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The stunning lack of response to my suggestion that Sherlockians try to take advantage of the upcoming Holmes film to get people to start reading about him (including "Sherlok Holmes and the Plague of Dracula," naturally) is most dissapointing. As usual, it's all up to me.
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I have been giving some thought on how the upcoming Robert Downey, Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes can accomplish more than make money for Warner Bros.

We have a little more than a month to take advantage of this. The film provides an opportunity for the scion societies to build membership, a chance to plan Holmes-themed events, and, I hope, a chance to sell some books. (For those who don't already know, I wrote "Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula.")

It is unfortunate that Warner Bros. has chosen Christmas Day to release the film, but let's not forget the significance of Jan. 6, just twelve days later. There is adequate planning time for both Christmas and the New Year.

I am willing to appear at events within driving distance of Springfield, Vt., (for me, a radius of 50 to 100 miles). For those clubs willing to buy "Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula" directly from Mountainside Press (www.mountainsidepress.com), I will sign them for use any way they wish. I would also like to know which theatres are showing the Downey film as soon as you know, just in case I can schedule signings there. (If they've booked the film, they should be running the trailer by now.)

Among the things clubs could do:

-- Sponsor special matinees by buying a block of tickets. Maybe high school or college English classes might be interested.

-- Buy up a bunch of tickets as special prizes for a contest.

-- See if the theatres would be interested in allowing panel discussions after showings of the film. Most theatres will schedule special performances if they have a guaranteed number of seats sold.

-- Set up booths at the theatres and bookstores for curious new fans.

-- Piggyback onto whatever the bookstores are doing. (Those of us who are authors should be doing that anyway.)

I'd like to pool ideas, so please share your thoughts.

Opportunities like this seldom come along; we should not let this pass us by. Let's try to work together for the good of the Master, and for ourselves.

Steve

P.S. Some of you may get more than one copy of this; my apologies. It would take me more than an hour to edit the duplicates out.

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Current Location: Home
Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: David Arnold, "The World is Not Enough"

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The Eagle Times has returned from the ashes, and has seen fit to put me to work covering Springfield. Not long after that, my car officially died, leaving me in the market for a cheap heap. 

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Back in the paying job market.

The revived Eagle Times has taken me on as its Springfield correspondent, which means I get to cover this town thoroughly, with the occasional foray into nearby Weathersfield, which usually only makes the news when Mt. Ascutney is open.

The pay is less than stellar, of course, because the new Eagle Times is basically a startup and its work force is about two-thirds smalle than it was under the previous ownership. We hit the streets on Monday.

Meanwhile, I have turned my Clarion duties over to Langdale Pike, who will fill in until the Clarion finds better backing, or money.

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Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Ennio Morricone

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For those of you following my friend Wally on Facebook, here's the arson story, which happened when I was in college.

My girlfriend, myself, and some of her friends had planned to spend an evening pub crawling and see a local band. However, one of the girls got roped into bringing her cousin. He'd recently been released from the Vermont state mental hospital because he was a pathological firebug and had burned down the main Catholic church in Burlington several years before, in the late sixties or early seventies. (For some reason, the diocese replaced it with a hideous mud-colored Pizza Hut-type structure with a crucifix on top.)

Needless to say, everyone was a bit nervous, especially the smokers. This guy couldn't stop staring at the candle sticking out of the old chianti bottle at the center of our table. People got themselves away from him as quickly as possible; the girls, as they tend to do, went to the bathroom in a pack and the guys fearlessly went prowling for alternatives the dance floor. That left me alone with a convicted arsonist who looked on the tiny candle frame with longing, love and memory glowing in his eyes.

Finally, he asked me where I was from, and I told him, "Brattleboro."

"Really?" He came back to reality. "Do you know Ray Jablonski?"

It would figure that I did. Raymond was a classmate and petty thief who missed graduation due to a badly bungled break-in and burglary, not that he would have gotten as far as graduation anyway. Apparently these two were cellmates for a while and had the gift for getting caught in common. So we spent a good portion of the evening discussing Raymond and Brattleboro's other contributions to Vermont's correctional system.

(To digress a moment: Why does it take so long for women to get back from the bathroom? Or would we rather not know what goes on in there?)

