This blog is now "read-only." I cannot edit or otherwise administer it and you can no longer post comments. Rather than "going quietly into that deep night," though, I'm making it available in perpetuity because there is so much content, and because of links to it elsewhere.

If you would like to correspond and do not have my email address, please click my "blogmail" page. If you write to me using my online mail form, I'll have your email address and when I respond, you'll have mine for future use. Just because I'm no longer blogging doesn't mean I'm not interested in staying in touch.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

I close out September, three quarters of the way through 2008, with more than 100 books under my belt. So far it's been a truly wonderful reading year. What a perfect way to close out my postings to this blog, which began as a way for me to write about reading.

In a few weeks my current subscription to blog-city.com expires. Yes, after more than six years, I've actually run out of things about which to blog, so I've decided not to buy another year's worth of blog hosting. Instead, I'm going to take advantage of their "read only" option, which allows me to keep the blog online in perpetuity, but without the ability to administer or otherwise change - or for you to comment. I made this choice rather than simply letting the blog disappear because I've linked to it from other places and think it's the cleanest way for anybody interested to have access.

I'm making the announcement today so that any of you who would like to comment will have the ability to do so until the existing subscription runs out and LLB's Blog becomes "read only." Although I will no longer be blogging, I will continue to maintain my "blogmail" page (which you can find on the right side of the blog) for those who don't have my email address but would like to contact me for any reason. Just because I'm no longer blogging doesn't mean I'm not interested in staying in touch.

If you do leave a comment today, this week, or even next, and/or are interested in any give and take between those who do post and myself, please visit again during the next couple of weeks. You'll know I've made the change and gone "read-only" when you see a posting with a later date than this, which will be my official "farewell" to blogdom.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Results from the most recent quick poll are in. The vast majority of us have not been able to restrain ourselves from buying a book for more than a week, and none of us has abstained from book buying for more than a month. As for me, given all the new books I've been reviewing for PW and AAR, and the old books I've reviewed for AAR from my tbr piles, I've been able to go for a month without spending a dime on books.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Two Funny Jews on The Great Schlep...Joel Stein and Sarah Silverman

Off on the Great Schlep by Joel Stein

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- If you need proof that this is the most important election in a generation, get this: Jewish grandkids are flying to Florida to visit their grandparents -- without being guilted into itwithout being guilted into it -- to talk their elders out of voting for John McCain.

The Jewish Council for Education and Research -- a new pro-Obama political action committee -- is organizing "The Great Schlep," in which hundreds of Jews will make the Southern exodus on Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 10-13. They will travel to the Fort Lauderdale area, where they will visit their grandparents, organize political salons in their condos and eat incredibly bad food. The grandkids also will meet up at a bar one night, which -- if the psychological impact of spending a few days with frail, elderly, widowed relatives is taken fully into account -- may do more to repopulate the world's Jews than the creation of Israel.

More than hockey moms or gun-toting God lovers, old Floridian Jews are the most important demographic in this election. They make up about 5% of the voters in a swing state with 27 electoral college votes. They never miss so much as a condo board vote and are normally reliable Democrats.

Barack Obama's trouble winning over older Jewish voters has been difficult for pollsters to explain, so I came here this week to visit my grandmother, Mama Ann, and find out what the hang-up is. After a long discussion about policy, I asked her if the reason she was leaning toward voting for McCain was because Obama is black. She assured me that it was not. Though during dinner, she did casually mention that her grandfather used to express a superstition that if you ate marrow, you'd date a black man. I had no idea that for so many generations, Jews have hated marrow.

Mama Ann thought the three days of the Great Schlep would be very effective. "Oh boy, the grandparents will start cooking three days ahead," she said, making me worry that many Schleppers won't last through three days of canned pineapple and dry chicken. "If they see their grandchildren, they'll go along. They just need more assurance on Israel." Israel, Mama Ann explained, is the key issue her condo friends vote on. When McCain sings about bombing Iran, he is singing a sweet serenade to Florida's electoral collegians.

