Regarding Nathan at # 8, yes, CERT is available nationwide in the USA, and I suspect that similar programs are available elsewhere. The content varies depending on where you are-- Californians will learn more about earthquakes, and Kansans will learn more about tornados. You learn about preparedness, disaster safety, first aid, triage, and basic search and rescue.
I took a class a while back, and it was excellent. And by the way, the little old ladies were capable of removing large men from a dangerous scene that could not be made safe. (Generally one should not move people around.) If you can get them on a blanket, you can drag even heavy people fairly easily. My 110 pound self dragged the 250 pound firefighter instructor across the classroom. Granted it was easier on a slick linoleum surface...
I love Jim's posts. Has anyone collected them, or the links to them, in an archive?
That's a tension pneumothorax in Steve Brust's "Athyra," right?
As far as I'm aware, no one has ever written (or, at least, distributed) fanfic based on Jo Walton's work. I assume this is because of her strong objection to it, as she certainly has as many fans as other authors for whom I have seen fanfic.
I don't think that the legal status of fanfic has any impact whatsoever on whether or not anyone would write fanfic based on the work of an author who doesn't want any written. Either fans will respect the author's feelings, or they won't.
Right now, given that most fic writers seem to believe that what they're doing is illegal anyway (and are happily writing away anyway), the only thing stopping them from writing stories based on Jo's work (or, say, Robin Hobb's) is respect. If all fanfic were to be unequivocally declared legal tomorrow, presumably the same amount of respect (or lack of respect) would still exist, and there would be no change in the amount of Jo Walton fanfic written or not written.
So for authors who absolutely don't want fic written, their best protection is not a law forbidding it, but to publicly state their feelings about it regardless of whether or not a law exists.
Right now, the uncertain legal status of fic seems mainly to prevent authors who DON'T have a problem with it from saying so, or to make them feel obliged to say that they're OK with it but they can't ever read any.
Two accidents happened in July 2004.
I flipped my car off the freeway at about 65 mph, rolled it once or maybe twice. It was stopped by a clump of trees before it could continue in the direction it was heading, which would have landed it on top of an on-ramp.
The CHP officer who saw the wreck took several minutes to process what I was telling him, which was that I had been the driver. He couldn't believe I was standing on the shoulder with no visible injuries given the state of the car and the mechanism of the crash.
It turned out that I had cracked a vertebra and had chronic back pain for several years and possibly forever, though it's gotten a lot better recently. Still, I'm OK most of the time, my mobility isn't impaired, and I'm not, you know, dead. I had an airbag but it didn't go off. I was wearing my seatbelt, of course.
Later that month the 20-year-old son of some family friends was riding his bicycle when he got hit by a car at, apparently, a fairly slow speed. He was knocked down, broke his ankle, and hit his head. He can't walk. He can't talk. He can't eat solid food. He can't write. He's been making great progress in terms of answering questions by pointing to words on a page, though.
He was not wearing a helmet. I still cringe when I see helmetless bike riders.
I used to see lots of accidents when I lived in India, at a time when no car I ever encountered had a working seatbelt. I can tell you first-hand that one of the things that can happen if you get "thrown clear" is that your head and body will be thrown clear separately.
I adore Liquor. Like Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen, which not-coincidentally is also about food and love, reading it gives me a warm happy feeling much like sitting down with friends to a delicious home-cooked meal.
I second the recommendation of Sriracha hot sauce. It comes in a squeeze bottle with a rooster emblem, in several flavors.
The mayor of Los Angeles, where I live, recently gathered a number of city officials and emergency preparedness experts to begin a massive brainstorming and planning session to make sure Los Angeles' emergency preparedness was up to speed, including a plan for evacuating the entire city.
Under any circumstances, one should always make emergency plans under the assumption that outside help may be severely delayed; still, it really rubbed in the appalling incompetence and lack of concern of the current federal government that every single person the paper quoted in its article on the first LA meeting was saying that after the response to Katrina, they would not expect and were not planning for any help from the federal government whatsoever.
If you can't trust that the federal government will help you if your city is leveled by an earthquake, then what exactly is the point of its existence?
I am a trained Red Cross disaster relief volunteer. I've offered to go wherever they feel like sending me. No one's gotten back to me yet. If anyone knows of any organization that will fly out trained volunteers (I'm in Los Angeles) please email me at Rphoenix2@hotmail.com.
(I am not trained in search-and-rescue or medicine, but in working at shelters, damage assessment, and family service, ie, sort of like post-disaster social work.)
Graydon, I've been wanting to read your novel for years now. Have you tried small presses? Perhaps Small Beer? They're the natural home for works likely to attract a small but very enthusiastic audience.
You can get a miniature Swiss Army knife which attaches to your keychain. Squeeze the bottom and you get a flashlight: a tiny one but useful in an emergency. I've gotten plenty of use out of mine.
I also echo Margaret's advice. Your emergency kit should have a couple of paperback books, ones you'd actually want to read in an emergency. My emergencies have all involved lots of excruciatingly dull sitting around and waiting.
