I have been having a bit of fun poking a Goya hater in Twitter. As it happens in these exchanges, the original issue gets sidetracked and the conversation goes somewhere else. In this case to a laughable attempt of faux intellectual superiority:
Four books is “a lot of books” for this person. That is so sad. Please allow me to share a Gonzalez Household issue that has the wife miffed some.
You see that old “entertainment center” on the background? Your sharp eyes may have noticed that it has no electronics but books. Seventy two books ( I just counted) that have been read in the last 2-3 years and are now residing in the living room because I ran out of shelf space in my room.
The missus has finally relented and we are in negotiations as of what kind of book case will go in the living room. It seems 6 feet wide by 8 feet high worth of book placement may be a wee bit too much even though I keep telling her we need to invest in space for the future.
OK, I am not normal (No shit, sherlock) And I truly lost count of the books I read in my life, but anybody throwing airs of superiority advising that 4 books are many is simply a sad commentary on his real intellect.
PS: I forgot. I always have a “throne book” to be read while “meditating” so about 2-3 pages a meditation. This is the one serving duty right now: Captain L. H. McNelly, Texas Ranger: The Life and Times of a Fighting Man
Don’t waste your time on this pseudo intellectual dipshit. Arguing with a prog is like wrestling with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
You sir, are engaged in a battle of wits with a half-armed man.
You are being kind about his ammunition
Our family has reading night twice a week. From 1900 to 2030 everybody gathers in the living room and we read.
When I was running an ISP I had to go to the local middle school and install software on the four computers they had in the library (back before they were media centers). I did a quick back of the envelope calculation on the number of books they had. (number of books per shelf averaged. Number of shelves per shelving unit. number of shelving units in the library.) I had about 50% more books than they had.
Our house has book shelves everywhere. Some 15+ or so. And this is after we gave away some 3000 books over the last 3 years to make room for…. More books.
This doesn’t even scratch the electronic books I have. Kindle and PDFs and such.
I was at an individual education plan meeting for my son. His teacher mentioned that she was very interested in history. I asked what time frame “WWII” she relied. I asked her if she had read about a half dozen of the basic books on WWII. She had not read any. But she was the “better educated” person at the table.
Most of these people haven’t read as much as they think they have. They read what fits their world view and discount books that don’t.
To: Therefore
Ok, you have me beat. I have a ton of books in 4 bookshelves, mostly history and science, and a bunch of science fiction. I have a lot of books on WW2. I’m interested to know what the half dozen books are that you recommend, for WW2.
Thanks!
My library has dwindled in size constantly. When I moved to Plainfield in 2005 I went from 7 book cases filled down to 4+. In anticipation of our downsizing and move to SC, I traded in and gave away about 3 more cases full and am now down to one, medium sized bookcase and a pile on the headboard.
Therefor had a point, many people ‘have’ books but really haven’t read them. Coffee table books for looks or shelf filler for decoration. I read it all. Yes, sci-fi is the mainstay but I read biography, mysteries, historical works and other selections as well.
My house(all 500 sq feet) is full of books. My parents house is FULL of books. Sometimes Im reading two or three books at the same time and Im a knuckle draggin neanderthal…. most people like this arse are hiding extreme insecurities. I found that out when i was studying phsycoligy.
Marcus Aurelius is a great read.
Great idea of family reading night!
I used to have to read about 30 books a semester in college, all literary works.
Last year I read 14+ books, I lost count, but most were easy reading fantasy novels tha i dont really count.
Im typically between 4-10 a year otherwise. I try to read at least one literary work and/or classic, something political or philosophy related then fill the rest at my pleasure.
I read pretty slow as well but have very good recall, what I read typically sticks. I have friends who just whizz through books at breakneck speed, some couldnt tell ya more about what they read than there was text on a page.
I have to alternate. I read “The Red Umbrella” because it was one of the books in my daughter’s reading list. When she told me it was about Cuba I wanted to read it to see if there was anything I needed to add to the story.
