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|By Photo by Nick Michael (Private collection)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
The Salt Cellar: Object Inspiration
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
December Summaries: Two "Best" Books Lists
December. We look back and summarize our year on Christmas cards. Book review journals summarize a year of publishing in "best" lists.
School Library Journal has published three Best Books lists: Fiction, Non-fiction, and Picture Books. (From the fiction list, you can access the other two lists.)
These SLJ lists hover around twenty titles in each category. It's interesting to compare those lists with the shorter (more selective?) list from Horn Book.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
What's Better Than the Library? Nothing.
I love it when I'm on the other end of that deal, too. When I open a box and in it is exactly what I want at that moment.
But I'm lucky. Really lucky. I get that feeling of opening up a box and finding that exact special treat so many times every year. I get it every time I walk into my library.
Read more!
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
The 12 Days of Christmas (Bookstore Style)
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Hope you enjoy this adorable 12 Days of Christmas video from the Bookish Elves! Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Writers to the Core
To follow up on Julie's post, I think writers have been adhering to the "common core" for centuries. Most writers are not just story tellers. They are teachers as well. It comes naturally to them to describe a scene, a sequence, a beginning and an end. Writers raise questions and answer them. They use history, science, anecdotes, folktales old and new, stones, ducks, rabbits and wizards to tell their stories. In every story there is something that relates to what constitutes an education for a child.
I was reminded of this today in a Wall Street Journal piece, "The Hunger Games" Is a Civic Lesson" by Robert Pondiscio, a former fifth grade teacher in New York's South Bronx. He explains that when parents decry the brutality in Suzanne Collins' novels, they overlook the excellent opportunity the author offers. Not only do the books keep "reluctant" readers turning the pages, but, Mr. Pondiscio says, "they also provide an opportunity to educate kids about the relationship between the individual and the state, personal rights and responsibilities, and the civic duties expected of citizens."
So, writers, worry not. Keep on writing, whether it is about Yetis, frogs, spoonbills, alligators or penguins, graveyards or vegetable gardens. You are all "writing to the core."
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Common Core: Basics and Opportunities
"To align instruction…so that many more students than at present can meet the requirements of college and career readiness."
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Favorite Writing Tips
Nathan Bransford's contest to win a Kindle in honor of his new book How to Write a Novel is over, but he's published many of the "Favorite Writing Tips" he received as contest entries.
I quoted Lela, the winner, in my comment to J.A's post last Wednesday: "Write. Write poorly, but WRITE."
But there are other gems . . .
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
But do I still want to?
Read more!
Friday, November 8, 2013
Making Time to Write
I do a lot of my writing when I'm inspired. An idea takes hold of me and I just can't stop writing.
This is a very fun kind of writing to do. My writing tends to just flow.
But I often don't dedicate nearly as much time to writing as I would like to do. Life keeps getting in the way.
Recently I was able to dedicate one evening a week just to writing. An evening to myself! When I could focus all my time on writing. It sounded like heaven. But...
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Falling in Love
I asked my husband at dinner, what's your favorite character in literature? After convincing him that Alfred Sloan ("My years at General Motors") was not what I was looking for, he came up with Faust. He said, "I like characters with whom I can identify."
Granted, I could understand Sloan (my husband is a linear businessman) and not so much Faust (my husband is not that consummate a businessman, selling his soul, etc., but at least he picked a character with hopes and faults; in this instance, faults too great to save his soul.
Creating a sympathetic main character or characters is the writer's biggest challenge. Somewhere between nice and nasty is a good beginning…you want your reader to like her, and yet if the heroine is too nice, your reader will figure that there is no point in reading further. Nothing of interest is going to happen. Too nasty, and the reader will also lose interest. Newspapers have more to offer.
The writer must create is a heroine who knows what she wants, but whose human weaknesses prevent her from achieving them…initially. As a reader we want to be one step ahead of the heroine. We want to see her mistakes, to say, "wait, that's not such a smart move" And we want to cheer her on when she finally makes the right choice. In the end, we want to identify completely with her, to fall in love a little with her even. And when the book ends, we want to find it hard to say goodbye.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
They Come to Me for Nonfiction Now
Monday, October 28, 2013
Added Atrractions Necessary? Part II
Received a contract last week for "Two Young Frogs: An Old Japanese Tale." (Post of 10/17) Those frogs will appear in Highlights someday. Perhaps mentioning map skills did help.
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Thursday, October 24, 2013
Liebster Award!
2. What is your favorite part about blogging?
It forces me to think critically and more broadly about children's writing; and it keeps me connected to a larger community in what can be a solitary task.
3. What is your biggest writing challenge?
Keeping my bottom in the chair. I am prone to distraction.
4. What writing book/conference/website would you tell other children's writers to read/attend/visit?
5. What advice do you wish someone would have given you when you started writing?
Write badly, write worse, and keep going. Don't stop in the middle because you're worried about every word choice and sentence structure -- finish it. You can fix it later. (that's what revision is for). Great writers write awful stuff too.
6. What book (or books) do you wish you would have written?
Some Dogs Do by Jez Alborough (picture book); and probably Charlotte's Web, for middle grade
7. What are you most proud of?
Besides my kids, hmmmm, ask me again after I publish my first book.
8. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? So many places… SouthAfrica (wildlife and wine); Petra, Jordan (city of stone); Israel (Holy Land)
9. Book you most love to re-read?
10. What question do you wish I would have asked you? Please answer it.
Something really easy, like... yes, I'd love another cup of tea!
1. Where is your favorite place to write?
3. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
4. What's your favorite book(s)?
5. What's in your TBR pile?
8. What is your biggest source of inspiration?
9. Why do you blog?
Monday, October 21, 2013
Companions Along the Journey
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Added Attractions Necessary?
I recently finished retelling an old Japanese folktale. It was critiqued (thanks!) and then submitted to a magazine. It's the story of two frogs, one from the west (Osaka), and one from the east (Kyoto), whose curiosity about new places inspires them to travel. One spring day, they meet on a mountain - one traveling east and one traveling west. Tired and hungry, they devise a plan to view their destinations from the mountain top; to anticipate the new sights at journey's end. But their plan goes wrong - each frog looks in the direction of home! So discovering no new sights, they abort all travel plans. Their curiosity gone, they hop home, never to travel again.
To me, the story is humorous and passes the "so what?" test, but in my submission letter I mentioned an added curriculum-related attraction.
Read more!
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Defining YA
I am one of three contributors whose responses were merged into one ultimate YA definition:
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Friday, October 11, 2013
Books (When It's Done), parody of Cups (When I'm Gone) by Sue Fliess, ch...
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Tension produces anxiety, excitement and fear. It's in the book a kid reads with a flashlight after Mom has closed the door. It's in the book a kid hides in his lap and reads while the teacher drones on about long division and percentages. It's in the book that makes the reader care deeply about the protagonist, and what is going to happen to that person.
I think creating tension in my writing is the hardest thing to accomplish. It means I must eliminate sections of description, dialogue and juicy observation, all excellent examples, of course, of my really great writing. At first it is hard to see why my story is better without all these paragraphs, why sixty pages can be cut without anyone (but me) noticing. But it's true.
As I revise, I ask myself exactly what happens on each page. How does the chapter support the plot? Would anyone notice if it were...gone?
Sunday, September 29, 2013
On this perfect early fall day in our small town in western New Jersey, with the sun shining in a deep, autumn blue sky and the leaves starting to turn to oranges and yellows, the local fire company held its annual auction. It seems as if everything under the sun and then some are available for auction or purchase. Stacks of books pour out of the hall, clothes piled on clothes line the firehouse, sports equipment - skates, bats, balls, sleds, skis fill a shed, household items of all imaginations occupy a tent - pictures frames with photos of long gone great-grandparents, old Christmas ornaments that someone once lovingly hung on their tree, and decorations for holidays through out the year, pots and pans, flower vases and baskets, table linens-and the auction tent itself packed with furniture, antiques, picnic tables, bikes, boats, and beyond.
What an auction of ideas for writers - the remains of people's lives. Who used all this? What did this table hear or that chair see? Was it a happy home or did illness, sorrow, betrayal, history of war or economic problems trouble this house? Who looked at this photo and who gave it away?
Auction items are a treasure trove of inspiration for a writer - for plot, for characters, for setting.
As a writer we can say, well, "What if....the owner of these faded silk flowers touched them gently as she smiled at a birthday being remembered?" "What if ...the mother in the sepia toned photo cried as she read the letter from her son at war?" "What if ...friends and family cheered as the athlete with that bat slammed the winning home run?" "What if ...that piece of jewelry was accepted by a teenage girl who then tells the boyfriend that she is making other plans?"
I once heard Mary Higgins Clark, the mystery writer, give a talk where she said she began her first novel, and many subsequent books, by asking "What if...." when looking what might actually be a very ordinary scene or event and imagining something bigger and much more interesting and mysterious. She said she was in Singapore as a young air line stewardess and noticed an international looking group at the next restaurant table and haphazardly thought, "What if... they're not what they appear?" and she was off.
