having too many tabs open is an age-old problem pic.twitter.com/TAustEZZSC
— Sara Yasin ???? (@sarayasin) January 7, 2019
IT’S NOT HOARDING IF IT’S BOOKS —
Reminds me of the phrase, used by knitters, to describe the size of their stores of yarn. It’s STABLE: Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy.
— Mueller Please Hurry (@anneowenphd) January 10, 2019
Around this time last year — or maybe it was 2017? — I started plowing through my alphabetically-ordered fiction shelves, determined to get rid of books I’d never read again in this lifetime. So far, I’m working roughly in the F to H zone. Always been my rule not to keep books I read that I *didn’t* intend to read again, but our new Internet Shopping Age means I no longer have to worry that the battered paperback I found in a (now long defunct) secondhand bookstore is the last copy of that novel I’ll ever see.
So I’ve donated a couple of shopping bags of books to the local library sales… but I’ve added almost as many new volumes, filling the gaps among my favorite authors. Although it’s a little depressing to realize I can now collect the complete Robert Barnard / Nina Bawden / E.X. Ferrars… if you other Olds know what I mean, and I think you do.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
It sounds like Mueller’s report will be “horrific”.
SiubhanDuinne
I do have the complete Robert Barnard and E. X. Ferrars. But I don’t even know the name Nina Bawden, so curse you, Anne Laurie, now I’m going to have to.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
The fish rots from the head down. This is what happens when you actively insist on ignoring non economic issues.
sukabi
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Horrific? I guess it depends on your point of view.
The act of conspiring with a hostile government to subvert our electoral process. – horrific
The results of an investigation that proves the conspiracy and subversion. – Heroic
If people involved in the conspiracy and subversion are slapped on the wrist as their punishment. – Horrific
OzarkHillbilly
No such thing as too many books. Not enough book shelves is the problem.
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Non economic issues don’t exist. Economic anxiety is the well spring of all the problems in America.
Chetan Murthy
@OzarkHillbilly:
I *completely* get your sarcasm, and I think @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: is there, too. And I agree with it. Just wanna add [the clarification] that, per Ta-Nehisi Coates and a raft of feminist writers, these “non-economic issues” are merely “facially non-economic”: every person of color who has to worry about getting pulled over at night by the po-po for driving-whlie-black, every woman who has to worry about walking home after dark from a job, is economically affected by these issues.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Good morning, BJ! Woke up in the early morning hours to the sound of a pup throwing up. He doesn’t go back to sleep easily once he’s up, but he might if he gets bored because I’m on BJ and not playing with him.
On the Dave Weigel quote:
I’m currently on a self-imposed moratorium from the library as I make myself read some of the backlog of stuff I’ve bought and not read over the years. It’s certainly in the dozens. Unfortunately that doesn’t stop me from walking out with at least a book or two when I’m in a bookstore.
I actually am in the middle of a Marie Kondo-inspired attack on my clothing. But damned if I have any intention of purging books. Instead I have to figure out where to squeeze in more shelving. Do I really need a kitchen? Or a bed?
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: Oooh, I think you’re in for a treat!
Not all Bawden’s books are equal — she was, first and last, a Trollope-style career writer — but from what we know of each other, may I suggest The Ruffian on the Stair, or A Nice Change, or even Granny the Pag (technically a children’s book) as starting points?
Anne Laurie
@OzarkHillbilly:
One reason the Spousal Unit and I have been together for forty years is that he taught me the Scholar’s Rule: Books expand to fill the shelves available… plus ten percent!
plato
Anne Laurie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Not to encourage you, but the Spousal Unit is currently working out a modification of the old rolling-archive shelves for his own books: Each volume scanned into an online inventory, sorted into boxes, and stored on the kind of rolling wire shelves sold for kitchens & garages. You can get a lot more books in the same space, if you don’t have to see every spine — and you can ‘stack’ the shelving units, just pull out the one holding the box you’re looking for.
But his book-obsession is the opposite of mine; while I get rid of books I’ve read & won’t re-read, he feels the need to keep every book he’s ever read — even the ones he didn’t much like.
Robert Sneddon
He/She who dies with the most books wins.
oatler.
“Of the trail of ink there is no end.”
plato
Shades of sheldon, the asshole?
Mary G
Due to moving in with my mom and now making room for housemates, I have probably sold and donated in the area of 1,000 books over the last 20 years. It’s not as hard for me since reading physical books is painful, but they still keep popping up in nooks and crannies. I keep getting Kindle and Audible replacements, far more than I will ever be able to read.
EveryDayIHaveTheBlues
@Anne Laurie: This is awesome! It looks like he and I share the same strenght/weakness. I too dont divest myself of reading material even if I didn’t particularly care for it in the first place… our basement is now filled with not only books, but also papers and manuscripts that I read in grad school. They’re all available online now, of course, but then how would I be able to access those notes pencilled into the margins declaring how much I loved this approach or thought the author was an idiot??
I recently came upon two apps that you can use to scan bbarcodes from the cover and it’ll access the title, author, etc automatically: “LIBIB” and “MY LIBRARY” Havent really had a chance to try either in depth in the six months that I’ve downloaded them, there are books to read after all! Does the Spousal Unit use either of these? What are his recommendations?
OzarkHillbilly
@Chetan Murthy:
If by “facially non-economic” they mean the issues of racism and misogyny only appear to be non-economic, I couldn’t disagree more.
A well off black man wearing a $5k suit and a couple thousand dollars cash in his pocket and a CCW permitted firearm in the glove box of his brand new Mercedes is not immune to being pulled over by the police for DWB and shot while “lunging” for his drivers license. He’s still black. Probably stole that Mercedes. Look at him wearing that suit, some kind of uppity ni**er, that money in his pocket is obviously tainted by drugs, and the gun… BBGG (Big Black Guy with a Gun)
A high powered female executive is no less likely to be raped, or less likely to have to deal with unwanted sexual advances, or any more likely to be paid a commensurate salary as one of her make colleagues, She’s still a slut, thinks she’s important, that $5K suit she wears only costs that much because it’s hard to hide the stick she has up her fat ass, nobody wants to hear what that bitch thinks and besides, “No” means “Yes”, right? Right???
Even after a black man or a woman, or dawg forbid a black woman, “makes it”, all those things that made it so much harder for them to succeed haven’t disappeared. In some ways their success has just put a bigger target on their backs.
OzarkHillbilly
@Anne Laurie:
I’m trying to more like you but am still too much like your husband.
OzarkHillbilly
@plato:
“Also, all men must have their hands amputated or entry to the show will be denied.”
TS (the original)
The real sadness of downsizing is giving away the books. We donated over 60 boxes of books (collected over more than 50 years) to the charity book sale when we moved into an apartment. The crazy is I have bought a number of the titles to add to my kindle bookcase. I just had to read them again.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
NotMax
Not feeling chatty, so a simple howdy will do.
raven
Here’s just a couple of our book shelves
1. My WW2, Vietnam, Civil War stuff with a model of my dad’s ship.
2. Living room with Big Horn skull, bobble heads footballs and stuff.
3. Hall shelf with mixed books.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
Thanks for the specific title suggestions. I googled Bawden, of course, and am really quite shocked she was never on my radar, as she seems like exactly the kind of writer who should have been!
MagdaInBlack
Some years ago when I sold my house, a friend was helping pack….books…..he simply labeled the boxes “MFB”
More F*cking Books.
He has MFB than I do, btw. ☺️
raven
My Mardi Gras Indian costumes made the picture page!
Anne Laurie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think Coates means it the other way around — sorta sarcastically — if the people of color / women would only *look* like “proper” white working class men, they wouldn’t have all these problems, according to the Cosplay Socialists.
As a woman, I can attest that there is a genuine cost, in money as well as time, to taking cabs instead of public transit at night, or paying more than you can afford for rent (or living with an abusive partner) so you’ll be in a ‘safer’ neighborhood, etc. For people of color, even more — and for women of color, geometrically more.
Matt Bruening & his fellow DSA fanbois insist this isn’t really economic anxiety… because, when you peel away the layers of bullshit and narcissism, their definition of ‘economic anxiety’ comes down to ‘The way we remember it, (white male) Boomers could be rulers of their own little household kingdoms; why can’t I?’ Because (a) most of what they remember is filtered through nostalgia and pop culture; and (b) White men could be ‘kings’ because men of color and (almost) all women were kept out of the opportunity pool.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Blech.
raven
Wow, it’s pretty cold this morning and my bride just elected to stay in bed and walk later. We almost always walk to the bakery first thing but she’s retied and I guess she can do what she wants!
