Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Smellincoffee]

I recently finished Radicals for Capitalism: A History of Modern American Libertarianism. Holy wow, if I never read another word about Ayn Rand it will be too soon.

My "serious" read now is Two Sides of the Moon, a double memoir of the space race by Alexei Leonov (USSR), first man to walk in space, and David Scott (USA), who walked on the moon and was part of one of the more scientific missions of Apollo. Leonov's description of his spacewalk was disappointingly...sparse. He's a painter, though: maybe he doesn't communicate in words very well.

My not-so-serious read is From History's Shadow, a Star Trek novel about the aftermath of the Roswell Incident, in which the US government commissions an agency to investigate claims of extra-terrestrial activity. It's building off the original series' Gary Seven episode ("Assignment: Earth"), Deep Space Nine's "Little Green Men", wherein we witness the Roswell Incident, and...Enterprise's "Carbon Creek", which was about 3 Vulcans hanging out on Earth in the 1950s. Quite fun so far! I always like Trek episodes entangled with Earth's "past".

 

[Antilogic]

I'm happy I'm not the only guy who bumps the book thread, SS-18 ICBM.

Starting up on a biography about Earl Warren, a particularly influential US Supreme Court Chief Justice: Jim Newton's Justice for All. The book is a little beat-up, I got this one for cheap used. Fortunately, the text isn't highlighted or underlined.

Well, update time! I'm about 80% through the book, and thoroughly enjoying it. The book follows Earl Warren from childhood through his term on the Supreme Court, but fortuantely (for me, at least), it moves through quickly through the early days and into Warren's legal career and term as attorney general of California. Then it gets into his governorship, which is simultaneously fascinating and idol-breaking (his role in the Japanese internment, for example, was quite surprising to me given the decisions on the court). Three terms and two failed presidential campaigns later, he's appointed to the Supreme Court and it gets into the politics of the court, the positioning of the justices, how Warren marshals support for the decisions. Fascinating stuff.

The work doesn't paint a good picture of Eisenhower; after the five cases that lead to the Brown and Brown II decisions, Eisenhower drags his feet on enforcement and ultimately only sends in the 101st Airborne to protect his authority as president, not because he believed in desegregation or agreed with the Supreme Court's decisions. Really a black mark on his career that was whitewashed in the history classes I've took.

 

[Cutlass]

That is bad about Ike. Not something I had heard before.

 

[Azale]

That's what you get for mentally hagiographing any American president.

 

[Cutlass]

I don't idolize any American president. I'm firmly of the opinion that America has no unflawed heroes. However, the common story told is that Ike sent in Army troops, despite not being interested in Civil Rights, but because it was the law and the Court had spoken. Which doesn't say the greatest thing about Ike, but neither does it say the worst. The story Anti is saying here makes him look a lot worse.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I don't idolize any American president. I'm firmly of the opinion that America has no unflawed heroes. However, the common story told is that Ike sent in Army troops, despite not being interested in Civil Rights, but because it was the law and the Court had spoken. Which doesn't say the greatest thing about Ike, but neither does it say the worst. The story Anti is saying here makes him look a lot worse.

Is his caution really that surprising? The Supreme Court may have ruled, but presidents are elected officials and the buddies of elected officials. Considering the hostility of southern whites to the way desegregation happened -- the forceful bussing of their kids out of their home neighborhoods into schools which the parents saw as inferior, for instance -- why would he want to appear anything other than reluctant? He ran as a Republican, not a progressive.

 

[Cutlass]

Is his caution really that surprising? The Supreme Court may have ruled, but presidents are elected officials and the buddies of elected officials. Considering the hostility of southern whites to the way desegregation happened -- the forceful bussing of their kids out of their home neighborhoods into schools which the parents saw as inferior, for instance -- why would he want to appear anything other than reluctant? He ran as a Republican, not a progressive.

I don't expect him to be happy about it. But I don't expect resistance to it either.

 

[Antilogic]

There's a reason why there is a 3-4 year gap between the first decision and Ike sending in the troops. He didn't care a wit about the civil rights of African-Americans or enforcing the decision with haste. The issue was developing into a nullification-type thing, and according to Newton that is what spurred Ike to send in the troops and federalize the Arkansas Guard.

Privately, after Brown I, Warren and Ike hated each other (and having Nixon as VP didn't help--Warren never forgave Nixon for undermining him in the presidential races, and then getting himself on the VP ticket to boot). Ike seriously regretted putting Warren on the court and tried to reign him in with his subsequent appointees (although Brennan ended up disappointing him too). There is a brief point where Eisenhower's later appointees to the Court severely checks Warren until Kennedy is elected.

I think, before we jump to the question of whether he was progressive, this was a time when the Republican Party had serious lefties and progressives--the La Follette, Theodore Roosevelt, and Hiram Johnson legacies were within living memory, and there were legit left Republican political leaders like Earl Warren and Nelson Rockefeller to counterbalance the Taft wing (widely viewed as the conservative wing before guys like McCarthy and Goldwater upped the ante). Previously, I always thought of Eisenhower in that left Republican club. Now, I'm not so sure.

 

[Cutlass]

I read a bio of Ike that only followed him through the war years. Not one covering his time as president.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm reading this quite extremely violent spiritual sequel to I,Robot that envisions what happens when humanity gets everything it wants.

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

by Roger Williams
http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html


I like it. Certainly not for kids though.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Geoffrey and Nigel Swain - Eastern Europe Since 1945

 

[Masada]

The Mirage - Matt Ruff
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America - Matt Taibbi

 

[Smellincoffee]

Satisfaction Guaranteed: the Making of the American Mass Market, Susan Strasser

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Why the Sky is Blue, by Götz Hoeppe. Physics and history, an interesting combination and apparently a translation from German. Who knew such a simple question would have an interesting tale to tell through the various cultures that have tried to explain it? The chapter on the Greeks demonstrates the power of the nostalgia filter quite powerfully, with such eminent thinkers such as Aristotle postulating hilariously wrong theories of how the sky works.

 

[madviking]

rene descartes
discourse on the method
meditations on first philosophy

 

[JohannaK]

Schopenhauer, On the Freedom of the Will. not really finished, but this last chapter is of precedents to the position he defends, so I am done with its core.

 

[sophie]

rene descartes
discourse on the method
meditations on first philosophy

My condolences.

 

[madviking]

yea i want to wipe my butt with those pages

 

[Antilogic]

Please tell me that was for a class.

 

[madviking]

yea, the exciting "decartes, spinoza, and leibniz" philosophy class i am taking.