• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Pit Book/Discussion Thread

Bout to go in on some non-fiction. Man's Search for Meaning is up next, followed by Are Prisons Obsolete?.
 
Who else has read Lone Survivor?

Read that on my flights this weekend. Holy shit that was intense.
 
Who else has read Lone Survivor?

Read that on my flights this weekend. Holy shit that was intense.

I read it a few months ago. I thought it was pretty good.

I finished "Company Man" this week which is the memoir of John Rizzo. He served as a lawyer with the CIA for more than 30 years and the "torture memos" were addressed to him as the acting general counsel for the CIA.

I thought it was pretty interesting.
 
Dude, how can I marry that girl? Pretty well-written article, I think. Except for a few typical gripes (misrepresentations of the Cotton/Ashburnham fire, for instance), it was a pretty clever review. Strange that Tolkien has chosen to eschew the alliterative meter that makes Anglo-Saxon poetry special, and his aversion to kennings in modern translation surprised me.

I liked her note about the similarities between the Nowell Codex and Tolkien's personal copy of the translation. That is pretty much, in a nutshell, my dissertation.

More importantly, she was Calhoun and won the Rockwell Prize. I'm sold.
 
lol i gripe about the misrepresentations of the cotton/ashburnham fire ALL THE TIME so typical

COTTON HAD BEEN DEAD FOR 100 YEARS! IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT!

Also, LOL that a bro's residence called "Ashburnham House" would catch on fire and burn to the ground.
 
I'm about 2/3 through Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. Very interesting book. Recommend to anyone interested in history and economics.
 
I am reading Robert Klara's book The Hidden White House, about the complete renovation of the Executive Mansion done by the Truman Administration.
Also, I am re-reading William Goldman's Boys and Girls Together. He's one of the few novelists I will read.
 
Do you all think that you might still feel that way if you had been the victim of rape or some other serious trauma?
 
Do you all think that you might still feel that way if you had been the victim of rape or some other serious trauma?

If a student is sensitive to an issue, then they should do the legwork to see if it is a novel that will make them uncomfortable. It's not the fucking professor's job.
 
It's an interesting question, but at the university level, I think students should take the mantle on what they can handle and what they can't instead of professors. The role of parents, curriculum coordinators, PTA, teachers, etc. in primary and secondary education covers this, but I do genuinely think the model changes once college hits. It's a much more personalized learning experience, and I think the students should be its cultivars, and while universities should be sensitive, it's not their burden any more.

What he said. Mine was the lazy version of this answer.
 
Perhaps I am more sensitive to issues of trauma than you all.

In general, I don't have a problem with the concept (though I don't think that it should be summarily enforced by University administrators), and I will always spend several minutes at the start of the semester addressing possible triggers. That the onus for independently investigating course texts should be on the student does not preclude the duty of the instructor to responsibly teach issues of trauma -- in my opinion, trigger warnings fall under that category.
 
You serious? Nobody is asking for trigger warnings about "existential terrors". Kundera fucked me up too.

People are asking for advanced warnings of depictions of suicide; rape, assault, and violence; and particularly harsh portrayals of racism.
 
It certainly is an interesting discussion. Should books, tv shows, movies, etc. have these trigger warnings outside school?

Many of them do -- think of Parental Advisories, those warnings before HBO shows, MPAA film ratings, et cetera.
 
I'm about 2/3 through Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. Very interesting book. Recommend to anyone interested in history and economics.

Jealous. I gotta get through The Warmth of Other Suns and some football books before I can get to Piketty. Hope to have my backlog cleared in time for Bernanke's book to drop.
 
Last edited:
Do you all think that you might still feel that way if you had been the victim of rape or some other serious trauma?

I had to read and write on Mourning Becomes Electra within a month of my dad's suicide. It was extremely unpleasant and I drank myself stupid when I finished the reading but ultimately didn't affect me in any seriously negative way. I don't have intense PTSD though.
 
Back
Top