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Book Review: The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer

What impression does Norman Mailer’s first novel in more than a decade leave? It’s probably irony. Promoted as an exploration of the struggle between good and evil, The Castle in the Forest comes off making Adolf Hitler, a poster child of evil, little more than relatively commonplace. In addition, while Mailer writes as well as […]

Weekend Tuesday marginalia

Weekend marginalia becomes Monday marginalia becomes Tuesday marginalia. The spambots finally appear to have stopped flooding the site (more than 1500 spam comments in the last week) and there items out there that sparked my interest were a victim of a lack of time to get around to this post.

We’ve been hearing for years […]

Life imitates “art”?

On a hockey note, the Des Moines USHL franchise brought in the Hanson Brothers for an appearance at Saturday night’s game against Indiana. For those who don’t know, the Hanson Brothers were the lovable “goons” in the hockey movie, Slap Shot, and all of whom went on to play professional hockey (and get in more […]

Prisoner mail oddities

I’m not suggesting there is anything afoul here, just unusual and coincidental.

Virtually every attorney gets mail from prison inmates, whether because they represent them or unsolicited. Last month, I got a letter from an inmate I was appointed to represent in a habeas corpus action. The letter didn’t make any sense as it referred […]

Book Review: Secrets of the SuperOptimist (2006)

We all know or have encountered at least one of them. The people who always see the glass as half full or, even more irritating, more than half full. The people with a bright outlook on life and the future. The people who always see the up side of things.

I used to hate them. […]