Category Archives: Books
Trump explains his favorite Bible stories
From the Washington Post, by Alexandra Petri:
William Barr Reads “Moby-Dick,” Finds No Evidence of Whales
From The New Yorker, by Andy Borowitz in “The Borowitz Report”:
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Attorney General William Barr has just read the classic American novel “Moby-Dick,” by Herman Melville, and found that the book contains “no evidence whatsoever of whales,” Barr stated on Tuesday.
The Attorney General issued his statement on the absence of whales in the Melville classic in a two-paragraph book report released to the news media.
“Those who read ‘Moby-Dick’ looking for whales will be sorely disappointed,” Barr wrote. “There are no whales here.”
To illustrate his point, Barr quoted the book’s first sentence: “Call me Ishmael.”
“As you can clearly see, that sentence does not have a whale in it,” Barr wrote.
The Attorney General indicated that he hoped his report would put an end to “reckless speculation” about the existence of whales in “Moby-Dick.” “It’s time to move on,” he wrote.
Barr disclosed that, after waiting years to read “Moby-Dick,” he was able to finish reading it in approximately fifteen minutes.
From Your Lips to God’s Ear, Ann.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter says she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to soften his stance on immigration.
“I think this is a mistake. It sounds like it’s coming from consultants,” she said Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” where she questioned why there is now talk about “softening the lies of lawbreakers.”
“I’ve thought he’s made other mistakes, and I’ve given him constructive criticism when I think he makes a mistake. I think this is a mistake.”
Coulter said Trump’s recent comments about softening “sounded very consultant to me.”
“This could be the shortest book tour ever if he’s really softening his position on immigration,” she said, referring to her newly released book, “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!”
Lock Up Your Textbooks, Here Comes Mary Lou
From The Daily Kos–written by Hunter:
“Texas Republicans’ drive to find the stupidest people in the state and elect them to office seems, if anything, to be picking up steam.
[Republican Mary Lou Bruner] received 48 percent of the vote in a three-person GOP primary for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education this Tuesday, falling just short of the 50 percent needed to claim victory. She will compete in a May runoff election against Keven Ellis, a chiropractor and city school board president who earned 31 percent of the vote.
Some things that Mary Lou Bruner has stated she believes: Obama used to be a gay prostitute. Climate change is a hoax promoted by the communists and, specifically, by Karl Marx himself. Slavery is not the reason for the American Civil War, but we have been led to think that through a conspiracy by historians who “waited until all of the people who were alive during the Civil War and the Restoration died of old age.” School shootings started only after “the schools started teaching evolution.” That there may have been dinosaurs on Noah’s ark, and the reason there are no dinosaurs now is that Noah only brought baby dinosaurs that starved to death when he let them loose back on land.
Presuming that Texas Republicans do not find their long-lost sense of shame between now and this May—and evidence that they will is sparse—she is likely to become one of the most powerful people in America when it comes to content of the textbooks Texas children, and therefore children in quite a few other states besides, find on their desks in coming years.
An openly raving Damn Lunatic. It may be time to consider walling the state of Texas off. I am not ruling out an airlift to rescue the remaining sane people.”
Me first.
Will Obama Stop at Nothing?
Sounds pretty fishy to me.
Harper Lee, whose debut novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” immortalized her name with its story of justice and race in a small Southern town and became a classic of American literature, has died. She was 89.
Her death was confirmed Friday by the City Hall in Monroeville, Alabama, where she lived.
In a statement, Lee’s family said, “The family of Nelle Harper Lee, of Monroeville, Alabama, announced today, with great sadness, that Ms. Lee passed away in her sleep early this morning. Her passing was unexpected. She remained in good basic health until her passing. The family is in mourning and there will be a private funeral service in the upcoming days, as she had requested.”
I Just Laughed and Laughed…
I saw this in a comment on Franklin Graham’s Facebook page. You remember Franklin. He’s the son of the Rev. Billy Graham and the one who, when Katie Couric practically begged him to say something comforting when he appeared on TV on the dark day after 9/11, said that he hoped the people in those doomed towers had gotten “right with God” beforehand, or else…you know…they were going to the hot, burny place down below. I despise that man. But I loved this.
Finally… “I Tried Being Tasteful…” the book!
Well, it was like giving birth to a cannonball, but I finished getting the book edited, proofed and angsted over enough to submit it to Amazon.com for publishing. So it is “live” for your viewing (and hopefully, buying) pleasure. The Kindle edition may or may not be coming soon. I’ve gotten mixed messages from them over content, so it just depends on who reviews it, I guess. Let’s hope I get someone who wasn’t potty trained too early and tends toward an anal retentive personality. We’ll see.
Kindle Update: So I did get an anal retentive for content reviewer and they’re not letting me publish on Kindle because I have one small excerpt from Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem The Land of Counterpane” that was published in 1905. Consequently, they’re saying that material is “widely available” on the internet, so I can’t include it in my copyright. I’m assuming that’s what the problem is because they don’t bother to tell you. Oh, well. The book’s still available in the old-fashioned way as a hard copy. Sorry. 😦
Kindle Update 2.0: I emailed the Kindle folks yesterday and asked them to please let me know what content they were objecting to and I got a reply from a different person this time who included a link to one of my own blog posts. This person was allowing me to re-submit my book files for consideration, at least. The last bimbo completely axed it from the site. So I jumped through some more hoops and we’ll see (again) in a couple of days if I get dispensation for my sin of claiming rights to my own work. Sheesh.
