Steve Berry's The Paris Vendetta

Steve Berry's 2009 The Paris Vendetta is, in my opinion, one of his weaker efforts. Like his others, the novel weaves some interesting historical facts into a twisting plot peopled by his fictional characters. Cotton Malone, an ex-spy and now bookseller in Copenhagen is again the protagonist. He and his old friend, Henrick Thorvaldsen have a falling out due to Hendrick's obsession with killing his only son's murderer.

Unfortunately, this time Berry is not as convincing as usual in combining a search for Napoleon's secret treasure trove and an attempt by the Paris Club to amass huge fortunes for its members by using terrorism to manipulate the economies of the world. On the other hand, Berry fans will be able to overlook that and enjoy the fast-paced action with its fascinating and unexpected twists and turns.

Childish Republican Senators Refuse to Work

As reported by Huffington Post, Republican senators are refusing to work after 2 P.M.. Using a little known or used Senate rule, senators do not have to attend committee meetings after 2 P M unless the full senate is in session. This appears to be a part of John McCain's threat that Republicans would not cooperate after they lost the Health care fight. (HP 3/27/2010)

How does one say "poor losers"?

Christine Brennan Wants More Blood From Tiger

No sports commentator, it seems, hates Tiger Woods more than Christine Brennan. Like everyone else she is extremely disturbed by his behavior and questions the sincerity of his attempt to change; but, for some reason, she wants him to fire his caddie, Steve Williams, and his agent, Mark Steinberg. Although there is no reason to believe they had anything to do with Tiger's private sexual affairs, she somehow thinks they should have known what he was up to and should have stopped it.

She sets the bar quite high. Should Dwight Eisenhower's aides be held responsible for not preventing the General's affair with his driver? Just as Eisenhower's private affair was not his aides' responsibility, so too Tiger's affairs were not his caddie's and agent's responsibility.

Christine wants more blood-letting.

ESPN "Experts" Were Not So Good

As the second weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament begins, my chances of winning either of the two pools (just kidding, IRS) in which I am participating is fourteen percent.

The problem is I listened to Dick Vitale and the other "experts" on ESPN. Prior to the tournament they were bemoaning the weakness of the field, suggesting that there were no quality teams other than the top 20. In fact. they were laughing at the NCAA for considering expanding future tournament to 96 teams, telling us there were not enough decent teams for a field of 64.

Being the lemming that I am, I believed them. Also, remembering that last year there were just a few minor upsets, the only upsets I picked were among the top 20 seeds.

And then last weekend, they actually played the games. Ohio University (#14) defeated Georgetown (#3) and that was just the beginning. Old dominion, Murray State, Cornelll, and St. Mary were all seeded # 10 or below and won at least one round. A number 9, Northern Iowa took out the over-all number one seed, Kansas.

And then there were the disparaging remarks the experts made about the PAC 10. Again, once the games were played, #9 Washington defeated 36 Marquette and #3 New Mexico. On the other hand, "they" extolled the depth of the Big East, and we know how that turned out--the only one left is West Virginia.

I've learned my lesson. Next year I'll go back to my old system of illing out the brackets--flipping a coin.

J. A. Konrath: "The List"

An action-packed, humorous, mystery-thriller, "The List" by J. A Konrath was a pleasant surprise. The pivotal character, Tom Modrowski, a Chicago detective, in the course of a murder investigation learns that the victim has a number tattooed on his heal just as he does. He and the victim are on a list of people with a similar tattoo, and thus begins his bizarre adventure with a group of "characters."

But do not look for this book in your local bookstore. Since it is available only in Kindle format, one can download it from Amazon for $1.99. Mr. Konrath has been quite successful selling his work in this way which allows him complete control of all aspects of the process including details of cover design and type face. Apparently, he has sold 30K ebooks in the last 11 months.

Although certain aspects of the plot require one to "go along for the sake of a good story," I downloaded another of his works before I finished reading "The List."

San Marco Parish Gets It Right

San Marco Church

Marco Island, FL

Friday evening, Sandy and I had the pleasure of attending a Lenten Fish Fry at San Marco Catholic Church on Marco Island. In addition to enjoying the fish, coleslaw, potatoes, ice cream, and wine, we had a great time meeting the parishioners and other tourists from all parts of the U.S. Later Sandy commented, "This is what the Church does right; it can create an instant community out of this diverse group of strangers." And of course, as always, she was correct. The young and old; Republicans and Democrats; blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians: locals and tourists; even some Kentucky Wildcat fans; all were mingling and having a great time together.

As Vatican II suggested, the people of God are the ones who create community, not the hierarchy.

NCAA Basketball Geography

Excuse my confusion, but in looking over the draw fro the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament I noticed they have the city of Buffalo in the West and San Jose in the East. And then there is the phenomenon of Spokane being in the South and the Midwest. I am sure Purdue was delighted to be the fourth seed in the South, but was surprised that they have to go to Spokane to play in the South division.

I am sure the NCAA has a good reason for this, just as the Big Ten has a good reason for having eleven teams.

Lexus Slips Under the Media Radar

Lexus ES

While Toyota's problems and its inept cover-up have been widely reported, Lexus, the Toyota luxury headliner, has escaped practically unscathed--at least according to Kellley Blue Book which says Lexus' sales are increasing.

But as NYT reports: "...on a per-vehicle basis, Lexus is responsible for more reports of unintended acceleration than the rest of Toyota, federal records show. And more than half of the roughly 300 such complaints to regulators since 2000 about Lexus ES and IS series models--the only two models subject to recall--involve vehicles from years that have not been recalled...... Because Toyota sells about seven Camrys for every one Lexus ES, The ES is linked to more injuries per vehicle." (NYT 3/12/2010)

As we have come to expect from Toyota, their initial response is to divert adverse attention from the Lexus brand with its sales increasing while the rest of Toyota deals with rapidly decreasing sales.

The question is: how long is Toyota going to pretend that their Lexus nameplate does not have some serious safety problems?

Texas Version of American History

Sorry Thomas Jefferson; you have to go. Texans do

not want Deists.

An ultraconservative faction of the Texas State Board of Education has managed to incorporate radical right-wing ideals into the social studies, history and economics curricula that will be taught to Texas students for the next ten years. Apparently, the right-wing nuts were not satisfied with injecting religious bigotry into politics; they want to manipulate the public school system to foster their fundamentalist Christian propaganda. Does that remind you of some other fundamentalist schools? Like masadras in Pakistan?

Last week in Austin, Texas they required Texas teachers to teach:

The Judeo-Christian influence of the nation's Founding Fathers, BUT NOT explain the rationale for the separation of church and state.

Remove Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum's world history standards on Enlightenment thinking, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

Describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic' rather than a "democratic" government.

Single out the 2nd Amendment among the Bill of Rights.

Eliminate references to important Hispanics throughout history.

The vote, just as in the Supreme Court and in the halls of Congress, was a party line vote.

The unfortunate aspect of this situation is that Texas because of its size and the large number of textbooks it purchases has a a disproportionate influence on textbook publishers. The result will be that these ultraconservative changes will be incorporated in textbooks across the country.

These folks obviously have a difficult time recognizing that our Founding Fathers were Deists, and if they cannot somehow construe them to be Christians, they want to eliminate them. Bye, Bye, Thomas Jefferson! One would hope that the publishers would title the textbooks accordingly, e.g. "The Texas Version of American History"

I wonder: can we give Texas back to Mexico and apologize for stealing it? Probably not, Mexico doesn't need or want these radicals.

"Beware of Ronald Langhals"