I’ve read a couple of great books this year and wanted to share some of my favorites so far. What have you been reading this summer? pic.twitter.com/K8bnTnmNaG
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2022
A readable list of his playlist reccs:
Barack Obama Unveils Summer Playlist: Combination of Expected (Kendrick, Beyonce) and Surprises (Wet Leg!) https://t.co/2lC1e9eFWu
— Variety (@Variety) July 26, 2022
ICYMI:
… The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump’s involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.
In addition, Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to two people familiar with the matter. That effort is another indicator of how expansive the Jan. 6 probe had become, well before the high-profile, televised House hearings in June and July on the subject.
The Washington Post and other news organizations have previously written that the Justice Department is examining the conduct of Eastman, Giuliani and others in Trump’s orbit. But the degree of prosecutors’ interest in Trump’s actions has not been previously reported, nor has the review of senior Trump aides’ phone records…
Federal criminal investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political figures are among the most closely held secrets at the Justice Department. Many end without criminal charges. The lack of observable investigative activity involving Trump and his White House for more than a year after the Jan. 6 attack has fueled criticism, particularly from the left, that the Justice Department is not pursuing the case aggressively enough…
.@POTUS: On Jan. 6th, police were "speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized. And lives were lost. And for three hours – the defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen…Donald Trump lacked the courage to act." pic.twitter.com/GDJd89Vysd
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) July 25, 2022
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Listening to various talking heads explain how they weren’t really wrong with their peanut gallery heckling over the last few months was mildly amusing. Claire McCaskill seemed willing to accept a small portion of crow, IIRC.
Gin & Tonic
Is there a support group or twelve-step program for people who too often succumb to arguing with stupid people on Twitter? Asking for a friend, of course.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t watch or listen to the talking heads (just a fact, not a matter of particular pride). What were they heckling about? Garland? The Jan. 6 Committee?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I still think Meadows is dumb enough to flip without even knowing he flipped*– he already kinda sorta did, from his book to turning over many, but not all, of his texts, IIRC. If they can actually make a case against him…. I have no idea if those Signal messages can be recovered
*I said the same thing about both trump fail sons, so.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic:
Hehe. I restrict my online arguing to stupid people on BJ. So of course I never argue at all.
//
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@O. Felix Culpa: in this case, Garland. The “Do. Your. Job!” caucus.
Lawrence O’Donnell was doing some kind of “tone analysis” of Garland’s interview with Holt. “He sounds different now!”
Layer8Problem
Drat. I had a perfectly swell complain in the thread below regarding the Times article about the Justice Department TFG investigation (because it’s by Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush) and BOOM, a post shows up about it. I will never win the door prize on this blog.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
Just because people were complaining about the lack of Blech in an earlier thread.
Ken
This is news? I guess maybe to some people.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
LOL. They desperately need to take credit somehow.
As many on this nearly top-10K blog have noted, the process for federal investigations, especially involving ex-presidents, is necessarily slow because they must be painstakingly thorough and the culprits aren’t, shall we say, eager to cooperate. What we’re seeing from Garland now isn’t some miraculous turnaround effected by Do. Something. Twitter, but the emerging culmination of a massive amount of behind the scenes work.
Barbara
@Ken: The ghost of the Atlanta bombing investigation should never die. What the FBI did to Richard Jewell was unforgivable. And he was not a public figure. I don’t understand how it isn’t obvious to people that you don’t publicly announce every rabbit trail you plan to go down as a prosecutor to see if so and so was part of an illegal conspiracy. It just reinforces my conviction that too many people are more concerned about signaling their good intentions and the image they have of themselves, rather than living those values or actually, you know, doing the hard work of changing things for the better.
Betty Cracker
Though it’s true he’s a coward, Trump didn’t “lack the courage to act.” He didn’t call off the mob because they were part of his corrupt scheme to cling to power.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, I liked Biden’s remarks, but that landed bad with me, too.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
I was thinking the same thing. His inaction was planned, not paralysis.
OzarkHillbilly
So our heat wave finally ended yesterday with a little rain to the north and east of us yesterday.
12.86 inches in St Peters, 7.79 in STL. Thankfully, the Hillbilly Haven was spared the deluge but our high temps are blessedly in the mid 80s now.
Eunicecycle
@Gin & Tonic: my rule is, I answer someone twice. After that, I quit if the conversation isn’t moving forward.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @O. Felix Culpa:
The reason Biden called trump a coward is because it cuts his base in a way that saying “he led a failed coup” never would. They would be proud of the latter.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
Good point.