My son read “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”. I’m not sure he really got it. But in our table discussions my daughter did get the ending and it made her glad she had picked a different book.
So I read something historical and heavy, then read some sci-fiction or “fun fiction” of heroes winning before I have dig into the next heavy read.
If you want to feel sick for a week, go read Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B01G1F0F84
After reading that book, you need to spend time with puppies (or kittens) to detox a little bit.
I typically don’t go for historical stuff too much, but I will give it a look for my next “serious” book.
I’ve also been meaning to read rise of the warrior cop, but every time I go to start I don’t feel like raging for 200 pages straight so I don’t lol.
I like books, as a kid neither of my parents read much and other than some readers digests in the bathroom books at home were rare. I was 10 or so when a teacher encouraged me to read a book and I just devoured everything after that. Every birthday or Christmas my wish list was books.
When I married I chose a lovely women who came from a family of readers. A few years ago I started catalouging our family library. Not including childrens books or cook books we are over 3500 and there are still boxes of read books to add to the list.
2020 has been a bad year for reading, my eyesight used to be perfect but now glasses are a neccessity. Working shift up north in a camp means that i have 3-4 hours a night when on site to read for pleasure. Plus there is the thousands of pages of asme bpv code to read everytime it gets updated.
Luckily the kids mostly seem to be readers as well, the youngest wasn’t till a month ago when he sat down and read a whole 10 book childrens series.
I’m constantly surprised by the people claiming to be well read who manage 1 or 2 books a year.
I’ve found that reading books on the combonculator (favorite thing to do is to find an epub or mobi copy and convert to an .rtf format) because of the ability to manipulate the font size, add space between paragraphs, and such.
My wife will turn the text white and the background black as it is easier for her to read books that way, well, for her.
Though I love physical books, hand issues and eye issues have hit both of us hard.
But reading on a laptop? Able to adjust the luminosity and fonts (serifs are easier for me to read than non-serifs) and such makes it so much easier.
Even reading a pdf is easier for me than physical book handling. And i hate pdfs.
My usual response to leftist assumptions of intellectual superiority is either to smile to myself and walk away, or to point out that my having been admitted to, and having graduated from MIT proves that I’m at least in the 99th percentile. My wife refers to the latter approach as “getting all MIT arrogant,” so I tend to reserve it for the truly assholish cases.
As for books, I’m an engineer, and my wife is a librarian. With the exceptions of the bathrooms, the laundry/utility room, and the dining room, there are bookshelves in every room in the house. That includes a 6′ tall bookcase of cookbooks in the kitchen. Aside from that, we’ve visited libraries about once per week for most of our married life, and we’re regular users of the inter-library loan service.
YMMV….
‘My usual response to leftist assumptions of intellectual superiority is either to smile to myself and walk away, or to point out that my having been admitted to, and having graduated from MIT’
I do not bother to ‘point out’. Are we in kindergarten? When one counteracts another’s argument not by a logical rebuttal but by comparing the length of ‘credentials’, it clearly shows the value of those credentials.
Agree with the library ( add ebooks) approach: we reserve the shelves for non English books, because they are not readily available here. One of my first ‘loves’ in the US were libraries.
P. S. Was just recently called ‘uneducated, uninformed and easily led’ at a party when I cited court affidavits on election fraud. ?
A: somebody “majored” in projection, at that party.
And I do not think it was you.
Another leftist accusing others, of what is in fact true of themselves.
As another engineer married to a librarian, I understand.
Miggy, looks like we are on the same wavelength…
These days nearly all my books are e-books, which are easier on the aging hands and eyes. In particular, from gutenberg.org, which delivers tens of thousands of free (copyright expired) books. In other languages too; Spanish of course, but amusingly there seems to be a rather large collection of Finnish books. Not that those do me any good…
Miguel, I assume you’ve read the Federalist Papers. Another book like that, not as interesting writing but interesting contents, is Madison’s notes (essentially the minutes) of the Constitutional Convention. It gives an interesting insight in what the members spent their time on, the bits that took a lot of work and the bits that did not. For one thing, some parts that have become very important — like the Commerce clause — don’t really show up at all, or just barely.
