What Are We Reading for January 2021

by | Jan 29, 2021 | Books, Fiction, Literature, Pastimes | 310 comments

mexican sharpshooter

Nothing except for things work related.

OMWC

I remember SP explaining to me, shortly after we were married, that there’s no such thing as a Celebrity Waiver List, nor were celebrity crushes allowed. What is acceptable, though, is historical celebrity crushes. I will cheerfully confess that I have one, and that is Dorothy Parker. She could write, she could drink, she could be cynical, acerbic, and nasty- and really, really funny. I was particularly taken with her book reviews, and her poetry was a brutal Ogden Nash.

You have to read her, not just read about her. The Portable Dorothy Parker is a good way to get a broad sample. It is second only to a rubber duck as the ideal bathtub companion. It may be held in the hand without causing muscular fatigue, and it may be read through before the water has cooled. And if it slips down the drain pipe, all right, it slips down the drain pipe.

I’ll be in my bunk.

WebDom

I just started reading Successful Aging by Daniel Levitin on the plane to SPOMWC’s house (their estate came with a runway, ICYMI).

So far it’s interesting and engaging. I’m only a chapter in, so I will follow up next month with a verdict.

I am a bit worried about the veracity of some of the information provided, as happens often with pop science books, but Levitin provided 20 pages of citations and references, so that gives me hope.

 

SugarFree

I’m back to re-reading the Destroyer series. Book 13 through Book 18: Acid Rock, Judgment Day, Murder Ward, Oil Slick, Last War Dance, and Funny Money. They are such fun time capsules of what was bothering The John Birch Society: hippies, glam rock, gas prices, protest movements. They are like your Vietnam vet uncle when he gets drunk at Thanksgiving, but, you know, in a fun way.

About The Author

Glib Staff

Glib Staff

310 Comments

  1. pistoffnick

    The Northern Gardener: From Apples to Zinnias

  2. Yusef drives a Kia

    Automation, the primer, interesting stuff, I even understand some of it.

  3. UnCivilServant

    I am reading a bunch of my half-finished work to try to get my mind in gear to write.

    I am nost listening to anything.

    I have not successfully written anything.

    And now I’m sad again.

    • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

      Nothing this last month — too busy painting and doing general fixit work around the domicile. My book pile keeps getting higher . . .

    • UnCivilServant

      I have decided that Goblins have a form of Phenotypic Plasticity between a neotenous ‘cute’ form and a more monstrous looking ‘feral’ form triggered by stress hormones and diet. I just haven’t figured out what people in-world call it, because ‘Phenotypic Plasticity’ sounds too much like 20th century science jargon.

      • Hyperion

        I think you’re referring to the ‘hobgoblin’ variety.

      • UnCivilServant

        Hobgoblins are the hobgoblins of little minds.

        -Maj. Charles e. Winchester III

  4. Cowboy

    Minority Report and Other Short Stories from Philip K. Dick.

    Since cyberpunk 2077, I’ve been in a cyberpunk mood but haven’t found any William Gibson at the local half-priced books. I have the sprawl trilogy on my kindle somewhere, just no idea where it went off to.

    • Timeloose

      I really liked Bruce’s Sterling’s non-cyberpunk books. If you can find it, Crystal express was a great short story collection.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Been re-reading the Altered Carbon series. Really highlights how the makers of the Netflix show screwed up, the parts that mostly parallel the books are great, the parts where they just made shit up are terrible.

  5. Timeloose

    I might start reading the Python Crash Course book I’ve been putting off. It’s cold and there is little to do outside.

    I figured that it’s time to learn to code.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Former journalist or pipeline worker?

      • Timeloose

        Former FORTRAN 77 user. I feel like I need to try to give coding a try to make myself more well rounded. I’m not looking to become a professional, but I want to be competent with a modern language.

      • Timeloose

        Thanks for the direction.

  6. KromulentKristen

    Nothing. Any science history books to recommend, a la Making of the Atomic Bomb or e=mc2?

    • Timeloose

      Did you ever read The Jasons?

      It’s the story of the group of scientists the us put together to try and solve problems of national importance.

      • KromulentKristen

        No – that sounds interesting

      • KromulentKristen

        Downloaded

      • Ted S.

        Meet George Jason….
        His boy Elroy….

    • KromulentKristen

      Also aviation history – anything good/compelling on Juan Trippe, Boeing, or Amelia Earhardt?

    • Old Man With Candy

      Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age. You will LOVE it.

      • KromulentKristen

        That looks very cool! I’ll see if I can track down a copy cheaper than Amazon or an e-book. Thanks!

      • Timeloose

        I really liked this book as it reminded me of my own childhood interests. My chemist MIL recommended it to me after she read it.

      • KromulentKristen

        I’ve read some of his medical stuff about his interesting cases. I’ll check it out – thanks!

      • KromulentKristen

        Nice!! Thanks!

      • KromulentKristen

        Downloaded

      • Akira

        Added that one to my list.

        I also enjoyed Jordan Ellenberg’s How to Not Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.

        A flunked math every year in school, but I think “pop mathematics” books like these might help me get interested in it and maybe stop sucking at it so much.

      • Raven Nation

        Also, Paul Johnson has interesting chapters on science and society in both The Birth of the Modern Modern Times.

        I think Johnson gets things wrong as an historian, but a lot of his stories about how science interacts with broader society are fascinating.

  7. robodruid

    everything about care and raising of sheep.

    • Ted S.

      Including how to fuck them?

      • commodious spittoon

        He said care, didn’t he?

        Did you know the Welsh invented condoms? They used sheepguts. A little icky but pretty ingenious. The English improved on the method by taking the guts out of the sheep first.

  8. The Bearded Hobbit

    Burned through about a dozen Clive Cussler books while in Montana, until I burned out on them. Also found a Louis L’Amor book that I hadn’t previously read.

    My brother-in-law gave me about 2000 ebooks so I have been picking through and re-reading some old favorites. Finished Shogun in record time, one of my all-time favorites.

    Also read The Heart of Darkness which included another Conrad short story. I was not impressed, is writing style is all over the place.

    Speaking of all over the place, I am struggling with Cryptonomicon (recommended by someone here). Stephenson varies between first and third person perspectives and he can get carried away with his metaphors and similes.

    On my phone I’m about halfway through the first of Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires. Trying to read all 50 in the order that they were published.

    • westernsloper

      Also found a Louis L’Amor book that I hadn’t previously read.

      That would be a find. L’Amor was the author of choice for me and my fellow degenerates when I was a young sloper. I inherited my Grandfathers western novels collection when he passed some 40 years ago. I have lost most of them over the years and many moves. I am a bad grandson but I am sure he would have expected no less.

    • commodious spittoon

      Loved Crypto. Love Stephenson. When I was a teenager I’d pop open my big blue book of Hitchhiker’s Guide novels and start reading at any given paragraph. I do that now for some light toilet reading with Stephenson.

  9. Not Adahn

    What If and How To by Randall Munroe. The first one is fun, the second less so. I’m not planning on keeping them.

  10. westernsloper

    I read the service manual for a floor cleaning machine the other day. Now I am on vacation and might read something better because that sucked.

  11. Fourscore

    “Death at the Little Bighorn” Phillip Tucker

    While interesting, Tucker is busy interpreting events 150 years old, retold by old people that heard the stories from their grand fathers and now is deciphering Custer’s thoughts.

