From the ESPRIT DE L'ESCALIER DEPARTMENT

My friend and noted author Alan Dean Foster bunged this one over to me, and I couldn't in a million years put it as well. So much so, that I want to pass it on.

 

Quoted in Maureen Dowd's column from todays NY Times: 

Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, recalled that when he started his online book review he forbade comments, wary of high-tech sociopaths.

“I’m not interested in having the sewer appear on my site,” he said. “Why would I engage with people digitally whom I would never engage with actually? Why does the technology exonerate the kind of foul expression that you would not tolerate anywhere else?”

Why must the common denominator be so common?

EDIE AND KIESL IN CAMERA

"Edie Ernst, USO Singer - Allied Spy" contains new art, exclusively drawn for the book.

A detail of a private moment between Edie and Kiesl.  If you are interested in the new book wherein the rest of this illustration tastefully appears, contact Pib Press for information.

THE IMPLICIT MORAL VIRTUE LEXICON: SMILE

Noun:  In politics, an incongruous centerpiece for the face; a promise that, no matter what is said, you are in no danger of hearing the truth.

THE IMPLICIT MORAL VIRTUE LEXICON: ATTENTIVE

Adjective:  Mentally undressing you while you speak.

THE IMPLICIT MORAL VIRTUE LEXICON: FAITH

Noun: Belief unfettered by carbon dating.

Historically, faith is the fuel without which contrary conviction would never combust.

THE IMPLICIT MORAL VIRTUE LEXICON: SINCERITY

"Sincerity" is a word that comes plump with implicit moral virtue.  That would be a good thing, except that history's most horrific tyrants terrorized and warred and scourged the landscape with nothing if not relentless sincerity. It has always been one of the perks of despotism.  Only in less efficient forms of government does the word become desecrated and down at heel.  The very first casualty in the political conduct of any republic is sincerity.