What Are You Reading?

[Janet Harrington]

Has anyone read any of Jodi Picoult's books? She has written, (just to name a few), My Sister's Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, Change of heart, and Handle with Care. I am currently reading her book called House Rules. It is really good and I am hoping that when I investigate these other books, they will be just as good. So, has anyone read any of her books and how did you like them?

[Catwoman]

She sounds great...I've never heard of her.  I'll have to check her out.  I have been re-visiting my Tightwad Gazettes...In this economy, any advice is appreciated.

[Warph]

I have just read Jared Taylor's new book,"White Identity."  The title might lead one to expect racial ranting, but there is none.  It is a good read.  Jared deals thoughtfully with America's changing racial and ethnic make-up and the probable problems.  He is usually painted as a hate-monger who regards his bed sheets as evening wear, wants (as Lincoln did) to send blacks back to Africa, shoot Hispanics, and blame Jews for sun spots and loose fillings.  ASo sorry... he fails to perform.  The book is no more extreme than Pat Buchanan, well documented, and utterly incorrect politically.  His crime is asking questions one mustn't because the answers come up wrong.

For example, he doubts the existence, and the desirability, of racial integration, as very distinct from desegregation.  It hasn't worked, he says.  Isn't this obvious?  I ask my friends, most of whom are white, how many close black friends do you have?  When did you last have them over for dinner?  We talk mixing.  We don't do it.

I lived a couple of decades in Washington, DC, a city mostly black, and had many white liberal friends.  They believed they in multiculturalism, but they... we.... lived in an overwhelmingly white world.... white restaurants, friends, bars, clubs, dances.  I can't remember even once being in an establishment in DC in which the majority, or anything close to it, were black hispanic or asian.  Whites associate with Whites, Blacks with Blacks, Asians with Asians.  That's how it is.

Jared points out that most of what we think we are supposed to think about race and ethnicity isn't true.  He notes the mandatory refrain, "Diversity is our strength," and asks, exactly how is it our strength?  I have myself wondered.  Name five ways diversity has made the country stronger (without mentioning ethnic restaurants or music).

Um...ah...well...ah...urg....

The book is a curious one in that most of it is obvious though one mustn't say it.  Does not diversity just cause trouble, almost everywhere?  As much as one might want it to lead to comity, it doesn't.  Consider the following:  Shiites and Sunnis... Irish Protestants and Catholics... Hutus and Tutsis.. Blacks, Whites and Hispanics in the US.... Turks and Kurds... Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka... Turks and Armenians... Indians and Ugandans.... Turks and Germans... Moslems and the French... Moslems and Dutch... Jews in many places... Christians and Moslems in Sudan, Iran, Iraq, etc. ... Chinese and Indonesians... (whew).. and so on for pages and pages.  None of these groups are evil, (well, most none) but none mix well.  Usually they kill each other.

A staple of political correctness is that groups eventually merge into happy indistinguishable citizens.  Occasionally, yes, if the groups are similar and want to assimilate:  The Irish and Italians in the US did.  Jared points out that, whatever one might wish, it usually doesn't happen.  Sunnis and Shiites have been around since the seventh century.  They celebrate diversity by exchanging car bombs.  In the US, neither blacks nor American indians have assimilated to the dominant European culture, nor have the cultures blended.

Jared notes that the US now has fifty million Hispanics, or sixteen percent of the population, expected to rise soon to twice that, as well as thirteen percent of blacks.  Now, it will be difficult to nail me with racial hatred of Hispanics and American Indians since I live in Arizona.  Nor do I hate blacks.  But...is this going to work?  Or are we going to end up with three mutually hostile countries in one land?  The possibility is real.  Several states, including California, have Hispanic majorities, which means that shortly they will have Hispanic governments.  If the majority vote as a bloc.... BINGO.

