...Oh. My. *fans flutter*
I've seen people celebrating Harlequin's vanity press elsewhere, but I'm pretty sure they didn't expect this response from RWA. It's a shame that means so many good authors in the other imprints are not going to now be eligible for RWA awards. My question is, what about books under the Luna imprint? If a gem is to be found there, are they still eligible for SFWA awards? They are a separate imprint who qualify under the published guidelines...Opinions, oh SFWA members?
xerger @ 24 - you're getting that tuckpointed, yes? It's not too hard a job to do yourself if need be.
OtterB @ 103 - I watched it on reel-to-reel in the park last year. *grins* Mosquitoes and spotty sound and lemonade on a summer evening.
This is too small a site for LumiCon, but: http://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/13128.html
Because a theoretical LumiCon needs a kitchen.
EClaire @ 204 - Quakers or UU, depending on how much structure you want. With the caveat that local congregations will always have differences. It's part of the attraction of those services, that there is no central authority dictating...much of anything, and it's all congregational.
Nix @ 220 - Voluntary fasting is for people who've never had to cope with the involuntary kind.
Not really - done both. Actually, we're pretty sure adhering to 14th c. Lenten Practices caused my hypoglycemia to manifest, and that means that my days of voluntary fasting are over. But sometimes? It reminds you of the sacrifices you've made, that your ancestors made, that your God made. And that's important to me.
Ritual has power. Sometimes, it's just the psychological power of tradition and what that does to/for you and those around you. (Think, turkey at Thanksgiving or family decorating the Christmas tree. These are rituals, often involving food, a certain order of events, and remembering other times.) For me, I believe that ritual has some other attributes, having the weight of time and what should be pressing down on it as well. The fact that in the seventh month of the year, all the leavened bread is thrown out of the house and meat is eaten with bitter herbs for 2500 years (at least), gives it weight, and in reenacting that particular type of feast it has more meaning than what exists solely at the table. Places become imbued with tradition - houses of worship remember what the ritual should be, both good and bad. When it is changed, the building itself adds it's protest to that of the congregation against moving away from the status quo. You'll often get major facilities failures with major ritual changes. Yes, this very well might be because the old people in charge weren't doing their jobs and that's *why* there are so many new changes all at once. I've participated in some fairly major changes at churches and it keeps happening. Sometimes it goes the other way - that recurring problems disappear upon new ownership or new, better leadership (I'm specifically thinking about a leaky basement here. It leaked badly at the end of a certain pastor's tenure. He left in a scandal. A year later, we installed a new pastor. The basement doesn't leak now.)
People who are sensitive to it often feel it most during the really common parts of the ritual that are all being enacted at the same time. Because of various placement in liturgies, on Sunday there is a version of the Lord's Prayer rolling constantly around the world. A common comment on why we do it; "It makes me feel a part of something larger than myself," and on Sunday morning, it's true - logic says that because of Christianity's shear size, there is pretty much always another congregation somewhere in the world saying the prayer as well, with almost 2000 years of tradition adding it's weight into the mix. It can get even more pronounced at midnight on Christmas eve as many Christians in the time zone end up singing Silent Night - that's slightly more in the "part of current community" vein than the "longstanding traditional weight". Both have power in my eyes. It is part of the magic of Christianity, outright "woo" that it is. (And watching a 'sensitive' priest do mass is a wonder and a joy for me, because it has the weight of history adding to the impetus of channeling that 'woo' raised by ritual into something [hopefully] productive.)
LumiCon? I'm all for a Making Light relaxacon.
As a religious person, I find the discussion fascinating, because faith/belief (and the choice of traditions you pull it from) is deeply personal. Most peoples Christianity (or pick your organized/disorganized religion) is a mishmash of several different trads christian and non, with or without their conscious knowledge. It's much like a chicken soup 'recipe' - it's your grandmother's or your mother's or something you picked up somewhere. Then you change it, tweak it according to a variety of things. Some people believe it should be made with dumplings, or noodles, or matzoh balls, with or without vegetables, with or without garlic, reflecting your upbringing, ethnicity, tastes, choices, and ability to appropriate out of the local enviroment. About the only tradition involving chicken soup we can all agree on is that we're using chicken stock. The Church Herself, ancient and modern, embraces a wide variety of traditions and it's one of the things that eventually drove me to be an Episcopalian, the *stated dictum* that all are welcome here, no matter what your personal path or what it comes from, as long as we can pray together.
