A good Berkshire morning to Stroock's Books reader(s) across the United States, Commonwealth, and Empire. And Happy Hiroshima Day. They started it. We finished it.
Sitting in the house our grandmother lovingly decorated and maintained, opposite the canal she used to clean out so her two grandchildren could play in the water, we can't help but recall that that woman never forgave the Japanese. Wouldn't by Japanese cars. Related, we have Chinese neighbors who won't buy Japanese either.
Anyway...An overcast morn here in the Berkshires. The weed cutter is out. That thing takes up half the Lake Buel Association's budget. The Labor Day fireworks take up the other half. Someone is swimming the middle of the lake. There's an....who the fuck set their car alarm here in the woods?
A simple day, yesterday. We didn't go out on the boat till evening, the girls 'weren't feeling it' they said.
We spoke to the wastewater treatment people about a long needed repair to the system, and have contacted a few tree companies about taking down some trees which if we don't drop them, mother nature will.
The deck is getting some repairs next week.
Have we ever mentioned that second homes can be time consuming and expensive?
Last night we were coming in from the deck when the family heard us exclaim, 'Ahhhh! Shoo! Shoo!' A snake was lounging on the front stoop. He was a harmless water snake. Nevertheless, we asked, 'Snakes. Why does it have to be snakes?'*
Reader(s) have no doubt heard that scandal plagued Cambridge Professor Jason Arday has resigned. Among other things he's accused of plagiarism. Is not plagiarizing really that hard? Especially for an academic? Back in our professorial days we'd bust a student every once and a while for cutting and pasting an essay from the internet. Sorry, kid. 18 year olds don't write that good.
Anyway, plagiarism scandals happen so often now we've questioned our own work. Everyone's doin it, right? We got the idea of writing 'we' from the great James Taranto. 'Alert readers' comes from the old Kausfiles blog. The 'outside of laboratory conditions' thing comes from AoSHQ. Some scenes in our novels are inspired by book and movie scenes.**
John Sexton at Hot Air has an interesting story about the growing Exodus (heh) of Jews from blue states. Jewish parents are now choosing southern schools for their kids. Ole Miss and Auburn over Harvard and Yale! Remarkable. Heh, our own grandmother went to LSU, where she knew Giants great Y.A. Title, a little bit, or so she said. Sexton dives into why Jews are traditionally progressive and we think his explanation is at least partially right (Exodus again).
We ourselves fantasize about returning to our mother's ancestral homeland in Western Kentucky, should we need to. Slap a John Deere hat on our head we'd blend right in. And our girls could walk the streets of Livermore and everyone would just assume they'd belong. Heck when we were a boy we'd play on our Aunt Elsie's sidewalk and people would stop and ask, 'You're Mar-Bess's boy, aren't you?'
The South ain't called the Bible Belt for nuthin'. Prejudice dies hard and some of our fellow Hebrews don't understand that Christ is King is better than Allah Akbar. Stabby lives in our neighborhood and he's starting to give us the yips. We ain't flown our Israeli flag since 10/7. [You see the self-contradiction you just did there?-Ed]. We do Ed, we do. Now get us another cup of coffee, love, and take your time about walking away.
Will's Good Idea for the Week, Supplemental.
The leader of this blog's Confederate contingent replied, 'It was the one you talked about doing about mars with carriers in space...' Ah, the space-carrier thingy. It'd basically be Wing Commander, good books, BTW. Meh. Good story idea. Force-K of six escort carriers raids the Naralgian sector base, destroys it, only to detect the newest Naralgian*** Dreadnaught returning from its first shake down. Sort of Operation Hailstone meets Sink the Bismarck.
Here us out...We commission new covers for To Defend the Earth and To Survive the Earth and finally write To Liberate Mars.
*Reference.
**A name we've banked since high school. Somehow we got Naralgian from Harpoon Scenaraio Editor. We dunno.
*** George Lucas white courtesy phone. George Lucas, white courtesy phone...no, the white phone. Let's see, George Lucas saw The Dam Busters when he was 9 or 10. So yeah, that movie embedded itself right in his brain. Exit question: anyone know why they can't broadcast The Dam Busters anymore?