Cover to “Saga of Ra’s Al Ghul” #3, Jerry Bingham and Dick Giordano, 1988

DC Comics.

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A word about joy …

If people want to enjoy something, then let them enjoy it … there’s no point in taking their joy away by shaming them over something that brings them happiness. Be kind. JUST KIDDING — PUMPKIN PIE IS ****ING DISGUSTING — AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR YOUR PERVERSE IMPULSE TO ACTUALLY *INGEST* THE STUFF.

Update: Shephard’s pie ain’t all that great either. And I’m allowed to say that because I’m Irish.

Here’s an irony for you. I actually WOULD probably love octopus pie, if such a dish existed — and that doubtless would repulse a lot of people. But I love the squiggly little tasty fellas. OMG — they could call it “octo-pie” and its name could be a pun. I need to patent this idea.



Cover to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Apropos of the Wet Snow,” with art by Alfred Kubin, 1914

München, Piper & Co.

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The Free Lance-Star prints my letter to the editor.

My letter to the editor about conspiracy theories was also published by The Free Lance-StarYou can find it right here.

The Free Lance-Star is a leading regional news source with more than 65,000 weekday readers.  I’m always especially pleased to see something I’ve written appear here, because Fredericksburg, Virginia is my college town.  🙂

Thanks yet again to the newspaper’s editorial staff for allowing me to share through this important source of news and commentary in northeast Virginia.



Throwback Thursday: the Ridge Elementary School Class of 1984!

An old pal of mine was cleaning out her closets and happened across this t-shirt from Ridge Elementary School in New York.  I am actually still friends with a bunch of the people listed here.  New Yorkers stick together.   🙂

Was the Roadrunner our unofficial school mascot or something?  I honestly do not remember.  Thirty-eight years is a long time.



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The Roanoke Times published my latest letter to the editor.

I’m happy today to see that The Roanoke Times published my letter to the editor about relying too heavily on “open mindedness” in considering conspiracy theories.  You can read it online right here.

Thanks, as always, to the editorial department of The Roanoke Times for allowing me to share my opinion in this leading regional Virginia newspaper.



Poster for “Doctor Strange” (2016)

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

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500 blog followers today.

Gonna buy me a milkshake. 🙂

Which might actually attract more followers, given its proven efficacy at bringing boys to the yard.



“Autumn,” Isaac Levitan, 1889

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“Not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life …”

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of effort, labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not the the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”

— Theodore Roosevelt



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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers