Sunday BS around SD

St. Patrick’s Church, Wall, Turns 100 (Penn. Co. Courant)

In April 1917, Reverend John Connolly became the region’s first resident pastor. He was responsible for parishioners in Wall, Quinn, Wasta and New Underwood. That year, the Wall parish purchased the unused Congregational Church building for $1,000, and a rectory for $1,300. The loans were paid off in four years. Over those years, and a few more, Wall  grew to became the only mission under Connolly.

Sturgis student prepares for Navy (Meade Co. Times)

"It gets difficult at times, but you have to set your priorities. Obviously, school is the most important thing in my life right now because if I don't graduate then I can't do any of this Navy stuff," he said.

Friday BS around SD

Hill City reporter taking a hike (Prevailer News)

I’m about to begin a journey that I’ve had on my bucket list for many years now. I’m going to start on the Mexican border in California and hopefully not stop until I reach Canada. I’m going to hike the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

Worthing teacher retires after 30 years (Lennox Independent)

This May Worthing Elementary’s second grade teacher, Pat Hoffman, will bid her last second grade class goodbye. “I get pretty attached. I always cry the last day of school,” she said.

SD man has scientists rethinking old Americans

In case you missed it, and I don’t know how you could have, a fossil discovered in San Diego has yielded potentially groundbreaking evidence suggesting that North America had human inhabitants more than 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.

It turns out that the lead author of the paper published in Nature announcing this discovery is the director of research at the Center for American Paleolithic Research, based in Hot Springs, SD.  His name is Steven R. Holen.

Holen’s peer-reviewed article in Nature is available at this link.

A separate (dumbed down for English majors) news article in Nature is here: Controversial study claims humans reached Americas 100,000 years earlier than thought

Their contention, if correct, would force a dramatic rethink of when and how the Americas were first settled — and who by. Most scientists subscribe to the view that Homo sapiens arrived in North America less than 20,000 years ago. The latest study raises the possibility that another hominin species, such as Neanderthals or a group known as Denisovans, somehow made it from Asia to North America before that and flourished.

“It’s such an amazing find and — if it’s genuine — it’s a game-changer. It really does shift the ground completely,” says John McNabb, a Palaeolithic archaeologist at the University of Southampton, UK. “I suspect there will be a lot of reaction to the paper, and most of it is not going to be acceptance.”

Thursday BS around SD

Local author to hold book launch party (Tea Weekly)

The time he has put in has paid off, as next weekend Wengert will host a book launch party for his two novels, Caveat Ties and Soul Shocked, that have recently been published. Wengert always aspired to be a writer for his career. He said, “In high school there were suggestions that I pursue a more realistic career.”

Whites looking to pass weather-watching baton in Edgemont (Herald Tribune)

The Whites have owned The Gun Vault since 2012, services provided are Gunsmithing, the sell of guns and ammo, etc. The Whites also own, Double Tap which was purchased in April of 2014 to help boost the local economy and provide a place of gathering. Double Tap offers both a firearm and an archery simulator; an archery range; self defense, gun, and survival classes; also the building can be rented out for different events ranging from birthday parties to quilting retreats.

BS around SD ...

Some of the best and most interesting news stories appear in newspapers most people don't read. Since I still have the love of weekly newspapers running through my veins, I'm going to try to be diligent in bringing some of those articles to you first thing in the morning. I'll throw in some interesting stories from the dailies too.

Mostly I'll stick to featurish type stories and leave the boring policy and politics stuff to other places that want to be boring.

I've cleverly titled these segments "BS around SD" with the "BS" standing for "best stories" and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

So let's start with a very interesting story from the Murdo Coyote and a feel-gooder from the Moody County Enterprise in Flandreau.