NotMax
I see reports that Netflix now is eagerly planning to develop a franchise out of the newly released The Gray Man. Oy vey.
Took a gamble on it yesterday. Good cast relegated to appearing in a frenetic, disjointed mess. One which pins the needle on the EPR* meter. Honestly (IMHO), borderline unwatchable.
*A term I just now made up, standing for Explosions Per Reel.
In other streaming service news, Prime video has rolled out its revamped UI, more than strongly reminiscent of (as in fraternal twin to) present day Netflix.
bookworm1398
@OzarkHillbilly
Emphazing the failed part of failed coup would have some effect with his base from what I’ve seen.
Jerry
I’m so happy for SA Cosby for making it on Obama’s reading list. Not only is Sean a fantastic writer, but he’s also a very cool guy; the type of person you want to give your money to. If you’ve never heard of him, give him a try. Even if you aren’t into it (which, really, you will be), you can feel good about supporting such a good person.
If you ever get a chance to see him speak somewhere, go. The dude just commands the room with what he says and how he says it. Imagine a rural, southern Virginia person, country AF, talking about staking his claim, as a black person, in the story of the South. Then listen as he reads from one of his Southern gothic crime novels; you’ll want it buy it then and there.
Baud
@Ken:
@Barbara:
Also, too, Comey.
UncleEbeneezer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This!:
“Fwiw there have been indications that DOJ has been investigating Trump’s *direct* role in the events surrounding Jan 6 for at least seven months.”
And what has been extremely annoying/exhausting is arguing with people who had clearly made zero effort to actually follow the reporting of the numerous court filings, yet insisted that their gut instinct that DOJ couldn’t possibly be investigating high level Trump people (including him) because: 1.) we don’t punish wealthy, white men, 2.) we got burned by the Mueller report, 3.) Garland is a coward etc., be given the same weight as analysis of actual evidence of action by DOJ (court filings). Honestly, it feels very much like arguing with my cousin or Dad who refuses to get vaccinated but when pressed clearly has no idea what they are talking about despite claiming they’ve “done their research.” It was like the perfect illustration of Dunning-Kreuger in action, and it’s the main reason I had to step away from LGM.
From the moment we found out that DOJ was pursuing the Eastman/False Electors and the pressuring of Pence, there really was no way DOJ could go into either of those without ramming head-first into Trump. The former had a couple meetings where Trump was in the room and the latter, I mean, who did more to pressure Pence than Trump? There’s countless tweets, speeches etc., as well as behind the scenes stuff. Once you accept that DOJ was investigating those, how is it even possible to avoid including Trump’s behavior in that scope? Unless DOJ had Trump in some sort of Do-Not-Investigate box, which would’ve completely gone against everything Garland/Monaco have told us, in addition to accounts of former DOJ attorneys about how DOJ operates.
dww44
@Betty Cracker: Was about to say that his act was not to act since he had already acted by sending them to the capitol. You said it far better than i ever could
sdhays
@OzarkHillbilly: For both accuracy and cutting the base, we could go back a bit further to summer 2020 and remind his base that Tramp was (literally? It would be irresponsible not to speculate) shitting his pants in the White House bunker because some people were peacefully protesting for BLM outside the White House.
Barbara
@Baud: Do you think Comey ever asks himself what might have happened if hadn’t been such a misogynistic shit and just stuck to the guidelines for professional conduct and done the right thing?
Baud
@Barbara:
I couldn’t live with myself, but some of these people who achieve a high stature in life don’t seem to have the same mindset I do. And maybe that’s why they got to where they are.
Layer8Problem
@NotMax: I’ve been wondering about The Gray Man. I’ll eschew it thoroughly.
In the “Old White Guy Action” genre, my partner and I have been watching The Old Man. I’ve been intermittently interested but find it annoying. Lithgow’s doing a good job, Bridges is ok, Brenneman’s doing a thankless job as the doughty Younger Woman, but the story is set up to my eye as government agencies and taxpayer dollars in the service of settling old family grudges, and too much intoning of long-form fortune cookie ponderings.
El-Man
Just finished reading Beyond This Horizon by Robert Heinlein. Most notable as the source of the “an armed society is a polite society” line that certain people like to quote.
joel hanes
What have you been reading this summer
Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry For The Future : everyone should read the first chapter. Otherwise, KSR’s writing in this one has all the defects of the Mars trilogy, and few of the virtues.
