mexican sharpshooter
I took my kids to the used books by the pound store when they declared they were bored on a rainy Saturday afternoon. They found their stuff quickly and I picked up Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville for $2.99. The price was right, and it seemed to disturb the guy working there I found an “America, fuck yeah” book in the store with an enormous display of White Fragility in the front of the store along the requested COVID-walkway. So I’ve been reading that.
Almost sad how none of de Tocqueville’s observations apply anymore.
OMWC
One of the fun things about SP’s recent birthday party was trying some interesting beers with Nephilium. Honestly, I’m pretty much a beer ignoramus, but I have a vague idea of styles I tend to like and dislike. So I had a motivation to bring my beer knowledge up a few levels. As well, I’ve been a longtime geek about wine-food pairings, and for food where wine is less suitable, I’m interested in what people have discovered about what pairings work best. Neph recommended “The Brewmaster’s Table: The Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food” by Garrett Oliver to kickstart my learning curve.
And he was right: Oliver gets down to absolute geek level on the processes and how they affect styles. The descriptions of the flavors and aromas reminded me of the all-too-precious language of wine porn, both for good and bad. At least the overly-flowery prose could convey the basics of what to expect, but (literally opening to a random page) sentences like, “The bitterness is sharp, with a metallic edge that coats the palate as sweet malt burst through the center, showing raspberries, strawberries, and rose petals” make me wish for the creative writing to be dialed back a bit. Oliver also seems to be constantly defensive about beer and food versus wine and food, and does more than a bit of dishonest argumentation to make beer a universally superior solvent.
That said, the technical portions are clear and vivid, and despite any temptations, he doesn’t get political, for which he deserves many awards.
It was fun.
SP
Not much to report. I did an advance read for a British mystery author I know. Oh, and I read Lee Goldberg’s second installment in his Eve Ronin series, Bone Canyon. Disappointingly, he telegraphed the bad guy very early on. Or maybe I just read too many mysteries and think about mystery plots too much.
Other than that, textbooks and whole-food plant-based books and cookbooks.
SugarFree
A Scent of New-Mown Hay by John Blackburn (1956)
A plague sweeps across the most desolate parts of the USSR, a mutant fungus that kills only women, turning them into fruiting bodies for the mycelium invading their cells. The small size of the fungal spore lets them travel on the wind and in doomed Great Britain, the wind begins to blow from the east.
Not a zombie plague novel, but it does feature the infected women as both still alive yet no longer sentient, just ambulatory spore spreaders.
It does draw a neat line from 1907’s “The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson with its nightmarish fungal transformation on an unknown island (made into 1963’s Matango, aka Attack of the Mushroom People, Fungus of Terror) and the suspiciously similar “Fungus Isle” (1923) by Philip M. Fisher to The Fungus (1985) by Harry Adam Knight and Leroy Kettle.
Now fungal zombies are all over the place, from the direct inheritor novel The Girl With All The Gifts (M. R. Carey, 2014) still destroying England, to movies (Cargo, 2017) and video games (The Last of Us, 2013.)
Tonio
I’m reading the Tuttle Twins books for a project for here. Just finished The Tuttle Twins Learn about The Law. I’m totally on the fence as to whether it’s exactly the sort of strained narrative one expects from advocacy fiction (mea culpa), or something that kids would actually read and enjoy. Would appreciate feedback in the comments or via email from any parents who have used these books. I bought the entire set but have a feeling they’ll end up in the Little Free Libraries around town. Strategically deposited so that when you look at drop locations on a map it makes a big smiley face.
I’ve read the shampoo bottle at least a dozen times this month.
Ha! My wife will walk in with me doing my business in the bathroom and ask “What are you reading on the tampon box”?
Why would anyone do that? The walking-in part, that is.
Everyone knows that feminine hygiene products contain secret coded feminist messages on resisting the patriarchy!
If the bathroom door is closed, you knock.
Anyone barging in will soon find a lock on the door.
My wife has space issues. Its complicated.
The last thing in the world I want is someone walking in on my when I’m taking a dump. The second last thing in the world I want is to walk in on someone taking a dump.
I would not be a good German.
Since the subject has come up, let me describe the absolute worst thing about the Marine Corps’ training process: no doors on the stalls at OCS – and, I presume, at boot camp, either.
There is nothing quite like the experience of trying to evacuate your bowels of Marine Corps chow (which has been hastily shoved down your gullet to meet the drill instructor’s demands) and then to have the same dude suddenly appear in front of you screaming like a fucking lunatic that you need to “HURRYUP!! HURRYTHEFUCKUP!!! YOU’VE GOT ONE. FUCKING. MINUTE!!! ONE MINUTE TO GET YOUR ASS OUT ON LINE!!! NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!”
While you sit there trying to complete that act. I’m still traumatized by it.
Even in the wimpy Chair Force…that experience is relived. Thanks for drudging that up from the deep recesses I have managed to hide it in.
Betting a picture of Ermey on the inside of your bathroom door would expedite the evacuation of your bowels even today.
It was very similar to how Kubrick shot that bit where the camera is from Joker’s POV looking up at Ermey: “YOU WILL NOT LAUGH. YOU WILL NOT CRY. YOU WILL LEARN. I WILL TEACH YOU.”
Kubrick was a master of framing his shots for maximum effect.
