tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51532034025911778452024-03-13T11:32:07.015-07:00I Want To Be Left BehindFundamentalism meets deep ecology in Brenda Peterson's new memoir. This rather dark, divine comedy of family and conflicting faiths uses humor to defuse dogma -- whether it is religious or environmental. Acclaimed novelist and nature writer, Peterson takes on human nature and what she calls a spiritual ecology that is as concerned with saving the earth as well as our own souls. She paints such a hilarious, loving portrait of each world that we will all want to be Left Behind.
"Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-72410808227233509332012-08-16T22:54:00.000-07:002012-08-16T22:54:06.351-07:00In the Swim at the Mermaid Convention in Orlando, Florida<div class="body" style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font: inherit; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
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Thanks to all of my generous backers and welcome to all of you who are about to dive into <i style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drowning-World-Aquantis-Series-ebook/dp/B008SCOVKW" target="_blank">The Drowning World</a> </i>as <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1770521679/dive-into-the-future-in-a-sci-fi-fantasy-the-drown" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a> publishing partners. Ever wonder how a novelist researches and creates an alternate universe? First, we often build upon what's real. </div>
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Last week I joined my brother's family and met up with my NYC literary agent to attend the second annual Mermaid Convention, MerPalooza in Orlando, Florida. Mermaids galore paraded with their Dragonsilk silicone tails. </div>
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For the <i style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Huffington Post</i>, I interviewed a young and very elegant professional mermaid, Spindrift (a.k.a. Mermaid Enaikai). She is getting her Master's in Design in upstate New York and very savvy about MerWorld. She not only swims in her powerful tail flukes, she also teaches ocean conservation to kids. Stay tuned for more mermaid photos and back story on <i style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Drowning World</i> in my next update. And thanks again for joining my publishing Pod. We're well on our watery way!</div>
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<li style="border: 0px; font: inherit; font: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Image-148559-full" height="360" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/212941/posts/288795/image-148559-full.jpg?1345150007" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="640" />Mermaid award ceremony, Merpalooza, Orlando, Florida</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font: inherit; font: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Image-148562-full" height="640" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/212941/posts/288795/image-148562-full.jpg?1345150686" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="512" />Mermaid Enaikai with her lovely tail flukes</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font: inherit; font: inherit; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Image-148563-full" height="640" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/212941/posts/288795/image-148563-full.jpg?1345150838" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="350" />Brenda interviews a professional mermaid</li>
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Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-20369228473594845832012-07-06T19:07:00.001-07:002012-07-06T19:09:56.043-07:00Leopard and Silkie on Television<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijmRwSNtdlOahOC0w2jRG9nU8ULSqBDgELY5VZyixuTtTMmH_eVXwKeDVNM5Yr5DjwsWlu_-i_RWuFK5hgge3lsf-R735_lGi7ET1jJAaOURUU6ZZH6qvubrOHrU6OvKzFx_hTPHsVH3rT/s1600/LeopardandSilkie+Lo+res+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijmRwSNtdlOahOC0w2jRG9nU8ULSqBDgELY5VZyixuTtTMmH_eVXwKeDVNM5Yr5DjwsWlu_-i_RWuFK5hgge3lsf-R735_lGi7ET1jJAaOURUU6ZZH6qvubrOHrU6OvKzFx_hTPHsVH3rT/s400/LeopardandSilkie+Lo+res+web.jpg" width="395" /></a></div>
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Video link: <a href="http://www.katu.com/amnw/segments/Saving-Young-Seals-161579195.html">http://www.katu.com/amnw/segments/Saving-Young-Seals-161579195.html</a><br />
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This week Leopard and Silkie hauled out onto television. Here's a clip from ABC news KATU station in Portland, Oregon.<br />
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Saving Young Seals</h1>
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Story Published: Jul 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM PDT</div>
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What should you do if you find a seal pup on a Northwest beach? Leave it alone! Chances are good it's just resting. Brenda Peterson, author of the new book <em>Leopard & Silkie, </em>joined us to share the amazing first-hand story of the vulnerable baby seals that are left on shore while their mothers hunt for food, and the concerned volunteers who keep vigil over them. The star of the book is six year old Miles, who organizes his own rescue mission to help the seals survive.</div>
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Featuring beautiful photographs of the seal pups and their natural habitat by Robin Lindsey, and with its emphasis on human compassion, this true account teaches children to appreciate the natural world by helping in any way they can.</div>
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<li style="padding: 2px 0px;">Book Signing for <em>Leopard & Silkie</em></li>
<li style="padding: 2px 0px;">Saturday, July 7 at 11:00am</li>
<li style="padding: 2px 0px;">Powell's City of Books, 1005 West Burnside, Portland</li>
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For more information on the book and Seal Sitters, visit the <a href="http://www.leopardandsilkie.com/" style="color: #00338e;" target="_blank">website.</a></div>
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<br />Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-66472754412717289732012-07-01T10:47:00.000-07:002012-07-01T10:50:26.944-07:00"Common Ground" NPR Interview with Brenda Peterson by KUOW's Dave Beck<br />
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Dear Readers.<br />
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Here's a link to my new NPR interview with host/producer Dave Beck on "KUOW Presents" about my memoir and my new picture book, <i>Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save the Seal Pups</i>. It's 7 minutes long but the culmination of three hours of interviews.<br />
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It's one of the most elegantly crafted and narrated interviews. Dave expertly tells my story as narrator and I'm a character in it. Fascinating and in-depth process that makes other Q&A interviews seem one-dimensional. I hope you enjoy it. We recorded it on my backyard beach. At the beginning and end of our interview a mature bald eagle flew right over us. Like a benediction.<br />
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Thanks for listening!<br />
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Here's the link:<br />
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<a href="http://kuow.org/program.php?id=27197">http://kuow.org/program.php?id=27197</a><br />
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<img alt="KUOW's Dave Beck speaks with Seattle author Brenda Peterson at the site where Brenda began the nonprofit organization Seal Sitters. (Photo: Robin Lindsey)" class="feature" height="150" src="http://kuow.org/images/programs/120630-dave.jpg" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="250" /><br />
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KUOW's Dave Beck speaks with Seattle author Brenda Peterson at the site where Brenda began the nonprofit organization Seal Sitters. (Photo: Robin Lindsey)</div>
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Brenda Peterson: Finding Common Ground</h1>
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It's sometimes difficult to engage in conversation with people whose beliefs are very different from your own. But Brenda Peterson, a West Seattle author and environmentalist, has found a place on a local beach where she can have those conversations. It's a sanctuary for Brenda where she finds connection with creatures of all kinds. And it's the place where she founded the nonprofit Seal Sitters a few years ago.</div>
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Seal Sitters is a volunteer organization that watches after seal pups that show up on Puget Sound beaches. Brenda Peterson speaks with KUOW's Dave Beck. Her new children's book, based on her experiences with Seal Sitters, is called "Leopard and Silkie."</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://kuow.org/program.php?id=27197">http://kuow.org/program.php?id=27197</a></span></span></div>
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<li style="line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="color: #297584; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="'I Want To Be Left Behind,' Brenda Peterson's memoir">'I Want To Be Left Behind,' Brenda Peterson's memoi</a>r</li>
<li style="line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/">http://www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></li>
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<li style="line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.leopardandsilkie.com/" style="color: #297584; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="'Leopard and Silkie' by Brenda Peterson">'Leopard and Silkie' by Brenda Peterson</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><a href="http://www.leopardandsilkie.com/">http://www.leopardandsilkie.com</a></i></li>
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<li style="line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="color: #297584; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Seal Sitters">Seal Sitters</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/">http://www.sealsitters.org</a></li>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-65532394724307278322012-06-14T22:24:00.001-07:002012-06-14T22:24:08.875-07:00Restoring Our Nature: Kids in the Wild<br />
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Climbing with kids and Pacific Tree Climbers in Blue River, Oregon<br />
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Author, 'I Want to Be Left Behind'</div>
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<span class="arial_11 color_696969" style="border: none; color: dimgrey; font-family: Arial; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Posted: 06/14/2012 10:00 am</span><a class="absolute print-link" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/restoring-our-nature-kids_b_1594327.html?view=print&comm_ref=false" rel="nofollow" style="background-image: url(http://s.huffpost.com/images/b_pixie.png?v4); background-position: -50px -649px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: none; bottom: 0px; color: #399800; display: block; height: 17px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-decoration: none; width: 20px;"></a></div>
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"What if all the electricity was off for a long time ... like in Japan after the tsunami?" I recently asked an assembly of fifth graders at a local Seattle school. "No cell phones, no computers -- could you survive?"</div>
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An unusual moment of hesitation from these bright children; they were gathered to hear about our new picture book, <a href="http://leopardandsilkie.com/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Leopard and Silkie</em></a>, on how kids can volunteer to help protect seal pups on Seattle beaches.</div>
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"How would you do out there in the wild on your own?" I asked.</div>
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Then a hundred hands shot up.</div>
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"I'd go fishing," a boy shouted proudly.</div>
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"Got a fishing pole?" a little girl near him demanded.</div>
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The boy frowned, shaking his head. Already you could see gears in his head spinning about how to make a fishing pole. This was a highly creative school that placed a value on self-directed learning. Many of the kids had good ideas about how to forage or hunt. But at least half of the children didn't think they'd do too well on their own on the beach or in the woods without electricity.</div>
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"How much time to you spend outside versus inside on your screens?" I asked them.</div>
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The consensus was immediate and sobering: <em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">much</em> more time on their computers and phones than playing outside. I was asking these questions because I'd just read this shocking statistic from the<a href="http://www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Be-Out-There/Why-Be-Out-There/Benefits.aspx" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">National Wildlife Federation</a>: "The average American boy or girl spends just 4 to 7 minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day, and more than 7 hours each day in front of an electronic screen."</div>
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The NWF is advising parents to give their children one "<a href="http://www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Be-Out-There/Why-Be-Out-There/What-is-a-Green-Hour.aspx" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Green Hour</a>" a day to connect them to their natural world. The <a href="http://www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Be-Out-There/Why-Be-Out-There/Benefits.aspx" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">health benefits</a> from playing with nature are well-documented: according to the NWF, playing outside eases stress, reduces obesity, raises levels of Vitamin D, offers protection from diabetes, heart disease, and helps reduce ADHD symptoms.</div>
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When our kids are in good shape, can run through the woods or along the beach like wild horses, can climb trees and build sand castles, and play pirates and build tree forts -- their play builds good health and survival skills. In a future of global warming, rising seas, monster storms, and climate change, teaching our kids how to survive in the wild, without electricity and electronics, might be the best gift we can offer them.</div>
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According to NWF, "children's stress levels fall within minutes of seeing green spaces." Playing in nature also increases student performance and encourages social interaction and self-esteem.</div>
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Recently, I witnessed another group of children discover and claim their outdoor survival skills in the old-growth trees on a national forest and biosphere in Blue River, Oregon. As a writer-in-residence at the <a href="http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">HJ Andrews Experimental Forest,</a> I spent a week studying this vital Long-Term Ecological Research Network <a href="http://www.lternet.edu/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">(LTER)</a> sponsored by the National Science Foundation.</div>
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Calling for owls at midnight, hearing research biologists explain why old-growth decay nurtures the whole forest, sharing stories of how to engage the next generations in conservation -- it was a fabulous reunion with the old trees and devoted scientists of the U.S. Forest Service.</div>
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But my favorite experience at the HJ Andrews Experimental forest, was tree-climbing with the schoolchildren. I don't mean scampering up a small pine tree together. I mean donning helmets, rock-climbing gear, and using all our muscles to cinch up inch-by-inch with ropes slung expertly over the wide limbs of a 500-year-old cedar. The 7th graders hefted their trim bodies up the mammoth tree with the expert guidance of adult climbers from <a href="http://www.pacifictreeclimbing.com/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Pacific Tree Climbing Institute. </a></div>
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One obese child and a terrified girl were left behind in the lower branches. The overweight boy was red-faced and humiliated as he hung from his harness. Swinging near him, the girl's "sewing machine legs" trembled in terror.</div>
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"Don't be afraid!" the other kids called down. There was no teasing or ridiculing, just communal support.</div>
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"You can do it!"</div>
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"Just lift up with your knees and then push up one step at a time," the Pacific Tree Climbing guide showed them the technique.<br />
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Here's video of the kids climbing high above me:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzrgYByYUZP_FROnrVIEGCHJb0nr55qnIjq3VqAXiVFpONiyaWQFpeLpKFqUNr4JMFgayHhBGxFIDgB0X60HQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Very slowly, the boy lifted his heavy body up until he was much higher. His expression was pure joy and pride as he swayed above. His courage inspired the girl who suddenly got the hang of the rope and harness. In a burst of speed she climbed straight up. With the sudden grace of any primate, she joined the others in the canopy. Everyone cheered and hollered and hooted.</div>
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The kids climbed so far above me I could only see their colorful dangling legs and ropes high up in the old trees. Their chatter ceased as they listened to birdsong and squirrels and an eagle screeching by.</div>
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As I swayed below in the lower limbs, leaning way back on my rope to take in the dizzying heights and the kids above I couldn't help but think,<em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> They see much farther than I do. They are already in the future. </em></div>
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Our children can navigate the Web, and if we give them back their natural birthright, they can also navigate the woods and the beaches. One Green Hour a day -- maybe that's all it takes to restore not only our kids, but also our habitats.</div>
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There is no on-off switch in nature. All our senses are heightened and engaged. We are fully alive and present. We are confident survivors and eternal students. We remember that we are, after all, animals. Predator or prey. Or play.</div>
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<strong style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">More Resources</strong>: <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12828" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Companions in Wonder: Children and Adults Exploring Nature Together, </em></a>MIT Press.</div>
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Seal Sitters: <a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://www.sealsitters.org</a></div>
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<em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Brenda Peterson is a National Geographic author whose 17 books include the new picture book,<a href="http://leopardandsilkie.com/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save the Seal Pups</em></a>. Her recent memoir,<a href="http://iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth,</em></a> was selected among "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010" by <em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Christian Science Monitor</em>.</em></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-16748203669004729302012-05-29T11:53:00.000-07:002012-05-30T22:37:55.933-07:00"Mermaids" on Animal Planet Raises Deeper Issues: Aquatic Ape Theory and Dangerous Sonar<br />
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<i>original artwork, Justina Frantez</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Is
our blue planet also home to mermaids? For centuries we’ve enjoyed myths of sea
creatures sharing our seas and shores as lovers, mothers, and lost children.
