Sunday Morning Book Thread 04-14-2019

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, and everybody who's holding your beer. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, writing, and publishing by escaped oafs who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which, even though they're not as outragously and flamboyantly ugly as some of the ones I've shown, nevertheless, they just look unbecoming.

Book Quote

Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferrules, without words or anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you.

From The Old Farmer's Almanac Sampler, 1957.

(h/t Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing)

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

A MERIT-MONGER is someone who only does good on the promise of personal gain.

Usage: Merit-mongers are better than virtue-signalers because they actually do something instead of preening and putting on airs.

The Dystopian Overlap:

I have read that the top, I don't know, 4 or 5 wealthiest counties in the United States are grouped in and around the Washington DC area. So I think I'd add The Hunger Games to that Venn Diagram. Live is good when you live in District 1.

Banned ~~in Boston~~ By Amazon:

For the last decade or so, Tommy Robinson has been a loud voice in the UK against the creeping Islamicization of that once-great country. This has resulted in a number of bogus arrests and continual harassment by the police authorities, not only of him, but also of his family. It's as if there is an unwritten law that is being enforced throughout Great Britain: "Don't do or say anothing that might make Muslims angry." The authorities just want him to shut up.

But Tommy Robinson does not want to shut up. And he will not back down from a fight.

So Robinson wrote a book, Mohammad's Koran: Why Muslims Kill For Islam that does something interesting:

Using the most authoritative scholarly sources, this book decodes the Koran and shows non-Muslims what is being taught in Mosques and in universities in the West. When the Koran chapters are placed in chronological order, the meaning of Islam changes from preaching peace to commanding genocide and apartheid. It is demonstrated that the Quisling elite know the true meaning of Islam, but since 9/11 they have set about systematically deceiving the electorate in Western democracies. Amazon's ban is the final stage of this organized deceit.

Alert morons will have noticed that the book link I provided is not to Amazon, as is my usual custom. That's because Amazon stopped selling the book, and they won't say why. Robinson's site claims that Amazon was pressured by Muslim groups, even though he offers no evidence. It is kind of strange Amazon still sells Robinson's first book, Enemy of the State. It also carries other anti-jihad books, notably the works of author Robert Spencer, certainly no friend of Islam (such as The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion).

The situation is the same with Barnes & Noble. Tommy's latest book doesn't exist, but Robert Spencer's books are readily available.

Robinson's site does not appear to carry an electronic version, but I found it offered for sale here. Please note that I had had no knowledge of "ebookmar.com" before now, so I have no idea if they're legit or not. Caveat emptor.

Support Right-Leaning, Non-Batsh*t Crazy Authors:

Voting is now open for the Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance (CLFA) Book of the Year 2019. You can read the details of the contest here. And the ballot itself is here.

There are a surprising number of moron authors among the candidates, including Jack July, Daniel Humphreys, and David Dubrow. But here's another one by an unfamiliar (at least, to me) that sounds like it might be interesting: The Thread of Reason by Michael Isenberg:

For thirty years, Nizam al-Mulk ruled the Seljuq Empire, wielding more power than the sultans he served—until the fall night in 1092 when an assassin’s blade struck him down on the road to Baghdad. Among the papers he left behind, an unpublished manuscript warned that “damaging and odious enemies” had infiltrated the government. “One will not know the extent of their intrigues and their ruses until I am gone.”

Determined to learn who was behind the murder of his chief minister, but unable to trust his officials, the sultan turns to one of the smartest people he knows: Omar Khayyam—astronomer, mathematician, poet, scholar of Hadith, and lover of wine.

With little experience navigating the dangerous waters of court politics, Omar must race to solve the mystery against the background of a Muslim world in conflict between science and shari'ah—and on the brink of fundamental change.

For some reason, this reminds me of The Name of the Rose, only set in the Muslim world. And the Kindle price is a not unreasonable $5.99.

Books By Morons

End Times is an urban fantasy by moron author Jerry Jay Carroll, who asks the question, what angle would Satan use today to bring on the final battle between Good and Evil?

He would throw aside his incrementalism that God knows is working wonderfully well these days--just look at the headlines. In his boldest gamble since the temptation of Christ, Lucifer creates his masterpiece, being perfect in every respect except for the obvious flaw--it is his creation.

But there has been a slip-up and handsome Rex leaves the launch pad without memory of his paternity. This means he has to learn as he goes and maybe he will turn out to be good instead of bad. The very first thing he learns is he can do anything better than anyone else. The second is Satan wants him back at any cost and the chase is on. It begins with a bloody massacre, shifts from Beverly Hills to Vatican City, from D.C. to the Lost Coast in Northern California.

Carroll calls this novel "a thriller...that explores the modern culture sick on celebrity worship, manipulated by corrupt media, choking on false values, and closing in on moral collapse."

The Kindle edition is $3.99.

Carroll is also the author of The Horror Writer and Top Dog

___________

Another moron e-mailed me this week to tell me his wife has a new book out. He says:

It's a series about a women living in a suburb of Ottawa who has been given special powers and responsibilities.

She makes her way through her mission, while balancing her regular job and friends and family. They are fun reads, and I think this one is the best one yet. Though I am biased, as her editor and her biggest fan.

The book he's talking about is Into Thin Ayre: An Emerson Ayre Novel:

In her third adventure, it’s a dog eat dog world out there, and Emerson Ayre, settled into her role as an Orber and vigilante soul reaper, may have just bitten off more than she can chew. When The Mothers send Emerson a vision via a furry four-legged conduit, she gets meaner than a junk yard dog tracking her quarry, losing all common sense in the process.

Luckily for her, she’s not alone in her pack as she finds herself sent to the doghouse where she herself may just need a little saving…

The Kindle edition is $4.99.

He also tells me:

You can really tell that a lot of Canadians read your site, especially based on who is making comments.

AoSHQ: Internationally famous!

Moron Recommendation

Zany hijinks ensue when you try to reform the natives:

29 I read Trade Wind by M. M. Kaye which was recommended here a few weeks ago. This is the story of a woman who comes to Zanzibar from Boston in the 1850's. She is full of self righteousness, wanting to do good deeds, and ready to reform the local culture. She is caught up in a revolt against the Sultan, has to deal with a plague epidemic, and becomes the one who is changed. This is not only a good story, but one learns about the history and politics of Zanzibar.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 07, 2019 09:14 AM (8jlwn)

Trade Wind is available on Kindle for $7.99.

That recommendation prompted this:

For a darker (and hilarious) version of something similar to this, try Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief.

You can thank me later.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at April 07, 2019 09:16 AM (cfSRQ)

So let's take a look at Black Mischief. It does sound darkly comic:

"We are Progress and the New Age. Nothing can stand in our way." When Oxford-educated Emperor Seth succeeds to the throne of the African state of Azania, he has a tough job on his hands. His subjects are ill-informed and unruly, and corruption, double-dealing, and bloodshed are rife. However, with the aid of Minister of Modernization Basil Seal, Seth plans to introduce his people to the civilized ways of the west-but will it be as simple as that?

Profound hilarity ensues from the issuance of homemade currency, the staging of a "Birth Control Gala," the rightful ruler's demise at his own rather long and tiring coronation ceremonies, and a good deal more mischief.

This one's a little spendier, $11.99 on Kindle.

___________

Mrs. Muse and I are watching the TV series Rebellion on Netflix, about the Irish Rebellion of Easter 1916 and I was clueless. I thought "The Troubles", as I've heard them called, was just a bunch of random shootings and bombings. I had no idea that Ireland put together an actual army and took on the British Empire - right in the middle of World War I. So I went looking for books on the subject, and there are, as you might guess, a ton, this one looked to me to be the most promising: The Rising (New Edition): Ireland: Easter 1916 by Fearghal McGarry.

The Rising is the story of Easter 1916 from the perspective of those who made it, focusing on the experiences of rank and file revolutionaries. Fearghal McGarry makes use of a unique source that has only recently seen the light of day — a collection of over 1,700 eye-witness statements detailing the political activities of members of Sinn Féin and militant groups such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. This collection represents one of the richest and most comprehensive oral history archives devoted to any modern revolution, providing new insights on almost every aspect of this seminal period.

The Rising shows how people from ordinary backgrounds became politicized and involved in the struggle for Irish independence. McGarry illuminates their motives, concerns, and aspirations, highlighting the importance of the Great War as a catalyst for the uprising. He concludes by exploring the Rising's revolutionary aftermath, which in time saw the creation of the independent state we see today.

Obviously, this would not be the definitive history, but the eyewitness accounts might be a good place to start.

And I do recommend the Rebellion TV series.

___________

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, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions 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: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Good morning Librotarians!

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:01 AM (kQs4Y)

2 Hiya Eris !

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:02 AM (+uzZH)

3 Morning!

It's snowing here! Latest snowfall I can remember ever!

It will be gone by tomorrow of course.. but.. bring on the global warmening!

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:03 AM (438dO)

4 I cast a vote for Jack July's book "Hatchet". I've really enjoyed the Amy Lynn series.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:05 AM (kQs4Y)

5 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. Hope everyone had a great week of reading. Mine has included surprising delights, firearms information, and new aspects of history. It's been a good week.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:06 AM (bmdz3)

6
What about Bullshit Merit Mongers, such as Bill Gates?
For instance, Bill Gates donating millions of dollars to leftist causes.

Or donors to PBS? They're "merit" is both self-serving and useless to needy people.

Posted by: Soothie at April 14, 2019 09:06 AM (UUVRl)

7 Oh I so enjoyed reading Stephen Coonts’ “Liberty’s Last Stand”. It’s like sinking your teeth into good red meat, letting the juices dribble down your chin, and gnawing on the bone*.

I kept asking myself “How did this thing even get published?!” and then noticed it’s a Regnery imprint.

I requested the next in the series, “The Armageddon File”. Coonts said he got political in “Last Stand” because he had to get it off his chest, but it continues in “Armageddon” which is about voter fraud. The two fictional candidates are obviously Trump and Hillary.

*go for it, Horde.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:07 AM (kQs4Y)

8 Corgis Called

Posted by: Off the reservation at April 14, 2019 09:07 AM (vWMNq)

9 AoSHQ: Internationally famous!"

Canada - it's like a whole 'nother country. Or hat.

Morning, y'all! Chilly even here, so more coffeve!

Posted by: Anon a mouse at April 14, 2019 09:08 AM (6qErC)

10
Is Rebellion the prequel to Peaky Blinders?

Posted by: Soothie at April 14, 2019 09:09 AM (UUVRl)

11 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:09 AM (OX9vb)

12 Hey now, those pants are good, solid wartime working pants. In fact they may have had to alter their husbands' suit trousers. Fabric was scarce.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:10 AM (kQs4Y)

13 Currently reading "Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy" by Ian W. Toll.

The U.S. Navy considers its birthday October 13, 1775. But that was when the Continental Navy was formed and by 1785 Congress had disbanded the Navy. This book is about its actual birth from Congress's Naval Act of 1794. Islam and the French could be credited with its enactment. For many years the Barbary pirates of North Africa had been capturing merchant ships and holding their crews for ransom or requiring a paid tribute. Then the French in 1793 decided to turn their revolution into a mob induced murder-fest. They also began taking merchant ships and their crews.

There was a lot of opposition to a navy (ironically from Jefferson and Madison), but 6 frigates were authorized to be built (one was the USS Constitution which is still in commission). Eventually all 6 were built, over budget and late, a tradition maintained to this day.

So far there's a lot of neat history in it; the difficulties of the ships construction, yellow fever epidemics in Philly and Baltimore, the beginnings of our party system and all the nastiness to go along with it, the XYZ Affair and the undeclared Quasi-War with France (1798-1800), sea battles, and the description of early D.C.

During the run up to the Quasi-War a Federalist recruiting ad read: "Your country, my boys, is threatened with invasion! Your houses and farms with fire, plunder, and pillage! and your wives and daughters with ravishment and assassination by horrid outlandish sans-culotte Frenchmen!" Pantsless Frenchmen? People will say anything to support a war.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 14, 2019 09:11 AM (TDyHc)

14 I read Children of Wrath by Paul Grossman. This is the second book featuring Detective Willi Kraus, a Jewish police sleuth in Berlin in 1929-30. This is a very good mystery about young boys disappearing and then bags of boiled bones appearing in the cities storm drain system. It is also a look at Berlin's decadence during the beginning of the depression and during the rise of the Nazis. I'm looking forward to reading others in the series.

I also read Guard of Honor by William P. Kennedy. At an army base where Green Berets are trained, a series of premeditated attacks occur. The court martial of the perpetrator exposes many moral dilemmas. Lots of action plus a lot to think about.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 14, 2019 09:12 AM (Zgezk)

15 Pantsless Frenchmen?"

Heh.

No breeches. Or chaps.

Posted by: Anon a mouse at April 14, 2019 09:13 AM (6qErC)

16 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.

I've just started The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold. The jacket copy notes that "They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time - but their greatest misfortune was to be born women," which gives you an idea where the author is coming from, although, thankfully, I have yet to encounter any more shrieking feminism than usual.

I'm reading it for two reasons - one being that the Ripper case has always fascinated me, and the other that **blushes** I am cited two times in the sources for writing I've done on the case.

It's always nice to know something you've done will live on after you.

http://tinyurl.com/yxlsq96n

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 14, 2019 09:14 AM (Ki5SV)

17 Anyone interested in Tommy Robinson should also investigate his co-author's first book. I think it has also been dropped from Amazon but it's available from the author's web site. As is Tommy's book.

Peter McLoughlinEasy Meat: Inside Britain's Grooming Gang Scandal

http://pmclauth.com/

Site says his first book is still on Amazon ...

Posted by: Off the reservation at April 14, 2019 09:15 AM (vWMNq)

18 For those who like James Rollins' Sigma Force series, the latest book, "Crucible", is on Kindle Daily Deals (today only) for 2.99.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:17 AM (bmdz3)

19 Map of grooming gang locations in Britain

http://pmclauth.com/articles/mapping-the-problem

Posted by: Off the reservation at April 14, 2019 09:19 AM (vWMNq)

20 1. "into thin ayre" a series about a woman given special powers "who goes through her mission while balancing ng friends and family..."

i make fun of the hallmark channel "lady sleuth" movies (they're terrible) but running on hallmark all day today are the "jane doe mysteries" starring lea thompson as a spy who goes through her missions while balancing friends and family. these are pretty good. for the televisor watchers among us.

2. o/t: does anybody know how the feminists view the popularity of "50 shades of gray" books and movies.?

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 09:20 AM (Pg+x7)

21 Just came across a great title at Amazon: "Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death"

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:20 AM (kQs4Y)

22 Currently reading Hotel by James Michener

Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:21 AM (mpXpK)

23 21 Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

Testicles first.

Posted by: The Cats at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (vWMNq)

24

From The Old Farmer's Almanac Sampler, 1957.

(h/t Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing)

I would love to have that book.

Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (mpXpK)

25 21 Just came across a great title at Amazon: "Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death"

Looks like fun. My daughter (when she was three or four? ) told me: "I wish I could be alive when I'm dead so I could see what my bones look like."

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (OX9vb)

26 I'm continuing with the Landmark Herodotus. With all the footnotes and maps included this is going to take a long, but enjoyable, time. My copy is a paperback but I keep looking for an affordable hardcover edition. The key word is affordable. The local used bookstores don't have any of the Landmark series and the managers said they never see them come in. People just don't get rid of them. That's a selfish attitude I completely understand.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:23 AM (bmdz3)

27 Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 14, 2019 09:11 AM (TDyHc)

Good book! I was particularly fascinated by the descriptions of seeking out and harvesting the oak for the shops...

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 09:23 AM (wYseH)

28 Morning readers!

Posted by: Weasel at April 14, 2019 09:24 AM (MVjcR)

29 re: Liberty's Last Stand

try Coonts' Saucer series.. fast, fun read. First one is 'Saucer'

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:24 AM (438dO)

30 I finished the fourth Fletcher book this week - yes, being able to read on my Kindle while on the gym's recumbent bicycle does help with finishing books! Started on one of the Longmire books; alas, I paid the iniquitous price demanded for the ebook version, and couldn't find any of them in print at the great yearly NEISD book sale.
For some reason, the sale was overrun this year with commercial purchasers, scanning the bar-codes of their selections and packing them away by the ton. When it's hardbacks for $1 and paperbacks for 50 cents, I suppose that the capitalists in used books can be forgiven for taking advantage. I just wish they weren't so rude about it. At least, the books that I was looking for weren't of interest to the commercial purchasers...

