WOLves

Storyblogging Carnival

Trudy,

I've gotten the Second Year Inauguaral Storyblog up at http://talesoftadeusz.blogspot.com .

Cordially,

Eric R. Ashley

Calista's Wednesday Links

American Bar Association ~ Copyright Basics
http://www.abanet.org/intelprop/comm106/106copy.html
Comprehensive site of legal knowledge that answers questions about the basics of American copyright law. Information includes amplification of existing copyrighted material, who can and what is eligible for copyright registration and what forms should be used for copyrighting.

Filmmakers
http://www.filmmakers.com/index.htm
Screenwriters resource offering news, contest information,and resource links.

Handbook of Forensic Services
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/handbook/intro.htm
Forensic information site run by the FBI details proceedure for evidence submission, examination, and crime scene security and investigation.

Calista's Wednesday Links

The Blue Book of Grammar & Punctuation
http://www.grammarbook.com/
Easy to use online reference guide.

Copyright Society of the USA
http://www.csusa.org/
Organization whose main purpose is to gather,
interchange, and disseminate copyright law and
information.

Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/get_rev.htm
Publisher of book reviews for several public and academic library systems
and the internet. Considers small and self published books for review.

Calista's Wednesday Links

Alicia Rasley's Writers' Corner
http://www.sff.net/people/alicia/
Website geared towards Romance writers, but offers tips and courses for writers in all genre.

The Copyright Licensing Agency
http://www.cla.co.uk/
A non-profit organization, British Copyright Law and Licensing Agency offers tips to British writers on protecting their works under the loose British copyright law.

Doollee
http://www.doollee.com/Agents/6CANagents.htm
A searchable database of Canadian Literary Agents.

Camp

This is a short story written especially for the 1st Anniversary issue of the Storyblogging Carnival. See all the entries here!

Calista's Wednesday Links

All Law
http://www.alllaw.com/topics/
An index of law related links from Administrative
Law, to ethics, identity theft and weather related
litigation.

AuthorsLawyer.com
http://www.authorslawyer.com/index.shtml
Offers copyright information from a proauthor viewpoint and copyright
resources. 1976 & 1998 US Copyright Law. Site also offers information
on literary scams broken down by agent, editor, printing and publishers.

Jerry Hill Present Names
http://anzwers.org/free/jhpn/
Need a name for a character? Looking for something interesting, esoteric
or just weird? Say, a tasty little tidbit in Finnish? A 14th century Scottish
given name? Or just something off the wall? Names: tidbits, trivia and a
lot of "Wow! I didn't know that."

Storyblogging Carnival's 1st Anniversary Issue!

Hi folks,

I'm now accepting submissions for the next storyblogging carnival, which, as many of you know, is our first anniversary.  It's been a full year since the carnival started, and it's grown, slowly but
surely.  I'd like to make this one our best yet.  Aside from sending me your own stories, also let your readers know about this upcoming event, so they have the chance to participate.   If you have a story you'd like to submit, send it to me (dscrankATalum.mit.edu) with the following information:
    * Name of your blog
    * URL of your blog
    * Title of the story
    * URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
    * (OPTIONAL) Author's name
    * (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
    * A word count
    * A short blurb describing the story

Entries are due Saturday, September 10th, by 11:59 pm EDT.  Further
information can be found at
http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1125942198.shtml.

Thanks,

Donald

Disasters, God, & Earthquake readiness

Although it's usually God getting the blame for natural disasters, we tend to forget the other guy. Minister Trudy Mackay at The God Blog explains in a post written after the tsunami disaster.

Doc Searls was wondering what's ahead for those of us here in the West, and if we're prepared for the Big Earthquake. I'm pretty sure we are here in Yuma. We have a recent disaster plan which also takes into account refugees in six figures coming from SoCal.

Dubious “Relief” Campaigns Begin to Emerge

First it was the politicians making sure they got their share of media attention by issuing Katrina-related statements, now corporations are getting into the act. In this case, it’s a double whammy as domestic violence victims are added to the mix.

