Sarah Palin to be on Oprah

In what Harpo Productions is promoting as a "world exclusive," Oprah will interview Sarah Palin November 16th, the day before the former Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate's book "Going Rogue: An American Life" is released.


This should be good.  Palin is an idiot and Oprah always asks the questions that the audience would ask.

Canadian Classic Too Much for 17 yr olds?

Robert Edwards says if students repeated some of the words from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in the school halls, they'd be suspended, so he questions why it is okay in the classroom.

And what about the foul language, the anti-Christian overtones, the violence and sexual degradation, asks the parent who launched a formal complaint about the Canadian novel. Don't they violate the Toronto board's policies of respect and tolerance?

"If you look at the board's policies, it goes to these great lengths to talk about respect and not using profane language, and in fact so do the policies at Lawrence Park Collegiate," where Edwards' 17-year-old son was studying the book in his Grade 12 English class.

Full Story

I say, this parent is a flake if he thinks this book is too much for a grade 12 english class. Lets get real people. It is one thing to read certain words in a piece of literature, and quite another to be walking around using the same words inappropriately.

If this classic Canadian literature does not abide the rules of the Toronto School Board then perhaps the rules need to be changed. Oh and maybe this parent needs to find a job or a life or something.

The Universal Library

An international consortium of universities and libraries announced Tuesday they have digitized more than 1.5 million books and made them available through a single website.
The Million Book Project, also known as the Universal Digital Library, said the collection includes books in more than 20 languages, with titles ranging from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to The Analects of Confucius.

Read the full story at the CBC.ca Arts site.

A Lifetime of Secrets: Part II

Back in October, I posted a You Tube link to an ad for a book; A Lifetime of Secrets by Frank Warren. His Postsecret blog asks readers to send him a postcard with a secret on it that they have never revealed to anyone.

Having never seen the book, I posted the clip anyway as I thought it seemed provocative and interesting. A short time later, my friend Paul told me that he had gone out and bought the book and loved it.

On Saturday, I turned 40, I received the book as a gift, and it is very, very moving. My son, Patrick was here for the weekend and read the entire book cover to cover and also loved it. It does make a great gift and a definite insight on the human condition.

Buy the book here.

Possible Side Effects

We are at sea today. I just corrected yesterdays post as we arrive in Haiti tomorow (Thursday) morning, not Friday. Today is our second formal dinner and its lobster night for dinner. We were just laying out on the deck, but it is so hot, and I don't want to burn so I had to come in.

On our first day I was swimming and swam into the end wall of the pool. It is submerged and then there is an area about 10'X10" which is under water for laying around on. Anyway, my shoulder is hurting and bruised so I thought I should get some Tylenol.

Back to the book; Earlier today I was reading this book, Possibe Side Effects, by Augusten Burroughs, the best-selling author of Running With Scissors. I will be buying this book when I get home. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 2:

And this made me love London even more. That you could go to hospital and
be treated as a patient, instead of a suspect, like in America.

After this I watched a little CNN. CNN is very different in the United
Kingdom than it is in America. For one thing, there's more global coverage. They
even gave the weather forcast for New Delhi. That would never play in America
because people would e-mail CNN headquarters and say, "Who the fuck cares about
fucking India? Give us more missing coed stories."

I glanced at the fireplace and saw that the wall-to-wall carpeting extended into the fireplace itself, right under the log holder. Obviously, the fireplace no longer worked. But also obvious was the fact that no American had ever stayed in this room before. Because an American most certainly would have attempted to build a fire. As a rule, Americans will take everything that is offered to them. "There's a fireplace in this room, and by golly, I'm gonna use it." We're just that way. If we see it, it belongs to us. If it burns, even better.

God Is Not Great.

'God is not great, how religion poisons everything' author Christopher Hitchens interviewed on CBCs The Hour.

My Sick Week

This blog originally started as a spin-off of a regular email that I would send out entitled "Word of the Daye", I decided that I wanted to create a blog, partly because I wanted to write more, and I thought this would encourage me to do that. This has not really happened, as the blog has been mainly links to news items etc. with the occasional item of personal note. Since I would like to change this I am attempting to write more in my own words, beginning now.
This week has been very quiet. I have been sick with a head and chest cold and finally today I am starting to feel a little better.
Last night David and I went to St. Barnabas United Church on the Danforth to hear Author Bill Bryson read from his new book, 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a memoir' followed by a question and answer session. Mr. Bryson was quite entertaining and told a few stories from some of his books. I haven't read any of them, although I will be reading 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', which David brought with us and had the author sign.

This picture is a plaque that was on the wall. I was bored waiting for David to get his book signed so I took the picture here. Was the dead woman, Edith was married to her brother?