FYI

I am KILLING IT on my 5K training program!

25 days down, 143 to go!

2011: A Partial Reading List

I have enough books on hand to last the rest of the year, so here are at least some of the books that I moved through this year.

• See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody by Bob Mould
• 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell
• London's Sinful Secret: The Bawdy History and Very Public Passions of London's Georgian Age by Dan Cruickshank
• The Three Roads by Ross MacDonald
• The Ferguson Affair by Ross MacDonald
• Blue City by Ross MacDonald
• The Killer by Tom Wood
• Dark Borders: Film Noir and American Citizenship by Jonathan Auerbach
• The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer
• The Limehouse Text by Will Thomas
• The Black Hand by Will Thomas
• The Hellfire Conspiracy by Will Thomas
• The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, Otto Penzler, ed.
• A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
• Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
• A Red Death by Walter Mosley
• White Butterfly by Walter Mosley
• Known to Evil by Walter Mosley
• Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe by Kate Buford
• Say It With Bullets by Richard Powell
• Bloody Crimes: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis by James Swanson
• Home is the Sailor by Day Keene
• Night Walker by Donald Hamilton
• Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester
• One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
• The Big Kill by Mickey Spillane
• Kiss Me, Deadly by Mickey Spillane
• I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane
• My Gun is Quick by Mickey Spillane
• Vengeance is Mine by Mickey Spillane

I've been busy...

...busy enough to shut this thing down? Maybe. We'll see.

What he said.

A Pict Song

Rome never looks where she treads,
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on – that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk – we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the Great!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot in the root!
We are the germ in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak –
Rats gnawing cables in two –
Moths making holes in a cloak –
How they must love what they do!
Yes – and we Little Folk too,
We are as busy as they –
Working our works out of view –
Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along,
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you – you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!

We are the Little Folk – we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the Great!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot in the root!
We are the germ in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!

– Rudyard Kipling

I've just about had enough.

Between what now passes for "political discourse" and the general, "IF YOU TRY TO REASON WITH ME I'M JUST GOING TO YELL EVEN LOUDER!!!" attitude of the general public on any and every issue, political or otherwise, I'm ashamed of and disappointed in all of us.

No longer is this the country my grandfather fought for or the country my grandmother emigrated to.

Normally I'd want to do my part to fix this, but I think we've already gone past the tipping point.

Right now, however, I just want to pack my bags and leave.

So, before I depart, here's a short list of what drove me out:

• Phony Christians
• Not-so-thinly-veiled racism
• Anti-intellectualism
• Economic discrimination
• Willful ignorance of history
• People who don't know the difference between "socialism" and "fascism" calling other people "socialists" and "fascists"
• Anyone whose background isn't Lakota, Seminole, Abenaki, etc. daring to speak about "illegal immigrants"
• Hate

I'm a day late with this...

...okay, maybe more like five minutes late, but here it is anyway.

"The only part of conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part, which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

-On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

Just as importantly, no social body has a right to coerce or restrict the individual unless the individual causes harm to others- the individual's own physical or moral harm is not justification for constriction of their liberty.*

In other words, while a person's behavior or beliefs might be objectionable to you, you do not have the right to infringe upon them. You have the right to be morally outraged, you have the right voice your outrage, but you do not have the right to "coerce or restrict."

*This is known as the "Harm Principle"

Is it too much to ask...

...for Woody Allen to stop making movies?

No?

Alright, maybe we can compromise- can we at least ban people from having fawning conversations about his movies in public?

And while we're at it, no more Bob Dylan albums, okay?

Thanks.

Coming Full Circle

I think I'm becoming interested in the Civil War again- it only took 30+ years for that to happen.

Spin it ANY way you like, but...

...nobody smokes "occasionally."

You either do, or you don't.

One more reason why I have the best dad in the world.

My Dad, who has been living with Parkinson's Disease (and the problems that go with it) for well over a decade, has been in a rehabilitation center (and before that, the hospital) for over a month.

Today our family went to see him so that he could be part of a belated Mother's Day celebration for my Mom and my sister in-law and my brother's birthday (which is this this Tuesday) celebration.

My only goal for the visit was to make my Dad happy- as usual, he was one step ahead of me.

The minute he saw me he held eye-contact with me, put one of his hands over the same area on his body where I just had surgery and gave me a "thumbs up" gesture with his other hand-

He wanted to make sure that I was okay.

With a Dad like that, how could I not be?