Tell Your Story … Bill Valburg (Murdo Coyote)

You may not have guessed ranching and flying go hand in hand but Valburg shares that his ‘49 Super Cub has been the best piece of machinery ever used on the family ranch. Valburg will celebrate his 90th birthday next January and will also be celebrating 70 years of braving the sky. Jones County is home to the Valburg family ranch but one county over is where the story first took flight.

Flandreau company donates 900 dozen eggs (Moody County Enterprise)

For every free throw made in Frost Arena by both the men’s and women’s basketball teams, Dakota Layers donated a dozen eggs. This year, 632 free throws were made and the company increased their total donation to 900 dozen or 10,800 eggs. That amount of eggs will feed approximately 900 families.

I have the hard-boiled fever ...

Got back on the noir crime novel train and knocked off Queenpin by Megan Abbot and One Fearful Yellow Eye by John D. MacDonald.

Queenpin rocked the old-school Vegas vibe and received the illustrious Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original as well as the Barry Award for the same. It was published in 2007. It is also unique in this hard-boiled crime genre as the protagonist is female.

A young woman hired to keep the books at a down-at-heel nightclub is taken under the wing of the infamous Gloria Denton, a mob luminary who reigned during the Golden Era of Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano.

This was my first roll in the hay with Abbot, who has a couple other novels out there. I’ll definitely be picking them up.Goodreaders give it 3.8 out of 5. The Haugenomter hit 7 out of 10 with this one.

A couple quotes from the book:

“Because she was solid gold, fourteen-carat, barely burnished despite twenty years of hard molling. But beneath it, I knew, beneath that gold and stardust, she was all grit and sharp teeth gnashing, head twisting, talons out, tearing flesh. She was all open mouth, tunneling into an awful nothing.” 

“You have to decide who you are, little girl, she told me once. Once you know that, everyone else will too.”

One Fearful Yellow Eye is the eighth novel in the Travis McGee series. I'm reading them out of order which doesn't seem to be a problem of continuity with the novels but is wreaking havoc with my OCD. This book was published in 1966.

The plot revolves around McGee's attempts to aid his longtime friend Glory Doyle in her quest to uncover the truth about her late husband and the blackmail which made over half a million dollars of his fortune disappear. It is largely set in Chicago, rather than the usual McGee haunt of Florida.

It boasts one of the higher ratings I’ve ever seen on Goodreads, a 4.1. I didn’t go that high with it, actually enjoyed Queenpin more, but a 6+ isn’t chicken feed either.

How to you extort $600,000 from a dying man? Someone had done it very quietly and skilfully to the husband of Travis McGee's ex-girlfriend. McGee flies to Chicago to help untangle the mess and discovers that although Dr. Fortner Geis had led an exemplary life, there were those who'd take advantage of one "indiscretion" and bring down the whole family. McGee also discovers he likes a few members of the family far too much to let that happen.

A couple quotes from the book:

“Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility.” 

“If there was one sunset every twenty years, how would people react to them? If there were ten seashells in all the world, what would they be worth? If people could make love just once a year, how carefully would they pick their mates?” 

Finished: MacDonald's 'A Man of Affairs'

A Man of Affairs by John D. MacDonald was an odd little book I enjoyed quite a bit.

I didn’t find it to be hardboiled fiction (certainly wasn’t a detective novel). It was more like a 1960s (?) business thriller set on a private island in the Bahamas. There were some affairs, a lot of drink, some fist-fights and murders, all centered around the takeover of a business by a playboy titan of industry.

Sam Glidden owed all his success to the opportunities he'd received from Thomas McGann, president of the Harrison Corporation. But now McGann was dead, and Mike Dean, a wildly flamboyant business speculator, was looking to add the Harrison Corporation to his long list of conquests. McGann's spoiled offspring, Tommy and Louise, saw the chance to make instant big bucks by selling out their shares. But Sam Glidden couldn't stand to see everything he'd worked for gobbled up by a barracuda like Mike Dean. So he wangled an invitation to the sand-and-surf soiree Dean planned for Louise and Tommy in the Bahamas ...

