Reading Is A Majority Skill

Life Is Like Invading Russia. A Blitz Start, Massed Shakos, Plumes Dancing Like A Flustered Henhouse; A Period Of Svelte Progress Recorded In Ebullient Despatches As The Enemy Falls Back; Then The Beginning Of A Long, Morale-sapping Trudge With Rations Getting Shorter And The First Snowflakes Upon Your Face. The Enemy Burns Moscow And You Yield To General January, Whose Fingernails Are Very Icicles. Bitter Retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually You Fall Beneath A Boy-gunner's Grapeshot While Crossing Some Polish River Not Even Marked On Your General's Map.

Most Of Us Remember Adolescence As A Kind Of Double Negative: No Longer Allowed To Be Children, We Are Not Yet Capable Of Being Adults.

We Live, We Die, We Are Remembered, We Are Forgotten.

It Is A Bizarre Thought That In This [u.s. 2008] Presidential Cycle We Could Have Had A Woman In The White House We Might Have A Black Man In The White House But If Either Of Them Had Said They Were Atheists Neither Of Them Would Have Had A Hope In Hell.

In An Oppressive Society The Truth-telling Nature Of Literature Is Of A Different Order, And Sometimes Valued More Highly Than Other Elements In A Work Of Art.