Graeme

That's similar in nature to a sentence an acting friend of mine told me about. A single sentence whose meaning changes significantly, depending on which word was emphasised: I like your red sweater.

Ideas for new stories just come to me. I don't do anything special. Inspiration for solving problems within a story usually happen overnight. I do most of my writing in the morning when I'm freshest, with afternoons and evenings for letting the stories rummage around in the back of my mind (they usually need a wash afterwards) so the ideas are ready for writing the next morning.

Here's another one I like, from the section talking about Wisconsin. Wisconsin puts forward four arguments against same-sex marriage. The judgement has the following about the fourth one: The judge appears to have fun poking holes in the arguments, while doing so in what I assume is a strictly legal way.

That one is being appealed to the full bench of the applicable court. There is a reasonable chance that that ruling will be overturned, which will restore the unanimity of court rulings since the Windsor decision.

Normally, reading court documents is only good for lawyers and insomniacs, but in this case, the judgement of the United States Court of Appeal for the Seventh Circuit is worth a read. A few quotes: In the section that deals with the arguments from Indiana, it mentions that there's an exception to the law against first cousins marrying if those cousins are over 65. The comment on that one is: Later on, in response to an argument from one of the lawyers for Indiana: "Go figure" must be a legal phrase that I'm not familiar with.... In relation to adoption (allowed in Indiana, but not in Wisconsin): There's more little gems in the judgement Disclosure: Because I was unable to cut-and-paste from the judgement, I had to transcribe the above content. Mistakes may have been made in that transcription.

A lot will depend on how much is clear in context. If a character says "Gogblea al 'aht Mazanda" and then tried to kiss the protagonist, you can get the general gist of what they said. If the translation is important, I would try to find a way to have it as part of the story, not just dumped on the reader. Too much foreign language use gets daunting and can turn readers off. If the characters are supposed to understand each other, then use English, with maybe something like '"Let's go to bed. I'm horny," he said in his uncultured Mandarin dialect.'

"the shapeshifter" would work, or you could use a different term (eg. give the shapeshifter race a name and use that instead or as an alternate for variety).

As my editor will tell you, I've got a bad habit of writing things in gender-neutral terms, especially when referring to someone else. "They" and "them" can work well. For example (using Cole's suggestion of Robin): Robin's curiosity was aroused. It wasn't often that that happened. Before they could do anything about it, though, the tavern erupted in a ball of flames. Robin's fur was singed, but otherwise was unharmed. Hiding behind a wagon gave Robin the chance to overhear the town guard's questioning of the bystanders. "There was a stranger here earlier this evening. Did you see which way they went?" "Yeah, I did. They were pretty quiet. Kept to themselves, but I saw them head over to the Blue Oyster. I don't think they were going there for a drink, though, if you know what I mean."

Is this supposed to be a complete listing of all stories? If so, it's incomplete because I have a lot more stories than those listed. It's got all my novels plus my 'Drawn From Life' items, but it's missing all of my short stories. It's a nice idea, but the work required to collate and check it, and then to maintain it, may be too much. If the maintenance issue can be sorted out, though, I think it'll be great!

No problems for me, either, though I have problems with some other sites. In my case, it's because memory on my laptop is in short supply and if it tries to load a large page, it has to spend time swapping things out of memory to make room.

Autism is a neurological condition. Essentially, the brain is wired differently to the neurotypical (the norm). As a consequence, Autism is a spectrum, rather than a single condition with specific symptoms. A few, from the story, are: Inability to read non-verbal cues (such as facial expressions) Tendency to not make eye contact Social/emotional instincts tend to not exist. Someone with autism can show this sort of behaviour, but it's learnt, not instinctive. Tendency to be rules focused. Breaking rules is a big no-no Inability to prioritise facts. All facts are important -- there's no hierarchy. This can swamp the person with Autism, as it means there is too much data to process at once Sensitivity to some senses. Light and sound are common ones, but it could also be smell, touch, or taste. Keith appears to have sound and touch sensitivities, as shown by the aversion to loud noises, and how he doesn't like the feel of certain material Tendency to think differently. Because of the weakness in social/emotional instincts,and the inability to prioritise facts, as well as a different brain wiring, they see things from a different perspective Having said all of that, there's a saying I heard several years ago: If you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. What that means is that they're all different. Keith is a good example of one person with autism, but his behaviour isn't 'typical' of someone with autism because there's no such thing. It's certainly consistent with what I know of the condition, but autism shows itself as a set of traits from a wide pool of possible traits, whence why it's called a spectrum. It's the fascination with reading the story from the point of view of someone with a different way of looking at things that intrigues me with this story. Seeing things from Keith's point of view, and trying to appreciate that point of view, is why I'm loving this story.

The part about Keith expecting the operation to go for exactly 12 hours is very typical for someone with autism. They tend to be precise, and expect others to be the same. We (the neurotypical) may find it amusing, but it's a very real behavioural pattern. I also loved the bit about a 73 page get-well card.... The final edited card, though, was very moving

Very well done

a nice comic -- thank you!

