Let's all think & talk alike, not

This is a good essay on why we need weird people. Why we need to unbundle our undies and allow people to say and write stupid, odd, controversial things. It’s a simple thing called free speech. Learn it, know it, live it.

(Isaac) Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.

…

Historically, academia was a haven for neurodiversity of all sorts. Eccentrics have been hanging out in Cambridge since 1209 and in Harvard since 1636. For centuries, these eccentricity-havens have been our time-traveling bridges from the ancient history of Western civilization to the far future of science, technology, and moral progress. Now thousands of our havens are under threat, and that’s sad and wrong, and we need to fix it.

Get rocked!

As promised, the second Bags Morton ebook hit the interwebs this week. To my dismay there have been no protest marches, threats of boycotts nor rending of garments nor gnashing of teeth.

Except by my wife of course, who I exasperate on a near daily basis:

Her: "Will you remember to put the wash in the dryer before I get home?"
Me: "I don't know."
Her: "Whadaya mean you don't know?"
Me: "I will TRY to remember, but we won't know if I actually did remember until you get home."
Her: "Grumble, grumble, something, something, jerk."

Back to Bags Morton, or the Summer with Bags as its become known worldwide.

Following on the stripper heels of Bags of Bodies comes Bags of Rock. It's a little shorter and a little cheaper, as I finally figured out the Amazon set-your-price tool. So it's only a buck ninety-nine. I mean seriously, for $1.99, even if you don't read or can't read, you should download it just so you can brag to people: "Hey, I downloaded a book today."

And your friends can look at you and say: "Wow, didn't realize you were such an educated person." Now put your shoes on the right feet and do it.

If you are a reader who likes a quick detective tale with biker gangs, strip joints and a rock band, and who appreciates a good chuckle, then this is just the book for you. If you don't like that stuff, why the heck are you even reading my blog/Twitter/Facebook feeds?

No friend of mine objects to a foot festering in a pickle jar on the bar counter, as this book begins. Soon there-after Bags is hot on the trail of somebody who is blackmailing his friend, the governor, with naked pictures of the gov's daughter, who is lead singer of the up-and-coming rock band, The Itch.

Trust me it's even better than it sounds. This is a little tamer language and sexual innuendo-wise (sorry)  than the previous Bags of Bodies, because the clientele is a little more hoity-toitie and less prison meaty.

The third still-to-be named Bags offering during this Summer with Bags is due out in August, though it's currently experiencing some technical difficulties. The hamsters in my old home computer, that still runs Windows 97, went on strike demanding more carrots. But I'm holding firm because once you give an inch to those little Lech Walesa wannabes, they will run rough-shod on you.

All three Bags books are quick reads. They aren't 700-page Moby Dick things you need to devote a year of your life to. They're two-night wham-bam-thank-you-Bags-ers that'll leave a smile on your face and your toes tingling.

Some mid-summer reading suggestions

While who some consider “interesting people” and who I consider “interesting people” don’t exactly jive, I do find these lists interesting as I try to read outside my fiction box on occasion.

 And so, in the spirit of Washington, D.C., bookishness, we’ve asked the most interesting people we know to tell us what they’re reading this summer—both the tomes at the top of their lists and their recommended guilty pleasure, if they’ll admit to having one at all.

 It’s funny to me how the hoity-toities like to consider most of the stuff I read to be “guilty pleasure” material, but they should realize I feel no guilt in it at all, only pleasure. As it is, most of the stuff I gleaned from their lists that I’m adding to my Books To Buy list come from the guilty pleasure genre. Pardon me for not reading about famous dead people every night of week.

My additions from their list:

Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West by Christopher Knowlton
The Highway and Badlands by CJ Box (then Paradise Valley)
The Fallen by Ace Atkins
House of Spies by Daniel Silva

Soon, very soon

Dill, thyme, oregano