Here’s a story about a man transporting a dime from the West Coast to the East Coast. The catch: the dime is worth $1.9 million:
Feigenbaum is a rare-coin dealer, and the dime he was carrying across the country, from San Jose to New York, is an 1894-S dime, one of only nine known to exist and one of only 24 known to be coined that year in San Francisco.
It was his job to pick up the dime from the seller’s vault in Oakland and deliver it to the buyer’s vault in midtown Manhattan….
Feigenbaum had purchased a coach ticket, to avoid suspicion, but found himself upgraded to first class. That was a worry, because people in flip-flops, T-shirts and grubby jeans do not regularly ride in first class. But it would have been more suspicious to decline a free upgrade. So Feigenbaum forced himself to sit in first class, where he found himself to be the only passenger in flip-flops.
He was too nervous to sleep, he said. He did not watch the in-flight movie, which was “Firehouse Dog.” He turned down a Reuben sandwich and sensibly declined all offers of alcoholic beverages.
The best war journalism going on right now is not being done by the major news organizations, but by independent journalists such as Michael Yon and Michael Totten. Here’s Totten out with US troops in Baghdad, trying to find a person of interest:
The area did appear to be nice, billowing plastic bags notwithstanding. Every house was considerably larger than the average American home and seemed to be well-maintained. I wouldn’t mind living in a neighborhood like it myself if it weren’t in Iraq.
“I suppose I shouldn’t smoke,†I said to Eddy.
“You got that right,†Eddy said. “Snipers wearing night vision can see the tip of your cigarette from a mile away. They’ll watch as you lift the cigarette to your mouth and figure out where your head is. Then BLAMMO. They’re really good shots.â€
I kept the cigarettes in my pocket.
I’ve donated to both Totten and Yon; consider doing the same. ..bruce..
It is common in “serious” reviews of J. K. Rowling’s works to start with disclaimers regarding her writing — awkward, overly long, inconsistent, filled with excessive and irrelevant details about this ‘magic’ world, and so on.
Give me a break.
Rowling has managed to create one of the greatest phenomenons in the history of literature, and she’s done so by convincing children – you know, those net-besotted, IM-ing, video-game-obsessed manikins — to read thousands upon thousands of pages and beg for more. She’s sold something over 300 million copies of the first six Harry Potter volumes worldwide; the first five volumes have already been turned into highly successful movies, and there’s little doubt the last two movies will do well also. Rowlings has probably done more single-handedly to increase and improve child literacy worldwide than all the government programs ever attempted.
There is a tremendous amount of mediocre, imitative, and downright bad children’s literature out there, including numerous attempts to copy or adapt the Harry Potter formula. There’s also a lot of decent kidlit out there as well. Don’t see them selling 300+ million copies or turning into multiple movie blockbusters, do you? Rowling’s genius lies in creating a world that millions of kids (and not a few adults) want to live in, a world that calls to their better nature while recognizing and accepting their imperfections.
While I (like other adult reviewers) find it frustrating at times at how many problems would be solved or short circuited if these character would just talk to each other, I must also acknowledge — as someone who has raised 9.5 teenagers and lived to tell about it — that this is actually quite realistic behavior, even if it’s not particularly entertaining or satisfying.
Are her books among my personal favorites? Not yet, though I was surprised how much I enjoyed re-reading both The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince this past week in preparation of the release of The Deathly Hallows. I was even more surprised at finding myself moved at a few spots.
So when this morning The Deathly Hallows appeared on my doorstep (via Amazon.com), I did my one major yardwork chore for the day and then curled up with it.
I read it in one sitting and just finished it a little while ago.
My verdict: bravo. Or to make it clearer: Bravo!
I didn’t have to force myself to read it that fast; the book, for all of its 700+ pages, flowed quickly. There were a few chapters early on that I felt might have been trimmed a bit or even eliminated, but once the book gets going, it’s all lean meat and compelling reading.
More importantly, Rowlings is not afraid to have real, unalterable tragedy. Mind you, this isn’t The Trojan Women or Agamemnon — the ending is hopeful and generally happy. But lots of people die — innocent bystanders (including Muggles), minor characters, and major characters as well (see more after the jump), children as well as adults. There is destruction and upheaval. There is evil, and evil often has its way.
But there is good as well, and nobility, and sacrifice, and courage in the face of darkness and defeat. I can think of no better lesson for the current and coming generations of children in our world.
This is easily the best of the seven books, and the movie deserves to be a good 3+ hours long, just to capture the full scope of the final several chapters. More importantly, though, Rowling has created a classic in children’s literature that will last for several generations at least.
Again, bravo!
This ends the spoiler-free section of the review.
SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT READ BEYOND THE JUMP IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS! SPOILERS AHEAD!
This came from Little Green Footballs, the video below is a bit long, but is a fascintating piece of reporting from a man who used to be entangled with England’s radical Islamist movements. Somehow he was able to put his feet on a better path, and now is speaking out. If you wonder about where “the other side of Islam” is, this could be a good start.
As the article points out, over 2000 soldiers died every day during this battle, which lasted for several months (July-November 1917). The ground was so torn up by artillery and flooded from rains that soldiers actually drowned on the battlefield.
Tolkien acknowledged that his own WWI experiences in this horrific setting inspired the “Dead Marshes” in The Lord of the Rings, but the reality here is more awful than anything Tolkien described.
