Sunday Morning Book Thread 11-15-2020

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules). Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes 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 should only be worn ironically.

Pic Note:

This library existed before Australia was Australia:

The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public. It is the oldest library in Australia, being the first established in the colony of New South Wales (now a state of Australia) in 1826...The library contains over 5 million items including more than 2 million books, 1.2 million microforms, 1.1 million photographs, as well as newspapers, maps, architectural plans, manuscripts and other items.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

OIC.

An Old Enemy

1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.

This, of course, is Iowahawk's timeless observation about how the left operates. It has been going on for a long time. One of the left's early targets was the church, in particular, the old mainline presbyterian (PCUS/PCUSA) denomination, made possible when traditional (i.e. conservative) church leaders did not use the denominational bureaucratic procedures available to them to expel the liberals, despite their manifest heresy. There were reasons for this that are too complex to discuss here. But when the liberals gained ascendency in the denomination, they had no qualms whatsoever regarding booting out the remaining conservative recalcitrants, thus completing the Iowahawk sequence.

Like J. Gresham Machen. He was a formidale enemy to the liberals, or "modernists" as they were sometimes called back them. He is the author of Christianity and Liberalism, where he drew in great detail

...the battle lines between the conflicting philosophies of liberal Christianity and orthodox faith. Machen reveals liberalism not as a different understanding of the Gospel, but as a totally different gospel where God’s sovereignty is exchanged for man’s, God’s law-word for man’s and God’s eternal, unchanging standards for man’s situational ethics. Machen emphasizes 6 key Biblical doctrines where theological liberalism rejects Scripture as infallibly inspired, denying the doctrines of the Fall and of Hell and advocating man’s evolutionary self-perfection.

First published in 1923, I think it was already too late. The PCUSA had already been infiltrated by modernist pod people disguised as orthodox Christians.

So other denominations were formed, but eventually, they were targeted, too. The problem is that ministers tend to be naive about whatever variety of liberal/modernist/woke poison is disguised as cough syrup. "But this is cough syrup", they say. "It says so right on the label. So it has to be OK. They would never lie to me." They forget Jesus' warning about wolves in sheep's clothing. And when they see me waving my hands frantically and I'm shouting at them not to drink that stuff, they think *I'm* the one that's crazy.

So, every time this enemy assumes another form and strikes again, it must be fought. I have a couple of books here that look they can help with this. The first is Social Justice Goes To Church: The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism by Jon Harris. As one reviewer wrote, "The Woke / SJW movement did not just appear in our evangelical churches. Jon Harris names people and the seminaries that educated the people that launched this movement into the main stream." Glancing through the sample text, it looks like a good "who's who" historical view.

Another perspective, a more person one, is Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity, written by by Alisa Childers, in which she

...describes the intellectual journey [she] took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions that struck at the core of the Christian faith. After everything she had ever believed about God, Jesus, and the Bible had been picked apart, she found herself at the brink of despair . . . until God rescued her, helping her to rebuild her faith, one solid brick at a time.

In a culture of endless questions, you need solid answers. If you or someone you love has encountered the ideas of progressive Christianity and aren’t sure how to respond, Alisa’s journey will show you how to determine—and rest in—what’s unmistakably true.

Finally, there is Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice: An Urgent Appeal to Fellow Christians in a Time of Social Crisis by Scott D. Allen, which seeks to educate believers and expose the postmodern assumptions underlying the "social justice" movement as something totally alien to orthodox Christianity:

In recent years, a set of ideas rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxist critical theory have merged into a comprehensive worldview. Labeled “social justice” by its advocates, it has radically redefined the popular understanding of justice. It purports to value equality and diversity and to champion the cause of the oppressed.

Yet far too many Christians have little knowledge of this ideology, and consequently, don’t see the danger. Many evangelical leaders confuse ideological social justice with biblical justice. Of course, justice is a deeply biblical idea, but this new ideology is far from biblical.

Which, amazingly, was exactly exactly Machen's point back in the 1920s. "Listen", he said, "Don't be fooled. This new thing going around that calls itself Christianity? It really isn't. Oh, it may use the same words and say the same sorts of things, and claim the same heritage, but it is completely different than historic Christianity. So much so, in fact, that it's pretty much a completely different religion atogether."

Of course, it just doesn't set up on its own. Modern 'woke' activism is not about creating its own body of work, it's about birthing your work from inside the corpse of its enemy. Which is why churches are targets of opportunity.

Who Dis:

(Last week's 'who dis' was the cartoon version of Lisa Simpson.

Moron Recommendations

88 Fair Lady Robin just finished reading aloud* to me "News of the World", by Paulette Giles. I can't tell you how well written, and satisfying that book is. It's the story about a Civil War vet. who is paid to escort an 8 y/o child to S. Texas. She had been abducted by Comanche, and he is to reunite with her remaining family. The story could not have been better told.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at November 08, 2020 09:29 AM (7Fj9P)

News of the World: A Novel is going on my tottering, precariously balanced TBR stack. I thought the title sounded kind of odd. What does the "news of the world" mean in a western story? But the Amazon blurb explains:

In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

Stop right there. See, this is how it should be. I'm so fed up with our 24/7 "news" media that has been gaslighting and disinforming America for decades that I find myself pining for days I never knew, where it took weeks or months to find out about something, because, actually, did you really need to know?

Anyway, you can pick up a Kindle copy of this book for the tolerably decent price of $6.99.

___________

74 I read Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, which was recommended here a few weeks ago. This interesting story is about the village of Oberhochwald, later known as Eifelheim, located in The Black Forest of Germany. In 1348 on a clear day, a large thunder and flash occurs in the forest outside the village. Aliens have crashed. A year later the plague decimates the village and a few escape, never to return.

Flash to the present, and Tom, a cliologist (a scientific historian), helped by his girlfriend, Sharon, a theoretical physicist, and a librarian researcher, Judy, try to determine why the village was never repopulated as others were. The story is intriguing, but what makes the book great are all of the musings...philosophical, religious, and scientific; both human and alien.

Posted by: Zoltan at November 08, 2020 09:24 AM (qb8uZ)

Not much I can add to this description, other than this is another one for my TBR stack. The Kindle edition of Eifelheim is $9.99.

___________

406 Since this is the book thread and we have wandered on to the topic of the CIA, may I suggest "The Devil's Chessboard"

Posted by: attila the unready at November 08, 2020 11:04 AM (w7KSn)

Yes, you may. The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government is primarily about

Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Now that's a conspiracy that will never die. Not sure how Dulles would have been able to control the rat bastard commie Oswald, but maybe Talbot has an explanation. Regardless, I'm sure his book will likely provide ammunition to those of us who believe that our intelligence-gathering services, both foreign and domestic, need to be scrubbed from top to bottom, and then back to the top again.

This book was published in 2015, just before the Trump Ascendancy. Lord knows what it would have in it if it were published now.

___________

Books By Morons

'Ette author Lisa Mathisen has just published Mosaic, which is Vol. 10 of her 'Glimpse' series of flash fiction, which Amazon describes as

40 new 'Glimpses'...A compelling [multi-genre] collection of quirky, poignant, dramatic, and deeply thought-provoking themes. Chuckle as a turtle joins a space shuttle crew, then suck in your breath at a heart-wrenching patriotic tribute. Watch a cyborg President scheme and feel a farmer’s resolute sacrifice.

I've read a number of Lisa's previous 'Glimpse' anthologies, and they're fun reading. Each of the stories are 1-4 pages, so they're great to pick up if you want a short read. The Kindle edition is $2.99.

___________

Moron author Francis Porretto has just published his sixteenth novel, Antiquities: An Onteora County Romance, a romance novel set in his "Onteora County" world:

Gail was a has-been singer from a forgotten band, surviving by performing for small crowds in coffee houses and bars, near to giving up on everything.

Evan was a venture capitalist, widowed by cancer and robbed of his only child by a car crash, who kept going on momentum alone.

They were going through the motions, barely clinging to life, until one Friday evening in a central New York bar, when a faint and a spontaneous rescue brought them together.

Then the music really started.

This book also includes an excerpt from Mr. Poretto's first 'Onteora' novel, Chosen One. And it's $2.99 on Kindle.

___________

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 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 09:01 AM (9sWOw)

2 who dis dawn wells!

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 15, 2020 09:01 AM (PiwSw)

3 Heya!

Posted by: CAPT Constitution at November 15, 2020 09:01 AM (Am7KU)

4 Horde dutifully called
Still on Peter Wilson's The Thirty Years War, 290 pages to go.
France decided they want In on the action now.

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 09:03 AM (9sWOw)

5 ah books

XLNT

Posted by: DB- just DB. at November 15, 2020 09:04 AM (iTXRQ)

6 I like that library ceiling. It makes you feel like you're catching a wave.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:04 AM (Dc2NZ)

7 Darn you, Oregon Muse, now I HAVE to buy the Childers and Harris books.

This past week I enjoyed two books - both new to me. First, on a serious note: Save, Send, Delete by Danusha V. Goska. (I think I found it through the book thread, but I'm not sure.) This is the story of a poor Catholic adjunct professor's efforts to share her faith with a celebrity atheist (think Dawkins.) Mira, the professor, watches him one night on PBS, sneering at faith in a Bill Moyers inteview. Mira is so upset she sends a detailed email immediately to the atheist, and is shocked when he replies. The book is told through the emails she sends - the author demands you infer his replies from her responses. The writing is magical - you suffer with Mira through her telling of her story in letters. I had to track this book down through eBay - but it is so worth the wait.

Second, for a break, I swerved to the bubbliest of chick lit: Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. It's the eighth and latest installment in the Shopaholic series. Yes, it is frothy, light-hearted, total brain candy - but it's more. Becky, the main character, is appealing because she NEVER gives up and always keeps pushing on in her projects. And the shopping descriptions are FAB! Get this for the girl in your life: it truly sets the mood for the "festive season" as they say in Ol' Blighty.

Posted by: CarolinaGirl at November 15, 2020 09:04 AM (Kh9rg)

8 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at November 15, 2020 09:04 AM (7EjX1)

9 Mary Ann >> Ginger all day every day!

Posted by: Fortcoins at November 15, 2020 09:05 AM (nV60k)

10 hiya

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:05 AM (arJlL)

11 Good Morning.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at November 15, 2020 09:06 AM (JCRNi)

12 Oh - and I have NEVER had bookish problem #47. Has anyone here?

Posted by: CarolinaGirl at November 15, 2020 09:06 AM (Kh9rg)

13 Nice Lieberry!

Those pants.....are not my kind of pants.

Gilligan is trying to look up Mary Ann's skirt.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at November 15, 2020 09:09 AM (R/m4+)

14 Read new book by Naomi Novik "A Deadly Education"
(The Scholomance Book 1). Highly recommend this book. Mix of coming of age outsider and dark magical school, where student fighting to sty alive. Page turner.

Posted by: redmonkey at November 15, 2020 09:10 AM (vSp8W)

15 GRAMMAGRAM in Welsh is GRMMGRM.

Posted by: Cymru Moronau at November 15, 2020 09:11 AM (DMUuz)

16 Marlo Thomas?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at November 15, 2020 09:11 AM (xT2tT)

17 Very much appreciated the reference to the Presbyterian church. The church my g-grandmother helped start in 1900 Oklahoma dissolved a few years ago and the congregants' House of Worship is now a restaurant. Amazing what a decade or so of a very liberal minister can do to destroy a congregation.

Posted by: EveR at November 15, 2020 09:11 AM (R0z7P)

18 I thought the Who Dis was Julia Louise Dreyfus

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:11 AM (arJlL)

19 I’m a few chapters into “Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents” by Rod Dreher (he of The Benedict Option). I'm not a particularly religious person, but it is a fascinating read if you are disturbed by what is going on in These Difficult Times.

Dreher interviewed many people who had lived under communism and asked if they noticed a drift toward totalitarianism in the United States. Every one of them emphatically said yes. One old émigré professor noticed, starting about a decade ago, that friends would lower their voices and look over their shoulders when expressing conservative views. This self-censorship is an unsettling development in America and sadly familiar to people who lived under totalitarian systems.

This is a difference between Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism. Authoritarianism is when the state monopolizes top-down political control, like a dictatorship. It's a means of controlling people and their actions. In Totalitarianism, an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. It's thought control.

A Totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:12 AM (Dc2NZ)

20 Floppy disks!

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at November 15, 2020 09:12 AM (oVJmc)

21 I read Ball of Lightning by Cixin Liu. Ball lightning is a rare, naturally occurring phenomena. Liu had a ball lightning experience in 1982. Liu claims the descriptions, characteristics, and behavior of ball lightning in the book are based on historical records and the latest scientific knowledge at the time the book was written (2004). This novel is about a Chinese physicist whose parents were incinerated before is eyes by ball lightning on his fourteenth birthday and a beautiful, amoral army major trying to weaponize the phenomena. An interesting read.

Posted by: Zoltan at November 15, 2020 09:12 AM (qb8uZ)

22 15 GRAMMAGRAM in Welsh is GRMMGRM.
Posted by: Cymru Moronau at November 15, 2020 09:11 AM (DMUuz)

Somewhere in Cardiff is a giant warehouse full of vowels....

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (PiwSw)

23 Dawn Wells.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (oVJmc)

24 Dawn Wells is reading Georgette Heyer - good for her!

Posted by: Dr Alice at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (SZVzW)

25 Checking in!

Posted by: vmom - FIGHT FOR AMERICA! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (FU1uD)

26 Is this thread a haven from all the mental cases that use this place to rant and shit all over everyone else? Let me make one thing clear: I'm not here to be part of your therapy group. And I'm 100% not your suicide hotline.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (y7DUB)

27 GRAMMAGRAM

I thought it was a telegram from grandma

"Help !

I've been run over by a reindeer ! "

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:14 AM (arJlL)

28 12 Oh - and I have NEVER had bookish problem #47. Has anyone here?
Posted by: CarolinaGirl at November 15, 2020 09:06 AM (Kh9rg)
---

I kind of had that problem at the height of COVIDmania in March and April. I just couldn't concentrate. I mean, even worse than my usual scatterbrained monkeymind.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:14 AM (Dc2NZ)

29 Yep, Dawn Wells is reading one my favorite Heyer mysteries, "Why Shoot a Butler?"

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at November 15, 2020 09:15 AM (fTtFy)

30
g'mornin', book-ish 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at November 15, 2020 09:16 AM (+T8iw)

31 Dawn Wells

Posted by: klaftern at November 15, 2020 09:17 AM (RuIsu)

32 Is this thread a haven from all the mental cases that use this place to rant and shit all over everyone else? Let me make one thing clear: I'm not here to be part of your therapy group. And I'm 100% not your suicide hotline.
Posted by: Captain Hate

That sound you hear is people crossing Captain Hate off their Christmas card lists.....

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:17 AM (arJlL)

33 Definitely a Mary Ann type of guy

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 09:17 AM (9sWOw)

34 I have question about library binding editions. I want to get hardcover edition of Collected Stories of William Faulkner, but only library binding available for new book and I don't really want to buy used one without seeing it. Is library binding font smaller then hardcover edition? Is it make sense to buy it or better to buy used hardcover edition? Money is not issue, I just to want to have good edition of book

Posted by: redmonkey at November 15, 2020 09:17 AM (vSp8W)

35 Starting Will Jordan's (The Critical Drinker) Ryan Drake spy novel series.

Got It on kindle since in the next two months going to spend a lot of time in waiting rooms as I get all my trucks serviced.

It is ten books long so it should last me.

Posted by: Big V Caffeinated at November 15, 2020 09:18 AM (6Pqz7)

36 The Presbyterian Church has split more than once over liberalism, I believe. The Episcopal Church (to which I belong, or belonged) has done the same. Sadly, I am at the point where I would not advise anyone to join a church without researching it first and choosing a more conservative one.

Posted by: Dr Alice at November 15, 2020 09:18 AM (SZVzW)

37 32 Is this thread a haven from all the mental cases that use this place to rant and shit all over everyone else? Let me make one thing clear: I'm not here to be part of your therapy group. And I'm 100% not your suicide hotline.
Posted by: Captain Hate

That sound you hear is people crossing Captain Hate off their Christmas card lists.....
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:17 AM (arJlL)

And me adding him to mine.

Thanks, Hate.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:18 AM (Dc2NZ)

38 I love that pen and ink drawing. Thanks OM.

Posted by: JTB at November 15, 2020 09:18 AM (7EjX1)

39 Good morning, all - I am back to writing full steam ahead, now that the craft show is done and dusted. Did OK, not anywhere near sold out of anything, and as my daughter predicted, the American Girl PJs, bathrobes, bunny slippers and other nightwear, were a stand-out. Always next year, I guess.
I went back and began rereading Alma Boykin's Colplatschki Chronicles - all about what happened three and four hundred years after a series of severe Carrington events struck ColPlatXI, and reduced a space-faring civilization to approximately a medieval level of technology, after Colonial Planets LTD wrote off the place and everyone on the planet as a total loss.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at November 15, 2020 09:19 AM (xnmPy)

40 Thank you OM. for those references to progressive-ism invading the evangelical church. One prominent pastor that I know of, whose name is widely known and who seems orthodox in every other way, has introduced critical race theory into his church. Because the church is so prominent, I fear spillover.

Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:19 AM (gm3d+)

41 Some of the books I have been reading in the last couple of weeks:

The Screwtape Letters and "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" by C.S. Lewis. Published in 1961, this edition combines the "Letters", "Toast" and a new preface that more fully explains Lewis' thought-processes while writing from a demon's point of view. The "Letters" are in the form of advice from an experienced demon to his rather stupid nephew on how to lure a human away from Christianity. The "Toast" is more political and derides the concept of collectivism. Lewis' goal is to try to persuade the reader to do the opposite of what Screwtape advises. Well-written and thought-provoking. Rating = 5.0/5.

Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson. Published in 1971, it collects several short stories and a novella involving the same characters. The novel is set in an alternative time-line America in which magic works. Generally fun and exciting, I was surprised how pro-Christian the book was: Evil ("The Adversary") exists and God gives assistance to humans by means of saints. Rating = 5.0/5.

The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert. Published in 2004, the novel involves Beatrix Potter and her animal friends solving a couple little mysteries. The animals are full-fledged characters with their dialog. A gentle little story, it makes a pleasant read. Rating = 4.0/5.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at November 15, 2020 09:19 AM (pJWtt)

42 I have popcorn at the ready for when Stacey Abrams state of Georgia "glitches" in PotUSvsg's direction. I have MOAR popcorn at the ready for when other battleground states flip. This election is working out to be a real Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Posted by: Marooned at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (yYptV)

43 I finally got my Evelyn Waugh/Ford Madox Ford thoughts down on (virtual) paper. You can read them at my site. My family is relieved because I no longer have to bore them with it.

(I will hold it in reserve to use on my father, however. We have this thing where we try to outdo each other with obscure literary takes.)

I'm now re-reading Conrad's Lord Jim. I go hot and cold on Conrad. When he's great, he's awesome.

But then he goes into text-wall contemplation mode and I just want to yell "Yes, yes, we get the point! Go on with the story Marlowe!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (cfSRQ)

44 Is this thread a haven from all the mental cases that use this place to
rant and shit all over everyone else? Let me make one thing clear: I'm
not here to be part of your therapy group. And I'm 100% not your suicide
hotline.

