Things are Getting Worse

I haven't been blogging much for the past couple of days, but I have a backlog of things to post. And there are things I have posted that should be edited and revised.....

A SAD OBSERVATION

From 1996 until last year I spent most of my time outside of the United States.
At some point in 1997 I had sold a good number of books. These days, I often find myself hunting for a book, unable to find it, and wondering whether I was fool enough to have actually sold it. The next step in this sad process is that I go to the web and contemplate the prospect of purchasing a book I know I used to own...

What I notice time after time is that a book I purchased, say, for less than 15 dollars in 1994 or 1995 or earlier now costs 30 or more dollars. And an inward struggle ensues. Maybe the book is there somewhere in a box behind the other boxes, and I simply can't get to it now.... The thought that I am going to buy the very same book I used to own and pay twice as much for it as I originally did is too painful to contemplate.

My actual income has declined, and so has the income of most citizens of the USA.

This means that our access to the most basic goods of culture has deteriorated.

If you think everything you might want or need to read is available "for free" on the internet then you are just not very curious.