Sunday Morning Book Thread 05-19-2019

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, papists, rapists, papist rapists, crétins sans pantalon, hornswogglers, Methodists and everybody who's holding your beer. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, writing, and publishing by escaped oafs who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which look like something you'd have to wear if you were invited to RuPaul's family reunion.

Pic Note

This is clever:

Zhongshuge Bookstore in Chongqing city has an interior that’s the stuff of fantasy tales. Designed by architecture firm X+Living, the location—dubbed one of the most beautiful bookstores in China—is a mirrored maze that might make any visitor feel humbled by a world of stories spanning cultures and eras.

More amazing photos at the link. And of course, click on the photo for the larger version.

(h/t Hank Curmudgeon)

R.I.P. Herman Wouk

I didn't know he was still alive:

NEW YORK (AP) — Herman Wouk, the versatile, Pulitzer Prize winning author of such million-selling novels as “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War” whose steady Jewish faith inspired his stories of religious values and secular success, died on Friday at 103.

Wouk was just 10 days shy of his 104th birthday and was working on a book until the end, said his literary agent Amy Rennert.

Rennert said Wouk died in his sleep at his home in Palm Springs, California, where he settled after spending many years in Washington, D.C.

Fun fact: Wouk co-wrote a musical with Jimmy Buffett. It's mentioned in the obit at the link.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

ALCOHERENCE is exceptional clarity or eloquence fueled by booze.

The deliberate use of bad or crude language purely for emphasis is called CACEMPHATON.

So, in other words: alcoherence + cacemphaton = AoSHQ.

Vintage Journalism

The good old days weren't always so good. You can read about them in the book The Yesteryear Gazette: Volume One: Amazing Stories From the Pages of Vintage American Newspapers:

Thanks to the phenomenal digital collection of vintage American newspapers assembled by the Library of Congress, you can now enjoy a ringside seat to historical and cultural events from a century or more ago.

Highlights include…

--The first newspaper accounts of the 1865 Lincoln assassination.

--A deeply moving firsthand account of a Titanic survivor.

--The riveting newspaper accounts of the 1893 Lizzie Borden trial.

--The story of the first woman to ride a bicycle around the world.

--Susan B. Anthony's fascinating and final 1905 in-depth interview.

--A fun interview with the quirky Eva Tanguay, the Queen of Vaudeville.

--The horrifying accounts of the 1903 Chicago theater fire that killed over 600 people.

--The tragic newspaper accounts of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

And that's just the first volume. There's also Volume 2, which focuses on crime and scandal stories, and also Volume 3. They're all reasonably priced at $2.99 and $3.99.

Moron Recommendations

Candy for Breakfast, by Gwen Davenport, looks like it might be a fun read. I've had it recommended to me a couple of weeks ago by Bensdad00, who writes:

I found the book completely by accident. Upon learning the TV show Mr. Belvedere was actually based on a series of movies from the 1950's which were themselves based on a book, I went looking for the source. The library didn't have it and my purchase budget is low, so I tried this other novel by the author that they did have out of sheer curiosity - no inkling of its topic known. Aside from unavoidable anachronisms of time and place, every aspect of character and plot is recognizable today, and still going on.

1) Over-educated journalists passing themselves off as experts and overstating their credentials.

2) Progressive men who think they can take advantage of women and get away with it, who respond with anger rather than shame when caught, and chiefly worry that their actions will harm 'progress' if known.

3) An insistence on destroying societal norms - included unisex bathrooms and unmeasured educational progress.

4) bureaucratic interference in family life and the employment of children as informers.

Again, 1950.

In hindsight I'm surprised the library had a copy at all - it hasn't been banished as wrongthink yet.

You can read his GoodReads review here.

This book has been out of print for years, but you can buy used copies on Abebooks.com.

___________

I've been worming my way through 'Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds', by Charles Mackay. It was published in the 1850s, and the subject matter is right there on the tin.

He covers two large stock bubbles in England and France, the Tulipomania and a whole grab bag of other fads and mass movements-- witch mania, magnetism, alchemy and a bunch of other subjects. It's very interesting reading. I downloaded it from Gutenberg.

Posted by: Vanya at May 12, 2019 09:04 AM (U7voe)

Here is the Amazon blurb:

EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS is a popular history of popular folly in human society by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841 but most of which remains incredibly relevent to this day. The book chronicles its subjects in three parts: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions". The subjects of Mackay's debunking include economic bubbles, crusades & witch-hunts, fortune-telling, medical quackery in curing disease, haunted houses, popular follies of great cities, and the popular admiration of great criminals. This is a book of reason and common-sense which shows precisely how man's idiocy is destined to keep repeating itself, and it is a book which indeed even prohesied the financial crash of 1929 and the economic downturn of more recent years. In fact, important present day writers on economics, such as Andrew Tobias and Michael Lewis, give it high praise.

You can download a Kindle edition for 99 cents or from Gutenberg for free. I like free.

Another recommendation from Trimegistus:

Everyone should read MacKay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions . . . " Among other things, you discover that there's nothing new about Internet memes. There was a time in the Georgian era when you could crack up everybody in the pub by saying "What a shocking bad hat!" Someday all the allegedly comical stuff on Facebook will be as mystifyingly unfunny.

You know, the Moron Horde should come up with our own updated version of this classic work. We could call it "Extraordinary Popular Delusions... In My Ass!" Included would be things such as the Great Russian Collusion Hoax of 2016-2019. the Economic Miracle of Venezuela, Pretending That Some Mentally Ill Men Are Actually Women, The Towering Intellect of Barack Obama and the Unutterably Authentic Blackness of Shaun King. Hell, we've got delusions that would cause MacKay to retire to Bedlam.

___________

30 The latest David McCullough book is "The Pioneers" about the settlement of the old Northwest territories following the American Revolution. This is a part of US history that has always interested me. He provides context for the settlement and the personalities involved, some well known like Ben Franklin and others introduced in the book, in getting matters started and the type of people who moved to the area...

Just in the first couple of chapters the reader gets a feels for travel times and distances in the 1780s, the social customs in cities, the political wrangling (depressingly similar to today's BS), and the supplies pioneers were expected to have available. (You could write a book just on this last item. What pioneers of that period chose, why those items and how they were used is fascinating and revealing.) All this without slowing the narrative.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2019 09:13 AM (bmdz3)

A bit more detail from the Amazon blurb:

McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough’s subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them.

I'm thinking that perhaps all countries went through a phase like this, at the beginning. What makes the U.S.A. unique is that we're young enough to remember it.

The Kindle edition of The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West is a bit spendy at $14.99.

___________

Books By Morons

'Ette author 'artemis' has published a new historical novel, A Death in Sheffield:

Artemis Merryfield has lived a soldier’s life, following the drum with her father as the British Army battled Napoleon’s forces on the Continent. But the Colonel was unexpectedly killed, and so she’s been shipped off to his nearest relative in Sheffield, England.

As she struggles to adjust to civilian life, Artemis soon discovers that there are factions from the last war who seem to be intensely interested in the silver mines she is to inherit, and equally interested in any secrets she may hold—secrets that could see her hanged for treason.

The Kindle edition is $4.99.

(Ben Roethlisberger just emailed me and said: "IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE THE NAME OF THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THIS NOVEL IS THE SAME NAME THE AUTHOR USES AS HER AOSHQ NIC." Thanks, Ben.)

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

___________

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

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

Posted by: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Hello book people!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:01 AM (kQs4Y)

2 Tolle Lege

And I need to rectify that

Posted by: Skip at May 19, 2019 09:02 AM (BbGew)

3 Too many books, so little time!

Posted by: Commissar Hrothgar at May 19, 2019 09:05 AM (3hr5B)

4

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
---
Yeah, but I'm going to finish Gibbon anyway.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:05 AM (cfSRQ)

5 My kindle has stopped telling me when authors I follow have new books.

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 09:05 AM (JFO2v)

6 Nerds!

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 09:05 AM (NWiLs)

7 Bookstore by MC Escher. Nice.

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for vids at May 19, 2019 09:07 AM (NsI03)

8 Even if it's these pants, which look like something you'd have to wear if you were invited to RuPaul's family reunion.

Those pants are about the least of that boy's problems.

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for vids at May 19, 2019 09:09 AM (NsI03)

9 @7 " Bookstore by MC Escher. Nice."

To me it looks like the result of a collaboration between Escher and Borges.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at May 19, 2019 09:10 AM (iuRR5)

10 Good morning all.

And happy birthday to me: 8 books, one philosophy and naval history (6 mostly WWII.) I've got a lot of reading to do.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:13 AM (VaN/j)

11 I haven't read anything for a week while backpacking. Funny thing is we met another couple on the trail who camped near us one night and they brought actual books with them. They were paperback. She was reading a Brad Thor novel can't remember what he had.

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:13 AM (UUBmN)

12 Started 'Kitchen Confidential' by Bourdain. Interesting that he called Emeril Lagasse an ewok.

Posted by: kallisto at May 19, 2019 09:13 AM (GTgMm)

13 My kids and I went to donate some old clothes at a local salvation army and they asked to go look at the toys. Fine, I'll be over in the books.

That's where I found ten Tom Clancy hardbacks from when he was actually writing them. My big problem is there's no room in the library already, and they take up three feet or so by themselves. A good problem to have, frankly.

$1 each. Yes, please.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:14 AM (lPsvG)

14 Wonderful book post this week! I remember discovering Herman Wouk in high school, and going on a years-long binge. The Glory made a particularly strong impression on me. God speed sir, and thank you.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 09:14 AM (Z216Q)

15
Reading Midnight's Furies by Nisid Hajari about the partition of India and its aftermath, including the battle over Kashmir.

Summary:

India: "Leave now!"

British: "OK, you're on your own."

*massacres*

India: "Wait!..."

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 19, 2019 09:16 AM (QqVGs)

16 Kind of goofing off this week, but I am in two books: Victor David Hanson's "The Case for Trump", and John Ringo's anthology of zombie short stories, "Black Tide Rising".

Hanson, of course, is terrific. On Trump's "unexpected" victory, he writes: "But there was another force multiplier of stealth voters rarely acknowledged. Just as conservative and independent Americans hid their sympathies for Trump, so too others more liberal and centrist masked their antipathies to the transformation of a Democratic Party into a radically progressive movement. Either way, the result was the same: Trump support would be underestimated or missed by the media, sometimes by ignorance, but as often by intent."

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:17 AM (kQs4Y)

17 Anyone know if Brad Thor is still never Trump? I do enjoy his books for a nice light read.... haven't read one in a while though.

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:17 AM (UUBmN)

18 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. Hope everyone had a great week of reading. I certainly did.

Probably won't post comments today. At a swap meet.

Posted by: JTB at May 19, 2019 09:18 AM (5ZhDL)

19 Even if it's these pants, which look like something you'd have to wear if you were invited to RuPaul's family reunion.

Those pants are about the least of that boy's problems.
Posted by: mindful webworker - click for vids at May 19, 2019 09:09 AM (NsI03)
---

There's a lot to unpack with that look.

Still, I envy his lithe, hoydenish figure.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:19 AM (kQs4Y)

20 Just finished "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Ron Rash, a collection of short stories some (most?) I'd previously read in a mega collection "Something Rich and Strange" and rereading them wasn't a waste of time. Hard to say why some of them made the cut into the large collection and others didn't because they're uniformly excellent. Maybe a coin flip.

I'm still not tired of Rash and might read The Cove next unless any of you have any suggestions or any of Harry Crews's early fiction (before All We Need of Hell).

I know some of you are familiar (some have even met him) with James Badal who wrote a book about The Torso Murders of Cleveland, an unsolved mystery that eluded Eliot Ness. He's part of my book group and wasn't present yesterday because he fell and broke his hip. No telling how bad it is because he's older than I am and I'm older than Vic; although he's still teaching English at the local community college so he still gets around, kind of. He bought a Vette recently for which I should lift the keys and take out and crank, strictly in the interest of not having the tires develop flat spots.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (y7DUB)

21
I recently got Wouk's City Boy as an e-book. Still delightful. A good one for young readers, too.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (QqVGs)

22 Since Gibbon keeps coming up, this is from Waugh's St Helena:

https://tinyurl.com/y4wpbff3

(Unfortunately, the Quote Unf*cker didn't work; still got a 500.)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (VaN/j)

23 How can any conservative still be Nevertrump?

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (lPsvG)

24 I read a couple of the books in an old "Best-in-Books" volume published by Nelson Doubleday in 1965 while flying during to a family emergency:

The first was One Small Candle by Thomas Fleming; a non-fictional account of the first year at the Plymouth Plantion. I found it interesting and a good refresher of what I had been taught [...mumble...] years ago. Fleming makes a point that the Pilgrims at Plymouth were not the same as the Puritans at Boston and a church leader was prohibited from being Governor of Plymouth Plantation. Only their faith in God's plan for them kept them going during that first grim year. Rating = 4.5/5.0 (I would have liked a map or two but very readable).

The second was A Pennant for the Kremlin by Paul Molloy; a humorous novel recounting how the Soviet Union inherited the Chicago White Sox from an irascible hotel magnate. Generally pretty amusing story of how the deputy chairman of the Central Council of the All-Union Committee on Sports and Culture manages the White Sox in their race to the World Series. Of course, the capitalist running dogs corrupt some of the Commies. Rating = 4.25/5.

I tried to read Raymond and Me that Summer by Dick Perry; a [semi-autobiographical?} novel about a boy and his buddy during summer vacation in Cincinnati during the Great Depression. I found it rather depressing (the father had pawned everything of value in an attempt to stay financially solvent) and stopped reading. Not necessarily a bad novel and probably a pretty frank look at the Great Depression from the perspective of a 10 year-old boy but I wasn't in the mood to read it; unrated.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (5Yee7)

25 The article on YA authors being excluded from published over PC stuff amazes me. These emotional rages are completely Maoist.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 09:21 AM (Z216Q)

26 How can any conservative still be Nevertrump?
Posted by: Moron Robbie
----
Principles??///

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:22 AM (UUBmN)

27 I wish Gwen Davenport's Candy for Breakfast[/] was available at either of my libraries. That sounds like something I'd enjoy.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:22 AM (kQs4Y)

28 Happy Birfday!

/spilled coffeve. Drat.

Posted by: Anon a mouse at May 19, 2019 09:22 AM (6qErC)

29
The second was A Pennant for the Kremlin by Paul Molloy

Read it when I was young, then our Irish Setter chewed it up. Got a replacement a few years ago. Good read.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 19, 2019 09:23 AM (QqVGs)

30 The article on YA authors being excluded from published over PC stuff amazes me. These emotional rages are completely Maoist.
Posted by: Huck Follywood
----
I've said it before, the left is trying to recreate the "cultural revolution" all over again....

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:24 AM (UUBmN)

31 Texas just declared sovereign immunity against Democrat Congress requesting research on cleaning out voter roles. DAMN!

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 09:24 AM (JFO2v)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:24 AM (kQs4Y)

33 Do you think they have any Thomas Sowell books in that Chongqing city bookstore?

Posted by: lowandslow at May 19, 2019 09:25 AM (4thlk)

34 I read Black Chamber by S.M. Stirling- had heard good reviews and the alternative history of Teddy Roosevelt being president combined with spy games sounded interesting. It was not as interesting as I thought it would be and while I am not sorry I read it, I won't be reading any more books in the series. I had read a few books of Stirling's Change series, where technology stopped working. Really liked the first few books and kind of liked books three and four, then stopped reading them. So I did not even get that far in this series.

Posted by: Charlotte at May 19, 2019 09:26 AM (iDRg8)

35 Texas just declared sovereign immunity against Democrat Congress requesting research on cleaning out voter roles. DAMN!
Posted by: rhennigantx
----
Paxton...he fights! The left has tried to bring charges against him and he just tells them to f-off!

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:26 AM (UUBmN)

36 Really thinking of reading the Caine Mutiny as the movie is one of my favorites, first a trip to used book store to look there.

Posted by: Skip at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (BbGew)

37 Well, other than Gibbon, I'm still working through the extremely dense Origins of Early Islam.

When I first got into the topic, I thought: "Please. Of course there's a historical Mohammed. Put away the tin foil hats already."

But now that I've started in, I'm noticing other references to the research. It's kept quiet, but it's out there.

Red pill, indeed.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (cfSRQ)

38 How can any conservative still be Nevertrump?
Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (lPsvG)

Levin refers to Code Pink Republicans like that fuckhead Pat Buchanan who has always been an annoying jooo hating dickhole. Then you have police state fanboyz like Patterico and his catamites calling themselves "conservatives"; so the term is being grossly abused even beyond the MFM casuistry.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (y7DUB)

39 The latest David McCullough book is "The Pioneers" about the settlement of the old Northwest territories following the American Revolution.
...........

wait a sec.. people were settling out west in the 1780's?

Lewis and Clark weren't even heading out for another 20 years!

"Northwest" must mean something different.. Ohio??

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (438dO)

40 I went to the U.S. Army Heritage Center in Carlisle, PA yesterday for their Army Heritage Days event, and they had a used book sale in the gift shop. I picked up a few interesting books:

Fire and Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare 1660-1860 by Christopher Duffy

Wild Bill Donovan: The Last Hero by Anthony Cave Brown, about U.S. clandestine warrior & the founder of the OSS in WWII Bill Donovan

Goodnight Saigon: The True Story of the U.S. Marines Last Days in Vietnam by Charles Henderson

First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter by W.A. Swanberg

But as nice as getting some good books for cheap is, the best part of the day was taking a ride in a Vietnam War vintage UH-1 Huey helicopter! That was the best $80 I've spent.

Posted by: josephistan at May 19, 2019 09:29 AM (Izzlo)

41 Moron Recommendations

Candy for Breakfast, by Gwen Davenport, looks like it might be a fun read. I've had it recommended to me a couple of weeks ago by Bensdad00, who writes. Aside from unavoidable anachronisms of time and place, every aspect of character and plot is recognizable today, and still going on.

...

