Tom Wolfe

I've had this issue of Biblio (v. 4, n.2 1999) for 20 years.  I suppose I should read it.  Tom Wolfe died this week. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/05/farewell-tom-wolfe-boldly-told-the-truth-about-evolution-and-intelligent-design/

A-List Conservatives in the media

I haven't finished adding the links, but I'll get a roundtuit soon. List is from Christopher Buckley who said I could use and revise. You can read, follow, listen to or watch these folks for more insights on the news, politics, religion and entertainment. I think all but two are U.S. citizens.

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Sharyl Attkinsson: Investigative Journalist. "Full Measure." NYT Bestseller
Fred Barnes:  executive editor of The Weekly Standard; appears on the Fox News
Glenn Beck: political commentator, author, television network producer, filmmaker, and entrepreneur
Bill Bennett: pundit, politician, political theorist, author; Reagan's Secretary of Education,1985-1988
Brent Bozell: Founder, President Media Research Center; columnist, TV commentator
Breitbart
Tammy Bruce: nationally syndicated radio host, author, and political commentator. Lesbian.
Bernard Chapin
Pat Condell
Ann Coulter: Lawyer, author of numerous books, columnist, frequent TV guest
Steven Crowder
Monica Crowley: Columnist, political commentator on Fox, talk radio personality, and author. PhD.
Mark Dice
Matt Drudge
 Dinesh D'Souza
Larry Elder
Eric Erikson
Nigel Farage
Richard Fernandez
John Fund
Mike Gallagher
Pamela Gellar: Commentator, blogger. Activist for the Counter-jihad movement
Paul Gigot
Jonah Goldberg
Joe Dan Gorman
 Greg Gutfield
Sean Hannity
Daniel Hannon
Victor Davis Hanson
Daniel Henninger
Hugh Hewitt
Jim Hoft
David Horowitz
Mike Huckabee
Brit Hume
Laura Ingraham: radio talk show host, book author, political commentator, guest host for O'Reilly
Boris Johnson
Alex Jones
Andrew Klavin
Charles Krauthammer
Bill Kristol
Michael Ledeen
Mark Levin
Dana Loesch: talk radio host, television host at TheBlaze and author. Big 2nd amendment fan.
Rush Limbaugh
Frank Luntz
Heather MacDonald: political commentator, journalist City Journal, author War on Cops
Andrew McCarthy
Gavin McGuinness
Michelle Malkin: political commentator, blogger, author 4 books, weekly syndicated column.
 Michael Medved
Dennis Miller
Dick Morris
Charles Murray
Peggy Noonan
James Okeefe
Bill O'Reilly
John Podhoretz
 Dennis Prager
 AlfonZo Rachel
 Michael Ramirez
 Glenn Reynolds
Rockin Mr. E
Karl Rove
Michael Savage
Buck Sexton
Ben Shapiro
Thomas Sowell
Bret Stephens
Mark Steyn
John Stossell
Kimberley Strassel:Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, weekly "Potomac Watch"
James Taranto
Stacy Washington
 Matt Walsh
Michael Walsh
Paul Joseph Watson
Allen West
Bill Whittle
 Geert Wilders
 George Will
Walter E. Williams
 Kevin Williamson
 Milo Yiannopoulos

Books are not dying!

They all agreed. People really prefer holding a paper copy of a book, especially the kids who may be on their phones all day. E-books are nice for traveling, but not much else. And the sales of their books show it. This is a panel of Ohio authors, novelist Mindy McGinnis (a school library aide), David Meyers, a non-fiction and history writer (formerly worked in academia and corrections) and a poet/novelist Amit Majmudar (doctor) with the library director of Ohioana who spoke at Upper Arlington Public Library Thursday evening. Arlington's Tremont Road is so badly torn up, I almost gave up and went home due to the detours, and I'd lived in that neighborhood for 35 years! Two of the speakers were about 30 minutes late. I'm sure some potential members of the audience also gave up. What a mess!

Mindy has a blog "where she stores her extra words" and gives advice to aspiring writers. (Get an agent, she says.) She is an assistant YA librarian who lives in Ohio and cans her own food. She graduated from Otterbein University magna cum laude with a BA in English Literature and Religion. She told us she's a single mom of two.

