richardmurray

Meghan Fitzmartin has placed Robin on a sexual journey. I say this based on her words. She never said strictly Tim Drake is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. She said he is on a journey of self discovery. The endpoint does not have to be what anyone thinks. 
I Quote the author in double brackets
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When Dave [Wielgosz] (my editor for Batman: Urban Legends) reached out about doing another Tim story, I was thrilled, ...We talked about where Tim Drake has been vs where he was at the time and came to the conclusion that it needed to be a story about identity and discovery. What was next for Boy Wonder?... Look, I don’t know if this is something that can happen, but this is the story, because it’s the only story it can be. ... I fully sat on the floor of my apartment for a solid two minutes in happiness as it sunk in. Ultimately, this wouldn’t have happened without champions at DC, like Dave and James Tynion IV, and I hope it is as meaningful for others as it has been for me. ...The greatest thing about working with an established IP, ...is that there are so many story decisions for characters that have already been made for you (often by people much smarter than you). [“Sum of Our Parts”] happened because this is who Tim is. I love this character very much, and as I went back to reread as much as I could to do Robin justice, it became clear this is the story Tim needed to tell. ... I wanted to pay tribute to the fact that sexuality is a journey, ... To be clear, his feelings for Stephanie have been/are 100% real, as are his feelings for Bernard. However, Tim is still figuring himself out. I don’t think he has the language for it all... yet.
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She has not written this to pabelize tim drake, even though all the articles seemed to do that. 

I quote the article in double brackets
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Kate Kane is the most prominent canonically queer member of the sprawling Bat-family. She debuted as Batwoman in 2006 in the company’s year-long weekly-TV style series 52, and immediately garnered shock headlines — even though she ultimately had a fairly minor role. Gotham City has slowly become a much queerer place since her introduction, but mostly with villains and secondary characters. The subtext of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy was finally allowed to be text in the early 2010s. Before she (nearly) married Batman, Catwoman briefly had a girlfriend. Midnighter became a recurring supporting character in Nightwing stories. Police detectives Renee Montoya and Maggie Sawyer and the young vigilante Bluebird/Harper Row flitted in and out of continuity.
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I wonder, did Bob Kane leave any diaries or explicit thoughts to the world he created. I am not suggesting any artist should had been restricted. I am not suggesting any artist need to be behind a block. But, I wonder. Many artists after Bob Kane turned many members of Bob Kane's world into LGBTQ+ members, I am not certain Kane wanted that. 

SUB ARTICLE 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/11/batmans-sidekick-robin-comes-out-as-lgbtq-in-new-comic
SOURCE ARTICLE
https://www.polygon.com/comics/22617395/robin-gay-queer-batman-dc-comics

Marvel and DC face backlash over pay: ‘They sent a thank you note and $5,000 – the movie made $1bn’
SUB ARTICLE 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/09/marvel-and-dc-face-backlash-over-pay-they-sent-a-thank-you-note-and-5000-the-movie-made-1bn

PRH < Penguin Random House>  and Amanda Gorman Launch Creative Writing Award for Poetry SHARE FOLKS
This year, we are thrilled to announce that we are adding the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry to our program. This award is one of five creative writing awards given by Penguin Random House. Other categories include fiction/drama; personal essay/memoir; and the Maya Angelou Award for spoken-word. In recognition of the Creative Writing Awards previously being centered in New York City, the competition will award an additional first-place prize to the top entrant from the NYC area. Full press release here.

The 2022 competition will launch on October 1. If you are a current high school seniors who attends public schools in the United States, including the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories, and are planning to attend college – either a two-year or four-year institution – in the fall of 2022, please check back in October to apply.