Anne Laurie
@EveryDayIHaveTheBlues:
I checked; he’s been using one called Collectorz, quite happily, “for years”.
But, of course, he wants me to email him the links to your apps, so he can research them (eventually).
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: That last one most closely resembles mine, except my books are 2 deep and the ones stacked on top of the other books are 3 or 4 high and go from one side to the other.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Great minds!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Anne Laurie: Got it, Thank you Anne.
germy
Medieval book opens six ways, revealing six different texts
https://boingboing.net/2019/01/09/dos-a-dos-x6.html
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Can’t find it now, but I believe that Hillary made the same point a long time ago and was mocked by the media for making excuses for her loss.
OzarkHillbilly
@Anne Laurie: @raven: I kinda prefer my method of book storage and filing. I quite often go looking for a book, find it, then when I pull it out I will see one or 2 others I have forgotten all about, then I start digging and find even more books I forgot I had that I suddenly want to read again.
It’s just like Christmas! (without the wrapping paper mess) Or maybe it’s more like Alzheimers?
germy
I remember an anecdote about Edmund Wilson, from his later years. He searched his vast bookcase for a volume he wanted to read, but dropped it on the floor. So instead of bending down to pick it up, he walked back across his library to his chair, irritably kicking the book all the way.
rikyrah
@MagdaInBlack:
???
rikyrah
@Baud:
Hillary was right….About everything???
JAFD
‘Tis said amongst the ‘grown-ups who still play with toy soldiers’ that “you won’t die as long as you still have some miniature troops to paint”.
Am thinking that ye approach of Brexit might be good time to order a couple more small armies from Merrie Olde…
poleaxedbyboatwork
@TS (the original):
That hit me where I live. Y’all are making me book(home)sick! Somewhat similar experience/reaction, too.
Still got roughly 50 books (how modest, right?) on the boat running the gamut from Riverside Shakespeare to Calder’s Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual.
Four year back, hadda hunnerd-year-old two-story Victorian in Traverse City just brimful a books, mostly literature but smattering a history, memoir, bio, arty, humor, essays, speeches, reference.
And then elected — with immense apprehension but (evidently) sufficient resolve — to say goodbye to alla that. Age-old conundrum: money/space/time. Had enough money to buy my present boat but not enough to line it out how I wanted (it’sa commercial fishboat that’s also a ketch-rigged sailboat; usedta think fishing was expensive till gotta load of sailing) so chose to sell my house.
Hardest part, easily, was donating six 6’x3’x’1′ bookcases (plus another 4 or 5 smaller ones) overflowing with old friends, a great many of which I had read. Friends dutifully pawed thru n took what books they wanted, then I donated the rest to the Women’s Resource Thrift Shop (usedta volunteer there winters when home).
Miss ’em. There’s just sumthin comfort-foodish agreeable about glancing over and seeing a cheerful pal who brought such immense pleasure winking back at you. (Tho will say am firmly in the camp of only kept books I had both read *and* loved or intended to read.)
Immanentize
Our house is filled with books. Bookcases in the office, living room, hallway, stair landing and every bedroom. Then the overflow cases in the basement. One of the sad/happy chores I was tasked with by my wife was to return all of “her mysteries” (which were in the basement) to the library where she bought them at the book and bake sales. 90% paperbacks returned to the book stream. Twelve shopping bags full to the top. And that was after the Immp insisted on keeping the entire collection of Agatha Christie…. And I kept the whole of the Barbara Pym. She was particularly fond of Scandanavian mystery writers…. Of course, the Knausgaard is up in the bedroom, grumpily waiting for me to read the set.
Emma
I am in the process of severely weeding my library, mostly because I have a huge collection of 1960s and 70s paperbacks that are crumbling on the shelves and creating a haven for cockroaches and even smaller livestock. I thought it was going to be traumatic until I realized there are tons of websites, not only Amazon, where one can get digitized versions of older titles. The way I see it, leaving behind tons of stuff, and having no children to deal with the mess, it is basically unfair to whoever gets stuck with the sorting and discarding, so having access to the text itself is enough. For most things, of course. Others… well…. ok, my goal is to reduce the pile by 75%. Maybe.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Baud: it was at Recode conference, back in May of 2017 (link)
evodevo
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes. This. When they are piled up on the floor and any available flat surface, is it hoarding? Asking for a friend lol
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah:
You know, that kind of friend who has been around so long ? that they are allowed that kind of humor ☺️
Betty Cracker
I have to take Badger to see the new vet this morning, and I dread it. I’d rather not leave the house when it’s this freaking cold.
Jeff
I’m downsizing. Slowly the books are going. I did manage to empty one tall IKEA book case and a few not so tall book cases.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: What do you consider freaking cold? Preparing you for mockery.
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
This explains GOP silence at Pelosi’s invoking Ronald Reagan last week. They had tossed him overboard long before we knew.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Baud:
Gotta believe only a lifetime of (regrettable, b/c necessary) training in maintaining her composure is the only thing that kept her from cold-cocking that oafish orange fartcloud while he was hovering overtop of her at the debates. Or even at GHWB’s funeral, when Little Lord Pukefunneleroy sat with his arms folded and pouting b/c he got to be neither the bride nor the corpse.
And now that it’s over, and a transparent criminal imbecile is president b/c of Jim Comey and Russians active measures and their Gooper accomplices and our fellow mouth-breather reactionary “fuck-your-feelings” spiteful assholes, it’s gotta be purty cold goddam comfort for Hillary, the Cassandra of her age, to be proved fucking right. Especially after suffering alla misogyny and alla backbiting (from both sides! woo-hoo!) and alla recriminations about whatta shitty candidate she was and the charges of sour grapes and sore-loserdom she hadda eat.
Sore-losers? I ain’t never seen a larger collection of sore-fucking-winners in my life. Trump n Goopers won everything and they were still loud and pissed and stupid.
I can’t even begin to conceive what it’s like living in her head.
debbie
I’ve always been space-challenged in terms of books and regularly purged them (putting them on the curb for others to take). I’ve got paperbacks older than many commenters here. One day, I’m just going clear out the lot and be done with them.
tybee
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
the old saying is “the wind is free if you just let it be, to use it for thrust a fortune is a must”
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: It’s 36 F right now. Anything under 65 F makes me shivery and cranky.
Lurker123
Robert Barnard was a fave back when I devoured police procedurals/ thrillers etc.
Sab
I am so glad that my spousal unit only reads the front page and not the comments.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
@NotMax: howdy!@OzarkHillbilly: ?
OzarkHillbilly
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
There is a part of me, and I am being at least half serious, that thinks if she had turned around, gotten right in his face and said, “If you don’t sit down in your chair, I am going to slap the piss out of you.” she would have won. Yeah, I know, women aren’t supposed to act that way, especially responsible women and even more so for women in politics. But if he sat down he would have been shown for the child he is and if he didn’t and she did, it would have been about time somebody did.
Kay
I’m wondering if instead of giving them the voter file, Manafort sold them the voter file. That’s what he does for a living- he takes fees in return for access and information. He would have been perfectly placed (and much more valuable as a seller of access and information) once Trump hired him.
I think we find out the Trump side of the collusion are just sleazy and greedy and each low quality Trump hire was acting on their own behalf- they would sell anything to anyone. “Winning the election” or “assisting the Russian government in their goals” were second order for the Trump side. Manafort goes to the highest bidder for whatever he’s selling. Russia just happened to want to buy.
artem1s
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
this is what happens when you actively insist that women’s and POC issues aren’t related to economics.
oops. I see Ozark got there first!
these “non-economic issues” are merely “facially non-economic”: every person of color who has to worry about getting pulled over at night by the po-po for driving-whlie-black, every woman who has to worry about walking home after dark from a job, is economically affected by these issues.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie:
Sure you are ;-) and Amir isn’t going to buy any more guitars.