Amazonians seemed to like it alright, giving it a 4 of 5 stars. Goodreaders slightly less at 3.8. The Haugenometer settled at a 6 of 10.

If you don’t check out this book, you should check out something by John D. MacDonald. The dude sold over 70 million books in his day so he must’ve been doing something right.

Finished: Chaput's 'Strangers in a Strange Land'

After reading Archbishop Charles Chaput’s fabulous “Render unto Caesar,” I had high hopes for his latest book “Strangers in a Strange Land.” The bar was set high, as RUC was one of my favorite books. So it’s not totally surprising that SIASL didn’t meet expectations.

It was still good and I ended up with a well-marked up copy by the time I was finished, generally a good sign of what I consider interesting or thoughtful points. Yet this book seemed more term-paperish. Less original thought by Chaput and more use of citations. Obviously, a lot of Bible quotes, but many references to philosophers, both famous and obscure.

It was also kind of depressing. He’s pretty down on society right now and not particularly hopeful that Christians will pull us out of this funk any time soon. The message to me was more: Hunker down, do what you can within your little world, and cross your fingers because we are “strangers in a strange land” right now.

Amazon recaps the book:

America today is different in kind, not just in degree, from the past. And this new reality is unlikely to be reversed. The reasons include, but aren't limited to, economic changes that widen the gulf between rich and poor; problems in the content and execution of the education system; the decline of traditional religious belief among young people; the shift from organized religion among adults to unbelief or individualized spiritualities; changes in legal theory and erosion in respect for civil and natural law; significant demographic shifts; profound new patterns in sexual behavior and identity; the growth of federal power and its disregard for religious rights; the growing isolation and elitism of the leadership classes; and the decline of a sustaining sense of family and community.

It seemed almost a fitting book to read during Lent, which in and of itself is a somber, reflective season leading up to the Resurrection.

Here’s a good interview with Chaput by Kathryn Jean Lopez.

In it he says:

The book talks about the challenges we now face as American Christians — and yes, they’re serious — because if we’re not willing to face and understand our real circumstances, we can’t begin to change them. But the whole point of writing Strangers was to lead people through those challenges to claim the joy and hope of a life in Jesus Christ. If the book is about anything, it’s about why we can trust in God’s love for us.

The better that we live as Christians, the more others will discover Jesus Christ. That’s the only way to renew or convert a culture over time.

And I’d be remiss not mentioning that Chaput is former Bishop of Rapid City. Check out his interesting Wiki page.

*** This is an interesting story about 1,600 people going missing in our national parks.

When 18-year-old Joe Keller vanished from a dude ranch in Colorado's Rio Grande National Forest, he joined the ranks of those missing on public land. No official tally exists, but their numbers are growing. And when an initial search turns up nothing, who'll keep looking?

Good news on hardboiled crime

I’ve always dabbled in reading old, pulp noir detective books, but dove head-first into them the past couple years. What started as an obsession with Donald Westlake turned me toward Lawrence Block and now I’m into Robert B. Parker, Max Collins, John MacDonald and others. So much so that I spent the past year writing my own hardboiled detective novel, or three.

So it’s with glee that I report this story that I may be on the right side of the publishing trend for a change as the ol’ fedora and fists novels make a comeback.

As political corruption, violence and gender politics gain fresh relevance, pulp noir is attracting new voices and audiences, giving the gumshoe a 21st-century reboot

“Corruption and violence are hardly things of the past. Men in power taking advantage of the weak and getting away with murder – that’s the stuff of headlines today,” he says. “People turning to crime in desperation or out of frustration and anger. Frightened men on the run, or vengeful ones on the hunt – when did that ever go out of date?”

Check it out (even quote Mr. Block): Dames, detectives and dope: why we still love hardboiled crime

This is indeed a dilly

So I'm reading this 1957 novel:

And found this first page interesting:

If you read one news story this month, make it this one

This is a startling, in-depth article on drug abuse. The numbers are staggering.

