ABC’s ‘Scandal’ vs. ‘The Solomon Scandals’ novel

The Solomon Scandals novel, set amid the Washington muck, bears the same title as ABC-TV’s similarly located Scandal series, except for the “The,” the “Solomon,” and the “s” Big differences I’ve seen so far? The book, though fiction, takes on The System. ABC is less serious-uppity. Also, Scandals’s Jonathan Stone dedicates himself to getting stories into […]

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Mind reader and clown helped kill GSA leader Martha Johnson’s job

”Among the other expenses were $3,200 for a mind reader, $6,300 on a commemorative coin set displayed in velvet boxes and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle.” – Washington Post report on $823K splurged on a 300-employee federal conference in Las Vegas. Ouch. The gems in the sentence above don’t even include […]

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Holidays musing—on e-books and LibraryCity

E-books aren’t like regular books—they’re invisible except on the screen of a computer. Particularly at a time when so many bookstores have vanished, could e-libraries be one way to keep books on people’s minds? And help reinvent the concept of family literacy? Check out my other site, LibraryCity, where I discuss those issues and more. […]

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Guest essay for Andy Holloman

Jane Austen wrote for herself, not her contemporaries. Her earliest reviewers were less than fully gung-ho about her fiction. Among other things, if you go by a recent book by Claire Harman, certain critics felt Austen’s writing wasn’t fresh enough. Talk about critical blunders! It took decades and decades, but the world finally caught up […]

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$1B+ Quarter Pentagon bungle makes Time Magazine

The terrorist-friendly Quarter Pentagon, the twin towers formally known as BRAC-133, has made Time Magazine. Time depicts the 6,400-worker complex as a “soft target” for truck bombers. Jihadists or others might wipe it out if given a chance. Since last year, the Solomon Scandals blog has been warning of the security concerns among other issues […]

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Bypassing school censors

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer got official thumbs-downs this week from a comstock-bullied school board in Republic, Missouri, in line with last year’s stupidity. The censors banned the books from both the curriculum and the school library. I take this rather personally. A George Washington University professor assigned The Solomon Scandals […]

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‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ movie on real estate hell: ‘Coffee’s for closers’ and ‘Only one thing counts in this life. Get them to sign on the line which is dotted.’

  Not everyone in real estate or construction is Washington-smooth like Sy Solomon. Thanks to my friend Court Merrigan for this link to an excerpt from the Glengarry GlenRoss movie, adapted from the David Mamet play. Both show, in Court’s words, ”the cold seething black heart of capitalism.” Management doesn’t want you sipping coffee if […]

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