Exhibit 18.17

At the Opthamologist

Assistant: Can you read that?
Me: Sure, I think so. D - E - S - O - B.
Assistant: Let's try something bigger.
Me: 5 - 3 - 8 - 1 - 0.
Assistant: Um, how about this?
Me: Wait, I said letters for the first set. Are there letters in any of these?
Assistant: No.
Me: So have I gotten any right?
Assistant: You got the 3.

Exhibit 13.21

Okay, so this is the last Lincoln Journal Star letter to the editor I'm posting (unless I want to give the state treasurer a piece of my mind), but it just so happens that good friend Aaron Hillyer chimed in on the UNL-William Ayers debacle on those hallowed pages and it should be brought to your attention. The unfamiliar can catch up on the details here.

So as long as the people I know cease to be so stubbornly civic-minded, I'm going back to the more important work of writing about celebrities that are ambiguously related/married.

Also, I should point out that they shamefully gave Aaron's exceedingly well-written and considered letter the dumbest possible title.

• 
  Canceling makes it worse
  
  In the increasingly legalistic and regimented culture that pervades the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I would have welcomed the perspective of Professor William Ayers, whose civic and scholarly work has always been informed by an intense desire to combat the absolutism that characterizes dominant political and social trajectories in America.
  
  During my four years of teaching in the UNL English Department, I have often shown a documentary film, “The Weather Underground,” which tells the story of the revolutionary movement Ayers was once part of. The film develops a productive historical, political and social context for the avant-garde literature and theory we often read in my classes. It has provoked students to articulate rich narratives of the possibilities for dissent in their own lives, while also providing them with the opportunity to consider the political and social paradigms that are stifled by the increasingly monocultural media and pedagogical discourses of our times.
  
  For example, the film discusses the cold-blooded police assassination of Fred Hampton, a young African-American revolutionary leader whom not even one of my students had heard of before watching the film. I can see why such an event would become the object of suppression for those complicit with American absolutism, just as I can understand how the same people would threaten retaliation for the mere appearance of Ayers, who wasn’t even going to speak about his revolutionary past.
  
  But silencing words or, in this case, preventing the appearance of a person because that person’s mere presence may remind us of a past event only indicates the productive potential the oppressors anxiously attribute to such words or events in the first place. The task at hand, then, for us in the UNL community and for those everywhere around the country, is to finally harness this potential in order to rid ourselves of the systems that make our lives increasingly unlivable.
  
  Aaron Hillyer, Lincoln

Very nice work, Aaron. You know it was a good letter when it gets responses like this one:

Bob wrote on October 28, 2008 5:49 pm:
"Due to the ignorant Universary and the stupid LJS thats what you get. Its time to replace the newpaper that we have here."

Well played, Bob. Your move, LJS.

Exhibit 13.19

D.M.'s great letter to the editor has already been overshadowed by this beauty from reader/philosopher/literary scholar Richard Terrell:

• 
  Rand’s book brought to life
  
• Fifty years ago, Ayn Rand wrote a scathing fictional exposure of the twisted psychology of compassion-mongers, do-gooders and their “looter” friends in governmental bureaucracies whose constant appeal is to people whose whole social vision amounts to whining about “fairness.” The novel is “Atlas Shrugged,” and today’s political scenarios are bringing to life Rand’s exposure of those who seek power in order to take from people who have created and earned something in order to give to those who haven’t.
  
• The main villain in Rand’s story is a character named Wesley Mouch. Barack Obama is the real life incarnation of this character, who promises to punish successful small businesspeople by taking, through governmental force, the product of their labor to reward other people who he thinks should benefit from it.
  
• In the novel, creative and intelligent people decide to withdraw from the system, in essence go on strike. Society, left to parasites, complainers and various “victims,” erodes into chaos.
  
• Obama’s uncharacteristic candor in a recent discussion with an Ohio small businessman, in which he admitted that he would inhibit that man’s success in order to “help” others of his choosing, let Obama’s cat out of the bag. Already, small businesspeople across the United States are thinking seriously about shutting down their businesses, of deciding to no longer validate a system that would loot their creativity on behalf of undeserving, perhaps even corrupt people.
  
• This is a novel that is much hated, especially by utopian totalitarians everywhere, for its power of exposure and clarification of the sick mentality that animates the likes of Obama and his hordes of followers.
  
• Richard Terrell, Lincoln

Mr. Terrell and I need to get together so I can discuss with him my theories about how Fox's new hit drama Fringe is perfectly analogous to an Obama presidency.

Capt. Daniels-->Obama (because of skin color/hot when shirtlessness)

Pacey-->Harry Reid (because of blandness)

Girl Cop-->Girl Speaker of the House (because of girl)

Science-->A Recalibration of the Progressive Income Tax (because of people saying you can't do that and them saying oh yes we can watch wow)

Walter-->? (because not knowing is the scariest part of it all)

Exhibit 13.18

D.M.'s long promised letter to the editor ended up in Saturday's paper and can be found here. And, for your convenience, here:

• Johanns more of the same
• As I read the continued coverage about the Senate race in the Journal Star, I realize more and more that Mike Johanns in a Senate seat would be a nightmare for Nebraska.
• Here’s a man so dedicated to the President Bush/Karl Rove party line that he spent thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds to do their political bidding. And what’s more, when candidate Scott Kleeb called him out on this wrongdoing in the last debate, Johanns wouldn’t even apologize for it.
• This is not a man I want running my state. The politics of Bush have ruined this economy and have put cronyism and greed over honesty and service. Johanns has proved time and again that he’ll only give us more of the same.
• For Nebraska’s future, I’ll be voting for Scott Kleeb on Nov. 4.
• David C. Madden, Lincoln

It's pretty good though I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Johanns won't really be "running the state" as a senator, especially as he was already doing that in the second to last job he quit. Seriously, D., if you ever want to get on a Sunday editorial page, you're going to have to bring your A-game.

If nothing else, I think this is the first time one of D.' s letters to the editor has gotten unanimous support from the rabidly libertarian commenters. Nice work.