Marie > Recent Status Updates

“”For years, Schaffhauser wanted to build an alliance between Europe and Russia to act, he said, as a Christian bulwark against Asia and the Middle East.” You mean, atheistic Russia to be seen as Christian? Wow. That’s a reach. I guess he doesn’t care, as long as he sees them as White.

Promising. I might be hooked. So far, three obvious salutes to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I need to go back to my cozy mysteries or Pratchett books. Second book in a row that has a political agenda. Not as heavy handed as the other, but I read for escape not preaching.

Political commentary has gotten out of hand. I want to finish this book because I like a good crime mystery but it is getting a bit much. Recently ICE, Trump, MAGA red hats, and misogyny have been mentioned.

Was going to wait until I was finished with the book, but want to say that it could have been good similar to Kathy Reichs’ books. Unfortunately, there is way too much political commentary that is unnecessary. I agree with what the author is saying but there are comments about the current president, the state of healthcare, and the main character is Vance Judson. There is more but no space.

I’m not sure why, but whenever the author refers to the US Air Force, the words are not capitalized.

“The brain … never evolved for complex arithmetic. Its architecture, selected for survival in a probabilistic world, explains why we make so many errors during mental calculation.” Going to use this in math class when I tell students to write stuff down!!

I understand that these things have to be studied in order to be understood, but do people not realize how much work on a problem is done unconsciously? I always say I need to steep on an idea/problem. Sit in it for a while. Let my brain work it out and return to it in a little while. I don’t know the mechanics of it, but I understand that there is a lot going on.

“ [Kellerman] argued that ‘if more girls would swim and dance and care for athletics instead of rushing into matrimony as the only joy in the world, there’d be fewer divorces.’” Stated in about 1910.

“[T]ook out a freshly baked cannoli.” As a young child in Sicily told my elderly father once, “Uno cannolo, due cannoli.” Cannoli is plural.

“Amusing antidote “ should be anecdote.

This chapter is dealing with using very cold temperatures to do things. I was disappointed when reading the temperatures they were represented in Fahrenheit not Celsius. F is good for people, C is best when talking science. I had to convert to get a feel for the temperatures referenced.

“So Bunsen duly invented the device that made him a hero to anyone who ever melted a ruler or started a pencil on fire.”😂

“He planned to use a lantern slide-the early twentieth century version of PowerPoint-…”. You mean of a slide projector? Haha. Some of us are that old.

The author might get into it later, but the chapter on Beauty Culture is exceedingly misogynistic. They attribute makeup and perfume (or the wearing of scents) only to women in history. Men have used makeup and scents throughout history, also. And when stating harmful ingredients, they leave out that lead was once a staple in makeup.

“[T]hose of us who dream of impossible things know just how far we can go when pushed to do so.”

“Hate is loud, but I think you’ll learn it’s because it’s only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard.”

“We all have our issues. I have a spare tire around my middle. His father is Satan. Nothing that can’t be worked out if we try hard enough.”
This book has great lines and great deeper meanings!

“When something is broken, you can put it back together. It may not fit quite the same, or work like it did before, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer useful.”

“As long as you listen, you can hear all manner of things you never thought were there to begin with.”

“How can we fight prejudice if we do nothing to change it? If we allow it to fester, what’s the point?”

“I am parched parchment. I have lines. I have holes. Get me wet, and I melt. Light me on fire, and I burn. Take me in hardened hands, and I crumple. I tear. I am but paper. Brittle and thin.”

“I am but paper. Brittle and thin. I am held up to the sun, and it shines right through me. I get written on, and I can never be used again. These scratches are history. They’re a story. They tell things for others to read, but they only see the words, and not what the words are written upon. I am but paper, and though there are many like me nine are exactly the same.”

“Just because you don’t experience prejudice in your everyday doesn’t stop it from existing for the rest of us.”

“‘Fire and ash…’’Death and destruction! I the harbinger of calamity, will bring pestilence and plague to the people of this world…’
‘That was a lovely story, Lucy…. I especially like your use of metas. Keep in mind that pestilence and plague are technically the same thing, so it did get a little repetitious at the end, but other than that, quite impressive.’l

“‘The policy of America in dealing with foreign powers is one of justice. We believe that fair play, consideration for the rights of others and respect for international law will always command the respect of nations and lead to peace.’”

These chapters on Viktor Schauberger seem to be a glorification of this person instead of a book about water. A little too much of the martyr making of the man.

“‘Loyalty to the nation ALL THE TIME. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.’ …Samuel Langhorne Clemens. “

“‘All the romance of feeling that men in high places are above personal considerations and act only from motives of pure patriotism, and for the general good of the public has been destroyed. An inside view proves too truly very much the reverse.’ - Ulysses S. Grant to William T. Sherman, September 18, 1867.”