I'm reading The Trouble with Tom right now and as usual enjoying Paul Collins's work immensely. He and Sarah Vowell have a great talent for writing history - for making it less of a musty study of people we don't understand or care about and more prescient; more critical to the modern day. I wish more history teachers in junior high and high school worked at proving history matters like Collins and Vowell do - it would make a huge difference in how knowledgeable the average American is.

Collins has a short essay in the NY Times today about his son Morgan who is autistic and their decision to put him on Prozac. He includes a bit more about the piece over at his blog. Collins wrote about Morgan and the history of autism is his last book, Not Even Wrong. (Here's my review at Bookslut.) It's a fascinating book about the disorder and combined with the very real story of a couple of parents trying to understand and help their son. He nails it right on the head when he says in his blog that no one can understand what it is like - no one can judge him - unless their child has a similar problem Prozac for a preschooler seems insane, but what about sending him away, what about being afraid of your child? Isn't medicine there to make us better? Maybe we have forgotten that in our overmedicated society - more truths from history that have gotten buried along the way.

I received the second issue of the Subterranean Press magazine yesterday and thus far I am mightily impressed. This is the "Caitlin Kiernan" issue and includes a new sci fi story, "Bradbury Weather" as well as an interview and a short story from To Charles Fort with Love. What impresses me so much about Keirnan is how well she creates a world in such a short period of time. "Bradbury Weather" takes place on Mars with a backdrop of other unknown places in a distant future where all manner of changes have taken place from the norm. But at heart, it is a broken romance and a monster (kinda) story. It is questioning of what is human about humanity, what is spirit, what is beautiful, even, I guess. And what is love, of course - if you truly love someone how much will you support them and the choices they make that you do not agree with, the choices that flat out scare you, even? How far will love take you?

She is such a good writer.

As for the excerpt from Charles Fort - -well, if it doesn't make you want to buy the book (and if my Bookslut review doesn't convince you of how wonderful it is), then really, you can not be persuaded.

I also read the Charles de Lint short story in the magazine and I'm looking forward to Joe Hill's and the rest. It's just a great fantasy/scifi/horror/ - oh hell, a great literary magazine! And very inexpensive for all the stories you are getting. (And the interview with Kiernan is first rate as well.)

Much reshuffling of stacks of paper today and shredding and recycling. Things had gotten a bit out of hand and this is the big cleanout of desk and bedside table and various other stacks found here and there. If I think about all the trees that died for this paper I will be very very depressed.

And hey - the Vice President's Chief of Staff has been indicted. I can't help but think that these are most historic times we are living in, even if we don't quite realize that right now. There will be questions asked in decades to come about why things happened like they did at the turn of the 21st century, what the people thought of the times they witnessed. I wish I could say I was shocked and surprised by Scooter (and please - Scooter????) Libby's transgressions but I'm not. It's not a Republican thing or Democrat thing to the lie in Washington, I think it it is a politician thing. We have created monsters and let them run amok in our midst while we shake our heads in disbelief. How did we get here - and how do we get out?