Round-up of good stuff

A writer and reader on why publishers fail from Forbes

They dumb everything down.
Why is publishing the only industry so arcanely enigmatic that no one, not even the people doing it, seems to understand its sublimely mystical machineries? Many media watchers are linking the latest horrors in publishing to the financial crisis, but it's not quite as simple as that, either.

The the impotence of proofreading, from the Stranger

Yes, proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence. Now, this is a problem that affects manly, manly students all over the word.

Calls for funny poetry by women, posted on the New Pages blog