While Massachusetts was up to important business the last couple of weeks, I have been also by preparing several new BHM anthologies for the printer. In the upcoming issue, we’re advertising the 15th and 16th year anthologies by offering them for presale for $30 for both. The idea is to raise some of the money to pay for the printing of the big books.

Annie is now working on the technical part of turning the 15th and 16th anthologies into the format the printer requires, and we expect to send them to the printer next week. That means we should get back the completed shipments of the books by the middle of February, which means that readers who take advantage of the preorder offer will not have to wait very long at all to get the new anthologies. (Update on Jan 23: Lenie said this is far too optimistic, that the ship date from our office will be more like the middle of March.)

My job is to pick the article chronology for the new anthologies, which can be tricky because I’m deleting ads, Letters to the Editor, and the few articles that don’t fit for one reason or another. I’m leaving in 95% of the articles, mainly in their original formats, which is the tricky part.

Today I completed the chronology for the 17th year anthology, which we hadn’t advertised in the upcoming issue but which I am thinking of sending to the printer anyway. Many of our readers own anthologies 1 through 14, having bought The Whole Sheebang, so the new anthologies will be a very welcome set of books for them.

Anyway, I’m not just playing golf and fishing all the time. I’m working!

Tonight’s Republican senate win in Massachusetts gives me hope for the future. This race wasn’t about health care, but about the American people saying to the Democrat-controlled federal government: “Stop this giant swing toward socialism.” The second American Revolution has begun.

A series of Pacific storms has been hammering us for a week. Today the whole area lost power so I had to put on our emergency propane lights, which worked just fine.  Propane lighting is a great backup to electricity.

But the real big news is Claire Wolfe will begin blogging on the website as soon as we can get her blog set up. I’m delighted she has finally agreed to return to the web with a blog.

We finished deadline today for Issue No. 122. It will now wind its way through the printing process before being mailed to subscribers in a few weeks.  Superb issue! Several in-depth articles. Blunt returns with a terrific article, O.E. MacDougal has a powerful insight into the econmy’s future, I have a brilliant editorial, lots of stuff.  Ayoob and Claire Wolfe and Jackie Clay have great stuff. Several new writers. No wonder this magazine is thriving while others are going bankrupt – We just have good stuff!

Meanwhile the wind has been blowing for more than a week. Gale force winds every day. Glad I have my roof on tight with extra dabs of cement beneath each shingle.