Noticing and Noticing Movies

Good Tuesday afternoon, Stroock's Books reader(s). We have returned from a brief sojourn to the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction where things are more or less okay. As we wrote the last sentence we thought, don't tempt the gods. It seems we've tempted the gods. 

While lounging on a wonderful deck beneath a century old shade tree, we read several entries in Steve Sailer's interesting book, Noticing. We were drawn to the chapter titled 'Jews and Gentiles'. This chapter has four entries, Counting Jewish Achievement, Jews and Noblise Oblige, Stranger in a WASP Land, and The Myth of the Golf Nazi. Sailer has some observations, analyses, and criticisms of American Jews. Criticism does not equal Juden hass. Afterall, we're critical of the Hebrew race. This week we'll share a few things we noticed about Noticing's Jews and Gentiles chapter.  

So we noticed, (see what we did there?), that Amazon tells customers how many copies Noticing sold in the last month. We went to the page for World War 1990: The Final Storm and sure enough, Amazon says 100 + copies sold or read in the last month. This comports with our own sales data, more than 100 copies, less than 200 copies. Alert reader(s) may have noticed over these many years that we've been coy with exact sales figures because, well, just because. 

On the drive to and back from the Berkshires we thought of potential alternate history WWII stories and came up with nothing. We've seven weeks till submission. Okay, we did a little research and eliminated one idea, this is a good thing.

We did spend a lot of mental energy on War Night's Lexington story. Right now, Lexington begins at the University of Kentucky campus and ends there. Nice book ends, no? We're strongly considering wrapping up the story in this manner. There will probably be details to add in between. We'll be working on that today. 

Well, we got a little PR for The Great Nuclear War of 1975. Thank you, Sarah Hoyt. 

The Jerusalem Post reports, 'In a revealing survey by the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs (JCFA), some 64% of the Israeli public stands against establishing a Palestinian state as part of the normalization process with Saudi Arabia.' Well duh and what's wrong with the other 26%? Outside of the peacenik Meretz, the rump Labor Party, and the Arabs, there is no constituency in Israel for a 'Palestinian' state. None whatsoever. 

Israel is off to a bad week with the Rafah bombing and more diplomatic opprobrium. Someone else wrote that the war has been a diplomatic catastrophe for Israel. Quite right. The way to end the catastrophe is to end/win the war. Good news on that front as Israeli tanks are advancing up the Philadelphi Corridor and also into central Rafah. Good. The longer the war goes on, the worse the situation gets for Israel. Finish it, Bibi. 

Last night we watched The Bridge on the River Kwai (again) which we regard as one of the ten greatest war movies ever made. We'll be sharing a few thoughts all week. To start, this film is about three different attitudes toward war, the honorable (Japanese) the proper (British) and the pragmatic (American). Do reader(s) not have just a bit of sympathy for the hapless Colonel Saito as his plan falls apart and the camp is taken over by his British antagonist?  Exit question, Colonel Nicholson is the bad guy, isn't he?

The nice men are coming today to rebuild our downstairs bathroom. Wish them luck.