Again, 1950.

In hindsight I'm surprised the library had a copy at all - it hasn't been banished as wrongthink yet.

It is obvious in hindsight that we should have either exiled or executed all the Lefty-Progressive-Commie scum that were in the U.S. after WWII but there wasn't the national will to do so. Too bad, we would have been spared a lot of grief.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 09:29 AM (5Yee7)

42 before digitization many libraries had collections of newspapers, in many cases entire runs of newspapers spanning the decades and centuries. then microfilm revolutionized libraries, they recorded their newspapers on film and threw out the papers. then the films started to disintegrate.

thank goodness digitalization provides a permanent record.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at May 19, 2019 09:30 AM (Pg+x7)

43 23 How can any conservative still be Nevertrump?
Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:20 AM (lPsvG)N)
_________

Seriously, a lot depends on what sort of conservative they are. For certain libertarians there's a kind of logic to it.

But for many, it means jettisoning conservatism, period, like Boot and Rubin. And much, for the rest, is just having their noses out of joint. David French, for instance.

The ones that get me are those who see the point of why we support him, but still persist with #NT. Bret Stephens, for instance, wrote about getting it during the Kavanapolypse. But some of these are inching toward sanity, however reluctantly.

In general, it's mostly emotion. A few years ago Ace was hitting - rightly - on the importance of maintaining a high opinion of themselves. They don't want to think of themselves as that kind of person.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:30 AM (VaN/j)

44 Oh, and I got to an Anthony Burgess (Clockwork Orange author) story in that excellent sci-fi anthology. It was apparently one of the only, if not THE only, sci-fi things he ever published, and it's very interesting.

Time travel, but it doesn't always work out to be exactly our time line. The technology allows us to get close, but the time period we travel back to might end up being inhabited by humanoid salamanders who are achieving the same tech and art in the same time and ways we did, so if you go back and don't plot the course to find reasonably close to human you're in a difficult spot.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:30 AM (lPsvG)

45 Totally engrossed this week in a) clearing out the garage so that we can park at least one of the cars in it, and b) finishing up Luna City #8, so not much time for reading - only the light and pleasant stuff before falling asleep at night, or while riding the recumbent bike at the gym.
But - on the recommendation in last week's book thread, I took a flyer on Barbara Nickless "Blood on the Tracks." (le sigh!) It looked promising enough at the start - a railway cop and her side-kick, Clyde the Wonder Dog - but by about a quarter of the way in, it was nothing but "Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery..." So, the railway cop is a Marine veteran with PTSD. Just about every other veteran character in the book is similarly afflicted with gloom, despair and agony. Frankly, I began to whiff the same old memes from the Vietnam War aftermath: that every veteran of it was a broken, disillusioned and pitiable person, that they had perpetrated horrific war crimes, and that there were Higher Ups involved in a dastardly cover-up, to the point of committing further murders. I looked ahead to the other books - nope, more of the same, plus the continuing Cover Up of the Horrific War Crime by the Higher Ups.
And there were a couple of small ... well, there were elements in the story that just didn't ring true. The units in the Gulf War deployed as units, not individual troops sent out and returning alone, would a military intelligence specialist also be a dog handler? Stuff like that. I couldn't suspend my disbelief much further than that. I switched over to the Flavia de Luce series, and Margaret Ball's Applied Topology, instead.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at May 19, 2019 09:31 AM (xnmPy)

46 "Northwest" must mean something different.. Ohio??

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (438dO)

---
Yes. The Northwest Territories are now the Midwest.

It's a largely overlooked part of American history - well outside here, anyway.

Michigan has lots of places to visit. Fort Wayne dates from back then, and of course up at Mackinac you've got two forts from the period.

The River Raisin battlefield is finally getting developed. Ohio has Fort Meigs, which is getting better all the time. Still not as good as Mackinac, but coming along nicely.

One of my ancestors was killed during those wars - William Crawford. There's a monument in Ohio near where he was burned alive. Crawford County Michigan is named after him.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:31 AM (cfSRQ)

47
""Northwest" must mean something different.. Ohio??"

Yep, according to Wiki it was the settlers in Ohio County/Marietta, Ohio/

Posted by: lowandslow at May 19, 2019 09:32 AM (4thlk)

48 They don't want to think of themselves as that kind of person.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:30 AM (VaN/j)

Arguably the most conservative president since Coolidge, but I'm totes embarrassed and I hate him because he's a doodyhead.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:32 AM (lPsvG)

49 41
It is obvious in hindsight that we should have either exiled or executed all the Lefty-Progressive-Commie scum that were in the U.S. after WWII but there wasn't the national will to do so. Too bad, we would have been spared a lot of grief.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 09:29 AM (5Yee7)
_______

Reminiscent of Churchill's view in 1919, that the Russian Revolution should be strangled in the cradle. (And screw making them comfortable first.) Again, the will wasn't there, postwar.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:33 AM (VaN/j)

50 She was reading a Brad Thor novel can't remember what he had.
Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:13 AM (UUBmN)

I read a couple of Brad Thor novels before he became a NeverTrumper; I found them full of "purple prose" and acceptable action novels at best.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 09:33 AM (5Yee7)

51 Plus, some people refuse to admit that they are wrong...ever. They will twist themselves into a pretzel to justify their "rightness" even if they are wrong. If you make them look bad, they will double down...

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:33 AM (UUBmN)

52 "Northwest" must mean something different.. Ohio??
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (438dO)

Ohio was originally the Western Reserve of Connecticut iirc. Plus pioneers will go wherever they want; who will tell them no?

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 09:34 AM (y7DUB)

53 I'd like to visit Michigan and explore the great lakes sometime. It's intimidating as someone who likes the outdoors because I'll probably just get one opportunity and it's so vast.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:34 AM (lPsvG)

54 I have a few books printed in the 1790's to early 1800's in my small library. I pickup one and think of all that's happened since it was printed...Most are with leather covers and in remarkable shape. With no special care on my part.

Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:34 AM (+0N+f)

55 Robert Spencer in History of Jihad sort of head nods to no Mohammad but then glosses over that and starts the history with Mo.

Posted by: Skip at May 19, 2019 09:35 AM (BbGew)

56 The problem being that I also enjoy history, local silliness (Worlds largest milk carton was mentioned earlier), and seeing gardens and museums, too. That's a lot for one week.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:35 AM (lPsvG)

57 In general, it's mostly emotion. A few years ago Ace
was hitting - rightly - on the importance of maintaining a high opinion
of themselves. They don't want to think of themselves as that kind of
person.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:30 AM (VaN/j)

---
Follow the money.

These guys don't work for free.

The Weekly Standard went under because Kristol and Co. went too far. Anshutz never wanted to turn a profit with the thing, but he did want enough subscribers to make him feel like he was making an impact. When the subscriber base collapsed, he killed the paper.

A buddy of mine who used to subscribe to National Review said he just got a mailer offering a year subscription for $10. That's a clear sign that they don't need money, they need subscribers to justify their existence to the backers.

Needless to say, he threw the letter away. I suspect most will.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:36 AM (cfSRQ)

58 Chi-town
The Old Northwest was Ohio, Indiana and Illinois... where the Fed gave land to the Revolutionary War soldiers in lieu of pay.

Also, a note- "Extraordinary Delusions..." begins with "Memoirs of..."

Posted by: MarkY at May 19, 2019 09:36 AM (DP75u)

59 53 I'd like to visit Michigan and explore the great lakes sometime. It's intimidating as someone who likes the outdoors because I'll probably just get one opportunity and it's so vast.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:34 AM (lPsvG)

Meh. It's half vast at best.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 09:36 AM (NWiLs)

60 Plus, some people refuse to admit that they are wrong...ever. They will twist themselves into a pretzel to justify their "rightness" even if they are wrong. If you make them look bad, they will double down...

Posted by: lin-duh

-

One of the most valuable things my father ever taught me was when to apologize, how, and why.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:37 AM (lPsvG)

61 Yes. The Northwest Territories are now the Midwest.

It's a largely overlooked part of American history - well outside here, anyway.

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

It's amazing to think of all the wonders they had yet to discover about this land at that point isn't it?

As a woodworker, I think of all the old growth forests.. untouched for millennia..

and the pristine rivers and streams..

If ever there was a time I would like to go back to, that would be it. (but there are lots of other times as well!)

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:38 AM (438dO)

62 I've said it before, the left is trying to recreate the "cultural revolution" all over again....
Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:24 AM (UUBmN)

I agree completely. That's why I have been feeling compelled to buy as many pre-1980s books as I can afford. Of course, the Lefties have miscalculated because Americans have a deep and extensive history of firearms ownership; unlike Chinese peasants and Euroweenies.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 09:38 AM (5Yee7)

63 55
Robert Spencer in History of Jihad sort of head nods to no Mohammad but then glosses over that and starts the history with Mo.

Posted by: Skip at May 19, 2019 09:35 AM (BbGew)

---
The framework is still being established and tested. Right now all we have are holes in the historical record but no fully realized alternative narrative.

But it's a thing, so to speak. Just as it took a while for gradualism to fade as a reason the dinosaurs died off.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:40 AM (cfSRQ)

64 Interesting side of the Old Northwest... the Fed was VERY concerned with how history would treat them (us) and purchased ALL the land.
E.g. The Wyandott Indians settled in what is now Kansas, just across the state line from Mo. They started what is now Kansas City Ks. as a commercial venture. The chief rented the finest house in Westport while his house was being built.
They were rich, and had only one pure bred Wyandott in the tribe at that time.
Jefferson's ideal of having the natives become farmers and Americans was already largely successful even in the 1820's.

Posted by: MarkY at May 19, 2019 09:41 AM (DP75u)

65 heh... . "Zhong Shu ge" literally means "Chinese Book(s)"

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:42 AM (Ct55T)

66 For those who heard of PDT's pardon of Conrad Black and asked "Who dat? and why?" I recommend 'A Matter of Principle' by Black himself.

Black is an insightful man with intellect, a whimsical and cutting sense of humor, and a skill with the written word that is hard to match. The intricacies of his corporate fraud conviction are explained as well as they can be from HIS perspective. I didn't follow that when it was current and I am not well enough versed in the legalities to pass judgement for or against either side.

Whether or not he is/was a scoundrel though is secondary to a thoroughly enjoyable read - I recommend it highly.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at May 19, 2019 09:42 AM (1uUVn)

67 Started on trollope's framley parsonage a prequel of sorts to the pallister series, shows how things haven't changed all that much in the UK or the Us in 150 yrs theres a passage about the Duke of omnium that will ring particularly true to current sensibilities.

I noted in the book store an annotated edition of chandlers the big sleep, by Jonathan lethem shows all the background to the tale including maps and historical background to Chandler he worked for oil men like dabney

Posted by: Admiral marcus at May 19, 2019 09:42 AM (qYP3G)

68 2 years ago a friend and his wife took a trip up to that hotel that was famous in a Hollywood movie. Crossing over The Mackinac Bridge, they still talk about it. Mac required some 3,500 workers, $99,800,000, and48 months to complete. What does a mile of the famous California choo choo cost!

Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:42 AM (+0N+f)

69 51 Plus, some people refuse to admit that they are wrong...ever. They will twist themselves into a pretzel to justify their "rightness" even if they are wrong. If you make them look bad, they will double down...
Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:33 AM (UUBmN)

No they don't.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:42 AM (Ct55T)

70 It's amazing to think of all the wonders they had yet to discover about this land at that point isn't it?

As a woodworker, I think of all the old growth forests.. untouched for millennia..

and the pristine rivers and streams..
----
I just spent 5 days in the Gila Wilderness hiking two forks of the river. First 2 days didn't see another human. Totally off the grid. Nice way to reset.

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:43 AM (UUBmN)

71 If ever there was a time I would like to go back to, that would be it. (but there are lots of other times as well!)

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at M
---
I highly recommend going to the Straits and visiting Fort Michilimackinac, which has been rebuilt.

There's something about sitting on its walls and gazing out across the straits and imagining what the garrison thought of the place 300 years ago.

Northern Michigan has a lot of history in it - it's the oldest settled part of the state, actually. The Island is nice and the view from Fort Mackinac is amazing. A natural crossroads with so much going on. Expect to take a week so you don't rush it.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:43 AM (cfSRQ)

72 OT but, uh, historical: "German Crossbow victims were part of Medieval sex cult" - German sex guru specializing in medieval bondage directed lesbian sex slaves in bizarre murder-suicide

https://tinyurl.com/yyqxob56

"Caspari’s neighbors described her as a peculiar woman who dressed in Goth fashion and who rarely spoke to anyone."

*shifty eyes*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:45 AM (kQs4Y)

73 *shifty eyes*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:45 AM (kQs4Y)

---
Is this where someone points out a longbow would have been a better choice as a weapon?

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:46 AM (cfSRQ)

74 Pixie will not let me post my reviews of Above The Waterfall, The Travellers series, The Librarian, and the The Tattooist Of Auschwitz. Half hour of typing down the tubes.

Posted by: Zoltan at May 19, 2019 09:47 AM (Zgezk)

75 Among other things, I'm almost halfway through Nabokov's second full length work of fiction "King, Queen, Knave". It's an amazingly mature work about some young guy who moves to Berlin to work in his uncle's department store and starts banging his hawt wife. It was written in 1929 but not translated by his son until 1968 "in collaboration with the author" which means to me that the mature Vlad made some tweaks in the text to improve it. Although emigrees don't make up the cast of characters, the protagonist is still an outsider to Berlin. And there's still lots of Nabokovian odd coincidences and vivid descriptions of settings. Great stuff; his early stuff deserves a wider audience.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 09:47 AM (y7DUB)

76 Where's Vic? Today in history is big--> May 19, 1536, the beheading of Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII on Tower Green.

Posted by: jmel at May 19, 2019 09:47 AM (OeWgo)

77 37 Well, other than Gibbon, I'm still working through the extremely dense Origins of Early Islam.

When I first got into the topic, I thought: "Please. Of course there's a historical Mohammed. Put away the tin foil hats already."

But now that I've started in, I'm noticing other references to the research. It's kept quiet, but it's out there.

Red pill, indeed.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (cfSRQ)
______

I'd stay skeptical. If I were particularly interested, I'd check the strongest counter-arguments. Any halfway competent writer can make a persuasive case; the question is what is the opposing case.

It's 55 years since I became a naval buff, in large part because of Churchill's histories. But now I know better than to accept his version; great writer, yes, but his understanding of ships and naval strategy never did go beyond that of a cavalry officer. Really.

One of my "new" books is Roskill's Churchill and the Admirals. It too is overstated, and sometimes wrong. But it's sometimes right. WSC hated (explicitly) a strategy based on convoy and blockade as the primary foci. You know, the things that beat Napoleon. But he couldn't see it unless there was a battle or an invasion involved. (Interestingly, this was a reprise of Swift's critique of Marlborough.)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:48 AM (VaN/j)

78 Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:46 AM (cfSRQ)

There's just something more primal about the crossbow. It's more satisfying.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:48 AM (kQs4Y)

79 There's a lot to unpack with that look.

Still, I envy his lithe, hoydenish figure.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 09:19 AM (kQs4Y)

*****

I rarely come across the word "hoydenish".

The last time I remember it being used is in the original version of The Parent Trap. The Grandmother character expressed her dislike for what she thought was Sharon's new short haircut by describing it as hoydenish.

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at May 19, 2019 09:49 AM (NqQAS)

80 Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (cfSRQ)

=============

Honestly did not realize the controversy over Mohammed's existence was serious. So he might have been a conglomeration of multiple warlords? Apocryphal, even?

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 09:49 AM (Z216Q)

81 Re: books, i'm re-reading Vanity Fair for the umpteenth time.

Because I'm a dork.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:49 AM (Ct55T)

82 Tom hollands in the shadow of the crescent is pretty good in that vein, hes critical of all three Faith's sourcing but guess which complained

Posted by: Admiral marcus at May 19, 2019 09:50 AM (qYP3G)

83 Trivia time: He was the best selling author of the 20th century at the time of his death in 1970 although neither terribly famous nor well respected by the literary community. You've probably heard of him (although I had to explain an attempted joke using him as a sock some time ago). You definitely know his most famous character who has been featured in numerous movies and on TV. I used to often see his paperback novels with rather lurid covers (for the time) at truck stops and what not.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 09:50 AM (+y/Ru)

84 Re: books, i'm re-reading Vanity Fair for the umpteenth time.

Because I'm a dork.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:49 AM (Ct55T)

A Beto fan? Watched the video of him getting a haircut on YouTube...so exciting. (not)

Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:51 AM (+0N+f)

85 I highly recommend going to the Straits and visiting Fort Michilimackinac, which has been rebuilt.

There's something about sitting on its walls and gazing out across the straits and imagining what the garrison thought of the place 300 years ago.

Northern Michigan has a lot of history in it - it's the oldest settled part of the state, actually. The Island is nice and the view from Fort Mackinac is amazing. A natural crossroads with so much going on. Expect to take a week so you don't rush it.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd

Been there! It is a beautiful spot.

We used to vacation in northern Michigan.. Petoskey was one of our favorite spots..

And who can resist the hundreds of fudge shops on Mackinac Island? lol..

One of my previous jobs was working for a software developer writing school administrative software.. Many of the schools up that way were our clients and I had to head up there for training and troubleshooting.. Boyne City.. Charlevoix.. beautiful country..

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:51 AM (438dO)

86 A Beto fan? Watched the video of him getting a haircut on YouTube...so exciting. (not)
Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:51 AM (+0N+f)

I said "Thackeray", not "Hackery"

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:52 AM (Ct55T)

87 Re: books, i'm re-reading Vanity Fair for the umpteenth time.

Because I'm a dork.
Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:49 AM (Ct55T)

That book reads refreshingly modern with a smartassed sense of humor. I enjoyed it a great deal.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 09:52 AM (y7DUB)

88 musical jolly chimp:
thank goodness digitalization provides a permanent record.

No /sarc tag?

