I know I have to consider the source, Fusion, the resurrected Gawker, that which is dead but may never die, but I’d be hard-pressed to come up with thirteen current books I’d be less interested in reading: immigrants, identity politics, Al Franken as the savior of American politics, Soviet apologia by one of the worst fantasy writers of his generation, transgender bildungsroman, and essays–the fancy sort of blogpost.
When the book about Afroculinaria and the intersection (that word, ugh) of slavery and food is the most interesting book on the list, you got a bad list.
13 Incredible Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List; or 13 books you want to make sure everyone on the subway sees you reading
Comments
260 responses to “What Are We Not Reading? June 2017”
Why can’t you just give us wholesome adventures of Warty Hugeman/Hat and Hair/Clinton’s Eldritch nether regions? Why do you torment us with such horrors?
And yet I clicked. I clicked and read. Now I gibber in the corner of my room, having glimpsed the world beyond the shadows that our minds can fathom. I hear it yet, the baying. The horrible baying!
“Woke Woke Woke Woke…”
“Woke Woke Woke Woke…”
One of the neighbor dogs sounds exactly like that when he barks. Thanks for making that connection in my head.
That is a remarkably terrible list. If it wasn’t intentional to make a list that bad, then the million monkeys finally paid off.
Also, I like some of Mieville’s fiction, but his politics are pants-on-head retarded. Perdido and Scar were great, and then he completely fucked it up with politics in Iron Council.
I’ve tried to read a number of his things and failed to enjoy any of them. He just grates, and this was long before I knew he was a fan of dictatorial butchers and human misery.
Iron Council is terrible. But I like Scar and Perdido. I really liked Kraken too. The City & The City is fucking brilliant. He is a good writer for a complete commie douchebag.
Want an actual good book to read?
Grendel, by John Gardner.
seconded. its cute. you have to know the beowulf story first tho.
Gardner’s guidebooks on writing are also good stuff in a world where ‘how to write’-books are normally terrible. Actually readable, and practical.
Thanks for the recommendation–just ordered it from Amazon.
I think it would be interesting to do a quick “where are they now”? follow-up to the worst-of-the-worst Gawker writers: e.g. Hamilton Nolan, Alex Pareene, Sam Biddle, Max Read, Jordan Sargent, etc.
I know where some of them landed. (*Biddle was seen yesterday with his hands on the story about the ‘secret NSA report‘ which ultimately said nothing interesting – and you know how you can prove it said nothing interesting? Because they were leaked the secret report in May, and didn’t write anything about it until now, because “now” is when the leaker got arrested; publishing something made her effort seem… less retarded maybe)
But it would be funny to see how they’re variously reduced to writing only-partially-obnoxious screeds for B-list publications. I’d bet that they each wrote something magnificently stupid in the past few months, what with the Trumpocolypse in full effect.
Nolan is at Fusion, so basically in the same place he was. I assume it was some sort of pity hire, like when you give the kid who got brain damaged in a bus accident out in front of your shop a job sweeping up on nights and weekends.
Current Derp: http://fusion.kinja.com/david-brooks-you-dolt-you-buffoon-1795847117
Pareene is also there: http://fusion.kinja.com/why-dont-conservatives-take-climate-change-seriously-a-1795767624
Sargent washed up at Deadspin.
Max Read graduated to New York Magazine and occasional dipshittery at NYT.
And, yes, Biddle is at The Intercept, which is in the running to make The Daily Beast look like sober and responsible journalism.
So no one paid a price and no one learned anything. America!
I like The Intercept. Or, at least, I like Glenn Greenwald
Good catch. Greenwald is good. 10-20% of The Intercept is heavy-duty, batshit leftist froth. If you only read it occasionally, you get the impression of a sober, non-partisan journalism. then one day you come across someone who thinks Salon is “too corrupted by corporate money”
brain damaged in a bus accident
I had no idea pregnancy can result in brain damage.
the baby’s applause was my expression of approval for that characterization
I got you, man. commodius is just being mean.
Heh. I didn’t even click through. Just wanted to rag on Tony.
oh, right. I’d forgotten the whole Tony reference about bus-accidents and pregnancy.
I am a simple man of simple pleasures.
It can when your mother drinks as heavily as Tony’s did.
I would never miss anything that comes from Lena Dunham’s Lenny publishing imprint,
“I would never miss anything that comes from Lena Dunham’s Lenny publishing imprint”
I don’t know, Pie. Romanian AKs aren’t noted for their accuracy.
It’s not the accuracy that counts, it’s how you use it.
True – if you have enough ammo, accuracy isn’t that important.
What one Marine I know described as “accuracy by volume.”
Same.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I saw Twitty the author of the food book on a YouTube channel called 18th century cooking which is not a bad channel for that sort of thing.
Of those authors listed, I’ve only read Sherman Alexie. He’s a good writer. May check it out.
What I’m reading right now: Japanese Homes and their Surroundings by Edward S Morse.
Also reading a textbook on residential mortgage lending.
Hey, Veector. What about your dad, Veector?
Honestly that list could probably be worse
Fuck all that noise. I’m-a start on Eccentric Orbits this week.
you want to make sure everyone on the subway sees you reading
Last summer. at the neighborhood pool, I saw woman actually reading a Ta-Nehisi Coates book. I wanted to slap it out of her hand and throw it in the water.
What is weird is the flocking behavior. If you see one book being read on the subway, you’re bound to see it again very soon.
I honestly think Kindles and other e-readers are less popular in major cities than they should be because you can’t social signal with them like you can paper books.
I just can’t get into Kindles.
It took me a little while, now I barely read any other way.
Me too.
Definitely useful if you want a variety of reading material while on vacay or otherwise traveling. It’s how I do most of my casual reading now.
For serious stuff, I end up getting the printed copy of whatever it is I’m reading (usually used, new if otherwise not available).
Suge: good call on the social signaling angle. I hadn’t thought about it that way before, but I bet you’re right.
