High Winds and Rain

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The combination of high winds and rain has made the weather interesting, getting up out of bed this morning, but the blue blanket was left on the writing desk. It looks like the temperature only dropped into the forties. But it definitely looks and feels like it is going to be a wintry day, at least in a wet, overcast, autumnal kind of way - the southwestern way.

xXx

High Winds and Rain

♠
The combination of high winds and rain has made the weather interesting, getting up out of bed this morning, but the blue blanket was left on the writing desk. It looks like the temperature only dropped into the forties. But it definitely looks and feels like it is going to be a wintry day, at least in a wet, overcast, autumnal kind of way - the southwestern way.

xXx

Door to Door Atheists

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Here is an amusing little video about Australian atheists who fly to Utah to get back at door-to-door proselytizers, by going door-to-door and preaching Darwinism and atheism. Andrew Sullivan posted it.

Door to Door Atheists

♠
Here is an amusing little video about Australian atheists who fly to Utah to get back at door-to-door proselytizers, by going door-to-door and preaching Darwinism and atheism. Andrew Sullivan posted it.

Bo in the Wind

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Watching Bo standing with the wind fanning his clean, shaggy, white coat - a precious sight.

The sun came out in the afternoon, but the wind is still carrying a bite.

xXx

Bo in the Wind

♠
Watching Bo standing with the wind fanning his clean, shaggy, white coat - a precious sight.

The sun came out in the afternoon, but the wind is still carrying a bite.

xXx

The French Revolution with Fun

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“What follows (I need hardly say) is not science. It has no pretensions to dispassion. Though in no sense fiction (for there is no deliberate invention), it may well strike the reader as story rather than history. It is an exercise in animated description, a negotiation with a two-hundred-year memory without any pretense of definitive closure. And both the form of its telling and its chosen subject matter represent a deliberate turning away from analytical history towards Events and Persons, both long forbidden, or dismissed as mere froth on the great waves of history. It is a narrative not by default but by choice: a beginning, middle and end that tries to resonate with its protagonists' own overdeveloped sense of the past, present and posterity. For it is not in the least fortuitous that the creation of the modern political world coincided precisely with the birth of the modern novel.”

-- Simon Schama, "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution"

I guess that is why this book has made it into Monk's hit-and-run reading. A history made of stories and personalities, imagine! He must be enjoying it; he decided to hold off on "Story of O" in favor of this non-fiction book. Still, to keep this reading as sweet as can be, when it comes to such works, Monk will likely break away every two or three hundred pages for the joys of pure fiction. So, don't worry, O, we still have that date.

Of course, this means that we are dropping the constraint that these books have to be pocket-size. But that was too arbitrary a limitation for worthy rereadables. Monk will just have to carry around a larger pocket. So, the only necessary condition is that these are books that have already been read, thus diminishing the compulsion to want to race to the end and allowing for more desultory reading.

xXx

The French Revolution with Fun

♠
“What follows (I need hardly say) is not science. It has no pretensions to dispassion. Though in no sense fiction (for there is no deliberate invention), it may well strike the reader as story rather than history. It is an exercise in animated description, a negotiation with a two-hundred-year memory without any pretense of definitive closure. And both the form of its telling and its chosen subject matter represent a deliberate turning away from analytical history towards Events and Persons, both long forbidden, or dismissed as mere froth on the great waves of history. It is a narrative not by default but by choice: a beginning, middle and end that tries to resonate with its protagonists' own overdeveloped sense of the past, present and posterity. For it is not in the least fortuitous that the creation of the modern political world coincided precisely with the birth of the modern novel.”

-- Simon Schama, "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution"

I guess that is why this book has made it into Monk's hit-and-run reading. A history made of stories and personalities, imagine! He must be enjoying it; he decided to hold off on "Story of O" in favor of this non-fiction book. Still, to keep this reading as sweet as can be, when it comes to such works, Monk will likely break away every two or three hundred pages for the joys of pure fiction. So, don't worry, O, we still have that date.

Of course, this means that we are dropping the constraint that these books have to be pocket-size. But that was too arbitrary a limitation for worthy rereadables. Monk will just have to carry around a larger pocket. So, the only necessary condition is that these are books that have already been read, thus diminishing the compulsion to want to race to the end and allowing for more desultory reading.

xXx

Rumors of War

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I heard this interesting scrap of rumor, watching cable news tonight. Bush has been in the Middle East, and the Saudis supposedly told him that if the American troops are pulled out of Iraq, the Saudis will go in to take care of business against the rising Shia. Well, I could not help thinking that this might not be such a bad deal, after all. With the Sunnis and Shia fighting and killing each other, they may be too busy to worry about carrying out jihadic terrorism against the West. And then, years later, we can see where we are. But this does sound a wee bit optimistic.

What is really painful, though, is that even if this could be true, Bush would still mess it up, going by his statements that he has no intention to leave Iraq. Which means that the Sunnis and Shia get a real sweet deal, carrying out their civil war while killing Americans caught in the middle for a nice bonus.

xXx

Rumors of War

♠
I heard this interesting scrap of rumor, watching cable news tonight. Bush has been in the Middle East, and the Saudis supposedly told him that if the American troops are pulled out of Iraq, the Saudis will go in to take care of business against the rising Shia. Well, I could not help thinking that this might not be such a bad deal, after all. With the Sunnis and Shia fighting and killing each other, they may be too busy to worry about carrying out jihadic terrorism against the West. And then, years later, we can see where we are. But this does sound a wee bit optimistic.

What is really painful, though, is that even if this could be true, Bush would still mess it up, going by his statements that he has no intention to leave Iraq. Which means that the Sunnis and Shia get a real sweet deal, carrying out their civil war while killing Americans caught in the middle for a nice bonus.

xXx