"Yessss. Permanent." -digital book company that deleted everybody's copies of 1984

Really, though, digital is the greatest development in copying media. Never the same as printed page or paint on canvas, but excellent for sharing text and image and even movin' pitchers. Exact copies with no loss (if done right).

Permanent, for certain values of multiple, location-separated backup copies and lack of EMPs wiping out digital civilization...

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for vids at May 19, 2019 09:52 AM (NsI03)

89 That book reads refreshingly modern with a smartassed sense of humor. I enjoyed it a great deal.
Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 09:52 AM (y7DUB)

I don't think people who never read vic-lit appreciate just how hilarious that book is.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:53 AM (Ct55T)

90 One of the most valuable things my father ever taught me was when to apologize, how, and why.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:37 AM (lPsvG)

It's a good skill. I was taught to apologize for everything all the time whether it was my fault or responsibility or not.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 09:53 AM (NWiLs)

91 76 Where's Vic? Today in history is big--> May 19, 1536, the beheading of Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII on Tower Green.
Posted by: jmel at May 19, 2019 09:47 AM (OeWgo)
_______

Also Battle of Dover, which started the first Anglo-Dutch War, and Barfleur vs the French.

And the ONT missed that it's Pete Townsend's B-Day. (Or will that be tonight's?)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:54 AM (VaN/j)

92 What is RBG reading today?

Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:55 AM (+0N+f)

93 Book nerds!

Posted by: Ogre at May 19, 2019 09:55 AM (t6MX/)

94 Yes contemporary sourcing of Mohammed is noted in say fragments of the syrian conquests and a few other places which are after the bulk of his life had passed

Posted by: Admiral marcus at May 19, 2019 09:56 AM (qYP3G)

95 83 Trivia time: He was the best selling author of the 20th century at the time of his death in 1970 although neither terribly famous nor well respected by the literary community. You've probably heard of him (although I had to explain an attempted joke using him as a sock some time ago). You definitely know his most famous character who has been featured in numerous movies and on TV. I used to often see his paperback novels with rather lurid covers (for the time) at truck stops and what not.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 09:50 AM (+y/Ru)
_______

Sounds like Spillane, but 1970 sounds early. He was in a Columbo. (Guess without DDG.)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 09:56 AM (VaN/j)

96 93 Book nerds!
Posted by: Ogre at May 19, 2019 09:55 AM (t6MX/)

Was the guy who played Ogre the same guy who played the "buddy character" in Bloodsport?

In my memory, that's true, but for some reason i'm not sure it's actually true.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 19, 2019 09:56 AM (Ct55T)

97 92 What is RBG reading today?
Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:55 AM (+0N+f)

Handbook for the Recently Deceased

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 09:56 AM (NWiLs)

98 One of the most valuable things my father ever taught me was when to apologize, how, and why.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - The Media Controls the Whether Machines at May 19, 2019 09:37 AM (lPsvG)

It's a good skill. I was taught to apologize for everything all the time whether it was my fault or responsibility or not.
Posted by: Insomniac
----
I think being able to admit you are wrong first then apologizing is a very valuable thing...

Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:56 AM (UUBmN)

99 92 What is RBG reading today?
Posted by: Colin at May 19, 2019 09:55 AM (+0N+f)

pennys on her eyelids

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 09:57 AM (JFO2v)

100 pennys on her eyelids
Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 09:57 AM (JFO2v)

"In God We Trust"

...nnnnnnNNNOOOOOOOOO!

*sizzle*

Posted by: RBG at May 19, 2019 09:57 AM (Ct55T)

101 wait a sec.. people were settling out west in the 1780's?

Lewis and Clark weren't even heading out for another 20 years!

"Northwest" must mean something different.. Ohio??

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (438dO)

Must be....this part of SC was considered "frontier" @the time of the revolution.

Posted by: BignJames at May 19, 2019 09:59 AM (ykq7q)

102
Honestly did not realize the controversy over
Mohammed's existence was serious. So he might have been a conglomeration
of multiple warlords? Apocryphal, even?

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 09:49 AM (Z216Q)

---
Neither did I. I'm not yet sold on it because I haven't dug into the whole argument yet. Still trying to wrap my mind around it.

Still, there are some rather large issues with the conventional narrative that have to be addressed. The lack of any kind of coinage or inscription/monuments is a big one. So too is the absence of contemporary commentary.

Then there's the Koran itself. It was supposedly present at the creation, but doesn't seem to exist until two centuries later. The Gospels are much closer in terms of creating and dating.

For a faith that was supposedly fully-formed out of the box (so to speak), these are some serious issues that hand-waving can't dismiss.

Islam as a Christian heresy that got out of hand makes a lot of sense. Having an empire synthesize a shadowy mythical founder is likewise not unique in world history. So I'm skeptical but intrigued.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 09:59 AM (cfSRQ)

103 92
What is RBG reading today?
========

Back issues from her collection of Powerlifting USA magazine. Looking for some good hints on shoulder definition exercises.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 09:59 AM (Z216Q)

104 Sorry fragments of the Arab conquest and that is dated to 636, it's a little like relying on procopius for an understanding of early byzantine history except there are other sources

Posted by: Admiral marcus at May 19, 2019 10:00 AM (qYP3G)

105 I just got through the part of "A People's Tragedy" where Lenin unleashed the mob with orders to "loot the looters". This was just as fucking bad as the feral dipshits of the French Revolution going crazy on whoever provoked their ire; Orlando Figes made it clear the early Cheka was mandated to wreak havoc indiscriminately. As long as that psycho fuck's body is still displayed in Moscow, Russia is a worthless shithole

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:01 AM (y7DUB)

106 Stopping in for a drive-by, fellow bookish 'rons and 'ettes. This week I'm finishing Scandalous Mercy: When God Goes Beyond Boundaries, by French nun Sister Emmanuel Maillard. It came highly recommended by a young woman who led a retreat on The Divine Mercy, at my Catholic parish.

While some of the story telling is so simplistic - bordering on insulting -- we also get details of stories not reported in "mainstream" news. The translation could've had something to do with this as well.

Toward the end, there is a story about a U.S. Marine who takes two precious weeks of vacation to fly to India to meet his idol, Mother Teresa. When one of the Sisters of Charity answers the door, she informs the Marine that, "Mother is not here; she was called to Rome."

The crestfallen young man decides to stay and help the missionary sisters anyway and is rewarded like you wouldn't believe.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 10:02 AM (tGSHk)

107 Islam as a Christian heresy that got out of hand makes a lot of sense.

Just off-handedly, Islam has always struck me as a military code combined with popular religion. The animating impetus is conquest, but the combo with religion has enabled Islam to thrive even today.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 10:04 AM (Z216Q)

108 Sounds like Spillane, but 1970 sounds early. He was in a Columbo. (Guess without DDG.)
Posted by: Eeyore
........

Spillane just died 10 years ago or so..

Tolkien?

Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 10:05 AM (438dO)

109 I think being able to admit you are wrong first then apologizing is a very valuable thing...
Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:56 AM (UUBmN)

Of course. I do my best to do this with my kids especially. But there's a lot of space between that and being compelled essentially to repeatedly apologize for one's own existence and others' shitty behavior. I think introspection and sincere apology can be a good and powerful thing.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:06 AM (NWiLs)

110 Along similar lines, there is the recently departed French erald de Villiers bond malko linge he had a very pulpy series 32 stories some of which have been translated. Even for Morons he is exceedingly franc in his conquests, the one I read again is madmen of Benghazi although set in 2011, related to events a year later in ways the broadsheets wont touch.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at May 19, 2019 10:06 AM (qYP3G)

111 The crestfallen young man decides to stay and help the missionary sisters anyway and is rewarded like you wouldn't believe.
Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 10:02 AM (tGSHk)

"Dear Penthouse Forum..."

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:07 AM (NWiLs)

112 Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 09:50 AM (+y/Ru)
--
Mack Bolan?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 10:09 AM (kQs4Y)

113 Erle Stanley Gardner died about then. And the covers were much more lurid than the content. (Again, not looking it up.)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:09 AM (VaN/j)

114 Yes. The Northwest Territories are now the Midwest.

It's a largely overlooked part of American history
__

Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire was an independent comic book created by William Messner-Loebs about Michigan frontier life in the 19th century. An ensemble piece, it tells the story of the Fort Miami settlement and the characters, both real and fictional, that occupy it. Among these is the title character, Joshua "Wolverine" MacAlistaire. -Wikipedia

Two trade paperback collections.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(comics)
__

Growing up in Oklahoma, everything from here to the Pacific was the frontier. I found Journey entertaining and informative about that earlier "western frontier".

Well researched, and Messner-Loebs's art is lush. IIRC. Been a long, long time since I read it. Might have to dig this series out of the archives and read it again.

I especially remember his illustration of the main character caught up in the 1812 Madrid quakes. "Where'd the river go?"

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for vids at May 19, 2019 10:10 AM (NsI03)

115
Mack Bolan?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 10:09 AM

Bang A Gong?

oh wait....

Posted by: AltonJackson (click for the 08JUN19 MiMoMe details) at May 19, 2019 10:10 AM (KCxzN)

116
"Dear Penthouse Forum..."
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:07 AM (NWiLs)

Er, let's just say it's more of a spiritual reward...

Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 10:11 AM (tGSHk)

117 Gerald de Villiers, a few of his last works have been translated like this one and one set in kabul.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at May 19, 2019 10:12 AM (qYP3G)

118 Re #3-----Ain't that the truth

Posted by: Semilitterate at May 19, 2019 10:13 AM (BCxw3)

119 The 'Even Fantasy Is Offensive' story is delicious in a satisfyingly cannibalistic way.

Watching these small-minded people eat each other alive over their shared perverse value system is beautfully tasty.

Especially when it's a lot of mediocrities vying against their competition, justifying it with their twisted, bankrupt notions.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at May 19, 2019 10:14 AM (oVJmc)

120 Even if it's these pants, which look like something you'd have to wear if you were invited to RuPaul's family reunion.
+++++++++
Those pants are about the least of that boy's problems.

*********

Boy, I'll say!! For heaven's sake the poor fellow is drinking a Corona!!!

Posted by: hobart Harumphey at May 19, 2019 10:14 AM (m45I2)

121 For those interested in the subject I read an essay this morning by the authors of this book, which extensively describes the Christian genocide a hundred years ago in Turkey, popularly called the Armenian genocide. It actually was far more reaching ethnically than just Armenian and had an explcitily anti-Christian focus.
https://tinyurl.com/y6cy7bs8

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 10:14 AM (Z216Q)

122 Er, let's just say it's more of a spiritual reward...
Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 10:11 AM (tGSHk)

Ohhhhh... So Zoot and Dingo do NOT make an appearance.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:15 AM (NWiLs)

123 Maybe a dingo ate your baby.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 19, 2019 10:18 AM (/tuJf)

124 Something I've noticed. Another of the new books is Charles Stanton, Medieval Maritime Warfare. So far it seems to be OK so far as what it covers. But the writing is crude. Not, thankfully, gobbledygook, but sort of high schoolish. Repetitious, with a lot of unnecessary descriptions of sources, and sometimes what, taken literally, would be illogical. (Though so far Iv'e been able to see what he means.

And this isn't unique. John Guilmartin does good work on early modern warfare and tech, but writes like that. So does John Elting (Swords Around a Throne.) The worst is one More Than Merkle (can't recall author's name.)

Is this something we're going to get more of? Note, I am not using Churchill's prose as my standard, but guys like Norman Friedman and Arthur Marder, neither of whom is Swiftian, but both are perfectly serviceable.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:20 AM (VaN/j)

125 Erle Stanley Gardner died about then. And the covers were much more lurid than the content. (Again, not looking it up.)
Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:09 AM (VaN/j)

Wiki states ESG died in 1970. He has my vote as the answer for the trivia question. I recently bought an old Perry Mason novel just because of the title, The Case of the Vagabond Virgin because it was in great shape and still had the [non-lurid] dust jacket.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 10:20 AM (5Yee7)

126 One slice of Ohio was part of Connecticut. A lot of it was one county of Kentucky. A bunch more was part of Virginia. Geographically, the flat western stripe is part of Indiana. The surveying talents of Robt E Lee and the great trade-off in the UP took three northwestern counties from Mee-shigan.

When you are done subtracting that parts that really ought to be something else, you're pretty much left with the horseshoe and some Somalis.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:20 AM (8ZmvG)

127 I should be Outside, I suppose. But...bugs, heat!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 10:21 AM (kQs4Y)

128 wait a sec.. people were settling out west in the 1780's?
Lewis and Clark weren't even heading out for another 20 years!

"Northwest" must mean something different.. Ohio??
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at May 19, 2019 09:27 AM (438dO)

Yes. Back in those times, the "Northwest" meant Ohio, Michigan, etc.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 10:22 AM (b7IdW)

129 Erle Stanley Gardner died about then. And the covers were much more lurid than the content. (Again, not looking it up.)

-
Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner! I got a wild hair and decided to read the novel introducing Perry Madon, The Case of the Velvet Claws. Perry was different then. Carried a gun and was much more of a street brawler than the sophisticate than we think of.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 10:23 AM (+y/Ru)

130 hiya

Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:24 AM (icuj/)

131 Okay, it's not Don Pendleton, who wrote the Mack Bolan series. He died in 1995.

I haven't read any Mack stories, but per Wiki:

"Mack Bolan, alias The Executioner, is a fictional character who has been serialized in over 600 novels with sales of more than 200 million books."

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 10:25 AM (kQs4Y)

132 129 Erle Stanley Gardner died about then. And the covers were much more lurid than the content. (Again, not looking it up.)

-
Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner! I got a wild hair and decided to read the novel introducing Perry Madon, The Case of the Velvet Claws. Perry was different then. Carried a gun and was much more of a street brawler than the sophisticate than we think of.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 10:23 AM (+y/Ru)
________

Burr and Hale both portrayed Perry and Della as more polished than they come across in the books. Hopper, though is pretty much on target as Paul Drake.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:28 AM (VaN/j)

133 Personal pet peeve:

From the pic note above "...dubbed one of the most beautiful bookstores in China..."

Dubbed by who? And if it's "one of," where are the other equally or more beautiful bookstores in China? Can we not have articles about those beautiful bookstores as well?

It's just lazy writing. State YOUR opinion, author. Say it's a beautiful bookstore. Hey, maybe even say it's the most beautiful bookstore you've found, in China or perhaps even anywhere!

Just knock it off with the "some day it's one of the most..."

I hate that type of limp, non-committal statement.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 10:28 AM (cY3LT)

134 The crestfallen young man decides to stay and help the missionary sisters anyway and is rewarded like you wouldn't believe.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 10:02 AM (tGSHk)

A friendly warning to all you 'ettes: Do not write sentences like this. It's like standing in a pool of gasoline and lighting a match.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 10:29 AM (b7IdW)

135 130 hiya
Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:24 AM (icuj/)

'Sup?

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:30 AM (NWiLs)

136 I've read that Gardner based some of Perry Mason's cases on his own early career as a lawyer. He was definitely a fan of courtroom shenanigans.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 19, 2019 10:33 AM (3+caa)

137 Just off-handedly, Islam has always struck me as a
military code combined with popular religion. The animating impetus is
conquest, but the combo with religion has enabled Islam to thrive even
today.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 10:04 AM (Z216Q)|
---
One of the facets that make me think it was heresy was the fury directed at Christians.

Contra modern propaganda, Christianity has almost always been voluntary. There may be social pressure to conform, but none of Islam's "conversion, tribute or the sword" schtick.

However, Christianity has not been kind of heretics. So if early Islam regarded Orthodox Christians as heretics, that would explain not only why they fought with such zeal, but also why they were initially tolerant of other heresies - they hated Orthodoxy more.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 10:33 AM (cfSRQ)

138 Fun Gardner fact: he also wrote westerns, back when pulp authors got paid a nickel a word. He used to draw out the final gunfight to the last bullet, because, as he put it, he didn't want the hero to ride off into the sunset with 25 cents' worth of unused ammo in his pistol.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 19, 2019 10:34 AM (3+caa)

139 Not long ago we went over several recent books having to do with the terrible defeat of the nascent US Army in Ohio, and the campaigns by Anthony Wayne that followed on that. There were horrifying financial scandals having to do with federal sale of lands in Ohio (and to a lesser extent the other NW territories).

Washington (no, the actual Washington) needed cash very badly, to live to up the compromise that got the Constitution -- the federal assumption of the states' war debts. Pres Washington was, perhaps, poorly advised as to who the trustworthy patricians were. But he did believe in the general idea of having wealthy patricians semi-govern, by being the Government's agents in selling, buying and parcelling-out that territory, unbelievably vast and rich for the time. So his name was connected, at the time, with those scandals.

Much of Ohio was sold twice. By the time the Indian wars went off, early white settlers (and veterans who had gone out early) were not on the Government's side. Many perfectly honest buyers were just plain screwed over. Not one of American history's prouder moments.

Also of note: Ohio is very much "the engineered state," and a lot of that happened in the 20th century. 18th century Ohio was treacherous in the extreme, what with all those flat rivers flooding constantly. Anywhere there was a ravine or valley, you could count on it being full of water part of the year.

"The Victory with No Name" is one of those recent books. There are several.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:35 AM (8ZmvG)

140 74 Pixie will not let me post my reviews of Above The Waterfall, The Travellers series, The Librarian, and the The Tattooist Of Auschwitz. Half hour of typing down the tubes.

Posted by: Zoltan at May 19, 2019 09:47 AM (Zgezk)

Please don't throw them away. E-mail them to me and I'll see what I can use.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 10:35 AM (b7IdW)

141 In "I, Claudius" Augustus was just poisoned by his bitch wife, Livia, just like everyone else who irritated her. Lots of characters are hard to keep track of just who they are but Augustus was a commanding presence for a long time. There was a pretty funny vignette where Claudius was giving a reading and some obese turd wanders in and sits in Livia's vacant seat, totally breaking it apart. Claudius uncontrollably loses his shit over this just in time for Livia to show up; it's not like she didn't hate him already. Great stuff.