Octavia Butler’s The Parable Of The Sower : this is our future, except that it’s too optimistic about the ecological effects of global warming
Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock : not one of his best, though I finished it, unlike Seveneves
Josephine Tey’s The Daughter Of Time : re-evaluation of Richard III of England and his successor, Henry VII, framed as a detective novel. Very interesting, but assumes an intimate knowledge of English history and the wars of the roses that may well be lacking in American readers. I had to consult Wikipedia many times to understand who people were and how they were connected to each other.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Barbara: I think sanctimony is a big part of Comey’s psychological make-up, and all the publicity he got around that moment in Ashcroft’s hospital room (and I’d have to google to refresh my once-strong memory on that incident) was a nuclear spider-bite for it.
And yes, absolutely misogyny, that strange strain of it that seems specific to Hillary Clinton from so many disparate sources. That Woman! must be taken down a peg! or seven.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: The whole idea of being pre-disappointed puzzles me. I can understand trying to keep expectations low to some extent, but the people who used their low expectations to then get mad at Garland, etc., are just odd. Another factor in play is that I don’t think most people really have any idea how slowly legal processes work. Look at the number of people who were surprised at the three month delay before Bannon’s sentencing, a time frame that is entirely normal. TV and movies have done the court system no favors.
OzarkHillbilly
@bookworm1398: “I FOUGHT FOR YOU BUT THE EVIL FORCES OF THE DEEP STATE COULD NOT ALLOW ME TO WIN!” sounds a whole lot better than, “I am not a gutless weasel! Even if I do sit here safe and sound in Marred a Lego while my followers go to prison.”
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Mute and block buttons are your friends.
Tony Jay
I’ve been reading the Forde Report.
Yes, I intend to rant about it. Apologies in advance.
Also, not reading, but I have been watching Midnight Mass, a Netflix seven-parter by most of the same crew who brought us horror gems like The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. It’s like a love letter to certain Stephen King works and, though Merciful God On High but does Mike Flanagan love him some monologues, I very much enjoyed it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: No.
eclare
@Barbara: So true. Didn’t this also happen with one of the early suspects for the anthrax mailings in 2001?
Elizabelle
The Garden of the Finzi Continis is available free on Prime. Yay! Have always meant to see it.
Also a favorite, and leaving at month’s end: True Confessions. 1981 film with Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro as brothers (a detective and Catholic monsignor, respectively) with plot touching on the Black Dahlia murder of postwar Los Angeles.
catclub
Something about mud wrestling with a pig.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My reaction is much the same, and I’m told The Book Is Better. I’m enjoying it in spite of all the Ludlum-ism because of the cast– I like Alia Shawkat, I didn’t recognize her at first. And when Joel Grey (!) came on screen, I thought, “Is that Bob Balaban?” It’s always fun to see Lithgow play a bad-ass, and it’s kind of poignant to see Bridges playing the old bull who can still charge. I haven’t watched what I think is the last episode because it just isn’t a priority. I’ll probably get around to it this weekend.
catclub
@joel hanes:
Stephenson seems great in setting up a situation but does not do well drawing to a conclusion. (Ever listen to Phillip GLass compositions?] I am re-reading the Baroque cycle and enjoy it more after having read more about how financial systems were created at that time. How does one pay your army when you arrive at the enemy’s capital?
eclare
For pure fun, I am enjoying season two of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu.
Also, I discovered maybe a week ago that Hulu has the original UK The Office. Ricky Gervais at his wonderful cringey best. I never did watch the US version because I didn’t see how it could be as good.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I cannot thank you enough for your Blech. Please carry on.
eclare
@Jerry: I will have to check him out, thanks! Southern gothic crime…what’s not to love?
Immanentize
@Barbara: I really don’t know how long the Oklahoma City bombing case would have gone on if it hadn’t been for the fact that Tim McVeigh was such a militia but that he was caught speeding on the highway without license plates. Garland would have liked to have tied up many more strings. Disclosure — good friends of mine represented McVeigh and Nichols in their various Federal and State trials.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: The point was not some absolute truth about Trump’s bravery, but rather to publicly call Trump a coward — again separating the head from the group as a weak loser. Trump hates being (called) a weak, loser, coward — he cannot abide it. And he seems to be making mistakes already.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: But it’s not like there weren’t countless people explaining to them just how slow the process takes, repeatedly, for the past 18 months. The problem is that they simply refused to listen. The conversation always goes:
“It shouldn’t be taking so long…”
“Actually here’s a bunch of reasons why it’s taking so long, explained by people with first-hand experience building conspiracy cases and prosecuting them…”
“Okay, but it still shouldn’t be taking so long.”
