I’ll be back to the Scandals blog in time, but for now, more of my blogging is happening on the LibraryCity.org site—devoted to the K-12 benefits and other glories of a well-stocked national digital library system for the United States. Drop by and think about contributing your own essay on the need for one. If […]
Read MoreKafka, Proust, Roth classics lead Jewcy.com list: ‘The 50 Most Essential Works of Jewish Fiction of the Last 100 Years’
For every two Jews, said David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, three opinions exist, and maybe when we’re talking about literary works, the number of viewpoints would be five or six. Jewcy is out with The 50 Most Essential Works of Jewish Fiction of the Last 100 years, as compiled by the […]
Read MoreWashington Post update: iPad app still shines, Sally Quinn gets honored, and I remember the darker side—the Post’s role in Gary Webb’s suicide
Do Ben Bradlee and other Washington Post luminaries actually use the iPad app they touted in one hoot of a promo video? I suspect so. What’s more, since my mostly favorable review of November 9, I’ve usually read the Post via the app. I have even accustomed myself to the vertical swiping needed to see […]
Read MoreHow to read ‘The Solomon Scandals’ instantly, via the Google eBookstore, on your PC, Mac, iPad, Android phone or other gizmo
The new Google eBookstore, a rival to the Kindle Store, didn’t disappoint me when I tried it just now. Books display on PCs, Macs, iPads, nooks and other gadgets (although not the Kindle), even offline—and you can adjust the type size and style, line spacing, and other variables. More info here. Also see Google Blog. […]
Read MoreLeonardo DiCaprio may convert to Judaism: Five reasons for President Obama to do likewise (satire alert)
Groucho Marx once said any club that would admit him wasn’t worth joining. Marx was Jewish, of course, as am I, along with many of the characters in my novel, The Solomon Scandals; and I’m curious if the same logic might be behind rabbis’ traditional reluctance to convert nonJews without sufficient preparation to join our […]
Read More‘Grognard’: The publisher’s side
Update: Sunbury and Patrick Quere parted ways in August 2011. – D.R. I hate censorship and would not want Amazon to ban the novel Grognard despite the grotesque violence, racism, anti-Semitism and other offensiveness. Would I myself have published it? My first reaction was, No. But I may have figured out how Patrick Quere could […]
Read MoreOut of ‘The Solomon Scandals’? Arrests of Prince George’s County exec and his wife—complete with $79.6K hidden in her underwear and perhaps $100K flushed down toilet
For The Solomon Scandals I created a fictitious Virginia county with fictitious crooks. Across the Potomac River in Maryland, I didn’t bother with all the niceties. I just called the county by its real name of “Prince George’s,” and my reporter-narrator told of driving past “row after row of grubby garden apartments—the legacy of developers […]
Read MoreMore original reporting and suburban stories at TBD on the way—now that GM Jim Brady has resigned?
In the middle of the Great Library Debates raging on the Atlantic site and elsewhere, I had to neglect something. But now here’s my take on the departure of Jim Brady as general manager of the TBD hyperlocal news site. Brady wanted a mix of linking and original reporting, but as I see it, TBD […]
Read MoreBlame Ayn Rand for Rand Paul and Clarence Thomas? Are politicians and judges what they read?
Are politicians and judges what they read? Senator-elect Rand Paul is a “big fan” of Ayn Rand, the ultimate novelist for the greed-is-good crew—even though he assures us that his first name is just short for “Randal.” Check out Paul on YouTube. I’ve long known about Ayn Rand and another admirer—Alan Greenspan, the ex-Fed chairman. […]
Read More‘The Solomon Scandals’ gets a sexy new cover—with a photo from one of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s favorites
What was Sy Solomon—the D.C. real estate tycoon in The Solomon Scandals—-doing on the book’s blue cover shown here? Picking up a refrigerator with one hand? Or a gargantuan keyboard? Or plunking down a high-rise in a favorite location, with a little help from well-bribed zoning officials? The correct answer is the last one. But […]
Read MoreA few words of advice for Tea Party folks—from the author of a novel on Washington corruption
Now that so many Tea Party sympathizers are headed for public office, I can’t resist offering their followers a little advice—as the author of The Solomon Scandals, a novel on D.C. corruption: 1. If you think America is screwing the middle class, do you really want income taxes for the super-rich to remain outrageously low […]
Read MoreTSA airport ‘security’ bullies excel as unwitting Tea Party recruiters
I’ll leave the graphic Orwellian details to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, but the Transportation Security Administration has finally outdone itself in the crotch region—well, Americans’ crotch regions. The idea is to bully travelers into submitting to “back-scatter” scans to avoid invasive pat-downs. Modern technology lets the TSA undress you. “Security theater,” argue Goldberg and others, […]
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