BibliophileBullpen

Some days i am not so fond of my country.  Personally I think we have wound up our police and border guards too tightly looking for enemies that they can’t see straight and make some pretty terrible mistakes.

From Boing Boing
Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border

Hugo-award-nominated science fiction author Dr. Peter Watts is in serious legal trouble after he was beaten, pepper-sprayed and imprisoned by American border guards at a Canada U.S. border crossing December 8. This is a call to friends, fans and colleagues to help.
Peter, a Canadian citizen, was on his way back to Canada after helping a friend move house to Nebraska over the weekend. He was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan by U.S. border police for a search of his rental vehicle. When Peter got out of the car and questioned the nature of the search, the gang of border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter. On Wednesday, he posted bond and walked across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves (he was released by Port Huron officials with his car and possessions locked in impound, into a winter storm that evening). He’s home safe. For now. But he has to go back to Michigan to face the charge brought against him.

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worth hearing • from NPR’s Hear and Now Rosemary Sullivan author of Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille which chronicles the efforts of an underground movement to shelter individuals such as André Breton, Max Ernst, Victor Serge, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, Remedios Varo, Benjamin Péret, and scores of other cultural elite denounced as enemies of the Third Reich.

banktoaster • the Simpler Dollar Blog has a nice addendum to my Talking to Yourself post, a review of the Free online service, Remember the Milk – which allows you to set up automated lists.

dystopia alert • A new report claims that the Bush administration has suppressed scientists’ climate-change work. am i the only one not surprised here?

worth reading • Ephemera blog has an interview with manuscript collector Ivo Meisner from Book Den East, Martha’s Vineyard.

naughty naughty • even Harry isn’t immune to the rampant book thefts, 3000 copies of Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages were lift from a UK loading dock. I’d start with the guy driving the forklift.

blog of note • Book Patrol has a post about the vanishing of mid-price books from the internet market. oh there still there, they just cost $3 bucks now.

worth reading • from the Guardian a feature on Edith Wharton’s love affair with France.

waking the dead • scholars may have found the grave of Mona Lisa. oh fer crissakes leave the poor woman alone, she’s dead.

dystopia alert • an AP rundown on Turkeys war against writers and journalists.

cookies • Alibris awards three libraries with collection development book grants.

banktoaster• from Madlyn’s Blom’s Old Bag Lady blog, a post about e-audiobooks and where to get em.

Wash. school board restricts Gore’s global-warming film
By The Associated Press
01.12.07

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — The school board in this suburb south of Seattle has restricted showings of Al Gore’s movie on global warming, including requiring that it be balanced with an adequate opposing viewpoint.

The board also required Superintendent Tom Murphy to approve when the former vice president’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” can be presented.

The decision was sparked by complaints from parents who said their children were taking the film as fact after viewing it at school. . . . [read more]

I can only speculate that the folks in Federal Way also don’t believe in evolution as they are obviously still just monkeys now with car keys.

dystopia alert – President Bush claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant, the NY Daily News reports today, in a signing statement appended to a postal reform bill signed into law late last month. That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, according to analysts who reviewed the statement.

calendar •
1816 – Leigh Hunt had John Keats to dinner and proposed that for fun they both compose sonnets on the subject of “crickets and grasshoppers.” Hunt published both in his magazine The Examiner.
1865 - Rudyard Kipling is born Bombay India (d 1936)
1869 - Stephen Leacock is born Hampshire England (d.1944)
1879 - Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance was first performed at Paignton, Devon, England.

banktoaster • The Auction Guild site has the mother load of eBay Contact information. (via Prints and the Paper)

cowboy up • the Royal Mail is girding their loins for the delivery of Harry VII. Don’t get me wrong, I like Harry I really do, it’s the Rowling cult that I find creepifying. More books should make an appearance like a battleship launch, but deification isn’t warranted.

obit of note • Wilma Dykeman at 86, a noted writer about Appalachia.

act two • Margaret Maupin book buyer for Tattered Cover retires after 25 years.

update • I made some more Bullpen Cafepress designs during the 10 minutes, I got my third hand free. Including the first three bumper stickers, and a couple of inverse color designs.

dystopia alert • not only is Walmart still selling SS Nazi designs 48 days after they promised to remove the shirts from the stores, but the US Gov’t Grand Canyon bookshop is still selling Creationist myths as science. Welcome to 07 just like 06 buckle up, kids.

worth hearing • from NPR political humorist Mark Russell says bye bye to 06.

something new • NPR features Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird. I already ordered mine.

birthdays •
1818 - Ivan Turgenev, Russian novelist is born (d. 1883)
1928 - Anne Sexton, American poet (d. 1974)

something to read • from the November issue of Wired Magazine, an exercise in the very very Short Story – they polled 33 writers, 5 designers to yield 6-word science fiction stories. (via Aurora Fox @ Morning Star Books)

event • Several African-American and Caribbean authors will attend the literary festival the 23rd edition of Miami Book Fair International – November 12th – 19th.

something else to read • from the NYT – On Carefully Choosing a Book by Its Cover by Eleanor Randloph.

banktoaster • I finally found a pbwiki I like, Librarian Chick has a dandy list of useful as hell links. I am jealous. (via Becky Palmer @ Booksallover)

something new • the Guardian reviews the Joke’s Over/Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter Thompson and Me by Ralph Steadman

obit of note • Ernestine Gilbreth Carey at 98, author of Cheaper by the Dozen, detailing the frenentic life of a family with 12 children.

dystopia alert • A 22-yr old west London woman has been charged with four offences under the UK Terrorism Act 2000. Her offences are storing terrorist handbooks on her computer. Granted the titles are The al-Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a sniper rifle manual, a firearms and rocket-propelled grenade handbook and a document entitled How To Win Hand To Hand Fighting, which I agree is awfully scary indeed. But if merely POSSESSING books and documents has become a crime in the western hemisphere, some of us are gonna be in serious trouble.