I've known David and his wife Bev for about 16 years, and we sometimes go to the Rusty Bucket together to celebrate our September birthdays. He is a "lifelong resident of Columbus, Ohio. A graduate of Miami University and The Ohio State University, he has had an abiding interest in local history since childhood. In the past eight years, he has written two novels, a handful of works for the stage, and eight books of local history including Wicked Columbus, Ohio; Kahiki Supper Club: A Polynesian Paradise in Columbus; Inside the Ohio Penitentiary; Ohio Jazz: A History of Jazz in the Buckeye State; and Look to Lazarus: The Big Store. Two of his crime stories have been dramatized on Curious and Unusual Deaths on Discovery: Crime Investigation and Jerry Springer’s Tabloid on Investigation Discovery." David is also on Facebook and used to have really wonderful blog on his music collection, but I don't think it's been updated for awhile.

The son of immigrants, poet and novelist Amit Majmudar grew up in the Cleveland area. He earned a BS at the University of Akron and an MD at Northeast Ohio Medical University, completing his medical residency at the University Hospitals of Cleveland.  He also has a blog with links to his other writings.

Plane crash, war hero and God

No, this isn’t about Louis Zamperini, featured in the movie “Unbroken”.

In her 1944 book “The great answer” popular American author Margaret Lee Runbeck (1905-1956) writes about Eddie Rickenbacker’s 24 day ordeal in 1942 when the WWI hero was touring bases during WWII and the plane went down leaving the crew to drift for 24 days in the Pacific.  Runbeck writes about millions of people praying for him as a personal experience (very moving), “We waited and we did see.  Some of us almost gave up. But not the taxi-driver, nor the boy with the shoe-shine box, nor Joe who sells papers, nor Mrs. McGinty.  Nor Mrs. Rickebacker.  Nor I.”  She tells about the thrill and excitement when the newspapers reported the rescue and then reading down the column, “Four paragraphs down it was, in my newspaper, that word occurred.  “God.”  You don’t often meet it in a newspaper.  It gave you a funny feeling.  And more than that.  A strange excited feeling, as if something good had happened to all of us.”  She goes on to tell his story (with 6 witnesses) that Rickenbacker told of a gull lighting on his head, and his catching and killing it for the starving men to eat. 

"And this part I would hesitate to tell, except that there were six witnesses who saw it with me. A gull came out of nowhere, and lighted on my head -- I reached up my hand very gently--I killed him and then we divided him equally among us. We ate every bit, even the little bones. Nothing ever tasted so good."

She says everyone was talking about it, that gull and Eddie. Then after a few weeks he went on a speaking tour and something happened to the story. When it came to God’s part, or the millions praying, that had all been toned down and Rickenbacker had new, more sophisticated explanation for what had happened. Runbeck says she was very disappointed with the story that later ran in Life magazine. However, years later, after her death,  Billy Graham includes Rickenbacker’s story in his book Angels and says Rickenbacker became a Christian through the experience and told Graham God had sent an angel (p. 4).

Billy Graham also is featured in the Zamperini story, although not in the movie Unbroken.  The conversion story is left out of the movie.

From comments at a website selling old books, about The Great Answer by Runbeck.

“The Great Answer was a book that had come to me in a pile of books belonging to someone who had "moved on". I was riveted with the humility, the sincerity of each character in the book. This was a time when I was a pre-teen, and in the face of devastating bombing attacks on ships, on London, and on English country towns, people were saved from death and destruction by their simple trust in God. Their prayers and steadfast dedication in praying in the middle of the worst of the German attacks on England over a period of years, was very humbling. Sometimes the house the person lived in was reduced to rubble, to dust! But they walked away without harm. One woman walked out of concentration camp in Germany under the very eyes of the two guards on duty! People, clinging to pieces of planks,floated in the sea for three weeks before being picked up, but all were saved by the prayers of an older woman who had worked as a missionary. This book should be on the shelves of every home in every country.”

There is so much to do at Lakeside this week Three

My husband’s Perspective Drawing class is full—starts at 9 today at the Rhein Center.  I won’t be taking that class—I think I have 3 times. Lakeside has a new computer sign up for art classes now.

Which is a segue to Monday and Tuesdays programs are on Google, delivered by Amy Carle who is a Lakesider, but also a Google program manager. There’s also a 3:30 Tuesday class on popular Apps, but I don’t need that one.

At 3:30 on Monday is Christianity in Pakistan, persecution of an endangered minority in Chautaqua Hall.

