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Sunday Morning Book Thread 09-16-2018

book bed 2-light.jpg


Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes. Oh, and we've got a new category of readers, escaped oafs and oafettes. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, and publishing by people 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, if I were either one of these models in this photo, I'd spend my life's savings tracking down and destroying every last copy of it that I could find.


It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary defined LUGGAGE as “any thing of more weight than value”.

Usage: My fondest memory of 9/11 is seeing the video of Hillary being tossed in the back of a van like a piece of luggage. Oh, you mean 9/11/2001. I thought you meant 9/11/2016. My mistake.



Because Some Stories Are Bigger Than You Are

because some stories are bigger than you are.jpg


Book Curses

In medieval times, books were rare, and copying them was labor-intensive. So those who produced them did not like kindly on book thieves. Nowadays, if you forget to return a library book, you pay a fine, or, at the most, the replacement copy of the book. But back then, the punishment was a bit more severe:

“For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand & rend him. Let him be struck with palsy & all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever.”

This is all detailed in the book Anathema!: Mediaeval Scribes and the History of Book Curses by Marc Drogin. If you're interested in this, you might want to check out this book at your local library because you can't find a used copy online for less than $150.

(h/t Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing)





brethren and cistern.jpg


Why English Is Hard To Learn

We'll begin with box; the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox is oxen, not oxes,
One fowl is a goose, and two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose is never called meese.

You can find a lone mouse or a house full of mice;
But the plural of house is houses not hice.
The plural of man is always men.
But the plural of pan is never pen.

If I speak of a foot, and you show me two feet,
And I give you a book, would a pair be a beek?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't two booths be called beeth?

If the singular's this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss be ever called keese?

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
When the masculine pronouns are he, his, and him;
Just imagine the feminine....she, shis, and shim!

--James Donovan


Books By Morons

Moron author Vince Milam's latest novel, The Caribbean Job (the third in his Amazon bestselling Case Lee series) has recently been released:

A simple job. Low key. Investigate the mysterious deaths of two rich guys. No worries. Until spies and professional hitters started coming out of the woodwork, pointed my direction. Just another day at the office.

Welcome to the world of Case Lee, retired Delta Force operator. Stuck nose-deep in the muck and mire of a trillion-dollar deal, espionage maneuvering, and shadow games.

Case ignores sound advice to let other high-powered players handle the situation. With his family in danger, he takes matters into his own hands. And affords his enemies the opportunity to discover something. You can mess with a lot of people on this good earth. But you don’t mess with Case Lee.

Fans of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp, and Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne will love the Case Lee series.

The Kindle version is currently on sale for $0.99.

___________

Lurking moron author Neovictorian has released his first novel, Sanity, which he describes as "kind of a thriller/alternate history with a dash of bildungsroman". Also rated R for right-wing:

Have you sometimes felt, since an early age, that you were an alien, somehow placed on Earth and observing the antics of humans as if they were a different species? Why do they believe such stupid things? Why do they do such dumb things? Any why do they keep doing them over and over again seemingly incapable of learning from the bad outcomes of all the previous attempts?

That is how Cal Adler felt since childhood and, like most people with such feelings, kept them quiet and bottled up while trying to get ahead in a game whose rules often seemed absurd. In his senior year in high school, he encounters a substitute guidance counselor who tells him, without any preliminary conversation, precisely how he feels. He's assured he is not alone, and that over time he will meet others. He is given an enigmatic contact in case of emergency. He is advised, as any alien in a strange land, to blend in while observing and developing his own talents.

Then he meets a Mystery Woman...and the real adventure begins.

I had to look up bildungsroman, which means, according to Merriam-Webster, "a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character." You gotta love the Germans. They have a word for everything. Unfortunately, most of them are very long and you sound like you have a mouthful of rocks when you try to say them.

And on his author page, Neovictorian says his hobbies include "firearms, edged weapons and making The World's Best Martini, all of which come into play in the book. Especially the martinis." Which Kindle version you can purchase for $3.99.

___________

I have mentioned moron author Robert Zimmerman's account of the Apollo 8 flight, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8: The First Manned Mission to Another World in an earlier book thread. To mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of this historic space flight, an audio version of the first book about the mission of Apollo 8 has been released, narrated by Grover Gardner, a legend in the ears of fans of audiobooks all over the planet.

Apollo 8 was an awesome achievement:

It was Christmas Eve 1968. And the astronauts of Apollo 8 - Commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders - were participants in a mission that took them faster (24,000 mph) and farther from the Earth (240,000 miles) than any human had ever traveled. Apollo 8 was the mission that broke humanity's absolute bond to the Earth: it was the first manned vehicle to leave the Earth's orbit.

Confined within a tiny spaceship, the astronauts were aided in their journey by a computer less powerful than one of today's handheld calculators. Their mission was not only a triumph of engineering, but also an enduring moment in history. The words these three men spoke from lunar orbit reverberated through American society, changing our culture in ways no one predicted.

The entire press release can be read on the author's site.

___________

Moron author Hans Schantz's second book, A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth is on sale for $0.99 through Friday. I've mentioned this book before. A reviewer describes it like this:

It's sort of like what might happen if one of Heinlein's juvenile heroes (say Kip from Have Spacesuit Will Travel) was thrust into the modern era and was forced to use SJWs Always Lie as his freshman orientation guide while battling the Black Hats.

I've read the first book in the series, The Hidden Truth, but not this one yet. It was quite a good read. And I can confirm that it does have that distinctive "early Heinlein" feel to it.


Moron Recommendation

Moron lurker 'Delaforce' highly recommends the military aviation novels of Derek Robinson that he found in the attic of his now-late grandmother.

The first one I read was Goshawk Squadron, by Derek Robinson in 1971. It's about an RFC squadron in 1918, flying S. E. 5's with a hard-ass commander. Major Stanley Woolley was 28 years old, young for a major, old for a pilot. His gamekeeper manners and trade unionist voice makes his pilots and adjutant uncomfortable. His training and outbursts were even worse. He pushed the squadron harder and harder, and he keeps going, probably until "He's gone too far," as one of the pilots said.

The issue at hand is the conflict between Woolley's realistic expectations against the young officers just out of college, filled with their ideas of honor and as "knights of the air". The major knows that it will kill them, as they might not realise till they're dead. He calls "fair" a dirty word.

Robinson's novels include:

Goshawk Squadron (his first novel, nominated for the Booker Prize)
Piece of Cake
Hornet's Sting
War Story
Damned Good Show
A Good Clean Fight

He's also written a number of spy novels and some non-fiction history. Interested readers should check out Robinson's web page.


___________

If you like, you can follow me on Twitter, where I make the occasional snarky comment.

___________

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

___________

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

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

Posted by: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1

Oneth again?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 09:00 AM (HaL55)

2 Nerds!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 16, 2018 09:00 AM (kQs4Y)

3 Just finished a re-read of Dune. Have now started a new on. Amazon had put Michael Creighton's book 'Disclosure' on sale for $1.99 a few days ago and I got it. His books had been running right around $10 despite the fact that they were published decades ago.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:00 AM (mpXpK)

4 LOL, all your bedtime reading available.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:01 AM (mpXpK)

5 Love that little girl pic

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:01 AM (mpXpK)

6 Tolle Lege
Started The Commadore by Patrick O'Brien

Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 09:03 AM (T4oHT)

7 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. Mine was interesting.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 09:05 AM (V+03K)

8 Good morning again!

The article about McRaven resigning from the DOD board neglects to mention that he is sick. That is why he resigned from the chancellor job too. I sure hope he gets better but I am sorely disappointed in him.

Posted by: LASue at September 16, 2018 09:05 AM (Z48ZB)

9 My book about the Battle of Lake Erie will go on sale October 1st.

Well researched and exiting, the book follows Midshipman James Alexander Perry through the events of the daring victory of America over the British in the War of 1812.

Ebook is available for pre-order now. Paperback well be available October 1st.

https://amzn.to/2pc99bX

Posted by: TheJamesMadison's Phone at September 16, 2018 09:05 AM (LlB9z)

10 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Not only do we wear pants for this one, but I've taken to drinking my coffee from one of the fine china cups instead of the usual mug. Hoity-toity!

Posted by: April at September 16, 2018 09:06 AM (OX9vb)

11 Still waiting on The Horses Mouth to arrive

Meanwhile still reading Undaunted Courage

Posted by: LASue at September 16, 2018 09:06 AM (Z48ZB)

12 I dont get the cartoon. Maybe Im too groggy

Posted by: LASue at September 16, 2018 09:07 AM (Z48ZB)

13 Swedish pajama boys.

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 09:07 AM (sdi6R)

14 I am loving “African Kaiser”. It’s like an over-the-top rejected Conan novella except it’s history, and therefore edifying.

“By September 1900, the defeated Boxers contemplated the totality of their ruin. Many of them now believed the European soldier could “render himself invulnerable by smearing his face with menstrual blood”. The reason the Boxer assaults had failed…was entirely magical in nature.” At the Roman Catholic cathedral “the defenders had draped the skins of women from the embrasures”, thus ensuring through a special kind of dark, psychosexual magic that Boxer bullets would not hit their mark. … Bishop Favier had invoked power anti-Boxer foreign magic by nailing naked women and fetuses torn from the bellies of the pregnant to the façade of the Pietang – this the Boxers believed contrary to the evidence of their own eyes.
They also believed that the foreigners were in possession of a powerful magical weapon, the “Ten Thousand Woman Flag” woven entirely from female pubic hair, which in some unexplained fashion vitiated the magic of the Boxer Gods.”

Crazy, man!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 16, 2018 09:08 AM (kQs4Y)

15 Whoever recommended The Ghost Map, about finding the cause of the London cholera epidemic, I checked that out last weekend. Hope to start it today.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:08 AM (y87Qq)

16

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 09:08 AM (HaL55)

17 I read most of The Hero with A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell for a new book I'm about to start writing.

He's obviously a devotee of Freud and Jung, so how he colors the myths are intriguing.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison's Phone at September 16, 2018 09:09 AM (LlB9z)

18 I would not be happy if an airline treated my luggage the way Hillary was treated when she was tossed into the back of that van.

I read War and Remmbrance by Herman Wouk this morning. And I finished The Grief Recovery Handbook earlier this week.

Posted by: Northernlurker, but call me Teem at September 16, 2018 09:10 AM (nBr1j)

19 I had to look up bildungsroman, which means, according to Merriam-Webster, "a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character." You gotta love the Germans. They have a word for everything. Unfortunately, most of them are very long and you sound like you have a mouthful of rocks when you try to say them.


This is a calumny against the Krautish tongue.

Also, you capitalize Krautish* nouns, so it's a Bildungsroman.

"Bildungsroman" contains far fewer letters than "a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character", which makes it much more succinct and efficient.

*You don't capitalize languages in krautish, though, so you can write krautish.

You know the word roman from roman a clef. Nouns are not capitalized in Froggish.

So, Roman means a novel. Bildung is education, growth, and yeah moral progress. Bildungsroman is a hyper-efficient krautish word that gets a lot done in four syllables.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:10 AM (fuK7c)

20 Did I miss the backstory on that book-bed?

Posted by: San Franpsycho at September 16, 2018 09:11 AM (EZebt)

21 The article about McRaven resigning from the DOD board neglects to mention that he is sick. That is why he resigned from the chancellor job too. I sure hope he gets better but I am sorely disappointed in him."

Yet another man who destroyed a brilliant reputation by living a couple of years too long.

Posted by: Tom Servo at September 16, 2018 09:11 AM (V2Yro)

22 This isn't exactly about books, but in a way it is.

And it's clearly about authors.

So it sort of is on topic.

Anyhow, until the other day, I had no idea that CSPAN2 had an entire video series focused on nothing but authors speaking about books which they had recently written.

And I wound up watching the bookstore video by Greg Lukianoff of F.I.R.E. and the author of Coddling the American Mind.
He is not as strong of a speaker as I would like, but the message is very good.

Also, last night they made the video available online with Brent Bozell interviewing Derek Hunter, one of my favorite political writes of the new era, with his new book, 'Outrage, Inc. How the liberal mob ruined science, journalism and Hollywood.
I actually sent Derek a copy of the Moron Cookbook when it first came out.

So, it's not books.
But it's videos of the authors who write the books, allowing you to put a face, voice and deeper thoughts to the names of the people who bring us the books.

I hope you can forgive me for going slightly off topic.

Greg Lukianoff:

http://tinyurl.com/yads9yht

Derek Hunter:

http://tinyurl.com/y9s5nb8n

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at September 16, 2018 09:11 AM (wldC6)

23 Finished Alexander Mikaberidze's The Battle of Borodino and would recommend it. He does sort through many of the Russian historians versions of casualty counts which can range greatly in what is usually termed to be the greatest blood loss for battles before WWI.

Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 09:11 AM (T4oHT)

24 Morning, Horde! Happy Sunday!

Posted by: SteveOReno, I self-identify as a Moron at September 16, 2018 09:12 AM (9KUXB)

25 I'm confused about references to Boxers in a book about Africa...

Posted by: Apostate at September 16, 2018 09:13 AM (4wEeC)

26 I dont get the cartoon. Maybe Im too groggy

I get it if "Brethren and Cistern" is intended as the caption and not the title of the cartoon series.

Posted by: t-bird at September 16, 2018 09:14 AM (9uM40)

27 I remember that cartoon. B. Kliban had some good ones.

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 09:15 AM (sdi6R)

28 Test

Posted by: TheJamesMadison's Phone, pre-order The Battle of Lake Erie today! at September 16, 2018 09:15 AM (LlB9z)

29 Just finished a massive biography of Oliver Cromwell by Antonia Frasier. I think I read it 15 years ago, but didn't recall it. I thought she did a very good job of explaining the positive aspects of Cromwell's personality including his support of the Jewish community in England, as well as his terrible qualities such as his ruthlessness in military campaigns such as in Ireland where lots of people including priests and nuns were slaughtered. However, the Protestant populace at home appreciated these campaigns, and slaughtering people of the opposing faith was not a new thing-for either Protestants or Catholics. At any rate, I learned a lot about Cromwell and his family life (He was a very devoted father and was crushed when his favorite daughters died in her 20's from what was probably cancer) The book exploded some myths about Puritans. They enjoyed music and music-particularly organ- was a big part of the court scene. They just didn't like music in religious services. They also didn't mind dancing. They just didn't like the lasciviousness associated with it. Also, many of the male roundheads in the English Civil War had long hair. Cromwell never allied himself with a particular church, but was deeply religious and Biblically literate and interested in how God was working in his life and the life of the nation. I thought it was touching that Fraser noted that Crowell would have been less spiritually lonely had he belonged to a church community. 

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at September 16, 2018 09:15 AM (AllCR)

30 Umm...a cistern is a water holding device such as a well, pictured.

Also read the poem about brethren and not cistern.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:15 AM (fuK7c)

31 Why English Is Hard To Learn

Ghoti.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:16 AM (59GGI)

32 Read "Dunkirk" by Robert Jackson. Published in 1976 it's a good account of the events leading up to and the evacuation of nearly 339k Allied soldiers from Dunkirk during May/June 1940.

He discusses the famous May 23/24 Halt Order given to the panzers of Army Group A which was to the south and west of Dunkirk. A lot of historians have been mystified by that decision since they were only about 12 miles from Dunkirk. Some have stated that was the turning point of the war, or that Hitler was offering a "golden bridge" to the British for better peace terms. Both of those reasons are absurd.

It didn't apply to Army Group B when after their rampage through Holland and Belgium continued on to Dunkirk, nor to the Luffwaffe. A couple of days before the order the British had counter attacked at Arras which is a little south of Dunkirk. The attack failed but unnerved the generals, including a young Erwin Rommel.

Considering what the Germans knew at that time it made sense (the order was only in place for about two days). The panzers had traveled so far so fast that they needed time for the infantry and logistic support to catch up, and the order was issued by von Rundstedt not Hitler, although he did approve of it.

Some head music.

The Raveonettes - Love In A Trashcan
https://youtu.be/mRUqpgg-8Ps

The Peacock Spiders - Stayin Alive
https://youtu.be/HPh_Gi7PCqs

Burl Ives - Ghost Riders In The Sky
https://youtu.be/j2klh2cTa_Q

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at September 16, 2018 09:17 AM (5jAa5)

33 18 I read War and Remmbrance by Herman Wouk this morning. And I finished The Grief Recovery Handbook earlier this week.

Posted by: Northernlurker, but call me Teem at September 16, 2018 09:10 AM (nBr1j)

I thought War and Remembrance was a big letdown after Winds of War.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:17 AM (mpXpK)

34 Oh, yes, I forgot. The last couplet is obsolete according to the latest Newspeak Dictionary.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:17 AM (59GGI)

35 "A Limerick A Day" site went live earlier this week. Check it out. Bookmark it for an occasional laugh. Tell your friends. Better yet, tell your enemies, there are probably more of them and it'll serve them right.

https://muldoonlimericks.blogspot.com/

or click the link in my nick

All original free content, mixture of previously published and new material, sometimes topical. but always irrelevant, irreverent, impertinent and punny. Double dose of entendres.

Enjoy!


