The Magnificent Sentence

John Hicks
3 Min Read

“If you know sentences, you know everything,” Stanley Fish writes in his latest book, How to Write a Sentence (and How to Read One).

“Good sentences promise nothing less than lessons and practice in the organization of the world,” Fish continues.

I admit to making a rude noise when I read that last one. It sounds a little too much like something out of the Boy Scout Handbook. (The world doesn’t care one whit about our organizational plans. People who try to organize the world go insane. I see it happen all the time, especially during the holiday season.)

John Hicks

Gabacho’s Nightstand

Jimmy Gabacho
5 Min Read

After I uploaded the Chris Owens post, I high-tailed it out of the country as fast as I could. I wasn’t waiting around for any midnight knock at the door. I packed the usual: shorts, t-shirts, sandals, and plenty to read. It never seems to fail: I’ll be reading a book every night for a week and right before I travel I will be close to the end, but not close enough to finish. So, invariably I end up finishing the book on plane and having to lug the book around with me for the duration of my trip. This time it happened with Ru Freeman’s novel, entitled, A Disobedient Girl, which by the way is a great read. The story takes place in Sri Lanka and revolves around the lives and loves of Latha, a strikingly beautiful servant girl, and Thara, the pampered daughter of the upper-class/caste family. Because the two girls are so close in age, at times their relationship becomes one of sisters, confidants, and dangerous liaisons, but when boys (and later men) appear on the scene, they become competition for each other. Despite their close relationship, the class/caste difference is forever an impassable obstacle.

Jimmy Gabacho, Reviews

Short on Money, Psychiatrists Turn to Drugs

Amorphous Funk
4 Min Read

As if the news were just breaking that psychiatrists are no longer a source of therapy but more like expensive Jersey toll booths on the pharmaceutical highway, the NYT has run this piece about the struggles of Dr. Levin, disillusioned psychiatrist, and his wife, therapist turned high-volume office manager, who both just had to give up on quality patient care to attain the lifestyle to which they had aspired. The market made them do it.  And if you have a problem with that, don’t go crying to them about it.

Amorphous Funk

The Joe Montana Dictionary

John Hicks
3 Min Read

I meant to include a promise in my last post that this, my next one, would mark a return to my earlier, funnier efforts (cf. Allen v. Fan From Hell 1980).

At least, I hope some of them were funny. I once told a fellow contributor that my only real goal here was to write three decent laugh lines per post. (Jokes, if you will. If you won’t, go spoon a goose. I have no idea what “go spoon a goose” means, and neither does Google. But it sounds transgressive enough.)

John Hicks

Wisconsin Digest 3 — The Empire Strikes Back

TomT
4 Min Read

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All eyes are now firmly fixed on the Wisconsin Senate after Republicans in the General Assembly used a parliamentary maneuver early this morning to cut off debate and push through a vote on the Governor’s union-busting bill.



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It’s official: The Wisconsin State Police have been sent to round up the 14 State Senators who went on the lam to prevent State Senate Republicans from having a quorum with which to rush through the anti-union bill.

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TomT
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