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 MADISON, Wis. — You can get killed for what you wear — a red uniform in Concord in 1775, a yarmulke in Nuremberg in 1939, a hijab in Gaza in 2021. Luckily, if you’re in high school in America in 2021 — or 1961, or 1921 — the worst penance that your…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Dick Clark, the producer and host of the immensely popular television show ‘American Bandstand,’ decided that the lyrics of ‘Stagger Lee,’ which involved gambling and ended with a fatal barroom shooting, were too violent for his show. Mr. Price, ever the savvy businessman, recorded a new version in which the song’s rivals…
Read More...by David Benjamin “The police are not here to create disorder. They are here to preserve disorder.” — Mayor Richard J. Daley MADISON, Wis. — When I expressed hope that the nationwide outcry for police reform might finally reduce the toll of unarmed Black people killed by cops, Smedley laughed into his hat. “Better,” he…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Dan, there’s not a source.” — Adam Schefter on “The Dan Patrick Show,” 6 May MADISON, Wis. — Two weeks after impact, a lingering cloud of doubt hovers over the alleged scoop by ESPN’s Adam Schefter — reported on the National Football League’s Draft Day — that Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron…
Read More...by David Benjamin “To protect Humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To ensure your freedom, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will ensure mankind’s continued existence. You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves.” — VIKI, in I, Robot MADISON, Wis. — It all started one midnight when George and Alice…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins.” — Cheyenne proverb MADISON, Wis. — A funny thing happened on Capitol Hill this week, when Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst apparently teamed up with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, from New York, on a proposal that would tighten the screws on…
Read More...by David Benjamin “In the colonial countries… the policeman and the soldier, by their immediate presence and their frequent and direct action maintain contact with the native and advise him by means of rifle butts and napalm not to budge. It is obvious here that the agents of government speak the language of pure force.”…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Call it peace or call it treason/ Call it love or call it reason/ But I ain’t marchin’ any more.” — Phil Ochs MADISON, Wis. — At my age, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word “movement” is Metamucil. However, as I’ve watched the crowds in the…
Read More...by David Benjamin “Be not the slave of words.” — Thomas Carlyle MADISON, Wis. — In my Boston days I frequented a cozy and artful movie house on Massachusetts Avenue between Harvard Square and Central Square, called the Orson Welles Cinema. One of the best flicks I saw there was a Russian romance, A Slave…
Read More...by David Benjamin “There is a poor, blind Samson in this land “Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel, “Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, “And shake the pillars of this Commonweal, “Till the vast Temple of our liberties “A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.” — Henry…
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