BTW • DeepDiscountDVD is having their semi-annual 20% off sale, since are one of the few places on the net with the cheapest prices on NEW dvds, 20% off and free shipping is like Christmas. If runs from Nov 10th to Nov 18th – coupon code is SUPERSALE.

birthday boy – 1925 - Elmore Leonard, American novelist - Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing.

worth reading • Hugh Hollowell of Downtown Books Blog gives a misguided youth a verbal throttling – when he confuses a place to hang out afterwork with a real bookstore.

cookies • Al Gore’s book Inconvenient Truth has been honored at the second Quill Book Awards. The Event will be broadcast on November 28th on NBC. ’bout flipping time.

dystopia watch • A small group of Australian students gathered outside the Baillieu library to protest against the federal government’s sedition laws and the banning of two books.

well worth reading • from Boston Globe’s Alex Beam instucts on the delicate art of not reading a book.

cool tools • Google’s merged their Spreadsheets product with Writely into the beginnings of an online office suite called Google Docs. i am such a Web 2.0 slut.

audio • from NPR – Jenny Allen, a journalist, and her husband, cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, have collaborated on their first literary effort, an illustrated book for adults: The Long Chalkboard

something new • also from NPR John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction – The Innocent Man

banktoaster • Flylady.net has a fascinating piece on how to declutter your house in 15 minutes a day. 15 mniutes, just think – i am not sure she means a booksellers house. that would be like 20 – 25.

6 of one • Marginal revolution blog has a marvelous thread about 6 word micro-short shorts : Hemingway’s was “For sale, baby shoes. Never used.”

optional • from NPR San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Carroll adds his 2 cents to the This I Believe series, with a piece on failure.

I try not to lift things off news services and post them in their entirety unless they are small, silly and harmless. In this case this piece gave me such a cold chill in my spine, I am gonna sneak it in and hope I don’t get smacked around for it.

(NYT) At Reuters, a New Book and a Lost Job

By NOAM COHEN
Published: October 9, 2006

On Tuesday, Joe Maguire, one of two editors in charge of markets coverage at Reuters, handed his bosses the galleys of his new book, “Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter.” On Wednesday, Mr. Maguire discovered he would have plenty of free time to promote his book, which comes out this week. Neither side in this dispute would say that he was fired.

“There was a difference of opinion about the approval I received to write this book,” Mr. Maguire said. “I thought I had met the conditions, and proceeded accordingly. As a result, I no longer work there.”

Mr. Maguire, who joined Reuters in April, said the book “looks at Ann Coulter’s arguments, and deconstructs them to show how misguided they can be.”

He added: “When the political discourse has dropped to the unfathomable levels it has, someone has to say this is wrong.”

He said he was unable to interview Ms. Coulter for the book, or even get her to return e-mail or phone messages left through her publicist.

Reuters confirmed that Mr. Maguire was granted conditional approval to write his book on Ms. Coulter — a conservative lightning rod, author and TV talking head. When asked what changed once the book was ready, a company statement pointed to Reuters’ principles of “integrity, independence and freedom from bias.” The statement reads: “Our editorial policy and The Reuters Trust Principles are prominently displayed for all to see on www.about.reuters.com. Mr. Maguire’s book will soon be available. Both speak for themselves.”

Mr. Maguire’s publisher, the William Morrow imprint of HarperCollins, said, “It would be very disappointing if Joe Maguire’s dismissal from Reuters had anything to do with him authoring, ‘Brainless,’ ” which it described as a “compelling and witty book.”

A Reuters employee who insisted on anonymity out of concern at angering management said that the 20 or so employees at the markets desk where Mr. Maguire had been one of two editors in charge “took a group coffee break” in solidarity on Thursday.

On Friday, the employee said, there was a meeting with Reuters management informing the workers there that Mr. Maguire would no longer be working there and that they “weren’t allowed to ask why.” Printed copies of the principles of trust were handed out, however.

birthday boy • 1930 - Harold Pinter, English playwright, Nobel laureate

site worth seeing • A work in progress the Academic Blog portal which has described the academic blogosphere as a kind of Invisible College – this site is supposed to help make the College a little more visible to itself and its readers.

event • Oct 9 – Nov 8 – Novello Festival Of Reading Charlotte, N.C.

dystopia watch • CIA director Porter Goss wants no more books published by current or former CIA officials. CIA #3 Dusty Foggo to Gary Berntsen author of Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personnel Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander: “we will have no more books. I will redact the shit out of your book so no one will want to read it.” Bernsten is now trying to sue the CIA for gutting his book.

nifty download • Boing Boing has a nifty Halloween treat, a compilation of 31 scary radio plays including the original “War of the Worlds” broadcast and lots of other creepy tales – all for 1.99 in paypal money.

worth reading • Binding supply vendor J. Hewit & Sons Ltd has issued their biannual Newsletter: Skin Deep, Vol.22, Autumn 2006

banktoaster • 70s flashback – how to make a trendy bookbag from your old blue jeans . . .these days I could make a dufflebag from my old blue jeans.