neonvincent

Last night, I told my readers Winter Storm Ion is on its way. I just returned from the grocery store and, as I expected, the place was crazy busy. This was as bad as the night before a major food holiday, and the workers there said it had been worse earlier, with lines for the butcher going down the aisles and sales 50% above normal. Fortunately, the clerks were busy stocking, so the shelves were full and I was able to find everything I was looking for that the store normally carried.

In 2005, Stephenie Meyer, a stay-at-home mom from Arizona, published her first novel, which was inspired by a vivid dream. “Twilight” was followed by four more books, and Meyer found herself as the best-selling author in the world.

What happens when a mom becomes a star? ASU associate professor of English James Blasingame and two ASU graduates, Kathleen Deakin and Laura A. Walsh, explore that question in their new book about Meyer.
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“Stephenie Meyer: In the Twilight,” by James Blasingame, ASU associate professor of English, Kathleen Deakin (PhD Curriculum & Instruction, English Education 2010), and Laura A. Walsh (PhD Curriculum & Instruction, English Education 2010).

Synopsis: Inspired by a vivid dream, Stephenie Meyer, a stay-at-home mom, wrote a manuscript that started a worldwide sensation that has yet to abate. In 2005, her debut novel, “Twilight,” crashed onto the shore of teen literature like a literary tsunami. Four books later, she had become the top-selling author in the world. When the final book in the “Twilight” series, “Breaking Dawn,” was released in 2008, more than a million copies were sold on the first day alone. The popular-culture phenomenon of Stephenie Meyer and her writing is much more than the sum total of her weeks on the bestseller list, however.

This book looks at the life and work of this author, beginning with her childhood and covering her teen years and life before stardom. This volume also profiles Meyer’s world since becoming a cultural icon. In addition to discussing Meyer’s writing style, the chapters also explore each of her books, with a final chapter focusing on her presence in social media and public events.

Yuri's Night has been celebrating space odysseys since 2001, on the 40th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's history-making launch into orbit — but it's much more challenging to find cause for celebration this year.

First of all, it's been just a year since the huge golden anniversary of the first human spaceflight, in 2011. To mark the occasion, Yuri's Night put on more than 600 events in 75 countries, and that's a hard act for anyone to follow. Perhaps more importantly, this year marks the first Yuri's Night since NASA retired the space shuttle fleet. For the next few years, there's no way to launch astronauts from U.S. soil.

"With the shuttle era coming to an end, there's going to be a lot of nostalgia this year," Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto, director of marketing for Yuri's Night 2012, told me this week. "It's going to be an interesting time to see how people bridge the gap."

(Reuters) - J.K. Rowling, whose "Harry Potter" fantasy book series became a global publishing phenomenon, is writing her first novel for adults but the title and plot are still a closely-guarded secret.

The British writer, 46, whose teenage boy wizard tales became international best-sellers and inspired a series of hit films, said on Thursday that her new novel would be "very different" to the "Harry Potter" books that made her a household name and turned her into a billionaire.

"Although I've enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series," Rowling said in a statement.

That concludes this irregular status update. Next one whenever I pass 500 on Twitter, 450 on Facebook, 150 on Daily Kos or LiveJournal, 50 on Dreamwidth, or 25 on any of the other services, whichever comes first. If it's Crazy Eddie's Motie News passing 25, I'll crosspost it there, too.

Another departure is that I won't be posting the sustainability linkspams one right after the other. I plan on interrupting them tomorrow with another post about bloggers swimming against the stream. This one will be about what Kunstler wrote regarding marriage equality in New York and will be a demonstration that I don't admire all bloggers who go against the flow.