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at April 14, 2019 09:24 AM (xnmPy)

31 Looks like fun. My daughter (when she was three or four? ) told me: "I wish I could be alive when I'm dead so I could see what my bones look like."

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (OX9vb)
---
Ha! That's so Goth! Needs to be a song lyric.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:25 AM (kQs4Y)

32 back to reading listening was ok but real reading is better!

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 09:25 AM (JFO2v)

33 Tommy Robinson's troubles remind me of our own current tempest occasioned by Bro-Fo's 9/11 minimization. Tater knows what the problem is:

Brian Stelter
@brianstelter
"Civic conversation in America is dysfunctional in part because we have so many such outrage exhibitionists. These folks strip inartfully phrased remarks of context, ignoring the speaker's intentions and imputing the least charitable possible meaning..."

Ignoring Tater's breathtaking lack of self awareness, he's basically saying that Bro-Fo should never be criticized because she's Islamic. Meanwhile, Bro-Fo triples down:

https://bit.ly/2P8hsS9

She says the problem is that religion of peace is under attack by a bunch of MAGAheads.

So weep not for England; weep for ourselves that we are bowing to Islam.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 09:25 AM (+y/Ru)

34 Tolle Lege
Still haven't ordered the book I want, did 1 trip to local used book store to see what was there, saw 1 prospect but didn't get anything.

Posted by: Skip at April 14, 2019 09:26 AM (BbGew)

35 try Coonts' Saucer series.. fast, fun read. First one is 'Saucer'
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:24 AM (438dO)
---
I saw that title. Is it sci-fi?

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:26 AM (kQs4Y)

36 Lots of good reading on that CLFA ballot. Picked up Declan Finn's City of Shadows after seeing it listed last week. An outstanding supernatural thriller with a backdrop of contemporary London.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at April 14, 2019 09:26 AM (FXjhj)

37 booken morgen horden

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 09:27 AM (dm05u)

38 I would love to have that book.
Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (mpXpK)

Here it is, Vic -

http://tinyurl.com/y2hw6nu3

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 14, 2019 09:27 AM (Ki5SV)

39 This week I haven't been reading to myself much, but on my way to and from work I'm listening to "The Likeness" by Tana French. I love reading her books, mysteries solved by various members of the Dublin Murder Squad.

But I like listening to them even more, because they are read by Irish people with real Irish accents and the like.

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:27 AM (OX9vb)

40 took diggeh for a walken and tge humidity gave me a queasy headache

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 09:27 AM (dm05u)

41 But of course. You're either with Bro-Fo or you're a racist.

https://bit.ly/2GnDwFC

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 09:28 AM (+y/Ru)

42 Also reading that catty bitch Suetonius. I cut right to the chapter on Caligula (Gaius). He was the son of that most noble and esteemed Roman, Germanicus, who was universally loved for his courage, learning, and virtue. Suetonius maintains that his adoptive uncle Tiberius had his goon Piso poison Germanicus, who “succumbed to a protracted illness at Antioch, being thirty-three years old when he died. Because of the dark stains which covered his body, and the foam on his lips, poison was suspected; significantly, also, they found the heart intact among his organs after cremation – a heart steeped in poison is supposedly proof against fire.” ((Bluebell – is this true?))

“Bootsie” was the darling of the empire and everybody’s great hope after the dissolute Tiberius, but “the old Emperor had exactly gauged the young man’s vicious inclinations, and remarked that Gaius’ advent portended his own death and the ruin of everyone else. ‘I am nursing a viper for the Roman people, and a Phaethon for the whole world’.”

Caligula’s catalog of excesses include (but are not limited to) rape, incest, murder, torture, profligacy, cross-dressing, bankrupting Rome, declaring himself a god, and electing a horse as consul as an insult to the senate. But I cannot condemn him for this: “(in the theater) if anyone made the slightest noise during a performance, Gaius had the offender dragged from his seat and beat him with his own hands”.

He was finally assassinated at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, after ruling only three years, but “at first no one would believe that he had really been assassinated, and suspected that the story was invented and circulated by himself to discover what people thought of him”.

All the busts of Gaius have a petulant cast to them:

https://www.rome101.com/Portraiture/Caligula/

The best Caligula? No contest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk7T3qKrlgU

But was he unfairly maligned?

https://www.emmasouthon.com/blog/2018/6/19/bad-emperors-caligula

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:29 AM (kQs4Y)

43 Or donors to PBS? They're "merit" is both self-serving and useless to needy people.
Posted by: Soothie at April 14, 2019 09:06 AM (UUVRl)

And the bullshit plac and trophies given to presidents and owners of businesses that get 100% participation for employees giving up their hard earned money.

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 09:30 AM (JFO2v)

44 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to barbeque in my back yard.

Posted by: zombie Katherine Hepburn at April 14, 2019 09:31 AM (UdKB7)

45 Vic, I just ordered a used copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac Sampler, 1957. It sounds like a fun and interesting read. They are available for about 6 dollars which includes shipping.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:31 AM (bmdz3)

46 Just came across a great title at Amazon: "Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death"
Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:20 AM

Here's another one. "I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems By Cats."

http://tinyurl.com/y5765zkk

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 14, 2019 09:31 AM (TDyHc)

47 Whoever recommended "Serena" by Ron Rash definitely has reading tastes which dovetail with mine because I'm having a hard time putting it down, which isn't shared by everyone in the book group probably because the title character is such a weirdly amoral bitch who isn't shy about unloading on anyone who crosses her. Rash, about whose short stories I've previously written highly about, reminds me of early Raymond Carver where there's always an unsettling disequilibrium which hovers over the narration producing a tension which has to be resolved. I can already tell that this will have some SJW themes since it's clear, without being hit over the head constantly with it, that this timber company is just beating the fuck out of the mountains and will surely be called out on it. I trust Rash won't be a dickweed about it and probably frame it in terms of disruption to the rural way of life, about which he's proven sympathetic in his portrayal of the locals. If there's any criticism I have it's that many minor characters are indistinguishable from one another so that when one is mentioned I wonder who that person is.

This book was made into a movie that from all reports sucked major cock. That's too bad but maybe it just didn't translate well to the big screen.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 09:31 AM (y7DUB)

48 19 Map of grooming gang locations in Britain

http://pmclauth.com/articles/mapping-the-problem
Posted by: Off the reservation at April 14, 2019 09:19 AM (vWMNq)

I do not see Minnesota!

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 09:32 AM (JFO2v)

49 I loved Steven Coots' flight of the Intruder when I read the paperback years ago. I checked out his books on Amazon and they are out of my price range. Maybe they will come down later.

Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:32 AM (mpXpK)

50 Congrats to MP4 for that touch of immortality.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:32 AM (bmdz3)

51 Trailer for final star wars movie is out (says friday):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adzYW5DZoWs

There is a nice plot summary of the series in the comments.

Episode 4-6: Teens in space.

Episode 1-3: Clones vs. Robots.

Episode 7-9: Crying teens in space.

Posted by: Off the reservation at April 14, 2019 09:33 AM (vWMNq)

52 Thanks to JackStraw for mentioning "Wallace The Brave", a comic strip that started in his local newspaper (the cartoonist runs a local cheese shop). It has since gone national and deserves to. I got the first collection of the strips and they are a delight. There is a feel of Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, the EARLY Doonsbury (when they were actually funny) and even a hint of Winnie-The-Pooh in the childhood antics of Wallace, his friends and family. I haven't enjoyed cartoons this much since Calvin and Hobbes went away.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (bmdz3)

53 Good book! I was particularly fascinated by the descriptions of seeking out and harvesting the oak for the shops...
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 09:23 AM

And the ships too, don't forget them. Unfortunately most of the workers died from malaria.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (TDyHc)

54 I read Children of Wrath by Paul Grossman. This is the second book featuring Detective Willi Kraus, a Jewish police sleuth in Berlin in 1929-30. This is a very good mystery about young boys disappearing and then bags of boiled bones appearing in the cities storm drain system. It is also a look at Berlin's decadence during the beginning of the depression and during the rise of the Nazis. I'm looking forward to reading others in the series.

-
I quite liked the first Willi Kraus, The Sleepwalkers. I didn't care as much for this.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (+y/Ru)

55 38
I would love to have that book.

Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (mpXpK)

Here it is, Vic -

http://tinyurl.com/y2hw6nu3

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 14, 2019 09:27 AM (Ki5SV)

Link wants me to log into Farcebook.

Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (mpXpK)

56 Just finished "Liberty's Last Stand," and shortly thereafter my Kindle became caught in a Kindle Fire loop. Coincidence? Hmmm (tightens tinfoil hat). Anyway, has anyone ever had a Kindle Fire loop and gotten out of it? I talked to Amazon, and they want me to do a factory reset, but I have so many books from places other than Amazon that I don't even know if I can recreate what books I have, not to mention the downloads of knitting patterns. Any help would be appreciated.

Posted by: Rana at April 14, 2019 09:35 AM (sy2Wl)

57 25
My daughter (when she was three or four? ) told me: "I wish I could be alive when I'm dead so I could see what my bones look like."

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:22 AM (OX9vb)

After I had my wisdom teeth extracted, in one area the gum tissue shrank back, possibly due to infection. The dentist eventually got it sorted out, but I was actually able to see and touch my jawbone for a short time.

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 09:36 AM (sdi6R)

58 I finally finished Commager's The American Mind; primarily useful for a window into early 20th C. Progressive thought, Commager's conclusion that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the smartest and best man he ever knew and FDR's critics were small-minded and deluded as to the future consequences was unintentionally ironic. 60-70 years after publication, FDR's critics have been pretty much vindicated.

As a pallet-cleanser, I read Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher; it is a locked room mystery that features writers of the Mañana Literary Society (one of them is Robert Heinlein under a pseudonym) that are suspects in the attempted murder of a particularly unpleasant heir to a literary estate (modeled after Adrian Conan Doyle's handling of the Sherlock Holmes estate). A lot of fun and Boucher even puts himself in the novel -- he originally wrote it under the pen name of H.H. Holmes. Boucher does a nice bit of misdirection and finished with some neat twists. Boucher also gives some interesting glimpses of the "scientifiction" scene of the 1940s. Heinlein (AKA: Austin Carter) also talks about a story plot he was considering in which California becomes a Socialist republic and 2nd American Civil War takes place! Rating = 5/5.

Came across a curious little book: "Fighting Words: From the Greeks for Today's Struggle, by Kathleen Freeman (trans. and ed.). Published in 1952, it consists of excerpts from the writings of the Ancient Greeks that can be used as critiques of Leftist political philosophy. Very interesting if your curious about what a bunch of dead white guys thought over 100 years ago about the human condition. Rating = 5/5.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 09:37 AM (5Yee7)

59 "And I do recommend the Rebellion TV series."

As do I. It was very well done.

Posted by: Tami at April 14, 2019 09:37 AM (cF8AT)

60
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

Posted by: BackwardsBoy says #PurgeProgressivismBAMN at April 14, 2019 09:37 AM (HaL55)

61 Finally finished "From Here to Eternity". It took me an eternity
to read it, started it in January. I am told the other two in the
trilogy are good, but I think I'll have to read something shorter for a
while.
It was a good book, and I can see why
they cut a lot out for the movie. James Jones is very good at building
the tension in scenes. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I'm done
with it.
Probably going to re-read "What Jesus Saw From the Cross" by A. G. Sertillanges for Holy Week.

Posted by: roamingfirehydrant at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (THS4q)

62 Ack, rickl. Shudder.

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (OX9vb)

63 Oh, I have such a Nerd Brag today.

No. 1 Nerd Boy is coming home this week (he's on his own in CA now) and we're going to the Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan in NYC.

Oh, you say. I've read LoTR, what's the big deal? Well have you read all of the posthumous works? More to the point, do you have a JRRT tattoo?

He does.

http://bit.ly/2KE3SqY

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (fuK7c)

64 Meeting my book group tonight to discuss the Screwtape letters. Every chapter is eerily prescient....from social justice (the Movement!) to climate change (emotionalizing science) to 'the historical Jesus" (which makes of Christ a kind of ventriloqist dummy for whatever claptrap)...it's almost scary.

Next time The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Our club is specifically meant to stay a 'SJW-free zone" and was formed to avoid book clubs that focus on Michelle Obama's book, and Comey's book etc etc. we're open to suggestions for short books that are classics, too...

Posted by: vivi at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (11H2y)

65 Amazon has it for $5.97. It is in my cart for next order.

Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:39 AM (mpXpK)

66 I'm continuing with the Landmark Herodotus. With all the footnotes and maps included this is going to take a long, but enjoyable, time. My copy is a paperback but I keep looking for an affordable hardcover edition. The key word is affordable. The local used bookstores don't have any of the Landmark series and the managers said they never see them come in. People just don't get rid of them. That's a selfish attitude I completely understand.
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:23 AM (bmdz3)

I have a non Landmark translation with excellent footnotes and not bad maps at the end but the embedded Landmark maps are such a pleasure to use in identifying just where anything is going on without disrupting the flow of words. I just started Book 4 about the Scythians and, for whatever reason, it seems like the pace of the narration is picking up and becoming more enjoyable.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 09:40 AM (y7DUB)

67 Link wants me to log into Farcebook.
Posted by: Vic at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (mpXpK)

D'oh! Sorry about that, Vic. Anyway, it's available on Amazon in hardcover starting at one buck.

Anyway, going to see if I can get the Harley out for some road time before the rain hits. Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 14, 2019 09:40 AM (Ki5SV)

68 42. coming up for sale is a marble bust of didius julianus, a 2nd century emperor. it's rare because it's in nearly perfect condition and because he ruled for only a few weeks. he had purchased the throne from the praetorian guard after they murdered the previous emperor and put it up for sale to the highest bidder. then, they killed him.

we are getting close to those conditions when the security and intelligence apparatus are picking presidents.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 09:41 AM (Pg+x7)

69 About the Irish rebellion, my grandfather and his brothers were members of the IRA during the rebellion. When Michael Collins took the deal with England, that might have ended the rebellion, my great uncle was part of the faction that called him a traitor. Great uncle was put on a death list and my grandfather and his brothers had to smughle him out of Ireland. They put him on a ship they thought was going yo America, but he rnded up in Manchester England. He always complained about getting on the wrong boat.

Posted by: Abby at April 14, 2019 09:41 AM (SM/op)

70 I really need to read The Screwtape Letters.

Posted by: The Ugly American at April 14, 2019 09:42 AM (O+0DS)

71 So it's farewell to the Arctic in "Ice Station Zebra" and hello to central Asia in "Flashman."

Our Hero (snort) has been forced out of his regiment because of his shotgun wedding. Not because of the circumstances of the marriage, but rather because his new father-in-law isn't the right sort of people. "Owns a factory." Harr-umph.

So he's sent off to India, where because of his facility with languages, he's deemed perfect for a posting in Kabul -- at a time that Afghanistan is about to blow. What was it that some Moron said about Afghanistan? Something like it's not a country but rather a barrier. Yeah.

I hope I'll be able to finish it. I say this because I will undergo surgery for glaucoma this week. The surgeon is going to place a miniature shunt in my eyeball. I saw somewhere in the instructions that I'm not supposed to read after the surgery. I ask, how in hell am I going to spend three days of recovery time? I guess a lot of CDs will get played.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 14, 2019 09:43 AM (Qgyxn)

72 Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (fuK7c)

Bander, I'm jealous! I would love to see that exhibit. Does it have Tolkien's artwork?

And tell Banderson I love his JRRT tattoo.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:43 AM (kQs4Y)

73 13 ... Jake, I found "Six Frigates" to be a fantastic read. Also, it got me reading a few other books about the establishment and early uses of the US Navy. Interesting and exciting stuff.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:43 AM (bmdz3)

74 I am cited two times in the sources for writing I've done on the case.

Oh! Congratulations Poppins!

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 09:45 AM (fuK7c)

75 It was a good book, and I can see why
they cut a lot out for the movie. James Jones is very good at building
the tension in scenes. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I'm done
with it.

George Reeves played the mess Sgt. Maylon Stark.

At an advanced screening, when he appeared an audience member cried out "Look ! It's Superman !" and the audience burst out laughing.

The producers cut most of his scenes from the movie after that.

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:45 AM (+uzZH)

76 Any help would be appreciated.
Posted by: Rana at April 14, 2019 09:35 AM (sy2Wl)

Unfortunately no. It is, an example of the problem with e-book readers. You might own the device, but you don't own the "books." These readers have quite a bit of convenience for filing-away reading material but the stored data has no permanence.

This is why I have been buying as many books as I can afford that were published before about 1980 (and history before 1970). I have a feeling that future generations are going to want these books. At the Old Man's estate auction his old Britannicas and other encyclopedias went for pretty good coin, considering that a few years ago they couldn't be given away; people know that Leftists are screwing with our heritage.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 09:45 AM (5Yee7)

77 Today's Sky Bartender is chubby, but still cute. Red/Orange hair in the mode of Becky Lynch.

Posted by: The Ugly American at April 14, 2019 09:46 AM (O+0DS)

78 Mornin', book nerds!

Posted by: Insomniac at April 14, 2019 09:47 AM (NWiLs)

79 try Coonts' Saucer series.. fast, fun read. First one is 'Saucer'
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:24 AM (438dO)
---
I saw that title. Is it sci-fi?
Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor

..................

Yes and no. An Archaeologist finds an alien saucer buried for millenia.. fun ensues!

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:47 AM (438dO)

80 "I wish I could be alive when I'm dead so I could see what my bones look like."

Not a combat trooper, among whom this is common as dirt. But I was a tempering-furnace operator, on the wrong side of the union fight, and I had an almost-molten sheet of glass ejected onto me by the activist on the other side of the blast-head. I happened to have just picked up my breaker-bar after adjusting the venturi pressures, and sticking that out probably saved my internal organs. But it cut my hands, and one elbow, right down to it. Didn't hurt a bit, except for the shock of having it happen, because duh, glass is really sharp and really hot. But then I looked down. And I could see all those bones and tendons that make your fingers work. Quite a sight.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 09:47 AM (8ZmvG)

81 I enjoy Winnie-The-Pooh, especially with the original Sheperd illustrations. But I knew nothing about Milne's non-Winnie writing. Well, I've been missing a lot. I found a collection of Milne's short works, "The Sunny Side, Short Stories and Poems For Proper Grown-ups" he did for Punch magazine that was originally published in 1921. It is a wonderful surprise and reminds me of a subtler version of PG Wodehouse. I just started it but so far it is delightful.

I just ordered a free Kindle version of Milne's one mystery novel, "The Red House Mystery".It's supposed to be in that Golden Age of Britsh mysteries era so it should be worth trying.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:48 AM (bmdz3)

82 Bander, I'm jealous! I would love to see that exhibit. Does it have Tolkien's artwork?

Yes, artwork and everything.

https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/tolkien

And Eris, you could totally rock a JRRT tattoo.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 09:48 AM (fuK7c)

83 A few weeks ago, wrote a review of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. Just finished the third book in the trilogy called The Book of Life. I wanted to finish before the TV series started to make sure it didn't affect my enjoyment of how I saw the characters. The book was fantastic and I ended up reading far into the early morning hours because I couldn't put it down til I found out how it ended.
The TV series on AMC and also BBC is very,very good. Only one episode so far but the casting is excellent. The reason I mention this today is the first book and the TV show opens at the Bodlein Library at Oxford.

Posted by: Sharon at April 14, 2019 09:49 AM (QzF6i)

84 Well, got all the potted plants in the hold, loose stuff in the yard stowed away, and the outside cars hove to the wind.
Am now awaiting the arrival of the thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes.

( I've been reading nautical history and really wanted to use the word "hove" )

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 09:49 AM (UdKB7)

85 that most noble and esteemed Roman, Germanicus, who was universally loved for his courage, learning, and virtue.

-
There is speculation that had Germanicus lived, he would have conquered and civilization the barbarian Germans to the east of the Rhine and thereby saved the Empire from the barbarian invasions centuries later. What a different world it would be had the barbarian lands been incorporated into the Empire and the Empire had endured far past the fifth century!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 09:49 AM (+y/Ru)

86 Re-read "Go the F*ck to Sleep", after I showed it to my neighbor. Otherwise, the HQ is the sum total of my reading for this week.

Oops. Sorry. G'mornin', Hordelings.

Posted by: creeper at April 14, 2019 09:50 AM (cXTEt)

87 I'm currently reading The Brethren by John Grisham.

I went to 3 yard sales, a flea market and a Library book sale yesterday.

I bought 24 books, a half round file (which I didn't really need) and a 3/8 dr. ratchet (which I did need)

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:50 AM (+uzZH)

88 ( I've been reading nautical history and really wanted to use the word "hove" )

Well, you hove at it !

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:51 AM (+uzZH)

89 I finished the second chapter of Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae in which she deviates from a lot of art historians (or at least I think she does; this isn't something in my wheelhouse) by making Egypt part and parcel of western art. Coming on the heels of Herodotus's second book, it's like I'm rereading things with a new perspective. I will slowly wend my way through this because everything Hurricane Camille writes is supersaturated with ideas that sometimes I just have to reflect slowly on just what she's talking about. I really think that this is the essential work of hers to read and everything subsequent is on a slightly lower level. Sometimes people peak early.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 09:51 AM (y7DUB)

90 I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I'm done
with it.

The hillbilly who sings "Re-Enlistment Blues" is Merle Travis, author of "Sixteen Tons" and "Dark as A Dungeon." Pretty important guy in the history of guitar playing.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 09:52 AM (8ZmvG)

91 And Eris, you could totally rock a JRRT tattoo.

Those are my initials !

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:52 AM (+uzZH)

92 If you can't be ... with the one you hove ... hove the one you're with.

Posted by: The Ugly American at April 14, 2019 09:53 AM (O+0DS)

93 I want to get into those pants and read War And Peace. In Russian.

Posted by: Fritz at April 14, 2019 09:53 AM (LuPts)

94 at a time that Afghanistan is about to blow.

-
So a time much like any time.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 09:53 AM (+y/Ru)

95 Between ten and twenty years ago, there was a "how to pedophile" book available on amazon. I wrote a letter to amazon, like many other people, and suggested that maybe amazon didn't want to carry books that taught people how to do crimes. I got a reply which included a lot of what is now obviously a pile of crap about free speech. Or amazon has brought in so many H1B folks from exciting far-away lands that they do not feel any safer than the damned fools running Britain.

Posted by: Tonestaple at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (3OrOQ)

96 Oh, I have such a Nerd Brag today.

No. 1 Nerd Boy is coming home this week (he's on his own in CA now) and we're going to the Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan in NYC.

Oh, you say. I've read LoTR, what's the big deal? Well have you read all of the posthumous works? More to the point, do you have a JRRT tattoo?

He does.

http://bit.ly/2KE3SqY
Posted by: Bandersnatch

................

Cool beans!

In my office at work, I have a framed poster of Toklien's painting of Bilbo riding one of the barrels with the dwarves.. it is one of those memorial posters of an art exhibit at, oddly enough, the Bodleian Library!

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (438dO)

97 ( I've been reading nautical history and really wanted to use the word "hove" )
Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 09:49 AM (UdKB7)

Well done!

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (OX9vb)

98 Sympathetic about horde suffering with miserable weather. Here it has been rain,rain and mor rain but yesterday was glorious. 70 degrees, sunny and breezy. Walked in the park for an hour. Made me think about this new thing called Forest Bathing. Anybody heard about this? Sounds very decadent.

Posted by: Sharon at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (QzF6i)

99 the EARLY Doonsbury (when they were actually funny)....
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (bmdz3)

I don't see this often enough. Doonesbury was actually funny at one time. Then Ronald Reagan was elected and Garry Trudeau came back a full blown SJW after his hiatus. Shame really. He was originally even handed in skewering sacred shibboleths of both the right and left.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (3sjI6)

100 Germanicus was poisoned, right?

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 09:55 AM (dm05u)

101 So Robinson wrote a book, Mohammad's Koran: Why Muslims Kill For Islam that does something interesting:
...
Alert morons will have noticed that the book link I provided is not to Amazon, as is my usual custom. That's because Amazon stopped selling the book, and they won't say why.

I went to your link and the ability to buy this book via PayPal seems to have been shut-down.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 09:55 AM (5Yee7)

102 I picked up The Guns at Last Light at a yard sale this morn on the way home from the supermarket.

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:55 AM (+uzZH)

103 enjoy Winnie-The-Pooh, especially with the original Sheperd illustrations. But I knew nothing about Milne's non-Winnie writing. Well, I've been missing a lot. I found a collection of Milne's short works, "The Sunny Side, Short Stories and Poems For Proper Grown-ups" he did for Punch magazine that was originally published in 1921. It is a wonderful surprise and reminds me of a subtler version of PG Wodehouse. I just started it but so far it is delightful.

Look for "Once Upon a Time," too, if it isn't contained in your collection. Ostensibly written for children, but with subtle adult, if gentle, humor woven in.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 14, 2019 09:56 AM (bZ7mE)

104 "Forest Bathing."

Roll around in some pine straw? No thanks.

I bet the number of 'forest bathers" who rate as 1s=0

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 09:57 AM (UdKB7)

105 Made me think about this new thing called Forest Bathing. Anybody heard about this? Sounds very decadent.
Posted by: Sharon

Go on........

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 09:57 AM (+uzZH)

106 Life is good when you live in District 1
Yeah, you might think so. But then you could be working in a sanctuary city for crap pay and have to listen to your boss rave about how intelligent Obama is. And in your precinct, Trump took 9% of the vote.

Posted by: Miley, the Duchess at April 14, 2019 09:58 AM (NMAzL)

107 In my office at work, I have a framed poster of Toklien's painting of Bilbo riding one of the barrels with the dwarves.. it is one of those memorial posters of an art exhibit at, oddly enough, the Bodleian Library!
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (438dO)

Why "oddly enough"? Tolkien was an Oxford Don and is still considered a luminary at Oxford.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 09:59 AM (3sjI6)

108 Oops

Posted by: Miley, the Duchess at April 14, 2019 09:59 AM (NMAzL)

109 Forest bathing is just a fancy phrase for having a walk in a forest. Something I try to do weekly, as I enjoy the forest, wildlife, bird watching, etc.

Good morning, Horde!

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at April 14, 2019 09:59 AM (w7KSn)

110 Amazon stopped selling the book, and they won't say why.

-
They're allergic to beheadings?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:00 AM (+y/Ru)

111 Forest bathing is just a fancy phrase for having a walk in a forest

Oh.

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 10:01 AM (+uzZH)

112 Forest bathing sounds like something those loons who were mourning for the trees would do.

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 10:01 AM (sdi6R)

113 Hmm...forest bathing. Sounds new-agey for wandering in the woods, which is how I spent my youth. I grew up in the woods, and wasn't much of an athlete. So, while my siblings were playing sports after school, I was out wandering in the woods, looking at bugs and rocks and listening to the streams babble and the wind sighing in the trees.

It's sad to me that people need a "guide" for this.

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 10:01 AM (OX9vb)

114 'Forest bathing is just a fancy phrase for having a walk in a forest. '

That's a relief. I was expecting something along the lines of Lena shaving her legs while sitting in a tree.

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:02 AM (UdKB7)

115 Amazon stopped selling the book, and they won't say why.

-
They're allergic to beheadings?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:00 AM (+y/Ru)

Well, they've already had their genitalia cut off, so what's one more body part?

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 10:02 AM (3sjI6)

116 'Forest bathing is just a fancy phrase for having a walk in a forest. '

That's a relief. I was expecting something along the lines of Lena shaving her legs while sitting in a tree.
Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:02 AM (UdKB7)

"The Horror.......the horror". *dies

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 10:04 AM (3sjI6)

117 *visits JRRT show site*

Awwww!!!

"No masks, wizard staffs, scepters, axes, bow and arrows, or swords are permitted"

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:04 AM (kQs4Y)

118 Always fascinated by Gore Vidal I just started "Williwaw", a book I've never before read. Vidal was a fine writer, though he went through life encumbered by a poisonous personality, and he wrote this book just after finishing boarding school. Because of the war he delayed going to college and instead was assigned as a sailor on an Army supply ship in the Aleutians. Looking forward to the read.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, no recent arrests at April 14, 2019 10:06 AM (Z216Q)

119 Forest bathing is just a fancy phrase for having a walk in a forest

Remember, Outside is trying to kill you.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 14, 2019 10:06 AM (NWiLs)

120 Wifey and I take some interest in local real estate trends.
There is a place we saw for sale, the property is very close to the 280 freeway. It was originally one of those Earthquake shacks (one room, 25'x10' with a pot belly stove) and is in tumble down condition, with bars over the windows.
Listing price $780k, will likely close for $850k.
New owner will likely tear it all down, except for one window, that way they can call it a remodel.
It has a pending offer.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/12-Baden-SF_rb/

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at April 14, 2019 10:06 AM (w7KSn)

121 Well, that's annoying. When I try to buy Tommy Robinson's book, PayPal says, "Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later."

It does seem the PayPal link has been shut down, probably pending "investigation."

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at April 14, 2019 10:07 AM (FXjhj)

122 Has anyone here read Nabokov's first full length book Mary? I'm to the point of his biography where he's written it and I'm waiting for a library copy to be transferred from another branch. It's less than 200 pages and won't take long to get through I'm sure. His short stories continue to get better as he matures, which isn't a great shock.

I'm to the point in A People's Tragedy when Lenin has taken over everything that was so fucking disjointed in execution, including not understanding that some adjoining cannons to the Winter Palace were non functioning replicas, that it reads like a fucking farce which eventually got a hundred million people croaked. Even on the day of the takeover Lenin was disguised under a wig and almost got arrested; can you imagine a Rooski Monty Python doing a sketch of that with a garish clown wig before being packed off to the Gulag? Nabokov's father was briefly mentioned as being in England when this happened which was fortunate for him.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 10:07 AM (y7DUB)

123 Stranded at the inlaws with nothing but 'The Disaster Artist' for company. It's an OK read, but I feel unsatisfied. Way too superficial book about an interesting subject. And the narrator if kind of dull. Still, gonna watch 'The Room' again when I get home.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at April 14, 2019 10:09 AM (TzboQ)

124 How can colleges charge citizens with out of state tuition but illegals get in state rates?

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=12082

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 10:09 AM (JFO2v)

125 Jake, I found "Six Frigates" to be a fantastic read. Also, it got me reading a few other books about the establishment and early uses of the US Navy. Interesting and exciting stuff.
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:43 AM

I'm at the part of the book when William Bainbridge surrendered his ship the USS Philadelphia to the Tripoli pirates after running aground. He had previously surrendered his ship the USS Retaliation to the French in the West Indies in 1798. He thought the French ships he approached were British. He would have a long career in the navy. They didn't have the zero-defect mentality back then like the navy does today.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 14, 2019 10:09 AM (TDyHc)

126 103 ... "Look for "Once Upon a Time," too, if it isn't contained in your collection. Ostensibly written for children, but with subtle adult, if gentle, humor woven in."

Grey Fox, Thanks. Just ordered a free Kindle version. Also, there is a new paperback edition for about 6 dollars on Amazon prime.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:09 AM (bmdz3)

127 My book club read The Grapes of Wrath and A Tale of Two Cities back to back. They are now in full revolt. Happy book or bust! I could suggest King Lear. Then they would burn my house down! LOL

Posted by: jmel at April 14, 2019 10:10 AM (OeWgo)

128 Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 10:01 AM (OX9vb)

If that's "forest bathing", I was in the tub until I pruned.

I was surrounded by an ever-changing tapestry of Nature. It was never not fascinating. And yes, the bugs alone were enough to keep me occupied: bees, wasps, caterpillars, butterflies, mantids, walking sticks...

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:11 AM (kQs4Y)

129 100: "germanizes was poisoned, right...?"

didius julianus was stabbed to death, like his predecessor. his last words were "but what evil have i done? who have i killed?"

by the second century subtleties were not observed.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 10:11 AM (Pg+x7)

130 The Irish were trying to mimic the American Revolution, but the Brits were only a hundred miles away.

When the Home Rule movement failed because the Lords exercised a veto, the Irish used the Brits own electoral machinery to declare a Republic. Instead of voting for a Congresscritter in the London Parliament, you could vote for a avowed separatist, who carried a majority for an independent republic. So Michael Collins had some legitimacy as the the general of the Irish Republic.

He still had to live a life on the run, directing operations by riding around Dublin on a bicycle. The Brits didn't have his picture, which proved an advantage.

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 14, 2019 10:11 AM (1UZdv)

131 The point of forest bathing is spot-on, though. People need to get out and just soak it up.

I see so many people taking a walk in the woods with earbuds in, moving as fast as they can, heads down, and I'm sad that they are missing the opportunity to hear the natural world and let it be healing for them.

I know I sound like a hippie right here, but God gave us this beauty and it seems wrong to shut it out when you're out in it.

Posted by: April at April 14, 2019 10:11 AM (OX9vb)

132 See, Isenberg spelled it "Shari'ah" too, and yet I get laughed at and called a "Nazi Idiot" on Twitter for spelling it that way.

Posted by: Hikaru at April 14, 2019 10:12 AM (vmRc0)

133 Reading Roger Scruton's A Short History of Modern Philosophy, and it is definitely not a light read. I can hear him speaking the words as I'm reading them, so that helps when diving into metaphysics. I may have to read it twice to make sure I'm getting the whole message.

Coincidentally, this past week Roger Scruton was thrown off of a British Council on buildings and beautification of cities b/c he is conservative and not one with the Borg. He exhibits wrong speak/think! It is quite awful how the Left is silencing anyone who has a differing opinion or an alternate approach to life.

It is doubly awful to silence Scruton, as his Why Beauty Matters documentary is simply stunning, poignant, true, and tragic all at once.

Posted by: squeakywheel at April 14, 2019 10:13 AM (VoolF)

134 Germanicus was poisoned, right?
---
That's the rumor. Maybe he just ate some bad figs.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:14 AM (kQs4Y)

135 Has anyone actually read Proust's Remembrance of Things Past trilogy? Just wondering if it is worth the time or if it is another 'classic' that academics think is great and people who read for pleasure think sucks out loud.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:15 AM (bmdz3)

136 134 Germanicus was poisoned, right?
---
That's the rumor. Maybe he just ate some bad figs.
Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:14 AM (kQs4Y)

Leave the gladius. Take the figs.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 14, 2019 10:16 AM (NWiLs)

137 If, like me, you've never been much of a fan of Thomas Jefferson (the person, not the politician and founding father), it helps to read Christopher Hitchens excellent short biography, "Thomas Jefferson: Author Of America". Just finished reading it again, after finding it while cleaning out some piles of books from my closet. Really great little book, and I came away with a much more balanced view about Jefferson.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, no recent arrests at April 14, 2019 10:17 AM (Z216Q)

138 64 ...to 'the historical Jesus" (which makes of Christ a kind of ventriloqist dummy for whatever claptrap)...it's almost scary....

Posted by: vivi at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (11H2y)
--------------------------------------

I attended a prayer service earlier in this Lenten season, and realized that all the prayers had been rewritten in SJW-eeze, commanding us to welcome illegal immigration, etc.

Indeed the commie pope has turned the historical Jesus into Charlie McCarthy.

The church - another institution the left has marched through, and destroyed.

Posted by: Boots at April 14, 2019 10:18 AM (e9omi)

139 @89 Cap'n Hate, I have a couple of recommendations for you. To start with the notion of huge feminist minds (!) that peaked early, there is Ann Douglas, "The Feminization of American Culture," 1977. Sounds icky, no? She has a blow-by-blow of how the change of administration at the former Puritan theology schools and the disestablishment of state religions created a new class and a new power structure, from which modern liberalism and almost all Movement feminism grew. Clear-eyed and unemotional, there's no sisterhood until the epilogue. The odd thing is, she's a regular staff prof at a second-tier university, and appears to have never written another major work.

Then, for re-drawing those ancient culture boundaries, the guy who invented the idea of ecumenes that open and close, dragging civilisations along in the hove-to wake of new inventions: William McNeill, "The Rise of The West," just about the only non-leftist major historian when I was a sophomore. He just died a couple of years ago, working away on his theses until he was, I think, 98. He also led the field of "Guns Germs And Steel" with his (better, I think) "Plagues and Peoples." He took a fresh new (vintage 1963) view of everything.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 10:18 AM (8ZmvG)

140 Those pants look like a zoom suit, extravagant use of excess fabric after wartime austerity.
Which makes me wonder, why we didn't see lots of super tight outfits on Rosie the Riveter?

Posted by: Downcast at April 14, 2019 10:18 AM (E/Xic)

141 Any help would be appreciated.

Posted by: Rana at April 14, 2019 09:35 AM (sy2Wl)

Connect your Kindle to a computer and copy the entire thing. At least you will have a shot at recovering the books that way.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 10:18 AM (wYseH)

142 How can colleges charge citizens with out of state tuition but illegals get in state rates?
-
Because it's a mixed up, muddled up, sup world, except for Lola
La-la-la-la Lola

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:19 AM (+y/Ru)

143 I continue to suffer loss of sleep, ED, and dyspepsia from exposure to the Hillary! pants picture on this Thread.

That picture needs to be declared a Superfund site.

Posted by: J. Random Book Thread Reader at April 14, 2019 10:19 AM (9Dn/j)

144 There is no way I would get a tattoo but if I did that JRR Tolkien initial one would be it. I'll just settle for all the books by and regarding Tolkien I can get.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:21 AM (bmdz3)

145 A MERIT-MONGER is someone who only does good on the promise of personal gain.

Usage: Merit-mongers are better than virtue-signalers because they actually do something instead of preening and putting on airs.

SJW's are Supererogatory Merit-Mongers. If you donate to the Democrat party, we can give you indulgences based on what they've accumulated in their treasury of merit.

Posted by: Johann Tetzel at April 14, 2019 10:21 AM (/qEW2)

146 re the Tommy Robinson book -- A Conjecture

Amazon.uk may have blocked the book as hate speech; hell, it's possible Tommy asked it not be listed in the UK so he isn't arrested (again).

As to why Amazon US would censor it, I haven't a clue. Special favor?

Robert Spencer is a US citizen (blocked from visiting the UK, btw), so Amazon censoring him would be a bit more 'in your face'.

Just speculating.

Posted by: GnuBreed at April 14, 2019 10:21 AM (Z4rgH)

147 I got Libertys Last Stand audiobook from the library, listening in the car. Just a little ways into it, but good so far. When I finish, i might have to read one of the Kurt Schlichter novels for comparison.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at April 14, 2019 10:22 AM (RJscS)

148 why would you not like Jefferson? (serious q)

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 10:22 AM (dm05u)

149 EBOOKMAR looks legit, but it is an odd site;Very limited search and it's inventory does not seem to be organized in any particular way, and you can't sort.

Posted by: Mike at April 14, 2019 10:23 AM (wG9U4)

150 Right now I am reading Hunting Trips of a Ranchman by Theodore Roosevelt. Interesting view of the Western lands before the great migration.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at April 14, 2019 10:23 AM (OHZm8)

151 I went to your link and the ability to buy this book via PayPal seems to have been shut-down.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 09:55 AM (5Yee7)

Right. I think Paypal de-platformed Tommy a while back.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:23 AM (R99o4)

152 42
He was finally assassinated at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, after ruling only three years, but "at first no one would believe that he had really been assassinated, and suspected that the story was invented and circulated by himself to discover what people thought of him".

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:29 AM (kQs4Y)

That sounds almost Stalinesque.

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 10:24 AM (sdi6R)

153 . At the Old Man's estate auction his old Britannicas and other encyclopedias went for pretty good coin, considering that a few years ago they couldn't be given away; people know that Leftists are screwing with our heritage.

Roger that.

I have 1959 series Britannicas and what is between the covers is quite different from what is on wikipedia and other sources today.

Posted by: Blue Bird of F'ing Joy at April 14, 2019 10:24 AM (lD3vL)

154 Funny that OregonMuse mentions Rebellion in the lede. It's about how Irish attitudes hardened in favor of rebellion in response to British atrocities.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that these atrocities were Churchill's policies, and flowed from his looking down (racially) on his Celtic countrymen, the Irish most of all. And that this, and the terms of the initial peace treaty which led to Irish civil war, were why Ireland maintained strict neutrality in WWII.

I admire Churchill, but if it weren't for WWII, he would have gone down in history as a colossal failure. Gallipolli anyone?

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 14, 2019 10:24 AM (1UZdv)

155 Walking in the park yesterday, I felt like I understood forest bathing. I took it to mean a kind of serenity achieved by listening to nature and feeling at peace with the world. Of course I had headphones on and was listening to hot country music, park was packed with people walking dogs, playing basketball, runners, walkers and bench sitters watching the ducks. My kind of Zen.

Posted by: Sharon at April 14, 2019 10:25 AM (QzF6i)

156 TJ has always been one of my favorite presidents. Revisionist history has made him out to be a evil racist slave raper.

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:25 AM (UdKB7)

157 I don't see this often enough. Doonesbury was actually funny at one time. Then Ronald Reagan was elected and Garry Trudeau came back a full blown SJW after his hiatus. Shame really. He was originally even handed in skewering sacred shibboleths of both the right and left.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (3sjI6)
---
Yeah, "Megaphone Mark" Slackmeyer was skewered for being an upper-middle class radical. It really was a great little comic up until about 1984 (!).

I liked Mike's crazy lab partner, and of course Zonker traipsing through his rainbow-colored mental fantasy land, where being a competitive tanner was a calling.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:26 AM (kQs4Y)

158 why would you not like Jefferson? (serious q)
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 10:22 AM

The aires he took on after he moved uptown?

Posted by: J. Random Book Thread Reader at April 14, 2019 10:26 AM (9Dn/j)

159 If you approach [books], they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you.
From The Old Farmer's Almanac Sampler, 1957.

That's kind of a problem. Too often I've read books and thought, "I'm not getting this. If only the author could rise up, I'd ask him a question and he'd say, 'No, dummy, this is what I mean'". A bug, not a feature.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at April 14, 2019 10:28 AM (/qEW2)

160 Right. I think Paypal de-platformed Tommy a while back.
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:23 AM (R99o4)

It was being sold under the auspices of the co-author (McLaughlin): he seems to have been deplatformed also, now.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 10:29 AM (5Yee7)

161 Speaking of evil racist slave rapers, it's hard to dismiss this from Mark Twain:

Twain opposed Theodor Herzl's plan for a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. He argued that "if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the world was going to be made in a free country . . . , I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race find out its strength.

Was MT antisemitic? Can this be interpeted as anything but?

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:29 AM (UdKB7)

162 Gallipolli anyone?

-
No thanks. I just Gallipped.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:29 AM (+y/Ru)

163 Too often I've read books and thought, "I'm not getting this. If only the author could rise up, I'd ask him a question and he'd say, 'No, dummy, this is what I mean'".

Have you seen Annie Hall?

Posted by: Marshal McCluhan at April 14, 2019 10:31 AM (fuK7c)

164 I love the dystopian venn diagram. Silly people have argued over whether 1984 or Brave New World is more accurate. But we've come to an intersection of that, and now we are entering into Fahrenheit 451 type censorship. Funny and ridiculous but accurate.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at April 14, 2019 10:31 AM (/qEW2)

165 Tommy Robinson is couragenus. He also exemplifies the wisdom of breaking away from the Crown 250+ yrs ago.

Posted by: kallisto at April 14, 2019 10:31 AM (d6Zcu)

166 If you donate to the Democrat party, we can give you indulgences based on what they've accumulated in their treasury of merit.

Posted by: Johann Tetzel at April 14, 2019 10:21 AM (/qEW2)

More like treasury of vomit.

Posted by: Miley, the Duchess at April 14, 2019 10:32 AM (NMAzL)

167 btw, ntim,

tony finau who is near the lead in the masters is of tongan/samoan ancestry. first such on the pga tour.

pretty cool.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 10:34 AM (Pg+x7)

168 Looking at the CLFA ballot, I have read only one of the books: Making Peace, by Adam Lane Smith, which is excellent. Highly recommended.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at April 14, 2019 10:34 AM (RJscS)

169 156 TJ has always been one of my favorite presidents. Revisionist history has made him out to be a evil racist slave raper.
Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:25 AM (UdKB7)

There will ultimately be a "Reverse One Drop Rule", where anybody with even one drop of white blood will be an automatic Racist.

Posted by: Hikaru at April 14, 2019 10:34 AM (vmRc0)

170 42 He was finally assassinated at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, after ruling only three years, but "at first no one would believe that he had really been assassinated, and suspected that the story was invented and circulated by himself to discover what people thought of him".

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 09:29 AM (kQs4Y)

Holy crap. That sounds like something Lord Vetinari would do.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:35 AM (R99o4)

171 Determined to learn who was behind the murder of his chief minister, but unable to trust his officials, the sultan turns to one of the smartest people he knows: Omar Khayyam--astronomer, mathematician, poet, scholar of Hadith, and lover of wine.

I'll bet the secret exists somewhere within the ruby yacht of Omar Khayyam.

Posted by: Bullwinkle J. Moose at April 14, 2019 10:36 AM (/qEW2)

172 What a different world it would be had the barbarian lands been
incorporated into the Empire and the Empire had endured far past the
fifth century!

Speaking of why you would not like Jefferson, you'll want to find where he and J.Adams argued the supposed virtues of The Matter of Rome. Adams and I agree that the Romans were fucked-up mafia assholes with good PR. Several Roman writers openly admired the German tribes for their honesty and manliness, which were lacking even in the Republic.

An Indiana general penned what seems to me an immortal line, "I tell you, when Rome falls, there will be such a shout of freedom as the world has never heard!" but maybe I am a little biased by how it was delivered.

And I don't want to hear about their damned sewers. Their sewers emptied into the Tiber. That's some typical Roman shit right there.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 10:36 AM (8ZmvG)

173 There will ultimately be a "Reverse One Drop Rule", where anybody with even one drop of white blood will be an automatic Racist.

-
We're all racists now.

https://bit.ly/2UEzn8X

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (+y/Ru)

174 This is what you give our children to read? This Ruby Hat of Omar Ky-yi-yi... I am APPALLED!

Posted by: Mrs. Shinn at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (NWiLs)

175 99 the EARLY Doonsbury (when they were actually funny)....
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 09:34 AM (bmdz3)
I don't see this often enough. Doonesbury was actually funny at one time. Then Ronald Reagan was elected and Garry Trudeau came back a full blown SJW after his hiatus.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (3sjI6)

William F. Buckley actually wrote a foward to one of the early Doonesbury collections.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:38 AM (R99o4)

176 Why "oddly enough"? Tolkien was an Oxford Don and is still considered a luminary at Oxford.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male
........

The pic of the library on top is the Bodleian Library!

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 10:39 AM (438dO)

177
why would you not like Jefferson? (serious q)
=================

I thought he was a hypocritical coward, for living the profligate Cavalier life and yet avoiding a duel after supposedly bedding the wife of a neighbor. I thought it possible he sold his own children when bankruptcy loomed and he sold some slaves to keep the banks at bay. I always wondered if he did, but Hitchens thinks it unlikely.

And I thought the whole Alien and Sedition Act mess he orchestrated in his fight with Adams was a very low blow, the act of a smart and completely amoral politician taking advantage of a new President. Then, he also promised to free Sally Hemmings at his death and didn't. Bill Safire said that Martha Jefferson Randolph (daughter) did free her finally though, and also then bought her a house in Arlington for her retirement years along with giving her a pension.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, no recent arrests at April 14, 2019 10:39 AM (Z216Q)

178 Speaking of fine writing . . .

https://bit.ly/2VFXAIE

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:39 AM (+y/Ru)

179 173 We're all racists now.

https://bit.ly/2UEzn8X
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (+y/Ru)

OK, but where's the "88" to go along with the 14?

Posted by: Hikaru at April 14, 2019 10:39 AM (vmRc0)

180 176 Why "oddly enough"? Tolkien was an Oxford Don and is still considered a luminary at Oxford.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male

You had to get his blessing before having anyone at Oxford whacked.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 14, 2019 10:40 AM (NWiLs)

181 Book nerds

Posted by: JackStraw at April 14, 2019 10:40 AM (/tuJf)

182 In re: Descendants of slave owners and/or slaves.
Historical Projection is a modern convenience of infinite supply; thus it is absolutely worthless.

