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 “African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.” — Jefferson Davis MADISON, Wis. — The ratings for two Civil War retrospectives, aired Sunday on MSNBC, were probably lousy. I can only hope so. This documentary double-dip, Patricia Boynton’s “Civil War (Or, Who…
Read More...by David Benjamin “… It is not surprising that military leaders would be reluctant to give up on a mission their organization had invested so much in…” — Jessica D. Blankshain & Max Z. Margulies, NY Times, 16 Sept. MADISON, Wis. — This week, sportswriter Chris Conte, an online columnist for Hardwood Houdini, wrote the…
Read More...by David Benjamin “… It is aways advisable to remember that Paris is a city of brilliant light, and corresponding shadow which cloaks many strange things.” — Netley Lucas, Criminal Paris PARIS — In the early 1920s, a reformed British crook named Netley Lucas undertook a perilous tour through the underworld of Paris, guided —…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Once you have learned how to ask questions — relevant and appropriate and substantial questions—you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.” — Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner PARIS — There’s a persistent and popular prejudice, particularly in America,…
Read More...by David Benjamin “We have had some just horrible, horrible confrontations in our public meetings in Anchorage, The top of the fold in the Anchorage paper is about an assembly meeting where individuals wore yellow Stars of David to protest the mask ordinance that the Anchorage Assembly was taking up, comparing a mask mandate to…
Read More...by David Benjamin “A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.” ― Albert Camus, The…
Read More...by David Benjamin “We’ve watched babies survive at thirteen weeks and others, that be as small as an M&M wrapper and be able to have life.” — Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader MADISON, Wis., September 10, 2031 — A remarkable development here, in the laboratories of the University of Wisconsin, has effectively aborted America’s long…
Read More...by David Benjamin “… Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…” — Robert Frost, Mending Wall MADISON, Wis. — The East Side of this town is one of…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Professor Henry Jones: ‘If only I could have been there with you.’ “Indiana Jones: ‘There were rats, Dad.’ “Prof. Jones: [Startled] ‘Rats?’” — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade MADISON, Wis. — Picture this. James Bond slips out the window of the most luxurious hotel in, say, Monte Carlo. He clambers off…
Read More...by David Benjamin “So the British chose plan B — the insane one; they decided to abandon Kabul and march out of the country over the Hindu Kush on foot in January. They left on the 6th… a long column of 4,500 active troops and about 12,000 wives, retainers, servants, camp followers, and whatnot… A…
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