Roger Ebert — We’ve Seen This Movie Before

Should this young man — whose nature was apparently so obvious to his mother that, when a ABC News reporter called, she said “You have the right person” — have been able to buy guns, ammunition and explosives? The gun lobby will say yes. And the endless gun control debate will begin again, and the lobbyists of the National Rifle Association will go to work, and the op-ed thinkers will have their usual thoughts, and the right wing will issue alarms, and nothing will change. And there will be another mass murder.

That James Holmes is insane, few may doubt. Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection.

—We’ve Seen This Movie Before

Let’s not keep making the same mistakes over and over. Is that possible? Can we make our country a place where it’s safe to go see a damn movie?

New Apple Won’t Turn Brown

Oh boy!

Okanagan’s application to the Agriculture Department says the lack of polyphenol oxidase does not harm the apples or the trees. It says Arctic Apples are generally equivalent in nutritional content to nonengineered apples.

—Growers Fret Over a New Apple That Won’t Turn Brown 

What do you want to bet these new genetically altered apples taste even more like mealworm.

Hitched: On The Fairy Tale Ending That Katie Holmes Will Not Have

I’m as sick of the Tom-Kat divorce news as the next guy, but this:

[W]e need to believe people when they say they are in bad situations. We need to stop victim-blaming and listen; abusive relationships don’t always leave bruises where we can see them. I’m not saying Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ relationship was abusive — I sure as hell don’t know — but I do think there’s a tendency to tell married people, especially women, to try and “work it out” for the sake of whatever — the institution of marriage? The kids? I know a lot of kids of divorced parents and I don’t know many of them who would say that they wish their parents had stayed together in an acrimonious relationship for just a little longer.

—Hitched: On The Fairy Tale Ending That Katie Holmes Will Not Have

Yep.

It’s Not Who You Know

My agent, Jenny Bent, has an interesting and informative series of blog posts developing on her blog posting website (also known as a “blog”) in which she details the “it’s not who you know but what you write” aspects of landing an agent.

This is #2 in my series of posts which are meant to demonstrate that you don’t need connections to be successful in publishing–just a really good query and manuscript.

—Bent on Books