Hm… gosh… what to make this week’s Weekly Question Of The Week about… Ummmm…. Jeez… If only… if only there was something happening today… something that’s a big, national event here in the US that people had to pick sides over… then… then I’d have something… Hmmmm… Oh, wait, isn’t there some sort of televised sporting […]

This is Clancy. Clancy is our beagle.  He’s just about the sweetest, kindest-hearted animal you can imagine.  He doesn’t even bay – the only time he howls is when he hears a fire engine or wild dogs.  The things that matter to Clancy are chewies, chasing his Squeaky Monkey, making sure that no one is […]

Jules, over at Go Guilty Pleasures, and I get along great.  We both like things that are funny, we both live in states where, bizarrely, you can’t pump your own gas, we both have had people reach our blogs because of searches related to chipmunks.  Birds of a feather.  But there is one thing we […]

Over at H.E. Ellis, she’s been celebrating her 100th post with 10 lists of top 10’s. In one of them, she mentioned the song “Goodbye Horses” being forever rendered creepy by the movie The Silence of the Lambs.  Now, it’s not a particularly good song, really, but it got me thinking about songs that, because […]

A special note in my Cool Book today for the protesters in Barnaul, Russia.  People in the Siberian city are protesting corruption in politics, both in the region and at the national level (I know, you say Whaaaat? Government corruption?  In Russia??).   Specifically, they’re protesting the impending switch Vladimir Putin is making from the parliament […]

Moderate publicity is being given to the American Library Association’s announcement of the Youth Media Awards (highlighting the best books, videos or audiobooks for children).  Among them, the Newberry Award went to Jack Gantos’ Dead End In Norvelt, and The Caldecott Medal (for picture books) went to A Ball For Daisy about a dog who […]

I would like to take this moment to offer a sincere, public and redemptive apology for my recent comments.  I in no way meant them.  And while I stand by my assertion that some of them were taken out of context, and others I was tricked in to saying, I regret any hurt they may […]

Mark Wahlberg, the actor best known for being an action star, but in what, exactly, you can never really recall, recently gave an interview in which he explains the tragedy of September 11, 2001. No, not that tragedy.  The tragedy that he wasn’t on one of the planes that day. Seriously.  Wahlberg was, apparently, supposed […]