There are no doors on the stalls in rural China either. And they have those “squatty potties”. Oh, and there IS NO TOILET PAPER OR SOAP! (I was warned to bring my own).
I felt like I put on a pretty good show for all the curious Chinese dudes.
I have a pooping in China in a hole with no doors, nor running water, story.
But that wasn’t in a rural area.
Webcam?
When I was a HS sophomore, my church youth group took a trip to ski in NC (Beech Mtn).
The stalls had no doors, the bathroom had no heat, and there were at least 5 people in line at each stall.
So here I am shitting in a half-frozen toilet, steam rising out of the bowl as if it were a train engine, and trying to wipe ass with a bathroom full of dudes trying not to stare at the spectacle.
You were living large if you had a stall – even without doors. I’ve taken many a dump in heads with no stalls – just a row of shitters a la FMJ. I paid the price more than once when shouts of “Clear the head” came ringing thru the head and I couldn’t finish my business in time. One of our drill instructors was a sadist – he ended being investigated and was facing a court martial for multiple incidents involving our platoon during boot camp. 8 members of our platoon were put on “legal hold” for 10 days after graduation from boot camp – we were being held as witnesses. From what I recall the the drill instructor took a plea and resigned from the drill field and that was the end of it. We finally got to go home on leave.
I used to care. Now I can shit in public. It’s your problem, not mine.
Pissing is a bit more difficult, what with the prostate and all.
True story:
Go into bathroom in a K-TV in Shanghai. See the little old man who’s serving as an attendant. Nod, head to pissers.
Start taking a long Cognac infused leak. Suddenly feel hands on my shoulders that start to massage me. Little old man is helping me relax into the piss. Of course, my Western tendencies kicked in and the flow stopped like Paul Atreides bombed it.
The attendant, of course, expected a tip.
But just the tip, right?
Fortunately when I was in Shanghai, nothing similar happened. I wasn’t warned to expect it though, and it would have been very uncomfortable indeed, I imagine.
I believe my words were something like “I’ll give you five bucks to stop that.”
I would not be a good German.
I wouldn’t expect (((you))) to be.
Bitter irony was how (((many decorated WWI veterans))) did present themselves as good Germans during the transition from Weimar to Third Reich.
You know that’s literally true, right? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHmU6DmIfL_gX9arzNh3iOg
Only if they are provided at taxpayer expense can you decipher the embedded instructions for resisting the patriarchy
There is no bathroom privacy here. It’s mostly okay until your 14 year old starts asking mundane questions when you’re trying to wipe.
And I thought that was something the 3 year old would grow out of…
What’s worse is that the mundane questions are no longer cute.
It’s not “where do babies come from?”, but shit I’d rather not talk about at all.
He’s being inundated by SJW nonsense at school, and thankfully he’s resisting like a good libertarian in training. He even started a long discussion in class a couple days ago over his “Taxation is theft” comment. He’s got a decent head, but his big problem right now is pure contrarianism. He’s only looking for nits to pick, not realizing that not everything needs to be criticized, and some things (even gov action) are good. This manifested over the last year in to defending Trump, even when he was wrong, simply because the media bashed him. It’s a good impulse, and will get you to the right spot much of the time, but it’s not the only card in the deck.
But now he’s being inundated with bullshit, it’s all he wants to talk about. So he’ll bust in to the bathroom while I’m mid-shit, turd only half out, and start commenting on some dumbass tweet or another about LGBTQXYZ bullshit or some such nonsense.
You read while masturbating?
Hmmm…
Zombie spore women – still worth a feel from Joe?
“5 stars. Would sniff again.”
My youngest enjoys the Tuttle Twins
Thanks for the info.
I’ve been reading some of my work trying to get back into the swing of writing the end of them.
I’ve not gotten much on the page.
I do that too, sometimes. Writer’s block is a bitch.
Moar Dug pleeze
I’m working on it.
We’ll pay you!
Tokyo Under Glass by William Kaden (Kindle https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07J5RCD1V)/
Set in 1992 Tokyo, predictable ending, but still quite fun aside from that. Some of the business details aren’t quite right according to the reviews I’ve read, but many of the others are. Double points for calling out the pushiness and incivility of elderly Japanese women in crowds.
“They found their stuff quickly and I picked up Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville for $2.99.”
It’s a fine sentiment. But, I think the era of today calls for “Democracy: The God That Failed” over Tocqueville
I read the Tocqueville book a year or two ago. For a young man he certainly understood reality. I ‘m finishing up a Custer book, looked trough my unread stuff this morning, damn, there is still a lot left to go. Either I’d better get busy (ier) or live a lot longer.
I shop Hamilton Books catalog, I have an employee discount card for Half Price Books but don’t get to the TC often any more.
Still slogging through The Gulag Archipelago. I can only read it in small chunks.
Reading Scott Horton’s Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism This is a must read. Terrible for blood pressure, but it really does a nice job of laying out the players and the breathtaking retardation of our betters. Particularly in light of yesterday’s ‘kinetic military action’ or whatever the fuck we’re calling it.
Also read Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm. I enjoyed it a lot and it was a nice palate cleanser. Recommended.
Yeah, I had to read “The Gulag Archipeligo” in HS for Advanced Govt. Young Tonio living in the carefree 1970s could deal with it; for old Tonio in 2021 it would be bone-chilling.