    If it was classified as fiction I’d not be surprised. Nonetheless, I bought it and I’ll finish it. Maybe Tucker is correct but that doesn’t change the outcome.

    • Viking1865

      On the hot Sunday afternoon of June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer decided to go for broke. After dividing his famed 7th Cavalry, he ordered his senior officer, Major Marcus A. Reno, to strike the southern end of the vast Indian encampment along the Little Bighorn River, while Custer would launch a bold flank attack to hit the village’s northern end. Custer needed to charge across the river at Medicine Tail Coulee Ford. We all know the ultimate outcome of this decision, but this groundbreaking new book proves that Custer’s tactical plan was not so ill-conceived. The enemy had far superior numbers and more advanced weaponry. But Custer’s plan could still have succeeded, as his tactics were fundamentally sound

      Dividing your inferior force in the face of a superior force and attacking anyway is kind of the exact opposite of “fundamentally sound tactics”.

      • UnCivilServant

        They were sound for a different composition of armies.

      • Viking1865

        Well the Lakota were superior in both numbers and in firepower.

      • Fourscore

        A little more recon would have helped. More and better info could have changed the plan as V-1865 points out.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Custer’s tactics were sound in the Civil War, when he was acting as reconnaissance for a much larger force trailing his attack; thus preventing the enemy from decisively engaging with his force for fear of getting flanked by the Army coming to Custer’s aid.

        Custer was all by himself, but attacked like he wasn’t.

  12. Tundra

    The Mandibles, which looks a lot like real life lately.

    The Boys of Winter, a really good book on the 1980 Olympic Hockey Team.

    In process:

    – Gulag Archipelago
    – 3 books on hunting/outdoors stuff from Steven Rinella
    – The Northern Gardener
    – Square Foot Gardening

    And this little book:

    Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm

    A little Buddhism goes a long ways. Just sayin’

    • Ownbestenemy

      I got to skate on that ice and sit in that locker room when I went up to Lake Placid for a tourney back…96? One of my most awesome memories.

      • Tundra

        Awesome! What a cool experience.

  13. Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

    Currently reading “Nothing Like It in the World” about the building of the transcontinental railroad. Or intercontinental if you are Obama. Pretty cool story.

    Recently finished Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. It has some interesting ideas, but like most of his books it goes on way too long.

    • Chipwooder

      That was a fun read. A lot of professional historians hate Stephen Ambrose, but there’s something to be said for an engaging, readable historical narrative.

  14. Pine_Tree

    Strong Poison, by Dorothy Sayers.

    Haven’t been through her Wimsey series in a few years. Light/casual classic English detective stories.

    • Tundra

      I went through a bunch of those a while back. Quite good.

  15. Viking1865

    I have been horrible about reading the last couple months, but in particular about reading nonfiction books. Need to get back into it more.

    I am reading The Elder Empire series right now. It’s fantasy, with some eldritch type stuff. But what’s really interesting is the structure, it’s two parallel trilogies. The two viewpoint characters are at odds with each other. But the structure isn’t a gimmick, it’s actually two different sides of the same story. I think the author is doing a pretty good job with the format. There’s the Sea and the Shadow trilogy. I am reading 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3 but I suppose if you wanted to you could could read them 1,2,3 1,2,3.

    Of Sea and Shadow/Of Shadow and Sea

    Of Dawn and Darkness/Of Darkness and Dawn

    Of Kings and Killers/Of Killers and Kings

  16. Chipwooder

    I’ve been trying to finally finish John DeLorean’s On a Clear Day, You Can See General Motors. 45 or so years after it was written, it’s amazing how much of its indictment of corporate culture holds up and still applies.

  17. kbolino

    I read The New Right by Michael Malice a couple weeks ago. I’ve got Dear Reader (also by Malice) next on my list.

    I can’t say anything in The New Right is all that revolutionary to me, but it is a concise and engaging collation of all the various events and people who led to where we are today (or, well, where we were in mid-2019). Malice’s ideas in general have rekindled an anarchic spirit for me, recognizing that the government we have is not capable of representing people like myself and is increasingly intolerant of us (and such is an inevitable outcome of all governments, I think).

    • Tundra

      Yes, Malice has been on fire lately. Gotta read those.

      • Viking1865

        He was on with Woods the other day, and he lifted a Tweet from one of his followers that said

        “The Constitution is a gun free zone sign for conservatives. They hang it on the wall and just point at it.”

    • Akira

      Am I misremembering, or did Malice say at some point that he’s working on a mirror image of The New Right that describes the modern Left?

      • Tundra

        I don’t know, but he is working on one called The White Pill. Which may end up essentially being just that.

      • Agent Cooper

        The White Pill is about his optimism for the future. Being white-pilled means you see that The Cathedral isn’t really in control and is losing power, rather than the black-pilled, which is the doom-and-gloom CCP control of our lives forever mentality.

  18. DEG

    I’m still working through the 2007 edition of Ian Skennerton’s “The Lee-Enfield.”

  19. KromulentKristen

    Someone who I wish would write a book for popular consumption? Scott Lincicome, hands-down. He’s written some policy/academic stuff, but nothing for the masses. He’s got a great sense of humor and would love to read a book by him.

  20. Gender Traitor

    As much as I loved Winnie the Pooh (the original one, NOT the Asian imposter) when I was a child, I can appreciate Mrs. Parker’s review of The House at Pooh Corner: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1928/10/20/far-from-well

    I hope he doesn’t mind me mentioning it, but I, too, am reading some of UCS’s works-in-progress. In my opinion, he should not be sad.

      • Gender Traitor

        Sent you an e early yesterday evening with a couple of comments re: latest pieces read. Should get a lot more read over the weekend.

      • UnCivilServant

        I see why I didn’t get it. After my computer crashed, I never reopened my email.

      • CPRM

        After my computer crashed

        And you’re in charge of IT for a government wing. You play the part well.

      • Akira

        And you’re in charge of IT for a government wing. You play the part well.

        No joke dude.

        The IT woman at the prison was lazy as fuck. Her catchphrase was “I’ll get to it when I get to it”. She could almost always be found in her office with a six pack of Pepsi and a large pizza.

        One day, we came in to work and there were notes on all of our computers that said, “Please do not restart your computers because it automatically starts updating and the updates take too long”.

    • WTF

      I really enjoy UCS’s writing, and am looking forward to the sequel to Beyond the Edge of the Map.

      • UnCivilServant

        So am I.

        I wonder when I’ll finish it.

      • UnCivilServant

        More seriously, I think I’m over-thinking the story to try to meet a sense of heightened expectations. So, I’m second-guessing myself.

      • WTF

        I thought Beyond the Edge of the Map was great, as well as your stories you posted here of Dug’s relatives in after those events, so just keep doing what you were doing with that and you’ll have some very satisfied fans. I’m really just curious to see what happens next, and you’ve built a really interesting world with interesting characters.

  21. DEG

    They are like your Vietnam vet uncle when he gets drunk at Thanksgiving, but, you know, in a fun way.

    Huh. I guess I missed out. My Vietnam vet uncles never got drunk at holidays. I’d see them drink beer every now and then, but I never ever saw them drunk.

    • WTF

      My Vietnam Vet uncle did get drunk at holidays, and he’d start telling stories and going off on rants, which was only sometimes a little fun.

    • westernsloper

      My vietnam vet uncle was just nuts. No booze needed. He was a devout AA member so quite drinking long before his death but when he was off his meds? Holy Moses shenanigans would ensue.

  22. Rebel Scum

    The rest of the comments in the morning links…

    Agent Cooper on January 29, 2021 at 10:49 am
    Could also have been a re-enactor or something.

    Maybe he just likes flags, which is something I have heard of before. As I recently told someone who refused to leave the narrow msm narrative s/he dwells in despite providing numerous materials contradicting said narrative and providing for a more complete and accurate world view, CONTEXT WILL SET YOU FREE.

    But, of course, it is far easier to just assume muh racisms and white-supremes.

    • Not Adahn

      I see it flying more often here than I would expect. I also saw a bumper sticker saying “Yankee by birth, rebel by the grace of God.” So, I’m thinking up here that it’s less a sign of either white supremacy or southern culture and more a sign of rebellion. I also tend to have that interpretation because I usually see it flying with other flags, including the US but never the NY.

      • CPRM

        Yeah, up here in bumfuck north central Wisconsin the ‘Rebel Flag’ was always more a sign of people who listened to country music than any political beliefs.

      • Rebel Scum

        I consider the Battle Flag to be akin to the Gadsden Flag*. So, again, context. Various bad actors have used various symbols and therefor incorrectly attached their message to them in the eyes of the willfully ignorant and perpetually/professionally offended (KKK used the stars and stripes very prolifically in its heyday, Nazi’s took that Buddhist symbol and put it on their flag).

        *Just ask this guy.

    • R C Dean

      As I recently told someone who refused to leave the narrow msm narrative s/he dwells in despite providing numerous materials contradicting said narrative and providing for a more complete and accurate world view, CONTEXT WILL SET YOU FREE.

      Or, per the Iron Laws:

      Meaning comes from context.

  23. trshmnstr the terrible

    The Tyranny of Metrics

    Basically a description of how and why statistics is abused in corporate, academic, and governmental settings. Within a few pages, he had described my department in painful detail.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      (I forget if somebody here recommended the book to me, but if you did, thank you!)

    • Timeloose

      Looks interesting. Purchased.

  24. KromulentKristen

    (these posts always give me great ideas for gifts for my Pa)

  25. CPRM

    Last year I collected and read every book in the Knightfall through Knights End story line in the Batman comics (I had a few from my yout and wanted to read the full story, I’d read the abridged novelization and graphic novel, but finding and reading every book in a year long series from 26 years ago was quite cathartic). So, this year I’ve started collecting the story line that came after for the man who failed to replace Batman, Azrael.

    • UnCivilServant

      My family complains that I’m difficult to shop for. I think I’ve narrowed it down to two root causes – 1: I don’t talk about my interests. 2: I make more money than they do, so anything that I want that’s in their price range, I probably already got.

      I’m not bothered by not getting anything, but I think it bothers them as they have a habit of trying to get something for everyone in their respective extended circles.

      You’re not on my gift list, so I haven’t looked at what I might give you.

      • CPRM

        The easiest in my family to buy gifts for is my little brother. Sure he has more money than me, but he has a wife, and likes all the things I like. So If I want some geeky thing I know his wife wouldn’t let him waste money on, I know it’ll be a good gift for him.

    • R C Dean

      (apparently I’m very hard to shop for despite because of my rather eclectic interests)

      • commodious spittoon

        But the pandemic put an end

        No it fucking did not.

  26. Mojeaux

    My reading jag ended. I’m supposed to be reading Stacey Abrams’s Hidden Sinsunder pen name Selena Montgomery to do a review, but I’m not feeling it. So far, it’s not her. It’s me.

  27. Cannoli

    How I Found Freedom In an Unfree World. I wasn’t very impressed by this one. His take on freedom from government is to just ignore it, it’s incompetent anyway, which doesn’t strike me as very helpful since the government is at least competent at taking my money and is capable of doing a lot of damage to people whatever you try to avoid it or not. His take on other issues seems to be that freedom means avoiding as many long term obligations as possible, and that people can’t share a common purpose. I’ll stick with my traditional marriage and reciprocity with my friends and family, thanks. On the other hand, reading this book has helped me to remember to focus on the things in life I can control instead of what other people do that I can’t change, so on the whole, I’m glad I read it.

    Mere Christianity. I’m starting to work my way through Lewis’s nonfiction for the first time. His fiction has had an enormous impact on my thinking about religion, and there was a lot in this book that I found helpful as well, but I’ve never been convinced by Lewis’s Trilemma. This argument doesn’t address why the other two proposed explanations couldn’t be true, and there are other possible explanations anyway.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      This argument doesn’t address why the other two proposed explanations couldn’t be true, and there are other possible explanations anyway.

      I think it’s most effective as an argument against liberal theology, Christian flavored eastern mysticism, and other “just the tip” sects, cults, heresies, and religions. The “he was a good man, nothing more” crowd.

      IIRC, the trilemma assumes the accuracy of the scriptures in describing and quoting Jesus, which seems to undercut most of the alternative explanations. I’m curious if I’m missing an obvious one besides “the vast majority of the church through the last two millennia have been wrong about the core tenets of the faith”.

      • Cannoli

        Fair enough if that’s the target audience. If you’re trying to convince non-Christians, inaccuracy of the scriptures is still a possible explanation, as is good-faith error (ie. Christ was wrong without being insane or an intentional liar).

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        good-faith error

        I think this is exactly what Lewis is pushing against. If good-faith error causes you to say that you are God (whether or not in so many words), he would posit that you are, in fact, a lunatic. People with a God complex are per se insane.

      • Cannoli

        I’m probably using an overly-narrow definition of mad, then. I do think otherwise-sane people can have experiences that they misinterpret. For example, when my grandfather almost died of sepsis last year, he said he saw the devil trying to catch him and take him away. Sepsis can cause hallucinations, so while I can’t say for sure what happened, I consider it highly probable that my grandfather, though he’s not mad, genuinely believes something that isn’t literally true.

        I should also probably clarify that I am not a Christian. I used to be an atheist, now all I know is that I don’t have the answers but I should try to find them, hence the reading apologetics. The trilemma doesn’t resonate with me because it seems like it only works once you already have faith that there were no honest mistakes, and I’m not there yet. I’m much more affected by Puddleglum to the Green Witch:

        Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.

      • l0b0t

        Never underestimate the power of the stench of a Marshwiggle’s burning foot.

  28. ruodberht

    Ontological Arguments. A collection of essays on various versions of the argument, refutations of the argument, and related issues. Really good.

    • ruodberht

      And Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales to kill time/just before I sleep/etc. Very easy to pick up and put down!

      • UnCivilServant

        I use “Easy to put down” as a damning appraisal of quality meaning it fails to hold interest.

        I am going to guess that is not what you mean.

      • ruodberht

        They’re basically short stories, so I can read a few pages at a time and don’t feel like I’ll be lost/missing out if I have to put it down.

        It’s not…compelling, to be sure. It’s snack-sized reading to perform a specific function.

  29. Surly Knott

    Moving rather far away from any of my usual fare, I read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, at my roommate’s urging.
    Sigh. The quality of the prose is superb, I couldn’t put it down. Even the multi-page footnotes were well done, and almost always had a point in terms of structure or story. The book effervesces with ideas and characters.
    And then he (apparently) got tired and just stopped writing.
    AARRGGHHHH!!!
    While some of the minor character/story arcs get resolved along the way, not one single major character or story arc gets resolved or comes to any sort of ‘natural’ end. They’re just left dangling. Insofar as the book has a climax, it happens at the opening.
    What an odd combination — a can’t-put-it-down compelling read that disappoints from lack of basic structural integrity.

