Review Bomb: Buffy

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the greatest show ever. If you don't think so, we can't be friends.

 3 Stars

I always appreciate when Buffy is taken seriously as one of the greatest shows worthy of our continued interest and discussion, because it truly is one of the most simply complex shows ever. Joss is a genius. (Though, I will never forgive him for 'I Will Remember You'. It hurt TOO MUCH.)

This Buffy book (and there are TONS), looks at the show itself, the scripts, as the primary text and what we can learn from them in that way. That the show is something special can not be denied, even though I am constantly reminding people (It's been gone so long...I worry that Eleanor will grow up somehow not loving it as much as I do.) A wide variety of authors take on a number of subjects, including sisterhood, redemption, folklore, education, patriarchy, and so much more. For the most part I enjoyed the essays, though there were about a handful in particular I could not do more with than skim. And you must know, if an academic Buffy work makes ME skim...it isn't good. Not at all. BUT, I do not want my own personal opinion to color some else's so I have chosen to not share which essays they were.

The essays are divided into four different sections: Power and the Buffy Canon, Buffy Meets the Classics, Buffy, the Scoobies, and Beyond, and Buffy and the Classroom. Some sections were stronger than others, but it was still an interesting read overall. One of the things that is most important to me about Buffy is the idea of what is considered 'canon'. It frustrates me to no end that the comics are considered canon, and I refuse to read them. Once Angel went off the air, their lives have been paused and I wait hopefully that maybe just once, we could get a glimpse into their lives after it all ended.

Anyway.

I think the argument between scripts being canon, vs the actual episode that aired being canon is a really interesting argument. For me personally, I would actually consider the DVDs to be as such. Much like with Friends, there is always something more to those episodes in the unrestricted DVD format, as opposed to reruns or Netflix, where they only air the show as it was shown originally. I can see the argument for the scripts, but to a limited extent. As the show was filming throughout the week, Joss and Company saw what worked and what didn't, and revised from there. I would actually place the scripts as the lowest on the canon totem pole, with second place going to the aired version, and first place going to the DVD version.

One of my most favorite essays came from the second section about Buffy and the Classics. I really liked the essay by Elizabeth Bridges, entitled "Grimm Realities: Buffy and the Use of Folklore". This idea of folklore and fairy tales permeates the show (and one fairy tale reference often gets ignored - the line in Nightmares when the Master says, "A dream is a wish your heart makes" is totally from Cinderella and always seems to get left out. Just needed to point this out). So many people will point to Hush as one of Buffy's finest episodes of the whole series, and good Lord it is. When it first aired, I was in shock over how amazing it was. Even today, I still know the words by heart..."Can't even shout, can't even cry, the Gentlemen are coming by. Looking in windows, knocking on doors, they need to take seven and they might take yours. Can't call for mom, can't say a word, you're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard"...I still get a shudder down my spine when I hear it. This essay was just a really well-thought out response to the show's approach to using folklore throughout the series. And personally, I liked Killed By Death.


 3 Stars

When I first finished this one, I was not quite sure how I felt about it. I initially rated it four stars, but after nearly six months away from it, I feel three stars is sufficient. I disagreed quite strongly with some of the assessments, particularly where Angel was concerned (don't come at me with any Spike nonsense. Buffy and Angel belong together, period). The author approached the show from a "feminist cultural studies" stand point (taken from the book summary), and I feel like a feminist point of view is a given when talking about Buffy. But, it is not only the female characters who are feminists, but the men in their lives as well. (Not the baddies like Caleb, of course.)

One of my biggest issues with this one is that it is the first Buffy book I have ever read that did not totally have my attention for the majority of the time. I still read it all, word for word, but it was simply not like so many of the other academics works I have read. I don't know, perhaps I was not in the right frame of mind to read it and was simply a little burned out, as I received many Buffy books around the same time, and if I were to go back with fresh eyes, things might look a bit differently to me. I don't want to say boring, really truly I don't. Buffy is anything but boring. So, a new look it shall have in the near-future.

Another issue I took related directly to this idea of gender binaries, and how this looked far different on Buffy. I took a lot of issue with the author's idea of New men being fake/pretend men. For me, Buffy has always been about completely dismantling of the outdated notions that a woman must be either feminine or feminist, that males are the only ones who are strong, and that emotion is almost wholly female. Time and again Buffy represented complete gender reversals and that was one of its strengths, the whole premise that the show was built on.

As the book went on I also found that the listing of even minor-minor characters in these various gender groups grew tiresome. it became less about analyzing how each character fit into a specific role, and about how many characters the author could find to prove her point.

Even though the book says it is a primer, I don't know that a casual Buffy fan would enjoy this much at all. And as I also disagree with some assessments, I don't know that I would recommend for anyone but the most loyal and intense of fans.


 3 Stars

If physics had been taught solely like this, I might have actually taken the class in high school. But it wasn't, and I didn't, so, bummer for me.

The author uses, of course, multiple examples from Buffy and Angel to explain various scientific concepts. The only problem here is that you lean closer to the science side of things and farther from the Buffy side, the examples may not appear to make sense all the time. And vice versa if you are like me, and don't really have an interest in science, you might still struggle to understand bits and pieces. Nothing is so complex that I skipped over any parts, but a healthy balance between the two within a reader would not be terrible.

By far the section that interested me the most had to do with any apocalypse we might have approaching. It gave me a healthy fear of how terrible this will actually be when it does happen, and no amount of Big Bads that Joss can create could be scarier than the real thing.

Children of Nazis: The Sons and Daughters of Himmler, Göring, Höss, Mengele, and Others - Living with a Father's Monstrous Legacy

Rating: 4 Stars

Aside from being absolute monsters and garbage excuses for human beings, what do Josef Mengele, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Hans Frank, Martin Bormann, and Rudolf Höss have in common?

They were all fathers.

I can not imagine a worse legacy to carry than to be the child of a Nazi. What a burden placed on those who know and accept the truth of what their fathers and mothers did during the war. They are victims, no one asks to be the child of monsters.

More horrific still are those who also know and accept what their parents did, and are proud of it. Those who continue to believe in the Nazi ideals and propaganda. I have zero sympathy for them, and they deserve to have their lives made difficult on a daily basis. I also believe we should never stop until every last Nazi is rounded up, put on trial, and given an appropriate sentence - life in prison. I don't care that these men are old or "unfit for trial" as some judges have deemed. They should be held accountable for their actions and prosecuted for those crimes against humanity.

I really became interested in the subject of these children (now, of course, adults - or even deceased themselves since the war) a couple years ago when I saw a documentary on Netflix. It was an aspect of the war I had not really considered before. My family is super German (Seriously. Our last name is the equivalent of Smith in the US) and so World War II and the Holocaust have always been something I wanted to know everything about, and that interest was sparked early on in my life, as early as middle school. And even so, it was not until just a few years ago that I gave much thought to the fact that these horrible men and women had children, who had children, and that they live among us today. Some denounce everything their parents believed in, and some embrace it without batting an eye.

There were many great things about this book, so many that I actually did not take very many notes because I could not stop reading long enough to do so. As the author seeks answers, it seemed to me to constantly repeat that whatever kind of relationship the child had with his or her father, determined how they felt about him later on. "Nevertheless, Rolf never turned Josef in. The reason he gives: it was impossible for him to betray his father. Unlike Niklas Frank, who detested his father, Rolf's feeling was that he never knew his father well enough to hate him" (75%). I know, right? Surely the fact that Rolf's father was not just any Josef, but THE Josef, as in Josef Mengele, would have been reason enough? This man tortured so many - especially, children, especially twins, and his son can't 'betray' him?

Here we truly get a remarkable look at some of the more intimate parts of the lives of these absolute monsters. Is it not a thought that just makes your skin crawl, when thinking of the men going home at night, kissing their wives, having a family dinner, then reading books by the fire or something else completely ordinary? And that's what really makes this all the more terrifying - good people do nothing, or look the other way entirely, and evil wins.

Though it disgusts me, I do suppose I can at least view from the perspective of those who still idolize their fathers, what kind of trauma this must have been, even though they chose to embrace that trauma instead of denounce it. Most of the children were young, and were raised in perfectly posh surrounds befitting the families of high-ranking Nazi officials. They were raised unaware of what was really going on across Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and scores of other places. Their childhoods were just as innocent and carefree as the offspring of any non-murderous monsters. Yet the moment it became clear that Germany would lose, that the Nazi would lose, that whole little world completed shattered, shattering their lives in the process.

The author does a considerable amount of work to bring this all out into the light, but she does not do so in a malicious or spiteful way. She has clearly done extensive amounts of research, and thus we are privy to so many details of these childhoods spent far from the camps and battlefields. She looks at each child, their relationship with their father or parents, depending on how involved their mothers might have been, and presents the information without bias. She does remarkably well in not allowing any emotion to get the better of her as she examines how eight specific children grew up struggling with the burden, or wearing it as a badge of honor.

Each child has their own section, and not only are we given an incredibly detail portrait of their lives and relationship, but the author gives much text to who exactly their fathers were (and sometimes mothers also), and what their jobs within the party entailed. Sometimes to was difficult to reconcile that two-sides-to-the-coin thing, how some could be seemingly wonderful fathers, but then turn around and be absolute destroyers of human life. Not all of the fathers depicted fit that mold though, some appeared as detached from their children as they were from those who they murdered, or ordered the murders of. It was a very enlightening look at family life within the party.

I suppose I should not have been, but I was truly surprised at how many of the children felt that their fathers had not been judged fairly. More than one - even more than two - were not only proud of their fathers, proud to be children of these former high-ranking officials, but at one time or another were trying to actively promote the work their fathers had begun. Others used the old "just following orders" garbage, which just made me roll my eyes. There were those, however, that fell far to the other end of the spectrum, one going so far as to undergo sterilization, as he feared passing on his genes to the future generation.

My only real complaint is...I wish this book would have been written sooner. It first came out in 2016 and by then, some of the children were no longer living. Still others have health problems, and all around most seem to just want to be left alone. The author was able to meet one of the children but no, I am not going to spoil that. it certainly made for a more intense experience, when getting the words directly from the descendant. In all the other cases it shows how much research the author truly completed, compiling information from previous interviews, the person's own writing, or even perspectives of others who knew the child. Unfortunately this did not always make for the best way to determine the lasting impact on the child based on the crimes of the father. Projects like these are so important. One day there will not be one single person who has a firsthand account of the atrocities committed in Hitler's reign of terror. Then, I fear, we will be in big trouble. As memories fade, so does the horror. We must never let that happen.

I highly recommend this one, whether you have a lot of knowledge about these men already, or not. It is an interesting perspective to take on a subject that has hundreds and thousands of books already dedicated to it.

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership

Rating: 4 Stars.

FYI, this is not really a review, it is a short rant because I am just TIRED of it all. I have the luxury of choice when it comes to whether I pay attention to politics or not because my race and socio-economic status allow me said luxury. Yet I know that I MUST pay attention and #Resist, and do all I can for those who do not have a voice. I am especially fired up today because of everything that has gone down so far.

When I heard Comey on NPR talking about his book, and he had the audacity to say, when asked about whether or not his memo impacted the outcome of the election, "I hope not"...BOY, BYE! Regardless of his own perception, he HAD to know how the memo releases would be perceived by the public at large. Come on bruh, you KNOW they did, no matter what the FBI's intentions were. Even so, I must begrudgingly say that Comey did the best he could with what he had to work with. I couldn't stand either candidate, but at least I knew that Clinton would not complete tear our country to shreds. She didn't "deserve" to be the nominee, it wasn't "her turn" after "letting" Obama go first. Comey certainly gives his well-thought-out argument for why he did what he did, and when, but it does not make it any easier to handle. I am to the point that I can not even see that douchebag's face anymore without wanting to vomit. His voice grates on my ears. And today, as he is once again propelling us toward a scary future with Mattis resigning, no plan to stop a government shutdown (because of a stupid fucking wall that isn't even going to work), and him insisting that pulling out of Syria is a great idea (great of course, for Russia. And ISIS), we once again see why that 25th Amendment is a pretty good idea.

But I digress. That was a tangent that has nothing reeeeeally to do with the book, except that I abhor trumplethinskin and look forward to the day when his ugly face is out of the White House for good and we can get this ship righted.

There are some interesting stories I had not yet heard before, and Comey is actually a good writer, even if it is a little - I don't want to say pompous, because that is not quite right, almost like he is trying to be too humble and it comes off as not humble at all, does that even make sense? - sometimes.

A few quotes I thought were #OnPoint:

"I did not know Priebus well. He often seemed both confused and irritated, and it was not hard to imagine why. Running the (trumplethinskin) White House would be a difficult job for even an experienced manager, which Priebus wasn't" (page 246).

"(trumplethinskin)'s presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation. We all bear responsibility for the deeply flawed choices" (not me, I caucused for Bernie) "put before voters during the 2016 election, and our country is paying a high price: this president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values...His leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty. We are fortunate some ethical leaders have chosen to serve and to stay at senior levels of government, but they cannot prevent all of the damage from the forest fire that is the (trumplethinskin) presidency. Their task is to try to contain it" (page 275).

Except, there is no containing it now. We are literally going headfirst into a complete clusterfuck and no one seems to know how to stop it - and the GOP doesn't care to, so...

How to Survive the Titanic, or, The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay

Rating: 3 Stars

Ismay is wholly unlikable, no two ways around it. The decisions he made or didn't make aboard Titanic leading up to and on the last night of her existence are what he will be remembered for. Unfortunately we only have his word to go on, seeing as how Captain Smith did not survive to confirm or refute anything.

Whether it is the movie or real life accounts of what happened in those final hours, there is a scene that always sticks out for me, and that is the one where Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet are, "Dressed in our best and prepared to go down like gentlemen" as he says in the movie. His valet looks less than thrilled, but remains with his employer. The additional words he spoke to a survivor are recorded as, "I am willing to remain and play the man's game if there are not enough boats for more than the women and children" and "No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Benjamin Guggenheim was a coward."

Contrast that with Ismay, who rather quickly climbed aboard a lifeboat, though he attempts to explain why, and what he was doing beforehand that allowed him to be in a position to even get to a lifeboat. The author definitely is no fan of Ismay, but when one looks at the course of the night and what observations and documentation we do have, it paints a fairly awful picture. Now, who is to say any of us would not do the same when faced with a literal life or death situation? No one knows how they will react until they are forced to do so and I hope none of us ever are in that position. However, I agree with a fair amount of the author's conclusions in that Ismay certainly did not do all he could in the short time he knew Titanic had left above the waves. Even so, the author does make claims that we can not possibly know for sure are true or, as the men spoken of did not survive. The author must also consider the fact that even had these men tried to get the life boats, they most likely would have been denied when there were still woman and children to load.