Big shout-out to my teacher Mr Hall, wherever he is. We also read Hedrick Smith’s “The Russians.” I now realize that the entire semester was a highly effective course on identifying and resisting creeping communism. Had only I heeded its message more seriously earlier in my life.
My sophomore year (H.S.) English teacher had us read Anthem. I wonder where she is now and if she’s been cancelled.
Wow, nice!
Superior to Atlas Shrugged, imo.
Anthem is a great easy read.
It should be a movie.
With 2112 over the closing credits.
In my junior English class (theme: American lit), our final exam was to read any American novel and the exam questions would be generalized to fit any book (“How does the book demonstrate the concept of the ‘American Dream'” – along those lines). The teacher recommended The Grapes of Wrath or Red Badge of Courage. Fuck that.
Because I had read Anthem the prior year, I decided to read The Fountainhead. Teacher said I would never finish it and would fail the exam. I got an A.
Here we go …
Fountainhead is a superior work to Atlas Shrugged.
I liked the theme & plot of Atlas better, but I think Fountainhead was better-written.
Wrong.
For whatever reason, I cannot get into Fountainhead. I have read it a few times and it just … lacks … something.
Although, honestly, it might be more applicable to today than AS.
I read Fountainhead after AS, and then ended up reading it again when someone quoted a line at me to encourage me when I was discouraged. I could write an article on her inintentional riff off Jesus. I find that amusing.
That’s because Howard Roark is an asshole who thinks his vision entitles his to ownership.
Galt is an dick, too. Why Dagny chose that guy over literally every other man in the book, is beyond me.
So Roark propped up Peter Keating for years with no expectation of return, KNOWING that Keating would fuck it up. Why? Because he was so secure in who he was, he could do that without a sense of giving his self, his most prized possession, away.
Very Christ-ish, if you think about it.
Quoting myself here (from one of my books): “You know why the tortoise challenged the hare to race? He didn’t think he’d win. He knew the hare would fuck it up. Because that was his nature.”
A girl I was dating in HS told me Fountainhead was her favorite book. I should have taken the hint.
KK, you are SOOOOO right. Rearden was the hero of that book and his uncharacteristic willing cuckery (“I’ve met him; I don’t blame you” dafuq, Rearden?) just brought the whole thing tumbling down.
In Dirty Dancing, the villain waiter flashes The Fountainhead at Jerry Orbach’s character. I didn’t know the book then, and now that I know the book, I still don’t understand the reference.
Much better
In Dirty Dancing, the villain waiter flashes The Fountainhead at Jerry Orbach’s character. I didn’t know the book then, and now that I know the book, I still don’t understand the reference.
It’s a gratuitous dig on Ayn Rand followers and an attempt to further illustrate that the waiter is a bad person. All right-thinking people know Ayn Rand and her followers are bad people who are self centered assholes who just want to hurt the poorz and downtrodden.
Haha, yours too? I guess there are some good ones working covertly within the public “education” system.
Almost makes me feel bad for acting like such a shitheel in her class.
That’s the only Ayn Rand book I’ve ever read. Picked it up on my own from the “Sci-Fi” rack in the English classroom. I need to revisit that. My recollection is that it was quite accessible.
Yes. My kid read it in 7th or 8th grade on her own because it was in the bookcase and she was bored.
Great book. Kinda too bad that Smith often noted peculiarities that were due to communism as ‘Russian idiosyncrasies’. Still worthwhile if you were alive in the 70’s, and to some extent, if you weren’t.
Yeah, even teen Tonio saw the liberal apologism going on there.
” Infinity Beach” by McDevitt”
I am reading Stars in Their Course by Shelby Foote. Ill move onto The Civil War next. I am on book two of that monster read.
Scott Horton’s “Enough Already”.
I’ve managed to through the Iraq wars and Syria I so far. It’s a hard slog and absolutely engraging.
At the time I knew the wars in the ME were all BS and we should just butt out, but HF, it’s way worse than I imagined. I didn’t try to fugure out the Sunni/Shiite squabble at the time. It seems our Betters have been getting our troops killed supporting Iran (in Iraq) and AlQueda (in Syria). The whole area is just a huge cluster fuck that we should just stay out of. All the usaul suspects are participating, but I didn’t realize the role(s) Lizzy Cheney played. “Cunte” doesn’t begin to describe her.
I can do about an hour or so at time before my brain freezes trying to keep track of the shifting cast of squabbling goups or my blood pressure goes up over the incredible combination of hubris and stupidity and deceit of our “leaders”.
I’m finding refuge in youTube videos like this. Strangley soothing.
https://youtu.be/TY-H2aUtrKI
Holy hell, can you imagine the frustration if just one of those contraptions failed to function??
Just a thought, when Kamel ahh becomes president, do we call her Bomber Harris?
Seems the Brits had one once
Just finished “There Was A Light” by Rich Tupica. An interesting account and history of Chris Bell, Big Star, Ardent Records, and Memphis, TN music from 1965 to 1978. Told in first person by interviews with the people who lived it. Drugs, rock n roll, more drugs, and tragedy.
Just started “A Spy In The House Of Love” by Chris Stamey. More tales of rock n roll glory and failure by the founder of power pop sensations The dB’s. Also practical discussion on recording techniques and how to write hooky pop songs.
I like both books.
I just read this bottle. What could I mix this with, I wonder?
Ice?
Coconut?
It’s a bit of a rhetorical question for Zoom participants, because I already know what I’m-a mix it with.
Bad decisions?
