According to Gallycat, the students riled up by the threat of Random House's publication of the Jewel of Medina were planning little more than a publicity campaign to e-mail the publisher and news outlets and so on. Perfectly innocuous stuff in a pluralistic society. Which makes Random House look like a bunch of wusses, and makes Professor Denise Spellberg's frantic warnings about threats to Random House's staff and property look even more like disingenuous bigotry, to put it kindly.
From the “this surprises you why?” department:Random House was going to publish a book titled The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, a historical novel that features one of Mohammad’s wives, and has decided “oops, bad idea.” Quoth Random House in the Washington Post Op-Ed, “after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” Apparently one of those credible sources was an American academic named Denise Spellberg (sage advice from the Smart Bitches, do not let this woman blurb your book) who got an advance copy and apparently got her knickers in a prudish little twist (you see Muhammad had wives, and gasp, may have had sex with them) and made a “frantic” call to the editor of a popular Muslim website (this book made her frantic) and asked him to warn Muslims about this nasty, evil, book that “made fun of Muslims and their history.” And apparently, armed only with Spellberg’s description of this “very ugly, stupid piece of work,” not having read it himself, he did exactly what she asked, warning people of the coming literary apocalypse. And, of course, offense spreads like wildfire.But what seems to be the trigger that caused the book to be pulled was Spellberg’s own warning to her own editor at another imprint at Random House. According to Spellberg, if the book was released there was “a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence.” Apparently she babbled on like an islamaphobic neocon frightened by Obama’s middle name. The Terrorists would kill them all if the book saw the light of day. Her warning was bounced around the email servers at Random House until the book was pulled less than a month later.Spellberg might count Random House’s withdrawl of the book as some sort of victory, but I wonder if she realizes that encouraging them to stomp this book by using threats of violence is casting Islam in a much more vile light before a much broader audience than the book’s publication ever would have.
Politicians love child porn. It is the ultimate grandstanding issue. It is an issue with effectively no opposing side, after all, if you come out "against" child porn you've implicitly cast any opposition into the role of pedophiles and child molesters. There's no downside.Enter New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. He loves the children. And he's discovered that there's this thing called the internet and, on it is, GASP, child porn. So, like any good crimefighter, he launches a campaign to "encourage" broadband providers to "volunteer" to take actions "surgically directed" only at child pornography and "not at any protected content." Of course, this works really well, causing Time-Warner to pull 10,000 Usenet newsgroups to curb the corrupting influence of the 88 groups that the AG's office found to contain evidence of child porn. Even better than using this as political red meat to make him look "tough" when he's "protecting the children," Mr. Cuomo has indulged in a grand New York tradition, the protection racket. Apparently the threat of painting a corporation as facilitating the distribution of child porn is a great way to generate an income stream (from C-net):
But over time, it may encourage more attorneys general to play Net censor, especially if they come to view broadband providers as compliant, off-the-books sources of revenue. This seems to be Cuomo's opinion; his press release said Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint will pay "$1.125 million to fund additional efforts by the attorney general's office and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to remove child pornography from the Internet." [my emphasis]
Because I haven't had an asshat for a while, and because this is rich in all senses of the word, I want to share a tidbit I found on Whatever.Meet Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild. Yeah, those Rothschilds. The ones that are, well, kinda well off? Not that she's any small taters herself, she was worth a hundred million before she married in to the really big bucks. This is not a woman who pumps her own gas into the SUV when going to soccer practice. You will not find her shopping at Wal-Mart— hell, not even Target. This woman would have to think for a moment if, while standing in her grand foyer filled with art costing more than most people's houses, you asked her where the kitchen was. . .This woman, a die-hard Hillary supporter, doesn't think she'll support Obama because. . .*drumroll*"Frankly I don’t like him. I feel like he is an elitist."*headdesk*
UPDATE: At least according to the band, their managers are the clueless asshats. I think they need better management.I haven't nominated an asshat for awhile, then I came across this little tidbit. And no, this doesn't involve some sort of draconian fan-stomping over who should pay for what. In fact, it has nothing to do with pathologic reactionary grasping onto old business models past the point of obsolescence. That's old news. No, this time we are talking stupidity that can only be described as epic fail.Shall I posit the following scenario: you're a moderately newsworthy band producing a new album. You invite a number of internet music bloggers to a private party to listen to some rough tracks off the album. No non-disclosure agreements involved. . . What do you think would happen?Apparently it never occurred to the band in question that said bloggers might actually, you know, blog about it. I mean, who could have seen that coming? They were shocked, shocked I say! Their management responded in a restrained and level-headed manner, blanketing said bloggers with takedown notices and threats of legal action.Dear Metallica: PR, You're doin it wrong.
