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Slightly different translations. My next few days of scholarly wank :o:.

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I remember reading The Hobbit as a kid and really enjoyed it. I finally took the leap and am attempting to read the whole series. It's really good so far I love Tolkien's writting.

Nothing. I thought about you and books and thought of it.

Long story short, I think it takes something as horseblind as religion and gives it a new vision. In a blurb, this is what the Bible would read like if religion had fan fiction. Its just a mind-**** of a reality shakeup.

Well no. If you're a liberal **** who thinks anyone who doesn't measure up to modern day moral standards, then I wasn't talking to those people. What I mean is, for those of us who can say "alright well Slavery was an abhorrent institution, but we can't reasonably hold the candle of 21st century morality to a guy living in the 1700's" then this book shows Jefferson as something of a douche.

Not because of things we think are unacceptable today, but because he abandoned Reason in the final stages of his life because his shot-sighted flaws from the jump fell through.

I'll grant you that I didn't spell out why I thought he was a douche. But if you're going to go ape-wild on people then for what we do now, you're going to blind yourself to quite a few historical positions.

I'm going to break up your post to respond. I know some people don't like that (the post fragmenting responses) but you've got a couple interesting points / allegations in there that I want to address and this stuff is highly interesting to me:

Well, yes, actually. I am not one of 'those people' in fact, if anything, I am a relativist **** who thinks way beyond that

I know that we can't judge Americans' perception of race in the 18th century as basely as that. Just FYI that's not where I'm coming from at all. I could make a list of relativist-approved douche-like behaviors of Jefferson but that would be kinda off topic until I understand what you mean exactly.

I totaly agree but you still haven't told me anything so I'm not sure what we agree on. What flaws? I can think of a few and he's in my top 2 fave founding fathers.

No you didn't at all and I haven't read the book

I absolutely won't. Enlighten me. What did the book tell you about Jefferson? *note: I'm seriously interested. Depending on your response I may read the book.

On topic: I'm still reading Infinite Jest and probably won't be done until like November but I have a feeling that I'll be craving some good ol' fashioned US History at that point. Maybe I'll read Wood's book - that's why I bothered with this.

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I liked Slaughterhouse-Five, and I heard this was better. So far, it is. The pictures just add to the hilarity.

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Dorian Gray sold me on this. This guy's absolutely fantastic. Juggling his humour between Vonnegut's makes a good read too. I love how blatantly gay a lot of his stories/plays are. :3

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. for the 2nd time.

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Cop: A True Story - Sgt. Michael L. Middleton

Former Sargent for the LAPD, it chronicles the lives of radio car officers (the ones you see the most) from about the late '60's to his retirement in 1988. It's a revised edition so I'm sure there will be some more updated stories and information, because a lot has changed in the last 22 years.

It forms an interesting contrast to my other book, Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets, which is about the Homicide Department in Baltimore in the late '80's. The uniform officers (officers in Uniform and radio cars) are just called "Uniforms" and aren't treated with much respect or expected to be competent. It's a little bit of an arrogant and elitist idea presented, but the radio car patrol officers are the front line soldiers, and considering EVERYONE who wants to be out in the field doing police work has to do patrol, I figured this would be a good book for me.

Um....are you planning to become a cop or something?

Yeah I think he previously said that. ^

I'm currently reading A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K. D*ck. So far its actually way more than I expected. I am really wrapped up in books related to drug addiction and this one puts a really big twist on that but still maintains everything I like in addiction books. I like it.

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So far, I'm in love with Douglas Adam's writing style. After this, I am so reading his Dirk Gently series.