A very real possibility
Channeling my inner 21year old…so how you doin? While I missed the once in a week happening last Friday, I am destined to join tonight.
Were you there for the infamous pants-pissing incident?
Sadly…no. I felt like the left out little brother the morning after reading about it.
I was there and I missed the pissing incident. In my defense, I was incredibly drunk and busy barfing. But at least it went in the toilet bowl.
Was that Brett’s lava-lamp chigging?
The pants pissing was Saturday night.
Oh yeah – that’s right. I was abstinent that night. I did see the chugging, though.
TIKI DRINKS!
/kicks the can down the road further on that column
No need to kick the can – I have no fucking clue what I’m doing and don’t have any “real” ingredients like coconut milk & shit like that.
Part of the trick is you don’t need things like that, especially with a pineapple flavored rum.
Most exotic things I’ve got in the fridge is pineapple juice and orgeat syrup (almond and orange blossom syrup, there are workarounds to fake it).
Yeah, I would have gone with regular Malibu and pineapple juice, but I’m too lazy to make a separate trip to the grocery store. So I have both coconut and pineapple Malibu. This should be fun.
One of my favorite drinks was happened across back in my college days – we would just go into our regular bar and yell out a number. Bartender would then mix up whatever was on that page of his recipe book. Thus I came across one called an “Absolut Stress”
1 part vodka
1/2 part peach schnapps
1/2 part Malibu rum
Pineapple juice, to taste
Splash of grenadine
The beauty of this drink, if you can get past how sweet it is, is the fact that you can go incredibly heavy on the alcohol with little to no juice in it, and it never gets so strong you can’t drink it (thus the “1 part” and not actual measures). When I mix it it is pretty much straight liquor with a little fruit juice in it.
Introduced this to my in-laws, and they took it back home to Ohio, where it became so popular in the local bar that it is known by my real first name alone – “Give me a XXXX”
Some would tell you pizza…
Snork!
The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Regions, and Peoples by David Gilmour
Fundamentals by Frank Wilczek
I went looking for Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and struck out on that, but did pick up and just started into his Technopoly. It strikes me a bit like The True Believer in that it isn’t a big book, but it is a dense read.
Someone mentioned reading The Tyranny of Metrics, and that may be the follow-on read to this.
Brewmaster’s Table is excellent. I don’t know if it has been updated, but my version has some clearly out of date pairing options.
I use to chat with Oliver a bunch on a beer related site. He is a cool dude.
Lee Goldberg sent me a scathing email about how bad a writer I was and no wonder I had to self-publish because no publisher in his right mind would publish me. It was remarkable in its cruelty.
Do we have a reason to care what Lee Goldberg thinks?
It was right when I first started out and self-publishing was still an act of treason. I took a lot of heat back then.
You need to be published by a reputable house!
Never heard of Lee (I’m guessing Goldberg is in the same genre as you so I wouldn’t have). But one doesn’t just send such directed communications to people unless a: the letter writer is crazy, or b: the letter writer is threatened.
Either way, I don’t put much creedence in the content of the message. Especially what I’ve seen of the legacy publishing houses – may they continue to slide into irrevelence.
No, definitely not the same genre. He’s into male action-adventure novels/mysteries. SP mentioned him in her post, which is why I commented on him.
So why did he send you the email? What was the connection between you all?
I was very vocal in my self-publishing advocacy and he had a raging hard-on for self-publishing, so he was part of that sphere, trying to keep people in the traditional publishing cult. He started reading my novel to prove his point.
I’m a tidge bitter still, but mostly it’s just a thing that, if I see his name, I remember. It doesn’t mean much. The best review I ever got on that book was, “This book changed my life.” Someone read it, saw herself in one of my characters, and dug herself out of depression and fought it to go to school for a degree.
My self publishing turn came from meeting William King at a convention and listening to his own shift from traditional to independent publication. His discussion about traditional houses chasing blockbusters and overlooking even known authors who will only give reliable but not blockbuster returns made me stop chasing the approval of the slush readers.
I don’t anymore, and haven’t in a long time, but several years into self-publishing, I still was wistful about the possibility of BEING published instead of PUBLISHING.
Well, that sounds like a life win to me. Mojeaux, you made someone’s life better. Fuck Goldberg.
Thanks, Tulip. It’s hard to remember that when you’re wondering if you’ll get more than candy money out of it this month.
^This.
“Bone Canyon” isn’t a romance novel?
Bravo.
*snicker*
If SF were to write it you know it would feature Nancy Pelosi, as the title character.
Google tells me he’s a weatherman, which makes it even weirder.
Glad you enjoyed it OMWC. Garrett was also involved in this weighty tome (which I don’t recommend unless you want a reference guide that isn’t deep enough for a geek, and is too deep for entry level). And as a counterpoint, I was very disappointed with What to Drink with What You Eat from the people who put together the Flavor Bible. For the wines, they may know their stuff, but for beers… for certain foods they recommend Ale.
In personal reading, I have finally read the last book that Pterry ever wrote. The Shepherd’s Crown, it involves the death of one of the longest involved characters in the books. The world is now a darker place with no new Pterry to read.
I also own that weighty tome. The problem is the parts that are just wrong. There are a couple of Brits I used to read who get prickly with American interpretations of British beer history.
I don’t think I made it through the whole book, as I realized it wasn’t designed to be read cover to cover. IIRC, I got it at a discount at a beer fest, or during one of the renewals for the AHA.
