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Sunday Morning Book Thread 06-16-2019

pickens library 02.jpg
Another View of T. Boone Pickens' Private Library


Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon, nitwits, half-wits, twinks, pinks, skinks, bull dykes, train robbers, horse thieves, and Methodists. 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 show what you can do with all of those wine corks you've been saving up.


Blog Note

I need to apologize to moron author Francis Porretto for misrepresenting his new novel, The Wise and the Mad, in last week's book thread. I issued an NC-17 warning for it because I made a wrong assumption about the novel's contents without having read it. Fran reached out via e-mail and informed me that the warning was not warranted. I very much regret my error.


It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

BUMPH, meaning "tiresome work or writing", was originally a military nickname for toilet paper. It derives from a shortened form of ‘bum fodder’.

Quiz: 'Bum fodder' is a perfect description of:

a) Twitter
b) Facebook
c) CNN
d) The House Judiciary Committee


Book Lists

Couple of months ago, Mike Hammer posted this link to 40 Classic Books & Why You Should Read Them. It's worth looking at just for the old book cover art alone. Lots of classics here.

Another moron, I forget who, sorry, sent me this link to a larger list, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, which is this guy's personal list. It's a bit more idiosyncratic than the first list, but you should be able to find something on it you like.




book cartoon 20190616a.jpg


Crowd Sourcing

This week I received an interesting e-mail from a longtime lurker who asked me to put in a plug for something called Distributed Proofreaders.

If you're like me, you've downloaded many free e-books from Project Gutenberg over the years without giving much thought to where these works come from. The vast majority of these books (nearly 38,000) come from the volunteer Distributed Proofreaders project, where volunteers convert scans of public domain books in e-books through several rounds of proofreading and formatting.

A volunteer can assist by doing as little as a single page, or as many as they would like. There are always hundreds of works in progress at any given time, so there is sure to be something to grab a reader's interest.

Signing up is easy, and there are no deadlines or pressure. There's a large community of friendly volunteers always willing to help with tips and advice.

You can sign up or get more info at their website, Distributed Proofreaders.

As a Project Manager, I am one of the people who selects and prepares public domain works for the project. If any of your readers have any suggestions for PD works (currently those printed in 1923 or earlier) they would like to see at Project Gutenberg, they could leave those suggestions in the comments of your book thread or send them to me at this e-mail address.

If you're interested in making suggestions, Tim's e-mail address is vid dot omni at-sign gmail dot com.


Moron Recommendation

23 If the Chernobyl stuff interests you, check out "Idaho Falls", which is the true story of the only criticality accident with casualties at an operating reactor in the United States. It was in 1961 at SL-1 in Idaho, and involved three... military guys in their early 20s, living in the middle of nowhere in 1961 died from a reactor explosion with no surviving witnesses and which may have been an accident, a prank, or a murder-suicide. And the only people who will ever know are buried in lead and concrete, at least the parts of them that weren't disposed of as high-level contaminated waste.

Posted by: hogmartin at June 09, 2019 09:18 AM (t+qrx)

I had always thought that had never been any fatalities at any US nuclear facility. "More people have died in Teddy Kennedy's car than in any nuclear accident" went the old joke that made the rounds during the media-hyped national panic during the Three Mile Island incident. Shows you how much I know.

Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident chronicles

...the strange tale of SL-1, a military test reactor located in Idaho’s Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three-man maintenance crew on duty. Through details uncovered in official documents, firsthand accounts from rescue workers and nuclear industry insiders, and exclusive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, this book probes intriguing questions about the devastating blast that have remained unanswered for more than 40 years. From reports of a faulty reactor design and mismanagement of the reactor’s facilities to rumors of incompetent personnel and a failed love affair that prompted deliberate sabotage of the plant, these plausible explanations for the explosion raise questions about whether the truth was deliberately suppressed to protect the nuclear energy industry.

$7.99 on Kindle.

___________

70 Milo Yiannopoulos recently published a short book called "Middle Rages: Why the Battle for Medieval Studies Matters to America". It's an examination of how the left is destroying academia with lies and threats if each discipline doesn't kowtow to the SJW mob's idea of 'proper' approach. All intended to destroy Western culture and Christianity. The subject is serious but, without going to far, Milo has a lighter, mocking tone for the antagonists.

His account is disturbing and infuriating. A group of academics allow themselves to join into an attack by a junior teacher on a respected professor who doesn't toe the SJW line and even mocks it. It follows the usual SJW approach of lies, smears, threats and claims of threats to them when their own words are used against them.

Posted by: JTB at June 09, 2019 09:39 AM (bmdz3)

Hans Schantz brought this book to my attention a couple three weeks back, so I leafed through the Kindle sample. I was surprised by the sobriety of the writing and also, Milo's usual "hey everybody, look at me" schtick seems to have been muted to a great extent. But it's the story of what happens to a professor when she refuses to apologize to the SJW crybully howling mob because she said something they don't like.

Middle Rages: Why the Battle for Medieval Studies Matters to America describes the discipline as

...the critical study of Europe’s self-identity. No understanding of Western civilization is possible without it. Inevitably, Left-wing academics want to introduce gender studies and race theory to the field—and punish those who refuse to conform. When one University of Chicago professor dared to publicly celebrate the Christian identity of the Middle Ages, she was branded a ‘violent fascist’ and ‘white supremacist’ by her colleagues.

Now Medieval Studies scholars are tearing their own discipline apart with witch-hunts, name-calling, boycotts and intimidation. The damage done to academia could be incalculable. In this influential essay, originally published to widespread online acclaim, New York Times-bestselling author and award-winning journalist Milo Yiannopoulos explains why we should all care about the newest front in the cultural war, the academic battle for the Middle Ages.

This is how the wrongthinking professor, Rachel Fulton Brown, describes herself in her Twitter profile:

Christian, American, professor of medieval European history, fiddler, fencer, blogger, wife. Training in virtue to be wielded by God.

Academic SJWs: "What!? That's not allowed!"

More on the brouhaha over her wrongthink here.

Fulton Brown was fighting for her professional reputation, entirely unsupported by the University of Chicago and her peers, until we reported at length on the injustices she had been subjected to for refusing to submit to the strictures of political correctness and progressive politics. Now that the NAS joined the fray, academics from around the world working across dozens of disciplines are coming out in her support.

So maybe we will win this one.

___________

AMC has been running a documentary series about Jim Jones and The People's Temple. Last night was the Kool Ade finale. They talked to a number of the survivors. Several of them were still on about how wonderful their socialist town in the jungle was and how the world was deprived of a model for the future because Jim went off the rails. Their main thing was virtue signalling. Yeah, boy, the anti-racist, anti-capitalist pro-collectivist paradise was better than us mucking about in the mud.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at April 21, 2019 12:33 PM (+y/Ru)

I still remember seeing the news footage from Guyana, all of those people lying on the grass, looking like they were taking an afternoon nap. Over 900 of them. I recently read Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco which basically argues that this happened because all of the warning signs that Jim Jones was a dangerous, unstable psychotic and his "church" was an abuse factory were systematically ignored by San Francisco's elected officials because he could bring them a significant number of votes. Yes, Jones had that kind of clout in SF. It was an unholy alliance of corrupt government officials and a powerful religious figure. Dan White, who murdered the mayor and Harvey Milk was, in fact, *not* a gay-hating, right-wing lunatic, but a centrist who even worked with Milk on some issues. There's also a surprise appearance by Dianne Feinstein, who had a peripheral role in all of this. And there were actually Republicans in SF in those days. Yes, times were different.

Oh, and here's a fun fact: the book mentioned the hot water that the SFPD was getting into by not hiring enough black and female officers, and the successful anti-discrimination lawsuit that was filed which resulted in them having to "recalibrate" the test scoring methods to reduce the difference. So I laughed a little bit to myself when I saw this article earlier this week: 12 white male officers sue San Francisco police for race, sex bias:

[T]he lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in federal court, is the latest round in a conflict that dates back decades. A 13th plaintiff who is now retired says she also was denied promotion, because she is a white lesbian.

The lawsuit challenges a test-scoring method that the city adopted in 1979 in response to a lawsuit from a group representing black and female officers, who alleged discrimination in hiring and promotions.

And now the monster they created has turned around and is biting them on the a**. It will probably take a federal judge to hand down one of those "discrimination is OK when we do it" rulings to stave off the beast.

___________





book cartoon 20190616b.jpg

___________

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 !

Posted by: JT at June 16, 2019 09:00 AM (JvvIt)

2 Good morning Bibliofiliacs!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:00 AM (kQs4Y)

3 Tolle Lege
First finished The Caine Mutiny, it is so much more than the movie and does differ in the ending. Recommended

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 09:02 AM (BbGew)

4 You win this time, JT!

*shakes fist*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:04 AM (kQs4Y)

5 Good morning and Happy Fathers Day to my fellow Book Threadists. Hope everyone had a good week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:04 AM (bmdz3)

6 Stopped at used book store with nothing in particular in mind but found a interesting book that strangely ties into another favorite movie The Molly Maguires.
Making Sence of the Molly Maguires by Kevin Kenny explores the beginnings of the secret organisation and the conditions of society starting pre civil war to post in the coal regions of Pennsylvania.

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 09:06 AM (BbGew)

7 Happy Fathers' Day! I'm celebrating by taking my boys to Scout Camp this morning.

Prof. Rachel Fulton Brown, one of the key figures in Milo's Middle Rages, is offering an online class, "Medieval History 101: The Unauthorized Version." More information is on her website at https://unauthorizedmedievalhistory.blogspot.com/

I read Jon Mollison's A Moon Full of Stars this week. Blurb: All Rome ever wanted was to earn a place in the village as a hunter, so that he could explore beyond the safe confines of the village farm fields, but when monstrous slavers destroy his village he is forced to head west into the irradiated wastelands in search of anything that might give him the power to save his people. Accompanied by his chief rival, his journey takes him farther than he ever imagined." Interesting science fiction/pulp adventure. Check it out.

I'm currently reading Karl Gallagher's "Lost War," recommended here a while back. Quite a change of pace from his scifi Torchship trilogy. Lost War tells the story of a group of medieval re-enactors somehow transported to another world. It's a combination prepper-fantasy as the characters try to cope with the strange new world and the divisions within their own ranks. Highly recommended.

Also, my "Rambling Wreck," Book 2 of The Hidden Truth will be on sale this week 6/18-6/21. Regularly $4.99; Sale price $0.99. The battle for the future rages right at Georgia Tech. Peter's final exam has one question: Can a Rambling Wreck stop the Deep State Cabal? And a failing grade will be his last.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at June 16, 2019 09:08 AM (FXjhj)

8 I read A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes. This is an interesting, informative, detailed account of the revolution and the events leading up to it. The tragedy was that so many times Russia had a chance at democracy, but failed because of Russian history, culture, and the weaknesses of key players at crucial times. Well worth the time to read.

Posted by: Zoltan at June 16, 2019 09:08 AM (Zgezk)

9 I posted this on the last thread - some music for a Sunday morning, Debussy's The Sunken Cathedral:

https://tinyurl.com/h3mb3sf

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:08 AM (Ki5SV)

10 Good morning, all.
1. Bumph? I use that term for junk mail, or any kind of waste paper.
2. Last week I mentioned that I was translating an out-of-print Spanish-language book on the 1936-39 Civil War, and several of you urged me to contact the original publisher and see if they'd be interested in an English version. So I wrote to them last week. No response yet, but in the meantime I continue to chug along.

3. Thanks for info re: Distributed Proofreaders. One of the frustrations of reading anything on Kindle is the number of typos or weird formulations ("6migr6" for "émigré") which I guess is what happens when you scan an older book and don't bother to check on the result.

A happy and blessed Sunday to you all, fathers or not.

Posted by: Annalucia at June 16, 2019 09:10 AM (S6ArX)

11 I read a Nero Wolfe novel "Where There's A Will". I rediscovered that Wolfe novels, although not very long, need to be read with fewest interruptions as is convenient. The stories move quickly and it's easy to lose track of which characters are doing what. A couple of times I had to backtrack to recall the details. But they sure are fun to read.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:12 AM (bmdz3)

12 The misery of Russia is a favorite topic of mine

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 09:12 AM (BbGew)

13 Jeez - at my comment at #10, those black diamonds with question marks in them are supposed to be the letter E with an acute accent.

Posted by: Annalucia at June 16, 2019 09:12 AM (S6ArX)

14 Morning Horde Literati!

It being Fathers' Day, allow me to recommend "Fathers and Sons: A Family Autobiography."

This fascinating book is by Alexander Waugh, grandson of Evelyn and son of Auberon. It traces the literary development of the Waugh family from its earliest records down to the present.

It may seem a bit slow at first, as Alexander traces the family history, but this is vital to understanding their perspective and motivations. One's social class is far more important in England than it is here, and moving up the ladder was a key objective of the family. Evelyn Waugh's work in particular focused on the decaying morality of the old upper class while also skewering the social-climbing ambition of the "lower classes" (examples include the newspaper barons Lord Copper and Lord Zinc, who clearly bought their way into their peerages).

It's also very personal, as the author explores his own relationship with his father and grandfather. I wasn't aware how much Evelyn envied his older brother Alec, who was the apple of his father's eye.

It may seem strange to us now, but Alec Waugh was much more successful (and therefore better known) for much of Evelyn's life.

The poignant relationship between Guy Crouchback and his father in "Sword of Honour" is a wistful re-imagining by Evelyn of what his brother enjoyed in terms of a paternal relationship.

There's a companion series narrated by Alexander that visits many of the places mentioned in the book if one wants to track it down.

It's a very insightful way of looking at how parenting changes over the generations and because so many Waughs took to writing, there's ample documentation of what they thought. Not all Waughs persued writing careers, but enough did to provide the links that Alexander follows.

Perfect for any fan of Waugh or writing in general and yes, Alexander has the trademark dry wit you'd expect.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 09:13 AM (cfSRQ)

15 Still on a high from Caine Mutiny and don't know what my next great read will be. For now I'll just spelunk through my own library. There are still nameless horrors to be uncovered in my Lovecraft anthology, f'rinstance:

"Gentlemen," he continued, "I will not ask you to believe these things until I have shewn you special proof. Accept it, then, as a myth, when I tell you of the thousands of light-years-- thousands of years of time, and uncounted billions of miles-- that Randolph Carter hurled through space as a nameless alien entity in a thin envelope of electron-activated metal...

