1. Paw-Paws, the Klan, and Good Taste

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    May 9, 2022 by libroshombre

    LIBRARY COLUMN Contact Greg Hill, 479-4344                                                                          May 5, 2022             The Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende and I must smell …
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    Category: authoritarianism, demagoguery, democracy, racism, taste | Tags: , ,

  2. Interrobangs, Pedantry, and Rascism

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    April 23, 2022 by libroshombre

                American writer H.L. Mencken’s word-smithing, the courage of his convictions, and his pioneering work on our version of English, …
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    Category: eugenics, intelligence, Intelligence Quotiant, librarians, library school, pedantry, punctuation, reading, reference books, reference librarians | Tags: , , , , ,

  3. Stout, Seuss, and the Bible

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    April 23, 2022 by libroshombre

                In “A History of Reading,” Alberto Manguel wrote, “At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of …
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    Category: Bible, book banning, censorship, e-reader, etymology, language, reading, word origins, words, writers, writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  4. Inventors, Scientists, and WorldCat

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    April 23, 2022 by libroshombre

                You won’t find me arguing with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s claim that “One must be an inventor to read well. …
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    Category: interlibrary loan, inventors, language, languages, librarians, libraries, libraries and librarians, library history, linguistics, scientists | Tags: , , , , ,

  5. Band Names, Numbers and Elephants

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    March 19, 2022 by libroshombre

                The Lone Tones is the name of the acapella doowop group in Austin that I’ve sung with for forty-plus …
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    Category: autobiography, libraries, libraries and librarians, musicians, numbers, public libraries | Tags: , , , ,

  6. Banana Peels, White Wings, and Moby Dick

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    March 12, 2022 by libroshombre

                Eric Hoffer, the American longshoreman philosopher, noticed that “Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which …
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    Category: art, books, classics, fruit, illustrations, illustrators, librarians, libraries, plants, public libraries, reference librarians, trash | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

  7. Comics, Maypoles, and Book Banning

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    March 12, 2022 by libroshombre

    Carl Sagan is certainly missed; apart from his glowing cosmological credentials and general brilliance, he was insightful while maintaining his …
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    Category: book banning, books, comics, education, libraries, public libraries, reading, reading brain, school librarians, school libraries | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  8. Baseball, Gags, and the Power of Three

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    March 12, 2022 by libroshombre

                The shutdown of major league baseball made a recent New Yorker cartoon by Roz Chast poignant.  Chast is a …
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    Category: comics, humor, jokes, sports | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  9. Dreams, Doublethink, and Aztecs

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    February 4, 2022 by libroshombre

    Re-watching Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I have a dream” speech has left me considering the distinction between mythology and misinformation.  …
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    Category: languages, libraries, misinformation, mythology, propaganda | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

  10. Bubblegum, Pen Names, and Wild Bill Hickok

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    February 4, 2022 by libroshombre

                It began with “Little Arrows,” Leapy Lee’s 1968 (and only) hit that I heard recently for the first time …
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    Category: music, nicknames, pen names, pseudonyms | Tags: , , , ,

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