The Garden of Haugen

It's Sunday, dig it!

Junior's baseball season is done so my windshield time can be replaced by blogging time. The plan is to get into a regular routine. I'm going to shoot for some gardening stuff here every Sunday and some booky/doggy/linky stuff during the week. Time will tell.

I generally don't plant tomatoes and peppers until Memorial Day weekend, partly because it doesn't warm up until then. But this year my weekends were filling up fast so I gradually started planting two weeks ago. Most stuff just sits there until the ground gets warm enough - no harm no foul, as long as it doesn't freeze. The tomatoes (40 of them) seem to have taken off well though, while the peppers and eggplants took a pretty good beating from the wind and are going to need some TLC, though Lisa "Lefty Eye" Lopez isn't going to be much help.

A few years ago I started planting my tomatoes sideways. It seems odd at first, but that fall when I pulled up the plants it was obvious the root system was crazy better than the old way. The only thing you have to be careful of is while bending the plant so the last third of it sticks up without snapping it off. There's usually a victim or two in the bunch, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Also, I've always been the type to break off the suckers on the tomatoes, but this site says not to and seems to provide good reasoning, besides being lazy. Gonna give it a try this year as more than anything I'm trying to reduce susceptibility to disease.

The tomatoes have landed

This is a big day in my house or at least in my corner of the house. The tomato seeds arrived!

I’ve turned into a bit of a tomato snob the past few years and pretty much plant only heirloom tomatoes I start from seed. No more grocery store parking lot greenhouse tomatoes for me, even though they usually grow and taste just fine. Heirlooms offer more variety, colors, shapes, sizes and tastes. I also like the challenge of starting them from seed and becoming the most popular guy in the neighborhood, albeit for a very short time, when I give away the extra plants.

I buy mine from Gary Ibsen at TomatoFest, but this year missed out on the half-price sale. That’s really no big deal because I have more money than Trump anyway. I bought 10 packets, as I still have some seeds left over from last year. But I needed to replenish my supply of four varieties that I’ve had good success with: German Giant, Gigantesque, Black Prince and just plain ol’ Black.

Good ol’ Gary threw in a free bonus pack of Nebraska Wedding tomato seeds. Supposedly, this 4-inch orange-colored tomato was used in Nebraska churches as both a garnish and a decoration to “predict a prosperous marriage.” Whatever the heck that means. Crazy Nebraskans.

In choosing my new varieties I look at size (medium to big, no more cherry size for me), variety of color (red, pink, purple, yellow), number of days to harvest and, most importantly, a cool name.

So this year’s newcomers include: The Earl of Edgecombe, Cosmonaut Volkov Red, Josephine Carter, Buckbee’s 50-Day, Carbon and Banana Legs.

I usually start the seeds in my greenhouse about St. Patrick’s Day with the intention of putting them in the ground on Memorial Day weekend, give or take a week.

I’ll keep you informed on our progress, because I know you care.

Bored? Then you're probably a boring person

So these dudes came up with a list of boring places in South Dakota. To do so, of course, they had to define "boring." It may or may not fit your idea.

I'm guessing the fine folks at RoadSnacks who compiled this list are young-uns, millennials, who think if your city doesn't have a Justin Bieber concert or nightclub with appearances by Afrojack then it is a boring city.

Here's their criteria for judging "boring."

% of Population Over 35 (higher is more boring) 

% of Married Household (higher is more boring) 

Average Age (higher is more boring) 

% of Households With Kids (higher is more boring) 

% of Households with People Over 65 (higher is more boring) 

Population density (lower is more boring) 

I'm guessing they find outdoor recreation, high school sports, and Christmas concerts boring. They prefer traffic, no kids, no old people and the single hook-up culture. Back in "the day" I might've agreed, but have grown a bit wiser. They probably will too.

That's fine. To each their own. But they've obviously never been to a small town bar packed shoulder to shoulder after a high school football game. Drunks at a rave got nothing on drunks at the Corner Bar. They've never been pheasant hunting. They've never been to a Winner-St. Thomas More baseball game where virtually every game is meaningful and comes down to the last at-bat. They've never golfed. They've never reeled in a walleye. They're not interested in history.

Here is their lame top 10 list. I've spent time in all of these towns, some more than others, and wasn't bored.

1 - Custer (They've obviously never read the sheriff's report in the Custer County Chronicle, fun times indeed. They carry torches and burn a giant wooden beetle every winter for goodness sake. Boring people don't do that.)