He saw Kynarth and Yoggoth on the rim, passed close to Neptune and glimpsed the hellish white fungi that spot it, learned an untellable secret from the close-glimpsed mists of Jupiter and saw the horror on one of its satellites, and gazed upon the Cyclopean ruins that sprawl over Mars' ruddy disc."
-- Through the gates of the Silver Key

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:13 AM (kQs4Y)

16 Stopped at used book store with nothing in particular in mind but found a interesting book that strangely ties into another favorite movie The Molly Maguires.
Making Sence of the Molly Maguires by Kevin Kenny explores the beginnings of the secret organisation and the conditions of society starting pre civil war to post in the coal regions of Pennsylvania.
Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 09:06 AM (BbGew)


I started reading that a few years back, but never got very far, finding it dry and tough going, though that probably says more for my academic limitations than for the book's intrinsic worth.

Fun fact - the cinematographer for the 1970 film

https://tinyurl.com/y44mpdkh

was James Wong Howe, the first Asian-American cameraman in Hollywood, whose career spanned both the silent and sound days. There's a story that at one point in the late 'teens or early 'twenties, Howe was watching a photographer trying to shoot a picture of a number of people gathered outside a building. Noting that the man had trouble framing the shot, Howe tried to offer some advice, but the photog, not knowing who Howe was, simply sneered, "Listen, buddy, you stick to your chow mein and I'll stick to snapping pictures."

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:16 AM (Ki5SV)

17 Reading some series that have now introduced Book 0, that is the prehistory to the core character or story.

I do not think it works for me. As I have already designed the prehistory by reading the story along the natural timeline.

And then there is a trend where the author has inserted themselves into a story for no reason. Just name dropping I guess.

Posted by: rhennigantx at June 16, 2019 09:16 AM (JFO2v)

18 Good morning, all! I'm back to working my way through the Flavia de Luce series, and for my time at the gym on the recumbent bike, Sarah Hoyt's "Death of a Musketeer".

For my own book(s) - Luna City #7 is being reviewed by beta readers, and I'm working away on the prospective Civil War novel, following the experiences of a woman who was an abolitionist campaigner before the war and a volunteer nurse during it. The fun thing about this is being able to reflect authentic 19th century opinions about a womans' place in society, about slavery, politics - all of which are currently very politically-incorrect, and guaranteed to make a contemporary SJW begin to gibber incoherently. I can hardly wait ...

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at June 16, 2019 09:17 AM (xnmPy)

19 and gazed upon the Cyclopean ruins that sprawl over Mars' ruddy disc." -- Through the gates of the Silver Key



Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:13 AM (kQs4Y)

---
It's fun when writers have their stock phrases, isn't it? Lovecraft loves "Cyclopean" while R.E. Howard pretty much beats "thews" to death. I didn't even know what a "thew" was till I read him.

Hemingway never sent anyone running for a dictionary, but those two sure did!

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 09:18 AM (cfSRQ)

20 Jeez - at my comment at #10, those black diamonds with question marks in them are supposed to be the letter E with an acute accent.


The pixyware that this site runs on only accepts the original cuneiform ascii set, so any character typed in from an international keyboard gets the black diamond.

You can use html codes to sneak stuff in, like Fahrvergnügen, but the next person who copies that will still get the black diamonds.

Also if you're cutting and pasting it will totally reject smart quotes, curly apostrophes, long dashes, and other communist punctuation.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:19 AM (fuK7c)

21 Still on a high from Caine Mutiny and don't know what my next great read will be. For now I'll just spelunk through my own library. There are still nameless horrors to be uncovered in my Lovecraft anthology, f'rinstance:

Eris, have you read Leslie Klinger's The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft?

https://tinyurl.com/y5s7ncq4

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:19 AM (Ki5SV)

22 The Jim Jones lesson has not been learned.

I still see the same kind of dangerously magical thinking on display every day, all for the purpose of maintaining political power and money flowing.

NYC is getting a good dose of it these days from Richard Carranza. If you disagree with him, this is because you are rayciss.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 16, 2019 09:19 AM (EZebt)

23 Um, OK, I don't know how the middle of my story got lost.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:20 AM (Ki5SV)

24 Project Guttenberg is a great resource.
Distributed Proofreaders site looks like a good place to donate some time to.
Thanks OM.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at June 16, 2019 09:21 AM (x8Q/V)

25 Happy Fathers' Day! I'm celebrating by taking my boys to Scout Camp this morning.

===

I had 3 of the best summers of my life at Onteora. Enjoy!

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 16, 2019 09:21 AM (EZebt)

26
Also if you're cutting and pasting it will totally reject smart quotes, curly apostrophes, long dashes, and other communist punctuation.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:19 AM


it barely recognizes the Oxford comma...

Posted by: AltonJackson at June 16, 2019 09:22 AM (KCxzN)

27 On to another topic.

This month's BBC Music magazine had a small feature about the can-can, which, I was surprised to discover, was not a dance invented for the famous galop in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, but was a pre-existing dance that actually reached its zenith in the 1890s, rather than at the height of the Second Empire.

In any event, one of the dancers mentioned in the story was Louise Weber, nicknamed "La Goulue." If you have a few minutes to spare, here's a short video about her, with rare footage of her, late in life, showing a couple of dance moves:

https://tinyurl.com/y38oyhum

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:24 AM (Ki5SV)

28 In reading news, I'm still laying siege to our favorite punching bag, Eddie Gibbon. Hammering my way through volume V, and while it's at least going faster, it's also borderline incoherent.

He's clearly...hmmm, what phrase works here? He's not 'phoning it in,' because they didn't have those. Maybe plowing along the top of the soil or something - basically doing a half-assed recitation of the various reigns while pretending that you - the reader - know the rest.

It's a neat technique I used in college to hand-wave past sticky details I didn't bother to study and it often worked. Gibbon may be the first recorded instance of it pretending to be actual history.

In other news, I'm finally writing again, dusting off an abandoned manuscript from 2007 dealing with vampires. I don't know if it will be any good, and it's requiring massive revisions, but the playlist I put together while I write is pretty cool and my wife finds it irresistibly sexy, so either way, I'm counting it as a win.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 09:25 AM (cfSRQ)

29 Gave an interview to a local TV station. It will never see airtime.

Short story is there was a heinous murder here of a teenage girls by two scum bags in the 80's. Cuomo's parole board is going to let them out. Trust me these people should never see the light of day and have shown zero remorse. They did it. There is no question.

Anyway, the TV bobble head asked me what I though. I said that every person who voted Democrat, like it's a team sport in the last election should take a good long look in the mirror because they own this. Ditto so called media organizations who allege to be impartial when they are nothing but cheerleaders for Democrats. I told her NY has become the very essence of de Tocqueville's Tyranny of a majority (she said who? Duh) and that people might want to read more books and educate themselves, instead of frothing at the mouth every time Democrats throw them some live meat. I further told her that none of this should surprise any Democrat voter because the party is all about negative liberty. It's always about what they are going to take away from the citizens, because they say so, and it has zero to do with law and constitution. So enjoy the fact your child can be murdered and the Democrats will let the killer go free. After all it makes sense since they will now allow you to kill your baby right up until birth.

The mouth breathing TV dope was stunned.

Like I said, it probably was deleted five minutes after I spoke.

Posted by: Marcus T at June 16, 2019 09:25 AM (VkWRL)

30 I started "On Democracy", a collection of columns and poems written by E.B. White over the course of almost fifty years, late 1920s to mid 1970s, about government and the role of the citizen. I consider White to be the finest American essayist of the 20th century and his words are always a pleasure to read. White should be made an honorary Horde member. His stress on the importance of the individual is sorely lacking these days. It's worth reading White any time for the quality of the writing but his attitude towards the dangers of reliance on ever growing government makes this volume especially valuable.

BTW, the intro was written by Jon Meacham who has contributed to or edited Time and Newsweek magazines (that says it all) and a bunch of other north east lib papers. He had to take the obligatory swipe at Trump, of course. I am so damn sick of that crap. I don't know who chose this guy to do the intro but they have no appreciation of White's content. If you get this book just skip the introduction and go straight to the meat of the matter.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:26 AM (bmdz3)

31 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Man, I've been busy. My reading for the last three weeks has consisted of DIY books on landscaping with stone, and also Cesar Millan's How To Raise the Perfect Dog.

Should probably have gotten the latter prior to getting the puppies, but, live and learn.

Posted by: April at June 16, 2019 09:26 AM (OX9vb)

32 I came across an inexpensive copy of Art Linkletter's book [i}Kids Say the Darndest Things with an almost undamaged dust jacket; published in 1957 it also contains several line drawings by Charles Schulz (creator of the "Peanuts" cartoons). Contains generally amusing little malapropisms and unexpected answers to questions from Linkletter's old "House Party" TV show. Linkletter has an appreciation for small children's worldview without being condescending.

Some of the popular icons (such as Marilyn Monroe and Roy Rodgers) are dated; I was also a little saddened to think that Marxists saw America at that time as a thing to be destroyed and they did so. Rating = 4.0/5.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at June 16, 2019 09:26 AM (5Yee7)

33 Morning! No time for reading this past week.. my list grows! Must take time next week.

Happy Father's Day to all to whom that applies!

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at June 16, 2019 09:26 AM (438dO)

34 For nonfiction I'm rereading Lawrence Patterson's "U-Boat War Patrol: The Hidden Photographic Diary of U-564", which covers a complete patrol of Teddy Suhren's famous submarine with its insignia of three black cats (for good luck).

It's an interesting personalized look at everyday life aboard a U-boat.

Here's a documentary on submarine battles of WWII:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_KcQ9qYICo

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:27 AM (kQs4Y)

35 I've read Middle Rages, not good for the blood pressure but it's important to keep up with the SJW advances.

Posted by: Prince Ludwig the Deplorable at June 16, 2019 09:28 AM (mOcZx)

36 I'm nearing the finish line of Julian Barnes' Staring at the Sun. It's kind of a hodgepodge, following a British woman from the WWII era into the dystopian future.

It was written in the 80s. In it the 90s bring computer access to all the world's information, but it's in a central government repository. The sources of information input are scrubbed because all information is to be treated as equal. The rumors are that the program adjusts its results based on the user's sophistication, and also that badthink inquiries result in extrajudicial actions.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:29 AM (fuK7c)

37 Just a dump and run this am.
Hans, book 2 of Powers of the Earth was even better. Much more sense of libertarianism coming through. We'll have to get Travis going on book 3. Love the Dogs even more!

Posted by: RI Red at June 16, 2019 09:30 AM (jeJ01)

38 Anybody know if SCBWI is worth the time?

Posted by: Marcus T at June 16, 2019 09:31 AM (VkWRL)

39 My mom said that what was scandalous about the can-can was that the dancers were not wearing underwear.

Posted by: JAS at June 16, 2019 09:32 AM (I5SAg)

40 Rachel Fulton Brown was interviewed on the Tom Wood Show podcast back in May. She talks about her experience, her work and what she sees as the challenges to Medieval studies.
Link to the interview is:

https://tinyurl.com/WoodsFultonBrown

Posted by: Kindltot at June 16, 2019 09:34 AM (hSQmw)

41 I am re-reading Diane Gabaldon's Outlander series. With our phone plan we got some streaming TV including a premium channel. So I finally got to watch season 3 and 4 of the show. Now I'm reading the books again to recall what will happen for the upcoming season 5. I first read the books when she started writing them almost 20 years ago. They are well written.

Posted by: lin-duh at June 16, 2019 09:34 AM (UUBmN)

42 Jeez - at my comment at #10, those black diamonds with question marks in them are supposed to be the letter E with an acute accent.
Posted by: Annalucia at June 16, 2019 09:12 AM (S6ArX)


The text has to be compatible with Unicode formatting. Type it in a text editor such as Notepad first. As an example the elusive ampersand is &

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at June 16, 2019 09:35 AM (5Yee7)

43 Nice Lieberry!

Jim used Flavor-Aid by the way. Cheaper I think.

They used the purple flavor.

"Folks say Papa never was much on thinking,
Spent most of his time chasing women and drinking."

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 16, 2019 09:36 AM (Z+IKu)

44 #38

Posted by: JAS at June 16, 2019 09:37 AM (I5SAg)

45 # 38 ?

Posted by: JAS at June 16, 2019 09:38 AM (I5SAg)

46 BUMPH, meaning "tiresome work or writing", was originally a military nickname for toilet paper. It derives from a shortened form of 'bum fodder'.

*******

Bum Fodder - a limerick

The book that you wrote was a crime.
So I thought I'd critique it in rhyme
It's dull and obtuse
But it's put to good use
I'm enjoying it one page at a time




(Don't forget your daily limerick of the day for today- link in nick)

Posted by: Muldoon at June 16, 2019 09:39 AM (mvenn)

47 I must be doing it wrong.

Posted by: JAS at June 16, 2019 09:39 AM (I5SAg)

48 I read A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes. This is an interesting, informative, detailed account of the revolution and the events leading up to it. The tragedy was that so many times Russia had a chance at democracy, but failed because of Russian history, culture, and the weaknesses of key players at crucial times. Well worth the time to read.
Posted by: Zoltan at June 16, 2019 09:08 AM (Zgezk)


I've been slowly making my way through it and the number of times that things happened strictly by accident explains nearly all of it, particularly that Lenin wasn't eradicated by less bad people. I'm at the civil war phase where the White army never stood a chance because they were so top loaded with officers none of whom would lower themselves to do the grunt work. But the Reds were fuckups in their own way; they could've prevailed more quickly if they weren't distracted by things like digging up a dead general's corpse and taking it to a town to burn it in public like a bunch of feral savages.

Jay Winik's The Great Upheaval made it clear that the French Revolution scared Catherine the Great away from her planned liberalization schedule that she knew had to happen to ease the pressure from below. It only deferred the inevitable.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 09:40 AM (y7DUB)

49 The greatest triumph of the Jim Jones story has been how his connections to Democratic power, Roseanne Carter, and Harvey Milk have all been eliminated in the cultural mind. People have no idea about any of it and if questioned about his politics assume he was some fundamentalist right winger.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 09:40 AM (39g3+)

50 https://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

Don't include the ;s.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:40 AM (fuK7c)

51 " Happy Fathers' Day! I'm celebrating by taking my boys to Scout Camp this morning."

Does that ever bring back memories. Going to Boy Scout camp was a rite of passage in my family. It was also a great time with swimming,canoing, crafts, hikes, even 22 target shooting. (Gasp!) Wonder if they still allow the shooting. The head of the camp had a Model T he had bought new and modified it with a small truck bed. Getting a ride around camp in that was a BIG deal. Of course this was over 55 years ago so the Model T wasn't quite the antique it would be now.

