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Good morning all, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Clearly, some News to Know today is the fact that Osama bin Laden has been confirmed dead. I am honestly not well-educated enough about the war(s) or politics to give reasoned commentary on this, so I won't. But I have for you today a list of people who are asking for help, who are working to make the world better, and who are creating beautiful things.

Ways to Give:

kallaneboi kindly helped me out because I was at loose ends over the tornadoes that have hit the Stateside southeast this week and last: here are lists of places to give and ways to help. queenlily also suggests Help Marion County.

majoline notified me of the Help Comm going up for tornado aid. The auctions are not a go yet, but if you'd like to auction something or bid, HelpTheSouth is the place to be.

Yasuko Akiyama, an Osaka native living in London, is raising funds for children affected by the recent earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. She has translated a poem, "Unbeaten by Rain", into English and created a gorgeous poster of it that she's selling to raise funds.

A new help_japan lightning round is also now open! Including, for those Pern fans who popped up on the cafe recently, a Fire Lizard omg.

maidenjedi kindly came up with a list of aid orgs for the Texas wildfires:
The American Red Cross of Southwest Texas
The Jeff Davis County Relief Fund
The Cattlewomen Care Wildlife Relief Fund
The Texas DoA STAR Fund
There's also a benefit being advertised for May 13-15.

axeslade let me know about the Jim Collins Foundation, which raises money "to fund gender-confirming surgeries for those transgender people who need surgery to live a healthy life, but have no ability to pay for it themselves."

sevenswells let me know about Kiri, who is in desperate need of some cash right now and offering "flash commissions". You can read more and take a look at some of her fantastic chibis and sketches at her deviantart site.

Jill let me know about Melissa Abrantes, who is riding from Austin to Alaska (holy shit!) to raise money for cancer research, in memory of a friend's mother. Her fundraising page is here.

kath_ballantyne let me know about Bella and her (frankly adorable) seven-year-old daughter, Maysie, who will be doing the Race For Life on May 7th, raising money for cancer research in memory of Lis Sladen, Maysie's favourite actress.

fleur_de_liz and her family are participating in the South Shore Arthritis Walk on May 15th in honour of Liz's sister, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. They're looking for donors, but also to raise awareness about the debilitating effects of this disease.

Give for Free:

bree_black asked me to remind Canadians to get out and vote! Last election, less than 22% of those eligible to vote actually voted for the party that took power.

News to Know:

evilstorm linked me to the story of Chrissy Lee Polis, a 22-year-old woman who was attacked by two other women, beaten severely, and left to seize on the floor of a McDonald's bathroom while others filmed the incident or watched, laughing. Why? She's a transgendered person. You can read her story, partly in her own words, here. If you want to see what happened to her, the video is archived here, along with information on the story. There have been support rallies, though I can't find any info on fundraising to help Chrissy (if you have some, please share). I think the object lesson is clear enough: Don't stand by. If you see someone, anyone, being assaulted, intervene. If you can't or you're scared to, call the police. Don't let this kind of shit go down. It costs you nothing and might save the life, and at the very least the dignity, of another.

imagines let me know that Tennessee is trying to ban discussion of homosexuality in schools. If you're in the state, be aware. If you have any news about protests or fight funds, please let me know. George Takei, in the meantime, is displaying his usual, wonderful irreverence and generosity of spirit towards the kids of Tennessee.

Fans helpin' Fans:

bloodrebel333 is living in an increasingly unsafe situation with a landlord who is sexually harassing her (she's had to call the police on him). But she can't afford to move, and can't apparently get aid (there's more info at the post). She's looking for advice, assistance, or tips on cheap housing in the Den Bosch area of the Netherlands.

effex and sitara are looking for a new roommate in Central Dallas. They've got an info post here.

amand_r made A VERITABLE FUCKTON OF COOKIES. She's selling them for very reasonable prices!

Just for Fun:

This awesome mug reveals famous gay figures from history when hot water is added. Nifty, or niftiest?

It is not a well-known fact (though I guess now it is) that I am scared to death of balloons. Shut up, everyone has their quirks. Anyway, these I kind of like: Crappy Balloon Animals.

I'd like to close this week's post on a quote by one of my literary heroes, John Steinbeck:

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try to live so that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

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. 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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You know how they say you should never watch laws or sausages being made? I may have just signed up to take a tour of the Vienna Beef hot dog factory in Chicago. I DEFY PROVERB.

I blame my Monday reading. I'm not any bigger a fan of Monday than anyone else, but I do look forward to it just a tiny bit because Monday is my extended reading day.

(It is a sign of my love for all of you that I put my compulsions on display like this, just remember that while you judge me.)

Every day, when I get to work and after I've put out any metaphorical fires, I open my Daily Reading bookmark file. It's a combination of entertainment and news sites, just to keep me in touch with the world outside my desk and keep my brain well-fed. But some sites aren't that vital to me, and those go into my Monday Reading bookmark file. On Mondays, I get to peruse about three times the normal amount of bookmarks, which is a nice treat for me and more efficient anyway since most of those websites don't update that much throughout the week. Included in these are sites about tours and events going on in Chicago. Which is how I heard about the Christie's preview, and the Chernobyl exhibit.

I've been slowly building a file, too, of things I've read and wanted to keep. The diversity is large but there is a common thread, and for the last few months I've been slowly picking away at it. You can't force ideas; if they don't come to you all at once, as they sometimes do, you just have to let the bits pile up till you figure it out. I think I've slotted in almost the last piece of the puzzle for a new story, which is always a rush, though I don't think I'm allowed to write it until I've finished the Trace second draft (Jesus Christ this book will kill me) and rewritten Dead Isle, and put both to the press.

But it's there, all the little bits pasted into my notebook and waiting. Mwahahahaha.

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R is on his way over with soda and I'm cooking spaghetti and some kind of experimental garlic breadstick thing, so my plans to bombard you with information this evening are on hold. But I couldn't not share this.

One of our departing staff bequeathed to me the remaining issues of her New Yorker and ARTnews subscriptions, and this month's ARTnews had a feature on the Adobe Museum of Digital Media. The Adobe Museum is a space without a space -- it has an exterior and interior design, a curator and a staff and exhibits, but it exists 100% in the digital world.

Also there are random flying eyeballs.

THIS SHIT IS FANTASTIC.

I can't believe this hasn't gone viral, or maybe it did and I missed it. Admittedly it doesn't load too terribly well over slow connections -- my computer is a bit skippy in parts -- but to my mind it's a really unique, enjoyable experience. I enjoyed Valley more when it didn't have sound -- with sound it's a trifle pretentious -- and I'm looking forward to watching John Maeda's digital lecture in more detail later.

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Okay FIRST, how cool is this -- I know there had been talk from some of our Librarian cafe members about adding Nameless to their libraries, but man: seeing Nameless with library stickers and stamps on it, holy cow. It's exciting and thrilling, let me tell you.

Talking of writing, Lulu posted "Fun Ways To Improve Your Next Book" part two (THE RECKONING) this morning. It is, at least, better than Writing Groups and Google Docs. Knoword is an interesting challenge, although also kind of buggy and unlike FreeRice doesn't give food to the starving when you get an answer right.

I'm not sure I can objectively praise or criticise the whole "follow famous writers on Twitter" thing, because I generally dislike Twitter. I followed a few pro writers for a while but I didn't feel I got much from it, so unless I actually know them, I've mostly stopped reading them. Very few writers have anything intelligent to say on writing that can be said in the short bursts Twitter allows, and there seems to be a lot of competition to say pithy things that don't hold up well to examination. I should think that reading the work of well-known writers would be more helpful, though admittedly perhaps that's less fun. In terms of having fun writing, I think it's more important to play with one's own style than worrying about emulating others, but perhaps with Twitter there's less pressure to do that.

At any rate, "study the work of other writers" in any context is a pretty well-trodden piece of advice. I think sometimes it's better to study work outside of the literary sphere, if not art and music and theatre then at least reading non-fiction from time to time. I had the pleasure of seeing Octavia Butler speak once, at a conference, and the most memorable moment of the entire day, for me, was when someone asked her how she'd gained her knowledge of science, to which she replied, "I read." Other disciplines require the same critical-thinking approach as one's own craft, but in slightly different, twisty ways, which keeps the mind active. And that is quite fun.

I feel weird talking about writing, because I'm not actually a makes-a-living-at-it, books-have-an-ISBN kind of writer (though there's an interesting discussion on the validity of ISBNs here, near the end). It's actually a bit hard to measure the success of my prose because while I have been rejected by publishing houses and agents, it's been five years since I actively went looking to get published, and three since I decided to actively avoid big-business publishing.

But I do make pizza money at it, and my books don't need to have an ISBN for most purposes. And I seem to be doing all right for myself in the readership department.

And anyway most anyone who talks about art is talking out their ass so why not me too.