Yeah, I skipped around in it.
It has some interesting bits.
Back in the days when I wrote about wine, I picked up a book by Tom Maresca on wine-food pairing. I didn’t get much out of it other than being convinced that he was OCD and neurotic. Oliver is less nutso, but probably just as OCD. I was a bit disappointed that nearly every food pairing was meat-centric, but at least every once in a while, he’d let something inanimate in the culinary door.
BTW, contra Oliver, there is a great wine match for chocolate. Banyuls. But of course, he picked a poor choice (I think Zinfandel? Some dry red) and ranted about how much better beer was for that. Banyuls and chocolate is as perfect a pairing as SP and me.
The only use for Scotch is with chocolate.
A? I can think of several, depending on the form of chocolate.
Chilate
Raymond Chandler Trouble is my Business *** Four Phillip Marlowe stories. pretty much what you’d expect.
Robert Masello The Haunting of H.G. Wells ** Historical fiction WWI backdrop, mild supernatural elements. Apparently this author’s ‘thing’ is having famous old authors be the protagonists in his books, I won’t be reading any others.
Neal Asher Gridlinked nr about 3/4 thru this much recommended book and I gotta say unless the finish blows my socks of I’m not taking anymore SF advice from you nerds.
Mall Parker Humble Pi:When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World *** Speaking of nerds, A good shitter book, interesting stories, not too ‘mathy’.
Chandler is in my top five. The Long Goodbye is still one of my favorites.
Still slowly working through The Tyranny of Metrics (https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Metrics-Jerry-Z-Muller/dp/0691174954)
It’s the most effective critique of technocracy I’ve read. The author has some blind spots (especially in the higher ed space… He’s a history prof, so his point of view on value of education ignores the economic realities of lower middle class families that feel like they’re forced to send their kids to college to enable a worthwhile career), but it illustrates multiple ways that putting on blinders and focusing solely on metrics can result in horrible incentives.
Oh, that’s a good one. I read it a year or two ago.
People need to read more books like that; there’s far too much automatic trust in “official” numbers that get thrown out, and most people seem wholly unfamiliar with the concept of questioning what went into those numbers.
Postman talks about grading (very much a metric) as a technology – we may have to swap books when we’re both done.
multiple ways that putting on blinders and focusing solely on metrics can result in horrible incentives.
Oh, hell yeah. We’ve recently decided to stop publishing some metric data to our staff. People get metric hypnosis and start trying to game the metric, rather than work on what the metric is supposed to be measuring.
I’ve similar with procedures and processes.
“I followed the process so I must have done a good job!”
Uhhh… oh boy.
Medical is one of his 4 focuses. I’ve only started dipping into his detailed critique of medical, but if it is as good as the k-12 education critique, it will be damn good.
You see this in call centers all the time. Start saying you want better handle times, agents will start “accidentally” disconnecting calls when they’re answering or after a certain amount of time.
Especially if you tie bonuses or raises into the metrics.
Im reading fantasy baseball magazines so i can win some cash this year. Im a real loser.
As my step-father said to my kids: I don’t care if its comic-book, a coin-collecting pricing guide or Playboy, at least you are reading.
Read:
“Oglaf Book One”
“Oglaf Book Two”
“Oglaf Book Three”
Still reading:
“Covid-19: The Great Reset” by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret
I’m reading fantasy/smut novels. Reading Sugarfree’s posts has prepped me for them.
I remember The High Couch of Silistra. Come to think of it, GRRM ripped of some of it when he built ASOIAF.
I finished the rest of the C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. I especially enjoyed The Great Divorce, and it’s made me think a lot about the question of if I were in that position, what would be most difficult for me to let go of?
I re-read The Chronicles of Prydain just for fun.
I’m currently re-starting Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions. AlmightyJB recommended it to me last year and I read and enjoyed about half of it before stress over the lockdowns got to me and I stopped reading anything for a while.
I’m reading the tea leaves.
The German leader said that “everyone agreed that we need a digital vaccination certificate,” following the meeting of European leaders.
Merkel said that such a system could be implemented as soon as the summer, but claimed that the introduction of a vaccine passport “does not mean that only those who have a vaccination passport are allowed to travel,” according to the German broadcaster DW.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Israel’s implementation of ‘Green Passes’, a system in which the government tracks and documents an individual’s vaccination history in order to facilitate travel or to attend synagogues, theatres, concerts, or to go to the gym.
Germans have a, um, questionable history with “muh papers please”. . .
The BBC had a radio story about how peeved Eurolanders were that they were so far behind the US and the UK wrt Covid vaccinations.
The issue of Brexit was not mentioned. Someone more familiar with the rules will have to let me know — were they still part of the EU, could the UK approve and distribute the vaccine on their own, or would they need whatever EU approval process is currently going on?
They would likely be stuck with the EU plan, becuase there’s been a bunch of bitching from
membersubjectserf states about the plan.What a bunch of pricks, getting stuck the that vaccine plan.
The Nazis were bad because and only because they gassed minorities. Everything else they did was good.
/modern prog-fascists
They would agree with a fairly large amount of the actual nazi platform. I tried to point this out to a prog once . . . and he called me a nazi for having read the platform…
That is incredible frustrating on so many levels. “Fascist” and “Nazi” cease to have any meaning if people don’t know what those things actually mean. It is particularly frustrating to hear assertions of individual rights labelled as “fascist” when they are anything but.