Auctions offer much trash and many treasures but all have a past and can fit in a story as a main character or a minor plot point. A writer only has to ask "What if... " and can be off on a unique new book. Where do you see treasures of inspiration and when have you said "What if...?"
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Modifying a Longstanding Tradition
Friday, September 20, 2013
Finding a Mentor
I should be cracking open the bubbly, eating dark chocolate truffles and propping my feet up, right?
Read more!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Creating Memorable Characters
What makes us remember a character? Not what they're wearing, or the color of their hair, but "their quirks, their body language, their histories, their beliefs." How does a writer create vivid, memorable characters?
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
List-Mania for Writers
Who doesn't love a good list? Certainly, Buzzfeed readers do. On any given day of the week, Buzzfeed offers lists of advice from Wizard Chic: 10 Ways to Look Like Less of a Muggle to the 25 Most Awkward Cat Sleeping Positions
Monday, September 9, 2013
To Write a Classic
Recently my son and I have been rereading the "My Father's Dragon" trilogy by Ruth Stiles Gannett. We read all three books several years ago and he loved them. As I was organizing my books in our new house, he spotted this old favorite and asked to read it again. I happily obliged.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
"In media res." I've written on this several times, but in reviewing my own writing, I see again where a leisurely pace has resulted in a less than satisfying manuscript. The slow development of plot and character is no longer possible.
I'm always reading several books at once, and just finished Edith Wharton's autobiography. That made me pick up one of her very early novels, The Custom of the Country. Slowly, oh so slowly, she sketches her character, Undine Spragg. Delicately, oh so delicately she paints the Gilded Age scenery. This is a bit boring, I think, and then, POW, she drops the first brick of the plot and I MUST keep reading. But I'm on page 127.
If Edith were writing today, her book would begin where the brick was dropped. Backstory, all 127 pages of it, would fill in the gaps, inserted only where the plot couldn't be slowed down.
I still find it immensely useful to read earlier works (I just finished reading Beatrix Potter books to the grandchildren) But whenever my writing strays toward that old fashion mode, I try to cut it off, albeit reluctantly. I know I can't go there any more.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Comic strips as inspiration
Thursday, August 29, 2013
The Soul Would have No Rainbow....
The soul would have no rainbow
if the eyes had no tears.
Last week when in Jackson Hole nestled by the beautiful Grand Tetons, I picked up a book of Native American proverbs. This wonderful quote with its wisdom and rhythm, is the title.
Paging through the book I came across this quotation, pertinent to us all, particularly as writers.
Words are the voice of the heart.
When I read this I thought of the focus of our writing for children and YA's and what part of heart do we want or need to convey to them. Then I thought of the anniversary this week of Dr. King's speech and remembered a book I read as a child of 8 to 11.
Marguarite De Angeli's THEE HANNAH still flashes through my memory, scene by scene. Hannah is a little Quaker girl in Philadelphia at the time of the Civil War. She isn't happy that she has to wear plain dresses and hats while her friend who is of another church gets to wear pretty, flowered dresses of different colors. One day she is walking home when a desperate African American woman with her child who are hiding behind a house, calls to her and asks for help. Hannah tells her parents and they help the poor fugitive to an underground railroad station. The fleeing woman tells Hannah she knew she could rely on Hannah to help her because she recognized her dress as a Quaker. Suddenly Hannah understands the symbolism and her family's courage and heart in living what they believe and helping others. What a great book for children to see other children's conflicts and see how their courage does make a difference.
What a great goal to strive for - bringing help and understanding for heart and soul through the books we write.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
- Elmore Leonard talked about his approach to Bob Greene (Wall Street Journal): "When I get into the writing, I have a pretty good idea of who the main characters will be. But I still don't know exactly how the story will work. And something happens to me in almost every book: A character that, in my mind, may have been fairly minor turns into a major character. I hear him talking, and I realize: This guy is interesting."
- Elmore Leonard always wrote a scene from a single character's point of view, then often rewrote the same scene from another character's POV to see if it was more effective.
- His use of dialogue is legendary.
- Though he started writing in the 1950's, he 'found his style' after reading George V. Higgins' classic 1970 crime novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle, with its prolific profane dialogue: "I read it and I changed my style somewhat…I started to use expletives where they belonged. I started to open my scenes with dialogue. Higgins set me free."
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Fly, Be Free
As I sit here on this rainy morning pondering what words of wisdom I'm going to lay on you, my lovely Paper Wait readers, I realize no matter what I say, I will most likely fall spectacularly short. Confession: at the moment I'm feeling a bit empty, maybe even melancholy.
This past weekend, my son went off to college for the first time. And oh...so many feels.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
The Inner Truth of Teenagers
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Best Times for Insight & Inspiration?
Have you ever wondered why inspiration zaps your brain at certain times? Is it chance? Some scientists think not.
In a 2008 New Yorker article "The Eureka Hunt," Jonah Lehrer describes brain research that seems to explain the why of when insight and inspiration can strike.
"The insight process, as sketched by scientists Jung-Beeman and Kounis, is a delicate balancing act. At first, the brain lavishes the scarce resource of attention on a single problem. But once the brain is sufficiently focused, the cortex needs to relax in order to seek out the more remote association in the right hemisphere, which will provide the insight."
When is this most likely to happen?
Read more!
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Revising and Revising and Revising!
Recently I had a lot of fun revising a manuscript. Well... it wasn't fun all the way through.
Basically here's how my revision process went...
Sunday, August 4, 2013
"Everything You Feel Like Telling"
I am reading Edith Wharton's autobiography, A Backward Glance. It is rich with information on her development as a writer. Most interesting is her commentary on her critic, Walter Berry, who essentially "taught" her to write. I quote much of what she says in its entirety, as it is invaluable for both writers and critics.
About Walter Berry, she writes: "No critic was ever severer, but none had more respect for the artist's liberty. He taught me never to be satisfied with my own work, but never to let my inward conviction as to the rightness of anything I had done be affected by outside opinion."
Stuck with the development of a novel, she asked his opinion. "He looked through what I had written, handed it back, and said simply: 'Don't worry about how you're to go on. Just write down everything you feel like telling.' The advice freed me once for all from the incubus of an artificially pre-designed plan, and sent me rushing ahead with my tale, letting each incident create the next, and keeping in sight only the novelist's essential sign-post; the inner significance of the "case" selected. Yet when the novel was done, I remember how meticulously he studied it from the point of view of language, marking down faulty syntax and false metaphors, smiling away over-emphasis and unnecessary repetitions, helping me patiently through the beginner's verbal perplexities, yet never laying hands on what he considered sacred: the soul of the novel, which is (or should be) the writer's own soul."
It is good to know that even one of America's greatest writers struggled to learn, and that the manuscripts she produced (according to a guide at The Mount, she wrote every morning in bed for four hours) all needed help from a sharp-eyed critic who respected what she was trying to say.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Taking my character far, far away to develop him - as in Jersey boy goes to British beach
However, while I was traveling through southern England last month and periodically writing, where did my second-most important character wind up? At another beach: Teignmouth, in the Devon region of England.
Read more!
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Making Books Live
Recently I was researching material for a book set in medieval England and delved into what kind of books were in use then. This prompted me to review the history of book making from the writings of the ancient world engraved on stone tablets, progressing to text inscribed on papyrus in Egypt at the time of the pharaohs and parchment in Greece and the
Middle East to paper in China. The invention of the movable type printing press by Gutenberg in the 1400"s expanded phenomenally the manufacture of books and the distribution of knowledge. And then on to ebooks and the Gutenberg Project which encourages ebooks distribution and expanding information, knowledge and story.
Back in medieval England, books or manuscripts were hand written on parchment and
used by scribes and scholars in goverment, the church and business, as well as by students in universities. We stand in awe of these historic volumes in museums and libraries and prize their history, language, script and illuminations. Hopefully some of the books we work on and produce in printed form or in the eworld will survive to be used and enjoyed in the future, and maybe even occasionally some one in the future will look at them with a little awe.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
A Writer's Workout
Monday, July 22, 2013
Characters on Vacation
Over on the OneFour KidLit YouTube channel this month, we are highlighting places our characters would go on vacation. Since THE PROMISE OF AMAZING takes place in New Jersey, I didn't have to think too hard about where the teens in my book might venture on a sweltering summer day. I had such a blast creating this video that I thought I'd share it here as well!
Where would your characters go on vacation?
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
On Censorship and Happiness
I always sneered at censorious parents till this summer when my daughter got a part in "The Laramie Project," at camp. It's about that poor kid in Wyoming who was beaten to death for being gay. I didn't stop her, mind you, but I fretted about it to everyone who would listen.
Monday, July 15, 2013
One Haiku: Help Wanted
Each year when we go to Maine, I take along a haiku for kids about sunset at the ocean. I've been fiddling with it for years - this metaphor about the setting sun as a basketball. Should the sinking sun be described as a slam dunk or a swish shot?
