Oh! If they only had the power of Joshua!

For some reason the American writer Mark Twain took a mighty dislike to the English writer Jane Austen. Miss Austen had been long deceased by the time Mr. Clemens first put nib to paper, so this dislike could not have possibly been personal. One can only come to the conclusion that he disliked her novels. This should not be surprising considering the fact that Miss Austen's novels were, for the most part optimistic and comic in a subtle manner. Mr. Clemens' works, were often bitter, and his humor was of the rough frontier variety.

And he may have been able to see into the future and see the fact that, in this age of cinema, Miss Austen's works have been consistently popular among film makers and movie goers, while Mr. Clemens' works have not been of the same popularity among the cinema crowd. In other words, at the studios libraries, the works of Mark Twain are collecting dust alongside the works of Bret Harte.

Mr. Clemens at one time wrote (and your faithful correspondent is paraphrasing here) that Jane Austen's bones should be dug up from the grave and her femur used to bash her skull.

We here, at the Manor, being Janeites, feel that Mr. Clemens exercised bad taste and bad judgement in his remark. BUT, this writer feels that the punishment Mr. Clemens deigned for Miss Austen might be proper for another class than English lady writers.

A case in point are the Solons in Washington, D.C. who have decided to begin the farce of Daylight Savings Time three weeks early in the name of "saving energy." Their decision to fool with natural time was made despite the findings of the University of California Berkley that such an action would have no effect whatsoever on energy savings since 1.) many businesses are now active 24 hours hours a day, and 2.) the burden of energy usage would only be shifted from the early evening to the early morning.

But our elected masters, caring more about symbols than reality, have decided that we need to shift our schedules so that we can pretend to save energy and pat ourselves on the back for lighting our lamps at six o'clock in the morning instead of six o'clock in the evening.. One finds one's self wondering if our Congressmen, if given the power by Our Father, would not attempt to emulate Joshua and stop the sun in the sky for an hour everyday to save energy. The arrogance of the whole act is overwhelming.

One finds one finding one's self wanting to tear the femur from the local want to be Webster and beat their brains out with it. And one finds one's self wondering who profits?