Read a Book!: Brave New World

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

I do not quite remember who started my search to read this book (you remind me, I’ll give the appropriate tip of the hat), but I finally found it at a decent price (ironically enough, at the local used book store in Denton) and devoured it in 2 days.

Some of the criticisms aimed against the book are valid (a little too sex focused; what caste was the love interest in?), but the analogy is scarily apt. Big brother coming in the form of hedonistic instant gratification is a tempting beast; one only needs to look at America’s partial descent into it’s arms to see that. I probably would have enjoyed the book a little more if I did not read the forward (Huxley seemed to have missed his point on a couple of things), but it still was a good read.

Read this Book!

Read a Book: The History of Farting

Sometimes, your roommate throws a book at you before leaving on a roadtrip to Omaha. Sometimes, that book is entitled “The History of Farting.” And, sometimes you just have to semi-liveblog about it.

Here at Liber Ex Machina, we have a policy to only liveblog about inconsequential things. And reading a book about farting is as inconsequential as one can get. So, as soon as I get set up after stopping my computer from asking me to reset it, I will get started.

Okay, so that 5 minute break turned into a 2 hour one, filled with showering, Price is Right, Jeopardy, and lunch, but I am about to get started. Let’s get the “judging a book by it’s cover” thing done first. I note that the roommate paid a whooping $3.98 for this classic piece of literature. I also note that the author’s name is supposedly “Dr. Benjamin Bart”. Teehee; “Bart” rhymes with “fart”.

On that note, I am going to have a running tally of me laughing like a schoolyard boy over potty-humor words. Current count: 1.

I will start reading 12:10 local time, posting in huge typed chunks. Spelling will be checked at the end.

12:11 (page 7)- Heehee. Anus.

12:13 (page 10)- Heehee. Rip (Giggle count:3)

12:14 (page 11)- How could that lady blow up a cow with a fart? Tell me! Oh, wait. It is an unpictured Fred who blew up a cow with a fart. That makes sense.

12:17 (page 19)- I think Carruthers smells like that all the time. Don’t you?

12:19 (page 23)- Chapter 1 done.

12:20 (page 24)- What is a dunny? Anybody know? Is it the same thing as a loo? I’ll just assume and move on.

12:24 (page 38)- Heehee. Rump. Eww… lump. (Giggle count:4)

12:25 (page 39)- What does it mean when Descartes farts? A question for the ages.

12:26 (page 40)- War crimes!

12:28 (page 49)- Chapter 2 done. Going to take a quick break to handle some comments.

12:30- Back. Heehee; back.

12:32 (page 52)- Heehee. Rectum. (gigglecount: 5)

12:35 (page 59)- Chapter 3 done. Rather lame chapter about a vaudeville farter. On to Chapter 4!

12:36 (page 60)- Hooray! Back to limericks!

12:38 (page 65)- Eww… Horrible way to die.

12:39 (page 67)- Chapter 5 awaits. Ooooh. Physiology.

12: 41 (page 71)- How does one blow out the sidesof a nightgown with a fart? One would think the material would not hold in the pressure enough to take out the stitching. The path of least resistance would probably be typical wear points (the bum [hee; bum], mayhaps the knees).

12:46 (page 75)- Interesting. Borborygmus is fancy-smancy term for the gurgling sounds your digestive tracts make. Learn something new.

12:48 (page 82)- Chapter 5 down. Now to the glossary chapter.

12:51 (page 86-7)- Bathtub farts. Watch the gases be expelled in all it’s visual glory!

12:53 (page 88)- Lighting farts. Classic.

12:55 (page 92)- Dogs are not people. Dogs are dogs. One would think a doctor could tell the difference.

12:57 (page 96)- Hippie. Capitalize God, especially when you are thanking him for making elephants too big to be kept indoors.

1:01 (page 107)- I farted. While reading about the old Icelandic saying “everyone likes the smell of his own fart”. Ironic, is it not?

1:04 (page 114)- Kamikaze farters. This reminds me of part of my “cows trying to destroy us all” conspiracy theory. Remind me to talk about it one day.

