I was in a factory making shells for the Nazis with a bunch of other terrified women.  We weren't in a concentration camp, we were merely forced labor, probably imported from occupied France, housed in shabby dorms and paid in worthless script.  We made shells by packing gunpowder into china bowls, cups, sugar bowls, flour tins -- any household ( Read more... )

1) I don't understand how any of the machinery that makes civilization possible actually works.
2) I am dependant upon food I don't know how to grow and medications I don't know how to make.
3) I don't understand biology, chemistry, higher math, computer science, engineering, or physics.
4) I don't understand politics or economics, although I suspect ( Read more... )

Client lives in Illinois. Client engages in sex banter over the internet with 17 year old girl who originally represents herself on facebook as being 21 and then later fesses up to being 17. Client has come from Illinois to be arraigned today on sex charges of PC 288.2(a) distributing lewd material to a minor and PC 288.3(a) contacting w minor for ( Read more... )

...and still have to pay rent.

I got the following email from a colleague on the California Appellate Defense Counsels' listserve asking for advice:

HELP!  The California Department of Corrections is holding my client prisoner DESPITE an order for his release.

This is the case I've written about before, in which I got a reversal on the
main count ( Read more... )

Even today, most stories seem to be about men.  Usually white men.  The women in them are not women, they are accessories.  Especially in Hollywood.  Inception, a very clever movie that avoids a lot of cliches, and is praiseworthy for at least not making the women sexual accessories, still embodies this depressing truth.  It is the story of a man ( ( Read more... )

The dog is trying to mount Little Girl's giant stuffed Tigger.

Okay, I wanted to put this behind a cut because it's lengthy, but despite consulting help several times and trying everything it suggested, I'm damned if I can do it.  Sorry.

As my friends know (because I screamed for 10 hours straight about it) BayCon GoH Peter Beagle reviewed a couple of my chapters at BayCon last week, along with five other lucky ( Read more... )

I have been selected for the manuscript editing Master Class with BayCon GoH Peter S. Beagle.

My Timewalkers sample (prologue and first two chapters) is going to be reviewed, IN PUBLIC, by Peter S. Beagle!

*THUD*

I've been wanting to draw a map of places I regularly visit (or used to) while I'm asleep. Of course they shift around a bit, so I'm going to start more modestly -- with a list ( Read more... )

In the early days, sightings were rare and never verified. The footprints could have been those of any four-year-old child with seven toes on each foot. The gnawed and scattered bones were blamed on hyenas that escaped from the Syracuse Zoo and then returned to their cages each morning with no one ever noticing. Even her own mother was not certain ( Read more... )