Ask Wednesday: If you were to protest something, what would it be?

I would protest defunding Planned Parenthood

By Olivia Condley

Last week, the Senate blocked the bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. Even though I am reassured by this small victory in women’s rights, I still feel an unshakeable tension, knowing that this attempt at taking away women’s rights will not be the last.

Tuesday Voice: Portrait of Belle, by Shirley Deane/Midyett

“Belle” (detail)

For Patsy

By Vic Midyett

As you may recall, Shirley paints pet portraits. Of course, when you announce something like that, you receive inquiries. And when you report it on an international blog, the inquiries are likely to come from far away...and quickly. One such came three days later:

Fourth Monday Susan Speaks

not yet titled a (detail)

Two paintings and a drawing

By Susan C. Price

the two paintings may not be finished yet...wish i could decide...folks can say, “yeah, too much grey” or whatever...ah well...later....

Fourth Sunday from Jingle Jangle

The Perfect Witness (Chapter 10 of Jingle Jangle)

By Jim Rix

[Editor's Note: Opening paragraphs from the current review by Joe Kilgore in The US Review of Books:

“When confused by contradictory technical testimony, all that conscientious but bewildered jurors seem to be able to do is to give the Academy Award to the song and dance man they think gave the best performance.”
    It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction. That is frequently the case when it comes to recounting real crimes that have been committed, judgments that have been handed down, and sentences that have been carried out. For quite some time writers have sought literary gold by mining this nonfiction vein of abhorrent behavior and its consequences. A few have actually found it in such excellent tomes as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, and Joseph Wambaugh’s The Onion Field. The search for justice never seems to lose its particular allure. An allure that is alive and well in Jim Rix’s Jingle Jangle.]

Fourth Saturday’s Loneliest Liberal

On getting on

By James Knudsen

I’m sure we’ve all heard the expression, “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” It just happened to me. I was sitting around wishing for a topic to write about and then I looked in the mirror.

Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

“A Pope for All Species.” [Nicholas Kristof, NY Times] Excerpt:

Thor's Day: A fable about perspective

The black dot

By Anonymous

Edited by Morris Dean

[Submitted by a correspondent who could not identify the author. It’s not well written, but they say it’s the thought that counts. And Thor’s taking the day off again.]

A professor entered his classroom and asked his students to spend a few minutes preparing for a surprise exam. Surprise exams weren’t unusual, but the students nevertheless waited anxiously for this one to begin.

Ask Wednesday: Why am I substituting this for what appeared here for a few hours earlier?

Portrait of the author by Susan C. Price

By Morris Dean

For a few hours this morning, a piece of writing appeared here with the title, “Why do Americans seem better disposed toward [x] than [y]?”
    Only reading the piece “in print” enabled me to see that it should never have appeared. “Americans,” after all, include people from both groups mentioned. It even includes people who suffer lapses in judgment, like me. I am sorry, and I apologize.

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean

Tuesday Voice: From the mouth of the Swan River

By Vic Midyett

At least once a week Shirley and I like going to the mouth of the Swan River, in Fremantle (it also flows through Perth, as does the Canning River; read about where you can go in the Riverpark). Something is always happening.

Third Monday with Bob Boldt

Le Morte d’Arthur

By Bob Boldt

Having lost all the color of life, the white, blue, and green tinted naked body lies so very flat on the cold stainless steel table. The silence of the room is rendered even more desolate by the faint hum of the refrigeration unit laboring to keep the others preserved in the morgue across the hall.

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 4. “The Game Plan,” from The Unmaking of the President: A Bicentennial Entertainment (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 3. “The Muse’s Fee,” appeared last month.]

Fish for Friday

Oliver Wolf Sacks (July 9, 1933 – August 30, 2015)

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

“Filter Fish.” [Oliver Sacks, New Yorker] Excerpt:

Gefilte fish is not an everyday dish; it is to be eaten mainly on the Jewish Sabbath in Orthodox households, when cooking is not allowed. When I was growing up, my mother would take off from her surgical duties early on Friday afternoon and devote her time, before the coming of Shabbat, to preparing gefilte fish and other Sabbath dishes....

Thor's Day to reflect on experiencing Jesus

Thor would like to learn more

Thor was going to take the day off, thinking that if people either believe in a god or not – and that’s an end to it – then what’s a god to do but take the day off?

Ask Wednesday: How about novelist Michael Hanson’s new website?

Michael Hanson reading from
This Sweet Intercourse

Yes, indeed!

Interviewed by Morris Dean

We learned only this week that Chapel Hill, North Carolina novelist Michael Hanson, several of whose writings we have excerpted, recently launched his new website. We liked its clean, understated layout, and its art! We followed up by asking Michael a few questions [in italics]:

Tuesday Voice: The plantation of the mind

It rots more than 
the soul of the South

By Ed Rogers

I was taught in school that a plantation was a very large farm that was owned by one person or one family, and they were normally white. Because of the magnitude of the farm it required a sizable workforce. This workforce came in the form of slaves. Not all slaves were black, as we have begun to think of slaves. In fact, before Africans were imported to the Americas, the slaves came from the prisons of Europe. However, unlike the black slaves that followed, these men and women could work off their sentence within a prescribed number of years – usually seven or fourteen – and become free.