inkbluesky

I’m not sure exactly where I would place it on my favorite books list, but Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita would definitely be on it. Not to be confused with the 1962 film by Stanley Kubrick or the recent remake with Jeremy Irons ( If you only have time for one film version, go with the 1962). That his son has decided that Nabokov’s last and unfinished novel “The Original of Laura” be published is good news. Though Dmitri says he never seriously intended to burn the index cards on which it was written and from the interview at the NYT it sounds as though that was probably not Vladimir’s intent anyway.

pier zen

38 years ago today some students dared, in a democracy with a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech and expression to protest Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. Four of those students were killed and nine others injured.

Clinton/McCain Gas Tax ‘Holiday’ a Joke

Finally, I got a quote from Robert Shapiro, formerly the undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and the author of “Futurecast.” An independent voice with ties to the former first lady, however, did not give the expected results.

“Stated as clearly as I can,” he wrote, “it’s utterly misguided both environmentally and economically. Environmentally, it does actual harm, since it reduces the price of producing greenhouse gases. And economically it’s trivial or worse — by reducing the price of driving it encourages more of it, thereby increasing demand for gasoline, which inevitably pushes the price back up - the consumer gains nothing, and the oil companies and OPEC collect the extra bucks instead of the government.”

Nothing but pandering. I’m a little surprised that the idea is getting any serious play among candidates and the media.