2 - Milbank (The birth place of American Legion baseball. What have you ever birthed?)

3 - Redfield (30-foot-tall pheasants that will kick your ass.)

4 - Winner (Jim Palmer would not have played baseball in a boring city.)

5 - Hot Springs (I guess if you find wild horses, war heroes and giant wooly mammoths boring, then ok.)

6 - Lead (Drive the streets of this town in December or January and I guarantee you won't be bored. Neutrinos and dark matter, boring? Sheldon Cooper thinks not.)

7 - Elk Point (okay, I'll give you this one)

8 - Chamberlain (Walleye will jump in your boat and spit in your eye.)

9 - Canton (The Wheel. Case closed.)

10 - Flandreau (No town with an Indian casino is boring.)

So if hunting, baseball, golf, fishing, history, sense of community and listening to the stories of our elders is boring, sign me up. I'll take boring any day. At least wave when you drive through, because we'll even wave back, maybe even use all our fingers.

Weekend link-ohhhh-rama

Been a while. What can I say, I've been busy watching all the movies nominated for Academy Awards. Just kidding, haven't seen a one.

So, actually, I was boycotting the Oscars before boycotting the Oscars was cool. Trend-setter I am.

Some quick links:

** Whassup with this Omaha mayor? Op-ed from OWH.

** Speaking of snow, House Speaker Paul Ryan put up a snowcam from the Speaker's balcony with some sweet bumper music.

** I'm just going to throw this out there without comment: Why can't we find aliens? Because climate change killed them, of course.

** But ... the good news is, forests like CO2 and are doing fine.

** ESPN's uncertain future is already here. And it doesn't look good.

ESPN is hemorrhaging subscribers and money. In a November regulatory filing, the network revealed that it has lost seven million subscribers over the past two years. While every popular TV channel has lost subscribers, the losses for ESPN and ESPN2 are among of the highest in the industry — and the most costly.

And the book of the year, decade, evah is ...

Before we get too far into the new year, I wanted to mention the best book I read in 2015. It is also one of the best books I've ever read.

Life Expectancy is a 2004 novel by Dean Koontz. I read it last month and savored every page. Koontz is a genius. Most authors would be lucky to have as many twists and turns in an entire novel as DK has in each chapter. It hits practically every emotion.

I was enthralled by it. Thought about it during the day, anxious to get home to read it, but not so fast that I finished it too quickly. Wanted to savor it.

Goodreaders give it a high 4 out of 5, while the Haugometer hit 9 of 10. Here's the Goodreads summary. Makes me want to read it again.

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. 

It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the first and last time since his stroke.

What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson—five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twent-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth. 

Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly—the unexplained anomal of fused digits—on his left foot. Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance. 

What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? 

It will have you on the edge of your seat in suspense, then when that subsides you will fall off your seat laughing at another sequence. This book is utter brilliance.

One of the more thought-provoking quotes from the book was:

“We need to laugh at the irrationality of evil, for in doing so we deny evil's power over us, diminish its influence in the world, and tarnish the allure it has for some people.”   

I think there's a lot of validity to that. Not that they are evil people, but I think of the Bundy dudes who took over a vacant building in Oregon to protest. There aren't even any cops there fighting with them. It's like if you threw a party and nobody came; they threw an insurrection and government was like "okay, have the building. Oh, and by the way, we're cutting off your power."

I think Koontz is saying if we don't get so wrapped up with, enamored with, afraid of and obsessive over evil, it won't have as much power over us. When evil throws a party, do Jell-O shots with it.

Koontz is big on personal responsibility:

“As they have taught me, I believe that without asking, we are given all we need. We must have the wit and wisdom to recognize the strengths and tools at our command, and find the courage to do what must be done.”

And good versus evil:

“The stakes were suddenly so high that we wanted out of the game. When you’re playing poker with the devil, however, no one leaves the table before he does.”   

Happy New Year's Eve link-oh-bartender-gimme-another!

Henry Ford said: "Two percent of the people think; three percent think they think, and 95 percent would rather die than think."

As New Year's Eve approaches, and what heck, let's go for all of 2016, be a 2 percenter.

** So apparently "Kurt Russell" were the last words Walt Disney ever wrote. Interesting interview with Goldie Hawn's husband here. I'm going to make this my one movie of 2016.

