Current Reading

Documents ... show that in December 2020 and early January 2021, President Trump, his Chief of Staff, and outside allies repeatedly put pressure on senior DOJ officials to challenge the results of the presidential election and advance unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, with the apparent goal of keeping President Trump in power despite losing the 2020 election. more »

Diane Girard Writes: I return to some of my favorite books these days for fun and for comfort. And, as the pandemic has shown me, reading printed books gives me a break from peering at words and images online. For contrast and with no obvious morals tucked into the story, I sometimes reread H.E. Bates’, A Little of What You Fancy. The Larkins are, as the cover of my 1979 edition notes, ‘thirsty, hungry, lusty, happy, irrepressible — immortal’. Bates wrote several books about the Larkins and there was a TV series called ‘The Darling Buds of May.’ The stories are set in the English countryside and Pop Larkin’s motto is the more the merrier, which also applies to his amorous activities. If income tax evasion, opposition to the tunnel under the English Channel, a lot of tippling, and women expressing healthy sexual appetites distress you, I suggest you don’t read the book. more »

Life was golden for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for the first 56 years of his life. He had served in all of the his state’s top political offices – secretary of state, attorney general, lt. Governor and Governor – even though he was a liberal Democrat in an increasingly Republican state. He had friends and contacts, a good marriage and two fine children. He was planning to run for President as soon as he was re-elected in 2002. Then he was slammed with a political hurricane, which went by the name of Karl Rove. Life’s been a steady slide downhill since then. Trial, imprisonment and appeal is a very complicated story which you will have to read the book to appreciate. Suffice it say that both men served their terms and saw their careers ruined. more »

Somehow we have forgotten how to teach grammar using simple, clear rules. When I was young, we were introduced to the difference between subjective and objective and possessive pronouns at an early age. I remember my fourth grade teacher parsing the subjective pronouns with us: “I, you, he-she-it; we, you, they,” and then demonstrating how and where to use them in a sentence. After a few days of that, there was literally no chance that any of us would begin a sentence using “Her and me went to the store,” because we were well aware that her and me weren’t subject material. If we didn’t know which case to use in a sentence like “The teacher gave Maddy and (I? me?) a lecture,” she said to drop “Maddy” from the sentence and listen to it in our minds: “She gave I a lecture” was obviously not something we’d say. more »