    • Chipwooder

      DFW was definitely a better essayist than novelist.

    • Mojeaux

      Sinclair Lewis had the same problem with Elmer Gantry. He might as well have ended it with, “Nothing changed and nothing else happened.”

      • Plisade

        He’s my GOAT author.

    • Agent Cooper

      The end is quite the thing, isn’t it. I mean, I listen to books — I was walking the dogs one chilly night listening to IJ, and it ended, and I was like … what?

      I want to get a physical version to review the footnotes sometimes.

  30. Pope Jimbo

    @SF, I love The Destroyer!

    As a kid I decided one day that I wanted to collect a series and the local library had tons of books from that series. When I got older I actually started reading them and loved them.

    In the early days of ebooks I managed to score the first 80 books in the series. I’m like you once I hit a spell where I need some mind candy, I read a few of them in a row.

    I’m a very slow reader and even I can read one of those books in a day or two. My favorite part is discovering what super Sinanju power exists in a particular book to allow Remo to triumph. The utter lack of consistency in their powers is awesome because it shows you the reader that Murphy and Sapir didn’t take it seriously at all.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I remember a foreward in one of the Destroyer books where Murphy (I think) was talking about how they co-wrote the books. The deal was each guy would write half the book. One guy set up the premise and the other guy wrote the half where Remo saves the day.

      I think Murphy said that at times he’d get the first half from Sapir and he would have stopped mid sentence at exactly half the words they had agreed the book should be.

  31. Pope Jimbo

    You know what I’m not reading? Any of the Wheel of Time books.

    However…..

    For some reason I was looking for new podcasts and ran across a shit ton of them that discussed WOT. Now I hate listen to them and remember how mad I got at the way the series drug on and on.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Before I get too full of myself, I should confess that I’m reading R.A. Salvatore’s The Two Swords right now. Reliving my old D&D days.

      • westernsloper

        NERD!

      • Pope Jimbo

        So guilty. I was a huge nerd in Jr. High.

        The only thing that kept me from being a huge nerd (and to be honest, I was) during Sr. High is that I was a good athlete. Because I was really good at football, the Srs and Jrs had already started inviting me to parties in the fall of my soph year.

    • WTF

      how mad I got at the way the series drug on and on

      I gave it up before I even got to the halfway point because of that.

      • R C Dean

        I bailed partway through the third book. I’m a compulsive completionist. Its rare for me to not finish a series, and unheard of to not finish a book. But WOT just wore my ass out.

      • Tulip

        Plus the female characters were apparently written by a 14 yr old boy who had never actually talked to any woman or girl besides his mother.

      • commodious spittoon

        They’ve all got big boobies?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I don’t know. The Aes Sedai chapters were always the gals forming cliques, backstabbing each other and talking for interminable amount of time. That sounds accurate.

        I’ll grant you the parts of the story where three super hot women all decide to share the main dude is 14 year-old fantasy fodder. Especially because none of them ever let jealousy interfere in their relationships.

      • DEG

        I finished the series. It got better (*) when Sanderson took over.

        (*) Better does not mean good.

    • Cannoli

      Maybe it’s because Amazon’s making a WOT show?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I have a few buddies that also slogged through the WOT and we are soooooo ready to hate watch the TV series when it comes out.

        We plan on getting together swilling fork root tea and channeling our hatred

      • Cannoli

        I probably would have ended up hate watching it too, but now I’m trying to get Amazon or of my life, so I’ll need to find something else to do with that time.

      • Cannoli

        *out

    • Fatty Bolger

      I started book one at the urging of friends, got about a third of the way through, and decided it wasn’t for me.

  32. commodious spittoon

    Children of Time, which has been really enjoyable. Nominally sci-fi but more sociological than techy. Near (?) extinction of mankind and the birth of a new species. Would recommend.

    • Tulip

      I hated the ending

      • commodious spittoon

        I put it down right as things are coming to a head because I’ve been enjoying it so much and I don’t expect things are going to work out well.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Yeah, up here in bumfuck north central Wisconsin the ‘Rebel Flag’ was always more a sign of people who listened to country music than any political beliefs.

    To a lot of people all over the country it probably just means “NASCAR fan”.

    • kinnath

      rebels been rebels since i don’t know when

    • Rebel Scum

      And NASCAR excommunicated that crowd. ///KnowYourAudience

      • Agent Cooper

        I would argue that the Car of Tomorrow killed Nascar. It eliminated any and all vestiges of “stock car” racing from the sport. It’s moved so far away from what it was it’s almost unrecognizable.

        The crowd issue came after but was inevitable.

      • KromulentKristen

        COT, rules/points system changes, and the abandonment of traditional stock car tracks in favor of 1.5 mile flat tracks that could accommodate stock and open wheels killed it.

      • KromulentKristen

        And coincidentally, all those new flat tracks were in major markets!

      • Agent Cooper

        All of this. Yes.

      • Agent Cooper

        ChumpCar is fun. It’s the lineage to vintage stock car racing.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    What an odd combination — a can’t-put-it-down compelling read that disappoints from lack of basic structural integrity.

    It says “Jest” right on the front. You wuz had.

    *says the guy who knows absolutely nothing about either the book or the author

  35. Akira

    The Three Pillars of Zen by roshi Phillip Kapleau – Been trying to up my meditation game recently.

    Omerta by Mario Puzo (the author of The Godfather)

    What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro (former FBI agent) – A book about body language.

    The Holy Roman Empire and The Carolingian Empire by “Captivating History” – Part of my efforts to get at least an overview of world history.

  36. Chipwooder

    Surprise! Kevin Clinesmith gets nothing more than 12 months probation and a $100 fine for falsifying evidence to get a man indicted. Lori Laughlin got two months in prison merely for bribing a college to admit her daughter.

    They’re basically pissing in our faces with this, for no other reason than that they can.

    • R C Dean

      And he got to keep his law license.

    • juris imprudent

      His intentions were pure!

    • Viking1865

      Yeah the rule of law is dead, completely and totally.

      “Lori Laughlin got two months in prison merely for bribing a college to admit her daughter.”

      Her real crime was being new money. She’s an actress, and her husband founded a clothing company that sells clothes at Target. If she was of the right social class, if her husband was a Wall Street guy or a lawyer or something, that same bribe would be called “philanthropy.”

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Salvation, next exit

    “If you look at the maps,” Hall says, “and you begin to look at where these facilities are located, it’s pretty much in communities of color.”

    Across the country, disproportionate exposure to pollution threatens the health of people of color, from Gulf Coast towns in the shadow of petrochemical plants to Indigenous communities in the West that are surrounded by oil and gas operations. Generations of systemic racism routinely put factories, refineries, landfills and factory farms in Black, brown and poor communities, exposing their residents to far greater health risks from pollution than those in whiter, more affluent places.

    The federal government has known of environmental injustice for decades. Presidents have promised to address it. But a legacy of weak laws and spotty enforcement has left Black, brown and poor communities mired in pollution and health hazards.

    ——-

    The Biden administration has pledged an aggressive, broad-based approach to achieving environmental justice. Among a raft of executive actions on the climate Biden signed on Wednesday, he created a new White House council on environmental justice, and pledged that 40% of the benefits from federal investments in clean energy and clean water would go to communities that bear disproportionate pollution.

