A series of screams went up around the office

A novel that Harper Lee wrote in the mid-50s, before To Kill a Mockingbird, is going to be published next summer. The Guardian reports that there is much excitement.

UK and Commonwealth rights to the book were acquired by Penguin Random House. The publisher’s announcement on Tuesday was accompanied by a new photo of Lee, climbing out of a car and smiling. The news has been kept secret from all but a handful of staff at the publisher, and publicity director Charlotte Bush said that when it was revealed this afternoon, a series of screams went up around the office.

Well you know how people in publishing are. They’re screamers.

At Foyles booksellers in London, Jonathan Ruppin described the news as being “as big as it gets for new fiction”. “We can close the book on the bestselling novel of 2015 right now. At Foyles today, we’re absolutely fizzing with excitement and frenzied speculation: it’s the only topic of conversation,” said the bookseller, adding that even though To Kill a Mockingbird has long been acknowledged as a classic, it “is a book that still surprises new readers with its power. Its story is arresting and profound, its characters vivid and entirely convincing, so the prospect of a follow-up, after all these years, is giddyingly thrilling”.

I’m still calm about it. I can tell you one thing though – it won’t be anything like as bad as the last piece of fiction (or writing of any kind) that J D Salinger published. That was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever read. Literally that: embarrassing. It was basically his absurd fantasy life, spread out in huge detail, but by some strange accident published in the New Yorker. Don’t ever publish your fantasy life in the New Yorker.

Harper Lee’s new-old novel won’t be that bad.

More Catholic than the pope

Mona Eltahawy reports on the harassment and persecution of atheists in Egypt.

Because atheism itself is not illegal in Egypt, charges are laid under laws against blasphemy or contempt for religion. In 2012, a 27-year-old blogger, Alber Saber, received a three-year sentence on charges of blasphemy for creating a web page called “Egyptian Atheists.” In 2013, the writer and human rights activist Karam Saber (no relation) was convicted of defaming religion in his short story collection “Where Is God?”

Cool trick. No law against atheism – but you can’t defame religion! [Read more…]

The woman’s right to a platform

Nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty. People are having themselves a high old time putting that mouthy Kate Smurthwaite in her place. Rupert Myers at the Telegraph is in there with a shiv – pretending her show was canceled because no one wanted to go, which is not the case.

When political activist Kate Smurthwaite had her comedy gig cancelled at Goldsmith’s College yesterday she was quick out of the blocks to tweet and blog about the removal of her show.

As an apparent martyr to free speech her plight quickly attracted reports by the BBC, the Huffington Post and others.

At least the New Statesman’s write-up asked the question “Is this newsworthy? On its own, no, not really”, before going on to outline the internet’s fomenting outrage at the decision to kill the event.

Numbers of students in Universities around the country have become intolerant of free speech, but this incident looks more like a claim for publicity than a good example of that problem.

Despite having tickets on sale for weeks, Smurthwaite’s show had sold eight.

There’s the shiv. The show was for the comedy and feminist societies, whose members got in free. He left that part out. Nasty.

Smurthwaite successfully pivoted this cancellation into a media and internet event which I am now helping to further publicise. Kate’s show will be at the Leicester Comedy Festival. I’m taking a punt here but I expect there are still some tickets left.

What was she supposed to do? Say nothing? Take it like a lamb? Nod and smile and thank the president for deciding to cancel her show? Why shouldn’t she tweet and blog about it? Her gig was canceled at the last minute for the flimsiest (and least coherent) of reasons – why would she do anything other than object?

The publicity we can all cheer – it’s impressively enterprising. My concern is that by portraying what happened as a genuine example of the imperilling of free speech, the media and the internet once again confuse a significant issue.

No picketers have been found. No vote was taken to oppose the woman’s right to a platform.

Says the man, from a very great height.

 

Goldsmiths students, she was told, have only correct beliefs

The Guardian reports on the Goldsmiths-Smurthwaite collision.

One item strikes me as very odd…

The first she heard about the gig at Goldsmiths being pulled was an email exchange with the college on Sunday evening. She was told of “complaints” about a range of past subjects in her shows, including her views on prostitution and on Muslim women being forced to cover up, but was not given details or any right of response.

Smurthwaite favours decriminalising those selling sex, while criminalising those who purchase it. Goldsmiths students, she was told, support legalisation of the sex industry.

[Read more…]

Hello Jamila!

Look who has joined this sinister group of bloggers – Jamila Bey!

In her inaugural post she tells us an atheist invented Black History Month, which I didn’t know.

Carter G. Woodson, autodidact who graduated with his Ph.D. from Harvard, was a leading thinker who came up with the idea of Negro History Month in 1926.  He hoped, (as does this writer) that the need for the commemoration would someday become obsolete.

Woodson was a staunch critic of religious institutions and wrote that they were oppressive to Blacks.  Just as he believed that the accomplishments and the global influence of Black people were unreported or at best under represented, the influence of freethinking and atheist people, particularly concerning American history, have been diminished.

Today’s Google Doodle, which celebrates the anniversary of the birth of African-American poet, and columnist, Langston Hughes, is also a great opportunity for atheists to remind folks that Hughes was also without religion.

So give Jamila a big welcome.

Kate’s version

So now there’s a lot of bullshit and ass-covering about the cancellation of Kate Smurthwaite’s comedy show at Goldsmiths. So Kate has presented the documentation.

The media have written a lot about my show at Goldsmith College being cancelled tonight and of course social media is now abuzz with people calling me a liar and claiming I’ve made the whole thing up. So here’s my version. With screenshots to prove it. My apologies for releasing shots of what was obviously intended to be a private conversation, I wanted very much to avoid this but I’m not going to put up with being called a liar repeatedly. I have blurred out identifying details of the representative from Goldsmiths Comedy Society because I know from personal experience how the internet can over-react otherwise.

I was booked to do a show at Goldsmiths College, in south London. I’ve performed there many times before. The show was a joint event for the Comedy Society and the Feminist Society – members of which could come for free – and we then agreed that they would put up a ticket page for anyone else – such as local residents who fancied coming. As a way to cover costs or raise a few extra quid.

The day before the show (Sunday) I was getting a lot of hassle on Twitter because I had dared to suggest that cutting the opening hours of Spearmint Rhino strip club was a good thing.

So she thought it only right to inform the organisers that there might be some protesty disruption at the show.

But they already knew… [Read more…]