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
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…
Read More...A few questions for the populist in chief by David Benjamin “People who boast about their IQ are losers.” — Stephen Hawking Not long ago, Donald Trump spent years demanding that President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate and prove that he was a natural-born citizen. Trump also wanted to see the president’s college transcripts,…
Read More...With apologies to Dangerous Dan McGrew by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Blizzard of ’78, a thousand-year northeaster that buried New England under four feet of wet snow in a span of a little more than 24 hours. The vortex of that storm was a little town…
Read More...Overheard at the pinnacle of tremendousness by David Benjamin “Putin has shown the world what happens when America has weak leaders.” — Donald Trump One of the most shocking revelations in recent days was a leak, verified by more than 75 eager sources inside the White House, confirming that Donald Trump has taken Dick Nixon’s…
Read More...Chuck, the assassin and the crazy aunt by David Benjamin “I expect the majority leader to fulfill his commitment to the Senate, to me and to the bipartisan group and abide by this agreement. If he does not, of course — and I expect he will — he will have breached the trust of not…
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