Jane Haddam

Every once in a while I have one of those, where things don’t just go wrong, they persist in epic fail. By eight o’clock, I was a complete wreck, and I’ve become very worried about my chicken.  Given the principle that luck comes in runs, that chicken is going to get up and walk out…

Okay. I stole the title.  It’s actually the title of one of Alfred Kazin’s autobiographical volumes.  Kazin–an editor, writer and intellectual in the 30s and 40s–meant it, I think, partially in that “reclaim the epithet” sort of way, and partially as a badge of honor. He was, Kazin thought, a prime example of the breed,…

The main post is below, but because I know this is going to come up, I figured I’d better get it in. The regulatory state would NOT suddenly work the way you want it to if we “got money out of politics.” The regulatory state does not favor large corporations over smaller business and individuals…

So. I’m going to leave out some of the parts of the discussion that seem to me to be tangential at best. But let me start with what should be obvious. Mike F’s description of how well corporations fit the analogy of “sociopaths” applies at least as well, and in fact exponentially better, to government.…

So, let’s clear up something first. What I clearly said is that “I described  NO strategies for avoiding cravings.” I then did describe something else I don’t  keep in the house because I tend to pick at it without thinking–peanuts in the shell.  No oil.  No salt.  No grand corporate design. Last night, after I…

Found this on RealClearPolitics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/24/the_higher_education_hustle_118926.html Another migraine producer, but very good at unraveling what’s going on in American higher education.

When I went to bed last night, I had pretty much convinced myself that I’d get up this morning and get some work done.  When I got up this morning, I was in that physical state that I usually label “wrung out,” which probably shouldn’t have surprised me.  I am at the stage where not…

Every once in a while, I dedicate a post on this blog to deploring the continued cultural (and linguistic) illiteracy of a Canadian writer and academic named Shadia Drury. I read her column in a magazine called Free Inquiry, which is one of the publications of the umbrella group called CFI–the same one whose CEO…

I’m going to have to ask you to bear with me this morning.  Of course, you always have to bear with  my typing, because I’m bad at it, but today I’m likely to be worse.  And the content may be a little incoherent. We’ll get there. Before we get there, though, let’s go back in…

For what it’s worth, it’s always easy to figure out whether I’m having a good day or a bad one when I’m writing.  If I don’t post to the blog until midmorning, or I don’t post at all, I’m probably doing well.  If the blog post is up early in the day…well. It is, as…