The Son of What I'm reading now

...I think most of us have it in us to be altruistic, but seldom have the obvious opportunity...

I think that it is a learned bad habit. Maltruism.

There are worse things. The bad habit of altruism could be connected to the allegedly bad habit of pride.

But I'm considering arguing on the other side, that pride is not a bad thing.

Aren't most bad habits learned?

Name them, then. The worst swineries which come to mind [and I am somewhat acquainted with history - why, just two weeks ago I met her at lunch] were all done on the maltruistic pretexts of the general/greater good.

Bad habits:

Pushing to get to the front of the line. In traffic, this is the fellow who swerves around you, just so he can be first up at the red light ahead.

Similarly, scurrying to get ahead of someone in the checkout line at the supermarket. That isn't subtle or anonymous. Everyone sees it, and knows the individual for an ass. Besides, it's undignified.

Violating the rules of the road, ostensibly to "be nice", while unaware of how steamed everyone behind you is getting, because you're being nice to one, and rude to several. The math is against you. (I tell these idiots to just drive, so the rest of us can get somewhere, but they never listen.)

Most of these fit a pattern, that the rude individual is the center of the universe, and cannot be bothered by us little people. I think this is arrogance, not pride. Pride by my definition is the opposite behavior from this.

Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine, Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Martin Cuppers, and Krista Smith

Finally finished Atlas Shrugged.

Clearly, Ayn Rand has no respect for "the 99%," this thrills me.

As a libertarian, obviously I find myself in general agreement with most of what she has to say. A possible area of disagreement between myself and Rand is her apparent optimism for mankind and for capitalist heroes. I guess there are great men around who are capitalists, similar to those she describes, but sometimes it's hard to think they'll save us. They may not be able to, if America does not adhere to its founding principles.

I found the various speeches given by characters to each other, and by John Galt on radio, to be unlikely scenarios, but eloquent.

Considering that my mother, long gone now, was a Rand fan, I suppose it's not hard to imagine that I find personal sympathy with Rand's thinking, even having gone most of my life without reading her.

Victor Davis Hanson in his [w/John heath] "Who killed Homer?" book recommends a modest reading list. Some of them [in used trade paperback form] could be had cheaply, $1+s/h. Say, "Theogony, Works and Days" (Oxford World's Classics) or "Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy". Just ordered.

Scorpions for Breakfast, Jan Brewer

Started Black Hills, by Dan Simmons. The description of Custer getting a blow job from his wife before chasing Indians seems rather tasteless, but Simmons is a very good author, so I'm expecting a good read.

The premise is that Custer's ghost enters the body/mind of a young Indian boy who counted coup on him as he died. Hard to beat as a plot element.

"Theory of Suspensions" by Arthur Komar

The Crusader: The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan, by Timothy Stanley

The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

Raging Bull: My Story, by Jake La Motta

Human Action: Scholars Edition, Ludwig Von Mises

Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine, by Klaus-Michael Mallmann

I just finished Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner.

I just started Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by Fiona, Countess of Carnarvon.

Got my Hesiod, and am pondering the deeper wisdom of "but open a cask on the 4th - a supremely holy day - the middle one". Casks we do not use nowadays, but rather bottles. And the "middle 4th" was the 4th day of the middle of the month. So, the supremely holy day, particularly suited for uncorkings, will be the day after tomorrow. I'll need to have patience.

The Written.
Neighbor brought it over for me to read.
Not written very well but a good story.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Written-Emane ... 0956770002

Got an interesting text ["Logical Sociology"], but a non-trivial case: it was written by my teacher, and has a good deal of insights in it [say, "a decent person is different from a scoundrel in that the former commits his dirty deeds less openly and does not derive pleasure from them"]. At the same time it was written by him towards the end of his life when he was going senile, and contains quite a load in that aspect as well. 260 pages. I could translate that book, but as I see it the translation would need a lot of footnotes and comments.

Got an interesting text ["Logical Sociology"], but a non-trivial case:... it was written by him towards the end of his life when he was going senile, and contains quite a load in that aspect as well.

Finished it. Sad. The guy [my teacher] started as a brilliant anti-communist, was exiled to the West [1978], but somehow was overcome by russian nationalism and degenerated into a neo-communist by the time he returned to Yeltsinite russia. When he died, he was an adviser to the communist party leadership there. Really sad. But one of his neocommie fragments somehow echoes "Moar Shirts" and other similar manifestations on DC. I do not need to name names, the guilty ones:
a) will recognize themselves in such a mirror and hopefully will confess and recant; and
b) will immediately come to the minds of my gentle readers, hence there is no need for me to denounce them by name.
So, the piece in question, translated by me verbatim:

I repeat, the main aspect [under communism-GS] is not the economic efficiency of separate enterprises, but the interests of the whole [society - GS], and these interests are not necessarily the economic ones. For example, communist enterprises have to provide jobs and thereby the means of existence to maximally large number of people, precluding unemployment in principle.
In a capitalist society predominates the economic approach to productive activities, in a communist society - the social one. These are not identical. Communism has a higher degree of social efficiency relative to capitalism [it is a neocommie who speaks here - GS], but a lower degree of economic efficiency. Social efficiency of economics is characterized by many factors. Among these - the ability to exist without unemployment and without liquidation of economically non-viable enterprises, relatively easy conditions of labor, capacity to limit and even not to allow excessive enterprises and unnecessary fields of production, capacity to concentrate large resources on selected tasks, militarization of the country etc.
I repeat and underline, for the enterprises in a communist society it is not necessary to be economically profitable, it is sufficient if they are socially justified. First and foremost, they have to satisfy the non-economic requirements.

"Wherever I Wind Up," by R.A. Dickey.

I read all 300+ pages in one day. It was a very interesting read. I like this guy even more than I already did.

Spook Country by William Gibson

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

On page 300 of Human Action.

"The World of Downton Abbey" by Jessica Fellowes.

I just started "Crazy U" by Andrew Ferguson. Laugh-out-loud funny.

Book 7 of the Wheel of Time series.
I have to put other random books in between.

Book 7 of the Wheel of Time series.
I have to put other random books in between.

I love that series.

Cycles of Time by Roger Penrose.

Tough sledding so far.

Edward Wilson, "consilience" - pablum.