** The stories this guy could tell. What a life.

** Another study that is not exactly rocket surgery.

** More science.

** From Noise, as in the magazine, comes the top 10 rock albums of 2015.

** So the President had a bad year.

** Wall Street Journal's best books of the year, fiction/non-fic/mystery.

** Get your wine on, in the mail. There are many South Dakota wineries that will make you forget about those other states that think they are the only ones that can grow grapes.

Effective January 1, 2016, any winery located within or outside of the state may ship wine to South Dakota consumers if they have met the requirements to obtain a wine direct shipper license.

** It's Charlie Robison's New Year's Day in the red dirt of Texas. Take a listen, and don't miss the Casey Donahew Band in Deadwood next week! I'll be there with Ulm, my black-hatted partner in crime.

Finished: Chaput's 'Render Unto Caesar'

I put aside the serial killer blood and guts and noir detective sleeze novels for Advent season (or at least a week of it) and decided something a bit more thought-provoking and religious might be in order.

So I delved into "Render Unto Caesar" by Archbishop Charles Chaput, former bishop of the Rapid City Diocese and kind of a big deal. It's a signed edition because I'm kind of a big deal too in Rapid City, well in my house by Rapid City, well in my office of my house, until Stanley comes in and then he's the big deal.

According to Wiki, Chaput is the second Native American to be consecrated a bishop in the United States and the first Native American archbishop. And, according to me, he is a wise man.

The book is great, thought-provoking, straight-hitting and entertaining. He delves into church history, the Founding Fathers, JFK and recent history to about 2008 when the book was published. He writes in a non-academic manner that even a goof like me can understand. He basically urges Catholics and all Christians to be vocal and informed and not afraid to espouse their faith in all parts of life and in politics. I filled the book with highlights, notes and asterisks.

I finished it just before Christmas so, I digress a bit here, it was especially noticeable when I saw political messages on social media using Christ's birth as fodder. It's interesting how the Gospel according to Joe Facebook often differs from Matthew or Luke as to fit Joe's political issue of the day. To some, Mary and Joseph's 65-mile trek to Bethlehem to be counted for Caesar's census is somehow analogous to the immigration issue or to homelessness. Ironically, those arguments often seem to come from people who wet their pants when Christians cite the Bible in opposition to abortion. Others like to incorrectly cite "eye for an eye" as support for the death penalty. Seems like Bible stories, like statistics, can be twisted for the beholder.

But no political party is immune from hypocrisy, and Chaput clearly states too that there is no one party for the Catholic faith either. All have their pros and cons.

Chaput writes: "But too oftentimes, I find that both these slogans - 'don't impose your beliefs on society' and 'the separation of church and state' - have little to do with fact. Instead, they're used as debating tools; a kind of verbal voodoo. People employ them to shut down serious thought."

And: "People who take God seriously will not remain silent about their faith. ... As a friend once said, it's like asking a married man to act single in public. He can certainly do that - but he won't stay married for long."

So speak up. Read this speech of his.

And read this book! Unless you're afraid.

The tail of Ragnar

I could write a book about my history with rabbits. From the death of Johnny Depp while we were on vacation to the shooting incident with Prince there are quite a few stories to tell. But none would be sadder than the tale of our current rabbit Ragnar.

Ragnar is my fertilizer machine, and being a Norwegian he is quite good at spreading the fertilizer, if you know what I mean. From April through November he lives in a spacious cage with all the amenities down in my garden. He feasts on lettuce, cabbage, turnip leaves, whatever is green and available. Occasionally he is let out to free range inside the fenced in garden. He has a pretty good life.

 Then when cold weather, and the time change, hit, he gets moved to his winter home which is closer to our house. The cage sits below a plum tree, next to a bird bath, and right outside my kitchen window so I can wave to him in the mornings. It also reminds my feeble mind to go out and feed and water and talk to him. Yes, we talk. Well, I talk. He listens.

So all's been well this winter. In fact, I was outside last weekend and resupplied his rabbit hole/bedroom with dead grass and straw and shredded paper from work. He seemed safe, secure and happy. That was until this morning when I looked out the window while eating my toast and noticed everything askew in the rabbit world. The cage was still standing, but off kilter. The big dried up potted plant next to it was knocked over, as was the bird bath. The roof of his cage was in pieces. Yet Ragnar, ever the cool Viking leader, was nibbling on his pellets.

