Category: Books & Reviews

Literature, culture, fiction, non-fiction, writers, authors and the craft of writing.

-Ocracies and -Isms: How the USA Broke

MAGA cultists / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / Trump fascism / What I'm Reading Now7 Comments

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Once upon a time, the USA was a democracy. While vestiges of democracy can still be found in the USA, it is being actively and aggressively eradicated at the federal level, and also in several Repugnican-controlled states like Texas. But what has the USA become post-democracy? Democracy is a portmanteau word meaning, “government by the people, system of government in which the sovereign power is vested in the people as a whole exercising power directly or by elected officials.” It is conflated from from two ancient Greek words: dēmos, meaning “common people,” and kratos, meaning “rule,” or “strength.” It first … click below for more ↓

The Stepford Wives in Novel, Film, and MAGA Policy

Books & Reviews / Film & Reviews / MAGA cultists / Rightwing claptrap3 Comments

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They never stop, these Stepford wives;/The work like robots all their lives. That little ditty is said by Joanna, the protagonist in Ira Levin’s 1972 novel, The Stepford Wives. She said it to herself while watching a neighbouring woman through a window, as the other mechanically polishes one of her husband’s athletic trophies. It’s a tell: we are soon to learn that the neighbour is — and most of the other women in Stepford are — really a robot controlled by their husbands. Which, we know now, is the perfect MAGA wife: a sexbot that can cook and do the … click below for more ↓

The Thousand and One Nights Again

Books & Reviews / Classics / Musings / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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Humans have always been storytellers. From the time when humans first developed language around 100,000 years ago, we have been telling one another stories. Long before we could write, we left records of our stories in cave paintings, carvings, and rock art (petroglyphs). Almost 70,000 years ago, humans painted with their hands on rocks. The Chauvet Cave in France has similar visual records painted by humans more than 30,000 years ago. The Lascaux cave contains more than 600 paintings of nearly 6,000 figures on the walls and ceilings, made around 20,000 years ago. We cannot know today what those stories … click below for more ↓

The Age of Doubt

Cults / Musings / Politics / Social media issues / What I'm Reading Now3 Comments

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of scientific advancement; it was the age of flat-earthers and chemtrail fanatics. It was the age of medical discoveries; it was the age of anti-vaxxers and homeopaths. It was the age of information; it was the age of Qanon conspiracies and creationists. It was the age of liberal democracies; it was the age of rising fascism. It was the age of technology; it was the age of 5G paranoia. It was the age of reason; it was the age of fundamentalist religions. It was … click below for more ↓

Thomas More’s Words Are Still Appropriate Today

MAGA cultists / Musings / Politics / ShakespeareLeave a comment

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I can always find something in Shakespeare’s works to console, inform, delight, or move me, and more often than not, something that is remarkably relevant to current issues and events. His wit and wisdom are timeless. Of course, one often has to see them as euphemisms, allegories, or metaphors and overlook their relevance to events contemporary to the Bard. But sometimes they transcend history and stand on their own in modern times. Such is a speech found in Sir Thomas More, a play that, while not canon, Shakespeare is believed by most experts to have contributed to the revision thereof. … click below for more ↓

The Moreness of Everything

Books & Reviews / Media / Musings / Psychology & Sociology4 Comments

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The title of this post comes from a subhead in Thomas De Zengotita’s book, Mediated: How the Media Shape the World Around You (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005) in which the author writes about choices, and “how much the screen of human consciousness can register at a given moment.” This is an important question for today, with so many people (younger people, especially) glued to their phones, always online, always engaged, always scrolling, clicking, texting. And scrolling past the headlines, not reading the whole story, getting only a few words before scrolling on to the next headline or jumping to another source … click below for more ↓

Thoughts on (Re)Reading Fowler’s

Books & Reviews / Musings / Style & usage / What I'm Reading Now5 Comments

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I had all but forgotten how delightful it can be reading Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage. It gives me the same sort of pleasure as reading at random through Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary. Although I have had a copy of Fowler’s book on my self since the 1970s, I only returned to it recently, while musing on the dog’s breakfast of the town’s recent communications about its boil-water advisory. I was going to write a post about the event, offering whatever sage advice I still had about how to create effective, far-reaching, and immediate notification during an emergency (and … click below for more ↓

Knee Replacement Recovery and Doomscrolling, 25

Books & ReviewsLeave a comment

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Are the grackles gone? We’ve hardly seen any these last few days. Around this time of year, they head south. When they are here, they flock around our bird feeder and empty it quickly. Some of them nest in the cedars and pines close to our house (as do some doves). They are noisy, funny, and somewhat aggressive towards other birds, especially predators and competitors, like crows. We’re now seeing blue jays at the feeder, which is a sign that grackles are not near. For us, the disappearance of grackles marks the real start of fall; when the weather cools, … click below for more ↓