Kindle, good. I read more now than I used to, largely thanks the various conveniences of the Kindle. The one aspect that is annoying is that flipping back to an arbitrary point in the book (to re-read some salient bit) is tedious.
Which is exactly why I end up buying some physical copies of books, even though I already have the Kindle version. A Farewell To Alms, for example, is a book that requires close, serious reading, multiple reads of some parts and active re-statement of the author’s theses in one’s own head, just to be sure you understand them. Not to mention that the Kindle version does a terrible job of displaying the accompanying graphs, charts and images.
it’s a fair point. I’ve never used one, but perhaps an e-reader app on a laptop, with a larger display, would help there?
Nope. Well, not for me, anyways. Tried it.
There’s something about the ability to flip back to a random page almost instantly based on gestalt memory of where approximately you read something beforehand that e-readers can’t seem to duplicate at the moment. And when I’m really working through a dense, unfamiliar argument, I typically have my fingers interleaved in two or three other places in the book where the ideas are to continuously refer back at a moment’s notice.
I’m a big fan of Kindle, but the quality of e-books varies wildly. I’m using a Nook running the last stable version of Cyanogenmod with the Kindle app. It’s the only thing I use it for, so I’m leaning towards buying a Paperwhite because of battery life and stability issues. The biggest problem with the e-book quality I find, however, is reading something like Discworld, where there are a ton of footnotes. They’re not handled in a standard way, and sometimes I’ll spend two minutes just trying to hit the link just right to get to the footnote, then to get back. Some editions work very well–these are typically better quality overall, with illustrations inline and quirky formatting preserved–while some, the ones that look like they had an intern scan pages into Adobe, are nightmares.
I think the version of Kindle you have makes a difference.
I’ve read nearly half the discworld series on my old Kindle Review (most basic model) and the footnotes work great. Battery last forever, but there is no internal light.
Read the last one on my Fire, and getting back from the footnote is a screaming pain in the ass. Usually drops me to the start of the chapter.
I was just thinking that very thing.
It can be an advantage, though. No one on the subway yesterday could see that I was reading a manual on improvised explosive devices.
When I was a kid, my dad worked for CIL (Canadian Industries Limited), and had a book in his library called “The Blaster’s Handbook” (one of the CIL divisions made explosives, particularly a type of dynamite called “Forcite”). I musta memorized that book by the time I was ten. Caused my parents no end of grief. 😉
Funny, that’s exactly why I only use a kindle on the subway. Well, that and I can take 1000s of books on a single, lightweight device that will slide into my pocket.
Get thyself woke, Lord!
Get thee to a Wokery?
Rokerij?
Get thee to a wokery. Why wouldst thou be a
reader of sinners? I am myself illiterate honest,
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were
better my editor had not proofed me.
If she was white she was racist irrespective of signals…
I don’t have a commute or a neighborhood pool. I guess I could take a book to the beach… Oh wait, I have two small children. How can I signal?
By wearing man-rompers and lace shorts.
Signal. Not noise.
That made my ears bleed.
By wearing
mancuck-rompers and lace shorts.If you’re wearing rompers, you may be a man biologically, but that’s about it.
For sure. There was a great tweet along those lines:
I assume the senator is being self deprecating with that title,but even so t’s a bit much.
I just finished “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” . Kinda of a murder mystery (dead dog) written in the first-person from the perspective of a 15 year old autistic boy. Pretty creative and only about 200 pages, so a quick read.
I found it very saddening.
Jordan Peterson’s interesting take on autism and Temple Grandin.
(not related to the book in any way, just something I saw last night)
I’ll check out that video at home this evening. Thanks for sharing it.
A lot of it was very sad, how lonely and isolated Christopher was, how poorly his parents were able to handle his condition, etc. The ending made me feel better though.
Is it related to the AC Doyle / Holmes story at all?
Well, dead dogs don’t bark much, so there might be a connection.
The narrator, Christopher, loves the Holmes’ stories and makes several references to Doyle and Holmes.
I read the Holmes stories in the 1990’s-2000’s and found them quite compelling. They must have seemed incredible in the 19th century. I can understand why a lot of Brits wore black armbands when Doyle “killed” Holmes off.
I enjoyed “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” very much.
I quite liked that book. Read it a few years ago.
And speaking of AC Doyle, you guys should read Julian Barnes “Arthur and George”. It’s quite a good easy read and a nice dramatization about the Edalji case that led to the creation of the court of appeals in England.
There was a also British MINI-series based on Barnes’ book. I caught it on PBS. I thought it was pretty good. It was aptly named Arthur and George
Looks like I can watch it on demand. Hey, thanks for clueing me in. I hadn’t thought of that book in a while and I think I’d like to watch it.
Much obliged, Mike.
Consider it a small token of my gratitude for all the stellar links you give us!
I read a short story collection by the same author last year, “The Collapsing Pier”. His short fiction is even better than the novels. Highly recommend.
“If you want to feel a little bit better about who’s in Washington”
Wow.
I think they meant feel better by who is in Washington when it is nuked from orbit.
The only book I’d like to read with “who’s in Washington” in mind is Debt Of Honor by Tom Clancy. And I only need to read the last chapter or so.
Is that the one where a Japanese pilot crashes a plane into the Capitol during the State of the Union address, killing everyone and making Jack Ryan the President?
Because I’m a bad person and really liked that part.
Yes.
I believe we’re
::pulls of sunglasses::
on the same page.
Did you just make a David Caruso/Horatio Caine reference?
Indeed
{puts on sunglasses}
he did.
This scene is epic Caruso. I hope when I am on my deathbed that someone plays it for me so I can laugh myself to death.
Just think, an army of producers, techs, the director AND ESPECIALLY David Caruso himself thought that that was profound imagery. I used to watch that show when it first aired because I liked that blonde Texan and my daughter and I had the running gag with bad puns and sunglasses doffing even before it became a meme.
I smiled when I read that part. It was the best part of the book.
I also get a little tingle up my leg when the aliens blow up the white house in Independence Day.
How mad have Democrats become that they start lionizing Al Franken? Jesus
Their other choices are Chelsea Clinton, M Obama, Fauxcahontus, and Maxine Waters.
Franken starts looking better against that competition. Yes, him. Al Franken.
The funny thing is, should he become more prominent nationally and make a 2020 or 2024 run, the shenanigans around how he was elected would likely come to the forefront and there would be some serious backlash.
Plus he’s a smarmy little fuck.
“Plus he’s a smarmy little fuck.”
Nice understatement. That’s like saying “your Astros are doing okay this year.”
The Al Franken Decade ended nearly 20 year ago. Fuck him.
Sorry, 30 years ago
This was as funny as he ever got.
18 months ago, did you seriously think the phrase “President Trump” would ever pass your lips? We live in strange times…
Say some seriously bad shit goes down in the Minneapolis area… suddenly Franken is in front of the national press. If (big if, but play along) he can manage to come off looking strong and confident, possibly looking down from a pile of bodies, maybe Stuart Smalley starts looking like a contender. The set of circumstances that gives Franken at least the 2020 nomination is not hard to imagine. The likelihood of such a thing is, admittedly, a different story.
eh, scratch the italics after ‘big’
*hangs head in shame*
While its final take-away—that the fall of communism was by no means predestined—may be controversial
Less ‘controversial’ and more ‘retarded’ if you know anything about Soviet history.
2 more years and Utopia would have kicked in. Damn those wreckers
Forever three years into a five-year plan.
When the Soviet Union’s economic history consists of:
1. War communism nearly kills the economy, Lenin creates market reforms via the NEP to fix it, dies.
2. Stalin takes over and collectivizes, economy starts to fall apart again until its constantly being pumped with equipment and material in the Second World War.
3. Economy starts failing apart after the war again until the 1965 economic reform, which is, you guessed it, more market reforms. Economy mysteriously begins to grow faster for the next five years. Still on the long road of decay (the twenty year Era of Stagnation) however.
4. Reforms of 1973 and 1979, which are, again, attempts to negate the influence of bad central planning on the economy, which help but don’t go far enough.
5. Gorbachev just flat out starts to drop communism with perestroika.
There may be some kind of pattern here, almost like a certain ideology didn’t work out so well at any point of their history…
All that plus the tens of millions murdered in the name of communism seems to be a pretty good argument against it.
Even if communism actually led to utopia, Nothing justifies the mass murder of a population.
/mutters something about eggs and omelettes
The Chinese were at least smart enough to push Mao out and start reforms early on. Still of bunch of murderous fucks, etc.
In the comments on some YouTube video someone posted the other week, there were a bunch of tankies saying things like now that the archives have been opened we know that the commies really didn’t kill that many people, the famines were just accidents, a lot of blaming Nazis, and the real gem, Stalin had produced a bread surplus and the data shows he was only 5 years out from constant food surplus and making sure no one went hungry ever again. This is the kind of shit people actually believe.
I read the expanded review that Fusion linked at The Guardian. Didn’t find any mention of the socialist information problem out how this asshat purposes it could be solved, so I’m going to say that the failure of communism is still an inherentissueof the system.
Of course I may just be insufficiently woke.
THAT WAS NOT REAL COMMUNISM!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/06/04/no-to-us-sanctions-on-venezuela-let-maduros-regime-collapse-on-its-own/#6365ebd53e7a
Meanwhile, a writer at Forbes says: “No US sanctions against Venezuela. Let that place burn, so no one can pin the blame on the Americans”. He has a twisted point. No more bull about how the West doomed some commie paradise.
It kind of doesn’t matter. The worthless commies (yeah, redundant) will run with the “Guerra económica” narrative in any case.
Children are literally starving to death in Venezuela. Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, and all the Chavez apologists should have to answer for their support of this man-made catastrophe. This Wall Street Journal article about death being visited upon children is heart breaking. Every picture should be put in a slide and shown to college students. With each picture, the presenter should declare: “This is socialism”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuela-is-starving-1493995317
I don’t disagree, I’m just saying that they will find bullshit reasons to wave it away.
I know. I just so loathe socialists that I went on a bit of a rant there. My apologies
He’s right. The American left’s line on Cuba has always been how the embargo is what causes the poverty (ignoring the whole reality that the Soviet Union was buying sugar at three times the market price for forty years and it was still a shithole). Everything in Venezuela is caused by CIA wreckers and what not. The U.S. is still going to get some of the blame by delusional true-believers but that regime is crashing and burning on its own, no need to help it along.
When the Castro regime flounders and the economy collapses, taking all that universal literacy* and world-class healthcare** with it, it’s going to be the fault of McDonald’s and Starbucks.
*Sargon has a video up responding to a letter her received from a Cuban man who discusses what that “universal literacy” trope means in practice: indentured servitude working in the fields to remunerate the regime.
**From the same source: it’s all the world-class healthcare your relatives can afford to import from the first world to supplement the shitty healthcare the regime supplies.
It’s also amazing that the American left supports a society that pretty clearly runs on a rule of “the darker your skin is the poorer you are and the more you get fucked by the state”. I know they technically haven’t been able to visit for decades and when they do they just stay around the Potemkin zones, but Christ people just stick to making factually incorrect statements about Sweden or something, you’re just embarrassing yourself.
Don’t forget the rampant homophobia. Literal homophobia.
Well, the embargo prevented Americans (and their goods/services) from being sold to Cuba. Too many on the Left seem to think it was a blockade, which it wasn’t. Most of the Rest Of The World still continued trade with Cuba. Hell, one of the reasons why Canadians are so welcome in Cuba is because Canada’s attitude towards the U.S. embargo was “That’s nice — but if you don’t mind, we’ll still have trade and diplomatic relations with Cuba. I’m sorry? You do mind? Well, that’s a shame. We’ll be having ’em anyways.”
The fact that Cuba still managed immense suckitude when they could trade with everyone but the U.S. is telling.
Communism?!?! You mean State capitalism, don’t you shitlord?
Looks like state capitalism to me.
That never gets old.
Unfortunately it never stops being sad that that’s the position the media have largely taken.
Mieville is an avowed socialist who wrote his PhD dissertation on Marxism and apparently he’s a supporter of critical theory as it applies to legal systems. Wishful thinking is his thing.
the fall of communism was by no means predestined
NEEDZ MOAR PURGEZ
David Brooks, a sweater that has learned how to type
See? You can’t be *wrong* all the time, either.
I had no idea pregnancy can result in brain damage.
I avoid pregnant women like the plague, and even I know that.
Last time I reviewed a book on here, Swiss mocked me.
I, also, only read children’s books. As does Banjos. Sloopy is still working on the Neverending Story.
I don’t think I’ll ever finish it!
“You’d expect this memoir by Minnesota senator and former SNL cast member Al Franken to be funny, of course.”
Um…no. Why would I expect it to be any better than what he did on SNL?
I saw the Al Franken book at Costco the other day and had to triple take. The man does think highly of himself.
I do need some new books to read. But not that one.
What do you like to read? Let our reader’s advisory service help.
I hadn’t heard of the guy at all until this year, except for the one time I saw him on the Daily Show in the Bush years.
I suggest, The Pillars of the Earth. Fictional medieval England story. Very well done. The sequel World Withou End was good too. I read them about a year ago and was entertained.
Ugh, I thought Pillars was one of the worst things I ever read.
I saw Al Franken selling his book at Trader Vic’s, his hair was perfect.
“The man does think highly of himself.”
The funniest skit he ever did on SNL (and this is very relative) was a self-referential bit where he would aggrandize himself. “Al Franken. Yes, me. Al Franken.” I tried to find a YouTube vid, but couldn’t, either because of poor Google-fu, or the fact that it just wasn’t really funny enough that anyone would upload it.
“You’re probably asking yourself how this affects me, Al Franken.”
In this, the Al Franken Decade…
Linked above.
According to the rain gauge in my front yard (and my wife checking it just now), it’s rained 6 inches since yesterday morning and is still raining. And there’s at least an 80% chance of rain every day through Saturday. Anybody got a boat I can borrow?
I had my first weekend off in a month last weekend. It stormed friday, sat, sunday, and again yesterday. I bet we got 4 inches in 3 days. There was about a 5 hour window of sunshine and sauna style heat and humidity on saturday, but that’s it.
You’re in FL, right? At least we’re getting rain now.
Right?
Right! I posted this late on the last thread, kind of bathing in sloop’s tears. But with his Astros beating the shit out of everyone, I don’t think he has much room to complain.
Go ‘Noles!
My buckeyes aren’t in there. And we had a sad sports day yesterday with Thad being given the boot.
I suppose it had to happen, but not the way it did.
Matta will find a new posting. Quick. I’m not a hoops fan, but I know enough to know he won’t be unemployed long unless he wants time off.
Also, like I said, your Astros are ripping everyone a new hole. Focus on them to relieve your sad. Even in a division where everyone else is under .500 (The 2nd place Angels have the same percentage as the bottom dwelling Blue Jays), a .724 win percentage in baseball is insane. The closest team in memory to do that would be the 2001 Mariners.
Matta is done. After his surgery in 07 or 08, he hasn’t physically been capable of doing his job at 100%. His back is fucked, he has to walk with a boot, he is in constant pain. It’s a sad story, really.
Maybe with top tier D1 schools. I can’t imagine there aren’t any D2 or D3 schools who’d be happy to take him on and get a few helpers to pick up the slack.
You know the situation far better than I do, however, so I reserve the right to be totally wrong about everything.
Man, I’d love to see it but I just can’t see it happening. You just don’t go backwards after being in a top tier program. Especially since he was sliding down the last three years and he wasn’t recruiting well. That’s gotta set off alarm bells for any AD.
Plus it might effect his buyout.
If you want a freedom theme, how about American Sanctuary by A. Roger Ekirch.
Dude is forced to serve aboard a British ship, becomes a leader in a mutiny while they’re in the West Indies. One of the most bloody mutinies in British history. They track him down to the U.S., where President John Adams agrees to send him back to the British to be court-martialed and hanged. Constitutional crisis ensues. Great stuff.
Hammer-wielding assailant attacks police in Paris. His cryptic cri de coeur—”This is for Syria!”—leaves the world baffled as to what motivated his bizarre outburst.
Apropos of nothing—only 18 days of Ramadan left.
One of my favorite exchanges between the “developed world” and the “undeveloped world” recently was when the UN, being the woke and non-islamophobic chaps that they are, called for a Afghanistan Cease-Fire during the holy month of Ramadan (as they have been wont to do every year for many years)
And the Taliban AND ISIS were both like, “Ramadan? Ha! Silly infidel = Fuck that! We jihad TWICE AS MUCH during Ramadan”
“Jihad during Ramadan is ‘obligatory,’ Taliban spokesman says ”
ISIS PR guy = “”double your efforts and intensify your operations… Do not despise the work. Your targeting of the so-called innocents and civilians is beloved by us and the most effective, so go forth and may you get a great reward or martyrdom in Ramadan”.””
Yet you still have editorials in the Guardian etc. insisting that the problem with the West is that we’re not sensitive enough to muslims and we’re constantly offending them by disrespecting their faith, etc. If only we were more conscientious, they’d stop blowing themselves up!
And of course the conceit occulted behind all that puffery is that these savages simply can’t restrain themselves from meeting words with violence, so tread lightly.
That was a particularly odd argument The Other Site took for a bit in regards to refugees, the logic of “if we don’t let them in they’ll hate us and radicalize and that just fuels generations of terrorism!”
My grandparents got rejected for immigration to America and got to spend five years under the Nazis instead. Somehow they, my father, or me didn’t take it personally, but Reason’s argument as to why Muslims are super-ok is that the exact same thing will turn them into suicide bombers.
Go home Reason, you’re drunk.
Reason’s argument is ridiculous. At the same time, I hold the unpopular opinion that the US should let in as many refugees as possible. What happened to Jews emigrating to the US was beyond disgraceful and it’s happening again with regards to religious minorities in the Middle East (leftists cheer on genocide now, so long as it’s Christians).
I think blocking the immigration of refugees is immoral, but I also think Reason’s argument for why we should bring in refugees is ridiculous. I think it’s possible to hold both opinions
I think blocking the immigration of refugees is immoral,
Rather depends on the “refugee”, doesn’t it?
Sure it is, I more point this out because it’s probably one of the dumbest ways to defend taking in refugees. You’re basically admitting your opponent’s points are right and calling for appeasement.
As per PM Zoolander, giving priority to religious minorities in refugee slot allocations is racist and un-Canadian.
And former NDP leader Mulcair.
Mulcair/Zoolander circa 1935: “We can’t let Jews in unless we let in the same amount of Germans!”
I don’t totally disagree. I think we should let in as many Yazidis, Copts, Kurds, and Zoroastrians as want to come here.
it would be if the US were the only possible destination.
e.g. “if they were fleeing Canada”, and the only immediate safe-haven were south of the border
By contrast, if you’re a refugee fleeing Syria, there is a legitimate question of why the US is uniquely morally obligated to provide refuge…
…when every other nation in between there and here – often countries which already share the same language, cultural practices, religious observance, etc as the refugees – is somehow absolved of any responsibility.
Mulcair/Zoolander circa 1935: “We can’t let Jews in unless we let in the same amount of Germans!
“German Communists are true victims of the Nazis, and only racists want to give Jews priority!”
Nope, can’t say it looks wrong for them.
I’m not saying that the President’s pause on refugee resettlement is good or bad or what not. I’m just stating that people on the fringes- those who reject all refugee resettlement indefinitely- are committing the same travesty that occurred during World War II.
The US is infinitely stronger than the decrepit Europeans and the isolationist Japanese, because we take the strongest and smartest of every nation. What separates an immigrant from his countryman that stayed back is balls. It takes some serious gall to pack-up and leave an area that you’ve known your whole life and take your chances in a new nation with a different language and different culture. It just so happens that what makes us stronger, also makes our country more moral than others.
Maybe that’s just the commie Catholicism coming out in me. I apologize to my heathen Protestant friends (just kidding).
I’ll ask for a citation on that “we take the strongest and the smartest”, and for bonus points, why that guarantees success to a nation consisting of almost 350 million individuals.
What separates an immigrant from his countryman that stayed back is balls.
Strongly disagree. The twenty/thirtysomething men signing up at the Assad recruitment center, not fleeing, have balls. Don’t get me wrong, Assad’s a piece of shit, but I have infinite more respect for the people willing to fight to stabilize their country than the ones who run away.
(I’m a lot less harsh on the idea of women and children fleeing)
I should qualify I’m saying this in the context of the refugee issue, general immigration from stable countries is a bit different.
I don’t know anyone other than internet team-red cranks who come close to this particular position, so i’m not sure what you’re worried about.
The West has an Islam problem.
Most Moslems are probably decent enough sorts, just trying to get by. They want to build a decent life, educate their kids, all the same things as the rest of us. Let’s call these Muslims “Achmed Shish Kebab” (comparable to Joe Sixpack, John Bull, or Pierre Bonhomme). But, you don’t need a huge proportion of a population to be a problem for that population itself to be a problem. If 90% of Muslims are Achmed Shish Kebab, that means one out of every ten is a problem – either an assimilation nightmare or a potential jihadist. That, in and of itself, makes the Muslim population a problem. But, worse still, that proportion has proven a non-equilibrium. That 10% isn’t content to let Achmed assimilate go about his life. And at one out of ten, they’re plentiful enough to enforce their will on Achmed. And Western elites, not wanting to offend Achmed, refuse to sanction Muslims when they violate Western standards and values. But, that means the 90% becomes 85% becomes 80% becomes 75%, and so forth.
Now, from Achmed’s perspective, the best thing the leadership of the West could do would be to strengthen his hand against the 10%. It would at least counterbalance the pressures the 10% put on his community. But, as I said, they’re not interested in doing this. They’re more interested in showing their “enlightenment” by pretending the 10% doesn’t exist. But, that virtue signaling has a price. Again, it means the 10% becomes 20% becomes 30% becomes 50%.
And it’s not the elites who bear the cost of this virtue signaling. It’s Achmed, Joe Sixpack, John Bull, and Pierre Bonhomme. And Joe, John and Pierre, not surprisingly, find themselves increasingly uninterested in differentiating between Achmed and his co-religionists. But, their complaints fall on deaf ears. The elites’ self-perceived “superiority” rests on their refusal to recognize the existence of the 10% (and growing). And as the proportion grows, the elites are even more disinclined to recognize their existence. And Joe, John and Pierre are left with only increasingly more draconian means of dealing with the problem.
“And it’s not the elites who bear the cost of this virtue signaling”
Agreed. But, the West doesn’t have a Muslim problem- the Europeans do. The US does just fine with its Muslim population. You’re not seeing riots in Dearborn, like you see in the suburbs of Paris. Why? Because the US assimilates its immigrants well and offers religious accommodation. What does a Muslim in the US have to complain about?
I dunno what a Muslim in the US has to complain about. Maybe we should ask the couple from San Bernadino.
I’m far from confident that America’s exceptionalism is an adequate bulwark against Islamism. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt that I am.
It’s a fair point. There have been attacks in the US. I’m disputing that. But, we don’t see widespread resentment from the Muslim community in the US against our culture. The UK and France have to deal with rampant riots from their Muslim communities. The Germans endure widespread rape from their Muslim communities. The US, so far, has not experienced those problems. We are better than the Europeans in every way possible
The UK has only seen such riots over the last decade or two; they’re a lagging indicator of discontent, because of taqquia and dissembling. All those polite Pakistani kids I knew when I was in High School? many of them are only nominal muslims; but some of their kids? Different story entirely.
I can’t speak for continental Europe, but Germany has had a very high Turkish migrant population since the 70’s, and violence there is again, far more recent than that.
Are we better than Europeans? I dunno. I’m not convinced that a few hundred years of a written constitution is that instrumental in processing away whatever it is that makes you feel that Europeans are inferior.
Just Say’n,
How much of that is due to the relative proportions of Muslims within each country? Per Wiki’s Islam by Country, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country
The U.S. is 0.8% Muslim, the U.K. 4.8%, Germany anywhere from 2.0-5.7 (Holy Error Bars, Batman!), and France 7.5%. Given the error bars and dates for the references—Germany’s are anywhere from 1-2 years old, and the U.K.’s is over a year old—I’d guess the percentages are even higher.
So, increase the amount of Muslims in the US by sixfold or more, and see if your observation still holds true.
That’s a fair point
There are some problems with that interpretation, though.
1. That skill in assimilation is being intentionally dismantled in the name of cultural authenticity and multiculturalism.
2. The extent that comparative advantage from assimilation has been the driver is confounded by factors such as a heavily armed population and a very small Muslim population.
I’m not saying what’s happening in Europe will inevitably happen here. But it can happen here.
Agreed. And the Left is to blame for this
The US does just fine with its Muslim population.
Nationally? Sure. More locally? I’ve lived in communities with large groups of unassimilated immigrants, and it can be quite unpleasant. There’s a reason why “refugees” are settled way the fuck away from anyplace where Our Masters might actually run into them.
The white liberal is always going to isolate himself from the ‘unwashed masses’. It’s what makes him so out of touch with reality and allows him to believe his ideology. Go to the most liberal community in any major city and you can count on one hand how many minorities live there. And yet, these people lecture everyone else on diversity
I think there’s a different issue with Muslims in Europe than in the US. The European migrant communities seem to be very isolated, in large part seemingly because of policy. In the US that doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue. I think for as much as we have a rep for xenophobia we also have a much easier time accepting immigrants who seem to want to be American.
In the US, to the extent we have problems with Islamic extremism it’s similar to how Communism was in the 70s: it’s a common rallying flag for various ethnic and nationalist conflicts. For children of immigrants from Muslim countries, it’s a movement where they can be heroes instead of awkward teenagers working at Dairy Queen or studying for a calc final.
In Europe, though, you’ve got the ghettoization of Muslim immigrant communities as a compounding factor. So not only are you dealing with the teen angst/symbolism thing, but you’re also dealing with communities of people who feel a stronger connection to their or their parents’ nation of origin.
Just stop it with the kids dealing with big issues. Kids have these “big issues” because they are thrust on them by their parents and schools. Do your kids (talking young kids, not teenagers) a favor and shield them from this garbage, they don’t need it in their lives.
Big Issues in my kids’ lives:
1) Gravity prevents them from stacking blocks as they would like
2) I put the toy down 3″ to the left of where they wanted it set
3) Fermat’s Last Theorem
ehhh…its been solved.
No shit to that.
3) Libby took my iPad!
4) Reason took my juice!
5) This shit isn’t smearing as well as my last one!
Re: 5)
Get more blueberries in their diet.
On the gripping hand,
Yertle the Turtle is an abridged version of Atlas Shrugged.
3) Not having at least two pacifiers within arm’s reach in her crib.
4) I’m not holding her baby doll.
5) I’m holding my baby doll.
6) There’s a cat in her rocking chair.
Number 5 should read “her baby doll”, as I haven’t had one of those…ever, now that I think about it.
Get a used copy of Rainbow Fish and read it to them, then debunk it.
That book is toxic.
Or browbeat a friend into giving you their copy.
It would be “mercy theft”.
If you have to browbeat someone to give you that book, you should not be associating with them.
Looked that up. ugh.
That did make it in the house from the library. I had to keep the vomit from coming up while reading it.
Current favorite book is a National Geographic book about the animals of the oceans. Nice book, great pictures, not much BS.
Another fun kids books is a book series about dinosaurs doing various sports.
All I got is kids books.
Rainbow Fish actually served a great purpose. It gave me a forum to introduce the idea that selfishness may not be a virtue, but it ain’t a sin either.
The kids were encouraged to share if they wanted to, not ‘because they must’. Both of them are solid property-rights advocates.
My four and a half year old already feels worry and sadness about a lot of the things that she sees in day to day life. Just the (ordinary) people around her leading (ordinary) lives. The last thing that could ever be good for her would be to burden her with the ‘big issues’ facing society, etc.
People really do that? Seems almost like child abuse to me.
Parentsplaining certainly is abusive.
It sounds twee, but a lot of stuff was covered while sitting around a dinner table. I think we (had) to deal with (someone he saw at the store’s) transvestism in a conversation with my 5 year old son. That was a far more entertaining dinner session than I was expecting.
We always found that ‘messages’ came better from talking than reading. A book always seems so much less spontaneous, and far more preachy.
When the personal is political, raising little Johhny to be worried about [progressive cause of the week] at an early age is how you earn woke points towards your next prog merit badge.
I’m enjoying People’s Republic. Kind of a fun tour of what a Leftist / SJW utopia would look like (hint: not that good).
If you say it’s good, but I couldn’t help notice this:
“a lethal operative haunted by his violent past undertakes one last mission”
And my thought was “wow, that’s original!”
Schlichter’s a vet, you just have to get used to the masturbatory uber-soldier fantasies from vet books.
Like a dog doctor?
You know who else had a violent past and had to take one last mission…
John Rambo?
End thread. You win
John Wayne Gacy?
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna?
Can’t go wrong with just about anything by David Gemmell, if you’re looking for heroic fantasy. The man was a superlatively gifted storyteller.
Razorfist calls Bill Maher a “Semitic lawn gnome” and that’s probably the greatest thing I’ve heard today.
I have to admit, that is a tasty burn. (Using my standard of “Wish I’d thought of that!” as my touchstone for these sorts of things . . . )
While we’re recommending books for people with taste and sophistication, here are a few I dare my fellow Glibertarians to read:
Heads in the Sand, by Matt Yglesias
https://www.amazon.com/Heads-Sand-Republicans-Foreign-Democrats/dp/047008622X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Have you ever wanted to read the foreign policy musings of an autistic DC political reporter who mainly blogs about the glories of Taco Bell and never eating outside? Now’s your chance to broaden your horizons and read what Ezra Klein calls “A very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.” I know that when I look for those Really Serious Book recommends, I try to get them from guys who think the Constitution is, like, 100 years old or something. Haven’t actually read this one, so I can’t spoil which head, exactly, Matty is referring to in the title. Knowing him, my bet’s not on the one atop his head.
It’s a Jungle Out There, by Amanda Marcotte
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Jungle-Out-There-Inhospitable/dp/1580052266/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
If the SJW movement is Christianity for incoherent leftists, Marcotte is surely its feminist John the Baptist. Batshit crazy enough to own-goal herself with cover art that Trump HQ rejected as “too misogynist”, Marcotte will have you wondering just how in the hell Jezebel hasn’t hired her yet. And of course, the prose is lovingly hand-crafted vintage Marcotte with all the run-on insanity we’ve come to love: “For all of you humming “I Will Survive” while watching the political debacles gracing the evening news, when getting an earful from your Limbaugh-loving brother-in-law, or as you’re ducking into the bathroom to avoid the date espousing the wisdom of those Mars versus Venus books, this book is for you.”
English major, folks. Your next summer read, or an extra supply of toilet paper fit for only the most violent of Taco Bell shits? You decide.
*atop his neck. Goddammit, this is what I get for iPhone commenting.
I would like to include “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein (or really anything by her, but The Shock Doctrine is particularly bad). It does for left-wing hatred of capitalists what The Protocols of the Elders of Zion did for anti-Semitism.
Great bit of derp, that. A must for the Jill Stein Voters’ Reader Collection
Jazz Shaw with nightstick down his throat. Get a warrant assholes.
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/06/06/cell-tower-data-case-scotus-will-either-help-hamstring-law-enforcement/
He employs The Tulpa Fallacy, that just because an army of millions of cops following everyone around every time they stepped out of the house could gather the data, then trawling through cell phone data is not a search under the 4th.
I just told my cousin I support Trump full stop for pulling out of the Paris Accords. I can just feel his head explode all the way from Europe.
Europeans are apparently freaking out. I trolled him a tad and told them to pipe down, put their big boy pants on and if they care so much about ‘earf’ they can pay for it and not look to ride the financial coat tails of the USA. That plus the fact Obama was a dick about it so anything undoing his legacy is fine by me.
Pretty wild that they are more worried about a meaningless feel-good “agreement” than the accelerating pace of terrorist attacks going on in their midst.
If those Europeans were smart, they’d invest in the new Smog Generation firms that will be popping up as a result of Trump’s actions.
I mean, if we’re responsible for literally destroying Gaia, we should turn some good old American ingenuity at the problem and develop some world-class atmospheric destructors, and not let the Chinese and Indians open a “Smog Gap”
Its weird how everyone seems to have forgotten that the Kyoto Protocols – which were *far* more stringent and had actual mechanisms for verification,etc – were a complete failure.
And that the US, despite rejecting it, and garnering similar condemnation from all the woke-nations on earth… whipped its ass by lowering emissions far more significantly than any signatories.
IOW, its been demonstrated that the US already does far more genuine emissions-reduction than anyone else. And we do it without anyone holding a stick over our heads. And we did it without costing anyone else any money.
But everyone seems to think they can claim we’re destroying the planet because we didn’t want to play in their diplomatic charade. Meanwhile, the growth in Chinese emissions has a margin of error larger than the total emissions of the US+Europe combined. And aint nobody saying boo.
Reminds me of a response I had in a discussion on AGW. I pointed out that hydraulic fracking has led to dramatic improvements in CO2 emissions due to substitution to natural gas. So, if you really care about Gaia, there’s really only one solution, ban any restrictions on fracking.
Heads exploded.
Nuclear.
Nuclear and Natural gas
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Hungry-Myths-Energy-Future/dp/1586489534
“I’ll take “What happens after lunch at Chipotle”, Alex.”
Isn’t that basically a summary of the last 75 years or so: USA does shit while the rest of the world stands around talking about doing shit.
If you bring that up, the response will be that those reductions were courtesy of one Pres. B.O. Obama, and Trump is busy not just rescinding them but is actively trying to compensate in the other direction by mandating the dirtiest coal burning possible.
“Cuz, you are asking the wrong question. Its not ‘how do we save the earf?’, its ‘how do I make money on this?’”
Earlier this year I took a look at some of the “100 greatest books” lists that you find online and realized how non-well read I am. So much so, I couldn’t even think of a better way to phrase “non-well read.” So I took the Modern Library’s list of 100 greatest novels and decided to knock them all out before I die. Just finished 1984 over the weekend. Now I know the source of half the terms I read in the comments.
+ Doubleplusgood Bellyfeel
Oh, man. The reader’s voted list. Objectivists and Scientologists attack.
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
Yeah, but both lists are pretty white aren’t they?
Few people realize that “Shaft in Africa” was originally a novel
What about “African Shafts 6: Mandingo’s Revenge”?
I believe that is a documentary.
National Geographic?
If there’s hope, it lies in the proles. Or not.
Any list of best books that has Battlefield Earth anywhere in the Top One Billion is wrong.
Battlefield Earth is kind of an interesting case study in how fucking awful/dumb 70s and 80s scifi novels could be. And then it showed how so-awful-it’s-great 90s scifi movies could be.
Wrong! An F-16 that has sat in a deserted hanger for a thousand years could totes fly with a little work by cavemen!
While you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME Sugarfree, I was being trained to conquer GALAXIES! To do anything less is a disgrace to my family line!
It did destroy the career of Barry Pepper, so the film wasn’t all bad,
The appetite for SF was yuge back then, and LRH simply stepped up and wrote a cycle of human supremacy porn.
In the following years, certain authors came out with dozens of equally ridiculous FF stuff about Dark Elves.
Supply and demand! It’s crazy, man!
and LRH simply stepped up and wrote a cycle of human supremacy porn.
Maybe. Rumors have swirled for years that they were all ghostwritten. Hubbard was living in an RV touring the PNW and a few weeks here and there in hotels when he supposedly wrote these massive tomes, the first fiction he had written in decades.
Meh. Ghostwriting is the best kind of writing.
Presidentially-approved, one might say.
Both of those lists are pretty terrible. I mean, the reader’s list is absurd. But the board-list is, well, just a weird combination of the sort of things academics wank themselves over (e.g. Ulysses+Finnegan’s, Sound + Fury) … and things the academics wine-drunk-wives obsess about @ their weekly book-club.
e.g. there’s not a single of Tolstoy, Kafka… you’d think Don Quixote would bear mentioning. … etc.
I should have said white, and written in English.
Finnegan’s Wake is not really written in English, tbh
*i think the Modern library probably did limit themselves to novels written in English, which would explain many omissions
but still wouldn’t make their list particularly valuable or interesting. Anyone who puts Ulysses @ #1 is retarded; if you want to put it in the top 5, fine, but do so with a serious caveat that its not a normal book and isn’t much use to the casual reader
this right here….
http://thegreatestbooks.org/
does a far better job IMHO. The clincher for me is that any list that includes Alice in Wonderland near the top knows what the fuck is up.
Its my personal #1, but i mainly say that because it makes people realize that their conception of “great books” is overly influenced by stupid intellectual-posturing snootery, a la the Modern Library view of the world.
Ah, cool. I should keep this one handy.
Everything about that list there just feels right
it uses the google-style of algorithmic compiling – ranking things by how-often they appear on other people’s lists, and then weighting lists on how many hits they get, and so on. “Wisdom of the masses”, but not by something so crude as ‘voting’ which produces the Scientology/Rand/Lord of the Rings mobbing.
i honestly think they get it very close to what it ‘should’ be, if you cross-referenced the historical-importance of a book with its actual artistic/literary merits and weighted them equally.
e.g. Paradise Lost or Les Miserable score high on historical merit, but can be sort of tedious from a readability POV, so end up in the latter 50. Whereas things like The Odyssey, War+Peace, Moby Dick, etc. score extremely high on both points. It just makes sense.
I also like the fact they include things like Short story collections, plays, poetry, but don’t do so in any hamfisted way to show off how important Shakespeare is, etc. I think putting Hamlet in the top 10 is exactly right. If there’s 1 play you read, its that one. and if there’s one short story writer you have to read, its Chekhov. It just seems to have all the bases covered, even if the absolute ranking is always debatable and will never please anyone.
gah….. As I Lay Dying is in there. That’s a book I could have skipped.
it deserves to be in the top 50
there’s no accounting for taste, but as far as literary achievements go, that was a significant one. it was the first time anyone had really tried the “Rashomon” method in fiction*, telling the same story from a multiplicity of perspectives.
(if it wasn’t the first time, it was the first successful attempt at least)
I liked it. Read it on my own steam when I was in high school and actually enjoyed it.
+1 wine tasting
It doesn’t say it on the page, but I THINK it’s actually supposed to be a list of the 100 greatest English language novels, which would explain their absence. I think it’s limited to the 20th century too. I tried to find a solid list of classics from all languages and eras, but this list kept popping up so I figured I’d start there. I’ve knocked out 4 on the list so far this year, bringing my grand total up to 11.
yes, i think that’s probably right.
But then all that does is make their list stupider for being improperly labeled, and poorly conceived. Its a needless restriction, considering so many of the best novels were never written in English anyway. And its not like the 20th century was the apex of the form either.
If you haven’t gotten to Day of the Locust yet, I think you’ll really enjoy it. Utterly savage book about Hollywood, like a boot stamping on Brad Pitt’s face forever…
I can totally get behind *that*.
Although the main character is named Homer Simpson, so you kind of have to get past that.
West’s Miss Lonelyhearts is even better, a dark fever dream of human misery, but, you know, oddly hilarious.
Cool. I haven’t gotten to it yet. But now I get the reference.
Kind of going in random order by which books we already have around the house. My wife already has a copy of Lolita and Sons and Lovers, so one of them will be next.
Don’t bother with the Kubrick movie of Lolita, if you are so inclined. Like all formal and informal adaptations of Lolita it seems to go out of its way to miss the point of the novel.
I have seen Kubrick’s version and the Adrian Lyne version. I liked Kubrick’s a lot more, but obviously I haven’t read the source material for comparison.
I just enjoy hearing James Mason speak. But I rarely make it past an hour watching Kubrick’s Lolita.
I’ve never read the novel, but Kubric’s Lolita is one of the greatest films ever made. It can be a haul, but the way it is brought together in the final scene is brilliant.
Also I really like that song by The Police.
Heh.
Reminds me of a date I had with a young lady back in my Uni days, when we went to a campus Film Night showing one of the classics. That night, it was “Gone With The Wind.”
After the movie was over, she turned to me and said “Wow, there were an awful lot of clichés in this movie, weren’t there?”
**HEAVY SIGH**
This is when I and my friends invented the phrase “fluffy bunny-head” to describe someone who was seriously under-schooled in the popular Zeitgeist to the point of cluelessness.
Oh yeah, there was no second date. I made damn sure of that.
I’ve heard similar comments about The Godfather. “That was such a mob movie cliche!” Uh…yeah…
This is what happens when you let politics take over your life. Literally everything has to have a political angle. The fact that every single book on this list has some kind of SJW, multi-culti, identity politics angle just goes to show how hollow the list-compiler’s life is.
A few years ago I missed a flight and had several hours to kill, so I wandered into an airport book store and picked up a copy of War and Peace. Fast forward 48 hours and I’m sitting in a bar waiting to meet a friend, so out comes the book. Bartender approaches and says, “That’s a thick book. What, is it War and Peace?” I held up the cover so he could see it. He laughed for a while and then gave me a free beer. Thanks for the beer, Tolstoy!
Fuck Miéville with a rusty knife. I fucking hate that guy.