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
Pain in the morning by David Benjamin “Paris is always a good idea.” — Audrey Hepburn PARIS — Paris is not the city that never sleeps. It not only sleeps, hitting the sack by 5 a.m. at the very latest, but it has a hard time getting up. Paris is the city that rolls over…
Read More...The Packerscreed, by David Benjamin Who put the “mock” in all those mock drafts? PARIS — One of the perverse pleasures of being a hardcore fan, in any sport, is the discovery — as you get deeper into the intricacies of inside baseball, inside football, inside croquet, whatever — that the season never ends. As…
Read More...Franco lives by David Benjamin “We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box. Spain has no foolish dreams.” ― Generalissimo Francisco Franco BARCELONA — Every time I come back to Spain, I get this vague inkling of a nation teetering perpetually…
Read More...The blurb culture by David Benjamin “Question: Does it turn out that social media is better at breaking things than at making things?” — Thomas L. Friedman PARIS — How would Einstein “tweet” the Theory of Relativity. I thought about this after reading Dennis Overbye’s lyrical New York Times story about physicists working with the…
Read More...It’s bean-bag season in America by David Benjamin “ ‘You’re not a politician,’ the man said. ‘You’re a public servant.’” — New Hampshire voter at a Donald Trump forum, 8 Feb. ‘16 “This is real retail politics, the way it’s supposed to be…” —N.H. voter Tom Lovely at the same forum PARIS — Tom Lovely…
Read More...Donald and Sarah in my mother’s living room by David Benjamin MADISON Wis. — I couldn’t help it. There on TV, broadcast from somewhere in darkest, dimmest Iowa, was the second coming of Sarah Palin, riffing and jiving, flapping her arms, cackling at her own jokes and speaking fluent bumper-sticker — while Donald Trump stood…
Read More...A high-tech solution to the battle over Roe v. Wade by David Benjamin MADISON Wis. — Visitors to this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, had a thousand reason to be distracted. They were buzzed by drones, dazzled by chrome-crusted cars that run (without a driver) on everything from Wesson Oil to isotopes, and…
Read More...“Live long and prosper” by David Benjamin “To the moon, Alice!” — Ralph Kramden My wife, Hotlips, crack technology journalist, is in year-end listmaking mode. Everybody in the news biz does this. Among my favorite examples of this genre is the New York Times’ annual cavalcade of obituaries. The Times 2015 death march includes Leonard…
Read More...To drive or not to drive by David Benjamin “… Went around a corner and I passed a truck I whispered a prayer just for luck Fenders was clicking the guardrail posts The guys beside me were white as a ghost…” — Charlie Ryan, “Hot Rod Lincoln” MADISON, Wis. — My mother was a debutante…
Read More...How Joseph Saved the Nativity Scene by David Benjamin BETHLEHEM, 0 A.D. — This usually sleepy village was bustling and noisy with pilgrims who’d been ordered there by Caesar to register for the Roman census. Among them was an aged carpenter named Joseph, who had just arrived after the long trek from a grubby little…
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