A similar thing happened a couple years ago and I blame a neighbor from down the road whose dogs get loose and rambunctious and take about terrorizing bunnies. I haven't seen them loose in a while, so I can't say it's them for sure but they are at the top of my suspect list. Just above coyotes, perhaps even a deer who came streaking through the area, or a small chance of a mountain lion. Though I'm pretty sure I'd be writing Ragnar's obit today instead if it were a lion.

Anyway, this morning, while I waited for my vehicle to warm up, I went about picking up the area. Fixing his roof and arranging his feeder and such, I noticed this furry thing on the ground. I figured it was some fur that went flying, as Ragnar has a nice puffy winter coat about now. But it wasn't that. It was his tail! I'm a guy who is oft accused of being cold-hearted and unfeeling, but not when it comes to my dogs or my rabbit. I felt terrible for him. It's like he had been violated. My guess is that when he was being attacked, he raced around in circles in his cage, as I've seen him do, and somehow his tail got caught in the wire. Ouch. Even worse would be if it was sticking out of the cage and something bit it off. Ew. He otherwise seems okay. There was no blood. But it did set off a pretty funny text message routine between myself, wifey and junior.

 It concluded with her asking: "Can rabbits live without a tail?"

 I suggested: "We do."

What's the good word?

Star Wars! Just kidding. Nothing about Star Wars here. Not interested. But I plug it like I plug Amanda Knox! because it's a Google-getter and the people who end up here to see what's up sometimes even buy books by our favorite author.

Go figure. Isn't the internet grand?

Assuming you are on the internet now, then I'm assuming you've been to dictionary.com to look up some of the big words I use; even if you're just here fugaciously or because of your propinquity to me.

Not to be outdone by Time Magazine announcing its person of the year, dictionary.com announced its 2015 Word of the Year, which they say encapsulates "the most robust fields of language evolution and user interest this year."

Obviously, if they choose anything besides "Kardashian" or "breast" they are lying. But that doesn't stop internet sites. Should I ruin it for you or let you click on the link? I'll ruin it for you, because that's the kind of guy I am.

The word of the year is: "identity."

Of course it is.

And if you need to ask why there's a picture of Amanda Peet, as if I need a reason, Google it.

** Do you folks listen to podcasts? I'm kind of a novice at them, but they're growing on me. I heard good things about Serial.

Their new series is out on the controversial deserter and Jason Bourne-wanna-be Bowe Bergdahl. I'm going to give it a go. Sounds interesting.

Their first season was on Hae Min Lee "a popular high-school senior, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later detectives arrest her classmate and ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He says he's innocent - though he can't exactly remember what he was doing on that January afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School says she knows where Adnan was. The trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found."

** This story claims researchers are fine with your kids climbing on the monkey bars.

Failure, danger, and aversion to risk are becoming the center of the conversation, and it really does start at the playground. Consider the “safe” playground: a structure that takes the risk out of the equation.

Yes, fewer children get injured. Yes, fewer parents worry. But maybe we’re preventing the wrong anxieties by helping parents rather than kids.

So screens may cause their own problems, but as far as mental health at early stages goes, the biggest concern appears to be keeping kids from getting up, getting creative, and doing stupid things. Same for helicopter parenting, bland adventure-less playground equipment, and constant supervision.

** And this was a big ol' joke by the New York Times: The most pressing issue in 95 years finally gets editorialized on the front page.

** And if a guy didn't know better you'd think the NYT was a tad liberal. Here's their story on Ted Cruz.

“Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.”

** For annoying me so much, I tend to read them quite a bit. Here are the Times' picks for the 10 best books of 2015.

About the only one that somewhat interests me is - One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway.

Otherwise I don't see anything I can't live without.

** Why does Europe hate Israel so much? Brendan O’Neill takes a stab at it in: The wretched reason why Israel became Europe’s whipping boy. I'll ruin it for you again:

 Plucky, keen to protect its sovereignty, considering itself an outpost of liberalism… Israel is a painful reminder to today’s morally anchorless European thinkers and agitators of what their nations once were.They hate Israel because they hate themselves.

** And what would the world be without the wisdom of Arnold Schwarzenegger? This story claims Arnold has been a passionate advocate for alternative energy, and I would add pretty passionate about his housekeepers as well.

And the great communicator knows he's right and you are wrong and no he's not being a bully because he's over-compensating for something small.

He just says: "I don't give a f--- if we agree."

Well, thank you sir for your kind consideration.

** Here's this week's music link you and Arnold can chill out to in case you might have missed it on NPR: Jump the Gun by Halestorm.

Relax ...

