Restore Sanity: Wear Your Sarcastic Hat

I didn’t get around to watching Jon Stewart’s September 16th Daily Show until last night.  By then I’d already seen some blog reaction to the “Rally to Restore Sanity” announcement, so I knew what was coming. Even so, I was shocked.  A “million moderate march”?  I literally squirmed in embarrassment, all the more so as […]

Paul’s Book Reviews

“Over the city lies the sweet, rotting odor of yesterday’s unrecollected sins.” – Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley I read Christopher Buckley’s editorials and essays with interest, but cannot endorse his fiction. Since I found my copy of Boomsday on the remainder shelf at Barnes & Noble, I suspect other readers have […]

Banned Book News Roundup

Remember Fredric Wertham, the 1950s anti-comic-book crusader? The Library of Congress has opened his private papers to scholars of censorship. Is that a photo of a man’s butt on the cover?  Your book has just been banned in Canada! A new front in the fight against censorship: guerrilla libraries. Bummer.  The small-brainers in Stockton, Missouri […]

Paul’s Grab Bag

What’s in Paul’s grab bag? Unconnected thoughts and observations too short to rate blog posts of their own, but which might amount to something when aggregated together: Damen und Herren I always wanted to write a lengthy post on restroom signage, complete with illustrations. Well, what do you know?  Someone saved me the trouble! A […]

Motorcycle Maintenance Log, Part VI

I thought replacing my handlebar-mounted electrical switch module would be easy.  My friend Ed, who doubles as my spiritual and mechanical guru, told me there was more to the job than I thought, and boy was he right. You see, it’s not just the module on the handlebar.  That part is easy, or relatively so.  […]