What are you currently reading?

[CD]

[karlhenning]

Very interesting, Bill.

. . . "Reverse income tax" in the USA? Please. Americans believe their country is one of "boundless opportunity" where anyone can make it: the corollary is that if you don't make it you're a listless bum and undeserving of any consideration.

Well, I think that in practical terms (and psychologically in a way which must not be unique to the US), a system of payout to very low income people as such would disincentivize a great many people to search for work. If, on the other hand, it were a matter of revising (and perhap expanding) the unemployment benefit, might possibly fly.

[Maciek]

Need to revisit. (Mental note.)

[Fëanor]

Very interesting, Bill.

"Reverse income tax" in the USA? Please. Americans believe their country is one of "boundless opportunity" where anyone can make it: the corollary is that if you don't make it you're a listless bum and undeserving of any consideration.
...

Well, I think that in practical terms (and psychologically in a way which must not be unique to the US), a system of payout to very low income people as such would disincentivize a great many people to search for work. If, on the other hand, it were a matter of revising (and perhap expanding) the unemployment benefit, might possibly fly.

You're right that it would raise the "disincentivizing" flag in a lot of places beside the US.  But I maintain that it would be especially, even in degree, uniquely a problem in the US.  Why do I say so?  Because in a good many other countries, (not necessarily my own, Canada), the working people might see that such reverse income tax would be in their interest and vote for it.  But in the US the poor & lower middle classes themselves have bought the myth that they deserve their poverty, and reject the measure as being "socialist".

But Robert Reich would deny that his advocacy of the measure has to do with altruistism or social justice for the poor.  Instead he says it is just financially necessary to enable US citizens to buy the goods & services that their country can produce.

[DavidW]

I recently finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.  A great novel but depressing as all heck.

[eyeresist]

I'm reading CS Lewis: the authentic voice, by William Griffin. Related to this, I annoyed, and perhaps hurt, my father by saying that Lewis's theology was "guff". Those boyhood attachments are hard to break.

[Daverz]

I recently finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.  A great novel but depressing as all heck.

The followup novels get even more brutal.  I bet McMurtry likes to pull the wings off flies.  He sure likes to torture his characters.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Crime and punishment by Dostoyevsky. One of my favorite authors and I absolutely adore the way he makes the reader feel sympathy for all the characters. Not to mention his cynical sense of humor.

[DavidW]

The followup novels get even more brutal.  I bet McMurtry likes to pull the wings off flies.  He sure likes to torture his characters.

I'll have to read those sequels but I need a bit of time.

[CD]

[DavidW]

I just finished True Grit by Charles Portis.  I have not seen the recent remake, but I've seen the classic with John Wayne.  The ending is not quite the same in the book as the movie.  Anyway it is a heck of a read!  An iconic western, it has in common the same traits that Lonesome Dove has: they both are realistic, black comedy adventures that capture the spirit of the wild west without romanticism.

[Hollywood]

I just bought a book titled Kings and Queens of Ancient Britain. I want to learn more about some of my royal ancestors which include Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Kings Henry I and II of England as well as Kings Duncan I and Malcolm III of Scotland. (I am still waiting for my invite to the royal wedding.)   

[Philoctetes]

[CD]

[Todd]

I'm about halfway through DBC Pierre's newest novel, Lights Out in Wonderland.  Better than Ludmila's Broken English, but not as good as Vernon God Little, it shares in common with those books certain characteristics, chiefly rather thinly drawn characters, absurd situations and actions, and crackling, inventive use of language.  It's this last trait that draws me in every time.  The book follows the actions of a suicidal, well-to-do young man from his rehab center to Japan to Germany, and its critique of capitalism generally and the financial meltdown in particular are a delight to read. 

[CD]

Finished Magris's Inferences From a Sabre — a breezy read, somewhere between an encyclopedia entry and a tragedy. The epistolary style and the slightly pedantic moralistic narrator in the form of the Italian priest-scholar reminded me slightly of Mann's Faustus. Magris manifests the real-life tragic character of a Cossack general, Krasnov, who sided with the Nazis at the end of WWII, who, after the German defeat, turned to the British for asylum, only to be handed back to the Soviets they fought against. The general's hubris and confused idealism are both comic and sad, and absolutely human. The clarity with which Magris paints Krasnov in so short a span (less than 90 pages) is remarkable.

Now starting:

[Philoctetes]

Currently a toss up:

Charles Wallraff's Introduction to Karl Jaspers

or

Arthur Wilson's biography on Diderot

I'm learning towards Wallraff, mainly because it is the shorter of the two, by a considerable number.

[Brian]

I'm reading CS Lewis: the authentic voice, by William Griffin. Related to this, I annoyed, and perhaps hurt, my father by saying that Lewis's theology was "guff". Those boyhood attachments are hard to break.

And guff is a polite word for it, too!

[canninator]

An interesting book but now hopelessly dated.

[Philoctetes]

An interesting book but now hopelessly dated.

Undoubtedly, save for the first chapter which was a rigorous laying out of the fundamental underpinnings of most philosophy. It was a very fun, enjoyable read though.