According to Twitter, it seems a lot of families argue politics during Thanksgiving. Not at my house. Dissenting opinions are not allowed, but if one dares, it's met with a: "Shut the hell up, I'm watching football."

But if you want to get your undies in a bundle, here's some reading for you:

** They're feeling the Bern in Vermont; and SD seems quite fond of Thune too. Approval rates of Senators in their states.

** This guy's in a grumpy mood. Is your kid a weirdo?

America is in the grip of a crisis, namely a shortage of normal people. Evidence indicates that the population of kooks and freaks is rapidly increasing, and there are simply not enough sane people to keep the weirdos under control. Especially among the under-30 demographic, the United States is struggling to cope with the proliferation of dangerous perverts, drug addicts, psychotics and Ivy League liberal arts majors. 

**This is kind of ranty and f-bomby but says what a lot of people think, without being all anti-Muslim.

Running is great. I’ll never fault somebody who chooses to run or hide when bad things happen. Every one of us has a different level of training, knowledge, and commitment, and what is the right answer for you, isn’t the right answer for your grandma. If you are the kind of person to get involved, you need to have a clue. However, since the only constant of gunfights is that they suck for somebody, you can do everything right and still die. On the bright side you at least bought everybody else some time.

I haven't read any of his books, but I might have to give one a try just because he has about the best (and longest) author bio I've ever read.

No matter how poor we got, there was always an ammo budget.

** Lest you need some cheering up, start the music, strike up the band, it's a forgotten grooveyard fave from Dr. Hook! You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance

First snow of the year linkage ...

I was going to go out today and buy Adele's new album, but then the terrorists would win.

So I did some linkin' instead:

** This sounds like a case for Gabriel Allon. Eleven masterpieces stolen.

“It’s as if you broke into the Uffizi Galleries (in Florence) and stole a Botticelli. You couldn’t sell it on the open market,” said Tomaso Montanari, an art historian. “It’s certainly the most serious theft in the history of Italian art.” 

** I like this lady's attitude. Seems like a winner. My only question on how she lost her artificial leg is why she wasn't wearing it on the airplane, unless she has more than one or a special one for running. Either way. Happy ending. Here's the story.

** A free plug and two thumbs up for zennioptical.com and the two prescription eyeglasses, delivered, for under 25 bucks. Seemed too good to be true, but very happy with them.

** This is pretty cool: This beautiful poster captures 42 (Great American novels), together with the location in which they are set. From Ahab off Nantucket, to Ignatius J. Reilly in the Big Easy, Tom Joad fleeing the Dust Bowl to HST entering Bat Country - it's all here.

** Today's group to jones on isn't new, but this song popped up on Pandora today and reminded me how much I like them: Confederate Railroad. Here's "She Never Cried."

Some babbling about Billy Shakes

So this theater dude from Brooklyn takes offense in this Federalist column because the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is translating some of Shakespeare's work into a more modern, easily understood version.

As any good condescending elitist would do, he asks: Are we too dumb for Shakespeare?

I'd answer: No, and offering more options as to how we read him doesn't make us so.

I was going to be an English teacher, came darn close in fact. But the second semester of my senior year at Augustana College, now University, I drew the short straw and was told I was going to do my student teaching in Lennox. As I was even dumber in college than I am now, I opted to nix that idea for various reasons.

But chief among them was that I'd been working part-time in the sports department at the Argus Leader throughout college and really enjoyed it. Heck, I'd moved up to have my own weekly bowling column! So I knew what I wanted to do with my life and made it official that I was going to pursue a career as a journalist, where they actually get paid less than teachers but don't complain about it as much.

So now I've sent three kids through high school, assuming the boy graduates this spring. I've watched a lot of their English teachers over the years, in various settings and grade levels. And, honestly, I haven't seen a bad one. My kids have been very fortunate to have been educated in two of, if not the best two, schools in the state: Brandon Valley and then St. Thomas More.

My oldest graduated from Black Hills State University last year and I remember her telling me early in her college career that many of the kids writing papers didn't even know what a bibliography was. "We were doing that for Mr. Garcia in the eighth-grade."

But what I want to touch on here is not the grammar and research side of English teaching, but the literature side, where I think too much emphasis goes into teaching the old, often boring, classics, and not on reading material that students will enjoy and spur them to become lifelong readers.

Both my daughters, the youngest a senior at SDSU, are avid readers, but it's not because they were forced to read Catcher in the Rye or Giants of the Earth. In fact, in spite of that. I give credit to one person and one person only: Harry Potter.

