So very tired of having to call "bullshit"....

Today, Lieutenant Dan Choi went before the review board and was fired from the US Military he'd served - for refusing to lie about being gay.

Said President Obama a few days ago, to a group of very unhappy gay activists:

"I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps...We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

Yes, well, I'm sure that's making Dan Choi - fired for not lying - feel ever so much better about things. And you know, of all the bullshit I've heard spouted recently, the sheer doubletalk in the above statement really is breathtaking. "I expect to not be judged by promises I've made" - um, wait a minute, want to roll that back a few reels, buckaroo?

Dan Choi now takes his fight to Nancy Pelosi, in hopes that the Speaker - who is also my rep - will defend his worthiness to her Supreme Boss. Since the lady reps my district, and I've watched her political and ethical spine turn to jello these past couple of years, my initial reaction is a hearty "yeah, don't hold your breath, dude".

I call bullshit. And I'm curious as to what my gay friends, or the people in the ranks of those I know and even remotely call friends who claim to support gay equality and rights, are calling this.

Because, truly madly deeply?

I DO judge you on the promises you made, President Obama. And I call bullshit, yet again. I'm really damned tired of calling bullshit.

Reposted, with Ayelet's permission

Just received in email:

"Most of you are used to receiving from me funny little emails, chock full of jokes and self-promotion. But today I'm emailing for a different reason. Today Dr. George Tiller, one of the last late term abortion providers in the country, was assassinated by an anti-abortion maniac, a home-grown American terrorist, brought to you by the likes of Randall Terry and Bill O'Reilly.

Women went to Dr. Tiller when they were given diagnoses of fatal abnormalities, when they'd been sent from doctor to doctor, desperate to find out what was wrong with their babies, only to hear the worst possible news. They came from all over the country, and found in his clinic -- once they'd run the gauntlet of the hysterical and rage-filled protesters -- warmth and sensitivity, support and caring.

There is no doubt that this vile murder was inspired by the likes of Bill O'Reilly, who targeted Dr. Tiller, and by Operation Rescue and the Kansas anti-choice organizations who put Dr. Tiller's name, his photographs, his home address, and the address of his church up on their websites, the better to facilitate his murder. Organizations like Priests for Life tried to shirk hoped in the beginning even to pin the blame on "an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry." (Yes, that is in fact a quote from their official statement.)

I'm going to ask you to do something for me. I'm going to ask you to make a small donation. $5. $10. $100. Whatever you feel moved to donate, in Dr. Tiller's honor. And in honor of the millions of women like me, whose hearts were broken by pregnancies gone terribly wrong. Women who found only warmth and love in the care of Dr. Tiller and the other courageous few who continue to risk their lives for our sakes.

Donate at: http://www.prochoice.org/support/index.html

or at: https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Donation2?1901.donation=form1&df_id=1901

or at: http://www.pbscf.org/index_files/pleasedonate.html

They kill us, and still they make us stronger. Let's prove it to them.

Yours,

Ayelet Waldman"

---

If you're not pro-choice, no pressure; I am pro-choice, and I respect yours. But please, ask yourself if murdering a doctor in church fits your own personal definition of "respect for life".

IMe, just donated.

Dark's Tale (formerly Dark in the Park): The Cover!

Coming 23 March 2010, Egmont USA.

I get the best damned covers....

Oh, and in re Afghan women...

Yeah, we're fighting the "Good War" in Afghanistan. We're bolstering up Shrub and Cheney's hand-picked president and his sexist Shiite bullshit because, hey, women are SUPPOSED to be chattel to the men in their lives! And besides, it's all about having to respect everyone else's culture, because it's about sensitivity. Quick, someone start a flame war about how it's All About Something Else and anyone who sees it differently is a Hater!

Reading stuff like this, I want to puke - because Rall is right as right gets. And the only conclusion I seem to be able to draw from this today is that, as a species, we're slime.

We're mean, stupid, superstitious, territorial, and we learn NOTHING. We fall for every shiny distraction. We actually hanker after anything that will sedate us enough to keep us from having to go out and actually learn things for ourselves.

And then, when we're done doing that, we pat ourselves on the back for being on top of the food chain, and being the Most Favoured of God's Creation.

Beam me up. I'm ashamed to be human. And someone pass me an airsickness bag on the way out.

And for the record? This is why I continue to state that, no matter what else changes, gender is the noun, and everything else - race, ethnicity, age - is an adjective. In the end, women get nailed.

And I am bloody sick of it.

The Afghan Women's Writing Project

I'm feeling incredibly fortunate right now: I've been invited by journalist and novelist Masha Hamilton to participate as one of the teachers/mentors in an incredible project: The Afghan Women's Writing project.

Along with several other writers, I'll be working online directly with young women in Afghanistan. These women are in some of the most conservative provinces-Farah, Kandahar-as well as in Kabul and Herat. We'll be helping to develop their writing.

Says Masha: "These are women who, when permitted to attend school, are often NOT encouraged to seek a higher education. They have such strong voices, (and what a wealth of experiences), and they just need development. Some are young journalists; others have studied briefly in the states but are now back home, others hope to study here at some point. They all have workable English (sometimes excellent English) and access to a computer."

I'll be doing rotating work online for three weeks or so with these young women over the next six to nine months. There will be a website up shortly, and as the project moves along, these women will have their work showcased. Security issues are bad, and getting worse; these women are in so much danger locally that only their first names can be used. But as soon as the website is up, with details, I'll be tweeting, Facebooking and blogging generally about it.

I'm just incredibly pleased to have been asked to be a part of this. It's so very easy for me to work at lightspeed on whatever I choose, sitting comfortably in the First World. Women around the rest of the world are not nearly so lucky.

