Big Blue Didn't Blow

Good morning, Stroock's Books reader(s). Baaaah...the foot is better than yesterday but still tight and sore with a sharp pain or two. We remain annoyed. 

So we had our annual Diwali block party last night. Diwali is basically Chanukah and the 4th of July rolled into one. It is literally the festival of lights. Midway through, after the fireworks got going, the cops showed up. Actually, the police cruiser rolled up on us. The cop rolled down his window, pointed a finger at us and asked, 'Do you have a permit for those fireworks?'

'It's Diwali,' we said.

'I don't care,' the cop replied.

At this point we we're thinking of going all Arlo Guthrie on Officer Obie there, but we played it cool. So did the officer, who said just lay off the big rockets that had gotten his attention. And so we did. 

Overall the Diwali party was fun. Huh, no one brought samosas. Anyway, we had a couple of drinks at the party and ate way too much.

The planned Kristallnacht in Philadelphia yesterday was a bust, with the dozens of bike riding Nazis met by hundreds of patriotic counterprotesters and customers. Reggie Jackson, a north Philly man himself, entered the fray. Reggie! Reggie! Reggie! Once again, Reggie answered the whole world. 

More Kristallnachts are coming through. Can the patriots rally again? 

We've no idea what to do about it. 

Today is the anniversary of the actual Kristallnacht. 

Sports wrap...an ugly win for the New York Giants in Philadelphia. Ugly win. But the Giants are 5-2-1 and lead the division. That's the first time the Giants have won in Philadelphia in 13 years. This game was a test and the Giants passed it.  Are the Giants great? No, of course not. What kind of ridiculous question is that. Are they good? Maybe.

DOGE report. We read through most of the Battle of Nueva Segovia chapter yesterday. It's fine but needs more explanation. Basically we need a scene with Enrique Bermudez looking at map, describing the Department of Nueva Segovia and saying, 'This task force is here. This task force is there. There's Santa Clara. There's Ocotal.' etc etc....Also, the chapter was too wordy. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 11/8/26

Baaaaaah! Fun day yesterday. Lots of fun. The foot is somewhat better this morning.  But we are still disabled. We remain annoyed and frustrated. We probably need to see the doctor again Monday. Bastards. 

TBH, between our foot and current events we ain't exactly in a good headspace right now. [Why don't you stop letting current events get to you?-Ed] We're trying. We consume much less news. We nuked our twitter account long ago. And about the only blogs we read anymore are Hot Air and Instapundit. Wait...we have a Daily Wire account? Huh. Not anymore.  

DOGE Report.

We worked on a piece we promised to a friend of ours who runs The Brazen Head. Devotees will recall we published a piece there some time ago. 

Alert reader(s) will have noticed we updated that Future Projects Page.

Will's Good Idea for the week of 11/8/26.

We sigh, forlornly. We've two more post war novels to write, Saddam's War and the Italian thingy, but GIUK GAP calls. 

We'll finish the Managua Campaign read through this week. 

Saturday Updates

Baaah! We had a great day with our foot yesterday. Dug our cane out of the closet, we did. And today is going to be another great day. Just a fab day. Here comes the sun and everything. Fuckers. 

In Israel it looks like Gadi Eisenkot is going to get first crack at forming a government. Which is not unexpected. On paper he has 67 MKs. We shall see. Should Eisenkot succeed, we won't worry. You know, Bibi, we can't miss you if you won't go away.

The things.

We spent all week working on the 1066 story, For Want of an Arrow. We've written through the first Norman attack on the English army. So far, so good. For Want of an Arrow is 3,000 words. 

We've read through two thirds of World War 1990: The Managua Campaign. We are generally pleased, but we are nagged by a few things. The plot jumps from 'disaster in Cuba' to 'we've gathered a Pan American coalition' rather quickly. World War 1990: The Managua Campaign is 52,000 words. 

After the Last Bomb: Stories of the Great Nuclear War of 1975 is being edited. We'll get the MS next week. 

We think an alien invasion novel is a dead end. 

Friday at Hastings

Baaaah! Our foot is killing us. We're not sure exactly what it is. But we suspect it's all the stretching exercises we were told to try. The boot don't help at all. Hell of a job all those doctor visits have done. Hell of a job. We are not necessarily in the best mood.

Once again a Thursday night football game was on, and we just weren't that interested. Over saturation? Are we just getting bored with the NFL? We find this alarming. 

In shabbat news Kristallnacht is coming to Philadelphia. Dark times for Jews in America. Dark times. 

Gloom and doom, doom and gloom. Ya'll know politics is cyclical, right? Ben Shapiro the other day said that when W and the GOP won in 2004 he thought they'd never lose again. He was young. We didn't think that, but we believed the GOP had turned a corner and rewritten the rules. Heck, Dems were posting forlorn pics of themselves holding 'I'm sorry' signs on the internet. Two years later the GOP got shellacked in the midterms. Two years after that Barry Soetoro won easily. Guess who got shellacked in 2010? Eschew gloom. We'll stand for no doomerism at Stroock's Books. 