Posted by: klaftern at April 14, 2019 10:41 AM (RuIsu)

183 We're all racists now.
https://bit.ly/2UEzn8X
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (+y/Ru)

Yup.....too funny!

I don't want to drink my whisky like you do
I don't need to spend my money but still do
Don't stop now a c'mon
Another drop now c'mon
I wanna lot now so c'mon
That's right, that's right

I said Mama but we're all rayciss now
I said Mama but we're all rayciss now
I said Mama but we're all rayciss now.....

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 14, 2019 10:41 AM (Z+IKu)

184 175
William F. Buckley actually wrote a foward to one of the early Doonesbury collections.
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:38 AM (R99o4)

Did he write the fo'ward in the fo'c'sle of his yacht?

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 10:42 AM (sdi6R)

185 I don't see this often enough. Doonesbury was actually funny at one time. Then Ronald Reagan was elected and Garry Trudeau came back a full blown SJW after his hiatus.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 09:54 AM (3sjI6)

When you hear progressives weeping and wailing about Trump and waving their hands trying to convince you that he's just beyond the pale of what's acceptable, remember that's how progressives viewed Ronald Reagan. The only difference is, (a) Unlike Reagan, Trump gets into the mud with the mud-slingers and fights back, hand-to-hand combat and (b) conservatives have a louder voice.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:42 AM (R99o4)

186 Posted by: Insomniac at April 14, 2019 10:40 AM (NWiLs)

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:42 AM (kQs4Y)

187 I may have mentioned a novel by an NPR chick of all things Mary louise Kelly, the story behind with a murder at Harvard investigated by said reporters altsr ego traipsed to cambridge comes back to a Pakistani nuclear plot, the twist is and perhaps the writer didnt realize this the villain is a crotchety old spy who is just like John brennan who is in league with the terrorists

Posted by: Admiral marcus at April 14, 2019 10:43 AM (Su5UX)

188 Oh yeah, I also began a new Flavia de Luce mystery. As tweener toxic chemical and poison enthusiast Flavia says, “I’d like to remark at the outset that I’m just a girl with a better than average brain. Just as some people are given the gift of a singular and quite often remarkable talent – such as Violet Cornish’s uncanny ability to break wind to the tune of “Joy to the World” – I myself, in much the same way, have been blessed with the power of logical thinking.”

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:43 AM (kQs4Y)

189 the Romans were fucked-up mafia assholes with good PR.

-
The Romans remind me of ourselves and Dickens. They and we are the best of people and the worst of people . . .

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:44 AM (+y/Ru)

190 Have you seen Annie Hall?
Posted by: Marshal McCluhan at April 14, 2019 10:31 AM (fuK7c)

I'm not a pretentious humanities professor, but yes, I would want correction or clarification.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at April 14, 2019 10:45 AM (/qEW2)

191 The pic of the library on top is the Bodleian Library!
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at April 14, 2019 10:39 AM (438dO)

Maybe "coincidentally" as opposed to "oddly enough".

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 10:46 AM (3sjI6)

192 If you're interested in a fictionalized treatment of the founding fathers political battles and the Alien and Sedition Acts, I recommend William Safire's novel, "Scandalmonger". An entertaining read and full of detail about the private scandals of Jefferson, Hamilton and the arguments in Washington's cabinet in the early years of the Republic. Lots of good history in it too, and Safire's meticulous research makes it all very interesting.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, no recent arrests at April 14, 2019 10:48 AM (Z216Q)

193 Did he write the fo'ward in the fo'c'sle of his yacht?

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 10:42 AM (sdi6R)

Ever read Buckley's "Blackford Oakes" spy novels? Pretty damned good!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 10:49 AM (wYseH)

194 'the whole Alien and Sedition Act mess he orchestrated in his fight with Adams'

Federalist John Adams? Oh boo hoo.

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:49 AM (UdKB7)

195 " ... such as Violet Cornish's uncanny ability to break wind to the tune of "Joy to the World" -- I myself, in much the same way, have been blessed with the power of logical thinking."

It's clear to all of us who possess the latter that the former will destroy all of us in the next twelve years.

Posted by: AOC at April 14, 2019 10:50 AM (9Dn/j)

196 Off into the woods with the doggehs. They are impatient. How do they know it's Sunday and they get the extra long hike? Hope everyone has a great reading day!

Posted by: Huck Follywood, no recent arrests at April 14, 2019 10:50 AM (Z216Q)

197 Without protection from the British Navy, American ships were being attacked in the Mediterranean and their crew enslaved. When ambassador John Adams asked the ambassador from Tripoli why they made war on nations without provocation, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman replied that “It was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in the Koran that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” This was the real reason Jefferson owned a Koran. He simply wanted to understand the threat Jihadism posed to his nation. More than a million Christians were taken prisoner and enslaved by the North Africans.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:50 AM (kQs4Y)

198 But was he unfairly maligned?

https://www.emmasouthon.com/blog/2018/6/19/
bad-emperors-caligula

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor Al

she makes him sound like Barky - unprepared partier raised to hate the state he's handed the reins of

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 10:51 AM (dm05u)

199 Someone from the hord with books needs this house! Room to store about 30k books.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/24-champion-dr-rogers-ar_rb/

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 10:52 AM (JFO2v)

200 The Dystopian Overlap:

I have read that the top, I don't know, 4 or 5 wealthiest counties in the United States are grouped in and around the Washington DC area. So I think I'd add The Hunger Games to that Venn Diagram. Live is good when you live in District 1.
_______

How N.I.C.E. for them.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 10:53 AM (VaN/j)

201 Ah, covfefe.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 14, 2019 10:54 AM (NWiLs)

202 "more than a million christians were taken prisoner and enslaved by north africans..."

i don't know why the european powers didn't put off their competition, band together and eliminate the enemy at their common border.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 10:55 AM (Pg+x7)

203 Ever read Buckley's "Blackford Oakes" spy novels? Pretty damned good!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 10:49 AM (wYseH)

I read one a long time ago, and I don't remember much about it other than thinking it wasn't all that.

Of course, I'm one of a tiny, tiny minority of conservatives who thinks that WFBuckley was overrated as a writer.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:55 AM (R99o4)

204 https://www.zillow.com/homes/24-champion-dr-rogers-ar_rb/
----
Barely adequate!

Actually, that's a lot of house/grounds for a mil. But then I'm used to East Coast/Hawaii real estate prices.

Posted by: Frau Doktor Professor All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 14, 2019 10:55 AM (kQs4Y)

205 Yes the Rebellion. I watched it for the history and did not know as well. My Irish side intrigued me to watch it.

Posted by: Bye Gone at April 14, 2019 10:55 AM (C4WwT)

206 How N.I.C.E. for them.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 10:53 AM (VaN/j)

Oh, now *there's* a dystopia for you. I had quite forgotten about that one.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:56 AM (R99o4)

207 I've been reading a number of articles about reloading rifle ammo. Some were about loading for sorta obscure calibers (these days) such as 22 Hornet and 222 Remington. Others were about reduced power cast bullet loads and gallery loads for old battle rifles. Interesting stuff if you enjoy the topic.

Also, I got the latest version of Gun Digest Assembly and Disassembly of centerfire rifles. Valuable information when you need it.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:58 AM (bmdz3)

208 I read one a long time ago, and I don't remember much about it other than thinking it wasn't all that.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 10:55 AM (R99o4)

I haven't read one in a very long time, but I got a chuckle out of them. I thought they were well written and, interestingly, recognized the reality of geopolitics, something that most spy novels fall short at...

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 11:00 AM (wYseH)

209 Someone from the hord with books needs this house! Room to store about 30k books.

I'm gettin' there !

Posted by: JT at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (+uzZH)

210 We're all racists now.

https://bit.ly/2UEzn8X
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (+y/Ru)\

.............

Holy smokes, I wandered into the twitter account of that guy. Bat. Shit. Crazy.

Posted by: Molly k. at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (8cQSK)

211 I don't like Adams much. Seemed like the archetypal GOPer to me, him and John Quincy

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (dm05u)

212 I went to your link and the ability to buy this book via PayPal seems to have been shut-down.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 09:55 AM (5Yee7)

Not surprising, Paypal is part of the SJW Axis. They ought to stockpile some books in the USA, and in Canada, and sell them by good old-fashioned mail order. "Send a check or money order for $22 to "our address here", and receive the book by return mail."

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (TfwlC)

213 202
i don't know why the european powers didn't put off their competition, band together and eliminate the enemy at their common border.
Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 10:55 AM (Pg+x7)

I know, right?

Posted by: Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (sdi6R)

214 22 Hornet

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:58 AM (bmdz3)

The first center-fire rifle I ever fired! A friend's dad had a gorgeous Anschutz bolt action (left handed!) which he let me fire and even take woodchuck hunting when I was a kid.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 11:02 AM (wYseH)

215 Someone from the hord with books needs this house! Room to store about 30k books.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/24-champion-dr-rogers-ar_rb/
Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 10:52 AM (JFO2v)

*browses*

Oh hey, it's got a mikvah right in the master bathroom.

Posted by: hogmartin invites you to the summer MIMoMe (link: nick) at April 14, 2019 11:05 AM (t+qrx)

216 13
During the run up to the Quasi-War a Federalist recruiting ad read: "Your country, my boys, is threatened with invasion! Your houses and farms with fire, plunder, and pillage! and your wives and daughters with ravishment and assassination by horrid outlandish sans-culotte Frenchmen!" Pantsless Frenchmen? People will say anything to support a war.
Posted by: Jake Holenhead at April 14, 2019 09:11 AM (TDyHc)
_______

Well, the French navy had put up one of their better performances during our Revolutionary War. Much better than in the previous one, or the next.

Neither Jefferson nor Madison was a good president for the Navy. In 1812, Madison intended to decommission the frigates after the opening stages. They were to be kept in service only until they'd shepherded in our trade. Then, for some reason, it was decided they were of some use after all. (One Hull balanced the other's disgrace.)

The only trouble with our big 44-gun frigates was that they were very expensive to maintain and operation. In this they resemble their conceptual descendants, the Alaska class of WWII.

On bugaboo I have is the constant use of "Alien and Sedition Acts" as if they were one thing. There was nothing objectionable about the Alien Acts. They were just an effort at immigration control.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:06 AM (VaN/j)

217 Has anyone actually read Proust's Remembrance of Things Past trilogy? Just wondering if it is worth the time or if it is another 'classic' that academics think is great and people who read for pleasure think sucks out loud.
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:15 AM (bmdz3)

Depends on what you're looking for. Marcel is pretty much someone we'd ridicule for being a fop and a douche and there are pages and pages where nothing fucking happens. That said, if you're in the right mindset you can just lose yourself in the world he creates and it's a reasonably good look at societal change. The only thing that comes to mind on comparing it to is late Henry James but even that is different. Proust deals with memory through involuntary flashbacks triggered by things that at first make you wonder what it's leading to until you see it, assuming you haven't given up.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 11:08 AM (y7DUB)

218 See, Isenberg spelled it "Shari'ah" too, and yet I get laughed at and called a "Nazi Idiot" on Twitter for spelling it that way.
Posted by: Hikaru at April 14, 2019 10:12 AM (vmRc0)

How do the muzzies want it spelled in English, given that it's an arabic word? Learn that, and then spell it differently, just to piss them off.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 14, 2019 11:09 AM (TfwlC)

219 I haven't read one in a very long time, but I got a chuckle out of them. I thought they were well written and, interestingly, recognized the reality of geopolitics, something that most spy novels fall short at...
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 11:00 AM (wYseH

I thought maybe I wasn't being fair and perhaps I should read another one, but I just never got around to it.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:11 AM (R99o4)

220 Popping in between chores.

Dropped Churchills History of the English Speaking People, Vol. 1 for nibbling at the dense pack of ideas in Elias Canetti's 1960 book Crowds and Power. Some very keen insights. If I understand this I will be much better informed on mechanisms underpinning humanity.

For fun I read three books by Horde author A.H. Lloyd; A Man of Destiny,[ i]Rise of the Alliance, and Fall of the Commonwealth.

It is a telling of the Star Wars prequels with just enough differences (Robert Heinlein would say he filed the serial numbers off) to avoid the loosely enforced libel laws. But he avoids all the stupid emo stuff in the movies. In particular, the second book crackled with energy.

They move fast. It is not deep writing. I got the second two books and finished them both in an evening.

Good reads for fun, but you have already seen the plot and story arc somewhere else.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 14, 2019 11:11 AM (u82oZ)

221 161 Speaking of evil racist slave rapers, it's hard to dismiss this from Mark Twain:

Twain opposed Theodor Herzl's plan for a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. He argued that "if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the world was going to be made in a free country . . . , I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race find out its strength.

Was MT antisemitic? Can this be interpeted as anything but?
Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 10:29 AM (UdKB7)
_______

Actually, he was philosemitic by the standards of the time. He wrote an essay on the question; a reply to a Jew (rabbi, IIRC) who had praised him for NOT being antisemitic. His advice to them was to organize politically as an interest group. Which shows a rather blinkered American view of things. That could work here; in Russia, not so much.

He did make some "brain for business" jokes; especially involving the only people he said could compete, the Scots People were less sensitive about that sort of talk. There are two dividing lines, the Third Reich, and the spread of PC.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:14 AM (VaN/j)

222 I finished the second chapter of Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae in which she deviates from a lot of art historians (or at least I think she does; this isn't something in my wheelhouse) by making Egypt part and parcel of western art. Coming on the heels of Herodotus's second book, it's like I'm rereading things with a new perspective. I will slowly wend my way through this because everything Hurricane Camille writes is supersaturated with ideas that sometimes I just have to reflect slowly on just what she's talking about. I really think that this is the essential work of hers to read and everything subsequent is on a slightly lower level. Sometimes people peak early.
Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 09:51 AM (y7DUB)

That's a book that has been sitting on my shelf for decades now. Opened years ago, and closed again... for the combined reasons of her dense writing style, and frankly, my lack of interest in the subject matter.

I would reopen it, if it seemed worth the effort, but I'm unconvinced that it is.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:15 AM (cY3LT)

223 Holy smokes, I wandered into the twitter account of that guy. Bat. Shit. Crazy.
Posted by: Molly k. at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (8cQSK)

Or just parody. But real life has left Poe's law choking in the dust, so who knows.

Here's an exercise: come up with a parody gender identity that's so obviously a joke that it couldn't possibly be mistaken for something anyone would actually claim to identify as.

(note: this is impossible)

Posted by: hogmartin invites you to the summer MIMoMe (link: nick) at April 14, 2019 11:15 AM (t+qrx)

224 214 ... Hi CBD. Same here for a centerfire rifle. Thought it was interesting that a thread on The High Road asked about folks who still use less popular calibers compared to .308 and .223. A lot of us mentioned 22 Hornet and 222 Remington, usually belonging to their dad. In my case, my buddy was able to borrow his grandfather's rifle, which he has since inherited. He is the third generation to own it.

I don't want to hijack the book thread. (At least not too much.) I hope to go into more detail about the gun reading on tonight's gun thread.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 11:15 AM (bmdz3)

225 See, Isenberg spelled it "Shari'ah" too, and yet I get laughed at and called a "Nazi Idiot" on Twitter for spelling it that way.

The hilarious part of Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is an appendix in which he lists all of the queries and complaints from his editors and his responses.

Ed: You spell it Q'uran on page 53 and Koran on page 72.

TL: Quite so!

It brings the impishness of Peter O'Toole's portrayal of him to life.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:15 AM (fuK7c)

226 Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 10:18 AM (8ZmvG)

Thank you for those recs. I can't guarantee I'll ever get to them but they've been entered in my Goodreads to read queu.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 11:16 AM (y7DUB)

227 217 Has anyone actually read Proust's Remembrance of Things Past trilogy? Just wondering if it is worth the time or if it is another 'classic' that academics think is great and people who read for pleasure think sucks out loud.
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 10:15 AM (bmdz3)

Here is my Proust story:

When she was a girl, my daughter always had trouble going to sleep on Christmas Eve, the anticipation of opening presents had her jacked up so high. So one year, when she was about 12-13, she asked me if I could recommend a book to read on Christmas Eve after she had gone to bed, to pass the time before falling asleep. So I went to our classics library and pulled out Remembrances of Things Past, which I have never read, and handed it to her, saying, I've heard this one is pretty good. Give it a try. She told me later that it was the most incredibly boring book she had ever read, she read maybe half of the chapter, and, in her words, the guy goes on and on and on about nothing at all. It just drove her crazy.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:17 AM (R99o4)

228 i don't know why the european powers didn't put off their
competition, band together and eliminate the enemy at their common
border.