I prefer to think I defused a potentially ugly situation; to the others in our group, however, I was some sort of minor pariah because I had the temerity to talk to this guy as if he were a human being. So much for doing the decent thing. Some day I will understand why so many people are like this.
 

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Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Jim Dooley, "Pushing Daisies"

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You've got to love MIT. Click on this:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget?npu=1&mbid=yhp

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Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Maurice Jarre, "Unchained Melody"

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Click here:

<a href="http://punditkitchen.com/2009/09/09/political-pictures-abraham-lincoln-president-today/"><img src="http://punditkitchen.wordpress.com/files/2009/08/political-pictures-abraham-lincoln-president-today.jpg" alt="abraham lincoln" title="political-pictures-abraham-lincoln-president-today" width="438" height="512" class="mine_5105668" /></a><br />see more <a href="http://punditkitchen.com">Political Pictures</a>

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Current Mood: sick

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Today, the topic is health care, and the bogus scare tactics used by the hard right to derail it.

But let's be clear: as Rep. Welch succinctly put it today, the Republicans want to make this issue Obama's Waterloo in hopes of destroying his presidency. Health care is simply the vehicle they chose, because otherwise they'd have to talk about how the stimulus plan is stabilizing the economy, just as Obama said it would. 

The reason for all this is to bring conservative Republicans back into power for the exact same government we just voted out: of, by and for robber barons. Do not be fooled that this health care "debate" is about anything else.

There is circulating on Facebook and YouTube linking nationalized health care with long outdated and repealed eugenics programs. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwS0mxfSc4

Keep in mind the following:

1) No credits. We don't who created this video.

2)This Dr. King is a long-time, professional anti-abortion activist, and the pastor holds the same progressive and understanding views as Justice Clarence Thomas. (Thomas was the only one who supported a school system which strip-searched a 13-year-old girl in an overzealous and baseless hunt for drugs.) The video makes no attempt to play fair or get its facts straight.

3) Justice Ginsburg's July New York Times interview concerned women on the federal bench, and abortion is barely mentioned. The quote here is taken out of context. The reporter and Ginsburg were talking about Medicaid funding for abortion, not population control. Here is the complete quote:

"Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of

"JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong."

Ginsburg was talking about her perceptions at the time, not about her own views, and she admits those perceptions were wrong. The video leaves that out.  (Keep in mind that the author of the Hyde Amendment, the late Henry Hyde, was a confessed adulterer who led the impeachment drive against President Clinton on grounds of sexual impropriety. Tell me why this isn't pure hypocrisy.)

4) The views of John Holdren are similarly misrepresented. The video claims he favors draconian population control policies in his (and three others') 1977 textbook, "Ecoscience." Holdren, et al., were analyzing possible scenarios that might result from overpopulation. (China actually went ahead and did one of them with their one-child only rule.) Discussing something is not the same as endorsing it.

Here's what's been discredited so far: the notion that having a choice of government health insurance is the same as nationalizing health care, when in fact, it is a choice; Sarah Palin's hysterical accusation of "death panels" to ease the elderly out turned out to be a flaming lie; there is nothing in anybody's proposals about covering illegal aliens. This video is in the same vein in that it tries to link the horrors of the past to nationalized health care, what's known as a "causal leap." It's just not true; otherwise, why hasn't it happened in countries which already have, and plan to keep, their national systems?

Far too many people who call themselves conservatives seem incapable of arguing important issues on the merits. If there were a genuine, well-reasoned basis for opposing health care reform, we just haven't heard it. Choosing shrill and untrue rhetoric and shouting down serious discussion are the tactics of tyrants and fascists.
 

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Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: John Barry, "Dances with Wolves"

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If you ran the fortune cookie factory, what message would you make sure gets put in a cookie?

Submitted By [info]123ekaterina


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Help! I'm a prisoner in a Chinese bakery!

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With nearly no warning, the Eagle Times, which covered Claremont, New Hampshire and Springfield, Vermont, closed its doors today. The move takes three weeklies with it.

I feel bad for the friends and colleagues who have lost their jobs. If I could get a print edition of the Tribune off the ground, I could help some of them.

This leaves us with only the Vermont Journal, which carries no real news, as our remaining competition. All we need now is an angel. There is a huge market here, and the sharks are circling already.

Things are going to get pretty interesting over the next couple of months.

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Current Location: Back porch
Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Birdsong

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