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| -Short Attention Span Theater- | |
| This Week in Books, November 7, 2021 | |
| 2021-11-07 | |
It has been a while, so I am going to do a very broad coverage of some books, specifically an author, which would make a good read, or even a good gift. I did promise to approach the case for and against Sad Sam in Once An Eagle, Anton Myrer, as it was presented to me as a study in leadership. I'll get to that when I have the time to properly approach the subject. The famous, prolific James Michener. I am late to the game with his books, specifically Poland, Centennial, and now his breakout story Hawaii. I was about half way through Poland when I ordered the other two books. I will say, I'm glad I had an inter-act between books as Michener has a very distinct and strong tempo, as one must have to cover such swaths of history and remain readable, so that the books didn't blend into each other. Currently, I am reading Hawaii, and not that far into it so to quote the book outside of what I have read is unreasonable. That said, the chapter "From the Sun-Swept Lagoon" is perhaps the best written piece about how people allow bad things to happen to just get along, and how bad actors are created and used to push bad things to accomplish an agenda. It was spooky, in a word. Teroro saw things more simply. He was outraged. His thoughts were forthright and purposeful. The death of the slaves he could condone, for that was the law of the world, on every island. But to execute for trivial reasons the best fighters on Bora Bora, merely to appease a new god, was obviously wrong and disastrous. "Look at the body of Terupe, lying there between the shark and the turtle! He was the best steersman I have had. And the High Priest knew it. And Tapoa, useless beside the shark. He was wise and would have made a good counselor." Teroro was so furious that he did not trust himself to look either at his brother or at the High Priest, lest he uncover his thoughts. Instead, he contented himself with staring ahead at the impressive canoes and listening to the mournful drums, speaking of death. He thought: "Unless we settle the High Priest now, these drums are the requiem of Bora Bora." He saw clearly that the death of eight or ten more key warriors would lay the island open to assault. "I'll work out a plan," he swore to himself. I cannot go beyond this chapter with quotes, but this chapter alone was pretty amazing. The locations and events in Centennial I am more familiar with, and found the characters and story very engaging. This book is why I think Michener would make a good read for you or as a gift to somebody who has visited one of Michener's topics, or maybe even live there is they are new to the area. Of course, these are adult books dealing with tough topics, so keep that in mind before wrapping a book up for a thirteen year old; there needs to be a certain maturity and understanding to pull the stories and lessons from, at least, these three books. For the straight up history buffs, one of my favorites, Roger Crowley, released a book in 2019 I had just come across: The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades. If you recall, I have been fond of all of his books, so this was an obvious grab. It is not a long book, and I do not have it handy for quotes, but it is Crowley's classic style of writing: engaging, concise, informative, and sensory. It was interesting in the sense that it covers a time and place a lot of history lessons just kind of skip over or talk around. Crowly was like, "Yeah, this happened." and I'm glad I took the time for it. Daylight Savings Time Yeah, its that time of year when grumpy Kansas sweeps the leaves off of the driveway and reminds everyone, including myself especially, to do the semi-annual home safety check. Alarm battery check or even replacement, especially your smoke detectors. On the topic of batteries, doesn't hurt to replace any electronic lock batteries as well. Obviously don't throw out working batteries, just don't take the chance of something important not working, though I will admit the defeat of the electronic safe was interesting. Buddy of mine was tasked with opening the safe, and was very excited. To say how quickly he won is to say how disappointed both him and I were in this safe's security. But the point was not to hide the family jewels from Black Bart, but to have a location secure from my kids who were smart enough to use a key and understand PIN combinations, and didn't trust myself to a rotary combination lock on a good day in high school. Also, boogie bags or bug-out bags need a review and a change of clothes for those of us who have seasons. Review your threat matrix, perhaps there is a new road, or an old road closed, or the most likely danger is not Mother Nature but something more Man Made. Keep your emergency stores up. It is possible if you went super squirrel some of your food items are coming up on date and is time to rotate them out. Be discreet, don't be that fish hole posting pictures of the garage full of TP when people are about to knife fight for a single roll. Don't leave it out where guests, or maintenance for some of you, can give it a gander. This is an opinion piece, not an advice article. That said, I am anxious that Thanksgiving weekend will rile people up. Trip to Mom's was $40 gas, now $80. Stuck at airports. Stuff like that. I know the basic no frills items in my line have gone up around 15% in the 2020 price book, and quality seems to be declining, from straight up lemons to stuff like receiving two right side door slides instead of a left and right, general dinkary. Baseline seems to be 2 weeks food, 2 weeks portable food, ability to purify water, and medications for that 4 weeks. The rest is up to you to personalize. Role play it out, and if you are not good at that or know that beating yourself in chess doesn't mean you are a good chess player, grab that person who is. Have some fun with it, have that alien invasion. Just remember, in real life you won't be fighting the communist soldier zombie from planet Arachis with nothing but your shotgun, chainsaw hand, and wolf familiar+5. You might have an exciting opening scene, but the rest of the show is the very unglamorous, very pass/fail security, shelter, water, food game. If I were to GM this, my final set of advice before Game On! would be remember the survivor of The Balkins: flashy gets you mugged, mugged gets you dead. | |
| Posted by:swksvolFF |