/longtime commenter, never lurker Seamus Mldoon

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 09:18 AM (m45I2)

36 This week I'm reading The Captives, by Debra Jo Immergut. A disgraced psychologist finds himself relegated to working at a women's prison and lo and behold, his high-school crush walks into his office one day for counseling (but really for a scrip to hoard and kill herself). Ethically, he should recuse himself, but she doesn't remember him, so he continues to "help" the unwilling patient, who has been sentenced to life.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at September 16, 2018 09:18 AM (ihzOe)

37 I had to look up bildungsroman, which means, according to Merriam-Webster, "a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character." You gotta love the Germans. They have a word for everything.

Don't we, in English, just say "Dickensian"?

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:20 AM (59GGI)

38 Difference between brethren and cistern


Brethren- "Here, hold my beer."


Cistern- "Here, hold my water"

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 09:21 AM (m45I2)

39 Don't we, in English, just say "Dickensian"?
Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:20 AM (59GGI)


Dickensian usually implies more coal soot and tuberculosis than bildungsroman does.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (y87Qq)

40 Muldoon's a new website for limericks
For fame now instead of just fer the kicks
Expectations asunder
One must start to wonder
If he'll have to resort to the gimmericks

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (fuK7c)

41 Have we figured out what the large-type edition book is the girl is looking at?

&

"...less powerful than one of today's handheld calculators..."

Millennial: handheld calculator, what's that?

Posted by: mindful webworker - page by page at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (cNEwX)

42 'Morning, OM. Love that library up top. How handy!

I finished "Charlotte's Story". This was a tale of life in the Florida Keys in the 1930's. It wasn't the Great American Novel but a seat-of-the-pants look at survival in the elements. A friend sent me a water-wrinkled copy several months ago and I finally got around to reading it. Interesting stuff.

I then picked up "The News From Whitechapel" again. I've been reading it in dribs and dabs. It gets better and better as you go along.

Posted by: creeper at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (l0mIQ)

43 A wonderful post, OM. That bed/book nook is inviting and I love that photo of the little girl and the huge book.

I am trying to think of some punishment severe enough for whoever designed those crochet outfits. I haven't settled on one but my imagination is not exhausted yet.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (V+03K)

44 26 I dont get the cartoon. Maybe Im too groggy

I get it if "Brethren and Cistern" is intended as the caption and not the title of the cartoon series.
Posted by: t-bird at September 16, 2018 09:14 AM (9uM40)

The light bulb just turned on.

Posted by: Northernlurker, but call me Teem at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (nBr1j)

45 6 Tolle Lege
Started The Commadore by Patrick O'Brien
Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 09:03 AM (T4oHT)


My wife told me something I'd never known. Paul Bettany is married to Jennifer Connally. Hot blue-eyed brunette - that describes Diana Villiers.

Maybe he really is Maturin.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:23 AM (59GGI)

46 re: that top pic...what's in the samovars on the bed?

Posted by: creeper at September 16, 2018 09:23 AM (l0mIQ)

47 Made some good progress in A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes about the Rooski Revolution this week. It's still going through background info which, by definition, is difficult to make interesting particularly the specifics of how local governments were set up aside from tidbits like how the jooos were at the lowest rung of the hierarchy and couldn't own property and under Nicholas the dickweed they had their own version of a Dreyfus type railroad job.

Where it starts getting interesting is talking about the peasants in the sticks, which was just about everywhere except a paltry few urban areas, and how the budding commies were fascinated by their communal lifestyle and tried living with them until lots of them had the shit beat out of them if not killed. Those stupid dickweeds had no fucking idea that being close to nature wasn't going to correspond to some daft Rousseauian fantasy; quite the opposite where being close to nature means being feral.

It just so happens that I was reading a collection of Camille Paglia essays, Free Women Free Men, at the time (I'm always reading multiple books only some of which I'll talk about here on a given week). I've been a fan of Camille for a long time but have never read her first major work, Sexual Personae, for a variety of reasons even though everyone whose opinions I respect that read it raved about it. The first essay was an excerpt from the first chapter of that and I was blown away at how weirdly densely erudite it was with these strange associations jumping off the page and forming these thought clouds before jumping into something else. She jumped full force into what a brutal force nature is and how society and art are mankind's way of coping with it and trying to keep it at bay. I can't imagine being her editor who she probably told to fuck off and leave her alone. Anyway it dovetailed nicely with Figes's discussion of the peasants.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 09:25 AM (y7DUB)

48 I curse you to read nothing but "It Takes a Village" from here to eternity.

Posted by: no good deed at September 16, 2018 09:25 AM (1uG1d)

49 A big letdown?

It's the second half of the story.

But yes, Natalie and the kid going to the Concentration camp was a downer. And Pug's wife cheating on him. That too was a downer.

Posted by: JAS at September 16, 2018 09:25 AM (3HNOQ)

50 Out for a walk in the woods and you suddenly find that you're between a huge mama book and her little bookling. That's got to be terrifying.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:26 AM (y87Qq)

51 Greetings from exile!
Or, more accurately, a TDY. My reading this week has centered on the mysteries of the Joint Operational Planning Process for Air.

It's a page-turner, to be sure.

I'm still working my way through Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror," which is sort of my travel book this summer. I bought it for a TDY in June and when I'm home, I find other stuff to read. Hopefully I won't finish it before I fly home or my flight will be rather dull.

I may have mentioned this before, but Tuchman's attitude is every bit as dated as the people of the 14th Century she describes.

The way she describes the dichotomy between faith and practice or how the Church (and every other human institution) can be corrupted comes across as seriously naiive. In her mind, the liberal values of the 70s are the ne plus ultra of human civilization and it doesn't even remotely dawn on her that within 30 years they'll be as out of date as bell-bottom pants and mood rings.

Thus reading it is sort of meta in the way that reading a 19th Century treatise on older times is. It's just funny how fast things get out of date in our current society.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:26 AM (B/PO4)

52 Is that the Unibomber's shack?

Posted by: Grump928(C) at September 16, 2018 09:26 AM (yQpMk)

53 I dont get the cartoon. Maybe Im too groggy


******


Perhaps you're just not a well person.

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 09:27 AM (m45I2)

54 re: that top pic...what's in the samovars on the bed?


I don't know the word samovar and I shan't look it up.

Could be some kind of bedwarmer. We had a brass thing at the end of a long handle. The theory was that you took coals from the evening fire and put them in the the brass bit and used it to warm up a bed before sleep.

It was an antique, we didn't actually use it. Maybe those samovars are bed warmers.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:27 AM (fuK7c)

55 This is a calumny against the Krautish tongue.

I thought the correct word was "Orcish".

It has long been my belief that that's how they came to be supreme in music. They had to, to cover over the horrid language of their songs. Sort of like the way spices were needed before refrigeration.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:27 AM (59GGI)

56 You gotta love the Germans. They have a word for everything.

Well, to be more accurate, they can make a word out of almost anything by removing the spaces. Like "Donau river steamboat company captain" can be one word.

Posted by: t-bird at September 16, 2018 09:27 AM (9uM40)

57 49 But yes, Natalie and the kid going to the
Concentration camp was a downer. And Pug's wife cheating on him. That
too was a downer.

Posted by: JAS at September 16, 2018 09:25 AM (3HNOQ)

It was a continuation but I wouldn't consider it the second half. And yes those two things were parts I did not like. W.E.B. Griffins WWII books are much much better.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:28 AM (mpXpK)

58 Confined within a tiny spaceship, the astronauts were aided in their journey by a computer less powerful than one of today's handheld calculators.

They had to use the latest state of the art computers and software of that time to create a wiring diagram that was meticulously hand wired in a process that lasted months. In some ways primitive, in other ways, exceptionally complex.

Posted by: Forgot My Nic at September 16, 2018 09:28 AM (LOgQ4)

59 I think that library is on a ship.

Posted by: creeper at September 16, 2018 09:29 AM (l0mIQ)

60 In that big book I think I can read "I'm looking for a gentleman" and then maybe "Partridge"?, and then maybe "When is he expected".

Posted by: Han at September 16, 2018 09:30 AM (UdKB7)

61 I was blown away at how weirdly densely erudite it was with these strange associations jumping off the page and forming these thought clouds before jumping into something else.


Paglia is a Godess. Her mind crackles like a close lightning strike.

She was supposed to be working on a major thing about Native Americans and couldn't get support for it. I'd love to see something actually original.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:30 AM (fuK7c)

62

Keith Emerson penned his autobiography Pictures of an Exhibitionist and I'd love to secure a copy. The cheapest one I've found so far is a used paperback for $95 on Amazon. A new hardcover is over $300.

A bit too pricey for me.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 09:30 AM (HaL55)

63 59
I think that library is on a ship.


Posted by: creeper at September 16, 2018 09:29 AM (l0mIQ)

That kind of book would not be allowed on a ship. And neither would those unsecured books.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:30 AM (mpXpK)

64 Samovar is a Russian tea pot. Now, the fever swamp can claim Russian collusion with the Tea Party.

Posted by: no good deed at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (1uG1d)

65 I think that library is on a ship.
Posted by: creeper at September 16, 2018 09:29 AM (l0mIQ)


Bookshelves at sea usually have a bar or strap in front to keep the contents from spilling out, though.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (y87Qq)

66 Perhaps you're just not a well person.

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 09:27 AM


You know what, infidel? I don't find those kind of puns the least amusing.

Posted by: 12th Imam at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (LOgQ4)

67 Confined within a tiny spaceship, the astronauts were aided in their
journey by a computer less powerful than one of today's handheld
calculators.

---

That was the one where the three black ladies did all the hard math and saved those white boys' asses, right?

Posted by: Moron Robbie: I choose to live my life as a black woman at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (wkPQ8)

68 Visiting Ireland and still able to see the destruction that Cromwell caused. He was damn MONSTER.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (dKiJG)

69 correction

That kind of bunk would not be allowed on a ship. And neither would those unsecured books.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (mpXpK)

70 Oliver Cromwell is one very interesting figure in history I never read about, but is the subject of a great quote
He was a great bad man.

Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 09:32 AM (T4oHT)

71 I read a great driving "curse" recently in a Car and Driver. Something like "May you one day build a house from your kidney stones."

Posted by: Moron Robbie: I choose to live my life as a black woman at September 16, 2018 09:32 AM (wkPQ8)

72 Like "Donau river steamboat company captain" can be one word.


Ahem.

The joke is steamship captain's cap.

Donaudampfschifffahrtslinieseekapitaensmuetze.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:32 AM (fuK7c)

73 Bookshelves at sea usually have a bar or strap in front to keep the contents from spilling out, though.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (y87Qq)


Aw...I knew there was something wrong with that theory. You're right. Not boat.

Posted by: creeper at September 16, 2018 09:33 AM (l0mIQ)

74 68
Visiting Ireland and still able to see the destruction that Cromwell caused. He was damn MONSTER.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 09:31 AM (dKiJG)

---
I think it was in his autobiography that Churchill wrote that he learned the Oliver Cromwell had killed a whole lot of people and this made him a Great Man.

Wicked humor from Winston.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:33 AM (B/PO4)

75 "Aw...I knew there was something wrong with that theory. You're right. Not boat."

Plus the visible foliage on the upper left edge the photo.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at September 16, 2018 09:35 AM (wldC6)

76 Good morning, Horde! We just got back from three days at the Giddings Word Wrangler Book Festival, dodging rain all the way there, back and during! Fortunately, it did not impact the festival, which would have been tragic since on Saturday much of it was taking place outside.
My daughter and I also signed up to visit schools on Thursday afternoon to talk about writing and reading - and wound up talking to three classes of sixth graders, who were all as lively as a box of frogs. It was really fun, and refreshingly, most of them were willing readers, and a good few were eager readers. A couple or three were even budding writers; the sixth grade is about where I started to think that I wanted to be a writer.
On Friday, there were about twenty or thirty authors, filling up tables in the Giddings Public Library with our books; that day, the schoolkids came to us - also a scattering of adults, looking for books. On Friday evening, the authors and organizers all met for dinner at a local restaurant - a marvelous time was had by all. On Saturday - more time in the library, with food trucks and entertainment outside in the parking lot. I sold a respectable number of my own books, had a blast talking to other indy authors, and it will all be written up over the following days on my blog and FB page. And if anyone wants to know what I look and sound like, Alan B. of the Texas Authors Association did brief interviews with everyone one of us. Mine is here - https://www.facebook.com/celia.hayes.9

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 16, 2018 09:35 AM (xnmPy)

77 I don't want to zoom in on the book titles and negate my own hypothesis, but my money is on treehouse and really great parents. I would've loved to have had something like that when I was ten.

Posted by: Moron Robbie: I choose to live my life as a black woman at September 16, 2018 09:36 AM (wkPQ8)

78 RE: Dunkirk, in "Miracle of Dunkirk" Walter Lord traces its origin to Germany military commanders, not Hitler. It was only when subordinates ignored it (figuring that Hitler had their back) that it came down from on high.

The fear was that the panzers were now running at half strength and without infantry support. No one in their right mind (not even the Brits) figured the BEF would escape on such a short timeline.

I think the "Hitler meant to do it"comes from surviving German generals who wanted to deflect blame on their professional mistakes.

The dead ones (Rommel) of course get a pass. Sort of like Stonewall Jackson. If he'd lived, there would have been a lot of score-settling after the war, but since he died a hero, everyone left him alone.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:38 AM (B/PO4)

79 but my money is on treehouse and really great parents


I was thinking more cabin, but whoever sleeps there has a map hung from the rafters to stare at and daydream over.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:38 AM (fuK7c)

80 I think that library is on a ship.

**********


Tuck Me In Master Chief? - a limerick

For a sailor the best duty station
Has a bed with a book aggregation
He can read himself to sleep
As he cruises o'er the deep
Tonight he's reading "Berth of a Nation"

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 09:39 AM (m45I2)

81 ...the sixth grade is about where I started to think that I wanted to be a writer.


My daughter as well, Sgt. Mom. She has journals full of stories now. A friend of mine gave her a subscription to Cricket magazine for her birthday last year. Her goal is to get one of her stories published.

Posted by: no good deed at September 16, 2018 09:39 AM (1uG1d)

82 Paglia is a Godess. Her mind crackles like a close lightning strike.

She was supposed to be working on a major thing about Native Americans and couldn't get support for it. I'd love to see something actually original.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:30 AM (fuK7c)


She'll always exist on the fringes of wacademia because she knows what fucking frauds they are and isn't shy about pointing it out. Like all of us, she's capable of doing nutty things like voting for Jill Stein and liking Madonna; but she's supportive of Rush and would probably be a good 'ette.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 09:39 AM (y7DUB)

83

I curse you to read nothing but "It Takes a Village" from here to eternity.


That's the MOABC right there.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 09:39 AM (HaL55)

84 78 The dead ones (Rommel) of course get a pass. Sort of
like Stonewall Jackson. If he'd lived, there would have been a lot of
score-settling after the war, but since he died a hero, everyone left
him alone.


Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:38 AM (B/PO4)

There wasn't much "score settling" after the civil war. People were more "gentlemanly" then. If there had been Sherman would have been dead in less than a year.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:40 AM (mpXpK)

85 My reading routine, to the extent I have one, was interrupted this week. I got new hearing aids for the first time in 13 years. I knew the ears weren't as good as they used to be but had no idea they were this bad. I've spent the week experimenting with music, TV and listening to books on CD. Dear God, what a difference!! I'm hearing notes and intonations even the Bose headphones don't convey. They enhance the books on CD more than I could have imagined. And I can play these things without a volume that bounces Mrs. JTB out of her chair.

This will take some getting used to.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 09:40 AM (V+03K)

86 Map tacked to the ceiling = worst leaky roof repair ever.

Posted by: mindful webworker - chapped chapters at September 16, 2018 09:40 AM (cNEwX)

87 Thanks to a recommendation here several weeks ago, I read the very interesting, eye-opening book Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice by Sidney Powell.
Ms. Powell is a brilliant lawyer, an imposing 6' tall, and a ginger. She has written a detailed account of the prosecutorial misconduct in the cases against Sen. Ted Stevens, the Enron case, and its associated cases versus the accounting firm of Arthur Anderson and the brokerage firm of Merrill Lynch. She played a minor role in the Anderson case, but she was the lead appeals lawyer for one of the Merrill defendants, Jim Brown.
She details how prosecutors hid evidence from the defense, suborned perjury from witnesses by threatening them with indictments, and repeatedly lied to the court. The Anderson case eventually went to the Supreme Court where all the convictions were overturned. Of course this was too late for the 85,000 good people who lost their jobs when the firm closed its doors years prior.
After everything was over, and most of the convictions in these cases were overturned, Ms. Powell and her fellow defense attorneys filed ethics charges with the proper boards in Texas, New York and D. C. Despite the overwhelming evidence, all the charges were dismissed out of hand. Most of these prosecutors had risen to positions of power including White House consul. The head of the Enron Task Force, Andrew Weissmann is currently the "bulldog" for Robert Mueller. The system is rotten to its core.

