Reddit mentions: The best us state & local history books

One of the main things to do in Baton Rouge is to eat delicious food.

• Enjoy exploring Louisiana Creole cuisine (surprisingly great Wikipedia article!) and Cajun cuisine. Two favorites: blackened redfish, and bread pudding.
  
• Eat the incredible seafood poboy (get it with sprouts, and hashbrowns on the side; apply tabasco liberally) at Louie's by LSU (open 24hrs, usually--closed sunday nights?).
  
• Be awed by the epic summertime thunderstorms that roll through almost every day around 2pm.
  
• Visit the observation deck at the top of the state capitol. It's open till 4pm. Prepare for your visit by reading All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (or watch either of the films--the 1949 film won best picture, and the 2006 re-make was filmed locally), a fictionalization of the rise and fall of Huey Long. Pick up a copy of the book at Cottonwood Books.
  
• Visit the Louisiana State Museum (by spanish town and the capitol; free).
  
• Try to get a tour of the ExxonMobil refinery.
  
• Two local obsessions: Raising Canes chicken fingers and LSU Football.
  
• Eat pizza at Capitol Grocery in Spanish Town, at 5pm (except Sunday). Sit outside and listen to some locals telling stories. Wander around Spanish Town and Arsenal Park.
  
• Run/bike/drive around the LSU lakes. Gawk at the amazing houses.
  
• Visit Mike the Tiger at LSU. While you're there, check out the special exhibitions at the LSU library.
  
• Eat delicious food at George's restaurant, an incredible dive bar under I-10. Favorites are the burgers (the 'heavy hitter' with avocado), the pastrami and swiss on rye, the ribeye sandwich. Legendary for their shrimp poboys, though I have never had one. Leave a dollar on the tar-encrusted ceiling.
  
• Play tennis or golf at City Park or visit the dog park
  
• See the crazy snake collection at Bluebonnet Swamp nature center
  
• Drink beers, eat red beans and rice, boudin balls, and hushpuppies at the Chimes by LSU. Tin roof amber is a great local beer (it's not on the menu, but they have it!). If it's your first time, start out with an Abita Amber and a fried alligator appetizer.
  
• Admittedly it isn't Cafe du Monde, and, after being razed by Walmart, the neighborhood ain't what it used to be, but you can still get your beignet fix at Coffee Call.
  
• Visit the new Tin Roof brewery (friday afternoons only) and enjoy free samples.
  
• See a show and get dinner at Chelsea's, also in the I-10 overpass area. One favorite is the grilled cheese on foccacia; goes well with a blue moon.
  
• Drink coffee at PerksGarden District Coffee (on Perkins Rd) or Highland Coffee (by LSU; always full of lots of studying students).
  
• Get a plate lunch at Zeeland Street Market (by Perks). Get the lunch special. On Wednesdays they have the best fried chicken in town. On Fridays get the fried catfish with mac and cheese on the side. Best time to arrive is just before the 12:00 noon crowds. Closed Sunday.
  
• Take a date to lunch at Yvette Marie's, a cute low-key restaurant in an antique store. I like the jalapeno chicken sandwich. If you're looking for something more traditional, you can't go wrong with their muffuletta sandwich.
  
• Ride in the monthly Critical Mass bike ride with approximately 200 other cyclists through the streets of the city. Last friday of every month, 6:30pm, LSU parade ground/clocktower. See also the bicycle events calendar.
  
• Go on a swamp tour with Marcus de la Houssaye (Lake Martin/Breaux Bridge), Ernest Couret (Butte La Rose), or Dean Wilson (Bayou Sorrel- afterwards, take the Plaquemine-Sunshine ferry across the river and eat lunch at Roberto's River Road Restaurant)
  
• Read Cherry Baton Rouge to hear about this week's goings-on.
  
• Listen to 91.1 KLSU (college radio station) and 89.3 WRKF (NPR affiliate).
  
• Find the river road ruins south of LSU.
  
• On the first friday of the month, go to Stabbed in the Art.
  
• Some other restaurants to look up: Parrain's Seafood; Juban's; Roberto's River Road Restaurant (Sunshine, LA)
  
• The Old State Capitol is beautiful, historic, and free to visit. On the river at North Blvd (by the Shaw Center).
  
• Stroll on the levee and watch the ships (barges) go by.
  
• If you are a civil engineering / geology nerd, you will enjoy reading John McPhee's book The Control of Nature (or read it online) which details the century-long but almost-certainly-doomed effort to control the Mississippi river. If this stuff interests you, drive up and visit the Morganza Spillway and Old River Control, about 1 hour drive north from Baton Rouge (maybe a bit shorter now due to the new Audubon Bridge). There is also the Bonnet Carré Spillway on the way to New Orleans. (Morganza is also the location of the "cafe scene" from Easy Rider; visit The Bear (bar) for some memorabilia.) Check out this beautiful overlay of some old geological maps showing the past courses of the Mississippi river onto Google Maps. Roadside Geology of Louisiana is good too.
  
• The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory is about 30 miles east and offers public tours on some fridays and saturdays. Contact them in advance. CAMD operates a synchrotron light source in town (across from Whole Foods); you might be able to get a tour there too.
  
• Get a group of friends together, bring a cooler full of beer, and go Tiki Tubing down the Amite River. If Tiki Tubing isn't quite your style, rent a kayak at the Backpacker and take it out on some local river or bayou. They have equipment that will let you carry a kayak on just about any vehicle.
  
• Head out to Zydeco Breakfast at Cafe des Amis in Breaux Bridge (1 hr drive west) early Saturday morning (8am). Or the cajun/zydeco dance at Whiskey River Landing Sundays at 4pm, or their neighbor McGee's Landing Sundays at noon (also: airboat rides). Listen to KRVS 88.7 FM on the way over.
  
• Tour Laura Plantation and stroll the grounds of Oak Alley Plantation. I've heard Laura Plantation has a much better, more historically-informed tour; skip the tour at Oak Alley and go directly for the mint juleps.
  
• Abita brewery, about 1.5 hours east, has free tours
  
• Feed the giraffes at Global Wildlife (near Hammond)
  
• Get an airplane flying lesson at Fly By Knight (Hammond)
  
• Go to Tsunami on the roof of the Shaw Center (art museum) for the best view of the river (thanks BiscuitCrisps). Great place for a drink! Also, check whether any events are going on at the Shaw Center or the co-located Manship Theatre. They often have interesting shows and films.
  
• The Cove has this city's best selection of whiskey (thanks malakhgabriel).
  

I'm a little late to the party here, but can't resist posting, because as a fan of ship fic in general and slash fic in particular, this argument is one of my pet peeves:

>What I'm getting at is it makes your understanding of the relationships of characters very shallow. For instance, the whole point of Sam and Frodo's relationship in LotR is that it's the purest form of friendship. Sam is able to commit selfless acts and simply doesn't care if he comes off as too attached to his friend, it's beautifully innocent. It loses everything if secretly Sam just wants to have his way with Frodo.

To be honest, I consider this a rather sad and immature point of view. Platonic and romantic love are different, yes, but platonic love is not somehow "purer" or more selfless than romantic love. When you love somebody romantically, sex is one more expression of your love for them. It is not the be-all-and-end-all of everything you do for them! You can want to get into somebody's pants and commit selfless acts for them at the same time.

Additionally, as others have already mentioned, portrayals of openly LGBT relationships were forbidden in films and other broadcast media for decades and were rare in other types of media as well, so for many years, writing slash fic about non-canon relationships was the only way that LGBT fans could have any media representation at all. Even today, with LGBT characters and relationships finally becoming more mainstream in the media, choosing to interpret a same-sex relationship that is canonically platonic as romantic can add interesting layers to fanfics about them. For example, my favorite slash ship is Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes from the Captain America films. Choosing to make them bisexual or gay opens up all sorts of interesting story opportunities dealing with queer life in NYC in the 30s and 40s and in the military in WW2.

Ben Hogans 5 Lessons - Solid foundations from one of the games legends. Great for beginners or those with funky swings, grips, stances, etc (which your <10 handicap dad likely doesn't need) but it's a classic golf instruction book with fundamentals in mind and the first golf book i read. Best part is it's full of really cool old illustrations to describe what he's talking about in each segment.

Next is Harvey Penicks Little Red Book - It's a good coffee table or bathroom book. Each "chapter" is a page or two usually. Harvey Penick was a legendary instructor and he famously had a small red book full of one-liner lessons that he finally published late in life. Another classic golf instruction book that keeps it super simple.

Then we have Golf is not a game of perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella It's written by a sports psychologist who specializes in "the mental game". Ideal for the weekend warrior that wants to have more fun while shooting better scores. I read this when i felt like i had all the skills but was getting in my own way mentally. Helped me work on consistency, course management, and managing expectations for those hot-head moments.

After that i read Dave Pelz' Short Game Bible Written by a now short-game guru and former actual nasa rocket scientist, this book is thicker than most bibles and is super (exhaustingly) detailed. Honestly it is solid science that would work for everyone if they had the time and discipline to practice and implement. But it burned me out before i could finish it. I'm just not at the level where i need to know all of the "how's" and "whys" to every shot ever imaginable inside 150 from every lie to every landing.

Next up is Zen Golf: mastering the mental game by Dr. Joe Parent Another sports psychologist who specializes in thinking smarter/better. A very interesting read. Lots of tips that helped and i plan to re-read very soon. It actually has many lessons that translate well to everyday life, not just golf.

Finally, Lowest Score Wins This last one is a more modern approach to the game. Very simple and straight forward. Very data driven. Kind of like a fundamentals book but more aggressive and concerned with one thing, lowering your score. There's some great chapters on "seeing the course differently" that really helped my course management and it's great for drills on every aspect of the game.

I think the last two are the best all-around.

I love science books. These are all on my bookshelf/around my apt. They aren't all chemistry, but they appeal to my science senses:

I got a coffee table book once as a gift. It's Theodore Gray's The Elements. It's beautiful, but like I said, more of a coffee table book. It's got a ton of very cool info about each atom though.

I tried The Immortal Life of Henrieta Lacks, which is all about the people and family behind HeLa cells. That was a big hit, but I didn't care for it.

I liked The Emperor of all Maladies which took a long time to read, but was super cool. It's essentially a biography of cancer. (Actually I think that's it's subtitle)

The Wizard of Quarks and Alice in Quantumland are both super cute allegories relating to partical physics and quantum physics respectively. I liked them both, though they felt low-level, tying them to high-level physics resulted in a fun read.

Unscientific America I bought on a whim and didn't really enjoy since it wasn't science enough.

The Ghost Map was a suuuper fun read about Cholera. I love reading about mass-epidemics and plague.

The Bell that Rings Light, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, The Fabric of the Cosmos and Beyond the God Particle are all pleasure reading books that are really primers on Quantum.

I also tend to like anything by Mary Roach, which isn't necessarily chemistry or science, but is amusing and feels informative. I started with Stiff but she has a few others that I also enjoyed.

Have fun!

I think part of the problem is really that people are looking at only granular parts of problems today and don't have enough historical context. Its useless to follow every story about everyone and every little thing. There are lots of ups and downs in politics and there's no reason to be so reactionary to every single new and probably manufactured "scandal".... that's what's exhausting. I like to keep updated on a few big issues, I follow the careers of a few people I find inspiring (and follow a few that do things that worry me), and spend the rest of the time reading up on topics in book form... they have the advantage of being written over time, and with more vigorous standards for accuracy. The news, while still important where immediate info is necessary, is essentially click bait now. You don't need to get caught in the rip tides that pull you everywhere constantly, just understand the general trajectory of the important things.

edit: to those curious about some book recommendations: I'm by no means an expert in anything really, and the books you read should really be about the topics you personally are interested in, so don't take my word as gospel (or any author's). I like American history, ancient history, international relations, and though I think they're more boring I force myself to read about the health care system and the American education system because I feel they're important. I'm also looking to read some books on the military industrial complex and cyber security/ big data because I don't really know anything about them other than the stuff I see in passing on the news or here on Reddit. So if anyone knows a good overview of those issues, feel free to let me know.

• For a good start on human history and the beginnings of modern economics/ intl relations (basically why the West has historically dominated), try Guns, Germs, and Steel I believe there's also a documentary if the book is too dense for your taste (it is pretty dense).
  
  
• Perhaps if you're interested in why people get so damn heated talking politics, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation
  
  
• If you wonder why people vote against their own social and economic interest: What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Full disclosure: I liked this book, but I lean left. I'm not sure if it matters, the point of the book is just to track how the Republican party went from being the party of elites, to the party of blue collar workers.
  
  
• If the Supreme Court interests you at all, I liked Jeffrey Toobin's, The Nine
  
  
• The achievement gap? Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria
  
  
• Health care? There's a lot, but this one is an easy read and it compares the systems of Britain, Japan, Germany, and I believe Cuba (which is very good for their GDP!) and the US's. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid
  
  This is just some stuff I've listed off the top of my head. Another thing that I find helpful to better understanding intl relations are books about the major genocides of the past few decades, which are hard to get through (because of the brutal content) but... What is the What (Sudan), First they killed my father (Cambodian genocide), Girl at War (more of a autobiography, but still chilling) there's a couple of others I've read that I can't remember now.
  
  Anyway, just go to Good Reads and look at Contemporary Politics. Perhaps Great Courses has a political philosophy course too that you can draw from if you wanna go even farther back into the origins of society's structure and political thought.
  
  Also podcasts! I've just discovered these but there's a lot of audio content (FREE!) that you can listen to on your commute and whatnot. I like Abe Lincoln's Top Hat right now.
  
  Edit edit: wow thanks for the gold!!

Can I give you a list? Imma give you a list with a little from each category. I LOVE books and posts like this!

Non-fiction or Books About Things:

The Lost City of Z: In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century. Cumberbatch will play him in the movie version of this.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: Hilariously gross and just super interesting. Her writing is like a non-fiction Terry Pratchett. Everything she's written is great, but this one is my favorite.

Devil in the White City: All about HH Holmes and his murder hotel during the Chicago World's Fair. Incredibly well-written and interesting.

The Outlaw Trail: Written in 1920 by the first superintendent of Capitol Reef National Park (aka, the area around Robber's Roost). He went around interviewing the guys who were still alive from the original Wild Bunch, plus some of the other outlaws that were active during that time. Never read anything else with actual interviews from these guys and it's a little slice of life from the end of the Wild West.

Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-Fi:

Here I'm only going to give you the less known stuff. You can find Sanderson (light epic fantasy), Pratchett (humor / satire fantasy), Adams (humor fantasy), etc easily in any bookstore. They are fantastic and should be read, but they are easy to find. I suggest:

The Cloud Roads: Martha Wells is an anthropologist and it shows in her world building in every series. She creates societies instead of landscapes. These are very character-driven and sometimes emotional.

The Lion of Senet: Jennifer Fallon starts a great political thriller series with this book. If you like shows like House of Cards or things where there's a lot of political plotting, sudden twists, and a dash of science v. religion, then you'll love these.

The Book of Joby: Do you want to cry? This book will make you cry. Mix arthurian legend with some God & Devil archetypes and it's just this very powerful story. Even though it deals with religious themes and icons, I wouldn't say it's a religious book. Reads more like mythology.

On Basilisk Station: Awesome military space opera. Really good sci-fi.

Grimspace: Pulpy space opera. Brain bubble gum instead of serious reading. But that's fun sometimes too!

>FTA, means From The Article. Just quoting from the article. You mentioned an assumption.

Ah. Whoops.

>That isn't how any science works. Not even the social sciences which aren't pure or even necessarily just applied sciences, but humanities with scientific principles.

I wasn't making a scientific argument, I was speaking from personal experience. I will admit I have no current data on hand to back up what I believe.

>See, here is where we really need to define what is truly rural and what is urban. There are also costs associated in small towns growing so if you come to a small town, and say you build new, those houses unlike the original ones, will have impact fees built into the cost. What you might not realize is that housing over the last few decades has gotten significantly more expensive, often because of sprawl or lack of efficiency.

True in many cases, though from what I understand of small town carpentry/contracting/etc. companies is that they have gotten more efficient and have less sprawl to deal with. Again, no data, just breakfast conversations.

>Any its not the point of you car breaking down. What if you have an ongoing problem, what if the mechanic is busy? The point being you can be seriously inconvenience, and since you offered it as advice of how to live cheaply why should we assume some has a brand spanking new car. It likely might be a car that needs maintenance.

That won't change between city or country. I got better mileage in my small town and my tank lasted longer because I was in less stop and go city traffic and I was able to walk when I wanted to go many places.

