As I wrote in “Change Is“, most Tuesdays will now be diary columns bringing you up to date on what I did the week before and what I’m about to do in coming weeks. I also think it will be a good place to share links to podcasts and embed video interviews I’ve done, to tell you about articles I publish in other venues, and even to thank readers for presents and the like. That means I’ll be retiring the “Maggie in the Media” and “Presents, Presents, Presents!” headings from TW3 columns, but the tags will persist to enable location of diary columns with items that would’ve gone under those tags. I don’t have any media for you this week, but I do need to mention a couple of presents I received in Washington, DC and forgot to mention earlier: when I met Eddie Cunningham for dinner he gave me copies of Guns, Germs and Steel and The Boat of a Million Years. Thank you, Eddie, and I apologize for not mentioning your gift earlier!
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been immersed in catching up on work I had to neglect in the last month of the tour; I was so busy with activities and writing new columns for August and early September that I had to neglect correspondence, plus indexing and other blog maintenance, and by the time I got home my normal one-month buffer was entirely gone. However, you’ll be glad to know that my correspondence is fully caught up, that the buffer was restored by last Saturday, and that the indexing will be fully caught up sometime today; once I bring up the PAQ page and a few other little things I’ll be all done. Furthermore, you’ll be glad to hear I didn’t have to run myself ragged to do it; my improved procedures are making things easier on several fronts, and that means now that I’m caught up I’ll have time to start working on a few other things. One of them is increasing my mainstream presence by submitting articles to a few big sites you may have heard of; another is that essay collection I’ve promised y’all for almost two years now, and the other…well, let’s not say too much about it yet.
On the travel front, I’ll be back in New Orleans again the weekend of October 25th to speak at a convention of Students for Liberty, then on November 5th I’ll be speaking to the same organization at Loyola University in Chicago. The following afternoon I’ll be leaving Chicago by train for my mini-tour to Seattle and Portland; there is no wi-fi on long-distance routes yet, so I will be out of touch all day Friday the 7th, all evening on Thursday the 6th and the morning of Saturday the 8th. But don’t worry, everything will be set up to go, so those who don’t follow Twitter closely probably won’t even know I’m missing. I want to get all of my activities for those cities planned before I leave, though, so if you would like me to speak or read anyplace in either Seattle or Portland please let me know by two weeks from today, three weeks at the absolute latest!

Is it cool for me to “stalk” you by attending the SFL event in NOLA? I’m not a student but the automated form processed my registration! 😀
Listed my professional affiliation as “bouncer” … I think that was the key!! LOL
It’s OK by me, as long as it’s OK by them! Actually, I’m glad you mentioned that; my cousin may want to come but I wasn’t sure if he had to be a student and/or in the org.
Well I registered and did so honestly. I got an email reply (automated) indicating I was accepted. Have your cousin zoom to the bottom of this link here …
http://studentsforliberty.org/event/2014-sfl-new-orleans-regional-conference/
And just register. His name will be on the list at the door sooo …
There was no conference fee.
If that doesn’t work, just give your cousin my real name and tell him to “drop it” with a few of the peeps at the door. LOL … this is Tulane University and these kids drink at my bar all the time! I’m popular!! LOL
You’re welcome, Maggie. It’s possible that you might not care for Poul Anderson’s The Boat Of A Million Years (which sadly is out of print) but I think Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel is an eye-opener. This book has been criticized by some on the left for blaming the native inhabitants of Africa, Australia, the Americas, and Polynesia for what happened to them after they encountered European colonists. On the contrary, he gives them a lot of credit. (In fact, it was an eye-opener to find out what extraordinary navigators the people of Polynesia were, and they didn’t have the same 15th century navigational tools that Christopher Columbus did.) The main reason I gave the book to her is that she reads the chapter where Diamond discusses human government and the growth of the state, and what the REAL purpose of government is as opposed to the “social contract” we are taught in school.
Hope that she likes both of these books!
BTW, I like the sign, but I’m worried that your former occupation as a librarian is merely coincidental and they simply misspelled “libertarians.” 🙂