"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
The lead story: But really, why not bowdlerize Twain? Christians read a truncated version of the bible. Southerners have their own version of Civil War history. Schoolkids in Texas learn about an America that never was. What else is new? So . . . on to more banned book news! I asked once before whether […]
I’m getting some hits over two previous posts (Gabrielle Giffords and Political Violence). As is often the case, the criticisms were emailed directly to me rather than left here as blog comments. Which ordinarily would mean you wouldn’t get to see them. It seems a bit like censorship to me, getting reasoned criticism from friends, […]
Two things. One, this post is going to go all over the map because I’m still in shock, angry and incoherent. Two, what I have to say is mostly personal, not meant to be a recap of news you’ve already heard elsewhere. We all know what happened in Tucson this Saturday was political. Politicians and […]
While I was out riding my bicycle this morning, someone shot our congresswoman, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, at an open meeting in northwest Tucson. As I post this, news reports differ on whether she was killed or is still alive at a local hospital. She is, I suspect, dead; reports are that the gunman shot her […]
Last week I got an urgent message from the fine folks at WordPress, telling me I needed to upgrade to the latest WP release lest a security flaw in the version I was currently using bite me in the ass. They sounded genuinely concerned, so I figured I’d better do it. I’ve never forgotten the […]
The captain of the US Navy carrier Enterprise who made raunchy videos and showed them to his sailors? I feel sorry for the guy. Oh, he did a dumbass thing and totally deserves to lose his command, but I’ll bet that until the shit hit the fan he had no idea he was doing anything […]
These are the books that rocked me in 2010. Click any cover to read my review.
“People never explain to you exactly what they think and feel and how their thoughts and feelings work, do they? They don’t have time. Or the right words. But that’s what books do. It’s as though your daily life is a film in the cinema. It can be fun, looking at those pictures. But if […]