Fourscore
Growing up I heard about the Depression frequently, always from my mother. My Dad was too busy trying to put bread on the table and was not one to complain. The school years’ text books mentioned it in passing, along with the New Deal but briefly, a historical marker.
Charles R. Morris’ book, A Rabble of Dead Money-The Great Crash and the Global Depression 1929-1939, takes an in-depth frightening look into the earlier causes and the good times of the ’20s.
The post-Depression results show up in the war years and the aftermath. We get the usual charts and graphs that contrast the changes and growth of our economy.
While we try to extrapolate those times into today’s world and to convince ourselves that things are different now we run into the unknowns. As we see the debt continue to grow we can only speculate on the outcome.
Will history repeat itself or have the Powers discovered some new laws of economics? Morris fills in a lot of info that many of us missed in our education. I can’t remember a word about the Depression in two semesters of Samuelson’s treatment of Economics.
If there is any interest I’ll be happy to send the book along.
Yusef
Over-ruled by Neil Gorsuch.
He spins a fascinating yet sad tale of the shit he’s seen as a judge. Very Libertarian in my view
Galaxia, death wave and Proxima/ Ultima by Steven Baxter
All 6 of these books have a common theme, multiverses and plots that look like I wrote them, juvenile but enough to follow the story. Im still working on the Churchill biography and should be finished by 2027 or so, and I read fast.
/Original Evelyn Woodhead
DEG
The Lee-Enfield Rifle by Major E.G.B. Reynolds – This book covers British military development of the Lee-Enfield rifle. It summarizes, as background, rifles from the 1853 Enfield through the Martini-Henry. It goes into a little detail on the Lee-Metford as the first Lee-Enfields were really just Lee-Metford rifles with a different barrel. Developments through the late 1950s are covered (the book was published in the UK in 1960, and in the USA in 1962). There is no coverage of any developments post 1960. There is very little coverage of non-British military use of the Lee-Enfield. There is nothing on commercial production. There is a chapter on Australia covering Lithgow and the No. 6 rifle. There is a little coverage of Canada. India gets one or two mentions. There are some British reports and schematic diagrams reprinted which I haven’t seen elsewhere.
The Broad Arrow Mk 2 by Ian Skennerton – An exciting and thrill packed sequel to The Broad Arrow. “Exciting and thrill packed” if you think “exciting and thrill” packed means having many more pages of history of British small arms weapons marking and many more pages of the marks themselves. Unfortunately, Skennerton shows again that he needs an editor.
zwak
The George V. Higgins I started seems to be a bust, and one of his few ones at that.
Still reading a lot of Flannery O’Connor shorts, with The Life You Save Might Be Your Own and The River being two of the best pieces I have read in that field.
Reread Tim Powers Last Call, a far out there (albeit World Fantasy Award Winner) novel of the Tarot, a reimagining of King Arthur, with TS Elliot’s The Waste Land, Browning’s Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came, and a hundred other literary allusions told though poker and Las Vegas.
Also, started rereading Dune, in preparation for reading Dune: Messiah. I had read it as a teen, and it wasn’t what I wanted, but I have decided to revisit it, as my wife told me it is vastly different, and much more than a book for kids. We shall see.
So, mostly just a reread-a-thon on the ZWAK front. But, some months are like that
CPRM
I’ve been reading Batman: Contagion. It was an interconnected story arc among all the Batman books in March and April of 1996, the version I’m reading collects all the issues into a single volume. The story is about a secret cabal that unleashes a deadly virus in Gotham City, a variant of Ebola. The story involves people quarantining, wearing masks, rioting, the government enforcing curfews and such. They even have to have reefer trailers to keep all the dead bodies in. Quite prescient now, I wonder how many journalists and politicians to be read this as children and had the best orgasm of their lives. The story is pretty good, but the art is all over the place. The 90s was a time when one artist’s art would be beautiful and another artist doing another book would have grotesque elongated scribbled together characters. It was also the advent of digital coloring, and a lot of the style in the color vanished for flat colors that 90s computers could render.
