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Randall
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The military operation to overthrow the Dudayev regime was launched on 11 December 1994. It was poorly planned—recall the then minister of Defense General Grachyov’s announcement that he would ‘capture Grozny with two regiments in two
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This passage is strikingly similar to the current Ukraine-Russia situation.
“The military operation to overthrow the Dudayev regime was launched on 11 December 1994. It was poorly planned—recall the then minister of Defense General Grachyov’s announcement that he would ‘capture Grozny with two regiments in two hours.’ From the outset, the army was betrayed by the high command. Its soldiers were insufficiently trained, depressed and demoralized; they did not understand the aims of this war, and they were treated as cannon fodder.”
― One Soldier's War
― One Soldier's War
“Like battlefield casualties dryly reported from someone else’s distant war, these unadorned numbers scarcely convey the decimation of American community life they represent. In round numbers every single percentage-point drop represents two million fewer Americans involved in some aspect of community life every year. So, the numbers imply, we now have sixteen million fewer participants in public meetings about local affairs, eight million fewer committee members, eight million fewer local organizational leaders, and three million fewer men and women organized to work for better government than we would have had if Americans had stayed as involved in community affairs as we were in the mid-1970s.”
― Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
― Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
“The kid looked at the man. His head was strangely narrow and his hair was plastered up with mud in a bizarre and primitive coiffure. On his forehead were burned the letters H T and lower and almost between the eyes the letter F and these markings were splayed and garish as if the iron had been left too long. When he turned to look at the kid the kid could see that he had no ears.”
― Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
― Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
“Whatever the ups and downs of individual candidates and issues, each campaign’s efforts to get out the vote must begin at a lower base level, for every year the Grim Reaper removes another swath of the most politically engaged generation in the American electorate.”
― Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
― Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
“Now come days of begging, days of theft. Days of riding where there rode no soul save he. He’s left behind the pinewood country and the evening sun declines before him beyond an endless swale and dark falls here like a thunderclap and a cold wind sets the weeds to gnashing. The night sky lies so sprent with stars that there is scarcely space of black at all and they fall all night in bitter arcs and it is so that their numbers are no less. He keeps from off the king’s road for fear of citizenry. The little prairie wolves cry all night and dawn finds him in a grassy draw where he’d gone to hide from the wind. The hobbled mule stands over him and watches the east for light. The sun that rises is the color of steel. His mounted shadow falls for miles before him. He wears on his head a hat he’s made from leaves and they have dried and cracked in the sun and he looks like a raggedyman wandered from some garden where he’d used to frighten birds.”
― Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
― Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
Randall’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Randall’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
2,120 books
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120 friends
479 books
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61 friends
882 books
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74 friends
174 books
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57 friends
1,616 books
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155 friends
1,462 books
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24 friends
82 books
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1,988 books
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