Sausages

Because they come in links. And because you really, really don't want to know what goes into them.

• I always knew something seemed sort of villainous and organ-devouring about Fred Thompson. Well, I mean in addition to being an actor trying to parlay that into election. It seems he's just a rerun from a defunct series in more than one way — make that more than two ways.
• The Daily Telegraph must have had an unannounced editorial change, or else the top editorial staff is smoking some pretty good stuff while the staff plays around. Or perhaps — just perhaps — it's trying to fulfill its quota for articles worth considering for the year in the space of two weeks. In any event, there's an article on the roots of creation that bears some consideration... but only if you're a humanist. On the other hand, if you're not, you're probably not reading this blawg.
• Here's some decent advice on the publishing industry from a writer's perspective camouflaged as "bad advice". Too bad it's still overoptimistic.
• Lee Goldberg has the right take on the recently announced purchase of iUniverse by AuthorHouse:

  I guess by "author centric" they mean that they make their money off the desperate, naive authors rather than from selling books to readers. It's unfortunate that iUniverse, seemingly the most honest of the vanity presses, is teaming up with one of the sleaziest.

  "Double the Vanity" (06 Sep 2007). I think he's being overgenerous to iUniverse in calling it "seemingly the most honest of the vanity presses," because it's still a con job no matter how up front it is on what it is. This is fairly obvious when one flips the quasicanonical, but nonetheless inaccurate and intellectually dishonest, list of "self-publishing" and "vanity publishing" success stories on its head. Assuming arguendo that the list is accurate and honest (the link shows how it isn't), does that fact that John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steele, and Stephen King have each earned more in inflation-adjusted terms from their commercially published writings than the entire quasicanonical list of actual self/vanity publications indicate anything?

• Speaking of not paying writers, there are rumors floating about that Google is going to start charging for e-books, and paying the publishers. Given the problems with everything else, a one-word response should be sufficient: Tasini.