Weekend Reading: August 5, 2016

On August 5, 2016August 4, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

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“Chicken soup for the anti-racist soul.“
National Review: “Here’s a handy rule of life — always honor Gold Star families.“
Max Boot: “It is genuinely terrifying that [Trump] could win the nomination of a party once led by Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote more books than Mr. Trump has probably read.“
Barry finally says it: The guy is unfit to be president.
Harlequin goes “literary”? Why not?
Now on Netflix: All the Norwegian knitting you can stand to watch.
DC comics fans lobby (who, exactly?) to shut down Rotten Tomatoes, forgetting perhaps that those critics would still be able to say mean things about Suicide Squad.
Language takes yet another dive.
An inventive solution to the public defender crisis in Missouri: Hire the governor!
Print and read: How Ferguson, fear, and law and order are burning in the Missouri (and Missour-ah) gubernatorial election.
Bonus print and read: On the current infatuation with isolationism and Christian nativism, “In the 1930s, authoritarianism arrived hand-in-hand, as it often does, with demagoguery.”

Quote of the Day: Trump Say Newspaper Bad

On August 2, 2016August 2, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Omnium Gatherum, Publishing / Media, WritingLeave a comment

Writers, take note: A certain presidential candidate opined today on an apparent lack of standards over at the paper of record.

According to Politico:

They don’t write good. They have people over there, like Maggie Haberman and others, they don’t — they don’t write good,” he said. “They don’t know how to write good.

We are sure that the tiny-fingered tycoon meant to say, “They don’t write well.”

Quote of the Convention: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

On July 29, 2016July 29, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Hillary Clinton (State Department) with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (NBA) in 2012

This is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar introducing himself at the Democratic convention last night:

Hello, everyone. I’m Michael Jordan, and I’m here with Hillary. I said that because I know that Donald Trump couldn’t tell the difference.

Side note: Abdul-Jabbar has done some writing since he left the NBA. Among the books to his name is Mycroft Holmes, a Sherlock Holmes novel he co-wrote with Anna Waterhouse. Abdul-Jabbar has been a Sherlock fan for decades.

Weekend Reading: July 29, 2016

On July 29, 2016July 28, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

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Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall: Matt Damon vs. dragons?
Natalie Portman and Cormac McCarthy, an imagined correspondence.
A Republican on wishful thinking and why the Republican party is going to die.
Tom Ford on his office: “I’ve never actually seen anyone here eat.“
Sending out the Ubers.
Even Meryl Streep has decided to get on board.
What’s happening with the Donald and Vladimir?
The U.S. has an anti-drone rifle that doesn’t use bullets, and it’s already in action against ISIS.
How to be heroically calm.
Langston to Barack: A president’s aesthetic of cool.
So how many “real Americans” are there, anyway?
Print and read: Zadie Smith on Brexit, fences, and the real London.

Weekend Reading: July 22, 2016

On July 22, 2016July 22, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

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Rudy Giuliani’s encore.
When Harlem and Dublin resonated with revolution.
In all the times Neil deGrasse Tyson has been stopped by police or security, it was more likely to happen when he was entering the physics building; never the campus gym.
And here are some times that Sen. Tim Scott has been stopped and hassled by Capitol Police while he’s trying to get to work.
Trying to get a mortgage in St. Louis? Good luck if you live in a mostly minority neighborhood.
So why does Mike Pence hate Mulan?
Ever-relevant Bloom County flashback: “Guns don’t kill people … people kill guns … from outlaws.”
And now we’re actually at white supremacy.
Between Ailes and Trump, this is how the Republican party unravels.
What in the hell is gabagool?
Print and read: Most college students are more concerned with paying off student debts than trigger warnings and microaggresssions.

Quote of the Day: Money and Happiness

On July 18, 2016July 17, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - Film, Omnium Gatherum, WritingLeave a comment

In London’s pseudo-newspaper The Telegraph last January, for an article on personal finance, the interviewer asked Monty Python’s Eric Idle whether money can make you happy.

His reply:

No, but it can buy you things that do, like holidays and wine.

