COMPROMISED'S COVER!!

Thank you, Mischa Rosenberg, "Design Assistant Extraordinaire" at HarperCollins! Wow. Speechless here.

RANT: Don't touch my child ...

Okay. It was time. I have to rant, rave, stump, scream, and unload here. I haven't "raised" a child in the States, but I can pretty much guarantee that people are more respectful about a child's space there than here. (But I'd love everybody's thoughts, similar rants, raves etc.)

I'll paint the scenario: Imagine walking up to an adult you don't know, one with pretty curly hair and big blue eyes. Now grab that adult's cheeks and stroke her hair saying, "Ooooh ... Ooooh. Everybody look at the pretty lady." [Horrible person and her seventeen family members circle lady and loom over her.] "Can we hold you?"

Wouldn't happen.
Ever.
Unless, of course, you're robbing said lady or want somebody to call security on you for being a total creep.

So why ... WHY ... do people feel entitled to touch children they don't know as if they were store merchandise?
This. Pisses. Me. Off.
It's a violation of a little person's space (Yes, children ARE little people) and a total violation of their human rights because they are small and defenseless.
That, though, is what parents are for -- to fight those battles.

I said to the lady, "Don't touch my daughter."
She was shocked. Appalled. Everybody in the area looked at me as if I were a possessed demon (my face probably had that blotchy purple thing going on that happens when I am infuriated.)
"We're just looking," evil lady said.
"She is not merchandise in a store. Don't touch her."
Crowd disperses and people look at me like the nasty, mean foreigner I probably am.

I'm pretty laid back about cultural differences. But this to me isn't a cultural difference. This goes much deeper than being an overprotective mother.
It's disrespectful. It's dangerous. It teaches kids that their own space doesn't belong to them and from early on ANY adult has a right to enter that space. It's not a big jump to make, especially considering I live in a country in which child abuse "is probably the biggest public health issue" on the table with child-sex tourism in Cartagena (according to a UN study), an ongoing war in which children are recruited to fight, kill, rape and be raped and more.
Moreover, the World Health Organization estimates that 40 million children are abused around the world (one million alone in the USA) before they turn 14 (the majority by a trusted adult).

So my question is this. If a child isn't taught from early on that her space belongs to her and her alone and perfect strangers are allowed to enter that space, how will she know when her space is being violated by somebody she "should" trust?

Yep. I'm raging. And the more I think about this, the more I seethe.
Just. Don't. Touch. My. Child.
Period.

Some cool news!

Okay. It takes me a while to assimilate these things but seeing it in print helps me a lot.
This was on Publisher's Weekly a bit ago and I just wanted to share:

2009 IRA Young Adult fiction award winner for FREEZE FRAME, Heidi Ayarbe's THE DOUBTING, the story of a teen whose attempts to play off his Obsessive Compulsive behavior as the quirks of a superstitious athlete come crashing down over the course of one momentous weekend, to Donna Bray and Ruta Rimas at Balzer & Bray, in a two-book deal, by Stephen Barbara at Foundry Literary + Media.


(Yep! That's me! Work for two more years!)

Waxing Philosophical: What I didn't know about Coca Cola ...

Today I'm feeling a little bit grateful for the fizzy brown fluid (that was originally green ... really), so I'm going to go off on a tangent (something writers have a tendency to do) and write a list of things I didn't know, some things I did, and other random, crazy, and some disturbing facts about the bubbly beverage. (And maybe you didn't know them either.)

Now, so you know, none of these ideas have been endorsed by the Coca Cola Company. And some of these things seem pretty cock-eyed to me and I wouldn't try them. That said, if anybody, namely the big big multi-billion dollar Coca Cola company, feels like suing me, they're not gonna get a whole lot out of it. (Is that a good enough disclaimer?)

• Coca Cola was invented by John Pemberton in 1886 and was marketed as the "cure all" for a whole slew of ailments including: morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headaches, and impotence (this, remember is PRE Viagra)
• Santa Claus used to have a blue outfit until Coca Cola, more specifically Haddon Sundblom (a Michigan artist), dressed him in red in 1931. Three decades of Coca Cola ads with a fat Santa have molded how we "perceive" Santa to be.
• When things are a bit too "runny", Coke seems to take care of it. (This I tried. And it could be timing, synchronicity, whatever. But as soon as I started drinking it, ahhhhh.)
• Pour Coca Cola on a jellyfish sting. (Less gross than peeing on it.)
• The Navy uses Coca Cola to preserve submarines. (Yes. Remember you're ingesting this liquid)
• Coca Cola is great for cleaning tile grout. (Yes, I've done this. It works.) Oooh, my intestines are all-aflame!
• It's sold in over 200 countries.
• A can of Coca-Cola (330 millilitres (12 imp fl oz; 11 US fl oz)) contains 35 grams (1.2 oz), or 7-8 teaspoons, of sugar.
• Soft drinks lower calcium levels and higher phosphate levels in the bloodstream which, in turn, strip bones of calcium ... you do the math. You drink lots. Your bones will suffer. Ick.
• It can remove oil, carpet, and any number of other kinds of stains that industrial-strength detergents cannot.

And these masterminds of marketing have a pretty great stack of slogans under their sleeves: (How's that for unnecessary alliteration?)

• (1891) The Ideal Brain Tonic./The Delightful Summer-Winter beverage.
• (1927) Around the corner from anywhere.
• (1945) Passport to refreshment.
  
• (1948) When there's Coke, there's hospitality. (You think Kim Jong-Il knows this? Somebody send him a case of Coke, for God's sake!)
• (1971) I'd like to buy the world a Coke. (Remember this one? With everybody singing and holding candles??)
• (2007) Live on the Coke Side of Life.
  
• 
  

Okay. Enough said. It's random. It's pretty useless however interesting. And my stomach is ever-so-grateful for it today. That said, I probably won't be buying a bunch tomorrow.