The last day of camp, families showed up to get their kids and have a huge picnic lunch. My grandfather made a wooden footlocker for each of the grandsons. I still have mine.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:41 AM (bmdz3)

52 I had a bumpersticker that said "More babies died in Ted Kennedy's car than at TMI."

Posted by: butch at June 16, 2019 09:41 AM (hXu8T)

53 My mom said that what was scandalous about the can-can was that the dancers were not wearing underwear.
Posted by: JAS at June 16, 2019 09:32 AM (I5SAg)


According to the article, that's a semi-urban legend. In the big clubs such as the Moulin Rouge, frilly underwear was de rigeur, but in the seedier regions of Paris, knickers were dispensed with on occasion.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:42 AM (Ki5SV)

54 I'd like to recommend Varina by Charles Frazier, who wrote Cold Mountain, a novel about the life of the wife of Jefferson Davis who you may recall had a brief career as President of the Confederate States of America. I picked it up off the shelf at the library and was worried that I might have accidentally acquired some chick lit. It turned out to be a wonderful book that haunts me. There's a gritty part where she flees through the devastated rural south at the end of the Civil War, their visit to a remote pig farm illustrates very well the need for the Second Amendment.

Posted by: yop at June 16, 2019 09:42 AM (hPRt2)

55 13 Jeez - at my comment at #10, those black diamonds with question marks in them are supposed to be the letter E with an acute accent.

Posted by: Annalucia at June 16, 2019 09:12 AM (S6ArX)


I fixed it in the way I hope you intended.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 09:43 AM (t4VPg)

56 Kinda in & out today; reading "Vanity of Duluoz", Kerouac's last book, which I read off away back last century.
Interesting that I seem to have adopted a couple of figures of speech from it which persist to this day.

And a Parthian Father's Day note: the first time I read it, it was a hardcover copy from my father's collection. Very untypical of his usual reading tastes.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - they are gaslighting us 24/365 at June 16, 2019 09:45 AM (a5hgv)

57 35: Bought this for the kindle. I think it's time to purge the universities of gender studies, women's studies, sundry ethnic studies, and return academia to traditional programs and "useful studies" (engineering, sciences, allied health---and I'd return a lot of allied health to the community colleges and hospital based programs as these workers need skills not "nursing philosophy" or "advanced informatics for respiratory therapy") Academics need a big dose of accountability therapy.

Posted by: CN at June 16, 2019 09:46 AM (U7k5w)

58 Nice Lieberry!

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 16, 2019 09:36 AM (Z+IKu)


Agreed, but it feels staged rather than used for reading. Table lamp isn't in a good position for a reading light and there is a statuette of a pheasant(?) on top of a book; a bibliophile would never do that.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at June 16, 2019 09:47 AM (5Yee7)

59 32 ... I have a copy of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" as well. It is delightful. I remember the segment on Linkletter's House Party show if I was home sick from school. We had just got our first television.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:47 AM (bmdz3)

60 It's fun when writers have their stock phrases, isn't it? Lovecraft loves "Cyclopean" while R.E. Howard pretty much beats "thews" to death. I didn't even know what a "thew" was till I read him.

Hemingway never sent anyone running for a dictionary, but those two sure did!
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 09:18 AM (cfSRQ)
---
I just knew from ERB that warriors were "mighty of thew", which I took to be thigh muscles(?).

SF author Joanna Russ had a funny riff in one of her stories about Lovecraftian "rugose tentacles".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:50 AM (kQs4Y)

61 Agreed, but it feels staged rather than used for reading. Table lamp isn't in a good position for a reading light and there is a statuette of a pheasant(?) on top of a book; a bibliophile would never do that.


The books around the Remington (?) are all the same size with coordinated leather binding. That's a designer wall, not a reader's wall.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:50 AM (fuK7c)

62 MP4, I just ordered the annotated Lovecraft through my library. Thanks!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:51 AM (kQs4Y)

63 The greatest triumph of the Jim Jones story has been how his connections to Democratic power, Roseanne Carter, and Harvey Milk have all been eliminated in the cultural mind. People have no idea about any of it and if questioned about his politics assume he was some fundamentalist right winger.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 09:40 AM (39g3+)


They've really memory holed that cocksucker, which they'd have done to Chuckie Manson if he hadn't been so domestically high exposure. The book that OM mentioned would be common knowledge in a well informed country with a non propaganda driven press.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 09:52 AM (y7DUB)

64 The books around the Remington (?) are all the same size with coordinated leather binding. That's a designer wall, not a reader's wall.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:50 AM (fuK7c)
---
A true reader's wall is like Hadrian's Wall, it is there to keep the barbarians out.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:52 AM (kQs4Y)

65 We had a copy of "Kids Say" at home when I was growing up, not sure where it went but it was always amusing to read. My dad got Plain Speaking from Edwin Newman that he read a lot. I have that but I've never read it. I remember there was a time in the 70s that it was all the talk.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 09:52 AM (39g3+)

66 EB White may have valued individuals, but he was one of those goofy mid-century people who thought that the solution to oppression by the State was to create an even bigger superstate. He was a huge fan of World Government, wilfully blinding himself to the implications of any kind of partnership with Mao and Stalin.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 09:52 AM (BpS6n)

67 Rachel Fulton Brown rang a bell. So I did a quick check, and I was right. She was the guest on the last Nordlinger interview I listened to; and I did so only because she sounded interesting. She was.

And two things came out about little Jay-Jay:

1. He was absolutely stone ignorant about the Middle Ages. Really, he didn't know stuff I'd learnt in High School.

2. He was shocked when she said something nice about Milo.

I was surprised it came out in 2018, as I'd have guessed earlier. But I do recall that at the time I made an exception to the "he's dead to me" rule I've adopted for many of that lot. (And I know I'm if anything more lax about that than many others.)

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 09:53 AM (VaN/j)

68 I messed up my right elbow earlier this week which means no shooting or fishing for at least a fortnight. I've been through this before. To compensate, I'm reading parts of "A Pilgrim's Journey" by Mark A. Baker. The two volumes are a compilation of the columns Baker wrote for Muzzleloader Magazine over the course of a decade. They describe his efforts to research and put into practice the lifestyle of early mountain men and other pioneers. I believe this approach is called experimental archaology. I love this kind of practical history. The reader learns along with Baker as he finds what does and doesn't work in the wilderness both in gear and approach. It's satisfying reading as we see what tools, foods, materials (even different leathers for certain purposes and why), he tries and adopts or discards. There's also the value of companionship on the journey. If you have any interest in this early American history, Baker's books are worth checking out.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:53 AM (bmdz3)

69 32 ... I have a copy of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" as well. It is delightful. I remember the segment on Linkletter's House Party show if I was home sick from school. We had just got our first television.
Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:47 AM (bmdz3)


I'm not that old, what with being 29 and all. But I distinctly remember when the Old Man finally broke down and bought the family's first color TV set in the early 1980s.

I also tracked down a copy of Linkletter's sequel, Kids Still Say the Darndest Things via the intertubes, but it apparently had a much smaller print run and was substantially more expensive (I wanted one with a dust jacket).

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at June 16, 2019 09:54 AM (5Yee7)

70 Oh and I finished Mornings on Horseback. *waves at Eris*

It's astounding how much of TR's life was documented in letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and later interviews. I'm a fanboi, so it's my mumbleth biography.

It's also hilarious that it takes him to the end of his ranching days. The afterword is oh then he was NYC police commissioner, and then vice president and president, and then he got shot and gave his speech anyway, and then he got malaria exploring the Amazon, and then....

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 09:54 AM (fuK7c)

71 What's the name of the Jim Jones documentary series? I'd like to check that out


Is it wrong to discuss TV on the Book Thread?

Posted by: josephistan at June 16, 2019 09:55 AM (Izzlo)

72 MP4, I just ordered the annotated Lovecraft through my library. Thanks!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:51 AM (kQs4Y)


Always happy to be of service, dear lady.

And here's a link to the Lovecraft Historical Society, where you can buy HPL-related items as well as versions of his stories done up as 1930s radio plays. I only have two - Imprisoned With The Pharaohs and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - but the production values are excellent.

http://www.hplhs.org/

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:56 AM (Ki5SV)

73 Since I've been revisiting my D-Day reading in honor of the 75th Anniversary, I received "The First Wave - The D-day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II" by Alex Kershaw for my simultaneous birthday/Father's Day gift. Look forward to starting it.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at June 16, 2019 09:57 AM (wZ9cV)

74 Tsar Alexander I also dabbled in reform at first, but then shut most of it down after Napoleon's invasion. The only reforms he did keep going were the "military villages" which were basically a pre-release version of collectivized farming.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 09:57 AM (BpS6n)

75 *waves back at Bander*

I'm a Teddy fangurl, and it never ceases to amaze me that we all get 24 hours in a day, and the same general allotment of years, and yet TR managed to squeeze in so many lives into his.

And the man was a prodigious reader on top of everything else.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (kQs4Y)

76 The latest from David Brooks is about us:

"And I think, in order to justify their support for President Trump, they have talked themselves - or many people have - into the position that this is a life-or-death struggle, the left is out to destroy us, and so breaking the rules is what you got to do."

Yeah, boy, it took some real arm twisting to convince myself that the left is out to destroy us.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (+y/Ru)

77 You win this time, JT!

*shakes fist*
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

Aww heck, Eris.

Posted by: JT at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (JvvIt)

78 Good on you Marcus T for speaking truth to power.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (EZebt)

79 Yes, that library is a showroom, but a couple empty longnecks and sci-fi paperbacks will give it that lived-in feel.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 10:00 AM (kQs4Y)

80 67
Rachel Fulton Brown rang a bell. So I did a quick check, and I was
right. She was the guest on the last Nordlinger interview I listened to;
and I did so only because she sounded interesting. She was.



Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 09:53 AM (VaN/j)

---
Ah, Nordlinger. There's someone I haven't thought about in years.

That's the thing with these people: once they revealed who they were, it didn't take any willpower whatsoever to avoid them. Came naturally.

What I find annoying in the blind links to NR and its writers. Ed Driscoll does this a lot - you think "hmm, yes, that looks like an interesting topic" but then see where it is going and reverse course.

Your other point (which I clipped for the sake of brevity) is also telling: These people are actually not all that educated.

They set themselves up as the intellectual heirs of Bill Buckley, but they weren't, they just could turn a phrase and fancied themselves upper-crust because they liked opera and stuff.

And then you had Jonah, who was hip and cool because he talked about Star Wars and The Simpsons, but that schtick is worn out as well.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:01 AM (cfSRQ)

81 We always had a TV around when I grew up, one of my earliest memories is sitting with mom and watching one of the rockets launch to go to the moon. My dad repaired TVs and radios, back when you could do it with a soldering iron, and he would bring home the ones people decided weren't worth paying to fix.

But we had very restricted viewing on the things, we could watch specific shows, with permission (like Sesame Street, classic movies, animal documentariest, etc) and then turn the thing off. It was mostly a place mom kept her plants. Books, however. We could read as many books as we had time for and mom encouraged us. She would assign us books to read over Summer Vacation, and that's where I read most of the Dickens I have read.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:01 AM (39g3+)

82 MP4, I am a big fan of their movie versions, done in legit German Expressionist or 30's style.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 10:02 AM (kQs4Y)

83 I think the key to understanding TR is that he was asthmatic. If you've ever had that, you know that the treatment is adrenaline (or epinephrine, which is literally the same word in Greek). TR couldn't buy Primatene at the drugstore, so he basically had to keep himself in a state of constant high activity. (He also got around the reduced breathing by increasing his capacity so much that even during a bronchial spasm he could get enough oxygen.)

That also explains why he died relatively young. He burned out his heart by running it at 5000 RPM his whole life.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:02 AM (BpS6n)

84 "And I think, in order to justify their support for
President Trump, they have talked themselves - or many people have -
into the position that this is a life-or-death struggle, the left is out
to destroy us, and so breaking the rules is what you got to do."



Yeah, boy, it took some real arm twisting to convince myself that the left is out to destroy us.



Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (+y/Ru)

---
Masterpiece Cake Shop and Gibson's Bakery couldn't be reach for comment, apparently.

These people are parodies of themselves.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

85 ...I'd return a lot of allied health to the community colleges and hospital based programs as these workers need skills not "nursing philosophy" or "advanced intersectional informatics for respiratory therapy") Academics need a big dose of accountability therapy.
Posted by: CN at June 16, 2019 09:46 AM (U7k5w)


Minor correction.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 10:04 AM (t4VPg)

86 I think the key to understanding TR is that he was asthmatic.


McCullough (Mornings on Horseback) makes a big deal out of the mind-body connection and possible psychosomatic nature of Teedie's attacks.

He did seem to get over them after he made himself physically robust.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 10:05 AM (fuK7c)

87 ack!

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 10:06 AM (fuK7c)

88 The list of books should include, "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism," by George B. Shaw, 1928, Brentano's Books, because it is the Socialist playbook -- brainmaggots and all.

Posted by: Marooned at June 16, 2019 10:06 AM (8hRlF)

89 I've been re-reading Tom Wolfe lately. I got a copy of his collection "The Kandy-Colored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby," which is really great. It's a collection of his work from the early Sixties, when he had noticed (before most other writers) that there was this thing called "youth culture" and it wasn't just a passing fad, and it's going to be a fundamental shift in American society so maybe we should pay attention a little?

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:07 AM (BpS6n)

90 Masterpiece Cake Shop and Gibson's Bakery couldn't be reach for comment, apparently.

These people are parodies of themselves.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

===

The left wages a Manichean struggle over pastry, while these people contemplate their navels.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 16, 2019 10:07 AM (EZebt)

91 I'm just over 100 pages into Claudius the God and am enjoying the narrative shift from I, Claudius in which he talked about earlier events as an observer/historian and now as the accidental Emperor of how and why he did things. This is a time period of which I was previously very ill read (Gibbon's concentration was much later than this even though the seeds of decay had obviously been sown) and had no idea of Herod's involvement for example, although Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ should've given me a partial head's up. Anyway I'm finding it fascinating reading and am glad the book group decided to tackle the two in sequence.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 10:07 AM (y7DUB)

92 83
I think the key to understanding TR is that he was asthmatic. If you've
ever had that, you know that the treatment is adrenaline (or
epinephrine, which is literally the same word in Greek). TR couldn't buy
Primatene at the drugstore, so he basically had to keep himself in a
state of constant high activity. (He also got around the reduced
breathing by increasing his capacity so much that even during a
bronchial spasm he could get enough oxygen.)



That also explains why he died relatively young. He burned out his heart by running it at 5000 RPM his whole life.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:02 AM (BpS6n)

---
I have hyper-reactive lungs, which was initially identified as asthma, but isn't.

