Sunday Morning Book Thread 09-18-2016: Simply Irredeemable [OregonMuse]

(For political, sports, and other non-book, related conversations, please use the open thread below this one, thank you)

Library of Moron Lurker HTL - Fiction Section

(Lurking moron HTL has an extensive library, and this is one of the three photos he sent. As you can see, this library comes complete with frightening, fiery-eyed guard dog. Click on pic for embiggening.)

Avast, 'tis a fine morning to all 'o ye morons 'n moronettes 'n bartenders everywhere 'n all th' ships at sea. Welcome to AoSHQ's stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed 'n high-tavern Sunday Mornin' Book Thread, whar men be men, all th' 'ettes be gorgeous, safe spaces be underneath ye ship 'n be used as protection against actual dangers, like tornados, hurricanes, 'n th' election 'o Hillary Clinton, 'n special snowflakes do not last. Arrrh! 'N unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, th' Sunday Mornin' Book Thread be so hoity-toity, knickers be required. To'morrow, 'o course, be International Talk Like A scurvy pirate Day, aaaarrrhhh, so I thought I'd start th' celebratin' early.

The Spiritual Life Of Hillary Rodham Clinton

A few days ago, the mask accidentally slipped from Hillary's face as she was caught on camera referring to supporters of Donald Trump as belonging in "a basket of deplorables" and, if that weren't bad enough, should be considered "irredeemable". Here is the full quote:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

This is probably the most breathtakingly offensive outburst I've ever heard from a major national politician. She's just shat on half the country. But it's this last word, "irredeemable", that I want to discuss. As other pundits have noted, this is not some throw-away adjective, but rather, it's one fraught with meaning, and by 'meaning' I mean 'religious meaning'.

What, you didn't know Hillary was religious? Or perhaps you thought she was brought up that way but then discarded it as an adult? Grove City College professor and author Paul Kengor says otherwise:

“She has called herself many times an ‘Old Fashioned Methodist,’ so she ought to know that word usually has a religious content,” Kengor said. “Religious-left Christians can be Hellfire and Brimstone, and be the most [unforgiving] judgmental people on the planet,” he said, adding “that’s what we’re seeing.”

Professor Kengor should know. He's written books on the spiritual lives of several modern presidents (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush). So when Hillary uses the word "irredeemable", it actually has a specific meaning:

Clinton is a Methodist, and she knows that “everybody is within the mercy and forgiveness of God, and so she’s making, intentionally or not, what sounded like a religious condemnation, a literal judgmental statement,”.

So she's just consigned millions of Americans to the burning pits of hell. Inescapably. Hopelessly. No chance whatsoever of getting out. That's what the word 'irredeemable' means.

Kengor's book on Hillary is God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, which

Based on exhaustive research, [it] tells the surprising story of Hillary's spiritual evolution, detailing the interaction between her lifelong religious beliefs and her personal history that has made her the politician she is today. Offering an in-depth spiritual chronology of Clinton's life, author Paul Kengor also analyzes the fraught relationship between her faith and her secular policies—most notably how she reconciles her pro-choice stance on abortion with her Christian beliefs—and scrutinizes how these policies have changed over the course of her political career. What emerges is an unexpected portrait of a political figure whose ideals have been shaped by both the power of her politics and the depth of her religious devotion.

You can take the girl out of the religion, but you can't take the religion out of the girl.

#PunctuationMatters

We're Doomed!

And speaking of Hillary and religion, I came across this book while looking at the other: Hillary Clinton, Prophecy, and the Destruction of the United States, 2nd Edition: s Hillary Clinton Fulfilling America-Related Prophecies? What About Donald Trump? by some guy I'd never heard of who claims that

Hillary Clinton is fulfilling, and will continue to help fulfill, various prophecies that will lead to the destruction of the United States.

What prophecies?

Citing Islamic, Buddhist, Catholic, Byzantine, Native American, and Bible prophecy, as well as the writings of Nostradamus and others...

Alrighty, then. Looks like all the authorities are in agreement. The election of Hillary Clinton definitely will be an extinction-level event. Of course, readers off this Smart Military Blog™ already know this, so we're ahead of the prophets on the curve. I wonder if these prophecies talk about Hillary! coughing up a lung or doing a faceplant into the cement on a warm sunny day? And what of her miraculous resurrection 90 minutes later?

And how does Trump fare in this prophetic environment?

[This book] also tells the truth about Republican leaders like Donald Trump and why their practices would also lead to destruction.

Not good, then. So this election is kind of like Alien v. Predator. Whoever wins, we lose.

Slouching Toward Hawaii

First, as to the "birther" conspiracy, zombie echoes my exact sentiments:

When the whole birther thing was raging back in 2008 I was in one of the world's largest libraries doing deep research on Obama and I was able to request and then literally hold in my hands an original paper edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from August 1961 and there on the yellowing page of the birth announcements section is read, "BORN to Stanley Ann Dunham, a son, Barack Hussein," or something to that effect, and for me, that ended the entire conspiracy...

Posted by: zombie at September 16, 2016 12:21 PM (jBuUi)

Now, the Trump campaign and the Hillary campaign got into a slap-fight this week about the whereabouts of Obama's birth, and who said what first. The question boiled down to, who is the first birther? Who started all of this 'birther' nonsense, anyway?

And the answer is: Barak Obama. Get a load of this:

The Breitbart site first showed this a few years back, and I did a screen grab. This scan is from a promotional booklet put out in 1991 by the literary agency Acton & Dystel, which purpose was to pimp their up-and-coming writers, one of whom was Barak Obama.

Now according to Snopes, this was attributed to sloppy fact-checking:

Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients..."This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time," Goderich wrote. "There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii."

At the risk of giving ammo to the conspiracy theorists, I'm not entirely satisfied with this answer. If I understand Goderich correctly, she's saying, "it was an erroneous statement that I should've deleted before publication". Which is true, but that just raises the question, "then how did it come to be written to begin with?" Did somebody just make it up out of thin air?

But, whatever. That's a question that can never be answered. Obviously, the booklet was trying to puff up Obama's transnational cred in order to sell the book he was scheduled to write, and a Kenyan birthplace fit in very well with that narrative.

Of course, Obama could have cleared up all of this nonsense immediately and at any time. So why didn't he? I think it's mainly because a number of conservatives were chasing their tails over this (*cough*wnd*cough*) and Obama was merely following Sun Tzu's advice to never interrupt an enemy while he's making a mistake.

And then, after all of that, "Barak Obama: Transnational Slacker" never did finish Journeys in Black and White. He probably had Billy Ayers rework it into his towering masterpiece, Dreams From My Father later on, but I wonder if he had to give back any advance he received, or did he blow it all on choom?

Hillary's Book Has Fallen, Can't Get Up, And Has Lost A Shoe

I'm not going to link either hotair or the NY Times, so you'll just have to trust me on this:

Hillary Clinton’s newest book, “Stronger Together,” which provides a policy blueprint for where she hopes to take the country if she is elected president, sold just 2,912 copies in its first week on sale, according to Nielsen BookScan.

Both Mrs. Clinton and her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, have promoted the book on the campaign trail, but the sales figure, which tallies about 80 percent of booksellers nationwide and does not include e-books, firmly makes the book what the publishing industry would consider a flop.

What, they couldn't come up with any of their Daddy Warbucks donors who could buy 10,000 copies to hand out at union meetings, CNN staff picnics, or lesbian pancake breakfasts? What is wrong with these people?

Here are more reasons why this book has the stench of incompetency:

1. The title of the book is 'Stronger Together', and whatever rocket scientist came up with it should be fired. Moron commenter Insomniac pointed out on a Friday thread that that phrase conjures up that bundle-of-sticks image from where the word 'fascism' is derived. Did they not know this?

2. On the cover photo, Hillary has got her "The Great Leader hails a cab" hand-wave going, and that's fine, but Tim Kaine's pose is the one that's interesting, and by that I mean, look at it, he's giving a pretty good Nazi-style salute. He's got the full arm extension and everything. I can just hear him singing out "Seig Heil!" Yes, I know he didn't mean it like that, but really, whoever is responsible for the cover layout, he should be fired, too.

And I suppose I don't need to point this out, but if Donald Trump ever published a book with a cover photo of him giving that full-extension fascist salute, the MSM would be lit up like a Christmas tree for weeks.

3. As I'm typing this on Friday afternoon, 84% of the Amazon reviews are of the 1-star variety, and it's rare that you see something on Amazon with reviews so lopsidedly bad. Not to mention hilarious. It looks like the negatives are being driven by hordes of conservative comedians, pranksters, snarkmeisters, and hopefully, some of you morons.

I heard from a moron author who told me that he has sold 6,000 copies of each of his zombie books, so he can now brag that he creamed Hillary Clinton.

(h/t Anonosaurus Wrecks)

Another Moron Library

When I first saw this pic with that "Leaving Tsunami Zone" sign on the cement, I thought maybe this was a library in a small town on the Japanese coast (yeah, like they'd have a warning sign IN ENGLISH), but no, the lurking moron who sent it said it's a public library in Gold Beach, OR. And as the sign says, it's below the tsunami line, so if Gold Beach gets hit, the library is a goner. And so, too, the local hospital, which is also below the line. Apparently, good, level land is hard to come by in Gold Beach, OR.

Moron Recommendations

One of my chessplaying buds, 'bonedaddi' who also lurks on the book thread, recommends the collected letters of Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian composer.

'Verdi, The Man in his Letters', is a remarkable portrait of a genius as told through his letters between 1837 to 1900. Within these letters are his thoughts on politics, war, and of course music. It a wonderful glimpse into 19th century Europe without being pedantic.

Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian composer, was born in 1813, and died in 1901. He composed 33 operas (Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata and Aida probably being his most famous) 6 cantatas and Hymns; 8 religious works, which include his beautiful 'Requiem'; 4 instrumental works and 6 scores for the ballet. A remarkable career by any standard and a level of success that few ever reach.

In the 19th century opera was the king of musical composition and its composers and performers were treated like like rock stars. Verdi's main competitor was Richard Wagner, who was considered the future of opera. Verdi was deeply immersed in the Italian tradition and felt that the human voice was more important than grand orchestration. His letters regarding his artistic process during 'Aida' are worth their weight in gold as Verdi agonizes throughout the whole process. It is a phenomenal glimpse into the creative process.

Bonedaddi goes on to say that you don't have to love opera to love this book. It is a glimpse into the joys, the sorrow, the failure and triumph of a man struggling to keep his head above water at times that seem impossible and overwhelming. In 1840, before any of his big successes he lost both his children and his wife to illness. He wrote:

June, 1840, the third coffin was carried out of my house. I was alone!... Alone!... In a little over two months I had lost three loved ones. My whole family was gone! And in this terrible anguish of soul... I had contracted, I was compelled to write an entire comic opera!"

'Verdi: The Man and His Letters' is currently out of print but can be bought used on Amazon for $16.16 or Alibris starting as low as .99 cents. There's probably a few copies on Abebooks, too.

Books By Morons

I heard from moron author Daniel Humphreys earlier this week who has just published A Place Outside The Wild, which is, in his words, a "post-post apocalyptic" novel, and it involves the lives of a group of survivors 8 years after a zombie-like pandemic:

Eight years after Z-Day, the surviving remnants of mankind face the unknown. The fences and walls kept the ravenous undead at bay until they wasted away. A once overwhelming foe has turned feeble and week, and a world gone wild seems ripe for reclamation.

The scars of the long war run deep. And hope is a dangerous thing when the real enemy might just be the survivors themselves.

This is a "self-contained" novel, which I assume means it's not part of a projected series. Available on Kindle for $4.99.

I first announced this novel, sort of, back in July, when Mr. Humphreys asked for beta readers for his second draft. He told me he is e-mailing as many of the beta readers as he has e-mail addresses for to personally thank them, but if he missed any, he wants me to pass along to you all his deep appreciation for all of your hard work and insight. Mr. Humphreys says the feedback he received really took the book to the next level.

___________

Don't forget the AoSHQ reading group on Goodreads. It's meant to support horde writers and to talk about the great books that come up on the book thread. It's called AoSHQ Moron Horde and the link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/175335-aoshq-moron-horde.

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:07 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 I love these personal library tours! I need to tidy up my lair and send OM a photo.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:10 AM (jR7Wy)

2 Good morning bookworms

Posted by: Skip at September 18, 2016 09:10 AM (8lPj5)

3 But she's not even a shred religious, she's an Alinskyite.

And when a commie says "irredeemable" it means you don't even need the semblance of a trial, just hi-ho off to the gulag.

Posted by: deplorable_sock_rat_eez at September 18, 2016 09:11 AM (Z8DIA)

4 But it's this last word, "irredeemable", that I want to discuss.

++++

also said they weren't America. not citizens i guess

Posted by: Bigby's Ouija Board at September 18, 2016 09:15 AM (U0lQa)

5
I hope you've arranged for some realtime entertainment this week, like 'illary faceplanting last Sunday. So far, all I see is some robot trying to defuse an improvised explosive device on the streets of NYC.

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative but 100% deplorable at September 18, 2016 09:15 AM (ZFUt7)

6 Picked up Sea of Words by Dean King to help understand better the O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels.

Posted by: Skip at September 18, 2016 09:15 AM (8lPj5)

7 Hillary's spiritual life isn't much of a concern since she probably doesn't believe half the tenets of her professed faith anyway.

Posted by: Redriver Ted at September 18, 2016 09:16 AM (EefU/)

8 Nice library. I need to get some new shelves, then I'll post mine, which is in my living room, hall, and bedroom

Posted by: josephistan at September 18, 2016 09:16 AM (7qAYi)

9 One of the best book threads ever, OB. And I don't even like books.

Posted by: I love Science in the ass at September 18, 2016 09:19 AM (svFmG)

10 I went to a local book sale on Friday & picked up a history of the Bourbons of Naples, by Harold Acton, and a collection of horror master Robert Bloch's short stories, with introductions by other famed horror writers.

Posted by: josephistan at September 18, 2016 09:19 AM (7qAYi)

11 Even the top five-star review is less than complimentary: The book is full of lies, just like Hillary. I'm leaving a five star review so I don't get straight up murdered.

Posted by: t-bird at September 18, 2016 09:19 AM (w/iDp)

12 By Works!,
By Faith Alone! -

By Works!,
By Faith Alone! -

By Works!,
By Faith Alone! -

?By Voting Trump?

Ain't 2016 Great.

Posted by: DaveA at September 18, 2016 09:20 AM (8J/Te)

13 What's that in the frame on the right side of the library? Looks like maybe old checks or currency?

Posted by: josephistan at September 18, 2016 09:21 AM (7qAYi)

14
So 'illary in effect told about 10-75 million Americans to 'go to hell'. I'm pretty sure my distaste for that woman can't go lower.

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative but 100% deplorable at September 18, 2016 09:22 AM (ZFUt7)

15 I'm not entirely satisfied with this answer. If I understand Goderich correctly, she's saying, "it was an erroneous statement that I should've deleted before publication". Which is true, but that just raises the question, "then how did it come to be written to begin with?"

Right, you don't just make up an author's country of birth out of thin air. She said it was an error in "fact checking". OK, where did that "fact" originate. She had to have had something in writing, or someone had told her, that he was born in Kenya.

Posted by: WhatWhatWhat? at September 18, 2016 09:22 AM (WlGX+)

16 Been out on the porch. So missed opening my faririte thread.

Haven't read OM's, stuff yet but will say all this week been rereading Web Griffin's series on the Marines.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 18, 2016 09:23 AM (mpXpK)

17 I'm seeing lots of Daw sci-fi in HLT's paperbacks shelf.

Does anybody else find themselves buying back books they purged in fits of tidying up/attempts at maturity?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:24 AM (jR7Wy)

18 I refuse to be lectured to by Leftists on my Christian duty. The Good Lord didn't say, "Render unto Caesar every dime he wants."

