Bosox Clinch AL East

++If you have a moral compass or a brain, nothing happened it Washington today, except the new GOP revealed its true face. Besides slashing food stamps and "de-funding" Obamacare, the House approved a budget at the sequester level, which will lead to further cuts when the next sequester hits in January. Immigration reform looks dead as two Republicans quit the six-person bipartisan group in the House working on the House plan. The House approved mining for minerals on Park Lands and encouraged more logging in national forests. One member is submitting a bill that would provide a license to states  to prohibit benefits to same-sex couples.

++The Bosox clinched. Andy Petitte announced his retirement,A-Rod set the record for most grand slams in a career and Mariano "seemed" to have saved the game. I say "seemed" because the Yankees won but Mariano has been accused of blowing saves but the Yankees win anyway. I have no idea how that works. Sunday is Mariano Rivera last regular season game in Yankee Stadium. The Nats have not been eliminated yet. They have been on a tear the last couple dozen games but it probably is too late.

++Mark Twain's Autobiography Volume II is out. Unbelievably the last volume reached the bestseller list. 

++Tired of reading J.D. Salinger married a Gestapo agent and had one nut, try a true recluse. We don't know where he lives. We really don't know what he looks like. He has been spotted at rock clubs in Manhattan. He is the 76-year old Maestro of American Letters--the Greatest of all-time--the one and only Thomas Pynchon. His Bleeding Edge came out with reviews everywhere you look. When the AP does a story on the release of his book you know it might be time to consider Pynchon too commonplace. It is a terrific read and he delights with his surreal sense of humor. Have we come to the time when Pynchon without changing his style really should be considered a realist? Give the man the Nobel Prize for Literature so we know what he looks like.

++By the way, while J.D. Salinger lived in Cornish,New Hampshire, he really did continue writing. If you like him--I don't--he left several manuscripts which will be published starting next year.

++Runner-up in the category of making New York City seem cool--Pynchon ranks first but has too much a California gloss on Manhattan--is Jonathan Lethem's Dissent Gardens. From the days of the Communist Party to 9-11.