These books can be life-changers.
I wish they had been around when I was in high school.
[Photo by Eric Vo at Unsplash]
Monday, February 09, 2026
But It Was a Dry Heat
Tucson became the head-quarters of vice, dissipation, and crime. It was probably the nearest approach to Pandemonium on the North American Continent. Murderers, thieves, cutthroats, and gamblers formed the mass of the population. Every man went armed to the teeth, and scenes of bloodshed were of every-day occurrence in the public streets. There was neither government, law, nor military protection. The garrison at Tucson confined itself to its legitimate business of getting drunk or doing nothing. Arizona was perhaps the only part of the world under the protecting aegis of a civilized government in which every man administered justice to suit himself, and where all assumed the right to gratify the basest passions of their nature without restraint. It was literally a paradise of devils.
- From Adventures in the Apache Country: A Tour Through Arizona and Sonora with Notes on the Silver Regions of Nevada by John Ross Browne [New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1871.]
Sunday, February 08, 2026
Saturday, February 07, 2026
Author's Note
Not that it matters, but a great deal of the background in this story is accurate.
SMERSH, a contraction of Smiert Spionam - Death to Spies - exists and remains today the most secret department of the Soviet government.
At the beginning of 1956, when this book was written, the strength of SMERSH at home and abroad was about 40,000 and General Grubozaboyschikov was its chief. My description of his appearance is correct.
- From the Ian Fleming novel, From Russia with Love
Friday, February 06, 2026
An Ongoing Controversy
I continue to hear more about "Memories of the Job Search Jungle."
Will be writing on how to correct the HR software scandal.
[Photo by Nathan Sack at Unsplash]
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