AOL, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION
Your readership, naturally, has a diversified range of interests for your news with pictures. However, it has become quite lopsided. Many sports addicts prefer one click for just sports. Others may prefer scantily dressed female celebrities. Believe it or not, some like the morbid stories you report. Scientific discoveries fascinate many, even if they don't know much about science. The food stories need their own click. And so does Health. But more readers probably go for NEWS, especially international news, than anything else. Well, maybe real NEWS is second, for sports seem to be taking over. How about celebrating BOOKS, for a change? Or architecture? Or churches? Or just beautiful, sweet little babies?
For a few days right after 9/11 you seemed to take life seriously. But it didn't take long for you to change, as if 9/11 didn't happen. The least you can do, is get sports out of the real news and let its devotees look elsewhere.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
READERS IN FRANCE
What a surprise to find this morning 67 of the day's readers are in France! I can only conclude the interest lies in the blog about General Patton. He must have been both loved and hated by the French. That is the way war is: the winning side must destroy the innocent to defeat the evil. Patton was killed in Germany and was buried in Luxembourg. His body could not be brought back to the States and his widow would one day be denied her burial beside her husband. Eventually the family transported her ashes secretly and scattered them over the general's grave.
If you haven't yet purchased Killing Patton, ask Santa to bring you a copy of it. You never know when you might be chosen to appear as a contestant on Jeopardy. You will learn much from this book.
What a surprise to find this morning 67 of the day's readers are in France! I can only conclude the interest lies in the blog about General Patton. He must have been both loved and hated by the French. That is the way war is: the winning side must destroy the innocent to defeat the evil. Patton was killed in Germany and was buried in Luxembourg. His body could not be brought back to the States and his widow would one day be denied her burial beside her husband. Eventually the family transported her ashes secretly and scattered them over the general's grave.
If you haven't yet purchased Killing Patton, ask Santa to bring you a copy of it. You never know when you might be chosen to appear as a contestant on Jeopardy. You will learn much from this book.
Friday, November 28, 2014
TWO CHRISTMAS STORIES
Two Christmas stories your children must hear and it won't hurt you to hear them again. Or your older children to hear them again. Both are available on film, but that is not what I'm talking about. I mean you should read these aloud to your children no matter what their ages are. These stories are Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Valentine Davies's Miracle on 34th Street. A Christmas Carol is a novelette and that means short. Davies wrote Miracle on 34th Street after the film was made but I do not remember if it is a novelette or not.
I suggest reading Miracle early in the season, before doing your last-minute Christmas shopping, and Carol the night before Christmas. Allow no eating during the reading, and take everything seriously. I wish I could join all of you for this treat.
Two Christmas stories your children must hear and it won't hurt you to hear them again. Or your older children to hear them again. Both are available on film, but that is not what I'm talking about. I mean you should read these aloud to your children no matter what their ages are. These stories are Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Valentine Davies's Miracle on 34th Street. A Christmas Carol is a novelette and that means short. Davies wrote Miracle on 34th Street after the film was made but I do not remember if it is a novelette or not.
I suggest reading Miracle early in the season, before doing your last-minute Christmas shopping, and Carol the night before Christmas. Allow no eating during the reading, and take everything seriously. I wish I could join all of you for this treat.
Monday, November 24, 2014
THE VOTE IS IN
The National Book Award for fiction went to Phil Klay, winning over four other finalists including two from Idaho.
Klay's book is called Redeployment, a "debut collection of searching, satiric and often agonized stories by an Iraq veteran." You can find a handsome photo of him on your computer.
The National Book Award for fiction went to Phil Klay, winning over four other finalists including two from Idaho.
Klay's book is called Redeployment, a "debut collection of searching, satiric and often agonized stories by an Iraq veteran." You can find a handsome photo of him on your computer.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
A STORY ABOUT A STORY
This same lady about whom I wrote a few minutes ago offers this one too. She had read the ex-war prisoner's story and told me it was the best thing she'd ever read of this sort. That may be true and when she asked me to read it, I agreed to do so. I have read many true war accounts, and quite a few of this variety. Thousands of these get written by veterans and they never get published. The authors usually never know why not publication. Little do they know that it isn't the story that sells the book, but the vocabulary and what the author can do with that. (Seldom does the story give such promise that a publisher will buy and have staff rewrite it in suitable vocabulary.) I am expected to write something about this story and I will, beginning with all the good qualities I see. I won't say much about the other, except to mention he needed an expert editor before he published. It's really too sad that everyone couldn't have had my fifth grade teacher and therefore know the correct usage of sit/set, lie/lay and rise/raise. If you learn grammar as a young child, you don't forget it.
I am now in the reading of this story and a thick book called The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This one reminds me of All the Light We Cannot See. I'll say more about that later.
