Unfinished Thoughts

After my recent post on bookshelves, I was sitting at my desk and staring absently at the bookshelves holding probably 85% of the books in the house (adult division). Because I am of a certain age, I have a LOT of physical books and, outside of reference textbooks, I have read every single one of them. On top of these, there are another 30 or so that are e-book only. As I scanned over them though, I started to wonder: why am I reading a lot of these books? * A brief pause: I had started writing the above paragraph a few weeks ago but never really finished enough to even make it worth posting here, in " Unfinished Thoughts. " But then I read this article in The Atlantic: Reading Is a Vice The article itself is about how reading habits have declined precipitously and what people have been doing to reverse or at least halt the trend. And it touches on something important: which is that reading for pleasure is not - and has never really ever been - about self-improvement, being a...

Theory: ICE on the ground in cities is meant to accustom (and build an “excuse” – such as it is) for the public so when the midterms come around, the paramilitary thugs on the street are already in place to help out with voter intimidation. Who in their right mind will risk going out to vote unless they look like they are of northern European extraction? My unfinished idea today is that the reason that Seattle hasn’t been targeted much harder for ICE raids is that Washington has mail in voting. As in, the entire state votes by mail and there is really no opportunity in the state to vote in person even if you wanted to. Thus, there isn’t any real “efficiency” to wasting your agents intimidating a population that, due to logistical reasons, it doesn’t really make much sense to bother with. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze to use a modern idiom. ICE raids could be happening in rural areas, where a LOT of illegal immigrants are working in industri...

  I'm not even sure where this ranks on the weirdest stories of the past 12 months but... Live Updates: Venezuelan Opposition Leader Gives Trump Her Peace Prize The first question from the dinner table was: Does she think Trump will make her president? Me : Yes. Follow up: Do you think it will work? Me : Maybe, but that dude is known to welsh on promises so I wouldn't hold my breath. But as I said that, something else popped into my head and I blurted out: "He will absolutely wear that to the State of the Union speech." I want there to be a prop bet on one of those politics betting sites for this. I NEED that action!!