Fifty-two thousand Americans died of overdoses in 2015—about four times as many as died from gun homicides and half again as many as died in car accidents.

I also found the politically-correct nonsense espoused by some of the mental health providers to be maddening. The last place we need to be dumbing down the language, so as not to offend, is when it has life-and-death consequences.

It is true that we cannot arrest our way out of a drug problem. But we cannot medicate and counsel our way out of it, either, and that is what we have been trying to do for almost a decade.

The story is long but packed with information. I didn't find any partisan edge to it either. Well worth your time. You'll be a smarter person for reading it.

The population of addicts is like the population of deer. It is highest in rustic places with access to urban supplies. Missouri’s heroin problem is worst in the rural counties near St. Louis.

University prez responds to bigots: A Tapestry of Talent

Some racist flyers were recently put up in the dark of the night by a KKK idiot at three colleges in South Dakota, including the S.D. School of Mines & Technology.

SDSMT President Heather Wilson (and nominee to be next Secretary of Air Force) responded with the following letter to students and staff. It's about as good of response as could be done with the exception of punching the perpetrator(s) in the face.

***

"No Irish Need Apply"

That was the sign in many New England shop windows that faced my great grandmother, Annie Skalley, when she came to America from County Cork in the late 1800s.

Some time ago, my cousin Carol found one of those signs in a flea market and had it framed.  It hung in her kitchen as an ironic reminder of how far our family had come in three short generations.

Carol's father, the son of Italian immigrants, had enlisted in the U.S. Army and had been a medic in the Battle of the Bulge.  A member of the greatest generation, he came home after the war to open a drug store that served our small town for decades.  When he married my Aunt Anne, named after Annie Skalley, it was quite controversial for an Irish girl to marry an Italian boy.  He endured his share of insults, which I won't share here.

With every wave of immigration in America, some have promoted the fiction that the only ones who belong here, the only ones who really contribute to this remarkable country, the only "real" Americans, are people who look and sound and speak and pray like the person we see when we look in the bathroom mirror in the morning.

But when we set aside our fears and our pride, and look around us, we know that's just not true.

Here, at the School of Mines, we prepare leaders in engineering and science and we advance the world’s knowledge.  Some of these young leaders gather in the Newman Center on Sunday nights; others pray five times a day facing Mecca.  Our exceptional students are the descendants of slaves and the descendants of Norwegian farmers.  Some are indigenous here, others arrived as refugees from wars that still rage.  They are the children of wealthy parents who have been provided every opportunity, and the children of unknown fathers who have aged out of foster care.  As faculty and staff we have similar winding paths that brought us to this place.

All of us are part of the rich tapestry of talent that will help solve the great challenges of the twenty-first century.  Each of us deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

Many of you are aware that over the past week someone has been placing posters around campus that remind me of the signs Annie Skalley saw as a girl.  The same posters have shown up on at least two other college campuses in South Dakota.  A lot of you may not have seen them at all, and are wondering why I’m writing this email to you.  I’m writing because some of you have seen them, and have been deeply offended by them.  When posters from outside groups appear on our campus, they are taken down, as is our standard policy.

The appropriate response to an objectionable idea is a better idea articulately conveyed.  It is to reach out to our friends and colleagues and students and let them know – very explicitly – that we are glad they are here.  It is to share our stories, share a meal, share a smile, share a word of welcome.  We work together to solve hard problems and discover new things.  We do so joyfully with friends who have different stories from our own.

One of our very successful alumni is Peter Stephans.  Peter escaped from Hungary in 1956 and came to South Dakota, barely able to speak English.  I met him shortly after I became the President of Mines at the company he now owns outside Cleveland.  We drove in his sports car to have lunch at his country club.  When the lovely meal was finished, I asked this very successful CEO what he remembered about the School of Mines, and his eyes filled with tears.  "They welcomed me," he said.  "I had nothing.  I was just a boy, a refugee very far from home.  And they welcomed me."