Kindle Update (Final): Okay, so now they’ve approved my book for Kindle and it’s live on Amazon.com. Apparently another reviewer felt it did, indeed, meet their guidelines for publishing. Woo hoo. No sales of either version yet, but I remain optimistic. I have big plans for that $1.95 in royalties.
Anyway, thank you to everyone who commented (or lurked and didn’t comment but laughed along with us) on my blog posts “Notes From The Elder Care Underground” which was the heart and soul of this book.
Your kind words and encouragement meant a lot to me. This one is for you.
Coming Soon—I Tried Being Tasteful…—The Book!
I’m sure there are hordes of people out there (well, maybe three or four) who’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing with myself since my last post a month ago. And no, I haven’t been doing that, but I have been toiling away at the computer and will be bringing forth the fruits of my labor presently in the form of a compilation of my blog posts from “The Elder Care Underground.”
I got the idea from my good bloggy friend over at Lame Adventures who produced a book of her own with the help of Amazon.com’s Createspace self-publishing website. I had no clue it was even possible to do this, especially since I was a Word program “virgin.” (I guess Bristol Palin was right—we can get our virginity back!) But Amazon makes it relatively easy with templates to download and a book cover creator that’s fun to use.
Virginia at L.A. had hoped to publish her book by the last holiday season but had to shoot for allergy season instead. I had hoped to publish mine by my birthday this year—which is today, coincidentally—but I’m shooting for one of my birthdays this century. Actually, I’m waiting for another printed proof to arrive and hope to approve the whole enchilada shortly thereafter. Then it should go “live” on Amazon’s website for the low, low price of $9.95 plus shipping. I plan to have it available on Kindle also, for you advanced individuals who know how to run one of those.
I’m kind of a Luddite when it comes to electronics and prefer to have a physical book in hand. Maybe it goes back to when I was in school in the Dark Ages and we would get mimeographed hand out sheets from the teacher and we all would swoon from the smell of the ink they used.
Anyway, stay tuned for further updates. I have to say it is a real hoot to see my name on an actual book—even a 6″ x 9″ trade paperback as this one will be.
God bless technology. (And the folks who make ink.)
Eat, Pray, Love: The Verdict
Okay…I’ll admit it. I was prepared to really dislike this book.
As I said in my earlier post, I’d read some less than glowing reviews where the critics groused about Elizabeth Gilbert’s self-absorption, etc.
But she had me from page 14:
“Traditionally, I have responded to the transcendent mystics of all religions. I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture or in a distant throne in the sky, but instead abides very close to us indeed—much closer than we can imagine, breathing right through our own hearts.”
As a yoga practitioner of a number of years, a second level Reiki devotee , and student of all things psychic, this is right up my proverbial alley. Rather than go into a long explanation, please see my post “Playing Poker with Tarot Cards.”
This book resonated with me on several other levels. I, too, went through a divorce that knocked the slats out from under me, although my husband did the leaving and I was the one who was left.
In my situation, I had two young children and was just starting out on what was supposed to by “my turn” at an education and a chance at a potentially well-paying job.
Instead, I was faced with a husband of ten years who decided he didn’t like domesticity anymore and wanted out. Not in the mere two years of professional schooling it would take me to become self-sufficient, but immediately.
Plus, he was a lawyer.
I remember waking up alone, early in the morning after he finally left us. The sun was just coming up. Everything looked the same but everything had changed. I felt like I was being pressed down into the bed by a heavy weight. What the hell was I going to do now?
Well, I didn’t take to my bed and I soldiered on and got help from family (even his family) and made it through without him.
Along the way, I met the man who would become my husband of 34 years as of this posting. He reminds me a lot of Felipe in that he’s 11 years my senior and said the same thing to me that Felipe told Elizabeth:
“I want to take care of you forever.”
And so far, he has more than lived up to that declaration.
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I’m not a traveler, not by a long shot. I like my own little bed and my own bathroom and can’t imagine just taking off and turning up in some foreign land with no idea where I’m going to stay. I admire Gilbert’s ability to do this and the way she describes it all in such a self-deprecating, conversational tone.
Some people have said the middle part about India drags, but since I was very familiar with all the concepts she presented, I guess I have a built-in appreciation. (Having attempted meditation on several occasions, “monkey mind” can be an understatement. In my case, it was more like a barrelful of them.)
I like writers who use humor and vivid description but without so much convoluted wordiness that I have to backtrack several times over paragraphs to understand what I just read. Sure, I like to be challenged; but I don’t think I need to be exhausted after a couple hours of reading. I found EPL mentally refreshing, like a dip in the pool.
I love to read, but sometimes I’ve come across books where I keep paging ahead to see just how much longer I have to labor at it. That didn’t happen here.
I didn’t want this one to end.
“Eat, Pray, Love” was definitely worth the $3.39 plus $3.99 shipping.
(As for the movie….I may even see it before it comes out on DVD.) 🙂
I Tried Being Tasteful... 