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The Mysteries of the Faceless King

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Coming soon from PS Publishing is The Mysteries of the Faceless King, the first of two volumes collecting the best of Darrell Schweitzer's short fiction. Beautifully made, with a cover by the estimable Jason Van Hollander.

Also, an introduction by (cough) me. Here's how that begins:

Once upon a time . . .None of the stories collected herein begin with those words, though some come close. But they might as well. For Darrell Schweitzer writes a very traditional sort of story. His fiction is almost always fantasy, which is a mode nested deep in the roots of Story; usually horror, a mode as old as nightmares; and very often weird fantasy, a much more recent mode but one that is dear to his heart. Most could have been written a hundred years ago—or, with equal ease, a hundred years in the future. This is not a criticism. Timelessness is precisely what he is after.

PS Publishing has posted the entirety of the introduction online, preparatory to publication of the book sometime this month. So if you're curious as to what I said, you have only two options. You can buy the book. Or you can read the intro online for free.

But if you don't buy the book, you won't get the stories. You're in a quandary.

You can find the entire introductory essay here. Or you can just go to the PS Publishing website and wander about, marveling at how many of their books you want by clicking here.


And I should remind you . . .

The ebook of The Iron Dragon's Daughter, the first of three stand-alone fantasies in the Iron Dragons Trilogy, goes on sale tomorrow (Wednesday, April 1, 2020) for the one day only for only $1.99. That's a good deal. But only tomorrow and only in Canada and the US.


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Using CC Licenses and Tools to Share and Preserve Cultural Heritage in the Face of Climate Change

On the occasion of both Earth Day and World Intellectual Property Day, which this year centers on the theme of Innovation for a Green Future, we’d like to underline the importance of cultural heritage preservation as a response to the threats posed by climate change. In this post, we’ll also share some insights on how … Read More "Using CC Licenses and Tools to Share and Preserve Cultural Heritage in the Face of Climate Change"

The post Using CC Licenses and Tools to Share and Preserve Cultural Heritage in the Face of Climate Change appeared first on Creative Commons.




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#145: The Fantastic Four




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When the Birdies Sing Like the Fat Lady

Clusterfuck Nation For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Spring is popping now with a ferocious energy that can only remind the sullenly sequestered masses that life is going on without them. Every living thing is busy making-and-doing out there, except the poor humans, idled without work or more »

The post When the Birdies Sing Like the Fat Lady appeared first on Kunstler.



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Obama the Family Man




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The Falsehoods of the ‘Plandemic’ Video

The first installment of a documentary called "Plandemic" stormed through social media this week. But the viral video weaves a grand conspiracy theory by using a host of false and misleading claims about the novel coronavirus pandemic and its origins, vaccines, treatments for COVID-19, and more.

The post The Falsehoods of the ‘Plandemic’ Video appeared first on FactCheck.org.




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Charlie Brooker | The fashion industry is responsible for everything that’s wrong with the world

If the fashion industry truly cared about the future of our planet, it would issue a solitary line of unisex, one-size-fits-all smocks, then shut down for good

So then. Alongside “eating a sandwich” and “holding up a copy of a newspaper”, we now have to add “wearing a T-shirt” to the growing list of Ordinary Things Ed Miliband Somehow Just Can’t Do. The other week he was pictured in Elle magazine wearing the Fawcett Society’s “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt. Last Sunday the Mail claimed those T-shirts are stitched together in a Mauritian sweatshop by women earning 62p an hour.

A T-shirt. He can’t even wear a T-shirt without somehow condemning both himself and any surrounding witnesses to ridicule. What’s going to trip him up next? A doorknob? Next week he operates a doorknob so badly he fractures his wrist, and as the medics wheel him to the operating theatre, they accidentally knock an ageing war veteran off a waiting room chair, leaving him groaning in pain on the floor, at which point Miliband insists they stop his gurney so he can lean over and help the guy up, but he forgets about his fractured wrist, so as the 96-year-old decorated-war-hero-and-humbling-inspiration-to-us-all gingerly grabs his hand, Miliband abruptly screeches a barrage of agonised obscenities directly into his face, causing him to hit the floor again, fatally this time, in front of the world’s media, oh and also Miliband does a frightened little wee at the end, and they film that too.

Continue reading...




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Editorial: Closing LAUSD schools in the face of coronavirus sounds like a reasonable decision. Is it?

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Amtrak relaxes its refund rules in the face of coronavirus

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Amazon is primed to change the fashion industry with 'Making the Cut'

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Letters to the Editor: Sweden can't explain away the fact that its lax coronavirus approach is killing people

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'The Farewell' and 'Uncut Gems' rule the Spirit Awards, as Bong Joon Ho celebrates with Spike Lee

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With movie theaters shut down due to the pandemic, the motion picture academy's board voted Tuesday to temporarily suspend its long-held rule requiring a theatrical release for Oscar consideration




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Kate Robbins famous family tree: Inside the famous family of Emily Atack's mum



KATE ROBBINS hits our screens tonight on Celebrity Pointless but what well-known faces appear in Kate's famous family tree?




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Broad Ripple's White City amusement park and the fake 'opium den' that burned it down

There were no fewer than 30 White City amusement parks across the world. They were inspired by the Chicago World's Fair.

       




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Here's what the fall semester could look like for Indiana's colleges and universities

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Fun for all the family at Butlin's

Photographer Barry Lewis captures the spirit of a Butlin's holiday camp in 1982.




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VE Day: The fall of Nazi Berlin in pictures

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The fantasy football players you need in your Week 4 lineup

Joe Flacco's the way to go if you need a quarterback this week. And yes, we know what you're thinking.




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Six teams are on a bye this week, giving stars like Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr., Andrew Luck, Zach Ertz and A.J. Green the week off. Here are three players that could have big games in their stead.




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The far left is taking a page from its opponents’ playbook

They have big dreams, but the plans aren’t backed up.




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AT#153 - Travel to the Faroe Islands

Faroe Islands




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AT#180 - Cruise to the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica

The Amateur Traveler talks to again to Chris Willis (Swimming with Whales off Tonga - Episode 38, Ethiopia - Episode 79, Mountain Gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda - Episode 80, Travel to Mongolia - Episode 111) about his cruise with Quark Expeditions from Ushuaia, Argentina to Antarctica via the Falklands, South Georgia and South Orkney islands. We talk about wildlife photography of penguins, sea birds, whales and bad tempered fur seals.




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Syria Showcases the Failure to Engage Locals in Development

20 August 2015

Kholoud Mansour

Former Academy Associate
The problems of the international humanitarian response in the war-torn country are part of a broader difficulty in connecting development with local sustainability.

20150820UNSyriaEnvoys.jpg

UN Deputy Special Envoy to Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, UNDP Representative in Syria Yacoub al-Helo and the commissioner general of UNRWA, Pierre Krahenbuhl, answer questions during an interview on 14 April 2015 in Damascus. Photo by Getty Images.

The international community’s response to the Syria crisis has been unsatisfactory on many fronts, and humanitarian aid and development is no exception. While there has been renewed emphasis by development organizations on the importance of engaging local actors − notably highlighted in the new Sustainable Development Goals − the reality is this has been woefully lacking in practice. And Syria is simply one example of many where the failure of UN agencies and other humanitarian actors to partner with local actors has hampered the response to humanitarian crises.

Double standards

The problem is that international agencies usually have high and unfair expectations from Syrian individuals and organizations, requiring them to speak the ‘language’ of development, meet international standards, and demonstrate a wide range of expertise. However, these demands are not reciprocated by international organizations and experts being expected to have the same depth of knowledge of the local context in which they are operating. In addition, while Syrian actors are expected to be neutral, impartial and politically unaffiliated, foreign aid appears to be driven − explicitly and unashamedly − by the political objectives of the donor countries.

There is a double standard at work. In many cases, international ‘experts’ on Syria have little local knowledge, but there are no channels to measure or question their level of expertise. At the same time, including local Syrians in decision-making is seen as a threat to predetermined objectives, rather than as an asset.

Syrians could add an indispensable source of knowledge and context to international agencies, as well as add local credibility. But too often they are brought on board to be part of the humanitarian and development picture or to get their simple feedback for evaluation and needs assessment reports to satisfy donors’ requirements, rather than employed as an integral component of designing and implementing projects. Though some of this is down to a pretext of lack of capacity, it raises the question of whether there is an international political willingness and genuine organizational courage to involve Syrians at programming, decision and policy making-levels.

The importance of local

The Syrian example is not isolated. While there is now a debate to encourage engaging local actors, this does not happen in practice. The Local to Global Protection Initiative study reported that local and national humanitarian actors received only 0.2% of the overall direct global humanitarian response in 2013.

Moreover, the international humanitarian and development systems are designed, together with foreign aid policy, to be self-contained and to exclude local actors. This allows donor governments to use the systems as political tools for leveraging control. It is equally difficult for both outsiders as well as insiders to understand how the system really functions. The UN-led coordination structure is one example of the heavy international architecture that remains unable to reform itself, learn from its previous mistakes, or to engage with local actors.

And that engagement matters. The Independent Research Forum emphasized in its brief in February 2014 how engaging local researchers and implementing bottom-up participatory learning can make countries better prepared to achieve the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Those goals, as well as the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit, highlight the importance of including local actors in the humanitarian and development responses.

Moving forward

Fortunately, such initiatives are creating a momentum within the development community to make radical changes through bottom-up approaches that put sustainability into practice. But if the Sustainable Development Goals want to affect real change, there will have to be a significant drive to move from rhetoric and ‘intentions’ to reality and actions. Currently it seems that the international community prefers to simply maintain the current status quo. It only takes a brief reflection on how many Syrians are included in every project or programme and how many Syrians are in positions to contribute at the policy and decision-making levels to realise the scale of the impetus required to change this system. To make that change might provide an opportunity for Syrians to restore some of the ownership to the outcomes and decisions of their conflict.

To comment on this article, please contact Chatham House Feedback




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The Fate of ISIS in Northeast Syria




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The calendar for the fair on national experiences with the national implementation of the Biosafety Protocol during MOP 6 is now available.




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CBD Communiqué: Engaging children and youth on biodiversity at the Farnborough International Airshow.




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CBD News: Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Nagoya, 29 October 2010 Will Be Opened for Signature by Parties to the Conven




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CBD Communiqué: Gabon Signs the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilization




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CBD News: Statement by Mr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD Executive, on the occasion of the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Nagoya Protocol on access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits arising from their util




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CBD Press Release: European Union and 12 Member States sign the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization




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CBD Communiqué: Antigua and Barbuda becomes the first Caribbean island country to sign the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilization




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CBD News: Guinea and Morocco, on 9 December 2011, became the latest signatories to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (




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CBD News: On 29 December 2011, Lithuania, became the seventy-first signatory of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD




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CBD News: Cyprus, on 29 December 2011, became the seventy-second signatory of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity and th