The best I can do is let my 1,500 or so readers know what’s hot off the publishing house presses. These are the books I received in the past few weeks:

• John McWhorter sent me a signed copy of his latest book (thanks, John!), All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America.
• David Perlmutter dropped my name in Blogwars: The New Political Battleground. Among other things, he wrote that I “attacked” him in a post. I think his comment was tongue-in-cheek, though.
• Columnist Kathleen Parker’s latest book is Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care. Preach it, sister!
• Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age – Sounds scary.
• From Crayons to Condoms: The Ugly Truth about America’s Public Schools – Can I get a witness?

Reminder: Reading is fundamental. And stay in school, kids! No matter how lousy it is.

Well, that was fun. Where to now?

I’m going to NYC on Friday to speak at this event, then back to DC, where I plan to double the workload so I can have free time to hang out in Las Vegas next week. GodBlogCon. Then I’m starting the Thanksgiving holiday early, jetting back to California to hang out with baby sis and niece. Then, I’m off to…somewhere.

I’ve got a brain drain, which leaves little energy for updating this space. Sorry.

Don’t you hate when bloggers blog about how they don’t have time to blog? Actually, I blog every day. I just do it for others. Paying others. But I feel uncharacteristically guilty for not updating this site as frequently as I used to, despite what I wrote here. I say a lot of things many people can’t or won’t say, and some readers check the blog daily to read my opinions on politics and faith. I know how I feel when my must-read blogs aren’t updated as frequently as I’d like.

To make matters worse, both my MP3 players – iPod and Dell DJ – decided to break at the same time. I’m without a portable device to blast my digital tunes. I never realized how dependent I was on those gadgets. I must have the music. Back to the old portable CD player until they’re repaired. At any rate, I hope you’ll stick around. This blog will continue to exist as long as I do. God willing.

Well, I’m falling like the House of Usher, man. Yeah, it’s only 7-ish, I know, but I really need to…

Update (11/1): Regarding my recent post, By Grace Alone Through Faith Alone in Christ Alone, the Independent Conservative writes:

“When someone is moving up in the world of journalism, they have some big choices to make. By avoiding certain topics they stand to line their pockets well. By lurching a little from firm footing, they can get paid, while tossing out varied views that please the masses. I was just reading a post over at La Shawn Barber’s Corner and was glad to see she continues to contend for the faith in spirit and in truth.”

Thanks for the shout-out, IC, but I’m not really “in the world of journalism,” moving up or otherwise. I’m just a blogger with a few short features and op-eds under her belt.

He adds: “Finally I’ll mention, that without God moving La Shawn to be a blogger…His divine plan might not have included others like myself doing the same.”

It’s only by God’s grace I’m out here contending for the faith. And there’s much more to come.

From November 1 through November 30, courageous participants will crank out a 175-page, 50,000-word novel in any genre. It won’t be perfect, and it probably won’t be publishable (although it can happen). But it sounds like a good way to sharpen your writing skills and develop discipline, two things I’m constantly trying improve.

Read the What, Who, Why, and When and FAQs for details.

After reading, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, written by the guy who started NaNoWriMo, I was all pumped up. But “other stuff” came up.

This year, I want to do it. I have the genre and plot in mind already. A murder mystery:

A popular but controversial blogger is being cyber-stalked by a desperate loony. Then one by one, her friends turn up dead. What kind of stalker is this, killing the blogger’s friends? Will he come after her, too? Is the stalker even the killer? Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, our high-profile blogger-heroine learns that the stalker has uncovered a secret that could ruin her carefully planned life. With her shady past catching up with her, the heroine turns the tables on the stalker. How far will she go to protect her life, her secrets, and avenge her murdered friends?

No, the blogger-heroine isn’t supposed to be me.

Is the plot too corny? Suggestions?

Want to play? Sign-up begins October 1.

Update (9/13): Am I crazy? I don’t have time to do this. I hardly have time to blog! My blog consulting business is going better than I ever expected, but it leaves little time for other things I want to do. I need a good organizer, someone to help me learn how to use my time efficiently. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Gotta go…

“I leave shreds of my soul on every experience.” – Oriana Fallaci

I went to see Oriana Fallaci this evening in what will most likely be her last speech. She is dying from cancer. No photos allowed. And while she could not have been more then 85 lbs, she railed away at Radical Islamofascim, the treasonous left and the impotent right as if she was taking on Goliath.

Oriana Fallaci – author of the powerful Man and Letter to a Child Never Born has a fatwa calling for her death and  is being sued by the Muslim Union of Italy for her book The Force of Reason.  Consequently an Italian judge ordered her to stand trial in Bergamo on charges of “defaming Islam.” From Prophet of Decline, WSJ hat tip: Susan D esq.

Oriana Fallaci faces jail. In her mid-70s, stricken with a cancer that, for the moment, permits only the consumption of liquids -one of the most renowned journalists of the modern era has been indicted by a judge in her native Italy under provisions of the Italian Penal Code which proscribe the “vilipendio” or “vilification” of “any religion admitted by the state.”

In her case, the religion deemed vilified is Islam, and the vilification was perpetrated, apparently, in a book she wrote last year — and which has sold many more than a million copies all over Europe — called “The Force of Reason.” Its astringent thesis is that the Old Continent is on the
verge of becoming a dominion of Islam, and that the people of the West have surrendered themselves fecklessly to the “sons of Allah.” So, in a nutshell, Oriana Fallaci faces up to two years’ imprisonment for her beliefs — which is one reason why she has chosen to stay put in New York. Let us give thanks for the First Amendment.

Ms. Fallaci speaks in a passionate growl:“Europe is no longer Europe, it is ‘Eurabia,’ a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense. Servility to the invaders has poisoned democracy, with obvious consequences for the freedom of thought, and for the concept itself of liberty.”

A Sermon for the West
Published:Friday, January 10, 2003

I Stand with Israel: I Stand with the Jews
Published: Monday, December 02, 2002

From the book, Immortality, author, Milan Kundera writes,

“…who is the pioneer of modern journalism? Not Hemingway who wrote of his experiences in the trenches, not Orwell who spent a year of his life with the Parisian poor, not Egon Erwin Kisch the expert on Prague prostitutes, but Oriana Fallaci who in the years 1969 to 1972 published a series of interviews with the most famous politicians of the time. Those interviews were more than mere conversations; they were duels. Before the powerful politicians realized that they were fighting under unequal conditions–for she was allowed to ask questions but they were not–they were already on the floor of the ring, KO’ed.”

This evening David Horowitz [his introductory speech here] of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and Editor in Chief of FrontPageMag presented Fallaci with the Anne Taylor award (Anne Taylor was the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel – no joke). The speech will not be made public or published as Fallaci wants it for her last book she is currently writing. She said she “hopes her book helps her die a little less when I do die.” And although she was supposed to receive this award at the Biltmore in February there was serious doubt she would make it……….The following remarks are from my fierce scribbling. In a word, Fallaci was wild. Smart determined, and intent on getting the message out there that we are underestimating the enemy. Playing nice guy, playing PC, killing all signs of religion (ie Christmas) will be the end of us.

"I do not believe the West will win.”. Her fatalism is pure and unashamed.

The crowd to my surprise, was small. A peculiar mix of concerned,  scholarly,  erudite and  moneyed. Not what I would call a “sexy” crowd (as in passionate), but Fallaci had more sex appeal and passion than the whole of the city. I was fortunate enough to sit with Richard Poe of FrontPageMag and his lovely wife, and to my left Susan, a quick witted down-to-earth lawyer (!) who writes sporadically for the NRO who was joined by her equally involved hub. Susan just sent me this excellentNRO piece on Fallaci, read it before continuing on.

And to add to my delight I had the great fortune to spent some precious, delicious time with Phylis Chesler. I shall interview her later this week on her new book, The Death of Feminism.

