The coldest winter? The snowiest winter . . . polar vortices . . . superlatives were abundantly overflowing this winter. Cold winters in New York are not unusual; mild ones are not anomalies either. One winter colder than another is unavoidable; but we do get ourselves worked up over the superlative degree: yes, the coldest, … Continue reading How Winter, Spring and Superlatives Fall

Every writer is an author whether he is published or not. Being published does not give you authority over your text. Your hand holding the pen does that. [I still hold pens.] You do not need the Library of Congress to grant you copyright. The Library of Congress granting copyright only makes your legal claim … Continue reading Author and Authority

The blog portion of this Review is committed to being literary--and I insist on calling this website a review, that is, a literary review. It is important to do so. The latter notion of literary is used with all the connotations many of you might suspect are elitist. It is always elitist when literary is … Continue reading Web Log IX

Government-management and state-education-department control over ESOL across the country have delivered to ESOL teachers the kind of protocols that do not necessitate educating or learning, nor do they necessitate quality or experience be present in those who are hired. Teachers are pitted against one another in program after program across America as management reminds teachers … Continue reading Good-enough is Never

Who in this world of looking on line, combing pages, or superficially skimming one site after another with little more effort spent on reading what is within the confines of the sites barely penetrated . . . what then happens with this ever mounting pile of words, rubbish, trash, gems . . . how to … Continue reading Web Log VIII

A man talks of a trip to Philadelphia, but not the view of Camden across the Delaware River from his hotel room, nor the view of the Charles River as he crosses on the Alewife Bound Red Line from Boston South Station to Cambridge, Harvard Square . . . what more, no more, to say or to write, I … Continue reading Who are You to Imagine Being in Philadelphia is Better than Being Dead?

I guess a blog is a blog could be the best to say about what a blog is; again, truth is found in a tautology. Yes, tables are tables and pigs, pigs; so then a blog is a blog, of course, but then it too is plastic in the way we can see in the … Continue reading What is a Web Log? IV

I do not write in a blog as I do in my journal, although I could and others do. My journals, as alluded to before in other entries, have characteristics different from those of most blogs. Audience for one thing is key--although writing to oneself in a blog is possible, I do not imagine that … Continue reading A Web Log Is

Can the people ever trust the State to do what is best for the People, ever establish protocols that insure the People are getting what they need most from the provisions of the State? No. Can the People ever trust that government administrators and leaders will ever do what is in the best interests of … Continue reading Weight and Counterweight

Entries on readings may also be found within, the kind I used to to do in university, keeping one journal of readings for each English literature class I would take, sometimes taking as many as five in a semester; but it would be what is usually expected in a journal of the conventional type. This … Continue reading Writing a Web Log

This review and its blog are not the editorial pages we are accustomed to seeing in our mainstream press, although these editorials have a lot in common with many of the entries herein sometimes. Either the blog entries or the essays in the pages section of the website often venture social commentary if not cultural … Continue reading Web Log III

  Yes, How many years I have been writing and publishing the blog and review pages I call The Manfred Revue is nearing a decade. More than a decade? It does not matter--it cannot--, the length of time. Any effect from that would have more to do with advertising than actual credibility or quality, the appraisal … Continue reading When and Where a Blog Entry Presented to You as a Letter From an Editor Becomes a Fictional Essay

The People must understand their role as the People and not allow the imposition of the State or the rhetoric and lies from administrators of State power through the agency of the government to usurp that role and force the People to opt for the more State serving role of a Public.

If more blog writing--good, bad and other--contributes to the further democratization of America, I am for that. I am not, though, for a debasement or deflation of literary values and aesthetic understanding. That would be a mistake--one that pits popularization as the most accurate synonym of democratizing, one where populism is the only valid expression … Continue reading Blogging for Democracy?

To blog or not to blog--here I go again; repetition becomes motif--that, in itself, another motif: the motif of motif. I have been blogging for how long now? Need I actually count? I started blogging with the October Revue, the sister view of this one. I still publish the O. R., I have even called … Continue reading Web Log

We understand the slogans we hear everywhere all around us, slogans for political campaigns, slogans for products sold through TV advertising, slogans from our teachers, our bosses, the bureaucrats from the city, state or federal administrations. Slogans are all around us, surrounding us, deafening us, really. We are deaf to the Truth. We are at … Continue reading More Observing Observed

A reflection back to August of last year . . . [8/19] On the D too long. The trains in this town are run by dispatchers who probably read on the 7th or 8th grade. How do reading level translate into competence and right action? Civilizations have always risen and fallen by and with literacy. … Continue reading Observing

Let it suffice to say, as I have said before and will likely say again and again in the future--this Review is a literary review, and by that, I mean the essays contained within are literature. By literature, I mean the result of a higher election in Letters--I do understand that there is more in the … Continue reading From the Editor

The most we get from our literacy is the literacy of advertising; the best is what is sometimes found in Hollywood script writing, itself a step up from advertising, but a fall from what I would call the literary--and herein lies an elitist prejudice of mine; although, I do not assent to the idea that … Continue reading Observant Observations

All informing by government sponsored education will carry with it the indelible stamp of in/formation; to inform is to put or place in/form. This is what information really is: in/formation. To receive information is to receive one kind of stamp of being put in form, formation. Freedom drowns and dies in the pool of functional … Continue reading To Inform or to Be in Form

Dogmas must always be scrutinized by any people wanting to be or claiming to be free. Democracy demands debate, but not endless ping ping of opinions that in the end must reach consensus. Americans need consensus because they have been taught to need, trained to masquerade as independent by disagreeing, all the while knowing in … Continue reading From the Editor

Mr. Williams is in broadcast and not print--yet each is all of a piece, both of them conglomerated, each one reciprocal of the other in the matters of managing the message. Print media and broadcast media are not separate in the news business, and it is business. America's business is the business of business, how … Continue reading Brian Williams is Indicative; From the Editor

Lenny Bruce was funny. Lenny Bruce was trenchant. Lenny Bruce was a master satirist. Lenny Bruce stepped on toes. Lenny Bruce crossed a line. Lenny Bruce did not cross any lines. He crossed every line. The lines to see Lenny were long. The Man came after him. The Man decided he was dangerous. The Man … Continue reading Lenny

The idea that consensus is necessary in a democracy has nothing to do with and mostly opposes democracy. Real democratic action disappears where the demands for consensus are imposed with the weight of dogma. The kind of consensus that societal norms demand in these United States is often the kind mandated by totalitarian societies, and … Continue reading Consensus, Nonsensus

In the case of most of America's Yellow Press--and what is this about the press being Yellow, you ask? Most news in America is Yellow--and please do not misread this through one or another mis-steps taken from our systematic under-education, especially in matters pertaining to reading and writing and what must be called literacy and … Continue reading The Desert; From the Editor

We used to say that when fascism comes to America it will come as Americanism--I do not disagree, but the real horror is that it will not be fascism or Nazism or Zionism or Bolshevism that comes as Americanism, whereby American will only be a veneer over what is essentially fascist, no.  America's brand of … Continue reading Americanism can be Totalitarian (An Assertion)

Is it the purpose of this Review to examine politics in general and politics as they are played out on the American stage both currently and historically? Yes, it is. We take our political responsibility seriously here at The Falling Leaf Review . . . to look again at what everyone has looked at, what everybody … Continue reading From the Editor