Bargain on "You Can't Say That!":
As loyal VC readers surely recall, in 2003 the Cato Institute published my book, You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws Some of you probably considered buying it at the time, but thought $20 was a little too steep. Well, now you can get the hardcover for under two bucks (plus shipping) on half.com, and the book continues to be timely. So what are you waiting for?
UPDATE, Sunday at 1:30: The <$2 copies are gone, but you can still score copies for <$3 at half or Amazon.
Something worth reading.
If we read your posts here and don't like your way of thinking, chances are we're not going to like spending time with you in book form either.
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book —
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seeminly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.
http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/bookofmyenemy.html
Let's see, we have PC speach to avoid offending anyone and then speak in a very offensive manner to anyone who does not agree with us. It seems that one becomes "evil" by exercising one's First Amendment right. Unfortuneately, since the suporters of PC speak so rarely have a coherent arguement that can be argued with facts, they attack the person and not the arguement and in so doing, become highly offensive as in the comments above.
NOT, progress.
LM,
The poem is too obsure for my grasp, also. I mean, where did the police come into remaindered books, for Pete's sake?
It seems pretty clear to me that the poem was meant as satire, and that SideshowBob posted it as a satirical response to WWJD's attack on Berstein's writing.
That's what my high school English teacher called a "simile", a rhetorical tool in which you describe a thing by comparing it to something else. For example, if I say that a young woman's pale blue eyes were like chips of ice, that's a much more interesting and evocative sentence than if I had simply said her eyes were pale blue.
In the poem, the piles of remaindered books are being compared to piles of counterfeit money that have been confiscated by the police. This not only helps the reader to visualize vast piles of remaindered books, but also gives readers the impression that 1) the books are as worthless as counterfeit money, and 2) like the fake money, the books will be destroyed.
In short, it's not the poem's fault you didn't understand it.
You are right, I misread that reference. I stand corrected on that point.
However, I still fail to grasp the poem in the context of this discussion other than as a hateful screed againt David Berstien in that it is obviously comparing his book to those in the poem.
It is not true. Half.com had 7 of his books for sale, all of them used, none remaindered. This, to me means, that they have been read and are being passed on, not rejected, as the poem would imply. In addition, not in vast quantities, but in very, very small numbers, rendering the thrust of the poem not only meaningless but false in this context.
It would also suggest that most people who have this book are not parting with it. Not that parting with it means one does not like a book. I, myself, as hard as it is for a committed bibliophile, have vowed that one book goes out for every one that comes in. After all, at some point, you just run out of room and one's spouse begins to become rather intolerant.
If you look at the post by WWJD, right above the post with the poem, you will see that he attacks David Bernstein and suggests his book is not worth reading. (Why WWJD continues to pay attention to his blog posts, I can't say.) Logic suggests that SideshowBob posted the poem to mock WWJD, and compare him to the petty academic in the poem, who takes such great pleasure in the misfortune of his professional rival.
On this much I would hope we can all agree.
You may indeed be right (I hope you are), but I don't see why your inference is the one logic would suggest. To me it looks logically ambiguous.
LM, I certainly can agree.
You both have good arguments. Without further data, i.e. as input from Sideshow Bob, I don't think we can know for sure.
Ah, David, a compatriot. You speak as a true lover of books.
But, after 32 years, I think not. There must be give and take in any marriage and it is not as if I suffer from a lack of books. I do, however, suffer great pain with each book I must give up, but I try to tell myself that it goes to another to read and enjoy, so it is a good thing I do. (Of course, I don't necessarily believe that.)
Attack? I beg to differ.
I was merely responding in the same tone as the Sunday shill to buy:
So what are you waiting for?
Something worth reading.
My response was no more "offensive" than the tone of the original; it wasn't exactly phrased, "So if anybody's interested, check out the $2 copies over at half-price (or where-ever).
"So whaddya waitin' for" offends me in the least, and I would hope my response would be taken in kind.
I think ya' might need to get out and walk the dog and stop taking offense at honest remarks.
And if you don't have a dog, go walk yourselves. Will do your heart a bit of good.
I'm sorry, but "Something worth reading" is not remotely in the same tone as "So whaddya waitin' for."
The latter is a sales pitch. Whatever your opinion of sales pitches, this one was not directed at anyone in particular. Nor was it by any logical interpretation an attack on anyone or anything.
On the other hand, "Something worth reading" obviously means you think his book isn't. If that's not an attack on his writing, then "You suck!" isn't an attack on a comedian's comedy.
I think ya' might need to get out and walk the dog and stop taking offense at honest remarks.
WWD,
I have three dogs and they have been walked. Your remark was offensive. Also, not honest, but an opinion. It can't be honest unless you have read the book.
You are hardly one to talk about someone "taking offense" at an "honest" remark since you seemed extremely thin skinned yourself.
Agreed. And, frightening. And, since you brought it up, why is 6 black or African=Americans (whichever is PC at this momment) beating the hell out of a white kid who did nothing to them, not a hate crime?
The latter is a sales pitch. Whatever your opinion of sales pitches, this one was not directed at anyone in particular. Nor was it by any logical interpretation an attack on anyone or anything.
Sales pitch.
Rejection of sales pitch.
Go cry to Mommy?
"Boo hoo hoo. Someone insulted David's book. I'm sooooo offended."
You are such a child.