Wednesday and Thursday’s programs are on the Dead Sea Scrolls by John Kampen which should be interesting. I don’t know if it is the same content, but he has about an hour lecture on vimeo on this topic. I’m hoping it’s a bit more animated in person.

On Tuesday afternoon, a Lakesider Diane Hartenburg, will talk about her Christian pilgrimage in 2013, 500 miles across France and Spain at the Lakeside Women’s Club.

At 8 a.m. on Wednesday the Sudomirs are leading a bird walk.  Darn, my binoculars are in Columbus. There will be two other bird programs, on Friday, on Birds of Prey at the bandstand at 10:30 in the morning, and same topic, different presenter at 1:30 in the Aigler Room.

The Foreign Affairs Forum will be 2:30 on Friday as usual, and I assume should be lively given how ISIS has taken over all that was liberated in the Iraq War and is moving on to Syria and Libya.

There are two author/book events, Tuesday at 7 p.m. with Christine Haymond, See my spark, ear my voice, tips for teachers, counselors, social workers, clergy. .. and Thrity Umrigar discussing her upcoming novel, The Story Hour. She is a native of India who now teaches Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve.  That will be a Fine Print Book store at 1:30 on Friday.

And all of that is just the day time programming!

The art show starts Tuesday.  My husband has two great watercolors in the show.

 

 

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On reading Bonhoeffer

I’ve decided to recommend Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas for next year’s book club selection.  In order to have it finished by the next meeting in May, I have to read at least 22 pages a day. The following description is from Truth and Triumph, for which he’d done an interview:

“Eric Metaxas is the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. His work has been published in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Regeneration Quarterly, Christianity Today, National Review Online, Beliefnet, and First Things. He's also been featured on CNN, The Fox News Channel, and National Public Radio. He lives with his family in Manhattan.

Last fall, Metaxas' newest book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy, became a New York Times No. 1
bestseller. In the book, Metaxas explores what happened when the German theologian's profound faith convictions ran up against a Nazi regime determined to co-opt, corrupt, and then neutralize the voice of the church in Germany.”

Book Club--beginning a new year

Monday our book club (I joined in 2000) met for our first day time meeting. The group is about 30 years old with some of the original members, and many of us preferred meeting during the day and not going out at night. Our first selection was "Two Girls of Gettysburg" and we had a wonderful time talking to the author Lisa Klein, who is actually a Shakespeare scholar. She got into Young Adult fiction when her career didn't go the intended direction, and I think I'll look at some of her other books, too. She talked a little about her Shakespeare interests, the genre of YA, and the thrill of the research.

She told us that one of the main characters in this book, Lizzie, is based on the memoir of Tillie Pierce of Gettysburg. Next month's title is a whopper.

For a very quick review, here's the rest of the selection:

October 3
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe led by Dorothy.

November 7
In a Heartbeat: sharing the power of cheerful giving by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy. Led by Justine.

December 5
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed by Philip Hallie. Led by Peggy.

January 9
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (562 pages!). Led by Judy. January's meeting will be at Panera's Beechwold meeting room from 2-4 PM

February 6
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the fire that saved America by Timothy Egan. Led by Jean. February's meeting will be at Panera's Beechwold meeting room from 2-4 PM.

March 5
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. Led by Patty. [I read this in high school--thought it was a great book.]

April 2
Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Led by Carolyn A.

May 7
Hold Up the Sky by Patricia Sprinkle. Led by Carolyn C.

A number in our group had recently visited Gettysburg (our hostess just this past month) and if I had a bucket list, I would add this. I visited in 1949, but visitor centers in all parks and memorials have really changed.

Write what you know

And David Myers certainly knows about prisons--he worked in corrections for 30 years. He and his daughter Elise have authored his second title for Arcadia Press, Central Ohio's Historic Prisons. Here’s the story.

We spent a lot of time in Ohio prisons back in the 70s, following a friend around for visiting hours on Sunday afternoons when our children were small. Most recently we added a fourth to our list when we participated in a closing ceremony at Marion for Kairos.

The Myers family belongs to UALC, and is active in many arts projects and local theater, Dave having written a history of the local music scene, Columbus; the musical crossroads.

Phyllis Chesler writes

“. . . the fact that I support America and Israel and oppose Islamic jihad and Islamic gender and religious apartheid means that my reputation as a feminist–and the work done by conservatives on behalf of women–must be either demonized or disappeared.”