This year, you can help me decide.
Read more!
Friday, July 12, 2013
Old School Index Cards Rule
As I zeroed in on the ending of the second major revision of my WIP, I came to a terrible realization. My ending sucked.
First reaction: Overwhelmed. How can I fix it? It's too much work. Maybe I should trash it and start something new. Maybe I should go find some chocolate.
Second reaction: Find the chocolate and think things through.
Third reaction: Okay, I think I've got a new ending, but holy shit! It's too much work. New ending requires new stuff sprinkled throughout. Maybe I should trash it and start something new. Maybe I should open up a bottle of wine.
Fourth reaction: Open up a bottle of wine and get to work.
Here's what I did.
Read more!
Monday, July 8, 2013
Why I Love Our Critique Group!
I had a great night tonight! Normally I don't focus my blog post on what a great night I had, but tonight it seemed appropriate because tonight I spent my evening...
Thursday, July 4, 2013
More for the Fourth
Happy 4th! Well, maybe. I just talked to my seven year old grandson who seemed a little vague on the details. A BOOK IS IN ORDER said I, and I googled GoodReads for suggestions.
Humm. There are some old standbys, Sam the Minuteman and George the Drummer Boy written with the idea that kids understand things better from a little person's viewpoint. There are lots of books on the subject written from animals' points of view: mice, dogs, bears. Mary Pope Osborn has written on the subject, Happy Birthday America, and a popular book appears to be Wow America by Neubucker. Commenters had good things to say about Jean Fritz's series on the Founding Fathers.
BUT, dear writers, my cursory survey on 4th of July literature indicates there is precious little out there for young readers. An understanding of the unique history of the United States is essential to coming generations. Let's get some new and interesting books on the market!
Monday, July 1, 2013
Writing on vacation, English-style
As a child, when my parents took us places, sightseeing was nonstop. We weren't those "It's Tuesday, it must be Belgium," type people--they didn't rush us through places--but the whole day we were expected to be somewhere, on the move. I thought all people traveled like this.
And then, in my mid-20s, I made British friends..and traveled with them. They took longer hikes "walks" than my parents...but they would also stop for tea. Often. They didn't have to "be somewhere" every moment, or every day. They knew how to take breaks. I was amazed. And ever since then, I have traveled half like my parents, half like my British friends.
So, what does this have to do with writing?
Friday, June 28, 2013
Happy Fourth -Independence Day !
Happy Independence Day to the Paperwaiters and all our children's writers. I'm thinking of the incredible gifts that are ours as writers here on July Fourth when we celebrate liberty and freedom. As writers we celebrate freedom of speech especially, and thus to bring the best literature to children too.
We forget sometimes how we got here...and the Fourth helps to remind us
"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
First Amendment- Bill of Rights
If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter."
George Washington
"Where the press is free and everyman able to read, all is safe."
Thomas Jefferson
Happy Fourth and Happy Writing!
Monday, June 24, 2013
A Polished Pan, a Painful Illness and Writing
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Dearest Paper Waiters,


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If you're at RSA this week, be sure to check out this panel discussion, featuring Veracode's Chris Wysopal along with Jerry Archer, Mary Ann Davidson, and Brian Chess. Abstract as follows:
The growth of Web 2.0 has highlighted two significant trends in application security. First, as the network has hardened, attacks against applications have dramatically increased. Second, an explosion in use of dynamic code has resulted in serious security problems. This panel will discuss these problems and provide software assurance through use of source code versus binary code analysis.
The session is AND-105 and it's happening on Tuesday, April 21 at 1:30 PM in Purple 310.
Flash Security
SQL Injection Attack
Cyber Security
Mobile Phone Security
CRLF Injection
Binary Analysis
Application Testing Tool
Software Security
Data Loss
Data Security
Data Breach

subset: commoncrawl


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Business Complicit
The levels of corporate engagement with such regimes have become not just an embarrassment, but a threat to companies themselves. A reputational risk that could ultimately hit companies where it hurts: their profits. In May 2011 the campaign group Global Witness released a leaked document that revealed where the Gaddafi regime had stashed its cash, including $292 million in the high street bank HSBC.[1]
PepsiCo, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble, invested millions in Egypt during the now-reviled Mubarak regime. Egypt was the second biggest recipient of foreign direct investment in Africa, trumped only by Angola - a country where human rights are violated with impunity and where the disparities in wealth are enormous.
We are living in times of immense geo-political change. Government oppression and corruption has ignited protest movements across the Middle East and North Africa, whilst people in the industrialised North are taking to the streets in fury over corporate tax evasion. The links between corporations and oppressive regimes are easier to spot now than they ever have been. Meanwhile, Wikileaks has exploded the walls shrouding secret "diplomacy," revealing massive complicity and collusion of powerful states in the oppression of people around the world.
Companies, particularly with brands in more ethically sensitive markets such the UK, are all too aware of the need to avoid consumer backlashes. They have, and will, respond to consumer pressure. Which presents us with an invaluable means of affecting change.
Supply chain issues
Companies do not need to have direct operations in oppressive regimes to benefit from, and be implicated in, human rights abuses. In the supply chains of a huge proportion of products on our supermarket shelves there are endemic human rights abuses. Forced child labour is used to produce cocoa in West Africa and cotton in Uzbekistan.
Computers, mobile phones and other digital equipment are likely to contain 'conflict minerals', which feed violence in Africa. Palm oil, an ingredient used in an estimated 43 of Britain's 100 best-selling grocery brands, is implicated in land rights abuses of indigenous people in many areas of the world. Some of the world's worst human rights abuses are fuelled by the demands of Western consumer markets, and the companies selling such products rarely have obligations to eliminate such practices.
The responsibility for this situation lies not solely with companies, but an international trading system in which self-regulation and voluntary, non-binding commitments of companies are continually presented as adequate measures to protect against abuses.
This system, developed and perpetuated by the powerful countries of the North, serves to entrench the economic supremacy of the minority over the dignity and human rights of people in economically poor, but often resource-rich, countries. Countries that do not appear on the list therefore cannot wash their hands of the abuses that take place in the countries that are.
British problems
In this context, two issues are worth highlighting regarding the United Kingdom.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, on its way through parliament at the time of writing, will make it practically impossible for victims of corporate crimes committed by British companies in the global South to seek justice in the courts because they won't be able to access the funds required.
Secondly, 91% of the value of arms sale transfers from the UK between 2004 and 2007 were with 'developing' countries, on a par with arms exports from Russia (96%) and China (100%). In contrast, arms transfers to developing countries accounted for 50% of sales from the USA and 54% from France.[2] Brutal repression of citizens in oppressive regimes is carried out with the weaponry and torture equipment exported by countries that claim to respect human rights.
The very concept of an oppressive regime, usually taken to describe the actions of a state towards its citizens, is in itself problematic: It excludes analysis of a state's actions towards non-citizens and its actions extra-territorially.
Abuses perpetrated against the most vulnerable people - refugees and citizens living in war zones – often don't appear in the statistics. Furthermore, the majority of data used to generate the list specifically refers to human rights abuses carried out by the state – it does not, for example assess human rights abuses carried out by non-state armed groups.
Therefore where state control of its territory is weak the potential exposure of individuals to human rights abuses may not be reflected simply by the oppressiveness of the state. Consequently, the list published here does not provide a complete picture of human rights in the world.


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We have two locations to serve your family. Give us a call to find out more.


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Happy St. Lucy Day!
Good things are worth waiting for- that is the message today as we celebrated the Feast of St. Lucy at our house. It is the morning when all the candles are lit, and after getting Sarah out of bed with song, she lit our Christmas tree for the first time this season. Breakfast of bacon ( of course!) eggs and pumpkin scones were shared by the lights of the tree, and the candles all around us. George Winston"s December CD played in the background, music that always brings me back to this time of year. All of our eyes contained bittersweet tears, knowing that next year, Sarah would be waking up in a dorm room on a college campus, and Tony and I would celebrate the morning without the joy of our three daughters, yet in the love of each other.
We started celebrating St. Lucy Day almost 18 years ago. It is a special day used to mark importance, to stop us in our tracks and remind us to look for the sacred in the midst of our every day lives. Our holiday season seems to be taken over by constant commercialization. It is good to be quiet, to pause and soak in the light and love around us.
I struggled to wait for St. Lucy's Day. I hosted two gatherings this month, including my gluten free cookie exchange last night when I was tempted to light the tree. But Sarah kept telling me this was her last St. Lucy Day at home, and she didn't want to be cheated out of the moment.
And what a wonderful, yet fleeting moment is was- before I knew it, the sun was rising, Sarah was finishing a paper for school, I packed her lunch and she was out the door.
As I sit and write this, the candles are still glowing and I can feel the warmth of of their light surrounding me. I know that what we have is amazing and special. Even if it was only a few moments together for breakfast before our beautiful Christmas tree, I know the moment will carry me through the day and remind me to bring light wherever I go!