In Herodotus Darius barely made it out of Scythia alive as the difficulties of dealing with a highly mobile opponent over logistically difficult terrain became almost fatally apparent. Now it's on to Libya although strangely Carthage doesn't get included.

Finally it was oddly inappropriate on Mother's Day to be reading Camille Paglia's description of Dionysus in Sexual Personae as embodying the chthonic nature of women being immersed in the oozing miasma of procreation with the accompanying fish smells. No wonder the nags were triggered. It reminded me of Tammy Bruce taking her fellow lezzos to task for having the disregard for personal appearances of homeless people and high rates of alcoholism.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:35 AM (y7DUB)

142 136 I've read that Gardner based some of Perry Mason's cases on his own early career as a lawyer. He was definitely a fan of courtroom shenanigans.
Posted by: Trimegistus at May 19, 2019 10:33 AM (3+caa)
_______

They sometimes did that in the show. Of course, they were limited in what they could show back then. (Hitchcock got around it with the closing commentary.)

Another case where the public perception today is off, and over-polished, is Nick and Nora Charles. This wasn't so much a matter of the movies getting them wrong, as a confusion with another series of movies, in which William Powell played Philo Vance. Vance is the real source of, e.g., Niven's parody in Murder By Death, not The Thin Man.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:36 AM (VaN/j)

143 I have been reading the King Killer series by Patrick Rothfuss

I just got done with Wise Man's Fear
It's terrible nothing happens at all. He keeps hinting about a war that's going on and I was hoping to find out what started it but no nothing. There are these Demons that roam around possessing people and these little Demon things that attack people and you don't find out what is going on why they are attacking people.

He spends a whole chapter on learning the language and hand signs of one of the mercenaries.

Just skip and read the last book of the series

I don't understand all the good reviews it's not a good book.

I would suggest reading SPELLMONGER by Terry Mancour.

I am enjoying this series very much, funny at times and serious. It has the court drama or power games that happens with Kings and Dukes. There's murder and Magic and Goblins that are trying to kill all of humanity but the Humans don't come together because politics.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at May 19, 2019 10:37 AM (dKiJG)

144 'Sup?
Posted by: Insomniac

I had to run a few errands before I got here, but at least my pants aren't wet today

Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:38 AM (icuj/)

145 I had to run a few errands before I got here, but at least my pants aren't wet today
Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:38 AM (icuj/)

I commend you for your Poise.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:38 AM (NWiLs)

146 Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:20 AM (VaN/j)

Modern writing is often just plain *bad*. Articles in newspapers and magazines, even the conservative ones I'm afraid, are written very poorly. I don't know if it's because all the editors were let go when AutoCucumber came on the scene or if it's because the last 30+ years of education have been abysmal.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 10:39 AM (uquGJ)

147 Still, I envy his lithe, hoydenish figure.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

But not his hairy legs, right ?

RIGHT ???

Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:40 AM (icuj/)

148 Happy Birthday Eeyore !

Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:41 AM (icuj/)

149 Modern writing is often just plain *bad*. Articles in newspapers and magazines, even the conservative ones I'm afraid, are written very poorly. I don't know if it's because all the editors were let go when AutoCucumber came on the scene or if it's because the last 30+ years of education have been abysmal.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 10:39 AM (uquGJ)

Back in my day, when the chalkboard had just been invested, we had to diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, get the difference between "its" and "it's" beaten into us, etc. I'm pretty certain they don't do this anymore.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:41 AM (NWiLs)

150 I commend you for your Poise.

It wasn't raining today.

Poise didn't enter into the equation.

Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 10:42 AM (icuj/)

151 Back in my day, when the chalkboard had just been invested, we had to diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, get the difference between "its" and "it's" beaten into us, etc. I'm pretty certain they don't do this anymore.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:41 AM (NWiLs)
---------

We meanie homeschool moms sure do.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:43 AM (aXucN)

152 Something I've noticed. Another of the new books is Charles Stanton, Medieval Maritime Warfare. So far it seems to be OK so far as what it covers. But the writing is crude. Not, thankfully, gobbledygook, but sort of high schoolish. Repetitious, with a lot of unnecessary descriptions of sources, and sometimes what, taken literally, would be illogical. (Though so far Iv'e been able to see what he means.

And this isn't unique. John Guilmartin does good work on early modern warfare and tech, but writes like that. So does John Elting (Swords Around a Throne.) The worst is one More Than Merkle (can't recall author's name.)

Is this something we're going to get more of? Note, I am not using Churchill's prose as my standard, but guys like Norman Friedman and Arthur Marder, neither of whom is Swiftian, but both are perfectly serviceable.
Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 10:20 AM (VaN/j)

We are boats against the tide. In a mere few decades, standard Engrish will include "u" as a word. And the word like will be, like, literally acceptable as a way to pause for effect in the middle of a sentence.

It will also be literally impossible to tell when someone means something literally, because the word "literally" will literally be used to mean both literally and figuratively. It'll literally be a rule. Literally.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 10:44 AM (cY3LT)

153 Good editors are extremely valuable; in my case to purge sentences of excessive words that add nothing in terms of useful content.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (y7DUB)

154 Every week I click on the awful pants picture, and then I wonder why did I click on that awful pants picture. Even sadder is the fact that there are so many awful pants pictures out there in the wild.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (aXucN)

155 #GetWouk!

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (Ndje9)

156 Good editors are extremely valuable; in my case to purge sentences of excessive words that add nothing in terms of useful content.
Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (y7DUB)
-----------

Replace that semi-colon with a comma.

(I always find your comments very well-written, by the way.)

Posted by: bluebell with her homeschool mom hat on at May 19, 2019 10:47 AM (aXucN)

157 Those little click-bait stories that are appended to "things you click on" read as if a cheap AI circuit is being tested out writing them. There are sentences there, but they are curiously content - free. Details are often wrong, and they're just full of that "some say" passive style. They remind me a lot of the old word-count criticism of pulp authors, except that RE Howard and ilk were a lot more entertaining.

History channellers of the last 20 or so years went to the same writing school. I don't know how many times I can bear hearing about MacArthur "flying out" of the Philippines, or of how many versions of a plane were used before the ar-MISS-tiss. It's all like "Screw you, stuck-up Junior High grad with yer hah falootin education." Also when Aryeh Nusbacher starts to look good to me I will know my time has come at last.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:47 AM (8ZmvG)

158 Some say English has been dubbed one of the most important languages in the United States.

I literally don't believe that anymore. Do u?

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 10:48 AM (cY3LT)

159 Eldest Kidlet just finished the second book of The Expanse. She's still enjoying it and likes to tell me about what happened. The Horde having previously discussed it helps me place the action so far, but I don't remember much of what was said after this point in the series.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 10:48 AM (uquGJ)

160 I'm reading "Why, No, My Support Of Impeachment Has Nothing To Do With My Family Business In China--Why Do You Ask, Grasshopper?" by Rep. Justin Amash (U.-Hengzhou).

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at May 19, 2019 10:49 AM (Ndje9)

161 I am finally planning to read War and Peace. I have two translations to choose from. At first the length deterred me but if I can read LOTR every year and reread Atlas Shrugged a bunch of times I am not going to let some dead Rooskie hold me back.

Weekly progress (if any) reports to follow the next few weeks.

Back to the guns.

Posted by: JTB at May 19, 2019 10:49 AM (5ZhDL)

162 "Pug" Henry was there when Herman Wouk died.

Posted by: FireHorse at May 19, 2019 10:51 AM (ta49A)

163 We meanie homeschool moms sure do.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:43 AM (aXucN)

I'm sure you're a very nice, yet rigorous, homeschool mom.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:52 AM (NWiLs)

164 Back in my day, when the chalkboard had just been invested, we had to diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, get the difference between "its" and "it's" beaten into us, etc. I'm pretty certain they don't do this anymore.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:41 AM (NWiLs)

U mean, like, literally beaten?

I would literally die.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 10:52 AM (cY3LT)

165 Anyone know if Brad Thor is still never Trump? I do enjoy his books for a nice light read.... haven't read one in a while though.
Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:17 AM (UUBmN)

Yes, and it's a shame.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at May 19, 2019 10:52 AM (dKiJG)

166 consider this sentence

Last year, despite overwhelming evidence that homeless encampments were generating enormous quantities of garbage, the city council considered making it illegal for non-homeless Seattle residents to dump trash in the encampments.

wait wut? making it illegal for non-homeless So that means it is legal for homeless? Welcome to the modern Democrat Ru(i)n City.

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 10:52 AM (JFO2v)

167 Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:47 AM (8ZmvG)

Even publications like American Greatness and American Thinker have very badly written articles. Maybe it's just that the ones getting linked are unusually bad, but that seems unlikely. There are links on archeology and history I follow from Twitter that are nearly incomprehensible. It may be that my reading comprehension has dropped drastically the last few years, but I doubt it.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 10:53 AM (uquGJ)

168 Replace that semi-colon with a comma.

(I always find your comments very well-written, by the way.)
Posted by: bluebell with her homeschool mom hat on at May 19, 2019 10:47 AM (aXucN)

Thank you. Mother Hate was not what most people would consider highly educated but she thought it important that her offspring, even my idiot brother, be well spoken. But she mercilessly ridiculed people with overly ostentatious vocabularies so my path was a narrow one.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:54 AM (y7DUB)

169 "Some say English has been dubbed"

You know, that would account for it.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:55 AM (8ZmvG)

170 154 Every week I click on the awful pants picture, and then I wonder why did I click on that awful pants picture. Even sadder is the fact that there are so many awful pants pictures out there in the wild.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (aXucN)
---
I always think "If this is what OregonMuse is willing to show us, what other horrors has he beheld?"

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 10:55 AM (kQs4Y)

171 164 Back in my day, when the chalkboard had just been invested, we had to diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, get the difference between "its" and "it's" beaten into us, etc. I'm pretty certain they don't do this anymore.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:41 AM (NWiLs)

U mean, like, literally beaten?

I would literally die.
Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 10:52 AM (cY3LT)

As to it's and its, I am speaking metaphorically. There was plenty of beating over other matters, whether real, imagined or trivial.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 10:55 AM (NWiLs)

172 Even publications like American Greatness and American Thinker have very badly written articles. Maybe it's just that the ones getting linked are unusually bad, but that seems unlikely. There are links on archeology and history I follow from Twitter that are nearly incomprehensible. It may be that my reading comprehension has dropped drastically the last few years, but I doubt it.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 10:53 AM (uquGJ)
---------

I've noticed this too, and I've come to the conclusion that it's probably because people are always in such a rush to get things published onto their website. In the olden days, when we relied on the printed newspaper, there was more time for editors to get involved and really, well, edit. Nowadays, if they even have editors at all, it's probably a cursory glance and then hit "publish." Everyone wants to be the first with the story, same as in the olden days, but the timing is much tighter now.

This is all based on nothing but my imagination, by the way.

Although I have to agree that the basics of writing are probably not taught much these days.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:56 AM (aXucN)

173 consider this sentence

Last year, despite overwhelming evidence that homeless encampments were generating enormous quantities of garbage, the city council considered making it illegal for non-homeless Seattle residents to dump trash in the encampments.

wait wut? making it illegal for non-homeless So that means it is legal for homeless? Welcome to the modern Democrat Ru(i)n City.
Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 10:52 AM (JFO2v)

I do wonder how they'll enforce it. Will everyone be required to carry papers? You! Yes, you! That gum wrapper you just dropped, are you homeless? Let me see your papers? Oh!! It says you have a nice, 3 bedroom studio near downtown... off to the gulag with you!

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 10:57 AM (cY3LT)

174 The hold-out NeverTrumpers still harbor under the illusion that once Trump is out of the way--by any means necessary--the clock gets reset back to 2015.

They don't understand that Trump already changed the game. Even if he loses in 2020, there's no going back.

Posted by: JoeF. at May 19, 2019 10:57 AM (NFEMn)

175 I'm re-reading Fatherland by Robert Harris. In 1964 in an alternate Berlin in which Hitler won and old man Joe Kennedy is president of the U.S., Kriminalpolizei SS Sturmbahnfuehrer Xavier March investigates the possible suicide or accidental death of an elderly retired high official in the General Government of the rump state of Poland and discovers that several other formerly high ranking Nazis have died or gone missing. Meanwhile, Kennedy is coming to Berlin to meet Hitler with an eye toward easing the cold war tensions between the US and Germany that have arisen since the US's defeat in 1946.

SPOILER ALERT: I like the premise. Heydrich, who was promoted to the head of the SS after the assassination of Himmler, in an effort to insure that no untoward history might arise to spoil the US / Germany detente, is cleaning house of any Wannsee Conference participants who might spill the beans. The idea that these conspirators might fall out seems realistic and appeals to me.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 10:57 AM (+y/Ru)

176 RE: nevertrumpers, I have a much simpler theory. They are being paid to say what they say, and they were never "conservatives" to begin with.

Posted by: artemis at May 19, 2019 10:57 AM (AwPyG)

177 I know this belongs on the food thread, but when I goes up I'll be on a ferry in Kachemak Bay, so....

Last week we were discussing air fryers and one of Amazon's Deals of the Day today is on a large-capacity Secura air fryer for $75. Looks like a good deal and the product seems to get good reviews.

Posted by: Art Rondolet of Malmsey at May 19, 2019 10:57 AM (1FsHh)

178 Replace that semi-colon with a comma.

If valid -- and I'm willing to debate it -- that would be the first time in 20 years that a semi was used where a comma belonged.
I'm convinced that many people have misplaced the full-stop on their keyboard, they simply keep typing, and when the page is full, they load a shotgun with commas and, let fly
,

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:58 AM (8ZmvG)

179 So, if Trump doesn't win in 2020, isn't there a better case to refuse to accept the results of the election given all the Deep State bullshit we've seen get uncovered from last time around?

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (oVJmc)

180 Last year, despite overwhelming evidence that homeless encampments were generating enormous quantities of garbage, the city council considered making it illegal for non-homeless Seattle residents to dump trash in the encampments.

-
That's what compassion looks (and smells) like.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (+y/Ru)

181 I've noticed this too, and I've come to the conclusion that it's probably because people are always in such a rush to get things published onto their website. In the olden days, when we relied on the printed newspaper, there was more time for editors to get involved and really, well, edit. Nowadays, if they even have editors at all, it's probably a cursory glance and then hit "publish." Everyone wants to be the first with the story, same as in the olden days, but the timing is much tighter now.

This is all based on nothing but my imagination, by the way.

Although I have to agree that the basics of writing are probably not taught much these days.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:56 AM (aXucN)

I think you nailed it. I would only add that there are fewer readers even literate enough to notice the decline of writing--so fewer people pointing it out.

Posted by: JoeF. at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (NFEMn)

182 We homeschool our daughter using a curriculum entitled Classical Conversations. We diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, teach the difference between "its" and "it's" but instead of beatings we also teach Latin.

Posted by: motionview at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (pYQR/)

183 Last year, despite overwhelming evidence that homeless encampments were generating enormous quantities of garbage, the city council considered making it illegal for non-homeless Seattle residents to dump trash in the encampments.

Dang! I've got two old tube televisions to dump!

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at May 19, 2019 11:00 AM (oVJmc)

184 but instead of beatings we also teach Latin.
---

Embrace the power of "And"!

Posted by: The Dominicans at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (kQs4Y)

185 I think the other reason that so much writing today is poorly edited is that people only edit what they see on the screen. To truly proofread--particularly for organization and repetition--you need to print out a hard copy.

I used to teach writing, and my students initially thought I was just being old when I said this. By the end of the semester, they were converted.

Posted by: Art Rondolet of Malmsey at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (1FsHh)

186 182 We homeschool our daughter using a curriculum entitled Classical Conversations. We diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, teach the difference between "its" and "it's" but instead of beatings we also teach Latin.
Posted by: motionview at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (pYQR/)

That's good. Actual beatings are not a particularly effective pedagogical tool.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (NWiLs)

187 I recently read "Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 that Forever Changed American Aviation" by Gavin Mortimer. It centers on a period in October when three major events were unfolding: The dirigible America left Atlantic City in an attempt to cross the Atlantic, an international ballon race started from St. Louis, and an air meet was held at Belmont Park racetrack in New York featuring leading aviators and their state-of-the-art airplanes.

Balloons had been around for over 100 years, but airships and sirplanes were still new. Each had their advocates and detractors. Balloons couldn't be steered, of course, but one balloonist observed that no airplane could remain aloft for 72 hours. Only an airship which was powered and steered was thought to be capable of an Atlantic crossing.

The author interweaves these three tales. Fliers and spectators at the air show read newspaper accounts of a balloon crew that had been missing for days and was feared lost in the Canadian wilderness. Tens of thousands of people attended the air meet which lasted two weeks, including the cream of New York society.

At the time, most people had never seen an airplane, and the spectators were wowed by their first sight of a plant flying past the grandstand. But they quickly became jaded, and demanded more thrills like stunts and speed and distance records. Some of the aviators thought the spectators were ghouls who just wanted to see a crash. Reporters don't come across well, either. I know you'll find that shocking.

The Wright Brothers first flew in 1903, and the first flight in Europe was in 1906. Wilbur Wright gave public exhibitions in France in 1908, and the Euros quickly caught up with their airplane designs. Things started moving quickly after that. Aviators became celebrities, and the competition for speed, distance, and altitude records was fierce. At the end of 1909 the world altitude record was 508 feet. By the end of 1910 it was over 11,000 feet.

All that progress came at a fearful cost, as you can imagine. Many of the early aviation pioneers were killed in accidents.

I enjoyed the book, but then again this is the sort of book I enjoy.

Posted by: rickl at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (sdi6R)

188 So, if Trump doesn't win in 2020, isn't there a better case to refuse to accept the results of the election given all the Deep State bullshit we've seen get uncovered from last time around?
Posted by: Mr. Peebles at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (oVJmc)

If Trump loses and there's even a hint or "smidgen" of corruption in the way the votes were tallied--or if there were illegal votes--not only will Trump fight it tooth and nail, the only people complaining about that will be the people who have been pulling the same shit since he was elected.

