Eco-Kiddy Lit

Megan Cox Gurdon writes about eco-propoganda drowning our children.

Contemporary children are so drenched with eco-propaganda that it’s almost a waste of resources. Like acid rain, but more persistent and corrosive, it dribbles down on them all day long. They get it at school, where recycling now competes with tolerance as man’s highest virtue. They get it in peppy “go green” messages online, on television and in magazines. And increasingly, the eco-message is seeping into the pages of novels that don’t, on their face, necessarily seem to be about environmentalism at all. . . .

Thus we have the spectacle of a 12-year-old becoming distraught when her father orders seared tuna at a restaurant (this happened to a friend of mine), on account of over-fishing, or a 6-year-old (son of an acquaintance) panicking at the prospect of even a yogurt container going into the trash: “But I can use it as a toy!”

Oh my soul. For balance sake, I know a child who asked to have a pink pocket knife to go with her pink rifle, so that when she shoots a deer (or whatever animal) she can clean it. She’s a good, little reader too, so no snarking at her. (HT: Loren Eaton)

Journalism, American People in Crisis

Tax Day

Rick Pearcey writes about CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s reaction to the tea parties, saying his vulgar snarking was not journalism at all.

Not only is what Cooper said deserving of ethical condemnation, but it also reveals a principial breakdown between journalism and urinalism, where there no longer is a line of demarcation between facts and propaganda, between reporting and demonization, between knowledge and Goebbels.

Pearcey points to the weakness of the liberal, secular worldview as the reason for mainstream journalism’s problems. If this seems a bit over-the-top, perhaps you’re with me in not understanding the vulgarity in the first place.

Kyle-Anne Shiver of American Thinker also decries our news agencies.

Whenever close to 300,000 middle-class Americans put their productive lives on hold on a midweek workday, make original signs with their own hands, and travel miles and miles to stand with other private citizens just to demonstrate their anger with government, in more than 300 cities from coast to coast and everywhere in between, that’s NEWS. Continue reading Journalism, American People in Crisis

Berlin Noir, by Philip Kerr

I said a while back that Andrew Klavan had brought the hard-boiled detective novel to a new level in his Bishop/Weiss trilogy, by turning the mystery story into an epic of redemption (or words to that effect).

I have similar praise for Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther mysteries. But Kerr transposes the melody to a minor key. His sad, gritty stories achieve the level of cosmic tragedy.

As you may remember from my review of A Quiet Flame, Bernie Gunther is a private investigator (who could have been separated at birth from Philip Marlowe) in Berlin during the 1930s. He constantly attempts to do the same sort of things Marlowe does, but history keeps interfering. Berlin Noir is a one-volume compilation of the first three stories about him. Continue reading Berlin Noir, by Philip Kerr

News you can use!

The price for West Oversea will not be $24.95, but $13.95.

The higher price was just a template thing on the image file from the artist.

I think I can say with confidence that this alone should bring us out of the recession.

Haunted by Grief

Edvard Munch was Norwegian. Perhaps, that’s why he said, “Disease, insanity and death were the black angels that guarded my cradle, and … followed me throughout my life.” Obit Magazine has a piece on his painting, Death in the Sickroom, and a little about his life.

With apologies

I intended to write a long book review tonight, but it’s been a crazy evening. I had to spend a considerable amount of time, both on the phone and by e-mail, discussing final tweaks on the book cover. The artist is a little like an author in that he doesn’t much cotton to criticism of his aesthetic vision. But apparently the editor and the publisher are going to lean on him a little tonight.

This is a new experience in publishing for me. Baen Books, which had many virtues, did not bother giving authors much input on covers (I did get some, but nobody ever sent me a .pdf and asked for my input as Nordskog is doing). I think this will turn out to be a pretty effective cover when all’s done, but it’s a sweat.

And I’ve still got to make a phone call and pay my bills tonight. Not to mention watching CSI and checking my Facebook page. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Top 10 Forgotten

Top 10 Forgotten Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novels. Check your library or bookstore. Have you read any Pulitzer winners over the years and noted their overall strength or beauty? I could say some things about Beloved, but not right now.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture