Since earlier today I had my first, well, somebody said wingnut troll, but anyway, maybe it's time to really hit the highlife and have a weekend-long open thread.
So whatcha planning on reading this summer?
Wingnuts welcome, but please don't tell me "your" planning on reading Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. They have their own websites. Go there instead with my blessing. And take along a spelling dictionary, okay?
I plan on a lot of mind-wasting romantic junk, so don't be shy. And post anything else you have on your mind or your blog too. Here's your chance to pimp shamelessly.
I'm reading Eric Boehlert's Lapdogs and then after that Helen Thomas's Watchdogs of Democracy?. They were both sent to me by Simon and Schuster and Scribner's after they'd emailed me asking for a review.
ReplyDeleteLapdogs is a pretty dam,nhed good book. My favorite chapter so far is chapter three, in which he giveth the smackdown to ABC's The Note (altho chapter four, in which he takes down GOP bloggers, is pretty good, too).
American Theocracy and Watchdogs..that troll is hitting everybody today..he needs a job..he's got way too much time on his hands..and he's so vicious and anal oriented..if its the same one.
ReplyDeleteI'm finishing up on The Book Thief. Yes, I recommend it. Long, but very moving.
ReplyDeleteOne of my writer friends is sending me an advance copy (PDF) of her book. That's next up on my list.
read? None of you have seen my backyard. Really, all you smarty-pants lefties should stop reading books with big words and big ideas. TV gives me all the information I need to stack boulders and nail timbers together.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with books can be illustrated by my experience last night. I finished Joan Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking" just before falling asleep. Woke up three hours later so deeply disturbed that I could not sleep. So, what good did that do, I ask you?
i am planning on jimmy carter's 'our endangered values,' and thomas l. freidman's 'the world is flat: a brief history of the 21st century.' i am currently reading robert jordan's the wheel of time series ( i dig sci-fi stuff like lord of the rings tyoe stuff) and am currently on book 6. i'll probably tool through the constitution a few more times too. :)
ReplyDeleteI never post on open threads. Never.
ReplyDeletei have a few bukowski books i want to reread and i'd like to get franken's book. i have a book of poems that i happily agreed to critique for someone before he sends it to the publisher. i also have "a short history of myth" by karen armstrong and "not in kansas anymore" by christine wicker.
ReplyDeleteShamelessly pimp? Is there any other kind of pimping?
ReplyDeleteThis summer, I intend to read, How to Leg-Press 2,000 lbs, by Pat Robertson. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
ahem
A friend of mine loaned me God's Politics, by Jim Wallis, so I feel sort of obligated to read that. But in a nod to Faux News' unwavering dedication to their "Fair & Balanced" tagline, I think I'll follow that up with The End of Faith, by Sam Harris.
Hi Beege - I'm going to pimp the Kvatch's Kommandos site today, as I am deploying mine all over the San Fernando Valley this weekend. My hundred troops will be fighting the War Against War.
ReplyDeleteMy reading list? I just got my copies of David Sirota's "Hostile Takeover" and Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy" from Amazon, so that ought to do me for the weekend. Hope yours is great!
Ah, yes - I remember my first troll; congratulations!
Still reading "Crazy" by Pete Earley, which tells two stories at once - his son's battle with mental illness and his own investigation into the totally screwed-up mental health care system in this country. Excellent, but very sad. It will make you angry. That along with a few dozen student papers. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading mostly non-fiction these days. I'm not reading anything at the moment, but the past month I have read biographies of Mao Tse-Tung, John Brown, John Lennon, and the Max Schmelling/Joe Louis boxing match.
ReplyDeleteEveryman -Roth, it's a cheerful romp on the Ferris Wheel, with an ice cream cone in one hand and the throbbing manifestation of all mankind's evil thoughts in the other. then you fall off and boom, you're dead (just like "everyman"). on the way down you notice you have lower back pain and fallen arches. oh, oh, and your gums are bleeding.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading "The Messiah of Morris Avenue" by Tony Hendra. I highly recommend it! (I should have finished it long ago, but. . damned blogs!) lol
ReplyDeleteOh, and Threadingwater. . Reading is a good thing. .in moderation. If you read too much though, you will become a liberal. ;)
I read but have no trolls, Nazis, child molesters, or Republicans sending hate mail. It's not fair!