That is who we are.  And no poster hung in the dark of night will change the fundamental decency of who we choose to be.

Have a pleasant and restful spring break.  Please take some time with each other in the coming days, and with our students when they come back, for conversation and fellowship, each in your own way.  That will make all the difference.

Warm Regards,

Heather Ann Wilson
President

A no-drama link-oh-rama

So I've been working on some detective writing this past year or so, more along the lines of hard-boiled, noir, like I've been binge reading. Hope to wow you with the first installment in a couple months, probably, maybe, who knows. Until then, here's some detecting to kick off the link-oh-rama:

*** Book review: Investigating literature’s most epic detective (for now).

*** Basically, this tells me, if you want to be like President Trump, Kanye West or Tomi Lahren (how the heck does she get thrown in with those names?) then don't read books.

Several “successful people” eschew books, including President Trump ( “I read passages, I read areas, chapters”), Kanye West ( “I am a proud non-reader of books”) and The Blaze personality Tomi Lahren (“I don’t like to read long books. I like to read news”).

Even if that list isn’t very convincing, people whom I personally am assured are much smarter than myself, such as my husband (who reads case law for a living and in-depth statistical analysis for fun) probably would answer “No” if the Pew Foundation came around asking if he had read a book in the past year.

So sure, I’m not going to be wringing my hands over Americans’ lack of reading anytime soon, aside from general lament toward the cult of anti-intellectualism currently present in some circles. But as an avid reader myself—a proud purveyor of biographies, classic literature, and utter trash alike (I really, really, love “Confessions of a Shopaholic” and mass-market Star Trek books) — I am an advocate of cracking open a book, firing up your e-reader, or investing in an Audible.com account. Here’s why.

*** Pretty tempted to get this one: Huck Out West. An excerpt in Huck-speak:

But no, just when I’m fixing to set back and catch up on my fishing on the Mississippi, here comes Huck Out West by Mr. Robert Coover. He’s writ novels that was interesting but tough, like The Origin of the Brunists, about how religion gets mangled by the folks who believe in it. And The Public Burning, about a real couple called Ethel and Julius Rosenberg that got convicted as spies. Railroaded is the way he seed it. They wound up in the electric chair. This Mr. Coover is one angry man.

Well, here, he’s the ventriloquist and I’m the innocent wanderer again, heading for the mountains like Mr. Twain once did, stumbling into the dark side of the Western Expansion. Some of the old Missouri gang are with me. Trouble is, Mr. Coover, he makes them into folks I don’t hardly recognize. For instance, Jim could break your heart when he talked about how much he loved his wife and children that was sold into slavery.

*** Prison made him believe in literature. I feel ya dude.

Naji is best known internationally for being imprisoned for the sexual content and drug references in his novel The Use of Life, in a society where these subjects remain largely taboo.

However, sitting in his apartment close to the Nile in central Cairo, Naji plays down the image he has acquired as a result of his plight, and the themes that got him into trouble.
A blend of existentialist literature, fantasy and social criticism, The Use of Life follows Bassam, a young man who lives in an alternate Cairo, which Naji imagines as a grubby metropolis that has risen from a series of natural disasters that levelled the city. Filled with irreverent references to masturbation, fetishes and pornography, the book is consistently transgressive. Bassam’s opinions and ideas are also knowingly progressive – having sex with an older woman, keeping transgender friends, indulging in drugs and drink.

“Sex and drugs play a very important part in Cairo,” says Naji – while stressing that they are not the main themes of his novel. As he sees it, The Use of Life is about “the history of the city and how it has been designed … and how people in this Kafkaesque maze are trying to find a small piece of joy”.

Chaput has a new book out. Read it.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, former bishop in Rapid City, has a new book out, Strangers in a Strange Land. From the excerpts I’ve read it looks to be the usual interesting writing I’ve grown accustomed to from him.