    There are other indications of the administration’s willingness to address the environmental effects of systemic racism. Biden’s nominee to run the EPA, Michael Regan, would be the first Black man to lead the agency, and top positions in other agencies and within the White House are being filled by people who have spent their careers working on equitable climate and environment policies

    Keep on going ’til you get to the lake of fire, then take a left and check in at the gate.

    • Chipwooder

      Where do bad folks go when they die?
      They don’t go to heaven where the angels fly

    • R C Dean

      Poor people live in bad neighborhoods.

      Bad neighborhoods are bad.

      Stop. The. Presses.

      • commodious spittoon

        Poor people Minorities

        Careful, you might accidentally include poor white people, which, as we all know, is a myth.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Poor kids are just as bright as white kids.

      • commodious spittoon

        BUT HIS TWEETS

    • R C Dean

      other agencies and within the White House are being filled by people who have spent their careers working on equitable climate and environment policies grifting and grafting

    • Akira

      Across the country, disproportionate exposure to pollution threatens the health of people of color, from Gulf Coast towns in the shadow of petrochemical plants to Indigenous communities in the West that are surrounded by oil and gas operations. Generations of systemic racism routinely put factories, refineries, landfills and factory farms in Black, brown and poor communities, exposing their residents to far greater health risks from pollution than those in whiter, more affluent places.

      And if those facilities weren’t in areas where minorities live, the Left would be complaining that the cruel hand of capitalism is denying jobs to minorities.

    • B.P.

      “…to Indigenous communities in the West that are surrounded by oil and gas operations.”

      To be absolved of racism, oil and gas companies need to start drilling where there isn’t any oil and gas.

    • kbolino

      Black, brown and poor communities

      One of these adjectives is not like the others.

  38. Tundra

    The fuck?

    ‘Now is just not the time to be flying’: PM Trudeau announces new travel restrictions

    OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced all Canadian travellers returning from overseas will have to take a COVID-19 test at the airport when they land and quarantine in a designated hotel for three days at their own expense while they await results.

    He says that’s expected to cost more than $2000.

    Those with negative test results will be able to then quarantine for the remainder of the mandatory two weeks at home, while those with positive tests will be required to quarantine in designated government facilities.

    Wow. Sorry, Canuks. We’re right behind you, I fear.

    • commodious spittoon

      The Canadians, sir, they didn’t care for the lockdowns at first… one of them actually broke quarantine and tried to go out in public… but Justin… corrected him, sir… and when the courts tried to prevent him from doing his duty, he… corrected them.

      • Plisade

        +1 You’ve always been the caretaker.

    • R C Dean

      Those with negative test results will be able to then quarantine for the remainder of the mandatory two weeks at home

      Err, if they are negative, why are they quarantining at all?

      • WTF

        Oh, I think we all know the answer to that.
        FYTW

      • Rebel Scum

        The powers that be know the tests are horseshit so you have to do the rest of theatre because fytw.

      • Bobarian LMD

        It’ll be better once we start using the anal swabs.

    • Raven Nation

      The Australian government is hinting that, even if a majority of the population gets vaccines, they’re going to maintain incoming travel restrictions and bans.

    • WTF

      And people called government arbitrarily confining you and putting you into camps a conspiracy theory.

      • Bobarian LMD

        It’s more of a conspiracy policy.

    • Rebel Scum

      designated government facilities

      Off to the covid camps!

    • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

      I’m old enough to remember (y’know, only ten months ago) when merely suggesting these kinds of travel restrictions was considered “racist.” Now they’re considered “smart public policy.”

      These are the flailings of governments all over the planet who are out of ideas and who think that “do everything harder” is all that’s required.

      We’re done.

    • Agent Cooper

      “quarantine in designated government facilities.”

      Uh …

  39. nw

    The Art of War in the Western World by Archer Jones.

    Re-reading really, it’s a great book, and I’ve been meaning to get back to long form reading.

    Though, to be fair, I’m kidding myself. What I’ve actually been reading is
    “Family Law in Wisconsin – A Forms and Procedures Handbook”.

    But that’s not a cool as a history book. At least not with the crowd I hung with
    in high school.

    The Archer Jones book is really good if you want a general over view of 2500 years
    of the patterns of warfare, and how they’re similar throughout he ages, despite
    radical changes in technology.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    The federal government’s role in responding to environmental racism makes sense when you consider that it created the problems in the first place.

    “I think the concept of environmental justice goes way back way before the founding of the Republic, when you had the invasion of this hemisphere by the Europeans,” says Quentin Pair, a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. who served for 35 years as a lead trial attorney on environmental cases at the Department of Justice, and led much of its work on environmental justice. “It always seems to be the people who suffer these indignities are people of color and the poor.”

    Guilty as charged.

    • juris imprudent

      Did he really say that these folks were victimized by the govt?

      • Suthenboy

        He means ‘America’, which means wypepole. (did I spell that correctly?)

      • Bobarian LMD

        wypipo

    • Rebel Scum

      The federal government’s role in responding to environmental racism

      Nope…

      “It always seems to be the people who suffer these indignities are people of color and the poor.”

      All POC’s are poor or are whites included in the suffering?

  41. juris imprudent

    Completed The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray, it fills in nicely some details between The True Believer and The Culture of Narcissism. Dipped back into Arguably (essays from Hitchens) which is literary dim sum.

    Even though I have some things in queue, I feel more like book shopping at the moment than book reading.

    • Mojeaux

      Collecting supplies for your hobbies is its own hobby.

  42. C. Anacreon

    I’m halfway through Campusland: A Novelby Scott Johnston. It’s an often hilarious portrait of a fictional Ivy League university, written in 2019. The grievance studies students, social media abuses, diversity officers and cancel culture are on full display, the author really nails it. Hoping the second half will be just as good.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      If you want a similar book written decades ago, try Barefoot Boy with Cheek by Max Schulman. It takes place at the fictional University of Minnesota located at the junction of two rivers like the crotch in a pair of pants. It shows that a lot of this stuff has been going on a long time.

  43. westernsloper

    Weather update: 54 deg and I was just sitting in my outside recliner. Ya, I am one of those people. It is glorious when the sun doesn’t go behind a cloud (+1 good dose of Vit D). God bless global warming but it is supposed to snow tonight but I don’t care because I don’t have to plow or shovel it when/if it does.

  44. Tulip

    TSA is apparently doing extra checks today at the gate. There’s four of the fucking brown (ok blue) shirts line-up waiting for boarding. I hate the way my government treats me.

    • Tulip

      We have to remove our masks so they can check it. What purpose is this meant to serve?

      • Tundra

        Further spread of the deadly, unprecedented and novel SARS Covid-2?

      • commodious spittoon

        Immiseration and demoralization.

      • KromulentKristen

        It’s almost like they’re simultaneously ramping up & ramping down the panic.

        Just got an email from the hair salon about double masks. * sigh * * sob *

      • UnCivilServant

        Why does your hair salon have your email address?

      • UnCivilServant

        I mean, I go in, get a haircut, pay cash, and leave. They don’t even know my name, let alone my contact information.

      • KromulentKristen

        Yeah. I have to make appointments at least 2 months in advance.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s an inch of additional hair growth before someone can lop it off. That is as long or longer than the gap between haircuts.

      • KromulentKristen

        Ain’t nobody doing anything like “lopping” on my hair

      • UnCivilServant

        Oh, I see, you probably have enough to comb. Is that it?

      • limey

        It’s why Kristen wears so many hats.

