Walmart’s free-standing display for J.K. Rowling’s “Casual Vacancy” has room for 12 hardbacks. Early Sunday evening, only two copies were left. Don’t know when it was last restocked, but the book is selling briskly. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to even start reading it. But I promise, a first installment on the review will appear here shortly.
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If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. (Smile) A great photo! I’ve got to buy a decent camera. Today is the first day of the rest or your life! — John
Got it! A first-edition hardback of “The Casual Vacancy,” by J.K. Rowling, published in the U.S. and Great Britain this week. The 503-page tome comes with a cover price of $35 ($36.99 in Canada), but Walmart has it on deep discount at $24.50.
The Casual Vacancy may signal a turnaround for quality in popular fiction. Where can it go but up, after “Hunger Games“ and “Fifty Shades of Grey?” Talk about your lowest common denominator!
I plan to do one of my serialized book reviews for Casual Vacancy, with updates posted every few days, as I read.
Firefighters battled an intense fire that engulfed the top floor of a condominium building at 38th St., just south of the Convention Center, in midtown Ocean City, Maryland. The fire started at about 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. No injuries were reported. The summer season is over, and parking lots on both sides of the building appeared to be nearly empty, allowing fire apparatus to get close to the building on both sides. Firefighters had to brave clouds of intense, acrid-smelling smoke.
Readership of my blogs has always been mostly in America, with a few readers from other parts of the world, especially Europe. Lately, readership has gone international. Since WordPress started tracking hits with a nifty worldwide map, I’ve noticed a significant increase in readers from all corners of the globe, with the possible exception of Africa.
Let’s expose a few lies that Americans hold dear.
“Small businesses create most of the jobs.”
TRUTH: Small businesses are what? SMALL. By definition, small businesses have few employees.
“Small businesses fuel economic growth.”
TRUTH: Most small businesses FAIL within the first five years. Often within the first year. When they close their doors, they create unemployment.
Mitt Romney should see Trouble With The Curve. He’s in a slump. Right now, Mr. Romney couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat (to borrow a line from Bull Durham).
You want romance and character development? See Bull Durham. Justin Timberlake and Amy Adams in Trouble With The Curve aren’t in the same league with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham.
Trouble With The Curve is all Clint Eastwood. The romance is fluff. Baseball is only the setting. Trouble With The Curve is about life and loss, failure and decline, maybe even aging gracefully. Not that I’m calling Clint Eastwood graceful.
Trouble With The Curve begins as a baseball movie that only a grumpy old man could love. But it fools you like a curveball in the dirt, and turns into, of all things, a chick flick. It might be the best baseball/romance combination since Bull Durham. Both movies are about life-changing events, about going with the curveballs life throws at you.
How do you get away with casting Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake in the same film? You add Amy Adams as daughter of the old man and love interest of the young one.
(Re)distribution.
Mitt Romney is willing to go straight to the heart of issues that politicians usually avoid. Whether you agree or disagree with him, he’s helping us understand.
Economics is the study of the distribution of scarce resources. (I think that’s a valid statement.)
Isn’t all of history about distribution? The distribution of scarce resources, of wealth, of power. Who owns what? Who has a right to what?
Aren’t most wars fought to redistribute land, wealth, and power? Land and the resources on or under the land are the fundamental scarce resources.
We used to have the upper class, middle class, lower class, working class. Most of us in America pretended that class wasn’t an issue.
Retired folks living on Social Security and pensions were in a separate category. As elders and retired, they were deemed “entitled” (gasp) to the Social Security and pensions they received. They had, after all, worked long and hard to earn those Social Security and pension checks. Continue reading
Living Simply And Still On The Grid 