they don't say that the boys in this video took part in the rape). You can find it on Jezebel, but it is sickening.

Okay. Here's the story, starting from Jezebel's report on how it got rolling. Next is this September report from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, discussing the police work being done to investigate the case, the internet component that exposed some of the rapists' involvement, and the attempts by a number of people to say how "good" their boys are and how such outstanding athletes are incapable of this kind of behavior: toting a drunken girl from party to party; urinating on her; raping her.

Here is the New York Times article referenced by Jezebel which gives a depth of coverage over what's splitting the town.

In case anyone has forgotten what people are threatening their neighbors over; if you wonder why they are saying their opponents should leave town or that someone bad will visit them: it's high school football. They idolize these young thugs and toss a girl's life onto a garbage heap; they destroy friendships of years and teach their children that a game means more than a female's selfhood over high school football. How big a deal is high school football in Steubenville? Per the Atlantic Wire (link below), the house at which the original party was held, at which beer and hard liquor were being served (so no one had to flash fake ID at a liquor store), belonged to the prosecuting attorney for the county in which Steubenville is located. The sheriff often has breakfast with the team's head coach. Just how much justice will the team's victim get?

This girl wanted to have fun before the start of school. She made a misjudgment, the kind of misjudgment any of us might have made trying alcohol or drugs or making out for the first time, trying to pretend we were more grown-up than we were, more cool than we were. When she came to, she would have discovered she was sore and dirty, but apparently she didn't remember why until she read it in the newspaper. Can any of us say we wouldn't have done the same when we were first test driving the trappings of adulthood? I sure can't, and I got myself into some risky places as a result. I'm not going to throw stones at her; I wish I could help to defend her. Those guys didn't mess with her and pass out beside her, they carried her from house to house. They were more competent than she was!

And here is the most recent update courtesy of the Atlantic Wire, covering police news and the activities of Anonymous and LocalLeaks. The two players who have actually been arrested have had their cases moved to juvenile court, where team officials have connections. So much for the special prosecutors who were appointed in September--juvenile court doesn't work in the same way.

Supposedly 12 more boys took part, but they haven't been arrested or charged. And the community is tearing itself in two over bullying athletes. This isn't a problem only for Steubenville, though. This is a sports problem, and a high school problem, and a rape problem. Winning teams count in our f-u culture: look at how long Sandusky was allowed to get away with child abuse at Penn State. Small communities over-invest in high schools and high school sports; it's something everyone can go to on Friday night. And we all know what a mess rape prosecution and victim blaming are. What can we do? I don't know, except that if we know someone who is being or has been abused, we have to treat them like human beings, and help them to speak out if that's what they want to do. If we see abuse going on, we have to report it.

And give anyone who makes fun of rape victims hell.

Update: Malala Yousafzai

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:38:44 GMT

Her father has been offered a job in England. I think--I hope--this means his entire family will live there, which will keep her away from the Taliban as she recovers from being shot.

I know living in England isn't absolute insurance against another attempt by the Taliban to silence Malala permanently, but it gives me hope!

Sparkly sale!

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:25:38 GMT

Remember the evil online jeweler, adelheide? She is having the killer sale of all time, and it's not like she was overpriced before. Earrings, bracelets, necklaces, suites, semi-precious stones, steampunk, goth, mystical, she will definitely tempt you. And she's having money troubles, so if you can give her a hand by picking up an inexpensive piece or two for yourself or friends, please do. If you can't, pass the word along to your friends!

While I still want a civil conversation on the previous post TRIGGERS

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:57:27 GMT

You may want to ignore this, okay? I have to get it off my chest. I haven't been so angry for a long time, and at home I'd just be told to ignore the article I'm about to discuss (and I can't talk about it to my assistant, because she would cry--I'm too furious to cry). So I'm ranting here.

I should warn you that I may be about to go some bugnuts. TRIGGER for violence, fury, and WTFness, and some anti-Charlotte head-up-her-@ssness Allen and up-those-who-think-she's-right-nesses under the cut.

edited to add lj cut

Yesterday Charlotte Allen wrote her thoughts for the National Review's symposium on what happened last Friday at the Sandy Hook school. (Actually, the article link is for a number of writers--the "symposium"--but her input is on the first page, and her input is the only part I mean to address.)

The material that has left me gasping for just about 24 hours:
"There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. ... all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death."

So Allen doesn't really believe this--Hochsprung "seemed;" "According to reports"--but since women are "sitting ducks," Allen obviously doesn't think this is true. Besides, if Hochsprung did behave in such an unwomanly fashion as she "performed bravely", she got her just desserts: "he shot her to death." By the way, there was a male janitor at the school.

So the teachers were capable of heroism, but Allen rushes on by, because, you see,
" a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm."
This in spite of her own acknowledgement of the fact that
" Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. "

" Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak "
Allen cruises breezily past the one point that many pissed-off people on the internet are trying to grind into her dried-up fossil brain today, that there was one adult male aggressor on that campus that day, targeting the weak. Just as male aggressors have targeted the many victims of 62 mass shootings in this country in the last 30 years, as broken down by Mother Jones magazine online. Women and children all over the world can tell Charlotte Allen something about male aggression, but no doubt she will ignore them, as they don't fit into her vision of the world the way she wants it.

Allen goes on to say that male aggression:
"— but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza."