To persuade Mama Ann to vote for Obama, I used many of the talking points suggested to me by Great Schlep organizer Mik Moore. These included the fact that Obama went to Columbia and Harvard, and McCain got bad grades in college; that Obama has been criticized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and that Obama ran the business side of his campaign better than any other candidate. I did not know that I could be so racially offended by my own people.

After convincing Mama Ann not to vote for McCain, I then had to persuade her not to write in Hillary Clinton, who the old Jews here love for her feisty, scrappy Estelle Getty-ness.

Feeling confident, I headed down to the condo Hadassah meeting, where I asked some people who they were voting for. A few had Obama buttons in Hebrew. One wanted to tell me how Lyndon Johnson helped the Jews more than people know. Seven wanted to set me up with their granddaughters despite the fact that I was wearing my wedding ring.

But many more were sure Obama was Muslim and that extremist Arabs "had his ear." I strongly urge Obama to take one day off campaigning and go to a courthouse to legally change his middle name from "Hussein" to "Seriously, People, I'm Not a Muslim."

Having tackled the Hadassah meeting, I drove over to Palm Beach with Mama Ann to talk to her first cousin, Rochelle Bramsen. When Rochelle's daughter and son-in-law, whom she lives with, argued for Obama, she bristled. I joined in, and asked -- as suggested by the talking points -- if she inaccurately thought Obama was a Muslim. Both Aunt Rochelle and Mama Ann said yes, they thought he was. When we all tired of arguing about that, I asked if it would be such a big deal if Obama were a Muslim. This was, I quickly realized, not on the list of recommended talking points for good reason.

"For me, personally, that would be an issue," said Rochelle. Thinking we'd trapped her in a rhetorical corner, her kids and I asked why Muslims in office would be worse than Christians. To which Rochelle deftly responded, "Who says I'm OK with Christians?"

Rochelle was also upset that Obama didn't wear an American flag lapel pin at first. I asked Rochelle if she wore a flag pin. "No, but I expect more from our leaders," she said. I am pretty sure Rochelle just doesn't trust anyone who doesn't wear at least some jewelry.

Still, by the end of our discussion, Rochelle seemed to have joined Mama Ann as an Obama supporter. But there's a fair chance that by Columbus Day, both Mama Ann and Aunt Rochelle will have forgotten that.

So it's important that other grandchildren -- hopefully some who are vaguely my age and shape -- fly down here for the Great Schlep salons. Even if they fail, they won't be sorry: I saw a movie for $3.50, had dinner for $10 and was treated like whatever the Jewish equivalent of a saint is by everyone in the condo complex just for stopping by. I say we do this every Columbus Day. Next year, hopefully, we'll be hanging poolside with retiree John McCain.

Sarah Silverman (of "I was raped by a doctor, which is a bittersweet experience for a Jewish girl" fame) on The Great Schlep

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Both here and on the Potpourri Forum I've posted a linked image and sample letter from AAR users to the founders of the DIK Ladies blog. They've had ample opportunity to respond to my email of nearly two weeks ago, and since a couple of them Twitter and subscribe to my tweets, I know they're at least aware of the situation. If you have a blog or site, please add the linked image to your right on behalf of AAR:

If not, simply comment on their site (or email one of the site's contributors...if you can find an email) about your feelings, and if you'd like, use the following as a sample:

Dear Ladies -

It has come to my attention that the name of your blog was created in 1996 by the publisher of All About Romance. I further understand that she emailed the founder of this blog - the individual who wrote the first blog entry - asking for credit nearly two weeks ago and has yet to receive a response. Out of fairness and justice, two values I hold as important in my life and dealings with others, I ask that you reconsider your position and give credit where it is due by prominently displaying, on a permanent basis, that the intellectual and historical ownership of both DIK and Desert Isle/Island Keeper belongs to All About Romance.

Sincerely,

If you do either or both of these things, please comment here about it and let me know if there is any result.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

My response to the DA situation (in comments to Cindy)...and last words on the matter.

Earlier this month I "tweeted" about something that has bothered me for about a month. It came to a head a week and a half ago when I received an email from Sybil Cook (The Good, the Bad, & the Unread) asking if I would write about it in more detail for a blog entry she planned to write. Throughout last week I crafted a response, sending her my final version over the weekend; she said she planned for the larger story to appear on her blog Sunday or Monday.

My anxiety level began to rise as first Sunday, and then Monday came and went. I emailed her Monday afternoon and asked about the story; she indicated that her co-bloggers didn't see any larger story, so she was having to re-think it all. While my initial tweet was more or less a throw-away line designed to help me let off some steam, Sybil's original request and my subsequent five paragraph "official" response took on a life of their own in my head. Because it now appears as though there won't be an article elsewhere, I'm impelled to go ahead on my own. This is what I wrote last week for Sybil on the issue of Internet "ownership," and in specific, the name of a blog created over the summer: DIK - Desert Island Keepers blog.

The second column I ever wrote online featured the genesis of the idea for the Desert Isle Keeper, aka DIK. That was in 1996. The first use of the actual term “Desert Isle Keeper” – which I found doing a “freefind” search on AAR's live site – was from a 1996 interview with author Al Garratto. And though I know that if I spent more time looking on my hard drive I’d find even earlier references, the acronym “DIK” dates back to at least as early as 1998 and my coda at the bottom of a reader-submitted DIK review for Prisoner of My Desire.

We’ve always been glad to share our content…as long as we’re credited for it. I remember several years ago The Washington Post liberally “borrowed” from our interview of author Elizabeth Mansfield for their obit of her. It was such a let down to me that the paper of Woodward and Bernstein would be so lax in following the rules of journalism that I insisted they print a correction, which they did…a week later. When books have used our material, we ask for credit, as well as when foreign language publishers want to reprint parts of interviews for books published by authors in those languages. The same goes for other online venues. We’re glad to share our ideas, but giving credit where it’s due is very important because we obviously don’t do this for the money or the glory. <g>

Because we’ve been around so long, much of our terminology has become part of the public domain. I accept that, and am happy to see it as a general rule. But to see something like “DIK” used in the title of a blog without deference to its more-than-decade-long history shocked the hell out of me when I first saw it. It also saddened me. Many of those who contribute to that blog are or were AAR readers. In trying to view this from a less cynical perspective, my guess is that because a lot of them are readers first and bloggers next, they simply never considered any larger issues behind taking a term created elsewhere and using it in the title of their blog. An even more benign view is that, because the term has been around for so long, some probably never even considered it HAD a history, particularly if they are newer to the Internet. And, yes, it’s not trademarked. It never occurred to me more than a decade ago that I would need to trademark our content; I figured the copyright notice at the bottom of each page took care of that.

As I have no trademark for the term, I can’t really do anything about it, which is why I’ve kept pretty quiet about it other than a single twitter I made last week, one that interested you. I realize websites are, for many people, less “the thing” than blogs these days, but, yes, I feel AAR was dissed. I actually wrote to one of the blog’s founders – the woman who wrote the first entry – to explain the history and ask for that recognition. But that was Monday, and as I write this to you, it’s Friday…and I’ve heard nothing in return.

It’s incredibly difficult to go public with my reactions on this because I have friends who write for the blog, and I hold onto the belief that they simply didn’t consider what they were doing when they came up with the name and/or agreed to be part of it. Earlier this year I experienced a crisis of confidence about AAR and to process through that in order to arrive at a positive place, emotionally speaking, I had to try and let go of what other venues did/do/will do and instead, focus on what WE’RE doing. But because this particular instance struck so close to home, I’ve not done a very good job of that as I’m still sad and frustrated. I’d hoped that my throw-away tweet would end it on a public basis, and if you’d not emailed me, that would have been it. But since you asked…

Since all of this came up, my husband and I have talked about it. What surprises him is my naïveté in not "understanding" that if you make something available, people will take it, "kosher" or not. He knows that I feel sad and frustrated but cannot comprehend why I don't "get" that the Internet has changed over the past several years and it's now a total free-for-all with no rules of engagement. Thing is, I do get it, but still, stupidly, I suppose, believe that people behave as their parents taught them...that if you must use something created by somebody else, you need to credit them. Just as I need to get over it because obviously that's too old-fashioned an ideal.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

In Defense of Elitism