"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
“A low sound, barely audible at first, made him turn his head. For a moment he seemed almost puzzled. The sound was faint but growing and unmistakable, like distant thunder. It was engines, wide open. They were as if headed towards him. He could hear them, full and unwavering, suddenly very close, almost overhead, roaring […]
Within a few hours of Wednesday’s TransAsia Airways crash in Taiwan something slipped out about the plane losing power on both engines when in fact only one engine had failed, and I thought “Uh oh, they shut down the wrong engine.” Such a thing is not unknown, after all. Now, as more information is coming in, that’s increasingly […]
President Obama talks about Islam often, and he never fails to label terrorist attacks as terrorism. He avoids using the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” however, as many on the right demand he do. I’m with Obama on that. Too many Americans have decided the Muslim faith — its prophet, its holy book, its madrassas, its imams, […]
The F-86 Sabre has been on my mind lately. The Sabre was a pure air-to-air jet fighter with a high-mounted seat and 360-degree visibility, father of the F-15 Eagle, grandfather of the F-22 Raptor. As a boy living at Ramstein Air Base in Germany in the 1950s, I dreamed of someday flying the Sabres I saw flying overhead. Today I’m a volunteer […]
It was pitch black when I got up to pee this morning. Good, I thought, I can crawl back into bed for a while. But it turned out I’d already had my sleep-in: the bathroom clock radio said 6:45, 15 minutes later than I normally wake up. Damn it, shouldn’t the days be getting longer again […]
Two days ago Schatzi got into a scrap at the dog park. There were eight or nine balls on the grass, but Schatzi took a shine to one in particular, a thick rubber orange job about the size of a tennis ball. She’s going blind but still has some vision, and I suspect she could […]
Sorry, I can’t help it. None of us can. When we look at dogs we see ourselves in them, no matter how often scientists warn us against attributing human feelings, thoughts, and emotions to non-human animals.
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news. YCRT! updates from Tucson, Arizona, where 80 textbooks, along with the entire Mexican-American Studies program, were banned from local high schools in 2012: The House on Mango Street goes to trial: Maya vrs. Arizona Tucson schools superintendent defies Arizona law by reintroducing […]