SFAW
IT’S NOT HOARDING IF IT’S BOOKS —
@OzarkHillbilly:
I am 100 percent in agreement with these sentiments. Mrs. SFAW, however, is apparently unenlightened, and insists I “stop bringing more fucking books into this house.” My response, of course, paraphrases Roy Scheider: “we’re going to need a bigger house.”
Well, that’s the oh-so-witty riposte in my tiny head. Were I to say that out loud, my comments here might be several octaves higher, IYKWIMAITYD.
satby
@Betty Cracker: ok, no mocking because that’s pretty cold for Florida.
Edited to add: though I keep the thermostat in my house set at 65° in the winter. I wear fleece in winter and above that gets too hot.
Anne Laurie
@Lurker123: It was… interesting, getting reaquainted with Barnard. When I first read him 25 or 30 years ago, I found his early (pre-Trethowan) books ‘too nasty-minded’. After rereading the mid-70s to early-90s books on my shelf, I had myself a fine time tracking down the earlier & later tomes; guess I’ve grown into full Hardboiled Cynic, because even Death of A Perfect Mother didn’t seem as horrifying as I remembered it. (Not sure it could be published as a new mystery today, but then, even some of Christie’s books required scrubbing for delicate American sensibilities!)
EveryDayIHaveTheBlues
@Anne Laurie:
Of course. Here is the link where I first heard of LIBIB https://lifehacker.com/organize-your-books-movies-music-and-video-games-wit-1829466968
I found MY LIBRARY while i was searching Google play for LIBIB: it came up as a suggested alternative.
Thank you and SU for the info on collectorz. I’ll check it out.
WereBear
At the turn of the century I moved to a small apartment, and let half of them go, but with digital titles available I am now down to tomes that are not digital.
SFAW
@artem1s:
Listen, libtard: EVERYONE knows that there’s no racism in America, because Obama was allowed to become President, just as EVERYONE knows that there’s no misogyny in America — especially at the FTFTFNYT — because Hitlary was allowed to run for President.
And if you doubt me, I’m sure we can find someone to mansplain it to you.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’m sure you’re right. We know Manafort was in deep shit financially, and he took a job running Trump’s campaign for free? Nope — he took the job so he could sell the information he had access to as campaign chairman.
Currants
@Chetan Murthy: I want a “LIKE” button for this comment.
satby
Since this is my third home in 10 years I have parted with a lot of books that I otherwise would have kept. Still have hundreds, but now I picture the enjoyment that someone else will get from finding one of mine at the library sale and it makes it easier to give away.
But you have to pry my Travis McGees out of my cold dead hands.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@OzarkHillbilly:
Am of one accord with that same part of you that feels that way and wishes it were so. But then I remember Hillary’s two-strikes against her — a Dem *and* (horrors!) a woman — and how if yer an R, you can “grab ’em by the pussy” (cuz it’s just lockerroom talk, amirite?) and lie like cross-ties onna railroad track n don’t nobody much care, but if yer a D *and* a woman, you gotta spend 12 hours in the company of stupid fuckers like Trey Gowdy answering idiotic questions asked in insulting and misleading ways! Rock on, ‘Murica!
(And don’t forget the *sliiiightly* aggressive move Al “Earthtones/Invented-the-Internet” Gore made toward Jr.’s lectern at the debate and what hell he caught for it.)
I feel ya, as the kids sez. And I dunno the answer to any of it. I just know that if we all knew how it was gonna work out, I’da sure like her to wheel round abruptly so he makes that oafish “O” face and then drove her size 8 pumps hard n fast into his tiny orange mushroom cloud.
Betty Cracker
@satby: I’ve been experimenting with keeping the thermostat at 70 when we have a cold snap. It’s bearable if I bundle up. Evidently, I have a seriously narrow comfort range: 74-84 is my Goldilocks spot.
satby
@Betty Cracker: and chances seem pretty good that Trump would be aware of that and agree to it because the Russians would be able to help his campaign better, and got a piece of the payment.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: My wife is the same. But then I point out how much space her latest creative outlet has taken up (Cricut) and it’s spread is ongoing (future headline: “Man and Woman found smothered in house filled with scraps of paper, cardboard, leather, and more” It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, paper was flowing out of the windows) and she says no more.
SFAW
@raven:
I bet you look stunning in a sari.
Kidding aside: congrats!
Cermet
I too, of late, have been buying a lot of books (I hate reading off devices.) These books require a few hours of reading and cross referencing per chapter due to the technical nature. I fill the pages with extra information clarifying what the author was trying (often poorly) to really say in their math. I keep hoping to find the book that doesn’t make me do this – so, buy, buy and buy. My daughter is really getting on me about all the books I have collected in the previous year (and even this month.) Still, I’m having fun and cross referencing is easier now thanks to “YouTube” courses that people put on line. Some of these people are just brilliant beyond belief.
randy khan
@Robert Sneddon:
I may not win, but I’ll die trying.
EveryDayIHaveTheBlues
@Anne Laurie:
I just searched for collectorzon Play, and it appears that the free version can only handle 100 books. The full app is $15.
I found another one called “Handy Library” which is free and has equally good reviews. I’m gonna download this one and then not use it…
As far as a reference manager for work goes, I use mendeley, jabref and zotero. The last two are my favorites.
satby
@Betty Cracker: in the summer, I keep the air at 74 or so, which is way too hot for me but it dehumidifies the air. Then I use fans in the room I’m in to feel cooler.
My energy budget thanks me, but truthfully I just don’t like it hot. Perfect temperatures for me range from 60-75°. And at 75° there better be a breeze ?
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Unfortunately (speaking selfishly), Mrs. SFAW has no hobbies of that nature. She knits a lot, but does not have tons of yarn all over the place. She DOES read a lot, but tends to get them from the library, or more frequently, listens to them in the car. How the hell can I respond pettily to THAT, I ask you?
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: You and my Mediterranean born wife (AKA the “Lizard”). She keeps the woodstove going at full blast and the only way I can stay in the house is if I am sitting at least half naked in front of an open window with a fan blowing full blast.
I, “Honey, they have these things called “sweaters”, you know?”
Her: “I’m wearing 3 of them asshole.”
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think it matters as far as “coordination”- it’s still coordination – it just has to fit the statute for Mueller’s purposes- are the elements, a, b, c, d there, but I think it matters as far as us understanding what happened. The Russian government could have one goal, Trump could have another, Manafort could have another. Pure spitballing but my guess is the Trump people’s goal will be the most immediate, petty and individually self-serving. We’ll be shocked at how small their goals were. Like when you read about a corrupt pol who gets indicted for $25,000 and you’re thinking “the SALARY for that job is higher than that”
The goals of the Russian government could be much much bigger than the Trump side. One side sought long term gains (Russia) and the other sought short term gains (individual and self-serving). They don’t have to be aligned for this to happen.
If Manafort sold it that’s how they would find it- by looking at his “fees”. That’s the record. If that’s true then a potential defense is “Manafort ran a side deal- we didn’t know about it”.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, leave me my dreams!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think that feeling is nostalgia viewed in light of our current “wokedness.” Anything she did in 2016 that colored outside the lines would have been used against her by the haters.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: The best part of shopping in a bookstore is buying the book next to the one I was looking for.
I get rid of books I won’t reread. And if I think the book is bad, I don’t even donate it. I throw it away so no one else is exposed to it. OTOH, if I do really like a book, I buy it in physical form even though I read it originally on my kindle.
I just started on the pile of books I got for Christmas. I’m reading Esi Edugyan’s WASHINGTON BLACK.
I went to my writers group last night. I think I’ll blog about writer groups some time soon.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Pettiness is it’s own reward. (my wife knits too, it’s so her hands have something to do when we aren’t at home)
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Plus we all know that they “succeeded” because of quotas or Affirmative Action or some other undeserved benefit bestowed on them by old white men.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
So you’re saying that her hands are not all over you, every night, because that’s how “hot” she thinks you are? I, on the other hand … have the same problem. Hmmm.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Agreed about not coloring outside the lines, for women.
Which is why what Nancy Smash and Rashida Tlaib and AOC are doing now is so important. We’ve always had women who chose their words carefully (Amy Klobuchar, and Nancy Pelosi, IMHO but demonstrates more NFLTG attitude; another reason she’s demonized). Time to loosen the bindings that still encase women’s behavior, though, and what is permissible.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Maybe, but how many trumpinistas would be talking about how “tough” trump supposedly is if he got bitch slapped on national TV by Hillary?
Jeffro
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Mueller’s report is going to be absolutely horrifying to the majority of the American public, which hasn’t been following the ins and outs and contemplating where this is all going like many of us here. Me, I’ve been horrified for almost three years now.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re assuming he wouldn’t have hit her back.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I can NOT shop for only one book and I can NOT go into a book store to just pass a little time.
BEGONE YE HEATHEN BARGAIN BOOK SHELF! BEGONE!!!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
A voter file is valuable – if I understand what specifically is meant here, and I’m not 100% I do. If by “voter file” they mean a huge list of people who have been determined to be potential (or actual- in the primary) Trump voters, then knowing what we know about all of these people would they “give” that to the Russian government? Would they “give” it in return for some promise of “help” in the campaign by Russia? They would sell it. They would want the help and the up front money. Donald Trump never “gave” anything to anyone in his life and although he was new at this, even he would know “the list” is the coin of the realm-it’s valuable.
It would just be delicious if they were too fucking stupid and greedy to give it to the Russians and that entailed a transaction with records :)
rikyrah
Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) Tweeted:
2019 marks the 400th year since enslaved Africans were brought here, before this was even a country. Black people have only had any semblance of full citizenship for about 50 yrs. I don’t think the public always grasps the enormity of state-sanctioned oppression on that timeline.
https://twitter.com/ClintSmithIII/status/1082728713010200576?s=17
debit
@Mary G:
Ditto on so much of this. When I moved I whittled my collection down to the stuff I couldn’t bear to part with or the ones I knew weren’t available on Kindle. The rest was donated or trashed. I don’t miss having entire walls (and sometimes rooms) devoted to bookshelves.
Immanenetize
@Betty Cracker:
36 in Florida is actually cold. Especially as many houses are not really built to keep the cold out but rather to let the heat out. Is your house designed for cold times? In Texas, my house was on piers and I had the pipes that ran under the house freeze twice.
Hope the weather turns for you and take care of that sweet puppy.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
I miss Borders. It was my go-to place when I had 30 minutes or an hour to kill.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: What does freakin’ cold mean in your world? And scritches to Badger the Badass.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Hah! You’re ahead of me. Of course. ;)
Jeffro
Ok, back on topic (regarding having too many books): I did a major ‘purge’ of hardcovers quite some time ago, but of course the numbers tend to creep back up.
Last year, out of curiosity (and perhaps a little vanity, seeking Dec 31 bragging rights?) I kept track of everything I read across the year. Just wrote the title down when I finished the book. I learned that despite thinking of myself as a heavy reader, I only read a little over two books a month on average. That’s it: 28 books.
So…with something like 40 books sitting here already on the shelves, plus another 40 I’d like to re-read someday, plus an Amazon wish list of 50+ books…well, that’s just ridiculous. So I ‘purged’ another 20, 20, and 30 respectively. All the extras go to the used bookstore, where I now take the cash instead of the credit.
Just a thought for my fellow book hoarders out there ;)
MomSense
Yesterday one of my clients told me that thanks to Donald Trump he can choose his own doctor and doesn’t have to go to the VA. I had to take a breath. Now I’m hoping those radio signals from another galaxy mean benevolent, hopefully more evolved, aliens are coming to save us.
Immanenetize
@satby: We are 66 in the winter during the day, 58 at night. 76 indoors in the summer. I love sleeping cold with comforters. In fact, sometimes we have to adjust the day temps and forget to reset the thermostat for night. Every time that happens I end up at 2 am, sweating, going downstairs cursing as I reset the night temp. Cat is never amused.
Gin & Tonic
@tybee: Boat: a hole in the water that you throw money into.
Immanentize
@satby: We are 66 in the winter during the day, 58 at night. 76 indoors in the summer. I love sleeping cold with comforters. In fact, sometimes we have to adjust the day temps and forget to reset the thermostat for night. Every time that happens I end up at 2 am, sweating, going downstairs cursing as I reset the night temp. Cat is never amused.
Elizabelle
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I think so too.
The national media has so far been very timid about discussing whether 2016 was even a legitimate presidential election outcome. And their corporate gazillionaire owners got that piggish tax cut.
Virginia Heffernan, of the LA Times, went there a few months back. From July 2018: Was the 2016 election legitimate? It’s now definitely worth asking the question
She also warns of a resolution that the Very Serious People might try to impose upon us, for having participated in elevating the cheater:
MomSense
@Kay:
I remember trump bragging that Manafort was still communicating with him and his campaign long after his firing about where to put resources. The information was being shared and coordinated with the Russians and the trump campaign.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
36 in Florida is actually cold. Especially as many houses are not really built to keep the cold out but rather to let the heat out.
Is your new house designed for cold times? In Texas, my house was on piers and I had the pipes that ran under the house freeze twice.
Hope the weather turns for you and take care of that sweet puppy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No, I’m assuming that he hits like a pansy who’s never been in a fight in his over privileged life.
Ladyraxterinok
@Lurker123: He turned me off after I read one of his mysteries set in a MLA conference where he made big deal about women being at the conference.
Jeffro
Ok, now back to Mueller and the trumpov conspiracy with Russia: I sincerely hope that Dems take up the case that an election won by conspiring with a hostile foreign power should be immediately voided, with the non-conspiring party/ticket declared the winner. If and when trumpov is forced from office, Pence/the GOP should not get to keep the seat and pardon their fellow criminals.
I’m sure they’d have to take it to SCOTUS, and that of course would be dicey, although I like to think that even a couple of the Republican-appointed judges would be mindful of how history would view their decision – keeping billionaires and corporations rich is one thing, letting traitors stay in office is another.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: trumpov’s in so much legal trouble, from so many sources (including state investigations and eventual charges) PLUS the Mueller report is going to be so unbelievable jaw-dropping, I can’t see him getting pardoned.
As many have noted before, we’ll need a full-blown truth commission laying out every aspect of this conspiracy and its enablers. trumpov can watch it from his jail cell – that’ll actually make him happy: TV all day, no responsibilities, and all the coverage will be all about him.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nah, the most excellently-healthy candidate EVAH would have used his svelte 300-plus 239-pound body, sumo-like, to knock her out of the ring.
debit
@Betty Cracker: We Minnesotans think anything temps in that range are fine with a light jacket. Until we go to Florida. We went one December, the forecasts were for the forties and we were all, “Hah! It’ll be fine!” I have never been so cold in my life, it was like being in ice water all the time. My sympathies.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I love having it cold at night. We’re going to Florida on Sunday (TSA willing) and staying with Mr DAW’s sister and BIL. They don’t run their AC. The last time we were there, at bedtime the BIL asked if we needed it to sleep and when I said yes, he said he’d turn it down to 80 because that would take the moisture out of the air and we’d all be fine. I hope Fla is having a cold snap next week. (No offense, Betty.)
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Agree completely. That has to be the endgame.
Very honestly, I would kick Gorsuch and Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, too. Fruit of the poisoned tree. Leave them with the USSC in place on inauguration day 2017. Kennedy can be in there, unless he’s been badly embarrassed by scandals of his own by then.
Burn those who brought this about to the ground. Do not let them profit, and make it so painful that no one is tempted to try it again. For generations.
The voters are already there. Witness 2018 midterms.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Immanentize:
Snugness and contrast reminded me of scene with Ishmael and Queequeg’s first night in the bed where the innkeeper n his wife was “spliced”:
Ladyraxterinok
@SFAW: My son has policy of if you buy 1 (book, mug, etc) you get rid of 1. I admire his strength…bit I have 3 wall to wall (about 10 feet) 5 foot high bookcases plus. Got rid of many books, not buying newh.
If books are scholarly works, you usually can’t find them digitally.
Kay
One more conservative “principle” shit-canned, leaving only greed, self-interest and racism as the core beliefs.
I think it was inevitable. The die was cast was they all decided the only possible legitimate motivator was money and self-interest- it became self-selecting and they attracted and retained (only) the worst people in the world. They hired for this. Excluded good people, by default. You can attract good people or actively seek good people or go the other way, and set your organization up so it attracts BAD people and repels good people, by the nature of the thing. They did that last thing.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s made out of congealed canned chicken soup fat so his best attack would be to throw himself on you and smother you. Doubt he can throw a decent punch.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: It’s a stilt house, but the bottom part is enclosed, so I think it would have to stay below freezing for far longer than is likely for our pipes to freeze.
