Just in time for the holidays!

by liberal japonicus

Laura mentioned that she had a new book, proceeds of which would go to fund animal rescue, so I asked her to give us some more details. I'm sure that other folks have interesting things that are hopefully coming to fruition for this holiday season, either for themselves or for others, so put them in the comments or send them to me and I'll append them to the post. Don't hide your light under a bushel!

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“Odd, gentle, beautiful, weird… enchanting, light tale of discovery, change, and dubious redemption; all wrapped into the tale of a block party like no other.”

Alyse died and she isn’t happy about it. She finds herself stuck in a ghost town occupied by dead souls with whom she has nothing in common. Lonely and depressed, she decides to throw a neighborhood block party for her little outpost in the afterlife. In the course of her party-planning, Alyse experiences a series of revelations about herself and other people—lessons she had failed to learn while alive—which leave her happier and wiser at the end of the story.

From Booklife (Publisher's Weekly):
"Koerber weaves a slow, captivating exploration of life, death, and the place of kindness and forgiveness in the salvation of the spirit."

From a reader:
“The story is simply an odd and gentle book. I loved the characters. This is a book to read when you want to get away from the noise and anger of current events and politics. Somehow I felt lighter at the end of the book even though I would have liked it to continue on.”

From Diane Donovan of Midwest Review:

"Readers seeking an uplifting afterlife saga that offers a winning brush against life's ironies and inconsistencies, and an attention to building characters who face Limbo in different ways, will enjoy this enchanting, light tale of discovery, change, and dubious redemption; all wrapped into the tale of a block party like no other.”

Purchase of this book will help support
https://www.safehavenkennel.com/about-us.html A rescue that rehabs fearful and feral dogs
https://www.myaarf.org/ A rescue that sued a hoarder to rescue a pitbull
http://lionelslegacy.org/ A rescue that focuses on old dogs.

Comments

[laura]

Thank you, LJ. I feel kind of embarrassed and humbled. Happy holiday season, everyone!

[JanieM]

I read most of Laura's book about the dog rescue operation on the Olympic Peninsula a few years ago. It's hard to say I "enjoyed" it, because the story is so hard. But it was absorbing and well-written. I'm going to get this one after the current work rush is over.

Laura -- nice cover! Do you work with a cover artist or, by chance, make your own?!?

[laura]

A combination. I made the image of the girl and my publisher did the rest. My publisher is Tamira Theyne of Who CHains You. She is a niche publisher of books related to animals and she has a really lovely line of children's books, if anyone is shopping for little kids. She doesn't make any money. Her business also donates proceeds.

[laura]

And thank you for the 'well-written". Every time I look at it, I find another comma error.

[laura]

Okay, sine I have this opportunity for shameless self-promotion: https://www.amazon.com/Dog-Thief-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B01LYUW10Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544025890&sr=8-1&keywords=Jill+Kearney
That book is published under a fake name, It is very realistic.

[bobbyp]

Congrats, laura!

[JanieM]

Laura -- I feel your pain about the comma errors. It seems like you can never find them all, no matter how many eyeballs you put on the task.

It has been interesting to watch the world of self-publishing since my daughter got into it in 2011, which was fairly early. It was the Wild West at first, but it was easy to see right away why there are such things as publishing houses, and the entire world of publishing is re-growing itself around self-publishing, in the form of free-lancers or small outfits that will do all the necessary stuff for a fee: editing (of various kinds), marketing and promotion, covers, etc. My daughter buys her covers (for the most part) and does the promotion, I do the editing and uploading. It's a lot of work. I might do a post on it if I ever get unburied from work; I've also got a lot of stuff I wanted to add to the "Darkness" thread, but I have no time.

However, a proofreading story: All the way back in the 1970s, I thought that the old Ballantine paperback copy of LOTR that I've kept to this day had a couple of particularly annoying typos. Those who have loved LOTR will remember that Treebeard has a refrain about how all the other peoples are "hasty," in contrast to the slow speech and long lives of the Ents. But there were a couple of places where the text said "nasty" instead of "hasty," I was sure of it. Indeed, it was corrected eventually, as can be seen in later editions.

So it isn't just us. I mark typos in books I own; publishers have been going on the cheap for a while now. As if spell-check could ever know where to put commas.

[wj]

It's not self-promotion if someone else posts it, right?
https://www.amazon.com/Laura-Koerber/e/B07251G3MQ

[russell]

this is all more than extremely cool.

well done, laura!!

[Girl from the North Country]

Excellent! More power to you, Laura.

[sapient]

This is wonderful, Laura. Congratulations!