As part of the treatment, I was given an inhaler and told to be "pro-active" about using before physical activity. I remember talking a couple of puff before taking the field with the marching band at pregame. I don't think my feet actually touched the turf half the time.

I didn't enjoy that rush, so I stopped using it, and since I wasn't living at home with two heavy smokers, my lungs cleared up by the themselves and the diagnosis was cleared up.

I look back and wonder how - when the doctor asked if there where any allergens at home, my wife could shrug and say "no," and then light up a cigarette as soon as we left of office. One of my chores was to empty the ashtrays, btw.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

93 I got Mark Levin's new book from the library yesterday but haven't started it yet. I know from past experience that I can only read a few pages of his books then take a break to avoid terminal rage. I'm hoping this one does more with history. I already think 95 percent of the news media should disappear into Don Lemon's black hole along with that airliner. (Read that however you wish.)

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 10:08 AM (bmdz3)

94 76 The latest from David Brooks is about us:

"And I think, in order to justify their support for President Trump, they have talked themselves - or many people have - into the position that this is a life-or-death struggle, the left is out to destroy us, and so breaking the rules is what you got to do."


Tell that to Baronelle Stutzmann, you lilly-livered wanking fop.

Life in that impenetrable Acela bubble must be nice.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 10:08 AM (t4VPg)

95 Lately I've been envying people who finish books. That's because I got 8 for my birthday. Of them, Feser's Aristotle's Revenge is the only one I have (just) finished, and I'm almost done with Roskill's Churchill and the Admirals*.

Of course, all but one were naval history, where you don't have to read straight through. E.g., Derry's Campaign in Norway, and Roskill's

*OK, I did read that about 40 years ago, from the college library.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:08 AM (VaN/j)

96 Christopher R., that sounds like a great way to grow up!

In the t.v. bio of Ben Carson, his mother was doing housecleaning for a professor and noticed that his living room was lined and stacked with books and that he had a television, unplugged, buried behind a mound of tomes.

Upon returning home that evening she immediately began regulating her children's t.v. watching and insisted they start reading more.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 10:09 AM (kQs4Y)

97 I'm deeply suspicious of the psychosomatic explanation for TR's asthma. As I said, I've had it myself. Seems much more plausible that he was just having allergies triggered by the fact that 1870s NYC air was a soup of coal smoke and nebulized horse manure. I think it's significant that he liked to hang out in places like Montana and Oyster Bay where the air was clear.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:09 AM (BpS6n)

98 Tsar Alexander I also dabbled in reform at first, but then shut most of it down after Napoleon's invasion.

-
He chased Napoleon from Moscow to Leipzig and beyond and then, much like us after WWII, he went home rather than to create an empire.

There is a rumour that he faked his own death and retired as a monk to a monastery.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 10:09 AM (+y/Ru)

99 my wife could shrug and say "no," and then light up a
cigarette as soon as we left of office. One of my chores was to empty
the ashtrays, btw.


Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

---
D'oh! For "wife" read "mother."

Geez.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:09 AM (cfSRQ)

100 Late to the thread. This week's pants picture gives real meaning to the term "Stink Eye".

Posted by: DR.WTF at June 16, 2019 10:10 AM (aS1PU)

101 76 The latest from David Brooks is about us:

"And I think, in order to justify their support for President Trump, they have talked themselves - or many people have - into the position that this is a life-or-death struggle, the left is out to destroy us, and so breaking the rules is what you got to do."

Yeah, boy, it took some real arm twisting to convince myself that the left is out to destroy us.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (+y/Ru)
_________

Well, David, they're not out to destroy YOU. Not for a while, anyway.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:10 AM (VaN/j)

102
13 Jeez - at my comment at #10, those black diamonds with question
marks in them are supposed to be the letter E with an acute accent.

Posted by: Annalucia at June 16, 2019 09:12 AM (S6ArX)

I fixed it in the way I hope you intended.


Thanks, OregonMuse, but you've given the word *grave* accents. Acute accents point the other way :-)

Posted by: Annalucia at June 16, 2019 10:11 AM (S6ArX)

103 I finished Harry Crews's The Haw

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 10:11 AM (y7DUB)

104 91
I'm just over 100 pages into Claudius the God and am enjoying the
narrative shift from I, Claudius in which he talked about earlier events
as an observer/historian and now as the accidental Emperor of how and
why he did things. This is a time period of which I was previously very
ill read (Gibbon's concentration was much later than this even though
the seeds of decay had obviously been sown) and had no idea of Herod's
involvement for example, although Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ
should've given me a partial head's up. Anyway I'm finding it
fascinating reading and am glad the book group decided to tackle the two
in sequence.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 10:07 AM (y7DUB)

---
I love those books. Read 'em in high school and then in college after I'd taken more Roman history.

I love the way he translates Roman society into something his English contemporaries can relate to. It gives it a more immediate feel and I think that's why the TV show was so good as well.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:11 AM (cfSRQ)

105 Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:07 AM (BpS6n)

My favorite is "Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers" it echoes some of the earlier comments about Jim Jones and how he accumulated power in SF.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 16, 2019 10:12 AM (EZebt)

106 nebulized
---
My word of the day!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 10:13 AM (kQs4Y)

107 My pointy head is buried so deeply in the sand that I can see my Saudi friends from here!

Posted by: David Brooks at June 16, 2019 10:13 AM (EgshT)

108 I love the way he translates Roman society into something his English contemporaries can relate to.

The writer of the SPQR Roman mysteries does a good job of the same thing, John Maddox Roberts. His books are full of Roman cultural stuff, but its delivered in an interesting and often humorous way which never feels like a travelogue, but a Roman citizen steeped in it just describing life.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:14 AM (39g3+)

109 What's the name of the Jim Jones documentary series? I'd like to check that out

-
Jonestown: Terror In the Jungle.

https://www.amc.com/shows/jonestown-terror-in-the-jungle

I thought it was well worth watching.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 10:14 AM (+y/Ru)

110 No. 1 Son had early childhood asthma. Nebulizer is not a word I miss.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 10:14 AM (fuK7c)

111 Thanks, OregonMuse, but you've given the word *grave* accents. Acute accents point the other way :-)

Posted by: Annalucia
________

I like the circumflex accents. They look like little hats.

Posted by: FireHorse at June 16, 2019 10:15 AM (ta49A)

112 Tsar Alexander I also dabbled in reform at first, but then shut most of it down after Napoleon's invasion.

-
He chased Napoleon from Moscow to Leipzig and beyond and then, much like us after WWII, he went home rather than to create an empire.

There is a rumour that he faked his own death and retired as a monk to a monastery.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 10:09 AM (+y/Ru)


Which may or may not be connected to the rumor (and sorry, I can't remember where I read it) that he had an uncomfortably close relationship with his sister.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 10:15 AM (Ki5SV)

113 Well, David, they're not out to destroy YOU. Not for a while, anyway.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:10 AM (VaN/j)

---
David Brooks is auditioning for the role of Petronius in Nero's court.

He'll be used as the butt of jokes, amuse Caesar with witticisms and his presence will demonstrate how open-minded our Imperial rulers are as they send the rest of us to work camps.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:15 AM (cfSRQ)

114 Lloyd: yep, both of my parents were smokers, too.

Regarding TR, let me expand a bit. I'm dubious about the psychosomatic explanation because it's based on cod-Freudian notions of him coming to associate the spasms with his father's admirable nurturing attempts. (TR senior seems to have been an all-around nice guy, and his famous son idolized him all his life.)

I've come to regard any kind of Freudian "explanation" of someone's life and activities as a made-up story. I prefer to stick to verifiable biology.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:15 AM (BpS6n)

115 A happy and blessed Sunday to you all, fathers or not.
Posted by: Annalucia

Thank you.

Same to you !

Posted by: JT at June 16, 2019 10:16 AM (JvvIt)

116 Read "Social Media Upheaval" by Glenn Reynolds last night. I was surprised at first how cheap it was (5 bucks on Kindel.

It is a short book more like a "Common Sense" style pamphlet (explaining the low price) but well worth reading.

Posted by: Tallahassee at June 16, 2019 10:16 AM (xV6Pj)

117 Time for pancakes. See you cats in a bit.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 10:16 AM (kQs4Y)

118 I don't absolutely boycott NRO. There are a few who can be interesting, especially since the scales fell from McCarthy's eyes. I give him credit for the line "The 'crazies' were right and I was wrong." If a few more were to see that, the whole #NT mini-phenomenon would never have happened, or at least would have died off.

But sometimes I'll read one of the buttheads, just to see what they're saying. Latest in the Franco-Ahmari War includes Goldberg pretty much saying this his kind of classical liberalism is intended to keep those icky Christianist bigots down. (I think Cooke may have said this first; obviously Jonah got it from somewhere. He's the Biden of NeverTrump pundits, after all.)

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:17 AM (VaN/j)

119 . I prefer to stick to verifiable biology.


McCullough doesn't make it up out of whole cloth. He draws correlations from diary entries showing the frequency of the attacks around stressful situations. He hated Sundays, for instance, and almost all of his bad attacks were Saturday nights.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 10:18 AM (fuK7c)

120 Jim Jones started as a Christian pastor, but he found the faith was too restrictive and not communist enough, so he abandoned it and basically preached Marxism from the pulpit as a religion. This made him very beloved, but the problem was that no matter how much he preached it never really took place, so he wanted a place he could build into a Marxist paradise. Along the way well if a few eggs got broken and some laws were violated, like loans being never paid back and journalists who investigated being killed well you can't make an omelette or something.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:18 AM (39g3+)

121 85: The colleges and universities are determined to push for bachelor's degrees and minimal qualifications for nursing and technician jobs. The people who come out of these programs usually need much on-site training while people who went to clinical intense programs are good to go. They know all about "diversity" and "team building" (normally placing themselves on par with physicians) and tend to be litigious, but they don't know how to teach people to use inhalers or have much understanding of medications (I have heard too many stories about BSN nurses who have never given an injection, and who fail basic pharmacy and therapeutic tests)

Posted by: CN at June 16, 2019 10:18 AM (U7k5w)

122 And thanks again for a great book thread, OM!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 10:19 AM (kQs4Y)

123 I've come to regard any kind of Freudian
"explanation" of someone's life and activities as a made-up story. I
prefer to stick to verifiable biology.



Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:15 AM (BpS6n)

---
There's a pretty solid case that Freud was a total fraud and charlatan, but he at least did open up the concept of studying mental health as a discipline.

Unfortunately, the track record isn't all that great. We have more "mental health experts" than any society in history, and are only getting crazier.

Cure was worse than the disease.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:19 AM (cfSRQ)

124 He draws correlations from diary entries showing the frequency of the attacks around stressful situations.

Well two things are undeniable:
1) stress makes illness worse, and that's not in your head
2) being more healthy makes it easier for your body to get through illness and ignore more of the symptoms.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:21 AM (39g3+)

125 Chick with the glasses and bun has a Brie Larson butt.

Posted by: gp, aka Mr. Tact at June 16, 2019 10:22 AM (mk9aG)

126 Unfortunately, the track record isn't all that great. We have more "mental health experts" than any society in history, and are only getting crazier.

I think the problem is that while the analysis side is pretty solid (this is what is wrong, here's why people do what they do) the cure side is utterly worthless and even pernicious. It makes matters even worse.

Counseling/psychiatry can be useful but mostly it seems like a scam, people never, ever get better and have to keep going back and paying for more sessions. And a lot of modern work seems to be designed to turn people even more loopy.

There is something to the Matrix line where the bad guy says they tried to make a perfect world and humans rejected it. We need conflict, challenge, and difficulty or we start to invent our own.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:24 AM (39g3+)

127 OK, got to run. Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 10:24 AM (Ki5SV)

128 118
I don't absolutely boycott NRO. There are a few who can be interesting,
especially since the scales fell from McCarthy's eyes. I give him credit
for the line "The 'crazies' were right and I was wrong." If a few more
were to see that, the whole #NT mini-phenomenon would never have
happened, or at least would have died off.



But sometimes I'll read one of the buttheads, just to see what
they're saying. Latest in the Franco-Ahmari War includes Goldberg pretty
much saying this his kind of classical liberalism is intended to keep
those icky Christianist bigots down. (I think Cooke may have said this
first; obviously Jonah got it from somewhere. He's the Biden of
NeverTrump pundits, after all.)

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:17 AM" (VaN/j)

---
Sorry, but the ratio of stupid to non-stupid is just too high. They can do without my clicks.

As for Goldberg's "Christianist" fears, it's funny how fast unlimited abortion and forcible participation in gay marriage are now "classical liberal" positions all right-thinking people believe, isn't it?

Lying, useless grifters who had to turn the comments off because they were being humiliated so often. Funny to watch Jonah's attempted slap-fight with Kurt Schlichter on Twitter.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:24 AM (cfSRQ)

129 That doggie in the library has no pants.Slim Pickens for a Trillionaire,I would have all of Google and Amazon and the Bodleian in the other wing,and lots of comics and hot chicks reading them to me nekked.....both of us.

Posted by: saf at June 16, 2019 10:25 AM (5IHGB)

130 Freud lingers because he's perfect fodder for drama. Think about the paradigm of Freudian psycholanalysis: a person is troubled. With the help of a wise mentor, the person pursues self-knowledge and learns the truth of past trauma. With that knowledge, he is healed.

It's a perfect formula for drama! Which is why pretty much every single dramatic film or play of the last hundred years has been a story of Freudian awakening and hidden truths revealed.

Contrast that with the drama of the Greek plays. There are no shocking revelations of secrets. The conflict is right out in the open from the beginning. Creon won't let Antigone bury her brother. She does it anyway. There's no big secret about how Creon used to grope her, or how he always liked her dead brother better, or any of that modern bullshit. It's just two opposed goals, and the consequences of your actions.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:25 AM (BpS6n)

131 108 I love the way he translates Roman society into something his English contemporaries can relate to.

The writer of the SPQR Roman mysteries does a good job of the same thing, John Maddox Roberts. His books are full of Roman cultural stuff, but its delivered in an interesting and often humorous way which never feels like a travelogue, but a Roman citizen steeped in it just describing life.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:14 AM (39g3+)
______

I didn't much like the first one, but gave him a 2nd chance, and think the others I've read were pretty good.

Along those lines, Stanton's Medieval Maritime Warfare is like that. I criticized the writing in the first chapter; it got better. Part of the problem is that he embraces the current vogue of pedantry about Greek and Arab words, and ALWAY uses them, in italics, instead of natural English equivalents. (And the italics, in this volume, I find hard to read.) But I hate it when they feel compelled to say "Sokrates" or "ibn-Rush".

I do note he does not do so with "Greek Fire". (Something else that was shoehorned into GoT. I suspect that a video of "sources of GoT would be more interesting than the series. Well, if they included some bewbs, anyway.)