Posted by: Captain Hate

This is about me, isn't it?

Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (gm3d+)

45 Finally got around to reading Machen's "Christianity Liberalism" this year. It is amazing that it is almost 100 years old, because it reads like it could have been written in 2020. The "Christian" Left still denies the essentials of the faith and is indistinguishable from the world - pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQX, anti-authority of scripture, anti-deity of Jesus, anti-Jesus is the only way to salvation, etc. Just a bunch of wolves making a god in their own image.

Posted by: Eternity Matters at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (MTm8X)

46 @All Hail President Eris - I finished the Dreher book a week or so ago - it was tough to read, at first. Part II has ideas on how to combat the problems; it's a much more uplifting section. I sorely needed it after dwelling on all the unpleasantness.

Posted by: CarolinaGirl at November 15, 2020 09:22 AM (Kh9rg)

47 "This book was published in 2015, just before the Trump Ascendancy. Lord knows what it would have in it if it were published now."

No need to wonder: the author, David Talbot, coauthored The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy in 2017. He cheers the Deep State's efforts to take out Trump.

Posted by: cool breeze at November 15, 2020 09:22 AM (UGKMd)

48 I always thought PCUSA was an organization for dislexic Communists.

Machen I first encountered in the collection The Wisdom of Conservatism, ed. Peter Witonski. I imagine some of the older Morons might have it. It is EXTREMELY eclectic, covering all varieties. Which are more numerous than people realize.

I definitely recommend it. It got slammed in the NYT, by Peter Viereck, who was sort of a smarter David Brooks. That is, if Brooks paid any attention to ideas, rather than just style. Like the Never Trumpers, he had his nose out of joint because we didn't follow him That said, some of his stuff is worth reading, particularly on Metternich. His Conservatism Revisited shows both his good and bad side.

And I might add, the Presbyterians ain't got nothin' on the Episcopalians/Anglicans. It was in the 18th C that it was said "one need not be a Christian to be a bishop in the Church of England." The last straw, IMO, was the failure to find Pike a heretic. (And note the bishop who brought the charges was, politically, almost as liberal as Pike. In the 60s that was still possible.)

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:22 AM (7X3UV)

49 #47 might want to get moving on but nevertheless 1 book at a time.
Still have Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe's Trafalgar waiting. Will get Unmasking Obama again after that.

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 09:23 AM (9sWOw)

50
The Screwtape Letters and "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"
by C.S. Lewis. Published in 1961, this edition combines the "Letters",
"Toast" and a new preface that more fully explains Lewis'
thought-processes while writing from a demon's point of view. The
"Letters" are in the form of advice from an experienced demon to his
rather stupid nephew on how to lure a human away from Christianity. The
"Toast" is more political and derides the concept of collectivism.
Lewis' goal is to try to persuade the reader to do the opposite of what
Screwtape advises. Well-written and thought-provoking. Rating = 5.0/5.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at November 15, 2020 09:19 AM (pJWtt)

---
I highly recommend this. I have a similar combined edition.

It is a great way to get people who aren't particularly religious or are maybe falling away to see another side of it.

It also showcases how Lewis could have a very biting wit when he wanted to.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:23 AM (cfSRQ)

51 Peter's 1st Epistle, reflected in-
"How Shall We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture" Francis Scaeffer.
. Maranatha!

Posted by: Billy the Mountain at November 15, 2020 09:24 AM (opdA9)

52 Hiya Grammie !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:24 AM (arJlL)

53 The pretty reader's name is "ankle".

Posted by: desk bound drudge at November 15, 2020 09:25 AM (7FbwY)

54 Hiya JT!

Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:25 AM (gm3d+)

55 "I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be very happy in it."

Grouch Marx - existitarian

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020 09:28 AM (HaL55)

56 I continue to keep current events at arms length except for post here on Ace. This is for my physical and emotional health.

With that in mind, I've been doing mostly hobby and practical reading. Guns and reloading, whittling, and drawing. Things that will keep my hands busy and attention focussed. Also, I'm reviving my moribund morse code skills and Ham radio procedures.

I did throw in a few of the Robert E. Howard Conan stories. They never get old.

Posted by: JTB at November 15, 2020 09:29 AM (7EjX1)

57 I was going to read last night - honest I was. But my Paperwhite froze so I watched Monk instead.

Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:29 AM (gm3d+)

58 That sound you hear is people crossing Captain Hate off their Christmas card lists.....
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:17 AM (arJlL)

And me adding him to mine.

Thanks, Hate.
Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress

!

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:30 AM (arJlL)

59 Was listening to a Fed podcast, in which they pointed out that it it's often unnecessary for the Dems/MSM to get marching orders, as everyone already knows what to do or say.

And that recalled to me a book that I reviewed very poorly and at length, here, Gordon's Rules of the Game. One of the points he stresses is that in a service where doctrine is well-instilled, the need for signalling is fairly low, whereas in the RN at Jutland, that was not the case. Nelson's approach is certainly a case in Gordon's favor here; he famously encouraged his officers to act according to his principles (well communicated) without his telling them what to do.

I hate to give the Left credit for anything, but they do seem to have achieved this. And what is more impressive, it's really based on nothing but an illusion. Nelson's were developed from almost a century of fighting the French.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:30 AM (7X3UV)

60
Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

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

I know everyone wants to find meaning in some larger conspiracy, but JFK was shot by a pathetic Marxist loser acting on his own.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:30 AM (mht8P)

61 Gotta be the nicest prison library Ive ever seen.

Posted by: Chris W at November 15, 2020 09:31 AM (ENWT/)

62 The last straw, IMO, was the failure to find Pike a heretic.
Nah, it was the failure to burn him at the stake.

Seriously, all I know about him is what I just read on Wiki and the NYT obit. But it's clear that he was the archetype for the self-absorbed, useless, incapable, modern liberal. How remarkably fitting that he died in a desert on a feckless, unprepared trip to find himself, because he drove into a ditch, couldn't use the jack and hadn't brought any water. His more capable wife lived.

Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (v16oJ)

63 I kind of had that problem at the height of COVIDmania in March and April. I just couldn't concentrate. I mean, even worse than my usual scatterbrained monkeymind.
Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress

I always thought you had a mind like a steel Venus flytrap !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (arJlL)

64 Barky who has his nose stuck up his own ass has a new book out.
Heard the first paragraph of the NY Post's slobbering review on Rush's show, hole e crap what a rim job.

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (9sWOw)

65 One prominent pastor that I know of, whose name is widely known and who seems orthodox in every other way, has introduced critical race theory into his church. Because the church is so prominent, I fear spillover.
Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:19 AM (gm3d+)

I first encountered the naivete of pastors twenty years ago and it astounds me to this day. Back then, I attributed it to them graduating from college, then going to seminary, then taking a minister's position, without encountering any "real life" experience. Everything they've learned is in the rarefied, academic environment. You'd think that they could just open their eyes and see the obvious errors they're promoting, but they just can't.

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (pGeFX)

66 Unless there is a way to strip the DRM out of kindle books, they are a no go for me. If I pay for it, it's mine.

I'll stick to paper.

Posted by: Somewhere South of I-80 at November 15, 2020 09:33 AM (uxUoN)

67 Barky who has his nose stuck up his own ass has a new book out.

Heard the first paragraph of the NY Post's slobbering review on Rush's show, hole e crap what a rim job.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict it says that Barky is great, and everyone who disagrees with him is a racist.

Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:34 AM (v16oJ)

68 Oh - and I have NEVER had bookish problem #47. Has anyone here?
Posted by: CarolinaGirl

Yeah.....I do that all the time.

I started to read Orange is the New Black but put it aside to finish another time,

The same with The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille

I'm constantly on the lookout for a book that grabs me by the lapels and pulls me in !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (arJlL)

69 Unless there is a way to strip the DRM out of kindle books, they are a no go for me. If I pay for it, it's mine.

I'll stick to paper.

Posted by: Somewhere South of I-80 at November 15, 2020 09:33 AM (uxUoN)

I would prefer paper as well, but more often than not, the print is too small for me. With the Kindle, I can adjust the font size to Gigantic.

Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (gm3d+)

70 I always thought you had a mind like a steel Venus flytrap !
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (arJlL)
---

More like that Mouse Trap game.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (Dc2NZ)

71 I first encountered the naivete of pastors twenty years ago and it astounds me to this day. Back then, I attributed it to them graduating from college, then going to seminary, then taking a minister's position, without encountering any "real life" experience. Everything they've learned is in the rarefied, academic environment. You'd think that they could just open their eyes and see the obvious errors they're promoting, but they just can't.
Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (pGeFX)

Many disciplines like this.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (JCRNi)

72 I love the bookshelf sketch

Also what's the title of the Georgette Heyer who dis is reading?

Posted by: vmom - FIGHT FOR AMERICA! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (QO+n8)

73 Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson. Published in 1971, it collects several short stories and a novella involving the same characters. The novel is set in an alternative time-line America in which magic works. Generally fun and exciting, I was surprised how pro-Christian the book was: Evil ("The Adversary") exists and God gives assistance to humans by means of saints. Rating = 5.0/5.

. . .
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at November 15, 2020

*
*

And World War II is fought against the Saracens or Moslems (I forget his terminology; it's been a while since I read the story). Very refreshing to read today.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (rpbg1)

74 I first encountered the naivete of pastors twenty years ago and it
astounds me to this day. Back then, I attributed it to them graduating
from college, then going to seminary, then taking a minister's position,
without encountering any "real life" experience. Everything they've
learned is in the rarefied, academic environment. You'd think that they
could just open their eyes and see the obvious errors they're promoting,
but they just can't.

That's exactly why I prefer older ministers who've done something else in their lives first. I don't need lessons in life from clueless undergraduates.

Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (v16oJ)

75 26 Is this thread a haven from all the mental cases that use this place to rant and shit all over everyone else? Let me make one thing clear: I'm not here to be part of your therapy group. And I'm 100% not your suicide hotline.
Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (y7DUB)
___________

Reminds of in college, when I was a member of a society which interviewed new members, then voted. One squishy girl argued for some proto-soyboy (this was the 70s) saying "I feel he really needs us."

A guy answered, "We are a debate society, not a 293-HELP organization."

He failed.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:36 AM (7X3UV)

76 This is about me, isn't it?
Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (gm3d+)

Actually, no, it's about me.

Hope you're doing well, grammie.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V at November 15, 2020 09:36 AM (HabA/)

77 >>> 66 Unless there is a way to strip the DRM out of kindle books, they are a no go for me. If I pay for it, it's mine.

I'll stick to paper.
Posted by: Somewhere South of I-80 at November 15, 2020 09:33 AM (uxUoN)

Is there *any* way to preserve Kindle or other ebooks in a way that Amazon can't erase them from your device? Some of mine are either not available in print or would be ludicrous-sized and/or -priced.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 09:36 AM (02b6n)

78 There is an excellent book called CDB! by William Steig consisting of nothing but grammagrams.

The cover is one person telling a second to observe a bee (CDB!). Inside, that scene continues with commentary. (DBSAB-ZB) (The bee is a busy bee.)

Page after page, with great illustrations. My favorite is just a girl slumping. (IFNNEN-R-G).

Posted by: Chris not rock at November 15, 2020 09:36 AM (WO0/g)

79 Hiya JTB !

Regards to the Missus !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:37 AM (arJlL)

80 Hi Donna!

Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:37 AM (gm3d+)

81 A better "who dis/" is:

Who's liftin Mary Ann's skirt...

Lucky Dog

Posted by: browndog at November 15, 2020 09:38 AM (BgMrQ)

82 I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict it says that Barky is great, and everyone who disagrees with him is a racist.

"It's not a book to be tossed lightly aside - it should be thrown with great force."

Groucho Marx

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020 09:38 AM (HaL55)

83 Hello, all,

Finished Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock and found it swift and entertaining. He has several other novels listed on the flyleaf, from their titles crime novels. I need to see if I can find some of them on AbeBooks -- though I may have to ask it to search beyond the confines of the USA.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:38 AM (rpbg1)

84 The lieberry is nice, having one of the largest collections of Vegemite books in the Southern Hemisphere, but lacks a certain ambiance, which could easily be remediated by installing a large statue of Eris by the reference desk.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 15, 2020 09:38 AM (PiwSw)

85 About halfway through "Eifelheim", and I agree that . . ."The story is intriguing, but what makes the book great are all of the musings...philosophical, religious, and scientific; both human and alien." I get lost in the discussions regarding light speed being variable, but they sure sound like authentic science!

And who's hand is that lifting Dawn Wells' skirt?

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at November 15, 2020 09:38 AM (bAe71)

86 "It's not a book to be tossed lightly aside - it should be thrown with great force."

Groucho Marx
Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020

*
*

Dorothy Parker is also credited with saying that. The two were contemporaries, so perhaps one cribbed from the other.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:39 AM (rpbg1)

87
There are a number of religious conservatives I deeply distrust and Dreher is one of them. For some reason I mentally overlay him with the Younger Podhoretz. Both are Better Than You and hate Trump but sometimes say nice things about conservatives.

IIRC, Dreher also is deeply ashamed of his 'low class' relations and prides himself on being super-edumacated. Kevin Williamson with out the cvck factor.

Finally, he's Eastern Orthodox, but doesn't really exemplify that tradition. Orthodox nations have historically had only two modes: Either a supreme State Church (where heresy and treason are essentially the same thing) or vassalage to Ottoman rule.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:39 AM (cfSRQ)

88 I would prefer paper as well, but more often than not, the print is too small for me. With the Kindle, I can adjust the font size to Gigantic.
Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (gm3d+)

Reading glasses or a magnifier is preferable to having your paid for product taken away at a whim. I'll deal with the small print but its hard to deal with an empty book.

Posted by: Somewhere South of I-80 at November 15, 2020 09:39 AM (uxUoN)

89 I'm close to finishing The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy.

I know I've read it before, but I don't remember any of it, so its like reading a new book. (WHEEEEEE !)

Next up... L.A. Noir

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:40 AM (arJlL)

90 Oh - and I have NEVER had bookish problem #47. Has anyone here?
Posted by: CarolinaGirl at November 15, 2020 09:06 AM (Kh9rg)
---

I kind of had that problem at the height of COVIDmania in March and April. I just couldn't concentrate. I mean, even worse than my usual scatterbrained monkeymind.
Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:14 AM (Dc2NZ)

That's not the same thing. The current national uncertainty, in fact the whole fucking year including Hoaxvid, has made it difficult to read with an unburdened mind.

Regarding the original point, my response is the same as to people complaining there's no new music to listen to: you're not looking hard enough. My worry is I'll leave this world without reading everything I currently want to read.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 09:40 AM (y7DUB)

91 A coincidental headline from yesterday:

Georgia Candidate Warnock: America Must Repent For Its Worship Of Whiteness

https://bit.ly/3nm3wni

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 09:40 AM (+y/Ru)

92
President Fabulous's book could be 700 blank pages between two covers and the media would be praising it to the skies.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:40 AM (mht8P)

93 45 Finally got around to reading Machen's "Christianity Liberalism" this year. It is amazing that it is almost 100 years old, because it reads like it could have been written in 2020. The "Christian" Left still denies the essentials of the faith and is indistinguishable from the world - pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQX, anti-authority of scripture, anti-deity of Jesus, anti-Jesus is the only way to salvation, etc. Just a bunch of wolves making a god in their own image.
Posted by: Eternity Matters at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (MTm8X)
_________

There are many of writers like that, who saw it coming. Lewis, of course, but more in Machen's era were the Papist Twins, the Chesterbelloc. Belloc's Survivals and New Arrivals is a bit shocking in how much he saw coming.

We cannot say we weren't warned.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:41 AM (7X3UV)

94 >>> 78 There is an excellent book called CDB! by William Steig consisting of nothing but grammagrams.

The cover is one person telling a second to observe a bee (CDB!). Inside, that scene continues with commentary. (DBSAB-ZB) (The bee is a busy bee.)

Page after page, with great illustrations. My favorite is just a girl slumping. (IFNNEN-R-G).
Posted by: Chris not rock at November 15, 2020 09:36 AM (WO0/g)

WIlliam Steig wrote several books for small people including Shrek and Dominic, the latter of which no one has heard of because it wasn't made into a movie. I would say it should be, but Harveywood would ruin it.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 09:41 AM (02b6n)

95 That's exactly why I prefer older ministers who've done something else in their lives first. I don't need lessons in life from clueless undergraduates.
Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (v16oJ)

Our pastor is a vet who's been a cop and has preached the Gospel in parts of the world where a person can get beheaded for doing so.

He's perfect for these times.

Posted by: President-elect Emmie at November 15, 2020 09:41 AM (4JM5Y)

96 More like that Mouse Trap game.
Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress

LOL; I don't believe ya !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:42 AM (arJlL)

97 41 ... "The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert. Published in 2004, the novel involves Beatrix Potter and her animal friends solving a couple little mysteries. The animals are full-fledged characters with their dialog. A gentle little story, it makes a pleasant read."

I've read a few of those Beatrix Potter novels. They are delightful. And Potter, the real person, is interesting. In addition to her charming stories and illustrations, she was a renowned botanical artist using watercolors.

Posted by: JTB at November 15, 2020 09:42 AM (7EjX1)

98
That's exactly why I prefer older ministers who've done something else in their lives first. I don't need lessons in life from clueless undergraduates.
Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM (v16oJ)

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

Our pastor had been a helicopter technician and pilot while attending seminary. He's a virtuoso with power equipment.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:42 AM (mht8P)

99 71 I first encountered the naivete of pastors twenty years ago and it astounds me to this day. Back then, I attributed it to them graduating from college, then going to seminary, then taking a minister's position, without encountering any "real life" experience. Everything they've learned is in the rarefied, academic environment. You'd think that they could just open their eyes and see the obvious errors they're promoting, but they just can't.
Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (pGeFX)

Many disciplines like this.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at November 15, 2020 09:35 AM

Psychology.

Posted by: one of the quiet ones at November 15, 2020 09:42 AM (3GzTP)

100 The last straw that caused me to leave the PCUSA was in the early '00s. The PCUSA bookstore promoted a book that claimed 9/11 was an inside job that GWBush was complicit in for the purpose of a new crusade against Muslims and, of course, taking their oil.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (d9Cw3)

101 President Fabulous's book could be 700 blank pages between two covers and the media would be praising it to the skies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh

The center is a popup of Mooch's shlong !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (arJlL)

102 Back to books: I've been trying to locate a hardcover copy of Chernow's House of Morgan, but all that's on Amazon are paperbacks, and an inexplicable $900 copy. I've never had this problem before, and I don't know why it's specific to this book.

Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (v16oJ)

103 I have had that bookish problem. I still sort of do. I have closed all of my usual links to websites/news and am trying to be low information. I have been having trouble sleeping. I can't find a book that can keep my attention though. My usual distractions aren't working. I'm having trouble concentrating. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Posted by: lin-duh at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (UUBmN)

104 Dorothy Parker is also credited with saying that. The two were contemporaries, so perhaps one cribbed from the other.

I wouldn't doubt it. Groucho had a wit like no one else IMHO. There's usually a good quote of his for any situation.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020 09:44 AM (HaL55)

105 Miss Linda brought a book from the library called The End of October, by Lawrence Wright. Published this year, it's about . . . a global pandemic. I don't know if I want to read about such things right now, but the opening chapters are interesting, despite a touch of the SJW:

"The youthful prime minister [of an Italy where Rome has just had a terror attack] was a nationalist, with his hair closely trimmed on the sides and long on top, the fashion for the neofascists taking over Europe. Predictably, he proposed mass expulsions of Muslims."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:44 AM (rpbg1)

106 Was listening to a Fed podcast, in which they
pointed out that it it's often unnecessary for the Dems/MSM to get
marching orders, as everyone already knows what to do or say.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:30 AM (7X3UV)

---
And yet they all have centrally-drafted talking points that say the exact same thing at the exact same time.

It's a very Soviet-style command and control system, and like the Soviets, it can strike with considerable power and effectiveness, but there's rarely any followup. After the initial push, they don't know what to do other than stick with doctrine.

If you think about it, the MSM is essentially an info-war equivalent to an shock army with 1,000 tubes per kilometer of front, firing away until the ammo is used up.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:44 AM (cfSRQ)

107 That Deplorable SOB Van Owen

HEY !

How ya doin' ?

Good to see your nic !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:44 AM (arJlL)

108
GWBush was complicit in for the purpose of a new crusade against Muslims and, of course, taking their oil.
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (d9Cw3)

-----------

I'm still waiting for Muslims hanging from lamp posts. C'mon, it's been nearly 20 years!

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:44 AM (mht8P)

109 According to some lefty cow orkers at a previous job, PCUSA was the church the Arkansas grifters ~~used as a front for their real affiliation~~ attended.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 09:45 AM (02b6n)

110 I'm out of military miniatures I need for my armies, but have extras that I thought could make a interesting Book Nook. I should start trying to make one. To refresh your memory
https://www.boredpanda.com/book-nook-shelf-inserts/

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 09:45 AM (9sWOw)

111 "It's not a book to be tossed lightly aside - it should be thrown with great force."

Groucho Marx

I see that Obozo will be on 60 Minutes tonight and on CBS This Morning (or whatever the Hell it's called). I assume that is the book to which Groucho was referring.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 09:45 AM (+y/Ru)

112 I am on Book 11 of the Spellmonger series the reviews say it's sexist so you know it's good. A retired Warmage just wants be a local Spellmonger and forget the wars he's been in and live a peaceful live when the Goblins have other ideas. It's funny and yes their is matur themes like sex magic but it's I think more for laughs.

Now I am reading HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON the napoleonic war but with dragons. It's interesting and I am enjoying it. The action is good, I can't believe that in a world filled with Dragons nobody knows much about them? I know the author did this for the reader but they could have made the Main Character ignorant not just everyone.

I am all for Alternate history books like this

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at November 15, 2020 09:46 AM (dKiJG)

113 87
There are a number of religious conservatives I deeply distrust and Dreher is one of them. For some reason I mentally overlay him with the Younger Podhoretz. Both are Better Than You and hate Trump but sometimes say nice things about conservatives.

IIRC, Dreher also is deeply ashamed of his 'low class' relations and prides himself on being super-edumacated. Kevin Williamson with out the cvck factor.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:39 AM (cfSRQ

Heh. One of this other books, The Benedict Option, was praised by David Brooks.

Posted by: President-elect Emmie at November 15, 2020 09:46 AM (4JM5Y)

114 66 77 Unless there is a way to strip the DRM out of kindle books, they are a no go for me. If I pay for it, it's mine

Calibre and the DeDRM plugin

Posted by: cool breeze at November 15, 2020 09:46 AM (UGKMd)

115 btw in the Dawn Wells photo is there a large version?

It looks like a heavy set guy with curly dark hair is trying to peak up her skirt. Young Harvey Weinstien?

Posted by: Big V Caffeinated at November 15, 2020 09:46 AM (6Pqz7)

116 103
I have had that bookish problem. I still sort of do. I have closed all
of my usual links to websites/news and am trying to be low information. I
have been having trouble sleeping. I can't find a book that can keep my
attention though. My usual distractions aren't working. I'm having
trouble concentrating. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Posted by: lin-duh at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (UUBmN)

---
It's a good time to re-read old favorites or take a second look at something you read a while ago.

That's why I treated myself to a re-read of Waugh's Sword of Honour, and combined it with Ford's Parade's End. That bought me weeks of comfortable distraction.

After I finish Lord Jim, I may go on a Conrad bender. Haven't read any of it since my 20s, so I'll see what two decades have done to my perception of him.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:47 AM (cfSRQ)

117 102
Back to books: I've been trying to locate a hardcover copy of Chernow's
House of Morgan, but all that's on Amazon are paperbacks, and an
inexplicable $900 copy. I've never had this problem before, and I don't
know why it's specific to this book.

Never mind. For some reason, a newer edition doesn't come up on the same page with the $900 version. I've now ordered it, and am really looking forward to it after reading his Hamilton.

Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:47 AM (v16oJ)

118 I am somewhat amused by the above description of the Presbyterian church. The Freemasons have been attacking the global church since before the French Revolution. Read Dr. Taylor Marshall's "Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church From Within."

If you want to go back to the basics, I highly recommend that you read "The Catechism of the Council of Trent." Death penalty, Just War, the painless birth of Jesus (like light passing through glass). Just wonderful.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:47 AM (2BZBZ)

119 Obama's book will only be interesting for what he leaves out. Most scandal free administration ever!

Posted by: Ignoramus at November 15, 2020 09:47 AM (9TdxA)

120 Hi Donna!
Posted by: grammie winger

Seconded !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:47 AM (arJlL)

121 BTW, my bedside book is now The Silmarillion. I'm reading it very slowly, and it helps me have Elvish dreams.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:47 AM (cfSRQ)

122 So many threads devolve into the "Mary Ann vs. Ginger" argument. That, or regional BBQ.

Not that those are bad things.

Posted by: Dr. Varno at November 15, 2020 09:48 AM (vuisn)

123 I am reading Clocks and Culture by Carlo M Cipolla.

It is a review of the development of clocks during the period of change from 1300 to 1700, and reflects on the technological and cultural changes.

Cipolla is a somewhat neglected economic historian who focused on economics and history (unlike the more famous ones). His general take on clocks is that the men of the 13th Century thought of measuring time because they developed the mechanisms to do so. Clocks were unwieldy and inaccurate, often needing "Governors" to correct them to reflect actual time. However they became a status symbol and there was a drive to make them more elaborate, complicated, ornate and over all, more accurate.

To reflect the value placed in these new mechanisms, men began to time things that, prior to clocks, no one considered timing. This fed back into the need for a more exact mechanism, and this became a self sustaining drive, fueling the push into greater experimentation and creating, as well as encouraging, development and adaption of new technologies for this improvement.

Cipolla's view of the move to the modern world was that it was only made possible by setting aside elements of the traditional medieval culture, which only happened because, in the end, the new ways were more profitable than holding to the old ways. He quotes " Before men could evolve and apply the machine as a social phenomenon they had to become mechanics." as in they had to cease being an agricultural focused society and become a technological one.

He does reflect at the end of this book that it is needed to find a way to deal with being a technological society.

Posted by: Kindltot at November 15, 2020 09:49 AM (WyVLE)

124 I see that Obozo will be on 60 Minutes tonight and on CBS This Morning
(or whatever the Hell it's called). I assume that is the book to which
Groucho was referring.

Hot dawg! I can't wait to not watch both of those appearances.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020 09:49 AM (HaL55)

125 Dorothy Parker is also credited with saying that. The two were contemporaries, so perhaps one cribbed from the other.

I wouldn't doubt it. Groucho had a wit like no one else IMHO. There's usually a good quote of his for any situation.
Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020

*
*

Dorothy was one of the greats. She's probably been given credit for things she actually didn't say, though. The story is told in all her biographies that, around the time the Depression got going, say 1930 or so, her friends were worried about her drinking. She went to Alcoholics Anonymous and came back full of praise for the organization.

Her buddy Robert Benchley: "Are you going to join?"

Dottie: "Certainly not. They want me to stop now."

A great story . . . but AA was not founded until 1935.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:49 AM (rpbg1)

126 Who dis.
Yawning, while he tries to get laid.
Probably the wife.

Posted by: Myollnir at November 15, 2020 09:50 AM (xBRXt)

127 87
There are a number of religious conservatives I deeply distrust and Dreher is one of them. For some reason I mentally overlay him with the Younger Podhoretz. Both are Better Than You and hate Trump but sometimes say nice things about conservatives.

IIRC, Dreher also is deeply ashamed of his 'low class' relations and prides himself on being super-edumacated. Kevin Williamson with out the cvck factor.

Finally, he's Eastern Orthodox, but doesn't really exemplify that tradition. Orthodox nations have historically had only two modes: Either a supreme State Church (where heresy and treason are essentially the same thing) or vassalage to Ottoman rule.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:39 AM (cfSRQ)
____________

Heresy and schism both were abhorred. And the churches were national to the core. (Note, when people say Constantine made a state church, which did the states bidding, they think they are talking of Rome. No, that's Constantinople. And, under Henry VIII, England seemed going that way.)

When the Non-Jurors made overtures to the Orthodox, which seemed to them to make sense, as they held quite a bit in common, the were rebuffed when the Orthodox found they had split from the CofE.

That said, I have always had a great respect for the Orthodox, and regard them as the only sane target for rational ecumenism by Rome. As Benedict XVI said, 1000 years of separation is enough.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:51 AM (7X3UV)

128 I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict it says that Barky is great, and everyone who disagrees with him is a racist.

"It's not a book to be tossed lightly aside - it should be thrown with great force."

Groucho Marx
Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack

I see that BackwardsBoy stole my thought from me first.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 09:51 AM (+y/Ru)

129 Read Manhatten Noir, a collection of mystery stories set in Manhatten, edited by Lawrence Block. Couple of really good stories, couple of OK stories, and a couple of not so great stories. Picked this up at garage sale or I would have been unhappy at paying full price.

There is a whole series of Noir books set in different locations.

Posted by: Charlotte at November 15, 2020 09:51 AM (5RITs)

130 Longitude. The real reason for the need of accurate clocks.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:52 AM (2BZBZ)

131 Captain Kangaroo is pervin' on Mary Ann while she yawns. Lassie (the dog) will fix him.

Posted by: klaftern at November 15, 2020 09:52 AM (RuIsu)

132 My family loves these things...(with certain Liberties) :

M R snakes
M R notO S A R. C M B-D I?
L I B! M R snakes

There's two books dedicated (probably more, but I know two) :"C D B" and "C D C" by William Steig.

Posted by: David W. at November 15, 2020 09:52 AM (5uXrb)

133 Heh. One of this other books, The Benedict Option, was praised by David Brooks.

Posted by: President-elect Emmie at November 15, 2020 09:46 AM (4JM5Y)

---
Yes. I never read it because like Goldberg and the rest, he writes "books" that are really just collections of his weekly columns with an index.

So when the book came out, it seemed just a regurgitation of his blogging.

BTW, I find that a perfect distillation of conservatives preaching cowardice and making it look virtuous.

The Dark Ages didn't end because monks preserved manuscripts, it ended because lay people with swords killed the barbarians. The allure of the war god faded before the might of Christian arms.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 09:52 AM (cfSRQ)

134 92
President Fabulous's book could be 700 blank pages between two covers and the media would be praising it to the skies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:40 AM (mht8P)
________

The line someone said about Charlie Dressen would be apt here. Every page of his autobiography would simply say "I."

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:53 AM (7X3UV)

135 79 .. Good morning, JT!

Posted by: JTB at November 15, 2020 09:53 AM (7EjX1)

136
I am reading Clocks and Culture by Carlo M Cipolla.

___________

The most accurate clock in the universe is our dogs letting us know it's dinnertime.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:53 AM (mht8P)

137 This is about me, isn't it?
Posted by: grammie winger at November 15, 2020 09:21 AM (gm3d+)

Absolutely not!

Regarding reading, I've concentrated solely on The Moviegoer and will surely finish it later today. To address Eeyore's concerns from last week, the protagonist goes from being an angst obsessed piece of shit whose sole redeeming quality is being the least fucked up member of his family to someone likeable. His aunt, while dressing him down for doing something he was forced into, delivers a soliloquy on the obsession with mediocrity our modern (this was written in the 60s) society has to the point that the phrase "common man" isn't considered an insult. So gems like that keep me going.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 09:53 AM (y7DUB)

138 Constantine DID NOT make a state church. He simply made it legal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:54 AM (2BZBZ)

139 My brothers Priest in TX is a former North Korean defector, I attended a mass and talk about an interesting sermon. The man loves freedom.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at November 15, 2020 09:54 AM (dKiJG)

140 Our library was going to have its annual pre-Christmas book sale, which was downgraded to a limited number of masked attendees in half-hour blocks, but it has now been cancelled because of an uptick in COVID cases in my county.

Grrrr!

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:54 AM (Dc2NZ)

141 >>> 130 Longitude. The real reason for the need of accurate clocks.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:52 AM (2BZBZ)

... which happens to be a pretty decent book by Dava Sobel.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 09:54 AM (02b6n)

142 101 President Fabulous's book could be 700 blank pages between two covers and the media would be praising it to the skies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh

The center is a popup of Mooch's shlong !
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (arJlL)
__________

Unavoidable. Barack's won't pop up.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:55 AM (7X3UV)

143 Her buddy Robert Benchley: "Are you going to join?"

Dottie: "Certainly not. They want me to stop now."

A great story . . . but AA was not founded until 1935.

Heh. How can you be anonymous if you show up in person?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020 09:55 AM (HaL55)

144 I'm of the opinion the best way to spot a church con game is to filter everything through the "lens" of the Bible.

Be like the Berians, and check scripture daily, to make sure that which is taught is correct.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing
at November 15, 2020 09:55 AM (WEBkv)

145 The most accurate clock in the universe is our dogs letting us know it's dinnertime.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 09:53 AM (mht8P)
--

The Atomic Cat Clock perpetually reads we're three seconds from Starvation Midnight.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:56 AM (Dc2NZ)

146

Is that Gilligan or the professor peaking up her skirt?

Posted by: TheQuietMan at November 15, 2020 09:57 AM (YosMh)

147 I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict it says that Barky is great, and everyone who disagrees with him is a racist.

Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:34 AM (v16oJ)

That, and I think the book communicates that he's deeply disappointed with all of us.

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 09:57 AM (pGeFX)

148 They made a film about Longitude. And effed up the ending. They missed the island not by longitude, but by latitude. I caught it but nobody else did.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:57 AM (2BZBZ)

149 BTW, my bedside book is now The Silmarillion. I'm reading it very slowly, and it helps me have Elvish dreams.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

Elvish Preshley ?

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:57 AM (arJlL)

150 I've concentrated solely on The Moviegoer and will surely finish it later today. To address Eeyore's concerns from last week, the protagonist goes from being an angst obsessed piece of shit whose sole redeeming quality is being the least fucked up member of his family to someone likeable. His aunt, while dressing him down for doing something he was forced into, delivers a soliloquy on the obsession with mediocrity our modern (this was written in the 60s) society has to the point that the phrase "common man" isn't considered an insult. So gems like that keep me going.
Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020

*
*

I suppose I should try that novel again. Its being told in present tense annoys me; usually when an author does that -- and so many do, today -- it's a flag: "Look how literary I'm being!"

Exception: Bright Lights Big City, by Jay McInerney. Not only is it told in present tense, it's in second person! But it's funny as well as dramatic, and it works.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:58 AM (rpbg1)

151 I read Ball of Lightning by Cixin Liu. Ball lightning is a rare, naturally occurring phenomena. Liu had a ball lightning experience in 1982. Liu claims the descriptions, characteristics, and behavior of ball lightning in the book are based on historical records and the latest scientific knowledge at the time the book was written (2004). This novel is about a Chinese physicist whose parents were incinerated before is eyes by ball lightning on his fourteenth birthday and a beautiful, amoral army major trying to weaponize the phenomena. An interesting read.

Posted by: Zoltan at November 15, 2020 09:12 AM (qb8uZ)

===

There was ball lightning inside a flight I was on from Orange County in 1998. It was very memorable.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at November 15, 2020 09:58 AM (EZebt)

152 Dreher also is deeply ashamed of his 'low class' relations and prides himself on being super-edumacated. Kevin Williamson with out the cvck factor.

-
I've got a doctorate (OK, it's only a juris doctorate but still . . .) but I'm becoming more ashamed of my academic and professional brethern rather than the truck drivers, garbage collectors, and plumbers.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 09:58 AM (+y/Ru)

153 Read a comic-book adaptation of Jules Verne's "Master of the World" this week. (Marvel Classics 21, 1970-something). Not sure why they adapted this story, rather than any of Verne's more famous works. Maybe it it fit into a comic-length better...It did have on laugh-out-loud moment, however. At one point, a characters says "How could anyone get a heavy submarine into this lake--it's completely surrounded by a circle of mountains...!" It was an odd line on its own, but the kicker was that the character was on a lake....in Kansas. The story would have us believe that there is a circle of mountains in Kansas...

I don't blame Jules Verne--a nineteenth century Frenchmen--for having a tenuous grasp of American geography. But I found it hilarious that the team at Marvel included that moment, without tweaking it into something more plausible. (Unless that wasn't part of Verne's original, and Marvel added that scene on their own, in which case....)

Posted by: Castle Guy at November 15, 2020 09:59 AM (Lhaco)

154 Here's the full photo of Dawn Wells:

https://www.listal.com/viewimage/9129312

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 09:59 AM (Dc2NZ)

155 The Dreher book sounds like it answers some questions I have.

Are there other books that also give good guidance on navigating these times?

Posted by: President-elect Emmie at November 15, 2020 09:59 AM (4JM5Y)

156 Her buddy Robert Benchley: "Are you going to join?"

Dottie: "Certainly not. They want me to stop now."

A great story . . . but AA was not founded until 1935.
*
Heh. How can you be anonymous if you show up in person?
Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #FightBack at November 15, 2020

*
*

You just give your first name. "Hi, I'm Dottie, and I don't know why the hell I'm here."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:59 AM (rpbg1)

157 Howdy, Helena and Lin-duh!

Posted by: President-elect Emmie at November 15, 2020 10:00 AM (4JM5Y)

158 JT -
Doing OK. Getting stronger, but still having some balance problems. Good to hear from you.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at November 15, 2020 10:00 AM (bAe71)

159 Constantine DID NOT make a state church. He simply made it legal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:54 AM (2BZBZ)

When I read John Julius Norwich's three part Byzantium, Constantine was by far the coolest character.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:00 AM (y7DUB)

160 And I might add, the Presbyterians ain't got nothin' on the Episcopalians/Anglicans. It was in the 18th C that it was said "one need not be a Christian to be a bishop in the Church of England." The last straw, IMO, was the failure to find Pike a heretic. (And note the bishop who brought the charges was, politically, almost as liberal as Pike. In the 60s that was still possible.)

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020
--
The Anglican church has nothing on the Catholic. You could be an ex-pirate and buy your way to the Papacy in the 15th century. Do you think all the idiot third sons who were shunted into the Cathoilc church believed in Christianity?

