Driftwork and Lucky Pierre update

I got the contributor issues of Driftwork off in the mail today. I forgot to mention to them that they can get extra copies at cost. I was over focused, I guess. I get like that a lot. I also finally filled an order made by the Special Collections Library at the University of Wisconsin. They wanted another copy of Reddog Review #5. They ordered it before I had the knee surgery but I didn't get around to sending it until now. It was out of print so I had to make more copies. Plus Driftwork had be finished. Susan wanted to take it to a writer's conference this weekend. First things first.

I still haven't had a chance to get to my PO box. Unless something went terribly wrong, Lucky Pierre is there waiting for me. Roy of  "Why I Blog" found him under his house, a once proud little fellow fallen on hard times, gigging as a Santa doll. Roy kindly mailed him to me and when he arrives, Lucky Pierre not Roy, I will clean him up and he can join my puppet theatre. There's hope for everyone.

Replay

I gotta bitch. I'm sick at heart now that it's clear Special Investigator Patrick Fitzgerald has let Cheney, Rove and Bush skate after exposing Valerie Plame. Un-fucking-believable. No consequences. Nada. I’d say this makes it official. Our Republican "leaders" are completely ABOVE THE LAW. They can commit treason, lie us into war, rig and steal our elections, cheat, take and make bribes, spy on us, torture us, etc, etc, etc. No one will stand up to them or for us. We know how far the Right got in Germany. Now, with the new name, "neoconservative" and new look, "ownership society", they're really cleaning up. Americans are standing in the slaughterhouse line but are too stupid or too busy to notice or care. Old story. Makes me sick.

Wednesday recap

Driftwork went to the printer today. This issue took less than two weeks! It's small, 20 pages, but nice. That's five sheets of paper, four pages to a sheet. Next issue, however, I want a little more time putting it together. After I got back from the printer this afternoon I noticed an unacceptable error on the cover so tomorrow I have to go back and get it reprinted. That sucks! A few more passes and we would have caught this one. We also noticed, after the fact, that there's a couple of small errors inside, font sizes that differ by a point, but things a person can live with. But overall, working with a partner and very tight deadlines worked just fine. I can see doing an occasional publication this way.

Naturally, there's still a lot more to do. Upload a photo of the cover, install a PayPal button on the Driftwork website, add supplemental color photos for this issue, add submissions guidelines. This time I just did a blog post about the guidelines but I'm happy to say, we've already got a couple of pieces for a new issue. However, at the moment I'm taking a break and resting my knee. I'm still on crutches.

Saturday matinee - Stevie Ray Vaughan

I was taking a little break from editing Driftwork and realized that, my god, it's Saturday ... time for the Saturday Matinee!

I had dig fast but I think this one will do. Lots of great music. Today's matinee is a three part documentary on Stevie Ray Vaughan done by a couple of young Norwegian guys. I don't know where they got all the photos from his childhood, but it looks like they covered a lot of ground. I haven't had a chance to watch all of it but it gets good reviews. I'll have to watch it later but I hope that right now you can ....


Kick back. Take a break and enjoy the show.

Stevie Ray Vaughan:

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

Automatic letter writer

Helping animals has never been easier since I discovered IDA's (In Defense of Animals) fantastic, automatic letter writer. My god! That sentence sounds like the opening line in an ad for a veg-o-matic in a ladies' magazine but what the hell? It is a goddamn magic letter write-o-matic. Anyway, now I won't feel bad about asking people to write letters on behalf of downtrodden animals so watch out!

Here's how it works. All you have to do is pick the issue you want to address and click on the link. That takes you to the typical email campaign page containing a draft letter on the issue. You can email it as is or edit it as you see fit.

Now here's where the cool, automatic letter writing feature comes in. Once you settle on the words, click "confirm". At this point you can also print the letter out and mail it. Your printer will spit out a nice, clean, professionally formatted finished product ... your letter, as your wrote it, dated, addressed. Just push print and sign. It's great. It is the fast food of activism but not cheezy because a hard copy letter has a bit more heft than a form email. My printer spit out 6 lovely letters in about 10 minutes. Try one out. See how easy it is.

OKAY, that's it from the arm chair activist for now. I've got to get to work on Driftwork. Even on such short notice, and no promotion, we actually gotten some good submissions and the deadline is coming up fast. We're taking it to the printer on the 12th. By the way, we've extended the submissions deadline until this Monday, so think about sending something.

Please support Bill to Protect Animals Sold in Pet Shops

Please Support Ban on Force-Feeding of Birds in New Jersey

Stop Horse Massacre in National Wildlife Refuge

Help Protect Pacific Coast Marine Animals from Drift Gillnet and Longline Fishing

Urge Gov. Blanco to Approve Law Protecting Animal Companions in Emergencies






animal welfare activism pets letter writing

Campaigns Wikia

Jimbo

Here's a better link to Wikipedia's new political discussion wiki. At this point the structure of the wiki itself is being discussed but this page gives a better idea of the overall vision. I signed up yesterday but am still exploring the site. This is a new project by Jimmy Wales, the guy who founded the online collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia. For that reason alone it's got potential but, as the t shirt says, "What better place than here, what better time than now?"









Campaigns Wikia politics Jimmy Wales Wikipedia campaigns