I blame Scooby Doo. No, really.
Month: October 2014
Book of the Week: ‘Ruled Britannia.’
As I noted in passing a few years ago: Ruled Britannia is an alternate history novel involving William Shakespeare living in an England that was conquered by the Spanish Armada. And it very well may be his finest book. Admittedly, I’m prejudiced when it comes to Shakespeare.
And so, farewell to Bitter Seeds.
Lame duck PotUS asks two 2016 contenders to reverse popular #Ebola quarantine proceedings.
One caved.
Well, when you put it that way (note: the NYT has since changed the text without noting those changes)…
The Obama administration has been pushing the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their decision ordering all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contact with Ebola patients to be quarantined, an administration official said on Sunday.
But both governors, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, stood by their decision, saying that the federal guidelines did not go far enough.
Yes, yes, we are all shocked to hear that Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie are not entirely willing to do Barack Obama – and, by extension, the Democratic party – a favor by relaxing quarantine procedures in their respective states. Particularly since relaxing those procedures could put the citizens of both New York and New Jersey at terrible risk*. The interesting thing here is that Cuomo’s position is protecting Christie’s, and vice versa: each one can claim, thanks to the other, that their decision is free from political considerations. Which is of course absurd, but then Barack Obama’s position is even more tied into political considerations, so it all evens out in the wash. Continue reading Lame duck PotUS asks two 2016 contenders to reverse popular #Ebola quarantine proceedings.
Boston Globe endorses… Charlie Baker. :pause: The REPUBLICAN.
Why? Gridlock, my droogies. Gridlock.
One needn’t agree with every last one of Baker’s views to conclude that, at this time, the Republican nominee would provide the best counterpoint to the instincts of an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature. His candidacy opens up the possibility of creative tension.
(Bolding theirs) Not too much, thanks to Massachusetts’ super-majorities, but what the heck. I’ll take it. Besides, you can tell that the Globe gritted their teeth for this one. That’s always worth a chuckle. Continue reading Boston Globe endorses… Charlie Baker. :pause: The REPUBLICAN.
Tweet of the Day, Now Ask Me If I Am Surprised edition.
Spoiler warning: I am not.
Tim Scott widely outperforms Lindsay Graham w/ every single voter demographic (age, race, party, gender) but one: Liberals. Absorb that one.
— DMH (@HawkinsUSA) October 26, 2014
Moe Lane
Sorry, it was such a beautiful day today.
Weird thing: I can’t begin to explain why, but there’s just a distinctive difference between a warm, sunny day in spring, and one in fall. Same temperature, same lack of clouds… but even if I’m not looking at the greenery I still feel the difference. Something about the light.
It’s, as I say, weird. Probably there’s an obvious reason for it that I’m missing. Or I’m mildly crazy. Or embrace the healing power of ‘and,’ I guess.
‘So What’Cha Want.’
So What’Cha Want
For one terrifying moment I was afraid that the Muppets had covered this. But it was a fan cover, thank God.
I’m starting to think that I need to go see John Wick.
The Atlantic liked it.
Sonny Bunch liked it.
I figure if Howard Tayler thinks it’s OK maybe I’ll see it in the theater. There’s always the matinee.
Looking forward to the Dracula Dossier.
From Pelgrane Press’s site:
As currently constituted, you may recall, The Dracula Dossier comprises two books: Dracula Unredacted, Bram Stoker’s suppressed after-action report on the 1894 Operation Edom attempt to recruit Dracula as an asset for British Intelligence, further annotated by three generations of MI6 agents and analysts; and the Director’s Handbook, which provides the 54 disreputable NPCs, 16 devious Nodes, and 13 dubious Objects (all those numbers will increase with stretch goals, obviously) to which Dracula Unredacted provides the clues. Each of those entries has three different states (usually some variation of “Innocent, Edom, or Conspiracy”); the 30 dangerous Locations each have two states (“Cool” and “Warm”); so there are a total of 309 different Encounters in the Director’s Handbook alone. And that, like I said, is before we start adding stretch goals, like, oh, the Order of the Golden Dawn, or Iceland, or Elizabeth Bathory. Ooops, I’ve said too much.
Seriously looking forward to this one. Obviously, it’s a roleplaying game supplement (Night’s Black Agents, which is a game – unsurprisingly – that combines the spy genre with vampires); they’ll get the Kickstarter for it running eventually, I’m sure.
Anybody read “Approaching the End: Imagining Apocalypse in American Film” yet?
And if so, does it suck? – Which is to say, does it do anything else besides… well, Approaching the End: Imagining Apocalypse in American Film. I could use a helpful reference work on the apocalyptic genre, but not if I’m going to want to throw the book through the wall on a regular basis. Especially since I’d be buying it for the Kindle.