Just in the Nick of Time Magazine

I was saved from becoming teminally depressed by President Bush’s sage advice that the best way to save trees from fire is to chop them down so that they can’t burn by the discovery that Time magazine actually has a feature on the environment HERE! I haven’t finished reading the whole issue, but I’m encouraged that the issue is getting top coverage instead of just appearing in pamphlets in the mail asking for contributions.

After you’ve read the articles and are ready to do something rather than just sitting around depressed about the whole situation, go HERE, see which issues you agree with, and easily send letters or faxes to your congressmen. Remember, they’re called representatives because they’re supposed to represent you, not just big business.

Most of all, remember if you’re smart enough to be reading this page you’re too smart not to vote. Change your world for the better and VOTE in the next election.

:: Blame it on Jeff ::

I wonder if you can catch a virus over the net? No, not that kind of virus. The kind that makes you start buying books uncontrollably.

After reading about Jeff Ward’s recent literary acquisitions I felt positively deprived and had to expand my book collection, the one that already has far too many unread works.

I blame Jeff because I was inspired to go to Powell’s online in order to find a used copy of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and a copy of Archibald MacLeish’s Collected Poems. While I was there I found a couple of books on special, and then I found that I could get free shipping if I spend over 50 dollars. I was only a few dollars short, and who can’t always use another book. So, I added Triumph of the Sparrow: Zen Poems of Shinkichi Takahashi and Selected Poems of Jorge Luis Borges to my order.

Then, inspired by the Banned Book Project, via wood s lot, I went to my local Barnes and Noble outlet and purchased To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch-22 in order to write essays defending them at the Banned Book page. While I was buying Catch-2+2 I saw Closing Time, advertised as the sequel to Catch-22, so obviously I had to buy it, too.

Then, clearly fixing the blame back on Jeff where it belongs, I saw Harold Bloom’s literary criticism entitled Yeats, and since Jeff pointed out to me that I didn’t know enough about Yeats’ connection to the romantics, and since there’s a chapter entitled, "Blake and Yeats", I naturally had to add that to my stack, too.

Hopefully Fall will arrive with a deluge so I can have some chance of actually reading these books before Jeff’s next big splurge for books. Otherwise, I, too, will end up sleep deprived.