(no subject)

Michigan State Assistant Attorney General launches bizarre Internet war on openly gay University of Michigan student -- This is truly strange. Anderson Cooper interviewed this gentleman, Andrew Shirvell, last night. Shirvell was accusatory & rather hostile in general as a guest. I don't know why exactly he agreed to do the interview. At any rate, I've never heard of a public official targeting a gay citizen, or a college student, in this fashion before.

Funeral protests test limits of free speech at Supreme Court -- As the Court stands now in terms of composition, I don't see much hope for this to be decided in a way that will please most people.

2nd school suggests Christine O’Donnell fudged record -- "First, reporters discovered that Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell did not attend Oxford University, despite her claims to the contrary. And now Claremont Graduate University says O'Donnell never attended its institution."

That's not me!

Last year, I submitted some poems to a magazine. The editor wrote back, accepting two of my pieces but asking if he could do a huge edit on the longer. Basically, he wanted to gut the entire ending. I wrote back, stating why the portion was essential, & asked again that the piece be accepted as is or not at all. I never heard back from the editor, so I assumed that I'd been too forward, the pieces were not going to press, e&.

Imagine my surprise when I found a contributor's copy addressed to me.

Leafing through it, I saw that neither of the poems were edited. Huh, I thought. Maybe this turned out after all.

Then I flipped to the biographies. (It's funny--the bios are almost the first thing I check out in a contributor's copy; I think I want to know who my neighbors are.) The bios were in alphabetical order by first name--not a good sign. I read with interest an entry for the author of a poem I particularly liked; the entry noted other journals in which his work had featured--it was a standard bio, which was a good sign. In short order, I got to mine.

I share a last name with several celebrities, such as a basketball player (my high school government teacher used to call me by that male's first name to underscore that fact). I also share it with a well-known scientist. You may guess which one when you read the bio the magazine in question decided to give to me:

( not me )

Considering some of the spelling, it's obvious that this bio was in all probability lifted from somewhere else. God knows I didn't supply this biographical information.

I don't know what to do about this. Of course, I will write the editor & ask for a retraction. But, in many respects, the damage has been done: whomever hunts down a print copy of this magazine (say, in an attempt to authenticate my CV), that person will see that very wrong bio.

I've just never heard of such a problem in the publishing industry. Not saying that this is the first time something like this has happened--who knows--but it's not a common enough problem to have been identified & collated for advice gurus to tackle.

(no subject)

Prostitution laws struck down by Ontario court