thin partitions
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2277100.ece
A 75-year-old man from Mississauga, Canada, has been found guilty of issuing a death threat in a poem. Antonio Batista wrote about a councillor who was unsympathetic about his tax bill. He claimed that he was being satirical. But the judge ruled that Batista was a man of little education, incapable of knowing what satire was.
So, how much of a step is it from Batista's capacity to make verse to the
comprehension of satire? & is the Canadian judge's ruling meta-satire?
[What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide:
And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th'insuperable line!
Without this just Gradation could they be
Subjected these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all those pow'rs in one?
ll 225-231 _An Essay on Man_ Ethic Epistle #1 to Bolingbroke, A. Pope]
***
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/children/article2273485.ece
NB especially s6.
The Chicken House "next J K Rowling" author-search compo in the _Books_
section is an amazingly unattractive trawl. Not only are contestants
debarred for having previously published (not for having "written & been
published", actually, so perhaps they are trying to cut out self-promoting
types who have Vanity Press output rather than anyone who's had an annotated
graphic from a Polish technical manual on flanges incorporated in a science
fiction short story posted anonymously to the Web in Russia? - otherwise that
example would debar the hypothetical technical writer from seeking fame
as Childrens' Laureate. More realistically, ever had a piece in a fanzine?
An APA? An in-house 'zine? That's you barred) in either fiction or non-
fiction & in any country, but the publishing house will control every
aspect of the unspecified deal which is the prize, or offer an alternate
editorializing 'prize' (not publication) - while retaining copyright on
the submitted kidzbuk) if an accommodation cannot be reached. I bet Rowling
would still be poor if she'd pubbed her ish this way. Had I ever had
a kiddynovel within me and disgorged it into a filing cabinet, it could
moulder without fear of being posted in to E98 1TT! The losers get to keep
their Asserted Rights over their work, while the "winner" is forced to sell
for a handful of magic beans or whatever Chicken House feels is OK for a
"suitable creditworthy entry" - what happened to the word "meritorious", BTW?
Oh, & no submissions from agents. So no authors who cannot get
anything published in any country, in any form, getting their agents
to submit their unsaleable copy for them. Given that I know competent
published authors who can't acquire an agent, this seems like a legal
provision that need not have been made. "OK, so for my 15%, you want
me to accept an unknown quantity from these Chicken House people,
conditional on you beating out a bunch of other frustrated _Times_ or
LJ:fascicle readers, & subject to my keeping our arrangement sub
rosa? I can't be bothered to show you the door: window's thattaway".
Why would *anyone* enter this compo?
A 75-year-old man from Mississauga, Canada, has been found guilty of issuing a death threat in a poem. Antonio Batista wrote about a councillor who was unsympathetic about his tax bill. He claimed that he was being satirical. But the judge ruled that Batista was a man of little education, incapable of knowing what satire was.
So, how much of a step is it from Batista's capacity to make verse to the
comprehension of satire? & is the Canadian judge's ruling meta-satire?
[What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide:
And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th'insuperable line!
Without this just Gradation could they be
Subjected these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all those pow'rs in one?
ll 225-231 _An Essay on Man_ Ethic Epistle #1 to Bolingbroke, A. Pope]
***
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/children/article2273485.ece
NB especially s6.
The Chicken House "next J K Rowling" author-search compo in the _Books_
section is an amazingly unattractive trawl. Not only are contestants
debarred for having previously published (not for having "written & been
published", actually, so perhaps they are trying to cut out self-promoting
types who have Vanity Press output rather than anyone who's had an annotated
graphic from a Polish technical manual on flanges incorporated in a science
fiction short story posted anonymously to the Web in Russia? - otherwise that
example would debar the hypothetical technical writer from seeking fame
as Childrens' Laureate. More realistically, ever had a piece in a fanzine?
An APA? An in-house 'zine? That's you barred) in either fiction or non-
fiction & in any country, but the publishing house will control every
aspect of the unspecified deal which is the prize, or offer an alternate
editorializing 'prize' (not publication) - while retaining copyright on
the submitted kidzbuk) if an accommodation cannot be reached. I bet Rowling
would still be poor if she'd pubbed her ish this way. Had I ever had
a kiddynovel within me and disgorged it into a filing cabinet, it could
moulder without fear of being posted in to E98 1TT! The losers get to keep
their Asserted Rights over their work, while the "winner" is forced to sell
for a handful of magic beans or whatever Chicken House feels is OK for a
"suitable creditworthy entry" - what happened to the word "meritorious", BTW?
Oh, & no submissions from agents. So no authors who cannot get
anything published in any country, in any form, getting their agents
to submit their unsaleable copy for them. Given that I know competent
published authors who can't acquire an agent, this seems like a legal
provision that need not have been made. "OK, so for my 15%, you want
me to accept an unknown quantity from these Chicken House people,
conditional on you beating out a bunch of other frustrated _Times_ or
LJ:fascicle readers, & subject to my keeping our arrangement sub
rosa? I can't be bothered to show you the door: window's thattaway".
Why would *anyone* enter this compo?