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Carleton College's alumni magazine published an amusing compilation of Top 10 lists -- favorite blogs, films, poems, iconic regional structures, apps, and so forth. The one that baffled me was "Must-Read Classics". At number 6, they list Moby Dick by Herman Melville and go on to say:

We must admit that we've never read Moby-Dick all the way through ( Read more... )

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I like science fiction. But lately, I’ve read a whole bunch of SF that feels, well, dated.

The books were older, granted, but each author was highly regarded so I looked forward to engaging reads. And in the opening few pages, I was engaged (these were good writers, you understand). But then, as I read about the colonization of Mars in the second ( Read more... )

Words can hurt.

Forget the nursery rhyme, Sticks and stones. . . Words can cause pain. They can inflict anguish, incite others to cause physical harm, can ruin people’s lives and livelihoods. Words are very powerful.

We don’t often talk about the hurt words can cause. That’s because they are necessary to explain ideas, to expose liars, to create art ( Read more... )

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I read a lot-some books that are good, some that are okay, and some that are. . . well, meh. (There’s a few I don’t finish-but that’s a topic for another day.) It’s not all that often that I get three in a row that I want to crow about.  So before I run into a fourth and find myself hopelessly behind, I’ll start crowing now.

First up today (others ( Read more... )

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