Read her views on Muslims, women, sex slavery, battered women, religion, Israel and conservatism at Pajamas Media, Chesler Chronicles.

The Wonderful World of Cooking and two mothers $12.00

Katherine Cornell said this book is enchanting. Maybe so, but for one dollar (Lakeside yard sale) it has some great recipes ala the 1950s when it was damn the cream, butter and cholesterol. Still it has enough herbs to make the 21st century cook smile. The Cream of Wild Asparaus uses fresh tarragon, a pinch of coriander, and a sprinkle of mace, served with crusty rolls and fresh berries for dessert.

Edward Harris Heth was a minor writer of the 1940s and 1950s who lived an openly gay life style in the midwest when that was somewhat unusual. At least one young man (then) thought so who met him in a writing class where he was an instructor. This book is autographed, and was given as a gift by the floral shop (Tom Jacks, Milwaukee) to a new bride in 1961. The bill for the flowers, still inside the book, is worth the $1.00: Brides bouquet, $12.50; 3 bridemaids $18.00; 2 altar bouquets, $10.00; Belssed Virgin (sic), $5.00; aisle runner, $10.00; pew bows and streamers $10.00; centerpiece, $15.00; 2 Mothers, $12.00; bouts 9, $4.50. Total for all the flowers for bride, attendants, mothers, groomsmen, tables, etc. was $97.00. So Jean Winzenburg and Steve Treacy of Wauwatosa, WI had quite a wedding.

There are some amusing stories in this cookbook, with Aunt Dell (a large woman who always seems to be in his kitchen), as well as great recipes for Onion Pie, Blueberry Pickle (uses molasses), fried green tomatoes, leaf lettuce and cream (a favorite at my Mother's table), string beans in drippings, Pregnant Soup, Salt pork with creamed new peas and potatoes. Now, aren't you hungry?

Americans often feel the same way

So many people I know say, "I rarely watch TV; or, I need to turn it off when the grandchildren are visiting." Therefore, what this Jordanian author Diana Abu-Jaber says about returning to her birth country, reminds me of what many Americans think of our hyper-sexualized and violent TV stories

"Years of shows like “Baywatch”—and now, even worse, so-called reality TV, give Middle Easterners the idea that Americans are all corrupt and decadent and frightening. Sort of in the way the American media portrays Middle Easterners as frightening and sinister."

Look!! A way for westerners to bond with middle easterners.

Freitas, Pullman and traditional Christianity

I have no dog in this fight. I’m not Catholic, I have no young children to protect from dangerous books on the library shelves and my chances of seeing the movie The Golden Compass or reading Dan Pullman’s anti-Christian trilogy are slim to none. But I thought Donna Freitas’ review of the children’s books by the professed atheist as “theistic” and about the true God (a feminist-God rooted in the Old Testament), intriguing. She writes for Belief Net (quasi-spiritual web site), and a few days ago had a book review in the WSJ.

But then this view by Carl Olson made much more sense to me because Freitas‘ feminist brand of Christianity is certainly a type well known in the Protestant traditions (I’ve stopped attending certain “Christian” churches and worship services because of it). Luther, Wesley, Calvin, etc. were all wrong, or misguided, but truth can be found in various new-agey, pantheistic writings of obscure women, and we traditional Christians are just “knuckle-dragging, right-wing, hate-mongering, lite-beer swilling fundamentalists bent on the oppression of all that is open minded, free thinking, and otherwise delightfully dangerous.”

The problem, of course, is that the form of Catholicism touted by [Donna] Freitas is not the Catholicism rooted in Scripture and Tradition, articulated by the Councils, defended by the Magisterium, expressed in the Catechism, and taught by the popes—that is, authentic, historical, real Catholicism. But, again, Freitas believes that the councils, the Magisterium, the Catechism, and the popes are bad, rotten, oppressive, etc., etc. Like many of Dan Brown's [DaVinci Code] "Catholic" fans, she asserts that her brand of Catholicism is the real sort because it is opposed to the life-killing strictures of institution, authority, and doctrine, and open to the supposedly life-giving streams of pantheism, neo-paganism, and neo-Marxism. Insight Scoop

Also, I try to give people, even those I don’t like, even wildly successful, misguided authors, the benefit of the doubt. Pullman says he’s an atheist, that God is not only dead but never existed. Shouldn’t he know what he believes?