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:26 AM (VaN/j)

132 At this point I think Goldberg is just casting about desperately for a job so he can retain standing in the pundit community and pay for his lifestyle. Once you get used to 6 figures a year income, its not easy to dial back to 5.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:26 AM (39g3+)

133 123: Mental illness is too broadly defined, not every difference among humans is pathological, and everyone doesn't have to share the same beliefs. Therapists, largely academic based, are creating new problems on a regular basis and turning disagreement into traumatic assault, and celebrating every trauma (and this includes anniversaries of the trauma).

Posted by: CN at June 16, 2019 10:27 AM (U7k5w)

134 Fucking iPad

I finished Harry Crews's The Hawk is Dying and again have to state that he should be a Horde fave. Is someone who is so fixated on training a captured red tailed chicken hawk that he just wants to be left the fuck alone in the midst of his weird family descending on him for the funeral of his retarded nephew, who helped him capture the bird, not the quintessential Moron tale or is it strictly about me and my goddamn wife who won't stop bothering me on Father's Day? Add in lots of sex about which the narrator is very self deprecating about his performance and this is hitting every note. His books are rapidly going out of print to the additional shame of our dogshit domestic publishers for whatever nod to horrendous taste since I know some ideological idiots who dote on Crews as much as I do. I know another book thread aficionado feels the same way but it's like swimming against the tide.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 10:27 AM (y7DUB)

135 I think the fact that TR was a wiggly little boy, likely what would be diagnosed nowadays as "ADHD" (because of the constant adrenaline high required to breathe), is adequate explanation for not wanting to go to church, and why his father indulged him by taking him for long carriage drives on Sundays instead.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:28 AM (BpS6n)

136 132
At this point I think Goldberg is just casting about desperately for a
job so he can retain standing in the pundit community and pay for his
lifestyle. Once you get used to 6 figures a year income, its not easy
to dial back to 5.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:26 AM (39g3+)

---
That's what his attempted fight with Schlichter looked like.

Goldberg claimed Kurt was making personal attacks and Schlichter replied: No, I wasn't being personal and you will *know* when I get personal.

Goldberg then did some lame plea for civility and Schlichter told him "No one tells me what to say. Go away."

It was pathetic.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 10:31 AM (cfSRQ)

137 Finished reading "When violence is the answer" by Tim Larkin. It had some interesting observations where he designates 2 basic types of violence: social violence and asocial. This is a big generalization but it seems to me it's more like social violence is what triggly-puff types get into - something easy to avoid and something that you may be able to de-escalate. But asocial violence is different, scarier, and more like the bike-lock wielding antifa type. Something that just comes at you seemingly out of the blue. It can't be reasoned with and it doesn't quit until you put the assaulter out of the game. The majority of the book is about the need to act quickly and decisively.

But the one thing he mentioned in the book that really stood out for me was that real criminals are always the most polite people - because they have been taught to be careful about instigating asocial violence.

I have ocasion to be at the county courthouse often - no, I'm not a criminal or a lawyer, just volunteer for an organization that works with kids caught up in Dependency and Neglect cases. Anyway, I can tell immediatly when someone has been in the system and been in jail - they are always the most pleasent and polite people in the room. Strange.

I would recommend this book. He pads it some with too long explanations, but what he presents could be very useful to you.

Posted by: Last at June 16, 2019 10:31 AM (BdIMF)

138 114
I've come to regard any kind of Freudian "explanation" of someone's life and activities as a made-up story. I prefer to stick to verifiable biology.
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 10:15 AM (BpS6n)
_______

Kipling gave us the term: Just So Stories. They're all over the place. Marx and his descendants are the most obvious, but there are plenty more.

I give more credence to The Beginning of the Armadillos than to either Macaulay or Gibbon, for instance. And the NRO narrative of the "fusionist" origins of their version of "conservatism" is much less accurate than The Elephant's Child.

Another Kiplingism is "bandar log", which is as good a description of today's press as exists. (From Kaa's Hunting.) I think it should catch on, but it hasn't.

While on Kipling, a friend and I were talking about him, and concluded that someone should set "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" to music, and make it California's new State Song.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:33 AM (VaN/j)

139 A good companion to A Peoples's Tragedy is Kolyma by Robert Conquest. This details the worst of the gulags in the far East of Russia. For example, one of the slave ships carrying 5000 or so became trapped in the ice. Stalin refused foreign assistance, the crew was evacuated, and the prisoners were left to be shoveled overboard in the spring.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 16, 2019 10:33 AM (S6gsw)

140 I just picked up the only copy of The White Raja in my entire state wide library system. It was actually in a closed stack so had to be found, pulled and mailed to my local library. How cool is that. Made me feel very erudite. I have just started it and it is really good. Almost immediately could visualize the characters and the setting like it was a movie running in my head. I'll report back when I've finished.
Thanks Sunday Morning Book Thread for the recommendation.

Posted by: sharon at June 16, 2019 10:34 AM (QzF6i)

141 Anyway, I can tell immediatly when someone has been in the system and been in jail - they are always the most pleasent and polite people in the room. Strange.

In a lawless community, it comes down to polite behavior to have any sort of peace. Kind of like Heinlein's aphorism about an armed society being a polite one; if your "disrespect" might get you killed, you tend to hold off.

The flaw in this of course is that the worst sort of murdering lunatic cuts a swath right through that because they care nothing about anything.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:36 AM (39g3+)

142 Mention of Lovecraft reminds me that, when I saw a picture of him, he looked exactly as he should have looked. That's also true of Poe and Stephen King. Is it something about the genre? It's not always true; C S Lewis was very different than I had envisaged, for instance.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:40 AM (VaN/j)

143 I'm going to read my copy of Billy Tucci's "Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion" signed, inscribed & with a sketch of a P-51 by Tucci, in honor of D-Day

Posted by: josephistan at June 16, 2019 10:40 AM (Izzlo)

144 Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at June 16, 2019 09:16 AM

My life of reading could be considered "dry", no idea where you are but have traveled through the coal region often, The Molly Maguires is a favorite movie and have been in a coal mine at least once as a kid. So far have found it fascinating.

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 10:40 AM (BbGew)

145 "Bum Fodder" are those not half the democratic wanabee Prez "candy-dates?"

18 more months of BUMPH if the MEE_DIE OREAH survives that long 10:1 Cnn is gone.

now back to my massive library I stole from Congress while they were looking the other way.......

Posted by: saf at June 16, 2019 10:40 AM (5IHGB)

146 Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 09:53 AM

And the perfect time to practice off hand shooting

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 10:45 AM (BbGew)

147 A good companion to A Peoples's Tragedy is Kolyma by Robert Conquest. This details the worst of the gulags in the far East of Russia. For example, one of the slave ships carrying 5000 or so became trapped in the ice. Stalin refused foreign assistance, the crew was evacuated, and the prisoners were left to be shoveled overboard in the spring.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 16, 2019 10:33 AM (S6gsw)


I plan on reading Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrows after A People's Tragedy since I picked up a copy a while back. The Georgian Gimp was a natural successor to Lenin as an even bigger totalitarian dickhole willing to inflict MOAR MISERY on people. And LOL @ Saint Delano thinking he could play him. Get yer shinebox, punk.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 10:46 AM (y7DUB)

148 Didn't Solzhenitsyn write his manuscripts on rolls of toilet paper to smuggle them out of the USSR? So it's ironic, because they're the opposite of bum fodder!

Posted by: Pete in Texas at June 16, 2019 10:48 AM (xx2Hn)

149 For any members of the Texas horde..... I just went through Elmer Kelton's collection for the 2nd time. If you are a fan of Texas history I can't recommend them enough. Particularly the Texas Ranger and Sons of Texas series. Kelton weaves his characters through actual events.
The Ranger series goes from the great Comanche raid all the way to the coast at Linville through Reconstruction.
The Sons of Texas books span from Spanish rule to San Jacinto while putting characters in every major battle and event in between.
My favorite author.

Posted by: RustyG at June 16, 2019 10:48 AM (8AvCG)

150 For fans of Teddy Roosevelt, track down The River of Doubt. It details his Amazon expedition, and just how nearly fatal it was.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 16, 2019 10:48 AM (S6gsw)

151 98 - 112 I doubt either of these tales, another often rumor that I have tried to find in books is that Queen Louisa of Prussia was a lover of Alexander, but that seems to be from the French so not really believing it.

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 10:48 AM (BbGew)

152 A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich should be mandatory reading for high schoolers. Its short, easy to read, and right to the point. This is what Marxism gets you.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 10:48 AM (39g3+)

153 I've been re-reading the classic Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser classic sword-and-sorcery stories. Fritz Leiber could write a bit.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at June 16, 2019 10:51 AM (iB1oa)

154 I just finished reading Animal Farm to the little Neradas, I think Fahrenheit 451 will be next. 1984 might be a bit soon, though I plan to present them with every text that details how evil socialism is over time.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 16, 2019 10:54 AM (S6gsw)

155 Counseling/psychiatry can be useful but mostly it seems like a scam, people never, ever get better and have to keep going back and paying for more sessions. And a lot of modern work seems to be designed to turn people even more loopy.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor
________

Chiropractors of the mind?

Posted by: FireHorse at June 16, 2019 10:55 AM (ta49A)

156 First time in months I've slept this late!
When I arose, 'twas almost Eight.
(I even woke up feeling great;
better than normal at any rate.)

My mind fills up with chatter and blather,
and I work myself up into a lather.*
But, for today, I choose not to bother,
And focus my mind on our heavenly Father.*

(* Stanza works best if you use some kind of snooty faux English accent that sounds "lather" like "bother." "Oh, rah-thuh!")
___

Hello, Book Thread. Those pants don't look very comfortable for sitting.
___

For Father's Day, repeating a tale I've told before.

Decades ago, Milady and I, taking a taxi from downtown Chicago to our apartment on the north side.

Cabbie was (AFAICT) a Muslim by heritage. He had a picture of his son proudly displayed next to his cabbie license. We talked about his son a while, proud papa.

I cannot remember how the talk turned to religion, but he seemed to be disdainful of belief in Deity because God was a big meanie who treats us badly.

I dared to suggest that the nature of God is more like that of a Father.

The cabbie scowled and rejected that, sneering something about the meanness of his own mortal father.

Just as we were done with our business with him, it came to me to say,

"No, not like your father was to you, but the kind of father you would like to be to your son."

We said thanks, and he drove away.

We never know what grows from seeds we plant, fertile soil or hard rock and all that. I hoped his evident love and care for his own son was fertile soil.

Hat-tip to all the Moron fathers and father-figures.

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for "a walk with the folks" comic at June 16, 2019 10:56 AM (Yllyl)

157 Hat-tip to all the Moron fathers and father-figures.
Posted by: mindful webworker

seconded

Posted by: JT at June 16, 2019 10:57 AM (JvvIt)

158 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW4Gg_PIHlU

Hong Kong this morning

Posted by: Off the reservation at June 16, 2019 10:58 AM (vWMNq)

159 111 Thanks, OregonMuse, but you've given the word *grave* accents. Acute accents point the other way :-)

Posted by: Annalucia


Do'h! OK, I think I fixed it correctly this time.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 10:59 AM (t4VPg)

160 Never celebrated Fathers' Day in my household. My father liked to pick out his own neckties. I've continued the tradition. I miss him every day, not just one day in June.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 16, 2019 11:00 AM (BpS6n)

161 The most we ever did for mother's or father's day is a card or some flowers. It was never a big deal because in theory every day was for mom and dad. I know that sounds trite but these days were invented to sell cards and other merchandising, they are entirely commercial in origin and I don't care for that kind of thing.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 11:01 AM (39g3+)

162 I like this description of Treasure Island from the 40 Classic Books list: "Because I like to imagine hosting a dinner party featuring Long John Silver, Blind Pew, Ben Gunn and Billy Bones. More rum, more fun." Yeah, it's all fun and games until your guests start carving each other up...

Posted by: Captain Obvious at June 16, 2019 11:05 AM (iB1oa)

163 150 For fans of Teddy Roosevelt, track down The River of Doubt. It details his Amazon expedition, and just how nearly fatal it was.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 16, 2019 10:48 AM (S6gsw)
---
I love this book. It's in my top three TR books, which are (in no particular order):

The River of Doubt
Mornings on Horseback
Never Call Retreat

I've got "Theodore Roosevelt For the Defense: The Courtroom Battle to Save His Legacy" on my library list.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:06 AM (kQs4Y)

164 My kids are as much of ingrates as I was on Father's Day so I guess I raised them well. They don't bug me at least which is a gift in itself, a lesson completely lost on my wife.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 11:06 AM (y7DUB)

165 Covfefe is a bigly good word but seldom used

Posted by: Kurt at June 16, 2019 11:07 AM (R7ewd)

166 Treasure Island is good but that guy is right, Kidnapped is even better.

Pretty much anything but Robert Louis Stevenson is great, though. He's one of my "if I were half as good as him I could rest easy as an author" writers.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 11:07 AM (39g3+)

167 There's a pretty solid case that Freud was a total fraud and charlatan, but he at least did open up the concept of studying mental health as a discipline.

Unfortunately, the track record isn't all that great. We have more "mental health experts" than any society in history, and are only getting crazier."

Just for fun a little while ago, my wife and I were looking up online info on archetypes in dreams, seeing what different people thought different images meant.

Ran across Freud's views - of course, to Freud, everything is a Phallus. EVERYTHING. It says a lot more about Freud than about anyone he ever examined.

Posted by: Tom Servo at June 16, 2019 11:07 AM (V2Yro)

168 Better Hong Kong stream. Skip to 3 minutes in (sound problems at the beginning).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1nfRvQo_ac

Carrie Lam said different things in Cantonese and English so the world-wide press reported that problems were over but the people in Hong Kong are still protesting.

Posted by: Off the reservation at June 16, 2019 11:07 AM (vWMNq)

169 154 I just finished reading Animal Farm to the little Neradas, I think Fahrenheit 451 will be next. 1984 might be a bit soon, though I plan to present them with every text that details how evil socialism is over time.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 16, 2019 10:54 AM (S6gsw)

Don't forget Brave New World, as well.

Button, button who's got the button?

Posted by: Fox2! at June 16, 2019 11:08 AM (MwFQu)

170 142 Mention of Lovecraft reminds me that, when I saw a picture of him, he looked exactly as he should have looked. That's also true of Poe and Stephen King. Is it something about the genre? It's not always true; C S Lewis was very different than I had envisaged, for instance.
Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 10:40 AM (VaN/j)


I can't get over CS Lewis' voice. I've heard recordings of him that have been uploaded to YouTube and if I ever wanted to write a story featuring a stuffy, clueless, nose-in-the-air British twit, he would have that voice.

Which is funny because that's almost the exact opposite of what Lewis was really like.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 11:09 AM (t4VPg)

171 I can't get over CS Lewis' voice. I've heard recordings of him that have been uploaded to YouTube and if I ever wanted to write a story featuring a stuffy, clueless, nose-in-the-air British twit, he would have that voice.

Which is funny because that's almost the exact opposite of what Lewis was really like.

As has been noted here before, C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were good friends, and supposedly the character of Treebeard was modeled on C.S. Lewis and his speaking style.

Posted by: Tom Servo at June 16, 2019 11:12 AM (V2Yro)

172 SF author Joanna Russ had a funny riff in one of her stories about Lovecraftian "rugose tentacles".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 09:50 AM (kQs4Y)


Do go on...

Posted by: Kurt Eichenwald at June 16, 2019 11:12 AM (t4VPg)

173 Emcel: A woman who is unable to pair bond or bond emotionally with any man for any meaningful time if at all to form a long lasting relationship.

This will be hate speech by Labot Day. It's also spot on,

Posted by: tomorrow's trends today at June 16, 2019 11:13 AM (Lktpy)

174 The latest from David Brooks is about us:

"And I think, in order to justify their support for President Trump, they have talked themselves - or many people have - into the position that this is a life-or-death struggle, the left is out to destroy us, and so breaking the rules is what you got to do."

Yeah, boy, it took some real arm twisting to convince myself that the left is out to destroy us.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 09:59 AM (+y/Ru)

I'm assuming the "rule" he thinks we're breaking is cheering on a President who says mean things about his pals in the media and the left.

We're not allowed to do that. Never stray outside the bounds the "right" media sets. That's our great crime. That we quit listening to them.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 16, 2019 11:13 AM (cY3LT)

175 Thanks to the Fellow Moron who steered me to a Documentary on the Black Cats Commandos and their role in the Mumbia attacks, anyone know of a good book on the Attacks?

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at June 16, 2019 11:14 AM (dKiJG)

176 Emcel: A woman who is unable to pair bond or bond emotionally with any man for any meaningful time if at all to form a long lasting relationship.

This will be hate speech by Labot Day. It's also spot on,
Posted by: tomorrow's trends today at June 16, 2019 11:13 AM (Lktpy)


This is why there are so many more "lesbians" these days. Chicks who aren't really all that into carpet munch, but they sure as hell don't want to get THAT close to a meat scepter.

And no, not all of them were abused by men before they got there.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 16, 2019 11:16 AM (cY3LT)

177 Lin-duh, I am a huge Outlander fan. I need to reread the last couple of books at least, before the next book comes out. I have been less enthusiastic about the last few in the series; they are too sprawly I think. But I intend to read them all to the absolute last word.

Posted by: MMcK at June 16, 2019 11:16 AM (xHxJf)

178 I'm assuming the "rule" he thinks we're breaking is cheering on a President who says mean things about his pals in the media and the left...That's our great crime. That we quit listening to them.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 16, 2019 11:13 AM (cY3LT)


That's the sum of their entire argument against Trump: mean tweets.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 11:17 AM (t4VPg)

179 Just came up from the laundry room, and found a copy of "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of The Century" by Tom Shippey in their little free library book case. Score!

Posted by: josephistan at June 16, 2019 11:18 AM (Izzlo)

180 Yop, I have not read Varina by Frazier, but I can recommend Night Woods. I liked it very much.

Posted by: MMcK at June 16, 2019 11:20 AM (xHxJf)

181 153 I've been re-reading the classic Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser classic sword-and-sorcery stories. Fritz Leiber could write a bit.
Posted by: Captain Obvious at June 16, 2019 10:51 AM (iB1oa)
---
I need to reread those. I remember one story where the femme fatales were a translucent gal with excellent bone structure (you could see it) and a mouse girl with a fine covering of white fur and adorably protruding front teeth.

You read F&GM for the atmosphere.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:20 AM (kQs4Y)

182 There's a pretty solid case that Freud was a total fraud and charlatan, but he at least did open up the concept of studying mental health as a discipline.

Unfortunately, the track record isn't all that great. We have more "mental health experts" than any society in history, and are only getting crazier."

Just for fun a little while ago, my wife and I were looking up online info on archetypes in dreams, seeing what different people thought different images meant.

Ran across Freud's views - of course, to Freud, everything is a Phallus. EVERYTHING. It says a lot more about Freud than about anyone he ever examined.
Posted by: Tom Servo at June 16, 2019 11:07 AM (V2Yro)


Actually, there's much evidence that Freud was following a line of inquiry that tracks quite well with modern views on trauma and mental health.

However, the medical industrial complex beat him back into a "safe" view, which at the time was sex and mothering, for why people developed nutty neuroses.

His career took a drastic turn. Might have been evidence of his own mental breakdown.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 16, 2019 11:21 AM (cY3LT)

183 I need to reread those. I remember one story where the femme fatales were a translucent gal with excellent bone structure (you could see it) and a mouse girl with a fine covering of white fur and adorably protruding front teeth.
-----
"The Swords of Lankhmar". Also featured a mad Overlord, an encounter with a monster-hunter from another dimension, and a duel with a most adept rat-swordsman.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at June 16, 2019 11:24 AM (iB1oa)

184 Good morning 'rons/'ettes. On this Sunday I am asking for the spiritual members here to please pray for my family: my youngest is struggling with an eating disorder. The good news is she's not hiding it, and sincerely wants to get better.
The bad news is we've got to navigate the psych/counseling and nutrition maze. She starts school this fall, and will be 3.5 hours away. Thank you all.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at June 16, 2019 11:24 AM (ty7RM)

185 ' Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920's ' by Otto Friedrich

the past as prologue to Weimar-America

Posted by: James Jesus Angleton at June 16, 2019 11:25 AM (9HuGt)

186 VDH "The Case For Trump".
It's a great read.
I can't imagine how much courage it took for an actual academic to write it.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:26 AM (w7KSn)

187 To go with SL1 there is the 1966 partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi nuclear plant in 1966. John G. Fuller, who wrote The Ghost of Flight 401, wrote a book on the subject called We Almost Lost Detroit.

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 11:27 AM (n7RTy)

188 Good morning all.
Those are some interesting pants!

Posted by: Diogenes at June 16, 2019 11:30 AM (axyOa)

189 I've never gotten the hatred many have for the Oxbridge accent. Maybe it's just because, I was exactly the right age when the Avengers came on TV, and, well, Emma Peel was [redacted for decency].

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 11:30 AM (VaN/j)

190 Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd und der Graue Mausling short stories are always a good read even if the two heroes get themselves into very absurd situations.

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 11:30 AM (n7RTy)

191 I saw the photo and thought, "That's a really nice-looking private library." Then I saw the caption. OK, that explains it.

Posted by: rickl at June 16, 2019 11:31 AM (sdi6R)

192 That's the sum of their entire argument against Trump: mean tweets.

Posted by: OregonMuse
________

Germany's chancellor went more than a decade (1933-1945) without tweeting anything mean, not even once. Trump, in this regard, really is literally worse. (Starting to understand their logic, such as it is.)

Posted by: FireHorse at June 16, 2019 11:31 AM (ta49A)

193 I think Teddy is a lot like The Donald in that he was a toff who had dealings with all strata of society, had first-hand knowledge of the practical world, and had a deep appreciation for the working man and woman.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:32 AM (kQs4Y)

194 Up to comment #70 so far...



OregonMuse: I fixed it in the way I hope you intended.

Nobody takes care of the troops like the AoS cobs!



Hairyback Guy: Nice Lieberry!
Retired Buckeye Cop #58:Agreed, but it feels staged rather than used for reading. Table lamp isn't in a good position for a reading light and there is a statuette of a pheasant(?) on top of a book; a bibliophile would never do that.

Looks like some "decorator" book sets on those shelves. (Ah, I see Bandersnatch covered that in #61.)

Still, I'd camp there a while.

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for 'a walk with the folks' comic at June 16, 2019 11:35 AM (Yllyl)

195 Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:32 AM (kQs4Y)

Teddy?

Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 11:35 AM (ykq7q)

196 186 A Case for Trump by VDH
He had a interview by Dennis Prager a few weeks ago that was sad to hear about Freinds and family he lost over that book, but seems not to regret doing it.

Was outside reading and started to rain, in painting now.

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 11:36 AM (BbGew)

197 I am very excited to say that I just picked up Neal Stephenson's latest, Fall, or Dodge in Hell. My Father's Day will be a Dine-In Secret Life of Pets 2 and then a delightful afternoon with my favorite author.

Posted by: motionview at June 16, 2019 11:37 AM (pYQR/)

198 Faux News has a "poll" up saying Biden leads Trump by 10 points. They're as delusional as the rest of the MFM. Judging by Biden's appearances, I don't think he'll be able to make it through the election, much less win. He seems very compromised, and I'm not just saying that for political points. "Feeble" springs to mind when I see him speaking.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at June 16, 2019 11:37 AM (ty7RM)

199 Teddy?
Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 11:35 AM (ykq7q)

Roosevelt.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:39 AM (kQs4Y)

200 AMC has been running a documentary series about Jim Jones and The
People's Temple. Last night was the Kool Ade finale. They talked to a
number of the survivors. Several of them were still on about how
wonderful their socialist town in the jungle was and how the world was
deprived of a model for the future because Jim went off the rails.


I'm hoping if Trump wins reelection the left in this country goes full Jonestown. Drink up you motherf-ers.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at June 16, 2019 11:40 AM (IINHo)

201 I thought it was bumf

Posted by: JEM at June 16, 2019 11:40 AM (8erNz)

202 "halfwits"?

You rang, sir?

Posted by: Halfwise at June 16, 2019 11:42 AM (kLxSO)

203 Folks need to be reminded that we have several sitting congress critters RIGHT NOW who were up to their eyeballs in Jim Jones/People's Temple shenanigans.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:43 AM (w7KSn)

204 I got Shoveling Smoke by Austin Davis because it was set in East Texas. It turned out to be a fun, entertaining book with parts that made me laugh out loud. I wish Bill Paxton were still around; I think he'd make a good movie out of it. It was about $5 on Kindle. One thing though: the main plot touches on people who kill valuable horses for the insurance (upsetting to me because I had horses) but it works out. That sounds weird but it does.

Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at June 16, 2019 11:45 AM (eZfF5)

205 199 Teddy?
Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 11:35 AM (ykq7q)

Roosevelt.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:39 AM (kQs4Y)
_______

The good one who killed bears.

It's interesting his star has risen on the right, recently. It was just a few years ago when I was raked over the coals for praising his book on the War of 1812, on the grounds that I was promoting Progressive propaganda.

The guy he actually reminds me of is Churchill. They had a lot in common, as I see it, including egos. I don't recall who said that The Rough Riders should have been called "Alone in Cuba". Later, Balfour said "Winston has written an enormous book about himself, and called it 'The World Crisis'".

Some of the criticism are correct, IMO. But I cannot get away from the most obvious fact that hits you: both were brilliant and interesting men, especially by the standards of politicians.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 11:46 AM (VaN/j)

206 BTW, is anyone sure "bumf" isn't a fragment; half-a-word? Like "mother" in some circles.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 11:47 AM (VaN/j)

207 There are the Hyde Park Roosevelts and the Oyster Bay Roosevelts.
They consider themselves only marginally related.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:47 AM (w7KSn)

208 Good sign Biden is up over Trump by 10, Hillary was up 80 over Trump and you see what she's doing now,
Nothing.

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 11:47 AM (BbGew)

209 Roosevelt.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:39 AM (kQs4Y)

Ok....was confused there for a minute...which isn't unusual.

Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 11:49 AM (ykq7q)

210 Eris,

Photos of U-564, over 400 of them or just 361 depending upon news source, were donated to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport England. Amazingly Fregattenkapitan Reinhard Suhren survived the war.

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 11:50 AM (n7RTy)

211 Good sign Biden is up over Trump by 10, Hillary was up 80 over Trump and you see what she's doing now,

Nothing.

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 11:47 AM (BbGew)


The Russians stole the election or the electoral college gave the election to Trump. Go to Yahoo and you'll see comments like that in response to all the polls had Hillary winning

Posted by: TheQuietMan at June 16, 2019 11:53 AM (IINHo)

212 204 I got Shoveling Smoke by Austin Davis because it was set in East Texas. It turned out to be a fun, entertaining book with parts that made me laugh out loud. I wish Bill Paxton were still around; I think he'd make a good movie out of it. It was about $5 on Kindle. One thing though: the main plot touches on people who kill valuable horses for the insurance (upsetting to me because I had horses) but it works out. That sounds weird but it does.
Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at June 16, 2019 11:45 AM (eZfF5)

Wasn't the father of Edward's Baby Mama involved in something similar in DelMarVa area? Even killed her horse.

Posted by: The Hundred Years War at June 16, 2019 11:53 AM (MwFQu)

213 Hope all the Horde dads are having a good Dad's Day.

Myself, I'm making for the coast. Just entered the great state of Publius and Miley. If all goes according to plan I should be reeling in flounder in Hilton Head by 6 pm.

Happy Dad's Day to all!

Posted by: Bitter Clinger at June 16, 2019 11:54 AM (pG80Z)

214 This will be hate speech by Labot Day.

-
I assume you spelled it that way to avoid triggering the left.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 11:54 AM (+y/Ru)

215 If I were to believe what I read on FOX News this morning, Trump has already lost the 2020 election. Joe Biden will assume the office of president next.

They appear to be pulling out what few stops might have remained. It's worse every day and it appears to be working.

Posted by: creeper at June 16, 2019 11:56 AM (BK/QP)

216 These polls are now for the purpose of making the population doubt the outcome (or veracity) of a future election.
So that when things don't turn out the way they predicted, the insane may rant at the sky.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:56 AM (w7KSn)

217 I am reading The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.

It's a sort of new version of Starship Troopers and is getting rave reviews.

I think it sucks donkey balls and once I finally power through to the end I will almost certainly go read Starship Troopers just to get the bad taste out of my brain.

Posted by: Sharkman at June 16, 2019 11:57 AM (7cCNF)

218 Isn't bumf how Nightcrawler teleports around?

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at June 16, 2019 11:59 AM (39g3+)

219 Polls are literally dangerous to respond to accurately.
Who would identify themselves as a Trump supporter, to a perfect stranger on the phone?
Not me.
Even tho' I am one.
Why?
Because, insanity is rampant.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:59 AM (w7KSn)

220 As an alumnus of the U. of Chicago, I am very distressed to learn of this. It is contrary to the University's long-standing tradition of free speech. I will protest, but I fear it may get no more notice than this very late post.