      • Gender Traitor

        I had a hair appointment Wednesday afternoon. I already had appointments booked through the end of May, and we went ahead and scheduled through the end of September.

      • Agent Cooper

        UCS = Not a woman
        KK = a woman.

      • KromulentKristen

        This guy gets it

      • commodious spittoon

        UCS should grow his hair out like a proper woman real man.

      • commodious spittoon

        Immiseration and demoralization.

      • KromulentKristen

        To confirm appointments & notify about classes & stuff

      • Tulip

        What?!

      • KromulentKristen

        Yeah. I have an appointment for the day before my birthday – I am torn. I may cancel if they’re still on this inanity by the end of March. I have been going there for about 15 years. I would hate to have to find someone else.

      • R C Dean

        Tell them they are about to lose a 15 year customer if they insist on behaving like hysterical nitwits.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Make sure to work in a few bouts of coughing while you are hectoring them. Bonus points if you can hack up an actual loogey.

      • Rebel Scum

        I don’t even go to Great Clips anymore because they require a single mask…to be worn WHILE getting your hair cut.

        Luckily my dad can still cut my hair and I save $20.

      • Akira

        I have the “shaved on the sides, long-ish on top” look, so I just basically do a bowl cut, buzz the back and sides at the lowest setting, then grease it back. Easy peasy. There’s a reason that style was popular during the Depression when people didn’t have the money to spend on a barber.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I have the “shaved on the sides, doesn’t grow on top” look.

        The last time I went to a barber was in 1997.

      • Chipwooder

        I know no one who can cut hair. Well, except my mother in law, who is a)a horrible person whose presence I cannot tolerate b)in Erie anyway. So I have to endure mask theater to get my hair cut.

        I would just get clippers and buzz my hair myself, but my wife has always hated when I’ve done that.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        The spousal unit cut my hair the other day and did every bit as good a job as my barber. The last time she cut my hair was several years ago, and it was also a very credible job. She uses a fine-tooth comb and a pair of rechargeable clippers.

        Why do I go to a barber again?

      • Hyperion

        My wife has been cutting my hair for 10 years. She does a great job and if I let anyone else cut it, she’d get really mad, so what am I supposed to do? It’s free!

      • KromulentKristen

        OK, re-read the email from the salon, and only the stylists are doubling up. They’re not requiring customers to do it – yet

      • DEG

        Ouch.

        I had a lead on a place that would not only cut hair without requiring masks, but would insist on people taking off their masks when they walk in.

        Cash only.

      • grrizzly

        If my barber in Cambridge starts insisting on masks I’ll ask you about this place. I had three haircuts from him last year without a mask.

      • DEG

        OK. Warning: It’s a bit of a drive for me.

        I plan to stop in this place tomorrow to see if they still are a “no mask” place.

      • mrfamous

        Why do you want to kill grandma?

      • EvilSheldon

        Because I’m the sole heir?

      • Rebel Scum

        Well, if you can make a bomb out of a shoe…

    • Tundra

      Better drop the Gadsden hat in the garbage.

      • limey

        First domestic flight I took in the US and there was a dude on the plane wearing a Gadsden hat. I bet he gave those TSA busy bodies a real mean look as they X-rayed his shoes and waved him through the body scanner. I got frisked and swabbed because there was still a tiny candy wrapper in my pocket I hadn’t noticed and it showed up. I wonder how many times a day those guys hear stuff like “well that’s the most action I’ve had in a while” or “jeez, no happy ending?”.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You went through the Rapiscan?

        A real Glib would have shouted “Opt Out!” and made them grope you.

        I once had a supervisor of the groper threaten to toss me in jail if I kept lipping off to the groper. To my shame, I chickened out and shut up. My only excuse is I was on my first business trip with some colleagues at a company I had just started working for and didn’t feel like getting locked up would be a good career move.

        The statement that got me the warning was when I told the guy that he could apply for a job as a garbage man and make as much as he was at the TSA, but would have more dignity. The groper actually laughed, but supervisor guy didn’t think it was funny at all.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The other time I got in a bit of trouble was when the Mpls airport I flew out of all the time was doing some remodeling which caused the Pre-Check line to go through the rapiscan instead of the metal detector.

        I had been groped so often that I knew all the answers to their pre-grope questions. So one time, I said, “yes, yes, no, yes” (or something, I can’t remember the questions anymore. Then I told him those were my answers and he could commence groping.

        He got huffy and said it was mandatory that he ask me all the questions. Every time he finished one of the questions, I’d tell him “I already answered you should have been listening”.

        For some reason he got a bit irked with me.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    We have to remove our masks so they can check it. What purpose is this meant to serve?

    They want to be sure you don’t have piano wire hidden in it to garotte the pilots with.

  46. limey

    Vivaldi. No, that’s listening. What’s reading again? I have important work to do.

    • BakedPenguin

      ‘He didn’t write 400 concertos, he wrote the same concerto 400 times.’

      I think that was Stravinsky. A bit unfair, as The Four Seasons really stand out. So, at least 5.

  47. R C Dean

    Today is a Good Day.

    My S & W 686 (5″ barrel) shipped today! Should have it Monday or Tuesday.

    All I need is ammo. I bought some .357, but it hasn’t shipped yet. I’ll have to call.

    Yes, I paid ridiculous prices. No, those prices won’t be coming down any time soon, so it wasn’t “too much”.

    I think I’m gunned up for Plan B: Uruguay. We have a running joke at the Casa Dean now: whenever anything especially stupid comes up in the news, one of us pulls up the weather app on our phone and announces what the weather is in Montevideo.

      • R C Dean

        Err, Uruguay.

        Warm, overcast, light breeze.

    • Suthenboy

      How much did you order?

      I used to have a few thousand rounds loaded up. I’d ship you some if I had an address and if I were confident it wouldn’t be intercepted and confiscated.

      • R C Dean

        250 rounds Hornady Critical Defense.

        Thanks for the recce on the revolver. I can hardly wait to embarrass myself at the range.

      • Suthenboy

        You made a good choice. You can put a million rounds through that thing and it will still shoot like the day you bought it. It shoots like a rifle…a real tack driver and solid as a rock.

        250? I woulda shipped you a thousand. 250 should do the trick though.

      • EvilSheldon

        It wouldn’t be. I ship loaded ammo all the time, is perfectly legal.

    • KromulentKristen

      Just went on Cheaper Than Dirt…prices are insane. Last time I ordered from them, it was ~$1/rd in 9mm. Now its $2/rd. Fuckin-a.

      I did get 10 boxes of 9mm from Federal a few weeks ago at .50/rd, so I got that going for me.

      • R C Dean

        I paid a little more than $2 a round for the .357, but based on the closing prices at GunBroker, I felt OK about that.

      • KromulentKristen

        I see 45 long is going for over $1/rd…I may sell mine soon.

      • KromulentKristen

        Close your damn tags, woman

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Didn’t have to use your AK?

      • slumbrew

        Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
        And it read ‘R C Dean’s a pimp’

    • Hyperion

      The prez is a socialist. But he doesn’t seem to be the authoritarian type and apparently he drives around in a VW beetle and lives in an ordinary house. But you can’t know how long that will last, the next one could be Xi or Castro. However, looks like we’ve already got there here or worse. Maybe you still can’t go to prison there for a meme.

  48. Suthenboy

    Exit visas? No non-essential flying?
    How long before internal travel restrictions?

