en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/9631041 Comments by Just_Bob http://the-toast.net/2015/11/25/female-students-dont-seem-impressed-used/#IDComment1005629153 Is "Dirtbag Ethics Professor" a thing? A known personality type? (I ask as an ethics prof who generally tries to avoid being a dirtbag.) Thu, 3 Dec 2015 18:19:33 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/11/25/female-students-dont-seem-impressed-used/#IDComment1005629153 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/29/letters-home-from-general-george-mcclellan/#IDComment997213782 Yeah, and that C-natural right at the end will rip your heart out. Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:10:01 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/29/letters-home-from-general-george-mcclellan/#IDComment997213782 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/29/letters-home-from-general-george-mcclellan/#IDComment997207407 A little later, I'll put on a recording of "Ashokan Farewell" and read these letters aloud with an air of quiet resignation and wistful longing. Tue, 29 Sep 2015 20:09:46 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/29/letters-home-from-general-george-mcclellan/#IDComment997207407 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/03/is-it-a-cat/#IDComment993473277 I think it must also have eaten the bow for the viola da gamba. Maybe that's why it looks so grumpy. Thu, 3 Sep 2015 23:24:17 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/03/is-it-a-cat/#IDComment993473277 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/03/is-it-a-cat/#IDComment993461443 My understanding is that "catgut" should be "kit gut" . . . "kit" being an archaic colloquial term for a fiddle or other bowed stringed instrument. Generally speaking, gut strings are and have been made from sheep intestine. Thu, 3 Sep 2015 21:05:32 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/03/is-it-a-cat/#IDComment993461443 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/03/is-it-a-cat/#IDComment993461155 I was going to say, it looks alarmingly like one of my cats, who is very likely a Turkish angora. As for the size and proportions of the cat in the painting, I can only say this: we named our cat after a goddess of the moon, and she has responded by developing a physique that is best described as "waxing gibbous." Thu, 3 Sep 2015 21:02:17 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/03/is-it-a-cat/#IDComment993461155 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/01/the-problem-with-trillian-hitchhikers-guide-and-me/#IDComment993148563 I'm sorry to say that, when I was a (pre)teenage boy, first hearing the original radio series when it played on my local public radio station in the early '80s, I entirely missed the fact that the only real female character was barely even a character, and was, um, disposed of with a single trite line about being married off to some . . . guy. It was only when I played the radio series for my pre-teenage daughters on a long car trip that light dawned. The radio series and the books are still very funny, and I can't undo the fact that they shaped parts of my intellectual and personal development in ways that can only be described as out of all proportion - I'll never be able to take consumer electronics seriously, and don't even get me started on shoe shops! - but oh, how I wish it wasn't all so clearly written by boys about boys and for boys! This post sums up The Trillian Problem perfectly. Tue, 1 Sep 2015 20:38:41 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/09/01/the-problem-with-trillian-hitchhikers-guide-and-me/#IDComment993148563 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991371114 I'd forgotten that I had forgotten to keep reading Ulysses! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to forget about it all over again! Thu, 20 Aug 2015 17:22:17 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991371114 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991206932 I'd like to put in a word against Tom Wolfe. Someone gave me A Man In Full when I moved to Atlanta. The only thing it changed was to make me just that much more sorry I'd moved to Atlanta. Not one single character had even one single redeeming feature. Wed, 19 Aug 2015 18:12:27 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991206932 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991206032 Oryx and Crake in particular entirely failed to change my life, except to make me feel like I needed to shower a little more often, for a while, to get the grime of it off me. Wed, 19 Aug 2015 18:04:52 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991206032 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991156266 I've had an entirely different reaction when someone expresses indifference to a book that was important to me, neither smug nor shattered. I just think: "Huh. The world is wide, and there are all kinds of people in it . . ." Wed, 19 Aug 2015 10:47:13 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2015/08/17/lets-talk-about-the-books-that-didnt-change-our-lives/#IDComment991156266 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852877904 Yeah, early Camus is hard to take, and the late Camus is even worse. Ever read The Renegade? Don't. Just don't. The middle period of Camus is a little better. The Plague at least has a bit of hope in it, and some amusing characters. Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:21:06 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852877904 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852876553 I'm with you on Zen . . . the book adolescents read in order to make themselves feel like sophisticated intellectuals. Bad as intro to philosophy, worse as memoir. Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:15:40 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852876553 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852875991 Monkey Wrench Gang is interesting only for its place in the history of radical environmentalism. The deep misogyny of the thing is all but intolerable: all three of the men in the gang are pigs. I'd have trouble saying which of them is worse. The sequel (!) is even worse, "Hayduke Lives!" Some of Abbey's non-fiction is actually pretty good. Desert Solitaire is a sideways sort of nature literature, setting him up as sort of an anti-Thoreau. Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:13:31 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852875991 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852875038 The first book was okay . . . just okay. The second was nearly tolerable. The very end of the third was a betrayal of the whole premise of the trilogy, and the whole reason people got all excited about this trilogy with its Strong Female Lead . . . when she (SPOILER!) effectively gets sort-of damseled and has to be rescued by a bunch of old men pulling legal strings so she isn't executed for assassination . . . Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:09:18 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852875038 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852873104 It's cathartic, reading all of this . . . even when I disagree. I used to read a lot of Heinlein, and was taken with some of his "future history" sequence, for a while. At some point, the scales fell from my eyes, though, and I saw him as the misogynist ass he really was. Some of his really early stuff - Red Planet, Time for the Stars - is tolerable in a dweeby 1950s YA sf kind of way. Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:00:57 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852873104 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852869032 Sigh. I thought Handmaid's Tale was really compelling, in its way. So, when I picked up Oryx and Crake, expected to find it to be brilliant . . . or I thought I was supposed to find it brilliant . . . but I didn't. I found it dark and twisted and vile, with no redeeming value or especially interesting insights into the ethics of bioengineering, which is what I'm told it was Supposed to be All About. Thu, 10 Jul 2014 21:43:55 +0000 http://the-toast.net/2014/07/04/lets-talk-books-hate/#IDComment852869032