I was reading Tom Tomorrow's blog ( the cartoonist ) and he said that a few weeks back he'd written a cartoon with the most over the top thing imaginable - an attack on a child by right wing pundits. After all, that was so over the top, they'd never do. Now, he's having to revise the cartoon because reality has caught up to it.

From that book review you cite in your Armenian link - the "Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur", by Ben Kiernan -


"Ben Kiernan has provided the most extensive history of our genocidal propensities that I have ever read. He starts his history early, with Roman and Greek massacres of barbarians, and works through the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the exterminating vigor of American settlers toward Indians, the Turkish way with the Armenians, the German way with the Jews, Stalin's way with the Ukrainians, the Khmer Rouge's way with the Cambodians, the Serbs' way with the Muslims, the Hutus' way with the Tutsis, and the Sudanese way with the Darfurians.

If you want to know how it was done, where and when it was done, and how many victims there were, Kiernan has the answers."

Nn, he bloody well does not. If he is talking about a "genocide" in Yugoslavia or any of its parts, he might do better to look at the Croatian extermination of Jews, Gypsies and Serbs at Jasenvoac than to haul out the old chestnut about the Serbian "genocide" of Muslims. That - simply - did - not - happen. Period. THere was a massively messy civil war, everyone was whacking everyone else, there were a jillion refugees - but never ever ever ever was there a muslim "genocide" in any part of Yugoslavia. You have no idea how desperately tired I am of that particular strawman. I used to leap up and refute with cites, but now I am just... tired. There's an official line. THat's it. What the truth is doesn't matter to anybody any more.

For what it's worth, the reviewer, Michael Ignatieff, has... a bit of history with the Serbs.

Thanks for that link to John Klima's blog. I personally don't see the issue with closed anthologies, but it has made me ask myself a different question.

A stupid newbie question for the editors out there: Is it worth mentioning belonging to OWW in my cover letter?.. I know some say to mention workshops you've 'attended', and as much as I love OWW...well it's not exactly Clarion.. and I'd hate to come off as pretentious (or more so than normal).

Is it also worth briefly mentioning non-fiction work (as in "My non-fiction has been published in a number of magazines") and if your non-fiction has a large readership?

Dear Ann Coulter,

Please eat a sammich. Listening to you is bad enough. Looking at you is like looking at a shambling golem made of clothes hangers.

Sincerely,
Michaela

PS: I recommend the tuna melt.

You are being way too kind to Ann Coulter! :)

Hunger can make you all kinds of irrational.

It's my own personal theory that Ann Coulter is actually a very clever democrat trying to discredit the republican party from within.

Ann Coulter is a clown, and I mean that in a most literal sense.

Coulter is an entertainer getting rich off outrage. This is why she doesn't close her mouth; the more outrage directed at her, the more attention she gets and the richer she gets. In an attention economy, she's doing extraordinarily well, don't you think?

I contrast Coulter with Michelle Malkin, who I think really believes what she writes to the degree that she writes it. That's why she gets so upset in her blog when people push back. Dissent to Malkin may equate to dollar signs, but unlike Coulter dollars are not what Malkin is after. Malkin wants blood.

Yeah, I've always thought that Coulter did feed off of outrage. Sort of like a psychic vampire of omgYouSaidWhat? It's difficult to believe anyone would buy what she's selling.