At least according to our latest asshat, none other than Stephen King. I’ve never thought of him as having a big mouth, but apparently it is just large enough to hold a foot. Quoth King:
I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.
As the whole Cassie Edwards story pointed out, it is hard to be a plagiarist these days. Anyone with just a little suspicion can use the internet to correctly attribute just about anything, so it is a stupid, stupid, thing to do. The kind of thing you really only expect from people who never had the proper academic grounding, or a good English teacher flunking them for appropriating someone's words. . .Then again, if your English teacher was James Twitchell, I expect that flunking his students for plagiarism was not all that high on his priority list. Seems he's owned up to plagiarizing sections of his book for Simon & Schuster, Shopping for God. (via GalleyCat)In his own words (we hope):
It's my responsibility to make sure that the words and ideas are my own and, if not, that they are properly credited. In many cases, I have not done this. [...] I have used the words of others and not properly attributed them. I am always in a hurry to get past descriptions to make my points, a hurry that has now rightly resulted in much shame and embarrassment. I have cheated by using pieces of descriptions written by others.
And then they cover this. (via Scalzi)You know, I'm enough of a geek to actually be interested in fonts in and of themselves. But tying them into campaign coverage gives me a hefty dose of WTF.And I give the irregular-weekly asshat award to Seymour Chwast who managed to turn font aesthetics into a partisan smackdown:
Optima is one of the worst pre-computer typefaces ever designed. It was created to satisfy everybody’s needs. A straightforward, no-nonsense, no-embellishment face, it comes in regular and bold but little character can be found in either weight.Optima is not inappropriate for use by Senator McCain.
"Irreconcilable editorial differences."That's the word as Signet and Cassie Edwards part ways.Thanks to the Smart Bitches for the tip. (Or, if you're the AP, the Smart B------)
No, don't get too excited. But, in regards to my last weekly asshat's asshattery, an apparently otherwise intelligent blogger, in posting her own rebuttal, suffered an extreme case of foot-in-mouth disease:
[...] romance novels [...] are not "books", as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold.
Introducing Charlotte Allen, from the Washington Post. Before I deconstruct her rampant idiocy, let me allow her to spew a few of her own words:
The theory that women are the dumber sex [...] is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy. While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid.
Presented for your consideration, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of California. Whose attitude toward the free flow of information on teh interwebz seems cribbed from North Korea. Apparently a swiss bank is somewhat miffed at Wikileaks.org a website organized by a bunch of journalists and other activists whose primary mission is to give an anonymous platform for publicizing documents showing governmental and corporate wrongdoing in situations where the "leaker" would suffer serious reprisals. (i.e. it targets a lot of nasty regimes that could, for instance, kill you for blabbing embarrassing facts.)So what happens when lawyers working for the Swiss banking group Julius Baer, file for an injunction to suppress the site's publication of several documents posted on the site allegedly revealing the bank was involved with money laundering and tax evasion? Why, the judge issues a permanent injunction shutting down the whole effing site, with only a couple hours notice to the sites' owner. Now, within a few hours, someone must have pointed out to Judge White that he was not, in fact, issuing internet rulings in mainland China, and his injunction might be viewed as a tad extreme, because the permanent injunction was clarified with a temporary injunction focusing only on the documents in question.Way to uphold the bastion of freedom. Nice to know that any tin-pot regime and corporate scumbag can get a web-site sanitized just by filing suit in California.(But actually not, since no one can take back electrons. The site is mirrored up the wazoo all over the world, meaning the injunction is pointless and ineffective in addition to being draconian.)
