Sentential Links #108

One hundred eight and counting:

:: I swear, that ramp-up to the final battle felt like Mousecateer roll call ("And now here's Oliver Wood, who we haven't seen hide-ner-hair of since Book 3, come to join the fray!"). (Remember how lots of people complained about too many "Classic Trilogy" characters showing up in the Star Wars Prequels? No such complaints about the Potter books. Spoiler filled post; new blog to me.)

:: Being smart is cool. Being stupid is embarrassing, despite what you see on the MTV and the YouTube. Listen to me, I'm a wise middle-aged old man now. Also, get off my lawn with your big brains and your hot pants and your culture I don't understand (but understood as recently as the day before yesterday).

:: I couldn't help but wonder why people live in some of those spots...what took them there? What holds them? (I've often perused the map of Oregon and wondered the same thing.)

:: Thank God Joseph Heller and James Jones and Erich Maria Remarque and countless others aren't trying to write their books today. They'd be burned as heretics by a bunch of nasty boys and girls who have fetishized "the troops" into a strange form of Boy Band eroticism --- that empty, nonthreatening form of masculinity the tweens use to bridge the scary gap between puberty and adolescence. Private Peter Pan reporting for duty.

The real men for them are the civilians on 24 torturing suspected terrorists for an hour each week, keeping the lil'est tough guys safe from harm with hard sadism and easy answers. That's where this wingnut war is really being fought. With popcorn.

:: The first step into making the hollow book is to select a book. (Crap, and I sold my copy of Atlas Shrugged years ago! It would have been perfect, since in terms of content it's already hollow. Still, this looks like a really cool project. I may have to make one of my own someday.)

:: The FCC is so concerned about protecting the public from indecency that it doles out huge fines for swear words that accidentally go out over the air. And God forbid for one nanosecond America sees Janet Jackson’s breast. Our whole nation could collapse. If terrorists really want to bring down this country they should organize suicide streakers. (Had I read this post yesterday, a couple of the links therein would have made the Burst of Weirdness. Naughty language, but on a "meta" level.)

:: With you here, I'd still be happy. (For some reason I'm drawn to stories of heartbreak like a moth to a candle these days.)

All for this week.