Posted by: Zoltan at September 16, 2018 09:41 AM (83Kfl)

88 In that big book I think I can read "I'm looking for a gentleman" and then maybe "Partridge"?, and then maybe "When is he expected".
Posted by: Han at September 16, 2018 09:30 AM (UdKB7)


A reverse image search turns up some larger versions, but the depth of field is still shallow and the text is unfocused. Best I can do is the title looks like "Forever Amber" which turns out to be a real book. There are fragments of the text that are legible, but I don't know anything about that book so I don't know if they'd be part of it.

https://tinyurl.com/y9alg62b

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:42 AM (y87Qq)

89 There wasn't much "score settling" after the civil
war. People were more "gentlemanly" then. If there had been Sherman
would have been dead in less than a year.


Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:40 AM (mpXpK)

---This is a book thread. They settled their scores through writing.

And if you think there was a pile of it, take a look at "Battles and Leaders," a series of bound essays written by the various participants two decades after the wary. Vicious stuff.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:42 AM (B/PO4)

90 >>Keith Emerson penned his autobiography Pictures of an Exhibitionist


Keith Ellison's autobiography is titled Pictures of Me Hittin'-a-Bitch.

Posted by: garrett at September 16, 2018 09:44 AM (N2S2+)

91 89 And if you think there was a pile of it, take a look
at "Battles and Leaders," a series of bound essays written by the
various participants two decades after the wary. Vicious stuff.


Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:42 AM (B/PO4)

Yes I have read a lot of that stuff but I'm not sure I would call that "score settling".

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:44 AM (mpXpK)

92 >>Map tacked to the ceiling = Covering up the Pinups in case Mom stops by.

Posted by: garrett at September 16, 2018 09:45 AM (N2S2+)

93 VIA #22- if commenting about videos of authors discussing their books is off-topic for the book thread, no wonder I've been told that nothing I comment here is germane.

Posted by: mindful webworker - was it over when germane bombed paul harvey...? at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (cNEwX)

94 Reading "The Fleet at Full Tide", by James Hornfischer. A book about (mainly) the taking of Saipan, the "Marianas Turkey Shoot", and the taking of Guam and Tinian. These things all take place concurrently from Mid June to late July, 1944.

Haven't quite finished yet (did the Japs lose the war?), but there was a funny anecdote in the book. A Navy fighter ace had to ditch his Hellcat, and was picked up by a destroyer. He wired his Air Group commander on his carrier to "get me off this tin can, or I'm voting for MacArthur in 1944!".
He actually got hauled up in front of Marc Mitscher (carrier group admiral) and they all had a good laugh about the wire.

Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (S6Pax)

95 In a holding pattern - rereading Time Enough for Love.

Someone mentioned last week a Heinlein I hadn't read yet - Time for the Stars. I'd say it's one of his better juveniles, although it ended rather abruptly and without the relationship development that would lead to the surprise at the end - one that he explored more explicitly again in The Door into Summer.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (AEeCX)

96 Plus the visible foliage on the upper left edge the photo.
Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at September 16, 2018 09:35 AM (wldC6)


Do you see foliage? I see privacy curtains.

Reverse search on THAT image turns up a dangerous rabbit hole of reading nooks/nerd forts that I will save for later.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (y87Qq)

97 On Dunkirk, I remember reading years ago that one of the German generals (Rundstedt maybe?) said later that it never occurred to them that the Brits could manage such a huge evacuation.

That would fit my reading of the German approach to war. A lot of mirror-imaging, with insufficient attention to the way other countries fight radically differently than they. Their way works fine against countries which try to play the same game they do. Not so much against others.

I wouldn't want to push this too far, though.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:47 AM (59GGI)

98

Keith Ellison's autobiography is titled Pictures of Me Hittin'-a-Bitch.


I thought that was written by (insert arrested NFL player here).

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 09:48 AM (HaL55)

99
The top photo above was taken from the famous

1970's horror movie-

"Libraries That Eat People"

Starring Doug McClure and Kim Darby

Posted by: naturalfake at September 16, 2018 09:48 AM (CRRq9)

100 100!

Posted by: Wessel at September 16, 2018 09:49 AM (MVjcR)

101 Oh, I would guess that the brass things on the bed are old-fashioned hot-water bottles. I had one in Japan (where it was as cold as the Arctic in winter) - round, hard plastic with a cap on the top to fill it. I'd seen metal ones of the same shape in antique stores.
Fill with hot water, wrap in a towel or something, put down at the bottom of the bed between the covers; wonderful if you are prone to cold feet.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (xnmPy)

102 Morning readers.

Posted by: Wessel at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (MVjcR)

103 Couldn't read to my daughter this week because of this dumb cold. We're supposed to write down how many minutes she reads this week, but it's hard to keep track when she sneaks downstairs early in the morning to read (mostly Garfield books). I still remember stashing emergency books in my room for when I was sent to it. My dad would flip out when he'd find my sister and I reading by the closet light at night, even when we'd try to evade detection by shoving a blanket under the door.


....... I'm really going to have my hands full, aren't I?

Posted by: pookysgirl at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (XKZwp)

104 I curse you to read nothing but "It Takes a Village" from here to eternity.

Could be worse. It could have been something actually written by Hillary.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (59GGI)

105 Apollo 8 was the mission that broke humanity's absolute bond to the Earth: it was the first manned vehicle to leave the Earth's orbit.

Well, technically, the Moon is in Earth's orbit.

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 09:51 AM (sdi6R)

106
Yes I have read a lot of that stuff but I'm not sure I would call that "score settling".


Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:44 AM (mpXpK)
----
I don't know what better term to use to describe retired generals blaming their battlefield failures on each other. Everything written by PGT Beauregard was basically "I was perfect and my fellow generals were idiots."

One of my favorites is Hunt's claim that if Meade had only given him approval, he would have swept Pickett's Charge with such an artillery barrage that they'd never have made it across the road, let alone to the stone wall.

There's a lot of that, particularly (spoiler alert) from the generals who did poorly.

Surely you're aware of how Longstreet dared to question Lee's strategy at Gettysburg and was utterly shunned by his former comrades (that and becoming a Republican).

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:51 AM (B/PO4)

107 Morning readers.
Posted by: Wessel at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (MVjcR)


Can you tell us where the nuclear Weasels are?

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:52 AM (y87Qq)

108 Nuclear weasels?

Posted by: Wessel at September 16, 2018 09:53 AM (MVjcR)

109 Someone mentioned last week a Heinlein I hadn't read yet - Time for the Stars. I'd say it's one of his better juveniles, although it ended rather abruptly and without the relationship development that would lead to the surprise at the end - one that he explored more explicitly again in The Door into Summer.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer


Heinlein wrote the Juveniles (as they were called later) for Scribners, and I think he looked at them as a contractural obligation. Some are really good, some were written and looked like knock-offs of other books he wrote- same premise in a different frame. I must have read them all when I was 9-14 or something like that.

I re-read "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Have Spacesuit - Will Travel" and "Between Planets" a few years ago on Kindle, and was surprised at how fast they were as reads, and how a lot of it still stood up, in the sense of it being believable and not stupid.

Heinlein hated the "censorship" at Scribners, which was niggling and petty, and when he was free of their contract, finished and published "Stranger in a Strange Land", which was largely a satire that people still don't get.

Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at September 16, 2018 09:54 AM (S6Pax)

110 Weasel! Weasel!

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 09:54 AM (MVjcR)

111 Hullo, lads.

Posted by: Delaforce at September 16, 2018 09:54 AM (eVIA2)

112 106 Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:51 AM (B/PO4)


Most of the books I have read from generals on the Confederate side blamed micromanaging by that idiot Jefferson Davis who thought he was a military genius. Lee had some rather snotty things to say about him too and he was very reserved after the war.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:55 AM (mpXpK)

113 Haven't quite finished yet (did the Japs lose the war?), but there was a funny anecdote in the book. A Navy fighter ace had to ditch his Hellcat, and was picked up by a destroyer. He wired his Air Group commander on his carrier to "get me off this tin can, or I'm voting for MacArthur in 1944!".
He actually got hauled up in front of Marc Mitscher (carrier group admiral) and they all had a good laugh about the wire.
Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (S6Pax)

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

Read an anecdote years ago about a Japanese officer who had been captured on one of the islands. The officer, after observing Americans returning from battle with Japanese flags, swords, etc., observed that the "Japanese fought for their Emperor but it appeared Americans fought for souvenirs."

Posted by: Blake - used scripting salesman at September 16, 2018 09:55 AM (WEBkv)

114 Someone mentioned last week a Heinlein I hadn't read yet - Time for the Stars. I'd say it's one of his better juveniles, although it ended rather abruptly and without the relationship development that would lead to the surprise at the end - one that he explored more explicitly again in The Door into Summer.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (AEeCX)
---
That was moi, and yes, I too felt the relationship was a little abrupt, but then, they were telepathically linked so attraction and compatibility would be evident rather quickly.

And I am just starting The Door Into Summer!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 16, 2018 09:56 AM (kQs4Y)

115 ....... I'm really going to have my hands full, aren't I?


Posted by: pookysgirl at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (XKZwp)


---

It can become difficult at times. I used to allow almost indefinite time with chapter books since my daughter was reading so much, but I put a time on it after she was staying awake MUCH past her bedtime and would pass out within two or so minutes of the flashlight battery dying.

Now she has a bedtime and a strict lights-out time, and I'll usually give her a few minutes extra to finish a chapter so long as she doesn't constantly take advantage of it.

It's a great problem to have, though.

Posted by: Moron Robbie: I choose to live my life as a black woman at September 16, 2018 09:56 AM (wkPQ8)

116 106 Surely you're aware of how Longstreet dared to
question Lee's strategy at Gettysburg and was utterly shunned by his
former comrades (that and becoming a Republican).


Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 09:51 AM (B/PO4)

Probably the same generals who ignored his orders and implemented their own strategy.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 09:56 AM (mpXpK)

117 110 Weasel! Weasel!
Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 09:54 AM (MVjcR)

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

Roger that. Weasel, you are coming in loud and clear.

Posted by: Blake - used scripting salesman at September 16, 2018 09:57 AM (WEBkv)

118 I mentioned dipping into The Wind in the Willows last week, and how I hadn't gotten it as a child, and a couple of you said very encouraging things about it.

Thank you. I am now well into it and quite loving it.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 09:57 AM (fuK7c)

119 SPELLMONGER

I am really enjoying this book, it's like two books in one, he is a SPELLMONGER in a backwoods village living the quiet life because he was sick of being a War Mage and then the Goblins came to his village. The book does go back and talk about his past and the war he fought.

I haven't seen any SJW crap in the book or series. You don't have the super strong female warriors. I can understand having Female mages. My neighbor was a Grandmaster of fighting and would have his students every Friday fight outside in their full armor and fight it was always fun to watch and their is no way a woman could last hefting those swords hammers shields. I was 20 playing college football and those damn swords were heavy as hell

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 09:57 AM (dKiJG)

120 How'd that work out for you there, Tojo?

Posted by: goatexchange at September 16, 2018 09:57 AM (YFnq5)

121 I re-read "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Have Spacesuit - Will Travel"

---

I re-read "Have Spacesuit" recently and forgot how much I enjoyed the first bit where he acquired and tested the suit.

Posted by: Moron Robbie: I choose to live my life as a black woman at September 16, 2018 09:58 AM (wkPQ8)

122 That picture of Pookette in cat ears reading is one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 16, 2018 09:58 AM (kQs4Y)

123
95 In a holding pattern - rereading Time Enough for Love. . . .

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (AEeCX)

***

First read Time Enough for Love in 1976 and it has been one of the books I have tended to reread across the years.

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at September 16, 2018 09:59 AM (NqQAS)

124 The BBC did e Piece of Cake miniseries that was good. It was also controversial. It is about Churchill's few, the pilots defeated in France but who the turned back the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. They were not portrayed as the dashing young heros of yore. One, Moggy, was, in fact, a vile murderer.

Robinson was forced to respond. He said, in effect, that to present theses heroes, for that is what they are, as god like figures does them a disservice in that it presents them as both more and less than what they were. To present them as fearless knights fighting evil is to present them as more than they were. To fail to present them as scared, flawed individuals who persevered unto victory is to present them as less than they were.

A Good, Clean Fight is probably my favorite Robinson novel.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 09:59 AM (+y/Ru)

125
Roger that. Weasel, you are coming in loud and clear.
Posted by: Blake - used scripting salesman at September 16, 2018 09:57 AM (WEBkv)
-------
Either my eyes are getting worse, or my fingers are getting fatter.

Or both.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:00 AM (MVjcR)

126 > Robinson's novels include:

Goshawk Squadron (his first novel, nominated for the Booker Prize)

--------
AHHH, I read that a long time ago. Pretty good and the description of the book in this blog post is accurate.

Posted by: ArthurK at September 16, 2018 10:01 AM (+O81W)

127 Moron Robbie, my husband reads a book and a Bible story to her before bed every night, and that seems to sate her.... for now.

Posted by: pookysgirl at September 16, 2018 10:02 AM (XKZwp)

128 ....... I'm really going to have my hands full, aren't I?
Posted by: pookysgirl at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (XKZwp)
-----------------------


Yes, I pity you have a child that, when you can't find him/her, it turns out they're sitting under a streetlight reading a book and didn't realize it was getting dark.

--true story, happened to my dad. Dad was a school principal who got a call from a frantic parent, because their daughter hadn't come home yet and it was getting dark He found her, just as I described, sitting on the curb under a street light.

My dad related the story to the family because he darn well knew it could have just as easily have been my sister or I.

Posted by: Blake - used scripting salesman at September 16, 2018 10:02 AM (WEBkv)

129 Heinlein hated the "censorship" at Scribners, which was niggling and petty, and when he was free of their contract, finished and published "Stranger in a Strange Land", which was largely a satire that people still don't get.
Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at September 16, 2018 09:54 AM (S6Pax)


I remember reading it and hating it; it was a long time ago and my tastes in reading were way different than now (I think I read it because it was a Leon Russell song title; make of that what you will) but I'm not sure I'd get that much out of a reread.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 10:02 AM (y7DUB)

130 102 Morning readers.
Posted by: Wessel at September 16, 2018 09:50 AM (MVjcR)

===

Horst? Is that you?

Posted by: San Franpsycho at September 16, 2018 10:03 AM (EZebt)

131 Is Amazon still the way to go for self publishing e-books and printed versions?

Posted by: Marcus T at September 16, 2018 10:03 AM (VkAxa)

132 Either my eyes are getting worse, or my fingers are getting fatter.

Or both.
Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:00 AM (MVjcR)

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

I said "loud and clear" with no mention of coherent.

Posted by: Blake - used scripting salesman at September 16, 2018 10:03 AM (WEBkv)

133 124
The BBC did e Piece of Cake miniseries that was good. It was also
controversial. It is about Churchill's few, the pilots defeated in
France but who the turned back the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. They
were not portrayed as the dashing young heros of yore. One, Moggy,
was, in fact, a vile murderer.

---
I own the discs for that and have watched it a few times, and I don't recall Moggy being a murderer.

He was a cad, an asshole and a braggart, but also a good pilot.

The closest thing he did was goad other pilots into stunt flying, but that's not murder, it's being a fighter pilot. Can't hack it? Fly transports.

I like the show because it isn't about the pilots, it's about the UNIT. Personnel come and go, but the squadron goes on. The ground cadre get none of the billing but they're the ones who ultimately keep things going. I thought that was quite realistic.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:04 AM (B/PO4)

134 In my defense, I haven't had any coffee yet.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:04 AM (MVjcR)

135 124
>I've seen the series when I found out the library had a copy.
I say it was pretty well made. I need to re-watch to remember spme stuff.
I do remember the beginning was cut short from the book.

Posted by: Delaforce at September 16, 2018 10:05 AM (eVIA2)

136 Bernie Kliban (the Brethren and Cistern cartoon author) was a genius who most people only remember for his Cat cartoons. But his other cartoons were so wacky and funny as well. His archive:

http://www.coldbacon.com/kliban2.html

I used to own all of his books of these toons.


Finishing up Les Miserables today. What an absolute joy to read. I may start The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or I may head to the bookstore and try to find yet another doorstop to read.

War and Peace? Dare I?

Posted by: Sharkman at September 16, 2018 10:05 AM (fRQju)

137 124 The BBC did e Piece of Cake miniseries that was good. It was also controversial. It is about Churchill's few, the pilots defeated in France but who the turned back the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. They were not portrayed as the dashing young heros of yore.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 09:59 AM (+y/Ru)


Yes. There was a flap over a Tailhook type incident during the war. Churchill's comment was to quote Kipling "Single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints."

My father (Navy pilot in the Pacific) own reaction to the bowdlerized version I was given in the 50s and 60s was kind of like having my own private Procopius. He'd usually end his anecdotes with "Never mention this to your mother."

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:06 AM (59GGI)

138 In my defense, I haven't had any coffee yet.
Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:04 AM (MVjcR)


You probably ought to, it's almost tomorrow already.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:06 AM (y87Qq)

139 I remember reading it and hating it; it was a long time ago and my tastes in reading were way different than now (I think I read it because it was a Leon Russell song title; make of that what you will) but I'm not sure I'd get that much out of a reread.
Posted by: Captain Hate

It was weird, to be sure. It's not like I re-read it over and over again. But it was Heinlein venting after years of frustration writing for Scribners. All those "Juveniles" made him a lot of money, though.
Parts of it are funny, and in it he does describe a water bed, which I guess he sort of invented by thinking it up.

Michael Valentine Smith comes back to Earth and can't stand the high gravity, and so has to rest in a water bed in a hospital until he gets strong enough to get around.

Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at September 16, 2018 10:06 AM (S6Pax)

140 I continue thumbing through the Old Farmer's Almanac, taking my time and enjoying the whole thing. Some of the ads are hilarious.

The calendar pages, starting at page 120, are little gems. Each month has a small but lovely illustration that has the look of an early American wood cut. There is also a sort bit of verse and a column with observations about the time of year. Just a pleasant part of the annual.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 10:07 AM (V+03K)

141 Coffee? Getting time for the harder stuff

Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (T4oHT)

142
A Warning About Bildungsroman:

Early on when I was writing "Wearing the Cat" and was asked what it was about,

I used to describe it as a "Comic Bildungsroman" cuz that's exactly what it is.

Bu-u-u-ut, every time I used the word "bildungsroman" I could see the light of interest die in their eyes because no one knew what the word meant. Even fellow writers.

And then I'd have to explain the word "bildungsroman" and that had the effect of making WTC seem like an artsy smarty pants novel instead of a fun and intelligent romp.

Anyway, I purged the word from my descriptions of "Wearing the Cat, ". Maybe it works better when written down...as above.




i'd also like to point out that "bildungsroman" contains the word dung.*








*Burnishing Moron Credentials

Posted by: naturalfake at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (CRRq9)

143 Can someone tell me where to find that picture of a girl in the forest reading the giant book? I'd love to purchase a print. I've tried finding the image on the internet but no luck so far. Don't know the title of it.

Posted by: Semi-engaged Scroller at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (RfnqA)

144 War and Peace? Dare I?
Posted by: Sharkman at September 16, 2018 10:05 AM (fRQju)


In the words of that man of letters, Stone Cold Steve Austin, oh hell yeah!

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (y7DUB)

145 141
Coffee? Getting time for the harder stuff

Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (T4oHT)

---
Put a little Irish Cream in it and you're good to go!

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:09 AM (B/PO4)

146 140
I continue thumbing through the Old Farmer's Almanac, taking my time and
enjoying the whole thing. Some of the ads are hilarious.



The calendar pages, starting at page 120, are little gems. Each
month has a small but lovely illustration that has the look of an early
American wood cut. There is also a sort bit of verse and a column with
observations about the time of year. Just a pleasant part of the annual.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 10:07 AM (V+03K)

I haven't got mine for this year yet. There is only one store in town that sells it and I haven't been there in a while. I wonder if they are open today. All the places in town are closed because no power.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 10:09 AM (mpXpK)

147 Citizen of the Galaxy still holds up and when the kid talks about being a slave and nobody believes him until he shows his tattoo number because their is no slavery today rings so true. Slavery is still going on especially in the Middle East and Africa because of the Religion of peace.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 10:10 AM (dKiJG)

148 Speaking of Piece of Cake,

Robinson on his website writes a little piece every so often. One time, he talked about how RAF veterans sent complaints to him. One letter was a short note that said:

"Have you considered another occupation? Like a brothel doorman?"
The letter hangs in Robinson's bathroom, he stated.

Posted by: Delaforce at September 16, 2018 10:10 AM (eVIA2)

149 Yeah. I think I might be fighting some kind of bug. I rolled over this morning and slept in which is unusual for me. WeaselWoman teaches preschool and brings home a lot of germs from the chirrun'.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:10 AM (MVjcR)

150 My father (Navy pilot in the Pacific) own reaction
to the bowdlerized version I was given in the 50s and 60s was kind of
like having my own private Procopius. He'd usually end his anecdotes
with "Never mention this to your mother."



Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:06 AM (59GGI)

---
Some years ago I came into possession of a flight log from World War II. Transport pilot. One notation in early 1945 was "B.J. in Paree! Ooo la la!"

Yeah, they were freaking saints.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:10 AM (B/PO4)

151 That was the one where the three black ladies did invented all the hard math and saved those white boys' asses, right?

Altered for you.

Posted by: Google.com at September 16, 2018 10:11 AM (g7ulT)

152 One of my favorite Kliban cartoons had an old man with a cane talking, and the caption "It was hell", Recalls Former Child

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 16, 2018 10:12 AM (kQs4Y)

153 WeaselWoman teaches preschool and brings home a lot of germs from the chirrun'.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:10 AM (MVjcR)



The nice thing about WW's and your constant exposure to measles virus,

makes it less likely that you'll get shingles.*



* #OptimisticScience

Posted by: naturalfake at September 16, 2018 10:14 AM (CRRq9)

154 Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (S6Pax)

Extra Credits History just made (or at least Littlest Kidlet just watched) a video about the Marianas Turkey Shoot. What I thought was important was that the brass, who weren't on site, had written off the American forces as a loss before fighting started. And then some guy became an ace in 8 minutes. That disconnect between staff expectations and force achievement seems to show up a lot.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 16, 2018 10:15 AM (uquGJ)

155 Can someone tell me where to find that picture of a girl in the forest reading the giant book? I'd love to purchase a print. I've tried finding the image on the internet but no luck so far. Don't know the title of it.
Posted by: Semi-engaged Scroller at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (RfnqA)


Here's the site I use: tineye.com

https://tinyurl.com/y8cwzmb4

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:15 AM (y87Qq)

156 Can someone tell me where to find that picture of a girl in the forest reading the giant book?

Google's best guess is that it's from Lao-Tzu's The Art of War. They truly are the elite.

Posted by: t-bird at September 16, 2018 10:15 AM (oTMWb)

157 That was moi, and yes, I too felt the relationship was a little abrupt, but then, they were telepathically linked so attraction and compatibility would be evident rather quickly.

And I am just starting The Door Into Summer!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 16, 2018 09:56 AM (kQs4Y)

It's just that there was little hint of it developing other than the telepathy. But that's also a sign of his Juveniles - no romance. I suspect he wanted to draw it out more, but Scribners put the kibosh on it. I'm surprised they let he and his brother's girlfriend in there.

Door is one of my go-to favorites.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 10:16 AM (AEeCX)

158 For those who want to sample an audio book or hear the whole thing, Youtube has a lot of that. Lets me get a feel for narrators at no cost.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 10:17 AM (V+03K)

159 Some years ago I came into possession of a flight log from World War II. Transport pilot. One notation in early 1945 was "B.J. in Paree! Ooo la la!"

Yeah, they were freaking saints.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:10 AM (B/PO4)


Over 40 years ago I was helping my mother go through some papers of her father's. She figured I'd be interested in the WWI parts, when he was a Spad pilot. She was a bit shaken by obvious evidence that my grandfather had been bonking some girl in Rome in early 1918. I kept arguing that he hadn't yet even met my grandmother. so what did she expect.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:17 AM (59GGI)

160 Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

I was a Stranger fan when I first read it. Years later, read it again, didn't stand up too well. Thinking now I'd have a hard time getting through it again. I grew up.

(Kind of the opposite of my history with reading Moby Dick. Couldn't finish it the first time (school assignment), woke up the Mrs laughing at it last time.)

Stranger: I recall Jubal talking about how you can't really appreciate the Koran if not in the original Arabic. I knew nothing about the Koran then. I do now. wtf?

The most prescient scene in Stranger has always stuck with me. Reporter character (IIRC) got in an unmanned automated taxi... which was remotely hijacked and he went missing for a week. Yes, let's have cars like that!

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for toon series on transportation at September 16, 2018 10:18 AM (cNEwX)

161 Cute little poem up there, about English. I do so enjoy wordplay. Much more than number play. Unless it's foreplay.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 10:18 AM (cY3LT)

162 95 In a holding pattern - rereading Time Enough for Love. . . .

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 09:46 AM (AEeCX)

***

First read Time Enough for Love in 1976 and it has been one of the books I have tended to reread across the years.

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at September 16, 2018 09:59 AM (NqQAS)a

My favorite vignette in it is "The Man Too Lazy to Fail."

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 10:18 AM (AEeCX)

163 I've got some of Robinson books I need to read if I get the time.
There's one called the Eldordo Network, which is one of the spy movels OM was talking about.
Based on the real spy codenamed "Garbo"', the book follows the exploits of the Spaniard Luis Cabrillo who sets up the Germans a fake system of spies in Britain, from his office in Madrid.

Posted by: Delaforce at September 16, 2018 10:19 AM (eVIA2)

164 I don't want to zoom in on the book titles and negate my own hypothesis, but my money is on treehouse and really great parents. I would've loved to have had something like that when I was ten.
Posted by: Moron Robbie: I choose to live my life as a black woman at September 16, 2018 09:36 AM (wkPQ

------

When I was 10-14 my younger brother and I had a tipi we'd built on the mountainside across from the house. It was made of tarps and deadfall, so not beautiful, but big, strong, and weatherproof. We would live in it about half the half the year (which my parents loved).

It had a little library, a lantern, a little firepit, cookstove, and shortwave radio. We used the pond for baths, and basically just went home for supplies. We also built a few adjacent shanties and a smaller tipi for our friends to stay in and stage mock battles with pinecones and rocks.

I always look back on that wistfully. The life of a semi-feral child but with books.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at September 16, 2018 10:19 AM (5aX2M)

165 The Air Force Museum has the written complaint on the Doolittle's Raiders party.


Speaking of that. TARGET TOKYO is a good read on the Dolittle raid, I learned some new things I didn't know, he does dig up records of the damage they did and eye witness accounts.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 10:19 AM (dKiJG)

166 Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:47 AM (59GGI)

Been listening to a lot of "thriller" type books set just before/during WWI and both English and American authors show the Germans with that complete blindness to other nations' abilities and willingness to fight. They, or at least the Germans in military command, are shown as having completely bought into a cult of Prussian superiority.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 16, 2018 10:20 AM (uquGJ)

167 Parts of it are funny, and in it he does describe a water bed, which I guess he sort of invented by thinking it up.

I read someplace (in a galaxy long ago and far away) that somebody tried to patent the waterbed.

And was denied, citing Heinlein as "prior art".

Should have gotten credit for the cell phone, too (Space cadet, almost the first paragraph).

Posted by: Fox2! at September 16, 2018 10:20 AM (brIR5)

168 Don't know the title of it.
Posted by: Semi-engaged Scroller at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (RfnqA)


It may not have one; sorting by largest image size, it looks like the original is one of several in this collection:

http://www.rosiehardy.com/1145-self-portraits

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:20 AM (y87Qq)

169 All this talk about the Heilein juveniles has me interested. Haven't read any of them for decades but still have all my old paperback copies.

The first one I read, back in second grade, was "The Rolling Stones". Might start with that one. I was also fond of "Tunnel in the Sky".

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 10:20 AM (V+03K)

170
The nice thing about WW's and your constant exposure to measles virus,

makes it less likely that you'll get shingles.*



* #OptimisticScience
Posted by: naturalfake at September 16, 2018 10:14 AM (CRRq9)
-----
Well what do you know. Hadn't thought of that. I also got part 1 of the shingles vaccine recently.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:22 AM (MVjcR)

171 I like the English is hard to learn. On the way over from the old country (Finland), my Dad and Uncles had, of all things in the twentieth century, McGuffy readers. Another quaint story. About a week in the "new world" one of my uncles thought a tomato was an apple, bit into it and made a general mess of things.

Posted by: bill in arkansas at September 16, 2018 10:23 AM (xzqr4)

172 Over 40 years ago I was helping my mother go through
some papers of her father's. She figured I'd be interested in the WWI
parts, when he was a Spad pilot. She was a bit shaken by obvious
evidence that my grandfather had been bonking some girl in Rome in early
1918. I kept arguing that he hadn't yet even met my grandmother. so
what did she expect.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:17 AM (59GGI)

---
I have my great-grandfather's letters home from the AEF and my great-grandmothers letters to him. I intended to publish them but my father refused on the grounds that they are personal. He's fine with them coming out after everyone who knew them personally is gone.

Anyhow, a little-known policy that had a bad effect was that VD cases were held back from demobilization until they were treated. My ancestor was in Pershing's honor guard, and did the tour of all the European capitals, including marching under the Arc de Triumph on July 14, 1919. An elite unit, right?

Wrong. He writes that after the policy became public, all the guys in his outfit got "dear John" letters from their sweethearts because it was assumed they'd got the clap from some French trollop. He describes morale as being rock-bottom.

So when you see pictures of the victory parades, know that the GIs marching past are PISSED.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:24 AM (B/PO4)

173 Good Morning Book Horde!I'm headed out on a much needed vacation tomorrow to Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, Virginia Beach locale, and since I'm going to see sites of Naval History and Colonial history, I figured a good book to read would be Evan Thomas's biography of John Paul Jones, a father of the American Navy. I've already scouted out some used book stores in the area, so I hope I won't come home empty handed.

Posted by: josephistan at September 16, 2018 10:26 AM (Izzlo)

174 Just finished reading "Friday Night Lights." It came out in the late 80's and its interesting to see how it aged. Overall its a good read, but Bizzinger is a snobby urban liberal, and that does bleed into the writing a bit. They way he writes about small town Texans feels like an early version of those pieces about liberals exploring Trump country.

Posted by: Biggs Darklighter at September 16, 2018 10:26 AM (Bto+S)

175
Posted by: josephistan at September 16, 2018 10:26 AM (Izzlo)
-------
Have a good time! CW and the rest of the area is great.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:27 AM (MVjcR)

176 I have read and enjoyed a good number of Martin Middlebrook's histories over the years but I had never read Convoy about a big U Boat wolf pack v. escorted convoy battle in mid March 1943. Middlebrook describes it as a climactic battle but it was recognized as such only later. The U Boats sank eighteen ships so the ones that reach England were more survivors than victors. Only in retrospect can it be seen that U Boats never did as well again.

The biggest surprises were that the damn Krauts were reading our mail and that there was no on-site wolf pack commander; Admiral Doenitz was ordering individual U Boats about from back in Berlin. German intelligence had broken our naval code and were frequently able to read our radio messages as quickly as the intended recipients.

Middlebrook is a good writer in that he presents the big picture and technical details but does not obscure the human drama, the agony of men, or, in this book which includes civilian passengers, the agony of women and children.

One caveat for anyone considering reading Middlebrook, his method is lengthy exposition sections explaining what happened to get us to where we are, the equipment involved, the strategy and tactics of the participants, and describing the people involved. The first third of his books is devoted to such before the first torpedo is launched. The detail involved may be a little much for some readers although personally I find it fascinating.

Middlebrook, an Englishman, has written many books on the air war focusing primarily on Bomber Command although he did author one about the Schweinfurt/Regensburg double strike mission of the US Air Corps.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 10:28 AM (+y/Ru)

177 I'm reading "Fifty Shades of Grey" so I'll know what the next Senate hearing will be like.

Just kidding. I'm reading "Rain Man".

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at September 16, 2018 10:29 AM (Ndje9)

178 I've been reading a good amount about how-to some things and history. Now I'm getting in the mood for some straight-forward, exquisite writing. In that vein, I'm getting out my copies of EB White and Montaigne's essays. They are worth reading just for their excellent writing. The topic doesn't matter.

Posted by: JTB at September 16, 2018 10:30 AM (V+03K)

179 Those pants.
Etsy boyfriend sure is a tough gig

Posted by: Dharma Institute at September 16, 2018 10:30 AM (u8R6W)

180 166 Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:47 AM (59GGI)

Been listening to a lot of "thriller" type books set just before/during WWI and both English and American authors show the Germans with that complete blindness to other nations' abilities and willingness to fight. They, or at least the Germans in military command, are shown as having completely bought into a cult of Prussian superiority.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at September 16, 2018 10:20 AM (uquGJ)


I don't like drawing Big Lessons, but it does seem that they so perfected maneuver warfare on land (IIRC, they invented the idea of the Operational level between tactics and strategy) that they became overly focused on it.

Masters of maneuver warfare are fun to read about; they provide us the great battles. But we should remember that, from Hannibal onward, many of them have lost in the end.

However, other countries have done the same thing. I believe that one historical problem the Brits have had is that for so much of history all their experience has been centered around "little wars" that they have trouble adapting to Euro-level conflict. And we too have had trouble when we encountered a situation where our normal Produce the Shit Out of Everything mode doesn't really solve the problem.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:31 AM (59GGI)

181 Posted by: josephistan at September 16, 2018 10:26 AM (Izzlo)

Welcome to Tidewater!

I've found the Williamsburg/Yorktown/Jamestown triangle fascinating. It's the entire - from beginning (Jamestown), middle (Williamsburg), and end (Yorktown) of our colonial history, all in one place. Don't forget, there's two Yorktown museums, state and federal, but only one is at the battlefield (state).

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 10:31 AM (AEeCX)

182 Currently working on "The Abdication of the American Physician: How Greed and the Overregulation Destroyed Healthcare" by S. Muldoon

Chapters include "Defining Disease Downward", "From Physician to Provider" and "Shrinking Normal".

Stay tuned.

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 10:31 AM (m45I2)

183 With Apollo 8 man saw the first Earthrise, and the astronauts read from Genesis. It was a hopeful coda to the end of a horrible year, 1968.

