Last Week

A new magazine, called "The Week,"  arrived on our shores yesterday.  It is to news what the Readers' Digest is to human interest stories.    The editors pick a story, run it and then add Op Ed to the piece by running other media comments on the same story.  Done wisely, this mode can give us an idea of what the thinking is in other parts of the country, or world, for that matter.

I culled some things for your amusement.  Under the column "Wit & Wisdom" I found

"History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided."
  Konrad Adenauer.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."  Charles Darwin.

Listed under "The Best Dorm Room Gear" we find an alarm clock.  It is squat and round with a propeller sitting on the top.  The user is allowed X number of snoozes and then the propeller flies off across the room and the noise won't stop until it's put back on the clock.

"Back to 1968" is a story on groups that re-enact Viet Nam!  Most of us are familiar with battle re-enactments, but they're usually Civil War events.  Writer Chrlie Schroeder attended one "somewhere in a wooded part of Virginia."  The camp is set up authentically - the first thing he does is spot a trip wire inches close to his head.  He follows it to a party popper noisemaker.  In reality, he would have been blown up.

On his departure, he was asked what he thought about it all and he told the man that the racial epithets disturbed him a great deal.  He, never having been to Viet Nam, was offended at the frequent use of "gook," "dink," "slopes."

Good thing he was never in Viet Nam for real.

The publisher offers six more editions gratis - do we want it?  theweek.com to explore it more thoroughly.