Beau Knott
The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
The author is Sri Lankan, which may account for the interesting new/old technology mix, as well as other aspects of the book.
Difficult to describe this one. Some of the writing is beautiful. Some of the themes are deep. The ending makes an entirely unexpected twist that is pretty satisfying. It dragged in places. Recommended with some hesitation.
Re-read <a href = https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12>Schlock Mercenary</a>. Excellent, funny, charming web comic that debuted 25 years ago on June 12. Available on the web address linked. Warning: have a good ad-blocker or you’ll go mad. Good virus protection too, in all likelihood.
It starts a bit slow and rough, but continues to improve as it goes. Highly recommended.
Paladin’s Hope, T. Kingfisher
What happens to a Paladin when his god dies? What does a physician do when he can’t deal with (live) people any longer? Lovely fantasy, well-crafted. Intelligent Badgers, quite well done. Characters I cared about even before it crafted a gay love story subplot. This, too, was well-crafted and well done. There are other books in the series (this is book three) which I’ll be reading.
James Alan Gardner is one of my favorite, generally reliable, fantasy & science fiction authors. I re-read All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault and They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded. Books 1 & 2 of what may be a 2 book series. A bit much with gender issues, but very good story telling and quite fun. Recommended, as is his League of Peoples series.
Re-read John Scalzi’s Starter Villain. A fun romp, recommended.
M. R. Carey, Echo of Worlds. Book 2 of a series (of 2); I found it worked as a stand-alone. It’s oddly reminiscent of Neal Asher’s World Walkers. I’m generally a big Asher fanboy, but I preferred EoW to WW.
Garth Nix, The Left-Handed Booksellers of London and The Sinister Booksellers of Bath. Nix is a quirky but talented author of (mostly) YA fantasy and science fiction. I re-read LHBoL when I saw there was a new(-ish) book in that setting. Both recommended, but read them in order.
The Hyperbole
I’ve hit my summertime reading slump early this year, I only managed to finish one book. The Dead Ringer by Fredric Brown 1949 ***½. Book 1 of the Ed and Am Hunter mysteries, if you believe Amazon’s numbering. I for one would call it Book 2, Amazon must not count The Fabulous Clipjoint as part of the series. That aside the boys are working a ball toss game with a carnival and must solve the murder of a naked midget, a Chimp, and a young boy. Good noir-ish mystery.
Old Man With Candy
I haven’t been able to read much for pleasure lately (so I’ll exclude Significant Liquid Structures by Henry Eyring), but I did dig though a box of books that SugarFree gave me the last time he was here. And there I ran across something I hadn’t read in years, Fred Hoyle’s A Is For Andromeda. Let’s be clear, for all of his fiction, Hoyle didn’t create deep and interesting characters, nor was his dialog as natural and clear as Clarke or Heinlein (for example). But his ideas were extraordinarily creative, and he was influential for people who ended up being a lot more successful. This book was no exception- he presaged Sagan’s Contact by many decades, and anything interesting in Sagan’s book was done far better here.
An alien signal has another message encoded in it, a digital palimpsest of sorts, directing humans to build a machine. Sound familiar? Sagan didn’t even file off the serial numbers when he stole this. When the machine is turned on, it spits out numbers and symbols clearly referring to some basic quantum mechanics, and this is a test of whether humans have reached a certain knowledge level. Ohhhh, like Clarke posited some years later in 2001. Hijinks ensue.
Fun, fun, fun to see these ideas in the original.
As always…
Remember if you would like to be included with all the cool kids email your reviews , criticisms , and or synopsis to whatarewereading25@proton.me by the last Monday of next month.
What is this trickery?
Hype is a crypto-Jew.
Sounds legit.
He wears a USB stick containing crypto wallets around his neck?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBaNYt0JHrc
LA riots.