Posted by: Jaysus at November 15, 2020 10:01 AM (lnhTD)

161 I really liked the Sharpe TV movies and I was wondering if I should start with Sharpe's Rifles or read the prequels?

For those with audible most of the sharpe series is included with your subscription

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (dKiJG)

162 Walker Percy wrote other great stuff. "Love in the Ruins" is great fun. "The Thanatos Syndrome" its sequel and full of fun. "Lost in the Cosmos" is great.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (2BZBZ)

163 138 Constantine DID NOT make a state church. He simply made it legal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 09:54 AM (2BZBZ)
_________

I was citing an oft expressed theory, not endorsing it. But to the extent it developed according to the theory, it was in the East. Caesaropapism was not a thing in the Latin West.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (7X3UV)

164 I gotta say, if I had to wear that pair of pants to post here,

I'd rather suck Robert Deniro's tiny dick first.
*********

I'm reading Farnham's Freehold by Heinlein (1964).

It's not for the easily offended. You can sense some of the roots of SIASL in this book.

Posted by: GnuBreed at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (F0YaR)

165 That said, I have always had a great respect for the
Orthodox, and regard them as the only sane target for rational
ecumenism by Rome. As Benedict XVI said, 1000 years of separation is
enough.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 09:51 AM (7X3UV)

---
We used to have an officer in my unit who was Orthodox and sometimes I'd walk up to him and say "Okay, I've decided to abandon Rome. Unfortunately I'm not Greek, Russian or Romanian, so which Orthodox church am I supposed to join?"

I liked to use a similar line on our Lutheran Chaplain. "Okay, Pastor, I get it, Luther was right! So how do I figure out which church is that actual one I should be joining?"

Both had a great sense of humor and we used to have wonderful lunchtime discussions about faith. I miss those conversations.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (cfSRQ)

166 Say what you want about Catholic Popes, but none of them were heretics on the level of Francis.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:03 AM (2BZBZ)

167 Grammagrams are part of the Arkansas state literacy test. Example:

MR mice.
MR not!
SAR. CM EDBD feet?
LIB! MR mice!

Posted by: PabloD, make commies fly again! at November 15, 2020 10:05 AM (T2IeR)

168 I had an evangelical friend who said that Constantine ruined the Church. You know, all those sinners converted and got government sinecures. Phonies!

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:05 AM (2BZBZ)

169 Walker Percy wrote other great stuff. "Love in the Ruins" is great fun. "The Thanatos Syndrome" its sequel and full of fun. "Lost in the Cosmos" is great.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (2BZBZ)

I've added them to my to read list.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:05 AM (y7DUB)

170 You just give your first name. "Hi, I'm Dottie, and I don't know why the hell I'm here."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius

Hi, I'm Dottie and let's move this party to the Algonquin!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 10:07 AM (+y/Ru)

171 Nobody's said anything about it yet, but the it's pretty obvious that the descent of the church into liberalism pretty much parallels the descent of the US republic into a similar state. it's not a big surprise: once you quit reading one major cultural foundation piece (the Bible) literally (as opposed to literalistically) it's a quick step to not read other pieces (the Constitution) in similar ways.

Posted by: yara at November 15, 2020 10:07 AM (rde8g)

172 The Anglican church has nothing on the Catholic. You
could be an ex-pirate and buy your way to the Papacy in the 15th
century. Do you think all the idiot third sons who were shunted into the
Cathoilc church believed in Christianity?

Posted by: Jaysus at November 15, 2020 10:01 AM (lnhTD)

---
Given that England basically invented privateers, that's an odd charge to make.

Idiot third sons also went into the C of E, you know. Jane Austen memorably describes men seeking a decent "living" at a prosperous parish.

Indeed, the mundane "it's just a job" attitude led to both Wesleyism and later the Oxford Movement, which in different ways tried to re-instill faith into what had largely become an empty social convention.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

173 Hey Emmie and Helena!
I'm thinking cookie decorating may be a good distraction again. You know, the kind with royal icing that I use to do but haven't in years. I still have my cookie cutters and food colors.

Posted by: lin-duh at November 15, 2020 10:08 AM (UUBmN)

174 Is that Gilligan or the professor peaking up her skirt?
Posted by: TheQuietMan at November 15, 2020 09:57 AM (YosMh)

Nope, just Norman Bates.

Posted by: WeBoned! at November 15, 2020 10:08 AM (8k7U7)

175 160 And I might add, the Presbyterians ain't got nothin' on the Episcopalians/Anglicans. It was in the 18th C that it was said "one need not be a Christian to be a bishop in the Church of England." The last straw, IMO, was the failure to find Pike a heretic. (And note the bishop who brought the charges was, politically, almost as liberal as Pike. In the 60s that was still possible.)

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020
--
The Anglican church has nothing on the Catholic. You could be an ex-pirate and buy your way to the Papacy in the 15th century. Do you think all the idiot third sons who were shunted into the Cathoilc church believed in Christianity?
Posted by: Jaysus at November 15, 2020 10:01 AM (lnhTD)
___________

Has nothing to do with the infiltration of heresy. The matter of sinful ministers has always been present. And the doctrine that they were therefore not valid ministers was part of the Donation heresy. Liberius, Honorius, and Francis are far more problematic than Alexander VI. (And, of course, mirrored elsewhere and everywhere.)

And anyway, while one may question particular cases, why in principle should an ex-pirate be ruled out? Paul persecuted Christians, after all.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:09 AM (7X3UV)

176 150 I suppose I should try that novel again. Its being told in present tense annoys me; usually when an author does that -- and so many do, today -- it's a flag: "Look how literary I'm being!"

Exception: Bright Lights Big City, by Jay McInerney. Not only is it told in present tense, it's in second person! But it's funny as well as dramatic, and it works.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:58 AM (rpbg1)

Tom Robbins' "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" does the Second-Person style too, though "you" aren't a cypher in it.

Posted by: Allie at November 15, 2020 10:10 AM (vmRc0)

177 JT -
Doing OK. Getting stronger, but still having some balance problems. Good to hear from you.
Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen

Keep getting better !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 10:10 AM (arJlL)

178 The story would have us believe that there is a circle of mountains in Kansas...

-
Kansas: The Switzerland of America!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 10:10 AM (+y/Ru)

179 In Some Do No- Ford Madox Ford describes how in Edwardian England the gentry in the country habitually wore casual dress for Sunday dinner.

This was because it would be inappropriate to go to church in evening dress, so they wore something more suitable for the evening church service.

Which they didn't attend anyway, but it was important to keep up appearances.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:11 AM (cfSRQ)

180 Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM

While I got a couple of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/ Maturin series out of order, decided I wasn't going to do that with the Sharpe series. I have seen all the movies so don't see a point missing a book.

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 10:11 AM (9sWOw)

181 >>> 173 Hey Emmie and Helena!
I'm thinking cookie decorating may be a good distraction again. You know, the kind with royal icing that I use to do but haven't in years. I still have my cookie cutters and food colors.
Posted by: lin-duh at November 15, 2020 10:08 AM (UUBmN)

Hi there!

That sounds delicious. When should I be over??

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 10:11 AM (02b6n)

182 166 Say what you want about Catholic Popes, but none of them were heretics on the level of Francis.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:03 AM (2BZBZ)
_________

Not really. The saving thing about Francis is that his mind is so fuzzy he never quite gets to outright heresy. Suggests it a lot. But note that he never explains anything, so there's always an out for his defenders.

Recently on an Acton Line Podcast someone told Sirica that Francis couldn't be a Marxist because he lacked the intellectual discipline for that.

And, BTW, the hardest case is Honorius I.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:12 AM (7X3UV)

183 We belonged to a PCUSA church when they voted to divest in Israel.

Israel! IT'S IN THE BOOK!

Despite the pastor's plea that well we aren't national, they are upstream, and every dollar in the collection plate has a percentage that feeds that upstream, we changed churches, right away.

I am still astonished by churches that even consider the whole divestment in Israel thing.

Posted by: blaster at November 15, 2020 10:12 AM (ZfRYq)

184 169 Walker Percy wrote other great stuff. "Love in the Ruins" is great fun. "The Thanatos Syndrome" its sequel and full of fun. "Lost in the Cosmos" is great.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (2BZBZ)
I've added them to my to read list.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:05 AM (y7DUB)

Mrs. Muse was royally creeped out by The Thanatos Syndrome, but she says it was a very well-written book.

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 10:13 AM (pGeFX)

185 If you want a fun kids book about grammagrams I recommend CDB by William Steig

Posted by: Abzod at November 15, 2020 10:13 AM (dHzE8)

186 Grammagram as spoken by a Frenchman:

ZYNSXLN

Stolen from the book "CDB".

Posted by: DR.WTF at November 15, 2020 10:13 AM (AiZBA)

187 Constantine is regarded as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox church, and it is believed he converted well before his famous deathbed baptism.
Scholars dispute whether he latched on the Christianity as a political tool to unite his vast empire or whether he was sincerely religious, but either way its remarkable; 300 years after its humble founder was crucified by the Roman Empire, Christianity became the universal religion of the Roman Empire

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:13 AM (AwPyG)

188 Tom Robbins' "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" does the Second-Person style too, though "you" aren't a cypher in it.
Posted by: Allie at November 15, 2020 10:10 AM (vmRc0)

In my list of authors to be tossed in the wood chipper, Tom's in the first wave.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:14 AM (y7DUB)

189 Greetings, O Book Thread may-you-read-forever!
Georgette Heyer's Why Shoot a Butler, being read by Who Dis, is a great example of her ability to write interesting and unique characters. I always recommend her to new and improving writers as a case study of characterization. Even walk-on characters have depth. In this book, both the male and female leads are of the grouchy, prickly type yet you can see how they work together. The bad guys are didn't simply wake up and decide to be evil one day, they have depth too, and foibles, and reasons for their actions. BAD reasons, but they have them.

Meanwhile, I write. If 2021 becomes "2020, only worse" I think the market for escapist literature will boom. Especially affordable escapist literature, like mine.
Oh, and for those worried about Amazon and DRM-- most indie writers, myself included, do NOT use DRM for our books. There is a little line of text in the details on the Amazon page which tells you if the book has it or not. If it doesn't, you can save that book file (to a different folder somewhere)and open it at your leisure even if Amazon is gone. You want it in a different folder to avoid the update issue, although I think they have switched to "manual update" now.

A lot of indies also have their books available at places like BookFunnel too.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at November 15, 2020 10:15 AM (exg7Q)

190 You should read the Sharpe series in chronological order, which is very different from published order. Cornwell must have had one helluva comprehensive outline before he started the first book.

Posted by: Top.Man. at November 15, 2020 10:15 AM (h+0Ny)

191 If you want a fun kids book about grammagrams I recommend CDB by William Steig
Posted by: Abzod at November 15, 2020 10:13 AM (dHzE

*fist bump*

Posted by: DR.WTF at November 15, 2020 10:15 AM (AiZBA)

192 Heh. One of this other books, The Benedict Option, was praised by David Brooks.

I believe his first book was Crunchy Cons. I haven't read it so maybe I shouldn't be saying anything but my inference is that it was an attempt to make some level of peace between conservatives and liberals on feel-good lifestyle issues. Kind of a "at least we can agree that we don't hate Gaia" sort of thing.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at November 15, 2020 10:15 AM (qc+VF)

193 The center is a popup of Mooch's shlong !
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (arJlL)

Don't look for it, JT. You may not like what you find.

Posted by: Dr. Zaius at November 15, 2020 10:15 AM (R/m4+)

194 Kurt Schlicter's latest, Crisis, is coming out Novemebr 23. I am looking forward to it.

For those of you not familiar with the series of books, it is a post CW2/National Divorce America.

I will say this about them - a LOT of these books is conservaporn/fan service - but since we are the fans, its not so bad. And, Schlicter's writing has matured along with the series. So I expect this 5th book to be well written as well as a good story.

Posted by: blaster at November 15, 2020 10:16 AM (ZfRYq)

195 I may redo the Aubreys in 2021. Definitely will dive back into Plato. While I remain a convert to Aristotle, he (and Aquinas) are tough reads. Plato is the one philosopher whose work reads like a good story. Lots of humor, and of course, one of the great characters of all time.

C S Lewis said that Socrates, Dr Johnson, and Jesus were the only historical characters he knew of whom we get to meet the way we do Mr Bennett or Sherlock Holmes.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:17 AM (7X3UV)

196 Mrs. Muse was royally creeped out by The Thanatos Syndrome, but she says it was a very well-written book.
Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 10:13 AM (pGeFX)

I noted your comment last week. And thanks again for this weekly thread.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:17 AM (y7DUB)

197 Best selling mystery author Louise Penny openly talks about her troubles with alcoholism, and tells how she was a well-known newscaster/celebrity in Canada, but thinking about taking her own life.
One night as a last resort, she walked down the street to attend an AA meeting, and she says she never had another drink from that moment forward. 20 years later she's still going, and she says the people in the group are her best friends.
It's really inspiring

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:17 AM (AwPyG)

198 Reading Edith Wharton: The Custom of the Country - fabulous! Out of copyright and easy to find an ebook online for free. Details the horrid materialism of early 20th Century social climber Undine Spragg, a narcissistic beauty who ruins every life she touches in her career of moving from husband to husband.

Also reading Black Privilege by Charlamagne The God. Earthy and well-written, with a positive message of self-reliance and the power to change. Funny, humble, truthful. Very good.

Finished Atticus by Ron Hansen, a novel set in modern times about a Colorado rancher who suspects foul play rather than the apparent suicide when called to collect the body of his adult son in Mexico. The changing points of view are a tad quirky, even a little abrupt and clunky, but his writing is truly beautiful. Terrific metaphors, and he paints scenes with spare strokes. Compelling tale about the emotional toll of fatherhood.

Posted by: MarkW at November 15, 2020 10:17 AM (iDVR9)

199 "The Ten-Year Lunch: the Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table":

https://vimeo.com/100320182

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 10:18 AM (Dc2NZ)

200 Reading a monograph from some French author on HP Lovecraft and his works. The guy obviously loves Lovecraft's work.

Posted by: MAGA (stop the steal link in this nic) at November 15, 2020 10:19 AM (cMXNt)

201 Not really. The saving thing about Francis is that
his mind is so fuzzy he never quite gets to outright heresy. Suggests it
a lot. But note that he never explains anything, so there's always an
out for his defenders.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:12 AM (7X3UV)

---
Yes, and he hangs out with completely unreliable reporters famous for just making things up. I found it interesting that the last big flap ("Gay marriage okay now, says Pope!") our local bishops and many of the Catholic sites basically ignored it because it's getting old to the point of being stupid.

As I said to my wife: "Francis just gotta Francis."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:20 AM (cfSRQ)

202 Posted by: cool breeze at November 15, 2020 09:46 AM (UGKMd)

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at November 15, 2020 10:15 AM (exg7Q)

Thank you!

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 10:20 AM (02b6n)

203 Reading is a relic from white supremacy and the patriarchy. The assumption that a person of color has the mental ability to learn how to read is racist. We should all communicate with hand gestures, grunts and emojis. For progress.

Posted by: Andy Tifa at November 15, 2020 10:20 AM (lRrON)

204 "Mrs. Muse was royally creeped out by The Thanatos Syndrome, but she says it was a very well-written book."

Written so long ago, but Qanon may be correct. Pedophilia runs the world.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:20 AM (2BZBZ)

205 @182
I think you're being too kind about Francis. He's not "fuzzy" as much as he's an influencer; a puppet put there by evil people.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:21 AM (AwPyG)

206 It's so cute when people think they can stop, what this generation of mankind terms, progressivism.

Face it, there is no stopping the destruction of every human society until the First Lensman arrives. The Eddorians will continue their destructive ways in a multitude of forms.

Posted by: Snidely Whiplash at November 15, 2020 10:21 AM (dVp8a)

207 The center is a popup of Mooch's shlong !
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (arJlL)

Don't look for it, JT. You may not like what you find.
Posted by: Dr. Zaius

I wasn't gonna !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 10:22 AM (arJlL)

208
I am still astonished by churches that even consider the whole divestment in Israel thing.

Posted by: blaster at November 15, 2020 10:12 AM (ZfRYq)

---
When you no longer believe in the need for spiritual examination because God's just a such a nice guy and there is no hell, you turn to other things to keep yourself occupied.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:22 AM (cfSRQ)

209 Book I really liked:

"Deep Undercover," by Jack Barsky.

An autobio of a KGB agent working undercover in the U.S. during the late Carter years, & then throughout the Reagan years.

These are the same years during which the cable TV series "The Americans" is set. I gave the book to a friend of mine who was a big fan of the series-- shake hands with a REAL "American."

Random takeaways:

1) The KGB spent 6 YEARS training this man for his assignment in the U.S.. I suspect the KGB had the finest training program that ever existed.

2) The KGB didn't seem to have an exact plan in place for Barsky once he was infiltrated here-- the plan seems to have been "stand by until we need you," as near as I could tell. Think of Aldrich Ames & Robert Hanssen as the KGB's nuclear aircraft carriers, & Barsky as a KGB tugboat.

3) The KGB did some things that were so maladroit in running Barsky, it's tempting to say, "Well, this was the sclerotic KGB bureaucracy that existed near the collapse of the Soviet state, after all. What else would you expect?" However, the opposite is the case. The KGB had more success penetrating the CIA & the FBI in those years than it had EVER had previously.

Posted by: mnw at November 15, 2020 10:23 AM (Cssks)

210 Francis is a heretic. Plain and simple. Tons of shit for evidence.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:23 AM (2BZBZ)

211 Have been rereading parts of Clive James' "Cultural Amnesia" a fascinating, rather eccentric collection of essays about cultural figures ranging from Albert Camus to Miles Davis. James can be exasperating because some of his essays go very afar afield. The essay on Sophie Scholl turns into a paean to Natalie Portman, for instance. And James is (or rather, was) decidedly secular, so he has his own blind spots. He praises Chesterton without talking about Chesterton's religious faith and doesn't mention that the Christianity of Sophie Scholl and her brother led them to care about the fate of the Jews.

But his take on the intellectuals and artists who supported totalitarianism, in the forms of both Nazism and Communism, is devastating. His critique of the vile Jean-Paul Sartre is merciless and he has great admiration for Raymond Aron, who was Sartre's great conservative critic.

James himself was a secular liberal who nonetheless found himself reluctantly on the side of Thatcher (when it came to foreign policy, at least) and other conservatives because he was so vehemently anti-Communism.

Also of interest are the figures, mainly Jewish, from the Viennese cafe scene, critics and artists whose sparkling wit and insights helped make Vienna a dazzling cultural center until the Nazis destroyed that scene - and the people who had created it.

So - a highly recommended book. It's quirky and if you are a religious conservative you will find much to disagree with, but I don't care to read only people I always agree with. His insights on authoritarianism and art and pretty sound.

(There. Trying my best to not sound like a mental patient.)

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V at November 15, 2020 10:23 AM (HabA/)

212 Sean Bean was the perfect Richard Sharpe. It was one of those times when they got the casting right

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:25 AM (AwPyG)

213 Is buy-den literally the "Manchurian Candidate"? I only vaguely know the plot but it appears so.
BBL, got to get ready and go to church.

Posted by: lin-duh at November 15, 2020 10:26 AM (UUBmN)

214 I think you're being too kind about Francis. He's not "fuzzy" as much as he's an influencer; a puppet put there by evil people.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:21 AM (AwPyG)

---
And yet he's having the opposite effect. I've said this before but it bears repeating: Only Francis could have exposed the dirty secret at the heart of the pedophile rings within the Church. His refusal to immediately remove McCarrick, his mild language of condemnation, his surrounding himself with shady characters while driving out voices of Orthodoxy was a great service to the Church.