The Troubling Lack of Empathy Among Conservatives

MAGA cultists / Psychology & Sociology / Rightwing claptrap / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / What I'm Reading Now9 Comments

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Empathy is a nasty word to conservatives. Elon Musk recently showed his contempt for the very notion of considering another’s feelings, calling it “civilizational suicidal empathy.” And then, to make sure everyone knew his views, the technocrat added in an interview with fellow rightwing MAGA cultist Joe Rogan, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit.” Which means he sees empathy as a weakness he can exploit. Information-warfare.com noted, “Musk’s perspective on empathy aligns with certain ideological frameworks, particularly technocracy and the Dark Enlightenment [DE] movement. These ideologies do not prioritize empathy as a guiding principle but … click below for more ↓

No, Elon, We Won’t Be Going to Mars Soon

Behaviour & Psychology / Books & Reviews / Science & Technology / Space and space travel / Technology & Gadgets / What I'm Reading Now13 Comments

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Delusional SpaceNazi and democracy destroyer Elon Musk says his company will launch its first rockets to Mars in 2026, and could have human missions sent to the Red Planet as early as 2029, but for sure by 2031. Well, that’s piffle for a lot of reasons. We won’t see a human flight to Mars for many, many more years and not likely to happen within my remaining lifetime (a couple of decades at least, I hope). But despite the ridiculousness of his posturing, sycophantic media continue to shill for Musk and his wacky ideas by publishing his words without actually … click below for more ↓

Chaucer’s House of Fame

Chaucer / Musings / Poetry2 Comments

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Recently, while I was reading in bed — as is my nightly habit — I came across some lines (641-660) from Book II of Chaucer’s early poem, House of Fame, in a recently purchased book on his prologue to the Canterbury Tales (a small 1960 reprint of a 1903 original picked up at the local used book store). I’ve seen the 2,158-line poem (Wikipedia says 2,005 but that’s wrong) in my Riverside Chaucer, but never paid it much attention and can’t recall ever reading it beyond the opening lines. I’ve always focused more on the major works: Canterbury Tales and … click below for more ↓

The Body Snatchers

Books & Reviews / Bureaucratic malaise / CollingwoodLeave a comment

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I think it’s about time for another remake of the 1956 film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this time instead of aliens taking over human bodies, we should have a far-right leader who creates a cult of personality that turns normal people into mindless, worshipping zombies he and his henchmen control. Oh, right: that’s not fiction. It’s actually happened: MAGA is the prominent contemporary example, but we can also turn to other rightwing parties emerging in democracies across the world, which themselves in thrall to the cults of personality created in Russia and China under Putin and Xi.* Wouldn’t that … click below for more ↓

Review: The Design of Books

Books & Reviews / Books about books / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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Like with so many other technologies in our lives — computers, cars, bread machines, flushing toilets, DVD players, convection ovens — most consumers don’t know or appreciate how books are made, or why they are made in such familiar shapes and structure. In more than four millennia since humans invented writing, the way that writing has been recorded and shared has evolved from clay tablets to the modern paperback and hardcover. Because we are so used to seeing and reading books, few of us stop to consider how that evolution happened and why. Debbie Berne’s The Design of Books (University … click below for more ↓

A 30-Year-Old Warning About Rising Fascism

Books & Reviews / Canadian Politics / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics6 Comments

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Convicted felon and insurrection supporter Donald Trump claimed in a media conference after his trial that, because the justice system works, Americans are “living in a fascist state.” It’s not the first time Trump has used the term to describe opponents or their accomplishments. Last month he told donors Biden was “running a Gestapo administration” and added that Biden is “surrounded by fascists around the Oval Office.” But Trump and his supporters have been using the term to describe opponents — including those in his own party who won’t bend the knee to him — for the past two or … click below for more ↓

WWCD: What Would Cicero Do?

Canadian Politics / Classics / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US PoliticsOne Comment

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Throughout his career, Marcus Tullius Cicero fought tyranny, stood up to dictators and bullies, defended the Republic, and paid for his principled stand with his life. He put himself in harm’s way frequently by openly challenging and even suing the elites, the rich, and the powerful who were controlling — or trying to control — Rome and its empire for their own personal benefit and enrichment. I wonder what he would do if he were alive today, facing the same threats to our government and way of life by the emergence of tyrants and fascists attempting to control the government? … click below for more ↓

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