Which brings me to the troublesome subject of gay marriage, which is lately up for debate in the legislature of New York State where I live, making it the public's business. I have an unpopular view of it for men of my demographic (Democrat, Boomer). I'm not in favor of it. I don't think it is a good idea. I don't have empirical proof, but I suspect that unsettling such an age-old and fundamental social arrangement will produce strange unanticipated consequences that we are not prepared for. I don't believe gay marriage is a genuine social justice issue. I think it is a bid for a kind of broad social approbation which does not require ritual enactment in law, and would be socially mischievous to pursue. Civil unions would cover the necessary legal issues. Otherwise, it is a case of unwarranted relativism, a Boomer weakness. Not all conditions or states of being in this world are the same. Some things are on the margins because they are marginal.

What fascinates me in the debate is the narcissism of Boomers, males especially, who advocate so earnestly in favor of gay marriage. Is it really about the law and social relations, or is it about making yourself feel good? Is it just more posturing for moral brownie points, for approval? Is your job and social position or maybe even sense of yourself at stake if you have a differing view?

Next one whenever I pass 450 on Facebook or Twitter, my Twitter followers exceed my Facebook followers (that could be in a couple of days)

( Previous status update behind the cut. )

After viewing Chrysler’s two-minute Super Bowl XLV advertisement, during which the rapper Eminem emerged not from the all-new Chrysler 300, but from a 200 sedan, some Monday-morning quarterbacks felt that the brand missed an opportunity to showcase a superior product, one deserving of the spot’s emotional impact.

Well, it is now time for the 300’s “Imported From Detroit” turn. Following a spot in which Ndamukong Suh, the Detriot Lions defensive tackle, drives a 300 home to Portland, Or., to visit his mother, Chrysler’s new flagship, which was reviewed recently in the Automobiles section, faces the most feckless, image-conscious gridiron of them all: Manhattan.

From the Cloud, Google Pulls Down an Energy Saver

Amp Delivers Its First Electric Mercedes-Benz ML Conversion

As Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors, learned during filming of “Revenge of the Electric Car,” developing an E.V. from the ground up is a prohibitively expensive exercise. Amp Electric Vehicles, an Ohio company that removes the guts of internal-combustion passenger cars and replaces them with electric powertrains, says it has a more viable way to get E.V.’s on the road, even if those roads are almost an ocean away.

On Wednesday morning at its showroom and production complex in Cincinnati, Amp executives handed over the keys of an electric Mercedes-Benz ML 350 to the company’s newest and biggest client, Gisli Gislason, the chairman and chief executive of Northern Lights Energy, a utility in Iceland. The luxury S.U.V. is the first vehicle to be produced in a five-year contract between the two companies, during which Amp expects to ship 1,000 E.V.’s to the island nation.

Robert Stempel, a Voice for Alternative-Energy Sources, Dies at 77

Robert C. Stempel, the former General Motors chairman and chief executive who died on Saturday at 77, spent a turbulent two years atop the country’s largest automaker, during which he cut jobs and closed plants to minimize company losses. However, for every automaker that deepens its experimentation in alternative-energy sources, Mr. Stempel’s legacy as an auto-industry seer is bolstered.

But while sourcing batteries for the proposed EV1, Mr. Stempel befriended Stanford Ovshinsky, the noted scientist credited with the invention of nickel-metal hydride batteries, thin-film solar panels and a long list of other technologies.

I plan on using all of these for either Crazy Eddie's Motie News or Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday on Daily Kos later today. Right now, I'm just taking advantage of the rich text formatter so that I don't have to actually open the blog posts and create the HTML by hand. I have better articles and posts on which to use my 20 article per month allotment.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—After posting modest job losses last calendar year following an abysmal 2009, the Oakland County economy should add nearly 29,000 jobs over the next three years—the best years since 2000, say University of Michigan economists.

In their annual forecast of the Oakland County economy, George Fulton and Don Grimes of the U-M Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the Economy say that Oakland will add nearly 11,000 jobs this year, another 8,000 next year and more than 9,700 in 2013.

Last calendar year, Oakland County lost less than 1,200 jobs after losing nearly 60,000 jobs in 2009, and is currently adding jobs—the majority in sectors most tied to the New Economy.