Benedict knew he could never root it out, but with Francis, they got so bold they came right out into the open to celebrate what they thought was their victory. Having been exposed, they can be removed.

I see this as entirely necessary. Francis is serving God, though he may not be doing it in the way he intended.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:26 AM (cfSRQ)

215 The Battle of Milvian Bridge. Constantine had a vision. Oh. Oops. Some of you don't believe in supernatural stuff. Sorry (not).

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:26 AM (2BZBZ)

216 I think you're being too kind about Francis. He's not "fuzzy" as much as he's an influencer; a puppet put there by evil people.
Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:21 AM (AwPyG)

When I read that dickhole sold out one of his fellow seminarians to the state, working off that guilt makes him a very malleable tool.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:27 AM (y7DUB)

217 Benedict removed McKerrick. Francis restored him.

Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:27 AM (2BZBZ)

218 Well, got go for a bit. Maybe back later.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 15, 2020 10:28 AM (cfSRQ)

219 (There. Trying my best to not sound like a mental patient.)
Posted by: Donna&&&&&V

NICE !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 10:30 AM (arJlL)

220 Chores await

til next week Bookies !

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 10:31 AM (arJlL)

221 Downloaded Black rednecks and white liberals to listen to while I run indoors so I can avoid outside and people and not wonder if they're Biden voting fuck faces. Also got a Rick Bragg book too

Posted by: NCKate at November 15, 2020 10:31 AM (rEqap)

222 Thank you, Donna of the Ampersands, for that excellent write-up. And my library has it!

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 10:31 AM (Dc2NZ)

223 Recently read John Keegan's "The American Civil War" just to get a British perspective. There wasn't too much new. Although he did emphasize a point that gets overlooked, including myself, maps. The US was virtually unmapped even in decently populated areas. Therefore commanders were groping around in the dark a lot.

Posted by: WOPR - Voter Theater Participant at November 15, 2020 10:32 AM (J70i0)

224 Has anybody here, seen my old friend Martin ... Luther?

The church of my youth had a big beautiful stained glass window of Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door. The attitude of "reformation" must be constant in every vibrant church (denomination), just as an understanding of original intent in our constitution must be constant in our courts, to correct wrong practice, before it becomes wrong doctrine.

The life of Christianity is in the family, parents raising their children, with the early church meeting in homes. The life of civic liberty may also depend on neighbors and community. "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth".

Luther made a stab at correcting some of the well established wrong doctrine (e.g. selling indulgences), but most centralized structures become old wineskins, self serving institutions. Constant renewal at the family level is essential to spiritual or civic liberty. Internet resources make enlightenment more accessible than ever (Christian as well as civic) ... but the addictive drug of constant social network feedback seem even more powerful for the dark side, (not to mention the fentanyl from China).

Posted by: illiniwek at November 15, 2020 10:33 AM (Cus5s)

225 @78 --

Yes, CDB!

I read that in grade school.

First thing that came to mind when I read today's word entry.

Posted by: Weak Geek at November 15, 2020 10:33 AM (83ScS)

226 I see this as entirely necessary. Francis is serving God, though he may not be doing it in the way he intended.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

I agree. Burning down the old guard from the inside. Still skeptical what the final outcome will be.

Posted by: Infidel at November 15, 2020 10:34 AM (Kbzcz)

227 (There. Trying my best to not sound like a mental patient.)
Posted by: Donna&&&&&V at November 15, 2020 10:23 AM (HabA/)

To be clear, you didn't provoke my rant. Maybe you wrote something that made you think it did, but it didn't.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 10:34 AM (y7DUB)

228 Sean Bean was the perfect Richard Sharpe. It was one of those times when they got the casting right

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 10:25 AM (AwPyG)

He's really a scoundrel in the TV series. It's a good series. You have to get beyond the budget constraints.

Posted by: WOPR - Voter Theater Participant at November 15, 2020 10:35 AM (J70i0)

229 210 Francis is a heretic. Plain and simple. Tons of shit for evidence.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:23 AM (2BZBZ)
_________

You quite literally don't know what you are talking about. Unless you are using a non-Catholic definition of "heretic", in which case, it doesn't matter. It's like an orthodox Calvinist saying it; true according to his lights, but carrying no weight beyond that.

The Church has definitions which cannot be used to so define him. At most, he can be accused of material heresy, but without formal heresy, that is only a problem, but not a fatal one. (Remember that in the lingo the Church uses, "formal" and "material" carry their classical meanings, not the modern ones which are very nearly opposites.)

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:38 AM (7X3UV)

230
The incumbent makes me long for the days when popes kept their mouths shut and let the Curia do the talking.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 15, 2020 10:41 AM (mht8P)

231 217 Benedict removed McKerrick. Francis restored him.
Posted by: JAS at November 15, 2020 10:27 AM (2BZBZ)
_________

No one here says Francis isn't a very shitty Pope. That's not the issue.

If you really believe Francis is teaching heresy, flat-out and clearly, you really cannot be a Catholic. You have contradicted Vat I.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 10:41 AM (7X3UV)

232 90 " My worry is I'll leave this world without reading everything I currently want to read."
Hear, hear! My list is longer than a comment thread at Ace.

Posted by: Brett at November 15, 2020 10:42 AM (G6HSf)

233 Adds Captain Hate to Christmas card list.....

Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 10:42 AM (arJlL)

234 Anyone know if your typical army surplus store would have field manuals?

I mean, I can get them on Amazon. But then the assholes know i have them.

I'm not being paranoid am I?

Posted by: RoyalOil at November 15, 2020 10:42 AM (h8gQ5)

235 As someone else mentioned:

Calibre and DeDRM.

In fact Calibre is a wonderful and shareware tool with a huge feature set and is a must have to manage even a medium size ebook library.

Posted by: Snidely Whiplash at November 15, 2020 10:42 AM (dVp8a)

236 Thanks for the full pic Eris. Not out of the question it is ol' perv Harvey but if it is man did he age badly.

Posted by: Big V Caffeinated at November 15, 2020 10:43 AM (6Pqz7)

237 Last night on the movie thread, I mentioned that I'd just see the blu-ray of the movie, "Day of the Locust".

As good as that movie is, the short novel is even better.

Set in the days of the Depression, "Day of the Locust" by Nathaniel West is a story of those scrabbling around the bottom rung of the Hollywood Glamour Factory as they attempt to make their dreams come true.

The plot centers around three characters and their interactions.

Tod Hackett, a young artist trying to become a set designer as he works on and paints his "masterpiece", "The Burning of Los Angeles".

Faye Greener, a stunningly beautiful though talentless actress, trying to get her break. She sometimes works as a prostitute to make ends meet. All of the men who meet her fall in lust or love or both with her.

And lastly, Homer Simpson(!), a soft and socially awkward accountant from the Midwest who has moved to Los Angeles for health reasons.

These three are surrounded by a cast of characters from every rung of the Hollywood ladder. From the unworthy and depraved elite living the high life oblivious to those desperately clutching at the tatters of their showbiz dreams and careers.

One thing the movie misses out on is the humor in "DotL". The novel swings between humor and horror sometimes all within the same scene. West often uses surreal and exaggerated imagery that magnifies the unreal quality of the Hollywood struggle.

The climax takes place at a Hollywood movie career where the rising starstruck hysteria suddenly becomes something much darker.

It's masterful performance as West paints the Hollywood of the 30s not as a dream factory but a nightmare.

He should know what he was talking about as he worked as a studio scriptwriter and claimed that the characters in his novel were based on people that he knew in Hollywood.

As you might expect, critics at the time (and even with the 1975 movie) either loved or really hated this book cuz their Golden Dream of Hollywood had been tarnished.

Here's the Kirkus Review from 1939:

The author of Miss Lonely Hearts has written in this new novel, as pointless and inane a book as I have encountered for some time. The story, if such it can be called, consists of flashes of Hollywood's lunatic fringe who careen around, sometimes drunk, sometimes sex driven, sometimes just screwball. There is no plot — merely scenes here and there showing up Hollywood nuts and freaks, rather than glamor girls.

So, this guy didn't get his glamour girls in a Hollywood story and is pissed. I would say that he missed the point.

The weird thing is that after seeing the movie yesterday, and I'm going to reread the novel now to confirm it, that "Day of the Locust" seems like a particularly relevant analogy to what's going on in America today with Our Betters and the media.

Anywho, if "Day of the Locust" sounds like something you would like, you probably will.

BONUS!!! "DotL" is often bundled with what is considered West's best novel, "Miss Lonelyhearts", so it's a twofer!

Check it out.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 15, 2020 10:44 AM (dWwl8)

238 I love the hand picking up Mary Anns skirt

Someone said Gillian. Hand looks too big. Pretty sure its the professor. And she does not look sad about it

Posted by: Loki at November 15, 2020 10:44 AM (KqiMr)

239 The stuff you don't learn in Hebrew school....

Posted by: SFGoth at November 15, 2020 10:46 AM (WWTgX)

240 Gonna get back to reading. It's a dreary day here, perfect for couchin' and listening to classical music.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 10:46 AM (Dc2NZ)

241 I can't read MaryAnn's book title.

I admit that it is partly because I keep trying to look up her skirt.

Posted by: deplorable unperson - refuse to accept the Mask of the Beast at November 15, 2020 10:49 AM (3P/5p)

242 224
Luther made a stab at correcting some of the well established wrong doctrine (e.g. selling indulgences), but most centralized structures become old wineskins, self serving institutions. Constant renewal at the family level is essential to spiritual or civic liberty. Internet resources make enlightenment more accessible than ever (Christian as well as civic) ... but the addictive drug of constant social network feedback seem even more powerful for the dark side, (not to mention the fentanyl from China).
Posted by: illiniwek at November 15, 2020 10:33 AM (Cus5s)

Selling indulgences has always been illicit. Because of the association with the actions of corrupt bishops, financial charity no longer qualifies for indulgences. An indulgence is effectively a formal recognition of the connection between penance and sanctification(a doctrine the Lutherans disagree on).

Posted by: Warlord Someguy - General Who Pacifies The East and West at November 15, 2020 10:50 AM (Zm+LZ)

243 I would prefer paper as well, but more often than not, the print is too small for me. With the Kindle, I can adjust the font size to Gigantic.
Posted by: grammie winger

do you ever find yourself absent mindedly try___ to expand the font on a paper book?

Posted by: vmom 2020 VINCERO at November 15, 2020 10:50 AM (nUhF0)

244 I'm not being paranoid am I?

Posted by: RoyalOil

Nope. Because 'They' really are out to get us.

Posted by: deplorable unperson - refuse to accept the Mask of the Beast at November 15, 2020 10:51 AM (3P/5p)

245 I cheated and looked up all Heyer's books

I think who dis is reading Why Shoot a Butler?

Posted by: vmom 2020 VINCERO at November 15, 2020 10:52 AM (nUhF0)

246 career = premier

Posted by: naturalfake at November 15, 2020 10:53 AM (dWwl8)

247 Good morning one and all. I'm still slogging my way through Kagan's The Peloponnesian War in an audiobook. It seems like the war has been going on for thirty years at this point, but I just checked and there's six hours left.

I'm also reading, in paperback,The Stars Asunder Which is a Mage Worlds book that I borrowed the last time that my book group met in person. I've been reading it for three weeks and I was hoping to finish it in time to return it when that book group meets face to face tomorrow. Alas, no.

I don't know what it is, but it takes me a long time to read. The story is good enough but reading it just doesn't go as fast as other books do. I'm thinking of returning the other books, or rather book because I'm pretty sure there's only one left, unread because I can't spend months reading one borrowed book when I've got a whole stack of them.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at November 15, 2020 10:53 AM (qDSku)

248 Last night on the movie thread, I mentioned that I'd just see the blu-ray of the movie, "Day of the Locust".

Posted by: naturalfake at November 15, 2020 10:44 AM (dWwl

The most I remember is Donald Sutherland not getting laid by Karen Black, and his stomping that annoying kid.

Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 10:55 AM (AwYPR)

249 somebody is trying to peek under Dawn's skirt

Posted by: DB- just DB. at November 15, 2020 10:58 AM (iTXRQ)

250 Oh - and I have NEVER had bookish problem #47. Has anyone here?

Posted by: CarolinaGirl at November 15, 2020 09:06 AM

Oh, I surely have. Wanting to read something, but not having any particular desire to read what's at hand. Usually, it's accompanied by an extreme lethargy so I don't want to find anything, either.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at November 15, 2020 10:59 AM (qDSku)

251 Speaking of the war on religion . . .

Jake Tapper: Christmas Is Probably Not Going To Be Possible With Virus

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 10:59 AM (+y/Ru)

252 Hi, bookworms.

I thought grammagram was a message printed-out because gramma doesn't have a phone with text capability.

The longest grammagram in English is believed to be XPDNC (expediency).

If phrases counted instead of just words, ILBCNU might win.

Posted by: mindful webworker-elect
Trump Won in a Landslide!
at November 15, 2020 11:00 AM (fzLlD)

253 Good morning one and all. I'm still slogging my way through Kagan's The Peloponnesian War in an audiobook. It seems like the war has been going on for thirty years at this point, but I just checked and there's six hours left.m

Posted by: Cybersmythe at November 15, 2020 10:53 AM (qDSku)

Just read Steven Pressfield's Tides of War. It's historical fiction of the Peloponnesian War but it's a great read.

Posted by: Alabaster Jones at November 15, 2020 11:01 AM (2DOZq)

254 I can't find anything to read that appeals to me right now, that cartoon up top says it all.

Although yesterday I did skim through Dogwatching by Desmond Morris and enjoyed it.

Posted by: Boots at November 15, 2020 11:03 AM (oGBso)

255 The Charm School by Nelson Demille is a pretty good spy novel.

Posted by: Alabaster Jones at November 15, 2020 11:04 AM (2DOZq)

256 With Thanksgiving coming up (COVID notwithstanding), I want to jump into an anti-recommendation, which is any book with the title "How to Talk to Liberals" or something similar. I think Ann Coulter has one of these. Probably Ben Shapiro, too. If he doesn't, he should. It would be just like him.
These books are useless. Do you believe our nation might not be able to vote itself out of the mess it's in? That even if Trump pulls out a win in the DAMP voting reviews, it merely postpones the hateful fascistic agenda that is Global-Marxism?
If voting isn't going going to fix it, then surely neither is *talking*. If your Thanksgiving table is seated with one or more smug little pajamaboys, your only hope is to not engage when they bring up politics. Nothing you say on the subject will ever convince them they're wrong, nor get them to shut up. Because they aren't really going for engagement, persuasion, enlightenment or anything else. They are proselytes testing you in order to fine-tune their propaganda.
I had this moment of clarity at a family gathering last summer, during which an in-law started in on me with the pretense of trying to get out of her "blue-state bubble" and find out what real heartland Trump supporters think about things. But then of course she tried to steer the conversation into what's wrong with everything I think. On my vacation. What a jerk.
So when I see the topic or book title "How to Talk to a Liberal" my simple answer is: Don't.
To the extent they are persuadable at all, people are more persuaded by experience than by rhetoric. So live well. Pursue excellence. Display integrity. Help others. Those who know you will pay attention.

Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at November 15, 2020 11:04 AM (0V/8D)

257 ...that annoying kid.

Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 10:55 AM (AwYPR)

It's always interesting to see actors in these old movies.

The world's most annoying kid was played by -

Jackie Earle Hailey.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 15, 2020 11:04 AM (dWwl8)

258 Too late to win the Dawn Wells competition, heck, even too on the hand. Oh well. Anyone know why the library used swiss cheese for the ceiling? Doesn't seem very Austrailian. Old pull tops from Fosters would seem more natural.

Posted by: Who knew at November 15, 2020 11:05 AM (SfO/T)

259 Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at November 15, 2020 11:04 AM (0V/8D)

Coulter book doesn't actually want you to talk to Liberals.

Posted by: Alabaster Jones at November 15, 2020 11:05 AM (2DOZq)

260 Speaking of the war on religion . . .

Jake Tapper: Christmas Is Probably Not Going To Be Possible With Virus
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 10:59 AM (+y/Ru)

Yeah, over at Powerline is an article about Justice Alito's speech at the Federalist Society. A sample from the article:

Alito's message was that key American rights are in jeopardy. He noted, for example, that the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has resulted in previously "unimaginable" restrictions on individual liberty. "We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020," he stated.

https://tinyurl.com/y2ghx52e

Posted by: DR.WTF at November 15, 2020 11:06 AM (AiZBA)

261 Captain hate I cherish every rant.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at November 15, 2020 11:06 AM (EZebt)

262 It's really cool seeing my review up top.
Thanks!
The one note about "News of the World" is that Tom Hanks is releasing/just released a film of the same name. We watched a trailer for it, and 1 minute in we could see that he f'd up the story. In his version, the Captain finds the child.
In the book, he is paid to deliver her to her remaining family. That's a not small detail that has ramifications all throughout the book.
Hollywood. *spit*

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin Super Spreader of Bullshit at November 15, 2020 11:07 AM (7Fj9P)

263 259
Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at November 15, 2020 11:04 AM (0V/8D)

Coulter book doesn't actually want you to talk to Liberals.

Posted by: Alabaster Jones at November 15, 2020 11:05 AM (2DOZq) od

Really? Good

Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at November 15, 2020 11:08 AM (0V/8D)

264
The King's Garden - a grammagrammatic limerick

When giving a report to" His XLNC"
The royal gardener spoke with XPDNC
"While flowers may be neat
My ferns just can't be beat
With fronds like this, who needs NMNE's?

Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:11 AM (m45I2)

265 "The Dark Ages didn't end because monks preserved manuscripts, it ended
because lay people with swords killed the barbarians. The allure of the
war god faded before the might of Christian arms." lloyd

OK, but what belief was so important to those Christians, that they were ready to kill for it?

Of course, being willing to kill for your faith was mostly on Old Testament thang ... the Christian church perhaps needs more of that. Or at least a more aggressive stance to assault, as demonstrated by Kyle Rittenhouse. Today it is the well funded BLM/Antifa terrorists in the street, and the PC Religion is ready to kill Trump supporters.

The US was founded by killing oppressors, and we are now being tested ... will our "Christian Foundations" stop the infiltration of evil? It was mostly those Protestant pioneers that sought a new land for their heritage, and then Protestant founders (except what, three?) ... that made laws to protect the new found liberty.

The Soviet barbarians infiltrated and weakened our churches from within ... we still have the texts, which is nice ... but most institutional churches go by traditions, that have made the Word of God of none effect. That is paralleled with unconstitutional laws and fake elections.

Posted by: illiniwek at November 15, 2020 11:11 AM (Cus5s)

266 The King's Garden - a grammagrammatic limerick

When giving a report to" His XLNC"
The royal gardener spoke with XPDNC
"While flowers may be neat
My ferns just can't be beat
With fronds like this, who needs NMNE's?
Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:11 AM (m45I2)

Dang, man. You are good.

Posted by: DR.WTF at November 15, 2020 11:12 AM (AiZBA)

267 256
To the extent they are persuadable at all, people are more persuaded by experience than by rhetoric. So live well. Pursue excellence. Display integrity. Help others. Those who know you will pay attention.
Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at November 15, 2020 11:04 AM (0V/8D)
__________

You can make progress through argument, but it's a slow slog. The thing is there is rarely time at a dinner or the like.