Chaput has a unique ability to bring religious writing down to the level of the average Joe. It’s not like reading a doctoral thesis. His book, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, is one of my favorite books of any genre.

For instance, from Strangers:

But what we do in the world, how we live and how we love (or misuse love) — these things always have consequences. And they always emerge from the past to pay a visit. Choices don’t stay buried.

That echoes my wife’s most oft-repeated words to our kids and to the college Catholic kids she serves at the SD School of Mines Newman Center: "Make good choices." For the most part they have, but not always. Kind of like her husband.

In fact, this might be a good Lenten read for me. Reminder, Lent starts on March 1, Ash Wednesday. Be there or be heathen.

Finished: Block's 'A Diet of Treacle'

I knocked off another short novel by Lawrence Block over the weekend. Oddly enough, I even had to look up one of the words in the title: A Diet of Treacle.

Never heard of treacle before. Apparently it’s a British molasses type mixture. My old-school dictionary didn’t even have an entry for it, so I had to Google it.
 British. molasses, especially that which is drained from the vats used in sugar refining.

Also called golden syrup. A mild mixture of molasses, corn syrup, etc., used in cooking or as a table syrup.

 The title didn’t really make any sense until I finished the book and thought about it.  The book begins with a quote from Alice in Wonderland that helps make it more understandable.

The title is actually better than its original title in 1961: Pads Are for Passion.

Anita Carbone was a good girl—and it bored her.

That’s why she took the long subway ride down to Greenwich Village, home of the Beats and the stoners, home to every kind of misfit and dropout and free spirit you could imagine. It was where she met Joe Milani, the troubled young war veteran with the gentle touch. But it was also where she met his drug-dealing roommate—a man whose unnatural appetites led to murder ...

 Reviewers call this a beatsploitation novel because he seems to be knocking the beatniks/hipsters of the 1960s in Greenwich Village and their sex and drugs lifestyle.

My favorite thing about the book is that it’s not all tied together until the last sentence. I love that. The book is dark. Really dark, even by my standards. Unlike most murder mysteries, he doesn’t actually get to the murder until you’re two-thirds through the book. Usually they say you have to have the murder in the first 100 pages. But, Block being Block, makes it work.

Very interesting work. Well worth the read. I gave it a 7- on the 10-point Haugenometer.

Coming full circle with the milkweeds

Getting some stuff started in my greenhouse recently reminded me of how I’ve come full circle in life from playing in the dirt as a kid. It wasn’t the dirt so much as it was the plant – milkweed.

One of the things today’s youth can barely fathom was the summer ritual I endured with several other friends and neighbors. It was called walking beans. Starting at 6 or 7 in the morning, and sometimes in the evenings, we’d walk with corn knives or hoes (another term I’d have to explain to today’s kids) and would chop the weeds out of the soybeans. The primary weeds were milkweeds, cocklebur and volunteer corn.

It was a thankless, monotonous job that was only made tolerable by the friends you did it with. And it was an equal opportunity job, as the farm girls joined in. They key was to try and get lined up next to the prettiest one, as if really mattered if I was lined up closest to or farthest away from her, but still. It made it easier when we threw dirt clods at each other. The best prank to pull though was the old “how’d you miss that weed, you idiot?” ploy. For that one you lagged behind for a bit and then when the person a few rows over got far enough ahead you’d grab a big weed you’d chopped and go push it into the ground  in their rows. Then after they got far ahead and you caught up, you’d casually turn around, scan the field and say: “How’d you miss that weed, you idiot?” They’d be pretty sure they didn’t but couldn’t risk not retracing their steps to make sure.

Bean walking resulted in one surgery for me, when one of my friend’s hoes severed a ligament in my hand. And I’m not sure what, but am pretty sure there may be some effects to come from the Raid that Selma Hansen sprayed on me when we walked for her and Selmer (yes, Selmer and Selma Hansen) in the evenings during the height of mosquito spawn. She claimed Off wasn’t strong enough for them. And who was this punk kid to argue with her? Douse me good, Selma!