1:10 (page 132)- I farted again. No real irony this time.

1:16 (page 147)- I need to start including “yuff” in my everyday language.

1:21 (page 159)- It makes perfect sense. Levitation acts are caused by massive farts! Magicians watched the yogis do it and caught on. Probably due to the smell.

1:22- and done.

Well, once you take the time out for typing and whatnot, I finished it in an hour. Mildly amusing. No scratch ‘n’ sniff section, fortunately or not. Good for a laugh or two.

Read a Book!

Read a Book!: Guns, Germs, and Steel

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

A coffee shop patron recommended it (saying it was life-changing) and I saw a 2003 paperback version on sale, so I got it.

The premise is certainly interesting. Mr. Diamond uses biogeography (the study of biological patterns across geographic patterns, if you need a working definition) to try to explain every difference in cultural advancement in every culture in human history. And, he mostly succeeds in his endeavour.

I have two problems with his execution, though. The first is his (in all fairness, expected) multicultural secular humanist perspective. While not going so far as some popular book writing intellectuals (he does admit that religion is useful for social cohesion), he still denies the divine spark and puts all cultures as equals. This makes his answer incomplete. Without that inclusion, he never answers why humanity tries to better itself (and, yes, moving from hunter-gatherer groups to modern society is an improvement on the human condition).

The other problem is that he wants to elevate the study of history to the methodology of his so-called “historical sciences” (evolution, anthropology, whatever the appropriate sub-fields in astronomy and geology are called, et cetera). This is a bad idea. He even admits in the middle of his argument that these “sciences” cannot follow the scientific method in the traditional sense. The idea that we let unverifiable “experiments” call itself science dilutes how the scientific method is supposed to work. There are limits to the method; we ignore them at own peril. In fact, his “historical sciences” should not be called science at all. It is bad enough we have to put up with political “science” case studies and the like; making speculative claims about history using science as snake-oil will make things worse.

It is certainly an interesting and dense read. Flawed, in my opinion for the reasons stated above, but interesting. It is always good to read against one’s type (if one can handle it).

Read a Book!

Read a Book!: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

I have not read the rough draft version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (that, for some reason, bookstores also sell), but I imagine it is much like other Victorian Era women’s literature: vapid, shallow teen and twenty-something girls having polite conversations with each other waiting for some guy to propose getting hitched with them. Jane Austen must have wanted to buck the trend with her final draft, so she asked for assistance from Seth Grahame-Smith, noted hippie and zombie lover. How does he help? He adds kung-fu training and battling zombies to the girls’ things to do. It improves the book significantly. I cannot imagine ever reading the rough draft.

It was a quick read (319 pages, less than 24 hours). I did not notice any major tell between Austen’s vapid writing and Grahame-Smith’s writing in tone (though it is kind of obvious in subject matter). And no zombie nightmares that usually occur when I read zombie-related materials. I enjoyed it (though mayhaps renting it from the library would be the way to go here; no need to give money to hippies and Victorian Era women’s literature authors).

Read this Book!

Read a Book!: The Once and Future King

The Once and Future King

by T.H. White

I never exactly read a concise summation of the Arthurian legend before. I watched Disney’s The Sword in the Stone and that is about the extent on it. So, wandering around the Nerd section of the bookstore, I came upon The Once and Future King. It was cheap and thick, so I bought it.

It is considered one of the classic renditions of Arthur, but a few complaints kept me from enjoying it as much as I should. For the minor one, the legend takes shots at the Scots; it does make sense, considering that it was a legend of an English king. What does not make sense, is how the author regularly editorializes to apologize for the knights’ devotion to God. Ret-conning the legend to better appeal to liberal sensibilities is offensive. If you can get past it, it is a good, dense read. Took me a good 3 weeks to read it (Book 2 was dull).

Read a Book!

Read a Book!: A Practical Guide to Racism

A Practical Guide to Racism

by C. H. Dalton

I saw this book in hardcover in the humor section of book stores occasionally, and thought the idea was hilarious. Once I saw it in paperback I went and bought it. And, boy, do I have the buyer’s remorse.