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: This.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’d forgotten the Ashcroft thing, but you’re right — if Comey wasn’t already convinced he was the Last Honest Man in DC, that surely sealed the deal.
It was nauseating when the man who deviated from his job description and fucked American democracy subsequently wrote a book on leadership, which would be like me writing a book on the virtues of temperance and keeping a civil tongue.
But one detail I read in the ensuing publicity tour was that Comey faced the wrath of his wife and daughters the night Trump won. They blamed him. Good for them.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: Believe me, I know this.
Danielx
Been re-reading Night Soldiers by Alan Furst. Descriptions of time and place beyond compare.
trollhattan
With Vlad sucking up all the attention in the room, it’s easy to forget China. Curious how they’ll punish us for this. (Send another virus not on my scorecard.)
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
which would be like me writing a book on the virtues of temperance and keeping a civil tongue.
You know we’d all buy that book, right?
NotMax
@eclare
If looking for something a bit different on Hulu, might try sampling the Israeli dramedy series Rehearsals.
Immanentize
@catclub: I really like Stephenson, but I agree he has trouble getting out of his really good storylines. There seems to be a pattern that men who succeed in publishing stop allowing their work to be edited? He needs a very strong editor.
ETA. Space opera author Alistair Reynolds has the same problem. I love his books until the final chapter when I throw them against a wall.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Some fine day, when we look up the definition of “sanctimony” Comey’s image will accompany the text.
Layer8Problem
@UncleEbeneezer: “Look, I’m as patient as anybody but I expected at least four judges intoning a verdict with black caps on their heads and an auto-da-fé or two by now. Is that so unreasonable?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay: Well, we’d at least get it from the library.
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer: Anyone who has watched The Wire, and really everyone should, knows that when you want to catch the people at the top, it takes a lot of meticulous work to develop an airtight case. It takes a lot of time because there are multiple layers of protection. The team on The Wire didn’t even have a photo of the drug kingpin they were going after until months into the case they got a photo from a decades old boxing match promo poster.
As Omar said after he shot Wee-bey, when you come at the king, you best not miss.
eclare
@NotMax: Thanks!
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
Harry Styles *and* Maggie Rogers on Obama’s music list? Kudos, sir.
Although I would’ve LOVED it if he’d picked something more risqué from Harry’s new album, like Cinema :P
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Trump’s cult won’t hear Biden call Trump a coward because con-media will run out-of-context clips spliced together to make Biden look old and confused. So why say something that essentially undermines the narrative the Jan 6 committee has created?
It’s probably not that big a deal — if Trump is ever charged for the attempted coup, he’s unlikely to invoke the chickenshit defense. But I wish Biden hadn’t said that, and I hope he doesn’t repeat it.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: I am not a natural optimist, but I was raised by a pessimist who walked under his own personal rain cloud that followed him everywhere — and I came to realize how destructive unrelenting pessimism can be. In certain people, pessimism is a habit or a mindset or even an entrenched component of who they are, maybe even at the level of their mental health, to only focus on the negative side of any equation. Those people are not just looking for the negative, they must find the negative, because that is how they validate their own negativity. Their lack of insight is maddening, but you can’t combat it with reason. Mockery can sometimes work to at least get other people not to listen to them, but it annoys me no end that there is such a wide overlap between these people and liberal political mindset. I mean, it’s good that they objectively want to make things better, but it’s infuriating that they never give any credit to anyone for actually doing something right or making improvement — because there is still something left that hasn’t been done. This was my dad. This was how he thought, all the time and it was soul sapping.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: oh no
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just finished reading West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. I like it a lot. Before that I’d been reading a fantasy novel that should have been right up my alley: found family on a caper. But it was the fiction equivalent of the explosions-per-minute that Not Max mentions. Action events happened without affecting the emotional status of the characters. They were just action. West with Giraffes is the satisfying opposite of that.
After seeing Obama’s list yesterday, I started Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility and am enjoying it so far.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: Right. What it reminds me of is that neo-Nazis love movies like “American History X” or “Pink Floyd The Wall” that portray them as terrifying menaces, but they hate movies that portray Nazis as ridiculous figures of fun, even though the latter seems like it would be in worse taste.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for saying what I was thinking. It’s like calling him unmanly or stupid. It cuts him to the core.
