My Archives: August 2002
Thursday, August 29, 2002
Hello all:
This news item is disturbing. In essence, U.S. soldiers may be receiving the "right" to cross the border and operate on Canadian soil in the event of a terrorist attack. The Canadian government has attached all the standard disclaimers to the proposal, which was sprung almost as a fait accompli yesterday.
[more]Posted by mac @ 09:59 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
I have been ignoring my blog in favor of "real life"...if writing can be called that. ;-) Which reminds me of my favorite T-shirt: it read, "Books are not life but, then, what is?" What the hey...Books and Bradford and my farm are all the reality I need. But not necessarily in that order.
I got a last minute assignment from Penthouse magazine last night... [more]
Posted by mac @ 05:38 PM EST [Link]
Monday, August 19, 2002
The audio of the contra-NOW conference (June 21st/St. Paul), including presentations by me and Warren Farrell, is available in a free audio download.
Posted by mac @ 10:46 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 18, 2002
This announcement is posted at the request of libertarian SF novelist, L. Neil Smith:
"I am extremely pleased to announce that I have just signed a contract with a daring new publisher, Big Head Press, to adapt my 1980 novel, The Probability Broach for a 180-page, full-color graphic novel. The contract calls for me to have finished the script before Christmas, 2002.
The artwork will be done with his usual extraordinary style and grace by my close friend and colleague Scott Bieser, whose work appears all over the Internet. You can see some excellent samples at www.libertyartworx.com.
I'm presently having trouble communicating with many of the lists I've been on, so I'd appreciate your passing this on to them, and to anybody else who might be interested."
Good luck, L.Neil, not that you'll need it.
mac
Posted by mac @ 11:34 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 17, 2002
Happy Saturday to all.
Brad and I have just returned from a stint of theatre-going with friends in Niagara-on-the-Lake's Shaw Festival, which we attend every year, seeing 5 to 10 plays like the gluttons we are. Live theatre is one of my unabashed vices and my husband -- at first, merely indulgent -- has become addicted as well. Among the most predictably happiest moments of my life are those last ticking minutes when I wait for a curtain to rise...even on a play about which I am not enthusiastic. It is magic.
[more]
Posted by mac @ 11:49 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
A gracious good Wednesday to all!
The ACLU has established a contra-TIPS site that I urge everyone to check out. I run 50/50 between criticism and praise for the ACLU but -- on the issue of the Bush Administration's Operation TIPS (Terrorist Information and Prevention System) which officially encourages ordinary citizens to spy upon and anonymously report other ordinary citizens to the authorities a la STASI -- I fall firmly on praise side. Check out their NO TIPS Action Kit to download free items that defend your privacy rights, including a "NO TIPS" form to send to your utility companies and a door hanger to put on your doorknob reading "this house's privacy is protected by the ACLU."
And while you are on their site, send a free fax to your Senators.
Stay safe, stay private,
macPosted by mac @ 11:16 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Despite $10 billion dollars of loan guarantees that the US government has made available to airlines in financial need...
Will United Airlines File for Bankruptcy?
American Airlines workers bracing for layoffs
Vanguard Airlines has filed for bankruptcy
More airlines on path to bankruptcy?
Few people discuss one of the main reasons -- if not *the* main reason -- that passenger travel is severely down since 9/11. Passengers have ceased to be treated as customers with civil rights and are being treated like criminal suspects in a Soviet system: alienated customers are refusing to fly. [more]
Posted by mac @ 07:29 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 12, 2002
From Harry Browne's newsletter
Subject: Final Internet radio transmissionBecause of disputes over copyrighted music used in radio shows broadcast on the Internet, sometime this month most radio networks will stop transmitting over the Internet.
[more]
Posted by mac @ 10:56 AM EST [Link]
Glenn Sacks' commentary on the ifeminists.com Bulletin Board regarding yesterday's blog, which mentions him, is noted. Although we disagree (as Glenn notes) as to the content and meaning of the conversation that was the subject of an earlier deleted post, he is accurate in stating the reasons for the post's deletion.
For those who share my preoccupation with the erosion of civil liberties within North America due to the War on Terrorism hysteria, the following URLs may be of interest:
A heartening item from Newsday "Japanese Drop Out of National ID System".
Sunni Maravillosa's latest article in the Sierra Times "Countering the No Rights Zone". [more]
Posted by mac @ 03:44 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 11, 2002
My ostensibly long silence (in blog-time) has been due to deleted entries that proved too controversial to maintain online. In response to a protest by Glenn Sacks, I removed the references. Afterward, I didn't feel much like writing. I think I have downplayed in my mind -- not intentionally! -- any damage that father's rights might inflict on the equal, reasonable rights of women. But the support of prominent father's rights adovcate Dianna Thompson for an injunction against a pregnant woman who was planning to abort a trimester pregnancy -- an injunction brought at the behest of the ex-boyfriend/biological "father" -- and a recent Florida law has left me stunned with doubt. The law requires mothers who don't know who fathered their children to detail their sexual past in newspaper notices before they can put the children up for adoption. The law seeks to protect father's rights but it goes too far. It goes beyond the reasonable demand for notification into placing a public "Scarlet A" on women, who are much more likely to opt for abortion as a result. Father's rights shouldn't mean women's oppression.
Meanwhile... [more]
Posted by mac @ 03:44 PM EST [Link]
Friday, August 2, 2002
Yesterday was odd. It was the first time I have participated in hands-on, grassroots nonviolent action for years...and the experience has left me strangely unsettled. I advocate nonviolent resistance as the best vehicle for social change. (See Gene 198 methods of nonviolent action.) But, for some while, I have been just that...an advocate, not an activist, and there is a world of difference. I could claim activism because one of the most respected tactics of nonviolence is to write and educate -- something I do productively -- but it doesn't *feel* like activism. Nothing captures the feeling as much as standing beside people at a protest or negotiating with police who don't want you *there*, who want you to "move on." That's the visceral part of nonviolent resistance, that's its beating heart: people publicly confronting authority and peacefully saying "no." [more]
Posted by mac @ 05:47 AM EST [Link]