DOGE report.

Just an excellent day, really. We read through the Battle of Los Banos chapter again. The chapter is probably as good as we can make it. This chapter shows the army and marines (both American and Mexican) and the various insurgent groups in 27 individual scenes. There's a lot of bouncing back and forth.

We spent the afternoon interpreting the first act of the Battle of Hastings. we read some primary sources, read some secondary sources (David Horvath and Marc Morris) and examined the Bayeux Tapestry. Click here to look at the tapestry, reader(s). It's really a fascinating document. Our medieval warfare prof, Professor Brian Todd Carey, taught us that the Tapestry was an excellent source for the battle. Of course we've walked Hastings. There really ain't that much to it. Hastings is just a field, a hill, and an abbey built by William the Bastard to commemorate his victory over the rightful King. 

Here's the problem we're having. We know William opened the battle with an archery barrage. Then he sent in the infantry. When they stalled on the English shield wall, William sent in the cavalry. But (!) did the infantry withdraw first? Sources don't say. If not, then the cavalry waded into the mele, into the press of men and shields and spears and swords. What good is cavalry in a situation like that? 

Doom This

Sigh...the foot still bothers and the doctor wants us to wear the boot as needed. And so we shall. 

We got to the gym yesterday, at least, and did ten or so seated weight exercises. We persist. 

For those of you not on FB, FB Memories shows users all previous posts on that day. FB is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of our life:

-In this year Will joked about sitting on his deck in a bathing suit smoking cigars and drinking a box of wine...

-In this year Will told a bad joke. Mrs. Stroock not pleased... 

-In this year Will spoke at his grandfather's 90th birthday party...*

FB memories is loaded with old posts for November 5th. We see proof that our teenage daughters were once little girls. In 2019 we wrote, 'The Giants suck'. They sure did. 

And over the course of two decades, we've made many a political post on November 5th. Eighteen years ago we wrote, 'Didn't vote for Obama but he will be my president'. Hah! Now we believe Obama was ineligible to hold office. A year later we commented, 'Just voted for the fat man,' referring to future governor Chris Christie. Three years later we lamented Barry's reelection. Two years after that we gloated about the 2014 midterms, 'What is best in life?'

Which brings us to a few thoughts on Tuesday. We'll tolerate no doomerism. 

As Athena Thorne wrote at PJM, 'Meh. 2008 was worse'. Yep. And yep again. After Barry's election, pundits were warning that the GOP best 'moderate' on economic and social issues. Be more like the Dems! At the CPAC conference of 2009, Rush Limbaugh warned against turning away from conservative principles and asked, 'When was the last time Dems moderated?'  Two years later a Red wave washed over Washington. Rush was right. He usually was. 

You know why Barry Soetoro won in 2008? An unpopular war, an economic crisis, and eight years of the GOP in the White House. That's all. Guess what? Hillary would have won too. The moment the markets crashed that September, John McCain's odds of winning the election dropped to zero point zero. Oh, and Barry got a smaller percentage of the vote in 2008 than George Bush did in 1988. Look it up. 

This year Americans looked at inflation, gas prices, and the long Iran war, and voted blue. And we got some bad news for the doomers out there. The party in the white house getting shellacked on the president's second term is a dog bites man story. We'll explore that more tomorrow. 

Moving on...

We contemplated more alien invasion novels. A friend from a European country known for its art and cuisine suggested writing a novel that takes place in the 60s. Two words: century series (F-100s and the like). Which is kinda cool. When did they retire the B-58 Hustler? In truth, the more we think about aliens invading Earth, the less we want to do the story. 

We still don't know what we're writing in January. 

DOGE report.

We read through the Battle of Los Banos chapter in World War 1990: The Managua Campaign. It seems...fine. Exit question: do we want to read it again today or move on? 

Work on 1066 continues apace. The work is slow, but it's apace. 

*He rented out a room at the Algonquin in NYC. Must have been a hundred guests. Good fun. Wonder what that costs? Yikes.  And when some old geezer complained about our girls we asked, 'Do you know who I am? Did you not see me before, speaking lovingly to the man paying for this thing?'

Wipen' Out Wipe Out....Wa, Wa, Wa...

So, we checked in about 10 PM last night, and checked out at about midnight. The polls we thought were wrong were right. An electoral refutation of Trump, the GOP, and MAGA. JD Vance may want to sit things out.*

Below follows a musical interpretation of events:

Second term electoral wipeouts are bog standard and in two years will come another election with new candidates, ideas and circumstances. 

Rebecca Bennett annihilated our own Tom Kean 57-41. He earned it. Next time you're feeling down, don't skip work for a hundred days, Tom. 

In Texas Jessica Hart Steinmann was elected to the 12th Congressional District. We used to hang out with her husband back in our mid-90s College Republican days. 