ReplyDeleteI've been reading Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time saga for a long time. I am about 3 or 4 books "behind" on keeping up with the most recent. I think the most recent book in this series is book 12, and I think the last one I read was #8, so I've got some catching up to do.
ReplyDeleteAre there any liberal books that give talking points about how to answer people who take you out of your liberal talking points confort zone?
ReplyDeleteSpelling correctly is very important but being able to debate ideas outside of the confort zone is a priority in my mind.
Intellecuals talk about ideas. Small minded people talk about other people. you know, the politics of personal destruction.
Dogma is dogma whether its Christian or liberal. Intolerance is intolerance no matter how you spell it.
If people are truly intellectual they don't have to announce it. I gave a link that any inquiring mind would at least be curious about but I get the feeling that nobody here read this link http://www.nhinet.org/ryn18-1.htm or if you did you certainly didn't know what to make of it.
I get the feeling that you read books so somebody else can tell you what you think. You are adrift if someone gives you a link that you cannot idenity as safely liberal.
I thought being progressive meant that everyone had free speech and the emphasis was on ideas and debate. I still think that.
If you mistake ideas that are threatening to liberal dogma as rightwing trolls then I feel sorry for you.
I'm sorry I made you feel unconfortable. I will leave so that you can return to being a megaphone for the liberals who obviously know better than you.
I wish you luck in getting laws that make gay marriage legal and I hope the Ten commandments are put in their proper place.
I hope that you can convert Franklin Graham into a liberal like Rahm Emanuel who will determine which candidates get the nomination in future elections.
Be sure and vote for Hillary. Don't do anything unperdictable or somebody might question your loyality to the liberal dogma and everything that is American.
Confort zone? Where's that at?
ReplyDeleteWell this may be an off topic book but im reading "Wicked" if you read it carefully you will find alot of political material.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm reading Landscape Turned Red, The Battle of Antietam and i've got on order, Appalachian Studies. Wish I had more time for reading.
ReplyDeleteJuly Canute said...
ReplyDeleteIf people are truly intellectual they don't have to announce it. I gave a link that any inquiring mind would at least be curious about but I get the feeling that nobody here read this link http://www.nhinet.org/ryn18-1.htm or if you did you certainly didn't know what to make of it.
I get the feeling that you read books so somebody else can tell you what you think. You are adrift if someone gives you a link that you cannot idenity as safely liberal.
July Canute
I checked your link. Other than being boring as hell i didn't see anything there truly shocking. Maybe I'm just to Liberal. Honestly I didn't read very farI like to think so anyway. By the way I get the feeling that you're a pompous windbag and I got the same feeling about "Leo Strauss".
Ciao
Yea i gathered from July Cantus post that she is very anti semtic and one those "Jews contol the Media" crazies ........ Hopefully she will go to Israel and jump in front of a bulldozer.........
ReplyDeleteYou can't have an open-thread without people saying cheesy things:
ReplyDeleteCheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!
There. Now your open thread in complete.
July: Straussian types tend to lean toward neo-con thinking, so this sure as heck isn't about any "liberal elite" you might be crowing about. There is no "liberal elite" in this country, not anymore. Perhaps you might enlighten us as to exactly what part of American anything liberals control these days?
ReplyDelete- Not a single branch of the federal government.
- Not most statehouses.
- Not the media (most media owned by giant multi-nationals: not the most liberal thinking outfits on the planet.
- Certainly not most organized religions.
Please find another red herring to fish with.
And that wisecrack about bulldozers by anonymous wasn't very helpful. Or very funny.
It happened again: that was me. What is with this thing?
ReplyDeleteOh dear, maybe I'm just an idiot, but I can't make heads nor tails of what July Canute says.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or do this person's comments make no sense whatsoever?
Probably just me.
Hey, Blue Gal! *waves* I haven't commented in a very long while, but I think your blog is wonderful.
Keep up the good work!
I'll be reading Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn by Thomas C. Hubka. It focuses on why buildings in New England evolved the way they did.
ReplyDeleteAnd, hopefully, some kind of good trashy novel.