On this feast day of light, shine your light in the darkest corners of life and see what magic can happen in the moment!


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The following is excerpted from Brave New Weed: Adventures into the Uncharted World of Cannabis by Joe Dolce, published by Harper Wave.
If you are under the misapprehension that science occurs in gleaming white labs with sleek, modern equipment, let me assure you that Dr. Raphael Mechoulam's beige world hasn't seen a decorator, let alone a paint job, in forty years. My conversation with the father of cannabinoid research was sporadically drowned out by electricians tearing out the ceiling in the hallway to replace decades-old wiring. I had expected more distinguished surroundings for such a highly decorated researcher, but science is a painstaking affair, not a showy one, and scarce pennies are rarely spent on shiny surrounds. Most scientists would probably be suspicious of showy digs anyway.
Once the banging subsides I kick off our conversation by explaining my journey through the new world of cannabis. "Yes, it is a new world," he says. "Four or five thousand years. Not too old." Gentle admonition noted.
"But for a plant that's been around so long we seem to know so little about it."
"We know quite a bit about it," he counters. "It was used in the black populations and by jazz musicians who said that they couldn't play their jazz unless they were under the effect of cannabis, which probably has some truth. What we don't know, what no one has looked into, is whether it causes any change in the emotions that make it better for musicians."
At the time that statement washed over me. Only when later reviewing my tapes did it became clear that he was talking about the potential power of endocannabinoids to affect the emotional center from which artistic expression arises. Instead, I moved on to the less savory topic of my own vomiting and asked: If cannabis is so effective in treating nausea, why can it sometimes trigger the opposite reaction?
It has a lot to do with dose, he explains. A large amount can cause an entirely different response than a small one, "and it is probably individually determined." Everyone has a different susceptibility, probably because our endocannabinoid systems vary. "The first and only time we gave it to people about fifty years ago, my wife made a cake and put ten milligrams of THC in each piece of cake. Five of our guests took the cake with THC and five took the placebo. The placebo had no effect, but all of those who took THC reacted differently. My wife felt a little bit high. She sat in her chair. Another said he felt nothing but every fifteen seconds he started talking, pa pa pa. Another didn't stop talking for two hours—he was a member of Parliament so it accentuated what he knows—and the fifth one had an anxiety reaction. So same dose, five different reactions."
Every few months, it seems, new reports come out associating overuse with schizophrenia. Is this fact or is this propaganda?
It depends on what part of cannabis you're talking about, Mechoulam responded. "We gave CBD to a schizophrenic girl in Brazil who displayed no psychotic symptoms as long as she got CBD orally. We couldn't do clinical trials—it takes a lot of money. In 2012, a German group reported that CBD is an extremely good antischizophrenic compound, as good as the drugs being administered today, with one exception: the potent antipsychotics given today cause nasty side effects and CBD does not. In large doses they found that CBD enhances anandamide concentrations in the brain. There are a lot of things anandamide does, all of them essentially positive."15
As he's speaking, Mechoulam prints out a chart that lists the dizzying number of illnesses in which the ECS system is somehow involved. In addition to the obvious suspects, the list includes stroke, morphine dependency, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, neurodegenerative disorders, epilepsy, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, arthritis, and seizure disorders. It also includes so-called untreatable illnesses such as chronic hiccups, a torturous affliction that can persist for months, and Tourette's syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements and weird vocal tics.
My face must indicate incredulity because Mechoulam interrupts himself to ask, "You don't believe me?
"George Kunos, one of the heads of the National Institutes of Health in Washington, recently wrote that the endocannabinoid system is apparently involved in almost all major diseases of the body.16 This is a very strong statement because Kunos is an excellent scientist—Hungarian, you know—and because there are very few compounds that act on everything."*
What I'm thinking is, Pharmaceutical companies are tripping over themselves to find new drugs that heal without killing people. But what I say is, "If anandamide or other cannabinoids do all of these marvelous things, why haven't you patented a synthetic version?"
"We did. But by the time we got people interested the patent was ten years old, and then it was too late. A patent is only good for twenty years, and by the time a pharmaceutical company completes trials they'll have just a few years left to make back their investment. And so, there we are."
If I were Mechoulam, I'd probably feel like a lone man screaming in a forest whom no one hears. Isn't he frustrated, I ask, by the political and legal hurdles that have caused his field to progress so slowly?
His warm, questioning eyes greet me with a gaze as if to say, you poor, naive layman. "Why should I be frustrated? It depends on where you start. I'm a pessimist. I didn't expect anything to happen. The first prize I got was for best publication by a young scientist at the Weizmann Institute in the 1960s. A committee made that decision, but the chairman of the academic board thought I should be doing something else and did everything to kick me out."
I don't believe he's a pessimist. Mechoulam's investigations and insights have blazed this trail for the last half century. Pessimism doesn't fuel such single-focused dedication. Curiosity does.
"Our brains produce two hundred to three hundred anandamide-like compounds, most of which no one has looked at. When you sit around with your friends, are you a photocopy of any of them? If I see my granddaughter running toward me, I feel happy. Why is that?" What he is asking is: Could cannabis be the chemical link that translates the objective reality of the child rushing toward him into the subjective feeling of happiness?
And then he reveals his big theory: "Why the hell is the body making this many compounds at the same time? Why doesn't it make just five compounds? We have two to three hundred anandamide-like compounds in our brain, and their levels and ratios are different. Is it just possible that the interplay of these compounds causes the differences in our personalities or has something to do with our psychological setup? We know almost nothing about the chemistry of our personalities. Our body produces compounds that regulate every physiological system, so why not our personalities? People discovered the major neurotransmitters in the 1930s and '40s, but here's a new system, and we should expect new things to be discovered."
Of course, this is simply a theory, but it's as riveting as it is in- conceivable that something in this much-maligned plant could actually hold the key to unlocking the brain chemistry of emotions.
According to Dr. Ethan Russo, it's generally wise to heed Mechoulam's hunches. "A great scientist doesn't just figure out the how, but the why, and Mechoulam excels at this. To outsiders it may seem that these three hundred chemicals he's discussing are extraneous, but one of his guiding principles is that nature doesn't waste energy. There must always be a rationale behind the energy the body expends to make these things, and his passion has been to uncover that rationale."
Or, in the words of this self-identified pessimist, "The anandamide story may continue well beyond what we know today. Why are we sorry? Angry? Happy? I don't know, but one has to prove a theory. It's not a big deal. For the next fifty years I need something to do."
Celebrate the release of Joe Dolce's Brave New Weed with a conversation between Joe Dolce and journalist Michael Zaytsev about their adventures in the cannabis world at The Alchemist's Kitchen in NYC, October 4. A Bowery Cannabis Club event moderated by Lex Pelger. Learn more here.


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Here is the archive of the lists Lorendiac posts here, and here is his latest!- BC.
Three years ago I requested help from my fellow fans in compiling a list of all the reboots DC had done of characters or entire teams in the years since COIE. Recently I repeated that request on a few forums, asking for help in listing anyone who had received the Reboot Treatment within these past three years. Here's how I think it stands at the moment, for anyone who was wondering.
Before I offer my current list of DC Reboots, I want to talk a bit about what I mean and what I don't mean when I use that word "Reboot." This has caused a bit of confusion in the past. Different fans had different definitions in their heads when they saw and used that same word in their responses. Let's see if I can explain myself clearly this time, using what I honestly believe to be the same definition commonly used by a majority of those fans who really worry about "reboots" and what does or doesn't qualify..
What is a Reboot?
Reboot = Everything from before gets thrown away!
All—or very nearly all—of a character's previously published stories, that had him at the center of the action, get erased from continuity, leaving a clean slate for a fresh start. In the new continuity, they never happened and the other superheroes in that same comics universe don't remember anything about them. Now a writer is "starting all over from scratch" with the essential character concept. That is a reboot.
If some bits and pieces of a character's history get changed on the spur of the moment, that is a retcon. But if a lot of his old adventures are still supposed to be valid, allowing for some changes to various details, then he has not been rebooted.
Things that Aren't Reboots
1. The character's origin story gets retold with some new twists, but all of his subsequent adventures are still supposed to have happened, just about the way his veteran fans remember them.
For instance, Frank Miller's "Year One," published as four issues of the "Batman" title shortly after COIE, was a retelling, with new details and a grittier tone than usual, of Batman's "origin story" and his first several months on the job as a costumed crimefighter in Gotham City. However, most of the old Earth-1 continuity from the Silver and Bronze Ages (lots of previous clashes with Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, etc.) still appeared to be canonical in the Post-COIE era, so Batman and all the associated characters (such as Jim Gordon, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, etc.) hadn't been utterly rebooted.
2. The old character dies or retires and someone else puts on a costume and starts calling himself the successor with the same name.
For instance, Barry Allen (the Silver Age Flash) died in COIE. Wally West took over the role of being the Flash. That was a big change, but not a reboot, because most of Barry's old Pre-Crisis stories were still in continuity. People in the DCU still remembered that those things had happened.