"On the Titanic, Ismay was the only man, apart from the Captain, the ship's designer, Thomas Andrews, and the Chief Engineer, Joseph Bell, who know that the ship would be at the bottom of the sea within two hours and that the available lifeboats could carry less then half of those on board, but he did not warn, or even try to find, Dr O'Loughlin, who had been his dining companion that evening, or Charles M Hayes, who was travelling as his guest, or Richard Fry, his valet of ten years, or George Dodd, his family's former butler, now working as a steward in first-class, or Arthur Hayter, who had been his steward throughout the journey, or William Harrison, his secretary, all of whom were to die..." (9%).

Let's also just ignore the fact that what you just read is one sentence. Seriously, go back and look. I did not notice until I was typing. Yeesh, comma overload. But still, do we know for certain he did not warn anyone? He did not even attempt to locate Hays, his own guest? I am all for pointing out the things Ismay did wrong, but it is almost like just piling on at that point.

Ismay was probably in shock, just like everyone else. How many times had people repeated the idea that she could not sink. What an awful that must have been when in fact, she could - and did? I don't doubt for one moment that Ismay loved the ship dearly. Both his writing and that of his wife say as much, as shown here:

"Men like Lightoller assumed that the owner would see his ship as no more than a description of profit and loss. But Ismay was not typical; he loved the Titanic like 'a living thing', as his wife put it. Perhaps, he later wrote to Marian Thayer, he had loved the ship 'too much', had been 'too proud' and such was his punishment" (11%).

There are other incidents outlined that show not only did Ismay recognize how much trouble this was going to cause, but he sought every avenue he could to try and get back to England as quickly as possible. Of course there would be an investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, and he wanted no part in being detained for the US one. 

"Ismay, meanwhile, was planning his return voyage. He could not face New York: the onslaught of information, the questions, the crowds, the grief, his wife's American family, the White Star Line executives, the insurers, the press, the publicity, the sharpening sense of the horror of it all. he would have to endure, he assumed, a rough few days - possibly even weeks - of media coverage before interest in the Titanic would fade away and he could get his life back" (14%). In trying to understand what made him tick, and how he ever imagined that he could go back to his normal life, I feel like he would be both proud and horrified to know how obsessed we still are with Titanic and her fate, 106 years later. I think he would be proud because Titanic was his crowning achievement, and he was so parentally (yes, it's a word) proud of her. On the other hand, he would probably also be heartbroken to know that the wreckage and the story keep us intrigued even when we think we know all that there is to know. While she was his great achievement, she was also his biggest blunder and there is no denying that. In fact, Ismay may have even contributed to Titanic's quick sinking. This has long been accepted as part of the story, though I suppose we may never now for sure. Officer Lightoller's granddaughter Louise Patten shared a story that was kept a 'family secret' for nearly 100 years in regards to that night. Supposedly it is something that her grandfather told her grandmother, and it is hard to see what purpose it would serve now if it were not true. This is not the only instance where it has been reported that the ship started up again after the collision. "Following the collision, when (Lightoller) had gone to the bridge to ask if the blow was serious, Ismay had told Captain Smith to continue moving 'Slow Ahead'. The ship, which had stopped following the collision, now started up again and continued at a speed of around 5 or 6 knots until 12:15 a.m., when the Captain sent down the order to once more stop the engines. In pushing her forward, Lightoller believed, Captain Smith had allowed water to pour through the damaged hull at hundreds of tons per minute and to burst through the six watertight compartments, one after another. Had the Titanic stood still, 'the whole ship would have assumed a fairly acute and mighty uncomfortable angle, yet, even so, she would, in all probability have floated - at least for some considerable time, perhaps all day. Certainly sufficient time for everyone to be rescued'" (40%). Patten also maintained that Ismay and Lightoller had spoken while still aboard the Carpathia, and that due to some insurance exceptions, if the White Star Line was found liable, it would all but put the company out of business and hundreds would lose their jobs. Seems an awfully hard thing to put on one man's shoulders, especially considering the fact then that Lightoller never received a command of his own, despite his unwavering loyalty to his employer.

Yet throughout the hearing, Ismay repeatedly deflected any questions regarding his role on the ship, and was merely a 'super passenger' who happened to be the chairman, who happened to know about iceberg warnings, who happened to know daily the speeds she was running at. When much was made of the fact that Captain Smith told him of the iceberg warnings, he again try to say there was no special reason that he was receiving them. As the author states, "As far as Ismay was concerned, the Captain had handed him the message for no reason, and it said nothing" (64%). It might has well have been exactly that, for all the good those ice warnings did. Not much longer later in his testimony, Ismay even went so far as to say that, "(Ismay) had insisted that he had not talked to the Captain at all during the voyage" (66%). So we are to believe that the chairman of the White Star Line ambled around the ship all day, with Captain Smith periodically handing him telegrams without either man uttering a word? That makes the kind of sense that doesn't.

There was also the fact that Ismay played this silly kind of word game that only later would we recognize as the same kind Bill Clinton played during his impeachment hearings. While maintaining the position that he held no authority on the boat, Ismay time and again passed the buck completely. He argued about whether or not he was 'giving directions' which is what those conducting the hearing tried to prove he was doing, in order to show he was not simply another passenger, but was in control from start to finish. "Calling for the women and children and then helping them in was the same thing, Ismay suggested, as giving directions" (66%). Really? I am pretty sure that if I saw and heard the chairman of the company calling for people to get into lifeboats, I would take that as him giving orders and directions. But this was a theme throughout, it feels like. He tries to muddle the situation, when it seems clear that he was more than a passenger.

Of course, anyone who knows the story knows that in the end no one was held responsible for the deaths of 1500 people who had no chance for survival due to the greed of man, the need for the rich to have more space, and the disregard for life of those who had no wealth. Through the ordeal Ismay continued to take no responsibility for anything, despite the fact that the White Star Line eventually settled and judge ordered them to pay over $500,000 for loss of life and property. This came out to roughly $30,000 per life. Sad, isn't it? Yet there was Ismay, writing to the object of his affection, Marian Thayer, who had lost her husband and eventually responded to Ismay that he misunderstood her intentions and she did not return his feelings. I find it rather insensitive that Ismay would write to her saying that the inquiry was "the most trying ordeal to go through. They had me on the stand for seven hours and I was not in a fit condition either mentally or physically to give evidence" (67%). Gee, I am sure she had tons of sympathy, seeing as how she had lost her husband that night.

The author mentions another book entitled The Ismay Line by Wilton Oldham and recounts a conversation that Ismay had with his sister-in-law, Constance, about the night he escaped with his life. "The reason, he revealed to her, that he had jumped was not because the boat was there and the deck was empty, but because he had been ordered to do so by Chief Officer Wilde, who said that Ismay's evidence would be needed at the subsequent inquiries. Ismay left the ship knowing that the purpose of his survival was to represent the Captain, the crew, and the company, to be the witness of the night, to contain, explain, and make sense of it all to the bewildered world. In exchange for his continued life, he must carry into the history books the story of the Titanic. Why did he keep this a secret?" (71%). certainly an interesting question, isn't it? I find some of this suspect, like why the chief officer would be ordering the chairman to do anything. To me it just felt like one more time Ismay was trying to absolve himself from something he would never actually be able to.

There are some issues I had with the book that made it less enjoyable than it could have been, because I typically love reading about Titanic. Throughout the book the author constantly alternated between Ismay's story and that of Joseph Conrad's character Charles Marlow. it was a constant comparison and completely slowed the book down. I completely skipped all of those parts because I felt it added nothing to the story. I started too, but quickly realized that it was not relevant, and Ismay's story was interesting enough without all of the comparison.

