Nablopomo for August: Fiction

Seems like only yesterday.

By the way, next month's theme for Nablopomo is Fiction. I'm participating. Here's the badge.



More on this theme beginning tomorrow, which will be in a few minutes. See you then!

Time to share the following from my email.

August's theme for daily blogging: FICTION. Certainly, blogging is about truth-telling; recording our lives. But how often does fiction seep into our reconstruction of our day? Is it important to always be honest, or can we skew the facts to present a better story?Beyond that, how can you not enjoy delving into a work of fiction? Finding a new world, new characters, new inventions that didn't exist until the writer placed them on the page. This month, we have to spend some time sharing our favourite books, authors, and characters.

I've been waiting for a theme like this to come along for months, as I have a whole bunch of book-related posts that I've been promising to do, going all the way back to April, when I wrote three entries in which I said I'd revisit the topic.


The first was Contemplating the Hedgehog: Introduction. Even though the series of posts I want to write would have fit better under "Swim" as they would describe a blogger swimming against the stream, I met the blogger andelku on a discussion forum about a series of books and the series of posts is inspired by that same series. In fact the first post of hers mentions the book, so it counts.

The second was Book recommendation: Stuffed and Starved.

This book is all about the global politics of food, so much so that I'm using it for a textbook.

As for the book's relevance to collapse, there is a lot wrong with the international food system, some of which is contributing to global collapse and much of which won't survive collapse, either, such as the long supply lines and heavy use of fossil fuels. In this book, Raj Patel gives a piercing critique of the way global capitalism shapes what humans grow and eat, exposing many of the flaws in the food system that contribute to collapse and what can be done about it. It's also an entertaining and informative read and Raj Patel is a charming and compelling person who knows his gin.

I'll probably blog more about it later, but right now, I'm going back to bed.

I'm still using this for a textbook, so this theme is the perfect excuse to re-read it and blog it, something I promised on Daily Kos at the end of December.

As some of you may know, I'm a college professor who usually teaches science courses such as biology, environmental science, and geology. This upcoming semester, I will be stretching myself by teaching a course called "The Global Politics of Food." I won't be alone in this; there is a political science professor teaching this course with me. Still, it will be the first non-science course I've taught since I was a substitute teacher ten years ago, so it's going to be an experience.

For the textbooks, the other professor and I picked out Karl Weber's "Food, Inc.," the companion guide to the movie, and Raj Patel's "Stuffed and Starved."

I quoted another passage from this post in James Howard Kunstler swims against the stream on marriage equality, which concluded:

This post is about the book Food Inc. and was the first of a projected series. I plan on reposting it on Crazy Eddie's Motie News as a "Blast fron the Past" (I already reposted it to my LiveJournal) and then resuming blogging about the book. Nearly all the book would fit right in with the themes explored here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News. Yes, my plate is filling up quickly. At least I teach from Food Inc., so blogging about it would explicitly be professional development.

That repost will happen later this week. Look for it.

The third promise I made in April I wrote in 'Atlas Shrugged' gets the reviews and box office it deserves (Part I of a series). I promised something to all of you in the conclusion to that entry.

Objectivism is a philosophy that is contributing to our problems. Worse yet, it is becoming a response to our problems, making them even worse.

What, you say, Objectivism causes collapse? Yes. It's all there in the manual. But that's the subject of Part II.

Stay tuned.

So it will only take me four months. I'll make sure it's worth the wait.

I have even more book-related promises that I made more recently, such as the one I made in Elaine Meinel Supkis uses anime and draws fan art to make sustainability points.

As for her telling Kunstler that he was wrong about dogs in his post-peak-oil future, she did so in her review of "A World Made by Hand." It's a long post, and she has even more to say about dogs on both her old site and her new one, so look for my commentary on those posts later.

Finally, tomorrow is the special millage election for the Troy Public Library. That is definitely a book-related post!

By the way, I'm not finished with the email from Nablopomo.

As always, bloggers planning on posting every day in August who would like to be on the blogroll can go here and follow the directions at the top of the page (note: the blogroll will only be open until August 2nd at night). The "official" August badge is here, but please feel free to create your own and add it to the comments there for others to share.

I've already added Crazy Eddie's Motie News to the blogroll.

But wait, there's more!

Once again, we're offering a writing contest on BlogHer (with publication and a cash prize). Scroll down to the bottom of this email to read more.
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Okay, for those who wish to also participate in the August NaBloPoMo contest (Real Housewife of Belgrade was the July winner) read on. If you want to enter:

• Sign up for August's NaBloPoMo and commit to posting every day for the month of August on your blog. (You can also cross-post your writing on the NaBloPoMo site.) You must post daily in order to be considered for the contest.
• Next, choose and answer one of the daily prompts in a post. You can see the current prompt on the front page of NaBloPoMo each day or you can get them on Twitter by following @BlogHerBlogging. You can use the prompts daily, or you can write whatever you wish for the other days of the month and choose one prompt to answer for the contest.
• Please fill out this form any time between August 1st and August 20th (11 pm EST). You may only enter one post and you cannot change the post once you enter.
• The winner will be emailed by August 22nd and the post will run on BlogHer and be promoted on August 25th. The winner will be paid $50 in September for this August post.

I've never used one of the Nablopomo prompts before, although today's, "What is your favourite book?" would be more promising if I had more time and didn't have my own very busy agenda. Still, I might enter the contest if for no other reason than to get someone from NaBloPoMo to read the blog. No one has surfed over here from there since May.