Today is the first day of "Banned Book Week" and recently The Conversation had a story about banned books that focused on Vonnegut's Slaugterhouse-Five. It has been on banned book lists almost since it was first published in 1969. It is banned in spite of (or because of) its central message that if we are sympathetic to everyone we meet, the world might be a slightly more pleasant place to live in.
Here is an online copy of the work
With yesterday's announcement by the Pentagon that they will livestream a firing squad execution it seems we have now ticked off all the things on Orwell's list. I guess this shows that the decay of civilization is complete. Imprisonment without trial (we did him one better
Watching an obviously racist and fascist government disappearing people to uncertain fates abroad makes me want to do everything in my power to halt it. The problem is, I am lost as to what power I have to push back. I see people angry over gas and food prices, but
Malala tells us that not a day goes by that we don't see or hear something about the horrors that women and girls are living through. But no matter how painful these stories might be, we should never scroll past them. For, if nothing else, we can be
At some point we all start getting a little freaked out about the number we have to say when telling someone our ages. At 70, Ben Franklin decided to start counting backwards. I am not going to be that extreme, but today I turn fifty-ten. I will continue this