Who ever said the Concord NH Library’s book mobile had to consist of a four-wheel truck?
I am proud and humble to report that I have just published my twentieth book. Its title is Get Up, Australia, Get Up. Gumshoe editor Dee McLachlan will write about that later.
Today’s article was prompted by a startling experience I had yesterday. On the final page of my Get Up book, I listed 24 books as “recommended reading.” Then I snapped a photo of those 24 books on my shelf, using, of course, the ubiquitous cell phone.
Here it is:
And then a little notice popped up on my cell phone, asking “Would you like Google Lens to translate this for you?” Apparently I was not in my “Kill all electronics” mood. I said “OK.” Then they said “What language?” Given that the hottest book I had just read, “The Treason of the Experts,” is by Thomas Harrington, an historian of Iberia and a friend of Catalonia, I said “Catalan por favor.”
Bang! In no time at all, I mean instantaneously, there appeared on my cellphone this picture:
Gosh. Karen Wetmore’s Surviving Evil becomes Sobrevivral Mal. David Edgerton’s The Shock of the Old becomes Exocedel Vell.
But now look at Shane Dowling’s Love Letters from the Bar Table. In my original copy, the title on the spine binding was written in the color maroon. So how did Google lens deal with that little matter? Why it matched the color of course:
Cartes d’Amor de la taula del bar. Why not?
Let me remind you, this happened in a milli-second. (And they say we can’t put men on the moon? Nonsense!)
Disparaging the phrase “too much of a good thing,” I went back to the said cell phone and asked for my photo to be translated into Hebrew, thus demanding not just foreign words but foreign script.
No problemo:
Then I thought, Hmm, would they put my book about Elias Davidsson into Hebrew, given that this book does not meet Israeli pleasure-rating 100%?
By the way, Dee made the front cover for that book, it is so beautiful, and Cherri Bonney made the back cover. (Ya wanna see the back cover? Buy the book! $12.50 at lulu.com)
Yes! Bibi said “Go ahead, some chapters of the book are acceptable, like the one that defends Larry Silverstein.” Thus:
Look how they put my “doctorate” in front of my name! Oh. You’re supposed to read Hebrew — and Arabic — right to left. Hmm, then shouldn’t “9-11” be “11-9”?
Warming up to the new technology, which is called ‘Google lens,’ I thought I’d fiddle with my 2017 campaign picture. My actual nametag said “Vote Mary, U.S. Senate.” Here it is in Chinese and Ukrainian. (This stuff could be a bit dangerous, Non?)
Intellectual Thrills
Back to the list of 24 books. The criteria for getting onto the list was that the book be intellectually thrilling. The one exception I’ll grant is Robert’s Rules of Order. As for the other 23, they range over 72 years, from 1951 to 2023:
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Carroll Quigley, The Evolution of Civilizations, 1961
Walter J Ong, Orality and Literacy, 1982
Robin Allott, The Motor Theory of Language Origin, 1989
Judith Shklar, The Faces of Injustice, 1990
Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race, 1992
Lionel Tiger, The Decline of Males, 1999
Henry M Robert, III, Robert’s Rules of Order, revised, 2004
Edwin Vieira, How To Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary, 2004
David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old, 2007
Dowling, Shane, Love Letters from the Bar Table, 2009
Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind, 2012
Sam Wagan Watson, Love Poems and Death Threats, 2014
Richard Mack, Are You a David? 2014
Karen Wetmore, Surviving Evil, 2014
Edward O Wilson, Half Earth, 2016
Higashida, Naoki, Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8, 2017
Elana Freeland, Under an Ionized Sky, 2018
Randolph Nesse, MD, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, 2019
Zephyr Teachout, Break ’em Up, 2020
Whitney Webb, One Nation Under Blackmail, 2022
Philip Allott, The Music of Time, 2022
David Bernstein, Woke Antisemitism, 2023
Thomas S Harrington, The Treason of the Experts, 2023
I will pick out only two of them here, the Catalan-minded fellow, Thomas Harrington, and the business-school man, Jonathan Haidt.
In the title of the article at hand, “Books, the Electronic Miracle, and the Consequent Tragedy,” the ‘electronic miracle’ has to do with my amazement at the above translations. The ‘consequent tragedy’ is the fact that if you are a high schooler and have Mr Google do everything for you, you won’t end up with much of a brain.
Harrington’s book is not strictly about that. And it’s not about Catalonia at all. It’s about what he called The Treason of the Experts — what I would call “The 21st Century Retreat of the Intellectuals, Especially Since 2020.” Harrington’s book is the closest I have seen to what we have been chewing upon at GumshoeNews.com for the last three years. If we ever come out the other side (will we?), his book will stand as a marvelous on-the-spot history. But today, it’s a dirge for what we have lost. Just buy it:
I quote an anecdote from Harrington and you will see, in the video below, how it mixes with a theme from Jonathan Haidt, about “Generation Z.” This is from page 202 of “The Treason of the Experts” (of which the subtitle is “Covid and the Credentialled Class”), by Thomas Harrington:
“As social media emerged as a dominant pathway for human communication in the early 2010s, the young raised on these reality shows took the lesson that life has always been a pitiless choice between total victory and abject humiliation with the into the new, disembodied public square. [Wow, the disembodied public square!]
.”..Encounters with students during my office hours, [which used to] revolve largely round curricular matters, veered increasingly toward stories of the indignities they and other students suffered while ‘partying’…
“When I very, very obliquely mentioned to some of the male complainants that there used to be rather standard verbal and even physical ways of dispatching extreme antagonists from their lives, they looked at me as if I were from outer space.
“In time, the fear of being called out [e.g., for asking a silly question] became a quite palpable presence in my classes, greatly deadening the quality of our discussions.” (Remember: those discussions were about the History of Spain and Portugal, and Catalan culture!)
This suddenly helped me solve a puzzle — which I should have worked on earlier. Namely, in 2020 when I was trying to win my state’s Republican nomination for president (I got 925 votes, Trump got 129,000), there were students from Louisiana invited to the campaign fora. I had chatted with them in the hallway, and then from the podium I said that I thought that the 2005 New Orleans’ hurricane known as Katrina, was not an act of God.
I expected a little cheering and pom-pom tossing from the Louisiana corner of the room, but all I got was blank stares. I mean these kids had come north to analyze the politics of a presidential election, right? Stupid me thought the young were conspiracy theorists. No. Later, one of the LAs (a very intelligent girl) came up to me and said I was wrong. Hey, she could have said that at the meeting! We could have duked it out. And the cameras were rolling….
Haidt’s book: “The Righteous Mind”
Now for the other book from my Recommended list, assuming you don’t crave Robert’s Rules of Order. It is entitled The Righteous Mind, by Professor Jonathan Haidt [pronounced ‘height’]. The subtitle is “Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” — but it’s about much more than that. It was published by Pantheon Press in 2012. I’m shocked that I never knew of its existence till this week.
It got a blurb from the late beloved EO Wilson, saying that Haidt’s book “adds evidence that we are innately capable of the decency and righteousness needed for societies to survive.” And a blurb from Paul Bloom: “Jonathan Haidt is one of the smartest and most creative psychologists alive.”
He has many YouTube videos, and his team’s website is called YourMorals.org. I think you will be very taken with Haidt’s 9-minute explanation of the tragedy of Generation Z:
Concerning my ‘salary’ at Gumshoe, in Irish!
Ní íocann Dee cent dom riamh.
is there any technological difference between books and device consumption of tik tok type content. Being a Luddite I hate them both(with exceptions you MM-can I purchase yours with a handwritten gesture like you see the movies have the line up at bookshops)((and we just had the writers festival hereabouts)). No Mills and Boone, I’m sure but I’m still trying to get past Lady Chatterley’s censored content.
Why the AI is so fast, well” it” may have anticipated or even programmed your query. I’m still struggling with the difference of Olson Wells and Julian Huxley and maybe AI can help getting a handwritten forward should my MM plan not work out – wink
In defence of the e-media, watch in amazement as a roll call of honest politicians, it seems we have about 28, is defeated within 4 minutes by 29 of the LYING SCUMMMM, the DIRTY FILTH, THE DREGS OF CANBERRA, THE UGLIEST HUMANS STILL RUNNING FREE IN AUSTRALIA, these monsters, ugh, make me feel dirty, they are so repugnant, concealing the DISHONORABLE behaviour of the Right Dishonorable Elbow.
This specifically of interest to anyone injured or bereaved by the injections.
That shows what a farce the political circus is in Australia. I would love to see some debates on the Port Arthur Massacre and the ‘shit storm’ that would raise with the clowns in Parliament (I hate capitalizing that word). Just imagine the crap we would be subjected to in the MSM. – However, Aussies are beginning to wake up now, they are beginning to question the narratives of the media. Crikey, just imagine a majority of the population coming to terms with what really happened at Port Arthur. – What? trust you low-life POS on ANYTHING again?
When the 1st msm broadcasts re Port Arthur were rolled out in the Autumn of ‘96 the holes were dead obvious. In hindsight it’s also dead obvious that those responsible never counted on any of them being filled in via on-line info – which in turn is categorical proof that there’s never been any cohesive/comprehensive globalist plan afoot.
I know I will likely regret asking this question, but what the Hell do you mean by “which in turn is categorical proof that there’s never been any cohesive/comprehensive globalist plan afoot.”??
Senator Rennick exposes TGA director John Skerritt as categorical proof the marketing program is out of control ( at least )
https://www.youtube.com/@SenatorGerardRennickAustralia
“Books, the Electronic Miracle, and the Consequent Tragedy”
And the relevance of the Muslim rave on the front page ?
i did magnify rules 2-5 watever, was going to leave it for the micro-fish.
Sure it does not talk for all Muzzies but wat would I know, like u ,I did drill down on this detail – wink
in order to reach a realistic position re any religion you need to take a good hard look at the roots:
“Sure it does not talk for all Muzzies but wat would I know”
What most people would prefer not to know perhaps?
“Every “moderate” Muslim is a potential terrorist. The belief in Islam is like a tank of gasoline. It looks innocuous, until it meets the fire. For a “moderate” Muslim to become a murderous jihadist, all it takes is a spark of faith.
It is time to put an end to the charade of “moderate Islam.” There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Muslims are either jihadists or dormant jihadists – moderate, they are not.”
http://formermuslimsunited.org/exposing-the-myth-of-moderate-islam/
elspeth – Islam was meant to be the ‘World’s Religion’, which is why the commie/Jesuit/Globalist Pope and the Deep State controlled governments, were pushing huge immigration numbers from those countries controlled by the, ‘Religion of Peace’.
Islam is just another control system, as all so called religions are, however, Islam is not just a religion, it is a political/social/religious control system, akin to National Socialism and Communism with which Islam fits in perfectly.
Hence Hitler’s special Muslim battalions to wage war in the Balkans and the Chechyans who had to be ‘tamed’ by Putin some years back before being allowed into the Russian Federation.
An estimated 90% of Muslims do not read the Quran because they are kept illiterate by the Islamic system of control. What is fed to them by the Imans and other clerics, is a politically doctored version of what the Quran preaches. I’m not suggesting that the Quran is a holy book by any means, it only survives today because thorough scrutiny from those who are controlled by it cannot read it for themselves – such as the Bible was never read until the printing press and Martin Luther came along.
Islam is THE real problem, not the individual Muslim who does what their Iman tells them to do upon pain of retribution from the Ummah (collective) who will act against any Muslim who refuses to act on instructions from the Mosque.
Such is the tight system of control that is Islam.
Islam will not survive a reformation and enlightenment, especially when Islamic women can find their voice against such a tyrannical patriarchal system of control.
Islammonitor.org – Australian National Library – for those who wish to study Islam. I have several articles on that site.
absolutely agree
Something a bit different: DEW srike in Lahaina?; dead billionaires 2020-2023?; Trump drawing out and setting the trap for the Deep State
https://m.beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2023/08/dead-billionaires-scorched-earth-epstein-list-exposed-on-msm-video-3797404.html
Yes that’s quite an entertaining medley
The Philosophy of Vladimir Putin
Putin could try a bit harder on the information front if all this goodness kindness and benevolence is to be believed, the reality is they have a big exporting MIC and they are in competition with every other MIC
A very fair assessment. Anyone who can comprehend the history of Russia and the West will acknowledge the West’s part in attempting to undermine the Russians, for centuries.
Putin is a world leader for his time.
The Synagogue of Satan knows that their end is nigh.
Revelation 12:12King James Version. 12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.