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
The John Reynolds factor by David Benjamin “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.” — Rex Tillerson MADISON, Wis. — When a man widely regarded as…
Read More...Melania’s make-believe (almost) happy ending by David Benjamin “The White House said that, instead of plagiarising the text, she had simply ‘added branding’ to the original content, to ‘amplify’ its message.” — Harriet Alexander, The Telegraph MADISON, Wis. — This is just not fair. Let’s stop right now with jokes about how the First Lady’s name…
Read More...Zen and the art of sexual predation by David Benjamin “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” — You-know-who MADISON, Wis. — Motoko Rich, in the Times, reported last week that a Japanese bureaucrat…
Read More...Suckered by the rich guy by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — For a while in grade school, I was friends with a kid named Fat Vinny. He wasn’t friends with me. Fat Vinny had no friends. He was the most hated kid in school — no. In the whole town. Other kids despised Fat Vinny so…
Read More...A trailing spouse by David Benjamin “He LIED! LIED! LIED! McCabe was totally controlled by Comey — McCabe is Comey!! No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!” — Donald Trump, 13 Apr. TAIPEI — Too often, we tend to measure our lives by our irritations. We have, for instance, a White…
Read More...Rules for well-fed romantics by David Benjamin “Paris is a place where, for me, just walking down a street that I’ve never been down before is like going to a movie or something. Just wandering the city is entertainment.” — Wes Anderson PARIS — Lisa, who’s much younger than I and naturally contrarian, leans toward…
Read More...Hail, hail Freedonia! by David Benjamin “The last man nearly ruined this country./ He didn’t know what to do with it./ If you think this country’s bad off now,/ Just wait ’til I get through with it!” — Rufus T. Firefly PARIS — The latest burst of palace intrigue in the Trump White House sent…
Read More...How it should be done by David Benjamin “Real life is slow; it takes professionals time to figure out what happened, and how it fits into context. Technology is fast. Smartphones and social networks are giving us facts about the news much faster than we can make sense of them, letting speculation and misinformation fill…
Read More...Alone and palely loitering, among the deviceniks by David Benjamin “The spread of automation could cause some Asian countries to lose eighty percent of their textile industry jobs. What on earth are they going to do? How will they support their families? What will they do with their time?” — Jim Yong Kim, President, World…
Read More...Get out of the kitchen by David Benjamin “Can you see why some of us are whispering? It is the sense of viciousness lying in wait, of violent hate just waiting to be unfurled, that leads people to keep their opinions to themselves, or to share them only with close friends.” — Katie Roiphe PARIS…
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