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These future bestsellers could be huge By now, summer is winding down, and so, probably, is that John Grisham book you started in June. Want to know what you’ll be finishing in the summer of 2018? • “Harry Potter and the HalfLenore Crazed Cubicle Partner.” Now Skenazy in his 11th year at the Ministry of Magic, an increasingly Columnist pudgy Potter struggles with a Dementor-infested copying machine, ministrywide restrictions on personal e-owl and, most vexingly, his office mate Parvati Patil, who calls him “Hotty Potty” and is constantly climbing into his (ample) lap, only to giggle, slap him and fly back to her desk. Recommended only for those who loved “Harry Potter and the Help Desk of Doom.” • “Grout.” Forget passion and perseverance, writes professor turned plumber Angela Duckworth. If you want something to really succeed -- and that something is your bathroom -- grit is not going to do the trick. • “The 5 Trillion People You Meet in Purgatory.” They’re all here and all inspiring -- more or less. The inner-city violin teacher who failed to report her tutoring income to the IRS. The baker who always gave bread to the homeless but once told his mother to “can it!” when she started gushing about his brother’s new Lexus again. The lovable old lady who stole a roll of toilet paper from the senior center. Lots of stories, lots of regret and, all told, a rather sobering read. • “The Life-Changing Art of Torching Your Apartment.” It is actually impossible to tidy up. What, we’re supposed to sift through all those papers on the bed? Put away all those clothes on the bed? Lap up all the beer that’s on the bed? Do we LOOK like Martha Stewart? Thank goodness for how-to books! And matches! • “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Authors.” Sit down. Start typing. Simplify. Enjoy everything you need to know to become a best-selling business guru, plus 28 made-up anecdotes and a couple of bar graphs. Highly recommended for office bookshelves. • “The Girl on the Bus.” Jealousy, betrayal and a long wait for the 3:17 to midtown. Surely, it should be here by now. Or now. Or now. If that bus doesn’t come soon, someone is going to pay -- with a painful, gory death! But ... is that maybe the bus down there? • “Founding Fathers-in-Law.” A gripping story of the fathers of the wives of the guys who wrote the Constitution, with a real feel for what times were like back then -- damp. If you liked “Hamilton” (and if you didn’t, better keep it to yourself), this book is just as thick! • “Who Moved My Leg?” How to cope with change and -- if necessary -- ambush amputation in the increasingly cutthroat world of office politics. • “French Men Don’t Get Bald.” And did we mention French children don’t get cavities? And French dogs don’t get meatball breath? More nyah-nyahs from across the sea. Also of note: • “Rich Dad, Rich Granddad: The Real Story of How to Get Ahead” • “The World Is Fat: Thomas Friedman’s Other Big Revelation” • “You: The Fine Print on the Warranty” • “Leakonomics: Tips From Steve Bannon” • “Geekonomics: Tips From Elon Musk” • “Sheikonomics: Tips From the Saudi Royal Family” • “Reekonomics: Tips From Peter Lorre in ‘Casablanca’” • “Batikonomics: Tips From Fabric-makers in Indonesia” • “Battlecreekonomics: Tips From Snap, Crackle and Pop” • “Meekonomics: Tips for Inheriting the Earth (Eventually -- But First the ‘Rich Dad, Rich Granddad’ Folks Are Going to Win for a While)” Lenore Skenazy is author of the book and blog “Free-Range Kids” and a hilarious keynote speaker at conferences, companies and schools. Run out and get her book “Has the World Gone Skenazy?”
Prayer for today Lord God, grant that after years of climbing I may not find the mist in my soul has dulled the vision of thy glory. Keep me from the habit of looking for faults, and missing the virtues in others. Forbid that I should be so occupied in taking measure of other lives that I neglect to measure my own. Amen.
A verse to share Surely, LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield. —Psalm 5:12
Opinion
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Sunday, September 3, 2017
Corinth, Miss.
What is the matter with us?
BY RAY MOSBY Columnist
“When ‘happily ever after’ fails And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers clean up all details.”—Don Henley ROLLING FORK — I seem to spend a lot of time these days screaming at screens. I realize that is not a good indication of mental health, but be they computer screens or TV screens, what I see on both is so selfdefeating, so infuriating, so frustrating, that I can’t help (not unlike good ole Howard Beal in “Network,”) blurting it out: “What’s the matter with you people?” What ever happened to all of the things that used to be the taken for granted hallmarks of daily existence in this country? What happened to common sense and common decency and simple manners and knowing how to act in public, for heaven’s sake? In contemporary America, all we see and all we hear are the screeching voices of the extreme among us, the overthe-top rantings and ravings of the extremist ideologues on the far left and far right of the political spectrum who are not only at war with each other, but tossing out all reason like an old sock, also with anybody and everybody
Mark Boehler
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no way better than the other idiots you ostensibly organized to oppose? One is as bad as the other and once upon a time, we the people had enough gumption to call all of this hatedriven behavior for what is really is — un-American. And if I can return to the clearly lost concept of common sense for a moment, allow me to also ask, when did so large a slice of the American population decide that they are and should be as fragile as Aunt Ethel’s Swiss tea cup collection? When did our colleges and universities, supposedly our bastions of truth, dedicated to the exchange of ideas decide to start censoring speech and turning away speakers because what they have to say may not fit into that institution’s definition of what’s politically correct? (Are you listening, Berkeley?) When did those same higher learning centers feel the need to create “safe spaces” for not their kindergartners, but their young men and women who are suddenly so sensitive as to need protection from the spoken word. Their infinitely superior contemporaries are fighting fanatics in far away hellholes with AK-47s and RPGs, bent on killing them every day and these “future leaders”
are scared of and wounded by words? Why, the poor things. I’ve lived a long time and seen this country go though a lot of phases, and I am here to tell you, folks, it just has not been all that long ago that if somebody said something offensive he would either just be ignored or slapped or punched in the nose, but there was no danger of the offended one dashing off to bed with a case of the vapors. I sometimes think it possible that we are too close, lack adequate perspective to see, or to realize for what it is, just how crazy we as a society have become. What we do makes no sense but what we don’t makes no sense, either. It’s as if the nation has lost sight of all the landmarks that used to both define and guide it and America is lost within its own boundaries with too many of its citizens wandering, quite aimlessly, into some of her darker corners. We are, perhaps, most in need of a resounding national finger snap, something to bring us to our senses and allow us to recognize again what it is to be an American. And to recognize again what is not. Ray Mosby is editor and publisher of the Deer Creek Pilot in Rolling Fork.