[John D. Thullen]

Congratulations, Laura!

The Amazon summary of the book mentions only "some" cats in Limbo, one dog, and chickens, among others of our beastly brothers and sisters.

ALL chickens, or did some make it to Heaven/Hell?

That's a lot of chickens, to paraphrase Woody Allen.

No books in Limbo?

I guess everyone can converse with Socrates.

Are Lennon, Harrison, George Martin and Geoff Emerick there, to make up for the lack of reading material

Back to part-time lurking and thank you.

[laura]

Thank you! I put the animals in because...they deserve an afterlife more than people do!

[John D. Thullen]

Chickens ARE decent people, a late sagegrouser once said.

[CharlesWT]

I use the Grammarly browser extension to keep my comments somewhat comprehensible.

I use to see word processor induced typos in books. Errors that were created when someone did a search/replace to correct errors and the software also changed text that shouldn't have been changed. An analogy for DNA editing tools.

[wj]

Errors that were created when someone did a search/replace to correct errors and the software also changed text that shouldn't have been changed. An analogy for DNA editing tools.

Which is why, no matter how tedious it is, I always avoid doing global changes and go thru them one by one. The trouble with DNA editing tools is that it isn't really possible to go thru and check each instance before the changes get saved.

[hairshirthedonist]

I use to see word processor induced typos in books.

You used to see them. ;^)

[CharlesWT]

You used to see them. ;^)

The free version of Grammarly doesn't catch everything. :/

[Marty]

Just in time for the holidays, one good thing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-approves-historic-bipartisan-prison-sentencing-reform-bill/ar-BBR9kAs?li=BBnb7Kz

[wj]

So many good thing are possible. If only McConnell will get out of the way.

[Marty]

I guess bah humbug. I mean, clearly, everything would be perfect except for McConnell.

Alternate theory, so much could be accomplished if Schumer and Pelosi would just get out of the way.

[wj]

Perhaps. But in the specific case you referenced, McConnell had been refusing to bring the bill to the floor for weeks. A bill which passed 87-12 once he finally allowed it to come to a vote. It wasn't the Republican caucus the kept it from being brought to the floor, because the bill got an easy majority of Republican votes. Jusy McConnell.

Pelosi could be a bottleneck. Next year. But for the moment, and the last several years, the only bottleneck in the House has been Ryan.

[Marty]

Oddly though, he did bring the bill to the floor, and your response was criticizing the delay not celebrating the huge bipartisan success on an important issue.

Bills get delayed for lots of reasons, deals get made, then they get a vote. Same story if its Pelosi, or Schumer in a few years.

[hairshirthedonist]

He was beaten into submission. The obstruction on McConnell's part was not the norm. Getting that many votes on a bipartisan basis after he stood in the way should tell you that. This wasn't "Let's make a deal."

[wj]

Yeah, he not only had an overall big majority of the Senate calling for it, he had a substantial majority of Republican Senators AND President Trump calling for a vote. And he still spent weeks arguing that there wasn't time. For a vote that required just a few minutes.

[cleek]

It wasn't the Republican caucus the kept it from being brought to the floor,

not the entire caucus, but a big part of it. a majority, even.

this NYT article illustrates :

But Republican leaders insist that their own vote counting shows substantially less support, and that as long as they do not have a majority of Republicans on board, they will not advance a bill with far-reaching implications for the nation’s criminal justice system.

there are a number of GOP Senators who were opposed to the bill because law enforcement doesn't love it. so, they were telling GOP Senate leadership they weren't going to vote for it. and as long as the majority of the Senate GOP was against it, McConnell wasn't going to bring it up.

[Tony P.]

Alternate theory, so much could be accomplished if Schumer and Pelosi would just get out of the way.

It's the quality, not the quantity, of what "could be accomplished" that matters. To me, anyway.

We often hear that The American People want politicians to "work across the aisle" and "get things done". The pundits and pols who mouth this inane piety are always careful to avoid specifying what "things".

When it comes to any particular "thing", some of The American People want it done, and some don't. That's why we have political parties and hold elections.

--TP

[wj]

Although I suspect you could get widespread agreement on getting one thing done. Pass the d*mn budget and spending bills by the start of the fiscal year (October 1). In short, do your jobs! Any of the rest of us who so consistently failed to meet our deadlines at work would get fired. And deservedly so.

Sure, there are disagreements about what should be funded and for how much. But they have an entire year to figure out what can get majority agreement and pass. And for decades it happened routinely. Now, we repeatedly see shutdowns because they can't even manage a continuing resolution.

I realize that there are a few whack jobs in Congress who would prefer to shut down the whole Federal government permanently. But they aren't close to a majority, or even a majority in one party. So why not get it done?

[cleek]

seems like everybody wants to use a shutdown as leverage. working to avoid a shutdown by compromising (aka "doing their jobs") is preemptive surrender.

for this, any many terrible things, we can thank Newt.

[wj]

for this, any many terrible things, we can thank Newt.

Newt being one of the aforementioned whack jobs.

[Marty]

Thed lasydt year a full budget was passed and appropriated under regular order was 1995. So why not?

Because no one wants to vote for any compromise which most appropriations bills require. The political cost is too high.

[Marty]

The last....

[bobbyp]

Alternate theory, so much could be accomplished if Schumer and Pelosi would just get out of the way.

I sincerely hope that wherever it was you spent the last two years that it was pleasant.

[bobbyp]

So why not get it done?

Because the House majority of the GOP is terrified of the minority and is unwilling to violate the "Hastert Rule" as it allows them to cover their asses. They refuse to bring legislation to the floor that would need Dem votes to pass (immigration reform, cough, cough).

The Senate is in its own universe, but if the GOP majority was as truly determined to pass legislation as it is to approve whackjob federal judges, it could be done.

[wj]

The "Hastert Rule" translated:
While I am nominally the leader of my party in the House, I will not lead. I will only follow.

[cleek]

it's the bold leadership we've come to expect from the party of "The guy in charge said what ?!!? OK, give me a sec.... Yes! I have always agreed with that !"

[wj]

In short, Trump is succeeding in being more of a leader for his party than Hastert (or Ryan) ever were. Pity about the direction(s) he's been leading them in though.

[sapient]

Ryan is most definitely a leader. He led the country from a 100 billion dollar surplus when he came into Congress to a 985 billion deficit. (That's a hat tip to Paul Begala on Twitter.)

Why do you say he's not a leader?

[sapient]

Also, Trump appears to be tanking the economy. (Sure, I get it that the stock market isn't the economy, but it is an indicator, and there are others.)

As per usual, Republicans tank the economy, and Democrats clean up the mess. Why don't people ever learn? Oh, right. Tax cuts and racism.

One more comment coming up, then probably off to bed.

[sapient]

So we're getting out of Syria as a payoff to Putin and Erdogan. Some lefties seem to think this is a good thing. I guess most people who know me here can guess that I don't.

Treason.

[wj]

Ryan is most definitely a leader. He led the country from a 100 billion dollar surplus when he came into Congress to a 985 billion deficit. (That's a hat tip to Paul Begala on Twitter.)

Why do you say he's not a leader?

I say it because, IMHO, a leader is someone who gets people to do (vote for) things that they otherwise would not have done. Or, at best, done smaller and less effectively.

Now if Ryan had maintained his deficit-hawk facade, and slashed spending as well as taxes, it would have been a disaster for the country. But it would have been leadership, because that isn't something Republican House members would have done otherwise. Witness the fact that they didn't.

But what Ryan did was only presiding over trashing the nation's finances. Not leading.

[sapient]

I say it because, IMHO, a leader is someone who gets people to do (vote for) things that they otherwise would not have done.

I would suggest that a leader is someone who facilitates. That's what Ryan did. That is his despicable legacy. Let him eat cat food (as long as he leaves enough for the cats.)

[cleek]

President Donald Trump is planning to roll out an unprecedented structure for his 2020 reelection, a streamlined organization that incorporates the Republican National Committee and the president’s campaign into a single entity.

Trump is the GOP.

[wj]

Trump is the GOP.

Well, the only organizational approach that he is familiar with is the one used by the Trump Organization (and its myriad subsidiaries). Which is a one man band -- all him and no other centers of importance, and whatever he say is instantly done. So it's hardly surprising that he would attempt to implement the same approach in his new position -- it's all he knows.

So far, the Federal government is proving resistant. To his obvious enormous frustration. But apparently the Republican Party as an organization is prepared to roll over for him.

[cleek]

i'm surprised he didn't just start a dozen shell companies to replace the RNC, staff them with his kids, and take 30% off the front of all contributions.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Doubt that the shell companies are set up quite yet. Donny is far FAR too lazy to do it himself, and his fixer is otherwise occupied.

[wj]

his fixer is otherwise occupied.

Perhaps more to the point, his accountant is otherwise occupied. (There are just so many financial records being subpoenaed by various prosecutors! And for all those shell companies.)

[Nigel]

Bugger.
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/422476-ginsburg-undergoes-lung-procedure

[hairshirthedonist]

Trump panders to Roadrunner voters while supporting his border wall.