>Well I've know plenty of people in towns of 10,000 people and they often were bored out of their minds, so they would drive to the next closest larger city for things to do.

I can understand the boredom, but that can be creatively circumvented. Find a bar/cafe and become a regular. Movies are readily available in 10,000 person towns. The internet opens things up so much too.

>No, that's the thing, modern treatment plants can take literally crappy water and turn it into something pristine. I know because I have toured the facilities and know people in the field. I also have a property with a well and have been blessed with good water, yet neighbors down the road have had problems. You need to test regularly, there is just more responsibility to have to worry about.

I will concede the water point. It does depend on your well more often than not I suppose.

>But see you're talking about a city of 10,000, so you may not really be living all that rural. Depends on how far out you live.

I lived in the town and outside. I've climbed from very low population areas on up as I aged. Hopefully it ends before I land myself in Milwaukee or worse Chicago.

>Does it really matter that it is Wisconsin? You held up your statement like it was a universal truth. Wisconsin honestly has been lucky but note, its not just the fracking itself, but the materials, like sand and water which can drop the water table.

I was intending to talk about Wisconsin. Other countries have their own issues, as do some other states.

>Well have always had this consideration especially if local agriculture sucks the water table down and people have to re-drill to get it.

That depends largely on the type of farming, if I'm not mistaken.

>But personal anecdotes are not applicable to general situations. So if that is going to be presented as evidence it may be dismissed by everyone as such. Doesn't mean its not true, just that we have no way of knowing, nor should we trust it, for the reasons stated above.

I have a hard time ignoring my life experience in this matter.

>That's still travel. Again we're sort picking apart just some simple examples, there could be more, still beside the point. Gas will be more because anything that isn't in immediate proximity will need to either be shipped, or you will need to travel for it. If you hang out online for entertainment and order from Amazon, then the discount rural life might be just fine, if you have good Internet access. Again, if.

It takes me longer than 10 minutes to get to my nearest Wal-Mart if I ever decide to torture myself by going there, which I use the beltline to reach. That typically drains more gas than running a town over did.

>No, its not. People choose to have a pool. No only chooses the size of their yard, it is part of the parcel they buy. Or were you only talking renting?

It's part of the parcel, a parcel they choose. If you don't want/can't do upkeep on a large lawn, don't get one. That's like getting a property that already has a pool, the analogy I was reaching for.

>So what you have to do is calculate the CoL rural and compare to CoL urban factoring in all aspects and then compare. You might, I'm not saying you won't. I'm saying its not a guarantee that you will unless you do all the math.

I don't know where I'd find that sort of data. That sounds like something for a statistician in population studies or something to look at.

>But, a strong farm community is harder to find. Why? Because the individual farmers that supported each other are growing scarce being replaced with industrial farming.

Yes, which I don't support.

>Okay, now you are just being silly. If you check Wisconsin history, farmers used to be progressive because they were in battle with the train owners who liked to gouge them for their shipment costs. Its recent manufactured fokelore that Urban=liberal and rural=conservative.

Liberal in one area doesn't mean liberal in all, though that is very interesting.

>You might actually want to read this one book, What's The Matter with Kansas which shows how of some of what you are referring to came to be.

I may do that.

>So you heard something once recently and that makes it a fact? You realize that is what is wrong with the current media and public, we don't challenge these ridiculous notions out of hand. Plenty of politicians on either side of the aisle support farm subsidies if it affect them or their people.

Several times recently, actually. It makes sense, otherwise why would urban elected officials want to give money to rural districts and how would you get conservative representatives to support food stamps?

>The OP topic was "The silent problem - rural poverty is rampant." Unless you have some information to say why the post is completely wrong that doesn't involve your singular personal experience coupled with a few people you know, then we'll have to go with the post having merit and needing further discussion and investigation.

I will agree it needs further consideration and investigation.

>Actually I own a rural property that has been in the family for a couple generations. Its not farmed but it is in a rural setting. And all the problems that I cited, you know the personal anecdotes, those are all things that we contend with when were are there. Do you know why we don't live there full time? Because the city, a reasonable sized city offered many, many more choices especially employment. And grass fed burgers should I desire them.

Okay. That is good to know, then. I was worried that you might have never left the city.

>To be honest, I think it is more people who like the idea of having wealth that no one can see.

Well, the people they know can see it. Family, friends, spouses. Those are the people they'd want to show off to, not random passers-by. Plus, living in a house like that is very comfortable.

>I'd go back and read the article itself and see if there wasn't a larger point you missed, no offense. It was never to argue against a rural way of life nor disrespect those who live in a rural setting. Quite the contrary. In fact, since it says it is the title and you said it yourself. You lived in a rural setting and even you don't it to be a problem.

I'll do that, post-game. I've already started drinking and I've got people coming over shortly.

You're very welcome! I learned most of what I know about New York City history by reading as much as I could about it. It started off as an interest, became a passion, and over the past few years I've been able to turn my love of city history into a career.

There are definitely some fabulous blogs and websites about NYC that are a good place to start if you're interested in learning more, such as Forgotten New York, Daytonian in Manhattan, Untapped Cities, Ephemeral New York, and The Bowery Boys, to name a few. The New-York Historical Society, The Museum of the City of New York, The Brooklyn Historical Society, and The New York Public Library are all great places to visit, and their respective blogs (here, here, here and here) have a ton of valuable information. Other organizations and groups have websites and social media feeds that are worth checking out. Here is a list with some amazing websites and resources to check out.

In terms of books, I recommend starting with Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. It is comprehensive, informative, and incredibly well written. I have read it numerous times over the years, and I reference it constantly. Empire City: New York Through the Centuries by Kenneth T. Jackson and David S. Dunbar is also a good introductory book to get yourself up to speed. I have compiled a list of books for /r/nychistory, which you can view here, and it has plenty of other good choices to pick and includes different categories.

In the event that you enjoy what I do and want to learn more, feel free to check out my Twitter page (you don't need an account to view it), where I have shared over 7,000 unique historical images and photos from the city's history. I also have an Instagram account, where I am able to provide more in-depth stories about the events, buildings, views, and people that have helped make New York City the place that it is today.

You're not going to get a serious answer from the reddit echo chamber. So far you seem to have gotten:

"Her vagina"
"Nothing"
"the mainstream media is in the tank for Clinton"
"There are no Clinton supporters on the internet."

So here's what I consider the best arguments in her favor, mostly they're culled from my democratic pol/strategist friends, most of whom are serious Clinton supporters by virtue of where I live:

1. Whoever gets elected is going to have to deal with a republican congress at least until 2020, if not further. So incremental change is a given. Exactly how much of Bernie's agenda is going to get adopted by a republican congress? How is he going to get it taken up? So what's going to get passed? How is sanders going to deal with a congress that says "lol no" and sends him a budget increasing military funding and cutting welfare? At the end of the day this boils down to the "experience" argument, but there's a twist. Sanders definitely also has a history of legislative accomplishments, but more than a few presidents, Obama included, have shown us that legislative experience doesn't translate to effective leadership from the White House. I'll be frank, it's pretty damn obvious that the Clintons inspired Frank and Clair Underwood from the house of cards. That is, however you care to look at it, a reality. Personal relationships and a willingness to twist arms is what gets legislation through. Inability to work congress has been Obama's greatest failing as president I think. (I'm not saying congress doesn't share the blame, but politics is the art of the possible, more could possibly been done had the situation been better managed).
   
   
2. Clinton had a point when she said she's been the focus of partisan attacks for 10+ years. There's a SHITLOAD of dirt out there, but for the most part it's already been dug up. Think about the shit that Republicans dug up on John Kerry with the swiftboat nonsense, or on OBama with reviewing every single thing Jeremiah wright said, how exactly did it become a controversy that Obama's pastor said "god damn America?". You already largely know what Republicans are going to bring up with Clinton. Where's Bernie Sanders dirt? His personal life is largely unknown, and he's skated by on a northeastern tolerance for social indiscretions and refusing to discuss it. I guarantee you it's not because dirt doesn't exist, and not because it hasn't been dug up, but because it's being held in reserve for the general. Republicans forever tied to tar Obama with the idea that he was Saul Alinksy's protege, some kind of 60's radical reborn. Sanders actually is that 60's radical, and actually calls himself a socialist to boot. There's quite a bit out there of him associating with genuine revolutionary socialists and communists. There's going to be an army of people looking for every photo of everyone Sanders ever associated with and everything bad they said about America. His personal life wont' be off limits either. Did you know Sanders has an adult son that was born out of wedlock? Sure, millenials won't give a damn, but it will be the basis for tens of millions of negative advertising.
   
   
3. Electability. It's popular here to point to head to head polls suggesting Sanders is better able to beat Trump. But those same polls also showed Clinton beating everyone but Kasich. In a hypothetical match up against Trump, Sanders comes out +13 and Clinton comes out +6. But the presidential campaign map matters a lot as well. Sanders did particularly poor among Latinos and African Americans, and does exceedingly well amongst poor white people in largely white (and largely red) states. Sanders tied Oklahoma, and won Wisconsin, West Virginia, New Hampshire and Vermont. Clinton, Among others has won California, New York, Illinois and Florida. Even taking election shenanigans into account, the former aren't going to matter so much in the general election and the latter will.
   
   
   They are what they are, but the real question is what are you going to do about them? because when you step outside of the echo chamber, it's pretty obvious that Clinton's going to end up the Nominee. Sanders is fighting the good fight and will carry a liberal platform to the convention, which I think is a very good thing for the party in geneal and the Sanders/Warren wing of the party in particular, but his chance of ending up the nominee at this point is virtually nil unless something radical changes like Clinton actually succumbing to a major scandal or getting criminal charges filed. Then question is then, are you going to succumb to the drawback of a two party system and vote for the lesser of two evils or do something that might result in Trump becoming president? It's easy to say now, how do you think Nader supporters felt in 2001 when Bush took office?
   
   I would add to this, your question makes the exact same mistake democrats have made for years as it relates to Republican voters. going back to Thomas Frank's Book what's the matter with Kansas and why Obama's comments about clinging to guns and religion caused such a fury on the right even though they're pretty true.
   
   At its heart, the way people choose political candidate is not 100% logical. People are not robots. The reason political disagreements exists is because people have different priorities. Priorities are not driven solely by logical connections. People choose a candidate based on how they feel about them. Obama won an election (both primary and general) by creating a feeling that he would be different. Trump's winning the republican primary by creating a feeling among disenchanted voters that he's going to come in and make it right, no matter what his background or prior policy preferences were.
   
   Clinton has done a decent job creating an emotional connection with certain demographics.Women over 40, African Americans, Hispanics. She fails at it markedly among millennials and to some extent among men.
   
   Not speaking truth to power, but rather telling the truth to the mob, or at least answering a question deliberately asked about what the defenses of clinton are.

Depends on how old you are.

• Middle school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but I don't think I can read those books now (29) without cringing a little bit. Especially, Getting Things Done because I already know how to make to do list, but I still flip through all 3 books occastionally.
  
  
• High school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but if you're a well adjusted human and responsible adult, then I don't think you'll find a lot of helpful advice from these 6 books so far because it'll be pretty basic information.
  
  
• College: I really enjoyed this, this, and started doing Malcolm Gladwell books. The checklist book helped me get more organized and So Good They Can't Ignore You was helpful starting my career path.
  
• Graduate School: I really enjoyed this, this, and this. I already stopped with most "self help" books and reading more about how to manage my money or books that looked interesting like Stiff.
  
  
• Currently: I'm working on this, this, and this. Now I'm reading mostly for fun, but all three of these books are way out of my league and I have no idea what their talking about, but they're areas of my interest. History and AI.

The last excellent work of fiction I read was City of Dreams by Beverly Swerling. The book that I feel best captures the feeling of New York City, however, is Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.

I mostly read nonfiction books about New York City history, and I'll share a few of my favorites with you. The definitive tome, of course, is Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Mike Wallace and Edwin Burrows. Another favorite of mine, as I love the history of New Amsterdam, is Island at the Center of the World:The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto. One of the most fascinating subjects I have been learning about is Native American history at the period of first European contact, and I really recommend checking out Adriaen Van Der Donck's A Description of New Netherland (The Iroquoians and their World), which many scholars agree is just as much of a significant work as William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, and would be the definitive guide to the new world if it had been written in English. Evan Pritchard's Native New Yorkers: The Legacy of the Algonquian People of New York also offers an incredible look at native culture.

If you are interested in the subway system, check out Stan Fischler's fantastic Uptown, Downtown. One of the most underrated books I have picked up recently explores the construction of the amazing Grand Central Terminal, and I learned an incredible amount from it: Grand Central's Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan. If you are interested in urban planning, I would also suggest The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor.

At this point I've read a ton of nonfiction books about the city, so if you have any questions or want any other recommendations, feel free to ask!

You can usually snag a good set of clubs from a thrift store. Even just getting a few clubs, like a 5 wood, a putter, pitching wedge, and a few irons (5 and an 8) from the random bucket at a clubhouse. Garage sales are another fantastic way of getting good clubs for cheap. Especially if you've got a nice neighborhood around, I've snagged $200 clubs for $15 from rich people yard sales.

Once you've got a set of clubs, even if they're loaners, check out your local public golf course. There's almost always a course pro who teaches lessons, and they're pretty affordable. Take some to get a good idea on your form. If that's not on option, find a friend who's a decent golfer. Once you've got an understanding of form, start hitting the range often, and end on the practice green. I wouldn't touch a course until you're pretty comfortable hitting the ball consistently. Then go out with a friend, or someone who can play and just go for it.

Getting some research on, youtube videos are always fantastic, and the Harvey Penick's Little Red Book is fantastic.

Source: Golfing for 15 years.

It's actually more heart breaking when you know that basically the entire midwest once once considered the home of radical left politics in the US. As Thomas Frank notes in What's The Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America:

>I do not want to minimize the change that this represents. Certain parts of the Midwest were once so reliably leftist that the historian Walter Prescott Webb, in his classic 1931 history of the region, pointed to its persistent radicalism as one of the “Mysteries of the Great Plains.” Today the mystery is only heightened; it seems inconceivable that the Midwest was ever thought of as a “radical” place, as anything but the land of the bland, the easy snoozing flyover. Readers in the thirties, on the other hand, would have known instantly what Webb was talking about, since so many of the great political upheavals of their part of the twentieth century were launched from the territory west of the Ohio River. The region as they knew it was what gave the country Socialists like Eugene Debs, fiery progressives like Robert La Follette, and practical unionists like Walter Reuther; it spawned the anarchist IWW and the coldly calculating UAW; and it was periodically convulsed in gargantuan and often bloody industrial disputes. They might even have known that there were once Socialist newspapers in Kansas and Socialist voters in Oklahoma and Socialist mayors in Milwaukee, and that there were radical farmers across the region forever enlisting in militant agrarian organizations with names like the Farmers’ Alliance, or the Farmer-Labor Party, or the Non-Partisan League, or the Farm Holiday Association. And they would surely have been aware that Social Security, the basic element of the liberal welfare state, was largely a product of the midwestern mind.

>Almost all of these associations have evaporated today. That the region’s character has been altered so thoroughly—that so much of the Midwest now regards the welfare state as an alien imposition; that we have trouble even believing there was a time when progressives were described with adjectives like fiery, rather than snooty or bossy or wimpy—has to stand as one of the great reversals of American history.

Aww thanks. I definitely encounter people who have more formal training and I'm just blown away by their vocabulary and some of the concepts they present. I like to try to simplify difficult concepts into things that are more easily digested.

Philosophers are not known for being accessible in their writing. There's a ton of people out there like me who try to make philosophy more accessible.

I've listened to podcasts that delve into singular ideas. I find these particularly enlightening. I listened to Ayn Rand audiobooks (lol). I've bought used college textbooks for next to nothing, because once teachers stop using that edition nobody wants them. I've read 3 different people who analyzed Nietzsche's work because he's so unapproachable in writing style. I really love Nietzsche because he would mirror my own thoughts and sometimes take me to the next level and sometimes I feel I'd be at the next level of his thoughts.

I wish I remembered all the good podcast/audio stuff to recommend for ya. For more accessible books, Bernard Reginster's "The Affirmation of Life" was a really good analysis of Nietzsche. It's good because he would essentially take one concept Nietzsche presented and just really hammer it out in a more logical form before moving onto the next. Moral philosophy is most fascinating to me. I highly recommend Michael Sandel's Justice for a really great overview of positions with great examples and things to think about.

Some people take classes to punch a career ticket, but there are plenty of people that take classes just to learn.

I currently am taking a justice course taught at Harvard on moral philosophy. There is even an associated book you can read if you would like that pretty much covers the same material in the same order as the class, but I'm watching the lectures because I learn better that way. Moral philosophy has no chance of increasing my completely unrelated career and honestly I wouldn't even want to take my career in that direction if given the option, because I am just learning as a hobby for fun. I am also going through a game theory course at yale.

Right now I just casually watch lectures in my free time, but there are a few subjects I would like to tackle that will probably involve actually doing homework like differential equations, topology, and algorithms. Just reading a book doesn't cut it because you actually have to participate in subjects like that to fully understand them. And again, I plan on doing those just for fun because I believe learning is a life long experience.

I second the reading idea! Ask your history or science teachers for suggestions of accessible books. I'm going to list some that I found interesting or want to read, and add more as I think of them.

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Title explains it all. It is very beginner friendly, and has some very entertaining stories. Bryson is very heavy on the history and it's rather long but you should definitely make every effort to finish it.

Lies my teacher told me

The greatest stories never told (This is a whole series, there are books on Presidents, science, and war as well).

There's a series by Edward Rutherfurd that tells history stories that are loosely based on fact. There are books on London and ancient England, Ireland, Russia, and one on New York

I read this book a while ago and loved it- Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk It's about a monk who was imprisoned for 30 years by the Chinese.

The Grapes of Wrath.

Les Misérables. I linked to the unabridged one on purpose. It's SO WORTH IT. One of my favorite books of all time, and there's a lot of French history in it. It's also the first book that made me bawl at the end.

You'll also want the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Federalist Papers.

I'm not sure what you have covered in history, but you'll definitely want to find stuff on all the major wars, slavery, the Bubonic Plague, the French Revolution, & ancient Greek and Roman history.

As for science, find these two if you have any interest in how the brain works (and they're pretty approachable).
Phantoms in the brain
The man who mistook his wife for a hat

Alex and Me The story of a scientist and the incredibly intelligent parrot she studied.

For a background in evolution, you could go with The ancestor's tale

A biography of Marie Curie

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston is a quick and easy read, and very heavy on the adventure. You'll also want to read his other book The Hot Zone about Ebola. Absolutely fascinating, I couldn't put this one down.

The Devil's Teeth About sharks and the scientists who study them. What's not to like?

> You were the one citing the 4 of 5 statistic. I assumed you had the data.

FTA, means From The Article. Just quoting from the article. You mentioned an assumption.

> I know several others in similar situations. I don't have data, but that's because I have life experience.

That isn't how any science works. Not even the social sciences which aren't pure or even necessarily just applied sciences, but humanities with scientific principles.

> I lived in a small town for over 20 years.

See, here is where we really need to define what is truly rural and what is urban. There are also costs associated in small towns growing so if you come to a small town, and say you build new, those houses unlike the original ones, will have impact fees built into the cost. What you might not realize is that housing over the last few decades has gotten significantly more expensive, often because of sprawl or lack of efficiency.

Any its not the point of you car breaking down. What if you have an ongoing problem, what if the mechanic is busy? The point being you can be seriously inconvenience, and since you offered it as advice of how to live cheaply why should we assume some has a brand spanking new car. It likely might be a car that needs maintenance.

> I lived in a town of 10,000 people. You don't need to leave, especially with internet access.

Well I've know plenty of people in towns of 10,000 people and they often were bored out of their minds, so they would drive to the next closest larger city for things to do.

> Yeah, but the initial water quality is what we were getting at I thought.

No, that's the thing, modern treatment plants can take literally crappy water and turn it into something pristine. I know because I have toured the facilities and know people in the field. I also have a property with a well and have been blessed with good water, yet neighbors down the road have had problems. You need to test regularly, there is just more responsibility to have to worry about.

But see you're talking about a city of 10,000, so you may not really be living all that rural. Depends on how far out you live.

> Fracking issues? Really? Please cite one of these occurrences in Wisconsin.

Does it really matter that it is Wisconsin? You held up your statement like it was a universal truth. Wisconsin honestly has been lucky but note, its not just the fracking itself, but the materials, like sand and water which can drop the water table.

Well have always had this consideration especially if local agriculture sucks the water table down and people have to re-drill to get it.

> I lived in a rural setting for 20 years. I know the situation. I don't have to "trust you" on what I lived.

There is only one fact in that sentence, and even that's sort of debatable. It sounds like you lived in a small town in a rural area that had some of the amenities that larger cities might have especially due to recent advances in technology. Trust is not an issue. Numbers, data, research is what we should seek, and we don't trust those, we verify those. Trust involves faith.

But personal anecdotes are not applicable to general situations. So if that is going to be presented as evidence it may be dismissed by everyone as such. Doesn't mean its not true, just that we have no way of knowing, nor should we trust it, for the reasons stated above.

> Many rural areas are near small towns. A rural county usually has 'the town' that serves that purpose and is only 10-15 minutes away.

That's still travel. Again we're sort picking apart just some simple examples, there could be more, still beside the point. Gas will be more because anything that isn't in immediate proximity will need to either be shipped, or you will need to travel for it. If you hang out online for entertainment and order from Amazon, then the discount rural life might be just fine, if you have good Internet access. Again, if.

> A riding mower? If you're going to have a yard that big, you should probably afford it before you buy it. That's like saying that someone's swimming pool costs are too high.

No, its not. People choose to have a pool. No only chooses the size of their yard, it is part of the parcel they buy. Or were you only talking renting?

> I was saying that people who live in rural areas make less money, many times minimum.

Well then that complicates things further. You make less money in a rural setting, and you supposedly pay less, according to you because you don't have the overhead of the city. But on the flip side the reason people are paid more in the city is because of supply and demand which is why the housing may be more, you may have some more taxes, but all services are far more economical to provide per person or per capita because of economies of scale.

So what you have to do is calculate the CoL rural and compare to CoL urban factoring in all aspects and then compare. You might, I'm not saying you won't. I'm saying its not a guarantee that you will unless you do all the math.

> It might be anecdotal, but it doesn't make it untrue. A strong farming community can support itself.

Never said it did. The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it has a very small sample size so we have no way of knowing the truth until it is no longer anecdotal. I'm saying that you have to look far more into the situation with all the data, and that still doesn't refute the OP which appears to be based on research or non-anecdotal evidence.

But, a strong farm community is harder to find. Why? Because the individual farmers that supported each other are growing scarce being replaced with industrial farming.

> Because cities tend to have liberals who want to spend that money rather than return it to the people who earned it and it's impractical to have a public bus in a town of 500.

Okay, now you are just being silly. If you check Wisconsin history, farmers used to be progressive because they were in battle with the train owners who liked to gouge them for their shipment costs. Its recent manufactured fokelore that Urban=liberal and rural=conservative.

You might actually want to read this one book, What's The Matter with Kansas which shows how of some of what you are referring to came to be.

> It also doesn't mean those problems don't exist in urban areas too.

It seems to be grasping at straws. All areas may have problems. Like I said over concentration has problem, under concentration also has problems. The OP was talking about a problem of rural poverty that any sociologist could tell you is a problem, but you, if I understand correctly, seem to be denying its existence by personal experiences.

> I disagree. I seem to recall hearing constantly during the farm bill debate about why the food stamps were included, and that was the reason I mentioned.

So you heard something once recently and that makes it a fact? You realize that is what is wrong with the current media and public, we don't challenge these ridiculous notions out of hand. Plenty of politicians on either side of the aisle support farm subsidies if it affect them or their people.

The OP topic was "The silent problem - rural poverty is rampant." Unless you have some information to say why the post is completely wrong that doesn't involve your singular personal experience coupled with a few people you know, then we'll have to go with the post having merit and needing further discussion and investigation.

> Have you lived in a rural setting? For how long if so? I get the feeling I'm trying to explain what a burger tastes like to a man with no taste buds.

Actually I know what a good grass fed burger tastes like, but we don't find them as often. Do you know why?

Actually I own a rural property that has been in the family for a couple generations. Its not farmed but it is in a rural setting. And all the problems that I cited, you know the personal anecdotes, those are all things that we contend with when were are there. Do you know why we don't live there full time? Because the city, a reasonable sized city offered many, many more choices especially employment. And grass fed burgers should I desire them.

> I disagree. Plus, if you think rural areas need the help, isn't this a good thing for them?

No. Not at all. Because the money isn't going to local areas that are desperate for tax money to maintain services like schools, another thing that doesn't scale well in the rural setting, no they stay just far enough out. It's a very deliberate tax dodge and its not simply retiring boomers, as many of them may not be well off. These are people who did not make money off the land as farmers but did so elsewhere and now flee from the city with their earnings and create paradise in the middle of nowhere.

> Not really. You can build/buy a 2006 2 million dollar house for $300,000. I know of a sale like that that just happened near my hometown.

This actually is getting to be beside the point, it was a simple observation that raises questions.

To be honest, I think it is more people who like the idea of having wealth that no one can see.

> That's a reasonable retirement mortgage if you invested wisely and are putting the sale of another house toward the purchase.

And if you didn't lose your pension, 401k, job, have a major healthcare problem or any number of circumstances. But that was just an observation. And now we're debating over budget mansions?

I'd go back and read the article itself and see if there wasn't a larger point you missed, no offense. It was never to argue against a rural way of life nor disrespect those who live in a rural setting. Quite the contrary. In fact, since it says it is the title and you said it yourself. You lived in a rural setting and even you don't it to be a problem.

So that means The Silent Poverty rampent in rural areas actually is a mystery especially if neighbors like you are unaware.

Start by putting down the phone. I got rid of Facebook and Instagram off my phone and it was the best thing I have ever done. I have them back now because I would check them on my browser and have like 20 notifications from last week so they were irrelevant when I would read them. I have significantly decreased my intake though and feel way better for it.

But what to do with your spare time? I would say put down any form of screen (no gaming or YouTube/Netflix binging) and instead pick up either a book or a deck of cards. They have expanded my mind and have made it easier for me to fall asleep. In terms of books, I would recommend Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson (he does a great job of explaining complex principles regardless of your knowledge level). I would also recommend The novelisation of 'The King's Speech' which I think is beautifully written and has some brilliant source material attached to it. It has so much more historical depth than the movie. In terms of cards, set up a game of Solitaire with yourself, the simplicity of it is incredibly soothing.

Outside of this, make sure you're having a good night's sleep, get up early and have a decent breakfast.

Hope this helps you out my friend.

Look, I don't even know where to begin. That was a lot of assumptions. I'm sorry you have this view of the left. I don't believe at all that leftists dislike rural people, nor dislike them simply because they are rural. The hatred that many on the left is not directed at rural people, but conservative ideology.

The left does see conservative ideology as a major barrier to making the world better, for both economic reasons and reasons of social justice. But the left doesn't see the rural, white working class as the cause of this ideology. The ideology is perpetuated by the wealthy and powerful. But for me personally, I don't blame anyone personally for believing in this ideology. I don't think conservatives or even the wealthy are bad, evil people, I simply think they are wrong.

Liberals are more likely to pity rural folk, if anything (which granted is condescending), because we feel that they've been duped by the wealthy into supporting politics that simply make the wealthy wealthier, allowing them to exploit the working class further and destroy the environment for their own profit.

I know I can't convince you of anything here or even force you to see another perspective on your politics.

But I would like you start making an attempt to learn more about liberals, and get to know some personally. Liberals are people, and I feel like you've forgotten that. You've really managed to demonize them, because you sincerely believe that they have demonized you and the people you care about, but I don't believe that's largely true. You can cherry pick examples of anything. I'd really appreciate it if you would make an effort to talk to more liberals. Maybe asks some questions on /r/askaliberal, or expand your media diet. Especially try to talk to some in person.

This is a classic book which claims that conservatives, in the 90s, came to see politics as no longer a matter of rich vs. poor, but a matter of NASCAR vs Starbucks, as a cultural matter rather than an economic matter, which works out really well for the rich. https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X

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The Genius: How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created an NFL Dynasty
https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Reinvented-Football-Created-Dynasty/dp/0345499123/ref=sr_1_74?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238145&sr=1-74&keywords=nfl+book

Jaws might be loudmouthed idiot on tv, but he co-authored a pretty darn good book
The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays
https://www.amazon.com/Games-That-Changed-Game-Evolution/dp/0345517962/ref=sr_1_67?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238131&sr=1-67&keywords=nfl+book

And all hail Belichick
War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team
https://www.amazon.com/War-Room-Belichick-Building-Perfect/dp/006208240X/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238058&sr=1-11&keywords=nfl+book

The Education of a Coach
https://www.amazon.com/Education-Coach-David-Halberstam/dp/1401308791/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475238301&sr=1-1&keywords=david+halberstam+belichick

Pretty funny insight into players perspective:

The Rookie Handbook: How to Survive the First Season in the NFL
https://www.amazon.com/Rookie-Handbook-Survive-First-Season/dp/1682450341/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1475237975&sr=8-4&keywords=nfl+book

Also Pete Carrolls book Win Forever is an excellent read.
It has more to do with his Trojan days, but is a very clear telling of his coaching philosophy and why he has succeeded in Seattle. That man knows how to connect with people.

I mostly read speculative fiction, which is typically divided between the subgenres of fantasy, sci-fi, and alternate history. Alternate history is technically considered a subgenre of Sci-Fi, but I read enough of it to make it worth counting as a separate group. Within each of those subgenres, there is a wide variety of styles and some people might find themselves not a fan of one style but a fan of another. If you are not well read in these genres, then you will want to try a few different styles of story before dismissing it. I also sometimes read novelizations of historical events which have their own sort of enjoyment to them that fictional stories lack. Then there are books that are set from an animals point of view, which range from attempts to be as accurate as possible to being practically fantasy stories.

As far as individual books, I will try to give you a few of the best to pick from without being overwhelming. Some are stand alone stories while others are parts of series.

Fantasy single books:

After the Downfall

Fantasy series:

The Dresden Files

A Song of Ice and Fire aka Game of Thrones

Sci-Fi single books:

Slow Train to Arcturus

Mother of Demons

Sci-Fi series:

The Thrawn Trilogy There are a great many Star Wars books worth the read, but this is definitely the place to start.

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow

Alternate History single books:

The Guns of the South

1824: The Arkansas War Technically this is a sequel to an earlier book, but this one is leagues better and you don't need to read the first book to understand what is going on.

Alternate History series:

How Few Remain

1632

Worldwar

Non-Fiction:

Band of Brothers

War Made New This one isn't even really a novelization, just an analysis of the changes to military technology, tactics, and training over the last 500 years. Regardless, it is very well written and a great read.

Animal POV books:

Watership Down

Wilderness Champion

The Call of the Wild and White Fang These two books are by the same author and go in pretty much opposite directions. Among literature fanatics, there is no consensus over which one is better and I don't think I can decide for myself so I am recommending both.

Edit: I forgot to mention, the first book in the 1632 series is available online for free. This is not a pirated version, but something the author put up himself as a part of an effort to move publishing into the modern day with technology and make books more accessible to readers.

You'd have to be obtuse to think that the people of the UK voted in the EU referendum based on the merits of the EU and the relationship the UK had in it. The previous UK PM fucked up tremendously in allowing that referendum to be put forth knowing how politics would warp it.

Venice isn't a principality. Neither is Hong Kong which is on borrowed time. Hong Kong became a major city because it was the British trading post to China for a century. That was its edge and it doesn't have that anymore and China is puffing up native Shanghai as its business center instead.

Singapore exists because of the current international system with treaties and the UN makes it way too inconvenient to invade and also it has two weak neighbors. Singapore's edge is that it's next to the Straights of Malacca so it's like an an Asian Panama Canal--shipping is focused there. Thailand and China are working on a canal to the north of it which will drink its milkshake.

Monaco exists because France allows it. Monaco is some luxury apartments and a couple of casinos in less than 640 acres on the side of a mountain on the French Riviera, that's pretty meaningless economically and politically. Monaco defaults back to France as soon as there isn't an heir to inherit the princedom.

Some city-states were tried in the late 1800's and after WWI but they didn't last.

You're probably thinking NYC is the model of a principality. NYC is one of the top 2 or 3 cities in the world not because of some special New York City-ness to it but because it New York City is the economically central city in a massive country. NYC would be greatly diminished if NY State or even New England were separated from the rest of the country.

