So, What Are You Reading?

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Ted Heiks, Jul 27, 2013.

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  1. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Angela Rixon's Cats: The Illustrated Guide to Breeds.
     
  2. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read James M. McPherson's Hallowed Ground.
     
  3. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Graham Phillips' The Lost Tomb of King Arthur.
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    How was it, Ted? I'm very interested in the "Groans of the Britons" era of history.
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  6. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    It was good. The author believes that Arthur was a Welsh prince who existed around AD 500.
     
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  7. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    (1) Rock Guitar for Dummies - Jon Chappell. (Thrift Store - $1) I think I now have all the Dummies Guitar Books.
    (2) Dutch in three Months - Jane Fenoulh, pub. by Dorling Kindersley / Hugo. (Thrift Store - $2.60)

    Gotta be a new career in here for me somewhere! :)

    The Dutch course was brand-new condition - unopened, but at least 20 years old! Book and CASSETTES! I donated my last cassette deck to the same Thrift Store 10 years ago! I'll just have to get one of those decks that outputs cassette music as mp3s. I have a turntable that makes mp3s from vinyl records, so... Dang! You throw away one electronic gadget and you have to buy two more to use your old recordings!
     
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Eichmann in Jerusalem.
     
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Interesting. Hannah Arendt maintained that Eichmann's actions were motivated by a sort of stupidity which was wholly unexceptional. That phrase aptly describes a lot of what I hear emanating from White House circles recently, including the President and his trade guys having a circle-pee on Canada. Stupidity is often even more dangerous than it looks. Our Prime Minister should realize the dangers of stupidity too - such as that shown on his disastrous recent visit to India, where one of his guys was allowed to invite a known Sikh separatist/extremist, convicted of attempted murder, to a high-end dinner and a photo-op with his (the Prime Minister's) wife.
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2018
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    The Eichmann case is especially interesting because it was what I've come to call "political justice". It's very hard to explain in strictly legal terms how an Israeli court had any jurisdiction over Eichmann or his undoubted crimes yet who would say that the case should have been dismissed on that account? Jurists in the Nuremberg trials went to considerable lengths to justify their actions but there really wasn't any clear legal theory that granted the tribunals the power to try, condemn and punish the defendants. The naked truth is that the Allies tried the Nuremberg defendants "because they could" and because the defendants' organized campaign of mass murder had to be punished somehow. The Eichmann trial, at bottom, was the same sort of thing.

    I have to say that the common factor in "political justice" trials is that the tribunal has the power to act because the defendant has no government to defend his civil rights. There are recent examples of national leaders waging aggressive war resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians where those leaders will never be arrested and tried, let alone condemned and executed, because they continue to enjoy the protection of their respective governments.

    I do not know exactly what "political justice" is, but it isn't any sort of legal theory that makes sense to me.
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Indeed. And then there is Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar/Burma, who does not wage aggressive war - she merely remains silent.

    "Political justice" sounds as much of an oxymoron as "military intelligence." I'm not in love with the concept, but I do agree on its necessity. As you put it, Nosborne, there are great crimes that "have to be punished somehow." In cases where "political justice" makes that possible, I'm all for it. In the wrong hands, however...
     
  12. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Myron P. Gilmore's The World of Humanism, 1453-1517.
     
  13. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Pippa Pralen's Unvanquished: How Women of the South Survived the Civil War In Their Own Words.
     
  14. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read James J. Williamson's Mosby's Rangers.
     
  15. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    This semester I joined a book club for homeschooling parents, which is putting a serious kink in the speed at which I push through the NY Times Best Seller's List - so, I'm currently "off list" reading Most Likely to Succeed by Tony Wagner & Ted Dintersmith.

    "Today more than ever, we prize academic achievement, pressuring our children to get into the “right” colleges, have the highest GPAs, and pursue advanced degrees. But while students may graduate with credentials, by and large they lack the competencies needed to be thoughtful, engaged citizens and to get good jobs in our rapidly evolving economy. Our school system was engineered a century ago to produce a work force for a world that no longer exists. Alarmingly, our methods of schooling crush the creativity and initiative young people need to thrive in the twenty-first century." Google Books
     
  16. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Edwin H. Fay's This Infernal War: The Confederate Letters of Sgt. Edwin H. Fay.
     
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Rereading Susskind's "The Black Hole War". Still breathtaking at the end.
     
  18. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Alfred von Martin's Sociology of the Renaissance.
     
  19. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Karl H. Dannenfeldt's The Renaissance: Basic Interpretations.
     
  20. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Read Wallace K. Ferguson's The Renaissance: Six Essays.
     

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