A publisher friend asks me, “Do you know of magazines that could be good places to advertise books about WW2?”
Why should I research this question, when I can just ask our readers?
Klavan on death panels
Andrew Klavan has an opinion on whether “death panels” are a legitimate concern or not.
It begins to occur to you that this is how you are going to die: by the fiat of fatuous ideologues—that is to say, by the considered judgment of a government committee. They are going to snuff you out and never lose a minute’s sleep over it, because it’s only fair, after all.
The basic fallacy, it seems to me, is the assumption that “socialized” and “compassionate” are the same thing. This is where liberals are blinkered. They believe that their virtuous intentions (and in most cases they are extremely virtuous) will guarantee virtuous outcomes. “Don’t talk to me about real-world consequences! I’m talking about my feelings here!”
Thanks to Dave Lull and Loren Eaton, who both sent the link.
Relax a Minute or a Month
Some liberals are trying to boycott Whole Foods, because the CEO suggested private market-related options for health care reform instead of falling in line with the goons on Capitol Hill.
The Face of Taster’s Choice
Do you remember the label on Taster’s Choice instant coffee? It’s of a man enjoying his cup of scoop-n-stir joe. Apparently, the man in that photo didn’t know his face made the cut back in the 1980s, because a few years ago someone said, “Dude, you look like that dude on that coffee stuff, you know?” And when he checked the jar, he saw for first time that his was the face of Taster’s Choice.
So he sued, and you’d think that the man whose face became an international logo would be owed a lot of money, unless he signed it away in the beginning. But no, the company just ran with the image without getting back to him, avoiding payment and violating their contract.
Now, the courts are asking whether the man still has the opportunity to sue, because it’s been awhile since all this happened.
Can’t Buy ‘Deep Thoughts’ in a Jar No More
Larrey Anderson remarks on a dearth of thinkers in America and recommends Paul Johnson’s book, Intellectuals. “Our present situation is not good for the Republic,” he writes. “By selling feel good snake oil intellectualism, we have polarized America into unwavering ideological camps, each camp filled with phony sophisticates. How we got ourselves into this pickle is an interesting story.”
Anderson says we’ve been teaching relative values in our society for at least fifty years, but I believe I read Mortimer Adler say in an essay he wrote in 1940s that we’ve been teaching relative values since the late 1800s.
“Obnoxious, Supercilious Snob”
Sherry reviews Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street. “Published in 1920, Main Street is proto-feminist, liberal in its politics (to contrast with the no doubt conservative politics of 1920’s small town businessmen), and agnostic in its religious views. Our protagonista, Carol Kennicott . . . mostly stays just this side of being an obnoxious, supercilious snob.”
The New Leader of the NEA
The new head of the National Endowment for the Arts reveals something of his perspective–Peoria is small potatoes; the NEA is about real venues.
Frankenstein: Dead and Alive, by Dean Koontz
If I were actually the kind of industry insider I pretend to be as an author/blogger, I would have been aware that Dean Koontz’ long-awaited final volume in his Frankenstein trilogy was coming out at last. (He delayed it, he has reported, because New Orleans, the setting of the books, had suffered enough after Hurricane Katrina, and deserved a break. I’d been very worried the story would go forever unfinished.)
Koontz dedicates Frankenstein: Dead and Alive to “the late Mr. Lewis, who long ago realized that science was being politicized….” It would appear that C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength was an inspiration for this book and for the whole trilogy. That gives me particular satisfaction, as I did an homage of my own in Wolf Time.
Although it’s not necessary to read the first two books before reading Dead and Alive, I would recommend it. It’s a pity there was such a long lag between books, because, in my opinion, this book works best as the capstone to the trilogy experience. Continue reading Frankenstein: Dead and Alive, by Dean Koontz
Reader’s Digest in Chapter 11
The company that used to own Reader’s Digest has been losing money since 2005 and is now restructuring.
Like a Dog on a June Bug
Picking up on Lars’ post on idioms a few days ago, Dr. Goodword is all over idioms and slang this week like white on rice.
One of the greatest tricks of the comedian is to find situations where an idiom may, in fact, be analyzed, leaving the listener in a quandary—does he or she mean the idiom or the literal meaning? In an episode of the TV series Mash, hearing that a soldier has been dishonrably discharged, Hawk-eye asked, “Why? Was he rotten to the corps?” Now, when you hear this, it sounds identical to the idiom “rotten to the core”, which means simply to be extermely bad. Which did Hawk-eye mean, corps or core?
And no, I don’t know that the good doctor was inspired by Lars’ post. Possible–probable–but I can’t say.