Out

Yayoi could tell that people were sympathetic and suspicious at the same time, and she felt like a tennis ball being batted back and forth between two strong emotions. But how should a tennis ball behave? She had absolutely no idea.

from Out
by Natsuo Kirino
translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder
Kodansha International, 2003

Postal rates set to undermine small and independent publishers

From Freepress.net:

"Postal regulators have accepted a proposal from media giant Time Warner that would stifle small and independent publishers in America. The plan unfairly burdens smaller publishers with higher postage rates while locking in special privileges for bigger media companies.

"In establishing the U.S. postal system, the nation's founders wanted to ensure that a diversity of viewpoints were available to "the whole mass of the people." Time Warner's rate increase reverses this egalitarian ideal and threatens the marketplace of ideas on which our democracy depends.

"It's time stand up for independent media. Demand that Congress step in to stop the unfair rate hikes. The deadline for comments to the Postal Service is fast approaching."

For more information, and to send a letter to you reps, go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com.

I signed on. I urge you to too.

Gilgamesh

For six days I would not let him be buried,
thinking, "If my grief is violent enough,
perhaps he will come back to life again."
For six days and seven nights I mourned him,
until a maggot fell out of his nose.
Then I was frightened, I was terrified of death....

from Gilgamesh, A New English Version
translated by Stephen Mitchell
Free Press, 2004