Two quotes from The Thin Man

"I don't like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn't like crooks that are stool pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool pigeons, I still wouldn't like you." (Miriam to her soon to be dead boyfriend Nunheim)

"I love you Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fasinating people." (Nora Charles to her husband Nick)

I have now read The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett and can heartily recommend them both. I read them because the movies that were based on them are two of my favorites, but I am looking forward to reading Hammett's other novels. Written in the 1930's the books read much more modern. But the themes of greed and revenge and trust are universal.

Ah, that's better

Thanks to Ryan I was able to clean up my the appearance of my blog a bit. I did what he suggested and remembered some things Katherine had told me long ago and have been able to make some previous entries more readable. Enjoy.

Under Construction

Been working with trying to get links on my page of sites I visit regularly. I have been following the blogger format in the template but it still is telling me "done, but with errors on page". That's nice to know but would be nicer if it would tell me what the errors are. I feel like it is laughing at me. Taunted by my own webpage. Sounds like a premise to a Stephen King book.

There are more improvements I would like to make. I am using a blogger template which I like except for the big grey block to the right of the links column. Why is that there? What am I supposed to do with that? I also know the cutting and pasting I did makes my last entry look pretty ragged. I will try and fix it as soon as I can figure out how (translation: as soon as I can get Katherine to sit with me at the computer). Very smart of me to marry a woman who is not only beautiful but computer savvy as well.

This is the Frontrunner?

I can't believe that John Kerry is the Democratic frontrunner. I have been trying to read the transcripts of the Democratic candidate debates (the Washington Post has them all on this page). I was just reading through the one from Sunday night in Wisconsin. There were several cases where the panel brought up John F. Kerry's Senate votes (NAFTA, No Child Left Behind, Second Gulf War authorization-he voted in favor of all of them) and how he now campaigning against all of those issues. Basically they were attempting to call him on his flipflops. He held steady and never once actually repudiated any of his vote. He always says the bill was carried out differently than he thought it would be when he voted for it. Don't blame him, he's taking no responsibility.

The low point was his answer to responsibility for casulties in Iraq. Dean had just been asked a different wording of the same question and he said yes, if you support a war whether you cast a vote for it in Congress or are a private citizen who vocally supports it you bear some responsibilty and points out that he supported the first Gulf War and the war in Afganistan. Then Kerry:

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"GILBERT: Let me turn to you, Senator Kerry, because you said your vote wasn't a vote for what the president ultimately did. But you did vote to give him the authority, so do you feel any degree, any degree of responsibility for the war and its costs and casualties?

KERRY: This is one of the reasons why I am so intent on beating George Bush and why I believe I will beat George Bush, because one of the lessons that I learned -- when I was an instrument of American foreign policy, I was that cutting-edge instrument. I carried that M- 16. I know what it's like to try to choose between friend and foe in a foreign country when you're carrying out the policy of your nation. And I know what it's like when you lose the consent and the legitimacy of that war. And that is why I said specifically on the floor of the Senate that what I was voting for was the process the president promised. There was a right way to do this and there was a wrong way to do it. And the president chose the wrong way because he turned his back on his own pledge to build a legitimate international coalition, to exhaust the remedies of the United Nations in the inspections and to go to war as a matter of last resort. Last resort means something to me. Obviously, it doesn't mean something to this president. I think it means something to the American people. And the great burden of the commander in chief is to be able to look into the eyes of any parent or loved one and say to them, "I did everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter, but we had to do what we had to do because of the imminency of the threat and the nature of our security. " I don't think the president passes that test.

GILBERT: But what about you? I mean, let me repeat the question. Do you have any degree of responsibility having voted to give him the authority to go to war?

KERRY: The president had the authority to do what he was going to do without the vote of the United States Congress. President Clinton went to Kosovo without the Congress. President Clinton went to Haiti without the Congress. That's why we have a War Powers Act. What we did was vote with one voice of the United States Congress for a process. And remember, until the Congress asserted itself, this president wasn't intending to go to the United Nations. In fact, it was Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft and others and the Congress who got him to agree to a specific process. The process was to build a legitimate international coalition, go through the inspections process and go to war as a last resort. He didn't do it. My regret is not the vote. It was appropriate to stand up to Saddam Hussein. There was a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it. My regret is this president chose the wrong way, rushed to war, is now spending billions of American taxpayers' dollars that we didn't need to spend this way had he built a legitimate coalition, and has put our troops at greater risk.

GILBERT: You cast the same vote, Senator Edwards, is that the way you see it?

EDWARDS: That's the longest answer I ever heard to a yes or no question. The answer to your question is of course."

-------------- I know I'll be voting for Bush in Nov. But I have been following the Democrats nomination process hoping that if Bush loses he'll lose to someone I can as least feel good about supporting as a war president. Originally that was Joseph Lieberman. Now that it is down to a two man race I am definitely rooting for John Edwards. While I am displeased with his vote against the funding bill for the Iraq war and he puts me off with his faux populism I don't get the impression that as wiht Al Gore and now John Kerry he would say anything to be President. Even Howard Dean looks better than Kerry.

