OMWC
One of the few benefits of the pain-in-the-ass called “relocation” is the occasional discovery of something one possesses but had forgotten. In my case, it was one of my favorite books from my childhood, covers missing, pages yellowed and tattered, thumbed through to nearly the point of collapse, but still readable and delightful. Curtis MacDougall‘s Hoaxes is a classic, ranking with Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Randi’s Flim-Flam in the category of “books to help you develop a healthy cynicism.” Put aside MacDougall’s idiot politics, the guy could write and do real research.
SugarFree
The menu that Cracker Barrel Typhoid Mary handed me. Ugh.
Riven
Ah, so when we last left off, I was just fixing to read Grave Peril, the third book in the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Since then, I’ve finished that book–and Summer Knight, Death Masks, Blood Rites, Dead Beat, Something Borrowed, I Was a Teenage Bigfoot, and Proven Guilty. I’m currently about hip-deep in White Night, which isn’t as Christmasy as the title had initially led me to believe, but then I’ve had Christmas on the brain since Halloween, so… Maybe that’s not on Butcher. Also reads but timeline-ambiguous: Vignette, A Fistful of Warlocks, B is for Bigfoot, and A Restoration of Faith. Clearly very easy and whimsical stories to read, they’re entertaining and just-distinct-enough from each other that I will likely read the entire series right into the dirt. As long as Butcher keeps writing them, I’ll keep reading them, and I think I’m about halfway through the entire catalog at this point, if I include all the sundry shorts. … So he’s got another month or so to write the next one before I get to the current end of the series.
mexican sharpshooter
My reading once again, has been limited by what I read my four year old.
This month’s entry is Shel Silverstein’s classic, The Giving Tree. It is a touching story on the surface, but upon closer examination is a cautionary tale about the moral hazard of the welfare state. The story begins with a boy playing with a tree but inevitably, time plays its terrible curse upon the boy and the tree. The boy grows and no longer has interest in the tree. The tree notices the boy coming by less often, but when he does, she finds the boy is missing something. The boy first has no money, but the tree offers the boy her apples. Now this is act of pure kindness on the tree’s part, and also an important lesson missed by the boy. The apples you see, were meant to be sold in the market for a profit so the boy was able to have spending money. Given the utter lack of overhead costs incurred by the boy, any apple sold was sold for a profit. The boy then makes the mistake of spending all his money foolishly.
His mismanagement of the tree’s gift is evident because the next time the boy comes to the tree for help, he is in need of a house. Perhaps he knocked up some girl and needed a house. Who knows? Ultimately, if he had been a better steward of the tree’s gift of her apples, he would have used the profits from the apple sales, and applied those towards the startup for another, more profitable venture. At the very least, the profits could have been used towards a down payment on a house. Given he had no money tells me it was spent on women and booze, because he now had a family and was once again asking the tree for help. She offers her branches to build a home, and probably a shabby one at that. Apple trees aren’t exactly known for their high strength wood, unless this was some kind of magic tree.
Clearly, the boy made a mistake in who he married, because the next time he comes to the tree for help he wants to get away and have an adventure. Between his debts and his dilapidated home, I would want to get away from everything too. The tree once again offers the boy help by allowing him to chop down her trunk, and use it to make a boat. Boats are nothing more than a hole in the water filled with money if you ask me. The tree apparently was happy, but not really.
Behold! The Welfare King upon his throne.
The story concludes with the boy comeing back to the tree as an old man. Surly, broken down—he can’t even chew on apples anymore out of disgust for his poor decision making. The tree inevitably offers the only thing left she can as a stump, and offers the boy a place to sit his lazy ass down.
The lesson here is the moral hazard of the welfare state. The tree gives selflessly, and the boy takes advantage of her generosity by stealing everything she is worth—even in death. A better course of action would have been to give the boy the apples as a loan. How do you pay back a loan to a tree? I don’t know, maybe the tree could’ve loaned the apples with the stipulation the boy plant a dozen of those apples somewhere. Something, anything really to instill upon the boy the apples he is selling to spend on hookers and booze was not his to begin with. The smartest course of action, being that he could clearly sell apples, is to plant more trees. Then the tree wouldn’t be so damn lonely for one, being surrouded by other trees, but the boy would have a larger supply of apples to bring to market. Perhaps even plant a few more trees, and entire orchard of trees, and become de facto king of the magical apple tree forest. That never occurred to the creepy bearded, bare-footed Silversteen. Obviously, because he wanted you to believe it was better to give everything to everyone, especially the undeserving.
Ayn Rand would’ve had an epic, 96 page field day with this.
jesse.in.mb
Coming off a rough few months and finally getting a chance to do some reading. I finally finished the Lies of Locke Lamorra which I mentioned a quarter ago. It got better after where I was at before, but I’m not sure I’m going to pick up the next book in the series. There were open questions, but the tale itself comes to a satisfying close.
Jeff Wheeler’s Storm Glass is another first book in a series. I *might* pick up the next one. The blurb made it sound like an impressively hamfisted parable for modern socioeconomic disparities set in a roughly steampunk (English, not wild-west) setting, but it was more enjoyable than the blurb made it sound.
The Shadow & Bone trilogy (also apparently called the Grisha trilogy) is again a vaguely steampunk set of novels reminiscent of The Legend of Kora. The setting is overtly Russian and at about the end of the tsarist era, but in this universe some people are born to manipulate aspects of the world around them and some people are just fodder for the constant wars at play. There were a few points in the series where the story faltered, but the cadence kept me reading and I put down 2.5 of the books in a day-and-a-half.
Currently reading Roadside Picnic, but I’m barely through the foreward so it’ll have to wait until next time.
SP
I have been reading self-help and how-to books this month.
”How to Relocate AGAIN and Stay Married”
”Creative Arson: When You REALLY Can’t Pack One More Box”
”Toss It! (Grandma’s dead, she’ll never know you gave her ‘heirlooms’ away)”
“How to Get Moving Quotes Without Talking to Humans”
“Nobody Needs 23 Kinds of Wine: Throwing Packing Parties to Reduce Your Cellar”
”Do the Math, Or Is it Cheaper to Replace All Your Household Goods Than Move Them?”