Hong Kong Actor Edison Chen. Who, through a critical mass of sleaze and stupidity worthy of certain toe-taping senators is embroiled in an internet sex scandal. Apparently Mr. Chen liked to watch himself, so he took pictures of himself getting busy with a bunch of actresses. Ok, I'm a Libertarian, I don't have a problem with consenting adults filming themselves.My problem with Mr. Chen starts with the fact that he apparently liked to share these pictures without the consent of his partners, and worse, he had the bonehead stupidity to leave these 1000+ dirty pictures on his laptop's hard-drive (God does that sound dirty) when he sent it in to get it serviced. (Eww, that's even worse.)Here's a clue to all you celebs out there. The techs working on your computer are going to look at your photos— You're a fucking celebrity!So these photos found their way on to the internet, and Chen's all dumbfounded, first denying it all ("they're all photoshopped!") and now all tearful and apologetic saying, "The lives of many innocent people have been hurt by this malicious and criminal conduct and in this regard I'm filled with pain, hurt and frustration." The malicious conduct he refers to in this case is posting the pics on the web. And the fact that he includes himself with the "innocent victims" is just gag inducing.(Thanks to Mrs Giggles.)
Paul McGuinness, manager of U2. Ok, we get it, music piracy = bad.But, do we think that either a) Making ISPs responsible for policing net traffic for copyrighted data or b) Taxing ISPs to compensate artists (read: compensate the monolith corporations that profit from said artists) are in fact good ideas?Quoth asshat:
If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door. That's no different to an ISP.
Steve Jobs, for the following quote RE the Amazon kindle: (via Gallycat)
The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore.
I thought I had posted all I was going to on this. But, then, my wife was waiting at Walgreens to get a prescription filled and was walking past the book isle, and came across this. I draw your attention to the lower right corner.
Cassie Edwards' plagiarism that is?Well I tried an experiment. I decided to spend part of my evening hunting down some CE sample text, look through it, and see if I can Google a lifted passage. I decided this at roughly 7:30.It is now 7:47. The seventeen intervening minutes was spent as follows: Fifteen minutes launching Amazon in my browser, searching for Edwards' work, finding a random book of hers that allowed the "search inside" feature, and scanning the pages for likely candidates. Two minutes punching a few phrases into Google.I got a hit.From Savage Intrigue by Cassie Edwards, Leisure Books 2007 p4-5
Wakan Tanka breathed life and motion into all things, both visible and invisible. He was over all, through all, and in all. Great as was the sun, and good as was the earth, the greatness and goodness of the Big Holy were not surpassed by either.The Dakota could look at nothing without seeing Wakan Tanka; they could never evade his presence, for it pervaded all things and filled all spaces.
Wakan Tanka breathed life and motion into all things, both visible and invisible. He was over all, through all, and in all, and great as was the sun, and good as was the earth, the greatness and goodness of the Big Holy were not surpassed. The Lakota could look at nothing without at the same time looking at Wakan Tanka, and he could not, if he wished, evade His presence, for it pervaded all things and filled all space.
What follows may be as close to a complete statement from Cassie Edwards as we’ve had since the whole plagiarism issue raised its ugly head. It is allegedly an e-mail response to a fan expressing support, and is documentary evidence of why lawyers generally tell you to shut the f**k up when the feces hits the fan. The text via the Smart Bitches blog: (My comments in green)[UPDATE: Dear Author contacted a representative of Cassie Edwards to confirm the authenticity of this e-mail. The response was "no comment." An evil, hateful person would assume that this means Cassie finally talked to her lawyer.]
I just got on My Space and I found your wonderful encouraging letter. Thank you for believing in me, for I have done nothing wrong.[SWANN: exsqueeze me? Even when this was restricted to non-fiction you were saying to the AP that you just “didn’t know” you were supposed to cite references. Hint- if the behavior isn’t wrong, you don’t have to make excuses for it.]My publisher is standing behind me 100%, for they know my work better than anyone,[SWANN: Quoth Signet: “… we will be examining all of Ms. Edwards’ books that we publish, and based on the outcome of that review we will take action to handle the matter accordingly. We want to make it known that Signet takes any and all allegations of plagiarism very seriously.” Apparently, they don’t know your work that well.]and they know that all romance authors who use research for historicals have to use reference books to do this.[SWANN: Cassie, here is a hint. Use <> Copy. I’ve written historical novels, read a whole lot of reference materials, and the only passage I ever felt the need to copy verbatim was from a news article in the Cleveland Press about the Torso Murders, and that was because a character was reading that edition of the paper. I don’t think your 19th century characters have the same excuse lifting passages from a 2005 nature article about ferrets.]My readers love this accurate material about the Indians.[SWANN: And, apparently, ferrets.]And if I couldn’t use this material my books would not be worth anything to my readers who depend on me.