One thinks a thing can't happen. One worries that the thing will happen. And then the thing happens. We are remarkably, okay with the thing, as if a burden has been lifted. We didn't even have too much trouble getting to sleep last night. At least we can stop worrying about elections for a while. 

The great Robert Stacy McCain is always right:

At some point, you need to get in touch with your inner Stoic, to seek calm amid the gibbering madness, to stop being a wired-in political junkie before it drives you bonkers. People are out there losing their minds over this election, and I refuse to surrender to the insanity. Even if the very worst-case scenario develops, the American Republic has survived crises before, and the worst collective errors of the electorate (e.g., the Obama presidency) at least have the beneficial effect of inspiring more determined opposition.

Be patient. Be calm. Be courageous. “Never take counsel of your fears.”

We've slowly reduced the amount of news we consume. We will continue doing so. Alert reader(s) will have noticed this blog has gradually shifted away from political analyses toward creativity and ideas. There's a reason for that. We're tired of being a wired in political junkie.

We should probably cut back on the caffeine too [Death before decaf-Ed]. 

We'll have a few thoughts in the coming days. 

On to nicer things. 

So, in thinking about an alien invasion series, we'd once again try to write a Clancy-esque technothriller. We like also like the idea of the aliens attacking and getting turned back. Or at least not doing as well as they thought they would. Imagine the Israelis hit 'em with lasers, missile barrages, and drone swarms. They have to regroup on the dark side of the moon...where missile and laser batteries are waiting for them. Not bad, huh?

Or maybe we should just do another To Defend the Earth novel. 

Last night, between 9 and 10 PM, we sat in our basement trying not to fret. We failed really. But we did come up with several ideas for a 6th nuclear war novel. This would feature stories taking place in the 80's and 90s. 

We thought up a story where someone is walking the ruins of Washington DC. Why not a story about Prime Minister Enoch Powell and a resurgent Britain with a close commonwealth? Oh, and say hello to President George Steinbrenner. 

DOGE report.

We finished the Thatcher's War read through. This is it. This is novel. 

We read through two more chapters of the Managua campaign. 

Work on the 1066 story continues apace. 

We're off to have our foot looked at. 

*Ron DeSatnis white courtesy phone. Ron DeSantis, white courtesy phone...no, the white phone. 

Midterm Election Day Cometh Forsooth

Another election day, another election in which Will tried and failed to stop following politics. Even if we read less, and we read much less than we did two years ago, we still worry. What's the point?

Good election day morning, Stroock's Books voters. Your guess is as good as ours. We'll be unplugging tonight [You always say that -Ed] and reading Marc Morris' book about the Norman Conquest. He's very good. 

For what it's worth Hot Air's Duane Robinson argues early vote numbers look great for the GOP. Ed Morrissey says, 'Final NBC Poll: GOP Comeback, Y'All?' And David Strom, 'Why you cannot trust polls.' This blog agrees with all that. The pollsters are guessing. 

We've seen plenty of articles more or less agreeing with what we think, or at least what we think is possible. The polls are crap. Polls underestimated conservatives in Brazil, British Columbia, and Israel. There's every reason to believe polls are doing the same here. The GOP is motivated. Trump is rallying the base one last time. Going back to 1998, midterm wipeouts for the party in the White House are a 50/50 proposition.* The GOP underperformed in 2022. The Dems can underperform in 2024. 

The last time the GOP ran second term midterm elections was autumn, 2006. Ahhhh....the reader(s) will kindly forgive a bit of nostalgia. This was our last great substitute teaching semester. Mrs. Stroock was pregnant with Oldest Daughter. We were writing magazine articles and re-editing A Line Through the Desert. The book doc we hired convinced us to add the last chapter showing Jake getting home from Desert Storm. We were really into AC/DC.

This was W's second term. The wheels had come off, they say. The economy was decent enough, but the Iraq war was raging. We thought the Dems would make big gains but the GOP would hang on to at least the senate, barely. The Dems picked up 31 seats in the House and five in the Senate. We were wrong. 

Those of you who know us on FB know we've needed daily gut checks. Overall, we approach today's election with [Great fear and trepidation?-Ed], great fear and trepidation.  

This blog predicts we'll wake up on Wednesday morning to chaos with the Maine and Alaska ranked choice races undecided. 

Exit question: can the GOP Stop the Steal?

DOGE report.

We read through two Thatcher's War chapters. Just a few chapters to go, and maybe one scene to write. 

We worked on the Hastings story. 

Then we read through two Managua chapters, which are looking good. 

We've made no decisions on what to work on this January. 

*Look at 2018, people. There were three things, House, Senate, governorships, and the GOP won the last two of  'em, including tough races against vaunted Dem candidates in Florida and Georgia. We are the only person who understands the 2018 election and thinks the GOP won. Yes, everyone is wrong except for us.