Certainly no more of the good-breeding-will-out stuff. Enlightened or no, Dickens, like most of us, couldn’t completely shed the prejudices and dogmas of his time.

Personally, I don’t care if they’re green, orange, black or white. When looking at aliens, I just don’t see color.

Even so, we had to destroy the village of Ben Tre in order to save it.

Who could ever have anticipated Burroughs would live to be invited by a sitting President to give a reading at the White House? Even if it was Clinton.

One of my favourite moments in that movie is William S. Burroughs saying, in his inimitable drawl, “In the future... right-wingers will use drugs as an excuse to set up an international police force.”

If he’s doing the supernova-black hole thing, he’s doing it — characteristically — in weird order. His brain already has some hallmarks of a black hole: not even logic can escape. (Once it sneaks up on him and crosses his event horizon, of course — obviously he generates none himself).

A history prof of mine used to say — back when the mountains were cooling — “the Soviets believe in truth; that’s why they suppress it so much.”

Right, it comes (trickling) back to me now. I’m from Al Purdy’s country north of Belleville, myself. Not, thankfully, from the farm, though I worked on one or two where they grew healthy crops of rocks.

Isn’t Avril Lavigne from somewhere around there — Deseronto maybe? (I can’t be bothered to Google because, well I mean good grief). Have the OPP ruled her out as a suspect?

So that’s what the Harperoids have been up to since losing the last election.

O Lord, it’s hard to be humble — when you’re perfect in every way...

Likewise. Unfortunately, that “moment” has now lasted the better part of a year.

Tough to know how to respond to this kind of thing, all right. On seeing that photo above, my first (admittedly absurd) thought was: did this have to happen on Highway 61?

Never mind *Dick Tracy* — when will he make a sequel to *Town & Country*?

Though he’d get angry if you referred to him as a “monkey”. Or, of course, mistreated a book in any way. I think those are the only two things in the whole Discworld that can get him riled up.

A little while ago, I learned that “privilege,” literally, means “private law.”

Came here to post exactly this.

Zounds! I muzt communicate viz Vienna on zis vun!

Why, thanks! One of my favourite collective nouns, that.

Years (decades) ago, I read Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver. In one episode, an older man, referred to scornfully by the narrator and his younger friends as “Old Lazarus,” tells them about some of the things they can expect will happen to them. It’s presented as a “fable” or “parable” or something (can’t find my…