This same lady about whom I wrote a few minutes ago offers this one too. She had read the ex-war prisoner's story and told me it was the best thing she'd ever read of this sort. That may be true and when she asked me to read it, I agreed to do so. I have read many true war accounts, and quite a few of this variety. Thousands of these get written by veterans and they never get published. The authors usually never know why not publication. Little do they know that it isn't the story that sells the book, but the vocabulary and what the author can do with that. (Seldom does the story give such promise that a publisher will buy and have staff rewrite it in suitable vocabulary.) I am expected to write something about this story and I will, beginning with all the good qualities I see. I won't say much about the other, except to mention he needed an expert editor before he published. It's really too sad that everyone couldn't have had my fifth grade teacher and therefore know the correct usage of sit/set, lie/lay and rise/raise. If you learn grammar as a young child, you don't forget it.
I am now in the reading of this story and a thick book called The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This one reminds me of All the Light We Cannot See. I'll say more about that later.
PUMPKIN DELIGHTS
There is a lady here who obviously has plenty of money and recently she told how she spends some of it. At CostCo she buys about a half dozen or more of its extra large pumpkin pies, scrapes the filling from the pie shells and spoons the filling into small freezer bags that then go into her freezer, to eat on a whim.
I asked her what she did with the empty pie shells. She said, "Throw them away."
I thought about this waste for a few minutes and then prompted my reply. Why not flatten the edges of the pie shells with a rolling pin, spread the whole generously with butter (no substitute). Sprinkle over that a mixture of sugar and pumpkin spice (just a pinch). Place under a hot broiler and watch it constantly so as not to burn it. Remove from oven and let it cool in the pan. Break it up like peanut brittle.
I have never tried this, but if you've been reading books like the ones I've been reading, this recipe would make those characters in war-torn areas a real feast.
There is a lady here who obviously has plenty of money and recently she told how she spends some of it. At CostCo she buys about a half dozen or more of its extra large pumpkin pies, scrapes the filling from the pie shells and spoons the filling into small freezer bags that then go into her freezer, to eat on a whim.
I asked her what she did with the empty pie shells. She said, "Throw them away."
I thought about this waste for a few minutes and then prompted my reply. Why not flatten the edges of the pie shells with a rolling pin, spread the whole generously with butter (no substitute). Sprinkle over that a mixture of sugar and pumpkin spice (just a pinch). Place under a hot broiler and watch it constantly so as not to burn it. Remove from oven and let it cool in the pan. Break it up like peanut brittle.
I have never tried this, but if you've been reading books like the ones I've been reading, this recipe would make those characters in war-torn areas a real feast.
Friday, November 21, 2014
O'REILLY AND DUGARD HAVE DONE IT AGAIN
Last night, at midnight, I finished reading Killing Patton. The book is well-named for it has to be accurate. When a controversial person, and especially one who is also well-hated by some, is killed in a car crash and all the paper work about the case disappears, it has to be murder. Add to that crime, no real investigation was conducted and no one was brought to justice.
The so-called drunken driver of the offending vehicle, could have had the smell of alcohol on him and still not have been drunk. [No tests of this were made.] He seemed to know what he was doing when he swerved into the lane of Patton's limousine. Add to that, that while many heads of state and other dignitaries attended Patton's funeral in Europe, General Dwight Eisenhower and President Truman did not!
Patton had a foul mouth but he was a real warrior, a real fighter. He dared disobey orders from his superiors but he seemed to be generally right in his decisions.
Perhaps O'Reilly and Dugard have opened a can of worms and maybe there will yet be a real investigation into Patton's death. But of course, most of the interested parties of this puzzle and surely the ones guilty of this crime are now dead. But closure for the family may be an important goal for investigation.
So, we have Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, and now Killing Patton, all excellently written. Will Osama bin Laden be next?
Last night, at midnight, I finished reading Killing Patton. The book is well-named for it has to be accurate. When a controversial person, and especially one who is also well-hated by some, is killed in a car crash and all the paper work about the case disappears, it has to be murder. Add to that crime, no real investigation was conducted and no one was brought to justice.
The so-called drunken driver of the offending vehicle, could have had the smell of alcohol on him and still not have been drunk. [No tests of this were made.] He seemed to know what he was doing when he swerved into the lane of Patton's limousine. Add to that, that while many heads of state and other dignitaries attended Patton's funeral in Europe, General Dwight Eisenhower and President Truman did not!
Patton had a foul mouth but he was a real warrior, a real fighter. He dared disobey orders from his superiors but he seemed to be generally right in his decisions.
Perhaps O'Reilly and Dugard have opened a can of worms and maybe there will yet be a real investigation into Patton's death. But of course, most of the interested parties of this puzzle and surely the ones guilty of this crime are now dead. But closure for the family may be an important goal for investigation.
So, we have Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, and now Killing Patton, all excellently written. Will Osama bin Laden be next?
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