Upcoming Events:
Thursday, 20 March, 9 am
Interview with Phil Nee, live on the WRCO morning show, Richland Center, Wis.
Thursday, 20 March, 5-7 pm
Tomah Chamber of Commerce Author Showcase, Three Bears Resort, 701 Yogi Circle, Tomah, Wis.
Thursday, 24 Apr., 6 pm
Book Talk, An Apartment in Paris, Waterloo Public Library, 625 N. Monroe St., Waterloo, Wis.
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The Weekly Screed
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 More...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...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 More...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…
Read More...by David Benjamin “‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/ The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/ The frumious Bandersnatch!’” ― Lewis Carroll MADISON, Wis. — For three years in high school, I carried around a dog-eared copy of Louis Untermeyer’s Great Poems anthology. In the course of this autodidactic…
Read More...by David Benjamin “The solution lies in stronger families, more supportive communities, I would argue, renewed faith… We’ve stopped teaching values in so many of our schools. Now we’re teaching wokeness. We’re indoctrinating our children with things like CRT, telling… some children they’re not equal to others and they’re the cause of other people’s problems.” …
Read More...by David Benjamin “‘I think that livestreaming this attack gives me some motivation in the way that I know that some people will be cheering for me,’” ― Payton Gendron MADISON, Wis. — An unencrypted smartphone dialog intercepted by an undisclosed federal agency after white-panic gunman Payton Gendron murdered ten Black Americans at the Tops…
Read More...by David Benjamin “She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she’s collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000.” …
Read More...by David Benjamin “No pity. After the carnage we are left with the hope of a purified humanity.” ― Tristan Tzara, The Dada Manifesto 1918 PARIS — There is nothing more poisonous to civil society than purity. The purity police reared their shrouded form and bared their scythes again this week, in the pinched, pious…
Read More...by David Benjamin “When it rains in Paris, it bleeds into swift little gutters. You can see your reflection over its mercury embryo.” ― Sneha Subramanian Kanta PARIS — An apartment in Paris is like Nietzsche’s abyss. It looks into you, senses your weaknesses and spoils for its chance to pounce. Twenty-five-odd years ago, in…
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