Anything but the actual fascism they practice daily is considered fascism.
Just as with everything else, it’s all Pro(g)ection.
I’m not sure about the disapproval of gassing either.
It’s the fact that they were minorities who have places on the oppression totem pole that makes it bad. If they had gassed some Methodists and Welsh, the left would be cheering them on for striking a blow against white supremacy.
Also that it was useful by the commies in their divide with the nazis and distract from their own bloody hands.
Someone just re-watched Season 3 of Archer.
Or that episode of Sherlock.
https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Steel-Original-1929-Translation/dp/1696237726/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=storm+of+steel&qid=1614363360&sr=8-1
Storm of Steel.
No spoilers please! I hope the Kaiser sticks his Pickelhaube right up Haig’s ass.
Recently read this – the authors’ nonchalance about his experiences was rather fascinating. His descriptions of combat, the battlefield, trenches, the shattered landscapes and villages made feel like I was there seeing what he was seeing. I had to look up some of the weaponry he described as I had no idea what it was. The person who did the translation uses “bomb” where grenade would have made more more sense. Excellent book overall – a real page turner.
To direct gun violence by the state on the citizens?
House Democrats on Friday urged President Biden to appoint a “national gun violence” director as the administration hinted at possible firearms regulations earlier in February.
Democratic Reps. Joe Neguse of Colorado and Lucy McBath of Georgia sent a letter, which was signed by 34 other lawmakers, to request the placement of a “National Director of Gun Violence Prevention,” adding that the official would “create and chair an Interagency Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention.” The coalition of legislators cited a “persistent and growing gun violence” problem in the United States as the reason for the move.
“Every year, nearly 40,000 people are killed with guns in our nation and another 76,000 are injured, with disproportionate shares of this violence falling on communities of color,” the letter read. “In 2020 alone, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, at least 43,561 people needlessly lost their lives due to gun violence, a 10% increase from 2019. As gun ownership soars to record levels, we fear that this violence will only continue to grow.”
I wonder why that is… (hint: they do it to each other.)
Translation: the only way to get those darkies to stop killing each other is to make sure rednecks in the sticks nowhere near the nexuses of gun violence in the US are punished.
Who runs those communities? What kind of gun control laws do they have?
Also, over half of that 40K killed are suicides. With disproportionate shares falling on white males, by the way.
Shhhhhh!
You’re ruining the narrative.
Re-read all of the books in the Altered Carbon series. Holds up well IMO. It’s a shame the Netflix show didn’t have more faith in the source material. The best parts of the show are where they mostly stick to the book, and it could have been a great series.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Series of short stories set in small coastal town in Maine over about a 40 year period. I liked it, reminded me of Winesburg, Ohio and The Martian Chronicles in style.
Reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell now, about 1/3rd of the way through. Three interlinked viewpoint characters so far, all interesting in their own way. I’m hoping the slowly evolving fantasy element of the story doesn’t ruin it as more is revealed.
I haven’t read it yet because it hasn’t been delivered, but I’ll shortly be reading Keith Morris’ memoir My Damage
As always, I’m currently in different stages of reading several books at different rates, and as the mood moves me. It’s a bad way to read. I really need to just commit to one book and finish it, then do another, and another…
Currently reading:
“Flying High Performance Singles and Twins” (John Eckalbar)
“Performance Pilot” (Bentley and Wilkes)
“Ghost Rider” (Neil Peart)
“Live not by Lies” (Rod Dreher)
“Days of Rage” (Bryan Burrough)
“Norse Mythology” (author forgotten at the moment, but the book was published in the late 1890s)
And several other things lying on my night stand
Awesome. I’ve been snagging mythology books at any used bookstore I visit. I got a copy of The Golden Bough, which sounds pretty interesting.
I read Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths when I was a tweenager. I liked it – thought it was really accessible. I think I read the abridged version without the author’s commentary.
I’m currently in different stages of reading several books at different rates, and as the mood moves me. It’s a bad way to read.
I’m bad at that, too. I find that the kindle helps, but I have a glut of physical books that are asking to be read. I’m trying to force myself to focus on one only. I’m 5 pages into 7 or 8 books right now, but they’re all piled up on the nightstand while I finish up the one I mentioned down in the thread.
Ohh, Norse Mythology…do tell later tonight on Zoom if you are on. I would be interested in that.
I’ve got a copy of the Gaiman Norse Mythology book kicking around in my to read pile.
It used to be a to read stack…
God save the Queen.
A statue of the Queen in Beacon Hill Park has been beheaded.
Police were called to an area of the park near the petting zoo just after noon Wednesday after receiving a report that the statue had been vandalized.
The head had been removed and has yet to be recovered. The incident comes after an overnight graffiti spree that included references to Beacon Hill Park, and police are looking into whether the two events are connected.
That’s the respect she gets for being a delightful figurehead of the Commonwealth.
ungrateful subjects. Looking at the overgrown bushes, the disrespect wasn’t just the beheading.
Speaking of books, how do You People get rid of ones you no longer want to haul from place to place? Can they be donated anywhere?
Our local charity thrift store has books. I’d just check with your closest Goodwill/thrift store
Yep, I’ve dumped boxloads of books and CDs at Goodwill.
Easy enough. Thanks, peeps.