He was born when the girls where in elementary and middle school and their reading interest blossomed through him. If J.K. Rowlings hadn't come along, I'm not so sure her fellow Brit William Shakespeare would have inspired the same enjoyment of reading that has become a lifelong passion of theirs.

It's not that I'm even against teaching Shakespeare in high school, but I'd scale it back. You can give kids a taste of his style and language without making them read Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. I took a semester of Shakespeare in college and much to my advisor's chagrin hated it even then. You need to, at minimum, give teenagers some enjoyable stuff to read too.

My kids have had required reading during the summers from STM. This past year my boy read Giants of the Earth, which even I find tedious. Do we really think this will inspire him to want to read more? If I were assigning summer reading, I would assign a shorter classic, like Red Badge of Courage and then assign them one fiction book and one non-fiction book of their choosing. That's one book a month during the summer. Even a 17-year-old in love with baseball and a girl can fit that in his schedule.

We need to develop a love of reading in our youth. It's not easy and it's not going to happen with a lot of the classics, when the alternative is the new season of Walking Dead on Netflix and Assassins Creed on the Xbox.

There's no reason students can't be reading some popular fiction in their lit classes as well. Harry Potter, the Twilight series, Hardy Boys, Louis L'Amour, heck I read the entire Tarzan series in junior high. Throw in a Dean Koontz Odd Thomas Book for good measure. There are tons of great contemporary writers and topics that can teach setting, place, voice, plot and character development as well as or better than the novels that our college professors told us we had to teach so we could check the box and they could maybe answer the Jeopardy question someday: Who were the two feuding families in Romeo and Juliet?

And many of the great authors of old wrote terrific short stories. Assign those quick-hits instead to these attention-span-challenged kids. Don't bore the kids or turn them off from reading. If they enjoy it, they have a better chance of picking up a novel on their own. When they don't see reading as an enjoyment, but as something to struggle through, who can blame them for turning to the Alaskan Bush People instead.

If our youth acquire an affinity for a reading, then we can spring some of the more challenging authors on them in college, or they may choose to do so on their own as adults. I'm all for challenging our youth, but save Billy Shakes for the more advanced readers who have proven an ability to grasp deeper reading.

While ol' David Marcus of the Federalist considers Shakespeare's English the same as America's modern English. It's not. It's practically a foreign language. As you wouldn't drop a French version of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables on a 15-year-old, they should be eased into Macbeth as well and experience it a point where it won't so overcome them that it discourages them to read more. And if adults want to see or read a play by Shakespeare in a manner more easy for them to understand, so be it.

I'm more about encouraging people to read than worrying about what they read or in which language.

“Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day.”  

Bacon up some links of sausage and stuff

So you may have read recently that the World Health Organization has declared that reading this blog will cause cancer. It's not a matter of when or if. In fact, if you've made it to this sentence you've probably got about 15 minutes to live.

So go fry yourself a wheelbarrow full of bacon and read these links. Might as well go in style:

** Trying to stay hip with the latest app? Me either. But just in case.

In this list you’ll find juggernauts like Facebook and Snapchat along with hidden gems that haven’t hit the top of the App Store’s charts yet. Every one of these apps serves a valuable purpose, making life easier, better, or just more fun.

** Been there, done that: Prince Invites Fans to Party With Him at Paisley Park

"If you don't leave here feeling fantastic, there's something wrong with you," Meier said.

** Politics anyone? Nate Silver says next presidential election is 50-50. That's cutting-edge thinking folks. Sigh.

I’m not saying Clinton is doomed. Rather, I think the “fundamentals” point toward her chances being about 50-50, and I wouldn’t argue vigorously if you claimed the chances were more like 60-40 in one or the other direction. But Clinton is no sort of lock, and if she loses the popular vote by even a few percentage points, the “blue wall” will seem as archaic as talk of a permanent Republican majority.

** At ESPN, mistakes were made. Like showing soccer matches.

** So, you made it this long, eh? Might as well enjoy some coffee, eggs, pasta, wine and chocolate too, as those used to be considered bad for you too. 

And, you gotta check out Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats and their song S.O.B., and yeah it might have some cuss words in there. As this website says: "The song depicts the struggles of alcoholism in a soulful, chaotic way." 

If your toe isn't tapping by the end, you're probably dead now.