Captain C
@UncleEbeneezer:
I’m reminded of the scene in Hi Fidelity where John Cusack’s character wonders if his gut actually has shit for brains.
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: I think Biden didn’t want to get ahead of the judicial process.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: Or the way that the Superman radio serial where Superman fought a thinly veiled Ku Klux Klan actually did them a lot of damage–and the main way it did it was that it portrayed the Klan’s secret proceedings and titles (based on real ones, and being exposed widely for the first time) as absurd and ridiculous, a bunch of grown men playing a child’s game. Fascists love to be seen as dangerous but they can’t abide being seen as a bunch of dorks.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
“I’m looking for a book. It’s by Betty Cracker.”
“Of course, sir. Do you know the title?”
“How I Learned To Stop F#&5$g Republican C$#*s In Their Stupid F%#$@*g Faces While Chugging Benedictine From The Bottle And Just F#%*%#g Rip Their W*&$s Off So They Have To P#£s Through A Cloaca Instead”
“…….”
“Can I put it on order?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
trump is getting his Truths on, dragging PERFECT CALL down out of the attic
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I have a hard time seeing how it matters. If DOJ prosecutes Trump, is Trump’s legal or public defense going to be “Biden called me a coward, so that shows I’m innocent!” It’s Trump, so maybe. But I think it would only hurt him further.
And if DOJ doesn’t prosecute Trump, it really won’t matter.
Spanky
@Matt McIrvin:
Ilinois nazis come to mind here.
Citizen Alan
@Barbara:
No. I stand by my belief that if Comey ever had a moment of clarity and realized just how badly he damaged the nation, he’d kill himself in shame. But he has no shame, so he stays in denial.
Citizen Alan
@Barbara:
No. I stand by my belief that if Comey ever had a moment of clarity and realized just how badly he damaged the nation, he’d kill himself in shame. But he has no shame, so he stays in denial.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: This is more of the picking at the details of every message that our side puts out that our side does so much of. Is
Trump a coward? Yes. Is this something that is likely to upset him and his toadies? Also yes. That works for me. Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Miss Bianca
@Jerry: Just ordered Razorblade Tears from the library. Also, by looking him up by author, looks like he wrote an essay for a book on “Voices from Rural America” that was actually in the YA section of our little library, so heck – I put a hold on that one, too!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know what the Waffle House challenge is– I’m guessing it involves eating many waffles– but good on Rangappa for admitting she was wrong
She was on the Hayes program when he was waxing yellow and purple about Rachel Maddow’s “amazing scoop!” about that utterly banal memo Garland had sent out about prosecutions of candidate during election cycles. I expected her to push back against his histrionics, but she started on a riff about how Garland was the Jimmy Carter of Attorneys General and that’s when I switched to baseball.
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Excellent.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: This is something I fight all the time in myself, as people have probably seen in these comments. To some extent it’s a catastrophizing instinct that comes from a beyond-rational horror of being the dope who didn’t see the bad thing coming, and I think that probably just comes from maladaptive coping strategies left over from old childhood trauma (in my case, dealing with pervasive school bullies). Also, to some extent, the urge to be the cleverest boy in the room, because negative assessments play as honest and smart. But it doesn’t really help deal with the future menaces even when you see them.
There are communities that reinforce it. I think the LGM commentariat, for all its virtues, is one; left Twitter is another.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wise move.
J R in WV
While being in Navy School in 1970 at Great Lakes Navy station, some buddies and I took the train north to walk to a park on the lake. Dunes were beautiful, having a great time, when we saw a traditional mid-western storm cloud rushing up into the sky behind us to the west. So we fled, on foot.
As rain started in getting hard, we came by a little roadside bookstore — aha thinks I, what a great place to wait out the rain! There were several guys in there already. Some of out group started chatting with the guys (all guys… hmm) already in the shop, while some of us browsed the book shelves. I won’t make anyone wait any longer by coming right to the punch line — it was a John Birch Society book stop, run by Illinois Nazis!
