This Time at Green Man Review

Ye, it's that time again, and there's a new edition of Green Man Review ready for you:

Books about books, murder, witches, games and more; Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library; chocolate good and meh; indie rock, Americana, jazz, Latvian, and more music including a world bagpipe omnibus

And it's all waiting for you rigt over here.

Rittenhouse Walks

Which, if you've been following reports on the trial, was pretty much predictable. There's a lot of commentary, but I suggest you check out digy's post at Hullabaloo. It's lengthy, but I found this paragraph telling:

This sort of vigilantism is routinely celebrated on the right these days. From the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida to the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers now unfolding in Georgia, they have lined up in support for citizens who take the law into their own hands — as long as the targets are left-wing protesters and Black people.

Ir's being pushed by the right, but I can't quite shake the feelilng that they are willing accomplices of an overeas influence.

At any rate, check out digby's piece.

The Sparrows Are Back!

There's a flock of sparrows that roosts in a towering mulberry tree in the side yard. In the winter they move to a fairly tall juniper bush next to it -- tallenough to make them feel secure, and with very dense foliage, wihch must make it easier to stay warm.

Over the summer they disappeared. I suspect it was because of the cicadas -- we had cicadas in all the trees on my street, at least one to every tree, and the racket, starting in the afternoon and lasting throught he night, was increcible. I'm convinced that the sparrows left because they couldn't get any sleep.

At any rate, they've started coming back over the past few weeks -- I can hear them twittering their "Good night, sleep tight" chirps in the vening, and their wake-up chatter in the morning, and they've started appearing in the parkway, hopping around looking for something to eat.

It's sort of reassuring to have them back.

The Quiet Part Out Loud

This story is from yeseterdaay, soI'm playing a little bit of catch-up. Via Joe.My.God.:

In his latest journey to the edge of extreme, Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser and felon Michael Flynn called on Saturday for a single religion in America.

“If we are going to have one nation under God — which we must — we have to have one religion,” Flynn said in San Antonio at a stop for the far-right “ReAwaken America” tour. “One nation under God, and one religion under God,” he added.

Such a vision is completely contrary to the Constitution’s guarantee of Freedom of Religion, and the separation of church and state

This, of course,is what the "religious" right has been aiming for since Reagan, and they've been very clever about it -- goig after local and sstate governments, stcking the courts and then puysing their "religious liberty" arguments as far as they could. (Consider the assault on local school boards and schools in light of stories such as this one and this one.

And lest yoou have any doubts, it's not just Christianity, it's their own nasty brand of "Christianity".

What's New at Green Man Reiew

I remembered this time, so here it is:

Mystery novels, mystery films, music of an autumnal nature, Chinese folk music, Buffy graphic novels, and lots of licorice

If your weather's anything like ours, it's a perfect day to dig in and scout out some winter readig.

We Should Have Expected This

Im sort of surprized it took this long. Via Joe.My.God.:

The Spotsylvania County School Board has directed staff to begin removing books that contain “sexually explicit” material from library shelves and report on the number of books that have been removed at a special called meeting next week. The directive came after a parent raised concerns at the School Board’s meeting Monday about books available through the Riverbend High School’s digital library app.

The board voted 6–0 to order the removal. Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned. “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

The full article is here. You know who else liked to burn books? Let me refresh your memory:

On May 10, 1933, university students burn upwards of 25,000 “un-German” books in Berlin’s Opera Square. Some 40,000 people gather to hear Joseph Goebbels deliver a fiery address: “No to decadence and moral corruption!”

As part of an effort to align German arts and culture with Nazi ideas (Gleichschaltung), university students in college towns across Germany burned thousands of books they considered to be “un-German,” heralding an era of state censorship and cultural control. Students threw books pillaged mostly from public and university libraries onto bonfires with great ceremony, band-playing, and so-called “fire oaths.” The students sought to purify German literature of “foreign,” especially Jewish, and other immoral influences. Among the authors whose works were burned was Helen Keller, an American whose belief in social justice encouraged her to champion disabled persons, pacifism, improved conditions for industrial workers, and women's voting rights.

Do I really need to say more?

A Note on Blogging

Yeah, I know, it's been nonexistent for months, save for the GMR updates. Partly it's because the news is boring, but mostly it's because of my vision problems, which make it hard to work at the computer. However, I've decided that I have to give it a go, so expect peroidic posts on the news or whatever else captures my attention. Wish me luck.

There Is No Bottom

Eevery tieme you think the right can sink no lower, they find a way. Here's Dennis Preger, via Jo.My.God.

Anywhere that you have people who are governed by fear of global warming – the idiotic, irrational, sick fear of extinction of the biosphere – I mean, you understand the nonsense that we live with?

If we survive this as a free country, historians will just ask, ‘How did this happen? How did people get governed by irrational fears’?

Whether it is of the non-vaccinated, who are the pariahs of America as I have not seen in my lifetime any pariah group like this. “During the AIDS crisis, can you imagine if gay men and intravenous drug users, if had they been pariahs the way the non-vaccinated are?

The nonsense about climate cange is bad enough -- it's hardly an irratinal fear; it's a legitimate concern, especally for those who live in coastal aras, which includes most of the world's major cities. The the comments about how gay men were treated during the AIDS crisis ar simply beyond belief. Prager's left reaity in a dumpster on this one.

All this, of coure, is directed toward making heroes out of a bunch of petulant itiots with their heads full of QAnon bullshit.

The Republicsans hasve lost their freaking minds.