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I suspended this blog before John McCain suspended his campaign to work on the economy, so please vote for me on election day. My running mate is an androgynous simulacrum of Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman who spends most of its time arguing with itself about the role and value of government in effecting meaningful change.

I will be de-suspending the blog soon, though, because today I am going out into my backyard to talk with the squirrels about my plan for the economy, a plan that rests its many tentacles on a single bodily proposal: to release all non-violent offenders from prison to make room for various denizens of Wall Street. And to provide free feather boas to everybody who wants one.

Oh no! One of my cats just ate the Squirrel Majority Leader! The squirrels are in an uproar! The whole economic plan is now in jeopardy! Bad kitty! BAD!

My friends, I'm afraid I'm going to have to suspend the blog for a few more days while this crisis is resolved.

So, you can imagine that part of my impetus to read Life As We Knew It was the shiny arc of this title showing up at work.

The time frame is the same, but this time the setting is NYC and the Morales family's experience of the meteor.

With Papi missing in Puerto Rico, and Mami missing from a hospital in Queens, Alex is the head of the family. He has Bri and Julie to take care of, but he is sure that this is just a glitch, and that his plans of Georgetown and the Presidency may well come to fruition.

Alex is a kid who knows that there are a couple of different NYCs. He is, after all, on scholarship at his school, and some of the boys never let him forget it. He doesn't wonder too much when money loses its' value, and he and schoolmate Kevin turn to body shopping in order to provide what each of their families need.

Somehow I thought that the story told from NYC would hit me harder. I found myself persnickety about facts like feet above sea-level in my borough, and a certain lack of terror that surely would have taken place.

I wonder if it is the lack of first person narrative that led me to yearn for the feeling of Life As We Knew It. That said, however, The Dead and the Gone does several interesting things. I love the way that Pfeffer built the disparity between social classes so easily into the plot line. Rich families do not experience the losses that Alex and his family do. Folks that exist in a perpetually clean NYC do not have to see the filth of the dead, do they? This is a reality of NYC. People who live here have incredibly different existences, one could say solely because of income. Also, I enjoyed the difference between the country and city post apocalyptic experiences.

These books really make readers wonder, "What would I do if...?"

NOTE TO SELF: WONDER HOW THIS WILL AFFECT CELEBRITY BELIEVERS?



Germany's top security officials said Friday they consider the goals of the Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution and will seek to ban the organization.

The German government considers Scientology a commercial enterprise.

The interior ministers of the nation's 16 states plan to give the nation's domestic intelligence agency the task of preparing the necessary information to ban the organization, which has been under observation for a decade on allegations that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order" of the country.

The Church of Scientology, in a response sent to CNN, denounced the German proposal, calling it out of step with various international court rulings. Read the Church of Scientology response

The ministers, as well as federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, "consider Scientology to be an organization that is not compatible with the constitution," said Berlin Interior Minister Ehrhart Koerting, who presided over the officials' two-day conference.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/12/07/germany.scientology.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Church of Scientology's Response:

While failing to pursue the Hamburg Minister of Interior's motion, the Minister of Interior Conference has demonstrated that they are completely out of step with the rest of the world. Their statement and recommendation are a blatant attempt at justifying the ongoing and never-ending discrimination against the Church of Scientology and its members in Germany.

Ten years of OPC surveillance has uncovered absolutely no wrongdoing which could justify a ban, as conceded by Federal Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schauble in his interview with German Radio. There is no evidence of wrongdoing to uncover.

The suggestion that the OPC not only continue but expand its intrusive and illegal investigation represents a desperate attempt to concoct a justification for a never-ending investigation that wastes millions of taxpayer euros.

FULL RESPONSE:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/12/07/scientology.response/index.html

This is an arc that I picked up at BEA, but now it is out in the stores.