Do you feel - stimulated...?

A Day in the Life in the current economic crisis.

Or, more accurately, a day in the life of actual, you know, people in the current economic crisis. And why this isn't going to get fixed.

Allow me to introduce Mr. and Mrs. G. They are tag-end boomers, in their early (in her case, about to be mid) fifties. Mr. G is an alpha geek in the world of tech, but lacks a particular piece of paper that the completely nonfunctional HR industry requires as a buzzpoint. Mrs. G is a member in good standing of the literary community, having produced - over twenty years - a dozen critically acclaimed novels.

Mr. G has been out of work for 25 of the past 27 months. Mrs. G, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and degenerative spondylosis (for those unfamiliar with the second, it basically means her spinal connections are slowly dissolving. Yes, it hurts. No, it is no more curable or fixable than the MS is.), gets a monthly disability cheque. They have been subsisting largely on the occasional book advance - selling out a print run or earning out your advance three times over does not, in the current world of publishing, guarantee you a royalty cheque in under two years - and on the kindness of friends and family.

Creditors have been ringing. One of the most persistent of these is Citicorp. Yes, the Citicorp that just availed itself of the bailout money, first under Bush, now under Obama. Yes, the Citicorp that just got itself a new corporate jet with some of that selfsame bailout money. That Citicorp. They are ringing to let us know that, because we have missed timely payments, they are jumping our monthly interest rate from 9.4% to 26.2%. That will raise the monthly payments from approximately $68 to approximately $275.

Now. What's wrong with this picture? Or, rather, with this economic model? Will someone explain the logic, here? "Hmmmm. $68 a month is beyond their ability to handle on a regular basis, because of an uncertain economy. We want our money; they owe it to us. Hmmmmm, what to do, what do do....? cue lightbulb going off Got it! Of course! So simple, so elegant, so very effective! Let's triple their rate and quintuple their payment! What's really cool is that we've already got several billion dollars - that's billion with a Buh! - from their tax dollars, thank you former and current presidents! This way, we can drive them insane enough to sell off their belongings to pay us an exorbitant predatory interest rate, AND collect from their taxes. We get paid TWICE! Awesome!"

Dear President Obama: Do you really want to watch the current downslide grind to a screeching halt, and in a way that won't cost the government a dime?

Cap interest rates on consumer lending. Hard cap. No loopholes.

I know, I know, Larry Summers just felt a cold chill run down his back. Timmy Geithner's head just exploded (for the record, I would pay folding green cash money to see that. I'd even pay Citibank). Butbutbut! That isn't FAIR! That stifles the market! What are you, a progressive or - oh, heh, whoops, right, give me a minute to adjust the progressive mask.

Think about it. Seriously. We are operating under the economic assumption that the American consumer exists for one purpose, and one purpose only: to take it in the ass, without benefit of lube, courtesy of the consumer credit industry.

Wrong. Show me anything anywhere outside of Friedmanism that says corporate Amerika is somehow guaranteed a profit? Where is that written and who wrote it? Never seen it. Have you?

Cap the rates. Put a criminal fine on predatory lenders who abuse it. And for fuck's sake, stop trying to create an economic slave class while printing money for Citicorp and GE Money and the rest of those guys to suckle off of. Otherwise, you will solve nothing.

Oh, and something else to consider: that stimulus package, more specifically the $1000cheque Mr and Mrs G will theoretically be getting at some point. That money is supposed to be "put back into the economy" - that's its stated purpose. To stimulate the economy.

Problem is, it will be going nowhere near consumer goods. It will go to Citicorp et al, to get them the fuck off our backs. So they'll get paid yet again.

Yes, indeed, I'd feel stimulated too, were I the CEO of Citicorp.

World o' words: What I'm up to right now

1. Editing my friend Jeannette's novel. It's beautifully written and incredibly strong, but it needs content organising to get it ready for an agent and then to a publisher's desk.

2. Editing my friend Erika's 9K mystery story: she writes in the "crip noir" genre, since she's been wheelchair-bound since birth. A damned good story, but needs editing before submission.

3. Was working with the first round of my excellent Egmont editor Greg Ferguson's edits to Dark in the Park; there will almost surely be a second round (although the edits were tiny, more clarification than actual rewriting), and I have an introduction to write.

4. Soon there will be first-pass pages for While My Guitar Gently Weeps. YES. And I have the cover, but I'm not allowed to share yet, and that had better change PDQ, because it kicks serious ass.

5. Finished my loving friend-look at Neil Gaiman, "A Night on the Tiles", for Green Man Review. Neil got to approve it first, and did, bless him: when the man tells me it's "beautifully written", I preen. Oh, and HUZZAH! for both a strong opening for "Coraline" and oh, yeah, winning the Newbery for The Graveyard Book.

6. To do for Green Man: my retrospective on Steeleye Span, reviewing a book about Led Zepellin, a look at the history of Donovan.

7. Sitting down with Peter S. Beagle (hallo, darling Uncle Fox, if you're by any chance reading this!) and a tape recorder. The 23 August issue of Green Man is the official Summer Queen Deborah Grabien issue. Yay me! Peter's interviewing me for it.

8. Working on Kinkaid #7, Even It Up. New tour bus, old guitars.

And in the realm of visual words, Rocker Chick Media is putting together two book trailers: one for While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which will be available for public viewing. And one for Marlene Stringer, literary agent extraordinaire, to use as a pitch tool for Julian Dawson's monumental, staggering biography of Nicky Hopkins, a subject very close indeed to my heart. That one won't be for public view, which is a shame. It's going to be beautiful.

At this moment in time, I'm slacking. Playing music - my guitars were suddenly calling my name, especially my PRS.