Re: What Book You Reading?

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Started reading Elmer Keiths book caled "shotguns" Man ,Keith was one racist bastard.
This is just my opinion, yours may vary and is no less valid.
- Me -

"I will never claim to be an expert, and it has been my experience that self proclaimed experts are usually self proclaimed."
-Me-

I must proof read more

Re: What Book You Reading?

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HuckleberryFun wrote:We are advised to "separate the art from the artist," which is nigh impossible for me to do in the case of Burroughs. So much of his self oozes through his pages (for better or worse) that I end up exclaiming "what a fucking asshole". :sneaky:
(Why are the best writers so often the worst human beings?)
The list is long. Among the list are racists, misogynists, fascists, pedophiles, anti-semites and sometimes just mean-spirited people. Sometimes their flawed beliefs are found in their writings and other times in their private persona and actions. Hemingway, Pound, Eliot, Naipaul, Flannery O'Connor, Salinger, Mailer are just a few of the "giants" I admired for their writing but who had deep-seated prejudices or seriously flawed character. It is difficult at times to "separate the art from the artist."
I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults. --Molly Ivins

if they give you lined paper, write sideways.--Juan Ramon Jimenez

Re: What Book You Reading?

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The Weapon Shops of Isher.

A.E. Van Vogt was a science fiction writer of the golden age whose contemporaries included Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and James Blish and whose work although sometimes disputed was never the less followed by guys like John W. Campbell, Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick.

In 1941, writing at the beginning of WWII he wrote a series of three short stories which were worked up into a book named The Weapon Shops of Isher published in 1951. Occasionally around the LGC I have seen people mention it. It’s an interesting book. Van Vogt was writing during the period when the Axis was in the ascendant, authoritarianism was the way of the world and things looked dim for democracy. He was defiant and wrote a book I find very close to the bone.

The premise of the book is that an armed population cannot be subjugated. In the book, there is a regime which aspires to be despotic, but due to the influence of the Weapon Shops, places where some amazing firepower is sold and who have some fantastic technology including the ability to appear and disappear on need. The population is armed, and the regime is stymied. The motto of the Weapon Shops is ‘The Right to Buy Weapons is the Right to Be Free’. I see it repeated from time to time usually by some right winger who doesn't understand where it came from.

The Kindle version is $4.
https://smile.amazon.com/Weapon-Shops-I ... s+of+isher
When only cops have guns, it's called a police state.
I carry due to toxic masculinity.......just other people's.

Re: What Book You Reading?

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Antiquus wrote:The Weapon Shops of Isher.

A.E. Van Vogt was a science fiction writer of the golden age whose contemporaries included Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and James Blish and whose work although sometimes disputed was never the less followed by guys like John W. Campbell, Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick.

In 1941, writing at the beginning of WWII he wrote a series of three short stories which were worked up into a book named The Weapon Shops of Isher published in 1951. Occasionally around the LGC I have seen people mention it. It’s an interesting book. Van Vogt was writing during the period when the Axis was in the ascendant, authoritarianism was the way of the world and things looked dim for democracy. He was defiant and wrote a book I find very close to the bone.

The premise of the book is that an armed population cannot be subjugated. In the book, there is a regime which aspires to be despotic, but due to the influence of the Weapon Shops, places where some amazing firepower is sold and who have some fantastic technology including the ability to appear and disappear on need. The population is armed, and the regime is stymied. The motto of the Weapon Shops is ‘The Right to Buy Weapons is the Right to Be Free’. I see it repeated from time to time usually by some right winger who doesn't understand where it came from.

The Kindle version is $4.
https://smile.amazon.com/Weapon-Shops-I ... s+of+isher
I read that as a pimply faced teenager. Good book.
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Re: What Book You Reading?

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"Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad.

"Below the roof of awnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage,..." Oh for Christ's sake, give me a break!
"There never was a union of church and state which did not bring serious evils to religion."
The Right Reverend John England, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston SC, 1825.

Re: What Book You Reading?

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dandad wrote:Started reading Elmer Keiths book caled "shotguns" Man ,Keith was one racist bastard.
better stay away anything charles askins....

X
"We are all born mad. Some remain so." Waiting for Godot

"...as soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene..." Derrida

Re: What Book You Reading?

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Xela wrote:
dandad wrote:Started reading Elmer Keiths book caled "shotguns" Man ,Keith was one racist bastard.
better stay away anything charles askins....

X
Haha! Actually, Askins shotgunning book is pretty much nuts and bolts. His writing style leaves a lot to be desired. Places where a small table would have been ideal, he rambles on narrating the table data instead: https://archive.org/details/Shotgunners ... cyclopedia

His book on pistol shooting is a little more interesting, since at the time he wrote it, he was the American champion. But it has a kind of mean drunk attitude in the places where he gets a leg-up on someone. Speaking of which, he does not mention that he was dead drunk when he shot his best scores.

Re: What Book You Reading?

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Askins knew guns and was an expert marksman. But many who knew his history say he fit the profile of a psychopath.
I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults. --Molly Ivins

if they give you lined paper, write sideways.--Juan Ramon Jimenez

Re: What Book You Reading?

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Larch wrote:Askins knew guns and was an expert marksman. But many who knew his history say he fit the profile of a psychopath.
Askins said about himself that he loved killing too much, and that he might have been a psychopath. He published articles about killing game in Vietnam in the early 1960's. Much later he admitted that he hunted men as much as animals while working there as an "advisor". Apparently he was pretty forthcoming about his worst behavior in his autobiography "Unrepentant Sinner". I wonder how his son turned out?

Re: What Book You Reading?

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"Upstairs" book - The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness) A loaner from my grand-daughter who reccommends it highly. Have read to title page but will be diving in tonight.

"Downstairs" book - Round The Bend (Nevil Shute). I owned a copy about 30 years ago, but sold it on to "make room". Note to self: NEVER sell a Nevil Shute - they are all fabulous. :)
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.
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Re: What Book You Reading?

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"The Knife of Never Letting Go" is on my list on the Overdrive app (along with the next 2 in the trilogy). I'll be curious about what you think, as I'm wavering over whether or not to read it.

Currently reading "Firefight" by Brandon Sanderson. Fun and interesting take on people with super powers.

Re: What Book You Reading?

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Just starting American War, a novel by Egyptian-Canadian journalist Omar El Akkad. Set in the year 2075, after a long civil war ending in an imperfect "peace," it recounts the events leading up to the war: intractable partisanship and the unscrupulous "leaders" who fed it to advance their own ends. The author draws on his personal experiences watching Middle Eastern societies implode and grafts those lessons onto a "what if" American failed state scenario. Look's to be a good read, and just perhaps a bit prescient (?)
Last edited by HuckleberryFun on Thu Apr 13, 2017 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Book You Reading?

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HuckleberryFun wrote:Just starting American War, a novel by Egyptian journalist Omar El Akkad. Set in the year 2075, after a long civil war ending in an imperfect "peace," it recounts the events leading up to the war: intractable partisanship and the unscrupulous "leaders" who fed it to advance their own ends. The author draws on his personal experiences watching Middle Eastern socities implode and grafts those lessons onto a "what if" American failed state. Look's to be a good read, and just perhaps a bit prescient (?)
I'm thinking Trinity's Child is more closely aligned to our present issue...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity%27s_Child
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.
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Re: What Book You Reading?

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Thorian wrote:"The Knife of Never Letting Go" is on my list on the Overdrive app (along with the next 2 in the trilogy). I'll be curious about what you think, as I'm wavering over whether or not to read it.

Currently reading "Firefight" by Brandon Sanderson. Fun and interesting take on people with super powers.
I'll try to remember to get back to you. :)
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.
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Re: What Book You Reading?

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I bought Grant Cunningham's Gun Digest Book of the Revolver. This isn't the kind of book you begin reading at the front. So I right away turned to the things of interest to me--nomenclature and function, for example--and immediately found out how much I don't know. I have two revolvers, Rugers, a GP100 and an old model Vaquero. I'm learning about forcing cones and how throats can be different sizes and thereby affect accuracy. I'd never cared much about accuracy--hand guns being defensive weapons at about three feet--until I started playing in our Bullseye league. Now I need to know stuff. So far, excellent information in an easily-readable, accessible style. Recommended for revolver shooters.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: What Book You Reading?

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CDFingers wrote:On Tyranny by T Snyder. "Twenty lessons from the Twentieth Century."
I thought I'd put this related article here.
One of the problems with American discourse is that we just assume everybody is a friendly democratic parliamentarian pluralist until proven otherwise. And then even when it’s proven otherwise we don’t have any vocabulary for it. He’s a “dictator,” he’s an “authoritarian,” he’s “Hitler.” We just toss these words around. The pushback that you are talking about is 95 percent bad. Americans do not want to think that there is an alternative to what we have. Therefore, as soon as you say “fascism” or whatever it might be, then the American response is to say “no,” because we lack the categories that allow us to think outside of the box that we are no longer in.

Is this a function of American Exceptionalism?

Yes, it is. We made a move towards intellectual isolationism in a world where no kind of isolationism is possible. The fact that democracies usually fail is a rule which can’t apply to us. If you examine American society, there are high points and low points. But there is certainly nothing which puts us in a different category than other people who have failed, whether it’s historically or whether it’s now.

I don’t want to dodge your question about whether Trump is a fascist or not. As I see it, there are certainly elements of his approach which are fascistic. The straight-on confrontation with the truth is at the center of the fascist worldview. The attempt to undo the Enlightenment as a way to undo institutions, that is fascism. Whether he realizes it or not is a different question, but that’s what fascists did. They said, “Don’t worry about the facts, don’t worry about logic, think instead in terms of mystical unities and direct connections between the mystical leader and the people.” That’s fascism. Whether we see it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we forget, that is fascism.

Another thing that’s clearly fascist about Trump were the rallies. The way that he used the language, the blunt repetitions, the naming of the enemies, the physical removal of opponents from rallies, that was really, without exaggeration, just like the 1920s and the 1930s.
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/01/histori ... democracy/

The article is not a review of On Tyranny, but it's in the topic.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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