One of My Favorite Authors...

is Mark Twain.  At the moment I am reading Innocents Abroad to my home bound student, and there are times I am laughing so much reading is impossible.  Twain is so politically incorrect that he is just plain refreshing, and his descriptions of people and the things they do are hilarious.   So far the group of Americans have landed in Tangier, and traveled to Paris.  Everywhere he goes he studies people and comes to his own conclusions.  He made this comment about the Moors in North Africa.  "Spain is the only nation the Moors fear.  The reason is that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war and her loudest guns to astonish these Muslims, while America and other nations send only a little contemptible tub of a gunboat occasionally.  The Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see, not what they hear or read."  Hmmmm, maybe I need to send a copy of this book to our dear president.  While Twain and his side kicks were in Paris they had a chance to watch Napoleon III and Abdul Aziz, lord of the Ottoman Empire, in a parade.  After his observation, Twain had the nerve to write this comment.  "Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, progress, and refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious--and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood."  I do believe if Abdul's name had been left off I would think someone on the left was trying to describe George Bush.
I just finished Borderline by Nevada Barr, and it was her best.  Blind Descent is a close second.  Borderline was about murder and intrigue in Big Bend and Terlingua while Blind Descent  all happened in a deep cavern near Carlsbad.  I was nearly claustrophobic reading parts of it.  If you like outdoor thrillers, I recommend these two because you won't be able to put them down.  More about Innocents Abroad later; it's time for bed, because tomorrow is Friday.