New rule – anyone rioting in a mask is automatically shot with bean bags or rubber ammunition. No exceptions.
Chances are about 100% you’re hitting a commie so I can go along with this.
You know, let them destroy their own shit again. It’s not my problem. Don’t give them fed bucks to fix the place.
Live ammunition on those flying foreign flags. Fuck em. I’m through. The ones left can stretch a rope. These are actual insurrectionists and traitors. Give them what they’ve been yapping about for the J6ers.
Hey nerds, Amazon is now streaming a Dungeons & Dragons channel. 👹🐲🧝♀️
Must. Watch.
I. AM. IN.
Oh yes. Gimmie.
Which edition?
There Can Be Only One… Edition!
White Box or GTFO!
I don’t get it. What are they showing?
I just started checking it out today. So far it’s been the 80s cartoon and original programming, which includes campaigns with some semi famous peoples. Seen ads for some sort of cooking show too.
For Sean: https://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/
(and, yes, they are real pornstars)
It wants me to sign in to proceed. 😒
It pisses me off to see the disclaimer at the start of each cartoon episode about blah blah blah insensitive blah bloo product of its time, herpa derpa crap. Which, near as I can tell, exists because Venger and his orc minions were shown to have slaves in more than one episode, and there was one in which the kids were captured and enslaved briefly (and Diana, the Acrobat, is black.)
Yeah, Venger enslaved some people and each time the heroes cam along and freed the slaves. Your Evil Bad Guy has to be shown doing evil things, and since you’re not going to have him kill people in a kids’ cartoon, keeping slaves was the next most obviously evil thing he could be doing.
NO PORN FOR YOU!
@Grumbletarian
It pisses me off too.
I read Manifold Time and Manifold Space a while back. IIRC Manifold Time had one good chapter and the rest was extremely meh, Manifold Space started out okay but then became the most depressing scifi book I can remember reading. Never bothered with the third Manifold book.
I liked them OK but I have almost no memory of them. I remember the “coalescence” books better. I haven’t read anything from him in ages but keep meaning to.
I’m reading “Eisenhower 1956” by one David A. Nichols. It’s an account of the 1956 Suez Crisis–another of our punches on the Middle Eastern tar baby. The author seems to think Eisenhower did the right thing; I’m not convinced yet.
Ike had a heart attack in the early stages of it and it’s funny to see how the doctors did absolutely everything wrong in treating him for it.
Did they switch him from Camels to Marlboros?
UNFILTERED CAMELS!
No, they switched him to lights: Pall Malls.
TMI warning: Just started prep for a colonoscopy tomorrow. I’m guessing I’ll be here a bit this evening. “Reasonable fear” in my horoscope was not the best news. Meanwhile the Mrs and I spent 5 hours cleaning the gym today. She kept forgetting I’m not allowed to eat, and asked if I was hungry 3 or 4 times. Jerk. 😉
To keep on topic, I miss reading, Haven’t had the time or inclination in months.
Good Luck. How are you and your toilet in friendship?
Ron says you need to be more stoic.
Considering what Ron just went through, I’d agree.
Oof. Enjoy being up all night and near a bathroom.
They’re having me take a few over the counter things instead of that giant jug of salt water. Supposedly this is less traumatic. We’ll see.
👍
Good luck, TOK. I just had mine two weeks ago, and everything came out okay in the end.
Intermittent fasting helped prepare me for the low fiber then liquid diet.
Still sucked, butt one does what one must.
👁️
Thank you. I spent time with my mom and dad and siblings this weekend. Dad failed his Cologuard test like I did. But they all said we don’t have a family history and every one of them had a clear colonoscopy.
Cleaning the Gym is a nice bit of phrasing for colonoscopy.
NICE!
I thought A is for Andromeda was a Sue Grafton mystery.
Lousy tag fail.
Alaska yells at you.
