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The Jevlir Caravansary

Author: jevlir

  • Added to my Blogroll: Short Mystery Fiction Society

    I’m not all that excited about recent posts on statement of purpose, but the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog seems to have potential. We’ll see how often I feel led to link!

  • Copyright Enforcement – Same Standard for the Holders?

    Cory Doctorow has a column in the Guardian, which I unsurprisingly found via his blog.

    Now I believe that copyright holders have the right to protect their property. They even have the right to be stupid, as many of them are when they go after marginal fair use issues. If it’s marginal on fair use, you’re probably benefiting more from the publicity than any imagined damage.

    But there is an important principle of freedom, I think. I’ve applied it to accused child molesters. There is no crime that is so horrible that you should punish the wrong person for it. In other words, child molestation is truly horrible. I want the offenders prosecuted and put away. But at the same time it is truly awful to contemplate someone innocent accused and unable to defend himself or herself. And we know that false accusations do happen.

    Copyright infringement doesn’t even fall under that “incredibly horrible” category. It’s a money crime, and most infringements are somewhere between innocent and careless. If true infringement can be proven, by all means prosecute. As a publisher, I want copyright protected. But nothing, ever is bad enough that someone should be regarded as guilty without proof.

    In other words, I agree completely with the column.

  • Metastory – On Bookselling

    I’m always amused by stories about writing or about publishing, or news articles that talk about journalism. Of course, such things must exist, but they still feel funny to me.

    Cory Doctorow wrote a very good short story for theBookseller titled The story so far . . . and beyond (HT: Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com.

    It’s great fun in a small package.

  • Christian Carnival Broken Things Edition

    … is posted. I plead server problems and issues with the Moderate Christian Blogroll that prevented me from posting a link until now!

  • No Writing Tricks?

    Not according to this nice, short article on Scroll and Quill Consulting.

  • Cleaning Up the Blogroll

    I spent some time cleaning up my blogroll today as some of the sites had disappeared, and some hadn’t been updated for several months.

    At the same time, I added a “Writing” folder to my bloglines account, where hopefully I can keep better track.

    As a normal practice I will make regular posts of things I make more than one short paragraph of comment on, and Asides of shorter material. Often my Asides (see the sidebar, top right) will simply be links to material I find worth reading.

  • Justine and the Prophets

    [This is a work of fiction, and is part of my God-Talk club series. For more information follow the link.]

    The God-Talk Club was gathered at the cafe, and everyone was fairly quiet. Even Ellen, who was normally their waitress was seated with them, claiming that she just happened to be getting off work. She couldn’t admit to the group that she had arranged her schedule so she could join them.

    As a moment of silence grew longer, Justine started looking back and forth, slightly embarrassed. She clearly had a topic to bring up and wasn’t sure how to start.

    “Spit it out!” said Mac. “You know someone’s going to ridicule you any way you say it, so just say it!”

    “I don’t think we ridicule people,” said Jerry. “We just express our opinions vigorously.” Jerry was always uncomfortable with the tone of some of the discussions, even though nobody seemed to get hurt. He tried to explain how it was really alright, something that nobody but him doubted.

    “So Justine,” said Mark, “Just go ahead and say it, or we’ll spend all evening talking about saying it.”
    “I had an interesting experience on Sunday,” Justine began. “I would try to protect the innocent, or better the guilty, but everyone in my church saw it all, so I can’t do that.”

    “Something interesting happening in church. Now there’s a miracle.” Bob Norman couldn’t imagine wasting time in church and never hesitated to make that clear to everyone.

    “Let her tell her story,” said Mark. He enjoyed hearing Justine talk about her ministry, because while they were both students at the seminary, she was already an ordained pastor.

    “Well,” Justine continued, then paused. “A new couple came to my church this past Sunday. They seemed reasonable and enthusiastic, and I was even hoping they’d choose to stay. They said they had moved into the area recently, and were looking for a place to worship and minister. I asked them what their gifts were, and they said that they were both prophets.”

    (more…)

  • Testing Bloglines

    I’m going to be trying bloglines, to see if it will help me get more of the material I flag for posting actually posted!

  • Comics on your Phone

    In an interesting combination of technology and entertainment, comic publishers may soon be delivering their product to cell phones, according to this MSNBC story.

  • DVD: The Great Debaters

    I finally got around to seeing this movie, having picked it up on Netflix. No, not from Amazon.com, thought that is the link I’m providing above! It was well worth watching.

    Denzel Washington is, as always, wonderful, with a good supporting cast. The story flows well and feels authentic.

    I note that some viewers have thought it was a bit light on content (see refs in Wikipedia), that the movie didn’t go deep enough. I think it did quite well.

    The problem is that so often those who review movies are very serious readers or viewers who know a topic very well and have thought about the major issues. If I review a Bible commentary, for example, I’m likely to be critical of points it fails to cover, even though those were not interests of the audience for which it was intended.

    For a nation that is beginning to forget just how recent Jim Crow was in this country, just how recently African Americans were lynched, and just how recently it was that bathrooms were segregated not to mention schools, this movie talks about just the right issues.

    There’s a very compelling scene in which Dr. James Farmer, who holds a PhD and speaks seven languages, is ordered around by a couple of white folks who quite possibly can’t read. At least that’s the implication, and I’m sure that was the reality in many cases.

    As I watched the movie, I thought of this year’s race for the White House. I said when controversy erupted about Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s preaching that he was a civil rights leader from another time and we needed to understand where he was coming from. Just how angry and resentful might you be, if you had grown up black in the Jim Crow south? I understand in a small way what might make some people very angry.

    At the same time it simply increases my respect for Barack Obama, who has turned the corner and is building a future together. But those of us who are white need to refrain from shock and amazement that the generation who had to live through that type of treatment haven’t yet gotten over it. I wonder how long it would take me!

    The Wikipedia article also mentions an interesting difference between the historical debate team and the one in the movie. Despite their win over USC, the national champions (they used Harvard in the movie), the Wiley College team did not receive the trophy. They weren’t “in.”

    I think the movie tells a great story and serves to remind us of some things that we need very badly to remember. We’d like to think these things happened in another age, but we’re only just over into the next century.