I realize that humor is subjective; what one person finds funny, another finds stupid. From the title, I expected the book to be a farce detailing how to be a racist against the 9 races in the book (Hispanics, Jews, Whites, Indians/Injuns, Blacks, Asians, Merpeople, Arabs, and Gypsies). The book actually is a farce of a moral relativist anthropologist trying to explain the quibbles of those races, poorly. The vast majority of the jokes fall flat. In fact, outside of the glossary in the back (stupid explanations of racial slurs abound), I cannot actually remember if I laughed at all.

In conclusion, this book is a potentially funny concept ruined. The Jon Stewart blurb should have been a hint. “Read it with someone you hate”, indeed; reading it with a friend would give you a new enemy (like recommending Atari’s E.T. game). Read a Different Book!

Read a Book!: Battle Royale

Battle Royale

by Koushun Takami

So, I thought this was a manga first, but apparently I was mistaken.

If I had to describe this book in a sentence, I’d have to say it is Lord of the Flies, brought to you by the repressive government from Akira. Except, instead of the kids being abandoned, they are coerced into killing each other and given the means to do so (sometimes hilarious means, like darts or a fork).

This is another good/awful book. If you can stomach the violence, it is an interesting take on how these kids would respond to the coerced “game”. Personally, I could not put the book down. It’s 100 or so more bigger pages than Guns of the South, and I finished it in 3 days. The copy editor of my version did a poor enough job that I remember reading errors, but they were not bad enough that context clues could be of no avail. Read a Book!

Read a Book!: Guns of the South

Guns of the South

by Harry Turtledove

Borrowing books is fun.

I had some major issues with this book; so much so, it is the first book I am not going to recommend in and of itself. Nota Bene, there be spoilers ahead. If you do not wish be have things spoiled, Read a Book!

My first problem was with the ultimate enemies of the book. “America Will Break” are racist Boers from the future. I mean, come on. I could understand actual Southerners came from the future; I could understand them turning on the newly independent CSA after they start changing in ways they do not approve. But Boers would not care enough, no matter how racist they are.

The constraint on the time machine seemed a little artificial. Only 150 years, back and forth? From what the AWBs implied, there were better time machines out there. Why did they not steal a better one?

Thirdly, Mr. Turtledove leans a little too much on the root cause of the War Between the States being slavery. Number of references to Northern supported tariffs hurting Southern industries: 2. Number of references to Southern self determination: a couple of dozen, give or take. Number of references to slavery: too many for me to want to count. I share Turtledove’s Robert E. Lee’s annoyance about the implication that slavery is the issue here.

Still, Mr. Turtledove seems like a decent writer. It was a dense read; it took me 5 whole days to read though it (and that is a long time for me). It might be worth your time, especially if you are a Yankee and think Southerners are racist by definition. So, Read a Book!

Read a Book!: The Conscience of a Conservative

The Conscience of a Conservative

by Sen. Barry Goldwater

I’ve already started on my next book and I forgot to post a review of this one. This is the second book by Mr. Goldwater that I have review (the first one is here).

My copy is from Princeton Printing. It was edited by Goldwater’s granddaughter and features a decent foreward by George Will and a horrendous afterword by Robert Kennedy Jr. (really, using a reprinting of Goldwater’s book to rail against social conservatives? You think that was appropriate? Goldwater represented the libertarian wing of the party though and though. Whatever animosity Goldwater had with social conservatives should not be used as a “wedge” when we agree with him on the things he cared for: lower taxes, limited constitutional government with less spending instead of this big government garbage we got, strong national defense, localized education, et cetera.).

Unlike the later Where I Stand, this book is not just reprints of speeches the good Senator gave; this book actually reads like a political theory treatise. It was better edited (one Mr. L Brent Bozell, a conservative writer,  did most of the editing) and gives the book a better polish.

The content, on the other hand, is pretty much the same. Sure, Goldwater had 8 years of liberal rule to draw examples from in Where I Stand that he did not have in this book, but Goldwater was a principled man with a consistent world view, a political philosopher if you will (though I doubt he would like that title).