Posted by: JoeF. at May 19, 2019 11:02 AM (NFEMn)

189 But she mercilessly ridiculed people with overly ostentatious vocabularies so my path was a narrow one.
Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:54 AM (y7DUB)
--------

The funny thing is, if you read older books, you notice that people's vocabularies were much more varied than they are today. What we might consider ostentatious today was most likely everyday language back 100 years ago or so.

Here's a funny story: recently my nephew was in some European city with his family (they live over there), and they asked a guy sweeping the street some question or other. He replied in perfect English with only the slightest accent, and my nephew (age 23) didn't know what one of the words meant (I can't remember what it was now). He said "Great, I'm not qualified to be a street sweeper in Europe. I'm starting to reevaluate my whole education."

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:02 AM (aXucN)

190 I've noticed this too, and I've come to the
conclusion that it's probably because people are always in such a rush
to get things published onto their website. In the olden days, when we
relied on the printed newspaper, there was more time for editors to get
involved and really, well, edit. Nowadays, if they even have editors at
all, it's probably a cursory glance and then hit "publish." Everyone
wants to be the first with the story, same as in the olden days, but the
timing is much tighter now.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:56 AM (aXucN)
---
There are no editors. That's the big difference. Even a good writer needs an editor from time to time.

It's clear that many web-based publications are simply generating content on a 24 hour clock. They need so many pieces to load so often to keep the clicks coming. American Greatness is quite good, but I've seen more than a few errors that I would chalk up (get it!) to the urge to get them up on the site.

Basically, blogs are fading and collective blogs are taking their place, so you get the same typos and immediacy but more voices. Meh.

I've taken on a gig at a pop culture site and I'm generally on the hook for one article a week, self-edited. Already I'm noticing it cuts deeply into my novel time, but since I'm still working out plot details, I'm content for the moment.

I've also noticed that my stuff gets front-paged for maybe a few hours before the next item in rotation hits. It's also not uncommon for a mass email from the editor (really the compiler) who says "more content, stat!"

I learned to write quickly and correctly and well because both of my parents were reporters when they met and my father became a copy editor for 30 years. So self-editing is something I learned from birth.

But I still screw it up, as the botched first printing of Three Weeks with the Coasties demonstrated.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:03 AM (cfSRQ)

191 Perhaps the Seattle homeless could be rendered into mulch. Organic, locally sourced, free-range, non-GMO (unless you count heroin) and sustainable. A very "green" solution, if you ask me.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:04 AM (NWiLs)

192 Thank you. Mother Hate was not what most people
would consider highly educated but she thought it important that her
offspring, even my idiot brother, be well spoken. But she mercilessly
ridiculed people with overly ostentatious vocabularies so my path was a
narrow one.
Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:54 AM (y7DUB)

My step-mom was a math teacher, and very well spoken, and a good teacher to both students and the other younger teachers she mentored, but she tended to pronounce those French "status words" like English is pronounced, on purpose: Accoutrements came out as 'Ah-cooter-monts' for example.
I always saw it as her saying, "these things are important, but don't pretend they make you special"

I trace part of my urge to stick my finger in the eyes of the special class from her.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:04 AM (KTmSx)

193 If valid -- and I'm willing to debate it -- that would be the first time in 20 years that a semi was used where a comma belonged.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:58 AM (8ZmvG)
---------

Agreed! And I was joking more than anything else, although I wouldn't use a semi-colon there myself.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:04 AM (aXucN)

194 When we went to Gettysburg there are some shops that sell Civil War era newspapers. They make a great gift and I buy some just for the covers and they are only like 10, 20 dollars.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at May 19, 2019 11:06 AM (dKiJG)

195 Worth linking:

https://tinyurl.com/y5b4t7yg

Jacksfilms has a series of vids called "Your Grammar Sucks." Some say Jack has been dubbed one of the funniest youtubers in the world... literally.

Please note, there are 117 vids in this series. If you can't get enough of the trainwreck that is modern English usage on teh internetz, check out Jack's videos. You might, by the end of it, find that you have indeed, gotten enough.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 11:06 AM (cY3LT)

196 But I still screw it up, as the botched first printing of Three Weeks with the Coasties demonstrated.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:03 AM (cfSRQ)
--------

Let us not speak of the three copies of Jane D'oh's Charleston Shrimp in The Deplorable Gourmet, nor of the two copies of Tami's something-or-other.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:06 AM (aXucN)

197 The 'Even Fantasy Is Offensive' story is delicious in a satisfyingly cannibalistic way.

I have heard that it is impossible to get a YA novel published now without including at least one homosexual relationship.

I buy less and less science fiction, which I used to devour voraciously. I attributed this to advancing age, but I think also that the level of political correctness, and the constant reduction in the range of acceptable topics in SF, also has something to do with it.

For example, George Alec Effinger wrote three wonderful novels set in a 22nd-century Middle East between 1987-1991. Today, he would be pilloried for anti-Arab racism, Islamaphobia, and much else.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at May 19, 2019 11:07 AM (I2/tG)

198 170 154 Every week I click on the awful pants picture, and then I wonder why did I click on that awful pants picture. Even sadder is the fact that there are so many awful pants pictures out there in the wild.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (aXucN)
---

I always think "If this is what OregonMuse is willing to show us, what other horrors has he beheld?"
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at May 19, 2019 10:55 AM (kQs4Y)

Let's just say that I will never run out of ugly pants pics.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 11:07 AM (b7IdW)

199 The funny thing is, if you read older books, you notice that people's vocabularies were much more varied than they are today. What we might consider ostentatious today was most likely everyday language back 100 years ago or so.

-
One example, Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1VK1KcZoDu0

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:07 AM (+y/Ru)

200 Two humbling thoughts about writing and education have been hitting me. If you look at some of the older writers, like C S Lewis and T S Eliot, it's scary how much they'd been taught before college. Reading them (and Ronald Knox) it's frustrating how often they just quote things in other languages and expect the reader to understand. There's a passage in Newman, on entry exams to college, in which he explicitly says that English to Latin translations are not good enough if they are merely accurate; you needed to get the Latin style right.

And it wasn't just the brilliant ones like that, either. My grandmother never went to college, but her French and Latin were far beyond mine after the BA. She'd also picked up some German and even Finnish. (OK, the French came from her mother. But not the others.)

And I have a great uncle's diary, covering the 1870s - 1920s. He too never went to college (which he regretted). There are passages in French, German (fraktur), Latin, Greek.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 11:08 AM (VaN/j)

201 Actual beatings are not a particularly effective pedagogical tool.

You're not being very open-minded on this. Centuries of English "public school" say otherwise.

I'll bore you once again with this old story. I had a work chum, a manager of a smallish federal facility, who had pretty much just made it through high school (he exhibited some "other skills and talents" later, and rose through the ranks). He could not spell to save his life, and his native grammar was atrocious -- although generally speaking, his common sense was not bad at all.

He knew he couldn't write. So, he carried a little spelling dictionary and a business grammar guide booklet with him, in his coat pocket. He never left anything more than a note without doing a draft and proofreading it. As a result, he was the best business writer on our staff, and that included a couple of mid-level execs who had secretaries. I used to pick on him in meetings, holding him up as an example to a bunch of MBA's who, let's face it, had no damn excuse.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:10 AM (8ZmvG)

202 I always think "If this is what OregonMuse is willing to show us, what other horrors has he beheld?"

-
I sent OM a picture that he declined to share and which, unfortunately, I can't find now. It was of a very shapely young lady wearing stretch pants that were a map of the world.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (+y/Ru)

203 At the time, most people had never seen an airplane,
and the spectators were wowed by their first sight of a plant flying
past the grandstand. But they quickly became jaded, and demanded more
thrills like stunts and speed and distance records. Some of the
aviators thought the spectators were ghouls who just wanted to see a
crash. Reporters don't come across well, either. I know you'll find
that shocking.

Posted by: rickl at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (sdi6R)

---
My great-grandfather was in the AEF. He was from a small town in rural Ohio, got drafted and found himself in the Meuse-Argonne.

In one of his letters home he writes about being in reserve and seeing lots of airplanes every day. Must have been quite a shock.

He died a couple of years after I was born and was a skeptic of the lunar landing. My dad thought that silly, but I pointed out to him that the guy had gone from no powered flight to rocketships and his mind probably couldn't grasp all the changes that happened.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (cfSRQ)

204 Guy in the first picture has giant feet.

Posted by: irright at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (RVcmP)

205 But she mercilessly ridiculed people with overly ostentatious vocabularies so my path was a narrow one.
Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 10:54 AM (y7DUB)
--------

The funny thing is, if you read older books, you notice that people's vocabularies were much more varied than they are today. What we might consider ostentatious today was most likely everyday language back 100 years ago or so.

Some of the old newspapers used to have a "word of the day (week, month, whatever)" feature that she was adept at detecting the unexpected inclusion in conversations by her snooty acquaintances.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (y7DUB)

206 182 We homeschool our daughter using a curriculum entitled Classical Conversations. We diagram sentences, memorize grammar and punctuation rules, teach the difference between "its" and "it's" but instead of beatings we also teach Latin.
Posted by: motionview at May 19, 2019 10:59 AM (pYQR/)
______

I don't know. Johnson told Boswell that "they beat the Latin into us". Seemed to work.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (VaN/j)

207 I've already found three typos in my review.

*hangs head*

Posted by: rickl at May 19, 2019 11:12 AM (sdi6R)

208 If valid -- and I'm willing to debate it -- that
would be the first time in 20 years that a semi was used where a comma
belonged.
I'm convinced that many people have misplaced the full-stop
on their keyboard, they simply keep typing, and when the page is full,
they load a shotgun with commas and, let fly
,Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:58 AM (8ZmvG)

My writing goal is to mix in both long and short sentences. Long sentences help the laying out of facts and setting tone, and the short sentences tie multiple ideas together, and give a nice stylistic punch to wake the reader up.
I consider it like the couplet at the end of a sonnet, to tie the whole together.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:13 AM (KTmSx)

209 Where would my vocabulary be without books*? The vocabulary in the average conversation is pretty basic. Although the more you read, the more you tend to hang out with folks impressive vocabularies.

Who these days uses "antimacassar" or "absquatulate"? Not enough people, that's who!

*Or in the case of "hoydenish", National Lampoon.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:13 AM (kQs4Y)

210 I sent OM a picture that he declined to share and
which, unfortunately, I can't find now. It was of a very shapely young
lady wearing stretch pants that were a map of the world.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (+y/Ru)

---
Reminds me of Carrie Fisher talking about how the Slave Girl Leia outfit wasn't very form-fitting. She said the guy standing behind her in the Boba Fett suit could look down and see "all the way to Florida."

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:14 AM (cfSRQ)

211
That's good. Actual beatings are not a particularly effective pedagogical tool.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (NWiLs)

---------

They are good for improving morale though.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at May 19, 2019 11:15 AM (4knXT)

212 The results of the next election are likely to be overshadowed by some riots.
Today's stars will be a bit shopworn and in need of replacement.

Posted by: Burger Chef at May 19, 2019 11:15 AM (RuIsu)

213 209
Where would my vocabulary be without books*? The vocabulary in the
average conversation is pretty basic. Although the more you read, the
more you tend to hang out with folks impressive vocabularies.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:13 AM (kQs4Y)
---
I recall that right after the Man of Destiny books started coming out, someone figured I must be English because of my prose style, the parliamentary system of government, etc.

Nope, but I've been reading Waugh obsessively for the last couple of years. I guess it left a mark.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:16 AM (cfSRQ)

214 Who these days uses "antimacassar" or "absquatulate"? Not enough people, that's who!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:13 AM (kQs4Y)
---------

When my kids were little, there was a kids' show called Big Comfy Couch (no idea if it's still around). One of the characters was Auntie Macassar. I knew what it meant, but I wondered how many others did.

I have no idea what "absquatulate" means.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:16 AM (aXucN)

215 211
That's good. Actual beatings are not a particularly effective pedagogical tool.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:01 AM (NWiLs)

---------

They are good for improving morale though.
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at May 19, 2019 11:15 AM (4knXT)

LOL

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:17 AM (NWiLs)

216 197 I buy less and less science fiction, which I used to devour voraciously.

I was just thinking that this topic might make a great Book Thread topic. I love science fiction, and spend way too much time sifting through the book store aisled trying to find good, new science fiction. One issue is the dominance over the past 10 - 20 years of fantasy over science fiction. To me combining fantasy and science fiction sections is like combining romance and mystery. There is more and more fantasy and less and less science fiction.

I may be a bit too paranoid (or not enough?) but I believe there is a culture war motive. Science fiction is about expanding boundaries, new ideas, new concepts, freeing the imagination to do new and incredible things. Fantasy is diversion. The SJWs that run the publishing industry want to talk about the struggles of trans-gender POC in the male-dominated world of wizardry, not the challenges of humanity in reaching for the stars.

Posted by: motionview at May 19, 2019 11:17 AM (pYQR/)

217 I have no idea what "absquatulate" means.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:16 AM (aXucN)

---
It's possibly related to "absofuckinglutely" I think.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:18 AM (cfSRQ)

218 203
My great-grandfather was in the AEF. He was from a small town in rural Ohio, got drafted and found himself in the Meuse-Argonne.

In one of his letters home he writes about being in reserve and seeing lots of airplanes every day. Must have been quite a shock.

He died a couple of years after I was born and was a skeptic of the lunar landing. My dad thought that silly, but I pointed out to him that the guy had gone from no powered flight to rocketships and his mind probably couldn't grasp all the changes that happened.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (cfSRQ)
_______

My grandfather was in the AEF, and flew Spads. I've still got the Squadron symbol from his plane, with the one Iron Cross. (He always insisted he got two, but didn't get credit for the 2nd.)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 11:19 AM (VaN/j)

219 I'm convinced that many people have misplaced the full-stop

on their keyboard, they simply keep typing, and when the page is full,

they load a shotgun with commas and, let fly
=====

Strewn randomly throughout masses of words like sprinkled sparkles from a magic wand. My own method, by the way.

Posted by: mustbequantum at May 19, 2019 11:20 AM (MIKMs)

220 Actual Headline from NYT:

"It Was Supposed to Be Australia's Climate Change Election. What Happened?"

LOL

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at May 19, 2019 11:20 AM (FiUMj)

221 I have no idea what "absquatulate" means.
---
It's a playful made-up word meaning "to get up, leave" (away from) + (a squatting position)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:21 AM (kQs4Y)

222 If valid -- and I'm willing to debate it -- that
would be the first time in 20 years that a semi was used where a comma belonged.

I'm convinced that many people have misplaced the full-stop
on their keyboard, they simply keep typing, and when the page is full, they load a shotgun with commas and, let fly
,Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 10:58 AM (8ZmvG)

I'm picturing something like Homer Simpson's makeup shotgun. Blam!!! Oh no! I had it set to Marcel Proust!!

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 11:22 AM (cY3LT)

223 My step-mom was a math teacher, and very well spoken, and a good teacher to both students and the other younger teachers she mentored, but she tended to pronounce those French "status words" like English is pronounced, on purpose: Accoutrements came out as 'Ah-cooter-monts' for example.
I always saw it as her saying, "these things are important, but don't pretend they make you special"

I trace part of my urge to stick my finger in the eyes of the special class from her.
Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:04 AM (KTmSx)

As well spoken as my mother was she became an inarticulate train wreck when she asked me questions when I was learning French. I just stopped talking to her about it after a point to save her from herself.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 11:22 AM (y7DUB)

224 Let us not speak of the three copies of Jane D'oh's
Charleston Shrimp in The Deplorable Gourmet, nor of the two copies of
Tami's something-or-other.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:06 AM (aXucN)

I only noticed the shrimp recipe because I own a copy of the book Jane D'oh got the recipe (receipt) from.

I always self edit, except on certain blogs' comment section when I am noodling stuff out.
I used to play a game called "kill the commas and remove all superfluous words." My boss finally told me to knock it off for memos and condensations of reports.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:22 AM (KTmSx)

225 It's a playful made-up word meaning "to get up, leave" (away from) + (a squatting position)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:21 AM (kQs4Y)

---
So I was actually pretty close. Hah!

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:23 AM (cfSRQ)

226 I may be a bit too paranoid (or not enough?) but I believe there is a culture war motive

Absolutely. Robert Heinlein had an significant impact on pushing the whole country towards conservatism while he was writing.

The SJW gatekeepers have no intention of letting that happen again.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at May 19, 2019 11:23 AM (I2/tG)

227 I sent OM a picture that he declined to share and which, unfortunately, I can't find now. It was of a very shapely young lady wearing stretch pants that were a map of the world.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:11 AM (+y/Ru)

Heh. If I used that pic, you'd be able to hear the 'rons fapping as far out as the asteroid belt.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 11:23 AM (b7IdW)

228
Yeah, but I'm going to finish Gibbon anyway.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd

Don't monkey around.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at May 19, 2019 11:23 AM (aKsyK)

229 "Great, I'm not qualified to be a street sweeper in Europe. I'm starting to reevaluate my whole education."

God help me, I do love it so.

Near me is one of those mid-sized midwestern cities that used to be damn classy, and proud of its cultural accomplishments. And the museum there, one of the ten best in the country, loves to tell the tale of a major show they had in the early Fifties. One of the New York papers sent one of its art critics to cover it. He got off the train, hailed a cab, and when the cabbie heard the destination, he talked him through a complete description of the entire show, with commentary. The big city art critic was suitably put in his place.

We do not know if the cab driver was a part-time art major, or an out-of-work art critic, or just an actual fan. But the newspaper critic left town with the idea that even the cabbies here were connoisseurs.

Last time us'n's got any respect from out that way.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:23 AM (8ZmvG)

230 Just doing my part for diversity:

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/08/20-victorian-terms-seem-oddly-modern

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:24 AM (kQs4Y)

231 I have no idea what "absquatulate" means.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:16 AM (aXucN)

I think it's a CrossFit exercise.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:25 AM (NWiLs)

232 My step-mom was a math teacher, and very well spoken, and a good teacher to both students and the other younger teachers she mentored, but she tended to pronounce those French "status words" like English is pronounced, on purpose: Accoutrements came out as 'Ah-cooter-monts' for example.

I always saw it as her saying, "these things are important, but don't pretend they make you special"

I trace part of my urge to stick my finger in the eyes of the special class from her.
Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:04 AM (KTmSx)

I'm a big fan of that sort of thing. My favorite is ennui. Which I insist on pronouncing as "Enn YOU weeee!"

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 11:26 AM (cY3LT)

233 >> escaped oafs who follow words with their fingers
>> and whose lips move as they read
Wow. This thread is hoity-toity.

Posted by: 40 miles north at May 19, 2019 11:26 AM (o2vOl)

234 Captain Hate, there was an Austrian immigrant that my family knew, who mentioned once that when his kids were taking French in high school, they forbade him from helping them work on their conversational French even though he spoke it fluently. Their teacher couldn't understand his accent.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:26 AM (KTmSx)

235 89. I don't think people who never read vic-lit appreciate just how hilarious that book is.
I find that with Trollope as well. My husband thinks I have lost my mind while I'm crocheting and listening to Phineas Finn and snort-laughing.

Yes, I snort when I laugh. So there.

Posted by: SummaMamaT at May 19, 2019 11:27 AM (84ClH)

236 My grandfather was in the AEF, and flew Spads. I've
still got the Squadron symbol from his plane, with the one Iron Cross.
(He always insisted he got two, but didn't get credit for the 2nd.)

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 11:19 AM (VaN/j)

---
That's pretty cool. My great-grandfather had an enormous collection of war trophies (he was in the Army of Occupation) kept in a special closet. After he died, the closet was opened and found empty. The family suspects relatives of his second wife (his first died in the 30s).

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 11:28 AM (cfSRQ)

237 I think it's a CrossFit exercise.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:25 AM (NWiLs)
---
Oh, you'd know if it was a CrossFit thing.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:28 AM (kQs4Y)

238 The discussion of meticulous editing brings to mind a story I read recently on Amazon management. Apparently they have banned PowerPoint from their meetings, and require the meeting lead to write and distribute a short memo a few days before the meeting. No reading slides to people in a meeting, but rather a discussion of material one has had a chance to consider.

Posted by: motionview at May 19, 2019 11:29 AM (pYQR/)

239 237 I think it's a CrossFit exercise.
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:25 AM (NWiLs)
---
Oh, you'd know if it was a CrossFit thing.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:28 AM (kQs4Y)

This is true. They'd be knocking on my door at 0700 on Saturday morning to ask if I'd heard about the WOD.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:29 AM (NWiLs)

240 But she had a Great AsA Great AsA Great
Asteroid Belt!

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:29 AM (8ZmvG)

241 http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/08/20-victorian-terms-seem-oddly-modern
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:24 AM (kQs4Y)
--------

I feel the need to start working "podsnappery" and "batty-fang" into my everyday vocabulary.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:30 AM (aXucN)

242 197 The 'Even Fantasy Is Offensive' story is delicious in a satisfyingly cannibalistic way.

I have heard that it is impossible to get a YA novel published now without including at least one homosexual relationship.

I buy less and less science fiction, which I used to devour voraciously. I attributed this to advancing age, but I think also that the level of political correctness, and the constant reduction in the range of acceptable topics in SF, also has something to do with it.

For example, George Alec Effinger wrote three wonderful novels set in a 22nd-century Middle East between 1987-1991. Today, he would be pilloried for anti-Arab racism, Islamaphobia, and much else.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at May 19, 2019 11:07 AM (I2/tG)

Just reading the King Killer series WISE MANS FEAR the main character is being trained in a Spartan like school of war and all the Trainers are Female and they best and Females are better fighters than men. I had a neighbor that was a Grandmaster in Medieval armor fighting. I was 18 playing college football and I had a hell of time lifting his swords and maces. It's so stupid

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at May 19, 2019 11:30 AM (dKiJG)

243 I'm a big fan of that sort of thing. My favorite is ennui. Which I insist on pronouncing as "Enn YOU weeee!"
=====

In the very loud and Noisy state, French and German place names are deliberately and and with malice aforethought given 'Americanized' pronunciations.

Posted by: mustbequantum at May 19, 2019 11:30 AM (MIKMs)

244
I always saw it as her saying, "these things are important, but don't pretend they make you special"
----------

A friend of mine quite purposely says 'Whores doovers', whenever such appear on a menu.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:31 AM (xSo9G)

245 244
I always saw it as her saying, "these things are important, but don't pretend they make you special"
----------

A friend of mine quite purposely says 'Whores doovers', whenever such appear on a menu.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:31 AM (xSo9G)

Ahem. The correct pronunciation is "horse dorvis."

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:32 AM (NWiLs)

246 A friend of mine quite purposely says 'Whores doovers', whenever such appear on a menu.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:31 AM (xSo9G)
------

Please alert said friend to the proper pronunciation: "horse doovers."

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:33 AM (aXucN)

247 Absolutely. Robert Heinlein had an significant impact on pushing the whole country towards conservatism while he was writing.
The SJW gatekeepers have no intention of letting that happen again.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at May 19, 2019 11:23 AM (I2/tG)

Even as a kid, I liked Heinlein's take in Starship Troopers that the only way to get the franchise was to serve the nation in some capacity first.

Cut out the moochers that way.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 19, 2019 11:33 AM (Z+IKu)

248 Does anyone have a recommendation for a good book detailing the theories underlying architectural design?

Posted by: Colorado Alex in Exile at May 19, 2019 11:33 AM (Jlgwr)

249 246 A friend of mine quite purposely says 'Whores doovers', whenever such appear on a menu.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:31 AM (xSo9G)
------

Please alert said friend to the proper pronunciation: "horse doovers."

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:33 AM (aXucN)

Oh, so close, so very very close!

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (NWiLs)

250 I feel the need to start working "podsnappery" and "batty-fang" into my everyday vocabulary.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:30 AM (aXucN)

Start simple and eventually you can work up to "septentrional" and "sesquipedalian"

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (KTmSx)

251 Kindltot,

I don't speak French as fluently as I'd like but I never had any problem making myself understood or understanding the speaker in most parts of the country. But there was a waitress in some part of the Loire valley that my ability to understand just completely shut down and my youngest daughter had to take over.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (y7DUB)

252 Everyone should read MacKay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions . . . "

Ah, but I have, based upon a prior recommendation several years ago here at AoS. Gutenberg version, natch, as I'm a cheapskate.

In that vein, David P. Goldman (Spengler from PJ Media) has written a spy thriller titled The Quantum Supremacy, which has been serialized at the Asia Times into 8 parts:

https://tinyurl.com/y6775nbe

The link goes to the last part, and conveniently contains links to the other 7 parts (you might want to start at Part 1 lol).

I'm on Part 6 atm. I'm not a big spy thriller fan, but the book does contain a number of useful insights about China, cryptography, and quantum computers. I like this analogy, paraphrased --

Someone has placed an X on one page in a book in the Library of Congress. A digital computer will search all 50 million volumes, one book and page at a time. A quantum computer will search all 50 million volumes together, one page at a time.

Posted by: GnuBreed at May 19, 2019 11:35 AM (Z4rgH)

253
Ahem. The correct pronunciation is "horse dorvis."
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:32 AM (NWiLs)

246 A friend of mine quite purposely says 'Whores doovers', whenever such appear on a menu.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:31 AM (xSo9G)
------

Please alert said friend to the proper pronunciation: "horse doovers."

Posted by: bluebell
--

*takes notes*

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:35 AM (CDGwz)

254 Oh, so close, so very very close!
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (NWiLs)
---------

Hey, my pronunciation is the correct one. After all, I minored in French in college.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:35 AM (aXucN)

255 When hoiting and toiting, one needs three different versions of any foreign term of any falute whatsoever.
One, that is as close as you can get to how it's really supposed to sound.
A second, that expresses the term in a way that a well-read but English-only acquaintance might recognize, and

A third, deliberately wrong and used as parody of those who falute highly.

A lucky man will never find himself in mixed company in this regard.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:35 AM (8ZmvG)

256 I don't speak French as fluently as I'd like but I never had any problem making myself understood or understanding the speaker in most parts of the country. But there was a waitress in some part of the Loire valley that my ability to understand just completely shut down and my youngest daughter had to take over.
Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (y7DUB)
---------

My sister-in-law majored in French and was a translator for the US government and could not understand anyone in Quebec when she went there to visit.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:37 AM (aXucN)

257 I think I have Mayor Buttplug figured out.

He's been overly ambitious since HS, creating a record for a political career, and kept his gayness on the down low until 2015, into his second mayoral term. Then he met his husband on a gay dating app and came out.

He has no near-term political future to match his ambition. He's in the Midwest, and only has appeal to the Richest, Deep Blue places. So he's a huge negative as a VP nominee.

He wants to be Rachel Maddow. Big salary, big visibility, book deals. Possibilities down the road. If I were Chris Hayes, I'd be worried. MSNBC has found someone gayer than you.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 19, 2019 11:37 AM (1UZdv)

258 "go ask the mayter-dee if we can get some clean spoons"

"It's pronounced Maitre . . ."

"If it were really pronounced that way, the spoons would have been clean when we sat down, right?"

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:37 AM (KTmSx)

259 254 Oh, so close, so very very close!
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (NWiLs)
---------

Hey, my pronunciation is the correct one. After all, I minored in French in college.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:35 AM (aXucN)

Rubbish. But even so...
*lights Gaulois*
*takes a drag*
Eez all meaningless, non?

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:37 AM (NWiLs)

260 there was a waitress in some part of the Loire valley that my ability to understand just completely shut down

Indeed, mon ami, we have such waitresses in ma ville as well.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:38 AM (8ZmvG)

261 Last week we were discussing air fryers and one of Amazon's Deals of the Day today is on a large-capacity Secura air fryer for $75. Looks like a good deal and the product seems to get good reviews.
Posted by: Art Rondolet of Malmsey at May 19, 2019 10:57 AM (1FsHh)

Seems to me that "air fryer" is an oxymoron that means "oven". I mean, the whole point of frying something is to slather it in delicious grease.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 19, 2019 11:38 AM (7njPr)

262 260 there was a waitress in some part of the Loire valley that my ability to understand just completely shut down

Indeed, mon ami, we have such waitresses in ma ville as well.
Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:38 AM (8ZmvG)

Heh. What's French for "hummina hummina hummina"?

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:39 AM (NWiLs)

263 I was fascinated by Winds of War and War and Remembrance.

The Caine Mutiny was fantastic too.

RIP, Herman Wouk

Posted by: kbdabear at May 19, 2019 11:39 AM (0Ntuf)

264 I'm a big fan of that sort of thing. My favorite is ennui. Which I insist on pronouncing as "Enn YOU weeee!"
=====

In the very loud and Noisy state, French and German place names are deliberately and and with malice aforethought given 'Americanized' pronunciations.
Posted by: mustbequantum at May 19, 2019 11:30 AM (MIKMs)

Oh, we already do that here! Lots of place names, original french names, are now St. Louisized.

There's a public radio program on it:

https://tinyurl.com/yy69naae

Posted by: BurtTC at May 19, 2019 11:40 AM (cY3LT)

265 Oh, so close, so very very close!
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:34 AM (NWiLs)
---------

Hey, my pronunciation is the correct one. After all, I minored in French in college.
Posted by: bluebell
--------

I believe Insom meant in the temporal sense.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:40 AM (CDGwz)

266 Eez all meaningless, non?
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:37 AM (NWiLs)
--------

Oui, c'est vrai, ça.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:40 AM (aXucN)

267 216 197 I buy less and less science fiction, which I used to devour voraciously.

I was just thinking that this topic might make a great Book Thread topic. I love science fiction, and spend way too much time sifting through the book store aisled trying to find good, new science fiction. One issue is the dominance over the past 10 - 20 years of fantasy over science fiction. To me combining fantasy and science fiction sections is like combining romance and mystery. There is more and more fantasy and less and less science fiction.

I may be a bit too paranoid (or not enough?) but I believe there is a culture war motive. Science fiction is about expanding boundaries, new ideas, new concepts, freeing the imagination to do new and incredible things. Fantasy is diversion. The SJWs that run the publishing industry want to talk about the struggles of trans-gender POC in the male-dominated world of wizardry, not the challenges of humanity in reaching for the stars.
Posted by: motionview at May 19, 2019 11:17 AM (pYQR/)

Funny sci-fi
The hardluck Hanks series
Space grifters

I have been reading some sci-fi which talks about the collapse of the government because of socialism or they talk about how his life is terrible under socialist policies because there's nowhere to go and so they join the military.

Terms of enlightenment (frontlines 1)

The Empire's Corp, which really talks about the collapse of the earth Government and these Marines are on there own, with a hostile population and corrupt local government.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 19, 2019 11:41 AM (dKiJG)

268 I just finished Michael Behe's Darwin Devolves. I like popular books about science, especially quantum theory and cosmology, but my readings in biology come to maybe a dozen books at best, mostly about genetics and evolution. I've avoided books on intelligent design because such a dominant cohort in the biology world treat the idea as crackpottery. Behe had good credentials though so I figured I'd give it a go.

I thought his points were well made. Behe's thesis is that Darwin's mutations + natural selection explanation of the divergence of life worked okay when nobody understood how genetic information was stored and transmitted, and the field of molecular biology was completely unknown. However, current understanding about protein synthesis shows it would be statistically impossible for large-scale, useful add-on mutations to occur, even over the 3 billion years that life has been on Earth. On the other hand, the small-scale adaptations to local conditions that have clearly occurred (see, Darwin's finches) can be explained by mutations that damage and disable existing genetic information.

According to Behe, nobody has seriously attempted to explain how the pervasive and exquisitely precise changes in DNA coding that would permit large-scale mutations could have occurred naturally without killing the organism before any benefit would manifest itself. These are the types of mutations that foster the divergence of organisms at the family level or higher.

I'm still not sure whether problems in Darwinist theory support a leap to the idea if intelligent design but it's a topic that is at least worth further exploration.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at May 19, 2019 11:41 AM (4knXT)

269 266 Eez all meaningless, non?
Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:37 AM (NWiLs)
--------

Oui, c'est vrai, �a.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:40 AM (aXucN)

*mime rides by on bicycle*
*bombs start to fall on the cafe*
Aaaaand, scene! Cut it, print it.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:42 AM (NWiLs)

270 >> Hey, my pronunciation is the correct one. After all,
>> I minored in French in college.
>> Posted by: bluebell

..and yet, you've never called any of us a cushion (cochon).
Such fine manners.

Posted by: 40 miles north at May 19, 2019 11:43 AM (o2vOl)

271 Heh. What's French for "hummina hummina hummina"?

Omigod. You mean to tell me that hummina...is not French?

I need to review some of my correspondence. Could be in a heap o'trouble.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:43 AM (8ZmvG)

272 >>Where would my vocabulary be without books*? The vocabulary in the average conversation is pretty basic. Although the more you read, the more you tend to hang out with folks impressive vocabularies.

My grandfather on my mothers side was the smartest person I've ever met. He was a professor, author, foundation head, political advisor, yada.

His library at home was one of the most magnificent rooms you can imagine. It was built for contemplation and reading which he did constantly. The bookshelves were crammed with books of all sorts but mostly history and politics.

He also had an enormous Webster's dictionary mounted on it's own stand. Thing weighs as much as a small compact car. He was a great teacher and taught me a lot but if we ever came across a word I didn't know he would send me to the dictionary and then we would discuss it. I learned more about words and vocabulary from him than I ever did in school.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 19, 2019 11:44 AM (/tuJf)

273 For example, George Alec Effinger wrote three wonderful novels set in a 22nd-century Middle East between 1987-1991. Today, he would be pilloried for anti-Arab racism, Islamaphobia, and much else.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at May 19, 2019 11:07 AM (I2/tG)

I have those 3 books, and have recommended them before here. Iirc, George had severe physical pain and the consequent drug addiction to go with it. Plus, he live in New Orleans so his future world looked a lot like Bourbon Street. Go figure, huh?

Posted by: GnuBreed at May 19, 2019 11:45 AM (Z4rgH)

274 The best pseudo-French accent ever, was voiced by Mel Blanc as Pepe Le Pew.

Were I ever to actually learn French, I would likely be unable to resist adopting the accent Le Skonk.

Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Posted by: Jim at May 19, 2019 11:45 AM (QzJWU)

275 Good morning horde,

This week, I read People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck. This was a re-read for me. It is a truly fascinating perspective from a psychiatrist regarding evil people and family dysfunction. There is a chapter where he also discusses demons and exorcisms which is scary to read about, but I do believe it is real. I just don't like to dwell on it.

Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh. Discusses the idea that church services and church gatherings seem designed for extroverts and what the implications are for introverts. While there are complementary strengths that extroverts and introverts bring to the church, the church culture is primarily extroverted, and it can squelch, frustrate, and mortify introverts. Also, it is important to keep in mind that pastors and church staff will have different needs and strengths (as well as weaknesses) depending on their own introvertedness or extrovertedness.

I also started reading A Beautiful Place to Die (Martha Vineyard Mystery) that has been discussed briefly that past 2 weeks. I'm enjoying it so far.

Posted by: Violet at May 19, 2019 11:45 AM (pxpp+)

276 I continue with 'The Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won the Second World War and Launched a Technical Revolution'. A remarkable book, and is recommended to all with an interest in WWII, and especially to techno-nerdy types.

The first half is devoted to WWII developments re radar, and the second to post-war consequences.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 19, 2019 11:46 AM (CDGwz)

277 Oh, and big shout out of thanks to whomever recommended the Philip R. Craig mystery series featuring J.W. Jackson. Purchased the 1st three in the series and am leaving this lovely thread now to finish the first book. I can tell it's a series both Mr. Summa and I will enjoy. A worthy successor to my beloved Spenser and Travis McGee books.
Muchas gracias, whoever you were!