In large part, that is just what they did. You will NEVER see it mentioned or admitted amongst the moderne-conservatiste commentariat, that the threat of Barbary piracy did not go away until the French conquered Algeria in 1830. What's that you say, the French had a war and did not lose? Indeed, mo nammy, they and the Brits were having a regular race through Africa to kick Islam when it was down, or in Gordon's case, down - ish.
Fritz was getting a piece of the action too, actually had a kinda-sorta good reputation for colonial administration in some spots. There was a diplomatic and warship-parading set-to in the early 1900's on the north African coast that was heavily freighted when I studied world history, and you never -- ever -- hear about now. Oh, I'd bet the Protocols guys cover it, because the major German banks then had very Jewish-German names, and what they were up to (little different from what the French and Brits were up to) plays right down to what the Bilder-Bergers are accused of.

All these "colonialist" activities were recognized and accepted at the time as defense of Christendom, or The West, or even of universal Human Values, against the depravities that had accumulated under The Caliphate.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:18 AM (8ZmvG)

229 Or queue...

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 11:18 AM (y7DUB)

230 154
I admire Churchill, but if it weren't for WWII, he would have gone down in history as a colossal failure. Gallipolli anyone?
Posted by: Ignoramus at April 14, 2019 10:24 AM (1UZdv)
____

A failure in politics. But he'd be remembered as a writer. The English Speaking Peoples, Marlborough, and World Crisis were written before WWII.

The last affected me the most. In 7th grade, I came across the first volume (the only one my school library had), and it overwhelmed me. Really, it was comparable in effect to girls. Or almost, anyway. When I go off on the battle ship hobby horse, you can trace it all back to that book. It's a wonderful intro to becoming a naval buff.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:20 AM (VaN/j)

231 217 ... Thanks so much, Captain Hate. That was a great description of Proust's pros and cons. Think I'll get a used (cheap) copy and see if it works for me. I can always donate it to a nursing or assisted living home.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 11:20 AM (bmdz3)

232
174 This is what you give our children to read? This Ruby Hat of Omar Ky-yi-yi... I am APPALLED!

Posted by: Mrs. Shinn at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (NWiLs)

****

This comment made my day!

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at April 14, 2019 11:21 AM (NqQAS)

233 @225 "You have spelled the name of your racing camel three different ways."

"Yes. She was a magnificent beast."

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:21 AM (8ZmvG)

234 why would you not like Jefferson? (serious q)
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 10:22 AM (dm05u)

Leaving aside the slave business, for which I think his actions are mostly indefensible, my biggest gripe with Jefferson is the blind spot he had for the french, and the frankly, seditious actions he was taking while serving as Washington's Secretary of State.

Washington had no idea what Jefferson was doing, and Jefferson does not seem to have believed it was his responsibility to inform the President. So the french revolutionaries ran circles around Jefferson, coming over here and causing all sorts of trouble, to the point of prolonging American/British hostility for decades beyond the point at which it would have otherwise ended.

Yes, I believe by any legal definition of the term, Jefferson committed treason. And he got away with it because he was Jefferson.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:22 AM (cY3LT)

235 "... barbary piracy didn't go away until 1830..."

should have been 1730.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 11:22 AM (Pg+x7)

236 229 Or queue...
Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 11:18 AM (y7DUB)

--------

Cue the AoSHQ House Pedant.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at April 14, 2019 11:22 AM (4knXT)

237 @225 "You have spelled the name of your racing camel three different ways."

"Yes. She was a magnificent beast."

Exactly!

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:23 AM (fuK7c)

238 227 ... "When she was a girl, my daughter always had trouble going to sleep on Christmas Eve, the anticipation of opening presents had her jacked up so high. So one year, when she was about 12-13, she asked me if I could recommend a book to read on Christmas Eve after she had gone to bed, to pass the time before falling asleep. So I went to our classics library and pulled out Remembrances of Things Past, which I have never read, and handed it to her, saying, I've heard this one is pretty good. Give it a try. She told me later that it was the most incredibly boring book she had ever read, she read maybe half of the chapter, and, in her words, the guy goes on and on and on about nothing at all. It just drove her crazy."

OM, That is funny and maybe prophetic. Now I'm wondering if I have the same literary taste as a 12 year old girl. LOL!

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 11:26 AM (bmdz3)

239 210 We're all racists now.
https://bit.ly/2UEzn8X
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (+y/Ru)\
.............
Holy smokes, I wandered into the twitter account of that guy. Bat. Shit. Crazy.
Posted by: Molly k. at April 14, 2019 11:01 AM (8cQSK

Wait, are we sure this is not parody Twitter account? I know there are some good ones ones out there, like Titania McGrath and Wrightly Willowleaf. Oh, and Geoffrey Elfwick, although I think he got banned again.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:26 AM (R99o4)

240 138 64 ...to 'the historical Jesus" (which makes of Christ a kind of ventriloqist dummy for whatever claptrap)...it's almost scary....

Posted by: vivi at April 14, 2019 09:38 AM (11H2y)
--------------------------------------

I attended a prayer service earlier in this Lenten season, and realized that all the prayers had been rewritten in SJW-eeze, commanding us to welcome illegal immigration, etc.

Indeed the commie pope has turned the historical Jesus into Charlie McCarthy.

The church - another institution the left has marched through, and destroyed.
Posted by: Boots at April 14, 2019 10:18 AM (e9omi)
_______

Not dead yet. One mistake I see a lot on our side is writing off as lost the theaters where the fight is still going on. The Episcopalians are now a skin suit; the Catholics, not so. The same applies to Britain. Hell, even Italy shows signs of life. Possibly even France, though that's a long shot.

(This week it was nice to be reminded what a Pope sounds like. I miss B-16.)

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:27 AM (VaN/j)

241 Books... if you seek them, they do not hide...

Maybe not in your library....

Posted by: mindful webworker - shelves are for sissies at April 14, 2019 11:27 AM (xP7rZ)

242 ... hmmm,,, maybe they didn't conquer north africa earlier because of the turk. i guess i could find out on my own.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 11:28 AM (Pg+x7)

243 Captain Hate, self-pedanting there. It's a lot like denouncing yourself.
Since we do not have an "edit function," we create a form of merit-mongering.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:28 AM (8ZmvG)

244 Twain's quote about a Jewish homeland seems complimentary to me, and basically true - Israel punches way above its weight class in science, tech, and various brainy areas.
(as well as in courage and determination)

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:29 AM (dm05u)

245 *pokes book thread*

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:32 AM (dm05u)

246 I love the dystopian venn diagram. Silly people have argued over whether 1984 or Brave New World is more accurate. But we've come to an intersection of that, and now we are entering into Fahrenheit 451 type censorship. Funny and ridiculous but accurate.
Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at April 14, 2019 10:31 AM (/qEW2)

Depressingly accurate.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:32 AM (cY3LT)

247 *pokes book thread*

Hey, I'm doing my part. I keep hitting F5.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:33 AM (fuK7c)

248 174 This is what you give our children to read? This Ruby Hat of Omar Ky-yi-yi... I am APPALLED!

Posted by: Mrs. Shinn at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (NWiLs)

OMG! As soon as I saw this I thought of The Music Man and heard Hermione Gingold's baritone voice. Brilliantly played, Insomniac.

Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 11:35 AM (bmdz3)

249 Someone from the hord with books needs this house! Room to store about 30k books.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/24-champion-dr-rogers-ar_rb/
Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 10:52 AM (JFO2v)

Huh, that's clever. It looks like the owner used kitchen cabinetry without doors to create "built-in" book shelves. While I'm sure that was custom work (since it's a house with a $1.2 Million price tag), I bet you could get a similar look with pre-made cabinetry. Since I am seriously thinking about moving to a bigger house to house my library, that it something I will have to consider.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 11:35 AM (5Yee7)

250 Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 11:20 AM (bmdz3)

You're welcome. One final caveat: Proust did himself no favors by starting with Swann's Way, although there's no easy way to get a reader conditioned to his style. But once you're past that more things happen.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 11:36 AM (y7DUB)

251 showed the venn diagram to KTE
found out she has no idea what Brave New World is
uh oh

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:36 AM (dm05u)

252 Book nerds!

Posted by: Ogre at April 14, 2019 11:37 AM (t6MX/)

253 Oh, I have homework to do. I need to get and read "From Bauhaus to Our House".

There's going to be a seminar for German teachers where we get some lectures and tour some Bauhaus stuff in the greater Boston area and I need to know about it before I go.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:37 AM (fuK7c)

254 Not dead yet. One mistake I see a lot on our side is writing off as lost the theaters where the fight is still going on. The Episcopalians are now a skin suit; the Catholics, not so. The same applies to Britain. Hell, even Italy shows signs of life. Possibly even France, though that's a long shot.

(This week it was nice to be reminded what a Pope sounds like. I miss B-16.)
Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:27 AM (VaN/j)

Skin Suits are the way of things will go for all so-called Christian religions. I think college department in art, humanities, and not Biz or STEM are just Skin Suits. Pastors are afraid to read the words of Jesus and Professors are afraid the read the words of classical liberals or tell the evil (gasp) truth about the failure of socialism.

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 11:37 AM (JFO2v)

255 I heard several long readings from "Remembrance" a long time ago, and they were soporific, but also hypnotic. I did not come away with a burning desire to know how it ends (see, Firesign Theater ruined Ulysses for everybody!), but I was left with an impression of... well, Impressionism. I think it was a literary experiment in creating the same kind of pointillist dream-state with flashes of hyper-realism that you find in certain painters, and in Ravel, Satie, and Debussy orchestrations. Just my deux francs' worth.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:37 AM (8ZmvG)

256 Retired Buckeye Cop, buy the shelves from a closing bookstore..

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:38 AM (dm05u)

257 *pokes book thread*

-----------------------
Hey, I'm doing my part. I keep hitting F5.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:33 AM (fuK7c)

Ok, here, I'll go...

The Irish thing, honestly I couldn't possibly care less about internal Irish politics, or how mean the British were to them.

What I know about Irish history is that they were not at all helpful when the Germans were attempting to swallow hole, the goodness in the world.

To me, that's unforgivable, especially since I see no willingness on the part of the Irish to admit they were wrong. There's a lot of minimizing of their role in making life easier for the Germans, and harder for the allies. I find it roughly comparable to the Chinese still not being willing to forgive the Japanese regarding their atrocities committed before and during the Second World War.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:39 AM (cY3LT)

258 What the hell makes you think that college Business and STEM departments are not skin suits too? And Advanced Arithmetic is the worst of the lot, whoring itself down to Statistical Analysis of Health Correlation of Nine Thousand Nurses Surveys. There's your Science of The Future right there.

Don't be a rube.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:41 AM (8ZmvG)

259 255. wow. interesting.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 11:41 AM (Pg+x7)

260 I find it roughly comparable to the Chinese still not being willing to forgive the Japanese regarding their atrocities committed before and during the Second World War.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:39 AM (cY3LT)

Meaning, I believe the Chinese have every right to still be pissed about it, and unless/until the Japanese acknowledge their actions, I don't blame the Chinese at all for not being willing to forgive/forget.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:41 AM (cY3LT)

261 I've long thought that Screwtape should be read together with The Great Divorce. They have some common ground, but the latter hits more on the way in which vices which start as being barely sins, can end up taking over one's entire soul. I've seen that happen with people in life.

"Tolkien was an Oxford Don and is still considered a luminary at Oxford."

Today, sure. That's what happens with our people once they're dead. Neither he nor Lewis were so highly regarded when actively writing. In a generation they'll brag about Scruton.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:43 AM (VaN/j)

262 244 Twain's quote about a Jewish homeland seems complimentary to me, and basically true - Israel punches way above its weight class in science, tech, and various brainy areas.
(as well as in courage and determination)
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:29 AM (dm05u)

Everybody knows this, but nobody wants to say it out loud.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:45 AM (R99o4)

263 256 Retired Buckeye Cop, buy the shelves from a closing bookstore..
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:38 AM (dm05u)

You can probably get a good deal on some from Ace. Only dropped once.

Posted by: The Ugly American at April 14, 2019 11:45 AM (U3oZU)

264 251 showed the venn diagram to KTE
found out she has no idea what Brave New World is
uh oh
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:36 AM (dm05u)

I love Huxley.

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 14, 2019 11:45 AM (JFO2v)

265 Oh hey, it's got a mikvah right in the master bathroom.
Posted by: hogmartin invites you to the summer MIMoMe (link: nick) at April 14, 2019 11:05 AM (t+qrx)

would a mikvah have jets?

Posted by: Kindltot at April 14, 2019 11:45 AM (TN7xY)

266 What the hell makes you think that college Business and STEM departments are not skin suits too? And Advanced Arithmetic is the worst of the lot, whoring itself down to Statistical Analysis of Health Correlation of Nine Thousand Nurses Surveys. There's your Science of The Future right there.

Don't be a rube.
Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:41 AM (8ZmvG)

There's a lot of wishful thinking that goes on, among the kollej "real science" fans.

Because yeah, it's not a question of if the left has infiltrated, it's how far and how much. Sure does appear to be all the way, to an objective observer.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:46 AM (cY3LT)

267 Professors are afraid the read the words of classical liberals or tell the evil (gasp) truth about the failure of socialism.

Some. I devoted a class to the relaitonship of Germany and Communism and focused on how consistently evil communism is.

Kids were impressed. Young people don't know anything, now a small handful do.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:46 AM (fuK7c)

268 'Twain's quote about a Jewish homeland seems complimentary to me'

So it can be interpreted as a joke, which is how I took it.
And this...

"I was raised to a prejudice against Jews-Christians always are, you know-but such as I had was in my head, there wasn't any in my heart."

Posted by: freaked at April 14, 2019 11:47 AM (UdKB7)

269 Twain's quote about a Jewish homeland seems complimentary to me, and basically true - Israel punches way above its weight class in science, tech, and various brainy areas.
(as well as in courage and determination)
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:29 AM (dm05u)

Everybody knows this, but nobody wants to say it out loud.
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:45 AM (R99o4)

I made a comment recently, and I'm certainly no expert on the topic, but I said something in an open forum about believing the Israelis are very actively creating much of what is being implemented into our tech innovations, and the response I got was something to the effect of:

"Huh, and here I thought they were a bunch of third world losers, living in the dark ages."

This was basically coming from a standard, typically "educated" younger person. I get the sense they aren't really telling these kids much truth about modern Israel in our skrewels these days.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (cY3LT)

270 Yeah, and another thing, that whole Louisiana Purchase deal, straight up Treason.
We should have stuck to the original 13 colonies and let France and Spain keep the rest.
/sarcasm off.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (w7KSn)

271 174 This is what you give our children to read? This Ruby Hat of Omar Ky-yi-yi... I am APPALLED!

Posted by: Mrs. Shinn at April 14, 2019 10:37 AM (NWiLs)

OMG! As soon as I saw this I thought of The Music Man and heard Hermione Gingold's baritone voice. Brilliantly played, Insomniac.
Posted by: JTB at April 14, 2019 11:35 AM (bmdz3)

I have a nice edition of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam published by Random House in 1947. Very nice cloth binding, heavy paper and modern illustrations in the Persian style. The introduction by Louis Untermeyer puts the book in historical context. I think it scandalized some of the more prudish readers because the author philosophizes about drinking, love-making and death.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (5Yee7)

272 To me, that's unforgivable, especially since I see no willingness on the part of the Irish to admit they were wrong. There's a lot of minimizing of their role in making life easier for the Germans, and harder for the allies. I find it roughly comparable to the Chinese still not being willing to forgive the Japanese regarding their atrocities committed before and during the Second World War.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:39 AM (cY3LT)

The Irish were de facto pro-Nazi during WWII. They had some air fields that we wanted to use, but couldn't, because we were allied with the Brits. And this after we accepted hundreds of thousands seeking a better life after the potato famine. I stopped feeling sorry for the Irish when I first heard this.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (R99o4)

273 forgot the close the Italicans!