Another issue I had with the book is this kind of silly, flowery language used to describe this or that and it just did not fit the tone of the rest of the book. I would sometimes come across paragraphs like the one below, and wonder why oh why, what was the purpose? Here the author is describing the relationship with the Marconi device to send the telegrams and it is...silly.

"The message from the Baltic whispered to Ismay from a fork in the air, it had been hammered into solid form like the voice of a dead man being rapped out on a table-top. Marconi operators were spirit mediums and the words they transcribed were always already dissolving. The Marconigram was evidence of communication without presence; it proved the possibility of connecting with other worlds" (66%).

All throughout, the author really seemed to be biased against Ismay. Then, as the conclusion came, I read this line, "He was an ordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances, who behaved in a way which only confirmed his ordinariness. Ismay is the figure we all fear we might be. He is one of us" (74%). So...does that mean we can/should excuse his actions that night? I am not insisting he should have gone down with the ship. But I am insisting that he should have been one of the last to leave. I think he tried to play those holding the inquiries as fools, with his constant denial of controlling anything or being in charge. OF COURSE the crew would defer to him on matters. what would you do if your boss suggested picking up the pace a bit? You would do it, because what choice did you have when you were captaining the grandest ship in the world on her maiden voyage.

Overall, I can recommend this one with some caution, if you don't mind the nonsense.

Challenge Complete!

As of tonight, I reached my Goodreads goal of 275 books this year! The competitor in me wants to up the goal to 280, or 285, but I am going to quell those thoughts and relax in knowing that I am done with any kind of reading commitment related to goals. I will do a more specific year-old post to discuss all of the goals I had for the year, but I just had to share that tonight, WOOHOO! I made it!

Minimalism: The Path to an Organized, Stress-free and Decluttered Life

Rating: 2 Stars

I have been toying with this idea for some time. My daughter and I live in a two bedroom, two bath apartment and one of those rooms is not a bedroom, it is a toy room. For the most part this is okay right now, as my daughter and I co-sleep. But eventually we won't anymore, not only because she will age out of it but because she is a GIANT. She's been in the 98-100%tile her entire life and hit four feet tall by her fifth birthday. So, she kind of takes up a lot of space with her flailing around. That means we are going to have to whittle the massive amount of toys down eventually, in order to be able to have her bed moved in there, along with her dresser, night stand, etc. We currently do this whittling thing twice a year, once before her birthday in July and once before Christmas. We always donate toys and clothes to the Open Door Mission, which provides such vital services for our homeless and working-poor populations. I have had a couple students live there at various points and do whatever I can to make sure that Eleanor and I donate items that we know others can benefit from. Plus, it clears out space, even though every year I ask PLEASE, less toys...but it can't really be helped. She is an only grandchild AND an only great-grandchild. I have been asking more for experiences, rather than toys, and this is something that is really catching on, as the author mentioned. Memberships to local museums, the zoo, children's theatre, etc. are all great ways to provide memorable experiences.

I do take some issue with the author when she says about someone needing to look at their underlying issues of why they might hold on to something for sentimental reasons. It comes across as almost feeling like she is suggesting that it is not okay to have emotional attachments to things and it could be some kind of psychological issue. This is not what she says in so many words, but that is kind of the implication how I interpreted it anyway because you know what? Sometimes a mom who knows she is not going to have any more babies wants to keep her only child's baby clothes a while and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Now, as my babe gets older, anything that no longer fits and is still in good condition automatically goes in the 'donate bag'. But the itty bitty little outfit I  brought her home in? KEEPING IT.

ANYWAY.

I did find some useful information and I appreciated the ideas of starting small and working up. There is just so much STUFF everywhere. Part of the "problem" too is that Eleanor and I are big readers (SHOCKING, right?!) so there are books on several surfaces, including end tables, night stands, the coffee table, my desk, and various bookshelves. Books are non-negotiable. Books are not clutter and books will not be viewed as such in this home. When I buy books, it is mainly from Half Price Books, and unless I truly love it, I sell it back after I am done with it. I was completely and totally ready to give this book a solid three stars, though I sometimes found it a little trite, and trying to be too cutesy. Then I read this heading at 89%:

"Reducing Physical Books from Your Life

I know, some people out there (myself included) love the feeling of a good book in their hands. The pressed pages and the physical feel of the book itself both contribute to a better reading experience. These things are nice, but the reality is that for a minimalist, books are largely seen as giant space takers. While it may take some time to get used to reading books on a screen, when you replace your large stock of books with a book reader or other type of mobile reading device, you are able to clear so much of the clutter away."

I'm sorry, but did someone just refer to books as CLUTTER? Sorry not sorry, two stars.

P.S. I did find many of the suggestions helpful and look forward to starting them. Just think about how many more books we will have room for once the clutter is gone! Tee hee hee.

Fear: Trumplethinskin in the White House

Rating: 5 Stars

Fair warning before you read any further:



In this review especially, I cuss a lot (and I actually do own a shirt that says this. I wear it to church sometimes. And my pastors still love me)

You'll have to excuse my not posting a cover. I honestly can't stand to look at his face any more than I can stand to hear his voice. So, we all know what that goober looks like, let's save ourselves the trouble and just go right into the review.

This book once again reiterates why Bob Woodward is such a fantastic journalist. He takes a wholly unlikable douchebag - and while said douchebag remains unlikable - Woodward writes without bias. It's almost like he feels sorry for trumplethinskin and chose to go a neutral route, because that is who Woodward is. A writer of Woodward's caliber has no need to exaggerate or pile on, he need only report the facts, which he does quite splendidly. And if we didn't already know what a douchebag trumplethinskin was, you might start to feel a little sorry for him too. Like, seriously, how does someone live 75 years and not know...anything? ANYTHING?? All the knowledge there is in the world, and trumplethinskin doesn't even have a tiny bit of it. There was a section where someone was literally explaining to him why we can't just print more money; he had zero concept of how that would completely tank our economy. In that section he asks why we can't just "run the presses - print money" (page 56). I can't even.

However, then I remember that this idiot called a bunch of racist assholes "very fine people" and I remember why I don't feel sorry for him at all. And he employs the pompous spray-on-hair-guy Stephen Miller, architect of the plan to rip children from their parents, who are only seeking asylum from the wars and gangs who are terrorizing them in their native countries. Come on now, why would these desperate parents risk their lives and the lives of their children on such a dangerous journey, if the alternative wasn't certain death?

If you are contemplating reading either this book, or Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury, I suggest both. Wolff's book is a hot mess of dysfunction and chaos. Woodward's book is calmer and more even-handed. Yet, both draw the same conclusion: we currently have a giant man-baby instead of a president, and he is someone who does not belong in the highest office in the land, leading what was once the greatest nation on earth. Sad, but true.

I could not fathom being someone inside the White House who has to attempt to reign in trumplethinskin on his most tantrum-y of days. There's stories here of staffers distracting him with other things, while hiding certain memos so he won't see and sign them. SERIOUSLY! HE SIGNS ANYTHING THAT COMES ACROSS HIS DESK! Does that sound like someone who is fit to be in the White House? I don't think so. Yet even as Woodward discussions these instances, he is not mean-spirited or malicious. He remains collected and composed, not giving in to the chaos of his subject, and I think that shows remarkable restraint, because every time I hear that douchenozzle talk, I want to pop my ear drums just so I don't have to hear him anymore.

