Zorral

@SeanF The latest installment of the Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries, Who Cries for the Lost (2023), takes place on the eve of Waterloo. What might interest you as an historian of the Peninsular War, is that plot points include the Battle of Bailén, and the English refusal to allow the Spanish to abide by the surrender agreement by which the French troops were to be repatriated. Instead, as you know, 25,000 French pows were sent to horrific imprisonment on the island of Cabrera, w/o food, clothing or shelter. 5 years later ... how many were still alive -- between 3 an 5 thousand.

Not just despite being female, but because she is female, Shiv and her baby are the closest to Waystar now as Logan's direct, blood legacy. Or something. One can so easily postulate future scenarios with her, Tom's position,* and she raising a Baby Roy as opposed ton a Baby Wambsgams, particularly as she shivved both her bros, because they refused to even consider her to be #1. And, again, she has Logan's blood grandchild. * My first impulse is always to call him Tom Scams.

Yet you have the obligation to commit the courtesy of respect to those you expect to read your comments to be clear, organized and factual. Otherwise you're just another guy on a bar stool who has had at least two drinks over his limit blathering senselessly and boring everyone. IOW, you cannot claim you're just effin' around and not bringing a mature game and then complain that people aren't taking you seriously.

It does not. It is a name created by the fascists for those of any kind, particularly in the realm of Black Lives Matter, that push back in public against the neo nazis and fascists, the same nazis, white supremacists, election deniers, climate change deniers etc., who often false flag making a protest become violent. Which has been proven by many investigations. This is documented all over the place. Your determination to make 'antifa' the equivalent of Proud Boys, etc. is preposterous, just again, beginning with the fact it doesn't exist except in bad faith minds like yours. Show me just one real example, taken to court and convicted, of anybody who is part of 'Antifa'. Good grief the wrongwingers, reichwingers, all have complained that they can't because there is no organized ideological group they can go and arrest members of.

BTW, if you all haven't seen this hilarious bit from the FL meatball, he recently whined that his wife has been denied the cover of Vogue and a photo spread inside ... so did another FL creep who doesn't really care about anything but self, named Melania.

The library yielded up three mysteries today. The 100th volume in the British Library Crime Classics, Death of A Bookseller (1956) by Bernard J. Farmer; The latest Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery, Who Cries for the Lost (2023) by C.S. Harris; The latest Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery, So Shall You Reap (2023) by Donna Leon. Two of our oldest friends are spending the summer in Venice due to an art project. They asked me for a list of books to read about Venice and its history, and any fiction I might think of. I put the four latest Leon titles on the list, along with Henry James's Aspern Papers, rather than Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

McShea, Brown (2023) La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France. Judging by the titles of her previous books, McShea appears to have specialized in going granular in various aspects of the history of the Catholic Church, with a strong emphasis on the Jesuits, as well as aspects of the Order of the Inquisition. Marie de Vignerot, as beloved niece and heir to everything of Richelieu’s, provides a perfect screen through which to sieve so much of this era’s French Church history as entwined with that of the French state. His niece grows up under Louis XIII, and has her maturity through the reign of Louis XIV, once he’s able to wrest his divine right royal power from that of his mother and Cardinal Mazarin, Marie's uncle’s successor. There is never any implied criticism or askance at anything Richileu does (much is literally just referred to as off stage, which Marie can’t know about!). Keep in mind, these are the decades in which the first volumes of Dumas's The Three Musketeers take place; when the author allows it to be, i.e. drifting from the Church's grandeur and greatness, it gets as exciting as the novels, with as much action, betrayal, and intrigue -- and (evidently the author believes -- unearned hatred of Richileu. Then there is slavery, which is astonishlngly essentially brushed off, except for the Barbary Pirates who enslave French people, and for whom the Cardinal and his niece do good works. Within the author’s argument is always that Marie, having inherited all her uncle’s vast properties, possessions, and money, plus the peerage title King Louis XIII award her himself via Richeliu's suggestion – very few peers in France, and no females ones – she has her own empire. The imperial designation is entwined in the author’s descriptions of all Marie’s actions, once she administers Richileu's previous estate solely, not having, needing or assigned any oversight or overseer, all receiving glowing approval and approbation. Yet, somehow, author misses that France itself was an empire, and maybe not so good for her possessions, particularly the slave and the indigenous – though those of other European nations may be criticized? Whether or not the author understands this, how Church/religion and Empire building and retention are inextricably entwined is very much centered here, and without criticism.

The POTUS who went for and did 0 debt cratered the US economy, into the longest and deepest and most severe economic depression the country ever experienced until the Great Depression in this nation's economic system of cyclic boom and bust, which only stopped with FDR regulation, and now has re-started thanks to de-regulation. This POTUS, btw, was Andrew Jackson. The only people who didn't feel the depression were those who owned many slaves in the slave states, since wealth there was embodied literally.

Ya, it seemed unlikely these kids, particularly the youngest, was going to have a happy, balanced life.

Upon overnight reflection, I now see White House Plumbers as very good, and damme, if not even subtle. It accomplished fully all the ways in which this early fascist action, we call Watergate, and the people doing it, are mirrored, and not even more extremely, with the neo nazis, white supremacists, racists, bumbling fools, -- see, for instance, George Santos -- who are today running things even more so, with much more power than even in Nixonian era. Really, why in hell is Santos not even in jail? Not to mention how prisons are breeding grounds for neo nazi, etc. -- re Liddy leading the cafeteria in Heil and chants of 'nazi nazi nazi' while the Jewish prisoner he assisted getting kosher meals, looks on, puzzled. There was zero preaching in this series, just a lot of slapstick comedy, yet evil actions are committed and even more evil ones projected, even down to killing each other, with always in the background the hints of the mafia, Cubans + these clowns -- who were all up in Bay of Pigs -- and the Kennedy assassination. Doffs chapeau in recognition of what the showrunners accomplished!

So why do you post at all, since your posts are full of what you said? And why are you complaining that people don't have respect for your posts since your posts are full of what you said? Even when something isn't going into an academic journal you have an obligation to facts, honesty and clarity. This is as true when it comes to 'issues' as it is when instructing someone who hasn't done it before how to change a baby's diaper.

Ah Ha! That last episode of White House Plumbers makes clear the point of making this program. It's the parallels and even the language, and also including Liddy's neo-nazi leanings, that "We did it for the President, that we believed our actions were directed and approved by the highest officials, by Nixon himself," it's all the same as what we've seen and heard from the insurrectionists and attackers of the Capitol and those within it. In the meantime the burglars and Liddy and Hunt are taking the fall for those same people -- who cut deals, while they are in prison. The true nazi stays true, but Hunt finally sees the light. These are the take aways we are supposed to have. Or something like that. Well, it worked for me, but not until this last episode does one get it. Or at least me get it. I feel now it was worth my investment of the time to watch the 5 episodes. Though we are indeed left hanging regarding the Kennedy assassination -- and particularly, what happened to Hunt's youngest son, taken away by the mafia?

https://gothamist.com/news/is-covid-back-in-nyc-wastewater-surveillance-shows-coronavirus-is-rising

An interesting story because it's about something that few if any of us have noticed or thought of (at least I haven't!) New Car Dealers -- and how much political influence they have bee wielding for over a hundred years. Want to Stare Into the Republican Soul in 2023? At a party filled with booze and grievance, some of the party’s richest patrons looked to the future. Not everyone liked what they saw. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html

Makes it harder for somebody dum enuff to take a swing to see Raylan's nose.