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at April 14, 2019 11:51 AM (5Yee7)

274 Agreed that Business/STEM have been far too complacent about "WE'RE immune to PC." Not at all.

The liberal arts were the strategic high ground; of course they took that position first. History, literature, and philosophy are exactly the areas to attack FROM on a college campus. But I see no reason to doubt that the STEM areas will fall in line. If anything, they are likely to go more easily, as so many in them dismiss battles of ideas as empty. And of course those parts that were of immediate value to the Left rolled over; vide Climate Science.

Certainly in other times and places they've fallen in line with whatever is dominant. "The missiles go up, who cares where they come down. That's not my department".

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 11:52 AM (VaN/j)

275 Captain Hate, re Serena and Ron Rash, you might also like Nitro Mountain by Lee Clay Johnson, which I read at about the same time. Contemporary setting, very dark. I will confess that I felt like I needed a shower after finishing, but so engrossing.

Posted by: MMcK at April 14, 2019 11:52 AM (xHxJf)

276 Greetings:

Our Navy(s) and their wars seem to have a bit of purchase today. I would offer "War on the Waters" by a guy named McPherson as a good history of the naval aspects of our Civil War.

Also, "In the Hurricane's Eye" by Nathaniel Philbrick (Do you think he's a WASP ???) covers the last year of our War for Independence and how Les Francais somehow sometimes pitched in.

In today's Sea-Air-Land combat mindset, it's easy to forget that the Sea-Land part had a long, long duration.

Posted by: 11B40 at April 14, 2019 11:53 AM (evgyj)

277 273 forgot the close the Italicans!
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer

talking about the Irish inevitably draws in the Italicans

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:54 AM (dm05u)

278 Good morning all.

So. The Rising? A good "how to" manual?

Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Diogenes at April 14, 2019 11:54 AM (0tfLf)

279 The Irish were de facto pro-Nazi during WWII. They had some air fields that we wanted to use, but couldn't, because we were allied with the Brits. And this after we accepted hundreds of thousands seeking a better life after the potato famine. I stopped feeling sorry for the Irish when I first heard this.
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (R99o4)

The Irish were actually far more anti-British than they were pro-Nazi. There's a hatred there from centuries of rapine by the British government that probably won't completely dissipate for another several generations. And the whiskey makes it worse.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 11:55 AM (3sjI6)

280 Sharon, I have had Discover of Witches on my maybe list for a long time. It sounds interesting, but I am generally not a paranormal reader and have not had a recommendation from someone who shares my taste in books. Thanks for the mention.

Posted by: MMcK at April 14, 2019 11:55 AM (xHxJf)

281 Spenser is just a guy who writes. Not disparaging that.

But Robinson motivates people to get out in the streets and DEMAND rectification.

Our would-be slavemasters know where the danger to the plan is.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 14, 2019 11:56 AM (1AoVY)

282 Posted by: MMcK at April 14, 2019 11:52 AM (xHxJf)

Thanks and noted.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 11:57 AM (y7DUB)

283 Two series I am thinking of starting:
Monster Hunters
Travis Magee
Comments welcome.

Posted by: MMcK at April 14, 2019 11:58 AM (xHxJf)

284 "Huh, and here I thought they were a bunch of third world losers, living in the dark ages."

-
What have the Jews ever done for us? Other that the theory of relativity, a bunch of other science stuff, a bunch of medical stuff and a bunch of other stuff.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 11:58 AM (+y/Ru)

285 One tries not to take sides very much in the Irish affairs -- would most def not be prudent, and I have told you haven't I that Ancestry keeps sending me updates, so I can't bet too hard on the extent of my Irishness?

But there is this much: when that Easter thing started up in 1916, the royalist constabulary (called the Black and Tans with such vitriol that you have to know how to order a half and half Guinness and Bass in these parts) requisitioned, with permission, a truck-mounted bulk beer transporter made of riveted iron sheet from A. Guinness Company, cut firing slits in the sides, and invented the anti-personnel vehicle.

And when they wanted more of the same, the guys who had used them said they wanted "those tanks." So, the original tank was filled with Guinness.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (8ZmvG)

286 Finally ordered Hell in a Very Small Place about the French at Dien Bien Phu.

I suspect Amazon like the NZ government doesn't want you to see evil as it is and would rather that all be kept hidden, not to protect the guilty but to shield them.

Posted by: Skip at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (BbGew)

287 I made a comment recently, and I'm certainly no expert on the topic, but I said something in an open forum about believing the Israelis are very actively creating much of what is being implemented into our tech innovations, and the response I got was something to the effect of:

This was basically coming from a standard, typically "educated" younger person. I get the sense they aren't really telling these kids much truth about modern Israel in our skrewels these days.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (cY3LT)

Bet he knows what every letter in LBGTQSTTABBQ+# stands for, though.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (R99o4)

288 From what little reading I have done, I get the impression that the Irish regard Cromwell as something like a Hitler figure. There was a lot of bad blood for centuries, and they took the opportunity of WWI to rebel against English rule. After that rebellion was put down, they weren't too keen on helping the English during WWII. "The enemy of my enemy", and all that.

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (sdi6R)

289 Monster Hunters is fun.

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (dm05u)

290 284... and jesus.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (Pg+x7)

291 The Irish were actually far more anti-British than
they were pro-Nazi.

Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 11:55 AM (3sjI6)

I would be more accepting of that view if the Irish weren't currently some of the most virulent anti-Semitic and anti-Israel folks on the world stage.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (wYseH)

292 What's odd about the Chinese hatred about how Japan treated them is the fact that, after the war was over, they got much worse from their own government. Mao said "Hold my sake."

I was shocked in my teens, and still am. He took waging war against one's own people to a new level; even Hitler and Stalin weren't in his league. Neither tried to eradicate German or Russian culture completely. That's exactly what Mao was doing.

And I won't live to see it, but it will be interesting in the future to see just what happens to a great people when their entire nation's soul is ripped out, not by invaders, but by their own government. What in the world will the country become?

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 12:00 PM (VaN/j)

293 So, the original tank was filled with Guinness.
Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (8ZmvG)

*****
As are many tankers to this very day.

Posted by: Diogenes at April 14, 2019 12:02 PM (0tfLf)

294 From what little reading I have done, I get the impression that the Irish regard Cromwell as something like a Hitler figure.

A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell
You who raped our Motherland
I hope you're rotting down in hell
For the horrors that you sent
To our misfortunate forefathers
Whom you robbed of their birthright
"To hell or Connaught" may you burn in hell tonight

Posted by: The Pogues at April 14, 2019 12:02 PM (fuK7c)

295 I think I read somewhere that old Mao killed 80 to 100 million of his own people.

For a man who didn't like washing his ass or brushing his tooth, that's saying something.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 14, 2019 12:03 PM (Z+IKu)

296 would a mikvah have jets?
Posted by: Kindltot at April 14, 2019 11:45 AM (TN7xY)

*shrugs, palms up*

It couldn't hurt.

Posted by: hogmartin invites you to the summer MIMoMe (link: nick) at April 14, 2019 12:03 PM (t+qrx)

297 I believe the Chinese have every right to still be pissed about it, and unless/until the Japanese acknowledge their actions, I don't blame the Chinese at all for not being willing to forgive/forget.

-
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the effect of forgiving the Japanese their crimes in much of the world's eyes.

Incidentally, I watched King Rat yesterday. Not exactly the feel good movie of the year but a good movie. Richard Dawson had a small role.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 12:03 PM (+y/Ru)

298 There's going to be a seminar for German teachers where we get some lectures and tour some Bauhaus stuff in the greater Boston area and I need to know about it before I go.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 11:37 AM (fuK7c)

Remind them that Bauhaus led to the International, Brutalist and Stalinist schools of architecture.

And the Helvetica typeface.

Posted by: The Duke at April 14, 2019 12:04 PM (MwFQu)

299 Remind them that Bauhaus led to the International, Brutalist and Stalinist schools of architecture.

I plan to. I "know" a bit about all of that, but I just ordered "From Bauhaus to Our House" to brush up on my facts.

Also it's a Tom Wolfe book that I haven't read and that should always be remedied.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at April 14, 2019 12:06 PM (fuK7c)

300 What's odd about the Chinese hatred about how Japan treated them is the fact that, after the war was over, they got much worse from their own government. Mao said "Hold my sake."

-
A revolution is not a dinner party. It's more a beef processing plant.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 12:06 PM (+y/Ru)

301 I went forest bathing to my meat grill, and thus far, the fare is magnificent!

Posted by: Fritz at April 14, 2019 12:07 PM (LuPts)

302 Re M M Kaye, author of "Trade Winds" - Several years ago I read "The Sun in the Morning", her memoir about growing up in India and England and loved it! Such vivid descriptions of growing up during the Raj. Some of the family stories she shares are as real to me as my own family legends. If you can track down a copy, do so!

She wrote two other memoirs, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening, which I have not read but are now available on Kindle, so I'll have to add them to be digital TBR pile. Kaye also wrote a series of mysteries set it exotic locations. I've read two of them. They mysteries were so-so, but the colonial era settings were interesting.

I highly recommend The Sun in the Morning!

Posted by: biancaneve at April 14, 2019 12:08 PM (hkMx0)

303 Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at April 14, 2019 11:50 AM (R99o4)

The Irish were actually far more anti-British than they were pro-Nazi. There's a hatred there from centuries of rapine by the British government that probably won't completely dissipate for another several generations. And the whiskey makes it worse.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 11:55 AM (3sjI6)

No doubt this is true.

Wrong is wrong though, and I think the Irish would do well to do some soul searching on their erroneously figured moral equivalence between their British brothers, and the Nazi Germans.

At least start by admitting you did an oopsie. Then we can talk about where we go from there.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:09 PM (cY3LT)

304 Maybe if Robinson changed the names just a bit and set the story on another world, he could sell it as science fiction. Do the Gulliver in Lilliput thing.

Reforming the natives trope: H. Beam Piper short story "Oomphal in the Sky."

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 14, 2019 12:09 PM (5UVOn)

305

Today is the day the world changes!!

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend is expected to make his Democratic run for president official during a rally later Sunday in the city where he launched his political career less than a decade ago.

The 37-year-old Rhodes Scholar and Afghanistan war veteran has surged from a little-known local politician to a high-profile contender in the 2020 race. He grew up in South Bend and is in his second term as mayor.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 14, 2019 12:09 PM (aKsyK)

306 The Irish ran an interesting POW camp during WW2. All German and Allied flyers who happened to crash in Ireland were interned for the war. All stayed in one camp with just a 3 foot wall separating them. Apparently they got on quite well.

Escaping was frowned upon as it would threaten the well-being of those left behind. Towards the end many of the American and Brits were quietly allowed to leave. At wars end, many of the Germans wanted to stay. Many did and married local.

Posted by: Diogenes at April 14, 2019 12:09 PM (0tfLf)

307 288 From what little reading I have done, I get the impression that the Irish regard Cromwell as something like a Hitler figure. There was a lot of bad blood for centuries, and they took the opportunity of WWI to rebel against English rule. After that rebellion was put down, they weren't too keen on helping the English during WWII. "The enemy of my enemy", and all that.
Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 11:59 AM (sdi6R)
_______

A classic example of how a whole country gets blamed for the acts of who is in charge. Cromwell was able to do what he did in Ireland only because of winning a civil war in England (and Scotland).

It's also instructive in that, if you look at ALL the evidence, there is no clear "good side". For every point for or against the Cavaliers, there is another for or against the Roundheads. And, contra the usual belief, that was really recognized in history until the 19th C. And was resurrected in the 20th. But the Victorian Whig narrative still dominates soft history. (Something which is true in other areas of history, too. Many don't realize just how many parallels there are between Victorian Whig, and Marxist, historians.)

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 12:09 PM (VaN/j)

308 As it was once explained to me.

Up to the mid-point of the 19th century, European Jewry and the Pan-Germans had in common that the world viewed them as lazy jolly fellows, full of drink, conquered all to hell, who had besotted their cultural inheritance and were only active in some very abstruse and generally useless corners of scholarship.

At about the same time, some German firebrands and some dead-serious rabbis (in Germany of course) started haranguing their various congregations that the damn world was moving on without them, and they had better get their cultural ass in gear if they meant to survive as a people.

And behold, there was within a decade an explosive flowering of Jewish culture, science, research. And German, the very same. And of course, Jews and Germans being what they were back then, considerable overlap.

Modern jew-hate sprang up about ten minutes after the rivalry began.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:10 PM (8ZmvG)

309 my spur of the moment theory:

Chinese peasantry hated the ruling class with good reason but tradition prevents action

Japs come in, whip the Chinese buttz regardless of class, and the peasants see their former rulers humiliated and degraded
PLUS
the condition of war teaches effective violence and the joys thereof

Japs leave and the peasants are now primed to commit violence on their former ruling class

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 12:10 PM (dm05u)

310 I believe the Chinese have every right to still be pissed about it, and unless/until the Japanese acknowledge their actions, I don't blame the Chinese at all for not being willing to forgive/forget.

-
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the effect of forgiving the Japanese their crimes in much of the world's eyes.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 12:03 PM (+y/Ru)

Yeah, but the Japanese know that's not true. They won't seek forgiveness, and that's their problem.

Their problem is not going to be resolved by any "yes but" responses that include the atom bomb, or even how rotten the Chinese have otherwise been since then.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:12 PM (cY3LT)

311 There's a hatred there from centuries of rapine by the British government that probably won't completely dissipate for another several generations. And the whiskey makes it worse.
Posted by: Anonymous White Male at April 14, 2019 11:55 AM (3sjI6)
______

That's overoptimistic. And typically American. One area we are genuinely exceptional is our ability to bury the hatchet.

I live in Richmond, VA, the capital of the Confederacy. In many other countries, there'd be periodic outbursts of violence, with areas clearly held by the federal troops, others not.

(Of course, that sort of scenario is likely to come here soon, but not from THAT cause.)

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 12:14 PM (VaN/j)

312
Yeah, but the Japanese know that's not true. They won't seek forgiveness, and that's their problem.

Their problem is not going to be resolved by any "yes but" responses that include the atom bomb, or even how rotten the Chinese have otherwise been since then.
Posted by: BurtTC

Reparations?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 14, 2019 12:14 PM (aKsyK)

313 See, Isenberg spelled it "Shari'ah" too, and yet I get laughed at and called a "Nazi Idiot" on Twitter for spelling it that way.

-
It's "Nanzi Idiot".

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 14, 2019 12:14 PM (+y/Ru)

314 Howdy folks. Happy book thread to you. I am presently wearing both pants AND Kevlar chaps. I'm about to head out to apply my chainsaw bayonet (powered pole saw) to some pine trees what need pruning.

Posted by: Muad'dib at April 14, 2019 12:15 PM (zMvJD)

315 And the Bedouin people of the Levant, what are misnamed Palestinian the golden square the ustachi the lun were more against the central powers rather than pro Hitler but they still served him, bandera sort of realized that mistake but that didnt stop him from cleansing the voydina region of poland.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at April 14, 2019 12:16 PM (Su5UX)

316 I don't blame anyone for not wanting to be ruled by the Brits.

Posted by: The Ugly American at April 14, 2019 12:17 PM (U3oZU)

317 Buttaguy is a hard core Leftist with a better resume.
He says as a Christian male I get to make no opinions on abortion
And I have much to learn from BLM

Posted by: Skip at April 14, 2019 12:18 PM (BbGew)

318 I was all happy until I saw that guy mentioned

Posted by: Skip at April 14, 2019 12:18 PM (BbGew)

319 @311 The peaceable state of Richmond today (and boy, it looked like Hell at the end of the War), is due largely to the good efforts of a couple of grey-coated generals whose statues are now being pulled down. Oh well.

It ain't over. The victors and the conquered came to their terms, but there are several other parties not yet fully accounted for.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:18 PM (8ZmvG)

320 Buttgig

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 12:19 PM (dm05u)

321 Not my job per say but there is a
NOOD

Posted by: Skip at April 14, 2019 12:20 PM (BbGew)

322 Yeah, but the Japanese know that's not true. They won't seek forgiveness, and that's their problem.

Their problem is not going to be resolved by any "yes but" responses that include the atom bomb, or even how rotten the Chinese have otherwise been since then.
Posted by: BurtTC

Reparations?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 14, 2019 12:14 PM (aKsyK)

I don't believe so. I think the Chinese would rather they start by not glorifying their "victories" over the Chinese. A simple acknowledgement that they were wrong is all the Chinese have asked for.

