Interesting Stories. This is the part that is updated.

June 2002

A British "Dr Death". According to CNN a Dr Harold Shipman has murdered some 215 patients over a 23-year period. "... Shipman's reasons for the killings were unclear. His first victims tended to be terminally ill, but then he moved on to murder patients that simply irritated him. He himself has never admitted guilt or his thinking behind the deaths."

Michael Medved on the dubious movie Windtalkers — one of a long, annoying series of important falsifications of history in the movies — and on other lies.

A recording of Al Purdy's poems, Necropsy of Love put out by Cyclops Press, has an interesting note on the back of the case: "When he [Purdy] passed away in April, 2000, he left behind not only the huge gift of his writing, but literally his own voice in this wonderful recording."

It turns out not to be his real voice — as I had thought — but only a fiendish reproduction.

Pilots are to be armed in the U.S. in case they have to deal with terrorists. [ ... More]

The National Post claims this novel I'm looking at is "mordantly funny". Quill & Quire says it's "rollicking".

Don't journalists these days have to go to some kind of journalism school before they're allowed to work anywhere? Don't you think they would tell them not to say "mordantly funny", or "deeply moving", or "fine writing"? Or maybe I'm not getting the joke.