Posted by: SummaMamaT at May 19, 2019 11:46 AM (84ClH)

278 Stupid questions that crossed my mind while watching golf yesterday:
-Why are English players no longer represented by the Union Jack, substituted for that stupid red cross on a field of white?
-Can Brooks Koepka more thoroughly destroy a golf course? (Yeah, I might be a little gay for him...)

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at May 19, 2019 11:47 AM (ty7RM)

279 In France the only person I was absolutely unable to communicate with was the drunk skinhead cashier at a gas station on the autoroute at 3am. We had to shout through a bulletproof plastic partition, and maybe if the stupid cochon had bothered to turn off the godawful pop music he was blasting inside his little cubicle we might have had better luck.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 19, 2019 11:47 AM (3+caa)

280 .
trompe-l'oeil
.

Our fearless leader, OM, has helpfully showcased an example of this art style. Darned if I can pronounce it.

Posted by: mustbequantum at May 19, 2019 11:47 AM (MIKMs)

281 Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh. Discusses the idea that church services and church gatherings seem designed for extroverts and what the implications are for introverts. While there are complementary strengths that extroverts and introverts bring to the church, the church culture is primarily extroverted, and it can squelch, frustrate, and mortify introverts. Also, it is important to keep in mind that pastors and church staff will have different needs and strengths (as well as weaknesses) depending on their own introvertedness or extrovertedness.

Interesting. I think most organizations are structured to favor the extroverted, regardless of their competence or effectiveness.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 11:48 AM (NWiLs)

282 Now this is what fancy libraries should have!

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/
1129882953096474624

In case you don't feel like taking the stairs, the Technical University of Munich, Germany, has slides on the 4th Floor

Posted by: andycanuck at May 19, 2019 11:48 AM (Dh1wo)

283 Old English insults that could be band names:

https://tinyurl.com/y74crvkq

I saw Lubberwort open for Mumblecrust at St. Andrews!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:49 AM (kQs4Y)

284 What does it say about me when the first thing I check is These Pants?

I should know better by now.

Posted by: Diogenes at May 19, 2019 11:49 AM (WqhK3)

285 Larry Bond who co wrote a book with Tom Clancy

I did enjoy Red Phoenix which is about a North Korea attack on South Korea. It's interesting because one it's before the Gulf War and we really didn't know how good our Military was in the Late 80's and makes an interesting read.

I am surprised that their isn't more books about a fictional attack by North Korea or other type of fiction about the crazy NORKS.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at May 19, 2019 11:49 AM (dKiJG)

286 Also, I recently read Wouk's Sailor and Fiddler. He really has a way with words, and I plan to read more of his works. Plus he knew Richard Feynman!

Regarding Brad Thor--I'm not sure if he is still NT, but I don't trust him. I enjoyed some of his earlier works, but I haven't read his most recent stuff.

Posted by: Violet at May 19, 2019 11:49 AM (pxpp+)

287 I always sucked at both French and Latin. In French, about all I can do is ask where the library is. Latin was marginally better.

But about a decade ago I was reading Morison's Admiral of the Ocean Sea. There's a quote of the words used to call the crew to dinner. I actually could figure it out.

Also, it's clear that c. 1970, you could assume in England that people could understand basic French. When doing skits with "foreign languages", Benny Hill would use pseudo-German, Swedish, or Italian. But there were skits in actual French. There was one of a French dubbed Bonanza episode, with American accents. "Bone-joor Paw", etc.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (VaN/j)

288 PEt peeves, usage of words in ways that negate their original meaning.
For example, "incredible".
It's meaning has morphed in to something positive, good, praiseworthy.
It means no such thing. It means false. Beyond credulity.
Not possessing truth, or cred.

Not credible.

Posted by: navybrat, occasional commentater at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (w7KSn)

289 Darned if I can pronounce it.
---

Traum-LEY

(I think)

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (kQs4Y)

290 The vocabulary in the average conversation is pretty basic.

-
My high school German teacher told us that the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (+y/Ru)

291 >>-Why are English players no longer represented by the Union Jack, substituted for that stupid red cross on a field of white?

Because the flag of St George is the original flag of England. The Union Jack is a compilation of the various countries that made up the UK.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (/tuJf)

292 The English flag is a red cross on a white background. The Union Jack is British.

Actually the Union Jack was first the flag of the king's navy, when the king wore many crowns, before Scotland formally joined England and Wales in the early 1700s to settle a debt.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 19, 2019 11:51 AM (1UZdv)

293 Just doing my part for diversity:

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/08/20-victorian-terms-seem-oddly-modern
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:24 AM (kQs4Y)

There is a lake in northern British Columbia officially named "Damfino Lake".

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 19, 2019 11:51 AM (7njPr)

294 trompe-l'oeil
.

Our fearless leader, OM, has helpfully showcased an example of this art style. Darned if I can pronounce it.
Posted by: mustbequantum at May 19, 2019 11:47 AM (MIKMs)
----------

Easiest way to explain it would be "tromp loy."

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:52 AM (aXucN)

295 According to Behe, nobody has seriously attempted to
explain how the pervasive and exquisitely precise changes in DNA coding
that would permit large-scale mutations could have occurred naturally
without killing the organism before any benefit would manifest itself.
These are the types of mutations that foster the divergence of organisms
at the family level or higher.

I'm still not sure whether problems in Darwinist theory support a
leap to the idea if intelligent design but it's a topic that is at least
worth further exploration.
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at May 19, 2019 11:41 AM (4knXT)

Stephen Jay Gould proposed what he called "pre-adaption" a term that he disliked, for all that he invented it: in rough terms it means that an adaption or mutation that was not lethal then is used and modified to another use. His simplest example was the Panda's "thumb" which is not a digit, but an extension of a wrist bone that acts like a thumb for the panda's digits to work against while gripping.

Also, there are two other terms, one is reaaaaaly deep time, in which we have to realize how far back evolution goes, and the other is that most mutations are lethal, but mostly to the individual, not necessarily to the species as a whole.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 11:52 AM (KTmSx)

296 questions that crossed my mind while watching golf yesterday:
-Why are English players no longer represented by the Union Jack, substituted for that stupid red cross on a field of white?
-Can Brooks Koepka more thoroughly destroy a golf course? (Yeah, I might be a little gay for him...)
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at May 19, 2019 11:47 AM (ty7RM)

That's the English flag, the Union Jack is for the United Kingdom. And no I don't understand it either, they do the same with soccer but not with the Olympics?

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at May 19, 2019 11:52 AM (dKiJG)

297 My sister-in-law majored in French and was a translator for the US government and could not understand anyone in Quebec when she went there to visit.

There's a funny story in Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy - the Canadians had a D-Day beach, and rapidly advanced inland and liberated several French villages.

The French, believing the soldiers to be British because of their uniforms, ran out of their houses to greet their liberators, only to be shocked.

"Mon Dieu! Where did these people learn such awful French?"

Posted by: The ARC of History! at May 19, 2019 11:52 AM (I2/tG)

298 >> Were I ever to actually learn French, I would likely
>> be unable to resist adopting the accent Le Skonk.

Me oui, Jean Claude, me oui.

Posted by: The French Peas at May 19, 2019 11:53 AM (o2vOl)

299 Oui, c'est vrai, �a.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:40 AM (aXucN)

I was thinking about this the other day, what's that "c" w/the little tail called?

Posted by: BignJames at May 19, 2019 11:53 AM (ykq7q)

300 281--Interesting. I think most organizations are structured to favor the
extroverted, regardless of their competence or effectiveness.

I agree Insomniac. There is another book called Quiet by Susan Cain that does a great job discussing the effects an extroverted world has on introverts.

Alrighty, gotta head out. Be back later!

Posted by: Violet at May 19, 2019 11:53 AM (pxpp+)

301 -Why are English players no longer represented by the Union Jack, substituted for that stupid red cross on a field of white?
--

Is that Saint Andrew's Cross? Maybe that's their golfing ensign.

Japan still uses the Rising Sun flag as their naval ensign, and it has caused kerfluffles at joint exercises.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:53 AM (kQs4Y)

302 My high school German teacher told us that the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (+y/Ru)
----------

Yes, but they're each 50 letters long and composed of at least three words smaller words.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:54 AM (aXucN)

303 Eldest Kidlet just told me that she isn't enjoying book three of The Expanse nearly as much as the others. She is concerned by the ever-increasing number of points of view being followed and also isn't a fan of having a lesbian "reverend".

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 11:54 AM (phT8I)

304 Why are English players no longer represented by the Union Jack, substituted for that stupid red cross on a field of white?

That stupid red cross is the flag of England.
The Union Jack is the flag of the United Kingdom, in its current version England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales.
I believe you will find Irish and Scots players using their old national colours, as teams from their little countries vie with the English and their little country. I can't speak for Wales and Cornwall -- but I wouldn't worry much until you see Northumbria and East Anglia using their own flags. Them guys swing a mean club.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 11:55 AM (8ZmvG)

305 Best book on introversion I've ever read is "Party of One" by Analee Rufus. I'd say "she really knocks it outta the park" but that's such an extroverted way to put it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at May 19, 2019 11:56 AM (kQs4Y)

306 291 >>-Why are English players no longer represented by the Union Jack, substituted for that stupid red cross on a field of white?

Because the flag of St George is the original flag of England. The Union Jack is a compilation of the various countries that made up the UK.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (/tuJf)

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

There's an animated gif partway down the page.

Posted by: rickl at May 19, 2019 11:56 AM (sdi6R)

307 268
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at May 19, 2019 11:41 AM (4knXT)
_______

The one non-naval book I just got is Feser's new Aristotle's Revenge. I've just started, so I haven't gotten to the evolution part (not even close). I know he's not really into ID, itself, but grants that some of the objections have some merit. (That seems Nagel's view, too. And Flew took that, at the end of his life.)

One problem I've long had with it is that, based on naturalist assumptions, natural selection is a tautology, and thus should be excluded from being scientific. I know Popper thought so, but thought it not a fatal problem IFF it were dropped as a scientifically verifiable hypothesis.Pinker's "refutation" that I read is comically inept.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 11:56 AM (VaN/j)

308 I was thinking about this the other day, what's that "c" w/the little tail called?
Posted by: BignJames at May 19, 2019 11:53 AM (ykq7q)
------

It's a cedilla, ou cédille en français.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:56 AM (aXucN)

309 I loved the Victorian words link. You're a right proper brick, Eris.

*waves at the Horde*

Sorry bookies. I hate missing the book thread.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at May 19, 2019 11:57 AM (fuK7c)

310 >> the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.

Das ist M�ll.

Posted by: Offended German at May 19, 2019 11:57 AM (o2vOl)

311 This week, I read People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck. This was a re-read for me. It is a truly fascinating perspective from a psychiatrist regarding evil people and family dysfunction. There is a chapter where he also discusses demons and exorcisms which is scary to read about, but I do believe it is real. I just don't like to dwell on it.

As I recall, this book is a follow-up, a sequel if you will, to his 'The Road Less Traveled', which was a massive best-seller in the 1980s. Peck wrote another book about his experience with exorcisms called, appropriately 'Glimpses of the Devil'.

Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh. Discusses the idea that church services and church gatherings seem designed for extroverts and what the implications are for introverts. While there are complementary strengths that extroverts and introverts bring to the church, the church culture is primarily extroverted, and it can squelch, frustrate, and mortify introverts. Also, it is important to keep in mind that pastors and church staff will have different needs and strengths (as well as weaknesses) depending on their own introvertedness or extrovertedness.

Posted by: Violet at May 19, 2019 11:45 AM (pxpp+)

Very interesting. I'm an introvert and so is my daughter, and this is something we laugh about a lot. This one is going on my teetering, precarious TBR stack. Thanks!

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 11:57 AM (b7IdW)

312 I buy less and less science fiction, which I used to devour voraciously.

_

I can't recommend this enough. It's the best $5 I've spent in years.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316349410

Posted by: Moron Robbie remembers when painting your face as a caricature of a minority was wrong at May 19, 2019 11:59 AM (EOEiY)

313 In rugby, Ireland is the whole island. Rory Best from the north is the current captain. Wales, Scotland and England have their own teams.

But the North of Ireland has its own international soccer team, which has had outsized World Cup success.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 19, 2019 11:59 AM (1UZdv)

314 Mike H. I think that radar book is already on my list, will check.

About half-way through A Soldier's Duty, the memoir of Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky. Supplementing it with UToob Russian documentaries on him.

Beginning to get a sense of why he is regarded as the most humane and approachable of the great WWII generals. Even in translation, a humility, informality, and concern for the troops come through.

Curious to see whether he includes a famous incident at a small Kremlin birthday dinner for Stalin, where the dictator took him aside and apologized for his imprisonment and abuse in 1937, during the purge of the military.

Posted by: rhomboid at May 19, 2019 11:59 AM (QDnY+)

315 My high school German teacher told us that the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.

--

LOL wut? That cant B tru.

Posted by: Moron Robbie remembers when painting your face as a caricature of a minority was wrong at May 19, 2019 12:00 PM (EOEiY)

316 It's a cedilla, ou c�dille en fran�ais.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:56 AM (aXucN)

Thanks bb....more info I can annoy family with.

Posted by: BignJames at May 19, 2019 12:00 PM (ykq7q)

317 Greetings, josephistan #40

at May 19, 2019 09:29 AM (Izzlo)

"But as nice as getting some good books for cheap is, the best part of the day was taking a ride in a Vietnam War vintage UH-1 Huey helicopter! That was the best $80 I've spent. "

I don't suppose that they let you sit in the door with your legs our and your "assault weapon" appropriately cradled ??? It's truly amazing what you can see from tree-top level. And the sound of a Huey will always be music to me.

Posted by: 11B40 at May 19, 2019 12:00 PM (evgyj)

318 Am I the only person pissed off at the PGA for moving the PGA Championship from the last major tournament of the year to just some nondescript placeholder between the Masters and the Opens?

Yesterday CBS had a graphic:

April Masters
May PGA Championship
June US Open
July British Open
August FedEx Championship

One of those is not like the others.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 12:01 PM (y7DUB)

319 I listen to Quebec stations on Sirius. Once you figure out their pronunciation quirks it's not so bad. It's like an educated Brit trying to figure out a native Bronx speaker.

Posted by: kallisto at May 19, 2019 12:01 PM (0zXml)

320 Hitchhikers's guide to the galaxy trope:

The Haggunenons of Vicissitus Three have the most impatient
chromosomes of any life form in the Galaxy. Whereas most races are
content to evolve slowly and carefully over thousands of generations,
discarding a prehensile toe here, nervously hazarding another nostril
there, the Haggunenons would do for Charles Darwin what a squadron of
Arcturan stunt apples would have done for Sir Isaac Newton. Their
genetic structure, based on the quadruple sterated octohelix, is so
chronically unstable that, far from passing their basic shape onto their
children, they will quite frequently evolve several times over lunch

Posted by: Kindltot at May 19, 2019 12:02 PM (KTmSx)

321 Thanks bb....more info I can annoy family with.
Posted by: BignJames at May 19, 2019 12:00 PM (ykq7q)
--------

You're quite welcome. And annoying family is my specialty - just ask mine.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 12:03 PM (aXucN)

322 Recall seeing all the big bright rising sun ensigns on kaijo jietai ships at Kure a few years ago when there, and touring one, and thinking about how it might be seen by some. Quite a beautiful ensign, though.

Posted by: rhomboid at May 19, 2019 12:03 PM (QDnY+)

323 Atin-lay is easy-ay.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at May 19, 2019 12:03 PM (oVJmc)

324 This is a reprise of a previous post for A.H. Lloyd.

Finished 4 books by Moron author A.H. Lloyd's Man of Destiny series:

A Man of Destiny (Volume 1)
Rise of the Alliance (Volume 2)
Fall of the Commonwealth (Volume 3)
The Imperial Rebellion (Volume 4)

This is the Star Wars prequels (Volumes 1-3) and The original 3 Star Wars movies (Volume 4) with just enough changes to avoid our loosely enforced copyright laws. Except better.

The plot of the first three novels is known. No surprises here. But a better explanation of actions and motivations is seen.

It is set in an Asimovian universe with only humans and robots. And a much more believable military and Jedi Knight group. There are Heinlein touches, like refreshers. The boot camp sequence in Volume 2 is humorous and true at the same time. Sad that the human species has not evolved more culturally for all of being set in the far future.

The books read fast, and there is not a great deal of world-building. Dialog and characterizations are better than the movies, but spare. It's all about the strategic action.

Volume 4 changes to new stories within a known plot, and is very satisfying. Even has happy endings.

Overall, a fun read.
Volume 1 sets the scene.
Volume 2 crackles with energy, as the fight can go either way.
Volume 3 is the rise of the Emperor. A bit downbeat.
Volume 4 wraps it all up in a pleasant departure from the movie plots.

Recommended for SF fans willing to accept something outside the Star Wars canon.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 19, 2019 12:05 PM (u82oZ)

325 One of those is not like the others.

They've been saying that they've squished the schedule so as not to go into the Fall and compete with football.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at May 19, 2019 12:06 PM (fuK7c)

326 Don't knock the Cross of St George. Richard Coeur de Lion wore it when smiting the paynim. And contrary to what many believe, he won his only actual battle with Saladin. Granted, Saladin won the campaign, but after Arsof, he adopted Fabian tactics.

Posted by: Eeyore at May 19, 2019 12:07 PM (VaN/j)

327 It was funny hearing my Italian relatives speaking Bronxese. Layers of accents.

Posted by: kallisto at May 19, 2019 12:08 PM (7Am4g)

328 Pants guy is everything wrong with our world in one picture. I've never seen such a punchable douche.

Posted by: USNtakim profoundly deplorable. at May 19, 2019 12:09 PM (0OmEj)

329 If you find David McCullough's "The Pioneers" of interest, may I suggest a book by long-time friend "Sgt Mom?" "To Truckee's Trail," by Celia Hayes is very good. She tells the (fictionalized) story of the first folks to caravan cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range by what we now think of as the Donner Pass. (Remember the Donner Party? The name "Truckee" appears a lot in their Wikipedia entry.)

