Happy Thursday everyone! This week went well as far as reading goes, and uneventful as far daily life goes. I’m currently still listening to How to be Less Stupid About Race by Crystal M Fleming and reading Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Aaron and I finished Tricked by Kevin Hearne and started the next book in the series, Trapped. And the family is still chugging through the last Fablehaven book.
Thoughts about books
How to be Less Stupid About Race I admit to some surprise at Fleming’s claim that Obama was an Uncle Tom. I did agree with her that he was more supportive of war-like efforts than I would have wished, but I’d never thought of him as promoting racist agendas. She claims that he didn’t condemn police departments for disproportionately killing black people, and that he was standoffish about #BlackLivesMatter. She points out that he frequently signed off on the bombing of brown people. I can’t really say whether she’s right or wrong, since I am not well-educated on this topic. I do remember him saying that Trayvon Martin could be his son. I am inclined to think Obama was somewhere in the middle of Fleming’s opinion and the hero-worship he gets from many fans.
Underground Railroad Still not sure where this is going…But I’m enjoying it.
Tricked Good continuation of the Iron Druid series. It’s the fourth book in the series, and they’re just as good so far as they were at the beginning. I have heard it peters out toward the end, but there are three more left.
Life in general
D11 opened her gift from Aunt Eleanor a little later than the rest of her gifts – and she loved it:
Thanksgiving was fun (for me, anyway). I cooked a turkey (brined, and roasted breast-down for juiciness), stuffing, and garlic mashed potatoes. Dad, Aaron, Loki, and I had a lovely dinner. The kids were with their mom. Aaron ended up work a few hours on Thanksgiving because he was on call, and things blew up. But he took an hour off to feast with us.
Sunday the kids came back home from their mom’s. They really enjoyed themselves there. D11 then then completed the requirements for 2 robotics badges in Girl Scouts through a Zoom meeting. She’s excited as she hasn’t earned many (any?) merit badges so far. I guess her troop isn’t big on them.
Hibernator's Library 
It sounds like you had a good Thanksgiving.
The claims about Obama are fairly typical of what is coming out of the postmodern left. I disagree with almost everything that is coming from that school for thought. I do not want to be too flippant, but Obama is a liberal and the postmodernists often label liberalism as racism and white supremacy.
LikeLike
Hi Brian. I joined a “radical reading” group recently, and this was their book for November/December. I found myself defending Kendi’s view (in How to be an Antiracist) and arguing against Flemings view. I was pounced on by the entire group. I come to the conclusion I am not a radical reader.
LikeLike
I’m a bit shocked in her assessmemt about Obama, but I’ll be honest I didn’t follow the Black Lives Matter movement when it first began as I should have. I think you’re right, though, that is’s probably somewhere in between her opinion and the hero-worship of his fans.
D11’s dress is very nice. Did her aunt make it?
What does your husband do? Just curious…but glad he was able to be with you for Thanksgiving. My wife is a 911 dispatcher (isn’t on call, but still — getting — busy now).
LikeLike
No, the dress was purchased, it would have been talent to make such a nice dress.
I didn’t follow Black Lives Matter at first, either. I mean it didn’t take too long for me to recognize why All Lives Matter implies not caring about the problems black people face. But I didn’t expect it to turn into such a large movement.
My husband works in ecommerce. His company processes Amazon transactions for suppliers. Amazon crashed on the day before Thanksgiving, making life difficult for lots of computer programmers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, wow. I’ve heard that Amazon servers have been having problems of late…and the dress is still a nice dress even if she didn’t make it. 🙂
LikeLike