Sir Terry Pratchett

Congratulations to the new Sir Terry, who received a knighthood in the New Year's Honour's list. He has been one of my favorite writers since even before he stumbled upon the Discworld (yes, I actually read and liked Strata), and any publicity which may bring in new readers is a good thing.

So, an anecdote.

I met Sir Terry about a year and a half ago, at a talk and book signing in a book store in eastern PA, what I would call a large mom & pop operation, not a huge chain store. It amazed me that an author of his stature (and sales) was, after a quarter century, still working the circuit. He certainly didn't have to, as any increase in sales made by this appearance was I am sure measured somewhere way to the right of the sales decimal point. Once it was my turn to have my book signed I let him know that I had spent a couple of months in my misspent adulthood working as assistant engineer on the Meatloaf "Bat out of Hell" album...an album I know from reading that he has expressed a fondness for. This led to him recounting a more recent encounter with the album, as he chose it to listen to while he was getting a tube shoved into his heart for a look/see, and in turn I answered a couple of questions he had regarding it's recording. After taking up way too much of his time (a look at those behind me in the queue was enough to confirm that...), he turned to sign my book. I was looking forward to some clever turn of phrase that would make the signature more distictive (he is a prolific signer...the joke being that an unsigned Pratchett is worth more than a signed one...^_^). He signed and handed me back the book, which I put in my bag. When I got to my car and looked at the signature, I was quite a bit more moved by it than any clever remark. It read "Thanks".

I have regretted ever since that I did not at least give him my email address, just in case he ever decided that there was something else that he wanted to know the answer to about the album. I sent it off to his drop website....at just about the same time he announced he has been diagnosed with a form of early onset Alzheimers disease..at which point he was swamped by thousands of emails, which he acknowledges he will never be able to get to. Maybe this will pop up on a google search someday when he is taking some surf time....and maybe, if I don't need too many more bypasses....I'll still be around to respond...^_^.

I think I'll toss a couple of editorial cartoons from last week in here now...



I suppose that here is where I open myself up as a target to the left...to the everlasting surprise of my normal right wing targets. I don't understand the whining about this from people and organizations I more normally would tend to respect. You don't let a group of people in the territory next door sit there and lob missiles at you over and over again. Period. I personally admire the restraint of the Israeli's for putting up with it as long as they did..at least on their end honoring the "cease fire" that had been brokered by Egypt, even through Hamas continuing to call for the death of Israel as a state, as well as the death of it's peoples. Here's a quick clue for all you Muslims out there, and your apologists. If you stop screaming "kill them all" and make even a slight attempt to join even a 19th century civilized world, maybe you could get some sympathy when you scream about the Israeli "attrocities". At least they are doing it out in the open, with all the world watching. Not skulking into the local market to blow up some women and children with a bomb strapped to their ass.... Grow up. If you spend all your time telling me you are going to kill me, then start driving past my house everyday tossing rocks, don't bitch at the shotgun blast through the windsheild....



...and in what way were we expecting them to behave differently? They are the same greedy bastards that caused the problems...then and now. Maybe if some of them could be brought to trial, like the exec's in China who's lives are on the line for adding industrial chemicals to their milk products, there would be less of this...or at least they might have the decency to hide it better....



Talk about sour grapes...here's a cartoonist that only wishes this is what the end of his life will be like...^_^