From the plaintive Hans Christian Anderson’s <i>Little Mermaid</i> to “mermaids-are-the-new vampires” fantasy novels,
to celebrities like Lady Gaga donning dazzling silver tail flukes — mermaids
are again swimming into our storytelling.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Animal Planet premiered “Mermaids: The Body
Found” on Memorial Day weekend amidst massive media coverage. Most reviews
focused on whether mermaids are real, missing the deeper issues the film
raises: the lethal affects of military sonar on sea life — and a very
intriguing Aquatic Ape theory. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Many of us ocean
advocates and researchers have long been fascinated by The Aquatic Ape theory
first offered in 1960 by marine biologist Alistair Hardy and made popular by Oxford-educated,
Welsh author Elaine Morgan in her many books. The Aquatic Ape theory of human
evolution is an alterative hypothesis to the reigning “Savannah” theory of <i>homo sapiens</i>, which states that our ancestors
left the trees to hunt and gather on the African open plains. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But recent pollen
analysis and fossil evidence reveals that the emergence of the savannah occurred
<i>after</i> our ancestors stood upright and
walked on four legs. East Africa’s climate was warm and wet. At the end of the
Miocene period, seas were rising and the jungles often underwater. Our
ancestors might well have adapted to a more amphibious life in estuaries and
along coastlines. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Aquatic Ape
hypothesis asks some important questions not explained by current
anthropological dogma: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why do bi-pedal
humans have so little body hair when other plains' predators are furry and walk
on four legs?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why can humans
hold their breath up to 20 minutes, longer than any other terrestrial animal?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why are human
infants more like water babies, with the instinctive ability to swim?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If humans evolved
in a hot, dry savannah, why do we have so much subcutaneous fat as if to
insulate ourselves from cold water?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Mainstream and
academic anthropologists ridicule and dismiss The Aquatic Ape theory as an
alternative to their savannah hypothesis. Academics and scientists can be as
slow to consider a new theory or ideas as established religious leaders. But despite
the academic brouhaha, the Aquatic Ape conversation is quite lively and
enduring. Michael
Odent, author of <i>We Are All Water Babies</i>,
offers fascinating notions of how aquatic childbearing and nurturing might have
helped <a href="http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/michel_odent.htmll" target="_blank">our evolution</a>. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In <i>Aquagenesis: the Origin and Evolution of
Life in the Sea, </i>Richard Ellis wonders why this theory of our possible
human amphibious origins has not yet been respectfully considered by mainstream
anthropologists? “Something has to replace the savannah hypothesis,” Ellis
concludes in <i>Aquagenesis</i>, “the
aquatic theory is gaining more and more support.” Why is science leaving this
provocative theory to Animal Planet’s Monster Week?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Water babies.
Mermaids. Aquatic Apes. How could our human imaginations not be captivated? The
Animal Planet “Mermaids” also explores another issue that is based on current
events and actual science — the dangers of military sonar in our waters.
Mermaids and Aquatic Apes may not yet be proven. But the deaths all over the
world from the lethal drone of military sonar are well documented. And increasing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">After long denying
that military sonar tests were linked to deadly dolphin and whale strandings —
from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas to Japan — the U.S. Navy has recently
admitted: The violent blasts of its military sonar may be more harmful than
previously thought. By its own estimates, U.S. Navy sonar and explosives “may
unintentionally cause more than 1,600 instances of hearing loss or other injury
to marine mammals in one year.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Military sonar at
its most intense frequencies can disorient, deafen, and even rupture living
tissue. The acoustic trauma so shocks marine mammals that even deep-diving
whales surface too quickly and die from the bend’s — decompression sickness.
Other injuries linked to military sonar include brain hemorrhages and lungs shredded
into pulp. For the whales and dolphins whose lives depend upon their own
sophisticated echolocation, it’s like being bashed and brutalized with the
blunt instrument of unbearably loud sound waves. A horribly traumatic death.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Earth Justice,
Natural Resources Defense Council, and Indian tribes are now suing the Navy
over its plans to expand their sonar tests off Washington, Oregon, and
California coasts. Public comment meetings will be held June 11<sup>th</sup> in
Hawaii and June 20<sup>th</sup> in Southern California. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.orcanetwork.org/news/L112news.html" target="_blank"> Ken Balcomb</a>,
a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island who has
studied the mammals for years describes military sonar as “acoustic bullets.” When
a three-year-old orca, Victoria (L112), mysteriously died in February off
Washington, military sonar was suspected. </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 200%;">Balcomb stated that injuries to Victoria’s head,
chest, and side are consistent with blast trauma from Navy</span><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 200%;"> </span></b><a href="http://www.cascadiaresearch.org/examination_of_dead_killer_whale-12Feb2012.htm" style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 200%;" target="_blank">sonar</a><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 200%;">.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dolphins are known to rescue us
from drowning. Can we do no less to protect them from this lethal weapon of
military sonar, these underwater sound bombs they cannot escape? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">When you tune into Animal Planet’s <i>Mermaids</i>, dive beneath the surface of
fascinating CGI mermaid images and listen to the subtext of this timely film:
You don’t have to be a mermaid to know that our oceans are in deep trouble.
“Mermaids” is most valuable for the questions it raises. What if the Aquatic
Ape is not just entertainment? What if it’s a viable theory of our own origins?
Would we take better care of the oceans? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And what can we do in real-life to
stop this military sonar that is an underwater holocaust for our marine
mammals. After all, this water planet is our first womb and our life support.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe it’s because our islands and
coastlines are sinking that we’re obsessed with mermaids. Maybe like those
possible amphibious ancestors, we might again learn to adapt to a water world. <i>Homo Aquaticus.</i></span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Brenda Peterson's recent novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Heart-ebook/dp/B005LWW17M" target="_blank">ANIMAL HEART</a>, explores the issues of military sonar, dolphin strandings, and the Aquatic Ape theory.</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-64663478762022902282012-05-16T19:49:00.000-07:002012-05-16T22:39:07.520-07:00CARING FOR ALL CREATURES<br />
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<i><br /></i><br />
<i>Wilma, a lone, sociable beluga adopted by a village in Nova Scotia. Brenda Peterson on the left with camera and her National Geographic co-author (on right) Linda Hogan, encounter Wilma</i><br />
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This Mother's Day, as we celebrate our own mothers, we can also celebrate the many people who adopt other species, wild and domestic, and love them as their own.<br />
<br />
Sometimes it takes a village to practice this interspecies adoption.</div>
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In Nova Scotia, the village of Guysborough adopted an orphaned wild beluga calf they named Wilma. The two-year-old beluga swam lonely circles in the harbor. Wilma used floating buoys as her toys and rubbed up against boats so often that her white flanks were often gashed and scarred from propeller wounds. Yet true to the nature of this sociable species, Wilma continued to playfully approach boats to greet schoolchildren and tourists. So fishermen designed a protective box for their outboard motors. Village elders set their clocks by her and one couple said, "In the evening, we like to hear Wilma make noises like snoring. It's very reassuring."</div>
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Though Wilma was what scientists call a "lone, sociable," who had somehow lost her mother and her pod, she was rarely alone in the harbor. At a town meeting, the whole village of Guysborough turned out to hear how they could best adopt and care for Wilma. They brought in Cathy Kinsman of the <a href="http://www.whalestewardship.org/Catherine_Kinsman.html" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Canadian Whale Stewardship Project</a> and marine mammal biologist, Dr. <a href="http://www.terramarresearch.org/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Toni Frohoff</a>. Villagers wanted their conservation help to protect Wilma from any outside captive industry who might condemn Wilma to life in a tank.</div>
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"Wilma trusts us, don't you know," a grizzled boatman said. "She's our responsibility. Just tell us what Wilma needs."</div>
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The Whale Stewardship Program helped educate Guysborough about how to best watch over their baby beluga in the wild.</div>
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When I visited Guysborough, the boatman took us out to meet Wilma. I was struck by how young she seemed as she exchanged a long, childlike gaze. In Wilma's eyes were all the loneliness and need, the dependence and trust of a human child. Wilma was alone of all her kind, yet surrounded by well-meaning people. She had the plaintive, engaging look of a child awaiting adoption. And this village had the earnest, anxious attitude of adoptive parents.<br />
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<i>Village schoolchildren reach out to Wilma on a field trip in the Guysborough Harbor</i><br />
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I realized that here was another kind of family model, an interspecies kinship new and fragile, awkward and inexperienced. But this was a model for what the future might be, between species that increasingly must meet. To adapt a scientific term, here was the human version of <em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">allomothering</em> -- caring for non-maternal offspring.</div>
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Animals who allomother offspring other than their own include aunties, uncles, siblings, and even non-relatives who babysit, feed, and protect the infants from predators. Animal allomothers spend time with the infant so the mother can forage, rest, and meet her own needs. Infants who enjoy such cooperative care have a much higher rate of survival in the wild. And if the mother dies, these offspring are often adopted and their lives saved.</div>
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There are benefits to being allomothers. In baboon society, primatologist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Friendship-Baboons-Barbara-Smuts/dp/0674802756" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Barbara Smuts</a> observed that young male baboons who offered friendship, babysitting, grooming, and companionship to elder matriarchs, were often chosen as mates.</div>
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When humans offer allomothering to other species, it often requires remarkable adaptability and advocacy. It's natural to love one's birth child. But what if the creature you are trying to mother is covered with hair, or bites you, or claws you, or has a grasping tail? What if that baby needs to sleep in a pouch, or in a tree, or requires a diet that includes moose scat or pureed fish? And what if that baby animal is endangered or weighs tons at birth?</div>
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">Close encounter with Wilma, the beluga whale. Read the whole story in Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals at this link:<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_63656034"> </a></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Build-Me-Ark-Animals-ebook/dp/B007HXFSPK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2">http://www.amazon.com/Build-Me-Ark-Animals-ebook/dp/B007HXFSPK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2</a></i></span></span><br />
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In another village on the remote Baja peninsula, <a href="http://www.summertree.org/expeditions.htm" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">San Ignacio Lagoon</a>, generations of villagers have protected gray whales in their birthing lagoons. Since the 1970s, when Renulfo Mayoral's father, Pachiko, first documented what scientists call <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/whales-worth-more-alive-u_b_609431.html" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">"The Friendly Whale Syndrome," </a>villagers have served as naturalists and boatmen to researchers and tourists who seek a unique encounter with the great gray whales.</div>
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As well as being the foremost naturalist in this lagoon, Renulfo is training the next generation in stewardship of the gray whales. He looks on proudly when his first young female boatman, Lupita, navigates the exhilarating encounter with baby gray whales practically leaping into our boat to be touched.</div>
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"My grandfather taught me to love <em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">las ballenas</em>, the gray whales," Lupita says. "They are my relatives who visit every year."</div>
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Closer to home in my own Seattle neighborhood of Alki Beach, a group of dedicated volunteers, called Seal Sitters, sit vigil over seals who spend half their lives sharing our shores. On a busy urban beach like Alki, dogs off leash and curious people can disturb the pup's vital rest and scare him back into the water where he may not find his mother again. Weaned pups just learning to fish especially need to rest. Fifty percent of seal pups do not survive their first year. So the Seal Sitters, trained by NOAA, protect the seal and educate the many passersby until the seal can return to the water.</div>
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When we adopt another species, we reach out past the boundaries that keep us lonely and limited to just "me and mine." Now as we face massive extinctions of other animals, we can expand the way we love. In the words of the wise Mongolian family in the film, <em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Weeping Camel</em> -- allomothers know that "the heart, whether human or animal, knows no borders."</div>
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<em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Brenda Peterson is a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sightings-Gray-Whales-Mysterious-Journey/dp/B000C4T3ES" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">National Geographic author</a> of 17 books, including the memoirs <em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">I Want to be Left Behind</a></em> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Build-Me-Ark-Animals-ebook/dp/B007HXFSPK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals</em></a>. She is the co-founder of the <a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network.</a> Her new picture book,<em style="border: none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save the Seal Pups</em> is just out. For more: <a href="http://www.leopardandsilkie.com/" style="border: none; color: #399800; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://www.leopardandsilkie.com</a></em></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-52211510466035618892012-05-14T22:28:00.001-07:002012-05-14T22:48:29.470-07:00NPR's "Living on Earth" interview on Leopard and Silkie<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Dear Friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Listen to the NPR interview on our new book, <i>Leopard and Silkie, </i>with kid Seal Sitter, Etienne, or you can read the transcript here. </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00016&segmentID=6">http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00016&segmentID=6</a><br />
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<strong>PRI's Environmental News Magazine</strong></div>
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Seal Sitters</h3>
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Air Date: Week of April 20, 2012<br /><span style="color: #939393; font-size: 14px;"><embed flashvars="audioUrl=http://stream.loe.org/audio/120420/120420sealsitters.mp3" height="27" quality="best" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600"></embed><br /><a href="http://loe.org/audio/stream.m3u?file=http://stream.loe.org/audio/120420/120420sealsitters.mp3" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: none;">stream</a>/<a href="http://stream.loe.org/audio/120420/120420sealsitters.mp3" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: none;">download</a> this segment as an MP3 file</span></h2>
<table class="imageright" style="color: black; float: right; margin-left: 1em;"><caption align="bottom" style="color: #4a9586; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 3px;">Silkie. (Photo: Robin Lindsey)</caption><tbody>
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Alki Beach is a popular destination for Seattle natives, and it’s also home to some of the region’s seal population. Seal pups are left alone on shore while their mothers search the sea for food, and curious people and dogs endanger the young seals. But a group of concerned neighbors called Seal Sitters have banded together to protect the pups and educate people. Seal Sitter founder Brenda Peterson, author of the children’s book “Leopard and Silkie” and 11 year old volunteer Etienne, spoke with host Bruce Gellerman about their quest to save seal pups.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Transcript</span></h2>
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GELLERMAN: It's Living on Earth, I'm Bruce Gellerman.</div>
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[SOUND OF CROWDS ON ALKI BEACH]</div>
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GELLERMAN: A small crowd gathers on Seattle’s Alki Beach. Nearby, a seal pup lies in the sand.</div>
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[LITTLE GIRL: Can we go say hi to him Daddy?]</div>
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GELLERMAN: Like other mammals, seal pups depend on their moms for food. But while she takes to the sea in search of fish, the pup is left to survive the perils of the shore alone.</div>
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That is where Brenda Peterson comes in. She finds and saves seal pups by Seattle’s Salish Seashore. Brenda Peterson is the founder of Seal Sitters and the author of the new children’s book “Leopard and Silkie.” It’s about rescuing seal pups. Brenda Peterson, welcome to Living on Earth.</div>
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PETERSON: Thank you, Bruce. Good to be here.</div>
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GELLERMAN: So, these marine mammals are protected by the Marine Mammal [Protection] Act. The federal government protects them, but you say that they’re being threatened.</div>
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PETERSON: I think they are needing more protection and it’s because our beaches are really urban at this point. And, though these are urban seals, the pups are not prepared for such activity.</div>
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The moms leave the pups after just a few hours sometimes. But when you’re on Alki beach in Seattle, there is so much activity that the mother who leaves the pup at say, 4:00 am when it’s very peaceful, will try to come back to pick up the pup after fishing to nurse the pup, and there are five hundred people on the beach. And if it’s so full of people, their survival goes down.</div>
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GELLERMAN: So, basically leave the pups alone!</div>
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PETERSON: Yes. The shoreline is a very important place. They spend fifty percent of their time onshore. So we’ve been trained for the past several years by NOAA for marine mammal strandings to look to see if there’s human caused injury, to see if there is a pup on the beach who is injured or starving or not surviving the weaning period. And when we go out on our daily walks, instead of tuning out, we’ve trained people to keep their eyes out for pups.</div>
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GELLERMAN: So, this organization that you’ve founded Seal Sitters, basically trains people to help keep pups separated from people.</div>
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<img src="http://stream.loe.org/images/120420/trans/TRANSnoemi-etienne-2.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br />
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Etienne and her sister Noemi at Alki Beach. (Photo: Robin Lindsey)</div>
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PETERSON: Exactly. The number one predator on the beach is dogs off leash. There are diseases that go back and forth between all of the pups. So we try to protect our own domesticated pups as well as the seal pups. So we saw a need to actually do a kind of daycare on the beach for newborn pups.</div>
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GELLERMAN: In your new book “Leopard and Silkie,” about two seal pups, you use a word which I had never come across, it’s ‘allomothering.’ Do I have that correct?</div>
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PETERSON: I was hoping you would ask about that.</div>
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GELLERMAN: (Laughs.) Well, what’s allomothering?</div>
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PETERSON: I came upon this idea that scientists call allomothering, which means nurturing a species that is not your own.</div>
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GELLERMAN: So, the people, the volunteers that you train in seal stitting, are allomothers!</div>
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PETERSON: They are allomothers and allofathers. We have guys on the beach, we have teenagers, we have grandmothers we have retired people. I call it neighborhood naturalists.</div>
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GELLERMAN: I understand that you have one of your young volunteers there: Etienne, are you there?</div>
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ETIENNE: Yes.</div>
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GELLERMAN: Hi, so you are how old are you, Etienne?</div>
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ETIENNE: I just turned eleven.</div>
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GELLERMAN: How long have you been doing seal sitting?</div>
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ETIENNE: Well, I really started when I was in second grade. The first time I saw a seal pup it was Forté, we named him Forté because he was strong and he had been injured. My family came down to see this pup and when we did we saw Robin Lindsay, a photographer and she told us all about the seal and seal sitters.</div>
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<img src="http://stream.loe.org/images/120420/trans/TRANSleopard-copyright-robin-lindsey.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br />
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Leopard. (Photo: Robin Lindsey)</div>
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GELLERMAN: Wow!</div>
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ETIENNE: A bit later, in second grade, we were doing a project of people who stick their necks out and volunteer to help to make our world better. I decided to do Robin. Ever since then I was part of the Seal Sitters.</div>
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GELLERMAN: So you gave a name to one pup, any others?</div>
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ETIENNE: I haven’t named one. But there have been some named Pa and Queen Latifah. There’s one named E.T…</div>
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GELLERMAN: Have you ever saved a seal pup?</div>
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ETIENNE: I haven’t personally. But I have helped to save one by telling people about them and not to hurt them or go near them, don’t disturb them.</div>
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GELLERMAN: So, if I was walking down the beach and I had my dog off leash, what would you say to me?</div>
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ETIENNE: I would ask you to please put your dog on a leash, so your dog can’t get injured by the seal. Also, his scent could rub off onto the seal, as a human’s could, and then the mother would not have her scent on her pup and then she wouldn’t come back to get him.</div>
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GELLERMAN: Oh, really? Has that happened? Have you ever sent that happen?</div>
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ETIENNE: I have never seen that happen. But it has happened before. People have poked them with sticks, even gone as far to take them into their bathtubs. Sometimes, they die.</div>
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GELLERMAN: You know, Etienne, I’m looking at this book by Brenda, and I’m looking at the pictures and seals are really cute.</div>
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ETIENNE: Yes they are!</div>
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GELLERMAN: But, would you spend so much of your time and emotional energy saving an animal if it were ugly?</div>
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ETIENNE: Well, I would because they’re still an animal. And they’re still a life and they’re still part of our planet.</div>
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GELLERMAN: At your age, many kids are thinking about doing babysitting, not seal sitting. Do you think you’re going to get busier with your life and you’re going to stop doing this?</div>
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ETIENNE: Well, I am busy right now, but I still try my hardest to be able to do this, too. I want to try to be a seal sitter for as long as I can.</div>
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GELLERMAN: What do you think of Brenda’s book, “Leopard and Silkie?”</div>
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ETIENNE: I love the book. It’s a great book. It shows how you can help a seal.</div>
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GELLERMAN: Well, Brenda, that’s high praise from Etienne!</div>
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PETERSON: Out of the mouth of babes. I am so moved whenever I hear the children because they are the future.</div>
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GELLERMAN: Well, Brenda, what’s the future of federal funding to save marine mammals? I know the funding is scheduled to be zeroed out.</div>
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PETERSON: We’re really alarmed about that, Bruce, because stranding networks such as ours, they are the first responders to anything on the beach that washes up or is stranded. So the stranding networks are the kind of vital resource that shows us the health of our marine systems. And why should we cut funding to the only thing where humans and animals interact successfully and compassionately?</div>
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GELLERMAN: Well, Brenda, thank you very much.</div>
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PETERSON: Thank you, Bruce.</div>
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GELLERMAN: And, Etienne, thank you.</div>
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ETIENNE: Thank you for having me.<br />
GELLERMAN: Etienne is a volunteer seal sitter. The organization, based in Seattle, was founded by Brenda Peterson, who’s also author of the new children's book about saving seal pups “Leopard and Silkie.”</div>
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<span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Links</span></h3>
<h3 style="color: #545454; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 10px;">
<strong style="color: #6b6b6b; line-height: 33px;"><span style="color: #006699; font-size: small; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://leopardandsilkie.com/" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: none;">Leopard and Silkie website</a> <a href="http://www.leopardandsilkie.com/">http://www.leopardandsilkie.com</a></span></strong><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="color: #939393;"><div style="color: #6b6b6b; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.8em; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 3px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">Seal Sitters website<a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" target="_blank"> http://www.sealsitters.org</a></span></strong></div>
<div style="color: #6b6b6b; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.8em; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 3px;">
<strong><span style="color: #006699; font-size: small; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: none;">Brenda Peterson’s website</a> <a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/">http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com</a></span></strong></div>
<div style="color: #6b6b6b; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.8em; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 3px;">
<strong style="line-height: 1.8em;"><span style="color: #006699; font-size: small; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://robinlindseyphotography.com/" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: none;">Photographer Robin Lindsey’s website</a> <a href="http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com/">http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com</a></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-22832221757773511952012-04-29T09:00:00.002-07:002012-04-29T09:01:57.365-07:00Leopard and Silkie on Shores Everywhere!<br />
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April 26, 2012 at 7:00 AM</div>
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Introducing Leopard and Silkie: West Seattle's most famous seals</h2>
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Posted by <a href="http://search.nwsource.com/search?searchtype=cq&sort=date&from=ST&source=ST&byline=Lynda%20V.%20Mapes" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(188, 92, 35); background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #09334b; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lynda V. Mapes</a>, Seattle Times</div>
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<a href="http://www.leopardandsilkie.com/">http://www.leopardandsilkie.com</a></div>
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Visit our cool, new website!</div>
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And now for something purely delightful: the children's book, <em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Leopard & Silkie,</strong></em> just out from<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Brenda Peterson</strong> with photographs by <strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Robin Lindsey</strong> (Henry Holt, 2012) about the <a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(188, 92, 35); background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #09334b; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Seal Sitters</a>quest to protect the eponymous baby seals right here in West Seattle.</div>
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<a href="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/leopard-and-silkie-book-cover.jpg" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(188, 92, 35); background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #09334b; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="leopard-and-silkie-book-cover.jpg" height="443" src="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/assets_c/2012/04/leopard-and-silkie-book-cover-thumb-608x443-31724.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="608" /></a></div>
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<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Leopard and Silkie, just out from local author Brenda Peterson and photographer Robin Lindsey is a delightful and educational read for kids</em></div>
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The book is fabulously illustrated with Lindsey's one of a kind photographs of baby seals Leopard and Silkie basking, yawning, snoozing, hanging out with their mom, and basically being cuter than you might think possible:</div>
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<a href="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/leopard-copyright-robin-lindsey.jpg" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(188, 92, 35); background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #09334b; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="leopard-copyright-robin-lindsey.jpg" height="376" src="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/assets_c/2012/04/leopard-copyright-robin-lindsey-thumb-608x376-31726.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;" width="608" /></a></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #303030; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The local seal pups of the Salish Sea and the Seal Sitters' work to protect them is the subject of a new children's book</em></div>
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Kid Miles provides a role model for the adults on the beach, keeping curious humans and their pets away away from baby seals on the beach, as a Seal Sitter volunteer.</div>
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<img alt="leopard and silkie-pug-spread.jpg" height="316" src="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/assets_c/2012/04/leopard%20and%20silkie-pug-spread-thumb-350x173-31728.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="640" /></div>
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<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Curious humans, from a baby seal's point of view.</em></div>
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It's a delight of a book that also delivers plenty of information about the seals and their lives in the Salish Sea in a very readable, kid-friendly page turner.</div>
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<a href="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/leopard-and-silkie-book-spread.jpg" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(188, 92, 35); background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #09334b; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="leopard-and-silkie-book-spread.jpg" height="300" src="http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/field_notes/assets_c/2012/04/leopard-and-silkie-book-spread-thumb-608x300-31730.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="608" /></a></div>
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<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Baby seals hang out with their moms. </em></div>
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<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">All photos by Robin Lindsey, from the book<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Leopard and Silkie, Henry Holt for Young Readers: A Christy Ottaviano Book</em></em></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-23214565475358400552012-04-26T08:34:00.001-07:002012-04-26T08:34:52.761-07:00Introducing Leopard and Silkie: West Seattle's most famous seals | Field Notes | The Seattle Times<a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/fieldnotes/2018075845_introducing_leopard_and_silkie_west_seattles_most_famous_sealsth.html#.T5lrCLwgY58.blogger">Introducing Leopard and Silkie: West Seattle's most famous seals | Field Notes | The Seattle Times</a><br />
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Celebrating the bond between children and animals!Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-21885833230113177072012-04-20T22:50:00.001-07:002012-04-20T22:50:55.211-07:00Living on Earth: Seal Sitters<a href="http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00016&segmentID=6#.T5JKsEDW1PY.blogger">Living on Earth: Seal Sitters</a>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-60102871314730660692012-04-18T23:23:00.001-07:002012-04-18T23:23:47.181-07:00Life Story Seminar: Writing and Publishing Your Memoir<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC14lPRABw7Hfm4PAT4iVDwDmyGZtm8I4sxEOocrKVVtAWFeiImkFUzgWifNNuOJ4IsuP8e5kMmHDALx-jo5bWnlCxFGIi5M3Vuihys8pHMXPyc_LC7xDIrF0Ab4Sqjdc7vthuqNB72i7f/s1600/final+cover+brenda+peterson-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC14lPRABw7Hfm4PAT4iVDwDmyGZtm8I4sxEOocrKVVtAWFeiImkFUzgWifNNuOJ4IsuP8e5kMmHDALx-jo5bWnlCxFGIi5M3Vuihys8pHMXPyc_LC7xDIrF0Ab4Sqjdc7vthuqNB72i7f/s640/final+cover+brenda+peterson-5.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'PalatinoLinotype'; font-size: 20.000000pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">Life Story ~<br />
Writing and Publishing Your Memoir
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<span style="font-family: 'PalatinoLinotype'; font-size: 20.000000pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">Your life is a story with drama, meaningful relationships, and unique insights.
Whether you’re writing for self-exploration, publication, or to create a family legacy,
this seminar with acclaimed author and memoirist, Brenda Peterson, and successful
New York literary agent, Sarah Jane Freymann, can help you create and publish your
memoir. </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-weight: 700;">For more personal attention, we’re limiting the class to 20 students.
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<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-size: large;">May 11th ~ 4-‐‑6 p.m. and May 12th 3-‐‑6 p.m.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Good Shepherd Center, Wallingford
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;">4649 Sunnyside Ave North
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;">Seattle, WA 98103<br />
Tuition: $225.00 or $200.00 early registration by May 1st. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">RSVP: </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">LifeStorySeminar@gmail.com
</span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">Brenda Peterson is the author of 17 books, including the recent memoir, </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-style: italic;">I Want To Be
Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">which was selected as a “Top Ten Best
Non-‐‑Fiction Book of 2010” by </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-style: italic;">The Christian Science Monitor </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">and an Indie Next “Top
Read.” Her first memoir, </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-style: italic;">Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">was selected as a “Best
Spiritual Book of the Year.” She’s been teaching private classes for two decades.
Many of her students are published. </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sarah Jane Freymann has </span></span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-size: large;">been a successful literary agent since 1974. Her agency </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-size: large;">helps writers from inception through publication, and takes a hands-on approach — </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-size: large;">from focusing and shaping proposals to polishing manuscripts. Deal-makers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;"><span style="font-size: large;">matchmakers, and savvy negotiators, Sarah Jane’s agency is knowledgeable about </span></span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-size: large;">the market and has excellent relationships with editors. Sarah Jane is passionate </span><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype; font-size: large;">about books, enthusiastic about new media and excited about projects that introduce</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">new ideas. </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: PalatinoLinotype;">http://www.sarahjanefreymann.com </span></span><br />
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-85653762421766418502012-04-18T15:14:00.004-07:002012-04-18T15:17:45.829-07:00LIFE STORY SEMINAR: Writing and Publishing Your Memoir<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5153203402591177845#editor/target=post;postID=7695913570795278701" target="_blank">Click here for more information about this opportunity to work with experts in the field of writing and publishing</a>!Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-35193791936419126522012-03-14T23:07:00.000-07:002012-03-14T23:09:36.650-07:00Buying the New iPad3: A Moral Dilemma<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBBXFx_c5k4g1bOA7HcmND4j4mSJWW-XcOIyRMEU9Fy5kbjQdXgEI5V9dUMoTwyWqVlzP4jwT3bN-X5NiYWKqAVyUDisos-Puhw2AHokzojuryXB-uxTLOm6SY9xErMW4f8IUFWQ-7yNis/s1600/ipad-2-vs-ipad-3-decision-to-buy_n_1339483.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBBXFx_c5k4g1bOA7HcmND4j4mSJWW-XcOIyRMEU9Fy5kbjQdXgEI5V9dUMoTwyWqVlzP4jwT3bN-X5NiYWKqAVyUDisos-Puhw2AHokzojuryXB-uxTLOm6SY9xErMW4f8IUFWQ-7yNis/s640/ipad-2-vs-ipad-3-decision-to-buy_n_1339483.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/buying-the-new-ipad3-a-mo_b_1343098.html#es_share_ended">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/buying-the-new-ipad3-a-mo_b_1343098.html#es_share_ended</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Brenda Peterson" height="45" src="http://s.huffpost.com/contributors/brenda-peterson/headshot.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;" width="45" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson" rel="author" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #1f0050; font-family: Arial, Century, Times, serif !important; font-size: 24px !important; height: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.05em; line-height: 24px !important; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Brenda Peterson</a></h2>
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Author, 'I Want to Be Left Behind'</div>
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Buying the New iPad3: A Moral Dilemma</h1>
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<span class="arial_11 color_696969" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: dimgrey; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Posted: 03/14/2012 12:12 pm</span><a class="absolute print-link" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/buying-the-new-ipad3-a-mo_b_1343098.html?view=print&comm_ref=false" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://s.huffpost.com/images/b_pixie.png?v4); background-origin: initial; background-position: -50px -649px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; bottom: 0px; color: #0088c3; display: block; height: 17px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-decoration: none; width: 20px;"></a></div>
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It was midnight when I found myself hunched over my iMac, one finger poised over the "pre-order" button for the new IPad3. Maybe my defenses were down. Or my lust for all shiny things Apple was overly aroused by the live blogs and ecstatic hype for a faster processing chip, a super-charged camera, and a retina display more dazzling than my HD television.</div>
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I'm sure my eyes were dilated, my breathing quickened, my body tense with excitement -- like any addict. But I'd carefully worked out my budget. And the iPad3 wasn't a luxury item. Every week I use my iPad2 to read and listen to books, to teach, to research, to take video and photos. With a wireless keyboard, I actually use my iPad2 as much as my computer. So why then did I hesitate to punch the "Purchase" button and send an iPad3 winging my way?</div>
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I was paralyzed by a moral dilemma. In my mind I kept seeing a re-run of those photos of Foxconn, the Chinese factory that makes our fabulous Apple products. I was troubled by the images of<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357833/Apple-responds-suicides-Chinese-Foxconn-factory-hanging-nets.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"> wide, rope nets</a>slung on the sides of the gargantuan building -- to catch young and mortally stressed workers from jumping.</div>
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Would my ordering another iPad condemn some bleary-eyed worker-servant to run and take the fatal leap? Didn't every action affect everything else -- like those proverbial butterfly wings whose luminous, silken flaps somehow change us all -- even if we're on the other side of the world? Wasn't there now an ethical concern that I needed to factor into my purchasing power?</div>
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I decided to do my research -- loath as I was to discover anything more disturbing about my beloved Apple products. I jumped onboard the bright Google Chrome express to research and witness the many links to the story of Apple and Foxconn factory.</div>
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My favorite articles were on <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/01/31/apple-supplier-petitions/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Mashable.Tech </a>with its spotlight on popular petitions demanding that Apple improve labor conditions at Foxxconn.</div>
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Another excellent <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/02/22/mike-daisey-interview/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Mashable</a> article pointed out that Foxxconn doesn't just supply Apple, but also Amazon, Sony, IBM, Dell, HP, Samsung, Panasonic, Motorola, Nintendo, Microsoft, Nokia, and Intel.</div>
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I was educated about Apple's dominance in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">New York Times</em> </a>article that Apple sells "forty percent of the world's consumer electronics." And that "Apple revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts."</div>
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I also listened to the <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"><em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">This American Life</em></a> segment, adapted from Mike Daisey's one-man show, <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs</em>. Daisey, an avowed Apple lover, has decided to wait to buy any new technology. A kind of tech Time Out.</div>
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After all of this research, I signed a petition on <a href="http://sumofus.org/campaigns/ethical-iphone/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">TheSumofUs.org</a></div>
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The petition urges Apple to step up and lead the way in factory labor improvements. I joined in asking Apple to "make the iPhone5 and your other products ethically." The petition notes, "The quality of working conditions matters as much as the quality of your products." It cites an unnamed Apple executive telling <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The New York Times</em>, "Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn't have another choice."</div>
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How humane and far-sighted to ask that Apple, the world's richest company, also lead the way in setting an ethical standard for workers. Now, that would be some Butterfly Effect.</div>
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This week, the iPad3 debuts in stores. Already Apple has announced it has sold out of the new whiz-bang iPad3 in pre-sales; there will be several weeks to wait for more. Will this huge demand further stress overworked factories?</div>
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I don't want to feel guilty and ashamed when I buy my new iPad3. I don't want to be haunted by those nets and workers who labor 12 hour days, six days a week, at less than $17 a day, with no overtime; young people who live in barracks and are exposed to toxic chemicals and forced to do repetitive motions until their joints wear away. It doesn't matter that these workers are often better off than other Chinese laborers or that the Foxconn suicide rate is <a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">still less than the Chinese average</a>.</div>
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The world is watching how Apple will handle this moral dilemma. It just released an annual report on labor conditions, listing its suppliers by name for the first time. It also announced it was joining the Fair Labor Association. These are very good first steps; but they are reactions to exposes, not humane changes initiated by Apple.</div>
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Apple can do much more. Think of it as good old American competition to see whether Apple or Microsoft, our tech overlords, can really make a difference in our bettering workers' lives. Think beyond just profit. Think reputation, leadership, integrity.</div>
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One thing you have to say about Bill Gates -- he is a mighty generous philanthropist. Can't Apple also use its massive profits to change the world? In the same way that Bill Gates uses his vast fortune to fight AIDS in Africa, Apple could use its clout to change working conditions in China and other "cheap labor" factories that make our tech toys.</div>
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This Foxxconn dilemma offers Apple a new product to be developed: A People Product, in which Apple engages its considerable genius. Elevate those who make Apple products to the same esteemed level as Apple engineers, software designers, and buyers. Factor in the factory workers.</div>
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At the end of the <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Nightline</em> story on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLuPtMvvwA0" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Apple and Foxconn</a>, the reporter asks Louis Woo, the Foxxconn factory spokesman, "If Apple said, 'Hey, out of the goodness of our hearts, because we're doing so well, what if we paid everyone who touched an iPad double?' Do you think that would work?"</div>
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"Why not?" says Woo, "it would be good for the employees, good for China. Good for them and for us. Because we would have more stable workers who would love to work for our company because they would get paid a lot more than anyone else."</div>
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What an inspired idea! C'mon, Apple. Break the <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/apple-sweatshop-problem-16-hour-days-70-cents-172800495.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">sweatshop</a> tradition. For every iPad3 that is sold, double the salary of those who do the hands-on assembly. Make us Mac people proud, once again.</div>
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<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Benda Peterson is the author of 17 books, including the recent memoir,<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth,</em> which was named among the "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010" by <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Christian Science Monitor</em>. Hew new book is <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save Seal Pups." </em><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />For more:<a href="http://iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"> http://www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></em></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-73765643276915373362012-02-27T21:54:00.000-08:002012-02-27T22:26:38.219-08:00Wildlife Rehab Success Story: A Seal Pup Comes Home<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1638230913"><br /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/wildlife-rehab-success-st_b_1294241.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/wildlife-rehab-success-st_b_1294241.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com/">Photos by Robin Lindsey: http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com</a><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">Sandy, outfitted with a satellite transmitter that will slough off when she molts. Follow her travels in the wild via SeaDoc Society. See link and story below.</span></i><br />
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It was late last summer when a very thin and sick seal pup struggled onshore in West Seattle, Washington. For most seal pups this might have been her last days - sick and slowly starving on the beach. While joggers ran by, school buses unloaded their students, and dogs ran off-leash nearby.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />But this pup, Sandy, was lucky. And Sandy's story is a celebration of volunteer activism, wildlife rehab, and committed government conservation and education.</div>
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Sandy hauled out on a busy, urban beach that for years has been patrolled by an active citizen naturalist volunteer group, <a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Seal Sitters Marina Mammal Stranding Network.</a> Instead of just walking by -- iPods blasting in their ears, oblivious to the dramas of life-and-death on these shores we share with marine life -- Seal Sitters are trained by N.O.A.A. to walk the beaches with binoculars in hand. When Seal Sitters see a pup, they immediately report the sighting to the Seal Sitters hotline.</div>
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N.O.O.A.'s Marine Mammal Stranding Expert, Kristin Wilkinson, has trained Seal Sitters to recognize any signs of distress in seals, such as labored breathing, discharge, human-caused wounds, and serious weight loss. Although the seal population in Washington State is healthy, 50 percent of seals don't survive their first year.</div>
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Seals belong onshore as much as humans. It is normal for seals to haul out on our beaches. Here they can mate, give birth, nurse their young, rest, and regulate their body temperature. But onshore, seals face many dangers. Dogs off leash and humans are their main predators. In the sea, marine mammals struggle with pollution, overfishing, and scapegoating for dwindling fish stocks. Just this month, 7 sea lions and a seal were mysteriously shot on Pacific Northwest beaches.</div>
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When Sandy crawled onshore in West Seattle last summer, a neighbor called the Seal Sitters hotline to report a pup on the beach. Immediately, Seal Sitters' first responder took health assessment photos and emailed them to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife marine mammal biologist, Dyanna Lambourn, for a consult.</div>
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Seal Sitters surrounded the pup with yellow "Protected Marine Mammal" tape. Late into the evening, volunteers watched over Sandy, whose ribs and hipbones jutted out and whose fur sagged in wrinkled folds. While sometimes a pup will rest onshore for 12 hours or more, it appeared that there was no attending mom for this young pup. An intervention would be necessary if she was still on the beach the next morning. Whenever people strolled by, Seal Sitters shared their binoculars and educated beach goers about marine mammal conservation.</div>
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The next morning, after 24 hours onshore, Sandy had not returned to the water to forage. Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network, as an authorized agent of NOAA, determined she was too young and too weak to survive on her own. A trained stranding volunteer carefully took Sandy off the beach and up to<a href="http://www.paws.org/wildlife-rehabilitation.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">PAWS Wildlife Hospital.</a> There, she was quickly assessed as dehydrated with many cuts and abscesses on her fore flippers. Sandy's weight was a woeful 7.1 kg (15.6 lbs.); a healthy pup weighs 21-23 kg. Many pups do not survive the trauma of travel and ER treatment. But Sandy not only survived. She thrived.</div>
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Under PAWS care, Sandy spent five months nourished by medical attention and plenty of fish. Sandy had her ups and downs in rehab and was in the wildlife hospital longer than most pups. Washington State has no large-capacity marine mammal rehab facility like California and New England. And PAWS can only take a few seals each year. But by late January, Sandy was swimming around in her small pool, diving for fish. This once emaciated and sickly seal pup was robust and healthy. She was ready to return to the sea.</div>
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On January 19, 2012, it was a New Year and a new life for Sandy. Seal Sitter volunteers joined N.O.A.A., PAWS, and WDFW biologists in fitting Sandy with a temporary satellite transmitter that signals her location and travels. The satellite transmitter is held on by glue and will slough off when Sandy molts her fur. Such research is vital to helping us study the health of our Salish Sea ecosystem and marine mammals. Sandy was released on a remote beach far from her native West Seattle shore.</div>
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For the past several weeks, her satellite device has been reporting Sandy's explorations. She's spending time with other seals in rookeries or well-known seal communities. <a href="http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/Marine-Mammals/upload/StrandingPowerpoint.pdf" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">N.O.A.A.</a> is working with <a href="http://www.seadocsociety.org/tracking-sandy-the-seal" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">The SeaDoc Society</a>, who sends out email bulletins to anyone who signs up to track her daily journeys.</div>
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And now, Sandy is coming home. Her satellite transmitter has placed her very near West Seattle. Seal Sitters are out even in very blustery weather with their binoculars, hoping for a glimpse of this pup, who is a living symbol of how people and animals can co-exist. How we can learn from one another about this sea we share, this ocean ecosystem that feeds and nourishes us all.</div>
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In celebration of Sandy's homecoming, <a href="http://www.seadocsociety.org/node/640" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">here's a short video link to her story</a> -- from her first haul out last summer to her triumphant release.</div>
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<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Follow Sandy's travels on <a href="http://www.seadocsociety.org/Tracking-Rehabilitated-Weaned-Yearling-Harbor-Seal" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">The Sea Doc Society tracking page</a>.</div>
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You can see video and photos of Sandy's story at the Seal Sitters BlubberBlog link. All photos Robin Lindsey: <a href="http://www.blubberblog.org/files/tag-sandy.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://www.blubberblog.org/files/tag-sandy.html</a></div>
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For more information on Seal Sitters: <a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://www.sealsitters.org</a></div>
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Brenda Peterson is a National Geographic author. Her sixteen books include the recent memoir, I <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth</em>, which was named as a "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Book of 2010" by <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Christian Science Monitor.</em> Her new book is <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save Seal Pups.</em></div>
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For more: <a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a> and<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><a href="http://us.macmillan.com/leopardsilkie/BrendaPeterson" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://us.macmillan.com/leopardsilkie/BrendaPeterson</a></div>
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<b style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Follow Brenda Peterson on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/BrendaSPeterson" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">www.twitter.com/BrendaSPeterson</a></b></div>
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<br />Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-52491301499118228852012-02-07T14:42:00.000-08:002012-02-07T14:50:50.114-08:00Who's Shooting Sea Lions? How We Scapegoat Animals<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjafBsqycScCrKI1b8WKomI_lIV_lACwSyN-3V777dwbktJwfi9ByhcyGUNHE13Lr7LPcPgiar-g-44LC2KotuczhjysG-hIK0kgG5fFZLQaTxayVds6cSDs-p6DjNqg_HDGY7jW4oDcye/s1600/Unknown-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjafBsqycScCrKI1b8WKomI_lIV_lACwSyN-3V777dwbktJwfi9ByhcyGUNHE13Lr7LPcPgiar-g-44LC2KotuczhjysG-hIK0kgG5fFZLQaTxayVds6cSDs-p6DjNqg_HDGY7jW4oDcye/s640/Unknown-2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>WDFW biologist Dyanna Lambourn examines radiographs of sea lion shootings. photo credit:</i><br />
<i>Robin Lindsey.</i><a href="http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com/"> http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dear Readers,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We are all very disturbed and mystified here on the shores of the Salish Sea about the sea lion and seal shootings. Seal Sitters has done many international interviews, with BBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, and other news medias. We are awaiting final wildlife forensics reports from NOAA. But there is a much bigger story here beyond the whodunit. See below for my <i>Huffington Post</i> on the back story behind this violence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>Who's Shooting Sea Lions? </b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>How We Scapegoat Animals</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.blubberblog.org/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">The violent shooting </a><a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-31/us/us_washington-sea-lions_1_sea-lions-lions-with-gunshot-wounds-steller?_s=PM:US" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">deaths</a> of eight marine mammals on the shores of Puget Sound near Seattle is not just disturbing news followed around the world -- it's personal. And statistics don't tell the whole story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">For those of us who live near Puget Sound -- known locally as the Salish Sea -- these murdered sea lions and seals are a loss in a wider kinship and ecosystem. Indicator species, these marine mammals reveal to us the health of our waters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">This vital connection between species can make for good neighbors and volunteer science. Since 2007, our West Seattle neighborhood has engaged in patrolling and conserving our shores for both humans and marine life. Even though Washington State has a healthy population of harbor seals, there is a 50 percent <a href="http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/sealcam/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">mortality rate</a> for the first year of a seal's life. Predators of marine mammals include dogs off leash onshore and humans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">During pup season, we protect seal pups who must rest onshore and warm up. And sea lions must come ashore to molt. Call it day care for marine mammals or just expanding our Neighborhood Block Watch to include other animals. Throughout the year, we keep watch for sea lions and seals as part of a larger stranding network. In 2007, our group of citizen naturalists, called <a href="http://www.sealsitters.org/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Seal Sitters</a>, received official training from NOAA stranding expert, Kristin Wilkinson. We are fortunate to work with<a href="http://www.paws.org/about-wildlife-center.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">PAWS Wildlife Center </a>who tirelessly rehabs and then releases seals back into the wild.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Seal Sitters counts volunteers from every walk of life. Even some local fishermen, have given of their time and energy to help us protect marine mammals. So we recognize this is a much bigger story than "Who's Shooting Sea Lions?" or man vs. nature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">That real story is: Why do we scapegoat animals instead of looking at our own environmental impacts? Like us, seals and sea lions in our Salish Sea must also reckon with increasing development, pollution, overfishing, and global warming. As the marine life goes, so go we.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">We must decide how to conserve our troubled waters; and whether to share our prey with other predators. Unless we are sustainably hunting for our food, shooting other animals is a simplistic, immature, and short-sighted answer to our complex ethical and environmental issues. A gun is never a solution. Education is the key. And getting involved. The Sea Shepherd has issued a <a href="http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2012/01/30/sea-shepherd-offers-10000-reward-for-arrest-and-conviction-of-puget-sound-sea-lion-killers-1325" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">$10,000 reward</a>for information about these shootings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The first time I ever witnessed the death of a marine mammal from a bullet wound was on my backyard beach years ago. A neighborhood boy, Zach, stumbled over a seal pup. The juvenile seal was panting in terror and pain. I'd grown up with enough hunters to recognize the bullet holes in the side of the pup's head and chest. They looked fatal. We called a local wildlife rehab center and a gangly man, Bob, came right out in his makeshift car/ambulance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Looks really bad," Bob said, after a quick scrutiny of the pup's wounds. "I can take this pup now to the rehab center... but the trauma of moving him off the beach will probably kill him enroute. Or... "</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Or what?" We instinctively knew to keep our distance from this pup protected by federal law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Or, you could just <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">be</em> with this pup. Nobody likes to be alone when they die."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"I'll sit with him!" Zach, a budding scientist, volunteered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"We'll all stay... until... he doesn't need us anymore," my neighbor said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Good," Bob nodded in satisfaction. "Call me back when it's over and I'll take him in for necropsy. We want to report this violence and maybe find out who did it."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So several of us neighbors sat on driftwood about 100 yards away from the pup. Through binoculars, we watched him struggle to breathe, his great, wide eyes pools of darkness. But open. Our respectful presence seemed to calm the pup and he quit panting. But over the next hour, his breathing ebbed as more blood poured out of his mouth and nose. Still he kept his eyes on us as if to anchor himself for another journey, a dive deep into death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">At last the pup lay on his side, his little flippers unfurling like wings. One of the children started to cry softly, but Zach began to sing in his high and pure tenor tones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Hearing is always the first and last sense to go in us mammals. Though the pup was fading, his head turned toward the song, listening. And Zach kept singing. At last, the pup's beautiful eyes fixed. Staring at us but no longer seeing us. Then for just one instant those eyes brightened, and then doused. The pup took his final breath and was still.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">We didn't get to bury the pup, but we held a small funeral on the beach. Now these many years later, we Seal Sitters have buried more marine mammals than I want to remember. This winter's sea lion in our neighborhood park was shot in the lung and the head. Such a violent season of bullet-ridden marine mammals is haunting. Each shooting brings back the memory of that first pup to die on our beach. <br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />One of the ways we measure our humanity is how well we treat other animals. Let our humanity be remembered not in bullets or death tallies; but in how well we learn to graciously share our lands, our waters, and our shores.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Brenda Peterson is a National Geographic author and the co-founder of Seal Sitters. Her recent memoir, <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth</em>, was named among "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010," by <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Christian Science Monitor.</em> Her new picture book with photographer and Seal Sitter first responder Robin Lindsey is<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save Seal Pups. </em><i><a href="http://us.macmillan.com/leopardsilkie/BrendaPeterson">http://us.macmillan.com/leopardsilkie/BrendaPeterson</a></i></span></div>
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<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: medium; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">For more: <a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #399800; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></em></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>California Sea Lion resting on the shores of the Salish Sea.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">photo credit:<a href="http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com/"> Robin Lindsey http://www.robinlindseyphotography.com</a></span></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-15415013394544966262012-01-08T13:01:00.000-08:002012-01-08T13:01:11.202-08:00The Secret Journal of Kate Morag: A Celtic Romance GIVEAWAY for my readers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b> THE FIRST IN MY SILKIE SERIES is just out and FREE GIVEAWAY </b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By way of celebrating The New Year, I've just published an original new novella, <i>The Secret Journal of Kate Morag: A Celtic Romance </i>on Amazon's Kindle Select. The first ten readers of my blog who email me at bsp808@gmail.com will receive a free copy of this new short fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This new book is my experiment in self-publishing after 16 books with traditional publishers. My hope is that by connecting directly with my readers I can be more responsive and also create this Silkie Series in a more timely manner for eager readers.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I've priced the novella at $2.99 and for Amazon Prime Readers it can be borrowed for free. Here's the link:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1010134743"><br /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Journal-Kate-Morag-ebook/dp/B006PIA8TY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326056009&sr=8-1">http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Journal-Kate-Morag-ebook/dp/B006PIA8TY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326056009&sr=8-1</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whether you're Mac, ipad, or PC you can download the free Kindle app and then begin reading on your computer or you e-reader.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thanks so much for your support. I will share with all of you this cutting-edge experiment in publishing short work directly to readers. I think this may be an option for the future ~as readers connect with authors and authors choose to publish shorter work sooner than later. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Link to Amazon kindle app for PC: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download"><span class="s2">http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Link to Amazon Kindle app for Mac: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_mac_mkt_lnd?docId=1000464931"><span class="s2">http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_mac_mkt_lnd?docId=1000464931</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Link to The Secret Journal of Kate Morag novella</b>: <span class="s2"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Journal-Kate-Morag-ebook/dp/B006PIA8TY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1325792556&sr=1-1">http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Journal-Kate-Morag-ebook/dp/B006PIA8TY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1325792556&sr=1-1</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">And remember, the first 10 readers to email me at bsp808@gmail.com will receive this new novella free as a gift from the author.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Happy New Year!</span></span></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-38677927277912704792011-12-31T13:52:00.000-08:002011-12-31T14:06:01.640-08:00When You Wish Upon a Star ~ Song-Struck in 2012!<br />
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<br />
Barbara Cook, a lifetime of giving her song to the world ~ and we are grateful!<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYIW2qMfmd8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYIW2qMfmd8</a><br />
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Dear Friends and Readers,<br />
<br />
On this last day of the Year 2011 I wish you all peace, fulfillment, and happiness in the year ahead. Some people believe that 2012 is the year the world will end (Mayan Calendar) and others are filled with dread that another year of economic downturn is upon us.<br />
<br />
But I say, let 2011 go and embrace 2012 with a song. While I was recovering from a nasty flu virus this week a friend send me an email and said, "Turn on the TV and watch the Kennedy Center Awards and listen to Barbara Cook sing. Her singing will heal you."<br />
<br />
I'd never heard of Barbara Cook and this is quite strange, since she was singing when I lived in New York City and loved Broadway musicals. So it's astonishing that I'd never heard her rare and clear soprano soaring above an audience or intimately embracing a cabaret crowd.<br />
<br />
Now, that I've heard her, I'll never stop listening! I not so much starstruck ~ as <i>Song-struck</i>. Here are some of my favorite You Tube clips -- and you also might be moved, as I was, by her story. Her recovery. And her nine decades of devotion to the music that opens our hearts.<br />
<br />
As a longtime singer myself, I'm so cheered by the fact that her voice is getting better with age -- darker and more resonant, not the sometimes overly bright lights of youth, but the mature and seasoned wisdom of so long living.<br />
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Happy New Year and yours in harmony. Keep singing!<br />
Brenda<br />
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<br />
Here's a You Tube of the Kennedy Center Honors with clips from her musical history:<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doyj-Ml5ZkY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doyj-Ml5ZkY</a><br />
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And a terrific NPR interview with her "My Life is Work in Progress"<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1861136822"><br /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/12/27/144304457/at-84-barbara-cook-is-still-a-work-in-progress">http://www.npr.org/2011/12/27/144304457/at-84-barbara-cook-is-still-a-work-in-progress</a><br />
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December 23, 2011 11:29 AM</div>
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Music legend Barbara Cook: I get better with age</h1>
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<img alt="Kennedy Center honoree Barbara Cook discusses her life and career with CBS' Julie Chen." height="183" src="http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/12/23/es_BarbaraCook_122311_244x183.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="244" /><br />
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Kennedy Center honoree Barbara Cook discusses her life and career with CBS' Julie Chen. (CBS)</div>
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(CBS News)<br />
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For more than half a century, Barbara Cook has taken the American songbook and made it her own. Now a Kennedy Center honoree for her work on Broadway and artistic contributions, the 84-year-old isn't stopping. She's still singing -- doing what she's done for as long as she can remember.</div>
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"I've always sung," Cook told CBS' Julie Chen recently. "I don't even remember not singing. I was born, I breathed, I sang, I think."</div>
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<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-207_162-10010445.html" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #024382; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pictures: The 34th Kennedy Center Honors</a></div>
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Known as one of the greatest vocal interpreters of all time, Cook is constantly improving her craft, getting better with age and experience.</div>
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"I think, you know, five years from now, I'll sing better than I do now," Cook said. "I truly do. Because I'll have more courage."</div>
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Raised in Atlanta, she started singing at a young age. Music was an escape from hard times.</div>
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"My mother and father divorced when I was maybe 6-and-a-half, close to 7 maybe," Cook recalled. "My mother and I then went to live wirh my grandmother in a really, really difficult situation. It was at the depth, or height, or whatever you wanna call it, of the Depression. So, it was very, very hard for, not just us -- for everybody."</div>
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At age 21, Cook moved to New York, following her dream of a singing and acting career -- and never looked back. Quickly, that career took off, with Cook finding steady work on the stage. Winning a Tony award for playing Marian the librarian in 1957's "The Music Man" made her a certified Broadway star.</div>
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"I didn't feel as if I was the toast of the town," Cook said. "I was very happy to have gotten that award, don't get me wrong."</div>
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Was she surprised? Or did she kind of know?</div>
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Cook said, "Well, I'll tell you the truth. I had done 'Candide' the year before. And I thought -- I wasn't even nominated that year. I thought I should get it for 'Candide.' Well, I didn't think it was in the bag. But I thought, 'Gee whiz, maybe,' because it was such an incredible departure for me, and still the most difficult thing I've ever done vocally, by far. By far. And I was kind of disappointed when I didn't even get nominated. So then, I wasn't expecting it for 'Music Man,' no."</div>
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There was more success, but doubt, depression and alcoholism took their toll.</div>
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When asked what happened, Cook said, "I was a drunk. Pure and simple. .. You know, you slip into it. So, you don't know when it happens. You don't know when you cross into that -- you think you have trouble, so you drink. And you think, 'If I could fix the troubles, I wouldn't drink.'"</div>
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Cook said she was an alcoholic for about 10 years.</div>
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She said, "Just about the only thing I feel bad about in my career is that, during the years when I (was in my) forties and fifties, when I was in my prime, when I should've been doing my best work in theater, I was not employable. I was not employable for selling Kleenex at the drug store. I just -- you know -- I could not function. ... I wasn't working. I couldn't. I couldn't work. No. I was just being a drunk."</div>
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Cook finally got sober. She credits her 30-year collaboration with accompanist and musical director Wally Harper for saving her life and career.</div>
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"it was a great, great coming together," Cook said. "Two sensibilities coming together. And -- he died in 2004. And it was horrible. Very, very hard. You know, it wasn't just that he played the piano for me. We -- we thought alike musically, do you know? And he was very, very special for a lot of people."</div>
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Cook returned recording and the stage, taking her highly acclaimed one-woman show to theaters and cabarets around the world. She also teaches master classes to aspiring performers, hoping they can learn from her life experience.</div>
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"What I want is for people to let me in," Cook said. "I want people to put their life experience and how they feel this minute into what's happening right now."</div>
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And right now, Cook said she is feeling gratitude.</div>
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"I know that I can move people, people who are willing to be moved," Cook said. "And it's a wonderful feeling to know that -- that you can make that connection. It's a great feeling."</div>
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And at age 84, Cook is now a Kennedy Center honoree.</div>
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Cook said of the honor, "This is not only a validation of my work but, because I have put so much of my life experience into my work, I feel it's a validation of my whole life. So, it means a great deal to me."</div>
</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-4119166204327112732011-12-24T13:11:00.000-08:002011-12-24T13:11:08.585-08:00Happy Holidays and My Presents to You<br />
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LIVE NATIVITY<br />
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Happy Holidays to all of my friends and readers,<br />
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Here to celebrate the season are several offerings I hope you enjoy!<br />
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First, an audio excerpt from NPR station KUOW in Seattle, "The Hugest, Most Miraculous Christmas Eve Bubble"as produced and told to NPR host Megan Sukys, who herself also has roots in the South. For those of you who are aspiring authors, compare the difference between my "talk story" on NPR and the written account of the same Live Nativity event in my recent memoir.<br />
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Writing is for the eye and storytelling is for the ear. They are very different ways of telling a story. For those of you who want to find the Live Nativity story in my memoir, it's on page 50-51. Note how the epiphany is slightly different in the spoken story, more in keeping with the oral tradition.The ear is more impatient than the eye -- and yet sometimes I think the ear is more open, less jaded. For those of you who are writers, try to always read aloud your written work. You'll hear places to edit and add.You'll also hear when it falls flat and when it suddenly takes flight. A fascinating process!<br />
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<b>The Hugest, Most Miraculous Christmas Eve Bubble</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.kuow.org/search.php?get=1&slHostSearch=40"><i>Megan Sukys</i></a><span class="s1"><i> <br />
12/23/2011 </i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5153203402591177845"><span class="s2"><i>ShareThis</i></span></a></span></div>
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Seattle–based writer Brenda Peterson grew up in a strict Southern Baptist family in Virginia. Every Christmas Eve, her church would produce a living Nativity, a tableau of the birth of Jesus featuring live animals. One year, the Nativity offered a lesson in mercy that Brenda will always remember. She shares her story of camel–dogs, sausage cookies and the biggest bubble gum bubble she's ever seen.</div>
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<a href="http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=25478">http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=25478</a></div>
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And here is my new <i>Huffington Post</i>. Yours in harmony,</div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1857401920"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/singing-health_b_1163511.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/singing-health_b_1163511.html</a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Sing, Make a Joyful Sound:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> How Singing Helps Us</span></b></div>
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Posted: 12/23/11 01:05 PM ET</div>
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Every holiday season, our Metropolitan Singers perform concerts in retirement centers as part of our <a href="http://www.seattlegleeclubs.org/"><span class="s2">Seattle Glee Clubs'</span></a> community service. It's musical light during these darkest days of the year, live music to accompany those elders who often can't get out and about for other concerts. So we bring music to them.</div>
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We always ask the elders to join us in holiday songs. And every year, as I recognize some of the same elders -- who are also the strongest singers -- I marvel at how singing and good health are connected.</div>
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This year, as we stand before over 60 elders, we warm up in front of a bright and fanciful Christmas tree. This audience is mostly women, with a few fortunate gentlemen who get lots of attention.</div>
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Our inspiring director, John, wittily engages the crowd with introductions to our lively spiritual "Great, Getting' Up Morning."</div>
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"Gabriel, Gabriel, blow your trumpet!" we sing, rejoicing in our four-part treble harmonies.</div>
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Feet start tapping, silver heads nodding and a gentleman in the front row hums <br />
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Our Russian-trained accompanist, Diana, passionately leans into the ringing chords, "In that morn, fare thee well!" and everybody claps happily.</div>
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Then we shift into the lilting melodies of two Russian lullabies, "Little Birch Tree" and "Good Night." Diana has taught us the tongue-twisting Russian patiently -- and phonetically. Diana's piano always lifts us up. Before immigrating to the U.S. with her family, Diana taught in a Russian music conservatory for 20 years.</div>
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"Music is its own country," Diana always says. "It makes you forget all your pain."</div>
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It does seem to have that healing effect on the elders. They sit up straighter; others lean forward into the music like spindly plants to sunlight.</div>
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As we move into "Isn't It Romantic," a song from their generation, the elders smile dreamily and close their eyes, remembering. Romance is eternal. And I see a very old couple reach out very shyly and take each other's hands. How many decades have they loved each other?</div>
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"Isn't it romantic, only to be young on such a night as this?" we sing.</div>
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And suddenly I remember one of the influential elders in my life, Beata, explaining to me, "The tragedy of getting old is that you're not really old. Inside, you're still young."</div>
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Beata was 72 and I was 24. I didn't understand her meaning at the time. But now I do. Memory keeps us always young, even as our bodies fail, even as we sometimes forget ourselves.</div>
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Singing, like memory, can also help keep us young. Research has <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4448634.stm"><span class="s2">indicated</span></a> that singing may help to enhance memory. <a href="http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/06/06/07/how_singing_improves_your_health_even_if_other_people_shouldnt_hear_you_singing.htm"><span class="s2">"How Singing Improves Your Health"</span></a> advises, "Singing, particularly in a chorus, seems to benefit the elderly particularly well."</div>
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The article cites a three-year study of how singing affects the health of those 55 and older. Seniors who participated in a chorale showed significant health improvements compared to others their age: fewer doctor visits, fewer eyesight problems and falls, improved lung capacity and less asthma, less incidence of depression -- even the need for medication decreased.</div>
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The average age of the elder singers studied was 80, and they noticed that singing improved their posture, breathing, mood, and their energy level. Overall, their quality of life was heightened by the simple act of singing, especially in community.</div>
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More brain research has shown surprising results in singing as a way of easing Alzheimer's disease. <a href="http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=760"><span class="s2">Singing for the Brain</span></a> is an organization that helps those with dementia, Alzheimer's, and memory problems through singing. "Music has the ability to access words," says Singing for the Brain voice coach Liz McNaughton. "People who have lost their ability to speak can access songs and words from melody."</div>
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If singing can help us as we age, what can it do for us at all ages of life? Brian Eno, British composer and producer of Talking Heads and U2, <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97320958"><span class="s2">told National Public Radio</span></a> that "Singing is the key to a long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor."</div>
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Amen, brother. And sister! Who wouldn't want to join in communal singing with that recommendation?</div>
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As we all, elders and chorale join together at the end of our Seattle concert to sing holiday songs, I feel a surge of physical well-being and gratitude to all the voices raised so strongly.</div>
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"Joy to the world," the elders sing with us.</div>
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And yes, that's what I feel now. Joy to be joining my voice with others, to still be in this world together, surviving and singing.</div>
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<i>Brenda Peterson is the author of 16 books, including the recent memoir</i> I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth,<i> which was named a "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Book of 2010" by </i>The Christian Science Monitor<i>. Many of the chapter titles in this book were song titles. For more: </i><a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/"><span class="s2"><i>www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</i></span></a></div>
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<br /></div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-56929939049576783742011-12-07T22:58:00.001-08:002011-12-07T23:01:15.128-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some of my students have asked me for a list of my favorite memoirs. Here are a few memoirs that still live with me and that I refer to in my own storytelling. Enjoy this holiday season!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
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<br />Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-52556992879939960212011-12-04T15:58:00.001-08:002011-12-04T16:16:21.120-08:00Is There an Element of Racism in the Fight Against Obama Care?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0v2nLh9vu2dwZhSyLf2aIB0ehyphenhypheniMDe3vHHSLfGS8JR6ilPd3CDXB9nenHFUJaYqA2ZKPluKX3GfCNnA-2Pq2QN2bixZQI5W0TwOyVbSM_H0ArkdbXvjvfA-r4raQhgkBX26kZxBJBtoAg/s1600/the_help_movie_image_cicely_tyson_lila_rogers_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0v2nLh9vu2dwZhSyLf2aIB0ehyphenhypheniMDe3vHHSLfGS8JR6ilPd3CDXB9nenHFUJaYqA2ZKPluKX3GfCNnA-2Pq2QN2bixZQI5W0TwOyVbSM_H0ArkdbXvjvfA-r4raQhgkBX26kZxBJBtoAg/s640/the_help_movie_image_cicely_tyson_lila_rogers_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Cecily Tyson stars in the film version of <i>The Help</i></span><br />
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<h2 style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson" rel="author" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #03497e; font: normal normal bold 24px/24px Arial, Century, Times, serif !important; height: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.05em; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Brenda Peterson</a></h2>
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Author, 'I Want to Be Left Behind'<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 32px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 36px;">ObamaCare -- The Help</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: dimgrey; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">Posted: 12/ 1/11 02:27 PM ET</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: dimgrey; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: dimgrey; font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><i>THE HUFFINGTON POST</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The day after seeing the movie <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Help</em>, I had a vivid dream: I am asked to watch over Obama's two daughters, Sasha and Malia. We enjoy ourselves immensely. We visit a bookstore, much like the one President Obama visited with his daughters on Thanksgiving weekend. We share a wonderful Southern meal of fried chicken, butter beans, okra, and strawberry rhubarb pie, my favorite. We tell stories of our lives. Soon it's time for these young girls to be picked up by their mother, Michelle Obama, who graciously thanks me. She asks me if I would like to help out from time to time, because often the first lady and president are busy taking care of the country.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />I agree to this arrangement. It seems right and somehow very reassuring. "Oh," I say, "Obama Care."<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />And then I wake up. The first thing I realize is that this soothing dream is in stark counterpoint to the discomfort and even anguish I felt watching <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Help</em>. I've spent years in the South. My Granddaddy's modest family had a mammy who passed down to him her lullaby -- we still sing it four generations later. This song is said to cure fevers and to heal any illness. It's a musical legacy that was given to us from a woman none of us knew, but whose lullaby still comforts us.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mulling over the mash-up of my dream and <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Help</em>, mirror images haunt me: Aibileen, a Mississippi black maid tenderly embraces a white child she has cared for since birth. Softly, she repeats her mammy mantra:<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />"You is kind. You is smart. You is important."<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Aibileen and the other "domestics" reveal to the wider world the injustices of Jim Crow, the racism of a social system that will let a black woman intimately raise a white child; but not let that woman use the same bathrooms as the white family she cares for.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />In a heartbreaking scene, Aibileen is unfairly fired for supposedly stealing silver. For the last time, Aibileen embraces the little white girl. Saying goodbye, she asks the child to repeat her mantra. As Aibileen strides away, the child screams, "Ai-beeeee!" and cries, her hands pressed against the window of her aristocratic house with it landscaped yard and white pillars. She has lost her real mother.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Aibileen is grief stricken, but then holds up her head. She picks up her stride. She tells herself, "Maybe I'll be the writer in the family." She might also have said, "Maybe one day I might be president."<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />One day she might reverse generations of racism and classism. She might actually propose to take care of all children who are ill and need her compassionate tending.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />The more I pondered <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Help</em>, the more I thought about Obama Care, that centerpiece legislation that aims to take care of the uninsured children, the disenfranchised families, and to extend coverage until the age of 26. Obama Care spans the "Us and Them" mentality, and asks that we take care, not only of our own, but also those people who do not look like us or even share our same beliefs and culture. This is empathy that reaches out past "me and mine" to embrace the Other.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />I wondered, what are the states that most oppose Obama Care? Why is there such a mean-spirited attack on a health care program that, like many other civilized countries, hopes to insure everyone, no matter race or creed? In fact, Florida has taken their furious rejection of Obama Care all the way to the Supreme Court. This is the state where, according to "60 Minutes," <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57330802/hard-times-generation-families-living-in-cars/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">over one-third of all homeless families live.</a><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />There are 26 states, over half the country, fighting some form of Obama Care. But when you look at a map of the Southern states that oppose Obama Care overlaid with a map of blue and red states that voted Democratic or Republican in the 2008 Presidential election, a sobering image emerges. Almost uniformly, the South opposes Obama Care. The list of those who have signed onto legislation against Obama's health care program introduced by Florida and Virginia, is a veritable roll call of the South -- South Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Yes, there are <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/17/list-of-states-suing-over-obamacare/print/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">other states</a> besides the Southern block challenging Obama Care. In my own state, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna quickly joined the fight against Obama Care. But his highly unpopular partisan politics created a backlash here.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Ironically, in the 2008 presidential election, Virginia and Florida stand out as blue states in a red sea of Southern states. Now, those two states lead the anti-Obama Care legislation. The whole country awaits the Supreme Court's decision, especially on the question: Is it constitutional for government to make people buy their own health insurance?<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />But given our country's troubling history of race relations, we need to ask this question: Is there a shadow of racism in this rejection of Obama and his health care program?<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />One might suggest that the South, with its history of slavery and Jim Crow, has even more of a moral responsibility in this new century to help children other than their own. After all, how many decades did black women tend to white children, slave in someone else's house, kitchen, and nursery? After decades of venal prejudice, segregation, demanding that black women raise white children instead of simply tending to their own -- don't white families have a responsibility to give back? To expand their care to include others who literally slaved for their ancestors -- for generations?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Help</i> main characters Minny and Aibileen who work as maids and bravely tell the real story of Jim Crow in the South</span></div>
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<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: medium; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></em></div>
<div style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 14px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-size: medium; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Help</em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">was a study in compassion in the face of prejudice and hatred -- black women who raised all those white babies and loved them like their own. In this generation we have a chance to heal those racist wounds. This national health care debate must be seen as more than a power struggle between state and federal government. More than a rallying cry for the 2012 presidential elections. Obama Care is about much more than rights. It is about our responsibilities to our fellow citizens. This is a moral and ethical conversation about family values. Do we only value our own families -- or can we include everyone else? Not Us and Them. All of us.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Everyone can help take care of the next generations -- because they are all our children. And because we are kind. We are smart. And they are so important.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Brenda Peterson is the author of 16 books, including the recent memoir, <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth,</em> which was selected among "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010" by<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> The Christian Science Monitor</em>. <br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />For more: <a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #0088c3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">http://www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></em></span></div>
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</div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-53957375754070989172011-11-23T11:45:00.001-08:002011-11-23T12:07:35.329-08:00UC Davis Protest 101: The Power of the Citizen Witness<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dear Readers and Friends,</span></i></b><br />
<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></b><br />
<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Here is my new Huffington Post commentary. Please post and pass around. If you have time, please go to this link and post it and pass around. In solidarity! Brenda</span></i></b><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_634123438"><br /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/uc-davis-protests_b_1108179.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/uc-davis-protests_b_1108179.html</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have never been ashamed of my alma mater, UC Davis, until I watched the video of the police pepper spraying peaceful protesters -- young students who looked a lot like my peers in the 1960s when we protested the Vietnam War. Then, we sat on railroad tracks to stop munitions trains; we burned our draft cards; we buried our friends who died in a far-away land for what even we recognized as a shameful and cynical proxy war of super powers.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now, the UC Davis Occupy students -- like so many disinherited young people all over the world -- are protesting not the loss of life in battlefields, but the loss of their future. Our kids are burdened by college loan debts, while Wall Street continues to give itself golden parachutes. Big banks hoard the very bailout monies Main Street lent them. And for the first time, statistics show that our next generation will <i>not</i> be better off than their parents. Our kids have every right to take to the streets and rebel against this kind of crooked deal. What use is a hard-won diploma if unemployment awaits the graduate? What use is our legacy if it is only to disinherit our young?</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Watching the viral video of the UC
Davis protesters not only made me ashamed and angry at my alma mater, it also
brought back a vivid memory: It is the late Sixties and Ronald Reagan is
governor. Our governor has dropped tear gas on the UC Berkeley campus where one
of my best friends was studying in the library. Reagan has brutally attacked
the Flower Power protests of People’s Park, and slashed the library budget of
all UC universities. Outraged, about 300 students from UC Davis gather on
campus to protest because Governor Reagan is coming to speak here. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As we
students mill around with our hand-made signs: “We Need Books” and “Keep Our
Library Free from Politics,” we are suddenly herded into a small, rectangular
courtyard. Our signs are forcibly taken from us. Many of the protesters are
kept outside. Our numbers reduced, we feel corralled, our voices reduced. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; line-height: normal;">Suddenly there is jostling as campus police move us back to allow Governor Reagan and his coterie to enter the courtyard. Everyone starts shouting. I notice a well-dressed older man next to me yell out profanities. I wonder why. He's obviously not with the protesters. Then I realize that his profane language has forced the news cameras to turn off all audio.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Into this muted crowd of young protesters strides Ronald Reagan with his movie star make-up and million-dollar smile. Even as we shout at him, he waves like a prom king to his court. It makes no sense to me, this disconnect between Reagan's royal entrance and the protesting peons. No sense, that is, until I watch the evening news and see my first experience with "the spin." On those brief video clips, our small gaggle of protesters looks like a cheering crowd. Our grimaces look like chimpanzee smiles, our signs are gone, our voices are silenced. It might as well be a promo or puff piece for the governor and his anti-intellectual policies.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I've never forgotten that 1960s media manipulation. The movie star governor who knew how to frame a scene and work the camera angles, if not the crowd. It got him all the way to the presidency.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But as I watched the UC Davis protesters I realized there was actually some hope -- and change since my protest days at UCD. Everyone was a camera and no one could spin it or cut it or censor it. That's because all the students were raising their smart phone cameras to witness and document the scene. So as the campus police doused the peaceful protesters, there was heart-breaking audio:</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Don't do it! Don't do it!"</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Do you have children?" a young man asked the cop as he sprayed students in the face with the blinding chemical pepper.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Your children would be ashamed of you!" a young woman cried out.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And the uncut video showed the faces of the police as they stood by, refusing to help when students screamed out in pain, rubbing their eyes, coughing. It was so counter-intuitive to see these public servants causing the harm, not rescuing us. And their faces were not stoic masks. Some of the police looked very confused, even ashamed.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Shame on you!" the crowd began chanting. "You can go!"</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And the campus police began retreating slowly. There is no winning here in the video. But there is something quite profound and ground-breaking: The role of the citizen witness. Our sixties generation had no technology to document our revolution. We had to rely upon the mainstream media with its censors, editors, and gate-keepers to report on any protest.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Today's young are so media and tech-savvy that everyone with a smart phone is a reporter and a witness. The Internet's egalitarian social media has replaced the top-down reporting. YouTube can spark revolutions and organize protests. A wall of policemen is so 20th century with it show of force and dictatorial power. The 21st century is about relationship, not top-down authority. It's why all over the world dictators are falling.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It's why the big banks and crooked Wall Street brokers who have for so long dictated our finances, will also fall to the nimble and outraged young they have disenfranchised. One simple rule that every old animal knows is that at some point you must cede your power to the young. With their phones held high like antennae broadcasting to the whole world, our young people will not let us keep stealing from their future. They are watching us and witnessing.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Do you have children?" they cry out.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And we must answer, yes. You are our children. It is our responsibility to leave you a better world.~</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Also, take a look at the creative ways that people are using this image on the Internet to get the visual protests across!</i></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=photo+images+UC+Davis+pepper+spray&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsu&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=V07NTuGMK6XnsQKzgPncDg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CEkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1411&bih=939">http://www.google.com/search?q=photo+images+UC+Davis+pepper+spray&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsu&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=V07NTuGMK6XnsQKzgPncDg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CEkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1411&bih=939</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What do you think of all of this? Please let me know!</span></div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-22909702822385500952011-11-10T12:32:00.000-08:002011-11-10T12:36:47.125-08:00E-Books Outselling Print? What's ahead for authors and publishers and readers?<br />
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<a href="http://www.reallysi.com/" style="color: #ce1126;" target="_self" title="Really Strategies">Really Strategies</a> recently polled a select group of publishers to understand projections on the shifting revenue metrics around digital and print products. The results are within our own expectations:</div>
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<strong><em>When does your organization project digital revenue exceeding print revenue?</em></strong></div>
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<a href="http://www.reallysi.com/" style="color: #ce1126;" target="_blank"><img alt="publishers' digital revenue v print revenue" border="0" class="alignCenter" height="286" id="img-1320849197077" src="http://blog.reallysi.com/Portals/25833/images/digital_revenue_poll.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></a>Having worked with hundreds of publishing professionals during the past 10 years, we've observed that those organizations who implement a strategic content management initiative are the ones who are seeing digital revenue exceed print. In some cases, we've seen digital revenue actually drive print revenue!</div>
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Where is your organization on this timeline? Do you anticipate digital revenue to exceed print revenue in 2012?</div>
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<span class="NormalBold">Tags: <a href="http://blog.reallysi.com/?Tag=CMS+for+publishers" rel="tag" style="color: #ce1126;">CMS for publishers</a>, <a href="http://blog.reallysi.com/?Tag=digital+publishing" rel="tag" style="color: #ce1126;">digital publishing</a>, <a href="http://blog.reallysi.com/?Tag=strategy" rel="tag" style="color: #ce1126;">strategy</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In my continuing series on e-books and self-publishing, here is a very fascinating survey of publishers who are tracking their e-book vs. print book sales. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As everyone probably already knows, Amazon has announced that their digital books are now outselling their print (hard and softbound books). What does this mean for authors?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At a recent SCBWI (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) national conference in Los Angeles this summer, a prestigious editor predicted that by 2014, e-books would be the main revenue stream for publishers and authors. With print editions reduced to sub-rights. This is a huge shift with far-ranging effects. First of all, it shows how important it is to invest in e-books, whether self-publishing or going with a traditional publisher.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Several of my author friends and students have signed away their e-book rights without much discussion or representation. I have several out of print books for which I'm trying to get e-book rights returned to me so I can bring them out again myself. But the publisher is hanging on to these e-rights, yet <i>not </i>bringing them out in e-books. Many of my author friends are in the same situation. Waiting for traditional publishers to realize that the e-book revolution is here, not in the future.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you are an author and have kept your e-book rights, never give them up -- unless you and your agent believe this is the best option. Or, they are offering a lot of money. If you are an author who is either very established or just starting out, consider doing a digital-only edition of your next book. Track it via Kindle, iBooks, and Nook and see how it does.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">There are many advantages to the e-book revolution. The first is that there are no returns. The traditional publishing industry's old-fashioned and debilitating practice of allowing bookstores to buy large quantities, only to return them, is an impractical and dispiriting way to do business. The author believes his or her book is selling well -- only to hear that huge returns have happened. The book piles up in publishers' warehouses, space they have to rent, the book is then remaindered at a fraction of its cost. I know of no other business -- except perhaps Nordstrom's -- where merchandise is sold with the expectation of a 40% return rate!</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Check out this <i>New York Times</i> article on publishing: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/24/will-amazon-kill-off-book-publishers/amazon-enters-publishing-theres-no-going-back">http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/24/will-amazon-kill-off-book-publishers/amazon-enters-publishing-theres-no-going-back</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">I commented on this article: </span></span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/24/will-amazon-kill-off-book-publishers/amazon-enters-publishing-theres-no-going-back?permid=21&offset=2#comment21" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">21.</a></div>
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<a href="http://timespeople.nytimes.com/view/user/44360260/activities.html">Brenda Peterson, author I Want To Be Left Behind</a></div>
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Seattle, WA</div>
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October 25th, 2011 12:31 pm</div>
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Having published 16 books with traditional publishers -- from Norton to Penguin, I'm fascinated with what some editors are calling "The Wild West of e-books and self-publishing." Many of us authors have watched our backlists languish, even though backlists are the life support of most publishers. I just brought out my New York Times "Notable Book of the Year," DUCK AND COVER, as an e-book. The process was laborious, but fulfilling. Finding an expert e-book formatter, hiring a new cover design, and professional proofreading -- all the stages that traditional publishers usually perform. </div>
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Authors now have many more options. This is one of the most exciting and innovative times to be a writer. We still need critical first readers, editors, and advisors all along the way. Many experienced editors and designers are now free-lancing because corporate publishing was shortsighted enough to only focus on the bottom-line and not developing a relationship with their long-term editors, authors, or their readers over time. </div>
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Will the proliferation of e-books and self-publishing become more sustainable and egalitarian? Will authors at last make a living wage as they receive 70% royalties? Or will we just see a glut of unprocessed and unedited prose? There will definitely be new voices and unexpected gems. The next decade for books will be what one of my favorite editors calls, “a bloody good story.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/">www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></div>
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<span class="s2">Recommend</span> Recommended by 14 Readers</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://publishingperspectives.com/">http://publishingperspectives.com/</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">And here is another fascinating article from </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">Publishing Perspectives</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">, one of the best free daily newsletters on the business of publishing. </span><a href="http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/06/self-published-ebook-authors-earn-living/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/06/self-published-ebook-authors-earn-living/</a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Also try joining the Linked In discussions on Digital Book World and E-Pub Technologies. The more education you have as a writer, the more options you'll discover available to you.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">And stay tuned for more in my series e-books and self-publishing. Also for those of you who want to learn more about the craft of writing memoir, see my You Tube videos at this link: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__wZEYplBsA&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__wZEYplBsA&feature=related</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Thanks for reading!</span></span></div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-55696547744920583892011-10-30T15:16:00.000-07:002011-10-30T15:16:57.830-07:00Occupy the Book: Is It Author Spring?<div>
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Dear Readers,</div>
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In my continuing series on e-books, backlists, and self-publishing, here's my new <i>Huffington Post</i>. Please post and pass around. I will continue next week with cover design and how to find the right cover for your e-books. Some more tips on the book trade.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Occupy the Book: Is It Author Spring?</span></h1>
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<span class="arial_11 color_696969" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: rgb(105, 105, 105) !important; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Posted: 10/26/11 11:23 AM ET <i>HUFFINGTON POST</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the 1970s, when I was an editorial assistant at <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The New Yorker</em> magazine -- and getting many rejections -- I used to fanaticize about being my own publisher. "Give yourself ten years to finish a book," one of the revered <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">New Yorker</em> editors advised me. "Think of it as an author's apprenticeship."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">After five years, I left the magazine to publish my first novel, <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">River of Light</em> with Knopf. To support my writing, I took a lowly job as a typesetter, so I could complete my working knowledge of books -- from creation to production. My second novel, <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Becoming the Enemy</em>, was even set at a fictional publishing house. I worked for decades as an editor and taught writing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">After publishing 16 books with traditional houses -- from Norton to HarperCollins to Penguin -- I believed I was finally ready to become my own publisher. But there was still a stigma against the "vanity press" of self-publishing, no distribution, and little consumer demand.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I would have to wait until the 21st century when digital technology, direct distribution channels like Amazon, iBooks, and Nook, plus the popularity of inexpensive e-readers have finally made it possible for authors to become publishers. My first task was to bring my backlist into print as e-books. The journey into self-publishing is like discovering a new territory with evolving rules and a swiftly tilting culture. This is one of the most exciting and innovative times to be an author. Everything is in flux.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">An esteemed editor said recently at a national conference of Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators <a href="http://%28scbwi/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #e61405; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">(SCBWI</a>), "It's the Wild West out there for e-books. And publishers should not be afraid to embrace them."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">With the proliferation of e-books and self-publishing will the book business become more sustainable and egalitarian? Will we finally see an end to the bloated advances for celebrity memoirs -- those non-books for non-readers written by non-writers? Will we see the re-education of the bottom-liners who turned this once genteel profession of publishing into corporate Raiders of the Lost Authors?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Another editor at the SCBWI publishing panel commented, "Authors and readers now have many more options. Big publishers must be more flexible, nimble and responsive." Like independent and small presses always have been.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Will big publishers invest now, not just book-by-book, but instead in an author's whole body of work -- supported and developed <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">over time</em>? Will publishers realize that today's long-ignored backlist is tomorrow's steady life support?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">And for their part, will self-published authors develop their craft and practice rigorous revision, what one of my editors calls, "the soul of genius," and employ the same expert editing and production standards of traditional presses? Or will we see a glut of unprocessed and unedited prose? Who will be the new gatekeepers and ensure quality control? Who will be the trusted reviewers, as newspapers and their book critics disappear? As we zoom into the future of books, will blogger-reviewers be sheriffs or outlaws?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Beloved librarian and author Nancy Pearl writes in a<a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/nancy-pearl/article/49130-check-it-out-with-nancy-pearl-book-reviewing-and-more.html" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #e61405; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink"> recent <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">PW</em> interview,</a> "One concern I have is that the relatively healthy balance of book-related information that can be found on the Internet now might evolve into a Wild West solely of personal opinions." She credits GoodReads and LibraryThing with their enthusiastic peer reviewers. In the future publishing milieu, Pearl also looks forward to hearing more "new voices" and credits the enduring, independent presses as they continue their tradition of rich, literary quality books.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the next decade, who will be left standing at the OK Corral of book publishing? And will authors finally make a living wage with their 70 percent royalties on self-published e-books -- or will we again be enslaved by the corporate greed of conglomerate publishers, some of whom might as well be selling shoes as books? What is the book culture to come?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Are we now seeing the power shift from publishers to authors? A kind of Occupy Publishers' Row by enterprising authors? Or perhaps an Author Spring?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Many predict that by the 2014, e-books will be the main revenue stream for authors and publishers, with paperback and hardbacks demoted to sub-rights. This is a huge transition -- as readers and authors are directly connected and the conversation continues online, the pages turning digital. Big publishers, if they don't play catch-up with this revolution, will be Titanics. Smaller presses may flourish if they can keep their loyal readers and develop their own niche. Libraries are already lending e-books. Authors are now more at the center of it all.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Along with sharing power, authors also have to take more responsibility for what we create. We will have to learn how to find the best e-book formatters, so our books don't look amateurish and reveal sub-quality production values. This means employing cover designers, experienced editors, proofreaders, and reaching out to our readers via social medias and blog tours. And let us never forget or forsake those independent bookstores who have valiantly kept authors alive and in touch with our readers.<br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />With the upside-down of book publishing, authors and publishers are serving a new apprenticeship. And it won't take a decade. It's warp speed. But we still have to learn publishing all over again, from the bottom up. Laborious, yes. Daunting, yes. Exhilarating, yes.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Authors and readers and publishers unite. Occupy the Book!</span></div>
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<em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Brenda Peterson is the author of many books, including the novels <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Duck-and-Cover-ebook/dp/B005L9UOYC" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #e61405; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Duck and Cover</a>, a <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">New York Times </em>"Notable Book of the Year" and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Heart-ebook/dp/B005LWW17M/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319566489&sr=1-1" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #e61405; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">Animal Heart,</a> which she has just brought back into print as e-books. For more on publishing and writing, see her blog at <a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #e61405; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></span></em></div>
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<br /></div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-78182922671952408672011-10-25T14:19:00.000-07:002011-10-25T14:42:22.158-07:00From Author to Publisher: The Future of Books<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Today I begin my promised series on the future of publishing, especially bringing out an author's backlist into e-books and also the prospect of self-publishing. It's hot news, the fact that publishing is in such flux with the proliferation of author-to-publisher opportunities on Amazon, iBooks, and Nook. In fact, there's a fascinating article in the 10.25.2011 edition of <i>The New York Times</i> with a lot of savvy commentary from authors about self-publishing at this link:</span><br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/24/will-amazon-kill-off-book-publishers/amazon-enters-publishing-theres-no-going-back?permid=21#comment21"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/24/will-amazon-kill-off-book-publishers/amazon-enters-publishing-theres-no-going-back?permid=21#comment21</span></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And having just brought my own two out-of-print novels back into e-books, I want to share with my readers this exciting but often laborious process. The pitfalls and the possibilities. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">First, for those authors who have already published books but seen them languish in publisher's backlist or haunting themselves on Internet shelves where no one ever sees them anymore, don't despair. These books can be reborn as e-books. I just reissued <i>DUCK AND COVER</i>, my <i>New York Times</i> "Notable Book of the Year," which was a critical success. In 2003, I was one of the first authors to publish in paperback via the Author's Guild BackinPrint.com program.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefbLZl2LutK180WpLxSagZjQ1Btis8YRVKSnzOZTl6JhemCQgjISId-J4IxKnp3KYSe21IMoy7x8O2E2SLKs9Y1x7Xr82GWgaoXYnpWXmi5mxauiQHVnv_jLDqxzl-mRdxKjp5HQEFo7s/s1600/brendacoverface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefbLZl2LutK180WpLxSagZjQ1Btis8YRVKSnzOZTl6JhemCQgjISId-J4IxKnp3KYSe21IMoy7x8O2E2SLKs9Y1x7Xr82GWgaoXYnpWXmi5mxauiQHVnv_jLDqxzl-mRdxKjp5HQEFo7s/s640/brendacoverface.jpg" width="416" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005L9UOYC/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060163208&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0C9DMTY60CRPZNTQGCWA"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005L9UOYC/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060163208&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0C9DMTY60CRPZNTQGCWA</span></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">e-book is now available on Amazon.com at this link:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But in paperback, royalties were as minimal as hardback publication, 10 or 15%. It was the old publishing model with the author receiving very little. When I started tracking the 70% royalties available via Kindle, iBooks, and Nook, I decided to venture into the publishing business myself. Here's what I've learned:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> <b><i> E-Book Formatting: Don't Listen to the Ads</i></b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">All the technologies have changed so quickly that a Quark format from Adobe's InDesign, which most publishers used for many books, now must be translated into either WORD or pdf before it can become an e-book. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are two main e-book formats. The first, used by Amazon, and the easiest, is <b>MoBI</b>. The second, used by iBooks and Barnes and Noble, Nook, is <b>e-pub format</b>. If you remember nothing else about this first blog on e-books and self-publishing, remember this: <i>Don't translate into e-book formats yourself!</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Even though all the e-book publishers advertise that it's easy to translate your WORD or pdf files, you'll soon discover when the book goes up for sale that it is full of weird font problems and spacing gaffes. Sometimes there is dropped copy and unintelligible squiggles that look like an alien landed right in the middle of your story. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Trying to get a lower cost for e-book translations led me to several very quaint and courteous conversations with e-book formatting entrepreneurs around the world, especially in India. While their emails were polite and professional, most of them were full of grammatical errors. And though they offered formatting at prices as low as .25 per page, this did not include hand or "human" proofing. It would all be done by machines. The chances of errors goes up exponentially.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After much research, and more than a little bewildering exchanges, I finally found myself on an online forum via Digital Book World on Linked in. <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=75259021&gid=2176661&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_nd-pst_ttle-cn&ut=0Cg4TogmciBAY1">Digital Book World Group</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I've never in my life been in a chat room. But suddenly I found myself conversing with total strangers about formats, pricing for e-books, and cover designs. My author peers and some small, independent publishers were extraordinarily helpful. It felt like writers had at last found a kind of union -- all organized around How To.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another forum that was helpful was on Linked In, which has a very lively conversation about e-books and the future of self-publishing -- everything from children's books to YA to memoirists.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was through Digital Book World that I discovered one of the very best e-book formatters -- Data Conversion Laboratory at <a href="http://www.dclab.com/">www.dclab.com</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> They do e-book formatting for Amazon.com. When I contacted them by e-mail, they set up a phone call with real, live people. They informed me that they not only translate from Quark, pdf., scanned pdfs, and WORD, but they also proof with a hands-on process.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In about two weeks, DC Labs sent me my beautifully formatted novels in both MOBI and e-pub. I hired a professional proofreader, just to make sure they had translated the book well. I found only two errors in over 300 pages. This is quality work! I give them my highest recommendation.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But then what? I had the inside of my book ready to publish. But what about the outside? That little thumbnail cover that appears on your computer screen. The first thing a potential reader sees? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Again, even though Amazon, iBooks, and Nook offer you a fairly inscrutable process to create your own cover -- please don't do it yourself!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Stay tuned for my next blog in this continuing series -- Cover design. </span>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153203402591177845.post-24448487582024682302011-10-12T12:35:00.000-07:002011-10-12T12:35:12.817-07:00The Post-Marriage Bed: Can this Mattress Be Saved?<br />
<b>The Post-Marriage Bed: Can This Mattress Be Saved?</b><br />
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/the-postmarriage-bed-can-_b_1000530.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/the-postmarriage-bed-can-_b_1000530.html</a></span></div>
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Every morning when I awoke with a lower back ache, I still denied the truth: This mattress, like my relationship, no longer supported me. So why stay in a bed that sagged under my spine like sorrow?</div>
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When my decade-long, unofficial marriage ended, I spent a year sorting through shared belongings. At last in the bedroom, I parted with the Hawaiian quilt stitched with dolphins; I recycled our comforter -- now worn with the happiness of desire, our winter coziness, the startling confession of an affair. But it never occurred to me to let go of the spacious mattress.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">Every morning when I awoke with a lower back ache, I still denied the truth: This mattress, like my relationship, no longer supported me. So why stay in a bed that sagged under my spine like sorrow? Every night I was sinking deeper into a foam-filled valley, next to an empty gulley. Could this mattress really be saved? I took a first step: check out what's possible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"Let me introduce you to some splendid beds," the elderly department store salesman swept me into his huge boudoir. He seemed like a favorite uncle dressed for a wedding, dark suit with bright bowtie and his silver hair shorn in a respectable crew cut. He waltzed me through a bonanza of beds until my mind was numb from too many -- King, Queen, Super Lumbar Support, Firm to Pillow Top to Plush.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"So, will there be two of you?" he asked discretely, noting that I still wore a black pearl on my ring finger.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"No," I said softly. "We're....well, separated."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"Oh," the salesman nodded, then asked with a detached gentleness. "Are you having trouble sleeping?"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">I nodded, turning away quickly to hide my sudden sadness. I tried to recover my composure by plopping down with what I hoped looked like consumer cheerfulness to test yet another bed. It had a surprising suppleness and bounce.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">As it happens, I had landed on a twin bed. It was a modest, firm, no-nonsense single bed, the kind I hadn't slept on since childhood when I graduated from sleeping with siblings to my own room.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"This is so comfy," I said, bouncing a little more. "But then, I'm sure it's too small for...." I fell silent. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"Did you know that for every ten years, four of them are spent on a mattress?" The salesman waited patiently.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">A radical idea took hold of me. It was as if the bed reached up through its individual coiled springs zinging a new synapse into my brain. A single bed for a single woman! After all, I was sleeping alone and unexpectedly enjoying it. I did not have the slightest intention, for now, of starting another relationship until I'd thoroughly sorted out and understood what went wrong. I knew I needed to learn to trust again after such an intimate betrayal. And until I healed, I would not be a good mate.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"Can I just buy just one twin... like a closed set?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"Certainly you can," he said sensibly. "A twin is always good for kids, guests, you....whatever."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">Here was my second epiphany. I could afford a much more expensive and supportive bed if I bought a single version of the Queen Size posturepedic I'd been eyeing. I jumped up and turned to lay both of my hands, palms flat, against the strong twin bed. It felt so sturdy and somehow self-possessed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">"Sold!" I said and smiled giddily.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">I was quiet as he neatly wrote out the order and delivery date. When he handed the paperwork to me with a warm smile, my eyes met his. I had not noticed how dark and kind his expression until this moment. He concluded the deal by saying almost tenderly, "You'd be surprised how many of these twin...er, single beds I sell these days. It will last you...when other things don't."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">As I walked away from the bed department I noted a young couple testing a King size, already arguing over plush or firm. I imagined their bodies adjusting to a young marriage and another body. Surprisingly, I did not envy them. All I wanted was to be home in a new, slim and stable bed -- dreaming alone. I saw myself on this bed for the next four out of ten years sleeping contentedly in monastic poise. If and when I ever do take another mate -- well, there is always the matching twin.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">Brenda Peterson is the author of 16 books, including the recent memoir, <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-style: italic !important; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth</em>, which <em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-style: italic !important; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Christian Science Monitor</em> named among "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;">For more: <a href="http://www.iwanttobeleftbehind.com/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #337c8c; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>Brenda S. Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09532571290692593974noreply@blogger.com2