You saw it here first. The cover art for my Attack of the Smart Pies, coming out this spring from Carus Publishing. In the book, Emma, an orphan girl in an awful predicament, seeks help from nine modern Muses, whose secret mission it is to help humanity, but who have so many problems of their own that Emma has to solve theirs before they can solve hers. Oh, and by the way, this is a novel—with real words—not a comic book!

Meanwhile on the blogspam issue, a reader writes: "I've never seen anything like it on other blogs, nor my own. I'm puzzled by it. " Pretty strange. Makes me wonder if I was deliberately targeted by somebody irked by something in History of the U... If you have something to add to this, email me by hitting the Contact button.

Here's a preview of the Cartoon Guide to Chemistry cover, coming in April from HarperCollins. More on this book as the time approaches!

I'm sorry, but I've been forced to disallow comments on the blog because of the onslaught of spam. I'll still post items of interest here from time to time, but if you want to comment, please send your thoughts to me by using the Contact button, and I promise to post interesting comments as entries.

It is very hard to unseat an incumbent president. Clinton was able to defeat Bush, Sr., only with the help of Ross Perot. Bush, Jr., "defeated" Gore (the next best thing to an incumbent) with the help of Ralph Nader and the Supreme Court.

So, please, Democrats, don't beat yourselves up! Kerry did phenomenally well. Bush won with the narrowest electoral margin of any incumbent president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. In fact, it appears that Kerry would actually have won if all the ballots were counted, as argued by Greg Palast. There is a serious problem of excess "ballot spoilage" in minority precincts.

If Kerry runs in 2008 against whomever they've got to oppose him, his chances of victory are high--especially in the current administration wreaks the ruin I expect.

Take heart, carry on, and don't buy into Mr. Bush's self-proclaimed "mandate."

The spammers bombed this old entry, so I decided to post it again. The picture's too good!

This picture, from a post card bought on a recent trip to Spain, shows the little-visited Church of San Roman in Toledo. The building, which houses a small collection of nondescript Visigothic artifacts from the 6th and 7th centuries, mostly belt buckles and such, is extraordinary. It must be very old. The architecture is a perfect fusion of Moorish and Christian styles. The arches and motifs are Islamic; intact Arabic inscriptions still run around the windows; and intricate screenwork abuts fading murals of Christian saints. Go there if you can! Admission is cheap and the post cards are too...

One guidebook suggests that the look of this church results from the use of Moorish ("mudejar") workers and designers to build it, but you have to wonder. The inscriptions around the windows suggest it was originally a mosque. And a wall at an odd angle suggests a mihrab (i.e., it may indicate the direction of Mecca).

These are President Bush's feet, photographed during the last debate. Doesn't he appear to be wearing platform shoes?

A very interesting and articulate comment to the previous posting brought to mind an experience I had as a guest teacher in a 6th grade class a few years ago in Brookline, Mass.

The kids were doing a unit on Ancient Greece, so I thought that democracy might be a nice topic of discussion. I started with some talk about pecking orders. Drew a dinosaur with another dinosaur standing on its tail. Said (in some words or other) that animals establish dominance heirarchies, and in traditional civilizations, that’s how it worked with people too. Aristocrats on top, etc. Every kid grasped this concept easily.

Then we come to democracy. Why did the Athenians establish a democracy? Why do we have one? Why do we think it’s good and worth defending? The kids looked totally blank. Without exception, in a class of 20-25 bright 11 year olds. The discussion that ensued was so painfully difficult that I can barely remember it. It was deeply unsettling. They clearly had almost no vocabulary for this subject. If anything, in fact, these children of prosperous, liberal Brookline leaned toward an aristocratic position: why should the weak be able to dictate to the strong?

Moral: Democracy is a sophisticated concept. Talking about it in school has fallen out of favor. Kids, if they’re to become citizens, need to learn about it.

By the way, the answer to the question is: because it’s better than any of the alternatives.