Woman in New Zealand is fired for using BOLD, RED, ALL-CAPS in email to co-workers. She has sued and won a wrongful termination verdict. Seems to me a little personal communication would have helped here. Just to fire her after the bosses take an email the wrong way is so mechanical.
In other news, hackers are targeting Christians on Facebook. Watch your privacy settings.
Why I wrote Hostile Intent. Michael Walsh says: “When I created ‘Devlin’ [the lead in Hostile Intent] – a man you could walk right by and never notice, so protected is he by his cloak of anonymity – I was looking to honor the kind of men and women who fight our nation’s battles in the bazaars and back alleys of the world’s least glamorous places, with no public acknowledgment of their bravery or their accomplishments, people who often lead (as Devlin does) lives of surpassing, nearly unbearable loneliness.”
Filmmaker Patrick Courrielche has been doing the rounds lately because he was on a conference call with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in which the government agency called on us, the artists of our times, “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”
In other words, if we could do a variation on “Yes, We Can” or put together another one of those cool Hope posters on the theme of government-run health care or obeying the Feds without question–all volunteer work, you understand–that’d be great. It’s for the cause, you know.
Now, the NEA is denying it coordinated that call, and of course, it doesn’t see anything wrong with it’s blatant politicization.
This year’s CYBIL Awards, the Children’s and Young Adult Blogger’s Literary Awards, will start taking nominations for books published primarily this year on October 1. Learn more about the award and how to nominate your favorite book on their website.
Edward Bryne, a poet, blogger and professor, posted a list of 100 recommended books of American 20th Century poetry. He invited his readers to comment and add to the list, and he got a good bit of feedback. (via Books, Inq. for both links) Bryne notes:
At first I was hesitant about sharing this list, thinking along the line that Robin Kemp stated in her comment, “Boy, you’re really asking for it, aren’t you?!” Nevertheless, I believe readers’ replies exhibited something expressed in John Guzlowski’s comment: “I think that what this list and the comments adding more names to the list suggest is that poetry isn’t dead. It’s alive as you or I.” On the other hand, Daniel E. Pritchard at The Wooden Spoon offered a contrary view as he observed: “I’m struck by how sparse the century was in terms of really obviously great poetry. This list probably could have been 50 titles and some of them still would’ve been in dispute.”
On Big Hollywood, Jeremy D. Boreing writes about America’s founders.
Of the four claims about God and Americans outlined in the Declaration, it was the idea that man was made by God to be free that was the most radical, and which was so pivotal. The British press mocked it openly. It is, however, at the very heart of the founding ideology. If it is God who made men free, then Liberty is not a pragmatic imperative; it is a moral one. Governments that encroach on that liberty are not only violating the preferences of the governed, they are violating the very intention of God for government. For the Founders, this idea would fundamentally redefine the relationship between government and citizen. Man does not exist to be governed; governments exist to protect man’s freedom. Man does not owe government anything, other than what is necessary to aid that government in securing his basic rights. Likewise, government does not owe man anything other than protection from those who would intrude upon his freedom, be it his fellow citizen, foreign enemies, or the government itself.
Jacques Barzun: “Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.” (by way of Books, Inq.)
Thomas Jodziewicz writes about Frederick Douglas’ education into freedom. “Our popular culture promotes the injurious fiction,” he says, “that the world is all about me, myself, and my ephemeral needs, a temptation that American culture has confronted for a long time. But a true liberal arts education can provide an escape from such alienation and loneliness—and boredom. A true liberal education is a way to discover that you are not alone.”
I don’t know much about Ernest Hemingway, despite my desire to read his work. The fact that he killed himself in a type of defiance of God colors everything I read about him. But Brett has taken up Hemingway’s ideas and made several motivational poster images in his most recent post, and they’re worth browsing. I love the top photo.