Nor do I want to hear about "Stronger Together", especially from someone who just declared a significant chunk of the country "deplorable" and "irredeemable".

Posted by: Kodos the Executioner at September 18, 2016 09:25 AM (J8/9G)

19 Its a side note but the reading room I'm working is coming along, putting trim around handycap ramp and stairs. The slow thing is doors are not coming for a few more weeks. They are getting custom doors . Also I hear they are having a hard time finding anyone to hand the massive multi million dollar painting on the wall.

Posted by: Skip at September 18, 2016 09:26 AM (8lPj5)

20 I read The Enemy Below by D.A. Rayner. It is a novel exploring how a one-on-one duel between a destroyer and submarine would happen. Set in WWII, it is an interesting look at how a destroyer actually conducted an ASW (anti-submarine warfare) mission.

I have read three of Rayner's novels and I like his writing style: sparse but informative. All these novels have dealt with the challenges of command during combat.

If you are familiar with the Robert Mitchum movie, the movie actually follows the novel fairly closely. However, Rayner's novel is not as sympathetic to the Germans since he wrote the novel soon after the war (published 1954). The big change in the movie is that, instead of a British destroyer - HMS Hecate, the movie features an American DE (destroyer escort).

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at September 18, 2016 09:26 AM (5Yee7)

21 It's even worse than you think concerning the word "irredeemable". If you are irredeemable in religious speak, it suggests that you deserve *whatever* happens to you moving forward.Truly, anything goes concerning retribution to you and yours. I have spent lots of time in lots of churches, and irredeemable is NOT a good thing to be. I fear for the future with her in charge.....She has put herself in the judgement seat.

Posted by: LA ette, lakeside lurker at September 18, 2016 09:26 AM (rNfA4)

22 I sadly had to decrease my book shelving area and of course the books that were on them. We're working from home full time now and I had to expand my work area into what was my book/reading area. The woes of a small apartment. Luckily I have a couple of young nieces and nephews who are preternaturally skilled readers so I gave a ton of them to good new homes.

Posted by: WhatWhatWhat? at September 18, 2016 09:26 AM (WlGX+)

23 Some random thoughts, some are legit book related:

Is it possible to love kate Upton even more?

Where do i send my personal library/study pic? if i include my dogs, does it count double?

As i researched my grandfather's Army exploits, i decided to use a book (Bridge at Remagen, by Hechler) i got from his collection, back when he passed. I had read my own version of it, probably from a library, decades ago, so i hadn't read this specific book. I intended to use his copy in bibliography, etc., and i also needed to pull some notes to use in the book (or whatever my result will end up being). Lo and behold, in the books pages were two letters: one to the author, and one from another senior officer involved in the event. What a find!!! not much content for ME, but still - how exciting is it to find 56 year old letters from your granddad about a subject you are writing?!?!

Posted by: goatexchange at September 18, 2016 09:28 AM (YFnq5)

24 Oh, forgot to mention: Rayner is a guy that knew what he was talking about. Fought during the entire Battle of the North Atlantic. Started in command of an ASW trawler and ended getting the command of a destroyer in 1943.

He was the first RNVR officer to get command of a destroyer.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at September 18, 2016 09:28 AM (5Yee7)

25 I was one of Dan Humphrey's beta readers of the draft version of A Place Outside the Wild. The book is fantastic, with a novel twist on the whole z-plague, a multi_layered plot, and well drawn characters.

You should check it out if you're into that sort of fiction-and maybe even if you aren't. It's that good.

OT: the reviews of HRC's book are hilarious. Check it out.

Posted by: L W Badger at September 18, 2016 09:29 AM (Rao+R)

26 Bookwise, I am reading "America's Munitions 1917 - 1918" subtitled "Report of Benedict Crowell, the Assistant Secretary of War, Director of Munitions
Washington, Government Printing Office 1919"

A dryish book, as you might expect, exhaustive in scope, covering everything from Condiment Can, Model of 1918, to artillery tubes, tanks, and airplanes, but full of interesting tidbits, not to mention being an outline of how radically many aspects of America were changed by participation in WW I.
A world of cool illustrations, don't miss the 8-section foldout panoramic view of the powder plant at Nitro, WV !
Huh, multiple copies and formats on Amazon.

Posted by: deplorable_sock_rat_eez at September 18, 2016 09:37 AM (Z8DIA)

27 Someone in a thread last night commented that they remembered a time when bomb blasts *weren't* standard in the US.

Listening to 100 year old mysteries and adventure stories has been a real eye-opener. Apparently the "anarchists" (communists, mostly just like today's anarchists) were throwing bombs with abandon, but so were Britain's suffragettes, both sides of the American unionization fight, and the KKK was not "just" lynching blacks but burning the houses of whites who opposed them and shooting the fleeing occupants.

I'm assuming these end up over-stated for dramatic effect (or the same incident is used by multiple authors) but, since my school history classed covered *none* of that, I can't tell how much is fact and how much fiction.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 09:38 AM (GDulk)

28 For some odd reason I read 'Simply Irredeemable' to the background of Robert Palmer's 'Simply Irresistible' -- she compromised my principles. Heh.

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 09:39 AM (MIKMs)

29 Hmm. I wonder if the number of irredeemables approaches 47%?

Where's the media outrage? Anyone?

Posted by: Heresolong at September 18, 2016 09:43 AM (ntIeo)

30 Isn't the whole zombie thing played out already?

Posted by: Dr. Varno at September 18, 2016 09:44 AM (GdFQh)

31 "Does anybody else find themselves buying back books they purged in fits of tidying up/attempts at maturity?"

Well, for me it was more like physical damage / coffee spill / incautious loaning, but very much yes !

Thank you Amazon !

Posted by: deplorable_sock_rat_eez at September 18, 2016 09:44 AM (Z8DIA)

32 All Hail Eris, I can't read the DAW books' spines. But I do see The Shiva Option and Lucifer's Hammer in paperback.

Still got a couple DAW titles lurking in my stacks like Tanith Lee's Drinking Sapphire Wine.

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 09:44 AM (Isky2)

33 Truly, anything goes concerning retribution to you and yours. I have spent lots of time in lots of churches, and irredeemable is NOT a good thing to be. I fear for the future with her in charge.....She has put herself in the judgement seat.
Posted by: LA ette, lakeside lurker

If you have never read it, you should get a copy of "April 1865" by Jay Winik.

It is the end of the Civil War, and both sides (especially partisans and non-uniformed types) are doing horrible things to each other. Murder, burning, decapitation. All manner of atrocities.
War will justify anything to some people. That's where people like Hillary and those who follow her are heading.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....deplorable American at September 18, 2016 09:45 AM (S6Pax)

34 I am not that up on the details of the various Protestant theologies but I did not think that Methodists were hard core Calvinist infant damnation folks.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 09:45 AM (+QFqi)

35 27 Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 09:38 AM (GDulk)

The union/anti-union pyrotechnic display of grievance was either real or local legend here in Butte.

My son's text book explained that Muslims somehow invented the Lateen rigging concept....by going back to 250 or so BC in Phoenicia....

ponder that.

Posted by: sven10077 at September 18, 2016 09:45 AM (SzZnW)

36 Ah, Book Thread, how I have missed you!

Last weekend, I missed the thread because I was at the Calliope Author's Workshop in NYC. Talk about the country mouse going to the big city; I enjoyed the conference, but I was happy to get home. Thanks to whoever mentioned the event on this thread the last week of July. I would have never heard about it otherwise.

Writing is slow the last few days because a horse stepped on my hand- nothing's broken, but I'm typing one handed for a while until the swelling goes down. So I've been doing more reading lately. I finally got around to reading The Fountainhead, which made way more sense this time around. I first tried to read it in high school, and I didn't get much out of it.

Thanks to everyone who beta-read for me. I'm still waiting for two- i think- of you, but everyone had great comments.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper at September 18, 2016 09:46 AM (26lkV)

37 I need to tidy up my lair and send OM a photo.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:10 AM (jR7Wy)

Yes, you do. Please. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 09:46 AM (1Ol9b)

38 30 Isn't the whole zombie thing played out already?

Posted by: Dr. Varno at September 18, 2016 09:44 AM (GdFQh)

Well, you'd think so, but you'd be amazed at the hundreds and hundreds of zombie apocalypse books that are for sale Amazon, with more seemingly being published every month.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 09:48 AM (1Ol9b)

39 I finally got around to reading The Fountainhead, which made way more sense this time around. I first tried to read it in high school, and I didn't get much out of it.

Thanks to everyone who beta-read for me. I'm still waiting for two- i think- of you, but everyone had great comments.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper

Howard Roark laughed.

Make sure your hand is not infected. Put topical anti-biotic on it, even if no skin was broken.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....deplorable American at September 18, 2016 09:48 AM (S6Pax)

40 Sorry for the OT, but:

Just got awoken by a panicked call from neighbor - "Can you come over right away?!?"

Um, what's up? Can I put pants on?
"I don't need small talk! I need you now!"
Thinking she's had a stroke or fell down & broke a hop, I rUn the 200 something feet across the street in all my glory -
To find that her washing machine supply line had burst overnight, drenching every wall & object in the utility room.

She's standing barefoot in an inch of water turning off curcuit breakers. It took everything I had not to knock her away from the panel with a left cross...

Check your supply lines, people. If they're over 10 years old, consider replacing them. And it might be a good idea to keep a pair of pants by the front door for emergencies.

...Back to your regularly scheduled book thread.

Posted by: Chi at September 18, 2016 09:48 AM (4qqol)

41 Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 09:38 AM (GDulk)
---
Yes, the bomb-throwing anarchists advocated "propaganda by the deed", like, say, assassination of the President (Leon Czolgosz). I was taught that the "Red Scare" and subsequent stemming of immigration in the 20's was all nativist xenophobia, but this strain was imported and I don't blame them one bit.

The crazed, bearded, bomb-crazy anarchist was a staple of political cartoons of that era.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:48 AM (jR7Wy)

42 That was Voter Mom who dropped the hint on Calliope. Care to illuminate for those of us who tried to get stuff together on how the conference proceeded?

And horse stepping on hand, yeah ouch. Did you ignore Sarah Jessica Parker's neighs???

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 09:49 AM (Isky2)

43 Morning roonz and roonettez. I'm trying to struggle through Souldancer by Brian Neimeier. I finally made it through the first book in this series (Nethereal) but it took a while. Just not getting into it. So to make up for it I'm also reading Atlantis Gene by AG Riddle.

Posted by: GGE "They Call Me Mr Hades" of the Deplorable Horde, NC Chapter at September 18, 2016 09:49 AM (vbvxt)

44 Hmmm ... that's quite a trick, considering Islam didn't even exist until about 700 AD.

Moral of that story is that you need to read your kids' textbooks and call out the factual errors.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at September 18, 2016 09:50 AM (5Yee7)

45 @27

The number of rulers and heads of state that were attacked and/or assassinated during the late 1800s and early 1900s by anarchists and other assorted "revolutionaries" is quite surprising. Go to wikipedia and check out the listing of attacks under the subject "Propaganda of the Deed". Gives one hope that things aren't quite that bad these days...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed

Posted by: Pave Low John at September 18, 2016 09:50 AM (OejZ/)

46 32 All Hail Eris, I can't read the DAW books' spines. But I do see The Shiva Option and Lucifer's Hammer in paperback.

Still got a couple DAW titles lurking in my stacks like Tanith Lee's Drinking Sapphire Wine.
Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 09:44 AM (Isky2)
---
The practiced nerd eye at work!

I'm thinking I see some Moorcocks.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:50 AM (jR7Wy)

47 .......subsequent stemming of immigration in the 20's was all nativist xenophobia, but this strain was imported and I don't blame them one bit.

The crazed, bearded, bomb-crazy anarchist was a staple of political cartoons of that era.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage

There is always a real reason for populist movements, when the government refuses to pay attention to the will of the people.
That was a time of the resurgence of the KKK, and it wasn't about oppressing black people. It was anti-immigrant.
There was a long immigration "holiday" from 1925 until the mid 1960's, when the Democrats started to wind that up again (Teddy Kennedy).

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....deplorable American at September 18, 2016 09:52 AM (S6Pax)

48 ...closes robe.....

Posted by: Moor at September 18, 2016 09:52 AM (YFnq5)

49 27 - There was a massive wave of anarchist terrorist attacks from ca. 1870-1920 that has largely been forgotten.
http://tinyurl.com/q92bvb8

There's a book called "The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle With Bolshevism" by Anthony Read which goes into detail on the worldwide labor agitation, terrorist attacks, revolutions & wars of that year.

Posted by: Bill Clinton at September 18, 2016 09:52 AM (7qAYi)

50 30 Isn't the whole zombie thing played out already?

I thought so, too, before I wrote it. Avoiding spoilers, my zombies aren't zombies.

There were a couple of drivers that led me to structure it as I did. There are a ton of post-apocalyptic zombie books out there. Most of the ones on Amazon are short snippets of a whole; a full-length novel on ten parts at full-price for each. That unreasonably annoys me.

The second is the tendency of the genre to both paint the military as more evil or behind the series of events, as well as using the zombies as a commentary on whatever societal ills the creator is focused on.

I'm subtle about it, but let's just say the real bad guys of the book would personally offend the majority of editors at the big publishing houses, heh. And the reason the bad guys use zombies as their ... vehicle ... for their aims is because of the current state in pop culture.

Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 09:53 AM (JjW88)

51 Still exhausted from a whole day spent outdoors in the booth full of my daughter's original origami earrings at San Marcos's Mermaid festival -- which was a blast, actually. Held in a park on the river in San Marcos, with live music, arts and crafts booths, there was a parade, lots of people in skimpy clothing dressed and ornamented as mer-people, cute kids, cute dogs ... I took my kindle and got all the way through a forgettable novel about war brides in England during WWII (War Brides, by Helen Bryant ... meh. Good atmosphere, some believable characters, unbelievable plot ...)
The third book of our Luna City Chronicles - Luna City 3.1 is available today on Kindle - http://tinyurl.com/zr4xj7w
The print version should be out in a couple more weeks, when I will send the links to OM and have more of a general announcement about it all, but if anyone wants a kind of sneak preview, there you are.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 18, 2016 09:54 AM (xnmPy)

52 am not that up on the details of the various Protestant theologies but I did not think that Methodists were hard core Calvinist infant damnation folks.

++++

They're not

Posted by: Bigby's Ouija Board at September 18, 2016 09:54 AM (U0lQa)

53 Polliwogette, you could always watch the movie Lady L.

Paul Newman is an anarchist. Sophie Loren is the lady in question giving him a hiding spot because of the violent trouble he's in.

https://youtu.be/D7nxfrYFtWs

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 09:54 AM (Isky2)

54 43I'm trying to struggle through Souldancer by Brian Neimeier. I finally made it through the first book in this series (Nethereal) but it took a while.

Posted by: GGE "They Call Me Mr Hades" of the Deplorable Horde, NC Chapter at September 18, 2016 09:49 AM (vbvxt)

Don't even bother going back to it. If you have to "struggle through" a book, that's a sign that it's not worth your time to read.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 09:55 AM (1Ol9b)

55 Read Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, which is a slice of the Trojan War with the various important Greek and Trojan characters. Troilus and Cressida are to be married but she is swapped to the Greeks for a POW and is unfaithful to him. Shakespeare is pretty even-handed with the Greeks and Trojans though Achilles comes off badly, especially in the final battle. Even lacking the fake horse it's pretty good.

Also read his Sonnets, A Lover's Complaint and a lot of little poems that have been attributed to Shakespeare over the years. The Sonnets can get repetitive but are very good. The shorter poems it is hard to hear his voice, one is only 3 lines.