[SWANN: Depend on her? Ok, I feel a little responsibility to my readers (sort of the reason I don’t lift passages wholesale in my books) but she makes herself out to be like a paramedic, a cop, or at the least the Roto-Rooter guy who came and kept my basement from flooding. It’s a novel, get over yourself.]The sad thing is that I am writing these books now in a way to honor our Native Americans, past, present and in the future.[SWANN: Why do I get the feeling that her primary demographic is not down on the Res?]And I am honoring my great grandmother who was a full blood Cheyenne. She would be so proud of me if she could read what I am writing about the Indians who have been so maligned for so long.[SWANN: The white man steals our land. We shall steal the white man’s words.]And do you know? I feel picked on now as our Native American Indians have always been picked on throughout history.[SWANN: How juvenile can you get? Chicky, you were outed on a blog for near-verbatim copying of your sources. You were not stripped of your property and made to march barefoot a few hundred miles to a reservation, forced to abandon your language and religion, and given a pox-infected blanket for your trouble.]I am trying to spread the word about them and what do I get? Spiteful women who have found a way to bring attention to themselves, by getting in the media in this horrible way.[SWANN: You note, at this point, there is not a single denial of what she’s been accused of doing? All she can do is malign the women who brought attention to the fact she’s been stealing passages wholesale.]Right now I am getting hit from all sides....CNN, The New York Times, AP, everyone who those women could think of to contact.[SWANN: Um… they posted it on a blog. That’s telling everyone. Also, I think the press caught wind of this themselves. It’s sort of like, their job.]And what is also sad is that a fellow author, has spoken up and condemned me.[SWANN: Hi there, I’m a fellow author. Pleased to meet you. Guess what? I’m condemning you too. And, frankly, I haven’t seen an author write about this who is not pretty pissed at your antics.]Thanks again for your support. When I am feeling stronger I plan to write a bulletin on My Space, but right now I am totally drained of energy from what has been done to me.[SWANN: You know, Cassie, if someone posted a picture of you shoplifting, I do not think an adequate defense is to decry how horrible it was someone posted the picture.]I hope that you will tell your friends, who are so much also mine, the wrong that has been done to me, and tell them that I will get through this. I will be found innocent and vindicated [sic] of any wrong.[SWANN: This is classic, and still not a denial. She never says “I did not do those horrible things I’m accused of.” Probably because it’s all in print and can’t really be denied. The best she can do is, “The horrible things I’m being accused of aren’t wrong. No, really, it’s ok. My publishers would have said something, wouldn’t they? Please, it’s not like I’m killing puppies. They’re all jealous anyway. They never liked me. Please feel sorry for me.”]For now, it’s all too raw and horrible, but I will be alright.
Oh the things you find online when just clicking around at random. The man's name is Tad Safran, he's from the UK, and I do not think he gets laid enough. He has an article at Times Online (which I found via a post at the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog) that is essentially one long rant about the shortcomings of British women, who are apparently lazy and unkempt, as opposed to American women who are vain, crass, materialistic and "take themselves too seriously and are annoyingly confrontational."Old episodes of the Man Show were less misogynistic than this guy. Hell, Girls Gone Wild is less misogynistic than this guy. I mean, here's a choice little quote:
Sophie tumbled into the house looking like a refugee from Hurricane Katrina. She smelt like the R&D lab at Philip Morris. Her outfit was about as sexy as a half-pound of ground meat. And, surely, the only time she’d seen the inside of a gym was to ask directions to the nearest pub. I was hurt that my friends thought I’d be remotely interested in Sophie. Even more insulting was when my friend’s wife pointedly said: “Tad, I hear you just sold a screenplay to the producers of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” I could not believe it. She was selling ME to HER!?
I remember dancing with a really lovely English girl. She was gorgeous. Things were going well until I took her hand. I actually recoiled. Her palms were rough and leathery like a tree-climbing monkey’s. Years of working around horses had given her the hands of an 80-year-old Siberian coalminer. Surely some sort of moisturising routine would have been a simple and inexpensive remedy. (It was more shocking than the time I took a girl’s hand after chatting her up for an hour and discovered she was missing the two middle fingers on it.)
I’m sure other women will be incredibly impressed by your new Jimmy Choos or Blahniks. But, ladies, the only time a man will notice your shoes is if your feet are wedged on top of his shoulders bouncing either side of his head.
Christians can be stupid too.The minister with the stuffed pig is really on the same moral level as the idiots in Sudan who were demonstrating to have that teacher executed over a teddy bear.I have the really sad feeling that the ultimate apocalypse will be waged over something this idiotic.
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