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Yay Politics!
Nov. 13th, 2006 01:22 amIt was a good week for politics! We took the House and Senate, defeated a popular vote marriage amendment for the first time (go Arizona!) and stalled the Mass. marriage amendment such that it'll probably die. I spent much of the week on that instead of on work, but I did still manage to get most of the work stuff I need done for tomorrow done, even if it meant going in today. Also did a murder appeal in the SJC on Friday, which was kind of exciting. But after tomorrow, work is kinda barren for a while - I need to think about what I've actually got left to do.
In other news, it was a pretty slow week:
Monday: I'm pretty sure this was dinner with Germany and then a Centauri meeting, but I could be wrong...
Tuesday: Tarkanan: we continue to beat up on scattered monks and things from this bad-guy tribe. Someday we're going to catch up with that Warlock, and I'm going to turn him into a terrible arcane undead, it'll be great.
Wednesday: Germany came over and we worked on game for a while.
Thursday: Nothing I remember - there was definitely comic book buying, and a haircut.
Friday: Stopped by a Haus party for a bit, after napping at work for a while.
Saturday: Centauri meeting, pretty much all day.
Sunday: Guild meeting, followed by going to work.
In with all the slowness, I finished Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. It's the third volume in his history of Lyndon Johnson (the fourth volume, covering his presidency, isn't out yet), but it's as much a history of the Senate and the 50's as of Johnson, specifically. It's big (1,000 pages), and it took me forever to read (I think I started it over Labor Day Weekend), but it was worth reading. It compares interestingly to the Lincoln biography I read earlier in the year in that Caro clearly doesn't actually *like* Johnson all that much, where Goodwin thought Lincoln was perfect. Caro thinks Johnson is a brilliant politician, and describes him as the best president for African American's since Lincoln, but also thinks he's abusive, racist, and ambitious. He also writes in what I can best describe as a Homeric style - everyone has epithet's and catchphrases which get repeated about them a lot. That kind of helped, given the speed at which I was reading it, but if I'd been reading it faster, it might have annoyed me. I think it's part of what makes the book literary, as well as just solid history, though (it won a Pulitzer). It's organized around the racial question, so the South is the Bad Guys, but the leader of the South, Richard Russel of Georgia, is someone Caro seems to admire in many ways more than he admires Johnson - he's described in pretty glowing terms, and Caro clearly thinks Russel is, in his own way, an idealist, even if the ideals aren't ones Caro can support. Russel also gets to be a hero a couple of times on some of the foreign policy issues that come up, as he's the go-to guy in the Senate for that. I am unlikely to go back and read the first two volumes, but I'm fairly likely to read the fourth volume when it comes out. Overall, lives 9.5 days out of ten, before getting defeated in the election in 1960.
In other news, it was a pretty slow week:
Monday: I'm pretty sure this was dinner with Germany and then a Centauri meeting, but I could be wrong...
Tuesday: Tarkanan: we continue to beat up on scattered monks and things from this bad-guy tribe. Someday we're going to catch up with that Warlock, and I'm going to turn him into a terrible arcane undead, it'll be great.
Wednesday: Germany came over and we worked on game for a while.
Thursday: Nothing I remember - there was definitely comic book buying, and a haircut.
Friday: Stopped by a Haus party for a bit, after napping at work for a while.
Saturday: Centauri meeting, pretty much all day.
Sunday: Guild meeting, followed by going to work.
In with all the slowness, I finished Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. It's the third volume in his history of Lyndon Johnson (the fourth volume, covering his presidency, isn't out yet), but it's as much a history of the Senate and the 50's as of Johnson, specifically. It's big (1,000 pages), and it took me forever to read (I think I started it over Labor Day Weekend), but it was worth reading. It compares interestingly to the Lincoln biography I read earlier in the year in that Caro clearly doesn't actually *like* Johnson all that much, where Goodwin thought Lincoln was perfect. Caro thinks Johnson is a brilliant politician, and describes him as the best president for African American's since Lincoln, but also thinks he's abusive, racist, and ambitious. He also writes in what I can best describe as a Homeric style - everyone has epithet's and catchphrases which get repeated about them a lot. That kind of helped, given the speed at which I was reading it, but if I'd been reading it faster, it might have annoyed me. I think it's part of what makes the book literary, as well as just solid history, though (it won a Pulitzer). It's organized around the racial question, so the South is the Bad Guys, but the leader of the South, Richard Russel of Georgia, is someone Caro seems to admire in many ways more than he admires Johnson - he's described in pretty glowing terms, and Caro clearly thinks Russel is, in his own way, an idealist, even if the ideals aren't ones Caro can support. Russel also gets to be a hero a couple of times on some of the foreign policy issues that come up, as he's the go-to guy in the Senate for that. I am unlikely to go back and read the first two volumes, but I'm fairly likely to read the fourth volume when it comes out. Overall, lives 9.5 days out of ten, before getting defeated in the election in 1960.
