Upcoming Events:
Thursday, 22 August, 1 pm
Book Talk, “Why Books?”, Fitchburg Community Center, 5510 Lacy Rd., Fitchburg, Wis.
Thursday, 19 September, 6:30 pm
Book Talk, “Why Books, and Why This Book?”, Oregon Public Library, 200 N. Alpine Parkway, Oregon, Wis.
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The Weekly Screed
by David Benjamin “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” —Pogo MADISON, Wis.—It might not seem evident to the naked psyche, but the MAGA army is in retreat. Its soldiers are, after all, a cult whose god is now a lame duck. The Capitol Hill vandals have one last tantrum to throw—call it…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass everyday, but, mister, you ain’t seen a ray of light since you got here.” — Opal Fleener MADISON, Wis.— America is a nation of front-runners. There’s ample evidence of this in the fact that, for example, the most-bought baseball cap every year since before…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.” —Kash Patel, Trump campaign consultant “The worst thing we can do, the absolute worst, is to do nothing.” —Fritz Gerlich MADISON, Wis.—They came…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Workin’ on the railroad, a dollar and a dime a day, “Give my woman the dollar, and throw the dime away … ” — Josh White MADISON, Wis.—Kids need money. I’m not sure how kids get it these days. Maybe they just ask Mom and Dad, as payment for playing Little League…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.” ―Ambrose Bierce MADISON, Wis.—There must be studies about this. Trouble is, I haven’t seen any. But there…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Paris is the city of joy where the naive are taken by the neck and blackened on the scaffold, and where villains hold all sway … Purse-cutters and knifemen lurk in the dark.” ―François Villon PARIS—Neither Hotlips nor I were born here, or anywhere nearby, nor do we hold the precious carte…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Let us not assassinate this lad further. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” ―Attorney Joseph N. Welch, Army-McCarthy hearings, 9 June 1954 PARIS—Donald Trump is an indecent man. Worse than that—in the immortal formulation of Joe Welch, castigating…
Read More...by David Benjamin “The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.” ― Douglas Adams PARIS—The fat girl was asking after me. Hotlips…
Read More...by David Benjamin “The objects of which Paris folks are fond– literature, art, medicine, and adultery.” — Mark Twain MADISON, Wis.—During one of my Paris sojourns a few years ago, I was visibly perplexed (Hotlips said to me, “You look perplexed. What’s gong on?”) by a big demonstration in Paris over a proposed French law…
Read More...by David Benjamin “The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, ‘Where is the best place to go to?’ He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had…
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