Listened to Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters (Discworld #6, Witches #2), where 3 witches get involved in Royal politics. Supposedly inspired by MacBeth, I liked it but didn't find it as funny as expected.

Listened to David Mamet's The Secret Knowledge: On The Dismantling of American Culture, where he explains his shift to conservatism and bashes the Left in general and Obama in particular. Don't usually like political books but enjoyed this one.

Posted by: waelse1 at September 18, 2016 09:59 AM (+wZrc)

56 I'm assuming these end up over-stated for dramatic effect (or the same incident is used by multiple authors) but, since my school history classed covered *none* of that, I can't tell how much is fact and how much fiction.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 09:38 AM (GDulk)

See this

http://bit.ly/232POGm

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 18, 2016 09:59 AM (mpXpK)

57 I thought so, too, before I wrote it. Avoiding spoilers, my zombies aren't zombies.
Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 09:53 AM (JjW8

Wait a minute, which moron author are you? Have I pimped your zombie book (like today) or when? Or are you unknown to the rest of us? If so, shoot me an e-mail and I'll remedy that situation.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 09:59 AM (1Ol9b)

58 (for political conversations, please use the open thread below)

Then follows, three H.Clinton reviews and a discussion of The Kenyan Problem.
I...can't even. "Literally," what can one say? Here is a cross-section of the world "we" have made for ourselves.

The Verdi book sounds great. It's difficult to overstate how important he was considered in his time, and not just in Italy. Giants strode the earth, baby.

FWIW, the comic opera he complained of having to write during the funerals was Un giorno de regno, "King for A Day," about King Stanislaus of Poland. It was a flop, and he vowed never to compose again. He strove hard to get financially successful, set himself up as a landowner, and actually did quit composing. And then after about 30 years, came back and knocked 'em on their ass, again.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at September 18, 2016 10:00 AM (H5rtT)

59 "49
27 - There was a massive wave of anarchist terrorist attacks from ca. 1870-1920 that has largely been forgotten.

http://tinyurl.com/q92bvb8

There's a book called "The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle With
Bolshevism" by Anthony Read which goes into detail on the worldwide
labor agitation, terrorist attacks, revolutions wars of that year.

Posted by: Bill Clinton at September 18, 2016 09:52 AM (7qAYi)"

I seem to recall that there was some book by John Dos Pasos lamenting that the United States and the rest of the world did not go commie in 1919.

I have read that one of the reasons that the Versailles Treaty was such a dogs breakfast was that the people negotiating were all terrified that Bolshevik mobs might drag them out and hang them from the lamp posts at any moment. Of course, it might also have something with the influenza pandemic that infected many of the delegates, including Woodrow Wilson.

Britain's draconian gun laws stem from fears of a communist revolution in 1919. This is a major change from the prewar policy of encouraging widespread gun ownership in fear of a German invasion.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 10:00 AM (+QFqi)

60 *pulls up Talnexus link and Calliope*

Well they are looking for people to join their Cinders Writers Groups it looks like.

http://talnexus.com/cwg/

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 10:04 AM (Isky2)

61 LOL, you're good, OregonMuse. I'm Dan Humphreys.

Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 10:05 AM (OwhhJ)

62 Regarding Hillary and "irredeemable", there are reports that after the Matt Lauer town hall Hillary went on a rampage, screaming at NBC executives "If I lose, we all go down and that Fascist Fuck will have us swinging from nooses! What the fuck is wrong with you idiots?"

More than a little bit of psychological projection in that.

Posted by: cool breeze at September 18, 2016 10:07 AM (ckvus)

63 All Hail Eris it was easy for me to spot those two books. The paperback edition of Lucifer's Hammer is one I have. As for The Shiva Option the title on the spine has a very unique colorization that makes it stand out in either hardback or paperback version.

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 10:07 AM (Isky2)

64 I like the find the sniper/kitteh/SF book game with the Moronic Library pics

Excellent library dog, HTL! I bet he hunts down all those deplorables who borrow books and "forget" to return them, you know who you are...

A small news item, for those who might have pre-ordered the Light in the Darkness book collection from Amazon and then got the email it was cancelled. It was NOT cancelled, and now it is back and available on the site. There was some...let's call it confusion but it is All Better Now and the mines have been defused and the attack spiders recalled. The preorder price is a mere 99 cents, *well* within Vic's budget, for 12 full books--but as soon as October 18 hits the price goes up to $1.99!

And I have to WORK today, stupid emergency software schedule, but nothing gets between me and the Book Thread!

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 18, 2016 10:08 AM (SuJIo)

65 "62
Regarding Hillary and "irredeemable", there are reports that after the
Matt Lauer town hall Hillary went on a rampage, screaming at NBC
executives "If I lose, we all go down and that Fascist Fuck will have us
swinging from nooses! What the fuck is wrong with you idiots?"

More than a little bit of psychological projection in that.

Posted by: cool breeze at September 18, 2016 10:07 AM (ckvus)"

Would it be possible to get a source for that?

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 10:09 AM (+QFqi)

66 AUSTRIAN MAP!

Posted by: Greg at September 18, 2016 10:09 AM (JirJH)

67 Troilus and Cressida

That one's an odd duck. An extremely cynical play. In taking the piss out of classic heroes, it reminds me a bit of Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage.

Posted by: WhatWhatWhat? at September 18, 2016 10:11 AM (WlGX+)

68 That was Voter Mom who dropped the hint on Calliope.
Care to illuminate for those of us who tried to get stuff together on
how the conference proceeded?

And horse stepping on hand, yeah ouch. Did you ignore Sarah Jessica Parker's neighs???

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 09:49 AM (Isky2)
Calliope was great fun. It's a very small format, only about thirty people in total, counting the organizers, so we all got to talk with each other and make connections. There were discussion groups, where we reviewed each others stuff; and panels, where guest speakers talked about different types of publishing and how to incorporate conservative/ libertarian values into fiction. I really liked meeting people who share my politics and can talk intelligently about them. I live in a purple area of a blue state, so there's not a lot of that, usually. It was a fun weekend, and I think they're going to do it again next year. Definitely send in your stuff.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper at September 18, 2016 10:11 AM (26lkV)

69 So Obama has been "trolling" conservatives the whole time, by holding back the actual document of his birth. (and maybe something on the original had something to hide, like stating he is "white" as zombie iirc suggested the other day.) So he let the lie on his book jacket be printed to make him more legit as an African (raised in Indonesia/Hawaii).

Hillary's book has a couple subtle things on the cover that PROVE (ha) that she is The Beast. Fist she has her vp giving the Hitler salute. Second the title itself ... what it really says is America would be stronger if we got her in prison. "Stronger ToGetHer"

How do people miss that?

Posted by: illiniwek at September 18, 2016 10:12 AM (niOEf)

70 Hello horde!

I have 4 books for only 99c each today on my blog, two of which are lesser-known Sarah Hoyt books.

Link in nic.

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:12 AM (Om16U)

71 Reading Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn" and it is quite good so far. I love military history but the truth of the matter is I'm just filling time with this first of three in the series of Pulitzer Prize winners by Mr. Atkinson while waiting for the newest novel in The Expanse series to finally drop.

Posted by: Sharkman at September 18, 2016 10:13 AM (hFtCl)

72 John Dos Passos was a big-time fellow traveller who literally Changed His Mind. Maybe the most Lost of the whole Lost Generation, because he broke with Hemingway and that lot, and they never forgave him. In his later years, he campaigned for Goldwater. Gets made fun of a lot by intelleftists.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at September 18, 2016 10:14 AM (H5rtT)

73 Sorry I am not very talky today.

Day three of waking up with a headache.

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:15 AM (Om16U)

74 Posted by: right wing whippersnapper at September 18, 2016 10:11 AM (26lkV)

Did you meet Sara Hoyt? She mentioned on her own blog that she was at Calliope.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 10:16 AM (GDulk)

75 I wonder if that could be made a meme, to sort of brainwash people to relate
"America, Stronger ToGetHer in Prison", on Twitter enough that people think that every time they see her logo? And it's true.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 18, 2016 10:17 AM (niOEf)

76 Got it, Miss Celia!

And thanks for the heads-up, Sabrina, I pre-ordered it again while I grabbed Mr Humphreys'.

Posted by: Tammy al-Thor at September 18, 2016 10:18 AM (GcpvU)

77 Yes, the bomb-throwing anarchists advocated "propaganda by the deed", like, say, assassination of the President (Leon Czolgosz).

-
One chapter in Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower deals with the anarchists in the twenty-five years before WWI. It is very interesting, the most interesting chapter in an interesting book.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 10:19 AM (Nwg0u)

78 Here is the Amazon link to pre-order Light in the Darkness
http://preview.tinyurl.com/hg7t6r5

I'm certainly trying to get a novel or two finished writing for next go round with Calliope. Though write now building a mountain from a mole hill on interaction between two characters and matters of trust. *thud*

Whoo-hoo Voter Mom, more distractions from writing for me to read.

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 10:19 AM (Isky2)

79 Hillary basically says more than 20 percent of the people in the USA are irredeemably morally deplorable. If I'm President and believe that, that's a BIG PROBLEM. Do we want millions of morally deplorable people to be teachers, policemen, judges, jurors, members of the military, or simply our neighbors? Do we want them to become parents and risk them teaching their evil morals to their children? No! What should a President do about such a widespread Serious National Morals Problem? If it's me, I don't know. But Hillary already has a plan, I'll bet. That's what is scary.

Posted by: Gref at September 18, 2016 10:19 AM (AMIL/)

80 I see the post is mostly about Hillary.

In my own life, Hillary is a non issue. I have a new obsession - Grammarly. They offered a first year half price deal which made it barely affordable.
(Give Grammarly your email address, but don't buy it, and they will plant a cookie, and you will see ads for Grammarly everywhere you go on the net. And then they will email you with a half price offer. Maybe)

For most of last week, I've been feeding my manuscripts (in small chucks, Grammarly chokes on anything over sixty thousand words, twenty thousand if you use the web interface) to the Grammarly servers in the cloud trying to not be that guy what some guy a week or two weeks ago said on the book thread, should be told to stop writing. I don't want to be that guy.

I don't like Grammarly. Firstly you have to be online to use it. I don't have broadband. As a spell checker, punctuator it's better than me. The number of words flagged is an embarassment. (If you have read my stuff you know what I mean.)

I'm using the Beta version of their MSWord add-in, and it's definately 'Beta'. It loses sync with the server in the cloud, and hangs. It triggers a known MSWord save bug, and you won't know it until you try to save your changes and discover all your work for the last hour or two doesn't get saved. (There are ways to work around the bug. Save Often, Save as, and shut down Grammarly when you do save and keep your word count below 60k.)

Grammarly has shown me the words I use incorrectly (its-it's, desert-dessert, and a long list of others)

But Grammarly doesn't know the word 'herd'. Herd is not in Grammarly's vocabulary. Herd, herding, herders, livestock; Grammarly doesn't get the concept.

And last Friday's monsoon downpour told me I have a hole in the roof, and the pain in my chest that goes down my left arm, and makes the fingers on that hand numb, makes it clear that Hillary is the least of my worries.

So I'm hoping that God's flaming chariot will come and take me away before the house falls down on my head. While I wait, I fight with Grammarly which insists that I really meant 'head' when I wrote herd. Telling Grammarly to ignore the error doesn't work as the software nags worse than that robot wife of Harry Mudd in the Star Trek episode.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at September 18, 2016 10:21 AM (VdJEp)

81 http://tinyurl.com/hhgej5j

Reading "In the Garden of Beasts," the story of the US
ambassador to Germany right as Hitler was taking over. He's a progressive, which was at the time the thing to be if you were smart and serious, but the level of his denial of the entire West to Hitler's cause is pretty astonishing.

Very much like today and our ridiculous treaty with Iran.

Posted by: PJ at September 18, 2016 10:22 AM (cHuNI)

82 Speaking of Barbara Tuchman, her Practicing History contains many useful and interesting comments and suggestions for aspiring writers.

Posted by: goatexchange at September 18, 2016 10:22 AM (KBPsp)

83 Did you meet Sara Hoyt? She mentioned on her own blog that she was at Calliope.

Posted by: Polliwog at September 18, 2016 10:16 AM (GDulk)

Yep, she was there. She has very scary stories about growing up in Europe, protesting the communist takeover. As bad as it is here, it's worse over there.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper at September 18, 2016 10:22 AM (26lkV)

84 Skandia Recluse, sorry for your woes. But your battle against software 'designed' to make things easier sounds like it could very well be a funny tale.

"What you stinking steaming conglomeration of sub-standard Elbonian code don't you understand, have you never heard of a herd?"

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 10:25 AM (Isky2)

85 Posted by: right wing whippersnapper at September 18, 2016 09:46 AM (26lkV)

Congrats on getting to Calliope!

Um -I'm not one of those who owe you a beta-read, am I?

I totally failed Dan/Emile and I have sworn off beta-reading for now - just can't work the schedule.

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:25 AM (Om16U)

86 Would it be possible to get a source for that?

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 10:09 AM (+QFqi)

Search using the quote verbatim for where it has been reported. I haven't seen an authoritative source, but I would understand a certain reluctance to do so, given the attacks Lauer was subjected to, not to mention the possibility of becoming the latest arkancide.

Posted by: cool breeze at September 18, 2016 10:27 AM (ckvus)

87 Good morning morons! Long time no see! I've had a busy summer and been missing the book thread!
Want to share with you a few of the things I've been perusing over the summer.
One of my favorites is Napoleon Hill's Outwitting the Devil. There's a really good audio book version on you tube of you like that sort of thing. Even though this book was written pre WWII there is plenty that still applies today, maybe even moreso!
I'll note especially the last of what's wrong with the public schools and what they ought to teach instead! Also, the statements about big industry helping people not hurting them. Very worth a read / listen.

I'll also take a moment to plug a book series I've been helping to publish Leo Ahonen's A Look at Ballet in 50 Years (available on amazon). It's a collection of thoughts on ballet, the art world and life in general by a man who danced professionally for 50 years all around the world! You or someone you know might enjoy it so check it out!

Currently reading several books in bits and pieces, The Stranger by Camus, but in the original french so slow going as I'm rusty! Also Ayn Rand virtue of selfishness and Thoreau's Civil Disobedience again.

Must leave now to take sugar plum granny to church. I'll finish the content later! Be well!

Posted by: Sugar Plum Fairy #176-671 at September 18, 2016 10:29 AM (r1Mzb)

88 Some of the funnier Hilldog book reviews:

The chapter where Hillbilly talks about her battle with Parkinson's Disease was difficult to read. Difficult because it was missing from the book.

I haven't read a book this bad since "30-Minute Meals" by Jeffrey Dahmer.

What a fantastic book! I see that Amazon has this for under $20, but I paid slightly more. I bought this directly from the Clinton foundation for $3.5 million. Once I read this book it's like everything in my life clicked. The state department released funds from an "associate" of mine who for some odd reason was mistakenly put on the terrorist watchlist. He then invested in my "housing development" project in Saudi Arabia. Also 14 of my relatives were able to get permanant resident status and my niece got a job at a US Embassy! I suppose I could've saved some money by buying the version from Amazon, but by buying directly from the Clinton foundation I got a special edition that is much thicker and has pages hollowed out for future "uses". I hope this book has an audio version because I would love to pay for play...ing it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 10:29 AM (Nwg0u)

89 "More than a little bit of psychological projection in that."

someone did an article on the many things were she (and the left) project like that. I've listed a few before but haven't called it projection, though maybe that is correct. It could also just be willful strategy ... basic patsy for her crimes kinda thing.