There is a reason why this is considered a classic defense of conservativism; read this book!

Read a Book!: America Alone

America Alone: The End of the World as we Know it

by Mark Steyn

I finally went and bought the “Soon to be Banned in Canada” edition of Mark Steyn’s America Alone (and Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative, but that’s for another day…) I finished it last night.

The general premise of the book is that the Islamic jihad is stealthily advancing due to differences in demographics and the West’s self-destructive tendencies. With the exception of America, the entire Western world is not longer reproducing at the replacement rate so, their populations are declining; the Mohammadan population is reproducing at a much higher rate, so they are becoming “the children Europe could not bother to have”; the West (with the exception of “red state” America) does not wish to defend our culture. That combination allows for the more fecund and “culturally confident” Mohammadans to eventually crush the West, resulting in a new Dark Age. But this Dark Age will, in all likelihood, look more like the Greek Dark Age (where civilization stopped) than the Medieval one (where there were some limited cultural progress).

It’s a good book. Mr. Steyn has some good one-liners in there. So what if it is “alarmist”, as quite a few book reviewers called it; sounding an alarm when danger is afoot is a good thing.

As a side note, this book reinforced the one stupid bit in Mass Effect. In one of the Tali conversations, she brings up the fact that Quarian population control generally bars multiple births. If the goal is to have enough Quarians in the flotilla to keep the ships a’goin’ and the species viable, would it not make sense to require breeding exactly at the replacement rate? Demanding only 1 child means the population halves every generation. It’s stupid.

I did have a problem with the book, though: Steyn’s ultimate solution to the Mohammadan problem is, like most authors that write on the subject, to encourage the so-called “moderates” to effectively reform Islam. This is a bad solution on multiple counts. First off, Steyn even points out that any reform of Islam has undergone as of late has been a return to original concepts, not modernization. He points out that some female Mohammadan nurses refuse to ”scrub up” before surgery because that requires baring ones arms; the Mohammadan concept of modesty has been made more important than sanitation.

Secondly, I think the “moderate Muslim” (a.k.a. a Muslim that rejects the “kill or virtually enslave all non-Mohammadans” additions Mohammad added to Islam after getting initially rejected) is either a myth or not worthy of our encouragement. The difference between the “moderate Muslim” and the Mohammadan is one of zeal, not theology; the “moderate” may not be plotting to blow up people or whatnot, but they are donating to Mohammadan charities like the Holy Land Foundation, supporting the political arms of the jihad like CAIR, making life miserable for those that want to leave the Islamic death cult, et cetera.

Thirdly, Even if this mythical “moderate Muslim” exists and is a strong enough influence to affect change, their attempts is ultimately a bad thing in my opinion. I’m sorry, but cheering for these “moderates” is like cheering for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s attempts to “modernize” Christianity or cheering against the “Skyclad” Jainists; you are cheering for those that are destroying vital parts of the religion. Violence is inherent in the Mohammadan system; the progressive revelatory principle guided Mohammad in the writing of the Koran. The older, more peaceful suras are trumped by the newer, more violent suras.

Forth, modernization will also be ultimately ineffective. The Skyclads and the Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christians are still out there in droves, despite the theological moderates efforts. In fact, the modernist Christians are shrinking in numbers. It’s a bad plan.

I really do think that Mohammadanism needs to be treated just like the anti-Western concepts of the previous century (you know, fascism and communism); it needs to be crushed in the marketplace of ideas. Mohammadanism needs to be made so repugnant that it is rejected by all decent folk. Sure, there still will be small groups of fanatics, just like there are still Neo-Nazis and Communist groups out there but they will no longer have the finances or numbers to be effective. These fanatics efforts will be focused primarily on increasing their numbers by trying to talk people into stuff they have already rejected. The Koran will become like Mein Kampf, tossed in the dustbin of history, only to be temporarily picked up to be sneered at. We need to use reason on those who can be reasoned with and force (military, economic, diplomatic) on those who cannot.

 Ultimately, the book was a good read. Pick it up. And, if you live in Canada, you might want to get it soon. The Mohammadan-Multiculture Complex is trying to get it banned.