Contact us at creativewriting@penguinrandomhouse.com

SUB ARTICLE
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/87124-prh-and-amanda-gorman-launch-creative-writing-award-for-poetry.html
RULES
https://social-impact.penguinrandomhouse.com/our-awards/u-s-creative-writing-awards/

Dolly Parton to publish her first novel in 2022
The country music superstar has teamed up with the novelist James Patterson to write Run, Rose, Run, which will be published in March

I love the title

SUB ARTICLE
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/11/dolly-parton-to-publish-her-first-novel-in-2022

John Le Carré's final novel is coming in October — see the first look- I love the cover, very film noiry:) 

Le Carré wrote Silverview alongside his final two novels (Agent Running in the Field and A Legacy of Spies) and left his body of work in the care of his children. This last novel will follow Julian Lawndsley as he flees the big city for a job at a bookstore in a small town; meanwhile, a London spy chief arrives to the seaside enclave to investigate a potential leak. When it hits stands, Silverview will include an afterword from Cornwell, paying tribute to his father — along with his siblings and an archivist, he's currently cataloguing all of le Carré's work.

"This is the authentic le Carré, telling one more story," his son Nick Cornwell — a novelist who writes under the pen name Nick Harkaway — says in a statement. "The book is fraught, forensic, lyrical, and fierce, at long last searching the soul of the modern Secret Intelligence Service itself. It's a superb and fitting final novel."

Jonny Gellar, the author's longtime literary agent, adds that the new novel feels like a gift left for his legions fans: "Silverview is as urgent and alive as any of his past work."

SUB ARTICLE
https://ew.com/books/john-le-carre-posthumous-novel-silverview/
BOOK PAGE
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/703350/silverview-by-john-le-carre/

I Quote the article in double brackets 

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In July, the Hungarian government imposed an $830 fine on the distributor of the Hungarian translation of Lawrence Schimel’s children’s book What a Family!, citing a law that bans the depiction of homosexuality and gender reassignment in material aimed at minors. The book tells the story of two families with young children—one with two fathers and the other with two mothers.

That incident follows another in Hungary, in October 2020, when a member of parliament put a copy of Meseorszag mindenkie (A Fairy Tale for Everyone), which also features LGBTQ characters, through a shredder. “So the publisher reprinted it as a board book” said Schimel, whose book had the same Hungarian editor.
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Schimel, an American living in Madrid, has published dozens of LGBTQ-themed works for children and adults. “It’s important for all families, not just those who are LGBTQ, to see and read these books which show just how normal these families are,” he said. What a Family! is now sold in Hungary with a sticker, warning readers that it depicts families “outside the norm.” It was originally published as two books in Spanish, and Orca Book Publishers is releasing it as two books in the U.S. in September.

Russia led the way in overt European LGBTQ censorship with the passage of its “anti-LGBTQ propaganda” law in 2012. Today, LGBTQ books are routinely suppressed there, and those that make it to market are sold with warning stickers.

“The campaigns by the populist governments in Europe, such as in Hungary and Poland, against the LGBTQ community are in direct violation of the principles of inclusion and the celebration of diversity,” said Michiel Kolman, chair for inclusive publishing at the IPA. He noted that in Poland, several towns have declared themselves LGBTQ-free zones, forcing LGBTQ residents to move, while in Hungary the transgender community was first targeted, and after that the broader LGBTQ community.

“The policies manifest themselves through censorship of books and other media that directly contradict the freedom-to-publish mission of the IPA,” Kolman told PW. He added that the Hungarian laws are likely an effort to deflect attention from the country’s dismal economic and Covid-19 track record.

Following the news of the attack on Schimel’s book in Hungary, the IPA, the Federation of European Publishers, and the European and International Booksellers Federation all reaffirmed their support for Hungarian publishers and readers, and their solidarity with LGBTQ communities in Hungary.

Also in July, the government of Belarus moved to dissolve the local branch of PEN after the freedom of speech organization released a report showing 621 instances of human rights violations, including arrests and imprisonments, against culture workers in the first six months of 2021. Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, was among those around the world who issued a statement in support of PEN Belarus. “When a government silences and stomps on its writers, it reveals a level of shame and decay that leaders are aiming to hide, but instead only expose,” Nossel wrote. “Belarus’ leaders may think they can suppress the truth by muzzling those who dare tell it, but the story of the will of the people and the scale of brutal repression will find its way to the world. We stand in solidarity with the writers of PEN Belarus and are determined to ensure that their vital voices are heard and their rights to express themselves vindicated.” As recently as last week, a dissident journalist from Belarus who disappeared was found dead in Ukraine.