Remember you are not the jackass whisperer.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
The classical Leftist tactic of moving the goalposts.
Real conversation (paraphrased):
Leftist: “You Republicans are uneducated. You don’tbelievein science.”
Me: “I have a BS, MS, and a PhD. In engineering no less.”
Leftist: “From some for profit degree mill probably.”
Me: “No, two nationally ranked engineering colleges.”
Leftist: “Those are in the Mid-West. You should have gone to [tech school on east coast] or [tech school in California].”
He couldn’t admit his premise was wrong so he kept raising his standard to anything less than a PhD from MIT or California Tech is “an uneducated Republican.”
I just was called an ‘uneducated, uninformed’ and ‘easily led’ at a recent party….
MIT PhD is not a panacea against leftist elitism ?
Miguel looks like he’s got good taste.
I started rereading Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series again for fun, after (finally) finishing John D. Clark’s Ignition. Probably going to reread Dr. Derek Lowe’s The Chemistry Book next (I tend to read fast, but I also reread stuff so I can pick up anything I missed).
I have seen various papers, studies, and posts claiming that people who identify as Democrat on average have higher education than those id’ing as Republican. The “education” divide between the right and the left is rather large.
However, they do not mention what field(s) that education is in.
I would make the assertion that your Master’s Degree in hypenated-American Studies means you are less educated than someone who graduated HS and went to trade school. In fact, your pursuit of a degree that ends in Studies pretty much means you learned nothing. (There is no degree that ends in “studies” that will provide any information you cannot get for free from you local library.) If you paid good money to get a degree in a useless field, that means you are stupid, not intellectually superior. Regardless of how well you can parrot the professor’s lessons in your term papers.
The problem with the liberals, who as I have asserted over and over again, is they are toddlers in adult bodies. They actually believe their degree in comparative religions taught them critical thinking skills. And, because you are not flaunting your education, that makes them superior to you.
I’ll take, “you’re not the jackass whisperer” and turn it into “you’re not the pompous asshole whisperer”
This guy might be in the top 10 most pompous assholes ever.
The reason for the credential contest is that mine generally tops theirs, and shuts them up enough for me to segue into the actual data relevant to the issue under discussion. However, I usually follow Ben Shapiro’s strategy–I assume that my interlocutor will not be swayed by a data-based argument, so I only engage when others, who might be so swayed, are present and listening.
Aside from that, I have a good friend (and fellow BSA volunteer) who barely finished high school, but is one of the most well-read and interesting-to-talk-with individuals I’ve ever met. He works as a heavy equipment mechanic, and does many things for himself, rather than hiring others–car repair, building things, cutting firewood, appliance repair, large gardens for food, etc. He and I have often wondered how people get through life who, as he puts it, “can’t do stuff.” Most overeducated leftists I’ve encountered over-estimate the importance of their formal education (or, in many cases, indoctrination), and under-estimate the importance of the “skills education” demonstrated by my friend, or, for that matter, advocated by Mike Rowe.
YMMV….
I’m with you there, I often wonder how expensive life must be for people who won’t or can’t do for themselves.
Because the Left is Feudalistic at heart, credentials are the key for membership in the New First Estate. Any knowledge that has not been officially granted and certified by the Modern Clerisy is suspect and may contain Heresy.
Reminds me of a…discussion….about “the gun show loophole” TDW-Mark II and I had with one numbnut, friend of my brother’s.
Linked, here:
Musingsofastretcherape.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/the-gun-show-loophole
Of course, our personal, in-real-life experience could not POSSIBLY be accurate, because it ran contrary to the Canonical report from The New Yawk Times.
Some folks, and their “Emperor’s New Thoughts”