“Ikea is Everywhere: Why Move Your Furniture?”
Brett L
I read to unwind, and after a hell of a month of November, I dove into a whole crapload of books this month. Not all of them great, but several pretty quality reads.
I started with Gears of the City by Felix Gilman. I’ve had a pretty serious literary crush on Felix since reading The Half-Made World. Gears is a sequel to his 2007 book Thunderer. in the first book, a man named Arjun came to The City looking for his God, who had left Arjun’s monastery quiet and empty. The City contains hundreds of gods, and Arjun gets tangled up with two in particular, one a god of rot, water, and death; the other a god of flight, wind, and freedom. Many hijinks ensue and we leave the first book with Arjun going to The Mountain to look for his god. But the The City and The Mountain are mystical places, not really fixed or Euclidean in space or time. The second book picks up with Arjun having been spat out by The Mountain with a hazy set of memories. Short version is, the first book is great, the second one’s reach exceeds its grasp. I really wanted to love it, but it tied up too many things too neatly. Still loads of great characters and imaginative encounters, just not as sexy.
After that came something lighter — the 4th installment of Drew Hayes’s NPC series (officially Spells, Swords, & Stealth series according to Amazon, but the first one was NPCs). Anyhow, this is I guess, LitRPG genre? There are two interwoven stories in the series. One is that the characters in the DnD-style game are actually in existence somewhere and controlled by people in our plane. The other is a group of NPCs who form a party to save their little town. I think its a fun series. Has some original twists and turns. Hayes does a good job between just shrugging his shoulders at some things (adventurers take stupid risks. its what they do.) and really nice world building on the other. Some of the characters include a gnome paladin of the god of minions, a half-orc wizard, and a former player-controlled character who should have died on a natural 1 roll but instead became an NPC.
I also read the first two books of the Books of Babel series, Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx. The first book was wonderful steampunk. The second was not as original or lyrical, but moved the story along. A slightly older schoolmaster named Senlin takes his new bride to the Tower of Babel for a honeymoon (think steampunk technology, trains, some electricity, lots of steam engines) and immediately gets separated in the crowd. Thereafter begins his quest to reunite with his wife, in which he discovers that his morality is fluid, and he will do whatever it takes to get back to her. The second book takes Senlin to the mysterious Sphinx who seems to run and repair all of the automation for the tower. Senlin makes a deal to get closer to finding his wife.
I also read a short story from Mark Lawrence in the Nona Grey universe called Bound. Lawrence continues to be one of my favorite writers, but $3 for 16k words is at the edge of my price range for anybody. Only read it if you are caught up on the Jorg/Red Queen and Nona Grey books and are waiting impatiently for the next book to drop.
Finally, I started the Expanse books by James SA Corey. I don’t know why I hadn’t read them before, since space opera is absolutely my jam, but I had not. Nor have I watched any of the series on Syfy/Amazon. I really feel cheated that I haven’t been reading this all along. Although given the sheer number of novels and novellas in the series, it would be great if someone could tell me when to pull the ripcord so I don’t become bitter and disillusioned.
Missed the thread last month, so here’s two months for me:
Beowolf – Started reading this very, very slowly with Thing 1. Its great, of course but very, very slow going because Thing 1 is rather young and this is, you know, not in English. But it’s got vikings and swords and monsters and shit, so he’s super into it. Highly Recommended.
Little House in the Big Woods – Started reading this with Thing 2, not quite so slowly. She’s the same age as the protagonist, and since my hobby is “learning about new hobbies,” this is a particularly good book for us. Thing 2 is desperately looking forward to snow so we can make maple candy. Highly Recommended.
Book of Matthew, The World English Bible – I wanted to find a DRM-free and rights-free bible to read on my Kindle to read to Thing 1 and Thing 2, and that’s surprisingly hard to do if you want it in English. I am reading this very slowly with Thing 1 and Thing 2, and so far I like this translation. Nothing jumps out at me as being in error, and there are a few times where I notice improved terminology. I grew up with KJV and switched over to the NIV a few decades ago. But the NIV is rights-locked. And I learned a bit more about linguistics and have a few issues with a few parts of it. We’ll see what I think of the WEB once I read the whole thing. Which, at this rate, may take a decade if these kids don’t get a lot smarter as they get taller. Incomplete – No recommendation yet.
The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Reinhart and Charcuterie by Ruhlman – These are about the only two reference books I use any more for cooking, other than the time/temp chart for pasteurization of sous vide food. If you want to start baking bread and/or curing meat, these are the first and last books you need to get your hands on. Highly Recommended.
Tomorrow 3.0 – I picked up this book because of the extended analysis of tool-lending and I’m a volunteer at a tool library. On the one hand, I’ve picked up all of this info already because I listen to Econtalk and I read a lot of what Munger publishes on the web. On the other hand, getting a complete synthesis of it in one telling is helpful for tracking all the threads of the arguments made. This is probably my favorite kind of econ book. Theoretically, but grounded in realistic examples that strike me as plausible. Almost Coasian, in that way. Recommended.
Live and Let Die – Hoof, this was a slog. If you thought the movie had weird racism baked in but was probably just a product of its times, turn that knob up to eleven here. On the one hand, I can easily dismiss the ‘product-of-the-times’ elements. After all, this was published around the same time MLK was using language you can’t today use in polite society, so some of the terminology is easy to overlook for the same reasons. On the other hand, there are integral elements that make this much more of a Civilized White Colonialist Navigates Barbarous Savages story, which I’ve always found distasteful (even before doing so was cool…) This goes all the way down to the omni-competent native butler that is devoid of personality but instantly loyal to our British Protagonist. This is the kind of thing that makes Kato and the Green Hornet look nuanced. When we actually get to the Spy Stuff, it is good. But that only makes up maybe fifteen percent of the book. I’m going to give this series one more try because the series is often lauded but this book is often held out as the turd in the punch bowl. But it’s on Double Secret Probation. Not Recommended.
