"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
Most Facebook users, I’ve noticed, rarely post anything personal or honest (unless, that is, it reflects positive credit upon themselves). I treat my Facebook account as an extension of my blog, which is very much a personal journal. If I’ve done something stupid, I’ll fess up (so long as it’s not too embarrassing). If something’s weighing heavy […]
“The witch hunt stands as a cobwebbed, crowd-sourced cautionary tale, a reminder that—as a minister at odds with the crisis noted—extreme right can blunder into extreme wrong.” — Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692 Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice Adam Makos I thought Devotion an excellent book: a true story, well […]
Like my sticks? They’re mine! All mine! Our sprinkler and drip irrigation system has given up. The timer doesn’t time, the master valves stick open, the underground tubes leak … the entire system has to be replaced, and the estimate is over 2,500 bucks. Of course it doesn’t have to be replaced. I can always […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Roundup: A parent in Seminole County, Florida, lodges a complaint after her 9-year-old brings home a copy of This One Summer, a young adult graphic novel aimed at readers aged 12 to 18. The book is pulled from elementary school […]
It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22
When I take visitors around the outdoor aircraft on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum, I always say a few words about these Republic F-84s, early jet fighters that show the evolution from straight to swept wings: The aircraft with the barber-striped tail is an F-84C Thunderjet, first flown in 1946 and later employed as […]
The same folks who want to keep Harry Potter books out of public school libraries tell me Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, predicting an early spring.