Chris Nicholson's Writing Weblog
March 27, 2006 • Monday
This morning I've finally posted a feature I wrote for USTA Magazine almost a year ago.
"Tennis Tales" follows the stories of four mid-level pro tennis players at the 2004 US Open Qualifying Tournament.
This article was my first assignment after embarking as a full-time freelancer in August 2004.
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March 16, 2006 • Thursday
My secrets for maintaining a consistent blog:
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March 10, 2006 • Friday
According to an article on LiveScience.com, author Margaret Atwood has invented a remotely-operated pen that allows her to "attend" a book signing from thousands of miles away.
Atwood can now sit at home in Canada, converse with a fan in an Athens bookstore via webcam, and sign the book with her newly invented "LongPen."
Isn't it nice when famous people reach out?
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March 08, 2006 • Wednesday
Dan Brown, author of the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, is attending a London Court hearing this week to defend himself against a copyright infringement case.
The plaintiffs, Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, are arguing that Brown stole the idea for The Da Vinci Code from their 1982 book The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail.
My guess is that Leigh and Baigent are trying to get either money or publicity. As professional writers, they should be well aware that copyright laws protect specific expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves.
For instance, there's nothing illegal about someone writing another book about an obsessed sea captain hunting a white whale. England is a signed party of the Berne Convention, which essentially standardizes copyright law throughout most of the civilized world.
For more information on Brown's court case, there's a good article in the Christian Science Monitor.
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March 07, 2006 • Tuesday
I'm a little tired of the Phelps Family. If you're not aware, they're a small group of Catholic extremists who have been protesting at private funerals of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq, holding signs aimed at the deceased's family reading (among other things) "God hates your tears" and "You're going to hell."
(See articles on CNN.com, FOX News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch websites.)
I'm all for free speech, but I'm more than uncomfortable with the idea of slinging arrows at the grieving just to broadcast a message.
The thing is, the Phelps Family isn't even protesting the war in Iraq. They're protesting homosexuality.
So why target soldiers' funerals? Because, the Phelps reason, those soldiers died while fighting for an army of a country that accepts homosexuality.
The logical disjoints of this approach are profound. Still, absurdity does not disallow one's right to speak an opinion.
Then what's my problem? The silliness of protesting their point. The U.S. government — by any stretch of anyone's imagination — does not promote homosexuality. By our country's nature of freedom for all, it merely allows homosexuality. It does so via the same principle that allows bigots to voice prejudiced opinions: freedom of choice, freedom of expression.
Therefore, in effect, the Phelps Family is attacking the same freedom that allows them to lodge the attack. It's self-defeating propoganda. Idealogically, they're cutting off their upturned nose to spite their fanatical face.
I know — as Americans, we have a protected right to argue. But to promote a hate-based agenda by verbally attacking funeral mourners? That's just crass.
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