Multiple choices

by David Benjamin  “What I tell kids is, Don’t get mad, get even. Don’t spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don’t walk, to the nearest non-school library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your…

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Guy Montag, eat your heart out

by David Benjamin “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way” —Juan Ramon Jimenez, quoted by Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451   MADISON, Wis. — Nobody is quite sure whether the school board in Keller, Texas has “officially” banned from its libraries the Bible and The Diary of Anne Frank. They seem to…

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Variation on a theme from Aristophanes

by David Benjamin “… Without sex what will happen to our great State? Democracy will end if we can’t copulate.… ” —Aristophanes, Lysistrata MADISON, Wis.— It’s a dubious distinction to occupy a province in which, by the decree of white Judges Sam and Amy, John and Brett, along with America’s foremost Self-Hating Negro, abortion has…

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The sublime ambiguity of the tormented villain

by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — One of America’s most familiar figures, Rush Limbaugh, projected a persona that offered barely a smidgeon of nuance. Rush, who died last month, was a two-dimensional construction whom you either loved or hated, No middle ground between. This is how he chose to be esteemed. When interviewed about his…

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The greatest spy hunt in history

by David Benjamin “[The Mueller investigation is] the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”  ― Donald John Trump MADISON, Wis. — The most thrilling, dramatic and earthshaking revelation of the Trump era in America is still almost entirely secret and might well remain uncovered beyond many of our lifetimes. It has…

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Saving Alaska from literature

by David Benjamin “So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless.”  — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 MADISON, Wis. — The latest illiterate school board to get into the book-banning biz is in…

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This can’t be happening to us

by David Benjamin “After the Black Death came the Renaissance. From the depths of economic horror came Roosevelt’s New Deal. From this horror, so far, come the senseless twists and turns of the orange Narcissus.”  — Roger Cohen, N.Y. Times MADISON, Wis. — Although I can’t explain why, I’ve always enjoyed reading books about fatal…

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Bob Mueller and me

Bob Mueller and me By David Benjamin “I think it is a mistake to believe that Trump’s supporters don’t see his lying or corruption. They do. But, to them, it is all part of the show and the lore.” —Charles M. Blow, New York Times MADISON, Wis. — This week, I was in DeForest, Wisconsin,…

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Plus ça change…

Plus ça change… by David Benjamin “In the noisy aftermath of babble and talk and jokes and laughter, the junior Senator from Wyoming exchanged a look of open hostility with the senior Senator from Utah; the senior Senator from South Carolina, looking as sleepy and somnolent as before, gave one small chuckle and slapped the…

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Booksellers and booksmellers

Booksellers and booksmellers by David Benjamin “I know every book of mine by its scent, and I have but to put my nose between its pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.” — George Gissing MADISON, Wis. — I started smelling books — every serious reader does this — at the Tomah Public Library,…

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