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Guess which of these forecasts is for my area?
A)A light dusting of snow
or
B)Three to six inches of snow
The answer is: Both!
That's right. According to the alert issued for my area this morning, three to six inches of now is expected from Thursday through Saturday. However, if you read the full text of the alert, my area is only expected to receive a "light dusting" of less than an inch. So either we're going to get snowed in, or we'll get bupkus. Such incisive and accurate predictions are no doubt why meteorologists get paid the big bucks.
I finished Mariel of Redwall the other day. It was all right, but there's a disappointing sameness to the plot, and for all the story was called Mariel of Redwall, it spent precious little time with her after her introduction. In fact, most of its time was spent with Mother Mellus, Simeon, Dandin, Durry, Gabool, and Greypatch. Mariel merely served served as a narrative mechanism to set the story in motion, and then she was quietly sidelined.
Someone in the reviews said that they were uncomfortable with the glorification of "redemptive violence" in the series. I can only presume they meant "retributive violence" because there was no blood redemption on view. No baddie repented of their wrongs and went down in a blaze of glory defending the helpless. They stayed awful and made no apologies for it and died deserved deaths for their gleeful cruelty. I have no problem with this. In fact, I found it immensely satisfying and would like to see more of it in fiction.
Retributive violence is decried by those who say it sends a bad message to impressionable readers, but I disagree. Retributive violence in fiction is healthy and often the only justice the downtrodden characters are going to get. There's no Redwall justice system, no apparatus of state, no army, no police, no courts. They have to defend themselves and depend on the fundamental decency of others to help them. Gabool the Wild and his evil hordes weren't going to be dissuaded from their course by a wait-and-see approach. If the abbey denizens had thrown open their doors and invited Graypatch's besieging army inside for hugs and cocoa, they would've found themselves with swords buried in their bellies and yokes around their necks. Forbearance and willingness to negotiate are wonderful, but they aren't always applicable, and the wistful belief that they are is as dangerous and stupid a lesson as that of mindless, wanton violence. That belief is one of the myriad reasons the world finds itself in its present circumstances.
"They go low, we go high" is a laudable sentiment, but it is not, alas, a sure formula for victory. Sometimes an asshole just needs a kick in the face.
A)A light dusting of snow
or
B)Three to six inches of snow
The answer is: Both!
That's right. According to the alert issued for my area this morning, three to six inches of now is expected from Thursday through Saturday. However, if you read the full text of the alert, my area is only expected to receive a "light dusting" of less than an inch. So either we're going to get snowed in, or we'll get bupkus. Such incisive and accurate predictions are no doubt why meteorologists get paid the big bucks.
I finished Mariel of Redwall the other day. It was all right, but there's a disappointing sameness to the plot, and for all the story was called Mariel of Redwall, it spent precious little time with her after her introduction. In fact, most of its time was spent with Mother Mellus, Simeon, Dandin, Durry, Gabool, and Greypatch. Mariel merely served served as a narrative mechanism to set the story in motion, and then she was quietly sidelined.
Someone in the reviews said that they were uncomfortable with the glorification of "redemptive violence" in the series. I can only presume they meant "retributive violence" because there was no blood redemption on view. No baddie repented of their wrongs and went down in a blaze of glory defending the helpless. They stayed awful and made no apologies for it and died deserved deaths for their gleeful cruelty. I have no problem with this. In fact, I found it immensely satisfying and would like to see more of it in fiction.
Retributive violence is decried by those who say it sends a bad message to impressionable readers, but I disagree. Retributive violence in fiction is healthy and often the only justice the downtrodden characters are going to get. There's no Redwall justice system, no apparatus of state, no army, no police, no courts. They have to defend themselves and depend on the fundamental decency of others to help them. Gabool the Wild and his evil hordes weren't going to be dissuaded from their course by a wait-and-see approach. If the abbey denizens had thrown open their doors and invited Graypatch's besieging army inside for hugs and cocoa, they would've found themselves with swords buried in their bellies and yokes around their necks. Forbearance and willingness to negotiate are wonderful, but they aren't always applicable, and the wistful belief that they are is as dangerous and stupid a lesson as that of mindless, wanton violence. That belief is one of the myriad reasons the world finds itself in its present circumstances.
"They go low, we go high" is a laudable sentiment, but it is not, alas, a sure formula for victory. Sometimes an asshole just needs a kick in the face.
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