“Tim Powers Last Call”
Man, I liked that book. Not Declare-level, but I still liked it a bunch. I should re-read.
I’m sitting on a balcony in San Juan, which means I’m vacation reading: I finished Anima The Crider Chronicles and rolled into Sky of Diamonds ; book one is quite the change of pace but I’m enjoying it.
*Salutes Animal and Slumbrew*
Having revisited both lately, my appreciation for Declare has gone up, but it is not at Last Call level. That book is just out of control good.
WE?
I thought this was a libertarian site.
Slutty Sunday doesn’t read, do you think it’s gay or something?
https://archive.is/TcgYY
Slutty Sunday definitely Firsts. Is totally not gay.
The Jews are after the tard!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/08/israel-katz-threatens-to-use-all-necessary-measures-to-stop-gaza-bound-aid-ship
I would not believe the Guardian if they told me the sun rises in the east.
Fuck you, Erich, I’m in the west now!
Hyperbole needs someone to audit his tag usage, there is no Kitbash related information in this article.
On the Steelers signing Aaron Rodgers, not that too many here care:
How does old man Rodgers differ from old man Ben? Honestly, old man Ben probably had more flashes of greatness than Rodgers showed last year. This team was eager to force Ben out after his swan song season. They didn’t want him back only to sign an aging declined veteran of the same age a few years later after several failed experiments. Kind of disrespectful, no? How do you sell this guy as the savior of your season?
I know people hated Ben in and outside the Steelers fandom so it was fun to rip him, but people don’t even like Aaron Rodgers.
Beyond that, I’m just looking for entertainment here and Rodgers is more entertaining than any other option. At least off the field. But please, someone make this shit actually make sense.
Then what other concessions will they make to Rodgers that they didn’t give Ben? Does he get to *gasp* override his OC in his final season and actually call his own plays? Ben was neutered for the pride of Matt fucking Canada. Are they going to bring in a scrub like Lazard to appease this guy?
They aren’t winning anything this year regardless or anytime in the near future in my view, so who really cares? But if I was Ben, I think you’d have every right to be salty. I’d have much rather watched 42 year old Ben try to play than the shit show that was Kenny Picket/Mitch Trubisky.
Addendum: I have nothing against Rodgers. Not bitching about the signing in itself. I just laugh at how desperate this organization has become and how stupid their decision making actually is. Let’s force out our HOF QB just to fuck around for 3 seasons and then sign a guy just as old as he was to…what? Preserve NHALS? How fucking pathetic is that? How sad is Mediocre Mike at the end of the day?
Reading that almost makes me want to start watching the Seahawks again, just to see how bad they’re doing.
Almost.
You guys get to watch Sam Darnold do his thing. You should be eternally pleased.
Oh, come on! We have to watch the SeaChickens loose. It is in our blood.
As a Ravens fan, I heartily approve of this signing.
Stupid decision making is mandatory in the AFC North. See every decision the Browns have made since Paul Brown got shoved out the door and every decision the Bengals have made since Paul Brown got shoved in the grave. Oh well, maybe the Bengals will be the first team in history to win a championship with no defense, no offensive line, and $100,000,000 a year going to the QB and two wide outs.
As a modest football fan at best, I am amused at the lengths the league goes to in order to achieve “parity”… and how colossally that effort fails. Repeat for all American leagues.
The “Quality Assurance Handbook for Air Pollution Measurement Systems: Stationary Source-Specific Methods, Vol. 3”
A real page-turner.
I’m in your boat. I’ve been re-reading an old text book instead of doing an internet deep dive.
Swiss partially, er mostly, oh… Somewhat drunk on his 59th birthday? Go to the Zoom and you can judge.
Happy birthday, youngster.
Happy Birthday Swiss.
HBD! 🎉🎂🥳🎈
Birthday music…
Happy birthday, you whippersnapper!
Fine. https://youtube.com/shorts/dWOG_FANRnU
59? Would have never guessed, you don’t look a day over 58.
