Book Banter Café

Watching the news can be a great source of stress and anxiety.  We have enough of our own problems to worry about, but watch the news for any length of time and your stress levels will compound exponentially.  How can we be responsible citizens who follow the latest issues without sinking into depression and despair?  The answer if simple--start listening to Greg Gutfeld.  Gutfeld satirizes the political issues of the day, making them more palatable and easy on the psyche.  His outrageous discourse and debate opens sniper fire on hot topics, but then adds a comedic twist so the rational and sane among us can digest and process them without getting into a funk. He's a political shock jock, igniting his adversaries with repetitive truth bombs which are shockingly refreshing to his support base.  Trump's election should be the proof in the pudding that ordinary Americans appreciate someone who isn't afraid to say what we are all thinking. Greg Gutfeld...

Have your kids been imploring you for permission to read the Harry Potter series?  It seems like everyone is hooked on these books, making your kids feel awkwardly quarantined from their peers over the divide on principles.  After all, Scholastic book orders provided by the indoctrination centers of public schools are brimming with Harry Potter selections, serving up an alarming dose of witchcraft for the youngest readers to the oldest.  Isn't everything sanctioned by the schools supposed to be in your child's best interests?  Hardly.  Not only is the book addiction rampant, but the frenzy is intensified by movies, museum exhibits, and video games.  A full line of merchandise supports the franchise, offering consumers Harry Potter board games, magic wands, apparel, cups, calendars, umbrellas, necklaces, and other fan fare products.  If Harry Potter is so evil and insidious, surely the bandwagon would be fairly empty, right?  We find th...

Image courtesy of artur84 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Do good fences make good neighbors?   In the Robert Frost Poem, Mending Wall, both the narrator and the neighbor annually work on fixing the wall that separates their properties; however, the narrator questions whether a wall is necessary.   Neither of them have livestock to corral, so what are they trying to keep in our out?   The neighbor just repeats, “good fences make good neighbors” because this is what his father used to say.   Does the neighbor really want the wall, or is he just a traditionalist bent on carrying on a generational habit?   The narrator is more progressive and would prefer to eliminate the wall entirely, though he doesn’t destroy it since neither man can come to an agreement. Well, this is what people who have nothing to do but sit around and analyze poetry have to say about it.   I have a different and more modern spin based on real life.   Good fences DO make g...