What you need to do -- and it's hard - is to get down to one core premise, and question why they hold that. What usually comes out is that they take as self-evident something that is far from being so. And THAT can be brought to their attention.

But then, my experience does come from a different time, mostly in the last century. But if they are not completely gone, it can happen. If they are wholly rotten, well then experience won't do much, either. Divine grace is the only hope. Worked for Paul.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 11:12 AM (7X3UV)

268 Anyone know how I can find a copy of The Spider: Stefan A. Halper and the Dark Web of a Coup
By Svetlana Lokhova
?

Posted by: Mongerel at November 15, 2020 11:13 AM (uw6nm)

269 "Alito's message was that key American rights are in jeopardy."

Alito is going very public for a SCOTUS justice, no? Is it to kick Dread Roberts to wake up?

Alito is right of course. We've had dark periods in our history where our rights were threatened. This may be the worst.

Posted by: Ignoramus at November 15, 2020 11:13 AM (9TdxA)

270 Well, wife and dog need me.

Have a good day, Horde. Who knows what books I'll find this week? Unpacking a big library has its rewards. But hurts my back and arms.

Posted by: Eeyore at November 15, 2020 11:14 AM (7X3UV)

271 Muldoon rocks it!

Posted by: Diogenes at November 15, 2020 11:15 AM (GnkRx)

272 A warning about that fucking asswipe Dreher:

The current governor of my state has been extremely hostile to the oilfield here, basically letting outside litigants sue any remaining companies in the state into sumission. This has led to my unemployment because the company my employer did work for, Hill Energy, was forced out of the state.

Dreher voted for him, among other reasons, because the republican in the runoff was supported by Orange Man Bad.

I'd appreciate it if y'all wouldn't suck this nevertrump asshole's dick by pushing his book or otherwise pretend he's an adequate source of moral support, when he's part of the oppresive communist shit. He's talked out of both sides of his mouth just like all the other nevertrumpers.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain, Cryptid Anarchist at November 15, 2020 11:16 AM (Clxcy)

273 Read an interesting short story about the press, popular music, staged sex-appeal as "art," and legislatures last night. Check out "The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat." Kipling stipulated the date 1913 to emphasize that this was already characteristic of the pre-war era.

Posted by: Gilded at November 15, 2020 11:16 AM (S84Rr)

274 Jake Tapper: Christmas Is Probably Not Going To Be Possible With Virus
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 10:59 AM

Well hell. That there is some damn fine hard hittin' journalism.

Is probably
May
Possible
Could
Sources say

Rapper IS an ass.

Posted by: Diogenes at November 15, 2020 11:17 AM (GnkRx)

275
The world's most annoying kid was played by -

Jackie Earle Hailey.
Posted by: naturalfake

===========

Darryl Hickman. Leave Her to Heaven.

Posted by: Blonde Morticia's phone at November 15, 2020 11:19 AM (7zgwu)

276 Justice Alito is speaking out clearly for our rights and our constitution. I wish he had been appointed CJ back in the day, but here we are.

Posted by: Boots at November 15, 2020 11:20 AM (oGBso)

277 For a supposedly smart guy Dread Roberts is a dumbass. He's made preserving SCOTUS's position in the political hierarchy his prime directive. But if he doesn't do the right thing in handling Trump v Biden he'll find that SCOTUS will become just another part of The Borg.

Posted by: Ignoramus at November 15, 2020 11:21 AM (9TdxA)

278 I see above someone praised The Big Clock. I agree. Now into Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham in the Library of America Noir collection. The books in this volume were selected by Robert Polito and so far, have all been excellent.

Posted by: Who knew at November 15, 2020 11:22 AM (SfO/T)

279 >>> 213 Is buy-den literally the "Manchurian Candidate"? I only vaguely know the plot but it appears so.
BBL, got to get ready and go to church.
Posted by: lin-duh at November 15, 2020 10:26 AM (UUBmN)

Joe Biden is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being we've ever seen in our lives! ///

(and you should see the original, before it gets banned)

>>> 251 Speaking of the war on religion . . .

Jake Tapper: Christmas Is Probably Not Going To Be Possible With Virus
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 10:59 AM (+y/Ru)

He's trying to be the bestest commie of them all. I hope he's moving up on the smite list.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 11:23 AM (02b6n)

280 Barr also said the COVID restrictions and powers were scary and anti constitutional.

Like Barr, Alito has done exactly jack and shit.

Posted by: blaster at November 15, 2020 11:23 AM (ZfRYq)

281 For any Morons living in WA State- breaking news. Jay Inslee, our retarded governor who was just re-elected by King county voters, has ordered all restaurants to cease indoor service, a ban on social gatherings, and ALL retail and GROCERY stores to limit capacity to 25%.

this is worse than what he imposed on us in March. The fucking lines out of the stores will look like Venezuela.

I hate my fellow Washingtonians who voted for this incompetent asshole.

Posted by: Jack Burton, who says, what the hell... at November 15, 2020 11:24 AM (yx0HS)

282 "Alito's message was that key American rights are in jeopardy."

Alito is going very public for a SCOTUS justice, no? Is it to kick Dread Roberts to wake up?

Alito is right of course. We've had dark periods in our history where our rights were threatened. This may be the worst.

Posted by: Ignoramus at November 15, 2020 11:13 AM (9TdxA)

Good for Alito. Maybe he and Thomas can kick some sense into Judas Roberts or just kick the crap out of him.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at November 15, 2020 11:24 AM (027CC)

283 I just finished The Moviegoer but will take some time to gather my thoughts on what to say about it, other than it was a positive experience. Surely next week when I'll be reading something else. Binx is a strange protagonist but definitely a good guy.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 11:24 AM (y7DUB)

284 The idiot GA governor and SOS signed a consent decree with Stacey Abrams that changed the way their election was conducted. That's unconstitutional. Should be the end of that argument.

Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 11:24 AM (YkawN)

285 As for books, I am re-reading Shogun.

Posted by: Jack Burton, who says, what the hell... at November 15, 2020 11:25 AM (yx0HS)

286 Tapper on Christmas reminds me of the Grinch. No matter what the Left does, the Whos will come out and sing. But Tapper's shrunken heart will never grow three sizes that day.

Posted by: Ignoramus at November 15, 2020 11:25 AM (9TdxA)

287 Peter Neffenger, retired former administrator of the TSA under Obama/Biden is also a retired Vice Admiral US Coast Guard. He is also on Joe Biden's transition team.

He is also the chairman of the board of Smartmatics.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 15, 2020 11:26 AM (ZLI7S)

288 252 Hi, bookworms.

I thought grammagram was a message printed-out because gramma doesn't have a phone with text capability.

The longest grammagram in English is believed to be XPDNC (expediency).

If phrases counted instead of just words, ILBCNU might win.
Posted by: mindful webworker-elect
Trump Won in a Landslide!
at November 15, 2020 11:00 AM (fzLlD)

On top of that, people mentioning CDC (which is phrases instead of words), that book also cheats by using numbers (I C D D8E) instead of just letters.

Posted by: Allie at November 15, 2020 11:26 AM (vmRc0)

289 102
Back to books: I've been trying to locate a hardcover copy of Chernow's
House of Morgan, but all that's on Amazon are paperbacks, and an
inexplicable $900 copy. I've never had this problem before, and I don't
know why it's specific to this book.
Posted by: pep at November 15, 2020 09:43 AM (v16oJ)

- - - - - - - - - -- - -
I just did a search on "Chernow's
House of Morgan," and came up with half a dozen copies in the tens of dollars.

Whatever you do, if you search/buy on amazon, NEVER NEVER NEVER USE YOUR PHONE TO PURCHASE. If you search on a larger device (desktop, laptop or large tablet), you'll see the "Add to Cart" button (Also known as the Buy Now Box) for a single copy. You'll also see a link that says ## Used from $####. (or new, or collectible) Click the link to view all copies NOT the Add to Cart button.

If you use a small device (phone), all you'll see is the "Add to Cart" copy. That copy might be $900 when there are a multitude of copies available for $15 or so. But the list of other sellers is often hidden on a phone. And since amazon takes a 15% commission on copies sold by third-party-sellers their cut of $900 is a heck of a lot more than their cut of $15.

Posted by: StillJohn at November 15, 2020 11:27 AM (HaH86)

290 Justice Alito is speaking out clearly for our rights and our constitution. I wish he had been appointed CJ back in the day, but here we are.

Posted by: Boots at November 15, 2020 11:20 AM (oGBso)

Thank GWB and Harriet Miers for that. The stupid dolt took the challenge of fucking up the court worse than his dogshit old man did with Souter.

Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020 11:27 AM (y7DUB)

291 Wrote 2,708 words yesterday for NaNoWriMo. A few more days like that and will be back on track to hit 50k words by Nov 30.

Posted by: Anna Puma at November 15, 2020 11:27 AM (3KlQx)

292 I have a few listening hours left for John Steakley s *Armor*. Thanks to all who recommended it here at the SMBT. Tom Weiner s narration is top notch. The battle scenes on Planet Banshee are heart pumping. Highly recommended for sci fi fans.

This should have gone on the Movie Thread but last night I was completely alone in the house so I broke out the Netflix dvd of Clint Eastwood s *Bird*, that I had been waiting to watch. Great movie. Thank you to whoever had recommended the Netflix TV shows *The Barrier* and *To The Lake*. Barrier is ongoing as I await new episodes each FRI. Lake was wrenching to watch at times because I became so invested in the characters fighting the battles of the post-SHTF world the series creates. Both show build incredibly believable dystopian worlds and the acting ensembles are spectacular.

Much love to my Moron friends. You help keep me sane.

Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg *Buffest Mayor Alive* at November 15, 2020 11:28 AM (/Hc9U)

293 >>> 265 "The Dark Ages didn't end because monks preserved manuscripts, it ended
because lay people with swords killed the barbarians. The allure of the
war god faded before the might of Christian arms." lloyd

OK, but what belief was so important to those Christians, that they were ready to kill for it?

Of course, being willing to kill for your faith was mostly on Old Testament thang ... the Christian church perhaps needs more of that. Or at least a more aggressive stance to assault, as demonstrated by Kyle Rittenhouse. Today it is the well funded BLM/Antifa terrorists in the street, and the PC Religion is ready to kill Trump supporters.

The US was founded by killing oppressors, and we are now being tested ... will our "Christian Foundations" stop the infiltration of evil? It was mostly those Protestant pioneers that sought a new land for their heritage, and then Protestant founders (except what, three?) ... that made laws to protect the new found liberty.

The Soviet barbarians infiltrated and weakened our churches from within ... we still have the texts, which is nice ... but most institutional churches go by traditions, that have made the Word of God of none effect. That is paralleled with unconstitutional laws and fake elections.
Posted by: illiniwek at November 15, 2020 11:11 AM (Cus5s)

Since this *is* the book thread:
https://preview.tinyurl.com/yycmoj37
The title is a bit misleading but it is a fun "how the band got together" story.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 11:28 AM (02b6n)

294 I'm wondering if any historians here know if Governors changed election procedures without legislative involvement during times when we faced actual threats to our nation, like the elections of 1940, or during the Spanish Flu outbreak that was much more dangerous than covid-19. Or during the Civil War, or the Great Depression.

Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 11:29 AM (YkawN)

295 Jake Tapper is a known racist and anti-semite who is trying to cancel Hanukkah and Kwanza.

Pass the word.

Posted by: Gilded at November 15, 2020 11:29 AM (S84Rr)

296 As for books, I am re-reading Shogun.

Posted by: Jack Burton, who says, what the hell... at November 15, 2020 11:25 AM (yx0HS)

Great book.

Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 11:30 AM (AwYPR)

297 Posted by: Eric Schmidt
===================
Is this the Eric Schmidt from 314 area code??

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin Super Spreader of Bullshit at November 15, 2020 11:31 AM (7Fj9P)

298 Clavell is a wonderful storyteller. Would have loved to have sat down and had a glass of scotch with him. Perhaps in the next life.

Posted by: Jack Burton, who says, what the hell... at November 15, 2020 11:31 AM (yx0HS)

299 I just looked up Smartmatic. Damn.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at November 15, 2020 11:31 AM (JCRNi)

300 * wanders in *

* records the particinonpants *

* wanders out *

Posted by: Beto O'Rourke, Gun ~~Banner~~ Czar-Elect at November 15, 2020 11:31 AM (DMUuz)

301 I'm about half way thru "The Man From The Train"....it's kinda'...meh.

Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 11:33 AM (AwYPR)

302 Sidney Powell is pushing the Dominion angle hard.

https://tinyurl.com/yx92rzyv

Posted by: Warlord Someguy - General Who Pacifies The East and West at November 15, 2020 11:34 AM (Zm+LZ)

303 287 Peter Neffenger, retired former administrator of the TSA under Obama/Biden is also a retired Vice Admiral US Coast Guard. He is also on Joe Biden's transition team.

He is also the chairman of the board of Smartmatics.
Posted by: JackStraw at November 15, 2020 11:26 AM (ZLI7S)

Does this stuff even matter? Governors of GA, PA, MI changed election procedures without their legislatures' input. I'd guess the idiots in WI and MN did as well, although the MN legislature may have done it for him. But that makes the elections in GA, PA, and MI unconstitutional. Or am I missing something?

Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 11:34 AM (YkawN)

304 LOL, I moved to Cyprus. No extradition treaty.

Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (YkawN)

305 >>Does this stuff even matter?

Yes.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (ZLI7S)

306 Posted by: Beto O'Rourke, Gun Banner Czar-Elect
============================
I just put a mill. spec. upper and bore-sighted the optics on my AR yesterday.
I can't believe they can take it away.
I. Just. Can't.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin Super Spreader of Bullshit at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (7Fj9P)

307 I just ordered the Talbot book, recommended above.

The CIA is in my crosshairs these days (figuratively speaking, don't come crashing down my doors, fellas). I think we have to be open to the possibility that almost everything we "know" about the history of the past 75 years or so, is wrong.

Or maybe we're looking for things in the shadows that aren't actually there.

Who knows.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

308 Dragging myself through H.P. Willmott's "The Battle of Leyte Gulf".

Yikes. It is impossible to believe this book saw even one editor, for 10 minutes. In many parts nearly unreadable. But in an old-fashioned, turgid, academic way - not in a modern airhead academic gobbledeegook made-up way.

He's very thorough, to the point of fact-checking and making micro-corrections to other authors' accounts in the footnotes. So no substantive issue. So I'm fine with it.

But one has to have a relentless interest in the subject to wade through the awful writing.

Posted by: rhomboid at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (OTzUX)

309 I'm about half way thru "The Man From The Train"....it's kinda'...meh.
Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 11:33 AM (AwYPR)

Hmmm, what's the problem with it? The story? The style of writing? Something else?

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:37 AM (hku12)

310 >>> 307 I just ordered the Talbot book, recommended above.

The CIA is in my crosshairs these days (figuratively speaking, don't come crashing down my doors, fellas). I think we have to be open to the possibility that almost everything we "know" about the history of the past 75 years or so, is wrong.

Or maybe we're looking for things in the shadows that aren't actually there.

Who knows.
Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

istr a story about Ronaldus Maximus having to convince the CIA to look for signs that the Soviet Union was having internal problems, because they couldn't believe that was possible. Of course once he gave them some examples they started finding all *sorts* of indicators, much to their astonishment.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 11:38 AM (02b6n)

311 Reading and discussing a particular author does not equate to pimpage or suction. I don't have to agree with the author on every point to get something from his writing.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 11:40 AM (Dc2NZ)

312 If you are interested in reading on the subject of the CIA, I recommend "The Devil's Chessboard".
From its beginning to the publication of the book, it is not very flattering.
A page turner.

Posted by: navybrat, at large at November 15, 2020 11:40 AM (w7KSn)

313 Re: Farnham's Freehold

It's not for the easily offended. You can sense some of the roots of SIASL in this book.

Posted by: GnuBreed at November 15, 2020 10:02 AM (F0YaR)

Hits internet, looks up SIASL. Southern Illinois Adult Soccer League.

Nope.

Folks, define your acronyms if they aren't reasonably obvious.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM guy 🍺 at November 15, 2020 11:40 AM (ZSK0i)

314 Yesterday in Southern France (Rhone Valley) 1944, from my dad's diary.

Nov 14, 1944
Today has been a miserable day. The weather is just at that stage where it snows one minute and rains the next. All goes towards making lots of mud.
The 100 Div jumped off on this first attack. Reports are scarce yet.
Speculation is rife about Hitler's whereabouts since Himmler delivered his speech. Opinion is that Himmler is now "boss".
Maj Herter, 14 Armd Div, dropped in at the CP today. He says Hagman is in the 106 Div and Mostek in the 99th Div. Both have left the States.
Paul and I saw a show tonight, "Tampico", Edward G. Robinson. It wasn't very impressive.

Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:41 AM (m45I2)

315 Hmmm, what's the problem with it? The story? The style of writing? Something else?

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:37 AM (hku12)

It's kinda' disjointed...chapters jump back and forth.

Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 11:41 AM (AwYPR)

316 Neffenger is also a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council which is hip deep in the corruption in Ukraine.

Posted by: JackStraw at November 15, 2020 11:41 AM (ZLI7S)

317 A judge has also ruled Newsom in California wasn't allowed to send mail-in ballots to all citizens.
It will be interesting to see what happens when push comes to shove.
Maybe more than pushing and shoving.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:42 AM (AwPyG)

318 Folks, define your acronyms if they aren't reasonably obvious.
Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM guy at November 15, 2020 11:40 AM (ZSK0i)

Ima guessing Stranger In A Strange Land, because, Heinlein.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 15, 2020 11:42 AM (PiwSw)

319 Stranger in a Strange Land.

Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (Dc2NZ)

320 317 A judge has also ruled Newsom in California wasn't allowed to send mail-in ballots to all citizens.
It will be interesting to see what happens when push comes to shove.
Maybe more than pushing and shoving.
Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:42 AM (AwPyG)

___

Mail in ballots are a tax. All good.
- Judge John Traitor Roberts

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (22mNy)

321 Religious institutions or Churches, for all intents and purposes, were identified many years ago as areas that "needed attention" shall we say. This is inferred or indirectly evidenced by myriad declassified memos from various alphabet agencies as far back as the 1950s and 1960s.

At that time, America was far more overtly religious, and breaking down the family unit - the basic unit of civilization - is crucial to making a society break down and become dependent on the wonderful Bureaucracies and Technocrats and the rest of it.

A tough, independent minded, truly educated self employed largely ornery bunch of decent people who know and understand history is a lot harder to control.

Today? Attention span of a goldfish. Largely ignorant of the past - unable to think for themselves, worked over, guilt tripped and gaslighted 24/7 - they have no idea where they are going, either.