I caught the tail end of the “bean buggy” fad, where lazy kids got to actually sit in a seat and spray the weeds. That didn’t last long though as evil corporation Monsato came along and ruined the bean walking biz by developing Round-up Ready beans. Now farmers can just whiz through the field and spray the whole works and the beans will survive.

Some will say that this has contributed to the decline of bees and monarch butterflies. I don’t know. I’m just an English major. But it probably didn’t help.

So where the “full circle” thing comes into play now is that this year for the first time I found myself planting milkweeds. Yes, once the bane of my existence, now I’m trying to grow the #&*^#$ things.

Why?

Because monarch butterflies need them to raise baby butterflies, and what can I say: I like baby butterflies. Unlike human babies, they are quiet, let you sleep and don’t make messes.

One thing I’ve noticed about my spot of heaven in the Hills is that it’s really difficult to find milkweeds and monarchs. I’m sure there’s some rancher out here who can point me otherwise but they aren’t around like they used to be and the milkweeds certainly aren’t nearly as abundant as Canadian thistle.

So last fall I spotted a milk weed, can’t even remember where, and went over and picked a peck of pods. I saved them and tried starting some a few weeks ago. Of the 12x12 container, I only had one seed germinate. I think it was a storage issue for me and I didn’t do a very good job. I’ll keep trying.

The plan, so my neighbors won’t hate me more than they already do, is to pick the pods this fall in my garden before they burst open and all the seeds start flying away. And the air will waft with clouds of butterflies and rainbows will fill the sky. That’s the plan anyway. But as I always advise people, Custer had a plan too.

Time to get smashed

I’m not an e-book guy. I’ve read one book, maybe parts of two others on my Kindle. But I recognize I’m in the minority on this, kind of like my presidential vote for Darrell Castle. I’m a 1-percenter. I get it.

Many people love their e-readers, and I’m happy for you. So happy for you that I would again like you to take a look at a really cool e-book site called smashwords.com. I got on the site years ago in its inception as a book seller. I have my novels there and some short stories.

There are several great points for you to consider as a reader.

Firstly, the variety. There’s a category for everybody: fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry, plays. You want travel? Got it. Religion? Yep. Gardening? Uh, huh. Some sexier stuff? Oh, yeah.

Now you aren’t going to find Dean Koontz or JK Rowling hanging out at smashwords. But you might find the NEXT Koontz or Rowling there.

I won’t lie to you, there’s some total crap writers there. But the majority are very good writers. And the downloads are much cheaper than you’ll find at Amazon. And it’s free and simple to sign up. Plus you get free samples of almost everything you might want before you buy.

Secondly, you can download in whatever format you want. Got a Kindle, a Nook, a Cranny, a Pad, whatever.

Smashwords says: The Smashwords Store provides an opportunity to discover new voices in all categories and genres of the written word. Once you register, the site offers useful tools for search, discovery and personal library management.  Most of our books are affordably priced and multi-format. Over 55,000 of our books are priced at free.

As a book seller there, I’ve found it to be better than Amazon.

It seems the customers at Smashwords are very loyal to the authors there. I’ve sold hundreds of e-books and thousands of free downloads. The freebies are everything from short stories (to hopefully encourage people to buy this dude’s novels) to other give-aways and specials I’ve had on those books.

That’s the other cool thing they do is set up coupons and deals at whatever discount I want for however long I want. Amazon is much more heavy-handed. They have rules for everything and are very territorial. I get it. Fine.

But I’ve sold books in both places, and Smashwords has smashed Amazon when it comes to digital sales for me.

Smashwords lets me set my price and I get a much bigger percentage of that than Amazon too. It's not even close.