Posted by: John Marovich at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (yDxHh)

221 Hoping to provide my oldest grandkid a little balance in his outlook, I gifted him via the web, two books for his Kindle Fire.

He's twelve, just finished sixth grade, and a voracious reader.

Huckleberry Finn was one, the other was Feed, by M. T. Anderson. Feed is near future science fiction, a first-person tale told by a sixteen-year old boy, in an America where the state implants everyone at age two with what's essentially Amazon, texting via your mind, and the Intertoobz.

He lives in an ultra-left home in an ultra-left city, so maybe these can help center him.

What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?

Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)

222 Mention of Lovecraft reminds me that, when I saw a picture of him, he looked exactly as he should have looked. That's also true of Poe and Stephen King. Is it something about the genre?

-
Skull malformation?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 12:01 PM (+y/Ru)

223 Anna, are those photographs available online? I would love to see them.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:02 PM (kQs4Y)

224 LOL, look at the Happy Father's Day gif up top:

https://twitter.com/41Strange

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:03 PM (kQs4Y)

225 Lasers to the left of them
Lasers to the right
Into space flew the 600

Ours is not to question why
Ours is not to make reply
Ours is but to do or die

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 12:03 PM (BbGew)

226 John Edward, D-NC

Rielle Hunter

Posted by: The Hundred Years War at June 16, 2019 12:03 PM (MwFQu)

227 223 me too

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 12:03 PM (BbGew)

228 What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?

Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)

Playboy....for the articles.

Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 12:04 PM (ykq7q)

229 Reihhard 'Teddy' Suhren's autobiography translated into English is available on the Kindle.

https://preview.tinyurl.com/yxah9bn3

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 12:05 PM (n7RTy)

230 Hoping to provide my oldest grandkid a little balance in his outlook, I gifted him via the web, two books for his Kindle Fire.

He's twelve, just finished sixth grade, and a voracious reader.

Huckleberry Finn was one,


Maybe I'm needlessly pessimistic, but are you sure that the Kindle version hasn't been bowdlerized?

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at June 16, 2019 12:05 PM (qc+VF)

231 220 As an alumnus of the U. of Chicago, I am very distressed to learn of this. It is contrary to the University's long-standing tradition of free speech. I will protest, but I fear it may get no more notice than this very late post.


Posted by: John Marovich at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (yDxHh)
_______

It's all over. I just got another alumni magazine; loaded with the "history of racism at the university".
In my most Eeyorish moments I expect them to take over Hillsdale any day now.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 12:05 PM (VaN/j)

232 A People's Tragedy ... The Russian Revolution ... sounds like essential reading. But on Goodreads, reading the comments, this guy ends with what looks like an attack on "authoritarian nationalism" ... (which is the Fake News narrative on America First)



"Figes calls for urgent reevaluation of the political capitalism of the West, pointing out that extremist rhetoric of the sort that fueled the Bolshevik party is periodically going to prove popular 'as long as the mass of the ordinary people remain alienated from the political system and feel themselves excluded from the benefits of the emergent capitalism. Perhaps even more worrying,' he adds, 'authoritarian nationalism has begun to fill the void#8230;' Is this sounding familiar to anybody?"


They say history rhymes (doesn't repeat) ... but I think they have it wrong ... America was not founded like Russia. Of course in 1998 we were seeing globalists assert control, not authoritarian nationalists. .... which is still the case despite Trump and some hope of stopping the oligarchs.

Posted by: illiniwek at June 16, 2019 12:05 PM (Cus5s)

233 Okay, I was sure there was an older SF book by the title "Sky Without Stars", about a man at the edge of the galaxy. I can't find it listed. Am I trippin'?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:06 PM (kQs4Y)

234 What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?
Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)
-----
Heinlein juveniles. Anything by RLS.

Posted by: Captain Obvious at June 16, 2019 12:07 PM (iB1oa)

235 Like I said, it probably was deleted five minutes after I spoke.

Posted by: Marcus T


Maybe it was deleted, but what you said still might have punctured some thick skulls and even now may be working inside their rotten brains to produce a modicum of enlightened sanity.

So, well done.

Posted by: Sharkman at June 16, 2019 12:07 PM (7cCNF)

236 You win this time, JT!

*shakes fist*
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

You're beautiful when you're angry !

Posted by: JT at June 16, 2019 12:07 PM (JvvIt)

237 228 What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?

Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)

Playboy....for the articles.
Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 12:04 PM (ykq7q)
_______

I remember one of the first I saw - maybe the first. It wasn't the centerfold that impressed me most, but the first pictorial (remember, they'd do 3). It featured Julie Newmar. One of the shots has stayed with me ever since.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 12:08 PM (VaN/j)

238 Out, out, damned last week's sock.

Posted by: Fox2! at June 16, 2019 12:08 PM (MwFQu)

239
Judging by Biden's appearances, I don't think he'll be able to make it through the election, much less win.

And yet RBG continues to "march" on.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at June 16, 2019 12:10 PM (aKsyK)

240
I've seen the word as "bumpf" and used to describe useless paperwork.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 16, 2019 12:10 PM (Wx/+I)

241 I remember one of the first I saw - maybe the first. It wasn't the centerfold that impressed me most, but the first pictorial (remember, they'd do 3). It featured Julie Newmar. One of the shots has stayed with me ever since.

Posted by: Eeyore at June 16, 2019 12:08 PM (VaN/j)

It was almost a biology text.

Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 12:10 PM (ykq7q)

242 What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?

-
I loved Robb White when I was that age. Unfortunately, most are out of print. One that you can get is Deathwatch. A teen acts as a guide for a rich man on a hunt in the American southwest desert. When the rich guy accidentally
kills an old prospectors he decides to frame the kid. Good and evil and survival in the desert. They've made a couple of crappy movies but the book is much better and considerably different.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 12:10 PM (+y/Ru)

243 216 These polls are now for the purpose of making the population doubt the outcome (or veracity) of a future election.
So that when things don't turn out the way they predicted, the insane may rant at the sky.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:56 AM (w7KSn)


And scream "stolen election" even more loudly than before. The Left always tells us what they intend to do, and that's exactly what they intend to do in 2020.

Posted by: rickl at June 16, 2019 12:11 PM (sdi6R)

244 The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
---
Okay, saw Kameron's pic on Amazon...transitioning?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:11 PM (kQs4Y)

245 So far found nothing but a couple U-564 photos online. Even queried here - https://www.nmrn.org.uk/submarine-museum - and so far no positive results have offered themselves.

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 12:12 PM (n7RTy)

246 Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)

Playboy....for the articles.
Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 12:04 PM (ykq7q)

I haven't seen an issue since a while before Hef died. But I'd be willing to bet the articles are far more obscene than any of the pictures at this point.

Posted by: Bilwis, Devourer of Low Glycemic Souls at June 16, 2019 12:12 PM (jp0Bv)

247 234 What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?
Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)
-----
Heinlein juveniles. Anything by RLS.
Posted by: Captain Obvious at June 16, 2019 12:07 PM (iB1oa)
---

Yes! The Heinlein juveniles aren't just ripping yarns, they also show a young person how to deal with assholes.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:13 PM (kQs4Y)

248
I remember one of the first I saw - maybe the first. It wasn't the centerfold that impressed me most

In my case, at age 12, Cynthia Myers. Ooof!

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 16, 2019 12:16 PM (Wx/+I)

249 I think Teddy is a lot like The Donald in that he
was a toff who had dealings with all strata of society, had first-hand
knowledge of the practical world, and had a deep appreciation for the
working man and woman. Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 11:32 AM (kQs4Y)
=====

Both were 'working people' who really had to make a living; they acknowledged their privilege (inherited money) and used that energy generously. I may disagree with some of their ideas, but I admire their adherence to classic American 'democracy'.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 16, 2019 12:16 PM (MIKMs)

250 Good morning horde. Very tardy. I have the slows this morning. Working on my second cup of joe.

Posted by: None shall pass at June 16, 2019 12:16 PM (JdcHc)

251 Thanks Anna.

I love that there's an Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower. I bet they have a terrific gift shop.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:17 PM (kQs4Y)

252 Les K. at #221 - in my nom as Celia Hayes, I wrote a series of classic Western adventures just for tween and teen boys like your grandson: Lone Star Sons and Lone Star Glory: a young Texas Ranger and his Delaware Indian blood brother searching for missing people, buried treasure, righting wrongs and generally seeking justice. They're on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O2BP0JY/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i14

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at June 16, 2019 12:17 PM (xnmPy)

253 What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?
Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)

Every 12 year old boy should read Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous .

Posted by: Can't resist temptation at June 16, 2019 12:18 PM (2DOZq)

254 250 Good morning horde. Very tardy. I have the slows this morning.
---
I got up early but so far my major accomplishment has been putting on pants for the hoidy-toidy Book Thread.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:18 PM (kQs4Y)

255 I'm hoping this one does more with history. I already think 95 percent of the news media should disappear into Don Lemon's black hole along with that airliner. (Read that however you wish.)

Posted by: JTB


Unfreedom of the Press is about 75% history, and is a great read.

Posted by: Sharkman at June 16, 2019 12:18 PM (7cCNF)

256 They appear to be pulling out what few stops might have remained. It's worse every day and it appears to be working.
Posted by: creeper at June 16, 2019 11:56 AM (BK/QP)


I don't think it's working at all. I think it means they're ensconcing themselves even deeper into their isolated little bubbles, so when the hated Orange Man wins in 2020, the weeping and wailing are going to be even more over-the-top.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 12:19 PM (t4VPg)

257 You're welcome Eris, though I am a bit leery of something called the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Almost sounds like the Brits are using a game of darts to decide what gets saved after a round or two of beer.

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 12:21 PM (n7RTy)

258 212 204 I got Shoveling Smoke by Austin Davis because it was set in East Texas. It turned out to be a fun, entertaining book with parts that made me laugh out loud. I wish Bill Paxton were still around; I think he'd make a good movie out of it. It was about $5 on Kindle. One thing though: the main plot touches on people who kill valuable horses for the insurance (upsetting to me because I had horses) but it works out. That sounds weird but it does.
Posted by: Bean Counteress of Rohan at June 16, 2019 11:45 AM (eZfF5)

as an East Texan, I might have to get that - hadn't heard of it before, so I looked up the amazon synopsis. I noted with amusement that one of the protagonists is named "Gil Stroud". My wife was born a Stroud, and one of the quirks of deep East Texas (eastern Oklahoma, too) is that the place is plum lousy with Strouds. Don't know why so many of them settled here, but they did.

Posted by: Tom Servo at June 16, 2019 12:21 PM (V2Yro)

259 I think Trump will win in 2020 but the saying 'Hope for the best but prepare for the worst' is most appropriate here.

Posted by: Can't resist temptation at June 16, 2019 12:23 PM (2DOZq)

260 It's all over. I just got another alumni magazine; loaded with the "history of racism at the university".
=====

The last three months have been nonstop idiocy; not only the colleges and universities magazines but also the sororities.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 16, 2019 12:23 PM (MIKMs)

261 I don't think it's working at all. I think it means they're ensconcing themselves even deeper into their isolated little bubbles, so when the hated Orange Man wins in 2020, the weeping and wailing are going to be even more over-the-top.

The funniest part is that they have Biden winning the Presidency when they haven't even figured out how he's going to win the Dem primaries.

Posted by: Tom Servo at June 16, 2019 12:24 PM (V2Yro)

262 I don't think it's working at all. I think it means they're ensconcing themselves even deeper into their isolated little bubbles, so when the hated Orange Man wins in 2020, the weeping and wailing are going to be even more over-the-top.
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 12:19 PM (t4VPg)
---
Perhaps they'll willingly recycle themselves, a la Soylent Green.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:24 PM (kQs4Y)

263 The funniest part is that they have Biden winning the Presidency when they haven't even figured out how he's going to win the Dem primaries.
Posted by: Tom Servo at June 16, 2019 12:24 PM (V2Yro)
---
Perhaps, like with HRC, they'll have it all figured out in advance.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:25 PM (kQs4Y)

264 nood, y'all

Posted by: BignJames at June 16, 2019 12:25 PM (ykq7q)

265
The only thing I read my alumni magazine for is to see who died.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 16, 2019 12:26 PM (Wx/+I)

266 Another book my daughter loved at that age is Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. A contemporary, privileged teen girl suffers a tragedy and her dysfunctional celebrity parents are so self-involved they are unable to support her. She stumbles across the diary of a young girl during the French revolution and discovers they share similar problems. Caveat: while wallowing in despair early in the book, she hangs with other elite kids into drugs and alcohol. She soon leaves that behind. One of the other things I liked about the book is that she goes to Paris to research a French guitarist composer of revolutionary days (who I think is based on Fernando Sor) and music is a big part of the story.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 12:29 PM (+y/Ru)

267 Polls are literally dangerous to respond to accurately.
Who would identify themselves as a Trump supporter, to a perfect stranger on the phone?
Not me.
Even tho' I am one.
Why?
Because, insanity is rampant.
Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at June 16, 2019 11:59 AM (w7KSn)


This is why I rolled my eyes at opinion polls about Gaylord; like someone, other than me, will tell a stranger over the phone that the first black preznit sucks maximum cock.

Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 12:29 PM (y7DUB)

268 This is why I rolled my eyes at opinion polls about Gaylord; like someone, other than me, will tell a stranger over the phone that the first black preznit sucks maximum cock.
Posted by: Captain Hate at June 16, 2019 12:29 PM (y7DUB)
----
He's too lazy to suck maximum cock. Just enough to get by.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 12:34 PM (kQs4Y)

269 Oops, I waited too long and got willowed. Someone upthread mentioned David McCullough's book about Teddy Roosevelt. Call it coincidence or serendipity, but this morning I received an e-mail recommendation from Amazon for his book about the Wright Brothers.

I haven't read that one, but it reminded me of "To Conquer the Air" by James Tobin. This is the best book I've read about the origins of powered flight. The Wrights are the stars, obviously, but it also gives detailed coverage to their contemporaries like Samuel P. Langley, Alexander Graham Bell, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Glenn Curtiss, and more. It is a very well-rounded book.

Everybody knows (or used to know, before schools became "woke") that the Wrights made four flights in North Carolina on the morning of December 17, 1903. What is less well-known is that the Flyer was wrecked by a gust of wind while they were taking a break before trying more flights. That ended their experiments for the year, and they packed up the remains and headed back to Ohio.