Posted by: Common Tater at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (QWGds)

322 Tom Robbins' "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" does the Second-Person style too, though "you" aren't a cypher in it.
Posted by: Allie at November 15, 2020 10:10 AM (vmRc0)

In my list of authors to be tossed in the wood chipper, Tom's in the first wave.
Posted by: Captain Hate at November 15, 2020

*
*

I've never finished anything by Robbins. But he is a genius at eye-catching titles.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (rpbg1)

323 And today's entry from 76 years ago.

Nov 15, 1944
There is a complete blanket of snow over everything today. At this rate we should worry little about a "white Christmas".
The 100 Div continued the attack N of Raon l'Etape. Not much progress.
XV Corps jumped off with their attack this morning. 79 Div and II DB (Fr) are making the main effort.
The 103 Div took over in the sector between the 3 Div and 36 Div preparatory to attacking SW of St Die tomorrow.
I saw a good show tonight. "Casanova Brown". With Gary Cooper & Teresa Wright.

Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (m45I2)

324 Or maybe we're looking for things in the shadows that aren't actually there.

Who knows.
Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

istr a story about Ronaldus Maximus having to convince the CIA to look for signs that the Soviet Union was having internal problems, because they couldn't believe that was possible. Of course once he gave them some examples they started finding all *sorts* of indicators, much to their astonishment.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 11:38 AM (02b6n)
---------------------------------

Plato's Allegory of the Cave. You spend your life chained to a wall in a cave, looking at the shadows on the wall, you think the shadows are reality. And you will refuse to leave the cave and come into the light of reality.

Posted by: Boots at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (oGBso)

325 And to no one's surprise, the guy in charge of Dominion is a big antifa guy, too. Rumors that Dominion software or the other one was involved in covid testing, too.
again, not much of a surprise.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:44 AM (AwPyG)

326
Jake Tapper is a known racist and anti-semite who is trying to cancel Hanukkah and Kwanza.

Pass the word.
Posted by: Gilded

We rate this as FALSE

Posted by: Twitching Googleplex at November 15, 2020 11:44 AM (63Dwl)

327 From the 70s to the mid 2000s every movie involving the CIA or FBI portrayed them as nefarious, shady people. Then Obama won and suddenly the CIA/FBI were good guys.

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:45 AM (22mNy)

328 Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

istr a story about Ronaldus Maximus having to convince the CIA to look for signs that the Soviet Union was having internal problems, because they couldn't believe that was possible. Of course once he gave them some examples they started finding all *sorts* of indicators, much to their astonishment.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 11:38 AM (02b6n)

One of my working hypotheses is that they weren't really in the business of fighting commies. That was just their cover.

It's either that, or they were horribly bad at their jobs. One or the other.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:45 AM (hku12)

329 I think a lot of noir is written in first person.
I don't like it that much--it seems too claustrophobic

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:46 AM (AwPyG)

330 istr a story about Ronaldus Maximus having to convince the CIA to look for signs that the Soviet Union was having internal problems, because they couldn't believe that was possible. Of course once he gave them some examples they started finding all *sorts* of indicators, much to their astonishment.

Right, they were Marxists, and there couldn't possibly be trouble in their paradise.

Which is why it's funny that the Marxists now insist the USSR wasn't done right, because when it still existed they definitely said it was great.

History's going to owe a major apology to Joe McCarthy at some point.

Posted by: Ian S. at November 15, 2020 11:46 AM (6XLoz)

331 Dawn Wells is reading Georgette Heyer - good for her!
Posted by: Dr Alice at November 15, 2020 09:13 AM (SZVzW)

What's more, there's some guy (mostly outside the frame of the photo) starting to lift the hem of her skirt!

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at November 15, 2020 11:46 AM (pJWtt)

332 In between bouts of lobbing artillery shells at the German army my dad went to a lot of movies!

Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:46 AM (m45I2)

333 Eris: OK, but keep in mind, he LARPS as a monk, but turns around and acts like a sanctimonious pharisee when it suits him. Him and Governor Edwards both.

Don't trust him about anything, capiche? He's LARPing, just like all the people pretending to be Cold Warriors when they say Trump's a Russian Agent.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain, Cryptid Anarchist at November 15, 2020 11:46 AM (Clxcy)

334 If you are interested in reading on the subject of the CIA, I recommend "The Devil's Chessboard".
From its beginning to the publication of the book, it is not very flattering.
A page turner.
Posted by: navybrat, at large at November 15, 2020 11:40 AM (w7KSn)

That's the one, discussed in the post.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:46 AM (hku12)

335 Not sure if I mentioned another recent book, as I missed the book thread for weeks - The Shame of Savo, by Bruce Loxton. Retired Aussie naval officer, whose interest in the subject began with being on the bridge of the HMAS Canberra as a young ensign and nearly killed when it was hit by Japanese fire to open the battle.

Very interesting book, worth a read for those with an interest in the battle, or WWII Pacific naval engagements in general.

Good detail, new to me, on the already known sorry state of training, coordination, and communications in the US and Allied navies at the start of the war. All of which contributed to the disaster. Not sure if he was the first to suggest that Canberra in fact may have been hit by a US torpedo, based on location/nature of battle damage observed, but was the first I'd heard of it.

"Friendly fire" and confusion were understandable regular features of the amazing close-range night-time naval brawls around Guadalcanal in '42, so a torpedo from the USS Bagley hitting Canberra seems quite plausible.

Posted by: rhomboid at November 15, 2020 11:47 AM (OTzUX)

336 One of my working hypotheses is that they weren't really in the business of fighting commies. That was just their cover.

It's either that, or they were horribly bad at their jobs. One or the other.

Whatever it is they're supposed to do, they're pretty terrible at it. So "and" applies here I think.

Posted by: Ian S. at November 15, 2020 11:47 AM (6XLoz)

337 I was on amazon yesterday doing very quick research on some books about fourth generation warfare which someone here mentioned in a post.

That led to several books on insurgency, counter-insurgency, etc.. Before buying anything, I'll check and see if our government funded library system has any of these books first. I would be amused if they did..

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at November 15, 2020 11:48 AM (v2c9/)

338 jonah goldberg: "i don't put much stock in people that are paud to say things they don't believe".

ha ha ha ha ha

Posted by: Anachronda at November 15, 2020 11:48 AM (5br8a)

339 Ive been reading Louis L'Amour's Hopalong Cassidy books recently. They were the first "westerns" he wrote, as he was then know as a pulp action writer, mostly South Pacific war and tramp steamer stories.

L'Amour didn't like the Cassidy books and swore his whole life that he never wrote them using a pseudonym (because the editors thought his real name wasn't manly enough).

They're not the do-right aw shucks kid-friendly TV and movie version of Hoppy, nor are they the original Mulford rowdy cowboy version, but rather a sort of halfway point that was based more in gritty reality. His horse is still there, but it doesn't feature much. he has silver pistols, but they have bone handled grips rather than ivory. He still sometimes shoots to disarm but generally shoots to kill.

Overall they are pretty good if basic westerns, and they have the L'Amour stamp on them of great scenery descriptions, interesting characters, and twists that make the story go places you didn't anticipate.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at November 15, 2020 11:49 AM (KZzsI)

340 @321
Yes, my experience with lefties is they are not tough, but instead very fragile emotionally. I think that's why they're prone to hysteria and hyperbole, and have to run out of the room if anyone disagrees with them.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:49 AM (AwPyG)

341 Perhaps another way to put it:

* I didn't vote for Trump during the primary in 2016 because I voted for Cruz and didn't like him.

* I didn't get to vote for anyone for President in 2016 because I was dealing with the side effects of having _just_ gotten parts of my job back but also having gotten evicted.

* I spent the next four years dealing with health issues and watching all the bad behavior from the so-called conservatives who believe all of this is About Trump and using "he said pussy!" as the excuse for their bad behavior.

* I've had it.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain, Cryptid Anarchist at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (Clxcy)

342 Along the lines of the Machen book, I recommend Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson's 1907 novel Lord of the World. (Interestingly, Monsignor Benson was son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury. He became Catholic at no small personal cost and was ordained in 1904).

Posted by: Mostly Peaceful Zap Rowsdower at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (6AX6P)

343 I think we have to be open to the possibility that almost everything we "know" about the history of the past 75 years or so, is wrong.

Um. Yeah... I'd say something snarky, but I'm on your side.

I mean I think. Right? "Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see" And I'm not too sure about myself sometimes.

"A riddle wrapped inside a mystery, around an enigma" or somesuch.

Here's usually where somebody always says "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"

Send him to Gitmo! That's BS. (I think.)

Posted by: Common Tater at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (QWGds)

344 I believe the IC is bad at what they do.

Pulse nightclub. San Bernardino.

9/11.

What are they good for.

I know people in the IC who believe the "Putin jus wants chaos" theory. Like he's the Joker or something.

Posted by: blaster at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (ZfRYq)

345 My local rag has this headline today

"Why a coronavirus vaccine might not get things back to normal"

So there you have it plebes. Another round of lockdowns even with the vaccine. Now put that fucking mask on.

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (22mNy)

346 Hmmm, what's the problem with it? The story? The style of writing? Something else?

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:37 AM (hku12)

It's kinda' disjointed...chapters jump back and forth.
Posted by: BignJames at November 15, 2020 11:41 AM (AwYPR)

Have you read any of his baseball books? That's kind of his style, he writes like he's talking to the reader.

Which may sound odd to say it that way... because isn't that what all writers do?

No, I think most writers write, almost as if the reader isn't there at all, and James never seems to forget to let you know he knows you are.

I would imagine this may be jarring for some. Personally, I love it. Yes, he goes off on tangents, and sometimes he's repetitive, and to me it feels like I'm having a conversation with him. Like he knows what my responses are, and he's addressing my questions, even though nobody's really asking him.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:51 AM (hku12)

347 "Friendly fire" and confusion were understandable regular features of the amazing close-range night-time naval brawls around Guadalcanal in '42, so a torpedo from the USS Bagley hitting Canberra seems quite plausible.
Posted by: rhomboid

**********

You could fit my knowledge of the naval war in the Pacific in a thimble, but I watched part of John Wayne's Operation Pacific the other night. They had some newsreel footage which looked like real WWII footage with what looked like hundreds of ships and wakes, maneuvering as a fleet (or opposing fleets). It must have been a sight to see.

Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:51 AM (m45I2)

348 Yes, my experience with lefties is they are not tough, but instead very fragile emotionally. I think that's why they're prone to hysteria and hyperbole, and have to run out of the room if anyone disagrees with them.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:49 AM (AwPyG)

Best description is

Bold but not brave

Posted by: Alabaster Jones at November 15, 2020 11:51 AM (2DOZq)

349 Muldoon, keep it coming (your dad's diary entries), as you know, I love 'em.

Your dad seems like he was more attuned to the details of our military actions than most - he notes details, units, etc. - most diaries I've seen were more general, or more narrowly focused on the individual's personal situation.

The Eye-talian campaign, probably the largest yawning gap in my WWII knowledge, will be addressed as soon as I can get to it. Pretty ugly story, overall, I'm thinking.

Posted by: rhomboid at November 15, 2020 11:52 AM (OTzUX)

350 Nov 15, 1944
There is a complete blanket of snow over everything today. At this rate we should worry little about a "white Christmas".

-
I always think of Italy as warm but maybe not so much.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 11:52 AM (+y/Ru)

351 What's more, there's some guy (mostly outside the frame of the photo) starting to lift the hem of her skirt!

I'd deck that guy.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at November 15, 2020 11:52 AM (KZzsI)

352 "Yes, my experience with lefties is they are not tough, but instead very fragile emotionally. I think that's why they're prone to hysteria and hyperbole, and have to run out of the room if anyone disagrees with them."

And passive aggressive as fuck.

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:53 AM (22mNy)

353 I see above someone praised The Big Clock. I agree. Now into Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham in the Library of America Noir collection. The books in this volume were selected by Robert Polito and so far, have all been excellent.
Posted by: Who knew at November 15, 2020

*
*

I seem to recall reading that one.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 11:53 AM (rpbg1)

354 340 Has happened twice in family members, once by, in another situation once to.

Posted by: Skip at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (9sWOw)

355 If voting isn't going going to fix it, then surely neither is *talking*. If your Thanksgiving table is seated with one or more smug little pajamaboys, your only hope is to not engage when they bring up politics. Nothing you say on the subject will ever convince them they're wrong, nor get them to shut up. Because they aren't really going for engagement, persuasion, enlightenment or anything else. They are proselytes testing you in order to fine-tune their propaganda.

***

This. Same way they come up with outrageous proposals and then conservatives are supposed to compromise or see their point of view.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (/+bwe)

356 Or am I missing something?
Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 11:34 AM (YkawN)

That Roberts sided with them; that Bush, Romney and the McCain family did their all to legitimate the coup; that the Republicans could have passed any election anti-fraud law they wanted in 2017-2018 when they had both chambers; that GOP threw the House election in 2018 and Ryan is sure doing a splendid job at Fox; that every or nearly every Republican that POTUS appointed to the executive branch was a double agent; that The Republican Party has been fully aware that Obama's handlers ended the peaceful transition of power or republic by never relinquishing control of the executive branches; that the GOP has always wanted to get rid of PDT as much or more than the Dems; etc. I could go on.

But for present purposes, and in a certain strict sense, YES, what you day alone would be a case in a free country with rational people. So would the fact that the election was frankly ended on election night. So would the use of the election-stealing software.

Posted by: Gilded at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (S84Rr)

357 Or maybe we're looking for things in the shadows that aren't actually there.

Who knows.
Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:35 AM (hku12)

istr a story about Ronaldus Maximus having to convince the CIA to look for signs that the Soviet Union was having internal problems, because they couldn't believe that was possible. Of course once he gave them some examples they started finding all *sorts* of indicators, much to their astonishment.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 15, 2020 11:38 AM (02b6n)
---------------------------------

Plato's Allegory of the Cave. You spend your life chained to a wall in a cave, looking at the shadows on the wall, you think the shadows are reality. And you will refuse to leave the cave and come into the light of reality.

Posted by: Boots at November 15, 2020 11:43 AM (oGBso)

That's an interesting take on the shadows.

I see it more as, we ONLY ever have access to the shadows, and that means our interpretations of what we are seeing is always only ever going to be limited to what we can extrapolate from what we see.

We're never going to get into the light. It's impossible to step out of the cave. So... do we assume we know what we're seeing (and how we're interpreting what we see) is true?

We're always going to be wrong, if we think we have all the answers.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (hku12)

358 @314
Your poor dad!
My dad was in the area, and he said he didn't take off his boots for 6 weeks.
He and his buddies were so cold that they decided to ignite a prohibited fire in their tent, using gun powder.
they accidentally set the tent on fire, so that a huge plume of smoke billowed up to give their position away.
His CO was not happy with them

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (AwPyG)

359 I always think of Italy as warm but maybe not so much.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 11:52 AM (+y/Ru)

____

Italy stretches quite a bit north to south and anywhere from sea level to 12K+ ft mountains. There's a lot of varied climate in the boot.

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:55 AM (22mNy)

360 345 My local rag has this headline today

"Why a coronavirus vaccine might not get things back to normal"

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (22mNy)

An old guy coming out of the drug store in Ontario, Canada took off his mask and I LAUGHINGLY
commented, "If we kill enough journalists and politicians, all of this goes away..."

He kind of laughed..

I should probably stop that but it just slips out occasionally. And I do like to have that idea out there gaining traction...

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at November 15, 2020 11:56 AM (v2c9/)

361 @356
Q says its bigger than you can ever imagine, but I dunno--it looks to me that most of the world leaders are utterly corrupt. Hard to imagine it's worse than it looks

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:56 AM (AwPyG)

362 And passive aggressive as fuck.
Posted by: Asshoes

This is their superpower. I have to daily tell myself not to call for it. Not to be baited. To just smile right back and go about my business.

I really can't carry right now. I will be provoked. They want so bad to make us start something, anything, so they can overreact and scream and cry and point fingers.

Fuck the left.

Posted by: nurse ratched at November 15, 2020 11:56 AM (U2p+3)

363 I would have presumed a GrammaGram was a Western Union Delivery from Grammaw!!! Thanks Ace!

Posted by: President Elect MrObvious at November 15, 2020 11:57 AM (k+h+d)

364 363 I would have presumed a GrammaGram was a Western Union Delivery from Grammaw!!! Thanks Ace!
Posted by: President Elect MrObvious at November 15, 2020 11:57 AM (k+h+d)

What we need are mammograms - in which busty wimminz deliver messages to your door.

Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 11:58 AM (nakwk)

365 The CIA was built up to be a real life version of James Bond. In reality it's govt bureaucrats. The fact they could point out the USSR on a map would have been impressive to me.

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:59 AM (22mNy)

366 284 The idiot GA governor and SOS signed a consent decree with Stacey Abrams that changed the way their election was conducted. That's unconstitutional. Should be the end of that argument.
Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 11:24 AM (YkawN)

Wait...

Stacey Abrams??

Why does she get to sign a consent decree with anybody in government?? She's only a private citizen?

Abrams' only claim to fame is losing an election by 50,000 votes and then whining about it ever since. I am so tired of seeing her fat, entitled face on TV as if she is some kind of expert on things. I want this scrunt out of public life once and for all.

(pauses...)

That's not going to happen, is it?

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (pGeFX)

367 I think we have to be open to the possibility that almost everything we "know" about the history of the past 75 years or so, is wrong.
---------------------
Um. Yeah... I'd say something snarky, but I'm on your side.

I mean I think. Right? "Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see" And I'm not too sure about myself sometimes.

"A riddle wrapped inside a mystery, around an enigma" or somesuch.

Here's usually where somebody always says "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"

Send him to Gitmo! That's BS. (I think.)
Posted by: Common Tater at November 15, 2020 11:50 AM (QWGds)

Have you ever seen the meme, with the guy sitting in a church pew (I think... I'm not sure what it's from). There's someone behind him with a gun to his head, and a bubble of text... then there's someone behind the someone with a gun, with a gun to HIS head (and another bubble of text).

Finally, you pull back, and there's someone in the choir balcony with a rifle, pointed at the last guy with the gun to the head of the person... and other bubble of text.

It's a funny mean.

Sums up our existence. We're not the guy in the balcony.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (hku12)

368 What we need are mammograms - in which busty wimminz deliver messages to your door.
Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 11:58 AM (nakwk

No! What you need are Mammy-grams!

Posted by: Zombie Al Jolson at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (PiwSw)

369 344 I believe the IC is bad at what they do.

Pulse nightclub. San Bernardino.
-----

The more cynical would argue that perhaps they are really good at what they do, that you are completely mistaken about just what it is that they do. One can be forgiven for that, maybe.

Certain historical events have sometimes had an uncanny sense of timing, perfectly situated at the precise moment critical legislation is being debated. It is definitely moving into genuine "conspiracy theory" but there is no denying that sometimes this stuff is just a little too cute by half, as it were.

Posted by: Common Tater at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (QWGds)

370 Giuliani really hammered on SmartMatic this morning, saying that this pattern is the same one they used in other elections.

Posted by: Warlord Someguy - General Who Pacifies The East and West at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (Zm+LZ)

371 Thanks Ace!

Looks like OregonMuse is gonna have to slap someone.

Posted by: Ian S. at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (6XLoz)

372 361 Q says its bigger than you can ever imagine, but I dunno--it looks to me that most of the world leaders are utterly corrupt. Hard to imagine it's worse than it looks
Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:56 AM (AwPyG)

If it's worse than it looks we are in big trouble. Lock and Load.

Posted by: megthered at November 15, 2020 12:01 PM (SM/op)

373 I took a koine Greek class a certain number of years ago and the textbook we used was written by J. Gresham Machen. Good to know he stood against liberalism in Christianity.