Oriana Fallaci – frail, tiny hit that podium running. She looked up at us and said “you are my comrade in arms. Our opponents are leftists. Conservative are too genteel. You are warriors and warriors can not get tired.”

“The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.” In describing despotism, Fallaci said the despot ignores the body and attacks the soul. Because it is the soul the despot wants to put in chains. The despot wants to put the soul in shackles. “You are free not to think. Think as I do.”

The Truth Inspires Fear".

“Europe overflows with the witch hunts…. hits any one going against Islam. It overflows the with New Inquisition. Trying to muzzle. Oh yes, like your Ward Churchills, your Noam Chomskys, your Louis Farrakhans and your Michael Moore’s etc. TRAITORS! against which all antidotes seem to fail. Combined Neo nazi islamo fascism" [Atlas note: Fallaci spit these names out with such repulsion and utter contempt........riveting]

The Deaf remain the deaf, the blind remain the blind and both of them end up with …………brand of shame.

Islam has no sense of justice. The crime? The crime of opinion. A crime now disguised as re-education of Islam. Religious racism xenophobia.

Like love, hate belongs to human nature. Should there be a penal code for the persecution for “hate?” Can we judge? Yes! It can be judged but only on a moral basis. For instance the moral basis of religion, the Christian religion, is based on love, not on a political basis or a criminal basis………..”It grants me the right to love who I want but also the right to hate who I want.”

“It is my sacrosanct right! Those that hate me try to silence me with penal codes.”

“And the West directs a hate towards itself. The West has lost its spirituality. It stands silent in the slander of Islam. "The censure of Europe.”

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” the historian Arnold Toynbee wrote.

On August 27, 2005, Fallaci had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo with whom she found a kindred spirit and whom she believes understands the mortal threat faced by Christianity by the evil of Islamofascism. The Pope loves her work. “I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger.” I had asked Ms. Fallaci whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. “I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It’s that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion.” More here.

Fallaci claims to be neither left nor right. She despises the left for the obvious reasons and holds the right in contempt for being weak. For not taking a hard stand and making the tough choices.

"Don’t believe in a dialog with Islam. That’s a naivete. It can only be a monologue. They do not believe in pluralism. There is no such thing as a “moderate Islam” and a Radical Islam. There is only one Islam.”
I too believe this as much as it pains me to say it. I would like nothing better to believe that there is a side we can do business with, talk to. But that is self deluding.

Fallaci: “The real enemy is Islam and the most catastrophic threat is immigration not terror. It is immigration. And they do not integrate in Europe. Maybe in the USA but not in Europe. Those riots in France are a result of that very thing.” The Chinese, Vietnamese etc immigrants are not rioting and tearing down the very fabric of society.

They [The Islamists] are very patient. And Clever.

This war needs boldness.

“WAKE UP WAKE UP. WE ARE AT WAR. WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED ON THE WEST AND WE MUST FIGHT. One or the other must perish.” and so she has spoken. And while it was painfully clear she was preaching to the converted, it was also painful that the choir was so small.

I bet it would be hotter than In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror, by Michelle Malkin (reviews and critiques).

I’d be vilified, of course, and 20 death threats a day would be the norm. But what press such a book would generate, especially written by a black woman! I’d have to start small with a series of well-researched articles first.

One of the myths I want to bust wide open is that the old Dixicrats disbanded and joined the Republican party en masse. I know there’s a story there, just waiting for somebody to tell it. I want to show Americans who weren’t alive then or too young to remember that it’s not only untrue, but a fable Democrats came up with to try to cover up their own embarrassing history and keep blacks dependent on a large, bureaucratic, central government (see Why Courting the Black Vote Won’t Work).

To be “fair and balanced,” I’ve included a Wikipedia entry that’s hopelessly biased against conservatism and two articles biased toward the right:

• The Myth of Racist Republicans
• The Neocons and Nixon’s Southern Strategy