I was just sitting here last night, flipping through Time magazine, and came upon 10 Questions for Garrison Keillor. He’s one of my favorite writers, you know.

What role do you feel public radio plays in America today?

Its role is to talk to people who are stuck in traffic. And conservatives become incensed enough listening to public radio that it keeps them awake so they don’t drive into a fire hydrant. That’s what we do: we save the lives of thousands of right-wingers every year. And they never thank us for it.

You once wrote that the humorist is the most endangered species we have. Is that still true?

No. The Internet is full of humorists. They’ve risen from the earth. They’ve fallen from the skies. Anyone can write anything, anytime they want. Blogs that are angry–which maybe half of them are–wear out. What people keep going back to are writers who are funny. That’s a great thing

Will you ever run out of Lake Wobegon stories?

No. As long as you can still hear and see, you’ll never run out of stories. I ran into an ancient cousin of mine a week ago, and she told me something I’d never heard before. My grandfather Keillor died before I was born, and she told me that every night, he lifted my grandmother into his arms–he’s a farmer, a big woodworking guy–and carried her upstairs into bed. He had a big mustache and beautiful singing voice. From that, you could come up with a whole year’s worth of stories almost.

“Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Recited by Tyne Daly

Here’s a very worthwhile read on an important topic. Personally, I think it’s time to abjure relativism in human and civil rights. If Google can’t operate in China on Google’s terms, I hope they pack their servers and come home. Naive? Probably.

Google Reveals the Horrible Truth about China — Datamation.com

Let’s clear something up, OK? This morning, on the radio, they were playing songs from Rolling Stone’s top songs of the decade, because the decade is supposedly coming to an end. Baloney.

When we started the new century and the new millennium , some people wanted to do that in the year 2000. Wrong-o. 

When we count things, we start with one thing, not zero things. When we count 10 things, we start with 1 things and end with 10 things.

The first century started with the year 1 and ended with the year 100. The 20th Century started with 1901 and ended with 2000. The 21st Century – and the 3rd millennium – started in 2001 and will end with a year ending with a zero.

The current decade is 2001 – 2010.  Ten years, not nine. So we have one more year to go in this decade. Do not, for the sake of sense and sanity allow anyone to tell you otherwise.

Here is a table of the centuries, going back to Christ, plus some decades.

Harry Patch, Britain’s last survivor of the trenches of World War I, was a reluctant soldier who became a powerful eyewitness to the horror of war, and a symbol of a lost generation.

Patch, who died Saturday at 111, was wounded in 1917 in the Battle of Passchendaele, which he remembered as ‘mud, mud and more mud mixed together with blood.’

The Associated Press: Last UK veteran of WWI trench battles dies at 111.

Is Michael Jackson still dead? I imagine so, though for some time now I’ve been changing the channel every time I hear his name or see his image. Not because I’m indifferent to his death, but because the sideshow that followed it became obscene. There is much that we are losing every day. There are many that are passing from life. To linger over one so leeringly is vapid and tawdry.

Here was a hero, Harry Patch. I commend to you his obituary. He fought, he suffered, he told the truth, and lived out the rest of his life with wisdom and in peace. There is a very great deal we can learn from that. Not the least of which is that a simple life can be lived greatly, and that we as a society have a bizarre sense of celebrity in death. If anyone’s passing should be marked by great crowds in public arenas … well, you get my point.

Garrison Keillor writes for Salon:

“The problem, dear hearts, is a common one here in the American heartland: an inability to express personal preference in simple declarative sentences, no modifiers.

E.g., ‘I vish to be alone.’

Is this a terrible thing to vish for? I think not.”

OK, I don’t want Garrison Keillor to leave me alone. I’m just playing blog post title games. We’ve never met, except through his writing and his radio shows. I listen to Writers’ Almanac almost daily on my iPod. And I’ve loved The News From Lake Wobegon for years. So I wish I could be his buddy, go hang out in his kitchen (I’ll bring good coffee) and talk about writing.

I think he knows more than I do about writing clean, clear, unencumbered prose; not belabored, for example, by words like unencumbered. Also, he speaks the truth here about solitude. We all want it, and those of us who want to create stuff crave, require, and dread it.

Knowing this is true about Keillor too, I wouldn’t overstay my welcome. Just a chat from time to time, and I’ll be off to pester JK Rowling or Steven King. And I’d repay the favor with some free proofreading, since we’re pals. I wouldn’t let the word vish get past me, instead of wish, that’s for sure.

Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.

– Martin Luther King, Jr