The Wizard and the Prophet – This is, by far, the single best book on some aspect of intellectual history I’ve ever read. It starts with the biographies of two men – William Vogt and Norman Borlaug – and from their stories extrapolates the two dueling visions of how the human system works with their environments. If you are here, you likely know who Borlaug is, and may know that he is a secular saint that he basically ended famine as one of the scourges of humanity. You may not know who Vogt is, but you should. I grew up surrounded by Vogtian Prophets on one side (my mother was is soft-headed liberal-guilt ex-hippy) and Wizards on the other side (my dad gave me a genetic predisposition to this, he’s a civil engineer, most of my uncles are civil or enviro engineers, and my education went this way.) This book does a superb job of laying out the history of these two modes of thought and also of helping the reader see into what makes each system work. Why Prophets think the way they do is made clear. Why Wizards think the way they do is also made clear.
Two things turn this from a great book to an all-time favorite for me. First, the author is a journalist, not an academic. Given that he’s covering an academic dispute, or at least a dispute that involves academia, the fact that the author is a bit of an outsider is a huge boon. He comes out and admits his loyalties were in one camp but it was easy to move away from either camp, since it wasn’t his tribe. And he spent his life writing narratives, which is nice because intellectual histories are, at their core, narratives.
This enables the second thing – the author isn’t afraid to call bullshit on the Prophets when they are peddling bullshit. Which is often. More than once, he points out that we have a string of apocalyptic scenarios with falsifiable end-date, and the current batting average of the Prophets approaches 0. But he managed to do this without devolving into the kind of blind, partisan-motivated stupidity that is rampant in most global warming deniers. This is a Good Thing, because there are many bit of climate change that are ‘real’ and should be understood, and that baby gets thrown out with the bathwater very often.
This is the third books by Mann, and he’s on my “run, don’t walk, to get whatever he publishes next,” list. Highest Recommendation.
The Devils of Loudun – This Huxley guy.. He’s pretty good at writing stuff. Ever heard of him? I admit I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of this book till a post on Quillette. But it’s great. Better than Brave New World from a pure enjoyment point of view. OK, it should be impossible to enjoy Brave New World. Neither book gives you the warm fuzzies. But this book is more gripping. Which is a hell of a feat, since this is nominally non-fiction and Brave New World is fiction. But I get the feeling the archival truth may be a bit elided in favor of the narrative here. Just a hunch.
So what’s in this book? Everything. Hubris. Corruption. Sex. Sin. Salvation. It’s basically A Game of Thrones told on a smaller scale, but with higher stakes. Highly Recommended.
The Mauritius Command – Another Jack Aubrey book. Still lots of fun. Recommended.
The Coddling of the American Mind – Lots of ink has already been spilled about this book. It’s a great book. And more of an indictment of late of parenting and the in-loco-parentis-apparatus of the kids with the coddled mind. Which is the only moral position to take. Also, if this makes CBT cool, that alone would make it an important book. Recommended.
Sapiens Arnold Kling is the most scrupulous public intelectual I can think of. Before reading this book, he called it “interesting.” That was enough to put it on my reading list. He gave a mid-read update and said he might not give it a favorable review. Kling is kind of like Diogenes, always on the lookout for an honest man, waiting for someone to tell him to look in a mirror. Anyway, Kling doesn’t generally slog a book in public if he doesn’t think it is very good. He just doesn’t say anything. Kling hasn’t updated us on his opinion of this book.
So I will. This book is jam packed full of good ideas, surrounded by a sea of shitty interpretations by a nihilistic devotee of the anti-life equation. A lifetime of exposure to critical theory and Marxism has resulted in an author this is incapable of actually engaging with ideas that don’t fit his priors. He always, always falls back into the old critical theory trope of dismissing instead of rebutting. It would be infuriating if it wasn’t exhausting. This could have been a great book because the author does relay a bunch of facts that are interesting because they all fall in the “Oh I Guess Social Conservatives Were Right” column. Seeing those get engaged with by someone like Bret Weinstein is really interesting (PS I wish his life didn’t have to be ruined for his ideas to come to prominence.) But here the author uses all the postmodern thought-killers to avoid having to confront these ideas and the challenge they provide to his world view. Or he just gets his facts wrong, like when he asserts that the triangle trade was purely a product of laissez faire and completely unsupported by any government anywhere or any law.
In short, the author is an brilliant, highly educated, intellectually weak, cowardly piece of shit and I wish to God that someone else would have written this book. Avoid. Maybe rip out a few pages if you need to shim up a wobbly table.
What? Free drugs and daily orgies? What’s not to like?
It’s not Free, that’s taxpayer dollars.
The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Reinhart
Can’t go wrong with anything by Reinhart. He’s awesome.
Beowulf is in english…
Aulde English, but still…
That was exactly my take, and I never felt compelled to pick up the next book. So far it is working out for me.
Listening a Butcher Dresden Files book Small Favor. The usual fairly entertaining and the library has the audio books.
Butcher is apparently having major writer’s block on his latest Dresden book. If he had kept to his original pace, it probably would have been released about a year ago.
The Dresden Files series are good light reading.
From Jim website:
As of December 27th, 2018, the current draft of the novel is up to chapter 39. Progress!
Hope “sign a prenup” was in there somewhere.
What do you do after genocide, cheating death (or resurrection), and becoming a wizard capable of taking on pretty much all of the other wizards in the world at once?
Seek out young Annakin and lure him to the Dark Side?
I just wrapped up a book on Georgian Courtiers by I have no clue who and just started one on the Holy Roman Empire by a different author of remarkably similar forgetableness.
I am re-reading “Beyond the Edge of the Map” and “Prince of the North Tower” as I write “Home from the Unknown” (which may be renamed “On Unknown Shores”) and “Eyes in the Dark”.
