Kunati Wins Huge Publishing Award

The indie publisher that published my two novels, RABID and CALLOUS, has won one of the largest awards that a publisher can win.

Kunati Book Publishers was honored with the INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR AWARD at BookExpo America in Los Angeles, California on May 30, 2008, by FOREWORD MAGAZINE, one of the five dominant trade magazines in the book publishing field. Joshua Corin, a Kunati author, accepted at BEA on Kunati's behalf.

The new honor was created to celebrate ForeWord's tenth anniversary and to recognize Kunati's innovation and fearlessness. Kunati, a year-old publisher, produces book trailers for every new release, maintains a blog, and encourages its authors to blog and actively participate in marketing their books. The publisher currently has several movie deals in the works, and its roster of authors includes Pulitzer Prize winner John E. Mack.

Atheists' Gospel: Quote by Einstein

"[T]he word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."
-- Albert Einstein, in a letter written to philosopher Eric Gutkind in January 1954.

Hate Reaction to The Love Guru

Mike Myers's upcoming comedy, The Love Guru, has attracted the attention of fundamentalist Hindus who are upset by its use of the term "Guru," which has religious and devotional connotations. (In Hinduism, people love and revere their gurus like Christians purport to love and revere Christ.)

.

This fundamentalist Hindu website has even devised a punishment chart that dictates just how long people will suffer in Hell for even watching the movie.

.

Even seeing the movie without knowing that it's offensive to Hindus will earn you 100 years in the Hindu version of Limbo.

.

Note that the really long stays in Hell are reserved for the folks who made the movie, which includes characters such as "Guru Satchabigknoba" and "Guru Tugginmypudha." (Yeah, it's another dumb movie from Mike Myers replete with penis and fart jokes.)

.

This is just more whining by theists, in this case polytheists, who have always suspected that their religion is a bunch of hokum and shriek when anyone confirms that fact. Like Deepak Chopra said, their faith is so weak that even a comedy can offend them.

.

Upon further exploration of situation, however, these particular fundamentalists are more sinister. They also organize and celebrate crusades against inter-faith marriage, book burnings,riots and vandalism over what they regard as impious artistic representations, and constantly work to inflame Muslim-Hindu relations in India, which is already a religious tinderbox.