3. A new writer comes along and makes some changes, giving the hero a new supporting cast, giving him a different attitude, telling his stories with a whole different style, but we are expected to assume that most or all of the previous stories still happened before this.
This happens all the time in the comic book industry. It isn't a reboot; it just means different writers will have different stories they want to tell.
4. The hero's old series got cancelled; he gets a new series with a new #1.
That isn't a reboot unlessall the hero's past adventures from the old series have just been erased from continuity, the way Wonder Woman's were twenty years ago when her old series got cancelled and then a new one started up later. Most of the time, this is simply a Relaunch.
5. Changing the exact roster of the "Founding Members" of a team, but saying that the team actually still had most of the same adventures from its old series, is not a reboot.
For instance, in the Post-Crisis continuity regarding the original JLA, the official version said that Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman had not been Founding Members of the League. The second Black Canary had been, however, "replacing" Wonder Woman. Superman and Batman were apparently admitted to have lent a helping hand to the old JLA on various occasions if opportunity permitted. That was a major retcon to JLA continuity, but we weren't being told that all those stories from the JLA title of the 60s, 70s, and early-to-mid 80s had "never happened at all." They had just happened with a somewhat different set of members than we previously thought. That was not the same thing as tossing out the old JLA series and saying, "All that stuff never happened at all!" (It was a rather obnoxious thing to do to veteran JLA fans, however.)
The DC Reboots Since COIE
Superman. Rebooted in 1986 after COIE. All previous Superman-centric stories (Earth-2, Earth-1, or any other version) effectively got thrown away and forgotten. Although, because that same treatment was not being given to most of the other heroes who were formerly of "Earth-1," it was kept in continuity that he had been a superhero for a few years already as "Superman #1" (vol. 2) opened up, and that he had already become well-known to other heroes, and generally respected by them. (For instance, when Post-COIE Superman teamed up with Cyborg in an issue of "Action Comics," it was clear that they knew each other from past experience, although I don't believe we were given any details on just what that past experience had been!)
Wonder Woman. Rebooted at about the same time as Superman, around early 1987, shortly after COIE. Unlike Superman, she was rebooted as "I am just now appearing in public for the first time in the modern DCU, where the Justice League and the Teen Titans and others have already been household names for years before anyone heard of me!"
Note: Last year I saw a fascinating online rumor that when George Perez started plotting the initial story arc for the Post-COIE "Wonder Woman" title, he thought it would be the functional equivalent of Byrne's "Man of Steel" mini or Miller's "Batman: Year One" story, a retelling of her origin story which was mostly happening as a "flashback to several years ago" when Diana was just making her debut in the public eye, and then the title would subsequently "fast-forward" to "here and now," with Diana already a well-established heroine with years of seasoning in the later stories in that series. However, the person mentioning this rumor didn't cite any sources I could check. At any rate, some of what was done to Wonder Woman at that time has now been undone by her recent restoration (post-Infinite Crisis) to her old role as a Founding Member of the original Justice League, meaning she once again has about as many years of experience in superheroics as do Superman, Batman, and various other DC heroes.
The Legion of Super-Heroes. Rebooted in 1994 after Zero Hour. Rebooted again in 2004.
Note: I have not read the miniseries "Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds," but I am told that the general effect of it seems to be to shunt the two "rebooted Legions" aside into other timelines and "restore" the version of Legion continuity which had previously been featured in DC publications from 1958 to about 1985 (the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths). If I've got this right, however, the subsequent 9 years or so of "original Legion continuity" (published from COIE to Zero Hour) does not apply to this "un-rebooted" Legion (or whatever it should be called).
The Doom Patrol. Rebooted in 2004. One rumor says that John Byrne did not "ask for permission" to reboot the Doom Patrol from scratch, but, on the contrary, was told that rebooting was the way DC had already decided it wanted the DP handled by anyone who did a new series about the "Doom Patrol" concept. Take it or leave it. I'm also told that within
On the other hand, I'm told that the reboot was thoroughly un-rebooted within two years or so of the reboot, with the events of Infinite Crisis serving as a convenient excuse, and I also hear that Dan DiDio has allegedly said that this was the Master Plan for the Doom Patrol all along.
Starro the Conqueror was apparently rebooted by Grant Morrison in 1997 in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1," clearly set around the time of the early pages of "JLA #1" (the first issue of the series which began around that same time). There's this giant alien organism resembling a starfish, which uses miniature versions of itself to cling to people's faces and place them under its mental control. It's referred to in dialogue as "the Star Conqueror." Various superheroes in this story (including Wally West and Wonder Woman) say things which make it clear they feel no sense of recognition at what they are seeing, despite the fact that Starro the Conqueror had used the same schtick in several previous stories (usually against one incarnation or another of the "Justice League," beginning in the original team's first published adventure). If they did remember meeting Starro or hearing about Starro from other heroes, then it would have been more logical for someone to say: "This sounds like Starro or one of his relatives. Refresh my memory: How have various incarnations of the League overcome Starro all those other times?"
Note: I just now checked, and saw that the Wikipedia entry on Starro simply asserts that Morrison's "Star Conqueror" villain in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1" was simply a different member (a green one) of the same species as Starro (usually purple). However, that interpretation of events does not fit with the way the heroes fighting "the Star Conqueror" are obviously drawing a complete blank as far as "recognition" is concerned. On the other hand, reading the Wikipedia entry gives me the impression (possibly inaccurate) that other writers working for DC in the past 12 years have not felt the obligation to write about Starro and/or "Star Conqueror" as if all the Starro stories from before 1997 had never happened. Perhaps this qualifies as a case where Grant Morrison tried to do a subtle reboot, but everyone else at DC just ignored the implications?
The Warlord. Rebooted in 2006. His previous regular series had lasted 132 issues back in the 1970s and 80s (and I have all those stories in my collection), plus a bunch of annuals, a six-issue miniseries, and all sorts of guest appearances in other people's titles over the years. All of that is now gone with the wind.
At least some of the Charlton Comics characters were "rebooted" when they were integrated into the post-Crisis DCU.
For instance, Captain Atom started over from scratch in a series written by Cary Bates, in which he was becoming the superhero Captain Atom "for the very first time" and none of his old Charlton adventures had ever happened. I believe the same thing happened to Peacemaker.
I am told, on the other hand, that the Blue Beetle and the Question kept a fair piece of their pre-DC continuity (allowing for the fact that it had now happened to them as part of their retconned participation in the mainstream DCU instead of some other parallel world).
I believe that all of DC's Impact line in the early 90s constituted "Reboots" of characters owned by Archie, since these heroes were generally being presented as people just now getting their special powers, etc., instead of seasoned veterans who had survived the events of all the stories previously published about them by another company or companies. That would include the following characters: The Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Black Hood, The Jaguar, The Web.
I have heard that DC has once again acquired permission to publish stories about the Archie-owned stable of superheroes, but I haven't seen any of those stories yet and I don't know if any further rebooting is contemplated. (Likewise, I hear that the old Milestone characters are scheduled to be integrated into DCU continuity, but I have the impression that all of their old published stories will not simply be thrown out the window; ask me again in a year or two and I may know more about it by then.)
Captain Marvel—meaning the guy in the red bodysuit with a big yellow thunderbolt on his chest who keeps yelling Shazam!; not any of the heroes Marvel Comics has published using that same alias—got rebooted in the miniseries Shazam! A New Beginning in 1987 (written by Roy Thomas). Six years later, in 1993, Captain Marvel got his Second Post-Crisis Reboot in the graphic novel The Power of Shazam! by Jerry Ordway.
Note: Since I first wrote that entry, the idea that Ordway's graphic novel (and the subsequent monthly title "The Power of Shazam") qualified as a Second Reboot has been seriously questioned. For instance, someone pointed out to me that in the late 80s Captain Marvel spent some time working with the Justice League International in the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis run, and he assured me that this was still supposed to be "in continuity" as something that had previously happened to Captain Marvel after the events of Ordway's graphic novel and before the events chronicled in the later monthly title "The Power of Shazam." The first issue of the monthly title plainly stated it had been four years since Billy Batson first gained the ability to transform by saying his magic word, and apparently Captain Marvel's brief stint as a Justice Leaguer had occurred during that four-year gap. The person telling me this did concede, though, that just about anything and everything in the four-part mini by Roy Thomas got flushed down the toilet as "never happened; never could have happened" in Ordway's retelling of Billy Batson's origin story. I don't think I had realized (or much cared) that it was still in continuity that Billy Batson had been part of the JLI back around the late 1980s. Although I now doubt that Ordway's work qualified as a "full reboot, " I decided to leave this listing in here (with this lengthy note) to explain what happened, rather than simply omitting any mention of Ordway's work and then having other fans yell at me for "completely forgetting" about the putative Second Reboot of Captain Marvel.
