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Mortality for the Complete Klutz

10mar2008: I was in the bookstore today and walked past a table piled high with various books in the ...for Dummies series. Choice among these was Grieving for Dummies. The nicely ambiguous title could have been a Hemingway story.

The books are written by some nominal expert in the field. Grieving, for example, is written by Greg Harvey, PhD. It says on the cover, in smaller type underneath his name, that he is a member of the American Academy of Bereavement&Association for Death Education and Counseling. (Death education? We teath them sign languath.)

Also on the table was Coin Collecting for Dummies, for which the editor was asleep at the wheel. Underneath the name of one of the coauthors, as evidence of his qualifications, it says "Author of Coin Collecting for Dummies."