Much of what is here is not necessarily new, but Woodward provides much more detail. We get plenty of info from Preibus and that psycho Steve Bannon, who is just as disgusting as his former "boss", and deserves no accolades for giving further insight into what he witnessed. Though, on a very teeny tiny itsy bitsy level I appreciate him yelling at Ivanka and calling her a staffer. She and her husband are both just as dirty as her father. There are numerous sources for Woodward to get the full inside picture from, and he protects them all, as he should. This is such an important part of the freedom in our country, that of being able to keep sources anonymous to protect them from arrest - you know, the thing that the first amendment actually talks about (No, your first amendment rights are not being trampled if someone decides not to support your television show with ads. You are as free as you want to be an asshole on television every day, just as everyone else is free to not support you and your asshole-ish ways.) 

One of the scariest aspects of this book is that we see plain as day how even when his own team is trying to impart at least a little bit of knowledge in order to make him understand why something is a good or terrible idea, he can not grasp what they are saying - or he refuses to. Perhaps it is a combination of both. We see again that he has zero understanding of foreign or domestic policy, even though he does have at least some people who know what the hell they are talking about. He really truly lives in some kind of bizarro land where Iran is not in compliance with the nuclear weapons agreement (they are), or that this stupid fucking border wall will keep out undocumented immigrants (it won't). Anything that does not fit into this bizarro fantasy world he has created for himself is automatically FAKE NEWS and then all his supporters get all riled up and whatnot. It's not fake news just because you don't know about it or understand it, morons. Please, I beg of you, educate yourselves. Fox Propaganda will not do that for you, sorry.

If you are not yet convinced that trumplethinskin is a complete idiot, I offer perhaps one of my favorite quotes from the book regarding his interview with John Bolton for the National Security Adviser position:

"His answers were fine, but Trump did not like his big, bushy mustache" (pg 87)

HIS MUSTACHE!

Trumplethinskin didn't want to hire someone because of HIS MUSTACHE! Oh the comedy and horror, all rolled into one. I straight up laughed at that for a good couple of minutes.

I feel like this whole trumplethinskin presidency will have one really positive, really great outcome: it will mobilize those who have stayed home in the past, and drive record numbers to the polls in 2020. It has to, because our very world is at stake here. Not just 'life as we know it', but our world, our planet. The man-baby has appointed people to head the EPA who have gutted it completely and rolled back so many needed mandates to protect our little slice of the universe. If for no other reason (completely ignoring literally everything else that makes trumplethinskin wholly unlikable, a racist misogynist, and a dangerous fucking moron), voters MUST see the need to save our planet, or there will be nothing left to leave for our children. Right now, we are borrowing this earth from future generations. We must leave it in a better condition than we found it in. That is, of course, if all of trumplethinskin's peacock posturing doesn't get every lit up in WWIII. Time and again it has been proven that Democrats win when Democrats come out to vote, Republicans win when Democrats stay home. As the party becomes more progressive (Beto, I have cautiously optimistic high hopes for you, please don't screw this up).

I think the title of the book is extremely interesting. Those who can see the big picture are fearful for our future, the future of our children, and the future of our once-great nation. But trumplethinskin is afraid too, and that makes him even more dangerous. He is paranoid and suspicious, and attacks those that he either knows have information on him, or assumes have information. Comey gets no love from me, due to his bullshit memo that he "hopes" (*eye-roll*) didn't impact the outcome of the election, but he was in man-baby's cross-hairs pretty quickly when he would not let the investigation go; on top of that, he continues attacking the FBI, and Mueller investigation, and those who once worked for him but have since left or been shown the door (Jeff Sessions comes to mind - that really riled him up more than anything, when Sessions recused himself. Damn). He also goes after judges, the media (duh), and certain reporters/journalists in particular (Jim Acosta). There are things that trumplethinskin clearly does not want known, and that is why he is constantly on Twitter, spreading his own lies and misinformation, to detract from the fact that there is a lot of shady business going on (among many other things, the earning money off your own presidency. Not his salary as president, but from every time he goes to one of his reports and the government has to pay for everything for the Secret Service. It is so disgusting. And don't even get me started on the whole 'Melania and Baron stayed in NYC to finish the school year' thing). So yes, trumplethinskin too, is afraid. It makes him more dangerous, because what lengths will he go to in order to really clamp down on the media. It is so incredibly foolish to label the media the 'enemy of the people', yet he has done just that. While I pretty much think they all played a hand in him getting elected also (he wouldn't have to spend a dime on ads or campaigning, they all treated this fucking circus sideshow like the main event, and look where we are now), his 'stable genius' supporters might take matters into their own hands and that is terrifying.

I really wish we could all wake up tomorrow and find that the last two years have just been one long nightmare. I want a country where I am proud to raise my daughter, and right now, this is not it. For all his flaws (as every president has), I long for the days of Obama's presidency. In those days, I could go without hearing his name for two-three days, and that was okay because I knew he was an intelligent and capable adult who cared about the country he was leading and the people he represented - whether they voted for him or not. Not once in those eight years did I go to sleep, then wake up in the morning genuinely surprised to still be alive. That has been my reaction more than a few mornings since man-baby took office, especially in those exceedingly tense days, weeks, months with North Korea. (I am not typically in the habit of learning from murderous dictators, but I did learn from Kim Jong-un what a dotard is.)

I have always been of the mind that if it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Trumplethinskin appointees can say some painfully funny and truthful things about their (former) employer, and yet he always manages to keep the support of his base. I don't get it, I really don't. If you've forgotten, here are a few of my favorites:

"He's a fucking moron" - Rex Tillerson, Former Secretary of State.

He has the understanding of a "5th or 6th grader" - James Mattis, current Defense Secretary.

"I stole it off his desk. I wouldn't let him see it. He's never going to see that document. Got to protect the country" Former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, on the document that would have withdrawn the US from a trade agreement with South Korea.

"A third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they weren't such good ideas" former Staff Secretary Rob Porter, who literally stole and/or hid documents just so trumplethinskin would not see and sign them.

"He's an idiot. It's pointless to try to convince him of anything. He's gone off the rails. we're in crazytown. I don't even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I've ever had" - soon-to-be former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

I was all set to give this book a solid four stars. I appreciate Woodward's professionalism all the way through, giving his audience just about as evenhanded review as anyone can. Woodward maintains that everything in the book is a firsthand account of the goings-on. Then at the very end I was confronted with this now-refuted quote from trumplethinskin's former lawyer, John Dowd:

"...but in the man and the presidency Dowd had seen a tragic flaw. in the politics back-and-forth, the evasions, the denials, the tweeting, the obscuring, crying "fake news," the indignations, Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: 'You're a fucking liar.'"

BOOM! FIVE STARS!

Marco Polo

Rating: 3 Stars

My main issue that stopped me from rating this book any higher was the appearance that the author was not able to look at Marco Polo's original manuscript for himself and glean information from there. Instead, there are three books listed as sources, and they are all works by writers with the last 60 years or so. It is really important that we writers go back to the original source material as often as possible, otherwise we would all be writing the same book over and over, just stealing from each other and rewording things.

That is really the only concern I had with this one. The text is not long, but it must be remembered that Polo was a merchant, not a writer himself. As such, he gives almost no personal information or private thoughts in any of his work, so we have no idea what he thought of the grand spectacles he witnessed in all his time at the court of Kublai Khan. The book was concise and clear, and does address the doubt cast by Polo's supposed exaggerations of things that he recorded as he witnessed.

I knew very little about Marco Polo prior to this, just that he traveled to China as a young man and stayed for roughly three decades. I knew of Kublai Khan, but only that he was the emperor at the time. I actually found quite a bit of new information here about China at that time, when it was part of the Mongolian Empire. Because of his grandfather, Genghis Khan, I kind of assumed he was cut from the same cloth, a ruthless warrior. While that aspect is true, Kublai Khan also comes across as an open-minded, accepting ruler who wanted to know everything there was to know about the world, and one who allowed people within his borders to worship their gods as they saw, with no interference from the government, and no insistence on only one religion being allowed.

Overall, I probably learned more about the period as a whole, specifically daily life in Venice, and China under the Mongol rulers, but that is actually kind of what I expected. So little is really known about Marco Polo's life that there are some who questioned whether or not he even existed, while others strongly try to refute the fantastical claims Polo wrote in his travel journal. But...what if he wasn't exaggerating? Why couldn't those numbers have been accurate? Or, at least fairly close to the actual numbers he gave? It's obvious that while most of Europe plummeted into at least some decline with the fall of the Roman Empire (let's stop calling it the Dark Ages though, okay? Plenty was still happening), the far East experienced no such turmoil. There was no comparison at that point between China and much of Europe, as the former was far richer and far more advanced (paper money, anyone?), simply because Western Europe had more catching-up to do. Even into the 1200s/1300s in Venice, where Polo was from, life was not easy. "Life in Venice could be very hard, especially for women, the poor, and anyone who was out of favor with the authorities. Slavery was common, and master frequently abused their female slaves. Women were second-class citizens, and social customs underscored their status" (7%).

I really appreciated the specific look at merchants and how they conducted business. Typically I am reading about the royal families of the period, so I have little background knowledge of how various merchants carried on their business, so I found that knowledge helpful. The author looks at Venetian merchants specifically, and notes that, "Of necessity, the merchants had to deal with a variety of currencies...The Polos and their friends often preferred to convert coins into pearls, rubies, and other gems, but the Venetians also developed the most advanced banking system in the Western Europe, along with sophisticated contracts, a precise accounting system, and even insurance" (9%).

We finally meet a couple of the Polos around 12%. I learned that it was actually Marco's father and uncle who traveled to China first and spent several years with Kublai Khan. They were gone so long that within that time, young Marco's mother died and he was sent off to live with an aunt. Though we know almost nothing about his childhood, that would not be an easy situation for any child - especially not knowing if your father was still alive or not, given the amount of time he had been gone. This is the part that weighs down any biography of an important historical figure whom we know almost nothing about. All any author can do in these cases is explain what would have been customary for a person of that rank, in that time, and be done with it. That is exactly what the author does here. "Little is known of his childhood. Because the average Venetian youth barely spent any time in school, Marco probably wandered about the city, and he cam to know it as only a curious boy could" (13%).

By the time Marco's father and uncle returned, Marco was a young man of about 17. One could imagine the shock of family members finally coming home, after fifteen long years away. If possible, even less is known about the brothers than of Marco. "All that is know of their long, arduous journey eastward comes from the few details that Marco Polo included in the introduction to the story of his own later travels. But it is certain that the mountains, deserts, rivers, and gorges that they crossed still remain among the most rugged and perilous in the world" (20%). I also found it really interesting that author's perspective on Marco's fame vs that of his father and uncle. "Marco's father and uncle actually deserve much of the fame that Marco received over the years. After all, it was the two elder Polos who made the first great trek to Kublai Khan's court; Marco went with them on their second journey. But it was his account of their years in the Far East that dazzled the world, and it is his name that endures" (12%).

There are so many interesting quotes I want to share, but I am a bit more cautious in doing so for the rest that I highlighted, simply because again, the author only cites three sources for material for his own book. I have not read any of the three yet listed there, though two have been on my TBR for a while. In addition, the writing is not always great, so while I understand the gist of what the author was conveying, it does sometimes come across as very amateurish. And that might not even be the right word, because I know nothing about this author, aside from the fact he wrote this book.

I appreciate the factual information the author conveys; how China flourished during the Tang dynasty, achieving "new heights in education and the arts and also in industry, commerce, and invention" (22%). I learned that the subsequent Song dynasty saw further achievements, and within those years. "They invented firearms, built libraries, and developed architecture into an art" (22%). If anything, the book also showed me just how little I recall about Asia in this time period, and has piqued my interest enough to find further reading material on that subject. I also found the idea of Kublai Khan as a generous benefactor rather fascinating. I feel like we learn about the Mongols as this terrifying marauding tribe of warriors (which they were), but Kublai Khan went beyond that and wanted prosperity for the lands he controlled, not just himself. We find out quite a bit about the grandson of the fierce Genghis Khan, and I am now anxious to read some of the books on my TBR of the Mongols and Genghis in particular. "Kublai ascended the throne only thirty-three years after the death of Genghis Khan, but during those years there was a profound change in the character of the Mongol rulers. Where the first great Khan had been a barbaric nomad as well as a ruthless conqueror, the new emperor was a highly civilized man who would develop into a shrewd ruler who loved refinement, elegance, and luxury...Kublai Khan also understood that his most potent weapon was not armed conquest but commerce with the outside world. The Mongols had created a new world order; to thrive in it, they needed to exchange goods, technology, and knowledge with the Arabs, Europeans, and Persians. Thus, Kublai enforced his Pax Mongolica along the Silk Road and welcomed not only the goods but the ideas and creeds of Buddhist monks, Christian missionaries, and Arab, Genoese, Jewish, and Venetian merchants who trudged along it" (53%).

The younger Polo recorded so much in his journal, but almost nothing of what he thought of his time so far from home. He wrote of the goings-on at Kublai Khan's court, traveling freely around the empire once he had earned the emperor's trust. Without those opportunities, the curtain between the East and West might have hung far longer. Something Polo completely overlooked, the author points out, is the idea of print. He finds it baffling that while Polo marveled at the paper currency used within the empire, the least interesting aspect of said currency was the fact that it was printed. "The use of this money enchanted Marco so much that he didn't recognize the overwhelming importance of printing itself" (60%). I personally think that is kind of a stretch to say he did not recognize it. Perhaps it was still inconceivable in the West to even think of such a thing. Or perhaps Polo did think of quite a bit, but again chose not to write about his own personal thoughts on it.

Eventually their time in China would come to an end; Marco, his father, and uncle would return home. As one might expect after seventeen years, Kublai Khan did not approve of this idea and it took a long time for the Polos to convince him that it was time for them to go.Kublai Khan had lived a long, full life, and was entering his last years. The younger Polo would remember their benefactor kindly, and do wonders for rehabilitating the rulers of the Mongol empire. "According to Marco, Kublai was a kindhearted ruler, less concerned with principles than with the overall good of the empire. When storms, blights, or locusts ruined farmers' crops, he excused victims from paying taxes and game them grain for sowing as well as for food to keep them healthy and productive. To provide for periods of scarcity, he stored huge quantities of grain in times of plenty. When a family had bad luck, he would insist that the family receive as much food and clothing that it had the year before. He made certain that homeless children received care and education. He also established many hospitals" (62%). Now, we must remember of course that Polo was a quest in the khan's court, so it is no surprise that he has such wonderful things to say about the emperor. On the other hand, Polo did not seek someone to write of his journey until he had been back in Venice some years, and was captured during a battle between Venice and Genoa. It's not as though he wrote his memoir while still at the grand and glittering court that so fascinated him for years. It is hard to know what is fact and what is embellishment, and further reading will be necessary to sift that out.