The only time I have problems with other belief systems (and most recently, it's been the militantly evangelical atheists) is when other people attempt to impose their beliefs on me, or belittle me for mine. We see a prime example above, and I was all set to make a point by point reply last night when I saw Abi's responses. It's a much better method. I'm just annoyed that others feel the need to dictate the validity of my beliefs and so I let them invade my personal space and get more angry in the process. It will take learning.
Here it is chilly and rainy and fall has definitely arrived - I could tell last weekend because I suddenly had squirrels living in my eaves. My cats have determined that mom is warm, and mom is not going to complain.
Though the news on Saturday that Minneapolis had snow and I was going to see 56 and sun stopped all questioning of my move. I hate cold. Can we get back to summer now?
First frost is followed
shortly by freezing rain
people who drive as if
they have forgotten the rules
signs of fall
leaves, rain, chill
lead into winter's grasp
as they do every year
For this, God gave man brains
Man thought up cocoa
and down comforters
I am waiting for the wingnuts' declaration that "See! Told you he was the Antichrist!!" to come thundering across the blogosphere.
While I don't know that it has been earned yet, this President might have been nominated for it just for his work in social justice issues had he never been elected. I truly hope that he does go on and uses this as encouragement to try harder.
Thanate @ 23, hey, it's stuck in my head still.
(can you tell I'm procrastinating by reading ML?)
Mark @ 20 - Now I feel the need to go find my copies and reread...Well done, indeed.
In celebration of new! book! sold!, a teaching song of Korval.
The smuggler did a hunting go
For a world where trees could grow
To the fates she cast a throw
Among the leaves so green-o.
Chorus:
Seanie boy (Master) Sing ye well (Very well)
Hey down (Ho down) Derry derry down
Among the leaves so green-o
To my hey down down (To my ho down down )
Hey down (Ho down) Derry derry down
Among the leaves so green-o
They landed in a valley green.
Passage made in worlds between.
On the tree her heirs all leaned
Among the leaves so green-o.
The dragon hovers on the wing,
Dragon's children learn to sing.
All kept safe by Korval's Ring,
Among the leaves so green-o.
Taken first from the sand
This is Jela's last command:
Keep the tree where ever you land.
Among the leaves so green-o.
Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning, stone out of song;
Fire in the candle-ring, water from the thaw;
Six Signs the circle, and the grail gone before.
It was my first exercise in poem recitation and performance in 4th grade. I still have it memorized.
I've been drooling over this find for the last week. And plotting. There will have to be a trip to the BM sometime next year.
Rob @ 56, Wesley @ 63
Would you still feel that way if it was your husband/wife/child who was the victim?
I am the victim, and I do not believe we should take away a prisoner's franchise.
In the US, we as a people have fought for almost 400 years to have a say in our governance, some groups getting it more recently than others. No one should be deprived of the ability to vote once given.
Nicole @ 64 Any punishment which does not serve to further those goals can only be said to serve a fourth goal: vengeance. Oh, it gets called by many noble names, like "closure for the victims[' families]" for instance, but in the end, all it is, is payback. "You hurt us, so we'll make sure you hurt too."
There are enough punishments that do indeed hurt, that also serve the goals on ajay@35's list, that there is no need for punishments that do nothing beyond exacting vengeance.
Yes. This.
I became a bleeding heart liberal *because* I was a victim, saw both the proper use of and the injustice inherent in the system, and learned that there is always, always more to the story than black and white. Sometimes punishment is merited, but you cannot change negative behaviors without an understanding of their underpinnings. Imprisonment must also be accompanied by a sincere effort at rehabilitation or you've just landed society in a much bigger pile of s***, and you undercut rehab and re-integration after incarceration with disenfranchisement.
I could go on, but it's not relevant to the discussion.
Julia @ 63 Anecdotal note: My nieces were into high heels from before the time they started walking. They started by stealing Mom and Grandmas' shoes and walk around. Then they'd stack the princess play shoes so they could have higher heels. It has something to do with wanting to imitate the adults around you (and we all wear relatively low heels for professional women). Also, according to the parents-as-teachers lady, there are some physiological reasons in making easier to learn to walk/run (aka, don't worry about it, it's really a good thing). Now at 3 and 6, they still like heels, but the older one is growing out of it and the younger one looks like she might follow her sister's lead.
