The new novel deals with the Fall of Leningrad, Nazis, war ravaged Russia, the stories grandfathers tell, and an impossible mission. I’ve only just begun it, but Benioff’s prose is absorbing and it’s a hard book to put down.
Having loved the 25th Hour, I found that with David Benioff’s work, you don’t read it in short spurts only to eventually get to the ending. Instead there’s lots of time well spent, engrossed, and eagerly awaiting to return to the pages when torn away.
Congratulations are in order! Colby Buzzell’s My War: Killing Time In Iraq won the 2007 Lulu Blooker prize,which recognizes the best book that began as a blog on the Internet. This comes in the same week that U.S. military abruptly blocked soldiers’ access to Myspace, Facebook, MTV, YouTube, and other sites because of “bandwidth” issues.
Listen below to Buzzell discussing that issue on Talk of the Nation.
30 Rock’s over for the season and thankfully it’ll be back next year even if Alec Baldwin has to pretend to troop through it so his public doesn’t have to concern themselves any longer with his parenting abilities.
Let’s be honest Thursdays have been lonelier and a lot lighter on laughs without Tina Fey & Co. The Office is unevenly funny most of the time and Scrubs keeps trying too hard to maintain any vitality.
Before the withdrawal shakes get too intense:
Go here, to catch up on any episodes you may have missed.
Check out Jesse Thorn’s hysterical interview with Jack McBrayer (Kenneth the page) on The Sound of Young America—available in both audio and video(!) formats.
If anything it’s worth listening to just for this exchange:
Jack: I haven’t made any major irresponsible purchases yet. Oh, I can’t wait to.
Jesse: What’s the first thing you’re gonna buy?
Jack: I’m gonna buy a futon. A futon made of baby skin.
Below, Tina Fey’s trip to the Howard Stern show from last November, in which she dishes on her pre-marital inability to even give it away, SNL, and of course that certain blonde Fraggle-haired-walking-STD who’s currently crusading to further prove that not everyone has to abide by our country’s laws.1
If you’re still fooling yourself that Paris Hilton’s going to do 24 consecutive hours let alone a minute of jail time, let me take this opportunity to welcome you to this country.[back]
The Black Keys played on NPR’s World Cafe1 about their career path thus far. One exciting thing on the horizon—a collaboration with recent Grammy winning Bluesman Ike Turner2 on their forthcoming album which is being produced by Danger Mouse.
Countless times each year we remember Martin Luther King Jr. We recall King’s battle to end segergation, marching for racial harmony, and articulating his dreams with that rhythmic booming voice.
For a man whom we memorialize, it is a great disservice to his legacy that we just focus primarily on a few years of Dr. King’s life. The focus tends to be King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963), reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963), marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965), and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
The three years prior to his death, Dr. King was more active than ever before, so why aren’t these years referenced?
Dr. King spent that time working to bridge the gap between the rich and poor and he felt Vietnam further demonstrated the U.S. ignoring that divide. Dr. King wanted to invoke “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.
“In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington—engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be—until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights. Reader’s Digest warned of an “insurrection.”
King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its “hostility to the poor”—appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity,” but providing “poverty funds with miserliness.” (from AlterNet.com)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—” Why I am Opposed to the War in Iraq Vietnam”
40 years later and our government still ignores the immense poverty in our country, instead putting money into foreign wars. How many more years will it take before we have a leader who will force the American people to look deeper and inspire them to ask more from themselves and their government?
