politics and the novel

From Orhan Pamuk's The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist

the triple agent

Tristan D. interviews Joby Warrick, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Triple Agent.

crosshairs

"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list. But the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of the gun site over our district, and when people do that they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action."  --Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, March 25, 2010

money and votes

My friend Beth Wellington has an op-ed piece in The Guardian.

basil marceaux . . .

. . . is running for Governor of Tennessee. It's hard to pick just one star from Basil's galaxy of wisdom, but let's start with these:

• "See why dental is not in most plans a tooth aches hurt more than a back aches and no teeths depresses people"
• "I would introduce a bill to make all the state vacant land that are open field and along the high way a farm and this farm will plant corn products and other plant life that can be use for alterative fuel"
• "Free the slaves at traffic stops from false arrest and jury fixing"
• "Education ,let us put phonics back in school if you can not read you can not do History, Math, English. And that where we are now. Let make it mandatory in high school to read the minutes to the U.S. Congress , the Congressional Globe the real history of the U.S."

You can read all of Basil's thoughts and get a look at his spiffy uniform at his website here. And here's a YouTube video of Basil. (I hope.) "Hi, I'm Basil Marceaux.com." I wish I lived in Tennessee!

(Thanks to Jason in Gardner, the Chair City)

I was wondering if Sarah Palin had already endorsed or "fudiated" Basil, so I checked her Facebook page, and read this: "Todd, Willow, and I are headed out to Kodiak and Afognak to meet with logging families on the forested islands. As we work and sightsee on America’s largest island we’ll get to view more majestic bears . . ." Sarah must have been out sick the day the geography class studied American Islands. Hawaii, the Big Island, is larger than Kodiak. Could it be she doesn't consider Obama's birthplace as part of the U.S.?