Rip Hunter, Time Master got a big Post-Crisis reboot in the 8-part Time Masters miniseries published around 1990. I have heard that the rebooted version has been retconned and replaced by a different version, but I could have some of this wrong. Aside from reading that miniseries, I am no great expert on Rip Hunter's continuity—and time travelers in general are prone to run into alternate versions of themselves, etc. (Think of Marvel's "Kang," for instance.)
Hugo Strange is a Batman villain who got rebooted, even though Batman himself didn't. As near as I can tell, none of the story arcs that ever featured him as a villain in the Earth-1 Batman's continuity have survived as solid historical facts in the Batman continuity of the Post-Crisis DCU. They have been replaced by various Post-Crisis story arcs. (Note: since I wrote those previous lines 3 years ago, I have seen some contention over this point in online discussions, and I have almost finished another post which attempts to outline my reasons for believing that the Post-COIE version of Hugo was a full reboot. The picture is complicated by the fact that his first Post-COIE appearance was one of the early arcs in the "Legends of the Dark Knight" title, and those arcs were notoriously "not necessarily in continuity," so at the time the arc was first published, it was not at all clear if Hugo Strange's Earth-1 continuity was "really" being changed or not!)
The Crime Syndicate of America (Superwoman, Ultraman, Owlman, Power Ring, and Johnny Quick, characters from Earth-3 in the pre-Crisis Multiverse) first got heavily retconned, and then later got completely rebooted in Grant Morrison's graphic novel JLA: Earth-2 in 1999. The earlier retcon had said that the oldtime JLA had still fought a Crime Syndicate of America, but they weren't from a parallel Earth; they were from Qward. In Morrison's graphic novel, however, the JLA met his version of the CSA for the first time without anyone ever saying, "Gosh, don't these people remind you of that time when some of us fought five bad guys with the same codenames back in the early days of the JLA?" Thus we can deduce this was a reboot and the older Post-Crisis version no longer existed in continuity.
Supergirl is a very difficult case to analyze. By my count, there have been 16 Supergirl characters in stories that were "in continuity" in either the Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis DCU. For the moment, let's just recognize that the "classic" Silver Age, Earth-1 Supergirl—Kara Zor-El—died in COIE and then was retroactively erased from continuity, adding insult to injury. The Kara Zor-El Supergirl who popped up a couple of years ago in the Superman/Batman title was Jeph Loeb's "Total Reboot" of the old Kara Zor-El character concept. We'll just ignore all the other Supergirls for the time being. If anyone really is dying to know about the other 14 Supergirls on my list, just follow this link! (Bearing in mind that someday, after certain mysteries are resolved in the current comics, I'll be updating that list yet again! I imagine I'll post the Fifth Draft right here on CSBG when the time comes!)
I am told that Grant Morrison has effectively rebooted Klarion the Witch Boy in his "Seven Soldiers of Victory" stories published in 2005. Word has it that Klarion's previous appearances, particularly the "Sins of Youth" crossover event from several years ago, simply never happened. Note: I wrote the previous lines of this entry three years ago. I hear that since that time, the new version of Klarion has met Robin in the latter's series, and that Robin (Tim Drake) was written as obviously having no recollection of any previous encounters with anyone called "Klarion the Witch Boy." This strongly supports what I had heard before, re: the "erasure" of the "Sins of Youth" event from the modern continuity of the DCU.
Hawkman. Initially the Silver Age Hawkman, Katar Hol of Thanagar, was believed to have survived COIE without any noteworthy changes to his continuity. Ditto for his loving wife, Hawkgirl (who had changed her preferred alias to Hawkwoman in the early 1980s). I've seen them in a John Byrne Post-Crisis Superman story when they used their starship to help him go get a close look at the remnants of his native world of Krypton, and I remember seeing them get some appearances in the earlier issues of the Giffen/DeMatteis era of the JLI, wherein Katar would complain about how the clowns now calling themselves the Justice League couldn't hold a candle to the old-school JLA of the good old days. But then, in 1989, Tim Truman started doing Hawkworld. I think it was first a three-part mini, then an ongoing series, and the general idea (for awhile) seemed to be that all the old Silver Age/Bronze Age appearances of Katar Hol were now being tossed out the window.
I have never been a regular collector of any of the various series about Hawkman, Hawkworld, etc., so I'm going to leave it at that and hope my second-hand understanding is "correct" as far as it goes. I have no intention of delving into subsequent Hawkman-related retcons right now! (Do I look like a masochist? You don't have to answer that question, actually.)
The situation of Jason Todd (Robin II) is ambiguous. He definitely received a brand new (and bad) origin story after COIE, but my definition of a reboot requires more than just "one origin story got replaced with another one." I realized a couple of years ago that there is not a general consensus among Batman fans regarding how much (if anything) of his Pre-Crisis adventures as Robin (and of Doug Moench's entire first run as a Batman writer in the mid-80s) managed to carry over into the Post-Crisis Bat-continuity as having presumably "still happened" to him at some point. I am inclined to believe that the Post-COIE Jason Todd, the guy who died pretty soon in "A Death in the Family," was a rebooted version with none or almost none of his Pre-COIE adventures (as written by Gerry Conway and Doug Moench) having any validity in the DCU of the late 1980s, but I'm not sure if any of the Batman editors of the late 80s and 90s ever explicitly addressed that point.
The Creeper got the reboot treatment in 2006 with a miniseries in which Jack Ryder became The Creeper "for the very first time, right here and now, in the modern continuity." Thereby erasing all previous stories of Jack Ryder being the superhero known as The Creeper and occasionally teaming up with other heroes.
The Yellow Peri had a total of 4 appearances in Pre-COIE continuity in the 1980s, meeting Superboy and later Superman (the same character in those days, remember; at different times in his life). Then she went for a little over 20 years without being seen or heard from. Since she basically had "only existed" in the Pre-COIE continuity of Clark Kent, it was a very safe guess that she had been erased from existence at the same time Superman was rebooted in the Post-COIE era. However, she has recently been rebooted in the DCU—as far as I know, her new stories have not referred to any of her appearances from the Pre-COIE era as still being in continuity.
I am told that, within the last few years, there was a story in the "Superman/Batman" title in which Doc Magnus and his Metal Men guest-starred, and Batman claimed to have never met these people before. This would imply a recent reboot, since Batman had previously met the Metal Men (and their creator, Will Magnus) on various occasions in the older continuity; and the Post-COIE Superman has also bumped into them before. On the other hand: When I was asking for feedback about recent reboots, at least one other fan argued that other comic books' portrayals of Magnus and his Metal Men in the last couple of years have not been consistent with that "Superman/Batman" story's implication that all of their previous adventures never happened. I haven't been reading any of their recent appearances, so I can't swear from personal observation which interpretation is more likely to be correct—"they got rebooted recently," or "someone may have tried to reboot them by having Batman not recognize them, but the attempted reboot isn't really sticking"?
Isis. I still haven't bothered to read "52," but I am told that it introduced a new girlfriend for Black Adam; a woman named Adrianna Tomaz who has gained supernatural powers and calls herself Isis. She was effectively a reboot of the heroine called Isis (Andrea Thomas) who had a TV show in the 1970s, and—more importantly for our purposes—a DC series which lasted 8 issues. Apparently the 1970s version never happened in modern continuity.
General Zod. I've heard that in the wake of "Infinite Crisis," the editors of the Superman books announced that Superman had never met anybody named "Zod" in his revised history, and thus would be taken off guard by the events of the "Last Son" story arc. In one fell swoop, that declaration erased several stories about four different Zods from the Superman continuity which had developed in the two decades between COIE and Infinite Crisis, with the newest Zod effectively being a reboot of the basic character concept!
Final Thoughts
It's been suggested to me that some of the "new Earths" in the Multiverse created at the end of the "52" series could qualify as cases of certain character concepts getting "rebooted" in their own timelines. However, since I have not yet bothered to read "52" (nor its sequel series "Countdown"), I'm not prepared to commit myself on any of that at the moment. Especially since, by and large, I've been paying more attention to characters whose rebooted versions are still supposed to be part of the main DCU timeline. (Likewise, I ignore any "Elseworlds" takes on old familiar faces when I'm thinking about "Reboots.")
Whew! When I look back at this haphazard "reboot some of this and then reboot some of that" approach to rebooting bits and pieces of the DCU, I find myself with a renewed sympathy for those fans who have argued that DC should have just bitten the bullet and rebooted everything at once in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then perhaps should have set a policy of doing the same thing all over again every 10 or 15 years, to keep the continuity from getting too cluttered or otherwise incomprehensible. Certainly I can see potential problems with that suggested approach, but I sure can't say that it would have turned out any worse than the way DC has actually been attacking these things on a piecemeal basis for over 20 years now!
As usual, I welcome constructive criticism if I made any mistakes or completely skipped anyone who belongs on this list. Bear in mind, though, that I took it for granted that if I listed a certain hero as getting rebooted at a certain time, I took it for granted that this implicitly included any of the lesser characters in his "supporting cast" who clearly got rebooted around the same time. For instance, the Superman reboot of the late 1980s includes what was done with Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Brainiac, Metallo, and all the rest. Likewise, I didn't feel the need to list every single member of the Legion of Super-Heroes when mentioning each of their reboots!


