Elizabeth Edwards

I voted for John Edwards in the primary, though he withdrew the week before.  The one thing I will never forgive him for is withdrawing before the California primary.  He would have taken a ch8unk of the state and he would have had a raft of delegates to bargain with at the convention.  If you're going to put all that effort into runnign a primary campaign, you should be prepared to put some effort into making your losing a moment of strength.

Elizabeth Edwards died today and you know damned well that the thing they're talking about is not her work and her part in politics, or even the medical science behind her cancer (which is a legitimate opportunistic thing to do, I think).

Anyway, I admired Elizabeth Edwards: she was strong and progressive and did the right thing, as far as I could tell.  And I'm really sorry that she didn't get a better deal all around.

writing workshops

For some reason this is the time of years when everybody and his mother's brother has a writing workshop they want to let you know about for next year.  maybe this is the time of year they hire the instructors for next year, I don't know.

Anyway, not a single one of them: not Odyssey, not Clarion West, not Clarion, not Viable Paradise, not a single one of them is ever going to be possible for me ever, because I will never ever have that much money at my disposal and also that much time I do not have to be working.   And also.  . . .

It would be nice to be a part of a community of writers again sometime, but the last time I was in a writing group it totally broke me.  I don't understand how that worked.  Everybody in the group was nice and friendly, and the things they were writing were really interesting, but there was not a bit of commentary I received that didn't depress me completely.  And the two novels I brought to that group died, though I am pretty sure they were both had great potential.

I really don't know why that happened.  And so naturally I am wary of writing groups after that, because if that could happen with people I respected so much and who were so kind, and I don't know why, then how can I expect any other writing group situation not to do the same thing to me?

The Assange affair

The women involved in the Julian Assange affair did not accuse him of any misconduct other than refusing to get his act together and get tested for STDs.

They didn't ask for him to be prosecuted for sex crimes: they asked for him to be forced to get tested.

(this is yet another interim report on this thing, and it may change again, but this seems to be the most thorough report so far)

Now, wandering off after a broken condom and not responding to your partner's pleas to set their mind at ease is a jerk th8ing to do.  But  it's not rape.

It's a pretext to arrest the Wikileaks guy, though.