So she attacks Trump on being out of control, while her staff and SS all know of her fits of rage. She claims Trump would be the fascist, while she sells America via pay to play and can "order" Comey to stand down, with Bill meeting Lynch on that plane. The left has dropped direct hints about assassinating Trump, but when Trump calls her out on gun control, he gets accused of that. and so on.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 18, 2016 10:30 AM (niOEf)

90 you write "for politics and sports" go to the previous thread and then commence to discuss clinton and obama making sport of each. ahem. i am torn.

but in as much as i am very busy - busy, busy, busy - let me add here what someone may already have posted: when that obama biographical sketch first surfaced the editor claimed she had made a mistake; others in the agency, however stated that all of the information on their authors' bios came from the authors. i suspect obama, who most likely was born in hawaii, said he was from kenya because that is what he had been claiming in his college admissions for financial aid and preferential treatment. his college records are sealed but i bet they'd show something like that.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at September 18, 2016 10:30 AM (WTSFk)

91 Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 18, 2016 10:08 AM (SuJIo)

gonna tweet that

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:30 AM (Om16U)

92 Read up on Haymarket Riot. I remember a flap a few years ago because some historian went to the contemporary transcripts of the trial and the whole good labor agitators/bad cops told to most kids in NoIll and SoWisc is nonsense. I was actually surprised at how good and thorough the defense of the agitators was. Illinois/Wisconsin border has been notorious for over 150 years as labor agitators go back and forth. Scott Walker's recall anyone?

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 10:31 AM (MIKMs)

93 Um -I'm not one of those who owe you a beta-read, am I?

I totally failed Dan/Emile and I have sworn off beta-reading for now - just can't work the schedule.

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:25 AM (Om16U)

Nope, you're all set. Check it off your to-do list.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper at September 18, 2016 10:33 AM (26lkV)

94 When my Light In The Darkness order was cancelled I couldn't find the book on Amazon anymore. It had vanished completely, but then noticed yesterday it had reappeared. Found on christinaochs.com there are reviews of several of the books in it.

Posted by: waelse1 at September 18, 2016 10:35 AM (+wZrc)

95 Thanks, everyone! You're the best bunch of literary Morons ever!

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 18, 2016 10:36 AM (SuJIo)

96 ... and btw, i have taken a few moments to actually read some of the previous comments and they are very impressive. and in complete sentences!

but i am ever so very busy right now...

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at September 18, 2016 10:38 AM (WTSFk)

97 I'm Dan Humphreys.
Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 10:05 AM (OwhhJ)

I thought so.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 10:40 AM (1Ol9b)

98 Sabrina that is quite a deal.

I tweeted it.

Now are they 12 novels or are they novellas?

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:40 AM (Om16U)

99 My computer refused to load the comments for the longest damn time (or was it Pixy?). So irritating since this is the second best part of my Sunday.

Anyway, still reading "Hollywood Party" and have now gotten to the hearings in DC. Dirty effing commies.

And I started "The New Trail of Tears" which, if I heard about that here, Thanks! This book is a horror story worthy of Lovecraft but with "well-meaning" bureaucrats and legislators in the place of Cthulhu. I'm still pretty close to the beginning and reading about land issues and I could just spit nails, all in the direction of the assholes who decided that ownership rights to Indian land should be limited by holding them in "trust" for the poor pathetic red man. Assholes. Miserable scum-sucking pieces of crap. Shakespeare got it wrong: the first thing we'll do, we'll kill all the bureaucrats who think they know best.

Posted by: Tonestaple at September 18, 2016 10:40 AM (VsZJP)

100 97 I'm Dan Humphreys.
Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 10:05 AM (OwhhJ)

I know I was shocked to find that "Emile Antoon Khadaji" was not a real name.

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:41 AM (Om16U)

101 Posted by: Sugar Plum Fairy #176-671 at September 18, 2016 10:29 AM (r1Mzb)

Tell me a abot about A Look At Ballet - back story, what's in it, etc.

I can do blog post on it.

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:43 AM (Om16U)

102
My AOS handle is a character in, IMHO, one of the best pulp sci-fi books hardly anyone has read - check out 'The Man Who Never Missed' by Steve Perry.

Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 10:44 AM (OwhhJ)

103 Miserable scum-sucking pieces of crap. Shakespeare got it wrong: the
first thing we'll do, we'll kill all the bureaucrats who think they
know best.
=====

One of my darling nephews has decided to go to law school with the goal of a DC job. I love the kid and he is certainly smart enough to do anything he wants, but boy howdy, what a goal.

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 10:44 AM (MIKMs)

104 #16 WEB Griffin. I am a major fan of Griffin. I own the complete Corps, series and the Honor Bound series. I have read them at least 3 times. I must say however, that the do not lend themselves to binge reading. They are much too repetitive to be truly enjoyable. But Griffin's history is spot on, and he pulls no punches in his estimation of historical figures.

Other readers of these books have dismissed them as little more than "guy porn" where all the heroes are dashing, the women beautiful and easy. There is some of that, but I wouldn't fault them for that. After all who want to read about ugly women and cowardly heroes. I thoroughly recommend these books to any fan of military fiction.

Posted by: Semilitterate at September 18, 2016 10:46 AM (ehmsO)

105 I've been listening to The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir. It is an older book just released on audio about some oil explorers in the Arctic who discover a frozen Roman gladiator who a Russian cryonics scientist brings back to life. There are (thus far) alternating stories, one about the gladiator's life and one about the scientists bringing him back to life. This is a long listen, just under nineteen hours, but that allows sufficient detail to allow for the willing suspension of disbelief necessary for this credibility stretching story. One of the things I like is the gladiator discussing the show biz aspects of gladitorial combat. He creates rumors and engages in other PR moves to increase interest in the match. One of the things I don't like is the British narrator attempting American, worse yet Texan, accents. He makes us sound like cousin-humping regards.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 10:47 AM (Nwg0u)

106 Posted by: WhatWhatWhat? at September 18, 2016 10:11 AM (WlGX+)

Thanks I'll check out the Marlowe work, curious to see how he handles Dido and Aeneas.

Posted by: waelse1 at September 18, 2016 10:47 AM (+wZrc)

107 I read "The Three Body Problem" the other day.

It was ok.

Written like a historical novel more than scifi. Which, given large chunks of the back-story are set in the Cultural Revolution, was inescapable.

After reading it, and reading the synopsis of the next two: I'm shocked the commies let it be published given the open insult toward the Cultural Revolution and that the big reveal, the advantage the humans have, is the ability to keep your thoughts secret--even to the point of plotting rebellion, etc.

Posted by: RoyalOil at September 18, 2016 10:47 AM (e2Rx3)

108 Just posted this on Gab

#GabLit #GabFam if you don't know about the world-famous AosHQ Sunday Book Thread check it out now

http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=365810

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 10:48 AM (Om16U)

109 Is that the same Sapir who co-wrote . . . The Destroyer books, IIRC?

Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 10:49 AM (OwhhJ)

110 We've been reading like crazy 'round these parts because we are doing Charlotte Mason this year for homeschooling.

Right now we're reading The Hobbit as a family and various poetry for copy work/ creative expression.

My oldest is reading Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale and my next daughter just started a book called "Baby Island" about shipwrecked kids.

I'm...well I'm reading the second book in The Witcher series. I'm not sure that last one qualifies as "twaddle free" but it's loads of fun.

We just finished our library this week so we've also read aprox 5000 books to the children in it.

Posted by: Lauren at September 18, 2016 10:49 AM (R8Md3)

111 Uh oh in case everyone missed it, Larry Correia has been throwing potato chips at the Cultural Appropriation Police

http://monsterhunternation.com/

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 10:52 AM (Isky2)

112 "I'll also take a moment to plug a book series I've been helping to publish Leo Ahonen's A Look at Ballet in 50 Years (available on amazon). It's a collection of thoughts on ballet, the art world and life in general by a man who danced professionally for 50 years all around the world! You or someone you know might enjoy it so check it "

My oldest daughter would love that!

Posted by: Lauren at September 18, 2016 10:52 AM (R8Md3)

113 Tonestaple

I've been having problems with this site, too. Browser crashed yesterday every time I opened it.

Posted by: PJ at September 18, 2016 10:53 AM (cHuNI)

114 Votermom: 12 FULL books. My contribution is The Last Mage Guardian, Lindsay Buroker is putting in The Emperor's Edge. A bunch of the authors, including me, are also adding some short stories. My short story is one that has never been published before--fantasy, not connected to any of my novels. And it has a *bit* of an interesting backstory.

Way back in the Early Pleistocene when I still was trying to "break in" by writing short stories and submitting them to magazines, I sent it to MZB's magazine. And in due time I got back a SCREED of two scribbled pages, from MZB her own self. Executive summary being, she didn't like my main character and *therefore* I was a bad writer. The main character is a young man who is in a Bad Situation because of abusive family. I didn't know about the whole Breendoggle scandal at the time...but I can't help but wonder if I hit a nerve. (And if so, good!) For those unfamiliar, and with a strong stomach, just google Breendoggle. Hint: Breen, MZB's husband, went to jail for it...

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 18, 2016 10:53 AM (SuJIo)

115 Reading "In the Garden of Beasts," the story of the US
ambassador to Germany right as Hitler was taking over.

-
His daughter was "progressive", too. She was banging both the head of the KGB in Berlin and the head of the Gestapo.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 10:53 AM (Nwg0u)

116 That's an awesome library, HTL.

I had to dismantle my library and convert that space into a bedroom for my late MIL. Seeing all these great spaces in the book thread has given me a yen to pull it back together again, with the added bonus of freeing up room in the basement from the walls of Rubbermaid crates.

Posted by: Gem at September 18, 2016 10:54 AM (uaHyk)

117 110 Lauren-
You sound like an amazing parent. My children went to Catholic schools and, although our Catholic schools always get top scores in the state, I wish I had just home schooled them. They turned out fine and are great human beings, but I was also a very involved parent.

Posted by: Abby Coffey at September 18, 2016 10:56 AM (HBU7W)

118 Is that the same Sapir who co-wrote . . . The Destroyer books, IIRC?

-
Apparently so.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 10:56 AM (Nwg0u)

119 Since joining the gym I've been listening to a lot of audio books during my workouts. I've had to cut back on those workouts a good deal until I'm done with commuting to downtown Los Angeles, where we're surveying the IT infrastructure of the City Hall complex and the LAPD HQ. So, another two weeks at least.

Among the books I've listened to recently:

'Grunt' by Mary Roach. Roach has produced several entertaining non-fiction examinations of varied subjects. Before this, her 'Swallow' examined the human digestive tract and included an interesting theory that Elvis Presley might have died of the side effects of a 'mega-colon.' This book looks at the way the military clothes, feeds, treats medically after injury, and other non-combat aspects of maintaining a standing army. Some of this, such as the section dealing with personnel with genitals injured by IEDs, is rough going but Roach appears to have good rapport with the people she interviewed.

Super Powereds Year One and Year Two by Drew Hayes. In this setting, superhumans began appearing in the late 1950s and were soon regulated by the government. Only those who'd passed a rigorous certification program were permitted to operate as superheroes. Those with abilities are divided into Supers, who have full control of their special talents and provide the pool from which the heroes are drawn, and the second category, Powereds, who do not have control over their abilities and are looked down upon by the Supers.

A unnamed company has devised a methodology to take Powereds and make them Supers. They take five subjects in their late teens and place them within the Hero Certification Program, which operates as a secret subset of the attendees at a large California university. The two books thus far cover the freshman and sophomore years of this group's experiences in the HCP. A third book is underway, available to read on the author's site as he completes the chapters. It's been fun so far, with the cast of characters growing as the histories of the characters and their relations to others and major events unfold. Some major questions remain unanswered but hopefully the author will reveal as he finds appropriate.

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the US Navy by Ian Toll is a self-explanatory title. It is amazing in retrospect to see how long the Founders operated under the belief that the new nation needed no military capability on the seas, despite overseas trade being the core of the economy and hostile powers to be found everywhere. The war of 1812 was a direct result of the US' failure to accept the reality of situation before it was too late.

Posted by: Epobirs at September 18, 2016 10:58 AM (IdCqF)

120 I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells. Different and creepy.

Posted by: LisaT at September 18, 2016 10:58 AM (QNoS6)

121 Hi!

Just requested a join to the AoSHQ Goodreads group. I'm not strictly a lurker, but a most infrequent poster.

Posted by: Mattski at September 18, 2016 10:59 AM (qVMio)

122 Sabrina, can I post that backstory? I was thinking of doing a post this week for the book set and that is certainly an intriguing anecdote.

The story that triggered MZB...

Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:01 AM (Om16U)

123 Hillary claims to be Methodist, and should be chastised for calling people irredeemable, but it was a clear tactic, to divide the Republicans and to make it seem toxic to show open support. Obviously she already had guys like Kasich Kristol Kruz supporting her opinion on that.

But the Bible speaks of powerful legalistic leaders that use religion as a front. Jesus said "you are of your father the Devil, and the works of your father you will do" ... speaking of the Pharisees. (they were basically lawyers for OT law, but had turned the law into a weapon, lawfare, as Bastiat said had happened around French Revolution times, in The Law)

The Pharisees "projected" like Hillary does, as with the woman in red, which they had all "had". Yet they took the victim and demanded JC follow the law and stone her. JC flipped the tables, and said he who is without sin cast the first stone. (Zimmerman the victim ... "stone him", Wilson the victim in Ferguson ... "stone him", BLM "what do we want, dead cops")

Trump is accused of Russia connections, but the uranium deal and the Skolkovo Project (maybe as big as the uranium deal) were the real rape of America, where Hillary sold US and our tech. When she says Stronger Together ... together with whom?

A last point on irredeemable ... some believe Son of God is a real sonship thing, holy spirit as a spiritual "born again" seed, eternal life spirit instead of mortal. And some of those would claim that the only irredeemable people are those "born of the wrong seed", of their father the devil. That fits evil murderous Pharisee types like Clintons, Soros, maybe slippery accuser Blumenthal ... much better than the patriotic Americans supporting Trump for the Win.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 18, 2016 11:01 AM (niOEf)

124 "
I've been listening to The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir."

I read that back around 1980. I thought it was a great story and I was always a bit surprised that more people have not read it or even heard of it.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 11:02 AM (+QFqi)

125 Reading Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn"

-
My favorite part of that book is when Patton's son-in-law leads a tank attack on an operational Luftwaffe airfield.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 11:02 AM (Nwg0u)

126 #107

Be prepared for some major WTF in the sequel, 'The Dark Forest.' Most notably the sub-plot of Venezuela becoming the target of a US military incursion, which they win! That the author found this believable after what he'd written about the Mao era in the first book defies belief. It seems he's alright with Marx, it's just that Mao was bad.

Posted by: Epobirs at September 18, 2016 11:03 AM (IdCqF)

127 Thanks, Abby.

I think Catholic schools, for the most part, still do an incredible job at introducing kids to rich literature as well as logic.

I have some friends who send their girls to a Classical Catholic Academy, and if we had one near by I'd be very tempted to do the same!

Posted by: Lauren at September 18, 2016 11:03 AM (R8Md3)

128 I'm assuming these end up over-stated for dramatic
effect (or the same incident is used by multiple authors) but, since my
school history classed covered *none* of that, I can't tell how much is
fact and how much fiction.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 09:38 AM (GDulk)

Pollliwog, the Anarchists and the Wobblies were bombing and shooting people. I am reading a collection of articles by Stewart Holbrook who wrote about various Western subjects, and talks in one of them about the spate of Wobbly assassinations, including booby trapping people's front gates with explosives.

A lot of this was scrubbed

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 11:06 AM (lDj6i)

129 But but but Loewen told me in Lies Across America that the anarchists were just resisting oppression and that the statue saying "I Command Peace" was fascist.

Posted by: Boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 11:10 AM (aJ83x)

130 Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 11:06 AM (lDj6i)

Was it scrubbed because the communists, actually, won or did they win because it was scrubbed? Or is this a case of "Embrace the power of and"?