There's been a suggestion that one of the reasons the Supreme Court has been slow to react is because of the backlash due to the Roe vs Ward decision. It has been suggested that that decision preceded community standards at the time by too much, and it resulted in entrenched positions. The theory is that if they wait longer for society itself to evolve, when they eventually make a decision (like they did in Loving vs Virginia), they're merely reaffirming society's views on the remaining states that were resisting. However, I don't see that they can refuse to take the matter in the next term. There's too much pressure on them from the various states.

I heard about this early this morning. I'll admit that I'm still uncertain as to my exact reaction. While I'm very pleased, I'm not sure how I feel about all the anti-Ugandan comments that have been made, since this is, after all, a decision by Ugandans to say that the law was unconstitutional. Tarring all Ugandans with the same brush has obviously been wrong. There may be a majority who are anti-gay, but the rule of law still applies

This is a story that has impressed me greatly. I have some experience with autism, and the characterisations in this story are, to me, spot on. It's extremely challenging because, as he's shown so far, someone with autism thinks differently to the 'neurotypical' (those without autism). I'm looking forward to the rest of the story. PS: The presentation is great, too. Thanks to the staff at AD for the fantastic formatting.

This isn't new. We got an anatomically correct boy doll for our eldest son when his younger brother was born. That way he had a baby to look after at the same time as us. It was actually a recommendation for older siblings when there's a new baby boy in the family, and it worked a treat. When one of us was cuddling the new baby, he was cuddling his new baby.

Australian gun rights and American gun rights are not comparable. While the lower rate of guns in the community may be considered to be a boon, that only works here because of the culture that goes with it. While violence occurs, it's usually fist fights. Knives and guns in violence are generally restricted to small sectors of the community usually associated with criminal elements. Interestingly, though, guns are not a major part of crime. I think the criminals know that in Australia using a gun in a crime will be seen as abhorrent and will bring down the full force of the law to track down the culprits. Unless the payoff is huge, the use of a gun in crime is therefore seen as counter-productive. Just my view on that subject The Australian situation is not exportable to most other nations. On multiculturalism, I'll just support what Des has said. My view is that it takes two to three generations for a new ethnic group to be absorbed into the Australian culture. The first generation sticks together, the second generation starts to merge in with the wider community (having grown up alongside other Australians from outside their own ethnic group) and the third generation is pretty much integrated into the community. That's pretty much completed with the Mediterranean immigrants after WWII, and is well underway with the following Asian immigrants. The middle-eastern and African immigrants are just starting that process, which is why there are some issues occurring in those groups, especially in Western Sydney.

A federal court judge has struck down the same-sex marriage bans in Colorado, and has refused to put a hold on his decision (unlike many other recent cases after the Supreme Court stepped in to do so for Utah). The only caveat is that his decision won't be binding until August 25th, giving the State Attorney one month to get either the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit or the Supreme Court to step in and put the decision on hold. If neither does, Colorado will join the states in which same-sex marriage is legal. The text of the decision.

As I said, I'm the parent of a child that's been bullied. I was never buillied myself (though I was an outsider), but I've seen how isolated my son became. The saving grace for him is that he had a limited amount of social interaction outside of his year group at school, and that kept him going. I don't believe he ever got to the stage of contemplating suicide.

I haven't commented because I didn't want to. I have a teenage son who has been bullied several times during his school years. In one case, it had been occuring for months, but we didn't learnt about it until near the end of the school year. To be honest, our son didn't realise he was being bullied, either, because it was what is sometimes called social or covert bullying. He was being actively excluded from the social groups at school, and then picked on just enough to upset him, but not quite enough to warrant a strong response from the school. We only found out what was going on when he finally snapped and attacked another (largely innocent) kid at school. That's when we got the full history and realised the extent of the bullying. I feel for the family of this boy. I can't imagine (and I hope I never learn) what it must be like to lose a child so unexpectedly. I also feel for the boys (presumably, though some girls may have been involved, too) who were involved in the bullying. At that age, I expect the suicide would've shaken a lot of them and it may take them time to recover. I won't excuse their behaviour, but I'm not going to ask for punishment with the limited information available. I suspect most of them are still coming to terms with what has occured.

My read of the story is that the parents didn't know. They only found out when they read the suicide note.

There was a recent international survey on homophobia in sports. The first results have been reported. Study shows gay athletes face rampant homophobia While the newspaper article's headline is stating the bleeding obvious, the details are more interesting. I had to cringe when I read about the eighteen-year-old who was voted off his rugby team by his so-called teammates.... What I'm waiting for is to see how much things have changed over time. That survey was looking at any homophobia at any time. Has it gotten better recently? Still waiting, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

A collection of media reports on the subject...all from before the interview with Ian Thorpe actually airs Who cares is Ian Thorpe is gay? 15-year-old closeted me, that's who Ian Thorpe's courage will inspire others, says Matthew Mitcham (Matt Mitcham was openly gay when he won a gold medal in diving at the Beijing Olympics) Despite Ian Thorpe's announcement, 'poofter' remark from commentator shows how far we have to go Ian Thorpe reveals he's gay Ian Thorpe acknowledges he's gay, let's hope he's happy as well (this is the one I most agree with) Some of those articles refer to another incident that happened this weekend: AFL commentator Brian Taylor slammed for homophobic slur on Geelong's Harry Taylor The juxtaposition of the two events is going to make Brian Taylor's mistake very long lasting....