Did you know the US Army sent divisions into Russia to build roads for Stalin? me neither… The minute the rain let up just a little [remember we were all wet already] we were down the road towards the little train station.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Waffle House Challenge. Spend 25 hours in a Waffle House. Time is reduced by one hour for each waffle you eat.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Amanda Marcotte wrote an article where she says it must be killing TFG to not be able to take credit for the insurrectionist mob. It plays to his narcissism to see so many people willing to totally wreck their lives for him, but in order to try to stay out of jail he can’t take credit for inspiring any of it.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Lucky you, high of 95º is forecasted for us today, although it did rain about a tenth of an inch at the bar last night. I was joking “What is this wet stuff coming out of the sky?” That rain in St. Louis and the vicinity prompts a horror reaction from me; it’s going to be devastating for a lot of people. That is an almost unimaginable amount of water in a short period of time. You usually only see numbers like that associated with hurricanes.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wow. I’ve learned a new thing today and now can stop.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Trump’s cult is not the target. Nor are Biden supporters. This is a counter-insurgency campaign. Trump supporters who have doubts is the number one target and making him weak and unmanly is a good method to separate him from them. Hasn’t this very blog complained at how the right feminized and portrayed as weak Obama (and Biden)? Same move.
Too many want the Democrats to act more like the Republicans — until they do. Then it’s all careful parsing and what’s the best messaging and that didn’t strike me as the best way to phrase it.
Meanwhile, Trump’s most fervent supporters will definitely hear this statement as they love a reason to get outraged on Trump’s behalf. I expect them to be largely responsible for amplifying what Biden said. I’d check in on 8-chan, but I gave that up for Lent.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: stop what? Eating waffles? Or learning? I’m going for 2 new things (waffles and knowledge) each day this week.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: I have been surprised at how slowly the investigation into my stepson’s unexplained death is going, but I guess it’s actually pretty normal. TV has given people unrealistic expectations. I am pretty unhappy that it’s going to be another month before we get a death certificate. Once they get the tox screen back shouldn’t it be pretty quick to decide cause of death and and issue the documents?
Matt McIrvin
@Spanky: Or “The Producers.” “ZE SHORT FUSE!!!”
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Learning for today, since I’ve met my daily quota. ;)
Waffle-eating, however, may continue (that is, commence), without artificially imposed limits.
eclare
@Soprano2: When my parents died, both deaths in the hospital, it took about two months to get death certificates. I had been told it could take longer, I don’t know why.
I hope you get your stepson’s on schedule.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: I think Comey’s attempts to portray himself as some kind of Resistance hero after his firing are his coping mechanism. Nobody buys it but it’s how he deals, personally.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
I see that Lent 2023 has started early. Or has Lent 2022 run long?
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: If you like cringe but not-too-cringe comedy, check out The Rehearsal on HBO. It’s by the guy who did Nathan For You and has the same bizarro-Candid Camera kind of vibe. It is absolutely bonkers. He finds people who have some major life experience like coming clean about a long-term lie to friends or becoming a single mom, and he devises these elaborate rehearsals using actors and replica sets to simulate that event. The level of detail he goes to, is just downright ridiculous. Very funny.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: I don’t think it’s just successful *male* authors who have this problem. I cite Diana Gabaldon as my example. Loved, loved, loved the first four books of her Outlander series, read the next several with increasing amounts of “wtf with all these characters and bloated storylines” impatience, but at least managed to *read* them, and finally with her latest one I just gave up several hundred pages in with nary an actual plot in sight.
I mean, yeah, I admit it – I love Jamie and Claire as much as the next gal, but not to the point where I’m willing to slog through just *any* old amount of “look how much RESEARCH I’ve done!” on the part of their creator just to be with them.
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer: Interesting, I’ve never heard of it. I will have to check that out!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Miss Bianca: The best selling author has clout, and the publisher has no reason to invest the time and effort to edit them if they don’t want it. I can’t imagine being that confident, but then I never sold a million copies
eclare
@Miss Bianca: Now that you mention it, I used to love Elizabeth George, British mystery writer. Then as each book was released, my favorite leading character, the scrappy Barbara Havers, kept getting less and less attention. Ms. George shifted the focus to a very well off couple who went back decades with Havers’ partner in the police.
I used to pick up one of her books and finish it in one day. I have not read her in years.
Ben Cisco
@catclub: Also, Nietzsche on looking overly long into an abyss.
Josie
@Matt McIrvin: I so admire what you did in this comment. It is really difficult to take such an honest look at ourselves and figure out where our outlook is coming from. Kudos to you for doing so and for stating it so well. You have given me something to think about.
Kristine
@Betty Cracker:
My spitballing opinion is that Biden couldn’t say Trump is responsible b/c he’d be jumping ahead of the DOJ and would also be accused of placing his thumb on the scales/pressuring DOJ/making it political. Yes, he’s being accused of such things anyway, but this would put a shred of meat on the bones.