I was in school in the 80s and early 90s and the only reason I know any history at all is that I liked historical novels. And the Horde. I have learned so much from the Horde these last eight years. Much more than I learned in school.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 11:13 AM (GDulk)

131 Not reading anything at the moment but I cashed in a Barnes & Noble gift card and got three books lined up--

Rogue Heroes, by Ben MacIntyre, is a book about British intelligence during WW2, which is basically all he writes about. But I "powered" through his other books this summer, so I might as well...
Pax Romana-- Adrian Goldsworthy. It's about the two hundred years or so of "peace" and prosperity the Empire enjoyed in the first two centuries AD. He's an excellent writer and I read his biography of Caesar twice.

And one that's sure to be very popular around here...
Bruce Springsteen--Born to Run. The guys a douchnozzle politically and I've been down on his later music, but I saw one of his recent shows at MetLife recently and it was excellent, so I might as well.... Supposedly he wrote every word and employed no ghost for this autobiography, and I got to see how he does.

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 11:14 AM (eUOxG)

132 I don't know if it's strictly "reading" -- more like "eye-feasting" -- but I'm enjoying the graphic novel "Bride's Story" by Kaoru Mori, suggested by a moronette a few book threads ago. The level of detail in the Central Asian garb is astounding. Here's Kaori drawing and inking in her illustrations (there are 5 segments); I find the scritch-scritch of pen on paper very relaxing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esgd-FM3BOE

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 11:16 AM (jR7Wy)

133 Hillary claims to be Methodist,

-
Yeah, well, she also claims to be human.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 11:17 AM (Nwg0u)

134

Check Drudge

Isis claims it all

Posted by: ThunderB at September 18, 2016 11:18 AM (61oKg)

135 Deploribus unum! v. Stronger Together.

Stronger Together is ironic given Hillary's pre-disposition to Other and Outlaw one-quarter of Americans.

"You can take the girl out of the religion, but you can't take the religion out of the girl."

Hillary thinks she's some kind of leftist secular latter day saint. Like Obama, anything goes because your Anointed. But Obama isn't as greedy. Hillary's been hanging around too many billionaires. Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz my friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 18, 2016 11:18 AM (bQxkN)

136 About a third of the way through Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich.

Hillbilly Noir, I believe they are calling it. Pretty complex, involving several generations of a legendary hillbilly crime family in rural Georgia. A very easy read nonetheless, and the author does a great job of establishing a dark, brooding, violent environment. Excellent dialogue as well; he doesn't overdo the redneck aspect, but the conversations ring true.

Posted by: RM at September 18, 2016 11:18 AM (U3LtS)

137 Wow, Lauren, that is impressive!

* * *
(OM - Tip for a future book thread? http://preview.tinyurl.com/hlfu9zt h/t Bookworm)

Posted by: Lizzy at September 18, 2016 11:20 AM (NOIQH)

138 Votermom--you can post the story, but with the caveat I don't *know* their is a connection. It was just at the similar time, and the reaction from her was SO odd. I filed it away and didn't think about it beyond "how unprofessional--and why did she bother to respond personally to me, a complete unknown?"

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 18, 2016 11:20 AM (SuJIo)

139 "I think Catholic schools, for the most part, still do an incredible job at introducing kids to rich literature as well as logic. "

It still did when I attended in the 1970's. And the history we covered? I doubt any school covers what we covered---the discovery and exploration of America, all the Conquistadors, The Revolution, The Civil War--everything up to WW2 including the entire New Deal. We had to memorize every acronym for all of FDR's programs and explain what they did.
Shit, we covered Smoot-Hawley.

And this was grammar school.

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 11:20 AM (eUOxG)

140 Oh, geez - that's what Correia was posting about...nevermind!

Posted by: Lizzy at September 18, 2016 11:20 AM (NOIQH)

141 "I'm typing one handed for a while until the swelling goes down"

Phrasing!

Posted by: Sharkman at September 18, 2016 11:20 AM (hFtCl)

142 Will do, Sabrina! It will just be an "interesting speculation" kind of thing.

Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:21 AM (Om16U)

143 Stephen King named his son for a martyr of the left, Joe Hill. He was found guilty and hung for a murder of which he was almost certainly guilty. The alibi, which types like King treat as unimpeachable truth, is simply absurd.

Hill claimed to have an alibi in that he was supposedly at the time of the murder busy making whoopee with a married woman. He couldn't ask her to testify on his behalf for fear of what it would cost her.

Really? Would you go to an early grave because your survival would come at the cost of a lover's marriage, said marriage obviously not being in great shape already? Can anyone really repeat this twaddle with a straight face? I suppose that comes with being a true believer. There are still people who believe Sacco and Vanzetti were railroaded, despite it now being known Sinclair Lewis knew they were guilty but believed they had to be defended on principle. The principle being that a little murder was alright if it was for the cause.

Posted by: Epobirs at September 18, 2016 11:23 AM (IdCqF)

144 135 Deploribus unum! v. Stronger Together.

Omg Deploribus unum! so belongs on a shirt!

Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:24 AM (Om16U)

145 144 135 Deploribus unum! v. Stronger Together.

Omg Deploribus unum! so belongs on a shirt!
Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:24 AM (Om16U)
---
I was thinking that very thing. Maybe an emblem with an eagle sporting a scalp badger.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 11:25 AM (jR7Wy)

146 (OM - Tip for a future book thread? http://preview.tinyurl.com/hlfu9zt h/t Bookworm)
Posted by: Lizzy at September 18, 2016 11:20 AM (NOIQH)

Thank you, I heard about this, and it's in the queue.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 11:25 AM (1Ol9b)

147 Leftist Christians just have no self-awareness that they could be just as fire and brimstone as the redneck Evangelical in their worst nightmare. They are ready to consign millions of their fellow citizens to eternal damnation for holding incorrect political or social views.
But since they'v set themselves up as the anointed ones, there's just no way they will ever see that, let alone admit it....

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 11:26 AM (eUOxG)

148 "Would you go to an early grave because your survival would come at the cost of a lover's marriage, said marriage obviously not being in great shape already?"

Cue up The Long Black Veil. Versions by Johnny Cash and The Band, among others.

It's a plot element in the flick Breaker Morant, IIRC.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 18, 2016 11:26 AM (bQxkN)

149 Alert to any Moron interested in English history. Book Bub has a biography of Thomas Becket up today for $1.99. I read it several years ago and can recommend. About as close as one can get to a 12th century historical figure as you can get using available sources.

Posted by: Tuna at September 18, 2016 11:27 AM (JSovD)

150 Why no linking to Hot Air?

Posted by: Lawrence Person at September 18, 2016 11:28 AM (zPalU)

151 No way that Barry's author bio wasn't either written by him or reviewed by him. Who pulls "Kenya" from their butt when they don't know his birthplace, or when they DO know it? And they used it for over 15 years unaltered until 2007 when it was discovered when he ran for office.

Barry was either born overseas, or he wasn't. Those circumstances are not his fault. But he has the burden of proving it in order to to get something that requires it. Trump, me, you, none of us can say where he was born unless we were there to catch him when he dropped from the twat. And the best acceptible proof is a certified copy of a birth certificate. This isn't hard to meet.

He wanted to be president? Fine, there's only 2 qualifications - age 35+ and a natural born citizen. You don't like that, then amend the Constitution. Don't water it down so that someone with quadruple citizenship is considered "natural" born.

To be president, it's YOUR burden to prove the 2 qualifications, not mine. Not 3 years after the fact, but BEFORE your election. Submit the best evidence of this, namely a certified copy of an original birth cert with the Clerk of the US Senate. Formal, authentic, and filed of record for anyone to see as of X date. Also, the filing serves as verification that it is authentic, subject to criminal sanction if its forged. Every complaint filed in a state court shares this requirement.

Barry didn't do any of that. He skated through and slandered as a looney anyone that said "license and registration please". He FINALLY made it public via the internet once Trump thugged him into doing so in 2011, and that wasn't even a flat scan of the actual document. To my knowledge, it has never been filed of-record. So if its actually false, no one faces any legal sanction.

You can't take him at his word. I have no obligation to do so. I have no obligation to just accept anything he says or worse, parrot it.

As shown, Barry was the one selling himself as foreign born (via his publisher, likely at schools to get admitted, etc.). His own BS bit him in the ass when Spill Clinton started running the gossip in 2008.

And then Trump in 2011 simply said what everyone said - "just release the f*cking thing, what's the big deal?". That got traction with the public, and Barry "caved", released a scan on the internet, and did a victory lap for producing basic documentary identification. But he never filed it formally of-record, and that's for a reason.

But at this point, the issue is spilled milk as far as Barry's
concerned, but should be enforced going forward. Hence why CNN wanted
to bait Trump - he knew and played them, told them what they wanted to
hear, but slammed Spill by shifting the blame deservedly to her.

Posted by: SaltyDonnie at September 18, 2016 11:30 AM (nWmg2)

152 Also, I really need to acknowledge that it is the Kindle, and its reproductions of public domain books, that made it possible for me to see that slice of unknown history.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 11:32 AM (GDulk)

153

Most of the 5 stars on Hitlery's book are also troll work, /s, and etc. TL;DR all of them but I didn't find a single legit positive review.

Posted by: In Vino Veritits at September 18, 2016 11:33 AM (WVCC6)

154 Why no linking to Hot Air?

Posted by: Lawrence Person at September 18, 2016 11:28 AM (zPalU)

Oh, I'm still mad at them for switching their commenting system to where you have to be logged on to Facebook in order to use it. I never comment there, but I hate Facebook and its rat bastard commie owner, and just the idea of a conservative site hooking itself up to it like that just bugs the hell out of me.

Also, I'm a dick.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 11:34 AM (1Ol9b)

155 Stephen King named his son for a martyr of the left, Joe Hill.

-
Joan Baez sang a song about him.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 11:34 AM (Nwg0u)

156 "143
Stephen King named his son for a martyr of the left, Joe Hill. He was
found guilty and hung for a murder of which he was almost certainly
guilty. The alibi, which types like King treat as unimpeachable truth,
is simply absurd.

Hill claimed to have an alibi in that he was
supposedly at the time of the murder busy making whoopee with a married
woman. He couldn't ask her to testify on his behalf for fear of what it
would cost her.

Really? Would you go to an early grave because
your survival would come at the cost of a lover's marriage, said
marriage obviously not being in great shape already? Can anyone really
repeat this twaddle with a straight face? I suppose that comes with
being a true believer. There are still people who believe Sacco and
Vanzetti were railroaded, despite it now being known Sinclair Lewis knew
they were guilty but believed they had to be defended on principle. The
principle being that a little murder was alright if it was for the
cause.

Posted by: Epobirs at September 18, 2016 11:23 AM (IdCqF)"

So did the wife walk the hills in a long black veil and visit his grave when the night winds wail?

If so, my respect for Lefty Frizzell just dropped a couple of notches.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 11:35 AM (+QFqi)

157 WEB Griffin is a hack. I read the Brotherhood and Corps series years ago and loved them. But I tried re-reading the Brotherhood series again not long ago and realized that his stories are CRAP. The problem I have is that his stories are not really based on original writing, he basically rips off real war stories and re-writes them to fit his characters. For example, take Task Force Lowell from The Captains. That wasn't based on any original writing on his part. He took a real battle, Task Force Lynch, and fictionalized his characters into it without any credit to the real people or acknowledgement that he didn't come up with the plot. The fact that he repeats the same stories over and over again, pumping up the page count, means he is nothing more than a cheap hack writer.

Then there is the way he deals with minority characters in the books, whether they are black or gay or Jewish, he tries to come off as open minded and "tolerant" but really he just comes off as condescending and patronizing. Basically, "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are black."

Posted by: Eric at September 18, 2016 11:35 AM (LiN1N)

158 Polliwog, my opinion is that it was scrubbed because:

There was a feeling of a need to smooth over the wounds and not let it keep going, a feeling of need to unify both to get out of the depression and to win WWII,
The communists and progressives not wanting to ever admit they failed,
The Anarchist movement being shown to be a massive failure by being defeated spectacularly by the Nationalists in Spain and the Fascists in Italy,
The fact that there was a quiet open season on anarchists after WWI by a number of disgruntled AEF members and business owners who felt being stabbed in the back was not acceptable, and
The collusion by various parlor pinks who looked on the whole thing as a proof of the value of the rights of man or whatever twaddle it was, and swept the actual facts of the murders under the rug as distasteful.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 11:36 AM (lDj6i)

159 Hence why CNN wanted
to bait Trump - he knew and played them, told them what they wanted to
hear, but slammed Spill by shifting the blame deservedly to her.

Posted by: SaltyDonnie at September 18, 2016 11:30 AM (nWmg2)

And CNN is still blaming Trump, branding him as a "leader" of the Birther Movement. They take Sid Blumenthal's denials as Gospel and add that "he wasn't even a part of Hill's 2008 campaign."

I loathe the media in general and CNN in particular.

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 11:36 AM (eUOxG)

160 Listening to "Crucible of Empire", book 2 in the Jao Empire series, by Eric Flint and K. D. Wentworth. Fairly exciting. Narration of the space battle scenes keeps the legs pumping the pedals on the stationary bike. I do love the portrayal of a truly bat shit crazy alien species, the Elkhat, intent on ridding the galaxy of every sentient species other than themselves. Finished listening and then reading book 1. "Span of Empire" last week. Third in the series was just published by Baen. Fun, fun, fun.

Posted by: Tuna at September 18, 2016 11:39 AM (JSovD)

161 "Stronger Together is ironic given Hillary's pre-disposition to Other and Outlaw one-quarter of Americans." ignoramus

Her "white privilege" and "systemic racism" stance makes all white Americans (two thirds) "sinful" (as opposed to the victim classes). Salvation comes by surrendering our nation to globalism, all the children of the world holding hands. "Collective Salvation". Fundamental Transformation (as opposed to Methodist confirmation)

They push the racist path to salvation, from leftist wrath. All minorities are made victims (and women and gays, and jihadists) ... white/male/Christian must confess sins of white privilege, pay reparations, open borders, etc.

The "irredeemable" language indeed indicates they are taking dark ages tactics (via sjw and lawfare) to the people, with Hillary as the Iron Maiden (an instrument of torture to force confession. I don't know how much actual torture there was then, but certainly they had a "chilling effect" on free speech)

Posted by: illiniwek at September 18, 2016 11:39 AM (niOEf)

162 I loathe the media in general and CNN in particular.

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 11:36 AM (eUOxG)

I'm actually quite surprised at how deep in the tank for Hillary! CNN has gone. I never go to CNN.com, but I did last week, I forget why, and there were something like 6 anti-Trump stories on the front page.

It's like they're not even trying to hide it anymore.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 11:41 AM (1Ol9b)

163 Does anyone know where I left my book? I was reading it yesterday.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 18, 2016 11:41 AM (VxHD9)

164 Not once, in the 30+ years I've been a professing Christian, have I ever heard a fellow believer call someone irredeemable--much less tens of millions of people. It's never, never part of the Christian worldview to condemn people like this. Who thinks like this? I think it's the people whose relationship with the Lord is flawed in some respect, who are unable to see one another across minor cultural and theological divides. If Hillary Clinton thinks fellow Christians are unsalvageable, then she needs to look to her relationship with God. And, having said that, I remember that so do I. (It's hard to maintain Jesus-like calm when being spat upon by someone's supposed betters.)

C. S. Lewis wrote the idea in in the prologue to "Mere Christianity." (The call-out *asterisks* are my own.)

"If I have not directly helped the cause of reunion, I have perhaps made it clear why we ought to be reunited. Certainly I have met with little of the fabled odium theologicum from convinced members of communions different from my own. Hostility has come more from borderline people whether within the Church of England or without it: men not exactly obedient to any communion. This I find curiously consoling. *It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine.* And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice."