Alisa Childers has a YouTube channel where she interviews various people. Good stuff.

I'm in the middle of Diana Galbaldon's Outlander series. It's a bit slow. She does take her time telling the story.

Posted by: sinalco at November 15, 2020 12:01 PM (yODqO)

374 No! What you need are Mammy-grams!
Posted by: Zombie Al Jolson at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM

That's RAAAAACIST!!!!!

Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 12:01 PM (nakwk)

375 Didn't the CIA coin the term conspiracy theory in order to debunk "theories" about their work? Or is that a conspiracy theory itself?

Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 12:02 PM (22mNy)

376 While it's true that I had to help the young country officer at my first CIA briefing (he didn't speak the language of the target country and thus didn't understand the significance of a codename for an offensive planned by an insurgent group), my experience over the years was mixed, and there were some excellent people and analysis along with the dreck.

Overall I think the place suffers from the same malady as most of the agencies, a Beltway lifer mindset that does not just produce the results it should - at least at the management levels. And I think there was a noticeable change in quality and seriousness of senior personnel as we moved out of the Cold War era (let you guess the direction of the change).

And the political class has utterly failed to hold them accountable for their most consequential failures, most recently 9/11 (of course), and as bad, in a very different way, the ridiculous NIE on Iranian nuclear ambitions in 2006 (?). The latter being one of the most outrageous chapters in recent history, and which has received little attention.

Posted by: rhomboid at November 15, 2020 12:02 PM (OTzUX)

377 It's a funny mean.

Sums up our existence. We're not the guy in the balcony.
Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (hku12)

Funny meme. This one:

https://tinyurl.com/y67mun3t

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 12:02 PM (hku12)

378 Have you ever seen the meme, with the guy sitting in a church pew (I think... I'm not sure what it's from). There's someone behind him with a gun to his head, and a bubble of text... then there's someone behind the someone with a gun, with a gun to HIS head (and another bubble of text).

It's from "Person of Interest", which makes the IC look absolutely terrible.

Posted by: Ian S. at November 15, 2020 12:02 PM (6XLoz)

379 374 No! What you need are Mammy-grams!
Posted by: Zombie Al Jolson at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM

That's RAAAAACIST!!!!!
Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 12:01 PM (nakwk)

*shifty eyes*

Posted by: Governor Ralph Northam at November 15, 2020 12:03 PM (PiwSw)

380 (your dad's diary entries),

*******

After the liberation of Rome (June) he took a nearly 3 month hiatus in the diary. He took it up again just this week in 1944, as his unit joined Operation Anvil, the amphibious landing in the south of France.

The next few months saw a shift in the tone of his entries, partly due to the rapidity of the situation on the ground, partly due to war fatigue and dawning awareness of the horror of the death camps in Poland.

During the Anzio phase the diary had almost a "lad on an adventure" tone.

Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 12:03 PM (m45I2)

381 @369
You forgot vegas

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:04 PM (AwPyG)

382 The CIA was built up to be a real life version of James Bond. In reality it's govt bureaucrats. The fact they could point out the USSR on a map would have been impressive to me.
Posted by: Asshoes at November 15, 2020 11:59 AM (22mNy)

Yup.......just another "agency" of federal parasites who do everything but their job.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at November 15, 2020 12:04 PM (R/m4+)

383 I see it more as, we ONLY ever have access to the shadows, and that means our interpretations of what we are seeing is always only ever going to be limited to what we can extrapolate from what we see.

We're never going to get into the light. It's impossible to step out of the cave. So... do we assume we know what we're seeing (and how we're interpreting what we see) is true?

We're always going to be wrong, if we think we have all the answers.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (hku12)
----------------------

My opinion on Plato's Allegory of The Cave is that the founders of the United States took the sum of knowledge up until that time, and forged a republic based on looking outside the cave. This was probably the boldest move any leaders of any country anywhere in the known history of the world.

They put in as many checks and balances that they could, based on what they knew about human nature, and the fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It makes Biden's comment about "they'll put you all back in chains" seem rather prescient, as Dementia Joe does seem to blurt out the truth when his mouth starts moving. They want us to be chained in the cave, and see only the shadows that they themselves project on the cave wall (MSM, social media, social credit scorekeepers) in front of us.

The founders wrote in remedies for this, and Justice Alito knows what they are. Justice Thomas too. And.....?

Posted by: Boots at November 15, 2020 12:04 PM (oGBso)

384 381 @369
You forgot vegas
Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:04 PM (AwPyG)

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 12:04 PM (nakwk)

385 David Talbot, the author of "The Devil's Chessboard", is a founder of Salon.com.

It's a sign of the times that the conservatives of 2020 are finding common cause with the liberals of 1970.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at November 15, 2020 12:05 PM (4tiP2)

386 348 Yes, my experience with lefties is they are not tough, but instead very fragile emotionally. I think that's why they're prone to hysteria and hyperbole, and have to run out of the room if anyone disagrees with them.
Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 11:49 AM (AwPyG)
Best description is
Bold but not brave
Posted by: Alabaster Jones at November 15, 2020 11:51 AM (2DOZq)

Brittle.

The illusion of hardness, but will shatter at the slightest tap. Look at the profiles of rando lefties on social media. A lot of them seem to be quite messed up, don't know what gender they are, really don't know who they are, they're emotional basket cases, are on anti-depressant or anti-psychotic meds, etc.

And they want us to let them rebuild civilization from, ahem, Year Zero.

How about: no?

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 12:06 PM (pGeFX)

387 NOOD UK

Posted by: runner at November 15, 2020 12:06 PM (zr5Kq)

388 You spend your life chained to a wall in a cave, looking at the shadows on the wall, you think the shadows are reality. And you will refuse to leave the cave and come into the light of reality.

-
This is CNN!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at November 15, 2020 12:06 PM (+y/Ru)

389
Posted by: Muldoon at November 15, 2020 11:41 AM (m45I2)
You are so lucky to have your dads diary. We have letters from my dad and uncles to my grandma but they were toned down so as not to scare her.

Posted by: dartist at November 15, 2020 12:06 PM (+ya+t)

390 But for present purposes, and in a certain strict sense, YES, what you day alone would be a case in a free country with rational people. So would the fact that the election was frankly ended on election night. So would the use of the election-stealing software.
Posted by: Gilded at November 15, 2020 11:54 AM (S84Rr)

Bush, Romney, Paul Ryan and many other republicans are trash. It's funny seeing conservatives recommending that book about Dulles, because the author is very, very far left. I thought I was also and have always had huge mistrust/distrust of the CIA and FBI. I remember back in the day when all my lefty friends would joke about having FBI files floating around somewhere. I'm glad Trump showed small government types that these supposedly "patriotic" institutions are anything but. The problem is that most of the people I thought were on my side now love the FBI and CIA.

Posted by: Eric Schmidt at November 15, 2020 12:07 PM (YkawN)

391 So our public library online catalog which has books for the entire county only pulls up about 7 for war strategy and about 3 for insurgency.

There are about 1900 non-fiction books devoted to non-fiction 'war'.

Nice to know war is such a small part of human existence.

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at November 15, 2020 12:08 PM (v2c9/)

392 Have you ever seen the meme, with the guy sitting in a church pew (I think... I'm not sure what it's from). There's someone behind him with a gun to his head, and a bubble of text... then there's someone behind the someone with a gun, with a gun to HIS head (and another bubble of text).
Finally, you pull back, and there's someone in the choir balcony with a rifle, pointed at the last guy with the gun to the head of the person... and other bubble of text.
It's a funny mean.
Sums up our existence. We're not the guy in the balcony.
Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (hku12)

I actually used this meme in the rant thread last week, either Wed. or Fri.

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 12:08 PM (pGeFX)

393 "It's a sign of the times that the conservatives of 2020 are finding common cause with the liberals of 1970."

I was (and am) a Classical Liberal. I don't feel like my positions have changed much over the years. I've always distrusted the government, or at the very least been highly skeptical of them at all times. George Washington was correct "Government is like fire, a good servant, a poor master".

Posted by: navybrat, at large at November 15, 2020 12:08 PM (w7KSn)

394 @366
It was a classic "lawfare" situation, like Obama loved to use. Plaintiff files and action and the govt agency "settles" to give the plaintiff whatever they want, all contrived (Remember the Pigford reparations?)
fiat by court, contrived by the people who know they need cover to get the job done.
Abrams' group sued, and the (Republican) Sect of State in Georgia agreed to change absentee ballot laws as part of the settlement.
clearly unconstitutional under Bush v Gore, but they were hoping it would slip under the radar.
we'll see what the courts say--this is the test of whether the people Trump put in are worth their salt.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:09 PM (AwPyG)

395 18 I thought the Who Dis was Julia Louise Dreyfus
Posted by: JT at November 15, 2020 09:11 AM (arJlL)

I thought the same thing!

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 15, 2020 12:09 PM (V2Yro)

396 nood
Posted by CBD at 12:05 PM Comments

topic

"And Now It Begins:" The UK's Final Subsumption Into The EU

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at November 15, 2020 12:09 PM (v2c9/)

397 Muldoon, if you want to dip your toe in the WWII Pacific, I'd suggest "Neptune's Inferno" by Hornfischer, about the naval battles around Guadalcanal. Very readable. And maybe like me you'll be taken aback - these were wild, night-time back-alley brawls, from close range. The last closely timed series of major surface engagements in history.

Posted by: rhomboid at November 15, 2020 12:10 PM (OTzUX)

398 So far, to me, the fact that corrupted Dominion was used in any state indicates our DeepState intel agencies are not incompetent, they are complicit.

The Globalist Agenda is a real thing ... Atlantic Council, BIS, IMF ... trillions being tossed around. Then Fauci gets placed to run the "Plandemic" ... (at least the shutdown response seems clearly aimed at hurting Trump). The hand in glove ops between Media and DeepState leakers ... all that is complicit action by our insiders and department heads ... aimed at removing Trump.

The four year coup ... not incompetence ... Enemy Action. Still Ongoing ... we play catch up trying to find out who runs Dominion (oh, Antifa guy and various corrupt Dems, what a surprise). Can we stop the Coup is still the question ... along with why did Trump keep hiring DeepStaters? (Jarvanka influence? or just pervasive corruption at all levels?)

Posted by: illiniwek at November 15, 2020 12:10 PM (Cus5s)

399 Certain historical events have sometimes had an uncanny sense of timing, perfectly situated at the precise moment critical legislation is being debated. It is definitely moving into genuine "conspiracy theory" but there is no denying that sometimes this stuff is just a little too cute by half, as it were.
Posted by: Common Tater at November 15, 2020 12:00 PM (QWGds)

Assassinations are things that happen, only as often as they do, not because they COULDN'T happen more often, but because the very sporadic nature of them helps preserve the appearance of order... as well as helping strike fear in the those who might otherwise see themselves as in the crosshairs.

Yes, I'm a right cynical bastage this morning, why do you ask.

Posted by: BurtTC at November 15, 2020 12:12 PM (hku12)

400
What we need are mammograms - in which busty wimminz deliver messages to your door.

Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 11:58 AM (nakwk)

I have been saying that for 30 years. Every time somebody mentions mammograms I comment that nobody ever sent me one. Then they say, well you're a dude why do you need one. Then I have to frigging explain it, its the hot chick with the long coat who rings your bell, whips open the coat and says mammogram!

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at November 15, 2020 12:12 PM (9Om/r)

401 I remember reading from one of my Uncle's letters to home, he mentioned something cryptic about a certain obscure relative named Nancy, that would make it past censors, so everyone at homs knew where in France his unit was fighting.

He had a rough time of it. He was ever one of those "nervous" types, and prone to screwing up simple things. Always showing up late, or early, or just as my dad would say "You know, just a typical _______ operation." He was "liberal" though strangely enough, heartily approved of the bombing of Hiroshima. Go figure.

Posted by: Common Tater at November 15, 2020 12:12 PM (QWGds)

402 @399
along those lines, Q has said that 7 out of 10 plane crashes are not accidents.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:13 PM (AwPyG)

403 Got here just in time as usual.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at November 15, 2020 12:13 PM (sd8p8)

404 So, did anyone talk about books?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at November 15, 2020 12:15 PM (sd8p8)

405 @401
My dad was pretty much a pacifist, but he was happy they bombed Hiroshima because he'd have been storming the beaches, otherwise.
He had a Japanese gardener, many years later, who was a Hiroshima survivor. Every 5 years the Japanese government would fly him to Japan to do testing on him. He lived to be quite old.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:16 PM (AwPyG)

406 311 Reading and discussing a particular author does not equate to pimpage or suction. I don't have to agree with the author on every point to get something from his writing.
Posted by: All Hail President Eris, Benevolent Dictatoress at November 15, 2020 11:40 AM (Dc2NZ)

If you had to agree with authors about everything, there would be precious little to read.

The whole point of reading to learn about other points of view and ways of looking at the world. The left wants everybody to be uniform, cookie-cutter SJWs. James makes the point that they want to flatten out human experience and complexity. The right should not fall for the same error.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V at November 15, 2020 12:17 PM (HabA/)

407 It is better, as so many have said, just to stay away from the smug little brainwashed stupid lying backstabbing passive aggressive mean girls. And the females Dems too.

They all need to be disinherited if you have one or more. Don't think it hasn't been done.

Posted by: Gilded at November 15, 2020 12:17 PM (S84Rr)

408 @404
Georgette Heyer fan in the photo, sharon. I never liked her mysteries as much as I liked her romances.

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:17 PM (AwPyG)

409 Artemis! I've never read her. Should I? If so, what book should I start with.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at November 15, 2020 12:20 PM (sd8p8)

410 My favorites are The Toll Gate and The Grand Sophy. All of them are good though!

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:27 PM (AwPyG)

411 Thanks for the tip. On the last book in my queue so needed something new.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at November 15, 2020 12:29 PM (sd8p8)

412 71 I first encountered the naivete of pastors twenty years ago and it astounds me to this day. Back then, I attributed it to them graduating from college, then going to seminary, then taking a minister's position, without encountering any "real life" experience. Everything they've learned is in the rarefied, academic environment. You'd think that they could just open their eyes and see the obvious errors they're promoting, but they just can't.
Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 09:32 AM (pGeFX)

A few years ago I read an article titled "Never trust anyone who hasn't been punched in the face."
And that, while not quite on the money, is certainly a lot closer to true than trusting people who have a doctorate's in anything and have never been slammed face-first into reality, and the fact that life doesn't care what you think it ought to be: it is what it is... and that evil exists, and it will gleefully take advantage of any failure to recognize or fight it.

Posted by: Not From Around Here at November 15, 2020 12:29 PM (wrzAm)

413 You should totally read Georgette Heyer

Everyone should! My favorites are The Talisman Ring (very funny) and Sylvester (the perils of being a secret author!)

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at November 15, 2020 12:30 PM (exg7Q)

414 @413
Heyer wrote so many good ones!

Posted by: artemis at November 15, 2020 12:36 PM (AwPyG)

415 Current reading:
NRA...Illustrated RELOADING HANDBOOK, 1960. Gift from Dad plus his reloading bench, dies and tools.
Also, II Corinthians.

Posted by: Igotnothing at November 15, 2020 12:39 PM (xf2hT)

416 I am currently rereading The Christian Manifesto. How far does scripture allow Christian resistance to go.

Posted by: Tommyboy at November 15, 2020 12:44 PM (HU93f)

417 Sell your cloak and buy a sword.

Posted by: Tommyboy at November 15, 2020 12:44 PM (HU93f)

418 Thank you! Have The Toll Gate and Sylvester on reserve. Ebooks so shouldn't take too long. I've been getting most of my ebooks through the BostonPublic Library. They have a great collection of old and brand new and I get my reserves quickly. Unfortunately they will cut me off at the dog the year as I have moved out of state. Montgomery County is incredibly slow and their website difficult to maneuver.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at November 15, 2020 12:46 PM (sd8p8)

419 Hey OM, where are my Who Dis? quatloos? I gots bills to pay...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 15, 2020 12:47 PM (PiwSw)

420 "The youthful prime minister [of an Italy where Rome has just had a terror attack] was a nationalist, with his hair closely trimmed on the sides and long on top, the fashion for the neofascists taking over Europe. Predictably, he proposed mass expulsions of Muslims."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at November 15, 2020 09:44 AM (rpbg1)

Almost as if the author thought there was something wrong with that.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at November 15, 2020 12:49 PM (G1zlD)

421 I don't know if you've featured this library yet, but here is a nice feature on The Klementinum in Prague. This online article is from July, and the November 5, 2020 of The Epoch Times newspaper had a nice picture spread.

https://tinyurl.com/y5dj8va2

Posted by: Linda LaFianza at November 15, 2020 12:58 PM (Lrg7u)

422 Anyone know if your typical army surplus store would have field manuals?

I mean, I can get them on Amazon. But then the assholes know i have them.

I'm not being paranoid am I?
Posted by: RoyalOil at November 15, 2020 10:42 AM (h8gQ5)

Try Portrayal Press. They sure have manuals for weapons, vehicles, radios, etc.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at November 15, 2020 01:09 PM (xj8yr)

423 What we need are mammograms - in which busty wimminz deliver messages to your door.
Posted by: Insomniac at November 15, 2020 11:58 AM (nakwk)

Written in Braille!

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at November 15, 2020 01:35 PM (lw9IV)

424 I see my fellow Heyerites have beat me to it.

Sabrina makes me want to re-read A Talisman Ring, which I didn't care for. The humor must have gone right over my head. I think I had just started reading them, and it didn't live up to the likes of The Grand Sophy and Unknown Ajax.

Posted by: Tammy al-Thor at November 15, 2020 02:34 PM (tKlQV)

425 @350 --

Bill Mauldin's wartime cartoons will break you of the notion that Italy is a land of permanent sunshine.

One of my favorites: "This damn tree leaks."

Posted by: Weak Geek at November 15, 2020 02:52 PM (83ScS)

426 Should Sabrina still be checking in, please to note that I seem to have confused Talisman Ring with Cousin Kate.

I still don't recall liking it, but I'm going to give it another chance. Part of the reason may for my dislike may have been that I generally just don't care for her Georgians overall, with the notable exception of the one with Horry, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

Posted by: Tammy al-Thor at November 15, 2020 03:14 PM (tKlQV)

427 Good thing I popped back in, eh? Yeah, Cousin Kate is a bit dark and psychological. Talisman Ring is a Georgian, but delightfully funny. With dialogue like. "I have had an exhausting day, throwing myself in the breach and getting proposed to." "I *thought* it was noisy down here..."

The full-throttle silliness becomes apparent after the beginning. Stick with it, you will not be disappointed

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at November 15, 2020 03:52 PM (exg7Q)

428 Our pastor is a vet who's been a cop and has preached the Gospel in parts of the world where a person can get beheaded for doing so.

He's perfect for these times.
Posted by: President-elect Emmie
------------

I knew one of those. You'd sit down for a conversation, and it was like talking to a wrestling coach. The guy was terrific.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at November 15, 2020 03:58 PM (cGzEU)

429 419 Hey OM, where are my Who Dis? quatloos? I gots bills to pay...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 15, 2020 12:47 PM (PiwSw)

Aw shaddap! We're short this month.

Posted by: President-Elect OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at November 15, 2020 04:54 PM (pGeFX)

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