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With BUX X you can set an Auto Close order to make sure that your position will be automatically closed at a certain value.
This way, you don't need to pay close attention to your positions every second of the day.
You can set or change the Auto Close for a certain position going to the % SCREEN > PORTFOLIO > POSITION DETAILS (just tap on the position in your PORTFOLIO to see its details and manage it).
You can set both an upper limit (Take Profit order), or a lower limit (Stop Loss order). When value 'X' is hit, we will close your position automatically and the value of your trade will be automatically transferred to your Cash.
Though most Auto Close orders are normally processed at the requested limit, it's important to remember that an Auto Close order is not always guaranteed to be executed at your pre-defined limit. To read more about this, please take a look at: Why is the lower limit of the Auto Close not always guaranteed?
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Series & GroupsView all 22
TrainingView all 10
Lead Pastors
Leading Your Team Through Goal Setting
Join Life.Church Campus Pastor Tim Knox as he talks through how he leads his team through goal setting at the beginning of the year. Tim shares with us how setting a "Next Outrageous Win" in specific ministries helps his staff stay on task throughout the year....Read More
Lead Pastors
Starting the Year with a Fast
Do you have questions about fasting? How do we know what to choose to fast from and more importantly, why fast in the first place? Join Life.Church Campus Pastor Tim Knox for a discussion about the spiritual and practical implications for you and your team when starting the New Year with a fast....Read More
5 Days of Leadership with Pastor Craig | Day 2: Lead Through Change
Day 2: Lead through change. As you evaluate your culture and values, you may see some patterns and issues that require your church or organization to change. A common belief is that people resist change because they hate change. But I don't think that's true. People don't hate change; they hate t...Read More


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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Study Shows Truth Biased Against Israel
by CYN SORSHEEPSee also:
ASPERVILLE – A ground-breaking new academic study has revealed that truth is inherently biased against Israel. "We expected, or at least hoped that the Truth would be fair and balanced – like Fox News," said lead researcher Dr. Ig Norance, "but we were sadly disappointed – anti-Israel bias was endemic."
Professor Norance, director of the Asper School of Business Information at the University of Winnipeg, said the study was the largest academic analysis of the Truth ever undertaken. "In most subject areas we studied, the Truth proved to be objective but it was shockingly hostile to the actions of the state of Israel."
When the subject of Israel was investigated by researchers, the Truth would shamelessly spew anti-Israeli facts such as "Israel's military killed 20 times more Palestinian civilians in 2006 than Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians" or "Israel continues to occupy and colonise the Palestinian lands it took by force in 1967 in defiance of international law and 32 UN security council resolutions."
As a doubly-blind experimental control, researchers used Canadian media coverage of Israel. "We found that Canadian media portrayed Israel much better than the Truth did," Dr. Norance noted.
Researchers confronted the truth with pictures of Israeli children killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. The Truth sullenly replied that "In the last year, the Israeli army killed more than 130 Palestinian children while Palestinians did not kill a single Israeli child. Since September 2000, 825 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers while 120 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians."
But shouldn't Israel be allowed to build a fence to protect itself from terrorists, the researchers demanded of the Truth. The Truth could only respond "Israel's 700 km long "security" wall is being built 80% on Palestinian territory, and will trap more than 50,000 Palestinians in "no mans land" on the "Israeli" side of the wall. According to the International Court of Justice the wall is illegal and should be dismantled immediately."
The researchers were initially puzzled by the Truth's intransigent anti-Israeli stance. "We realized we were witnessing a new kind of new anti-Semitism – where Truth and the facts overwhelmingly condemn Israeli actions," said Norance. "I think it is vital that the Truth be treated with mistrust and handled with care on the question of Israel.'
Leonard Asper, CEO of CanWest/Global said he was not personally surprised at the findings. "This confirms my suspicion that the Truth is fanatically anti-Israel, and vindicates our vigilance in managing the Truth about Israel's activities in all our converged media assets," he said.
Norance suggested that all media organizations should take similar steps so that truthful anti-Israeli bias didn't poison their coverage and subject them to accusations of New New-Anti-Semitism. "We are not recommending outright lying," Norance explained "just selective presentation of the Truth that is more balanced."
As an example, he cited the common media practice of ignoring the vast majority of Palestinian civilian deaths while reporting every Israeli casualty – often without specifying if they are civilians or soldiers. "This creates the carefully balanced impression that Israelis and Palestinians civilians are dying in roughly equal numbers in this conflict despite the rabid anti-Israeli nature of the truth of the matter."
- "CanWest huffs and puffs while free speech burns" on Straight.com
- "CanWest: Media Bully" on workingTV.com
- Seriously Free Speech, blog of the Seriously Free Speech Committee, formed in response to the CanWest lawsuit
Labels: censorship, Israel, media, repression, Zionism
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Quotable: Free to Choose a Pro-Israel Candidate
-Josh Block, AIPAC spokesman. Quoted in "Party Convention Highlights GOP Skepticism About Mideast Peace" by Nathan Guttman in the Jewish Daily Forward. September 04, 2008.
Labels: Israel Lobby, Jews, politics, quotations, United States, Zionism
To Vote or Not to Vote
Politicians see voting as a means of granting legitimacy to the government, which is one good reason to stay away completely although the facts undermining government's legitimacy are conveniently brushed aside. In the 2004 presidential election more eligible voters (39.1%) stayed away from the polls than voted for either Kerry (29.4%) or Bush (30.9%). In 2006, more eligible voters (58.7%) stayed away from the polls than voted. As a political scientist, I know that while pundits often like to spin low voter turnout as a sign of contentment or apathy there is good evidence to suggest low US voter turnout is a sign that people realize the system is corrupt and they don't have a meaningful choice.
Below are two critical essays from the 2004 election and some links on voting. The massrefusal and dontjustvote links with the two essays are both dead and so I have linked to the archived versions of those sites.
Announcing: A New Call For Mass RefusalSee also:
Take The Pledge--Don't Vote For President! http://massrefusal.org/
July 30, 2004
December 23, 2003
from New Democracy http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/index.htm
Our government sent 160,000 troops to invade and occupy Iraq in a war based on lies. The Democratic Party and the media have been fully complicit in this criminal aggression. Meanwhile the government makes war on working-class Americans. It gives tax cuts to the wealthy, attacks pensions and health care, and ships jobs overseas.
This war exposes the huge chasm between our system and real democracy. In a real democracy, people would be truthfully informed, not systematically lied to, by their government. We would be encouraged to debate peace and war fully. Our young people would not be sent to murder other innocent people in the name of "liberating" them.
We live in a fake democracy, a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
Now the rulers are using the 2004 presidential campaign to keep us from seriously questioning the system from which have sprung this and countless other wars and social wrongs, pretending that electing Dean or Kerry or Kucinich will change society. The elections are designed to create an illusion of democracy to prevent real democracy from emerging.
Politicians are front-men for the system. To challenge the system we need to take away the system's lifeblood: the illusion of democracy. We need to refute the lie that our government represents us. Therefore we call for Mass Refusal to Vote in the 2004 presidential elections.
We the people are constantly told to look to politicians and officials as the force for change. We are encouraged to be passive consumers, not informed actors shaping society. But to make real change, we must look to ourselves and each other as the source of political power.
In a movement for Mass Refusal to Vote and real democracy, we can find in ourselves and friends and communities the power to move mountains and the vision for a better world.
I agree not to vote in the 2004 presidential election and work instead for real democracy.
- Because we live in a fake democracy run by war criminals and servants of giant corporations;
- Because our government attacks the values and livelihood of ordinary people;
- Because the Republicans and Democrats collaborated to bring about a war of aggression;
- Because the elections provide only the illusion of democracy;
- Because democratic change will only come about through a mobilized people;
Voting vs. Direct Action
Date: Mar 05, 2004 - 12:26 PM
People in the United States are preoccupied with voting to an unhealthy degree. This is not to say that everyone votes, or regards voting as effective or worthwhile; on the contrary, a smaller and smaller proportion of the eligible population votes every election year, and that's not just because more and more people are in prison. But when you broach the question of politics, of having a say in the way things are, voting is just about the only strategy anyone can think of-voting, and campaigning for others' votes.
Could it be this is why so many people feel so disempowered? Is anonymously checking a box once a year, or every four years, enough to feel included in the political process, let alone play a role in it? But what is there besides voting?
In fact, voting for people to represent your interests is the least efficient and effective means of applying political power. The alternative, broadly speaking, is acting directly to represent your interests yourself.
This is known in some circles as "direct action." Direct action is occasionally misunderstood to mean another kind of campaigning, lobbying for influence on elected officials by means of political activist tactics; but it properly refers to any action or strategy that cuts out the middle man and solves problems directly, without appealing to elected representatives, corporate interests, or other powers.
