Sunday Morning Book Thread 02-12-2017

Library of Tonypete

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, where men are men, all the 'ettes are hotties, safe spaces are underneath your house and are used as protection against actual dangers, like natural disasters, or rioting in the streets, and special snowflakes do not get respect, but instead, a big load of guffaws. And unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which man should be embarrassed to wear.

“‎"Since I could only take six books per visit from the library, I had to time it right, or I'd be stuck on Sundays rereading the five Reader's Digest Condensed Books sitting on our red laquered living room shelf.”
― Randy Susan Meyers, The Murderer's Daughters

Steve Bannon's Reading List

So it looks like the most evil man in the universe right now is, get this, not Donald Trump. Rather, it appears to be Steve Bannon (possibly the son of Race Bannon?), who is hated so much by progressives, he's got to be good.

He likes to read books, though:

Bannon, described by one associate as “the most well-read person in Washington,” is known for recommending books to colleagues and friends, according to multiple people who have worked alongside him. He is a voracious reader who devours works of history and political theory “in like an hour,” said a former associate whom Bannon urged to read Sun Tsu’s The Art of War. “He’s like the Rainman of nationalism.”

Well, at least they're not calling him dumb.

Bannon’s 2015 documentary, “Generation Zero,” drew heavily on one of his favorite books, “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe. The book explains a theory of history unfolding in 80- to 100-year cycles, or “turnings,” the fourth and final stage of which is marked by periods of cataclysmic change in which the old order is destroyed and replaced—a current period that, in Bannon’s view, was sparked by the 2008 financial crisis and has now been manifested in part by the rise of Trump.

Here is the book, The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny

Strauss and Howe will change the way you see the world--and your place in it. In The Fourth Turning, they apply their generational theories to the cycles of history and locate America in the middle of an unraveling period, on the brink of a crisis. How you prepare for this crisis--the Fourth Turning--is intimately connected to the mood and attitude of your particular generation. Are you one of the can-do "GI generation," who triumphed in the last crisis? Do you belong to the mediating "Silent Majority," who enjoyed the 1950s High? Do you fall into the "awakened" Boomer category of the 1970s and 1980s, or are you a Gen-Xer struggling to adapt to our splintering world? Whatever your stage of life, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for America's next rendezvous with destiny.

You can watch a lo-res version of Bannon's documentary on YouTube. Mrs. Muse and I watched it a couple of days ago and it's quite sobering. And by "sobering" I mean "both frightening and depressing." Especially when it goes into a discussion of the national debt. I know we haven't heard much of anything about the national debt for, oh, I don't know, I'd say about 8 years give or take a month or two. But don't worry, now that Trump is president, I'm sure that the MSM will soon be seeing to it that it will be a Big Effing Issue. And that Trump is a horrible president because he won't be able to solve it in a year.

The other book mentioned that has influenced Bannon is Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which the article describes as

It’s a broadside against big government, which Taleb faults for suppressing the randomness, volatility and stress that keep institutions and people healthy. “As with neurotically overprotective parents, those who are trying to help us are hurting us the most,” he writes. Taleb also offers a withering critique of global elites, whom he describes as a corrupt class of risk-averse insiders immune to the consequences of their actions: “We are witnessing the rise of a new class of inverse heroes, that is, bureaucrats, bankers, Davos-attending members of the I.A.N.D (International Association of Name Droppers), and academics with too much power and no real downside and/or accountability. They game the system while citizens pay the price.”

Taleb's remarks on the Trump administration are interesting:

“They look like the incarnation of ‘antifragile’ people,” Taleb said of the new administration. “The definition of ‘antifragile’ is having more upside than downside. For example, Obama had little upside because everyone thought he was brilliant and would solve the world’s problems, so when he didn’t it was disappointing. Trump has little downside because he’s already been so heavily criticized. He’s heavily vaccinated because of his checkered history. People have to understand: Trump did not run to be archbishop of Canterbury.”

Taleb has also written The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.

To sum up: Steve Bannon was not hired to build coalitions, get along with the opposition, and see that the present government functions all nice and smooth. No, rather, he's there to break things.

Progressives are soiling themselves in fright about this guy, and about the Trump administration in general, but they really don't have anybody to blame but themselves for the present situation.

Mike Flynn

The new national security advisor to President Trump is the author of The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.