Weekend Reading: July 15, 2016

On July 15, 2016July 14, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

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New memoir labeled as story of “White Savior Barbie.”
‘Voluntourism: “W e ought to acknowledge the truth that we, as amateurs, often don’t have much to offer.”
Everyone’s favorite half-governor invents the year’s newest, bestest word.
Guns, guns everywhere – which side are you on?
The new American soccer culture, giving suburbia its faux hooligan snarl.
The link between gun-control opposition and racial resentment.
New book by quote-inventor and text-recycler Jonah Lehrer deemed a “nonfiction McMuffin.”
When the Marines met Pokemon.
Print and read: George Saunders among the Trump supporters, Trump protesters, and an America that is not holding together.

Weekend Reading: July 8, 2016

On July 8, 2016July 5, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

bekindtobooks

About 10 percent of all Icelanders traveled to France to watch their soccer team win.
American Christians believe they are really, really oppressed.
How the new “alt-right” conservatives are overlapping with Trump supporters and pushing white supremacy closer to the mainstream.
The GOP’s presumptive candidate as “cultural heroin.”
Print and read: Minnesota vs. Wisconsin and what it says about the future of American democracy.
Bonus print and read: The Ohio spiritualist and wealthy stockbroker who became America’s first female candidate for the president when she was just 34.

Weekend Reading: July 1, 2016

On July 1, 2016June 30, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

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Transatlantic food tragicomedy: Brexit referendum conceived at a pizza place in O’Hare Airport.
Now that we’re leaving, what was the EU anyway?
Of flabby soccer hooligans and Europe’s future.
Now even Congress has to drink bottled water – because of lead.
“At this very minute, they’re sewing Texit flags in Lubbock.”
Millicent Fenwick: Grandmother, state senator, pipe smoker.
Queen tells Sinn Fein leader: “Well, I’m still alive, anyway.“
Russian security guard assaults U.S. diplomat. Outside the American embassy in Moscow.
Google might soon be in charge of all public transit in Columbus, Ohio.
Yes, it’s delicious, but please stop eating raw cookie dough.
Texas town votes out beloved library cat.
Print and read: Twelve years after being liberated from Buchenwald, Elie Wiesel visited “the magical kingdom known as Disneyland;” he loved it.

Weekend Reading: June 24, 2016

On June 24, 2016June 22, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

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Taxes? What taxes?
The Brexit inspires … Texit.
Congressman finds new way to ensure that people will keep not liking him.
If you’re carrying a gun, you’re more likely to think somebody else is, too.
Niall Ferguson connects World War I, Brexit, and the Treaty of Versailles with his marriage.
Nine out of ten Venezuelans can’t afford to buy enough food to live on.
The Onion: U.N. warms that Trump could be just seven months away from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Print and read: Fear, vulnerability, slick marketing, politics equals more and more and more guns.

Weekend Reading: June 17, 2016

On June 17, 2016June 16, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

rarebooks1

99 percent of federal workers are really great at their jobs.
The Texas town with lots of space and tiny, tiny houses.
How about $10,000 a year, for everyone?
The election could now actually be about the very nature of the country.
Oh, so many reasons why creating an NHL team in Las Vegas is a terrible, terrible idea.
Sometimes a thing is actually a thing.
About one in five people with prescription painkillers have given them to somebody else.
Samantha Bee as the “one-woman punk band” of TV comedy.
Finally, a call to action! Against … a female Ghostbusters…
Print and read: Why mass shooters love the (legal, very legal) AR-15 assault rifle.

Weekend Reading: June 10, 2016

On June 10, 2016June 9, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

readingswing1

From Singapore: Rise of the book machines!
Who’s been poisoning dogs in Hong Kong?
Leather, chains, and noise at the Metal Mania festival in the Kalahari Desert.
How likely is it that a robot is going to steal your job?
Perhaps a reason to stop reading Dilbert.
Golden State Warriors as metaphor for how Silicon Valley ruins everything.
Here’s what happened when Judicial Watch tried to get a judge tossed from a case because he was Asian.
Here’s how classy John McCain was when Barack Obama got the nomination in 2008.
Too many books are getting positive reviews.
Print and read: The purest definition of public narcissism that we’ve seen in our lifetimes.

Quote of the Day: Knowledge vs. Sleep

On June 6, 2016 By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium GatherumLeave a comment

Given the ever-accelerating slide into surreality that is the current election season, one has to wonder whether Otto von Bismarck was right when he opined: