Looking for a reviewer...

I was just sent a couple of copies of Berlitz' soon-to-be-released new edition of 601 Spanish Verbs. It's a gorgeous, hefty book -- as well as offering all the aforementioned verbs in their various tenses, it has several pages of activities and a guide to text messaging in Spanish. There's also a free CD-ROM with words and phrases to put on your iPod.

Problem is, my family's foreign language studies are focused on French and Latin at the moment.

I could review the book in the sense of giving a thorough, accurate idea of what's in it, but that's not quite the same thing as being able to express what the book has to offer a homeschooling family in their studies.

If you can give this book a good home and a good review -- and I don't mean you have to praise it; I only ask that you give a sense of what kind of resource this book is and include details as to what you did and/or didn't like about it -- drop me a line at:

deborah at 2ds dot org

*&%#!, I did it again

So I just got an article submission -- always good news. The writer was a goddess-type who did exactly what I need when articles are sent: she enclosed it as an attachment, and also included the article in the text of the email.

When this happens, after I'm done doing my happy-skippy-joy dance, I usually take a look at the article in the email itself. Sometimes the attachment is in a form my computer can't handle, and at this point I don't want to harass the sender to please do yet more work. If I like it, I can always copy it into a blank Word document and take it from there.

So here's what I do. ALWAYS. Pretty much EVERY DARNED TIME. (Excuse the shouting. It's aimed at me, in the vain hope that I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and STOP DOING IT, ALREADY. Whoops. Sorry again.)

What I do is: I start to read the article in the body of the email. And I get interested. So I double-click on it so it gets big enough on my screen that I can read it more comfortably.

Okay. Fine. But this seemingly innocuous action takes me right out of reading-my-email mode, and shoves me front-row-center into the realm of I'm-an-editor-now.

So I read this lovely article (they're almost always lovely articles -- I really do have the most terrific writers), and I see a little something. In the latest case, it was someone who typed "every day" when she meant "everyday."

"Oh," I think to myself in pretty much so many words. "She meant 'everyday.' I am an editor. I shall fix that."

And how do I fix it? Why, by setting my little cursor between "every" and "day" and hitting the delete key.

What happens next comes as a surprise to me EVERY TIME. Why? Because I'm not you. I am Little Ms. Shouldn't Be Allowed Near A Computer. Ever.

If, like me, you're a fan of Bill Amend's comic strip Fox Trot, you'll know what I mean when I say that when you get me near a computer, I have all the wit, dexterity, and native ability of Roger Fox. If you're not a reader of the strip (which now, sadly, only runs on Sundays, since Amend is semi-retired and favors our lives with his presence only once a week), think Homer Simpson. Heck, in terms of sheer computer literacy, think Charlotte Bronte. Or Aristotle.

At any rate: I hit "delete," because (in this case) I wanted my computer to take out that pesky little space between two words.

My computer, being a good sort but rather literal-minded, hears my command and says to itself, "Delete? Oh. Okay." And then deletes whatever it has nearest to hand.

Which in this case is not the space between the two words, because so far as my computer is concerned, I have no business messing with that email so long as it's in email form. I can't go hitting delete and rewrite my merry way through the thing. It's not mine in that sense. Our relationship isn't at that point yet.

Now, if I'd opened up the attached document, I could delete to my heart's delight. And if I saved the attachment to my desktop and then started hitting delete, I'd even be able to find the changes I'd made afterward.

Or, if I'd copied the text of the article and pasted them into a blank Word document, I could, as one dear writer described what I was invited to do with her work, slice, dice, and make editorial confetti without any fear at all.

But I didn't do any of those. I hit delete with my email open, and with a particular email highlighted, or whatever the heck you'd call it.

So naturally the computer deleted the email.

And I was as shocked, amazed, and horrified as if this had NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.

Fortunately, my email has a bulging "Deleted Email" folder. It's a cranky type, as I would be if people kept throwing stuff they didn't want in my room, so it doesn't always let me in the first try. But once I gain access, I can tug on my wading boots and squelch around in the slime until I find what I want and forward it out to my own dear email address again.

And the author of the piece in question will never know I accidentally deleted her submission like it was some icky medication-oriented piece of spam.

Unless I admit it in public, anyway.

Global Homeschooling

In Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf argues that women should consider themselves citizens of the world rather than of any one country.

I can't go quite that far, but it's true that I feel a certain dual-citizenship: I'm a citizen of both my own country and of the homeschooling community.

So it's alarming to me that in this past week or so, I've learned about major homeschooling-law developments in three countries more or less by chance. I happen to belong to several regional homeschooling Yahoo groups, thanks to the research I was doing for the international issue; and I've been able to keep up a bit on homeschooling news in countries not my own.

One of the North American loops I'm on mentioned the current UK difficulties; but there hasn't been a word about the recent bad news in Sweden or France, for the simple reason that American homeschoolers tend to not know what's going on in those countries unless we happen to have friends or family in them.

I was (quite understandably) refused membership in a few regional Yahoo groups, for the simple reason that they are intended for homeschoolers in those regions. But how are we to keep informed as to how and what the global homeschooling community is doing?

In an effort to help us all connect a bit, and give us a place to do so, I've started a Yahoo group dedicated to just that: Global Homeschooling.
 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalhomeschooling/
 
I hope you'll stop by. And please spread the word, if you can.