Immanentize
@poleaxedbyboatwork: perfect
Betty Cracker
Kay
@MomSense:
I think the Trump/Russia scandal (this is my belief- I don’t know) differs from the other big scandals of my lifetime- Watergate and Iran-Contra, because Watergate and Iran-Contra were grounded in ideology. Nixon had ideological goals and so did Reagan. They could call up some higher “cause”, some coherent meaning or plan that was bigger than “making money” or “gaining power to control people”. I think Trump is profoundly and scarily (to me) empty. He’s 100% cynical.
I don’t think they believe in anything. Manafort? These are transactions to him. Manafort needed, specifically, a fee of 2.5 million dollars and he did not care how he got it. If it ended up with a bigger gain for him, Trump winning, the power and opportunity for money-making that comes with that, that’s gravy and great because win/win, but the goals are petty, immediate, and self-serving, first.
Immanentize
@Kay: my BiL got a version of Games Against Humanity, which is a guilty hoot to play, and his particular version includes a very small micro parcel of land in Texas. The game makers bought a strip of land on the border and then doled out bits to customers who plan on being plaintiffs in a class action against the wall should it come to that.
Skepticat
In a small house on a small island, I was being crowded out by books because I couldn’t bear to part with most of them. So I built a library, which also serves as the island first-aid station (I’m the first–and only–responder). Now I have all the books, DVDs, jigsaw puzzles, games, bandages, crutches, and defibrillators I’ll ever need. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of building an addition.
MomSense
@Kay:
These are a bunch of oligarchs who only believe in amassing more money and privilege for themselves. They are working together to grab more and more power and wealth by selling it to the rubes as ethno-nationalism.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Yes!
rikyrah
@Kay:
You might be right. And the money trail will be there ??
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Skepticat: Holy crap. You built/appropriated your own library. I am in awe.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Yep. This was treason for $$$$.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
I have some 2020 gossip…. My close friend is besties with a big Dem bundler. The fundraiser was heavily involved in the Hillary campaign and Warren’s Senate run and helped Ayanna Pressley — so, in the thick of it in Mass. This person is close with Warren but may be leaning to Harris for the run of a lifetime.
ETA. IRL now, whenever anyone metions Bernie in any context, I say, “who?” And make the person stop whatever they are talking about and explain who Bernie Sanders was. “Oh, that guy.” I say. It really has been great fun watching the expressions of folks talking and those listening. You can try this at home!
rikyrah
@Skepticat:
Wow. One of the coolest stories that I have ever read.??
SFAW
@SFAW:
Should have been: “his svelte
300-plus239-pound body,” of course. What a maroonrikyrah
@MomSense:
More truth. Tell it ? ?
hueyplong
@MomSense: Yes, true, but don’t assume that deep racism is a mere means to an end and not deeply interwoven into their self-centered drive.
Skepticat
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I like to have people think it was altruism, but now I don’t have to buy, carry, or store as many books!
Kay
@Immanentize:
That’s funny. However. This is a very conservative area and we had landowners sue to stop fracking pipeline – the big case was a bench trial- and our very conservative judges ruled against them. I met former R’s at a Sherrod Brown lunch who showed me pictures of how close the pipeline would be running to their front door. They left the GOP over it. Rural retirees – people who have a paid-off parcel and a modest house- the people we call in my office “5 acres and a pond” which is an actual description.
I was sorry I sat at their table because they know I’m a lawyer and as you know you get this big, meandering garbled recitation of what happened in the trial or what they think happened in the trial or what they imagined happened in the trial. The Sherrod staffers were impatient with them because it’s a state law issue and they tried to dominate the meeting. But Sherrod is a pro and he’s good at redirecting.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I am turning the idea of Harris over in my mind and find I’m warming up to the idea more than I expected.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Betty Cracker:
We know Harris is smart and tough (and indisputably an attractive human, which is usually helpful for people with normal responses and prolly even helpful against Goopers in that, like AOC, attractive human females seems to confuse and upset them to gibbering incoherence), but I’ma be real keen to see how she campaigns.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m having the same experience. Kind of unexpected, frankly. I think her prosecutor background is more powerful than I imagined it would be.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I was just telling Mr DAW that Harris is running, and he said she’s like Obama only she’s a woman and she will drive the racist/misogynist/GOP insane.
JPL
Iowa must be so proud…
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1083357251140796417
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: It’s going to be fascinating to see how it all shakes out. From the limited amount I know about Harris, I think she’d be a great candidate. I look forward to learning more about what she believes and what she’d do as president. I love Warren’s policy ideas and could definitely be enthusiastic about supporting her if she were the nominee. Whether she could win or not, I do not know, but I hope her policies get a thorough airing in the primary regardless of who wins.
schrpdingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: 36 F is balmy for winter. For surviving winter and being happy outdoors, you need silk long underwear, keeps you warm without being bulky. You can even wear it under your skinny jeans.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: in any case, more ideas this next time around. And it won’t be dull.
OzarkHillbilly
I haven’t paid hardly any attention to Ms Harris so I’ll wait and see what she brings to the table.
Raven Onthill
In which I offend everyone: considering nuclear power as part of a socialist solution to climate change: “I have been reading James Mahaffey’s Atomic Accidents, an account of failures of nuclear technology. This is merging in my mind with responses to climate change, which are now desperately needed.
“For a long time, my position on nuclear power has been that it would be an excellent technology if we could find saints and angels to run the system. Lacking a supply of those, we had probably best solve our energy problems in another way. This book, if anything, confirms me in that position. But time is running out to avert planetary disaster from climate change and nuclear power does not contribute to global climate change. Perhaps it is time to rethink nuclear power.”
Read the rest at https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2019/01/climate-change-reconsidering-nuclear.html
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
I wanted to ask, but, didn’t…LOL
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Do you even have clothing for that kind of weather?
rikyrah
@SFAW:
I, too, believe strongly in both these sentiments.
Raven Onthill
I’ve thought well of Kamala Harris for a while. She is, at least, a competent prosecutor, and we will need one to clean up after Trump. She has negatives but, well, which candidate doesn’t? Being a woman is a big plus for Democratic Presidential candidates, though I wonder if racism may to some extent negate it.
schrodingers_cat
deleted double comment. Since the one in moderation with the typo in the nym showed up.
Bess
@Raven Onthill:
Nuclear is wonderful. Except for:
1) It’s far too expensive. A nuclear powered grid would make our electricity as much as 3x what we now pay.
2) Nuclear takes far too long to bring online. A major nuclear build out would greatly delay any significant reduction in carbon emissions.
3) Nuclear brings a unique danger to our lives, unnecessarily. Not only to the lives of those living currently but for many, many generations into the future.
H.E.Wolf
@OzarkHillbilly:
Fantasies about punching, smacking, hitting, kicking “the bad guy” – they’re often very satisfying to the person imagining them. But they work differently in real life.
Assault and battery charges could have been filed against Secretary Clinton, had she responded to her opponent’s intimidation tactics with physical violence.
The trumpistas and every media outlet (print, TV, online) would have been talking about nothing else until the election.
She might then have lost the popular vote, instead of winning it. She would also have lost some of her integrity, which I believe would have mattered to her more.
rikyrah
Schumer calls on Trump to withdraw Barr nomination
By MARIANNE LEVINE
01/09/2019 11:30 AM EST
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday called on the president to withdraw William Barr’s nomination for attorney general, saying the nominee’s previous criticism of Robert Mueller’s probe disqualifies him to lead the Justice Department.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited a memo Barr wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last year that criticized Mueller’s Russia investigation. In the memo, Barr wrote that Mueller’s investigation of possible obstruction of justice was “fatally misconceived.” Barr also wrote that Mueller shouldn’t be allowed to “demand” that President Donald Trump be questioned about allegations of obstruction of justice.
Luthe
@Elizabelle: I think we need a law (or possibly an Amendment) laying out the procedure for new elections in cases of fraud, malfeasance, or electoral tampering. Along with consequences for those who participated (barred from running for anything/working on campaigns ever again). Once again, we’re in a situation the Founders never imagined or at least thought unlikely enough not to prepare for.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think it would have made a particle of difference to the Electoral College outcome. And if HRC had done that, and then lost the election, the blowback against a woman’s right to speak up and speak out would have been at hurricane levels.
