Arthur Miller’s allegorical attack on McCarthyism, The Crucible, has a good film version.  I watched part of it on Encore the other night and it caused me to start thinking about freedom of religion.  This is another first amendment right that the Founding Fathers forgot to put in the original Constitution.  They quickly fixed their error.  There are two ironies here.  The first is that they forgot this important right, initially.  Many immigrants to the English colony came here to practice their religion freely, so it wasn’t that they were unfamiliar with the concept.  The other irony was signaled out by Mr. Miller:  here you have Puritans, who wanted to practice their religious freedom, doing some very unchristian things to their fellows.

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Writing about the children’s book Valiant, Dog of the Timberline in a recent post about Westerns, reminded me that, even in a story not about animals, critters can play an important role.  Mice to mongooses (mongeese?), swans to elephants, pigs, cats, and dogs—literary animals have filled the pages of world literature.  Whether anthropomorphized or not, animals can actually become main characters that bring life to a story.  Here’s a quiz.  Match up the following names with the animals I just listed:  Leda, Napoleon, Horton, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Argos, Stuart Little, Mrs. Norris.  Then find the famous authors that wrote about that named animal.

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(Jose Rodrigues dos Santos, El Enigma de Einstein, tr. Mario Merlino, Roca Editorial de Libros, 2008, ISBN 978-0-06-171925-7)

The following review appears below in English.

Este libro no se resulto como esperaba cuando lo inciciera.  Lastima.  En efecto, parece demasiado como la vieja propaganda de Certs, o sea dos libros en uno.

En primer lugar, tenemos lo que promete ser aventura de suspenso—un “thriller.”  Esta promesa no se cumple.  Las situaciones entre los espias de la C.I.A. estadounidense, el profesor portugues de historia Tomas Noronha, y los iranis de caricatura—estas no parecen autenticas y muestran poca investigacion o lectura sobre el tema por parte del autor.  Aunque la historia sea interesante a primer vistazo y la senorita irani e interes romantico de Tomas sea bonita y misteriosa, el cuento corre a la velocidad del vidrio viejo en una iglesia de Lisboa.  Es demasiado lento.

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When I’m tired of writing or the business of writing (editing and marketing) and there is nothing else on the agenda, I go to the TV like any normal American.  Well, maybe not normal.  I’m choosy about what I watch.  Reality shows are out.  “Castle” is good for a chuckle—there’s a lot of good sexual tension between Beckett and Castle, but the writers often try to do too much by fitting a mystery with innumerable plot twists in the forty minutes of TV screen time (I’m subtracting out the annoying commercials, of course).  So, I channel surf, starting with the Encore channels.  I’ve caught up on some good westerns that way and revisited some of my favorites.

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(Bob Nesoff, Spyder Hole, 2011, Strategic Publishing Group, ISBN 978-1-61204-044-8)

This book offers yet a different take on how to combat terrorism: employ special forces and international collaboration.  (I read the trade paperback version—e-book versions are also available.)  In my own book The Midas Bomb, in John Betcher’s The 19^th Element, and in David Fett and Stephen Langford’s White Sleeper (I reviewed the last two books for Book Pleasures), the military plays second violin to civilians and local and federal authorities.  Bob Nesoff is a former Army Green Beret sergeant, so he follows the adage to write about what he knows.  I’m happy that he did—this tale about the dangers of nuclear proliferation is a thriller filled with military command-and-control suspense that will give readers another enjoyable roller coaster ride.

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(David R. Fett and Stephen Langford, White Sleeper, Synergy Books, ISBN 978-0-9845040-2-2)

We fiction writers have an interesting trade.  Like actors on a stage, our primary job is to entertain, even though we often are introverted people rather than extroverted.  Counter to the pundits’ expectations, people are reading more than ever.  Devices like the Kindle and the Nook allow readers to download everything from the latest N.Y. Times bestseller to newspapers and magazines—or should I say e-papers and e-zines?  Today’s digital publishing revolution provides writers many ways to reach our reading audience and, hopefully, to entertain them.

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One thing I’ll give the British royals: they aren’t under the radar.  The paparazzi give them no peace.  Even if the media wasn’t always on their trail, the royals’ only job now is to appear at functions that keep the rabble away from members of Parliament so these illustrious individuals can tend to the country’s real problems (note that I said “tend to” and not “solve”—these bozos are only slightly more effective than our own Congress people, but that isn’t saying much).

We send the President, the President’s wife, VP Joe Biden, or Joe’s wife to similar events.  The Brits recognize the importance of these state events and maintain a whole staff of royals to do the job.  Great for country spirit.  They’re one up on us, having separation of ceremonial wastes of time from state, in addition to church from state—since the Queen is head of the Anglican Church, it all makes some sort of Yorkshire-pudding sense.

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I know now what sweet revenge feels like.  I suppose I should feel guilty, but I feel no regrets.  A family member was murdered by this man and friends of both my wife and I were also murdered.  Thousands of others were murdered.  A mass murderer, Osama bin Laden, is dead.

This is a special posting to my blog.  I just need to get these ideas off my chest.  Most people know me as a big, harmless teddy bear, but if I had ever met the mad dog Osama, I would try to kill him myself.  I would put myself in the mind frame of an oncology surgeon extirpating a deadly cancer from the body politic of the world.  I’m sure similar emotions were in the heads of those Navy SEALs.  I probably would have failed–they got the job done.

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