On Friday, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence issued a press release announcing their intentions to provide $6000 grants to women’s shelters, and $2000 grants to individual victims of DV in cooperation with cosmetics giant Mary Kay, and the Altria group, (the parent company of Kraft Foods, and Philip Morris which also has an interest in SABMiller brewing).

There are so many problems with this particular PR campaign, I hardly know where to begin.

Rather than illustrating the depth of these corporations’ compassion, it gives a clear picture of their lack of understanding of the issue and their willingness to profit from the misery of people affected by intimate partner abuse.

This campaign is a thinly-veiled attempt to create a special class of hurricane victims by claiming that those who are already “battered victims” as the release says, are somehow “invisible” and in danger of “slipping through the cracks.” Does this mean that LCADV and NNEDV believe that organizations providing hurricane relief will not provide the same services to these individuals that they provide everyone else?

The press release gives no mention of the fact that Katrina has already done a significant portion of the shelters’ job for them. It has effectively removed women and their children from their homes, which is a key function of shelter procedure. The second part of the program – divorce – becomes almost a moot point in a situation where the government entities which deal with these issues are at best, in disarray. The third part of the program, the revenge portion, which generally consists of submitting the man in the relationship to economic sanctions, “re-education” programs, or outright incarceration, is also problematic when law enforcement has critical issues of criminal activity to address. Police will be far less likely to be willing to arrest men for personal relationship problems simply on the word of the woman involved when so many serious crimes against people and property are being committed.

In this case, with so many people in close quarters at refugee centers, and other situations where families are no longer isolated behind closed doors, those who abuse their spouses or families at a degree that requires intervention will most likely be recognized and dealt with as such. 

The fact that the orgs involved seem to believe all their special class of victims need is money as fast as possible, (there is no mention what they expect this money will be used for), is particularly telling.

Wouldn’t you think they would be asking for volunteers to counsel victims in dealing with their problem, or some other focused solution of relevance to their issue?

Certainly, that is the logical need of this particular group of people, but shelters do not provide that sort of aid in the first place. All women’s shelters provide is an opportunity for separation, divorce, and revenge. In some cases they also provide some minimal preparation for entry-level jobs.

Shelter advocates are on a continuous fund-raiser, because they believe money is the solution to the problems they face, so it shouldn’t be any surprise they don’t have a defined idea of  their clients’ need, now that the rest of the population of the area is also separated from their families and seeking relocation aid. They want money to keep their programs running, and more money for their clientele, because it has never occurred to them to ask for anything else.

Mary Kay and Altria see a chance for some good PR that makes them seem compassionate and altruistic, so why not provide some minor grants which would probably cost significantly less than advertising for their products? This is common practice in the corporate world. They are doing nothing more or less than expected. Yet in this case, they are demonstrating their ignorance of the organizations they support, and they may well come to regret this knee-jerk, poorly crafted bit of PR as it is such an obvious ruse of benefit to no one.

No one, that is, but the women’s shelter advocates who see their incomes and community influence disappearing in the flood.

So there is potential for good in this scenario. In times of crisis, nonessential and ineffective programs tend to come to light as what they are, and often do not survive. Once the public recognizes what these domestic violence agencies actually do and how they function, perhaps there will be better and more realistic approaches down the road. We can only hope this comes to pass.   

Network News Faces Challenges Reporting Katrina

There's an interesting look at how the TV guys are getting their reports out from hurricane-batteted areas here at TVSpy

An excerpt:

Mr. Womack said that one of CNN's main problems had been finding ways to recharge technical equipment. "We had been using car batteries," he said. "But now most of them are under water."

Many news organizations surveyed surrounding areas to find recreational vehicles that could be used as both supply carriers and air-conditioned shelter for crews. Mr. Womack said CNN had leased every such vehicle it could find in the Atlanta area. NBC rented recreational vehicles from all over Texas, filled them with food and water, and drove them toward New Orleans.