Some say I am not even looking like a 70 year old…
That’s two of us, Swiss
If I look half as good as you do at your age, I’d jut my chin out and boast.
Some say he is not that good looking, and that he eats Chicago dogs with ketchup!
We call him… The Swiss!
Happy, birthday, Swiss, and let’s celebrate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F4qczPKUGg
Yahoo!
Thanks, Fourscore…from you that means a Helluva lot!
Is that the “left turn at Albuquerque” sign ?
Pretty much, yes.
I was talking to a former employee tonight- retired Navy, and he spent 15 years in submarine service. Contrasting my time in aviation he said “look- theres more aircraft in the ocean than there are submarines in the air.”
I laughed.
There are more submarines sunk by aircraft than aircraft downed by submarines.
Happy birthday, fellow Gemini! It was double-nickels for me, yesterday.
Only slightly drunk but rather sunburned, so I’ll pass on the Zoom in favor of bed, but salute you with the last of this boulevardier.
Un brindis para el cumpleañero. – ¡Salud!
55 and alive, you’re living the high life, Slummy. Keep on keepin’ on!
Thanks Forescore. Doing pretty well, all things considered.
“Good problem to have” time: while packing I found out my summer clothes are all too big, since I’ve dropped about 20 lbs since January from cutting carbs.
Reginald Perrin omnibus. Started it and then got distracted as I’m wont to do.
A pretty good take on the “Big Beautiful Bill.
Re-reading Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls, passing time with books I own waiting for a John C.Wright book to drop mid-June.
Oh, also reading, of-and-on, Geo. Thomas’ Workshop Techniques, which will allow me to make my own dividing head for my mill. If I didn’t already have one to repair, which is why I picked this up.
I made the mistake of buying ($6.99) Benjamin Franklin on Amazon. It was too late when I realized it was Ken Burns and PBS doing the story-telling.
Every achievement, triumph, and accolade he was given was followed by each historian saying, “but he owned slaves”.
I didnt even make 30 minutes.
Achievements and triumphs are so white.
Just ask the Smithsonian.
“a gay love story subplot”
*grinds teeth*
“ A bit much with gender issues”
Oh, FFS.
I’m reading the Reacher novels, in chronological (not publication) order. Competent (mostly) mindless fun. So far, the author hasn’t been jerking off to tranny porn, so they’ve got that going for them.
<a href="https://www.tokyoreporter.com/japan-news/breaking/woman-crashes-car-into-dennys-in-yokosuka/"「アロハ スナックバー!!!」
Gah!
「アロハ スナックバー!!!」
Forescore, reading about the Great Depression always leads me to a pet theory (or maybe lots of economists and observers of philosophical and cultural phenomena have it too) that it warped the “Greatest Generation,” resulting in the growth of dependence – if not down right reverence – for government involvement in our lives. They grew up with the trauma of insecure employment for their parents, of New Deal propaganda that Keynesian borrowing and the federal government’s policies saved the country. Then the War came and they became used to regimentation, doing what their superiors demanded of them whether it was storming a beach or counting out ration stamps. And they won, so maybe the heavy hand of government intervention and planning was the way of the future? They were the teachers and parents of the Boomers, laying down the foundation for the New Frontier, the Great Society, and that rugged individualism and laissez faire was not only wrong, but evil; that government experts and making people (here and around the world) do “what’s best for them” was how “our democracy” should operate. Most people embraced it, the culture embraced it, then the political parties embraced it. And here we are living the government the “Greatest Generation” envisioned.
My dad’s parents were hard core Roosevelt Dems due in no small part to the depression, and they were the conservative side of the family.
Mom.s parents were Leninists.
But, previous to the depression, the world was in the grips of the Great Man theory of existence. It was on the mind of every writer, politician, clergyman, and so on, going back to WWI and the end of the age of kings. Smart people, not inbred “royalty” was the way to go. Remember, there were very few frontiers at that time, and they were held by savages, as the ennobled western man thought of them.