Don’t forget your tax receipt if you itemize!
Find a better place than Goodwill if you can. Used book store maybe that has a love of books, regardless of their content would be my first go-to. Though, I don’t think I have ever rid myself of a book in my life.
Shouldn’t they be left out in the woods for the next generation to find?
When my Aunt passed years ago, I inherited her library of books (at least a thousand books). I added everything I could possibly want to my own library and was still left with around 30 or 40 boxes of books. We took them all to a local used bookstore who gave us store credit for most and donated the rest. I can’t remember the amount but we got something around $1500 which was good for $3k in used books (used books were sold at half the listed price).
We didn’t have children of reading age yet, but used every last bit of that on purchasing books for them from early childhood to young adult. So the kids now have their own library of the best books we could find, though most are still in sitting boxed in the attic until they get old enough.
Just got rid of most of the kids’ Harry Potter and related stuff! I didn’t think of foisting them off on my niece’s kids!
Cr
Check out your local Friends of the Library, too. Most libraries have such groups that run used book sales with the proceeds going to support library programs.
Also, don’t forget to spread books around in Little Free Libraries in your area.
Will do, thanks!
Just don’t start a neighborhood free library cause that will get the scorn of people who believe only our betters should share information.
https://www.ksla.com/story/27979921/highland-little-free-library-deemed-illegal-and-forced-to-close/
Its an old story
only our betters should share information
Its an old story
Indeed it is.
I only partake in the audio variety.
I have a good old fashioned book burning about once a year.
Well, it can get cold in OH
For funsies with FU money, someone should bind empty books with covers of Obama’s books or others that are champions of the left and burn them to see the howls in the media.
You joke, but I’ve burned thousands of books up in your neck of the woods.
My great grandparents were teachers and voracious readers. My grandfather, upon settling their estate, decided to burn the lot. Thousands and thousands of books, many probably valuable, but the level of effort required to sort out the valuable ones from the piles of teaching materials was evidently too high. I saved The Sound and The Fury, but the entire enterprise left a bad taste in my mouth. Seemed disrespectful to something that was an important part of my great grandparents’ lives. That and we probably burned quite a few early editions of some great late-19th and early-20th century authors.
You saved Faulkner?!?
Yeah, I would’ve lit the match for that one.
Not currently reading it, but I have a collection of Roald Dahl short stories in storage. He was a good writer, and I’d recommend his adult stories to everyone in the room (as well as some of his ‘kids’ stories – he believed that young people shouldn’t be shielded the way they are now.)
“Bone Canyon,” “The Bone Clocks” Clearly my own reading needs to head in a different direction.
Something to listen to while you’re reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYOVcsNcmYs
Ha!
Was expecting “She don’t eat meat, but…”
Rattle my Bones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlvNBaPjbe4
OMG! They look like little kids!
Good one, nick.
Or you could just roll ’em.
I too am on “The Gulag Archipelago”. Full disclosure: I was confused by the book’s map, thinking the gulags were actually on literal islands. [eye roll emoji]
Also brushing up on marksmanship with a copy of the Marine Corps Sniper manual. I’ve forgotten some principles. [grimace emoji]
And just started Ozy’s anthrax book, which is so far excellent.
I just restarted The Lord of the Rings. I saw that Phillip Pullman was disparaging it because it didn’t have enough female characters. Pullman is a wang and can get bent. LOTR is one of those series that I can repeat and enjoy every time.
I also picked up Malice’s New Right on Audible, but haven’t started it yet.
People are retarded…news at 13!
I know. It was just another one of those things that rubbed me the wrong way. Never read Pullman, likely never will.
His books are decent. You just have to get past his raging hard-on for hating the Church.
I think his shitting on the church lends credence to his shitting on every other authoritative institution.
Yes. He shits on the church. But no more than he shits on education and government and any other institution that claims some authority over individual will. Without his shitting on religion, the rest would ring hollow, IMO. It’s tough to argue that the oldest authority is somehow good, while all the rest are bad.
You misunderstand. I find it quite acceptable. I just can’t reconcile it with his love for the EU and his outspoken criticism of Brexit. The EU is a case study in the type of corruption he so rightly criticizes. He’s a study in contradictions.
Every artist is to some capacity.
But that’s why I don’t evaluate artists, but art. Orwell was an unrepentant socialist, but showed us exactly where it leads and knew it wasn’t good. Whedon gave us Firefly, and he’s a massive prog douche.
His Dark Materials is absolutely fantastic.
I haven’t read anything that eviscerates institutions nearly as thoroughly as Pullman does. And none of them are safe, particularly the big 3 institutions: religion, government, education.
All are shat upon righteously.
I’ve heard they are good. Just the lack of self awareness as Scruffy mentions, is off-putting. He comes across as an asshole.
Pullman is an annoying asshole.
Yes, a raging asshole riddled with anal warts that’s leaking semen mixed with fecal matter, but that’s a separate issue as to whether his books are any good.
FAIR SHARE
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told G20 officials that Washington had dropped the Trump administration’s proposal to let some companies opt out of new global digital tax rules, U.S. and European officials said on Friday, raising hopes for an agreement by summer.
Nearly 140 countries have set a mid-2021 deadline to wrap up talks to modernize outdated rules on how much governments can tax cross-border commerce and set a global minimum corporate tax rate after negotiations nearly ground to a halt last year due to the U.S. proposal.