But we’ll never know. What I could never understand about that episode was why the moderators (Martha Raddetz and Anderson Cooper, in this instance) failed to intervene. They sure had no qualms about interrupting the candidates if their time was up, or chastising the audience for cheering or booing or clapping. Trump’s stalking was even more distracting and disruptive. The moderators didn’t do their job.
A Ghost To Most
@rikyrah: Beautiful. Contest everything.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: That’s the problem; I really don’t have the clothing for cold weather — no gloves, no winter coat, etc. On the rare occasions when it’s truly cold, I just wear layers, wrap myself in blankets and complain until it warms up again. It’s supposed to be back in the 70s this weekend, thank dog.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: Yep. Treason.
Luthe
@Bess:
4. Existing nuclear plants are forced to store waste on site because there is nowhere for it to go (thanks, Harry Reid!). Building more plants would exacerbate this problem, since their waste wouldn’t have anywhere to go, either.
geg6
@Chetan Murthy:
But it doesn’t affect white men, so it’s not really important.
OzarkHillbilly
@H.E.Wolf: It’s my fantasy and I’m sticking to it. Killjoy.
bluefoot
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, not to mention every woman who decides not to take a job because of a hostile workplace, or the health effects of taking a job and working under hostile conditions, or quits a job because she’s sexually assaulted and subsequently blacklisted because she reported it – all economic. Or any woman or minority who doesn’t get a position or promotion because of “cultural fit” i.e. not being ‘one of the boys’.
Bess
@Luthe:
The citizens of Nevada did not want to be the radioactive trash pile for other states. John McCain obtained legislation to keep radioactive waste from being shipped close to Arizona cities.
But that’s history. Had we turned Yucca Mountain into a nuclear dump it would quickly fill. To run the US grid with mostly nuclear power we’d need about 400 reactors and we have no candidates for storing that sort of radioactive waste.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
LOLOLOLOLOLOL! No sympathy here.
A Ghost To Most
Books are not the dead trees they are too often printed on. They are the information within. Save the trees, get a kindle.
In our house, shelves are for tins.
Raven Onthill
@A Ghost To Most: And never loan out a book again, will it to your children, or allow scholars to study your library.
You don’t own Kindle books. You rent them, and they can be taken away in the blink of an eye.
WereBear
What I hear is “books are making a comeback” and “independent bookstores are multiplying” but what happened was the industry shook down and while we lost a lot, a lot of that was mass outlets. Independent publishing is creating more choices for everyone, and having a eBook version is a part of that.
My friends are astonished because “I love books so much” and yet went digital in a big way. But my Kindle is fantastic for reading in bed; lightweight, one handed page turning, no light to disturb the partner, and if I fall asleep, it keeps my place :)
SFAW
@H.E.Wolf:
I think Hillary could have accomplished the necessary dropping-the-figurative-gloves by saying to Lying Littledick “Back the fuck off, you lying prick, or I’ll beat your ass so bad you’ll start crying for your BFF Vladi to come protect you.” OK, so maybe the words would have been cleaned up, a little. But I think the initial “shrieking harpy” screeches from the RWMFs would have been balanced by people who responded “Fuck YEAH!”
And showing the (now) Traitor-in-Chief to be the pansy that he is would (I hope) help suppress turnout of his idiot supporters.
A Ghost To Most
@Raven Onthill: And your house could burn down, taking your collection with it.
Do you also collect buggy whips?
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Samuel T. Cogley, a/k/a Wilmer (no, not THAT Wilmer — I mean the real one) might disagree.
Raven Onthill
Told you that article would offend everyone.
I address many of those points in the article. My preference would be not to use nuclear power at all. But we are almost out of time, and if the choice is burning the world or adopting nuclear power as part of a solution to our environmental problems, I would prefer to adopt nuclear power.
geg6
@Kay:
How to explain over 100 interactions by the family and campaign/transition team if it was all about Manifort making some cash? What about things like the computer hooked into the Russian bank? Or the cronies working with Wikileaks? Or the Trump Tower meeting? Or Helsinki? Or, well, about a thousand other things?
No way Trump was on the outside of all this.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Why? Does Amazon sell them, too? If they do, I’m sure they’re in the top 500,000,000 in popularity there. Just like books.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Every day, in every way, more proof that She.Was.Right. About everything.
And even more pertinently and poignantly…She.Was.Robbed.
We were all robbed.
Raven Onthill
@A Ghost To Most: still, at least you own your copies of those books and there are other copies. With Kindle you do not own your copy. People cannot browse your Kindle library, too, find new works they are interested in. (The sheer awfulness of most Amazon reviews cannot be over-estimated; good reviewers mostly don’t spend time giving their work away, so it becomes hard to even find books you are interested in.) Over time, I think we will find that a generation of books published only in electronic form will be deleted, lost to history, or simply become impossible to find. This has already happened with multiple digital music services. Books have a longer life, but it is likely that older Kindle books will eventually simply vanish.
A Ghost To Most
@Raven Onthill:
Nuclear is far less cost effective than wind and solar, and unsafe. I lived 8 miles downwind from TMI when it melted down. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Small thorium reactors may have a place, large scale fission nuclear is likely done.
geg6
@Mary G:
I’m reading all these people talking about liking not having their books all around them and how it’s so much better to have it all on a device.
Heathens. ;-)
I can’t imagine living in a house that isn’t filled with shelves overflowing with books. In fact, my John just built a new built-in in our sunroom to hold the TV and all my favorite books. Real books. You know, with actual bindings and some with dust covers. I tried once to read a book on a device. Yeah, that will never happen again. You can’t feel it. You can’t smell it. The print is on a screen, not beautiful or not so beautiful paper. The ink isn’t there and has no smell. Even the fonts are not anywhere near as pleasant a sensory experience as actual print. I have loads and loads of books. I only keep the ones I know I’ll read over and over (or ask for it back to whomever I passed it on to), but I will die with all those books around me and I wouldn’t have in any other way. My old friends will comfort and please me in my old age. That’s something no electronic device can ever do.
schrodingers_cat
@H.E.Wolf: @SFAW: When he was stalking her in the 3rd debate, she should have just turned around and said back off, you are in my personal space.
SFAW
@Raven Onthill:
You are SUCH a Luddite.
As am I.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Agreed. Been saying that for more than two years. But the childish/frat-rat part of me wanted to see her kick him in the nuts. Hard. Of course, her accuracy would have needed to be pinpoint, but considering she was “over-prepared,” I’m sure that would not have been a problem.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat:
I agree. He was stalking and intimidating. She should have called him out on it.
Media would clutch their pearls, but you might get a modification in behavior. From Trump and media. Once it became apparent they are both behind the times.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@geg6:
Completely agree with your take. Trump acts like a kept man with Putin for a reason.
Was talking to a friend this eve, and in the course of listing all the reasons why Trump’s fucking wall is absurd, I forgot the most obvious one, i.e. Trump is shutting down the government (McConnell doing his bidding by refusing the vote) not to fulfill a campaign promise but to fucking *break* one. And it occurred to us that there’s just *so. fucking. much* to keep track of, you can actually miss a killer point and it don’t even make that much difference cuz there’s always another to jump into the breach.
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
Anything under 65 F makes me shivery and cranky.
You need clothing not made of cotton, in two loose-fitting layers.
And a warm hat.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I just don’t understand why she’s running at this point. I don’t really know much about her, but she seems just okay to me. I like that she’s a woman and a WoC. But that’s not enough for me to commit to her. I suppose, since she’s from CA, there’s no real danger of losing the seat, though. So let her run. Maybe she can convince me. Based on what I saw during the Kavanaugh hearing, though, I’m not impressed. Again, she was just basically “meh” to me.
Raven Onthill
@A Ghost To Most: thorium reactors are possible, as are other designs. Arrays of small light water reactors are probably much safer than than single large reactors. But if we are going to do this at all, we must get going, and that means starting to talk and think about it.
Aleta
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: re: Steve Schmidt
Thanks for this. (And the BS link too.)
From the BS article you linked:
The request for this meeting, or similar requests, happened some time ago, before publication of the letter. Why should it take so long to set up that meeting? If they wanted to first gather “all the facts” and statements from other workers, that doesn’t quite cut it, since at first the former workers were privately asking for clear access to inform Sanders.
