Posts by David Benjamin
What they don’t see is what they get
by David Benjamin “… laws are being shoved through Congress that specifically restrict certain firearms, armor, ammo and the like. The Obama administration made it clear that their agenda was to disarm patriots, just like Hitler, Stalin, [Pol] Pot and Mao did. We are headed for disaster…” —Lisa Haven, The Millennium Report (dated Feb. 2018)…
Read MoreVariation on a theme from Aristophanes
by David Benjamin “… Without sex what will happen to our great State? Democracy will end if we can’t copulate.… ” —Aristophanes, Lysistrata MADISON, Wis.— It’s a dubious distinction to occupy a province in which, by the decree of white Judges Sam and Amy, John and Brett, along with America’s foremost Self-Hating Negro, abortion has…
Read MoreKid stuff?
Write Away — #13 Among the commonest—and most perplexing—comments I encounter when talking to readers at a book talk is: “I never read fiction.” I understand that reading nonfiction, about history, political science, economics, etc., carries an “educational” cachet, casting upon the reader a glow of seriousness. By contrast, then, fiction is somehow frivolous, a……
Read MoreWhaddya gonna do?
by David Benjamin “… I looked and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by the gale; the sky vanished like a scroll that…
Read More“Small moveable forts and magazines”
by David Benjamin “… You may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed… ” — Henry David Thoreau MADISON, Wis.— It was…
Read MoreThe road to bitterness
The road to bitterness When I was in tenth grade, I developed an infatuation with James Drought, an author whose yellow-backed Avon paperback, The Secret, I found on a revolving rack at the drugstore. Drought’s autobiographical novel—more of an extended diatribe—exuded the sort of educated rage and gloom that appealed to a cautiously rebellious and……
Read More“Delay is the deadliest form of denial”
by David Benjamin “… Having seen Trump survive too many other scandals that should have ended his disgraceful political career, I cannot be overly sanguine that he has finally reached his rightful reckoning. The cancer has been exposed but could still continue to metastasize.” — Max Boot, The Washington Post MADISON, Wis.—Donald Trump’s political epitaph…
Read MoreWhy not the “Yankee Doodle Dandies”?
by David Benjamin “After years of contemplation, Washington announced in January that the team’s nickname search had been cut down to seven options: Armada, Brigade, Red Hogs, Presidents, Commanders, RedWolves, and Defenders.” — Jack Dougherty, Sportscasting MADISON, Wis.—I’m wearing a t-shirt that honors the 1932 Jersey City Skeeters. This somewhat silly but unique monicker derives…
Read More“Takes soap and water for to keep it clean”
by David Benjamin “The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps… But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white…
Read MoreThe “old days”: Good, bad or just old?
by David Benjamin “Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer./ That is what I’d truly like to be,/ ’Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer wiener,/ Everyone would be in love with me.” ―The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song MADISON, Wis. — Every paycheck I got during my employment at the Waunakee Canning Company identified…
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