Deborama

I missed the  death of the dowager duchess,  Deborah Cavendish, nee Freeman-Mitford, the youngest of the six famous "Mitford sisters....

My best story so far, in my own opinion, was picked up by Twin Cities Daily Planet: The Seward Café, which turns 40 years old some time th...

I got a tweet for my story in Southside Pride, which was then picked up in Twin Cities Daily Planet: That was only one small tidbit in an...

A new way is emerging for banksters (the international variety in this case) to use debt as a weapon, even if it's low-class debt they...

I went out Googling Selina Burch and found (oops broken link! Google Selina Burch and tell me what you find!)  I was just saying to a frie...

Colombia declares three days of mourning for Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of the enormously ...

Tony Benn was one of the best things about the UK. He will be missed. Here is a great article about him from Portside Moderator. In the ...

Doris Lessing , author of The Golden Notebook and many other novels and a few non-fiction works, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literatur...

Bet you didn't know he was still alive. Well, I didn't; I was surprised. Reading the NYT obituary - it sure takes me back.

September 3, 2013 Richard ‘Kevin’ Keefer Anonymous The Dalton Daily Citizen Tue Sep 03, 2013, 11:13 PM EDT Mr. Richar...

My quiet return to blogging is heralded by a nice cozy book review.

I am inspired by teaching my friend CJ Sparrow how to blog on his new blog, Occupirate , to renew my own blogging. So, first I will try to ...

Ride, Sally Ride. We'll miss you here on earth forever now.

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act.* One of the few liberal media sources to cover the bill called it the an...

Dick Clark , long-time host of American Bandstand, has died at the age of 82.

I apologize for the ad before this, but trust me, it's worth waiting for.

(Copy of a post on Deborama's Book Reviews and Store ) Well, it's not often I review and blog a book I have only read one chapter o...

I predicted way back in 2008 that the recession soon to follow what was then just a "credit crisis" would last 15 years. Everybod...

Marie Haff, my friend since 1984 when I first moved to the Twin Cities along with her son, passed away last week. We had drifted apart geog...

Back to obituary blogging, an increasing number of the subjects of which are nowadays my own generation. Jobs, yeah, he was younger than ...

I arrived back in the UK on the 6th of September, very jet-lagged, and then promptly fell ill. Apologies for the big delay in updating my b...

I'm in Minneapolis, takin' care of some business. I was going to post a blog from Keflavik airport on my way here, but their darned...

Holly passed away last night, suddenly, as budgies do. Holly is the one on the left above; the one on the right, Pearl, passed some time ag...

Well, I am on Google+ , have been there a while. Definitely still on Facebook , where truthfully most of my online "activity" occ...

Yesterday, actor Peter Falk passed away . Columbo may not have been the greatest detective show of all time, but it's amazing how Falk...

This blog seems to be more and more about obituaries these days. I don't know if it's a sign of my age, or just the fact that it...

I was sad to learn of the relatively early passing of Manning Marable, a leading light of the DSA and a great historian, essayist and acade...

Feminist icon Geraldine Ferraro, pictured in 2007, the first female vice-presidential candidate to run on a major political ticket, died S...

On this day in 1911, 146 sweatshop workers died in a horrible fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Some of the workers were as young as...

... you don't see any posts for weeks, and then three come along at once!

The New York Times has this great Elizabeth Taylor timeline. And when I heard that she was interred already, I thought that might mean that ...

Owsley Stanley, known to Deadheads as simply "Bear", has died following a traffic accident at the age of 76. He was also known a...

I was watching a comedy (show or film, don't remember, probably British rather than American) where a comedy bigoted character said ab...

Here are two viewpoints on the same story, one from The New York Times and one from The Guardian (UK). The Guardian : Britain should stop ...

I am so appalled at this latest turn in the saga of Great Britain's immigration policies that I can hardly find the words. You would ...

In These Times and the NYT cover the death of Harvey Pekar. I loved this film , American Splendor. My British husband "didn't ge...

This is nice.

My sister Cindy lost her husband of 31 years to cancer on Monday. I was blessed to be able to spend a few hours with them in his last week ...

Bloody Sunday. If you had told me in the early 1970s that there would ever come a day when any government, least of all the government of th...

I have reviewed a few books over on Deborama's Book Reviews and Store :E. L. Doctorow's The March , John le Carre's A Most Want...

Millenium Trilogy on Amazon UK Check out my latest cultural (books, films, celebrities!) blogging over at Deborama's Book Reviews and St...

Following the SCOTUS decision that corporations have "free speech" rights, Facebook has a got a fan page advocating a Constitution...

I'm in Atlanta, which it is now hip to call ATL. I am visiting my son and his girlfriend, and I am staying in the poshest hotel I have e...

This NYT piece by Nicholas Kristof is good enough to drag me out of blogging semi-retirement, which means too good to only click "Shar...

My ex-father-in-law, Lisle Carleton Carter, Jr., passed away on the 10th of September. It had been many years since I had seen him, but my ...

This Huffington Post article by George Lazoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics, is very long and a hard read, but worth it...