Making the pitch for some baseball books

There are some serious goofballs in baseball. Fortunately, people write books about them.

With America's pastime heading down the home stretch, I thought I'd take a look at some of the baseball books I've read over the years. Most of the more autobiographical ones I read during my youth in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, either my tastes have evolved or the athletes and managers don't tend to put pen to paper as much, relying on the easier and less sophisticated Twitter characters and emoticons to express their thoughts.

I have one baseball book sitting on my to-be-read shelf: Fathers Playing Catch with Sons, essays by Donald Hall.

I have another thick fiction book that I'm a third of the way through, but haven't touched it for several months. I haven't quit on it yet, and intend to finish it, but it just wasn't doing much for me at the time: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.

So here's a glance at some of the better ones I've read. I'm not going to go to all the work of providing links to these. You know how Google works:

* How Life Imitates the World Series - Thomas Boswell

* Who's on First - William F. Buckley Jr.

* Steinbrenner - Dick Schapp

* Ball Four - Jim Bouton
* Ball Four Plus Ball Five - Jim Bouton

* Temporary Insanity - Jay Johnstone
This guy was one of my favorites. Quite the prankster.

* The Wrong Stuff - Bill "Spaceman" Lee
After being traded by Boston, Lee said: "Who wants to be with a team that will go down in history alongside the ‘64 Phillies and the ‘67 Arabs?"

Also, I'd forgotten about this, but Wiki reminded me that: "in 1987 he announced plans to run for President of the United States for the Rhinoceros Party.

* The Umpire Strikes Back - Ron Luciano
* Strike Two - Ron Luciano
My favorite line of his was: "I never called a balk in my life. I didn't understand the rule."
Luciano committed suicide 10 years ago.

* In the Country of Baseball - Dock Ellis
He threw a no-hitter in 1970 under the influence of LSD.
He threw at every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup in a game in 1974, because he could. Today, in an era where a bat-flip causes acne conglobata among ESPN anchors and the rest of the sports media, imagine what that would've done to them.

* All My Octobers - Mickey Mantle
You've probably heard of him.

* Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout - Kent Hrbek

* When You Come to a Fork in the Road Take It - Yogi Berra, RIP

Finished: Block's 'Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes' and need a cold shower

It's amazing how much a guy can get accomplished on the weekend with the kid working and the wife away visiting her family. I read an entire Lawrence Block book.

The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes is really good. It's Block latest, published under the Hard Case Crime imprint. He goes back to the dark, sexy, noir genre and hits it hard. There's a little more hard-core sex in here than I was expecting (that's what she said) and a couple times I found myself thinking about the author and going: "Man, this guy's quite the horn-dog for being 78 years old."

Still, while it might have been a little overly explicit in places, it wasn't entirely gratuitous. The scenes were necessary to delve into the psyche of a couple of the characters (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). The plot was good, the twist at the end was good (though I saw it coming just in the nick of time).

I'd like to know why Block chose to write this under his own name, rather than under his Jill Emerson pseudonym of which he wrote Getting Off just four years ago. Seems if you're going to have a name for each genre, it might have been more appropriate there. Still. Very good. 7 out of 10 on the Haugenometer. Goodreaders have it at 3.75 of 5.

Time to go on a binge

There's binge watching ("24" comes to mind); there's binge drinking (college comes to mind); there's binge eating, and then there's probably the best thing for you: Binge reading.

For me binge reading is a joy. To spend consistent time in company of one specific group of characters, or one author's voice, is to spend quality time with good friends in a world far removed from the stresses of daily life. It is escapism at its purist.

I've done the binge reading thing a few times, not always with just one author, but also with a topic or genre. For instance, currently I've been joyfully stuck in the dark alleys of detective noir, reading Donald Westlake and Lawrence Block and their earlier work under pseudonyms. Am in the middle of Block's newest book, a throwback to his dark noir days, "The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes."

Most recent author I binged on was Robert Parker. Great stuff. I've binge-read Tim Dorsey's first ten books until I got caught up on his current stuff, as I did Vince Flynn.

It's fun, but you kind of hit that spot where you need to stop before things get old. Haven't got there yet with my dark, sexy, murderous 1950s-60s noir novels yet. Hope I never do.

Amanda Knox and other stuff

The markhaugen.com click-bait poster child Amanda Knox has been cleared once and for all. Justice has finally been done for the woman with the far-away eyes.

Go Italy!

