Lev Raphael's Blog, page 37

Reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird As' an Adult

When the first Hobbit movie was coming out, I re-read the novel I loved as a kid to reacquaint myself with the story and was more enthralled than I expected to be.

The wry voice was something I missed as a twelve-year-old taken by the adventure and fantasy, and I reconnected immediately with what moved me most the first time: Bilbo's resourcefulness in fooling Gollum and fooling the dragon. In each case, the small, clever Hobbit outwits a fierce enemy-what a treat that must have been for a b...

Huckabee's Hitler Hysteria: A New Low

Why is Mike Huckabee obsessed with Hitler and the Nazis?

Talking about the the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran he recently said in an interview that:

This president's foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.

It's not only an outrageous comparison (Obama = SS guards), and utterly disrespectful to everyone who was murdered in the Holocaust, Jew and non-J...

Mark Twain Did Not Write Valentines

Mark Twain is deservedly remembered for his barbed wit, for lines like these from his Notebooks:

"Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children."

"There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him -- early."

But every now and then he's picked as the avatar of inspiration or even what Oscar Wilde called "more than usually revolting sentimentality."

Exhibit A, found all over the Internet, including that inexhaustible source of misquotations Goodreads:





Could anyone...

Another Week, Another Mass Shooting

I keep getting comparisons in my Facebook feed between the US and Australia when it comes to gun control and calls for us to follow their example. Noble idea. Flawed logic.

We can't and we won't, despite the fact that there are claims Australia "in some ways shares the United States' frontier mentality and history" since it was also ruled by Great Britain. But what happened there after a decade of gun violence left 100 people dead couldn't possibly happen here, even though it's resulted in a...

The Great Wall of Trump

Donald Trump has been down at the Mexican border talking about the need for a wall between The U.S. and Mexico.




What a brilliant idea. Look what the Great Wall has done for China! It's beautiful, unique, and you can even see it from outer space. Why doesn't Trump ante up some of his billions and get naming rights? That would give him dozens, maybe hundreds of Trump Towers.




China's wall is 5500 miles long and took 200 years to build, but our border with Mexico isn't mountainous and it...

Mark Twain Did Not Write Valentines!

Mark Twain is deservedly remembered for his barbed wit, for lines like these from his Notebooks:

"Familiarity breeds contempt--and children."

"There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him--early."

But every now and then he's picked as the avatar of inspiration or even what Oscar Wilde called "more than usually revolting sentimentality."

Exhibit A, found all over the Internet, including that inexhaustible source of misquotations Goodreads:





Could anyone who...

Mass Murder and Forgiveness?

Roxane Gay recently wrote a blistering column for the New York Times about alleged mass murderer Dylann Roof in which she declared unequivocally that she couldn't forgive him though other people have: "My lack of forgiveness serves as a reminder that there are some acts that are so terrible that we should recognize them as such. We should recognize them as beyond forgiving."

I understand exactly how she feels. Forgiveness is something that's come up many times in my own life as the son of Ho...

Mass Murder and Forgiveness

Roxane Gay recently wrote a blistering column for the New York Times about alleged mass murderer Dylann Roof in which she declared unequivocally that she couldn't forgive him though other people have: "My lack of forgiveness serves as a reminder that there are some acts that are so terrible that we should recognize them as such. We should recognize them as beyond forgiving."

I understand exactly how she feels. Forgiveness is something that's come up many times in my own life as the son of Ho...

Guess What Else Hemingway Didn't Say?

It must be wonderful to be dead and keep writing. I guess when you're a genius, nothing can stop you.

Like Hemingway. He died in 1961 but he keeps writing all kinds of snappy lines. I just saw a new posthumous quote this week: "The first draft of anything is shit." It's all over the Internet.



Imagine the excitement of the people hearing it at a writers conference séance when he transmitted that brilliant, ineffable wisdom to them from The Other Side!

Right.

But if you feel unhappy abo...

My Funny Faux Pas in France

Years ago when I was researching a book on Edith Wharton's psychology and fiction, I visited her former home north of Paris in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt. It was less than an hour north of the city and I'd written to the owner's secretary long in advance to get permission to explore it and take pictures. I didn't realize my clueless publisher would have no interest in the photos, not even an author photo of me in her garden. The ways of publishing have always been mysterious....

Arriving in that...