New York City exists as it does because of the rest of the US. NYC got its edge when the Erie Canal was built that connected (funneled) the Great Lakes to the Hudson River. In the early 1800's Baltimore and New York City were rivals and neck and neck. Unfortunately for Baltimore it was much harder to build a canal from the Ohio River to the Potomac so all of the bounty of the Midwest went by boat across the Great Lakes to the Erie Canal then to the Hudson River and down to NYC. This is the same reason Chicago was the #2 city for a century. Chicago was the start of the funnel of all the agriculture and industry of the Midwest. Everything got sent to Chicago and then shipped by boat and later rail off to NYC. If this is interesting to you, you can read more about this in Nature's Metropolis.

Cities are not on islands where everything more than 20 or 30 miles away doesn't matter or is interchangeable. Cities exist where they do because there's a reason for a city to be there and the reason usually involves stuff more than a few miles beyond the edge of the city. There's a large city where New Orleans is because there is a good spot for a port to interface between barges on the Mississippi River system, railroads, and international shipping right there and then there's a feedback loop that having those facilities attracts additional industry. If New Orleans were part of a different political/economic unit than the rest of the Mississippi River basin, or the Mississippi River decided to flow somewhere else, then there wouldn't be much use of a port there which means there wouldn't be much of a city there in the long-run.

For comparison look at the Danube River in Europe! It's a big-ass river but there are only dinky cities along it because the river runs through like 9 different countries. It's hard or expensive and complicated to trade on that river so there aren't any large port cities there in that part of Europe. In comparison the Rhine River isn't particularly deep, wide, or long but it flows through two countries: Germany and the Netherlands. (It borders France and Switzerland too but that's upstream.) It's easy to do trade on there and subsequently it's a massive river in economic terms, running right through the heart of German industry and the largest port in Europe is at the mouth of that river in the Netherlands.

Cities and the regions around them are chicken-and-egg situations economically and geographically. You can't separate the city from the region and country around it.

Sure.

If evolution is of interest to you (and if you have interest in the intersection between theology and science), Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller explores both sides of the debate and debunks many common misconceptions about evolution. I first read it in a college biology topics course.

If you like the topic of 'creationist attempts to dispute or disrupt the teaching of evolution in the classroom', Summer of the Gods, about the Scopes Monkey Trial, is a great book (although not explicitly about science).

You may find The Selfish Gene by Dawkins worth a read.

Books by Mary Roach can be fun; I've read Stiff and enjoyed it, and Packing for Mars was pretty good as well.

I have heard good things about The Emperor of All Maladies, though I haven't read it myself.

Our Stolen Future, about contamination of the environment by artificially produced estrogen and estrogen analogs, is dated but interesting.

The Discovery of Insulin by Bliss is a great story about how science happens and how scientific discovery occurs, and it lays out what may be the most important discovery in medical science during the 20th century.

Were those types of books what you were looking for?

In the interest of trying to recommend books you may not have read, I am suggesting some that may seem far afield from books like HPMOR. But I have read each of them multiple times and loved them, and all of them gave me a lot to think about.

I just created a comment for Chapter 85 recommending Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. It is non-fiction, a painfully honest autobiography, and not very similar except for the bits about Knut Haukelid, but it is an amazing book. The author was the head of codes for SOE during WWII and so the book is about cryptography and secrets. And courage. I'm reading it for the third time right now.

Tuf Voyaging is a collection of short stories by George R. R. Martin (no one named Stark is in it), about Haviland Tuf, a misanthropic cat-loving merchant who starts with his humble ship "Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices" and ends up with terrifying power and some hard decisions to make about how to use it. I'd call it comedy because it is hilarious, but it is also brilliantly-written horror.

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is a tiny surreal book by Stanislaw Lem, about a journal uncovered by a post-apolcalyptic civilization. The main character has no name, and is apparently a spy on a mission so secret even he doesn't know about it. It is nightmarish, has absolutely no rationality to it at all, is clever and unlike any other book I've read, and most people haven't heard of it.

The Control of Nature by John McPhee is another non-fiction book. I recommend it for the beauty of the language, the depth of the research, and the fact that it is incredibly fascinating and impossible to put down. McPhee makes every person he meets into someone you want to know, and his science has substance without ever losing that sense of wonder.

Founded in 1962 to fill the void left by the Brooklyn Dodgers. The inaugural team was one of the worst ever (finished with 40 wins and 120 losses, 60.5 wins behind the NL champion).

Won a World Series in 1969 against Baltimore. That team had pretty great pitching. Tom Seaver was the star of team and is still considered the best player in the team's history. He's the only player whose number has been retired (#41) and was nearly voted into the Hall of Fame unanimously (no one has ever been voted in unanimously).

Lost the 1973 World Series to the Oakland Athletics. The Mets had a pretty strong surge in the last month or so of the season to make the playoffs.

Then for a long time nothing happened.

In 1983, they got first baseman Keith Hernandez in a trade and things started to turn around. Young players Doc Gooden and Daryl Strawberry came up, and they acquired Gary Carter from Montreal in a trade. The 1986 team won the World Series in 7 games. They won game 6 in part thanks to an error by Bill Buckner. The team was made up of a bunch of maniacs. There's a pretty good book about the season.

Then for a long time nothing happened again.

In 1998 they traded for catcher Mike Piazza, which helped turn things around again. In 1999, they lost the National League Championship Series to the Braves, and in 2000, they lost the World Series to the Yankees.

In 2005, they brought in Carlos Beltran via free agency. David Wright and Jose Reyes also came up around this time. The team dominated in 2006, but lost the NLCS to the St. Louis Cardinals. Endy Chavez made one of the greatest catches of all-time in Game 7.

In 2007, they blew a 7 game lead with 17 games to go in September to Philadelphia. It came down to the last game of the season, but the Marlins killed us in the first inning and that was it. In 2008, it came down to the final day of the season again, but we lost again.

Things have been lousy since then. R.A. Dickey won a Cy Young Award in 2012. As you mentioned, there's lots of potential right now. Let's hope 2015 is the start of something good.

https://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/dp/0465031331

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Right-Went-Wrong-Conservatism/dp/1476763801

https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X

These are 3 examples of significant literary works on American politics written in recent times. And although I only own one, I'm probably going to buy "It's even worse than it looks" I'm pretty sure they attest the asymmetrical polarization of American politics today, that allows extremists to thrive, whereas they couldn't have in previous decades.

The problem with Fox News, is for a major news organization, even they have a mixed record on reporting actual "facts". Edit: To be fair, CNN and MSNBC also sometimes misinform their viewers as well, but not nearly as bad as Fox does.



https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news/

A study was done that found that people who don't watch news at all, were better informed on factually correct information, than people who religiously watched Fox News. One of our biggest media outlets in the nation, is routinely misinforming it's viewers on matters of national significance.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/07/21/a-rigorous-scientific-look-into-the-fox-news-effect/#443b3c5b12ab

Most the Right Wing media sources, play on stereotypes and emotionally driven headlines rather than factually reporting the news.

This is why now, in a country that has always honored Freedom of Speech, is now taking issue with "Fake News" making it's way into peoples facebook streams. Because a lot of media sites are now regularly failing to report factually correct information, and it's causing the electorate to vote for candidates who are consistently factually incorrect in what they say. And a major country like the United States, who leaders consistently believe in and base policy off of factually incorrect information, I don't see how that can possibly be good for my country, or the world for that matter.

It is no mere coincidence that for a Conservative party, globally speaking, only in America is the Republicans the only major Conservative party in a Western Democracy, that outright denies the realities of Climate Change.

This.

>The largely blue collar citizens of Kansas can be counted upon to be a "red" state in any election, voting solidly Republican and possessing a deep animosity toward the left. This, according to author Thomas Frank, is a pretty self-defeating phenomenon, given that the policies of the Republican Party benefit the wealthy and powerful at the great expense of the average worker. According to Frank, the conservative establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the Republicans' actual economic policies and what they mean to the working class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically.

I read The Catcher Was a Spy probably 20 years ago. It's mildly interesting in recollecting Moe Berg's life, but it reads more like someone's idea of what their life may have been like, than what it actually was.

If you want some interesting baseball books, I'd suggest October 1964 by David Halberstam, The Boys of Summer (classic) by Roger Kahn, or Great and Glorious Game by Bart Giamatti. The last one includes an essay entitled "The Green Fields of the Mind" that is probably one of the most beautiful pieces written about the game.

Google Has Become a Major Threat to Democracy in America - Michael Krieger - Aug 30, 2017

About 10 years ago, Tim Wu, the Columbia Law professor who coined the term network neutrality, made this prescient comment: “To love Google, you have to be a little bit of a monarchist, you have to have faith in the way people traditionally felt about the king.”

Wu was right. And now, Google has established a pattern of lobbying and threatening to acquire power.

It has reached a dangerous point common to many monarchs: The moment where it no longer wants to allow dissent.

When Google was founded in 1998, it famously committed itself to the motto: “Don’t be evil.”

It appears that Google may have lost sight of what being evil means, in the way that most monarchs do:

Once you reach a pinnacle of power, you start to believe that any threats to your authority are themselves villainous and that you are entitled to shut down dissent.

As Lord Acton famously said, “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”

Those with too much power cannot help but be evil.

Google, the company dedicated to free expression, has chosen to silence opposition, apparently without any sense of irony.

In recent years, Google has become greedy about owning not just search capacities, video and maps, but also the shape of public discourse.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Google has recruited and cultivated law professors who support its views.

And as the New York Times recently reported, it has become invested in building curriculum for our public schools, and has created political strategy to get schools to adopt its products.

It is time to call out Google for what it is: a monopolist in search, video, maps and browser, and a thin-skinned tyrant when it comes to ideas.

Google is forming into a government of itself, and it seems incapable of even seeing its own overreach.

We, as citizens, must respond in two ways.

First, support the brave researchers and journalists who stand up to overreaching power; and second, support traditional anti-monopoly laws that will allow us to have great, innovative companies — but not allow them to govern us.

From Zephyr Teachout’s powerful article: Google Is Coming After Critics in Academia and Journalism. It’s Time to Stop Them. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/30/zephyr-teachout-google-is-coming-after-critics-in-academia-and-journalism-its-time-to-stop-them]

The mask has finally come off Google’s face, and what lurks underneath looks pretty evil.

2017 has represented a coming out party of sorts for Google and the control-freaks who run it.

The company’s response to the James Damore controversy made it crystal clear that executives at Google are far more interested in shoving their particular worldview down the throats of the public, versus encouraging vibrant and lively debate.

This is not a good look for the dominant search engine.

The creeping evilness of Google has been obvious for quite some time, but this troubling reality has only recently started getting the attention it deserves.

The worst authoritarian impulses exhibited at the company appear to emanate from Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt, whose actions consistently seem to come from a very dark and unconscious place.

Today’s piece focuses on the breaking news that an important initiative known as Open Markets, housed within the think tank New America Foundation, has been booted from the think tank after major donor Google complained about its anti-monopoly stance.

Open Markets was led by a man named Barry Lynn, who all of you should become familiar with.

The Huffington Post profiled him last year. Here’s some of what we learned [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/barry-lynn-washington-corporations_us_57c8a6a7e4b0e60d31de6433?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004]:

There’s a solid economic rationale behind Washington’s new big thing. Monopolies and oligopolies are distorting the markets for everything from pet food to cable service. http://fortune.com/2015/05/19/cable-industry-becomes-a-monopoly/]

There’s a reason why cable companies have such persistently lousy customer-service ratings. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359.html]

They know you have few (if any) alternatives.

Today, two-thirds of the 900 industries tracked by The Economist feature heavier concentration at the top than they did in 1997. [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21695392-big-firms-united-states-have-never-had-it-so-good-time-more-competition-problem]

The global economy is in the middle of a merger wave big enough to make 2015 the biggest year in history for corporate consolidation. [http://www.wsj.com/articles/2015-becomes-the-biggest-m-a-year-ever-1449187101]

Most political junkies have never heard of the man chiefly responsible for the current Beltway antitrust revival: Barry C. Lynn.

A former business journalist, Lynn has spent more than a decade carving out his own fiefdom at a calm, centrist Washington think tank called the New America Foundation.

In the process, he has changed the way D.C. elites think about corporate power.

“Barry is the hub,” says Zephyr Teachout, a fiery progressive who recently clinched the Democratic nomination for a competitive House seat in New York. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/zephyr-teachout-democratic-primary_us_57728b8ee4b0f168323aee9d]

“He is at the center of a growing new ― I hesitate to call it a movement ― but a group of people who recognize that we have a problem with monopolies not only in our economy, but in our democracy.”

Many Southerners who relocate to the nation’s capital try to temper their accents for the elite crowd that dominates the District’s social scene.

Lynn, a South Florida native, never shed his drawl.

He pronounces “sonofabitch” as a single word, which he uses to describe both corrupt politicians and big corporations.

He is a blunt man in a town that rewards caginess and flexibility.

But like King, Lynn’s critique of monopolies does not reflect a disdain for business itself.

Lynn left Global Business for The New America Foundation in 2001 and began work on his first book, End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation, which argues that globalization and merger mania had injected a new fragility into international politics. [https://www.amazon.com/End-Line-Coming-Global-Corporation/dp/0767915879?tag=thehuffingtop-20]

Disruptive events ― earthquakes, coups, famines, or at worst, war ― could now wreak havoc on U.S. products that had once been safely manufactured domestically.

Production of anything from light bulbs to computers all could shut down without warning.

It was a frightening vision with implications for economic policy and national security alike.

It was also ideologically inconvenient for the techno-utopian zeitgeist of its day. Lynn’s book landed on shelves about the same time as Thomas Friedman’s better-known tome, The World Is Flat, which declared globalization a triumph of innovation and hard work for anyone willing to do the hard work of innovating. [https://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-History-Twenty-first-Century/dp/0374292884?tag=thehuffingtop-20]

Today, Lynn’s predictions of market disruption and political unrest appear to have been ahead of their time.

Early globalization champions, including Martin Wolf and Lawrence Summers, are rethinking their judgments of a decade ago. [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e46e8c00-6b72-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a28c.html#axzz4J2hMuhyq]

But Lynn turned several influential heads when his book was published. Thomas Frank, bestselling author of What’s The Matter With Kansas?, became a Lynn enthusiast. [https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X/ref=sr_1_1]

So did food writer Michael Pollan.

“He was writing about an issue that nobody was paying attention to, and he was doing it with a very strong sense of history,” Pollan says.

“Barry understood antitrust going back to the trust-busters a century ago, and how our understanding of the issue shrank during the Reagan administration … The food movement is not very sophisticated on those issues.”

Lynn’s history nerd-dom is eccentric in a town that hyperventilates over every hour of the cable news cycle.

Ask about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, and Lynn will oblige you a polite sentence or two.

Ask him about former Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis or William Howard Taft, and you’ll need to reschedule your dinner plans.

“He once asked me to read about Roman law for a piece on common carriage,” says Lina Khan, referencing a plank of net neutrality policy not typically associated with the Code of Justinian.

After he published his second book in 2010, Lynn began bringing on his own staff within New America. Khan was one of his first hires.

Teachout, a Fordham University Law School professor, was another.

Teachout eventually ran for office and published a book of her own on the history of corruption in America. [https://www.amazon.com/Corruption-America-Benjamin-Franklin%E2%80%99s-Citizens/dp/0674659988/ref=sr_1_1?amp=&ie=UTF8&keywords=Zephyr+Teachout&qid=1472758645&sr=8-1&tag=thehuffingtop-20]

Another of Lynn’s associates, Christopher Leonard, published a book on meat industry monopolies around the same time.

These works shared a common theme: Monopolistic businesses create social problems beyond consumer price-gouging, from buying off politicians to degrading the quality of our food...

More: https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2017/08/30/google-has-become-a-major-threat-to-democracy-in-america/

Animal and pet bodies are generally disposed of via a process that essentially liquifies the flesh in lye. I know that there was some amount of push several years ago to expand the service to human remains.

There's a company in Europe that was trying to push the idea of "planting" a person's body by using minimal preservation chemistry and no coffin, and putting a sapling above the body.

I'm not Tibetan, but even I can appreciate the symbology of their Sky Burials, wherein a body is sliced and left exposed to the elements, and is swiftly reclaimed by vultures.

However, there is one outstanding option for OP: Donating his body to science! Organ donors are lauded, as they well should be, but there's a pressing need for bodies for research purposes, particularly bodies of younger folk or children. The research gained through body donation can save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives, for decades after it's donated. Bodies have been used to research car crash impact effects--dummies are fine, but there really is no substitute for strapping a body into a car and launching it into a wall to see how it breaks (or doesn't!)

I'd strongly encourage anyone interested in alternative body disposal methods to read Stiff, by Mary Roach. It is far and away my favorite non-fiction book--hilarious, respectful, inquisitive, and educational!

That's a broad topic. Let's see:

• Recent, still relevant baseball: The Arm by Jeff Passan. One of the best sportswriters today goes way in-depth to what's going on with pitching injuries. Fascinating read.
  
  
• Historical / Classic Reads: Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers in Jackie's day. Kahn's a wonderful storyteller.
  
  
• Weird, but wonderful: Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, about the fictional Patriot League. One of these days, I want to run an OOTP sim of the league and see what happens. Completely out there, but I loved it.
  
  
• Edit: Almost forgot! The Kid Who Only Hit Homers, by Matt Christopher. First baseball book I ever read.

It sounds like you have an Intro Geology book.

For a nice overview of historical geology, I was enraptured by "The Earth: An Intimate History" by Richard Fortey. It starts slow but delves into the major developments and ideas of geology as the author visits many significant locales around the world.

Stephen Jay Gould was a very prolific science-writer across paleontology and evolution.

John McPhee has several excellent books related to geology. I would recommend "Rising from the Plains" and "The Control of Nature."

Mark Welland's book "SAND" is excellent, covering topics of sedimentology and geomorphology.

If you are interested in how society manages geologic issues, I would recommend Geo-Logic, The Control of Nature mentioned before, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, and Cadillac Desert.

These are some of the texts I used in university:

• Nesse's Introduction to Mineralogy
  
• Winter's Principles of Metamorphic and Igneous Petrology
  
• Twiss and Moore's Structural Geology
  
• Bogg's Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
  
• Burbank and Anderson's Tectonic Geomorphology
  
• Davis's Statistics and Data Analysis in Geology
  
• Burbank and Anderson's Tectonic Geomorphology
  
• Fetter's Applied Hydrogeology
  
• White's Geochemistry (pdf online)
  
• Shearer's Seismology
  
• Copeland's Communicating Rocks
  

This was the one that we used for Cosmology. It starts pretty gentle but moves into the metric tensor fairly quickly. If you don't have the maths I don't know that it'll help you to understand them but it'll definitely have all the terms and equations. As with Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics, the funny haired man himself actually had a pretty approachable work from what I remember when I tried reading it.

​

This one has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Given the authors reputation for popularizing astrophysics and the title I think it might be a good place to start before you hit the other ones.

Historian here: I recommend simply finding good books on topics or periods that interest you. Textbooks are dull and by design shallow. Most people will enjoy (and benefit) from reading more in-depth studies of a topic they are passionately interested in, at least as a starting point. For example, if you are interested in the 1920s I'd highly recommend Daniel Orkrent's Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition as a fascinating and quick read that will leave you wanting to learn more about the 1920s.

So what interests you?

Once you have some topics lined up, go to /r/askhistorians and ask for suggestions.

Not totally accurate, but if you’re looking for popular science/entertainment that’s somewhat anthropology related.... Kathy Reichs is a board certified forensic anthropologist and has written a lot of books. They (she) are what the TV show Bones was based on.

Stiff by Mary Roach is a good one

For nonfiction, and if you’re interested in things highly relevant politically now, these are some incredible works on immigration.

Becoming Legal
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields

I’m pretty sure this author is a sociologist, but still a great book. imagined communities

Thanks! I just wish I could say there were more good things on the list.

And thanks for the Patton recommendation, I'll check that out.

I do recommend anything by John McPhee in the strongest possible terms. It's all non-fiction, and always interesting and often very funny, and about a tremendous range of topics.

Like fishing? Read The Founding Fish, which is all about the American Shad, and I mentioned before.

Like boats? Looking For a Ship is about the merchant marine.

Planes, trains, and automobiles (and more boats)? Uncommon Carriers deals with all of them, and why almost all lobster eaten in the US comes from Kentucky.

Care for tales about why New Orleans is doomed, pissing on lava , and debris flows in LA? The Control of Nature covers those.

Fruit? How about Oranges?

Geology? The Annals of the Former World is a compilation of several shorter books more or less following I-80 across the US.

Sports? Tennis (and basketball to a lesser extent). He's also written about lacrosse in various magazines.

...And a ton of other stuff, ranging from bears to farmers markets to nuclear energy to lifting body airplanes to Switzerland.

• Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan is a great overview of the science of statistics, without being too much like a lecture. After reading it, you'll have a better understanding of what statistics are just silly (like in ads or clickbait news) and what are actually important (like in scientific studies).
  
  
• You on a Diet by Roizen and Oz is touted as a diet book, and it kind of is. I recommend it because it's a great resource for basic understanding the science behind the gastrointestinal system, and how it links to the brain.
  
  
• All of Mary Roach's books are excellent overviews of science currently being done, I've read Stiff (the science of human bodies, post-mortem), Spook ("science tackles the afterlife"), Packing for Mars (the science of humans in space), and Bonk (sex), and they are all very easy to understand, but scientifically appropriate. I'm sure "Gulp" is good too, although I haven't read that one yet.
  
  
• "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown is a great, accessible overview of exactly why Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet, told by the man who started the controversy.
  
  
• "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking is a little denser, material-wise, but still easy to understand (as far as theoretical physics goes, at least!). Hawking explains the history of physics and the universe, as well as the future of the discipline. While there is a bit more jargon than some pop-science books, I think an entry-level scientist can still read and understand this book.
  

I would recommend reading Michael Sandel’s book Justice and at the same time getting the Justice reader (book of selected readings in political philosophy) put together by Sandel, and watching Sandel’s online lecture series entitled Justice.

Justice book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374532508/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0374532508

Justice reader:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195335120/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0195335120

Justice online lecture series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL30C13C91CFFEFEA6

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History available on iTunes podcasts as well.

Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of our Nature is a fantastic total annihilation of Watchtower’s constant fearmongering about how much violence there is in the world and how it’s only getting worse.

Basically anything by Richard Dawkins is evolutionary biology gold, highly recommend his book The Greatest Show on Earth

Neil deGrasse Tyson recently released a great book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry that gives so many mind-blowing facts about our universe in quick-to-read fashion. His podcast StarTalk Radio is fascinating and fun as well.

Bart D Ehrman is a fantastic biblical scholar, his book Forged examines the Gospel writers and why many are not who the religious believe them to be.

In the Heart of the Sea tells the true story that inspired Moby Dick, and is a great read.

If you like non-fiction, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and The Perfect Storm are also very good.

Pretty much everything I know about QM, I learned from reading stuff on websites like the ones people love to link on Reddit, or similar things I've found on Google. :) I can suggest you take a look at Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm about halfway through and it's pretty dense with information, but it's still good!

Knowing what I know, I believe the issue with collecting a bunch of entangled particles is that scientists generally use photons, since it's easiest to entangle them compared to anything else, and photons aren't exactly something that hangs around waiting to be accumulated. One procedure to entangle particles requires forcing two electrons out of orbit from opposite sides of their atom. Read about creating entangled particles here. In one article, I read it would take about one million particles to get an entangled pair, but processes have improved so we can get about six a second.

I can't find any references to the "17 fields," though. I found quantum field theory, but nothing else.

Salon founder David Talbot chronicles the cultural history of San Francisco and from the late 1960s to the early 1980s when figures such as Harvey Milk, Janis Joplin, Jim Jones, and Bill Walsh helped usher from backwater city to thriving metropolis.

http://www.amazon.com/Season-Witch-Enchantment-Terror-Deliverance-ebook/dp/B005C6FDFY/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Cool, Gray City of Love brings together an exuberant combination of personal insight, deeply researched history, in-depth reporting, and lyrical prose to create an unparalleled portrait of San Francisco. Each of its 49 chapters explores a specific site or intersection in the city, from the mighty Golden Gate Bridge to the raunchy Tenderloin to the soaring sea cliffs at Land's End.

http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Gray-City-Love-Francisco-ebook/dp/B00D78R550/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1451757678&sr=1-1&keywords=cool+grey+city+of+love

Not a book, but this American Experiance episode is fantastic.

In 1957, decades before Steve Jobs dreamed up Apple or Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, a group of eight brilliant young men defected from the Shockley Semiconductor Company in order to start their own transistor business. Their leader was 29-year-old Robert Noyce, a physicist with a brilliant mind and the affability of a born salesman who would co-invent the microchip -- an essential component of nearly all modern electronics today, including computers, motor vehicles, cell phones and household appliances.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/

Also, not related to San Francisco directly, but focusing on California and the west, if you want to understand why California is the way it is today, this is on the list of essential reading material.

http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244

> 4) Area 51. I suspect the truth is pretty mundane, but it'd be neat to see what projects they work on there. Maybe, just maybe, there's a group of giant space cockroaches there that shoot the shit around the coffee station.
>

https://www.amazon.com/Area-51-Uncensored-Americas-Military/dp/0316202304

That book is a pretty good read about Area 51. Essentially an Air Force (military) and CIA (civilian) aeronautics research facility. Doing research and operations that are extremely sensitive. Also reverse engineering and studying foreign aircraft like MiG and Chinese warplanes. Specifically the U2, F117, A12/SR71, and drone reconnaissance aircraft (before anyone even knew what a drone was) development.

It was/is also used to study effects of using nuclear weapons. Specifically contamination effects and how long it would take to clean up a nuked city (they did this by setting off nukes to contaminate the desert and see how much dirt they had to dig out to make it safe again). I believe the defense contractor EG&G handled most of the nuclear research at Groom Lake.

This isn't heavily science-y and a bit journalized, but I really enjoyed Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadaver's by Mary Roach. I also like Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. There's a lot of overlap with what he teaches at his UChicago Eco & Evo course. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is also wonderful, but will likely make you angry. Yet another interesting read is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

"The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below." - Hyperion, Dan Simmons

"Joe Gould is a blithe and emaciated little man who has been a notable in the cafeterias, diners, barrooms, and dumps of Greenwhich Village for a quarter of a century" - Up In The Old Hotel - Joseph Mitchell

"He told them he loved them" - Columbine - Dave Cullen

"Kazbek Misikov stared at the bomb hanging above his family. It was a simple device, a plastic bucket packed with explosive paste, nails, and small metal balls. It weighed perhaps eight pounds. The existence of this bomb had become a central focus of his life." - The School - C.J. Chivers

"It was summer; it was winter." The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy - MICHAEL PATERNITI

"The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before had occasion to make the comparison, for never before today have I seen a head in a roasting pan" Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers - Mary Roach

The first theories on this appeared in the states after Bush II got elected:

What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

https://www.amazon.com/dp/080507774X/

But it’s basically identity politics. The world has gotten to complex for many to understand so they’ve retreated back to a single strategy

If they are like me they will care about what I care about and handle things the way I would handle them if I was in charge

So BJs and trumps primary strategy is looking and sounding like the people whose votes they want. Trump even watches Fox News (Murdoch) as research to better know what that is.

I find that science history and biography gives a good understanding of scientific methods, and when written for the lay-person, doesn't get so bogged down in technical jargon.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
  
• Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
  (Also check out his biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman)
  
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
  
  And here are a few on my to read list:
  
  
• Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society - Bill Bryson
  
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
  
• The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine - Lindsey Fitzharris
  
• Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus - Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
  
• The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring - Richard Preston
  
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science - Richard Holmes
  
• The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution - David Wootton
  
  I hope that helps.

>It's always been the humble team that can never win being the Mets

You must really be under 25.

The Mets were one of the most non-humble, hated, arrogant teams in baseball for years and years and years. And it was great.

>who constantly win and always showboat with the likes of A-Rod, Clemens, etc.

The Yankees play a scratchy 1954 recording of God Bless America every 7th inning, and don't allow facial hair. They have never been "the fun team". Even when good, let alone now. It's just not what they're about. They are the anti-fun. Any fun their fanbase has comes from winning, and from shitting on the other teams' fans that win less.

You really got your team cultures mixed up if you think the Yankees are "showboat central". The Yankees are your Korean War vet great uncle who complains about kids today on their iPhones, and listens to cassettes of Perry Como in his car.

>Well the Mets are finally looking good after years and years and years of no hope, let's not cross into Yankee territory. That's how I look at things.

The only Yankee territory we are crossing into, is the media fawning over the Mets, which is extremely new territory, not seen on this side of the rivalry since roughly 1990.

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^EDIT: ^fixed ^link

War Room is a great book that gives insight to how teams are built, prepare for the draft, and gives background on the 1995 Browns Staff that ended up having like 3 GMs and 7 head coaches

I'm at work right now, but will add some more as I think of them.

Edit: There's also "The GM" which gives insight about being a GM, the decisions made, and again building a team. It's centered around Ernie Accorsi who was the GM of the Giants, and one of the more respected GMs in football history.

And of course, everything you are looking for can be found in The Winning Edge by Bill Walsh. Literally covers everything from top to bottom on how to run/build a football team. But it is super expensive. If you can find the means, I highly suggest it.

I can't offer you squat on job hunting, but I used to be a water lawyer here in California and if you want to read an insanely interesting book, that will always up your interest with anyone in any part of the water business in the US (or probably Canada, too), read Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert, which all about the history of the aquafication of the West. Looks like you are Europe-based from your job applications, but it is a fascinating story well worth your time.

https://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244

"Smart" people learn to deal with boredom. Being educated takes rigor and a drive to appreciate things for more than just the plot.

This means you will be frequently bored sifting through some painfully tedious prose, but the payoff is that your brain will get some practice at synthesizing information and not just regurgitating surface-level stuff than any rube can pull out of a novel or a popsci book.

That said, I can't recommend the r/askhistorians booklist enough. This list was assembled by people who are experts in their fields and the books are mostly scholarly in nature, so they can be pretty dense, but they are highly informative and well-researched. You can be assured that these are people who follow the sources so the information is

I also recommend reading Moby Dick and following along with NYU's recorded lecture. It's slow and difficult to follow along with at times but it's a seminal work of American literature. Many would argue that it's America's first modern novel.

Plus it's just a manly fucking book. And after you finish reading it, you can follow up with In the Heart of the Sea for historical context. This is one of the few pop history books that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Philbrick is an excellent writer and his sources are accurate.

Final recommendation would be The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (Ginsburg translation).

Both Master and Margarita and Moby Dick are novels with philosophical themes, but I would say that Master and Margarita is more readable on its own, and Moby Dick is better if you follow the lecture that I linked.

I am not a scientist, I am a historian, however... if you would like to know some academic titles that go to the route of the problem I can suggest Coming Out Under Fire and Gay New York. Neither book is directly about the now debunked decision that homosexuality was a mental disorder but both make multiple references to it and Coming Out Under Fire is a book that deals with some of the immediate backlash of that not-so-scientific, scientific claim.

the short version of the history here though is that in 1952 it was put into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the APA. This was a political move and a result of 60 years of cultural shift. What had happened since 1890 is really the birth of a gay identity. Until this time, people had discussed homosexuality in obscure medical contexts or works like Krafft-Ebing's work Psychopathia Sexualis with Especial Reference to the Antipathic Sexual Instinct: A Medico-Forensic Study (1886) which concluded that it was a degeneration and talked about it more like a fetish. Later in his life after more work on the subject he retracted that hypothesis. A bit later Havelock Ellis and John Symonds came along. Their work concluded that Homosexuality was definitely not a disease but instead variation of sexuality. Then in 1948 the first Kinsey Report came out in which he definitively stated "Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual." The findings of his research was that sexuality is a range, its not black and white. This was all well before the APA's ruling.

Shortly after the ruling the work of Evelyn Hooker, The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual came out which determined that homosexuals could be perfectly well adjusted humans. The next Kinsey Report came out in 1953 and with that he once again concluded that sexuality was not black and white. According to him 37% of males and 13% of females had some sort of homosexual experience to orgasm in their lifetime. So to say somebody was exclusively heterosexual would be difficult.

Further supporting evidence of the political or social nature of the initial decision can be see in the APA's decision to remove it from their list of mental disorders. Stonewall has happened in 1969 and the entire gay liberation and gay rights movement has become very visible in media and in the public eye. Probably because of this, when the decision was made to remove it as an officially classified disorder it was also accompanied with a statement from the APA that supported the civil rights of homosexuals.

It depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want a clear, intro-level overview of the subject, check out Shafer-Landau's Fundamental's of Ethics. It's a fantastic place to start, and it is the book I recommend if you really want to understand the subject and plan to read outside the context of a class.

If you want primary texts, I suggest that you get the book's companion, The Ethical Life.

If you want a textbook that is a little shorter and more engaging, check out Rachels' The Elements of Moral Philosophy.

If you want an introduction that's informative and fun to read but less informative than the Rachels or the Shafer-Landau, check out Sandel's Justice. You can also watch his Justice lectures online. This book, as opposed to the other two, is written for a popular audience.

I haven't read any Dawkins, but Daniel Okrent did a great job with Last Call. (I'm also a huge Dubner/Freakonomics fan.) I'm always very hesitant about authors reading their own work, and I'm pleasantly surprised when it great.

I'm just speaking for myself here, but if you want to get a factbook, I'd go Uncle John's Bathroom Reader over a book of random facts. With a book of random facts, there's little incentive to do anything but glance at it occasionally. The Bathroom Reader contains longer anecdotes in addition to traditional factoid tidbits, so it's good if you've got a minute or a half-hour.

Also, if you want to get interesting science-type books, one that I haven't read but have heard good things about is Stiff. Hope that helps!

So this may be a little dated - but I always got a good chuckle out of reading Chuck Palahniuk’s walking tour of Portland. Fugitives and Refugees. Everyone is a little different - but the food is fantastic and there’s a lot to explore. Gift certificates to restaurants, money to go to Mount Hood - anything to take advantage of going into the city.

I haven't read What We Owe to Each Other, but from what I'm familiar with it's an attempt by Scanlon to explain and justify his particular brand of moral contractualism, and not an introductory book on ethics and moral philosophy. I believe Chidi is a contractualist and deontologist so it makes sense why he would like that book (as a philosophy professor), but that's just one area of moral philosophy.

One of the problems with philosophy is that the works are intended for students and educated audiences and not laymen, so most of the books for example that I read when I first started college (and books that you'll find listed in "good for beginners" lists) like Nicomachean Ethics and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals I would never, ever recommend to a general audience. They're full of confusing philosophy terminology and long, multi-stage logical arguments.

Instead I highly recommend what I suspect you're really looking for in Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel. While clearly aimed at an American audience, it's a very good and more importantly very readable general introduction to ethics and the varying schools of thought in the field. It's a really short read for a philosophy text and is peppered with real-life examples and dilemmas.

Another book that I actually read recently and quite enjoyed is A Concise Introduction to Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau. Unfortunately, this one is intended for a student audience and is more of a textbook (complete with end of chapter quizzes), but it goes really broad and over not just all the big schools of ethics but also the fundamentals of moral reasoning, and metaethics and natural law (two things that don't always show up in ethics books which are usually about normative ethics).

A professor is not a government official. Republicans are idiots. Bill Cronon is also one of the BEST historians the U.S. has right now, by the way. Read Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West to have mind blown by a brilliant writer and educator. This is one of the best books on U.S. history ever written!

/u/LeeroyJenkins- has a good start in his post.

I would add Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn and Pull up a Chair The Vin Scully Story.
Not Dodger specific but Watching Baseball Smarter is also very good. It will help you appreciate the game you watch that much more.

The Baseball documentary by Ken Burns (as mentioned by /u/LeeroyJenkins-) is a must watch. It is long, around 20 hours including the 10th inning follow up, but it is well worth it. Available streaming on Amazon and Netflix.

If you took away my baseball, you might as well take away my air, water, and food. I live, breathe, and eat the game... so much so I work part time for one of the clubs!

A favorite non-fiction book is Crazy '08 about the 1908 season if you like the history of the game.
Also Summer of '49, The Boys of Summer, The Glory of Their Times, and Eight Men Out

For fiction... you MUST read Shoeless Joe. The Natural, For Love of the Game, and Bang the Drum Slowly aren't bad either... I'm sure you've seen all the movies too.

First off, I assume you have or will be doing the required reading. Portland is chock full of plucky transplants who have never experienced the joy of being harassed by a homeless person at Saturday Market, an anti-Californian xenophobia campaign or even a Santa riot. Times may have changed, but you should prepare yourself for the following:

• Constant drizzle. You probably caught us on a rare, good week for spring. People I've known who moved here are astounded by the nature of the rain.
  
• Quirky people. And by quirky, I mean facepalm-wtf quirky.
  
• Suburbs that may turn you off to the region (Gresham, Clackamas, Vancouver, I'm lookin' at you) where you may have to live in order to find work.
  
• Everyone under the age of 35 is in a shitty band ... which is acceptable because they're in it for the love of music or something. Anyone who's not in a band is an aspiring graphic designer.
  
• Ironic non-ironic mustaches. Visit one of our charming scene bars (The Tube, anyone?) to learn the true meaning of metairony.
  
• More white people as per the model, than you may be used to dealing with. We're lacking for diversity, conservatives exist only in legend and we keep all the rednecks in reeducation camps called Oregon City and Kelso, WA.
  
• An instant disgust for any other city on the west coast for not keeping it as real as Portland, and the belief that much of the rest of the country is straight out of V For Vendetta.
  
• You'll know at least one annoying epicure who has to talk about this great new place on Mississippi that something horrid, like vegan edamame/lentil pate or donkey bouilbase
  
• A rough job market. Oregon follows only Michigan in unemployment.
  
  If you can get past those caveats, it's a fantastic place and I wish you all the best.

If you ask the Patriots who their gunner is, they will tell you that it's Matthew Slater.

If you ask the Patriots who their General Manager is, they will tell you that the position doesn't exist.

This is not semantics, either. The position has never existed under Robert Kraft's ownership. Most of the people on this subreddit were not alive the last time the Patriots had a General Manager.

When Kraft assumed ownership of the New England Patriots, he inherited Bill Parcells as his head coach. Parcells had been hired by the previous owner, James B. Orthwein, and had essentially been given full control over player personnel.

Over time, Kraft did not feel like Parcells accepted enough of his input in player personnel decisions. This came to a head in the 1996 NFL Draft, when Parcells wanted to draft defensive end Tony Brackens with the 7th overall pick, but Kraft overruled him and selected WR Terry Glenn instead. Parcells resigned from the Patriots after the 1996 season, and took over as HC of the NYJ.

His experience with Parcells led Kraft to believe that coaching and personnel should be separated, and as a result, his next head coach, Pete Carroll, was given no authority over personnel decisions. When this arrangement failed spectacularly, Kraft had to revise his thoughts about separating coaching and personnel, and agreed to give new head coach Bill Belichick broad authority over personnel decisions, provided that Kraft himself would be included in discussions.

Thus, the duties traditionally carried out by a General Manager are handled by a group of individuals working together, which include Kraft, Belichick, and some lesser-known people like Nick Caserio and Monti Ossenfort. Kraft believes that this is the best way to run the front office, and that's how Belichick wants it to be run anyway. The reason why Thomas Dimitroff and Scott Pioli have been successful in their GM jobs in Atlanta and Kansas City is due, I think, in no small part to their expanded duties as part of the Patriots front office.

Source: War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team by Michael S. Holley

It's not World War Z, or an action type book. This book is called Stiff. It's a very interesting and informative book about cadavers. I went into this book with much skepticism, but was intrigued by her personal recollection and delivery. The book made me go from laughing out loud to cringing by the subject at hand. I highly recommend this book, and it's available on kindle.

The off-chance you read it, (Let me know how you like it!)

My wishlist - http://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/2S2J4Y7OHPGTH/ref=cm_pdp_wish_all_itms (Only one item below $15.)

It's weird you're asking for academic sources for someone's armchair analysis and opinion that politics are best handled moderately. It's not really a thesis. If you mean you'd like academic sources about how certain sides get popular votes because of backlash from the other party, and how party alignment can lead to incredible bias, well that's kind of common sense. But here are some interesting academic articles and books about the subject.


https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/party_over_policy.pdf


https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X


http://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS234/articles/bartels.pdf


http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/williamson/files/tea_party_pop.pdf


https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/pomper.htm

Bottom of the 33rd was a very well written look at both the longest game in history as well as the players, ballpark staff, and fans in attendance. It puts the game in perspective.

If you're more into fiction and don't mind diving into a book written for Young Adults Summerland is a very enjoyable read. But it sounds like you would like more baseball in the book.

The Boys of Summer has a great blend of baseball and real life, talking about baseball in the 1930s and 40s and the hearts that broke when the Dodgers (and Giants) moved from New York to California.

Thanks for the recommendation! It's on Kindle Unlimited, so I just snagged it for "FREE".

I'd recommend anything by Mary Roach. She delves into the "WHY's?" and curious little bits of background information while having a lot of fun.

Mary Roach

• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
  
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
  
• Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

I'm assuming you're American.

The Basics of American Politics together with Politics in Action and some regular political news reading would be a firm introduction to politics.

If you want to dig deep, then buy some books on economics and history. One thing I haven't seen in the answers yet is philosophy. It may not sound important, but it very much is. I would recommend Justice by Michael Sandel. It is a great introduction to different moral theories and ties them together with politics quite well. I left the book finally understanding why conservatives and liberals think the way they do.

Those 3 books should also introduce you to more resources that will take you down as far as you'd like to go.

> "all Bernie supporters are young college idiots who know nothing and just want free shit"

Just for the record, not that it will convince your father of anything, I'm 52 (probably older than he is), have read a lot and support Bernie. Though, Bernie is far more centrist than I am. I'm fiscally left of and more socially liberal than any of Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, or the Dalai Lama.

So, not all of us radical left-wingers (and yes I know I'm radical) are young or ignorant of what's going on in the world.

And, I'm retired rather young, not taking government money, not asking for government money, not even asking for lower taxes. I don't mind paying higher taxes than those who earn less than me. I just hate that the uber-wealthy making tons more than me pay less (in percentage) than I do.

I don't know why your father wants his own tax dollars to subsidize the Koch brothers. But, if anyone is ignorant, it is those who are not super-wealthy and support lower taxes for the wealthy. Why on earth would someone vote so strongly against their own self-interest??!!?

Please ask your father nicely to commit to spending just 20 minutes listening to an actual self-proclaimed plutocrat, a genuine billionaire, explaining why he supports liberal policies.

Beware Plutocrats, the Pitchforks are Coming

Then, if he's actually willing to read, point him at a couple of excellent books. This first is just a collection of essays, so doesn't require the same attention span as the second I will recommend.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

This next book is by a former managing director of Goldman Sachs (a rather high title if you've never worked on Wall Street, I have). This one explains how Wall Street privatized profit and socialized risk to bring down the global economy.

It Takes a Pillage

"What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" is a great book on this subject. It talks a lot about how rural conservatives have been convinced into voting for harmful measures against small town America.

https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478737100&sr=8-1&keywords=what%27s+the+matter+with+kansas

Written by Mary Roach who is hilarious and has other great books! I recommend these in particular:

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

Huh. Very good! Also - if you guys are interested in this /u/tacitus's reply, you might like the book How The States Got Their Shapes I read it a few years ago. Pretty great.

just some of my standard answers.


The Disappearing Spoon- yes, it's chemistry but I found it very interesting.


Abraham Lincoln's DNA- if you have a good background in genetics you might already know many of these stories. Read the table of contents first.


New Guinea Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers- disease based biology. There is a follow up book if it turns out you like it.


Stiff- more than you wanted to know about dead bodies.


And by the same author but space based... Packing for Mars.

I hope these help... Cheers.

Seconded; for a great history of this, check out Cadillac Desert

Also, one problem I have with this graphic is how the United States is treated as a single entity. While the West is running out of water, the Great Lakes region sits on 1/5 of the world's available fresh water. To this day one of America's strengths is abundant natural resources.

Yes! For those interested, it's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. She has several others out (6 books and one compilation). Gulp might be my favorite but I really enjoyed Packing for Mars and Bonk. This sub would also really appreciate Spook!

I'm a lady! I started on rotten.com a long time ago, too. I've always been a little morbid I guess, but I am also just fascinated by the things we don't see that (a) we used to or (b) other cultures still do. My mom worked around a lot of medical illustrators for most of my life, too, so I grew up seeing random fetuses in jars and understood the importance of cadavers.

Also, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers is one of my favorite books.

But I'd add, as other meta posts have before, that I learned way more than I expected when I started coming here.

Bones breaking isn't necessarily what kills you in rapid deceleration situations. Often times it's your heart detaching from your aorta. Every once in a while someone survives a jump off the golden gate bridge or something, and it's usually because when they hit the water their heart happened to be not full of blood for that split second, and wasn't as heavy, thus staying attached.

edit: this comment got a little more attention than I thought it would. If you're interested in this kind of thing, I would highly recommend Mary Roach's book Stiff.

> ... and totally not known even remotely enough in general.

I think this is one of the reasons I'm so open about recommending his work. He seems to have the ability to take topics that most people may not be exposed to and make them comprehensible. It's similar to the way I feel about Mary Roach in books like Stiff, Bonk, and Gulp.

Along with that, Bryson has some purely entertaining works like A Walk in the Woods, Notes From a Small Island, and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir that are just a joy to read. I guess I'll stop now because I'm starting to feel like shill.

Edit: spelling is hard.

At lot of people mentioned some pretty cool map books already, but these are two geography-related books I'm getting for Christmas: How the States Got Their Shapes (probably better if she's American) and Guns, Germs, and Steel. The latter is less to do with maps and more to do with how geography influences civilizations. Hope that helps!

I'm from New England and never had a lobster 'til I went to Africa in my 30s :(

I would imagine this is true of lots of salt- and freshwater foods, oysters, scallops, crabs, tuna, salmon...I'm not real sure about the state of the lobster population, but I think high prices for this kind of stuff can be a good thing (depending on how the money is used and the fishing is carried out).

Reminds me of something I read in In the Heart of the Sea, an awesome book about the shipwreck that inspired Moby Dick, but also more generally about the Nantucket Whaling industry. Nantucket was the world's whaling capital in the early 1800s, some days they could practically do their harpooning from the docks. A few decades later, they're sailing from Massachusetts to the Pacific to make their catches.

Then again, I'm sure some of that pricing is just high because it can be. There are weeds in my yard that fetch insane prices at microgreeneries and heirloom farms.

Mary Roach! Mary Roach Mary Roach!

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Packing of Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

I can't recommend these highly enough. Mary Roach is the most engaging, funny science writer I've read.

Also [A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman]http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Senses-Diane-Ackerman/dp/0679735666/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323874194&sr=1-1

If you wouldn't be weirded out by it, I high recommend reading Stiff. It's a really great read about the various ways they use cadavers for scientific research. It's actually quite helpful and important. There's a story in there about medical students at a University (I can't remember which) who would have memorial services for their cadavers at the end of the semester. Really neat stuff.

If you haven't read it, you should check out Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Each chapter is about a different use for bodies that have been donated to science. It's humorous, engaging informative, and fun. Really great read!

>When Justice has been achieved and society is perfect.

Define justice, and define perfect. (Asking this question reminds me of this awesome book http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508 )

Here's one for you

>Progressives are the conservatives of the future.

Being a person who has taught many university geology courses, I would say that in general geology textbooks are really boring (in my opinion). I think there are some good non-fiction books our there about geology that may be more interesting. Some suggestions:

1. If you live in the US, see if there is a "Roadside Geology of <your state>" book. These books are pretty good, and relevant to where you live.
   
   
2. "Thin Ice" by Bowen, all about climate and ice cores. Lots of good climbing stories.
   
   
3. Books by people like John McPhee, such as "The Control of Nature"
   

In the heart of the sea is a great book on the true account of a group of sailors this happened to in the 1700's...adrift in the pacific for like 69 days i think...it was the influence for Moby Dick because a whale sunk their ship...never has a nonfiction book read like such an action novel for me

Natures Metropolis by William Cronon

" Cronon's history of 19th-century Chicago is in fact the history of the widespread effects of a single city on millions of square miles of ecological, cultural, and economic frontier. Cronon combines archival accuracy, ecological evaluation, and a sweeping understanding of the impact of railroads, stockyards, catalog companies, and patterns of property on the design of development of the entire inland United States to this date. Although focused on Chicago and the U.S., the general lessons it teaches are of global significance, and a rich source of metaphors for the ways in which colonization of physical space operates differently from, and similarly to, colonization of cyberspace. This is a compelling, wise, thorough--and thoroughly accessible--masterpiece of history writ large. Very Highest Recommendation. "

One of my all time favorites is Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, about a climbing season on Mount Everest where a lot of things went wrong.

I also enjoy Mary Roach - she has a great gift of being able to convey information while being really entertaining in the process. Stiff is my favorite of hers, but I also really enjoyed Packing For Mars.

If anyone wants to read a really good book about these trees and the people who study them, I recommend The Wild Trees by Richard Preston. Among other really awesome interesting things, it talks about the discovery and exploration of the two trees mentioned in the article.

Read this if you're interested: https://www.amazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214

Chauncey taught "U.S. Lesbian and Gay History" last fall, and after hearing him reconstruct U.S. sexual history through his unique gloss, I actually felt like I understood myself a lot better in the context of not only today's gay culture. I appreciate a lot more deeply now how the way I interact with and feel around other gay men didn't just pop out of nowhere. Seriously; I really recommend it.

____

"Short" answer: Legal discrimination, oppressive social norms, and post-WWII pressures to maintain a nuclear family structure pushed gay life "underground" and created a collective consciousness. Once gay people understood sexual orientation to be an identity category, (similar to race or gender or class), spaces unique to gay men began to form their own counterculture. In such spaces, where secrecy and discretion were critical to maintaining a "double life," traditional relationship structures like monogamy didn't often fit the bill. On the flip side, these spaces afforded the privacy necessary to play with norms (e.g. drag). Many features of contemporary gay life are thus remnants of this past, and the fact that gay people can even imagine living a suburban life with 2.5 kids, white picket fences, and a happy marriage is an indication of sexual assimilation...well, depending on who you ask.

I obviously glossed over a lot of nuance in that paragraph, but I hope that helps.

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. I'm a fan of time-travel, and history, and I was completely sucked into it. She's got a number of books in the same universe- some comedic, some very dramatic, but The Doomsday Book is my favourite.

If you're at all interested in high fantasy, I'd recommend either Tigana or The Fionovar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. You either love his prose style or hate it, but if you love it, it will definitely take you away.

If you like SF and haven't read them, I'd try either Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos, or David Brin's Uplift Series (I'd skip Sundiver until later, and start with Startide Rising.)

If you're looking for more light-hearted/quirky, I'd try Christopher Moore- either Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal , or The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror. If you're into a mix of horror/sf/comedy, try John Dies at the End. They're not deep, but they're fun.

Non-fiction- if you haven't read it yet, Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is very difficult to put down. If you're travelling with someone who doesn't mind you looking up every few pages and saying "did you know this, this is awesome, wow-how interesting", I'd go for Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants or Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life. They're all very informative, fun, interesting books, but they're even better if you can share them while you're reading them.

Read [Amazin] (https://www.amazon.com/Amazin-Miraculous-History-Beloved-Baseball/dp/0312309929) and [The bad guys won] (https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Guys-Won-Championship-Uniform/dp/0062097636/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+bad+guys+won&qid=1554604792&s=books&sr=1-1) for all the history you need to knw,

We've retired 4 numbers:

37: Casey Stengel- first Manager and sweetheart of the Mets (if theres a saying about baseball that doesnt make sense It's either Casey or Yogi berra that said it)

14: Gil Hodges - Manager of the 69 Miracle Mets.

41: Tom Seaver - "The Franchise" The greatest pitcher to play for the mets up until deGrom. Used to hold the record for highest percentage of votes in the HoF till Griffey broke it.

31: Mike Piazza - The greatest home run hitting catcher of all time. Lead the team to the 99 playoffs and world series in 2000.

Hopefully theyll also retire 5 for David Wright. "The Captain" Led the team from 2004 to 2018. Leads the team in basically every offensive category, and was the face of the franchise for the last decade and a half.

Also know "Ya gotta Believe".

Welcome to the lifetime of suffering that is rooting for the New York Mets.

A lot of the better-researched/possible in the next 5 years stuff will have "speculative fiction" tacked on as a label instead of sci-fi. Just an observation.

In terms of very readable science nonfiction, you might try The Poisoner's Handbook, which is told in anecdotes about murder cases and the development of modern forensics in New York or Mary Roach's humorous essay collections in Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and others. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan was also quite readable and well-researched (about agrobusiness), but his other books get overly preachy, I think.

The Best Science and Nature anthologies are a good starting point when you're looking for new authors you click with too.

• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - I loved her book Boink about sex which I read a few years ago. Really funny and informative.
  
  
• [Pretty Little Liars](http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Little-Liars-Box-Set/dp/0061801313/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411518792&sr=1-2&keywords=pretty+little+liars_ =) - I have read 10 of these in the past couple weeks. My little sister got me hooked on them and the show which we binge watched together on Netflix. Yes they are horrible and trashy but my inner 13 year old girl loves them and I must find out who A is!!! Judge away people because I dun curr.

Not really, but you should read a book by Annie Jacobsen's about area 51 it gives a good overview on the subject. Some of her other books are also very good and 100% good journalism.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316202304/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2

Edit: She was also recently on JRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VoVIpIzj_c&t=9s

That's not really accurate... one of the most well-respected, even-handed, and historically sourced resources on the Stonewall Riots is Stonewall by Martin Duberman. You should read it.

Yes, the extent to which the sparking incident and the subsequent riots were (or were not) "trans PoC"-driven is very often misrepresented, particularly today where we get all these things about how Stonewall apparently didn't have any white or cis people (which is total bullshit), but there most certainly were drag queens and trans people (at the time, those two things were strongly conflated) and nonwhite people heavily and frequently involved at Stonewall and in the riots.

Other great resources include Gay New York by George Chauncey and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lilian Faderman about gay male and female, respectively, identity and culture from the late 1800s through the 20th century.

I definitely would recommend everyone here read Stonewall by Duberman, though. It's a good look at just how involved everyone was and in what ways. Conservative, middle-class white gay men, black trans drag queens, working class people, Latino people, white women, etc. Anyone who claims that one group or another "wasn't really involved" is either ignorant or misrepresenting the facts.

Thanks, interesting. I know you have probably read it (or maybe you're in it) but there is a great book called The Wild Trees that you might like.

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Trees-Story-Passion-Daring/dp/0812975596

It's probably more of a spectrum, and any given person's place on that spectrum shifts over time due to environmental factors, hormones, brain chemistry, and arguably choice (to the extent that choice exists independent of all of those other factors). This was recognized throughout most of human history going back to antiquity, with many first nation tribes recognizing gender fluidity, ancient assyrian cults based around transgenderism, Indian Hirja, transgender poet mystics in Persian Sufism, Greek clergy of Sappho and Cybele, much of the apprenticeship structure of Japanese culture- particularly during the Edo period, tribes of the Madzimbabwe changing their gender as a way of commanding powerful magic linked to creation of life and virility, first nations berdache, mezoamerican guevedoces, Oaxacan muxe. There were transgendered persons through the Parisian courts of love, in the courts of the Venetian doges, and the courts at Lisbon.

Even the U.S. has a more complex history of gender fluidity than most people assume. Our current bivalent view of being either straight or gay, male or female is only as old as the 1930's, and reflects more of a shift towards cultural assimilation that coincided with the mass migration of population away from ethnic centered city neighborhoods to suburban neighborhoods (where extended kin network and local tavern was replaced by local church and high school) that began with the Temperance/Progressive Movements.

Prior to that, there was an extensive and highly visible transgender culture, particularly in larger eastern cities, particularly in NYC, from the 1880's through the 1930's, and views on orientation and gender were much more fluid than what's assumed to be the natural order today. Transgender "faerie" prostitutes were pretty common. Equally common was male patronage of said prostitutes, which was viewed not as "gay", but as normative, even specifically masculine behavior.

George Chauncey wrote a good monograph about it. https://www.amazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214

It bears remembering that human beings are more weird and complex than simplistic explanations give them credit for.

The book list just keeps growing in so many different directions that it's hard to identify which I want to tackle next (I also have a tendency to take meticulous notes while I read and that slows the process down even further!). Some of the topics I intend to read about once I'm done with the books mentioned:

• God: A Human History
  
• Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith
  
• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
  
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
  
• Occult America
  
• When Prophecy Fails
  
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
  
• Cosmos
  
• Norse Mythology
  
• Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
  
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
  
• Misquoting Jesus
  
• On Bullshit
  
• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
  
• Why People Believe Weird Things
  
  Plus a bunch of books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, and others. There are way too many. And all the fiction books I want to read too! It's not that I didn't read books before, but my faith transition has sparked an intense desire to study and learn far greater than I ever experienced before.

Not a strictly educational read, but a very entertaining and enlightening exploration into something you'll probably become very familiar with in your near future...

Stiff by Mary Roach

> Tottenham

So did Tottenham like go from last place to Winning it all? Or did they have a team that Partied hard, and won it all?

Check this Book out too: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Guys-Won-Championship-Uniform--/dp/0062097636/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413799170&sr=1-1&keywords=the+bad+guys+won

A few points in favor of Dale and Holley.

1. They just added a 3rd man and IMO the best patriots blogger out there, Jerry Thornton. Thornography
   
2. Michael Holley wrote this great book on the patriots rise to dominance. War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team

I recommend you read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

They go over this in the first chapter. Fascinating and surprisingly entertaining book.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. The writing is so good you won't care about the squeamish content.

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum. A perfect blend of a historical retelling and science.

A Treasury of Deception by Michael Farguhar.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks. Short stories of the mentally abnormal patients of Sacks.

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Taylor. Very good insight on what it is like to live with, and recover from brain damage. Also talks science about parts of the brain as a nice intro to the subject.

Mutants: On Genetic Variety in the Human Body by Armand Leroi.

And of course,
Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Not so much. They've been voting against their own interests forever. This was to be expected to happen again. Why do they vote against their own interests? Read this book:

What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America https://www.amazon.com/dp/080507774X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_8Sj6wbCJ88R90

I actually came in this thread to recommend that book. I shouldn't be too surprised that WSPer /u/irishjihad beat me to the punch.

Richard Preston is a fantastic nonfiction author. I've liked all his books, from the Hale telescope in First Light to enormous redwoods in The Wild Trees, and of course what's probably his biggest commercial success, The Hot Zone.

Anything by or editied by Craig Elevitch - he's Hawai'i based, so focuses mostly on tropical and subtropical trees, but the insights are valuable to anyone studying agroforestry.

i highly recommend The Overstory Book, which is collection of scientific articles on tree crops, including nutrient cycling, NFT's, intercropping etc etc etc.

not related to permaculture per se, but The Wild Trees is about folks exploring and studying the world's largest trees. very engaging and readable.

It's not about Stonewall, but Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 explores a lot of interesting stuff most people don't know about. I took Chauncey's queer history class at Yale. It was amazing.

As for trans* stuff, I'd recommend a lot of theory. Judith Butler mainly. I'd also recommend Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity.

Anybody interested in the prohibition should read Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition which has a lot of fun facts like this one, along with some excellent information regarding the political machine that allowed a very vocal minority to get this kind of legislation passed.

Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?

Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.

Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.

Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   
3. Einstein: His Life and Universe
   
4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
   
5. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
   
7. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   
8. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
   
9. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
   
10. Cosmos
    
11. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
    
12. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
    
13. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    
14. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
    
15. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
    
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    
17. Chaos: Making a New Science
    
18. Isaac Newton
    
19. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    
20. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
    
    And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.

Nature's Metropolis: Chicago & the Great West is a wonderful read that doesn't pop up on here that much. It analyzes the environmental and economic background of the city from it's foundation until just past the worlds fair IIRC. It posits the straightforward argument that the success and growth of Chicago was an organic and interdependent inevitability based on the vast amounts of natural resources spread throughout the plains and upper midwest. It's basically Third Coast, but focused a hundred years earlier. It is a very dry read for most of the book, but it delves deeply into almost every industry that fed into early Chicago. If you've ever wondered why the Board of Trade is such a figure in the cities history, or why Chicago had the largest meatpacking industry in North America, or why all the grain from the upper midwest ended up here, why the bulk of the timber from the North Woods came through the city, this is your book.

I've been on a non-fiction kick myself.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is good. Very funny, very informative.

Packing for Mars and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers both by Mary Roach were also fun to read.

Everything I said is true: the cash you're willing spend will get you the best in this city. I see you shitbagging me in other comments so I'll just say this:

There is a huge socio-political context that you're entering into. Saying you'll drop enough for the top 1% of housing is going to make people assume a lot about you. You'll have a ton of fun here--those celebrity chefs don't charge as much as they do back home--but if you plan on staying and becoming a part of the community then I recommend watching American Winter and reading Fugitives and Refugees (though it's outdated, sadly the 24 Hour Church of Elvis has closed) to get an idea of whats going on in this city.

I really enjoy Justice by Michale Sandel. It's a series of riveting lectures that serve as a great entry into philosophy through ethics and justice.

You can also read his book.

If you want to read a truly excellent book on the subject of Prohibition, you will immediately buy Last Call by Daniel Okrent.
He goes into detail about this issue and a lot of others. I don't have it in front of me or I would find a citation. One thing I liked about the book was that he goes all the way back to the first stirrings of the prohibition movement way back in the mid to late 1800s. I can't recommend this book enough if you're interested in the subject.

There are some great books and articles on this subject. I think that you should avoid the 1950s onwards, because that would be like confirmation for Peterson fans.

For the gay identity that the books that I recommend are:

https://www.amazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522048690&sr=8-1&keywords=gay+new+york
https://www.amazon.com/Gay-Berlin-Birthplace-Modern-Identity/product-reviews/0307473139/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar
https://www.amazon.com/Homintern-Culture-Liberated-Modern-World/dp/0300218036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522048869&sr=8-1&keywords=Homintern


A free source that is full of primary sources.
http://rictornorton.co.uk

Do you have a specific interest? Otherwise a general introduction like Think, Problems of Philosophy, or Justice are all well regarded. Though, all have their strengths and weaknesses. There are tons of accessible introductions though and depending on your interests it might be better to use one rather than another. All of those are fairly general

First, you should read this book (talks about some of the people who developed big tree climbing techniques... and it's also a nice read): http://www.amazon.com/The-Wild-Trees-Passion-Daring/dp/0812975596

Climbing large trees of course can be dangerous and it is not recommended to do so without proper instruction (there's a variety of organizations if you're truly interested http://www.gotreeclimbing.org/?gclid=CJKJr6XxwrgCFckWMgodUCEAug)

Really what you need to climb most trees includes:

• Tree saddle
  
• Static rope
  
• Smaller diameter cordage for friction knots
  
• carabiners
  
• throwline and weight
  
• Branch protection so you do not harm the tree.
  
  
  The generalized process to do this as simply as possible (without just shimmying up the tree):
  First get your throwline (string tied to a weight) over a very strong lower branch. Tie your static line to the throwline and pull over the branch. Then you tie yourself into the static line using a friction knot and you can then work your way up the tree using what is known as doubled rope technique.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1RSzKkBOWc
  
  Again, this really isn't recommended unless you have some proper experienced guidance. It's really not that difficult once you get the basic mechanics down and then you can climb pretty much any tree. Do some reading.

I would start off with Stiff and then Bonk. I liked Spook but on amazon it doesn't have as good of reviews as the others so I'd read that one later if you aren't as interested in it. I've yet to read packing for mars but if it's anything like her other books, it's wonderful.

The Reluctant Metropolis by William Fulton. Not only does he talk about development and history of Los Angeles, but also how it relates to Orange County, the San Fernando Valley, and Las Vegas.

If you're interested in water and politics of the American west including Los Angeles, I also recommend Cadillac Desert -- pretty relevant in this multiyear drought

I can’t help but think about the people on the other end of these comments and upvotes. Read an excellent book about how it happened to people in Kansas but I just don’t understand the victory-foreclosure and victory-unemployment crowed. Their beliefs aren’t founded in anything beyond faith in “their” guy

Thanks, I'll read the book mentioned in the article. A good starter/companion reader for those interested in water history out here is Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. It's older, but it's been revised over the years and is a great place to start.

https://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244

Democratic theory, which is a study area of political science, comes down to the question, "What is good?"

All our arguments are "normative," we are expressing a value or belief about what is good.

If we define politics as "a relationship of power between two or more individuals," then we can see how fragile all our relationships are, including between a person and their government.

Who do we decide to be? Where were we born? Why did we do something?

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is why I went to law school and why I work in government now.

If you are interested in different political theories, Justice by Michael Sandel and Political Philosophy by Ronald Beiner compare different political theorists or political philosophers, and are great companion pieces to LOGH.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Link

This is a nice, easy reading book about the story Moby Dick is based on. The Essex was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale and her crew had to navigate home in whaleboats. It definitely falls more on the popular history side of the fence.

I recommend you read Stiff by Mary Roach if you're really interested. It's a very fun read, and surprisingly humorous. Depending on where you decide to donate your body, you may be used to study body decomposition, used as training dummies for med students, or even used as a crash test dummy.

there is a fascinating nonfiction book called the Poisoner's Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/Poisoners-Handbook-Murder-Forensic-Medicine/dp/1594202435) that I enjoyed. It's basically about the birth of modern forensics. Another fun read would be Stiff (http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393324826/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292456067&sr=1-1), which is also nonfiction about cadavers.

