Monday Musing
Marblehead, Massachusetts, Reuters photo by Brian Snyder:
Daniel Penney not guilty! Justice is served. Kudos to the jurors for not allowing themselves to be conned. NYC’s DA has nothing to Bragg about. Al Goodwyn cartoon:
How ‘bout the cretins who celebrated the healthcare company exec’s murder? There’s only one entity responsible for explosive costs — government. Are the firms without sin? Of course not. No one is.
Fitting, headline from nypost.com: “Safety nyet: Bashar al-Assad and family granted asylum in Russia after dictator flees Syria.” Butchers’ bloc.
Headline from newsmax.com about the Department of Energy nominee: “Chris Wright: Global Warming Can Be ‘Positive’.” That might freak some folks out, but thus far every period of warming in history has been a boon to mankind, as it made farming easier and more widespread, and less people froze to death. Periods of cooling have been a disaster. Are things different now? I have no idea.
Headline from foxnews.com: “Biden breaks Obama record for filling Federal Register with most regulations.” Father knows best?
Born in Brooklyn, Nanci LaGarenne has worked as a teaching assistant, childcare coordinator at a domestic violence shelter, and freelance journalist. She has four novels in print. I just finished her latest, Scape Ghost, published in 2023. Set in the San Francisco/Oakland area, it imagines what life would have been like for Frank Morris had he survived his escape from Alcatraz. He finds his way to an uninhabited treehouse cabin in the hills. One day the owner, a beautiful woman of about 30, shows up. They hit it off and she allows him to stay. The turbulent decade passes, highlighted by assassinations, the Vietnam War and racial strife. Morris, using the alias Cincinnatus Jones, observes, laments from his remote location, working as a painter and sculptor. He is visited by the ghosts of the tragic as well as famous and also has lifelike dreams of meeting artists such as Miles Davis and Nina Simone. The ghosts eat, drink and have sex. There is a bit of suspense — will the woman throw him out once she learns his true identity? I enjoyed the first few chapters but found the going increasingly tedious, although the narrative’s heart is always in the right place. It seems preaching to the choir. The prose and dialog are solid, the 247 pages of the large paperback reading like considerably less, especially given the many blanks between chapters. All 15 users who have rated Scape Ghost at Amazon gave it five stars. I’ll go with 2.5. It’s still selling modestly. What am I missing? I wish I’d found more info on LaGarenne’s early years in my hometown. Photo from Google Images:
The forecast was right on the money, unfortunately — rain by noon, curtailing today’s session of the Anti-Inflation Book Shop. My thanks to the woman who bought a pictorial on Benjamin Franklin, and to Sophie, who purchased Melania by the former and future First Lady. Can’t complain — it’s not cold and snowing.
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