Quote for the Week

Politics is a lot like football--you have to be smart enough to play the game and dumb enough to think it's important.
Ann Richards, former governor of Texas

But it is important, isn't it?

Books of January

The first book of a quartet, it follows two girls in a poverty-stricken suburb of Naples  from second grade to the verge of adulthood.  I found it boring, less like a novel than a series of journal entries.  Will I read books 2, 3 and 4?  Not a chance.  But don't take my word for it.  Ferrante is reportedly one of the great novelists of our time.  (Maybe it was a poor translation.)  Anyway, I just read that the four books are being made into a TV series...in Italy, I think.  Maybe it's better in the original.

Yes, my book club read Mrs. Dalloway.  Am I a Virginia Wolff fan?  No.


Alas, this month was not a good reading month.

Super Bowl Haiku

I wish I had thought of these myself, but I copied them from NPR's website.  Enjoy (and cheer for the Broncos--I'm a Peyton fan.)

Carolina crop

Causes cancer, heart disease

Though not concussions.

Please, Coach Kubiak,

Let Peyton play "hurry up."

Don't you want a ring?

Buried in bedlam,

Unnatural war is waged.

Cats battle horses.

Muzzle talking heads.

Un-mute just for commercials;

Rest room at half time.

Methuselah faces

Carefree Cameron in the

Conflict of the ages.

No one I know would

Watch the half-time show but for

Wardrobe malfunctions.

Roman numerals

Gone from Super Bowl 50.

L equals loser.

Panther's messy meal;

Spits out a few feathers,

Mulls the taste of horses.

Oh no, it's that time!

Big piles of men fall down...ouch!

Can't wait till baseball.

Have you been alive

for all fifty Super Bowls,

the new Dawn of Time?

Iowa caucus;

ISIL; market plunge; migrants.

Time out:  Super Bowl.