They built a new Flyer in 1904 but it never worked very well. They went back to the drawing board and built a new, improved model for 1905 which they flew extensively at Huffman Prairie with very little publicity. Locals driving by in their horses and buggies got used to seeing them tooling around in the air, but few people outside the area knew about it. Rumors and tales of flights around a circular course lasting several minutes were treated with extreme skepticism in Europe, where no one had yet made a simple straight-line hop.

Posted by: rickl at June 16, 2019 12:46 PM (sdi6R)

270 269
Oops, I waited too long and got willowed.


Posted by: rickl at June 16, 2019 12:46 PM (sdi6R)

---
Can't willow on the book thread. People check back all day.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 12:57 PM (cfSRQ)

271 >>> 252 Les K. at #221 - in my nom as Celia Hayes, I wrote a series of classic Western adventures just for tween and teen boys like your grandson: Lone Star Sons and Lone Star Glory: a young Texas Ranger and his Delaware Indian blood brother searching for missing people, buried treasure, righting wrongs and generally seeking justice. They're on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O2BP0JY/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i14
Posted by: Sgt. Mom at June 16, 2019 12:17 PM (xnmPy)

I'm an 'ette, and not 12 (although sometimes my sense of humor is), and I enjoyed both of these.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at June 16, 2019 01:09 PM (0ReGO)

272 A perfect description of... you left out "all of the above."

Posted by: Richard McEnroe at June 16, 2019 01:19 PM (ABuva)

273 Reihhard 'Teddy' Suhren's autobiography translated into English is available on the Kindle.


But not in Krautish, alas.

There is a book of the Hidden Photographic Diary of U-564, too.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 01:28 PM (fuK7c)

274 Books for twelve year old boys? In addition to the good recommendations above, "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson, Treasure Island (with Wyeth illustrations if possible), and most Kipling and Jack London books. I'll repeat Sgt. Mom's suggestion about her "Lone Star Sons" series. They are a fun read for younger folks and adults.

If the boy likes the outdoors, any of the collections of Pat MacManus articles should be good.

Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 01:28 PM (bmdz3)

275 There is a book of the Hidden Photographic Diary of U-564, too.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at June 16, 2019 01:28 PM (fuK7c)
---
That's the one I'm reading. Great "day in the life of" book.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 01:33 PM (kQs4Y)

276 If any of you clowns had a brian you wood reed Presdent Obam's book !! You be might learn something !!!!!

Posted by: Mary Clogginstien from Obamaboro, VT and Prood of it !!! at June 16, 2019 01:33 PM (qM84C)

277 Les Kinetic, when son N**** the Valiant was 12, his older sister at college sent him The Lightning Thief. She was a Classicist in college, and my son went from a non-reader to a Classics enthusiast overnight. Went off to college at 15 to study Latin and Greek.

Posted by: Charles the Simple at June 16, 2019 01:57 PM (w7U7L)

278 A.H. Lloyd: Can't willow on the book thread. People check back all day.

With that in mind, here's 'nother webwork, Father's-Day-related.

Zoomin' Humans - Dad tries another lesson on sharing and giving with the toddlers.

Linked in nic

You can skip the rest.

=====

Bookthreadish thoughts‽
Self-publishing on the web

My self-publication is my website, a museum of my many mad musings in multiple media -comics, stories, songs, ponderous text pieces. There's several differently-themed halls, and some odd nooks and crannies. My proudest and most embarrassing creations, all on display.

Sometimes neglected; lately, new stuff is infrequent, but I continue to add to it. Due for a facelift before the 25th anniversary in #twoyears.

No ads. No pop-ups. Not available in hardback, softback, Kindle, Amazon, or smoke signals. Just any browser. No facebook or twitter presence either, although there is a yootoob channel too little viewed to even be monetizable.

So, promotion and subsistence is strictly word of mouth and donations; and, heh, let's just say mindfulwebworks is the inverse of viral. Well, wouldn't expect otherwise, really: it's an eclectic and varied collection; I always figured any audience would be niche.

The website was offline, briefly, this past week. There's that moment of panic: Something's gone horribly wrong! Daughter said, at least I hadn't been deplatformed - probably. Yow! I hadn't even thought of that!

It was $no big deal¢ as it turned out. Fixed. Completely unrelatedly, there's PayPal buttons on 'most every page of the website.

Next question: creators as self-editors, self-publishers, and self-promoters, are they like, you know what they say, someone who has oneself for a lawyer or doctor?

=====

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for zoomin' humans at June 16, 2019 02:03 PM (Yllyl)

279 Checking back

Posted by: Skip at June 16, 2019 02:24 PM (BbGew)

280 Skip, we're talking books in the next thread.

And decapitation.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 02:27 PM (kQs4Y)

281 *looking at the call for submissions for short stories*

The secret part is where I hang fire. The Mu-Luv universe with the Betas overrunning the Earth is right out. But still got Moonlight Mile cluttering up things along with Clarke's The Sentinel.

Posted by: Anna Puma at June 16, 2019 02:35 PM (n7RTy)

282 This is sort of a limited, modified hangout of a recommendation (given that I haven't read any of these) but I've read a number of Anthony Horowitz' adult books and liked them and he first became successful by writing the Alex Rider children's adventure series aimed at 10-12 year olds. As I understand it, Alex is a 14 year old spy who begins avenging his uncle's death. The first is Alex Rider: Stormbreaker. I've just downloaded Stormbreaker so I'll know what I'm talking about (plus I'm about 10-12 years old).

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 02:44 PM (+y/Ru)

283 I read "Fat Vampire" based on recommendations here. I liked it, but I can't quite decide if I liked it enough to get "Fat Vampire 2".
I started reading Tim Conway's autobiography, "What's So Funny?". So far so good.

Posted by: roamingfirehydrant at June 16, 2019 03:05 PM (THS4q)

284 Can't willow on the book thread. People check back all day.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at June 16, 2019 12:57 PM (cfSRQ)


Yeah, that's always been the case. I've often wondered why. I'm thinking prolly because Sunday is kind of slow around the HQ, so you've got bored and restless morons wandering about, getting into trouble, tipping over trash cans and impinging on people's personal freedoms.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 04:36 PM (Ljfk9)

285 283 I read "Fat Vampire" based on recommendations here. I liked it, but I can't quite decide if I liked it enough to get "Fat Vampire 2".

Posted by: roamingfirehydrant at June 16, 2019 03:05 PM (THS4q)


I've also read FV 1 and my reaction was pretty much the same.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 04:37 PM (Ljfk9)

286 93 I got Mark Levin's new book from the library yesterday but haven't started it yet. I know from past experience that I can only read a few pages of his books then take a break to avoid terminal rage. I'm hoping this one does more with history. I already think 95 percent of the news media should disappear into Don Lemon's black hole along with that airliner. (Read that however you wish.)
Posted by: JTB at June 16, 2019 10:08 AM (bmdz3)

I recommend. I'm reading it as I travel as the book is very compact for the purpose. It would make my blood boil - if it weren't well-researched confirmations of what I already know.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 16, 2019 04:46 PM (mEn6y)

287 57 35: Bought this for the kindle. I think it's time to purge the universities of gender studies, women's studies, sundry ethnic studies, and return academia to traditional programs and "useful studies" (engineering, sciences, allied health---and I'd return a lot of allied health to the community colleges and hospital based programs as these workers need skills not "nursing philosophy" or "advanced informatics for respiratory therapy") Academics need a big dose of accountability therapy.
Posted by: CN at June 16, 2019 09:46 AM (U7k5w)

Is history - not "(insert ethnicity/sex here) studies", subsets, etc. - just history - qualify as a "useful study"?

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 16, 2019 05:23 PM (mEn6y)

288
I've read about half of the 40 classic books on the list. "The Wind in the Willows" was easily the most charming of those that I have read.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at June 16, 2019 05:34 PM (dPMBY)

289
265
The only thing I read my alumni magazine for is to see who died.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 16, 2019 12:26 PM (Wx/+I)


I care not even about that. They go straight to the recycle bin.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at June 16, 2019 05:39 PM (dPMBY)

290
I still remember seeing the news footage from Guyana, all of those people lying on the grass, looking like they were taking an afternoon nap. Over 900 of them. I recently read Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco which basically argues that this happened because all of the warning signs that Jim Jones was a dangerous, unstable psychotic and his "church" was an abuse factory were systematically ignored by San Francisco's elected officials because he could bring them a significant number of votes. Yes, Jones had that kind of clout in SF. It was an unholy alliance of corrupt government officials and a powerful religious figure. Dan White, who murdered the mayor and Harvey Milk was, in fact, *not* a gay-hating, right-wing lunatic, but a centrist who even worked with Milk on some issues. There's also a surprise appearance by Dianne Feinstein, who had a peripheral role in all of this. And there were actually Republicans in SF in those days. Yes, times were different.


There also was the spraying of pot fields with paraquat, the spraying of agricultural areas for the Mediterranean Fruit Fly, a massive organizing effort by the United Farm Workers that had them flooding college campuses seeking "yes" votes for their ballot initiatives, Proposition 13 and its restrictions on property tax increases, a pretty substantial drought in '76-'78, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and subsequent drama, and two assassination attempts on President Jerry Ford. And lording over it all, Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. (v1.0).

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at June 16, 2019 05:47 PM (dPMBY)

291 I neglected to mention that that drawing of the sexy librarian is the sexiest librarian I've ever seen in my life. Rowlr.

Although if that's also her on the ladder, she could use a sammich or three. Just sayin'.

Posted by: rickl at June 16, 2019 06:04 PM (sdi6R)

292 #233 "Okay, I was sure there was an older SF book by the title "Sky Without Stars", about a man at the edge of the galaxy. I can't find it listed. Am I trippin'?" Eris.

I think you may be looking for Poul Anderson's "World Without Stars" 1967. The plot involves a starship crash landing on a world circling a lone star outside our galaxy. The Galaxy is the dominate feature in the night sky there and one of the local cultures worships it as God. It is a good book; currently available for only $1.99 on Kindle or you can look for a paperback with the Michael Whelan cover art.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at June 16, 2019 06:08 PM (iuRR5)

293 I thought no one would see this here so I posted on the active thread, but I see now it's not deserted!

127 I've been catching up on the book thread and saw this....
221 Hoping to provide my oldest grandkid a little balance in his outlook, I gifted him via the web, two books for his Kindle Fire.

He's twelve, just finished sixth grade, and a voracious reader.

Huckleberry Finn was one, the other was Feed, by M. T. Anderson. Feed is near future science fiction, a first-person tale told by a sixteen-year old boy, in an America where the state implants everyone at age two with what's essentially Amazon, texting via your mind, and the Intertoobz.

He lives in an ultra-left home in an ultra-left city, so maybe these can help center him.

What else might a twelve-year-old boy be reading?
Posted by: Les Kinetic at June 16, 2019 12:00 PM (4ZE6o)
------
If you're still around, I can load you up with hundreds of good books for that age.
Anything by G. A. Henry, for starters.

I could send an e-mail to OregonMuse filled with books for kids of that age, for him to forward on to anyone who's interested. (Homeschooling mom, lifelong avid reader raising lots of avid readers)
Posted by: Brunette the 'Ette at June 16, 2019 05:12 PM (adsVM

Posted by: Brunette the 'Ette at June 16, 2019 06:17 PM (adsVM)

294 Posted by: John F. MacMichael at June 16, 2019 06:08 PM (iuRR5)

That's it! Thanks!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at June 16, 2019 06:22 PM (kQs4Y)

295 Reply to #294: Happy you saw my note. Glad to be of help.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at June 16, 2019 06:39 PM (iuRR5)

296 Books for the boy-

Nobody mentioned "The Hardy Boys"?

No comment on the newer books but I loved those books at his age. Not quite 100 years ago but close.

Posted by: weirdflunky at June 16, 2019 06:46 PM (GwY6O)

297 Another recommendation. Douglas Adams' (author of Hitchiker's Guide To the Galaxy) Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It's a supernatural, time travel, literary, science fiction comedy adventure. I liked it because, in addition to being funny and exciting, it explains the mysterious visitor who interrupted Samuel Taylor Coleridge causing him to forget the ending to his poem Kubla Khan and explains how Bach's music came to be. One caveat: there's so much unexplained going on that requires waiting to understand that he may grow frustrated. In fact, this may well be a book you need to read twice to understand (and I'm still unclear about how the couch got stuck).

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at June 16, 2019 06:48 PM (+y/Ru)

298 Though it will never be, add to the list: "OPERATION BUFFALO: USMC Fight for the DMZ" Nolan's lead: "In the shadow of the DMZ the Marines were surprised, outgunned, and outmanned. That was the enemies first mistake." During 1967 July just a few klics north east of Con Thien on Rt. 561 against the NVA's 324B Division.

The word "hero" is far too easily applied these days. This is the story of Real heroes most of the men between the ages of 18-23. Written by Keith Wm. Nolan (RIP). For those of you who have never served and/or never served in sustained combat, Nolan's work is as close as you'll likely ever get. The story of Alpha Co. aka "Alpha-A-Go-Go" and Bravo Co. 1/9 Marines aka "The Walking Dead" and too 3/9 3RD Marine Division including Op-con Battalion Landing Teams during the first week of 1967 July in northern Quang Tri Provence SVN. Operation Buffalo is legendary in USMC History. No USMC unit ever sustained as many casualties KIA/WIA. A riveting account of uncommon Valor displayed by young Marine Riflemen. Men of this caliber are seldom found these days. The last chapter nails it. Nolan's work should be MANDATORY reading for every single HS senior.

Posted by: Coyne at June 16, 2019 07:21 PM (nBnOp)

299 I could send an e-mail to OregonMuse filled with books for kids of that age, for him to forward on to anyone who's interested. (Homeschooling mom, lifelong avid reader raising lots of avid readers)

Posted by: Brunette the 'Ette at June 16, 2019 05:12 PM (adsVM


Do it!

I'll publish it next week.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at June 16, 2019 07:32 PM (x7118)

300 Fabulous!
It's amazing what's out there that people don't know about anymore, and most of it is available on Kindle.
Each of my five children own a Kindle e-reader with access to a library of around 1000 books.
Easily a third of them are free as e-books because they're old.
I'll send you the full list of authors, with notes as to themes, age range, and boy/girl preference.
Most of them are equally enjoyable for either sex: my daughters and sons have about a 90% crossover rate when it comes to books they love.

Posted by: Brunette the 'Ette at June 16, 2019 07:45 PM (adsVM)

301
I just finished reading the Book Thread....it is 11:54 at night...


Book Thread is best in life. it will be read...sooner or later.

Thanks for the recommendations Morons and thanks to OM for another great thread.

Posted by: Some Guy in Wisconsin at June 17, 2019 12:54 AM (0xnay)

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