Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, 6 May 9 am
Radio Interview with Phil Nee, on “Jim Otis and Smalltown Crime, WRCO Radio, Richland Center, Wis.
Friday, 29 May, 7 pm
Book Talk, Signing and Sale, on “Upstairs and the Jim Otis Series,” Belleville Books, 20 East Main St., Belleville, Ill.
Saturday, 30 May,1-3 pm
Meet & Greet, Signing & Sale of Last Kid Books, at Belleville Books, 20 East Main St., Belleville, Ill.
The Weekly Screed
by David Benjamin “If a slave say to his master: “You are not my master,” if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.” — The Code of Hammurabi, No. 282 MADISON, Wis. — Since the establishment of public schools, one of the hallmarks of American education has been the suppression of knowledge…
by David Benjamin “Then oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires, and pictures and videos…” — Marjorie Taylor Greene MADISON, Wis. — Whenever I catch up on the antics of QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, The Sound of Music…
by David Benjamin “And it is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelette in the pan for the love of God.” — Brother Lawrence MADISON, Wis. — We left Paris last year just as the pandemic was starting and we haven’t been able to return. But when we go…
by David Benjamin “A car doesn’t understand why it’s driving anywhere.” — Bart Selman, computer science professor, Cornell University MADISON, Wis. — My mom drove a ’61 Fairlane until the day it more or less exploded in the left lane of Interstate 90 just north of Wisconsin Dells. I was driving, both hands on the…
by David Benjamin “The good writer seems to be writing about himself (but never is) but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself, and all things.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson MADISON, Wis. — No writer who feels secure is likely to be very good at what he or…
by David Benjamin “As our Word of the Year process started and this data was opened up, it quickly became apparent that 2020 is not a year that could neatly be accommodated in one single ‘word of the year’…” — Oxford English Dictionary MADISON, Wis. — Really? The Oxford English Dictionary chickened out on Word…
by David Benjamin “I shall always identify Washington with that huge… towering bulge of pure white… [that] vast eggshell, built of iron and glass… a beauty and genuine success.” — Walt Whitman MADISON, Wis. — This week, on the feast of the Epiphany, we learned perhaps why Walt Whitman described the Capitol Dome as an…
by David Benjamin “When trust was in the room, whatever room that was — the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room — good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.” — Former Secretary of State George P.…
by David Benjamin “If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” — Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol MADISON, Wis. — As I was scrolling the channel guide last night,…
by David Benjamin In a period roughly between 1974 and 1983, I was an editor and columnist for the Mansfield (Mass.) News, where I served in a plethora of roles that included reporter, photographer and columnist. In the latter capacity, I wrote an opinion column called The Fourth Estate, a sports column called The Fifth…