"... Wells has written a very clever story as to the condition of this planet in the year 802,701 A.D., though the two letters A.D. appear to have lost their meaning in that distant date ..."
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Collins’s “True Detective” is Truly Impressive
Miller stood planted there like one of the lions in front of the Art Institute, only meaner-looking. Also, the lions were bronzed and he was tarnished copper. I discovered, after I had bought True Detective, the first of Max Allan Collins’s Nate Heller novels, that it was one I’d already read, some time back. Nevertheless I didn’t regret the purchase. I’d forgotten what an extremely fine book this is—one of those few novels that lift the hard-boiled mystery to a new level. All the Heller books are good. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s impossible to keep a series from becoming formulaic after a while. With the Heller books, you have a series where the same private eye somehow manages to be on the scene for almost every important murder in America between 1930 and 1970. Each one is plausible individually, but they stretch credibility in the aggregate. But this first novel deserves a place all its own. Collins’s own contemplation of the hard-boiled genre led him to want to write a book that stretched the limits and broke the rules, not with malice but for a reason. Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe was an honorable man, trying to keep
“De-development”: A Plan, Not a Stutter
"What is actually required is nothing less than a transformation of human society." — John P. Holdren, Paul and Anne Ehrlich
Something New Under the Sun: The Greedy Businessman Did It!
You would think after all these years of being bombarded by the modern liberalism’s assumptions in popular culture nothing would amaze me. Well count me amazed after recently watching the February 20 episode of Hawaii Five-O . You might also file this under the more things change . . . . I did an internet search and found this article from 1992:
My Lunch with Andrew Brietbart
I woke up this morning to the now familiar shocking news that Andrew Brietbart was dead. The Drudge report is my home page, and when I saw some text with his picture there I got severe cognitive dissonance. I had just seen in the hotel copy of USA Today that Davey Jones had died, and to say the least I was not expecting that the same had happened to the 43 year old Andrew Breitbart.
Dawkins Only “6.9 out of 7” Sure There is No God
Many fundamentalist atheists have an abnormal sense of certainty about what they think they know to be. Humility isn’t welcomed company amongst the militant atheists, and they don’t come much more militant, or absolutist, than Richard Dawkins, the world famous author and enemy of all things religious. Yet here we have Dawkins in a debate calling himself an agnostic, of all things.
Sin Can Be Therapeutic and Socially Beneficial, Says a Psychologist
“Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.” — Benjamin Franklin
“Bullet for a Star” is a Welcome E-release, But Overpriced.
The good news—almost wonderful news, except for the One Problem that I’ll detail at the end of this review– is that the late Stuart M. Kaminsky’s delightful Toby Peters novels are being released for Kindle by Mysterious Press. I downloaded the very first book of the series, Bullet for a Star, and read it with pleasure. The Toby Peters novels, if you’re not familiar with them, are light mysteries set in Hollywood. Toby is a very small-time P.I. who nevertheless keeps getting hired for cases involving famous movie stars (and a few other notables) of the Golden Age of Hollywood. In this story, an executive at Warner Brothers (which fired Toby as a security man some time earlier) asks him to look into a blackmail scheme. Someone has sent them a print of a photo of Errol Flynn in a compromising position with a very young girl. Flynn admits the accusation isn’t out of the question, but in this case he’s never met the girl. The studio wants Toby to make arrangements to pay the blackmail anyway. But instead of a simple exchange, there’s a fight, and Toby gets knocked out, and somebody gets dead, and then the action takes
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is Cultural Progress
I started getting SI because of extra United Airline miles I could use up. I find the magazine an enjoyable read because I’m a sports guy, but also because they tell great stories, and sport is ready made for compelling stories. But some people might think I get it for the swimsuit issue, which is not true. I thought it interesting in the weeks before that issue came out that there was a notice in the magazine to not get that issue if it was something you preferred not to see. I commend SI for that, but I didn’t take advantage of it and got mine last week.
Heartland Institute Responds to Publishing of False and Stolen Documents
(Yesterday, documents purporting to be confidential strategy memos from The Heartland Institute, a national think tank and major player in the controversy over claims of an impending anthropogenic global warming (now climate change) crisis, were published by The Huffington Post and throughout much of the progressive-left blogosphere. The following is Heartland's statement about the stolen and fraudulent documents.)
Yesterday afternoon, two advocacy groups posted online several documents they claimed were The Heartland Institute’s 2012 budget, fundraising, and strategy plans. Some of these documents were stolen from Heartland, at least one is a fake, and some may have been altered. . . .
“Damsels in Distress” to the Rescue!
Ooh! Ooh! After more than a decade without a new Whit Stillman film, his new one, “Damsels in Distress,” is coming: The trailer doesn’t say when it’s being released, but Movie Insider says April. I want very much to see this movie. It looks very promising. I explain my passion for Stillman’s work here. Tip: First Things.
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