“Home from the Unknown”/”On Unknown Shores” is the sequel to “Beyond the Edge of the Map” where Dug has to find his way home now that he’s gone and found a place his countrymen have not been.
“Eyes in the Dark” is about a Thief/Spy in the thoroughly corrupt Kingdom of Neph who is working for their newly coronated foreigner-king in the early stages of his efforts to root out the corruption plaguing the kingdom. (This eventually leads to civil war with the entrenched powers, but maybe not in this book).
Oh dear… I may only be 1200 words into “Eyes in the Dark”, but I don’t know the narrator’s name. I know his backstory and how he ended up breaking and entering to seek evidence of corruption and regicidal plots, but I don’t know his name, or what he looks like.
I’ve started re-reading all the Goosebumps books I have from my childhood. So far I got through the first 3; Welcome to Dead House, Stay out of the Basement, and Monster Blood. It’s been a worthwhile endeavor. The books are still a fun read and I’ve found it interesting how much I remember from reading them over 20 years ago. Also, it makes me feel really smart that I can read them in one day. I’m a real slow reader and ‘adult’ books take me a long time to read.
You’ll have to let me know how The Werewolf of Fever Swamp holds up!
That’s the one I’m looking forward to, it was my favorite one.
Soggy and under the weather from the sounds of it.
Introducing invasive species? That’s doubleunplusgood, citizen.
OT: In this case I actually recommend skipping the article and heading straight to the comments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/opinion/trump-impeachment-resign-drew.html
If those are not the ravings of deranged and mentally ill people, I don’t know what are.
Your name was just taken in vain. We were opening up a new bank account and when I was asked about the picture theme for my new debit card, I said, “Hey, I have a friend who might have some suggestions. Name of Q.”
SP rolled her eyes. She does that a lot.
If only there were a way to monetize pictures of half-naked girls with huge cans our financial problems would be over!
Internet killed the adult book store.
I ‘member back when you had to pay for porn but water was free.
Do you ‘member ?
Your name was just taken in vain.
FucQ
SP rolled her eyes. She does that a lot.
Eight year olds, Dude.
That opinion piece would be labeled satire in the NYT if the Ds and Rs were switched. The author relies on the “aroma” of wrongdoing to justify impeachment. The Rs way overplayed their hand when they tried to impeach Clinton. If the Ds went after Trump with what’s currently available, they will make the Rs look cautious by comparison.
The interesting thing from the comments is that there is no debate or even a discussion over what exactly Trump has done that is criminal. It’s assumed as a tenet of faith that he is the devil incarnate and as such must be expunged from this earth.
As I have said elsewhere. The D’s want to deify RBG while she is still on this mortal coil and to invoke damnatio memoriae for DT because he is an usurper to HRC’s throne.
re: The Giving Tree</em – from its Wikipedia page.
He actually does look like LaVey there.
“How do you pay back a loan to a tree?”
By keeping vines off of it and removing the weed-trees that it competes with for water, space and sunlight.
I am still reading Annals of America. I will be for a while. Currently about to start Ch.35 – ‘The Constitution as an Instrument of Aristocracy’ by Anonymous
I may skip ahead to Jefferson’s ‘On the Omission of a Bill of Rights from the Constitution’
That does kind of tik me off. People think trees are just there, like air. They are not. Someone busted their ass planting them and tended them. It is a lot of work. There is no such thing as a giving tree that just springs up magically from the ground.
I have some trees that disprove that. I work to get rid of them, but life finds a way.
That is called a weed.
I’ll plant my own tree
On topic:
Continuing on my Japanese author kick, I’m reading “A Personal Matter” by Kenzaburo Oe. It’s a mostly-autobiographical tale about a man whose son is born with a horrific defect and isn’t expected to survive. He spirals. Existential angst, misery, soul searching and ruminations on the cruelty and indifference of life ensue.
If you haven’t read it yet and want something really big to tackle, I suggest The Sea of Fertility by Yukio Mishima. Glorious.
I also suggest The Great Passage.
I finished Surely your joking Mr. Feynman
Then hit Post, the biography of Richard Feyman, what a clown,
Also, for you podcast listeners, I am very much enjoying “Somethings off with Andrew Heaton” and the Christmas special was brilliant, featuring a Bernie Sanders reading of A Christmas Carol. I believe the show is on hiatus till the new year, so this is your chance to catch up.
I alternate between being entertained and wanting to take a chair to his teeth. The horse joke in the christmas special had been beaten to a bloody pulp by the end. Though I admit, he caught the cadence and essence of sanders well in the sequence you mention.
Tulpa here, but I just finished Maughm’s Painted Veil. Good, but not up to Cakes and Ales or Of Human Bondage. He glosses over how the main character was changed but did a good job in showing the charity of the nuns. Now I am going through the last two John McPhee books that came out, The Patch and Draft #4. As he is the best non-fiction writer in the country at 87years old, reading his writing process is actually a lot of fun. I have a collection of Titus Crow stories on deck also, just to give the brain some spare space and energy. Gotta love people who keep the Mythos alive, and quite well at that.
I also have about a half dozen books on the building of wooden boat scattered around, as that has been fascinating me for a few years now. Need to finish cleaning out my garage and turn it into a boat shed (the wife will LOVE that…
You’re not supposed to admit to being Tulpa until we accuse you of it!
Punches, I beat you to them.
Fuck off, Tulpa!
Boatbuilding. You are gonna go down that rabbit hole? Prepare to be poor and lonely.
That sounds like something Tulpa would say.
or Poppy
I’m calling bull. I have it on high authority that I am Tulpa.
Of Human Bondage is the better movie. (At least, the 1934 version.)
I’m still working through “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon”. I’d like to finish it before I go back to work on Wednesday, but we’ll see what happens.
Bedtime: re-reading Tom Jones for the 5th time. Can’t read anything new at bedtime. Stick with a classic. Plus I was tired of Thousand and One Arabian Nights.
Otherwise: Raising the Hunley. I don’t usually read non-fiction, but this is worth it.
Speaking of a book that couldn’t be written today…
Arabian nights? Oh yeah. I only just read this in the last 5 years, then I realized how it’s the basis for so many other stories. But it is politically incorrect.
Tom Jones.
Raising the Hunley
whatev, managed to SF the links.
Don’t feel too bad. I hadn’t SF’d any links in years. I’ve done 3 in the last 4 days.
OT: Those sneaky libertarians scheming to get us out of war!
It must be bad if it doesn’t lead to more government.
There is a reason that we have a civilian instead of ‘Generals’ for CIC. The military’s job is to do as they are told. Every warning and every safeguard the Founders gave us the ignoramus’ today just dont get. We live in the freest country in the world in spite of ourselves.
?Secret libertarian president, seeeeeecret liberrrrrrrtaaaaaarian preeeeeeesidennnnnnt?
”
Yeah, and your “facts” for that statement are…? Fucking warmongering scumbag.
Fact – Congress avoids voting on war like it’s the plague. Fuck you Moynihan, you want war, vote for it.
Night 867. How far did you make it, Elspeth?
Also “Telempath” by Spider Robinson. Pretty much standard SciFi.
I have two version of the Thousand and One Nights. One is more modern, I think a Barnes and Noble printing. Doesn’t say “arabian” in the title. The other is an older print. Readers Digest condensed books, 1960ish. I have made it through all the stories in both versions, but I am sure I am missing some.
Does the Reader’s Digest one have my favorite, The Tale of Abu Hasan and the Fart?
Burton’s translation was brilliant.
I’m thinking about submitting an article about it when I finish.
Well, I started Atlas Shrugged a few months ago, but then I had to put it aside to study for my CFP. Probably should pick it back up, i’m only like 40% of the way through.
I also started reading Infinite Jest, and still haven’t finished it.
Maybe I should pick shorter books to read hahaha
Chinese colonization of Africa progresses. Loan the Africans more money than they can ever repay, then repo their ports.
The Chinese will prove to be harsher colonial masters than the bulk of the European powers ever were.
(Leopold gets questionable status because the extent of the hand-chopping issue is contested)
Related:
I’m curious to see how this plays out when China’s financial house of cards come tumbling down. If the African countries sense weakness, they may seize the China operations and some shooting may erupt as a result.
“We are nationalizing all Chinese-held assets in our country.”
/Future Tinpot Dictator of the month.
When they were moving in there I heard complaints. Oh Nooooes the Chinese are taking over Africa! My answer was always the same.
“They can have it. Good luck to ’em.”
Their goal is to tie up all the rare earth minerals in the world. They already control over 90%
Work on non-rare-earth semiconductors is already bearing fruit. They may just corner the market in time to find the value dropping. I know there are other applications for the minerals, but the more they incentivize searching for alternatives, the faster they will start to show up.
Either that or find a ton of it on an asteroid…which would probably prove Chinese reserves to be moot.
Like I said, good luck with that.
If I was the African Tinpot Dictator I would not hesitate to “nationaize” their assets. What are they gonna do? I highly doubt that China could deploy and keep supplied even a single division to Africa and while their military is large it has absolutely no combat experience,
Someone hasn’t watched Wolf Warrior II.
Also, Celina Jade? 林
Would it take experienced troops? Or just old fashioned ruthlessness? Is there an African army left (now that SA is going down the tubes) that could even trouble a real military?
That’s not how they defeat you.
If the African countries sense weakness, they may seize the China operations and some shooting may erupt as a result.
I have no doubt that China is much weaker than it pretends to be, but Africa is no match for China:
Population
Africa – 1.2 B, China – 1.4 B
GDP
Africa – $2.3T, China – $14.1T
And the Chinese military is far and away larger and better funded, organized, supplied, and experienced. China is setting the terms here, full stop.
China will flood the zone with Chinese workers, displacing all the locals and relegating them to second class status.
And a century from now, the locals will be amending their consitution to make it legal to take the lands and property of chinese residents without compensation while turning a blind eye to their murders.
Yeah, might want to ask the Uyghurs and the Tibetans how that’s going to work out. China isn’t the US and being accused of being Imperialist is going to be seen as a compliment to them. And the odds of them allowing a bunch of whatever-the-Mandarin-Chinese-slur-for-black-people-is to hold any power and exercise it is somewhere between zero and nil.
I have complete faith that the U.N. can control the Chinese in Africa.
The cycle for those regions hasn’t completed. Right now they’re well under the thumb of their colonial rulers, but that so too was Ireland when the Brits were collecting their colonies.
It is a lot easier to enforce that when you can get troops to the location in question. Get back to me when China actually develops a large enough blue water navy to supply an army 10,000 miles from home
very OT: I listened to a podcast at TOS so you wouldn’t have to. It took me almost a thousand words to catalog all the ways the podcast offended me.
Out of nowhere I find out that Nick has made it into my son’s rotation of podcasts. With no prompting from me, he got excited about Ron Paul three elections ago, has since drifted through and adopted a range of sweet, sensitive, proggy ideas, and has now quickly realized that most people are idiots and the last thing we have any hope in is being tethered to the limited thinking of others and the vicious bureaucracies and laws they can imagine, so he’s now got “fuck off” on a function key that he uses fairly full auto now.
Anyway he takes a string of podcasts; every month one is relegated from the rotation and something new is promoted in. Again, with no prompting from me, he has amassed a string that he tells me includes BBC, NPR, Cato, Heritage, Fifth Column, and Reason among others. Like me, that doesn’t mean he agrees with everything he hears, but he’s trying to hear as many opinions as possible . . .
and: the more he hears and the more he thinks, he’s getting more libertarian by the day. He casually casts “an-cap” into our phone call a moment ago, and I’m fairly thrilled. . . where’d that come from. He makes his own way; I have my preferences, but mostly I want him to be his own man, and I find that I have always been proud of the fun ways in which we have occasionally disagreed over the past couple of decades. He also reports a B+ in torts, the only class he’s heard back from this semester; I can’t wait to work him over on property rights and see how he’s evolving.
I don’t listen to podcasts; I tried TOS but it was a waste of my time: again, a thousand words or so posted in the comments at the link above. Do yourself a favor: skip the podcast; don’t even read my critique; save yourself.
If he changes stances that quickly and frequently, don’t expect the current one to last.
Sorry: I failed to paint a complete picture in 400 words of where he’s been over the last nine years; feel free to paint in the spaces with your vast intuition and experience as you see fit.
If you’re changing your political positions that wildly in a mere nine years, that is quick and frequent.
I don’t know about all that. In my admittedly limited experience people might have pretty stable sets of principles but change their minds about how those manifest in a practical political sense. There are a lot of people who agree on a goal, e.g. ending or reducing poverty, and disagree on the means to achieve that goal, and there’s no reason a person might not change from one camp to another as they’re influenced by experience, contemplation, discussion, etc.
Just finished CS Lewis’s Space Trilogy. The first two were great. I felt like I never got a climax in the third book. It was building to a massive confrontation, and then all but one of the protagonists miss all the fun and the antagonists all get eaten by wild animals. Still, it was an enjoyable read. Lots of influence from Tolkein, Wells, etc. Plus it spawned a few weird-ass songs.
Read the latest Craig Alanson book Renegades. After his last couple books in the series weren’t the best, this was back to form. This series is like candy.
I feel like the third one entirely describes the world we live in if the “good” guys lost.
No, it’s the opposite. Essentially, divine intervention obviates the need for the good guys to do anything.
If the protagonist’s efforts don’t actually bring about the resolution, why are they in the story?
It’s a bit of a weird finish. The main protagonists are in on the plan the whole time, but the (relevant parts of the) story is told from the perspective of a group of ancillary protagonists who aren’t completely in on the plan.
Lewis didn’t do the greatest job tying up the loose ends, so as the last 1/3 of the book is shifting between different perspectives, whenever it comes back to the protagonists they’re basically just coming to terms with the fact that their part in the plan is finished.
It’s kind a “you do your part and God will take care of the rest”. As in Lord of the Rings – Frodo ultimately fails to chuck the Ring into the fire in the cracks of doom. But he and Sam (the real hero of the story) brought the ring to the cracks of doom, Aragorn and Gandalf did their parts winning at Minas Tirith and taking the battle to the Black Gate as a distraction, and Merry and Pippin played their parts at key moments. The rest is in God’s hands.
What did I just listen to?
Oh funny. My cousin and I were just discussing Lewis’ Space Trilogy at Christmas. We both agreed the first and second book work well together and the third book feels jarringly different. Did you read the tangentially related Dark Tower unfinished story? Fringe feels like the result of someone reading it and running with the concept.
I haven’t gotten to it quite yet. I finished Hideous at about 1:30 this morning.
I have been reading: Job Breakdown Instructions. Gobs and gobs of JBIs.
I want to kill people. Verbosity is not clarifying. “HCl is a corrosive acid” please pick one.
Me: “You don’t need to define ‘Rh’ as ‘rhodium’ in the JBI”
Them: “But a new hire might not know what ‘Rh’ is”
Me: “But you expect them to know what rhodium is?”
Also a mixture of monoprotic acids is not a polyprotic acid. Stahp.
Bases can also be corrosive.
“Also a mixture of monoprotic acids is not a polyprotic acid.”
This made me laugh.
A discussion on here made me want to recheck some information and I found myself reading “KL” by Nikolaus Wachsmann. It is a brutal and exhaustive history of the National Socialist concentration camps and how their form and purpose evolved over their history. Fascinating and infuriating at the same time.
“Gunkholing in the San Juan Islands” by Jo Bailey. The San Juan Islands are one of my favorite cruising grounds. I am trying to put together a summer cruise through this beauteous area.
“The Tao of Seneca” by Seneca and Tim Ferriss. This consists of three volumes of the Letters of Seneca and is a decent introduction to stoicism. Available as free pdf downloads, or for the commuting (or relocating) crowd as inexpensive audio books.
Just sinking my teeth into Max Hastings book on the first year of WWI- “Catastrophe 1914 Europe Goes to War” . His version of the crises leading up to war has been interesting. He passes blame around to almost all the participants but ultimately apportions more blame to Germany for being in a position to influence both Austria-Hungary and Russia and failing to seriously attempt to do so. I’ll see how the coverage of the initial campaigns go.
One thing that amazed me about WWI was the rulers of several warring countries were basically cousins and some could in fact, pass for one another.
a) fratricide for power/territory/titles/wealth has a long history
b) transferring power to politicians/bureaucracy from titular heads leaving them figureheads was well underway at this point
I just finished the chapter on Tannenberg in Catastrophe. It’s well done although some may disagree with some of his interpretations.
It is a brutal and exhaustive history of the National Socialist concentration camps and how their form and purpose evolved over their history. Fascinating and infuriating at the same time.
Does he reference the British and the Second Boer War? I thought the Germans got the concentration camp idea from the British.
He does in fact discuss that history. BLUF: From the outset the National Socialist KL differed in both intent and execution from the British concept in South Africa.
Interesting. Thanks.
I’m grinding through the first two volumes of selected essays from the Bitter Southerner.
I can’t recommend it so far.
1/ It’s doctrinaire without being helpful. I don’t need to be preached to about things I already understand; I’m hoping for news or perspective, but there’s no new thing under this particular sun.
2/ It’s lazy, my main beef with writers and other posers. One essay brims with pride at having escaped bad old Mussel Shoals for nirvana Athens. Hell, anyone can run away from something they don’t like to some place where it’s light and easy. The next to last guy I want to be preached to is one who has never built anything and relies on buying or performing in systems built by others. I want to read the essay about staying in Mussel Shoals and making things better, but he simply brags about running away; how about staying and creating some jobs next time.
3/ It bitches about the need to be post-racial while refusing to be post-racial. At this point, no reasonable person is using race as an excuse (at least not in my circles). The way to stop everything being about race is to simply stop every thing being about race. This year I hired a redheaded girl from Arkansas and a black guy from Pitt; I noticed, but I don’t care; they merited my interest, and they continued to merit retention; how they identify doesn’t enter into it at all.
There is indeed a thing about being Southern; there is a thing about enjoying having navigated it and savoring it. But goofy essays about how hard it was for you as a white guy to find peace in 1990 isn’t the piece we’ve all been missing. A better use of time might be to simply return to Welty and O’Connor, but I’ll turn a few more pages before giving up.
My First Question and Answer Book
Fangsgiving
That’s Not My Panda
That’s Not My Puppy
I just finished re-reading the following Neal Stephenson books: The Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, and Diamond Age all in that order. I started this project a couple of months ago. I think the six books constitute a timeline of the same world. Obviously the weakest link is between Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash, and the last two are the newest. I’m considering submitting an article(s) about it and some of the major themes that carry through them.
The short story ‘The Great Simoleon Caper’ sort of bridges that gap, I think. Either way, it’s the prequel to ‘Snow Crash’.
https://www.electricinca.com/56/stephenson/simoleon.pdf
Readin’? Ain’t got time for that. I have a giant list to read or listen to in the car, but I can’t get myself to settle down. Last book I listened to was American Gods.
I just got an Oculus Rift for Christmas, so there goes my reading time.
Will Steger’s “North to the Pole”. Steger is a fellow Minnesotan that thought it would be more fun to go farther north and be colder. About 1/2 through, easy reading but only a few pictures. Book was written in ’86 but new to me, I sort of remember (or not) a little about that at the time, I had just moved back to MN and was questioning my own sanity. Glad I didn’t make the trip with them.
I finished up John Ringo’s and David Weber’s Emprire of Man series. The first two books were enjoyable. Small unit action, interesting setting and characters. Entertaining. The final two books were less so. Too much description of huge set piece battles and the characters become predictable, if not irrelevant. The final book had far too many characters I did not care about in scenes that added nothing to the story simply so Ringo and Weber could add more explosions.
First two are good. Third is ok. Skip the fourth.
On the topic of sequels delayed, I’ve been trying to work out a suitable plot for the next Tarnished Sterling book (aside from Junior Redemptioners, which is coming along okay, I mean the next one narrated by Travis).
The end of Shadowrealm left me in a circumstance where I was required to address the question of the Sanalta, a fictional Carribean nation whose ambassador once tried to kill Travis. There is good reason for both the Community Fund and the Sanaltan contact to want Travis to go there (non-overlapping motivations). So my thought for the story was thus:
Use the start I’ve written that re-establishes the narrator and the world, have him get on the plane heading for the carribean. The plane lands, he gets out and sees it’s snowing. After looking around some more, he realizes that he’s back in the airport in his home city and the week is just gone from his memory. Worse, his powers don’t seem to work.
He goes to a telepath to try to dig up whatever happened to that week. The first pass through the memories are of an uneventful visit to the islands, looking to the telepath like ‘a failed implant meant to have been recalled as the cover story’. So they dig a bit deeper, and find another set of memories, which start out similarly but end up with Travis captured and dragged to a lab, but a catastrophe befalls the place. Travis helps fix it for his own sake, and the locals say the only way they can let him go is if he agrees to have his memories over-written.
If there’s not enough text, there would be a third set of memories too. It wraps up with some ambiguity if they managed to find the real memories at all.
So what I’m wondering is how well that would work, and whether or not its too much like so many other mindfuck cliches.
I’m reading a book. You may have heard of it. It’s called….
DON’T ANY OF YOU WORK?!
The despair of a taxpayer at the Welfare office?
Or a nosy IRS leg-breaker?
Progressives, confused when their plans succeed?
OT: If ever there was a case for Second Amendment solutions, this is it.
Don nut punched with that one yesterday.
I’m currently working my way through the Hornblower series – reading them as the author wrote them, so I started with Ship of the Line. Great enjoyment though sometimes it’s a bit “Knightboat”, how the French army always seems to be near a shoal, river, or ocean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoV1-fsFCmw
Also reading Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon, which does an excellent job of capturing the Western Front in WW1.
Fun, light reading, is an old childhood book that I finally was able to track down the title of: D’Aulaires Book of Norse Myths which has wonderful illustrations and synopsis of the Norse gods, the creation of the world, and all of the adventures of the Aesir. I loved this book when I was 10yo, and I’m not disappointed in visiting it again, nearly 40 years later.
http://www.exodusbooks.com/Samples/Picture/7140Sample1L.jpg
And once again, EF is changing the logins. That’s what I’ve been reading.
Also related: My (Current) top 10 albums:
in no particular order:
John Phillips – The Wolfking of LA
James – Hey Ma
Snake Corps – Smother Earth
Chet Baker / Paul Bley – Diana
The Wild Swans – The Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years
Nick Cave – Henry’s Dream
Bee Gees – Trafalgar
Tom Waits – Closing Time
Steve Young – Renegade Picker
Arcadia – So Red the Rose
Runner Ups: which, depending on my mood, could easily place in the top 10 list:
Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night
Pink Floyd – Animals
John Moreland – High on Tulsa Heat
Dead Can Dance – Toward the Within
I haven’t read any of those…
/deliberately missing the obvious.
Naval warfare until quite recently was executed near land almost exclusively. Crossing the ocean was the way to get to the next point to blockade, attack, defend etc. That is why Napoleonic era books like the Hornblower and Aubrey series feature those small land or close littoral battles in every volume.
The protection of ports and the seaboard is why every major US port features old US Army bases near the water. That is where the old coastal artillery was located until after WWII. In a twist of fate the next generation of artillery has enough range and accuracy to impact enemy fleets far offshore so the US Army is getting back into the ship killing business.
Okay, but that does that have to do with Lord H’s list?
And once again, EF is changing the logins.
It’s to keep up with the gender shifts, it’s like you don’t even EverydayFeminism.
SP and I would sooner share a toothbrush than a computer.
OT: Florida man at it again.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-man-33-posed-as-housewife-to-lure-men-into-home-where-hed-secretly-film-sex-acts-for-web-cops-say
Again? Or is that an old story?
Its evidently an epidemic in Florida
So that’s what they’re calling it these days.
OT: Went out to plow the yard after our recent snow and discovered that the throttle cable is broken on my ATV.
plow the yard – interesting euphemism.
Orphans dont have throttle cables to break, ya know.
Man, I’m becoming one of those dead-thread posters…
…anyway, my reading list of late:
– Gardens of the Moon: I fought with this one for awhile. For about 4/5 of the book I found the characters uninteresting and cliche, the setting not terribly interesting, and the writing a shade too purple for my tastes. I was intrigued enough to keep reading, but I couldn’t care less about the characters or the plot for the lion’s share of the book. It was mostly my stubbornness and need to complete things that made me plow through. None of this was helped by the fact that the community’s typical response to anyone who expressed skepticism or, God forbid, a negative opinion of the book was that they were too dumb or too unsophisticated to “get” it. I see this a lot in PC gaming, generally when a shitty game is embraced by a niche audience who ties their self-image to the game’s reception. Now, I will say that at the end of the book some interesting things happened that made my opinion change somewhat. Also, as a massive fan of the Discworld series, I’m familiar with the phenomenon of the first book of a great series not being very good.
– The Monster Hunters: This is an omnibus edition of the first three Monster Hunter International books by Larry Correia. I forget who, but someone here mentioned the series and links to Correia’s blog from time to time, so hat-tip to you. I mean…it ain’t Tolstoy, and every now and again I roll my eyes at too much gun nerd stuff or something so cartoonishly implausible that it manages to strain the suspension of disbelief, but it’s a really fun read so far. I actually like Correia’s writing style, especially as a change of pace from GotM. There’s also a healthy skepticism of the federal government that I appreciate, although that too gets a little too close to caricature from time to time.
– a bunch of stuff about product management
I’m still working through the Sharpe series. Also the Hornblower books, which I’m reading in chronological (not publication) order. I have a list of books I’ve bought that I haven’t read yet a mile long, going back maybe three years, so I’m backlogged as all hell.
I’ve read a bunch this month, mostly insomnia-driven brain candy.
I will caution anyone whose Amazon recommendations include Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louis Penny to run screaming in the other direction. I thought a detective based in Montreal would be a nice change from the normal haunts, but I was wrong. It was so precious that more than once I wanted to burn my Kindle in protest.. Fucking horrible.
A Dirty Job, Christopher Moore. A secondhand store owner becomes an assistant for Death. Moore is funny and this one, while weird, is funny.
Feet of Clay, Pratchett. Still awesome
Dead Low Tide, John D. MacDonald. Not a Travis McGee novel and pretty early in his career. A good story of a man so fucking stupid he gets himself completely enmeshed in a bunch of Murders, but smart enough to find his way out. Great beach book.
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman. I’m pretty sure I heard about this one here. Written back in the ’70s, it’s your classic dystopian sci-fi with some interesting twists. I think Haldeman was a big fan of Starship Troopers. Solid book and free for those with Prime.
I’ve got a few more teed up for a little R&R, including the new Rebus novel! It’s scheduled for release on Monday.
Happy new year, bitches!
I read Michael Jones’ “The Retreat: Hitler’s First Defeat” and “Leningrad:The Siege.” Can some of you more knowledgeable types help me out?
In both books, Jones has Hitler foaming at the mouth about the necessity for Europe and Germany to defeat “Jewish Bolshevism” or “Asiatic Sub-human Bolshevism.” But nowhere does he inform us what, exactly, Hitler disliked about the communist ideology. Seeing as Hitler was socialist, was it simply that he thought communism (in theory, the withering of the state) was a step too far? Libertarians can find numerous reasons to oppose communism but it isn’t clear to me why Hitler was opposed, other than Stalin was a rival gang leader.
I’m really late top this post. In fact, I’ve been busy with family holiday stuff such that I haven’t had a chance to check Glibs as much as I’d like.
As it happens, I’m frequently trying to catch up on my reading. Here is a list of what I’m working through now. Some one these have been in my reading stack since last year. Some are recent Christmas gifts from my wife, who despite her high intelligence, doesn’t really like to read books. She knows how happy I am holed up in my reading/music room.
Anyway, FWIW, here’s my list:
CONTRA KRUGMAN: SMASHING THE ERRORS OF AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS KEYNESIAN, Robert P. Murphy
PRACTICAL PROGRAMMING FOR STRENGTH TRAINING, Mark Rippetoe & Andy Baker
THE BARBELL PRESCRIPTION: STRENGTH TRAINING FOR LIFE AFTER 40, Jonathon Sullivan & Andy Baker
A DISGRACE TO THE PROFESSION: THE WORLD’S SCIENTISTS ON MICHAEL MANN, HIS HOCKEY STICK, AND THEIR DAMAGE TO SCIENCE, complied & edited by Mark Steyn
FOOL’S ERRAND: TIME TO END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN, Scott Horton
DEAR READER: THE UNAUTHORIZED AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF KIM JONG IL, Michael Malice
HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE: MY LIFE RECORDING THE MUSIC OF THE BEATLES, Geoff Emerick with Howard Massey
THE GREAT UPHEAVAL, Jay Winick
SOUTH OF THE NORTHEAST KINGDOM, David Mamet
JOHN WILLIAMS’S FILM MUSIC, Emilio Audissino
FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, Christopher Hitchens
ROLLBACK: REPEALING BIG GOVERNMENT BEFORE THE COMING FISCAL COLLAPSE, Tom Woods
33 QUESTIONS ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO ASK, Tom Woods