AdorkableSmile

The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.

I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University

www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

*Always* tell authors when you like their stuff.

It's an emotional high that we'll ride for days.

Brought to you by someone who liked my book

A black & white cat reclining like a dapper gentleman in a bright green Mike and Ike box.

Strata the torbie cat curled up against a purple pillow on a bed

She took my spot.

A ginger cat lying on a counter. Beneath him is a sign saying "Cat NOT Friendly! DON'T TOUCH!"

Thousands of train fare prosecutions set to be quashed As many as 74,000 cases could be overturned after a ruling by the chief magistrate of England and Wales.

We've seen what happens when people are given closed-door trials in front of just a judge. Last year the chief magistrate ruled that a closed-door process prosecuting rail fare dodgers should never have been used - quashing up to 74,000 cases.

The police look for evidence of guilt. They don't try to find things that will exonerate their prime suspect. They can protest their innocence in the police interview all they want; it means nothing if they don't have a fair trial.

Which brings me onto the most important point:

Got a few minutes at lunch to keep going on this: when the police interview a suspect, they're trying to build a case AGAINST them. A common question to the defendant during trial is "why didn't you tell this to the police when they questioned you?"

Because the police are not their friend.

And the folks who are actually writing full-time generally only got there after years of day jobs, family support, or both.

The point of sharing this is not to demoralize anyone, but to let emerging writers know they're not failing if they can't make a living off writing alone. Almost no one can.

Judges at Wood Green who spoke to Sackman described it as “morale-sapping” to see defendants opt for jury trials in the hope of collapsing their cases. “They are coming into court and laughing in the face of the justices, knowing they can go back out on the streets and commit further offences,” she said.

This bit rankles me. Calling it "morale-sapping" and suggesting any jury trial is a deliberate provocation of the justice system, when in reality it's a legal right, and the only way defendants have to prove their innocence.

And this is a valid issue! But again, it points to priorities rather than process.

Maybe, instead of prioritising those cases that have custody time limits, we instead have a justice system that prioritises trials with vulnerable witnesses?

Sackman said she understood why people “fear change” to the justice system. “Behind these 80,000 odd cases that are waiting in the backlog, there are individual stories and individual lives being put on hold behind each and every one of those cases,” she said. “No one is being served in the case that we saw. Not the accused, who’s currently being remanded in jail, not the victim who’s been waiting since she first reported her crime years ago. “I’ve spoken to victims and survivors who tell me they’ve lost their jobs, they suffered mental breakdown all the while that they were waiting. More victims and witnesses are pulling out of the process because they cannot wait that long. That is compelling illustration of justice delayed being justice denied.”

Alright I'm kinda awake. Let's continue talking about this.

Sackman suggests this is about a fear of change, but she raises the valid point that being in a state of perpetual limbo, without closure on such a horrific matter, is causing witnesses to pull out of trials due to stress.

I used to be a lead bookseller at one of the biggest bookshops in the UK. We had a reputation for being able to "break" books, i.e. build hype for books we got behind and make them start selling.

That often involved handselling just 9 or 10 copies over a couple of days.

"Many garment workers make Nike products for below $1 per hour ... If Nike had returned the $18 billion it is spending on buybacks to workers instead, it could offer a $125 per month raise to every garment worker who makes Nike products for 10 years — doubling the wages of many."

I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.

There's more to this, but I'm tired and I've gotta be up for work tomorrow. Ta-ta for now.

But crucially, they'll still require a judge.

Which will still require a courtroom.

Which still prevents another trial taking place at the same time.

It's a bad solution before we even enter into fairness and openness.

It's a question of priorities and imperfect solutions.

So SA cases take years to come to court, because all these smaller cases take priority.
So... How do we change the system so it prioritises SA cases, which require sensitivity and timeliness to ensure the most effective trials?
And yeah, I guess removing the jury from OTHER trials does that.

In the UK justice system at present, custody cases take precedence. If a defendant is locked up, they can only be locked up for a term equal to or less than their expected sentence. Therefore, especially in minor cases, their trials take priority in the court system.

Speaking at Wood Green crown court, Sackman said victims of severe sexual assault were routinely told it could take four years for their cases to come to court. On the morning she spoke to the Guardian, the minister watched a bail hearing for a case involving severe sexual assault, one unlikely to come to a full trial until 2028. Some of the offences in the case, including strangulation, beating and nonconsensual sexual images, took place as far back as 2020.

Her first point: the severe delays in sexual assault cases coming to trial. This is a direct result of the backlog, compounded by the workings of the justice system; for SA trials in particular, in almost every case the defendant is on bail.
This causes a lot of problems for scheduling.

I wanna talk about this briefly, because Sarah Sackman makes some salient points. But her arguments overall point to problems in the justice system, not problems with the trial format.

I work in the justice system, I'm seeing firsthand the problems we're experiencing.

MoJ to remove right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in controversial overhaul Exclusive: Courts minister says change needed to stop criminals opting for juries to delay cases, sometimes by years, and clear huge backlog

Hey folks. If you've not heard what's going on, the ministry of justice is planning to turn the majority of crimes into jury-less trials, giving judges total power to decide guilt or innocence in many cases, especially for nonviolent crimes.

This is terrible news.

This is what AABB has been talking about. This is a truly insane overreach, and people on the ground are really scared.

If you need a few moments of calm, I recommend watching a black dog in the snow...

#GalliTheExplorer #CuteDog #PumiMix #DogAdventures #LifeOfADog #Dog
#AdoptDontShop #RescueDog
#dogs #DogSky

demonschool credits all 145 people who touched the game over the course of its multi-year dev cycle AND explains what exactly they contributed. the rest of the games industry, which commonly omits people from credits entirely, should be taking notes

WHAT CONGRATULATIONS OMG 🤩

Literally wouldn’t know how. And I’m fucking proud of that ✌️

lol she does this every time

A giant fluffy white dog with her chin on a brown dining room table, staring intently at a nearby plate with some porkchop left on it while my spouse cuts off another bite.

Same dog as before but with her head up, staring with hope and longing as my spouse eats another bite that did not go to Binky.

It's dog o'clock and Binky wants you to know she's #TeamPorkchop

(Yes, she got some)

When I was on contract as a web designer I made more money in one day than my advance for the small press novel I'd spent years working on.

I often joke that full-time employment is the best artists' grant you can get.