David Fowler Continues to Need a War on “Christianity”

I think Jeff’s 100% right here. Fowler needs an “oppressed” group of which he’s a part in order to fund-raise off that group. Winning–as he has–is literally the worst thing that could have happened to him. If there’s nothing to fight for (or against), there’s no need to donate to him. He’s got to keep drumming up crises which then only he can solve.

The fact that he’s putting people’s lives at risk to do so is pretty… well, amazing, to put it mildly. But he’s got no choice. If he doesn’t raise the stakes to some ridiculous level, how can he keep people’s wallets open?

Someday, there will be a scandal. A man can’t have that kind of single-minded drive to impose his morality on others without there being a scandal. And when it happens, I’m going to laugh and laugh and laugh for a million years.

And Then about Black Blackface Minstrelsy

You thought I was just reading all that stuff for fun! Okay, I was, but also because I was invited to do a guest post at The Hooded Utilitarian and I wanted to write about Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop by Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen, a book I really liked, but had one serious issue with. My post over at The Hooded Utilitarian is an attempt to answer the one question I thought Taylor and Austen left oddly unanswered.

I just want to thank Barry for his help with the song stuff in the middle of the post (though he didn’t know at the time that his help would be going to this end and neither did I). And to Elias for turning me on to The Hooded Utilitarian those many years ago.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove

As you recall, I couldn’t even finish Swamplandia, though it absolutely seemed like a book I should love. So, I had my hesitations about Vampires in the Lemon Grove, which were borne out by the first couple of stories. I think the thing for me is that she’s an expert descriptive writer. Everything in her stories is so beautifully rendered. But it, to me, can feel a little soulless, like there’s no oomph for her in the story. And if there’s no oomph for her? There’s certainly none for me.

But about a third of the way into Vampires, something changes. And the stories are still beautiful, but they really start to get brilliant. And weird. For instance, there’s a story about eleven former Presidents of the United States who are reincarnated as horses. And a great story about Nebraska sod house settlers. And so on. It just gets really good.

Which is a relief, because that was about to be the third book in a row that I just couldn’t get into. I was starting to worry my fiction love had broken.