Graeme

I've got no problems with any of my stuff being made into a movie, and I'd love to have some of it published, but I'm expecting neither and don't intend to go out of my way to make either happen. I certainly don't expect to ever make money from my writing. To be honest, one of the biggest thrills I got was an email from a teacher asking if they could use one of my stories in their class, (presumably to prompt discussion). Naturally, I said yes

I think this is partially a USA issue, because of the very different nature of high schools in the USA vs in Australia, but we've had some issues with facebook here, too. One prominent one was a group of college students who put up a facebook page advocating rape.... :wacko: On the specifics of this case, I read the article and the three non-athlete students were ordered to do community service and that legal action was still a possibility. In other words, the school had assumed the position of prosecutor, judge and jury, found the students guilty and assigned punishment, all without the students being allowed to contest the issue (in particular, being able to confront their accuser, since the article says that the photos were presented to the school by someone whom the school wouldn't name). I sincerely doubt that the school has the legal authority to order community service. They could order the students to do something at school (eg. detention, or similar), but outside of school hours I believe their authority is limited. There was also the point made in the comments that the students were not able to sign legally binding contracts, so even the punishment of the athletes is questionable. The students, being underage, could not be held to the standard of behaviour specified outside off school property and out of school hours. The school is still in their rights to drop them from the teams, but they shouldn't be able to use off-school behaviour as a reason, unless the students had been charged -- and even there, they should be required to reinstate them if the charges were not proven. I've tried to think of it from the schools point of view, to provide balance, but all I can come up with is that student behaviour reflects back on the school, even out of hours. However, that doesn't work because the students don't have a choice in what school they go to -- their parents do, not them. If the school imposes standards of behaviour that the students disagree with, there is no real recourse. The only standards of behaviour I feel the school can appropriately enforce are those that are legal. In other words, if a student is charged with something that occurred away from the school and not at a school event, the school could act on that. Otherwise, no.

Yes and no. One of the main beneficial purposes of reading is to expand the mind. That can be in vocabulary, grammar, or exposure to different styles of doing things (poetry, prose, and all their subcategories). General chatting has a minimal benefit in that respect. Where it can be of benefit is to expand on your thinking, by reading different points of views on subjects, but again a lot of chats don't do that. About the only strong benefit I can see is being able to deal with typos You get more misspelt words and poor grammar in chatting than you would in more traditional forms of reading material, so it helps improve your ability to comprehend something that isn't written well.

Some authors plan out their subplots ahead of time, and it really shows. There are complex interactions that thread the entire story. Personally, I don't do much in that respect. My subplots appear as I write. A character does or says something because it seems natural when I'm writing that part, and then later on I get to thinking "what if" and a new subplot appears. That's how I (hopefully) make them appear natural -- because they are a natural result of the character interactions.

Congratulations, Rick! It's always good to hear of an author going into print

My goal with names is generally twofold. One -- try to make sure all the major and most of the minor characters have names starting with different letters and to make them distinct. When names are too similar, it can cause confusion. If that's part of the story, then okay, but most of the time that's not intended and if a reader has to try to work out who is who, it can be distracting. eg. Mary/Maria. Bob/Bobbie/Robbie/Rob. Two -- try to use fairly common names for most characters, but with a sprinkling of less common names. This is because I like to reflect what I see as a reality. There are a lot of Chris's, John's, Mark's, etc., around, and not as many Jai's, Ty's, Bartholomew's, etc. (at least around here). The latter do exist, though, and there should be some names like that in the stories. As a personal dislike, I try to avoid 'cute' names. Some names I think are over done (from my perspective, though I recognise that some names are very regional, such as Graeme -- known and moderately common in Australia and the UK and largely unknown in the USA). As an example every character called Tyler or Kyle I've ever read has turned out to be gay. I'm yet to meet a Tyler in real life, and I haven't met a Kyle though I know a friend in the USA who knows a Kyle (who turned out to be gay -- something not known when I first started chatting with that friend). It's almost like the authors are trying to signal that a character is gay by using a cutesie name.

For those not familiar with them, here's an explanation of the various Winter Olympic Sports (it's one of my favourite articles from the last winter olympics). The various ice skating events are probably the ones I like the best.

An interesting question, but not one easily answered. I can't think of any particular thing that has shaped my world, so I think it has to be something that shaped the society I grew up in. As such, all I can think of is the creation of the Australian nation itself. Australia is an unusual nation in many ways, as we've never had a civil war, and we have only ever been personally attacked for a very short time in WW2. Our single most memorable military event was a massacre -- we were the ones massacred (Gallipoli), though another military event where we won is also well known (Tobruk). These two contrasting military events in many ways encapsulate the Australian spirit, and the society in which I grew up. Striving, even when we're losing (Gallipoli) and refusing to give up (Tobruk).

At the risk of inciting controversy... Sponge Bob Squarepants is not gay. He's a sponge, and as such is likely to be either asexual or a hermaphrodite. He also has a girlfriend (a squirrel with an unlimited air-supply diving suit). Otherwise, I think you're correct. I've noted the same thing here in Australia regarding drink-driving. When I was young, it was socially acceptable, though still illegal, and people would laugh at the concept of a designated driver. Today, it's socially unacceptable and it is perfectly fine to say you're driving and so you don't want to drink. Some bars even offer free soft-drinks to nominated designated drivers. It took over a decade to get the change of attitude through, but it's worked. It hasn't stopped drink-driving incidents, but they are certainly less common.

If I may make a small suggestion, I would advise changing this to "forbid the entry or exit of an US goats to or from Canada." There is no need to penalise the many US citizens who are not goats and therefore not a party to this event.

The wikipedia article on Circumnavigation includes some maps of typical sailing routes (one for someone doing a simple circumnavigation and another for yacht racing, that avoids the Suez and Panama canals).

I see no problem with another story using the same characters, but I wouldn't necessarily call that a sequel. Using your examples, Ian Fleming's James Bond stories are not sequels -- they are a set of stories that happen to have characters in common. The Harry Potter stories, however, are sequels, because, while each story can be read standalone, they work together to produce a much bigger story that spans the individual novels. I have thought about writing a sequel a few times, but my biggest concern has always been that I think a sequel should be at least as good as the original. Otherwise I think it pulls down the original story (I can think of lots of movie sequels that have done this in my opinion). Yes, I've got characters that I would like to use again in another story, or to continue their existing story, but I won't do it unless I can see a decent plot, with an appropriate ending.

Grasshopper's essay was, I believe, written before Obama was elected to the Senate.

To follow-on from MikeL's commentary on being left-handed, I can recommend the essay by Grasshopper on being gay AND left-handed http://www.themailcrew.com/grasshopper.html

Yep! One of our favourite phrases as parents is 'Everyone's different'. We keep emphasising to the boys that they can't assume that everyone does or likes the same things. It's usually on subjects like TV shows and food, but the concept is one we want to drill into them. That's what Mark said Both are normal, but heterosexuality is the norm (the majority). It is important not to confuse norm and normal. The best way to get through to someone is to tell them that being righthanded is the norm, but being lefthanded is normal. Then state that heterosexuality is the norm, but homosexuality is normal. Most people will get it....

Personally, we told the boys when they were younger that while most of the time a man and a woman would marry, sometimes it will be two men who marry, or two women. Everyone's different and you can't expect everyone to do or like the same things. I will admit, though, that on this particular topic I'm biased

And there's the problem. That's an extremely bad and biased way of questioning kids. To start with, it tells the child that one of the two is good and one is bad -- at that age most wouldn't be clever enough to respond 'neither'. By asking which was good and which was bad tells the child that they HAVE to pick one as good and one as bad. Since there are so many fairy stories where white is good and black is bad (most Disney movies, for example, have the bad guy wearing dark colours), most children would respond to that question with white is good and black is bad... for no other reason than they believe they HAVE to pick one as good and one as bad and fairy tales are the only real source of guidance they have (unless their parents make their views plain). I remember hearing about sexual abuse cases that were corrupted by the questioning of the children. They showed the child a doll and ask where they had been touched. And kept asking until the child pointed to the genitals. By continually asking, the child was thinking that they had to have another answer... and sooner or later, because they've already pointed everywhere else, they'll point to the genitals. It is extremely difficult to analyse the thoughts of young children because questioning them can easily result in the child giving the answers they think the adult wants, not necessarily what they think themselves. The only negative comments my boys gave about other kids at pre-school were regarding other kids being too rough, or taking toys off someone, or otherwise not sharing -- the things that pre-school kids consider to be important.

Sorry, James, but I have to disagree with you again What you've described in many of your statements is the norm, not normal. The norm is average. Exceptional is still normal, even if it's not the norm <<deleted comment about politicians being abnormal, not normal, as this is the Lounge, not the Soapbox >>

Just remember, James, that the Great White Sharks and an endangered species, so please don't kill too many on the swim here. Otherwise, have fun on the swim!

Based on my own experiences with pre-school kids, they are remarkably non-judgmental on differences. My boys both went to a preschool and encountered someone with dark skin (a child adopted from Africa) and one in a wheelchair who couldn't speak and could barely move. I never heard anything from either boy to indicate that these kids were wrong -- they were just different, and that difference didn't really matter. Where a child can be judgemental is if something affects them (like if one of the kids doesn't share), or if their parents show strong judgemental behaviour, which they pick up.

On behalf of the other Australian members, thank you Personally, I took a day of annual leave on Monday to make it a four day weekend, and I spent some quality time with boys. Alas, it's now Wednesday here and I have to do this disgusting thing called... (takes a deep breath)... work.

In their defence, it's not exactly common sense. It seems logical, at first glance, that a child would do well with both male and females in their life, because they will grow up to live in a world populated by males and females. Despite lots of attempts to prove otherwise, males and females are different and you can't apply a 'one size fits all' approach to dealing with the sexes. Having said that, the mere fact that single parents can successfully raise children should make it obvious that two parents of the same sex can raise children at least as successfully as a single parent (presumably of a single sex). The counter to that would be studies that show that children in single parent families are more likely to have problems and to be in trouble later in life. The response to that is to ask how much of those problems are due to having only one parent, rather than the fact that only a single sex is raising the child. Two parent families have a much better ability to produce income and to spend more time with their children than single parent families. How much does this simple fact make a difference to the family? You can argue that it could make a huge difference, but you can't prove it without studies. Without studies, it's not possible to quantify the difference (if any) between two same-sex parents and two different-sex parents.

Deliberate mistake to see if anyone was paying attention? You're correct. That should have been "an effect on me".

Affect is changing something (verb). Effect is the change itself (noun). I affect something. Something I do has an effect. That cute guy had quite an affect on me. The effect of watching that cute guy was that I had to rush out for some private time. The two words sound very similar, but their meanings are quite different.

No real preference. I currently have two laptops up and running on my desk, both with touchpads. The work laptop has a mouse plugged in on one of the USB port and my personal laptop just has the touchpad. One thing I do as soon as I get a laptop, though, is disable the click on the touchpad. I've had too many times where the computer thought I had tapped the touchpad and took that as a click, when I didn't want it to. I've used trackballs at a couple of customer sites, but never really got into using them.