I have many fortifying memories of the Joel Valdez Library and the plaza that fronts it, which is named for the enterprising Jácome family and contains a striking red metal sculpture, but on April 5, 2021, as I sat in a black car across the street from that library and noted how its white façade …
So, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature? I have to wonder if the Swedish Academy, which apparently won’t be enjoying the pleasure of his company at this week’s acceptance ceremony, isn’t getting a perverse pleasure out of putting some of us literary types in the uncomfortable position of having to criticize the choice …
Read moreI hereby nominate Toni Morrison for a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, The Left Behind series, Tyndale House Publishers, 1995-2004 There is a trend afoot to lash out violently at the apparent dominance of “cosmopolitan” culture. This was vividly seen in the violent attack in Paris, traditionally a citadel of cosmopolitanism, on the freewheeling, anti-clerical publication Charlie Hebdo. But of course …
Read moreAmerican Bestsellers, Jesus, and the Slaughter of All Non-Believers
OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN Our views vary from incensed to concerned at the Occupied Tucson Citizen regarding Pima County Public Library (PCPL) policies on aggressively selling books that are not regularly checked out. But we all agree that libraries must be repositories of knowledge first and foremost, and not merely repositories of popular culture. There are …
Read moreOn Pima County Public Library’s discarded books policy
OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN Day 1. I pitched my tent between the soccer field and the playground in Emile Durkheim Park, across the street from Emile Durkheim High School, my stinking alma mater, and I dove the dumpster at Dollar General for sheets of cardboard. My mother texted: you’re making a fool of yourself, honey. Did I care? …