Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Assad has killed at least a hundred thousand, displaced millions, is starving Palestinian refugee camps and torturing hundreds of people. So a hundred people died in the Paris attacks? That's what you call Wednesday in Damascus.

Assad isn't the one trying to overthrow the government. The blame for those deaths lay on the Western and Saudi-funded rebels trying to get rid of one of the last two remaining powers in the region that isn't a complete American toady.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Assad isn't the one trying to overthrow the government. The blame for those deaths lay on the Western and Saudi-funded rebels trying to get rid of one of the last two remaining powers in the region that isn't a complete American toady.

"He's a bastard, but at least he isn't our bastard!"

 

[Kozmos]

I tried reading Peter F Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction. Reached the part where there are some silly organic starships and gave up.

 

[Arakhor]

I just started Christian Jacq's Manhunt, the start of a series set in 6th Century Egypt, featuring the murder of government interpretors and a conspiracy to implicate an innocent scribe.

 

[Smellincoffee]

About to start Horses at Work by Ann Norton Greene.

It's ..equine labor history. Woo!

 

[Zkribbler]

All the Devils are Here by McLean and Nocera

It sets out the policies and actors which brought about the Crash of 2008 all the way back to Reagan's futile attempts to save the Savings and Loan industry.

 

[Antilogic]

Finished Nixonland by Perlstein, the second volume of his history of the modern American conservative movement. To say that it was an appropriate read for the present day is an understatement, particularly with the chaos of the late 1960s and what Perlstein calls the undoing or unmaking of the American consensus. The book has only become more relevant with modern GOP candidates openly echoing Nixon (particularly the "silent majority" that Trump embraces), and the hints of chaos now with protesters getting beaten at rallies that are eerily familiar.

And good grief, the CREEP and the Plumbers. Watergate was only one of several absolutely criminal and underhanded enterprises Nixon approved.

I give it a 9.5/10 and recommend it. The only reason why I reserve the 10/10 rating is because it wouldn't be on my absolute short, must-read list for history (too narrow and recent a subject).

 

[Mouthwash]

EDIT: Forgot which thread this is.

 

[Flying Pig]

Between two 'odd' books. Finished David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity, which is about scientific explanation and the development of ways of thinking that place no limits on the problems that can be solved. The early chapters on the philosophy of science were excellent, and he sets out a principle of 'optimism' (in a nutshell, that problems are inevitable, but what makes a problem into a catastrophe is a lack of knowledge, and that human beings are now at the point where there is no theoretical limit on our knowledge: hence all problems are ultimately solveable) which I quite like, at least for problems of fact. This is the root of my issue with the later chapters, which go on about aesthetics (arguing for the idea of objective beauty) and politics/anthropology: it becomes a little bit of the classic scientist lecturing to other fields about which he actually knows few of the subtleties. Still, an interesting read.

The other odd one is Leviathan, or The Whale, by Philip Hoare. Not quite sure how to classify it: partly autobiography, partly natural history, partly history. Certainly quite artistic: I wouldn't call it a reference book of any sort. A good read though: the prose is excellent.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

"He's a bastard, but at least he isn't our bastard!"

When you say "our" and I say "our," we're talking about different things.

 

[Joecoolyo]

When you say "our" and I say "our," we're talking about different things.

Nope. You're associated with the state of your birth just like all those brown people under Assad. You can't un-associate unless you're an anti-western toady following the Putin gold-trail.

Unless, wait

hear me out

radical idea

brown people have agency too? They can have legitimate grievances against a state that, like every other state out there, uses violence to cull and beat its population into line? They rebel not for money, but out of desperation?

Nah, can't be. Brown people don't act unless petro-dollars are shoved up their bum and they're lead like cattle by men in suits and CIA tattooed on their face. Why don't they just kow-tow to their lord Assad? Bunch of idiots, I tell you what. Purposely getting themselves killed when they could have just not rebelled and instead gotten themselves killed.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Think Like a Commoner by David Bollier is a very short book about commons, social systems of managing resources by communities. Interesting and a perfect introduction once you remove the political soapboxing about the evils of the Market and the State (yes, capital M and S). An introduction, since it doesn't delve deep enough and show enough examples for some points made.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Nope. You're associated with the state of your birth just like all those brown people under Assad. You can't un-associate unless you're an anti-western toady following the Putin gold-trail.

Unless, wait

hear me out

radical idea

brown people have agency too? They can have legitimate grievances against a state that, like every other state out there, uses violence to cull and beat its population into line? They rebel not for money, but out of desperation?

Nah, can't be. Brown people don't act unless petro-dollars are shoved up their bum and they're lead like cattle by men in suits and CIA tattooed on their face. Why don't they just kow-tow to their lord Assad? Bunch of idiots, I tell you what. Purposely getting themselves killed when they could have just not rebelled and instead gotten themselves killed.

I'm on Assad's side. The USA isn't "my" country, I just live in it.

However, I think it's cute that someone so defensive of American imperialism is calling someone who sides with a Third World country against that imperialism the racist one in the conversation.

 

[Takhisis]

Starting on A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett.

Also, re:strata: Takhisis two-fingered sign of approval.

 

[dutchfire]

Moderator Action: Joe, Cheezy have you read any books recently? Perhaps you want to discuss them here instead of the Syria war. There's plenty of other threads for that.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Yes I got Lenin's Notebook on Clausewitz today, which probably has a few applicable lessons on Syria, too.

 

[Zkribbler]

Starting on A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett.

Terrific book although it did take me a couple of readings to grasp the significance of the title.

 

[Zkribbler]

Watergate was only one of several absolutely criminal and underhanded enterprises Nixon approved.

AFAIK, Nixon didn't approve the break in itself, albeit without hesitation, he jumped in to protect the burglars and to attempt to cover the scandal up.

For a good time watch Kirsten Dunst in Dick. She plays Nixon's official dog walker and is the legendary Deep Throat.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Bataan: The March of Death and We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan.

Yes, in this WW2 series I started in October, I've just now reached 1942.

The list so far:

Spoiler :

The Miracle of Dunkirk, Walter Lord
Hitler's Undercover War: The Nazi Espionage Invasion of the USA, William Breuer
Battle of Britain, Len Deighton
I Saw It Happen in Norway, C.J. Hambro
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, Rick Atkinson
The Battle of the Atlantic, Barrie Pitt (Time-Life History of WW2)
Operation Compass, 1940, Jon Latimer
Battles for Scandinavia, John Elting (Time-Life History of WW2)
Foxes of the Desert, Paul Carell
Convoy, Martin Middlebrook
Blitzkrieg, Robert Wernick (Time-Life History of WW2)
The Rising Sun, Arthur Zich (Time-Life History of WW2)
The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang
Flying Tiger: Chennault of China, Robert Lee Scott
Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, Roger Moorhouse
Russia Besieged, Nicholas William Bethell (Time-Life History of WW2)
December 6th, Martin Cruz Smith (Novel)
Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned Pearl Harbor, Edwin Hoyt
Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy -- An Illustrated History, Dan van der Vat
Bataan: The March of Death, Stanley L. Falk

Next is either a book on the German invasion of Russia, or a slight backtrack to do a history of the Sino-Japanese war. (When Tigers Fight or Forgotten Ally.)

 

[bhavv]

Such epic artwork.