Home edders in the U.K., and a good home for a good book

Sorry for taking so long to close this out. This weekend, as you probably already know, news came from the U.K. that homeschoolers there are going to be under a lot more government supervision, and needless to say the community is not responding with just a gentle sigh. I joined an action loop in order to stay updated and see what kind of help I can offer (not much for an outsider to do but spread the word, so far). I checked my email right before I went to bed at midnight Saturday, woke up at around eight the next morning, and there were more than three hundred postings. Questions, ideas, anger. It's been enraging and inspiring for me all at once. If the U.K. government thinks they're going to be able to just hand this down without one Helga of a fight, they don't know who they're messing with.

I'll be writing more about this in the upcoming issue, but here's a link to an article that spells out the basics of what's going on for home educators in the U.K.:
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8093796.stm
 
And here's a link to the complete text of the review in question:
 
http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/8318-DCSF-HomeEdReviewBMK.PDF

Which isn't what you came here for, but is information worth having.

And now for the book giveaway.

Let me apologize for not having more copies to give away. I really do just have the one, and it's bumming me out because people want it for such good reasons. I'm sorry not to be able to do more.

But: the winner is...

(Did you slow down on that ellipsis?)

The lovely Jean!

Please send me your mailing address off-loop, Jean. Drop me a line at deborah at 2ds dot org

Again, many apologies for just having the one copy. I'm glad it's going to a good home.

There will be more giveaways, since I've been fortunate in the review-copy department and live in smallish digs. Do check back when you can.

Book giveaway!

I'm lucky enough to be sent books to review every now and then, and I'd like to share the wealth.

An issue or two back, I reviewed A. Anderson's Flourishing with Food Allergies: Social, Emotional, and Practical Guidance for Families With Young Children. It offers excellent information, good advice, thought-provoking theories, and sanity-saving first-person tales from the allergy front.

Since I use those little sticky-notes when I review a book, there are no dog-eared corners, and none of the pages have any writing that the author (okay, the printer) didn't put there. The cover is a bit banged-up, because I had to carry the book around and read it in the pockets of time I could grab here and there. But the book is structurally sound, as we like to say here in earthquake country.

Please post here if you'd like to be in the drawing to win this free copy. If only one person posts, that person wins automatically; two or more, and I ask dear Random.org to settle the question for me. No takers means this book goes with me to the next park day and is offered around.

I'm still not Nellie Bly.

The message just isn't reaching the people who need to hear it, so let me try again.

My name is Deborah Markus. I edit a magazine called Secular Homeschooling. I contribute material to it, too.

I'm a lousy liar, and I like it when people know who I am and what I do.

That means that if I'm angry about something that you did -- maybe you lied to the homeschooling community in an effort to sell them your product, or you tried to get me to back down on my no-religion-no-anti-religion advertising policy, or you lied or talked trash about homeschooling, or threatened to turn me in to the authorities because I homeschool -- I will tell you that I'm angry. And I'll tell you just who it is who's angry.

I'm not being cute.

If at all possible, I will give you the chance to fix whatever mistake you made before I start screaming loudly enough for everyone to hear. You could take down that Internet article about how homeschooling is actually illegal. You could back off when my advertising manager says "No, thank you." You could apologize for the trash-talk.

What you can't do is expect me to keep my trap shut if you don't mend your ways.

You can't do your best imitation of Edith Wharton on her wedding night when I tell everyone who'll listen that you were a bad boy.

(Sorry to sound sexist. All the examples listed above are deeds that were committed by men. Men who underestimated me, possibly because I'm female and little and cute. Or maybe just because I'm female. Don't know. Don't care. Just want it to stop.)

The latest specimen on the list of idiots I have to deal with for no better reason than that I woke up this morning is stunned and indignant that I'm going to talk about him in an article.

You may have heard of him. The blog he contributes to rhymes with "Bleacher, Devised." He posted his email address on said blog and urged homeschoolers to get in touch with him. In my very first email to him, I mentioned twice that I'm a writer, twice that I'm an editor, and sent him a link to "The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List," which could basically be summed up as an example of the kind of writing I'm capable of when people say stupid things about homeschooling and homeschoolers.

The guy's astounded at the news that I'll be writing about him.

I'm so tired of having to say it.

I'm a writer.

If you piss me off and it's about homeschooling, I will write about you.

I'm not saying that's a huge threat. I'm not saying I'm famous and my minions will eat you. I'm not saying I expect what I write to do any good at all. I'm certainly not saying you can't write about me.

I'm saying: I'm a writer. I write stuff. I have a job writing for a magazine. Writing is my knee-jerk response to stress of any kind.

I'm going to make a link to this particular posting part of my signature line, just so I don't have to keep explaining.

You're right. It won't help.

But it was kind of fun to say, anyway.

More Facebook news (and other stuff)

I'm still bumbling around on Facebook, while all around me the pros are flitting effortlessly from quiz to quiz, pillow fight to zombie attack. But I did manage to get a page up for the magazine. Any advice on how to improve it is most welcome.

I'm frighteningly behind on my email, and will try to whittle the pile down a bit tomorrow, though most of the day will no doubt be taken up with laundry and dosing my son, Mr. Dry Hacking Cough, with honey and hot lemon juice.