A couple more book reviews:

Washington Schlepped Here by Christopher Buckley

From the Crown Journey's Series, by the son of Conservative icon William F. Buckley

In the spirit of Bill Bryson and P.J. O'Rourke, and even Mark Twain, Buckley gives a humorous and informative walking tour of our Nation's Capital. I found him to be a bit too much in the spirit of Bryson, or I have read too much Bryson and expect all travel books to be as laugh out loud funny and insightful as his. While never laugh out loud funny, Buckley's is amusing and has good inside information to share about a city for which he has much affection.


Mayberry 101 by Neil Brower

Episode guide to the classic tv show

I am not going to review an Andy Griffth Show book every time I do reviews, I promise. But, I was on a kick for a while. What can I say, I love the show. This is an episode guide featuring episodes written by three of the shows better writing teams. Harvey Bullock; Jim Fritzell & Everett Greenbaum; and Sam Bobrick & Bill Idelson. By and large these are the writters who crafted the best episodes of a great sitcom. Their respect for the show then and still today is evident. The collector of the writer's tales is Neil Brower and are taken from his TAGS fan club newsletter (THE BULLET) column. This is the first of a projected 3 volume set.

"It is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o'clock"

--Woody Allen
"My Speech to the Graduates"

A few thoughts on things I have been reading the last couple of months:

A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Deceit by Robert Lindsey

About the Mark Hoffman forgeries and murders. Provides good background on Morman religion and history

Excellent book. Delved into the mind of Hoffman as well as could be done given the fact that Hoffmann turned out to be a liar, forger, "narcissist", and cold blooded killer. Lindsay gave good insight into the tensions between Mormans and nonMormans in Utah and into the control that the church has over its members. Part of the reason that Hoffmann was able to fool the church was because of the dubious origins of the religion. He exploited the hierarchy's fear that the truthful origins would become know. Or at the very least that the church's members would begin asking questions about church's origins that the hierarchy didn't want to answer. Hoffmann was a closet atheist whose fear of disappointing his father mirrors the fear many Mormans have of upsetting the Church. Part of Hoffmann's fear of owning up to and admiting his guilt was his father's believe in 'blood atonement' a belief which called for death as the only means of gaining forgiveness for certain sins. While the church officially disavows "blood atonement", (as it does polygamy) feel strongly that it is a part of the Morman heritage (much like some Morman's still believe in polygamy).
Lindsey's account of the investigation and the footwork and determination it took to solve the case is well written as well. And there was lots working against those who ultimately solved it; interdepartmental rivalries, pressure from the church, and turf wars between the local police and feds to name a few.
And then there were the forgeries themselves. Hoffmann fooled not only the church, but countless collectors, dealers, and historians. Only his own greed and resulting finiancial troubles prevented him from getting away with the forgeries.
A brief note concerning the murders. They were ultimately and sadly only red herrings. Hoffmann was suppose to produce some documents that he had sold. Documents that didn't exist. So he delivered pipe bombs to two people in an attempt to buy himself some time. When that didn't work he set off a pipe bomb in his own car in an attempt to "destroy" the "documents". He spent time in the hospital as a result of injuries sustained in the bombing.

And now for something completely different:

The Andy Griffith Showby Richard Kelly

Documents the classic tv sitcom which aired 249 episodes between 1960 and 1968

Written by a professor of English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, this is an excellent study of the creation, production, writing, and effect of The Andy Griffith Show. There are a plethora of books on the show but this one, published in 1981, was one of the first. With quotes from indepth interviews, cast member updates, information on fan interest, two sample scripts (one from an episode that never aired), and an episode guide this is an excellent book for any budding gooberologist.
TAGS is my all time favorite television show. I grew up watching it every weekday at 5:30pm on WDBJ-7. I have seen every episode and it is one of the only shows that I can watch again and again and again (even nearly all of the ones in color). And I do whenever I get the chance. As much as I did from church or any other source, TAGS tought me about morality, humor, the value of kindess and of being a friend. In an age where cynicism and irony are the norm it is refreshing to what a tv show in which basic human goodness, kindess, and honesty is front and center. Not to mention that it is still darn funny. Above all it makes me laugh. And that is really all that the crew and cast set out to do.

I started to develop the idea for this blog around a year and a half ago when Katherine and I moved to Raleigh, NC from State College, PA. It was originally going to be a review of and commentary on new, used and antiquarian bookstores that I had visited. I even began to carry a small notebook with me as I visited various bookstores in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. I made notes of prices and the layout and specialties of the store and even of the most unusual title that the store carried. Gradually as I kept putting off blogging I got more and more ideas of things to include. Reviews of books that I was reading and movies and tv shows that I had seen and commentary on political, cultural, and current events. I still don't actually know in what direction to go, but as a college professor of mine once said, "Shaver, you know the Chinese proverb. the journey of a thousand miles begins with...." "Putting your shoes on?" "No." "Packing your luggage?" "Uh no." "I give up." "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." "Gotta put your shoes on before you can go anywhere."