What Hurricane Harvey hath wrought
Like 9/11, Hurricane Harvey brought us together. In awe at the destruction 50 inches of rain did to East Texas and our fourth-largest city and in admiration as cable television showed countless hours of Texans humanely and heroically rescuing and aiding fellow Texans in the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. On display this week was America at her best. Yet the destruction will not soon be repaired. Nearly a third of Harris County, home to 4.5 million people, was flooded. Beaumont and Port Arthur were swamped with 2 feet of rain and put underwater. Estimates of the initial cost to the Treasury are north of $100 billion, with some saying the downpayment alone will be closer to $200 billion. Though the country has appeared united since the storm hit, it is not likely to remain so. Soon, the cameras and correspondents will go home, while the shelters remain full, as tens of thousands of people in those shelters have only destroyed homes to return to. When the waters recede,
Reece Terry
else who do not agree with them. That’s crazy, folks. And far too many of us in the middle are listening to these respective purveyors of poison, taking sides in a war we used to be too smart to even think of fighting and that is even crazier. A couple of weeks ago, I quite rightly took to this space to condemn the actions of deplorable human beings (I assume we can at least agree that Nazi skinheads, Klansmen, white separatists and assorted other fascists are deplorable) for waving around assault rifles, giving Nazi salutes, beating other people up and generally starting a riot in Charlottesville, Va. So, what happens this past weekend? At another “march” in Berkeley, Cal., another bunch of thugs, this one identifying itself as an anti-fascist organization (Antifa), don masks and hoods and starts another melee, beating and kicking a peaceful right-wing group, which prompts me to ask two other questions: What is the matter (just in general) with all you folks in Berkley? And don’t you idiots in the masks and hoodies realize that what you are doing is not “anti-fascist?” It is rather the very definition of fascism, making you in
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the misery of the evacuees left behind will become less tolerable. Then will come Patrick the looters Buchanan and gougers and angry Columnist arguments over who’s to blame and who should pay. They have already begun. Republicans who balked at voting for the bailout billions for Chris Christie’s New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy ravaged the coast in 2012 are being called hypocrites for asking for swift and massive federal assistance to repair Texas. And whereas George W. Bush soared to 90 percent approval after 9/11, no such surge in support for Donald Trump appears at hand. A prediction: The damage done by Harvey -- as well as the physical, psychic and political costs -- will cause many to echo the slogan of George McGovern in 1972, when he exhorted the country to “come home, America.” The nation seems more receptive now, for even before Harvey, the media seemed
consumed with what ails America. The New York and D.C. subway systems are crumbling. Puerto Rico is bankrupt. Some states, such as Illinois, cannot balance their budgets. The murder rates are soaring in Baltimore and Chicago. Congress this month will have to raise the debt ceiling by hundreds of billions and pass a budget with a deficit bloated by the cost of Harvey. And the foreign crises seem to be coming at us, one after another. Russia is beginning military maneuvers in the Baltic and Belarus, bordering Poland, with a force estimated by some at 100,000 troops -- Vladimir Putin’s response to NATO’s deployment of 4,000 troops to the Baltic States and Poland. The U.S. is considering sending anti-tank missiles to Kiev. This could reignite the Donbass war and bring Russian intervention, the defeat of the Ukrainian army and calls for U.S. intervention. In the teeth of Trump’s threat to pour “fire and fury” on North Korea, Kim Jong Un just launched an intermediate-range ballistic
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missile over Japan. Trump’s answer: U.S. B-1Bs make practice bombing runs near the demilitarized zone. Reports from South Korea indicate that Kim may soon conduct a sixth underground test of an atomic bomb. War in Korea has never seemed so close since Dwight Eisenhower ended the war with an armistice more than 60 years ago. But along with the growth of entitlement spending, the new dollars demanded for defense, the prospect of new wars and the tax cuts the White House supports, Hurricane Harvey should concentrate the mind. Great as America is, there are limits to our wealth and power, to how many global problems we can solve, to how many wars we can fight and to how many hostile powers we can confront. The “indispensable nation” is going to have to begin making choices. Indeed, that is among the reasons Trump was elected. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
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