First, a word about the author:

Flynn spent more than thirty three years in Army intelligence, and as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency worked closely with Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, Admiral Mike Mullen, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and other policy, defense, intelligence, and war-fighting leaders. From coordinating on-the-ground operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, to building reliable intelligence networks, to preparing strategic plans for fighting terrorism, Flynn has been a firsthand witness to government screw-ups, smokescreens, and censored information that our leaders don’t want us to know.

So when President Trump promised he'd get advisors that are "the most qualified, the best", he wasn't messing around.

Now onto the book itself:

The Field of Fight succinctly lays out why we have failed to stop terrorist groups from growing, and what we must do to stop them. The core message is that if you understand your enemies, it’s a lot easier to defeat them—but because our government has concealed the actions of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and groups like ISIS and al Qaeda, and the role of Iran in the rise of radical Islam, we don’t fully understand the enormity of the threat they pose against us.

In 2011, the Obama administration scrubbed all references to radical Islam from counter-terrorism training materials used by the FBI and other federal agencies. The administration further made it clear that their number one priority was terrorism from right-wing terrorism from white supremacist groups. It's as if they thought the best way to improve their vision was by repeatedly stabbing themselves in the eyes with scissors.

Which, now that I think of it, is the story of progressivism.

Here's a site I found by some atheist guy trying to sort out what's what with right and left terror crimes. He says he's being blocked by Chrlaes Jhosnon on Twitter, so he can't be all bad. He's also got an interesting lgf page for those of who want to wade into all the nuttiness.

Other Books

I couldn't find any book on Amazon written by Molly DeVos, but I did find the, uh, "writings" of this unhinged lunatic who probably still lives at home. Although he does have his own website, which I'm not going to link to because it's stupid, and should be awarded no hits. But, as you might guess, he hates PDT with a blind, psychotic, frothing rage. So much so that he thinks he had something to do with the death of 1990s rapper 2Pac Shakur. It's all explained in The Killing of 2Pac: The Role of Trump In The Unsolved Murder. Rosenberg is the only only one bold enough to ask questions such as:

Where was Donald Trump during the infamous 1996 2pac Shooting? What role does do phone calls from Trump Towers to Alt-Right Gang Members in Las Vegas play? Were Suge Knight and Donald Trump collaborating on a East Coast West Coast alliance that would net both men millions of dollars?

Yeah, you can just smell the Cheetos dust and damp laundry. And who knew there were "alt-right" gangs back in the 90s?

Moron Recommendations

History and/or architecture buffs might be interested in The Architecture of McKim, Mead & White in Photographs, Plans and Elevations

A collection of masterpieces. Synthesizing the best of Georgian, Federal, Greco-Roman and French empire into a style distinctly American, McKim, Mead & White oversaw the design of classic architecture for governments, public enterprises and private dwellings - including turn-of-the-century renovations to the White House - from the 1880's through the 1920's. They don't build them like this anymore; but they really should.

Depicted are over 130 structures — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pierpont Morgan Library, Tiffany & Company, and the original Penn Station, among others, in New York, as well as many important landmarks in other cities. 435 photographs, over 250 line illustrations.

(h/t bensdad00 for the recommendation)

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Moron author Francis W. Porretto recommends a sci-fi novel that might have good Horde appeal. Perilous Waif by E. William Brown. Porretto says it's "absolutely terrific" and you can read his review here. Here's a plot description:

Alice Long is an orphan. She's been raised on a world where the native inhabitants are fiercely vegan and rabid environmentalists. She's been fed a vegan diet all her life that's done nothing but keep her malnourished since infancy....[She] is a 14 year old girl stuck in an orphanage in an all-female society, but escapes before being punished for hunting and eating animals. She makes her way to a spaceport on the other side of her planet, Felicity, with the intent to get into space and away from her restrictive childhood upbringing. Alice succeeds beyond her wildest dreams.

Yeah, if I were stuck in a matriarchal society run by crazed vegans, I'd want out, too. I'll bet they wear p*ssy hats all of the time. I mean, think of the Washington DC women's march, every day, forever.

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Don't forget the AoSHQ reading group on Goodreads. It's meant to support horde writers and to talk about the great books that come up on the book thread. It's called AoSHQ Moron Horde and the link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/175335-aoshq-moron-horde.

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So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

posted by OregonMuse at 09:03 AM

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