I cringed so hard when I was reading Stiff recently (which I actually highly recommend) and the author apparently interviewed Dr. Oz and cited him as a credible, medical source because of his work in cardiology.

The book came out in before his Oprah days and before having his own show, but it's just crazy how you can go from respected doctor at the top of your field to huge sell-out. I guess he just must be money hungry and eating up his newfound fame. I can't think of another reason why someone would make that career decision.

How is he not being consistent? I root for the laundry. And we're Mets fans. The last time we won a World Series, the best book written about it was literally titled, "The Bad Guys Won".

If given the choice, then yeah, I'd rather have a successful team of nice guys than a successful team of assholes, but I'd rather have a successful team of assholes than a bunch of nice, friendly losers.

There are plenty of people whose careers (mine included) that revolve entirely around western water law, supply, growth, etc. It is pretty cool stuff.

Cadillac Desert is a good book to start learning about some of these issues.

no one has a right to property and in order change that, you're moving away from our most fundamental principles, all men created equal and what not, and moving toward the the imperialistic hierarchies that we fought against. we'd create a california class that would make it even harder for someone to be a part of. when purchasing goods and services, we're all equal. anyone out of state with the money and resources to live here has just as much of a right to do so as you do. i get it, life isn't fair sometimes, but is there a more fair system that doesn't restrict the opportunities and rights of others?

> I have never even had the chance to visit another state so I don't know where I would go.

unless you're native american, the vast majority our ancestors, so most likely yours too, had never been to the U.S. before moving here but they did it without the internet or any of our modern conveniences yet here you are.

> The state has more than enough room to support everyone

room, maybe... but resources? have you looked into our water issues? you might want to check out the book Cadillac Desert. there's indicators that show the potential is maxed out.

Yes - all other things being equal. This exact situation has played out countless times in real life with ships lost at sea, and sailors on barren islands. Just look at what happened to the whaleship Essex (the inspiration for Moby Dick, and very well documented in Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea) - the fattest sailors lived the longest/survived, while the skinniest ones died first. In the case of the Essex and many other ships of the 17th-19th centuries, the white sailors lived longer than the black sailors because they had more privileged lifestyles and thus weren't as skinny. This is also why, apart from other social and diet factors, Polynesian peoples are bigger on average - when their ancestors where colonizing the Pacific and on the sea for months at a time, the naturally larger individuals didn't die of starvation as often, and were thus selected for.

I've read that one, and it's ok. A slightly better, more engaging introduction to Political Philosophy would be Michael Sandel's Justice. It was written for his eponymous Harvard course, which is fantastic and available online here.

How did we NOT tell he's a succ?

>the U.S. needs more input from sociology and less from economics

SUCCiology OUT OUT OUT

>The Democrats have been the party of the social safety net, and have long wondered why so many working-class Americans don’t seem to appreciate those benefits.

E C O N O M I C A N X I E T Y: jobs edition

Band of Brothers, by Stephen E. Ambrose is a great read. I read it after watching the mini series. It's easy to get into, and still an incredibly fascinating and detailed account of what Easy Company went through in the war.

What we practice in the US now, embalming with airtight caskets (they have “burping coffins” like Tupperware to release gas) began during the Civil War because of the hideous condition the bodies would often arrive home in after so long. If you’re down with learning about all the different things having to with the funeral industry and as well as how industry professionals have either lobbied to make some absurd practices legal requirements or will try to convince you they are when they’re not then these are fascinating to read, Jessica Mitford’s The American Way Of Death and Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers. Some of the most interesting reading you’ll ever do to be sure.

The PBS documentary of Cadillac Desert was very good. But the book on which it was based is fantastic. One of the most interesting, eye-opening, and educational books on any subject I have ever read.

Control of Nature by John McPhee has a great chapter on that project specifically as well as all of the levees and other river control schemes that take place on the Mississippi. It is a fascinating read.

You should read the wonderful book: Stiff - The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers. It's excellent. http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393324826

The post was about queer history books. My favorite queer history book is George Chauncey's Gay New York, a fascinating study of the role of urban space in New York's gay community in the first half of the twentieth century. Your response is pretty bewildering and unhinged tbh.

edit: oh, this is an /r/TIA troll, nevermind

non-fiction:

I liked Eddie' Huang's Fresh Off The Boat. Don't let the shitty TV show (which the dude doesn't like) scare you off. It's an interesting book that covers a wide range of shit. Not just cooking or being Asian.

If you know who Eddie Huang is and you aren't a fan/don't want to give it a shot, maybe alternatively try one of Anthony Bourdain's books. I personally haven't ready them though.

The Heart of the Sea: Tragedy of the Whale ship Essex again, ignore the shitty movie. Well, I haven't seen it but I assume so. Very interesting true story about a whaling ship in 1800 something that's destroyed by a sperm whale and the shipwrecked crew tries to survive. Basically a real life Moby Dick - Herman Melville based his story on the Essex.
Fiction:

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is an easy entertaining easy read. I'm now realizing all of recommendations all seem to have movies but that's coincidence. I was also gonna say American Psycho.

Books are cool. I don't read enough anymore.

A lot of people mentioned the show, but there is an excellent book that I read a few years on the topic.

It goes quite a bit more into depth than the TV show does with a chapter for each state. There are some really interesting stories about how various borders got there, especially in the Eastern States, where you had a mix of overlapping colonial charters.

This guy nails it. "A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? is a vivid portrait of an upside-down world where blue-collar patriots recite the Pledge while they strangle their life chances; where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street order that will eventually push them off their land; and where a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs has managed to convince the country that it speaks on behalf of the People."

There is a great book I read a few years back about the search and discovery of these massive trees. It's called The Wild Trees. Highly recommend it if anyone is interested in a personal/detailed account of the history of the discovery of these.

Someone already suggested it, but I'd like to restate House of Leaves. Though perhaps it's not a good vacation book because it will suck you in and it's kind of a dark book.

The Xanth and Apprentice Adept series by Piers Anthony are really quick reads; they're corny as shit fantasy for teenage boys, but they got me through some rough years so I'll always have a spot for them. Also on the fantasy side, check out Hyperion.

On the nonfiction side: Stiff and Salt were both awesome. I've read a bunch of other books by the author of Stiff, and they're all worth it--she's very accessible and funny, but also serious and respectful of the topics.

What's the matter with Kansas is a great book about that whole issue. Conservatives (Republicans) appeal to dumb people in these types of states on a lot of issues including jobs, giving them false promises and then turning an about-face when the time comes that they're in office.

Republican policies have long benefited the rich, and not the average worker.

You are correct on the title, "What's the Matter With Kansas", but it goes onto much greater depth than the single issue voting. It really delves into and explains why the social conservatives are being played to go against the fiscal conservative values they once held and who is profiting from them.

At the time it was written, 10 years ago, Thomas Frank made the prediction that this was the direction American "Conservatism" would head, and he has been dead on the money! An excellent read for those completely baffled by the ignorance of the average American voter.

To be a Mets fan you have to research and fall in love with the team's history on your own. Here are good places to start:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bad-Guys-Won-Uniform/dp/0062097636

http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Fear-Flushing-Intense-Personal/dp/1616080469/ref=pd_sim_14_7?ie=UTF8&dpID=51Q25iqXe3L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR106%2C160_&refRID=0JYEAW0YZ08RBB0SXQGE

This looks interesting though I kind of hope this book paid more attention to historical accuracy and nuance than this review of it did.

Another excellent work on early gay culture and the development of a distinctly gay identity in the United States is Chauncey's Gay New York, a fairly serious scholarly review or pre-WWII gay life in NYC.

Not my area of expertise, but as I understand it, it actually goes back further to the 1890s-1920s which was the period in which homosexuality began to be conceived in opposition to masculinity. In this period, however, gay men were not ostracised as they would be in the post-war era, insofar as they did not threaten heteronormative masculinity.

As I understand it, these norms were very closely tied to penetrative roles. Men acting as penetrators were acceptable in masculine roles. Men who were the penetrated were increasingly feminised and assumed that identity, in part to avoid being in conflict with established norms of masculinity.

Again, not my wheelhouse, but all of this I'm gleaning mostly from a couple of books I read a few years ago. Can recommend Geoffrey Chauncey's Gay New York as a pretty solid history of the emergence of gay identities (plural) which will challenge your understanding of sexual identity on a number of levels and also demonstrate the extent to which our current (though fast evolving) framework of sexuality is a relatively recent one.

Everytime something shitty happens in Kansas(pretty often these days) I recommend this book

https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X

It's an excellent run down on politicians and single issue voters were played over and over again making Kansas what it is today. If you want to know why people routinely can be counted on to vote against their own interests it's a good read

Ben Hogan's 5 Lessons-great for fundamentals
Tiger Woods: How I Play Golf -great for teaching you different shots
Harvey Penick's Little Red Book-great for learning fundamentals and interesting little stories

You should be able to find all 3 for >$50

Gifted Hands was an awesome book.

Also Stiff was a great book about Cadavers.

Hmm. Interesting. We've only ever heard Bill speak off the cuff. Why is he doing this? Is he a military history buff? I would guess that his management style is somewhat influenced by military culture. I'm reading War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team right now and I can see a lot of similarities between Belichick's leadership/organizational style and the time I spent in the military.


I mean, if Bill wants me to come play, you know... I'll show up on time for team meetings n' stuff.

You are wrong about your history. There was a purely bible thumping aspect to prohibition, but the much larger basis for its support was the progressive movement. And there was a great deal more overlap between nativists, evangelical protestants, and Progressives than you seem to believe. Progressivism was and is very much based in America's puritanical tradition. You should read about things before you talk about them.

This may not be the greatest suggestion but there is a book called Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 that has always looked interesting to me. It's massive, but the reviews are pretty positive. It's considered a textbook, but it's relatively cheap.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195140494?pc_redir=1396203794&robot_redir=1


EDIT: wrong words used.

The Boys of Summer is a great book about the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers.

This is an outstanding Lou Gehrig biography.

This is really common - if you donate a body to science it goes where it's needed. The entire body isn't needed for research in one place so the remains can be parted out as needed.

I highly recommend the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - it talks about the options out there for our bodies after we die, and manages to be light-hearted but respectful at the same time. It's really one of my favorite books

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why? by Laurence Gonzales

Swimming to Antarctica : Tales of Long Distance Swimming by Lynne Cox

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

I was home for a holiday, and found these laying around my mother's book stash. She recommended all of them and I thoroughly enjoy each one. Although, usually I read fiction. All of these books are intriguing, well-written, and educational. If you never read non-fiction a good place to start is reading Mary Roach. Here is her TED talk about orgasms.

Mark Stein's How the States Got Their Shapes is a nice quick-and-dirty rundown of how each state came to be the shape it is today. It's just a fun little pop-history book, though. You won't find much in the way of deep, well-sourced historical analysis in it.

There's also a History Channel show, based on Stein's book and hosted by Mark Unger. It's OK.

> What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X

Replace the title with any GOP controlled state.

This book made the interesting point that a lot of Oxcart (early SR-71) test planes didn't have black paint but were silver. Flying a lot higher than commercial flights, the recently-set sun would still be shining on them, and could have made them look like bright flying saucers going at then-unheard of speeds.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316202304?pc_redir=1409111139&robot_redir=1

Passage from the War Room where Bill Belichick discusses with Atlanta GM Thomas Dimitroff about trading up to get Julio Jones:

>"Thomas, I'm just telling you as a friend," Belichick says, "I wouldn't do it."
>When Belichick began studying the 2011 draft, he saw great depth at the receiver position. Why go all-out for someone like Jones when you can have a Jonathan Baldwin, who as far as, Belichick can see, is just as good if not better than Jones?

If you like non fiction (and lots of detail), In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick about the sinking of the whaleship the Essex and the crew surviving (or not) at sea.

I have not read this (yet) but it comes highly recommended from people I trust. The author was also one of the main contributors for Ken Burns' Prohibition.

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Call-Rise-Fall-Prohibition/dp/074327704X

Books that touch on Prohibition but don't focus on it that I have read:

https://www.amazon.com/Drinking-America-Our-Secret-History/dp/B016MXGYPI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499305189&sr=1-1&keywords=drinking+in+america+our+secret+history

https://www.amazon.com/Whiskey-Women-Untold-Bourbon-Scotch/dp/B01B3H8960/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499305231&sr=1-1&keywords=women+in+whiskey

I have just started this, and I expect a good portion to talk about Speakeasies and Blind Pigs:

https://www.amazon.com/America-Walks-into-Bar-Speakeasies/dp/B00PCQITW8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499305375&sr=1-1&keywords=america+walks+in+a+bar

absolutely agree. I haven't read it yet but it's known as a solid work on that subject. I did read For a Christian America by Ruth Murray Brown who was known for not much else than this book and being a Professor I believe. But it's well researched and comes at the subject from a Sociological perspective. Can't recommend it enough.

And of course, What's the Matter with Kansas which everyone should read.

I'll add Nixonland and see when I can get around to it.

Thanks.

For anyone thinking "What? I thought Area 51 was for aliens!" I would encourage you to read Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen. Really interesting book that explores aerial reconnaissance and nuclear arms development post-WWII.

If you ever wanted to read about the interesting history of the creation of the SR-71, check out this book [Area 51] (http://www.amazon.com/Area-51-Uncensored-Americas-Military/dp/0316202304)

The last chapter or so of this book jumps the tracks and goes off on some crazy conspiracy theories but the first part on the history of the U-2 and SR-71 is pretty good.

Annie Jacobsen wrote a book about area 51 from accounts of the place by people who worked there. I read it and it was really cool. As far as we know they are pretty much an R&D department with a ton of resources. But its pretty cool. If they were building Mach 3 airplanes in the 1970s (60s, 80s? Im not sure sometime around then), then imagine what they are building today. Super giant killer robot of death? I vote yes
http://www.amazon.com/Area-51-Uncensored-Americas-Military/dp/0316202304

I'm surprised these haven't been mentioned yet:
In The Heart Of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick - The true story behind Moby Dick (and much easier to read).
Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons - Insane true story of a shipwreck, then it gets worse...

Also for fans of non-fiction novels try Longitude by Dava Sobel and Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson - both involve the sea. *edit for some obvious typo's

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick is my all time favorite survival book. Read it before the movie comes out! It's absolutely crazytown.
http://www.amazon.com/In-Heart-Sea-Tragedy-Whaleship/dp/0141001828

Oh, my. I just read a great book about Prohibition, and how involved in banning liquor the suffragettes were. Women likely wouldn't have earned the right to vote if it weren't for all their hard work in passing the 18th amendment. And if it weren't for Prohibition, most women would never have started hanging out in pubs at all, b/c it was suddenly so illicit and exciting to do it. Win-win!

I recommend reading The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston. Yes, it is a nonfiction book about trees (mostly Giant Redwoods), but it focuses on people searching for the tallest trees in the world and is a quite fun read.

Try to get your hands on this book and dig in a little bit. Super readable and amazing history.

The book is really good too.
https://www.amazon.com/Band-Brothers-Regiment-Airborne-Normandy/dp/074322454X


I'd have to say that the HBO mini series is probably one of the best things ever made.

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Trees-Story-Passion-Daring/dp/0812975596

https://www.amazon.com/Redwood-Forest-History-Conservation-Redwoods/dp/1559637269/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Redwood+ecology&qid=1566444550&s=gateway&sr=8-1

These two are pretty decent. I haven't read this one yet but it looks interesting as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Redwood-Logging-Conservation-Santa-Mountains/dp/0940283263

The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn

It's a pretty great memoir of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers written by their former beat reporter.

Michael Pollan's [The Omnivore's Dilemma] (http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1324994963&sr=8-4)
[Freakonomics] (http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0060731338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324995084&sr=1-1)
Nathaniel Philbrick In the Heart of the Sea

Agree with others on Erik Larson, Mary Roach and Bill Bryson.

Here is a book I think you'll like if you are interested in this type of thing. :)

There are still options like The Body Farm and safety testing (aka, when crash test dummies aren't enough). You might find the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers enlightening.

Mary Roach writes some pretty interesting novels, such as Stiff, the curious lives of human cadavers

I used her as a source for a paper in college and found that book very informative.

John Rawls may be a good place for you to start for a "modern" perspective (look here first: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/ )

Michael Sandel wrote a pretty readable book based off his popular harvard course on the topic. You can find the book here ( https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Whats-Right-Thing-Do/dp/0374532508 ) or even just check out the course itself here ( http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/ )

​

Hope this helps! This isn't my area of interest but I have come across them along the way.