Evolution is a weird thing to me. I mean, I grew up going to church and everything, but nobody ever made me question science. In high school, bio was my most prized subject. The whole debate around the idea of "intelligent design" is something that I find fascinating and scary at the same time. Robin Brande's Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature is poised perfectly to be banned and championed.

Mena has been kicked out of her church. Yes, kicked out. And the thing of it is, her parents are still going! She is dreading her first day of high school since most of the kids in her old church go there. In her own words, "When you're single-handedly responsible for getting your church, your pastor, and every one of your former friends and their parents sued for millions of dollars, you expect to make some enemies". (p.1) (Ironically, Mena got kicked out for doing the right thing!)

There are more changes for Mena besides just being ostracized from the holy rollers at school. She is partnered up with whiz kid Casey in science, and the teacher Ms. Shepard is like nobody that Mena has ever met before. And since all of her extra-curricular activities used to be church related, what the heck else does she have to do with her time, but study and work on her science project with Casey.

But here's the thing. Even though she's been kicked out of church, Mena still has to follow the rules. Which means no being alone with boys. Casey's a boy. The lies start. Mena is not comfortable lying to her parents, even if they are being pretty horrible to her. She is really in an awkward spot. Her belief system has been ripped out from under her, she's learning all kinds of new things, but she is still trying to hold onto her faith.

I think this is an amazing coming of age story, that isn't just a Christian story. It's the push/pull of needing guidance and independence in equal measure. I love who Mena is, and even though Casey and his family are almost too good to be true, readers will find themselves anxiously turning the pages to see what happens.

Yesterday we posted Part One of an email dialogue between Miranda Hassett and Philip Jenkins, authors respectively of Anglican Communion in Crisis (Princeton University Press) and God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis. Today they continue the conversation.

Email 3 and 4

Philip Jenkins with answers by Miranda Hassett.

Philip Jenkins: On your point about how I am read, I have remarked a few times in the past few years that I am a professor not a prophet! But, conservatives were dead right to take two things from my work, namely the demographic shift, and the tilt towards orthodoxy among many global South churches. If they found that message from me and credited me with that knowledge, well and good, and equally if they found hope and comfort. However, I would say again that the demographic shift is critical news (and definitely good news) for all shades of Christians, not just traditionalists. (more…)

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Having a policy for when you do and do not limit access to materials is always a good thing. This includes your book selection policy, your Internet use policy and your “when do we cancel a summer program when we’re getting harassed by people who think yoga is a religion”? I understand that dealing with a steady stream of phone calls and emails is unpleasant for the South Carolina library that cancelled its summer reading program due to this type of harassment from one local church, but I really wish they’d taken more of a stand and not likened this sort of pressure from one aggressive group as tantamount to a bomb threat.

The librarians got nervous and decided to cancel all the Thursdays.

“They were talking about picketing the library,” the library system director told a newspaper reporter.

The minister said he didn’t mean things to go that far, that he and his congregation had no problem with all the other Thursdays, only the evil tarot card one.

“We weren’t against the reading program at all,” he told the reporter. “We just want our children being taught the right things …”

So for the last few days, I have been looking at newspapers and trying to develop a list of places to send the press release my publisher sent. Problem is, I can find plenty of places, but it takes SOOO long, because I always find something I just HAVE to read on each page... I'm getting there, though. Have sent out a few by email where there was no addresses, and have started a labels sheet for other addresses.

And while I was doing that, I decided to check the contents of my marketing folder and came across Marti Leimbach's website and blog...she wrote Daniel Isn't Talking about her experience of discovering her son had autism and all that went with it. I enjoyed reading her blog, including a post about the difficulty of attending church when one has a child with autism. Sounds familiar...have heard similar stories from my daughter-in-law and son, too. It is a difficult thing to do. In fact, one minister told my son he and his family were an inspiration to other parishioners...because of all they have to go through to attend church with M. (Must say it is not as difficult as it used to be, now that he is getting older.) Anyway, it was interesting reading.

Hope you all had a good holiday!