The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    OH NO

    By artappraiser on Sat, 01/01/2022 - 12:23am |

    A great number of people active Twitter are mourning as they will no longer be able to have Betty White trending as a joke that she is not dead. crying

    Harry Reid & the Whores that Bore Him

    By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 12/30/2021 - 2:30am |

    An affecting memorial to Harry Reid and how we hardly knew him - his tough wielding of soft power. Also a reminder of when Democrats represented flyover country, and the irony of the quixotic Christian faith that imbues it. I suppose opioids and NetFlix have created a different kind of flyover. I wonder how the free range gun idea went over in depression-era deserty Nevada.

    https://digbysblog.net/2021/12/29/remembering-reid/

    Don't Look At All?

    By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/28/2021 - 4:43am |

    Bookending the horrificly badly played but popular "Don't Look Up" with "Orange is the New Black", wondering how much of our education and views are shaped by the new streaming culture. This is not the 60's version of "that show/music is going to warp your mind" - at least the content like Ozark or Breaking Bad is a full-on onslaught of a Max Headroom virtual reality. A full-on mindfuck dystopian show like Mr. Robot can cause some cognitive dissonance/disorientation when you leave the screen.

    2022 Booklist?

    By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 12/20/2021 - 7:58am |

    Nice to have a big batch of unknown books to consider reading, eh?

    New Years Resolution, "read more (non-politics)"?

    We shall see. But picking at least 1 book out of the list is probably useful.

    Orion's picture

    Dark secrets of German museums

    By Orion on Thu, 12/16/2021 - 3:28pm |

    It's easy to cast a people as having no history when you've stolen their history. 

    Orion's picture

    "The future of education - Virtual learning"

    By Orion on Thu, 12/16/2021 - 3:22pm |

    It makes a whole lot more sense and will benefit a whole lot more people worldwide to get lessons straight from the source, instead of from glorified babysitters who facilitate a prolonged adolescence in students.

     

    Jimmy Carter = Captain America

    By artappraiser on Thu, 12/16/2021 - 1:13pm |

    I noticed this meme went viral yesterday:

    Jimmy Carter was the closest thing we ever had to a Captain America. https://t.co/Sb2sXykHaQ

    — Cheryl Lynn Eaton (@cheryllynneaton) December 16, 2021

    Life in Lagos [warning, also ad]

    By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/14/2021 - 12:41pm |

    I hear enough about Lagos, especially its past and future growth, but never see videos, so here's one (yes, they're advertising chocolate)

    https://youtu.be/G370iT251-w

    Jews & the Russian Revolution

    By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 12/13/2021 - 7:16pm |

    Fascinating tale of the changes for Jews in the late 1800s/early 1900s, including massive Jewish involvement in the disenfranchised revolutionary (or "nothing to lose") set.

    https://www.jpost.com/magazine/was-the-russian-revolution-jewish-514323

    Orion's picture

    The Terrifying Collapse of the Plains Indians

    By Orion on Mon, 12/13/2021 - 3:43pm |

    A Celt will soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as the red man on the banks of Manhattan." - The London Times, smug, triumphant editorial, 1848, at the height of Ireland's "famine".( genocide not famine)

     

    Orion's picture

    Mini-Documentary And Radio Show / Lux Radio Theatre's Made for Each Other Starring Carole Lombard

    By Orion on Sat, 12/04/2021 - 12:13am |

    This is just terrific!!! It looks like the Covid lockdowns finally gave some people the time to be creative.

    Colton Underwood Comes Out and Comes Clean

    By artappraiser on Mon, 11/29/2021 - 11:50pm |

    I had no idea that reality TV had come such a long way from the improved stereotypes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. If we're not going to get them to read, at least they're getting the complexity of a good novel. -

    Could things have been different?

    By A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 11/20/2021 - 1:45am |

    I had some knowledge of the subject of the interview on Bloggingheads.tv linked below but listening to the author spurred my interest to know more, so I looked him up. Turns out the author, Steven Kinzer, wrote another book I read in the past and also highly recommend called "The True Flag".  I ordered  "The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War" [Free on "Audible"] which makes a convincing case that two individuals, brothers, had sway over pivotal points in American history and why the author believes  the CIA’s organizational structure has lead, and continues to lead, to U.S. interventionism around the world. I think anyone interested in U.S. foreign policy and who believes that our history has anything to do with our present, might find this to be both interesting and informative.

     

     

    A good example of how the rich of today

    By artappraiser on Thu, 11/18/2021 - 12:31am |

    are not the same as the rich of the Reagan era:

    Orion's picture

    CAN INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SAVE THE WORLD?

    By Orion on Thu, 11/11/2021 - 5:09pm |

    I didn't expect this! Great find.

     

     

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