My personal take on this whole argument (with the caveat that it applies to places where people have choice) is that while I have no problem in a range of different clothing, I really like long skirts and scarves. I spend weeks of the year not going out of my tent with my hair not covered. When I go back to modern life, I feel uncomfortable having my head bare, even though I chose to go veiled and chose to unveil. It's what becomes my 'normal' for a week or two or three weeks at a time* This is part of the reason I tend towards long skirts and scarves all year long. Telling people that they are oppressed tools of the patriarchy because they have a different comfortable normal becomes not "you are free to make a choice" but "you are free to make the choices I want you to make."
I'm with clew @ 62 and finding it all too amusing that the hat is coming back as an item of feminine fashion. SCORE! It's not been even the three generations they mentioned since you didn't go to church without your Sunday-go-ta-meetin hat. It was (is still, in some parts of the world) an outward symbol of your religion, that on Sundays you dressed up and put on a nice hat to cover your head and went to church. Is that hat a symbol of the male patriarchy or a sign of women competing with each other to be the most visibly fashionable and respectful/pious at the same time within the bounds of their community?
In the opinion of a professor in the UMN fashion program (as related to me, and also in the text they used), fashion is primarily driven by women in competition for status within their own circles. Old cats and new cats will hiss and pick at the smallest pieces in order to preserve the status quo or move up in the estimation of their 'peers'. Think about the equality that could be given in peer groups in the modest dress of the religious communities in an ideal world.**
*the medieval justification for the veil which I wear is long and complex and requires moving upstairs to the reference works. It starts with religious women being 'brides of Christ' and moves secularly. The veiling doesn't so much, just the popular justification. Also, while it seems to be completely patriarchal in origin, it departs from that in the fierce competition of women's fashion. Discussed in Lady in Medieval England (Coss), Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing (Rudy), one of the Textiles and Clothing books (Netherton/Owen-Crocker), and I think in Women and the Church in Medieval Ireland (Hall), but I'm not sure on that last one. (God, I love librarything)
**not bloody likely anytime soon, I'll grant. But it's a justification I have heard from amish and mennonite women, groups who came under attack in the comments of the second post of xeni's on BB. They say it's better for the community.
As I am about to start into the new book in my life, I really do want to add the note:
While I will buy every book ever written by David Weber and read them voraciously, is it now a requirement that they double as doorstops? Thank God they're on the bottom shelf or they might break the furniture. (And PNH, the repetition about the spiffy wonderfulness that is fpubbare-evttvat becomes really obvious in the audio book versions of Armageddon Reef and Schism. Not an explanation of how it's better in terms of how the physics works, just a lot of gushing about why it is better in effects. Over and over again. Probably catches my ear more because I can't unconsciously go "Oh, again?" and skim the the paragraph. Am I going to have the same problem this time?)
Off to neglect the textbooks for some light naval-sf.
Most cities have a local company that does the equivalent. In every market that I've been involved in, realtors are required to put those map coordinates into the MLS system (and, in MSP, whether you got them from King or Hudson) as well as directions. It's a bit outdated, with many agents now having GPS in their cars or on their phones, but invaluable if the starting point of the directions is unclear, or if you're not sure of where that house is relative to this house (is it north and a little east of me or north and a little west? And isn't there a back entrance to this subdivision 2 miles closer?). I still keep my city/county Wunnenberg in the seat pocket and update it about every 3 years. It being paper, I happily pay for the privilege of doing so.
We don't have a robust enough transit system to warrant actual updates to transit maps. Unfortunately.
Town Hall in Minneapolis makes a loaded potato pizza with the addition of cheddar, bacon, and green onion, and sour cream to dip it in.
If I wasn't trying to go low-gluten, I would so be all over this. I may have to dig out the zucchini pizza dough recipe. While it won't be the same, it will at least be coeliac-friendly.
xeger @ 59
Quilting is a different kind of finicky involving really small pieces of fabric and keeping track of the overall pattern while sewing straight lines with appropriate seam allowances...forever. At least with the Worth gown, all the finicky bits are tailoring, resolved in the pinning/fitting stages, and all the pieces are big and not easily confused.
When I'm done with that one, I get to do this one. Both of these projects fall under "stop calling your underwear Victorian steampunk."
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 68 |
Total: 68 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by sisuile:
Show all comments by sisuile.