Official Secrets: 2019 British drama currently available on Netflix - Based on a true story, ‘Official Secrets’ is set immediately prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein. Keira Knightly plays Katharine Gun, a woman employed by British intelligence who discovers that her government is colluding with the Bush Administration to promote …
DEMON COPPERHEAD BY BARBARA KINSOLVER
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Harper/Collins 2022 (Pulitzer prize winner) - I’ve been a fan of Barbara Kingsolver since the first time I read her 1988 debut novel ‘The Bean Trees’. Her work, whether fiction or nonfiction, has always knocked on the sharp edges of social injustice. Works like ‘The Bean Trees’, ‘Holding the Line’ …
THE PARIS LIBRARY BY JANET CHARLES
The Paris Library by Janet Charles, Simon & Schuster, 2021 - It may seem strange to think of an American library, not to mention an American hospital, both in Paris, France, but the institutions do indeed exist. The hospital was founded in 1906 and the library in 1920 and they came into existence with financial …
THE GREAT TRANSIT PLOT
It seems global warming is heating up with: storms of the century, floods of the millenia, unending heat waves and forest fires that keep on burning. It’s therefore fashionable for Kanadoodle’s political leaders to talk about limiting greenhouse gas emissions. For anyone unfamiliar with greenhouse gasses, it’s the noxious fumes that arise in the Chambers …
SAY WHAT?
Kanadoodle doesn’t have enough places for our population to live, so it’s no surprise that the cost of housing has been soaring and rental units are so scarce that monthly payments look more like ransom demands. All this has forced an increasingly large population of people to live in parks and on the streets. Fueling the …
SILK – BRITISH COURTROOM DRAMA
Silk, BBC TV series 2011 - 2014 - For those tired of the antics in American courtroom dramas, there’s always a steady supply of legal beagles and their antics, available from the BBC. Of course one needs a little refresher on the English legal system if you’re going to tackle English courtroom dramas. British …
NEWS FROM ‘MURICA
It’s a sad truth about Kanadoodle that, despite our goofy politicians and their endless silly bickering, they’re a bunch of cream puffs compared to the politicians in ‘Murica, whose creative addiction to lies and invective easily surpasses anything Kanadoodle produces. There’s so much fun in watching our southern neighbors playing politics that 98% of Kanadoodlians …
A NEW CONTENDER
Is it possible that Vlad (the Impaler) Pootine, Beloved leader of Rooskie, is now vying with Ronald Rump as world’s greatest comedian? As happens with any politician after twenty years with ultimate power, he has an unshakeable belief that he rules by divine right. In modern Rooskie, that means everyone must also believe that …
THE JOYS OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION
Citizens of Kanadoodle have been castigated for having the ‘highest household debt in the G7 countries’. When I went on-line, I found it wasn’t easy to check this bit of news. It’s all about statistics. For starters, other countries had one number that gave the average debt for everybody but Kanadoodle had debt shown by …
WWII IN A NUTSHELL
The Second World War by Antony Beevor, Little Brown & Co. 2012 - It’s been seventy-eight years since the end of WWII and only twenty-eight years since some of the secret material from the period has started to be de-classified. Current historians have been combing through archives, finding fresh perspectives on what was possibly the …
Richard's Left Bank 