I've posted here before that Apollo 8 was a bigger deal than Apollo 11 IMHO.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 10:31 AM (1UZdv)

184 I was going through pictures of my Grandpa in the Navy with him and he was explaining how they met some HeadHunters in New Zealand and then I found some pictures of these really pretty girls and he started to laugh he picked up some Australian girls told me about some and how one he snuck out the window because some won't wake you up in time to catch your ship and you would be Awal and so would have to marry the girl and stay in order to escape jail from the US Navy, because every American was rich. He had a lot of pictures. He also said don't get married until you're 30 I got married at 29

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 10:32 AM (dKiJG)

185 174
Just finished reading "Friday Night Lights." It came out in the late
80's and its interesting to see how it aged. Overall its a good read,
but Bizzinger is a snobby urban liberal, and that does bleed into the
writing a bit. They way he writes about small town Texans feels like an
early version of those pieces about liberals exploring Trump country.

Posted by: Biggs Darklighter at September 16, 2018 10:26 AM (Bto+S)

---
My local library carried this and I spent some time skimming through it but decided against checking it out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a theme of the book how AWFUL it is that these poor young men, these, these CHILDREN are forced to make life decisions at the tender age of 17?

You know, like men in every other population in every other epoch of history? That's the vibe I picked up and why I couldn't get into it. There's a certain variety of soft-handed urbane liberal who thinks that pushing major decision-making into their early 30s is enlightened rather than being decadent and indecisive, which is what it really is.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:32 AM (B/PO4)

186 I'm reading "Fifty Shades of Grey" so I'll know what the next Senate hearing will be like.

Just kidding. I'm reading "Rain Man".
Posted by: The Gipper Lives at September 16, 2018 10:29 AM (Ndje9)


After that, pick up "Lord Of the Flies."

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 10:33 AM (cY3LT)

187 I saw Intergalactic Freakshow open for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at the Civic Theatre in '78.

Posted by: JAS at September 16, 2018 10:33 AM (3HNOQ)

188 With Apollo 8 man saw the first Earthrise, and the astronauts read from Genesis. It was a hopeful coda to the end of a horrible year, 1968.


Yeah. I know y'all are 29, but 1968 was full of assassinations and war and riots and protest and everything felt like it was coming apart, and then we went around the Moon on Christmas and saw the Earthrise.

It was really quite a thing.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:35 AM (fuK7c)

189 The nice thing about WW's and your constant exposure to measles virus,

makes it less likely that you'll get shingles.*



*******


Ahem. Perhaps you meant to type "varicella (chickenpox) virus", no?

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 10:36 AM (m45I2)

190
162

My favorite vignette in it is "The Man Too Lazy to Fail."
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 10:18 AM (AEeCX)

***

That section is a delight to read!

I was acquainted with a few pilots when I was in the USAF and his characterizations of the pilots are spot on.

I like thinking that David Lamb is still lazing in his hammock . . . .

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at September 16, 2018 10:36 AM (NqQAS)

191 Ya'll, the Brethren and Cistern joke comes from the mind wondering what the name for religious "sisters" might be that corresponds with "Brethren" (brothers). There isn't one, at least not with the same spelling structure. The brain says "Sistren" which sounds weird, then naturally moves to "Cistern", which is a known word meaning nothing like "sister".

Then a lunatic genius like B. Kliban comes along and confuses the shit out of a bunch of folks who need more coffee.

Posted by: Sharkman at September 16, 2018 10:37 AM (fRQju)

192 177
I'm reading "Fifty Shades of Grey" so I'll know what the next Senate hearing will be like.



Just kidding. I'm reading "Rain Man".

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at September 16, 2018 10:29 AM (Ndje9)

---
Fifty Shades of Grey actually inspired my Man of Destiny series.

No wait, it's not like that.

As everyone should know, Fifty was actually fan fiction for "Twilight." It got a good response so the author ripped out the supernatural elements and - presto! Best-seller with movie rights.

My wife read both book series and remarked to me one day that I could do the same thing with the Star Wars prequels. She knew I hated them and had lots of ideas with how to fix them, but the copyright thing was an issue.

So I changed the setting, made up my own unique characters (though some do resemble other ones) and I was off to the races.

There. That's my obligatory shameless self-promotion for this week.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:37 AM (B/PO4)

193 open for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at the Civic Theatre in '78.


Bowie was in Berlin in '78 not performing.

Yeah, I'm being a dick.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:37 AM (fuK7c)

194 Don't we, in English, just say "Dickensian"?
Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 09:20 AM (59GGI)

Dickensian usually implies more coal soot and tuberculosis than bildungsroman does.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 09:22 AM (y87Qq)

...and maybe a poorhouse.

Posted by: BignJames at September 16, 2018 10:37 AM (0+nbW)

195 187
I saw Intergalactic Freakshow open for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at the Civic Theatre in '78.

Posted by: JAS at September 16, 2018 10:33 AM (3HNOQ)

---
There is such a thing as the Intergalactic Touring Band. Album's quite good.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:38 AM (B/PO4)

196 Churchill may have thought Cromwell was a bad dude, but he did admire him anyway. He got into a semi-serious tiff with King George V while he was serving as First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill submitted a list of names for battleships under construction, and the King stridently objected to Cromwell being on the list (I guess it made his neck tingle). Churchill grumbled and took it off, but then two years later at the next appropriation bill for new ships . . . there's Cromwell again! I don't know how many times Winston tried to sneak Oliver into the Navy. I think he finally got the name put on a destroyer.

Posted by: Trimegistus at September 16, 2018 10:39 AM (4mD7U)

197 168
It may not have one; sorting by largest image size, it looks like the original is one of several in this collection:

http://www.rosiehardy.com/1145-self-portraits
Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:20 AM (y87Qq)


A lot of those are pretty neat. Future possibilities for the Art Thread?

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 10:39 AM (sdi6R)

198
Thanks, OM for the book thread. "The Caribean Job" hits my price point and those Medival Book Curses hit my funny bone. A twofer.

Posted by: Clifford Cleveland Global Initative For Sustainable Resource Extraction at September 16, 2018 10:41 AM (I9Sw7)

199 '76?

Posted by: JAS at September 16, 2018 10:41 AM (3HNOQ)

200 I really want to read White Gold, it's by the author as CHURCHILL'S MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE it's about the slave trade of the Barbary Coast of Europeans being kidnapped and sold as slaves and their treatment.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 10:42 AM (dKiJG)

201 184 I was going through pictures of my Grandpa in the Navy with him and he was explaining how they met some HeadHunters in New Zealand and then I found some pictures of these really pretty girls and he started to laugh he picked up some Australian girls told me about some and how one he snuck out the window because some won't wake you up in time to catch your ship and you would be Awal and so would have to marry the girl and stay in order to escape jail from the US Navy, because every American was rich. He had a lot of pictures. He also said don't get married until you're 30 I got married at 29
Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 16, 2018 10:32 AM (dKiJG)


Dad was in Australia in WWII. He said the great thing was that there were no able-bodied Aussie men; they'd all been in the service forever. The ratio was wholly in his favor. They were even lodged in men's dorms in a university, the dorms being empty.

He always said that if he couldn't live here, Australia would be his 2nd choice.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:43 AM (59GGI)

202 189 The nice thing about WW's and your constant exposure to measles virus,

makes it less likely that you'll get shingles.*

*******
Ahem. Perhaps you meant to type "varicella (chickenpox) virus", no?
Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 10:36 AM (m45I2)
-------
I'll take all the help I can get!!

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 10:43 AM (MVjcR)

203 Currently working on "The Abdication of the American Physician: How Greed and the Overregulation Destroyed Healthcare" by S. Muldoon

Chapters include "Defining Disease Downward", "From Physician to Provider" and "Shrinking Normal".

Stay tuned.
Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 10:31 AM (m45I2)


"Defining Disease Downward," that's the mental health industrial complex in a nutshell. It's not a crisis, just because you FEEL bad, cupcake. Grow up. This is life.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 10:44 AM (cY3LT)

204 Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at September 16, 2018 10:36 AM (NqQAS)

His description of Navy life, especially the hazing, cannot be disputed.

Of course, he attended Annapolis and was a Naval Officer, so it would be malpractice to tell the story any other way. I suspect, based on his first short-lived marriage, that David's indiscretion was author-biographical.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 10:45 AM (AEeCX)

205 I think he finally got the name put on a destroyer.
Posted by: Trimegistus at September 16, 2018 10:39 AM (4mD7U)


That was in WWII, under George VI. Completed too late to serve, but active in the postwar fleet.

Posted by: George LeS at September 16, 2018 10:45 AM (59GGI)

206 "Varicella"

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 10:36 AM (m45I2)

Doesn't that cause those ugly veins in old people's legs?

Didn't know there was a vaccine for it!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 16, 2018 10:45 AM (wYseH)

207 I didn't get the cartoon either.
Now I think it's the weekly Dune reference.

Grover Gardner has a very distinctive voice, but not immediately pleasing. If not my favorite narrator I'd say he's definitely in my top 3.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at September 16, 2018 10:46 AM (PpAPO)

208 Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a theme of the book how AWFUL it is that these poor young men, these, these CHILDREN are forced to make life decisions at the tender age of 17?

You know, like men in every other population in every other epoch of history? That's the vibe I picked up and why I couldn't get into it. There's a certain variety of soft-handed urbane liberal who thinks that pushing major decision-making into their early 30s is enlightened rather than being decadent and indecisive, which is what it really is.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:32 AM (B/PO4)


The need to extend childhood indefinitely is a tool of the statists which includes way too many Repukes.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 10:47 AM (y7DUB)

209 A lot of those are pretty neat. Future possibilities for the Art Thread?
Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 10:39 AM (sdi6R)


Some are a little too-cute-by-half artsy for my taste, but there are some really nice ones. I don't know, have we ever done a strictly digitally-retouched photography art thread?

fwiw my favorite is
https://tinyurl.com/yawzrd9u

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:48 AM (y87Qq)

210 143 Can someone tell me where to find that picture of a girl in the forest reading the giant book? I'd love to purchase a print. I've tried finding the image on the internet but no luck so far. Don't know the title of it.

Posted by: Semi-engaged Scroller at September 16, 2018 10:08 AM (RfnqA)


That pic has been on my HD for at least a couple of years now, forget where I originally got it from, sorry.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 10:49 AM (qQN+z)

211 The need to extend childhood indefinitely is a tool of the statists which includes way too many Repukes.

Lawnmower mom.

Posted by: Clifford Cleveland Global Initative For Sustainable Resource Extraction at September 16, 2018 10:50 AM (I9Sw7)

212 "The need to extend childhood indefinitely is a tool of the statists..."

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 10:47 AM (y7DUB)

This is quite true, and I find it particularly galling in healthcare.

Infantilization of patients is a tool to make us accepting of the intrusions of the state into our personal relationship with the physician, and by the physician (mostly the office staff) to make us compliant.

It starts by calling you by your first name!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 16, 2018 10:51 AM (wYseH)

213 War and Peace? Dare I?

-
When I first read War and Peace, I was expecting a romantic novel of desperate cavalry charges into the mouths of cannon and passionate love affairs with beautiful women. It's not that. It's a realistic, psychological novel of imperfect people. Much of it concerns the frequently ridiculous inner most thoughts that we all, well, not me but you all, have. For example, at one point our heroine hears a sermon on forgiving your enemies and she wishes she had more enemies so she could forgive them.

Norman Mailer was reading a lot of Tolstoy when he was writing The Naked and the Dead and you can see the influence in his writing. If you liked TNatD, you may well like WaP although TNatD may be more accessible given that it is about our familiar culture rather than a vanished Russian one.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 10:51 AM (+y/Ru)

214 have we ever done a strictly digitally-retouched photography art thread?


Have we ever had photography in an art thread?


I'm a big fan of emulsion and chemistry photography, I hate digital manipulation.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)

215 9 My book about the Battle of Lake Erie will go on sale October 1st.

Well researched and exiting, the book follows Midshipman James Alexander Perry through the events of the daring victory of America over the British in the War of 1812.

Ebook is available for pre-order now. Paperback well be available October 1st.

https://amzn.to/2pc99bX
Posted by: TheJamesMadison's Phone at September 16, 2018 09:05 AM (LlB9z),

Ok, TJM, done. Just curious, do you get notifications, etc. when there's a purchase? And why can you pre-order the Kindle version, but not the paperback?

Posted by: Gem at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (XoAz8)

216 Paul Johnson, the conservative historian, has a short history of Ireland. He's quite critical of Cromwell in Ireland, and says that for Drogheda alone Britain lost all moral authority to rule Ireland forever.

From the Irish perspective, Cromwell truly was Hitler. I would have strangled him in his crib.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 10:53 AM (1UZdv)

217 I hate digital manipulation.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)

Yup...

Posted by: Bandersnatch's high school girlfriend at September 16, 2018 10:54 AM (wYseH)

218 dang
late to the book thread

Posted by: votermom pimping NEW Moron-authored books! at September 16, 2018 10:55 AM (CE6iV)

219 I hate digital manipulation.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)

Yup...
Posted by: Bandersnatch's high school girlfriend at September 16, 2018 10:54 AM (wYseH)


Seconded.

Posted by: Bander's Nose at September 16, 2018 10:55 AM (cY3LT)

220 Doesn't that cause those ugly veins in old people's legs?

Didn't know there was a vaccine for it!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 16, 2018 10:45 AM (wYseH)

---------

You're thinking of bellicose veins.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at September 16, 2018 10:55 AM (ZX8Kg)

221 Two hundred comments in one hour!

I finished the Stainless Steel Rat trifecta. Recommended.

Now it's time to tackle the logjam at home.

First up: "The Saint in Miami," published 1940. I like prewar fiction for the clues they offer to life in that era. Given time, I could expound on this topic for paragraphs on end.

But no time, so you lucked out.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 16, 2018 10:55 AM (dc/J9)

222 Posted by: Bandersnatch's high school girlfriend


Yeah, yeah. I saw the handjob joke about two nanoseconds after posting.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:56 AM (fuK7c)

223 211 The need to extend childhood indefinitely is a tool of the statists which includes way too many Repukes.

Lawnmower mom.

Posted by: Clifford Cleveland Global Initative For Sustainable Resource Extraction at September 16, 2018 10:50 AM (I9Sw7)


Lawnmower mom > wine mom.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 10:56 AM (qQN+z)

224 This is my kind of thread.

Book 'em, Danni!

Posted by: Steve McGarrett at September 16, 2018 10:56 AM (uNc6Q)

225 I'm a big fan of emulsion and chemistry photography, I hate digital manipulation.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)


Digital manipulation photography is fine by me so long as the digital part doesn't demand all the attention and serves the fundamentals of the photograph (composure, exposure, focus, etc). Sometimes you can use digital processing to pull out things that were there in the original but would be difficult or impossible to enhance with traditional techniques.

It must be very hard to do, though, or else the temptation to just go nuts with Photoshop is overwhelming, because it seems pretty rare that it's done tastefully and not excessively.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:57 AM (y87Qq)

226 Yeah, yeah.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:56 AM (fuK7c)

Least Common Denominator = AoSHQ comments

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 16, 2018 10:57 AM (wYseH)

227
Critical of Cromwell.

If we don't return to an even-handed rule of law instead of this bifurcated Democrats-can-do-no-wrong and the Republicans-are-evil division between the political left and right, then we will one day get a Cromwell of our own.

And with the Path that Merry Old England is on now, they are going to get another Cromwell, one way or another.

Posted by: Clifford Cleveland Global Initative For Sustainable Resource Extraction at September 16, 2018 10:58 AM (I9Sw7)

228 I hate digital manipulation.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)

Yup...
Posted by: Bandersnatch's high school girlfriend at September 16, 2018 10:54 AM (wYseH)


Seconded.
Posted by: Bander's Nose at September 16, 2018 10:55 AM


Thirded.

Posted by: Bander's proctologist at September 16, 2018 10:58 AM (uNc6Q)

229 Yeah, yeah. I saw the handjob joke about two nanoseconds after posting.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:56 AM (fuK7c)
---
Well, there's always oral manipulation. I mean, since we're going there...

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 10:59 AM (B/PO4)

230 or did I mean composition and not composure

hrmmm

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 10:59 AM (y87Qq)

231 Those atreen't samovars on the bed, those are bed warmers

Posted by: Semilitterate at September 16, 2018 11:00 AM (RxJp2)

232 With Apollo 8 man saw the first Earthrise, and the astronauts read from Genesis. It was a hopeful coda to the end of a horrible year, 1968.


Yeah. I know y'all are 29, but 1968 was full of assassinations and war and riots and protest and everything felt like it was coming apart, and then we went around the Moon on Christmas and saw the Earthrise.

-
I watched Chappaquiddick last night. They emphasized that as man was landing on the moon, Teddy's Caddy was landing in the water. One of Teddy'e sleazebag associates jokes that Teddy's older brother has made it possible for the Chappaquiddick dip to be buried in the news cycle under the moon landing.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 11:00 AM (+y/Ru)

233 Paul Johnson, the conservative historian, has a short history of Ireland. He's quite critical of Cromwell in Ireland, and says that for Drogheda alone Britain lost all moral authority to rule Ireland forever.

From the Irish perspective, Cromwell truly was Hitler. I would have strangled him in his crib.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 10:53 AM (1UZdv)


Pogues' song, Young Ned of the Hill contains this line chorus:

A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell
You who raped our Motherland
I hope you're rotting down in hell
For the horrors that you sent
To our misfortunate forefathers
Whom you robbed of their birthright
"To hell or Connaught" may you burn in hell tonight


My thinking is "come on, people, get over it." But, you know, Irish.

Posted by: Bander's Nose at September 16, 2018 11:00 AM (cY3LT)

234 225 I'm a big fan of emulsion and chemistry photography, I hate digital manipulation.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)

--------

So you'd rather see those eight foot-tall chicks in the chess thread at their original munchkin-size stature?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at September 16, 2018 11:00 AM (ZX8Kg)

235 Dammit. Sock.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:02 AM (cY3LT)

236 Pogues' song, Young Ned of the Hill contains this line chorus:

A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell
You who raped our Motherland
I hope you're rotting down in hell
For the horrors that you sent
To our misfortunate forefathers
Whom you robbed of their birthright
"To hell or Connaught" may you burn in hell tonight


My thinking is "come on, people, get over it." But, you know, Irish.
Posted by: Bander's Nose




Ahem. I'm going to generously attribute that to a sock fail.

Last time we talked about Cromwell I posted those lyrics and someone told me something about "then don't lose".

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:03 AM (fuK7c)

237 Least Common Denominator = AoSHQ comments
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 16, 2018 10:57 AM


That seems somewhat excessively cynical, even for a New York Cityer.

Would some excellent maple syrup improve your day?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at September 16, 2018 11:04 AM (uNc6Q)

238 Ireland has higher GDP per capita than Britain, and has more upside. And ranked #2 in World Rugby.

Living well is the best revenge.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:05 AM (1UZdv)

239 Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:03 AM (fuK7c)

Who's 7c, and what did they do to piss you off?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at September 16, 2018 11:06 AM (uNc6Q)

240 Posted by: Bander's Nose



Ahem. I'm going to generously attribute that to a sock fail.

Last time we talked about Cromwell I posted those lyrics and someone told me something about "then don't lose".
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:03 AM (fuK7c)


Yes, sock fail.

I think there's a common thread that exists in human history, where the writing of history, particularly the winners and losers, causes untold misery for future generations of the losers.

It's a collective shame that, regardless of the facts involved, doesn't help with the moving forward process.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:07 AM (cY3LT)

241 I'm a big fan of emulsion and chemistry photography, I hate digital manipulation.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (fuK7c)


I understand the esthetic appeal of a black and white print on a paper rich with silver or some other base metal, but frankly the chemicals involved aren't good for the health of people doing it, particularly in a less than well ventilated darkroom like in my basement, for example. Color prints are a whole different genre imo and I don't have a problem with manipulating images all over the place digitally, like my wife constantly does with stunning results that don't impact her health negatively.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 11:07 AM (y7DUB)

242 dang
late to the book thread
Posted by: votermom pimping NEW Moron-authored books! at September 16, 2018 10:55 AM (CE6iV)


Hello, votermom. Welcome to the book thread. Topics include bildungsroman, tea service in bed, circumlunar flight, digitally-enhanced photography, Kliban cartoons, Oliver Cromwell, wartime memoirs, and

*squints at list*

"Banderwanks".

Huh.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 11:08 AM (y87Qq)

243 196 Churchill may have thought Cromwell was a bad dude, but he did admire him anyway. He got into a semi-serious tiff with King George V while he was serving as First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill submitted a list of names for battleships under construction, and the King stridently objected to Cromwell being on the list (I guess it made his neck tingle). Churchill grumbled and took it off, but then two years later at the next appropriation bill for new ships . . . there's Cromwell again! I don't know how many times Winston tried to sneak Oliver into the Navy. I think he finally got the name put on a destroyer.
Posted by: Trimegistus at September 16, 2018 10:39 AM (4mD7U)

They had no problem naming a WWII tank after Cromwell.

Posted by: josephistan at September 16, 2018 11:08 AM (Izzlo)

244 Looking at the looting picture on Drudge (they don't seem too worried about getting arrested, do they?) and wondering why no one ever seems to loot libraries.

Posted by: pookysgirl at September 16, 2018 11:09 AM (XKZwp)

245 Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:03 AM (fuK7c)

Who's 7c, and what did they do to piss you off?
Posted by: Duncanthrax at September 16, 2018 11:06 AM (uNc6Q)


I live upstairs. I don't get it either.


Posted by: Ollie Cormwell, Apt 7C at September 16, 2018 11:10 AM (cY3LT)

246

Should have gotten credit for the cell phone, too (Space cadet, almost the first paragraph).


Ahh, the Tom Corbett sci-fi series. Luved it back when I was a real, live boy. Good times.


And Tom Swift books, too.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 11:10 AM (HaL55)

247 Another Dem "moderate" who won't comment on why she supported a Communist dictator.


https://tinyurl.com/y7e4njeq

Posted by: HA at September 16, 2018 11:10 AM (MAstk)

248 Got any books to talk about, Cuntrad?

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 11:11 AM (y7DUB)

249
I prefer "tossed like a bag of rotten potatoes".
(And the Secret Service agent probably felt and overwhelming need to wash his hands.)

Posted by: Randy Westerfeld at September 16, 2018 11:12 AM (/Y+z7)

250 I own the discs for that and have watched it a few times, and I don't recall Moggy being a murderer.

-
I've forgotten the details but when some big shot was going to blow the whistle on some of his shenanigans, Moggy strafed his car killing him.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 11:13 AM (+y/Ru)

251 Trolling the book thread. Pathetic.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:13 AM (cY3LT)

252 Hiya !

Posted by: JT at September 16, 2018 11:14 AM (XSPsI)

253 Speaking of bildungsroman, I just finished this book called "Mr. Toppit" by Charles Elton about the family of a man who writes a Narnia-esque series of children's novels and how it affects them, primarily his son who shares the same first name with the lead child character in the books. Mr. Toppit is the mysterious character who controls the fantasy world (sort of like Aslan). But this is a darkly comic adult novel with serious themes.

I enjoyed this very much. I would have loved for there to be more passages/descriptions of the Toppit books, though.

Posted by: Gem at September 16, 2018 11:14 AM (XoAz8)

254
Well, back to "The New Guinea Job". I'm just at the point where our dauntless heroes will struggle through obstacles to reach a happy ending.

By the time I've finished, the sun angle should be high enough that I can go outside and expose myself to natural sunlight.

Chow, he said phonetically.

Posted by: Clifford Cleveland Global Initative For Sustainable Resource Extraction at September 16, 2018 11:15 AM (I9Sw7)

255 245: if you want to survive a hurricane, just hang with the looters when it hits. seems like those assholes always survive and never lose power. i never see them stealing generators.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at September 16, 2018 11:15 AM (KP5rU)

256

You're thinking of bellicose veins.


No, no, no. That's the part you have clean out of shrimp before you eat them.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 11:16 AM (HaL55)

257 Would some excellent maple syrup improve your day?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at September 16, 2018 11:04 AM (uNc6Q)

I had chicken and waffles last night!

yes..I even tried the maple syrup.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 16, 2018 11:16 AM (wYseH)

258 my library doesn't have that book of curses, but it does have a book of Medieval calligraphy : its history and technique by the same author.

Posted by: votermom pimping NEW Moron-authored books! at September 16, 2018 11:17 AM (CE6iV)

259 They just issued a flash flood warning for my county over the phone. This was one of the reasons I wanted to get the local radio station but evidently it is off the air.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 11:18 AM (mpXpK)

260 Ohayo minna, how is everyone on this book thread? No one is gone with the tide I hope.

Busily writing a new short story. Thinking of rolling Pinch, Yuriko, and at least a couple new stories, including this one, into a new omnibus book with a possible $1.99 Kindle fee and maybe even a dead tree version. Might toss in part of the stalled Roma story where the good sisters with the statue are imperiled at sea.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 11:19 AM (xYiAv)

261 You're thinking of bellicose veins.

------------------------
No, no, no. That's the part you have clean out of shrimp before you eat them.
Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 11:16 AM (HaL55)


Who you calling shrimp, chum?

Eat me!!

Posted by: Bellicose Crustacean at September 16, 2018 11:19 AM (cY3LT)

262 I had chicken and waffles last night!


Didn't we fight an entire war with the South in order to be free of their culinary delusions?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:19 AM (fuK7c)

263 Apollo 8 straddled the line between bold and foolhardy. It was only the third launch of the Saturn V rocket. The first unmanned test, Apollo 4 in November 1967, went well, but a second unmanned flight, Apollo 6 in April 1968, was plagued with serious problems. It has been suggested that if Apollo 6 had carried a crew, the mission would have been aborted during launch.

NASA's engineers figured that they understood Apollo 6's problems well enough, so they put a crew on Apollo 8 and sent it to the Moon.

It's hard to imagine today's NASA taking such a risk. In fact, a common criticism is that they have become too risk-averse.

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 11:20 AM (sdi6R)

264 38 Ireland has higher GDP per capita than Britain...Living well is the best revenge.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:05 AM (1UZdv)


Seriously? Wow. I thought Ireland was a poor country. I thought that it had never quite recovered from the 19th century potato famine.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:22 AM (u7ERy)

265 It's hard to imagine today's NASA taking such a risk. In fact, a common criticism is that they have become too risk-averse.
Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 11:20 AM (sdi6R)


Blowing up the seemingly simple shuttle craft (and crew) will do that.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:22 AM (cY3LT)

266 I've forgotten the details but when some big shot
was going to blow the whistle on some of his shenanigans, Moggy strafed
his car killing him.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 11:13 AM (+y/Ru)

---That's not in the version I own. I'd remember that. Maybe in the book?

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 11:22 AM (B/PO4)

267 Ahem. Perhaps you meant to type "varicella (chickenpox) virus", no?

Posted by: Muldoon at September 16, 2018 10:36 AM (m45I2



Aw, hell. I did.

Stupid brain!


Thanks, Muldoon.

Posted by: naturalfake at September 16, 2018 11:23 AM (CRRq9)

268 One of the Earth-bound impacts of Apollo 8's flight around the moon occurred at Time magazine which scrapped plans to name "The Dissenter" as its Man of the Year. The three astronauts got that accolade instead.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 11:24 AM (xYiAv)

269 thanks hogmartin!

Posted by: votermom pimping NEW Moron-authored books! at September 16, 2018 11:24 AM (CE6iV)

270 Thanks for purging the troll, OM; you can delete my response if you want.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 11:25 AM (y7DUB)

271 " first manned vehicle to leave the Earth's orbit. Well, technically, the Moon is in Earth's orbit. Posted by: rickl
good point ... not sure of the technical definition of "orbit", but in general it seems to be a smaller mass "caught" in the gravity of a larger mass, thereby "circling" it in space.

is a sense, any two masses "orbit" each other, but one moves very little relative to the other. Since the Apollo was circling the moon, it was in a lunar orbit. At that point the moon was still orbiting earth, but didn't the spacecraft have to leave earth's orbit to get there?

idk, just asking pedantic questions.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 11:26 AM (Cus5s)

272 270 Thanks for purging the troll, OM; you can delete my response if you want.
Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 11:25 AM (y7DUB)


You're welcome, but it wasn't me. There must be some other cob lurking in the background.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:27 AM (u7ERy)

273 Maybe in the book?

-
Could be.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 11:27 AM (+y/Ru)

274 Thanks for the signal boost for A Rambling Wreck. I'm finishing up book 3: The Brave and the Bold, and it should be out in a few weeks.

Heinlein's juveniles are the archetype of what I think good science fiction should be: fast-paced, plot and character driven speculative fiction with a technical flare. My favorite Heinlein juvenile is Citizen of the Galaxy. I also very much enjoyed Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Door Into Summer, and The Puppet Masters. I've tried to emulate that style in my own writing.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at September 16, 2018 11:28 AM (1pQvR)

275 Seriously? Wow. I thought Ireland was a poor country. I thought that it had never quite recovered from the 19th century potato famine.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:22 AM (u7ERy)


They made out pretty well in the dot com boom iirc and elevated themselves to a plateau that stayed in place.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2018 11:28 AM (y7DUB)

276 "Seriously? Wow. I thought Ireland was a poor country."

You never heard of the Celtic Tiger. Ireland is one of the real life economic experiments of the last 40 years, Venezuela is another.

Why it's practically science.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:30 AM (1UZdv)

277 Looks like Amazon is republishing some of those old 60s/70s gothic-lite "young woman has an adventure and falls in love" novels under the stamp "Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries."

No idea who Nancy Pearl is, but this kind of thing is nostalgia crack for me. Plus, prime.

Posted by: Gem at September 16, 2018 11:32 AM (XoAz8)

278 They just issued a flash flood warning for my county over the phone.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 11:18 AM


Let the lootin' begin.

Posted by: Free Shit Army at September 16, 2018 11:34 AM (LOgQ4)

279 NASA is a pure bureaucracy. Money goes in, the right people get promoted and buy retirement villas and yachts. Anything useful that comes out is a bonus.

Posted by: klaftern at September 16, 2018 11:34 AM (RuIsu)

280 Since the Apollo was circling the moon, it was in a lunar orbit. At that point the moon was still orbiting earth, but didn't the spacecraft have to leave earth's orbit to get there?

idk, just asking pedantic questions.
Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 11:26 AM (Cus5s)


If I understand it right, it's orbiting the moon, which is orbiting earth, so the Apollo 8 CSM was in orbit around the moon, and also around the earth. And the sun. And Sagittarius A*.

https://tinyurl.com/y7vjtoxt

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 11:35 AM (y87Qq)

281 Archibald MacLeish writing in the New York Times after Apollo 8's lunar circumnavigation penned this -

"To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold - brothers who now know they are truly brothers."

The full essay is printed on pages 205-206 of We Reach The Moon first paperback edition as published within 72 hours of Apollo 11's splashdown.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 11:35 AM (xYiAv)

282 Ireland GDP per capita: US$53,648
Germany GDP per capita: US$47,966
Britain GDP per capita: US$46,461

Ireland gets some false lift from multinationals booking income there for tax reasons, but it now has a first word economy.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:35 AM (1UZdv)

283 Could be.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 16, 2018 11:27 AM (+y/Ru)
---
I'd heard that the book is a little more over-the-top than the tv version. The example you give of strafing a senior officer seems a little hard to pull off.

I've noticed that there are more than a few military fiction books that strain credulity and descend into outright absurdity. The book M*A*S*H is like this, making the villains almost cartoon caricatures rather than believable people.

The movie version is better.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 11:36 AM (B/PO4)

284 'Thanks for the signal boost for A Rambling Wreck.'

Ha! One of Hans' (Hans's's?) other books is "The Art and Science of Ultrawideband Antennas".

Hey Hans my #1 son is at Tech. I will get this for him and read it first.

Posted by: freaked at September 16, 2018 11:38 AM (UdKB7)

285 Seriously? Wow. I thought Ireland was a poor country. I thought that it had never quite recovered from the 19th century potato famine.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:22 AM (u7ERy)


Well, to be fair, all the Irish drunks now live in America. But I did once see an Irishman walk past a bar.

Posted by: Traveling Man &&&& at September 16, 2018 11:38 AM (JVddv)

286 Off the top of my head, I would expect that the moon's gravitational pull on Apollo 8 while in moon orbit was much greater than that of Earth, because of the squaring of distance in the formula, but I could be wrong,

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:39 AM (1UZdv)

287 Seriously? Wow. I thought Ireland was a poor country. I thought that it had never quite recovered from the 19th century potato famine.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:22 AM (u7ERy)

Well, to be fair, all the Irish drunks now live in America. But I did once see an Irishman walk past a bar.
Posted by: Traveling Man &&&& at September 16, 2018 11:38 AM (JVddv)


Now I know you're lying.

You said "walk."

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:40 AM (cY3LT)

288 286 Off the top of my head, I would expect that the moon's gravitational pull on Apollo 8 while in moon orbit was much greater than that of Earth, because of the squaring of distance in the formula, but I could be wrong,
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:39 AM (1UZdv)
------
Math warning!

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:40 AM (MVjcR)

289 Yes Apollo 8 did leave the controlling influence of Earth's gravity on its flight towards the Moon.

"At 3:30 P.M. on the third day, December 23, Apollo 8 crossed the great celestial divide. It passed out of the realm of space in which earth gravity dominates and into the moon's sphere of gravitational influence. ... It was the first time men had ever ventured into the gravity field of another body of the solar system."

Pg 190. ibid.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 11:42 AM (xYiAv)

290 Ireland gets some false lift from multinationals booking income there for tax reasons, but it now has a first word economy.


There's documentary footage of JFK visiting Ireland in 1963. It was a third world country.

It's completely changed. It had the Celtic Tiger thing starting in the late 80s with tech and the fact that the people speak English, sort of, and it's got the whole low corporate taxes you can stash your money here thing.

It's also thoroughly integrated into Europe now. Last I was there Dublin was more full of Poles and Africans than of Irish.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:43 AM (fuK7c)

291 Now I know you're lying.

You said "walk."
Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 1


Even an Irishman will sometimes wait until the Sun is over the yardarm before starting his daily drunk.

