The Realignment of America:“It has become a commonplace to say that population has been flowing from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, from an industrially ailing East and Midwest to an economically vibrant West and South. But the actual picture of recent growth, as measured by the 2000 Census and the census estimates for [...]
Nevil Shute’s novel, On The Beach, begins in Australia on December 27, 196—, which is already sometime after nuclear war has eradicated humanity from the Northern Hemisphere. The novel ends the following year, sometime in late August or early September, when the fallout finally arrives on the southernmost-inhabited continent and kills off the only human [...]
Impeach Bush or Get Rid of the Impeachment Clause:“What is it about impeachment that has the Democratic Party leadership so frightened? Talking with members of Congress, one hears the same refrain: “I know Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable crimes, but impeachment is a bad idea.†The rationales offered are many, but all are either [...]
April 24, 2007 – 11:53 am
Jason looks down and finds that it is indeed his wife beneath him, but that she is rotting. Her eyes are open but glazed over, staring up at him, without meaning, but bulging as though in terror of him. The flesh on her face is yellowish and drawn back toward her ears. Her mouth is [...]
April 13, 2007 – 11:28 am
Three desires drive the narration of Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale: the desire to know, the desire to have, and the desire to be. The novel takes place in an America taken over by Christian fundamentalists. It paints life inside a Christian theocracy, and the picture is not much different from life under the [...]
April 12, 2007 – 11:02 am
From goodreads: “Most book recommendation websites work by listing random people’s reviews. On Goodreads, when a person adds a book to the site, all their friends can see what they thought of it. It’s common sense. People are more likely to get excited about a book their friend recommends than a suggestion from a stranger.” [...]
“Words,†Joseph Addison wrote, “when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.” In a book where words are used not only to create and describe a world, but also to populate it, perhaps a writer’s most important word [...]
Written in 1961, Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land tells the story of Michael Smith, a human born on Mars and raised by Martians, who arrives on Earth to discover that his ancestral species is alien to him. The novel chronicles the political, spiritual, and social ramifications of his time on the planet using [...]
March 28, 2007 – 03:00 pm
The cover to the new Harry Potter novel has been revealed. Follow the link for the image: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Cover Art
March 23, 2007 – 11:26 am
This past winter here in Vermont has been about hibernating. After weeks of pining for snow in late fall and early winter, we finally got what we had coming, and man did we GET IT! I’d like to share with you some of the places I’ve went and people I’ve met while hibernating in my [...]
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