    • mrfamous

      Next week, I assume. Gonna spend the next year figuring out how to escape my (soon to be) deep blue state of Arizona to a place where I’ll be the token ‘lefty’ in the neighborhood.

      • juris imprudent

        My conservative neighbors can’t quite figure me out.

      • slumbrew

        Everyone around me in deepest blue Mass surely thinks I’m some conservative crank. I have contemplating moving near my brother in NC, where I would no doubt be some liberal squish.

      • KromulentKristen

        Your brother must not be near Asheville or the Research Triangle

      • slumbrew

        I exaggerate – he’s near Apex, so I wouldn’t really be any sort of stand-out. But chatting with folks at the local is definitely quite a change from around here.

      • DEG

        There are some leftist loons on the Outer Banks too.

      • Hyperion

        “My conservative neighbors can’t quite figure me out.”

        It’s easy. You’re sort of like a conservative, but want to give dope and machine guns to children on our playgrounds.

      • slumbrew

        You forgot the Mexicans and ass sex. Not with the children, obviously.

    • Hyperion

      If you’re on the other side of our southern border, you can just walk right in and go wherever you want, apparently, because freedom. If you’re already here and a US citizen, stay inside your home, because freedom.

  49. mrfamous

    This is hardly revelatory, but I’m reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 rules book. So far the book started off very strong and a few chapters in starts to drag. This is a very wordy person. Good advice, generally though.

    • Mojeaux

      I listen to nonfiction on audiobook. That was a good listen. Plus, I like his voice.

    • Akira

      I read the print version and it has legit helped me to be a more focused, resilient person.

      • mrfamous

        It’s good stuff, but there is a lot of meandering philosophizing that could probably be excised.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      There must be a standard in the publishing industry that pushes authors to make the book about 400 pages long, even if it could be said in 200. For a long time I was getting much of my reading list from Econtalk guests, and I came to the conclusion that the 1 hour podcast covered just as much ground.

  50. Rebel Scum

    Becaise leftists are all about the Constitution.

    Anchor Anderson Cooper said, “Looking at the picture of Kevin McCarthy down at Mar-a-Lago today gripping and grinning with the man who promoted the attack on the Capitol, praised the attackers even after the fact, what does that meeting and that picture say to you?”

    Duckworth said, “It tells me that he stands with someone who basically incited insurrection as opposed to standing with our Constitution. He has essentially violated his oath of office that he took when he was sworn in. That is to protect and defend the Constitution. Instead, he’s now standing with the enemy of the Constitution.”

    And we are still severely inaccurate in our description of events I see.

    • Hyperion

      Our contitution, hahahhaaah, our democracy, bwaaahhahhaa!

  51. slumbrew

    I tore through the Detroit Free Zone trilogy Mojo recommended last week or so – really enjoyable, escapist urban fantasy.

    Currently reading /r/wallstreetbets but should stop that & get back to the copy of Rhulman’s Twenty I was given.

    • R C Dean

      I have the first one on the Kindle. Probably my next read after Spatterjay.

    • robodruid

      Still want to know how the city did water utilities.

      • slumbrew

        Duh, magic.

        😉

      • robodruid

        🙂
        That’s a lot of teleportation magic
        LOL author never designed a drinking water plant (class project).

        Still a very fun read.

    • slumbrew

      I appreciate that DFZ is _just_ a trilogy, btw – author said “nope, that’s the story, these three books”. That’s a refreshing change.

  52. The Late P Brooks

    Senile Quack watch

    Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, cautioned Thursday that President Joe Biden’s push to reopen most schools within 100 days “may not happen” as the US continues to grapple with high Covid-19 transmission.
    “The President is taking very seriously the issue … both from the student standpoint and from the teacher standpoint,” Fauci said during a virtual event sponsored by the National Education Association.
    “He really wants to and believes that the schools need to reopen in the next 100 days, essentially all the K to 8 schools, within 100 days. That’s the goal. That may not happen because there may be mitigating circumstances, but what he really wants to do is everything within his power to help get to that.”
    Biden is pushing Congress to approve another $170 billion for K-12 schools, colleges and universities to help them operate safely in person or facilitate remote learning. Congress approved $82 billion in aid for schools in December, which Biden has said he views as a “down payment.”

    ——-

    Biden has also signed several executive actions to help support the reopening goal and establish a national strategy to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, but the measures stop short of requiring schools to reopen within any set time frame.

    One executive order directs the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to provide reopening guidance to schools with a focus on masking, testing and cleaning. A separate presidential memorandum offers reimbursement to schools for purchases of personal protective equipment through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.
    “The educational community, the teachers and the teams associated with education are such an absolutely critical part of society in general,” Fauci said Thursday. “But also a very critical part of our response to this outbreak — because we’re not going to get back to normal until we get the children back in school.”

    $100,000,000,000 here, $100,000,000,000 there…

    I am rapidly heading toward a point where I just want to stab anybody who voted for Biden in the eye with my mechanical pencil.

    • Suthenboy

      I am with you on that. Anyone that voted commie…fuck you. The day will come. My mechanical pencil is in the attic. I will just have to use my Buck.

    • commodious spittoon

      Careful. If a few dozen rioters stampeding around the capitol building = insurrection, a mechanical pencil = assault weapon.

      • Hyperion

        We need common sense pencil control.

      • commodious spittoon

        We must close the pencil gap.

      • Hyperion

        It’s easier to buy a pencil these days than a schoolbook!

      • Bobarian LMD

        Nobody needs a mechanical pencil. The framers wrote that amendment when everyone had a feather quill and inkwell!

    • Pope Jimbo

      Well it sounds to me like the Teacher’s Union is getting its pound of flesh out of Biden.

      Wonder how those silly pipefitter unions feel now? Not only did they get fucked out of jobs, but the Teacher’s Unions are getting their vacations prolonged AND more money.

  53. R C Dean

    It is second only to a rubber duck as the ideal bathtub companion. It may be held in the hand without causing muscular fatigue, and it may be read through before the water has cooled. And if it slips down the drain pipe, all right, it slips down the drain pipe.

    Oy. These euphemisms are getting . . . extended.

    • KromulentKristen

      It’s been so long since I’ve been able to track a friend’s airplane flight. Tulip is wheels-up!

      • KromulentKristen

        Not meant as a reply. I ain’t even drunk yet

      • slumbrew

        Yet.

  54. Hyperion

    I ain’t readin no nothin no more!

  55. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of environmental racism

    For more than a century, industries have shaped the banks of the Calumet River on Chicago’s Southeast Side, creating a gritty economic corridor of trucking and cement companies, manufacturing plants and scores of salvage yards that spew metallic dust from scrap piles.

    Each breath near the packed lines of factories feels heavy.

    Yet, the prevailing view had been how those employers create well-paying, blue-collar jobs, and jobs are good for this largely Latino enclave, said Richard Martinez, a pastor at Nehemiah Family Fellowship Church and third-generation Southeast Sider, whose family worked for the factories.

    But now, Martinez and a coalition of residents are pushing back: A proposal to open a scrap metal plant along the Calumet has sparked protests and a legal battle with the city, as well as reignited criticism that access to a cleaner environment for vulnerable communities of color is being sacrificed in favor of industry. The federal government on Monday said it was opening an environmental justice investigation into the state’s approval last June of a permit for the project.

    ——-

    “I don’t consider myself an environmentalist,” Martinez, 48, said. “But as a pastor and a father, whatever we allow in our community has to be a blessing to the land and to our health and to future generations.”

