I’m shocked this isn’t the typical response to this.

If the book entered the public domain, and some scandalous group decided to publish their own version, to line their own pockets, could they? If that same group decided to publish their own version and illustrate it with some kind of vile imagery, could they do that too? If Trey Parker and Matt Stone wanted to do Anne…

I’m no lawyer, but I am a writer, so I’ve been forced to learn a thing or two about how intellectual property law works.

I was the swarthy kid who got to play Ali Hakim. Good times.

A customer of mine just randomly recommended an audio book to me, and it happened to have been a book I read years ago and loved: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. It’s history, but really good (and not too heady) history.

My father was a product of public schools in a good school district, one that his family was able to move into after his father got a good job with Roosevelt’s WPA. Dad got his skills from a union apprenticeship and kept his union job for 30 years, allowing my siblings and I to grow up pretty well despite being a…

Yay for puppies! Train well, always have treats in your pocket, reward good more than you punish bad, and give up on the couch: they’re going to sleep on it whether you like it or not. Want to give a plug here for the rescue your beautiful new pal came from?

My wife and I are three weeks apart. It’s sort of awesome when you start saying “you know that stupid song that was all over the radio the summer after 8th grade?” and she’s already humming it before you can even get all the words out. Age is no deal breaker, but being the same age is pretty fun sometimes.

Molly Shannon, her obnoxious kid, and her nanny on the M86.

Being district attorney of Philadelphia is a busy enough job to demand multitasking.

[Sociology] Travelin’ Prayer: An Inquiry into attitudes towards Jews from Long Island in Trucker Chapels.

We’ll have to advise the LeechPit to stock up on Billy Joel vinyl in advance of the conference. I’m guessing they don’t carry any, unless it’s for the sake of irony.

Maids.

Lace Curtains.

Wow, if Gawker paid their people better we might have writing this good on here all the time.

Same reason as this.

There are five kinds of significant other friends:

The story of buying and selling Atlantic City properties while pissing people off? I thought that was a Presidential campaign, not a movie concept.

Dr. Richard Swift, the world’s first camel podiatrist.

I used to work in similar sort of establishment. Most of them have an employee-operated buzzer on the door — you can’t get in unless you’re buzzed in through the otherwise locked gate by someone inside. Not sure if this place had that or not, but many jewelry/pawn type stores do. Robberies typically unfold by someone…