When Polo returned to Venice, he was 41 years old. He was married at some point in the ensuing years and his wife gave birth to three daughters. Aside from his capture during the war, little else is known about the man who pulled back that curtain between East and West. We know he was modestly successful in his trade, and died in January of 1324. In that time since returning from China, Polo often found himself on the receiving end of ridicule, for what people perceived as grossly exaggerated sites that he recorded. Fellow Venetians were quite skeptical of Polo's reports and it is reported that on his death bed his priest asked Polo if he wanted to take back some of his "far-fetched tales" from his travels. Polo's response is quite respectable, knowing his claims were often doubted (92%):

"I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed."

Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and and a Masquerade

Rating: 1 Star

So here is the shorter version...

I haven't read something so ridiculous in a long time - and I am not even talking about the schemes and scams of 'Clark Rockefeller'. The author is seriously delusional if he thinks he is not like those he mentioned who wanted the prestige of being 'friends with a Rockefeller'. I skipped over the author's personal stuff because I didn't care. He inserted himself into Clark's story as much as Clark inserted himself into the lives of countless others. He seems pretty self-important and proud of himself, though I am not sure why or for what.

Here is the marginally longer version...

If you are looking for a book about the con man who went by the name of Clark Rockefeller, passing himself off a member of that old-money family, look elsewhere. I was psyched at first to see this on the shelf at the library as a book that had been withdrawn from circulation. I have been wanting to read up on this whole situation for a while and grabbed this one; I so wish that I hadn't.

It's terrible.

This book is not about Clark Rockefeller. It is about the author, who should never be allowed near a vehicle of any kind, as he managed to both run over his dog and his young son (seriously), and how he is a failing novel writer who randomly takes this random dog halfway across the country to 'Clark Rockefeller', who purchased the dog, and somehow they end up being frenemies. And even frenemies is not the right word, but they were not friends and the author constantly harps on how 'Rockefeller' isn't even all that nice to him. It was all so weird, and pointless. I guess we are supposed to feel sorry for him that he got conned by this guy who is actually a thief and a liar and a murderer, but I found that I did not actually care. To piggyback on my shorter review found above, it felt like this book was just one more way for the author to capitalize on his random 'friendship' with someone who ended up not being who they claimed. Like I said, he is inserting himself into the 'Clark Rockefeller' story, because there is truthfully not really anything of interest here. Definitely take a HARD PASS on this one!

Obama: An Oral History

Warning: Some of this review is also venting about certain fucking idiots within our current government. I might drop a few f-bombs. #SorryI'mNotSorry.

Rating: 5 Stars

*Sigh*

I really miss having an adult in the White House.

Right up front, I am not debating politics with anyone over this review. I really like President Obama, though I did not agree with him on everything. Personally, I feel like he took way too long to come around on issues related to the LGBTQIA+ community. That aside, if you are trumplethinskin supporter who has stumbled here by mistake, kindly see yourself right on over to the next blog and be gone.

I love books likes this, especially when they are about a person or event that is important to me. I feel like these oral histories really get this raw reaction to events that one does not necessarily feel as strongly when written in narrative form. But having knowledge of several people interviewed, their voices, mannerisms, and habits, it was easy to picture myself sitting down for a conversation with them as they talked of Obama's campaigns and terms, and finally of him leaving in January of 2016. One of my most favorite photos, and also the photo that makes me the most sad, is mentioned toward the end, as the helicopter circles around and the photographer catches Obama looking down at the White House one last time before leaving the residence for good. Ugh. Just about brings me to tears every time.

I want to talk about trumplethinskin as little as possible in this review, because he doesn't deserve the attention. However, there is some necessary discussion, particularly pertaining to certain policies, as well as comparing and contrasting certain things related to each person's time in office, and naturally covering those final months when Obama was faced with the realization that everything he did and the legacy he left was going to be trampled by a giant man-baby who might truly believe that Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house. I mean, really. He is THAT stupid. More than trumplethinskin though, this will be a scathing look at what a fucking douchbag Yertle the Turtle McConnell is, and why he deserves all the mockery we can give him. Seriously, fuck that guy. Unsure why I have so much vitriol for McConnell? Because he is an absolute garbage human who went out of his way multiple times to say that his number one goal was blocking or halting anything Obama wanted to do while in office. Well gee, that's just great. Way to completely not care about your country or the people who elected you, you fucktard. Take a long walk, eh? But, we will get back to him in a bit. There will also be talk of Bernie's campaign, and some of the jerkwads supporting Clinton, who apparently think that she deserved the nomination 'just because', and dismiss the fact that Sanders mobilized so many young people to get involved and make their voices heard, even if in the end he was ultimately unsuccessful in becoming the nominee. It's not like the DNC was biased in favor of Clinton. Oh, wait...

Here is something I found extremely interesting, considering all the trumplethinskin supporters who raved about him legitimizing a dictator's regime on the national stage:

"One was this YouTube-sponsored debate in South Carolina in which he got a question about whether he would sit down with hostile leaders - Castro, Ahmadinejad, and so on - and he said he would, to advance America's agenda. His opponents jumped on him for being naive, for coddling dictators, and so on..." (6%, I accidentally cut off who the quote was from, ugh!) Isn't that INTERESTING, HMMMM? So the GOP wants to have a fit about Obama considering meeting with hostile leaders, but it's okay for trumplethinskin to actually go out and do it? Riiiiiight.

A few facts that made me both proud and sad at the same time:

"November 4 was a night the world had long awaited, to witness the US break a racial barrier and rid itself of the the stench from the Bush era" (10%). And now I would gladly take a third term of Bush if it meant getting you-know-who out of the White House. (Though we must remember that even though we are remembering W a little more fondly than we should, we have to keep in mind constantly that he supported Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court so...gross.) I was so proud to be an American, to see a black man voted in, earning the job and overcoming so much. The sad fact is, President Obama's election brought out the ugly side of our country too, a side I think too many of us thought was long gone. The disgusting rhetoric and horrifying threats he and his family endured for eight years - and still endure, it is all absolutely abhorrent. We have not advanced as a society nearly as far as we thought in terms of race relations, and outright racist assholes popping up and hanging effigies of Obama from trees. But, now we know these people still exist; the cockroaches can't scurry back into the dark, we see them and know who they are.

Fun/Sad Fact: "Approximately 130 million Americans showed up to the polls - more than any other presidential election in the nation's history" (10%). I love that so many more people were motivated to vote, especially in the wake of destruction that W left behind. But it pains me that still, so many people do not vote. And little by little, and in big leaps, the GOP is gerrymandering away, making voting harder and harder in communities already disenfranchised. This is unacceptable and we must fight this.

Now, back to Mitch McConnell and why he is a giant douchenozzle.

John Tanner: Mitch McConnell said his umber-one priority in the United States wasn't trying to do something about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said "the single most important thing (we want to achieve)" was to "deny Obama a second term. I'd never seen that (36%).

Barbara Boxer: Mitch McConnell basically said, "My mission is to defeat the president." The only thing I would say, I was able to get a lot done at times, but because it mattered to their states, whether it was a highway bill, a water bill, after-school care - it had nothing to do with the president. It had to do with self-interests and self-preservation...I did have colleagues to work with on specific issues, but they never disassociated themselves with what Mitch said, which was disappointing (36%).