Nossel told PW that this type of activity is an attempt by authoritarian governments to control the narrative, both at home and abroad, in a world where information is fast moving, freely available, and difficult to suppress. She cited China and the closures of bookstores and publications that express dissent in Hong Kong as particularly egregious examples of censorship. “[The Chinese] are reaching down to destroy the remnants of any challenge to their authority,” she said. “For organizations like PEN, fighting this is an ongoing battle.”

Nicholas Lemann, director of Columbia Global Reports, a publisher that offers short books on hot political and social justice topics, noted his house has been vigilant in covering the rise of authoritarianism, the curtailing of press freedoms, and China. In May, Columbia Global Reports published The Politics of Our Time by John Judis, a one-volume contemporary history of populism, nationalism, and socialism.

Lemann, the former dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, said he routinely gets reports from former students about the rise in persecution of journalists. “In recent years, I have heard more and more often from journalists in India about Narendra Modi and in Brazil about Jair Bolsonaro and what they are doing to limit press freedoms,” he noted. “At the turn of the millennium, we thought that the triumph of the American economic system inextricably went along with the triumph of the American freedom of expression system. And we thought these would be globalized. Well, that didn’t happen,” Lemann said.

It has long been known that the Chinese government keeps a close eye on which books are distributed there and maintains control of the issuing of ISBNs. Officially, censorship is not a state policy. Publishers have long held that if a book does not become too popular or influential in China, it will be tolerated. But unofficial policy is flexible, and recent trends have shifted toward a narrowing of what is considered acceptable. For example, there’s been a crackdown in recent years on what can be published on China’s wildly popular writing websites, such as China Literature, and works that are deemed too “salacious” have been removed. Last year, Fang Fang, who lives in Wuhan and published a blog about the early days of lockdown during the pandemic, was vilified by the government. Her blog entries were collected into the book Wuhan Diary, published by HarperCollins.

In July, the Chinese government outlawed foreign direct investment in education companies. The law is aimed at companies that offer tutoring to Chinese students—a business that has ballooned to an estimated $100 billion per year. The law is likely to impact numerous foreign education publishers that have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the sector. “The government is operating with the idea that liberal Western ideas may be damaging the children,” Nossel said.

Different countries have different means of controlling book publication and exerting censorship. In Turkey, authorities require that any book sold in bookstores has a government “banderol”—a sticker testifying to its “authenticity.” The government claims this is necessary to combat piracy, but in effect it acts as a means of regulating publishers.

In Venezuela, officially, publishers can publish anything—but they may not be able to acquire paper and ink to print certain books. The same happens in Russia, where a printer might suddenly become reticent to produce a potentially objectionable book for fear of government blowback.

IPA fights for the freedom to publish

The IPA maintains a committee that monitors freedom-to-publish issues around the world and presents an annual award, the Prix Voltaire, honoring courageous publishers that have faced oppression. To reinforce its mission to support global publishing during the pandemic, the IPA also recently launched a program to promote publishing, dubbed INSPIRE (International Sustainable Publishing and Industry Resilience). Two of the tenets of the program’s charter are maintaining that “freedom to publish is a prerequisite for diversity, creativity, prosperity, tolerance, and progress” and that “copyright and freedom to publish are mutually reinforcing fundamental rights that are essential to the practice and preservation of political culture, education, scholarship, and socioeconomic development.” The charter has garnered signatures from more than 100 organizations around the world, including Publishers Weekly.

“Many countries have introduced special laws to deal with the Covid-19 crisis,” said Kristenn Einarsson, chair of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish committee and former managing director of the Norwegian Publishers Association. “There is a growing concern that these might be maintained in the future, after the crisis has ended, and that some of them could be used to limit the freedom to publish and freedom of expression.”