“Secretary Yellen announced that we will engage robustly to address both Pillars of the OECD project, and that the United States is no longer advocating for ‘safe harbor’ implementation of Pillar 1,” a U.S. Treasury official said.
——-
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz described the U.S. move as a major breakthrough that could pave the way for a broader deal.
“My U.S. colleague Janet Yellen told G20 finance ministers today that the United States would participate, and that the new regulations for fair international taxation should be binding for all companies,” he said in a statement after the meeting.
He said Yellen told the G20 officials that Washington also planned to reform U.S. minimum tax regulations in line with an OECD proposal for a global effective minimum tax.
Maybe Joe can put us a on a path to membership in the EU.
Sovereignty is such a burden.
https://twitter.com/GarbyJooman3/status/1363674043765952517
One short story anthology I re-read this week was New Legends (May 1995). The story of interest was written by Gregory Benford called “A Desperate Calculus”
I re-read it because it has a story of a group of WHO scientists working to track down and treat people with a new virus. As the story progresses it turns out they are not chasing the virus but being chased by other government agents as they are the ones spreading the virus. The virus crates a very high fever that has the intended side effect of rendering all fertile women infertile. This was done to reduce the population and save the earth from us dirty humans. The kicker was that the virus was spread only in certain populations (brown, yellow, and black ones) as they are the ones responsible for the population growth. They called it the “Greening”.
Really horrifying, but I can see this being justified by the progressive mind.
I haven’t had much time to read lately as I have been dicking around with my 40 year old pinball machine. By the way, old PCBs are a pain in the ass to de-solder.
. . . old PCBs are a pain in the ass to de-solder.
Can confirm. In the process of de-soldering and re-soldering a 64-year-old PCB from a Heathkit VTVM. Also dicking with the circuit a bit (they used half-wave rectification to supply the HV DC for the tubes, which puts a real burden on the power transformer, so I’m switching it to full-wave bridge as well as a higher-voltage-rated filter cap).
At some point I should get my Tekken 2 cabinet back into working order.
Working through some old Chesterton. Currently rereading The Everlasting Man.
I’m onto Shogun by Clavell. I have weird nostalgia for the (sanitized) Richard Chamberlain miniseries and wanted to check out the book.
I read it a few months ago and enjoyed it a lot.
Long damn book, though.
Why did I think Shogun was a Mitchener?
Because it’s really, really long.
The book is so much more interesting. That said, I think the miniseries made sense in dropping the omniscient viewpoint. For visual presentation it is a cleaner narrative.
LOL!
https://twitter.com/ThomasEWoods/status/1365388144489738242
Best reply: https://twitter.com/Living4Winter/status/1365343969048223744
😉
Oh, very nice.
Almost lost Dr Pepper through my nose with that one.
Finally ordered all the books I logged from y’all; and a couple others, with Christmas money
Read: Waco; from the guy who survived and the mini series was based on. Enjoyed, recommend
The True Believer; good
The Drunkards walk. I liked. Need to re-read, and maybe do some statistics online to really understand
Reading: Sometimes a great notion. Kinda different, but keeping me interested
To Read: Gulag Archipelago
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the madness of crowds
Propaganda (that needs to be next)
Alexander Dolguns story
Days of Rage
Stalling for time – The FBI negotiator during Waco (will probably be next)
Damn, y’all going to keep me busy, NO MORE RECOMMENDS!!! Hopefully I’ll finish them all by next Christmas
“Sometimes a great notion”
Ken Kesey is one of my favorite authors.
Ditto. SaGN is easily one of my top 3 favorite novels. Actually, its the only thing of his I have read.
You might like “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” about Kesey. Dude ran wild!
First book I’ve read of his, but I’ve always meant to read “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.” Definitely will now
I went through a Northern Ireland phase, took a breather with a newish Tim Powers ((Alternate Routes, pretty good but not his best) and am now moving into the Balkans with Black Lamb, Grey Falcon to help me with our current love fest.
“I went through a Northern Ireland phase”
You might like “Trinity” by Leon Uris
I’ve lined up Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights. I can’t say yet whether it’s any good, but I may as well look at it while it’s still available.
I’ve already read a rebuttal:
“Her emphasis on migrant men from Muslim-majority countries means that her solutions are focused on migration control rather than ending sexual violence. They include severe punishments for minor infractions, increased southern border security, enlarged defence budgets, expanded surveillance, and further military interventions as well as the scrapping of the asylum regime and the deportation of those who don’t subscribe to or adopt western values. Which ‘western values’ is unclear: hers, Douglas Murray’s, Donald Trump’s and Tommy Robinson’s, or that of Martin Luther King, Emmeline Pankhurst and the Tolpuddle Martyrs.”
Zing!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prey-immigration-islam-and-the-erosion-of-women-e2-80-99s-rights-by-ayaan-hirsi-ali-review/ar-BB1e3dgg
This month I finished Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind” and Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, “Fellowship of the Ring”, and “The Two Towers”.
On deck is (obviously) “Return of the King”, Some books about pro wrasslin’s territory days (Death of the Territories” and “The Squared Circle”), and finally Robby Soave’s “Panic Attack”.
Ive become completely obsessed recently with the culture behind pro wrestling. Those guys led…..interesting lives. Who knew that mixing frequent brain injuries, massive amounts of drugs, and living with at least two completely separate identities would lead to such things?
Currently reading The Prince of Tides