Concrete examples of direct action are everywhere. When people start their own organization to share food with hungry folks, instead of just voting for a candidate who promises to solve "the homeless problem" with tax dollars and bureaucracy, that's direct action. When a man makes and gives out fliers addressing an issue that concerns him, rather than counting on the newspapers to cover it or print his letters to the editor, that's direct action. When a woman forms a book club with her friends instead of paying to take classes at a school, or does what it takes to shut down an unwanted corporate superstore in her neighborhood herself rather than deferring to the authority of city planners, that's direct action, too. Direct action is the foundation of the old-fashioned can-do American ethic, hands-on and no-nonsense. Without it, hardly anything would get done.
In a lot of ways, direct action is a more effective means for people to have a say in society than voting is. For one thing, voting is a lottery-if a candidate doesn't get elected, then all the energy his constituency put into supporting him is wasted, as the power they were hoping he would exercise for them goes to someone else. With direct action, you can be sure that your work will offer some kind of results; and the resources you develop in the process, whether those be experience, contacts and recognition in your community, or organizational infrastructure, cannot be taken away from you.
Voting consolidates the power of a whole society in the hands of a few individuals; through force of sheer habit, not to speak of other methods of enforcement, everyone else is kept in a position of dependence. Through direct action, you become familiar with your own resources and capabilities and initiative, discovering what these are and how much you can accomplish.
Voting forces everyone in a movement to try to agree on one platform; coalitions fight over what compromises to make, each faction insists that they know the best way and the others are messing everything up by not going along with their program. A lot of energy gets wasted in these disputes and recriminations. In direct action, on the other hand, no vast consensus is necessary: different groups can apply different approaches according to what they believe in and feel comfortable doing, which can still interact to form a mutually beneficial whole. People involved in different direct actions have no need to squabble, unless they really are seeking conflicting goals (or years of voting have taught them to fight with anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do). Conflicts over voting often distract from the real issues at hand, as people get caught up in the drama of one party against another, one candidate against another, one agenda against another. With direct action, on the other hand, the issues themselves are raised, addressed specifically, and often resolved.
Voting is only possible when election time comes around. Direct action can be applied whenever one sees fit. Voting is only useful for addressing whatever topics are current in the political agendas of candidates, while direct action can be applied in every aspect of your life, in every part of the world you live in.
Voting is glorified as "freedom" in action. It's not freedom-freedom is getting to decide what the choices are in the first place, not picking between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Direct action is the real thing. You make the plan, you create the options, the sky's the limit.
Ultimately, there's no reason the strategies of voting and direct action can't both be applied together. One does not cancel the other out. The problem is that so many people think of voting as their primary way of exerting political and social power that a disproportionate amount of everyone's time and energy is spent deliberating and debating how they should vote while other opportunities to make change go to waste. For months and months preceding every election, everyone argues about the voting issue, what candidates to vote for or whether to vote at all, when voting itself takes less than an hour. Vote or don't, but get on with it! Remember how many other ways you can make your voice heard.
This being an election year, we hear constantly about the options available to us as voters, and almost nothing about our other opportunities to play a decisive role in our society. What we need is a campaign to emphasize the possibilities more direct means of action and community involvement have to offer. These need not be seen as in contradiction with voting. We can spend an hour voting once a year, and the other three hundred sixty four days and twenty three hours acting directly!
Those who are totally disenchanted with representative democracy, who dream of a world without presidents and politicians, can rest assured that if we all learn how to apply deliberately the power that each of us has, the question of which politician is elected to office will become a moot point. They only have that power because we delegate it to them! A campaign for direct action puts power back where it belongs, in the hands of the people from whom it originates.
- Strike the Root's "Non-Voting Archive"
- "Fight the Illusion--Don't Vote!" by Robert L. Johnson
- "The Anarchist Case Against Voting and Elections" at Infoshop.org
Labels: anarchism, critical thinking, politics, United States, voting
Evil vs. Evil: Election 2008 in Cartoons
Labels: critical thinking, Khalil Bendib, Mike Flugennock, Mr. Fish, politics, United States
Friday, September 12, 2008
Tilly on the Nation-State as Racketeer
If protection rackets represent organized crime at its smoothest, then war making and state making – quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy – qualify as our largest examples of organized crime. ... At least for the European experience of the past few centuries, a portrait of war makers and state makers as coercive and self-seeking entrepreneurs bears a far greater resemblance to the facts than do its chief alternatives: the idea of a social contract, the idea of an open market in which operators of armies and states offer services to willing consumers, the idea of a society whose shared norms and expectations call forth a certain kind of government. ...
War makes states ... Banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing, and war making all belong on the same continuum ...
Apologists for particular governments and for government in general commonly argue, precisely, that they offer protection from local and external violence. They claim that the prices they charge barely cover the costs of protection. ... To the extent that the threats against which a given government protects its citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket. Since governments themselves commonly simulate, stimulate, or even fabricate threats of external war and since the repressive and extractive activities of governments often constitute the largest current threats to the livelihoods of their own citizens, many governments operate in essentially the same ways as racketeers. There is, of course, a difference: Racketeers, by the conventional definition, operate without the sanctity of governments. ...
What distinguished the violence produced by states from the violence delivered by anyone else? In the long run, enough to make the division between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" force credible. Eventually, the personnel of states purveyed violence on a larger scale, more effectively, more efficiently, with wider assent from their subject populations, and with readier collaboration from neighboring authorities than did the personnel of other organizations. ...
Labels: anarchism, crime, critical thinking, politics, violence
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Today is International Hijab Solidarity Day
a local chapter of the Green Party of Michigan
548 S. Main St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
http://www.hvgreens.org ph. (734) 663-3555
Resolution on the Hijab and Solidarity with Muslims
Adopted by consensus at the regular business meeting of the Huron Valley Greens on September 24, 2007, and amended on October 3, 2007, by direction of the local Coordinating Committee.
WHEREAS on September 8, 2007, a person identifying her/himself as Ann Arbor City Council member Joan Lowenstein posted comments on a popular local blog, Arborupdate. This person characterized the hijab–the traditional Muslim headscarf–worn in solidarity with Muslims by a non-Muslim "as a Halloween costume since she is not a Muslim" and later declared "If I were a Muslim woman who wore the hijab out of respect for the religion and a sense of spritituality [sic], I would be offended by a non-Muslim who used it as a daily costume for purely political reasons"; and,
WHEREAS in 1993, after windows in Jewish homes displaying menorahs were broken, thousands of Christian residents of Billings, Montana, placed paper menorahs in the windows of their homes in solidarity with Jews and those menorahs were not Halloween decorations; and,
WHEREAS in October 2001–in the wake of 9/11 and after the US government summarily rounded up thousands of Muslims and Arabs and many Arabs and Muslims were the targets of hate crimes–students, including at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan, and others donned the hijab as part of a worldwide "Scarves for Solidarity" event; and,
WHEREAS, in 2004, after the French government banned the wearing of hijabs and other religious articles in public schools, which law Human Rights Watch criticized as falling "disproportionately on Muslim girls, and thus violat[ing] antidiscrimination provisions of international human rights law," the Assembly for the Protection of Hijab proclaimed September 5th as International Hijab Solidarity Day; and,
WHEREAS, in November 2006, scores of people in Fremont, California wore hijabs and turbans in solidarity with Muslim women and Sikh men about three weeks after a stranger walked up to Alia Ansari and shot her in the head, while she was walking with her three-year-old daughter in Fremont, for no apparent reason other than the fact that she was wearing hijab; and,
WHEREAS, in 2006, the Council on American-Islamic Relations received 143 complaints of civil rights violations against Muslims and triggered by the wearing of hijab; and,
WHEREAS, according to a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, just over half of all American Muslims are very or somewhat worried that Muslim women who wear the hijab will be treated poorly because it identifies them as Muslim; and,
WHEREAS, the offensive comments attributed to Council member Lowenstein demeaned and trivialized an act of solidarity in the context of a racist climate of fear against Arabs and Muslims created as part of President Bush's "War on Terror"; and,
WHEREAS, whether it is worn as an expression of cultural self-determination, political solidarity, or religious devotion the hijab is never a "Halloween costume"; and,
WHEREAS, characterizing the hijab as a "Halloween costume" is evidence of, at worst, bigotry and intolerance and, at best, insensitivity and ignorance.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Huron Valley Greens call upon Ann Arbor City Council member Lowenstein to state publicly whether she was the author of the remarks attributed to her on Arborupdate; and,
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the Huron Valley Greens urge other concerned individuals and organizations to join us in this call and to consider filing a formal complaint with the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission, whose duties include: "Investigate, study, hold hearings and make recommendations to city council regarding complaints from any class or group protected under the human rights ordinance."
See also:
- "Hijab: lifting the veil." Anarkismo.net. 7/18/2005.
- "Students rally to expose the appeal of the hijab." Jakarta Post. 09/05/2007.
Labels: Islam, religion, solidarity