Mistress Masham's Repose

Mistress Masham's Repose: www.nybooks.com/ shop/ product?usca_p=t&product_id=3693
www.readerscatalog.com/ cgi-bin/ shop/ 01-71039.html

What can I say that has not already been said? Even more, what can I say that will adequately convey my love for this book? Common sense dictates that not all books ever written can be perpetually in print and easily available, but I have never understood how this book has been allowed its spotty history. It is truly a book for everyone of all ages, and in my estimation should be considered White's best, even outstripping his famous "The Once and Future King," which for all its beauty is a seriously flawed work. "Mistress Masham's Repose" is didactic, too, but its teaching is not painful, and performs the miraculous feat of sending the reader, whether child or adult, on an eager search for more information. And yet, the work is not slow or tiresome, and White never talks down to anyone, even when his comedy verges on that of the music hall. Books like this should never disappear, and once you fall under its spell you will read it again and again.

LoPiverse (Harry Potter fanfic)

LoPiverse of A.J. Hall:
www.lopiverse.shoesforindustry.net
Welcome to the LoPiverse web site. So what is the LoPiverse? Well, it's really just a convenient short-hand definition for the series of fanfic and cross-over fanfic e-books, based upon J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, by the author A.J. Hall. Namely, two full length novels, Lust Over Pendle and Dissipation and Despair and a series of shorter stories, Mark of the Beast', 'Not a Whisper', 'Queer as Scent', 'The Kindly Ones', 'Time Shall Not Mend', 'Ships that Pass'� and the new short story, 'The Perilous Point.
(The word 'LoPiverse' itself, comes from the abbreviation of the title of the first novel, Lust Over Pendle, or LoP for short.)

Making Light: "Fanfic": force of nature

Making Light: "Fanfic": force of nature: If the fanfic's good enough, it might be "Mistress Masham's Repose"

elsewhere, it's still April Fools' Day

A good distraction from world and personal worries.
10 stories that could be pranks - but aren't
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4400535.stm
April the first is when jokers set out to fool and the rest of us are on our guard. Here is our annual round-up of some of the day's seemingly spoof news stories which are actually true
...

April Fools, 2006 roundup at Making Light
nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007386.html#007386

Richard Branson: Malzberg to Fly Virgin Galactic Free
www.locusmag.com/2006/Features/0401_Malzberg_Flies_Free.html

London, April 1, 2006 —Billionaire Richard Branson, whose space-tourist venture Virgin Galactic is inching closer to takeoff every month, announced today that he would be offering a limited number of free rides to various deserving individuals ... We intend to recognize the ground-breaking accomplishments of these pioneers by granting them a celebratory flight into the final frontier.

"And the first person to whom we owe such a debt is science fiction writer Barry N. Malzberg ... In a very real sense, Barry Malzberg is among the founding fathers of twenty-first-century space travel."

Although Branson was not yet at liberty to confirm further speculations, rumor has it that the second candidate for the program would be British author J. G. Ballard, whose flight would depart from the Martian-sand-swamped ruins of Cape Canaveral.

And in Australia, it's the first day after our Commonwealth-Games-extended Daylight Saving ended. An hour extra in the day; paid back from missing one in October. Something of a gift we try not to squander, or at least enjoy as we do it.

The First War Crime is Starting the War

The Nuremburg trials stated that the crime is starting an aggressive war, because all atrocities of war stem from the fact that a war was started.

"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world.
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." (Nuremberg judgement)

Hitler, for instance never killed anyone during his rule of Germany; he had people to do that for him. "Cry 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of war"

From Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque (www.chris-floyd.com ).

Children of Abraham: Death in the Desert
www.chris-floyd.com/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=550&Itemid=1
Written by Chris Floyd
Sunday, 19 March 2006

we know that the American troops ... were sent to Iraq on a demonstrably false mission to "disarm" weapons that did not exist and take revenge for 9/11 on a nation that had nothing to do with the attack. And we now know that the White House – and George W. Bush specifically – knew all along that the intelligence did not and could not support the public case he had made for the war.

We know that the only reason that this dead baby has his arm frozen to his lifeless face is that three years ago this week, George W. Bush gave the order to begin the unprovoked, unjust and unnecessary invasion of Iraq. He hasn't fired a single shot or launched a single missile; he hasn't tortured or killed any prisoners; he hasn't kidnapped or beheaded civilians or planted bombs along roadsides, in mosques or marketplaces. Yet every single atrocity of the war – on both sides – and every single death caused by the war, and every act of religious repression perpetrated by the extremist sects empowered by the war, is the direct result of the decision made by George W. Bush three years ago. Nothing he says can change this fact; nothing he does, or causes to be done, for good or ill, can wash the blood of these children – and the tens of thousands of other innocent civilians killed in the war – from his hands.

The Avalon Project, at Yale Law School (www.yale.edu/ lawweb/ avalon/ avalon.htm) is highly recommended, BTW. I thought it was on my link list. Adding. The quote at the beginning is from the "Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals" (www.yale.edu/ lawweb/ avalon/imt/ proc/ judcont.htm), under the heading "The Nazi Regime in Germany" (www.yale.edu/ lawweb/ avalon/ imt/ proc/ judnazi.htm), subheading The Common Plan or Conspiracy and Aggressive War.