One thing I do remember, about my time in Germany, was how thoroughly the German nation had embraced its past, in the sense that nobody was pretending the Nazis were NOT evil and wrong. The German people owned their history, and it has helped them to "get on" with their lives, as a nation and as individuals (current troubles notwithstanding).

Japan seems to prefer to just move on (dot org). And the Chinese are having none of that.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:20 PM (cY3LT)

323 Other than being a disordered sodomite and the mayor of a crappy town in Indiana, why is mayor buttplugger a thing?

Oh, never mind.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at April 14, 2019 12:21 PM (Z+IKu)

324 308 As it was once explained to me.

Up to the mid-point of the 19th century, European Jewry and the Pan-Germans had in common that the world viewed them as lazy jolly fellows, full of drink, conquered all to hell, who had besotted their cultural inheritance and were only active in some very abstruse and generally useless corners of scholarship.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:10 PM (8ZmvG)

________

There's a problem with that. This applies to the Germans more than the Jews, pre 19th C, but music was hardly a "very abstruse and generally useless corner" of the culture. And the Germans were already kicking ass there.

One thing I wonder about is whether modern food preservation helped allow the Jews to "break out" of the ghettoized condition. The dietary laws in themselves would entail a separation, physically, of the Jews from the rest of the population, even if no prejudice existed. And from that, cultural and scholarly isolation is a natural, though not inevitable, consequence.

There's also the fact that the shift of bias from being based on religion to based on ethnicity was then underway, but in a state of transition.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 12:22 PM (VaN/j)

325 FWIW, my reaction to Mayor of South Bend (servants to the Jesuits at Notre Dame) is just as eeeewwww as Nasty Omar. Pretty Little Dollys can dance.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 14, 2019 12:22 PM (MIKMs)

326 All my visits to South Bend have been related to the history of that one car company they used to have there. Buttie-jig has addressed our groups several times. The general feeling is that he and his faction have done about all they can to undermine our firm's memory there, in some cases specifically applying flexible federal funds to cover up or destroy former industrial sites that could have been redeveloped or preserved. Ask about the county jail!

There is one major building "of ours" being re-worked into a tech center. It's almost all private money, and he did next to nothing to help it along. So guess where he had his Major Announcement? He's getting called some awfully rude names in our club.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:23 PM (8ZmvG)

327 Late to the party, but wanted to mention the passing this week of R.V. Burgin. By coincidence, I had just re-read E.B. Sledge's magnificent "With the Old Breed". Sledgehammer was Burgin's assistant gunner on K/3/5's 60mm mortar crew, as those of you who watched the series "The Pacific" know. Burgin wrote his own memoir, titled "Islands of the Damned".

Fair Winds and Following Seas, Marine.
Semper Fidelis.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at April 14, 2019 12:23 PM (wZ9cV)

328 322
One thing I do remember, about my time in Germany, was how thoroughly the German nation had embraced its past, in the sense that nobody was pretending the Nazis were NOT evil and wrong. The German people owned their history, and it has helped them to "get on" with their lives, as a nation and as individuals (current troubles notwithstanding).

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:20 PM (cY3LT)

Today's Germans seem to think they deserve to be conquered and subjugated by the Muslims for the sins of their fathers. I'd say they've taken contrition a little too far.

Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 12:26 PM (sdi6R)

329 322 Yeah, but the Japanese know that's not true. They won't seek forgiveness, and that's their problem.

Their problem is not going to be resolved by any "yes but" responses that include the atom bomb, or even how rotten the Chinese have otherwise been since then.
Posted by: BurtTC

Reparations?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 14, 2019 12:14 PM (aKsyK)

I don't believe so. I think the Chinese would rather they start by not glorifying their "victories" over the Chinese. A simple acknowledgement that they were wrong is all the Chinese have asked for.

One thing I do remember, about my time in Germany, was how thoroughly the German nation had embraced its past, in the sense that nobody was pretending the Nazis were NOT evil and wrong. The German people owned their history, and it has helped them to "get on" with their lives, as a nation and as individuals (current troubles notwithstanding).

Japan seems to prefer to just move on (dot org). And the Chinese are having none of that.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:20 PM (cY3LT)

Eh.

The Chinese had a history of invading Japan and being the big bully in the neighborhood over hundreds of years. And continuing to this day.

I think a lot (probably most) of their ongoing butthurt is the humiliation of being beaten by a group they consider as their natural inferiors.

So, apologies all around might be in order.

Plus, the Asian reverence for family and ancestors wouldn't sit well with either the Chinese or Japanese if forced to disown the actions of those who fought for their country.

IMHO the Chinese don't really hold the moral upper hand on this historically speaking.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 14, 2019 12:27 PM (CRRq9)

330 @324 Agreed, and/but "you prove my point."
Several of the composers and critics who created the great wave of German music culture were, or recently had been, Jews. So that's where that "overlap" comes in.

Today, of course, we are busy driving out those poets and tunesmiths with all the enthusiasm that a previous generation used on the Hebrews.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:29 PM (8ZmvG)

331 One thing I do remember, about my time in Germany, was how thoroughly the German nation had embraced its past, in the sense that nobody was pretending the Nazis were NOT evil and wrong. The German people owned their history, and it has helped them to "get on" with their lives, as a nation and as individuals (current troubles notwithstanding).

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:20 PM (cY3LT)

Today's Germans seem to think they deserve to be conquered and subjugated by the Muslims for the sins of their fathers. I'd say they've taken contrition a little too far.
Posted by: rickl at April 14, 2019 12:26 PM (sdi6R)

Yes, that's where the train goes off the tracks, and I'm not going to follow it there. Just acknowledging that being blind to one's history is not a good thing.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:31 PM (cY3LT)

332 Because I worked myself too hard the last week I needed to sleep in and missed my opportunity

For what its worth, I have finished writing my latest gaming supplement The Jolrhos Field Guide. Its basically a book that gives GMs a world setting to run fantasy role playing games in, and it will be out very soon on the shelf.

Until then, I am working on the cover, and I wanted to give people a chance to give their input on what cover art to use. You can check out the options at my blog and leave a comment if one seems interesting to you

http://tinyurl.com/l6hongk

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 14, 2019 12:34 PM (39g3+)

333 Where are all the BODS in the Bodleian? Buggered off to the marvel comic shop!

Posted by: saf at April 14, 2019 12:35 PM (5IHGB)

334 Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:20 PM (cY3LT)

Eh.

The Chinese had a history of invading Japan and being the big bully in the neighborhood over hundreds of years. And continuing to this day.

I think a lot (probably most) of their ongoing butthurt is the humiliation of being beaten by a group they consider as their natural inferiors.

So, apologies all around might be in order.

Plus, the Asian reverence for family and ancestors wouldn't sit well with either the Chinese or Japanese if forced to disown the actions of those who fought for their country.

IMHO the Chinese don't really hold the moral upper hand on this historically speaking.
Posted by: naturalfake at April 14, 2019 12:27 PM (CRRq9)

You may be right. I don't know enough about the history (or the cultures) to pass judgment either way.

Japan just seems like a weird place to me, one that has kind of put up some blinders, and pretends to be a pristine place, where nobody utters a word about the "troubles" that occurred in the first part of the 20th century.

I think it hurts them. Regardless of what the Chinese are or are not doing themselves.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 12:35 PM (cY3LT)

335 330 @324 Agreed, and/but "you prove my point."
Several of the composers and critics who created the great wave of German music culture were, or recently had been, Jews. So that's where that "overlap" comes in.

Today, of course, we are busy driving out those poets and tunesmiths with all the enthusiasm that a previous generation used on the Hebrews.
Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:29 PM (8ZmvG)
_____

No, "the great wave of German music culture" doesn't start in the 19th C, or even the late 18th. It definitely goes back well into the 17th, at least. In Bach and Haydn's day, there was not much Jewish input. Later, yes.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 14, 2019 12:36 PM (VaN/j)

336 Twain's quote about a Jewish homeland seems complimentary to me, and basically true - Israel punches way above its weight class in science, tech, and various brainy areas.
(as well as in courage and determination)
Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 11:29 AM (dm05u)

Twain wasn't exactly a technical person, so it's hard to see how he has any standing talking about this subject. If we're going to bring ethnicity into this conversation, it should be pointed out that Jews, like asians, though capable of understanding certain concepts, rarely seem to be the ones that thought of them in the first place. Technology could have developed to the level it did without them. It might have taken a few years longer but were any of them necessary for it? Descartes, Euler, Gauss, Hilbert, none of these people were Jewish, though lots of Jews and Asians (and their fellow non-Jewish Caucasians) can understand their work. That doesn't mean that you could have invented it, or are necessary for the future development of this kind of thought.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at April 14, 2019 12:36 PM (/qEW2)

337 the Japanese have really changed - ditched the samurai culture

but they are no way no how ever gonna apologize to the Chinese

The Koreans concur, at least the Southern ones
Really amazing that the Kims suck up to the Chinese

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 12:38 PM (dm05u)

338 my point is in the Asian "face culture", apologies are very fraught

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 12:39 PM (dm05u)

339 There is one major building "of ours" being re-worked into a tech center. It's almost all private money, and he did next to nothing to help it along. So guess where he had his Major Announcement? He's getting called some awfully rude names in our club.
Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:23 PM (8ZmvG)

I think the previous mayor was much better in that regard. When one's world view is circumscribed by the uses of one's asshole, one tends to become one.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 14, 2019 12:49 PM (TfwlC)

340 @335 Bach was completely forgotten until Mendelssohn resurrected him. Handel, too. Let's don't quibble.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:49 PM (8ZmvG)

341 I urge everyone to read "Screwtape gives a toast."
what he says about democracy is on point.
https://screwtapeblogs.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/screwtape-proposes-a-toast/

Posted by: vivi at April 14, 2019 12:54 PM (11H2y)

342 One final note of a weird juxtaposition in things I read: a Harry Crews story, The Hawk is Flying, is about him finding a wounded hawk (birdshot in one wing but no broken bones) and nursing it back to health *and*, more importantly, self reliance before feeling confident releasing it back into the wild. Shortly thereafter was a scene in Serena in which she ordered an eagle from Mongolia which she trained, with similar methods, to kill rattlesnakes which beset the lumber camp.

Posted by: Captain Hate at April 14, 2019 12:55 PM (y7DUB)

343 Oh Christ, the Junior Judenhass have arrived. I'm out.
What the Hell is wrong with you people? Is this what we've come to?

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 14, 2019 12:56 PM (8ZmvG)

344 Judenhass is actually the name of an online comic book released in 2008 to commemorate the Holocaust

http://judenhass.com/main.html

Posted by: vmom superior, order of sweet merciless ninjas at April 14, 2019 01:04 PM (dm05u)

345 Does anyone know a good factual book on Alexander Hamilton? Apparently one of my nieces is obsessing about him because she heard a couple of songs from that play. I would rather she knew more factual stuff than crap from progs and SJW NPCs.

Posted by: Deathknyte at April 14, 2019 01:39 PM (58ia+)

346
Meaning, I believe the Chinese have every right
to still be pissed about it, and unless/until the Japanese acknowledge
their actions, I don't blame the Chinese at all for not being willing to
forgive/forget.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 14, 2019 11:41 AM (cY3LT)

Yes . . . But then the Chinese did worse to themselves in the name of being a modern state. Turning their condemned criminals into public displays of plasticized dissections to be displayed for money being one of their minor transgressions makes me mourn for their subjects and realize their leaders are evil.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 14, 2019 01:42 PM (TN7xY)

347 There are a surprising number of moron authors among the candidates, including Jack July,..
------

Jack, AKA 'OldsailorsPoet' hasn't been around here for a while. Hope he's doing well.

Still working on 'The Invention That Saved The World'. Quite a good read for techno-heads, and those interested in WWII. http://tinyurl.com/yymmtux9

Bedtime reading is 'The Jeeves Omnibus", a collection of P.G. Wodehouse stories and novels. I've read it all before, but for escapist humor it is hard to beat.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 14, 2019 01:57 PM (xSo9G)

348 Does anyone know a good factual book on Alexander
Hamilton? Apparently one of my nieces is obsessing about him because she
heard a couple of songs from that play. I would rather she knew more
factual stuff than crap from progs and SJW NPCs.
Posted by: Deathknyte at April 14, 2019 01:39 PM (58ia+)

Brion McClanahan wrote How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America

Which is supposed to be great. Unfortunately all the information I have on the president comes from the L. Neil Smith' Confederacy novels

However, a link would be
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y2bchwpe

by the way, Kevin Gutzman wrote a new book on Jefferson called
Thomas Jefferson -Revolutionary
A Radical's Struggle to Remake America

Which is also supposed to be very good.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 14, 2019 02:00 PM (TN7xY)

349 Getting back to my tongue in cheek reference to the Louisiana Purchase (a topic of which I have dozens of books), Jefferson was indeed considered treasonous at the time, and he had to fight Congress the whole way on this, and he risked Impeachment.
An amazing period in our history, political intrigue the likes of which the world has seldom seen.
And not possible had he not travelled to France himself.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at April 14, 2019 02:11 PM (w7KSn)

350 I urge everyone to read "Screwtape gives a toast."
what he says about democracy is on point.
https://screwtapeblogs.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/screwtape-proposes-a-toast/
Posted by: vivi
-----------

The thing is worth reading, every word. It helps, of course if one has read The Screwtape Letters, but that only helps with incidental context. Read it anyhow.

What I find almost astounding, is that the piece was published in the December 1959 Saturday Evening Post.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 14, 2019 02:13 PM (CDGwz)

351 Bob Hope, writing about Irish neutrality during WWII, commented that he couldn't see how any Irishman could be neutral about anything.

I concur about "Six Frigates." I listened to it a few years ago, when my commute to work took nearly an hour. It might have been an abridged version. All I remember was thinking that Decatur's mission to Tripoli to destroy a captured vessel would be grist for an awesome movie.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 14, 2019 02:16 PM (oLR67)

352 I would rather she knew more factual stuff than crap from progs and SJW NPCs.

Yeah I'm in the same boat, my little cousins love the songs and hence think the play is wonderful even without having seen it (plus, they've been programmed to think so by public schools). I'd love to give them some more accurate, sane input on the person.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 14, 2019 02:37 PM (39g3+)

353 Posted by: Kindltot at April 14, 2019 02:00 PM (TN7xY)
Not exactly what I had in mind, but I ordered one anyway. She needs to see all arguments to achieve balance.
Actually, I am going to read it first then she can.

Posted by: Deathknyte at April 14, 2019 02:51 PM (58ia+)

354 Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at April 14, 2019 02:37 PM (39g3+)

LOL I give them uncle's ultra-right-wing view on everything. Then forbid them to do anything they might want to do.
My sister (liberal, retarded) keeps pushing the multi-culti propaganda. I counter with my own. The older two have turned out pretty well, they realize that my sister's take on things doesn't work very well but Uncle at least admits it when his ideas are a bit nuts.
It's the younger three that I am concerned with. They have less contact with me and my brothers.

Posted by: Deathknyte at April 14, 2019 02:56 PM (58ia+)

355 Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferrules, without words or anger, without bread or money.

My favorite part is books without words.

Like pop-up books.

Posted by: bour3 at April 14, 2019 04:47 PM (KXQr+)

356 #56:
Rana, I just held down on my Fire power button for 30 to 45 seconds and had it restart that way . Nothing I had downloaded went anywhere and there was nothing overwritten. It just shut down, I waiting 15 seconds after, then held down again until I saw the animation. It took about another 20 seconds to restart and that was it.

Posted by: Inspector Cussword at April 14, 2019 05:01 PM (Dvv8P)

357 "Black Mischief" by Evelyn Waugh was the funniest books about British colonialism trying to make sense of the ignorance and savagery of Africa. A powerful newspaper publisher confuses the garden editor with another of his staffers and orders him off to report on attempts to overthrow the dullard Emperor Haile Selassie. It couldn't be published today because of the left-wing filter that polices WrongThinking, but it is a clear-headed gem that will leave you holding your sides from laughter.

Posted by: Banjo at April 14, 2019 06:30 PM (SYCeT)

358 Banjo @357, I think you are confusing "Black Mischief" with "Scoop" Waugh's razor edged and still very on the mark satire of journalism.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at April 14, 2019 06:40 PM (iuRR5)

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