Einarsson said in some authoritarian states, censorship can be internalized and become self-censorship. “The same fears that can affect publishers and lead them to self-censor can also infect authors, booksellers, and librarians. In the end, if these fears delay or stop the creation or publication of such reports and works, then it is we, the readers, who are deprived. Any discussion about what should be published is of course welcomed, but it is important that publishers stand firmly to defend the publishing of all that they deem worthy of publication, even—and perhaps especially—if those works challenge the boundaries established by the society they operate in.”
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MY thoughts... first, governments do have the right to ban anything. all governments ban artistic content. all governments. Sequentially, suggesting any government is bad or criminal based on banning requires all governments in humanity to be imprisoned. But, communities require rules. Individualism has functional limits when one does not live alone, and each human or humanity has never been alone on earth. 

Schimel's point encapsulates the problem. In most communities in humanity, the entire LGBTQ+ experience as a collection of communities or in parts is not common or public. Artist like him who want to make the activities public or common in the collective mindset have an automatic enemy in those who do not. In any community where most do not, opposition grows to where people have lgbtq+ free zones. In the usa, I don't recall any publicly touted lgbtq+ free zones. 

The problem with the word populist is it means of the people. IF a government in populists and you dislike its position. You are stating you want the position that most people have under a government to be opposed. If Majority doesn't rule then who does? If minority rules, how long will the majority allow before extreme violence hits? 

I wish people will stop using sars-cov-2 for everything. Every country that is doing something someone does not like is referred to in media as doing it because of the sars-cov-2 in some fashion. I wish modern media will kill that interpretation.

One thing I learned in the Ken Burns vietnam war documentary on PBS was that during the 1960s the polls was in favor of staying in the vietnam war. What is my point? Modern media makes it seem like most people didn't want to be in the vietnam war. But that is a lie. The problem with many governments in humanity is global media, global media defined as media between countries, is dominated by the usa and creates a narrative that most of the people in a country are opposed to the actions. Are most people in china, opposed to the actions by the chinese government toward HOng Kong? I don't know. I am not suggesting I support or oppose the chinese governments actions. But, I know I am not certain they are not what the majority of people in china want. And again, if the majority isn't in control, then the minority is, and how long will the majority be nonviolent to the in control minority? If the majority is in control then... what is wrong? If ninety-nine people are happy and one is not. The one person can't be in control over the other 99. The one person has to leave if they want things their way, or eat crow. 

Nicholas Lemann need to define who is we, when he said :"we thought that the triumph of the American economic system inextricably went along with the triumph of the American freedom of expression system. And we thought these would be globalized. Well, that didn’t happen" 
We didn't include the native american. We didn't black folk in black towns in the usa. If anything, Lemann proves why people like him failed, cause people like him assumed his agenda was similar to other people. Second, Lemann has to describe what the Statian economic system is. The USA financial model is simple. Kill a people for their land, enslave a people for their labor, and then maintain a system to maintain wealth in your community. He talks about freedom of expression. But if most black people, native americans, women in the usa circa 1865 couldn't read or write then outside talking who was expressing anything? Most of said people did not have the money<fiscal poor> or time<laborer> or situation<prison> to be at a pulpit. Lemann is wrong, Statian economic system or system of expression did become globalized. People like Lemann was confused as to what the usa was exporting.

The USA is the king of using unrelated things to cover agendas. Freedom was the cover for the financially profitable drugs or arms trading zone called vietnam. Improvement of non white europeans or peace in the USA was the cover for white financed negative anti native education camps called boarding schools for native american children or the white financed colleges or associations that were fiscal class covens for black people who demand nonviolence to all in the black community against all other black people. Sars-Cov-2 is the cover for an agenda of raising the cost of living, or making media more narrower through streaming channels, deemed as the best activities to keep people safe from a virus that only a person living in a viral blockading suit can be.  

SUB ARTICLE
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/international-book-news/article/87097-censorship-on-the-rise-worldwide.html
 International Publishers Association report "Freedom to Publish: Challenges, Violations and Countries of Concern" 
https://www.internationalpublishers.org/images/aa-content/ipa-reports/State_of_Publishing_Reports_2020/Freedom-to-Publish-Challenges-violations-and-countries-of-concern.pdf

Goodreads Ransoms, LGBTQ+ Robin, and Dolly’s Debut: This Week in Book News
MAIN ARTICLE
https://kobowritinglife.com/2021/08/13/goodreads-ransoms-lgbtq-robin-and-dollys-debut-this-week-in-book-news/