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As you’ve probably gathered from my email, I still haven’t finished the book. Although I think I’ve over halfway through if everything I read from the beginning and near the end is counted. At any rate, I’m disappointed that this is the one book I’ve evidently dropped the ball with, because I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read and think that was a class discussion I would’ve been quite involved in.

– ALMANAC SAYS –
Today is the Feast of the Conversion of Paul.
G.D. Dows patented an improved soda fountain, 1870.

– HAPPY BIRTHDAY –
Robert Burns and Virginia Woolf.

– LINK OF THE WEEK –
The Theoi Project.

While I’m not going to sully this fair space with advertisement, I’ve been blogging for over three years now and haven’t made a single red cent.

So… I’ve resurrected the original Blue Skies Falling. Basically I installed code for Google Ad-Sense and will re-post CONCEPT art and review posts there.

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was “required reading.”

This is actually the second of the “assigned books” that I picked up, but it has such an undeniable place in the canon that I feel I have to address it first.

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was “required reading.”

This was actually the first mystery I read for the project, and having read it last November, my memory gets a little hazy.

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was “required reading.”

I read The Postman Always Rings Twice prior to The Maltese Falcon, mainly because the former was shorter.

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was “required reading.”

This was actually the first mystery I read for the project, and having read it last November, my memory gets a little hazy.

– ALMANAC SAYS –
Gymnast Mary Lou Retton born, 1968.

– PICTURE OF THE WEEK –
Esteban, Tia, and Tau pursue Mendoza’s galleon in the Condor.

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
How many goats would you be willing to take on in your current house or apartment?

A combination of factors have changed my mind about the troop surge. However…

By “combination of factors” I suppose I mean a flurry of op eds, critical objections, and other articles, sometimes coming from Republicans and experienced generals in addition to Democrats and progressives, as well as the pervasive, stubborn “brute force” strategy that seems to be the only way this administration can work out any equation.

Somebody was saying something about celebrity deaths coming in threes. This month we’ve had:

• Gerald Ford
• James Brown
• Saddam Hussein

2. Saddam Hussein.

Although I have much more incentive to have very clear, articulable thoughts about Saddam Hussein than Gerald Ford… my exposure to him, his relevence to our times, his infamous record… I have an easier time discussing and considering an ex-president with a (relatively) unremarkable administration that was finished before I was born.