The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by S. Addison:

Wouldn’t life be interesting if we could just tell our trading partners that we’ve decided to raise our “minimum threshold of profitability†on past transactions, and they owe us?

Dear employer,

I am writing to you because our economic relationship falls into the category of unacceptable profitability.

As a consequence I would invite you to pay the attached invoice by Aug 17th 2007. The payment represents the gap for our relationship, and moves it from an unacceptable level of profitability, to above my minimum threshold.

Um...

GROSS.

Excuse me while I go have a long hot shower now, and then figure out how I'm going to tell all my clients this without causing total mental health meltdowns.

Steve @18 and Bruce @22 - the thought has just struck me that perhaps part of what is at work here is the I'll Show You mentality. These authors cannot concieve of the possibility that their work is just not good enough to publish, and thus the only explanation for their lack of acceptance by the mainstream press is some sort of conspiracy or willful ignorance. Hence, "I'll get published, and you'll see, I'll Show You just what you were missing!"

Contempt and revenge as financial motivators rarely works out all that well.

I believe this is probably related to the Just Showing Up Award - a phenomenon I saw at a particular post-grad institute where I taught for a while, whose MA-clad students thought it was acceptable to fail to turn in work, complain about having to read an entire book, write ungrammatical responses to an essay exam, and miss two out of four day-long classes, yet still expected to get credit for the course (and an A grade, no less). Because they were entitled to earn credit toward state licensure for Just Showing Up (or in some cases, Just Paying The Course Fee).

I no longer teach there, needless to say.

At any rate, I think some of these folks believe that Just Showing Up, in their case completing a short story or a children's book or NaNoWriMo or whatever, automatically earns them the right to be published, and when that "right" is denied... well I'll Show You.

Steve at #6 -

then again, maybe it's more related to cargo-cults, a mystical belief that once the book exists, readers will magically be brought into being.

Maybe it's some sort of spontaneous generation - pile unsold books in the corner, and readers will appear?

Is this wonderment available on DVD anywhere? I had a peek at Netflix but no dice.

For me, publish leashing, tying, commanding, etc. of subs, slaves, pets, or other members of one's BDSM-oriented menagerie, unless it is at a fetish party, crosses the line into "Public Lewdness" and "not here." If one's puppy cannot behave in a socially-appropriate way without strict direction, perhaps one's puppy needs more private training?

they'll drop the issue like a hot potato and go back to guns and gays and God.

Kip: as a "gay," I don't consider that a heartening trade-off.

I'm also already a little over-tired of hearing people righteously declare that they'll never fly again. That kind of thing isn't so easy to say in some areas of the US, or the world. Or in certain professions (read: most of them) that don't give you flexible schedules for lengthy travel.

Here's my suggestions for in-flight entertainment. And for the satire-impaired: WARNING: SATIRE

"It's not good theatre, because..."

... it does not celebrate the gods.
... it is not amusing to the masses.
... it is simply a crude knock-off of our noble traditions.
... it does not involve the wearing of masks.
... it does not instruct people in the mysteries of Our Lord Jesus Christ and provide guidance toward salvation.
... it does not celebrate the noble virtues such as love and honor.
... it involves the wearing of masks.
... it relies too much on bawdy humor.
... it does not have enough bawdy humor for the masses.
... it is not accessible to the masses.
... it is accessible to the masses.
... it is too serious and treats upon themes unsuitable for people of breeding.
... it is not written in elevated language.
... it is without a theme of moral instruction.
... it is insulting to those of good breeding.
... it displays unsavory elements of society in a heroic light.
... it is not critical of society.
... it features the lower classes in a serious fashion.
... it is insulting to governments.
... it is not written in modern language.
... it has music in.
... it is not relevant.
... it is mere spectacle.


And to this, I suppose we can add:
... it appeals too much to one's childlike sense of wonder, and makes shopping in the high street appallingly difficult.

Perhaps Frank Miller's model is related to Nuclia Waste, the triple-nippled Plutonium Princess (and one of Denver's most beloved fundraisers). I have it on good authority that she favors Nerf footballs cut in half for that "oddly firm, pointed, gravity-defying" look.

Oh, and they're not wearing baggy clothing, but... I'm fond of the Seven Deadly Curves as a starting point anyway...

jh - do you really think it's ast folks, or just the inevitable (de)evolution of their tactics over to a blog format?

Regardless, here's the ast FAQ, which is never a bad thing to have.

And so when will the DNC or other progressive body start describing the Republican party as the "pro-torture party"?

Oh, and I can personally attest to the National Guard delays. My mother's husband is a supply master with the Indiana National Guard, mobilized down in Ft. Hood for nearly a year last year. He just got shipped out yesterday, FRIDAY, to go to the hurricane zone. For five days he and his unit have been sitting in Indianapolis and thereabouts, waiting to be made use of. Five days.

Genocide is the word I used this morning. And murder.

This is when I almost wish I weren't a gun-hating socialist progressive. Because I'm just about angry enough to join a militia bent on tearing a corridor into that city through whatever means necessary just to get relief in and people out.

Teresa, ISTR that you're very, very attached to unusual citrus fruits. With that in mind, I thought I might mention that Hangar One has a Buddha's Hand vodka, which I can personally attest is superb when served with just plain soda as a mixer. Perhaps you already know about it, but I couldn't possibly take the chance that you didn't.

if they’ve calculated that they themselves are unlikely to get crushed, fried, poisoned, etc.

After spending Thanksgiving at Fort Hood, where my mother's husband is a Guardsman on active duty, what I can't wrap my head around is this: The Bush voters are unlikely to have a plane crashed into them based on their geography, true. But it's disproportionately their children who are being sent overseas to be crushed, fried, poisoned, etc. not to mention SHOT. So either the "this doesn't directly affect them, therefore they walk away from the work of thinking about it" explanation breaks down, or there's something even more subtle and insidious going on that is beyond my ken.

Nicole, I'm from Denver. You think Boulder's results will make any noticeable difference in the state results?

I wish I knew what it was that worked here in order to get Democratic victories in state races, or at least to push extreme right-wingers to the wall, that failed in the Presidential vote. And I'm sad that the reactionary campaign against 36 apparently worked.

You know, if I were a Kerry voter living in a red state (and it was close in New Hampshire; I very well could have been), I wouldn't be feeling particularly mollified by an official pardon for living there.

Indeed, Debra. Especially when my "red state" sent a new Democrat to the Senate, and a new Democrat to the House, and sent control of our state legislature to the Democrats, and passed a clean energy bill and a tobacco tax, and came within spitting distance of sending that freak Marilyn Musgrave back home where she belongs.

they have Evil Chemistry and Evil Biology in those countries.

Presumably Evil Biology involves the study of, among others, evil ducks, giraffes, and pilot fish...

I work at Whole Foods market in Denver. I can get you Buddha's Hands, and keep an eye out for anything else interesting that might turn up.

Very very late comments

1) "spotless white tents" - I actually noticed that in Aragorn's tent, there are what look like old, scrubbed bloodstains splattered over the door, as though they were flung there during a battle. I was duly impressed by the touch.

2) SPOILER: Newsweek had a cover story on LotR about 2-3 weeks ago which included a spoilers sidebar noting what additions to the EE have been revealed. Saruman is one; the Houses of Healing is another.

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