Roxane Gay, Simon and Schuster, and Milo Yiannopoulos

Here’s an article that’s been trending on Twitter all day. Evidently, feminist author, Roxane Gay, wasn’t thrilled with the fact that Simon and Schuster worked out a big book deal with gay conservative pundit, Milo Yiannopoulos.

Gay was scheduled to release How to Be Heard with TED in March 2018, but she told BuzzFeed News she “couldn’t bring herself” to turn in the manuscript after hearing Yiannopoulos’ book would be published by the same parent company. “I was supposed to turn the book in this month and I kept thinking about how egregious it is to give someone like Milo a platform for his blunt, inelegant hate and provocation,” Gay said.

While I support her strong beliefs, and even though I won’t be reading Milo’s book any time soon, I do support Milo’s right to get it published. But please don’t get me wrong, I applaud Roxane Gay for standing up for her beliefs, because I’m not fond of slick, clever political pundits like Milo who spin and twist and exploit situations and emotions for the sake of making a good, fast buck.  I just wanted to be clear about that. In general, that’s a huge issue in our society. So many people are too willing to trust these pundits…all of them.

I’m sure Roxane Gay will find a new home for her book. And if she doesn’t, she can contact me and I’ll pub it for her, in digital and print, and she can charge her readers less than Simon and Schuster would have.

You can read more about Roxane Gay here.

Simon and Schuster made their statement already about publishing Milo’s book.

“We do not and never have condoned discrimination or hate speech in any form,” the company said in a statement released Friday. “At Simon & Schuster we have always published books by a wide range of authors with greatly varying, and frequently controversial opinions, and appealing to many different audiences of readers. While we are cognizant that many may disagree vehemently with the books we publish we note that the opinions expressed therein belong to our authors, and do not reflect either a corporate viewpoint or the views of our employees.”

You can read more about that here.

RIP Mary Tyler Moore

I discovered The Mary Tyler Moore Show a few years ago on one of those cable channels that plays old sitcom classics all the time. The minute I started watching I was hooked. It’s hard to beat Moore’s brand of comedy, and it’s impossible to find her kind of talent anywhere these days. She was one of those people who are destined to be great.

“Today, beloved icon, Mary Tyler Moore, passed away at the age of 80 in the company of friends and her loving husband of over 33 years, Dr. S. Robert Levine,” her spokesperson Mara Buxbaum said in a statement. “A groundbreaking actress, producer, and passionate advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Mary will be remembered as a fearless visionary who turned the world on with her smile.”

You can read more about that here.

Hate Crime Attack On Palm Springs Gay Couple

This is a little disconcerting. We’re heading out to Palm Springs for the month of March and part of April. I’ll be tweeting and posting from the road about the trip. It’s a cross country road trip, with an 8 year old poodle and a 15 year old Westie we adopted a year ago.

And I just read about this…