    Well then, don’t sell the property to those rotten bastard polluters> Wait, what? You don’t own the land? It isn’t actually yours to control?

    tl;dr- systemic racism, white people suck, kkkapitalsm is teh debbil

    • kbolino

      Does Chicago want to be Detroit that badly?

      • Hyperion

        Ask Beetlejuice, she has a plan.

    • Hyperion

      No one needs more than zero type of jobs. Anyway, those green jobs will be here in 20 years, until then, them poor folk of color can be artists.

      • commodious spittoon

        Dunno about anyone else but I’m looking forward to the green energy industry being demonized like oil companies are now, because it was never about green energy.

      • Hyperion

        Windmills killing snowy owls, solar panels frying some rare salamander. Why can’t we just go back to rubbing two sticks together? Oh, that’s right, global warming. OK, let’s stay warm by thinking of fuzzy puppies, kittens, and rainbow colored unicorns.

        Oops, that’s animal cultural appropriation.

      • Rebel Scum

        I actually won’t be surprised when the burning of wood for warmth is banned because muh global warming.

      • commodious spittoon

        The Brits are burning wood pellets from tree farms in America because green energy. Is it still carbon neutral after it’s been shipped across the Atlantic? Who cares?

      • robodruid

        EPA did outlaw a lot of stoves/wood heaters awhile ago.

    • Pine_Tree

      Tangentially related: Biggest freakin’ red-tailed hawk I’ve ever seen in my life was in a parking lot on Goose Island in the middle of the Chicago River.

      Apparently the city rats and geese there are some good eatin’. Looked like twice the mass of the regular old country-boy hawks that have to make do catching squirrels and mice.

  56. juris imprudent

    Interesting OT.

    There is, among elites, a powerful longing for what I have called the “Mubarak switch.” In 2011, the 82-year-old Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak tried to quell a street revolt by switching off the internet and killing mobile phone service for the entire country. The move backfired, and Mubarak was gone within two weeks, but the mere attempt symbolized that craving for lost control, that nostalgia for the industrial age, that motivates elite minds to this day. At the top of the hierarchy, everyone is dreaming of some equivalent of the Mubarak switch.

    • grrizzly

      Two years ago mobile internet was not working in Tahrir Square but it worked just fine everywhere else in Cairo.

  57. Agent Cooper

    I am currently listening to:

    Dead Wake
    by Erik Larson

    Shogun by James Clavell

    Recent audiobooks:

    The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich


    The Innovators
    by Walter Isaacson

    Creativity, Inc
    . by Ed Catmull

  58. The Late P Brooks

    But Facen says that when she thinks of the opening of another facility that could potentially affect the air quality in her neighborhood, she worries about her students. They are mostly Latino and Black, and 92 percent of them live below the poverty level, she said.

    “With us not knowing what a General Iron in the Southeast Side is going to do to our health, would you want to take that chance, especially in the midst of Covid?” she asked.

    Snifflecooties: is there no political use to which it cannot be put?

    • Rebel Scum

      They are mostly Latino and Black,

      Relevance? Anyway we wouldn’t want the denizens of the town, children included*, to have the prospect of gainful employment.

      *When they grow up of course.

      • Hyperion

        “Relevance? ”

        What are you talking about? Hardest hit! Always hardest hit! And then wiminz and chillinz! You know who ain’t hard hit! White men! They have pollution privilege! They can fucking just huff toxic fumes all day and nothing happens! It’s from millennia of boozin and whorin!

    • Pope Jimbo

      It is known that being poor, but with clean air to breathe is far, far better than making money and improving your lot in life but having to huff dirty air.

      • juris imprudent

        Why do you have to drag into this something as immoral as making money? And that improving your life sounds pretty damn suspicious too.

      • commodious spittoon

        Poverty means you’re free to pursue your passions. The unemployed are the truly fortunate ones, they have the time to explore the arts that we benighted working folk simply haven’t got the wherewithal to enjoy.

      • Raven Nation

        +1 “Job-block” /Nancy Pelosi

      • Pope Jimbo

        It would be interesting to see someone decide that for a year, they would not work and milk every govt poverty program they could.

        The reverse of those proggies who would get a minimum wage job for a year and then write up about the horrors of it.

        In the bizarro world experiment, I am pretty sure you could demonstrate that a decent life could be had. As long as you had no ambitions to greatly improve your life and were content with a simple existance.

        Free housing/food
        Probably get a laptop/internet access
        Free education

        Like I said, I’m sure you could show how your life of sponging off the productive is probably more luxurious than most of the rest of the word.

      • slumbrew

        When I bought this place a dozen years ago, the next door neighbors were Section 8 housing.

        Mother and grown daughter; neither had ever worked a day in their lives (other neighbor grew up w/ the mom & confirmed she had literally never had a job). While not luxurious, it was a life of leisure.

      • BakedPenguin

        They just need to wear masks.

    • Hyperion

      Yes, it’s much better them poor color folk die of poverty from no jobs and no economy to create any more. We’ve figured this all out. Utopia awaits!

    • Suthenboy

      General Iron…arent they a recycling outfit?

      Huh. Lefties keep eating their own. All we have to do is get out of the way and be patient.

      • juris imprudent

        Deplorables are utterly indigestible – if lefties had to consume us they would die back in weeks if not days. They feed on the weak.

  59. trshmnstr the terrible

    Wow, folks weren’t joking about canning supplies being sold out. I was able to get some big half-gallons, some small half-pints, and 3 packs of lids. Everything else was gone.

    • commodious spittoon

      big half-gallons, some small half-pints

      How’d you guess my college nickname?

    • kinnath

      I have a road trip planned for tomorrow. Five towns; five Walmarts. Walmart’s online system says that jars are in stock at those locations.

      • KromulentKristen

        Can you order online for curbside pickup?

      • commodious spittoon

        Curbside haircuts…

    • Pope Jimbo

      I sure hope that the Deputy Under-Secretary of Canning Supplies in the Commerce Department is paying attention to this and making sure that Big Canning is ramping up production.

      * OK, maybe national availability of canning supplies is too far down in the weeds for someone as important as an Under-Secretary, but I’d at least expect the Assistant to the Under-Secretary is handling it.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    It is known that being poor, but with clean air to breathe is far, far better than making money and improving your lot in life but having to huff dirty air.

    Pssst- don’t tell anybody, but once you have a job, you can move out of that shithole neighborhood.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Moving to a nice place only makes your false consciousness worse.

      Moving up to a deluxe apartment in the sky tricks you into believing that things are getting better, when we all know that you are still being exploited.

  61. ttyrant

    I’ve got an American history deep dive lined up for the next year (give or take, as I’m a slow reader). I’m starting with frequent-Tom-Woods guest Kevin Gutzman’s “Thomas Jefferson – Revolutionary”. Next in line will be a book I picked up in an antique store as it looked rather fascinating, “Three Months in the Southern States: April-June 1863”. I’m finally going to dig into some Murray Rothbard, as I picked up his book on the progressive era. I’ll finish with the aforementioned Tom Woods’ “Nullification” and Thomas Sowell’s collection of essays “Barbarians Inside the Gates”.

  62. The Late P Brooks

    General Iron…arent they a recycling outfit?

    Yes. Yes they are.

    But you have to keep your oppression bingo score cards in order. Recycling is good when you send it to India, and nobody can see it.

    • juris imprudent

      Just like rare earth mining and processing – we would never want that icky stuff where we have to see it.