My folks were apolitical but my mother was convinced that Roosevelt was the savior. I remember a little, as I was too young, but we had our Victory Garden, such as it was. Shady back yard, my Dad dug up a small spot . I don’t recall any produce and maybe there was a few radishes or something but the neighborhood peer pressure was evident, I guess.
We learned in school to stand in line for the drinking fountain, go to the connecting hallway and lean against the wall or person in front of you and clasp your hands over your head to protect yourself from falling debris. This was in Mpls, about as far from either coast as possible.
The ’60s counterculture negated some of that but it was too late. You’re on to something, as opposed to being on something.
I think the panic of 1893 is the inflection point. The country had a choice, and they resoundingly chose the progressive era and empire building. McKinley->Roosevelt->Taft->Wilson was an increasing shift away from the constitutional order and toward the fascist empire we find ourselves in today.
FDR and the greatest generation were raised in that culture and merely mashed the accelerator when given the opportunity.
Yes, the slide goes way back, even unto Washington’s time. But most people rejected the socialist nonsense until the shock of the Great Depression hit and, as you say, “mashed the accelerator.”
And yet somehow large segments of those same baby boomers got on board with Reagan republicanism and social conservatism. [Much] smaller chunks under libertarianism.
Even before that though, the culture of baby boomer youth was against traditional society and morality and embracing very individualistic gratification.
I’d take zombie grifter Harry Browne over 🤡 💩 ChaseOliver.
“La Plage” (The Plague) by Albert Camus – Reading more untranslated Camus to improve my French, although it’s bringing back bad memories of infectious diseases and government countermeasures.
“Unprovoked” by Scott Horton – Yes, still reading this one. I’m on the chapter about Trump’s first term, specifically the Russian collusion hoax. That could have been a great book on its own.
“The Upanishads” translated by Eknath Easwaran – Part of my continued effort to explore the great “wisdom texts” of the world. I think it almost always leads to life-changing insights if you sit around pondering how we got here, for what reason, what we are supposed to do, and what happens when we’re gone. And I enjoy comparing and contrasting what the results have been in different times and places.
Holy shit, “La Peste”, not “La Plage”. It’s not a story about a fucking beach.
Selon La Science, on ferme La Plage pendant La Peste.
Monday. And my vacation is over.
🙁
Bummer.
Everything is still stupid out there, plan accordingly Glibs.
😡🥾🍑☔️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MDpGCTdJxw
🎶🎶
Good morning.
I see that.
suh’ fam
whats goody
You’re early.
We don’t punch a timecard for you.
Insomnia.
You’re right on time with your complaints. :-p
Mornin’, y’all. I’m on my first break. I get the ‘worst’ part of my work done by nine, then is the cakiest bit.
I’ll look over what y’all read. I’m actually on full rest for the first time in a while, spent most yesterday sleeping after work.
Bring on The Talent, Wally. My eyes are peeled. Have a fruitful Mon, everybody. Thrilled at 2 I’m off work for 60hrs.
Now 12yo nephew won a 5k meet yesterday. No shit, born to run.
Good morning, EfE, homey, U, Ted’S., Sean, and ChipP!
I overslept a little! 😳 Good thing I leave myself so much extra time!
Morning.
Whatever you do, don’t rush or panic.
::takes slow, deep breaths::
Morning Everyone!
“Early to bed, early to rise” and then B. Franklin and I part ways. The rest is lies, lies, and more damned lies
Good morning, 4(20)! rise/lies – You’re a poet and you didn’t even realize it! 😉
Kindly old Fourscore
Makes honey, but with gore.
He steals from the bees,
And then lets them freeze.
(For those who like a clerihew.)
I’ll see your clerihew and raise you 1 Spamku.
You cannot be told
what the SPAM is; you have to
see it for yourself.
That background….