Kristine
@prostratedragon: I agree.
zhena gogolia
@Josie: Yes, it’s a great comment by Matt McIrvin.
jeffreyw
I discovered that I have several of Bank’s Culture novels in .epub format so I have decided to re-read the series. I looked for a good reader app for them and am going with the Lithium app. It supposedly syncs across devices via Google Drive but I am having limited success with that. There is a rather involved way to get them into my Kindle readers but I haven’t bothered to try. I’m in the middle of the 3rd book in the series, Use of Weapons.
mvr
Yeah, I was going to say that of Obama’s list I have read only Razorblade Tears and enjoyed it. I’ve also read and enjoyed his earlier Blacktop Wasteland. And, as you note, he seems like a very nice person on Twitter.
The crime novel genre is pretty broad and I’ve read a lot of it over the years (several thousand books). A good sign about his books so far is that they differ from one another enough that he won’t get into the rut of having to jack up the plots or characters so that they lose all believability.
So, yeah, I recommend his writing as well.
Anyway
Finished Becky Chambers’ soft-SF novella Psalm For the Wild-Built Set in a solar-punk world where many years ago robots disappeared from the world into the wilds after gaining sentience, and humans have had to take drastic action after realizing their way of living is unsustainable.
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: This guy’s ability to keep deadpan is incredible.
piratedan
been on a British Crime/Spy fiction bent, so working my way thru Nick Herron’s Slough House series, finished Attanovich’s Rivers of London books.
Ben Cisco
@catclub: Also, Nietzsche on looking overly long into an abyss.
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer: Sounds good, like Gervais!
mvr
@Matt McIrvin: I’m having trouble with optimism right now even while I think I somewhat tend towards it. It is hard for me to feel any real efficacy in addressing the state of a world that looks to me to be standing still in a crisis. I keep trying to find a way to make some difference but it feels like flailing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: If I were the man I used to be, I would take a metaphorical flame-thrower to that challenge!
In my twenties I woulda been out of there in three or four hours.
Now I’m just searching the misty past for the last time I ate a waffle
Immanentize
@Soprano2: the part of you step son’s death investigation that makes no sense to me is the time it is taking for an autopsy. That is not in my experience a reasonable amount of time. But it is Hawaii, and I have no idea what the labs or coroner’s office can do there when. You said he was already cremated, so the only thing left to do would be labs….
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: In that particular case it runs forever.
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: the research is supposed to be BACKGROUND for an author’s deep understanding of material and provides the appropriate details necessary to make a tale feal ‘authentic.’ wasn’t French Lieutenant’s Woman enough forever and always to make that point?
no comment
Books:
The Guest List by Lucy Foley — Fast paced murder mystery. Several people with motive.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens — The “Marsh Girl” becomes the town’s main suspect after a suspicious death. But did she kill him? Or is she only a suspect because of classism?
Netflix:
Stranger Things
Dead End Paranormal Park — Animated show about kids working in a theme park with paranormal events. Also has a trans character & shows same sex relationships.
Hulu:
The Bob’s Burgers Movie — Really fun, especially if you enjoy the TV show.
Only Murders in the Building — Rewatching season 1 to remember the secondary characters before I start season 2.
James E Powell
@Barbara:
No. He was never wrong, never will be wrong. It was all other people.
zhena gogolia
I just finished Mary McCarthy, The Group. Better than I remembered it from the first time.
Now I’m reading Emma Thompson’s charming diary of the Sense and Sensibility shoot. Plus the book has her entire screenplay, and her stage directions are hilarious.
Since I still can’t walk without a cane, any diversion is welcome.
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: I feel this way about Denise Mina. Her first three series were astoundingly good, and some of her one-offs are also really good, but the last two books — aye yie yie — just kind of disappointing and frankly pointless.
Captain C
*Books:
So far this summer, finished Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World by Philip Matyszak and Mark Ribot’s book of essays, Unstrung.
In queue are (among others):
Slime by Ruth Kassinger (about algae and their relationship to/with us)
Water: a Biography by Giulio Boccaletti (saw his online lecture at Secret Science Club last…fall?)
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
The Actual Star by Monica Byrne
I intend to keep working on Kochland by Christopher Leonard but it’s slow going for me as it’s very depressing and I keep wanting to write Culture fanfic about a SC team that decides to take down the Koch empire on their vacation.
*Movies: none. I’m still not up for going to theaters; NYC is far too casual about COVID precautions in the era of our eccentric Mayor Adams.