One of Sgt Mom's earlier works, but well done. Her love of history shines!
https://www.amazon.com/Truckees-Trail-Celia-Hayes-ebook/dp/B0010B8PHS

Posted by: Ranten N. Raven at May 19, 2019 12:09 PM (8YAVU)

330 302 My high school German teacher told us that the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019

*****

Seems about right.

A bier please.
Another bier please.
Two biers please.
Where is the bathroom.

Yeah. That about covers it.

Posted by: Diogenes at May 19, 2019 12:09 PM (0tfLf)

331 Greetings:

Re: Midieval Maritime Warfare

Back when forecastles weren't for sleeping and eating.

Posted by: 11B40 at May 19, 2019 12:10 PM (evgyj)

332 A bier please.
Another bier please.
Two biers please.
Where is the bathroom.

Posted by: Diogenes at May 19, 2019 12:09 PM (0tfLf)
----------

Next to the biergarten.

Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 12:11 PM (aXucN)

333 332 A bier please.
Another bier please.
Two biers please.
Where is the bathroom.

Posted by: Diogenes at May 19, 2019 12:09 PM (0tfLf)
----------

Next to the biergarten.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 12:11 PM (aXucN)

That's where they grow the bier.

Posted by: Insomniac at May 19, 2019 12:12 PM (NWiLs)

334 302 My high school German teacher told us that the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019

---------

I hear that Germanic is such an embarrassment that Indo--European is considering kicking it out of the family.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at May 19, 2019 12:12 PM (4knXT)

335
Don't knock the Cross of St George
=====

St Andrew is blue with white cross (Scotland). I think Wales is a red dragon and Ireland is a harp.

Should be referred to Sheldon Cooper and his Fun With Flags vexillology podcasts.

Posted by: mustbequantum at May 19, 2019 12:12 PM (MIKMs)

336 They've been saying that they've squished the schedule so as not to go into the Fall and compete with football.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at May 19, 2019 12:06 PM (fuK7c)

I suspected that but I still think they fucked up. Some sports boards don't even have a thread up for the PGA this year and with Tiger not making the cut and Koepka having a big lead, I expect the ratings to be in the toilet.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 12:13 PM (y7DUB)

337 137 Christianity has almost always been voluntary. There may be social
pressure to conform, but none of Islam's "conversion, tribute or the
sword" schtick.

However, Christianity has not been kind of heretics.

=================

This contrast is entirely new to me. Are you thinking Christian pressure to conform is directed inwards, forced conversions in history notwithstanding (because, I'm thinking, it's pretty rare), while Islam directs outward?

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 12:14 PM (Z216Q)

338 I've never seen such a punchable douche.

Then you are clearly not a Eurovision aficionado. I give you Conchita Wurst:

http://bit.ly/2WfSGp7

Posted by: Bandersnatch at May 19, 2019 12:14 PM (fuK7c)

339 The crestfallen young man decides to stay and help the missionary sisters anyway and is rewarded like you wouldn't believe.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 10:02 AM

=====

A friendly warning to all you 'ettes: Do not write sentences like this. It's like standing in a pool of gasoline and lighting a match.
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at May 19, 2019 10:29 AM

Wait until you see what happens when Sister Zoot lights up the Grail Sign.

Posted by: Sister Dingo at May 19, 2019 12:15 PM (DMUuz)

340 I expect the ratings to be in the toilet.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 19, 2019 12:13 PM (y7DUB)

Maybe not great, but with Koepka going for back to back titles, it shouldn't be terrible.

Posted by: BignJames at May 19, 2019 12:16 PM (ykq7q)

341 I hear that Germanic is such an embarrassment that Indo--European is considering kicking it out of the family.

Unpossible. German is just English with a bit more discipline and order.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at May 19, 2019 12:16 PM (fuK7c)

342 Biden will want to run out the clock until he gets the nomination.

Will the other candidates attack him? Will Kamala play nice to get the VP pick?

Biden's supposed strength is electability, but he's doddering. Trump will club him like a baby seal.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 19, 2019 12:16 PM (1UZdv)

343 Shale oil
NOOD

Posted by: Skip at May 19, 2019 12:16 PM (BbGew)

344 Texan was voted sexiest accent. Philly came in seventh. I don't know who was polled, because Philly accent is hideous.

Posted by: kallisto at May 19, 2019 12:17 PM (7Am4g)

345 I am currently re-reading a book series that I'd previously read out of order. Its by Bruce Alexander and its about a a boy who becomes a lawyer under the tutelage of Sir John Fielding in Georgian England. John Fielding was the man who created what was in essence the world's first police force (The Bow Street Runners) and was the brother of the author of Tom Jones.

Its nice to read the series in order, although not necessary, because the author does a great job slowly developing the characters over eleven books, patiently creating a setting and having characters change, age, and move through the fascinating stories. Its a series done right, packed with historical information and great mystery stories.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 19, 2019 12:17 PM (39g3+)

346 302 My high school German teacher told us that the average German uses only 1500 words in his daily vocabulary.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:50 AM (+y/Ru)
----------

Yes, but they're each 50 letters long and composed of at least three words smaller words.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 11:54 AM (aXucN)

and they just tack on adjectives to nouns. So they have words like uglyexhousewife.

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 19, 2019 12:18 PM (JFO2v)

347 *reads the side-bar story*

So the YA Red Guards are having a Red Wedding.

Makes me wonder if I should even keep publishing anything.

Posted by: Anna Puma at May 19, 2019 12:19 PM (NpoKk)

348 This contrast is entirely new to me. Are you thinking Christian pressure to conform is directed inwards, forced conversions in history notwithstanding (because, I'm thinking, it's pretty rare), while Islam directs outward?

The best contrast between Islam and Christianity I've read in a single sentence was this one by Sir Walter Scott in The Talisman:

"Both were courteous; but the courtesy of the Christian seemed to flow rather from a good-humored sense of what was due others; that of the Moslem from a high feeling of what was to be expected from himself"

Christianity is based around love, Islam around law.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 19, 2019 12:21 PM (39g3+)

349 Just finished reading Raymond Ibrahim's The Sword and the Scimitar. It covers eight major battles between Muslims and Christians, ending with the Battle of Vienna.

But it's not just about those eight particular battles. The book also goes into great detail about the motives behind the concept of jihad, Muslim theology, and different incentives offered to Muslim warriors to participate in jihad. I was surprised to discover how the greed for booty and white, blonde haired females was at least half the reason a Muslim would participate in jihad. Religion was not as important as I had formerly thought.

This book is easy to read, but establishes its academic credentials with a very generous number of footnotes and a girthy bibliography.

Posted by: Captain Josepha Sabin at May 19, 2019 12:25 PM (ebZss)

350 While there are complementary strengths that extroverts and introverts bring to the church, the church culture is primarily extroverted, and it can squelch, frustrate, and mortify introverts.

I think that's overly broad. It depends on which church service and style there is. Yeah, a happy clappy "everyone greet each other" church service with hands held up and so on is built around an extroverted, exuberant personality. But there are more introverted church services as well (usually called "dead" or "boring" by extroverts) in which you quietly enter the sanctuary, sing and read and listen, and go home, perhaps talking to someone after church if you care to.

The more "traditional" and quiet sort of church service serves introverts very well. Nobody is going to corner you and shake your hand to ask you how you are, or try to pin you down for a dinner invite, etc. They let you live your reserved life and be yourself.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 19, 2019 12:26 PM (39g3+)

351 Still working on Texas Ranger
Sampled some of The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher. Not sure if I will continue with it, but will save it for later.
Starting Working by Studs Terkel, which I picked up at McKay for 90 cents.
Sadly I find that print books tend to languish on my reading list. My habit is to read in bed for 30 minutes or so before falling asleep each night. Mr. McK is generally asleep at that point, so my iPad works much better for reading in the dark.

Posted by: MMcK at May 19, 2019 12:34 PM (xHxJf)

352 Starting Working by Studs Terkel, which I picked up at McKay for 90 cents.

I recommend that book for late night reading before bed or in the bathroom. Its short segments, little interviews with people in an incredible variety of jobs and its fascinating.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 19, 2019 12:36 PM (39g3+)

353 Back when forecastles weren't for sleeping and eating.

And the poopdeck, o chayzus.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at May 19, 2019 12:40 PM (8ZmvG)

354 CRT - thank you. I wonder how many jobs I will find are now obsolete, interesting of course but still obsolete. Last night I explained my mothers occupation of switchboard operator to the junior McKs. Not a receptionist, a real switchboard. They had some trouble wrapping their heads around it.

Posted by: MMcK at May 19, 2019 12:41 PM (xHxJf)

355 Recommended for SF fans willing to accept something outside the Star Wars canon.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 19, 2019 12:05 PM (u82oZ)

---
Glad you liked it! Thanks!

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 12:50 PM (cfSRQ)

356
This contrast is entirely new to me. Are you
thinking Christian pressure to conform is directed inwards, forced
conversions in history notwithstanding (because, I'm thinking, it's
pretty rare), while Islam directs outward?

Posted by: Huck Follywood, the Bwaana returns at May 19, 2019 12:14 PM (Z216Q)

---
Christianity is about the invitation to salvation. That invitation is for everyone, but one must choose to believe.

Heresy is a perversion of teachings by someone who has already joined the faith, so even extreme measures seem justified to preserve its holiness and sanctity.

Thus, if a non-believer insults the Holy Virgin, people of faith can shrug because they don't know the truth and speak out of ignorance.

But if someone baptized into the Church starts claiming she wasn't the Mother of God, that's now a direct assault by someone who should know better.

If Islam started as a Christian heresy it would explain three things.

1. The hatred of Jews (the old "Joos killed Jesus" line).
2. The hatred of Zoroastrianism, which was locked in a death match with the Eastern Roman Empire. It became a holy war with temples/churches profaned, etc.
3. The hatred of orthodox Christianity and the desire to see it crushed beneath the "true faith," which is what every heretic wants: their creed established as the new orthodoxy.

Again, still gathering info, but it does explain quite a bit.

As for forced conversion, it becomes kind of a habit after while and two centuries later, is formalized into the Islamic Imperial Creed.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at May 19, 2019 12:56 PM (cfSRQ)

357 175 SPOILER ALERT: I like the premise. Heydrich, who was promoted to the head of the SS after the assassination of Himmler, in an effort to insure that no untoward history might arise to spoil the US / Germany detente, is cleaning house of any Wannsee Conference participants who might spill the beans. The idea that these conspirators might fall out seems realistic and appeals to me.

pretty sure i once saw a film with a similar basis (although i believe it was preparations for hitler's 75th birthday rather than a detente opportunity that prompted the cleanup) with, iirc, rutger hauer playing the gestapo detective investigating the murders.

Posted by: Anachronda at May 19, 2019 01:08 PM (6PB3S)

358 Texan was voted sexiest accent. Philly came in seventh. I don't know who was polled, because Philly accent is hideous.
Posted by: kallisto

They asked shoppers at the Aca- me !

Posted by: JT at May 19, 2019 01:10 PM (DLK3N)

359 Texan was voted sexiest accent. Philly came in seventh. I don't know who was polled, because Philly accent is hideous.
Posted by: kallisto

They asked shoppers at the Aca- me !

They gave them a drink of wooter and made roof rhyme with woof.

Gah, I hate the Philly accent. I think only Jersey is worse.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at May 19, 2019 01:16 PM (fuK7c)

360 154 Every week I click on the awful pants picture, and then I wonder why did I click on that awful pants picture. Even sadder is the fact that there are so many awful pants pictures out there in the wild.
Posted by: bluebell at May 19, 2019 10:45 AM (aXucN)

I just clicked on it because of your mention of it, here. It wasn't a recommendation, I know! Yeesh, why did I do that.

Posted by: m at May 19, 2019 03:02 PM (qxAnn)

361 How can any conservative still be Nevertrump?

Hold my sarsaparilla!

Posted by: Willard "Mitt" Romney, Severe Conservative at May 19, 2019 04:07 PM (tGSHk)

362 I gotta tip my hat to Herman Wouk.

I first heard of him in February 1983. ABC aired the miniseries "The Winds Of War", and I wouldn't read the novel for another 27 years. I was quite the young one at the time, and could not, of course, make sense of it all until much later. But that was just in time for ABC to air "War And Remembrance" (Nov 1988/May 1989). By that time I knew just enough about history to be dangerous, so I went all in. Again, I wouldn't read the novel for some time to come. Finally, about 10 years ago, on a recommendation, I read "The Caine Mutiny" and I was so impressed that I rank that as an important book to read on leadership. (In the case of Captain Queeg, how NOT to lead.)

Just yesterday here I was, driving to work, and I thought to myself, that Mr. Wouk is about to be 104. If he died, surely it wouldn't be a notice slipped over the transom. There would HAVE to be a bigger deal made of it, on the strength of those three novels alone. Alas, it was not to be. I probably wouldn't have found out about Mr. Wouk's passing had I not come here.

Posted by: CatchThirtyThr33 at May 19, 2019 04:09 PM (Xk5BK)

363 That library spells,in Chinese, "FOR A GOOD TIME TRY THE BODLEIAN".

Posted by: saf at May 19, 2019 04:21 PM (5IHGB)

364 Modern writing is often just plain *bad*. Articles in newspapers and magazines, even the conservative ones I'm afraid, are written very poorly. I don't know if it's because all the editors were let go when AutoCucumber came on the scene or if it's because the last 30+ years of education have been abysmal.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 19, 2019 10:39 AM (uquGJ)

Both. The editors have all been let go, and you can especially tell with headlines in newspapers and elsewhere. Lazy clickbait has won the day there.

The dumbing down of society has much to do with it. To wit: about 10 days ago it was unusually cool in my part of TX. On May 10 the high was in the 40s! The local weather girl kept calling it "the lowest high temperature for this day". I knew this in the 1980s and even in the 1990s as the "minimum high". It's a simple term I learned when I was 12. When such terms like "minimum high" and "maximum low" were pointed out to said weather girl, she replied something to the effect that "oh well, people won't understand that". To me, that says it all. "Minimum high" isn't Shakespeare, but people won't understand what that means???

Posted by: CatchThirtyThr33 at May 19, 2019 04:32 PM (Xk5BK)

365 I've said it before, the left is trying to recreate the "cultural revolution" all over again....
Posted by: lin-duh at May 19, 2019 09:24 AM (UUBmN)

I agree completely. That's why I have been feeling compelled to buy as many pre-1980s books as I can afford. Of course, the Lefties have miscalculated because Americans have a deep and extensive history of firearms ownership; unlike Chinese peasants and Euroweenies.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at May 19, 2019 09:38 AM (5Yee7)

Heck you don't have to go back that far! On a recent car trip, I listened to At First Sight: A Novel of Obsession, by Stephen J. Cannell. It was released in 2008, so pre-Obama racial incitement. It's a little over 10 years old and my eyebrows still raised every couple minutes on hearing descriptions and terms that would get you labeled a H8A today!

Posted by: SandyCheeks at May 19, 2019 04:33 PM (tGSHk)

366 199 The funny thing is, if you read older books, you notice that people's vocabularies were much more varied than they are today. What we might consider ostentatious today was most likely everyday language back 100 years ago or so.

-
One example, Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1VK1KcZoDu0
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at May 19, 2019 11:07 AM (+y/Ru

That was the logical outcome of reading as the main form of entertainment, in an era before TV or even radio.

Posted by: CatchThirtyThr33 at May 19, 2019 04:39 PM (Xk5BK)

367 285 Larry Bond who co wrote a book with Tom Clancy

I did enjoy Red Phoenix which is about a North Korea attack on South Korea. It's interesting because one it's before the Gulf War and we really didn't know how good our Military was in the Late 80's and makes an interesting read.

I am surprised that their isn't more books about a fictional attack by North Korea or other type of fiction about the crazy NORKS.

Oh, do I remember Red Phoenix. I was 16. Here I was at Waldenbooks looking for something to read to pass the misery of high school. So I grabbed a copy of Red Phoenix. "Hmm...Larry Bond? Creator of Harpoon? The unofficial co-author of Red Storm Rising (to this day my favorite novel)? What can it be about? I flipped the paperback over and saw in big red letters "THE SECOND KOREAN WAR HAS BEGUN. AND THE THIRD WORLD WAR MAY NOT BE FAR BEHIND."

The phrase was not around then, but it may as well have been: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! Great book.

But as good as that one was, Mr. Bond's finest moment was Vortex. That one, for the uninitiated, is about a South Africa that goes tits-up and falls prey to a regime that makes the National Party under Botha seem moderate. It becomes a police state and the RSA proceeds to invade Namibia. The Cubans jump in, and eventually even the RSA turns on itself. Of course there is American intervention (the appearance of the Iowa-class battleships is epic, among other things) but all in all it is a great book, full of the necessary intrigue, action, and brutal nastiness that I for one like in a book of this sort. (And by the way, it's hard to top Emily van der Heiden - a complete, total badass in this book - as far as strong, dare I say, "empowered" female characters go.)

Posted by: CatchThirtyThr33 at May 19, 2019 05:02 PM (Xk5BK)

368 I just started reading "Cauldron" By Larry Bond after someone recommended it here last week. I read "Vortex" last year and I also thought it was a great book.
Going to give "Red Phoenix" a try to

Posted by: Ken at May 19, 2019 05:28 PM (oTB5N)

369 Wouk wrote some good stuff, but City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder may be the single most under-known, under-appreciated work of 20th century American literature. A wonderful, wonderful book...

Posted by: lyford at May 19, 2019 07:02 PM (UFj/5)

370 Too bad there's only ONE "Candy For Breakfast" at AbeBooks. For $99.99. I doubt it's *that* good of a book.

Posted by: GWB at May 19, 2019 07:44 PM (PpL0X)

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