This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, February 24, 2023. Attempts to silence writers are as eternal, and as futile, as attempts to ban books themselves. In a couple of recent high-profile instances, we have seen author Salman Rushdie physically attacked and Harry Potter creator J. K. Rowling become • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, February 17, 2023. Ever since the Super Bowl ended, nearly a week ago, we have been treated to an endless number of stories about what happened during the last few minutes of the game and how a referee’s questionable call might • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, February 10, 2023. Sadly, attacks on libraries and librarians continue, and recently they have reached my own area. A group from a coalition of churches in my county showed up at a county school board meeting to offer some less-than-friendly instruction to • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, February 3, 2023. During my academic career, I was fortunate enough to be able to write and publish several textbooks. Writing textbooks was a central focus of many of my efforts, and I enjoyed it immensely. One of the things I enjoyed • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,753) on Friday, January 27, 2023. My tour of news sites that attempt to avoid the “bad news bias” continues with a site that is not exactly “good news” but is filled with good information—and probably the kind of information that you can apply directly • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,829) on Friday, January 20, 2023. As promised in last week’s newsletter, I continue to present websites that attempt to avoid, as best they can, the “bad news bias” of many of the mainstream media. This week’s entry is YES! magazine. YES! emphasizes what it • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,753) on Friday, January 13, 2023. The “bad news bias” of the news outlet that I regularly visit has been all too obvious lately. I know enough about journalism not to blame the messenger. There’s plenty of bad stuff out there that we need to • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,753) on Friday, January 6, 2023. Some people blanche at the word “resolution” especially at this time of year. They believe, often rightly, that New Year’s resolutions are meaningless if not harmful because they raise expectations and often result in frustration. I don’t really subscribe • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, December 30, 2022. As with most authors, I am of two minds when it comes to reviews of anything I have written. Reviewers who are kind are obvious geniuses able to perceive the many profundities—written with the appropriate amount of self-effacing • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, December 23, 2022. In order to give myself a couple of weeks off, the newsletter this week and next week will be populated mostly by material from the JPROF.com archives. Much of this was originally posted a decade or more ago, • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, December 16, 2022. This month brings to a close my four-and-a-half-year tenure as the writer-in-residence for the Blount County Public Library. This association with what has to be one of the best local libraries in the nation has been one • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, December 9, 2022. ’Tis the season for “traditions.” These are the things that we do in certain ways, and at certain times, at this end-of-year holiday season. These days are usually full of traditions. A friend of mine once told me • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, December 2, 2022. In a conversation I had recently with a friend, she and I were discussing certain authors, whose books we enjoyed reading. The name of one author, one who is quite well-known, came up, and we both agreed that • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, November 25, 2022. We are in the midst of my favorite holiday, and I’ve found I am far from unique in feeling that way. Thanksgiving means cooler weather, lots of leaves, lots of sports on television (if you are into that), • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, November 18, 2022. Our nation once again demonstrated its normal tendency to social and political schizophrenia, something the Republic has been experiencing for more than 200 years. On Tuesday, we showed that we are still sharply divided politically between Republicans and • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, November 11, 2022. This newsletter is being sent out initially on Veterans Day, November 11th. This day tends to get lost among the plethora of holidays between Halloween and New Year’s Day. Most veterans I know (and I am one of • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, November 4, 2022. Growing up in the pre-Ice Age (that is, the 1950s and the 1960s), we looked upon Halloween as a small blip on the fall calendar that presaged the coming of Thanksgiving (a few days off from school) and • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, October 28, 2022. My various readings and searches during the last few weeks have included a number of items about the concept of the “Sabbath.” The idea of the Sabbath, whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, or “none of the above” • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, October 21, 2022. My local library, the Blount County Public Library, is having a special event honoring local authors on Saturday, October 22 (the day after this newsletter originally appears), and I have been privileged to be part of the planning • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2, 491) on Friday, October 14, 2022. My frustration at not being able to enter the recent Quick Draw Festival held by the Friends of the Smokies became an item for last week’s newsletter, and I included four of the watercolor-and-pen sketches that I had • Read More »