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 11:42 AM (YPgXi)

165 160
I really hate auto correct. The bad guys are the Ekhat not the Elkhat. I guess auto correct thinks elks wear hats.

Posted by: Tuna at September 18, 2016 11:42 AM (JSovD)

166 First things first. I'm still re-reading some P.D. James at bedtime, just to escape the angst associated with most of the non-fiction that I have been reading. At the same time, a friend has loaned me a copy of 'The War on Guns, Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies', by Lott. Which I have started. Lots of data there, and info on skewed 'studies' by the gun grabbers.

Today at church an old fellow (that's a relative term) gave me a copy of 'Darby's Rangers, We Led the Way', by Darby. I'm looking forward to that.

Now, from above:

"The question boiled down to, who is the first birther? Who started all of this 'birther' nonsense, anyway?

And the answer is: Barak Obama. Get a load of this:"
-----------

As I have pointed, Michelle is on video, twice, referring to Obama as 'a Kenyan'. Why, oh why, is she exempt from 'Birther' accusations? Inquiring minds want to know. Wait... perhaps I already do.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 11:43 AM (9mTYi)

167 I was thinking that very thing. Maybe an emblem with an eagle sporting a scalp badger.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 11:25 AM (jR7Wy)

The real eagle holds a branch in one claw and arrows in the other.
What would a Trumpeagle hold?

Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:44 AM (Om16U)

168 CNN has been referred to as the Clinton News Network since Der Slickweasel was in office, so its no surprise to me. The only shock is seeing how very obvious and almost fanatical it is now. The subtlety is gone because their fear is taking over.

Posted by: SaltyDonnie at September 18, 2016 11:45 AM (nWmg2)

169 Anonosaurus Wrecks, yes, Martha is a piece of work.

Posted by: PJ at September 18, 2016 11:45 AM (cHuNI)

170 Does anyone know where I left my book? I was reading it yesterday.
Posted by: Big Fat Meanie
-----------

Check the 'library'.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 11:46 AM (9mTYi)

171 Someone lent me Donald Trump's "Crippled America" at the rally last night. He was hoping I'd get the orange scalpferret to sign it for him. Trump didn't stay long enough, so I had to return the book unsigned. But I got to read some of it during the wait...

Trump does well at diagnosing what's gone wrong, and proposes a temporary Federal dictatorship to fix them. Which - you all know - I have no problem with (Pinochet ftw!). But he falls down on the basis for some of these problems and he's not as good a negotiator as he thinks he is. Which means his dictatorship stands to end up like Sulla's, Diocletian's, or Salazar's: at best, a mixed bag of successes and failures which leaves a mess behind him. (But a different mess!)

For instance Trump where he notes that black and Hispanic children don't do as well in school, blames the schools and the unions. So he proposes vouchers to move those children to other schools, including religious ones. The biologists have a different theory on why racial attainment levels might differ, but Trump won't entertain it. Because there isn't a constituency for telling parents (who vote) "maybe your kid is just a little slow".

When Trump says his plan is to make better deals for America, I get the sense he's serious; but I also get the sense he'll fail. The schools are a case in point. His voucher plan is federal by design. He'll need an infrastructure to get it done. That infrastructure is already there: the Department of Education. But Trump also raises that he doesn't like the DOE as it is, and that he'll take Common Core away. He even takes seriously that there are some in his party who'd abolish the DOE - falling short of promising to do it himself. By his own criteria, Trump has already shown his hand. There is no way Trump will defund DOE, not without abandoning his promise to hand out vouchers to the poor. The bureaucrats have to know this. Bureaucratic warfare is what they do. They are going to manoeuver Trump into breaking at least one promise: cutting Common Core, or instituting Federal vouchers. And then the Democrats will concern-troll his administration on that for his whole term in office.

Anyway the bulk of his book is all in his speeches. Basically it's the template for his campaign. (And he's not Hillary, and has better instincts than any other Republican who's run, and isn't being bought, etc etc., but now I'm going off topic.)

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 11:47 AM (Xk4Hx)

172 "Oh, I'm still mad at them for switching their commenting system to where you have to be logged on to Facebook in order to use it. I never comment there, but I hate Facebook and its rat bastard commie owner, and just the idea of a conservative site hooking itself up to it like that just bugs the hell out of me."

Me too. As soon as they changed to Facebook I deleted the site from my favorites. Don't even bother with it anymore. Not that I ever commented there. Just lurked. But it pissed me off.

Posted by: Tuna at September 18, 2016 11:47 AM (JSovD)

173 Ah, it is behind the toilet. thanks!

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 18, 2016 11:48 AM (VxHD9)

174 I really hate auto correct. The bad guys are the Ekhat not the Elkhat. I guess auto correct thinks elks wear hats.

Posted by: Tuna at September 18, 2016 11:42 AM (JSovD)

Ahem.

Posted by: Loyal Order of Elks, Local #602 at September 18, 2016 11:50 AM (1Ol9b)

175 Not once, in the 30+ years I've been a professing Christian, have I ever heard a fellow believer call someone irredeemable--much less tens of millions of people. It's never, never part of the Christian worldview to condemn people like this.

Jesus did name one irredeemable sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Christianity has had to figure out what this meant. It can't just mean Rowan Atkinson as the nervous priest blessing the bride and groom in the name of the "holy goat" / "holy spigot".

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 11:51 AM (Xk4Hx)

176 Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 11:47 AM (Xk4Hx)

I think Trump will just try stuff and see what works.

Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:52 AM (Om16U)

177 Obummer wasn't born in Kenya. He claimed to be born in Kenya to get into Columbia and boost his cared when landing his first book deal.

I say the fraud thing is true, but it's not birther fraud but foreign student application fraud, much like Fauxcohontas and her Indian minority application to Harvard Law.

Let a whole new birther sequel craze bloom!

Posted by: PrincetonAl at September 18, 2016 11:52 AM (hUTaW)

178 Listened to Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters (Discworld #6, Witches #2), where 3 witches get involved in Royal politics. Supposedly inspired by MacBeth, I liked it but didn't find it as funny as expected.

Posted by: waelse1 at September 18, 2016 09:59 AM (+wZrc)

---------
Agreed. While I enjoy the elements of Hamlet being recast into the Diskworld thing, it starts off feeling clever and ends up feeling like a schtick, with no real insight into Hamlet after all.

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 11:52 AM (YPgXi)

179 "164
Not once, in the 30+ years I've been a professing Christian, have I ever
heard a fellow believer call someone irredeemable--much less tens of
millions of people. It's never, never part of the Christian worldview to
condemn people like this. Who thinks like this? I think it's the people
whose relationship with the Lord is flawed in some respect, who are
unable to see one another across minor cultural and theological divides.
If Hillary Clinton thinks fellow Christians are unsalvageable, then she
needs to look to her relationship with God. And, having said that, I
remember that so do I. (It's hard to maintain Jesus-like calm when being
spat upon by someone's supposed betters.)

C. S. Lewis wrote the idea in in the prologue to "Mere Christianity." (The call-out *asterisks* are my own.)

"If I have not directly helped the cause of reunion, I have perhaps
made it clear why we ought to be reunited. Certainly I have met with
little of the fabled odium theologicum from convinced members of
communions different from my own. Hostility has come more from
borderline people whether within the Church of England or without it:
men not exactly obedient to any communion. This I find curiously
consoling. *It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that
each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in
doctrine.* And this suggests that at the centre of each there is
something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all
differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks
with the same voice."

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 11:42 AM (YPgXi)"

It is my understanding that the irredeemability of everybody except the relatively small number of elect is a central, if not the central tenet of Calvinism. I find that particular belief to be at variance with my understanding of Christ's teachings but I don't claim to be an expert on what other people believe.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 11:53 AM (+QFqi)

180 Ah, it is behind the toilet. thanks!

Sorry, I needed something else to read.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 11:53 AM (Xk4Hx)

181 Despite the professor's comments, I wouldn't put that much stock in Clinton's use of "irredeemable." She's a hard leftist, first and foremost. Even among left-leaning Christians, fire and brimstone based on what the Bible actually says is hard to find. They're more about using their own peculiar (often political) judgments for damning or blessing people because on the whole, they don't believe a word of what the Word of God actually says. Heck, even a lot of professing right wing Christians have their doubts about a lot of things that once were matters of faith.

Might Clinton actually mean eternal separation from God, as the Bible indicates is a possibility? Maybe, but I doubt it. She'd be an exceedingly rare bird among religious leftists to actually believe in it, and in indicating she believed it would put a whole lot of other religious leftists off their lunch.

Posted by: doomed at September 18, 2016 11:53 AM (UW4Uc)

182 Omg Deploribus unum! so belongs on a shirt!

That's a winner!

I think it has to be E Deploribus Unum. No, I don't know Latin.

Posted by: t-bird at September 18, 2016 11:56 AM (oFSUK)

183 Clinton: irredeemable -> camps

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:56 AM (Om16U)

184 The real eagle holds a branch in one claw and arrows in the other.
What would a Trumpeagle hold?
Posted by: Deplorable @votermom at September 18, 2016 11:44 AM (Om16U)
----
A key to Trump Tower in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other? A Trump steak and an elephant gun?

Actually, extending the olive branch while bearing arms is fairly Trumpian.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 11:58 AM (jR7Wy)

185 I'm thinking I see some Moorcocks.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:50 AM (jR7Wy)

No Moorcocks. I think I still have a couple, but if I do they're up in the garage in the overflow section. If you are looking at the pale green spines (which for some reason I associate with Moorcock), that's Mervyn Peake. The DAW titles are by A. Bertram Chandler and Lin Carter.

Posted by: HTL at September 18, 2016 11:58 AM (dUnF/)

186 I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

[last guitar note dies away]

"Okay... that'll be $10,000. In cash, please"

Posted by: Joanie Phonie at Woodstock at September 18, 2016 11:59 AM (9mTYi)

187 Mervyn Peake wrote a great duology that unfortunately was part of a trilogy. Loved Titus and Gormenghast, Titus Alone not so much.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 12:00 PM (jR7Wy)

188 Might Clinton actually mean eternal separation from God, as the Bible indicates is a possibility?

I doubt that there is a scrap of religion left in Hillary after the latest upgrade and that she was just using it as an English word.

Posted by: t-bird at September 18, 2016 12:00 PM (oFSUK)

189 183

That would be much more consistent with her leftism.

The only Hell unbelievers might actually believe in, and wish others to go to, they have to provide. When they attain the power to do so, they make it their #1 goal because - being elite - they know exactly who belongs there.

THAT concept of "irredeemable" makes perfect sense for Clinton.

Posted by: doomed at September 18, 2016 12:00 PM (UW4Uc)

190 extending the olive branch while bearing arms is fairly Trumpian.

Posted by: All Hail Eris

I thought that, too.
Replacing the arrows with golf clubs wouldn't be too mean, though, would it?

Posted by: Stringer Davis at September 18, 2016 12:01 PM (H5rtT)

191 It is my understanding that the irredeemability of everybody except the relatively small number of elect is a central, if not the central tenet of Calvinism. I find that particular belief to be at variance with my understanding of Christ's teachings but I don't claim to be an expert on what other people believe.
Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 11:53 AM (+QFqi)

---------
Ah, true enough I guess, though I've never been part of a Calvinist church, so I can't speak to it.. I suppose my circle is smaller than it feels to me, and so I must be like Pauline Kael, who famously said, "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them."

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 12:02 PM (YPgXi)

192 Oh, my gosh, Pixie is so touchy about smart quotes, smart apostrophes, em dashes. Every time I copy-and-paste, I have to go over the quote with a fine-toothed comb before it's publishable.

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 12:02 PM (YPgXi)

193 HTL, I was going to commend you on O'Brien's Master and Commander series, and what looks like Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Rifle's series

OM where are you taking submissions of libraries?

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 12:03 PM (lDj6i)

194 Paul Kengor was a speaker at our annual Bringing America Back to Life Convention last year. He was one of the highlights. If any of the horde live near the Cleveland area, the event is one of the largest pro life conferences in the country and we'd love to have you. Bringingamericabacktolife.org

Posted by: Obamaisacommunist at September 18, 2016 12:04 PM (NmVSZ)

195 Oh, my gosh, Pixie is so touchy about smart quotes, smart apostrophes, em dashes. Every time I copy-and-paste, I have to go over the quote with a fine-toothed comb before it's publishable.

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 12:02 PM (YPgXi)

Tell me about it. I have to run my text through a filter to expunge the black diamonds in the text.

This is what I use:

https://www.unicodetools.com/unicode/convert-to-html.php

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:07 PM (1Ol9b)

196 Jesus did name one irredeemable sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Christianity has had to figure out what this meant. It can't just mean Rowan Atkinson as the nervous priest blessing the bride and groom in the name of the "holy goat" / "holy spigot".
Posted by: boulder terlit hobo

------------
Right again. Jesus is able to name someone unforgivable, so of course these people exist. But in our day-to-day life, who fits the bill? I don't feel confident labeling someone so. And surely Hillary Clinton ought to be cautious before dropping such a supposed Truth Bomb on 1/3 of the population.

Ah, Sunday mornings, when the Christians come out to play and discuss theology.

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 12:07 PM (YPgXi)

197 WEB Griffin is a great American!

Posted by: Duke Lowell at September 18, 2016 12:08 PM (kTF2Z)

198 But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.

That's even funnier than the more-quoted earlier part. There's this certain aura that Nixon voters give off, not directly perceptible; like when a demon slips past your protective pentagram.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 12:09 PM (Xk4Hx)

199 What has struck me about the irredeemable comment is complete lack of an apology. Despite what the MSM claims, there has been none. The most she could manage was "I regret saying that, that was wrong" In other words a bad strategic move for her, nothing else.

That isn't even close to the phony non-apologize celebrities issue when they say something stupid. (I"m sorry if my words offended everybody...) She said what she thinks and can't even put out a lie to cover her hate. And this is from a woman who lies at the drop of a hat to the public, congress, the media or anybody else when it suits her needs. The one time she sticks to the truth is her contempt of half of America.

Posted by: Ripley at September 18, 2016 12:11 PM (1BQGO)

200 That's even funnier than the more-quoted earlier part. There's this certain aura that Nixon voters give off, not directly perceptible; like when a demon slips past your protective pentagram.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 12:09 PM (Xk4Hx)

Heh. "Mister, we could use a man like Richard Nixon again."

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:13 PM (1Ol9b)

201
Isn't being "grossly generalistic"about groups of people one of the root causes behind bigotry and racism?

Posted by: Flawless Male Logic at September 18, 2016 12:15 PM (PtOP4)

202 199 What has struck me about the irredeemable comment is complete lack of an apology. Despite what the MSM claims, there has been none. The most she could manage was "I regret saying that, that was wrong" In other words a bad strategic move for her, nothing else.

That isn't even close to the phony non-apologize celebrities issue when they say something stupid. (I"m sorry if my words offended everybody...) She said what she thinks and can't even put out a lie to cover her hate. And this is from a woman who lies at the drop of a hat to the public, congress, the media or anybody else when it suits her needs. The one time she sticks to the truth is her contempt of half of America.
Posted by: Ripley

---------------------

So true. What Hillary Clinton said was, "Last night I was grossly generalistic, and that's never a good idea. I regret saying, 'half.' That was wrong."

That is NOT an apology. In her Clintonesque way, she leaves room for various interpretations of her statement. I read it as saying, "I regret saying, 'half.' I meant, 'all.'"

Posted by: Smallish Bees at September 18, 2016 12:16 PM (YPgXi)

203 Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

Some (myself included) believe that this was a sin exclusive to the time at which Christ was made known to Israel as their long-awaited Messiah, and is not something that can be committed today since God has since reconciled the world [made salvation possible for all, Jew and Gentile alike, by the cross].

In our view, the leadership of Israel did in fact commit that sin in the early chapter of the book of Acts, and will not be forgiven it. They had already blasphemed the Father by rejecting John the Baptist (the Father's voice) to be beheaded. But that was forgiven them.

They blasphemed the Son by demanding He be crucified, but even there He asked they be forgiven their ignorance.

But in Acts ch. 7, Luke goes out of his way to note that Stephen, whose sermon incited the Pharisees to mindless rage, was "full of the Holy Ghost" as they PERSONALLY stoned him to death.

Nowhere does the text indicate they were forgiven this, even though Stephen's dying words were that they be forgiven.

What happens in the next few chapters is pivotal to the entire New Testament and the past 2,000 years: Peter is suddenly sent to go see a Gentile (which he did not want to do), then the worst enemy of Christ on earth -- Saul -- was saved and became apostle to the Gentiles. The rest is history.

All this, some of us believe, keys on the leadership of Israel having committed the unpardonable sin when they thrice rejected the witness of God...the last time, murdering His spokesman with their own hands.

Posted by: doomed at September 18, 2016 12:18 PM (UW4Uc)

204 HTL, I was going to commend you on O'Brien's Master and Commander series, and what looks like Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Rifle's series

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 12:03 PM (lDj6i)

Yes to the O'Brian, no on Cornwell. If you are looking at the hardback books next to the O'Brian paperbacks, that's just more O'Brian. Everything above that is Wodehouse.

One section over and one shelf up is C.S. Forester, which is another collection that looks a little like the Sharpe books (at least it does at a distance, from an angle).

Posted by: HTL at September 18, 2016 12:18 PM (dUnF/)

205 187 Mervyn Peake wrote a great duology that unfortunately was part of a trilogy. Loved Titus and Gormenghast, Titus Alone not so much.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 12:00 PM (jR7Wy)

You're right. Titus Alone was a disappointing mess.

I really liked only the first book. Steerpike was by far the most fascinating and chilling character in Gormenghast (sort of a young George Soros). Titus and the rest of Peake's quirky cast of characters could not sustain my interest in the trilogy without that malignant schemer lurking in the background.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. deplorably brandishing ampersands&&&&so there at September 18, 2016 12:19 PM (P8951)

206 I'm assuming these end up over-stated for dramatic effect (or the same incident is used by multiple authors) but, since my school history classed covered *none* of that, I can't tell how much is fact and how much fiction.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 18, 2016 09:38 AM (GDulk)

Oh, I'd believe every one of those because I've seen and heard about all of the stuff you mentioned.

One of these contains Tubby Trumka addressing a union rally. He attempts to "massage" the brutality with which a man was maimed by union thugs and rendered disabled. It's something to behold. Sorry I can't recall which installment this was in.

http://bit.ly/2d8nWxg

Also, the KKK lynched whites who didn't "get with the program" back in the day. They were equal opportunity like that.

Posted by: SMOD 2016! at September 18, 2016 12:19 PM (YeKKY)

207 Emmanouela Grypeou has posted to Academia.edu a book review of a Christian Arabic rebuttal of Islam, here: http://tinyurl.com/js3ttkb

It's academic, really just for theologians and nerds, so to break it down: this is on its face a forged "Apocalypse of Peter". Forging stuff in the name of the Apostles and Apostolic Fathers (like Clement) is arguably a sin against the Holy Spirit itself, but leave that aside. Behind it is an interesting theological theory.

This claim is that Lucifer ("the Archon") rebelled against God on his own. The Archon thereby left God with a hole in His angelic ranks. Since it does God no good to fill it with a batch of robotic sockpuppets, He created humanity with free-will and a test to ascend to angelic status.

This differs from Islam. Islam inherited a different Christian theory: that God created Adam first, and then Lucifer (here, "Iblis") objected to Adam and then quit.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 12:19 PM (Xk4Hx)

208
So true. What Hillary Clinton said was, "Last night I was grossly generalistic, and that's never a good idea. I regret saying, 'half.' That was wrong."
---
She was being grossly generalissimoistic, in that she was not and can never be wrong.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 12:19 PM (jR7Wy)

209 Not reading it right now, but I want to give a shout-out to Harold Lamb's "Wolf of the Steppes" book. Its a collection of short stories set in central Asia of 1600. Its a very odd setting. There are guns,. but swords and bows are still very prominent. And, you know, central Asia, which is always exotic. (And Lamb is a historian of that era, so there a good chance a lot of it is accurate!)

The best stories of the collection for Khlit, an old (and exiled) Russian Cossack who hooks up with some after-their-prime Mongol tribes to mess with the Chinese. Like I said, a very unique premise.

There are four collections, I've read through three of them. The later books randomly introduce new characters in related settings (the Mogul empire) and follow them for a while... Gotta remember these were originally short stories in magazines, and only later became a collection of stories. Still, it was jarring to follow one character and then suddenly not...

....But, anyways, the first book is pretty focused, and is definitely a recommendation for anyone who wants a change of pace!

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 18, 2016 12:21 PM (7aeqx)

210 202 199 What has struck me about the irredeemable comment is complete lack of an apology. Despite what the MSM claims, there has been none. The most she could manage was "I regret saying that, that was wrong" In other words a bad strategic move for her, nothing else.

That toad Bill Maher got big cheers from his audience when he said Hillary's statement was accurate.
Dems don't think she has anything to apologize for because they agree with her. Their hatred has blinded them to the fact that it was an incredibly stupid thing for a politician to say.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. deplorably brandishing ampersands&&&&so there at September 18, 2016 12:23 PM (P8951)

211 The only sin that will remain unforgiven today is rejecting the reconciliation God offers freely to all by faith in Christ's death for our sin and His resurrection for our justification. There is no other sin today that cannot or will not be forgiven.

Some say that that is itself a form of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. In a sense, it is. Yet many people have blasphemed Father, Son and Spirit as atheists who later became soundly saved by the Gospel of the grace of God. So I still don't think that particular sin is possible today the way Christ warned against it.

Posted by: doomed at September 18, 2016 12:23 PM (UW4Uc)

212 PG Wodehouse is even better.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 12:23 PM (lDj6i)

213 Why no linking to Hot Air?

Posted by: Lawrence Person at September 18, 2016 11:28 AM (zPalU)

Oh, I'm still mad at them for switching their commenting system to where you have to be logged on to Facebook in order to use it. I never comment there, but I hate Facebook and its rat bastard commie owner, and just the idea of a conservative site hooking itself up to it like that just bugs the hell out of me.

Also, I'm a dick.
Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 11:34 AM (1Ol9b)

Hear, hear! (Not the dick part, of course.)

Posted by: SMOD 2016! at September 18, 2016 12:24 PM (YeKKY)

214 Hear, hear! (Not the dick part, of course.)
Posted by: SMOD 2016! at September 18, 2016 12:24 PM (YeKKY)

If you had included it, I wouldn't have objected.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:28 PM (1Ol9b)

215 "Deploribus unum" translates to "We the People," no?

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 18, 2016 12:30 PM (bQxkN)

216 Oh, my gosh, Pixie is so touchy about smart quotes, smart apostrophes, em dashes. Every time I copy-and-paste, I have to go over the quote with a fine-toothed comb before it's publishable.
Posted by: Smallish Bees
------------

Copy the desired text, then go to this site (I keep it on my toolbar, but you might just Bookmark it)
https://www.unicodetools.com/ unicode/convert-to-html.php

*remove the spaces between ....com/ unicode...*

At the site, paste your text, and press the 'Convert' button, then drop down and copy the converted text, paste it here. It really is easy-peasy once you have that site Bookmarked. And, it works perfectly every time.

Posted by: Joanie Phonie at Woodstock at September 18, 2016 12:32 PM (9mTYi)

217 Hillary: Identifying many Americans as irredeemable is part of my plan to unify all Americans in our dream of collective collectiveness.

Except the bad ones. We'll deal with them after the election.

Posted by: Meremortal, ride to the sound of the guns. at September 18, 2016 12:33 PM (3myMJ)

218 Ooops. *removes phony folk-singer sock*

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 12:35 PM (9mTYi)

219 176 Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 11:47 AM (Xk4Hx)

I think Trump will just try stuff and see what works.

--------------------------------------

So another FDR. Great.

Posted by: John Pomeroy at September 18, 2016 12:36 PM (mXHrk)

220
*bristles at the thought of someone referring to OM as a 'dick'*

Oh, wait. Okay, this is a conundrum. I would say 'sticky wicket', but somehow that doesn't seem decorous.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 12:39 PM (9mTYi)

221 "I think Trump will just try stuff and see what works."

We'll get Rudy Giuliani-like pragmatism.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 18, 2016 12:39 PM (bQxkN)

222 https://www.unicodetools.com/unicode/convert-to-html.php
Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:07 PM (1Ol9b)

This is indeed my lucky day.

Being rather computer illiterate, I never knew such a thing existed. I'd just sit here with my problematic paragraphs and keep copying them, tweaking them and pasting them -- only for PIXY to take me to that goofy cherry page.

Posted by: SMOD 2016! at September 18, 2016 12:41 PM (YeKKY)

223 So another FDR. Great.
Posted by: John Pomeroy
------------

Just sling another agency at the situation. Soon we'll have The Department of Agencies Agency

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 12:41 PM (9mTYi)

224 "Just sling another agency at the situation. Soon we'll have The Department of Agencies Agency

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 12:41 PM (9mTYi)"

What about the Department of Administrative Affairs?

Posted by: Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP at September 18, 2016 12:51 PM (+QFqi)

225 Can't remember which 'ron or 'ette mentioned in the comments that there wasn't much time this summer for reading. This struck a chord with me as this is the first summer I haven't re-read a couple Travis McGee books. Every summer for the past twenty years at least two or three McGees would be plowed through while on my back deck. Maybe I've just grown tired of them and their cynicism (there's enough of that in the real world). Are there any favourite authors/series anyone else has grown out of?
I've been reading a lot of non-fiction and thanks to another commenter, I've dug out my copy of Tuchman's "Proud Tower".

Posted by: Buzzy Krumhunger at September 18, 2016 12:52 PM (fl0RP)

226 Being rather computer illiterate, I never knew such a thing existed. I'd just sit here with my problematic paragraphs and keep copying them, tweaking them and pasting them -- only for PIXY to take me to that goofy cherry page.
Posted by: SMOD 2016! at September 18, 2016 12:41 PM (YeKKY)

Be careful with the ampersands. If you do not have AoSHQ Platinum Membership, pixy will screen out the ampersands and your post will look like a dog's breakfast.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:52 PM (1Ol9b)

227 Lisel, "But what did he do wrong?"

Max, "He reminded them of their humanity."

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 18, 2016 12:52 PM (Isky2)

228 Pollliwog, the Anarchists and the Wobblies were bombing and shooting people. I am reading a collection of articles by Stewart Holbrook who wrote about various Western subjects, and talks in one of them about the spate of Wobbly assassinations, including booby trapping people's front gates with explosives.

A lot of this was scrubbed

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 11:06 AM (lDj6i)

A lot of things have been scrubbed from the history books, if they were ever included at all. For instance, my ex's family once owned a big sawmill in central Louisiana in the early 20th century. Timber was a big deal in east Texas and parts of Louisiana in those days, with lots of sawmills and the like. The IWW, aka the Wobblies, decided they were going to unionize the sawmills at the point of a gun back then. The owners of the sawmills took umbrage to this, and there was quite a bit of fighting between them and the Wobblies. One of the biggest, and one still talked about in that region, was the "Battle of Galloway's Mill", where the Wobblies tried to take over the Galloway sawmill by force of arms. However, several members of the Galloway family, who owned the mill, were also armed and fought them off after a long battle. In fact, they killed so many of the Wobblies that their whole attempted takeover of the lumber industry in this region was broken as a result.

Posted by: The Oort Cloud - Deplorable Source of all SMODs at September 18, 2016 12:53 PM (2pIEi)

229 224 "Just sling another agency at the situation. Soon we'll have The Department of Agencies Agency

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 18, 2016 12:41 PM (9mTYi)"

What about the Department of Administrative Affairs?

Posted by: Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP at September 18, 2016 12:51 PM (+QFqi)

All subsumed under the Department of Redundancy Department.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:53 PM (1Ol9b)

230 224: How about the Department of Redundency Department?

Posted by: Buzzy Krumhunger at September 18, 2016 12:54 PM (fl0RP)

231 Dammit, too slow.

Posted by: Buzzy Krumhunger at September 18, 2016 12:54 PM (fl0RP)

232 This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me

This is idiotic, because nobody just randomly picks a foreign nation out of a hat to be born from by accident. I don't believe the guy is Kenyan, but I am certain he lied about being from there to get into Harvard, not to mention other colleges, get scholarships, etc. Thus, the missing transcripts and paperwork form school.

Plus, as Ace pointed out on Twitter, being from Africa gives you a leg up in publishing, particularly lately. Book by 50 year old white American about Werewolves and Nazis: meh, seen it. Same book by Native American lesbian in a wheelchair: Oprah recommended.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 12:56 PM (39g3+)

233 I've never heard of "Wobblies" before

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 12:56 PM (Om16U)

234 Are there any favourite authors/series anyone else has grown out of?

I'll always plug Loren Estleman any time people need a new author. He does crime noir and westerns, mostly. The Perry Mason books by Earle Stanly Gardner are a recent passion, they're all loads of fun. Bernard Cornwell's may historical books are all great, although I wasn't overwhelmed with his revolutionary or civil war books. And, of course, Patrick O'Brian particularly his Aubrey/Maturin sea novels.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 12:59 PM (39g3+)

235 I've never heard of "Wobblies" before

The IWW, which was the acronym standing for --according to my union-skeptic grandfather --"I Won't Work."

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 12:59 PM (uGnW6)

236 All subsumed under the Department of Redundancy Department.

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 12:53 PM (1Ol9b)
=====
Gee, I thought it was Department of Homeland Security. Silly me.

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 01:01 PM (MIKMs)

237 Christopher I just saw your post about your booksale on Smashwords. Is that coupon for public dissemination?

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 01:02 PM (Om16U)

238 I've been reading the Sackett and related novels one after another. L'Amour is best, I think, in small doses separated by other books. He can be extremely good, but he tends to fall into pretty predictable patterns, and the Sackett boys are pretty interchangable in ability and behavior, despite their various interesting names. L'Amour also wrote as he thought with little to no editing, which is amazing, but there are some details that get lost like how many people are involved in a gunfight, or names get changed, sometimes stuff happens that isn't explained or never brought up again.

Still, they're all lots of fun and especially as time goes on the descriptions and natural beauty he writes about is more and more amazing and immersive. I can practically hear the trickle of the water over the rocks sometimes.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:06 PM (39g3+)

239 It's really annoying how some of the news reports about the Minnesota mall knife attacks are deliberately vague by alluding to attacker "asking if victim was Muslim" before he stabbed them; one report said attacker "said something about Allah" before he started stabbing.
Now we all know what happened; we knew as some of the first reports came in; we're morons like that. But it's obvious what they are doing--they want dopes to think maybe it was a right-wing lunatic wearing Confederate battle fatigues doing the stabbing if the victim answered, yes, he was a Muslim.

Am I overthinking this??

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 01:09 PM (uGnW6)

240 Wobblies were the International Workers of the World. It was a trans-union, but in the Nortwest it focused on the lumber mills and logging camps. In the Rocky Mountains I think it also was involved in the big mines.
Anarchist inspired.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 01:11 PM (lDj6i)

241 Its on Lulu but sure, share all you want. 30% off all my books in print with coupon code THEBIG30 until the 19th

I'm not very good at publicity or marketing, I fear

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kestrelarts

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:11 PM (39g3+)

242 My recommendation for the week is an online reading project: read the trial transcripts from the Haymarket Riot(s) at the Chicago Historical Society. I said upthread how astonished I was that in 1867 or beyond, how really good the anarchists' defense team was. Think about it: a group all upset about 'police brutality' and 'profiling' -- perfectly justified. We are all doomed to repeat it.

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 01:12 PM (MIKMs)

243 I really enjoyed "a promise in blood" it's has a French Revolution type of story line, the King has bankrupted the country a long with the other Elite Mages, so they make a treaty with thier enemy which more or less will destroy the country, so the PowderMages over Throw the king and the real story begins.

I am liking the series so far.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 18, 2016 01:17 PM (dKiJG)

244 For me the tough part about big trials like that in the past is how crappy both teams were and how unjust it often was. I did a ton of research into the Sacco and Vanzetti trial to write about it on my blog and two things stood out painfully:

1) they were guilty as hell and clearly did what they were accused of
2) The court was so rigged, corrupt, and stupid that it took 3 trials and it still was a horrible mess of abuse and injustice.

Its like the machine-run cities were so unable to do anything straight and by the book they messed up everything they touched.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:17 PM (39g3+)

245 The first I heard of Wobblies was on Nat Lamp's "That's Not Funny, That's Sick" album with a very young Bill Murray as a public radio DJ begging for donations. Murray's extolling the virtues of listener sponsored radio, saying they are the only place you could hear old IWW guys talk about the history of the Wobblies.
Hilarious over forty years later, and still a good reason not to donate to PBS or NPR.

Posted by: Buzzy Krumhunger at September 18, 2016 01:20 PM (fl0RP)

246 "240
Wobblies were the International Workers of the World. It was a
trans-union, but in the Nortwest it focused on the lumber mills and
logging camps. In the Rocky Mountains I think it also was involved in
the big mines.
Anarchist inspired.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 18, 2016 01:11 PM (lDj6i)"

Even then the cis-unions oppressed the trans-unions.

In the movie "Reds" the early part had a lot to do with John Reed's involvement with the IWW.

Some time in the early 1900s there was some labor disturbance in one of the copper mining towns in Arizona led by the IWW. In response, all the Wobblies were rounded up and put on a train headed out of town. As the train passed through other Arizona towns, the local authorities thought that was a good idea so they rounded up their own reds and put them on the train as well. Somewhere in between towns in California the engineer stopped the train and let them all get off.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at September 18, 2016 01:20 PM (+QFqi)

247 "Somewhere in between towns in California the engineer stopped the train and let them all get off."

Where they all got jobs as teachers and started the long march through the institutions.....

Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 01:23 PM (uGnW6)

248 Buzzy -- A NPR staple from Chicago for many years as a writer, raconteur, and oral historian. Jeopardy answer: Who is Studs Terkel.

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 01:24 PM (MIKMs)

249 Studs Terkel actually is a pretty good writer though, you can sense his bias but his book Working is fascinating, just interviews with people about their jobs from steelworkers to hookers.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:25 PM (39g3+)

250 Super Powereds Year One and Year Two by Drew Hayes

Added to my Audio list.

It sounds an awful lot like the Anime "My Hero Academia" where the Superman of this world meets a boy who is powerless and he wants to be a Super Hero. The boy is giving the choice of getting his Hero's powers after the boy tries to save a school friend even thou he has no powers. He goes to a Super Hero High School too.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 18, 2016 01:36 PM (dKiJG)

251 Right, you don't just make up an author's country of birth out of thin air. She said it was an error in "fact checking". OK, where did that "fact" originate. She had to have had something in writing, or someone had told her, that he was born in Kenya.

Posted by: WhatWhatWhat? at September 18, 2016 09:22 AM (WlGX+)

"Error in fact-checking" does not pass the smell test, like so much of Snopes' output. If an author, or an author's agent, says the author was born in Kenya, why would a publishing house even bother to fact-check it? It's not like it's some sort of extraordinary claim.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at September 18, 2016 01:37 PM (Bvr/A)

252 I admire Terkel a lot -- I only have 'The Great Divide' at home and don't know where my copy of 'Working' went. When I was working in Chicago, the buzz when ALL the democraticus literatii (pig latin, I know) agreed about something being beyond the pale was epic. Think Royko.

Posted by: mustbequantum at September 18, 2016 01:38 PM (MIKMs)

253 I really enjoyed "a promise in blood"

It sounds like an interesting concept. There is a lot of opportunity in re-writing or basing fantasy on historical events the way GRRM did. Your sequence of events and characters are ready-made, and you can just tweak things to be more fantastical.

And, hopefully better-written than his stuff.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:39 PM (39g3+)

254 235 I've never heard of "Wobblies" before

The IWW, which was the acronym standing for --according to my union-skeptic grandfather --"I Won't Work."
Posted by: JoeF. at September 18, 2016 12:59 PM (uGnW6)
---
It is said by some that the term "Wobblies" comes from a Chinese laborer's attempt to say the letter "W".

So, racist.

Anybody ever read the book "They Were Ragtime", about the events and people that shaped the turn of ye olde century? Lots on Emma Goldman and Eugene V. Debs (who was jailed under Wilson's sedition act for a speech urging resistance to the draft).

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 01:50 PM (jR7Wy)

255 Its tough reading books about the turn of the 19th to 20th century because there's a huge amount of leftist revisionism going on. At the time period, there were radicals trying to portray the nation in a certain way which was false and hateful, and the left just assumes they were accurate.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:55 PM (39g3+)

256 Votermom

A Look at Ballet in 50 Years is taken from journals written by Mr Ahonen from the time he turned 18.
Written in his native language of Finnish, the journals have been translated and complied by his wife (and long time partner in ballet, the amazing Soili Arvola Arvola-ahonen.com if you want to see pictures of them dancing).
The books give advice to dancers, thoughts on the dance world and the world in general, and many brilliant observations of art and life. There are also some cute little stories but no names of artists or ballets are given. It is written in a very journal type style still, bouncing around from one subject to another. Volume 4 of 5 will be published soon.
As he says on the cover, this is just a diary of one dancer's views and opinions!

Posted by: Sugar Plum Fairy #176-671 at September 18, 2016 02:00 PM (r1Mzb)

257
It sounds like an interesting concept. There is a lot of opportunity in re-writing or basing fantasy on historical events the way GRRM did. Your sequence of events and characters are ready-made, and you can just tweak things to be more fantastical.

And, hopefully better-written than his stuff.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 01:39 PM (39g3+)

Well it's not as as rapey as GRRM, that's for sure.

I like the concept of the PowderMages having to eat or taste gunpowder in order to use their powers. I thought he should expand on it with fire, earth etc.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 18, 2016 02:04 PM (dKiJG)

258 Timber was a big deal in east Texas and parts of Louisiana in those days, with lots of sawmills and the like.

Still is, even in Conroe which is now a suburb of Houston. Trees grow like weeds in east Texas. Conroe happens to lie within a pine forest (planted there by the White Walkers during the last iceage, I think). So, lots of excellent pine right outside Houston.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 02:06 PM (6FqZa)

259 I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 11:34 AM (Nwg0u)

I doubt she wrote that. Pretty sure I heard a recording done by Paul Robeson.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at September 18, 2016 02:07 PM (Bvr/A)

260 And, hopefully better-written than his stuff.

If you want well-written material in GRRM's universe, I recommend A World of Ice and Fire. The world and the history are all laid out for you, with beautiful illustrations, and better writers take care of the "writing" part.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 02:08 PM (6FqZa)

261 Are there any favourite authors/series anyone else has grown out of?

I have read everything by John le Carre, but he floundered after the end of the Cold War and completely lost it with anti-Americanism after 9/11. In his prime, though, he was the best espionage writer ever. I would still recommend his Karla trilogy or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to anyone.

Posted by: cool breeze at September 18, 2016 02:12 PM (ckvus)

262 I admit that upon re-reading Phillip Jose Farmer's books, they do not hold up nearly as well for me now as they did when I read them as a teenager. They're still pulpy fun but not nearly as engaging and fascinating.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at September 18, 2016 02:16 PM (39g3+)

263 "But it's obvious what they are doing--they want dopes to think maybe it was a right-wing lunatic wearing Confederate battle fatigues doing the stabbing if the victim answered, yes, he was a Muslim."

I doubt there are a lot of right-wing Confederate battle fatigue wearers in St. Cloud Minnesota. I've noticed a dearth of them in Wisconsin.

But there are Somalian Muslims in MN. Lots and lots of them.

Posted by: Donna&&&&V. deplorably brandishing ampersands&&&&so there at September 18, 2016 02:18 PM (P8951)

264 I doubt there are a lot of right-wing Confederate battle fatigue wearers in St. Cloud Minnesota. I've noticed a dearth of them in Wisconsin.

Seen some in Boulder and Broomfield counties (no, not me).

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 02:40 PM (6FqZa)

265 That toad Bill Maher got big cheers from his audience when he said Hillary's statement was accurate.
Dems don't think she has anything to apologize for because they agree with her. Their hatred has blinded them to the fact that it was an incredibly stupid thing for a politician to say.

-
They say love is blind but hatred is blind, deaf, and dumb but mostly dumb.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 02:53 PM (Nwg0u)

266 Pixie is so touchy about smart quotes, smart apostrophes, em dashes.

-
Safe space! Pixie needs a safe space!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 02:59 PM (Nwg0u)

267 Oh, hey...CanLit demands I mark the passing this week of W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe (basis for Field of Dreams) and the hilarious Hobema series.
There, my CanLit creds are up to snuff.

Posted by: Buzzy Krumhunger at September 18, 2016 03:01 PM (fl0RP)

268 While I enjoy the elements of Hamlet being recast into the Diskworld thing, it starts off feeling clever and ends up feeling like a schtick, with no real insight into Hamlet after all.

-
The first season of Sons of Anarchy had a definite Hamlet vibe.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 03:03 PM (Nwg0u)

269 I think Trump will just try stuff and see what works.

-
Better than slavishly conforming to leftist cant and pretending it works like Obozo.

P.S. Autocucumber got off a good one spelling "cant" as "can't". You can say that again.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at September 18, 2016 03:09 PM (Nwg0u)

270 That Hamlet theme in Sons of Anarchy played out over several seasons, and didn't Jacks eventually kill Clay?

Posted by: OregonMuse at September 18, 2016 03:20 PM (xsHRT)

271 Timber was a big deal in east Texas and parts of Louisiana in those days, with lots of sawmills and the like.

Still is, even in Conroe which is now a suburb of Houston. Trees grow like weeds in east Texas. Conroe happens to lie within a pine forest (planted there by the White Walkers during the last iceage, I think). So, lots of excellent pine right outside Houston.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 02:06 PM (6FqZa)

I've lived in the Houston area all my life, and on the shores of Lake Conroe right now. The forest you are referring to is called The Big Thicket. But in all my time here I never heard of anyone having "planted" The Big Thicket. It was here when the Anglo settlers came to Texas back in the early 19th century and that's the name they hung on it.

Posted by: The Oort Cloud - Deplorable Source of all SMODs at September 18, 2016 03:27 PM (2pIEi)

272 Christopher, tweeted and gabbed

Posted by: @votermom at September 18, 2016 04:10 PM (Om16U)

273 51
The third book of our Luna City Chronicles - Luna City 3.1 is available today on Kindle - http://tinyurl.com/zr4xj7w

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 18, 2016 09:54 AM (xnmPy)

Thanks! I just grabbed it from Kobo (prefer epub). I'm in the middle of rereading Eric Flint and David Drake's Belisarius series (6 books) so it will be awhile but I'm looking forward to another installment.

Posted by: gingeroni at September 18, 2016 05:11 PM (GIqnq)

274 Hey - enjoy, Gingeroni! Of course, it ends on another cliffhanger ... but in the course of it, Richard manages to shake off Susannah the Bunny-Boiler ... and we get to find out where the fabulous Mills Treasure is hidden ...

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 18, 2016 05:51 PM (xnmPy)

275 As often see something here I want to know more about. Found out Joe Hill was framed for a murder by the mine company bosses. Or at least thats whats out there. Facts are not big for leftists.

Posted by: Skip at September 18, 2016 06:53 PM (8lPj5)

276 But in all my time here I never heard of anyone having "planted" The Big Thicket

I was making a Game Of Thrones joke since GRRMartin had entered the thread above. I know the pine forests weren't planted by the Others Beyond The Wall. :^)

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at September 18, 2016 07:27 PM (6FqZa)

277 I just want to say, wow, just wow.

You guys are awesome. "A Place Outside The Wild" is now #162 for it's genre on Amazon.

Even better, it's #24 on Amazon's "hot new releases" for the genre. #27? A book by a guy by the name of William R. Forstchen - the man who wrote 'One Second After', one of my favorites of all time.

I love you guys!!!

Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 07:38 PM (rvzMR)

278 I just finished reading Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard.
And before that, I read Unknown Man # 89,
both of which I had read before, also by Elmore.

Man, that guy could write.

Before that. I read the Choirboys. by Joseph Wambaugh; I'd read that one before as well.

As an author, he's no slouch either.

Posted by: JT at September 18, 2016 08:33 PM (H7TWL)

279 Nice library, HTL !

Posted by: JT at September 18, 2016 08:34 PM (H7TWL)

280 I just want to say, wow, just wow.

You guys are awesome. "A Place Outside The Wild" is now #162 for it's genre on Amazon.

Even better, it's #24 on Amazon's "hot new releases" for the genre. #27? A book by a guy by the name of William R. Forstchen - the man who wrote 'One Second After', one of my favorites of all time.

I love you guys!!!
Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 07:38 PM (rvzMR)

Congrats on what sounds like an excellent book!

Posted by: SMOD 2016! at September 18, 2016 08:41 PM (YeKKY)

281 Does anybody else find themselves buying back books they purged in fits of tidying up/attempts at maturity?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 18, 2016 09:24 AM (jR7Wy)

I'm currently haunting (BOO ! ) yard sales
and flea markets in search of The Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour and the Carpetbaggers
by Harold Robbins, specifically to re-read the chapter about his right hand man Nevada Smith-
played by Alan Ladd in the flick and played by Steve McQueen in the movie of the same name.

Posted by: JT at September 18, 2016 08:50 PM (H7TWL)

282 I love you guys!!!

Posted by: Emile Antoon Khadaji at September 18, 2016 07:38 PM (rvzMR)

What he said.

Posted by: JT at September 18, 2016 08:55 PM (H7TWL)

283 Like Climate "Denier" is meant to lump them in with Holocaust Deniers, "Phobia" is also a big fat juicy lie, a demagogue's trick to stop debate before it begins by preemptively smearing an opponent.

A phobia is an unreasoned fear, like the fear of werewolves. Could it possibly be that conservatives have thoughtfully considered the Leftist position and honestly disagree on principle?

No way! We're all Frankenstein's villagers, mindlessly and superstitiously chasing the Other with pointy pitchforks and angry firebrands, or so says Typhoid Granny.

The Liar Left can't win on the merits, hence the cheap ass smear.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at September 18, 2016 10:46 PM (Ndje9)

284 If you aren't already afraid enough of the consequences of leftists getting control of the government, read "Stalin: At the Court of the Red Tsar." Simon Sebag Montefiore is an incredibly good historian and he was working with material no Western historian had ever seen before. Stalin and his Politburo coterie were as evil a group as ever have walked the face of the Earth. It's easy to see why Stalin's wife committed suicide; what isn't easy to understand is why Stalin wasn't killed off by someone in that group much earlier. He was a right bastard. His reactions on hearing how his friend Bukharin died are stomach-turning.

The Politburo members literally couldn't trust ANYONE. Being that suspicious 24-7 for years on end would have to be sufficient reason to round the bend.

Anyway, it's a spectacularly good read. If you get it, you'll find it to be a keeper.

Posted by: mac at September 19, 2016 07:24 AM (ilMXv)

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