*TV: Started the Mandalorian series. Also watching many Mets games.
*Music: Around Memorial Day (a little before, perhaps?), I caught the Mecha Sonic Sessions 2, which was a wild musical happening taking place in an active metalworking shop. Link is to an article about the event. You can also find some more photos (not mine) here. This was an incredibly cool show which involved several friends and musical collaborators of mine.
The Lodger
@Jerry: His previous novel, Blacktop Wasteland, is an interesting read, too.
mrmoshpotato
Where’s the Soviet shitpile mobster manbaby’s summer reading list?
Captain C
@mrmoshpotato: He’s reading How To Win Bigly Profits At Golf And Life By Cheating and Getting Away With It for about the hundredth time.
Soprano2
@Miss Bianca: Do you think they just get bored? How many interesting stories can they tell about the same characters? My mom and sister loved those books; they went to an author reading in Tulsa, I think in 2001. I found three signed books in my mother’s bookcase.
Soprano2
@Immanentize: The autopsy was done within a few days of his death. What’s taking so long is to get the toxicology report back. When I checked last week they still didn’t have it, and I don’t think that was affected any by the 2 weeks of training the detective attended in June. That has made the investigation take longer, though, as did the delayed identification. The police thought they had a positive ID from a tattoo identified by a co-worker, but the medical examiner insisted on us doing an ID from a photo. We didn’t get that done until the 3rd week of June!
persistentillusion
@joel hanes: I feel so much better for your comment. Seveneves was the first book I ever got 100 pages into and re-shelved with no regret.
JustRuss
Sure, but I think what’s going on is Biden going after the Trump’s base. They don’t care if Trump lies and cheats to hold onto his power, hell, they eat that shit up. But they despise a wimpy coward
Edit: Hrrm, late to the party. Still , I think Biden’s smart to call Trump a coward whenever the opportunity presents.
J R in WV
Mostly I’m been reading fiction with elf protagonists, or sentient star ships, or sorcerers, etc. The less grounded in current reality the better. I need distractions from our current reality.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: I have no idea. I don’t think it’s because they get bored per se…I think in some cases they’ve become so enamoured of their characters – or realize that others have become so enamoured of their characters – that they forget about the need for plot to keep some of their other readers engaged and just go for “of course you’ll hang out with me and these characters for 900 pages just because!”
J R in WV
@persistentillusion:
Not my first, I read the second half on high speed and don’t remember much about it. Disappointing.
I re-read the Baroque Cycle as an ebook earlier this year, still holds up pretty well. Then one of the more magickal alchemist characters shows up in the modern day novel Cryptonomicron, which was both amazing and interesting.
I M Banks is really good, I have all his Culture books in hardback. I’m not that fond of his Ian Banks non-SF novels.
persistentillusion
@J R in WV: Thanks for the recommendation. My to read pile has reached alarming heights, but nothing in it is leaping out at me.
Barbara
@eclare: Not sure where you dropped off with Elizabeth George, but, not the latest, but the last one before the latest, focuses on Barbara Havers. I think Havers is a problematic character in the sense that George seems unable to make her grow or change. I really like those books just because they have the kind of sweep and omniscient narration of grand 19th Century novels. But there are aspects of George that I don’t like or where her reach exceeds her grasp a little too much.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@joel hanes: I read The Daughter of Time when I was in high school and it started me on a lifelong fascination with English history, especially the Plantagenets and Tudors. And yes, since as an American, my knowledge of English history then was basically 1066, Richard the Lion-Hearted, Magna Carta, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Victoria, I too was almost lost. I had never heard of Edward IV, Richard III, The Princes in the Tower, let alone Amy Robsart or The Peasant’s Revolt.
But I’ve had a lot of fun learning about them. And Josephine Tey is a fabulous writer – she creates characters and sets the scene beautifully. Check out Brat Farrar, Miss Pym Disposes, or The Singing Sands (Grant’s last case)
ETA: and knowledge of the War of the Roses helps a lot when dealing with Shakespeare’s history plays :-)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
True that! (Best line in The Wire, IMHO). Remember when Dan Rather made a hash over some (forged?) evidence about how W got out of going to Viet Nam by getting into the Texas National Guard or some such? All the R’s uproar over that helped the true point get lost.
Matt McIrvin
I re-read a couple of old favorites about contact with enigmatic extraterrestrial intelligences, which provided an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast:
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)
Stanisław Lem, His Master’s Voice