Posted by: Traveling Man &&&& at September 16, 2018 11:43 AM (JVddv)

292 Off the top of my head, I would expect that the moon's gravitational pull on Apollo 8 while in moon orbit was much greater than that of Earth, because of the squaring of distance in the formula, but I could be wrong,
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:39 AM (1UZdv)


You're probably right, and the difference in mass between the earth and the moon is probably close enough that the distance is by far the most significant factor. Just pointing out that if we're doing full pedantic, Apollo 8 never left earth orbit.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 11:45 AM (y87Qq)

293 Speaking of Irish drunks, it's about time for a cold beer or twelve.

Posted by: Traveling Man &&&& at September 16, 2018 11:46 AM (JVddv)

294 There's documentary footage of JFK visiting Ireland in 1963. It was a third world country.

It's completely changed. It had the Celtic Tiger thing starting in the late 80s with tech and the fact that the people speak English, sort of, and it's got the whole low corporate taxes you can stash your money here thing.

It's also thoroughly integrated into Europe now. Last I was there Dublin was more full of Poles and Africans than of Irish.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:43 AM (fuK7c)


A long time ago, I touched down on Irish soil (more or less) in a stopover, after leaving God forsaken Germany, on my way back to the land of the free.

In the airport, at the shop was a fine Irish lass. Speaking the King's English. A finer sound I do not know if I have ever heard.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:47 AM (cY3LT)

295 215
Ok, TJM, done. Just curious, do you get notifications, etc. when there's a purchase? And why can you pre-order the Kindle version, but not the paperback?
Posted by: Gem at September 16, 2018 10:52 AM (XoAz8

=====

There's a platform to track purchases, including preorders.

The paperback system is less advanced than the ebook system. I have a friend whip used to work for them and they simply can't hold orders. So preorders don't work.

I have everything ready to submit it in time, but i have to wait so it times right.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison's Phone, pre-order The Battle of Lake Erie today! at September 16, 2018 11:48 AM (bLGNW)

296 " if we're doing full pedantic, Apollo 8 never left earth orbit."

But it would have, wouldn't it, but for it getting captured by the moon's gravitational pull, which we were aiming for.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:48 AM (1UZdv)

297 My dad got me out of bed to watch the moon landing. A retired Naval Aviator, he understood the significance of the achievement and told me at the time that I'd want to remember it.

Thanks Dad.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:49 AM (MVjcR)

298 There's documentary footage of JFK visiting Ireland in 1963. It was a third world country.



It's completely changed. It had the Celtic Tiger thing starting in
the late 80s with tech and the fact that the people speak English, sort
of, and it's got the whole low corporate taxes you can stash your money
here thing.



It's also thoroughly integrated into Europe now. Last I was there Dublin was more full of Poles and Africans than of Irish.


Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:43 AM

---

It pretty much changed when the IRA finally declared a "truce" with England and the English left Ireland. They took off from there for the most part.

Posted by: The Great White Scotsman at September 16, 2018 11:51 AM (JUOKG)

299 My dad got me out of bed to watch the moon landing.

Thanks Dad.

Posted by: Weasel



Huh. I thought you were a child.

Moon landing is the first time I got to stay up late at night.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:51 AM (fuK7c)

300 An Apollo mission is coasting ballistically with enough velocity to escape the Earth's gravitational influence. If NASA miscalculated and no one caught it with mid-course corrections, then yes one could have three men heading out to deep space with only the LM and CSM engines to alter a cold destiny.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 11:52 AM (xYiAv)

301 My dad got me out of bed to watch the moon landing. A retired Naval Aviator, he understood the significance of the achievement and told me at the time that I'd want to remember it.

Thanks Dad.
Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:49 AM (MVjcR)


Speaking of JFK and landing on a moon, he once got his son, JFK Jr. out of bed to watch him roger Marilyn Monroe. As a semi-retired philanderer (well, he never really retired), he figured the achievement was significant enough that John John would want to remember it.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:52 AM (cY3LT)

302 Looks like Vince Milam has a lot of readers and plenty of reviews (only one negative one, too). Wish I knew how to reach readers like that.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 11:53 AM (39g3+)

303
Huh. I thought you were a child.

Moon landing is the first time I got to stay up late at night.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:51 AM (fuK7c)
------
I stopped maturing psychologically around 13.

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:53 AM (MVjcR)

304 296 " if we're doing full pedantic, Apollo 8 never left earth orbit."

But it would have, wouldn't it, but for it getting captured by the moon's gravitational pull, which we were aiming for
if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:48 AM (1UZdv)


Fixed.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:53 AM (u7ERy)

305 Sorry Elon Musk, I submit the Grumman lunar module as the greatest feat in engineering history. To land on, and then take off from, another celestial body was audacious.

Forget what you've read about JFK declaring sua sponte that we'd get to the Moon in a decade. Grumman already had the plan and only needed money for execution.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:53 AM (1UZdv)

306 Anna: I don't think so. To get to the Moon you don't have to have Earth escape velocity, just an orbit which intersects that of the Moon (at a time when the Moon is in the right place). The Apollo missions were launched on what was called a "free return" trajectory, so if the engines failed to fire for Lunar orbit insertion they'd loop around and fall back to Earth.

Posted by: Trimegistus at September 16, 2018 11:54 AM (4mD7U)

307 But it would have, wouldn't it, but for it getting captured by the moon's gravitational pull, which we were aiming for.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 11:48 AM (1UZdv)


It would have left earth orbit eventually, yes (though not earth's gravitational influence ever, because you aren't allowed to do that).

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 11:54 AM (y87Qq)

308 I stopped maturing psychologically around 13.
Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:53 AM (MVjcR)


God help me.

I first read that as "I stopped masturbating psychologically around 13" and thought, wtf?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (u7ERy)

309 Going to Ireland in October so reading The Tour Box Set...Heidi found it. I like it.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (3SzRC)

310 The Indian (dot, not feather) webcast is live. They're launching two British satellites at 12:27 pm ET.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKAc7ZlTUDE

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (sdi6R)

311 JFK Jr. was just three when Dad died. That sounds like a hard story to source.

I banged my son's babysitter when he was one and I know he doesn't remember it.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (fuK7c)

312 271 " first manned vehicle to leave the Earth's orbit. Well, technically, the Moon is in Earth's orbit. Posted by: rickl
good point ... not sure of the technical definition of "orbit", but in general it seems to be a smaller mass "caught" in the gravity of a larger mass, thereby "circling" it in space.

is a sense, any two masses "orbit" each other, but one moves very little relative to the other. Since the Apollo was circling the moon, it was in a lunar orbit. At that point the moon was still orbiting earth, but didn't the spacecraft have to leave earth's orbit to get there?

idk, just asking pedantic questions.
Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 11:26 AM (Cus5s)


Not my line of work, but I'd say you look at the two-body system's barycenter. If the barycenter lies within Body A, then we say Body B orbits Body A.

Posted by: Iron Mike Golf at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (di1hb)

313 In Old English, the plural of book was beek.

Posted by: Surfperch at September 16, 2018 11:56 AM (hVHEm)

314 definitely the moon had "control" when Apollo was orbiting it. I'd guess they were both "orbiting" earth at that point.

But I'm guessing that to get to the moon they had to leave earth orbit. So if they took a "wrong turn" at liftoff and the moon wasn't there, they would have burned up in the sun, or entered some giant elliptical orbit around the sun. The moon "caught them". (and I'm curious if they had to do a burn to slow down for lunar orbit)

and to be more pedantic, since the sun is also moving, the terms ellipse and orbit are just convenient, not completely correct. So there are some descriptions of some cork screw like helix ... or whatever. Add to that the new fact that we are accelerating away from the big bang center, due to some dark matter force that no one understands ... and we have a real conundrum.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 11:57 AM (Cus5s)

315 In Old English, the plural of book was beek.
Posted by: Surfperch at September 16, 2018 11:56 AM (hVHEm)


This is the right comment at the right time.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 11:57 AM (y87Qq)

316 I banged my son's babysitter when he was one and I know he doesn't remember it.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (fuK7c)


Does his mother remember???

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 11:58 AM (cY3LT)

317 I'm reading 'Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World' by Jack Weatherford. It is a history of the Mongol Empire, which I was very unfamiliar with its size and influence in modern history. The book is a nice read too, in style and ease.

Posted by: Jinx the Cat at September 16, 2018 11:58 AM (eFRS+)

318 308 I stopped maturing psychologically around 13.
Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:53 AM (MVjcR)

God help me.

I first read that as "I stopped masturbating psychologically around 13" and thought, wtf?
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (u7ERy)
-------
This may be uncharted territory for the book thread!

Posted by: Weasel at September 16, 2018 11:59 AM (MVjcR)

319 PS: John Kerry got the Genghis Khan reference wrong, too. Like everything else he has ever touched.

Posted by: Jinx the Cat at September 16, 2018 11:59 AM (eFRS+)

320 Rain, rain, rain.
Gloomy --- but those of us not in coastal Carolina have nothing to complain about.

Just to make myself more gloomy, I read a little book about the Camille floods in Virginia back in 69. (C.T. Shiflett ---Forty Days)

It's a personal journal by a farmer/handyman who lived in Scottsville, VA on the James River. He was one of those oldsters who faithfully recorded the weather and farm conditions daily.

That's all the book is really. Day by day reports that at the beginning of the 40 days would be a bore if you didn't know what was going to happen. But you do know, so the suspense grabs you.

It rained and rained and rained and rained. Every single day for weeks. And then the ground and the creeks and the river could take no more.

The last part of the book recounts his escape from Scottsville just before it went under, his desperate failure to rescue his teen grandson, and his walk-through of the town after the waters receded.

Well, if that ain't a perky choice to read right now, what is?



Posted by: Margarita DeVille at September 16, 2018 12:00 PM (0jtPF)

321 Oh I guess to reevaluate 307, it could have just gone into some freakish elliptical orbit after the TLI burn if it had missed the moon and come back to visit earth every few months or something. In which case it would not have left earth orbit unless some common tart of a wandering celestial body caught its attention or however that works.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 12:00 PM (y87Qq)

322 Add to that the new fact that we are accelerating away from the big bang center, due to some dark matter force that no one understands ... and we have a real conundrum.
Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 11:57 AM (Cus5s)


We are but a mote in God's eye.

Posted by: Traveling Man &&&& at September 16, 2018 12:00 PM (JVddv)

323 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKAc7ZlTUDE
Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (sdi6R)


I never knew the Indian space program was so advanced.

It would be funny if they named one of their launch vehicles the 'Tomahawk' or 'Arrowhead'. Just to mess with us.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 12:01 PM (u7ERy)

324 And since we're all being pedants today, JFK Jr. was less than 2 when Marilyn died, so there's even less chance he remembered his dad banging her.

Double pedantry alert: Junior's b-day was Nov 25, so he wasn't quite 3 when his dad died.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 12:01 PM (cY3LT)

325 319 PS: John Kerry got the Genghis Khan reference wrong, too. Like everything else he has ever touched.
Posted by: Jinx the Cat at September 16, 2018 11:59 AM (eFRS+)


You have no idea.

Posted by: Theresa Heinz Kerry at September 16, 2018 12:02 PM (u7ERy)

326 I banged my son's babysitter when he was one and I know he doesn't remember it.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (fuK7c)

By any chance, was the babysitter named 7c?

Posted by: Surfperch at September 16, 2018 12:02 PM (hVHEm)

327

I downloaded the Kindle app and got a sample of the Genesis book above. Luv space history since I was there for most of it.

When Alan Shepherd made his flight, the whole school watched it on a console BampersandW television in the gym.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 12:03 PM (HaL55)

328 The webcast is having technical issues, and they're playing Indian music.

Launch is at 12:38, not 12:27 as I said earlier.

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 12:05 PM (sdi6R)

329 "The Apollo missions were launched on what was called
a "free return" trajectory, so if the engines failed to fire for Lunar
orbit insertion they'd loop around and fall back to Earth Posted by: Trimegistus

thanks for that terminology.
but if they didn't circle the moon and burn for entering lunar orbit, were they already at "escape velocity"?

in other words, was the "free return" not dependent on the moon swinging them back? So the moon returned them, AFTER they escaped the earth orbit ... is what Ima thinkin.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 12:05 PM (Cus5s)

330 Ireland has business friendly tax laws, that brought in a lot of stuff, particularly tech. I think they get money from North Sea oil, too.

For a time (maybe ten or so years back) economists were calling it the "Emerald Tiger."

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at September 16, 2018 12:06 PM (5aX2M)

331 While browsing through a flea market here in PA, I acquired an 1881 copy of "A Grammar School History of the United States, to which are added the Constitution of the United States with questions and explanations, the Declaration of Independence and Washington's Farewell Address" by John J. Anderson, Ph., D.

Yes, that's how his degree is written: Ph., D

I'm looking through it right now, prior to passing it along to someone special as a gift.

Posted by: Miley, the Duchess at September 16, 2018 12:06 PM (qUahL)

332 I downloaded the Kindle app and got a sample of the Genesis book above. Luv space history since I was there for most of it.

When Alan Shepherd made his flight, the whole school watched it on a console BampersandW television in the gym.
Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 12:03 PM (HaL55)


Once upon a time, space flight was a source of national pride.

Everybody laughed when Noot was running for Prez, and talked about moon landings and colonies and all that.

Money being what it is, nobody wants to spend it on "frivolous" stuff like that, not when there are 100 million disabled or retired people who need their monthly checks. So Noot's proposal, to me was just sad. Because we're not that nation anymore.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 16, 2018 12:07 PM (cY3LT)

333 Grumman already had the plan and only needed money for execution.

That is a gross simplification. After losing out in 1960 on such space projects as Mercury, Grumman turned to studying the lunar lander issue. So when the contract for the Lunar Excursion Module was issued, Grumman had the study details down and won the contract in January 1963 almost two years after Apollo started. One of the delaying factors was NASA trying to decide on how the astronauts would get to the moon, there were three possible ways and only late in the game was Lunar-Orbital Rendezvous selected.

Then there was the matter of weight. Which would dog the LM as it would another Grumman product, the F-111B. There was a weight budget and Grumman could not exceed that. So the aluminum skin of the LM was as thin as possible which meant being inside was akin to putting a colander on your head and letting your kid whack on it, the two astronauts did not have seats because seats meant weight, and other weight saving measures were instituted. For every pound of machine, there had to be four pounds of propellant.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:08 PM (xYiAv)

334

Tangerine Infringement Beak

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at September 16, 2018 12:09 PM (IqV8l)

335 326
I banged my son's babysitter when he was one and I know he doesn't remember it.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:55 AM (fuK7c)

---
I'd count that as a humblebrag, except we don't know what she looked like.

Either way, I'm going to throw the "oversharing" flag.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 12:09 PM (B/PO4)

336 I am reading The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster.

I avoided picking it up because of the title. To be honest Leinster could write great books and he could write stuff that was pretty much a western set on Venus or in the Asteroid belt. This is to be expected since he sold his first short story in 1919 and his last in the 70's and made his living as a writer.

However, this one is fun: an engineer, Joe Burke, has had dreams of strange worlds and unearthly music from childhood, and flips between dismissing them as fantasies and trying to recreate the tech that he remembers when he awakes. When a broadcast from a small, unregarded asteroid is received sending the same tones as he remembers from his dreams, he pulls the tech that he has created into a single whole and builds a spacecraft to find out what is going on. When he gets to the Asteroid, he finds a giant, mothballed fortress, with the detector equipment warning that something is coming.

Not done with it yet.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 16, 2018 12:09 PM (2K6fY)

337 Talking about Apollo, I highly recommend Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The movie is faithful to the book and one of the best movies of the 80s. Great ensemble cast.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 12:10 PM (1UZdv)

338 327
When Alan Shepherd made his flight, the whole school watched it on a console BampersandW television in the gym.
Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 12:03 PM (HaL55)


I was three years old, and my dad said I was sitting in his lap watching it, although I don't remember it.

The entire flight is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xd9kg-fJ9g

"lunarmodule5" has a very impressive collection of original 1960s TV broadcasts on his YouTube page.

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 12:10 PM (sdi6R)

339 What would a moron do if his wife lovingly crocheted pants like that for him? He's HAVE to wear them, wouldn't he?

Okay. Maybe not. Grown woman ought to know better.
But what if it were your 10 yr old daughter?
Yes, you would HAVE to.
Just like Mr. DeV. had to wear the Bob-the-Tomato tie....and worse.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at September 16, 2018 12:10 PM (0jtPF)

340 337
Talking about Apollo, I highly recommend Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff.
The movie is faithful to the book and one of the best movies of the 80s.
Great ensemble cast.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 12:10 PM (1UZdv)

---
Seconded. Also Yeager's autobiography. I did a book report using that in school. The man was a total badass.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 12:11 PM (B/PO4)

341 I now see why this Michael Creighton book was only $1.99. I knew it was not his normal genre when I bought it, but this book really blows chunks. I think I will put it away until I am really desperate.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 12:11 PM (mpXpK)

342 "it could have just gone into some freakish elliptical orbit after the
TLI burn if it had missed the moon and come back to visit earth every
few months or something. In which case it would not have left earth
orbit unless some common tart of a wandering celestial body caught its
attention or however that works. hogmartin

I love the phrasing.
but given all the really big tarts out there, trying to isolate a nearly infinite spacecraft/earth elliptical orbit doesn't make sense. It would certainly have been massively more influenced by the sun as distance from earth made earth gravity a minuscule effect.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 16, 2018 12:12 PM (Cus5s)

343 I love that bed nook! Bed looks uncomfortable but the books make up for it.

I'm still reading 'True As Steel', a biography about Gen. Thomas. Sadly, Thomas burned all his documents, so there's most of what we know about him is from other people's POV and Grant (and to a lesser extent, Sherman) was a dick to him. But he's one of the few civil war generals who never lost a battle, despite fighting more than a few. (I'm calling Chickamauga a tie, since Thomas did not get stampeded off the battlefield like Rosecrans)

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at September 16, 2018 12:12 PM (xJa6I)

344 341
I now see why this Michael Creighton book was only $1.99. I knew it was
not his normal genre when I bought it, but this book really blows
chunks. I think I will put it away until I am really desperate.


Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 12:11 PM (mpXpK)

---
Older books (like movies) are priced according to current demand. It's funny to watch something become trendy and see the prices spike.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 12:13 PM (B/PO4)

345 And the First Man people have ticked off Chuck Yeager and Buzz Aldrin.

I almost pity those idiots for the hornet's nest they kicked over.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:13 PM (xYiAv)

346 Everybody who has orbit questions, please just play Kerbal Space Program until RSI turns your hands into useless vestigial clawlike appendages dangling from the ends of your wrists.

All will be revealed to you then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9fvjKVuULQ

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 12:15 PM (y87Qq)

347 I'm still reading 'True As Steel', a biography about
Gen. Thomas. Sadly, Thomas burned all his documents, so there's most
of what we know about him is from other people's POV and Grant (and to a
lesser extent, Sherman) was a dick to him. But he's one of the few
civil war generals who never lost a battle, despite fighting more than a
few. (I'm calling Chickamauga a tie, since Thomas did not get stampeded
off the battlefield like Rosecrans)

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at September 16, 2018 12:12 PM (xJa6I)

---
A loyal Virginian, and the only commander on either side to totally destroy an enemy field army.

But widely overlooked because he skipped the "shameless self-promotion" phase after the war.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 12:15 PM (B/PO4)

348
Like deodorants, I don't think people need that many choices in books.

Posted by: Bernie Sanders - Avowed Socialist at September 16, 2018 12:16 PM (LOgQ4)

349 Flying ace. Squadron commander. Killing machine. Nearly suicidal test pilot. First man faster than sound.

Yeager was, indeed, a badass.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at September 16, 2018 12:16 PM (5aX2M)

350 Speaking of Michael Creighton, for the cinema lovers some theaters today are showing the original Jurassic Park movie. 25 years and all that. They should really do a double-feature with Andromeda Strain.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:16 PM (xYiAv)

351 To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold - brothers who now know they are truly brothers

=======
Yeah, tell that to the commies, SJW's, and goathumpers.

Posted by: Vlad the Impaler, whittling away like mad at September 16, 2018 12:17 PM (nK3if)

352
Started The Benedict Option by Ross Douthat.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at September 16, 2018 12:17 PM (LsBY9)

353 The people who insist that there must only be one way of pluralizing or conjugating every word in English, and they must all be consistent...Are often the same people who think 20 types of deodorant on the store shelf is really too much.
Just sayin'.

Posted by: GWB at September 16, 2018 12:18 PM (MgN64)

354 345 And the First Man people have ticked off Chuck Yeager and Buzz Aldrin.
I almost pity those idiots for the hornet's nest they kicked over.
Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:13 PM (xYiAv)


Didn't Aldrin once face-punch a conspiracy theorist who loudly told him the moon landings were fake?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 12:18 PM (u7ERy)

355 347 I'm still reading 'True As Steel', a biography about
Gen. Thomas. Sadly, Thomas burned all his documents, so there's most
of what we know about him is from other people's POV and Grant (and to a
lesser extent, Sherman) was a dick to him. But he's one of the few
civil war generals who never lost a battle, despite fighting more than a
few. (I'm calling Chickamauga a tie, since Thomas did not get stampeded
off the battlefield like Rosecrans)

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at September 16, 2018 12:12 PM (xJa6I)

---
A loyal Virginian, and the only commander on either side to totally destroy an enemy field army.

But widely overlooked because he skipped the "shameless self-promotion" phase after the war.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 12:15 PM (B/PO4)

Jah, he seems to have the normal need for recognition but he was very opposed to public speaking or politicking. Very private man, probably why he burned his papers. But a rather great man, from what I can tell.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at September 16, 2018 12:18 PM (xJa6I)

356 Yep Aldrin did punch a smelly hippy and the police told the guy he deserved it.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:19 PM (xYiAv)

357
It's also thoroughly integrated into Europe now. Last I was there Dublin was more full of Poles and Africans than of Irish

======
And this is a good thing how?

Posted by: Vlad the Impaler, whittling away like mad at September 16, 2018 12:20 PM (nK3if)

358 Yep Aldrin did punch a smelly hippy and the police told the guy he deserved it.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:19 PM


He punched out Uncle Fester?

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

Posted by: Forgot My Nic at September 16, 2018 12:22 PM (LOgQ4)

359 The smelly hippie was set up.

Posted by: klaftern at September 16, 2018 12:22 PM (RuIsu)

360 354
Didn't Aldrin once face-punch a conspiracy theorist who loudly told him the moon landings were fake?
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair Magazine at September 16, 2018 12:18 PM (u7ERy)


Thy guy called Aldrin a liar to his face. What other choice did he have?

Posted by: rickl at September 16, 2018 12:22 PM (sdi6R)

361 ". I think they get money from North Sea oil, too"

Don't think so. Ireland did get EU subsidies and investment money for a time.

Here's a facet to the story, recounted in the book "The Billionaire Who Wasn't" Chuck Feeney founded Duty Free Shops and other business ventures, and for decades kept his wealth secret. He was worth $5 billion, but actually wasn't as he put it nearly all in a charitable trust.

He then gave anonymous gifts. He jump started colleges in Ireland like the University of Limerick, turning community colleges into real universities, which help drive the Celtic Tiger. He put the IRA on the dole during the peace talks, so they stopped robbing banks.

Feeney was outed because of a legal fight with a business partner. He wanted to keep it quiet until his grave. To date, he's "invested" over $ 5 billion. "Invested" because even while anonymous he always got other money and always to fund a plan. You never found Chuck, he found you.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 16, 2018 12:23 PM (1UZdv)

362

Money being what it is, nobody wants to spend it on "frivolous" stuff like that, not when there are 100 million disabled or retired people who need their monthly checks. So Noot's proposal, to me was just sad. Because we're not that nation anymore.


The sad irony is that the space program created a lot of new consumer products and markets and actually generated wealth for the private sector which the government taxed. It was one of the few big government programs that paid itself back and then some. That fact has gone down the Memory Hole.

I bet just the sales taxes from Tang alone paid for it.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 12:24 PM (HaL55)

363 In Old English, the plural of book was beek.

That looks like something the Dutch would come up with.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:25 PM (39g3+)

364 The Indian (dot, not feather) webcast is live. They're launching two British satellites at 12:27 pm ET.

=====
This puzzles me. I believe that the UK still gives India foreign aid even though India also gives out foreign aid, and has a space program to boot while Britain doesn't. Ah well, just goes to show that white liberal guilt is the most powerful and stupid force in the universe.

Posted by: Vlad the Impaler, whittling away like mad at September 16, 2018 12:27 PM (nK3if)

365 So, nood.

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 12:28 PM (y87Qq)

366 Also, I have a ladyfriend who was pretty much ignorant of American military history, and was skeptical of my assertion that the American fighting man is superior to all others.

Yeager was on the list of people I lectured her about for several hours the following weekend. Also, Audie Murphy, Bennie Adkins, Lloyd Burke, Dick Bong, and Chris Kyle. Then we watched Patton.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at September 16, 2018 12:28 PM (5aX2M)

367 The sad irony is that the space program created a lot of new consumer products and markets and actually generated wealth for the private sector which the government taxed. It was one of the few big government programs that paid itself back and then some. That fact has gone down the Memory Hole.

I bet just the sales taxes from Tang alone paid for it.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 12:24 PM


I loved the fact that some software that JPL was using to keep track of the millions of parts involved in the moon mission (or winning office football pools, you decide) got ported to early personal computers. dBase.

In the late 1960s, Fred Thompson at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was using a Tymshare product named RETRIEVE to manage a database of electronic calculators, which were at that time very expensive products. In 1971 Thompson collaborated with Jack Hatfield, a programmer at JPL, to write an enhanced version of RETRIEVE which became the JPLDIS project. JPLDIS was written in FORTRAN on the UNIVAC 1108 mainframe, and was presented publicly in 1973. When Hatfield left JPL in 1974, Jeb Long took over his role.[4]

While working at JPL as a contractor, C. Wayne Ratliff entered the office football pool. He had no interest in the game, but felt he could win the pool by processing the post-game statistics found in newspapers. In order to do this, he turned his attention to a database system and, by chance, came across the documentation for JPLDIS. He used this as the basis for a port to PTDOS on his kit-built IMSAI 8080 microcomputer, and called the resulting system Vulcan (after Mr. Spock on Star Trek).[5][6]

Posted by: Forgot My Nic at September 16, 2018 12:29 PM (LOgQ4)

368 "A loyal Virginian..."
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at September 16, 2018 12:15 PM (B/PO4)
------------------
No. You mean "a Virginian who was loyal to the Union."
"A loyal Virginian" implies that he was loyal to Virginia, which of course he was not.

(I say this without meaning that he SHOULD have been. Maybe so, maybe no.)

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at September 16, 2018 12:29 PM (0jtPF)

369 A lot of the tech credited to the space program existed before it (like the pen that writes upside down) but they adapted it and gave it greater visibility.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:30 PM (39g3+)

370

Didn't Aldrin once face-punch a conspiracy theorist who loudly told him the moon landings were fake?

For your viewing and obnoxious-hippie-smartass-punching pleasure OM...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQKVdVqFZv0


3 minutes of awesomenessism from Buzz.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at September 16, 2018 12:31 PM (HaL55)

371 He used this as the basis for a port to PTDOS on his kit-built IMSAI 8080 microcomputer
Posted by: Forgot My Nic at September 16, 2018 12:29 PM (LOgQ4)


How about a nice game of chess?

Posted by: hogmartin at September 16, 2018 12:31 PM (y87Qq)

372 I now see why this Michael Creighton book was only $1.99. I knew it was not his normal genre when I bought it, but this book really blows chunks. I think I will put it away until I am really desperate.


Posted by: Vic


What book is it ?

Posted by: JT at September 16, 2018 12:32 PM (XSPsI)

373 Yeager was on the list of people I lectured her about for several hours the following weekend. Also, Audie Murphy, Bennie Adkins, Lloyd Burke, Dick Bong, and Chris Kyle. Then we watched Patton.

There was a time up to about WWII when the English soldier was the world's finest but we took over that position and never looked back. And even in WWI we had some truly great soldiers like Alvin York....

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:32 PM (39g3+)

374 Should you read War and Peace?

Why miss out on one of the best historical fiction of the 19th century?

Posted by: Skip at September 16, 2018 12:33 PM (T4oHT)

375 372 What book is it ?

Posted by: JT at September 16, 2018 12:32 PM (XSPsI)

The one I mentioned up thread, Disclosure.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 12:34 PM (mpXpK)

376 Not all of Crichton's books are equal. I couldn't even get started on Congo. But Jurassic Park is great, even if the little girl is basically an obnoxious waste of skin.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:34 PM (39g3+)

377 I am currently reading "In Harm's Way"

by James Basset.

It is a very well-written book.

Differs from the movie quite a bit.

Posted by: JT at September 16, 2018 12:34 PM (XSPsI)

378
He jump started colleges in Ireland like the University of Limerick

That's where Muldoon got his PhD.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at September 16, 2018 12:35 PM (IqV8l)

379 The one I mentioned up thread, Disclosure.

That wasn't bad.

Give it a chance.

Posted by: JT at September 16, 2018 12:35 PM (XSPsI)

380 Well best go and feed myself. Then get back to slinging words to screen just to find out how whacked and twisty I can make this story.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at September 16, 2018 12:36 PM (xYiAv)

381 376
Not all of Crichton's books are equal. I couldn't even get started on
Congo. But Jurassic Park is great, even if the little girl is basically
an obnoxious waste of skin.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:34 PM (39g3+)

Yeah, I enjoyed his other books which is why I jumped all over this one when they had it for $1.99.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at September 16, 2018 12:36 PM (mpXpK)

382 Whoa. Just finished the preview for "Sanity."

This looks good.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 16, 2018 12:37 PM (Le848)

383 262 I had chicken and waffles last night!


Didn't we fight an entire war with the South in order to be free of their culinary delusions?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 16, 2018 11:19 AM (fuK7c)

Here's a crazy thing, for me anyway:

I had never heard of "Chicken and Waffles" *or* "Sriracha" until July 2013, when I found out that you could get them as Lays potato chips when I was staying at a friend's place on Whidbey Island, WA.

I thought it was a West Coast thing.

I come back home #twoweeks later, and they're both *everywhere*.

WTF?

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at September 16, 2018 12:44 PM (AEeCX)

384 I'm finishing up book 3: The Brave and the Bold, and it should be out in a few weeks.

====
Great! Looking forward to it.

Posted by: Donnie two scoops at September 16, 2018 12:49 PM (ZuGkg)

385 Chicken and Waffles is a good combo though. Sriracha is just sweet hot sauce, I don't understand why its so huge suddenly.

The way food spreads is very interesting to me. My mom had never even heard of most of the foods my dad ate (she from Wyoming and he from Missouri). Now you can buy Kim Chi and Grits from the same supermarket.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:55 PM (39g3+)

386 Oh, Muldoon, thank you!

Looking forward to this. Love your limericks.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 16, 2018 01:02 PM (Le848)

387 >>Vince Milam's latest novel, The Caribbean Job (the third in his Amazon bestselling Case Lee series) has recently been released:..

Put in a request to the family CFO, hope to get it today.

Posted by: Katherine at September 16, 2018 01:31 PM (5p9SP)

388 While working at JPL as a contractor, C. Wayne Ratliff entered the office football pool. He had no interest in the game, but felt he could win the pool by processing the post-game statistics found in newspapers. In order to do this, he turned his attention to a database system and, by chance, came across the documentation for JPLDIS. He used this as the basis for a port to PTDOS on his kit-built IMSAI 8080 microcomputer, and called the resulting system Vulcan (after Mr. Spock on Star Trek).[5][6]
Posted by: Forgot My Nic at September 16, 2018 12:29 PM (LOgQ4)

Well? Don't keep us in suspenders! Did he win?

Posted by: SandyCheeks at September 16, 2018 02:00 PM (ihzOe)

389 One of the recurring complaints by the Wehrmacht brass was, "the problem is, the Americans do not read their own manuals"

Posted by: Kindltot at September 16, 2018 02:01 PM (2K6fY)

390 The way food spreads is very interesting to me. My
mom had never even heard of most of the foods my dad ate (she from
Wyoming and he from Missouri). Now you can buy Kim Chi and Grits from
the same supermarket.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 16, 2018 12:55 PM (39g3+)


Do yourself a favor and don't eat them together.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 16, 2018 02:03 PM (2K6fY)

391 Michael Crichton's books he wrote as John Lange while in med school are fun.

Posted by: Jean at September 16, 2018 04:34 PM (j0Mw7)

392 @215
if you are still here, Amazon is the best bet for self-publishing simply because it dominates the market--87%, I think. So it is also where all the readers go, especially those with prime. (A lot of books are offered free, like the movies, and the rotation changes all the time)
An Amazon umbrella-company published print books, but now Amazon is just going to take it over itself, using the old Createspace employees.
Kindle is king, though--you may long for print books, but 90% of your sales will be kindle.

Posted by: artemis at September 16, 2018 04:57 PM (AwPyG)

393 Is there any language besides English which has competitions similar to our Spelling Bees?

Posted by: LCMS Rulz! at September 16, 2018 05:16 PM (o7l6R)

394 Traveling Man, @285 above,:

"Well, to be fair, all the Irish drunks now live in America. But I did once see an Irishman walk past a bar."

The late Charles McCabe once described a typical Irishman as someone who would crawl over the naked bodies of seven women each more beautiful than Deidre of the Sorrows to get to a pint of Guinness.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at September 16, 2018 06:45 PM (iuRR5)

395
There's a platform to track purchases, including preorders.

The paperback system is less advanced than the ebook system. I have a friend whip used to work for them and they simply can't hold orders. So preorders don't work.

I have everything ready to submit it in time, but i have to wait so it times right.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison's Phone, pre-order The Battle of Lake Erie today! at September 16, 2018 11:48 AM (bLGNW)

OK, thx. But I prefer a real book. If I like it I may have to order the paper back, too. :-)

Posted by: Gem at September 16, 2018 08:12 PM (XoAz8)

396 On this cold and windy rainy night a nice little ghost story or book of horror stories will do

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