Astonishing Grudges

I caught a couple clips of one of the Republican presidential debates yesterday on the news. One of the bits was John McCain making a snide attack on Hillary Clinton about "she wants to spend a million dollars on a Woodstock museum." and he's sure it was a great cultural event, but he couldn't attend, he was tied up at the time.

Now, I'm not sure what to make of his making a joke about being a POW, it was both funny and kind of creepy. But what I noticed more was that STILL, STILL, 40 years later, one of the most common animating forces of the Republicans is a hatred of the 60s and hippies and the cultural revolution that happened then.

Dude. 40 years ago. Just like they still blame "stab in the back" liberals for "losing" another war we couldn't win, in Vietnam. So much of what they do seems to be motivated not out of any desire to make things better or anything, but out of sheer hatred of things that happened 40 years ago.

But I guess that's not unique, the rest of the Boomers are doing much of the same, but the other way, look at all the movies and memorials and yes, museums, to things like Woodstock. It's like they're all desperate to convince themselves they still matter by looking back at the times when they were young and justify their whole lives by what happened then. Instead of moving on and justifying their lives by doing things now. Does this mean when people my age take over, we're going to be busy re-fighting the 80s and 90s again or something?

(I'm not even going to start on the South Will Rise Again loons)

50 Books #7

#7 H.I.V.E. : Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden

I have the distinct feeling the phrase "Hogwart's for supervillains" came up in the pitch for this novel. Because that's largely what it is.
A group of 13 year olds with talents for mischief and crime are abducted by a mysterious organization to their elite training facility on an island inside an active-looking volcano. There they're taught courses like Basic Villainy by a cast of colorful teachers.

Now, with a description like that, your first reaction is going to either be "How lame!" or "How awesome!" Mine was the second. I loves me some supervillainy. Though for budding supervillains, most of the characters are friendly, courageous, loyal, etc. So they're not really that bad. Not even the big baddie who runs the place. Which is really the easier way to write "bad guys", make them pretty much admirable people, then add the trappings like mechanical hands and death rays and henchthugs and so on. The ending leaves it wide open for a series (presumably following the further years of the class) so it remains to be seen how things will be handled if the kids actually start doing nefarious deeds. All in all, probably not worth a hardcover price, but decent enough to read from the library or similar.

Previous Books:
#1: Grave Peril
#2: Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
#3: DMZ Vol. 3: Public Works
#4: Bad Prince Charlie
#5: Making Money
#6: How to Win Friends and Influence People