Aggravating the problem is that the people who most believe that we will eventually be one big happy family are those with the least experience.  They have never been in the huge, hopeless, festering slums of Detroit, Chicago, Newark, Washington, on and on and on.  These are awful, culturally isolated, and not getting better.  If there is an answer, no one has found it.

Americans hardly notice the cost of diversity, as they have never known anything else.  Jared was born in Japan to missionary parents, went to Japanese schools, and speaks Japanese.  He makes the point that in Japan there is virtually no diversity, and therefore no civil-rights acts, no forced busing, no governmental agencies counting how many of whom one hires, no voting-rights laws... no affirmative action and resulting anger.  An employer simply hires the best qualified candidate.  And the Japanese do not burn their cities in racial rioting.

We are what we are, a mixed nation, but need we make things worse?  Unrestricted immigration may let us feel good about ourselves, but does it really have a happy ending?  One may well wonder what will follow when half of the country is either black or Hipsanic. .

Further, when some groups are economically and academically way below the dominant culture, hostility and separatism become almost assured.  As Jared points out, blacks and Hispanics are on average scholastic disasters.  In the schools the gap in achievement is large between white and black, and has proven resistant to everything: Head Start, forced busing, integrated class rooms, segregated class rooms, affirmative action, schools run entirely by blacks, or entirely by whites, and so on and so on and so on.  Hispanics in the US are not doing a whole lot better.  If the shortfall doesn't change, it won't matter whether it is genetic or cultural in origin.

The implications, discussion of which is verboten, are not trivial.  The US depends on and rewards deployable intelligence, particularly on IQs bordering on the scary, as in 180 and up.  The clearest examples are in Silicon Valley, many of them from the physics department at Stanford or Harvard, Yale and Princeton . These men.. sorry, girls, almost all are men.... have given the US its dominance in technology.  They are not just bright, like the valedictorian in your high school.  They are off-scale, almost another species. If you follow the computer/internet racket, you know that they are overwhelmingly white, Jewish, Chinese, Asian Indian, Korean.  The black and Hispanic proportion is close to zero if not actually zero.  This isn't because of racial discrimination.  Santa Clara runs on raw brains, and doesn't care what package they come in.  Google would hire a giant clam if it could program well enough.

Sez me, this is not going to lead to cheery Kum Bah Yah harmony.  As the country becomes a two-tier society...it already is... but as the second tier grows rapidly in size and political potency... how is this going to work?

Jared will disappoint many by not making exterminationist recommendations.  But if you want a clear exposition of what is happening, he's worth a read.


....Warph

[Jane]

I just read Buried Prey by John Sandford and Now you see her by James Patterson. The best book I have read in a while was Full Dark No Stars by Stephen King. It was 3 stories about bad things happening to good people and what they did to take care of it. He wrote " I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger". All three stories were intriguing.

[Teresa]

I'm reading Chelsea Handlers books.. My lord, she is so funny I laugh out loud! Love "em.. 

[Catwoman]

What does she write about?

[Teresa]

http://www.chelseahandler.com/

[Catwoman]

She sounds like a fun read!  I may have to check her out...

[Bonnie M.]

I have read all of these books, by Lauraine Snelling.  They are great books!

Red River of the North series

An Untamed Land
A New Day Rising
A Land To Call Home
The Reaper's Song
Tender Mercies
Blessing In Disguise

Return To Red River series[]

A Dream To Follow
Believing The Dream
More Than A Dream

Daughters of Blessing series

A Promise for Ellie
Sophie's Dilemma
A Touch of Grace
Rebecca's Reward

Home to Blessing series

A Measure of Mercy
No Distance Too Far
A Heart for Home

Dakotah Treasures series

Ruby
Pearl
Opal
Amethyst

[Janet Harrington]

Just started reading the Sue Grafton book "T is for Trespass". I have been trying to catch up with this series of books that Grafton using the alphabet. Her books are enjoyable reading for just relaxing. Nothing to really think about. Just enjoy the book.