There were numerous times throughout Obama's presidency that I was proud to have voted for him (twice). But perhaps one of the proudest moments I personally had as a citizen was seeing his response to the devastating mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14th, 2012. On that day 26 people were murdered, the majority of whom were just babies still - 1st graders who must have been absolutely terrified in those last moments, not understanding what was going on. President Obama acted like a president that day, but more importantly he acted like a father in the days to come. He met with each family privately, he wept with them, and it was easy to see the genuine impact this horrific event had on him.

Pete Souza: He was riding high. He'd just won reelection, and a month later, about a week away from his annual Christmas vacation, was the worst day of his presidency...I think John had come up to the Oval like three different times, updating the president. I'm pretty sure this particular photo was when John confirmed to the president that twenty of the people killed were six or seven years old, first graders. Shit, I'm going to start crying as I think about this, because, you know, he's obviously being told this as a president, but I think he was reacting as a parent. He's putting himself in the shoes of every one of those parents. You send your kids off to school in the morning, and you never see them again because some madman just shot them to death (54%).

Cody Keenan: The president said that was his worst day in the White House. That was true for everybody...I got to work on the statement, and Favs and I took it up to the Oval Office to show the president, and he said, "This is right," except he took out one paragraph. I remember exactly what was in it. He just crossed out one paragraph and said, "I won't be able to get through this. It's too raw" (54%).

Danielle Crutchfield: I'd never seen the president look like that (54%).

I remember watching President Obama when he gave his statement. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I had found out just a month before that I was pregnant with Eleanor, and I usually had CNN on during my plan time while I worked. I didn't get a single thing done in that fifty minutes, I could not take my eyes off the television screen. Same goes for my lunch break that day. It was awful. I just kept thinking about all of those parents waiting to meet their children at that fire house, and finally it is down to just a few dozen people, and how do you handle that? How do you handle that your baby isn't coming home? I was a wreck, thinking about my own baby and how I could keep her safe, because this was the new "normal". I will never forgive the members of Congress who continue even now, how many mass shootings later, to accept blood money from the NRA. They riled up their members, talking about how Obama was "coming for their guns!" Really? Did he? Did President Obama himself kick down your door and seize all your weapons? Oh, that's right, he didn't. Fucking morons.

The day we as a society accepted the deaths of 20 first graders, is the day we lost our soul and our humanity. I have been disgusted ever since.

Cody Keenan: ...him thinking about his own girls in their classrooms, what it would be like if he got that all, what it would take to stop him from running in that school as fast as he could, how he wouldn't be able to breathe until he knew his own children were safe. He took all hat out and changed it to, "I know there is not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do"...Everybody kept saying how remarkable it was that members of Congress would tear up, and I remember people mocking the president for crying that day. Gimme a break (54%).

Pete Souza: He started crying from the podium. He, like me, would always get emotional thinking about that (54%).

Danielle Crutchfield: He's actually phenomenal in those instances, because before anything, he's a parent. He spent hours with the families (54%).

If you are from outside the US, and can not fathom for one moment how shit like this continues to happen, it is all about the money from the NRA (National Rifle Association).

Bill Dauster: It was a continuing frustration to us. Republicans were the problem. In contrast to the days of the assault-weapons ban a decade before, Republican senators came to view, it seemed, the NRA as part of the wing of the Republican Party, an important enough ally that they'd obtained greater cohesion with them than what was sensible for them (55%).

Carolyn Maloney: After Sandy Hook, when we had twenty children murdered, I really though that we would pas gun-safety laws. it's sort of like, how outrageous could it get before you did something? (55%).

And that is the million dollar question. So many mass shootings have happened since Sandy Hook, and nothing has changed. And no one should be surprised that this then comes back around to Mitch McConnell and his vow to completely block anything President Obama tried to do. McConnell and the Republican Party are two of the many reasons these shootings continue to happen. Don't even get me started on comprehensive mental health care.

Arne Duncan: In terms of actually getting any basic legislation done to keep kids and parents safe? W got an F. we absolutely failed. There is no other way to put it. The fact that we, as a nation, allowed the sheer quantity of deaths each year, it's a choice we made (55%).

Bill Dauster: The McConnell years were a study in ratcheting up dysfunction and obstruction from Republicans...It was remarkable to us that Senator McConnell was able to push his caucus to be even more obstructionist (55%). Exactly. THIS, right here. I've said it before and I will say it again: Fuck McConnell.

There are several more examples throughout that show just how difficult his terms in office were, due to McConnell and his posse of idiots. People then wanted to freak out over the number of Executive Orders issued by Obama, but what choice did he have? He was stuck with McConnell leading the way to literally block everything he attempted to do. I take comfort in the fact that despite this, I believe that Barack Obama will be remembered as one of our greatest presidents.

As the book starts winding down, we are brought by various conversations to the campaign season for the 2016 election. I am a loud and proud Bernie supporter, who wanted Sanders to get the nomination SO BADLY. We had a candidate there who actual meant what he said, who was not part of the establishment, who would follow through on what he said. I feel like Obama did a really great job staying out of the primary season, and he did not favor one candidate over the other, though he would later endorse Clinton. What struck me in this section of the book, was just how whiny Clinton and her camp were, and how they could never accept responsibility for their actions, which lead to the election of trumplethinskin. There were quite a few statements from Joel Benenson about how Sanders did this-and-this and said this-and-that, blaming Sanders for Clinton's loss. Well, here's a thought: maybe blame Clinton fr Clinton's loss. Novel idea, right? Time and again her people were told how unlikable she was perceived to be, how she was part of the same system that so many saw as broken. Clinton had to earn the presidency, it was not going to just be handed to her. In the end it wasn't, and good Lord our country is a hot fucking mess right now, but she and her team need to share the responsibility for the fact that the DNC was behind Clinton all along and the deck was rigged in favor of her. Had there been any semblance of an unbiased DNC, a Clinton vote would have been much easier to cast for those who decided to stay home on election day. Blame Clinton, not Sanders' supporters because the truth we all know is this: No one who truly supported Bernie and believed in his message could ever have fathomed turning and voting for trumplethinskin just because they were both 'outside candidates'. It simply could not happen. When I cast my vote for Clinton, it was not to elect her as president but to stop trump from getting the nod. I so wish Obama would have thrown his weight behind Bernie, but not-so-deep-down, I knew it was not going to happen. I will say that I 100% unequivocally believe that had the head-to-head been Sanders vs trumplethinskin, we would have a President Sanders right now, no question. There were some really interesting thoughts thrown around in this section, far too many for me to quote here, as I have already quoted so much. But I do appreciate these conversations being included, and those of the days following the election as well.

Kori Schulman: It was like a funeral. My eyes were full of tears (73%).

Rob O'Donnell: Everyone just wanted to get through their mornings before having any real conversations with anyone. Then, sometimes later, they held a meeting with the entire comms team in Josh Earnest's office. Josh and Psaki led it off, and then they opened the floor for people to talk...At first, fifteen people streamed in. He was like, "How many more people are there?" And if you look at the Pete Souza photo, it's a lot. Half of them are crying. And then he made a joke: "Well, I would have let you guys continue your communications meeting, but that didn't look like it was going particularly well" (73%).

Thanks to all of these people being so willing to share their time and memories, we have a beautifully comprehensive account of President Obama's time in office. It pains me that his legacy is being systematically dismantled right now. I can only hope that in 2020, we will once again be able to look to our president as someone worthy of respect, who is working for ALL, not just the ones who look like him, that gave him the most money. Highly recommended.