In a statement issued Monday, Knox said: “I am deeply grateful that the Italian Supreme Court has filed its opinion and forcefully declared my innocence. This has been a long struggle for me, my family, my friends, and my supporters. While I am glad it is now over, I will remain forever grateful to the many individuals who gave their time and talents to help me.”

You're welcome, Amanda.

Stories of other interest:

*** The League of Denial: 87 Deceased NFL Players Test Positive for Brain Disease

*** This reminds me of the old joke: Where does an elephant sleep?

Anywhere he wants to.

So, where does the Pope sleep during his visit to the U.S.

*** Time for a task force to increase writers' salaries!

Whatcha been reading, Haugen? Sleaze

As you see, I took the summer off from the blog-o-sphere. Been doing really important stuff, going to baseball games, gardening, jogging less and slower than usual, and goofin' around with my dogs. Like I said, important stuff. But I can't hold back the angry hordes any longer. A blog-posting I must go.

I did squeeze in a lot of reading this summer, but I won't bore you with reviews of every one. I will, however, bore you with highlights. In order of most recent:

* Memory - by Donald Westlake. My man DW wrote over 100 books in his career and this was the last one, though another was published posthumously (that's after he died for those of you from Iowa). The majority of his books are sarcastic, satirical, dark comedy; but this was just plain old dark. I was in kind of a jammed up funk myself for a few days and normally a Westlake novel, like a Prince CD, would unfunk my junk; but this just funked it up more. Was glad when I was done. Did I mention it was dark and depressing. Even the ending. Gave it a 6- on the Haugenometer.

* Man Hungry - by Alan Marshall (aka Donald Westlake). DW wrote under at least 4 pseudonyms, and this was his first of any of them, written back in 1957. I've resolved to read all of Westlake's books. It actually crossed my mind to read all of them uninterrupted (I've got about 80 to go), but I nixed that idea for being too weird, even by my standards. This book was vintage Westlake, albeit a little more the sultry pulp fiction side. This had to be pretty salacious stuff by 1950s Happy Days standards, as there were hookers, lesbians, college professor/student sex and lots of vodka. Good characters, some dark humor, and all the twists and turns you come to expect from The Donald (the one I like). Gave it a 7 on the Haugenometer, because I really liked vodka in college.

* Gathering Prey - by John Sandford. Detective Lucas Davenport chases bad guys from my backyard (Sturgis) to Minneapolis and beyond. You don't find a lot of popular fiction featuring Jugaloos. Sandford pulls it off though, as usual. Haugenometer hit 7 again.

* Tiger Shrimp Tango - by Tim Dorsey. I keep telling myself I'm done with Dorsey, but then he puts out a new one and I can't resist the stupidity and hijinks of Serge Storms. It's like the SpongeBob Squarepants of novels. Sometimes you just have to go for the chuckle. Managed a 6- and I lost a few brain cells in the process.

* Pastime - by Robert B. Parker. This is the 18th in the Spenser series (think Tom Selleck and Spenser for Hire). It was good, not great. A 6.

* Getting Off - by Jill Emerson (aka Lawrence Block). As lifelong buddy with Westlake, Block shared his affinity for pseudonyms. This was one of Block's oldies too, as I continue to delve into the 1950s-60s noir novels, which sounds better than saying I'm dabbling in soft-core porn (of which Block wrote 7 novels as Jill Emerson). Basically the main character, a woman, kills men after she sexes them and is now going back and killing the ones she missed earlier in her life. Her lesbian lover eventually joins in the fun. It was Penthouse Letters meets Murder Mystery. I liked it. 7+.

* The Rembrandt Affair - by Daniel Silver. Another in the Israeli spy thriller series with art restorer/secret agent Gabriel Allon. 7-.

Finished: Daniel Silva's 'The Defector'

The Defector is the ninth of 15 books in Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon series. Allon is a Mossad agent and art restorer.

Silva's strength lies in his ability to describe scenes without going all Dan Brown or Harper Lee on you. The plot in this one though is relatively generic: introspective spy with hot wife tracks Russian oligarch to forest hideaway to rescue friend and wife, bullets fly, love is made. Basically, it reads like my autobiography.

There were several clever lines I wanted to remember, but was too lazy to get off the couch to find a pen. Basically, a more accurate autobiography of me.

Amazonian's give it a 4.5 out of 5. Goodreaders are a little less generous at 4.26.

I thought this one slipped from Silva's usually high standards. Still good, but not great. A 6-plus on the 10-point Haugenometer.