Not good practices. If Bacon and others were asked to put out a letter denouncing the allegations without being fully informed, it’s pretty shabby and an unhealthy lack of control.
Bess
@Raven Onthill:
We are very fortunate in that we have much better options than nuclear energy. We have the technology in hand that will allow us to quit fossil fuel and at the same time lower our electricity and overall energy costs.
If we look back ten to fifteen years we see a time when wind and solar were more expensive than nuclear, making nuclear our best option for replacing fossil fuels. But over the last decade the cost of wind and solar has dropped at an astounding rate making them the two lowest cost sources of electricity. Unsubsidized. Global average.
geg6
@Raven Onthill:
I’m guessing you’ve never lived with one within 10 miles of your home and work. You’ve never had siren tests blasting all over your county or had to stockpile iodine pills or worried about how terrorists would easily get into the plant from the riverbank it’s built on. You’ve never had friends and relatives who worked there or who worked on construction/maintenance there and who told you stories about safety issues that would turn your hair white, if it isn’t already.
They are finally shutting ours down (the oldest in the nation) and I couldn’t be more happy. We’re getting solar panels. Screw that nuclear shit (and coal–I have plenty of stories about the coal fired plant that is situated right next to the nuke plant).
Miss Bianca
Re-reading this thread and thinking uneasily about all the books I still have in storage…
Raven Onthill
@Bess: I have been an alternative energy researcher and, yes, I agree that in the long term there are better options. But all these things take time, and that is what we do not have.
I am also not sure – I am not aware of the studies, though maybe they have been done – that we can generate enough energy for the current world population with those technologies, except by keeping the majority of the world deeply impoverished. That’s not a position I am willing to take.
Bess
@Raven Onthill:
The cost of uranium is well under $0.01/kWh. If thorium was free that would not be enough to make nuclear affordable.
NuScale claims that after they get their small modular reactor factory running and work their way down the learning curve they could produce electricity for $0.08/kWh. Even if they could that would not be competitive. We have (paid off) reactors that generate electricity for $0.04/kWh and they are going bankrupt.
Aleta
@joel hanes: Yes, the silk underlayer. Now that I think of it, unheated bedrooms must have been the reason for the sartorial nightcap. They looked like wizard’s caps in the cartoons so as a kid I used to think they had something to do with dreaming.
chopper
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
would explain the convenient misredacting of the doc by his legal team. aiming to get ahead of the issue by making people think it was just polling data when it actually was much more.
Elizabelle
@Aleta: I keep my bedroom kind of cold for sleeping, and have some nights started off wearing my pink pu$$y hat to bed. Love it.
Cathie from Canada
@WereBear: Yes, same here. I purged our library last year, we gave away boxes of books to the local animal rescue booksale. The ones I kept are the ones that will never be make into electronic versions, like those old Alfred Hitchcock short story volumes, and the ones it would be just too expensive to buy again, like The Last Lion. Also kept some of our favorite cartoon books (Herman, etc) and the “coffee table” books of great photos etc.
Michael Cain
@Raven Onthill: I cheerfully admit that when I buy an e-book, I break the encryption (if necessary), convert to epub (if necessary), and make an archival copy. Two reasons for that. One, of course, is that I don’t trust the companies to honor their promises, stay in business, or have set up decryption keys in escrow somewhere. Two is that my preferred reader won’t handle anything but unencrypted epubs. But it does use my choice of fonts, paragraph spacing, etc. Like too many paper books, there are a lot of e-books out there that tempt you to ask the graphic designer, “Did you study ugly and unreadable in school, or are you just naturally gifted?” At least with e-books, there’s no reason to have to put up with that.
H.E.Wolf
@schrodingers_cat:
In her campaign memoir, she said it occurred to her. I thought her nuanced discussion of that episode was very interesting to read.
Bess
@Raven Onthill:
We build large solar farms in less than one year. Wind farms generally take less than two years with some completed in one year. Any commercial construction company that can erect a multistory building can build a wind farm. Any commercial construction company that can build a single story building can build a solar farm.
Nuclear plants require trained and experienced engineers and crews. We have almost none of those people. We’d first need to create university level nuclear engineering programs, staff them, and train a generation of specialists. Then it would take eight to fourteen years to build the reactors we needed. If we could find acceptable sites for 300 new reactors. A massive nuclear build out would take an immense amount of time.
In 2017 we installed enough wind and solar to supply 2% of our electricity. We currently get about 60% of our electricity from fossil fuels. If we doubled our wind and solar efforts we could retire almost all of our fossil fuel grid use in about 15 years. That is doable.
There are multiple studies which demonstrate that we can supply the world’s energy needs with renewable energy. There is a remaining question as to which of several ways to supply the grid during longer periods of low wind/solar input but they are questions of what will be the most affordable. It’s not a question that needs to be answered for a decade or so. We have time to keep working on the best solution(s).
H.E.Wolf
@OzarkHillbilly:
Stick to it by all means, with my respect and affection. :)
I teach this material in the classroom as a credentialed professional, with an emphasis on differentiating fantasy from reality, as is necessary with college students… but then in the classroom, we also get to *perform* (the illusion of) violence.
I teach fake groin kicks that will scare the audience’s heart into their throat. I also tell my students about ruptured bladders and broken pelvic bones and expect them to include that in their reactions.
You say Killjoy. I say Badass. :-)
Raven Onthill
@Bess: current costs aren’t a reliable guide. Wind and solar are still small-scale technologies; we don’t know the costs at large-scale. But they are physically large, and demanding of large amounts of installation and maintenance labor. They also have their own environmental costs, both direct in the impact of such extensive construction and indirect in manufacturing.
If we are going to deploy these technologies widely we will need to build that “smart grid” we keep hearing about. The battery technologies that are also the subject of many on-going research projects will be important. Wind and solar are not going to be this small-is-beautiful solution that many environmentalists seem to imagine; there are too many of us. If we make wind and solar power large enough to power the world – if that is possible – they will turn into public utilities, and we may then find them less attractive.
The whole thing is a downer. I write about hard choices and the need to make them; that is part of the reason for my ‘nym. But I would rather we make them well than lose the world.
Michael Cain
@Bess:
See, for example, V. C. Summer units 2 and 3 (now abandoned) and Vogtle units 3 and 4 (not abandoned, although the Georgia PSC staff recommended that). Clearly, Toshiba/Westinghouse and their subcontractors no longer know how to build a nuclear plant. Various construction flaws in the Vogtle concrete work have been allowed to stand simply because fixing them would require scraping things down to bare earth and starting over. Should Vogtle 3 and 4 actually come on line, they will produce the most expensive electricity in Georgia, by a wide margin.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@H.E.Wolf:
It was a weird spectacle. And, I expect, difficult to negotiate in real time cuz it’s so weirdly unexpected. Myself, I’da been a fan of her planting her size 8 into his presumptuous crotch, but short of that, I’da settled for sumpin like this:
[Trump is creepily hovering behind Hillary, invading her space. Hillary, sensing an oafish disruption in the force, turns and regards Trump with cool bemusement, then calmly and winningly — brightly, even — asks him:]
Donald … are you lost?
[Then if Donald says something dickish or stolidly fails to return to his lectern]
Do you need help finding your lectern, Donald? [Pointing] It’s right over there. This isn’t a Miss America pageant, Donald, and you can’t just wander wherever you want.
Raven Onthill
@Bess: Speaking as someone in the field, I think you underestimate the difficulties and risks of so many large-scale construction projects. It is certain to have unexpected problems and impacts. (I seriously worry about the chemical waste from large-scale photovoltaic panel production.)
In nuclear power, it is, I think, clear that multiple small reactors is a much safer and faster solution than the monsters of the earlier generations of the technology.
Both technologies will require the deployment of a smart grid; wind and solar will also require the construction of massive power storage systems.
What is direly clear, nuclear or not, is that we need to get started. I strongly suspect that wind and solar are going to fall short in the short term, even with the massive investment and deployment you imagine, and we are going to need nuclear power to fill in the gap.
Bess
@Bess: Solar and wind costs are very well established and continue to fall. California generates over 10% of its electricity with solar. Iowa and some other states are generating about 50% of the electricity they use with wind. Those are not small scale sources.
The actual amount of land needed to supply all our energy from renewable sources is minuscule. Take a look at how little land would be required to supply the planet with only solar.
https://www.businessinsider.com/map-shows-solar-panels-to-power-the-earth-2015-9
Bess
@Michael Cain:
The problems at Vogtle have driving the price from $0.11/kWh to about $0.15/kWh. Eleven cents is far too expensive to make nuclear a player.
The cost of UK’s Hinkley Point, were it to come online this year, would be $0.14/kWh. And Hinkley is being built by the French with backing from China.
No one has been able to build affordable nuclear.
A Ghost To Most
@Raven Onthill: Windmills and solar. It’s happening now. Coal plants can’t compete; neither can nuclear.
Time only moves forward. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
J R in WV
@satby:
Yes, indeed, this! Also Nero Wolfe, Dorothy Sayers, and a couple more.
Also some large SciFi series.
My last construction project was building book shelves…two sheets of plywood for each shelf, end to end, in big E shapes for maximum shelf footage, so 4 x 16 feet, 6 shelves tall. Never worked out the linear footage, but it’s large and not yet full because we have so many stacked around.
The round room on the front of the house is lined with half-round shelves made with oak faced plywood. A friend did that work, slowly, meticulously, as is his wont. Took a while, not willing to do it again. The shelves are fitted into uprights with slots, no nails or screws in the whole set.
Filled to overflowing with books and a few rocks. Crystals and fossils I have maintained space for by putting them in before books were filling the room, and neglecting to move them out. The roundness of the room still provides interesting sound effects as you move through the point where the round shape focuses the sound waves.
I always wanted to build a “cockpit” in there for the space ship the house was built to look like, a Starship crash landed in the forested hillsides of WV. But no room anymore… so sad!
ETA: Wife collects WV history books, History of Nicholas County, etc, many written not long after the state was established. Coal Mine Explosions of WV and PA, Feuds, Civil War in Doddridge County, etc, etc. History of Coal Mining on New River (lots of these, pretty interesting Wild West stuff).
Hundreds of them. Has not read most of them. Could establish a WV History Room at some county library.
So not all mine by any means.
Bess
Nuclear would be totally useless as a gap filler for wind and solar. It can take days to bring a nuclear reactor online. To fill in the ‘few days’ periods of very low wind/solar input we need generation that can come online quickly.
And think of the cost. The cost of electricity = total cost of generation / amount of electricity produced. Nuclear plants cost about $0.15/kWh if run 90% of the time. Run them 5% of the time to cover multi-day low periods and the cost goes up 18x from 15 cents to $2.70/kWh.
Where wind and solar come up short we need pump-up hydro, CAES, biofuel/synfuel generation, flow batteries or a technology yet to be developed. The answer might be battery packs pulled from EVs with worn out or crashed bodies. That would be deep storage for the cost of a building and racks to hold the battery packs. They could serve as deep storage for a few years before continuing on to recycling. These are things we can do right now and things that are affordable.
A Ghost To Most
@Raven Onthill: The correct choices are building out now. The incorrect choices are being abandoned. Large capacity electrical storage is also starting to come on line.
Economics are driving it; they don’t really give a damn about the environmental costs.
Shana
You should see the Trollope and Wodehouse shelves in our house…
Shana
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Haven’t read her but from what I’ve read about her, doesn’t she say that if it doesn’t give you joy you should get rid of it? No way books don’t give you joy.
J R in WV
@JPL:
Because white supremacy has its roots in hateful and malicious, despicable, murdering, raping, slave holding monsters. And you are one of those malicious monsters!
Is that simple enough for you to understand, Mr. King?
J R in WV
@Bess:
I agree that nuclear generated electrical power is too dangerous and takes too long to bring online. But it is ALSO a huge source of CO2 in its construction techniques, which rely on concrete for strength and for radiation protection.
Creating cement for the manufacture of concrete required “burning” linestone in huge kilns, which takes a vast amount of heat from fossil fuel, and also releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the limestone as it is cooked in the kilns.
One of the things we use in building our civilization that we need to find a replacement for is concrete, which is so hugely useful. I don’t know what to do, but keeping on building with concrete won’t work if we really need to get down to zero carbon emissions.
Immanentize
@Aleta: Also illegal retaliation by the campaign (HR did this?) if the allegations are true
stinger
@debbie:
Please send them to me!
Bess
@J R in WV: Nuclear’s lifetime carbon footprint is acceptable. It’s probably a bit higher than wind and solar but low enough that CO2 emitted doesn’t need to be part of the ‘what to use’ consideration. Nuclear fails economically and in the amount of time it takes to construct. If we had no better alternatives we could live with its dangers easier than with extreme climate change.
We have some low carbon concrete solutions that seem to work but have yet to be put into practice. There’s even a type of concrete that absorbs CO2 as it ages. By using olivine basalt in the mixture there is CO2 bonding with the oliviine over time.
StringOnAStick
I’ve had to deal with the aftermath of various relatives who were hoarders, and it is not fun. When my FIL and BIL moved, we took over 20 boxes of books to donate to the library; please note that any hint of mildew meant that the library trashed that book immediately so if you are planning on donating at some point, your books must be mildew-free. I used to keep all the books I’d read, but now I see that I will not have enough time to read the things I want to read, much less reread a book, so I like to think of donating books as a way of spreading the wonder of books to a wider audience once I’m done with them.
I used to hoard fabric and sewing was a big hobby until one day I just got tired of it all it seems. I have enough clothes to last me until the day I die, I don’t need to make any more and I have other things I’d rather do with my time. I took my indexed and cataloged fabric stash, folded it up, and donated it to the independent fabric store here, which sells such items and sends the profits to a group that teaches sewing and how to set up a business to poor women in Central America. It was a shopping cart full, and the woman who took the donation was shocked and maybe a bit horrified at all I was giving them so I told here we were moving overseas (I wish, especially now) and I couldn’t take it all with us. Driving away from that transaction, I felt a HUGE rush of freedom.
Uncle Cosmo
@Raven Onthill: @Bess: 1) Wrong. 2) Wrong. 3) Wrong.
(ETA: Responding to Bess, the Luddite cretin.)
Imbeciles like you will be the death of civilization. And you think Trump voters are stupid.
TL;DR: FOADIAF.
Raven Onthill
@Bess, @J R in WV, @A Ghost To Most: I think you are comparing optimistic estimates of wind and solar with pessimistic estimates of nuclear and coming to invalid conclusions because of it. @Uncle Cosmo: calling people you disagree with idiots is poorly done.
As to false hope, I note the following:
1. Scaling up a technology always produces unwelcome surprises.
2. We are only beginning to build grid-scale storage. (Ghost, if you have specifics that say otherwise, please cite them in a newer thread.)
3. The smart grid that will make the whole thing work is currently a gleam in investors eyes. It has the potential to turn into a nasty monopoly, if not carefully regulated.
4. The proposed extent of construction of solar and wind will also require large amounts of concrete.
5. The industrial waste produced by the manufacture of PV panels is likely to become a major problem.
Anyhow, I’ve got to fly off. See you next thread.
henqiguai
@A Ghost To Most (#173):
Slide rules. Do they
countqualify (’cause I know how you jackals think)? Got about 6 before they all went away.Denali
I knew I was with kindred spirits at Balloon Juicel So many book lovers among us!
Bess
@Raven Onthill:
I’m using numbers from reliable sources, not estimates. If you’re still checking in I’ll post my sources. Global annual unsubsidized average costs comes from Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Electricity 2018, CA’s solar generation from CAISO.
The Vogtle cost from Citigroup’s LCOE updated to include subsequent cost overruns. Hinkley Point strike prices from the UK govenment contract.
We have 39 operating pump-up hydro storage facilities in the US and 332 world wide. We now have a handful of very large battery storage facilities with more on the way.
We are already building a smart grid. Many homes and businesses have smart meters installed. We are converting from mechanical to solid state switches and adding sensors to the grid.
And economic activity not adequately regulated leaves things open for the greedy to grab more of their share.
Wind does require some concrete. Solar farms are no longer using concrete ballast but are driving support posts directly into the ground. The non-reusable byproducts of panel manufacturing are being dealt with. There are no perfect solutions.
Bess
@Uncle Cosmo:
Inconvenient facts give you a bad case of diaper rash?