Okay, I believe this is a trick question, but I will take a flier. My guess is: dead male teachers. Dead husky 12-year-olds. (She thought the school was K-6, apparently not having done the fragment of research it would have taken to learn the school was K-4--no husky 12-year-olds. She didn't even look at the famous photo.) She cites Flight 93 on 9/11, conveniently forgetting the passengers were attacking men with boxcutters, not men with semiautomatic rifles.

She also forgets that Lanza killed the woman who tried rushing him.

You know what I think? I think Monday-morning-quarterbacking teachers and children for not attacking a man with a semiautomatic rifle who was putting multiple shots into each of his victims is just ... plain ... vicious.

Allen goes on to say, in her copious first-hand knowledge of these situations:
"Cops and everybody else encourage civilians not to try to defend themselves when they are criminally assaulted. This is stupid advice."

Is Allen a police officer, a security consultant, a veteran, a martial artist, a spy, a soldier, a former football player, that she can give this criticism--and such intellectual criticism at that? As far as I can tell from searching, she is a "conservative pundit" who writes for assorted publications like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post as well as the National Review, and her last big online splash came when she recommended that Sarah Palin run for president in 2016. None of this recommends Allen to me as someone who should be giving advice about what to do when the crazy man points a gun at you. She should not be slinging the word "stupid" at experts, either.

She tells readers, especially those not "naturally aggressive" like men:
"There are things you can do. Run is one of them, because most shooters can’t hit a moving target. "

And a shooter with a semiautomatic weapon can fire multiple bullets as he waves the gun or, if he has adapted the weapon to automatic, he can spray them. Moreover, most shooters walk into rooms and block the exit. Does Ms. Allen expect people to run through windows and walls? Lanza in particular trapped his victims in their classrooms.

"throw things at the killer, or try a tackle. "
Kindergarteners. First graders. Second graders.

And then she adds her instructions for the parents of mentally ill children from her authority's chair as a shrink? social worker? No, she's still a conservative pundit.

"You simply can’t give a non-working, non-school-enrolled 20-year-old man free range of your home, much less your cache of weapons."

Has she tried to get a rent-paying job lately? Does she know how many people can afford college or trade school, and how many jobs they need to work in today's economy to afford higher education if their parents can't afford it? What about a kid who is barely hanging on to his sanity and can only get care under a parent's insurance, since s/he can't get work? Ms. Allen would throw her/him into the street.

Sadly, I agree about the weapons cache.

" You have to set boundaries. You have to say, “You can’t live here anymore — you’re an adult,"
Atta girl. The kid's obviously a bum, kick `em into the street. Who cares if s/he doesn't have skills or a trust fund?

" and it’s time for you to be a man."
Sooooo-what do you do with the girls? Keep them in purdah till you've arranged a proper marriage? Or ensure they're bringing in income by selling them? Or are they supposed to remain soft and useless and crazed with boredom until they marry the man you approve of?

" `We’ll give you all the support you need, but we won’t be enablers.'"
Enablers of what? Don't answer. Obviously they should hit the road and do migrant work if they can't find anything else. Work three jobs, or four, because that's how many jobs you need to live if you have no skills or diploma. Be homeless; depend on clinics when you have the money; go on welfare. You can enter an institution for a while, but eventually they'll pronounce you cured and send you to a halfway house (if one's available) or back onto the street. Or you can commit a crime and go to jail.

" Unfortunately, the idea of being an “adult” and a “man” once one has reached physical maturity seems to have faded out of our coddling culture."
Oh, pout. You must be talking about those Baby Hueys who have done nothing but throw tantrums on thei air since Obama got re-elected.

So let me see if I've gotten this right. She wants women and girls to be soft and weak, or rather, she assumes we are soft and weak. And she says on one hand that men are aggressive, but they're also children and boys.

Charlotte Allen, actually, is a gender traitor who trashed the brave women who did their best to defend their charges, some of them dying as they did so. She is the kind of woman who trashes the victims of rape with all the nasty variants of "she asked for it" while giving the rapists tacit permission with tripe like "men are the aggressive ones." And the ideas she proposes might get someone killed when they try to run, throw objects, or tackle a shooter who is aware, locked, and loaded. She hurts those who lost people at the school; she hurts those who fight for a more evolved perception of the roles of women and men; she hurts all those who would like to be self-supporting, who struggle to find work and who think they're doing all they can, until someone like this who knows nothing of the reality of the current working world comes along with cheap pejoratives for those who aren't fitting her view of how young people should be conducting their lives. She is selfish, to think we are entitled to her cruel views; she is thoughtless, to deliver them now, when we are all so raw (seriously, would I have normally given this person the time of day?); and she is narcissistic, to believe that her way is the only way.

</lj>And I have ranted myself to exhaustion. I suppose that's the best I'm going to get.

Connecticut

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 15:38:50 GMT

I spent yesterday crying, off and on, over the school shooting in Connecticut.

I attach a link only for those of us who may have spent yesterday off the Internet and don't know. I am not going to display pictures, Twitter posts, or other links. I think most of you already know the country has gone nuts with grief, rage, and defensiveness, while the rest of the world wonders if it isn't time to put us in a cage.

While there are a number of things I would like to be saying, and I am almost trembling with rage over some of the things I have seen this morning, I have places to talk about that. (O happy, happy Facebook.)

I want this to be a place where people can talk without fear of being jumped on. If you disagree with what someone says here, say "I disagree," and drop it, please. The shooting of little kids leaves a special wound on our society, and I want people to be able to talk about that and feel safe. I want people to ask questions of one another and get answers, not glib insults.

Can we do that? In the middle of the insanity? Our dead deserve better than name-calling, finger-pointing, and fistfights.