The bad news: President Bush Eliminates Funding for Reading Is Fundamental’s Historic Book Distribution Program Serving 4.6 Million Children (via silk_noir).

The good news: RIF makes it really easy to email your senators or congresspeople who haven't yet pledged to reinstate RIF's funding. In my case, that meant one of my senators (Diane Feinstein) and my district's representative (Susan A. Davis). Let's hope they see the light and decide poor kids deserve the dignity and empowerment that comes from having books of their very own.

Take books away from kids, we all lose. Give them books, we all win. Duh.

I'm gonna throw a horse question out there:

Considerations of strength and endurance aside, could a very large horse ride three adults bareback?

I mean, the adults -- the human adults -- would ride the horse. Not the other way around. I know horses don't ride people. Not bareback, anyway. Should I have said "Could a very large horse seat three adults bareback?" I don't even know the right terms here!

***

A weekend that includes pizza, burgers, kung fu, writing, new comic books, and a late afternoon stroll through the alien landscape of an urban park leaves little room for complaint.

I'm liking Buffy Season 8 quite a bit so far. It's doing things that wouldn't work in television, but it captures much of the tone (if not quite the spirit yet) of the TV series, but it is its own thing, and it works very well as a comic book.

I almost didn't get to read it at all, since my friendly neighborhood comics shop was all sold out, and I was sad, very sad, slumping around the mall like a kid who dropped his ice cream cone, but Lisa dug through the unsorted Jugheads and X-Whatevers at the bottom of the magazine rack at B&N, and I ended up happy and skipping.

Also picked up Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3: Torn, which I've read half of and am enjoying so far.

It's been too long since I've wallowed in comics. I've missed it. Maybe when I finish this @#$&ing book I'll try to write a comic book script, just for practice. And some short stories, so that 2008 isn't a completely bleak publishing year for me. And the weird beach YA. And CBT modules for structured critical thinking training and maybe some for assessment and measurement, because that sounds fun, doesn't it?

***

( cup/page and weird rocks pics below the cut )

Beyond Heinlein and, recently, John Scalzi's Old Man's War, I'm rather ignorant about military science fiction, so I can't really say with confidence that Sandra McDonald's The Outback Stars is vastly different from most military sf, but I can say that it does break with my expectations concerning military sf.

And what are those expectations? That the main characters are warriors, that the book will devote a significant number of pages to battle scenes, and that the protagonist's arc will require him or her to demonstrate a lot of physical courage under fire. You know: Boot camp, alien bugs, shoot 'em ups.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I like some of that old Heinlein, and I like Scalzi's book. But The Outback Stars does something else, and that something else is among its many charms.

Here's the setup: Lt. Jodenny Scott, a survivor of the destruction of her last starship, is now head of Underway Stores on the Aral Sea. Her main concern is to improve the morale and lackluster performance of her troubled department.

I like that. She's not a soldier. She's a manager. Her job isn't to pilot star fighters or blast away alien bugs. Her job is to get her department's paperwork in order.

Among Jodenny's subordinates is Sergeant Terry Myell. A career supply clerk, he's no more a soldier than she. He's good at his job, and what's more, he cares about being good at his job, even though he's just a supply clerk. Myell bears the stigma of a scandal for which he was cleared, though suspicion of his guilt remains. I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say that a critical and enjoyable component of the book's plot involves Jodenny's and Myell's increasingly complicated relationship.

McDonald takes her time establishing her characters (of which there are perhaps just a few too many), but once Jodenny and Myell stumble onto a mysterious alien transportation system, things get very much more tense and fun.

A former Navy officer, Sandra McDonald depicts life aboard ship with a sense of believability and authority, and the future she depicts, strongly flavored with Australian influences, is rich and colorful. But her greatest strength is her deft touch with character, and by giving Jodenny and Myell problems to deal with professional and romantic, mundane and cosmic, she's written a strong, entertaining debut novel.

secritcrush thinks the Washington Post article I linked to yesterday is smug and manipulative, and many agree with her. I didn't find it smug or manipulative, and I don't think the writer set out to prove that DC commuters are ignorant or don't appreciate beauty and music in general, but the discussion in Chance's comments is interesting.

ETA: I didn't realize that, Gene Weingarten, the author of the article, is the same fellow who wrote about the Great Zucchini in my favorite non-fiction piece from last year.

***

Speaking of music in public, never should I have to listen to anything from the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack.

***

I kind of like this sentence I just wrote:

The decapitated man kept nudging her with his strap-on head.

***

Fascinating article in this morning's Washington Post, for which the editors arranged to have famous violin virtuoso Joshua Bell play his Stradivarius before rush-hour commuters at a busy DC subway station. How many people would stop and listen? Would a big crowd gather? Would it grow out of control? How much money would they throw in Bell's violin case (his more traditional performances command about $1000 a minute)?

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

The article makes interesting observations about art, context, work, modern lifestyles, obscurity, beauty, and it's very nicely written to boot.

WaPo requires registration, but you might try this:

user name: fonkdiddly@fonkit.com
password: fonkyou

Or try BugMeNot to get another login.

***

Happy Easter. I'm eating pumpkin pancakes.

At Blue Heaven, I told Sarah Prineas that I'd never read any of the Miles Vorkosigan books (actually, had never read any Lois McMaster Bujold), and Sarah looked at me as though I'd just sprouted a second head, and it was wearing a dorky hat. But she kindly sent me Young Miles, an omnibus containing two Vorkosigan novels and a novella, and I just finished the first of the novels, Warrior's Apprentice. And Sarah was right -- Miles is a fantastic character. Physically stunted, smart, and hyperactive, he's an enormously fun and engaging protagonist who protags his ass off through this book. Absolutely perfect summer reading.

I also recently read Jenn Reese's chapbook from Tropism Press, Tales of the Chinese Zodiac. I was a fan of these stories when they appeared in Strange Horizons, and the new framing material and two new tales are very nice additions.

And also from Tropism Press, I've been going through the fiction in the latest issue of the fine zine Flytrap. I was particularly fond of Barth Anderson's and Meghan McCarron's stories, but every piece in this issue features a strong, unique voice. These are stories that could only be written in the way they're written by the writers who wrote them.

And finally, Tim and Heather, the keepers of Tropism, continue to send me a few flash pieces per day as we work on our short-short collab, which is turning my email in-box into my favorite fiction venue of the moment.

Reading. Good.

And here's a bird I doodled: