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Good morning all, and welcome to (a slightly belated) Radio Free Monday!

I love how I was all "go easy on the links this week you guys" and you ended up sending me what I think is a record number of link requests. :D

Buy Stuff, Help People:

fullofowls let me know about the 32nd Annual Greenwich Village Antiquarian Book Fair which is a fundraiser for the PS 3 public school in NYC. It'll be this coming Friday (6-9pm) through Sunday (12-5pm) and you can find admission prices for the various days at the website. If you're in the city, stop by, support public schools, and buy a book!

rosathome is a knitter for Doctors Without Borders, and right now her knitting group has a merino-and-cashmere blanket up for auction as a fundraiser. You can learn more about her knitting-for-fundraising group at their website.

xtricks let me know that needtakehave is in bad financial straits and under threat of foreclosure. While she is taking straight-up donations, she is also selling a ton of DVDs and two Kindles. You can get links and more information here. She's also offering fanfic and vids in comments, so be sure you check there too.

Assistance Needed:

queenbookwench let me know about kindkit who is under threat of a lawsuit by his credit card company after being out of work for two years. You can find more information here about how to help, but if you're going to help, it needs to be today. kindkit has let me know that "The credit card company has accepted the smaller down payment I was able to offer them, so I'm no longer in need of financial help. Huge thanks to everyone who helped out or boosted the signal!"

madripoor_rose linked me to an appeal for help for bkwrrm_tx, who needs to raise funds to move (her roommate needs her room for her daughter). This has added stress involved because a) there are stalking issues, so direct fundraising is difficult, and b) Bkwrrm_tx just had a heart attack. Moving is expensive and stressful in itself, as I have reason to know.

sirlig linked me to a call for advice by kythiaranos: her friend Nikki and her family are moving to Ohio, and have a special-needs child that the school district doesn't want to offer special-needs services to. They're looking for anyone who knows their way around the local school systems to give advice or share their experiences.

Ways To Give:

For many years, happi_feet's husband has shaved his head each St. Patrick's Day to raise money for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, which is researching cures for childhood cancer. This year her seven-year-old son is shaving his head as well, which is frankly adorable. If you'd like to support father and son, you can check out their donation link here or go to the main page, select "Donate", and look up "Plunk" (Mark or Stephen). (On a personal note I poked around their website and I have rarely seen an organisation this transparent with their financials; they make the info awesomely easy to find.)

kit_maxel works for the Y and is battling a little with some restrictions placed on her in her efforts to raise $200 for the company, as they do each year: "We're operating an after school program on school property, and since the money raised wouldn't go directly to the school, we can't ask for donations at our site." Their after school program helps kids with homework, attempts to close the gap caused by arts budget cuts, and tries to get kids engaged in new activities. If you donate via this link, her group will get credit for raising the donation.

Things to Read About:

jane_drew_ linked me to an activism site about Net Neutrality which, fair admission, I have only just skimmed. They had a National Day Of Action on the 17th, which of course is now past, but they look like a good resource for people wanting to educate themselves on Net Neutrality and the issues surrounding it.

HEY, WHO REMEMBERS SURVEYFAIL? Well, tzikeh has some refresher links as well as a link to where the book is shortly to go on sale. Busy bees in fandom and out of it have been tagging the book pretty hilariously, so if I were you I would go, point, and laugh along with the rest of fandom. :)

samard sent me a link ages ago, which I lost for a while (SORRY SAMARD!) but which is a fascinating little animation about how human beings can't walk in a straight line. Check it out, it's fun!

CNN had an article last week which I found fascinating, called Uncovering The Hidden Archives Of The Civil Rights Movement. It talks not just about the removal and restriction of African and African-American history in America, but also how that spurred civil rights leaders and movement participants to preserve their history themselves, and how that has led to the growth of African-American history museums around the country. (There's also a very interesting side story about Ernest Withers, an iconic movement photographer who also turned out to be an FBI informer.)

AND NOW, A BRIEF ESSAY ABOUT GIVING.

I am totally using "educational essay" as an excuse to talk about my own moral ambivalence about a link. Sorry about this in advance.

( Fandom wants to buy the rights to Firefly. FASCINATING. )

AND NOW, FUN THINGS:

Normally I hate it when people link me to stuff without explaining what it is, but trust me, Instant Origami is WAY BETTER if you go in knowing nothing. (Thank you, frek!)

amand_r linked me (not for RFM, just for lulz) to a YouTube video recently called The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger. This video is one of a series of nature-documentary clips that have been redubbed and "Narrated by Randall". I have no clue who Randall is, but watching these is like listening to the best gay dad ever narrating National Geographic for his three-year-old. My personal favourite is Gang Flamingo versus Team Baboon. Check them all out though, they're super funny.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com (PMs are kind of a bad way to reach me). If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help. Remember, non-embedded links are love.

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Over the weekend -- well, okay, mostly while in transit -- I managed to finish two books I'd brought with me: Broken and In With The Devil.

Broken is the second offering from Candlemark & Gleam, and at the moment is available exclusively in digital format, but in a wide variety of digital formats. I read it on PDF, as I don't have an ebook reader. It's an intriguing story; it seems to cross a couple of different genre lines, and it's not easily categorised. At times it almost reads like a YA novel, but an exceptionally mature and complex one, if that makes sense.

The majority of the story is set in a dystopian future New York, a bombed-out shell of its former glory. But it's not just a straight-up apocalypse story; it's also about superheroes. The title character, who calls herself Broken, used to be a superhero called SilverWyng until she mysteriously lost her ability to fly. There are some really fascinating things done with the superhero trope as a whole; I don't want to spoil too much, but I really liked the twisted take on things like superhero names, sidekicks, succession, and isolation.

( Broken: Superheroes, destiny, and sacrifice. One major spoiler. )

Final Verdict: Okay, this sounded like quite a critical review and it's honestly not supposed to be -- I was deeply invested in the story, which doesn't happen to me often. It's well-written and fast-paced, and certainly worth the read, especially for people who like superheroes and would like to read what I think is a fairly refreshing new take on them. I'd actually love to read more work set in this universe, particularly about the extrahuman element.

---

The other book I read, once I'd finished Broken, was a fairly new title: In With The Devil. This book has one gigantic problem: it's not selling itself as the book it is. And I get why, because it's a true-crime book masquerading as a psychological thriller, and psychological thrillers tend to sell way better. But it leads to a somewhat heightened expectation with very little follow-through.

The book tells the story of Jimmy Keene, a high school football star and apparently a Very Charming Bastard, who gets into drug-dealing in high school as a way to keep up with the rich-kid crowd. He continues to expand his empire, becoming a fairly large player in the Illinois/Indiana drug scene, until he's arrested by the FBI and sentenced to ten years in prison. Relatively soon after, he's offered a deal: he can be freed with time served and no parole requirements if he goes undercover in a prison mental institution to try and lure a serial killer, Larry Hall, into confessing to the murders of a series of young women, and pointing to where their bodies are buried.

( Here's the problem: that's not a book's worth of story. )

Final Verdict: Hey, if you like true crime, it's a pretty good book. If you're looking for something a little more thrilling, I'd give Silence Of The Lambs another try. Mind you, I'd love to see the book this claims to be. (As with many things, I suspect if I want to see this imma have to write it myself.)

The last three fiction books I read were about a futuristic dystopia, rape and drug-dealing in a Victorian-style fantasy megapolis, and murder in a slum-ridden city run by the secret police. Of the last five nonfiction books I've read, three were about crime and two were about marketing.

It's honestly a miracle I don't drink more.

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CAVEAT: Despite the tag, there is no new episode of White Collar yet. I just had to use the tag to make sure this ends up with all the other White Collar dithering I do. New episode is tomorrow!

Anyway, so, I'm rewatching the last episode of White Collar, just because I can, and all of a sudden something jumped out at me and I thought, no way. I back up the file a few seconds and frame-by-frame through it, and sure enough...well. This is one of those situations where I am either the last person in fandom to get it, or the very first.

( Freeze frame from Countermeasures -- June, you sly thing you. )

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Hey everyone, roll call and head count, there's been a sizeable earthquake in New Zealand.

You all know the drill -- New Zealanders, let us know if you're okay, if you need help or can offer it, or need to get in touch with anyone. Consider this post a messageboard as needed, including if you'd like to post links to news stories or aid sites. As a general guideline for anyone, immediate aid donations or inquiries, including blood donation queries, should probably be routed through the Red Cross.

TWNZ folks, you guys all okay?

(no subject)

It's Monday night! I have to go back to work tomorrow, and it's also time for

Sam's Three Things About Chicago Code, 1.03: ( Gillis, Chase, and Babyface )

3a. I think Wysocki has a superpower for dodging bullets. I'm pretty sure he should have been shot ten or twelve times in this episode, but the bullets just go around him. I'm waiting for him to untuck some magical amulet from under his flak vest, or maybe show off an enchanted tattoo. I bet he was totally first on the scene after Dean and Death had their little showdown in the Chicago Supernatural episode.