The Lexicographer's Rules

"He developed a way of finding honest food at just prices in the cafes of blue highway America. Count the calendars. No calendar means the place is the same as an Interstate pit stop, all the way up to five calendars where he says, 'Keep it under your hat or they'll franchise it.' Only once did he find a six-calendar cafe, in the Ozarks, that served fried chicken, peach pie and chocolate malts and he has been searching for another ever since."

—Toronto Sun. Ralpho Pohlman writes about one of his favorite books, Blue Highways by William Least Heat-moon.'

"With practice, it is no more difficult than hearing and understanding what two people might be discussing if they were yelling at one another through megaphones while submerged in the deep end of a nine-foot pool. For instance, when you clearly hear: 'Attensqaeee, the wheepahooy until babbagonga kereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,' you instantly know that the 2 isn't running, and you will have to take the 4 and change at 96th St..."

—New York Daily News. Readers of the Daily News deliver war stories and a few sarcastic comments about subway riding in the city.

"Office massacres claimed 12 in Atlanta, three in Alabama, seven in Honolulu, four in Seattle, eight in Tampa, three in Santa Cruz. Enraged middle-agers gunned down four teens and three adults in a Fort Worth church, six more in a Mormon library, and three teens and a Bible teacher in Ohio. Failed romances prompted midlife men to massacre six in Michigan, four in Baltimore, four in Memphis, six in Sacramento, and five toddlers at a California preschool. At least 25 are believed slain by a Texas serial killer; a Seattle national guard pilot admitted murdering a dozen prostitutes, and senior-citizen rampages in Michigan and Arizona elderly housing left eight dead or wounded."

—Alternet. Mike Males says mostly white 30-60-year-old men are responsible for most of the highly publicized berzerker shottings in the US today and that it's they who should be looked at as markers for community disruption and not teenagers, black or white.'

"Then a man took a kalashnikov from one of the Taliban, and aiming it awkwardly, pulled the trigger. Six or eight rounds rattled out in a sharp, loud burst and the muzzle of the weapon jerked upwards and to the right. The condemned man, still squatting, shuddered and spun round as the bullets hit him, seemed to hold himself upright for a moment and then toppled over onto his side. I saw him turning his head, craning his neck as if looking for something he had left behind. The crowd were on their feet shouting, then there was another short burst of fire and the body shook again. There were long shouts of 'Allahu Akbar'. The small pool of blood was mopped up with rags and, fifteen minutes later, two football teams filed out and started warming up."

—London Review of Books. Jason Burke has covered Afghanistan and Afghanistan-related issues as a journalist and offers first-hand details of the curiously frightening extremist regime now running the nation. "The Taliban had arrived in Kabul on 26 September 1996. Their first target was President Najibullah... They found him quickly. He was beaten, castrated, dragged behind a jeep and then shot dead. His brother, too, was killed and their battered bodies were hung from a post by a steel noose in the centre of the city. Cigarettes were forced into their mouths and their pockets were stuffed with money."'

"There are moments of near hilarity, as when Mr. Kim tours a collective farm populated with ostriches. Ostriches in North Korea? And yet there they are. There is literary content: static shots of the day's newspapers, page by page. And children's programming appears in the form of a cartoon in which a boy hero is captured by the Japanese, beaten severely and bound with a stick jammed in his mouth to prevent him from screaming for help."

—New York Times. Russell Working describes North Korean television.