Perhaps my favorite thing about Smashwords though is that once I upload my novel (an easy process) and my cover and my particulars (cost, etc.), then within days, sometimes hours, they then ship it to other outlets like Barnes and Noble, Apple, libraries and everywhere (except Amazon).

This isn’t to bash Amazon. That’s where I buy majority of my pulp fiction. But Amazon controls 70 percent of the market. If you want to help the little guys, get signed up at Smashwords and throw a couple bucks to an independent author. He or she might be famous someday and you can take partial credit.

And you'll be all signed up and ready to go should my next novel pop up there this spring. That's the rumor anyway.

Finished: In Sunlight or In Shadow

Legendary author Lawrence Block corralled some of his author buddies and came up with an ingenious idea. Each author picked an Edward Hopper painting (you know ‘em when you see ‘em) and the writer was tasked with using that painting as inspiration for a short story.

The book is called: In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper.

I started this in December and have been reading them off and on. I love these kind of anthologies where you can knock one off when you have fifteen minutes. I just finished it this weekend and absolutely loved it. If I counted this as a 2016 read, it would be my favorite of the year.

From Amazon:

A truly unprecedented literary achievement by author and editor Lawrence Block, a newly-commissioned anthology of seventeen superbly-crafted stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper.

Amazonians give it 4.5 out of 5.

It introduced me to some accomplished authors I’d never read before and I quickly added some of their works to my Amazon cart and my BTB (books to buy) list I take to the used book store.

I was really looking forward to the Lee Child story (he of Jack Reacher), but it was surprisingly one of the weaker ones of the bunch. Seemed like he just threw something together quick and didn’t even use Jack Reacher in the story. I thought he dropped the ball on that.

Stephen King’s was expectedly creepy. I saw his was nominated with Block’s short story for a prestigious Edgar Award (named after Poe).

Goodreads lists some of the authors:

Contributors include Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Justin Scott, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Warren Moore, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Lawrence Block himself. Even Gail Levin, Hopper’s biographer and compiler of his catalogue raisonée, appears with her own first work of fiction, providing a true account of art theft on a grand scale and told in the voice of the country preacher who perpetrated the crime.

Goodreaders give it a 3.8 out of 5.

It hits 7+ out of 10 on the Haugenometer. Fantastic. Below is probably the most famous Hopper painting: Nighthawks:

The only January I like is Jones

As far as I'm concerned it's always good to have January in the rear-view mirror.

Been wondering this past month, is there a point at which these protests kind of lose their "oompf?" The boy who cried wolf type of thing? Can everything be so bad? Is everybody who disagrees with anyone Hitler, or a fascist or a communist or a sexist, racist, homophobe cat-lover? Can't anyone just be a goof or an idiot anymore or maybe just make a mistake without being the devil personified?

I tell anyone who will listen: If your daily happiness is dependent on who is president of the United States, you've got bigger problems. Sure, it's good to be politically aware and engaged, but losing your minds over it? Grow up. My happiness is generally determined by events and people within a five-mile radius of me.

But as a guy who watches politics like I watch a football game, it is fascinating. If I'd known it was going to be this entertaining and Trump was going to cause so many heads to explode, I might've voted for him.

Now if he'd just do something about that damn prairie dog that says six more weeks of winter.

Anyway, link away:

*** Shared this with my daughter, currently student teaching a fifth-grade class. I thought it was pretty cool but know I'd have difficulty, not so much with the handshakes, but remembering which handshake went with which kid.

*** This seems kind of rude, but effective. Creative people say 'No.'

*** Good article at SDPB after a sick killing of a convenience store clerk. Police Chief Karl Jegeris believes there are new levels of crazy because of meth.

*** Tough to find thoughtful pieces now-a-days, especially on anything Trump related. This seemed pretty fair regarding the travel restrictions.

*** Facebook dead, 12, victim of 2016.

*** What I'm reading: Lawrence Block's "In Sunlight or in Shadow." About done. Loving it.