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
How Little Donny ended up in military school By David Benjamin “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.” — Anonymous official, National Weather Service, Birmingham QUEENS, ca. 1955 — All the kids in Mrs. Otterbein’s…
Armball: The ancient roots of soccer By David Benjamin “If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn’t have given us arms” — Mike Ditka MADISON, Wis. — Ever since I played two-line soccer at recess in grade school, I’ve been puzzled by the anomaly that soccer is the only team sport that doesn’t…
My hayseed handicap By David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — A few unrelated events sent me back this week. First, there were indications all around town that a new school year was starting. This lent a measure of urgency to my dialog with a young barista at my morning coffee joint, named Tay, who was making…
“Devious pathways” By David Benjamin “Sharp social race separation of whites and blacks has shown itself to be necessary in the United States of America, even if it leads in certain cases to human hardness, as when a mongrel of predominantly white appearance is nevertheless reckoned among the niggers.” — Third Reich teacher’s guide, 1934…
Young cannibals By David Benjamin “Q: What’s the difference between cannibals and liberals? “A: Cannibals don’t eat their own.” — Lyndon Johnson MADISON, Wis. — According to the New York Times’ TV show, “The Weekly,” the new rallying cry of the post-pubescent left in America is “Green New Deal.” Although only a slogan, it signifies…
Only the white guys live forever By David Benjamin “We here have little chance for glory or advancement. While some of our brother officers are leading their well-publicized campaigns against the great Indian nations — the Sioux and the Cheyenne — we are asked to ward off the gnat stings and flea bites of a…
The Big Orange: Number 7 with a bullet By David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — A new index is effectively making more coherent the wave of repressive and reactionary “populism” that has emerged in the last decade on every continent. Compiled by the International Council on Political and Ideological Measurement (ICPIM), based in Bern, Switzerland, this…
No tomatoes for you. You either. Or anybody! By David Benjamin “Philip answered him, ‘It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” — John 6:7 PARIS — Taken literally, capitalism is the most ruthless and horrifying economic system ever conceived. Lately however, as…
Make America Gangland Again By David Benjamin “To me being a gangster was better than being president of the United States.” — Ray Liotta (Henry Hill) in Goodfellas (1990) PARIS — It’s a photo that’s been sticking in my memory — Donald Trump toddling along meekly beside North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, blessing the…
Peggy Sue Got Sabotaged By David Benjamin “Well, Mr. Snelgrove, I happen to know that in the future I will not have the slightest use for algebra, and I speak from experience.” — Kathleen Turner, in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) PARIS — Having long ago shut down our link to French broadcast, we use…