Tampons and pads are also essential if you're female. And power bars or granola bars or something like that.
I keep the backpack in the house next to the cat carrier, and the one in the car is in the trunk, so one or both will almost always be nearby. I also keep some supplies in my purse, like tiger's milk bars, painkillers, travel toothpaste and toothbrush, tampons and pads, etc, because where I go, it goes.
Why yes, people have said I'm paronoid. I've been doing this for at least seven years through, even before I spent a year doing disaster relief with the Red Cross. Lots of the stuff has come in handy, even though I've never been in a _huge_ disaster.
I don't own any full salwar kamizes, but I sometimes wear just the top over dress pants or jeans. (The ones I have are from Maharashtra, which I think is sometimes shorter than some other regional styles-- mine come to the halfway point between my waist and knees, not below the knees.) Anyway, they're very comfortable and casual-looking when worn that way.
I especially like the Jaipur-influence ones with tiny mirrors embroidered into the fabric.
I think the October Surprise will be a scary-sounding terror alert, probably targeted at heavily Democratic areas. And then they fix the vote, if necessary, which it may not be because half the country would vote for Bush even if Kerry spotted a disguised bin Laden in Ohio and personally dispatched or apprehended him.
For Bush, bin Laden makes no difference. If there's a terrorist attack, it proves that he needs to stay in office because there's a war on; if there isn't, it proves what a good job he's doing protecting us.
As for Crawford, I think he's so sure he'll win he doesn't need to bother campaigning any more.
Thanks for the tip, Steve. Since this has come up before, let me once more explain my policy:
To whom it may concern:
Challenges to duels must be issued in person. Any traditional form, such as a glove at the feet, a chip on the shoulder, or a verbal invitation presented face to face, is acceptable. No challenges issued in writing or transmitted by any form of electronic media will be regarded as valid.
This procedure applies only to formal challenges. Vaguely threatening statements which do not state an intent, are presented in the passive voice, or rely on unnamed third parties, such as "I can kick your ass," "People like you should be killed," or "Someone should get you" are not true challenges and will be ignored.
Thank you,
Rachel Brown
This is strange. Here's the last part of Mr. Rice's new auction:
"Oh and one last thing, I wanted to add. Greg Ioannou who works for Colbourne Communication, you are not allowed to buy my manuscript. He had already offered me money for my script, but I refused. I know Greg Ioannou quite well and let's just say he being an editor for his company, he is a splendid one, but we have are differences.
I told Greg Ioannou one day, money isn't everything, children must come first. I looked him in the eyes and said, "Money cannot save your family Greg, only you can do that." "You must be able to stand up for them and protect them, first and foremost." He looked back at me saying, "I simply cannot." "All I can do is provide money." "It's all I know." I shook my head and replied, "What a pity.""
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6930413512
Mr. Rice, you are making yourself look like a crazy person.
Randall, if you read all the books recommended here, can you tell us which ones you most enjoyed?
If you like Alan Moore, you would probably also like two similarly witty, erudite, and political writers, Iain Banks and China Mieville.
By China Mieville: PERDIDO STREET STATION.
In the bizarre city of New Crobuzon, where humans mingle uneasily with aliens and cyborgs, the slovenly scientist Isaac Dan Der Grimnebulin is hired to restore a once-winged man's power of flight. Meanwhile, Isaac's girlfriend Lin, an avant-garde artist who belongs to a race of people who have scarab beetles for heads, gets a weird commission from a local crime boss. Isaac and Lin have a really touching and believable relationship, and New Crobuzon is infinitely fascinating and inventive. If necessary, skip the clunky prologue.
By Iain M. Banks: PLAYER OF GAMES. In a society of mind-boggling vastness and plenty, where people can switch gender and live almost indefinitely and everything is provided for, a game-player gets bored. Whereupon he's invited to participate in a very unusual tournament.
This is dark and very funny and fizzes with ideas. Just to give you an idea of how Banks' mind works, there's these intelligent ships with names like GCU Just Read The Instructions, GCU Of Course I Still Love You, GSV So Much For Subtlety, and GSV Youthful Indiscretion.
There are other books set in the same world, but they all stand alone.
I'm waiting for puke and dying Spaniard to come back in.
It so happens that I was talking today to someone who was involved in the dramatic rights to _I, Robot_. His original idea was to do a miniseries which would adapt the book pretty much as is, with each story getting an episode. But no one wanted to do that, and then the film people got involved, and then it was out of his hands, and now you have whatever travesty it is.
The trouble isn't that everyone in Hollywood is a moron with no respect for literature. It's that any project passes through many different hands, and when the music stops, the morons are often the last one holding it.
Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series and Roald Dahl's major children's books have never, so far as I'm aware, been out of print since they were first published. Check the children's section of virtually any bookshop, and you will find them. I think it's safe to assume that they're still being read and enjoyed.
Just because one author is popular doesn't mean that anyone who likes her books will therefore never read anything else.
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